There are two separate Allied operations in Afghanistan right now. There is Operation Enduring Freedom, led by the Americans with British participation. And there is the International Security Assistance Force, which is a NATO operation and manned mainly by Europeans and Canadians.
The Howard Government wanted to deploy its special operations group as part of Operation Enduring Freedom because it has a more robust mandate and stronger rules of engagement. But this was opposed by the Dutch. Overall the Dutch have more than 2000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Australians, who form a 400-strong Reconstruction Task Force in Tarin Kowt in Oruzgun, work intimately with the Dutch. The Australians have a high respect for the Dutch. But the Dutch are in Afghanistan as part of ISAF, not as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
ISAF has a long list of Taliban personnel it is prepared to target. These are the so-called high-value targets. However, at times the restrictions on its rules of engagement are ridiculous. If ISAF coalition forces discover a house with two Taliban high-value targets, and four other Taliban fighters who are not on the list of ISAF approved targets, it cannot attack the house. This is not a scenario of protecting civilians but of protecting Taliban targets who are just not specifically on the list.
The Australians were not interested in this kind of handicapped engagement. Sending soldiers into harm's way is a serious and profoundly consequential business. Canberra's view is you either send them in to do the business, or you're better off not sending them at all. The donks are really lucky Howard can't run for President here
A number of the Europeans apply restrictive caveats to what their troops will and won't do. One of the worst sorts of caveat is geographic, restricting their forces to particular provinces. This led to one notorious situation where Canadians were in military trouble and called for air support. Nearby Europeans wouldn't give it because they could not leave their designated province. The Europeans have since updated their caveat regime so that they can now, at least in emergencies, move out of their province to render assistance to an ally in trouble.
Because the Dutch are more numerous in Oruzgan than the Australians, that operation is under their leadership and they could not politically tolerate an Australian deployment, with them, under Operation Enduring Freedom.
In the end, Canberra agreed to send its special forces group as part of ISAF but insisted they would remain under Australian national command and interpret their rules of engagement in an Australian way. They are partly reassured because the present head of the ISAF force is an American general who is extremely unlikely to complain about the Australians being too robust. Understates like a Pom.
And the Australians will be very robust indeed in their pursuit of the Taliban leadership. This is widely recognised internationally.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has written to President General Pervez Musharraf asking him to do more to stop Taliban fighters crossing from Pakistan into southern Afghanistan, where Australian troops are being sent.
As Australia prepares to double its troop commitment in Afghanistan, Mr Howard said in a letter to Gen Musharraf in February that the Taliban flow from Pakistan threatened the lives of Australian troops sent to Oruzgan province, The Weekend Australian newspaper reports.
The newspaper says before the new commitment of troops, the head of the Australian Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, was forced to engage in difficult and lengthy negotiations with Dutch counterpart General DL Berlijn over the rules of engagement.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
PM Howard had better specify on which side he wants them to do more.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) of Britain and Ireland decided during its annual meeting in Birmingham on Friday to boycott Israeli products in protest of the Second Lebanon War and Israeli aggression in Gaza.
The resolution, which passed by a vote of 66 to 54, called for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations." The announcement of the passage of the resolution drew a combination of applause and gasps, the Guardian said.
According to the Guardian, the NUJ national executive committee has been instructed to support organizations including the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Justice in Palestine and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, the Guardian reported. Also : British 'silently boycott' Israeli academics
#3
I suggest they all head on down to Gaza and provide more live coverage. As usual, gulping down camels whole and choking on mosquitoes. I haven't noticed the IDF chopping off anyone's head of late.
#5
There has long been an undercurrent in England of hating Jews as much as their was in Germany before WWII. They've just not had a popular leader like Hitler to focus that hatred. But at intervals since about 1200 AD, they have periodically attacked the Jews.
A JAILED preacher who inspired one of the 7/7 bombers has sparked rage by using human rights laws to try to stay here. Abdullah El-Faisal was jailed for nine years in March 2003 for inciting murder in vile rants but he is due to be released this month. The Home Office plans to deport him to his native Jamaica but the Muslim convert, with links to Al Qaeda, claims he has a right to family life in Britain.
With all his wives.
El-Faisal is the latest to take advantage of human rights legislation to make a mockery of Tony Blairs pledge to kick out foreign extremists. Last night critics condemned his attempt to remain in a country he has targeted in his sick messages. Labour MP and chairman of the Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights Andrew Dismore said: He should be deported. He has committed a serious offence, the effects of which stretch way beyond the actual offence itself. He is not a British national and should be removed. The sooner he is on the plane, the better.
El-Faisal was also jailed for stirring up racial hatred. The trial judge said he had fanned the flames of hostility.
The twice-married father-of-four urged his followers to kill Hindus, Jews and Americans and distributed tape recordings with titles including No Peace With The Jews and Declaration Of War. He called for non-believers to be killed with chemical and nuclear weapons, guns and bombs while dismissing the killing of women and children in terror atrocities as collateral damage.
I'm surprised he wasn't collecting welfare while spewing this swill.
El-Faisals twisted preachings were delivered at Brixton mosque, where shoe bomber Richard Reid is said to have met Zacharias Moussaoui the so-called 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks.
It emerged last year that El-Faisal was also believed to have influenced 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay.
Hadn't heard that but I'm not surprised if he was hanging out at Brixton.
The official Home Office account of the attacks detailed the danger he poses, adding: It is believed that he (Lindsay) was strongly influenced by the extremist preacher Abdullah El-Faisal. Lindsay is believed to have attended at least one lecture and to have listened to tapes of other lectures by him.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer joined calls for El-Faisal to be deported. He said: It seems very odd that this man is prepared to undermine our society and encourage violence, yet the moment it suits him he cries human rights. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind and we need to just get rid of the man.
El-Faisal was the first Muslim preacher of hate to be jailed for his rantings. He is being held in high-security Long Lartin prison, in Worcestershire.
Whitehall sources said the Home Office would look to deport him as soon as possible after his prison release date and he would stay in custody until that happens.
But lawyers are now using the European Convention of Human Rights to argue that he should be allowed to stay because of his right to a family life. His four children, stepchildren, wife and former wife are all living in Britain, said his lawyer Khalid Sofi.
He has already lost one appeal before immigration judges but his lawyers plan to fight that decision at the High Court, in a case which could keep him here for several more months. Mr Sofi insisted the case was not being funded by legal aid but it will still cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds for the Home Office to fight it. He said: His case is based on his human right to have a family life. He has a family here, he has children and wants to remain here with them.
He just doesn't want to behave here. It's called 'chutzpah' but that's a Yiddish word.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I'd let him stay in Britain. Give him just as much room as we gave Ted Bundy in 2007, and place him in the same state of activity.
Posted by: Mac ||
04/15/2007 7:12 Comments ||
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#6
Deport him immediately to El Shitholistan where he came from, alert the media there as to his arrival time and place, watch the festivities when he arrives.
Be done with this turd.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 11:36 Comments ||
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#7
Universal human rights vs. Immigrant rights. Hate Speech vs. Free Speech.
#8
He called for non-believers to be killed with chemical and nuclear weapons, guns and bombs while dismissing the killing of women and children in terror atrocities as collateral damage.
Surely then, something so trifling as his deportation can also be called "collateral damage".
He said: It seems very odd that this man is prepared to undermine our society and encourage violence, yet the moment it suits him he cries human rights. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind and we need to just get rid of the man.
Personally, I'm astonished that they finally noticed. It will mark especial progress if his saying "to just get rid of the man" doesn't actually refer to deportation.
His case is based on his human right to have a family life. He has a family here, he has children and wants to remain here with them.
I'm amazed that no one else caught this little gem. Where in the Hell is it a "human right to have a family life"? You obtain the privilege of having a wife and family by providing for them and creating a stable environment wherein they may flourish.
This terrorist seeks to create nothing of the sort and has been jailed for voluntarily working to destroy the very world he has brought his family into. To then demand leniency upon their part goes beyond hypocrisy, it is a psychotic degree of cognitive dissonance.
This guy should be dead and anyone with a brain knows it.
He's been on my list for some time now:
1. Ayman al-Zawahiri
2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
3. Ayatolla Kahmeini
4. Mullah Muhammad Omar
5. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (Bashir)
6. Moqtada Sadr,
7. Abu Hamza al-Masri,
8. Mullah Krekar (AKA: Abu Sayyid Qutb),
9. Khaled Meshal
10. Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
11. Ismail Haniya
12. Mohammed Abbas
13. Yusuf al-Qaradawi
14. imam Ahmed Abu Laban
15. Sheikh Taj Al-Din Al-Hilali
16. imam Omar Bakri Mohammed
17. imam Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa
18. imam Sheikh SyeSyed Mubarik Ali Gilani
19. Abdullah al-Faisal
20. Sheik Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi
21. Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar
22. Prince Sultan Ibn Abd al-Aziz
23. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz
24. Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz
#9
he should be extradicted to the bottom of a tall set of stairs. Deporting to Jamaica doesn't help at all, unless if the Jamaican gangs can be cheaply paid to kill him toot suite in a vile, violent, and discouraging-to-others manner...which I personally would be OK with...in a theoretical sense, of course, mods....
You're okay here, he's not an American. AoS.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2007 16:01 Comments ||
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#10
He should get the full Brit treatment for blasphemers, hung, drawn, quartered, head on pike above the gate.
#13
Spot on, DepotGuy! Cashing in that entire list would eliminate some 50% of global terrorism's infrastructure. We could do it for well under one billion dollars and obviate the need for several trillion dollars worth of conventional war fighting.
If they want to survive, Western governments must get over all these Order of the Garter style bullshit notions of fair play. Terrorists never even had them in the first place, so why should we? The road ahead is particularly nasty and measures like this promise some of the only swift and sure results. It is the inability of our leaders to exterminate terrorism's elite that eventually will make necessary slaughter on a far worse scale.
#2
It doesn't matter - the entire Quran is on the Internet in at LEAST fifteen places. Most of the drivel spewed by the militants is there, also. If you want to find it, you CAN find it. Banning books is a half-step. Banning hate-filled jihadi websites is also necessary.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/15/2007 17:20 Comments ||
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#3
Banning living Jihad-spewing clerics should be the first step. Actively pursued.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2007 17:54 Comments ||
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#4
Killingliving Jihad-spewing clerics should be the first step.
There, fixed that for ya, Frank.
Offing Islam's clerical elite is job #1 in the fight against Global Jihad. Consider how very few innocent lives would be claimed if every single imam on earth were put to death at this moment.
Fabrizio Quattrocchi. May 9, 1968 April 14, 2004.
They showed the hostages on video, and threatened to kill them if their demands were not met. To demonstrate they were serious, they took Quattrocchi to a field, and had him dig a large hole. They then put a hood over his head and forced him to kneel by the grave, preparing to murder him. But Fabrizio did not cooperate. He stood and tried to pull off the hood, shouting, "Now I'll show you how an Italian dies!" The terrorists shot him in the back of the neck
I was reminded of the story of William Logan Crittenden, of the Kentucky Crittendens, a West Point graduate and Mexican War veteran. He went to Cuba in 1851 with Spanish General Narciso Lopez to try to foment revolution. Things went terribly wrong, and Crittenden found himself with 50 other Americans standing bound beneath the walls of Castle Atares in Havana, awaiting execution. They were taken before the firing squad in groups of ten. Crittenden led the second group. Spanish custom at the time was to have the condemned kneel with their backs to the executioners. A Spanish officer ordered Crittenden to comply. "A Kentuckian never turns his back on an enemy," he said, "and kneels only to God." The Spanish struck his legs with their rifle butts, forcing the young American down and turning him, but before they could fire he stood and faced his killers. A bullet hit Crittenden above his nose, tearing his head open. Shortly before he went to meet his fate he had written to his uncle, John Jordan Crittenden, then the US Attorney General, "I will die like a man." He did.
The enemy we face today would have to rise far to earn even our contempt. Fabrizio's captors wanted not just to kill him, but to humiliate him, the true mark of the savage. However, they needed his cooperation, and Fabrizio knew it. He was beyond help, but not helpless. He was alive. He could still choose, if only to choose the manner in which he would die. Consider the bravery, the nobility, the strength of that act. In his final moments, facing eternity, willfully discarding the shred of hope that maybe it would not happen, maybe he would get out of it alive, shouting defiance in the masked faces of his captors and denying the barbarous cowards intent on murdering him the satisfaction of his complicity in their crime.
Fabrizio Quattrocchi showed us how an Italian dies, and how a hero lives.
Lest we forget. 3 year anniversary - and what a contrast to the incidents in Iran
#1
Fabrizio Quattrocchi is a hero and model for each one of us.
Let's hope his life and death will inspire a new younger generation of Italians and free peoples everywhere. RIP
#2
We're all going to die. The question is, "in what way will we choose to live?" Quattrocchi lived and died like a man. He may have had a lot of things to answer to St. Pete for, but the way his life ended wasn't one of them.
Posted by: Mac ||
04/15/2007 7:07 Comments ||
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#4
If my memory is any good the idea of the expedition to Cuba and similar ones in Central America was to have them enter the Union as pro-alavery states able to elect two pro-alavery states and get N pro-slavery electors for the vote on president.
Had the plan worked (and resistance of Northerrn states to such acquisitions been overcome) Lincoln would have never been elected and abolition would have been delayed for at least 50 years.
If my memory is any good the idea of the expedition to Cuba and similar ones in Central America was to have them enter the Union as pro-slavery senators and get N pro-slavery electors for the vote on president.
Had the plan worked (and resistance of Northerrn states to such acquisitions been overcome) Lincoln would have never been elected and abolition would have been delayed for at least 50 years.
#10
In similar circumstances, knowing I was to die, I would weave a tale to my captors that would haunt them to their dying day--if they still had the nerve to kill me.
The reason being that many such brutes are highly superstitious, and readily believe tales the weirder the better. Djinns, curses, zombies, vampires, anything is fair game to leave the SOBs trembling in their boots.
This is in no way wrong. In fact, some military personnel are trained to do just this if they are captured, as resistance in any form keeps up your morale and dampens the enemy morale.
It should begin as soon as possible after you are captured, and hopefully you won't end up in a position of last minute defiance while facing death.
ABCNews' Eloise Harper reports: After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war. alllll the way from NY to NH? The sacrifice!
Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, "Did you read it?!" Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times. "Did you read it?!"
"huh"
"Did you read it?!"
"huh"
"Did you read it?!"
"next question?"
The woman sat down and Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority." Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq. uh huh...what is the definition of "is"?
When Clinton finished the answer, the woman continued to scream but was drowned out by applause for the Senator. The woman was escorted out of the building. driven to Ft. Marcy Park, and committed suicide by shooting herself in the head 47 times. Her name was not released
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Obviously a questioner who had had a frontal lobotomy asking a question to the poser-senator who needs one.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/15/2007 11:52 Comments ||
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#2
the woman continued to scream but was drowned out by applause for the Senator
Huge, HUGE mistake. applause for Hillary, must be really hard to get that many brain-dead to attend.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 11:55 Comments ||
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#3
Naw, the brain-dead zombies can be easily herded aboard busses, cattlecars, etc., and trucked nearly anywhere the Dhimmi's need 'em, especially when there's an election.
#4
Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority."
The obvious question is: Ok, So what dont you know now that might be equally as important in the future?
A predictable answer might be: No one can completely see into the future, I can only make prudent decisions based on what I know at the time.
An appropriate response: So Senator, in other words what your telling us is your either not willing to stand behind your decision or you were deceived by a man that you have consistently described as incompetent.
Standard Bullshit Reply: Blah Blah Bush lied People died Blah Blah but I believed I was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq
Follow up: "Were confused since when did the President need a congressional Use of Force resolution to give him the authority to allow UN inspectors into a country that has violated 17 UN resolutions? Moreover, isnt that the domain of the UNSC?"
Another Bullshit Reply: Um er many of us believed that if the legislative and executive branches appeared united we could persuade the UN to act more forcefully."
Final statement: "OK so what your saying is that it is appropriate for a US President to ask members of congress to make the most difficult decision in their lifetimes even though that President has no intention of following through on his request. And your saying that is appropriate because it has the possibility to coerce the UNSC to vote in a way that might be consistent with US interests. Oh yeah, with insight like that, we can see why you keep saying how the President deceived congress and the American people."
#5
Correct me if I"m wrong, but doesn't this woman have even less legislative experience than Barack "Greenhorn" Obama? Cripes, pretty soon we're going to see "intern security guard" appear on the resume of a presidential candidate.
Defying a security crackdown, more than 3,000 lawyers and opposition activists torched an effigy of President Pervez Musharraf in protests yesterday against his removal of Pakistan's top judge. Flag-waving demonstrators massed outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry attended a fourth hearing into misconduct charges lodged by the president. Military ruler Musharraf sacked the independent-minded Chaudhry on March 9, sparking nationwide demonstrations and a tense political crisis now spilling into its second month.
"Go Musharraf, go" the protesters chanted, and "Musharraf is America's pet dog," as hundreds of paramilitary troops and baton-wielding riot police kept them away from the imposing court building. Some opposition party demonstrators set fire to a dummy and a poster of the president and beat them frantically with their shoes in a sign of disrespect, an AFP photographer said. Others torched piles of old tyres. "Our message for Musharraf is that people want real democracy and not the mock arrangement that we have now," cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan told AFP at the rally.
Lawyers wearing smart black suits and crisp white shirts held black flags and mobbed Chaudhry's car as he arrived at court and again as he left. A couple of lawyers climbed on top of the vehicle. The suspended chief justice has denied charges laid by Musharraf including that he abused his position to get his son a senior police job and to amass a fleet of cars.
Islamic fundamentalist party workers and supporters of the former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif held separate but simultaneous protests under the blazing sun. The hearing was later adjourned until April 18 after lawyers for Chaudhry raised concerns about members of the panel dealing with the case, known as the Supreme Judicial Council. A uniformed effigy of Musharraf was torched in the eastern city of Lahore, where another 4,000 lawyers and opposition supporters rallied in front of the provincial assembly building, an AFP reporter said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Pak colonel throws medals at Musharraf
A retired colonel of the Pakistan army, who had surrendered his service medals and the title of colonel as a mark of protest against the General Pervez Musharrafs attempt to undermine the sovereignty and independence of judiciary, is being harassed by the Inter Services Intelligence either to take back his decision within a week or face the consequences.
While protesting in an anti-Musharraf rally on April 4 in Islamabad, Col (retd) Anwar Khan Afridi literally hurled six medals he had won during his long service from 1970 to 1998, including those he had won for showing bravery during the 1971 war with India, towards the Presidency.
Afridi says that the ISI was hounding him and his family to retract his decision before the next hearing of the presidential reference against the apex court chief justice on April 18.
He said after their failure to persuade him, the operatives of the intelligence agency had gone to his native village to pressurise his parents, who now fear for their life.
Afridi said that he wont budge from his stance come what may. I am a true soldier of Pakistan Army unlike Musharraf and would continue my struggle till the reinstatement of the chief justice and the removal of Musharraf from power, he added. Anwar Afridi, who has four kids, and a wife, has already announced returning his army pension of two plots of land and $313 a month.
The target of his angry gesture is his own commander-in-chief, General Musharraf, who faces the most serious challenge to his eight-year rule, following his March 9 decision to suspend the chief justice of Supreme Court on flimsy charges of misconduct.
Anwar Afridi got his right hand fractured on April 7 in Lahore while taking part in an anti-Musharraf lawyers convention which was attacked by the Punjab police.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 7:19 Comments ||
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President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected absolutely and totally the prospect of joint US-Pakistan military operations to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan. The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it, he told CBS news channel in an interview.
Pakistan is being maligned by the West unfairly in criticism that it is not doing enough to root out terrorists on its soil and to help crush the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, he said. He blamed the criticism on a total lack of understanding of the environment and reality by President Hamid Karzai himself. Asked if he was angry with Karzai, he replied: Yes, indeed. Very angry.
Musharraf dismissed as absolute nonsense a claim by Karzai that Taliban leader Mullah Omar was hiding in Pakistan. He is in south Afghanistan somewhere. He is not in Pakistan, although President Karzai and everyone keeps saying he is in Quetta - absolute nonsense, absolute total nonsense- he has never been in Pakistan.
The president said Pakistan was following the correct strategy in the war against terrorism. Even if we are succeeding 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, the direction is correct, end goal is correct, strategy is correct, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Listen MAN. Something is rotted in your border. Limbs and heads do not fall from the sky, Hail does.
You fix this with that IS or you will see new borders.
No one gives a damn about protests. No one has the time to play politics when Moslems are bombing the entire world.
#2
Not sure I'd want joint operations. Not sure there's a Pak can be trusted on this matter. I think when you're in a combat zone, having to worry about your enemies is bad enough without having to worry about your so-called "friends" shooting you in the back.
Posted by: Mac ||
04/15/2007 7:09 Comments ||
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#3
On what matter of interest to us can the Paks be trusted?
#4
To keep US military technology out of Chinese hands?
Sorry.. confused Pak with some other ally
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 9:25 Comments ||
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#5
But, but, you see, it is all the fault of India. If the Kashmir problem was fixed and Kashmir was given to Pakistan, as it rightly should be, the problems on our borders would magically disappear.
#6
How about some Joint Indo-US Anti-Terror raids?
An Indian policemen takes position behind a wall near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar. India,
An Indian paramilitary soldier points towards a house where suspected militants are holed up during a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar. India, Friday, April 6, 2007.
Indian police drag the body of a suspected militant from a house after a gunbattle in Nishat, on the outskirts of Srinagar, April 6, 2007. Indian police shot dead three suspected Muslim militants in an eight-hour long fire fight near a famous Mughal Garden in Kashmir's summer capital on Friday, police said.
An Indian paramilitary soldier takes away his wounded colleague during a
gun battle in the outskirts of Srinagar. India, Friday, April, 6 ,2007.
Smoke and dust rise from a house as a grenade is detonated safely by the Indian police after a gunbattle in Nishat on the outskirts of Srinagar April 6, 2007. Indian police shot dead three suspected Muslim militants in an eight-hour long fire fight near a famous Mughal Garden in Kashmir's summer capital on Friday, police said.
Security personnel train at a counter-terrorism and jungle warfare school in Kanker village, about 140 km (87 miles) south of the central Indian city of Raipur March 19, 2007.
Pakistan is at a critical stage and the biggest threat it is facing is internal extremism and sectarianism, said President General Pervez Musharraf here on Saturday. The country is passing through the worst ever critical moment and is facing two major threats of religious extremism and sectarianism, Gen Musharraf said at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul on Saturday. In an apparent reference to the Lal Masjid standoff, he said the government must think carefully about use of force against extremists. We will be rational before using might, as we will have to face our own brothers and sisters.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Who funds these extemist Perv?
ISI and the Saudis come to mind!!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
04/15/2007 10:37 Comments ||
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The Lal Masjid administration on Saturday refused to set any time frame for talks, saying that first the government must start rebuilding seven mosques here that were demolished in January.
An aide of PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain phoned the deputy cleric of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, on Saturday evening. I made it clear to them that first Shujaat should abide by his commitment and then we would discuss the matter, Ghazi told Daily Times. Shujaat had agreed that first the seven demolished mosques should be reconstructed and the government would take visible actions for enforcement of Sharia, he added. Now the ball is in the governments court.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Pakistani authorities are contemplating employing female commandos as part of an operation to deal with burqa-clad female militants to end the standoff with extremists at Islamabads Lal Masjid, the website DesPrades quoted Stratfor as having reported on Saturday. Startfor, the Texas-based news intelligence service, was said to have quoted sources in the region as the reports basis. While certain government officials are continuing their efforts to resolve the matter through negotiations, authorities also are preparing contingency plans in case talks fail, the report added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
From an article by Pak journalist Irfan Husain
Tailpiece: I still havent been able to understand why the government has not cut off the electricity, water and gas to the entire Lal Masjid complex, with its two radical madressahs. Given the onset of the warm weather, the stifling head-to-toe clothing of the chicks with sticks, and the absence of deodorants, it wouldnt take long for the students to call it a day.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 6:34 Comments ||
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#2
chicks with sticks LOL John.
~~
burqa-clad female militants!! Be Afraid Perv.
Perv has got real troubles now that he's got jehadi wymins after him.
#3
authorities also are preparing contingency plans in case talks fail,
How about retch gas?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 11:58 Comments ||
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#4
The real answer to this is to bundle a tubal ligation with their clitorectomies. Problem over soon very soon...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/15/2007 13:27 Comments ||
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#5
A quad .50 caliber Gattling gun would do wonders in "capturing hearts and minds" of these idiots - of both genders. Those that refuse to obey national laws have no right to the protection guaranteed by those laws. That goes for the US, too.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/15/2007 17:31 Comments ||
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A meeting on Saturday between a committee on the demolished Al-Sufa Mosque and the Capital Development Authority failed to make any headway, with the former demanding the mosques reconstruction at its previous site and the latter offering an alternative site. We have proposed an alternative site for the mosque in I-8/2, a few streets from the previous site, and also offered to construct a bridge on a drain near the site, CDA official Sarwar Sindhu said. A committee member, headed by Shujaat Hussain, supported clerics, saying the new site was too far from the previous one. Islamabad deputy commissioner said clerics agreement or disagreement on the new site did not matter.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Jail him, keep him incommunicado, build the mosque, release him, end of problem.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 11:43 Comments ||
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#2
Build all new mosques according to the plans for Treblinka...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/15/2007 13:29 Comments ||
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NWFP police chief Sharif Virk said on Saturday that criminal gangs were issuing threatening letters to audio and video shopkeepers, barbers and schools. In most cases, the Taliban are not involved in these activities, the chief frontier cop told the NWFP Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Order. The statement comes amidst growing incidents of intimidation in several districts where the Taliban are enforcing what they see as Islamic laws. He said crime was rising because certain areas had been given district status without any planning. Home Secretary Badshah Gul Wazir on the occasion said, The government needs help from politicians and neutral clerics to maintain law and order.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The Taliban are not a criminal gang? Why do they act so like one, then?
#2
If you study 'irregular warfare' the line between criminal and thug and 'insurgent' is something that is crossed over with great frequency. Many of the 'popular' leaders of the Spanish uprising against the Napoleonic French were previous bandits and criminals. The one successful French Marshal in Spain, Suchet focused upon going after these people with a good degree of success. It's a tactical and strategic mistake to consider the brigands something that just the police can deal with. Drive it to the ground, kill it, and your difficulties will be greatly reduced. That was reflected in Western Iraq where AQ exploited the a priori smuggler and criminal networks for so long to sustain their operations.
#3
Criminal gangs, not Taliban, threatening traders:
There's a difference?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 12:00 Comments ||
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#4
"Don Vito sez you ain't s'pposed to shave nobody no more!"
"But I am just a simple barber! How will I make my living? And why are you wearing a turban, Clemenza?"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 13:21 Comments ||
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#5
Re #2 & #3, I refer you to this pdf linked to by Lotp :
NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani said on Saturday the resurgence of Talibanisation in southern districts of the province was because of external forces including several secret agencies. Talking to journalists after administering oath to the newly elected body of the Peshawar Bar Association, Durrani blamed outsiders for the resurgence of Talibanisation in Bannu, Tank and Lakki Marwat districts. He said the government would not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands. The growing trend of Talibanisation will be resolved through peaceful means as the government believes in handling such issues through dialogue, he added. Local Taliban have started to exert control over various parts of the southern districts of the province. Recently, local Taliban formed a committee and took another step towards asserting their growing influence in Bannu by announcing a punishment of Rs 5,000 for anyone found dancing, listening to music, watching television and loading songs onto mobile phones. Bannu District Police Officer (DPO) Mazharul Haq supported the committees formation and said the police was in favour of eliminating the evils of dancing, theft, music and interest-based loans, which he said were against the law anyway. He said the committee members were unarmed Taliban and had not violated any laws. The committee has promised the administration that it would not shelter any foreign militants in the district, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Joos and Hindoos?
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 8:18 Comments ||
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#2
Mormons. Romney wants to wear the Big Turban
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2007 10:04 Comments ||
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GAZA - A municipal workers strike left mounting piles of refuse in Gazas streets on Saturday and officials said they feared a sanitary catastrophe amid a continued western aid boycott of the Palestinian government. Thousands of municipal workers began a strike last week in protest at being unpaid for months by the Palestinian government.
Took a week to notice the garbage? ...
When there is a strike, it brings us very near to a health, environmental and sanitary catastrophe, said Gaza Citys mayor Majed Abu Ramadan. The threat is real.
Residents said workers had not made garbage collections for almost a week. My children have become sick because of the bad smell and the mosquitoes, said 50-year-old Abu Adel.
Any chance that you'll talk to your gummint 'bout being more reasonable?
Abu Ramadan said councils depended on money they collected from residents to pay their workers, but the continued financial squeeze meant people were not able to pay their bills. This has resulted in the municipality being unable to sustain the salaries for its 1,800 employees, these employees who serve the 600,000 residents of Gaza City, he said.
An official with the main Gaza City municipality said thousands of workers from most local councils in the strip had joined the strike.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad told the European Union on Wednesday the unity government needed more than $1.3 billion in international aid this year to avert a devastating humanitarian crisis. The EU, the Palestinians biggest donor, has continued to pay subsistence allowances to 150,000 families.
None of whom are garbage collectors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
On the bright side, at least the mountains of garbage will block future sewage tsunamis.
#10
Then again, I can't think of anyone more deserving.
There isn't, Bobby. Despite how Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia merit our attention more, it is the Palestinians alone who top the charts as this world's most hapless collection of moron fuckwits. No one is more deserving of the suffering, mayhem, fueding and murder that they bring upon themselves. They simply cannot die quickly enough. The only way that they make a substantial contribution to this world is by killing each other. Anyone sufficiently stupid to have an iota of sympathy for these malignant psychopaths deserves to share their fate.
#11
If the garbage collectors won't pick up your garbage, then strap on your AK-47 and take your own garbage to the dump. These people have been on the dole for so long the idea of actually doing something productive is alien (unislamic?). The Paleo problem is not unique to them. The world is full of people who produce nothing but children and think that the world owes them a good standard of living.
Almost seven years ago, in the pre-9/11 autumn of 2000, I was retrieving my luggage at the airport in Jakarta when a tall Indonesian man in a flowing white robe and green scarf accidentally bumped me off my feet. He apologized and helped me up. Then I noticed he was part of a gang of grim young men stalking the airport with wooden rods.
He said they were from the Islamic Defenders Front and were searching for Israelis to kill. I doubt they found any, but I was shocked. Such bullying and militancy contrasted sharply with the Indonesia I had come to know on previous reporting trips: a model of Islam as a tolerant, compassionate, inclusive and peaceful religion.
The many varieties of culture and styles of life in this enormous archipelago had bred a unique form of Islam - or, more precisely, many such forms, thriving side by side and often drawing on a rich pre-Islamic history replete with magic, Buddhism and South Seas gods. I had thought the prospects for retaining this style had only been enhanced by the coming of democracy in 1998.
It has not quite worked out that way, and now the big questions facing Indonesia are: Can Islam and democracy coexist? And what would such a democracy look like? continued at link
#2
In Indonesia, apprehension about a changing Islam
In the very near future, Muslims had best become extremely concerned about an unchanging Islam. Without reformation, the constant terrorist atrocities, massive violations of human rights and institutionalized abuse of women will cause Islam to be banned and dismantled in many, if not all, Western nations.
The time for reformation is not some vague undefined point in the future, then is when unreformed Islam will be scrubbed from human memory. Reformation's time is now. Islam has already spent over a millennia making life unbearable for all those who have collided with it. Little patience is left for those who think that such an abrasive and intolerant creed can continue on unchastised for its innumerable transgressions.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation has adopted measures to isolate Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist grouping blamed for deadly bombings in Lebanon, the PLO representative in Beirut said. We are attempting to isolate Fatah al-Islam because we do not want the Palestinians to be perceived as an element of instability in Lebanon, Abbas Ziki told AFP in an interview on Friday.
Last month, Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh said detained members of Fatah al-Islam had admitted carrying out bus bombings in a mountain village on February 13 that killed three people. But Fatah al-Islam, a small grouping which first came to be known last November and which is based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon, has denied any involvement in the attacks, Ziki said Lebanese authorities were holding 15 members of the Islamist grouping over the bus attacks. Outlining the steps being taken, Ziki said the PLO military and political factions were determined to contain Fatah al-Islam, although without resorting to violence. We have named a new military command, created a joint intervention force and released funds, said Ziki.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
"we do not want the Palestinians to be perceived as an element of instability in Lebanon"
Ha! That's the funniest thing I've read in a long time. It's all about perceptions, huh?
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.
Defying a security crackdown, more than 3,000 lawyers and opposition activists torched an effigy of President Pervez Musharraf in protests yesterday against his removal of Pakistan's top judge. Flag-waving demonstrators massed outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry attended a fourth hearing into misconduct charges lodged by the president. Military ruler Musharraf sacked the independent-minded Chaudhry on March 9, sparking nationwide demonstrations and a tense political crisis now spilling into its second month. 
President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected absolutely and totally the prospect of joint US-Pakistan military operations to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan. The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it, he told CBS news channel in an interview. 
Pakistan is at a critical stage and the biggest threat it is facing is internal extremism and sectarianism, said President General Pervez Musharraf here on Saturday. The country is passing through the worst ever critical moment and is facing two major threats of religious extremism and sectarianism, Gen Musharraf said at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul on Saturday. In an apparent reference to the Lal Masjid standoff, he said the government must think carefully about use of force against extremists. We will be rational before using might, as we will have to face our own brothers and sisters.
NWFP police chief Sharif Virk said on Saturday that criminal gangs were issuing threatening letters to audio and video shopkeepers, barbers and schools. In most cases, the Taliban are not involved in these activities, the chief frontier cop told the NWFP Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Order. The statement comes amidst growing incidents of intimidation in several districts where the Taliban are enforcing what they see as Islamic laws. He said crime was rising because certain areas had been given district status without any planning. Home Secretary Badshah Gul Wazir on the occasion said, The government needs help from politicians and neutral clerics to maintain law and order.
NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani said on Saturday the resurgence of Talibanisation in southern districts of the province was because of external forces including several secret agencies. Talking to journalists after administering oath to the newly elected body of the Peshawar Bar Association, Durrani blamed outsiders for the resurgence of Talibanisation in Bannu, Tank and Lakki Marwat districts. He said the government would not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands. The growing trend of Talibanisation will be resolved through peaceful means as the government believes in handling such issues through dialogue, he added. Local Taliban have started to exert control over various parts of the southern districts of the province. Recently, local Taliban formed a committee and took another step towards asserting their growing influence in Bannu by announcing a punishment of Rs 5,000 for anyone found dancing, listening to music, watching television and loading songs onto mobile phones. Bannu District Police Officer (DPO) Mazharul Haq supported the committees formation and said the police was in favour of eliminating the evils of dancing, theft, music and interest-based loans, which he said were against the law anyway. He said the committee members were unarmed Taliban and had not violated any laws. The committee has promised the administration that it would not shelter any foreign militants in the district, he added.
GAZA - A municipal workers strike left mounting piles of refuse in Gazas streets on Saturday and officials said they feared a sanitary catastrophe amid a continued western aid boycott of the Palestinian government. Thousands of municipal workers began a strike last week in protest at being unpaid for months by the Palestinian government.
