[Dawn] The CIA wants Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar transferred to an American prison near Kabul for interrogation, US officials said.
The Taliban military chief, who was captured in Karachi earlier this month, is in Pakistan's custody and is being interrogated mainly by ISI officials, but CIA representatives also have participated in some of these sessions.
Senior US officials, who spoke to various media outlets on the condition that they are not identified, said the Americans were not satisfied with the interrogation and wanted to take charge.
"CIA Director Leon E. Panetta and other officials have proposed moving Mullah Baradar to the US-run prison at the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul," said a US media report.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday that once Pakistani agencies completed their investigation, Mullah Baradar could be handed over to his country of origin, which is Afghanistan, but not to the US.
And US officials indicated in Washington that the plan could be acceptable to them because they did not want to bring him over to the United States. Instead, they would prefer to interrogate him at the Bagram base where senior Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects were often kept.
"Mullah Baradar is an Afghan, so it's only logical that his home country might be considered as an ultimate destination," said a US official.
The US media claimed that Washington's proposal to bring Mullah Baradar to Bagram reflected America's frustration with the Pakistani investigation process.
Although Mullah Baradar had been with the Pakistanis for several weeks, they had not been able to extract any useful information from him, the reports said.
As the main architect of the Taliban's insurgent campaign, Mullah Baradar is believed to have extensive knowledge of the militant networks' operations and finances.
The US media also claimed that the CIA was denied direct access to Mullah Baradar for about two weeks after his arrest, and had since worked alongside Pakistani interrogators who continued to control the questioning.
Some US media outlets have alleged that Mullah Baradar also had longstanding ties to Pakistan's intelligence service and that's why Pakistan may be reluctant to turn over a prisoner who could reveal details about that relationship.
The media also noted that Mullah Baradar's capture was portrayed as a breakthrough in US efforts to get Pakistan to pursue Taliban leaders in the country.
"But emerging details about the arrest challenge that conclusion," said one report.According to these reports, Pakistani and CIA operatives did not know they had captured Mullah Baradar until after they began sorting through a group of suspects arrested in a raid on the outskirts of Karachi on Jan 26.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
He can't be read his Miranda rights until he gets to Baghram?
[Iran Press TV Latest] Scottish opposition parties have demanded the full publication of the medical evidence that declared the Lockerbie bomber terminally-ill, effectively paving the way for his controversial release. "The public deserve to know exactly what the evidence said and I urge the justice secretary to release the medical evidence in full immediately," the DPA News Agency quoted Labor's Justice Spokesman Richard Baker as saying Saturday. He doesn't appear to be dead yet, does he?
The release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the sole man convicted of the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing that killed 270 people, sparked allegations of a clandestine deal between London and Libya over lucrative oil exploration contracts. The only word wrong in that sentence is 'clandestine' ...
The Lockerbie bomber, who maintains his innocence, was freed on compassionate grounds six months ago, although in August, medical advisors had given the cancer-stricken 57-year-old only three months to live. Sounds like that old Henny Youngman joke...
The Labor Party and the Tories have again lashed out at the decision to return Megrahi to Libya on August 20, 2009, where he received a hero's welcome, and called it a grave error.
"The decision to release Megrahi was a grave error of judgment. Kenny MacAskill should have properly weighed the seriousness of Megrahi's crime and long sentence against his compassion for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing," Labor leader Iain Gray said Friday.
Libya has denied that Megrahi was a Tripoli agent, while a new BBC show earlier this year cast doubt on the evidence that condemned him, saying there were flaws in the key evidence.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The claim will intensify the pressure on Israel, whose foreign minister is due to meet David Miliband and other European envoys in Brussels today. Avigdor Lieberman will face questions about allegations that Mossad agents posing as Europeans and travelling on false passports were behind the killing. Oh please. It puts pressure on Dubai and on the countries that issued the diplomatic passports. I imagine those are very, very tightly controlled, so someone in the EU bureaucracy is going to have to explain how those passports slipped out of their control.
Providing fresh details yesterday about the identity of a second group involved in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mahbhouh, Dubai's police chief disclosed that up to three of the killers carried documents identifying themselves as foreign diplomats.
"There is information that the Dubai police will not make public for the moment, especially regarding diplomatic passports," Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan told a local newspaper.
Although he did not elaborate, the disclosure is certain to increase diplomatic tensions between Israel and European countries, including Britain. Any fraudulent use of diplomatic passports would be considered a grave security breach by the country, or countries, that issued them.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, will once again raise Britain's concerns when he meets Mr Lieberman on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. Israel has so far shown little willingness to co-operate with Britain as it investigates how the doctored passports of six of its nationals, all residents in the Jewish state, came to be used by some of the assassins. Last week, Dubai disclosed that 11 members of the 18-strong assassination squad carried European passports -- six British, three Irish, one German and one French.
Two Palestinians alleged to have provided logistical support to the operation are in custody in Dubai, but police in the Gulf state have largely remained silent about the identities of the remaining five individuals.
Officials in Dubai yesterday confirmed speculation that two of the five held Irish passports, suggesting that at least one of the other three carried diplomatic documentation.
European states seeking answers from Israel seem unlikely to get them. Last week, Ron Prossor, the Israeli ambassador to London, said he was "unable to assist" and similar messages have been relayed by envoys to Ireland and Germany.
Israel is convinced it has averted a diplomatic crisis. At the weekend, the country's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said he foresaw no diplomatic fallout because there was no irrefutable evidence linking Israel to the killing.
It emerged yesterday that one of the assassins allegedly applied in person for a German passport by passing himself of as the descendant of Holocaust survivors. According to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, the man was given a passport in the name of Michael Bodenheimer by authorities in Cologne after providing documents showing that he was of German lineage and that his grandparents had been persecuted by the Nazis.
Police also disclosed that several of the assassins visited Dubai on reconnaissance missions in the year leading up the killing of Mr Mabhouh, suggesting that the plot was planned further in advance than was initially believed.
#1
I'm beginning to think that Dubai was the government behind the assassination, and all these bits of 'evidence' were concocted to deflect attention.
#2
AH is onto it. This is tunring into a real opportunity for Israel - they get to play boxes in boxes with all parties.
If they had any role, it could be brilliant since it is so out of character and unbelievable - the excess and overkill of the effort.
Surprising that Britain is making such a fuss - they're losing their edge. Dubai looking barely professional, and has the most to lose, and they seem set to do so.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Dubai's police chief said in a report on Saturday that his force has evidence incriminating the Israeli spy agency Mossad in the killing of a Hamas commander in the Gulf emirate last month, despite Israeli denials.
"Among the new evidence available to Dubai police which incriminates the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, and confirms its involvement in the murder ... are telephone communications between the culprits who have been detected," Dhahi Khalfan said in the newspaper Al-Bayan.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas's military wing, was found dead in his luxurious Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20.
"Dubai police also have reliable information that some perpetrators bought their tickets in other countries using credit cards bearing the same identity revealed" previously by the emirate, he added.
"Therefore, the perpetrators used the same passport in several countries," Khalfan said, reiterating that "the Mossad is 99-percent involved" in the assassination of Mabhouh.
Neither in the case of the telephone calls nor of the credit cards did Khalfan say how the link to Mossad was drawn.
The international criminal police organization Interpol said on Thursday it had issued "red notices" for their arrest in any of its 188 member countries.
Israel has dismissed as "baseless" calls by Khalfan for the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, to be arrested in connection with the murder.
Britain offered on Friday new passports to six British citizens whose identities were used by the suspects and all of whom live in Israel, to protect them from inadvertent arrest through Interpol.
Other suspects identified by Dubai used cloned passports from Ireland, France and Germany.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
You say it as if it would be a bad thing . . . .
#3
Ah, yes...and the Israelis recruited 2 Palestinian Fatah to the group just to throw off suspicion from Mossad.
I would not, however, put it past Mossad to have worked secretly with Fatah to assemble a Palestinian crew specifically to tackle some mutually-beneficial 'targets'.
I suspect these 17 are now comfortably dispersed & well-taken care of, knowing full-well their careers & former lives were over upon their engagement.
[Iran Press TV Latest] France blasts the alleged Israeli-run terror operation against a senior Hamas commander in Dubai, rejecting 'murder' as a solution in international relations. "Murder is not the way one should conduct international relations," said the visiting French Prime Minister Francois Fillon in the Syrian capital, Damascus on Saturday, AFP reported. He's talking about the death of a Hamas agent, who was lining up arms sales. Hamas agents have literally murdered 5-year-olds in their beds.
"France condemns this murder," he added in condemning the January terrorist killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the co-founder of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas' armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Thus preserving arms sales to Dubai for the near future ...
Earlier in the day, the Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that new evidence, including records of credit card payments and phone calls made by the suspects, confirmed the involvement of the Israeli Spy Agency, Mossad, in Mabhouh's terror operation.
"Like the British and like the Germans, we have asked for explanations from the Israeli authorities since a French passport has been used in this operation," the premier added, referring to the international police warrants issued by that the United Arab Emirates alleging that passports used by the terror suspects to enter the country had been issued in European countries.
Fillon, however, did not elaborate on the response of the Israelis on the use of a French passport in the suspected terror operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
[Iran Press TV Latest] Protestors in London have asked the Pakistani government to do more to help Dr. Afia Siddiqui, who is currently in prison in the United States. We'd like to think she isn't going anywhere anytime soon, unless she gets terminal prostate cancer ...
Because Islamabad is going to obey protesters in London on this matter, as they have [not] on so many others.
Activists gathered outside the US Embassy in London on Saturday to protest against her sham trial in a US court, in which the Pakistani scientist was found guilty of attempting to kill US military personnel and FBI agents.
The absence of credible evidence in Siddiqui's case has outraged many Pakistanis and other members of the Islamic ummah, who feel she was railroaded.
A US court found Aafia Siddiqui guilty of attempting to murder US citizens while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan. Siddiqui was charged with shooting at FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Ghazni, where she was being interrogated in 2008. She was convicted in a New York court on February 3, 2010.
Her lawyers argued that there was no evidence to show Siddiqui ever fired the weapon presented in court.
Siddiqui vehemently denied all the charges against her during the trial, calling them 'ridiculous' and insisting that she was framed, jailed, and tortured by US agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"This is a verdict from Israel, not America. The anger should be directed where it belongs," Siddiqui said shortly after the jury left the room.
Relatives of Siddiqui have strongly criticized the US justice system for its ruling. Human rights organizations have also expressed doubts about the accuracy of the US account of the event.
Many political activists claim believe Siddiqui was Prisoner 650 of the US detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, where they say she was tortured for five years until one day US authorities announced that they had found her in Afghanistan.
Siddiqui may be given a life sentence by the judge, who will probably not make a decision on the case until May.
The conviction immediately triggered protests in various parts of Pakistan, where anti-US sentiments were already running high.
Dozens of Pakistani nationals were secretly transported to US prisons after the 9/11 attacks.
Pakistani opposition parties accused former President Pervez Musharraf of handing hundreds of Pakistanis over to the US authorities. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry says Washington has handed over about 60 Pakistani prisoners to Islamabad and negotiations are under way for the release of the remaining prisoners.
This article starring:
Afia Siddiqui
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
How many from the pakistani community protest about islamic terrorism?
The Pakistani community are the most troublesome community in the UK with the somalian gangs being another issue.
I remember the days we looked at the West Indian community as the most troublesome but they seem fully integrated in comparison now!
SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States plan to conclude bilateral talks this year on the method and procedures for possible overseas redeployment of American troops stationed here, sources here said Sunday. An informed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the sides were seeking to conclude the negotiations before they hold the annual defense ministerial talks, known as the Security Consultative Meeting, slated for October.
"Talks are being held between the two sides to conclude the details and procedures of strategic flexibility of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK)," the source said.
Seoul had opposed the flexibility of U.S. troops as it earlier believed the move may lead to, at least temporarily, a reduction of American forces stationed here. The U.S. currently maintains some 28,500 servicemembers as part of joint efforts to deter any hostility from communist North Korea under the Korea-U.S. alliance.
USFK said in a statement earlier this month that a redeployment of its troops, even if necessary, would only be possible in the late 2010s after close consultations with the South Korean government.
Other sources close to the ongoing negotiations said the strategic flexibility of U.S. troops will not affect the number of soldiers stationed here.
"The countries are holding the talks under a condition that the number of U.S. forces here will be maintained at 28,500 at all times," another source in Seoul said, adding the U.S. hopes to exercise such flexibility of its troops here from 2016.
Washington was earlier said to want the strategic flexibility of its troops from 2015 when the relocation of its frontline troops to south of Seoul is to be completed. The relocation of the troops, however, will likely be delayed by one year due to a delay in the construction of a new expanded U.S. base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, the sources said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
WMF > SOUTH CHINA SEAS FIGHT?: VIETNAM TO DEPLOY BALLISTIC MISSLES CAPABLE OF STRIKING CHINA'S "PEARL HARBOR" AT HAINAN ISLAND; + VIETNAM'S MIL MODERNIZATION IS MAKING IT A DANGEROUS INDEPENDENT GEOPOL PROXY FOR THE US-NATO IN SOUTH CHINA SEAS AGZ CHINA.
Hat tip to Michael Yon
A last-ditch effort to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan brought down the government in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war was increasingly at risk.
While this was the first time Pakistan had acted against the Taliban leadership, Afghans involved in western-backed attempts to start talks with the Taliban to end the war were furious, warning that the arrest might have ruined chances of negotiations.
Mullah Baradar was independently in contact with the Afghan government to find a way for reconciliation and the Pakistanis knew that from their secret agents.'
The timing of this arrest was very peculiar,' said Barmak Pazhwak, a senior official for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank. The fact he was one of the key Taliban leaders advocating talks suggests the Pakistanis either want more control or to sabotage the process altogether.'
The arrest came days after Pakistan had publicly stated it needed a role in any negotiations. Pakistan has invested a lot in the Taliban, with whom it has worked for more than 20 years. Its military intelligence service, the ISI, helped them to take control of Afghanistan in the 1990s and its generals refer to the Taliban as assets'.
The ISI is arresting the Taliban leaders who are reconcilable,' said Idrees Khan, a human rights activist in Peshawar. By doing this, they want to save them from being killed by those Taliban who don't want to accept peace.'
#1
read this earlier, synopsis: Any Taliban we have arrested or captured were the ones responding to Karzai's peace initiatives, therefore we shouldn't act against them. I call bullshit. I don't pretend to comprehend all the ISI/Paki Army motivations on this, but any time we get one of em jugged it's a good thing. I doubt the ISI will let their pets be mistreated or let their "family secrets" out, but any info is helpful, and the attrition has to hurt Taliban ops
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2010 16:26 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ever decreasing circles frank.. Curd and cream . In Iraq players got took out the game , don't matter which side their flavor is , or which side their hearts desire is.. In storage for ' development' . Ever evolving circle of intel/asset management
[Dawn] Pakistan allowed the US Central Intelligence Agency to set up a post in Karachi and the data collected by this post led to the arrest of a key Taliban commander and two 'governors', officials said.
Describing this as "a high-level of cooperation between the United States and Pakistan," The Washington Post reported on Friday that it signalled a major change in Islamabad's attitude towards the Taliban movement.
This enhanced cooperation between the CIA and the ISI led to the arrests of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban's second in command, and two Taliban shadow governors for northern Afghanistan, the report said.
"The ISI and the CIA are working together, with the Americans providing actionable intelligence and the Pakistanis acting together with them" to hunt the insurgency's leaders, a Pakistani official told the paper.
The Post noted that Pakistan's decision to aggressively search for Afghan Taliban leadership reflected a shift that had been in the works since autumn last year when US President Barack Obama wrote to President Asif Ali Zardari.
The letter offered additional military and economic assistance and help in easing tensions with India.
The Post noted that with US facilitation, India and Pakistan had agreed to restart their stalled talks. President Obama's letter also contained a warning that Pakistan's use of insurgent groups to achieve policy goals would no longer be tolerated.
The arrests of Mullah Baradar and other leaders represented "major progress," a US intelligence official told the Post. "No one has forgotten Pakistan's complex history with the Taliban. But they understand how important this is to the United States, the region and to their own security."
The CIA post in Karachi intercepted communications which were later handed over to ISI officials. The two agencies then planned a joint operation to catch Mullah Baradar and 'governors'.
Final agreement on the operation came in the last week of January.
The detentions, which have taken place since early last week, were initially kept secret to allow intelligence operatives to use information gleaned from the captured men to reach other militants.
The Post claimed that the arrests offered evidence of something that has long been suspected: Top Afghan Taliban leaders have found refuge across Pakistan, particularly in its cities, something the government long denied.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Quetta too hot , Karachi belts tighten, try Rawlapindi .. It's like tracing gypsies on tour
[Al Arabiya Latest] A prominent Sunni Muslim politician banned from running in Iraq's parliamentary vote next month has withdrawn his party from the ballot, a spokesman said on Saturday, calling on others to join the boycott. Billiant. Simply brilliant. If you don't run you won't win, but I guess you won't suffer a humiliating loss, either. Just hands the Shi'a crazies power for the next five years. Brilliant indeed ...
Iraq's once-dominant minority Sunnis largely shunned the national vote in 2005, fuelling a bloody insurgency that U.S. and Iraqi officials hope Sunni participation in the coming election will help end.
The National Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni MP banned from the election on account of links to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, confirmed its candidates would not contest the poll.
"After the remarks of General Ray Odierno andChristopher Hill (U.S. ambassador to Baghdad) that the Justice and Accountability Committee (JAC) was being run by al-Quds forces (from Iran), the National Dialogue Front cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda," the group's spokesman Haider al-Mullah told reporters in Baghdad. "The National Dialogue Front therefore announces its stance is to boycott the forthcoming election and the invitation is open to other political entities to take the same stance."
Mutlak was the number two candidate on former Shiite premier Allawi's broad-based Iraqiya coalition until the JAC barred the prominent Sunni MP from standing for office.
The JAC is run by former Shiite deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi and his close ally Ali al-Allami, who spent a year in a U.S.-run jail in Iraq.
While in Washington on Tuesday, General Odierno, the top US military officer in Iraq, said Chalabi and Allami had ties to the Quds force and "clearly are influenced by Iran."
"We have direct intelligence that tells us that," the commander told an audience at the Institute for the Study of War in the US capital.
Odierno said Chalabi and Allami have had several meetings in Iran with a close aide to the commander of the Quds, the covert operations arm of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards.
"And we believe they're absolutely involved in influencing the outcome of the election. And it's concerning that they've been able to do that over time," Odierno said, apparently referring to the Tehran regime.
The dispute over who can stand in the March 7 election has raised sectarian tensions and alarmed Washington, which views the polls as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Turkish IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation announced that a fleet of 20 ships would be sent to break Israel's embargo on Hamas-run Gaza two months from now. Five of the ships will be under the auspices of IHH; the support of charitable businessmen in Turkey is being sought for funding to purchase them.
IHH was founded in 1992 to provide humanitarian aid to Bosnia, and later extended its reach to deliver foodstuff, clothes and tents to crisis regions hit by wars, conflicts, and natural disaster to meet urgent needs of victims.'
However, it has now added political intervention to its agenda, vowing that its aid ships will continue to head for Gaza until Israeli embargo is lifted.'
The cargo ships are to carry Israeli-embargoed building materials, generators, medication, medical equipment and educational materials.' In addition, passenger ships accompanying the cargo ships are scheduled to carry journalists, human rights advocates, activists and lawmakers from various countries.'
Other reports of planned humanitarian' flotillas headed for Gaza have been publicized of late. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez was said to be planning to join one of them, along with anti-apartheid activists from South Africa. The ships were said to be planning to set sail for Gaza in March, in a convoy initiated by Hamas terror activist Muhammad Sualha, currently in Britain.
In late 2008, the Free Gaza' movement sent a ship towards Gaza, with former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney aboard. Israel declared the coastal area a "closed military zone," but when the boat continued towards Gaza and tried to outmaneuver an Israel Navy patrol boat; a collision ensued, and the ship ultimately set sail for Lebanon after taking on water. Maybe the Israelis could make a deal with Japanese Whalers.
#1
Israel should immediately and publicly tell the world press that any ship attempting to enter restricted waters will be disabled and/or sunk.
This should be reiterated several times, so when it happens the activists only have themselves to blame.
I just wish these so called peace activists would spend the same amount of time and effort convincing hamas to stop attacks on Israel, so the blockade could be lifted without them needing to try and smuggle supplies into Gaza.
The world seems to have quickly forgotten that Israel left Gaza in search of peace, and were met with thousands of rockets shot at their civilian population from Gaza in response.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
02/21/2010 16:14 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Do that, then see if they can even get insurance for the ships. This is an attempt at Media Attention. They haven't even paid for their 5 ships. I'd have "mishaps" hit them in port, as a taste of the future "adventures"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2010 16:21 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Chavez was said to be planning to join one of them, along with anti-apartheid activists from South Africa.
Whooogo and his ANC commie pals. A marriage made in heaven. Aparthied my aching arse. Send the entire lot to the bottom!
#4
Napalm any ship that enters Gazan waters, and shoot any survivors. This is nothing but brinkmanship, and Israel should call their bluffs in a very obvious, painful way. If any of these ships are warships, their presence would be an act of war, and should be responded to as such. Israel has some very good submarines, and they should be put to use.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/21/2010 19:19 Comments ||
Top||
#5
No surprise here as TURKEY has been itching to show its newfound geopol muscle - the only real question is the number of Turkish ships sent + ISRAEL'S MILPOL REACTION.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Syria dismissed on Saturday an International Atomic Energy Agency recommendation to allow its inspectors unrestrained access, days after the agency said a bombed Syrian complex could have been a nuclear site.
An IAEA report said on Thursday that Uranium particles found at a Syrian complex destroyed by an Israeli air raid in 2007 suggest the possibility of covert nuclear activity at the site.
The report, by new IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano, prodded Syria to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which permits unfettered inspections beyond a declared nuclear site to check out any covert atomic activity.
"We are committed to the non-proliferation agreement between the agency and Syria and we (only) allow inspectors to come according to this agreement," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said.
"We will not allow anything beyond the agreement because Syria does not have a military nuclear programme. Syria is not obliged to open its other sites to inspectors," Moualem said after meeting his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger.
Moualem did not address the findings of the latest IAEA report on Syria and repeated Syria's position that its nuclear activities are peaceful and related mostly to medicine.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
"Shuns"? What is this, a Lancaster County barn raising?
I wonder if the headline-writer is aware that the verb has an implication of inability to refuse on the part of the subject? Shunning is a refusal to recognize; it's what a person or congregation does to a violator of customs where said person or congregation has no legal recourse, and is morally enjoined from harming the violator by nonlegal means.
In other words, that usage suggests that Syria has no power to keep the IAEA inspectors out. This is almost certainly not true, and thus the headline is misleading.
No biscuit.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/21/2010 20:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Let the Israelis know what you got. They can handle it from there.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Russia said on Friday it was "very alarmed" by Iran's failure to cooperate with the IAEA, but that it will honor a contract to deliver advanced air defense missiles to Iran. "They lied to us, Dmitri!"
"Yes, Volodya. We should sell them advanced air defense systems!"
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated Iran's insistence that suspicions about its nuclear program were baseless. But the United States said the IAEA report lent weight to its campaign for more sanctions against Tehran. "We are very alarmed and we cannot accept this, that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the radio station Ekho Moskvy. "For about 20 years, the Iranian leadership carried out its clandestine nuclear program without reporting it to the IAEA," he said. "I do not understand why there was such secrecy."
The IAEA on Thursday made public its concerns over a classified analysis which concludes that Iran already has explosives expertise relevant to a workable nuclear weapon. "Some questions remain on the table and Iran has so far not reacted to them," Lavrov said. "We need to understand how several documents concerning military nuclear technology found their way to Iran."
Russia -- which wields a veto in the United Nations Security Council -- has in recent weeks raised suspicions publicly about Iran's nuclear activities, after for years saying it had no evidence Tehran was seeking to build a nuclear bomb.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko hinted that talks on a sanctions resolution could start soon. "No work is in progress at the U.N. Security Council in New York today to prepare a possible sanctions-based resolution on Iran ... However, given the current circumstances, we cannot fully rule out the possibility of starting this work."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
As they + VLADVEDEV should be 2012-N-AFTER.
To wit,
DAILY TIMES.PK > {Richard Holbrooke] US WARNS OF INCREASED AL QAEDA THREAT IN CENTRAL ASIA
[beyond AGHAN = AFPAK to FORMER SOVIET -STANS, espec vee ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN]
In a telephone conversation with the Hezbollah secretary general, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "In the event of recurrence of [the past] mistakes the Zionist regime [of Israel] must be finished off." He went on to say that "the Iranian nation will stand side by side of the nations of the region and Lebanon in this regard." ...and we will fight to the last...Lebanese.
A statement appearing on the official website of the Iranian president read that President Ahmadinejad's Thursday telephone conversation with the secretary general of Hezbollah Resistance Movement, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, was aimed at discussing the latest developments in Lebanon and the region.
"Stressing on the importance of maintaining readiness in the face of potential threats by the Zionist regime [of Israel], the president said: The level of readiness should be to such an extent that if they (the Israelis) ventured upon repeating their past mistakes, they will be finished off and the region will rid them for once and for all, and the Iranian nation will stand side by side of the nations of the region and Lebanon in this regard," read the statement dated Thursday, February 18, 2010.
Although one could argue that the remarks are merely a show of solidarity and moral support, the comments could be roughly taken as an indication that the Islamic Republic is wiling to offer military support to Lebanon in the event of another Israeli aggression.
During the last Israeli-waged war on Lebanon — which was the second of its kind — more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed, more than 4,000 others were injured and Israeli landmines and cluster bombs planted in southern Lebanon continues to claim innocent lives to date.
Eventually after 33 days of fire, Israel was forces to retreat without achieving any of its objectives as a result of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.
Ever since what became to be commonly known as "Israel's humiliating defeat in Lebanon," Tel Aviv has been threatening Beirut with another military offensive, while Israeli fighter jets have been conducting regular overflights in violation of Lebanese airspace.
Recently officials in Tel Aviv have adopted a harsher and more aggressive tone, saying that another conflict with Lebanon could be imminent.
Yossi Peled, an Israeli cabinet minister and a former army general who has experienced the conflict on the northern border, said on Saturday, January 23, that another confrontation with Hezbollah was almost inevitable but he could not say when it would happen.
The minister without portfolio said that according to his "estimation, understanding and knowledge," it was "almost clear" to him that another conflict on the border with Lebanon was imminent.
"It does not necessary have to be between us and Hezbollah, other elements may be involved in this," Peled said.
The Israeli minister's use of the term "other elements" could be interpreted that Tel Aviv already knows that it has drawn the ire of the whole region and that any other act of aggression that it conducts could have a united response from the countries in the Middle East.
Iran, Lebanon and Syria, along with a number of other states in the Middle East, see Israel as the main obstacle on the region's path towards peace and stability, and the heads of these states have made no efforts hiding their views.
The most recent of such expressions came from Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who said on Wednesday, February 17, that he believed "stability will not be established [in the Middle East region] under Israel's disingenuous approaches toward peace."
The Hezbollah Resistance Movement in Lebanon, and its charismatic leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, have on numerous occasions remarked that Israel is the most dangerous — if not the only — threat in the Middle East.
The movement says Tel Aviv threats are the reason behind the fact that Hezbollah is maintaining its weapons despite the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls on the group to lay down its arms.
"...Weapons are the result of the Resistance's existence and the Resistance [Movement of Hezbollah] is there because of the presence of the enemy (Israel)," Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Saturday, February 6.
Iranian President Ahmadinejad has his own fair share of opinions about Israel. Perhaps one of his most quoted comments about the Tel Aviv regime is that Israel should be "wiped off the map" — a comment which he later on explained was misunderstood and that what he actually meant was that Israel would "disappear" the same way that Apartheid and the Soviet Union disappeared.
President Ahmadinejad maintains that "The Zionist regime [of Israel] is an artificial regime — a fictitious regime. You brought people from different parts of the world and you have built this state. No, that cannot last, it is not sustainable. If they do not listen to our solution, this will happen one day."
In his recent conversation with the Hezbollah secretary general, however, President Ahmadinejad said he highly doubted that Israel would dare launch another attack on Lebanon.
"The Zionists are extremely afraid of the Resistance [Movement of Hezbollah] and the people of Lebanon and the region. But they seek to make up for their previous defeats in the Gaza [Strip] and Lebanon, because they feel that their dignity and existence is threatened. Yet they dare not do this (launching another attack on Lebanon) either, because they fear the consequences," Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling Nasrallah by the statement on the official website of the Iranian president.
The statement goes on to quote the Hezbollah secretary general as saying that "strategically speaking, the Zionist regime [of Israel] is in no position to initiate a new war; however, it seeks to spread fear and intimidation through its threats and psychological warfare — although, at any rate, it will not achieve anything [through such efforts]."
It remains to be known whether Israel will dare to launch another attack on the Lebanese territories or not. However, one thing is for sure: In the even of such an aggression the regional states will form a united front against Israel — at least that is what Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa believes.
"If a new attack or aggression is in the process of being prepared, they (Israel) will not get away with it easily," Moussa said after meeting with the Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali Shami in Beirut on Wednesday, February 17.
"We learned the lessons of 2006, and the Arab position is to stand by Lebanon," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
IN NOT-NECESARILY-UNRELATED-NEWS, WMF > GLOBAL "GOD WAR": THE US-LED GEOPOL ENCIRCLEMENT OF CHINA, ASIA IS ALSO THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN ENCIRCLEMEMNT OF SAME.
* SAME > CHINA: THE FIVE WEAKNESSES OF US MILITARY STRATEGY, COMBAT OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN | THE US HAS FAILED TO PROVE THE MILPOL OBSOLESCENCE OF "PEOPLE'S/GUERILLA WAR" IN THE AGE OF SUPER-TECHNOLOGY | THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPLE'S/GUERILLA WARFARE TOWARDS A NEW OPERATIONAL, NUCLEAR INDEX AS A CONSEQUNECE OF THE US-ISLAMIST FIGHT IN AFPAK.
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.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Dubai's police chief said in a report on Saturday that his force has evidence incriminating the Israeli spy agency Mossad in the killing of a Hamas commander in the Gulf emirate last month, despite Israeli denials.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Protestors in London have asked the Pakistani government to do more to help Dr. 
