KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Rooters) - At least eight people were killed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Sunday in a suicide car bombing against NATO troops and subsequent gunfire by soldiers, police and witnesses said. Three civilians died when the bomber struck a military convoy and five more were shot by troops afterwards, they said.
NATO said three of its soldiers were wounded in the attack for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.
Asked about the accounts of troops shooting civilians, NATO spokesman Major Luke Knittig said: "We will establish the facts. It is still unclear in what way the troops reacted."
The Ministry of Defense said the three injured soldiers were British Royal Marines commandoes. It said one was seriously wounded and the others were in stable condition.
"The convoy was attacked by a suspected suicide bomber in a vehicle, who attempted to ram the British vehicles. A number of Afghan civilians were also injured in the blast and at least two were killed," the ministry said. "This was a typically indiscriminate attack from the Taliban, who didn't care if they killed or injured innocent Afghans around our forces," British task force spokesman Lt. Col. Andy Price said in the statement, released in London.
(KHARTOUM) Days of fighting between former rebels and government forces killed more than 150 people and wounded at least 400 in a southern Sudanese town, a U.N. official said Saturday.
The battle was one of the worst breaches of a January 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war in the south, a conflict separate from the ethnic bloodletting in Sudans western Darfur region.
Aid workers said the fighting began when a government-allied militia tried to kill a local leader of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement in Malakal, a port town about 400 miles south of Sudans capital, Khartoum. The former rebels retaliated, and large-scale fighting erupted Tuesday, with the two sides using artillery, tanks and armored personnel carriers. The former rebels captured Malakals airport before U.N. officials brokered a cease-fire Friday.
The U.N. mission in Sudan appealed for volunteer nurses and supplies to cope with 400 to 500 wounded fighters and civilians. The mission said bodies were strewn in the Nile River, one of the main sources of drinking water for the town of about 150,000 people. "There are over 150 dead," said Peter Maxwell, the field manager in Malakal for the U.N. mission.
Aid workers said most of the dead appeared to be combatants from both sides, but at least two dozen appeared to be civilians. They said government forces and former rebels were separately collecting their dead.
Maxwell said U.N. peacekeepers were patrolling the town and described the situation as "fairly calm" since Fridays cease-fire. "There are many indicators that life is approaching something normal," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
But international observers in Malakal said both the army and former rebels were massing forces, and worried the truce might not hold, especially if the army tried to reclaim the airport. The observers spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Sudanese military had no comment on the violence.
U.N. officials expressed concern about contamination of the Nile in an area where cholera outbreaks are common. "Though United Nations peacekeepers have provided critical support to the Malakal government to dispose of the dead, the Nile remains contaminated by bodies as a result of the fighting," the U.N. mission said in a statement.
Malakal has remained volatile despite the peace accord between Sudans Muslim government in the north and the mostly Christian rebels in the south. The town lies next to Sudans north-south boundary and close to some of the countrys richest oil fields.
A Muslim mob has killed six Christians in an unprovoked attack on a congregation in Ethiopia, ICC has discovered.
The US-based human rights group International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned a mob of 300 Muslims killed six Christians in early October while 15 others were left seriously wounded by the attack during a midnight worship service in Beshasha, a town located in the Agaro province in Ethiopia.
On 14 October, a group of three hundred Muslims, carrying guns and knives approached the church where the Orthodox Christians were holding a midnight worship service. When the locked doors prevented the mob from entering the church they forced the congregation out of the church by pouring gasoline around the building.
The men of the church came out first and attempted to defend the men and women but because they had no real weapons in comparison to the guns and knives used against them they were attacked by the mob.
Fifteen individuals from the church suffered severe knife wounds and six people died as a result - two priests, two elderly women, and two men.
Two weeks later, the Ethiopian media announced that the police had arrested the leader of the massacre. But ICC warns that the violence against Christians continues to increase steadily despite the arrest.
It was only two weeks before the Beshasha massacre that another attack on Christians occurred in Jimma, Ethiopia because Muslims opposed Orthodox Christians celebrating the traditional Meskel holiday.
ICC warned that Muslims in the Horn of Africa are becoming increasingly radical and violent and are being urged to export that violence to surrounding countries.
This trend is almost certainly affecting Christians in Ethiopia, ICC said. The Union of Islamic Courts in Somalis recently called for Jihad against Ethiopia, appealing to Muslims of the Horn to rise up against anyone who would dare come against the religion of Allah.
ICC remains concerned as it warned that the tragic incident may only be a precursor of things to come as Muslims in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania are radicalised.
#2
Arrested the leader? WTF?! Round them all up, hang them and burn down their mosque. This is not a police matter. Clinton tried to handle it that way and look where it got us!
Info: According to the most recent 1994 National Census, Christians make up 61% of the country's population, Muslims 33%.
Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion; in 615, when a band of Muslims were counseled by the Simian Prophet Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia, which was ruled by, in the Pedophile for profit Muhammad's estimation, a pious Christian king. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of the Fake prophet Muhammad (piece of pork be upon her, was from Ethiopia. From Wiki, I had to look this one up.
Meskel (Ethiopic: መሰቀል), in the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, is an annual religious holiday commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Eleni (Saint Helena) in the fourth century. Meskel occurs on 17 Meskerem in the Ethiopian calendar (27 September, Gregorian calendar, or 28 September in leap years). "Meskel" (or "Meskal" or "Mesqel") is Ge'ez for "cross". [Note: Ge'ez uses a syllabary, so Ge'ez words and names may be transliterated into Roman letters in different ways.]
The festival is known as Feast of the exaltation of the holy cross in other Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant churches. The churches that follow the Gregorian calendar celebrate the feast on 14 September.
The Meskel celebration includes the burning of a large bonfire, or Demera, based on the belief that Queen Eleni had a revelation in a dream. She was told that the she shall make a bonfire and that the smoke would show her where the true cross was buried. So she ordered the people of Jerusalem to bring wood and make a huge pile. After adding frankincense to it the bonfire was lit and the smoke rose high up to the sky and returned to the ground, exactly to the spot where the Cross had been buried.[1] This "Demera"-procession takes place in the early evening the day before Meskel or on the day itself, according to local traditions. The firewood is decorated with daisies prior to the celebration. Afterwards, charcoal from the remains of the fire is collected and used by the faithful to mark their foreheads with the shape of a cross (compare Ash Wednesday).
One reason for the high rank this festival has in the church calendar is that it's believed that a part of the true Cross has been brought to Ethiopia from Egypt. It is said to be on a table mountain "Amba" called "Amba Gishen", which itself has a cross shape.
According to the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the discovery of the True Cross is traditionally believed to be in March, but Meskel was moved to September to avoid holding a festival during Lent, and because the church commemorating the True Cross in Jerusalem was dedicated during September.[2]
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2006 17:27 Comments ||
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#4
See what happens when Muslims are a 33% minority. It is time to boot them out of the West, and ally with their targeted countries like Ethiopia, Thailand, Philipines, Serbia, Nigeria (south), Michigan, Ivory Coast, etc.
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Made-Up Person Writer
MOGADISHU, Somalia
Somalia's government has sent hundreds of troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers to recapture a strategic southern town seized by the country's powerful Islamic movement, military officials and witnesses said Sunday, as dozens of families began fleeing the area. The Islamic militia, which has seized the capital and most of the country's south since June, declared itself in control of the southern town of Dinsor on Saturday, saying it moved into the area without encountering resistance or firing a shot.
With the seizure of the town, the Islamic Courts Union has now effectively surrounded the weak, transitional government in its fortified base in Baidoa, the only town it controls.
Fears were mounting that a battle for Dinsor, about 75 miles southwest of Baidoa, could be the spark that ignites a war in Somalia. The town controls a vital bridge linking Baidoa with southern Somalia and the key port of Kismayo.
"The Courts' provocative and unjustified act of aggression in the region must be faced with force," warned the government's justice minister, Sheik Aden Nour Mohamed.
Some 600 government troops were deployed late Saturday in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns to drive the Islamic group out of the town, said a senior military official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Another official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation said two Ethiopian battalions were in support.
The Islamic movement's spokesman, Sheik Abdirahim Ali Mudey, promised that any government assault would be met with resistance. Witnesses said there were about 200 Islamic fighters with dozens of armed trucks preparing defensive positions in the town.
"Since the town is now under the control of the Islamic courts with the willingness of the local people, any attack waged against it would meet a fierce battle," Mudey said.
One shopkeeper, Mo'alim Isgow Ahmed, said at least half the town's residents have fled.
"We left Dinsor to save our lives," said Mad Ali Gab, who arrived in Baidoa by car. "They are preparing for war, so we cannot wait for the fighting to begin."
Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation, fears the emergence of a neighboring Islamic state and has acknowledged sending military advisers to help the Somali government.
A confidential U.N. report recently obtained by The Associated Press said there were up to 8,000 Ethiopian troops in the country supporting the government. Last week, Ethiopia's parliament authorized military action if attacked by the Islamic movement, which has declared holy war on Ethiopia over its troop incursions.
The U.N. report said Ethiopia's regional rival, Eritrea, had 2,000 troops in the country.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. The transitional government was formed with the help of the U.N. two years ago, but has struggled to assert its authority.
The U.S. circulated a draft U.N. resolution late Friday that would authorize the deployment of a regional military force to protect the fragile government. The troops would likely come from a seven-nation East African group, but would not include Somalia's neighbors, like Ethiopia.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Friday he expects Security Council experts to discuss the draft on Monday.
Associated Press Imaginary Friend Writer Mohamed Sheik Nor in Mogadishu contributed to this report.
Egyptian security forces began a large-scale search throughout Sinai on Saturday for four Palestinian terrorists suspected of planning attacks against Israeli tourists. "Egyptian security received intelligence regarding the four Palestinians, who belong to one of the extreme Palestinian factions, and infiltrated into Egyptian territory through the Rafah Crossing," a security source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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Yemeni state security prosecutors began on Saturday questioning 22 suspected al-Qaeda operatives believed to have planned terror attacks against Western interests and vital installations in the Arab state, official sources said.
A source said the group was recruited by Fawaz al-Rabyee who was killed in a police raid on his hideout near the capital Sana'a on October 1. Rabyee was sentenced to death in 2004 for leading a group linked to al-Qaeda. Security authorities had linked the group to the September suicide attacks on two oil facilities in northern and eastern Yemen, siad the source, adding that among the 22 suspects were four suspected al-Qaeda members arrested in Sana'a four days after the oil attacks. Four attackers and one security guard died when bombers drove four cars into two oil facilities in eastern Yemen on September 15. The four pick-up trucks detonated inside the two facilities in the south- eastern province of Hadhramout and the north-eastern province of Marib.
An al-Qaeda arm in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the September suicide attacks and threatened to launch new attacks against US targets in the country. The group said in an internet statement that 'those operations were only the first spark, and what is coming shall be harsher and more bitter.'
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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Saudi Arabia has detained 139 suspected Islamist militants including a would-be suicide bomber, Al Arabiya television said on Saturday. The militants were not Saudi nationals and included leaders of several cells, it said, citing a Saudi Interior Ministry statement. Saudi authorities have been seizing dozens of al Qaeda members or sympathisers around the country for months. Arabiya said the suspected suicide bomber was captured with the equipment to carry out a large attack but gave no more details about the plot.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Tomorrow's headline. Saudi Arabia: 189 suspected militants released
#3
Actually, the Saudis have an interesting take on this. Most of the militants are pretty ignorant, and are impressed by high-ranking Imams. So when they capture a militant, he gets an extended series of meetings with a non-militant senior Imam, who tries to persuade him of the error of his ways.
If they are true fanatics, they will insist on violence, so it's off to prison. But if they are open to persuasion, and they haven't done anything illegal yet, the Saudis give them a second chance to behave.
Unfortunately, they don't publish recidivism rates, so no idea if it works. I suspect that it might, since a lot of these bucks fell under the influence of some young, radical cleric, and once they are separated from him their programming rapidly wears off. Especially under the influence of someone they respect.
The naivete of young men is well known to the recruiting sergeant around the world. Were they not so dense, there would have been a lot fewer wars.
#6
Moose I'm not sure you understand the promised rewards of Muhamhead pedophilic heaven and Muhamhead's instructed violence required to get there.
The militants were not Saudi nationals
Well not the ones they arrested. I'm willing to bet the Saudi Muslim terrorist are funded by their own. Caused after all by USA's foreign policy against Islamic terrorism.
#7
The little they said of the policy, I gather it was for Saudis only. Now, another good reason is that these young men are probably connected, which would create all kinds of ill feeling if they were sent to prison, unless they were clearly unredeemable.
So the government is always judicious when it comes time to summon the headsman (literally), or to give these young men serious prison time.
Foreigners, on the other hand, are under much stricter rules, so I wouldn't expect much slack be given to them.
#8
Moose just where are the Saudi's going to get non-militant Whahabi Imams?
I'm not certain where you got your info but to be politely blunt I find it lacking. The Saudis were pretty quick to behead the Saudi bombers of the Marine barracks. But feel free to post your sources.
By the way it's not recruiting sergeants that bring the soldiers in. 9-11, Pearl Harbor, the Maine, the Alamo, York Town. I could go on but the point is refuted.
#9
The bottom line is that the instigating Imams must go. Who does it is open to question---if the Saudis do it, then fine. If they are not willing to do it, then someone else must. The Saudis are producing an army of robots in the madarasas that they finance. Cut off the money which means the financiers, and cut of the instigators, which means the Imams, and then the pressure will be off. We are wasting too much treasure and too many good military people on treating the symptoms. All we need is the will.
Too much wealth and power are in the hands of a few in Saudi. They have proven that they are incapable of responsibily handling such unprecidented wealth.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/03/2006 14:05 Comments ||
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#10
what other religion gets their holy? men to preach hatred and violence??????
Translation
A Dutch Muslimah as been arrested in the UK on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. Her Syrian English husband the 27 year old Yassin N. has been behind bars since May 30th. British justice officials are accusing the Moroccan Muslimah of keeping silent about her husbands terrorism plans, which is a crime in the UK since 2000.
According to prosecutors Bouchra had written a letter in which she rejoiced in her husbands martyrdom plans for jihad. She also glorified her own martyrdom and was prepared to sacrifice her 1 year old son Mohammed. Her lawyer said she never intended to engage in terrorism and her glorification of holy war only had 'poetic' meaning.
Investigators searched her home in Eindhoven and the home of Bouchra's parents. The couples apartment in London was also searched. The police confiscated her husband's laptop and found a martyrdom letter. The couple was arrested on May 30th at Luton airport. The woman was released. She was rearrested on September 7th. The trial against the couple will begin 2007.
#3
Her lawyer said she never intended to engage in terrorism and her glorification of holy war only had 'poetic' meaning.
Much of modern law strongly relies upon precedent. To date, a significant number of terrorists have left these "martyrdom letters" behind as they trotted off to commit complete and total mayhem. Amongst those who have done so are some who have committed the most heinous atrocities in recent history.
The courts have every reason to accept such compositions as being in earnest and should act upon them as statements of intent. If they are set in sonant phrasing, go ahead and call them 'poetic', but don't hope to pass them off as Shakespeare's sonnets.
Anyone willing to bet that this woman's anticipation of killing her own infant son will not prove to be sufficient cause for the court's removing him from her custody?
(Itar-Tass) - - Convoys with police officers sent to Chechnya from other regions of Russia have been fired at twice in the republic over the past 24 hours. As Itar-Tass learnt at the Chechen Interior Ministry on Saturday, on the eve, at about 18.00 Moscow time, unidentified persons fired at a convoy of three cars in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny. As a result, an officer of the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Khakasia was injured. The convoy was moving from Mozdok to a point of temporary dislocation. The wounded was hospitalised.
Besides, as a law enforcer told Itar-Tass, a convoy of three cars was attacked on the highway Kavkaz in Gudermes at approximately the same time. As a result, a police officer of Interior Department Ministry of the Khabarovsk Territory was injured. Okay. I'm confused. Khabarovsk is in the Russian Far East. Gudermes is in the Caucasus, to whit, in Chechnya. TDY? A personal visit? A secret mission?
A 3-car convoy implies he's a fairly large cheese and that the mission wasn't secret. Unless he's a larger than 3-car cheese he's not going to get an official reception even if he's visiting Maw and Paw back at the old homestead. So it's probably TDY.
Khabarovsk is the next major stop on the Baikal-Amur railway after Birobidzhan, which is the capital of the stretch of Siberia that used to be the "Jewish Autonomous Region." Khabarovsk is a larger city, but it has the advantage of being even colder and the surrounding territory more desolate, the area where they used to keep some of the better Gulags.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Okay. I'm confused. Khabarovsk is in the Russian Far East. Gudermes is in the Caucasus, to whit, in Chechnya. TDY? A personal visit? A secret mission?
They use police, mainly russian analog of SWAT, for short term service in Chechnia.
#5
The Chechens are a typical case of Soviet divide-and-rule. They were moved from their home to Siberia (I'm not sure where) by Stalin. Then Kruschev let them come back, but, oh, all their land and houses were in the hands of others (usually Russians) now.
I would have a great deal of sympathy for them except that the horned head of Islam has reared.
(Itar-Tass) - - An active participant in illegal armed groups was detained in Nazran. As Itar-Tass learnt at the Interior Ministry of the republic, 29-year-old Maisum Daskiyev took active part in the armed attack on Ingushetias law enforcement structures on June 21-22, 2004. As a result of the attack of a group of gunmen led by Basayev on Ingushetia in 2004, 79 people were killed and 114 wounded. The Department of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office is engaged now in investigating the detainees case.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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Three prominent tribal elders from Khyber Agency and their driver were killed and another elder was injured when gunmen opened fire on them in a settled area in Bara Qadeem bordering the agency headquarters, Bara. The elders were reportedly returning after attending a jirga at the office of the political tehsildar in Bara. The dead were identified as Haji Zareef, Haji Kabul, Haji Mohammad Lal and their driver Gulab. Haji Amir Khan sustained bullet injuries but survived.
Khan told Daily Times at his residence in Kajori, Khyber Agency, that they hired a taxi to Karakhano Market, where they left their bodyguards. We routinely come to tehsil (Bara) via the settled area and therefore we left our vehicles and bodyguards, who are armed with unlicensed weapons, in Karakhano Market. We did not expect an attempt on our lives, he said. Khan said that he did not see the attackers. But I do know that somebody showered bullets at us from the front. I dont know if the attackers were standing on the road or if they fired at us from some vehicle, he said.
The bodies of the deceased were taken to Khyber Medical College for autopsy while police registered an FIR against unknown assailants.
Rival groups the Lashkar-e-Islami and Ansarul Islam continue to target each others men in Khyber Agency while putting pressure on non-aligned tribal elders to join them. All those killed on Saturday had denounced both groups and urged the authorities to bar their activities in the agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A powerful blast outside a Frontier Corps (FC) camp in Naushki killed a young boy and injured two others on Saturday, while an FC check post came under a rocket attack in Dera Bugti district. Unidentified assailants planted the homemade bomb under a power-supply pylon outside the FC camp in Naushki. A source told Daily Times that the blast took place at around 12 noon, disconnecting power to most parts of the district. Meanwhile, police arrested a terrorist in connection with bomb blasts and rocket attacks in Quetta, Aaj TV reported.
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Unclear as the parties involved, but the article implies the deed was done by a civil warrior (or waree or multiples of them thereof) of possible sunni adherence, notice the cities named, all sunni strongholds.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates An American pilot whose F-16 fighter jet went down in Iraq was listed as killed in action following DNA analysis of remains recovered at the crash site, the U.S. Air Force said Sunday.
Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, 34, was supporting troops fighting in Anbar province, where many of the country's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups operate. Videotape footage obtained by Associated Press Television News after the crash appeared to show the wreckage of the F-16CG in a field and a tangled parachute nearby.
Remains recovered at the crash site 20 miles north of Baghdad were identified as Gilbert's, the Air Force said.
U.S. forces investigating the crash have said insurgents reached the site before American forces could. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but officials said they did not believe Gilbert was shot down.
In this undated photo provided by the Air Force, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert is shown. Gilbert an American pilot whose F-16 crashed in Iraq earlier this week was described by military members and his family as a husband and father of five who always did what it took to get the mission done. At the time of the crash, 34-year-old Gilbert, was supporting troops fighting in Anbar province, the area of Iraq where many of the country's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups operate. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force)
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2006 15:55 Comments ||
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#2
I'm not really sad for him, he knew what he was doing, and accepted the odds, but that's very hard for his five children, and for his wife. It will be a very sad Christmas.
#4
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky,
Be with them always in the air,
In dark'ning storms or sunlight fair.
O, Hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/03/2006 20:39 Comments ||
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#5
A5089 - that's a little bit cynical for me. Sure they know the risks. So, should any warriors be saluted? No? I disagree
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2006 22:13 Comments ||
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With pressure to do more of the fighting, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki plans to increase the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) by nearly 20,000, according the U.S. command in Baghdad.
The plan had been for 325,000 army, police and other forces. The army number will be increased by 18,700, the command said, at the expense of the Iraqi government. The Pentagon so far has received $8 billion from Congress to build the ISF.
The increase breaks down to three new divisions, five new brigades and 20 battalions, plus one additional special operations battalion. That would give Iraq, I believe, 13 army divisions. That might also mean creating a second Corps, as that is more than a bit heavy for one Command.
#1
Still, the eventual breakdown of divisions and other military branches will be the deciding factor. Currently, only the 9th division is Mechanized.
Hungary agreed to give 77 refurbished T-72 Main Battle Tanks.
173 M113s, 44 Panhards, and 100 Spartans are being donated by Jordan, Pakistan and UAE. 600 DZIK3 APCs (option 1200) and 573 Akrep APCs for delivery by Jan 2007.
756 Cougar APCs (option 1050) for delivery by Nov 2008.
The 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division took delivery of 10 armored HMMWVs in March 2006
713 M1114s and 400 M1151s were scheduled for delivery by July 2006.
Iraqi Air Force Combat Aircraft:
80 Chengdu F-7
53 Mirage F1
5 Dassault Super Etendard
Transport Aircraft
10 An-2
12 An-12
24 An-24
2 An-26
#6
Does that include any of the ones that were buried in sand dunes to hide them? Because I was under the belief that the sand dune planes were total write-offs.
#7
Frank, I think your idea of giving up some Tomcats is not a good idea: Iran has some, whether flying of not, they probably still have crews that could get them airborne. Unless you want to set a little bait, maybe?
We have lots of other good a/c in the desert that would be adequate; F-111, A-7 ( both USAF and USN), A-4, A-6 ( my personal all time favorite) as well as early F-16/ FA18.
Three parked car bombs exploded in central Baghdad on Saturday near a predominantly Shiite area packed with vendors, killing at least 91 people and wounding dozens, officials said. The bombs were about 100 meters apart and exploded nearly simultaneously at about 4:30 p.m., said police Lt. Ali Muhsin and hospital officials.
Most of the victims were in the busy al-Sadriyah shopping district in central Baghdad, Muhsin said. At least 10 other parked vehicles were destroyed in an area where street vendors sell fruit, vegetables and other items such as soap. Muhsin and hospital officials said 91 people were killed and 43 were wounded, raising the death toll from 38 after many of the victims died of their wounds.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"Three parked car bombs exploded in central Baghdad on Saturday near a predominantly Shiite area packed with vendors, killing at least 91 people and wounding dozens, officials said."
Okay, to the point of utter exasperation: Who is the friggin' idiot that declines to ban all automotive transportation in Baghdad?
Make the idiots walk or ride a bicycle! You're still going to have the problem with cyclist and bipedal boomers, but what the heck, they cannot pack 500 pounds or more of explosives on their persons or bikes.
Hundreds of Palestinian police engaged in a roving gunbattle Saturday with a well-armed Palestinian clan in the streets of Gaza City near President Mahmoud Abbas' official residence, security officials said. Nine people were wounding in the fighting.
The fighting started about 3 p.m., when police tried to arrest several members of the Abu Amra family in connection with drug and weapons smuggling and charges of stealing government land. Members of the family, which live in large, Bedouin-style tents on government land near Abbas' residence, responded with a major counterattack, using assault rifles, and rocket propelled grenades to try to drive off the police, security officials said.
Police, some of them masked, took over five rooftops during the running street battles that lasted for hours and left seven police and two members of the family wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Police, some of them masked, took over five rooftops during the running street battles that lasted for hours and left seven police and two members of the family wounded.
Pathetic.
How did it end up? Draw? Hudna? Abu Amra family gets visited in the middle of the night by hooded police?
#3
A nice sumation of the pali plight. Got tents, tribes, drugs, weapons, stealing land, hooded police, the inability to hold a line and piss-poor shooting.
Sri Lankan police detained two people over an attempt to assassinate the presidents brother, officials said, as 11 people were killed in fresh fighting. The Police Criminal Investigations Department took into custody two men who owned the auto-rickshaw used in Fridays suicide bombing targeting Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakses heavily armed convoy in Colombo. We have tracked down the owner of the vehicle used in the bombing, a police official said. Two are being questioned.
Forensic experts suggested the three-wheel rickshaw was fitted with eight to 10 kilograms of plastic explosives and packed with ball bearings which acted as pellets, he said. Two army bodyguards of Rajapakse died in the attack, which also wounded 15 people, including five civilians. The suicide bombers body was found on the back of a pickup truck caught up in the powerful blast on the high-security Dharmapala Mawatha road. The head was destroyed beyond recognition, police said.
Within hours of Fridays blast, two policemen were killed in a Claymore mine attack in northern Jaffna peninsula, police said, adding that troops killed eight Tiger rebels in two separate clashes in the restive east. A soldier was also killed in a Tiger grenade attack on troops in Jaffna on Friday, the defence ministry said. The violence came as Norways top envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer visited Colombo for talks with Sri Lankan leaders on reviving a stalled peace bid. Hanssen-Bauer is due to travel to the rebel-held north of the island Monday.
Despite Fridays attack on defence secretary Rajapakse, the government said it was still committed to a peaceful solution to the three-decade-old Tamil separatist conflict.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2006 00:00 ||
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A young man was killed and three other people were wounded Sunday in two separate street fights in Beirut between opposition and government supporters, as army troops and security forces were swiftly beefed up to prevent further escalation. Security sources identified the killed man as Ali Ahmed Mahmoud, a 20-year-old Shiite, who died of his wounds.
They said four other people were wounded in the clashes which took place in the densely-populated Tarik Jedideh neighborhood and on the Badaro-Qasqas highway.
Shiite supporters from the southern suburbs trying to infiltrate into Tarik Jedideh, a low-income predominantly Sunni quarter, clashed with pro-government supporters with stones, sticks and knives, witnesses told Naharnet.
They said sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire could be heard in the confrontation which lasted about 45 minutes before army troops and police patrols stepped in to disengage the opponents.
The army threw a security dragnet in Tarik Jedideh in an effort to prevent followers of the pro-Syrian Hizbullah and Amal movement from stirring trouble in the Sunni neighborhood.
Another confrontation was reported on the Badaro-Qasqas highway between supporters of Hizbullah and Amal on the one side, and others from the Lebanese Forces, the Christian faction led by Samir Geagea.
Meanwhile, opposition leader of the minority Druze Lebanese Democratic Party violently challenged Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's government.
"I promise you that this government will fall under the boots of the patriotic Lebanese people," said Talal Arslan, a staunch foe of anti-Syrian Druze chieftain Walid Jumblat.
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.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Rooters) - At least eight people were killed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Sunday in a suicide car bombing against NATO troops and subsequent gunfire by soldiers, police and witnesses said. Three civilians died when the bomber struck a military convoy and five more were shot by troops afterwards, they said.
(KHARTOUM) Days of fighting between former rebels and government forces killed more than 150 people and wounded at least 400 in a southern Sudanese town, a U.N. official said Saturday.
A Muslim mob has killed six Christians in an unprovoked attack on a congregation in Ethiopia, ICC has discovered. 
The Islamic militia, which has seized the capital and most of the country's south since June, declared itself in control of the southern town of Dinsor on Saturday, saying it moved into the area without encountering resistance or firing a shot. 
Egyptian security forces began a large-scale search throughout Sinai on Saturday for four Palestinian terrorists suspected of planning attacks against Israeli tourists. "Egyptian security received intelligence regarding the four Palestinians, who belong to one of the extreme Palestinian factions, and infiltrated into Egyptian territory through the Rafah Crossing," a security source said.
Yemeni state security prosecutors began on Saturday questioning 22 suspected al-Qaeda operatives believed to have planned terror attacks against Western interests and vital installations in the Arab state, official sources said. 
Saudi Arabia has detained 139 suspected Islamist militants including a would-be suicide bomber, Al Arabiya television said on Saturday. The militants were not Saudi nationals and included leaders of several cells, it said, citing a Saudi Interior Ministry statement. Saudi authorities have been seizing dozens of al Qaeda members or sympathisers around the country for months. Arabiya said the suspected suicide bomber was captured with the equipment to carry out a large attack but gave no more details about the plot.
(Itar-Tass) - - Convoys with police officers sent to Chechnya from other regions of Russia have been fired at twice in the republic over the past 24 hours. As Itar-Tass learnt at the Chechen Interior Ministry on Saturday, on the eve, at about 18.00 Moscow time, unidentified persons fired at a convoy of three cars in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny. As a result, an officer of the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Khakasia was injured. The convoy was moving from Mozdok to a point of temporary dislocation. The wounded was hospitalised. 
(Itar-Tass) - - An active participant in illegal armed groups was detained in Nazran. As Itar-Tass learnt at the Interior Ministry of the republic, 29-year-old Maisum Daskiyev took active part in the armed attack on Ingushetias law enforcement structures on June 21-22, 2004. As a result of the attack of a group of gunmen led by Basayev on Ingushetia in 2004, 79 people were killed and 114 wounded. The Department of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office is engaged now in investigating the detainees case.
Three prominent tribal elders from Khyber Agency and their driver were killed and another elder was injured when gunmen opened fire on them in a settled area in Bara Qadeem bordering the agency headquarters, Bara. The elders were reportedly returning after attending a jirga at the office of the political tehsildar in Bara. The dead were identified as Haji Zareef, Haji Kabul, Haji Mohammad Lal and their driver Gulab. Haji Amir Khan sustained bullet injuries but survived.
A powerful blast outside a Frontier Corps (FC) camp in Naushki killed a young boy and injured two others on Saturday, while an FC check post came under a rocket attack in Dera Bugti district. Unidentified assailants planted the homemade bomb under a power-supply pylon outside the FC camp in Naushki. A source told Daily Times that the blast took place at around 12 noon, disconnecting power to most parts of the district. Meanwhile, police arrested a terrorist in connection with bomb blasts and rocket attacks in Quetta, Aaj TV reported.
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Three parked car bombs exploded in central Baghdad on Saturday near a predominantly Shiite area packed with vendors, killing at least 91 people and wounding dozens, officials said. The bombs were about 100 meters apart and exploded nearly simultaneously at about 4:30 p.m., said police Lt. Ali Muhsin and hospital officials. 
Hundreds of Palestinian police engaged in a roving gunbattle Saturday with a well-armed Palestinian clan in the streets of Gaza City near President Mahmoud Abbas' official residence, security officials said. Nine people were wounding in the fighting. 
Sri Lankan police detained two people over an attempt to assassinate the presidents brother, officials said, as 11 people were killed in fresh fighting. The Police Criminal Investigations Department took into custody two men who owned the auto-rickshaw used in Fridays suicide bombing targeting Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakses heavily armed convoy in Colombo. We have tracked down the owner of the vehicle used in the bombing, a police official said. Two are being questioned.
