#4
Actually OBL is now probably a dissident within Al Queda. OBL is now, I think, wanting to 'purify' Islam as a first priority. His deputy and most of the Al Queda forces want to kill the infidel first.
They might come to an agreement by declaring all Moslems they disagree with to be infidels but then they have to make distinctions between various kinds of infidels. This gets nasty because the Quran and Hadiths are ambiguous on this.
IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, Kuwait has been waging its own war on terror at home. The police have engaged in five fierce and bloody gun battles with extremists since January 10, as reported by the Associated Press. Five policemen have been killed in these encounters, along with four security men and two bystanders; foreign observers described police conduct as "ham-handed." But the police also managed to kill 9 suspected terrorists and arrest more than 40.
Jolted by this first serious clash with Islamist terrorists, Kuwaiti authorities acted swiftly to tackle the root of the problem: They are closing down unlicensed mosques and barring Saudi imams, the tireless purveyors of Islamist extremism, from preaching inside the emirate. In addition, the AP confirms that Kuwaiti authorities are blocking Islamic websites that incite violence, seizing radical books from mosques, and purging textbooks of extremism.
Expressing the nub of the new policy, former Kuwaiti oil minister Ali al-Baghli wrote in the Kuwait daily Al Qabas on February 2: "What is needed is to cut off the snake's head, namely the masters of terror and all those who propagate terror in mosques and the media."
Yet even as tiny Kuwait, a Muslim country, confronts the problem of Saudi-funded propagation of extremism, European governments continue to treat it with something like benign neglect.
Or worse: In Germany, Wahhabi materials (produced by the extremist Saudis also called Salafis) are used to teach about Islam in public schools. To be sure, this came about by inadvertence. German law allows schools to offer
optional religious instruction, so long as it is provided not by state authorities, but by the various religious communities themselves.
As Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle East scholars, explained recently at the Hudson Institute, when Germany's large Turkish minority applied for the inclusion of classes on Islam in schools, they offered to supply textbooks from Turkey. As these were government textbooks, they were deemed unacceptable by the German authorities, who requested materials produced by the local Islamic community. The result, Lewis says, were materials produced by private Muslim institutions--funded by Saudi Arabia. As always, he says, it was "the Wahhabis who had the necessary combination of passion, money, and a complete lack of scruples.
"So the Islam that is taught in Turkish schools is on the whole a modernized, secularized, sanitized version of Islam. The Islam which is taught in German schools is the complete Wahhabi version." And Lewis adds this footnote: "As an interesting result of that, of 12 Turks arrested so far who have active membership of al Qaeda, all 12 were born and brought up in Germany, none in Turkey, which I think is rather remarkable."
In Spain, where the very large Islamic Center of Madrid has been directly financed by Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism is on the rise. As long ago as 2002, the Spanish secret services were worried about the radicalization of the local Muslim community. It came as no surprise when, after the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid, a link was established between a Madrid mosque and the men arrested for the bombing.
Meanwhile in France--which hosts the largest Muslim community in Europe, somewhere between 5 million and 8 million people--the link between radical mosques and terrorism is strong. As Louis Caprioli, former head of the counterterrorism unit of the DST, the French equivalent of the FBI, put it, "Behind every Muslim terrorist is a radical imam."
Completing the picture, three young French Muslims died recently fighting the Coalition in Iraq, and three more were arrested by American troops in Falluja. All six had attended the same mosque in Paris and answered the call to jihad of the imam, who has since been arrested. The
mother of one of them told a reporter her son had been brainwashed and manipulated by an Islamist guru.
In a country with 1,500 imams, this is a drop in the sea. Even deporting the most virulent will scarcely make a dent in the growing radical movement, considering the hold Saudi Wahhabism has on French Islam. As long ago as May 2001--before 9/11--King Mohammed VI of Morocco warned the French interior minister of the danger posed by the influence of Saudi Arabia through French mosques. To no avail.
Yet the development of Saudi institutions in France continues apace. A new school for training French imams will be financed by the Saudi-sponsored Islamic Countries Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (ICESCO), reports the Arabic newspaper Al Watan. Just last week, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin told Le Figaro Magazine that a decision of the European Court of Justice prevents European governments from barring the foreign funding of mosques. So much for a truly independent French Islam.
Finally, the government of the Netherlands has been on a steep learning curve since the murder of Theo Van Gogh, on November 2, 2004, by an Islamist following the release of Van Gogh's documentary critical of Islam. The government has just issued a report on "Saudi Influences in the Netherlands: Links between the Salafist Mission, Radicalization Processes, and Islamic Terrorism" (available in English on the website of the Dutch Interior Ministry). It documents the usual patterns of funding and incitement, including "sermons and prayers [in Dutch mosques] that showed overt jihadist features, in which for example Allah was asked to 'deal with the enemies of Islam,' namely Bush, Sharon, and the 'enemies of Islam in Chechnya and Kashmir.'"
WHAT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES? A landmark report initiated at the request of American Muslims has just been released by Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. The report, edited by the center's Nina Shea and Paul Marshall and available on the web, meticulously documents the presence of Saudi government propaganda in mosques and Islamic centers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York. Researchers confirmed the availability, as recently as December 2004, of over 200 books and other publications teaching the Wahhabi ideology of hatred, intolerance, and sometimes violent jihad.
One small sample from a book for high school students published by the Saudi Ministry of Education and found at the Islamic Center of Oakland, California: "To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah's way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government. The military education is glued to faith and its meaning, and the duty to follow it."
It is telling that the researchers, translators, and principal analysts of this material have chosen to remain anonymous. Even in the United States, those who take on the Islamic extremists must live in fear.
The fact that Islamofascist ideology is being propagated within our borders is, as the Freedom House report underscores, a national security concern. That this is being done through the agency of an allied foreign government points to the need for strong diplomatic action.
There is good reason to believe the public would support this. An August 2004 poll by Luntz Research found that 82 percent of respondents want the president to put much more pressure on Saudi Arabia in the fight against terror. Now that Freedom House, a private organization, has further exposed this urgent problem, it is up to Washington to take vigorous action. If Kuwait can do it, why not we?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:57:43 AM ||
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"What is needed is to cut off the snakeâs head, namely the masters of terror and all those who propagate terror in mosques and the media."
The Shiite Muslim minority in this kingdom once marked their Ashura holy day furtively in darkened, illegal community centers out of fear of stirring the powerful wrath of the religious establishment.
But this year Ashura fell on the eve of the 10-day campaign for municipal council elections, to be held here on Thursday, and a bolder mood was readily apparent. Thousands thronged sprawling, sandy lots for hours to watch warriors on horseback re-enact the battlefield decapitation of Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, in 680.
A few young men even dared perform a gory, controversial ritual no one can remember seeing here in public - beating their scalps with swords until they drew blood to mirror Hussein's suffering.
"It used to be a story that made us weep only," said Nabih al-Ibrahim, 42, a portly civil engineer running for a city council seat. "We believed we were weak. That this is why we didn't govern ourselves for a long time."
"Maybe now, after all that has happened in Iraq, we will take something political from the story of Hussein," Mr. Ibrahim added, echoing a common sentiment. "Now the issue will take another route, because Shiites have started the growth of their political culture."
Saudi Arabia's religious establishment, which is dominated by the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam, still damns such rites as pagan orgies. But the fact that Shiites, at least in this city, their main center, no longer feel the need to hide reflects a combination of important changes here and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The most important include the emergence of an elected Shiite majority government next door in Iraq, the campaign for municipal elections here in the country's first nationwide polls and a relaxation in some of the discrimination that Shiites have long faced in the kingdom.
The limited municipal council elections scheduled throughout eastern Saudi Arabia are expected to earn Shiite candidates all five seats up for grabs in Qatif, an urban area of 900,000 on the Persian Gulf.
In a sight startling for Saudi Arabia, Sheik Hassan al-Saffar, a dissident Shiite cleric who has been jailed and spent the 15 years before 1995 in exile, spoke for an hour in one candidate's campaign tent on the first big night of electioneering. Even limited elections are important, he said, "because they ignited in people's minds the spark of thinking about their interests and aspirations."
Sheik Saffar also drew parallels to Iraq, saying voting was the least Saudis could do, considering the risks their brethren had taken next door to exercise this new freedom. He took great pains to say it was a question for all Saudis, not Shiites alone.
The kingdom's two million Shiites, most living in the Eastern Province, constitute about 10 to 15 percent of the native Saudi population.
The minority naturally faces the same problems as other Saudis, utterly lacking freedom of assembly, expression and most other basic civil rights. Activist Shiite women are outraged that all Saudi women are barred from voting.
But the Shiites feel their problems more acutely because they have suffered religious and economic discrimination in Saudi Arabia, particularly in the aftermath of Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979.
They were viewed as a potential fifth column, not least because Shiite Iran urged the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy and violent riots erupted here in the early 1980's. The fact that the Shiite minority is concentrated right above the country's richest oil fields inspired a particularly harsh crackdown.
There has been no Shiite cabinet minister, and only one Shiite ambassador - to Iran. Shiites are kept out of critical jobs in the armed forces and the security services. There are no Shiite mayors or police chiefs, and not one of the 300 Shiite girls' schools in the Eastern Province has a Shiite principal.
Saudi Shiites believed that the government would at least start to regard them as citizens, especially after Crown Prince Abdullah met nearly two years ago with a group that presented a petition for equal rights, titled "Partners in the Nation."
The prince called for a better understanding between Sunnis and Shiites and included prominent Shiites in a couple of sessions of his "national dialogue," virtually the only public forum where Saudis are allowed to discuss ways to combat the religious extremism carried out by Al Qaeda and its followers.
In the last few years some restrictions on Shiites in Qatif were lifted or at least overlooked, including allowing limited construction of community and Shiite mosques, as well as the public celebration of Ashura rituals.
But the little that has changed outside Qatif raises questions in the community about the government's commitment to tolerance. Ashura celebrations are banned in Dammam, a neighboring city of some 600,000, including 150,000 Shiites.
There is only one officially sanctioned Shiite mosque there, and no functioning Shiite cemetery. The distinctive Shiite call to prayer is banned, and even the small clay pucks that Shiites are supposed to rest their foreheads on during prayer are outlawed.
Shiites in Dammam wish some of those issues could be discussed in the municipal election campaigns. The elections are being held in three stages in different parts of country, with the second, eastern stage scheduled for Thursday. But candidates and voters said they did not dare raise such topics in the election tents, lest the campaign be shut down.
Saudi Shiites hope that once a few of them are elected to city councils, at least in Qatif, they can discuss their problems more openly.
"Whoever is going to be elected by the people has the legitimacy nobody else has, not even the king, believe it or not," said one Qatif candidate in a flush of excitement. Exactly three minutes later he reconsidered. "It would be wise if you don't quote the statement about the king," he said, sparking a burst of laughter from his colleagues.
The full-bore hatred that the Wahhabi sect bears for Shiites spills out on Web sites, in the local news media and even in school books.
Saudi textbooks contain passages that describe Shiite beliefs as outside Islam - the original split emerging because Shiites supported the claim of Muhammad's heirs to control the faith. Wahhabis believe that Shiite veneration of the Prophet's family, including worshipping at tombs in the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Najaf, incorporates all manner of sins, including polytheism.
Such practices prompt some to revile Shiites as a lower order of infidel than even Christians or Jews.
A recent article in a Saudi magazine suggested that a form of temporary marriage allowed by the Shiites helped spread AIDS. When a Sunni was arrested for trying to set fire to a Shiite community center in Qatif, Sheik Fawzi al-Seif, a local cleric, said one writer on a Web site had asked why the arsonist had acted while the building was empty.
Web sites also urged Sunnis to vote Thursday lest they find the dreaded Shiites on their municipal councils.
Last week a prominent Islamic law professor, Abdel Aziz al-Fawzan, accused anyone who took part in any Ashura celebration of being an infidel, the rough equivalent of a death sentence.
Shiites say they have no recourse to address any manner of discrimination. "Who am I going to complain to, a judge who is a Wahhabi sheik?" said Hassan al-Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric.
What Saudi Shiites really seek is a clear statement from the government pronouncing Shiite Islam an accepted branch of the faith, believing that all other rights will flow from that. But the Saud dynasty gained its control over much of the Arabian Peninsula via adherents to the Wahhabi teachings, and its legitimacy rests on maintaining their support. The religious establishment considers itself the guardian of Sunni orthodoxy and holds sway over institutions including the courts and the education system.
Shiites say they have learned their lesson that riots only lead to repression, although the Saudi government remains wary that any sectarian violence in Iraq may ignite similar clashes at home. Shiites think a combination of outside pressure and changes like elections will slowly gain them equal rights.
They believe that Osama bin Laden and his ilk created an important opening, with the royal family now casting about for ways to limit the Wahhabi extremism that it has encouraged but which now seeks to overthrow Saudi rule.
More important, the minority puts great stock in what develops in Iraq, although the changes remain too raw and violent to gauge fully.
If the Shiites who dominated the Iraqi elections show that they can work with Sunnis and Kurds, Shiites in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf say, it will strengthen the idea that democracy works and undermine the longstanding prejudice that Shiites are monsters intent on undermining Sunnis everywhere.
The same holds for the Shiite majority in neighboring Bahrain, long ruled by a Sunni minority, and the Shiite minority in Kuwait. There are about 112 million Shiites among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.
Fears about a Shiite wave have been expressed by such Sunni rulers as King Abdullah II of Jordan, who described the emergence of a Shiite crescent from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut as a possible threat to regional stability. (The Alawite minority that runs Syria is a Shiite sect, though mainstream Shiites regard it as heretical.)
"What is happening today in Iraq raised the political ambitions of the Shiites," said Muhammad Mahfouz, the editor of a cultural magazine in Qatif, "that democracy and public participation is an instrument capable of defusing internal disputes, so Shiites can attain their rights and aspirations."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:55:50 AM ||
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I hear tell most Shia live in a small strip of land on the eastern part of the arabian peninsula.
#2
I hear tell most oil lives in a small strip of land on the eastern part of the Arabian Penninsula.
Wonder what the world would be like if the Wahhabis were restricted to the new country of Desertistan which occupied the Western half of the penninsula?
Police have detained two more Bahrainis for links to a banned Internet forum that the government views as hostile, a government official and a defence lawyer said yesterday. Mohammed Al Mousawi and Hussein Youssef were detained on Monday night, said lawyer Ahmed Al Arayed. Their arrests came a day after the founder-manager of the web site, Ali Abdelimam Mirza, was detained for 15 days. State prosecutors have not issued a statement on the three detentions, but a government official confirmed them yesterday. The web site www.bahrainonline.org functions as an Arabic-language forum for views on a range of subjects, including the caliphate politics, beheadings culture, Allan-worshipping religion and killing infidels sports.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Bournemouth University has created two artificial mass graves to help train Iraqi investigators looking at crimes from the Saddam Hussein era. The graves in the English countryside, each containing about 30 resin anatomical teaching skeletons of adults, children and infants, were created by the university's Inforce Foundation to train a multidisciplinary team investigating mass graves for both judicial and humanitarian reasons.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/02/2005 9:48:35 AM ||
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Britain's Muslim population must accept that people of Islam [sic] appearance are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, told MPs last night. Because the Government's anti-terrorism laws were geared to dealing with Islamic extremists, Muslims would inevitably be disproportionately targeted, she said. "The threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or who are falsely hiding behind Islam," she told MPs. "It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community. "That is the reality and we should recognise that. If a threat is from a particular place then our action is going to be targeted at that area." She made the comments during the all-party home affairs select committee's inquiry into the effect anti-terrorism powers have had on community relations. Her frankness surprised MPs, particularly as Labour is already facing a backlash at the coming election from the Muslim community because of the Iraq war.
Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, described Miss Blears' comments as "outrageous" and "irresponsible". Mr Shadjareh, who sits on an advisory panel on stop and search set up by the Home Office, accused her of "playing an Islamophobia card" before the election. "She is demonising and alienating our community," he said. "It is a legitimisation for a backlash and for racists to have an onslaught on our community. This sort of comment is just music to the ears of racists." He said statistics showed that of the 17 people in Britain found guilty of terrorist acts since September 11, only four of the 12 whose ethnic backgrounds were known were Muslim. That did not indicate an overwhelming threat of terrorism from Muslims, he said. He accused Miss Blears of being "irresponsible" for making such comments when she had those facts. Mr Shadjareh said Muslims who committed acts of terrorism went out of their way not to look Islamic. "The profile that has been used in stop and search is looking for a long beard and Islamic beard, which is not the profile of a terrorist."
His comments were echoed by Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, who said: "Quite frankly, her remarks are thoroughly unhelpful and irresponsible at a time when there is an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK and Europe." He added that the comments served only to add to the animosity of those who were already targetting Muslims unfairly. Marsha Singh, Labour MP for Bradford West, which has one of the largest Muslim electorates in the country, joined in the criticism and said that security should be "intelligence-led, not appearance-led". Mr Singh, who is of Sikh origin, said: "People of Sikh appearance with beards and turbans have experienced being stopped because they are being put in the same bracket as Muslims."
Miss Blears's remarks are all the more controversial because they appear to contradict views she expressed seven months ago. At that time she warned the police against abusing their powers when stop and search figures showed the numbers of Asians being targeted had risen by 302 per cent The row broke as the Tories put immigration back in the spotlight. They reinforced their intention to impose tougher controls on immigration and asylum at the heart of their election campaign.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/02/2005 4:15:24 AM ||
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It's called profiling. It goes on everyday. Cops looking for taggers don't question old men playing checkers in the park they question young punks hanging out on the corner. If you are looking for allenist terrorists you question allensts. It makes sense. Maybe some day the TSA and DHS will get with the program here too.
Several thousand people have protested in southern Kyrgyzstan for a second day over disputed weekend election results, according to an election monitoring group. Around 4000 protesters gathered outside a mayor's office in the constituency of Nooken in support of an opposition candidate who came second in Sunday's elections to the 75-seat parliament, a representative of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, Cholpun Argesheva, said on Tuesday. "They were demanding the resignation of the mayor and head of the district election commission and the carrying out of fair elections," Argesheva said. In another southern town, Aravan, around 3000 people demonstrated and blocked off a road in support of the defeated rector of the nearby Kyrgyz-Uzbek University, another observer for the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, Ruslan Tashenov, said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 ||
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March 1, 2005: North Korean special forces, a commando organization modeled after the Russian Spetsnaz, are showing unusual activity. This could mean preparations for an attack on South Korea, but there is no similar activity among the regular army divisions that would lead a move south. The special forces could be preparing to deal with civilian unrest, or moving to carry out, or block, a coup. Or both.
The North Korean commandoes are largely conscripts, as were the original Soviet Spetsnaz. But North Korean conscripts are in for six years, making them more experienced than their Russian counterparts. North Korean conscripts are, of course, drafted from the general population. But the North Korean people have gone through a decade of famine and increasing privation. Despite some of the most intense indoctrination ever inflicted on a populations, North Koreans are beginning to lose their loyalty to the system they have long believed to be the best in the world. Even commandoes have kin who have starved to death.
When your elite troops start suffering, they may start thinking about a change in leadership
It's those damn cell phones again. The truth may be able to set you free, but let it loose among thousands of tough guys with guns, and the results can be unpredictable. That same proliferation of cell phones has unmasked the usually well hidden movements of special forces units.
I'll wager the radio intercept people up at Misawa are putting in some overtime.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 8:50:47 AM ||
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Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/02/2005 9:44 Comments ||
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As a reminder, March is usually the month that the Foal Eagle exercise takes place, and NK usually does something pouty to show how much they hate Americans and South Koreans actually having the nerve to not allow them to repeat their 1950 adventure.
#4
Can I also add that the NK Special Forces are made up of only the most devout KoolAid drinkers. It would be HIGHLY unlikely that any coup would come from this group. A more likely scenario would be an Army unit from the NorthEast part of the country. That is the area that is bearing the brunt of the famine and gets the least amount of help.
#5
The special forces could be preparing to deal with civilian unrest, or moving to carry out, or block, a coup. Or both.
One would have to admit, though, that they convered many of the possibilities for the troop movements. Carrying out and blocking a coup at the same time....well, that's original.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/02/2005 11:06 Comments ||
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a commando organization modeled after the Russian Spetsnaz
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
03/02/2005 11:44 Comments ||
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ROTFL
Posted by: Matt ||
03/02/2005 11:48 Comments ||
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AP - they could carry out their own coup while blocking someone else's ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/02/2005 11:48 Comments ||
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they could carry out their own coup while blocking someone else's
While poor Kimmie gets caught in the "crossfire", and the "coup plotters" all die during the attempt.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 12:14 Comments ||
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#11
If you're simultaneously carrying out a coup while blocking someone else's, you might as well break out the credit card and put a rhetorical down payment on "civil war", because it sounds like you're going to need it to describe the situation.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
03/02/2005 14:48 Comments ||
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"a commando organization modeled after the Russian Spetsnaz"
Not commenting on their individual toughness, but don't you think the n. kor. should model their org after the winner, not the looser?
Posted by: Mark E. ||
03/02/2005 15:47 Comments ||
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Why no one dare touch Dear Leader when he has so many "friends"...
Of course one of these guys in the background could be the new Dear Leader after Dear Leader becomes Dearly Departed...
#15
Even the most devout armed followers have gotta realize iff changes don't happen soon, even they will have to eat "long pigs/cows" instead of Mom's kimchee, ala SOLYENT GREEN. The choice for all of world Socialism, espec the Commies - oops, meant Clintonian Communist Fascists = Fascist Communists, suboops Regulators and Betty Crocker-crats and assorted Rightistas-Capitalistas - is either inevitable self-implosion, or else wage expansionist war for survival and continuance of power! Iff Russia and China are preparing to wage Global Nuke War ags America and only America circa 2015-2020, to which peace-loving option did they prefer, where Global WW3 or 4 = Limited Vietnam(s)!?
MADRID (Reuters) - The Madrid train bombers had detailed plans of New York's Grand Central Station, indicating they also planned to attack there, a Spanish newspaper reported Wednesday. Hand-made drawings and other "highly specialized technical information" about the station were found on a computer disk seized from the home of one of the suspects, El Mundo reported, citing sources close to the investigation.
The disk was confiscated within two weeks of the attacks on March 11, 2004, that killed 191 people in Madrid, but Spanish investigators did not warn the FBI and the CIA until December when the full scope of the technical information became clear, El Mundo said. "Prosecutors at the High Court have informed the FBI and the CIA that the perpetrators of the March 11 attacks had in their possession plans to attack Grand Central Station in New York," it said. No one was immediately available at the Interior Ministry to comment.
The disk was found in the home of a man arrested on suspicion of playing a role in the attacks that rocked Spain three days before a general election, El Mundo said. The suspect, who El Mundo said had a relationship with other men formally accused in the probe, was released from jail but remains under suspicion. His brother is wanted in another investigation into a suspected al Qaeda cell in Spain, it said.
Ten bombs hidden in sports bags exploded on board four packed commuter trains last March 11 in an attack claimed by men saying they acted in the name of al Qaeda in Europe in response to Spain sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The same group is suspected of planting a bomb on a high-speed rail line south of Madrid a few days after the deadly attacks, and seven prime suspects later blew themselves up in a suburban Madrid apartment when surrounded by police.
Some 70 people have been arrested in the criminal investigation, about half of whom remain in jail or under court supervision.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 8:35:56 AM ||
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Amazing! It took them 9 months to either read or decrypt the disk?
Reading this made me surprised that a whole lot more of us haven't been blown up yet.
Posted by: someone ||
03/02/2005 6:05:45 AM ||
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#1
Hmm...this is a good article with much common sense info - but I'm hesitant to put too much stock into a guy who shows his biases so early on.
First, he seems flattered that a KGB officer took note of his work. Fair enough. But did he believe that by providing the KGB with more insight that his work would be put to good use? Please.
Secondly his bias against the CIA is shown to be excessive in his opening paragraphs.
" Despite not having much to say, I readily assented." Not much to say? Hmm..you had plenty to say to the Russian KGB officer - how about you tell the CIA agent what the KGB was interested in?
And even more disturbing...he can't seem to grasp the BGO, that by not knowing what prosciutto was, the CIA officer probably wasn't in Italy - but was somewhere else that he wasn't willing to reveal.
#2
Yes, the author IS a bit dismissive of the intelligence community, although he cites a few examples of folks who should've been dismissed. I found very interesting that Clinton's aversion to military risk and consuming passion for diversity were factors. We called off a plot to capture bin Laden because somebody might get hurt?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/02/2005 10:06 Comments ||
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The author's arguments were more of the oft repeated Scheuer/CIA bashing, but doesn't go to the core of why Binnie is still so popular. Perhaps Scheuer's characteriztion of Binnie -- especially from the viewpoint of the nut job radicals -- is spot on. The real problem was the failure of the Clinton administration to grow a pair and deal with Binnie before he killed thousands.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the American student accused of plotting to assassinate President Bush, told Saudi interrogators in 2003 that he and associates with Al Qaeda had also discussed hijacking planes over American airspace, attacking military bases and killing members of Congress, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified Tuesday.
But the agent said he was not present at the time of Mr. Abu Ali's alleged admissions to Saudi investigators, and defense lawyers argued that any confessions that he may have made while in Saudi custody for 20 months came as result of torture by his Saudi captors. John K. Zwerling, one of the defendant's lawyers, likened the defendant's alleged admissions to those of a hostage being forced to read a "confession" on videotape before being beheaded.
The court testimony came at a bail hearing for Mr. Abu Ali, 23, a former valedictorian at an Islamic high school in Northern Virginia who was charged in an indictment unsealed last week with having provided material support to Al Qaeda while studying in Saudi Arabia in 2002 and 2003. Mr. Abu Ali was arrested there 20 months ago and held without charges until last week.
At the close of the hearing here, Magistrate Judge Liam O'Grady of Federal District Court refused to release Mr. Abu Ali on bail, saying that he found "clear and convincing evidence" that the defendant represented a grave threat to the community and that he was a flight risk.
But at the same time, Judge O'Grady voiced some support for a central defense claim, saying that he was disturbed by an e-mail message that a senior F.B.I. official sent last year. In it, the official said that investigators for the bureau were no longer interested in Mr. Abu Ali.
The defense contends that even though investigators had lost interest in Mr. Abu Ali's case many months ago, the Justice Department decided to bring criminal charges against him last month after realizing that it was in danger of losing a civil lawsuit brought by the defendant's parents.
In the indictment, prosecutors said the suspect's dealings with Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia included discussions about shooting Mr. Bush on a street or blowing up a bomb near him. In seeking to have Mr. Abu Ali kept in custody, prosecutors introduced the new accusations.
Before the hearing began, a court officer warned Mr. Abu Ali's parents against trying to communicate with him, even by waving. The defendant, dressed in a forest green prison suit and with a thick black beard, sat stoically at the defense table. Though he appeared healthy, his lawyer said his back had been scarred by whippings by Saudi interrogators.
Barry Cole, a counter-terrorism agent with the F.B.I. who worked on the case, testified that in oral and written statements to the Saudis in 2003, Mr. Abu Ali admitted to joining a Qaeda cell. Among the terrorist plots that Mr. Abu Ali reportedly acknowledged in his statements to the Saudis, Mr. Cole said, was a plan by Al Qaeda to board a plane from England or Australia to avoid American security, hijack it over American airspace and crash it into a building in the manner of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. Cole said the defendant also acknowledged that he and associates with Al Qaeda discussed plots to bomb American ships and planes at military bases, kill unidentified members of Congress and rescue prisoners held at Guantänamo Bay, Cuba. The agent did not detail the methods for such attacks, and like the reported plot to assassinate the president, there was no indication from Tuesday's court testimony that plans moved past the discussion stage.
Mr. Cole said that another member of the Saudi cell, identified in Mr. Abu Ali's indictment only as Co-conspirator No. 4, had turned himself in to the Saudis and had also admitted taking part in discussions about terrorist operations against the United States. A third person linked to the cell, identified as Co-conspirator No. 2, had talked with Mr. Abu Ali about killing Mr. Bush and about inflicting "mass casualties" against Americans, but he was killed in a shootout with the Saudis in 2003, the agent testified.
The F.B.I. agent said he was basing his testimony on reports, videos and other material that the United States received from the Saudis. But the agent said he interviewed the defendant in Riyadh in September 2003 over a period of four days. Mr. Abu Ali asked for a lawyer, the agent testified, but after the United States passed on the request, the Saudis refused to give him one.
Although evidence from such an interrogation is likely to be challenged by defense lawyers as inadmissible in a criminal proceeding, the agent said he continued interviewing Mr. Abu Ali in order to gather intelligence that was considered "vital to national security."
The agent said Mr. Abu Ali also asked the F.B.I. to pass along a letter he had written to his parents in Falls Church, Va. Reading from a copy of the letter, the agent said that Mr. Abu Ali acknowledged to his family that he would probably spend years in prison as a result of terrorism charges against him and told them, "Everyone makes mistakes."
Several dozen family members and friends of Mr. Abu Ali's packed the courtroom to watch the hearing. Some gasped as Judge O'Grady said that he thought comments the family had made in the news media were "consistent with jihadist rhetoric." Noting that pro-Qaeda material had been found in the family's home, the judge said he was concerned about turning the suspect over to their custody.
Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and a spokesman for the family, said the family was disappointed by the judge's decision to keep Mr. Abu Ali in custody. But he added: "Their faith in God is strong, and they feel ultimately their son will be vindicated."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:32:25 AM ||
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#2
"...investigators had lost interest in Mr. Abu Aliâs case..."
I can understand that. If you can't get him executed and you can keep him in detention, why bother to proceed? As far as I'm concerned, he morphed from U.S. citizen to non-uniformed enemy combatant when he went to Saudi Jihadi University. He should be at Gitmo.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/02/2005 8:45 Comments ||
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The family of Abu Ali as well as Abu Ali himself are engaging in a classic case of taqqiya (religious deception).
Maybe, just maybe, someone in the MSM will eventually point this out.
France supplanted the United States as the top destination for people seeking asylum in industrialized nations last year, while the flow of refugees dropped to levels unseen since the late 1980s(!!!), a United Nations report said Tuesday.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees attributed the decline in asylum applications filed in North America and Europe to a drying up of the flow of refugees out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo. Gosh, aren't those the places U.S. and Coalition forces have been deployed?
But France bucked the trend, rising 3 percent to 61,600 applications from the previous year's 59,770. "The general trend is down everywhere," said UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville. "France is the odd one out in the bigger countries. From 2000 onward it's been creeping up."
The United States, which received the most applications in 2003 with 73,780 refugees, came in second last year with 52,360.
Refugees to the United States tend to come from different countries than Europe's. Last year fewer refugees came to the United States from its major sources, including China, Haiti, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Indonesia.
Britain dropped from second to third, with 40,200 refugees. Germany, the top destination for asylum seekers in 13 of the past 20 years, was fourth at 35,600. Canada was fifth with 25,500.
Overall, the number of refugees fleeing to Europe and North America fell in 2004 for the third year in a row, to 368,200 _ the lowest since the 346,910 refugees of 1988. The peak year was 1992, when 857,610 people filed asylum applications.
People from the Russian Federation _ most of them Chechens _ made up the largest nationality seeking asylum, with 30,100 applicants. They were followed by 22,300 people from Serbia and Montenegro, many of them from Kosovo. Chinese were third, at 19,700.
Numbers dropped from three areas that underwent regime changes in recent years. "The three big groups at the turn of the century _ the Kosovars, followed by the Afghans and the Iraqis _ have all three fallen away very considerably," Colville said. "No big group has really come up to replace them."
All 10 leading asylum-seeking nationalities recorded a significant drop, he said.
"Perhaps most strikingly of all, the number of Afghans _ the top group in 2001 with more than 50,000 asylum seekers _ has fallen by 83 percent in the past three years. They now stand in 13th place with 8,800," Colville said.
He said one factor in the drop of applications could be that some refugees are staying underground because of "very restrictive legislation" and "rather hostile attitudes" toward asylum seekers in parts of Europe. "If genuine refugees are not now claiming asylum because they're concerned that the system is loaded against them, that obviously would be very worrying indeed, and it may be the case in some countries," Colville said.
Although crises continue in some regions, such as Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan in Africa, most of the refugees from those areas are too poor to get as far as Europe, he said.
"Most Afghans are poor, too, but the poorest of the poor weren't coming to Europe," he added. "It was more the middle-class Afghans and Iraqis who were moving onwards _ people with some education, some kind of money they could pool from family members to pay the amount of money they needed to travel to Europe."
The authorities plan to move 28 people convicted for the Bali bombings, including three key players on death row, from a jail in Bali to prisons in Central Java province, an official has said.
"It is still a plan but we want to move 28 Bali bombing convicts to jails in Central Java for security reasons," the head of the Central Java justice office, Marsono, said on Monday.
Marsono said four jails, including the top-security prison on Nusakambangan island in Cilacap regency, would take 28 convicts currently held at Kerobokan jail near Denpasar in Bali.
"It is a plan that has been told to me but there is as yet no date or other details available," Marsono said, adding that the information had come from the justice ministry in Jakarta. He declined to provide further details.
The 28 include three sentenced to death for their key roles in the October 2002 blasts that killed 202 people -- mechanic Amrozi, his elder brother Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas and the operation's alleged commander, Imam Samudra.
The head of the Kerobokan jail in Bali, Bromo Setiono, said he had not heard of such a plan but would comply with any ministry decision.
Apart from the three sentenced to death by firing squad, four others were given life sentences and the remainder received jail terms ranging from 16 years to three years.
Five of the lesser offenders were moved to Java jails last year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:33:56 AM ||
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EFL and news
ARNOLD, Md. - President Bush on Wednesday demanded in blunt terms that Syria get out of Lebanon, saying the free world is in agreement that Damascus' authority over the political affairs of its neighbor must end now. He applauded the strong message sent to Syria when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier held a joint news conference on London on Tuesday. Blunt? as in GTFO?
"Both of them stood up and said loud and clear to Syria, `You get your troops and your secret services out of Lebanon so that good democracy has a chance to flourish," Bush said during an appearance at a community college in Maryland to tout his job training programs. well, damn, that's pretty close
The world, Bush said, "is speaking with one voice when it comes to making sure that democracy has a chance to flourish in Lebanon." The president's words, taken with those from Rice and others in the Bush administration this week, amount to the strongest pressure to date on Syria from Washington. "Syria knows the concerns of the international community, and they know what they need to do to change their behavior and become a constructive member of the region and the international community," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said earlier Wednesday.
Turkish ambassador Osman Faruk Logoglu urged the administration to offer trade and other economic and diplomatic incentives to Syria. "The chances of Syria withdrawing are greater than ever before," Logoglu told reporters. "But it is obviously going to take a long time." Coward and flunky to Syria - STFU
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/02/2005 1:50:13 PM ||
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Isn't it time to punish our ally (yeah, right!) Turkey?
March 02, 2005, 7:54 a.m. (from nro site)
A Loosening Grip
Protests in Lebanon give hope to two nations.
Born in Syria, Farid Ghadry, is president of the Reform Party of Syria, "a US-based opposition party" of pro-democracy Syrians.
In the wake of Lebanon's government stepping down, NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez caught up with Ghadry to get his quick read on the state of play in both Lebanon and Syria.
National Review Online: How big of a deal is the government resignation in Lebanon? Were you surprised by it?
Farid Ghadry: It is a huge deal because not only did it show that the peaceful will of the people can prevail in curbing despotism, but it also showed how weak Syrian Baathists are. And that is very important. The Syrians and Lebanese have lived the last 44 and 29 years respectively under fear from a powerful police state that is accountable to no one. The Lebanese experience with the killing of Hariri has demolished the concept that Syrian Baathista are all-powerful and they are accountable to no one. The Lebanese people are emboldened by the support of the international community and members of parliament like Ahmad Moufatfat and Walid Ido have warned high Syrian intelligence officers that they seek to bring them to justice if implicated in the killing of Hariri....Ghadry: We believe that first and foremost, the United States need to understand that most Syrians are peaceful people. The majority are Sufi Muslims that want to live in peace and do not share the vision of other extreme Sunni Muslims in introducing [Islamic law] as the staple of a new Syrian government. There are those of us who have lived in the U.S. and feel that the interests of both countries are parallel — delivering at the same time a peaceful nation and a nation that wants to bring economic prosperity through a culturally sensitive capitalist society. The United States must leave the Syrians a chance to show that we are worthy of building a better nation. What we want is help to overthrow the regime,
Yay. A prominent person sort of supports my theory of a reform military govt for Syria.
Posted by: mhw ||
03/02/2005 10:56:12 AM ||
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an op-ed piece in the guardian. even calls paleo boomers "terrorists!" be still my heart!
Tony Blair is not gloating. He could - but he prefers to appear magnanimous in what he hopes is victory. In our Guardian interview yesterday, he was handed a perfect opportunity to crow. He was talking about what he called "the ripple of change" now spreading through the Middle East, the slow, but noticeable movement towards democracy in a region where that commodity has long been in short supply. I asked him whether the stone in the water that had caused this ripple was the regime change in Iraq.
He could have said yes, insisting that events had therefore proved him right and the opponents of the 2003 war badly wrong. But he did not. Instead he sidestepped the whole Iraq business.
Perhaps he was simply reluctant to reopen a debate that came to define, if not paralyse, much of his second term. Or maybe he calculated that it was best to keep the current democratic shift in the region separate from the Iraq war, so that people who opposed the latter might still rally to support the former.
But if he had wanted to brag and claim credit - boasting that the toppling of Saddam Hussein had set off a benign chain reaction - he would have had plenty of evidence to call on.
Most immediate and dramatic is the flowering of what looks like a Cedar Tree Revolution in Lebanon - a mass demonstration of people power on the streets of Beirut to match the Orange revolution last December in Kiev. After nearly three decades of living under Syrian influence, and 20 years of partial military occupation, tens of thousands of Beirutis have taken to the streets waving Lebanese flags - united in their desire to send the Syrians packing.
They certainly have the choreography of revolution right. They have their barricades and flags, and even a martyr - in the form of Rafik Hariri, the ex-prime minister whose assassination last month triggered the current unrest. Hariri had made loud demands for the Syrians to leave and most Lebanese, and many beyond, believe his murder was Damascus's punishment.
So far, the protesters have brought down Lebanon's pro-Syrian government and seem determined to press on until they get what they want: mastery of their own country. One cautionary note: whether this movement reflects the full range of Lebanon's diverse population is hard to tell.
Elsewhere in the region, the ripple of change has been quieter but no less significant. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak stunned his people at the weekend when he announced that presidential elections later this year will no longer have just one name on the ballot - his. Multi-candidate elections are promised, though whether these will be free and fair seems more doubtful.
Equally hard to rely on is Saudi Arabia's round of elections this year and its promise that women will be able to take part - not this time, but next. Britain and the US also take satisfaction in Libya's decision to abandon its attempt to build weapons of mass destruction and Iran's recent promise to halt production of enriched uranium. It's not as if these countries have undergone some ideological conversion: rather, they're hoping to get America off their backs.
The big prize - the one the prime minister was so keen to show off at his London conference yesterday - is progress in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. After four years of stalemate and worse, the Palestinians are now led by a man who describes those who murder Israeli civilians as "terrorists" and who seems serious about putting the Palestinian house in order. Meanwhile, the Israelis are led by a man who, whatever his past, is now ready to risk his life to pull out of Palestinian land. The combination of Abu Mazen's embrace of the reform agenda demanded of him yesterday and Ariel Sharon's iron determination to pull out of Gaza - even in the face of a growing and credible threat of assassination - has made the prospects for their two peoples brighter than in years.
Of course, each one of these hopeful developments has its own origins and dynamics, distinct from the Iraq war. Syria may well have set in train the current Lebanese revolt last year when it sought a change in the country's constitution to keep a pro-Damascus president in place. If that was not provocation enough, the murder of Hariri in the heart of Beirut and in broad daylight seems to have been the last straw.
It's true, too, that those Gulf states now embarked on tentative reform, including Saudi Arabia, were spooked less by the Iraq war than by a post-9/11 fear of a US crackdown on the Islamist extremists in their midst. And in Israel-Palestine, the key shifts have been the death of Yasser Arafat, which has unblocked movement on the Palestinian side, and the realisation on the Israeli right that retention of Palestinian lands spells demographic peril for Israel's chances of remaining a Jewish state. Neither of those have anything to do with the bombing of Baghdad.
Even so, it cannot be escaped: the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region. The Lebanese protesters are surely emboldened by the knowledge that Syria is under heavy pressure, with US and France united in demanding its withdrawal. That pressure carries an extra sting if Damascus feels that the latest diplomatic signals - including Tony Blair's remark yesterday that Syria had had its "chance" but failed to take it and Condoleezza Rice's declaration that the country was "out of step with where the region is going" - translate crudely as "You're next".
Similar thinking is surely at work in the decisions of Iran and Libya on WMD and Saudi Arabia and Egypt on elections. Put simply, President Bush seems like a man on a mission to spread what he calls the "untamed fire of freedom" - and these Arab leaders don't want to get burned.
This leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now?
First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome.
Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes. Put starkly, we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend.
Posted by: PlanetDan ||
03/02/2005 9:09:36 AM ||
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NYT and Al Guardian coming out two days apart?
I don't know whether or not to think: Beware when your enemy smiles and greets you!
or
if this line gives it away: even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes.
translate ... how can we continue Bush bashing and anti-Americanism if no one wants to be associated with us anymore.
Or maybe they finally got a clue - and are tired of defending ideas that only drug-addled brain dead or true believers can't see are responsible for the misery and murder of millions.
#5
Positioning themselves early for the tenth year edition in which they wax nostalgic about how "we" liberated those poor arabs from totalitarian oppression.
#7
Dreadnought, how could we forget? It's seared - seared - into our memory. Not Teddy, though. He probably couldn't remember what he drank for breakfast this morning.
"All eight of our readers should bear in mind that today is the tenth anniversary of the resignation from power of President Hussein of Iraq. This action followed hard on the heels of several strongly worded resolutions sponsored by UN Secretary General Annan, with the support of the Guardian's editorial staff and cartoonist Steve Bell. The peaceful transition of power was marred only by America's opportunistic establishment of the infamous Abu Ghraib concentration camp, which is the subject of the remainder of today's edition."
Posted by: Matt ||
03/02/2005 13:03 Comments ||
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#9
Everone knows you need change to get Ripple.
Posted by: R Foxx ||
03/02/2005 14:30 Comments ||
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SYRIA = LEBANON = IRAN > handsome,modern-looking, upwardly-mobile pro-Western Muslim babes and youth demonstrating for change against the ultra-conservative, totalitarian empire-hungry Socialist grandpas that are the Mad Mullahs!
#12
Well, DMFD, what is your planed lifespan? ;-)
They will start reframing the issue, a little twist here, a little spin there... and in few years... go back to Matt's crystal ball to see the future (#8).
The US Secretary of State has blamed a Syrian-based Islamic militant group for last week's deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
Condoleezza Rice said "the Syrians have a lot to answer for".
The suicide attack outside a nightclub on Friday killed five people and threatened to wreck Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
"There is evidence that Islamic Jihad, headquartered in Syria, was in fact involved with the planning of those attacks in Tel Aviv," Ms Rice told ABC news.
"And so the Syrians have a lot to answer for."
Ms Rice was speaking after attending a conference in London on the future of the Palestinian state.
Soon after her comments, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said there was no evidence that Syria was behind the suicide bombing.
Syria, already under immense international pressure to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, has denied any connection with the nightclub bombing.
It insists that Islamic Jihad's office in Damascus has closed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:58:51 AM ||
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I'm dying to know what the evidence is. So far, haven't been able to turn up anything. Not even Debka has anything.
#3
PlanetDan -- there have been several statements, retractions and reclaiming -- of the attack by PIJ -- everyone else has been pretty quite or has denied it. I'd cast my vote that its PIJ related. BTW, there was some press reports that the Syrain's shut down Islamic Jihad offices today or yesterday -- but no one else. Me thinks PIJ was behind Tel Aviv
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will visit Saudi Arabia within two days for talks expected to focus on the crisis in Lebanon, an Arab diplomat told AFP on Tuesday. The visit, expected on Wednesday or Thursday, follows a reported promise by Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara during talks here on Monday that Damascus would work on setting a timetable for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Assad will discuss "developments in Lebanon and the Arab world with Saudi leaders," the diplomat told AFP, requesting anonymity.
Shara told Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz that Syria would "work on setting a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon within the framework of the Taef accord and in coordination with the Lebanese authorities," Syrian ambassador Ahmed Nizameddin told AFP on Monday. He was referring to the Saudi-sponsored 1989 accord which ended the 15-year Lebanese civil war a year later. It provided for a pullback of Syrian forces to eastern Lebanon and for the Lebanese and Syrian authorities to agree on the duration of their presence there. Shara visited Saudi Arabia as the crisis sparked by the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri two weeks ago came to a head in Beirut with the resignation of Hariri's pro-Syrian successor Omar Karameh.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 ||
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SYRIA is seeking the help of some Arab friends who are also regional allies of the United States to fend off mounting pressure over its presence in Lebanon, analysts and diplomats said on Tuesday. Lebanon's Syrian-backed government collapsed on Monday at a parliamentary sitting on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which shocked Lebanon and piled pressure on the country many held responsible - Syria. "There is a drive to secure an Arab cover for the situation," said prominent Syrian political analyst Imad al-Shuaibi. "Syria is directing its effort into preventing the situation from becoming an international matter." "It is only normal that Syria cooperates with its traditional allies, who are at the same time allies of the United States, to deflate tension," an Arab diplomat said. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara met top Egyptian and Saudi officials at the weekend, apparently to try to offset US pressure, compounded by Israeli accusations that Damascus had a hand in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing on Friday.
Syria also appears to be offering some tokens of good will, the analysts said. It has given some of its strongest verbal support to Palestinian peace efforts with Israel and last week said it wanted to cooperate with the United Nations to find a way to implement UN Security Council resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon. It also agreed on Monday to hand back to Jordan a huge tract of land along their border, heralding a new era of ties with Amman after decades of Syrian incursions on its land. And it might also be helping Washington on the Iraq front to placate it over Lebanon, analysts and diplomats said.
"It seems Syria wants an easier way out ... a compromise of some sort under an Arab umbrella," a diplomat said. "They appear more convinced that they should comply with resolution 1559 but maybe they want to dress it with an Arab cover." That cover, an Arab diplomat said, could be in the guise of the Taif Accord that ended Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, under which Syrian troops, which poured into Lebanon during the war, were to re-deploy to the eastern Bekaa valley. Syria and Lebanon were supposed to later negotiate a complete withdrawal of Syria's 14,000 troops. Damascus wanted "to marry 1559 with the Taif Accord, which is an Arab arrangement, while the resolution is an American and French measure," the Arab diplomat said. Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, informal allies of Syria, helped craft the 1989 Taif Accord.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 8:23:32 PM ||
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They are trying to find a way to not comply. The Taif accord leaves them in Lebanon. Looking for Arab cover is a better term than Arab umbrella.
Lebanon has begun searching for a new prime minister after Umar Karami's surprise resignation of government under intense public pressure on Monday. But after the euphoria in downtown Beirut that followed Karami's announcement, apprehension was rising on Tuesday about the future. With memories of Lebanon's devastating 1975-1990 civil war still strong, some Lebanese feared that the political uncertainty could bring instability to Lebanon once again. "The fall of the government is not the end of the road," the Al-Mustaqbal newspaper cautioned.
The opposition, which has intensified its peaceful demonstrations since the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri on 14 February, has vowed to keep up the pressure until the Syrian army and its intelligence agencies have left Lebanon. A presidential spokesman told AFP that President Emile Lahud has granted MPs 48 hours to decide on a candidate for the post of prime minister, which is customarily given to a member of the Sunni Muslim community. Lahud is considered close to Damascus. Speaking to Aljazeera, Walid Jumblatt - the prominent Druze opposition MP - called for the formation of a "neutral" transitional government which should oversee a partial withdrawal of Syrian troops before elections due by the end of May. Jumblatt also called for the resignation of President Lahud, and said tomorrow's opposition meeting would decide whether to enter into consultations with Lahud on forming a new government.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Man, old Walid Jumblatt looks like a washed out 60's folk singer since we last saw (way too much of) him during the Lebanese civil war. Egad, looks like a cross between David Crosby, Peter Yarrow, and maybe even Albert Einstein!
Iran rejected a request by UN nuclear inspectors to return to its Parchin military base, where Washington suspects Iran might have conducted tests linked to nuclear bomb-making, the UN atomic watchdog said on Tuesday. Several months after their initial requests, Iran permitted UN inspectors to visit Parchin in January. During this visit, inspectors told Iranian officials they would like to visit an area not covered in that inspection, the agency said. Deputy chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Pierre Goldschmidt, quoted Iran's response in a speech to the IAEA board as saying: "The expectation of the (IAEA) in visiting specified ... points in Parchin Complex are fulfilled and thus there is no justification for an additional visit."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 ||
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What would the UN inspectors find anyway if pre-war Iraq is an indication. Our satellites are more efficient.
I am sure HANS BLIX can be pressed into service if necessary!
The resignation of Omar Karami's government generated a wave of reaction among the country's politicians, with some warning against creating a power vacuum which could lead to a political stalemate, while others went back to their interrupted parliamentary elections campaigns. Outgoing Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh spoke to a massive crowd of supporters who gathered in an election-mode rally in Zghorta, promising to settle the score with his opponents at the ballot box. In an unprepared speech, he slammed Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt and criticized the Maronite Patriarch, accusing him of taking sides. He also reiterated his "staunch support" for Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Franjieh said: "Jumblatt ought to be standing before the international court at The Hague for his war crimes against the Christians rather than championing the cause of freedom and liberty." He added: "Patriarch Nasrallah should consider us Christians too ... or does he consider Jumblatt a true Maronite?" "Unlike Jumblatt," Franjieh said, "we stay faithful to our friend Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and to martyred Prime Minister Rafik Hariri."
Some politicians feared the country would face a critical impasse if opposing parties refused to talk to each other. However, former minister Fouad Butros believed politicians should not fear any potential power vacuum because they have the time to hold a productive dialogue to form a new government. He said: "We still have a president, a Parliament and an outgoing government that administers the state affairs until forming a new government." Butros added that in the absence of a standing government one cannot talk about loyalists and opposition. He said: "If some parties still categorize their political actions as an opposition movement, then they must be confronting a different party than the government. If the opposition means opposing Syria, then it should talk to Damascus and not with their fellow citizens."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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DAMASCUS — Arbitrary arrests and "flagrant" human rights violations are still occurring in Syria, a rights organisation in the country said yesterday. The Syrian Human Rights Association (ADHS) urged the government, which has been under consistent international pressure over its rights record, to stop making "arbitrary" arrests and pointed to a number of recent cases.
A statement from the group said it "condemned the continuation of these arbitrary arrests and all the flagrant human rights violations".
There. Now that oughta do it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Sudan's central government directly commanded and supported a campaign of attacks by camel and horse-riding Arab militia members against ethnic Africans in the western Darfur region, a top militia leader told Human Rights Watch in a report made public Wednesday. Researchers for the New York-based watchdog group interviewed Musa Hilal, who has been identified by the State Department as a leader among the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, late last year. In the videotaped interview, Hilal told Human Rights Watch: "All the people in the field are led by top army commanders."
The allegation is significant because Sudanese government officials have repeatedly denied any ties to the Janjaweed, saying the militias are acting outside their control. The Sudanese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on Wednesday.
The Darfur conflict began after two non-Arab rebel groups took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government in a bid to win more political and economic rights for the region's African tribes. The Arab militias responded by attacking African villages, killing the inhabitants and their livestock and sending refugees fleeing across the desert. No firm estimate of the direct toll of the war yet exists, but it is believed to be in the tens of thousands.
Hilal, speaking in Arabic, said in the transcript provided by Human Rights Watch: "These people get their orders from the Western command center, and from Khartoum." The tapes were made over several hours of interviews with Hilal last September. Human Rights Watch said the release of the tape was delayed for technical reasons related to translating Hilal's comments and formatting the tape.
Since the United States accused the Arab militias of committing genocide, Hilal has been in seclusion in the capital, under close watch by Sudanese officials, those in contact with him say. Hilal allegedly recruited, trained and armed a unit of militia fighters that has been accused of committing atrocities during the conflict.
In the Human Rights Watch tape, Hilal confirmed being a recruiter but denied he commanded the militiaman. "Yes, it's true, I mobilize people, I coordinate with recruiters. ... but I was never a commander of troops in a war zone," he said.
"But as for the military units, with guns, that move around to attack rebel areas or that are attacked by rebels - they're under the order of field commanders," Hilal said.
The executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division highlighted Hilal's denial of command responsibility. "Musa Hilal squarely contradicts the government's claim that it has 'no relationship' with local militias," Peter Takirambudde said. "We now see that the two parties responsible for crimes against humanity in Darfur are pointing the finger at each other."
A U.N.-appointed panel said in February that Sudan's government and the Janjaweed militia were not guilty of genocide but did commit mass killings, torture, rape and other atrocities in the Darfur region that merit trials in the International Criminal Court. The United Nations has called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 4:22:45 PM ||
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Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005.
While acknowledging that Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency gained intensity from November through January compared with the previous year, Abizaid told a Senate panel that the insurgents' failure to disrupt Jan. 30 elections marked a turning point and indicated declining popular support.
Insurgents fielded only "around 3,500" fighters on election day, he said, citing U.S. intelligence estimates. Earlier U.S. intelligence had put the number of core Iraqi and foreign fighters at as many as 20,000.
"Why didn't they put more people in the field? Where were they?" Abizaid asked in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "They threw their whole force at us, and yet they were unable to disturb the elections. I think that the voting in Iraq, the political process that's going on . . . have driven those numbers [of insurgents] down."
Abizaid's remarks came in a relatively upbeat assessment of the war in Iraq and political progress elsewhere in the Middle East and Central Asia, where he oversees American forces as head of U.S. Central Command. His comments were somewhat unusual because other senior U.S. defense and military officials have been reluctant in recent weeks to quantify the Iraqi insurgency, despite questioning from Congress.
Still, Abizaid warned that the insurgency tends to ebb and flow from region to region depending on political events and military offensives -- and he said more violence is inevitable. For example, he said the militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr could stage another offensive against the U.S.-led coalition. "We have not seen the end of Muqtada Sadr's challenge," he said. Iran continues to play an "unhelpful role" by backing Sadr while conducting "intelligence activities" in Iraq, he added.
Moreover, he said foreign fighters flowing across the border into Iraq from Syria remain a threat that the Syrian government has not done enough to stop, despite its handover to Iraqi officials in recent days of Saddam Hussein's half-brother. While "there appears to be some change of attitude" by Damascus, he said, Syria remains "very unhelpful" in curbing the infiltration of fighters.
Lawmakers echoed the need to maintain pressure on the Syrian government to play a constructive role in Iraq. "Our government is very firm in its warnings to Syria . . . particularly in allowing so much transient activity on the border with Iraq," Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) told reporters after the hearing. He said Syria's handing over of Hussein's brother should not lead the United States to grant Damascus "a lot of leeway," adding, "They should have done that a long time ago."
Abizaid predicted that Iraqi security forces, while not up to the task yet, will assume the lead role in fighting the insurgency by the end of the year. "They will get better and I think in 2005 will take on the majority of the tasks," he said.
About 90 battalions of Iraqi security forces are lightly armed and have limited mobility around the country compared with U.S. troops, he said, but their chief weakness is a fledgling chain of command. To bolster Iraqi capabilities and leadership, the U.S. military plans to increase the number of advisers embedded with Iraqi forces, although the size of the increase is pending. A decision must be made by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Abizaid said. "We're trying to figure out how much augmentation will be required," he said.
Asked by lawmakers about irregular Iraqi militia springing up around the country, Abizaid said the help of such militia in providing security for the elections was "in some ways a good thing." In the long run, however, they should be incorporated with Iraqi government forces. "Ultimately . . . it's destabilizing," he said.
Posted by: ed ||
03/02/2005 1:30:22 PM ||
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Fred, also from the fleet PAO, don't have link, sorry for length. Edit/delete at will.
NEWPORT NEWS -- The George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier needs $869.9 million between 2006 and 2008 to cover cost overruns and other increases encountered during the ship's construction, according to details of the budget proposal President Bush recently submitted to Congress. If lawmakers agree to grant the money, the total government price tag for the nuclear-powered carrier, now the biggest project under way at Northrop Grumman Newport News, would rise to $5.89 billion, a 17.3 percent increase over last year's projection of $5.02 billion. The Navy said in its request that the $869.9 million needed for the Bush is necessary "to compensate for ... cost increases resulting from unbudgeted escalation funds, increased labor hours to construct the ship, increased material costs and to cover maximum government liability." That's a change from a year ago - when the Navy didn't anticipate the Bush needed any more money before its delivery to the Navy in 2008.
Posted by: longtime lurker ||
03/02/2005 9:34:27 AM ||
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#1
Tuesday, yard spokeswoman Jennifer Dellapenta added: "We have worked with our Navy partner in developing and implementing solutions for the various challenges that have arisen when building a ship as complex as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier." The warfare and communications system issues, she said, are not atypical of the challenges the program has faced or will continue to face before itâs delivered.
In other words, the government has been tinkering with the design even after construction has begun, like it always does, resulting in the price being driven up.
#2
That's how it goes in building carriers. It may be expensive, and hey, it might not be ready on time, but dammit, we'll sure be happy to see her when she gets here. Now, as long as the shipyard doesn't go on strike in the next two years...
#3
You think this one is over budget and behind schedule, the next carrier is going to be the first of the new CVN/CVNX class:
CVNX, the centerpiece of the Navy's next generation carrier Fleet, will be a large-deck, nuclear-powered ship. This next generation aircraft carrier will be achieved at an affordable, evolutionary pace beginning with CVN 77. CVN 77 will have a newly designed and integrated combat system that eliminates rotating antennas. CVNX 1 will incorporate this new CVN 77 integrated combat system, and will add both a new nuclear propulsion plant and a new electrical power and distribution system. The new nuclear propulsion plant will provide immediate warfighting enhancements, immediate life cycle cost reductions, and will enable future warfighting enhancements and further life cycle cost reductions. Subsequent carriers will feature additional new technologies including an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System (EMALS), an Electromagnetic Aircraft Recovery System (EARS), improved crew habitability, survivability improvements, performance improvements, and new functional arrangements and distributed systems.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 12:27 Comments ||
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#4
Not exactly right around the corner but definitely looking forward to the CVNX. Electromagnetic Catapults? Improved crew habitability? Can't wait to see it.
#5
The GB is supposed to be electromagnetic cat ready. I hear roumour that it can throw a fully loaded (including power windows) VistaCruiser beyond the horizon. Aviators should be worried.
CVNX, the centerpiece of the Navy's next generation carrier Fleet, will be a large-deck, nuclear-powered ship. This next generation aircraft carrier will be achieved at an affordable,..
Heh, I don't believe that for a second. If anything, it'll be over budget like a lot of other military procurements.
#7
I tell you what, we'll pony up for the extra costs, if you rename the damned thing after someone decently dead and in the grave. I think that "Calvin Coolidge" is free if you want to stick with the presidential naming scheme.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
03/02/2005 15:16 Comments ||
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#8
I think the CVN-78, the USS William Howard Taft, should be built solely for service in the Great Lakes.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/02/2005 15:25 Comments ||
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#9
I could go for the Cal Coolidge. Also in that class should be the Grover Cleveland, for the last small government Democrat, and the James K. Polk, for the President who promised to serve for one term only, won a war, expanded the size of the country substantially, and served only one term, and the William McKinley who won a war and established Republican domination for a generation. By then we should be ready for the CVNX-5, the W.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/02/2005 16:00 Comments ||
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#10
I like the name "General Budhrod Johnson". I know he was only a General in the Confederate Army but the name has a certain ring to it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/02/2005 16:01 Comments ||
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#11
Dammit, Bushrod.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/02/2005 16:43 Comments ||
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#12
U.S.S. Clinton? o.k, o.k., how about the U.S.S. Nixon? You guys are so hard to please...
March 2, 2005: Some of the more exciting counter-terrorism operations are not being reported. That's because they are unfolding in out of the way places like Africa. But that should not be surprising. East Africa has long (for thousands of years) had a large Arab population. Most of these Arabs are, naturally, citizens of the countries they live in. But since World War II, the Arab minority has felt slighted and oppressed by the black African majority.
And as we all know, slights leading to seething, and then eye-rolling, and thence face-making ...
As a result, Islamic radicalism has become popular, as has membership in organizations like al Qaeda. American Special Forces have been quietly operating in many East African countries, trying to hunt down Islamic radical cells. Many known al Qaeda leaders are still on the loose in East Africa, and there are a lot of local Arabs who will help hide them. This includes Somalia and Djbouti, where the most of the people consider themselves Arabs, even if they aren't. The local governments (except in Somalia, which doesn't have a government) have been cooperative, as they don't want any more terrorist attacks in their back yards. So far, a few terrorists have been caught, and there have been no terrorist attacks. But the situation remains murky, and dangerous. This is especially true because of a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting being held this month in Kenya. Officials from all over the world will attend, making it an ideal terrorist target.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 9:15:31 AM ||
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March 2, 2005: Since Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party were removed from power in 2003, there have been about 1,300 deaths among the coalition forces, and between 20-25,000 for Iraqis. The Iraqi deaths include about 5,000 killed during the 2003 invasion. Of the remainder, about half are Sunni Arabs (most of them Iraqi, plus a few Shia Arabs) killed while fighting coalition forces as terrorists. Another five thousand or so are Iraqis killed by the terrorists, and the remainder are Iraqi civilians caught in the cross fire.
The deaths among Iraqis is actually lower than when Saddam was in power. During his three decades of rule, Saddam killed half a million Kurds, and several hundred thousand Shia Arabs (and several thousand Sunni Arabs and Christian Arabs). During the 1990s, Saddam used access to food and medical care as a way to keep the Shia Arabs under control, but this process caused twenty thousand or more excess deaths a year (from disease and malnutrition).
Foreign media, especially in Sunni Moslem nations, tend to play with these numbers. That is, they downplay the deaths inflicted by Saddam, inflate those that occurred during the 1990s and blame it on the UN, and greatly inflate the number of Iraqi civilians killed during coalition military operations. But Iraqis on the scene provide more accurate numbers, which are the ones presented here. A lot of the documentation for these stats will come out during the war crimes trials of Saddam and his key aides.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/02/2005 9:09:47 AM ||
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The number of Iraqi insurgents is falling and the days of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al Qaeda-related militants, are numbered, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said on Tuesday.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he believed the emerging political process, including the Jan. 30 election, was helping to drive the number of militants down.
Insurgent attacks on U.S. forces and particularly on Iraqi police and security forces have continued. On Monday a car bomber killed 125 people in Hilla, south of Baghdad and the al Qaeda-related group claimed responsibility.
But Abizaid said improved Iraqi intelligence sources and "treason within his own organization" had lead to successes against Zarqawi. "And his days in Iraq are numbered," he said.
Abizaid said no more than 3,500 militants took part in a failed attempt to disrupt the Jan. 30 election, when Iraqis defied the risks and voted in large numbers.
U.S. officials have rarely given estimates of the numbers involved in the insurgency that arose after U.S.-led forces ousted President Saddam Hussein in 2003 and they have fluctuated greatly, ranging as high as 20,000.
Abizaid said there was "no doubt that the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq was stronger" during the three months before the January election than the same period a year earlier.
But he said U.S. experts calculated that the insurgency fielded "around 3,500 or so" fighters on election day — "the single most important day for the insurgents to come out in force and to disrupt."
"And we say to ourselves, 'Why didn't they put more people in the field? Where were they?' They threw their whole force at us, we think, and yet they were unable to disrupt the elections because people wanted to vote," Abizaid said.
He did not explicitly cite 3,500 as a comprehensive assessment of rebel strength, and said "there's probably a lot of room for interpretation in the numbers of the insurgency."
"I think that the voting in Iraq, the political process that's going on in Iraq, the fact that people of moderate disposition have a chance for a better future, have driven those numbers down," Abizaid said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials recently declined to give lawmakers an estimate of the number of rebels. Rumsfeld said on Feb. 16 he lacked confidence in estimates by the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency.
Abizaid said the Syrian government's role in the infiltration of militants into Iraq was unclear, and it appeared Damascus had taken some steps against it.
"I cannot tell you that the level of infiltration has decreased. I can tell you there appears to be some change of attitude. But I would characterize Syria as continuing to be very unhelpful in helping Iraq achieve stability," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/02/2005 12:35:53 AM ||
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#1
When Michael Jackson's circus fills the news hours, you know the game is over for this phase of the WOT. Nice cover for the MSM to silently fold their tents of doom and move on. The events in Iraq will soon join the car crashes and local shootings on the 11 o'clock news.
Nepal's army, which backed King Gyanendras February 1 seizure of power, is responsible for widespread enforced disappearances and rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. In the course of their nine-year battle with Maoist rebels, "Nepali security forces have established themselves as one of the world's worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances," the group said in a report. It said local human rights groups had recorded more than 1,200 disappearances in the past five years alone. "Given the scale of disappearances we have documented, the heightened role of the army after the kings seizure of power is frightening," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based group.
In a major departure from their usual even-handed condemnations of human right abuses, Human Rights Watch had no comment on the acts of the Maoist terrorists in Nepal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is to appoint General Abd al-Rashid Dostum as head of the country's fledgling army, a source close to Karzai has said. "General Dostam has been appointed as the Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces," President Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin told journalists. However, Ludin added that Deputy Defence Minister Bismillah Khan will retain day to day management as the Chief of Army Staff in command of the nation's 25,000-strong army. The decision - likely to be announced on national TV on Tuesday night - may alarm rights groups who have been calling for those who committed war crimes during the country's bloody civil war to be brought to justice.
Dostum, one of the most powerful men in northern Afghanistan, contested against Karzai and won 10% of last October's presidential vote, mostly in northern provinces where he garnered much support from the ethnic Uzbek and Turkmen communities. However, he was named by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission for the violence of his troops during the civil war which raged in the Afghan capital between 1992 and 1995, and for his bombing of Kabul during that period. Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin did not say if Dustum had been made the country's military chief, but hinted that he would be given a key post. "I think General Dustum will be offered a very good, respectable and appropriate job within the government" Jawed Ludin, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai "I think General Dustum will be offered a very good, respectable and appropriate job within the government," Ludin said. Ludin insisted that Dustum's appointment to a government post was "a good thing, a positive one".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Is Karzai crazy. Yeah..put a ruthless opponent in charge of the army. Good idea.
#2
Keep your friends close and your ememies closer. Maybe the idea of being Chief Warlord appeals to his vanity, it would keep him in the capital away from his power base.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/02/2005 10:43 Comments ||
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#3
I was going to post Steve's exact quote. Better to keep this guy busy where you can keep an eye on him, than have him out in the boonies planning a coup to massage his bruised ego.
#4
well..hopefully he won't give him control of how funds are dispersed. We all know that's where the real power lies of the military lies - in that little red pen. :-)
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.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will visit Saudi Arabia within two days for talks expected to focus on the crisis in Lebanon, an Arab diplomat told AFP on Tuesday. The visit, expected on Wednesday or Thursday, follows a reported promise by Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara during talks here on Monday that Damascus would work on setting a timetable for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Assad will discuss "developments in Lebanon and the Arab world with Saudi leaders," the diplomat told AFP, requesting anonymity. 
SYRIA is seeking the help of some Arab friends who are also regional allies of the United States to fend off mounting pressure over its presence in Lebanon, analysts and diplomats said on Tuesday. Lebanon's Syrian-backed government collapsed on Monday at a parliamentary sitting on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which shocked Lebanon and piled pressure on the country many held responsible - Syria. "There is a drive to secure an Arab cover for the situation," said prominent Syrian political analyst Imad al-Shuaibi. "Syria is directing its effort into preventing the situation from becoming an international matter." "It is only normal that Syria cooperates with its traditional allies, who are at the same time allies of the United States, to deflate tension," an Arab diplomat said. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara met top Egyptian and Saudi officials at the weekend, apparently to try to offset US pressure, compounded by Israeli accusations that Damascus had a hand in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing on Friday. 
Lebanon has begun searching for a new prime minister after Umar Karami's surprise resignation of government under intense public pressure on Monday. But after the euphoria in downtown Beirut that followed Karami's announcement, apprehension was rising on Tuesday about the future. With memories of Lebanon's devastating 1975-1990 civil war still strong, some Lebanese feared that the political uncertainty could bring instability to Lebanon once again. "The fall of the government is not the end of the road," the Al-Mustaqbal newspaper cautioned.
The resignation of 
The number of Iraqi insurgents is falling and the days of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al Qaeda-related militants, are numbered, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said on Tuesday.
Nepal's army, which backed King Gyanendras February 1 seizure of power, is responsible for widespread enforced disappearances and rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. In the course of their nine-year battle with Maoist rebels, "Nepali security forces have established themselves as one of the world's worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances," the group said in a report. It said local human rights groups had recorded more than 1,200 disappearances in the past five years alone. "Given the scale of disappearances we have documented, the heightened role of the army after the kings seizure of power is frightening," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based group.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is to appoint General Abd al-Rashid Dostum as head of the country's fledgling army, a source close to Karzai has said. "General Dostam has been appointed as the Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces," President Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin told journalists. However, Ludin added that Deputy Defence Minister Bismillah Khan will retain day to day management as the Chief of Army Staff in command of the nation's 25,000-strong army. The decision - likely to be announced on national TV on Tuesday night - may alarm rights groups who have been calling for those who committed war crimes during the country's bloody civil war to be brought to justice. 
