A new 66-member parliament for the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland was sworn in Thursday, a committee of elders said.
The meeting of government elders was attended by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who became Puntland's president in 1998 and resigned as Somali president on December 29. "I am urging you to be united and respect each other, also think about your people," Yusuf, who stepped down as head of neighbouring Somalia's transitional administration on Monday, told the lawmakers.
Puntland's leading elder Islan Iise Mohamed told AFP that the newly-appointed parliament would elect the territory's president on January 8, with a three-year mandate. "The main priority in Puntland is for peace and people living together in harmony," he said.
Fifteen candidates are vying for the post, but the frontrunners are believed to be incumbent president Adde Musa Hirsi, and opposition contenders Abdurahman Farole and Ali Abdi Aware.
The coast of Puntland is a major hub for the ransom-seeking pirates that have turned the Gulf of Aden into the world's most dangerous waters, wreaking panic in the world's shipping industry.
(Xinhua) -- Somalia's caretaker President Sheik Aden Madoobe, who is also the speaker of parliament, on Thursday pledged to organize the selection of a president within the thirty-day deadline set by the transitional federal charter.
Madoobe, who took over the presidency after Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned as president on Monday, spoke in the Parliament in the southern town of Baidoa for the first time as the country's caretaker President, telling lawmakers that a committee will be set up to organize the selection of a new president "as soon as possible".
"I will work to uphold the national charter and we will form a committee to organize the selection of the president within the thirty-day duration stipulated by our charter," Madoobe told lawmakers.
Former President Yusuf resigned to culminate worsening political disagreement with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein after international pressure on him mounted.
Madoobe in his address to the parliament appealed to the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Somalia to replace Ethiopian troops who will withdraw from the country within the first week of January.
A UN-sponsored power sharing agreement between the Somali transitional government and a key opposition faction stipulates the expansion of the current parliament to include opposition members and the election of new leadership for the war-torn Horn of Africa country early this year.
The caretaker President, who also chaired the parliament session, urged parliamentarians who were absent from Baidoa, the seat of the legislature body, to return to the town within seven days "in order to participate in the selection of a president for the country".
According to the transitional federal charter, two-thirds of the parliament members is required for the election of a president.
He warned the lawmakers who were not in attendance that "they will face replacement if they failed to return", saying they should tend their resignation if they are not ready to serve their country so that a replacement will be nominated by their clans.
Somali parliamentarians have been nominated by their respective clan elders and factional leaders during the formation of the current legislative assembly in the 2004 national reconciliation conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
Several lawmakers are currently outside the country while others have left for other areas in Somalia, including nearly twenty-five pro-Yusuf members of parliament who flew to Galkacyo aday before Yusuf resigned, citing "insecurity and harassment" for their departure.
Madoobe promised that security will be strengthened in Baidoa where a lawmaker was killed by unknown gunmen as attacks on Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies have recently been steadily increasing.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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CAIRO - Ezzat Abdel-Rahman says Palestinians are suffering great injustice at the hands of Israel but they should have followed Egypts lead and long ago made peace with the Jewish state.
He also says Egypt should not open its border with Gaza to let Palestinians flee the six-day Israeli assault, as demanded by Hamas militants and many Arabs. This could get Egypt into trouble with Israel, said the 42-year-old, who runs a shop selling shoes in central Cairo. Israel could accuse Egypt of smuggling weapons into Gaza and dump the problems of Gaza on Egypt.
Seems like nobody wants the problems of Gaza ...
Despite the fiery rhetoric of Islamists and activists who demand strong action against Israel, many average Egyptians say they do not want the country dragged into another Middle East conflict, in rare agreement with a usually unpopular government. Many say Hamas militants, who rule the Gaza Strip, could have avoided the attacks that killed more than 400 people if it had stopped firing its ineffective rockets at Israel.
Hamas is acting against the Palestinians, said Mohamed Kamal, also a central Cairo shopkeeper, and one of a dozen Cairo residents interviewed by Reuters this week. There is no reason for firing rockets. What are they hitting anyway? he said.
Others said Hamas was acting with Iran and Syria, its main two supporters, to undermine Egypt and drag it into a conflict with Israel.
Egypt, the most populous Arab country and once seen as the bastion of Arab nationalism, fought four wars with Israel between 1948 and 1973. In 1979, it became the first Arab country to make peace with the Jewish state.
Hani el-Husseini, a veteran politician with the leftist Tagammu opposition party, said the Egyptian intelligentsia, many of whom favour tough measures such as breaking ties with Israel, are divorced from the reality of public priorities. The popular interest in regional issues has waned because people have surrendered to the notion that no Arab power can change the situation (with Israel), he said.
The popular position is leaning toward peace, he said, despite the general hatred of Israel.
The Egyptian government says that if it left the border with Gaza wide open Israel would wash its hands of responsibility for ensuring Gazans receive enough supplies to keep them alive. Officials also say the probable influx of Gazans would pose a security risk because militants could sneak in among them.
Since Hamas and Islamic Brotherhood have a lot in common ...
But thousands of Arabs have rallied against Egypt in cities such as Beirut and Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, accusing Cairo of cooperating with Israel against Hamas. Such sentiments reflect a widening gap among Arabs, with one group viewing Hamas and Hezbollah, the anti-Israeli Lebanese group, as part of a regional defiance front led by Iran and Syria against Israel and the United States.
The other camp says that only civilians pay the price for what they call useless military adventures.
The split was on display between two friends at a coffee shop in the centre of Cairo this week. We have reached a stage when (Israel) is slapping us on the back of our neck, said 33-year-old Mohamed Abdallah. He, praised Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for calling on Egyptians to rise and support Gaza. He is a man of principle.
No, he is not, said his friend Mohamed Latif, an Egyptian working in the United Arab Emirates. Our government is right.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
WAFF.com > Egypt has reportedly begun arresting Army + other mil Officers whom disagree wid Cairo's policies vee GAZA + PALESTINIANS???
Also on WAFF > NASRALLAH URGES EGYPTIAN OFFICERS TO REBEL AGZ THE REGIME'S POLICIES, ALSO CALLS FOR DEMONSTARTIONS IN ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLDS TO PRESSURE GOVERNMENTS. Nasrey insists, however, that he is NOT calling for nor suppor a de fact ARMY/MIL-LED, ETC. STREET COUP AGZ CAIRO = MUBARAK GOVT.???
RIYADH - Saudi Arabian King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz called on Thursday for an urgent national aid campaign for the people in Gaza, Saudi news agency reported. King Abdullah said that the aid campaign will be supervised by Saudi Minister of Interior Naif bin Abdul-Aziz.
Saudi Arabia has sent aid planes with medicine to Gaza. It also allocated special planes to evacuate the injured from Gaza to Saudi hospitals for treatment.
Saudi Arabia and other US allied Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan have come under fire in the Arab world for not doing enough to help Gaza. Many of those countries are uncomfortable with Hamas the militant group which took over Gaza after fighting with rival Palestinian organisation Fatah in 2007.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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If I were W, I would leave them there as a "Present" for O to deal with.
Almost certainly going to be the case.
CANBERRA, Australia -- Australia will likely reject a U.S. request to accept detainees freed from the Guantanamo Bay military prison, the acting prime minister said Friday. Julia Gillard said U.S. President George W. Bush's administration made the request in early December after President-elect Barack Obama announced he planned to close the prison. Obama has not made such a request, she said.
Australia had rejected a similar request to resettle "a small group of detainees" in early 2008, said Gillard, who is filling in for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while he is on vacation. "Australia, as an ally of the United States, is examining this second request," Gillard said in a statement. "Notwithstanding that, it is unlikely Australia would accept these detainees."
Rudd's center-left Labor Party, which came to power in 2007, had criticized the detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, as unjust and had demanded the repatriation of two Australians held there.
Habib said Friday that Australia should not accept the detainees because their histories were unknown. "It is a big risk to the country to bring (these) people here," he told Network Nine television news in Sydney.
Obama has pledged to close the prison and American officials have expressed concern that some detainees might be persecuted if returned to their home countries.
Many European nations -- which had long been loath to accept detainees from the prison -- more recently indicated a willingness to resettle inmates. Officials from France, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland have all said they are looking into accepting detainees from the U.S. prison.
Australia's opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, said the country should not accept any of the Guantanamo detainees, saying there are many other people already seeking to enter the country. "It would be difficult to imagine the circumstances in which any claims on humanitarian grounds should take priority over the many applicants for humanitarian entry currently awaiting approval," he added.
#1
Please Aussies, reconsider. You of all places are best able to accept them. Before, you "resettle" them, you must reeducate them into being productive Aussies. They are desert rabble. Take them out to the reefs, teach them to swim. Put some pigs entrails on them, and send them away. They will probably flounder for a bit, but then begin to flail away in a most rabid pace once they spot that wake from the first fin.
CANBERRA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Australia is considering a U.S. request to re-settleinmates from the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp, but would apply strict security screening before accepting an unspecified number.
Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Friday the government had been approached along with Britain to accept inmates to help U.S. President-elect Barack Obama meet a promise to close the camp in a U.S. enclave on Cuba. "For anyone to be accepted they would have to meet Australia's strict legal requirement and go through normal rigorous assessment processes," Gillard said in a statement.
Gillard's office said it had not been decided who would be considered for intake and under what conditions.
About 255 men are still held at the Guantanamo naval base, including 60 the United States has cleared for release but cannot repatriate for fear they will be tortured or persecuted in their home countries.
Australian media said the government would accept no "wholesale intake" from Guantanamo and conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should immediately rule out support for the plan. Rudd is currently on Christmas holiday. "What (Rudd) has agreed to, with the Americans, is to accept Guantanamo Bay inmates for resettlement in Australia, in our community, as migrants, and that is completely and utterly unacceptable to the Australian people," Turnbull told local radio.
Involvement in a Guantanamo re-settlement could threaten the government's record popularity, as surveys show security consistently ranks among the top concerns of Australians.
Keith Suter, a foreign affairs and politics expert at Macquarie University in Sydney, said former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had effectively painted all Guantanamo inmates as extremists before resigning in 2006. But most, Suter said, had faced no proper charges under the U.S military court system used at Guantanamo and would likely have to be considered by Australia as ordinary refugees. "They'd be granted refugee status and they'd be settled into the community, and hopefully no fuss would be made about it," he said.
Just simple refugees. Heavily-armed, simple refugees.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
We on award tour with muhammad my man
Goin each and every place with the mic in their hand
New york, nj, n.c., va
We on award tour with muhammad my man
Goin each and every place with the mic in their hand
Oaktown, l.a., san fran, st. john
#3
Keith Suter was the git on ABC(Australia) radio (Australian Broadcasting Commission) aka Always Been Communists)a few weeks ago saying the pirates off Somalia were a great joke and nothing to worry about as they took care not to hurt anybody!
There need to be many more severe job losses at Australian universities. What's wrong with shooting them?
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
01/02/2009 5:26 Comments ||
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France's president promises to concentrate all efforts on the latest carbecues car burning incident when more than 1,100 cars were set ablaze.
President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to concentrate all efforts on the incident that took place on New Year's Eve and said that he had asked authorities to be "uncompromising" with vehicle arsonists. He also added that those caught burning other people's cars should lose their own licenses until the damage had been paid for. "There is no reason why honest people should have to pay the consequences of the behavior of delinquents," he said in an address to emergency service staff who were on duty on Dec. 31, Reuters reported. "Uncompromising" to me suggests maybe they should meet Dr. Guilletine's namesake, not that they should lose their drivers' licenses. But that's probably just me.
Authorities said 1,147 cars were burned on Dec. 31, which is an increase of 878 compared to the previous year. Taking into account a regional breakdown, the Seine-Saint-Denis region near Paris was the most heavily affected.
Carbecues Car burnings have become somewhat of a regular event in the country where some 36,700 incidents were recorded in the first 11 months of 2008, according to interior ministry figures. However, the number of burning cars on New Year's Eve has become a festive tradition since rows of burning cars became one of the most powerful images of the violent rioting that shook many of France's poor suburbs back in 2005.
This year, about 35,000 police were mobilized on New Year's Eve, 7,000 more than last year while officials were also on guard against possible attacks after five sticks of dynamite were left in a Paris department store just before Christmas. According to police figures, 288 arrests were made this year compared to 259 last year and the interior ministry said that New Year's Eve had passed relatively calmly.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Action = Increasing subsidies to Muslim "French"?
#2
"...which is an increase of 878 compared to the previous year..."
You can graph the trend or you can solve the problem. My guess is that part of the issue is that the French government is subsidizing automobile insurance payouts. If the subsidy ceased, free market forces would rapidly resolve the issue of vandalism. Also the Louisville Slugger factory would have to add another shift.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/02/2009 11:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Can anyone explain this scam to me ? I'd like a piece of the action. The markets are killing me, so this new action would be welcome. What gives ?
SRINAGAR: Hundreds of protesters shouting pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans marched through the civil lines area of Srinagar on Friday.
"Down with Zionist terrorism, down with Israel, down with America," the protesters shouted as they waved Islamic flags and mourned the deaths of Palestinians killed in the recent bombing of Gaza Strip by Israel.
The protesters were joined by many others as they marched through the different roads in the state's summer capital.
"Where are the champions of civil rights and liberties? Why are they silent when innocent, unarmed Muslims are killed in hundreds by Israel?" shouted an angry protester in the march.
Funeral prayers in absentia are being offered for the slain Palestinians in various mosques of the city after the Friday prayers.
The Muslim majority Kashmir valley has traditionally had close emotional links with the people of Palestine and any major development in Arab-Israel ties has always drawn a response in the valley.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/02/2009 08:02 ||
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Pakistan's action against the banned Jamaatud Dawa (JD) is 'insufficient', Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said in an interview on Thursday.
He said the charity was operating under a new name and website and was already accepting donations.
Menon said the world had an obligation to ensure those who carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month "should be brought to face the Indian justice system".
"Unless Pakistan dismantles the terror infrastructure on its soil completely, the menace will continue in one or other form," he said. To a question, the Indian foreign secretary said Pakistan must guarantee there will be no further terror attacks from its soil "not only against India but against any country in the world".
Menon also accused Pakistan of propaganda "to divert attention from the real issues".
He rejected the call for a joint Pakistan-India commission to probe the Mumbai attacks, saying evidence had been shared with Pakistan in the past but there were no results. "Even the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism has yielded no results," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) has handed over one dozen Predator-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), PAC Chairman Air Marshal Khalid Chaudhry said on Thursday. He said Pakistan had acquired the capability to manufacture UAVs and had initiated indigenous production. "We will manufacture more UAVs indigenously, keeping the PAF's requirements in mind," Chaudhry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan had acquired the capability to manufacture UAVs and had initiated indigenous production
#4
Don't get too complacent. China is rapidly advancing in military equipment and their UAVs have the benefit of numerous AI and robotics PhDs they subsidized at US research universities.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has given Islamabad 'strong' evidence of Pakistani links to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday. "We have been told that there is some strong evidence available to FBI and they have shared it with Pakistan," Mukherjee told the NDTV news channel. He added that US pressure on Pakistan to act on that evidence had not yielded 'tangible results' so far. Mukherjee repeated India's calls for Pakistan to hand over the suspected perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks. "(An) extradition treaty is not required to take action on these issues," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
WAFF.com > INDIA DAILY: CHINESE SECRET INTELLIGENCE INVOLVED IN HELPING PAKSITAN FOR MUMBAI ATTACKS.
Also on WAFF > US: LASHKAR TERROR GROUP TARGETING INS VIRAAT AIRCRAFT CARRIER???
The Interior Ministry on Thursday denied reports that a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative arrested last month had confessed to involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
"We have no such information. We don't accept that report," Spokesman Shahidullah Baig told AFP, adding no conclusions could be reached until investigations were completed.
A senior government official told AFP no conclusions could be drawn from Pakistan's investigations until India shares key evidence with Islamabad about the attacks. The official, who asked not to be named, added that New Delhi has stated that its probe is ongoing.
"We are currently engaged in the process of our own investigation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said in his first online briefing to journalists. "We also await evidence from India to enable our own investigations to make progress," he added.
Infrastructure: Sadiq also rejected allegations of Indian media that there was a 'terrorist infrastructure' in Pakistan. Terrorism is a global issue, he said, and India and other countries should cooperate with Pakistan rather than making allegations.
Sadiq reiterated Pakistan's offer to cooperate with India to investigate the Mumbai attacks.
ISI: To a question about the commitment of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to the war on terror, the spokesman said all Pakistani institutions were committed to fighting terrorism, "therefore vilifying Pakistan or for that matter any of its state institutions on this score is unwarranted and unacceptable".
"In the given situation, what is needed is more accurate alignment in the perception and interests of Afghanistan, Pakistan, US/NATO and countries in the region that have stakes in the struggle against terrorism," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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The government has decided to set up a high-level body -- the proposed 'National Commission for Counter-Terrorism -- to coordinate efforts in countering the threat posed by the Taliban, a private TV channel reported on Thursday as President Asif Ali Zardari called on the nation to put aside their differences and unite in fighting the war on terror.
According to the channel, the commission -- to be a constitutional body -- would be headed by a 'top-level professional' to prepare and execute strategies, and recently retired Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) chief Tariq Pervaiz is likely to be the first choice for the post.
The channel said, "Officials cite fragmented [counter-]terrorism efforts as a reason to have a cohesive policy making institution." Currently, the Inter-Services Intelligence, FIA and the Intelligence Bureau are all involved in counter-terrorism efforts, but there is no 'umbrella organisation' to coordinate their work, the channel said, adding that a 'one-window task force' is required to coordinate the counter-terrorism efforts of these agencies.
Separately, President Asif Ali Zardari told representatives of Bajaur refugees on Thursday that the entire nation was a victim of militancy and terrorism, and called on citizens to put aside their differences and unite in fighting the war on terror.
At a meeting with the delegation of representatives, the president said the Taliban must be defeated to restore peace and stability in the country. He said the government was aware of the problems of those displaced by fighting between the Taliban and the military in NWFP, and it had therefore planned to compensate victims of terrorism. He said the government was also working to rebuild the Tribal Areas through reconstruction opportunity zones.
The representatives of the internally displaced people (IDP) from Bajaur briefed the president on the problems faced by the residents of the agency, and called for the restoration of peace in the Tribal Areas.
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik told the meeting that the writ of the government had already been established in four tehsils of Bajaur Agency, and Charmang and Mamoond tehsils would be under the complete control of the government by the end of this month.
The delegation of representatives was led by Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar, who told the meeting that Pakistan Red Crescent and some other NGOs were providing relief to IDPs living in three camps.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Perhaps I misread the asian mind, isn't the orginzation already in place?
It's called government/Army/Navy,Air Force Etc.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
01/02/2009 14:43 Comments ||
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Human rights group Amnesty International on Friday accused the United States of having a "lopsided" response to the crisis
...see, it's not a war against terrorists, it's just a some vague "crisis"...
in Gaza and told the top U.S. diplomat to press all sides to reach an immediate cease-fire.
Told us, did he ...
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Amnesty's U.S. branch said the U.S. government must not ignore Israel's "disproportionate response" against Gaza and policies the group said had brought Hamas-ruled Gaza to the brink of "humanitarian disaster."
"Amnesty International USA is particularly dismayed at the lopsided response by the U.S. government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza," the group told Rice in the letter, which was released to the media by Amnesty.
Amnesty said it was also deeply concerned by weaponry and military equipment supplied to Israel by Washington that the group said had been used in recent strikes on densely populated residential areas in Gaza.
"The United States must suspend the transfer of weapons to Israel immediately and conduct an investigation into whether U.S. weapons were used to commit human rights abuses," said Amnesty.
And if nothing comes of that investigation we have to have another, and then another ...
The United States came under heavy criticism during Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon for supplying cluster bombs to Israel that were used in the conflict.
The United Nations estimates that Israel dropped a few million cluster bombs on Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of those bomblets failed to explode and have continued to maim and kill after that war's end.
Amnesty also urged the United States to put pressure on Israel to open border crossings into Gaza to human rights workers and journalists and to allow humanitarian aid through.
A U.S. State Department official rejected claims that the U.S. response had been pro-Israeli or lopsided. Asked about claims Israel was using disproportionate force, he said: "The use of force is based on military objectives. Israel has never claimed that this is vengeance. They are looking to end Hamas' ability to attack Israel."
#1
Amnesty International (which I at one time contributed to) has lost all credibility. The West is always wrong and the terrorists are always poor innocent victims. These people are the ultimate in "useful idiots".
#3
So would it be even-handed to investigate whether donations to Hamas are being used for weapons? I didn't think so. Amnesty lives on a one way street.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/02/2009 17:54 Comments ||
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#4
"Rights group Amnesty International says U.S. response to Gaza 'lopsided'"
They're right.
We should be giving Israel MUCH more help.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/02/2009 18:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
If we won't supply Israel with modern weapons they can always go out to the international arms dealers and buy some old dumb iron bombs. That should help reduce loss of 'innocent' lives in Gaza, right?
#9
United Nations estimates that Israel dropped a few million cluster bombs on Lebanon
I just noticed this....
How many planes flying how long would it take to drop a few MILLION cluster bombs...?
How many landmasses the size of Israel were used to store these FEW MILLION bombs before dropping them?
Maybe it was the only shot heard for days in a neighborhood once ordered by the cadence of gunfire. Perhaps it was the smiles at checkpoints and the shouts of Iraqi policemen navigating the always snarled traffic. "God's mercy on your parents," they beseeched. "God's blessings on you." Maybe it was the music box still playing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" at a kiosk overflowing with Christmas tree decorations and heart-shaped red pillows.
For anyone returning to Baghdad after spending time here during its darkest days two years ago, when it was paralyzed by sectarian hatred and overrun by gunmen sowing despair, the conclusion seemed inescapable.
"The war has ended," said Heidar al-Abboudi, a street merchant.
The war in Iraq is indeed over, at least the conflict as it was understood during its first five years: insurgency, communal cleansing, gangland turf battles and an anarchic, often futile quest to survive. In other words, civil war - though civil war was always too tidy a term for it. The entropy, for now at least, has run its course. So have many of the forces the United States so dangerously unleashed with its 2003 invasion, turning Iraq into an atomized, fractured land seized by a paroxysm of brutality. In that Iraq, the Americans were the final arbiter and, as a result, deprived anything they left behind of legitimacy. I beg your pardon?
More hand-wringing nonsense ...
Not to say that there is peace in Iraq. As many people are killed today as on any day in 2003 and 2004. But perhaps not as many as in 2000, 2001, and 2002.
Nor is there victory. For any Iraqi, the word, translated into Arabic, draws a dumbfounded look. Victory for whom? Certainly not the tens of thousands of civilians - perhaps many more - killed in the frenzied clashes of those once inchoate forces. How about victory for civilization? Victory for the rule of law? Victory in the war on despots? Victory against totalitarianism? A victory in the War on Terror?
Victory for common people in Iraq who just want to go about their business. Victory for children who will go to school. Victory for the women who don't have to worry about Uday Hussein raping them. Victory for people who won't be fed into shredding machines. Victory for the Marsh Arabs who have their way of life restored. Victory for the Kurds who won't be gassed anytime soon. Victory for the Shi'a who can go on pilgrimages free of fear. Victory for the mixed couples in Iraq who once again can marry and go about their lives. Victory for ordinary people who are free again to build ordinary lives.
I could go on. The unfortunate thing is, the WaPo reporter missed all of this.
Rather, it is the day after.
Baghdad feels much as southern Lebanon did after an asymmetrical war there in 2006, between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim movement that fought Israel to a draw. Survivors rose from the rubble of their homes, offices and stores with the satisfied smile of survival - in war, its own victory. Then they beheld the destruction the fighting had wrought around them. Their faces turned grim as they realized the task at hand.
How would he know -- was he there? And if so, on which side?
It is perhaps the day before, too.
"We don't know what's next," Shidrak George, a bystander, said April 9, 2003, as he watched men vainly assault Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdaus Square with chains, a sledgehammer and a cascade of rocks before making way for a bulky Marine M88 armored recovery vehicle to pull it down. The vehicle stopped for no one. It didn't have to.
He said everything remained ghamidh - mysterious and unclear.
"We want to know how this turns out."
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/02/2009 07:19 ||
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#7
The decisive turning point for the JIHAD will the failure or manifestation of the Islamist Hidden-Imam/Mahdi to make His Appearance by and for God-Islam, + Iran to successfully indigenously NUCLEARIZE 2010-2012 [2016?]during PEBO's first term, ESPEC NLT 2010. THE LONGER LEAD TIME THE USA = US-ALLIES HAS TO ENTRENCH, THE GREATER THE LIKELIHOOD OF JIHAD REGIONAL-GLOBAL DEFEAT IFF NOT ABSOLUT DESTRUCTION [includ agz ISLAM AS A FAITH].
Always bear in mind that OSAMA + RADICAL ISLAM are as much FIGHTING FOR THE VALIDITY OF ISLAM AS A DIVINE = GOD-BASED FAITH AS MUCH AS EVERYTHING ELSE.
* PRE-WW2 "GREAT DEPRESSION I" > lasted roughly 10 years, time which I doubt this Islamist Jihad will be able to asymetrically emulate widout the above + "Great Power(s)" MILPOL Conflict scenarios.
IN SHORT, THE ISLAMIST HIDDEN-IMAM/MAHDI CANNOT "NOT APPEAR".
The United States on Thursday handed the Iraqi government formal control of the Green Zone, the locus of power in the country and symbol of American influence for the past five years, but officials announced that U.S soldiers would continue to help maintain security in the area for at least the next 90 days.
"The Americans will supervise us," said Brig. Gen. Emad al-Zuhairi, commander of the Baghdad Brigade, the Iraqi military unit in charge of the Green Zone. "We hope this is just the first step."
U.S. troops, who once controlled all the external checkpoints leading into the Green Zone, will stay and work alongside Iraqi troops who are now supposed to be in charge of security, officials from both countries said. They acknowledged that it remains unclear precisely how the relationship will work.
Col. Steve Ferrari, commander of the Joint Area Support Group, which is in charge of the six-square-mile Green Zone, said American troops would be training Iraqis at the checkpoints and providing support.
"We are not losing our jobs -- they are just changing," Ferrari said, adding that the entire relationship would be reevaluated at the end of three months to decide what the Iraqis want them to do. "If they tell us to go, we will go. If they tell us to stay, we will stay."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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The U.S. military in Iraq falls under Iraqi authority on Thursday for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, a milestone in the war-weary country's path to restoring sovereignty.
The U.S. force in Iraq, now more than 140,000 strong, has operated since 2003 under a U.N. Security Council resolution which expired at midnight on New Year's Eve.
Starting Jan. 1, troops will operate under the authority of the Iraqi government, according to a pact signed earlier this year by Washington and Baghdad.
" The role of the coalition forces (in the Green Zone) will be secondary, centered on training Baghdad brigade troops to use equipment to detect explosives and advising Iraqi forces "
Qassim Moussawi, spokesman of Iraqi forces in Baghdad
The pact gives U.S. troops three years to leave Iraq, revokes their power to detain Iraqis without an Iraqi warrant, and subjects contractors and, in some cases, U.S. troops to Iraqi law.
The new, tough terms of the U.S. presence here were secured by an increasingly confident Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, emboldened by a maturing democracy, military victories against Shiite militias and progress against al-Qaeda militants.
U.S. and Iraqi officials will hold a ceremony on Thursday morning to formally hand over control of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified Baghdad compound from which the United States governed Iraq directly for more than a year after the invasion.
"The role of the coalition forces (in the Green Zone) will be secondary, centered on training Baghdad brigade troops to use equipment to detect explosives and advising Iraqi forces," Qassim Moussawi, spokesman of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Well, you expect the MSM or any other clown to understand the material they're dealing with? By law American forces are never subordinated. They coordinate, they cooperate, they work with, but they are never subordinated by an intervening command authority. By law there is an unbroken command authority between the private on the ground and the President of the United States.
#3
It's the deal we made, and not a bad one at all. We'll finish up in Iraq, and the new agreement makes it very difficult for Bambi to just up and pull out. Wait and see.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 8:33 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM -- Israel's crushing aerial assault on Gaza has caused a significant shift in the country's mood, replacing lingering helplessness and frustration over Hamas rocket attacks with a sense of might and vindication.
Leaders who were unpopular only a week ago have suddenly surged in the public's esteem. But that could change quickly if the fighting drags on or Israel starts taking heavy casualties.
In downtown Ashkelon, a southern Israeli city that has come under rocket fire, a pair of plumbers hung up a handwritten sign praising the Gaza operation's mastermind, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
That's a dramatic change for Barak, a former prime minister whose approval ratings were until recently so dismal that his own election slogans acknowledged he was unpopular. "We've got a great defense minister. Everyone thought he wasn't going to do anything but he tricked them and gave them a blow they won't forget," said Ziv Barda, 28, who works for a car rental company in Ashkelon. "Finally someone decided enough is enough."
With rockets exploding across Israel's south and at least an eighth of the country's population now within rocket range, Israelis appear to be coming together behind the country's leadership and the military as jets, helicopters and navy vessels continued to pound Gaza for a sixth straight day.
A poll Thursday showed that 52 percent of Israelis want to continue the aerial campaign, while only 20 percent would like to see a cease-fire. Just 19 percent want to see a threatened ground offensive take place, presumably because that would mean casualties in the army's ranks.
In Sderot, a working-class border town that has been bombarded by thousands of Hamas rockets in recent years, residents said they haven't been this satisfied in a long time. On Wednesday, they cheered to each sound of distant explosions from Israeli airstrikes.
"You see people walking with their heads up in the air again. Finally there is some hope," said Itzik Biton, 38, who sells falafel at a fast-food stand.
Tammy Hovel, 31, said her children were cramped in shelters and that her bakery was suffering, but she was nonetheless encouraged. "We're going to get hit either way, so at least they are doing something," Hovel said. "And people elsewhere are starting to understand what we've had to deal with."
With national elections approaching on Feb. 10, the Israeli assault on Gaza has boosted support for Barak's Labor Party, the standard-bearer for Israel's peace camp, by making it look tough. The poll showed overall support for moderate and centrist parties going up, while support for hard-line and religious parties went down -- leaving each side with half the seats in parliament if elections were held today.
The survey, carried out by the Dialog company, showed jumps in the approval ratings for Israel's top three leaders -- Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"We feel that the government is finally supporting us," Biton said. "True, rockets are falling and we are losing money. But we'll suffer for a month and then we'll be done with this."
The poll appeared Thursday in the daily Haaretz newspaper. It surveyed 472 people and had a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
But the opposition Likud Party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, is still the front-runner, and the government's popularity might be brief.
A good mood is to be expected at the beginning of a war, said Tel Aviv University pollster Camil Fuchs, who oversaw the survey. When Israel went to war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the government's initially sky-high approval ratings evaporated when deaths mounted. Some 159 Israelis were killed during the monthlong war. "It's very fluid -- it could change in a day if a missile hits somewhere and we have more casualties," Fuchs said.
Along the Gaza border, Israeli bystanders and police officers stopped their vehicles on the side of the road Thursday to watch Israeli helicopters, drones and fighter jets strike targets in Gaza, cheering with each deafening explosion. But the cheers would die out fast if ground forces go in, get bogged down in Gaza's densely populated urban areas and start taking casualties, or if rocket fire continues to paralyze life in the south. Israel's army declared Thursday that its ground troops are ready to invade.
"We are spoiled and impatient -- we like our wars short," said Israeli historian Tom Segev. If fighting goes on too long, or if it ends with an inconclusive cease-fire, Segev said, Israelis will turn on the government as they did after the Lebanon war. "The mood will change fast," he said.
#2
i don't understand why any of them would wat too see a cease fire. what good has ever come from a cease fire with hamas? the rockets don't stop and they just keep rearming themselves wfor the next go around that they know is coming because they are gonna start it. kil them all and be done with it
Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip has exacerbated the deep divisions between Palestinians who want to make peace with Israel and those who support Hamas's militant struggle against the Jewish state. Comes as a surprise, huh? If they can't get along with each other, how are they gonna get along with the Zionist oppressors?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#3
If they can't get along with each other, how are they gonna get along with the Zionist oppressors?
I don't believe most of them want to get along with the Zionist Opressors.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/02/2009 10:00 Comments ||
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Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday again rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy who embarks on a Middle East peace mission next week.
Livni emerged from a one-hour meeting at the Elysee presidential palace and said Israel would decide in due course when to halt its military offensive against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
"The question of whether it's enough or not will be the result of our assessment on a daily basis," said Livni, who rejected France's call for a 48-hour truce to provide humanitarian relief after six days of Israeli air strikes.
"We understand that while operating in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, we need to ease the life of the civilian population," she said.
"In this operation, Israel distinguishes (between) the war against terror, against Hamas members, from the civilian population. In doing so, we keep the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip completely as it should be."
France made a fresh push for a ceasefire in Gaza as Livni arrived in Paris for talks despite Israel's rejection of calls for a temporary truce.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
It's a hard job being Israeli FM---you've to be polite to degenerates who think they're the pinnacle of human social develepment.
#2
ISRAELI MIL FORUM > reminds NYT: IRAN CAPABLE OF ATOMIC WEAPONS, + US EXPERTS: IRAN MAY HAVE A NUCLEAR BOMB BY FEBRUARY 2009. Iran is believed to have enuff URANIUM MATS to begin dev its own EXPLOSIVE SPACE MODULATOR-R-R [read, DIRTY NUKES,just needs better refinement for an improv CLEAN WEAP/BOMB]???
The Israel Defense Forces recommended a major, but relatively short-term, ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, as military preparations continued on the border. The army was given the green light to forge ahead with Operation Cast Lead, which entered its sixth day Thursday.
Detailed briefings have been underway for the past two days at Southern Command, with officers receiving their orders. The General Staff believes that more pressure must be put on Hamas to make it agree to a long-term cease-fire under conditions more favorable to Israel.
Cabinet ministers on Wednesday approved the mobilization of 2,500 army
reservists, expanding on an earlier call-up of 6,500 soldiers for the force on the Gaza border.
The IDF said rocket fire on the south was expected to continue during a ground operation. The army recommends that a diplomatic exit plan be prepared while a cease-fire agreement is formulated.
While defense officials tend to favor a clear agreement with Hamas, even if it is not enshrined in a written document, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is considering another idea.
She reportedly believes that it might be better to aim for a situation in which there is no clearly set-out agreement, but Israel would make clear beforehand that it would respond forcefully to any firing from Gaza after hostilities ended.
Olmert, for his part, has conditioned any future truce between Israel and Hamas on the establishment of an international mechanism to monitor the cease-fire.
On Wednesday, some 70 rockets were fired from Gaza at the Negev, among them some 10 Katyushas with a range of about 40 kilometers. These landed in Be'er Sheva and around Ashdod.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday that Israeli attacks on Gaza had to stop before any truce proposals could be considered. He added in a speech that "the siege must be lifted and all the crossings must be opened because the siege is the source of all of Gaza's problems."
Olmert told cabinet ministers on Wednesday that Israel would not conclude its operation until all its goals had been reached.
Meanwhile, Israel said it would continue to let humanitarian supplies
into Gaza and that more than 90 truckloads with food and medicine would be permitted into the territory on Thursday. Israel opened the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday to allow in 93 trucks carrying humanitarian aid.
Olmert seeks international body to enforce future truce
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert clarified at Wednesday cabinet meeting that Israel would not end the Gaza operation until all its goals had been reached.
The cabinet did not debate any cease-fire proposals and resolved to continue the operation already approved. Earlier, Israel rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour cease-fire.
"We did not go into the Gaza operation only to end it while rocket fire continues," Olmert told cabinet ministers.
According to Olmert, a decision now to opt for a cease-fire would carry a heavy price.
"Let's say we unilaterally stopped and a few days from now a barrage fell on Ashkelon," he said. "Do you understand the consequences in Israel and the region? For Israeli deterrence, for Israeli measures."
However, Olmert left the door open for a possible future deal.
"If the conditions mature and we think they offer a solution that ensures a better security situation for southern Israel, then we will consider the matter. We aren't there yet," he said.
Olmert is interested in the establishment of an international supervision and enforcement mechanism for any cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
The prime minister has made that a precondition of any deal and emphasized it in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leades.
"Israel cannot agree that the only party responsible for implementing and regulating the cease-fire be Hamas," a senior Israeli diplomatic source said on Wednesdat.
According to the source, lack of an external supervisory body was the central reason for the collapse of the calm earlier this month.
"The situation in which Hamas didn't have to account for implementing the cease-fire did not prove viable," the source said.
Olmert believes that any cease-fire must include the end of rocket and mortar fire, an end to terror attacks on the border fence and the end of arms smuggling and the growth of Hamas power. He strives for an enforcement mechanism that can measure whether Hamas meets its commitments.
Senior Hamas official Ayman Taha said Wednesday that his organization was willing to consider a proposal that would end the Israeli attack and end the siege of the Gaza Strip.
"As soon as we receive a proposal, we will study it," Taha said. "We support any initiative that would end the aggression and lift the siege."
According to Jerusalem sources, Olmert's conditions for a truce were passed on to the United States and other entities in the international community. The U.S. is trying to "sell" Israel's conditions to other groups, including those that talk to Hamas.
"The Americans understand what we want and accept the parameters," the sources said. "The world wants to stop the operation - no problem, but on our terms."
In Wednesday's security cabinet meeting, ministers were updated on several cease-fire initiatives, but none yet meet Israel's terms. The most prominent is the U.S. effort to push Israel's conditions.
Olmert also spoke Wednesday to U.S. President George W. Bush and promised him Israel is working to avoid harm to Gazan civilians. Bush emphasized that "Hamas must stop the missiles."
"We must reach a long-term and stable cease-fire Hamas will honor," Bush said.
Also on the table is a Turkish-Egyptian push for a cease-fire. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Damascus on Wednesday and is slated to arrive in Cairo today.
Turkish president Abdullah Gul Wednesday told Israeli president Shimon Peres that "Turkey wants a cease-fire that will last."
"Other countries in the region take advantage of Hamas, which could lead to a deterioration in the entire Middle East," he added.
In addition, the European Union is attempting to broker a cease-fire deal. On Monday, a delegation including the foreign minister of the Czech Republican - which currently holds the EU presidency rotation, the Swedish foreign minister and the EU foreign affairs commissioner, is slated to arrive in the region.
In addition, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and foreign minister Bernard Kouchner are scheduled to arrive Monday.
On Thursday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will meet the pair in Paris ahead of that visit.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Gotta sacrifice some IDF soldiers to World Opinion.
#5
Would have worked perfectly depends on the goal, methinks.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/02/2009 9:51 Comments ||
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#6
If you're going to plow the earth and salt the fields, ok. However, as we've seen elsewhere, you're going to have to occupy ground to prevent the weeds from regrowing. And they will regrow under the kind financing of the Euros, Iranians, and Sauds.
In addition to the air raids on Hamas in Gaza, Israel has mounted a campaign to "conquer" Arab satellite television channels as part of Operation Cast Lead. The initiative has been spearheaded by Arabic speakers in the Israel Defense Forces and the Foreign Ministry, joined in their efforts by senior government officials.
Captain Avichai Adarai, an officer in the Arabic department of the IDF spokesperson's office, was invited for an on-air interview on "Al-Jazeera", hours after the operation began last Saturday. The live interview, which Adarai gave wearing his IDF uniform, made him the first Israeli to address the Arab world's most popular satellite channel since the beginning of the operation on Saturday.
"Do you [Israel] want to turn the Gaza Strip into a crematorium for its residents," Adarai was aksed during the interview, to which he answered "First off, I reject all of the declarations and words that we heard here up to now. The operations are concentrated against Hamas, and all other terror organizations that target civilians, as well as sayings like "crematorium."
He then asked why the Qatari-based TV channel has not shown the suffering of civilians on the Israeli side of the border who have been subject to indiscriminate rocket fire over the last seven years.
Al-Jazeera, like usual, broadcast graphic images from the Gaza Strip, images that for the most part have not been shown in the Israeli media. As Adarai spoke, the screen showed images of bodies piled in a refrigerator in a Gaza morgue. The interviewer asked "you are rejecting the argument that the operations are targeting civilians. Are all of these Hamas terrorists?"
Adarai insisted that the operation is targeting Hamas terrorists, and continued to ask why Al-Jazeera would not show the suffering of Israeli civilians.
The head of the Foreign Ministry's Arabic media department Ophir Gendelman, was interviewed on Russian Arabic channel "Russia Al-yom", where he was asked "do you agree that this operation is meant to return the luster lost by the IDF in the fight against Hezbollah?"
Gendelman, disagreed with the claim, saying that "we have a professional army. We are not built on momentum. Momentum is important but not crucial, and not the point of our operations against Hamas."
Gendelman explained the importance for Israel to be able to address the Arab world directly, so that the message "is made in the most direct and best way possible, without translation errors or arguments, directly to the living rooms of the Arab world."
"We live in the Middle East and fill a central role in the politics of the region. It is critical for us to be seen and heard, so that our stance will be understood. This could only help our standing in the region," Gendelman said after the interview.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, also spoke to the Arab media, with both addressing Al-Jazeera viewers in spoken, informal Arabic, the type usually not heard on Arabic media channels. Other Israeli officials have spoken to the Arabic media in English, with a simultaneous translation into Arabic appearing on screen.
Ehud Olmert used the Arab media outlet "Al-Arabiya" days before the start of "Operation Cast Lead" to address Gaza civilians, speaking of the ramifications of continued rocket attacks in Israel. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also appeared on Al-Jazeera shortly after the beginning of the operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rejected here on Thursday calls for an immediate ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
After meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Livni said: "There is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce," rejecting French proposal for a 48-hour truce to allow humanitarian aid in Gaza.
She also said: "We understand that while operating in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, we need to ease the life of the civilian population."
The foreign minister noted that when Israel would halt its military actions against Hamas of Palestine will be decided on their daily assessment result. "We affected most of the infrastructure of terror within the Gaza Strip and the question whether it's enough will be according to an assessment on a daily basis," she said.
More than 400 people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip since Saturday. Sarkozy is to fly to the Middle East region from next Monday for an end to fighting between Israel and Hamas. Besides, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is expected to travel to the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip, the UN Spokesperson's Office announced.
The Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. EST (23:00 GMT) on Wednesday, and will focus on the Gaza conflict and the current situation in the Middle East, the UN announcement said.
It will be the second emergency Council meeting since early Sunday. After the previous meeting, the Council issued a statement that called for an immediate end to the violence and bloodshed in Gaza.
The announcement came as UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon intensified his diplomatic efforts toward a ceasefire after other UN officials voiced their disappointment that Israel has so far rejected the idea of a 48-hour lull.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Another case of urgent inaction by the UN Security Council. Ho hum.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/02/2009 4:41 Comments ||
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#2
The Jews are winning! Must stop it immediately!!
#4
I am trying to remember the un "urgent meeting" to discuss Hamass firing unguided rockets into Israel. I know that this must have happened at least during the thousands of rockets fired by paleos. Oh wait I am awake now. Sorry for the confusion, but I had a dream that the un was actually relevant.
#5
"We must schedule the meeting now! Do you have any idea how long it takes to prepare Beef Wellington for 100?! Don't even get me started on the horseradish and wine finished potato cubettes with garlic butter with fresh dill and chive. I know the side dish is illegal over there, thats why the meeting will be in Switzerland, do I have to think of everything? Didn't even consider having fondue did you? You're Fired."
Egypt's foreign minister said on Thursday that Hamas must ensure rocket fire stops in any truce deal to halt Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, criticizing the Palestinian group for giving Israel an excuse to launch the bombardment.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit's comments came as Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Egypt's president, part of a tour by the Turkish leader to work out an Egyptian-Turkish initiative to end the violence.
The initiative calls for a halt to Israel's assault, a return to a Hamas-Israel truce and an international mechanism to ensure the opening of Gaza border crossings. Erdogan met a day earlier with Syrian President Bashar Assad and was expected to head to Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
Aboul Gheit said any eventual truce agreement should include a mechanism to oversee "that everything proceeds without one side causing problems with the other." He told journalists that the mechanism could involve "international forces or Arab forces or just observers."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Nizar Rayyan, the Hamas military commander who was killed in Thursday's air raid on his home in the Jabalya refugee camp, was a sworn enemy not only of Israel, but also of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Rayyan, who had four wives and a dozen children, led the Hamas militiamen who defeated Abbas's security forces in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. He is the third most senior Hamas leader to be killed by Israel, after the targeted killings of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 2004 and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a few weeks later.
Hamas leaders stressed that Rayyan's death, while a "painful loss" to their movement, would not affect its determination to continue the fight against Israel.
A Hamas spokesman said he did not rule out the possibility that the PA had asked Israel to kill Rayyan because of his role in the Hamas-Fatah clashes in 2007.
"Sheikh Rayyan was one of the main reasons why many of Abbas's men did not sleep well at night," he said. "They knew that as long as the sheikh was around, they would never be able to return to the Gaza Strip."
A few days before Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip, Rayyan, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, declared that he and his supporters were planning to hold Friday prayers inside Abbas's presidential compound in Gaza City.
Rayyan personally led the Hamas militiamen who seized the compound and PA security installations throughout Gaza. He later boasted that the Strip had been "cleansed" of "traitors" and "CIA agents" - a reference to Abbas and his former security chiefs.
A few months later, Rayyan again issued a threat against Abbas. This time he declared that he would soon lead Friday prayers inside Abbas's Mukata compound in Ramallah, an indication of Hamas's intention to extend its control to the West Bank.
That was why PA officials in Ramallah Thursday did not shed tears over his departure from the scene. In fact, some of them privately expressed relief, claiming that he was responsible for the killing of scores of Abbas loyalists in the Gaza Strip during the 2007 "coup."
Many Palestinians saw the killing of Rayyan, 60, as a severe blow to Hamas and its armed wing, Izzadin Kassam. Some Hamas supporters said on Thursday that Rayyan was more significant than Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh or senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam.
"He was one of the most popular figures in Hamas," said a Palestinian journalist who knew the slain Hamas leader for nearly two decades. "He was the type of leader who would go out with the fighters to confront Israeli tanks and fire rockets at Israel. He loved wearing the military uniform."
Apart from serving as a "spiritual" leader for Hamas's armed wing, Rayyan was also a teacher at the Islamic University in Gaza City. His students referred to him as "The Professor" and described him as a prominent Muslim scholar. One student said Rayyan was Yassin's real successor.
Rayyan was a leading authority on the sayings of the prophet Muhammad (Hadith), and the basement of his four-story house had been turned into a library of more than 5,000 books and documents on Islam.
After Islamic studies at universities in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Sudan, he returned to the Gaza Strip and worked as a preacher in several mosques. His fiery sermons and involvement in incitement and terrorism resulted in four years in an Israeli prison.
When the PA assumed control over the Gaza Strip in 1994, Rayyan was one of the first Hamas members to find himself in a Palestinian prison, together with Zahar and Rantisi.
At the beginning of the second intifada, Rayyan sent one of his sons to carry out a suicide attack in Gush Katif's Elei Sinai in 2001. Two Israelis were killed. Rayyan was also responsible for a series of suicide bombings and attacks inside the Green Line, including the suicide bombing in Ashdod Port in 2004 in which 10 Israelis died.
In recent years, Rayyan served as a liaison between the political leadership of Hamas and Izzadin Kassam. He is even said to have been one of the very few Hamas operatives who knew where IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit was being held in the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
01/02/2009 14:51 Comments ||
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#3
"A Hamas spokesman said he did not rule out the possibility that the PA had asked Israel to kill Rayyan because of his role in the Hamas-Fatah clashes in 2007"
They have problems with pigs and apes but rats are apparently, ok.
#4
When a hateful 'holy'(spiritual?) man becomes spirit most spectacularly(read somewhere that his head was blown clear away from his den into the street by a 2,000 pounder), the fat lady and the audience joins in the song.
At a small, backstreet bookstore here, the young staff members, wearing matching green skull caps and sporting adolescent chin beards, stock books with titles like "Waiting for the Destruction of Israel" and "Principles of Jihad." They work quietly, listening to the voice of a firebrand Islamic preacher playing on the store's sound system, his sermon peppered with outbursts of machine-gun fire. Another young man, a customer, flips through a pile of DVDs that chronicle the conflicts in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Sudan. And in the back, slogans like "Support Your Local Mujahedeen" and "Taliban All-Stars" are scrawled across T-shirts, stickers and pins.
The bookstore, called Arofah, is a short walk from Pesantren Al-Mukmin, an Islamic boarding school closely associated with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network linked to Al Qaeda that seeks to establish an Islamic state and has been implicated in most of the major terrorist bombings in Indonesia. Some of the most notorious extremists in Indonesia have graduated from the school, including Mukhlas, also known as Ali Ghufron, one of the three men put to death in November for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Imam Samudra and Mukhlas's younger brother Amrozi were also executed.
During their five years in prison, Mukhlas and Samudra wrote more than a dozen books. These books are now being picked up by several Solo-area publishers and will soon make their way to booksellers like Arofah. This consortium of publishers, many of whom openly support the ideological goals of the now-banned Jemaah Islamiyah, has developed over the past decade - spurred on by the fall of Suharto, the late authoritarian ruler of Indonesia, and the new freedoms democracy has provided.
The dissemination of jihadi thought, which includes topics as diverse as support for Islamic Shariah law and calls for violent action against non-Muslims, is troubling to counterterrorism officials. But analysts say what might be more troubling is what this small but expanding group of publishers indicates about how interconnected, and resilient, the Jemaah Islamiyah movement is in Indonesia.
There are at least a dozen loosely connected publishers in the Solo area. Although they are separate businesses often in competition with each other, they share editors, designers, printers, translators, distributors and even authors.
Mukhlas, the former operations chief for Jemaah Islamiyah, wrote nearly 10 books in the last five years that are waiting to be published, including an autobiography that is said to paint the Bali bombings as a justifiable act of vengeance for the ill-treatment of Muslims around the world and a book on the hidden meanings of dreams.
Samudra wrote a sequel to his 2005 defense of the Bali bombings, "Me Against the Terrorists." The new book addresses questions from the hundreds of readers about the first book and will be titled "They Are the Terrorists" - referring to Western leaders. He also wrote a book about human rights, one of his lawyers said.
"Most of the publishers come from Solo, but we hope to sell the books in both large, commercial bookstores as well as smaller ones across Indonesia," said the lawyer, Achmad Michdan, who has written introductions for several of the books.
Although the circle of Solo publishers is expanding, radical books generally do not sell that well in Indonesia. Samudra's first book, considered a breakout success for its type, sold only about 10,000 copies. Publishers can afford to print such books by piggybacking on another, broader trend: the ballooning demand for mainstream Islamic texts. Books that explore the Islamic lifestyle - addressing issues like how to be a good Muslim woman or the Islamic take on the end of the world and life after death - are the biggest sellers here now. One popular Muslim-themed love story sold hundreds of thousands of copies and was recently made into a movie.
Like their mainstream counterparts, the Solo-area publishers say they are only businessmen and are not necessarily trying to spread any particular ideology. "Although political books don't make much money, there is a growing market for them," said Tri Asmoro, the owner of Arofah bookstore, who also owns a publishing company of the same name and its imprint, Media Islamika, which is devoted to jihadi texts and carries the slogan "Join the Caravan of Martyrs."
Bambang Sukirno, who owns Aqwam Group and its imprint Jazera, which got its start with Samudra's first book, said he was only addressing a topical subject, just like "journalists and others around the world are doing." "We see that this 'terrorism' phenomenon, whether you like it or not, has seized space in this world," he said.
A report by the International Crisis Group earlier this year suggests that the rise of radical publishers could indicate that Jemaah Islamiyah is beginning to wage jihad through the printed page rather than violent acts. "Some publishers may be playing a more positive than negative role, directing members into above-ground activities and enabling them to promote a jihadi message without engaging in violence," the report says. But the message, once put into book form, often enters the classroom and Islamic study circles, ultimately helping to recruit young people into Jemaah Islamiyah's ranks, according to the Indonesian authorities.
The government, however, faces a quandary. As a secular government piloting the largest Muslim population in the world, it must balance its campaign to stamp out terrorist activities with its simultaneous effort to nurture a developing democracy and freedom of expression.
Sukirno, like the other publishers in the Solo area, is well aware of the government's concerns and is not worried that his company might be shut down because of the kinds of books he publishes.
"Democracy in Indonesia is thriving, and if the government ever tried to interfere in the publishing industry, well, that would be dangerous," he said. "Interference would just give birth to waves of resistance and undermine democracy. Books are a reflection of a civilized nation."
Sri Lankan forces captured a key crossroads from Tamil Tiger rebels in the north Thursday and were likely to seize the guerrillas' de facto capital within two days, the military said.
The fall of Kilinochchi would be the government's most significant victory in its renewed offensive against the rebels. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has promised to crush the separatists and end the nation's 25-year-old civil war in the coming year.
Senior officials have said repeatedly over the past two months that Kilinochchi's fall was imminent, but troops became bogged down by heavy rains and fierce rebel resistance.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Thursday that the capture of the strategic Paranthan junction earlier in the day -- after about six weeks of fighting -- left troops within about a mile (two kilometres) of the town on both the north and the south.
"Kilinochchi will fall within the next 48 hours," he said.
The rebels could not immediately be reached for comment. But Tamil Tiger political leader Balisingham Nadesan told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the group began as guerrillas and would be able to keep fighting even if it lost much of the northern lands it controlled for more than a decade.
"We are used to all types of wars," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
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Iranian students scuffled with riot police near the Jordanian embassy on Thursday after some hardline groups threatened to seize the building in the latest protest linked to Israel's attacks in Gaza.
Demonstrators demanded the mission's closure and pushed back police who had blocked the street leading to the embassy in Tehran, some of them briefly breaking through the cordon before being chased back.
A few hurled shoes at police, who fought back with batons. One young man with blood on his face was helped by a fellow student, a photograph made available to Reuters showed.
The rally ended after a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, told the crowd of hundreds of people not to break into embassies or clash with police.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Hopefully, the invaders wil be armed and ale to prevent being kidnapped.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/02/2009 17:56 Comments ||
Top||
#2
tomorrow though..... To quote Walter Sobchak:
"Saturday is shabbas. Jewish day of rest. Means I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't f*cking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit DON'T F*CKING ROLL!
Shomer f*cking shabbas. "
but tomorrow.... Shabbas is over
/btw - no disrespect meant to our orthodox friends
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2009 18:06 Comments ||
Top||
#3
that may work out too another surprise form Israel
#4
It doesn't matter when they come in. Hamas is waiting for them. About the only way to do it would be to bomb a corridor down the middle of blocks and put bulldozers out front to clear a new road between existing ones. Those roads are going to have tons of explosives under them and probably wired with hardwire triggers, not cellphone triggers.
If those tanks roll, the streets and buildings are going to be going up around them. Every hour that ticks by gives Hamas another hour to load another building up with explosives.
I don't see why Israel is giving Hamas so much time. It is idiotic. But I suppose at this point if they have been given a week already, another day isn't going to change much.
The security services have been warned that the internet is increasingly being used to train terrorists, raise money and as the main form of media to promote radical Islam.
Computer experts in al-Qaeda have created an "online University of Jihad" that is recruiting and training potential terrorists in Britain without them having to risk travelling to camps in Pakistan. A new generation of encrypted software has been developed called Mujahidden Secrets 2 whose updated security is said to allow militants to communicate freely by email without fear of being spied on by the intelligence services.
At a select conference on the Terrorist Threat to Britain experts from Jane's Intelligence Group said an online community was growing with younger and more impressionable people inadvertently sponsoring terrorism. Terry Prattar, a specialist in counter-terrorism with Jane's Strategic Advisory Services, said: "Al-Qaeda want to create a University of Jihad on line, both in a spiritual and financial sense. "They want a community that can carry out attack without having to travel abroad for training.."
He said the internet had been used to raise funds for terrorists in Afghanistan including the use of on-line gambling sites to launder cash. Youngsters are invited onto security protected areas after they have been recruited by "proving themselves on online forums".
A specialist group calling itself the Al Ansar Media Battalion has used videos of American and British troops being blown up to "make people here feel they are taking part in what going on over there," Mr Pattar said.
Analysts are encouraging moderate Muslims to enter the online discussion sites to dismiss the extremists' arguments that gain popularity among the young.
Security sources have told The Daily Telegraph there was a new battle against al-Qaeda on the internet. The fight against extremists was one of "ideas, not weapons and a campaign of internet, not training camps'', an intelligence source said. He described their target as "a 17-year-old who has no criminal record, who sees images on a screen, talks to his friends but never touches a terrorist''.
The European Commission's anti-terrorism unit has promised to tighten legislation across the continent to try to target the grooming of young Muslims for terrorism over the internet. Under the EU proposals there would be a criminal offence of "public provocation to commit a terrorist offence'', that would include "the distribution, or otherwise making available, of a message to the public, with the intent to incite'' acts of terrorism. The plans would carry a minimum jail term across the continent.
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.
A new 66-member parliament for the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland was sworn in Thursday, a committee of elders said.
France's president promises to concentrate all efforts on the latest 
Nizar Rayyan, the Hamas military commander who was killed in Thursday's air raid on his home in the Jabalya refugee camp, was a sworn enemy not only of Israel, but also of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas. 
A Hamas spokesman said he did not rule out the possibility that the PA had asked Israel to kill Rayyan because of his role in the Hamas-Fatah clashes in 2007. 
The security services have been warned that the internet is increasingly being used to train terrorists, raise money and as the main form of media to promote radical Islam. 
