#2
A little girl I coached in soccer is all grown up amd recently returned from her second tour of Iraq.
I, who never served, and my dad who served stateside during Vietnam, saw her and her fiance in our local bar.
Of course we bought 'em beers, said 'welcome home', 'thank you', etc., but it is so difficult to articulate how profoundly appreciative we felt for her service and her fiance's patience.
My dad remarked, walking home, how inadequate words are in describing gratitude to our warriors.
To all the US vets, our allies, and especially our fallen, thank you and God bless and keep you always.
#3
Ross McGinnis is on my mind this weekend. And, I always remember Mandy, Amanda Pinson. I've been blessed to write about so many great Americans since 2002. Rick Rescorla, Robbie Miller, so many great men and women. God bless them all.
#4
Rick Rescorla is one of my favorites. It's too bad he was left out of the movie "We Were Soldiers". He was a true hero many times over all his life right up to and especially during 9/11.
There is still an active on-line petition effort to get him awarded the Medal of Freedom.
#7
Semper Fi to your Dad, RD. We're going out (whole family) to my Dad's grave at Ft. Rosecrans tomorrow AM - God love the Scouts, they put flags at each of the graves and inurnments. Next, brunch at Old Town. Happy and reflectful Memorial to y'all. So many here served or are related to those who serve. God Bless all
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2008 23:16 Comments ||
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#8
Thanks Frank that means alot.. and as you say, IT is our Privilege to have served and or have veterans in our respective households and Families.
(Xinhua) -- Five Taliban were killed by an unexpected blast of their own mine on a road in Musa Qala district of southern Afghanistan Friday while a group of Taliban militants launched fierce attacks on several police posts in the region, an official said.
A pre-mature mine blast killed five Taliban as a group of militants were planting mines Friday on a main road frequented by Afghan and international forces in Musa Qala of Helmand province, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said. "Apparently the mine they were planting is to target Afghan and foreign troops who often patrol on the road," Andiwal told Xinhua.
He said four bodies of the killed militants were destroyed in the blast which occurred as early as 7 a.m. local time. Furthermore, a "large number" of Taliban militants began attacking police posts in Takh Tapol area of Musa Qala district Friday noon and the hours-long fighting "is still going on", Andiwal said during an evening talk with Xinhua via phone. He said two Taliban, including one injured, were arrested by the police.
A Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said around 500 Taliban fighters were involved in the fighting with the police, which later was joined by Afghan and foreign forces. He said eight police posts were already destroyed by the militants and the police there escaped.
A 10-month long Taliban control over Musa Qala ended last December when Afghan troops backed by international force during a major offensive recaptured the district, which is said to be with extreme strategic significance in Helmand, a known hotbed of Taliban-led militancy. However, the regained district has been the scene of increasing violent incidents over the months.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
But how do we know it will work?
Good question, Mahmoud. Step on it.
Up to 60 heavily armed men on horseback ambushed a patrol of peacekeepers in Darfur, in a new attack on international forces in Sudan's strife-torn west, the United Nations said on Friday. The raiders, wearing uniforms and armed with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, took weapons from Nigerian troops from the joint U.N./African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), an official added.
Cheez, they're acting like Uruguayans ...
It was at least the fifth serious confrontation between armed groups and UNAMID troops since they took over from a beleaguered African Union force at the beginning of the year. The attack happened on Wednesday close to the capital of West Darfur, El Geneina.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon strongly condemned the attack, according to a U.N. statement released on his behalf on Friday. In it, Ban urged all parties to cease military action and commit themselves to negotiations and a peaceful solution.
Strange, there's no "or else" in that statement ...
UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said the force had decided not to release details immediately as they were still trying to identify the attackers. "We have bandits and we have armed groups and we have the (rebel) factions. With our very limited number of troops, it is not an easy job," Mezni told Reuters.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm sure if unarmed men had ambushed them, this would not have been as big a deal.
Pirates on Friday released a Jordanian-flagged cargo ship seized off the Somali coast where it was held for nearly a week, officials said. "The ship was released after the pirates held talks with the local elders in Haradere town and it is now sailing to Mogadishu," the ship's contractor Yusuf Moalim Ahmed told AFP. "I am not ready to give further details on negotiations, but I can confirm that the local elders helped in the release of the ship," he added.
The vessel, MV Victoria, was seized on Saturday and taken to Haradere, a coastal village around 500 kilometres (310 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu.
A Kenyan maritime official said Victoria was released and her crew of mainly Africans and Asians were safe. "She is now proceeding to Mogadishu port to discharge the cargo," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme. "Two Somali security guards (deputed by cargo consignees) are on board with small arms for safe passage."
The Jordanian government says the hijacked ship belongs to an Emirati company, and that it was carrying 4,200 tonnes of sugar donated by Denmark to war-torn Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe Saeed will hit up the taxpayers for a hair transplant while he's inside. To help with his "self esteem" issues.
If he was in Massachusetts he would.
Police arrested a second man on Friday in connection with an explosion in the toilets of a busy restaurant in Devon a day earlier. Nicky Reilly, 22, an Islamic convert with a history of mental illness, was arrested on Thursday and taken to hospital after he detonated a bomb in a branch of the family-oriented Giraffe restaurant chain in the centre of Exeter.
Police said armed officers arrested the second man on Friday in Plymouth and a third was being questioned. "At 3.30 p.m. today Devon and Cornwall police arrested one man in connection with yesterday's incident in Exeter," a police spokesman said. "The man arrested is now in custody as part of the ongoing investigation."
Although limited in scope, the attempted attack was a reminder of earlier bombings in Britain, such as the strikes in July 2005 when four Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on London's transport system with homemade bombs.
Reilly was the only person injured in the explosion. Police later discovered and disarmed two other devices nearby.
Local media quoted police sources as saying Reilly's device was a "viable" bomb made of sodium hydroxide, kerosene, aluminium and nails. They also said he received a text message of encouragement on his mobile phone before the blast. Police spokesmen could not confirm the reports. Police said Reilly suffered cuts to his eyes and burns to his face, but his injuries were not life threatening.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
an Islamic convert with a history of mental illness
I predict we will see this phrase a lot in the 21st century.
Posted by: regular joe ||
05/24/2008 7:38 Comments ||
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(Xinhua) -- Turkish Security Forces killed Friday a rebel of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in a clash between them in the eastern part of the country, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
One PKK rebel were killed while two army soldiers were wounded in the clash in a remote part of eastern province of Van on Friday, security officials were quoted as saying. The clash occurred as the security forces launched large-scale operations in the region to track down those runaway PKK rebels. The injured soldiers were rushed to a nearby military hospital in downtown Van with helicopters, according to the report.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Tariq Khan, a leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was shot dead in southern port city of Karachi, local TV channel reported Friday evening.
Tariq Khan, vice president of PML-N in southern Sindh province, was shot near Tariq road in Karachi and died after being shifted to a hospital, private Dawn TV said. The TV channel quoted police as saying that Tariq Khan was driving when the motorcyclists fired shots at his car. While talking to media, PML-N spokesman Sadiqul Farooq said his party will take proper actions against those who are behind the assassination. No further details are available.
The PML-N, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, is the second largest party in Pakistan's parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Unidentified militants fired seven rockets at the PAF base and cantonment area in Kohat district of NWFP early on Friday. Kohat Cantt Police Station Moharrar Habibur Rehman told Daily Times that the militants fired seven rockets simultaneously at 5:20am causing minor damages to the base, though no loss of life was reported. He said the first rocket hit the PAF airbase while the second hit its Gate No-5 Two rockets hit army officers Garrison Fitness Club, and the fifth rocket landed near police post at Kohat Cantonments Bannu Gate. The sixth rocket hit the cantonment board offices and one rocket hit a house in the Cantt area, injuring a five-year-old girl, locals officials said. Police officials said that they had registered an FIR against unknown militants and investigation was underway.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi and U.S. troops raided several Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad on Friday, detaining hundreds and uncovering a large cache of weapons and explosives, an Iraq Defense Ministry official said.
Several hundred Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. forces moved into neighborhoods in southwest and northwest Baghdad on Friday morning, the official said. Security forces detained 123 suspects in the southwest Baghdad operations, and another 12 were taken into custody in the northwest region. Four of those detained in northwest Baghdad were captured in al-Rahma Shiite mosque. Three unidentified bodies were also found in the mosque, according to the Iraqi official. Mosque or Morgue, same difference.
The munitions cache, which included components for roadside bombs, was found near the office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army militia, according to a U.S. military spokesman. Some people were tested on the scene for explosive and gunpowder residue, according to Lt. Col. Steve Stover. He said 223 light and medium weapons and 30 kilos (66 pounds) of C4 explosives were found in one raid.
Elsewhere in Iraq, a roadside bomb killed a civilian interpreter and wounded seven U.S. Marines and two Iraqi police officers in Falluja on Friday morning, according to the U.S. military. The Iraqi Interior Ministry had called the attack a suicide car bombing and said that an Iraqi police officer was killed. An Interior Ministry official said the bombing occurred at a checkpoint normally manned by Iraqi police and U.S. troops.
Also in Falluja on Friday, a suicide bombing outside police headquarters wounded officers, the official said. Falluja had been a stronghold for insurgents in the early days of the Iraqi war but is now a center for the "awakening," which opposes al Qaeda in Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi military operations have chased many al Qaeda in Iraq cells out of Anbar province. Those militants now predominate in other areas, such as Nineveh province, and security forces have launched an offensive against them there.
(Xinhua) -- An Iraqi policeman was killed and four others were injured in a car bomb explosion in the city of Fallujah in Anbar province on Friday, a provincial police source said. "An explosive-laden car went off at about 12:15 p.m. (0915 GMT) while a team of explosive expert police was trying to defuse it near the police station in central Fallujah, killing one of them and wounding four others," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The powerful blast also damaged parts of the police station and several nearby police vehicles, the source said. Earlier, the source said that a roadside bomb detonated near a joint foot patrol of U.S. troops and Iraqi police at the al-Azraggiya neighborhood in northern Fallujah, killing an Iraqi interpreter and wounding two Iraqi policemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured a suspected mid-level al-Qaeda in Iraq cell leader and three other terrorists in Mosul May 23.
ISOF conducted an operation to capture the AQI terrorists responsible for numerous vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks and for forcing others to emplace IEDs against their will. Three other suspected terrorists, one believed to be immediately subordinate to the cell leader, were also captured. During the operation, ISOF also confiscated IED materials.
This operation is expected to disrupt AQI operations and reduce attacks against Iraqi and Coalition forces in the greater Mosul area. The capture of this cell leader and his subordinates also reaffirm the Iraqi governments commitment to achieve stability by seeking terrorists in the locations where the hide.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Iraqi Army Soldiers discovered a weapons cache hidden in a schoolhouse in Sadr City May 23.
At approximately 8 a.m., IA Soldiers from the 34th Brigade, 9 IA Division, discovered a weapons cache consisting of a remote-controlled improvised explosive device, six 155 mm artillery rounds, an artillery warhead, an anti-tank mine, four hand grenades, an unknown grenade, two PKC light machine guns, 450 PKC rounds, a 92 mm charge, a Katusha rocket launcher, two bottles of chlorine poison, eight Tamoud brand radios and five radio chargers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Shouldn't school staff be aware of this kind of stuff? Is it placed their without their knowledge? Is it buried under the floorboards or something? The pictures of schools I have seen aren't that complicated. At most it looks like they have just a few rooms with minimal service areas and maybe an office or meeting area. Am I wrong?
#2
Shouldn't school staff be aware of this kind of stuff?
Most likely. But when Hussein the math teacher gets beat up in his class by Sadrists and the staff finds the custodian's ears nailed to the wall in the break-room, I'd say they'd get the messages and keep their mouths shut.
#3
Shouldn't school staff be aware of this kind of stuff?
I'm only a free man today because of the amount of stuff the school staff could not connect me with. Being school staff sucks, even in Iraq. That's one reason I never even considered being a teacher.
Coalition forces captured six wanted men and detained an additional 15 suspected terrorists during operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq Thursday and Friday from Baghdad to Mosul along the Tigris River Valley.
Coalition forces conducted several operations in Mosul Friday and captured four wanted men, one of whom is allegedly a senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader. Information from an operation April 21 led Coalition forces to the alleged terrorist leader, who is believed to orchestrate bombing attacks against Coalition forces and oversee various terrorist operations. The other three wanted men are believed to be associated with him and other senior AQI leaders. Four additional suspected terrorists were detained in the operations.
Two coordinated operations Friday in the Tigris River Valley targeted an AQI bombing network. Coalition forces captured an alleged bombing facilitator and an additional suspect during an operation in Tikrit, about 160 kilometers north of Baghdad. In the target building, the force discovered bomb-making materials and a washing machine rigged with explosives. After moving civilians away from the area, Coalition forces safely destroyed the bombing materials. Farther north, Coalition forces detained six more suspects believed to be associated with the network during operations Thursday and Friday.
Using information from an operation May 20, Coalition forces targeted AQI leaders in Baghdad Friday and detained two suspected terrorists. In a Thursday operation, Coalition forces captured an alleged AQI leader in Baghdad believed to be tied to the terrorist propaganda network. Two additional suspected terrorists were detained.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Coalition forces captured four suspected Special Groups criminals Friday in Rashadiyah, about 15 km north of Baghdad.
Acting on intelligence information, Coalition forces targeted a suspected Special Groups weapons smuggler accused of bringing explosively-formed penetrators, rockets and other weapons into Diyala Province from Iran. The suspect is believed to be responsible for multiple attacks on Iraqi Security and Coalition forces using EFPs, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire in the Husayniyah area.
Coalition forces approached what appeared to be the suspects residence, where they detained four suspected accomplices without incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Five Palestinian terrorists fighters were killed and an Israeli soldier wounded on Friday as violence flared up again in the Gaza Strip despite Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce around the impoverished territory.
Three Palestinians were killed in an air strike called in support of Israeli ground operations near the city of Rafah, Palestinian emergency services said. All three were terrorists members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist armed wing of the Islamist Hamas, that rules the territory, said in a statement.
The terrorists gunmen were involved in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops who penetrated 1.5 kilometres (one mile) inside the Gaza Strip, witnesses said. Seven terrorists Palestinians were wounded and Israeli forces seized 15 terrorists people whom they took with them across the border when they withdrew, medics and other witnesses said.
An Israeli military spokesman said the soldier was wounded when terrorists gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an armoured bulldozer.
In addition, two terrorists fighters of the Al Quds Brigade were killed near El Bureij in central Gaza, the Islamic Jihad's armed wing said. The Israeli army said that troops stationed at the border shot two terrorists men who tried to place an explosive device, also in central Gaza, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
Violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorist groups has continued in the impoverished sliver of land despite attempts by Egypt to mediate a truce.
The latest deaths brought to at least 483 the number of people killed since Israel and the Palestinian leadership relaunched peace talks at a US-hosted conference in November. The vast majority of those killed were Gaza-based terrorists militants, according to an AFP count.
On Thursday a Palestinian terrorist man was killed when Israeli troops opened fire on stone-throwing terrorists demonstrators who marched towards the Karni border crossing point in protest against the Jewish state's crippling blockade of Gaza. That incident came just hours after a terrorist militant died in a failed suicide truck bombing at Erez, the main border crossing between Israel and Gaza.
The United Nations condemned the failed suicide attack, saying it would seriously affect humanitarian operations in Gaza where a majority of the 1.5-million-strong population relies on foreign aid. "Incidents of this kind are totally unacceptable. They also act against the interests of the population of the Gaza Strip, because aid workers and medical cases must pass through Erez," the spokesman for UN special envoy Robert Serry said on Thursday.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said troops on Thursday found an anti-tank launcher and a number of missiles in the back yard of a school in a Gaza City suburb.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said troops on Thursday found an anti-tank launcher and a number of missiles in the back yard of a school in a Gaza City suburb.
Oh, I'm sure they were just for "Show and Tell". Or "Career Day". Or "Take Dad to School Day"...
Suspected terrorists separatists confronted a 54-year-old police officer in outside his home in Jaring district of Pattani province on Saturday morning, then shot and killed the man. According to police, he was attacked by two people who approached him and shot at him from point blank range. He was immediately taken to the hospital following the attack but died from his wounds.
Al Qaeda-inspired militants battling the Lebanese army for more than 10 weeks hit a main power station in north Lebanon with Katyusha rockets on Thursday, disrupting electricity supplies to a wide area. Security sources said Fatah al-Islam militants, holed up in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, fired half a dozen rockets at Deir Amar power station. At least two rockets hit the plant.
Didn't the Lebanese army kill all these guys? Must have missed a few ...
Kamal Hayek, the chairman of the state-owned electricity company, told Lebanon's official news agency that production at the 400 megawatt facility was halted while damage was assessed.
In Beirut, military experts defused a Katyusha rocket wired to a timer and set to explode, security sources said. The device was found near the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra.
Two soldiers were killed in fresh clashes in Nahr al-Bared, the sources said. At least 255 people, including 129 soldiers, have been killed in fighting between Fatah al-Islam and the army which erupted on May 20. It is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The destruction of Nahr al-Bared, usually home to 40,000 refugees, has angered Palestinians across Lebanon, although very few of them support Fatah al-Islam. Fatah al-Islam, which split from a Syrian-backed Palestinian faction last year, has Lebanese, Palestinians and other Arabs in its ranks, including some who have fought in Iraq. It says it supports al Qaeda's ideas, but has no direct links with it.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005 marked an end to the relative stability Lebanon had experienced since it emerged from the civil war.
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.
(Xinhua) -- Five Taliban were killed by an unexpected blast of their own mine on a road in Musa Qala district of southern Afghanistan Friday while a group of Taliban militants launched fierce attacks on several police posts in the region, an official said. 
Pirates on Friday released a Jordanian-flagged cargo ship seized off the Somali coast where it was held for nearly a week, officials said. "The ship was released after the pirates held talks with the local elders in Haradere town and it is now sailing to Mogadishu," the ship's contractor Yusuf Moalim Ahmed told AFP. "I am not ready to give further details on negotiations, but I can confirm that the local elders helped in the release of the ship," he added.
Police arrested a second man on Friday in connection with an explosion in the toilets of a busy restaurant in Devon a day earlier. Nicky Reilly, 22, an Islamic convert with a history of mental illness, was arrested on Thursday and taken to hospital after he detonated a bomb in a branch of the family-oriented Giraffe restaurant chain in the centre of Exeter.
(Xinhua) -- Tariq Khan, a leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was shot dead in southern port city of Karachi, local TV channel reported Friday evening. 
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi and U.S. troops raided several Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad on Friday, detaining hundreds and uncovering a large cache of weapons and explosives, an Iraq Defense Ministry official said.
Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured a suspected mid-level al-Qaeda in Iraq cell leader and three other terrorists in Mosul May 23.
Five Palestinian 
