Two small bombs attached to Pakistani gasoline tanker trucks that supply U.S. troops exploded early Sunday, causing slight damage but no injuries, police said. Local government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they suspect that al-Qaida or Taliban supporters may have been responsible for the blast at the gas station near the U.S. base at Kandahar airport. They said the attackers may have planned to detonate the bombs as the trucks entered the heavily defended air base, about 6 miles from the gas station. They've recently hit on the idea of the little boom that makes a big boom...
Gas station owner Haji Akhter Mohammad said that someone had fired a rocket at the fuel trucks and gas station a week ago, but the missile missed and blew up in the desert. But it looks like the guys who actually know how to use explosives must have left town, probably back in December...
The owners of the Arianna gas station speculated opposing business interests could have been responsible for the blasts. There is that possibility. This is Afghanistan, after all. Did they fire the rockets, too?
The Pakistani drivers of seven tanker trucks parked at the gas station were taken into custody for questioning at the base and released at noon. The truckers, who had driven across the border from the Pakistani city of Quetta, were carrying fuel from the Pakistani State Oil Company. "It was a loud noise, I couldn't hear for five or 10 minutes. I'm glad the fuel did not explode," said driver Bali Ustad, 26. I'll bet you are!
He said the drivers were sleeping in their trucks when the first explosion occurred around 1:30 a.m. The second went off 15 minutes later. The truckers said they were angry that U.S. military officials had bound, hooded and detained them for questioning. "All night they questioned us. We were sleeping inside the truck. In the night someone came and put the bomb," Ustad said. "If we put the bomb, why should we take the risk when we are sleeping inside?" Ummm... Lemme think...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:09 am ||
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President George W. Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to prepare the way to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to capture the Iraqi president, The Washington Post reported Sunday. The order suggests that the administration has begun to put money and resources into a policy that has publicly consisted mostly of tough rhetoric.
The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Saddam, directs the CIA to use all available tools, including increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and expanded intelligence collection efforts, and possible use of advance teams in Iraq. The order authorizes any CIA in-country team to defend itself with the use of lethal force if necessary. Tens of millions of dollars have been allocated to the covert program. CIA Director George Tenet has told Bush that the CIA effort alone, without the deployment of troops and the use of economic and diplomatic pressure, probably has only about a 10 percent to 20 percent chance of succeeding. The CIA's covert program should be viewed largely as preparatory to a military strike, devoted to the identification of targets and building relationships with alternative future leaders within the country. Sources said the CIA initiative is part of a broader Bush administration plan to remove Saddam that includes economic pressure, diplomacy and what officials believe will eventually include military action on a large scale. Thay shows good sense. Rather than rushing in with guns blazing to take on the Republican Guard toe-to-toe as we fight it out with the Former Fourth Largest Army in the World, we soften them up in advance. If possible, we dump Sammy and his Tikriti thugs without expending a large number of resources. There are all sorts of intricacies that have to be attended to, chief among them being dismantling the Ba'ath Party structure and identifying who gets shot, who gets jugged, and who's a good guy in disguise.
I think they'll eventually do Sammy in, and I'm glad they're taking the time to do it right. I just hope they're not losing track of the al-Qaeda problem, which actually encompasses more than just al-Qaeda. Sammy's more in the tradition of Mussolini than bin Laden.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:30 am ||
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Traveling Shoes has an interesting piece on the balance of power within Iran and the pressures pushing her toward rapprochment the U.S.
If the Iranian moderates can tame what little revolutionary fervor remains, and relations between us can be normalized, I think we'd quickly see Iran resume the position of ally. The Shi'ite majority of Iran (especially one that is disillusioned with the entire program of strict relgious rule) provides the natural counterweight to the worst excesses of Sunni fundamentalism, just as Iran's geographic position and petroleum wealth provide a counterweight to Iraq, and to a host of other unstable or unreliable Arab and Central Asian regimes.
This sounds right to me, though I admit I'm no expert on current Persian internal politics. I think it would be to our national advantage to push the differences between the Persian and Arabic cultures and with them the rivalries between the two camps pretending to preeminence in the Muslim world.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:00 pm ||
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Adham A. Hassoun, 40, was arrested Wednesday and was being held at Krome Detention Center, INS spokesman Rodney Germain said. State records show Hassoun was listed as the Florida registered agent of Chicago-based Benevolence International Foundation, which in April was charged in federal court in Chicago with funding al-Qaida. The foundation describes itself as an international charity organization benefiting refugees and children. It benefits them by paying jihadis and that... that... well, that does something for refugees and children...
Hassoun's arrest came the same week the Justice Department announced the May 8 arrest in Chicago of Jose Padilla, also known as Abdullah al Muhajir, an American accused of conspiring to explode a radiological device in the United States. The Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Saturday that Padilla and Hassoun were acquaintances and attended the same Fort Lauderdale mosque, Al-Iman. Harf-harf-harf! Hey, Dr Frank! Didja catch that one? We should start a psychic hotline and make some real money!
A message left at the mosque was not immediately returned Saturday, and no one answered the door at Hassoun's home in Sunrise. A woman across the street who said she was Hassoun's sister said she was told her brother was arrested on an overdue student visa. "He has done nothing," she said. The woman would not give her name. "He's a good boy. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Kind of a loner. Keeps to himself..."
In November, Hassoun told The Herald that he briefly served as North American distributor for the Call of Islam magazine published by the Islamic Youth Movement, which advocates jihad and trains youngsters in guerrilla warfare. The magazine has featured exclusive interviews with Osama bin Laden. Kinda like The Watchtower, only with guns and high explosive...
Hassoun told The Herald he had no active role in the organization and that the FBI had interviewed him several times after agents spotted his name on the Islamic Youth Movement Web site. "They know I'm clean," he said. "Y'got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!"
The former imam at the mosque, Raed Awad, was the chief Florida fund-raiser for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which the government shut down in December, charging that the group funded the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The organization denies the charges. Awad left Al-Iman about two years ago and is now living in Alabama. His home number rang unanswered Saturday. He's too busy shredding stuff to answer.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:09 am ||
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#1
On the "Call of Islam" page, see "Concepts" section, and scroll to "The Importance of Friday Khutbah in the Islamic Media". It was khutbah incitement - mostly by Sheik al-Ghazaly -that almost led to the enslavement of Algeria, by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). Khutbah-Islamism is probably being practiced at a school financed by your tax dollars. The Muslim Students Association, a puppet wing of Qazi Hussein Ahmad's Jamaat-i-Islami (Pakistan), instructs operatives to plead school authorities to allow space and time, for "eid" prayer. Once they succeed, public space is often used as rallying points for jihadis. In a recent incident at San Francisco State, MSA members chanted "Death to the Jews" at a Palestinian extremist rally.
A Canadian Christian and taxpayer, Mark Harding, challenged subsidized Islamism, and was sentenced to one year in prison, under Canada's notorious "hate" laws (see www.ontariocourts.on.ca./decisions/2001/december/hardingC35767.htm). Under pressure of the Islam- lobby, government prosecutors refused to stay proceedings, even though Harding suffered five heart attacks during trial. The Christian was also threatened in court, and had to wade through a crowd of angry Muslims, everyday.
The United States has handed over to Egypt an Egyptian man convicted of participation in the 1981 assassination of late president Anwar Sadat, the U.S. embassy said Sunday. "Nabil Soliman, the man convicted in absentia by an Egyptian court of participation in the assassination of former president Anwar Sadat, was removed from the United States to Egypt on June 12, 2002," said a statement made by U.S. embassy. "Soliman was taken into custody by Egyptian authorities upon arrival at Cairo Airport."
Soliman "had been in the United States since 1992" and his extradition "follows the conclusion of appropriate legal proceedings concerning Mr. Soliman, who was removed for being in the United States illegally," the statement said. Egyptian security officials told Agence-France Presse (AFP) Soliman was a member of the Islamic Jihad group and was sentenced in absentia in 1982 to five years in jail for participation in the killing of Sadat. Good riddance to that one...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 10:45 am ||
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Corsair points to this on the Lou Dobbs tempest...
A poll conducted last night gave viewers the chance to select the name they preferred: 24 percent chose "war on terror"; 74 percent favored "war on Islamists."
"We are fighting a war against extreme, radical Muslims, who are trying to destroy us, our society, our economy, our way of life. They're called Islamists not Muslims or Islamics, Islamists. They are the enemy," Mr. Dobbs said on his show Wednesday night. Not surprisingly, Muslim groups [especially Islamist Muslim groups!]were not pleased by his comments. But an aide to Mr. Dobbs said his statements generated more than a thousand calls from viewers, most of them favorable. Ibrahim Hooper, a Muslim and spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said yesterday that Mr. Dobbs "has taken the definition of Islamist from bigots and is trying to apply it to the war on terror... The bigots of the world say if you are an Islamist, you want to kill all who are non-Islamist. They define almost every Muslim activist as an Islamist." Hooper's the guy who wears the 32C brassiere cup on his head.
It doesn't take a bigot to make that observation. All y'gotta do is read the papers. If you read the Arab papers, you come to that conclusion quicker than if you read the Merkin papers, or even if you watch Lou Dobbs.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 12:46 pm ||
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Islamic militants hurled grenades and opened fire on police, sleeping villagers and Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir, killing 12 people in the first such assaults in three weeks, Indian officials said Sunday. The attacks, which began Saturday afternoon, came as tensions along the border in Kashmir that divides India and Pakistan had appeared to ease. They're determined not to let peace happen. They'll turn themselves inside out to bring the two countires to war...
On Sunday morning, a plainclothes police officer was killed in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, in an ambush. On Saturday night, militants stormed the remote mountainous village of Badar, killing five Hindus as they slept in their homes, police said. Badar is about 93 miles north of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state. Three children aged between 8 and 14 years were also reported wounded. Normal ethnic cleansing. So there were a few dead kiddies, what the hell? They were only Heathen Hindoos, or Sikhs or something. They don't feel pain like Muslims do...
Also Saturday, suspected Islamic guerrillas lobbed grenades and fired at about 500 Hindu pilgrims trudging down a mountaintop shrine elsewhere in Jammu-Kashmir, killing three Hindu children and three of their Muslim escorts. Seven pilgrims were wounded. Just heathens. Good Muslims kill them like flies. And since they were pilgrims, they weren't armed. That made it even better...
Government offices in Islamabad were closed Sunday, but Pakistani officials have said they have halted cross-border incursions and that they cannot be held responsible for every attack that happens in Indian territory. That's Urdu for "Tough nails. Bother me with something important."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:09 am ||
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While a group calling itself Al Qanoon is stated to have claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide bombing outside the US consulate-general in Karachi, a newspaper said on Saturday the attack could be the work of a new coalition of militant groups. We guessed that. Any details?
In a report from Islamabad, The New York Times quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying there was near unanimity of opinion among intelligence officials that the attack was carried out by a loose coalition of extremist jihadis, with possible links to Al Qaeda. The new coalition is said to be called Lashkar-i-Omar, after Omar Saeed Shaikh, the former leader of Jaish-i-Mohammad accused of masterminding the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The grouping is said to have been formed by the survivors of three militant groups banned by Gen Pervez Musharraf - Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Jaish-i-Mohammad, and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. These three groups, as well as stragglers from other militant organizations, have reached an "operational agreement" to pool their resources and launch joint attacks. Al Qaeda fighters fleeing from Afghanistan are believed to have mixed with home-grown Pakistani militants fighting Indian occupation in Kashmir. That's about like we guessed it's shaped up...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 06:55 pm ||
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Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad has denied the existence of Al-Qaeda organisation, saying that the United States has created a fictitious story to ensure the presence of US forces in the region. Nope. Just a figment of our overheated Merkin imaginations...
He flayed the statement of the US defence secretary for having claimed that Al-Qaeda fighters were operating in Azad [Pakistani] Jammu and Kashmir. 'Nother figment...
The JI chief, in a statement issued Saturday, said that on the pretext of fighting terrorism, the Americans were planning for permanent stay in South Asia. US presence in the region was posing a threat to Pakistan's nuclear programme, he added. And we keep wanting to root through his underwear drawer, too. I think those Islamic Nukes are some sort of a fetish with them...
JI chief, condemning the government external policies, alleged that President Gen Musharraf had surrendered himself to the US pressure and the army chief was also giving statements against Jihad (the holy war). He pledged support to the Kashmiris and freedom fighters, and said the nation would also continue its support to the people of the Valley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gawd forbid we should make any statements against senseless violence and bloodthirsty war-mongering.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 07:08 pm ||
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Israel was to start work Sunday on a fence designed to keep Paleostinian attackers from crossing into Israel from the West Bank. Right-wing Israeli politicians fear that what is being billed as a temporary "security fence" will evolve into a permanent border with a future Palestinian state, leaving most of the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank on the far side. I'd venture to say they're right...
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an ardent support of Israeli settlement expansion for decades, long opposed the barrier but reluctantly gave his approval this month. Of the nearly 70 suicide bombings in Israel over the past 20 months, all have been launched from the West Bank, which has no barrier separating it from Israel. Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out many of the bombings, are stronger in the Gaza Strip than in the West Bank. But no suicide bombers have come from Gaza, which is fenced in. I'd call that empirical evidence that it's needed, then...
Palestinians object to the barrier because they believe it is part of a secret Israeli plan to carve up the West Bank. Damn those Secret Israeli Plans™!
The fence will largely follow the so-called Green Line, which was the effective Israeli border before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. But parts of the fence will veer into the West Bank to bring some settlements close to the border onto the Israeli side. Since they're eventually going to go back to the 1967 borders, with minor modifications, all parties bitching about it are correct: it'll become an international border between Israel and Palestine. It's also necessary, so just shut up and do it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 08:09 am ||
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With Al Qaeda's leadership in disarray, at least seven al-Qaeda members who have specialized in organization and tactics have assumed a more prominent role within the loose coalition of remaining terrorist groups, analysts and government officials said. These Qaeda lieutenants have both the authority to initiate attacks and the ability to carry them out by providing cash and false documents to operatives. "The operators who are still out there â they are the ones that will conduct the next terrorist attack," a senior government official said. Organizationally, they've "gone to the mattresses". That doesn't mean they're dead...
Intelligence and law enforcement officials say they now believe that Al Qaeda operatives like Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, a Qaeda member from Kuwait, are operating independently, out from under the control of the bin Laden chain of command, which may no longer exist as a working command structure as it did in Afghanistan. It probably doesn't...
Besides Muhammad, who was identified last week as being suspected of having a major operational role in the Sept. 11 attacks, officials identified six other people whom they view as the planners of new attacks. Officials said they were scattered among several countries to regroup the activities of what is left of Al Qaeda and operations involving other terror groups. According to government officials, these are the key leaders:
Saif al-Adel is said to sit on Al Qaeda's consultative council, the group that approves all terrorist operations, including the embassy bombings and the attack on the American warship Cole in October 2000 in Yemen. Adel, a Saudi, came to Al Qaeda as part of its affiliation with Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The United States government has been trying to find Mr. Adel since 1993, when he trained tribal fighters to attack the United Nations peacekeeping force in Somalia, an operation that killed 18 American soldiers. Saif-ul-Adil Abu Hafz was one of the five al-Qaeda Bigs who were granted Afghan citizenship by the Talibs last November.
Fazul Abdullah Muhammad is a native of the Comoros Islands, an impoverished archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Using the alias Haroun Fazul, Muhammad was Al Qaeda's chief operative in Kenya in the mid-1990's.
Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah is a 37-year-old Egyptian who was one of five fugitives indicted in the two American Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998. Mr. Atwah was believed to have been in Afghanistan last fall, but American authorities said this week they do not know his current location.
Mustafa Muhammad Fadhil is an Egyptian who the authorities said was an important organizational operative in Al Qaeda. Fadhil is believed to have rented the house in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where a half dozen conspirators made the car bomb that exploded outside the United States Embassy there, an attack that killed 11 people. Fadhil was also indicted in the embassy bombings case, but he has eluded capture. An American official this week said that Fadhil "was one of the most important people we are pursuing."
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian, has served since the early 1990's as a senior adviser to Mr. bin Laden, officials said. He was indicted for his alleged involvement in the bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi. Cooperating witnesses have told the authorities that he conducted surveillance of the embassy three days before the bombing.
Fahid Muhammad Ally Msalam, 26, is another Qaeda suspect wanted for being directly involved in the bombing of the embassy in Nairobi. Mr. Msalam, a Kenyan, is said to be the Qaeda member who bought the Toyota truck that was used in the bombing. Prosecutors say he packed it with explosives and transported it to the embassy. His fingerprints were found on a magazine that was inside a Nike gym bag that also contained clothing with traces of TNT, according to testimony at the embassy bombing trial last year in Manhattan. What a daggone disappointing article. The Times basically took the Fed's most wanted list and snagged the names and descriptions of what they did. These guys may or may not turn up as controllers in the coming months; my guess would be that few will. Except for Saif al-Adel, they're just not at the capo level, and they probably won't ever be. It's pretty obvious the Times writer doesn't know any more than we do. And he left "Foopie" off the list.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/16/2002 09:22 am ||
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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.
