Saudi authorities have seized two suspected members of the al-Qaida network, including a Nigerian national who was distributing provocative leaflets. Interior ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour Turki said Monday that police patrolling the holy city of Mecca in western Saudi Arabia arrested the Nigerian Sunday afternoon as he was distributing leaflets. "The man is believed to belong to the stray group," Turki said, using an expression referring to al-Qaida, whose members, in the government's view, have deviated from the straight path of Islam. Turki said another suspect was arrested Sunday in Riyadh and taken away for interrogation. Additional:
Riyadh, 18 Oct. (AKI) - The Saudi police in the holy Muslim city of Mecca arrested a group of Nigerian immigrants on Monday who were distributing leaflets carrying a big photo of Osama bin Laden. According to Arab newspaper al-Hayat, before they were detained by the security forces, the Nigerians had handed out many copies of the flyer in at least five areas of the city, which is the most important in the Islamic world.
The contents of the leaflet were highly critical of the Saudi government and close to the Jihadist thinking, the newspaper reports. During the interrogations it emerged that the young Nigerians had been approached by an unknown man who, in exchange for a large sum of money, had asked them to distribute the flyers everywhere. Taking advantage of the Nigerians' scant knowledge of Arabic the man had told them the document merely contained advice and direction of a religious nature.
Clever, very clever
Also on Monday, Saudi police uncovered a terror cell in the Kharaj area, 100 kilometres to the south of Riyadh, finding explosives and weapons in an apartment there, which had been rented out recently by militants who escaped a gun battle with the security forces in the northern city of al-Rass in April. At least fourteen militants were killed in the stand-off, which lasted three days. One of the dead was reported to be local al-Qaeda leader Saleh Al-Oufi, but this turned out to be false, as al-Oufi was then killed in Medina in August after another three day stand-off with the security forces.
He could still be killed in another shootout someday, these guys are hard to pin down
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:21 ||
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...including a Nigerian national who was distributing provocative leaflets.
Dude, don't you know enough to use e-mail for your scams? Sheesh...
The Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) threatened yesterday to carry out further bomb attacks on important installations like court, police line, banks, press clubs, markets and multi storeyed buildings in different districts if the government did not refrain from nabbing its leaders and activists. District Commissioner (DC) office of Feni and Kushtia received the threat letters on Monday. A local daily of Kushtia also received a threat letter. Our Kushtia correspondent reports, the cadres of JMB threatened to blow up 19 key installations in Kushtia district. The chief commander of JMB Kushtia branch in a letter to a local daily threatened to carry out another attack. The letter bearing the heading "Bangladeshe Islami Ain Chai" has threatened to blow up courts, police lines, banks, press clubs, Pourasava markets and government and semi-government establishments.
Our Feni Correspondent writes the Deputy Commissioner of Feni received a letter of JMB in which the JMB cadres threatened to blow up key installations of the district. Following the letter security measures have been tightened to avoid any untoward incident.
Meanwhile, a JMB cadre was taken on a 10-day police remand in Chandpur while eight more JMB cadres were taken on five days police remand in Chittagong for their involvement in bombings in Chandpur and Chittagong on October 3. Our Chandpur Correspondent adds, the JMB commander of Chandpur district Shamim Hossain alias Ghalib was taken on 10-day fresh remand yesterday for his alleged involvement in bombings in Chandpur in which one person was killed. Earlier, he was arrested from a motor garage at BITAC area in Chandpur on October 6. Our Chittagong correspondent writes, eight suspected Islamic militants were taken on five days fresh remand yesterday for their suspected involvement in bomb blasts in Chittagong court on October 3.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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DHAKA An object believed to be a time device was found at the courtyard of Gopalganj District and Sessions Judgeâs residence on Sunday morning, witnesses said, as suspected religious zealots have tried such tactics to frighten people at some other places across the country. Police claimed that the object looked like a time bomb but there were no explosives in the device. Sources said a night guard and a cleaner at judge M Murshed Alamâs house discovered the âtime bombâ at about 9.30 am and informed the judge. On information, police rushed in and recovered the âbombâ along with a handwritten leaflet that called for establishment of "Islamic rule" in the country. Police claimed unidentified "miscreants" lobbed the object inside the compound of the official house of the judge in the morning. The object contained time-bomb devices, including battery, electric wire and circuit, but no explosives. It was done "to create panic", they said.
Meanwhile, two bombs were found in the toilet of Pirojpur Government Technical School and College on Sunday morning, while UNB Sylhet correspondent reported that two women were injured in cocktail explosions at Mothura Duakha village in Bianibazar upazila on Saturday night. Sources said a stranger, aged 60-70, went to the Pirojpur school about 10am and entered a toilet. After departure of the man, one of the schoolteachers, Golam Kabir, went to the toilet and saw two bombs on the shelf. Having been informed by Kabir, the headmaster of the school informed police about the bombs. Police rushed in and recovered the bombs. "Security measures were tightened in important establishments in the coastal district headquarters as panic gripped the area," says a spot account of the situation.
In Sylhet, local sources said some miscreants blasted 7-8 cocktails near the yard of Khosruzzamanâs house and South Mothura Government Primary School areas, leaving two women injured. The injured are Afia Begum, wife of Alauddin, and Sajidunnesa, wife of Taslimuddin. On information, OC of the local police station Abdul Halim visited the spot and collected samples of the cocktail for test.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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lol i too was picturing a cartoon style timebomb, like the ones the in the road runner cartoons - did it have an old alarm clock mounted on top of it , lol.
Posted by: Shep UK ||
10/18/2005 8:12 Comments ||
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A joint force of police and Coast Guard arrested 13 pirates after heavy exchange of fire with Bashar bahini at Caring Char today. Coast Guard sources said joint drive against the pirates began today with a 133-member team that ambushed those hiding in Caring Char early in the morning. Heavy exchange of fire took place. Thirteen pirates trying to flee were held. But no arms could be recovered. Some eight machangs inside the forest or hideouts of the pirates were set on fire. There is no habitation yet in Caring Char.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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any sign of captain hook here or the ever elusive Nemo?? A 'Heavy exchange of fire took place' mmm lets ee i'l swap you my mark 2 camp fire for your level 3 wooden fire torch if our side can have your grade 3 bonfire- its a deal!
Posted by: Shep UK ||
10/18/2005 8:53 Comments ||
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Chechen police have been ordered to kill anyone wearing a mask on the republicâs territory, the Chechen interior minister said on Tuesday. âI have ordered that anyone found wearing a mask in the streets be shot, whoever they are and whoever they represent,â Ruslan Alkhanov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. âThe one who is afraid to show his or her face is a bandit. We are not afraid of anyone and we act in accordance with the law. We carry out all operations with open faces,â he added. âWe defend the people, order and the Constitution and we will not let anyone hiding behind a mask commit crimes on the territory of Chechnya,â Alkhanov said.
Works for me
Kinda tough on trick-or-treaters, but I never liked the little brats anyway...
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 09:37 ||
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Kinda tough on trick-or-treaters, but I never liked the little brats anyway...
That's one thing you DON'T do in Chechnya, go trick-or-treating dressed up as a terrorist crazed killer splodeydope militant.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2005 11:46 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe the "Gloved One" should test the police order by throwing a public concert there.
Militant leader of Urus-Martan district known as Salem has been detained in Oktyabrsky district of Grozny, a source on the distinct administration told Interfax on the phone on Monday.
Investigators have established that the detainee was an aide of Abdul Sabah, an Arab emissary of foreign extremists in Chechnya.
Also on Sunday law enforcers detained two more militants in Grozny who are suspected of organizing terrorist acts in Chechnya.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:31 ||
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Shooting broke out Tuesday morning in three districts of the southern Russian city of Nalchik, as police and security forces said they were launching special operations to detain suspected militants.
Alleged Islamic extremists conducted a coordinated series of attacks on police and other government buildings in the city on Thursday, and some 137 people were killed in the fighting.
Local television on Tuesday urged residents not to leave their homes if possible, and school administrators advised parents to take their children home from schools.
Shooting was heard in the suburb of Dubki, where the city's main morgue is and where security forces were conducting a sweep for suspected rebels. Gunfire also broke out on the southwestern edge of town and in the center, near police precinct No. 3.
The Interfax news agency reported that police killed a man early Tuesday when he allegedly put up resistance during a document check. Two other men who resisted managed to escape, Interfax said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:26 ||
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Have they released any of the unknown number of children the Associated Press reported yesterday as among those captured by the terrorists?
Top Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility in an Internet message for raids on the southern Russian city of Nalchik that left more than 100 people dead. "I was responsible for the general operational guidance" of the attacks on Nalchik, a message posted on a web site regularly used by Chechen rebels quoted Basayev as saying.
Russian officials have said they killed 92 gunmen in two days of fighting in Nalchik, in the North Caucasus region, but the message attributed to Basayev said there had been only 41 fatalities among the militants. Basayev said the militants had killed around 140 Russian security personnel. Russian officials have said 33 security personnel were killed, along with 12 local civilians. Basayev said the attacks in Nalchik had been carried out by 217 "mujahedeen" of the rebel Caucasus Front and had targeted 15 "military objectives" -- each of which was specificially identified in the statement -- representing various branches of Russia's security forces.
He said losses among the gunmen were due to a "major information leak" five days ahead of the the attacks last Thursday, which had permitted the security forces of the "infidels" to sent elite troop reinforcements to the city. "On 11 and 12 October, they even brought tanks and armored vehicles in. But the mujahedeen, in a meeting held on the 11th, refused to delay the operation and they carried out as planned on the morning of the 13th" the attack in the city.
Referring to the Arsen Kanokov, the leader of the province of Kabardino-Balkaria where Nalchik is located, Basayev said: "We did not attack Kanokov only because he ordered the reopening of mosques, and this in fact saved his life." He said the rebel gunmen withdrew from Nalchik "back to their base" exactly two hours after carrying out the attacks. Russian security forces exchanged gunfire with pockets of trapped gunmen on Thursday and Friday well beyond two hours after the launch of the attacks at around 9:15 a.m.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Ya know,this seems like an extraordinairly high degree of orginazational and logistcal skill I don't recal seeing before.This attack was outside thier normal base of operations,makeing the attack much more diffcult.
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Australia plans to expand its training of Philippine soldiers to help them root out Indonesian militants believed to use the south of the country as a base, its defence minister said on Monday.
"The work is being firmed up, it's a question of firming up the date and putting it on the ground," Robert Hill told reporters during a visit to Zamboanga City, the Philippine military's base in the southern island of Mindanao.
Hill said Australia was looking at training Philippine special forces in long-range reconnaissance and providing surveillance of militant activities from the air and sea.
Canberra, which has shown deep concern over the activities of Islamic militants in the southern Philippines since the 2002 Bali bombing, already provides training for about 60 Philippine soldiers a year in Australia. A handful of Australian officers are based in Philippines to train their counterparts in bomb investigation techniques.
The two countries have held regular counter-terrorism exercises at sea and on land since they signed a defence cooperation agreement in 1995.
Despite millions of dollars worth of U.S. military aid to the Philippines every year, security analysts have expressed concern that Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiah terror network has forged closer ties with local Muslim militants in Mindanao.
The Philippines has struggled to effectively police its vast and porous sea border with Indonesia and Malaysia.
Last year, Australia donated a patrol boat to the Philippine coast guard to help it tackle the illegal traffic of people, guns and other contraband to and from Mindanao.
"We are obviously focused on the southern Philippines because we worry about the possible infiltration of the Jemaah Islamiah in the region who were working specifically in Mindanao," Hill said.
"The Jemaah Islamiah is a threat to the whole region, including ourselves."
Hill, who arrived on Sunday, is due to meet Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Defence Secretary Avelino Cruz on Tuesday to discuss anti-terrorism efforts and reforms to the graft-prone Philippine military.
"We welcome the overtures from Australia for sea patrol cooperation under the principles of mutuality and sovereignty," Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.
A possible, unspecified terror threat closed one of two tunnels carrying traffic under Baltimore's harbor. Another was partially shut down in response to what an official said was a security threat. The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel was closed while the Fort McHenry Tunnel was partially closed, with one lane of traffic moving in each direction, said Lt. Col. David Franklin of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. The closures were in response to a threat, a federal law enforcement official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did not provide further information about the nature of the threat. But another federal law enforcement official said the threat was phoned in to authorities by a person claiming to have information from abroad. Authorities are skeptical of the claim, but are checking it out nonetheless out of an abundance of caution, the official said. That source also spoke on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 12:11 ||
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tunnels eh, were they not the target about a decade ago in new york or somewhere, sure i remember about a plot to boom these tunnels from a long time ago, anyone?
Posted by: Shep UK ||
10/18/2005 13:59 Comments ||
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#3
Shep, I can't tell if you being sarcastic, but I'll assume you're not.
Thursday, June 24, 1993
(Reuters) - Eight men with Moslem fundamentalist ties have been arrested on charges of plotting to kill the Secretary-General of the United Nations, a U.S. senator and the president of Egypt and blow up major buildings and highway tunnels. The targets for bombing included the two highway tunnels that link New York City to New Jersey.
#4
(WJZ) Eyewitness News has learned that there may be a link between a Middle Eastern market in Southeast Baltimore and the alleged threat to Baltimore's tunnels.
Sources say two men affiliated with the Koko market on Eastern and Dundalk avenues are in FBI custody and authorities are looking for a third person. State and federal authorities have been investigating Koko's since last Thursday when word of a possible threat began to surface.
The terrorist plot reportedly involved a delivery truck from the Koko market being driven into one of Baltimore's tunnels under the Inner Harbor loaded with explosives and left there to detonate.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 15:38 Comments ||
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Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally.
"Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions. "It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," Chertoff told a Senate hearing.
Thousands of "Mexicans who are caught entering the United States illegally are returned immediately to Mexico. But other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers. The problem is especially severe for non-Mexicans apprehended at the southwest border," Chertoff explained. "Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities," he added. "Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process."
Gee, ya suppose Bush is finally catching on?
Watch the hands, not the mouth. Tony Blair said essentially the same thing, and the Heathrow departure lounge is still empty....
Chertoff's remarks in favor of returning "every illegal entrant, no exceptions" appeared to conflict directly with the US policy toward illegal Cuban migrants. Though Cubans picked up at sea are returned to their country, those who reach US soil by air, sea or ground are allowed to stay and work -- a fact Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal emigration attempts.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 11:41 ||
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Pardon my skepticism - the Feds have left the back door open (and it's still open) and have yet to do Jack about the problem. I'll believe Chertoff when I see some ACTION backing these words.
#4
"Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities,"
STAKES AND ROPE!!!! Strap em' to desert floor for a week!!!!
#5
If our troops can live in common accommodations in Iraq for months on end, then illegals can put up with nothing better while they await their transportation out. Any federal judge who declares otherwise should have his name before the House judiciary committee for impeachment the very next day.
#6
When big money finally comes out in favor of draining the cheap labor pool, I'll actually believe this. And we all know where campaign financing comes from, so don't hold your breath.
#7
Maybe our returning the Republican's fund solititations with the notation "sorry, nothing from me until you fix the immigration problem" is beginning to get through some very thick skulls.
Also, Chertoff should ask about renting space from Joe Arpaio.
#10
Maybe our returning the Republican's fund solititations with the notation "sorry, nothing from me until you fix the immigration problem" is beginning to get through some very thick skulls.
Frank's program..and I've followed up with two such replys. "Until you STFB no more money from me."
usmc6743, If anyone thought this was a serious policy change, the Mexican immigration groups would be going to the mattresses
My cleaning lady from El Salvador says, "They talk big. They never do nothing."
nope, ima not taken the ironic bait. Not gonna do it..nope, wouldn't be prudent.
Posted by: Bush Sr. ||
10/18/2005 13:35 Comments ||
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#11
it'll happen as long as the people demand it. If you don't write the letters, cut off your contributions to congresscritters who don't toe this line, then you have NO-ONE to blame but yourself. Talk is cheap. I've done the above things and they work...bit by bit, take back your country
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/18/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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#12
Chertoff might want to be Prez. With this, he may have just entered the race in a big way.
#15
Ah Bright Pebbles, I do believe you might have a major two-fer winner there...one million places available at (say) $500,000 = 500 billion. Not bad change that...
I've always been amazed by the letter writing campaigns I hear of in the States, that do on occasion seem to change policy....it doesn't happen much here I'm afraid!
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/18/2005 16:52 Comments ||
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#16
I hope Michael Chertoff means what he says. In the meantime, Frank's idea of writing to the President, the RNC, and campaign offices for Senators and Representatives about witholding campaign contributions is a good one. The more letters the merrier and more effective it will be. Nothing gets one's attention than hitting them in their pocketbook.
All this crap about overwhelming the system is: CRAP
We can go halfway around the world in GW1 in a huge logistical effort and make it happen (hats off to Gus Pagonis).
We can do the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is no reason why we cannot do the same effort in stopping and removing illegals in this country. We just need the political will.
1. Seal the border.
2. Enforce the laws against hiring illegals. Hit the employers that hire illegals in their pocket books. They will get the message.
3. Illegals cannot get driver's licenses, so they cannot get into the system through the back door.
4. Change the laws so that children born into this country of illegals cannot get citizenship.
5. Illegals that entered this country are not allowed to become US citizens.
6. State and local governments that disregard Federal regulations concerning illegals lose their federal funding and have to go through a pain in the ass recertifying process to get it back.
7. Offer free trips back to the homeland for illegals.
8. Set rational quotas for legal immigrants, favor people with talents in demand in this country.
9. Confiscate money that illegals make.
The trick is to take the financial incentives out of illegals.
Sealing the borders stops the new illegals.
Taking the financial incentives out of illegals staying here drives the illegals that are here out, and makes it tough to stay here. All we need is the will.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2005 17:14 Comments ||
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#17
Forgot a few:
10. Children of illegals in this country are not entitled to govt funded education.
11. Illegals can get emergency care. After all, we are not inhumane. However, they will be deported after first aid in the ER.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2005 17:17 Comments ||
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Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/18/2005 17:24 Comments ||
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#20
Don't have the facilities to hold em? Contract it out to that Arizona Sheriff who's got prisoners sleeping in tents. He'd do it at bargain rates.
Hold the illegals for 6 months while we sort things out. If they see a serious economic threat (no money for 6 months) they may be less willing to cross illegally in the first place.
#21
Tony: pardon my writer's lack of being specific. I don't believe anything will change. Nothing will be done. The commenters on this post have great suggestions but nothing will come of Chertoff's comment. The Republicans let em in and the Demmies register them.
The headline is entirely wrong - only non-mexican illegals would be deported. And..
The Cabinet officials emphasized that the president strongly opposed an amnesty for illegal aliens, and Chertoff agreed with Kennedy that trying to deport all illegal immigrants would not be possible. "It would take billions and billions and billions of dollars to do it," Chertoff said.
...
Ending illegal immigration means both tough enforcement and action to reduce the very demand that draws illegal migrants into the country. Therefore, our strategy of reforming our immigration system is a three-pillar, comprehensive approach that focuses on controlling the border, building a robust interior enforcement program, and establishing a Temporary Worker Program.
That's the new word for their "guest" worker program. A question: what happens when those "temporary" workers have U.S. citizen children? Does anyone in their right mind think that we would be able to deport mixed families if they don't want to return?
Can't you just imagine Sen. Teddy Kennedy joining with Rep. Nancy Pelosi to propose an "adjustment" of their status allowing these millions of formerly "temporary" workers to stay here permanently?
Isn't anyone who would call them "Temporary" workers just lying to you?
#23
So, Chertoff's comment was not policy now, just a rogue comment left to lie on the rug like a turd? I don't think so. It's a trial balloon if nothing else. Push it along, don't just cynically say "nuthin's gonna happen so why bother?" You don't make Chertoff's rank and make total policy statement revisions without being fired or rebuked the next minute...let's see what happens
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/18/2005 18:39 Comments ||
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#25
So what do we do, Bardo? Sit on the sidelines, throw up our hands and do nothing? Hell, the Minutemen made a plan, hit the borders and showed that intercepting illegals could be done well enough to basically stop the movements of illegals in that area of operations. They shamed the Federal Government into some action.
In the case of the lackadaisical attitude toward illegals by government officials and agencies, we need to get their attention. So they need pressure---real pressure. When the people lead, the leaders will follow. We have to get off our collective asses first to get our so-called leaders off their collective asses. It all starts with a neuron firing, an idea. Then we write letters, withold campaign funds, field up some observers, get people fired up on the true cost of this cheap labor. Show how everyone is hurt when illegals start parasiting off the system.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2005 18:48 Comments ||
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#26
The Minutemen are still out there, on both the southern and northern borders now.They've got a website or a blog or something, but have given up publicizing their activities because it attracts too much of the wrong kind of activist attention. ;-)
#27
Alaska Paul: You, and all those who be activists are right; yes, the sqeeking wheel gets the grease. Lets do all we can and then some. But I feel this, our major problem, is too entrenched. You would not believe what it looks like where I live. Burka-Beserka. Its part of our economy; you think the "business party" will tackle this. Or that "drivers license," party. Apart from all that go for it. Heh heh I'll write Hillary now.
#28
Alaska Paul: You, and all those who be activists are right; yes, the sqeeking wheel gets the grease. Lets do all we can and then some. But I feel this, our major problem, is too entrenched. You would not believe what it looks like where I live. Burka-Beserka. Its part of our economy; you think the "business party" will tackle this. Or that "drivers license," party. Apart from all that go for it. Heh heh I'll write Hillary now.
#29
Thanks for the update Bardo, I think you have a point that the two parties in the US both have 'reasons' for allowing illegals into the country, but I still stand by my final para - there is this (at least to this Anglospheric guy) 'unusual sanity' in the US whereby you can (a) write your representative and tell 'em they're out unless they do something (and have a bloody decent chance that the shyster will do something about it - I'm not so naive to believe that all politicos in the US are as the driven snow ;) ) and/or (b) go down to the border and say "No, you're not coming in, and we're taking you to the Sheriff".
Wow.
We simply don't have that (anymore). We're not allowed to defend ourselves (or our borders) and our MPs don't give a monkeys.
Just keep the pressure up on Chertoff to stand by his words - *regardless* of the race of the illegal.
And Bright Pebbles *still* has the right idea! :)
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/18/2005 19:34 Comments ||
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#30
Bardo---Politicos like Hillary have and agenda and bend with the wind. We must start with a base and build upon it. It will probably not include Hillary at the start. She can get aboard or stay out of the way. I agree that things are very entrenched. We have had this liberal giveaway-no-responsibility-everyone-a-victim-BS since the sixties. Two generations of it. But we must try or we will lose this country. This is a make-it or break-it issue for the country. We cannot sustain the influx and have the country survive. Maybe we need Gen. Honare for President, so he can get people stuck on stupid-----off stupid. Heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2005 19:39 Comments ||
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#31
Us emigration pondering certainly UKers know how to run the US!
#32
Nah Pebbles, thems Yanks got it right - no way can they get Blair (who was born in Edinburgh!) running the show! :)
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/18/2005 20:14 Comments ||
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#33
Every "illegal" steals a place from a "real American to be" out there in the world who knows what this country can offer. They are better than a lot of our homegrown jerks. Post #16 starts a great list. Personnally I say place strategic landmines and open the Front Door to those who want in the right way. Worth the fight.
#34
Bright Pebbles, would you take Secretary of State (cf. Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell) or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Colin Powell again), or head of a great many Fortune 500 companies (Procter&Gamble, Chrysler(?)-Mercedes)? Or perhaps you'd like to run a university somewhere, or be a U.S. Senator? There are lots of opportunities for the willing on this side of the Pond! :-)
#36
AP said: "Hell, the Minutemen made a plan, hit the borders and showed that intercepting illegals could be done well enough to basically stop the movements of illegals in that area of operations. They shamed the Federal Government into some action."
From talking with a Border Patrol guy in a very active sector in AZ, it sounds like what happened is they scared the Federales (Mexican kind) into taking action. The BP guys could easily see the Federales operating on the other side to divert and prevent traffic from crossing into areas where the Minutemen had set up shop.
#37
This is such any easy problem to solve...and I a, really disappointed with Bush. He's letting the country down and is not upholding the Constitution.
#38
Tony: Ah Bright Pebbles, I do believe you might have a major two-fer winner there...one million places available at (say) $500,000 = 500 billion. Not bad change that...
I think 500K is a bit hefty. The market rate is about $50K - roughly what the average illegal immigrant from overseas (not the Americas) will pay to enter the country. I say make the entry fee $50K capped at one million places. $50B a year ought to allow DHS to hire more immigration officers and build more detention facilities. Instead of the H1-B process for hiring foreign professionals, require foreign applicants to pay $100K for a green card, and provide 200,000 places. If employers really need these people, they will pony up the cash. If they don't, the potential foreign employees will borrow the cash if they have to.
#39
To solve the problem, we need to attack the economic supports for the illegals. First, no one should be allowed to send money to Mexico except through the Federal Government. Second, employers who hire illegals should be fined and/or imprisoned. This includes those who hire day laborers, those who hire nannies, those who hire construction workers, etc. Third, eliminate the anchor baby rule. Children born to parents illegally in the country are NOT citizens. Fourth, eliminate the taxpayer subsidies to the illegals: welfare, medical care, free schooling for their children, etc.. If we do that, the flood will drop to a trickle. Problem is there is neither enough grey matter or enough testosterone in Government to do any of the above.
I work for a major financial services company that has decided that importing foreign talent is too expensive, regardless, and is now in the process of "off-shoring" these same jobs back to foreign locales.
While I am as Right as Genghis, our domestic barons of capital are determined to take advantage of this administration's hands-off policy to establish facts on the ground, overseas, before legislators get the chance to feel any electoral pain.
One company I know of even has some executive f*cktards talking about putting a major data center in red China - to process U.S. securities transactions. This same company hires landscaping contractors that employ illegal status Mexicans - all in plain view.
This "off-shoring" is merely the other side of the illegal immigration coin - until employers are stiffly sanctioned - for exercising private foreign policy with regard to a dangerous enemy - red China - as well as for providing the demand side to the illegal immigration problem - nothing will change.
I have argued for a while that the current GOP has earned its wins from the support of the broad middle class - the normal people, and it is high time to ask the tranzi, yes tranzi, big business faction of the party to take a walk.
Posted by: IT Insider ||
10/18/2005 22:59 Comments ||
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That's OK IT Insider, .com has some sort of sooper-dooper DNA scan that not only does an immediate field test that's 100% infallible because it compares ALL alleles of EVERY suspect, not just enough to establish probability, but it's also strong enough to determine citizinship too! We'll get those nasty non-citizens that way, and then we'll test for tranzis!
It's OK .com, fuck you too. Oh, is it only 2 minutes to midnight? Oh, I'm sorry, that's too bad.
Baghdad, 18 Oct. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the terror group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has released a new statement in which it explains the reasons for its terror campaign and states that they are not fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but to create "an Islamic state which is part of the caliphate and the Muslim territory."
The message from the terror group appeared on the Internet on Tuesday, just a few days ahead of a visit to Baghdad by the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. "The secretary of the Arab League has been tasked with going to Iraq to convince the Sunnis to enter the political game so as to stop the Jihad [holy war] in the Sunni areas. With the excuse of national interest, they are trying to save the Americans," the statement says.
The terror group then goes on to reveal its real objectives, saying: "We are not fighting to chase out the occupier or to save national unity and keep the borders outlined by the infidels intact," the statement continues. "We are fighting because it is a religious duty to do it, just as it is a duty to take the Sharia [Islamic law] to the government and create an Islamic state."
In the last few weeks the Islamic forums on the Internet have regularly broadcast images relating to the possible creation of al-Qaeda's hypothetical Islamic state, which could take shape within Iraq's rebel al-Anbar province.
But, but, does this mean the Z letter could be real? I thought it was a proven fact Karl Rove wrote it in his garage?
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 10:06 ||
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That's not TRUE??? I thought Karl wrote that right after he he flipped the switch for WILMA!!!
#3
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the terror group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has released a new statement in which it explains the reasons for its terror campaign and states that they are not fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but to create "an Islamic state which is part of the caliphate and the Muslim territory."
#5
We Are Fighting For An Islamic State, Says Al-Qaeda In Iraq
We'll try and ignore such niggling little details like how al-Qaeda's desire for a Sunni led theocracy doesn't exactly coincide with the intentions of Iraq's shiites.
#11
I think will confuse and undermine the insurgency, they no longer have common goals, removing occupation is just a selling point, just as it is with Hezb and Hamas, not the true end goal, which is an Islamic State, and now former Bathist can see how they've been used.
#12
..the reasons for its terror campaign and states that they are not fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but to create "an Islamic state which is part of the caliphate and the Muslim territory."
Huh? Sue for peace? Sounds like they are ready to negotiate. It's still a quagmire!
Posted by: john ||
10/18/2005 14:06 Comments ||
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Ah, give em a state. An "end" state.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/18/2005 18:49 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein and seven senior members of his 23-year regime will go on trial Wednesday to face charges they ordered the 1982 killings of nearly 150 people from the mainly Shiite town of Dujail following a failed attempt on Saddam's life. Court officials have said they are trying Saddam on the Dujail massacre first because it was the easiest and quickest case to put together. Other cases they are investigating - including a crackdown on the Kurds that killed an estimated 180,000 people - involve much larger numbers of victims, more witnesses and more documentation. If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty, but they could appeal before another chamber of the Iraqi Special tribunal.
Saddam and his co-defendants are expected to hear the charges against them during Wednesday's hearing, and the court will address procedural matters. The trial is then expected to be adjourned for several weeks.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari complained Monday that the Iraqi court took an unjustifiably long time to prepare its case and brushed aside concerns that the court could be biased against the former dictator. "I don't think there are any more clear-cut crimes in the world than those committed by Saddam," said the Shiite Muslim leader, five of whose close relatives, including an older brother, were executed by Saddam's regime in the 1980s and 1990s.
He underlined, however, that the deaths in his family did not mean that he would get a sense of personal satisfaction if the former dictator is eventually executed. "I try to forget what happened to my brother and my cousins. It is never an issue of revenge or personal malice," al-Jaafari said during a 2 1/2-hour meeting with journalists over "iftar," the sunset meal Muslims eat to break their fast during the month of Ramadan.
Al-Jaafari's Shiite Dawa Party was blamed by the toppled regime for the attempt on Saddam's life in Dujail, a Dawa stronghold. Of the estimated 17 party members who opened fire on Saddam's motorcade, eight were killed in a shootout with troops from Saddam's elite Republican Guard. Nine others escaped and fled to Iran. Al-Jaafari, who took office in April as the head of a Shiite-Kurdish coalition, said he wanted Saddam to have a fair and open trial, but made it clear that he preferred the proceedings not drag on.
Saddam's regime was toppled in April 2003, but the former dictator was on the run for eight months before U.S. troops captured him near his hometown of Tikrit. He has since been kept in a U.S.-run facility thought to be at or near Baghdad International Airport.
At the meal with journalists, Al-Jaafari quoted classical Arabic poetry and praised the ideas of America's founding fathers. He also thanked the United States for ridding Iraq of Saddam, supporting the country's transition to democratic rule and its leadership of the war on terror.
"Saddam is gone and we are moving ahead while he is part of the past," he said. "His case doesn't belong to just one nation, but the whole world. Iraqis would like to see justice done."
Al-Jaafari said he was puzzled, though, by what he described as the long time it took the Iraqi Special Tribunal to compile evidence against Saddam in the Dujail case. "If we are to do a research project on Saddam's crimes, it will take a century to complete," he said.
"The Dujail case took enough time," he lamented. "Any more delay will bring Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Asked whether his comments could be seen as an attempt to influence the court to speed up its proceedings, al-Jaafari said: "I am not interfering in the court's business and I am not trying to put pressure on the court or influence it. On the contrary, I want it to exercise its authority both seriously and with transparency."
The Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try Saddam was set up during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, which formally ended in June 2004. Although its statute was endorsed by Iraq's democratically elected parliament, critics have questioned the court's legitimacy.
Last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that the tribunal "runs the risk of "violating international standards for fair trials." "In Iraq's fragile political climate, the legitimacy of the court will be in question," it said in a statement. There have also been demands that Saddam be tried before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
Al-Jaafari rebutted these complaints, arguing that Saddam's crimes were mostly against the Iraqi people, so he should be tried by Iraqis. "Why cannot a man who committed crimes against his own people be tried by the same people? Iraq's judiciary is just."
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 09:15 ||
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I nominate Judge al-Judy to conduct the proceedings.
A VIDEO showing a man said to have been an abducted Iraqi contractor being shot dead was posted on an Islamic militants' website by al-Qaeda in Iraq yesterday.
The video showed a man with his hands tied behind his back lying on his side on a dirt track. A person standing off-camera then shot the victim, who was identified by his Iraqi planning ministry identity card and his gun licence as Mohammed Mahmoud Alwan. After the execution, the camera panned to a sign reading in Arabic: "God's verdict has been carried out against a contractor working for the Crusaders."
No details were provided as to when the execution took place, and it was impossible to verify the authenticity of the video, but it was posted on a website known as a clearing house for militants.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:02 ||
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Zarkawi is following instructions, then, to shoot captives rather than saw off their heads with inadequately sharpened swords. I suppose that will get his victims to paradise more quickly and comfortably. FWIW
#4
TW wrote: "Zarkawi is following instructions, then, to shoot captives rather than saw off their heads with inadequately sharpened swords."
But TW, I thought the Zawahiri letter was a fake? After all, that's what "Middle East expert" Juan Cole says. It must have been a coincidence that Zarq started shooting rather than beheading his victims.
Posted by: Tibor ||
10/18/2005 9:50 Comments ||
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Tibor, I'm just a simple American girl. I wouldn't dare compare myself to the eminent Professor Cole. I can't keep track of all the subtleties he discerns, so I just believe what the Armed Forces spokesman tells me.
Up to 11 insurgents were killed and 70 others were arrested by the Iraqi forces during operations and an armed confrontation in the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. A statement for the Iraqi Defense Ministry affirmed Monday that the Iraqi forces, backed up by the US forces killed 11 insurgents and arrested 57 others in a security operation conducted in Al-Mahmoudiyah town in the province of Babel in southern Iraq.
The statement added that nine other insurgents were arrested in Jabla area near Al-Mahmoudiyah, where weapons and explosives that were in their possession were confiscated. Another four insurgents were arrested in Babel. About 70 insurgents were killed on Sunday during armed confrontations an air raid conducted by the US forces against strongholds of insurgents in Anbar in western Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Quagmire!!!!!!
Posted by: john ||
10/18/2005 7:31 Comments ||
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no mention of the Wolf brigade either, looks like the 'standard' Iraqi troops are begining to really shine, nice going.
Two explosive devices were detonated Monday by police in Waset province in southern Iraq. An Iraqi police source said that the two explosive devices were planted along a road leading to the Iraqi army and police camps west of Al-Suweirah. The source added that a third explosive device blew up on the same road after a military convoy drove through there, but no casualties or damages have been reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Palestinian factions on Sunday announced joint responsibility for attacking a number of Israeli soldiers nearby Bethlehem, killing four Israelis. In a press release, the Martyr Yasser Arafat Brigade and Fateh Falcon's Group of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announced responsibility for the armed operation nearby Gush Etzion near the city of Bethlehem.
The brigades said that the members opened fire on an Israeli troop carrier, killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding seven others, in addition to the death of two of the brigades' members. The brigades also announced responsibility for opening fire on a settlers' car in Nablus, wounding one settler. It noted that the operations came in response for assassinating Mohammad Alsheikh Khalil and a number of brigades' leaders in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz on Sunday announced that Israel would punish residents of Bethlehem and Hebron Provinces in southern West Bank in response for the attacks, noting that the government made some procedures against residents, including changing mobility courses for Palestinian citizens. Israeli forces also tightened security around the two provinces setting more barriers and executing more search operations in Bethlehem.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Stop spreading Arab propaganda. The 'four Israeli soldiers' were actually three Israeli civilians. Two of them were 21 year-old female cousins, one of whom was married a few months ago. The other was a 15 year-old boy.
Israeli forces arrested 20 Palestinians Monday in the West Bank and laid a tight siege against Palestinian land, preventing citizens from driving their private vehicles across cities. The Israeli radio said that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz made several decisions regarding during a meeting with Israeli security officials in Israel last night. The Israeli officials' consultation focused on the two attacks carried by gunmen near Bethlehem and Naples, which killed three Israelis and injured another seven, said the radio.
Immediately after the meeting, Israeli forces erected several military fences around Palestinian areas, blocking roads usually used by Palestinians to travel between their towns and cities. Moreover, Israeli forces penetrated the Palestinian towns of Tubas and Qaffain and arrested six Palestinians. In Al-Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army arrested five citizen and settlers attacked a Palestinian citizen. Several other Palestinians were arrested in villages near Qalqiliyah and Baytoona town.
The Israeli radio said that occupation forces arrested 20 Palestinians in the West Bank, most of whom are members in Islamic Jihad Movement. Israel also announced shutting down all forms of communications with the Palestinian Authority and canceling a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon. Mofaz threatened to react strongly to the two Palestinian attacks, stressing that Israel would do whatever necessary to protect its citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Two Abu Sayyaf militants and a government soldier were killed in fierce clashes Monday on an island off the southern port city of Zamboanga, officials said.
Officials said three more soldiers were wounded in the fighting before sunrise on Sacol island, just several nautical miles east of Zamboanga.
Government troops swooped down on Sacol island, following reports that an Abu Sayyaf leader, Isnilon Hapilon, and his men were hiding in the area, said Navy spokesman Captain Geronimo Malabanan.
In an ensuing gunfight, a navy intelligence agent was killed and three soldiers wounded, while two guerrillas were gunned down, Malabanan said. The guerrillas fled, but it wasn't clear if Hapilon was among them, he said.
Troops have recovered at least two bodies of Abu Sayyaf militants killed in the fighting, said navy commander Commodore Rufino Lopez.
"We recovered two bodies and there could be more enemy casualties. The operation against the Abu Sayyaf is going on in Sacol," he said.
He said navy gunboats were sent to seal off Sacol island and prevent the militants from escaping.
A military report confirmed that the militants are followers of Hapilon, who is wanted by both the United States and Manila for the killing of two kidnapped Americans in the southern Philippines in 2002.
Lopez said the fighting erupted before sunrise after navy and army forces raided a suspected Abu Sayyaf hideout on Sacol island, just several nautical miles east of Zamboanga.
In April, troops also stormed an Abu Sayyaf hideout in Sacol and killed three gunmen. Aside from the Abu Sayyaf, the island is also a known lair of pirates and smugglers.
Security forces are in heightened alert in the southern Philippines because of threats of terror attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:32 ||
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A U.N. investigator has named the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad as a suspect in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a German report said on Tuesday. Stern Magazine, in extracts from an article due to appear on Thursday, named Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat as a suspect in the probe led by chief United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis. Shawkat is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Syria after Assad.
And we all know what happens to "Number 2's".
Mehlis, a German prosecutor, had questioned Shawkat "not as a witness, but as a suspectâ, said Stern, without giving the source of its information.
This may be the "leak" Mehlis fired his translator over.
Mehlis is due to present his report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday on the February 14 killings of Hariri and 20 others in a truck bomb blast in Beirut. Annan met Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the expected report and its consequences.
Mehlis' interim report is expected, in one way or another, to tie the Syrian regime or Syrian officials to the affair. If this should happen, the international pressure on Syria is expected to grow, and Syria would be required to extradite the killing suspects and comply with additional demands concerning its support of terror.
Diplomats and Lebanese political sources say they expect Mehlis to name some Syrian officials in his report. But for him to point the finger at a member of Assadâs inner circle would be political dynamite. Assad had appointed Shawkat as military intelligence chief last February. The announcement was made by Syrian officials four days after Haririâs assassination.
Reward for a job well done?
The Syrian president said in a CNN interview last week that Syria was not involved in Haririâs death and that he could never have ordered it.
"Nope, nope, wasn't us. Musta been them Jooos"
However, if the United Nations concluded Syrians were involved, they would be âtraitorsâ who would face an international court or the Syrian judicial process, he added.
"Fredo Asef, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do."
Blaming Syrian officials for the killing would likely intensify U.S. pressure against Damascus and could prompt U.N. Security Council action.
Stern said that of 10 high-ranking Syrian diplomats and secret service officials questioned by Mehlis, five were considered as suspects in the assassination. They included Rustum Ghazaleh, former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon. Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have also been detained since August on Mehlisâ recommendation and charged with murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 14:53 ||
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I hope the thought of "U.N. Security Council action" is scarier to Assad that it would be to me. Ya think they'll break out the Memo of Mass Reproach?
#5
the UN is as tough as its leading members want it to be. France was on the team with the US this time, and the Russians arent going to bat for Syria, so the UN is playing tough.
The UN prosecutor is in Vienna working on the final draft of his findings on the murder of Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri last February. His report is due out Friday, Oct. 21. The only other person privy to its contents, according to DEBKAfileâs exclusive sources, is the UN Middle East Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. They add that Mehlis has just fired the inquiry teamâs Lebanese spokesman Najib Farij - it is believed over leaks to the Lebanese media about the Syrian interior minister Ghazi Kenaanâs reported suicide.
Roed-Larsen arrived in Paris Monday, Oct. 17, officially for talks with Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora but, according to DEBKAfile, to attend a broad-based conference with the senior American, French and Lebanese diplomatic and intelligence officials involved in the Hariri investigation on a common front for the Mehlis reportâs publication. We can reveal here that barring last-minute developments, the report will focus on five main points:
1. The Hariri assassination was not a hastily concocted operation but planned down to the last detail over many months.
2. It was plotted and executed by security and intelligence bodies or groups â not individuals.
3. There are pointers to possible Syrian and Lebanese intelligence involvement, but no legal proofs.
4. The suspected source of the orders to stage the assassination is to be found at high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese levels.
5. Since the report contains findings rather than proofs, the UN prosecutor will request more time to complete his investigation with focus on the Syrian role.
Two further developments in the affair: A key witness, Muhammad Zouhayr Asseddiq, the Syrian intelligence officer who defected to Paris with vital information for the UN and French authorities, was placed in detention by the French police Monday, Oct. 17. His arrest was officially presented as arising from contradictions in his testimony, but intelligence circles close to the investigation believe he was placed in protective custody in advance of the UN reportâs publication.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 12:08 ||
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Lebanon has charged with murder a key Syrian witness detained in France over the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, judicial sources said on Tuesday. French police detained Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq, a witness in a U.N. inquiry into Hariri's February killing, on Sunday on an international warrant. Lebanese judicial sources said they had asked for Siddiq's detention based on the murder charges because they believed he had an indirect role in Hariri's killing and had misled international investigators.
Siddiq faces the same charges as four pro-Syrian generals detained since August on the recommendation of chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis and charged with murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act in connection with Hariri's assassination, they said.
Lebanon has asked that Siddiq be extradited but was awaiting a French decision on the issue, they added. French judicial sources said on Monday Beirut had 30 days to provide the necessary documents for the extradition request.
When he presents his report to the United Nations this week, Mehlis is expected to implicate Syrian officials in the assassination that plunged Lebanon into its worst security and political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanon's public prosecutor has also asked the central bank to lift its traditional banking secrecy to freeze accounts held by the four generals, judicial and banking sources said. The central bank declined to comment, but banking sources in Lebanon said it was certain to comply after opening up their accounts and those of several other Syrian and Lebanese figures to investigators in September. Among them was Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan, who was found dead in his office last week, three weeks after he was questioned by the U.N. team probing Hariri's death.
"They have asked for the accounts of the generals to be frozen and banking secrecy to be lifted awaiting further scrutiny of movements into and out of these accounts as this might help with the investigation," one banking source said. "I think it is not just the generals. There are others but their names have not come out yet."
Lebanese political sources say Siddiq was one of the leading witnesses in the probe, having said he attended meetings at which Hariri's killing was discussed, but became a suspect when it transpired he had misled investigators. Lebanese newspapers reported that suspicions had been raised when Siddiq told investigators he was nearby when the bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others went off. Syrian officials have privately said from the start that Siddiq was unreliable and was wanted in his own country on charges of fraud and desertion. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told CNN shortly before Kanaan's death that his country was not involved in Hariri's death and that he could never have ordered the murder. Should the United Nations conclude that Syrians were involved, they would be considered "traitors" who would face an international court or Syrian justice, he said.
International pressure and Lebanese street protests in the aftermath of Hariri's death ultimately forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in neighboring Lebanon, where it was the main power broker after the war.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 10:59 ||
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TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has asked the court trying Saddam Hussein for war crimes to charge the former Iraqi dictator with crimes from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, including the alleged use of chemical weapons, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Tuesday. Jamal Karimirad said the petition was filed through diplomatic channels Tuesday to the Baghdad court where Saddam goes on trial Wednesday. "The invasion of Iran in 1980 was definitely one of the crimes committed by Saddam. We want the court to investigate the charges brought by Iranian people," Karimirad told a press conference.
The charges in this case have not yet been specifically spelled out, but are expected to be laid out on the first day. The case centers on the role of Saddam and his seven co-defendants in a 1982 massacre of 143 people in Dujail, a mainly Shiite Muslim town north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt. So far, Saddam has not been charged with actions against Iran during the 1980-88 war.
Iran wants the court to include Saddam's invasion of Iran in the list of charges, Karimirad said. In 1991, the United Nations recognized Iraq as the aggressor in the 1980-88 war, which left more than 1 million dead on both sides. After Saddam's overthrow in 2003, Iraqi officials acknowledged that Iraq had initiated the war with Tehran. Karimirad said Saddam was a war criminal who should be brought to justice for using chemical weapons against Iranians, including civilians, in Sardasht, western Iran. Karimirad said the Sardasht attack was similar to Saddam's gassing of the Kurds in Halabja. "There is sufficient evidence to prove Saddam violated international treaties," Karimirad said.
But not enough to change the minds of the left
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 10:35 ||
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Shaddap. When we want your opinion, we'll slap it out of you.
Great stuff! Now, while we're all seeking redress of such breaches, how about that violation of International Soil which took place in Tehran back in 1979?
Iran can go help themselves to a nice tall cool foamy refreshing glass of STFU!
Iranian police said they had defused a large bomb planted under a bridge in the restive southwestern city of Ahvaz just days after a double bomb attack there killed six people and injured more than 100.
The police information centre told state television on Tuesday that local residents tipped off police after spotting a suspicious package under a busy bridge in the city, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province and dominated by ethnic minority Arabs.
The report said the package -- wired up and containing eight anti-personnel mines, around a kilogram (two pounds) of TNT, one stun grenade and a large number of fuses -- was successfully defused late on Monday.
Sounds like a IED you'd find next door in Iraq.
Khuzestan's deputy governor general in charge of security affairs, Gholam Reza Shariati, and other officials also told the student news agency ISNA that the bomb was clearly aimed at destroying Kianpars bridge, which links the east and west of Ahvaz city.
It would have to be a pretty puny bridge. Anti-personnel mines don't have a lot of explosives, mostly frag. Bridges take a lot to bring down.
Two bombs exploded outside a crowded market late Saturday in Ahvaz. Funerals of the victims were held on Monday, but the death toll could still rise given that several of those injured remain in a critical condition. No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Ahvaz has been hit by a wave of unrest this year, including ethnic riots in April and a series of car bombings prior to Iran's presidential elections in June.
Iranian officials have in the past blamed Arab separatist groups or Iranian opposition militants they say enjoy backing across the border in Iraq. Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he suspected British involvement in Saturday's bombing, an allegation that came hot on the heels of British complaints of Iranian meddling in Iraq. "Iran's security and intelligence officials have come across British footprints" in past attacks in the area, he said, adding that "we are strongly suspicious of British forces committing terrorist acts".
A more explicit allegation was made earlier Sunday by the head of Iran's Basij volunteer militia, Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, who said the blasts in Ahvaz "had a British accent". Britain has denied the allegations and condemned the attacks. It says it has also told Tehran that "the British government and British forces in Iraq stand ready to help in anyway they can to prevent attacks of this kind or identify those responsible and bring them to justice". Britain's charge d'affaires to Iran was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry Monday to hear a complaint over British allegations that Iran is meddling in Iraq.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials said last week there was evidence that a series of deadly attacks in southern Iraq lead back to Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Iran has dismissed the allegations as "absurd and baseless".
Posted by: Steve ||
10/18/2005 09:39 ||
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"Bah! Hezbollah is our dog!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/18/2005 11:12 Comments ||
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Two of the principles of sabotage are first, terrorism is far less effective at changing minds than is the perception of government incompetence; and second, that you should concentrate your efforts against the junction points, not individual targets.
In the first case, adding sugar to construction concrete to make it water soluble is more effective than blowing up whatever has been made after. Dull, boring and effective.
In the second case, it is far better to hopelessly tangle the wiring in a switching yard than it is to destroy a single set of tracks. Instead of a single nuisance, a hundred nuisances. (N.B.: when the railroad employees in the US went on strike, producing a similar effect, it cost the economy 300 BILLION dollars a day.)
The concept is just the opposite of terrorism, whose goals are to make a big, spectacular noise, and to let the man in the street know that the terrorist is responsible for it. The goal of effective sabotage is the target, not the publicity.
If the British or the US wanted to send Iran a message, it would not be gauged in blood and terror, but by the screams of accountants looking at the end of the month's books.
Syria's pullout from Lebanon has prompted armed Palestinian factions here to negotiate with Lebanon over giving up some weapons — a key U.N. and American demand that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. Lebanon's new prime minister has met with various Palestinian factions and the sides have formed a committee to arrange for the eventual removal of Palestinian weapons outside refugee camps and for their regulation inside camps. The committee also will examine the possibility of the Palestinians opening an embassy in Lebanon for the first time.
The weapons issue is expected to come up when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas meets this week in Paris with President Jacques Chirac of France, a sponsor of a 2004 U.N. resolution that called for disarming all militants in Lebanon, including Palestinian groups and Hezbollah. Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. special envoy on Syria and Lebanon, also will hold separate talks with Abbas and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on the Palestinian militias before both Arab leaders meet for a Paris summit Tuesday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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Eff all. Wot a whopping surprise that solitary roaming apocalyptic terrorist gunmen suddenly represent some sort of liability to the public weal. Lick it and like it you suicidal flat-lining submoronic oxygen parasites.
It's as if much of Muslim culture intentionally disregards the Cause & Effect principle due to it being an insoluable mystery of life.
Even as India tries to assess the real extent of losses suffered by damage caused by quake in Kashmir, two militants burst into the fortified Srinagar home of junior education minister Ghulam Nabi Lone and gunned him down. Terrorists, disguised as policemen sneaked into a highly guarded area here on Tuesday and shot dead the minister in a daring attack that also claimed three other lives. Two policemen and one of the attackers also died and five others were injured in the gunfight, which came less than a day after suspected rebels shot dead a prominent communist politician in Kashmir.
Posted by: john ||
10/18/2005 06:15 ||
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The outlaws who rode into Geneina on camelback one recent afternoon represent the latest grim chapter in the desert war in western Sudan. Janjaweed militias have focused their wrath on innocent villagers for most of the two and a half years of the conflict in the Darfur region. But on Sept. 18, in a scene that aid workers described as something out of a Hollywood western, the militiamen surrounded the police station along Sudan's border with Chad, roughed up the chief and freed several of their members from jail.
The fact that militias trained and armed by the government are now emboldened enough to turn their guns on the government is a sign of trouble. It was government support of the janjaweed at the outset that ignited the fighting in Darfur that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced two million villagers.
The standoff in Geneina, which together with other incidents prompted the United Nations to evacuate many of its personnel, is part of an overall deterioration in Darfur. The conflict has grown even more confused and chaotic in recent months. Now, rebels fight other rebels, the ties between some janjaweed fighters and the government have frayed, and the African Union troops charged with quelling the conflict find themselves targets as well.
"Darfur is no longer under control," said Eltayeb Hag Ateya, head of the Peace Studies Institute at the University of Khartoum. "It's not just the government against the rebels anymore. There's this armed group and that armed group. It's getting more complicated by the day."
The war here was never a straightforward one. It was part Arab versus African, part government versus rebel, part nomad versus farmer. But two rebel forces have now grown to five or more, with some fighters from neighboring Chad adding to what one aid worker in Darfur called "a cocktail of armed actors."
Some janjaweed fighters have put on government uniforms. Others maraud through the countryside taking orders from no one. With peace talks at a critical stage, the number of fighting forces jockeying for power seems to grow by the day.
Zam Zam, a former village in northern Darfur that has been transformed into a sprawling camp of people on the run from war, is one place that illustrates the new Darfur.
Things in Darfur can be deceptively calm at times - until hundreds of men on camelback come loping through the sand with their guns blazing. Or until rebels leap out from their cover in a surprise attack on government troops. Or until a government aircraft swoops in low.
Darfur's war began when two rebel groups opened attacks on the government in early 2003, accusing it of ignoring African tribes of Darfur. The Islamist government struck back, enlisting the aid of Darfur's Arab tribes. The militias destroyed hundreds of villages throughout Darfur, raping and pillaging as they sought to root out rebels and punish sympathizers.
Zam Zam, created in 2003, grew into one of Darfur's largest camps for internally displaced people. It has always been an insecure place, situated strategically near government and rebel strongholds. But something happened earlier this year that gave aid workers hope that Darfur might be changing for the better.
The population of the camp, which has crept higher and higher since the fighting started, finally began to drop. In May and June, hundreds and then thousands of people in Zam Zam and other camps around Darfur began returning home to cultivate their crops, a sign that normal life was returning to this desperate place.
But the hopeful signs did not last long. Just last month, after the villagers had hoed their plots and planted their vegetables and groundnuts and other crops, the militias attacked again.
"They came with cars, with horses and with camels," said Ali Mohamed Fadu, a sheik from Jabein, a village that was overrun on Sept. 17 for the second time in two years. "They all had guns, and they shot at us and killed some of us."
The accounts offered by villagers are remarkably similar to the ones heard at the start of the conflict, when people across Darfur were terrorized in attacks that the United States government said amounted to genocide.
With villagers on the run again, the population of Zam Zam is back on the rise, with thousands of new arrivals in the past three weeks.
Ismail Abduraman, 25, lost his father, who was a shopkeeper, in the recent attacks. After robbing him and shooting him, the militiamen looted his shop. In all the confusion, Mr. Abduraman became separated from 17 of his brothers and sisters.
While most people in Darfur contend that the countryside is far too dangerous for them these days, Mr. Abduraman is planning to return in search of his missing family members. He plans to take a donkey along and walk seven hours to the west, across the scorching sand.
"I have to go," he said. "I can't just sit here when my family is out there. My father would go, but he can't. I'm the elder now."
Farther east, in Tawila, the situation is similarly grim. African villagers congregate on the south side of the main road together with some fighters from the Sudan Liberation Army, the main rebel movement in Darfur. To the north is a police station where many of the officers are former militia fighters.
It is an explosive mix that has led to a series of shooting incidents in recent weeks. Terrified people from the area now huddle next to the African Union camp overlooking the town.
But the African soldiers are hamstrung by their rules of engagement, their lack of equipment and their inexperience in the field. When the police recently raided Tawila, shooting at suspected rebels and burning structures in the market, African Union soldiers watched from their hilltop perch but did not intervene.
It is impossible for them, however, to remain entirely on the sidelines. An African Union convoy was ambushed on Oct. 8 in the Khorabashi area in South Darfur. During an exchange of fire, four Nigerian soldiers and two civilian contractors were killed.
A day later, a renegade group of rebels abducted 38 African Union soldiers in the border town of Tine, warning the African Union not to tread in its territory. The soldiers were rescued after a battle between rival factions of the Justice and Equality Movement, which is one of the rebel groups opposed to the Sudanese government in Darfur.
Baba Gana Kingibe, the African Union's special representative in Sudan, said recently that there was "neither good faith nor commitment on the part of any of the parties."
Perhaps the most horrifying incident in the new Darfur occurred along the Chadian border at the Aro Sharow camp. On Sept. 28, several hundred janjaweed fighters raided the camp, killing 35 people and wounding 10 more. Most attacks occur for a reason here, and this one is believed to be tied to the killing of a janjaweed leader's children days before or, in another version, the theft of hundreds of camels from Arab tribesmen by rebel fighters.
If there is a hopeful sign in Darfur, it is this: Violence typically spikes in such conflicts when peace talks reach a critical phase. The negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, are in their sixth round, bogged down but not broken. The recent brutalities are seen as efforts by various fighting forces in Darfur to win a seat at the table or at least get access to some of the spoils.
But with the reality on the ground so grim, the traumatized people of Darfur seem to be growing almost numb. As Mr. Abduraman set off from the relative safety of the Zam Zam camp to the lawless interior, he had no weapon, little food and no real plan. He said he left his fate to God. "If the janjaweed find me, they will kill me," he said matter-of-factly as he crouched in the sand. "I will join my father."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:27 ||
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#1
Darfur were terrorized in attacks that the United States government said amounted to genocide.
Other than in the US, I guess it is still undecided what to call the massive killing of civilians. I prefer massacre. But I suppose slaughter, wipe out, mass murder, and eliminated get the point across.
#4
ah the old gangaweed, i'd almost forgotten about them and thier twisted ways. Hopefully they too will bite the bullet one of these days like Sammys boys did.
Posted by: Shep UK ||
10/18/2005 8:15 Comments ||
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#5
The fact that militias trained and armed by the government are now emboldened enough to turn their guns on the government is a sign of trouble.
The largest armed militant Islamic group in Algeria will renounce violence and give up its arms if the government met its three demands, former leader Hassan Hattab revealed last Friday.
In his first interview with the media, the Former head of the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) spoke to Asharq al Awsat and indicated he was still awaiting âconcrete actionsâ from the authorities, following the referendum on the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation.
He urged President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to refrain from accusing the armed men who rose up in protest against the âcoupâ of terrorism, in a reference to the army intervening to cancel the parliamentary elections which the Islamist won in 1991. He also called on his followers to âhalt violent activities and remain in their positions and continue to make demands.â
Also known as Abu Hamza, Hattab said he expected the authorities to âstop accusing my brothers in arms with terrorism, extend equal treatment to all and end double standards.â
Referring to himself in the plural, the ex-militant leader added, âWe are waiting for Sheikh Ali Benhaj [the second in command in the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)] to be released and given a role in the national reconciliation process.â Hattab called for the banned FIS to resume its political activities and ânot to be held responsible for the violent crisisâ of the last decade.
Asharq al Awsat met the founder of the GSPC in a non-descript house located 100km east of the capital Algiers where he has been active for several years.
Since the end of September, Hattab has been meeting with his followers who broke away from the group following his resignation.
During the meeting, he wore traditional Afghan garb and turban and held a laptop continuously by his side. He appeared in a hurry as he answered questions briefly and requested that Asharq al Awsat not pressure him to give lengthy replies, since âan important matter is waiting for meâ, in reference to his efforts to convince his followers to lay down arms.
After breaking away from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Hattab formed the GSPS in 1998 with others who became disillusioned with the GIA accusing it of âdeviating from lawful jihadâ.
Married with children, the 38-year-old is currently coordinating with the security services to convince fighters to halt violent attacks and turn their backs to extremist elements in the GIA who have refused to stop terrorist acts.
Commenting on his twelve years as an armed Islamic fighter, Hattab blamed the government for ârepeatedly breaking its promises. It forced us to continue armed fighting.â
As for recent attempts at reconciliation, âa number of elements have encouraged us, especially the call by a number of Islamic scholars to put down arms and work with other sections of Algeria society, as well as changes in internal policies and the people increasingly demanding peace. Together, all these events have convinced us that continuing along the path we chose in the 1990s in futile.â
Asked about the circumstances surrounding his resignation as head of the Salafi Group, almost two years ago, Hattab said, âI willingly renounced the leadership in September 200. No one forced to take this step after the dialogue for national reconciliation opened a new chapter in my life. My resignation signaled the start of my efforts to reconcile the people of Algeria without marginalizing any section of society.â
He accuses his successor, Nabil Sharaoui, killed by the army in the summer of 2004, of ordering the assassination of a young imam in the capital, nicknamed Abu Hafs and known for working with the armed forces to convince fighters to halt their terrorist attacks. âI remember repeatedly meeting Abu Hafs throughout 2000 in hideouts for the GSPC. In our last meeting, we disagreed after he presented us with an offer for a ceasefire but I never wanted him dead. When other members decided to murder him, I objected vehemently objectedâ, Hattab said. âOnly after I left the group, did these extremist members seized the chance and carried out their plans.â
Hattab stated that the majority of fighters belonging to the GSPC wanted to join the national reconciliation process but âleaving the mountains [where their hideouts are located] is directly linked to their demands being met. It requires all sides to work together to ensure these conditions are metâ, in an indication of the three demands he had made earlier in the interview: refraining from accusing GSPC members of terrorism, releasing Benhaj and the FIS resuming its activities.
The former head of the GSPC categorically denied any relationship between his militant group and Osama bin Laden. âSince its inception and until the day of my resignation, the GSPC had no links whatsoever to al Qaeda.â The current leader Abdel Malik Daroqebel had pledged allegiance to al Qaeda and revealed that contact with its leaders had taken lace through the internet.
Declining to discuss the internal politics of SG and the number of fighters loyal to it (estimated at 800 by the Interior Minister) as well as answer questions on an attempt to kill him by ex-followers in 2004, Hattab pointed out, âThe current situation does not allow me to answer these questions. I am on the verge of an important action and every word I say matters.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:18 ||
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The Gambian security forces are reported to have arrested two South African Muslim clerics last week, according to South Africa's Pretoria News.
No reason has been given for the arrest of a Pretoria father and son both of who are religious leaders in the South African Muslim community.
Their country's Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday confirmed that Moulanas (clerics) Farhaad Ahmed Dockrat and his son Muaaz had been detained in The Gambia. The department, however, would not say when or why they were arrested. Members of the Muslim Community in South Africa were earlier requested in mosques to pray for the Erasmia pair's release, shortly after they failed to return to South Africa on October 4.
According to Pretoria News, Farhaad Dockrat, in his mid-40s, has been the principal of the Darus Salaam Islamic College in Laudium for the past 20 years. His son, in his 20s, is a lecturer at the school. Family member Ashraf Dockrat was reporting as saying on Tuesday that the two men left South Africa for Senegal on September 27. "A Gambian student, Hafiz Omar Saikou Wally, who studied at the college where the two Moulanas taught, accompanied them. Mr. Wally would have taken them from Senegal to Gambia in a vehicle to show them the teaching methods used in the Islamic centres in that region," said Dockrat, speaking on behalf of the family. "However, the father and son did not return home as planned.
When they failed to arrive, the family contacted a person in Dakar, Senegal. This person followed their trail to a lodge, but there the trail went cold. They had no contact with anyone in South Africa since they left."
"It was also confirmed that Mr. Wally had no contact with his family in The Gambia and they haven't received the parcel of textbooks Mr. Wally was supposed to give them," Dockrat said.
Pretoria News stated that the men's worried family contacted the South African Department of Foreign Affairs the same day they failed to return home. It added that on Tuesday, the Foreign Affairs department informed them that the three travellers were being held by The Gambian security services.
A prominent scholar of the Tshwane Muslim School, who according to Pretoria News preferred to remain anonymous, said the family and the South African Muslim Community feared that the CIA might be involved, claiming that any travelling Muslim is regarded as a terrorist.
A local businessman, the report added expressed the same sentiment, adding that Muslims were intimidated and victimised everywhere, including South Africa. He claimed all Muslims were being blamed for the recent bombings in England and Bali.
Another community member alleged that the Dockrats were arrested because one of Farhaad Dockrat's students Ismail Zoubair was also arrested in Pakistan last year for allegedly having links with al-Qaeda. He was later released along with another South African, Feroze Ganchi without being charged. Zoubair had studied under Farhaad Dockrat in Laudium prior to his arrest in Pakistan during a raid on a house in which firearms; ammunition, explosive vests and maps were allegedly found.
South Africa's Foreign Affairs spokesman Nomfanelo Kota confirmed that the department's officials had met with the family on Tuesday. "We would keep in contact with the family and inform them of any news about their faith."
However, frantic efforts made to solicit clarifications from Gambian authorities proved futile. The permanent secretary at the Department of State for Foreign Affairs, Ebou Taal described the story as news to him.
"The department is yet to be in the picture."
The Department of State for Interior, according an official who identified himself as the deputy permanent secretary is also not in the picture.
The Director General of the NIA, Daba Marena could not be reach for comment.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/18/2005 02:13 ||
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Somali police chief and former militia commander was arrested Monday on suspicions of war crimes after attending a conference in Sweden, police and organizers said.
Abdi Hassan Awale, was arrested after Somalis in the Nordic country recognized him and reported him to police, said Gillian Nilsson, an organizer of the conference. Awale, also known as Abdi Qeybdiid, was the commander of warlord Farah Aidid's troops that fought American peacekeepers in Mogadishu in the early 1990s. One of those confrontations in 1993 was featured in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down," and left 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis dead.
Police spokesman Karl Sandberg would not confirm the suspect's identity, but said he was arrested early Monday at a hotel in Lund and was brought to the west coast city of Goteborg to be questioned by prosecutors. Sandberg said the 57-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of genocide, although police did not specify what crimes he had allegedly committed.
Police in Goteborg questioned him Monday, his lawyer, Pieter Kjessler said. "He claims that the accusations are false," Kjessler told Swedish public radio.
"Lies! All lies!"
Kjessler said the interrogation was interrupted because the suspect did not trust the translator that was provided and demanded to meet members of the delegation that he traveled to Sweden with.
So he could pass on information and warnings.
Awale, who was a colonel in Somalia's former army, was named interior minister in the former unrecognized government that was declared in the capital after Barre's ouster.
U.S. troops launched an attack on Awale's home on July 12, 1993, from which he escaped unharmed - though 54 other people were killed. He later joined the militia led by warlord Osman Ali Ato.
The interior minister in Somalia's divided government appointed him as the national police chief, but the prime minister named another person to the same position.
Nilsson said Awale was part of a six-member Somali delegation headed by Parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden that attended the conference on development in the Horn of Africa.
Police spokesman Mats Glansberg said prosecutors have until Thursday to decide whether to ask a court to keep the man detained. He said it was unclear whether a foreign citizen suspected of genocide can stand trial in a Swedish court, or whether he would be extradited to an international tribunal. "It is very complicated," Glansberg said. "We have to clarify this legal situation. It may be more complicated than investigating the actual charges."
The news of Awale's arrest was welcomed by some Somalis living abroad. "We were joyous to hear this," said Omar Jamal, of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn. "It sends a loud and clear message to all the other Somali war criminals."
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Yea extradite him to the ICC so they can give him 5 years for genocide.
#2
Yes, but first he will spend how many years in the ICC courtroom being tried? That itself is punishment for the kind of free spirit accustomed to domininating his environment by extreme violence. Inadequate, I agree, but not exactly unencumbered release to the outside world, to go merrily skipping through the meadows picking daisies.
#3
was this like when Homer Simpson thought he'd won a speed boat but really wigam and co had set up a sting operation to lure him and others in. ' Congratulations Abdi you've just won a brand new speedboat , come to Sweden to collect it' Muhahaha
Posted by: Shep UK ||
10/18/2005 8:57 Comments ||
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In a fresh bout of violence in Afghanistan, insurgents shot dead two more pro-government clerics in the troubled southern and eastern parts of the country. Maulvi Mohammad Gul, member of the Ulema Council in Afghanistan's Helmand province, and Maulvi Noor Ahmad, member of the Kunar Ulema Council, were killed in overnight attacks by armed men believed to be activists of the ousted Taliban movement. Earlier, a pro-government scholar Maulvi Mohammad Khan was killed in an explosion in the southwestern Khost province.
Officials here, confirming the fresh incidents of violence, said Monday Maulvi Gul was killed when he was offering his night prayer in his native town of Lashkargah. In the second attack that was carried out in Kunar, armed men entered into the house of Maulvi Noor Ahmad and opened fire at him. Both slain clerics were supporting the incumbent government in Kabul. Taliban had warned they would kill those who support the government and the presence of US military in Afghanistan.
The recent killings brought the death toll of pro-government religious scholars to seven. Earlier, Taliban had gunned down eminent scholar and chief of the Kandahar Ulema Council Maulvi Abdullah Fayaz inside his office. His assassination was followed by murder of Ulema Council chief of the neighboring Helmand province.
In a separate attack in Helmand, Taliban fighters attacked a group of security officers killing an intelligence officer and a policeman while two other police officers suffered injuries. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks through statements by spokesman Mohammad Yousaf.
Meanwhile, people in Khost continued their demonstrations for the third day against the killing of Maulvi Mohammad Khan. Thousands of protestors, raising slogans against terrorists, took to the streets to press the government to arrest the perpetrators. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had earlier condemned the killing and directed the law enforcing agencies to immediately net down the terrorists.
It's like they read Rantburg and Rummy doesn't. I've been suggesting we dispatch kill squads to take out the bad guyz' leaders almost since we started. The Talibs â or more likely their Qaeda controllers, who seem to be somewhat brighter â can obviously see the utility. Had we been sending our own hit squads all along, this might not be happening now. "Pay me now, pay me later."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
DHAKA An object believed to be a time device was found at the courtyard of Gopalganj District and Sessions Judgeâs residence on Sunday morning, witnesses said, as suspected religious zealots have tried such tactics to frighten people at some other places across the country. Police claimed that the object looked like a time bomb but there were no explosives in the device. Sources said a night guard and a cleaner at judge M Murshed Alamâs house discovered the âtime bombâ at about 9.30 am and informed the judge. On information, police rushed in and recovered the âbombâ along with a handwritten leaflet that called for establishment of "Islamic rule" in the country. Police claimed unidentified "miscreants" lobbed the object inside the compound of the official house of the judge in the morning. The object contained time-bomb devices, including battery, electric wire and circuit, but no explosives. It was done "to create panic", they said. 
A joint force of police and Coast Guard arrested 13 pirates after heavy exchange of fire with Bashar bahini at Caring Char today. Coast Guard sources said joint drive against the pirates began today with a 133-member team that ambushed those hiding in Caring Char early in the morning. Heavy exchange of fire took place. Thirteen pirates trying to flee were held. But no arms could be recovered. Some eight machangs inside the forest or hideouts of the pirates were set on fire. There is no habitation yet in Caring Char.
Top Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility in an Internet message for raids on the southern Russian city of Nalchik that left more than 100 people dead. "I was responsible for the general operational guidance" of the attacks on Nalchik, a message posted on a web site regularly used by Chechen rebels quoted Basayev as saying.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. 
Up to 11 insurgents were killed and 70 others were arrested by the Iraqi forces during operations and an armed confrontation in the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. A statement for the Iraqi Defense Ministry affirmed Monday that the Iraqi forces, backed up by the US forces killed 11 insurgents and arrested 57 others in a security operation conducted in Al-Mahmoudiyah town in the province of Babel in southern Iraq.
Two explosive devices were detonated Monday by police in Waset province in southern Iraq. An Iraqi police source said that the two explosive devices were planted along a road leading to the Iraqi army and police camps west of Al-Suweirah. The source added that a third explosive device blew up on the same road after a military convoy drove through there, but no casualties or damages have been reported.
Palestinian factions on Sunday announced joint responsibility for attacking a number of Israeli soldiers nearby Bethlehem, killing four Israelis. In a press release, the Martyr Yasser Arafat Brigade and Fateh Falcon's Group of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announced responsibility for the armed operation nearby Gush Etzion near the city of Bethlehem.
Israeli forces arrested 20 Palestinians Monday in the West Bank and laid a tight siege against Palestinian land, preventing citizens from driving their private vehicles across cities. The Israeli radio said that Defense Minister 
Syria's pullout from Lebanon has prompted armed Palestinian factions here to negotiate with Lebanon over giving up some weapons — a key U.N. and American demand that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. Lebanon's new prime minister has met with various Palestinian factions and the sides have formed a committee to arrange for the eventual removal of Palestinian weapons outside refugee camps and for their regulation inside camps. The committee also will examine the possibility of the Palestinians opening an embassy in Lebanon for the first time.
Even as India tries to assess the real extent of losses suffered by damage caused by quake in Kashmir, two militants burst into the fortified Srinagar home of junior education minister Ghulam Nabi Lone and gunned him down. Terrorists, disguised as policemen sneaked into a highly guarded area here on Tuesday and shot dead the minister in a daring attack that also claimed three other lives. Two policemen and one of the attackers also died and five others were injured in the gunfight, which came less than a day after suspected rebels shot dead a prominent communist politician in Kashmir.
The outlaws who rode into Geneina on camelback one recent afternoon represent the latest grim chapter in the desert war in western Sudan. Janjaweed militias have focused their wrath on innocent villagers for most of the two and a half years of the conflict in the Darfur region. But on Sept. 18, in a scene that aid workers described as something out of a Hollywood western, the militiamen surrounded the police station along Sudan's border with Chad, roughed up the chief and freed several of their members from jail.
In a fresh bout of violence in Afghanistan, insurgents shot dead two more pro-government clerics in the troubled southern and eastern parts of the country. Maulvi Mohammad Gul, member of the Ulema Council in Afghanistan's Helmand province, and Maulvi Noor Ahmad, member of the Kunar Ulema Council, were killed in overnight attacks by armed men believed to be activists of the ousted Taliban movement. Earlier, a pro-government scholar Maulvi Mohammad Khan was killed in an explosion in the southwestern Khost province.
