August 29, 2005: Yemen is still trying to shut down Islamic terrorist operations in their territory. Earlier this year, the government ordered 4,000 religious schools (madrassas, containing some 130,000 students) to stop preaching religious hatred, and start teaching useful subjects, or shut down. Some 80 foreign students were expelled, most for entering the country illegally. The most troublesome schools are Shia, which get their subsidies from Iran, while some of the Sunni schools get money from religious conservatives in Saudi Arabia. The most radical Yemenis are Shia tribes, who have long felt themselves persecuted as a minority in largely Sunni Arabia.
Americans in Yemen have been warned to be careful where they travel in the country. Islamic terrorists are operating in rural areas of Yemen, and have been known to kill or kidnap outsiders. Americans are considered particularly vulnerable to reprisals right now because of the recent prosecution and conviction of Yemeni Sheik Mohammed Moayed, an extremist cleric. Moayed was sentenced to 75 years in prison for financing terrorism and backing terrorist groups.
Many Islamic conservative Yemenis back al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden has family in Yemen. At least 46 of the terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are Yemenis, and security officials from Yemen have been going to Guantanamo Bay to interview prisoners who say they are Yemeni, or are believed to be Yemeni.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/29/2005 10:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Americans in Yemen have been warned to be careful where they travel in the country.
Okay, sure. I'll remember that when I'm in town...
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head
But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright
And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city
Cool town, evening in the city
Dressing so fine and looking so pretty
Cool cat, looking for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city
Till I'm wheezing like a bus stop
Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop
But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright
And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head
But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright
And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city
#5
What American in his right mind would be in Yemen?
For a while there, just after the two Yemens re-united, the Multi-nationals were excited about the opportunity to open a new market (the last such opportunity had been when the Iron Curtain came down for Eastern Europe and then Russia). They sent in small teams of Marketing and Product Development specialists to quantify things -- for the U.S.-based companies these were mostly Amis. I've no idea if they are still there, this was in the mid-'90s, but certainly there will be American military and diplomatic people there even now.
The two bombs went off 10 seconds apart as Ibrahim Malsagov's black Mercedes swept along a dusty road in front of a run-down market.
The Ingush prime minister was wounded in the hand and leg; his driver was killed and two others hurt.
The blasts last Thursday in Nazran, the main city of the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, on Chechnya's western border, came three days after a bomb attack aimed at police killed a passerby and injured several others. On Saturday, a bombing derailed a train in Dagestan, east of Chechnya.
A year after the horrific school siege in Beslan - half an hour's drive from Nazran, in North Ossetia - the Kremlin faces a growing insurgency across the region as violence spreads outwards from Chechnya's borders. Barely a day goes by without some kind of rebel attack in Russia's northern Caucasus republics.
Dmitry Kozak, named as President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to southern Russia after Beslan, has warned of impending crisis. In a leaked report to Mr Putin, he said corruption, nepotism and ineffective government by local leaderships were stoking radicalism and could turn the northern Caucasus into a "micro-region of socio-political and economic instability".
Local academics and human rights groups endorse Mr Kozak's warning.
"The Beslan attack was presented as an attempt to destabilise the region," says Alexander Dzadziev, an ethnologist at the Institute of Humanitarian and Social Studies in Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital. "But the North Caucasus has long been destabilised. One way or another, all the republics are linked with the Chechen conflict."
The tangle of clan, ethnic and religious rivalries across its seven republics, also including Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya, mean the north Caucasus, conquered by Russia in the 19th century, has always been volatile. Dagestan, the most unstable republic outside Chechnya, has 34 ethnic groups among 2.5m inhabitants.
Throw in the poor governance Mr Kozak talks about, and the situation is ripe for exploitation by extremist groups.
How closely groups with Islamist names such as Shariah Jamaat (Community of Justice), are linked to Chechen rebels is unclear. But Chechen rebel leaders have announced their intention to spread the fight into neighbouring republics, even while the Russian authorities have attempted to contain the conflict by installing a pro-Kremlin government in the republic, with its own security services.
In an ominous move, Shamil Basayev, mastermind of the Beslan attack, was on Friday named second in command of the Chechen rebels. Aslan Maskhadov, the more moderate leader killed by Russian forces in March, had spurned Mr Basayev and his tactics. But Mr Maskhadov's successor, the Muslim cleric Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, has re-embraced him.
Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center thinktank says it is too early to tell whether Mr Basayev's appointment shows the rebel leadership is becoming more radical, or that Mr Basayev has opted to pursue more moderate methods. "But I think it is a sign of radicalisation," he says.
He warns violence is likely to increase in the approach to Chechen parliamentary elections on November 27.
Yet while Chechnya's declaration of independence from Russia in 1991 led to the two wars that have devastated the republic, locals say there is little popular separatism elsewhere.
"Not one of these republics wants independence," says Tamerlan Akiyev, in the Nazran office of Memorial, a human rights group, adding that the whole region depends on Russian government hand-outs.
Nor is Islamic extremism in itself a driving force, though all the republics except North Ossetia are predominantly Muslim. Experts say social and economic factors are pushing people into rebel groups that have forged links with international Islamist terrorism.
"Fundamentalist Islam is a form of social protest," says Mr Malashenko.
Poverty is one factor: gross domestic product per capita is half the Russian average and unemployment is 80 per cent in some Caucasus republics. Others are resentment of corrupt local leaderships, and ethnic and land disputes unfrozen when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Human rights groups add that heavy-handed tactics by local security forces, claiming to be rooting out extremists but often targeting individuals with no rebel links, are fuelling radicalism. Disappearances and beatings, long common in Chechnya, have spread into Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Locals say Mr Kozak's recognition of some root causes of the problems is positive, but may be too late to prevent violence from escalating.
"There is already a war in Dagestan, there is already a kind of war in Ingushetia," says Mr Akiyev in Nazran. "It is like a volcano. You see smoke from it now and again, but it could erupt any time."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ossetian and Ingusetian regions have been fighting off and on for hundreds of years. New wars make new reasons to fight, with Beslan standing out as a reason for the North Ossetian's to lay out some of that revenge since the Beslan seige was planned in Ingushetia.
That's just the beginning of the racial and tribal tensions across the Caucasus.
Add Putin's new gubernatorial appointing powers and a little graft and corruption with a pinch of Islamic radialism and you've got funtime for the Northern Caucasus.
Central Asia seems much more strategically important than is the middle east. IMHO we need to stomp out and/or mitigate radicalism there before our gateway to China and Russia is compromised.
Six Russian soldiers were killed and six wounded in a 24 hour period in Chechnya, a pro-Russian member of the Chechen government said on Monday, asking to remain anonymous.
According to the same official, who keeps a daily death toll of the conflict, Russian positions came under attack 17 times in the same time period, accounting for five of the dead and five of the wounded.
A sixth soldier was killed in a landmine explosion near the southern town of Shatoi, and a sixth was wounded near Komsomolskoye, south of the capital Grozny, while taking part in a demining operation.
Additionally, three Chechen police officers were wounded in the western town of Achkhoi-Martan during a skirmish with rebels before killing one rebel and capturing another.
Two other Chechen police officers were wounded at Gekhi, near Urus-Martan, when a rebel attacked during a search operation in the village. The rebel was wounded before being captured.
Search operations are being increasingly delegated to the pro-Russian, Chechen forces in the war-torn, separatist province, officially characterized as stabilized by the Russian government.
Russian news agencies, under pressure from the country's minister of defense, have recently given incomplete and sporadic accounts of the death of Russian forces and have not yet reported the latest figures.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A group of terrorists who are planning attacks on the US are currently stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Cybercast News Service (CNS) reports. The agency has released video footage showing terrorists training at what appears to be a sports complex and practicing kidnapping hostages. Experts believe that this is a training camp. Terrorism expert Ivan Coleman told Cybercast News that most of the main camps that were used in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war have been closed, but that new ones have sprung up under the guise of youth camps. Coleman claims that these camps are led by older Muslim extremists with military experience.
âThey take young people there into the hills and begin their jihad training. Even if it sounds crazy, they believe that it is hard to find and uncover such camps.â Coleman said. He stated that instead of forming a permanent camp, terrorists aim to establish a network of cells, which fact âappeals to many young Bosnians.â
Hudson Institute researcher Christopher Brown claims that many of the camps are very mobile. âThe cells of Al-Qaeda in Bosnia were formed in the 1990s by Ladenâs top aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
CNS claims that terrorists who have served their term of imprisonment and have been set free go to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they have access to jihad training camps, weapons, and illegal Islamist âcharity funds.â
Terrorist Karim Said Atmani went to Bosnia after he was released from a French prison, Coleman stated. Atmani is a Moroccan linked to the Islamist organization GIA, which is responsible for hijacking and setting explosives at the subway in France.
Another terrorist, who found a safe refuge in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is Abu el-Maali. He participated in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So did Atmani. France accused el-Maali of an attempt at smuggling explosives in 1998 intended for an Egyptian terrorist group, which aimed to destroy the US military objects in Germany. He was also convicted of controlling terrorist cells in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Cambridge University researcher Marko Attila Hoare said that these stories are being blown out of proportion.
âNo Bosnian Muslims have been involved in terrorist acts. Al Qaeda tried but failed in turning Bosnia into a jihad base,â Hoare said. He added, âThe light version of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not appropriate for Islamists.â
CNS announces that the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity foundation that is considered by the USA to support terrorist organizations, has closed its offices in Bosnia, but later it resumed its activities there under another name, Vazir. The new organization was registered as âan association for sports, culture and education.â
CNS said it received the video footage from Gregory Copley, President of the International Strategic Studies Association. Copley stated that the video was made in the fall of 2004 and was shown for the first time in May 2005 at a meeting of army representatives during the Global Strategic Forum in Washington in 2005.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:30 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Al Qaeda member Abdelmajid Bouchar, a Moroccan national, was arrested in Serbia in connection with last year's Madrid train bombing which killed nearly 200 according to reports that were released on Sunday.
The incident raises beliefs that other Al Qaeda members may be present in the Balkans, where thousands of international peacekeeping forces are currently stationed, according to the AP.
The arrest, which apparently took place in June at a Belgrade train station, confirms suspicions that organized crime, corruption and unsophisticated security systems in the region make it easy for groups like Al Qaeda to work from the Balkan region.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
California police say arrests in a series of Los Angeles-area gas-station robberies prompted a federal terrorism investigation that reached into a local mosque and state prisons.
Police in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance arrested Gregory Patterson, 21, and Levar Washington, 25, for robbery on July 5. Officers then uncovered information that caused them to call in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, said Torrance police Lieutenant Roy Irvine. He wouldn't comment further.
The investigation, which led to the arrest of Inglewood resident Hamad Riaz Samana, may expand, said Los Angeles Police Department Commander Mark Leap, who leads the anti-terror squad. The case now occupies more than 100 investigators and may represent the most direct terrorism threat to the city since 1999, when the arrest of Ahmed Ressam averted an attempted bombing of Los Angeles International Airport.
``Los Angeles must be in the top five terror targets in the U.S.,'' said Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and author of ``Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror'' and other books on terrorism. ``If the target is worthwhile, they'll certainly go back at it.''
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Los Angeles bolstered its anti-terrorism unit almost fourfold to 163 officers, said Leap, who reports to Chief William Bratton. Los Angeles police increased terrorism surveillance as attacks in Western countries continued, most recently in London.
Leap and other police officials refused to be specific about any potential terrorism threats they may have uncovered. FBI Special Agent Cathy Viray, a spokeswoman for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, declined to comment. Washington's Torrance-based attorney, Los Angeles County Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jerome Haig, also declined to comment.
``There is a presumption of innocence in this country and that's what I'm operating under,'' said Patterson's Beverly Hills, California-based attorney, Winston McKesson.
The probe has led investigators to the California prison system, where Washington served time before his current arrest, Leap said. It also reached into the Jamat-E-Masijidul mosque in the Los Angles suburb of Inglewood, Junaid Kharsany, one of the congregation's two imams, or leaders, said in an interview.
Federal agents visited the mosque the night of Washington and Patterson's arrests, said Kharsany, who began working for the mosque in 2004. Kharsany in the past has visited U.S. Homeland Security Offices to foster closer relations and has assisted authorities in other cases, he said.
``This is part of being an imam in the U.S.,'' said Kharsany, 30. ``This is part of being under scrutiny.''
Patterson accepted Islam and began attending the mosque 14 months ago, Kharsany said. Washington joined the congregation about eight months ago and the two began associating, the imam said. Samana, whose family lives within three blocks of the mosque, has worshipped there at least three years, Kharsany said.
Samana is being held in connection with the investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Leap said, declining to say whether the probe would produce more arrests.
``The investigation is not over,'' he said.
Los Angeles lawyer Timothy Lannen represents Samana, Kharsany said. Lannen didn't return two calls seeking comment.
Washington and Patterson each face 10 counts of second- degree robbery in connection with the gas-station holdups, according to an amended felony complaint filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The men are also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a felony. Prosecutors charged Washington with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
The case has prompted Los Angeles's anti-terrorism squad to put more focus on California's prisons, Leap said.
``Whether they be gangs, alleged Islamic groups, or anything else, we do aggressively investigate any type of disruptive behavior we see in our institutions,'' said state prisons spokesman J.P. Tremblay, declining to comment further.
Washington and Patterson gave no indications at the mosque that they might be plotting terrorism, Kharsany said. Patterson's questions dealt with Muslim dietary and hygienic rules, he said. Washington once asked Kharsany for the definition of jihad, the term terrorist groups including al- Qaeda apply to their activities.
Kharsany told Washington that he thinks of jihad in terms of the personal struggle to live according to his faith.
``He never asked again,'' Kharsany said of Washington.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This was covered extensively at RB when the arrests were made.
#2
It's good to see the police are devoting the manpower to unravel all the threads. I'm especially pleased that they are ignoring Political Correctness to follow the trail into the prisons -- a problem we've been aware of for years. And the FBI, despite its faults, is good at tracing connections. Although why Los Angeles should be a target is beyond my ability to imagine.
#3
LA is a target because we are all infidels, and a strike at the Left Coast's media Mecca would guarantee headlines for months. The terrs don't make the kind of splintering differentiations that we do as normal people; e.g, if you are not one of their "approved Muslims", you deserve death.
Three Iraqis carrying invalid Greek passports have been detained in the northern city of Mexicali, across the U.S. border from California, the Interior Secretariat announced Sunday. The three Iraqis told officials they were Christians attempting to reach the United States to seek asylum from religious persecution, according to a Attorney General's Office (PGR) news release.
Last month, the PGR announced a Greek citizen was being held over for trial on charges he participated in a smuggling network that sold fake Greek passports to Iraqi migrants bound for the United States. It was unclear if the recently arrested Iraqi migrants face prosecution or expulsion from Mexico.
Must be the legal version of the Hail Mary pass (or Hail Alan?)
The attorney for a Northern California man charged with lying to the FBI about terrorist training in Pakistan says the government is deporting two Islamic religious leaders who could help clear his client.
Umer Hyatt, 47, is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin who lives in Lodi, Calif., near Sacramento. Mr. Hyatt and his son, Hamid Hyatt, 22, were arrested in June. Both face charges of lying to the FBI about the son's reported attendance at a terrorist training camp near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Both men were denied bail at a hearing last week.
Umer Hyatt's attorney, Johnny Griffin, said that two imams -- Islamic religious leaders -- also arrested in connection with the case could help to clear his client's name. Mr. Griffin says that both the imams, who are being deported for overstaying their religious-worker visas, made potentially exculpatory statements about his client. In interviews shortly after his arrest in June, Adil Khan made statements "helpful" to his client, Mr. Griffin says, quoting a two-paragraph summary he said prosecutors provided him.
Khan -- and his son, who was arrested with him and faced similar immigration charges -- agreed to be deported July 15, and returned to Pakistan last month. The other imam, Shabbir Ahmed, is still in U.S. custody, although he also agreed to be deported. Mr. Griffin says he has been provided with a heavily redacted transcript of an interview in which Ahmed "makes statements that are clearly potentially exculpatory" of the Hyatts.
Mr. Griffin said the comments indicated that Ahmed "had no knowledge of my client's involvement in any jihad-type activities, and did not believe he would be involved in those activities."
The normal course of action in such a case, Mr. Griffin said, would be to file a sworn statement, called an affidavit, declaring that the person's testimony was essential for a fair trial. If the court accepted the affidavit, the individual could be detained as a material witness until the trial took place. But Mr. Griffin said that from a written transcript, especially one so heavily redacted, it was hard to determine the context of some of those comments.
Prosecutors agree that the men made potentially exculpatory statements during interviews, but say they have fulfilled their duty under the law by notifying Mr. Griffin. "We know very well what our discovery obligations under the law are," Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Brown said, "and we have fulfilled them to a T." Prosecutors have "gone beyond our technical obligations," he said. "We've actually given him transcripts," Mr. Brown said, adding that in such cases, "the incentive for the government is to ensure that they are complying ... because it is the prosecution that will suffer if it turns out that there are any violations."
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/29/2005 00:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Well conselor, looks like your client's going to jail for awhile...
#3
How can anyone take the sworn statement of a Muslim as "true and correct" when their religion not only allows them to lie to "infidels", but requires it? It's time to realize that being a Muslim is incompatible with being an American citizen. They don't consider everyone "created equal", they don't accept equal treatment under the law, they don't accept the rights of others to worship as they choose, they don't accept responsibility for their behavior, and they don't believe they have to follow the laws of this nation if they don't conform to their particular brand of Islam.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/29/2005 12:41 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Hell yeah the FBI is deporting the imams that could clear the attorney's client. The FBI is well aware that in California the testimony of two muslim holy men is worth the more than the testimony of a dozen infidel. It's all right there in the Book of Sharia, didn't you know?
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
08/29/2005 13:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Don't bet on a conviction yet. The SF Chronicle is setting up an entrapment defence.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/29/2005 19:08 Comments ||
Top||
THE al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf expects fresh funds from overseas to be brought into the country by a Saudi posing as a humanitarian aid worker, according to government reports and police officials.
The money the Arab is bringing in is for suicide bombings, possibly in Metro Manila, even though suicide missions have failed here, according to a classified government report issued in April.
The report was based on messages exchanged by an Indonesian, Dulmatin, and a Jemaah Islamiah leader who escorts operatives for training in the Southern Philippines. Dulmatin, or Pitono, is believed to be involved in the Bali bombings that killed about 200 people; he is now in southern Maguindanao province under the protection of the Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani.
A police official, speaking on condition on anonymity, said the Saudi is a frequent visitor to the Philippines.
The Saudi, who the official would not identify, travels to the country at least twice a year to inspect livelihood and other projects funded by his group, a legitimate charitable institution.
âHe inspects projects so he can go around Mindanao,â the official said.
Muslim charitable organizations have been used as a legal cover to allow terrorists to enter and travel around the Philippines, particularly the southern region of Mindanao, without coming under suspicion.
The strategy was perfected in the early 1990s by MohamÂmad al-Khaliffa, the brother-in-law of the al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who put up several charitable institutions that engaged in legitimate welfare activities like out-reach programs to depressed Muslim communities, medical missions and scholarships for Muslim youth.
A portion of the donations collected by these groups is then transferred to the fundamentalist group of their choice to fund their bombing missions.
Another method of chanÂneling funds is through the courier services that deliver money orders door to door and is popular among overseas Filipino workers who remit money to their families in the Philippines.
âBut itâs not as easy [to receive funds from abroad] as before because weâve identified and frozen the bank accounts they use to receive the money,â the official said.
The official acknowledged that the Saudi might have traveled to the Philippines earlier this year. The report says the Saudi was in Indonesia around April.
âHeâs legitimate. His organization is legitimate. But we can get him through the paper trail,â the official said, adding that the police are coordinating with foreign counterparts to bust the Saudiâs operations.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
An Islamic separatist group says it is having secret talks with the Thai Government to resolve the insurgency in the country's Muslim-majority south, days after the parliament rubber-stamped sweeping emergency powers to deal with the problem.
The Government spent four days last week in closed-door sessions with the Pattani United Liberation Organisation in Lausanne, Switzerland, according to a spokesman for the group. Thai military officials in the south would not comment on whether the talks took place.
The organisation, known as Pulo, which says it is fighting to reclaim a land for Muslims in southern Thailand, has denied ties to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah and said it rejected the use of suicide bombings.
"We have no connection with those terrorists," the senior member of Pulo, which campaigned against the Thai government in the 1970s and 1980s, told Reuters in a rare interview.
"Our struggle is for our own people, to get back what is rightfully ours. Pattani [a southern province] belongs to the Malays, just like Malaysia."
The organisation, thought to be largely defunct, has resurfaced in recent months, warning the Government it will bring the battle to Bangkok if the southern problems are not addressed.
The spokesman warned that if the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, continued to be "stubborn", Pulo would take its fight to the capital, or the tourist resorts of Phuket and Pattaya.
The body count in southern Thailand is startling - more than 800 people have died in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat since January last year - but while ever it remains a "southern problem", Thais have largely ignored the issue. If the Pulo threat was carried out, that would change overnight.
"If you look at our website, that is what it says," the Pulo member said. "Thaksin is my enemy. If he carries on like he is now, it is going to get worse.
"I would like to tell Thaksin we want back what we are supposed to have. It's not that we want to separate from you. It is merely that we want back what belongs to us."
But Niran Panpharakit, a spokesman for the Supreme Islamic Council of Thailand, rejected Pulo's right to speak for all Muslims. "They cannot speak for Thai Muslims in the south, maybe a small group, but the majority of people want to be Thai citizens." Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat have an 80 per cent Muslim population.
The Pulo leadership is not headquartered in Thailand, the spokesman said. While he would not say where it was based, many in Thailand believe it operates from Malaysia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:34 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Talks, well, that ought to put a stop to all that terrorism nonsense. Let's talk about our feelings.
The President of Indonesia warned western nations that terrorist groups were still planning more attacks and that the terrorists will attempt to carry out their plans during the next few months.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said bomb makers from the militant network Jemaah Islamiah, considered the Southeast Asian affiliate of Al-Qaeda, posed a threat to the world's most populous Muslim nation.
'Terrorist cells are still active. They are still hiding, recruiting, networking, trying to find new funding sources, and even planning,' Yudhoyono said.
'Entering September and October, these are special months for terrorism. There will be an increase of terrorist activities in the region,' he said.
While Yudhoyono refused to elaborate on the significance of September and October, it is noted that one major terrorist attack has occurred in recent years in Indonesia and that all the bombings have taken place between August and October.
Despite the ongoing threats of violence, Yudhoyono emphasized that the government of Indonesia did not support the terrorists.
'You may read from time to time the voice of small radical groups. But this voice will not change the fact that mainstream Indonesia will continue to be moderate, tolerant and democratic,' Yudhoyono said. 'We will strengthen the hands of the religious moderates,' he added.
Indonesia's image as a moderate Muslim country has been under question in recent months. In late July, Indonesia's top Islamic council issued a religious edict (fatwa) forbidding pluralism, any liberal interpretation of Islam as well as mixed marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Meanwhile, a bomb scare at the British embassy in Jakarta on Monday turned out to be a false alarm. The embassy was evacuated after a 'suspicious item' was mailed to the compound but it turned out to be a personal package containing a disc player and biscuits according to local police. The embassy has returned to normal status at this time.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Still looking for funding sources? Try Saudi Arabia.
DEFENSE Secretary Avelino Cruz advised the public on Sunday to remain vigilant amid reports the Philippines is on the list of targets of the al-Qaeda terrorist network this year.
"We should be prepared always. The public should remain vigilant while we continue to intensify our intelligence operations," Cruz told reporters.
He said there is "no official confirmation" of reports quoting South Korean intelligence that the country has been lined up for attacks by the al-Qaeda.
Cruz issued the statement before news broke of a bomb explosion at a passenger ferry in Basilan early Sunday morning, which injured 30 people.
"Pursuit operations against the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) are ongoing. We are hot on their trail everyday," Cruz said.
A senior official of South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) was quoted as saying that the al-Qaeda has placed the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan on its list of secondary targets, after the United States, Britain and Australia.
Security officials said the explosion on the M/V Doña Ramona could be the handiwork of terrorist groups after it was discovered that an improvised bomb, not a cooking gas tank, caused the explosion.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
even better, incarcerate and torture every Saudi "humanitarian worker" until you find the one with the killers' money. Kill him and send his head back
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2005 23:08 Comments ||
Top||
A gunman has shot an Iranian judge in the eye and hand outside his Tehran home, seriously wounding him, the justice minister said on Sunday. The official IRNA news agency said Mohammad Reza Aghazadeh had been handling cases involving large land transactions near Karaj, an industrial satellite city to the west of Tehran. "He is now in surgery," Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad told reporters. "I hope God helps us keep him alive."
An official close to the case said the judiciary was forming a committee to discuss a rash of attacks against judges in the last four weeks. A judge was stabbed to death in the southern province of Fars earlier this month and another was disfigured when acid was thrown in his face in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, the official said. Hassan Moghaddas, a judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail terms, was shot dead in his car on August 2.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The judge's name is "Mohammad Reza Aghazadeh"
What's weird is Aghazadeh means green in Farsi. His friends call him Mo Green.
#6
Must've been a very low caliber weapon if he was shot in the eye but survived. Either that or Allan was with him. And everyone of you all missed it...."You'll shoot your eye out!"
Posted by: BA ||
08/29/2005 8:36 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I'm Mo Reza Aghazadeh! I made my bones when you were dating madrassa chickies!
#8
"And the Judge wasn't gonna look at those 8x10 color glossy photos with the circles and arrows ant the paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was."
Posted by: Christopher Walken ||
08/29/2005 14:15 Comments ||
Top||
#12
"Must've been a very low caliber weapon if he was shot in the eye but survived. Either that or Allan was with him. And everyone of you all missed it...."You'll shoot your eye out!""
Hard to tell from the story. He probably has a defensive wound in his hand from holding it up to the attacker.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/29/2005 16:47 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Old and carried around in some ones pocket forever 32 cal or a fresh 25 cal or some weird Russian short 9mm round.
Good article that focuses on the split between Shiia factions. My take is homegrown power vs Iranian influenced. Both choices are bad. Sistani and the MM's or Sadr and his Falluja boyz. Don't know whether to hug em or shoot em.
By Mariam KarounyMon Aug 29,10:31 AM ET
A power struggle in Iraq between powerful Shi'ite factions could complicate efforts to stabilize the country as it heads toward a referendum on its new draft constitution, officials said.
Clashes that erupted last week between supporters of a powerful Shi'ite party in the governing coalition and militiamen loyal to a maverick Shi'ite cleric brought into public view long-standing faultlines in Iraqi politics.
Officials fear tensions will heighten before an October 15 referendum on a draft constitution passed without support from Arab Sunnis, whose community is the seat of an insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government and U.S. forces defending it.
The Badr movement, associated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and descended from a military force that fought Saddam Hussein from Iran, clashed with the Mehdi Army of fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf.
"What happened in Najaf is just the tip of the iceberg, it could happen again at any time and for any reason," said a senior Iraqi politician who is not a Shi'ite. "All Shi'ite leaders -- including Iran -- stepped in to stop it because the last thing they want is internal Shi'ite fighting."
The Najaf clashes quickly spread to other cities, including Baghdad. Clerics armed with pistols and AK-47 assault rifles supervised young militiamen as they set up positions.
After decades of oppression under Saddam, Shi'ites and Kurds came to power in January elections boycotted by the Sunnis.
But fighting in the sacred Shi'ite city of Najaf reminded Iraqi leaders -- still dependent on U.S. troops more than two years after Saddam's fall -- their security crisis could deepen.
SPLIT
Although most Shi'ites voted for the Iraqi Alliance coalition in January, which comprised the main Shi'ite political parties, many take their political cue from religious figures, not necessarily represented in government.
Some back SCIRI's Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is resented by many Sunnis and some Shi'ites because he spent years in Iran and his associated Badr Brigade movement fought against Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with neighboring, non-Arab Shi'ite Iran. Badr brigades are Iranian tools, and effective for waxing Sunni miltants but we may soon have to wax them too if Iran keeps steppin.
These days, the highly disciplined Badr movement, originally formed by captive Iraqi soldiers who fought for Iran, can be seen in green military uniforms patrolling Baghdad's streets.
Some Iraqis accuse them of operating in hit squads alongside Iraqi security forces. They deny the allegations.
Other Shi'ites are loyal to Sadr, who has fought two bloody uprisings against U.S. forces and also won a big following by speaking out for the poor in a country with poor basic services.
To complicate matters for the government, he has forged an alliance with some Sunni groups who support his anti-U.S. stance. Unlike Hakim, Sadr never left Iraq, not even after the assassination of his father and two brothers in 1999, allegedly by Saddam's agents.
Sadr also commands respect because he is from a family of revered clerics.
Hakim's father, Mohsen, was a co-founder of the Islamic political movement established in Iraq in the late 1950s, along with Sadr's relative, Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr.
Those bonds between families no longer exist in today's Iraq, rocked by suicide bombings and assassinations. Sadr thinks he's the Mahdi, the messiah of Islam. Good for you Moqtada, but remember we ain't forgot Fallujah, so we'll see you later.
Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been a moderating force, even after suicide bombings killed dozens of Shi'ites at a time. Remind me, what is the definiton of moderate there?
Although he is consulted on many issues, Sistani stays out of politics so he is unlikely to intervene between the Badr Brigade and the Mehdi Army unless their rivalry explodes. Yeah sure he just stays out of politics, wouldn't want to get his hands dirty and all.
After the Najaf fighting erupted, the Badr commander denied any involvement and Sadr praised the rival group.
"There are lines that both must not cross no matter what, at the end of the day whether you are a Sadr supporter or SCIRI's , you are a Shi'ite and this should be in your head all the time," said a Shi'ite official.
Which snake to side with. Like deciding which poison to drink
#2
Once again, potato boy is a day late and a dollar short. His Iranian handlers are also behind the power curve, both in estimating the Iraqi situation and in backing this goofball. Invariably, they try to get his much diminished, poorly led and uncoordinated followers to take on opponents that way outclass them. SCIRI and the Badr group just tubthumped them the other day when they tried their little power grab, and did so quickly and thoroughly. About the only remaining issue is when the turd burglar meets up with a well deserved bullet to the back of his head.
A senior Indian Army official said on Monday that terrorism levels in Jammu and Kashmir had reduced tremendously and that 70 per cent of the terrorist leadership had been decimated.
"We have eliminated 70 per cent of the terrorist leadership operating in the state so far. Today normalcy is becoming a reality as never before as people are moving about without any fear," GoC-in-C of Northern Command, Lt General Hari Prasad, who retires on August 31, said in Jammu.
Observing that it was his dream that terrorism ended before his term as the Army commander of the northern command, he said, "it has reduced and we believe it will go off soon".
The task of fencing about 700 km of the Line of Control, including the snow-bound areas, had been completed in record time and it had yielded immediate results in curbing infiltration to a large extent, besides sending panic signals among terrorist rank and file, he added.
Also, the army's relentless operations had substantially decimiated the leadership and other infrastructure of terrorists, which gave the forces advantage over the militants, the top army official said.
Asserting that an increase in the level of violence reflected the frustration among militants, he said there was an upswing in trade and economic activity in the state, and educational institutions and the government machinery was functioning normally.
Posted by: john ||
08/29/2005 17:06 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
How wonderful! How much of a back-up team does Pakistan have back at the training camps that don't exist, I wonder? Ah, well, the snows will close the mountain passes soon, and the Indians won't have to worry too much about the next tranche until Spring.
Individuals with links to al Qaeda and other groups are hiding in southern Africa and could be setting up networks within the region, South Africa's intelligence minister said on Monday.
"There are groups in Africa that claim to be part of al Qaeda and other structures," Ronnie Kasrils told delegates at an African naval conference in Cape Town. "They have been seeking refuge in this part of the continent, but it is not just a question of seeking refuge, it is also quite possibly attempting to set up networks," he said.
Kasrils said individuals with links to extremist groups had been found in South Africa, Mozambique and other neighboring states and one person had been arrested in Zambia after visiting a number of southern African countries. "Only alert security forces with community support can halt that [setting up terror networks]," he said. He did not name the person arrested in Zambia. Briton Haroon Rashid Aswat, held on a U.S. extradition warrant and accused of plotting to set up a militant training camp in Oregon, was deported to Britain from that country earlier this month.
South Africa has been under international scrutiny after officials raised concern that forged South African identity papers were falling into the hands of extremists, who might find them easier to use than those from their home countries. With developed financial and banking links with the West and a large, multi-racial population, South Africa is also seen by security analysts as possible base of operations for such groups.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Um, wasn't this a given at RB months ago? Relatively modern country in a relatively remote location (islamofacist-wise), significant muslim population, and a sympathetic ruling political party.
Amid reports that the United States and Turkey are preparing an attack against the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK)'s headquarters in Qindil hills of northern Iraq - an area which borders Iran and Turkey - a Kurdish leader has warned that the separatist group will put up a fight. Muhammad Fa'iq Kawalbi, president of Iraqi Kurdish party, Democratic Solution, told a Sulaymaniyya-based Kurdish newspapaer, Aso, that "if American troops attack PKK headquarters on Qindil hills, Kurdish fighters will descend from the mountains into Iraqi and Turkish cities and lead similar operations to those conducted by terrorist groups such as [the al-Qaeda linked Kurdish group] Ansar al-Sunna."
Washington considers the PKK a terrorist organisation, but according to Kawalbi, while the PKK has wrongly killed innocent people, the US are behaving far worse in Iraq and the PKK "has not even committed half the number of terrorist attacks that Turkey has," Kawalbi said.
Turkey, in exchange for its supports to Washington's Middle East policy, has asked the United States to back its fight against the PKK by labelling it a terrorist group, he said.
Reports of a possible US-Turkey strike against PKK positions in Iraq come in the wake of a recently announced truce by the PKK and an apparent softening by Ankara of its position towards the Turkey's Kurdish minority's demands for greater autonomy. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently described the issue as "Kurdish problem", in contrast to the official line which views the Kurdish question only as a "terrorism problem."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/29/2005 13:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Interesting turn of events. Dangerous game we play when we deal with the PKK or any Kurds. Do we help them acheive autonomy, do we chastise them, do we attack them?
Kurds don't know how not to fight I think, they need someone to be pissed at. They've been fighting for a homeland too long to sit still/
I say screw the Turkish, keep the peace in Iraq.
Call this payback for not letting us launch the Iraqi invasion across Turkey and let the Kurds cause a little trouble for Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
Eygpt intel. chief talks to Abbas about cease-fire
Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman met PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday in an attempt to strengthen the wavering cease-fire between the Palestinians and Israelis. Just keep things quiet until we are ready, Abbas.
2 Palestinians killed in accidental Nablus blast
Two Palestinians were killed and a third was moderately injured in an accidental explosion in a refugee camp in Nablus on Monday, officials said.
Palestinian security officials said the man was cutting through an old Israeli military shell found in a pile of debris when it blew up. Not every Pali wants to be a suicide bomber, some want to be bomb-makers.
Palestinian wounded in J'lem, cause unknown
A 24-year-old Palestinian woman was in serious condition Sunday night after being stabbed in the neck in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiya. Burned the toast for the last time
#1
Latest addition Another boy-bomber caught at Hawara
A 14-year-old Palestinian was arrested after he was caught carrying three pipe bombs through the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus Monday afternoon.
In a major development the law enforcing agencies yesterday nabbed a district chief of the Jamaatul Mujahideen, who is suspected to be a mastermind of the near-simultaneous bombings that rocked the country on August 17. Our Khagrachhari Correspondent reports, District police yesterday arrested Mohammad Nasir, chief of the district unit of the Jamaatul Mujahideen from Panchhari area of the district. Police also recovered equipment and materials including batteries, wires, IC, steel cartridges and various types of gun-powder, used in making explosives. They also recovered a manual containing the techniques of making and detonating time devices. These were seized from the house of one Abdul Mannan, located near the SP office. Abdul Mannan told police that Nasir rented the house six months back for Taka 1200 per month saying that he was a pen-vendor. It is learnt that the bombs were made 15 days before the countrywide terror attacks.
Earlier, police also arrested a rickshaw-puller named Sagar, who transported the bombs to various spots of Khagrachhari town. Following the confession of Sagor and Sabuj, accomplices of Nasir, police launched a special drive to hunt down Nasir and at last at 3 pm yesterday he was arrested from a house owned by one Ruhul Amin at Panchhari bazar area. Police also raided some other spots yesterday following confessions of Emdadul, head of the district unit of Jamaatul Mujahideen. So far 6 suspected militants were arrested from Khagrachhari.
Meanwhile, officials of the investigating agencies rushed to Satkhira to conduct on the spot investigation to unfold the mystery of the serial bomb blasts on August 17. âAfter interrogating the suspected militants we got the impression that the blueprint of the countrywide bombings was prepared in Satkhira. So we have concentrated on the region," said an intelligence official. The two militants who confessed to their involvement in the blasts after being arrested from Satkhira, were placed on another eight-day police remand by the court yesterday. An investigation team went to Delduar thana under Tangail district to verify the confessions of the two militants who recently revealed that they received military training at Delduar. Earlier the police raided Barapakhia Qaumi Madrassa located in the area and arrested 7 suspected militants from the spot. They are Yaqub, Shahidur Rahman Khan, Maulana Eshaq, Zillur Rahman, Abdus Sobhan, Yamin Mia and Rahmat Ullah. All of them hail from Tangail district.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/29/2005 10:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Oh, good, another mastermind. C'mon right over here. We got a special room for you...
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces have killed a suspected Taliban commander and three of his fighters in the country's south, while six other rebels died in a clash with Afghan police, officials said Monday. Payenda Mohammed, who was thought to have led about 150 rebels, was killed in a fierce battle in Kandahar province on Wednesday, said U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts. He was believed responsible for numerous rocket attacks, ambushes and other guerrilla-style assaults. At least three other militants were killed and 15 wounded in the fighting, in which A-10 warplanes and attack helicopters bombed caves along a ridge where the militants had sought shelter and had stashed weapons, Yonts said Monday. No Afghan or coalition troops were wounded.
Even better...
Elsewhere, Afghan police fought a two-hour gunbattle with about 30 Taliban rebels, believed responsible for an ambush on a civilian vehicle earlier in the day in Shahjoy district of southern province of Zabul. Ali Khail, spokesman for the provincial governor, said on Monday that six of the rebels were killed, while the others, including their leader, Mullah Lutfullah, fled. He said the police suffered no casualties in the fighting Sunday.
Warms the cockels of my heart...
Yonts said American forces are doing all they can in Afghanistan to locate Osama bin Laden but he cannot say when the al-Qaida leader will be captured. "When will he be captured? ... I can't give you a date, but I can tell you this: Everyone remembers 9/11," Col. James Yonts told reporters in Kabul. Bin Laden has long been suspected to be hiding in remote mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but no hard evidence has emerged on his exact whereabouts. Some 20,000 U.S. forces are deployed in Afghanistan, hunting fugitive al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.
Despite the recent rash of attacks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday he was confident the Sept. 18 elections will be peaceful. "There will be threats ... but that would not deter the Afghan people from participating. We will soon have a parliament," Karzai told reporters. But other Afghan officials, as well as U.S. authorities, have warned that the violence may worsen ahead of the elections, the next key step toward democracy after a quarter-century of fighting. American military commanders have prepared elaborate security plans to safeguard the voting, saying Taliban rebels are throwing all their resources into disrupting the polls. In southern Uruzgan province on Sunday, gunmen ambushed a parliamentary candidate, Adiq Ullah, as he was driving, killing him and wounding two others in his vehicle, said provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan. He blamed the Taliban for the murder. Ullah's killing brings to four the number of candidates killed so far. Four election workers have also been murdered and several election offices have been rocketed.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/29/2005 10:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
allan...calling allan!! We have incoming! Crank up the raisin machines.
When U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Keith Kempke returns to Iraq to find and destroy land mines and improvised explosive devices, he'll be supported by a growing fleet of new armored vehicles such as the Buffalo and the Cougar. He's already seen them in action. "I saw the Buffalo going down Iraq's Highway 1, which is normally where IEDs are planted," said Sgt. Kempke, who has been training soldiers for bomb-disposal work at Camp Dawson, W.Va., since returning from Iraq last year. "That giant armored beast is no doubt saving lives."
Indeed, what has been referred to as a "Humvee on steroids," the Buffalo is a 24-ton mine-protective, countermine/IED vehicle with a long grappling arm that faces down bombs, removes them and withstands terrific blasts without harm to its passengers. "It's done so perhaps thousands of times," said Mike Aldrich, vice president of sales and marketing for Ladson, S.C.-based Force Protection Inc., which manufactures the big Buffalo and its little brother, the 13- to 19-ton (depending on its individual configuration) Cougar. "We've only had one broken wrist in two years."
Force Protection is under a $91 million contract to build its mine-protected vehicles for the Defense Department. About 100 Buffalos and Cougars are already overseas. That number is slated to double by February 2006. "By the end of the first quarter of 2006, we will be producing two Cougars a day. Once we hit that number, we can quickly move to four if we have the orders," Mr. Aldrich said.
What makes these vehicles "mine-protected" is the V-shaped hull design, similar to that of a boat. "The force of a mine blast is diverted away from the vehicle, basically splitting that energy to the right or the left rather than having the vehicle absorb the blast, being lifted off the ground and killing the passengers," said Force Protection spokesman Jeff Child.
Force Protection is not the only manufacturer of mine-protected vehicles, but it is the only American-based company producing them in the U.S. and shipping them to Iraq and Afghanistan. Other companies include General Dynamics, which manufactures the RG-31 in South Africa, and Textron Systems, which produces the German-made Dingo 2. The generation of armored vehicles developed by Force Protection and its competitors are based on the design of the older South African mine-protected vehicles such as the RG-31 and the Casspir, still in use, but also a symbol of that nation's apartheid struggle.
Many Americans have questioned why U.S. forces did not have adequate armor going into Iraq. Mr. Aldrich said the answer may be found in the post-Cold War military's moving toward a faster, more flexible, strike force. "I believe the Army thought that increased armor conflicted with that objective," he said. "It was believed that up-armored Humvees would be sufficient to handle land mines and IEDs.
"But there is no way a flat-bottomed, 6-ton, up-armored Humvee is going to stay on the ground and protect people adequately against the current threat," he said.
The new vehicles are both heavily armored and fast. "They can sprint 60 to 65 miles per hour," Mr. Aldrich said. "They can go for hours at 55 miles per hour. They are as mobile as anything else in the current [operating] environment. And they provide much greater protection for our troops."
So why weren't the vehicles put on the fast track once it was realized how great the IED threat was? "I'm not sure that is an accurate assessment," said Lawrence J. Nee, chief of the countermine division of the Army's Close Combat Systems. "We've been in production and procurement of the Buffalo since 2002."
Despite their protective capabilities, the Buffalo and the Cougar are not designed to replace the "up-armored" Humvee. They can and have supplemented Humvees in urban operations, but the new vehicles' sizes don't afford them the same off-road capabilities of the Humvee.
Force Protection is developing a Humvee replacement, yet to be officially announced. Its prototype is known as the Lion. It could hit the ground in early 2007. Force Protection also is involved in blast-protection research and development, as are various Defense agencies.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR), for instance, is developing an Ultra Armored Patrol vehicle (with similar hull-design characteristics) for testing purposes. "It is not being built as a Humvee replacement, but as a concept vehicle to test out various technologies," said Daniel S. Dayton, director of corporate communications at the ONR. "One of the project's goals is to develop a prototype vehicle that demonstrates improved ballistic and mine protection technologies," he said. "An innovative survivable crew capsule, which utilizes new armor recipes, is mounted on a commercial truck chassis. Faceted crew capsule geometries are being tested as well."
My guess is no. The important people like to keep their options open by having all sorts of political groups hang around in case they prove useful in the future. Following widespread allegations that some elements within the Jamaat-e Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam may have links with Al Qaeda, Pakistani intelligence agencies have been spurred into action. If these allegations are proved, they could lead to a worldwide ban on the two parties.
That would be a reasonable course, but I can't see it happening, either. They have too much power in Pakland to allow themselves to be suppressed â at least for now. I think Perv has succeeded in weakening them, with their own assistance.
The development could also mean the end of the MMA government in the NWFP and the falling out of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q with the MMA in Balochistan where the two share a coalition government. For their part the JI and JUIF leaders have lashed out at the government.
But since they've made a career of that, how much notice is actually being taken?
The two parties say the government has mischievously spread the word that religious parties may be banned the world over if their links with Al Qaeda and terror activities are proven. However, leaders of the two parties say the claims of terror links are nothing but ârumoursâ and are a part of the governmentâs drive against the religious parties.
JI's involvement with Hizbul is mere rumor. The fact that many Qaeda thugs have been extricated from safe houses belonging to JI members is mere rumor. Sami's involvement with the Talibs is mere rumor.
Sources also say these allegations against religious parties could be a result of the Mutahidda Qaumi Movementâs constant demand that the JI be banned and leaders of Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba be arrested. âJI should have been banned long ago because it is responsible for introducing the culture of terrorism in Pakistan,â MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar told TFT. âWe [MQM] have been demanding a ban on JI and other extremist parties for a long time now and will welcome such moves.â
In a world built on logic and reason that'd be a mere statement of the obvious.
Sources say the recent deportation of JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman from Dubai had much to do with reports of his partyâs alleged links with terrorist organisations and investigations into JUI-backed madrassahs. Rehman, however, blames the Pakistan government for the deportation and says he is only keeping silent about the issue because he does not want to harm the national interest, though he did come up with allegations about how Islamabad was backing the Taliban and launching them into Afghanistan.
It's amazing what slips out when the Lord High Fundos are in a fit of high dudgeon...
âIf a ban is placed on the JI and JUI, their leaders will be completely prohibited from travelling abroad,â said a government source. âThe government has also ordered a separate inquiry into JUIâs links with Tripoli. Fazlur Rehman and his party have age-old links with Libya whose nature Rehman now has to explain.
I'd guess his response will consist of bluster and walkouts. That does explain why he hasn't stayed bought, though...
That would certainly be a relief for the rest of the world. But I can't see it happening. Pakland has nothing else to export.
Reports available with TFT say that in the late 1980s, government security agencies conducted investigations into the alleged funding of the JUP and JUI from elements in Iraq and Libya respectively. The investigation was started after JUI and JUP leaders made a number of âsuspiciousâ trips to these countries but nothing became of the probe which was conducted at a time when the regime was pro-religious and openly backed the mujahideen.
But I notice they didn't throw the records away.
Now, following the recent bombings in London, Pakistani, British and American intelligence agencies have started investigating all organisations that have been sending religious students to Islamic seminaries abroad. In the last three years, thousands of madrassah students, including Pakistanis, have travelled to madrassahs around the globe.
There is actually more of this sort of movement, I'd guess, than the combined intel agencies can keep up with. Probably the majority of the movement consists of drones, with no significance. Maybe 20 to 30 percent will be various levels of bad guys, moving for nefarious purposes.
As for the recent LB polls, sources say President Pervez Musharraf is likely to reach an understanding with the Awami National Party (ANP) in NWFP and with the nationalist parties in Balochistan to replace the MMA in the two provinces. However, Musharrafâs failure to reach a compromise with mainstream liberal and secular parties like the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz may push these two parties closer to the JI and JUI. In fact, the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) comprising the PPPP and PML-N as well as several other smaller parties recently reached an agreement with the MMA to launch a combined movement against Musharrafâs government. The Awami National Party is a Pashtun leftist party, one opposed to Talibanisation and the Jihadis and close to America. It seems likely to be in the new Peshwar government. The Baluchi nationalists are also leftists opposed to Talibanisation, but they are also hostile to the Pak military so palms will probably be greased to make that work.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/29/2005 04:58 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Looks to me like you boys could use a more effective deodorant...
Suspected Taliban rebels on Sunday killed a candidate running in next month's legislative elections, while an attack on a U.S. military convoy wounded three American troops, authorities said. Militants attacked the U.S. service members as they were patrolling Friday about 25 miles east of Kabul, a U.S. military statement said. An attack helicopter rushed to the site, but the rebels had fled. The wounded were in stable condition after being evacuated to Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, about an hour drive north of Kabul, the statement said.
The assaults come amid a major upsurge in attacks by Taliban-led rebels that have left more than 1,100 people dead in the past six months. They also come less than a month before landmark legislative elections, which the insurgents have vowed to subvert. In the latest attack directly linked to the polls, gunmen on Sunday ambushed a parliamentary candidate, Adiq Ullah, as he was driving in Uruzgan province, killing him and wounding two others in his vehicle, said provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan. He blamed the Taliban for the murder. Security forces pursued the insurgents, but they escaped, the governor said. Ullah's killing brings to four the number of candidates killed in the lead-up to the polls. Four election workers have also been murdered and several election offices have been rocketed.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
In the first attack after Israel evacuated settlers from 25 Jewish settlements on occupied land, a Palestinian yesterday blew himself up near a bus station in Beersheba, injuring dozens of people, two of them seriously. Twelve hours after the blast, two groups â the Al-Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigades linked to Fatah and Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad â jointly claimed responsibility for the attack. The groups identified the bomber as Alaa Zaakik, 25, from Beit Omar, which lies between Bethlehem and Hebron in the West Bank.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the bombing as a âterror attackâ and called on Israel to show restraint. âWe condemn such attacks. We donât accept them, and we call on everyone to refrain from retaliation,â he said. In a statement, the official WAFA news agency quoted Abbas as linking the bombing to Israelâs raid on the Tulkarm refugee camp last week, killing five Palestinians. Abbas said a February truce must be maintained âdespite all the Israeli provocations.â
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
âWe condemn such attacks. We donât accept them, and we call on everyone to refrain from retaliation,â he said.
Left unsaid: "We don't do anything to discourage or deter these attacks."
#2
Push the West Bank fence farther out and any Palis on the wrong side into Gaza or Ein-el-Hellhole after any attack. Stimulus-Response conditioning is the most effective teaching tool for these animals.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2005 0:13 Comments ||
Top||
Egyptian security forces made 10 more arrests yesterday in their investigation into a spate of deadly bombings that have rocked the Sinai peninsula over the past year, a security official told AFP. âSecurity forces have launched a vast arrest campaign in Jabal Halal in the central Sinai peninsula in the course of which 10 men were detained,â he said. âThe 10 are currently being questioned to establish whether they participated in the attacks on Taba, Sharm El-Sheikh and Al-Gurah.â A firefight erupted before the men were arrested but there were no immediate reports of casualties, the official added.
He said 25 improvised bombs had been recovered from caches in the areaâs sandy mountains. Around 150 people have been arrested over the past week in raids across the Sinai peninsula. Two elite police officers were killed in twin blasts in Jabal Halal Thursday as they searched for suspects in the deadly Sinai bombings. Two Canadian peacekeepers were lightly wounded when a homemade bomb struck their vehicle on Aug. 15 in an area of the peninsula not far from the border with the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan - Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and another wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in a remote tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday.
The blast occured on Friday in the North Waziristan district of Zoisedki, around three kilometers from the border. âTwo soldiers were martyred and another wounded when an improvised explosive device hit their vehicle during a routine patrol,â military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.
Security forces have been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda and Afghanistanâs former Taleban regime in the lawless tribal region where tens of thousands of troops remain deployed. Islamabad recently sent in reinforcements to the region ahead of Afghanistanâs historic parliamentary elections scheduled for September 18 to prevent the cross-border movement of militants.
Last year the army dismantled a string of Al Qaeda hideouts, killing hundreds of militants in neighbouring South Waziristan. About 250 soldiers have died in anti-militant operations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
President Jalal Talabani said on Sunday Iraqâs draft constitution is ready to be put to an October 15 referendum despite the objections of Sunni Arabs which were downplayed by US President George W Bush. âThe draft constitution is ready and will be presented to the Iraqi people, who are known for their intelligence, to give their verdict on October 15,â Talabani told reporters. âThere are objections from our Sunni Arab brothers... but nobody can claim that they represent the whole spectrum of Sunni Arabs. If the nation rejects it, we will write another one.â
Bush hailed the draft constitution, calling it âan inspirationâ for supporters of democracy. âOf course thereâs disagreement. Weâre watching a political process unfold, a process thatâs encouraged debate and compromise,â he said from his Texas ranch. âWe recognise that there is a split amongst Sunnis,â he said. âSome Sunnis expressed reservations about provisions of the constitution. Thatâs their right ⊠It is important that all Iraqis engage in the constitutional process by debating the merits of this important document and making an informed decision on October 15.â
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called the charter âthe most progressive document of the Muslim worldâ. Negotiators agreed to 11th-hour changes in the text in a bid to win endorsement from Sunni Arabs, but the changes failed to bring the Sunnis on board. Shia negotiator Khudair al-Khozai acknowledged that just three of the 15 Sunni Arab members had turned up for the final meeting of the drafting committee. He said the late concessions made to the Sunnis had been âminor and do not affect the coreâ of the text. The principal stumbling block had been Shia demands for an autonomous region in Shia-majority areas of the centre and south like that of the Kurds in the north. Sunnis opposed the demand, fearing they would lose out in the distribution of oil revenues, given that the reserves lie almost entirely in the north or south.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
...the changes failed to bring the Sunnis on board.
Short of putting 'em back in charge, nothing would have.
#2
It is difficult to overestimate the Iraqu Sunni Arabs' inability to comprehend the commonly accepted reality or their willingness to delude themselves. They think themselves in an alternate reality in which they are important and have control of the situation. If they persist in their current attitudes, there will be many fewer of them in the future.
#4
The comparison between the Iraqi Sunnis post-Saddam and the white South Africans post-Apartheid is apt. We never would have lifted a finger to help whites in SA if they had refused to participate in the process, imported foreign terrorists and setup an 'insurgency' in hopes of returning to power. Screw them.
#7
I lifted this off the Right Wing News website and I plan to use it every time some lefty make the Vietnam/Iraq comparison: "Iraq is just like Vietnam except:
We occupy Hanoi.
We've captured Ho Chi Minh.
The North Vietnamese have just held
a free and democratic election.
The North Vietnamese are working on
a new constitution.
Yes, Iraq is just like Vietnam."
I would add that during this process not a single shot was fired between the three "opposing" factions. By any standard that is what is called Democracy. Keep up the good work!
#11
Yes, we control the weak force through a series of stepped long term contracts on anti-matter delivery. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHA
Posted by: Quantum Jew ||
08/29/2005 16:09 Comments ||
Top||
#12
ive met Iraqi Jews. A close relation of mine once dated an Iraqi Jew. AFAICT, few to none of the Iraqi Jews living in the US or Israel want to move back to Iraq. So that whole argument was kinda silly.
#16
Of course, liberalhawk. Most non-Jewish Iraqis probably won't go beack either. That's what happens in diasporas. But then why did the Iraqis feel the need to refute right of return in the draft of their Constitution only to the Jews?
SRINAGAR: Indian troops killed four Islamic terrorists militants in a clash along the Line of Control (LoC) on Sunday, the Indian army said. "The terrorists militants were killed near the Line of Control by army soldiers," Indian army spokesman Vijay Batra said. The gun battle erupted after terrorists militants ignored their call to surrender in Kupwara district, where they entered after crossing over from the Pakistani part of Kashmir, he added.
"We got you surrounded. Come out witcherhands up!"
"Take a hike coppers, you'll never take us alive!"
"Hokay!" ... [bang] [bam] [bammity-bam] [BOOOOOM!]
"Aaiiieeeeeee! Rosebud!"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
PESHAWAR: Law and order situation in Bara, Khyber Agency, remained tense after political authorities failed to recover Maulana Ahmed Khan, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl's (JUI-F) Khyber Agency chief and Tanzeem-e-Ittehad-e-Ulema's amir, who was kidnapped a fortnight ago. The administration is still clueless regarding the whereabouts of the religious leader. Ahmed Khan has been the main force behind a peace committee that awarded punishments to criminals for committing violent crimes in area.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
One effective method for catching your modern, elusive al Qaeda terrorist is to go trolling. This is done either with undercover agents and informers, or on the Internet. Arab nations prefer the agent/informer approach, because they have plenty of cops who can pass for terrorists. For other nations, especially those in Europe and North America, the Internet approach is preferred. In these countries, the Islamic terrorists have increasingly found each other, checked each other out, and organized terrorist cells and attack plans, using the Internet. This has provided an excellent opportunity for the police and intelligence agencies to get online, and hook up with some real terrorist wannabes, and put the kids away before they hurt anyone (including themselves.) Some Arab counties, like Jordan, have been very successful with the agent/informer approach. Meanwhile, in Europe and North America, hundreds of terrorist suspects have been rounded up because of Internet trolling.
Posted by: DanNY ||
08/29/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Arab nations prefer the agent/informer approach, because they have plenty of cops who can pass for terrorists
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A gunman has shot an Iranian judge in the eye and hand outside his Tehran home, seriously wounding him, the justice minister said on Sunday. The official IRNA news agency said Mohammad Reza Aghazadeh had been handling cases involving large land transactions near Karaj, an industrial satellite city to the west of Tehran. "He is now in surgery," Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad told reporters. "I hope God helps us keep him alive."
Individuals with links to al Qaeda and other groups are hiding in southern Africa and could be setting up networks within the region, South Africa's intelligence minister said on Monday.
Police also recovered equipment and materials including batteries, wires, IC, steel cartridges and various types of gun-powder, used in making explosives. They also recovered a manual containing the techniques of making and detonating time devices. These were seized from the house of one 
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces have killed a suspected Taliban commander and three of his fighters in the country's south, while six other rebels died in a clash with Afghan police, officials said Monday. 
Following widespread allegations that some elements within the 
The assaults come amid a major upsurge in attacks by Taliban-led rebels that have left more than 1,100 people dead in the past six months. They also come less than a month before landmark legislative elections, which the insurgents have vowed to subvert. In the latest attack directly linked to the polls, gunmen on Sunday ambushed a parliamentary candidate, Adiq Ullah, as he was driving in Uruzgan province, killing him and wounding two others in his vehicle, said provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan. He blamed the Taliban for the murder. Security forces pursued the insurgents, but they escaped, the governor said. Ullah's killing brings to four the number of candidates killed in the lead-up to the polls. Four election workers have also been murdered and several election offices have been rocketed.
Palestinian President 
Egyptian security forces made 10 more arrests yesterday in their investigation into a spate of deadly bombings that have rocked the Sinai peninsula over the past year, a security official told AFP. âSecurity forces have launched a vast arrest campaign in Jabal Halal in the central Sinai peninsula in the course of which 10 men were detained,â he said. âThe 10 are currently being questioned to establish whether they participated in the attacks on Taba, Sharm El-Sheikh and Al-Gurah.â A firefight erupted before the men were arrested but there were no immediate reports of casualties, the official added.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan - Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and another wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in a remote tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday.
PESHAWAR: Law and order situation in Bara, Khyber Agency, remained tense after political authorities failed to recover 
