Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday threatened to attack Taliban insurgents on Pakistani soil, saying his war-torn country had a right to do so out of "self-defence".
"Why should the Predators have all the fun" Orrin Judd.
"Afghanistan has the right to destroy terrorist nests on the other side of the border in self-defence," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul. "When they cross the border from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and coalition troops, it gives us exactly the right to go back and do the same," he added, in his toughest comments yet on stamping out militancy along the border.
The Afghan leader sent a special warning to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and top Pakistan Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, whom Islamabad believes is responsible for the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto. "Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house," said Karzai. Mehsud has vowed to continue "jihad" (holy war) in Afghanistan while pursuing peace negotiations with the new government in Islamabad -- an initiative that has sparking growing unease in Washington and Kabul.
In talks with Karzai earlier this month in Kabul, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi insisted that Islamabad was not negotiating with "terrorists" but rather "peace-loving" elements that want regional stability. Pakistan has already signed a peace deal with pro-Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, about 99 kilometres (55 miles) from Afghanistan. That has seen soldiers leave the area and the rebels implementing Islamic Sharia law.
The outgoing top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said Friday that attacks increased 50 percent in April in the country's eastern region, where U.S. troops primarily operate, as a spreading Taliban insurgency across the border in Pakistan fueled a surge in violence. No quotation marks around "surge"?
In a sober assessment, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who departed June 3 after 16 months commanding NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, said that although record levels of foreign and Afghan troops have constrained repeated Taliban offensives, stabilizing Afghanistan will be impossible without a more robust military campaign against insurgent havens in Pakistan.
The Taliban is "resurgent in the region," particularly in sanctuaries in Pakistan, and as a result "it's going to be difficult to take on this insurgent group . . . in the broader sort of way," McNeill said at a Pentagon news conference.
Clashes in the east pushed U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan in May to 15, and total foreign troop deaths there to 23, the highest monthly figure since last August.
Indeed, comprehensive data released by the NATO-led command show a steady escalation in violence since NATO took charge of the Afghanistan mission in 2006, spurred in part by more aggressive operations by the alliance and most recently by U.S. Marine battalions in the heavily contested southern province of Helmand. ISAF troops in Afghanistan increased from 36,000 in early 2007 to 52,000 now, while the Afghan army grew from 20,000 to 58,000 soldiers.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/15/2008 06:17 ||
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Gordon Brown made a moving phone call to the wife of a victim of the July 7 bombings in the wake of his Commons victory to hold terror suspects for 42 days. The PM telephoned Jan Brown, whose husband Andy lost both legs in the outrage which claimed 52 lives in 2005. The mother-of-three was having a coffee at home when she picked up the phone to hear the words: "Hello, Jan. It's Gordon Brown."
The PM called Mrs Brown after she sent an emotional email to thank the PM for refusing to cave in to MPs over new powers to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days - instead of the current 28 days. Jan, 51, said last night: "I couldn't believe my ears. The PM said he had been moved by my email and wanted to phone me personally and thank me. I was amazed he'd taken the time to call me. It came totally out of the blue," said Jan, who lives in the Wirral.
In her email, Jan told the PM how grateful she and her husband were that he had shown "determination against all the odds" to win the vote and thanked him for standing up for the victims of terror. She explained how her family were left suffering a "life sentence" in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings in London. Jan said: "I told him that I was angry that do-gooders with no idea how terrorism devastates lives should not be allowed to win the argument.
"After the bombings my children and I waited at my husband's bed in hospital for 85 days, not knowing if he going to live or die. Three years on we're still suffering. Gordon said that he had thought long and hard over his support for 42 days and believed it was right to give the police extra powers. He said wanted to do all he could to prevent further attacks and make sure no other families suffered as we had."
Details of the conversation emerged after top Tory David Davis quit to launch his crusade against the 42-day limit, to the anger of his Tory colleagues.
President tells UK to avoid rushing into troop withdrawals
George Bush flies into London today with a warning for Gordon Brown not to announce a timetable for a British pull-out from Iraq, and expressing deep scepticism about the Prime Minister's high-profile strategy for bringing down world oil prices.
The stern message to the Prime Minister was delivered during an exclusive interview with The Observer, and contrasted with praise for Tony Blair whom Bush is scheduled to meet for breakfast tomorrow ahead of talks in Downing Street. Bush said Blair had never been his 'poodle', but a leader who shared his view that the world is in an 'ideological struggle' and that 'ultimately freedom has to defeat the ideology of hate'.
You begin to think that perhaps Britain's relationship with the US isn't so special any more ...
The President's comments on Brown's Iraq troop plans followed a report last week that a final British pull-out could be announced by the end of the year. The President revealed that he had already had 'discussions' with Brown on the troops issue and was 'appreciative' that Brown was in frequent touch with the Americans about 'what he and his military are thinking'. But while he said both allies obviously wanted to bring their troops home, this could only be 'based upon success'.
On the reported possibility of a formal timetable for major reductions, Bush was unequivocal: 'Our answer is: there should be no definitive timetable.'
He pointedly noted that Brown had retreated last year on the scale of an earlier planned pullout - and that Britain still had 4,200 soldiers in Iraq rather than the projected 3,500. 'I am confident that he, like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unravelled by draw-downs that may not be warranted at this point in time. I look forward to discussing it with him.'
There's your marching orders, Gordo, if you want to stand with us now and in the future ...
The President made clear that, while he did not want to 'second-guess' how other leaders handled their 'internal business', he would not be following Brown's lead in calling a voter who opposed the war and apologising 'for what happened to the people of Iraq'.
Bush said he felt personal 'pain' over the casualties in Iraq - whether of allied troops or innocent civilians. But it was important to put the fact that 'some of the Iraqi people have suffered' in a broader context. He said American and British troops were not 'intentionally killing innocent people', that large numbers had been deliberately killed by Saddam in the years before the war, and that Iraqis were now living under an elected government in a 'free society'.
The President also reacted coolly to Brown's suggestion of a series of international conferences - beginning with a Saudi-hosted meeting of producer and consumer nations on Sunday - to tackle rising world oil prices. Bush called it an 'interesting idea', but warned against expectations of any major short-term improvement and made it clear he had no plans to go. 'I'm going to go home and take a look at what it all means and I'll decide who's going to attend on our behalf,' Bush said.
He had already been urging King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to increase production. But he said: 'There's no magic wand. It took us a while to get to where we are. It's going to take us a while to get out of it. And the truth of the matter is that there's either got to be more supply or less demand. And demand doesn't decline overnight' - particularly with 'big consumers of hydrocarbons' such as China 'subsidising their populations'.
Bush's comments during the wide-ranging interview, at the US ambassador's residence in Rome, underlined a shift from the administration's primary 'special relationship' with Britain in favour of a wider range of European partnerships including Germany, Italy and France - all of which recently elected broadly pro-American leaders.
He delivered a major policy address during his final presidential trip to Europe not in Britain, but France - which he called America's 'first friend'. He cited a quartet of European leaders - 'Berlusconi and Brown and Merkel and Sarkozy' - in signalling a more 'powerful and purposeful Europe' in closer international alliance with the US.
Bush is trying to mend fences. You could argue that he could have done this earlier. But the big message is that he's cutting Brown out.
During the 40-minute interview Bush said Iran's nuclear programme was the single greatest international threat. His goal was to win European backing for tougher economic sanctions and head off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
He welcomed 'discussions' on climate change, and said he would use next month's G8 summit to press other leaders to deliver on a pledge to match billions of dollars in US aid to fight HIV-Aids and malaria.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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From what I read, it's refining capacity, not oil shortage that's the bottleneck.(Plenty of oil, not enough refineries)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/15/2008 15:30 Comments ||
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Sorry, wrong thread, moderators please remove, Thank You
Jim D
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/15/2008 15:32 Comments ||
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Never mind Saudi Arabia. In the state of Ohio alone US$1 billion of oil and gas were produced last year, and the drilling of new wells has apparently trended upward fairly steadily for the past decade. (see link) Clearly the issue for the U.S., at least, is limited refineries. Are the Louisiana refineries back on-line yet, after Hurrican Katrina?
Who? Oh, him. Old codger, just like Carter, just as anti-Semitic, and just as senile.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Former White House National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said US President George W. Bush should privately dissuade Israel from carrying out any military strike against Iran in an attempt to cripple its peaceful nuclear program. In an interview on Bloomberg Television's 'Political Capital with Al Hunt,' Brzezinski said an armed conflict between Israel and Iran would widen to include the US as Iran struck back against American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Concerns about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran were raised last week by comments from a senior Israeli official. Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a contender for prime minister, told the Yediot Ahronot daily that sanctions haven't worked and Israel would have to attack if Iran doesn't abandon the nuclear effort.
Brzezinski said if Israel launches a military strike on Iran, "they (Iranians) will retaliate against us. And then we will be tempted to retaliate against Iran, and we'll be drawn into a very destructive conflict from which we will not extricate ourselves for many years to come."
Depends on the nature of the retaliation ...
Brzezinski said the most effective strategy for dealing with Iran's nuclear program would be a combination of economic sanctions and positive incentives to negotiate.
Sanctions aren't working very well, and Iran has already spurned 'positive incentives' from the EU-3. Brilliant.
He said threats of military action are "counterproductive" because they unite the Iranian population in opposition to the US.
Which means the challenge is to de-cap the leadership without hitting the population ...
Brzezinski said Bush has leverage to discourage an Israeli strike because Israeli warplanes would have to fly through airspace controlled by the US in order to attack Iran, and the US could deny permission to do so. "We have to make a judgment," he said. "Is this in our interest or isn't it? We're going to be blamed for it. If we're going to be blamed for it, then we have to really decide whether we want this to happen."
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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Brzezinski said an armed conflict between Israel and Iran would widen to include the US as Iran struck back against American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The certitude of a traitor making preemptive choices in public... thanks for the back stab asshole... plz crawl back under your rock and fucking stay there!
#5
Brzezinski is one of those left over political hacks from the despicable Carter era, most responsible for manipulating Iran's fall to the very Shi'ite madmen threating global stability today, and this globalist swine has the nerve to warn Israel, the very nation the Iranians have sworn to their moon god to exterminate!
For Moscow's supported, brutal Iranian dictatorship, time is not on their side.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
06/15/2008 4:21 Comments ||
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Brzezinski also thought communism had many intriguing possibilities to offer us.
#7
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 8:20 Comments ||
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If America, Israel, and the European Union keep sowing the winds of their psychotic obsessions regarding Iran, they will sooner or later reap whirlwinds infinitely worse than a nuclear Iran. Russia, China, and a host of other nations are watching and listening. They grow wearier and wearier of America, Israel, and the European Union swaggering about as bullies. They are particularly irked by America's arrogance and will conspire against her. World War III is coming. The Ides of April 2014 will bring nothing good for America. By the way, a nasty surprise awaits America in early September of 2014. A month or so before then, her economy will lurch past the point of no return. Her economic skies will darken and remain ominous on Election Day. The news is worse on Inauguration Day or soon thereafter. Her stalwarts and lovers better start preparing for a depression that shall prove far worse the so-called Great Depression.
Have a nice day....
Posted by: James Trusty ||
06/15/2008 8:23 Comments ||
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hi James! Bite me!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/15/2008 8:35 Comments ||
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The Ides of April 2014 will bring nothing good for America.
OMFG!!! He's right!!!! Windows XP will no longer be supported!!!!!
#13
"Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"
This arrogant delusiona ahole is taking credit for winning the Cold War when he is the one responsible for the policies that ENCOURAGED the soviet union to expand?
Gimme a break Z - along with Jimmy the worst pres of the 20th, you join the list as worst Nat'l Sec Adv.
#17
Poor Mr. Trusty lives in a very parochial environment. University, perhaps? His English is quit good for his type. His knowledge of the world, however...
They are particularly irked by America's arrogance and will conspire against her. World War III is coming.
Mr. trusty, they've been conspiring in corners for the better part of a century, including Russia, and thus far it's come to naught. And, since they send their best and brightest to the U.S. to study and be seduced by our freedoms and comforts, that is likely to continue. Unless, of course, they join a jihadi group, in which case they'll end up in Guantanamo Bay cages, spending the rest of their lives flying back and forth to Mainland court houses -- an thoroughly unfulfilling lifestyle, I fear.
World War III is coming.
I'm so sorry, my dear Mr. Trusty. World War III was the Cold War. You'll remember that one: America beat the Soviet Union, which subsequently ceased to exist. World War IV is the war against the jihadis. The one you're thinking about is World War V, which China plans to wage in a decade or two, before they run up against the aging of their millions of excess males caused by an ongoing rash of female infanticides.They aren't likely to do much more than destroy Taiwan and Japan, though, and get rid of their excess males -- they haven't the proper equipment for the kind of war they want. Even little suburban housewives out here in the Midwest know that.
To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs very, very small ones so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil. Wood chips are already scarce in our area because of demand from pellet makers.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls renewable petroleum. After that, he grins, its a brave new world.
Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. All of us here everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency, Mr Pal says.
What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this Oil 2.0 will not only be renewable but also carbon negative meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made. Personally I prefer electric because that allows central power generation which is cleaner and more efficient. But if this is what it takes to put the jockeys back on their camels, I'll go for it.
One of my electrical engineering professors was fond of saying, "Invent a better battery and you'll be the richest person in the world." He would also go on to note that such had been the case for several decades and yet no one had accomplished the task. Until and unless someone does abandoning hydrocarbons as fuels for vehicles just isn't going to happen.
#5
How big does a battery have to be to contain the energy contained in a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline?
BTUs to Kilowatt-hours, anyone?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/15/2008 14:29 Comments ||
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Bobby, it depends. Rechargable? Environmental cost? Financial cost? Size? The key is to come up with something in the price range of lead-acid but lighter, smaller, & at least not worse for the environment.
Bugs can be very useful - he says, as he sips a cold bottle of yeast excrement.
#8
How big does a battery have to be to contain the energy contained in a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline?
35KWHs depending on the gasoline. But an electric motor is several times more efficient than a gasoline engine. Thats enough to power a passenger car 140 miles. You can figure a passenger size car will get about 4 miles from 1KWH of battery drained. The caveat is you do not want to fully drain most batteries or the life will drastically shorten. For instance the Chevy Volt runs 40 miles on it's 16HWH battery (88 miles for 35HWH) though GM is being overly conservative.
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2008 14:48 Comments ||
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Mr. Pal's efforts will all be for naught when Holly-weird produces a sci-fi movie "The Muir Woods Syndrome" starring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. In this fright film Pal's bugs get loose in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and turn the forest to crude oil which pollutes San Francisco Bay. In reaction to this tragedy Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer demand that all research to convert waste to fuel be stopped. OPEC applauds their bold initiative.
#10
#1: This also has the interesting implication of what if such a microbe existed before?
"Moose" I'm with you here, Oil as bacterial waste has a very nice ring to it, we're burning Millennia old Bugshit, not just the fern bogs themselves but the bacterial waste .
(Makes me woner if there was an advanced Civilization before ours, Glaciers have erased any evidence, either way).
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/15/2008 15:13 Comments ||
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GK - I'd not seen that but it's both a wonderful idea and a wonderful illustration of why we should let the market develop solutions rather than allowing government to mandate them. But ye gads, a 75 HP automobile? That's barely half of what my motorcycle made prior to the turbocharger having been installed. ;)
Purely my opinion but I've always thought that electric vehicles would be of limited utility until they were able to clear a couple of benchmarks: a) 300 miles per charge; b) 10 minute full recharge; and c) cost of ownership equal to or less than an equivalent gasoline or diesel powered vehicle. In other words, you really have to build it so that it can be used just like a vehicle that features an internal combustion engine. Otherwise people will have to buy a couple of electrics for their commutes but still maintain a separate vehicle for trips. Not very cost effective that.
Cost of ownership is a bit sticky. From the details I've seen of late hybrids are running $3.5 - $5k or more higher than comparable gasoline powered vehicles and require replacement of their battery packs at regular intervals. Said battery packs are $3.5k (wholesale cost to purchase Prius batteries) and up. From a total cost of ownership perspective even hybrids don't yet make economic sense. They're a fine idea but they're going to have to be truly competitive if they're to succeed.
#12
GK, That "Air powered Car" has some serious drawbacks, mainly temperature, it freezes up and has to be heated to work, fine in a hot climate, lousy in all northern states and Canada.(And wherever it's near freezing outside, kinda eliminates mountain areas)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/15/2008 15:27 Comments ||
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None of the Prius battery packs sold in America (Gen 2 and 3) have had to be replaced. They also come with a 100,000 mile warranty. If you damage the battery pack in an accident, a new replacement battery pack will run $3,000 including the 100% markup, used less than $1000.
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2008 15:31 Comments ||
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it freezes up and has to be heated to work
I believe that's one of the problems the secondary burner is supposed to solve. You also get free air conditioning from the expanding air.
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2008 15:37 Comments ||
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None of the Prius battery packs sold in America (Gen 2 and 3) have had to be replaced.
That's pretty impressive given that they were introduced in 2001. My car battery usually doesn't get more than 5 years.
#16
The Toyota engineers have found little degradation after 150,000 miles. Batteries are killed by either draining to 0% or over charging or extreme temp variation. The Prius tries to keep it's battery charge somewhere in the middle.
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2008 15:58 Comments ||
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Wonder what the little buggers would excrete if they ate Congresswaste?
#18
The high price of gasoline may be a case of turning lemons into lemonade. It may just be the impetus needed to get us away from OPEC and middle east oil. Faster please. If the money is cut off to the mid east for oil we might see much of the large-scale organized terrorism such as created 911 dry up without oil money.
Posted by: Alaska Paul back home ||
06/15/2008 18:25 Comments ||
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None of the Prius battery packs sold in America (Gen 2 and 3) have had to be replaced.
That is indeed very impressive. I'm aware that manufacturers are claiming 150-200k mile lifetimes for hybrid battery packs but with relatively little long-term data I'll remain a skeptic for a bit yet. Besides, I think I can get another 500-600k out of my M/B land yacht and by that time I'll be dead so I'll probably never face a hybrid buying decision that's anything other than a curiosity. ;)
The high price of gasoline may be a case of turning lemons into lemonade.
Yes but it has a fairly limited shelf-life. Just as alternatives begin to come into their own the oil bubble will burst and once again rearrange the economics of energy. I continue to believe that current oil prices are a bit of a perfect storm rather than a true supply and demand issue.
#22
Oh and ed - I think $3k w/100% markup is a bit optimistic. Toyota dealers have stated $4.5k and I've heard folks say that Toyota mechanics claim the part alone costs the dealership $3k. I will grant though that those may be dated numbers.
A federal jury in Toledo, Ohio, has convicted three men for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to engage in a conspiracy to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 28, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, 45, and Wassim Mazloum, 27, were charged with planning to travel to Iraq after training in the use of weapons and explosives. They face maximum sentences of life in prison. Defense attorneys at the trial said that the FBI had entrapped the men by using a confidential informant who was referenced in court documents only as "The Trainer."
The three men, two U.S. citizens originally from Jordan and one U.S. resident from Lebanon, had been living in the Toledo area for about a year before they were arrested. Amawi was born in the United States and also has Jordanian citizenship. El Hindi is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Jordan, and Mazloum is a U.S. legal permanent resident from Lebanon.
The government alleged in the trial that Amawi was the leader who provided the other men with an instructional guide on developing explosive compounds. The evidence submitted at the trial included a video called "Martyrdom Operation Vest Preparation," which included step-by-step instructions for designing an explosive vest, with techniques such as packing steel pellets and ball bearings into the explosives for shrapnel. During the trial, the government also showed the jury pictures of Amawi lying with his eyes closed in a wooden box resembling a coffin, which the government alleged could have been used for propaganda if he had undertaken his mission and had been killed.
According to U.S. counterterrorism officials, the operation was believed to be the first case in the U.S. of a domestic cell that was plotting attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq. In the superseding indictment, the Justice Department also brought charges against El Hindi's cousins, Zubair Ahmed and Khaleel Ahmed. They are to face trial early next year.
Following the verdict, C. Frank Figliuzzi, special agent in charge of the FBI's Cleveland field office, said, "This case demonstrates the stark reality of homegrown terrorism. If a plot like this can be developed in Toledo, Ohio, it can happen anywhere. With radical extremists in our midst, the FBI works day and night with our law enforcement and intelligence partners to pursue suspected terrorists and their supporters."
President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House. Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place, said a US intelligence source.
He's left the world a safer place just by removing Saddam and his evil spawn.
The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.
The hunt was completely sanctioned by the Pakistani government, according to a UK special forces source. It involves the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to take out specific terrorist targets.
Better to zap Binny with a Hellfire than to allow him to demand habeas corpus ...
One US intelligence source compared the growing number of clandestine reconnaissance missions inside Pakistan with those conducted in Laos and Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam war.
Nice swipe at us by a hostile reporter ...
Intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden is sketchy, but some analysts believe he is in the Bajaur tribal zone in northwest Pakistan. He has evaded capture for nearly seven years. Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope of scoring a home run, said an intelligence source, using a baseball metaphor.
A Pentagon source said US forces were rolling up Al-Qaedas network in Pakistan in the hope of pushing Bin Laden towards the Afghan border, where the US military and bombers with guided missiles were lying in wait. They are prepping for a major battle, he said.
The main operations in Pakistan are being undertaken by Delta, the US army special operations unit, and the British SBS. Special forces are being sent to capture or kill Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters based on intelligence provided by the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and its US counterpart, the Security Co-ordination Detachment.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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Yeah, but I suspect Binny is already pushing up daisies. The most recent videos look like a bunch of cheap media edits made in a cave.
#5
This headline has come up once or twice (or perhaps more) before. But for all we know, this really is the first time British special forces have been involved in hunting across the Pakistani border. I'd think they'd been a bit preoccupied on the Afghan side up until the recent surge of U.S. Marines. I do find it a bit difficult to believe a British source would use a baseball metaphor, though... and I've never heard of the Security Coordination Detachment, but my ignorance certainly isn't meaningful.
Perhaps the Times reporter has been buying drinks at the retired sources pub again.
An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.
The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states. Multiple computers? More than one businessman? I wonder how they found that?
The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network. "These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in a draft report about the blueprint's discovery. A copy of the report, expected to be published later this week, was provided to The Washington Post.
The A.Q. Khan smuggling ring was previously known to have provided Libya with design information for a nuclear bomb. But the blueprints found in 2006 are far more troubling, Albright said in his report. While Libya was given plans for an older and relatively unsophisticated weapon that was bulky and difficult to deliver, the newly discovered blueprints offered instructions for building a compact device, the report said. The lethality of such a bomb would be little enhanced, but its smaller size might allow for delivery by ballistic missile.
"To many of these countries, it's all about size and weight," Albright said in an interview. "They need to be able to fit the device on the missiles they have." Why not buy a black-market suitcase nuke and reverse-engineer it? It wouldn't even have to be operable.
The Swiss government acknowledged this month that it destroyed nuclear-related documents, including weapons-design details, under the direction of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to keep them from falling into terrorists' hands. However, it has not been previously reported that the documents included hundreds of pages of specifications for a second, more advanced nuclear bomb.
"These would have been ideal for two of Khan's other major customers, Iran and North Korea," wrote Albright, now president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "They both faced struggles in building a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop their ballistic missiles, and these designs were for a warhead that would fit."
It is unknown whether the designs were delivered to either country, or to anyone else, Albright said. Thanks Dave. I can sleep better knowing you can't figure it out. I vote for waterboarding anyone close to these Swiss "businessmen" to find out for sure.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/15/2008 05:25 ||
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Nowhere in this article do I see the words "China" or "Chinese". Very strange when one considers who designed this warhead.
Those AQ Khan blueprints were for Chicom4, the fourth Chinese test, a missile deliverable, 1 m diameter, implosion weapon using HEU that weighed 500 kg.
A still from that October 1966 nuclear test shows the warhead before it is mated to the DF-2 ballistic missile
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 7:03 Comments ||
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#2
Estimated weapon diameter inside the DF-2 RV
You can say what you want about AQ Khan, the fact remains that this is a Chinese weapon design and has no business outside a Chinese design lab.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 7:07 Comments ||
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#3
According to the NYT, these designs were modified from the original Chinese ones found in Libya.
The electronics were modernized and the weapon is said to be half the size and twice the yield - suggesting modifications like hollow pit + tritium boosting and explosive lens redesign.
If so, this is from MA Khan's PAEC and not AQ Khan's KRL. How will Perv explain this one?
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 8:56 Comments ||
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#4
Lets be honest, once you know it's possible to do + you know the physics, the design can't be too hard to come up with.
#5
Pakistan still required the Chinese designs. They also imported their ballistic missiles.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 12:45 Comments ||
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#6
John F. Quite right. Only Chinese/ Russians can supply these designs, not the f**king, useless Paks. They are only good for spreading it, so the Chicoms can cover their tracks. I imagine that the Mossad has known this for some time and is why they are very worried. As I speculated some time ago, this is why the Mullahs are making such propaganda pronouncements daily. They have working weapons, not produced by themselves, and they are fairly confident that they will detonate. Something they could not be sure of with their own contraptions. What they have made progress on is long range rockets. That's really why time has run out.
#7
There are all sorts of claims made that one can buy nukes on the black market or some Physics graduate students can build a bomb in their basements.
Well, Gadaffi offered a billion dollars and still could not buy one. Saddam would probably be alive and ruling Iraq now if he had managed to buy or build one.
Nation states have tried and failed to build nuclear weapons. South Africa ended up building relatively crude gun type weapons even though it had a fairly sophisticated arms industry.
Today a lot more is known about the behavior of Pu and U. Computers are vastly more powerful. So bomb making is within the reach of many more nations.
It however still requires the resources of a nation state, one that has a relatively advanced scientific and industrial base.
For smaller nations, the AQ Khan supplied designs and centrifuge equipment are the way to go.
The nuclear equivalent of paint by numbers
Posted by: john frum ||
06/15/2008 13:10 Comments ||
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#8
Nuclear weapons and Radical Islam is a sure way to their destruction. Suppose they have a few working bombs. We have enough to wipe them off the face of the earth and the means to deliver them, aside from the Israeli factor. What these evil people don't seem to understand is that they are on a path of total obliteration. You could reason with the Russians, you can't with these blind fanatics.
This problem can't go away until the core of their belief is destroyed. That integration has already happened. Its just a matter of when it will be implemented.
#9
The problem is not a few bombs but thousands. Just the new Pakistani heavy water reactors is believed to produce enough plutonium for 50 bombs/year. Quite a jump from the old reactor's production of 2/year. Same for Iran who in addition to 50,000 centrifuges are also building heavy water reactors. If you think the threat is bad now, just wait 20 years.
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2008 14:33 Comments ||
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#10
What these evil people don't seem to understand is that they are on a path of total obliteration.
#11
Indeed they do. But they believe if they set themselves on the path to self-destruction, that will force their god to intervene on the side of his worshipers, bringing about their version of the End Times. Iran's President Ahmadenijad's Twelfth Imam is only one version of that belief; Al Qaeda believed attacking the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the White House/Congress would have the same effect. Clearly A.Q, at least, was wrong.
#12
Behavior that is rewarded, is reinforced TW. The World (both "Western" & "Eastern"---IMO, the only serious attempt to deal with them in terms they can understand & respect was by Serbs. And we all know how that ended.) has been rewarding Muslim aggression for 4 generations now.
LAHORE: The lawyers are now considering a train march as a follow-up to their successful long march, SCBA President Aitzaz Ahsan said on Saturday. He told Aaj TV that a date for the train march would be announced after consultations with political parties and bar councils. He said the main objective of the long march had been to mobilise the country, adding that there would be no compromise on the judges reinstatement. There was no call for a sit-in, he said, claiming that the programme provided to the press had stated that the lawyers would decide on the sit-in after reaching parliament.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
When do we see the Pak army step in and put a stop to all this BS? These people are stupid.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/15/2008 15:58 Comments ||
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TEHRAN: Pakistan has handed over four Iranian militants to Iran, including the brother of a Sunni militant leader in restive southeastern Iran, AP quoted Iranian state media as reporting on Saturday. The handover took place as part of a security pact between Iran and Pakistan, state television said.
Jundallah (Army of Allah) leader Abdolmalek Rigis brother Abdolhamid Rigi was handed over to Iran on Friday night, the IRNA news agency said. Rigi had been jailed in Quetta over the past year, IRNA said, adding that he had sought to declare himself along with 15 others as Pakistani nationals. But he was handed over after officials presented evidence that these people are to be prosecuted in Iran, it said.
The Rigis are members of Irans ethnic Balochi minority, which can also be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rigi has claimed his group fights for the rights of Sunni Muslims oppressed by Irans Shia government.
Balochis tend to have a problem on both sides of the border. Real shame they don't have their own country ...
Meanwhile, Pakistan has launched a search for 16 Iranian border guards who were kidnapped by Jundallah militants on Thursday and taken them across the border into Pakistan.
Jundallah has claimed a string of attacks and kidnappings in the Sistan-Balochistan area, which is home to a substantial Sunni ethnic Baloch community. The area lies on a major narcotics route from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The militant organisation on Saturday said it had carried out the kidnappings to press Iran to release jailed Jundullah activists.
Jundullah spokesman Abdul Rauf told Quetta Press Club over telephone from an undisclosed location that the group would kill the hostages if the Iranian government did not release the activists by two weeks, NNI reported. Television channels quoted Rauf as saying that 12 out of 28 border guards initially abducted were released. Shia-majority Iran has in the past accused the United States of backing Jundallah and inciting unrest in its minority-populated border areas.
If we're not we should be ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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ISLAMABAD: No unconstitutional way will be adopted to remove President Pervez Musharraf, Adviser to Prime Minister for Interior Rehman Malik said on Saturday.
Of course, shooting is still constitutional in Pakistain. Or they could insert Perv into a plane crash. Happens all the time.
The issue of the sacked judges restoration will be reviewed after the passing of budget in parliament, Online quoted him as telling reporters. He also said there was no link between the National Reconciliation Ordinance and President Musharrafs political survival.
Commenting on the lawyers movement, he said long march was the first such march in Pakistans history, which ended without violence, adding that only 15,000 to 20,000 people took part in the march. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is a part of the lawyers movement for judicial restoration. Dozens of its workers have made sacrifices for the cause. PPP leader Israr Shah, who lost his legs in a bomb blast while attending at a reception for sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in July 2007, is participating in the movement. The PPP-led government had released salaries of 29 sacked judges, he said.
We will reinstate the judges, but according to the law, he told AP. Nothing will be done which could create another constitutional crisis.
Malik pointed out that a clause to increase the number of Supreme Court judges was inserted into the budget bill to underline the PPPs commitment to reinstating the sacked judges. I think people are understanding that we are moving in the right direction, he said. We know the aspirations of the nation, we will fulfil them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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It's hard to keep track of who wants who dead, arrested or exiled in Pakiwakiland ...
KARACHI - A court here yesterday issued fresh warrants of arrests of all the accused in the attempted murder of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, and adjourned the hearing until June 28. The court order came following the police having nominated further two law-enforcement personnel that increased the number of suspects to seven.
Deputy Suprintendent of Police Aman Javed, who was in-charge of the CIA centre at the time of alleged murderous attack on Zardari, and Inspector Naveed Saeed from Punjab Police are the two police officers newly nominated in the case.
Earlier, the police had submitted a report of non-arrest of the nominated accused in the case stating that the wanted accused in the case that included former Accountability Bureau chairman, Saifur Rahman, Mujibur Rahman, ex-IG Sindh, Rana Maqbool and Fauque Amin Quraishi, have so far avoided arrest.
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06/15/2008 00:00 ||
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has concluded that Israel should exchange the perpetrator of a terror attack for two Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon for the past two years.
Samir Kantar is serving multiple life sentences for killing four Israelis in a 1979 attack on an apartment building in northern Israel. Among the dead were a 28-year-old man and his four-year-old daughter. Her mother, who was hiding in a crawl space, accidentally smothered her other daughter while trying to silence the two-year-old's cries.
Israel had hoped Kantar would be a bargaining chip to wrest information from Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas about the fate of a missing Israeli navigator captured in Lebanon in 1986. But Mr Olmert and other senior Israeli leaders have concluded Hezbollah has no new information about navigator Ron Arad, the government officials said. And he is willing to swap Kantar for two Israeli soldiers Hezbollah seized in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a month-long war with Israel, they added. Soldiers Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are believed to have been badly wounded during their capture, and Hezbollah has offered no proof they are alive.
Mr Olmert plans to meet with the Arad family on Tuesday to inform them about the impending deal, the officials said. Mr Arad was forced to parachute out of his fighter jet on a mission over Lebanon in October 1986 after one of his aircraft's bombs apparently malfunctioned. The jet's pilot was rescued by Israeli forces, but Mr Arad was captured by guerrillas from the Shiite Amal organisation. There have been reports that Mr Arad later was transferred to Hezbollah and then to Iran, but no reliable evidence of his fate has ever surfaced. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said last year that he believed Mr Arad was dead.
The Islamist movement Hamas on Sunday marked the first year of its Gaza Strip takeover in a state of war with Israel but unchallenged by the Palestinians in its besieged coastal enclave. "We cannot deny that the pressure and the siege has been very painful for the Palestinian people. You will not find a people anywhere in the world who have self-inflicted endured what our people have," Hamas MP Salah al-Bardawil said. "But in the end America and Israel have not succeeded in separating the Palestinian people from Hamas," the senior Hamas official told AFP.
No celebrations were planned in Gaza to mark the occasion when Hamas gunmen drove forces loyal to president Mahmud Abbas from the beleaguered coastal strip, cleaving the Palestinian territories into rival camps. "The stabilisation that took place a year ago was never part of the goals of Hamas," Bardawil said, but was forced on the movement because of what Hamas said was a campaign of violence orchestrated by Israel and the United States.
In the months leading up to the takeover as gunmen from rival factions clashed in the streets, Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction agreed to form a national unity government to try to stem the violence roiling the territory. The agreement "did not please the United States of America and Israel and so they wanted to drag them down to the depths. This is what led to their failure," according to Bardawil.
"The coup in Gaza, of which the coup-makers are now celebrating the first anniversary, will not last another year," said Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah strongman blamed for much of the violence in Gaza that preceded the takeover. "What Hamas has done has been more destructive to Palestinian society than all the actions of the (Israeli) occupation itself."
Hamas had no experience of governance before it won democratic Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, but it now manages some 20,000 civil servants, runs the courts, and has a police force of several thousand. In line with Islamic principles, the black-clad police target those suspected of drug dealing, running booze or stealing cars, and have virtually eliminated the public display of firearms, once ubiquitous on Gaza streets. But Hamas is also accused by human rights groups of torturing jailed members of Abbas's Fatah movement.
Earlier this month Abbas reached out to Hamas, calling for a return to dialogue and seeming to drop his earlier insistence that the Islamists first return Gaza to his control. Dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya responded by saying that his movement wanted national reconciliation and talks based on "neither victor nor vanquished."
Hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday, top defense officials and IDF officers slammed a recently-launched US initiative, under which Palestinian soldiers have deployed in Nablus and Jenin. According to the officials, since some 600 Palestinian soldiers were allowed to deploy in Jenin last month, terrorist activity has increased in the West Bank city.
On Sunday morning, a 20-kilogram explosive device detonated next to an Israeli military force operating in the city without causing any casualties. Sources in the IDF Central Command said that the large bomb was set off by an advanced detonation system. "The PA forces in the city are not combating the terrorists," one source said. "They are taking action to enforce law and order but they are doing nothing about terror which has grown in the past month since they deployed in Jenin." Another defense official said that even those terror suspects that were arrested by the PA forces were usually released days or even hours later. "There is no effective judicial system in the city," the official said.
A top officer in the Central Command also warned that weapons the US was providing to the PA forces were finding their way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin as well as in Nablus, where 3,000 PA policemen and soldiers have deployed over the past year. In addition, terrorists have infiltrated the PA police and military ranks, he said.
The training of the force in Jenin and Nablus has been overseen by Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, the US Security Coordinator to Israel and the PA. Dayton has overseen the deployment in Nablus up close and was also involved in the recent deployment of PA forces in Jenin.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived here last night for two days of talks and criticized proposed housing expansion in Jerusalem over the Green Line as undermining the US-backed push for peace.
As Rice arrived, she appeared more exasperated with the Israeli construction than she has in past condemnations of announcements of building plans that have often come just before or after her visits in the past 18 months. I wonder what Dr Rice would be doing this time next year?
Getting her fantasy football league ready for the fall season ...
The Call is a military manual written in a strikingly secular at times even avant-garde idiom. His aim in writing is no different from what it was when he trained mujahedin at camps in Afghanistan: to produce better, smarter fighters, and to defeat the enemy. Most of his arguments, he emphasises, are not drawn from religious doctrines or the laws about what is forbidden (haram) and permitted (halal) in Islam, but from individual judgments based on lessons drawn from experience: Reality, not God, is the greatest witness.
Though he embroiders his arguments with the occasional quote from the Koran, he clearly prefers to discuss the modern literature of guerrilla warfare. Jihadis who fail to learn from Western sources are ridiculed for their inability to think outside the box.
Just as weirdly familiar is al-Suris celebration of nomadic fighters, mobile armies, autonomous cells, individual actions and decentralisation, which recalls not only Deleuze and Guattaris Mille Plateaux, but the idiom of flexible capitalism in the age of Google and call centres. His vision of jihadis training themselves in mobile camps and houses, presumably from their laptops, is not so far removed from our own off-site work world.
Guerrilla life has rarely seemed so sterile, so anomic, so unlikely to promote esprit de corps. The constraints of the New World Order make jihad a rather grim, lonely crusade, a form of private combat cut off from the movements mostly imagined following. Al-Suri seems to acknowledge this when he says that the best kind of training occurs on the battlefield, which has a particular fragrance.
On 31 October 2005, after breaking the Ramadan fast with a group of bearded men, he smelled that fragrance for the last time during a gunfight in Quetta with his former allies in Pakistan intelligence. At least one of al-Suris dinner companions was killed but he was unharmed. There had been strict orders from above: the Americans wanted to talk to him. He hasnt been heard from since, and in spite of the objections of prosecutors like the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who was on to al-Suri long before the Americans had heard of him, the CIA refuses to say where hes being held.
#1
I was reading an article by a writer who name escapes me. The gist of his article was that the "term" jihadi and jihadist glorifies the people who carry out terrorists acts. The terms refer to holy war and holy warrior. Such terms are terms of reverence and endearment in the muslim world. He made a case for calling them terrorists instead of jihadists. This has probably shown up here before. Even in our government (U.S.) the term terrorist seems to have lost favor and is not PC. I don't know why this has occurred unless it is the leftocrats of our government having influence.
Several weeks after Jerusalem announced the renewal of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria, one senior member of the foreign ministry suggested that if Israel did not willingly give up the Golan, then Syria would take it by force. Who says Arabs don't have death wish?
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.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday threatened to attack Taliban insurgents on Pakistani soil, saying his war-torn country had a right to do so out of "self-defence". 
President tells UK to avoid rushing into troop withdrawals
A federal jury in Toledo, Ohio, has convicted three men for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to engage in a conspiracy to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 28, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, 45, and Wassim Mazloum, 27, were charged with planning to travel to Iraq after training in the use of weapons and explosives. They face maximum sentences of life in prison. Defense attorneys at the trial said that the FBI had entrapped the men by using a confidential informant who was referenced in court documents only as "The Trainer." 
The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.
ISLAMABAD: No unconstitutional way will be adopted to remove President Pervez Musharraf, Adviser to Prime Minister for Interior Rehman Malik said on Saturday.
The Islamist movement Hamas on Sunday marked the first year of its Gaza Strip takeover in a state of war with Israel but unchallenged by the Palestinians in its besieged coastal enclave. "We cannot deny that the pressure and the siege has been very painful for the Palestinian people. You will not find a people anywhere in the world who have 
Hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday, top defense officials and IDF officers slammed a recently-launched US initiative, under which Palestinian soldiers have deployed in Nablus and Jenin. According to the officials, since some 600 Palestinian soldiers were allowed to deploy in Jenin last month, terrorist activity has increased in the West Bank city. 
