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California father and son linked al-Qaeda, arrested
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 4: Opinion
17 00:00 Paul Moloney [2]
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A Hero Comes Home.
As some of you know my good friend, Sgt. Hank Harvey got back in country from Iraq about two weeks ago. I drove over and picked him up yesterday to take him to his house because his wife dumped him for another man. She really did a number on him. He has changed a lot physically since the last time I saw him. He has lost a lot of weight with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. He looks just like a man who has just come in off an extended stay on the Line. You combat vets out there know what look I mean. He kept telling me how good it was just to be back in the States in general and East Tennessee in particular. He didn't talk about his wife much but did let off some steam about Iraq. He is not a violent person and therefore is still a bit upset about killing 4 jihadis. When he unlocked the door and stepped into the house it was completely empty. He walked inside and just sat down on the floor for a while. I didn't say anything at first, I wasn't sure what to say. He finally stood up and asked, "Why did I go through all the shit I just did to come home to THIS?." I stayed with him until well after midnight and we talked quite a bit. He told me the worst part about comming home is that nobody seems to care about what he and the others went through and are still going through. I said, "You've been watching too much CNN, ABC, CBS, etc. There are a great number of people who are proud and extremely thankful for what you all have done. We owe you a great debt and can never repay you." I would like to prey on everyone's conscience a bit and ask you, if you would like, to send a little note to Hank. All you need to say is "Thank you". I think that would be a tremendous boost to him. You can send the notes to my e-mail at rnorthin@gmail.com (Thanks to Seafarious). Hank is a kind, decent man who I am extremely proud to call my Friend. Thanks to all Rantburgers.
Sincerely, Deacon Blues.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/08/2005 15:18 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm proud of Sgt. Harvey. Make sure you tell him that.
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 16:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I just sent Sgt. Hank an email to the address you give, Deacon B. Ugly situation, but better he find out now rather than later that he gave his heart to one who doesn't deserve it. Please keep us posted on his progress.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 18:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Just did the same, avoided the girlfriend angle (yeah, I'm gonna comment on that shit with my record?). I did mention a clambake feast if we ever hooked up (side note - saw this awesome way to do a clambake with wood, rocks and seaweed on the Food Channel last night, it has me seriously thinking of a barbeque pit in the yard, which I could use with my all-time favorite, mesquite charcoal), it's open to him. Hell, I'd do it if I could arrange a NE Rantapalooza (*cough* tu3031 / Carl in NH / et. al *cough*). Just sayin'...
Posted by: Raj || 06/08/2005 18:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Raj, dear, with your experience you can tell him exactly why it's better this happened sooner rather than later! Not that he needs to hear that kind of thing just yet... or without a case of something stronger than lemonade nearby. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 23:31 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Son of rebel leader offers to surrender
SANAA, Yemen, June 8 (UPI) -- The son of a Yemeni rebel leader offered to surrender to authorities with 60 followers of his father in return for amnesty, a military source said. The source said Abdul Malek al-Houthy, son of Badreddine al-Houthy, sent a letter to President Ali Abdullah Saleh offering to stop inciting the public against the state, to cease armed actions and attacks against public and private properties and suspend the rebellion as a prelude to an agreement to surrender to the authorities "in order to be able to live as a good citizen and abide by the law."

According to the source, who spoke to UPI on condition of anonymity, the president discussed the content of the letter with the army command and the governor of the province of Saada on the Yemeni-Saudi border, a hotbed for the rebels. "There has been no reaction or response by the government to al-Houthy's offer so far," the source said. Badreddine al-Houthy took over the leadership of the rebellion after his elder son, Hussein, was killed by government forces last September after three months of fighting in the rugged mountainous area of Saada.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Preacher tells Saudis not to go to Iraq
A senior Saudi preacher has urged Saudi youth to follow their minds and not their hearts by staying away from the insurgency in Iraq.
Minds? They have minds?
Sheik Safar bin Abdel Rahman al-Hawali was quoted Wednesday by the Saudi daily al-Yom as saying, "The Iraqi resistance does not need any help from outside and it is assuming its duty fully on behalf of the whole Arab nation." He warned that Saudis who go to Iraq might face the same fate as those who went to Afghanistan and were rounded up by U.S. forces, though some had nothing to do with the Taliban or the al-Qaida network. Hawali denied reports that he was supplying Iraqi insurgents with money and encouraging Saudis to join them. Iraqi official television has shown prisoners seized by U.S. and Iraqi forces saying they were Saudis and had received financial assistance from Hawali.
This article starring:
SHEIK SAFAR BIN ABDEL RAHMAN AL HAWALILearned Elders of Islam
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 08:56 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Apparently, the only thing "made in Saudi Arabia" is the easily exportable, mobile, suicide/homicide bomber. I guess word is getting out as well just where the bombers are coming from, and "senior Saudi preacher" is trying to reverse the negative PR spin that has resulted.
Posted by: an dalusian dog || 06/08/2005 9:39 Comments || Top||

#2  He warned that Saudis who go to Iraq might face the same fate as those who went to Afghanistan and were rounded up by U.S. forces, though some had nothing to do with the Taliban or the al-Qaida network.

I do expect that there's a large group of dress-up Jihadis who just want to be photographed in the Land-O-2-Rivers-&-1-Landfill who then change their mind and head home with fine memories of being fierce fighters of foreign fracases.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 9:44 Comments || Top||

#3  How's this for a half-baked theory?

Encouraging suicide bombers is a means of keeping the population down.

According to the CIA World Factbook entry on Saudi Arabia, there are over 26 million people living there, which includes over 5.5 million non-nationals. The birth rate is a bit over 29 per 1000, the death rate is 2.62 per 1000. Net Migration is -3.85/1000 (about 100,000 annually).

"A burgeoning population, aquifer depletion, and an economy largely dependent on petroleum output and prices are all ongoing governmental concerns."

Running out of water?
Posted by: eLarson || 06/08/2005 10:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Exporting revolutionary excess male yuts? Bet that's part of it eL.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 11:08 Comments || Top||

#5  eLarson---a colleague of mine who spent time in Saudi sez that the aquifer static level has been going down 30 ft a year. Being that the water in the aquifer was basically a Pleistocene savings account, I would say that the reverse osmosis method of desalinating sea water is their only long-term solution to fresh water.

It seems to me that the Saudi royals are sucking up all the wealth and that the just-plain-Joes of the population are getting the short end of the stick. Then you have all the clerics preaching Jihad, hate the Jews and Christians, and young men with nothing to do sign up for martyrdom. If these guys ever get hit with the cluebat, they could turn on the royals and the clerics, but given the lack of rationalitiy in SA, I doubt it in the short term.

.com, what is your take on it?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/08/2005 11:14 Comments || Top||

#6  I've always thought this was smart on Saudi's part. They can just let thier idiot's and extremist wander into Iraq to fight the best military in the world, and probally die. Then they don't have to deal with them.
Posted by: plainslow || 06/08/2005 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Hey Al-Aksa Paul, have you heard this one? Saudi Royals may also have booby trapped their oilfields, wells etc with dirty bombs so that should they be invaded, they blow up all the infrastructure and make the oil wells so radioactive they can't be used for at least a generation.

Pipes had it on his mail-out and website.

The ultimate deterrent to prospective invaders.
Posted by: anon1 || 06/08/2005 12:39 Comments || Top||

#8  It's pretty clear that the Holy Man isn't against jihad or"insurgency" at all - he's just saying, in English (if translated accurately and not "cleaned up" by al-Yom) that going to Iraq is a bad idea cuz the "insurgency" is going swell and they'd prolly get nabbed by the US.

Wonder what he said in the original Arabic. Exactly.

AP - This info dates to '92, but AFAIK it's still accurate. The first pass out of the desalination plants is what they serve up in the public water system in the Dhahran - Khobar - Dammam area, I'll wager it's the same most everywhere. It is still brine. Only useful for washing and toilets, actually.

After a second pass or treatment, it is called "sweet water", but it's not up to bottled water standards. Prolly about what we get here in Sin City from the public supply. In Khobar, the Govt had a single public facility where this 2nd pass water was available free - you just had to bring your own containers. Of course, once it had cooled down to say 85 or so, mebbe 10:00 or 11:00 PM, the place was swamped. I only went once to try it out because it was still almost undrinkable and the "hygeine" practiced by the Saudis at (and on) the spigots (there were many - maybe 50 of them) was less than desirable, lol.

Everyone who has the coins buys bottled. Period. As for the water table, here's a decent article on the subject - and your info matches up well. Check out the section titled: Trends in water resources management for the scoop looking forward. It confirms what I recalled - the first pass output from a standard desalination plant is still brine. Working in their favor is that they have the petro products to fuel secondary treatment plants (think distilled water) at the lowest price on the planet. Everything else is working against them, essentially.

anon1 - That was on RB almost a month ago:
Saudi oil fields set with 'radioactive bombs'
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 13:28 Comments || Top||

#9  .com-
Did you ever go to the caves outside of Riyadh on the way to Al-Kharj? We used to go spelunking in there (always took the new guys) and on one occasion met a very friendly Saudi gentleman (who, FWIW, was the ONLY Saudi civilian I shook hands with in 6 months there) who told us that when he was a child(late 50s), the caves had water in them that could be seen from the entrance. When I was there (95), the nearest water was in some isolated pools nearly one thousand feet deep.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 06/08/2005 18:51 Comments || Top||

#10  Mike - I wish. The only place outside of the Eastern Province I got to see was Khafji - on my first tour - but we did get to see lots in the province, camel markets, the Thursday market in Qatif, etc. The Aramcons I worked with took a lot of time to go exploring in the Empty Quarter, but I didn't have a 4WD vehicle to join in the fun on my second tour.

Sounds like there was some strong evidence of the table drop. Did you check that link in my prev comment? It goes into how much water is making it back into the aquifer annually. The proverbial drop in the bucket relative to the extraction.
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 22:12 Comments || Top||


Britain
Arms cache found at Iraq Embassy in London
A guns cache has been discovered at Iraq's Embassy in Britain by incoming diplomats of the new Iraqi administration.

Scotland Yard says "a number of firearms" have been recovered from the embassy in an upmarket area of south-west London.

The Knightsbridge building was abandoned by Iraqi diplomats in early 2003 in the run up to war in Iraq.

The discovery of the weapons is likely to renew debate in Britain about guns and diplomatic missions.

Under international law, an embassy is regarded as sovereign territory.

In 1984, police officer Yvonne Fletcher was killed by shots that came from the Libyan Embassy in London during demonstrations against the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The gunman was smuggled out with other embassy staff under diplomatic immunity, although Libya accepted responsibility in 1999 for the shooting and agreed to compensate her family.
Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 || 06/08/2005 17:16 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
EU-NATO split on Darfur aid
BRUSSELS, June 8 (UPI) -- France's demand the European Union coordinate aid to Darfur is disrupting relief efforts in western Sudan.
Gee, France stamping it's foot demanding to run things again. What are the odds of that happening?

Canada, France, Germany and the United States have promised to help the African Union airlift more of the bloc's troops to the region, but are divided on the procedure. Washington and Ottawa want NATO to coordinate efforts, but France wants the EU to manage it, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
"How are we supposed to get our cut if we can't manage the program?"
The mission is due to start July 1.
Good luck with that.

The violence in Darfur pits government-backed Arab militia, or Janjaweed, against the local black population. More than 2 million people have been displaced and some 100,000 killed in violence Washington has called "genocide." The AU has about 2,600 troops in the region.
Chirac fiddles while Darfur burns
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 16:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Four held in Netherlands over attacks in Iraq
Three Iraqis and a Dutch man of Iraqi origin have been arrested by authorities in the Netherlands in a probe into attacks against US military vehicles in Iraq. The Dutch prosecutor's office said the 32-year-old Dutch man was arrested at his home in the central town of Amersfoort and figured in an October 2003 video showing insurgents planning an attack on a US convoy near the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah in Iraq. The three Iraqis also arrested were aged from 20 to 35. Police found videos, photographic films, weapons, ammunition and computer records containing amateur footage of suicide attacks, the prosecutor's office added. Dutch authorities opened their investigation in 2004 following information from Dutch military intelligence.
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/08/2005 13:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More fucking camel jockey terrorist Muslimes. What a big surpise!
Posted by: Snereper Javith8445 || 06/08/2005 15:17 Comments || Top||

#2  "Dutch" man of iraqi origin?
Posted by: Tkat || 06/08/2005 15:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes, one Abu of Orange.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 16:27 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
US Military's "Rods From God"
Posted by: RG || 06/08/2005 15:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Furthermore, it may be necessary to slow substantially the rods' rate of speed to prevent them from vaporizing on impact--though retrorockets might offer a solution to this problem

LOL. Sure why not. Get it down to say 700 mph, make it survivable and accurate. Does tend to cut down on the energy applied to the target and those retrorockets can get heavy. Or perhaps use a cement bomb dropped from a B1.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 16:40 Comments || Top||

#2  I seem to remember reading someplace that kinetic weapons of this scale also produce an EMP effect, albeit of a lesser scale than that of a nuclear weapon. Anyone know for sure?
Posted by: Ebbeager Ebbeans6904 || 06/08/2005 17:00 Comments || Top||

#3  I nominate Robert Byrd to stand out in Death Valley with a toaster in his hand. The Air Force can drop one on him and we'll see if the toaster shorts out.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/08/2005 17:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Teresa Hitchens simply maintains that, "The world will not tolerate this." And who elected her to speak for the world.
Posted by: phil_b || 06/08/2005 17:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Slowing them down to 700mph would defeat the purpose of the things. You want them going 30,000 mph because at that speed they are nuclear weapon substitutes - non-radioactive environmentally benign WMD's that can dig a half-kilometer crater. You could indeed do things like drop a string of them along the North Korean artillery bunker complexes north of Seoul without contaminating half of South Korea with fallout. Pretty cool.

A 700MPH one would be not much better than an AP bomb (or a concrete one) carried by an aircraft. Its a waste of money putting that in orbit.
Posted by: buwaya || 06/08/2005 17:51 Comments || Top||

#6  Didn't I see something like this on Babylon 5?
Posted by: Jert Flinert7749 || 06/08/2005 18:17 Comments || Top||

#7  Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information

standing with hands on hips, tearing up a la Barbara Boxer, with just as much credibility.....
Posted by: Frank G || 06/08/2005 19:37 Comments || Top||

#8  Exactly Buwaya. We've done the hard liftin and thinkin let's leave the rest to the calculator set.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 19:50 Comments || Top||

#9  No EMP, per se. In theory, the high speed combined with the action of the atmosphere could generate a localized electrical field. The impact "might" generate x-rays [according to LTC Heinlein]. Massive thermal, sonic energy.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 06/08/2005 20:43 Comments || Top||

#10  the actual effect is in my tech paper: "The Depends™ Reaction"
Posted by: Frank G || 06/08/2005 20:45 Comments || Top||

#11  Kinda puts a whole new spin on the 23rd Psalm, doesn't it?

His rod and staff my comfort . . .
Posted by: Mike || 06/08/2005 21:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Lets just put a big computerized Trebuchet on the MOON. Throw bolders at NK and Iraq the size of cars. At escape velocity++ they should work just fine and would not need to lift all those heavy rods. Only problem is 4 days to impact. That is mitigated by lots of available bolders two throw.
Posted by: 3dc || 06/08/2005 21:59 Comments || Top||

#13  Heinlein covered the boulder thing in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The weapon was negated simply be damaging the computer. The whole Rods from God proposition was discussed at Rantburg within the last year, I think. As I recall, y'all technical types decided there was a better way to accomplish the goal of selectively breaking things. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 23:00 Comments || Top||


Lodi's an al-Qaeda nest
FBI agents have arrested a man and his father after the son allegedly admitted attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan that taught participants "how to kill Americans," federal authorities said Tuesday. In a case that was still unfolding, officials confirmed that Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, 47, were taken into custody Sunday. Authorities said late Tuesday that they were still trying to determine whether the arrests represented the discovery of a small network of Al Qaeda sympathizers operating in the agricultural town of Lodi, 40 miles south of Sacramento.

The arrests came days after the younger man was discovered aboard a San Francisco-bound plane even though his name appeared on a "No Fly" list of suspected extremists. At the time, according to an FBI affidavit, Hayat was returning to the U.S. after having visited Pakistan. According to the affidavit, he told agents that after attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, he was given his pick of where to carry out his terrorist mission. "Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," the affidavit says. "Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores."

While Hayat and his father remained in custody on charges of lying to federal authorities, family members denied that the ice cream truck driver or his son, who works in a fruit-packing plant, had any links to terrorism. "The charges are totally false," said a female cousin of Hayat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Lies! All lies!"
The family lives in a one-story house a block from Lodi's mosque. The cousin said Hayat's most recent trip to Pakistan had nothing to do with terrorism. Rather, she said, he went with his mother to arrange some marriages and visit relatives. Hayat is the oldest of four children and was born in Lodi, according to the cousin. He went to Pakistan at the age of 9 "to memorize the holy Koran," she said.

Dozens of FBI agents arrived at the home early Tuesday, family members said, and seized videocassettes, photographs, fax machines, prayer books and other items. Federal authorities declined to provide details about the case. "All I can say is that this investigation is continuing," Sacramento FBI spokesman John Cauthen said. But other law enforcement sources suggested Tuesday that the arrests followed a lengthy investigation by federal counterterrorism officials and would result in other arrests. "These guys have been on the radar for awhile," said one official, referring to the Hayats. "And this case has more to it than just these two guys."

According to the seven-page FBI affidavit that was unsealed Tuesday, Sacramento FBI officials were first contacted at 5:30 a.m. on May 29, with information from FBI headquarters that Hayat would attempt to enter the U.S. later that day on a flight from Korea that was bound for San Francisco International Airport. Sacramento Agent Pedro Tenoch Aguilar, in the affidavit, said authorities determined Hayat was en route to the U.S. despite being on a "No Fly" list.

The plane, according to Aguilar's statement, was diverted and allowed to land in Japan for refueling. While in Japan, Hayat was interviewed by an FBI agent and denied having any connection to terrorism. He was allowed to continue his travel to the U.S. Immigration records cited in the FBI agent's affidavit show that the Lodi man left Pakistan on May 27. The records also showed that he had previously traveled to Pakistan in April 2003. Last Friday, according to the affidavit, Hayat was interviewed by FBI agents in Sacramento and specifically asked if he had ever attended any terrorist training camps. He said he would never be involved with extremists The next day, Hayat voluntarily arrived at the FBI's Sacramento office with his father to take a polygraph examination the agents requested. After the test indicated some deception in his answers, Hayat acknowledged that he had attended a training camp in Pakistan for six months in 2003 and 2004, according to the affidavit.

Hayat described the camp as providing training in weapons, explosives, hand-to-hand combat and other paramilitary exercises, the affidavit says. During his weapons training, he said, photos of various high-ranking U.S. political figures including President Bush were pasted onto the targets and he and others were trained on "how to kill Americans," according to the agent's statement. Hayat also said he observed hundreds of people from various parts of the world attending the camps. His father, according to the affidavit, also told FBI agents at first that there were no terrorist training camps in Pakistan.
He prob'ly just did that to make them squirt coffee out their noses...
But after being shown a videotape of his son's statement, the affidavit says, Umer Hayat told agents he had supported his son's time in Pakistan by, among other things, providing him a $100 monthly allowance, knowing that his intention was to attend a terrorist camp. The elder Hayat also allegedly told authorities that he observed training in weapons and urban warfare at several camps, the affidavit says. Umer Hayat told the agents that his son became interested in attending a terrorist training camp as a teenager, influenced by a classmate in Pakistan and an uncle who had fought with the mujahedin in Afghanistan, the affidavit says. Several other family members and friends of the Hayats also were involved in a religious school that sent students to the training camps, the affidavit says.

Both men were being held in federal detention after a brief court appearance Tuesday in Sacramento. While authorities would not comment on whether others have been arrested, local Muslim leaders reported the detentions of two other individuals: an imam at the Lodi mosque and another religious leader affiliated with an Islamic center in Sacramento. Lodi has a sizable Pakistani population.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 09:50 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lodi's mosque needs a cleaning out, apparently. Good thing they don't have access to ammonium fertilizer.....oh sh*t!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/08/2005 10:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Not so interesting aside: Lodi, NJ, is home to the go-go bar that doubles as "the Bing" in The Sopranos.
Posted by: Tibor || 06/08/2005 11:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh, Allan Lord, stuck in Lodi again...
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/08/2005 11:23 Comments || Top||

#4  What’s scary about this is that it seems that everyone knew about the son, his travels, and his training. Yet no one from the local mosque thought that maybe the activities were illegal. If fact some members of the congregation believe that some civil rights were violated (although they could not cite one). Clearly these people do NOT feel like Americans or they have a really warped idea of what it means to be an American. If it were up to me the entire family would be on a plane bound for Pakistan this morning.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 06/08/2005 12:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Cyber Sarge,
That is one of the fundamental tasks we face in rooting out radical islam in America. The people at the mosque think these guys are the injured party, not terrorists. Why do they even come here? They hate Americans,Christians,Democracy,and all the freedoms that this country has fought and suffered so long to provide us.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/08/2005 12:45 Comments || Top||

#6  I find myself typing words I couldn't have imagined typing before 9/11: I hope the FBI is bugging the hell out of every mosque in the U.S.

If these morons HAD succeeded in blowing up a hospital, and then large numbers of individuals in the mosque had been shown to be involved and/or knowledgable, the ramifications from the regular citizens of Lodi (and elsewhere) would have been ghastly. Appropriate, but ghastly.

It's one thing for the 9/11 asswipes to sneak into the country and commit their crimes. But when AMERICAN CITIZENS plot from within to kill Americans...enough is enough!!

If I thought someone in my church was planning such an act I would contact the Feds in a milisecond. The fact that the Muslim community puts ALLAN above the LIVES of my family is unacceptable.

We are WAR with radical Islam...NOT terror. We better start fighting the right war. Giving these morons Korans at Gitmo, when we know for a FACT that the Koran is what they use to justify their actions is EXACTLY like giving the Nazis awaiting trial at Nuremburg copies of Mein Kampf so they could keep their hatred of the Jews finely honed. Geez!!
Posted by: Justrand || 06/08/2005 13:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Lodi's just a little shit town on SR 99. If it needs cleaning out, the job shouldn't be that hard to do.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 13:43 Comments || Top||

#8  All immigrants who voluntarily decide not to assimilate are tumors.

Dr Steve can fill us in on the latest cancer treatment regimes, assuming it can't just be fucking excised via surgery and dumped in the biohazard toxic waste bin.

Here's my F**kin Duh view:
In the end, all Western countries will be forced to either go under or make the environment so hostile to those who refuse to assimilate that they choose to return to the shitholes that spawned them. My favorite bit of lunacy is that they very carefully pack and haul their shithole re-creation kits with them. And, once established, busy themselves making a shithole just like home. How nostalgic.

Of course, who creates the worst shitholes on the planet? Thugs, Dictators, Mullahs - the stalwart bastions of the UN General Assembly.
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 13:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Justrand - You hit it on the head:
Muzzy Rule One: Muzzy First. Fuck everyone else.
Muzzy Rule Two: See Rule One.
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 13:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Radical Islam? The problem with the "non-radical muslims" is that they might not detonate the bombs but they agree with the detonators and will never report them.
Until Americans understand that, none of us will be safe!
Posted by: TMH || 06/08/2005 14:22 Comments || Top||

#11  "If I thought someone in my church was planning such an act I would contact the Feds in a milisecond."
And here lies the difference between Islam and all other religions.
"The fact that the Muslim community puts ALLAN above the LIVES of my family is unacceptable."
It has always been that way. The difference now is that they are more visible because of the open acts of terror they are committing around the world.
Muslims in South America marry muslims and if they are not enough of them around, they send for them from other countries. Italians, Germans, even the weasel french intermarry with the local population but not muslims. They never, ever integrate into any culture and feel no loyalty to the host country.


Posted by: TMH || 06/08/2005 14:30 Comments || Top||

#12  TMH, I agree completely! It is truly stand up be counted time, for Americans in general, but especially Muslims since so many are using that religion to attack us.
Posted by: Justrand || 06/08/2005 15:04 Comments || Top||

#13  "Stuck in Lodi, again"
Posted by: Cloluse Crosh3135 || 06/08/2005 17:07 Comments || Top||

#14  THM is correct, LONG before 9/11 Muslims were chanting "Death to America" in the morning and selling us oil in the afternoon. When you live in shitholes such as the Middle East it's easy to find disgruntled people you can recruit for any manner of terrorists activity. But this is way more dangerous because these yahoos lived, went to school, and worked in the U.S. I have met MANY first and second generation immigrants and most (save Muslims) have nothing but praise and loyalty for this country. Very few of them actually join the left wing political parties because the mindset is counter to everything they have become. Other than deporting the families back to Pakistan, I am not sure what can be done with a cluster of disloyal terrorists sympathizers.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 06/08/2005 17:15 Comments || Top||

#15  Prosecute them under treason laws?
Posted by: anon || 06/08/2005 17:52 Comments || Top||

#16  It's worse that I thought! Checkout this link and article. Strange that they were able to get away with this in broad daylight and nobody stopped them.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 06/08/2005 17:56 Comments || Top||

#17  link not werkin cs
Posted by: muck4doo || 06/08/2005 18:08 Comments || Top||

#18  It's at the World Net Daily site.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 06/08/2005 18:25 Comments || Top||

#19  Here's a working link.
Posted by: Jackal || 06/08/2005 18:30 Comments || Top||

#20  thanx jackal
Posted by: muck4doo || 06/08/2005 21:57 Comments || Top||


Briton faces extradition over hack of US military sites
A British computer expert accused of carrying out "the biggest military computer hack of all time" has been released on bail by a London magistrates court today as he fights extradition charges to the US.

Gary McKinnon, 39, an unemployed systems administrator, is accused of repeatedly hacking into the Pentagon and NASA among 97 US government computers he targeted in a twelve month period in 2001 and 2002.

Mr McKinnon was arrested at his home in north London last night by officers from Scotland Yard's extradition unit, and appeared before Bow Street Magistrates Court this morning.

He was released on £5,000 bail under the condition that he does not access the internet or apply for travel documents. Mr McKinnon's next hearing is on July 27.

Janet Boston, for the US government, told the court this morning that Mr McKinnon caused $700,000 worth of damage in a series of attacks designed to disrupt the computer networks of American military installations. Mr McKinnon faces five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, should he be extradited to face trial in America.

Ms Boston said Mr McKinnon's actions allowed him to "control the computers".

After the hearing, Karen Todner, Mr McKinnon's lawyer, said that he intends to "contest this case most vigorously" and that Mr McKinnon is dismayed that it has taken this long to bring him to court. Mr McKinnon was first arrested in March 2002 but no further action was taken. First, we fix the holes in those systems. Second, we trace to see if he has accomplices. Then when we have time, we get around to nailing this guy.

The scale of the accusations against Mr McKinnon was first revealed in two indictments unsealed by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the US Department of Justice in November 2002.

At the press conference announcing the charges, Paul J. McNulty, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia called Mr McKinnon's activities "the biggest military computer hack of all time".

According to US authorities, Mr McKinnon used software available over the internet to gain access to computer networks used by the US Army, Navy and Air Force. Once inside the systems Mr McKinnon allegedly deleted files, changed passwords and invited other hackers to join him, denying several military bases access to the internet and email. In total, Mr McKinnon is accused of causing damage to computer systems across 14 states of the US.

In the most spectacular crimes alleged against Mr McKinnon, he "rendered the network for the Military District of Washington inoperable" for three days, and severely disrupted the operations of a Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey for a month shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Staff at Naval Weapons Station Earle, which is responsible for organising supplies to the US Navy's Atlantic fleet, were unable use their computers for a week and could not connect to the internet for a month in September and October 2001.

A lot has been tightened up since then.
Posted by: too true || 06/08/2005 09:40 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If he is as good as all that but still unemployed, somebody (not the Rantburg somebody, of course) has been keeping a very close eye on him since the case file was opened. Were I he, I would feel more than a bit paranoid, and not at all sanguine about my future.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 16:46 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm not sure he's that good. This happened before 9/11 and a lot of government sites were not secured well. No excuse for that, but the urgency wasn't there. Neither was broadband very prevalent.

He apparently used one of the spyware packages floating around the hacker bulletin boards once he got in to the systems. As a sys admin he knew what to look for, but so would any sys admin.

A whole lot of things have changed since 9/11 re: computer security on DOD systems.
Posted by: rkb || 06/08/2005 17:03 Comments || Top||


C.I.A. Is Reviewing Its Security Policy for Recruiting Translators
The Central Intelligence Agency is reviewing security procedures that have led the agency to turn away large numbers of Arabic-language linguists and other potential recruits with skills avidly sought by the agency since the attacks of 2001, Congressional and intelligence officials say.

Many of those rejected, the officials say, have been first-generation Americans who bring the linguistic facility and cultural knowledge that the C.I.A. has been trying to develop in seeking to improve its performance in penetrating terrorist organizations and otherwise gathering intelligence in the Middle East and South Asia.

Many of these applicants still have relatives abroad, often in countries that raise alarm among security officers. Former intelligence officials say that besides the problems of conducting thorough background checks in those countries, the agency also worries that recruits could be blackmailed if their families were vulnerable.

The C.I.A. prides itself on security guidelines that are the strictest in government, allowing the hiring only of American citizens with a top-secret clearance. In recruiting for its clandestine service, the agency invites applications only from those under 35 years old.

The officials would not say how many otherwise-qualified applicants had been turned away for security reasons, and they cautioned that in some cases the security concerns might have been well-founded. But they suggested that the numbers could range from the scores into the many hundreds, at a time when President Bush has ordered the C.I.A. to increase the ranks of its clandestine service and its analytical branch by 50 percent each over the next five years.

"We are taking a fresh look at the process to determine what works, what doesn't, and what can be done better," said Jennifer Millerwise, the top C.I.A. spokeswoman. Ms. Millerwise said the agency was "incredibly focused from the top down on looking at new ways to get new people who have the right skills, the right experience and would make great officers."

Among the possibilities under review are revised standards for background checks and the creation of new job categories subject to less stringent requirements. But the C.I.A. is likely to resist anything that would be perceived as a scaling back of security restrictions.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the goal of any review should be "to allow people who have relatives in other countries to help us out if they are law-abiding patriotic Americans," and added, "We have cut them out at our peril."

In a unanimous report issued last week, Republicans and Democrats on the committee joined in complaining that the C.I.A. was still lagging far behind targets set by Congress in developing expertise in languages like Arabic; Chinese; Farsi, spoken in Iran; and Pashtu, spoken in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But Congress and intelligence officials appear divided over how best to address the problem, with C.I.A. officials concerned that any lowering of security barriers could prove disastrous.

"The answer is not to weaken the standards," a former senior intelligence official said. "But it may be that we are using the standards in a way that is archaic by the needs of the time."

Any final decision is likely to fall to John D. Negroponte, who as the new director of national intelligence oversees the C.I.A. and 14 other agencies. In its report, issued on June 2 to accompany a bill authorizing spending for intelligence programs in 2006, the House committee urged Mr. Negroponte to put in place a more flexible security system devised "to leverage the cultural and linguistic skills" of unconventional hires that it says may be "critical to national security."

Former intelligence officials said the fact that a potential C.I.A. employee had close relatives abroad would not automatically be disqualifying. But they said the C.I.A.'s security office had traditionally treated such relationships as a major obstacle to a top-secret clearance, particularly if those relatives were in countries like Syria or Iran, where it would be difficult for the C.I.A. to conduct a full background investigation, or if there was any hint that relatives had ties to terrorist organizations.

Among other concerns, the former officials said, C.I.A. officers who had close relatives abroad might be more susceptible to blackmail if threats were made against their family members.

much more at the link
Posted by: too true || 06/08/2005 09:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If only other agencies *cough* FBI *cough* also had high security standards for their Arabic translators.
Posted by: ed || 06/08/2005 10:12 Comments || Top||

#2  If only any of the agencies didn't boycott Jews with the required language skills for fear that their pet Muslim translators would refuse to work with them.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 16:50 Comments || Top||


California father and son linked al-Qaeda, arrested
A father and son were in custody Wednesday after federal authorities arrested the U.S. citizens when the younger man allegedly confessed that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans." Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to federal agents and appeared in court Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Hamid Hayat trained with explosives and other weapons, using photographs of President Bush and other political leaders as targets. The Sacramento Bee reported his age as 22; the Los Angeles Times said he is 23. Umer Hayat was charged in the complaint with lying about his son's involvement and his own financing of the terror camp, which an affidavit released by prosecutors said was run by a close friend of Umer Hayat's father.

Relatives denied the charges and Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, called the allegations "shocking" but said his client "is charged with nothing more than lying to an agent." A female cousin of Hamid Hayat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Times that "the charges are totally false." U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski denied a bail request for the elder Hayat, saying he was "a flight risk and a danger to the community."

"He just returned from Pakistan where he built a new home and contributed financial assistance to an al-Qaida-sponsored program training his son and others to kill Americans whenever and wherever they can be found," the Bee quoted Nowinski as saying. Hamid Hayat's attorney was not present for the court hearing, and Nowinski set a bail hearing for him on Friday. Hamid Hayat's name was on the U.S. "no fly" list of suspected extremists, the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee reported, and on returning from Pakistan on May 29 his flight was diverted to Japan, where he was questioned. He was allowed to continue on, and was then questioned in Sacramento by FBI agents. After first denying any link to terrorist camps, Hayat reportedly failed some polygraph questions and then told agents that he attended al-Qaida camps in 2003 and 2004. "Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," according to the affidavit. "Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores."

The affidavit says Umer Hayat gave up denying that he knew of the terrorist training when he was shown a videotape of his son's confession. FBI agents raided the Hayat home on Tuesday, family members told the Times. They seized videocassettes, photographs, fax machines, prayer books and other items. One law enforcement official told the Times that "these guys have been on the radar for awhile," adding that "this case has more to it than just these two guys."

In fact, two other men, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan, were being held on immigration violations after meeting separately with Umer Hayat on Saturday, the Bee reported. All four men live in Lodi, about 35 miles south of Sacramento. Umer Hayat wore a concealed FBI listening device for the meetings, one source told the Bee, an account confirmed by some of his relatives. Khan is an imam at the Lodi mosque and Ahmed is a religious leader affiliated with an Islamic center in Sacramento, the Bee and Times reported.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 08:34 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Great, it's a family affair! I love to see fathers and sons spending time together on the weekends playing jihadi.
Posted by: Tkat || 06/08/2005 9:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Remember, the family that slays together, stays together....
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 06/08/2005 10:38 Comments || Top||

#3  :)
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 11:11 Comments || Top||


American Radical Muslims Desecrate US Flag
Posted by: RG || 06/08/2005 02:22 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just for that, I'm going to order another free Koran and do horrible things to it.
Posted by: Bobby || 06/08/2005 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Does this mean we can riot and burn down mosques now?

Oh thats right.... muslims are doing it so it's ok in the eyes of the MSM....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/08/2005 8:53 Comments || Top||

#3  You see the beggining credits? "American Islamic Thinkers" my ass. This is really going to push up anti-muslim rhetoric with ammunition to back it up. I so do hope someone in Media picks this up. Or even Drudge give it a quick headline.
Posted by: Charles || 06/08/2005 11:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh my, that did get my blood pressure up. Drudge has to link to this and so should every main conservative site in the US. This is the reality that we are facing along with the terrorists in Lodi. These assholes aren't Americans. They should be deported, and if they are citizens, have that citizenship revoked.
Posted by: remoteman || 06/08/2005 13:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Yup I agree, strip this anal orifices of their US citizenship or green card and kick them out of the country and ban them from coming back!
Posted by: radrh8r || 06/08/2005 16:07 Comments || Top||

#6  "Islamic Thinkers" - oxymoron meter is pegged....
Posted by: Jase Flomoter9702 || 06/08/2005 17:10 Comments || Top||


Suspects Not Tied to Terror Group: Lawyers
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Attorneys for three terrorism defendants told jurors yesterday that the men were never associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and had innocent explanations for comments that were wiretapped by investigators.
"Pure as the driven snow, that's us!"
Federal prosecutors say Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Zayed Ballut, Hatem Naji Fariz and their co-defendant, Sami Al-Arian, a fired University of South Florida professor, worked to raise money in the United States to further the goals of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The group, listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department, is blamed for more than 100 deaths in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But in opening statements yesterday, lawyers for the three men being tried along with Al-Arian painted them as family men who supported the Middle East peace process and were dedicated to providing legitimate charity to the needy in Palestinian territories. Al-Arian's attorneys and prosecutors had presented their opening statements Monday. Defense lawyers maintain prosecutors will be able to provide no evidence directly tying the men to the terrorist group or any criminal activity.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lawyers said this?

Allllllrighty then...
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 13:45 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
US to drop campaign against ElBaradei
EFL: VIENNA (Reuters) - The Bush administration is prepared to drop its solitary campaign against Mohamed ElBaradei, who is flying to Washington to try to win support for a third term as head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, U.S. and European officials said. U.S. and European officials told Reuters that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will offer support for ElBaradei's candidacy as director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The U.S. will support ElBaradei but it wants some things in return," a European diplomat told Reuters, adding these issues involved Iran and the general fight against nuclear arms proliferation. The diplomat did not elaborate. No immediate comment was available from the State Department.
ElBaradei has headed the IAEA since 1997. He fell out with the Americans over what they saw as soft-pedalling on the atomic programs of Iraq and Iran. ElBaradei was due to arrive in Washington late on Wednesday. He was scheduled to meet Rice and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph on Thursday, diplomats said. Joseph is the successor to John Bolton, the U.S. administration's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations and ElBaradei's most vocal U.S. critic.
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors begins its quarterly meeting Monday. One of the main items on the agenda is the issue of a third term for ElBaradei, which Washington opposed, arguing that heads of U.N. agencies should not serve more than two terms. U.N. diplomats say the real reasons were ElBaradei's refusal to accept U.S. allegations that prewar Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program and his opposition to U.S. demands that the IAEA board report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for hiding sensitive nuclear activities from the agency.
In April, the board's Canadian chairwoman, Ingrid Hall, told board members the United States was the only country opposing ElBaradei. Since the agency tries to reach all decisions by consensus, the vote was delayed.
Better a known incompetant than a unknown one, I guess
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:53 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He's useless. The guy that replaces him will be useless. What's the point of wasting the effort?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 11:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Don't agree: A proven idiot will always be a proven idiot.
A not proven idiot might turn out not to be one.
The US should have made an effort to find a presentable candidate. I can't believe that there aren't a few specialists out there ready to take the job.
Posted by: True German Ally || 06/08/2005 12:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Let's nominate Bolton for the slot.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/08/2005 12:37 Comments || Top||

#4  ElBaradei is a Moslem mole, working to support the spread of nukes in the axis of evil. That's why he must go. We can't afford more NoKos, Iraqs, Irans, Pakistans and Lybias of the last 15+ years. I suggest to watch out for Egypt and Venezuela.
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) || 06/08/2005 12:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe I should run.
I know that Iran's producing bombs.
That's more than Baradei does.
Posted by: True German Ally || 06/08/2005 12:39 Comments || Top||

#6  You got my vote.
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 12:55 Comments || Top||

#7  In April, the board's Canadian chairwoman, Ingrid Hall, told board members the United States was the only country opposing ElBaradei. Since the agency tries to reach all decisions by consensus, the vote was delayed.

Early this year IIRC there was talk about this month being when the WH would decide on a strategy re: Iran's nukes. Does this move now mean the decision is made?
Posted by: anon || 06/08/2005 13:17 Comments || Top||

#8  There's certainly no requirement that the individual be technically qualified in nukes - Baradei's got some piece of paper related to International Relations or something. He's a UN Specialist, lol, and wouldn't know a nuke from a pumpkin.
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 14:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Actually, ElBaradei was the head of Egypt's nuke programme and left shortly before Sadat signed their "peace" treaty with Israel.
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) || 06/08/2005 14:27 Comments || Top||

#10  .com, let alone a nuke in a pumpkin
Posted by: True German Ally || 06/08/2005 14:29 Comments || Top||

#11  The dink's bio - from the IAEA website where everything is polished up nice 'n shiny for the magnificent DG. Int'l Law. Heh. What int'l law? The Geneva Conventions?

I guess that means we don't invite him over on Halloween, eh, TGA? Lol!
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 16:20 Comments || Top||

#12  Hey! We all didn't have time or the proper family connections (thatn be wasta to you infidel) to go to the Big Skool of Truck Driving and International Diplomacy.
Posted by: Chef El Bardei || 06/08/2005 16:46 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Indonesia arrests 2 over Sulawesi bombing
Police said they have arrested a Muslim preacher and a Christian man in connection with a bomb attack on Sulawesi island earlier this month that killed 21 people.

The pair, identified only as Abu Halmas and Andreas, were arrested separately for the May 28 bombing in the mainly Christian town of Tentena in Central Sulawesi province, said police spokesman Ariyanto Budiharjo.

Detectives found 'traces' of explosive material on Halmas's fingers, the spokesman said.

He also said that so far a total of 17 people, including the pair, have been taken into custody for questioning. Previously police had detained more than 20 people.

Police have blamed last weekend's attack on Islamic militants with possible links to the Jemaah Islamiyah organisation, the alleged Southeast Asian arm of the Al-Qaeda network, reportedly in an attempt to revive religious tensions.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 15:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


2 JI bombmakers are hiding Mindanao
A senior Philippine security official says two men linked to the 2002 Bali bombings are hiding in Mindanao.

Deputy National Security Adviser Virtus Gil says they are members of the regional terrorist group,
Jemaah Islamiyah.

He says Omar Patek and Dulmatin, had been detected by intelligence services indicating a possible shift of operations by the group.

Indonesian police say Dulmatin, helped make the bombs that killed 202 people in the Bali massacre.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 15:15 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bomb explodes outside JI #2's house
A small bomb exploded Wednesday outside the house of an Indonesian cleric accused by the United States of being a senior member of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, police said. No one was injured in the attack. Indonesian police were investigating the blast at the house of Abu Jibril on the southern outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, a national police spokesman said. The blast, which occurred shortly before dawn, caused no damage to the house, said Fauzan Anshorim, a spokesman for Jibril.

Jibril was praying at a local mosque when the blast occurred, Anshorim said. "We suspect this was act of terror to intimidate (Jibril) into stopping his campaign for an Islamic state in Indonesia,'' Anshorim told The Associated Press. In 2003, the United States blocked Jibril's assets and called him the "primary recruiter and second in command'' of Southeast Asia's al-Qaida-linked terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah. Indonesian police say they are monitoring the cleric's activities, but have no evidence to charge him with terrorism. Jibril, 47, regularly preaches sermons in which he calls for the overthrow of Indonesia's secular government, but in a recent interview with The AP denied any links to terrorism. He was arrested in Malaysia in June 2001 for alleged militant activities but was released in 2003.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 09:44 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Blast at home of Indon 'militant'
A SMALL bomb exploded today at a house rented by an Indonesian Muslim preacher who was once detained for two years without trial in Malaysia for alleged involvement in terrorism, a fellow activist said. No one was injured in the blast on the outskirts of Jakarta, Irfan Awwas, chairman of the hardline group Indonesian Mujahedin Council, said. The preacher, Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Abu Jibril, was being questioned by police, Mr Awwas told AFP. "We condemn this heinous terror attack. We suspect that police are trying to twist facts by putting the blame on the victims," he said. Mr Awwas said police searched the house after the explosion, which occurred in the grounds near the garage. An AFP photographer at the scene said the blast caused no damage to the house.

Iqbal was held for two years in Malaysia under the country's harsh Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial, for alleged involvement with the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, a militant group seeking to set up an Islamic state. He was deported to Indonesia last year and was subsequently jailed for six months for immigration offences. The United States has accused Iqbal of being a primary recruiter and second in command of South-East Asia's extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 || 06/08/2005 00:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Those spicy Indon dishes are positively explosive.
Posted by: ed || 06/08/2005 7:43 Comments || Top||

#2  could this be another attack thyself to make your enemies look bad?

a small bomb, hurt nobody...

like the white powder letters sent to the Indon consulate - written in INDONESIAN!
Posted by: anon1 || 06/08/2005 12:43 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria outside of Iraq but still deep in the fight
When the Americans led the invasion of Iraq, the men of Abu Ibrahim's family gathered in the courtyard of their shared home in the far north of Syria. Ten slips of paper were folded into a plastic bag, and they drew lots. The five who opened a paper marked with ink would go to Iraq and fight. The other five would stay behind.

Abu Ibrahim drew a blank. But remaining in Syria did not mean staying clear of the war. For more than two years, by his own detailed account, the slightly built, shabbily dressed 32-year-old father of four has worked diligently to shuttle other young Arab men into Iraq, stocking the insurgency that has killed hundreds of U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis.

The stream of fighters -- most of them Syrians, but lately many of them Saudis, favored for the cash they bring -- has sustained and replenished the hardest core of the Iraq insurgency, and supplied many of its suicide bombers. Drawn from a number of Arab countries and nurtured by a militant interpretation of Islam, they insist they are fighting for their vision of their faith. This may put them beyond the reach of political efforts to make Iraq's Sunni Arabs stakeholders in the country's nascent government.

Abu Ibrahim recalled: "Our brothers in Iraq worked in small groups. In each area, men would come together, organized by religious leaders or tribal sheiks, and would attack the Americans. It was often us who brought them all together, when we met them in Syria or Iraq. We would tell them, 'But there is another brother who is doing the same thing. Why don't you coordinate together?' Syria became the hub."

Syria's role in sustaining and organizing the insurgency has shifted over time. In the first days of the war, fighters swarmed into Iraq aboard buses that Syrian border guards waved through open gates, witnesses recalled. But late in 2004, after intense pressure on Damascus from the Bush administration, Syrian domestic intelligence services swept up scores of insurgent facilitators. Many, including Abu Ibrahim, were quietly released a few days later.

In the months since, the smugglers have worked in the shadows. In a series of interviews carried out in alleyways, a courtyard, a public square and a mosque, Abu Ibrahim was being visibly followed by plainclothes agents of the security service, Amn Dawla. In December, the service confiscated his passport and national identity card. His new ID was a bit of cardboard he presented each month to his minders; the entries for April and May were checked.

Few other details of Abu Ibrahim's account could be verified independently. But the structure of the human smuggling organization he described was consistent with the assessments of U.S. and Iraqi officials who closely study Syria's role in the insurgency. Other specifics jibed with personal histories provided by foreign fighters interviewed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah on the eve of a U.S. offensive in November.

Those interviews also echoed earlier accounts of Iraqi insurgents, including descriptions of the role of a Syrian cleric known as Abu Qaqaa in promoting a holy war, or jihad, against the West. Since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, the notion of jihad has "had a galvanizing impact on the imagination and reflexes" of many young Muslim men, especially those with the means and resources to travel, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, based in Brussels.

"They think jihad will stop if they kill hundreds of us in Iraq," Abu Ibrahim said with a note of defiance. "They don't know what they are facing. Every day, more and more young men from around the Muslim world are awaking and coming to the jihad principle.

"Now the Americans are facing thousands, but one day soon they will have to face whole nations."

His father was a Sufi Muslim, devoted to a tolerant, mystical tradition of Islam. But Abu Ibrahim said he was born a rebel, gravitating early in life to the other end of the spectrum of Islamic belief.

Salafism, or "following the pious forefathers," is a fundamentalist, sometimes militant strain of the faith grounded in turning back the clock to the time of the prophet Muhammad.

In the Syrian countryside north of Aleppo where Abu Ibrahim grew up and married, his fundamentalist impulses took their present shape when he met "a group of young men through my wife's family who spoke to me the true words of Islam. They told me Sufism was forbidden and the Shiites are infidels."

A year later, he went to Saudi Arabia, a kingdom founded on Wahhabism, a puritanical form of Islam in the Salafi wing.

For seven years he worked in Riyadh, the capital, trading textiles. In his spare time, he studied the Koran and gathered at people's homes with young men so militant in their beliefs they were barred from preaching in public.

At a private Saudi production company that specialized in radical Islamic propaganda, he said, he learned video editing and digital photography. The work channeled the rage of young Arab men incensed by the situation in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, angered by U.S. foreign policy and chafing under the repression of secular Arab rulers.

Their goal, he said, is restoration of the Islamic caliphate, the system that governed Muslims before the rise of nation states. Abu Ibrahim said he regarded Afghanistan during the Taliban rule as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of Muhammad.

"The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world," he said.

Such views were unwelcome back in Syria, governed by the Baathist Party as a secular nation. But in 1999, after Abu Ibrahim returned to Aleppo, he heard a sermon delivered by a Syrian cleric who was widely known in the region. Abu Qaqaa, a lanky, charismatic sheik born Mahmoud Quul Aghassi, preached the same radical message that Abu Ibrahim had taken to heart in Riyadh.

"Abu Qaqaa was preaching what we believed in. He was saying these things: 'People with beards come together.' I was so impressed."

Abu Ibrahim said he became Abu Qaqaa's right-hand man. He helped tape his sermons, transfer them to CDs and distribute them clandestinely. They traveled together to Damascus, the Syrian capital, and Saudi Arabia. By 2001, Abu Qaqaa had attracted a determined following of about 1,000 young men.

"No one knew about us," Abu Ibrahim said. "But September 11 gave us the media coverage. It was a great day. America was defeated. We knew they would target either Syria or Iraq, and we took a vow that if something happened to either country, we would fight."

Two weeks after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, the group felt bold enough to celebrate in public in Aleppo with a "festival," as it was called, featuring video of hand-to-hand combat and training montages of guerrillas leaping from high walls.

Afterward, Abu Qaqaa was arrested by the Syrian authorities, but he was released within hours. By 2002 the anti-American festivals were running twice weekly, often wrapped around weddings or other social gatherings. Organizers called themselves The Strangers of Sham, using the ancient name for the eastern Mediterranean region known as the Levant, and began freely distributing the CDs of the cleric's sermons.

Jihad was being allowed into the open. Abu Ibrahim said Syrian security officials and presidential advisers attended festivals, one of which was called "The People of Sham Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All." Money poured in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

"We even had a Web site," Abu Ibrahim said.

The young men around the cleric found themselves wielding a surprising amount of power. They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia , or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior.

Abu Ibrahim said their authority rivaled that of the Amn Dawla, or state security. "Everyone knew us," he said. "We all had big beards. We became thugs."

In a dictatorship infamous for its intolerance of political Islam, such freedom made some of the cleric's lieutenants suspicious.

"We asked the sheik why we weren't being arrested," said Abu Ibrahim. "He would tell us it was because we weren't saying anything against the government, that we were focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel, that beards and epaulets were in one trench together."

The answer seemed inadequate, Abu Ibrahim said. But then the United States led troops into Iraq, and everything went up a notch.

Worried that it would be Washington's next target, Syria opposed the military coalition invading its neighbor. State media issued impassioned calls for "resistance." The nation's senior Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro, undid his reputation for moderation by issuing a fatwa endorsing suicide attacks.

In Aleppo, Abu Ibrahim went door to door encouraging young men to cross the border. Volunteers boarded buses that Syrian border guards waved through wide-open gates, witnesses recalled.

Saddam Hussein's government embraced the volunteers, handing them weapons and calling them Arab Saddam Fedayeen. But ordinary Iraqis were often less welcoming, pleading with them to go home; some Syrians were shot or handed over to the invading Americans.

At the request of his Iraqi counterparts, Abu Ibrahim stopped ferrying fighters for a time. "They said there were Shiites everywhere, Americans, and they couldn't do anything."

By the summer of 2003, however, the insurgency began to organize itself, and the call went out for volunteers.

Safe houses were established. Weapons were positioned. In the vast desert that forms the border with Iraq, passages through the dunes long used to smuggle goods now were employed to funnel fighters.

"We had specific meeting places for Iraqi smugglers," Abu Ibrahim said. "They wouldn't do the trip if we had fewer than 15 fighters. We would drive across the border and then into villages on the Iraqi side. And from there the Iraqi contacts would take the mujaheddin to training camps."

Because Syrian men already had served two years of compulsory military service, most of them skipped the training. "It's mostly the Saudis who need the training," Abu Ibrahim said.

Afterward, the fighters were sent to join small cells usually led by Iraqis. They planted booby traps for U.S. convoys and laid ambushes.

"Once the Americans bombed a bus crossing to Syria. We made a big fuss and said it was full of merchants," Abu Ibrahim said. "But actually, they were fighters."

In the summer of 2004, Abu Ibrahim got to go to Iraq. He crossed the dunes with 50 other volunteers, dodging U.S. patrols on the Iraqi side.

In Iraqi society he moved without drawing attention. He would not discuss much of what transpired during the subsequent months. But when he returned to Syria after the massive U.S. offensive in Fallujah, only three people were alive from the original 50, he said. One was a suicide bomber.

"Young men are fighting with zeal and passion," Abu Ibrahim said. "There are Saudi officers, Syrians, Iraqis. But not those who fought for Saddam. The man who is leading it for the most part is Zarqawi."

Abu Ibrahim was interviewed before reports surfaced that Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian who leads an organization called al Qaeda in Iraq, had been seriously wounded -- a report later disputed in an Internet message purportedly recorded by Zarqawi. Abu Ibrahim credited Zarqawi with revitalizing the insurgency, especially since October, when he pledged fealty to Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader. Abu Ibrahim said that union helped cement an alliance among several resistance groups in Iraq that formed a joint treasury.

"Six months ago, Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden were different," he said. "Osama did not consider the killing of Shiites as legitimate. Zarqawi did that. Anyone -- Christian, Jew, Sunni, Shiites -- whoever cooperates with the Americans can be killed. It's a holy war."

In January, shortly after Abu Ibrahim returned to Syria, he was summoned to Amn Dawla headquarters along with scores of fellow jihadi cell leaders. The security agents said the smuggling of fighters had to stop. The jihadis' passports were taken. Some were jailed for a few days. Abu Ibrahim's jailers shaved his beard.

Also in January, Richard L. Armitage, then the U.S. deputy secretary of state, visited Damascus. After long lambasting Syria for supporting the insurgency, Armitage brought praise. "We have seen a lot of improvement regarding foreign fighters who were using Syria to enter Iraq," he said. "And this is a good thing."

The timing was fortuitous, Abu Ibrahim said. Recently, he said, his contacts in Iraq have said they were not in need of fighters, but money. He said he personally carried cash, provided by sympathetic Saudis, between Saudi Arabia and Syria. But lately, a more efficient system has emerged.

"Our brothers in Iraq are asking for Saudis," he said last month. "The Saudis go with enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers. A week ago, we sent a Saudi to the jihad. He went with 100,000 Saudi riyals," or about $27,000. "There was celebration amongst his brothers there!"

At the same time, Abu Qaqaa reemerged as the public face of jihad. Abu Ibrahim said he now views the cleric with suspicion, suggesting that he is helping Syrian authorities track jihadi "rat lines," as U.S. commanders refer to the smuggling chains. The same suspicion was voiced last autumn by a Yemeni fighter interviewed in Fallujah.

"The Syrians are in an awkward position," Abu Ibrahim said. "On one side they want to do whatever the Americans want them to. And on the other side they want to fight the Americans."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 17:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting read. Thanks Dan.
Posted by: phil_b || 06/08/2005 18:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Eventually...someday...somebody is going to have to squash cockroaches like this. They are not going away on their own.

Posted by: anymouse || 06/08/2005 19:08 Comments || Top||

#3  the infection of wahhabism needs to be killed at the source. Rollup the Wahhabi mosques and Madrassahs. Clerics and Princelings feel the sword.... all it will take is another attack.
Posted by: Frank G || 06/08/2005 19:32 Comments || Top||

#4  "..And on the other side they want to fight the Americans."

Yeah, while the Syrians bare a big, toothy smile, behind the scenes they provide assistance to the enemy. It would be interesting to take the fight right up to their doorstep and see what happens next.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 20:26 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
13 Algerian guards killed in GSPC bombing
Thirteen Algerian local government guards were killed in a bomb explosion in northern Algeria blamed on militants fighting for a purist Islamic state, a security source said on Wednesday. A homemade device planted on the road was detonated on Tuesday evening when a truck carrying the guards was on patrol in the M'Sila region, some 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the capital Algiers, a security source told Reuters.

Six guards were also injured, said the source who declined to be named.

The Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 16:11 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
8 KFC torching suspects arrested
Pakistani police have arrested eight Shi'ite Muslims over a riot last week in the southern city of Karachi when six staff at a U.S. fast-food outlet were killed following a suicide attack on a mosque, police said on Wednesday.
The six KFC employees were killed after mobs of angry Shi'ites set fire to the restaurant and attacked other property after the bombing at the Shi'ite Madinatul Ilm mosque on May 30. Five people were killed in the blast.

"They are suspected of involvement in the riots including the attack on KFC," said Tariq Ali, a local police official.

He said a court had remanded the eight men to police custody until June 13.

The Karachi mosque attack came three days after a suicide bombing at a Muslim festival in the capital, Islamabad, that killed at least 19 people, mostly Shi'ites.

Investigators suspect that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an underground militant group with ties to Afghanistan's former Taliban regime and with al Qaeda, was behind both attacks.

Some Pakistan intelligence agents suspected a link between the incidents and the suicide bombing of a mosque in the Afghan city of Kandahar on June 1 that killed 20 people.

Police arrested two members of the group on Monday on suspicion of involvement in the Karachi mosque attack.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 15:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Will PETA start a legal defense fund?
Posted by: Jackal || 06/08/2005 15:50 Comments || Top||

#2  So someone bombs a mosque and a mob of Muslims takes it out on a KFC outlet?

Looks like that ol' Arab Logic&trade is working its way eastward....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 16:31 Comments || Top||

#3  BaR, it's the 'Reichstag Fire' routine. Create an incident, then incite action by blaming someone else.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/08/2005 21:00 Comments || Top||


2 US troops killed in Afghanistan
Insurgents fired at least one mortar bomb into a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two members of the U.S. armed forces and wounding eight, the U.S. military said.

Twelve U.S. military personnel have been killed in a wave of clashes, blasts and rebel ambushes in Afghanistan since late March.

U.S. troops were preparing to unload supplies from a Chinook helicopter at a forward operating base near Shkin, near Paktika province's border with Pakistan, when the attack occurred, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

The U.S. military did not say which branch of the armed forces the dead service members belonged to, pending notification of next of kin.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 06/08/2005 15:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine
Israeli drone attacks Hamas militants
GAZA, June 8 (UPI) -- An Israeli drone attacked a car carrying Hamas militants near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza Wednesday in the latest escalation in Middle East violence. Witnesses said three militants managed to get out of the car before it was struck by two rockets, turning the vehicle into a wreck of charred, twisted metal.
"Missed them by that much"

The three militants were members of Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. Israel confirmed the attack and said the plane targeted and destroyed launchers used by militants to fire mortars at Israel.
Violence has been escalating alarmingly in the past few days jeopardizing an unofficial Middle East truce declared last February.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 12:59 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Violence has been escalating alarmingly in the past few days jeopardizing an unofficial Middle East truce declared last February.

Well what's expected when a truce is called?

Plain and simple, a truce != permanent_cessation_of_hostilities and can break down at any time, expecially where violence-prone idiots like the Paleos are involved.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 13:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Jest send out your chiefs and surrender;
in person or call us by phone.
You can drive a carpool,
If you do you're a fool,
'cause you can't get away from the drones.

Jest send out your chiefs an' surrender
if not we will powder your bones
you can turn on your cell,
then you'll end up in hell,
'Cause you can't get away from the drones

(Originally posted at "A Small Victory." Wish I could claim credit for it, but I'm not that good.)
Posted by: Mike || 06/08/2005 14:19 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
U.S. Forces Begin Military Training in Northern Africa
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - U.S. forces began military training exercises with allies across northern Africa this week, part of a stepped up campaign against terrorism on the continent, a spokeswoman said Wednesday. The two-week training initiative began Monday in Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and, for the first time, Algeria. The exercises in Algeria took on added urgency after Islamic insurgents linked to the al-Qaida network launched a weekend raid into Mauritania that left 24 dead.
Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which has been linked to al-Qaida and is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack on a remote Mauritanian army outpost that left 15 troops and nine insurgents dead - just the kind of violence officials are hoping to avert. "This is the reason they understand that they have to work together now," Maj. Holly Silkman said of the countries involved in the exercises. Silkman is a spokeswoman for the Germany-based U.S. European Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in most of Africa. "They're a threat to stability and security in this region," Silkman said of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. "And the Africans are well aware of that."
In the claim, posted Tuesday on a Web site in Arabic, the terror group said the assault was a "hit against the Flintlock plan put in place by the enemy of God, America, and its agents in the region." Flintlock is the name of U.S.-led, joint military exercises conducted by the U.S. European Command every two years - this time in northern Africa with about 1,000 U.S. troops, mostly special operations forces, training about 3,000 elite African soldiers.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 12:57 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What ever happened to that *empty* amphibious fleet?
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 16:10 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Iraq leaders praise group accused of killings
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi government officials have publicly supported a Shiite organization charged by many Sunni leaders with responsibility in the murders of their clerics and other notables.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari paid tribute Wednesday to the contribution of the Badr Organization and backed the group taking on a greater and more formal role maintaining Iraqi security. Other Sunni leaders were quick with praise for the organization and said the group "should be part of the political process."
"You and your (Kurdish) brothers are the heroes of liberating Iraq," Talabani said, addressing a conference at the headquarters for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The meeting marked the second anniversary of the Badr Organization's self-proclaimed transformation from military wing of SCIRI to political group. Talibani cited the opposition role played by both the Badr Brigade -- as it was known before changing its name to the Badr Organization two years ago -- and his own Kurdish militia, know as the Peshmerga, in combating Saddam Hussein and called on them to take a greater role going forward.
Talabani brushed aside accusations that the Badr Organization had been involved in the targeting of Sunnis. "You, my brothers, march on without paying attention to the enemies' claims because you and the (Kurdish militia) are faithful sons of this country," he said.
Also at the meeting was Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president, Ghazi al-Yawar, who said it was necessary for all Iraqis to come together and welcomed the Badr Organization's role as a political group in the country.
The Badr Organization has been accused by some prominent Sunni figures as being complicit in a recent spate of killings of Sunni clerics and have charged the Shia-dominated government with giving the organization too much power.
Last month, Harith al-Dhari the head of the Sunni Arab Muslim Scholars Association, made fiery accusations against the Badr Organization, claiming: "We knew the sides that stand behind the assassinations of imams, sheiks, and prayers ... they are the Badr militant group."
Gee, he sez that like its a bad thing
In subsequent weeks, efforts have been made to quell sectarian tension with the creation of Shia and Sunni councils to discuss the accusation of tit-for-tat killings traded between the two groups.
Nasir al-Ani, a representative of the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of Iraq's most prominent Sunni parties, told CNN the conference "was well balanced for the benefits of all sides in Iraq." "The Badr Organization should be involved in the political process," said al-Ani, who attended the conference. "It's not only the Badr Organization that must be involved in the political process, but all political entities in Iraq must participate and be involved in the formation of the constitution."
Al-Ani praised Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, and the secretary general of the Badr Organization for their support to all Iraqis without pointing fingers at any side.
Asked about al-Dhari's remarks, he said: "There were talks held involving officials from each side, and this situation was solved. "We just hope that what was said today will be the guidelines that are practiced throughout Iraq," he said. "I think this was an important event, and therefore it is important for all to continue to have a neutral attitude and work towards curing the security situation in Iraq."
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:39 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is a CNN article and has the traditional anti-American/Iraqi coalition flavour to it. With all ted turners "pervert of the day" talk, you might expect less of this. Do yourself a favor, go to worldnetdaily,Drudge Report, or Foxnews and get the real story.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/08/2005 12:40 Comments || Top||

#2  In other news, concerns were stated about a Czech organization charged by many with the responsibility in the murders of many administrators, such as Reinhard Heydrich.
Posted by: Jackal || 06/08/2005 15:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Next up

Jooooooo ParaThugs Attack Argentina.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 16:47 Comments || Top||


Al Qaeda Uses Bio-War in Iraq
June 8, 2005: Terrorists in Iraq have made their first attack with biological weapons. On May 31st, a man walked up to a checkpoint, and gave a watermelon to the Iraqi soldiers manning it. The soldiers later fell sick, after eating the watermelon. It was found that someone had used a syringe to inject cyanide into the melon. This may be a one-off attack, and not the start of new type of attack. Word of this poisoning got around Iraq pretty fast, so soldiers and police will be reluctant to take fruit from strangers. Thus this use of poisons (biological warfare) may be a one time event. Then again, the terrorists, who have not hesitated to kill innocent civilians, including children, may poison water supplies, or larger supplies of food. This would cause panic, and make the terrorists appear more powerful. This is the kind of result that keeps terrorists going.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:33 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As a poisoning with chemical cyanide, this really is a chemical attack rather than bio attack (which would be a pathogen: a disease or virus)

lets hope the islamofascists don't pick up the idea and run with it.

Posted by: anon1 || 06/08/2005 12:28 Comments || Top||

#2  The fact that this has been publicized is enough. The copycats come crawling out of the woodwork shortly after.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 13:03 Comments || Top||


The Suspected Secret Sniper School in Iraq
June 8, 2005: American troops in Iraq suspect that there's an enemy sniper school somewhere in the country. More and more, Iraqi and coalition troops are encountering snipers. There have always been a few hostile snipers around, and many more Iraqis with sniper rifles, and no sniper skills. Those snipers apparently got their training in elite units of Saddams armed forces, units that recruited only Sunni Arabs who were very loyal to the idea that Iraq should be run by Sunni Arabs. Most of these snipers have a short life expectancy once they get into action, but they account for a disproportionate number of American and Iraqi troops killed or wounded by gunfire. Most hostile Iraqis have marksmanship skills of the "spray and pray" variety. That means, getting hit by one of these guys is a chance event. However, American troops believe they are encountering more and more trained snipers. But if someone is training snipers, then the sniper school, and its instructors, have become a prime target for American and Iraqi troops now scouring western Iraq for enemy bases.
Training snipers involves more than marksmanship training. Equally important is learning how to get into a favorable position to make an effective shot, and then get away for fight another day. To date, most Iraqi snipers are quickly located, trapped and killed. But more and more, they are showing the concealment, and escape, skills of a trained professional.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:30 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I posted a translation by Memri and others of one of their sniper manuals last week.
Posted by: 3dc || 06/08/2005 9:51 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
NGOs and Corrupt Officers Keep LRA Going
June 8, 2005: Army corruption, and LRA leaders fearful of prosecution for war crimes, is keeping the LRA in business. Army officers have stolen much money by maintaining phantom soldiers in their units, and taking the pay of the non-existent troops. Those soldiers who are on duty generally come from the south, and don't speak the languages of the northern tribes. This makes it difficult to get information from locals, and increases the likelihood of soldiers abusing civilians. But by sending more and more infantry battalions to the north, along with helicopter and warplane units, the LRA has been beaten down. But the LRA is not gone, because the UN wants to prosecute the LRA leadership as war criminals. With that kind of incentive, the LRA leaders have nothing to lose by continuing to fight. The UN, and other NGOs, are unlikely to back off on the war criminal bit, because it is more fashionable to have war crimes trials than it is to cut deals with warlords to stop the killing.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...because it is more profitable fashionable to have war crimes trials than it is to cut deals with warlords to stop the killing.

Posted by: Pappy || 06/08/2005 10:37 Comments || Top||

#2  It has been my opinion for quite some time that we should have never had war crimes trials at the conclusion of WWII. We should have just hung the bastards. Because of this precident we now have people guilty of mass ordering mass murders who are still alive and well years after being "arrested". Hang 'em now.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/08/2005 12:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Winston Churchill agreed with you Deacon. He was of the opinion that Hitler if captured should be shot offhand in the nearest alley.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 16:12 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Prisoners say Israeli guards defiled Koran
TEL AVIV, Israel, June 8 (UPI) -- Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli prison observed a one-day hunger strike Wednesday to protest the alleged desecration of the Koran by Israeli prison guards. The prisoners in Majido prison accused several guards of tearing up and stepping on a copy of the Muslim sacred book during an inspection of their cells Tuesday. They are demanding that the offenders be punished.
An Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Mohammed Baraka, told UPI he visited the prison late Tuesday night and met with a representative of the prisoners, who showed him a torn copy of the Koran.
"The prisoners did not accuse the prison authority of desecrating the holy book but only a few guards, and they have decided to go on a hunger strike Wednesday to press for the trial and punishment of the offenders," Baraka said. He rejected Israel's claims that the incident was fabricated by the prisoners.
In Beirut, a Hamas statement faxed to UPI offices denounced the reported desecration and vowed to avenge Israeli provocations against Muslims.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I sincerely hope so. In addition, I hope the guards swirled the koran in the toilet, dipped the pages in alcohol, rolled it up, shoved it up Palis' rears and set it on fire.

Thanks CAIR for the endless supply of free toilet paper. I hope to get extemely creative with the desecration.
Posted by: ed || 06/08/2005 9:19 Comments || Top||

#2  It's spreading! The koran stinky meme has arrived. Half-life 6 months. No photographs.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 10:03 Comments || Top||

#3  US Eichmans put SmallPox on the Holy Q'u'r'am.
Posted by: Ward C || 06/08/2005 10:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Koran Abuse! The dance sensation that's sweeping the nation!
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 11:16 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd like to desecrate my Koran on a T-shirt, but there are still blasphemy laws on the books in Australia and the Islamofascist brigade are just the type to sue.

If you broadcast something to even 2 people on a T-shirt, that counts as broadcasting same as a newspaper and you can be sued for defamation here.

It sucks .

Wish we had a bill of rights and free speech like the USA.

So I guess I'll just have to Poop on my Koran in the privacy of my own home! :)
Posted by: anon1 || 06/08/2005 12:32 Comments || Top||

#6  Lol, anon1!
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 14:18 Comments || Top||

#7  "and they have decided to go on a hunger strike..."

Good. Now send the matter to the UNSC
Posted by: True German Ally || 06/08/2005 14:32 Comments || Top||

#8  Simple solution is that if the presense of the koran in a jail cell presents a security hazard, they need to be removed from the cells. Give them access to photcopies if the wardens in a good mood.
Hey, all you good muslims out there, these guys are making you look like idiots. Curb your trash.
Posted by: Capsu78 || 06/08/2005 16:23 Comments || Top||

#9  does anyone besides me not really give a fuck about their Quran?
Posted by: Thraing Hupoluper1864 || 06/08/2005 16:46 Comments || Top||

#10  2, 3 maybe 4.5 billion tops TH.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 17:00 Comments || Top||

#11  #4 Koran Abuse! The dance sensation that's sweeping the nation!
Posted by tu3031 2005-06-08 11:16|| Front Page|| Comment Top


thisn goin globle now. :)
Posted by: muck4doo || 06/08/2005 17:49 Comments || Top||

#12  a one day hunger strike? Pshaw! Let's stretch it out .....like 45 days, huh, Ghandi? How's that piss taste now?
Posted by: Frank G || 06/08/2005 19:47 Comments || Top||


Rebels break cease-fire, killing four
MINDANAO, Philippines, June 8 (UPI) -- Rebels have killed four members of the Philippine security forces on the southern island of Mindanao, breaking a cease-fire of nearly two years. An army report made public Wednesday said two of the victims were killed Sunday by three newly trained recruits of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, who boarded the minibus on which the two were traveling and shot them dead. The report described the incident as a "test mission" for the new recruits, Xinhua said. In a second attack the same day, some 40 rebels attacked a farming village, abducting and later executing two militiamen.
The MILF signed a cease-fire with the Philippine government in July 2003. The two sides were scheduled to meet in Malaysia next month for talks ahead of signing a peace treaty later this year to end the decades-old rebellion. The army said it would submit a protest to the joint committee that monitors the cease-fire with the MILF.
Posted by: Steve || 06/08/2005 09:04 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Business as usual
Jenin:3 Palestinians attack PA police, snatch guns

More Kassams fall in western Negev

Palestinian gunmen fire at soldiers near Nablus

No injuries in gunfire at Rafah

Hamas claims readiness to dialogue with US, Europe

Posted by: Shamble Elmomomp2765 || 06/08/2005 07:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You get these from the BBC site? *snicker*
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/08/2005 9:12 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Kidnapped Italian in good health: Afghan FM
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
At Least Seven Killed in Iraq Truck Convoy
A convoy of trucks believed to be carrying supplies to a U.S. military base west of Baghdad was ambushed Tuesday, and reporters who arrived after the attack said they saw the bodies of at least seven people. The attack occurred in Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad and between the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. The victims, all apparently Iraqi men in their 20s and 30s, were placed side by side in a ditch on the side of the road, the reporters said. Several bullet-riddled trucks were on fire and bystanders, including young boys, were seen taking items from the trucks. As some at the scene of the attack tried to put out the fires, a group of heavily armed and masked men came to watch.

Hart Security Ltd., a Cyprus-based British security firm, announced that a convoy of trucks its employees were escorting had been "ambushed by insurgents" near Habaniyah.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  a group of heavily armed and masked men came to watch.

So ... why didn't the group get blown away?????


Posted by: 3dc || 06/08/2005 1:29 Comments || Top||

#2  No humvee of MPs to save them this time.

Lining up the dead like that is a military tactic. Worrying development.
Posted by: gromky || 06/08/2005 3:05 Comments || Top||

#3  I suspect they were lined up before they were killed. Standard Saddam era mass murder technique.
Posted by: phil_b || 06/08/2005 4:33 Comments || Top||

#4  The last time I understood the concept, the reason to convoy is to provide group protection by accompanied military escort. There is no reason to convoy if there is no escort/support. There is a lot of traffic in which to hide among for singular transfers, so why create an obvious big target unless there is some inside work being done by the dispatchers to provide big juicy targets.
Several bullet-riddled trucks were on fire and bystanders, including young boys, were seen taking items from the trucks. And this sounds like it could be a crimial conspiracy using the war as cover to set goods up for looting.
Posted by: Jert Flinert7749 || 06/08/2005 9:34 Comments || Top||

#5  On the sea convoy is still safer than individual ships even with no escort. Weird yet true. Operational Analysis never lies. :>
Posted by: Shipman || 06/08/2005 10:00 Comments || Top||

#6  There is no reason to convoy if there is no escort/support.

the escort was provided by a private security firm. Who obviously failed.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 06/08/2005 10:05 Comments || Top||

#7  JF:
Shipman has a point. Even unescorted convoys help because that makes fewer targets. If you imagine every truck going separately, that would be a steady stream of targets traveling past and the terrorists can pick their time and place. Go in convoys and they have to attack at a certain time at a certain place, which they may not logistically be capable of.

Of course, if they do hit the convoy, they have a much bigger payoff.
Posted by: Jackal || 06/08/2005 16:02 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Six, including senior policeman injured in Afghan attacks
Two roadside bombs planted by suspected Taleban militants exploded separately in southeastern Afghanistan, injuring six people including a senior police officer, officials said on Tuesday. The deputy police commander of Khak-i-Afghan district in Zabul province and two of his guards were "badly" injured when a bomb detonated on Monday, provincial spokesman Gulab Shah Alikhil told AFP. "It was a bomb planted by the Taleban," he said without giving details.

In neighboring Kandahar province, the former stronghold of the Taleban, a similar device Monday injured three soldiers patrolling in Shahwali Kot, a hotbed for the ousted Taleban insurgency outside Kandahar city, police said. Suspected militants Tuesday fired two rockets over a government building in Qalat, the capital town of the insurgency-hit Zabul, Alikhil said, adding that the attack did not cause any casualties.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Nepal rebels 'regret' bus deaths, launch probe
Nepal's Maoist rebels on Tuesday apologised for a blast that killed 38 people in the worst attack on civilians since their revolt began in 1996, saying they had been aiming for a passing army convoy instead. "It was a serious mistake that a landmine placed by a contingent of our people's liberation army targeted at the royal army exploded causing loss to the public," rebel chief Prachanda, who uses only one name, said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Farmer's apology to the pigs?
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/08/2005 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Lol, tw - spot on.

Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 3:14 Comments || Top||

#3  The liberation of the people continues apace. </irony>
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/08/2005 4:05 Comments || Top||

#4  So I guess this makes it all okay now?
Except maybe for the dead folks...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 8:25 Comments || Top||

#5  can you imagine the Iraqi "insurgents" apologising? I can't.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 06/08/2005 9:55 Comments || Top||

#6  So is it because they're Nepalese, or Maoists?
Posted by: Pappy || 06/08/2005 10:34 Comments || Top||

#7  So we cut 'em some slack, LH?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 12:27 Comments || Top||

#8  So we cut 'em some slack, LH?
We hang 'em with a 50 foot rope - over a 60-foot drop. That should be all the "slack" they deserve.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 06/08/2005 20:16 Comments || Top||

#9  Actually, OP, if we reverse your measurements, 60 foot rope, 50 foot drop, they will have some slack as they go splat.
Posted by: Jackal || 06/08/2005 22:18 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Violence Threatens Truce
A fresh wave of violence killed at least five Palestinians and a Chinese worker yesterday and threatened a four-month cease-fire between Palestinians and Israel. "The situation is deteriorating. The whole cease-fire may collapse," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, calling for international intervention.

Three Palestinians, including a district leader of Islamic Jihad, were gunned down during Israeli operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A Chinese and a Palestinian worker died in a subsequent Palestinian revenge attack on a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip. Separately, a Palestinian was killed before dawn by Israeli troops while crossing the Rafah border. The Palestinian leadership accused Israel of jeopardizing the relative calm by gunning down the Jihad chief, while Israeli officials warned they would decide "when and how to respond" to the Palestinian reprisals.

Mraweh Khaled Kamil, a chief of Islamic Jihad's armed wing in the Jenin area, was killed during the Israeli operation in the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya as he hunkered down with others. A 23-year-old civilian was also killed and nine other Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were injured. "The truce is in peril and this killing will not go unpunished. Our patience is running out," said Khader Adnan, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, after Kamil was pronounced dead. Within hours the faction took its revenge. It claimed a blast at greenhouses in the Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal, which the military said killed a Chinese and a Palestinian worker and wounded six other Palestinians.

Hamas claimed the attack to "answer the Israelis trying to enter Al-Aqsa" - referring to Israelis who on Monday toured Jerusalem's disputed mosque compound. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the latest bout of violence. This "shows the policy of targeted killings has resumed and that is a threat to the current calm and Palestinian efforts to preserve it," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It claimed a blast at greenhouses in the Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal, which the military said killed a Chinese and a Palestinian worker and wounded six other Palestinians.

Nice own goal, dumbasses. Replace the Pali workers and they won't be able to plant bombs in Jewish settlements. Let the Palis stew and fling feces bombs at each other.
Posted by: ed || 06/08/2005 0:26 Comments || Top||

#2  I think you need a beverage alert for that title, Fred, lol!
Posted by: .com || 06/08/2005 2:06 Comments || Top||

#3  “The situation is deteriorating. The whole cease-fire may collapse,”What cease-fire. Seems to me ther has only been a lessening, not a ceasing.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/08/2005 8:05 Comments || Top||

#4  "Now look what you made me do!"

Pronoun trouble...
Posted by: mojo || 06/08/2005 11:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the latest bout of violence.

Undoubtedly a Paleo reflex action.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/08/2005 13:20 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Darfur Rebels Regret Internecine Clashes
The two main rebel groups in Sudan's war-torn Darfur expressed regret yesterday at recent clashes that left several civilians dead and highlighted their differences ahead of crucial talks with Khartoum. "We are deeply sorry and we extend our apology to the Darfurian people," Abdel Wahed Mohammed Ahmed Nur, the head of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, told AFP.
"Golly. Shucks. Sorry about the dead guys. We'll clean up, okay?"
The African Union's mission in Sudan reported Monday that clashes between the SLA and its smaller rival, the Justice and Equality Movement, had left 11 people dead and 17 wounded last week. "There were incidents in two places, in Labado and Graida. It was a problem between individuals from the two groups and other people, unfortunately, were also killed," Nur said. He declined to elaborate on the number of dead or the exact circumstances in which they died. "The situation is now under control. We ordered all our troops to respect the ceasefire and such actions will not be repeated." A senior JEM member also deplored the clashes. "These were very unfortunate incidents and they are over. It was not the first time, but this time they went too far," Abdullahi El-Tom told AFP.

The AU mission accused the SLM/A of relentlessly targeting JEM rebels in the three Darfur states and said both groups were intensifying military operations to control the territory. Mahjoub Hussein, an SLM/A spokesman in London, admitted that the rebel organizations were jockeying for power on the ground ahead of the crunch peace talks in Abuja on Friday.
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So I guess this makes it all okay now?
Except maybe for the dead folks...
Looks like lots of this going around today.
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/08/2005 8:27 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Al-Qaeda-Linked Militants Arrested for Mosque Attack
Pakistani police arrested two members of a banned extremist organization with links to Al-Qaeda yesterday for a suicide attack on a mosque that killed five people in the southern city of Karachi last month. The pair, arrested in an overnight raid in Karachi, told investigators up to 20 suicide bombers were still at large in the city, Pakistani's commercial hub, the police said.

Fayyaz Khan, a deputy superintendent of police, said the men were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an underground militant group with ties with Al-Qaeda, and had been arrested with explosives and firearms. Suspects Mufti Altaf and Bilal Farooqi were arrested in the raid on a house in Karachi's eastern Gulistan-e-Johar district, a senior investigator told AFP on condition of anonymity. Mufti Altaf was supposed to carry out the suicide bombing on the Madinatul Ilm mosque on May 30 but was replaced at the last moment. Police recovered over 10 kilograms of explosives, two hand grenades, extremist literature and other material.
This article starring:
BILAL FARUQILashkar-e-Jhangvi
Fayyaz Khan, a deputy superintendent of police
MUFTI ALTAFLashkar-e-Jhangvi
Posted by: Fred || 06/08/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2005-06-08
  California father and son linked al-Qaeda, arrested
Tue 2005-06-07
  U.S-Iraqi offensive launched near Syria
Mon 2005-06-06
  Iraq Nabs Nearly 900 Suspected Militants
Sun 2005-06-05
  Marines uncover bunker complex, Saddam sad.
Sat 2005-06-04
  Iraqi troops nab 'prince of princes'
Fri 2005-06-03
  Virgin Airbus Jet Emitting Hijack Signal Lands In Canada; False Alert
Thu 2005-06-02
  Bomb kills anti-Syria journalist in Beirut
Wed 2005-06-01
  At least 27 dead in Afghanistan mosque suicide blast
Tue 2005-05-31
  At least six killed in Karachi mosque attack
Mon 2005-05-30
  Doc faces terror charges in Palm Beach
Sun 2005-05-29
  "Non."
Sat 2005-05-28
  King Fahd is dead?
Fri 2005-05-27
  Zark is dead?
Thu 2005-05-26
  Iraqi Officials Confirm Zarqawi Is Wounded
Wed 2005-05-25
  Huge US raid on al-Qaim

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