This is kinda off my beat, but Hawspipe notes that
NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST Winona LaDuke, the Green Party's vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader in the 2000 general election, is leading a green political movement demanding a ban on research into the genes of wild rice on the ground that using the plant for genetic research is akin to taking sacred land:
[The rice is] one of our most sacred ceremonial foods.
He then goes on to cite several people who took time out of busy and productive days to explain why the person is wrong. Now, I'm all for civil, well-reasoned discourse; that's our stock in trade in the Merrie Olde Lande of Blog. But when someone has obviously been dropped on his/her/its head from a fairly great height, the ideal reponse is a suggestion along the lines of "Oh, shut the hell up." Dignifying such drool with a civil answer should be way too much effort for the rest of us.
We now return to our regularly scheduled ranting.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:12 pm ||
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Joshua Trevino (scroll down to 20 MAY 2002 1) agrees it's coming, too. And that it's a damned dumb idea. This isn't a case of great minds thinking alike. There's no rocket science or brain surgery involved. It's a case of noticing the nose in the middle of the face. So why are the Paks too dumb to notice it? At least the Indos are trying to come up with an alternative, even though it's nearly as dumb an idea as gettin' the boys together for a human wave assault. My guess is that the Paks are counting on an outside party to step in and stop the whole thing before it goes to far. That boils down to the U.S. and/or China. The Russians have already expressed the opinion that the Indos have a perfect right to tromp the Paks.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 06:37 pm ||
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It takes but one madman to start such a war, but I don't think that either Vajpayee or Musharraf is crazy enough to go nuclear.
It's one thing to plan for such a war, it's another to actually pull the trigger. The Cold War went a half-century without going nuclear, and I don't think we'll see it with the current administrations on the subcontinent.
I'm giving no guarantees on future administrations, though.
Posted by: Mark Byron ||
05/21/2002 19:16 Comments ||
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Wish I had your confidence. The jihadis want this war, and they're not going to stop until they get it. Once it starts, they're going to push for the Big Boom against the infidels.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2002 20:47 Comments ||
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For a country like Israel or Pakistan, the sovereignity of the country is totally dependent on its military forces remaining in existence. This is quite unlike the US, Russian, or Chinese cases where the nations are essentially continental powers whose national existences are largely predicated upon geopolitical realities, not military circumstance. The use of WMD by these two sets of countries is therefore predicated by completely different motives. The old line nuclear club members have nuclear employment strategies which essentially assume that their countries are going to remain in existence in some form or another after any military conflict, and that WMD are just another way of influencing that outcome favorably for themselves. The newer nations to the nuclear club, with the exception of India, cannot make this assumption of national longevity. Israel if defeated by its neighbors, would disappear. Pakistan would either be dismembered by India or assimilated into a greater subcontinental federation. Therefore, the use of nuclear weapons by the IDF or Pak military would happen for completely different reasons than the PRC or US would use nuclear weapons. Given the possibility of decisive military defeat, either Israel or Pakistan would probably choose to strategically respond with WMD, as opposed to the US, PRC, or Russia chosing to tactically respond.
So to call the nuclear option for Pakistan dumb in relation to what the US other nuclear club members have or haven't done in the past 50 years is quite besides the point. The difference in contexts and the paucity of alternative options for Pakistan, given Indian conventional preponderance, makes the nuclear option quite probable without outside intervention diplomatically or militarily. In addition, given the untested quality of Pakistan's nuclear release system, the Pakistani military may well feel that a use it or lose it preemptive strike after an Indian attack may be logical.
Posted by: Tom Roberts ||
05/22/2002 6:17 Comments ||
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As many as 100 U.S. Special Forces troops raided a compound in eastern Afghanistan in a search for attackers who killed an American soldier in an ambush. No shots were fired in the raid near the village of Shkin, but "intelligence items" were seized, Maj. Bryan Hilferty said at the main allied air base at Bagram. Sgt. Gene Arden Vance Jr., 38, of Morgantown, W.Va., was killed Sunday when a coalition patrol was ambushed in Shkin by 50 unidentified attackers, Hilferty said. His body was flown Monday to a U.S. military base in Germany. There's the difference between them and us: Our guys raided the village, but no shots were fired, even though our guy was killed from ambush. If we were Islamists, we'd have shot the place up and probably beheaded a few people. Maybe all of them.
"We just had intelligence on where we think that the people who ambushed our soldiers the other night were so we conducted a raid in that location," Hilferty said. "We tracked them to this particular place, but they weren't there when we got there." Come back in a week, without telling Mahmud's second cousin first, and you can pick them up while they're busy beating their wives.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:58 am ||
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Three Chechen militants have pleaded innocent of terror acts against a Russian anti-terrorist group in Chechnya, saying field commanders forced them to perpetrate them. The Stavropol territorial court was shown video taped subversive actions, including the efforts to blow up a bridge across the Sunzha river and a railroad. Idris Batalov, Arbi Tashayev and Aslan Shepiyev were involved in the above actions. "Honest, y'honor! They made us do it!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:21 am ||
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An attempt on the life of the prosecutor of Khasavyurt was reported from Dagestan. On Tuesday, an unidentified explosive device with the force of 100 g of trotyl exploded by the gate of the prosecutor's house in Makhachkala, said the republic's interior ministry. No one was hurt. Law enforcers have launched an investigation. Still working on their Islamic Emirate...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:21 am ||
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Six portable anti-aircraft missile complexes have been confiscated in Chechnya. According to the regional operational HQ of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, the weapons were found in a cache in one of Chechnya's districts. HQ officers refused to indicate the cache's location, stressing that the search for those involved in its implanting was being conducted. All details of the operation are so far kept in secret. The HQ officers also said that a 82-mm calibre mortar, 688 rounds for underbarrel grenade launcher, and 56 rockets were found in the cache. "Uh... Those? Well, ummm... We were gonna go hunting elk, see...?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 12:09 pm ||
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A leader of a Muslim separatist group in Kashmir was shot to death along with his bodyguard during a memorial rally on Tuesday. The killing occurred as India's prime minister was headed to the Himalayan province at a time of rising tensions with Pakistan. The Bad Guys are doing their best to cause Kashmir to explode, with war between India and Pakistan. When it's over, they expect to pick up the pieces...
Abdul Ghani Lone, who in April had been attacked in a hospital by a Hindu nationalist, was shot dead in a cemetery at a memorial gathering commemorating the 12th anniversary of the assassination of a Kashmiri independence leader. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A symbolic, even a sentimental gesture. The Bad Guys expect to be able to bump off somebody else, just as important, a dozen years from now, too.
Lone was one of the leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, a group of political and religious parties that advocate Muslim-majority Kashmir's separation from predominantly Hindu India. In December, he asked militants in the troubled state to give a positive response to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's declaration of a unilateral cease-fire. And a week later somebody tried to bump him off...
On Tuesday, he was sitting on a platform in front of a crowd of 5,000 people, when three masked men approached and he was shot. One of the men rolled a grenade into the crowd, but it did not explode. Lone and two bodyguards were rushed to a hospital. Lone and one of the guards died. The other guard was being treated for injuries. Poor Lone probably guessed he would someday end up like this as a member of Kashmir's extremely narrow middle. On the one side he had the vicious killers of the jehadi groups, on the other the Hindu brownshirts of Shiv Sena. Chances are even as to which side did him in, though the masks and the grenade rolled into the crowd suggests it was the jehadis.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:31 pm ||
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Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Abdul Kader Jaffer, said Tuesday that India and Pakistan are "very close" to war. "They are very close," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "And therefore it is necessary for all our friends to get together, bring sanity where there is total insanity." The United States, Britain and the European Union have urged both countries to exercise restraint and recommended talks, which Pakistan favors. It seems like it's totally insane to conduct daily military operations against a neighboring state for year after year while piously denying "official" involvement. Eventually people will get tired of it and hit you.
India has refused talks until militants based in Pakistan stop crossing the border to stage attacks. India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and financing the Islamic guerrillas fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan. Islamabad says it has no control over the militants and denies assisting them, though it supports their aim of separating the only Muslim-majority state from predominantly Hindu India. If Pak doesn't exercise control over them they'll destroy the entire nation. War will be devastating to both sides, but it will end with the dissolution of Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:22 am ||
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#1
On this comment and yesterday's "after the monsoon season comes war" comment, I just remembered that the British and Germans fought a 3 year campaign without regards to weather in the North African Western Desert using equipment and command structures not remarkably different from those armies in WW II. I don't think that the weather will be a decisive factor in the movement to war. What will be decisive, as in WW I, will be internal politics. Neither Vajpayee nor Musharraf have political standing which will submit to a protracted Sitzkrieg. The Gujarat communal violence and the inability of Musharraf to control the jihadis is indicative of this. If weather is even important, then the battle will be in Kashmir. But tactical infiltration (as opposed to guerilla warfare) in this land of mountains and valleys will be nearly impossible with nearly 1.5 million troops positioned on both sides of the LOC.
Posted by: Tom Roberts ||
05/22/2002 6:34 Comments ||
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Hizbul Mujaheedin vowed on Tuesday to continue fighting in Kashmir despite New Delhi's "war-mongering" towards Pakistan. "A war will be disastrous for India, because in that case she will have to confront Pakistani soldiers in addition to the people and the mujaheedin in Kashmir," said Syed Salahuddin, commander of Hizbul Mujahedin. "First of all Indian forces will have to confront the mujaheedin, who wield control on important points in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and are in a position to defeat them there." The muj are in Kashmir, while Salahuddin's sitting in an air-conditioned office, preparing press releases and position papers. Guess who doesn't expect to stop a bullet?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:29 pm ||
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Terrorists beheaded two National Conference activists after abducting them from their houses at village Khaipora early on Tuesday, police said. The bodies of Abdul Jabbar Bhat and Abdul Khaliq Bhat were recovered from the Batapora forest in Handwara area of Kupwara, they said. A massive hunt has been launched to nab the terrorists involved in the killing. Nobody wants to see war between India and Pakistan. But nobody wants this to go on forever, either. Short of Perv asserting some sort of control over these guys, I don't see any solution but war. And if he has control over them, then war is a desirable thing.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:27 pm ||
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At least ten suspects have been arrested by the Jacobabad police, for their alleged involved in firing a rocket near Jacobabad air base where US personnel are stationed. Investigations were underway to find a clue to the "terrorists" who fired a rocket in an area close to the highly sensitive military and civilian installations in Jacobabad on Sunday. Why the quotes around "terrorist"? What other kind of people fire rockets at airbases?
The rocket exploded at Qadri Darbar, an area within 5-6kms from Jacobabad Airport and about 10kms from Shahbaz Airbase where PAF and US military personnel are stationed with aircraft and other military hardware. The ensuing search operation resulted in a haul of five SPG-9 mortar shells. Maybe that's why they called them "terrorists" instead of terrorists. They barely managed to get the rounds to land in the right county.
Meanwhile, security has been beefed up around the sensitive installations and people and vehicles passing through the area are being thoroughly searched by the law enforcing agencies. What an original idea!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:37 am ||
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The People's Party has ruled out electoral alliance with the Jamaat-i-Islami. Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Punjab PPP president Qasim Zia said he did not think that any alliance with the Jamaat was possible. He said he had met Qazi Husain Ahmad during the all-parties conference in a routine and nothing was discussed with him except referendum. Qazi's party is so arrogant, and its policies stink so loud, even the Crooks' Party can't bring itself to ally with him.
Asked if the party would support the army at a time when the situation on borders was tense, he said the PPP, despite its differences with the government, would be with the armed forces whenever there was a testing time for the country. "Yeah. We'll be right behind you, buddy. Want me to hold your wallet while you're busy?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:25 pm ||
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Hizbul Mujahideen vowed on Monday to continue its jihad against India and claimed responsibility for renewed attacks against Indian troops over the past week. Police say that most of the attacks in the region last week were carried out by Hizbul Mujahideen. "Hizbul Mujahideen has taken a vow to take the ongoing freedom struggle in Kashmir to its logical conclusion come what may," its chief spokesman Salim Hashmi said by telephone from Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The "logical conclusion" is to provoke full-scale conventional (and nuclear, if they can swing it) war between the two powers. That way they can pick up the pieces and have their Islamic Emirate.
Hashmi said Hizbul had launched fresh attacks against Indian troops under operation Azme-jihad (Determination for holy war) since May 14, the day three gunmen attacked a passenger bus and an army cantonment near Jammu killing 35 people, mostly women and children. A previously unknown group, Al Mansoorain, claimed responsibility for that raid. We can probably guess this was Hizbul wearing a false moustache and glasses...
Hashmi said Hizbul had triggered more than a dozen landmines in Kashmir since May 14, resulting in number of security casualties. "Despite the war hysteria created by India, we will continue to attack their troops in Kashmir," Hizbul's chief commander, Saif-ul-Islam, said in a statement in Srinagar. How's India creating the war hysteria when you're the ones blowing the mines? That doesn't make any sense.
He congratulated Hizbul members for their "dare devil" actions. Yep. That's the fun part: Waving your gun and screaming and rolling your eyes and doing dare-devil things. Forming a disciplined force with a sense of tactics applied to achieve an overall strategy is boring. Sometimes you really have to wonder where they get these guys.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:57 am ||
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Three villagers were killed and seven wounded as the two armies traded mortar and small-arms fire in Rajouri, a Kashmir district on the international border, army spokesman Maj. Animesh Trivedi said. Elsewhere, four soldiers were wounded when suspected guerrillas ambushed their vehicle in Doda district. Civilians count for nothing, of course. What's important is wearing a turban and waving a gun and having shootouts.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:20 pm ||
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The Army is being moved out of riot-affected cities in Gujarat and back to the western state's border with Pakistan, a defence ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. "It (the move) has no link with the present situation," said PK Bandopadhya, referring to rising tensions between India and Pakistan. Uh huh. Of course not...
"They are going back to the operational areas because they are no longer required for deployment in the cities." The Army had been called in to stem rioting in Ahmedabad, the commercial hub of Gujarat, and other major cities of the state where nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, have died in communal violence since February. Either Gill works very fast, or they're lying not being completely candid.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 12:13 pm ||
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An autopsy report shows the body believed to be that of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was a white man whose neck had been slit and left hand tied with green rope. Doctors submitted the report to police as forensic experts took tissue samples from the body for DNA testing to establish the identity of the dismembered remains. "It is suspected that the body is of (Pearl) but nothing could be said with authority until proven through DNA," said Pakistani Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider. "The DNA process has already been started but it will take some time." I'd suspect that it's him. In fact, I'll be surprised if it isn't.
The remains were found Friday in a shallow grave in this southern port city. The remains were found in 10 pieces, including a severed head, near a blood-splattered shack where authorities believe Pearl was held by his captors. It's very Islamic to enjoy butchering people. It's in the Koran somewhere; you could look it up. It's only twelve virgins or so, though. I heard on FoxNews the other evening that the shack was owned by al-Rashid Trust.
The source close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the body was that of a white man, about 5 feet 8 inches or 5 feet 9 inches tall. A jacket that had been buried with the body was described as tri-colored - dark pink, dark black, dark green - apparently resembling a track suit that Pearl wore in photos taken by his captors, the source said. Testing of the samples will take place at two labs in Lahore, and no samples will be sent abroad until all tests are completed here, Haider said after meeting with Karachi Police Chief Kamal Shah, who said Sunday that testing could take up to a week. Investigators will call in FBI assistance if needed. Don't imagine this'll have much effect on Omar Sheikh's trial, which is already circus enough. But it will do away with the argument that "you can't convict for murder without a body."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:18 pm ||
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Indian troops have been given the green light for "limited punitive" action against targets inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, a leading defence analyst said on Tuesday. So they're going to try for an IDF-style incursion? That should be pretty interesting. National armies usually resist such things.
"All indications are that the armed forces have been given the go-ahead for limited punitive action against terrorist bases in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)," said Sridhar, senior defence expert who recently retired from the Insitute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA). "A limited military action looks inevitable but it has also been made clear to the forces that this is not a war against the Pakistan army but against terrorists in PoK." So what are you gonna do when the Pak army doesn't get the word and they come rolling up with guns blazing?
Diplomats, however, believe India's leaders are still in a political rather than a military mindset and that much of the Indian war-mongering of the past week or so is aimed at pressuring Washington to put the squeeze on Pakistan to clamp down on religious militancy in Kashmir. That's worked well so far, hasn't it?
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, meanwhile, called on the rival powers to "exercise maximum restraint to avert a further escalation of tensions." Well, hell, everybody listens when Kofi speaks...
Sridhar said while the Indian forces would "strike at a time and place of their choice," some targets had already been identified. "The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) have built huge 300-400 bed dormitories in and around Muzaffarabad in PoK," he said. "If some of these structures are destroyed, the message would be conveyed." Oh, Christ. They're "sending messages." They might as well stay home. "Sending messages" results in a bunch of perfectly good soldiers getting killed and things snapping back to just the way they were before the "message" got "sent." The message is always the same: "We're gonna blow up some buildings and nothin' else."
The analyst said Pakistan was unlikely to retaliate and will only end up "increasing the intensity of shelling on the borders, abuse India and make noises at international fora." Why would they be unlikely to retaliate against an attack on what they consider their territory? Are you nuts?
Over the past few days, the government has taken a series of steps normally reserved for conflict scenarios. These include bringing the paramilitary forces in Kashmir under direct control of the army and similarly giving the navy the full command of the coast guards and mechant navy. "This meets a key requirement of war-preparedness and this is a clear signal to Pakistan and the rest of the world that India means business," defence analyst Brahma Chellaney told the Hindustan Times. Not if all you're gonna do is "send a message."
Earlier at a function, Advani said the Government would have to change its current policy of combatting militancy in Kashmir. "The Government is of firm belief that the way we are retaliating will have to be changed," he said. Well, don't change it to "limited war." Of all the damned dumb ideas... If they're actually going to change tactics and avoid all-out war, which is a good idea, they'd better start recruiting a lot of guys who don't mind wearing turbans and blowing up buildings full of jihadis' relatives in Muzaffarabad. Every once in awhile they'll have to cut somebody's head off and leave it where it someplace public. In other words, the only way to fight the kind of war of attrition that's being waged against India is with a counter war of attrition. Every time there's a suicide attack on an Indian base, there has to be one on a Pak base, and maybe two attacks. Every time houses are burned down in Indian J&K, houses have to be burned down in AJK. Seems like in a country the size of India they should be able to recruit enough cannon fodder to swamp the Paks and drive them out of AJK.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:14 pm ||
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President Gen Pervez Musharaff is incapable of handling the present crisis on the borders and he must quit to pave the way for an interim setup, so that it tackles the situation effectively. This was stated by JI provincial leader Sirajul Haq while addressing a press conference on Sunday. "Of course, he is shaky and confused after fake referendum and his stay could harm the very existence of the country," he said. However, he warned India to stay ready for a matching response if its forces dared to impose war on Pakistan, adding that irrespective of political differences his party would stand united with all the patriotic forces in the country to answer any aggression. "As long as we can shoot at somebody, we'll go along..."
Flanked by JI local leaders, Sirajul Haq said that in view of the tense situation on the borders, the country needed a civilian government as the military has only one duty - to defend the frontiers. Asked whether the JI's demand for installation of an interim setup held any justification when the India-Pakistan forces stood eyeball to eyeball, he replied in an emphatic 'yes'. He said because of pursuing pro-US policies, the country now faced internal and external threats, and nobody other than a civilian government could steer the country out of the present quagmire. As long as that civilian government is headed by pious men, with turbans...
He also lashed out at the government for allowing the US forces to launch operation in certain Pakistani areas along the Durand Line. He said due to the continuing operation in the Fata, the US forces had made the people of almost entire area hostage as over 25 barriers had been erected to subject them to humiliating body search. I think it was the rubber gloves that set them off...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 08:56 am ||
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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday ordered the dismissal of Cabinet ministers from the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, setting off a political crisis that could threaten the survival of his broad-based coalition. Sharon also fired deputy ministers from another ultra-Orthodox Jewish party, United Torah Judaism, in effect expelling the two parties from his government. The decision came after the two parties failed to support the government on an emergency economic plan presented in parliament. However, the dismissals would not take effect immediately, leaving time for last-minute wheeling and dealing. From a political point of view, it makes some sense. The ultra-Orthodox parties are a drag on the coalition and they give it a bad smell â Jewish fundamentalists opposed to Islamic fundamentalists. Sharon's numbers are up, so what better time for an election that will probably strengthen his party and allow him to act a little more freely?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:38 pm ||
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The Barak-Sharon election campaign was a weird one for Israel. There was not a simultaneous Knesset election, so the current Knesset is a little long in the tooth considering what has changed since it got seated. Lucky for Likud, events have proven politically unkind to the Labour Party. Unlucky for Sharon, Bibi may try to become PM again.
Posted by: Tom Roberts ||
05/22/2002 6:41 Comments ||
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Yasser Arafat's popularity has slipped as dissatisfaction with his corruption-ridden regime grows, but no other Palestinian can muster enough support to pose a serious challenge to the Palestinian leader, according an opinion poll published Tuesday. Hmmm... That's about what we guessed. Got any firm numbers to back it up?
The survey also indicated that there is overwhelming support among Palestinians for reforms - including firing corrupt Cabinet ministers, streamlining rival security services into one force and holding elections within the coming months. Yup. No suprise there, either. Now, about those numbers...
The survey was conducted May 15-18 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an independent think tank, with 1,317 adults interviewed face-to-face. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. According to the poll, Arafat has the support of 35 percent of Palestinians, compared to 46 percent in July 2000, before the outbreak of fighting with Israel, and 36 percent in December 2001. That's lower then we even expected. In fact, the July 2001 numbers are lower than we expected.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 05:36 pm ||
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The murder on January 24 of former Christian warlord Elie Hobeika already sparked fears of renewed inter-confessional strife and revived the nightmare of the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, where religious and political tensions still run high. Hobeika, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia and a former minister who switched his allegiance to Syria towards the end of the war, was killed together with his three bodyguards in a car bomb in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut. The Lebanese government, the Syrian press, officials from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah and Hobeika's allies all accused Israel of assassinating the former warlord to prevent him from revealing his "secrets" on the role of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon's capital. The Jewish state denied the allegations, pointing out that Hobeika was hated in Lebanon by Muslims and Christians alike, and the assassination has yet to be solved. Damn them Jews. Nobody in Lebanon would do such a thing...
The case presents many similarities with the assassination early Monday in mainly Muslim west Beirut of Jihad Jibril, the son and heir apparent of the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), Ahmad Jibril. The Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, was immediately accused of eliminating Jibril, whose movement has been fiercely opposed to the Jewish state for more than three decades. Israel again denied the allegations. Musta been them daggone Jews that done him in, too, even though somebody else has taken credit for it.
A few hours later, the decomposed body of Ramzi Irani was discovered in the trunk of his car after the Lebanese Forces activist who worked for the French oil giant TotalFinaElf went missing for almost two weeks. Lebanese authorities denied any implication in his disappearance, but the press expressed surprise that the anti-Syrian militant could have been abducted without the knowledge of Lebanese or Syrian intelligence. Interesting... No idea whodunnit, huh?
On January 1, former MP Jean Ghanem, who was close to Hobeika, died in a car crash which at the time was put down to a heart attack. But Hobeika saw the circumstances as suspicious, according to L'Orient Le Jour newspaper. Uhuh. The old unexpected heart attack trick. A big shot of insulin administered someplace inconspicuous... Uh, never mind. Never heard of it.
As-Safir, a daily close to Syria, the main power-broker in Lebanon, warned after Hobeika's assassination that a return to car-bombs and assassinations in Beirut would prove that "dormant cells are ready to carry out Israel's intentions" in the country. Also the intentions of whomever's blowing up people in their cars and administering heart attacks to pols...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 12:36 pm ||
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Three militants were killed and several injured in a factional fight between underground groups at Doltang bordering Assam on Sunday last, official sources said on Tuesday. The underground Manipur People's Liberation Front (MPLF) insurgents and militants belonging to a joint group of NSCN (I-M), Zou Revolutionary Army and People's Union of Liberation Front (PULF) were locked in a gunbattle at Doltang, about 240 kilometres from Imphal. The exchange of fire between the two warring groups took place in the thick jungles and lasted for the entire day, the sources said. It took 'em all day to bump off three snuffies?
The bodies of those killed were carried to the thick jungles by the militants. A spokesman of the MPLF, told PTI here that they suffered no casualties. Well, none in the office where he works, anyway...
The MPLF comprises three underground groups - United National Liberation Front, People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak and People's Liberation Army. Thank you for that detailed examination of some of the lice on India's body politic.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:27 am ||
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Four members of a family, including two children, were shot dead and five houses gutted by armed assailants in Assam's Karbi Anglong district. A group of assailants entered Rongpibasti village under Kheroni police station of the district late on Monday night and opened indiscrimintate firing on the member of a particular family killing its four members on-the-spot. The miscreants then went on a rampage setting fire to houses which were completely gutted. A woman received serious burn injuries in the fire. A combing operation has been launched to nab the culprits who managed to escape under the cover of darkness. Well, they had revenge for whatever the hell it was. That's the important thing.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 11:33 am ||
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Leaders of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terror network, met in a summit with leaders of two Middle Eastern militant groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as a number of other groups linked to terrorism for the first time in late March, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS. At the Lebanon meeting, the three groups discussed tactics and the possibility of an unprecedented level of joint activity, U.S. officials said, including a possible new round of attacks against America, Great Britain, and other targets. Not surprising to see them combining resources on at least some levels. Both al-Qaeda and Hamas have taken some serious hits, and Hezbollah seems to want to get back into the terrorism business.
The March secret summit marks the first time bin Laden's group put aside rivalries to work with others terrorist organizations, officials said. Oh, it does not. There were larger meetings than this in February and April of last year, one in Beirut and one in Teheran.
"It suggests a new departure which is very startling and dangerous because they have not worked together before," said Vince Cannistraro, an ABCNEWS expert and former CIA counterterrorism chief. Maybe he should watch FoxNews. Or read Rantburg regularly.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2002 01:23 pm ||
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Are you sure that Cannistraro wasn't doing the ABC bridge column last week before he got moved to the current events "expert" slot?
Posted by: Tom Roberts ||
05/22/2002 6:43 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.
