#7
The one on the right looks dangerous, the one in the middle looks like the Girl next Door, and the one on the left looks interesting.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/20/2009 16:08 Comments ||
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#8
Note to self. Need to get my eyes checked, I think I'm seeing double. Or maybe I'm seeing a Doublemint commercial. On second thought scratch the note to self. I like seeing double.
KRAKOW, Poland: US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Friday that Washington could accept a political agreement between the Afghan government and Taliban rebels along the lines of a truce in neighbouring Pakistan.
Gates' comments at the close of a NATO meeting contrasted with those of Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who said this week that he was worried that the peace deal was tantamount to surrender by Pakistan.
On Monday, Pakistan announced it would agree to the imposition of Islamic law in the restive Swat valley in the northwest part of the country as part of an agreement aimed at restoring peace after an 18-month military campaign. The pact was spearheaded by a hard-line cleric who is negotiating with the Taliban in the valley to give up their arms.
Asked whether Washington would approve an agreement between the Kabul government and Taliban guerrillas along similar lines, Gates replied: "If there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, if the reconciliation is essentially on the terms being offered by the government then I think we would be very open to that.
"We have said all along that ultimately some sort of political reconciliation has to be part of the long-term solution in Afghanistan," Gates said.
Afghanistan's government has said it wants to engage Taliban guerrillas who are not "hard-liners" to lay down their arms in return for a political role in the country. But representatives of the Taliban, who have made significant military gains in the last two years and now control vast swathes of countryside, say they will not negotiate while foreign troops remain in Afghanistan.
A similar deal in Swat last year collapsed in a few months and was blamed for giving insurgents time to regroup.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the defence meeting that a broader regional approach was needed to help put down the insurgency in Afghanistan. The focus would be on more involvement from Pakistan, but could include Iran one day, he said.
He said the suggestion does not mean that NATO plans to enter into dialogue with Iran immediately but that Tehran could be involved "at a certain stage ... in a regional approach toward Afghanistan."
Posted by: john frum ||
02/20/2009 12:31 ||
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#1
Just any little thing that allows us to declare victory and get the hell outta there, right?
(AKI) - Two Italian nuns kidnapped in Kenya three months ago and taken to neighbouring Somalia have been freed, the Italian government said on Thursday. Gunmen abducted Maria Teresa Olivero and Caterina Giraudo, who are both in their 60s, in the northern Kenyan district of Mandera in November and took them across the border.
The nuns had been working with the poor on hunger and health programmes in Kenya.
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters on Thursday the two Roman Catholic nuns were now at the Italian embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
"Their morale is high," Berlusconi told reporters.
Following the nuns' abduction, Pope Benedict XVI had expressed concern about their fate.
The Italian foreign ministry, which first announced their release, did not give further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Two Italian nuns kidnapped in Kenya three months ago and taken to neighbouring Somalia have been freed by bad little gunman boys with welts all over their back and hands.
There, fixed that. [Ed.]
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/20/2009 9:45 Comments ||
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#2
Catholic Church take note, if you keep "Interfering" with Islam they'll keep killing Y"all.
Either let the Muzzies Die or keep sending nuns to die.
(Bad choice for the Church, I know, Unless they're deliberately getting rid of troublemakers)
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/20/2009 12:16 Comments ||
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#3
Do you realize that there are a lot of christians, many of them Catholic, in Africa?
#6
Actually, Africa is a losing front for the Muzzies : more people convert to Christianity in Africa than are born and/or convert to Islam. As a matter of fact, several big time Muzzies have been public upset with this fact and called for "action" against it. The main means for this conversion process seems to be the old fashioned good works missions run by (wait for it!) generally elderly nuns in very poor neighborhoods.
The various Orders of Sisters are the ground troops in the Church's quiet move on Islam.
#7
One of the grand poobahs in Saudia Arabia, I think it was, complained a few years ago that 6 million Muslims a year are converting to Christianity, if I recall correctly. No doubt the number is imaginary, in one direction or the other, but the concern is real.
Islamist fighters loyal to Somalia's new President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad took control Thursday of key roadblocks in Mogadishu as part of a security plan for the war-torn capital, officials said. The fighters took the checkpoints in southern Mogadishu that were previously controlled by government forces.
A UN-brokered peace deal between the Somali transitional government and a moderate Islamist opposition saw Ahmad elected president on January 31. The deal also calls for the formation of joint security units with the government troops.
"Our Islamic Courts Union forces took control of the main transitional government positions including important checkpoints in southern Mogadishu," said Abdirahin Ise Ado, an Islamist spokesman. "We will ensure the security of the town," he told reporters.
Police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise confirmed the move, saying local authorities opted to remove police forces from the checkpoints in order to deploy Islamist forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
There's a new Sharif in town.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/20/2009 12:18 Comments ||
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In a positive step towards establishing peace in northern Mali, more than 500 Tuareg rebels laid down their arms in their fight against the Malian government. The brokers of the tentative quieting of violence are encouraged about the prospect of putting an end to the conflict in the Kidal region.
A celebration was held Tuesday (February 17th) in the Kidal airport, where the rebels -- affiliated with the May 23, 2006 Democratic Alliance for Change -- surrendered in accordance with the 2006 Algiers Accord.
The return of the rebels was part of a long effort led by Algerian Ambassador to Mali Abdelkrim Gheraib, who attended the ceremony. Also present were Kafougouna Koune, Malian Minister of Regional Administration and Local Communities, and official Tuareg spokesperson Ahmed Ag Bibi.
Algerian state television aired pictures Wednesday evening of the Tuareg rebels handing over their weapons to Gheraib in his capacity as mediator.
An Algerian radio correspondent in Kidal who attended the celebration said the operation was greeted with relief on both sides of the conflict. Tuareg rebels and local residents alike sounded their car horns in celebration of peace.
The two disputing parties expressed thanks to Algeria for its central role in bringing the two sides willingly to the negotiating table and establishing peace.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Two Russian oil workers who were kidnapped two months ago have escaped from their captors and been picked up by the military after a harrowing five-day ordeal, an army spokesman said Thursday.
Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said the pair escaped on foot from a militant camp Sunday and were found by naval personnel on patrol early Thursday afternoon. Musa said the pair _ who had been wandering around the isolated creeks in Nigeria's oil producing region for five days _ were malnourished but unharmed.
The two were seized by gunmen in speedboats during a pre-dawn raid Dec. 20 in the southern state of Akwa Ibom in Nigeria's troubled south.
Hundreds of expatriate and Nigerian hostages have been taken during three years of rising violence across the southern Niger Delta region, which is the seat of Africa's biggest oil industry. Victims are normally released after a ransom is paid.
Three years of militant attacks on the industry have kept the country's daily crude production about 25 percent under its estimated capacity of 2.5 million barrels per day.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Ten Yemeni Jews moved to Israel on Thursday after a murder and a series of attacks sparked fear among their small community.
Among the new immigrants who landed at Ben Gurion international airport was Said Ben Yisrael, who heads the Jewish community in Raydah, which is home to all but 50 of the Jews who live in Yemen. Eight members of his family were also among the new arrivals, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel, a semi-governmental organisation which organised their trip jointly with the Yemenite Jewish Federation of America.
Several weeks ago, extremists threw a grenade into Yisrael's courtyard. Following further threats on his life, he left Raydah with his wife and seven children to live in the capital Sanaa.
Fear grips community
Fearful members of the small Jewish community of Raydah in northern Yemen have closed their three synagogues and two schools, and avoid public places after a man who refused to convert was murdered.
The 260 Jews who stayed on in the area when their co-religionists emigrated to Israel by the thousands used to coexist comfortably with their Muslim neighbors.
But on Dec. 11, Masha Yaish al-Nahari, a father of nine who taught Hebrew at one of the community's two schools, was gunned down by a Muslim who accosted him near his home demanding that he convert to Islam. The suspect, Abdul Aziz Yahya al-Abdi, 39, who has repeatedly confessed to the murder in court saying he had warned the town's Jews to leave or convert if they wanted to stay alive, faces a possible death sentence if convicted when the trial wraps up on March 2.
Receiving murder threats
" The president supports us. We are under his protection. But if the government does not protect us, we will go to Israel "
Yaeish al-Nahari, father of the victim
Jewish neighbors of the victim attended two earlier hearings in the trial but they stayed away from a new hearing this week after receiving death threats from Abdi's Muslim clansmen from the powerful Kharef tribe, community leader Yahya Yaish said.
The only Jewish people present for Monday's session were the victim's father and widow, as Abdi's clansmen packed the courtroom, many wearing traditional curved daggers on their belts, to support the man in the dock. "In the past, we lived in security, but now, we are all afraid," the victim's father Yaeish al-Nahari told AFP at his home in Raydah, a large dusty agricultural town swept by the wind.
Naharim who is in his 60s, said that he considers himself Yemeni first and Jewish second, but that he is desperate to leave as soon as he can sell his house and doesn't mind where he goes.
"The president supports us. We are under his protection," Nahari said. "But if the government does not protect us, we will go to Israel," he said, adding that three of his five daughters have already emigrated there.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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A Rajshahi court yesterday framed charges against eight operatives of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in the long anticipated Rajshahi University (RU) teacher Muhammad Yunus murder case. The second court of Additional District Judge Lutfa Begum framed charges in the murder case in presence of all the eight accused in dock.
The accused include Shafiullah Tarek (a follower of militant kingpin Asadullah Al Galib) and Shahidullah Mahbub (husband of the executed JMB leader Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai's niece). Both of them were the mastermind behind the murder, say the charges. The other accused are JMB's regional commanders -- Abu Isa Enamul and Golamur Rahman Mostafa, an adherent of Galib's Ahle Hadith Jubo Shangha, militants Abul Kashem Tufan, Abdul Matin, Abdur Rahman Arif and Mojibur Rahman.
The framing of charges had been deferred since July last year as some of the accused were being tried in other cases outside Rajshahi.
Inspector Mohammad Helauddin of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted the charge sheet against the eight September 10, 2007. In the latest charge sheet, CID police brushed aside previous police findings of Shibir's involvement in the murder though two eyewitnesses in separate judicial statements narrated Shibir cadres' involvement.
Names of some 13 accused including six cadres of Islami Chhatra Shibir were dropped in the CID charge sheet.
Helaluddin said, the investigation took a new turn following confessional statement of executed JMB chief Abdur Rahman. Later, two prime accused -- Shafiullah Tarek and Shahidullah Mahbub made judicial confessions.
Yunus, a professor of economics, was killed on December 24, 2004 while on a morning walk near his Binodhpur residence. He was the president of RU Bangabandhu Parishad and senior vice-president of Bangladesh Economic Association.
Abdul Halim, the victim's brother who filed the murder case with Motihar Police Station said, "The murder was pre-planned and occurred over political vengeance."
The charges say Yunus was murdered for being an atheist and abettor of underground communist activities. A group of 10 assassins committed the murder of whom Ibrahim died in 2005 while another could not be identified, the charges add.
This article starring:
Abdur Rahman
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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At least 25 people have died in a bomb explosion at a funeral procession in north-western Pakistan, police say. The suicide blast targeted the funeral of a Shia Muslim cleric who was gunned down on Thursday. There are fears Friday's death toll could go higher. The blast took place in Dera Ismail Khan, a town close to Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal area.
The town has a history of sectarian violence between its Sunni and Shia Muslim communities. Ya don't say...
A curfew has been imposed in the town, 270km (170 miles) south-west of the capital, Islamabad. At least 60 people have been injured in the attack.
The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says Shia mourners were making their way to a graveyard early on Friday morning when the bomber struck. The funeral was of a prominent local Shia leader, Sher Zaman, who was shot dead in a busy market on Thursday by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike. Let's roll, Cycles of Violence!
Blast witness Gulzar Hussain told Agence France-Presse a man rushed into the centre of the funeral procession and there was a deafening explosion. "All I could see after the blast were body parts lying in a pool of blood. Everyone around me was injured, crying and moaning. I saw injured children crying with pain. It was a scene from a slaughterhouse."
Our correspondent says that with police resources stretched, the administration called in the army to deal with rioting by incensed locals. Let's roll, Mighty Pak Army!
Dera Ismail Khan has been the scene of a number of deadly attacks targeted at the local Shia population since 2007. Our correspondent says security officials believe Pakistan's most dangerous militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is behind them. They believe the organisation has been bolstered by help from the Taleban.
Two weeks ago 35 people died in a suspected suicide bomb attack against Shia worshippers in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province.
#1
I've been wondering for a year or so when somebody would boom a funeral.
It just seems logical, all your enemies, and their friends in one spot just waiting for it.
Very much a "Target Rich" area.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/20/2009 12:08 Comments ||
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#2
Can we send Mookie & his buddies over to take revenge on these evil Pakistani Sunni? Or, since he's kinda cowardly, maybe some Iranian Special Groupies. I'm kind of hankering for some popcorn.
The plotters behind the Mumbai attack, which left more than 170 people dead, had placed India's financial capital on a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, the Guardian has learned.
It suggests that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outlawed terror group that planned much of the attack from Pakistan, had ambitions well beyond causing mayhem in India.
Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar's communications chief, Zarar Shah, and found a list of possible targets, only 20 of which were in India.
Two of the November 2008 attack's key planners -- Shah and Lashkar's operations chief, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi -- are now in police custody in Pakistan.
Islamabad's decision to bring criminal charges against nine men accused of involvement in the Mumbai attack has partly placated Indian officials. But officials in New Delhi have been warning that they want to see people brought to justice for terrorist acts.
"If the west can prosecute people for crimes against humanity in The Hague or use rendition to interrogate them in undisclosed locations then what is stopping them now? After all, [western] citizens were killed in Mumbai too," an official said.
The US has been trying behind the scenes to co-ordinate intelligence exchanges between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The CIA has worked hard to be seen to help New Delhi -- including by recovering phone numbers deleted by the terrorists on their satellite phones.
The fallout from Mumbai has destabilised the government of Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, which is attempting to face down Islamist groups his predecessors cultivated.
Intelligence agencies have warned that Mumbai raises the spectre of a new style of terrorist assault. The city of 19 million people was brought to a halt by 10 heavily armed gunmen rampaging through restaurants and hotels for three days.
Nine of the gunmen were killed -- but the lone survivor has given Indian investigators a full confession that the assault was planned in Pakistan by Lashkar, a militant group that originally began an armed campaign against the Indian army in Kashmir.
There has been some speculation that raids in Spain which netted 12 men -- an Indian and 11 Pakistanis -- were a result of the investigations into Lashkar's role in the Mumbai attacks.
The dozen men were reportedly picked up for forging passports and other travel documents for terror organisations, including al-Qaida. Pakistan's government has said the Mumbai attacks were partly planned from Spain.
Analysts say the computer list is more of a statement of intent because Lashkar would need time to set up terrorist cells in so many places.
"Lashkar is an increasingly prominent terrorist group within the jihadi community but I am sceptical of it being able to act globally and extensively on its own," said Maria Kuusisto, an analyst covering Pakistan and Afghanistan for the Eurasia Group, a political consultancy in London.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/20/2009 06:13 ||
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#1
But, but, Katie Couric assured me this was only about Kashmir.
Posted by: ed ||
02/20/2009 9:04 Comments ||
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#2
Analysts say the computer list is more of a statement of intent because Lashkar would need time to set up terrorist cells in so many places.
OH, now I feel better, like these people don't have the time, money at patients.
#6
Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar's communications chief, Zarar Shah
Western intelligence agencies, you say? Accessed computer and email account[s], you say? This is going to be fun for someone... and not so much fun for lots of others. Will Guantanamo Bay be quietly receiving new shipments to replace those released?
LANDIKOTAL: Border authorities at Torkham detained a suspicious African-American woman who was attempting to cross the border into Afghanistan on Thursday.
Headed to Kandahar to comfort the widows ... and deliver ammunition ...
The woman, identified as, Aisha Rokh Muhammad, 45, who was reportedly a converted Muslim, was on her way to Afghanistan via Torkham border from Peshawar when border authorities detained her for investigation. She was holding proper travel documents and valid visas for Pakistan and Afghanistan, border sources said.
So why did they detain her?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
My guess, because she's black, thus "Impure" and American to boot.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/20/2009 12:25 Comments ||
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#2
Sounds like Eric Holder oughta get over there for a "frank discussion" on race...
ISLAMABAD: The government has asked the Obama administration to immediately reimburse at least $1 billion out of $1.350 billion spent during the last nine months for services Pakistan has provided in the war on terror.
Zardari's 10% would be quite a haul ...
Adviser on Finance Shaukat Tareen, while interacting with the media men after a workshop on medium-term budget framework here on Thursday dwelt upon the issue of the stuck-up amount by the authorities concerned in the US with regard to the ongoing war against terrorism.
Tareen informed that in the wake of accounting and procedural issues, the release of the funds from the Coalition Support Fund has been stalled and now we are pushing the US to clear nine months of bills amounting to $1.350 billion as Pakistan is no more in a position to bear the war expenses for a long time.
To a question, he said Islamabad has now asked releasing of $1 billion on which US has agreed so far. He explained: "Monthly military bill stands at $150 million and US have agreed to release $100 million as the remaining $50 million stuck up because of accounting and procedural issues will later be sorted out."
It is pertinent to mention that as per the media reports that Pakistan is also providing services of drone to attack on militants. It means the reimbursement bill for services has also increased.
However, Tareen said he does not know the facilities are being provided for drone attacks. To a question, he said the US authorities had released $101 million out of total forwarded bill of $156 million till April 2008. "Pakistan has not received any amount from the last nine months after May 2008."
"Pakistan's economy faced a colossal loss of over $8 billion in the ongoing fiscal as the whole infrastructure in war-hit areas has entirely destroyed. Tourism industry has come to standstill and country gets deprived of the massive investment just because of the very factor."
"The war against terrorism is ours but it is also war of western friends," he said. Pakistan's elected government, he said, informed its western friends, including Friends of Pakistan, to compensate Islamabad by extending us market access, debt swaps, oil facilities on deferred payments and development aids.
About ongoing talks with the IMF in Dubai, Tareen said Pakistan would not seek any waiver on agreed conditions for releasing the second tranche of $775 million out of $7.6 billion loan package under the Standby Arrangement (SBA) programme.
He said the annual tax collection target of Rs1,360 billion would be revised downward after holding negotiation with the IMF. Pakistan would place a request with the fund, seeking increase in its loan from $7.6 billion to $12.1 billion by April 2009.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Just getting in line for their cut, it seems.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/20/2009 4:16 Comments ||
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#2
deduct all losses from convoys destroyed
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/20/2009 8:29 Comments ||
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#3
Seriously, would any of you take an IOU from Bambi? If he wanted anything from me, I would insist on payment up front in either Maple Leafs or Krugerrand.
#8
to immediately reimburse at least $1 billion out of $1.350 billion spent during the last nine months for services Pakistan has provided in the war on terror.
Militants on Wednesday blew up two more girls' schools in the Bajaur Agency while security forces claimed killing eight militants in the area.
Sources said two government girls' primary schools in Nawagai and Chargo areas of Salarzai Tehsil were blown up by unidentified miscreants early in the day. The spokesman for the banned outfit Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulvi Omar, had threatened to blow up schools in the area. About 30 schools -- most of them girls' schools -- have been destroyed by the militants in the agency.
A rocket was also fired at the security forces checkpost at Khar, Tehsil headquarters, but caused no loss of life or property. Meanwhile, sources said security forces targeted the hideouts of the militants by jet fighters, gunship helicopters and artillery shelling in different areas of Khar Tehsil. Eight militants were killed and five others sustained injuries during shelling.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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South Asian Free Media Association (Safma) Secretary General Imtiaz Alam was Wednesday attacked and injured by four unidentified men, as he reached home from office.
The four men armed with hockey sticks and clubs attacked the renowned journalist and founding secretary general of Safma as he was about to enter his house at around 11 pm. The men, as explained by Imtiaz Alam, were apparently in their 20s and all of them had beards.
The attackers started smashing the car from all directions destroying the car in every way possible. Imtiaz stayed in the car for safety but the attackers after smashing the windows and the windscreen hit him as he sat inside the car wounding his arm. The attackers fled after smashing the car.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Rubbing salt into the wounds of the journalist community, unidentified armed men on Wednesday blew up the newly-constructed building of the Wana Press Club in South Waziristan Agency.
The unfortunate incident happened the same day a correspondent of The News and Geo News Musa Khankhel was gunned down in Matta Tehsil of the militancy-stricken Swat Valley after he was kidnapped from the peace rally of TNSM chief Maulana Sufi Mohammad.
Official and tribal sources told The News from Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, by telephone that around 12 armed masked men forced their entry into the press club building and forced eight personnel of paramilitary Khasadar Force to surrender.
The Khasadars, who were armed and deployed there to protect the press club building, were given 15 minutes by the armed assailants to leave the premises. According to Khasadar personnel, eight of the armed men entered the press club while four stood outside the two storeyed-building.
They said the armed men were carrying two bags of explosives, which they later planted in various parts of the press club building. Within no time, they said, the press club building was razed to the ground with three heavy explosions.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD -- The firebrand anti-American cleric whose militia battled U.S. troops for years is facing a strong challenge for leadership of Iraq's poor, urban Shiites from a small, well-organized faction with loose links to Iran, senior figures within his movement say.
The split within Muqtada al-Sadr's organization has widened as Shiite groups weigh the outcome of last month's provincial elections and prepare for a national ballot this year that will determine the leadership in Baghdad.
#5
he should check out blogs more often. Beside Islamo-brides for sale, I see a lotta Teefs Whitening ads
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/20/2009 18:47 Comments ||
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#6
With a face like that, religion is probably the best option.
Posted by: Elmusotle Protector of the Bunions8790 ||
02/20/2009 19:14 Comments ||
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#7
is facing a strong challenge for leadership of Iraq's poor, urban Shiites from another a small, well-organized faction with loose links to Iran,
There! Fixed it.
Aswat al-Iraq: Two civilians were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in eastern Falluja city on Thursday, a police source in Anbar province said.
"An IED went off today (Feb 19) in central Karmat al-Falluja district, (20 km) eastern Falluja city, leaving two civilians wounded," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The wounded were taken to the al-Falluja hospital for treatment while the main roads were closed as policemen combed the area in search of more IEDs," the source added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: The criminal court in Wassit on Thursday handed down death sentences against two and a life term against a third one after being found guilty of murders and kidnappings, a judicial source said. "The three convicts had confessed to the crimes they committed before the judge after the al-Kut Criminal Court produced evidence condemning them," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Three Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip Thursday evening struck open areas in the western Negev, causing no damage or injuries. The first hit near Sderot and several hours later, two more rockets exploded near Netivot.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Two Thai government security personnel were beheaded early Friday as provincial paramilitary rangers on patrol near Bang Lang National Park were ambushed by terrorists presumed insurgents. A teacher protection unit came under fire after their security assignment had been completed.
The two rangers were killed in action as the government unit was patrolling the Kasod-Bang Lang Dam Road in Yala's Bannang Sata district. An terrorist insurgent group of undetermined size hidden at the roadside opened fire with automatic weapons. The groups exchanged fire, and two paramilitary rangers became separated from the main government force. The attackers decapitated the dead soldiers, taking their heads away with them before they withdrew. Security forces later recovered the two victims' heads from a nearby stream bed.
Joint forces of police and military are hunting the assailants in Yala.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/20/2009 8:31 Comments ||
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#2
The "religion of peace" strikes again...
Posted by: Steve Martin ||
02/20/2009 11:47 Comments ||
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#3
Must be a result of horrible oppression from the Thai govt arrogantly trying to protect school teachers from murder by a few misunderstood militants.
GUNMEN kidnapped a wealthy businessman and his daughter then warned the military to pull back after troops managed to get near their hide-out in the southern Philippines, officials said on Thursday.
The late Wednesday kidnappings in Cotabato City were the latest in a rash of abductions that has sparked a new government crackdown in the country's volatile south. Cotabato lies outside three southern provinces where several kidnappings have been staged in a sign that abductions may be spreading, an official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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Two planes belonging to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have attacked the capital Colombo, damaging a government building, officials say. Both planes were downed, one of them hitting inland revenue offices, killing one person and injuring at least 40 others, officials said. The other plane was shot down near the city's airport, which has been closed. The raid comes as the army has driven the Tigers into a shrinking zone of jungle in the north of Sri Lanka. A pro-rebel website, TamilNet, said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), had carried out the attack.
Correspondents say the attack amounts to a major embarrassment for Sri Lanka's government, which had claimed to have destroyed all the rebels' hidden runways and put its small air force out of action. The city was put on full alert at about 2130 (1600 GMT) as electricity was cut and searchlights and tracer fire from anti-aircraft guns cut through the night sky. Briton Barry Walker told the BBC that he was in a central Colombo hotel when the blackout hit. "We were sitting by the swimming pool when we heard firing of heavy anti-aircraft guns. Heavy shell fire. This lasted 20-25 minutes... then there was a massive explosion," he said.
Another witness told the BBC he saw a low-flying aircraft and then heard a huge explosion by the city's fort, where many government offices are located. The air force headquarters, which is in the same area, may have been the target, correspondents say. The ministry of defence said a tax office of the inland revenue department was in flames after one of the planes went down into the building.
The other plane was shot down next to the international airport, just outside Colombo, and the body of its pilot had been found, defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. Witnesses at the airport told Associated Press news agency that anti-aircraft guns had been firing followed by an explosion. Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said the alert began when a suspected Tamil Tiger aircraft was spotted north-east of Colombo and the capital's air defences were activated. Air force jets were scrambled to engage the planes.
The attack comes as a major Sri Lankan army offensive has inflicted a series of defeats on the Tamil Tiger forces, pushing the rebels into a narrow area of jungle in the north of Sri Lanka. The Tigers have used light planes in the past to attack Colombo. In October 2008, suspected Tamil Tiger rebels carried out air strikes on oil tanks near the capital, Colombo, and in north-western Sri Lanka. Colombo was also targeted in another raid in March 2007. About 70,000 people have died in the last 25 years as the Tigers have been fighting for a separate homeland in the north and east of the country.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/20/2009 14:27 ||
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#1
Just when you think the Tigers are down, they come up with something like this. Of course, they lost both planes, so they only have 1 left, if that. They'll trumpet it as a victory even though it was a last-gasp spasm like Operation Bodenplatte.
#3
No, the Tiger terrorists legally bought several light planes in the 1980s from the Europeans. They have lost most of them in the past two decades and have NO good sources for replacing them, since the LTTE is now internationally recognized as a terrorist group.
Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.
I thought we had a National Intelligence Estimate that said this wasn't possible? Oh well, mistakes happen ...
In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought. They said Iran had accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz.
If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material enough for a bomb.
It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb, said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UNs nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday. This revealed that Irans production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated. When the agency carried out an annual stocktaking of Natanz in mid-November Iran had produced 839kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride more than 200kg more than previously thought. Tehran produced an additional 171kg by the end of January.
Its sure certain that if they didnt have it [enough] when the IAEA took these measurements, they will have it in a matter of weeks, Mr Zimmerman said.
Irans success in reaching such a breakout capacity a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months crosses a red line that for years Israel has said it would not accept.
UN officials emphasise that to produce fissile material Iran would have to reconfigure its Natanz plant to produce high enriched uranium rather than low enriched uranium a highly visible step that would take months or to shift its stockpile to a clandestine site. No such sites have been proved to exist, although for decades Iran concealed evidence of its nuclear programme.
That's why they're called 'clandestine' ...
A senior UN official added that countries usually waited until they had an enriched uranium stockpile sufficient for several bombs before proceeding to develop fissile material. He conceded that Iran now had enough enriched uranium for one bomb. Do they have enough low enriched uranium to produce a significant quantity [enough high enriched uranium for a bomb]? he said. In theory this is possible, [although] with the present configuration at Natanz it isnt.
David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said: If Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons, its entering an era in which it could do so quickly.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
After Afghan/Pakistan Iran should have been our next target in the WOT!
#2
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Thursday, February 19, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: Spy agency focus of shakeup
Bill Gertz
Two senior U.S. counterintelligence officials have left positions inside the agency that coordinates America's efforts to root out foreign spies after an inspector general review identified management problems, government officials said.
Marion E. "Spike" Bowman, a veteran intelligence lawyer for the Navy and FBI, told The Washington Times that he stepped down last month as the No. 2 official inside the National Counterintelligence Executive Office (NCIX) after an inspector general's management review raised questions about his leadership and ethics issues. Mr. Bowman declined to be more specific.
NCIX chief of staff Robert L. Hubbard also was reassigned to another post in the aftermath of the IG review, officials said. Mr. Hubbard declined to comment through an agency spokesman.
The agency's chief, National Counterintelligence Executive Joel F. Brenner, told The Times that neither official was dismissed but that it was his decision to prompt the moves. "I felt it was time to make a change in NCIX management," he said, declining to be more specific because of personnel privacy issues.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the committee was informed that the IG probe had uncovered problems and recommended some management changes inside NCIX.
"We're going back to take a second look at this as part of our oversight responsibilities, " Mr. Hoekstra said.
Mr. Bowman had been granted a waiver from federal rules to return from his retirement from the Navy and FBI and work for NCIX under contract, officials familiar with the arrangement said. The officials said a decision was made not to renew his contract after the IG issued an eight-page management review of the office. The review raised issues involving management capabilities but did not purport any misconduct or abuses, the officials said.
Mr. Bowman said in an interview that he had planned to leave the agency for months but his departure ultimately was prompted by "ethical issues" uncovered during the IG inquiry. He declined to elaborate. He said his background was mainly working as an intelligence operator and that Mr. Brenner needed a deputy who was a better administrator.
NCIX is a little-known agency that was created under a December 2000 presidential directive in the aftermath of the CIA's Aldrich Ames spy case. After the FBI's Robert P. Hanssen spy case in 2001, the office was given greater stature under 2002 law aimed at improving counterspy efforts.
The office is staffed by people from other intelligence agencies. It conducts damage assessments of spy cases and helps coordinate counterintelligence policies.
However, the agency and its leaders cannot direct anti-spying operations or budgets, which are controlled mainly by the major counterintelligence agencies, the FBI domestically and the CIA abroad.
Mr. Brenner took over the agency in 2006 and removed most of the staff who had worked under the previous director, Michelle Van Cleave, former NCIX officials said.
NCIX was made one of three major "centers" when the office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by a 2004 law.
Miss Van Cleave recently published an article stating that NCIX and other U.S. efforts to counter foreign spies remain ineffective while the problem of foreign spying is growing.
Miss Van Cleave, writing in The Washington Post on Feb. 8, identified concerns about U.S. counterintelligence while she was at NCIX for three years during the Bush administration. The article noted problems that she outlined in a report made public in September by the Project on National Security Reform, a private research group.
"I am hopeful that the new DNI will give counterintelligence the priority attention it deserves," Miss Van Cleave told The Washington Times. "As a former four-star combatant commander, Admiral Dennis Blair [the new director of national intelligence] well understands the value of strategic clarity, which is what the NCIX job is all about."
Despite the damaging spy cases, U.S. intelligence agencies have "no coherent game plan" for identifying and stopping foreign spy activities, she stated in the article in The Post.
Miss Van Cleave also said U.S. counterintelligence agencies failed to find out how Chinese spies obtained U.S. nuclear weapons secrets. "The Chinese stole the design secrets to all - repeat, all - U.S. nuclear weapons, enabling them to leapfrog generations of technology development and put our nuclear arsenal, the country's last line of defense, at risk," she said. "To this day, we don't know quite when or how they did it, but we do know that Chinese intelligence operatives are still at work, systematically targeting not only America's defense secrets but our industries' valuable proprietary information. "
Mr. Brenner declined to comment on the criticism. He said he has no plans to leave the counterspy position as the result of the arrival of Mr. Blair under the new administration of President Obama.
Mr. Bowman spent 11 years as the national security general counsel at the FBI and was involved in the prosecutions of Soviet spy John A. Walker Jr., who passed naval codes, and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a naval intelligence analyst, as an attorney for the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Mr. Bowman recently signed a Supreme Court brief opposing the holding of Ali Saleh al Marri, an al Qaeda suspect arrested in Illinois in 2001 who has been held without being charged in a military brig in South Carolina as an enemy combatant. Mr. Bowman told the Daily News that "coercive interrogations don't work and fall outside the legal and moral obligations that this nation assumed in 1776."
Mr. Bowman, a retired Navy captain, also has opposed detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay prison, which Mr. Obama recently ordered closed.
Senate Judiciary Committee members criticized Mr. Bowman several years ago for his failure to authorize counterterrorist surveillance in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspected al Qaeda terrorist who was detected by the FBI taking flight lessons in Minnesota and who some officials suspect was supposed to have been one of the Sept. 11 hijackers but was arrested before he could take part.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said in a statement that he has heard conflicting reports on why Mr. Bowman and Mr. Hubbard left the NCIX. "This isn't the first time Mr. Bowman has been at the center of controversy, so I hope the Inspector General will provide its report to Congress so that we can determine whether it contains any cause for concern about potential misconduct," Mr. Grassley said.
The senator stated in a 2003 letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that giving Mr. Bowman the Presidential Rank Award sent the wrong message to the FBI because of problems related to the FBI's mishandling of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests. The FBI's FISA problems "are not Mr. Bowman's fault, but many of them have occurred during Mr. Bowman's tenure," Mr. Grassley stated.
#3
Only one? Just the acknowledged centrifuges can produce enough HEU for a bomb every 6-12 months.
Posted by: ed ||
02/20/2009 9:00 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The country needs accuracy from reporters. Loose lips sink ships and loose reporting sinks reputations. Would Bill Gertz consider his report "ethical" when it falls short of accurate?
#6
Well Mr. Hope and Change, this albatross is on your neck now. BS it or deal with the threat. You have the presidency, now you have the responsibility for the sh*t that will happen.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/20/2009 18:41 Comments ||
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#7
If the Mullahs only have enough fissile material for one warhead and they do a "use it or lose it", I think it is an open question as to whether the warhead could make it to Israel at all. The Israelis realize that with Hussein as POTUS, they are on their own and they have spent a lot of time and money on ABM defense. I expect the Mossad and IAF have a bunch of "go to Hell" plans to deal with even the fueling of an IRBM in Iran.
#8
Israel is at a difficult point politically, Shieldwolf. PM Olmert is a very lame duck indeed, but I understand that there is a two month window to successfully put together a coalition government.
To those who knew him, the Hizbullah-supporting car dealer from Nabatiyeh seemed an unlikely Israeli spy. But as Marwan Faqih adjusts to life in military custody, new details have emerged about his secret double life as an undercover agent for the Jewish state. Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday.
Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday gave a fascinating glimpse into the secret world of international espionage inhabited by Faqih. The paper said that Faqih was accredited as a "safe" supplier of vehicles to Hizbullah after winning the trust of party officials in Nabatiyeh by making regular donations to the group. During the summer 2006 war with Israel, he even handed control of his petrol station over to Hizbullah fighters.
No-one suspected that every car he sold them was fitted with a satellite monitoring device that allowed Israeli intelligence agents to track their every move. In the end, the paper's sources say, it was a routine repair that led to the discovery of Faqih's secret double life.
According to the report, an auto electrician was trying to fix a problem with a Hizbullah vehicle when he discovered an "unfamiliar device" attached to the electrical system that he thought might have been causing the problem.
Thinking that it may have been fitted by Hizbullah, the electrician had a discreet word with the vehicle's owner, pointing out that the device was interfering with the car. But whatever it was, it had not been placed by Hizbullah, and a search of the party's fleet of vehicles revealed dozens of the mystery devices.
Investigations revealed that they were satellite wire tap devices and they were only present on vehicles supplied from one particular car dealer in Nabatiyeh: Marwan Faqih. Years of gathering intelligence about notoriously secretive Hizbullah on behalf of their sworn enemies were about to come to an end.
It had begun in France in the mid-1990s, when Faqih was approached by Mossad agents who asked him to gather information about Hizbullah and the Lebanese army in return for payment. He returned to Lebanon to begin his task, and over the years, the Israelis developed what was to become a prime intelligence asset located in the heartland of their most bitter and formidable enemies.
They provided Faqih with specialist software that allowed him to establish secure internet connections so he could send the intelligence he gathered, and met with him on his frequent trips to France. They even took him to Israel on four separate occasions, to train him in the latest espionage communications technology. And all the while, he sold bugged cars to Hizbullah that helped Israeli agents to build a picture of movements and conversations of the party's officials.
If it hadn't been for the discovery of the satellite device, the deception might have gone unnotcied. But once Hizbullah had traced the origins of the equipment to Faqih, his days of freedom were numbered. A senior Lebanese security official told The Daily Star on Thursday that Hizbullah conducted an investigation into Faqih and discovered that he "was using the internet and other complex technological devices" to communicate with Israeli agents.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Not only that, he also buggered the unfortunate cars.
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.
In a positive step towards establishing peace in northern Mali, more than 500 Tuareg rebels laid down their arms in their fight against the Malian government. The brokers of the tentative quieting of violence are encouraged about the prospect of putting an end to the conflict in the Kidal region. 
The plotters behind the Mumbai attack, which left more than 170 people dead, had placed India's financial capital on a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, the Guardian has learned.
ISLAMABAD: The government has asked the Obama administration to immediately reimburse at least $1 billion out of $1.350 billion spent during the last nine months for services Pakistan has provided in the war on terror.
Militants on Wednesday blew up two more girls' schools in the Bajaur Agency while security forces claimed killing eight militants in the area.
Aswat al-Iraq: The criminal court in Wassit on Thursday handed down death sentences against two and a life term against a third one after being found guilty of murders and kidnappings, a judicial source said. "The three convicts had confessed to the crimes they committed before the judge after the al-Kut Criminal Court produced evidence condemning them," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Two Thai government security personnel were beheaded early Friday as provincial paramilitary rangers on patrol near Bang Lang National Park were ambushed by 
Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.
To those who knew him, the Hizbullah-supporting car dealer from Nabatiyeh seemed an unlikely Israeli spy. But as Marwan Faqih adjusts to life in military custody, new details have emerged about his secret double life as an undercover agent for the Jewish state. Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday.
