The U.S. military on Monday announced they....still have not been able to get MAJ Nidal Hasan to shave, but have punished Six Army soldiers who burned Qurans at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan and three Marines who urinated on dead Taliban corpses. All received administrative, or "non-judicial," punishments, which means the soldiers will not serve jail time but could lose their jobs in the military or get denied promotions.
#2
Soldiers can also decline Article 15, non-judicial punishment, and request a courts martial, and decline anyone one of those up to a General Courts Martial [severe penalties increase with each escalation].
but could lose their jobs in the military or get denied promotions.
I don't think they're too concerned about that at this point. I suspect the command chain's PC approach to fighting a war has soured them about wanting to be around people who don't give a crap about their lives and the lives of their squadies to make nice-nice with people out to kill them while playing the double cross game with the State Dept and Administration types.
[Dawn] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... on Wednesday announced the dismissal of his intelligence chief ahead of an imminent cabinet reshuffle involving the top security ministries.
The head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil, was dismissed as Karzai had decided that no intelligence chief could serve longer than two years, the president's office said.
"President Karzai commended the dedication Mr Nabil demonstrated in the job over the past two years and wished him success in the new job he would soon take over as an ambassador to a foreign country," the palace said.
The move follows the ouster of two other top security officials, defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and interior minister Besmillah Mohammadi, by the country's parliament earlier this month.
Lawmakers said they had failed to stop a resurgence in a 10-year Taliban insurgency and cross-border shelling from Pakistain.
A palace official told AFP on condition of anonymity that Mohammadi would be appointed as the new defence minister while his former deputy Mushtaba Patanag would take over as interior minister.
Assadullah Khaled, current minister of border and tribal affairs, would become the new NDS chief, he said.
After Wardak was dismissed as defence minister, Karzai named him as senior presidential adviser on army reform.
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08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who is visiting China, said that Egypt is looking into the possibility of re-launching its nuclear program in an effort to generate clean energy.
[CTV News] Egypt's military on Wednesday insisted it is pursuing its offensive against Islamic Islamic fascistiin the volatile Sinai Peninsula, denying a claim that the government agreed to halt the operation that followed a bloody border attack.
The statement countered a declaration by ultraconservative Salafi Mohammedans and other radical groups that the offensive was called off in order to avoid an escalation of violence by the turbans, who are thought to be thug jihadis, some inspired by al-Qaeda.
The offensive was triggered by a brazen attack on Aug. 5 near Egypt's border with Gazoo and Israel, when masked Islamic fascistikilled 16 Egyptian soldiers before crossing into Israel, where they were rubbed out.
The official Egyptian Middle East News Agency quoted an unidentified military official as saying that the offensive is still in progress, noting the total number of Islamic fascistikilled since the beginning of the operation has reached 11.
"We will continue to chase the terrorists," the official said, according to the MENA report.
The deployment of tanks and thousands of troops marked a precedent since enactment of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace accord, which imposed strict limits on Egyptian forces in Sinai, especially in the border area. Israel quietly agreed to the posting of several thousand soldiers there even before the Aug. 5 attack, since turban groups also pose a threat to Israel's security.
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08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] Expatriate Minister Mujahid al-Quhali was dismissed from the General People Congress party led by the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... on Monday, media outlets of the GPC affirmed.
Al-Quhali refused his dismissal, pointing out that Saleh was behind his firing and that the dismissal decision should be issued by the party institutions as a whole, not by Saleh.
Al-Quhali affirmed that he was attacked by the GPC as he supports the implementation of the GCC-mediated power transfer deal as well as his loyalty to President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi ...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... According to al-Quhali, Saleh wanted to sack him after he called members of the GPC and the Joint Meeting Parties in Amran governorate to work together to implement the GCC deal, maintain stability and security.
In a statement, Expatriate Ministry denounced media on Monday the campaign adopted by Alyaman Alywam (Yemen Today) channel, owned by the son of Saleh, against the ministry, pointing out that the channel abuses the Yemeni expatriates and Yemen's neighboring states. The statement said that(Yemen Today) transmits lies with the aim of disturbing the political settlement and abusing the GCC States, affirming that that ministry will stand by President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi and Prime Minister Mohammad Salem Basindwa to implement the GCC deal.
Al-Quhali was one of Yemeni politicians who supported Saleh during the uprising erupted in 2011 and he was nominated by the GPC for the post of expatriate minister.
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[Yemen Post] Governor of Ibb Ahmed Abdullah al-Hajri ordered last Sunday to shut down all private custodies, hold responsible people accountable and bring them to justice.
Ibb is one of Yemeni governorates in which tribal leaders run private jails. One revolutionary Mohammad al-Hussam is still enforcedly disappeared by Sheikh Sadeq al-Basha who has armed militias and private custodies.
There are many custodies that are run by tribal leaders in Hodeidah, Dhamar, Sana'a and other governorates, Yemeni activists say.
Activists and civil society organizations repeatedly demanded to shut down private jails and put an end to violations against human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... Yemen Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashhoor has called the government to immediately cloase private custodies run by some officials and tribal leaders, stressing that the existence of such custodies contradicts Yemen laws and international conventions.
Yemeni human rights groups had stated that hundreds of protesters are being tossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! and brutally tortured inside military camps affiliated to the outgoing President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... .The exact number of detainees being held by the authorities is unknown, but activists say that it could be as high as 260.Yemeni activists had urged all international human rights organizations to press on the Yemeni regime to release all detainees and hold the perpetrators accountable.They said that the Saada-based Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is "God is Great, Death to America", Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ... group practice torture and violations in its private prisons, affirming that it arrest its political foes.
Media sources have stated the Houthi group conducted an arrest campaign against activists, politicians, teachers, students as well as football players in Saada.
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[Yemen Post] President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi ...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... fired on Wednesday Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council Esam al-Samawi and appointed a new one, Ali Nasser Salem.
Yemeni judges had demanded to carry out constitutional amendments that enable them ti elect chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council and members of the council.
In March and April 2012, judges went on strike for one month and half, demanding to fire chairman of the Judicial Council and elect a new chairman. They ended their strike after Hadi appointed new members of the council.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end... Hadi appointed the former premier Ali Mujawar as ambassador and permanent representative of the Republic of Yemen to the European headquarters of the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... in Geneva.
Hadi also issued on Wednesday decrees of appointing deputies for Tourism Ministry and General Authority of Martyrs Families.
The military-run 26 September newspaper had anticipated that Hadi would to issue new significant military and security decisions, the military-run 26 September newspaper said.
It quoted well-informed sources as saying that the decisions will complete the process of the army reorganization according to national principles, pointing out that such steps will strengthen counter-terrorism efforts and resumption of essential services.Dozens of soldiers of the Republican Guard protested early of August against Hadi's decisions of transferring brigades of the Republican Guard led by Ahmed President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... to other military units.
Hadi's move is expected to ease Saleh's influence over the military, which he used to challenge the new president.
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#1
Word is, Bambi is extremely jealous and pondering how to do the same.
[Yemen Post] A front man of the Military Committee formed under the GCC-mediated power deal has revealed that 97 soldiers are accused of attacking ministries of defense and interior.
General Ali Saeed Obaid affirmed that the 62 soldiers were referred to the military judiciary while the other 35 are still being investigated.
Obaid affirmed that the committee could achieve important steps in the field of security and stability, pointing out that gangs started to set up illegal checkpoints in some streets of the capital Sana'a and wear military uniforms.
He affirmed that the committee will hunt the gangs and arrest them, denouncing, in the meantime, the liquidation attempt against Secretary General of the Yemeni Socialist Party Yaseen Saeed Noman.
Noaman survived an liquidation attempt two days after the Transportation Minister Waeed Bazeeb survived liquidation in the port city of Aden.
The Yemeni capital, Sana'a, has witnessed a state of loose security as crimes of killing and weapon carrying increased after a year of pro-democracy protests that swept the country.
The Interior Ministry has declared a ban on weapons carrying inside cities, but gunnies are still seen roaming with AK-47 assault rifles, hunting rifles and pistols inside Sana'a streets.
Though Yemenis live on less than two dollars a day, Yemen has the second most heavily armed population in the world, unofficial statistics say.
An average civilian casualty rate of about 4000 people per year due to gun violence, the statics say.
Yemen's interior ministry estimates there are about 60 million firearms in Yemen, or about three for every citizen. Government efforts to take weapons out of peoples' hands have been unsuccessful.
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The son of radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza has been convicted of carrying out an armed raid at a jewellers.
Imran Mostafa - whose father faces deportation from the UK - carried out the raid with Jonathon Abdul, 17, in King''s Lynn, Norfolk, on 31 January.
Mostafa, 20, denied robbery and possession of a firearm with intent but was convicted at Norwich Crown Court.
Jewellery worth about £75,000 was taken in the raid. Both Mostafa and Abdul will be sentenced at a future date.
Ossama Hamed, 19, of Gresswell Street, Fulham, and Ahmed Ahmed, 19, of Nags Head Road, Enfield, north London, had both previously admitted the same charges in relation to the robbery at Francis Wain on Norfolk Street.
They too will be sentenced at a later date.
Details of Mostafa''s parentage had been made the subject of a contempt of court order by Judge Peter Jacobs, which was lifted after jurors reached their verdicts.
The judge also lifted restrictions on reporting the identity of Abdul, who was 16 at the time of the robbery.
The court heard how members of the shop staff cowered behind counters as three men burst in - one armed with a firearm and another with a hammer, which was used to break display cabinets.
Another man stayed in a van which was used as a getaway vehicle.
Prosecutor Ian James told the court: "One of the robbers let off some sort of smoke bomb causing confusion, and stock was taken as loads of glass fragments went everywhere because of the way the robbery was conducted."
Civil engineering student Mostafa, of Deverills Way, Slough, told the jury he had been teaching Arabic and the Koran at a community centre in London at the time the robbery took place.
He told the jury when he gave evidence: "I am not a thief. I am not an armed robber."
Abdul, of High Street, Fulham, south-west London, admitted he had been in King''s Lynn the day before the robbery, but said he was subject to a bail curfew at the time and had to return to London by 22:00 BST that day.
Another of Abu Hamza''s sons, Yasser Kamel, 20, was jailed for 12 months in 2010 after admitting violent disorder during anti-Israel riots in London.
Abu Hamza, 54, has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights against his extradition from the UK to the US on terror charges and is awaiting a verdict. Check out the pic of Imran. Kind of gives one the creeps.
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08/30/2012 17:35 ||
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#1
What's the sharia punishment for theft? Like father like son?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/30/2012 20:13 Comments ||
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Where'd they get the gun for the robbery? I thought those was banned in England, and that Muslims was good law-abiding subjects.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/30/2012 23:15 Comments ||
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#3
Gaaawd, almost forgot that Britain has a "Norfolk" all its own.
The founder of an Islamic terrorist group responsible for the murder of an ABC cameraman in Iraq in 2003 has been sentenced to an extra year in jail.
Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, also known as Mullah Krekar, is an Iraqi-born ethnic Kurd who resides in Norway.
He was already facing five years in prison after being found guilty earlier this year of threatening Norwegian politicians who had called for his extradition to Iraq to face terrorism charges.
Krekar was sentenced to an extra year in jail for allegedly making more threats against members of Norway's Muslim immigrant community and former prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.
Krekar was the founder of Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic extremist group listed as a terrorist organisation by the UN, United States, Australia, Canada and many other nations.
In March 2003, an Ansar al-Islam suicide bomber killed freelance cameraman Paul Moran, who was on assignment for the ABC in northern Iraq.
Five Iraqis were also killed in the suicide bombing at a checkpoint. ABC correspondent Eric Campbell was wounded in the attack.
After appearance on popular TV show, Yitshak Ehrenberg becomes the second German rabbi to be charged for defying controversial Cologne ruling
I realize Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany.
She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
is busy keeping Europe from complete financial collapse, but she might want to prioritize a second track for this before all the Juices take their kids and go.
One of Germany's most prominent rabbis has been charged after publicly vowing to continue to perform circumcisions, The Times of Israel has learned.
The office of Rabbi Yitshak Ehrenberg, who has been serving the Berlin Jewish community since 1997, on Wednesday confirmed in an email that criminal charges had been filed against him. Ehrenberg has received a letter from the prosecutor's office because of comments he made on a nationwide broadcast television show, an aide confirmed. At this point it is not known who filed the complaint and what exactly the letter states.
Ehrenberg could not immediately be reached for comment.
Ehrenberg is the second Jerusalem-born Orthodox rabbi living in Germany who is being investigated amid the current controversy surrounding circumcision. In June, a Cologne court declared the ritual illegal. As a direct consequence of that ruling, a German citizen earlier this month filed a police complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg, from the Bavarian town of Hof, who said he had performed hundreds of circumcisions in recent years.
On July 11, Ehrenberg -- a well-known figure among German Jews and a member of the executive committee of the European Rabbinical Conference -- participated in a debate on "Anne Will," a popular talk show dedicated to the Cologne ruling and its implications [link in German].
A month and a half to file charges -- is that normal?
"I don't even want to go into this discussion," Ehrenberg said after a proponent of a ban said that the act was tantamount to causing the child bodily injury without his or her consent. "We're talking about religion," said Ehrenberg. "This ruling will kill Judaism in Germany."
After more than an hour of lively discussion, host Anne Will allowed Ehrenberg the last word. The rabbi first appealed to his congregants not to have their children circumcised in a hospital but in a synagogue or at home. Then he concluded: "Circumcision is a basic law for us Jews. There is no Judaism without circumcision, and therefore -- we will continue."
After meeting with Germanys federal justice minister on Wednesday, leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Jerusalem Post that the outlines of a new German law appear to be an encouraging step toward remedying the ongoing criminalization of male circumcision in the Federal Republic.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the centers associate dean, and Dr. Shimon Samuels, the centers director for international relations, held a meeting with Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and her legal task force, which has been charged with drafting a new law to counter the circumcision ban. The minister told the center representatives that Germany is doing its best to remove the uncertainty surrounding the practice.
Cooper told the Post that the legislation as drafted will talk about rights of parents instead of the state granting permission, which he stressed are important because the government should not meddle in religious freedom and parental decision-making. He went on to characterize the Cologne judge who issued the ruling as either ill-informed or a bigot.
Cooper, who wrote an article in the German weekly Die Zeit explaining the importance of the Jewish ritual, told the Post that Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger plans to use the weight of Germanys government to influence the discussion in Europe regarding circumcision.
He said the Cologne ruling has caused a viral effect on the issue of ritual circumcision in Europe. The ruling from one judge affects millions of people, added Cooper.
Some Swiss hospitals have in fact stopped performing the procedure based on the ruling, and a leading Norwegian party in Oslo is slated to introduce legislation to ban it. There have been anti-circumcision cases in Austria, and Denmark is examining whether the practice violates its health code.
Legislation affirming the right to circumcision is needed and as fast as possible, said Cooper. The Federal Ministry of Justices timeframe to implement the law remains unclear, but Cooper said he hoped it would have the legislation completed before the end of the year.
A solid majority of Bundestag deputies passed a July resolution in support of circumcision.
According to participants in a justice ministry meeting, the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg will not enforce the Cologne ruling, while Berlin is also considering opposing it. The Post could not immediately confirm this.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told the Simon Wiesenthal Center that the attack on religious freedom in connection with Germanys post-war Jewish community is the first such case since 1949 citing Article 6 of German law, which guarantees religious freedom.
A German doctor filed a criminal charge in August against a Bavarian-based Rabbi for performing circumcision.
The local prosecutors office is still investigating the complaint against mohel David Goldberg. The mohel, or person trained in the practice of Jewish circumcision, sees the complaint as part of an anti- Semitic campaign spreading throughout the Federal Republic.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle have issued statements reaffirming religious freedom in Germany and the pressing need to resolve the circumcision crisis. Both politicians have noted that the countrys reputation is on the line and the Cologne decision is a great source of embarrassment for post-Holocaust Germany.
Cooper said that totalitarian countries like Stalins Soviet Union invoked circumcision as one of the reasons to persecute Jews. Now it being done by democracies. The impact would be quite devastating for Jewish communities." He noted the ban is an invitation to Jews to leave.
#2
For some reason folks in both Germany and even here in America appear to be obsessed with two specific organs of the human body. Old age tends to re-focus those obsessions slightly. Mine are now heart and prostrate. Who says God does not have a sense of humour.
From a one-room office in an unfinished glass tower three blocks from the White House, an amorphous network of activists is doing what the Obama administration will not: attempt to arm the rebels trying to overthrow Syria's government.
The Syrian Support Group, incorporated in April as a nonprofit organization, has few resources and, so far, few donations, and whether it succeeds in its larger goal remains to be seen. But it is already serving as a conduit between the United States and the armed forces seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad and having an effect on U.S. policy.
The group has surprisingly extensive contacts among rebel commanders of the Free Syrian Army, a rare license from the Treasury Department allowing it to sidestep sanctions and a conviction that the assistance the administration has so far offered Syrians mainly communications equipment is simply not enough to defeat Assad.
Its members regularly consult State Department officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who has been based in Washington since the U.S. Embassy in Damascus closed in February. Their unusual relationship with the U.S. government reflects the Obama administration's constrained, at times convoluted policy toward Syria's raging conflict.
AHMADABAD: An Indian court convicted a former state government minister and 31 other people yesterday in connection with deadly anti-Muslim riots that shook the western state of Gujarat in 2002.
The violence, which killed more than 1,100 people, almost all Muslims, began after a train fire on Feb. 27, 2002, that killed 60 Hindu pilgrims. Hindu mobs, convinced Muslims set the fire, rampaged through towns and villages burning Muslim homes and businesses.
Rights groups and survivors have accused the state government, controlled by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, of not doing enough to stop the violence and even stoking it.
The convictions yesterday, on charges ranging from rioting to murder, stemmed from an attack in Naroda Patiya, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Ahmadabad, Gujarat's capital, that killed 95 people. Those convicted included Maya Kodnani, a state legislator at the time who later became minister of education and child welfare in the Gujarat government. She was arrested in 2009 on charges of murder and criminal conspiracy and has been in prison since.
The court, which acquitted 29 others, did not immediately announce the sentences or who was convicted of which crime.
The convictions were not the first linked to the rioting. In July, a special court found 21 people guilty in the murders of 11 members of a Muslim family in the town of Visnagar and sentenced them to life in prison.
Last November, 31 Hindus were sentenced by the same court to life imprisonment for killing dozens of Muslims by setting a building on fire in the state's Mehsana district.
The courts are expected to issue verdicts in six other cases within a year.
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[The Hindu] While confirming the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab, the lone Pak gunman captured alive in the Mumbai terror attacks case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said 'absolute certainty' may not necessarily be a myth or fake in all cases.
Justice C.K. Prasad, who sat on the Bench with Justice Aftab Alam, said: "Hardly [does] one come across a case, where the court does not resort to 'certain probability' as a working substitute for proof beyond all reasonable doubt. However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... in the case in hand, from the evidence, oral and documentary, reference of which has copiously been made in the judgment by Justice Aftab Alam, make me believe that 'absolute certainty' may not necessarily be a myth or fake in all cases and can be a reality." Ajmal walked like a duck, quacked like a duck, and laid eggs like a duck. All on video. That's not enough evidence for a Pak court, but it'll get by in India. Justice Prasad said: "The present case is an exception. Here, I am more than certain that the planning and conspiracy to commit the crime were hatched in Pakistain, the perpetrators... were Pak, trained at different centres in that country, and the devastations which took place at various places in Mumbai were executed by the appellant in furtherance thereof."
Justice Alam said: "We find that the primary and first offence that the appellant and his co-conspirators committed was the offence of waging war against the government of India. It does not matter that the target assigned to the appellant and Abu Ismail was CST Station (according to amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, counsel for Kasab, no more than a public building), where they killed a large number of people or that they killed many others on Badruddin Tayabji Marg and in Cama Hospital. What matters is that the attack was aimed at India and Indians. It was by foreign nationals. People were killed for no other reason than they were Indians; in the case of foreigners, they were killed because their killing on Indian soil would embarrass India. The conspiracy, in furtherance of which the attack was made, was, inter alia, to hit at India; to hit at its financial centre; to try to give rise to communal tensions and create internal strife and insurgency; to demand that India should withdraw from Kashmire; and to dictate its relations with other countries. It was in furtherance of those objectives that the attack was made, causing the loss of a large number of people and injury to an even greater number of people."
Nothing could have been more "in like manner and by like means as a foreign enemy would embarrass India."
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[Dawn] Taking notice of a recent rise in targeted sectarian killings, a human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. ' committee of the Pak National Assembly has decided to launch a fact-finding mission to probe the murders of members of the Shia community.
The National Assembly's Standing Committee for Human Rights held a session here at the Parliament House on Wednesday, which decided to send the fact-finding mission to Quetta, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Gilgit-Baltistan to investigate recent incidents of violence targeting members of the Shia community.
Committee chairman Riaz Fatyana said that the Babusar incident where a group of Shias were murdered was shameful. He added that it was the responsibility of the state to provide protection to its citizens.
Fatyana said that if the government is unable to provide protection to the country's minorities, then it cannot expect other countries to provide protection to their minority Mohammedan groups.
He added that it is wrong to assert that external powers are at work in regard to these acts of sectarianism.
Moreover, he also informed the committee that a priest belonging to the Christian faith had been forced to leave the city by the bad turbans, adding that if Islamabad is in such a bad state, then the situation in the other cities and towns is bound to be worse.
A member of the committee, Jamila Gilani also said that sectarianism is an ideology within Pakistain, due to which, minority sects in the country are being targeted. Therefore, to solve the problem of sectarianism and extremism, this ideology must be eradicated.
Pakistain has been plagued by a recent growing trend of sectarian attacks targeting religious minorities.
On Wednesday, three people of the Hazara community were killed when gunnies opened fire on a taxi in Quetta. In another targeted incident earlier on August 16, gunnies dragged at least 20 Shia Mohammedan travelers off a bus, killing them at point blank range in the hills of Babusar top in Gilgil-Baltistan's Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
district.
The past few months have witnessed an alarming rise in incidents where the Shia community has come under attack and their members have been killed, especially in northern Pakistain where the ethnic Hazara Shia community has been the most common target for such incidents.
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[Dawn] Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, labelled the "Butcher of Mumbai", is a school drop-out waiting to be hanged in India for his role in the 2008 attacks on the city.
The 24-year-old Pak national was one of two heavily armed gunnies who opened fire and threw hand grenades at Mumbai's main railway station on November 26, 2008, killing 52 people and wounding more than 100.
He was allegedly born in the dusty village of Faridkot in a remote and impoverished region of Punjab in Pakistain's farming belt, home to 10,000 people, most of them farmers and labourers and few of them literate.
His father, Mohammed Amir Iman, ran a food stall in the village.
Kasab dropped out of school in 2000 and worked as a labourer in the eastern city of Lahore until 2005, according to his initial confession to police, which was widely published in India.
He first pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." but later made a confession, admitting being one of the 10 gunnies trained, equipped and financed by the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LeT).
Kasab reportedly said he joined LeT to get weapons training after deciding to embark on a life of crime but there have also been claims that his father duped him into doing it for money.
The Supreme Court in New Delhi on Wednesday upheld his death sentence, leaving him with a final appeal to the president to save him from death by hanging.
"He fits the profile if you look at the Islamic fascistirecruited by Lashkar-e-Taiba," Wilson John, senior fellow at New Delhi's Observer Research Foundation and a specialist in beturbanned goon groups, told AFP.
"They come from lower-middle class or poor families. They're not entirely uneducated, just a little bit educated; they're unemployed and looking for a job. They're not religiously inclined but they can be brainwashed.
"He was a prime target." When his trial began in 2009, Kasab at first appeared relaxed, dressed in either a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms or a traditional kurta-pyjama, joking or smiling at lawyers and news hounds.
But he seemed increasingly sullen, withdrawn and even asleep as the trial progressed, prompting fears for his mental state. He showed no emotion in the dock when he was pronounced guilty of murder and waging war on India.
Since his conviction, he has been held in a high-security jail in Mumbai.
When his Supreme Court appeal began in January, he issued a statement saying he had been denied a fair trial.
Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam characterised Kasab as a shrewd and calculating operative, describing him as a "human shape" with no feelings or emotion.
While pushing for the death penalty, Nikam dwelt on the apparent smile Kasab wore while firing on travellers in the train station and his reported regret at arriving late at the target because he had missed the commuter rush.
His defence lawyer, K. P. Pawar, sought to persuade the court that Kasab was a susceptible young man who had been brainwashed.
"He was mentally defective (at the time of the attacks) and the effect impaired his ability to appreciate the impact of his conduct," Pawar told the court during discussions about his sentence.
"He's a human being of flesh and blood, that should not be forgotten," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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Colin Powell, who as secretary of state famously made the case for war against Iraq in 2003 with an impassioned speech at the United Nations Security Council, was more sceptical about the evidence he used to justify the US-led invasion than previously known, according to a memoir by Kofi Annan, the secretary-general at the time.
Six weeks after the Iraq invasion, Mr Annan wrote, Mr Powell visited his 38th-floor office at the UN to privately exult with him over news that US forces believed they had found mobile laboratories in Iraq that the administration claimed were used by Saddam Hussein to make weapons of mass destruction - the main reason for the war.
''Kofi, they've made an honest man of me,'' Mr Annan quoted Mr Powell as telling him.
Mr Annan wrote that ''the relief - and the exhaustion - was palpable. I could not help but smile along with my friend, and wanted to share in his comfort'', even though Mr Annan was far from convinced. Still, he wrote, ''I could only be impressed by the resilience of this man, who had endured so much to argue for a war he clearly did not believe in.''
Efforts to reach Mr Powell for comment about the passage were not immediately successful. Peggy Cifrino, his assistant, said he was travelling and contacting her only intermittently.
By now many books have been written on the time before the Iraq war, in which no weapons of mass destruction were found. Mr Powell's role, which some historians say irreparably harmed his credibility and derailed his political career, has also been well documented.
But the encounter between the two men, as reprised by the former secretary-general, offered a new insight into the degree of doubt Mr Powell harboured.
In a telephone interview from his Geneva office, Mr Annan, 74, said he had decided to use that anecdote in the opening chapter of his new book, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, because Iraq had been such an important issue during his tenure, which lasted from 1997 through the end of 2006.
The Egyptian army began withdrawing tanks from the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
The report comes just a day after Egypt's army said it would broaden its offensive against militants in the Sinai Peninsula, a campaign that has raised concerns in Israel about the movement of heavy armor into the area near its border. No target practice for IAF?
[Petra] Prime Minister, Fayez al-Tarawneh, on Wednesday said that those who attacked police in Al-Za'atari Syrian refugee camp will be deported to where they came from, and vowed that the government will not tolerate any attempt to break the law. Why not let the cops use them for target practice? That's what they did to the cops...
Al-Tarawneh told a meeting at the Mafraq police department that Jordan is carrying out a humanitarian and ethical duty towards its Arab brothers but any attempt to stir riots will not be tolerated since law is applied to all including non-Jordanians.
He added that there will be a security control over the camp and other camps in the future where visits will not be allowed and entering and leaving the camps will only be through a security clearance.
During the meeting which included Director of the Public Security Department, Lt. Gen. Hussein Majali, Director of the Gendarmerie, and Gen. Tawfiq Tawalbeh and other brass hats, the prime minister said the government will look for new locations to set up new camps to accommodate for the rising number of refugees.
The bloody events which southern Syria has been seeing since Eid al-Fitr, have forced a large number of Syrians to flee to Jordan, putting massive burdens on the Kingdom's already-strained resources especially water, the premier added.
He called on the international community to help Jordan deal with this burden.
He announced that the minister of planning and the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... High Commissioner for Refugees and the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization will hold a presser on Saturday to speak on the rising number of refugees and send an appeal to the world and relief agencies to offer assistance.
The prime minister visited Al-Mafraq public hospital to check on a number of gendarmerie personnel who were attacked by a number of refugees who tried to get out from Al-Za'atari camp yesterday. At the King Hussein Medical Center, the prime minister also visited two gendarmes who has suffered skull fracture and body bruises in the attack. I'm not too sure what the justification is for "refugees" lugging weaponry around with them. Maybe it's an Arab thing and I just can't understand...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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#5
AFAIk China firstly desires to use its new CV in "show the flag" bragging rights around the globe - when all is said-n-done, I'm expecting China to next base it in the East China Sea, NOT the South China Sea where ASEAN competitors = teritorial claimants per se can be handled vee PLAN Subs and assorted Surface Warfare vessels, + of course LR PLAAF.
At last check, AUS has formally rejected any permanent basing of US CVNS + Nuke-armed ships on their country, only as per MWR andor Temporary Repair purposes. IMO IFF AUS HOLDS ITS COURSE, THIS LEAVES THE EAST CHINA SEA + NE ASIA AS CHINA'S MOST IMPORTANT NAVAL, MILPOL SINGLE FRONT IN EAST ASIA.
* WORLD NEWS > MARITME DISPUTES EXPOSE ASIA FAULT LINES.
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > INDIA STRENGTHENING ITS EASTERN NAVAL FLANK.
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > JAPAN FM: I HOPE CHINA WILL AVERT INVITING A SITUATION THAT WOULD WORSEN [bilateral] RELATIONS.
ARTIC > JAPAN FM = DENOTES THAT ITS TIME TO [realistically/pragmatically] REVIEW SINO-JAPANESE RELATIONS, AS WELL AS PAN-REGIONAL RELATIONS AND CHINA'S, JAPAN'S PLACE IN REGIONAL, INTERNATIONAL ORDER.
* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > CHINA TO BE A DOMINANT GLOBAL SUPERPOWER OR REMAIN A MINOR/BENIGN
"GREAT POWER": DAOYUS AND SOUTH CHINA SEAS DISPUTES PROVE THE GROWING OBSOLESCENCE OR IRRELEVANCE OF CHINA'S HISTORICAL "SOFT POWER" DIPLOMATIC APPROACH. CHINA AT DECISIVE STAGE OF INTERNATIONAL GEOPOLITICAL RELATIONS.
* SAME > ANALYSIS: EXPERTS SAY CHINA WILL BE HARD-PRESSED TO ATTACK JAPAN IN MASSIVE AIRBORNE STRIKE WIDOUT USE OF "FIRST STRIKE" OR
"PREEEMPTIVE"[Tactical only?] NUCLEAR WEAPONS. INTERCEPTION BY ADVANCED JAPAN AIR SDFS AND ANTI-AIRCRAFT SHORE-BASED MISSLES, JMSDF NAVAL VESSELS. PLA CONTROL OF SOUTH KOREA AND SAKHALIN KEY TO PROTECTING PLA GROUND INVASION OF JAPAN WID "SECOND ARTILLERY" LRBMS.
* CHINA DAILY > CHINESE EXPERT [PLAN Adm. Yin Zhuo]: NO POSSIBILITY OF [major = extensive]SINO-RUSSIAN COOPERATION ON JOINT BALLISTIC MISSLE DEFENSE WIDOUT [formal] STRATEGIC ALLIANCE.
Can share in some tech thingys, but for the most part are on their own as per [anti-US]? BMD.
#6
China plans to construct and deploying US-style Supercarriers, conventional-fired andor nuclear, come year 2020 or ASAP after - this means that the Philippines + other ASEAN States have until then to achieve or resolve their territorial claims vee China + PLA TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.
China presently considers the SHILENG/DAOYU as a CVT = training carrier, as well as a diplomatic "show the flag" vessel. As per VARIOUS MILBLOGS they are suppos dev plans to convert it from an OIL-FIRED CV TO A NUKE-POWERED CVT OR CV as necessary or pertinent in coming future time.
ONCE CHINA GETS IT CARRIER FORCE UP-N-RUNNING, ANY AND ALL ASEAN TERRITORIAL CLAIMS WILL LIKELY BE TOAST.
Iran is preparing for a possible major expansion of uranium enrichment in a fortified underground facility, a UN nuclear watchdog report showed, underlining Tehran's defiance in the face of western pressure and the threat of an Israeli attack.
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency report also said "extensive activities" a reference to suspected sanitisation efforts at Iran's Parchin military complex would hamper its investigation of possible past nuclear weapons development work there, if inspectors were granted access.
The number of enrichment centrifuges at Fordow, buried deep inside a mountain to better protect it against any enemy strikes, had more than doubled to 2,140 from 1,064 in May, showed the quarterly report released on Thursday. But new machines were not yet operating, it said.
The report showed that Iran had produced nearly 190kg (418 pounds) of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010, up from 145kg in May.
Iran, which denies developing nuclear weapons technology, says it needs this material to fuel a medical research reactor, but it also takes it significantly closer to making potential bomb material.
The report is likely to add to western alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions and may further fuel speculation that Israel might launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.
From Ahram Online - an Egyptian english language site (Al Ahram means 'the Pyramids')
At the beginning of his speech Morsi made his by now common Islamist reference, "May God's peace be upon his Prophet Mohamed."
He added, "And may the peace of God be on the holy family of the Prophet." This reference to the 'family of Prophet Mohamed' might have been designed to send a positive message to his predominantly Shia hosts who are said to have been offended by remarks he made during a July visit to Saudi Arabia... Then Morsi went further and paid the most unusual tribute in a political speech at an international summit to the Sahaba (close associates) of Prophet Mohamed: Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali. The reference to Ali, the most holy member of the Prophet Mohamed's family in the eyes of Shias, could have been perceived by Morsi's Shia audience in the conference hall as flattering had it not come after references to Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman, who are abhorred by Shias and whose role in early Muslim history is not even mentioned in the history books of Iranian schools.
On Syria, Morsi's speech all but equated the Assad regime with the Israeli occupation of Palestine when he referred to "the struggle for freedom by the Palestinian and Syrian peoples."
Furthermore, Morsi said the Assad regime "had lost all legitimacy" and it was not enough to show sympathy towards the Syrian people, but the time had come to act upon this sympathy.
Morsi's statements on Syria certainly went way beyond the liking of his Iranian hosts who remain committed to the Assad regime, and caused the Syrian delegation to leave the conference hall.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/30/2012 11:42 ||
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#1
He is however the one who let through the Iranian weapons shipment to Assad.
ANKARA: Turkey urged the UN to protect displaced Syrians inside their country yesterday. Thousands of Syrians have been fleeing their homes over the past weeks as fighting between Assad's forces and the opposition intensified.
Ankara fears a mass influx such as the flight of half a million Iraqi Kurds into Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War, and has floated the idea of a "safe zone" under foreign protection within Syria for civilians fleeing intensifying violence.
"We expect the UN to engage on the topic of protecting refugees inside Syria and if possible sheltering them in camps there," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
France supports Turkey's call for a safe zone in Syria, and pressure for action increased after the UN refugee agency said that Syria's exodus was accelerating. Up to 200,000 people could settle in Turkey if the conflict worsens, the UNHCR said.
Davutoglu said refugee flows in the hundreds of thousands constituted a dangerous international problem.
Turkey already hosts more than 80,000 refugees and the UNHCR said up to 5,000 people a day had arrived there in the last two weeks. The refugee flow to Jordan has also doubled, it said.
Davutoglu spoke ahead of a UN Security Council meeting of foreign ministers expected to focus on Ankara's proposal.
"We are studying the issue of buffer zones," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who will chair today's meeting in New York, acknowledging the issue was "complicated."
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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[Salt Lake Tribune] Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... of Syria said Wednesday that his government's battle against opposition forces would need "time" and that a proposal floated by Syria's opponents to create buffer zones inside the country was unrealistic.
In excerpts from an interview with Assad that will air on a private Syrian channel Thursday night, the president framed the conflict and Syria as a "global and regional war," praised the heroism of his army and criticized officials in neighboring Turkey, who have raised the possibility of military intervention in Syria.
"Will we go backward, because of the ignorance of some Turkish officials?" he said. "We are moving forward," Assad added. "The situation, practically, is better."
In the excerpts, the president also addressed persistent rumors that he had gone into hiding, perhaps somewhere outside Syria's capital, saying he was in the presidential palace in Damascus. ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... Assad last appeared on television 10 days ago, when he visited a Damascus mosque during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The interview comes after days of fierce fighting in the capital's suburbs, including in the city of Daraya, where hundreds of people were said to have been killed over the last week as the army tried to rout armed opposition fighters who made a base in the city. Opposition activists said at least 11 people had been killed in fighting in the eastern suburbs of Damascus on Wednesday, where the government has said it is pursuing "cleansing" operations.
In an article published Wednesday in the British daily The Independent, residents of Daraya raised the possibility that opposition fighters were behind some of the killings last week. One woman said in the article that she saw at least 10 bodies on the road, before government troops had entered Daraya. Another man said some victims, including civil employees and off-duty conscripts, might have been killed because of their association with the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2012 00:00 ||
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...
In that regard, the bin Laden raid seems destined to become an anachronism. Nearly every top al-Qaida figure killed by the United States since the 9/11 attacks has died in a remote-controlled strike by unmanned drone aircraft their deaths seen back in Washington via high-definition video. An estimated 80 top terrorist leaders have been killed in places like Pakistan and Yemen, according to The Long War Journal.com, which tracks such airborne strikes.
Special operations troops often conduct raids similar to the bin Laden strike a dozen times a night in Afghanistan, and previously in Iraq, killing thousands of mostly mid- and lower-level terrorists. Its all part of a war on terror that is winding down and giving way to the drone war outside traditional war zones, given the scheduled drawdown of most U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
#1
Bissonnette is getting a lot of publicity for this book. The publisher is also doing a great job of "scaring up" news media coverage.
But the question is ... is Bissonnette planning on splitting his proceeds with all the rest of the SEAL team? Because if the answer is NO - why does he deserve this money, and not all the other guys who went on the raid???
#2
my understanding is he's giving all to charity the wounded warrior fund
Posted by: Jan ||
08/30/2012 17:14 Comments ||
Top||
#3
that's good. they should really have allowed the entire unit to write the memoir for that raid - given that it's a special historic event. A one-time exception should have been made.
You can bet this is not the end of it - more written accounts will be coming.
#4
Just a few minutes ago I ordered my copy via Fred's Amazon site; Drudge is reporting that Bambi is pizzed and is threatening legal action agin Owen for divulging classified info. Guess his libtard 'movie' doesn't count as divulging....
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.
[Dawn] 
[CTV News] Egypt's military on Wednesday insisted it is pursuing its offensive against Islamic 
[Yemen Post] President 
The founder of an Islamic terrorist group responsible for the murder of an ABC cameraman in Iraq in 2003 has been sentenced to an extra year in jail.
While confirming the death sentence of 
Justice Prasad said: "The present case is an exception. Here, I am more than certain that the planning and conspiracy to commit the crime were hatched in Pakistain, the perpetrators... were Pak, trained at different centres in that country, and the devastations which took place at various places in Mumbai were executed by the appellant in furtherance thereof."
Taking notice of a recent rise in targeted sectarian killings, a 
On Wednesday, three people of the Hazara community were killed when 
[Dawn] Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, labelled the "Butcher of Mumbai", is a school drop-out waiting to be hanged in India for his role in the 2008 attacks on the city.
[Petra] Prime Minister, Fayez al-Tarawneh, on Wednesday said that those who attacked police in Al-Za'atari Syrian refugee camp will be deported to where they came from, and vowed that the government will not tolerate any attempt to break the law.
ANKARA: Turkey urged the UN to protect displaced Syrians inside their country yesterday. Thousands of Syrians have been fleeing their homes over the past weeks as fighting between Assad's forces and the opposition intensified.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
