Heard on OâReilley that he was killed and they are waiting for DNA.
Geraldo says that interrogation of Bad Guys captured at the fort reveal that Ayman's there and that he was wounded in the initial assault. It's an alamo-style structure — a madrassa would be my guess.
#8
"These are the headlines, now the rumours behind the news."
Howl of the Wolf News (Firesign Theater Album: Don't Crush that Dwarf, Just Hand Me the Pliers)
I hope we get those rat bastards. Would be a good pick-me-up after Spain. We got to get Biker Omar, too. And do not forget Hek. Knock off the leaders and the followers will walk around like ants who lost their trail.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 21:00 Comments ||
Top||
#9
"...the followers will walk around like ants who lost their trail."
I find it useful and personally vindicating to crush those too...but hey, that's just me
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 21:14 Comments ||
Top||
#10
OldSpook... hmmmm do you have something you wanna share? ;)
If this is true it's unfortunate that we couldn't get the bastard alive... but at least we'll get the intel that he has stored in computers, files etc... and maybe some of the guys they captured will have more info on future plans and bin ladens location.
Btw, is it just me or do you have the feeling that their about to crack down on ol binny too?
#11
I am not at liberty to confirm or deny anything. Just that the news reportage is... amusing, and sometimes I wonder how they come up with some of this.
#12
Yeah, c'mon OldSpook, don't be a tease. We're all friends here (well, I guess the last few days prove that's not quite true, but anyway). We don't want to know how you know, just what you know.
#14
ah, come on OS, you can't say...I know something but I'm not going to tell you...it's sooo mean.
1. He's "dead" but he's really being interrogated
2. It's too early for anything - the sun just came up..
3. They got him at night..
4. He was interrogated for the last 3 months and now we'll "find" him in a rat hole.
5. You know they got Binny boy
how about a HINT from anonymous sources....just a little iddy biddy one
puleeeeesseeeee :-)
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 22:51 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Agree about Biker and Hek. Just do them in and be done with it.
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 22:53 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Old Spook, Good ON YA! As an escapee of the insane asylum 213, I understand what you CANNOT say/do/hint at, and I'm with you. I DID call a friend who works funny shifts in a copper-lined room full of funky-looking equipment, but he couldn't say much - too much partying going on... (G)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2004 22:54 Comments ||
Top||
#17
John Loftus, a former intelligence guy who sued Sami al-Arian and is suing the Saudi royal family on behalf of the 9/11 families, says the whole thing is a Pakistani hoax and there's just a few Chechens and Uzbeks holed up there. He adds that it's a show for Powell and an attempt to justify the US decision to make Pakistan an major military ally.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/18/2004 22:54 Comments ||
Top||
#18
Hamid Mir, on Greta's show, says there are about 600 Bad Guys holed up. Some have escaped toward Afghanistan. I hope there's somebody waiting to meet them there.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2004 23:01 Comments ||
Top||
#21
I heard that they got like 9000 turbans and a bigass Juche-powered Mecha that they borrowed from the Norks, and that Ayman took the shape of... a giant roc and that Osama took the form of... a bucket of water. And then they are going to effect a miraculous escape that involves a '78 Pontiac Firebird and a fast-moving train.
/sarcasm
Show me the cooling, bullet-ridden carcasses, please.
#23
this sounds like all around good news to me. What we are hearing and the grave look on the CNN correspondent's faces give me good reason to be optimistic!!
A YEAR AGO this week, my daughter Rachel Corrie was killed in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. She was run over by an Israeli bulldozer manned by two soldiers. The Israeli government exonerated the soldiers, closed the case, and refuses to release to the US government the complete report on the military police investigation into Rachelâs killing. You should close the case as well. No foul, one dead.
Only the "conclusions" of the report have been released. In them, the soldiers are identified by their initials: Sergeant Y.F. and Sergeant E.V. Their initials are nearly all we know of them. I wonder about Y.F. and E.V. I wonder whether they will pause this week and remember. I remembered. I took a leak in Rachelâs honor. I am out of tears for murdering Islamists and for this little girl who made a conscious choice to risk her life for what she believed
Rachel was an unarmed peace activist trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist, his wife, and three children. She believed that nonviolent direct action against the Israeli occupation would make Palestinians, and also Israelis and Americans, more secure. Rachel stood there to protect a home and family in Gaza because the United States and Israel rejected a UN proposal to send international human rights monitors there. International activists went instead. Rachel stood there protesting illegal home demolitions that the United States opposes on the record yet fails to stop -- destruction that we support with billions in annual military aid to Israel for bulldozers, Apache helicopters, F-16s, and more. Did she also happen to protest definitively illegal suicide bombings launched against Israel civilians, supply of which was coming through the area being cleared? No? Didnât think so.
Rachel wrote to me from Rafah: "This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I donât think itâs an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop." Rachel chose Door Number Four.
On March 17, 2003, President Bush spoke with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about Rachelâs killing. Sharon assured Bush that the Israeli government would undertake a "thorough, credible, and transparent investigation" and would report the results to the United States. Good enough for me.
Despite promises of a transparent investigation, only two American Embassy staff members in Tel Aviv and my husband and I were allowed to "view" the full document. While it refers to evidence gathered by the Israeli military police, no primary evidence is included. Commenting on the report on July 1, 2003, Richard LeBaron, US Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission in Tel Aviv, stated, "there are several inconsistencies worthy of note."
For our family, the report raises questions and fails to reconcile differences between Israeli soldiers who say they could not see Rachel and seven international eyewitnesses who say she was clearly visible. Despite lingering concerns, there has been no move by the White House, the State Department, or the Justice Department to initiate a US investigation. Some ask if a precedent exists for investigating in another country without being "invited." The Israeli government has apparently not extended such an invitation. Your international eyewtinesses most likely guided Ms. Corrie to her final reward. I hold the soldiers to more credibility than to your seven âeyewtinessesâ. An investigation has been done, Mrs. Corrie.
The London Metropolitan Police, however, are now conducting inquests into the deaths in Rafah of British nationals Tom Hurndall and James Miller. In a seven-week period in 2003, Tom, James, and Rachel were all struck down in the same area, where the Israel Defense Forces are building a high steel wall and demolishing Palestinian homes. Remarkably, the London police recently transferred the Hurndall and Miller cases to one coroner, reasoning that a series of similar deaths in a short time could indicate "a more complex systematic problem" within the Israeli military. * Yawn. * Funny that: A wall your enablers are against is being built to prevent more lethal interaction between Palestinians murderers and Israeli soldiers. The âsystemic problemâ lies within ISM and their Islamic help in the west bank. That shooting was also investigated. My view is the soldier, who initially lied to investigators. should be cleared of the shooting but punished for lying, and returned to active duty. Hurndallâs shooting is a shame, but Hurndall knew he was buying into a lethal situation. He chose poorly. Close the case, and close the casket.
Our family continues to call for a US investigation into Rachelâs death. As we wait, I still wonder about Y.F. and E.V. I wonder whether they, too, see images of Rachel lying before the bulldozer. I wonder whether they, too, are suffering, or whether March 16, 2003, was for them just another day on the job. I wonder. Once more: Rathel chose poorly and paid for her choices with her life, something she wanted to do anyway.
#3
If I were her, I'd spend a little more time investigating my child rearing practices.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/18/2004 18:53 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The panel has investigated and concluded she's *still* dead.
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 18:53 Comments ||
Top||
#5
BH-LOL! To that same tune: Before I put another notch
in my D-9 cage...
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 18:54 Comments ||
Top||
#6
As a parent, I sympathize. But, Rachel was baby killer by association. That was her choice. Some with live with poor choices, some die with poor choices.
#7
Yes it's all the fault of the JOOOOSSSS. Poor child rearing = Bad decisiions. Too bad because I bet her and Jihad Johnny would have made a really cute couple.
#8
I'd like to be the heartless one to say to the parents:
you raised a severely f'ed up child with no moral guidance, little value for human life, and a hate for the country that a)taught her freedom and the ability as a woman to be educated, equal and speak out, b) allowed her to travel without approval of her male betters, and c) didn't kill her for burning our flag. In return, your spawn burned the flag spat on the American ideal and the Joooos, helped perpetrate horrendous crimes against children, women and men of Israel (including innocent Israeli arabs). I think the investigation should start at home, and I find you guilty of being absolutely disgusting people who raised a child in your own image. (/rant)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 19:28 Comments ||
Top||
#9
something she wanted to do anyway Interesting observation! I think it entirely possible that she deliberately killed herself after being around death cults so long.
So Mrs Corrie, what about the innocent women and children who are being deliberately targetted and murdered by your buddies in the PA? Do you and your family every stop to think about them? Do you ever stop to think what their mothers and fathers feel like?
#11
Why do people like Mama and Papa Pancake, who hate this country so much, continue to live here? I should think they'd be a lot more comfortable in Spain, or France, or Greece.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/18/2004 19:45 Comments ||
Top||
#12
rachel corrie is dead......BIG FUCKING DEAL!! I'm sure ara"fucking"fat really appreciates her worthless sacrifice. What I want to know is; Why don't her sorry ass parents show us an encore of her performance.
Posted by: Danny ||
03/18/2004 20:25 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Why is this still news? Why do these people still get their "time in the sun"? They've already proven they have a moral IQ somewhere just above the freezing point of water, they've proven their daughter is a fruitcake crumb from the main block, and they've wasted an awful lot of time, energy, newsprint, and just plain space that could be used for better purposes. The best way to handle this mess is to quietly walk away, never turning your back, and getting the he$$ away from these idiots before whatever they have might transfer. Leave them to their misery - they seem to enjoy it. Let's just let them do it in private, and not make a big deal out of it. Because it's not.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2004 20:36 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Where is that soapbox? Oh, here comes one now. . . To my everlasting sadness, I understand the crushing pain of the loss of your child having experienced it first hand. Words can't explain it to those who haven't experienced it - trust me on this one. After my tour was over I thought I would never cry again. I was wrong. My experience gives me the right to say this - Ma and Pa Pancake fight so hard for the 'rightness' of their daughter's cause because to think otherwise would necessarily mean they failed to teach their child what is important and how to be a decent human. To die for killers and a morally and intellectually bankrupt cause is not noble no matter how many times you say so. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Truth is not relative and does not depend on one's point of view.
After months of concentrated thought, I have developed a process that would have saved her. All together now, 1) Step sideways; 2) do it again. There - Problem solved. pancake had a choice and she chose wrong.
#15
Why don't they get those master detectives from the PLO security forces to check this out for them? At least then they'll get the answers they want to hear. You know, Zionist murderers, Rachel was blameless, blah, blah, blah...
#18
Doc8 - that was a helluva lot more eloquent and graceful. thx
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 21:46 Comments ||
Top||
#19
ooohh..Planet Dan ...ouch! But you are right. That's why these parents look so hard for someone else to blame. They know deep down that if they had done their job properly, their children would not have been searching for meaning, but rather living a productive life.
A group believed to be linked to al-Qaida has vowed to avenge the killing of its Saudi Arabian leader, Khalid Ali Hajj. The al-Qaida organisation in the Arab Peninsula said it would start targeting Saudi forces if they continued to hunt down Islamist members. "Quit shooting at us, just who do you think runs this country anyway?"
Published on an Islamist website on Wednesday, the statement said Hajj was on an undisclosed mission when he was ambushed and killed by security forces in the Saudi capital Riyadh. A Yemeni national, Hajj is believed to have once acted as a bodyguard of al-Qaida leader Usama bin Ladin. The statement said he had been on "missions" in Afghanistan, Europe and south-east Asia. Racking up those frequent jihadi miles.
But he was killed along with suspected Islamist fighter Ibrahim al-Muzaini when security forces opened fire on their vehicle. Newspaper pictures showed their bodies still slumped in the front seats. Nice picture of them at the link, warms my heart.
"Their murder will only fuel our determination and enthusiasm to avenge them," the statement said. "We warn members of the security, emergency and intelligence forces not to confront the mujahidin because it will be very easy to attack you in your homes or workplace, but this is not part of the mujahidinâs policy now." "Donât make us come in there!"
Attacks in Saudi Arabia have so far focused on foreign targets, particularly expatriate residential compounds. Last year more than 50 people were killed in bombings of compounds in May and November. Canât have any of those infidels polluting the holy air.
In December fighters tried at least twice to assassinate senior Interior Ministry officials in the first sign they might change tactics. Shows that Saudi tactics, bad as they are, are having some effect.
Hajj had been wanted by Saudi authorities since May for that monthâs triple bombing - blamed on al-Qaida - which killed at least 35 people in Riyadh, including nine Americans. Saudi-owned al-Sharq al-Awsat daily reported on Wednesday that Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin has taken Hajjâs place as leader of al-Qaida cells in Saudi Arabia. Muqrin is the suspected mastermind of the November attack and one of the kingdomâs most wanted fugitives. His mother will be so proud.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 10:29:07 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
SECURITY bosses fear al-Qaeda are plotting to attack the BBC. Biting the hand that feeds them.
An alert was sparked when a Moroccan posing as a newspaper photographer was seen taking pictures of the TV Centre in White City, West London. When he was challenged, he gave false details â and fled in a car driven by another Arabic looking man. Probably just tourists desperate for some good chow.
Security has been stepped up at all BBC buildings since the incident on Sunday. Special Branch, foxes guarding the chicken house.
On the same day, two more Arabs asked reception staff at the TV Centre for a tour of the premises â and for details about the buildingâs lay-out. ARABS!! They actually used the word, racist infidel dogs! How do they know it wasnât some of those notorious British Mexican Methodist terrrorists?
A BBC insider said: âWe are on a state of alert. Security is tight and these incidents have made people nervous.â 5000 nervous twits made more nervous? The floors must be buzzing.
A security source said: âThe BBC is considered a prime target for terrorists because of the publicity it would generate worldwide.â "EET ees nezezzary to shoot a dhimmi now and again, pour encourager les outres." Actually, it makes sense for AQ to go after the BBC. Such an attack would play to a couple of common themes among the appeasement lobby: victimization and the need to blame those who oppose terrorism rather than the perpetrators. Surviving Beeb-dhimmis would pull out all stops to portray themselves as victims of Bushâs policies. The predictability of their response invites attack. Like jihadism, the LLL media culture is a suicide cult.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
03/18/2004 1:03:54 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
On the same day, two more Arabs asked reception staff at the TV Centre for a tour of the premises â and for details about the buildingâs lay-out.
So as to not disturb the Islamic prayer rooms?
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 1:13 Comments ||
Top||
#2
... when the booms go off?
// paste #1 | #2
Argh, read before posting.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 2:29 Comments ||
Top||
#3
but...but.... we're neutral and objective--blimey nigel the the bloody wogs are touchy--major lawrence?--general allenby?--anybody--glubb pasha?--HELP!!!
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/18/2004 4:23 Comments ||
Top||
#4
hehe,shouldn't laugh,I know it sounds bad but if theres one target in Britain that needs the kick up the ass to get them to change their tune,but like you say they'd turn and twist the blame on GWB. Wonder if the goverment is terribly willing to provide security for the Beeb,i wouldn't be
#5
This threat speaks to the fact that appeasement cannot work with jihadis because they see the BBC as a symbol of Western dominance and don't pay any attention to the content of BBC broadcasts. Also the jihadis are hyper-sensitive adherents to a code that it is unlikely that a Western mind can understand. The BBC may have become a target because Nigella may have used too many bacon bits during her last cooking show - who can tell. Trying to understand jihadi rationale is like trying to comprehend what the Son-of-Sam's dog was getting at when Fido commenced his wall graffiti.
Is the he ceasefire in Spain an honest offer, an Arafat scam, or a recognition that the majority of the AQ cells in Iberia have been broken. The Isamokooks have relatively adhered to a ceasefire in Egypt since Sadat was whacked. Maybe the Spanish people are now safe and can live perpetually safe as long as they keep electing socialists. My advice to them is to go light on the bacon bits.
Last time I was in NH, I forgot to look and see if their license plates still had the same motto. There is something about the phrase "Live Free or Die" that resonates in my soul.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 4:56 Comments ||
Top||
#6
SH, most of that "ceasefire" in Eygpt is due to the islamakooks getting whacked, not really due to sadat getting assasinated. What happened is that the groups were hitting civvies right and left and that caused the people in general to turn against them and turn them into the government forces. Essentially the terrorist groups burned down their own house in order to sake their blood thirst.
As for Spain.. they wont get it yet, maybe not for awhile even. This is just the mere calm before the storm, they will be viewed by terrorist groups all over the world as an easy target now in the west that they KNOW they can influence by bombings.
#7
....and fled in a car driven by another Arabic looking man. ....two more Arabs asked reception staff at the TV Centre for a tour of the premises....
HMMmmm. I thought the BBC was against racial profiling.
#8
Bomb Aunty and I'll be donning a suicide vest and walking into the Mosque across the road.
Probably just tourists desperate for some good chow. Ever eaten at the beeb canteen? Prob on a par with what's served up at your average terrorist training camp - Donkey anyone?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 5:44 Comments ||
Top||
#9
calm down howard its only the BBC,the lying sneering bunch of AQ lovers,the more i think about it the less i see it happening,surly they'd go for the sky news offices or the sun instead. I'm sure the BBC and probably the Mirror too are free to carry on preaching thier pro AQ, pro Saddam, anti-war rehtoric.I just think AQ would value them too much in thier propaganda war
#10
The fact that some think that bombing the BBC or Guardian is like biting the hand that feeds them is exactly what AQ wants you to think. They could care less about whether you are liberal, conservative, pro or con.....only if you faithfully subscribe to their ideal of the world and are willing to blow yourself up. The Beeb and Guardian are extremely liberal which in itself is more a reason to get rid of them to AQ than the fact that they are sympathetic to Paleos or are anti-American....
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/18/2004 7:09 Comments ||
Top||
#11
yeah i know what your saying makes sense but surly if they had a choice BBC or Sky, Sun or Mirror i still think they'd target the Sun and Sky. Yeah sure thier whole way of thinking is seriously fucked up but they must still have a sense of who they hate the most out of us lot
#14
Absolutely top site. Burberry caps and Suped-up Novas RULE!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 8:49 Comments ||
Top||
#15
"Ever eaten at the beeb canteen?"
Never had the pleasure(?). I didn't make it London much while I was still in the UK. I'm from the North, Carlisle to be exact. (that's the bit on your map marked "Here be dragons.")
I emigrated to the States in 1969.
At that time, Carlisle was a world center for the production of fog, rust, and decaying brickwork. The outlook was bleak, so I escaped through the admittedly imprudent stratagem of flying to New York, hanging about for a while, and enlisting in the US Army.
Things are much better in Carlisle these days, but I never regreted leaving.
I became a US citizen in 1974, my parents and siblings emigrated a few years later and we all settled in Texas. My youngest brother, born in Carlisle in 1971 (while I was in Vietnam, incidentally) is currently in Iraq with the 4th ID.
I still have family in England, including a crazy Quaker aunt who is very active in peace protest circles, and who frequently mentions her "Vietnam bomber pilot" (actually a Huey slick) and escaped war criminal of a nephew in her peacenik tirades.
#16
hey least you sound like you've had an exciting life, Huey flying must be pretty cool,and an exciting aunt too.My family are all dull,I am dull to when it comes to seeing the world and going places and all that,At 25 i still havn't been more then 80 miles from my home in my whole life.
#17
It's grim up North AC. That's one hell of a tale you have there - surely there were better things to be doing in 69 than signing up for a living hell? (Like getting out of it and listening to The grateful Dead et al.). Hope your bruv comes through OK!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 9:21 Comments ||
Top||
#18
Jon, join the TA. It's a laugh, and you'll get to travel around a bit more than you already have done. You can volunteer to go overseas if you wish to, and if you can spare the time.
#19
Are the Arabs looking for volunteers? If Gordon promises not to raise license fees to pay for rebuilding, I'll bet they could get some very Brit looking sympathisers to cooperate, same as ETA. In fact, given the BBC victim orientation the Arabs should subcontract this one to the IRA.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/18/2004 9:38 Comments ||
Top||
#20
AC--If your little bro or anyone in his unit wants some Care packages from home send me their APO. Since my MP pal got back from Baghdad about three months ago, I haven't had anybody to send stuff to over there, and the back issues of Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Discover, et al are piling up!
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 9:42 Comments ||
Top||
#21
Has anybody tried going over to Finsbury and beating the crap outta hook-boy, just on GP?
#22
need a fair few of us to distract hooks mates,hey someone go in shout out 'theres an infidel out side' they rush out we rush in and bag him,kindy scooby-do style but would be a top mission. Good idea about the TA bulldog but i fear i'm to lazy :)
#23
AC, just for grins, which unit were you with in Nam in '71? I had a few "interesting jaunts" with a bunch of slick drivers from the 3/12 out of Da Nang and a funky group flying from Pleiku (can't remember their org). Would be a riot to discover we'd actually MET 30+ years ago! I was an Air Force SSgt, working on special assignments with the 2nd MIBARS and a nasty bunch of Marines.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2004 11:31 Comments ||
Top||
#24
Count me in!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 11:38 Comments ||
Top||
#25
The Beeb is targeted because they are Brits. It doesn't matter what they do. If you are a Brit, the only thing you can do to redeem yourself is to don one of those stylish suicide belts and go boom somewhere, and then the jihadis will love you. They are too crazy Mo-Fos to rationally take advantage of appeasement. Europe better wake up to that fact. Convert or die. I say FOAD.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 11:43 Comments ||
Top||
#26
Nah, Jon. It's an excellent motivation and way to get fit, they don't demand too much time at all (just about 1 w/e per month), and you get to play with all sorts of cool kit and vehicles. Beer's cheap too. What better way to spend weekends?!
Indeed, AP. I actually think the BBC may be on the verge of getting a clue, listening to the radio reports today. Liberal (not in the political sense of the word) usage of the word "terrorists" with a non-sneering tone, and a perceptibly approving reference to the mob attack on the Basra bomber. It might not last, but I think that realising they're al Qaeda targets, like just so many other blameless victims, has woken them up somewhat.
#30
"speaking of chavveys have a look at the site called 'chavscum' . com, An absolutly brilliant site dedicated to taking the piss outa chavs"
Help, John, Howard, translation please !
"divided by a common language" and all that...
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
03/18/2004 13:04 Comments ||
Top||
#31
Shep, c'mon over to the US. May I suggest a flight to Phoenix AZ. Take a few weeks checking out the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon and the Sedona desert. From there its an easy drive out to LA-LA land, beaches and babes. Go to Blackies in Newport Beach. With your accent and an easy smile you'll be well watered. It's cheap to camp in the parks.
#32
love to go over some day but i'm constantly pennytless and don't even have a passport yet.have made a promise that when i do go abroad the first destination is the USA, then OZ then not sure, just a pipe dream but if you don't have the dream then you'll never have any ambition i supose.If my financial situation were to pick up i'll definatly try and cross the big pond.Oh Russia thats another one but only cos they have those 5000quid a ride in the Russian Knights SU-27 no holds barred full on joy ride :)
#33
F*ck it Shep, GO. Can we start a Rantburg sponshorship programme?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 17:01 Comments ||
Top||
#34
Carl, I hit the recommended website. It appears that chavveys are trailer park trash that are more culturally influenced by Eminem than they are by Shania Twain.
BTW, my Hampton residing grand folks used to be tickled by my families Ohio plates from the late 70's that said, "Seat Belts Fastened?" I think they were amused by our domination by the burgeoning nanny state that reached it's apex in Dennis Kucinich.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 17:43 Comments ||
Top||
#35
I'll put down a few bucks for JS as long as he promises to waste it on liquor and low women in the US.
Seriously Jon, GO, you will find your natural British traveling genes. Don't check, you're already equipped. No body travels as well as the Brits.
#36
Yeah SH, I shudder to think of the possible weenie replacements for "Live Free or Die".
"The Granite State" ?
Puh-leeze.
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
03/18/2004 18:00 Comments ||
Top||
#37
Never had the pleasure(?). I didn't make it London much while I was still in the UK. I'm from the North, Carlisle to be exact. (that's the bit on your map marked "Here be dragons.")
Makes two of us, though I was just born there but spent most of my early years in the Peoples Republic of Murkyside... well it was when Derek Hatton was running things (for those outside the UK Degsy was a sort of Trotskyite version of William M. Tweed.) Things aren't quite so bad up there now but it's still shellsuit & Heldenbrau land. Despite everything I do miss the place, NOT!
Posted by: Dave ||
03/18/2004 18:13 Comments ||
Top||
#38
Just our of curiosity.... Fred is there anyway to (quickly, quickly) map I.P.s to origins? Might be kinda fun to see.
Naturally I fear it may show a preponderace? preponderence, that is to say bias towards towards the British Isles. You know what I mean of course. Look at your buddy. Is he Irish? LOL! If not, why not?
#39
Super Hose--Dennis Kucinich was never the governor of Ohio--and had nothing to do with the Seatbelts Fastened?" license plate--but of course--being a right winger you never let the facts get in the way of a good "story"! Maybe you should apply for a Faux News job as a "news" writer--you'd fit right in with the lies pumped out 24/7 by them!
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/19/2004 0:09 Comments ||
Top||
#40
Big day for the Deanie Babies yesterday NMM? Liken the new DFA? Woot! Deano 44! Yaaaaaaargh!
Police captured a top rebel commander who was allegedly recruiting youths to carry out suicide attacks against President Alvaro Uribe and other officials, Colombiaâs secret police chief said Wednesday. Luis Hipolito Ospina, a senior member of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was arrested Tuesday in the capital, Bogota, said Jorge Noguera. He said Ospina, who reportedly speaks Arabic, German and English and has traveled extensively abroad, was trying to indoctrinate 22 youths as suicide commandos. "He was preparing young people to kill themselves ... including in possible attacks against the president," Noguera told reporters. Noguera said there was no evidence that Ospina or the FARC had developed ties to Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida.
But wait! There's more!
Television footage released by the secret police showed a bearded Ospina, sporting a pony tail and looking disheveled and tired while being escorted in handcuffs by police to a jail cell. Ospina, who apparently has converted to Islam, is believed to have joined the FARC in the late 1980s as an explosives expert and grew close to the groupâs seven-member ruling secretariat.
If they're into explosives, you usually find them hanging around mosques...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 1:00:41 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
I think he converted to Islam to get better deals on bomb-making supplies. It's smart to get a contractors license before making large purchases at Home Depot. I don't think that the weapons markets have become like SAM's Club where you need a membership in order to checkout at the register. They probably still let the leftists shop but at full retail price only.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 14:14 Comments ||
Top||
Remarkably disingenuous "story" by NYT "journalist" Christopher Marquis, obviously bucking for the Jayson Blair Chair honoring the Staff Twit, offers this amazing âwe can have it all waysâ take on Chávez... Consider that this got through Editorial Review and into print and you know all you need to know abut the current management of the NYT.
EFL and Fair Use A Bitter Chávez Castigates U.S., Saying It Misjudges Him
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, feels grossly misunderstood. Mr. Chávez, who has been fending off a recall referendum, admits he is baffled that so many people â particularly the Bush administration â seem to dislike him so intensely. Nearly a decade after he left prison, where he was sent for plotting a coup, followed by elections in 1998 that brought him to the presidency and a rewriting of the Constitution, he does not grasp why he has not won a democratâs credentials. Why, he asks, is the United States, the neighbor and customer that is the cultural touchstone for so many of his people, seeking to drive him from power? He would like to know why the Bush administration is sowing rumors that he is, take your pick: encouraging insurrection in Bolivia, supporting rebels in Colombia, colluding with Fidel Castro and, most distressingly, plotting class warfare and disenfranchising the middle and upper classes of his country. "Unfortunately, there has been no way of talking with this administration," he said in an interview Saturday at the presidential palace. "They donât respect us. Iâm tired of trying to carry out the mandate of Christ, turning the other cheek. Iâve been slapped so many times, my cheeks are purple." ...more... Believe this shit? Classic NYT pandering - this time to the entire spectrum of opinion - everyone can find something to love / hate here. They must be very proud of this joke. Amazing.
Posted by: .com ||
03/18/2004 12:37:58 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This is how the NYT legitimizes its constant Bush-bashing by subjugating its opinion to interviewees, social commentary, book reviews, etc. I have even seen off handed remarks about US policy in the NYT Magazine's section on recipes!!
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/18/2004 7:14 Comments ||
Top||
#2
This is how the NYT legitimizes its constant Bush-bashing by subjugating its opinion to interviewees, social commentary, book reviews, etc. I have even seen off handed remarks about US policy in the NYT Magazine's section on recipes!!
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/18/2004 7:14 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Venezuela has oil, and a neo-commie in charge. If Bush ever really noticed Chavez he'd be out in hours. Fact is he's irrelevant and will be tossed out by his own people soon enough so why bother.
Its actually kind of pathetic how Chavez keeps crying out for attention. Anything, even a statement of hatred towards him would be something. Something to justify his existance. What's the point of being a communist if you can't get the US pissed off at you for it.
#5
Mr. Chávez, who has been fending off a recall referendum, admits he is baffled that so many people â particularly the Bush administration â seem to dislike him so intensely.
Oh, this couldn't have anything to do with Chavez calling Bush an asshole a few weeks ago, could it?
#6
Let us leave Senor Chavez to the mercy of the people he's screwed so intently in Venezuela. I'm sure they'll know just what to do with him. Between his playing games in neighboring Columbia with FARC and ponying up to Jean-Bertrand Ass-in-his-hands, and his luuuuvvvv of Fidel Castro, he has nowhere to go but down. Ignoring him seems to be driving him mad, so maybe that's the best way to continue.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2004 14:38 Comments ||
Top||
#7
OP,
You left out Chavez's pederasty fetish with Iran's mullahs and providing safe haven for Mideast terrorist groups.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 14:44 Comments ||
Top||
#8
To watch Venezuela goings on I tune into a blog named Venezuela News and Views by a resident named Daniel.
An analogy for the current situation is the 9th Circuit performing a coup on the Supreme Court during the Florida recount. Its kind of entertaining, but the fact that Venezuela is a mid top 10, world oil exporter is quite chilling.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 17:51 Comments ||
Top||
Polandâs president has said he believes there were never weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it would be a mistake to abandon the country now. The remarks on Thursday by President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key U.S. ally in Europe, were the first by a Polish leader to raise doubts about the reasons for going to war. But he defended the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam, saying it "made sense." Poland has contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition and has offered to expand its responsibilities if Spain carries out a threat to withdraw its troops. "We were informed that weapons of mass destruction are in Iraq, that there is a probability of the existence of such weapons," The Associated Press quoted Kwasniewski as saying. "Today, this information is not confirmed." U.S. President George W. Bush refused to comment on the report during a visit to Fort Campbell, Ky. ... Interesting. Bush jabs Poland in the ribs, yet the present Polish government continues to give their support. Maybe this is just Kwasniewskiâs way of getting back at Bush, without actually betraying their alliance (like Spain). However, also like Spain, itâs certain there will be a change in government in Poland in the next elections. Whatâs not certain, is whether the current opposition will run an anti-American campaign to appease the anti-American sentiment in Poland, and also what would not be certain is the publicâs reaction to a Madrid-style attack just before the elections. The comments Iâve heard from Poland run the entire range of the spectrum.
On a side note, Aznarâs Spain was Polandâs strongest ally in the EU constitution debates. If Zapatero warms up to France & Germany on this issue, then Poland will effectively have to succumb to the EUropeans.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/18/2004 7:47:23 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
hen Poland will effectively have to succumb to the EUropeans.
Or work more closely with the Vilnius 10, their natural allies, and the Brits.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/18/2004 21:38 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Tell it to the 5000 killed and 10,000 wounded in Halabja by gas. Tell it to the 50,000 Iranian casulties of gas.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 21:48 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We sure have a lot of fair weather friends. Every time I hear something like this, I feel better and better about the US staying out of WWII until Pearl Harbor. It's time to dissolve NATO and pull our troops back home from Europe and the rest of the world. These one-way-street alliances aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
The Sun claims that four of the five British prisoners recently released from Guantanamo Bay had been trained in guerilla combat by the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists.
The report is based on information sent from US investigators at the Sunâs request, detailing the background and history of the former detainees. All four have denied links with terror groups and have been treated by Britainâs media as homecoming "innocents abroad", relieved to be back in Blighty after their two-year ordeal at the hands of their wicked US captors. Their claims of torture and mistreatment (strongly denied by US and British officials) have been used by some newspapers to undermine the war effort, and Britainâs close alliance with the US in particular.
Few have questioned their stories of what they were doing in Taliban and al-Qaeda dominated Afghanistan in the first place.
The Sun reports that government insiders, including some ministers, opposed the prisonersâ release but were overruled by Tony Blair. The Telegraph also reports that off-record, British officials agree the four are not so innocent, but play down claims of close al-Qaeda involvement. The Telegraph also claims that officials dispute the Sunâs claims of a trans-Atlantic divide over the prisonersâ release.
As the Sun asserts, nothing is proven against the four men. But in any case, Britainâs security forces are said to be keeping the four under tabs, at a cost of £1 million a year.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 5:32:03 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
200 Brits trained there in a couple of years according to that c*nadian pup.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 17:42 Comments ||
Top||
#2
But in any case, Britainâs security forces are said to be keeping the four under tabs, at a cost of £1 million a year.
A few ounces of lead/tungsten would not only have been a lot cheaper, it would have been a one-time expense.
Spanish police picked up five more suspects including a Spaniard and four Arabs on Thursday in connection with the Madrid train bombings, sources in the investigation said, as the death toll hit 202. The arrests bring the number of detainees to 10 since the blasts on rush-hour trains a week ago, believed linked to al Qaeda and the first Islamist militant strike in the West since September 11, 2001. State radio said one of those taken on Thursday, who was arrested in a northern city, was suspected of the attack and was also wanted over last May's Casablanca bombings, in the latest indication that the two strikes are linked. The arrests were the first since last Saturday's detention of three Moroccans and two Indians, who were taken to Spain's High Court on Thursday amid tight security. They had their rights read to them, were given a medical check, and were then due to give testimony behind closed doors later in the day, when a judge will decide whether to release them or keep them in custody.
Investigators say the train bombs, the bloodiest guerrilla attack in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing, were likely to have been planted by a group linked to al Qaeda, possibly in retribution for Spain's support for the Iraq war. A 22-year-old Peruvian woman died on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 202 -- matching the number of dead in the Bali bomb attacks in 2002. More than 1,750 people were injured. The attack has prompted a security shake-up across Europe and beyond and has sparked jitters in major Western cities. A fake bomb near Paris held up rail traffic to northern France and London on Thursday, unsettling Europe's already shaky financial markets. Separately, UK police said they had closed off a domestic rail line in southern England near the Channel Tunnel link to France and held a man under anti-terrorism laws.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2004 2:06:22 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
When the going gets tough, appoint a burearucrat...
French FM supports EU appointment of anti-terrorism supremo
Yep, thatâll solve the problem. Works every time!
18 March 2004
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Thursday backed a European Union proposal to appoint an anti-terrorism expert who would coordinate EU security measures in the wake of the Madrid attacks.
Complete with a five year supply of white handkerchiefs!
"I think itâs a good idea," de Villepin told Radio France Internationale when asked about the idea of appointing a "Mr Terrorism" for the bloc, who would report to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
I think it sucks! Another brilliant French strategy, right up down there with the Maginot Line. How is this supposed to eliminate terrorist threats, with harsh words?
"Itâs very important for us to... try to better coordinate our actions as Europeans -- that we have an official, a coordinator, as Javier Solana has proposed," the French minister added.
How âbout you all stick your heads in the sand at the same location? That will âbetter coordinateâ things, wonât it?
"I think we have to coordinate our efforts on the technical level, which would allow us to better assess the realities on the ground, to fight terrorism more effectively," de Villepin said.
Clueless barely begins to describe de Villepin, who I hear is a man.
EU officials have said the proposed "Mr Terrorism" would be a coordinator -- an expert who knows the subject well -- rather than a politician. The officials rejected any comparison with Tom Ridge, the US Homeland Security director.
"Non, non, non, eees too simplisme!"
The proposal will be one of many on the agenda for an emergency meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Friday, who will try to determine how to respond to the devastating Madrid bomb blasts, which left 201 people dead.
Check out the thread at the bottom of the article, fairly entertaining!
#1
Well somebody's got to wave the white flag. If they all do at once, it's just anarchy.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 14:00 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"proposal to appoint an anti-terrorism expert..."
Oh, well, as long as he's an expert. Wouldn't want to appoint any amateur anti-terrorism guys.
Old joke: an expert is a guy with a briefcase more than 100 miles from home.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/18/2004 14:02 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Maybe the EUroweenies are trying something like that Monty Python skit about the "Funniest joke in the world" as Britain's weapon against Jerry in WWI...
All the terrorists are going to need IcyHot patches for their stomachs from laughing so hard as it is.
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 14:52 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Bah, more bureaucracy bloat.
How many hundreds of minions will it take to support this one paper shuffler Terrorist Tsar?
Build your empire big and tall.
When it's finished, watch it fall.
London approves 500-750 British troops for Kosovo where Albanian Muslims are burning churches in worst outbreak of ethnic violence with Serbs since 1999. Wednesday 22 killed. NATO troops diverted from Bosnia Thursday given permission to use force against Albanian rioters.
Posted by: Yosemit Sam ||
03/18/2004 11:47:20 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
By eliminating Serbs as main obstacle to open society, we get free borders without national or religious prejudices.
People of all nations and religions will freely move between Pakistani, Indochina, Arab and Central Asia World, India, Iran and Europe.
Whole Balkan is sparcelly populated and, by settling it with Asians who have many children, we get so much needed labor for our corporations and fertility rate of population will get big jump.
By having European population inbred with Asians, we will also eliminate deeply inbred racism of White Population.
Posted by: Joel Lieberman ||
03/18/2004 14:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Why does the UK have to do this? This is a perfect opportunity for the Frogs and the Germans to take the bull by the horns and take care of this on their terms, proving that they indeed can lead where it counts. Go ahead, boys. It's all yours.
#3
Let's have the UK, the U.S. and NATO send more troops, but announce to the world that we're changing sides to back the Serbs against the Islamist Muslim "Albanians."
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 14:56 Comments ||
Top||
#4
joe Levermans has it correct. we need a fertility jump but chainney in his new deth star will may kit hard for islamik yut to make friend
The videotape which claims Islamic terrorist network Al Qaeda was behind the 11 March bomb attacks in Madrid was "very probably" recorded in Brussels or Amsterdam, it was reported Thursday. Abu Dujan al-Afgani, the man who appeared on the video and claimed to be Al Qaedaâs European head of military operations, has been living among "radical Moroccan groups" in either the Belgian or Dutch capital. The claims were made in Spanish newspaper El Periódico, which based its report on sources in the Moroccan security services, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported. Talkative, those Moroccan security people.
The Spanish newspaper also said the bombers were probably financed from Madrid, but the Telegraaf cited Moroccan officials involved in the war against terror who believe the attacks were financed and prepared in Brussels. The hunt for al-Afgani is centred on Brussels, which authorities believe has been the operating base for hardcore r1adical Muslims from Morocco since the 1980s. Memo to Spain, use the Afghanistan model. Give Brussels a deadline to give them up, then invade.
Security experts say that branches of the group are also living in Amsterdam. Night life is better.
Terror group, the Abi Hafs el-Masri Brigades â which has been linked to Al-Qaeda â is the main suspect for the Madrid attacks.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 11:25:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Spain tried to conquer the low countries before. It took 130 years to admit defeat.
Spain and Belgium were on course for a serious diplomatic row on Wednesday after a Brussels judge freed a couple Madrid suspects of supporting the Basque separatist group ETA. They gonna make faces at each other?
Spain has asked repeatedly for the Basque couple - Luis Noreno and Raquel Garcia - to be extradited from Belgium to face the ETA charges back in their home country. But in the early hours of Wednesday morning Belgian investigating magistrate Thierry Freyne released the two after questioning them for several hours following another extradition request form Spain. The magistrate argued he saw no reason to keep the couple in custody any longer. "Itâs not like they boomed Belgian, wouldnât want to get them angry at us."
Officially, Madrid has made no comment on the decision other than to say that it is up to the judicial authorities in Belgium and Spain to resolve the matter. But Expatica spoke to one diplomat at the Spanish embassy in Brussels who did little to hide his opinion of the magistrateâs decision. "We will now have to ask him why he saw fit to free people suspected of belonging to a terrorist organisation," he said tersely. Heâs Belgium, itâs what they do.
At the beginning of the 1990s Noreno and Garcia are suspected of having harboured members of an ETA cell that was later found guilty of murdering a Spanish policeman. The couple have lived in Belgium for 10 years and obtained Belgian nationality in 2001. And a citizen of Belgium can do no wrong.
Spain made its latest request for the pair to be extradited in February using the new European Arrest Warrant (EAW), which is supposed to speed up extradition procedures between EU member states. The EAW formed part of a raft of new EU law and order measures that were rushed through after the September 11 2001 terror attacks in the US. Working well, arenât they.
The news of Noreno and Garciaâs release is likely to be particularly embarrassing for Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Immediately after last weekâs bomb attacks in Madrid, he said EU countries must work together even more closely to fight the threat of George Bush terrorism. Talk is cheap.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 10:52:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It's the New Wave in Europe! Preemptive surrender.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 10:57 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The couple have lived in Belgium for 10 years and obtained Belgian nationality in 2001.
I thought these people devoted their lives to preserving Basque language and culture.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/18/2004 11:51 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Belgium, now the 1234th most holy Basque site. Expect a boom any minute.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2004 11:54 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Maybe the Spanish can have a protest march - that'll show those Belgians.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/18/2004 11:57 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Zapetero and Prodi brilliant plan to fight terrorists w/courts and policemen,not soldiers,didn't last 48 hours before crashing into reality.
Posted by: Stephen ||
03/18/2004 17:37 Comments ||
Top||
JAKARTA : The Spanish al-Qaeda cell, which is a suspect in the Madrid bombings, had links to militant training camps in Indonesia , an expert said on Thursday. "There is a clear link between Spanish al-Qaeda and training camps in Poso," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group (ICG) of political analysts. Likely to be Jemaah Islamiyah, the local al-Q affiliate.
An ICG report last month said the head of Spain âs al-Qaeda cell, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, visited the Poso district in Indonesia âs Central Sulawesi province in May 2001. He reportedly agreed to arrange funding for an international training camp there. The report said Yarkas was accompanied by an Indonesian called Parlindungan Siregar, who had ties to al-Qaeda in Spain and is still at large. Indonesia would have been a safe place for them back then, this article doesnât say if they had any more connection than providing funding though. Afghanistan was still the major training area at this point in time, prior to 9-11.
Yarkas has since been jailed in Spain for suspected involvement in the September 11 attacks on the US . One of his alleged followers, Moroccan Jamal Zougam, 30, was arrested last Saturday in connection with the Madrid station bombings which killed 201 people.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 10:01:01 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The left are so happy, here is proof they say that appeasement works, and they donât just hate us because we are westerners
A group claiming to have links with al-Qaeda said today it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq, a pan-Arab newspaper said. In a statement sent today to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed 201 people, also urged its European units to stop all operations. "Because of this decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the Spanish territories... until we know the intentions of the new government that has promised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq," the statement said. "And we repeat this to all the brigades present in European lands: stop all operations."
The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades have previously claimed responsibility for bombings in Turkey and Iraq. "The Spanish people... chose peace by choosing the party that was against the alliance with America," the statement said. The newspaper planned to publish it on Thursday. "Praise be to God who gave us this victory in the conquest of Madrid... where one of the pillars of the axis of Crusader evil was destroyed," the statement said, affirming its earlier claim for the Madrid attacks. A US official in Washington has previously said the groupâs link with al-Qaeda is unclear.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/18/2004 8:36:38 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
As sad as I am for the victims of this violence their fellow citizens have doomed themselves for years to come.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your councils or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --- Sam Adams
#2
If I were Al Queda, and I thought my bombing affected the election in my favor, and I wanted to continue the tactic, I would certainly release a statement saying "The Spanish people... chose peace by choosing the party that was against the alliance with America". Divide and conquer you know.
Gunbattles, riots and street fights between Serbs and ethnic Albanians have killed 22 people and injured about 500, U.N. officials said Thursday, as NATO peacekeepers tried to regroup following the worst violence since Kosovoâs 1999 war. No new trouble was reported early Thursday, but evidence of the previous dayâs violence the day was still visible. Smoke billowed from Serb houses set ablaze in Kosovo Polje, a mixed town some 3 miles west of Pristina, and burned out cars littered the streets of the capital. The clashes started Wednesday in the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica after ethnic Albanians blamed Serbs for the drowning of two of their children and began rampaging in revenge.
Melees broke out elsewhere in the U.N.-run province, including several enclaves where Serbs have eked out a sheltered existence since the end of the war. NATO-led peacekeepers and Romanian police units moved in, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to stop ethnic Albanians from surging across the bridge toward the Serb side of the city, where another crowd had gathered. The new tally of casualties Thursday was given by Angela Joseph, a spokeswoman for the U.N. police. Sixty-one police officers, including 40 members of the U.N. special police unit, were injured during the clashes, she said. Separately, Lt. Col. Jim Moran, spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers, said that 17 peacekeepers were injured. Some hundred Serbs were evacuated from their buildings in the center of the capital Pristina and other communities by police and NATO-led peacekeepers, officials said.
The unrest spilled beyond Kosovoâs borders. In Belgrade, the capital of Serbia-Montenegro, demonstrators set the cityâs 17th century mosque on fire after clashing with police trying to guard the building -- one of the oldest in the city. Demonstrators demanded that the government act to protect their Orthodox Christian kin in Kosovo from attacks by the provinceâs predominantly Muslim ethnic Albanians.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/18/2004 7:37:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
killed 22 people and injured about 500, U.N. officials
That's a lot of UN officials injured. I need more coffee.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/18/2004 7:48 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Notice that Kosovo/Bosnia's been pretty quiet since 1999, until yesterday...and the Muslim Albanians re-started the war.
Coming right after this Spanish nightmare, coincidence?
I think not.
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 11:33 Comments ||
Top||
#8
funny how kofi is seemingly absent and saying nothing of this UN created 'quagmire'. If I were GWB i'd pull all my troops and equipment out and say 'your euro mess, you fix it', then watch it all fall apart. + thats where compuserb is from. Let the Euro fools wallow in thier 'quagmire'. note sneer marks,
#9
Jen is right, it is an interesting "coincidence" -= especially given that a) Hezbollah has had a Balkan organization since at least 1991, and b) AQ sent a number of "Afghani alumni" to Bosnia to "help" when they ran out of jihad in Afghanistan. IIRC, many of the AQ jihadis were upset that the Bosnian Muslims persisted in hating Serbs and Croats based on ethnic and economic differences and couldn't seem to get with the religious program. Or maybe it's part of AQ's plan to restore the entire Islamic empire?
Posted by: Sofia ||
03/18/2004 11:57 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Sofia, with a footprint on the Iberian peninsula and the Chechens threatening France now, the Islamist Albanians can begin to squeeze from the East--not a pretty picture.
We have troops there, but they need to be strategically realigned to now support the Serbians.
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 12:31 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Jen> Since you saw the Turkish Cypriots as "Islamists" I'm not surprised you are seeing the Albanians as Islamists too. But they are not. UCK and Albanian imperialism has nothing to do with Islamism, and Albania is a fully secular state.
Jon Shep> Isn't pulling all the troops and equipment out of a mess that they didn't help create what the *Spanish* government said they are going to do?
And wasn't that recently called appeasement here?
How is your suggested course of action for Kosovo different?
#12
Aris, I'm not in the mood for your Commie crap today!
The "ethnic Albanians" *are* Islamists.
Yesterday, you said you took no position on this conflict but of course an "omniscient" asshole like you has a position on everything, invariably the wrong one.
Greece is one of the many EU countries that completely dropped the ball on Bosnia/Kosovo.
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 12:41 Comments ||
Top||
#13
The ethnic Albanians and UCK aren't Islamists. The churches are burning because they are *Serb* churches, not because they are Christian.
And what Greece did in the Bosnian war is actually quite irrelevant to our argument.
And if the rebelling Albanians had been Islamists they wouldn't have been using the two-headed eagle in their flag but the crescent moon or some other Islamic symbol instead.
Reality doesn't change just because you want to remain ignorant to it.
#14
As the eloquent and learned Antiwar likes to say, WhatEVER, Katsaris.
It must be a real bitch having souvlaki for brains...
The "ethnic Albanians" are radicalized Islamist terrorists and that traitorous idiot Bill Clinton got the US and NATO in on the wrong side.
The Muslims are burning churches and not mosques: that should have been pinko lackeys like Aris's first clue!
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 13:20 Comments ||
Top||
#15
The "ethnic Albanians" of the UCK are radicalized *nationalist* terrorists.
But yeah, that traitorous idiot Bill Clinton did support them when he shouldn't.
The Muslims aren't burning mosques? Oh, dear, how could I have *ever* failed to notice this *obvious* sign that they must therefore be Islamist Sharia-imposing fundies.
#16
The Albanian Muslims are getting their marching orders, funding, training and weapons from Al Queda.
Bet on it.
And yes, AK, you seem to finally be getting the picture.
Better worry about Greece getting into it with Turkey--closer to home and just as likely to happen as anything else.
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 15:30 Comments ||
Top||
Spainâs new leader condemned Americaâs "shock and awe" strategy for combatting terror, while U.S. politicians accused the Spaniards of appeasing terrorists by voting out of office the governing party that supported the war in Iraq. Rather than defeat terrorism, U.S. military actions risk fueling it, said Spainâs Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has made clear he prefers Democratic challenger John Kerry over President Bush in the White House. Is this one of the "more" leaders?
Zapatero said Wednesday that the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq "is turning into a fiasco" He must watch American TV
and he will stick by his decision to pull 1,300 Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of peacekeeping. "Combating terrorism with bombs, with operations of shock and awe, with Tomahawk missiles, is not the way to beat terrorism. Not like that. It is a way of generating more radicalism, more people who can wind up being tempted by using violence," Zapatero said. And then kill them also.
"Terrorism is fought by the state of law," he said in an hour-long interview with Onda Cero radio. "I believe this is what Europe and the international community must debate." Why do something when you can jaw about it?, so while you debate weâll continue to kill them, thank you very much.
Top U.S. Republicans, however, accused the Spaniards of giving in to terrorist groups by turning out of office the party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a close U.S. ally. House Speaker Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Spain was "a nation who succumbed ... to threats of terrorism, changed their government."
Zapatero's still arguing the side of the argument that lost on 9-11. But Spain chaning its government isn't the end of the world, except for the people who were killed in Madrid. Señor Z's still making the same noises as Chirac and Schroeder and any number of Nevilles. It doesn't break the team, just changes the line-up. And there are lots of Spaniards who remember that cojones is a Spanish word. There are just slightly more at the moment who prefer warm milk and a story.
"Hereâs a country who stood against terrorism and had a huge terrorist act within their country, and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists," Hastert said.
A part of them did. Let's not forget the Spanish with guts...
Added GOP Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee: "The vote in Spain was a great victory for al-Qaida."
It was a victory they'll try to exploit. Probably they'll have a certain amount of success. But Powell's smart. He'll minimize the damage as much as he can. And the WoT's going to be around longer than Señor Z...
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, expressed his condolences to the people of Spain, particularly to the victims of last weekâs deadly railway bombings in Madrid. But DeLay said he hoped Zapatero will come to believe in the U.S. position - "that Iraq is central to winning" the fight against terrorism. The lawmakersâ comments were harsher than those coming from the White House in recent days.
That's because the White House can't panic, they have to exercise damage control...
When Bush was asked Tuesday whether the Spanish vote gave terrorists reason to believe that they can influence elections and policy, he replied: "I think terrorists will kill innocent life in order to try to get the world to cower. I think these are cold-blooded killers." On Thursday, five suspects in the bombings were scheduled to appear in court. They are two Indians and three Moroccans, including Jamal Zougam, considered the main suspect. The attacks led to accusations that Aznarâs support of the Iraq war had made al-Andalus Spain a target for terrorism. Angry voters turned to Zapatero, who campaigned against the war and the stationing of Spanish troops in Iraq. Zapateroâs threatened troop withdrawal has worried U.S., British and some other world leaders, who say pulling out of Iraq after the bombings would amount to a victory for terrorists. 1300 men arenât much, but perception is everything.
Zapatero, who is putting together a Socialist government to take over next month, was asked how he might respond if Bush personally asked him to reconsider pulling Spanish troops from Iraq. "I will listen to Mr. Bush, but my position is very firm and very clear, we will run" he said. Zapatero, 43, is not alone in Europe in his criticism of the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq, undertaken by the Bush administration despite international opposition and seen by many as a detour from the real fight against terrorism.
If he had been alone he would have jumped the other way. He's a follower...
After initially pointing the finger at Basque separatists, the Spanish government has since said it is investigating a top suspectâs possible links to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
ETA was the first, logical suspect. Following that first, logical inclination made them look like they were dithering, especially as the Qaeda evidence came out. In retrospect, they should have said "we don't know if it was ETA or Qaeda but we're gonna find out soon." In retrospect, I shoulda been born a Vanderbilt, too.
Some 5,000 supporters gathered outside the headquarters of Aznarâs party Wednesday, accusing Zapatero of being soft on terrorism. Waving flags and banners, they protested Zapateroâs upset win. "Zapatero, president of al-Qaida!" "Zapatero with terrorism!" and "Zapatero resign!" they chanted. At least they arenât all pussified.
The protesters left about 30 minutes after the Popular Partyâs defeated candidate, Mariano Rajoy, appeared and greeted the crowd from a balcony. Western Europe, save the UK is lost.
Señor Z's taking minor hits at the moment. His support won't start to suffer until El Pais is making fun of him.
Posted by: JerseyMike ||
03/18/2004 7:32:46 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And here I thought a "fiasco" was a small bottle of Italian wine. Who knew?
That did a lot of good, didn't it?
A key suspect in the Madrid terror attacks came under close scrutiny from law-enforcement and intelligence officials in at least three countries last year after bombings by Islamic militants in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, European law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Officials said Jamal Zougam, a suspect in the train bombings last Thursday in Madrid, had been investigated and questioned last summer by law-enforcement officials in Spain, who received requests for information about him from both Morocco and France, the officials said. Moroccan officials said they had uncovered ties between Mr. Zougam and several Islamist radicals who have been jailed since the May 16 Casablanca bombings. Spanish officials also opened their own inquiry into that attack because four Spanish citizens had been killed. Despite the attention Mr. Zougam received from the three governments after the Casablanca bombings, and the discovery of his ties to several important Qaeda figures, two Spanish officials said they had been unable to develop enough evidence to charge him with any crime. One of the officials said investigators eventually eased off their scrutiny of Mr. Zougam, simply because they had so many other suspects to monitor. "There wasnât any physical surveillance of him, but there was an investigation," one of the officials said. "There was not enough evidence to move against him for the Casablanca matter."
Although it is not clear that any of the governments mishandled the case, the disclosures raise questions about the effectiveness of both their intelligence efforts and the antiterrorism cooperation among them. "Morocco informed the Spanish that he went to Spain and that he was a quite dangerous person," a Moroccan official in Rabat said Tuesday evening. "There was no evidence against him in Morocco, but they asked Spain to investigate him."
Spanish counterterrorism officials are still uncertain what role Mr. Zougam, 30, might have played in the Madrid attacks last week, officials said. Two survivors of the attacks have since told the police they think that they saw him on one of the trains, but one official said investigators remained skeptical of the witness accounts. Nor did officials ever determine whether Mr. Zougam had any role in the Casablanca attacks, in which 12 suicide bombers and 32 other people were killed in synchronized strikes against targets that included a Spanish social club. Tuesday evening, Spanish police agents spent more than an hour inside one of the two cramped storefront cellphone shops where Mr. Zougam had worked with Mohammed Chaoui, 34, who was said by friends to be his half-brother and who was arrested with him. The agents went into the store and came out leading a tall, handcuffed man whose head was covered with a dark hood.
Both Spanish and Moroccan officials noted that although Mr. Zougam had been linked to three important figures in the Casablanca bombings, he had never been conclusively tied to the attacks themselves. After the Casablanca attacks, Moroccan officials said they quickly determined that Mr. Zougam had been in Morocco only weeks before. A senior Moroccan official said they also knew that he had "close relations" with an important suspect in the case, Abdelaziz Benyaich, a Moroccan who had fought with jihad groups in Bosnia and in Chechnya and Dagestan, Russia. Other officials said Mr. Zougam was also close to Mr. Benyaichâs brother, Salaheddin, a one-eyed Qaeda militant known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mughen. Abdelaziz Benyaich was arrested that June in southern Spain and prosecuted by the Spanish investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzón on charges of belonging to a Qaeda cell. His brother, also wanted in Spain, was arrested in Morocco and charged in connection with an alleged plot to blow up a French oil refinery, officials said.
In Spain, Mr. Zougam was questioned in August at the request of French officials investigating the claims of Pierre Richard Robert, a French jihadi who also implicated the Benyaich brothers. Although the search of Mr. Zougamâs apartment turned up Islamic militant books and videotapes, along with the phone numbers of several figures in a Madrid-based Qaeda cell, Mr. Zougam was not charged. In addition to the three governments that had examined Mr. Zougam, Britain is now investigating whether he had contact with militants there. Based on documents recovered in the search of Mr. Zougamâs apartment, a senior British official said Tuesday, British counterterrorism officials are investigating whether he visited London in recent years, possibly to see Abu Qatada, a jailed militant whom they describe as Osama bin Ladenâs "ambassador" to Europe.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 1:08:16 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This story should serve as a timely warning to those in the UK who bemoan the fact that we hold suspected Islamofascists without trial.
Associate yourself with nutcases Mahmoud and we'll have you in the nick.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 5:11 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"two Spanish officials said they had been unable to develop enough evidence to charge him with any crime"
Another example of why the "law enforcement" approach doesn't work (as if we needed one).
#3
they had been unable to develop enough evidence to charge him with any crime
How much evidence did they need to deport him?
What legal status did Zougam have to be in Spain? Did he have a work permit?
Was his little cell phone business obeying all tax laws, labor laws, fire codes, nit-noy regulations? Did all the business's employees have work permits and pay their income taxes properly?
If I had to choose between 1) Spanish soldiers guarding sites in Iraq and 2) Spanish government officials simply enforcing Spanish laws against all Moslem radicals operating openly in Spain, then I would choose the latter. That's what I hope might belatedly change now.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/18/2004 7:37 Comments ||
Top||
#6
To some degree this highlights the problem police/intelligence agencies face when dealing with foreign agents, that is, how to decide when its more valuable to arrest/deport them versus the value in watching them and learning about their contacts and patterns of behavior. Obviously they waited too long in this instance, but hindsight is invariably 20/20.
Authorities here suspect the attacks were coordinated by the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which was founded in 1993 by Islamic fundamentalists who, like al-Qaidaâs Osama bin Laden, were veterans of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Several of the groupâs members also have been convicted in Morocco of involvement in suicide bombings last year that struck, among other targets, a Spanish cultural center in Casablanca. The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported earlier this week that nine members of the group are being held by the U.S. government at its prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - presumably seized during the U.S. effort to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan. There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. authorities. Spanish press reports also have said that eight more suspects are being sought throughout Europe and that members of the group have lived in a variety of countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Egypt and Turkey. The possible involvement of the group raises questions about how well international law enforcement is able to monitor known Islamic terrorists. U.S. authorities last week said there had been no "chatter" picked up prior to the bombings to alert authorities that Islamic terrorists were planning an action.
Meanwhile, Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said Wednesday that Spain would tighten security at airports, train stations and sporting events in line with similar steps adopted by a majority of European Union countries. Few details of the security steps were provided, but Acebes said the steps had been approved by both of Spainâs leading political parties. Acebes declined to answer specific questions about the investigation, however, saying the judge responsible for the case had ordered information sealed. No Spanish official is publicly saying that the Basque separatist group ETA has been eliminated as a suspect in the attacks. But a week after the bombings it is clear that much of what Spanish police first reported about the attacksâ possible links to ETA was incorrect. Spanish police originally said the train bombers had used titadyne, the same type of explosive that ETA had stolen by the ton in France. Two days later, they corrected that, saying the explosive was actually Goma 2 ECO, but still insisted that ETA also used that explosive. But Spanish police now acknowledge that Goma in fact isnât commonly used by ETA. Spanish police now also say there were few similarities between detonators used in the train bombings and those captured previously from ETA. Spanish police last week said the detonators were similar; police now admit the detonators in the latest bombings were made of copper, while ETA prefers aluminum.
Spanish police appeared to be taking great interest in immigrants in the Lavapies neighborhood of Madrid, where Zougam, who operated a cell phone store, was arrested Saturday. At least four immigrants from Morocco, India and South America were stopped by officers asking for their work papers. Some who couldnât prove their legal status were arrested. Neighbors watched silently and tried to go about their business as usual. Other officers were in the neighborhood for more than an hour the night before, searching ZougamÂŽs phone store and filling two boxes with his belongings. Hasoum Khamlichi, a Moroccan who sells televisions and other electronics in the neighborhood, watched as the police searched ZougamÂŽs shop. He said he is "friendly" with Zougam "but weâre not close friends. Everybody knows him. Heâs been here for three years. I bought my mobile phone from him. I took my friends to buy mobile phones from him." He said he often saw Zougam praying at the mosque on Fridays and that he never saw him drink or smoke. "Some people say he sold phones and made bombs; others say he just sold phones," Khamlichi said. "I donât know. The people who died were just trying to make a living, and many of them had hard lives. I want the right people to be in jail for that, the guilty people, but so far there hasnât been a lot of concrete evidence."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 1:04:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Spanish security sources said yesterday they believed that bad blood with Morocco caused a critical breakdown in communication over terroristsâ movements. Analysts fear that the centuries-old rivalry could further hamper the investigation into the Moroccan terrorist cell that appears to be behind last weekâs bombings in Spain that killed 201 people. Yesterday they broadened the manhunt for a further 20 Moroccans thought to have entered Spain illegally after a string of suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca last May. But arguments between Morocco and Spain over the island of Perejil and other matters had seriously damaged co-ordination on known shared threats, according to security sources quoted in the newspaper El Mundo. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the prime minister-elect, has already pledged to improve relations with Morocco.
The security services are examining the possibility that the attacks were organised by the Moroccan Combat Islamic Group, an organisation thought to have been founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1993 to which the main suspect so far arrested, Jamal Zougam, is thought to be connected. The spectre of a Moroccan jihad touches one of Spainâs most sensitive nerves. King Juan Carlos has publicly atoned for the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 but has refused to pay the same tribute to the Moors. In the 1920s, Spain conducted a brutal colonial campaign in the Rif Mountains of Morocco and the country still has two North African colonies, Ceuta and Melilla, which Morocco claims. Relations between the two countries became further embittered during the centre-Right tenure of the defeated prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. They bickered over illegal immigration, fishing rights and drug trafficking. These disputes culminated in the invasion of the tiny island of Perejil by a handful of Moroccan gendarmes. They were ousted by Spanish special forces backed by frigates and submarines. Some Spaniards are convinced that the Madrid attacks were based not only on the war in Iraq but on Islamâs historic claim to Spain.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:48:27 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Boy, these Spanish queso-eating surrender monkeys don't waste any time!
Looks like that bug-eyed vampire Zapatero can't wait to "make peace" with Morocco, too!
Would you like Gibraltar, por favor?
I'm sure Britain won't mind!
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 1:54 Comments ||
Top||
#3
They bickered over illegal immigration, fishing rights and drug trafficking. ..Some Spaniards are convinced that the Madrid attacks were based not only on the war in Iraq but on Islamâs historic claim to Spain
Won't be a problem with Zappy in power, since he intends to do nothing to interfere with the any of these problems. ?Queso, seniors?
#4
Spain fears bad blood with Morocco may have caused intel lapse
Try this on for size, in the first days after 9/11: "US fears bad blood with Afghanistan may have caused intel lapse". The fact is that if Morocco knew about the plot, it was the Moroccan government's responsibility to inform Spain. It works like this - if someone knows that a murder is about to occur, he needs to inform the police that it is about to happen, before it happens - otherwise, he is criminally liable. This talk about bad blood is just another way of saying that Morocco passively conspired with the terrorists in order to put pressure on Spain over their territorial disputes. Will Zapatero cede Spanish territory to get this "cooperation"? Worse, was this an operation mounted by Moroccan intelligence, using al Qaeda's fingerprints?
#5
it aint so! dean sez so...it was BUSH and iraq....the dem's sez so..this is pure propaganda...the muslims are peace loving and have to claims to any territory...it's all a lie...AND BUSH STOLE THE ELECTION SO IT HIS FAULT!
Posted by: Dan ||
03/18/2004 12:33 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Zhang Fei - from the "Zougam's been watched for some time article" above, ""Morocco informed the Spanish that he went to Spain and that he was a quite dangerous person," a Moroccan official in Rabat said Tuesday evening. "There was no evidence against him in Morocco, but they asked Spain to investigate him." " If thats true it looks like its the Spanish who dropped the ball on this.
EFL snip
âThis election will be decided by the American people, and the American people alone. It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in Americaâs presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements,â Beers said. snip
Hummmmmmmm... I thought he had looked these guys in the eyes, and they told him he had to win. Good thing he was out on that snowboard today... if he crashes, he has an excuse.... "it was a concussion, I tell you... the concussion made me say it...."
EFL - I could have placed this in a different category
Former Malaysian Leader Endorses Kerry
Thu Mar 18,11:56 AM ET
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia - Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad endorsed Democratic contender John Kerry (news - web sites) in the U.S. presidential race Thursday, saying he would keep the world safer than President Bush... [safer for terrorists and their apologists, safer for Jew Hatred]
Just after this, Kerry Foreign Policy Advisor Rand Beers issued the following statement today: â...It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in Americaâs presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsementsâ...
too bad, I think Arafat was working on his endorsement speech - Saddam probably will give his endorsement to Kerry during his trial for crimes against humanity.
#1
Hope Lurch (J. F'in Ketchup) wasn't counting on the Jewish "Zionist" vote!
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 17:54 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Lurch...haha!
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 17:58 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Every Islamofascist in the world could endorse Kerry but still the Dems will get a greater percentage of the Jewish vote than Bush. Someone please explain to me why that is.
Posted by: Scott ||
03/18/2004 18:00 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The fact that Kerry had to issue a statement shows that the heat is on him for all this crap he has been getting away with.
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
03/18/2004 18:02 Comments ||
Top||
#5
scott,
I think a lot of Jews want Utopia more than they want heaven and the Dems have the best compassion rhetoric. A lot of Jews are total suckers for that. Also, there is distrust of the Christian evangelicals.
Also, a lot of Jews read the NYTimes.
Also a lot of Jews go to prestigious Universities which have faculty that is loony left.
#6
With the endorsements of Zappy the Pinhead and Prime Minister Moonbat, Senator JoKe is starting to look like a real contender. But, I think I'll hold my vote until I've heard what Kim Il Presley and the Mullahs think.
BH - ole kimmy , through the nkor official mouthpiece , already endorsed lurch..lolololol..lurch now that is funny....lurch also got endorsed by the Tehran Times.........
Posted by: Dan ||
03/18/2004 18:11 Comments ||
Top||
#8
A lot of Jewish people are pretty bright and many more will be breaking their Democrat habit this fall.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/18/2004 18:26 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I'm guessing Kerry is having seconds thoughts about the effectiveness of that 'foreign leaders endorse me' line.
As to what category this item belongs in, I think we need two new ones: one for crosspostings from Scrappleface and a second for news that's goofy enough to be on Scrappleface if it weren't for the fact that it actually happened.
Traficant Moved To Tougher Prison
By Damon Chappie
Roll Call Staff
March 18, 2004
Former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) was transferred last week to a higher security federal prison facility in upstate New York, a move that generally means a prisoner has misbehaved while behind bars.
High security? Hope you brought that vat of K-Y, Jimbo...
You just know that Traficants found his real consituanc.. consituen... voters. Maybe in 10 years he'll leave Marion with a shaved head, relocate to Idaho and run wild in local politics.
Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza last Sunday night virtually confirmed that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operatives have been sneaking in and out of Mindanao to train in camps allegedly maintained by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Dureza made the admission when asked at his weekly radio program Kalinaw para sa Mindanao (Peace for Mindanao) about the recent arrest in Malaysia of six Indonesians believed to be members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiya. "Iâm pretty sure now that members of terrorist organizations are coming in and out of Mindanao for training in terrorism. I donât think the Malaysian government will invent stories that are not true," he said in the dialect. Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, earlier said the rebelsâ have a standing policy against terrorism, shown by a statement of the late MILF chairman Hashim Salamat renouncing the groupâs links with the Jemaah Islamiyah.
Bolstering his claims that terrorist groups have penetrated Mindanao for some time already, Dureza cited the seizure of a large cache of explosives in General Santos City in early 2002. Slain JI operative Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi later pleaded guilty for the possession of about 1.2 tons of bomb materials, earning him a 17-year jail term for the confession. Al-Ghozi was slain in an alleged shoot out with government agents last year in Pigkawayan, North Cotabato, months after he bolted his supposedly tightly guarded detention cell in Camp Crame, the main headquarters of the PNP. While Dureza admitted that international terrorists have penetrated Mindanao for training purposes, he, however, assured that the government, in coordination with foreign governments, is doing its best to contain the threats of the terrorist groups in line with the worldwide war against terrorism.
In saying that Mindanao has become a terroristsâ training ground, Dureza strongly called on the MILF to observe earlier agreements outlining the commitment of the Moro rebels to go after terrorists. "We have agreements with the MILF that they will help interdict the terrorists operating in their areas. One of these agreements is the ceasefire pact. Whether this reported training of terrorist agents is true or not, Iâm sure the groupâs leadership is doing specific actions that should be threshed out in the joint ceasefire committee," Dureza said.
According to wire reports quoting an unidentified Malaysian security official, the six suspects were caught among a group of illegal immigrants trying to enter the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island several weeks ago but their arrest had not been announced until lately. Borneo is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei and the men were trying to make their way back to Indonesia after attending training in Mindanao, the Malaysian security official said. Report said they have been served with two-year detention orders under Malaysiaâs Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without trial. As he boosted the claims of Malaysia that the suspected international terrorists have trained in Mindanao, Dureza urged the residents to be vigilant and help the government in the fight against terrorism for everybodyâs sake.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 1:15:02 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A radical regional group linked to Al-Qaeda and blamed for Southeast Asiaâs worst terror attacks has thousands more followers than previously believed, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. But Downer went on to shrug off fresh warnings by the alleged leader of the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah group, Abu Bakar Bashir, and Al-Qaeda that Australia and other close US allies would be the next terrorist targets. In an interview published Thursday in The Sydney Morning Herald, Downer said Australia believed "there are somewhere between three and five thousand Jemaah Islamiyah adherents in Indonesia. Three to five thousand people can do a lot of damage if they get their hands on TNT."
Intelligence agencies had estimated Jemaah Islamiyah had several hundred followers and as few as 50 members actually involved in operations following a crackdown on the group after it carried out the October 2002 bombing of a nightclub strip in Bali that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian. Downer said Australiaâs assessment was that Jemaah Islamiyah was recruiting supporters through a network of radical Islamic schools in Indonesia. "There is still no doubt some people going through the hardest line of the pesantren (Indonesian Islamic schools) ... are going to be a problem," he said. Despite his dramatic assessment of Jemaah Islamiyahâs growing following, Downer was withering in his response to Bashirâs latest threats, made in secretly taped interview from his Jakarta jail cell that was shown on Australian television late Wednesday. In the interview, Bashir said that "sooner or later America and the countries that assist it will be destroyed in the name of Allah". Downer said Bashirâs warning "just shows what a loathsome creature he is. We completely reject his threats."
Downer also rejected a statement purportedly issued overnight by the Al-Qaeda cell which claimed responsibility for last weekâs deadly rail bombings in Spain that Australia and other American "lackeys" were now in the line of fire. "Our brigades are now preparing for a fresh strike. Will it be the turn of Japan, America, Italy, Britain, the Al-Sauds, Australia ...?" asked the statement published in the al-Qods al-Arabi newspaper. Downer responded: "Organisations like Jemaah Islamiyah and Al-Qaeda are not going to tell Australia what to do. Most Australians are never going to bow to threats and blackmail and pressure from Jemaah Islamiyah and Al-Qaeda. We will make friends with who we want to make friends with, and make alliances with who we want to make alliances with."
I sure hope the Australians like Downer as much as I do...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:51:02 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
better stick to the Eeewwohpeons, this is likely to just steel the anglos.
Indonesia has received 125 valuable transcripts from the US interrogation of top terror suspect Hambali, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday. "They do contain valuable intelligence information. The police will study this information further and make use of it as they see fit," said Dino Pati Djalal, the director of the North America desk at the ministry. He did not reveal the contents or say whether the transcripts might be used to open a new case against militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, whose three-year jail sentence for immigration offences and the Supreme Court halved document forgery this month.
The Asian Wall Street Journal said last week that new information allegedly implicating Bashir in planning attacks had emerged from the questioning of Hambali. A spokesman for Bashirâs Indonesian Mujahideen Council said earlier he feared police could use the documents as new evidence of terrorism against Bashir. "With those new transcripts, I fear that that ustadz (teacher) Bashir will be dragged back to jail upon his release," said Fauzan al-Anshori. A security ministry official has said the cleric may be tried again if new evidence emerges linking him to terror attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:42:33 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
I encourage all of you to do as Iâve done and send them a letter.
Give the Baâath a piece of your mind regarding the on-going crackdown against Kurdish pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria. (For news and pictures of these demonstrations check out the Free Arab Forum, and scroll down.)
I probably wonât help, but it certainly canât hurt to let these thugs and hoodlums know that the world is watching them.
Posted by: H.D. Miller ||
03/18/2004 5:23:21 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
thankyou for this little piece of info,last time i did a an abusive e-mail it was to Rik Waller,for being a waste of oxygen and space and eating enough to feed a large family for a week every day.Hope those Bathists love abuse
Posted on Instapundit:
Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
#7
Hyper, EXACTLY!
(That's the logic, Katsaris, you Greek asshat!)
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 14:09 Comments ||
Top||
#8
iran would hand him over thinking they would get the same treatment as pakland..not going to happen... iran is and will be in the cross-hairs..but handing over this scumbag will give them a little wiggle room.
Posted by: Dan ||
03/18/2004 14:18 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Jen> You showed off your ignorance yesterday and earlier today (Islamist Turkish Cypriots? *rolls eyes*), do we really have to witness your bile as well?
And what's "the logic" you are talking about? That Iran announced they have him, in order to face the threat of invasion?
Chill down and go have some electro-treatments, kid. You seem to need them.
EFL... This sounds like the part of the story CNN forgot to mention>>>
In the Haft-Howz, Falakeh Dovvom and Nirooye Havaii, districts of Tehran more than 10,000 people had gathered. Some women openly removed their scarves encouraging others to do so too. In Mohseni Square, the youth fought back the Law Enforcement Forces. At least 20 government forces were reported badly beaten up by the crowds. In Amir-Abad district the people joined the students and more anti-government slogans were shouted. Police patrol cars, which attempted to disperse the crowd, drove away from the scene as the people started throwing home made grenades at them. In Aryashahr, the crowd were throwing pictures of Supreme Leader, Khamenei and Islamic Republic flags on to the bonfires. Other districts in Tehran like Javadieh, Ferdowsi and Noor similar scenes continued. In some districts the noise prevented the telephone reports from making their reports audible.
- In Karaj, the house of the Friday Prayer leader was set on fire copying the similar action by the people in Fereydoon Kenar. Cue Spike Jones version of "My Old Flame"...
- In Yazd, between 7000-8000 people gathered in Atlasi Sq and attacked the known regime agents.
- In Booshehr, one revolutionary guard is reported killed.
- In Shiraz, the people attacked government agents who were filming them and broke their cameras.
- In Kerman, the people were shouting, Referendum, Referendum, This is the cry of nation.
- In Sarab, Azarbijan, where the people have a fierce reputation for their fighting capabilities, the local Baseejis were on the run while shouting Allah-Akbar.
As in last year Iranâs Kurdistan contained the biggest scenes of celebrations. Huge bonfires were reported from Marivan and Sannadaj, with the youth openly taunting the regimeâs forces. Even in many other places throughout Iran where the celebrations were less political, young boys and girls circled around bonfires, held hands and danced to the music. An unthinkable act in the month of Moharram, even in the pre-Isalmic revolution of 1979.
So on a night where the Islamic state run TV even resorted to showing popular American films to encourage the people of Iran to stay indoors, the fire of Zarathustra remained defiant and rekindled.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/18/2004 11:54:52 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
I read a year or so ago about serious fears in Iran about the future of Iranian Islam. Seems Islam is very closely associated with the Mullahs' who are very, very unpopular. Could be the Zorastrian stuff is just a poke in the eye of the Mullah's, which would be good enough.
From Geostrategy-Direct...
Iranâs success in flouting the will of the international community by continuing its nuclear weapons program is giving similar ideas to several countries in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I want one, too....
The "international community" has will? When did that start?
Leading U.S. analysts warn the Bush administration that Egypt and Saudi Arabia - both of which have declared their commitment to a nuclear-free Middle East - would probably join Iran as nuclear weapons states during the next few years. These countries would be motivated by the emerging threats from Iran and the rivalry of India and Pakistan. That way they can assure their annhilation is complete. Hell, they are all neighbors so a missile flight is only a few minutes.
"If Iran joins Israel as a de facto nuclear-weapon state, with three other nuclear-weapon states nearby - Russia, India and Pakistan - it is very unlikely that other nations in the vicinity will be able to resist launching or accelerating their own nuclear weapons programs," stated a report.
"It is not at all inconceivable that a Middle East with four, five or six nuclear-weapon states, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, will be the reality of the early 21st Century," stated the report authored by Kenneth Weisbode of the Atlantic Council and James Goodby of the Brookings Institution.
In October 2003, Saudi Arabia concluded a nuclear cooperation accord with Pakistan, according to Western intelligence and Israeli officials. The accord calls for Islamabad to provide a nuclear umbrella over the Arabian Peninsula as part of a new Saudi strategy that seeks to decrease its dependence on the United States. Decrease their dependence upon the US in favor of Pakistan? There is some brilliant strategic thinking.
Analysts said Pakistan could upgrade the Saudi arsenal of up to 60 Chinese-origin CSS-2 Dong Feng 3A ballistic missiles secretly bought in the mid-1980s. The missiles have nuclear capability and have a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. Whatâs worse is that the regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are vulnerable to a hostile Islamic takeover. Understatement of the week.
This gives a nuclear Egypt or Saudi Arabia an even more menacing aspect, the analysts warn. If the world is going to be dependendant upon ME oil, we better develop some techniques for oil production in radioactively hot areas. These guys are mad. Mo in Libya may have been daffy, but he saw the handwriting on the wall and adapted to the new reality. I see pilgrimages to Mecca with people in radiation suits, if there is anyone left over there.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 11:23:08 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
looks like UN tollerance over the past decades has caused half the bloody world to get into the WMD club. I see the need for a new weapon for America,i once read about metastablised spin Hydrogen bomb or something like that.It was said to be as or if not more power full then a normal Nuke but have no fallout or radiation effects.Don't know what happened to it,maybe it went into the black or was just conjecture among weapons scientists at the time. I don't know just seems like nukes are getting abit commen place now,everyone an thier gran owns them.a spaced based laser constellation of satilites would be a pretty awesome weapon system.Zaping planes,tanks ,people and boats and shit from high in space
#2
Mo in Libya may have been daffy, but he saw the handwriting on the wall and adapted to the new reality.
If the Iranian mullahs or Bashar Assad fall, this mindset can only grow stronger among those regimes that remain. The trick is to step up the pressure a notch or two....
#3
If the Iranian mullahs or Bashar Assad fall, this mindset can only grow stronger among those regimes that remain. The trick is to step up the pressure a notch or two....
B-A-R----That is the right idea. We have been wildly successful in the WoT.
1. Sammy is jugged and the Iraqi Baathists have been booted out.
2. Sammys money for attacking Israel is dried up.
3. Sammys oil spigot to Syria is off.
4. Afghanistan is slowly being improved
5. Libya has renounced WMD and is actually cleaning up its act.
6. Kimmie is making noise, but he is on the defensive.
7. Al Q is split into smaller pieces and is on the defensive.
Unfortunate the LLL and the press is spinning this into the Disaster of the Century, and an asshat in Spain gave away his farm.
The LLL needs a smackdown as they are trying to disrup the war effort. The only time I see that happening is after the Nov election, if Bush gets reelected. Al Q is on the ropes, and all they can do in Iraq is to blow up civilians. In Europe they boom trains. If Europe gets agressive and kicks some ass then al Q is finished. If they do not, it makes our job twice as hard and causes more casualties for us, which is a crime.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 14:28 Comments ||
Top||
They have been bought off - just like they were by Sammy. They are afraid to report the truth because they will get booted out of the country. Iranians celebrate fire festival
Iranians danced in the street, threw firecrackers and jumped over bonfires Tuesday night as authorities openly tolerated an ancient fire festival for the first time in 25 years. Halted each year since the 1979 Islamic revolution because hardliners considered it un-Islamic, the Chaharshanbeh Suri, or Red Wednesday, festival was officially recognized in Tehran where the city council set aside dozens of parks for people to enjoy the boisterous celebrations. Tens of thousands packed the streets of the capital hurling firecrackers into the air to mark the eve of the last Wednesday of the Iranian calendar year. The festival dates back centuries to pre-Islamic times and is thought to be derived from Zoroastrian traditions which accord special properties to fire.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/18/2004 10:46:10 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
When someone commented yesterday that they didn't report on the riots and instead reported on firecrackers going off, I thought it was a joke.
Well, it is a joke...but I thought it was ..you know ....sarcasm...not real. Intead, it is absolutely unreal!
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 10:52 Comments ||
Top||
#2
B,
that was me
but here's a surprize today, the Telegraph is reporting the uprising in Syria
#4
It's not pagan its a Zooroastrian tradition. Before the mullahs, you would go and buy tumbleweed at lots throughout the country. Similar to the way you buy pumpkins or xmas trees here.
#5
is the fire festival as fun and deadly as the Pakistani kite flying festival? I'd steer clear if it were. Seriously though fuckin firecrackers eh, wonder if they'll claim Syria to is swept by this firecracker 'craze'?
#9
For a little historical background, March 25 used to be New Year's Day in the western world, even though the calendar started on Jan. 1. In the old way, today would be March 18 2003/2004, depending on when you started your year.
The reformist President Mohammad Khatami of Iran conceded that he had reached the limits of his powers and would be a lame duck head of state until his term ends next year. He said he was withdrawing two bills that sought to limit the power of the ruling conservative hardliners "so that the few powers that the president still has are not eliminated. "I have met with defeat," he said.
One of the bills was intended to increase presidential controls in order to limit constitutional violations by the ruling conservatives. The other was intended to stop the Guardian Council, the hardline constitutional watchdog, from determining who could run in elections. In Februaryâs parliamentary poll it barred about 2,500 candidates. Mr Khatami said he would continue in office until his term expires in June next year, but his admission of political impotence marked the formal burial of the reform movement on whose now-shattered dreams he swept to power in 1997. "Since last monthâs elections parliament has been in the hands of a majority of hardline conservatives," said a former Khatami supporter. "He has merely admitted what the public have known since his second term in office began in 2001: his defeat by the conservatives."
Mr Khatami, who has pursued a policy of appeasement towards the conservative opposition, has consistently excused his lack of progress in introducing reformist laws by insisting that he was powerless to stop hardliners interfering with the countryâs democratic process. The president is responsible for enforcing the constitution. But any attempts Mr Khatami has made to prevent hardliners shutting down more than 100 liberal publications, blocking reforms and detaining dozens of pro-reform activists have been ignored. Mr Khatami warned the Guardian Council not to "weaken the system". He said: "People should know that in certain quarters the president is not seen as Iranâs top official after the supreme leader, but merely as a co-ordinator among other institutions."
"Itâs too late for him to do anything," said a 21-year-old student at Teheran University, once a fervent supporter of the president. "The way he handled the election crisis was awful. If he wanted our support, he should have resigned then and not voted in the [parliamentary] elections."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:46:25 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"The way he handled the election crisis was awful. If he wanted our support, he should have resigned then and not voted in the [parliamentary] elections."
But of course! Khatami is part of the ruling elite, so he's only going to go as far as he thinks is prudent, which obviously wasn't as far as what the population wanted. No surprise there.
#2
Mr Khatami, who has pursued a policy of appeasement towards the conservative opposition, has consistently excused his lack of progress in introducing reformist laws by insisting that he was powerless to stop hardliners interfering with the countryâs democratic process.
The difference between the reformers and the hardliners is about the same the difference in the shades of black in their hats...
Hit the link and scroll down a ways, from March 17 and 15. Lots of pictures and commentary. Tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 12:11:49 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I guess Kurdistan will take up more than just northern Iraq.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/18/2004 3:15 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The FreeArab Forum's slogan is almost hidden in the banner: There is no God but Liberty; our conscience its messenger. I like it, but the Wahhabis probably think that it's blasphemy.
#3
They mention helicopters using "pellet bombs". Can anyone explain that to me? I'm envisioning boxes of ball bearings spilled out from a height, but that can't be right, can it?
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 10:08 Comments ||
Top||
#4
They mention helicopters using "pellet bombs".
I googled "pellet bomb", seems like that's what some people call cluster bombs. The small bomblets are filled with steel pellets for anti-personnel effect. Haven't seen them being used from choppers, but the low speed would not be a problem, might even help accuracy at low levels. Bastards.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 11:07 Comments ||
Top||
The No. 2 official at the State Department said Wednesday that Syria's president risks isolation if he does not make a commitment to ending support for terrorist groups. The United States has branded Syria, both under President Bashar Assad and his late father, the autocratic Hafez Assad, as a sponsor of terrorism. Syria, said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, is "kind of high up in my pantheon of supporters for terrorism."
"Number 2 on the hit list, moving up with a bullet!"
In an interview with Talk News Radio Service, Armitage said that the younger Assad, 38, was not yet "the same man as his father. You can dislike his father enormously, but I think his father had the ability to make murderous decisions. We will see if President Assad can," Armitage said in an unusual public comparison of the two Syrian leaders.
Yep, the old man really knew how to rub people out.
"He is faced with a decision now. He's at a fork in the road, and he can either go and have a fine life or he can be further isolated and be the only Baath Party left in the region," Armitage said.
Or we could impale him in the road with the fork.
A State Department spokesman, meanwhile, sharply criticized Syria for cracking down on dissent in Lebanon and in Syria. "We have made our concerns known, and we reiterate our call upon the government of Syria to stop suppressing nonviolent political expression in Syria and Lebanon," Adam Ereli said. Armitage credited Syria with providing some help to the United States against the al-Qaida terrorist network. But he also said Syria and Iran were continually supporting the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, which have attacked Israel. "It is correct that, to some extent against al-Qaida, that the Syrians have helped us," Armitage said. "It is equally correct that the combination of Iran and Syria have continually supported Hamas and Hezbollah."
Baby Assad's really going to be alone if the Iranian students succeed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 12:05:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Why should it be might pay? Make Syria pay. Dearly, if at all possible.
#2
Bashar is no Hafez. Its time to throw out the baby with the Baath water. (disclosure: I stole the line from Rick Brookhiser, but thought I would pass it along because it was clever)
I was talking about this a couple of weeks ago. The whole international shipping system is wide open to hijacking for terrorism purposes.
The Al Qaeda terror network likely is planning an unprecedented maritime attack, hitting targets on land with ships carrying chemical, biological or dirty bomb weapons, a defense analyst said Wednesday. The terrorist network could easily exploit weaknesses in shipping companiesâ crew selection procedures by planting sleeper agents on vessels to eventually seize them, said Michael Richardson, a senior researcher at Singaporeâs Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (search) who writes extensively on Asian security issues. "The Al Qaeda network has serious maritime terrorism plans," Richardson told diplomats, academics and defense officials at the institute. Singaporeâs Coordinating Security Minister Tony Tan (search) has warned repeatedly since November that there is a "very serious" risk of terrorists using ships to attack the city-state. If a government minister is making these statements me thinks they know something.
Such an attack could have come sooner if it wasnât so difficult to procure a nuclear device and if Al Qaedaâs operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (search), and its head of naval operations, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri hadnât been arrested, Richardson said. "Sooner or later, Al Qaeda or one of its affiliates will make and detonate a radiological bomb, whether itâs in a ship or a shipping container," he said. "If you look at how relatively easy it is to get the materials, put them together and make them go bang, and look at the motivation, terrorism is going to get bigger and itâs going to get worse," he added.
A prime target would be Singapore â or any of the worldâs 40 largest port cities â or key international shipping straits and canals, Richardson said. Al Qaeda operatives could easily get jobs on ships by buying fake seafarer credentials, which are widely available, he said. But Al Qaedaâs past pattern of disciplined, coordinated attacks makes it unlikely that the network will risk hijacking a ship, or seek help from pirates outside of its circle of zealots, he said. The network has already demonstrated its willingness to attack sea targets with suicide attacks on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, Richardson said. In both attacks, suicide bombers detonated small explosive-laden boats next to vessels off the coast of Yemen. I have been wondering why they havenât repeated this tactic.
Singapore, a close Washington ally, also claims to have foiled a plot by the Al Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group to blow up, among other Western targets, a U.S. Naval facility in the island nation. The city-state has detained 37 terror suspects since 2001.
Itâs from Janeâs and hence requires subscription, but thereâs some extremely interesting material here.
The attack that killed 185 Shiâa Muslims in Iraq during the religious festival of Ashura bore the hallmarks of operations planned by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to US Central Command. JIR examines Zarqawiâs role as a co-ordinator of diverse extremist networks in Iraq and beyond.
According to General John Abizaid, commander of US operations in Iraq, the three major elements fighting Coalition forces are former regime elements, transnational terrorists and religious extremists or jihadists. Gen Abizaid told the US House Armed Services Committee on 4 March 2004: "Transnational terrorists such as the Zarqawi network, Ansar al-Islam and Al-Qaeda are attempting to destabilise Iraq by increasing both ethnic and sectarian strife with the intention of inciting chaos and a civil war. These terrorists are operating in the same areas as the former regime elements, which are largely former Baâathist strongholds. They also have a presence in northern Iraq and are launching attacks into southern Iraq targeting the Shiâa population, the international community, and security forces."
The letter was found on a compact disc when Coalition forces captured senior Al-Qaeda operative Hasan Ghul in January 2004. Written as a response to an inquiry from Al-Qaeda operative Abd al-Had al Iraqi (alias Abdallah Khan), it detailed operations and planning in Iraq. It also called for more Al-Qaeda operatives to enter the country and increase attacks on Coalition forces as well as Iraqâs Shiâa community. Not known as a bomb maker or financier, Zarqawi appears to function as a co-ordinator involved with several Islamist networks. According to a 23 February report by Brian Bennett and Vivienne Walt in Time magazine, Zarqawi is believed to have been "given responsibility for rotating Al-Qaeda troops between Chechnya and Afghanistan, through the mountains of northern Iraq", as well as running a training camp in Afghanistan. Thatâs everything, but it identifies who al-Iraqi is as well as yet another of Zarqawiâs duties within al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 1:12:13 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
the problam is we offer money for info leading to the capture of al peg leg--we should be offering sheep--preferably virgin wool--if you catch my drift
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/18/2004 5:05 Comments ||
Top||
A statement attributed to Al-Qaeda has threatened "Americaâs lackeys" with attacks similar to those in Madrid last week, singling out Japan, Italy, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Pakistan, an Arab daily reported in its today edition. "To Americaâs lackeys we say: a lackey of America has destroyed his future by allying himself with the tyrant of the century," said the text signed by Abu-Hafs al-Masri/Al-Qaeda Brigades received by Al-Qods Al-Arabi newspaper.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:39:42 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The same statement pointed out how deathly afraid of Kerry and is all powerful diplomacy are. Appears they're so frightened of the prospect of a Kerry presidency that they made a public demand that we not elect Kerry because he would bring them to their knees.
Whew, thank god we have enemies that are generous enough to let us know how to beat them. Could you imagine if we didn't get this info and mistakenly went into the election thinking Bush and his "force" approach to terror were winning? That was a close one.
#2
Surely you jest! Voting for Kerry is exactly what they want. But they realize saying so would be a sure way to keep him from getting elected. Its called reverse pyschology.
Posted by: Ben ||
03/18/2004 5:24 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I think DPA forgot to close his comment with "/sarcasm off"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 8:09 Comments ||
Top||
#4
How ironic, though, that Al-Qaeda was dead accurate in its characterization of Kerry, in that "he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization."
Hardly surprising, given Kerry's talent for embellishing bullshit and getting Americans to believe it.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/18/2004 8:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I find irony in the fact that the socialists find themselves once again in the roll of the intelligencia and useful idiots whose (infidel) heads will be the first to roll should they ever achieve their goals. Only this time they are doing it for religious fanatics. snicker
(AP) - Despite efforts by dozens of protesters to block it, the United Methodist Church trial of an openly lesbian pastor got under way with one witness warning clergymen not to "replicate the crucifixion of Jesus." Dozens of supporters of the Rev. Karen Dammann were arrested Wednesday in this Seattle suburb as they tried to block the start of the trial before a church panel that will determine whether she should continue her ministry. How can you provide spiritual guidance when youâre actively and openly rebelling against God?
#1
Coming from the resident non-Christian (Deist definitely, but I can't make the "logic jump" to firm conviction of a Ressurection, much less to organized religion), I don't have a "true" say in this ... but liberals are liberals -- what's wrong with pointing and laughing? :P
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
03/18/2004 22:42 Comments ||
Top||
#2
...with one witness warning clergymen not to "replicate the crucifixion of Jesus."
#3
Pederasty, lesbians, homosexuals, necrophyles, sodomists, gomorists and all other freedom luvvving people, unite against rabid white heterosexual evangelic judeo-christians!
G-d said so!
That bastard, son of a bitch, took name of Our, Jewish G-d to claim that G-d is his father who copulated with the whore!!!
Posted by: David Zweistein ||
03/19/2004 13:37 Comments ||
Top||
Fresh from her scintillating victory over Milosevic, Carla sets her sights even higher!
GENEVA (Reuters) - Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should face an international court, Chief United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said Thursday. His trial should not be held in Iraq, as it would be difficult to avoid "political interference," she told a news conference.
Saddam, arrested by U.S. occupation forces in December, is accused of atrocities including a poison gas attack by aircraft which killed 5,000 Kurds in Halabja 16 years ago. "My opinion is that an ad hoc international criminal tribunal will be the best instrument to have a fair trial against Saddam Hussein," she said.
Who gives a rip about your opinion?
The court "could be near Iraq," she said. This would make the collection and transfer of evidence easier.
We could do it with an Iraqi tribunal, too, which would make hearing evidence easier yet.
"It is difficult to conduct the trial if politics interfere. To avoid interference from outside, I think an international court could serve best," she said.
"Preferably one run by me, me, ME!"
Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general, is chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Now heading the prosecution of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, she was formerly chief prosecutor of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda investigating the 1994 genocide.
She botched that too. Wonder if Jacques, Dominic, Carla & Co are trying to set the fix on Sammy?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 6:06:42 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sorry, but no. We want Justice this time not another UN F*CKUP.....
#2
Perhaps after Iraq and Kuwait have their trials and EXECUTE their sentences, the UN will have its case prepared.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/18/2004 18:20 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Good compromise, Mr. D. The Iraqis/Kuwaitis plant him and then the UN can try him in (big time)absentia.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/18/2004 18:31 Comments ||
Top||
#4
To avoid interference from outside, I think an international court could serve best," she said.
I can't be the only one to notice the utter vapidity of that statement. This is probably one of those "foreign leaders" the Ketchup Kid's been talking to.
#5
Her ego and contract with the UN / ICT / Phrawnce must be running out. Is Chirac getting antsy about his financial dealings with Saddam finally seeing the light of day? I'm sure Carla would help him out - where the Iraqis might see things a tad differently.
What is it about the "international" institutions that breed such egomaniacal incompetents? Blix, ElBarradai, del Ponte, et al... When factoring in their productivity, they operate in the negative and, yet, command a bank of microphones for every utterance and salaries of significance. These darlings of the reality-challenged jet-set multi-culti crowd are losers - we don't need Mr Hair (Trump) to say it, "You're Fired, now Fuck Off and go find a real job - fucktard."
#6
Please, all.
Ms. Del Ponte has a long, distinguished and proven career as a prosecutor, judge and jurist, and has been widely praised by citizens of many nations -- including those of the United States -- for her fairness, humanity, judgement and legal expertise. The issue of judicial authority over Saddam -- now that the nation over which he held power no longer exists in any practical sense -- is a real and serious question, over which people of intelligence, judgement and good will can reasonably differ. The insults, 'ad hominem' arguments and unthinking slogans posted on this thread are unworthy, and serve no purpose.
#7
serve no purpose? I think they convey our communal snort of derision that the UN and Ms. Del Ponte in particular, are the founts of judicial and geopolitical wisdom they pretend to be.
I, for one, would trust the quick decision of a US infantryman with an M-16 to deal more justice than the UN. Call me bad...I'll cry myself to sleep over it, be assured
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 20:00 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Considering the news that has been recently coming out about the UN food-for-oil scandal, I don't think I could really trust anyone associated with the UN to 'administer justice' in a case that involves Hussein.
In the US, we would call it 'conflict of interest'. Since she seems to prefer the term 'politcal interference', I might suggest that would also be an excellent term to apply to the idea of a UN administered trial.
Posted by: Kathy K ||
03/18/2004 20:19 Comments ||
Top||
#9
For Saddam anything less than wormfood would be an injustice.
#11
"To avoid interference from outside, I think an international court could serve best."
The "international court" this presumptuous woman would try Saddam in, is itself the ultimate in outside interference. Saddam's fate belongs in the hands of the Iraqi people, and whatever fate they choose for him--no matter what it is--is intrinsically more just, and more legitimate, than anything any "international court" could impose (or would impose if, by some strange chance, it had the balls to impose anything at all).
And what's with all these countries that want to be Saddam's judges now, anyway? For a decade they were convinced Saddam and his WMD were a menace, yet they didn't want to do anything about it--and even wanted to do away with the UN sanctions. Now, they're convinced Saddam "never" had any WMD, yet they want to put him on trial before Europe's finest, most incorruptible judges?
Hypocrisy like that makes my head spin.
WHK: Stuff a sock in it, why don'tcha? Rantburg is no place for supercilious, prissy twits.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/18/2004 20:30 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Ms. Del Ponte may be a veritable Solomon sitting under a palm tree but as for:
"The issue of judicial authority over Saddam ,,, is a real and serious question",
I've seen more complex jurisdictional issues resolved by a competent judge in 15 minutes.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/18/2004 21:18 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Ah, the "international courts". If they get hold of Saddam, he'll spend five years waiting for his trial, two years sitting in a "court", and then get let go so he can enjoy his villa on the French Riviera.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/18/2004 21:37 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Thanks for the input, Carla.
By the way, who the hell are you?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein thinks he is smarter than his interrogators, but the United States has extracted from the worldâs most famous captive much that might be used at his trial, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
"Heâs turned out (to be) a pretty wily guy who seems to be enjoying the give-and-take with his interlocutors. He sure thinks heâs smarter than everyone else, thatâs for sure," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in an interview.
The No. 2 State Department official said earlier this week Saddam was giving up little information but on Thursday he explained there were also leads from the interrogation that could be analyzed to produce evidence.
"Iâve seen some of the results of these debriefs and weâve got a lot of dots to connect before we throw these out publicly," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Armitage did not say in what areas CIA-led interrogators had made progress since U.S. troops hauled the ousted Iraqi leader from a hiding hole in the ground in December.
But officials have said a main focus of questioning is to understand how the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupiers is run, as well as unearthing evidence to prosecute Saddam for an array of crimes.
Armitage said he was confident the 66-year-old, who was declared a prisoner of war in January, would be successfully prosecuted in Iraq.
"Thereâs a good deal, I think, of interest in Iraq for seeing the tyrant finally brought to his knees," he said.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/18/2004 4:44:26 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
might explain to him that Abu Abbas died in custody - ask him if he wants a track suit and carton of cigs - mostly unused......
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 17:15 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Old Spook 2/2/04 "....After that, they will break him without him realizing he is broken. And that's the best kind of 'break' to have - information obtained under that is more easily verified and usually far more valuable and accurate (this includes things he doesnt say that are very indicative of laying out the negative ground too - i.e. eliminating some areas from consideration). The info will be essentially given voluntarily although unwittingly...."
This is interesting for me to watch because Old Spook has called it correctly.
Pakistan forces may have al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri surrounded in a remote tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, a senior Pakistani government official said on Thursday. "A pitched battle is going on there. The way these people are resisting, we think there is someone important over there," the official told Reuters. "We think al-Zawahri may be holed up there," he said.
Earlier, President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistani troops believed they had surrounded a "high value target" during a battle with militants loyal to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "(Judging by) the resistance that is being offered by the people there, we feel that there may be a high value target," Musharraf told CNN. Musharraf, who said he had spoken to a military commander, declined to speculate on the identity of the target. Asked if it could be bin Laden or Zawahri, Musharraf said: "I am not going to say that because my previous experience is that whatever I say, headlines come that âhe says Zawahri is there, or Osamaâ. I canât. It would just be a guess. But I think that very likely there is a high value target. Who I donât know."
Pakistani forces launched a fresh offensive on Thursday against suspected al Qaeda fighters and their Pakistani tribesmen allies near the Afghan border. Fighting went on through the day and the sound of shelling in the South Waziristan region could be heard late into the evening. Sixteen soldiers and 24 suspected militants were killed in fighting in the same area on Tuesday. The dead suspected militants included men believed to be foreigners loyal to bin Laden, officials said.
#7
I could not believe that we don't have UAV's buzzing around giving real time images to some SF liasons with the Paks
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 15:48 Comments ||
Top||
#8
bet theres a globahawk or 2 up above them with predators maybe swooping around lower down.Hope theyve got thermobaric hellfires hung under each wing.
#10
Mansoor Ijaz (salt licks upon request) has suggested that a phone intercept is what suggested that it is Zawahiri that is inside, and that he may be injured.
The Pakis are supposedly going to send some choppers in. (Gosh, hope AQ doesn't watch Fox News...)
#11
Mansoor pulls this stuff out of his ass! But, I hope I'm wrong ;) If he's injured we have a much better chance of getting the bastard before he tries to escape.
#14
He's an analyst on fox news who makes outlandish reports sometimes. Some people buy into him but I think he just smokes a J and comes up with some of his stuff.
21:25 Pakistani official says Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has not been surrounded by Pakistani troops
20:20 Pakistani officials say they believe Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri is surrounded near Afghan border
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 16:15 Comments ||
Top||
#17
CNN reported that they just doubled the bounty for Osama. Does that mean that they got Zawahiri and thus have more funds available, or does it mean they just cut a deal with someone who demanded more cash???
Either way, it seems good to me.
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 16:27 Comments ||
Top||
#18
I sure hope we own the night. If this guy is gone come daylight I'm going to be annoyed. I assume we have two SF guys on scene for every Pakistani.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/18/2004 16:41 Comments ||
Top||
#19
I just hope two things:
1. that it really is that frigginsonofabitch
2. that if it is, in light of all their bluster about Islam, paradise, infidels, kufr, and Joooooos, etc, that AQ realizes he was sold out by his "brothers" for a few shekels
;o)
oh. and I hope he, like saddam, gives up rather than dies for the cause! Now THAT would be a HOOT!
#22
watching O'Reilly on Fox: David Hunt says Seals killed 22 plus Zawahiri (suspected) - awaiting DNA or autopsy confirmation now, and will give the kill credit to Pakland
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 20:07 Comments ||
Top||
#23
could we review the military situation.
Paki troops have a perimeter of about 25 km. manned by 3000 to 5000 troops(?) about 5 meters per man. well inside the perimeter are a bunch of fort like mud huts, with 200 defenders, and artillery. The paks have been hitting with artillery and choppers, keeping the baddie awake and under stress, and killing them as possible, and watching to avoid escape. Maybe tightening the perimeter? Then at day break (now?) bring in the fixed wing aircraft, suppress the defensive fire, and storm with infantry?
#24
The military option sounds good. I think the key consideration is getting as many alive as possible. Also rumors are that there are missing PAKs that could be in there. I think it will be a lot of copters and gunships. Wouldnt be surprised to hear a chopper going down. If I was one of the baddies, I would have spent my last wackin off, cuzz the end is near.
From Sky News...
Osama bin Laden's second in command has been surrounded in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf has told CNN. Troops say they have cornered Ayman al-Zawahri in an operation near the Afghan border. The operation, involving hundreds of troops and paramilitary rangers, has been carried out in the South Waziristan region. The identity of the man surrounded has not been confirmed. But President Musharraf said: "(Judging by) the resistance that is being offered by the people there, we feel that there may be a high value target." Sky News' Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall said: "Most people believe the number two is actually the brains (behind the al Qaeda network)." And he added: "If it's true it is an enormous strike. It cannot be underestimated."
#3
AP confirms. Aaron Brown who is in Islamabad is confirming as well. I detect a sigificant uptick in media attention, so I sense that more is know than can be confirmed publically.
Slow news out of the area is due to extreme remote nature of the area and a need by the paki military to make sure that no one knows that US troops are assisting in the kill.
This will be trumpeted by the left as a success of the UN not a triumph of the US.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/18/2004 13:32 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Sky News reporting Zawahiri has surrended!!!!!!
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/18/2004 13:33 Comments ||
Top||
#12
FM -- I doubt Zawahiri would surrender, but I guess it's possible that he's a little bitch like Saddam. For the conspiratorial among us, can it be a coincidence that Colin Powell is in the region? It would be a master stroke by Bush -- having the member of the War Cabinet most fawned over by the media, the UN and the EU and the left in general hold up the severed heads of Zawahiri (and maybe even Binny) on every TV channel in the world.
PS - IMHO, if anyone deserves the privilege of holding up severed heads, it's Rummy, but I am not against playing to the crowd.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/18/2004 13:53 Comments ||
Top||
#13
If anyone deserves the privilege of holding up severed heads, it's Rummy and Giuliani, one each.
CNN - AP confirming musharraf statements
MSNBC - Jim maceda confirms statements on zawahiri
FOX - Monsour ijaz confirms suspicions as well
Reuters - "its not bin laden"
All seem to be backing the 'surrended to" meme.
All are asking " are US troops involved".
A discussion going on all three stations about how pakistan who will they turn him over to and under what circumstances, which is interesting to talk about if theres still doubt.
Brit Hume on in 5 minutes.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/18/2004 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
#15
wow!
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 14:22 Comments ||
Top||
key -point is in the lede - 3 paki officials confirm.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/18/2004 14:25 Comments ||
Top||
#17
They are now saying that the fighters they are encountering are Chechen, not Arab, and it may be a high profile Chechen leader. But it may still be Zawahiri.
#19
probably end up being a local shiek or some ehit or just another 'tall' binny lookalike, i wouldn't want to be a very tall turban binny lookalike,could also just be dumb Paks getting overexcited too of course. Fuckin better be someone good otherwise i'm gonna write Perv an angry letter for getting our hopes up!
#23
Fox news just said it's 200 AQ guys and they have artillery too.
If US forces are involved, their artillery doesn't get more than one shot.
Sounds like the plan to flush them from the bushes seems to have worked.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/18/2004 15:09 Comments ||
Top||
#24
"Fox news just said it's 200 AQ guys and they have artillery too"
Would this be a splodeydope and a trampoline ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
03/18/2004 15:12 Comments ||
Top||
#25
I swear, from some angles Zawahiri looks like Dennis Hopper with a turban and a beard...
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
03/18/2004 15:13 Comments ||
Top||
#26
is it some sort of fort thier in.if so hope for thier sakes it has 100 foot thick chobam armour walls.Is it night or day there yet,can't we just tire them out,hell even end up starving them to death,wear them down over a couple of days then send in the 160th,AFSOC,rangers and delta operaters to bag em.
#27
Monsoor Ijaz on FoxNews was just saying that it's still night in Pakistan and we're waiting for dawn there to see where we are...
Go Force 121! WOLVERINES!
Posted by: Jen ||
03/18/2004 15:20 Comments ||
Top||
#28
The Paki's Mil SpokesGuy said 5 min ago that there are ONLY Paki regular and special forces involved - not even using any US air assets. 100% Paki operation... he sez...
Other source (don't recall who - mebbe Fox's Ijaz guy) that there was a US Predator involved (early on, I guess) to pinpoint the location for the attack. Would be flying high now if arty and helicopters are in the air.
#32
No, they gotta go with targetted bombs on defended positions. Capturing this guy alive is way to valuable to bomb indiscriminately. There could be terrorist attacks they are in motion that we could stop by capturing and interrogating him.
#33
While I would be willing to bet that there are CIA types and US/UK Special Operators on the ground, the fact that the airstrikes are coming at dawn signal that US air assets are less likely to be involved. Otherwise, the dawn info would likely be a ruse since the US doesn't have a problem raining death from above at night and in adverse weather conditions. I imagine that Pakistan's air capabilities are limited to daylight operations (especially since I doubt they have JDAMs and may have to do visual targeting).
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/18/2004 16:29 Comments ||
Top||
#34
Given the ease of obtaining a Paki passport, I'm hoping some of our SF boys drove through the embassy in Kabul before heading towards the border.
#35
Most of the Pentagon folks have been quite content to state that its fully a Paki operation. I think if we did drop a MOAB or a Daisycutter or a cave buster that they would have a hard time keeping our involvement quiet. :)
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 17:44 Comments ||
Top||
#42
some goof on the T.v said the area was 25 miles square,must be a fuckin huge fort if it is a fort,sounds more like a load of mud huts scattered around the countryside.Send a B1B over and let the pressure wave of its speed blow the huts down.Any chance this place thier in has sat t.v? could they now know an airstrikes due at sunrise? do we want them to think that while something is sprung on them in the night,just a thought
#43
it could very well be 25 sq miles - towns in this area are built medival....mud huts surrounded by large mud walls...and they are inhabitated by 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th..ect cousins.keepin it in the family.........B1B is the perfect solution here but now if we him alive.
Posted by: Dan ||
03/18/2004 18:21 Comments ||
Top||
#44
Naw, the solution here is light infantry, heliocopers, night vision equipment, and money, lotsa money.
#45
It just occured to me that this 'waiting for daylight' is a result of the Pakis not having night vision equipment like we do.
you know it wasnt all that long ago that we didnt have it, now its basic staple.
I hope the pakis kept the jihadis in their hole all night with lots of crunchy mortar goodness.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/18/2004 19:34 Comments ||
Top||
#46
In that region, borders are not well marked, nor well delimited (not many surveyors in that part of the world).
And FLIR, SLAR and other things like that are typically found on aircraft that just happen patrol close to borders. As do night trained helicopters on joint service training missions.
And air or artillery delivered ICM can do a lot to counter mobility.
Its such beautiful weather - finally losing the storminess, but still cold. I wonder if heat sources have better contrast in the cold?
As long as nobody drops the ball it would be very difficult for anyone leave unnoticed/unharmed if such things were near a given area.
#5
Additional from AP: Pakistani troops and paramilitary forces using artillery and helicopter gunships launched a new assault Thursday against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects in a tribal region near Afghanistan, two days after a fierce assault that left dozens dead.
In a report from Islamabad, CNN said Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told them Pakistani forces had surrounded a "high-value target" that was being protected by al-Qaida fighters. CNN said the identity of the target was not known. The new push began in Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha villages in South Waziristan, the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, the chief of security for the area. Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan said there have been casualties in the new offensive, but he had no details of how many or on which side.
Rush sez CNN sez Perv sez he thinks it's one of "top four". I sez it's time for 48 hour rule.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 13:26 Comments ||
Top||
#6
D.B. Cooper......there was a nightclub here some years ago that was named after that guy. As a matter of fact, above the little dance floor was a slowly rotating mannequin mounted on a motor of some kind in a skydiving position with a face painted on it, and in the mannequin's hand was a suitcase.
#11
My ululator is still in cosmoline. I will clean it off when we have real confirmation that a high level rat bastard is, in fact, caught.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2004 13:41 Comments ||
Top||
#12
First Zarqawi and then Zawahiri? This could go down in the Official History of the War on Terror as the biggest day. Any votes for other top days in the WoT? The day the Taliban fell? The day KSM (aka Ron Jeremy) was nailed?
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/18/2004 13:42 Comments ||
Top||
#13
You might consider getting out your Steam Generator AP..... something purdy big is up.
BAGHDAD, Iraq _ Pepsi is rebuilding its old bottling plant. Mitsubishi is planning a new car dealership. A Kuwaiti firm envisions a $500 million hotel and shopping complex in the heart of Baghdad.
Nearly a year after bombs, tanks and looters wrought devastation on Iraqâs already awful economy, the country is teeming with commerce, real and anticipated. Stores are filled with new products, foreign investors are circling, and unemployment _ while painfully high _ has fallen by half.
"It may not be palpable, but Iraq is booming," said Maria Khoury, chief of research for Atlas Investment Group, a Jordanian investment bank. "Weâre seeing a big increase in consumer goods flowing into the country."
Though still very low, Iraqi living standards are higher than at any time since the 1990 Gulf War, economists say, despite the ongoing bombings and killings. Oil revenues, which fund the government and its social safety net, are near prewar levels. The World Bank estimates that the economy will grow by 30 percent this year, after shrinking last year.
...
Unemployment has dropped, but from a high of 60 percent to a still-whopping 28 percent, according to the planning ministry. Whoa, I hadnât heard that tidbit before... their unemployment rate is almost as low as pre Aznarâs Spain. Hmmm, good chance that within 1 year they will have lower unemployment than Spain now that the socialist are in and Iraq is a full blown capitalist society.
Dear visitor, Rantburg is owned by Mr. Fred Pruitt who without doubt is a loyal American, but has come under severe criticism from Zionists who are loyal to the State of Israel. Having lied to the American people about WMD, Zionists are now suppressing the truth while blaming President Bush.
We must not allow that spilling of American blood be blamed on anyone but those responsible for fabricating lies with the intent to incite endless wars in order to create Israel-friendly states that will support the occupation of Palestine with their votes in the UN Security Council.
Therefore, ADL USA and the American Defense League are making every effort to inform the American people of who and why is spilling American blood -- please help us in that effort. Since Mr. Pruitt has been persuaded to censor our links, simply delete spaces and add .com or do a web search.
ADL USA Member
Posted by: ADL USA Member ||
03/18/2004 12:22:36 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Gunmen killed two Iraqi women working in a laundry for the U.S.-led coalition, a day after the slaying of two American coalition officials and their translator by attackers disguised as police. The two women, who were sisters, were driving home in a taxi in the southern city of Basra late Wednesday when gunmen stopped the vehicle and opened fire on them, a coalition official said. The women worked in a laundry for the U.S. company Kellogg Brown & Root, which has a contract to provide logistical services for the coalition and military, an official at the British Ministry of Defense said.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/18/2004 10:52:36 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Almost same thing happened in late January when four laundresses were killed in Falujah.
What's the point other than just general cruelty?
Two people were killed in a car bomb attack while a third man was beaten to death by a mob after the blast targeting a hotel in Iraqâs main southern city of Basra, Iraqi police and medical sources revealed. "We have received two dead and one man who was beaten by the crowd who died on arrival at the hospital," said Manal Nassrah, an emergency doctor at Basraâs Al-Sadr university hospital.
"Of course, we didn't pay much attention until he did kick the bucket. Whoever woulda expected that to happen?"
The wounded counted a nine-year-old boy and two middle-aged men who were lightly wounded, the doctor said Thursday. Earlier, police officer Ali Radi Zaer told AFP: "Two people were killed and one wounded in the explosion of a Mercedes car near Buraq hotel on Al-Istiqlal street in the city center." But a coalition spokeswoman in Basra, Paola Della Casa, said a British military on patrol in the area at the time believed it was a roadside bomb. "The report is so far an IED (improvised explosive device)," she said, adding it was under investigation. She put the casualty toll at two wounded. Shortly after the explosion, a crowd seized a man and beat him up.
Hurrah for the crowd! Normally, I disapprove of mobs, but I'm making an exception...
The apparent suspect, an unidentified man, was wounded and taken away by police in an ambulance, they said. British coalition forces, which control the city, and Iraqi police cordoned off the area, preventing journalists from approaching the site. Firefighters put out the fire in the car which exploded meters away from the newly-renovated three-floor hotel, which caters mainly to Iraqis.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/18/2004 10:43:36 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
First stage includes total withdrawal from Gaza Strip and four settlements in West Bank. Weissglas and Eiland to present plan to administration next week. Be sure to check out the FEEDBACK at the bottom of the article.
Posted by: SamIII ||
03/18/2004 9:41:53 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
biggest news of all - another english language Israeli source besides dovish Haaretz and hawkish Jerusalem Post. I look forward to checking out Maariv - thanks for pointing out this source!!!!
The operation in Wana has been launched again on early Thursday morning for the arrest of the wanted people in the area. Regrouped and reloaded.
Secretary FATA Brigadier Memhmood Shah informed Geo that the Wana operation started by Frontier Corps and Militia has been re-launched on Thursday with the help from Army and gunship helicopters. He however declined to give any specific number of the troops participating in the operation. He said that the operation has been re-launched, with reinforcement, to arrest the militants who were in a large number than expected and as such they could not be nabbed in the previous operation. He said that the operation will continue unless these elements were combed out of Pakistan. He said that the local population was given three hours for evacuation from the area following which the operation was launched at around 10 am in the morning. Giving locals a chance to clear the area before they go back in. Now the gloves come off.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/18/2004 9:35:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I know the outcome i.e., another 15/20 pakistani soldiers gone dead for good,not a news anymore, but surely a good news to one's ears.Frankly speaking Pakistan army is like a stray dog, always going after the weaker ones. But this time it be a lose/lose situation, good for them..they deserve it
Dear visitor, Rantburg is owned by Mr. Fred Pruitt who without doubt is a loyal American, but has come under severe criticism from Jews who are loyal to the State of Israel. Having lied to the American people about WMD, the Jews are now suppressing the truth while blaming President Bush.
We must not allow that spilling of American blood be blamed on anyone but those responsible for fabricating lies with the intent to incite endless wars in order to create Israel-friendly states that will support the occupation of Palestine with their votes in the UN Security Council.
Therefore, ADL USA and the American Defense League are making every effort to inform the American people of who and why is spilling American blood -- please help us in that effort. Since Mr. Pruitt has been persuaded to censor our links, simply delete spaces and add .com or do a web search.
ADL USA Member
Posted by: ADL USA Member ||
03/18/2004 9:20:22 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Hey, here's an idea: put your money where your mouth is and buy your own damn bandwidth for your ignorant hate speech.
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 9:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
You turds just don't get the message, do you? We're not interested in your insane conspiracy theories or your bilious Jew-hatred. No one is. Stop wasting all our time and piss off.
#4
Oh, and by the way, the "adding spaces" and other crap to disguise links to your monkey-with-a-typewriter web site is pretty much wasted time. You've obviously never heard of "regular expressions" and grep.
From Jihad Unspun
In the previous operation in Wana in the area of Kalusha, the number of Pakistani deaths has risen to 22 - fifteen reported to be Pakistani Scouts and paramilitary, one Pakistani army soldiers and six other unidentified fighters. Thirty-one Scouts and army men have also been wounded. As the total scope of the incident is examined, a further rise in the number of deaths can not be ruled out. Our sources have said that what the government is reporting about the deaths of Mujahideen is blatantly false and that only six were martyred, including two foreigners, not 24 as previously reported by Pakistani officials.
Nawaiwaqt is also reporting descepancies and say that there has been no proof of the claim that 24 fighters were killed by Pakistanis as the govt. The news agency is claiming that only two bodies have been discovered so far. They also claim that the operation was so intense and caused so much loss to the authorities that it was Pakistanis who stopped the operation to recoup from their losses and reorganize. Nineteen Scouts, four volunteers, and two political agents have been confirmed as missing and are suspected to have been taken to an undisclosed location as prisoners. Our sources also say that some 14 volunteers who were helping the Pakistani army in its crackdown and two other political agents have taken refuge in a safe location to avoid being captured. Mujahideen also seized thirteen troop transport trucks, three pick up cars, four cannons and three armored personal carriers, which they torched. Sixteen Mujahideen were captured by the paramilitary forces in the incident. The Mujahideen who are holding the 19 prisoners have offered to release them in the return for their fighters that Pakistan is holding. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/18/2004 8:23:14 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wazibillies
Ha ha ha ha ha !! (Just back from pub.)
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 8:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
If we ever have that Rantburg convention, I want Howard, Shep, Bulldog, TGA, and the rest of you crazy ferriners to make it! We'll party like it's...um...1999...uh...only later!
Posted by: Dar ||
03/18/2004 9:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Rock on Tommy. Swaying in my office chair. Time to wee in the waste paper basket.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 9:46 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Busharaaf!..Let this be a lesson to you, your forces & your so called allies..I am 110% with the Wazir's, & wish them luck..I will see who is gonna save u when these brave tribesman are gonna nail you in your army house..U are a dead man...Amen
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 9:55 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I like mine well done. Do we have any cole slaw?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2004 10:58 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Plenty of Napalm jelly on the side...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 11:36 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Does anyone remember the false report that came from these guys during the first month of Iraqi Freedom? Supposedly, there were tens of thousands of unreported dead GI's being kept on ice in Pakistan to prevent the American public from finding about the extent of the vicious resistance we were encountering.
In that instance Americans who communicate with deployed personnel easily dispelled the rumor. Claiming excessive casualties on the Pakistani forces side would provide supporting "evidence" for the quagmire canard that would be more difficult to counter.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 14:05 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Sure as eggs is eggs these are some bad ass beardies up there. They've been the only people to give the Brits a kicking on a regular basis. Send in the Gurkhas, I say. My Grandad was out there prior to WW2 and they shit him up proper. (Sargeant Major James Ellison - Yorks Regiment prob). Not a direct quote - gathered by my father from Guinness fuelled ramblings.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 16:15 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Howard UK you are a man after my own heart, ever clearer, with everclear.
The Taliban has appointed former commander Mullah Dadullah to lead operations against US and Afghan forces in the countryâs south, a spokesman for the ousted militia said on Wednesday. The spokesman, identifying himself as Sabir Momin, said Mullah Dadullahâs appointment as operations commander had been âendorsedâ by the Talibanâs elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. Momin, speaking from the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak, told reporters in the bordering Pakistani town of Chaman by telephone that Dadullahâs nomination was proposed by a 10-member Taliban council a few days ago. Mullah Omar himself did not participate in the council meeting but he has approved the nomination of Mullah Dadullah, he said. Dadullah replaces Hafiz Abdul Rahim, who was killed along with his 14 colleagues in a US air raid on the Marouf district of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in December.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/18/2004 4:17:43 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Have we got a decent photo of this one ??
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/18/2004 5:13 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Mullah Omar didn't participate, huh? Is the Motorcycle of Doom⢠kinda surrounded?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2004 8:07 Comments ||
Top||
#3
was muller omar the one who made the great escape style getaway on his moterbike from US forces halfway through the Afgan campaign, I remeber a story about some guy burning it off on a motor bike and missing capture by litterally a minuete or two.
Visiting US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced here Thursday the United States would designate Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally". "I advised the foreign minister this morning that we will also be making a notification to our Congress that will designate Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally for the purposes of our future military to military relations," Powell told a press conference after meeting his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:56:45 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Shouldn't that be a Major Non-NATO Ally who can't be provided with F-16s because they would immediately attack India with 90% of them and disassemble the other 10% for reverse engineering and proliferation purposes? My moniker is really not as catchy as Powell's effort.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2004 5:02 Comments ||
Top||
#2
It's not bad:
Ally M NNO P W/F[Y]16
Ok...I need to work on the Y part..
Ok..I need coffee.
EFL.
An Iraqi security official seeking to rebuild Iraqâs dissolved intelligence agency, or mukhabarat, believes some Sunni mosques are acting as local urban bases for jihadis - holy warriors - hiding in the hills across the Syrian border. They can cite Yemenis, Syrians and Iranians caught in Iraqâs cities while trying to launch attacks. "We used to have more than 270 border posts. Now thanks to Americaâs abolition of our security forces, we have only 11," says AJ Mohie, a retired general advising Ayad Allawi, the head of the Governing Councilâs security committee.
Another resistance group operating further north, Ansar al Sunna - literally the Members of the Sunna, a name highlighting its sectarian nature - used the internet to claim responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in the Kurdish capital, Arbil, and has distributed video CDs of what it claims to be its attacks on British, Spanish and Canadian intelligence officers, complete with their passports and identity cards. One of five wills of suicide bombers read out in Ansar al Sunnaâs video warned "the brokers of the West" that jihad would continue "until we get back [the Jerusalem mosque of] Al-Aqsa and Andalucia [Spain]". The videos appear to offer some support to claims that al-Qaedaâs ideology is motivating, if not directing, the attacks.
In January, Iraqâs embryonic intelligence services uncovered a video CD circulating in Falluja entitled "Hidaya al Eid" (The Holiday Gifts), in which sheikhs bearing Saudi tribal names such as Al Ghamdi and speaking with Saudi accents boasted of their attacks on US troops. A London-based and Saudi-financed magazine, al Majalla, earlier this month ran an email interview with "an al-Qaeda leader", Abu-Muhammad al-Ablaj, who claimed to have received instructions from Osama bin Laden to direct "the Mujahideen yearning for martyrdom" to go to Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:55:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
annihilate the religion/para military force--turn mecca into a glass bowl that would make a geiger counter jump out of your hands--soflam and jdamn the wahabbi mosques and break up the saudi entity
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/18/2004 4:57 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"until we get back [the Jerusalem mosque of] Al-Aqsa and Andalucia [Spain]".
This should be comforting to all those spanish voters who gave the terrorist just what they wanted. Well part of what they wanted.
Posted by: Ben ||
03/18/2004 5:44 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I read the whole article, and I, for the life of me, can't figure out what this guy is trying to say.
He seems to be saying that since the fall of Sadaam, that the Sunni's are converting to Wahhabism and are going to target the Shia as "rejectionists"... and thus...we have created a "homegrown" problem by inspiring the Iraqi Sunni's to convert to Wahhabism.
Then he goes on to say that because the damn Americans got rid of their border posts, that anyone can cross the border, but then he says that only 30 non-Iraqi's are in custody, seemingly implying that it's the Sunni's doing the fighting, not foreign fighters.
Then he goes on to say how AQ is directing it and encouraging Jihadi's world wide to come to Iraq and join the fight.......so why only 30 in custody then????
So which is it?? Is he trying to say that, thanks to the US, the Sunnis are suddenly becoming Wahhabis, and joining the global Jihad movement, something they would not have done if we'd left Sadaam in power?? Or is he trying to say that AQ is sending foreign fighters to Iraq to rid it of the Americans???? That's hardly a newsflash.
Soo...is it homegrown conversion to Wahhabism, or is it foreign inspired???
Does anyone understand this? Because I sure don't.
Posted by: B ||
03/18/2004 10:36 Comments ||
Top||
#5
One of five wills of suicide bombers read out in Ansar al Sunnaâs video warned "the brokers of the West" that jihad would continue "until we get back [the Jerusalem mosque of] Al-Aqsa and Andalucia [Spain]".
Or until the purveyors of his "faith" are burned to a radioactive crisp.
#6
Once the authority is turned over to the Iraqis these guys are going to be in a bad way. The new government/police are not going to tolerate these assholes and they will kill them without compunction. No more hiding in the mosques. No more Imam's spouting off. The vast majority of Iraqis just want a peaceful existence and they will cheer their government cleaning out the assholes.
Posted by: remote man ||
03/18/2004 13:25 Comments ||
Top||
All shepherds and woodsmen, no doubt ...
Hundreds of frightened people near the Pakistan-Afghan border have fled their homes after fierce clashes between Pakistani troops and local tribesman apparently protecting suspected al Qaeda fighters. Angry tribesmen torched more than a dozen military vehicles -- some loaded with ammunition -- on Wednesday and Tuesday after the Pakistani military launched the offensive on Monday. At least 39 people have been killed in the bloody crackdown by Pakistani forces near Wana in the tribal-controlled South Waziristan region. Fifteen soldiers have died, while Pakistani forces have killed 24 suspects, most of which were foreign fighters and not Pakistanis, military officials said. Intelligence officers are also questioning 18 people captured during the raids. "For the first time in the history, Pakistani forces have entered there to finish the terrorists," Pakistani Information Minister Shiekh Rashid Ahmed told CNN on Thursday. "We are committed against terrorism and we have to pay the price," he said. "Our soldiers sacrificed their lives yesterday ... but we have to face this crisis, and we are ready to face it and ultimately we will get rid of these terrorists." The whereabouts of bin Laden was still unknown, the minister said, but added that Pakistani forces were "ready to catch him."
I'm guessing it was easier than they thought it was gonna be. They took the Waziri face-making and eye-rolling seriously...
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell applauded the Pakistani effort and is set to discuss the operation with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday during a visit to Islamabad. "We regret the loss of Pakistani life in this effort but it shows, I think, good intentions on the part of Pakistan not to allow these tribal areas to be used as a haven for the Taliban," Powell said at news conference in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday. U.S. officials have said that ground troops and aircraft are expected to move into Afghanistanâs southeastern border region near Pakistan in the next few weeks. As the weather warms and the snow melts, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are becoming more active with U.S. troops reporting an increase in firefights and rocket attacks on their bases. More fighters are also expected to move across the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan where U.S. forces plan to be waiting for them.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/18/2004 12:35:04 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
cavalry always takes some casualties when entering injun country to engage the hostiles--probably courageously led by jaffir wayne
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/18/2004 4:29 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"but it shows, I think, good intentions on the part of Pakistan not to allow these tribal areas to be used as a haven for the Taliban"
#3
Musharaff is the Mir Jaffar of 21st century. I dun know when is U.S gonna put lead in his skull, may be when he be of no use anymore, and that day is by the way fast approaching
#4
This new Anonymous is the Compuserb of the 18th of March 2004. I dunno when Fred is gonna put him Trolls and Spam, may be when he be of no use anymore, and that day is by the way fast approaching.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/18/2004 11:32 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"We better not go in there. They got swarthy eye-rolling goons that revel in bloodshed."
"But, mon capitan -- we are swarthy eye-rolling goons that revel in bloodshed."
BATUMI, Georgia. There was a glimmer of hope that a row between Georgia and its renegade province of Adjara could be resolved after the leadership of the Black Sea region agreed to let Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili fly in for crisis talks. The development came after more than six hours of talks between Adjara's autocratic leader Aslan Abashidze and Nino Burjanadze, the speaker of Georgia's parliament. "President Mikhail Saakashvili will be coming to Batumi on Thursday for negotiations with Aslan Abashidze," Burjanadze told reporters as she emerged from the marathon talks.
There was no guarantee that Saakashvili and Abashidze -- who make no secret of the fact they loathe each other -- would be able to resolve their dispute. But the mere fact that Saakashvili would be coming to Batumi was seen as a breakthrough. Saakashvili confirmed the visit late Wednesday and said he was ready to lift an economic blockade imposed on Adjara if Abashidze agrees to hold democratic legislative elections. "If the negotiations are successful, the economic sanctions will be lifted," he said. "The only subject of the negotiations will be the question of the imposition on the conditions necessary for the holding of democratic elections in the region" of the Adjara. Saakashvili accused Adjara of trying to secede from Georgia and took the unprecedented step of ordering the blockade which has brought Batumi's busy port and oil terminal to a standstill.
The row with Adjara is a local spat with international repercussions: Russia has a military base in the province and backs Abashidze, while the United States worries that instability in Georgia will jeopardize a multi-billion-dollar (-euro) oil pipeline project. The European Union on Wednesday renewed its support for Georgia's territorial integrity, and in a statement urged both sides to "re-establish dialogue at the highest level". It said the EU's special envoy for the South Caucasus, Finnish diplomat Heikki Talvitie, flew to Georgia on Tuesday to discuss the crisis with Saakashvili.
Atta boy. Gum 'em to death.
In Batumi, after speaking with Burjanadze, Abashidze confirmed that Saakashvili would visit on Thursday, and said he backed a peaceful settlement of the conflict. But he sounded a defiant note too, saying that Georgia's government had "violated its obligations one hundred percent". Burjanadze, who had travelled to Adjara as Saakashvili's emissary, cautioned that a solution to the row was still a long way off. "It is impossible to resolve all the problems straight away," she said. "But the most important thing is to handle this in a peaceful way, through negotiations."
Georgia's economic blockade on Adjara was in its second day Wednesday and there was no sign of it being lifted. Georgian naval vessels were blockading Batumi's port and Adjara's border with Turkey was also shut down. The hope in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi has been that the blockade will convince Abashidze to fall into line. But the embargo was also causing a knock-on effect much further afield. Batumi is a major transit point for goods between Europe and Asia, and for oil exports from the Caspian Sea to Western markets. An official in neighbouring Azerbaijan said nearly 2,000 railway wagons carrying oil products were backed up on sidings near Azerbaijan's border with Georgia due to the blockade.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 11:31:03 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
U.S. Green Berets ran mock ambushes Wednesday in the sand dunes of central Mali, where Malian troops fired blanks at a pretend enemy - and shouted "bang! bang!" when the blanks ran out.
"Got ya!"
"Did not."
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
The exercise is part of a months-long American effort to train troops in Mali and three other impoverished West African nations where Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida are alleged to have operated. The Associated Press was among the first media allowed to observe. The foes "could be anyone: bandits, smugglers, terrorists," said one U.S. special operations soldier, part of a U.S. force that began arriving in Mali in November. The American soldiers are in Mali under the State Department's Pan-Sahel Initiative, a $7 million program to help soldiers in Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania boost battle skills amid the worldwide fight against terrorism. U.S. officials say many African armies are too small and ill-equipped to patrol the vast territories they nominally control.
A Green Beret, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the program aimed to boost the ability of the Malian military to secure their country's borders against lawlessness and insurgents. Malian Lt. Col. Younoussa Maiga agreed. "The Americans are helping us reinforce what we already have," he said. There are about 200 American soldiers training troops in Mali and Mauritania. Plans for similar on-the-ground exercises have yet to be worked out for Niger and Chad. The 120 Mali troops under U.S. training will patrol in a military zone nearly the size of Texas, centered around Timbuktu, the fabled town of about 30,000 people about 410 miles northeast of Mali's capital, Bamako.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 11:50:51 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This was going to be my next holiday destination...no, seriously. I was going to go through Dogon country up to Timbuktu. (I am a freak this way. I enjoy places like Haiti and Ethiopia for a little R&R.) The problem is one of the only major hubs into Mali from the states happens to be Paris. Back to map!
#5
Dragonfly - I think there's still a BOAC flight to Accra. From there you can switch to Air Afrique to Bamako, then steamer down the Niger to Timbuktu. Probably cost more and take longer, but you could DO it...
Getting back may be a little more difficult...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2004 11:48 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Old Patriot...or, I could do an overland starting in Algeria. Oh, that's right! That's another Islamic country in tatters.
Afghanistan may have to delay its historic elections because the overwhelming majority of its eligible voters still aren't registered to cast ballots, President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday. Blaming security and logistical problems, he said U.N. registration teams still have huge swaths of the lawless countryside to visit before the vote can be held. Only about 1.5 million of Afghanistan's 10.5 million eligible voters - or less than 15 percent - have registered for the presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for June. The United Nations hopes to issue voter identification cards to another 8 million people during a nationwide campaign beginning in May. "If that is done on time by the United Nations, the Afghan government is keen to have elections in June, July or August, depending on preparations," Karzai said after talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
I wouldn't count too heavily on the UN to get the job done...
Still, Afghan officials acknowledge they face a daunting task in trying to hold a legitimate ballot while thousands of U.S.-led troops continue pursuing militants along the Pakistani border.
They could always write off Pashtunistan.
Powell, who visited a girls' school in the capital where he watched women register to vote, said he was impressed by the preparations and promised long-term American support for Afghanistan. "This is an exercise in democracy," he said. Karzai said it still had not been determined whether both votes would be held simultaneously. The parliamentary election is more difficult to organize because of uncertainty over district boundaries, the need to register hundreds of extra candidates and tougher security requirements. Karzai is expected to win a five-year term as president. Washington believes he can prevent the country from relapsing into anarchy and again becoming a base for terrorists.
I never like the idea of delayed elections. You can always find a reason, if you look hard enough...
The United Nations recently agreed to speed up its registration drive in troubled provinces, but only after receiving security assurances from the Afghan government and the U.S.-led military coalition. The world body is also pressing for protection a new push to disarm the warlords and factional militias still controlling much of the country in order to reduce the chances that UN workers voters are intimidated. "We have huge challenges, no doubt about it," the head of the Afghan electoral body, Farooq Wardak, said after touring the voter registration center with Powell. But he said registration rates in eight cities where the process has begun showed the "keen interest of the Afghan people that they want ... to be part of the political rehabilitation of their country." "We are not alone in this process. We have the international community behind us," he said. "I can assure you we will take this process to a success."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2004 11:55:23 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yo, Karzai, wanna do us a favor? Send Al Sistani a letter and explain what it takes to hold elections (those pesky details such as voter registration, etc.), keep it simple so his turban doesn't explode. Just the basics will do fine. Thanx. It's the least you can do.
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.
