[Asharq al-Aswat] There is news that Abdul Malik al Houthi, the commander of the Huthi rebels, has been transferred from Yemen to Eritrea to receive medical treatment after being wounded by shelling. Some say he died, some say he is receiving treatment whilst others deny the entire issue altogether.
The death of the most prominent field commander Abdul Malik al Huthi would not represent the end of the issue as he would be replaced by another. Despite the importance of such a blow to the Huthi rebel group, it is still an inadequate strike if not followed by a comprehensive solution whereby the military aspect only serves as part of the solution and not the whole of it.
What should catch our attention and what's more important than the demise of Abdul Malik al Huthi, I believe, is the destination where al Huthi was reportedly moved to, i.e. Eritrea. If this turns out to be true then this will further consolidate accusations against Eritrea placing it at the heart of an inexplicable alliance with Iran and the fundamentalist Salafist group Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen (Movement of Warrior Youth) in Somalia, not to mention Eritrea's long-standing friendly ties with Israel, which are currently experiencing a period of clear tension. Further inexplicable still is the position of Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki, the revolutionist "progressive" man who was an enemy of the Eritrean Mujahideen or fundamentalists as they were called. On top of this, the man professes to be a Christian whilst being a well-known secularist.
Continued on Page 49
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The WH is referring to the attempt to explode an airplane in the US as a terrorist act because it was foiled (not by Security measures but by lack of competence by the the terrorist). Had he been successful; such as Fort Hood, no reference to terrorism would of been made. It would of been 'an isolated air incident under investigation'.
On September 11th 2001, the government's (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.
On December 25th 2009, the government's (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, Fire! Fire!"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didnt hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallabs seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle off Abdul Mutallabs left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.
If the facts remain broadly as outlined, this incident has serious implications for airline travel: A man is on the no-fly list but is allowed to board the plane. Everyone flying on an inbound long-haul flight to the United States is forced to hand over excessively large amounts of liquids and gels and put the small amounts permitted into separate plastic bags, yet the no-fly guy's material for bomb-making sails through undetected.
This time the last line of defense worked. Next time, the paradise-seeking jihadist might get lucky and find himself sitting next to, say, Charlie Sheen, too immersed in a lengthy treatise on how 9/11 was an inside job to notice the smoldering socks in the next seat; or to the same kind of nothing-to-see-here crowd who thought Major Hasan's e-mails were "consistent with his research interests".
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the banks board...
The family home of the Mutallabs in Central London, is currently being searched by men of the Metropolitan Police. THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
This week Yitzhak Aharonowitz Captain of the Exodus passed away. As a tribute to this hero, below is real story of the the Famous Voyage (which is much different from the movie).
With the White Paper of 1939 the British caved into Arab pressure (that would never happen now--would it?) and severely limited the number of Jews that could enter what was then called Palestine.
During WW II it meant that they were causing the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews who could have escaped the Holocaust, had they a place that would take them in. After the Holocaust, many of Hitler's victims were trying to get in to the Holy Land. The British in their infinite wisdom threw these refugees back into camps this time on Cyprus.
Boris Agulnik was one of those refugees, he ended up on a ship called, The Exodus.
Boris Agulnik says that in 1947, after months of travel by train, foot and cart, his family made its way from the Russia-China border to Poking Pine City, the second largest German DP camp after Belsen. Their plan was to reach Palestine. "There, my sister Yudit was born and... I finally had my brit mila, at age three. There was no anesthetic and they said I screamed in Russian, 'Mommy, mommy it's painful.' Afterwards, I'm told, I used to proudly go around and boast, 'Now I am a Jew and I am going to Israel.'"
Few immigrants to Israel can claim that the story of how they arrived entailed a lengthy sea journey that was chronicled in daily newspapers around the world. How many have kept the El Al tickets from their aliya flight? But Agulnik proudly shows Metro his Exodus boarding pass.
While still in the camp, Agulnik senior was approached by the Hagana. Having been a battle-hardened colonel in the Soviet army, he was needed in Palestine. The family boarded a truck that was part of a convoy bound for Sete, a port near Marseilles. From there, they would be joined by other Holocaust survivors and displaced persons and would board the President Warfield, bound for Palestine.
"At the German-French border we were told to get out of the trucks and cross by foot. Scared that they would not allow us through with a three-month-old baby, my mother hid little Yudit in a box and left her on the truck. At the other side, after [the] nerve-wracking process at passport control, my anguished mother rummaged through the boxes until she found my sister, who was crying from hunger and fear," Agulnik recalls. "One of the French soldiers noticed the commotion, but when he saw [my mother] breastfeeding Yudit, he tactfully looked away."
"Looking away," however, was something the British refused to do. After setting sail on July 11, the President Warfield soon had company. The British Royal Navy began tailing the vessel, despite its Columbian flag. Soon, there was little point in pretense. The destination was Palestine, and the ship - under the command of young American Yitzhak Aharonowitz and his mainly American crew of Jewish ex-servicemen - was ready to convey a message to the world.
One can imagine the outcry after the ship's real name was revealed in bold lettering: EXODUS. If any on board the British ship failed to understand the reference, they would have understood the unfolding drama when the Columbian flag was lowered and the Israeli one raised. The course of not only a ship, but a whole nation, was at stake.
"What was different about the Exodus," explains Agulnik, "was the massive number of passengers on board. Generally, the ships that had been bringing in illegal immigrants before were relatively small, carrying at the most a few hundred passengers. With over 4,500 on our vessel, the Hagana had upped the ante. The stakes were high!"
The British government, which wanted this evolving drama to reach a finale of its own choosing, ordered its Navy to hijack the ship.
Con't at link -- and continue reading about the reunion of Aharonowitz, at 84, with his First Officer.
Doug Ross provides pics from Twitter that show anti-government protesters saving two men from being hanged in Tehran. Marked 'opinion' because the images are unconfirmed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Somebody got away
Somebody didn't get too far yeah
They didn't get too far -- Toby Keith
Iran Human Rights, December 23: The two men, who were rescued by the people from the gallows yesterday morning, were hanged last night December 22 according to the official Iranian news agencies.
Quoting Farajollah Karegar, general prosecutor of Sirjan, the state run news agency ISNA reported that the two men who were convicted of armed robbery were hanged late yesterday evening and 14 others have been arrested in connection with their escape.
Farajollah Karegar admitted that due to clashes with people the authorities second attempt to hang the men in public failed and they were transferred to the prison. He also said that two people were killed under the clashes and several cars belonging to the security forces were damaged. The report didnt mention the location where the two men were hanged. But according to unverified reports they were hanged inside the prison.
"Esmaeil Fathizadeh" and "Mohammad Esfandiarpour" were sentenced to death charged with armed robbery and were scheduled to be hanged in public in Sirjan yesterday morning. But few moments after being hanged they were rescued by the people who threw stones at the security forces and shouted slogans against the Iranian regime. Few hours later both men were arrested by the security forces and their hanging was rescheduled to early evening. But due to heavy clashes between the people and the security forces they were transferred to the prison where it is believed they were hanged.
According to our sources at least 3 people were killed and more than 30 wounded, some of them seriously.
Many people have been arrested in connection to this public uprising and Iran Human Rights is concerned about the well being.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights, said: "People of Sirjan turned a public hanging into a scene of battle against the authorities. The Iranian regime can not any longer feel safe from public protests, even at the events meant for demonstration of power".
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.
This week Yitzhak Aharonowitz Captain of the Exodus passed away. As a tribute to this hero, below is real story of the the Famous Voyage (which is much different from the movie).
