June was Gypsy Rose Lee's more talented sister. At one time she was down and out, and found work as a marathon dancer. She never really hit the big time like Louise (Gypsy Rose) did, but she did hit the fairly large time with her own teevee show in the '50s.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 10:46 Comments ||
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#4
I helped support Gypsy Rose Lee's career. I went to see her in the 50s. By today's standards, the burlesque show was rather tame. I don't know whether or not any of you are old enough to have visited a burlesque house but it was interesting. Usually these shows were in old theaters. The women in the show were artful. The striptease show (emphasis on tease) was mixed with a fair number of standup comedians, some of which were quite funny and often had a unique talent that was featured. Many of our earlier comedians got their start in Vaudville or burlesque.
This murder brought to you by the Brave Lions of Islam
Gunmen in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar have killed the country's most prominent policewoman, officials say. Lt-Col Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar's department of crimes against women, was shot in her car as she was about to leave for work. Her son was also wounded in the attack, and is said to be seriously injured.
Ms Kakar, who was reported to be in her early 40s and had six children, was one of the most high-profile women in the country. She has figured prominently in the national and international media, partly due to a famous episode in which she killed three would-be assassins in a shoot-out - although she said her everyday life involved tackling theft, fights and murders.
Ms Kakar joined Kandahar's police force in 1982, after her father and brothers were also police officers. But when the hard-line Taleban regime took over Afghanistan she was prevented from working.
Troops backed by helicopter gunships killed five Taliban in a central Afghan province where seven policemen have been found dead in two days, an official said on Saturday. The Taliban targeted late on Friday, had been spotted laying mines on a road in the central province of Ghazni, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP. "The helicopters targeted them and killed them," he said. Separately, around 150 Afghan labourers, abducted in the western province of Farah a week ago, have been freed, with 118 released on Friday and 30 more on Saturday. Authorities accused the Taliban of the kidnapping, the largest in the post-Taliban conflict, which has also seen the emergence of criminal gangs who kidnap for ransom.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:13 ||
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AMISOM has confirmed significant damage to Somalia's Aden Adde International Airport during attacks by al-Shabaab fighters, report says.
Eight Somali soldiers died in the airport terminal building which was bombarded by mortar fire from al-Shabaab resistance, Press TV correspondent in Somalia said.
The attack was confirmed by an African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) spokesperson.
The airport building was targeted after Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein announced the resumption of operations at the airport in the wake of 64 civilian deaths and 150 serious injuries resulting from violence when Ugandan peacekeepers secretly escorted President Ahmed from the presidential palace to the airport so that he could attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
Al-Shabaab (the military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts) was formed in Somalia after the UIC was deposed by the currently ruling Transitional Federal Government and its backers -primarily the military of Ethiopia and the US- in a war in the East African nation which has raged since 2006.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:14 ||
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Unidentified helicopters have been tracking the Faina, a Ukrainian military supply vessel hijacked by Somali pirates on Thursday.
In an exclusive telephone conversation with Press TV's Somalia correspondent, a member of the pirate group responsible for the capture of the Faina said that choppers were hovering over the ship which was in waters off the northern Harardheere coastline 400 kilometers north of Mogadishu in the Gulf of Aden.
The representative, identified only as "Garaard" added that the pirates in command of the vessel would not hesitate to set fire to it and kill the crew if military forces pursue them.
Faina and her crew were commandeered on Thursday whilst transporting military equipment, including 33 T-72 tanks, munitions, grenade launchers and other armaments to Kenya.
US and Russian naval vessels are also in pursuit of the ship which has been offered for a ransom of 35 million dollars.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Faina and her crew were commandeered on Thursday"
I do not think that word means what you think it means....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/28/2008 0:17 Comments ||
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#2
I hear that the $35 million is in the Paulson package.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/28/2008 5:34 Comments ||
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#3
Jack wins the 'Understated Snark of the Day' award!
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/28/2008 10:46 Comments ||
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#4
I am looking forward to a glut of cheap T-72s on eBay.
#5
#3 Jack wins the 'Understated Snark of the Day' award! Posted by Steve White
too early!!1! I have a big bag of unfunny understated snark to unload....but if the day's award is already given out....well.....damn
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/28/2008 11:45 Comments ||
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#6
Pirates commit illegal acts with impunity on the high seas, and we sit around trying to figure out a so-called legal way to deal with them. The ultimate in non-survival behavior on our part.
They have a base, a port. Take it out if you do not want to level the town. The pirates evacuate the ship and release the prisoners on 1 hour, or the town is leveled, burned, and salted. ONE operation like that and your problems are probably solved. Lather, rinse, and repeat until they get the message.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/28/2008 14:20 Comments ||
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#7
You are assuming the pirates give a rat's ass about the town, AP.
#8
Fox has reported the captain has died of hypertension--high blood pressure--after calling and reporting he could see several ships from his location, including one with a US flag.
#10
The pirates have a safe haven. A little surveillance work will determine where that is. Take out the safe haven. Just like Wazoo.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/28/2008 17:34 Comments ||
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#11
Horsefeathers, when these pirates commandeer an Iranian boat loaded with toxins or a Russian weapons shipment they do a service for mankind. If the CIA isn't giving them pointers, at least the seals should teach them how to shoot straight.
Can you recall a US flagged ship being affected by these "pirates"?
Eight down, thirty-five to go
Eight kidnappers of a group of European tourists and their Egyptian guides led soldiers on a high-speed desert chase Sunday, ending in a firefight that killed all but two of the gunmen, Sudan's military spokesman said.
The two surviving kidnappers told Sudanese soldiers that the tourists were being held by 35 more gunmen in Chad, said the spokesman, Sawarmy Khaled.
The desert safari tour of 11 Europeans and eight Egyptians was seized by gunmen deep in the southern Egyptian deserts Sept. 19 and the victims have apparently been shuttled around in the remote region where Sudan, Chad, Egypt and Libya share borders.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/28/2008 15:07 ||
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#1
It sounds like the tourists are getting an awful lot of safari for their money. One hopes they appreciate that properly.
British police arrested three men on Saturday in connection with a fire at the offices of the publisher of a blasphemous book. The men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were arrested in north London under anti-terrorism legislation after the fire on Saturday morning at Gibson Square's offices. Police were also searching four addresses in east London. Britain's domestic Press Association news agency said some residents, whom it did not identify, reported that the incident may have involved a petrol bomb being pushed through the firm's letterbox. Gibson Square is responsible for the publication of 'The Jewel of Medina' by American author Sherry Jones. Random House announced last month it had cancelled publication of the book in the United States because of fears of violence. 'The Jewel of Medina' was re-released in Serbia earlier this month after being withdrawn in August under pressure from Islamic leaders. Gibson Square could not be immediately contacted for comment on Saturday's fire and subsequent arrests. The firm is known for having published other controversial books such as 'Blowing Up Russia' by former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:06 ||
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#1
I saw Jeremy Brett portray Sherlock Holmes on commie TV yesterday. His performance, and those of the other actors, were unparalleled, and portray not a perfect Britain, but one that would is almost unrecognizable.
#2
It would be grand if Scotland recreated one of its old prisons carved in live rock, where prisoners were served a bowl of cold oatmeal a day and had all the water they could drink that trickled through the rock, which was also the sewer. No central heating, however.
#3
The people that do this sh$$ have a serious lack of understanding of Western ways, and the fact that, regardless of what their little muzzie minds think, we don't want to give up those ways. I think it's time for some serious re-education - applied to the face, neck, and upper back with an axehandle at close range. When they start demanding haggis with a Scottish accent, we'll quit pummeling them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/28/2008 12:46 Comments ||
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#9
The British can read about this in their own papers, regardless where the esteemed Mr. Pruitt found the information. The BBC is merely television. I went to the DrudgeReport, and down in the left margin they have a listing of various news outlets from around the world. I found articles about this in five of the major English newspapers listed there, including the Guardian, plus AFP and the Press Association, the British version of our AP.
Taliban blew up the houses of a provincial minister and his brother, killing three of the minister's servants, in the Dosha Gram area of Matta tehsil on Saturday. According to residents, Taliban blew up the houses of NWFP provincial minister Ayub Ashari and his brother. Meanwhile, Inter-Services Public Relations officials told Daily Times that the 11-month curfew in all districts of Swat would end from today (Sunday).
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:24 ||
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#1
???? Blow up houses, kill servants, get curfew ended. Did I miss something? (grin)
(PTI) An alert was today sounded at the airport in this eastern Pakistani city after airline officials received a threat of a possible terrorist attack.
The lounges and parking lot of the airport were evacuated and security agencies carried out a search after Pakistan International Airlines officials received an anonymous phone call that warned of a terrorist attack.
Officials told TV channels that nothing suspicious was found during the search. Several flights were delayed by up to 30 minutes due to the alert.
The scare at the Lahore airport came two days after a threat of a possible suicide attack at the airport in Islamabad. In that incident too, airline officials had received an anonymous phone call about a possible attack and the airport was evacuated.
Pakistani security agencies have been on high alert since the September 20 suicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed over 50 people and injured 266.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:22 ||
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At least 35 Taliban and other criminals were arrested during a daylong operation in the suburbs of the provincial capital as security forces drove Taliban out of the area on Saturday, police said.
The operation was launched amid a curfew imposed in the Badaber and Mattani police stations areas.
Peshawar Police Rural Circle Senior Superintendent Nasirul Mulk Bangash said 14 'hardcore criminals' were also arrested, adding 35 Taliban hideouts were also destroyed.
He said the police followed the Taliban up to the Kala Khel tribal area leading to a heavy exchange of fire between the two sides. Locals said one Taliban was killed and another injured.
Taliban centre: Also, the political administration raided and demolished a Taliban centre in Landikotal. A Khasadar official said the Taliban had vacated the building because they had advance information about the raid.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:22 ||
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The Taliban, NATO and the US "are all equal for us", said Malik Manasib Khan, the leader of a lashkar, called up to help Pakistan's army expel the Taliban and anyone else. "We will fight against America until the last soul if they come to our country," Khan told reporters in Raghagan, 12 kilometres northeast of Khar. The military took reporters to the Pashtun tribal fighters in the tribal region on Friday to show it has the support of locals.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:17 ||
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#1
well, Malik, we don't want to, so don't make us.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/28/2008 7:18 Comments ||
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#4
They're not doing a real good job of ejecting the Talibs and al-Qaeda, who they say are no different from us. We kick Talibass. What makes them think they'll do better against us?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 10:34 Comments ||
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#5
What is not equal is the amount of return firepower and crunch that each party can put on the house. The usual approach is to take on the one with the less effective reply [other than the Pak Army, which is a given].
#6
"We kick Talibass. What makes them think they'll do better against us?"
A complete disconnect with reality, Fred.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/28/2008 16:03 Comments ||
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#7
Actually, this stand is due to a natural failing of human nature : when facing an enemy, one tends to assume that they will operate like similar foes in the past. The only "regular military" that most of the tribals have ever dealt with in the past is the Paki Frontier Corps, so the tribals have a very low view of national troops because of that. They will be in for the shock of their {albeit short} lives if they ever do confront NATO and/or US troops with the Western standard of fire support and close air support.
Nineteen militants and two Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were killed in a gunbattle between security forces and militants in Dera Bugti on Saturday, Aaj TV reported.
The channel quoted official sources as saying FC personnel were on a patrol in the Gandoi area of Dera Bugti district in Balochistan early on Saturday morning when the militants opened fire on them. A security official said the fighting continued all day long. Four FC personnel were injured.
BLA: The channel said Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) spokesman Sarbaz Baloch told reporters in Quetta that militants had killed 17 security personnel in the fighting.
The clash happened 25 days after a unilateral ceasefire was announced by three militant outfits -- the BLA, the Baloch Republican Army and the Baloch Liberation Front -- on September 1. The channel reported that the clashes were still continuing and both sides were using heavy weaponry including machine guns and rocket launchers against each other.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:17 ||
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Security forces have cleared areas around Rashkai and Loi Sam in Bajaur Agency following the killing of 16 Taliban and injuries to 20 others on Saturday, officials said. Government official Iqbal Khattak said the Taliban faced the casualties during clashes with security forces backed by helicopter gunships, AP reported.
"The security forces are successfully making advances today," Reuters quoted army spokesman Major Murad Khan as saying. "They have cleared the areas around west and north of Rashkai and Loi Sam areas," he added. Helicopter gunships fired rockets at Taliban positions in and around their strongholds in the Loi Sam and Rashakai areas.
Three soldiers, including two army officers, were also killed in the fighting that began on Friday.
Separately, security forces arrested 10 Taliban during a search in Darra Adam Khel. Arms and ammunition was seized from their possession, confirmed a statement.
Frontier Corps chief Major General Tariq Khan said on Friday that the Taliban had forced families to give up their sons to fight against security forces, AP reported. "All families were asked to give their one male child to the [Taliban] movement, and this was done forcibly, and if a family doesn't do it, their house will be destroyed," Tariq told reporters visiting the region on an army-organised trip.
The claim could not be confirmed independently as media access to the area is restricted.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:16 ||
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The Taliban have started imposing fines on women who do not wear the veil in the suburbs of the provincial capital and some Mohmand Agency areas, locals said on Saturday. Locals said the Taliban had first warned people about the fines on September 15. The Taliban said they would impose a fine of Rs 10,000 on any woman not wearing a veil and the driver of any public transport vehicle carrying an unveiled woman. A resident of Kas Korrona said he had paid Rs 10,000 to the Taliban for the release of his wife who was held after she violated the 'veil law'.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:15 ||
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Pakistani forces claim to have killed 30 al Qaeda and Taliban loyalists in a strategically important tribal region on the Afghan border.
Officials said on Saturday that three soldiers, including two army officers, were also killed in the fighting, which began Friday, in the Bajaur region described by the military officials as a 'center of gravity' for the militants.
The security forces backed by helicopter gun ships pounded their positions in the Loi Sam and Rashakai areas.
Military spokesperson Major Murad Khan said 25 militants were killed in fighting on Friday. A military official said five more insurgents were killed on Saturday.
In other news on Saturday , security forces continued search operations against militants in different localities of Mathni and Adezai Union councils near Darra Adamkhel and arrested at least 35 suspects sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:15 ||
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Activists of a Bara-based militant organisation detained a would-be suicide bomber in Khyber Agency on Saturday. Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkar spokesman Munsif Khan said the would-be bomber was being trained for a suicide attack planned for Eid. The spokesman said an explosive-laden delivery van was also seized. Separately, one Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) activist was killed and three others injured in a clash.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:08 ||
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A jirga of Kurram Agency Toori and Bangash tribesmen on Saturday signed an agreement to cease fire and resolve disputes through dialogue. The jirga, consisting of 50 members from each tribe, met in Islamabad and announced a ceasefire until December 31. The next meeting of the jirga will be on October 6 in which various issues, including the re-opening of Thal-Parachinar Road, are expected to be discussed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:07 ||
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A small bomb exploded in a crowded hardware and electronics market in the southern part of the Indian capital Saturday, killing one person and wounding at least 18 others.
The explosion took place around 2:15 p.m. in a neighborhood where both Hindus and Muslims live and near a historic 12th century stone minaret. No group has asserted responsibility for the attack, which came two weeks after a series of bombings ripped through the capital, killing 21 people.
Police said two men on a black motorcycle dropped a plastic bag containing a lunch box and sped away. Inside the lunch box was a crude, low-intensity bomb, they said. "The bag was picked up by a young boy and it exploded. And the boy lost his life," said Y.S. Dadwal, the city's police commissioner.
Sanjay Dhingra, who runs a kitchenware store in the area, said the boy was standing in the street watching television. "When he saw the men on the bike, he called out, 'Uncle, you have left your bag behind' and picked up the bag," said Dhingra, whose clothes were stained with blood from helping the injured. "Then the explosion took place. We heard a loud bomb and everything went black for a moment. The boy died right there."
A spokesman at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences trauma care center said that seven of the injured were in critical condition.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
the boy was standing in the street watching television. "When he saw the men on the bike, he called out, 'Uncle, you have left your bag behind' and picked up the bag," .... The boy died right there."
Real heroic act by these lions of Islam. Must be quite a feat to kill a helpful child like this.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/28/2008 11:17 Comments ||
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#2
Little Santosh paid a huge price for being late for tuition. The nine-year-old was blown apart by two bike-borne killers in a blast as the Saturday curse that bloodied the capital a fortnight ago struck again.
An eyewitness said the boy yelled at the bikers speeding away from the narrow lanes of the Mehrauli flower market that they had dropped a plastic bag when it exploded on him.
I saw his neck being ripped apart, Pankaj Khattar shuddered. There was blood everywhere.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/28/2008 14:40 Comments ||
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NEW DELHI A young boy was killed and 17 people were injured when a bomb flung by two men from a motorcycle exploded on Saturday with a deafening roar in a crowded area of Mehrauli in south Delhi.
At least three of the injured were in critical condition, a hospital spokesman said, as private vehicles and ambulances raced the injured to the Safdarjang Hospital and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) some 10 km away. Police said the boy, believed to be 13-year-old Santosh Kumar, had his head blown off when he picked up the bomb concealed in a lunch box and wrapped in a black polythene bag in the congested Mehrauli Sarai electronics market.
The blast took place around 2.15 p.m. outside an electronics shop. Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal told reporters at Mehrauli that the men who threw the bomb on a road were riding a black Pulsar motorcycle. They wore jeans, had covered their heads with helmets and sped away. Barely a minute later, the bomb exploded. The motorcycle was reportedly found abandoned a few kilometres away.
The explosion rattled shops and houses in a large area close to a flower market sparking panic, as smoke rapidly enveloped the street, almost blinding everyone. Residents complained that the police took more than an hour to reach Mehrauli, a sprawling historic area on the citys southern fringe which is home to the 13th century Qutab Minar monument.
Two youths on a motorcycle left a packet in a polythene bag outside an electronic shop and sped off. It began smoking and soon afterward there was a huge explosion, said Pritam, an eyewitness.
The impact of the blast was so devastating that glass panes of several shops were shattered. As many collapsed on the narrow road, pools of blood formed on the street. Sanjeev Goel, a doctor at AIIMS, said a total of 17 people were injured, with three of them in critical condition.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/28/2008 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi police fatally shot a Kurdish politician in one of Iraq's most volatile provinces Saturday, a killing that underlines the growing tensions between Kurds and Arabs in parts of the north. Riya Qahtan, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was killed Saturday morning in Jalula, a small town 80 miles northeast of Baghdad in the ethnically mixed province of Diyala, said Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the Kurdish military, or peshmerga. Jalula has a mostly Sunni Arab population with a substantial Kurdish minority.
The incident occurred after two Sunni Arab policemen stopped three members of the Kurdish secret service at a market and demanded they show identification. They refused, and within minutes police reinforcements arrived at the scene, arrested them and took them to police headquarters, Yawer said.
Qahtan then went to the police station and persuaded officers to release the detainees, who had been working as guards for his party. But as the group was leaving, two policemen opened fire and shot Qahtan, Yawer added. The two policemen were being investigated as suspects in the shooting, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/28/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The notion that it's "one man, one ballot", not "one man, one bullet" just doesn't seem to penetrate.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/28/2008 13:16 ||
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#1
More than meets the eye. X-band radar can also strongly interfere with both missile and warhead electronics. It is a high energy type radar on the end of the microwave band.
(PTI) At least 81 LTTE cadres were killed as Sri Lankan armed forces using fighters and artilleries pounded Tigers' stronghold, with troops reported to be on the outskirts of the key Kilinochchi town.
The fighter jets targeted female 'Black Tigers' training facility at Rathnapuram, Kilinochchi, as well as LTTE logistic centres and vehicles storage areas in a major escalation of the country's ongoing civil strife.
The Defence Ministry said that at least 81 Tamil Tigers were killed as jets pounded Black Tiger' training facility in the embattled northern Lanka.
The rise in the heat of the battle comes amidst reports that Sri Lankan forces are within sights of the town, considered to be administrative and military headquarters of the LTTE.
"Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets have launched a precision air strike at the LTTE's main female 'Black Tiger' training facility located at Rathnapuram, Kilinochchi this afternoon," an official said.
"The target was located 1.5 km East of the A-9 trunk road and North of the Iranamadu Tank," Air Force spokesperson Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said, adding the target was acquired on real-time ground information.
According to available information, serious damages were caused to the facility as intense activity was reportedly taking place during the time of the attack.
"The site is known to be the main female 'Black Tiger' training and coordinating facility and a most frequented location by LTTE's intelligence wing chief, Pottu Amman, the Defence Ministry quoted military sources as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:22 ||
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#1
No doubt there will be plenty items of interest subsequently found in the rubble. Let us pray for cell phones and laptops! ;-)
Sri Lanka's military killed at least 66 Tamil Tiger insurgents during a siege of the rebel capital and in air and ground assaults along the northern battlefront, the military said on Saturday.
Two soldiers were also killed in Friday's fighting, some of the heaviest since the military three months ago stepped up an advance into an area held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north of the Indian Ocean island country. Most of Friday's fighting centred around the LTTE's headquarters town of Kilinochchi, a symbolic and strategic target for the military about 330 km (205 miles) north of the capital, Colombo. "Troops killed 52 LTTE terrorists in heavy battles in Kilinochchi on Friday," a military spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. Four rebels and 21 soldiers were wounded in the clashes, the spokesman said.
In other battles along the curving frontline stretching from coast to coast, the military said 14 guerrillas and two soldiers were killed, while 36 rebels and eight soldiers were wounded. On Saturday, the air force said jets blasted a training camp for female "Black Tigers", elite insurgents chosen for suicide missions. They gave no details of casualties. The rebels could not immediately be reached for comment.
Getting a clear picture of death tolls in the war is difficult, since the military bars nearly all journalists from the battle zone and both sides have for years been engaged in a heavy propaganda duel. The LTTE, on US, EU, and Indian terrorism lists, has since 1983 fought the government to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamil people in Sri Lanka. It has eliminated moderate Tamil political groups during a 25-year-old war that has killed 70,000 people.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has vowed to wipe the Tigers out militarily and offered some devolution of power to the north, along the lines of what his government did after routing the Tigers from the east of Sri Lanka last year. Since independence from Britain in 1948, Sri Lanka's governments have been led by politicians from the Sinhalese majority that makes up 75 percent of the country's 21 million population.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:13 ||
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A car carrying more than 400 pounds of explosives blew up in Syria's capital on Saturday, killing 17 people in at least the third deadly attack this year in the tightly policed Arab country.
Interior Minister Bassim Abdel Majid said "terrorists" were responsible for Saturday's attack but told state television that officials did not know who carried it out. "We cannot blame any party," he said.
The bomb exploded Saturday morning in a neighborhood around the capital's Sayida Zaineb shrine, ripping the fronts off buildings and shattering car windows. The shrine attracts Shiite pilgrims in the majority Sunni Muslim nation. The apartments lining the crowded streets around the mosque are home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, many of them poor, unemployed and undocumented.
News reports from Syria said the bombing occurred near a state security post. There were conflicting reports as to the nature of the post, with one opposition web site saying it was no more than a car park used by state security services.
Police barred all journalists except state television crews from the scene. Syrian television said all of those killed were civilians.
The attack follows a car bombing in February that killed Imad Mugniyeh, a security chief for Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based armed political movement that the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization. Last month, a gunman shot to death a Syrian general who the Syrian opposition and Israeli officials said had been a top liaison between Syria and Hezbollah. Syria has not announced any arrests in those killings, and the identity of the killers and their motives remain a mystery.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/28/2008 00:00 ||
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I take it that it's all quiet on the Thai front since S-L-I have replaced them at the bottom of the pile.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/28/2008 8:06 Comments ||
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#3
If you've noticed, Jack, the amount of space allotted to Afghanistan and Iraq has all but disappeared, while the amount of space allocated to Pakistan and India has grown significantly. The war in Iraq is all but over. Afghanistan has a long way to go, but most of the action has shifted to the Pakistani Tribal Areas. With that causing problems for the government in Islamabad, the mighty Pak army has stepped up nuisance attacks on the Kashmiri Line of Control. Attacks in Thailand are sporadic, and if the Thais ever get their act together and start really HURTING the "insurgents", will probably disappear altogether. As Ramadan ends, expect things to pick up a bit.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/28/2008 14:17 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Unidentified helicopters have been tracking the Faina, a Ukrainian military supply vessel hijacked by Somali pirates on Thursday. 
British police arrested three men on Saturday in connection with a fire at the offices of the publisher of a blasphemous book. The men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were arrested in north London under anti-terrorism legislation after the fire on Saturday morning at Gibson Square's offices. Police were also searching four addresses in east London. Britain's domestic Press Association news agency said some residents, whom it did not identify, reported that the incident may have involved a petrol bomb being pushed through the firm's letterbox. Gibson Square is responsible for the publication of 'The Jewel of Medina' by American author Sherry Jones. Random House announced last month it had cancelled publication of the book in the United States because of fears of violence. 'The Jewel of Medina' was re-released in Serbia earlier this month after being withdrawn in August under pressure from Islamic leaders. Gibson Square could not be immediately contacted for comment on Saturday's fire and subsequent arrests. The firm is known for having published other controversial books such as 'Blowing Up Russia' by former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
Pakistani forces claim to have killed 30 al Qaeda and Taliban loyalists in a strategically important tribal region on the Afghan border. 
A small bomb exploded in a crowded hardware and electronics market in the southern part of the Indian capital Saturday, killing one person and wounding at least 18 others. 
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi police fatally shot a Kurdish politician in one of Iraq's most volatile provinces Saturday, a killing that underlines the growing tensions between Kurds and Arabs in parts of the north. Riya Qahtan, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was killed Saturday morning in Jalula, a small town 80 miles northeast of Baghdad in the ethnically mixed province of Diyala, said Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the Kurdish military, or peshmerga. Jalula has a mostly Sunni Arab population with a substantial Kurdish minority.
A car carrying more than 400 pounds of explosives blew up in Syria's capital on Saturday, killing 17 people in at least the third deadly attack this year in the tightly policed Arab country. 
