SUDANESE government planes bombed a key town in south Darfur today, a week after it was seized by Darfuri JEM rebels. Bombs landed close to a base run by the joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force, UNAMID, in the town of Muhajiriya and destroyed houses, a UN official said.
The attack marked an escalation in recent clashes between government troops and forces from Darfur's Justice And Equality Movement (JEM).
JEM has seized control of Muhajiriya from forces led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only Darfur rebel leader to have signed a peace deal with the government in 2006.
Tensions have been rising in Darfur as all sides of a nearly six-year-old conflict are waiting for the International Criminal Court to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes.
The UN official, who asked not to be named, said government planes had bombed Muhajiriya today. "Some bombs landed near the UNAMID compound and some houses have been burned," he said.
The attacks were confirmed by JEM's chief negotiator, Ahmed Tugud. "Right now there is bombing", he said. "The Sudan Armed Forces aircraft are bombing Muhajiriya. There are flames everywhere in the town."
He said no one from JEM was injured because its forces were outside the town.
No one from Sudan's armed forces was available for comment.
International experts say 200,000 people have died since JEM and other rebels took up arms against the government in 2003, accusing it of neglecting the remote western region.
#2
Why no cries of "Genocide" here? Why am I even bothering posting this question? Arabs/Africans can beat the hell out of each other until the Messiah comes, and no one will care. Witness the true continuing horror stories of Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe...
Somali pirates have released a Liberian-flagged tanker and its 28 crew after holding it for almost two months within Somali waters. The MT Biscaglia was hijacked on November 28 with a crew of 25 Indians and three Bangladeshis. It also carried three security guards - two Britons and one Irish national - who jumped over board when the pirates attacked.
Ecoterra International, a non-governmental organization, has confirmed that the ship has been released after a deal was reached on Thursday, our Press TV correspondent reported on Friday. "After having concluded the agreement yesterday (Thursday) at 3:00 pm local time (1200 GMT), Liberia-flagged MT Biscaglia is said to have sailed free," our correspondent quoted Ecoterra International as saying in its daily newsletter.
Sources involved in the negotiations also confirmed the release.
The tanker, which is transporting palm oil, is managed by a company based in Singapore and has a registered owner in the Marshall Islands, AFP said, adding that no official confirmation from the owner was immediately available.
The Somali pirates are said to be still holding at least 15 foreign vessels and around 250 crew members off the coast of Somalia for ransom. Among the ships still being held hostage is the Ukrainian vessel MV Faina with a cargo of battle tanks and ammunition. Food supplies on the vessel are believed to be low and talks over a ransom are in limbo, AFP said.
Multinational naval forces are stationed in the pirate-infested waters off Somalia to tackle the piracy menace which has threatened maritime activities with many shipping companies redirecting their ships from the region for fear of hijack, our correspondent said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Pirates
Over 300 young Yemeni men affiliated with al-Qaeda traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia for Jihad in 2008, said an alleged al-Qaeda military leader on Wednesday. More than 300 young men from the land of Yemen, who are members of our organization joined their brothers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia during 2008, said Abu Osama, a member of the military council of al-Qaeda and the commander of the Yemen Brigades.
In a statement published by the local weekly independent newspaper al-Wasat, Abu Osama claims that al-Qaeda in Yemen has become stronger than ever. He also said mediation between al-Qaeda and the Yemeni government remains deadlocked. "There is nothing left between us and them (government) except for the sword," said the statement. This was not the first time al-Qaeda in Yemen has sent such statements to al-Wasat. Many similar statements have been sent to the paper- particularly after armed confrontations between al-Qaeda and Yemeni security forces.
Officials decline to comment on such statements, as they are simply fabricated statement sent by email, according to a security official who was contacted by the Yemen Observer Wednesday.
The current statement was released two days after two al-Qaeda militants were killed and another was injured and arrested in clashes with security forces in Sana'a. After the operation on Monday, security officials said they had thwarted a plan to target government and western interests by obtaining information from one of the arrested men.
The al-Qaeda statement played down the importance of the arrest of militant Abdul Rahman Ali Mohammed al-Ghurabi, saying "he is young, and has no important information," about al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Abu Osama said his organization has achieved many of its goals, including attacks against government, tourist and oil interests, and he threatened more action in the future, including retaliation for government moves against his organization.
On Monday, government forces raided a suspect al-Qaeda hideout in Sanaa, where they killed two suspects. One of the suspects killed in the shootout was Salem Mohammed Maqasf, a Saudi national wanted by security forces in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. He was also a member of the same terrorist cell as Hamza al-Qoaiti, who was killed with several other al-Qaeda operatives in Tarim, Hadramout in August of last year. The suspect killed is Badr Dawood Saleh, born in Saudi Arabia but originally from al-Houdeidah, reported 26 September.net, the mouthpiece of the Yemeni Army. Security sources added that they have arrested a third suspect, and are currently hunting a fourth, Mosaaed Ahmed al-Barbari, from al-Jawf; the owner of the house in which the cell was hiding.
Preliminary investigations with the arrested suspect Abdul-Rahman al-Ghorabi have revealed important information about the cell. Security forces found explosives in the hideout of the cell, several hand grenades, explosive belts and a motorbike.
Austrian far-right parliamentarian Susanne Winter was convicted Thursday of incitement because of her anti-Muslim statements, including the claim that Islam's prophet Mohammed was a paedophile. A court in Winter's home town of Graz also found the 51-year-old politician guilty of humiliating a religion. She was sentenced to a fine of 24,000 euros (31,000 dollars) euros and a suspended prison term of three months, Austrian news agency APA reported.
The politician, who took a seat in parliament last fall for the Freedom Party (FPOe), made the anti-Islamic remarks in January 2008.
She also proposed in a discussion with students that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than making "indecent advances" on girls. The politician had pleaded innocent Thursday, claiming that she "did not want to insult anyone, but only to point out problems."
The verdict is not yet legally binding. Winter's son Michael, a former youth leader in the Freedom Party, was convicted of the same crime last October. He had suggested in a newsletter that Turkish Muslims were in the habit of committing bestiality.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
Good dhimmis.
Idiots.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/24/2009 0:04 Comments ||
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#2
I thought truth was supposed to be the ultimate defence in defamation accusations?
#3
You know, when the "Right" in these countries finally turn on the Left, it will be with a savagery that the Left can hardly imagine. It will make the Fascism of the first half of the 20th Century look tame by comparison.
Just as when the Right in this country has its fill of the treasonous Left, the backlash will be awesome to behold. When that happens, if the Leftist ideology isn't ruthlessly and thoroughly excised from this land, it will all have been for naught.
I'm convinced we're heading for both another World War and a Civil War with the battle lines arranged along political ideologies. I just haven't been able to figure out which is likely to happen first. I'm leaning towards the World War first, and then the returning Patriots deciding to capitalize on the situation to gut the internal enemies.
First the traitors, then the enemy! Long live the USA!
I don't see any civil wars, here or there, but there is the question of whether "there" will gain some cultural confidence to deal reasonably with both arrogant immigrants and native nitwits.
But this incitement stuff is typically creepy European lack of freedom. Fines for speech? How about ridicule and censure within the elected body of which she's a part?
(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistani gunship helicopters attacked several suspected Taliban positions overnight, killing seven people including four women and two children in the Mohmand tribal region.
According to local people, a bomb hit the house of tribesman Zain Khan in Shekhan area, killing two women.
Another two houses were hit in the area, killing two women, two children and a man.
Officials said that more than 60 militants had been killed in the offensive launched in areas adjacent to the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The official claim has not been independently confirmed.
Tribesmen are meanwhile reported to have seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition from Taliban hideouts in the Salarzai area of Bajaur tribal region on Thursday and captured some suspected militants.
Sources told Pakistani daily Dawn that preparations were under way for an operation in the Mohmand region - considered a Taliban stronghold - and troops were seen heading towards the area.
The sources said that paramilitary forces were building bunkers in the area and setting up hilltop positions. Troops were being airlifted by helicopters to the positions, according to the sources.
Militants have announced that they will resist troops entering the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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(AKI/DAWN) - A remote-controlled bomb targeting a military convoy on Friday killed a civilian and injured two others in northwest Pakistan's troubled Swat valley, security officials said.
The bombing took place at a village near the town of Mingora, where the military is battling militants loyal to Mullah Fazlullah who have launched a violent campaign to impose Islamic law in the area.
'One civilian travelling in a car was killed and two others sitting with him were injured by shrapnel,' a security official was quoted as telling AFP news agency.
A soldier was also injured, the official said. He added that the main convoy was unscathed because the road-side bomb went off when the convoy had just passed by.
The picturesque Swat valley, once a popular destination for Pakistani and foreign holidaymakers, boasting the country's only ski resort, has descended into chaos with pitched battles between militants and security forces.
More than 1,500 Pakistani troops have been killed at the hands of militants since 2002, after the Islamabad government joined former US president George W. Bush's 'war on terror'.
Pakistan rejects western accusations that it is not doing enough to tackle the extremist threat on its soil, where a wave of attacks have killed more than 1,500 people in 17 months.
US president Barack Obama on Thursday said extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan posed a grave threat that his new administration would tackle as a single problem under a wider strategy.
He announced the appointment of seasoned US diplomat Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Obama said that the US diplomatic effort would include working with NATO allies and other states in the region, which could include central Asian countries and India.
Obama's newly appointed secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Thursday described Afghanistan-Pakistan and the Middle East as the two most pressing foreign policy issues facing the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Officials in Pakistan are now reporting two suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan.
They say as many as 18 people died in the attacks near the Afghan border. These mark the first such strikes since President Barack Obama was inaugurated.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs repeatedly and adamantly refused to comment today on the reported U.S. air strikes.
In response to several questions, notes CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, Gibbs said the strikes were something he is just not going to talk about.
The first attack hit the village of Zharki in North Waziristan, near where al Qaeda militants hide out.
Officials said a drone fired three missiles in about 10 minutes, destroying two buildings and killing 10 people. An intelligence officer said at least five victims were foreign militants.
Hours later, a second missile hit a house in the same region, killing eight more people.
The missile strikes are the latest in a barrage of more than 30 in the region since the middle of last year.
Pakistan's pro-U.S. leaders had expressed hope President Obama would halt the attacks, which have reportedly killed several top al Qaeda operatives but triggered anger at the government by nationalist and Muslim critics.
The United States rarely acknowledges firing the missiles, which are mostly fired from drones believed launched from neighboring Afghanistan, but there is little doubt it is responsible.
Islamabad routinely protests the strikes in the northwest as a violation of the country's sovereignty, but most observers speculate it has an unwritten agreement allowing them to take place, noting it would be highly damaging to be seen as colluding with Washington in attacks on its people.
Washington is pressing Pakistan to crack down on militants in the border, which it blames for rising attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan as well as violence within Pakistan.
On Tuesday as Mr. Obama was sworn-in as U.S. president, one hardline Islamist welcomed Mr. Obama's words of outreach.
"We can also anticipate good hope provided Obama really takes a new course of action toward injustices the Muslim world is facing at this moment," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a major hard-line Islamist party.
Responding to Mr. Obama's message, Ahmed said the new president would have to reverse the "biased policies of Bush if he is really interested in seeking a new way forward with Muslim world." A new way forward, he said, can be based only on equality and justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
A new way forward, he said, can be based only on equality and justice.
I don't know about that. A "way forward" could also include ARCLIGHTing the entire inhabited portion of the Tribal Areas.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/24/2009 13:04 Comments ||
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#2
just dust the area with cobalt and cesium isotopes... sterilize it
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/24/2009 17:24 Comments ||
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Gunmen killed eight members of a Sunni family and kidnapped two others in an area northeast of Baghdad where Shiite militiamen still operate, officials said on Friday.
The gunmen stormed the Al Karawi family's home late on Thursday and shot the eight victims to death in their sleep, according to Brigadier General Abdul Karim Al Rubaie, the head of the security headquarters for Diyala province. He said two women were among those slain, while a man and a woman were kidnapped.
The family was poor and had moved to the Maamil village a year ago to work at brick factories in the area. The motive for the attack was under investigation. But a police officer in the nearby town of Balad Ruz said local police believed the attack was carried out by Shiite extremists who still wield influence in the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: A force from the Quick Response Department (QRD) arrested the leader of a Special Groups cell during a raid on his house in southern Wassit province on Friday, a security source said. "The Interior Ministry's QRD force on Friday (Jan. 23) raided a house in al-Hay district in south of Kut, arresting Mohamed al-Zameli, a leader of a Special Groups cell," Major Aziz Latief told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Al-Zameli is a leader of a Special Groups that come from Iran. He is suspected of involvement in killing and kidnapping civilians," he said, adding the raid was conducted based on intelligence tip-offs. The Special Groups is the name given to elements accused of receiving support and training from Iran to wage attacks against Iraqi forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Terrorists Suspected insurgents have shot dead seven people in attacks across Thailand's far south, where a bloody separatist rebellion has been raging for five years, police said on Saturday.
Four construction workers were shot dead on Saturday afternoon at a building site for a bridge in Yala, one of four southern provinces hit by the unrest. Also in Yala province, a 46-year-old man was shot dead outside a mosque after Friday prayers. Police told reporters that he was likely targeted because terrorists militants suspected he was working as a police informant. Elsewhere in the same province on Friday, a 65-year-old woman was shot dead outside her house and a 30-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting as he went to feed fish at a local pond.
(AKI) - Three Filipino Islamist rebels were sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in a Manila train station bombing in 2000 that killed 11 people. Known as the Rizal Day bombing case, it was one of the Philippines' worst terror attacks.
"This serves to reinforce our faith in our justice system. Our government will make sure that justice is served, that hateful ideology never triumphs, that peace loving citizens are kept safe and that democracy continues to prosper," said Lorelei Fajardo, spokeswoman of Philippines president Gloria Arroyo.
The attack against the train station was part of a series of five bombing attacks that claimed the lives of 22 people.
The blasts were allegedly led by Al-Qaeda linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah bomber Fathur Roman al-Ghozi. He was shot dead by government forces in 2003 after escaping from police custody. Al-Ghozi is said to have paid one of the three convicts to carry out the attacks.
The three defendants, Muklis Hadji Yunos, Abdul Fatak Paute and Mamasao Naga are members of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front and reportedly have links to Jemaah Islamiyah.
However, under Philippines law, a life sentence lasts for a minimum of 20 years, after which a convict may be pardoned, to a maximum of 40 years. The lawyer of the three convicts will appeal the sentence.
Contacts between JI and the MILF go back to the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan. Links between the groups were strengthened after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, when members of JI were received in the forests of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.
Although relations have been strained since 2003, experts say radical elements in the MILF still have contact with JI and that dozens of jihadists still are in Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago.
The MILF is the largest of several Muslim separatist groups in the predominantly Catholic country.
The group has an estimated 11,000 armed fighters and has been been fighting for self-rule in the volatile south for over three decades.
JI is widely considered south-east Asia's most dangerous terrorist organisation and was believed to be behind the bloodiest attacks in Indonesia. Its goal is the creation of a Muslim 'caliphate' in southeast Asia.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
Sri Lankan forces fought a string of battles with Tamil Tiger insurgents across the war-wracked north, seizing a rebel camp and killing at least five separatist fighters, the military said on Friday.
The fighting came amid a major government offensive aimed at destroying the group and ending this Indian Ocean island nation's quarter-century civil war. In recent weeks troops forced the rebels out of much of their heartland in the north, boxing them into a small corner of the northeast.
In fighting on Thursday, government forces overran a small rebel camp in the Mullaittivu district, military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said.
The camp, which probably had housed 30 or 40 fighters, consisted of two huts and a weapons cache of more than 200 mines and roadside bombs, he said. "They may have just left it when they were withdrawing," he added.
In other fighting along the front lines, troops recovered the bodies of five rebel fighters, the military said. Rebel spokesman were not available for comment, but the rebel-affiliated website TamilNet reported that the insurgents killed 40 government soldiers in fighting. The new fighting came amid reports of growing civilian casualties. On Thursday, health officials in the rebel-held area reported that the military had shelled a hospital and a village inside a government-declared "safe zone" for displaced families, killing at least 30 people. Health officials said at least 67 civilians were killed in shelling since Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Western powers believe that Iran is running short of the raw material required to manufacture nuclear weapons, triggering an international race to prevent it from importing more, The Times has learnt.
Diplomatic sources believe that Iran's stockpile of yellow cake uranium, produced from uranium ore, is close to running out and could be exhausted within months. Countries including Britain, the US, France and Germany have started intensive diplomatic efforts to dissuade major uranium producers from selling to Iran.
Before Christmas, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office sent out a confidential request for its diplomats in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Brazil, all major uranium producers, to lobby governments not to sell uranium products, specifically yellow cake, to Iran.
I have a suggestion: why don't we promise the Kazaks, etc that we'll buy all the yellowcake they produce? Create a consortium of western countries and lock in a long-term contract at a fair price plus a premium. The countries in question get stable income, we get the yellowcake, and the Mad Mullahs get shut out. We're not going to be successful in the long-term bullying the uranium producing countries, so let's be smart and make them a deal they don't want to refuse.
Iran's stock of yellow cake, acquired from South Africa in the 1970s under the Shah's original civil nuclear power programme, has almost run out. Iran is developing its own uranium mines, but does not have enough ore to support a sustained nuclear programme.
It was shortly before Christmas that diplomats at Britain's sleek new embassy on Kosmonavtov Street in the Kazakh capital of Astana received a confidential and urgent request. Iran, officials back in Whitehall advised, was believed to be close to running out of its stockpiles of yellow cake -- a powdered form of uranium ore.
There were concerns that Tehran could be seeking fresh supplies to support its nuclear programme at a critical juncture -- just months before intelligence experts expected it to have accumulated enough enriched material for a bomb. British officials were to urge Kazakhstan, one of the world's biggest producers, to ignore any possible approaches to obtain imports.
The request, news of which emerged after an international investigation by The Times, was part of a drive by six countries -- Britain, the US, France, Germany, Australia and Canada -- to choke off supplies of uranium to Iran. It is a move that, while unlikely to cripple any effort to develop a bomb, would blunt its ambitions and help to contain the threat, authoritative sources said.
Kazakhstan, with 15 per cent of the world's deposits, is an increasingly important player in the global uranium trade and has set a target this year to become the world's largest producer. Uzbekistan, where British officials are involved in a similar lobbying exercise, also has large deposits and was a leading supplier for weapons-grade material during Soviet times.
While there is no direct evidence that Iran has actively sought to buy uranium from either country, Western intelligence sources view them as one of a number of potential weak spots in the supply chain.
Others include the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where uranium for the bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 was mined and where there have been persistent rumours of illegal exports to countries including Iran. Getting to the truth about such claims is notoriously difficult. Reports by British Intelligence of an attempt by Saddam Hussein to acquire substantial quantities of yellow cake from Niger in West Africa for a clandestine nuclear bomb project turned out to be fabricated. That did not stop President Bush referring to them, in March 2003, as part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq.
But the very real international effort to choke off supplies of yellow cake to Iran, which also included British lobbying of Brazil, reflect mounting concern that 2009 is likely to be a pivotal year for Iran's nuclear programme.
It also vividly illustrates the urgency surrounding the biggest foreign policy challenge facing President Obama. The journey from innocent uranium ore to weapons-grade nuclear fuel is complex and requires sophisticated technology, but the Iranians are acquiring the expertise, which is why Western countries, and Israel, are so concerned at the prospect of having to confront a nuclear-armed Iran.
To reach weapons-grade uranium-235, Iran would have to produce a highly enriched fuel, and that requires thousands of centrifuges. It is estimated that 200kg of yellow cake could produce 1kg of weapons-grade (94 per cent enriched) uranium. About 20kg of highly enriched uranium are required for one bomb.
Iran, which has always claimed that its nuclear programme is peaceful, acquired several thousand tonnes of yellow cake from South Africa during the mid-1970s shortly after the Shah initiated the country's original push for civil nuclear power. Tehran also has two small uranium mines but they are costly to run, yield only small quantities of ore and are suffering from problems with purity.
Last May, a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggested that around 70 per cent of Iran's available yellow cake had been converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas at a conversion plant in the city of Esfahan.
David Albright, founder of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said that Iran now had enough of this gasified uranium, stored in canisters weighing 10-14 tonnes each, to produce as many as 35 bombs, but it may run out of yellow cake to keep feeding the plant by the end of the year.
Be a shame if someone happened to that plant in Esfahan such that the UF6 gas was destroyed. A real shame ...
Beside the gas conversion facility, Iran also needs yellow cake to convert into pellets for fuel rods to run its Arak heavy water reactor. It also apparently wants large quantities of yellow cake to turn into low-enriched uranium for its new Russian-built reactor at Bushehr, in case Moscow reneges on a deal to supply nuclear fuel.
However, Tehran's relative shortage of uranium exposes puzzling questions about its claims to be pursuing a purely peaceful civil nuclear energy programme. It would need far larger quantities of yellow cake than it can produce from its own small mines to have sufficient fuel for a civil nuclear power programme.
"You need 200 tonnes per year just for one 1,000 megawatt power station," an IAEA source said. Iran has said that it wants to build 20 reactors, but the agency believes that the Iranians managed to process only 21 tonnes of uranium at a production centre at Bandar Abbas in southern Iran in one year, and plan to handle 50 tonnes a year from a new facility at Ardakan in the centre of the country, which is due to open later this year.
Moreover, Russia has an agreement with Iran to supply the prefabricated fuel that it needs for a civil nuclear power station it is building at Bushehr. The international community also offered in 2006 to supply the fuel rods and assemblies needed for a civil nuclear programme. Yet Iran insists on pursuing the development of its own facilities to mine and process uranium on its own -- at vastly higher cost than it would pay for the fuel on the international market.
Any move by the Iranians to buy stocks of uranium from other countries could be interpreted two ways: either as an investment for what they claim is a genuine civil nuclear power programme or as an insurance policy for a future successful weapons project.
Iran is subject to a comprehensive safeguards agreement under which IAEA inspectors are meant to make checks to ensure that Tehran is not trying to divert nuclear material for a civil power programme to a military one. The agreement, however, covers only named installations that do not include the mines, and there remain a series of unanswered questions which have raised serious concerns about Iran's motives. UN Security Council Resolution 1737 prohibits countries from supplying any items "which could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related ... activities". Few, if any, of the big producers would want to take the risk of doing business with Iran.
However, the frantic efforts to make sure that producing countries hold the line highlight the growing challenge of containing the uranium trade at a time when it is expanding briskly. Governments around the world are looking to nuclear energy as an answer to concerns about energy.
Mining operations are already carried out in nearly 20 countries including Canada, Australia, Russia Namibia, Ukraine, China and Pakistan and in the past year alone new mines have been proposed in a string of countries from Zambia to Uruguay and Jordan to Sudan.
Monitoring this trade is a challenge in itself but there are also growing fears over the danger of nuclear smuggling. The US sent experts last year to help Georgia to install radiation detection equipment at border points when the work was interrupted by the war over South Ossetia. The project was given added urgency by a sting operation in Georgia in 2006, when a Russian man was arrested trying to sell 100g of highly enriched uranium. He claimed to have access to another 4kg. Georgia and the US signed an agreement in 2007 to combat nuclear smuggling. Neighbouring Armenia, which has a land border with Iran, signed a similar agreement with the US last year. But it is the possibility that uranium could be smuggled out of Africa, specifically Congo (DRC), that is keeping Western officials awake at night.
In 2005, Iran tried to smuggle some Uranium 238 by ship from Congo to Bandar Abbas, but this was foiled by Tanzanian customs officials.
Peter Rickwood, an IAEA official, said: "Nobody is quite sure how much of that stuff is being exported. There have been persistent rumours about uranium coming out of the DRC and going to North Korea or Iran. Yes, we are concerned about that."
#1
I recall that there is an extensive supply in Niger. Perhaps we should retain an ex-diplomat with local connections to reconnoiter the situation. I understand mint tea is a preferred local beverage for just such discussions.
Make sure VP Biden is aware of the assignment, just for everyone's information.
#3
Considering they've already got the delivery portion essentially completed, the emphasis on getting the rest of the system completed is understandable.
#4
Iran has its own uranium mines. All yellowcake is, is just leeched ore. Iran's consumption of yellowcake should also be very regular. As such, they should have long ago arranged for small replenishment amounts to be smuggled into Iran. Why wait until they were short?
TWO men released from the war on terror prison at Guantanamo Bay have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service has reported.
One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shihri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official said.
Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No 333.
A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, declined to confirm the SITE information.
"We remain concerned about ex-Guantanamo detainees who have reaffiliated with terrorist organisations after their departure," said Gordon.
"We will continue to work with the international community to mitigate the threat they pose," he said.
On the video, al-Shihri is seen sitting with three other men before a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, the front for al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri was quoted as saying.
Al-Shiri was transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia in 2007, the US counter-terrorism official said.
The other men in the video are identified as Commander Abu Baseer al-Wahayshi and Abu Hureira Qasm al-Rimi (also known as Abu Hureira al-Sana'ani).
The US Defence Department has said as many as 61 former Guantanamo detainees - about 11 per cent of 520 detainees transferred from the detention centre and released - are believed to have returned to the fight.
The latest case highlights the risk the new US administration faces as it moves to empty Guantanamo of its remaining 245 prisoners and close the controversial detention camp within a year.
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.
Somali pirates have released a Liberian-flagged tanker and its 28 crew after holding it for almost two months within Somali waters. The MT Biscaglia was hijacked on November 28 with a crew of 25 Indians and three Bangladeshis. It also carried three security guards - two Britons and one Irish national - who jumped over board when the pirates attacked. 
Officials in Pakistan are now reporting two suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan. 
Gunmen killed eight members of a Sunni family and kidnapped two others in an area northeast of Baghdad where Shiite militiamen still operate, officials said on Friday.
Aswat al-Iraq: A force from the Quick Response Department (QRD) arrested the leader of a Special Groups cell during a raid on his house in southern Wassit province on Friday, a security source said. "The Interior Ministry's QRD force on Friday (Jan. 23) raided a house in al-Hay district in south of Kut, arresting Mohamed al-Zameli, a leader of a Special Groups cell," Major Aziz Latief told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Al-Zameli is a leader of a Special Groups that come from Iran. He is suspected of involvement in killing and kidnapping civilians," he said, adding the raid was conducted based on intelligence tip-offs. The Special Groups is the name given to elements accused of receiving support and training from Iran to wage attacks against Iraqi forces.
