As insurgent attacks increase in Afghanistan, observers have begun to wonder whether the anti-government forces are receiving foreign training and aid. Recent attacks by the Taliban, such as suicide and multiple bombings and kidnapping foreign workers, increasingly resemble the tactics currently employed in Iraq. While some in Afghanistan blame Pakistan for the increase in the level of hostilities, others believe the new tactics are a sign of desperation.
In the latest attack, on Sunday, December 4, two people were killed and one wounded in a suicide attack in the Khowajak district of the southern province of Kandahar. The suicide bomber had attached explosives to his body and had targeted a convoy of vehicles belonging to the local Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). However, as he crossed the road to reach the convoy, he was hit by a passing motorcycle and the explosives detonated prematurely.
In separate incidents on the same day, five U.S. soldiers and one Afghan soldier were injured when their CH-47 Chinook helicopters made hard landings during combat operations in different parts of the country, according to U.S. military reports. None of the injuries was serious, and the incidents are still under investigation. A Taliban spokesman said that Taliban fighters had attacked a U.S. helicopter in Kandahar as it discharged soldiers. "We shot it as it was landing," Qari Mohammad Yousuf said by telephone from an undisclosed location (Anis Daily, December 5).
While the latest warfare tactics are rather new in the war in Afghanistan, suicide bombings and kidnapping are both routinely employed in Iraq. "The âIraqization' of the Afghan insurgency does not appear to be accidental," according to independent sources. "For the last two months or so, a steady stream of reports indicates that militants trained in Iraq have made their way to Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the help of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network." According to "sources close to Afghan security forces in the eastern Khost Province" Arab trainers are busy on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan training Islamic militants. These sources also claim that the militants still "continue to enjoy a safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan" (Eurasianet.org, November 8).
Afghan Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak agrees that the Taliban are getting military and financial support from outside the country. In a recent interview, Wardak alleged that the Taliban have acquired millions of dollars as well as new weapons to conduct subversive activities in Afghanistan. He added, "Arabs and nationals of other countries, including neighboring states, were carrying out Iraq-style suicide attacks in Afghanistan." According to an official who did not want to be named, 22 suicide attackers are known to have entered the country in recent weeks (Cheragh, November 21).
The head of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission, Sebghatullah Mojaddadi, elaborating on his recent comments about "foreign hands" in the Afghan insurgency, said, "The neighboring country [that] helped to create the fundamentalist Taliban in the early 1990s and elements in it were still providing militants with weapons to destroy us." He said that those "foreign hands" were employing and equipping people to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
Mojaddadi, who is not known to mince his words, bluntly declared, "We have not seen any direct military interferences except from our Pakistani brothers." He added that he wonders why the interferences continue. While Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf might not be directly involved in supporting the militants, other groups such as the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and religious schools were, he said. He alleged that some of the Taliban are coerced into insurgency by Pakistan, saying "Pakistan or its ISI has given them [militants] plans to implement in Afghanistan, provided them with weapons and facilities, and warned that if they do not do it they will be handed over to Americans as al-Qaeda" (Daily Outlook Afghanistan, November 13).
Fingers are being pointed at Pakistan from yet another direction. India, which views its rival nuclear power with suspicion in matters of Islamic militancy, accused Pakistan of "conspiring" with the Taliban in the abduction and killing of Border Road Organization driver Ramankutty Maniappan in Afghanistan. Mojaddadi said, "Pakistan's aim was to create a rift in the cordial relations existing between India and Afghanistan." The Indian driver was kidnapped on November 19 and three days later his body, its throat slit, was found dumped on a road. "The Taliban had executed the hostage in a most brutal manner and such acts posed a threat to the civilized world" (India Daily, M.K. Narayanan Media Release November 27).
While Pakistan may or may not be involved in the upswing of insurgency attacks in Afghanistan, foreign as well as local militants use its territory to train recruits. According to reports, the al-Qaeda hierarchy has appointed at least three Arab militants as regional commanders. An Iraqi, a Tunisian, and another Arab of undisclosed nationality are reportedly responsible for training Afghan and foreign militants to fight in Afghanistan (Tolo TV, November 12).
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:11 ||
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While the latest warfare tactics are rather new in the war in Afghanistan, suicide bombings and kidnapping are both routinely employed in Iraq.
The current jihad campaign in Kashmir started with a spate of kidnappings. Suicide bombings are par for the course.
IEDs are a speciality, growing ever more sophisticated under tutelage of the ISI trainers.
Let us not forget the Indian airlines hijacking in 1999 when a team of five hijackers, armed with knives took over the plane after putting knives to the throat of the stewardess, killing a passeneger and gaining access to the cockpit.
Posted by: john ||
12/09/2005 15:07 Comments ||
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he was hit by a passing motorcycle
Suicide by Suzuki?
Posted by: Scott R ||
12/09/2005 20:02 Comments ||
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The Al Qaeda terror group has been defeated in Afghanistan and the Taliban has been destroyed, according to an American general who commanded the joint allied forces in the country. But Osama bin Laden is still around and had not been killed in the devastating October earthquake that is estimated to have taken 70,000 lives in Pakistan, the general noted.
Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, commanding general of the Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, declared Thursday that after four years of operations in the war-torn country, "although the fighting continues, Al Qaeda has been ejected from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has been toppled". "We have no reason to believe that in the earthquake - that Osama bin Laden was killed by that," Eikenberry asserted at a defence department briefing.
He refused to commit to whether the Saudi leader of the terror group was in Pakistan. "Our working assumption is...that he (bin Laden) is alive today. I will not speculate on his location.
"What I would say - that it's important for the American people and it's important for the international community and it's important for Afghanistan in terms of bringing that man to justice. And our forces will not rest until he is either found and captured, or killed," the general maintained.
Eikenberry counted the successes in Afghanistan as including the formalizing of a political process, a constitution, elections, a national army, a police force, roads, schools and clinics.
But the threat from the Al Qaeda still remained, he conceded. And while there was an army and police force, these needed strengthening. National governance also had to be improved. "We're emphasizing quality over quantity. We're working to develop leadership and the organizations necessary for the Afghans to sustain their army and police forces," Eikenberrry said. Apart from building infrastructure, the production and trafficking of narcotics remains and was of "significant concern," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 01:54 ||
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I don't get it.
Al Q and the Taliban are down but not out. The CFCommand still must remain. The only thing different from a year ago or two years ago is the govt. is stronger but not strong enough for us to reduce forces.
Also, the progressives among the Afghans are a relatively thin layer. Yes the population is well off compared to the Taliban years but typical Islamic bigotry, anti-women culture, etc. still dominates in the rural areas and small towns.
#2
Until the funding is cut off, there will still be madrassahs and imams cranking out deluded dimwit bottom-feeders. When the cash stops, so will most of this pipeline. I believe the True Believers running the show represent less than 10% - and their recruiting pool, full of hormone-crazed dingbats, is also mebbe 10% True Believers. The romantic BS of being a warrior against the infidels, flitting about the globe in 1st class, yadda³, goes *poof* when the cash dries up. The ideological implacability becomes irrelevant when they're stuck in goatfuckland, unarmed, unfeted, untrained, and unloved. Then I think they just explode, lol. My quickie 2¢ take, anyway.
#4
Right on, .com. It's the money that runs the show. We have to stop the flow of funding, and the money trail leads back to Saudi Arabia for the most part. If we do not deal with the funding situation, then we are dealing with the problem symptomatically and are basically fighting the enemy that is financed by our own oil money.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/09/2005 11:07 Comments ||
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I don't get it.
Means one can't do a slap-dash, half-assed job in Afghanistan. It will take time, a long-term view, patience. The latter two which seem to be in very short supply.
#6
And the best way to stop the money from flowing is to stop buying the oil. And to stop buying the oil we have to have an alternative energy source. At this point there is only one that is readily available and chipper than oil and that's nuclear power. I just wonder why our government fails to see it and does not show much needed leadership in building more nuclear plants.
#9
India, China and everyone else are buying the oil out of necessity and if we go that way they might follow. It will also require mass production of plug-in hybrids or hydrogen cars (enorgy to produce the hydrogen will come from nuclear plants of course).
Decoupling ourselves from oil will allow us to use the full spectrum of strategic options in the world dealings. Today despite of our economic and military might we are very limited in our ability to act be it Venesuela, Iran or Saudis.
Producing nuclear energy will increase the U.S. employment, reduce trade deficit, deprive our enimies of revenue, will continie our technological advances in nuclear energy field, will reduce terrorism financing, will save american lives and all of it without tarnishing our image. It's win-win-win-win-win proposition.
Investigations carried out by the Moroccan security services after the arrest of a terrorist cell that was made up of 17 members have uncovered the cell's terrorist plans. These plans included restructuring the Al-Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia following the Saudi security forces' success in finding and arresting a number of its activists. The cell also planned to have the extremist Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) rejoin Osama Bin Ladin's organization and set up an Al-Qaeda branch in the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) as a base for attacks to be launched on the countries that support US administration.
The investigations showed that Moroccan Mohamed Raha, the militant who helped the fighters infiltrate into Iraq across the Syrian border, insisted on concentrating on the importance of restructuring Al-Qaeda's organization in Saudi Arabia and to creating al-Qaeda in the Maghreb countries in the same way that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's has established Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Security sources said that Raha contacted Khaled Abu-Basir al-Jazairi, responsible for establishing al-Qaeda in Europe with its supporters in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Britain, Denmark, and Germany, to send urgent messages to Bin Ladin to draw up a comprehensive plan for implementing the intended operations. The investigations also showed that Moroccan Khaled Azik was first asked to deliver the messages to Bin Ladin, especially after Azik revealed his success of previous missions such as the infiltration of some Arab fighters into Iraq via Syria, and seeing the wife of one Chechen leader from Istanbul to Damascus. However, at the last moment, Abu-Basir al-Jazairi expressed fears that the Iranian security authorities had already discovered Azik who was due to cross Iran's borders through to Afghanistan. Instead, he decided to assign the task to Abu-al-Bara al-Saudi, a member of Al-Qaeda responsible for collecting funding for the fighters in Afghanistan.
The first message talked about the necessity for new Al-Qaeda elements in Saudi Arabia to replace others that had been captured by the Saudi security authorities. The same message revealed that these new elements were already in the country and were simply awaiting a response from Al-Qaeda's leaders. The second message talked about a plan to have the GSPC join Al-Qaeda officially, to pledge allegiance to Osama Bin Ladin, and unite the ranks of the religiously committed youths wishing to take part in "jihad"' in the North African Arab countries under the GSPC's banner. The third message sought to establish an Al-Qaeda organization in the Arab Maghreb countries similar to that in Iraq and to unite the North Africans of Europe.
The security investigations showed that the methodology behind ensuring the plan's success was based on attracting volunteers and sending them to Algeria to undergo military training in the GSPC's camps. They would be trained in the use of weapons and the manufacturing of explosives. Furthermore, they would take part in the Algerian group's operations against the Algerian security forces. Volunteers would be sent to Syria after having completed this training to set up a base on Syrian soil, and to enter Iraq to carry out suicide operations. The same investigations also indicated that the Moroccan volunteers would return to Morocco after completing their military tasks in the Middle East and become sleeper cells waiting for instructions from Al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist acts targeting the security and intelligence centers, parliament, tourist establishments, naval and commercial ships, and foreign interests, especially those of Jews.
According to the plan, Al-Qaeda's terrorist cell was planning to launch its operations in either Morocco or Algeria and if successful, would have called itself "Qaedat al-Jihad in the Arab Maghreb Countries". A Moroccan security source said that common method of the extremist religious groups is to attract religiously committed youths and teach them the methods of terrorists. These start with meetings held in various places to watch videos and hear tapes talking about the suffering of Muslims and Arabs in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, and other countries. Once they have absorbed these ideas, the youths are sent to camps for quasi-military training and in the end, are used as human weapons to carry out the plans of the international terrorist organizations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Al-Qaida planned to set up an Islamic army to topple Arab regimes, including Saudi Arabia, and prepared plans that relied on the movements of the Saudi army.
The revelations were made on Saudi television Tuesday night by eight alleged al-Qaida members who received military training in Afghanistan. They spoke about the methods used by the network in recruiting its cells.
The recruits were first drawn to the conflict in Afghanistan under the pretext of receiving religious teachings, they said. Later, they were sent to military training camps after undergoing brainwashing sessions that made them hostile against their own countries and regimes.
The network mostly targeted young people between 20 and 25 who show religious enthusiasm and zeal and who have no family or employment commitments. Special focus was placed on uneducated elements.
The alleged al-Qaida members also revealed most of the arms used by the group's operations in Saudi Arabia were smuggled at the beginning of the war in Iraq from Afghanistan through Iran and Iraq.
The alleged members said they were brainwashed and fell victim to the exploitation of al-Qaida leaders in Saudi Arabia and abroad.
They said the military training they received in Afghanistan was not limited to light weapons, but also included advanced and modern arms such as surface-to-air rockets, and training consisted of using, disassembling and assembling arms.
The phase requiring the most effort on the part of the al-Qaida leaders was that of manipulating the recruits' religious beliefs. This phase could take a long time, but in some instances only a few hours. The former members cited the case of a young man who was ready to carry out a suicide bombing only a day after joining al-Qaida.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:20 ||
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Yup, that's how it would have started. Unfortunately for Al-Qaida, there's no Caliphate, nor will there be one in the immediate future. Sorry fellas.
Kuwait has beefed up security around vital oil and other installations after the latest al Qaeda threat to attack oil facilities in Gulf Arab states, security sources told Reuters on Thursday. "A directive was issued by the Interior Ministry late on Wednesday to security officials to beef up security around oil facilities, vital installations and diplomatic missions," the sources said. In an Internet video posted on Wednesday, al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged militants to strike oil targets in Muslim countries. The comments were said by Arabic television station Al Jazeera to be previously unaired parts of an interview it broadcast in September.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Hundreds of Muslims in Bangladesh have protested against recent suicide bombings blamed on Islamic militants. The protests were organised by the country's leading Muslim clerics, who have denounced the attacks as against the tenets of Islam.
The main demonstration took place at the Baitul Mukarram national mosque in Dhaka after Friday prayers. "Islam prohibits suicide bombings. These bombers are enemies of Islam," the chief cleric, Obaidul Haq, told worshippers. "It is a duty for all Muslims to stand up against those who are killing people in the name of Islam," he said.
He also urged clerics in the hundreds of thousands of mosques across Bangladesh to mobilise public opinion against the bombers. Similar protests took place in towns and cities around Bangladesh.
The government, which has urged the clerics to organise demonstrations after Friday prayers, says the organisations behind the recent bombings are abusing Islam and damaging its reputation. "These bombers are enemies of Islam and must be stopped," an official at the ministry of religious affairs was quoted saying by Reuters news agency.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 09:09 ||
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The suicide squad of the banned extremist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) struck again at Netrakona killing at least eight persons including the suspected bomber Yadab and injuring 100 others. It was the fourth consecutive attack of this type in the last two months that together cost at least 24 lives.
Police suspected two youths for carrying out the suicidal attacksâ one was identified as Yadab Biswas, 32, a local motor mechanic, who died on the spot, and another attacker who was seriously injured and undergoing treatment is yet to be identified. The suspected involvement of a youth from the minority community prompted the authorities to think afresh about the root of the ongoing terrorist activities in the country, said a Home Ministry source.
Oh yasss! Fresh thinking will solve the problem!
A 32-year old "yoot"?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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POLICE will prosecute under racial vilification (anti-free speech) laws the author of a mass text message calling on "Aussies" to attack Lebanese on the southern Sydney beach of North Cronulla. Anyone looking at what the Lebs and Wogs have been "called upon" to do in their Madras schoools?
NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney made the promise as police prepared to turn out in large numbers tomorrow in case there's a clash between locals and visitors.
Lebanese youth leader Fadi Rahman told The Weekend Australian yesterday that many young people in his community were beginning to wonder if they would ever feel as though they belonged in Australia. Quick answer is NO!
"There is this feeling of despair that we will ever fit in," he said. "They feel like strangers in their own country.
"Let's not forget these kids are born and raised in Australia; they were not born and raised overseas. Not that it matters, still muzzies.
"We're heading for disaster, as far as I'm concerned."
Mr Rahman called for new sedition laws to be used to prosecute the author of the text messages which urge "Aussies to attack Lebs and wogs" tomorrow. A spokeswoman for federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the laws, which have yet to be enacted, were designed to target people who incited one group to violence against another. On the beach, suspicions continued to simmer yesterday.
"They're not here to swim," said one Cronulla resident, pointing to four "ethnic looking" men fully dressed and walking down to the sand without bags or towels.
Five men of Middle Eastern extraction who were enjoying the beach yesterday said they felt alienated "because of the way we look". "Everyone gives us crap because of the way we look," said one young man, who sat on the sand with shoes off but otherwise fully clothed with his five mates yesterday.
Cronulla local Katrina, 16, said she was glad of the increased police presence at the beach. "Hopefully, it will stop trouble between the Aussies and the wogs," she said. "They don't understand ... no one owns the beach - everyone has the right to come here."
Angry Cronulla residents shouted down NSW Premier Morris Iemma at a news conference he called yesterday to offer reassurances about public safety in the Sydney community.
North Cronulla Beach has been the scene of two incidents in the past week. Two lifeguards were attacked by Wogs last Sunday and there was a brawl later in the week in which youths turned on a media crew. Residents have complained of harassment by visiting groups Lebs & Wogs of young men to the extent that some locals no longer use the beach.
"...British racial term originating in the colonial period of the British Empire. It was generally used as a label for the natives of India, North Africa and the Middle East. By the 1950s it had become a pejorative term used in order to offend.
The origins of the term are unclear. Most dictionaries say "wog" either possibly or likely derives from the generic term golliwog after the Golliwogg, a "grotesque" blackface minstrel doll-character from a children's book published in 1895. Various facetious explanations include the claim that it originated from acronyms for "Worthy/Wily Oriental Gentleman" or variants thereof, or for "Workers of Government" or "Wards of Government", used to refer to early immigrants into the United Kingdom. Such attempts to explain the word's origin are apocryphal at best and have no foundation in fact.
The use of the word is discouraged in Britain, and most dictionaries refer to the word with the caution that it is slang, derogatory, and offensive. James Robertson & Sons, a British manufacturer of jams and preserves, discontinued use of the Golliwog as its trademark in the early 1990s for similar reasons. It is generally considered unwise to use it in modern Britain without expecting an extreme reaction.
The phrase "The wogs start at Calais" is commonly used to characterise a stodgy Europhobic viewpoint, and more generally the view that Britain (more commonly England) is inherently separate from (and superior to) the Continent. In this case, "wog" describes any foreign, un-English person." (Wiki ends)
However, Americans, North and South are never referred to as "wogs", because of the British recognition of the extreme sensititivity Americans have to racial issues. i.e., they might get their nose broken.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/09/2005 15:50 Comments ||
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I hate how the Muslims perpetrate attacks and then when the retribution comes its racist or imperealist and the LLL's media and ilk just eat it up like candy. Erhhrh
two incidents in the past week. Two lifeguards were attacked by Wogs last Sunday and there was a brawl later in the week in which youths turned on a media crew
Why dont anyone ask this Wog Leb whatever what he thinks of the guys who did these attacks?? Will he condem them and appologize and instead of crying racist crapola stand up and complain about how a minority in his community ruin it for the good muslims. Tell the reporter that he and his group instead of crying about racism is going to go out and find them then turnover that minority that is making them look bad and suffer.
#6
In disfavor now due to lack of precision, the term doesn't discriminate enough between Arabs, Pakistanis and Chineese. More precise words have been made available thru the Amazing Anglo-Saxon Cussing Labs. Consult your local street corner.
#7
A wog is someone who identifiably 'foreign' in looks, dress or speech. An American wouldn't be a wog becuase a funny accent isn't enough to qualify. It has nothing to do with American sensitivity to race issues.
BTW, the media has been dancing around this issue for several days. They can't come out and say what the problem is or that Arabs are causing it, yet still vaguely allude to an ethnic dimension and vaguely blame 'native' Australians for the problem'.
#8
Lebanese youth leader Fadi Rahman told The Weekend Australian yesterday that many young people in his community were beginning to wonder if they would ever feel as though they belonged in Australia
perhaps if you dropped the "Lebanese", idjit. Unassimilated, yet stomping their little feet and demanding everyone else not judge them? FOAD
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2005 18:33 Comments ||
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At least seven people have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of helping to fund an Islamist terror group said to have links with al-Qaeda. None of the suspects - who include six men and a women - is Spanish. Their nationalities have not been revealed. Police made the arrest during raids in Malaga, Torremolinos and Marbella in the Costa del Sol.
Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso there was no reason to believe they had plans for an imminent attack in Spain. He said the detainees were suspected of raising money and providing logistical support for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat - an Algerian-based extremist group. He said the group was "perfectly structured", had a hierarchy and was dedicated to committing petty crime and forging documents and credit cards. Mr Alonso added that money was sent to Algeria either in person or through a complex system of bank transfers that made it difficult to trace.
In November, 10 people were arrested on suspicion of being a support cell for the Salafist Group.
Have they been visited by the Red Cross to ensure their rights haven't been violated? Just asking.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 08:58 ||
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Zappie and his gang are getting the smell of palstique, methinks...
The federal public prosecutor demanded in Brussels Court on Thursday the maximum sentence of 10 years jail for the alleged leaders of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).
The two main suspects were identified as Abdelkader Hakimi and Lahoussine el Haski, newspaper 'Het Laatste Nieuws' reported.
The prosecutor also demanded eight years jail for two other suspects who allegedly held leading roles within GICM.
Seven suspects accused of being involved in the activities of the terror network face jail terms of four to five years. Two men face a jail term of three months for entering Belgium illegally.
The sentencing demand came after the prosecutor said on Wednesday that the group blamed for the Madrid and Casablanca bombings was led from Brussels, where Islamic militants provided it with financial and logistical support.
Suspected GICM members have been arrested in France and the Canary Islands over the attacks, which killed more than 200 people.
This is the first time a prosecutor has spoken of the group's command structure and located its headquarters in Belgium, Reuters reported.
Prosecutor Bernard Michel said four of the 13 suspects led the group's European operations from Belgium, alleging they organised preparatory meetings ahead of the Madrid bombings and provided a safe house to one of the culprits.
Defence lawyers have claimed the defendants were friends of the bombing suspects and were not aware of their real motives. The defence will start officially presenting its case from Monday next week.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:39 ||
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The Syrian Abu Musab Al-Siri, one of the main Al Qaeda operatives in Europe, was arrested on October 31 in Quetta, Pakistan. The man left a spiritual will in the form of a one-hour video recorded right after the attacks on London on July 7 and broadcasted on Islamist websites. The DST (French equivalent to the FBI) immediately translated the speech.
"It is our legitimate right to strike France because we are at war with this country. I call all the mujahidins of Syria, of Lebanon, of the Levant and beyond to strike (its) heart and its interests wherever they are." He also invites "the mujahidins (...) to act quickly and take actions against Great Britain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Australia, Russia and France or counters their interests in the Moslem countries and everywhere else". Beyond, the terrorists must "take actions against all the countries which are present militarily in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the Arab peninsula". He also invites "all the sleeper cells to awake because the war has reached its climax and the enemy is about to waver". "One should not be deceived by the French trading positions with regard to the Palestinian cause and Iraq".
To attack France is "legitimate" since it started "to interfere with the businesses of Syria and Lebanon" and that it took part in the drafting of the UN resolution 1559 "which constitutes a prelude to the invasion of these two countries". The text then evokes the nine "reasons which legitimate the action" against Paris: attempt to impose "an embargo on Syria with the UNâs help, America and Great Britain", will "to disarm all those which want to resist Israel", "strong support to the Jews for a long time" and supply of the atomic weapon "to the Zionist State ", putting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on the list of terrorist organizations, occupation of "certain Moslem countries in Africa", participation "in the genocide against the Moslems of Bosnia", sending troops in Afghanistan, membership of NATO and finally decision to prohibit "the wearing of the hijab for Moslem women in France".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:30 ||
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Thank God our enemies are this dumb. Didn't this guy get the memo about driving a wedge between the Western Countries? Then again, maybe he's smart and knows that this piece of news will likely cause some uncomfortable moments, a coughing fit or two from our friends on the left, a shake of the head and then they will go back to ranting about "Neo Cons" and "Blowback." Like so many other scraps of evidence about the true nature of our enemies, it will be quickly forgotten.
Yelling into a radio reporter's microphone, the radical French Muslim from a working class neighborhood of Paris urged his friends to join him on the battlefields of Iraq.
"I'm ready to set off dynamite and boom! Boom! We kill all the Americans!" Boubaker el-Hakim cried. "All my brothers over there, come defend Islam!"
That chilling message, in a 2003 interview conducted in Iraq as U.S. troops were preparing to invade, has proven to be an early warning of a worrisome new phenomenon of homegrown militants from Europe heading to Iraq to join the insurgency, driven by anger over the U.S. occupation and what they see as Western attacks on Arabs and Islam.
For officials here fearful that France -- despite its opposition to the Iraq war -- could be one of the next targets for terror, this breed of radicals is especially hard to track because they have no known links to major terror figures like Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaida network.
Jean-Francois Ricard, one of France's top anti-terrorism judges, told The Associated Press that traveling to Iraq to fight U.S.-led forces has strong appeal among Muslims here and that recruitment chains are popping up all the time.
"We are constantly finding them," Ricard said. He estimated that "dozens" of such networks are operating across Europe.
This year, French authorities have dismantled at least four suspected feeder cells -- code-named after their ringleaders, aims or locations: They included the "Afghan veteran" cell, the "forger" cell and the "19th arrondissement" cell -- named for the 19th district of northeastern Paris where el-Hakim came from.
Recruits hoped to fight U.S. and Iraqi troops or learn how to carry out terror attacks elsewhere, Ricard said.
He and other officials at the forefront of France's fight against terrorism worry that battle-hardened youths will develop contacts and know-how in Iraq's insurgency -- and come back ready to wage war in Europe.
French militants have died in suicide bombings in Iraq, others in gunbattles. Some are in prison, caught before they could carry out attacks. Some are feared to have returned home.
Among the jihadists are teenagers, barely out of school, who drift into the orbit of older and sometimes charismatic recruiters. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said that one network included a militant just 14 years old.
Seven French citizens have died after joining up with insurgents in Iraq, two of them in suicide bombings, and at least 13 others are still there and likely still fighting, the head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, said in November.
He and others have also expressed concerns that the most extreme of the marginalized youths who led three weeks of rioting and arson attacks in depressed French suburbs in October-November might gravitate toward violent Islam to vent their frustrations.
A recurrent pattern in cells that have already come to light is that of young Muslims drawn to a veteran militant -- some of them met in prison -- or a perceived Islamic guru.
Before they leave for Iraq, their parents, friends or girlfriends often notice changes in behavior: Growing beards, wearing Muslim skullcaps or flowing robes, changing or limiting their diets. Often, a stoic and pious approach to life sets in.
Christophe Chaboud, head of France's interagency anti-terrorism unit, said European youths who have no police records or problems getting passports could offer a useful tool for terror groups.
With European travel papers, which let them cross borders easily, "they have the profile for terror networks of exporting their action into these countries," he told AP.
Militants leaving France often say they're off to study Islam and Arabic, notably in Syria. Once there, handlers teach them basic Arabic phrases or give them local clothing to help them blend in and cross the border into Iraq, officials say.
In Europe, Islamic militancy has spread beyond a traditional base among youths of North African descent. Muriel Degauque, a Roman Catholic-born Belgian who converted to Islam after marrying an Algerian, blew herself up near a U.S. military patrol in Iraq on Nov. 9. She is said to be the first Western woman to die in jihad, or holy war.
Among France's Muslim population of about 5 million -- Western Europe's largest -- 5,000 embrace extremist Islam, according to the police's Renseignements Generaux intelligence agency. It says that of those radicals, 400 are converts. Recruitment is "in full swing, and worrying us," agency chief Pascal Mailhos said in a rare recent interview with the newspaper Le Monde.
The so-called "Afghan" cell was led by Said Hatim -- alias Said al-Maghrebi -- who fought against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to news reports. Police sweeps in Paris and southern Marseille dismantled the group in April.
The "forger cell" was formed around a convicted militant who fought in Algeria's Islamic insurgency in the 1990s. Its alleged strategy was to produce false papers for recruits to go to Iraq.
The largest -- the "19th arrondissement network" -- grew around a young kaffiyeh-wearing street preacher, Farid Benyettou. He apparently gained radical street credibility by virtue of his brother-in-law, Youcef Zemmouri, a convicted member of an Algerian insurgency movement who was arrested in a sweep of ahead of the 1998 World Cup in France.
Officials believe Benyettou recruited about 10 neighborhood youths to leave for Iraq via Syria, including el-Hakim. In the radio interview with RTL, conducted in an Iraqi training camp, el-Hakim specifically mentioned Benyettou -- calling him by his nickname, Abu Abdallah.
In the end, el-Hakim, now 21, did not blow himself up. He was captured by Syrian police in September last year while trying to cross into Iraq. He was extradited and jailed in France this summer, and now awaits trial on terrorism-related charges.
Another alleged member of the group, Peter Cherif, 22, is one of three French militants said by officials to be in U.S. custody in Iraq. He was detained in December in Fallujah and, according to his mother, has been held at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
In a telephone interview, the mother said her son was "roped into learning Islam" and "abused" by his group of friends that included Benyettou.
"It is all done in the lone goal of using these youths to destroy themselves," Myriam Cherif said. "My son was brainwashed. This is just like a sect."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:21 ||
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By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press writer
Paris
That chilling message, in a 2003 interview conducted in Iraq as U.S. troops were preparing to invade, has proven to be an early warning of a worrisome new phenomenon of homegrown militants from Europe heading to Iraq to join the insurgency, driven by anger over the U.S. occupation and what they see as Western attacks on Arabs and Islam.
For officials here fearful that France -- despite its opposition to the Iraq war -- could be one of the next targets for terror, this breed of radicals is especially hard to track because they have no known links to major terror figures like Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaida network.
This article basically recycles the Frog-line, terrorism today is very a different animal [as in completely different] than terrorism before the Iraq invasion.
the subtext message class? Whos fault is it?
three guesses....[Bush]
/open book
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/09/2005 4:55 Comments ||
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"My son was brainwashed. This is just like a sect."
Ahhh...don't cha just pine for the good ole days when "peer pressure" meant skipping school and smokin' a doobie?
Terrorists intent on spreading their message of hate through the Internet bought a website from a Winnipeg-based Internet hosting service earlier this fall.
The speed and ease with which the al-Qaida terrorist group was able to purchase the site and begin transmitting its propaganda is a âtroublingâ indicator of the uncontrollable nature of the Internet, a local terrorism expert said.
âIt boggles the mind,ââ said University of Manitoba professor Peter St. John. âIt is being used in a very insidious way and there is little anyone can do to control it.â
For a few weeks in October, a website sharing information about al-Qaida was distributed by a Winnipeg-based hosting service, Netgo Web Hosting.
The owner of the company, who wished to remain anonymous, said he became aware of the site, which included downloadable videos of speeches made by Osama Bin Laden, when he reviewed some of the sites his company was hosting.
âWhen I saw it and saw that it was in Arabic, alarms bells went off,â he said. âI forwarded it to the legal department of the company which operates the server and they told me to terminate it.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:16 ||
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Another veiled attack on the "Freedom" of the internet.
If I throw a grenade out my car window, this writer is the type to demand all cars be made with windows that only he could control.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/09/2005 19:44 Comments ||
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Gen. Hugh Shelton has confirmed that four years before the 2001 attacks, he authorized a secret computer data-mining initiative to track down Osama bin Laden and operatives in al-Qaida.
Shelton was the militaryâs top commander during the attacks.
In his first public comments on the initiative, which some former intelligence officers say was code-named Able Danger, Shelton confirmed that he received two briefings on the mission â both well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
âRight after I left SOCOM (Special Operations Command), I asked my successor to put together a small team, if he could, to try to use the Internet and start trying to see if there was any way that we could track down Osama bin Laden or where he was getting his money from or anything of that nature,â Shelton said Monday in an interview.
âIt was just kind of an experiment,â Shelton said. âWhat can we do? So, he pulled together a bunch of really bright, computer-literate guys from across the services.â
Sheltonâs assertions raise new questions about the governmentâs knowledge of the al-Qaida network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and about the subsequent findings of a commission set up to investigate the attacks.
Shelton was responding to allegations by former Pentagon intelligence officers, who say they used a data-mining program code-named Able Danger to identify terrorist Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers in early 2000, but that Pentagon lawyers blocked them from relaying their findings to the FBI.
Before the Defense Department issued a gag order that prevented them from testifying to Congress in September, the former intelligence officers said they were assigned to use sophisticated software to perform complex computer searches of âopen-sourceâ data to locate links among al-Qaida operatives.
Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott said he led the program that identified Atta in January or February 2000. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said that Shelton had issued a directive establishing Able Danger, and that he and other intelligence officers on the top-secret program briefed Shelton on its findings in early 2001.
While Shelton said he never heard the program referred to as âAble Dangerâ until news reports on it first emerged in the summer, the retired general said he authorized a data-mining effort aimed at bin Laden and his associates.
Shelton said he did not recall hearing or seeing Attaâs name in briefings or before the attacks.
Shelton said he also did not recall seeing a large chart that the former Able Danger officers claim to have produced, displaying as many as 60 al-Qaida operatives, including Atta.
In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission spread blame across the government but said it had not identified any of the 19 hijackers before the attacks.
Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has led a congressional push for the Pentagon to allow open Able Danger hearings, said the Sept. 11 commission failed to adequately investigate the program or its findings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:18 ||
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Gosh, a little here, a little there - it seems like their side of the story keeps gaining credibility... that these solid citizens are actually telling the truth and were doing precisely what they said they were doing... How about their detractors / deniers?
#3
As the left and right fight over this and continue to snivel there is an underlying premise that the program had or was credible and working. If it wasnât then this is all just politics and should be on page four. But I assume it had worked to a larger degree and I am left to wonder if this weapon for fighting the war is currently being used or sitting dormant waiting out the politics while our enemies continue to plan attacks.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/09/2005 7:30 Comments ||
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The early 'reports' that citizens like Rice came up was probably MSM misdirection away from various Clintonista connections to China, etc, possibly even Sandy Pants Burger. I hope that this will finally put paid to the 911 Comission that won't die - tools from the beginning.
They aren't Islamic, but they are terrorists.
Six people were arrested in a string of ecoterrorism attacks in the Pacific Northwest dating to 1998 - four fires that caused millions in damage and the toppling of an 80-foot power transmission tower, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The arrests were made Wednesday in Arizona, New York, Oregon and Virginia.
The radical groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front had claimed responsibility for most of the acts. In the transmission tower attack, bolts were removed from guy wires near Bend, Ore., on the eve of the year before the millennium. The fires were set at a federal agricultural research facility in Olympia, a logging company's headquarters in Medford, Ore., a lumber company in Glendale, Ore., and a tree farm in Clatskanie, Ore.
#2
Keep them in a facility aligned with their philosophy; no electricity, no plumbing, no television, no internet, no Starbucks, no showers, no artificial heat sources, no artificial light sources, no annoying visits from health providers, no Pharmaceutical medication (duh, of course), no involuntary food entities... virgin, unprocessed hemp tiolet paper is probably ok, though...
#4
These guys are a real threat to lives in America. Blowing power lines can shut hospitals and other emergency services down, endangering countless lives. Put them on trial for sedition. The courts will find them unfit for trial due to diminished capacity, who dare to argue that point? Then lock them up and perform medical experiments on them.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/09/2005 11:54 Comments ||
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The radical groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front had claimed responsibility for most of the acts.
WASHINGTON - Concern is mounting over the connections between a Boston Islamic group and a high-profile Muslim activist, Abdurahman Alamoudi, after a recent statement by the federal government that Mr. Alamoudi had a "close relationship" with Al Qaeda and that he raised money for Al Qaeda in America.
Alamoudi - who is serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison after having pleaded guilty in 2004 to participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - is also a founder of the Islamic Society of Boston. The society is now embroiled in a bitter legal dispute over the society's efforts to build a mosque with the aid of public subsidies. That lawsuit, according to journalists and terrorism investigators, is part of a larger trend of litigation by Muslim groups that, they say, is having a "chilling effect" on the ability to report domestic ties to terrorism.
In July, Alamoudi was cited in a Treasury Department press release designating the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, a U.K.-based Saudi oppositionist organization, led by Saad al-Faqih, as providing material support for Al Qaeda. MIRA "received approximately $1 million in funding through Abdulrahman Alamoudi," the statement said. "According to information available to the U.S.Government," the statement continues, "the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to Al Qaeda, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with Al Qaeda and had raised money for Al Qaeda in the United States." The Treasury Department has declined to provide further information, saying the material is classified.
Alamoudi, an Eritrean-born naturalized American citizen, was arrested in 2003 on charges of having participated in a Libyan assassination plot against Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, an allegation to which he admitted in the 2004 plea agreement with federal prosecutors. He was also stripped of his American citizenship after admitting to having obtained it fraudulently. A lawyer for Alamoudi, James McLoughlin Jr., told the Sun that his client "vigorously denies ever having raised money for Al Qaeda." The Treasury had refused requests to review its information.
Before his arrest, Alamoudi enjoyed extensive connections to Washington lawmakers as the founder and president of the American Muslim Council. During the Clinton administration, according to press accounts, Alamoudi often visited the White House to meet with and advise President Clinton, now-Senator Clinton, and Vice President Gore. In 2001, Alamoudi appeared with President Bush at a prayer vigil for victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks just days after the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon.
Alamoudi was also one of the founders of the Islamic Society of Boston, which is engaged in a dispute over its plans to build a $22 million mosque and cultural center on 1.9 acres of land next to Roxbury Community College. Valued at $400,000 by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the lot was sold to the ISB for $175,000 in a deal supported by Boston's Democratic mayor, Thomas Menino. The city said the sale price had been lowered in exchange for an ISB promise to provide 5,000 books about Islam to Roxbury Community College; to provide the college with a lecture series about Islam; and to raise money for the college.
The land exchange prompted a lawsuit by a Roxbury resident, James Policastro, challenging its constitutionality as a subsidy for the Muslim religion. Last month, a motion by the ISB to have the Policastro suit dismissed was denied.
The land deal also prompted a series of investigative reports by the Boston Herald and Fox TV Channel 25, probing the alleged connections between several ISB leaders, including Alamoudi, and radical Islam. In turn, the ISB has filed a defamation lawsuit claiming that the reports were part of a conspiracy to prevent the mosque's being built.
The reports alleged that one former ISB trustee, the Egypt-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was barred from entering America by the Clinton State Department in 1999 after openly supporting the Palestinian Arab terrorist organization Hamas. The ISB denies that Mr.Qaradawi was a trustee of the group. He is listed as a trustee on the ISB's IRS 990 forms for 1998, 1999, and 2000. The ISB has described this as an "administrative oversight."
And the Anti-Defamation League recently denounced as anti-Semitic writings by another ISB trustee, Walid Ahmad Fitaihi, that appeared in foreign newspapers. In the articles, Mr. Fitaihi said Jews "perpetrated the worst of evils," "brought the worst corruption to the earth," and "killed prophets," according to press accounts. The ISB responded on its Web site that "the articles were intended to condemn particular individuals ... not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people." The ISB denies any connection to radical Islam.
After the Herald and Fox filed reports raising questions about the ties between Messrs. Qaradawi, Alamoudi, Fitaihi, et al. and the ISB, the society and two of its trustees, Yousef Abou-Allaban and Osama Kandil, filed defamation suits against the Herald and Fox last year. The suits allege, among other charges, that the Herald and Fox reports - abetted by the other investigators and journalists named in an expanded lawsuit filed last month - have prevented the ISB from raising the money required to build the mosque.
According to a report in the Boston Globe, the ISB has raised $14 million so far, mostly from other countries, particularly Saudi Arabia.
As evidence for the conspiracy, the ISB's complaint includes e-mails exchanged between Herald reporters and members of the investigative groups, including the Washington-based Investigative Project and its president, Steven Emerson, and the Boston-based David Project, a 501(c)(3) Jewish educational organization.
Representatives of the David Project and other groups say the reports and inquiries were meant to raise serious questions about the ISB's potential links to terrorism in the hopes of getting more information out of the organization. A lawyer for the David Project, Jeffrey Robbins, said: "It's outrageous that at a time when all Americans are trying to have information on this topic, that those who asked the questions would be sued for having asked them."
A lawyer for the ISB, Howard Cooper, told the Sun earlier this week: "The ISB has had nothing to do with Alamoudi for a long time, and before those questions were asked by the people who were sued they knew that was the case."
Questioning whether Alamoudi's identification by the federal government as an Al Qaeda fund-raiser in America might have implications for the Islamic Society of Boston, Mr. Cooper added, "is just such classic overreaching and guilt by fabricated association as part of an intolerant attitude toward Muslims that it is perfectly illustrative of why this lawsuit has been brought."
The David Project, however, points to an online petition - available at www.petitiononline.com/alamoudi/petition.html, and signed by a "Dr. Osama Kandil" of Herndon, Va., identifying the imprisoned Alamoudi as "our community leader" and calling for his release - as a sign of potential ongoing connections between Alamoudi and the ISB. The Dr. Osama Kandil who serves as one of the trustees of the ISB and who brought the lawsuits against the Herald and Fox divides his time between Egypt and Herndon, Va.
Mr. Cooper said his client was in Egypt and could not be reached to confirm whether he signed the petition. "However, I am aware that Dr. Kandil, as a young man and student in Boston, was one of founders of Islamic Society of Boston. ... Would it shock me that, at the time that Mr. Alamoudi was arrested, that those who knew him his days as a young man would express an opinion about him in an effort to help him? No, that would not surprise me," Mr. Cooper said.
"But to suggest that such an event, if it occurred, establishes a link between the ISB and Dr. Kandil on the one hand, and radical Islamic terrorism on the other, is ridiculous and it smacks of the worst type of McCarthyism and guilt by association that one could possibly imagine," Mr. Cooper added.
A senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Andrew McCarthy, asserted these sorts of defamation and libel lawsuits were part of a "concerted effort" by Muslim groups to intimidate investigators. "If you say anything borderline critical of them they sort of bare their fangs and threaten to sue," Mr. McCarthy, a former federal attorney who prosecuted the case against the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said.
A spokeswoman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, Rabiah Ahmed, acknowledged that lawsuits had increasingly become an "instrument" used by the Muslim community. "The Muslim community realizes that it has to respond to these allegations and to these attacks, otherwise, the people who are promoting these defamatory remarks will win in the court of public opinion," Ms. Ahmed said.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 08:55 ||
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There are enemies among us. They are funded by Saudi Arabia and they use the mosques as their organization points. This is the spread of Wahhabism. It was all in the 9/11 commission report. What will we do as citizens to stop it?
#3
Well the only way the state will do anything about it would be if Tom Reilly's (the AG) seeing eye dog sniffs it out. As far as the city, two words, Tom Menino.
So I guess it's up to the feds.
One thing that people who live near mosques can do is begin photographing the regulars who attend those places of worship. Taking down precise attendance headcounts and license plate numbers would probably help too. Even if it is only to begin a campaign of intimidation notification that subversive activities will not be tolerated.
It's going to take some real activism for Islamists to be brought up short.
One of the most important things of all is to maintain an open public dialogue with your friends, neighbors and work associates (where feasible), in order to make it known that Islamism is the new Nazism and that it needs to be fought on equal or greater terms.
I'll be submitting an opinion piece next week on this precise topic. I'm hoping for a lot of useful input from fellow Rantburgers.
A Minneapolis man charged with lying to authorities in a terror probe is now charged with paying a U.S. citizen to marry him and using a green card from that marriage to try to get jobs in the Twin Cities.
Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi was indicted on charges of possessing fraudulent immigration documents, according to papers scanned into the computer system Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
In June 2004, Elzahabi was charged with lying to federal agents about sending walkie-talkies to Pakistan and helping to get a Massachusetts driver's license for a man later convicted of plotting to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan.
Elzahabi allegedly told FBI agents he taught sniping in Afghanistan and associated with Al-Qaida leaders. He pleaded not guilty and has been awaiting trial while his attorneys try to gain access to information that they contend is necessary for his defense.
The new indictment alleges that Elzahabi tried to use the green card Sept. 6 and 21, 2001, in Ramsey County and Feb. 7, 2002, in Hennepin County.
His Minneapolis attorney, Paul Engh, said the new charges don't add to the seriousness of the case and called them "tag-along" charges.
U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger said the new charges were the result of an ongoing investigation into Elzahabi's conduct. He said the charges are not "an earth-shattering change to the nature of the indictment."
Elzahabi, a Lebanese national, allegedly told authorities he entered the United States in the 1980s and paid a Houston woman to marry him, then divorced her after getting his green card.
He allegedly told authorities he fought in Afghanistan and associated with Al-Qaida leaders, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man suspected of engineering deadly kidnappings in Iraq. Returning to the United States in 1995 after he was shot in the abdomen during combat, he worked in New York and Boston before going home to Lebanon and to Chechnya, where he joined rebels in fighting the Russians.
He allegedly came to Minneapolis in mid-August 2001 and lived in a house near the University of Minnesota that was also home to a mosque.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:27 ||
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STOCKHOLM: A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported on Thursday, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
And I say we're still missing a few names.
Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name. The list contains a strict âno flyâ section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a âselecteeâ section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks. Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholmâs Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the âselecteeâ list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Pfeh. Whiners and Luddites. They could use an RSS feed or any one of a half-dozen other methods to keep their DB up to date and automate the searches, kicking out the close calls and semi-matches due to the Arabic character set, penchant for creative spelling, the Abu nonsense, etc. It is precisely as big a problem as the wankers want to make it... and precisely as small.
A faction of Naga separatist rebels in north-east India say five of their bases in Burma's Sagaing division have come under attack.
A rebel spokesman told the BBC a whole brigade of Burmese troops are closing in on these bases, forcing the rebels to fight a rearguard action. The Naga rebellion is India's oldest ethnic conflict, going back 40 years. One faction is in peace talks. The rebels have been campaigning for a separate homeland in the north-east.
The spokesman of the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) said the Burmese troops are firing mortars and light artillery on the bases. "They are positioning themselves for a frontal infantry assault on these camps. They are now trying to soften us up by mortar and artillery fire," the spokesman, Kughalu Mulatonu, said. "We are sniping at their patrols, trying to make it difficult to consolidate their positions for the final assault on these camps."
He said three NSCN fighters were captured by the Burmese troops and few injured. It is not know if there are any causalities on the Burmese side. Mr Mulatonu said the fighting was expected to intensify in the next three to four days. "This is developing into a major offensive, much bigger than what we faced last summer," he said.
The Khaplang group of the NSCN which has several bases in Burma's border region with India lost several bases during the offensive last summer. The group later recaptured the bases when the Burmese troops withdrew during monsoon after facing logistical difficulties. The NSCN was formed in 1981 to carry on an armed insurrection against India that had started in 1956. The group split in 1988. While one group is negotiating with the Indian government, the other - headed by Burmese Naga leader, S S Khaplang - has announced a ceasefire with the Indian forces. But its bases in Burma have been attacked at regular intervals by Burmese troops in the past two years. Thousands have died in the long insurgency.
And nobody in the west pays any attention to it.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 09:13 ||
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The Indian army first faced AK-47s in the hands of Naga rebels (supplied by the Chinese). Quite a shock to the troops then equipped with Lee Enfield .303 rifles.
Formerly headhunters, the Naga are fierce fighters.
During the Kargil war, Pakistani troops repeatedly retook a hilltop after sucessive assaults. Finally a company from the Naga regiment of the Indian army was sent in to occupy the hilltop. Armed with their traditional "dah" knives, they relieved several Pakistanis of their heads. No further attempts to retake the hilltop were made.
Posted by: john ||
12/09/2005 14:52 Comments ||
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2 observations....a faction with "National Socialist" in it's title...and one SS Khaplang who is it's leader. Hmmmmmm
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/09/2005 17:57 Comments ||
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Islamic militants beheaded two suspected bandits and strung up their bodies on electricity poles in the latest violence to hit Pakistan's lawless tribal region near the Afghan border, witnesses said on Friday.
The militants have been searching for members of a gang of bandits in the North Waziristan region after a clash on Tuesday in which 15 people were killed, including 10 bandits.
Five of the bandits killed on Tuesday were strung up in public. One was beheaded and his head stuck on a pole.
Residents of Miranshah, North Waziristan's main town, awoke on Friday to find two more bodies strung up from electricity poles.
"Both were beheaded. One beheaded body was hanging upside down," said a resident of the town who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety.
Many al Qaeda members fled to the region from Afghanistan after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, and were given shelter by militant sympathisers from conservative Pashtun tribes that inhabit both sides of the border.
President Pervez Musharraf played down the latest violence in comments to reporters in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, saying 70,000 troops were involved in counter-terrorism operations in Waziristan and authorities were in control.
But residents say the region is tense and many people are living in fear.
Militants brandishing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers have been driving around Miranshah in pickup trucks searching for suspected bandits.
"They searched several houses last night on suspicion that they were hiding there," the resident said.
The militants killed four bandits in a village outside Miranshah on Wednesday night after finding them hiding in the water tank of a house.
Some of the bandits had been extorting money from travellers on a road, which led to the initial clash on Tuesday.
On Thursday, 12 people were killed and dozens wounded in a bomb explosion in a market in the tribal town of Jandola on the border with South Waziristan.
Authorities say there are still investigating and have not speculated on who might have been responsible.
A week ago, an al Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, and four other people were killed in a blast in North Waziristan.
Authorities say he died when explosives at his hideout detonated accidentally, but villagers said the blast was caused by a missile from an aircraft, possibly a U.S. drone.
Unidentified gunmen on Monday kidnapped a Pakistani journalist, Hayatullah Khan, who had reported that Rabia was killed by a U.S. missile and had taken photographs of what villagers said were fragments of the weapon.
His brother said on Friday he had had no word on Khan's fate.
On Thursday, the beheaded bodies of two paramilitary soldiers were found in South Waziristan, two days after they went missing with two colleagues.
The whereabouts of the other two are not known.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 06:23 ||
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I never thought I would see the day where I would be pulling for the bandits; but as they say,
no islam know peace.
Most likely a boom but it might have been a work accident; read on.
WANA: Twelve tribesmen were killed and at least 50 wounded in a powerful explosion during morning rush-hour in South Waziristanâs Jandola Bazaar on Thursday. The explosion occurred less than 100 yards from a major military compound where hundreds of soldiers are stationed in Jandola, 90 kilometres east of Wana.
There were conflicting reports regarding the site of the explosion, with some reports suggesting that it had occurred at a restaurant and others indicating an ammunition shop.
"Mahmoud, I can't find the C-4 in the storeroom 'cause it's dark. Hand me a light, wouldja?"
"Sure, here's a match ..."
It was unclear who carried out the explosion or what caused it. South Waziristan chief administrator Laiq Hussain said that an investigation had been ordered into the blast. Five shops were destroyed in the blast. The military later the local administration in recovering bodies, eyewitnesses said. A spokesman for the NWFP governor put the death toll at eight. He said that the authorities had been ordered to investigate the explosion, adding that the blast had occurred in the Tank region in NWFP and not in South Waziristan.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Iraqi citizens turned over a high-ranking Al Qaeda member known as "the Butcher" to U.S. forces in Ramadi Friday a military statement said.
Amir Khalaf Fanus was No. 3 on the 28th Infantry Division's High Value Individual list for Ramadi, wanted for murder and kidnapping in connection with his affiliation with Al Qaeda in Iraq.
"He is the highest ranking Al Qaeda in Iraq member to be turned into Iraqi and U.S. officials by local citizens," Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool said in a statement released from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi. "His capture is another indication that the local citizens tire of the insurgents' presence within their community."
According to Pool, Iraqi and U.S. Forces "have witnessed increasing signs of citizens fighting the terrorists within Ramadi as the Dec. 15 National Elections draw nearer."
He said that another 1,200 Iraqi Security Force soldiers were recently stationed in Ramadi, while 1,100 Iraqi special police commandos and a mechanized Iraqi army company had moved into the city.
#7
In deals like this, no matter how they got him, it's a good idea to attribute it to "citizen tips". On top of that you can discreetly let it be known that the Al-Q #4, #5 and #6 were the ones who turned him in.
Insurgents in Iraq have launched a publicity blitz. They increased the number of Web postings to 825 last month from 145 in January, according to the U.S. military. Most postings detail insurgent bombings or attacks on Iraqi and U.S. forces.
The Web postings are also growing more sophisticated and frequently include video, soundtracks and professional editing, Army Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Iraq, said Tuesday.
Many of the messages are from al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is behind some of the deadliest attacks and kidnappings. "It is the centerpiece of their effort," Zahner said of the publicity campaign. Zarqawi "has always been excellent at it. Lately, he's been turning it faster."
Concerned that insurgents were gaining an advantage in the information war, the U.S. military has stepped up efforts to counter the publicity onslaught from the insurgents.
"The information environment has become a battlefield in a very real way," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman. "There was a decision early on that this was not something we could allow to go uncontested." He said efforts have accelerated to combat insurgents' media campaign.
Some of those efforts have generated controversy. The U.S. military is looking into reports that Iraqi news media were paid to run stories generated by the U.S. military without revealing the source. At the center of the controversy is a Washington-based contractor, the Lincoln Group, which was paid by the Pentagon to promote positive news about U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Johnson said the military is reviewing the allegations.
Nearly all insurgent groups operating in Iraq have media teams responsible for posting statements on the Internet and creating videos for Web and television broadcasts, said Col. Pat McNiece, an intelligence officer.
Some groups post lies. A group called the Victorious Sect Army uses fancy computer graphics, but U.S. officials have been unable to verify that it carried out any of the attacks claimed in its Web postings, McNiece said.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has the most sophisticated media team and sticks close to the facts, at times even following up with corrections, McNiece said.
Sometimes a terrorist group will steal a video from another insurgent website in an effort to take credit for an attack, said Rita Katz, director of the Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors terrorists' websites. Terrorist groups are eager to take responsibility for attacks. "Videos are coming by the dozen from Iraq," Katz said.
In general, insurgents want to promote a picture of Iraq in chaos to foster the idea that insurgents are winning, Zahner said.
Insurgent messages often target Iraq and the Arab world, McNiece said. The messages are used as a recruiting tool for militants and as a way to raise money for the insurgency, he said.
"They don't kill anybody," McNiece said of the messages. "But they certainly help the terrorists shape perception in the Arab world. It's a problem."
The U.S. government monitors websites but rarely makes an effort to shut them down because it's so easy for terrorists to set up new ones, said Ben Venzke of IntelCenter, a Washington-area think tank that monitors terrorist declarations and does work for U.S. intelligence.
"If you shut it down, it will be back in about five seconds in a million other locations," Venzke said.
There may also be intelligence value in watching the sites.
"Occasionally, it would be more beneficial (for the government) to leave the site online in order to gather intelligence information," Katz said.
For militants, it's important to publicize the attacks, widening the impact of a bombing or a kidnapping to help influence public opinion. Insurgents sometimes rehearse suicide missions with the group's cameraman to find the best angle to capture the attack on tape, Zahner said. Cameramen then join militants on missions. They film the attacks, then edit and post them on websites, sometimes within a matter of hours, he said.
As roadside bombs become more sophisticated, so do the methods to record them. Recently, insurgents synchronized a roadside bomb with a remote-controlled video camera to film the explosion, Zahner said. "It's a virtual jihadist experience," he said. "That's what gets them the money. That's what gets them the recruits."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:44 ||
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seems that this would be a good time to have someone infiltrate Zarq's ops as a jihadist web guru
#3
In general, insurgents want to promote a picture of Iraq in chaos to foster the idea that insurgents are winning, Zahner said
Hmmmmm were have I noticed this before hmmm ohh thats right it is our American Mainstream Media and the Dums constant rehtoric. It is a sad day in american history were the american media & the Dums one of the major political parties are actually chirping and assisting the enemy of thier nation. Their is a war here and at somepoint in time like it or not we are going to have to cross that bridge and deal with it. In todays condition this nation is incapable to fight a major war effort. These little wars Iraq and such are no major effort and we can barely make our way and even today after the many success and no were near the worst case senerio we are teatering on the verge of capitulation.
The Iraqi arena on Wednesday witnessed attacks that covered various parts of Iraq, the most remarkable of which was that gunmen attacked a hospital in Karkouk city that ended in their liberation of one detainee linked to al-Qaida organization before they were able to flee.
Sources in the Iraqi police said that more than 20 gunmen attacked the public hospital in Karkouk north of Iraq and opened fire at the guards and this resulted in killing three of them and injuring other 6.
The source added that the attackers liberated their colleague affiliates to a cell from al-Qaida organization, planning for the assassination of a judge in the court before which the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was brought to.
The detainee was being treated in the hospital from wounds he had during his attempt to implant a bomb on the roadside on Tuesday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:40 ||
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A top Sunni party official predicted yesterday that Sunnis would vote in large numbers in landmark elections next week in spite of a campaign of violence that intensified yesterday with more than 30 people killed in a bus bomb and the first reported killing of an American hostage in more than a year.
Coalition military officials, meanwhile, predicted that Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab Zarqawi "is going to pull out all the stops between now and the elections."
The Islamic Army in Iraq, a Sunni group with an extreme Islamist bent, said on its Web site that it had killed an "American security consultant for the Housing Ministry" after the United States failed to fulfill its demand to release all Iraqi prisoners.
Ronald Schulz, an electrician from Alaska who worked in security monitoring, was shown on Al Jazeera television Tuesday sitting with his hands tied behind his back, his blond hair visible from under his blindfold.
"The war criminal Bush continues his arrogance, giving no value to people's lives unless they serve his criminal, aggressive ways. Since his reply was irresponsible, he bears the consequences of his stance," the group said in a statement, the Associated Press reported.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber climbed aboard a bus after it had passed through a checkpoint and blew it up, killing at least 32 civilians and wounding scores more. The bus was full of Shi'ites traveling south for the Muslim weekend.
Police Lt. Wisam Hakim told the AP that a man jumped on board as the bus was pulling out of the station. "He sat in the middle of the bus and then the explosion took place," leaving a pile of charred bodies and mangled metal.
"We are not complacent. We know Zarqawi will conduct more operations in the week to the elections," coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters. "He's been trying since October, but we have been stopping him."
U.S. and Iraq authorities hope Thursday's elections, which will give Iraq a constitutionally elected four-year legislature, will undermine the Sunni-led insurgency by drawing Sunnis into the political process and isolating foreign terrorists such as Zarqawi.
Ala'a Makky, a member of political bureau of the Sunni Islamic Party, said in an interview that he thinks the Sunni turnout will be much higher this time than in elections to an interim parliament in January.
"I think most of the Iraqi population is now convinced that the elections and political solutions and reconciliation are the only solutions for the current problems," he said.
"I think the Iraqi people will go ahead and vote in the elections, as it is so critical," he said. "I don't think [Zarqawi] can disrupt this process."
David Satterfield, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, also said yesterday that attempts to draw Sunnis into the political process were working.
"Sunnis have come into the political process and they've come into it in a big way and they've come into it in an overwhelming way, in terms of numbers," he said during an telephone interview conducted from Washington.
Having spent most the past year boycotting the political process, Sunnis "will be elected proportionate to their population," Mr. Satterfield predicted.
He said the United States would like to see Iraqis elect "a representative, cross-sectarian government that is capable of meeting the needs of the Iraqi people" and that he expected precisely that sort of government to emerge from the elections.
Mr. Satterfield also noted that security has improved to the point where all the candidates are able to campaign openly. During balloting in January, many candidates were named on party lists but kept those names secret.
The reported killing of Mr. Schulz follows a fresh wave of kidnappings of Westerners.
Four humanitarian workers -- two Canadians, one Briton and one American -- were last shown apparently in orange jumpsuits and in shackles, held by a group called the Swords of Righteousness, which also demanded the release of all those in jail in Iraq.
A German woman kidnapped separately is also under death threat unless Germany stops dealing with the Iraqi government.
Gen. Lynch said 95 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq are foreign fighters brought in just for that purpose.
The military spokesman said there had been a "significant increase" in the capture of foreign terrorists, with 292 captured since June.
A chart released by the military showed that 67 foreign nationals were arrested in November, including 22 from Kuwait, 16 from Syria, eight from Egypt and eight from Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:01 ||
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Israel arrested 19 Palestinian militants in raids across the West Bank overnight, the army says. It comes as funerals are being held for two Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Thursday. A funeral is also being held for an Israeli soldier who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Israel has vowed to crackdown on militant groups after a suicide bombing in Netanya on Monday that killed five. Ten of those arrested overnight were members of the Islamic Jihad movement, which carried out the attack, the army said. They were rounded up in the northern Tulkarm region where the bomber hailed from.
Meanwhile, diplomats from the quartet of nations, responsible for drawing up the so-called Middle East roadmap, are meeting in Jerusalem.
They are discussing ways of implementing a deal, brokered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to open up access routes between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel halted talks on possible bus convoys between the two Palestinian areas on Thursday following Monday's attack.
Earlier this week, the Israeli army carried out air strikes on suspected militants in Gaza. They reportedly killed Mahmoud Arkan, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees armed group, in a strike in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Wednesday. And they targeted members of the militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in a strike on a house in northern Gaza on Thursday, Palestinian witnesses said.
Hospital officials named the two killed as Iyad Qaddas and Iyad Najar. A third al-Aqsa militant was among those injured, medics said, as well as a young girl. Israeli sources said on Friday the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank was remaining closed "until a new order was issued". It followed an attack on a 20-year-old soldier on Thursday. He was stabbed in the back of the head by a Palestinian man, dying instantly, the army said.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 09:07 ||
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19? Almost sounds as if they know who the mooks are and where they can be found...
heh heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2005 10:11 Comments ||
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Malaysian censors will tighten controls on publications that promote terrorism and "holy war", officials said Thursday.
Internal Security Ministry secretary-general Abdul Aziz Mohamad Yusof said inspections at border points would be increased to prevent militant publications from reaching Malaysia.
"The ministry has ordered officials to be on the alert so that the teachings of terrorism and armed 'jihad' do not spread throughout our society as the consequences are extremely dangerous," he told the official Bernama news agency.
Abdul Aziz said officials had detected publications that urged Muslims to take up "jihad" by committing acts of terror, with promises of rewards in heaven.
The entry of such publications into Malaysia was not new, he said, but the rising terrorist threat around the world made it more of a cause for concern.
Malaysian extremists have come into the spotlight recently with the death of bombmaker Azahari Husin in a police shootout in Indonesia last month, and a major hunt for his compatriot, Noordin Mohammad Top.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:38 ||
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Fierce fighting between Abu Sayyaf militants and security forces erupted in the island of Jolo, about 950 kilometers south of Manila, leaving one soldier dead and two others seriously wounded, officials said on Thursday.
Officials said troops clashed with some 150 militants, backed by Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) forces, in Mt. Tumatangis in Indanan town Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a soldier was also killed by Abu Sayyaf gunmen in fighting near the town of Indanan. "Sporadic clashes continue on the island and troops are pursuing Abu Sayyaf terrorists," regional military spokesman Air Force Major Gamal Hayudini said in Jolo.
The military did not say if there were enemy casualties, but previous reports suggested dozens of gunmen were killed in two weeks of fighting in Indanan and Panamao towns.
It said at least six soldiers had been gunned down and more than two dozens were wounded. Officials said the Abu Sayyaf and MNLF forces were attacking troops the past three days and that the number of gunmen has swelled to 700 from about 100 the last week.
They said MNLF leaders Khaid Ajibun and Haber Malik were aiding the Abu Sayyaf, and that latest military intelligence reports said another MNLF leader in Basilan island, Bashiri Jailani, had reinforced rebel forces in Jolo.
Malik has denied the allegations and said troops attacked their positions, in the guise of pursuing the Abu Sayyaf group, and that rebels were only defending themselves.
Officials said the target of the military offensives were the Abu Sayyaf leaders in Sulu, Albader Parad, and Umbra Jumdail Gumbahali and Radulan Sahiron, who are all included in the terror lists of both Manila and Washington.
The military said it would also attack armed groups that are supporting the Abu Sayyaf. Hostilities erupted after the Abu Sayyaf attacked a military post last November 11 in Indanan and the fighting spread to neighboring towns.
In February, at least 25 soldiers and some 120 MNLF and Abu Sayyaf militants had been killed in weeks of fierce clashes following a rebel attack on a military post in Jolo.
Most of the attackers were loyal supporters of jailed MNLF leader Nur Misuari. Misuari formerly headed the MNLF that accepted limited autonomy and signed a peace deal with the government in 1996. But violence flared again in November 2001 after some 200 former rebels, backed by the Abu Sayyaf, attacked a major army base in Jolo.
Misuari later escaped to Malaysia where he was arrested and deported back to the Philippines, where he was imprisoned on charges of rebellion, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. But thousands of his followers and supporters still maintain strongholds in Jolo.
Many Abu Sayyaf militants were former members of the MNLF. And the military said they are still loyal to Misuari and in many instances fought alongside with forces identified with the ex-rebel leader.
Social workers said the latest hostilities forced more than 2,500 people to flee their homes in Jolo for fear they would be caught in the crossfire or held hostage by gunmen.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 02:28 ||
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Where is Gov. Louk and Gov. Parouk Hussain in all of this? They were both MNLF leaders, and Mijahudin, and the ones supposed to be able to keep the MNLF out of any fighting after the peace agreement. If the MNLF is now really fighting, I suspect it's the MBG, but if it is the MNLF then the peace agreement that created the ARMM Government shoud be voided and the MNLF put on the terrorist list.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/09/2005 7:21 Comments ||
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Volunteers from Indonesia's largest Islamic organization will guard churches across the world's most populous Muslim nation on Christmas amid fears of terrorist attacks on those places, the group said on Friday.
Jakarta police have said they would boost security in the capital ahead of Christmas to avoid a repeat of 2000 Christmas Eve bombings on churches in several Indonesian cities, including in the country's capital.
A youth wing affiliated with Indonesia's largest Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama, some 40 million strong, told Reuters that members would guard churches for the coming Christmas festivities and it had persuaded youths from other religions to join theproject.
"We have an annual program to set up posts to secureChristmas. For this year, I have contacted groups from other religions like the Hindus and Buddhists and they have responded positively," said Tatang Hidayat, national coordinator of NU's Banser group, known for its military-like uniform.
Hidayat said the volunteers would closely collaborate with existing police operations and the churches' own security.
Around 17,000 policemen are expected to safeguard Christmas celebrations in Jakarta alone.
Although Indonesia has been relatively calm in recent weeks, many security analysts say threats of militant attacks still run high because police have yet to catch one of the alleged masterminds of previous bombings, Malaysian-born Noordin M. Top.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/09/2005 01:59 ||
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"We have an annual program to set up posts to secure Christmas."
Gee, can we do that here?
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/09/2005 7:57 Comments ||
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If valid, this is a huge step forward, no matter how belated it might be. I remain intensely cynical over how long it has taken for gestures of this sort to occur but adamantly support and applaud them wherever they crop up.
The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran launched bigget ever maritime war-game in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman regions, commander of Iranian Navy, Rear Admiral Sajjad Kuchaki told IRIB Thursday.
The maneuver codenamed "Ashegane Velayat" covers more than 55,000 square kilometers ranging from the strategic Hormoz strait to the port city of Gouater in the southernmost part of the country, he added.
All branches of the military and the Revolutionary Guards including air, land and navy forces as well as Basij voluntary members are participating in the war-game.
The maneuver, he noted, is aimed at sending a message of peace and freindship to the regional countries, adding Iran is ready to work with its neighbors to prevent crisis in the region.
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah and former Premier Salim Hoss said they feared that Lebanon had entered a "labyrinth of internationalization" that will destabilize the country. They also stressed the need for urgent solutions to the country's economic and financial problems.
Why don't you wander into that labyrinth of internationalization and see if you find them there?
Hoss, who visited Fadlallah at his residence in Haret Hreik on Thursday, said discussions focused on issues that concern the Lebanese because the cleric is known for his respect, wisdom and care for the people.
That's Mullah Fudlullah he's talking about, the founder of Hezbollah.
Hoss said he fears that the resignation of Detlev Mehlis, the UN lead investigator into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, would lead to further delays in the investigation. "Of course, the Security Council will designate a successor, but changing the international investigator will surely cause delays and this is a shame."
Hoss indicated that his visits with the various political forces in the country aimed at finding a common denominator on issues of national concern. "We believe that discord among the Lebanese political powers is less tense than it is depicted," he added.
I think he's right. I think their internal structure is pretty fragile, but I also think the oligarchs have had time to reach their accomodations. The really big egos, with the exception of Nasrallah and Jumblatt, have been bumped off, and even Wally's no Kamal. Hezbollah's position's becoming a bit more precarious than it was, when when Syria implodes they're going to be really unhappy. But hopefully Beirut's been shot up on a large scale for the last time.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Lol, Fred... Yes, "We'll always have Paris Beirut.""
Rome, 8 Dec. (AKI) - Global Islamic Media Front, the group behind the al-Qaeda TV news bulletins, has distributed a new video guide over the Internet, showing viewers how to use, assemble and take apart a Kalashnikov. The film, which is around six minutes long, begins with computer generated images which show the mechanical functioning of the AK47, the Russian machine gun used by many armed forces.
While one of the many Jihadi songs adopted by al-Qaeda in the last few years can be heard in the background, the video shows in slow motion, the movements of the different pieces that make up the machine gun.
After two minutes the lesson properly begins, with the voice of an unseen 'teacher' welcoming aspiring Jihadis, and explaining to viewers exactly how the various pieces of the gun are taken apart and what function each one has. Once dismantled, the viewer is shown how to re-assemble the Kalashnikov. There is no indication of when the film was made, but it has been persistently posted on different Islamic forums on the Internet in the last few days.
On 16 November, police in the Syrian capital Damascus detained seven Iraqi women at the airport, one of whom had a dismantled weapon hidden in a bag full of baby items. The Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported that the women were caught while trying to board a flight to Bahrain and it is thought they may have planned to use the gun to try and bring down the plane.
The emergence of the video also coincides with repeated references in the same Internet forums to a new cargo of Kalashnikovs reported to have reached the Gaza Strip, after being smuggled in through Egypt a few days ago. The forums say the weapons are a more manageable model of Kalashnikovs currently in use in Iraq, which have been christened "the al-Zarqawi Kalashnikov".
Posted by: Steve ||
12/09/2005 09:52 ||
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I'm supposed to get to shoot my friend's Romanian version of the AK this month. Maybe I need to watch the video. Does the video end with 'spray and pray.'?
#2
About the only way to make an AK more managable is to use the AK-74 flash suppressor/muzzle brake, which helps with muzzle whip. Otherwise, I have no clue what they are talking about, unless they are refering to the product improvements between the AK-47 original and the AKM version.
#3
That they need a video says alot. I had the first AK I laid hands on dissassembled and reassembled in minutes having never seen it done or reading about it. It's not a complicated weapon.
I am sure this is a "new" muzzle break/ flash hider. To make one more accurate, take it off full auto and actually use the sights.
#4
That is not the way of Allan, Sensei. True sons of Islam must not stray from the Path as illuminated by the one-eyed holy men and one-armed weapons instructors...
#5
Is you a Muslim? Is you crazy fo Islam? Does you wanna kill them infidels and crusaders? Well then you should be interested in my new video "Be a Kalishnikoff User". Just sends 19.95 and you be blastin away at infidels, crusaders and, for an extra 5 dollar, zionist entitys faster then you can say "Allah Akbar". And if yas act now I throw in my free book "Be a Ho for Mo"...
The story of jihadi Ejaz Butt. "The Hindu" is a Marxist rag but still a decent article
"N.Y.," SCREAM the bright orange letters on Ejaz Ahmad Butt's blue winter cap, the iconic initials of a city he knows from Hindi pop films, along with Mumbai, Manali, and New Delhi. He claims to have watched the remake of Devdas over a dozen times, and can fluently mime the ultra-cool gangster character played by the action-film icon Ajay Devgan in Company. He is, in other words, just your average South Asian teenager.
And then again, he isn't.
On the afternoon of November 14, Butt threw a grenade at police personnel near the Palladium Cinema in Srinagar's Lal Chowk and then hid out in a hotel building hoping to ambush the senior officials he knew would arrive soon afterwards. Two Central Reserve Police Force personnel and two civilians were killed in the attack, and 17 persons, including a Japanese photo-journalist, Takeshi Sakuragi, were seriously injured in the Lashkar-e-Taiba fidayeen squad attack.
By early the next morning, a crack Jammu and Kashmir Police commando unit had succeeded in eliminating Butt's comrade in arms, who he knew only by his Lashkar-assigned nom de guerre, Abu Furqan. Unable to execute his mission, the 19-year-old Butt attempted to escape through the back of the hotel and was arrested â which is why he is known today by his real name instead of lying in an unmarked grave, identified in records as Abu Sumama.
In recent months, Indian newspaper readers have become familiar with one face of the Lashkar: highly-educated, impeccably bourgeois terror cell organisers like Tariq Dar, the pharmaceutical firm executive who helped fund the Deepavali serial bombings in New Delhi, or Shabbir Ahmad Bukhari, the Kashmir University law student who transported terrorists from hideouts in northern Kashmir to their targets in Srinagar.
Butt is the other face of the Lashkar: a desperately poor villager who joined the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir for no real reason other than the Pakistani Rs.35,000 the organisation paid to his family. The son of a poor peasant family from the village of Mansoorabad, near the south Punjab city of Faislabad, Butt's journey into the Lashkar's ranks illustrates that while an ideology of religious hatred drives the leadership of Islamist terror groups in Pakistan, poverty plays not a small role in helping them build their armies.
Educated in a government-run school until grade VII, Butt had to abandon his studies after the death of his father, Riyaz Ahmad. A daily-wage agricultural labourer, Riyaz Ahmad left behind a wife and three children. Soon after Riyaz Ahmad's death, Butt's mother, Rashida Butt, also passed away. His brother Nazir, who is now 15 years old, was too young to work; his sister Nahila was only a child. As the oldest man in his family, Butt now had to take responsibility for not just the sustenance but the emotional needs of his siblings.
With no real skills, Butt was fortunate to find work at the Gauhar Bakery, a small-time factory in Mansoorabad, which paid him Rs.2,000 a month. While the money met his siblings' needs, the work was hard and held out no real prospects. Butt understood that he needed savings to pay for Nahila's eventual marriage, which his bakery job simply would not provide. Nor could he pay for an education for Nazir, something that would have given Butt's brother at least some chance of building a better life for himself.
Abu Khubair arrived in Mansoorabad in mid-2003, a young Faislabad resident who had joined the Lashkar some years earlier and returned to work as a recruiter for the organisation after a tour of duty in Jammu and Kashmir. Abu Khubair had everything Butt aspired for: a job that seemed suffused with purpose and adventure; respectability in the community; above all, cash in hand. For the first time in life, Butt thought he could see a way out of his problems.
Soon after he volunteered to join the Lashkar, Butt was despatched for a three-month daura, or training course, at the Dar-ul-Andlus camp, a three-hour walk across the mountains from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A former Pakistan Army soldier, Javed Iqbal, taught several dozen recruits basic combat skills, including the use of pistols, grenades, and assault rifles. Iqbal also focussed on improving the physical skills of his students through long-distance hikes and drills.
Much of the training time, however, was devoted to imbuing the Lashkar's peasant recruits with a rudimentary ideological framework for their task. "We were told that Muslims in India were being murdered on a large scale," recalls Butt, "and that they were even prohibited from performing namaaz prayers in Jammu and Kashmir." "I was not much interested in these lectures, though," he says, "the weapons training was much more fun than all the stuff about religious duties."
During the Ramzan of 2004, Butt was sent back to Mansoorabad, and given a small stipend while he waited for orders. In October this year, just after the great earthquake that devastated much of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Butt finally received instructions to report to a Lashkar launching camp near the Line of Control in the Dudhniyal sector. On October 25, after three failed infiltration attempts, Butt and a group of five other Lashkar cadre succeeded in cutting the fencing along the LoC, and making their way to a hideout in the Rajwar forests, in the mountains above the north Kashmir town of Kupwara.
If Butt had succeeded in making good his escape from Lal Chowk, and made his way back to Rajwar and then across the LoC, it is possible he would serve, as Abu Khubair did, as a recruiter for the Lashkar. "If you have fought in the jihad in Kashmir," he says, "you are a hero amongst young people in my village." He does not say what is obvious: that in Mansoorabad, and hundreds of other villages like it, there are no other ways for a young person with no money and no education to find respect and self-worth.
To sociologists who have studied recruitment into urban gangs, the phenomenon will be familiar â as will its outcome. More likely than not, Butt will spend at least two decades in Indian jails. His action at the Lal Chowk could lead to his conviction on murder charges, which carry a life term. Given the fact that he is a Pakistani national, and has no friends in India, he is unlikely to receive the quality of legal assistance that could lead to a mitigation of the sentence. Even after his release, past experience shows, Pakistan is unlikely to accept him back, unless his family in Pakistan is able to produce documentation that establishes his nationality.
Asked if he would like to send a letter to his family in Mansoorabad, Butt pauses to think, before answering slowly: "It's better that they think that I am dead."
Posted by: john ||
12/09/2005 05:42 ||
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Even after his release, past experience shows, Pakistan is unlikely to accept him back, unless his family in Pakistan is able to produce documentation that establishes his nationality.
Looks like he will rot in an Indian jail.
Hanging might be preferable.
Posted by: john ||
12/09/2005 14:53 Comments ||
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More on Ejaz Butt from UPI
India fears rise in Kashmir militancy
NEW DELHI, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Indian intelligence agencies fear a major escalation in terrorism in Kashmir in the spring.
Authorities say they have observed a large build up of Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in the mountains above the Bandipora area.
According to The Hindu newspaper, 100 militants are thought to have crossed the Line of Control after the Oct. 8 earthquake, which destroyed large parts of Kashmir, mostly the Pakistani side.
"If these assessments are correct, the renewed Lashkar-e-Toiba build-up would mark the highest level of cross-border infiltration since 2002, when a cease-fire was declared along the divide," said a senior Indian intelligence officer.
He said using mountain hideouts as bases, newly arrived cadres have carried out a series of high-profile suicide attacks in recent weeks in Srinagar and other parts of the valley.
"I, along with six other Lashkar cadres, had crossed the LoC through the Dudhnihal sector, before heading for a hideout in the Rajwar forests," said Ejaz Ahmed Butt, a Pakistani national who was arrested in connection with Nov. 28 attack at Srinagar's Lal Chowk.
Butt said his group made three abortive infiltration attempts after the quake, turning back fearing Indian army patrols on two occasions, and under orders to return from Pakistani troops on another.
"The Pakistani army said the time was not right for us to cross the LoC. They said they would communicate when we could do so to our commanders," Butt said.
A report from Kashmir said residents of the mountains above Bandipora have reported an increased terrorist presence.
Posted by: john ||
12/09/2005 15:30 Comments ||
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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.
As insurgent attacks increase in Afghanistan, observers have begun to wonder whether the anti-government forces are receiving foreign training and aid. Recent attacks by the Taliban, such as suicide and multiple bombings and kidnapping foreign workers, increasingly resemble the tactics currently employed in Iraq. While some in Afghanistan blame Pakistan for the increase in the level of hostilities, others believe the new tactics are a sign of desperation.
Investigations carried out by the Moroccan security services after the arrest of a terrorist cell that was made up of 17 members have uncovered the cell's terrorist plans. These plans included restructuring the Al-Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia following the Saudi security forces' success in finding and arresting a number of its activists. The cell also planned to have the extremist Algerian 
Kuwait has beefed up security around vital oil and other installations after the latest al Qaeda threat to attack oil facilities in Gulf Arab states, security sources told Reuters on Thursday. "A directive was issued by the Interior Ministry late on Wednesday to security officials to beef up security around oil facilities, vital installations and diplomatic missions," the sources said. In an Internet video posted on Wednesday, al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged militants to strike oil targets in Muslim countries. The comments were said by Arabic television station Al Jazeera to be previously unaired parts of an interview it broadcast in September.
The suicide squad of the banned extremist outfit 
STOCKHOLM: A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported on Thursday, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
A faction of Naga separatist rebels in north-east India say five of their bases in Burma's Sagaing division have come under attack. 
Iraqi citizens turned over a high-ranking Al Qaeda member known as "the Butcher" to U.S. forces in Ramadi Friday a military statement said.
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed 
