A remote-controlled bomb ripped through a vehicle in volatile southern Afghanistan, killing a district government chief and two police officers, and wounding three others, authorities said Saturday.
The blast occurred Friday evening on a road in the Shawali Kot district north of Kandahar, deputy district police chief Obaidullah Khan said.
District administration chief Hayatullah Popul and two police officers traveling with him were killed, and three other officers were seriously wounded, Khan said, blaming the bombing on Taliban insurgents.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:26 ||
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A Yemeni court of appeals on Saturday upheld the death sentence against a Shia cleric and a ten-year prison term against another over spying for Iran and supporting an armed rebellion by a Shia group in northern Yemen last year.
The court decided to refer the death sentence handed by a lower court to Yahya Hussein Al Dailami and the ten-year jail term given to Muhammad Ahmad Muftah to the Supreme Court.
A state security court convicted the pair on May 29 of âhaving contacts with the state Iran with the aim of harming the diplomatic and political position of Yemen.â
The two men, who are mosque preachers in the capital Sanaâa, were also found guilty of âconspiring to overthrow the republican regime.â
Prosecutors said Al Dailami had maintained contacts with the Iranian ambassador in Sanaa seeking support for his group.
Dailami also âtravelled to Iran and made contacts with the Iranian state seeking support for an Islamic revolution in Yemen,â read the initial verdict.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:32 ||
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Police have detained a total of 97 people over two days in connection with three bombings earlier this week in Bangladesh, which killed 14 people.
Eighty-five people were detained Friday night, and another 12 on Saturday, according to police headquarters in Dhaka.
Also, the mayor of the city of Sylhet, about 192 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Dhaka, escaped assassination Friday night after two grenades thrown at him failed to explode, authorities said. And a bomb was discovered at a school east of Dhaka.
On Thursday, Bangladeshi police said they had arrested the suspected bomber believed to be responsible for a deadly explosion that killed at least one person and injured 10 others at a police checkpoint in Gazipur, near a group of attorneys protesting a suicide bombing in Gazipur earlier this week.
The suicide bombing Tuesday at Gazipur's court library and another in the port city of Chittagong killed at least 13 people and wounded scores more, police said.
Authorities believe all the incidents are linked to the banned Islamic militant group Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:31 ||
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Coming to a Crossfire Gazette in the near future ...
Local people after detaining a fake RAB officer handed him to the RAB. The incident took place at Thakurpara area in the town on November 27.
Source said, Golam Sarwar Rubel of Kushtia district in the camouflage of RAB official framed a false case against secretary of Jatiyatabadi Freedom Fighter Abu Taher Majumder and after that had been demanding Tk one lakh from him threatening him with cross fire in default of payment.
One lakh is about ... $0.00004?
On November 27 night, the fake RAB official came to the residence of Abu Taher Majumder at Thakurpara and demanded the amount.
"Yer money or yer life!"
[pause]
"I said, yer money or yer life!"
"I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'!"
The inmates of the house challenged him and wanted to see his identity card. This made Rubel frightened, who confessed that he was a fake RAB Officer.
Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?
The matter was brought to the knowledge of RAB-7 Chittagong. The RAB members came to the spot and arrested Rubel.
"Youse coming with us, Rubel."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 09:55 ||
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Jatiyatabadi Freedom Fighter Abu Taher Majumder and after that had been demanding Tk one lakh from him threatening him with cross fire in default of payment.
One of the Mod's breaking RB rulz or is this legit?
A suspected top leader of Janajuddha faction of the outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party was killed in âcrossfireâ between his accomplices and members of the Rapid Action Battalion at Rupsha in Khulna early Friday, raising the âcrossfireâ death toll to 452 since June 2004.
Another commie. Like the other Steve says, it's too bad we don't see any Islamists caught in 'crossfire' incidents ...
The deceased was identified as Md Sumon Ahmed alias Sumon alias Sohel, 30, of Basupara area under Sonadanga in the Khulna city.
No, I don't know where that is.
He was the second-in-command of PBCP Janajuddha and also the Khulna divisional chief of the outlawed party.
Oh, a number two! And now he's dead.
A RAB 6 of Khulna press release said a team of the RAB headquarters arrested Sumon, accused in at least eight criminal cases, from Mohammadpur in the Dhaka city Thursday evening. He is also a charge sheeted accused in the Khulna local daily Janmabhumi editor, Humayun Kabeer Balu murder.
So it's doubtful his mother will miss him.
Basing his statement, ...
"Umm, are those number 7 pliers? I'll talk, I'll talk!"
...RAB men took him to village Naihati in the early hours of Friday to recover firearms hidden there and to nab his accomplices, the release added.
Yet another cache of hidden firearms. That shutter gun sure gets around.
As they reached Kalibari of the village, Sumonâs cohorts opened fire on them and RAB retaliated, which resulted in a gunfight between them.
Once again, the bad guys aim random, wildly inaccurate fire at the RAB, which has the predictable effect ...
While trying to escape, Sumon was caught in the line of fire.
Yes, his feets failed him, and his last words were, 'rosebud'.
The RAB men took him to a nearby hospital where the on-duty doctor declared him dead.
"Don't bother with the trauma surgeon, just page Dr. Quincy."
The RAB release they also recovered a revolver, two choppers and nine rounds of bullets from the spot.
They recovered two sets of false teeth?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 09:48 ||
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also recovered a revolver
I see the old 1965 .38 J frame is back from the cleaners.
Posted by: N guard ||
12/03/2005 11:03 Comments ||
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DHAKA - Bangladesh police said Saturday that more than 200 suspects have been rounded up as part of an investigation into a series of deadly bomb blasts by militants seeking the imposition of strict Islamic law.
Police said they had conducted a series of raids across the country since Tuesday when two suicide bombers killed 11 and injured dozens in the central city of Gazipur and the southeastern city of Chittagong. âWe are conducting raids all over the country to arrest suspected militants. Since Tuesday we have detained more than 200 in connection with the bombings,â national police chief Abdul Kaiyum told AFP.
Police have blamed outlawed Islamic extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen for a series of attacks since August 17, when the country was hit by 434 small blasts. At least 18 people, including judges, lawyers and police officers, were killed in those attacks. Leaflets bearing the groupâs name and calling for the establishment of Islamic law were found at all the blast sites.
Kaiyum said police were hopeful that the fugitive leader of Jamayetul Mujahideen, Shaikh Abdur Rahman -- an Afghan war veteran who returned home in the late 1990s to form the outlawed group -- would soon be captured. A senior officer of the elite Rapid Action Battalion said apartments, hotels and guest houses in the capital Dhaka had been raided late Friday as part of the search for Rahman.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 09:44 ||
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They'll have to build "Deserted Disneyland Dhaka" to hold all the tribunals crossfires in.
The film is shaky, its pixillated frames jarring as it scans across the contents of the makeshift morgue. A leg, a dark mound of pubic hair, a heavily burned head, a broad chest that must for years have seemed invulnerable. About 60 bodies are heaped without decency or clothing on the floor of the refrigerated wagon, their blank faces caught by the mobile phone's camera.
"It looks like something from Treblinka," says Raya, whose son Vyacheslav, 30, a former Russian special forces soldier, lies among the dead. "I looked for him for a week before I found him there."
Yet the authorities say these are not the bodies of victims but of "terrorists", some of at least 92 men shot dead by special forces when they staged one of the biggest uprisings in Russia since the second Chechen war in 1999. On October 13, about 200 men in the sleepy southern spa town of Nalchik staged simultaneously eight armed attacks on police stations, the headquarters of the security and prison services.
The attacks failed spectacularly. Groups of about eight to 10 men, many from the town's educated, young middle classes, appeared hopelessly ill-trained to face Russia's souped-up special forces. One witness who watched the storming of the security services building recalls hearing them shouting frantically at each other: "How do you reload a grenade launcher?"
Officials say that the attacks began when police unearthed an arms dump meant to supply a larger uprising in early November, and the militants decided to go for broke, summoned by just a phone call from the underground Islamic groups that they had joined.
Police responded with brutal efficiency and the insurgency was over within hours. In total, officials said, 33 police and 12 civilians died, far fewer casualties than after previous attacks by Islamic militants in the region. But the violence had one undeniable consequence: Russia had lost the control and the cooperation of yet another town in the troubled north Caucasus.
In mid-2002, when I first came to the region, extremist and separatist violence was limited to the grey ruins of Chechnya, crippled by two separatist wars in the 90s. But by 2003, the violence had begun to spread to neighbouring Ingushetia, then further west to the tiny town of Beslan in September last year. By the end of this year, months of violence in Dagestan, to Chechnya's east, and the Nalchik attacks in the previously dozy republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, proved conclusively that the Kremlin had failed to keep a lid on the violent radicalisation of an entire region. Moscow may blame foreign fundamentalism for infecting its southern flank, but it is clear that Europe now has its own indigenous Islamist movement with militant teeth, what one analyst close to the Putin administration has called a "Russian Hamas". Extremists within the movement advocate establishing by force an Islamist caliphate across the north Caucasus.
Last Sunday, Russia attempted to complete the political solution it has imposed on the republic by holding parliamentary elections, a final bid to convince the outside world that the conflict is ebbing rather than intensifying. Ahead of the vote, I travelled from Nalchik in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria through five other republics to see how and why Islamic radicalism began to captivate the north Caucasus.
The bodies of the dead of Nalchik will not be returned to their relatives. Russian anti-terrorist laws forbid it, but critics say the move is designed to thwart the Muslim imperative to bury the dead within 24 hours.
Raya's son Vyacheslav had wanted to be a policeman when he left the elite Russian special forces. "He tried to join, but I did not have the money to pay the bribe needed to get a job there," she says. "Nobody needs people like him, who don't smoke, drink or pay bribes. All he wanted to do was live cleanly and honestly." She says her son joined a local "jamaat", or council, a strict Islamic group which claims to offer an alternative system of justice to the corruption of the local authorities.
Raya's membership of the jamaat and regular attendance at a mosque attracted the attention of the local police, says his mother. He was arrested twice, she says, once as he left prayer. "They beat him, once on the kidneys so badly that he could not work [as a builder] for a week. After you go through that, you are ready to do anything."
Tales of police abuse are echoed by others. Fatima Mamayeva's husband, Timur, is now on a police wanted list for suspected involvement in the uprising; earlier this year, he was arrested and heavily beaten four times. "They put a plastic bag over his head to partially suffocate him." She says police recently joked to her that she will have to take revenge as a "shakhidka", or female suicide bomber.
Another suspect is Rasul Kudayev, a former wrestling champion whom the Russian authorities cite as proof of the international connection to the militants. Kudayev was arrested in Afghanistan by US troops in 2001 and held in Guantánamo Bay. In May 2004, he returned home to Nalchik, telling his family he had been given mysterious coloured pills and subjected to extreme temperatures, irritant gels and stress positions. He told them that local police continued to harass him for months and then accused him of attacking a police checkpoint on October 13. They arrested him 10 days later. His lawyer, Irina Komissarova, says that when she saw him on October 26 he had to be carried into the room and had clearly been beaten.
One woman, Ira, had two sons who died in the arrests, Rustam, 25, and Ansur, 21. She says they were both graduates with no history of arrest. "If they are guilty, then they are guilty, but how can they be terrorists? They attacked government buildings and police."
The mobile phone film of the morgue is circulating, and fuelling their anger. "What do you think is going to happen next if we can't get the bodies?" says Rustam, hinting at further insurrection. "What would you want to do?"
Moscow's bid to master the predominantly Muslim Caucasus is a centuries-old and turbulent enterprise, born in tsarist times of an imperial need to "civilise" a neighbouring people. But since the fall of the proudly secular Soviet Union, corrupt local government and intense poverty have been the catalyst of an Islamic revival in the north Caucasus.
The Kremlin has often played down social decline in this tinderbox region. But in June this year, Putin's envoy to the north Caucasus, Dmitri Kozak, wrote a report for his boss that said intense local corruption, unemployment and police abuses were bolstering the role "extremist groups" and "Sharia enclaves" were playing in the region. Poverty hasn't helped; over the past three years, the United Nations Development Programme in Moscow has noted, living standards have risen across Russia but remained the same in the north Caucasus. In this climate, anger has grown, and the response from Moscow has been brutal, the practical application of Putin's famous promise to "kill the terrorists in the outhouse". All of which has made the Islamist alternative appear more attractive.
Rasul is a senior figure in the Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat. Young, well shaven and liberally doused in aftershave, Rasul is the only one of three deputies to the jamaat's head - a fugitive ideologist called Musa Mukhozhev - who is not on the run or believed to be dead.
Rasul spent three and a half years at a retreat in Saudi Arabia, where he learned Arabic. His jamaat, which forms smaller deputy councils in each village, requires that its members go to the mosque as often as possible to pray. "The jamaat is never supposed to do anything against the local government," he says. "We go to the local administration and say that we have a group of young, physically fit volunteers who are ready to help people with any problem." He says the groups, which are often led by a young man rather than a village elder, follow a contemporary take on sharia law that bans drinking and frowns upon smoking and premarital sex. Suspected criminals are called to make amends before their peers and are threatened with expulsion from the jamaat, he says. Would the group ever use violence to further its ends? "Yes. When we have to."
Rasul blames the Nalchik attacks on a months-long crackdown by police against suspected radicals. "They started arresting the youth in the villages," he says. "They were shaving crosses in their heads." He says many were tortured: a 28-year-old had a bottle inserted in his rectum and had to go to hospital to have it removed; people were battered on the kidneys; fingers were slammed in doors. A spokeswoman for the Kabardino-Balkaria police denied all accusations of torture and said such "rumours" are distributed by those interested in "destabilising the republic".
Rasul says most participants in the October 13 violence were "well connected" to local jamaats. "There is not one person who took part in that who was not beaten by the police," he claims. "If the torture continues then it [the conflict] will become more radical. If they keep beating our sisters and parking armoured personnel carriers near our houses, then the 4,800 men left in the jamaats will not listen to Musa [Mukhozhev, their leader]. They will not listen to anyone."
A lockdown now chokes Nalchik. Thousands of Russian troops, drafted in from across Russia's south, stand on street corners and sleep in school gyms, where six-year-olds now go to school next to men with AK47s. One senior Russian ministry of interior officer says: "Chechnya is now in the 10th stage [of insurgency]. They are getting cleverer and cleverer. But this place is in stage one. We have to take hardcore measures; it will die down and we can go home."
To reach Chechnya, I have to pass through the republics of North Ossetia and Ingushetia. The former is home to Beslan, where at least 32 gunmen held a school hostage last September, killing 331, roughly half of whom were children. In 2002, the United Nations rated Ingushetia as the second worst place to live in Russia (after the remote republic of Tyva, just north of Mongolia). Since then it has also begun to resemble a conflict zone. In June last year, militants took over the capital Nazran for a night, killing up to 100 local police.
Chechnya's own capital, Grozny, is a city ground down to a dusty despair. When I arrived, prior to the elections on Sunday, it was under a deep fog. The vote marked an almost surreal attempt to impose some common ground on the warring factions among Chechen society, whose internecine violence is proving such a powerful recruiting tool for Islamic militants. The pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, won nearly two-thirds of the votes, amid widespread accusations of serious electoral fraud.
In March 2003, the Kremlin handed over control of Chechnya to a loyal group of Chechens headed by the mayor of Grozny, Akhmed Kadyrov. Installed as president in October that year, he and his son Ramzan, 28, began buying up an impressive army of former militants and mercenaries that became known as the "Kadyrovtsi" - Kadyrov's people.
The Kremlin gave these pro-Russian Chechens the task of suppressing fellow Chechen separatists and militants, thus turning Chechen against Chechen. The Kadyrovtsi, who quickly earned the Russian military's brutal reputation, have gradually become the republic's new caretakers.
There are now four main groupings among the pro-Russian Chechens, some more orderly than others. On June 4, a unit from one of the battalions carried out an operation on the border between Chechnya and Dagestan. Just after 4pm, 300 masked troops burst into the village of Borozdinovskaya and, in an uncomfortable echo of the Beslan massacre, herded its men into the school, where they were held, say witnesses, for nine hours. Eleven men were led away and have not been heard of since.
It's a familiar equation, one that Zerem, a senior commander in another unit, says makes the militants even more popular. "All the time we are bickering among ourselves, they get stronger and stronger," he says, pointing to a region on a map of Chechnya on the wall of his Grozny office. With his finger he draws an oval around four villages in the south: the volatile Vedeno and Nozhai-Yurt regions. In this region, Zerem says, the militant leader Doha Umarov commands 200 men out of a scattered force of about 3,000 Islamic militants.
Zerem says this year eight men have left his home village to join the Islamists. "The militants are agitating very strongly right now. They have a recruiter in every village. The government is paying no attention to the youth at the moment, and if someone is beaten, let's say by federal troops, he will join the militants to take revenge."
High in the hills of the mountains above the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala, about four hours' drive from Grozny, is the village of Ghimri. A ramshackle tunnel bores through the mountains for the last three miles, leading out on to what seems like a different country, the green star and crescent flags of Islam peppering the unrefined beauty of the landscape.
The local school teaches Arabic, women cover their hair, arms and legs, and in rare cases, their faces. When someone was last caught drinking two years ago, they got 40 lashes. Local criminals are asked to repent before their peers at the local mosque. Most residents claim the village adheres to some form of sharia law; whether it adheres to Russian law is open to question. In May three men shot dead a local police chief who was trying to stop them blowing up the tunnel to the village. They hid in Ghimri, the village refused to give them up and the police dared not enter.
Outside the mosque, Magomed-Ali, 17, says: "We have sharia here. Theft does not occur. People do not drink. Some smoke, but only a bit." The town has its own jamaat that works alongside (some say above) the local administration.
Habib, 27, moved here after finishing his Islamic studies in Syria in 2001. "Each person has their own path and we have ours here," he says. "You know the situation. Our youth talk about jihad. I have my children, my family and we all fulfil what we can of our Islamic obligations."
Habib expresses concern that the federal authorities might move to reassert secular control over the village. "Who wants their home destroyed?" he asks. He is right to be concerned. The town of Karamakhi , a mucky cabbage plantation a few hours drive from Ghimri, renounced Russian rule and declared itself under sharia law in 1998. By September the next year, Putin's military had removed many of the roofs from the village's houses, leaving its 5,000 residents to live among the ruins. According to Ibadullah Mukayev, now the head of the local administration, at least 50 residents were killed. "People saw how bad it was," says Mukayev, "what happened to their homes. If you go against Russia, where do you go?"
But Dagestan retains active, extremist local jamaats. Explosions and gunfights have claimed the lives of police and militants almost every second day since January. In Makhachkala, I am given a propaganda video made by local young "mujahideen" by a militant sympathiser who gives his name only as Abdul. The son of a well-known Islamic ideologist in the region, he begins the now familiar justification. He was himself tortured by the police two years ago, he says. "They picked me up off the street, and knew who I was. They beat me with telephone cables, batons. They put a gas mask on my head and beat my chest. I weighed 70 kilograms when I went in, and 47 when I came out two months later." He lists other torture methods he has heard of: objects violently inserted into the anus, women and children raped in front of male relatives. The Dagestani police deny all allegations of torture.
Like Rasul in Nalchik, Abdul is a meek young man reeking of aftershave. Yet his rhetoric becomes less gentle when he speaks of what should follow. "The reaction of any man to this is to take up arms and get revenge. The jamaat provides a focus for the soul, and our members are not the unemployed or discontented, but the educated and middle class. We have lost 40 Dagestani members of the jamaat so far this year against the police. The aim of the jamaat is to create a united Islamic caliphate in the north Caucasus and live as is written in the Koran. Will the fight be difficult? Yes. It is written that it should be."
Civilian casualties are an "unintentional consequence" of jihad, he says. As we pass a checkpoint, he winds up the window between him and the police officer outside and continues with an ominous confidence.
"No part of this jamaat is underground. We can all go where we want, rent a flat, raise a family, travel to Moscow." He mocks police incompetence: "They do not know who we are." Then he shakes my hand in parting, courteous and demure. "Assalam alaikum," he says. Peace be with you.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 01:34 ||
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High in the hills of the mountains above the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala, about four hours' drive from Grozny, is the village of Ghimri. A ramshackle tunnel bores through the mountains for the last three miles, leading out on to what seems like a different country, the green star and crescent flags of Islam peppering the unrefined beauty of the landscape.
Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with Al Ruterscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the shakhidka with the sun in her eyes,
And sheâs gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/03/2005 2:16 Comments ||
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#2
The Guardian is spreading its muck again. In summary: they did it, the Russian spcecial forces guys killed them while they were doing it, and the families are upset that as a consequence the bodies of the dead are heaped naked somewhere, and won't be given back for a proper Muslim burial. Oh yes, and by their actions the Russians lost the sympathy of those involved in the attacks and their relatives. Had they only not fought back, and certainly not kept the bodies of the dead, the locals would still love being ruled by Mother Russia.
#3
Everywhere on the face of this earth - including my own neighborhood - Muslim pigs are embracing the genocidal jihad ideology of the Islamofascist. Islam can't reform, and its danger to Civilization can only be heightened as those animals breed themselves in majority positions. Why? Because our leaders chose to subsidize, through limited war folly (Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq) and forced recognition of political Islam by the few remnants of Secularism in the Middle East, the legitimation of Islamofascism in the name of expanding some moron's notion of "freedom." Our leaders should want the mortal enemy to die; they prefer to let them vote.
#8
And yet the Russians can not make the mental link between Iran and these islamic terrorists. Just keep the Iranians happy with more deals, that's the ticket. Wasn't it Lenin who said a capitalist is one who will sale you the rope you hang them with?
#9
Of course Islam can be reformed by its adherents. They just need to find a reason to do so, just as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc have modified their understanding of their own history and religious tenets through the centuries. A catastrophic defeat of the forces of Islamofascism would certainly provide impetus in the anti-jihadist direction. Destruction of the current secular Arab regimes would equally help guide Islamic thought into a more desirable path, as those current Arab regimes that proclaim themselves "secular" are simply Arab fascist as opposed to Muslim fascist. Ataturk's Turkey appears thus far to have been the only truly secular Muslim state which subjected itself to the rule of law and to democratic principles... and unfortunately that appears to be eroding more quickly than the secularists should be comfortable with under the current government. Long term I imagine Jihadist Islam will have gone the way of World Communism and National Socialism; thus far, however, the process hasn't been nearly as painful as it is going to become in order to achieve the necessary understanding amongst Islam's noisier adherents.
According to various reports from credible mujahideen sources, Abu Omar Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Saif (a.k.a. Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Saif al-Jaber)--a top tier Saudi Arabian Al-Qaida commander in Chechnya and personal military advisor to Shamil Basayev--has been killed during a Russian counterterrorism operation in neighboring Dagestan. Unable to escape after Russian soldiers backed by helicopters surrounded his temporary hideout, Abu Omar allegedly detonated an explosive device he was carrying and collapsed the building on top of himself. Known as the "Imam of the Chechen mujahideen", Abu Omar was an original founder of the Arab-Afghan mujahideen movement in Chechnya and was named by Russian officials as a suspect in numerous Caucasus-linked terrorist attacks, including the Moscow theatre siege and the Beslan school hostage massacre. In January 2000, he was interviewed by Babar Ahmad's Azzam Publications media outlet concerning the ongoing jihad in Chechnya:
"Q. Some Muslims are hoping for a peaceful solution to this conflict, and to give heed to Western proposals and conditions for a cease-fire. How do you see the solution to this conflict?"
"A. Islamic issues can only be solved by Islamic means, namely through abiding by Sharia (Divine Law) and not Western proposals or United Nations conditions. Any resolution through non-Islamic means places the future of Muslims in the hands of tyrants who will never accept the rise of an Islamic state."
"Q. Several Islamic populations are fighting defensive wars against aggressors. Yet some of them raise the banners of nationalism that may incorporate elements of secularism, ethnic nationalism or religion. How would you describe the war in Chechnya?"
"A. The fighting in Chechnya is a Jihad for the sake of Allah, a Jihad that aims to ensure that the word of Allah is supreme in this land. We consider most of the commanders and fighters as Mujahideen whose intentions are sincere and devoted to Allah Most high."
"Q. The Russian military machine is massive and incorporates large numbers of troops and sizeable quantities of modern arms, yet the Russians are being decisively beaten on a daily basis by a small group of Mujahideen What are your comments in this regard?"
"A. All of the Mujahideen's victories are attributed solely to Allah Most High... The jihad in Chechnya should serve as an example to all Muslims throughout the world that any Muslim rights that are forcibly usurped, including land, cannot be restored except through force. Negotiations only serve to lose one's rights and honour. Let us consider Palestine as an example. There are a small number of Jews occupying Palestine. The Arabs outnumber them and have larger military forces, however, instead of fighting for the sake of Allah like their brothers in Chechnya, the Arabs (nationalists and secularists) chose to negotiate with their enemy. This has resulted in the humiliation of the Arabs, and has failed to restore Arab rights and territories."
"Q. The complete victory of the Mujahideen is now in sight. What will happen once the war is over. Will we witness a recurrence of the tragedies that took place in Afghanistan, Bosnia and other Muslim countries that freed themselves from the yoke of crusader invasions?"
"A. Allah Most High has promised that those who glorify and fight for Allah in times of war, and who establish His Sharia in times of peace, will always have victory bestowed upon them... The Mujahideen will strive to ensure that the Muslims of Chechnya will continue to be united, and that the light of Sharia dispels the evil of disunity. It is only through Allah that success is granted."
"Q. Many Muslims around the world have expressed their support and sympathy for their brothers in Chechnya. Most Muslims continue to support the Mujahideen through supplication to Allah, and by spreading awareness about the jihad in Chechnya. Has this support had any impact in Chechnya, if so, please give us some examples?"
"A. The supplications of Muslims and their financial support has played an important role in the victories of the Mujahideen. This support has helped mitigate the difficulties faced by the Mujahideen who are lacking adequate supplies of food and medicine. We ask Allah to accept the support given to us by our brothers, and remind the Ummah that coming to the aid of Muslims who are oppressed is a sacred duty that Allah Most High has confirmed..."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 01:02 ||
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Despite some politicianâs predictions, the situation in Chechnya escalated after the Moscow-staged parliamentary elections. According to the Chechen Interior Ministry, the number of offenses sharply increased.
A source in the law-enforcement agencies, a bullet-riddled body of a man was found on December 1 in the southern outskirts of Argun. However, it seems he might have actually lived in the nearby town of Shali.
A day before the body of a local woman was found in the settlement of Avtury in the Shalinsky district; local police reported that she had been stabbed.
During the past five days two administrative heads were killed in Chechnya. On the night of November 28, Sultan Delimkhanov, administrative head of the Pamyatoy village in the Shatoysky district, was shot with an automatic. Dmitriy Arnautov, a soldier at the Shatoysky military command post, was arrested on suspicion of murder; criminal procedures were immediately started.
And on the night of November 30, unknown masked men killed Ibragim Umpashayev, administrative head of the Avtury village, along with his adult son Isa. Both were shot with an automatic in the courtyard of their house. So far the killers have not been identified.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 00:51 ||
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The State Security Forces are on maximum alert. According to todayâs El Mundo newspaper, the recent detention of men who are alleged to be linked to Al Qaeda and who were trying to exchange drugs for Goma 2 explosives, could have been related to what the Spanish Secret Service, the CNI, believe are two sleeping Islamist cells based in Logroño and Vitoria.
The security services think the groups could be merely waiting for instructions. The security services have called for a planned Islamic Centre not to be built in La Rioja.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:36 ||
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#1
I'm shocked!
They found two Al-Q sleeper cells in Spain?
They need to look harder - they've obviously missed a shit-load.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/03/2005 20:21 Comments ||
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CLEVELAND (AP) - An Ohio man jailed for more than three years on government suspicions that he has terrorism connections is dropping his fight against deportation to his native Yemen.
Ashraf Al-Jailani, 41, of Kent in northeast Ohio, has denied any terrorism links and complained of being held without charges. He had previously expressed concern that he would be tortured in Yemen. ``The very real risk that he will be detained and tortured remains,'' his lawyer, Farhad Sethna, said Friday. ``However, Ashraf believes that being held for the last three years without his family has been torture enough.''
Look for Andy Sullivan to issue a strong condemnation about this 'torture'.
Mike Gilhooly, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would not say when the government planned to deport Al-Jailani.
The government says it has held him because of possible connections with a suspected terrorist and the brother of one of the Sept. 11 airline hijackers who targeted the World Trade Center. According to the FBI, Al-Jailani's business card as a geochemist, a scientist who studies the composition of the Earth's crust, was discovered with a suspected terrorist in New York. The government also has alleged al-Jailani may be a danger to his American-born wife, Michele Swensen, based on a no-contest plea to a domestic violence charge in 1998. The couple have three children and Swensen has sought his release.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 00:42 ||
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#1
a scientist who studies the composition of the Earth's crust
#2
He can sell his snow shovel on E-bay to recoup some of the delta in his salary differential.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/03/2005 15:10 Comments ||
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#3
``The very real risk that he will be detained and tortured remains,''
Rather than lying and saying he wasn't connected to terrorists, why didn't he claim asylum?
Because, clearly, he intended to conceal his ties to terrorism. Why would he want to do that?
The probability is because he intended to act in furtherance of those ties while in the US. If he had claimed asylum, he might have been watched, either out of protection or to see if he makes contact with any other terrorists.
As for his wife -- woman, he beat you. Let him go to his doom, because he certainly deserves it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/03/2005 15:27 Comments ||
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#4
Two questions:
1) Who cares if he's going to be tortured in Yemen? If he failed to abide by US laws, he doesn't belong in this country, period.
2) Why isn't his lawyer being deported with him?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/03/2005 15:44 Comments ||
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#5
Based on his vocation, wouldn't this be akin to deporting Dr. Frankestien to Transylvania?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/03/2005 18:23 Comments ||
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#6
I seem to recall that Transylvania had mobs with torches and pitchforks to take care of the odd troublesom mad scientist and his creations.
I'll bet Yemen has some equivalent.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/03/2005 18:52 Comments ||
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#7
Only for the Shiites, RJ.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2005 19:25 Comments ||
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The ACLU is up to their anti-US, anti-defense, anti-security litigation again. This time they are suing the CIA based on "secret prisons" and the allegations of one man.
A US civil rights groups says it is taking the CIA to court to stop the transportation of terror suspects to countries outside US legal authority. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law. It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she'll comment on recent reports of alleged CIA prisons abroad before starting a visit to Europe on Monday. Ms Rice has said she will provide an answer to a EU letter expressing concern over reports last month alleging the US intelligence agency was using secret jails - particularly in eastern Europe.
"The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him in incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan," the ACLU said in a news release.
The release identified the jail as the "Salt Pit".
The group did not provide the name or nationality of the plaintiff, saying only that he would appear at a news conference next week to reveal details of the lawsuit. The ACLU also wants to name corporations which it accuses of owning and operating the aircraft used to transport detainees secretly from country to country.
The highly secretive process is known as "extraordinary rendition" whereby intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection. It has become extremely controversial, the BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington reports.
Some individuals have claimed they were flown by the CIA to countries like Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.
The US government and its intelligence agencies maintain that all their operations are conducted within the law and they will no doubt fight this case vigorously, our correspondent says. He says they will not want to see US intelligence officers forced publicly to defend their actions and they will not want to see one of their most secret procedures laid bare in open court. First off, I don't know how the ACLU got details of this particular man's case, and I'm not advocating torture if it happened, however, that's not what they're arguing. They are instead fighting the use of secret prisons across the globe. What if the ACLU had tried this in WW2? In World War Two, we had prisons camps across the country, and in some cases overseas, and they were secret. It's a necessary action, not only for our safety, but for the safety of the prisoners. If we release the location, terrorists and enemies could attempt to assault it, or, angry Americans could attempt an attack. In the wake of 9/11, there was an extraordinary amount of anger, and I could easily imagine groups of disgruntled Americans attacking holding camps of Al-Qaeda members.
First off, I don't know how the ACLU got details of this particular man's case, and I'm not advocating torture if it happened, however,..
Excuse me, but you are displaying the ability to reason and draw logical conclusions, something the ACLU seems to be incapable of doing most of the time.
#2
In the wake of 9/11, there was an extraordinary amount of anger, and I could easily imagine groups of disgruntled Americans attacking holding camps of Al-Qaeda members.
We wouldn't do that, we're to law abiding to do that. However, The terrorists don't have to know we won't do that. Could be good "nice" interrigation tool.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/03/2005 5:50 Comments ||
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#7
Is the US breaking any domestic or international laws in regards to its current use of covert prisons or application of extraordinary rendition?
If the answer is no; Then why should I be concerned if the ACLU, or anybody else for that matter, brings a lawsuit?
Other then being a pain in the ass, what are the negative effects?
Is it too simplistic to think that if countries follow the "Rule of Law", in the end it really doesn't matter who challenges them or for what reason.
#8
Standard "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer here, but in order to sue, don't you need some sort of legal standing or be able to show you are an injured party?
In the past, I have been impressed when the ACLU stood up for rights and liberties even when they were unpopular. I mean, if you want to put a sign on your ass saying "I'm a National Socialist Moron" and prance down Main Street, USA, well, that's your right as an American. Free speech can be stupid speech. (Hi, Mrs. Sheehan!). But actions like this make the ACLU seem off in the weeds and quite far from their original mission.
#9
Tar and feathers for the ACLU. Rope and tree for the terrorists. Holding and interrogating has become too difficult for the intelligence information gained. The ALCU might as well complain about something real.
#10
I suppose the American CLU is trying to stop the evil, American CIA from doing baaaaaad things; doesn't matter if the 'victims' are terrs or cockroaches, (or both) the CIA must be doing baaaaaad stuff!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2005 15:07 Comments ||
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#11
This deals with the origins and founders of the ACLU. It is a biased polemic, but it is also not incorrect.
#12
The ACLU has always been an anti-American, communist-supporting, anti-individual organization. Their primary purpose is to destroy the rule of law in the United States by attacking anything and everything that the US uses to police its territory. They deliberately support illegal immigrants, they are constantly fighting freedom of religion, and demand that anything and everything should be published, whether it may harm the government or the people of the United States, under a gross misinterpretation of the First Amendment. They are part of the problem. They are an enemy of the peace and prosperity of the United States, and should be treated as such.
Unfortunately, the CIA is rapidly proving it's in the same boat, shooting holes in the bottom and leaking classified information in diarrhea mode. The second revolution can't happen soon enough.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/03/2005 15:51 Comments ||
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#13
Here's a question:
How come there isn't a solid conservative equivalent as well as alternative to the ACLU?
When conservatives run into trouble (remember Rush's problems in Florida?), they often humbly turn to the ACLU. Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr now fronts as a bagman for the ACLU. Pathetic.
#14
Has anyone ever heard of an ACLU office anywhere being firebombed? I remember reading someplace that one would know that American society had irretrievably fractured when an ACLU office somewhere was firebombed and the local fire department refused to respond. I often wonder just how far we are from that point because foolishness like this latest ACLU action certainly seems like it's bringing that scenario closer.
Posted by: mac ||
12/03/2005 22:49 Comments ||
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The arrest of a bank robber on Wednesday has led the J&K Police to the network behind eight major militant strikes. These include the recent assassination of the junior Education Minister, the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singhâs public rally and several suicide attacks in Srinagar. The robber who landed in the police net on November 30 told them about a network of militant conduits who were members of the youth wings of the National Conference and Congress, operating from a high-security official accommodation for protected persons.
I think Dan, Paul and a few of the rest of us have remarked on similar situations in the past...
The two main militant conduitsâone of them a practising lawyerâhad secured permission for unhindered movement which provided them access to sensitive government and security buildings and protected colonies for politicians, ministers and bureaucrats.
Police caught the robber by sheer chance. A group of four robbers had come to the downtown branch of a local bank, held the staff and people hostage at gun point and looted around Rs 12 lakh from the cashier. But as they fled, one of them slipped and fell and was caught by a group of angry people. The manâlater identified as Mushtaq Ahmadâwas immediately handed over to the policemen who rushed in from a nearby checkpoint.
ââMushtaq was questioned and soon he spilled the beans. What he told us shocked everybody. He gave us leads about a network that included political activists under government protection, operating from a high-security hotel room allotted to one of them,ââ a senior police officer says. ââThey had been ferrying and helping fidayeens to carry out strikes in the city and their activity had gone unnoticed.ââ
The officer said they helped to smuggle in the fidayeens to assassinate Education Minister Ghulam Nabi Lone. ââWe immediately sounded an alert and conducted raids everywhere. Within hours, we had captured most of the men in the network. We later killed three Pakistani militants as well,ââ he said.
Mushtaq led the police to Shabir Bukhari and Shakeel Ahmad Sofi, both from Kreeri in Baramullah. They were travelling in their Gypsy, that was used frequently for ferrying fidayeens, when they were intercepted. Police say Bukhari and Sofi were also involved in the bank robbery which they had planned without consulting the Pakistani militants. ââThis robbery was not part of the militant itenary. Three of them were, in fact, waiting to execute another major fidayeen attack on Doordarshan and Radio Kashmir building,ââ says the officer.
Police say that Sofi had secured the membership of Youth National Conference and was alloted a room in the high-security Dolphin hotel where the government has put up political activists who face a threat to their lives. National Conference leader Ali Mohamamd Sagar, however, denied that Sofi was a member of the organisation.
Bukhari, a lawyer, is a member of the Youth Congress but J&K Congress president and minister Peerzada Mohamamd Syed denied that he was a member.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Police had nabbed Sadaqat Ali of Rawalpindi, Mohamamd Saleem of Lalukhet, Karachi and Abdul Rehman of Faisalabad but claimed they were killed in a shootout. Police sources say that Sofi and Bukhari brought two fidayeens from Sumlar Bandipore to Srinagar along with a huge cache of arms in the Gyspy and crossed several security force checkpoints using their protected status. ââThe attack was aimed at (CPM leader Mohammed Yusuf) Tarigami inside his official residence and was planned for October 10. The two fidayeens were staying with Sofi and Bukhari,ââ the officer says.
They took the fidayeens on a recce on October 8. Police say the operation was postponed by a week on the instruction of Bilal, a militant commander, who called Sofi on his mobile phone. ââThen again on October 18, the duo smuggled the two fidayeens inside the high-security colony from the main gate,ââ he says. One of them was killed at the gate of Tarigamiâs residence while the other had sneaked into Education Minister Loneâs residence and killed him. The police officer says that the militant who escaped called up Sofi, who along with Bukhari picked him up and took him to Bandipore.
Police say Sofi and Bukhari have been running this network for one and half years. According to them, the other attacks they helped organise include:
⢠The attack to disrupt the public rally of Prime minister Manmohan Singh on November, 17, 2004.
⢠The attack on former deputy chief minister Mangat Ram Sharma when a grenade was hurled on his rally.
⢠An attack on minister Syed Bashir at Lalchowk when his car was fired at.
⢠The attacks on Bombay Gujarat Hotel at Lalchowk, CRPF camps at Firdous Cinema and Nigeen Club in downtown Srinagar.
Posted by: john ||
12/03/2005 06:41 ||
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The operational commander of al-Qaida, possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, was killed early Thursday by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials have told NBC News. Pakistani sources said that Hamza Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali. Candygram for Mr. Mongo
#1
possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization
I swear, these guys go thru more "No. 3" people in a year. Their turn-over in staff is starting to look like McDonald's.
Posted by: N guard ||
12/03/2005 9:38 Comments ||
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#2
I wonder if it is difficult to promote the lower ranks with all these top guys getting killed. With the lower level recruiting getting harder it seems like we are squeezing from both ends. Keep up the excellent work!
#3
Number # is the "Up or Out" position for the ambitious young Islamofascist in Al Qaeda. I'm sure upper management has no trouble finding ambitious men eager to take on higher level responsibilities, whether they are capable of handling such or not. In normal corporate organizations, however, it is generally accepted that it takes the newly promoted six months to learn the job, and another six months to fully master the responsibilities. Which of course assumes that the #2s have fully mastered their own, and have the time and skill to properly train the new #3s. However, it appears to me (remembering, of course, that I am simply married to a manager, not one myself ;-]) that the turnover at the #3 level has been quick enough over the last two years that we've likely gotten inside the A.Q. training cycle, and they are being removed at a rate such that adequate training and mentoring cannot possibly be taking place across the organization. Which is no doubt why in Iraq they continue to blow up locals, an unwise decision likely to impact the organization's ability to act effectively toward their long term goals as both the subjects and objects of such actions turn against the organization at an increasing rate -- the inadequately skilled middle management level causing serious problems for the marketing/advertising side of the organization.
Which is one of many reasons I believe we will win the battle against Islamofascism sooner rather than later - their best and brightest were taken out of the game early on, and now they are trying to function with the overambitious, under trained, barely adequates.
#9
Hmm.. a US congressional delegation is visiting Pakistan and a #3 is offered up.
Last #3 was halal-ed during Perv's visit to the US?
One before that was during visit by assistant secretary of state?
How convenient...
Posted by: john ||
12/03/2005 18:40 Comments ||
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The operational commander of al-Qaida and a top-five official in the terrorist organization was killed early Thursday by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials have told NBC News.
Pakistani sources said that Hamza Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali.
Among those killed in the attack were two Pakistanis and three Arabs, said the Pakistani sources, who asked to remain anonymous. The attacks were carried out between 1:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time on Thursday.
Local residents said that the men were killed by an unknown number of missiles fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft. The witnesses said that missile remnants bearing U.S. markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been the result of the missiles detonating explosives inside the safehouse.
Officially, neither the U.S. government nor the Pakistani government would confirm a successful attack. U.S. officials confirm a missile attack took place, but would not confirm that Rabia was killed. A high-ranking Pakistani official confirmed that Hamza Rabia had been killed in a Predator attack.
Rabia has been sought by both U.S. and Pakistani officials for more than two years. Pakistan has offered a $1 million reward for his capture. He is believed to have participated in the planning for two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14 and Dec. 25, 2003. At that time, Rabia was believed to be the chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's operational chief and the No. 3 man in the organization. In May, Pakistani security forces captured Abu Faraj and turned him over to the U.S.
U.S. officials have said that Rabia succeeded Abu Faraj as operations chief. Rabia was brought into al-Qaida by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No. 2. Like al-Zawahiri, Rabia is an Egyptian. U.S. officials have described him recently as "top-five al-Qaida" and, as one US official said on Friday, "killing him would be indeed a very big deal."
Rabia was the target of another Predator attack on Nov. 5, according to local Pakistani officials. During that strike, in the village of Mosaki, eight people were killed in what is now described as an unsuccessful attempt to kill Rabia. Local officials have told NBC News that the dead included the wife and children of the al-Qaida leader.
Both the village of Asorai, where Thursday's attack took place, and Mosaki, where the November attack took place, are within 45 minutes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The area is a hiding place for top al-Qaida officials, according to U.S., Pakistani and Afghan officials.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 01:20 ||
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#1
nice visual 2am..BAM! sweet dreams for me.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/03/2005 2:30 Comments ||
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#2
I certainly hope the CIA remembered to file off the registration numbers on the missiles -- if the remnants really have American markings, someone's career should suffer. As for pulling an Israel on the A.Q. man, I say give them three hips and a hurrah! May there be many more to come, preferably in the near future. :-D
#4
Does anyone have any spare white raisins for this guy? Didn't think so...
Posted by: Ol Dirty American ||
12/03/2005 7:54 Comments ||
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#5
lol! The witnesses said that missile remnants bearing U.S. markings remain in the area. No doubt the gents who sent it to you put a little love note on it. They thought you were hungry and wanted to have something to eat, so they sent it Air Express.
#6
Rabia's family was visited by a missile while in the privacy of their home, but Rabia was out getting a pack of cigs. Then a few weeks later, at another 'safehouse' another missile catches up with Rabia and his buds. If I was somebody the USA was out to get, that would make me very nervous. Either our Predators have the ability to see through walls and follow people around or/and we have spies in their midst. Kids, look around, somebody in that room is a spy, torture each other until you find him.
A senior Al Qaeda commander has been killed in the Thursday missile attack at a house in the North Waziristan Agency, sources said. The sources said that Al Qaeda operational commander Hamza Rabia, said to be of Syrian origin, was among the five killed in the missile attack on a mud-house in Asoray village in Mirali tehsil, to the east of North Waziristanâs regional headquarters, Miranshah.
Officials and tribal witnesses said that among those killed were three foreigners of Middle-Eastern origin. While the administration in Miranshah claimed the casualties were the result of an explosion inside the house, tribal witnesses insist that a hail of missiles fired from unmanned air vehicle struck the house at around 1.45 am. A drone is usually armed with two hellfire missiles and judging from the six explosions, the locals claimed they had heard, it is possible that more than two UAVs took part in the Thursdayâs action.
The sources said that Hamza, who carried the local alias of Nawab to disguise his identity, was among those killed but his body as well of two other foreign militants were quickly taken away by their comrades and buried at an undisclosed location. Hamza had escaped a similar attack at his location in Mosaki in Mirali on Nov 5 that had left eight people dead including his wife and children. Hamza was said to have been slightly wounded in the leg. The authorities then had also attributed the incident to an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 00:20 ||
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#1
Rabia is an Egyptian. U.S. officials have described him recently as "top-five al-Qaida" and, as one US official said on Friday, "killing him would be indeed a very big deal."
Al Qaeda operational commander
Hamza Rabia, said to be of Syrian origin
, was among the five killed in the missile attack on a mud-house in Asoray village in Mirali tehsil, to the east of North Waziristanâs regional headquarters, Miranshah.
Dan, is there enough intel on this dead dirt to clear this up? was he recruited from the Egyptian 'Brotherhood'? or a Syrian who moved to Egypt?
prolly should have stayed at the Lahore Holiday Inn.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/03/2005 2:48 Comments ||
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#2
Hamza Rabia is an Egyptian, run his name through the Rantburg search engine. I believe he's an EIJ leader who lived in Syria for a little while, so that might explain the mix-up.
He was one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's aides together with Abu Faraj al-Libbi and after the capture of al-Libbi he took over as the head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Ironically, the reason he was probably up in Waziristan to begin with probably had something to do with the appointment of Khalid Habib and Abd Hadi al-Iraqi as the new heads of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Wonder what they think now given what happened to the boss?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 3:20 Comments ||
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#3
Wonder what they think now given what happened to the boss?
ummmm..living in mud huts can be Dangerous to one's health?
...among the five killed in the missile attack on a mud-house..
probably Rabia's bodyguard...but maybe Khalid Habib or Abd Hadi al-Iraqi died with him. He said hopefully.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/03/2005 3:42 Comments ||
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#4
That'd be nice, but normally the Bad Guys aren't stupid enough to cluster together like that. My guess is it's his bodyguards, aides, and whatever locals were letting him use their house.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 3:51 Comments ||
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#5
Lots of big guys getting wacked right now. Somebody must be singing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 9:39 Comments ||
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#7
tribal witnesses insist that a hail of missiles fired from unmanned air vehicle struck the house at around 1.45 am
"we wuz sitting around the campfire, making s'mores, when I realized we wuz almost outta graham crackers...it was then that I looked up..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2005 13:06 Comments ||
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#8
Somebody must be singing.
Or somebody's computer has been compromised and we are now intercepting communications. I'd vote for the technical over the human in this case, because the decentralized nature of the terr sturcture makes it unlikely that any one singer could compromise a lot of people in a lot of places over as long a period of time as compromised communications.
BAQUBA, Iraq - Insurgents attacked an Iraqi army patrol with a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Saturday and then ambushed the unit, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several other people, the Iraqi police said.
The attack occurred in Udaim, a volatile town just north of Baquba, about 60 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. The soldiers were travelling in a five-vehicle patrol when a bomb went off nearby. Immediately afterwards, guerrillas opened fire in what police described as a carefully executed plan. Eleven soldiers were killed and two were wounded in the assault, which also destroyed four military vehicles. Two other people, possibly insurgents, were also killed, the police said, and five civilians were wounded.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 09:43 ||
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Ten U.S. Marines were killed by an Iraqi bomb in one of the bloodiest incidents of the war for Americans, a day after President George W. Bush laid out a strategy he said would defeat the insurgency.
And in a videotape message shown on Friday, Iraqi insurgents holding four Westerners hostages threatened to kill them if Iraqi detainees are not released by Dec. 8.
Thursday's attack on the Marines, two weeks before Iraqis vote for a new parliament, struck a foot patrol near Falluja. Eleven Marines were wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED), the military said on Friday.
"The patrol was attacked with an IED fashioned from several large artillery shells," the Marines said.
Seven of the wounded had returned to active duty.
U.S. commanders have expressed concern in recent months at the increasing use of more powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs. The high death toll on Thursday indicated an extremely powerful blast.
Typically, U.S. troops keep themselves well spaced out when on foot patrols to avoid the risk of mass casualties.
Local officials in Falluja said they were aware of a bomb attack on U.S. troops overnight near Amiriya, 30 km south of Falluja. U.S. officials declined further comment, however, and it was unclear if this was the same incident.
Falluja was the site of the biggest battle since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003 -- dozens of troops and hundreds of Iraqis were killed in the city, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad in November last year.
Since then Falluja has been relatively quiet but the wider province of Anbar, comprising much of Iraq's western desert, has remained a stronghold of Sunni Arab groups opposed to the occupation and the Shi'ite-led government it helped install.
Some guerrilla forces are loyal to the Islamist goals of al Qaeda and the movement's appointed leader in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but many are more secular in outlook and owe loyalties principally to tribal or nationalist leaders or to Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath party, now outlawed.
Arabic television station Al Jazeera showed a tape of what it said were two Canadian hostages receiving food from their captors. An American and a Briton were shown speaking in what the channel said was a call for detainees to be released.
It was not possible to hear what the men were saying.
"They gave those concerned with the hostages until the 8th of this month before killing them if their demands are not met," the Arabic broadcaster said.
The four, seized in Baghdad, are members of the peace and humanitarian organisation Christian Peacemaker Teams, one of the few remaining aid groups operating in Iraq.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called the threat "... a callous act of terror against innocent people."
A State Department official strongly condemned the actions of those holding the humanitarian workers.
"We call for their immediate and unconditional release and for the release of all hostages in Iraq," said the official, who asked not to be named.
Separately, the mother and sister of a German woman, Susanne Osthoff, taken hostage in Iraq called on her kidnappers to show mercy and release her in an appeal shown on Al Jazeera.
In Ramadi, Anbar's regional capital to the west of Falluja, about 500 U.S. and Iraqi troops launched an operation they said was designed to disrupt guerrilla activity before the election.
Insurgents staged a show of force in the city on Thursday, firing mortar rounds near a U.S. base and official buildings. Letting themselves be filmed by news cameramen, masked men wielding rifles and grenade launchers distributed leaflets saying al Qaeda was in charge of the town.
Within hours, however, the gunmen had gone from the streets and there was no sign of them on Friday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 00:24 ||
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The mother and sister of a German woman taken hostage in Iraq have called on her kidnappers to show mercy and release her in an appeal shown on Aljazeera on Friday. "We beg of you - be merciful and graceful with my daughter and release her and her escort as soon as possible," Ingrid Hala, mother of the abducted Susanne Osthoff, said in the appeal.
Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, disappeared a week ago. Earlier this week, her kidnappers said in a videotaped message that they would kill her if Germany did not end all support for the Iraqi government. Germany helps train Iraqi forces outside the country but has ruled out sending troops there. An image from the tape, delivered to Germany's ARD public television in Baghdad, showed what appeared to be Osthoff and her driver sitting on the ground surrounded by three armed, masked men.
"We appeal to you to spare the lives of my innocent sister and her escort," her sister Anja Osthoff said. "My sister has lived for a long time in your country and is devoted to it. She brought sick people medicine. She loves Iraq's great culture." It was not clear who had abducted the archaeologist, a converted Muslim who had spent about 15 years working on excavations in Iraq before UN sanctions forced foreign experts out of the country in the late 1980s.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2005 00:14 ||
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#1
the archaeologist, a converted Muslim who had spent about 15 years working on excavations in Iraq before UN sanctions forced foreign experts out of the country in the late 1980s.
Real kidnapping, or kidnappee-assisted fundraiser?
Aljazeera has aired a new videotape in which kidnappers of four Christian peace activists in Iraq have threatened to kill their hostages unless all prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centres are released. The captors gave the two governments until 8 December to meet their demands, Aljazeera quoted a statement delivered with the tape aired on Friday. Two Canadians, one American and a Briton are being held. The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets. The Briton and American hostages were shown talking to the camera but no sound was transmitted. The two were calling on the US and British governments to withdraw from Iraq, Aljazeera said, quoting the kidnappers' statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2005 00:12 ||
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#1
Just a friendly fire incident. Nothing to see here.
#2
As traitorious and stupid as these people were, I don't have any wish to see them die. I certainly hope our side can put together a rescue of some sort, or that the Islamists are bluffing.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/03/2005 5:58 Comments ||
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#3
#2: As traitorious and stupid as these people were, I don't have any wish to see them die.
I do, this particular brand of stupidity needs to be shown that stupidity has dire consequences, otherwise the stupidity only grows unchecked.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/03/2005 8:34 Comments ||
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#4
Are they stupid or complicit in terrorist theatre?
#5
The longer they stay alive the more it looks to be another "catch-and-release" scam, like that commie Italian reporter... hope I'm wrong, bet I'm not
Posted by: Jim ||
12/03/2005 12:42 Comments ||
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#6
don't risk a single scratch on one of our GI's to "rescue" this trash. Sometimes you get consequences for your actions.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2005 12:49 Comments ||
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#8
I'm all for the Russians rescuing these CPT asshats. Hope they'll use that gas they used in that Moscow theater ... very lethal on the terrs and unfortunately, on the hostages as well.
Up to 15 Palestinian militants wanted by Israel have returned to the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said Friday, complaining that the Palestinian Authority had not fulfilled its obligation since taking control of the border with Egypt last week.
The Palestinians said they did not violate a U.S.-brokered deal for operating the Rafah terminal, and that the fugitives had the right to return. European monitors at Rafah said they were trying to settle the dispute to protect the border agreement, the biggest diplomatic achievement since Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza last summer.
The flare-up over Rafah came as Israelis and Palestinians entered heated election campaigns that also give hope to renewed peacemaking.
Israeli Cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit, an ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said in an interview published Friday that Israel would eventually have to pull out of most of the West Bank and allow the Palestinians to establish a state. In the meantime, ``not a single additional house'' should be built in West Bank settlements, Sheetrit told The Jerusalem Post.
Sheetrit was the second Sharon ally to hint at large-scale territorial concessions if Sharon is elected to a third term March 28. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said this week that Israel's separation barrier, which carves off 8 percent of the West Bank, could help determine a future border.
Sharon, who left Likud late last month and created a centrist party, has said only that Israel will keep large Jewish settlements in the West Bank, most of which are on the ``Israeli'' side of the barrier, and that he rules out additional unilateral withdrawals.
Shortly before pulling out of Gaza, Israel closed the Rafah passage, Gaza's main gateway to the outside world. The crossing reopened last week after months of wrangling between Israel and the Palestinians over security procedures. Israel feared militants or arms would flow into Gaza through Rafah.
Under the accord, Israel can raise objections with the European monitors at Rafah, but the Palestinians have the final say on who gets in and out of Gaza.
Israel monitors the crossing via cameras, but has complained that the Palestinians have not met a key element of the deal - providing immediate passport information as the travelers cross. That information has reached Israel with a delay of several minutes, meaning fugitives will already have crossed by the time Israel can raise objections.
European officials said the delay was a technical problem that should be fixed within a few days.
Palestinian security officials acknowledged Friday that at least 10 wanted men have entered the coastal area, but said anyone with a Palestinian identity card can enter. Israel's demand that such fugitives be kept out are not part of the accord, the officials said.
Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said the Palestinians have allowed ``between 10 and 15'' wanted militants into Gaza.
One of those to enter Gaza this week was Fadel Zahar, an activist with the militant group Hamas and brother of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.
Fadel Zahar said he was exercising his right to return after years of exile in Lebanon, Sudan and Syria.
``I am a resident of Gaza. My family lives here. I spent all my life here, but I was deported for political reasons in 1991,'' he said by telephone. ``I am a member of Hamas. I am not a leader of Hamas. I am proud of this membership.''
Even though Israel has no formal veto, the parties to the border agreement are now drawing up a list of people who will not be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, said Julio De La Guardia, a spokesman for the European contingent.
``There are some people who shouldn't be allowed to cross,'' he said, adding that the entry of fugitives was a cause for concern, but not a violation of the agreement.
Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib said that Israel and the United States could propose names of those who should be banned, but that the Palestinians have the final say.
Earlier this week, Sharon warned that if controls at Rafah weren't tightened, Israel would turn its crossings with Gaza into international border passages, a move that would sever a customs union with the Palestinian areas and cost the Palestinians millions of dollars.
Also Friday, Palestinian officials with the ruling Fatah party called off primary voting in Salfit and Qalqiliya, two West Bank towns, after gunmen fired into the air and burned ballot boxes.
Violence and confusion have plagued Fatah's staggered primary voting in recent weeks, leaving the party in disarray as it gears up for a stiff challenge from Hamas in an election scheduled for January.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:24 ||
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#1
I smell car swarm!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2005 17:36 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's Arrow missile defense system intercepted and destroyed a missile similar to Iran's long-range Shahab-3 during a test Friday, prompting Israel's defense minister to declare it an effective shield against a possible future Iranian nuclear threat.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that in light of Iran's recent threats against Israel and efforts to develop non-conventional weapons, Israel needs an effective shield. "The state of Israel, which is a clear target of each of these missiles and of the production stations of Iran's non-conventional weapons, reserves the right to have other capabilities to prevent this threat," he said.
This is going to cause some heartburn in Teheran.
Iran's Shahab-3 can be equipped with nuclear warheads and can reach Israel, as well as several U.S. military installations in the Middle East. Israeli concerns were heightened after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October said Israel must be "wiped off the map."
State-owned Israel Aircraft Industries and U.S.-based Boeing Co. began developing the Arrow system after Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. The test Friday was carried out at an air force base in central Israel. It was the 14th test of the system, and the first trial since a failed test last year. "The launch was successful. The significance is that the Arrow arms project proved another part of its range of operations against the Iranian threat," Aryeh Herzog, head of the Arrow project in the Defense Ministry, told Israel Channel Two TV.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 00:49 ||
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#1
Over whose territory will the intercepted Shahabs explode now, over which non-Jewish people will Iran's radioactive death rain down? I think this would be highly interesting to Israel's neighbors, and the information should be repeated loudly and often.
#2
Where in its trajectory the warhead is destroyed after all propulsive stages fire will not substantially change its impact point, at least in terms of which nation is hit. I used to do these kinds of trajectory simulations when working in the defense industry.
#4
If I understand you correctly, VRWC, the now headless missile will continue until it lands in Israel? But what happens to the radioactivity of the nuclear warhead if it is exploded by Israel's missile defence shield before reaching its target? Surely the anti-missile missile won't be hot enough to burn up a nuclear load with no residue? And feel free to throw in some simple physics equations for me to ponder; a difficult mental challenge is good for me! Thanks loads.
#5
I think the answer has been demonstrated already.
Remember a few years back when a nuclear tipped titan blew up in it's silo and threw it's warhead a mile and a half away?
No leakage, no explosion, no contamination, those things are designed to go through hell without breaking apart.
I think no problem, just send a team with a heavy crane and pick it up out of the crater wherever it hit, check for radiation and haul it away.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/03/2005 23:19 Comments ||
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EFL - JPost
Up to 15 wanted Palestinian terrorists have returned to the Gaza Strip, security officials said Friday, complaining that the Palestinians have not fulfilled their obligations since taking control of their border with Egypt last week.
The Palestinians responded that they had not violated a US-brokered deal for operating the Rafah terminal, and that the fugitives had the right to return. European monitors at Rafah said they are trying to settle the dispute to protect the border agreement, the biggest diplomatic achievement since Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza in the summer.
Palestinian security officials acknowledged that at least 10 wanted men have entered the coastal area, but said anyone with a Palestinian identity card can enter. Israel's demand that such fugitives be kept out are not part of the accord, the officials said.
One of those to enter Gaza this week was Fadel Zahar, a Hamas activist and brother of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.
Fadel Zahar said he was exercising his right to return after spending years in exile in Lebanon, Sudan and Syria. "I am a resident of Gaza. My family lives here. I spent all my life here, but I was deported for political reasons in 1991," he said in a telephone interview. "I am a member of Hamas, I am not a leader of Hamas, I am proud of this membership."
Helizap target-rich environment. Look for the car swarms
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2005 00:00 ||
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Frank, I'm shocked, shocked...where is your Acme Surprise Meter?!?
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
12/03/2005 0:40 Comments ||
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#2
Hello, Condi?
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/03/2005 0:47 Comments ||
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#3
Here it is. Frank must have dropped it in all the excitement. Might have been broken when dropped, it reads '0'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 1:03 Comments ||
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#4
Well, the Palestinians can do one of three things: they can keep these guys out, they can keep them under control or they can suffer missile attacks at unpredictable times on cars and crowds where the guys are flaunting their stuff.
ANJAR, Lebanon - Lebanese forces unearthed on Saturday at least 20 decomposed corpses buried in a mass grave in an eastern town that was the headquarters of Syrian intelligence for three decades, security sources said.
Witnesses and security sources said the bodies, most now only skeletons in scraps of underwear, were found on an old onion farm in the town of Anjar, long used by Syrian intelligence as a jail and interrogation centre.
They said the bodies had lain in the shallow grave for over 12 years but it was not immediately clear who they were and how they died. Security forces were using a bulldozer to dig for more bodies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2005 09:42 ||
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That's not a mass grave, it's merely a really big grave.
He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror.
Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in
Afghanistan.
Van Duyn's
FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture. Egypt's government reportedly is interested enough to have seized and locked up his two sons in an effort to track down the father.
The U.S. reward poster says the alleged bombmaker, also known as Abu Khabab, literally "Father of the Trotting Horse," may be in Pakistan. But "we don't think there's really a good fix on where he is," Van Duyn said in a Washington interview.
"Nobody knows," said Mohamed Salah, a Cairo expert on Islamic extremists. "He could be in any country, under another ID. Or he could be on the Afghan-Pakistani border, with Zawahri."
Unlike fellow Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri,
Osama bin Laden's deputy, Mursi is largely an unknown figure. "Here in Egypt, his name doesn't represent anything for us," said Diaa Rashwan, who follows Islamic militancy for Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
A son of Alexandria's al-Asafirah, a noisy seaside district of rutted streets and crowded housing, Mursi, 52, graduated from Alexandria University in 1975, say the Islamist researchers of London's Islamic Observation Center. It was a period when Muslim militancy flared in this Mediterranean city, as zealots burned liquor stores and other "non-Islamic" targets.
Salah, who writes for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, said it isn't known what Mursi was doing in the 1980s, but he was not among scores of defendants in the terrorism conspiracy trials that followed President Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination, the young men considered the core of Egyptian militancy.
The London center says Mursi left Egypt in 1987 for Saudi Arabia, and then Afghanistan, where Egyptian militants joined the war against Soviet occupation.
In 1998, Zawahri's group, Islamic Jihad, merged with bin Laden's al-Qaida, bringing what Rashwan says were at least 100 experienced Egyptian militants into al-Qaida ranks. But the director of the Islamic Observation Center questions whether Mursi was among them.
Yasser al-Sirri says the Egyptian chemist did "consult" with bin Laden's group, but "my information is that he is not a member of al-Qaida."
After the U.S. invasion in 2001, computer files uncovered by reporters in Afghanistan showed that by 1999 the man referred to as Abu Khabab, armed with a "startup" budget of $2,000 to $4,000, was working to develop chemical and biological weapons in Afghanistan.
His most notorious work was recorded on videotape, eventually obtained by CNN in 2002, showing dogs being killed in gas experiments. Intelligence sources said a voice heard on the tape was Mursi's, the cable network said.
Experts believe the gas was hydrogen cyanide, used in gas-chamber executions. But
NATO chemical weapons specialist Rene Pita says that compound has long been viewed as an unsatisfactory mass-casualty chemical weapon because of its instability and low density.
Journalists in post-invasion Afghanistan found the "Abu Khabab laboratory," part of al-Qaida's Darunta complex 70 miles east of Kabul, to be a rudimentary site lighted by a single bulb among disorderly boxes of test tubes, syringes and vials.
Specialists doubt al-Qaida could produce sufficient amounts of sophisticated chemical weapons, such as nerve agents, without a large-scale, even state-sponsored operation. "Those were very crude labs in Afghanistan," said Washington expert Jonathan Tucker, of the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
Even before discovery of his Afghan operation, Mursi was quietly being hunted as an al-Qaida bombmaker, Salah said. He said the Egyptian was suspected of having helped train suicide bombers who attacked the destroyer
USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.
Five months after that October 2000 attack, Egyptian authorities arrested Mursi's son Mohamed as he flew into Cairo with a fake Yemeni passport, Cairo's al-Ahram Weekly reported at the time.
"That indicates the family was in Yemen," said Salah. "Abu Khabab must have gone to Yemen. Why Yemen? Because of the USS Cole."
Then, early last year, another son, Hamzah, was deported from Pakistan into Egyptian custody, said London's al-Sirri. Mohamed at least is believed still held, Salah said, as authorities apparently seek to extract information or pressure the father.
The Egyptian Interior Ministry declined to discuss the continuing hunt for the mysterious Abu Khabab, about whom so little is confirmed that of 14 descriptors on the U.S. "Rewards for Justice" poster â from "Height" to "Status" â 10 are followed by "Unknown."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/03/2005 16:33 ||
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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.
According to various reports from credible mujahideen sources, 
CLEVELAND (AP) - An Ohio man jailed for more than three years on government suspicions that he has terrorism connections is dropping his fight against deportation to his native Yemen.
The operational commander of al-Qaida, possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, was killed early Thursday by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials have told NBC News. Pakistani sources said that 
A senior Al Qaeda commander has been killed in the Thursday missile attack at a house in the 
The mother and sister of a German woman taken hostage in Iraq have called on her kidnappers to show mercy and release her in an appeal shown on Aljazeera on Friday. "We beg of you - be merciful and graceful with my daughter and release her and her escort as soon as possible," Ingrid Hala, mother of the abducted Susanne Osthoff, said in the appeal. 
Aljazeera has aired a new videotape in which kidnappers of four Christian peace activists in Iraq have threatened to kill their hostages unless all prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centres are released. The captors gave the two governments until 8 December to meet their demands, Aljazeera quoted a statement delivered with the tape aired on Friday. Two Canadians, one American and a Briton are being held. The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets. The Briton and American hostages were shown talking to the camera but no sound was transmitted. The two were calling on the US and British governments to withdraw from Iraq, Aljazeera said, quoting the kidnappers' statement.
