The Interior Ministry yesterday called upon non-Muslim residents to respect Ramadan, which is likely to start on Tuesday, by refraining from eating and drinking in public places during fasting hours. In a statement issued yesterday, the ministry warned that violators would face deterrent punishment including deportation. The ministry urged all employers to inform their non-Muslim staff about the warning.
#1
Yewbetcha. Expats - look for the little grey Hyundai Sonata with the windows cracked 2 inches all around and the sun screen that looks like Wayfarers - it's unlocked. Coffee's in the thermos (Seattle's Best Tazza D'Oro or Starbucks Gold Coast, alternating daily) with a stack of cups in the back. Coupla Bics in the console. I do the Dr Pepper cycle - except on zatar Wednesdays. See you there.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/02/2005 11:00 Comments ||
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When are the infidels gonna start their Ramadan offensive?
Posted by: ed ||
10/02/2005 12:09 Comments ||
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Heh, we some of us did our level best to be offensive year-round. For example, that was why I kept my beard - 14" long off the chin - cheeks shaved clean. It confused 'em cuz to them it has (religious) meaning. To me it was just chin hair. They couldn't be sure I wasn't a mutawa disguised as an infidel. Used to scare the slave-labor PakiWaki guys half to death - I got a cacaphony of "sala'am alikums" when I walked past one of the buses that shuttled them between purgatories, loading or unloading in the Aramco parking lot. Felt kinda bad about them for, oh, a month or so. Then I didn't, anymore. Similar confusion on kids' faces at the malls. Heh.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/02/2005 15:10 Comments ||
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Lol, ya tease! For the first coupla years I kept it perfectly manicured - sorta like a Col Sanders on acid thingy - or the kind of beard Ho Chi Minh would like to have had, lol. The only rational comment I got from a Saudi "friend" was from one who had just returned from a one-year assignment in the US - SF, of all places. In our first conversation, outside for a smoke in what little shade could be found - the main reason Saudis chatted expats up, in fact, he asked me if I had ever been in ZZ-Top, heh. Later, he said I scared most of 'em - they couldn't figure it out and didn't want to guess wrong, in case I was a zealous convert, lol! So I kept it - even when it topped 130°F.
The Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, has denied receiving a US request to monitor the charities during the holy month of Ramadan. Dr. Tawfiq al-Sudayri, the ministry's undersecretary for Islamic affairs, rejected the idea of a foreign monitor saying his country is sovereign and cannot allow such a thing to happen. He noted that there is cooperation with friendly and brotherly countries in this matter and said the presence of a foreign monitor is out of the question. The Saudi official explained to "Asharq al-Awsat" that three years ago Saudi Arabia organized the process of contribution in a very precise manner and designated the process of contribution through the known channels and licensed charities. He pointed out that the charities' accounts are open and specific according to the kind of contribution, its target, and its bank and these are monitored by Saudi Arabia's Monetary Authority. He ruled out circumvention or penetration of the systems that the country has established.
According to recent press reports, the head of the US Treasury delegation was visiting countries in the region for the purpose of warning them of the consequences of not monitoring the funds that are collected during the month of Ramadan that starts during the first week of October. There is also talk about meetings being held on this issue to monitor the charitable work in several Gulf countries. In a related matter, the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs issued a circular to all its branches all over the country warning the mosques' imams and callers to prayers not to collect any funds to feed the fasting except through the licensed charities in every part of the country. Al-Sudayri also warned against being carried away by the unlicensed fast breaking coupons and pointed out that his ministry would confront any action to collect funds in violation of this. He said the processing of feeding the fasting is done only through the coupons of the licensed charities.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Up to a third of oil produced in Chechnya is stolen and proceeds from underground refining are the main source of financing illegal armed formations, the press service of the North Caucasus branch of the Interior ministry said late on Thursday.
The ministry said it arrived to the conclusion after completing the Chechen crude-2005 operation. Police raided over 200 oil objects, including 18 tank farms, six refining and 83 storage facilities.
During the operation 82 illegal mini-refineries were exposed and eliminated, as well as five secret tees from oil pipelines. 188 people have been called to responsibility. Criminal cases were launched against two underground oil businessmen, the ministry said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:22 ||
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proceeds from underground refining are the main source of financing
Even my late lamented meister had problems with that.
SEOUL: President Roo Moo-hyun gave a strong indication on Saturday that he plans to end the United States' right to control South Korea's armed forces in case of war, a source of lingering resentment here. Roh, elected on a wave of anti-American sentiment in December 2002, made the remarks at a ceremony to celebrate the armed forces' 57th anniversary.
"The recently announced military reform programme reflects our determination to achieve independence in defence capability. When completed, this reform will transform our armed forces into advanced, crack units," Roh said. "It will be reborn as independent armed forces that fit its name and reality as well, especially by exercising our own wartime operational control," he added. Under a controversial 1950 accord, operational control over South Korea's 680,000-strong armed forces would be exercised by the commander of US troops stationed in South Korea in case of an armed conflict.
The recovery of the wartime operational rights, handed to US military authorities during the Korean War, is seen by many South Koreans as a matter of national sovereignty. South Korea last month unveiled a military reform programme highlighted by a 26 percent cut in troops to 500,000 by 2020 and a drastic increase in fire-power.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
If N Korea stays weaked and they can do it alone, more power to them.
#3
A little clarification boys. The US had control of the Combined Field Command (CFC), something like a corps size organization. The US portion was the entire 2nd Infantry Division along with some corps level assets. Now that the 2nd has drawn down, with one brigade home based at Fort Lewis, WA and more to redeploy out of Korea soon, it seems a wee bit over board to insist that the US remain in control of such organizations. It would be like the foreign coalition units in Iraq insisting that while they're only a brigade or battalion attached to a division, they should command the division. Doesn't work that way. As I understand the plan, the US forces were suppose to be disengaged from the DMZ work and repositioned into more reserve location/status anyway. Since it is a matter of fact, that the South Koreans suffered far greater casualties in the last Korean War and are likely to bear an incredible burden of the next, I for one have nothing negative to say about this long over due update of reality of who is doing the yeoman's work in the defense of South Korea in the conventional force structure. Just need to tell them, good luck guys.
#6
Once we've concluded the agreement with the Norks and verified it, it's time to cut the South Koreans loose. Pull out all of our troops and wish them a 'nice day'.
Big change in Nork policies on aid workers. Apparently Kimmie is getting even more paranoid. And the SKors aren't helping.
North Korea has begun to reverse market reforms by kicking out international relief workers and choking off supplies of food and medical aid in a crackdown that puts millions of the country's children and elderly at risk.
In what one resident described as the biggest change in the humanitarian situation in 10 years, the government in Pyongyang is attempting to regain control over the distribution of essential supplies that have increasingly been provided by the market and outside donors. As of yesterday, stall-holders have been ordered to stop trading in cereals, including rice. From now on they can only be sold at controlled prices through the state's public distribution system.
This is not the only regressive step. In August the government told foreign non-governmental organisations that they must leave by the end of the year. Groups such as the World Food Programme and the Red Thingy Cross and Red Moon-Shaped Thingy Crescent - which have fed more than a fifth of the country's 23 million population and provided two-thirds of essential drugs since the famines of the mid-Nineties - will have to stop providing food and medicine on 1 January.
The controls appear to be an effort to close the gates of economic reform that were opened in 2002 through government relaxation of price controls.
According to sources in Pyongyang, the government has dumped 200,000 tonnes of its rice stocks on the market in the past few weeks in a move interpreted as an attempt to drive down prices and put traders out of business - or to make a quick profit before the new restrictions. Adding to the pressure on traders, the state has raised the amount it pays farmers from 140 won (£36) to 180 won per kg. But this is still far short of prices of between 700 and 1,000 won on the open market.
South Korean media report that soldiers have been posted in paddy fields to ensure harvests are sold to the state. Even the grain output of individual 'kitchen gardens' - the tiny crops yielded in backyards and balconies - must go through the public system under the new rules. 'They are marching back on the reforms of 2002 in an attempt to reimpose social discipline,' said a diplomatic source. 'If you tell people on the streets they must make a living to procure their own food, it starts them thinking for themselves. The government doesn't want that.'
And that, I think, is the crux of the problem.
The anxiety of the world's most reclusive state was evident last year when mobile phones were suddenly banned. A bigger source of unease has been the role of foreign aid workers in spreading information about the outside world. Of the 23 million people in North Korea, only 300 are non-Korean residents - five are teachers, about 180 are diplomats and the rest work for NGOs or the UN. But these aid workers are a bridge to the outside world. Some, like the WFP's workers, travel across the country meeting tens of thousands of local officials.
While the country was dependent on food aid, this was tolerated by the government as a necessary evil. But after four years of improved harvests and increasing inflows of rice and maize from China and South Korea, the authorities say that they no longer need humanitarian support from the WFP - an organisation that insists on strict monitoring.
The government insists this is part of a move away from a shameful dependency on outside support. Instead of charity, it wants economic assistance to develop its infrastructure. But many in Pyongyang's tiny foreign community believe that there are other motives. 'They are worried for security reasons. Some officials believe the NGOs have a political agenda,' said one aid worker, who explained the government's concerns in terms of the social environment. 'This country has undergone a huge change. People's mindsets have changed.'
Most of the foreign NGO workers have been told they must pack their bags. At first they were told operations could only continue if they switched to development, rather than humanitarian, work and used only North Korean staff. More recently, they were told they could keep one foreigner in Pyongyang. Glyn Ford, an MEP and an expert on North Korea, said such conditions would be unacceptable to the EU, which has provided substantial amounts of aid in the past five years. 'We insist on monitoring. One member of staff won't be enough for that,' he said.
Most NGOs and diplomats say the biggest worry is not food but medicine. North Korea relies on outside help - mostly from the Red Cross - for two-thirds of its antibiotics, painkillers and anti-worming treatments. On 1 January, this is supposed to stop. The government intends to produce drugs domestically and has authorised production at two new factories. But even if they work at full capacity, it is unlikely they will be able to make any more than 10 of the 200 different types of drugs currently provided free by international donors.
Aid workers warn that the sudden change will lead to more death and suffering, particularly among children and the elderly. Eigel Sorensen, the WHO representative in Pyongyang, supports North Korea's move towards development rather than charity, but believes it needs to be phased in more slowly. 'I am concerned about the supply of essential medicines. I think this country is very dependent on outside supplies,' he said. 'International organisations are the main source for antibiotics, painkillers and other basic essential medicines. If that has to stop, I don't think there is enough domestic capacity.'
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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North Korea has begun to reverse market reforms by kicking out international relief workers and choking off supplies of food and medical aid in a crackdown that puts millions of the country's children and elderly at risk.
Not a problem. No more talks, no more aid, nothing. Let Kimmie and his minions feed the population nuclear material.
First you order the aid to stop, then you blame the folks you threw out for the shortages in medicine.
Second you control the food.
Third, when the elderly, children, and weak die, you're rid of a huge drain on your economy, and again blame it on the aid folks you threw out.
Fourth, with the elderly and weak dead mount a campaign to inflame the survivors.
Fifth, any dissident areas, get no food, and the Army seals their local boundaries to prevent the "Enemies Of The State" (Starving victims) from "Escaping" (Finding food in the surrounding countryside) Any international complaints are dismissed as "Foreign Interference in Domestic Affairs"
Now the main plan goes into effect, you now have a nation solidly behind it's Government (Dissidents are dead) rigidly controlled (Govt. controls food) and stronger, having eliminated the weak.
Now, Invent a pretext invade and destroy South Korea, absorb the area, repeat steps one through five, and continue to the next area you consider as "Yours."
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/02/2005 12:28 Comments ||
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Interesting, RJ. Kimmie and Co are not just hangin' on the ropes for the fun of it. What about their Chicom neighbors, though? I would think that they have something to say about their little mad dog. It seems that the SKors are appeasing away, so why have a war when the SKors are weakening themselves by their own behavours.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/02/2005 15:09 Comments ||
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Don't worry about the Chinese disaproving, what I described is a very condensed history of China. They'll see it as entirely normal.
Whenever there was famine, the (Name the ruler) would go into the province that had been trator or troublesome, take ALL the food, give it to the "Trustworthy" province and eliminate two problems at once, the disloyal starved, the loyal got rewarded, and repeat whenever food was scarse.
No disloyal peasants to rob? toss a coin, the losers are not going to talk (They're dead,) and the loyal are more loyal to the (Name Ruler here)for "Saving them from starvation."
Entirely normal to them, If you get a minute look up "Water Economy" the chinese did this regularly for centuries by controlling water needed to grow crops, loyal survived, others disappeared from history.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/02/2005 20:33 Comments ||
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In a very real sense, the Chinese have been Geneticly Engineered to be loyal servants of the State.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/02/2005 20:40 Comments ||
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#9
I found that the correct name for "Forced Starvation By Government" is "Democide"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/02/2005 21:02 Comments ||
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ISLAMIC leaders have condemned the deadly terrorist bombings in Bali while warning of retribution against Australian Muslims.
Indonesian hospital officials say three Australians were among at least 25 people killed when a series of bomb blasts rocked Kuta and the packed restaurant strip of Jimbaran Bay last night. Experts believe the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is behind the bombings.
Muslim leaders across Australia today condemned the attacks in the strongest possible terms. "We believe that any act of terror is an act of evil," Islamic Council of NSW chairman Ali Roude said. "Whatever the circumstances, the killing of innocent people in such an horrific and evil approach won't resolve anything or achieve any policy result."
Islamic Council of Victoria president Malcolm Thomas described the bombings as a "heinous crime perpetrated by the lowest of criminals". "We condemn this atrocity in the strongest possible terms without reservation or qualification," Mr Thomas said. "We pray that the Indonesian authorities bring the guilty swiftly to justice as they have in the past."
Yeah, the perpetrators in the last Bali bombing got ... what, again?
The groups say it is too early to know the bombers' motives, but believe a small group of racist Australians will inevitably blame Muslims.
As opposed to the Lutherans, who we all know were really behind the bombing.
"The Muslim community is subject to the constant action of being labelled as having direct or indirect links to acts of terrorism, which is unfortunate," Mr Roude said. "We do expect a reaction, and a negative one, from certain sections of the media or the public.
"Talkback radio announcers ... wait for an event like this and make an issue out of it and it's the community that pays the price.
"But this is our fate and we have to be patient. After all, we regard ourselves as no different from any other Australian and we want to live our lives peacefully and happily."
Lebanese Muslim Association spokesman Abdul El Ayoubi said "the average Australian out there is smart enough to know that Australian Muslims have nothing to do with any of the bombings that have occurred overseas".
"But there's a loud section of the community that continues to pinpoint Muslims," he said. "They will always point the finger at Muslims, regardless.
Unless it's Samoans. Never can trust those Samoans ...
"We've always had it in the back of our minds that there may be a racial attack."
The bombings came a week after Australian state and territory leaders backed commonwealth anti-terror laws that will hand police unprecedented new powers. The Australian Democrats today warned the federal government not to use the latest Bali bombings as a pretext for even harsher anti-terrorism laws.
'cause that would be offensive ... to someone ... somehow ...
Prime Minister John Howard said he wanted to reassure all Australian Muslims that they should not feel alienated or frightened as a result of the blasts. "We see them (the Australian Muslim community) as friends, we don't see them as enemies," Mr Howard said.
"Except for the ones who blow stuff up," he added.
"We see them as here in the struggle, not as a group of people who should feel frightened and isolated and alienated."
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie called for Australians to show restraint, adding tolerance to different races and faiths remained an essential part of being Australian. "I think it's very important for all Australians to be restrained."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
10/02/2005 03:02 ||
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#1
when they ask themselves why? I'll take them seriously.
#6
I think that they are hoping that if they say it enough times it will happen then they can play the race/hatred card. Also bugging and video taping events at the mosques couldnât hurt security (ours) in the least.
Islamic radicals have been present in Italy in large numbers since 1992, shortly after the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan.
Just a small private bitch here: it went from being the Red Army to being the Soviet Army in 1948, if I remember correctly.
Like in other European countries, the influx of former mujahideen volunteers from the Arab world had a great impact. Geographically and politically, the center of gravity for the Islamists was North Italy, where thousands of Muslim immigrants live and work. In Milan, the most active are from Egypt and Algeria, whereas Turin, Varese and Cremona are the territory of the Moroccans and the Tunisians. Further south, apart from a few small groupings in Rome, the most significant presence is in Naples, where the Algerians have established their bridgehead. The Palestinians are of less importance, being fewer and generally more wary of extremist doctrines.
Presumably these are the non-intifada Palestinians, who left home to avoid being boomed or shot down in the streets by their brethren...
In the mid-nineties, during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Milan became the âhotbedâ of Islamic extremism for five main reasons: 1) the activism of the Egyptian Imam Anwar Shaban, linked to al-Gamaa al-Islamiya and close to the positions of the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman; 2) the importance of its Viale Jenner mosque, a proselytizing and recruitment center with international connections; 3) its geographical position, allowing easy access to Northern Europe, the Balkans, the U.S. and the Middle East; 4) the presence of numerous Afghan war veterans and North African extremists linked to terrorist movements; and 5) the ease of collecting funds, documents and arms in North Italy for the jihad fronts, especially in Morocco and Chechnya. Shaban, with his many contacts in the Persian Gulf, was instrumental in keeping the rank and file of the Islamic networks in Italy together.
Has Shaban, perhaps, been arrested and executed?
While clearly inspired by the principles of international jihad, his main objective was to bring down the Egyptian regime. His sermons drew in new recruits, many of whom were sent to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, with a smaller number going to Chechnya.
So the Italians, figuring the trouble was being brewed for somebody else's backyard, ignored it...
Viale Jenner formed part of a network that linked up Islamist groups in Austria, Germany, Turkey and the U.S. Milan was often visited by a then little-known character who was to gain notoriety in 2003: Mullah Krekar, head of Ansar al-Islam.
I've come to the conclusion that Mullah Krekar at the moment represents a red herring. Perhaps he was the nominal "head" of Ansar al-Islam, but the real power was probably with Zark from the first. Krekar's way too clownish to be an international criminal mastermind.
In the course of investigations into the first attack on the Twin Towers (February 1993), telephone contacts between Milanese Islamic militants and the cell involved in the attack were uncovered. There were also close links with other prominent international exponents of jihad, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who faxed over his orders and advice. Shaban gradually increased his involvement in Bosnia and became the emir of the Mujahideen Battalion. When the war ended, many of the volunteers went back to their countries (including Italy) and started forming the first al-Qaeda groups in Europe. The Imamâs career ended dramatically in 1996 when he was killed at a Croatian road block. But his death didnât signal the end of radicalism in Italy as many of his followers went on to develop networks of their own.
So that's what happened to him. A tip of the hat to the Hrvatis. There should be more such roadblocks.
Investigations by the Italian authorities (the Milan counter-terror unit in particular) since 1995 show the growth of this phenomenon. Operation Sfinge (targeted against the followers of Shaban) brought 35 suspected Islamic militants to trial; operation Ritorno led to the investigation and sentencing of 11 Islamists; operation Fattar led to the sentencing of 10 individuals and 3 acquittals and the Essid operation led to the successful sentencing of 13 individuals.
Which leads only to the question of how many are left. SISMI, I'd wager, has a pretty good estimate, though they might be hazy on the details.
Hizb is ostensibly non-violent. Its members are just as prone to violence as any otheer Islamist group. They merely change turbans before indulging. The concept of non-violence does not always equate to Ghandi.
The extent of the phenomenon is demonstrated by the fact that, despite the police raids, the cells continue to reformâstronger than beforeâthanks to the activities of âveteransâ such as Abdelkader Es-Sayed and Nasr Mustafa, alias Abu Omar. Investigations have proved that Es-Sayed knew about the September 11 attacks before they happened.
I'm starting to think that the only people who didn't know about 9-11 before it happened were G.W. and me. Cheney should have told us...
From 1995 to the present, northern Italyâwith its mosques in Viale Jenner and Via Quaranta in Milanâhas been an important base for Islamic militants, which have used it for: recruiting mujahideen for Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya; recruiting suicide bombers for the Zarqawi network in Iraq; supplying forged documents for international operations; illicit financial activities; illegal immigrant trafficking; and providing a base of support for fugitives.
All the wholesome activities you'd expect of healthy young Moose limbs...
Since the anti-terrorism offensives prompted by 9/11, the extremists have changed their modus operandi. They visit mosques less frequently because of increased surveillance and they also establish small communities in provincial towns that do not have a strong police presence. Moreover, they have developed special and largely secure channels of encrypted communication with their reference contacts and task masters in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. The networks are no longer led by charismatic figures like Shaban, but by local leaders who, although considered minor and unimportant, are capable of planning and ordering attacks.
That accounts for the large number of Number Threes we've been seeing...
These local leaders have the military expertise and connections with mid- to high-level operatives in al-Qaeda to successfully plan and execute attacks. For example, in an area north of Milan there is a small but very active group of Pakistani militants with links to London and Lahore. Some of them are veterans of the Afghan war. According to informed sources, the Italian military intelligence service (SISMI) is keeping a very close eye on this network, with suspicion that they are controlled by a rogue agent in Pakistanâs notorious Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISIDâbetter known as the âISIâ).
Interesting idea, though it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. The rogue agent idea's certainly popped up many times before, but the problem with it is logistics. An agent — we're actually talking about a controller here — needs a certain amount of infrastructure to function. Presumably Mr. Rogue Agent has a job to fill, which takes up a certain amount of his time, unless he's retired, which I suppose he could be, but then he wouldn't have access to the government-paid support network that would help him to be effective. That would mean he's controlling a fairly major operation in Europe in his off hours, a hobbyist, so to speak. Controllers depend on runners to set up their organization and to provide on-site coordination. The cell leaders theoretically know only the runners. Who's paying for the runners' travel? Who's paying for their subsistence? Who's buying the ammunition and dynamite? Once you achieve a certain level in an organization, your immediate concerns cease being so much the details of actual operations, but tracking the budget lines that pay for them. So we're postulating either a "rogue agent" who's running a fairly major European operation in his spare time, serving as a conduit for money flowing from Binny's pocket (or more likely Prince X, back in Soddy Arabia); or a black cell buried deep within ISI, that's riding the Islamic bandwagon while the rest of the agency is dutifully searching out and killing bloodthirsty turbans at home. I'd tend to go with the second hypothesis, myself, with the understanding that if Perv — or the real master of ISI, whoever he may be — decides to make the switch to what they see as the eventual winning side that Mr. Rogue Agent was "have a heart attack" or some similar unfortunate occurrence.
As with the rest of Europe, the Italian intelligence services are concerned about the militants connected to the Islamic Moroccan Combatant Group, which has roots not only in rural areas but also in larger cities such as Milan and Turin. The arrest of Mohammed Rabei in Milan, alias Mohammed the Egyptian, one of the masterminds behind the Madrid bombings, has probably prevented an attack in Italy or in other European countries. After the attacks in Spain, Rabei traveled to Italy to find a safe place and recruit potential terrorists. Furthermore, recent developments have confirmed links between extremists in Italy and the Zarqawi network in Iraq.
It's good to know that Italy isn't quite as safe a haven as the turbans would like it to be. It's bad to know that they think it is. That means the chances of being arrested and jugged or deported aren't as high as they should be.
Also noteworthy are changes in the funding methods and communication channels. Before 9/11 the money came from zakat (alms) and donations from the Persian Gulf States, which were usually routed through Middle Eastern banks. Since 9/11 the funds have been coming in cash, usually brought over by couriers with suitcases full of dollars or from crime: forged documents, drug trafficking and forged residence permits have all been used to generate funds. Moreover, Pakistanis and Somalis run call centers, which give excellent cover for fundraising and âcleanâ phones. According to investigative sources one militant, involved in clandestine activities, would use 30-40 SIM cards for a single mobile phone. His method was very simple: he would make a first call and pronounce a few words, before changing the SIM card and ringing the number again to communicate a few words in code. The Islamic extremists in Italy have proved themselves to be particularly adept at producing forged documents. Some of the forged passports ended up in the possession of the network involved in the killing of Afghan Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in September 2001. Others found their way to an organization active in Morocco. And yet others were found to have been sent to al-Qaeda leaders arrested in Malaysia in 2002. The militants have developed the expertise to produce not just Italian passports but also documents of North African countries (Morocco in particular).
What I can't understand, being out of the business for way too long, is why these finds aren't being exploited more fully. It might be that we're not hearing about them, but we were working on the concept of network analysis back in the early 80's: A knows B who knows C, D, and E. With proper analysis — remember, we were still drawing this stuff in diagrams on white boards back then, because we didn't have computers — you can trace those relationships and assign them levels of significance. There are guys who have similar things on the web right now, from open source. With a little programming, Thugburg could be showing the same things. For a not particularly hefty by government standards fee, I'd be glad to set up something a bit more sophisticated for them.
Or maybe there's an office somewhere with the detailed diagrams but no guys setting up roadblocks or paying quiet visits in the dead of night to make terrible things happen to the participants. I suspect it's the latter problem, since the WoT is being viewed as a political, rather than military, operation in Europe.
The lives of cell members in Italy have always been governed by Spartan principles, putting security before all else. In some districts where they have safe houses, they have created âfortressâ zones with a trusted network of look-outs. One of these was in the Porta Venezia district of Milan; a member of the cell spending hours in a little Arabic restaurant posing as a customer, the Tunisian barber keeping an eye on a junction, the Algerian seller watching over a possible escape route; they were like sentries with eyes and ears everywhere. They noted the faces of all âsuspectâ persons: Italian law enforcement agents, but above all spies from Arabic intelligence agencies. The militants display regimented behavior and have regulated and standardized conduct through the production of manuals, one of which was found by the Carabinieri (paramilitary police) in Milan in July 2002, in an apartment used by Islamic militants. Given this impressive presence in Italy, if the order comes for an attack, there are various teams that are ready to act; all of which have people capable of preparing explosive devices, the hideouts, the documents needed for escape and the would-be martyrs.
Perhaps the Italians have their own government hard boys waiting for that to happen. But since Italy's still in Europe, I doubt it. But since the bad guyz are from countries where the authorities actually do things like that, perhaps they're worried the Italians won't play true to type...
Moreover, it is very easy to procure explosives in Italy, the traditional sources of supply being either local (Calabrian mafia) or East European (particularly Albanian) organized crime networks. The going price for a kilo of plastic explosives is about USD 1500, whereas civil-use explosives costs USD 1000 per kilo and a machine gun can be bought for just a few hundred dollars [7]. A Tunisian detainee who agreed to cooperate with the authorities spoke of a cell, active from 2001 to 2002, that had looked into ways of fabricating bombs from substances freely available on the market: the ingredients and the formula were the same as those used in the London bombs. In the attacks, they were to be packed in trucks specially reinforced to carry large quantities of explosives, rucksacks left in station luggage deposits and a police car that was to be stolen, filled with explosives and launched against the Cathedral in Milan. The possible targets considered were the U.S. Embassy in Rome, American Consulates, an international school in Milan and the Police Headquarters. There are essentially two reasons why there have been no attacks in Italy thus far; several plots have been thwarted by police and intelligence action and in certain cases the Islamic extremists have elected to protect their logistics networks. But, as in London, this can change in the space of a few hours.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 01:09 ||
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An Italy-based Moroccan terrorist group with links to al-Qaeda has members in Sweden and Norway, according to Italian intelligence sources.
The group is said to have been involved in the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and in Casablanca in 2003. According to the newspaper Corriere della Sera, the Italian military's intelligence service SISMI has in the last year made several warnings concerning groups of volunteers who fought against the US-led forces in Iraq and who are now returning to Europe to carry out attacks.
Among these volunteers, said SISMI, are people who were brought up and recruited from Sweden and Norway, reported the Norwegian news agency NTB.
One of these groups, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) is said to have cells in northern Italy. These cells in turn have contacts across Europe, including in Sweden and Norway, wrote the paper.
"Generally you can say that all terror groups have participants and sympathisers in Sweden, although I don't recognise this one," said Anders Tornberg, who is head of information at the security police and formerly worked with terrorism issues.
Tornberg said that Sweden is also used in certain cases as a fundraising base for terrorist organisations, but he pointed out that it is not illegal just to sympathise with a terrorist group.
GICM, according to the Norwegian defence expert Brynjar Lia, is a primary target for those fighting terrorism in Europe, not least for its suspected branches in Europe, including Scandinavia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:13 ||
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#1
Mohammed el Sven and Abul Ollie. Ya, sure
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/02/2005 0:19 Comments ||
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A Muslim imam who had been jailed and fined for having advocated an âIslamicâ way of wife-beating, and then released, has had another brush with the law and been disciplined. According to a report carried by the Washington Times on Thursday, quoting a London newspaper, the imam from Spain wrote a book on how to beat oneâs wife without leaving marks on her body. He has now been ordered by a judge to study the Spanish constitution, articles 10, 14 and 15. The first two address âthe dignity of a person and inviolable rightsâ, stating that âall Spaniards are equal before the lawâ, while the third states that âthe moral and physical integrity of a person in no case can be submitted to torture nor inhuman or degrading punishments or treatmentâ.
The judge ordered Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, imam of a mosque in the southern resort of Fuengirola, to spend six months studying three articles of the constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mustafa was sentenced to 15 months in jail and fined about $2,600 last year after being found guilty of inciting violence against women. A judge released him after 22 days in jail on the condition that he would undertake a re-education course.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Deport the fool after letting his wife beat him and leave marks. Allow her to stay.
A lot of progress has been quietly made re: homeland security. This stuff usually doesn't make the news - nor do we necessarily want it to - but if you weren't aware of the bio sniffers we've deployed, here's an example of them at work.
Small amounts of a bacteria that causes "rabbit fever" were found on Washington's National Mall last weekend as thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq War, U.S. health authorities said on Saturday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said several government environmental air monitors in the Mall area detected low levels of Francisella tularensis bacteria that cause Tularemia, commonly known as rabbit fever, on September 24-25. Public health agencies had no reports of any related human or animal illnesses caused by the bacteria.
The CDC said it issued an alert on Friday night as a precaution so medical personnel were aware of the situation and could report any suspected cases.
Rabbit fever can not be passed from person to person and can be effectively treated with readily available medicines, the CDC said. Symptoms usually appear 3 to 5 days after exposure, but in rare cases can take up to two weeks. Symptoms of the disease, which an infected person would have begun experiencing no earlier than on Monday, include: sudden fever, chills, headaches, conjunctivitis, diarrhea, muscle aches, joint pain, dry cough and progressive weakness.
It's a favorite disease to 'pimp' medical students on rounds. I've never seen a case, myself.
District of Columbia health officials told local radio station WTOP on Saturday the detected bacteria was not harmful and probably occurred naturally. The CDC waited a week to notify city officials of the detected bacteria because it took that long to test the samples at labs and confirm its presence, the radio station reported.
According to the CDC's Web site, people can get rabbit fever by:
* Being bitten by a infected tick, deerfly or other insect
* Handling infected animal carcasses
* Eating or drinking contaminated food or water
* Breathing in the bacteria
The CDC also said the bacteria can be used as a weapon if made into an aerosol that could be inhaled. "The bacteria that cause Tularemia occur widely in nature and could be isolated and grown in quantity in a laboratory, although manufacturing an effective aerosol weapon would require considerable sophistication," the CDC said.
The Washington Post said the germ that causes tularemia is considered a biohazard because it is highly infectious and was tested in the 1960s by the United States as a biological weapon.
One of many security measures adopted in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the air monitors are part of the nationwide "Biowatch" system installed to sample the air in major metropolitan areas daily for pathogens that could be used in a biological attack on the United States.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/02/2005 12:35 Comments ||
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Well, duh!
Anyone who's been to the Mall before sunrise has seen the wild rabbits that live in the area. I'm not surprised there's rabbit fever there. I'm also not surprised that it was discovered after a thousand careless idiots wandered around the Mall, trashing the area and incidentally flushing the rabbits from their normal daytime hiding places. Just another reason to keep manic nutjobs off the Mall, for their own good.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/02/2005 17:38 Comments ||
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#9
How do you call moonbat fever? Chiropteralunaremia?
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said on Saturday it had released a detainee at the US military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for transfer to Egypt. The Egyptian detainee was âfound no longer to be an enemy combatantâ by a military tribunal, the US Department of Defense said in a statement.
The Pentagon said 247 prisoners have been released or transferred and about 505 remain in detention. âDuring the course of the war on terrorism, the department expects that there will be other transfers or releases of detainees,â the statement said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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The UN Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee is set to add the names of seven Egyptians this weekend on its consolidated list of individuals and entities related to those two terrorist organisations, a Security Council source told KUNA on Friday.
Egypt actually presented the committee last March with 20 names. Three committee members - The US, UK and Denmark - held the names until Egypt provided evidence. They lifted the hold on only the seven names because the evidence is "convincing". The Egyptian mission was not available to describe what the charges are.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:20 ||
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They wear the long skirts and head coverings of modest Muslim women, but their draped robes are camouflage khaki and their scarves the distinctive lime green colour of the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.
Their shoulders bear the weight not of bags or babies carried by their more traditional peers, but rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
This is Hamas's armed women's wing, newly formed in the Gaza Strip and trained to use explosives and light arms for the "love of jihad".
"We joined with only one single aim: jihad and resistance," a veiled spokeswoman told the official Hamas newspaper, Al Risala, as the troop paraded at a secret location in the territory recently re-occupied after Israel's disengagement.
Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel. The women's wing has not claimed responsibility for any attacks but in training exercises recorded by Hamas, members are seen learning to operate the unwieldy Qassam rockets. The group unleashed dozens last week, inflicting shrapnel wounds on several Israelis in towns bordering the Gaza Strip.
Israel responded with air strikes on suspected militant positions and threatening to renew its "decapitation" strikes on Hamas leaders. The militant group swiftly announced a ceasefire.
It was a "targeted assassination" that killed the Hamas leader Abdelaziz Rantisi in April last year as he travelled in a car near his Gaza City home. Now, in the flat where she lived with her husband, Rasha Rantisi has become a figurehead for the women rising through the Hamas ranks.
In a sparely furnished office on the second floor of her breeze-block apartment building, the only trace of Mrs Rantisi's late husband is a small photograph. It stands next to one of his predecessor at the top of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was also killed in an Israeli missile strike.
"The role of women in jihad is to encourage their sons and husbands to participate. But women also have the right to wage jihad," Mrs Rantisi said.
According to Israel, Palestinian militant groups increasingly use women to plan, support and carry out terror attacks. The Hamas gender revolution, however, is not just being played out on the front line.
Mrs Rantisi is animated as she describes the growing opportunities for Hamas women. "I speak for my sisters. Hamas has always honoured women, but now the time has come for Hamas to give a role to women," she said. "We can participate in health and education, and politics too."
Although there has been no official announcement of her future role, Mrs Rantisi hopes to build on the respect her husband commanded in Gaza. She is calling on women to take part in Palestinian parliamentary elections scheduled for next January, undeterred by the traditional patriarchal society.
"We are now headed towards a more difficult period. We are headed toward the phase of construction after liberation," she said in a recent address that was widely seen as an announcement of her own candidacy.
In the January polls, Hamas is expected to pose a strong challenge to the governing Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. Although he enjoys widespread international backing, his support at home is fragile.
Hamas has set up nursery schools and clinics for lower middle-class Palestinians, increasing its popularity. Mrs Rantisi said that she oversaw 11 kindergartens, and lectured women on home economics, sewing and make-up.
In local elections last week the militant group captured 26 per cent of the vote, against Fatah's 54 per cent. Turnout was high, at about 81 per cent.
On the eve of polling, however, Hamas was mounting another deadly attack. Despite the ceasefire, it claimed responsibility for the kidnap and murder of an Israeli businessman whose body was found dumped in the West Bank.
Hamas said it had planned to use Sasson Nuriel, 55, as a bargaining chip to force Israel to release Palestinian prisoners. It shot him instead, claiming that his death came in retribution for Israeli attacks. Hamas later released a video of Mr Nuriel, blindfolded and bound with tape, shortly before his execution.
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is bitterly opposed to Hamas's involvement in the elections. The ministry of foreign affairs said the murder proved that Hamas was not fit to stand.
If Mr Abbas hoped that the greater involvement of women would soften Hamas, whose determination to root out corruption in the PA has also proved popular, he will be disappointed.
Mrs Rantisi is inflexible about the need for religious law in the Palestinian territories. Any Hamas bloc in the 132-seat legislative council will press for sharia law. "I will not accept secularism," she said.
On Israel, too, Mrs Rantisi is unwavering. "I refuse any compromise," she said. "The liberation struggle will continue until we liberate all our land. Even if we enter elections our weapons will not grow dusty against Israel."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:04 ||
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takes up arms..pu or WMD
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/02/2005 0:20 Comments ||
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I'm not going to discriminate; if Paleo women want to "take up arms", they can die too, just like their male counterparts.
#3
Doesn't this now allow the Israelis to use the same sort of twisted arguments that the Pals use against them? For example, the Pals have been saying that it is OK to suicide bomb school kids and women since Israeli society is totally militarized and they are all subject to military service and therefore all legitimate targets.
So now Hamas has completely militarized its "society" by arming their women and aren't they always ranting on about how the muslima's womb is a key weapon in the war against the Jooos. So using Pal logic, Israel would be completely justified in blanketing Gaza with FAE bombs and culling 70-80% of the population -- or should I say military, right?
Hamas has accused the Palestinian Election Committee of distorting the results of a round of municipal voting to make it appear that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party - which came out ahead - swept the poll. Committee head Jamal Shobaki, who released the results, told a news conference on Saturday that Fatah won in 51 of 104 municipalities, and Hamas in 13. The remainder were taken by other factions or coalitions. Thursday's vote was the third of four rounds of municipal elections, and was not necessarily a predictor of parliamentary elections in January because local issues and candidates' clan membership figured heavily.
The election committee intentionally avoided announcing that Fatah, led by Abbas, ran unopposed in some areas to make it appear its candidates had trounced Hamas, said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. He said, however, that Hamas would not officially challenge the results. "The announcement by the local election committee was biased," Abu Zuhri said. "It was a manoeuvre on the part of the election committee to present the numbers in an indirect way to favour one faction, and we will tell our people the truth."
Fatah - under fire for running a corruption-ridden government - was not expected to make a strong showing in the municipal voting. Hamas, by contrast, has been taking credit for Israel's recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and was expected to do well.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party won 51 councils in Palestinian local elections with militant group Hamas gaining control of 13, an official said when announcing the final results on Saturday. Of the 104 municipalities up for grabs in the occupied West Bank in the third phase of Palestinian local elections, 40 went to other factions, said Jamal al-Shobaki, head of the Higher Commission for Local Elections.
The result is seen as a first indicator of voter sympathies for the main Palestinian factions ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2006. "The electoral process was very successful and it was praised by local and international observers ... it is a success for the entire Palestinian people," Shobaki said. He said the result was disappointing for Hamas, a group bent on the destruction of Israel, while Fatah would probably be able to take control in many of the councils where it did not gain an overall majority. "We expect Hamas to gain no more than one more municipality while Fatah would probably form alliances with other factions in municipalities won by others to increase their foothold," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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THE British-educated engineer said to be the key bomb-maker for the group suspected of yesterdayâs Bali bombings learnt his craft in one of Osama Bin Ladenâs Afghan training camps. Azahari bin Husin, 48, known as the âDemolition Manâ, took a doctorate in engineering at Reading University in the 1990s before training with the Al-Qaeda leader. He is now being hunted by the Indonesian security services for his involvement in Jemaah Islamiya (JI), a militant group with a history of ties to Al-Qaeda. The group, the most feared terrorist network in southeast Asia, was behind the 2002 Bali attacks in which car bombers killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, in attacks on nightclubs in the tourist resort of Kuta, the scene of one of yesterdayâs explosions. The group has also been blamed for a bomb at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, which killed 12 people in 2003, and a car bomb outside the Australian embassy last year, which killed 11.
Only last week, Indonesian security officials warned that although the group had been weakened by a series of arrests, it still posed a threat because two of its masterminds were on the run.
The International Crisis Group, a security think tank, said Azahari and another fugitive, Noordin M Top, could be tempted to attack another western target in Indonesia. Azahari, born in Malaysia, studied in Australia in the 1970s before coming to Britain. He later trained at an Afghan terrorist camp. He and Noordin are wanted for a series of attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings. In an interview five days ago Ansyaad Mbai, a senior counter-terrorism official, told Reuters news agency: âHunting Azahari is still our top priority and our hope is that nobody, including the US and Australia, will become their targets.â
Yesterdayâs attacks on Indonesiaâs main holiday resort follow a series of warnings that terror groups linked to Al-Qaeda pose a continuing threat to western targets in the region. The Foreign Office travel advice for Indonesia states that Britain âcontinues to receive reports that terrorists are planning further attacks on westerners and western interests. âAttacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia, and are likely to be directed against locations and buildings frequented by foreigners.â
Security sources said yesterdayâs bore all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda or its local affiliate, JI. Multiple, simultaneous strikes against so-called âsoftâ targets such as restaurants, shopping centres and nightclubs are judged by the groups to create maximum impact. Such targets are typically less well-guarded and are popular haunts for western tourists. JI is dedicated to the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic republic across the region. JI prefers to use improvised explosive devices containing home-made ingredients and delivered in cars. But as Al-Qaedaâs regional arm, its operatives would also consider suicide attacks. Early last month, local police said they had found components for a small bomb at a hotel in Kuta. The parts were found with a letter in Arabic in a bag left outside a lift on the fourth floor of the Kuta Paradiso hotel.
Investigators have previously uncovered evidence of financial links between JI and Al-Qaeda. But there have been hundreds of arrests since the first Bali attacks three years ago and the group has also suffered internal divisions because of its policy of targeting innocent civilians. Some experts suggest that its links to Al-Qaeda may have loosened in recent times. But the security source said: âJemaah Islamiya has very, very close links to Al-Qaeda. There are close ties in their training, ideology, planning and in the type of attacks.â
The source warned that in the past, attacks in Indonesia had been shortly followed by bombings in the Philippines, carried out by the allied Abu Sayyaf group. âThese new bombs could be a catalyst for other attacks,â he warned.
JIâs suspected leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, an elderly cleric, was jailed for subversion two years ago over plans to overthrow the Indonesian government and assassinate the then vice-president. In August this year, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president, said JI bombmakers remained a threat. âTerrorist cells are still active. They are still hiding, recruiting, networking, trying to find new funding sources, and even planning,â he said. The president added that September and October were favoured months for attacks and forecast an increase in activity.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:10 ||
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Western tourists were among at least 32 people killed and more than 100 injured yesterday by terrorist bomb blasts at two resorts on Bali.
Three explosions took place almost three years to the day since Muslim extremists killed more than 200 people in a similar attack. Al-Qaeda sympathisers are suspected of carrying out the latest bombings at destinations popular with Britons.
The bombs went off seconds apart shortly after 7.30pm local time, two in Jimbaran, where a crowded seafood restaurant was the target, and one in Kuta, where a three-storey noodle and steak house was attacked.
Dead and maimed bodies lay in the streets of the towns, which are 18 miles apart in the south of the island. Victims, some headless, were taken to morgues, while the injured went to hospitals.
It was unclear last night whether any Britons had been killed or injured but Foreign Office officials have been sent from Jakarta and Hong Kong to help to establish the nationalities of the dead and to assist British survivors. At least two Americans, one Australian and a Japanese woman died in the attacks.
Ansyaad Mbai, a police major general and leading anti-terrorism official, said the bombings were "clearly the work of terrorists".
Kuta was also the target on October 12, 2002, when 202 people, including 26 Britons, died in bomb attacks on night clubs. Two of the terrorists wanted for those incidents are thought to have been involved in yesterday's outrages, which come just two months after Tube and bus bombings in London left 56 dead and more than 400 injured. A spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry said his countrymen had felt for Britain after the July 7 attacks.
Yesterday the Foreign Office reiterated advice to avoid travel to some parts of Indonesia. Its website said: "We continue to receive reports that terrorists are planning further attacks on Westerners and Western interests.
"Attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia and are likely to be directed against locations and buildings frequented by -foreigners."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:08 ||
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The speaker of Iran's parliament has visited Lebanon and Syria in a mark of solidarity with the two countries and Lebanon's Hizb Allah resistance group. Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel on Saturday visited the graves of more than 100 people killed by Israeli artillery shells as he finished a trip to reaffirm Iranian support for Lebanon and the Hizb Allah. Later on Saturday, Haddad Adel went to Damascus where he said he would discuss with Syrian officials "ways of confronting pressure against Iran and Syria", the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
On the first leg of his tour, accompanied by Iranian legislators, Haddad Adel went to Qana, 11 km north of the Israeli border, where a bombardment killed Lebanese men, women and children taking refuge in a UN base during an Israeli offensive against Hizb Allah rocket attacks in 1996. A UN report found the shelling was "unlikely" to have been an accident, as Israel claimed. Addressing a crowd of Hizb Allah supporters in Qana, Haddad Adel told them in Arabic: "You are not alone because the Iranian nation with its 70 million people is with you." Haddad Adel called for unity against what he described as "the ambitions of America and Israel".
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Leb, too, huh? Must be the MM's Resounding Defeats Tour.
#3
Umm not so fast Mahmoud.
Your oil exports are about 80% of all your exports.
What happens if you cut them? Right. Less income, your people won't like it.
You know, if you really cut them, oil prices will rise. Your friend China WON'T like that.
So you are cutting selectively? Sell more to China, less to the West? Then what? China will buy less from other countries, those countries sell more to the West. Zero sum game.
Try Economy 101, Mahmoud. Will save you a headache.
India may have refused to join the US-led coalition in Iraq and may be opposed to it being under an occupation force.
But in a remote corner of Mizoram, a group of US soldiers and officers who will be deployed in Iraq early next year have just completed training at the Indian army's Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS). The 17-day training exercise, named Yudh Abhyas (battle practice), has drawn accolades from the American participants. In fact, according to Major Dan Wilson of the US army's 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, critical aspects of the training will be incorporated in the US anti-terror operations doctrine. Wilson and his troops returned from active duty in Afghanistan this year and will be deployed in Iraq early next year.
The US contingentâa total of seven officers and 35 soldiersâalso includes officers and soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Guam National Guards and have been paired with one officer, one JCO and 40 soldiers of the Indian army's 22 Maratha Light Infantry.
"The training we have undergone here will definitely help us conduct future operations, including when we're deployed in Iraq," First Lieutenant Peter Almirez of the US army told Outlook.
According to the Americans, the US army has very little training in jungle warfare and anti-insurgency operationsâthe only such combat school closed down nearly a decade ago. Points out Lieutenant Colonel Marcus of the Guam National Guards: "Here (at
the CIJWS), we have relearnt the lessons that were drawn from Vietnam."
There was a 'realistic' touch to the simulated training situation. The US and Indian officers and men were divided into two task forces and assigned to neutralise insurgents and terrorists belonging to three aligned outfits in the make-believe Amanpur state. The most-wanted on the list of terrorists was Salim Maqsood, head of the 'Jaan-Baaz Commandos' who had to be captured, preferably alive. "The lessons were employed practically. We have 12 ranges covering a wide variety of situations likely to be encountered in a counter-insurgency or anti-terror operation," says Colonel U.S. Bawa, head of the CIJWS faculty of studies, doctrine and concept development. The Counter Terrorist Encounter Range facilitates trainees to practise a wide number of firing positions ranging from close quarters to long-range sniper shooting at fixed or moving targets in isolation or in civilian areas.
There's an indoor shooting range where targets pop up at random and the shooting skills and reflexes of the trainees are tested. The Urban Shooting and Pursuit Range was a particular favourite with the US troops as it offered a realistic situation in which troops patrolling a street had to neutralise hostile targets inside houses without inflicting collateral damage.
The US soldiers training at the school were also sent to nearby villages to conduct mock operations there. "The villagers are paid handsomely and are happy to participate in the mock exercises. The students are tasked with raiding the village, questioning the people, searching the houses and flushing out terrorists hiding there. Live ammunition is never used for obvious reasons during these mock exercises, but it allows the students to get a feel of real-life situations they will encounter in actual anti-terror operations," Bawa told Outlook.
According to Brigadier Rakesh Sharma, the school commandant, the emphasis during the joint training exercise was on teaching the students ways to see problems in their entirety. Says Sharma: "In an anti-terror situation, all components need to be addressed. Just neutralising the terrorists and busting their networks is not enough.
Collateral damage has to be limited, human rights have to be taken into account and the media has to be taken into confidence." Sharma, who has served seven tenures in insurgency-afflicted Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast and was part of the IPKF in Sri Lanka, feels that the rich experience of the faculty at the CIJWS in fighting insurgency and the wide-ranging training at the CIJWS makes it the only such combat school in the world.
The joint exercise also factored in a probable situation where Indian and US soldiers may have to fight terrorists in tandem. "Insurgency and terrorism are changing shape, going from jungles to urban arenas. Hence, our focus is changing as well. We have to train soldiers for all possible scenarios," says Sharma. The Indian soldiers in the joint exercise have gained proficiency in weapons like the M-4, M-16 and M-107 rifles, the M-249 light machine gun and equipment like night-vision sights and laser-guided arms.
The latest training programme is the third that soldiers from the US have undergone at the school. According to Sharma, post-9/11, the US felt the need to send its army officers and men to India. "The US army is interested in the jungle and urban warfare components, the doctrines that have been developed here and the ethos we've developed of dealing with the civilian population," he says.
Of great interest to the US soldiers were tactics taught at the school to deal with suicide bombers, human bombs and human shields used by terrorists. "Most of the time, security forces are reactive. But at the CIJWS, we teach soldiers to call the shots against insurgents or terrorists. We teach the officers and men how to outwit terrorists. We equip them with tactics, situations and ideas so that they can outwit the terrorists. Anti-terror or anti-insurgency operations are actually a battle of wits and ideas," explains Lieutenant Colonel Rajiv Dhar, an instructor. It's apparent that the US army is happy with the training. It has proposed that the joint training exercise becomes an annual feature.
The US contingent is not only impressed with the CIJWS and its course content, but also with the Indian army. As Major Wilson puts it: "We're also taking back with us a newfound and tremendous respect for Indian army officers and soldiers. Indian troops are as well-trained, motivated and quick as the best US soldiers." Indo-US defence cooperation seems to be on the right track.
Posted by: john ||
10/02/2005 16:18 ||
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GI Joe is a kick-ass
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/02/2005 20:17 Comments ||
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JAIDEEP MAZUMDAR:According to the Americans, the US army has very little training in jungle warfare and anti-insurgency operationsâthe only such combat school closed down nearly a decade ago. Points out Lieutenant Colonel Marcus of the Guam National Guards: "Here (at
the CIJWS), we have relearnt the lessons that were drawn from Vietnam."
Marine, Army, AF, Navy... "Recon, Rangers, Commandos, SEALS all train jungle warfare skool.
The US soldiers training at the school were also sent to nearby villages to conduct mock operations there. "The villagers are paid handsomely and are happy to participate in the mock exercises. The students are tasked with raiding the village, questioning the people, searching the houses and flushing out terrorists hiding there. Live ammunition is never used for obvious reasons during these mock exercises, but it allows the students to get a feel of real-life situations they will encounter in actual anti-terror operations," Bawa told Outlook.
That would be nice to try in some of our small friendly cities, but no DOD attorney would permit it. Not too mention the thundering herd of civilian lawyers ambulance chasers, moonbats & MSM asshats sweeping into those cities like carpet bagging Cossacks. recall Oakland ca.
Posted by: r ||
10/02/2005 23:23 Comments ||
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#5
r = Red Dog
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/02/2005 23:24 Comments ||
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The Violence Against Women Act may be about to do violence to Americans' right to privacy.
A U.S. Senate committee has adopted an amendment to the VAWA legislation that would add the DNA of anyone detained by the cops to a federal DNA database called "CODIS."
Note that it doesn't require that you're convicted of a crime or even formally arrested on suspicion of committing one. Mere detention -- might a routine traffic stop eventually qualify? -- will be sufficient for CODISification. (Current law only authorizes blood or saliva swabs and entry into CODIS for people convicted of a crime.)
Ethan Ackerman, a Washington attorney and privacy specialist, notes: " The bill grants states carte blanche to write laws allowing (DNA) collection" even "as a condition of getting a drivers license!"
This proposal is the brainchild of two Republican senators, Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. They say it's necessary to help catch violent criminals -- although the genetic material would remain in the database if the person is detained or arrested but not charged with a crime.
#1
And the downside to better identification of criminals AND vindication of innocents is...?
Posted by: Neutron Tom ||
10/02/2005 13:33 Comments ||
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Oh, boy. All we need is to spread the word among the moonbats that Bush-chainey-haliburton-etc. is behind all this as part of the PNAC / Patriot Act. Panic then ensues from the tinfoil hat moonbat crowd in 5, 4, 3...
Posted by: N guard ||
10/02/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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#3
Okay, here's one downside.
Suppose Hillary and her bunch are in power. Now your DNA is on file and can be scanned for, say, susceptibility to cancer. Add in her nanny-state health care approach and you may find you go to jail if you smoke or do other 'bad' things for your health.
Yeah it's a stretch ... but not as big a one as I'd like.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/02/2005 14:26 Comments ||
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#5
My concern about DNA-as-evidence is the danger of corrupt cops or private enemies to manufacure evidence that will be accepted as infallible. Just get a little hair/saliva/trousersnake venom to where it will be collected by forensics and someone is in a world of trouble.
Sigh. It's so much easier to postulate dangerous and sinister scenarios in the foggy future than it is to disprove or moderate them. It's also a magnet for some people, who automatically assume the worst... with very very very very very little in US history to substantiate that view.
Hollyweird, et al, have succeeded in spreading conspiracist paranoia crap. Take the Patriot Act for example. Despite all the brouhaha and bullshit, there is ZIP, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA, real-world evidence to support the fear-mongering.
Sad. It takes reality to disprove this knee-jerk reaction - and that's just too skeery for many.
#7
Totally agree Grunter - it's the belief in the infallibility of the evidence that worries me most though.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/02/2005 16:52 Comments ||
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#8
...and I was more worried about its use over here than the US (plod is very keen on keeping a database 'just in case').
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/02/2005 16:54 Comments ||
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#9
I know the Law Enforcement and Justice system. If you think this will just be used to go after criminals your living in a dream world.
DNA evidence is regulary mishandled and contaminated. People have been put in jail due to that mishandeling and contamination. If you think DNA is going to protect those that are not guilty please look at how hard it is to get DNA evidence processed to disprove guilt. It's like pulling wisdom teeth. DA's and Prosecuters fight it tooth and nail. Courts regularly turn down applications to process DNA to prove inocence. The only thing the Courts and Law Enforcemnet is interested in is locking people up. It's a numbers game. Finally DNA is not the magic bullet we are led to believe it is. Their are DNA experts that will say so I am sure.
Here PD, you can use my screwdriver on me. I disagree with your assesment but entirely without malice.
#10
It would certainly put an end to dangerous predators and serial killers ability to blend in among us, but it could easily be used in the future to identify "undesirables". Jews, Christians, Arabs, the ill, leaders, followers, etc., etc. It was less than 100 years ago that Hitler could have put this to good use.
Don't know what the answers are, just hope we come up with a good balance to use it for good and prevent it from being used for bad.
#11
I didnt address the flipside of the DNA-as-evidence question- that of proving innocence, but for the record, it has freed a lot of innocent people.
I know several people in LE, from street cops to sheriff deputies to Fibbies. None of them will knowingly pursue someone they know to be innocent - and that's specifically mentioned because bad prosecutions, normally a DA / Judge thingy since they're the sole politicians (non-professionals) in the LE system, are usually pretty clear to the investigators. Corruption in the system is not common. I know these folks. Played softball with 'em, drank beer with 'em staged BBQ's with 'em, watched videos and played cards with 'em. And I don't believe I happened to know just good guys - they're the rule, not the exception.
When the system is bagged, i.e. corrupt, then they will get your ass, DNA or no. What DNA does do, however, is as Tony pointed out - it's considered nearly infallible. Since the defense is free to perform its own tests, thus validating the lab isn't corrupt or inept, the remaining area that presents opportunity for bad actors is planted evidence. There's damned little anyone can do about this where there are corrupt people out to get someone. DNA just makes it more of a slam dunk when it's used by corrupt LE, not more of a possibility that the LE is corrupt.
I'm clean. I'm no scofflaw. I know the people who do this, have done it for decades. They're not gunning for anyone but bad guys. This is much like the myths of hacking secured systems. The only good thefts occur when the either the system is managed by an idiot or it's an inside job. Good people don't do this shit. City govts pretty much set the stage for how a cop shop will be run. New Orleans is a classic example. Bad Actors at the top means bad actors throughout the system.
#13
Well I have to agree 99.9% of LE are good folks. Some are even my relations. I have hundreds of hours classroom time with them and many many hours of work time with them. I know these people and the system. That 1% however screw over a lot of people in a year. Good people can be inept and make mistakes as well.
There is a local LE person (a back shooter no less.) That has been unremovable for years. He is as crooked as the day is long. He regulary "frames" folks. It's common knoweledge. Other LE agencies will not work with him if it can be avoided. He is the kind of people I fear. He is not an isolated case. It's one of the reasons I got out of private security here. The 99.9% can't seem to do anything about guy's like that. I don't want to give them that kind of power. I don't want it used against me or my kin.
#14
I find it hard to believe that this data will be solely kept by LE. Imagine how it would be used by insurance companies, the same ones who are now denying hurricane damage policies because of the subsequent flooding. "You could have had your roof torn off in the flood! Prove otherwise!"
Medical insurance will, of course, be the worst. Even those of you who think they are genetically fine might get proven otherwise in a year or two. Ever been tested for "Fragile X syndrome"? Newly discovered genetic fault responsible for a lot of retardation in the US. Very common.
You might be fine, but your *kids* might be turned down for insurance. Remember that if they find out your DNA, they pretty much know your parents' and your kids.
#15
They fingerprint you when you get booked, whether you're guilty or not.
Federal paramilitary forces like the ones that the FBI, BATF, DoE, ad infinitum, have worry me. Weakening Posse Comitatus worries me. Taking DNA samples just doesn't bother me.
#16
For goodness sakes, we're not talking about mapping each person's whole genome here. It's not like we're going to take a saliva swab and then spend millions of dollars mapping all of your children's DNA. You don't need the entire map of Wahington, DC to determine that you're in Washington, DC -- the piece that shows the White House on Pennsylvania avenue is more than enough.
#17
They have no right to "invade" my person without a warrant as far as I am concerned. Show my DNA is a threat to LE if they want a sample. Otherwise no way. Some people are willing to give away to many rights because "they aren't guilty." Of course you are not guilty, so, I am not eitehr, but I don't feel like giving up my rights to make it easy on LE of the government. It's as simple as that. Want DNA? Arrest me and get a court order for it. Just taking me into custody is not good enough reason, it isn't the way we do things here. We are not talking about finger prints here.
#19
intersting thoughts. It's true that if the govn't is corrupt, they don't need your permission in the first place, there is plenty of ways to get samples without you even knowing. And a bad cop out to get you doesn't need your DNA.
It would be best if the requests were voluntary, because when someone refuses that puts them immediately higher up on the suspect list. However, many people would refuse for reasons SPOD noted, so it's not as good as getting the sample.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't believe that once Pandora is out a box, she can be put back. So you might as well use the good ...since you are going to get the bad whether you want it or not.
#20
.com: why not look at how DNA tests are already in use in Britain? Entire areas are cordoned off, even if virtually, and all individuals who fit the profile of a particular criminal at large are asked to submit a DNA sample. Since all DNA samples are kept permanently, refuseniks gravitate to the top of the suspects' lists for any DNA evidence crime in the area.
If you happen to have left your DNA, quite innocently, near any crime scene (remember this is a small area, maybe just a few blocks, so this is not as unlikely as it sounds), then you become a PRIME SUSPECT.
This means that you can be pestered. It means that there is already "probable cause" against you as far as warrants to pry into your personal life, your finances, your relationships, your garbage. When the police look for evidence somewhere, expecting to find evidence, they find evidence. That's not twine in your cabinet, that is suspected strangling cord. And dirty pictures on your computer are evidence of everything.
Police already have a gazillion tools at their command. Most crimes are not rocket science to solve. Lawyers and judges create effective counters to most everything they come up with. So the bottom line to a DNA database of innocent people, looking for a guilty one in the bunch is that it is a major, expensive hassle, one likely to solve some crimes, but also likely to drag people into court who shouldn't be there.
Is it worth it to drag innocent people into court just to nab a few guilty ones? Many people would say yes, but many would say no. I say if the police are relying on DNA evidence to get a conviction, they don't have enough proof, unless it is "sperm in the vagina" conclusive.
#21
It's hard to convince me that the government needs more leeway in tracking citizens---especially those without records.
My local LE took it upon themselves to flag every person involved in a domestic violence incident. Even those that called it in.
Now, if some University frosh is drunk and beating her head against a lamp post and I call it in---dispatch calls me, asks me to step out on my deck and wait for the officer. Every time, without recourse. Remember, we have to obey every "reasonable" request of a LEO immediately and without question. It's during your day in court after they take down your door and drag you away that "reasonable" is actually defined.
They fingerprint you when you get booked, whether you're guilty or not.
Of course you are not guilty, so, I am not eitehr..
Ima gulity never broken the law..never! In fact I'll givr my DNA to any female cop who wants it.
/yeeaarright. 'ception for that strech *ahem* 71-7.....
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/02/2005 21:37 Comments ||
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#23
Imagine MY surprise - rather than a Penthouse and Nivea, they want a cheek swab! The nurse looked like Nancy Pelosi too! uuggghhh
and all for those contributions to the RNC and Tom Delay....damn
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/02/2005 21:50 Comments ||
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#24
As a former civilian with a big city PD in Kyl's home state (yup, PHX), no way in hell would I voluntarily give up my DNA. I'm with SPo'D on this one. Get a court order first. And then get a backup lab to double check the results.
All it takes is one totally incompetent and/or corrupt yahoo in the lab to really make your life pure hell.
Phoenix fired some lab tech who routinely ignored lab procedures for years....messing up hundreds of cases by taking things home, not doing tests, etc. The department had to admit that people were sent to jail who shouldn't have been, due to this jackoff's "lab work". An entire squad of detectives was reassigned to straighten this mess out. One of the reasons he got away with this crap was his mama ran the lab.
Really sounds like a professional, big city PD there, doesn't it? Just imagine what goes on in some podunk towns.
Before you give up the DNA, keep in mind....cops in trouble with the law ALWAYS get a lawyer to talk to their "brothers and sisters in blue". They know better than anyone how the game is played....and you better believe, it's a game. Justice, sadly, has little to do with it.
#25
In response to all of those who have the fears, I'll reiterate this:
City govts pretty much set the stage for how a cop shop will be run. New Orleans is a classic example. Bad Actors at the top means bad actors throughout the system.
And my faith in the system came the hard way - I used to be, um, well extremely unsavory. The statute of limitations has run out, lol, but I'll pass on enumerating my youthful crimes.
Quick note on investigators / detectives... If they found my DNA in a location, but I was not on the traditional short-list of suspects that, indeed, turns out to contain the perp 80+% of the time, then I might have an unpleasant interview - maybe two. But the focus will be where it belongs - on the husband, wife, whomever is logically appropriate as proven by experience. Detectives are not idiots. SPo'D can verify the exams are not trivial. Again, I reiterate those sentences above.
BTW. I find it interesting that many who are vocal in opposition to many of the LE initiatives are also among the most vocal regards illegal immigration. Chew on that, folks. Truth is, you can NOT have it both ways. Either you have rock-hard standards and positive ID methodology, or LE can't do even a fraction of what you demand of them. It would take an real iron curtain, North and South, 100 ft high and sunk 40 into the ground, to stop most of the unobserved movement. Then, for those passing through the gates - you'd still need positive and reliable ID means. We don't have that now. Period. I can easily buy a DL in most states, probably any state, and that's the most universal ID we have.
Some serious issues lying at the base of this entire discussion. In my opinion, most of it has to do with corruption and incompetence, not the nature of the evidence.
#28
Exactly, Neutron Tom. And as far as using DNA to wrongfully convinct someone. DNA can be used, and IMO will be used far more frequently, to prove innocence, e.g. in the case where no one can verify an alibi but DNA can.
#29
But you see, I CAN have it both ways, and I'll eat one of them too! :)
My fingerprints have been on file with the feds for years too. My fingerprints aren't proof of ID, they aren't proof of innocence. Fingerprints have been around as a legal argument long enough that they aren't used as the be all and end all of guilt or innocence.
DNA, on the other hand, DOES put you into a pool of presumably guilty persons, DOES have enough wiggle room for questionable ethics, lousy techs, and it's expensive as all fuck. Once you're in jail you can't just take the results to an independent analysis.
BTW. I find it interesting that many who are vocal in opposition to many of the LE initiatives are also among the most vocal regards illegal immigration. Chew on that, folks. Truth is, you can NOT have it both ways. Either you have rock-hard standards and positive ID methodology, or LE can't do even a fraction of what you demand of them.
PD, you're not just reaching, your FLAILING! :) What, either we give LE free reign to devise their own methodology, without oversight, or we're easy on immigration?
Or are you saying that we can't be hard on immigration if we don't submit to DNA mapping to determine citizenship? Because I'll take a barcode to my forehead to determine citizenship before I submit to a technology that currently doesn't have the discrimination to differentiate me from even 25% of the American population in several days.
But from the LE perspective, that's 25% guaranteed guilt, dude.
#30
echo dittos here.. that's a go on collecting of DNA, the plussesus outweigh the minussesus big time.
lets catch the rapist, terrorists, and the illegal aliens etc. Today, that would be an enhancement of our citizen status.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/02/2005 23:51 Comments ||
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#31
OG - That's a steaming pile of shit, son.
"My fingerprints aren't proof of ID..."
"Fingerprints have been around as a legal argument long enough that they aren't used as the be all and end all of guilt or innocence."
WTF? That's some of the stupidest shit I've ever read. The first brain fart is lead pipe territory. Total bullshit. If they have your prints and you, then it IS proof, one way or the other. Sheesh. The second one just makes no sense. You either is or you isn't if there's enough to work with. If there's less that the accepted minimum data points available, then it will put you into or take you out of a pool of suspects. Duh, son. Your take makes no fucking sense.
"DNA, on the other hand, DOES put you into a pool of presumably guilty persons"
Again, you miss the point - it is NO different from fingerprints. With N matching alleles you can be either ruled in or ruled out. It's actually a slam dunk in the rule you out direction - any marker mismatches rule you out, yet it takes several exact matches (not all markers always show - depends upon the quality of the DNA they had to work with - so the marker is sometimes null, and thus ignored if no better DNA sample is available) to rule you in.
The forensic difference between a perfect fingerprint match and an all alleles match is ZERO. Lacking those perfect cases, then the percentage confidence of what is available rules you into or out of the suspect list, with DNA ruling you out on any mismatches.
Flailing?
Gee, fuck you.
I did not say: "What, either we give LE free reign to devise their own methodology, without oversight, or we're easy on immigration?"
Nor did I say: "Or are you saying that we can't be hard on immigration if we don't submit to DNA mapping to determine citizenship?"
Exaggeration is fine for fun, but not for argumentation. You think you made some sort of case? Bullshit. You've merely proved you can't read and comprehend. Re-read. Think. Then say something intelligent.
History or biology, Pakistani students get anti-India lessons in all their textbooks
When Mohammad Qasim stepped out to participate in the declamation contest held to celebrate Pakistan's Independence Day, the topic he was to speak on was: 'Why Islam and Pakistan are integral to each other'. Instead, this Class XI student of Lahore's Government Central Model School lashed out against the Hindus, giving vent to inexplicable anger and hatred. This was particularly shocking because the Hindu community, constituting an infinitesimal percentage of Pakistan's population, hasn't been an aspect of Qasim's life. Asked to explain his outpouring in the contest, the 14-year-old boy said, "We hate Hindus because they are Hindustanis and the number one enemies of both Islam and Pakistan.
Posted by: john ||
10/02/2005 09:34 ||
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Link ||
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#2
This kind of stuff has a habit of rebounding on you, look at the Nazis for example.
India is growing at a pace, has aspirations of being a great regional power and is being wooed by the US. Pakistan, on the other hand is a basket-case with thousands of 'hate-school' madrassas and is only tolerated by the US because it is (in theory) helping to find Osama.
If a war does break out between the two countries, you can be sure that the Indians will point to all this vile invective for justification of ...whatever they end up doing.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/02/2005 10:59 Comments ||
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#3
Add that India is a democracy, is a capitalist country of entrepreneurs, are smart, hard working, and has control of their country. Pakistan has none of that. They are another Moslem country run by a coalition of dictator and moslem clerics. A bad combination.
#4
Jihad taught in Biology books and the former ISI chief running the education system.
And this is the NON madrassa system - official government schools.
The whole of Pakistan is crazy
"The extracts (see box) culled out from textbooks taught in government schools demonstrates how the ruling establishment, under the aegis of President Pervez Musharraf, is misusing books to develop an anti-India, anti-Hindu mindsetâand also fan sentiments against Christians, Jews and the West. The regime's control over the education system is exercised through Lt Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi, who heads the federal education ministry.
Head of the ISI between 1993 and 1995, Qazi supervised the recruitment of students from Pakistan's madrassas for constituting the extremist Taliban militia."
" The education ministry never bothered to inquireâas most people familiar with the discipline of biology logically wouldâwhy there were references to jehad in the biology textbook in the first place."
Posted by: john ||
10/02/2005 16:16 Comments ||
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#5
The whole of Pakistan is crazy
No, it's a jihadist state. What can you expect from a country borne out of the religious bigotry, whose very name means "land of the pure"?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/02/2005 16:30 Comments ||
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Stirring fears al-Qaida's much-heralded "Ramadan Offensive" was beginning early, three near-simultaneous bomb blasts ripped through crowded restaurants on the Indonesia resort island of Bali almost three years to the day of the devastating Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202.
At least 25 have been reported killed.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono branded Saturday's blasts as acts of terrorism and vowed to catch those responsible. Last month, he had said he was worried about new attacks and called for increased security.
"The focus now, apart from the obvious one of saving lives and treating the injured, is on the gathering of the evidence, the material evidence on the ground at the two bombing sites so the police can quickly ascertain who perpetrated these heinous and cowardly acts," said Marty Natalagawa of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.
Yudhoyono said it was too soon to assign blame, but security experts said the attacks were likely the work of Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist network viewed as the regional arm of al-Qaida â the same group responsible for the 2002 nightclub attacks.
Jemaah Islamiah, which means Islamic Community, seeks to establish an Islamic state across Southeast Asia â including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines, and southern Thailand.
In October 2002, the United States officially designated the group as a terrorist organization.
Officials at Bali's Sanglah hospital, near the island's capital of Denpasar, said 25 bodies had been brought in, while Agence France-Presse reported the death toll had reached 32.
Reuters reports 15 of the dead have been identified â 12 Indonesians, including a 6-year-old boy, two Australians and a Japanese national.
The wounded are known to have included at least three Americans.
It is unknown how the bombs were delivered or detonated. Witnesses reported seeing dismembered bodies at the scene, many of them foreigners.
U.S. officials were notified earlier this month of efforts by al-Qaida for spectacular attacks in October against the U.S., Russia and Europe in what it is calling the "Great Ramadan Offensive."
The offensive, designed to overshadow the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, was first referenced in a May 30 letter written by al-Qaida's Iraq commander Abu Musab Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden. It is the subject of a report written by terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, the former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, to government officials.
Ramadan, the holiest period in the Muslim calendar, begins Tuesday, Oct. 4, this year and lasts a month.
Zarqawi characterizes the attacks as a "fateful confrontation" with the U.S. and Israel.
Details of the operation came from intercepted communications between top al-Qaida leaders about two weeks ago.
"I think that the plan for the next stage that was drawn up has reached you or is on its way to you," said Zarqawi's letter to bin Laden. "O God. Make the expedition of Osama proceed toward its goal ... We await your orders as to the next stage of the plan."
Bodansky also concludes that al-Qaida leaders have interpreted the devastation of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina as a sign that Allah is pleased with their plans.
The alarming report comes weeks after WND and Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin broke a series of stories on al-Qaida's "American Hiroshima" plan â 10 years in the design stages â to detonate one or more nuclear weapons in major cities in the U.S.
Intelligence analysts and sources disagree on the details of the way bin Laden's "American Hiroshima" plan unfolds. Some G2 Bulletin sources emphasize bin Laden's commitment to re-enacting the 1945 attack on Japan with one nuclear detonation, followed by another days later.
Paul Williams, author of "The Al-Qaeda Connection," however, sees a much more devastating, coordinated, all-out, surprise attack coming.
"The next attack, according to al-Qaida defectors and informants, will take place simultaneously at various sites throughout the country," he writes. "Designated targets include New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Las Vegas, and Valdez, Alaska, where the tankers are filled with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline. To orchestrate such an incredible event requires not only the shipment of the nukes into the United States but also the establishment of cells, the training of sleeper agents, the selection of sites, and the preparation of the weapons without detection from federal, state or local law enforcement officials. Unlike 9-11, that cost less than $350,000, this event already has cost a king's ransom, and bin Laden will not waste the billions in expenditures, the years of planning and his coveted 'crown jewels' on an attack that is ill-planned, poorly timed and carelessly coordinated."
Other sources interpret some of the same information, based on captured al-Qaida operatives and documents as well as defectors, differently. They project an escalating series of attacks, each followed by blackmail demands upon the U.S. government and the American people.
As WorldNetDaily and G2 Bulletin have reported, al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union â including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.
#1
AOL Sports reported the explosion during the OU football game last night was a suicide bomber. They locked them in the stadium. It was October first.
#5
Btw, WND too had an headline about that stadium suicide bomber, but this seemed even more outlandish. Is this just another internet rumor, or is there something to that story?
#7
The explosion was felt more than 4 miles away...this was no suicide. Good links, pictures , etc. on this... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495137/posts
#8
There's something fishy here; the link at freerepublic goes onto another site:
What I find amazing is that the press release that Borenâs office has released to the public stated that "Prior to the game, the entire stadium was swept by the expert bomb teams with the help of dogs.â Was there a bomb threat that OU didnât take seriously? Is that why the stadium was swept with âexpert bomb teams with the help of dogsâ?
Logic dictates that two âdevicesâ suggest that two people were involved. A terrorist cell? Why would someone committing suicide using a large bomb to kill themselves just keep another bombing laying around? You know, just in case the first one didnât click off? Itâs all premeditated in the first place. That means conspiracy to kill at least themselves if not someone else in the process. But then thereâs that whole âlarge bombâ thing weâre left to contend with? Why would someone use such a large âdeviceâ to take himself or herself out if they were not targeting others to go with them? And when I say a âlarge bombâ thatâs exactly what I mean.
My family and I were sitting at home, roughly one mile away from the stadium as a bird flies, when we heard and felt an earth shattering explosion. I was monitoring my hand held amateur radio when the local repeater erupted with chatter about a explosion. It was so loud that people wanted to know if others had heard it. I called the Police who advised me that officers were on the scene and that a explosion had occurred but they would not give any other details. Our house literally shook. The ground vibrated with a deep rolling growling sound. This was a large explosion. Not some mere Pipe bomb put together by a pissed off student. But when I arrived at the stadium to shoot video for a local news station I regularly freelance for, already this was the spin on the story. This was serious business. This bomb was meant to kill not one person, but as many as could be reached in a crowd based on the size and power of the âdeviceâ alone.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/02/2005 12:53 Comments ||
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#9
Well, it's either WND and Statfor, or fetish porn sites
#10
What I find amazing is that the press release that Borenâs office has released to the public stated that "Prior to the game, the entire stadium was swept by the expert bomb teams with the help of dogs.â Was there a bomb threat that OU didnât take seriously? Is that why the stadium was swept with âexpert bomb teams with the help of dogsâ?
I suspect that's done as a matter of routine any more. A gathering of 80,000 people eating pork products and drinking beer would make a prime jihadist target.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/02/2005 16:32 Comments ||
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More snuffies for the RoP followers to be aroused with; Since the website in question doubles as a porn site, we now know what the 92,5% of pious saudis who access the internet looking for smut have for fetishes.
An American-hosted soft porn Internet site also doubles as a cyber home for radical Islamic video propaganda. One approximately six-minute video housed on the Japanese site which we will not list because it so horrendous. Titled, "The Ambon Massacre," it starts with a picture of the ocean waves lazily lapping at dusk.
The scene soon shifts to video of a burning building and people being massacred. Then viewers see rows of dead bodies covered with newspaper, followed by scenes of burning, decimated houses.
The horrifying footage is followed by graphic video of burned, dead bodies with holes in their heads, as well as chopped off body parts. The dead include babies and the mutilated corpses of young people with gaping holes in their necks. The video is apparently of the 2002 Ambon Massacre.
As the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) reported, in the early morning hours of a Sunday in late April 2002, "black-masked, heavily armed Islamic militants entered the Christian village of Soya (near Ambon city) as the people slept. They moved from house to house, killing up to 21 people by stabbing, decapitation or burning them alive, as well as wounding many more. Thirty homes and a Christian church were also incinerated. Whilst some attackers were seen with assault rifles and wearing military fatigues, the army denies any involvement."
This followed Friday prayers from two before, WEA reported, when an Islamic leader had urged about 5,000 Muslims outside the Al-Fatah Mosque in Ambon to rally together in holy war against the Christians. He said, WEA reported, "'From today, we will no longer talk about reconciliation. Our ... focus now must be preparing for war - ready your guns, spears and daggers.'"
WEA further reported, "On 12 Feb. 2002, the eleven point Malino Peace Accord was signed by 80-strong delegations from the Muslim and the Christian communities of Maluku. The Laskar Jihad, however, refused to attend the peace talks and has rejected the Accord as 'treason'. Islamist cleric Jaffar Umar Thalib, a veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan, heads up the Laskar Jihad. He oversees a network of Islamist schools in Indonesia, preaches that democracy is 'incompatible with Islam', and calls for Indonesia to be made an Islamic state with Sharia Law. He regards Jews, Americans and Christians as 'belligerent infidels' whose deaths are justified by divine imperative. Thalib is convinced there is a global conspiracy of American-led Jews and Christians to destroy Islam and all Muslims. He scorns Osama bin Laden for being too soft - a lightweight!"
Another video on the same site provides step- by- step instructions for making what appear to be an improvised explosive device (IED).
During the video, gloved hands are shown carefully pouring in and stirring a cocktail of chemical solutions. The device is then assembled and the scene shifts outside to a rocky terrain, where the IED is again shown. To the strains of triumphant marching music, the IED is detonated. The video then ends.
The site is hosted by the Orlando-based www.dimenoc.com. An employee at the company asked that the site be submitted to Dimenoc's abuse department, where the matter would be fully investigated. An e-mail requesting comment to the individual apparently responsible for the site was returned as undeliverable.
A recent series of announcements and publications has underlined, with growing shrillness, the threat posed by creeping âsecularization' in Algeria, against which the group is powerless. At the beginning of August the GSPC issued a plea to Algerians in France to do what the mujahideen in Algeria cannotâget close enough to assassinate Algerian leaders. But the message also underlined the real problem facing the mujahideen, when it listed their true enemies: "Not just the military leadership, but [secularizing bodies such as] the media ⊠cultural institutes and diplomatic missions. The danger of these civilian bodies is several times greater than the generals ⊠since these direct campaigns against [Islamic principles in] the Family Law and the education system." [www.salafia.ne1.net]
The message was reinforced in the fourth edition of the GSPC magazine al-Jama'ah released September 2005. It quotes bin Ladin as saying "if I were a student among you I would leave my studies ⊠to follow the squadrons of the mujahideen." The call to arms forms the cover theme of the edition. The essay "Youths of the Islamic Maghreb, This is your Day" outlines the latest developments in the growing U.S. presence in Northwest Africa. Deploring the numbers of "doomed individuals" who have responded to the amnesty, the essay addressed to all youth of the Islamic Maghreb (understood to mean all of North and Northwest Africa) and put forward the offer of joining "an elite group of young men driven by faith" to aid their eastern brothers and fight the "American cowboys" ("a vicious fool that crumbles after the first strike") nearer to home in the northern and western desert zones. In particular it highlights the strategic advantages of opening up a new front against the enemy and makes a call to jihad-minded members of the Algerian military, whose expertise now "is desperately sought by the training camps of jihad." [Al-Jama'ah IV, pp. 25-29]
The pressure on the mujahideen has increased this month with the latest amnesty proposal scheduled for September 29. Among its provisions are the controversial offers to drop charges against rebels who laid down their arms after the January 13 2000 civil concord deadline, and re-establish the rights of Islamists who lost their jobs in the crackdown carried out during the 1990s. But the jihad has some way to go. Algeria's Prime Minister Ahmad Ouyahia has said some 1,000 armed Muslim fundamentalists are still at large, and that while some hundreds are likelyâbased on past performanceâto respond to the latest amnesty, "there will always be the hard core who will never take up the offer of peace."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 01:07 ||
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Speaking on the U.S.-funded Arab language TV station al-Hurra, the former head of the Kuwaiti security services, Mashaal Jarrah, discussed the infiltration of two al-Qaeda members into the Kuwait parliament, without specifying whether these were current or former legislators. The revelations detailed in the Kuwait daily al-Seyassah added extra embarrassment to a country that has been shaken from its complacency following the attacks of last January. [www.alseyassah.com] Evidence of local pro-Qaeda sympathies had already surfaced from the Kuwaiti origin of high-ranking members in the organization, such as its nominal spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (captured in Pakistan in March 2003) and Omar al-Faruq (arrested in June 2002 and believed to have been active in linking al-Qaeda with groups in Southeast Asia). But this year the emirate witnessed scandals of high-ranking military officers prosecuted for plotting anti-U.S. attacks, accusations of âsleeping cells' in the country's security agencies and armed confrontations on the streets (see Terrorism Focus, Volume II, Issue 02).
Investigations into the causes of the jihad-friendly environment in the aftermath of those attacks focused on the role played by the influence of salafist and Muslim Brotherhood members in the Ministry of Educationâwhose syllabus was once described by a Kuwaiti Shi'ite legislator as "enough to turn your hair white," for it's potential inculcation of takfir (excommunication) and militant jihadist values among the nation's youth. Conservative political currents are strong in Kuwait, with 21 of the 50-strong legislature described as Islamists.
Jarrah's own focus of blame for the phenomenon, according to the Arab Times, is on the number of unregulated mosques in the emirate outside the control of the Kuwaiti religious authorities, whose radical imams are being exploited by al-Qaeda to spread its ideology. [www.arabtimesonline.com] The former security chief's allegations may remain unproven, but the fact that they were made at all hints at continuing unease at the level of radical Islamist views in the emirate. This is the first time a senior officer in the security authorities has officially admitted that al-Qaeda has infiltrated Kuwait, the closest ally to the United States that is home to an expatriate population in excess of 35,000 Americans.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 01:06 ||
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The easy availability of heroin and opium produced in Afghanistan has led to an increase in drug abuse among the U.S. military, said retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey, but total numbers are still far below that of the overall American population.
The larger problem, emphasized the general, are the unmistakable signs that opium and heroin money is energizing both al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and widening the drug trade into the Persian Gulf and Iraq.
Gen. McCaffrey, a professor at West Point, recently visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, a trip conducted with the full support of the Department of Defense and in coordination with Central Command.
The military is "the biggest drug-free institution in American society, period," Gen. McCaffrey told The Washington Times. But, he added: "We've seen the numbers go up in the last two years."
The intelligence community was reluctant to link increased drug production money in Afghanistan to either the terrorist organization or the militant fundamental Muslim organization that supports it, he said. The Washington Times reported last month that defense officials were reluctant to make the link for fear of being forced to take a direct, but unwanted, role in interdiction.
But Gen. McCaffrey insisted there was an obvious link between the money gained from the 482 metric tons of opium that Afghanistan currently produces a year, and the equipment terrorist fighters were acquiring.
"Is there a relationship between $2 billion in this impoverished 14th-century desperate land, and the appearance of brand-new guns and shiny camping gear? Of course there is," he said.
"And we are seeing bunches of opium and heroin appear in the Persian Gulf, headed into Iraq," he added.
Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in the world. It also produces highly addictive opium derivatives -- heroin and morphine -- inside the country, Gen. McCaffrey said on Thursday.
Under NATO, Britain is the lead nation for Afghanistan's drug-eradication program, and is working with the German NATO force to create a national drug court. The DEA has 17 agents helping train counternarcotics forces.
But the general, who spent a week in the region in August, during which time he was briefed by State Department, Defense, Special Forces, FBI and other government officials, said their efforts were not enough.
"It is the biggest narcostate in history, it dominates every other reality in Afghanistan," he said. "We cannot achieve our purposes, unless we not only build roads, clinics and democracy, but also counter this massive criminal threat."
Gen. McCaffrey warned that the availability of heroin would drive up criminal activity, addictions among the Afghan population and the Afghan military, and the U.S. military would become increasingly exposed to the drug.
Asked if there was a problem of drug abuse among U.S. forces, he answered: "We are starting to see some indications, pretty damn modest.
"Given a tiny denominator, there has definitely been a rise" because of the ready availability of the drugs, Gen. McCaffrey said. But, he insisted, the abuse was "minor," and there was no comparison to the situation in Vietnam in 1971, where he said roughly 5 percent of the U.S. forces there were using heroin.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/02/2005 00:11 ||
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Those who commit atrocities in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan will face trial by the International Criminal Court, a senior British official said Saturday. "The government of Sudan has should be under no doubt whatsoever, we(the international community) are serious about our commitment to support the International Criminal Court," International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said. "It is doing its work and those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account." The United Nations has condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in western Darfur this week that killed 34 men.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I think it should have read, Americans, British or Jews who commit atrocities in Sudan will face international court. All others can use the ICC to get an excuse and a pardon.
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, claims a15,000-word article in a forthcoming issue of the US magazine Atlantic Monthly, is living in isolation with his European wife, surrounded by guards and security agents, cut off from contact with the outside world, not allowed to read the newspapers or watch television, let alone to use the telephone or the Internet, and held beyond the reach of even the intelligence services of the United States.
The article, the first of two by writer William Langewiesche, which is entitled âThe Wrath of Khanâ, states that Dr Khan is seen as the nationâs saviour and it is ânecessary to recognise that his largesse (to others) was not merely a matter of self-aggrandisement. He has been portrayed in the West as a twisted character, an evil scientist, a purveyor of death. He had certainly lost perspective on himself. But the truth is that he was a good husband and father and friend, and he gave large gifts because in essence he was an openhearted and charitable man.â
The article calls Dr Khan âan enigmaâ. He is said to have âaged considerably, and has lost weight and sickened, but apparently he is not being poisoned.â He has high blood pressure and is also âdeeply despondent,â convinced that he served his nation honourably, and that even as he transferred its nuclear secrets to other countries, âhe was acting on behalf of Pakistan, and with the complicity of its military rulers.â He sleeps poorly at night. Last spring he managed to slip a note out to one of his former lieutenants. It was a scribbled lament in which he asked about General Musharraf, âWhy is this boy doing this to me?â
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I've been wading through the mag article but keep getting interrupted....
#2
Giveing away atomic bomb technology to Iran was not of benifit to the world or Pakistan. I hope he dies a painful death of ass cancer. Serving ones country doesn't include much of what he did.
#4
But the truth is that he was a good husband and father and friend, and he gave large gifts because in essence he was an openhearted and charitable man.â
TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi said Friday that his country seeks "friendship" with the United States and that the time for confrontation with the superpower has passed, according to comments aired on official television. "We need friendship with the United States. America equally needs us and its oil companies can now work in Libya. It's time for reciprocal interests and not confrontation," Gaddafi said at an official ceremony in Syrte, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Tripoli.
Last month US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conferred with her Libyan counterpart Abd al-Rahman Shalgam in New York and said the two one-time foes were on a fast track towards better ties. "We have had a very good discussion of a path toward Libyan-US relations that will lead us to better and better relations between our people, between our governments," Rice told reporters on the sidelines of the current General Assembly session.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#7
Want a friend? Get a dog. Whoops, that would be unislamic.
Posted by: ed ||
10/02/2005 11:41 Comments ||
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#8
Sidiqi is the "woid" and the others I mentioned are used colloquially - at least in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE - places I've spent time in, y'know, like actually physically being there and like actually talking to Arab-type people 'n stuff. That was just gromgoru being, well, gromgoru - a dyspeptic disgruntled mistral wind of long standing. For endless half-baked semi-readable often-cryptic usually-pointless seldom-informative never-conclusive samples, Google the nym within the rantburg.com domain.
#11
I have no problem with Gaddafi's friendship as long as he opens up his intel files to our spooks, helping us find the characters in the Middle East and south Asia, the old USSR funded as well as targeted to be killed. Such information could prove usefull in fighting this new generation of murderers.
He could also open his military files to military historians/military gamers over the Chadian civil war. A lot is not known about Libya's and the USSR's involvement in that 10 year long war.
#13
When he opens up the Whellus O-Club with a ribbon cutting ceremony, then we know we have a friend again.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/02/2005 15:03 Comments ||
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#14
The s-d-q root forms the basis of a colloquial word for 'friend' in most dialects of Arabic - however, that word is used with strangers and those one doesn't really feel close to. Hence .com's experience with it in SA and the Gulf countries. The same root is used for 'charity' and 'dowry', in both cases with the connotation of formal relationships at a bit of an emotional distance.
a-l-'(y) is another root that is sometimes used for 'friend'. It's connotations are 'protector', 'patron', etc.
There are others used for more emotionally close relationships. They differ somewhat among the dialects and countries, sometimes due to different histories / encounters with other cultures and languages. The h-b-b root has meanings ranging from 'pleasant' to 'dear to me' and is sometimes used loosely to mean 'person I care for'.
If you're a westerner who isn't intimately familiar with the country and dialect in question, 'saddiq' is the least offensive option for 'friend'. Just understand that it doesn't mean what 'friend' means in many cases in English.
#15
One thing to keep in mind when trying to learn Arabic is that meaning occurs in the language primarily by metaphor, allusion and figures of speech.
In other words, it is not a language that tends towards simple clear definitions for words. Instead, the 3-consonant roots form the root, as it were, of a spreading tangled bush of connotations, some of them rather poetic and distant from the literal meaning of the root word.
One reason much of standard Arabic is so flowery is that connotations are piled up one on the other to bound the intended meanings of the sentence or paragraph. Often those words are chosen because they invoke well-known writers and works as well, bringing in additional levels of connotation ... I think of them as additional echoes of meaning.
This is true of most languages, of course, but much more true of Arabic than English or the IndoEuropean languages in general.
I did have one "friend" among the Saudis who was actually interesting to talk to. He came from the last tribe to be subjugated by Aziz. I think he said they came from the mountainous area North (IIRC) of Jeddah / West of Medina. His grandfather had fought the Ikhwan - and he and his father had impressed upon him their hatred of the House of Saud. I have no idea how he slipped through his family's blacklisted status (my understanding) and got a job at Aramco, quite a plum among non-royals. When he wanted to tell me something about that topic, he would steer me to a more private location for our smoke - he was obviously worried about anyone hearing. This is the guy that boggled at my little story of taking twins, a little FFM thing, to the drive-in on my birthday, lol. I'll bet he asked me to repeat it 10 times, heh.
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.
The Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, has denied receiving a US request to monitor the charities during the holy month of Ramadan. Dr. Tawfiq al-Sudayri, the ministry's undersecretary for Islamic affairs, rejected the idea of a foreign monitor saying his country is sovereign and cannot allow such a thing to happen. He noted that there is cooperation with friendly and brotherly countries in this matter and said the presence of a foreign monitor is out of the question. The Saudi official explained to "Asharq al-Awsat" that three years ago Saudi Arabia organized the process of contribution in a very precise manner and designated the process of contribution through the known channels and licensed charities. He pointed out that the charities' accounts are open and specific according to the kind of contribution, its target, and its bank and these are monitored by Saudi Arabia's Monetary Authority. He ruled out circumvention or penetration of the systems that the country has established. 
SEOUL: President Roo Moo-hyun gave a strong indication on Saturday that he plans to end the United States' right to control South Korea's armed forces in case of war, a source of lingering resentment here. Roh, elected on a wave of anti-American sentiment in December 2002, made the remarks at a ceremony to celebrate the armed forces' 57th anniversary. 
Islamic radicals have been present in Italy in large numbers since 1992, shortly after the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan. 
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said on Saturday it had released a detainee at the US military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for transfer to Egypt. The Egyptian detainee was âfound no longer to be an enemy combatantâ by a military tribunal, the US Department of Defense said in a statement.
The UN Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee is set to add the names of seven Egyptians this weekend on its consolidated list of individuals and entities related to those two terrorist organisations, a Security Council source told KUNA on Friday.
Hamas has accused the Palestinian Election Committee of distorting the results of a round of municipal voting to make it appear that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party - which came out ahead - swept the poll. Committee head Jamal Shobaki, who released the results, told a news conference on Saturday that Fatah won in 51 of 104 municipalities, and Hamas in 13. The remainder were taken by other factions or coalitions. Thursday's vote was the third of four rounds of municipal elections, and was not necessarily a predictor of parliamentary elections in January because local issues and candidates' clan membership figured heavily. 
President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party won 51 councils in Palestinian local elections with militant group Hamas gaining control of 13, an official said when announcing the final results on Saturday. Of the 104 municipalities up for grabs in the occupied West Bank in the third phase of Palestinian local elections, 40 went to other factions, said Jamal al-Shobaki, head of the Higher Commission for Local Elections.
THE British-educated engineer said to be the key bomb-maker for the group suspected of yesterdayâs Bali bombings learnt his craft in one of Osama Bin Ladenâs Afghan training camps. 
The speaker of Iran's parliament has visited Lebanon and Syria in a mark of solidarity with the two countries and Lebanon's Hizb Allah resistance group. Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel on Saturday visited the graves of more than 100 people killed by Israeli artillery shells as he finished a trip to reaffirm Iranian support for Lebanon and the Hizb Allah. Later on Saturday, Haddad Adel went to Damascus where he said he would discuss with Syrian officials "ways of confronting pressure against Iran and Syria", the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported. 
Those who commit atrocities in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan will face trial by the International Criminal Court, a senior British official said Saturday. "The government of Sudan has should be under no doubt whatsoever, we(the international community) are serious about our commitment to support the International Criminal Court," International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said. "It is doing its work and those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account." The United Nations has condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in western Darfur this week that killed 34 men.
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, claims a15,000-word article in a forthcoming issue of the US magazine Atlantic Monthly, is living in isolation with his European wife, surrounded by guards and security agents, cut off from contact with the outside world, not allowed to read the newspapers or watch television, let alone to use the telephone or the Internet, and held beyond the reach of even the intelligence services of the United States.
TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi said Friday that his country seeks "friendship" with the United States and that the time for confrontation with the superpower has passed, according to comments aired on official television. "We need friendship with the United States. America equally needs us and its oil companies can now work in Libya. It's time for reciprocal interests and not confrontation," Gaddafi said at an official ceremony in Syrte, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Tripoli. 
