NATO said one of its helicopters went down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday evening around 9 p.m. local time, and a Taliban spokesman claimed the militant group had shot it down.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in Helmand province. Ahmadi said the helicopter was shot down in the Kajaki district and that everyone on board died. That claim could not be immediately verified. "We have weapons that we have used to target helicopters before," he said.
Kajaki is the site of a large hydroelectric dam that is being repaired. It has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent months, mostly by British troops who operate in the region. A battalion of U.S. forces with the 82nd Airborne have also been in combat in Helmand province recently.
Helicopter crashes in Afghanistan have been relatively rare. A CH-47 Chinook crashed in February in the southern province of Zabul, killing eight U.S. servicemembers. Officials ruled out enemy fire as the cause. In May 2006, another Chinook crashed attempting a nighttime landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. soldiers. In 2005, a U.S. helicopter crashed in Kunar, after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 16 American troops.
In announcing new U.S. sanctions on Sudan yesterday, President Bush made clear his frustration with the inability of his administration and the United Nations to halt the violence in Darfur, which he has described as ongoing "genocide." The administration's strong rhetoric and new plan to squeeze Sudan was greeted with immediate roadblocks yesterday. At the United Nations, China and Russia displayed little interest in joining the U.S. drive to isolate Khartoum economically and coerce its leaders into cooperating with international efforts to stop the violence in Darfur.
On the other end of the spectrum, lawmakers and advocacy groups that have campaigned for tougher action on Darfur voiced disappointment with the president's plan as being too little, too late. They questioned whether the steps were tough enough to cause the Sudanese president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, to abandon tactics that have delayed the arrival of thousands of additional U.N. peacekeeping troops.
Yesterday's announcement represents the culmination of six months of deliberations within the administration about Darfur, where up to 450,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million displaced as a result of a campaign of violence waged since 2003 by Arab militias with the backing of the Khartoum government. According to current and former administration officials, the situation has long been of special concern to Bush, who has been described by some as the "Sudan desk officer" for the White House and privately has expressed repeated frustration with the options presented to him. But Bush has been unable to broker an effective international effort to secure peace. He has been considering sanctions since last year but has repeatedly delayed implementation out of hope that diplomacy might encourage Bashir to facilitate the deployment of peacekeepers. Currently, an overwhelmed African Union force of about 7,000 soldiers is stationed in Darfur, but U.N. efforts to send a force triple the size have been stymied by Bashir, U.S. officials said.
The plan announced yesterday is designed to ratchet up pressure on Bashir. The Treasury Department said that it will add 30 Sudanese-owned or -controlled companies to an existing list of 130 companies banned from any involvement with the U.S. financial system. The government also added three Sudanese individuals, two senior government officials and a rebel leader to the list of four people already subject to U.S. sanctions.
Bush also said that the United States will seek a new U.N. Security Council resolution imposing strengthened international sanctions on Sudan and expanding an arms embargo. Diplomats say that they are also seeking a means to better enforce the prohibition on the government there conducting offensive military flights over Darfur. But the proposal leaves a major sticking point unresolved: whether a U.N. or an African Union general will exercise ultimate command over the peacekeepers.
Many experts on Sudan voiced doubt that unilateral sanctions will affect Khartoum, especially its booming oil business, since the country has already been under onerous U.S. sanctions since 1997. "I don't think they will have any impact," said John Prendergast, an Africa expert at the International Crisis Group. But Treasury Department officials said that they have been working on ways to squeeze the oil industry, with 12 companies already on a sanctions list.
"The object here is not to stop their oil exports but to impose a real price . . . to make them feel financially isolated," said Adam J. Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Meanwhile, the likelihood of multilateral sanctions seemed remote yesterday at the United Nations, where Secretary General Ban Ki Moon appealed for more time to persuade Sudan to make political progress. Ban is actively seeking Sudan's cooperation on several fronts, and he has been pressing Khartoum in recent days to sign off on a detailed a proposal for a joint United Nations-African Union "hybrid force" that would lead to the deployment of more than 15,000 additional peacekeepers in Darfur. Ban sent Bashir a private letter Friday setting out a series of four benchmarks that Sudan must meet to advance the peace process. It calls on Khartoum to accept the peacekeepers, disarm government-backed militia, guarantee safe passage to international aid works, observe an immediate cease-fire, ending all offensive military operations and aerial bombardment of rebel strongholds.
Senior Russian and Chinese officials seized on Ban's bid for patience, warning that the imposition of sanctions at such a delicate moment could jeopardize Ban's efforts to bring an end to the bloodshed. A Chinese diplomat stationed at the United Nations, Li Junhua, said that Beijing does not believe sanctions will end the conflict in Sudan. "I won't say the action taken by the United States would help to convince our Sudanese colleagues to move forward," he said.
The Bush administration believes that China may be more sensitive than it publicly acknowledges to the international and regional backlash on the Darfur violence. "The Chinese are attempting to expand their trade and their presence in Africa. This issue is infuriating the Africans, and I think the Chinese know that," the president's special envoy for Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios, told reporters at the State Department. "We have many indications that the Chinese position is evolving. They have been more helpful than may be apparent publicly."
#1
On the other end of the spectrum, lawmakers and advocacy groups that have campaigned for tougher action on Darfur voiced disappointment with the president's plan as being too little, too late.
Cripes, can't these assholes at least give the man credit for trying to do the impossible. If he had done this 5 years ago, the outcome would have been the same (China and Russia putting the kibosh on it immediately). Of course, they would have said the same thing then too. So he should take them seriously? Any of us should? Uhm...no.
#2
Now that George Bush is for doing something about Darfur, the progressive Left will be against it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 1:18 Comments ||
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#3
Don't you mean "Regressive" Left?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/30/2007 6:19 Comments ||
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#4
Now that George Bush is for doing something about Darfur, the progressive Left will be against it.
For the left the equation is simple: the life of a Palestinian, even if he is trying to blow a maternity is worth more than two hundred Nigger Black lives.
#7
LH, I do discount economic sanctions to a fair degree. If the country being sanctioned has something that other people want (e.g., oil), sanctions won't matter.
We see that with Iran today, we saw that with Saddam, etc.
My point (well, snark) was that the progressive Left has been calling for something to be done about Darfur. Their BDS, however, means that once George Bush starts to do something about Darfur, they'll oppose him.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 12:59 Comments ||
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#8
LH, I do discount economic sanctions to a fair degree. If the country being sanctioned has something that other people want (e.g., oil), sanctions won't matter.
We see that with Iran today, we saw that with Saddam, etc.
My point (well, snark) was that the progressive Left has been calling for something to be done about Darfur. Their BDS, however, means that once George Bush starts to do something about Darfur, they'll oppose him.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 13:01 Comments ||
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A newly released inspector general report (PDF) backs eyewitness accounts of suspicious behavior by 13 Middle Eastern men on a Northwest Airlines flight in 2004 and reveals several missteps by government officials, including failure to file an incident report until a month after the matter became public.
According to the Homeland Security report, the "suspicious passengers," 12 Syrians and their Lebanese-born promoter, were traveling on Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on expired visas. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services extended the visas one week after the June 29, 2004, incident.
The report also says that a background check in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, which was performed June 18 as part of a visa-extension application, produced "positive hits" for past criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12 Syrians, who were traveling in the U.S. as a musical group. In addition, the band's promoter was listed in a separate FBI database on case investigations for acting suspiciously aboard a flight months earlier. He was detained a third time in September on a return trip to the U.S. from Istanbul, the details of which were redacted.
Continued on Page 49
#1
a background check in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, which was performed June 18 as part of a visa-extension application, produced "positive hits" for past criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12 Syrians, who were traveling in the U.S. as a musical group. In addition, the band's promoter was listed in a separate FBI database on case investigations for acting suspiciously aboard a flight months earlier
Yet they got their visas extended instead us making sure to slingshot these sick puppies the hell outta here.
"If I were a member of Congress, I'd be asking some hard questions about why such a small percentage of flights have armed pilots or air marshals aboard, while the TSA whistles past the graveyard, asking us to believe none of this is related to terrorism," Mr. Mackett said.
More betrayal and incompetence by those who do not have to endure the risks all of us are forced to take because of official malfeasance.
#2
The evidence of continuing (if not increasing) official misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance continues to mount:
ATLANTA (AP) - A man with a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis ignored doctors' advice and took two trans-Atlantic flights, leading to the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since 1963, health officials said Tuesday.
The government issued the quarantine after a CDC official reached the man by phone in Rome and told him not to take commercial flights, but he flew back to North America anyway. "He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back," Cetron said.
Cetron reached the man once he was back in the United States. At that point, he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to the Atlanta hospital. He is not facing prosecution, health officials said.
The quarantine order was the first since 1963, when the government quarantined a patient with smallpox, according to the CDC.
Why the F#@$*!!? hell wasn't this dude (along with these 13 Middle Eastern men) put on the NO-FLY List?
#3
Govt Broken Alert [as if you didn't notice already]
An air marshal who told The Washington Times that he has been involved personally in terror probes that were ignored by federal security managers, called such behavior typical.
"Agency management was not only covering up numerous probes and dry-run encounters from Congress and other federal law-enforcement agencies, it was also hiding these incidents from their own flying air marshals," said P. Jeffrey Black, an air marshal stationed in Las Vegas.
sure sounds believable to me.
Homeland Security officials initially denied that the complaints and blamed passengers who reported the incident to the press as behaving hysterically. However, the inspector general report shows that air marshals had the group of men under surveillance before they boarded the plane.
Yep... it's broke!
Homeland Security officials have risen so high in Gubmint because they take to PC training like a duck takes to water, and kept that way due to regularly beatings about the head by Homeland Security Lawyers.
"It's unfortunate that the suspects were released from custody, but it's not surprising," said Jeffrey Denning, a former air marshal who quit the agency last month.
"The overt behavior of the 13 men on Flight 327 was indicative of a terrorist probe.
NO Shiite!
It appeared rehearsed, coordinated and planned. It was menacing activity," Mr. Denning said.
#4
All top officials in Homeland Security, TSA and FAA should be required to spend over 25% of their time on commercial civilian aviation flights to "spot check" the work being done by field agents. No exceptions, no excuses. Same goes for our legislators. All of them should be required to fly on civilian aviation flights. They can go first-class and bump whomever they want, but they gotta take the same risks as the rest of us. This crap has gone way too far.
#5
Amen Zenster. Put all the muslims on a "no fly list." Screw them. Give them something to whine about. If they don't like it, let them start their own airline and air traffic control system. Another alternative is to just throw them off the plane at altitude.
#6
As a former TSA suitcase dumper, it was more important to management to ensure that all the Ts and Is were dotted rather than public safety. Worst 7 months I ever spent as a gov't employee. it was better in Desert Storm than working for these F-ups. all the management was former FAA types and had from where i stood complete disdain for (retired / separated)military NCOs.
#8
Amen Zenster. Put all the muslims on a "no fly list."
Absolutely not! All Muslims in America should be given a free flight back to visit relatives in their native lands. One way. No refusals accepted. It's called "reverse immigration" and the time for it is now. I would cheerfully check off a $100 tax donation box on my 1040 form to make it happen.
VISAKHAPATNAM: Maoists blasted the main control room of the hydel power generation plant at Donkarai in the agency area of Visakhapatnam district late on Tuesday night.
An eight-member naxalite team, which came from Orissa, blasted the control room after ordering the employees to clear out. An Assistant Engineer suffered injuries when shards of glass hit him, according to B. Sreenivasulu, SP of East Godavari district.
Posted by: John Frum ||
05/30/2007 07:47 ||
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KATHMANDU - A bomb exploded on Tuesday killing nine people inside a house in southwest Nepal, officials said. The blast was reported from the remote village of Gothadi in Palpa district, 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Kathmandu. The explosion has totally damaged the house, killing a family of five and four guests, chief district officer Balkrishna Panthi told AFP by telephone.
He said a rescue team had been dispatched to the site, which is a four-hour drive from Tansen, the district headquarters. We dont know how the bomb went off inside the house. It might have been left behind by the Maoists during the insurgency, he said.
So it's not clear if the dead people are innocents or whether this was a 'red-wire, green-wire' incident.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:00 ||
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A car bomb outside the Peshawar High Court (PHC) building killed a court employee and injured eight people, including a six-year-old child selling juice, on Tuesday.
Peshawar police chief Abdul Majeed Marwat said that the blast was caused by a time-bomb weighing three kilograms. Hukam Khan of the Bomb Disposal Squad said the bomb was planted in a Suzuki car. The blast followed an anonymous phone call eight days ago warning that two suicide bombers in lawyers suits had entered the court building.
The injured juice seller, Tilawat Shah, told Daily Times that a young and clean-shaven man parked the car near him at around 10:35am and ran towards the PHCs main gate. He said the bomb exploded soon after he left the car. The blast also damaged six cars in the parking lot and smashed windows. One of the injured, PHC employee Nihad Ali, died of his injuries.
SSP (Investigation) Qazi Jamilur Rehman said that it was too early to comment on the identity or motive of the attackers, but police had started investigating and collected the wreckage of the car. NWFP Information Minister Asif Iqbal Daudzai said hidden forces were behind the attack and it was aimed at damaging the MMA governments reputation.
Musn't let a few deaders and a panicked judiciary sully the otherwise pristine reputation of the MMA, now can we?
The PHCBA said the blast was aimed at suppressing the lawyers movement for judicial independence, the BBC reported.
Militants shot dead a senior official of the Frontier Constabulary in Tank city and a suicide car bomber killed two paramilitary soldiers in Boltonabad area, hours after police killed four local Taliban in Bannu, the hometown of NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, on Monday. The officer and soldiers of the Frontier Constabulary were killed in ambushes while on a road leading out of Tank.
Militants ambushed the vehicle of Mir Zarwali Khan, assistant district officer of the Frontier Constabulary, in Boltonabad area on the Tank-Jandola road at about 12 noon. The paramilitary officer, along with his driver Fernazullah, was going to Peshawar from Tank when the militants, hiding on both sides of the road, riddled the vehicle with bullets. Police said that Mir Zarwali died on the spot and his driver suffered serious injuries. Later, the militants set the vehicle on fire.
Hours later, a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden Land Cruiser into a Frontier Constabulary vehicle in the same area, killing Hawaldar Fareed Hussain and sepoy Nametullah and injuring soldier Masood Afsar. Giving details of the incident, Area Force Commander Muqabil Mahsud told Dawn that the convoy of the FC comprising three vehicles was heading from Tank to Boltonabad to secure the area when it was ambushed. He said the explosive-laden Land Cruiser coming from the opposite direction rammed into the paramilitary vehicle, causing a massive blast while another car driven by militants sped away.
Earlier in the day, four local Taliban were killed in a shootout with police in the Bannu area. Two SHOs and an unidentified passerby were injured in the encounter, officials said.
Tension is running high in the area and additional police force has been dispatched from neighbouring districts to the restive area after reports received that militants were planning more attacks. Militancy has been on the rise in Bannu area for some time.
Residents and witnesses say that gun-toting militants, mostly from the adjacent Frontier Region, roam the city freely, but law-enforcement agencies personnel do not challenge them. District Police Officer Dr Mazherul Haq told a press briefing on Monday that police, on a tip-off about the entry of militants from the Sokery area into the city for sabotage activities, encircled the area and signalled a suspected double cabin pick-up truck to stop.
The DPO said that the militants, instead of stopping the vehicle, opened fire on the police, injuring Cantt Station SHO Tahir Dawar and City Police Station SHO Hafiz Janus and a passerby. SHO Tahir Dawar was taken to Peshawar in a helicopter while his colleague was discharged from a hospital in Bannu. Witnesses said that heavy gunfire continued for three hours and four militants were killed in the encounter.
DPO Dr Mazher said the militants belonged to the Hayat group who had been patronising local Taliban militants in the district adjacent to the North Waziristan Agency. The militants killed in the attack have been identified as Bahadur Khan, Abid, Muhammad Rehman and Amir Hayat. Their bodies were taken to the district hospital and later handed over to relatives. Police officials said that the militants belonged to the Sokery area close to Cantt Police Station.
Erbil, 30 May (AKI) - Contacts are underway between Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Baathist faction of Izzat al-Douri, former vice president during the Saddam era, according to a report on Kurdish language daily Aso. The scope of the contacts is "for reconciliation between the government and this political wing" the paper said. It quoted sources close to the government saying "the prime minister has created a high commission for directing the talks with the Douri faction, to be headed by an ex-aviation official."
Sources added that "the talks will be held in the Green Zone in Baghdad with al-Maliki taking part, along with the interior and defence ministers".
Al-Douri, the "King of Clubs" in the US deck of cards naming the Saddam regime's most wanted figures, gave an interview to Time magazine in July 2006, through written questions and answers passed on by Iraqi intermediaries. There have been reports that he has been living in Syria or Yemen or that he is dead.
The Iraqi leadership has in the past fiercely opposed any negotiations with Baathists involved in crimes against the Iraqi people. But among the recommendations that emerged from the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month, on the situation in Iraq, was initiatives to support and boost national reconciliation.
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is one of three surviving plotters who carried out the coup that brought the Baath Party to power in 1968 and managed to survive Saddam's frequent purges. He was responsible for northern Iraq when chemical weapons were used there in 1988, and is accused of mass torture and murder.
I'm all for reconciliation. Kiss and make up. Wait for Izzy to stick his head out in public. Then whack him.
#2
Izzy was a ruthless little bastard when Saddam was in power. He is the virtual head of the Baathist now and is the head of the non AQ insurgency. Making a deal with him will come back to haunt Maliki and its doubtful Sadr will allow it to happen. Now that will be a true civil war - Baathist Thugs versus Mahdi Army Gangbangers.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/30/2007 11:25 Comments ||
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#3
At most, he'll get the same deal Robert E. Lee got at Appomattox Court House. His underlings will be almost certain to get that.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/30/2007 12:35 Comments ||
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#4
Mike I waz raised a Yankee in a very Liberal family with ancestors who fought in the Civil War...
That said, In my wiser older years I've become a great admirer of the South, and take offence that you'd compare Gen Robert E Lee [a Confederate and American btw], with Izzat al-Douri.
#5
I'm not comparing al-Douri to Robert E. Lee at all. I'm simply saying, at the end of the day, the non-al Qaida insurgents will probably get the same deal the Confederates got from the Union: put down your arms, give up your cause, go back to your homes, and you'll be left in peace.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/30/2007 17:22 Comments ||
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#6
Build bridges for your enemies.In WW2,( see Anthony Caves Brown .. A Bodyguard of Lies) the german generals tried to surrender entire armies to the allies ,but Stalins agents ( the cambridge 5 led by Philby) cut off all attempts, plus Harry Hopkins, Stalins agent in the White House, got Unconditional Surrender as a policy. Canaris went to London in the spring of 1944(dressed as a nun) and promised the Brits that the invasion could walk ashore and be welcomed if they could get some minimum guaratee of humane treatment .He was turned down by the Brit State depts who didn t want to leave an intact Europe after the war to resist Stalin.If your enemy sues for peace find some grounds for accepting and work on longer term constructive issues.In Montgomerys bio he tells how the German Generals he was facing after the battle of the bulge wanted to surrender and were told they would be shot like dogs.
Posted by: john e morrissey ||
05/30/2007 18:01 Comments ||
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#7
"Curse be upon your Mustache" qoute from March 06, 2003
#8
RD, i'm glad too see that a "yankee" could appreciate the south and doesn't think that it is one giant trailor park. i'm from GA by the way is why i have that view
Hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad's Sadr City slum early Wednesday and conducted a series of raids in an apparent effort to find five British citizens abducted from a nearby government building the day before, local residents and police said.
The five men were pulled out of a Finance Ministry office by about 40 heavily armed men in police uniforms in broad daylight Tuesday and driven in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City, according to the British Foreign office in London and Iraqi officials in the Interior and Finance ministries. A senior Iraqi official said the radical Shiite Mahdi Army militia was suspected in the attack.
Soon after the abduction, Iraqi forces established a special battalion of Iraqi soldiers and police officers to search for the men, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al Musawi, an Iraqi army spokesman. "We are conducting search operations near the site where the abduction took place," he said Wednesday. "Maybe today or in the coming few days, we will find them with the help of secret intelligence." That would be as opposed to American CIA/New York Times intelligence.
Hours after the kidnappings, Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, confirmed that four of its security workers and one client were kidnapped. All four GardaWorld workers are British citizens, he said, declining to provide more details. A spokesman for BearingPoint, a McLean, Virginia-based management consulting firm, said one of the company's employees, apparently the client referred to by Gavaghan, was among those abducted.
The kidnappings, if the work of the Mahdi Army as asserted by several Iraqi officials, could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia's commander in Basra.
Canon Andrew White, the Anglican vicar of Baghdad, who lives in the GardaWorld compound and is involved in efforts to free the men, said it's "a strong possibility" the kidnapping was a retaliation for the killing. "We have been in contact with (the Mahdi Army) and are doing our best to try and continue that contact throughout the day," he told BBC radio.
The raid was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and snatched away as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims have never been found.
"We are pursuing this case very vigorously, first to release them, secondly to establish the truth of what happened, who was responsible," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told BBC radio on Wednesday. Zebari said that the government has long believed that its security forces were infiltrated by militia members. "The number of people who were involved in the operation - to seal off the building, to set roadblocks, to get into the building with such confidence - (means they) must have some connection," he said. Or a lot of iranian training.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/30/2007 07:05 ||
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#1
Interesting timeline. Sadr goes to Iran for 4 months, comes back and bang - 5 Brits are nabbed by faux policemen. Bet those uniforms have never been to the cleaners since the last time they used them. I still wonder why Petraeus doesn't make an accident out of Sadr.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/30/2007 11:28 Comments ||
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LONDON - Britain confirmed on Tuesday that five British nationals had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital. Gunmen in police uniforms earlier abducted a group of Westerners from a government building in Baghdad.
I can confirm that a group of five British nationals were abducted this morning at 0850 UK time, which is 1150 local time, in an incident at the Finance Ministry in central Baghdad, a Foreign Office spokesman told Reuters. Officials from the British embassy in Baghdad are in urgent contact with the Iraqi authorities to establish the facts and to try to secure a swift resolution.
If their names are Trevor, Ian, Nigel, Alistair and Bruce, this is very serious. If their names are Mahmoud, Mahmoud, Mahmoud, Mahmoud and Achmed, then I smell the fine odor of fish and chips wrapped in last month's Guardian.
Consular officials from the Foreign Office are in contact with the companies that employ the five and their families will be informed, the spokesman said. At this stage we cant confirm any personal details, he added, declining to comment on reports that several of the Britons were security contractors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
If their names are Trevor, Ian, Nigel, Alistair and Bruce, this is very serious. If their names are Mahmoud, Mahmoud, Mahmoud, Mahmoud and Achmed, then I smell the fine odor of fish and chips wrapped in last month's Guardian.
Exactly. I could care less what the Orcs do to their own. But with every atrocity against a free Englishmen it seems more and more likely to me free men will take matters into their own hands and the government be damned.
#2
They are ex-Brit Army/Marines maybe even SAS who were working for a Canadian security firm. Hard boyz. No bandolier wearers. Bet the Mahdi's will soon be impressed and find a way to dump them.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/30/2007 11:31 Comments ||
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Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is trying to put the need to stop the smuggling of arms from Sinai to Gaza high on the world's agenda, telling foreign leaders it is critical to reducing violence in the South. Diplomatic officials said Livni was not promoting any particular way of sealing off the Philadelphi Corridor between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, nor was she asking for funds for the project. Rather, she was arguing that any cease-fire will only be temporary unless weapons can be prevented from pouring into Gaza. There are an estimated 30 tunnels being actively used by terrorists to smuggle arms under the Philadelphi Corridor.
At Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting, Livni said Israel needed to preserve its right to operate against Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank, even if there were a reduction in the number of Kassam rocket attacks. She also said Israel needed to continue demanding for a change in the situation along the Philadelphi Corridor.
"Any arrangement [in Gaza] will have to provide an answer to the problem of the arms build-up," she said. "We are working internationally to bring this message across, especially before the meeting of the Quartet and the G-8." Representatives of the Middle East Quartet (the US, EU, Russia and UN) are scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Berlin, and the G-8 is set to meet on June 6-8 at Heiligendamm, Germany. Livni is also expected to discuss Gaza and the arms smuggling from Egypt when she meets with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of a woman's leadership conference in Vienna on Wednesday.
One idea that has been revisited with the Egyptians in recent weeks is building a moat on the Egyptian side of the Gaza border. In 2004, the Defense Ministry issued a tender for digging a moat along the Israeli side of the Corridor. The ditch would have been four kilometers long, 25 meters deep and 100 meters wide. The moat would supposedly force weapons smugglers to tunnel deeper and longer, making it easier for the IDF to detect them. The cost of the project is estimated to be in the tens of millions of shekels.
The Egyptian response, according to Israeli officials, is that the matter is "being considered" and "under discussion."
Diplomatic officials, eager to avoid tension with Cairo, maintain the Egyptians are trying to stop the smuggling, and are doing much more than they have in the past. They attribute Egypt's inability to stop the traffic not to a desire to see "Israel bleed," but rather to a cumbersome bureaucracy.
Defense establishment officials, however, are far less charitable, saying the Egyptians could do much more. According to the officials, Egypt has refrained from employing its troops effectively, trying to force Israel to allow the deployment of more forces.
Following disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Israel agreed to allow Egypt to deploy 750 of its border policemen near the route. But according to a high-ranking official in Jerusalem, the policemen are really elite undercover commandos who were deployed there by Cairo in an effort to change the strategic balance along the border. In the run-up to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud), then-chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warned that the additional Egyptian forces that prime minister Ariel Sharon had allowed to deploy there would turn out to be commandos disguised as border police. According to Steinitz, Sharon initially agreed to allow 6,000 Egyptian troops, backed by helicopters and armored personnel carriers, to take up positions along the Gaza border, but reduced the number to 750 following pressure from the FADC.
Two Palestinian operatives were killed late Tuesday night in an IAF airstrike on a rocket-launching crew, Palestinian security officials said. Hamas radio said the two dead belonged to its military wing. The IDF said it had attacked a group of armed men in the area of the Jebalya refugee camp, but gave no further details.
Gaza - Ma'an - Two activists from the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, were killed on Wednesday morning by an Israeli military drone, east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Our Gaza correspondent reported that an Israeli drone targeted a group of Al-Qassam operatives near a cement factory in the Abid Rabbo suburb east of Jabalia. Mahmoud Issa Mahmoud and another activist, who remained unidentified, were killed immediately.
Palestinian medical sources added that the bodies of the two men were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya; they affirmed that the bodies had been shredded to pieces.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that he will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next week for the first time in nearly two months as the army continued hammering Hamas targets in violence-wracked Gaza.
"Our meetings with the Israelis must continue, and in this regard I will have a new meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert June 7," Abbas said at a news conference with visiting EU parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering in Gaza City. A statement from Olmert's office said that a meeting was planned for next week, with the date and location yet to be determined.
News of the encounter comes amid weeks of escalating violence in the Gaza Strip that has threatened to torpedo international efforts to revive the moribund peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Abbas and Olmert agreed in March to meet every two weeks, but their talks have been scuppered by internal crises in both Israel and the Palestinian territories and by a resumption of deadly Israeli air raids to stop increasing rocket fire from Gaza. The two leaders last met April 15.
Abbas warned against Israel launching a wide-scale ground operation in Gaza, amid increasing calls for such a move in Israeli political circles, and reiterated his call for a truce between militants and the army. He has urged Palestinian militants in Gaza to stop "futile" rocket attacks in order to reach a truce with Israel both in the coastal strip and in the occupied West Bank.
The prospect of a renewed truce between Israel and Gaza militants has looked dim in recent weeks, as both the Jewish state and Hamas have demanded that the other side stop firing first.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has limited his public appearances because he fears being targeted for assassination by Israel, his spokesman said Tuesday. Sheikh Yassin is waiting, Ismail
#1
Oh dear, and exactly what has he done to deserve such a fate? It's rather difficult to imagine that he is incapable of answering the question himself.
#2
If he actually believed in the religion of those he claims to represent, wouldn't he be relishing the idea of being a martyr? I'll bet he's really a spy.
#5
Best part of this is that not a single arab country has publically supported Haniyeh in this situation; in fact the pro Hamas rhetoric from arab states is pretty subdued given the pounding they are taking. Hamas does have Iran as a noisy supporter but that is probably one of the things suppressing their popularity in the house of Saud and Mubarak clan.
A bomb exploded Monday in front of a busy market in the southern Thai province of Songkhla, killing four people -- including two children -- and wounding about 25, officials said. The bombing came a day after at least 13 people were hurt when six bombs exploded Sunday evening in the city of Hat Yai, southern Thailand's tourist and commercial hub in the same province.
Those killed at Monday's bombing in Sabayoi district were two women and two girls, 4 and 8. The bomb, which exploded shortly after 4 p.m., was hidden in a motorcycle parked in front of the market next to a railway station. The motorcycle was destroyed by the blast, and a nearby car was damaged, as were dozens of stalls belonging to fruit and vegetable vendors.
Provincial Gov. Sonthi Thechanon confirmed the initial casualty toll and said officials had been nervous in the wake of the explosion, fearing a second bomb may have been planted there, a common tactic of terrorists seeking to assault security personnel.
Earlier Monday, a senior police official said domestic politics rather than Muslim insurgents may have been behind Sunday evening's bombs in Hat Yai that exploded near two hotels, two pharmacies, a department store and a restaurant. Scores of Malaysians, Singaporeans and Indonesians spend their weekends in Hat Yai, but police said all the injured were Thai nationals. Two of the wounded were reported in serious condition.
Last September, six homemade bombs exploded in Hat Yai, killing four people, including the first Westerner to die in the separatist insurgency, though he was apparently not targeted. In April 2005, there was another spate of bombings in Hat Yai, including one that killed two people at the city's international airport. At the same time, a department store and a hotel in the province were also bombed, and more than 70 people in all were wounded.
But the police chief of Songkhla province, Maj. Gen. Paithoon Phattanasophon, said politics may have been behind the most recent violence. "So far we cannot rule out that the attack was linked to insurgents in the three southern provinces, but it is mostly likely linked to a political motive," he said. "The way they planted the bombs shows the attackers did not mean to kill people but merely wanted to create confusion. The bombs were mostly planted far from where people were gathered in crowds," Paithoon said.
The S.P.E.C.T.R.E. of Al-Qaeda is looming over Lebanon as the army battles a shadowy band of Islamist fighters inspired by the ideology of Osama bin Laden's terror network. "If there is no quick political solution which brings an end to the siege of Nahr al-Bared ... the combatants of Al-Qaeda will be flowing into Lebanon," warned Omar Bakri Mohammad, an Islamist preacher who was barred from Britain two years ago for his radical views. "Fatah al-Islam has succeeded in creating ties with the city's Salafist movements," said the Syrian-born Bakri, who had praised the Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as the "magnificent 19."
"There are two currents within Fatah al-Islam, and the one that is linked to Al-Qaeda is taking over," warned Bakri. He said Al-Qaeda-linked fighters were behind several bomb attacks in Beirut and the mountain resort town of Aley outside the capital. "It is the one that has carried out the attacks in Beirut and the region of Aley," he said, referring to attacks in and around the capital since the clashes in the north began on May 20. Bakri said that when the gunbattles first erupted between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Army, Abssi had called his deputy Bilal Dokmak to ask him to mediate to stop the bloodshed.
"I'm IMPORTANT, dammit. Just watch me wag my finger at you!"
#3
"the combatants of Al-Qaeda will be flowing into Lebanon,"
Lets see. Leb is bordered by Israel, Syria, and the sea. The sea is monitored not just by the Leb Navy, but by the US 6th fleet and other NATO fleets. Not likely to come that way. Wont come across the Israeli border, for sure. Whats that leave?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- An American member of Al Qaeda warned in an Internet video that US President George W. Bush should withdraw all his troops from Muslim land or face attacks worse than September 11. See, all you chicks that used to make fun of me for being a fat, loser load! I'm an important guy now! You'll all bow down to me when Binny appoints me the new leader of the American Caliphate! I'll show you! I'll show all of you!!!
Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam who has been indicted for treason by a US jury, issued a list of demands that he said were not up for negotiation. "Your failure to heed our demands means that you and your people ... will experience things that will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Virginia Tech," he said in the video posted Tuesday. "You're losing on all fronts and losing big time," said Gadahn, who is the English-language spokesman for Osama Bin Laden's terror network. Believe me, it'll be even worse then the Yankees season so far...
The tape entitled "Deep Thoughts" "Legitimate Demands" was produced by As-Sahab, a media outfit that specializes in Al Qaeda online material. Perhaps As-Sahab's production facilities deserve a visit from a JDAM...
Gadahn - sporting a headdress, glasses, and long beard - said that Bush had "embroiled his nation in a series of unwinnable and bloody conflicts in the Islamic world." He also called on the United States to cease support for the "bastard state of Israel" and the "56-plus apostate regimes of the Muslim world" and to free all Muslims from its prisons. We don't negotiate with war criminals and baby killers like you. No, these are legitimate demands, which must be met," he said.
Gadahn - also known Azzam Al Amriki and Azzam the American - has appeared in several videotapes for Al Qaeda since 2004, praising the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and threatening new terror onslaughts. In October 2006, he became the first person to be charged in the United States with treason since the World War II era. The charge carries a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of death. Feel free to skip the trial and just kill him...
Gadahn, who is believed to be in Pakistan, has a $1 million reward for his capture and appears along with Bin Laden on a US "Wanted" poster featuring 26 "faces of global terrorism." His last appearance in a video was in September last year.
Gadahn was born in 1978 in southern California, the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who later converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer. His conversion to Islam came after he began attending the Islamic Center of Orange County, where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamic radicals. Maybe time for the Islamic Center of Orange County to become a vacant lot?
Gadahn is believed to have left California for Karachi in 1998 and gradually fell out of contact with relatives in the United States.
#2
...the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who later converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer. His conversion to Islam came after he began attending the Islamic Center of Orange County
and discovered that goat bonking is acceptable -even encouraged- in Islamic countries.
There's the corker. The usual "more Islamic than thou" bullshit. It seems that these other less-than-holy Muslims would rather die at the hands of their coreligionists than ever admit that something deep down inside of Islam is more screwed up than Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Jackson combined. This is Islam's true legacy to our world, internal conflicts so pervasive and abiding that it can never be at peace, even with itself, not to mention any other culture on earth.
Perhaps As-Sahab's production facilities deserve a visit from a JDAM...
Bingo, tu3031! We have to begin taking out Islam's propaganda machines. Helping to produce and releasing proclamations threatening atrocities "that will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11" is furthering a terrorist cause. They need to be blown off of the map along with other terrorist mouthpieces like al-Jazeera and al-Manar.
[begs for a comment inserted in a jewish grandmother voice here, but I just don't have one]
"Oy! I'll bet he doesn't even hef on clean underwear or any chicken soup to eat. Plotzing mit der goats was better than this. How is he ever going to meet a nice Jewish girl if he's going to kill them all? Kids these days! What's a Jewish grandmother to do?"
#8
Goat shagger boy might be surprised if another 911 occurs. We just might go barbaric on his fellow shaggers. They took down 2 buildings. We took down Afghanistan and Iraq. We just might skip the foreplay next time.
#12
Thought the white turbans were reserved for descendants of Mohammed. Surely this dickweed is an American Hybrid (with a jewish grandfather and a family name of Pearlman) and is not descended from the prophet. I would think that his family tree might raise a few AQ eyebrows as well.
An American member of al-Qaida issued a stern warning to US President George W. Bush on Tuesday demanding the US leave all Muslim lands or else his country would face an attack worse than September 11, according to a new videotape. Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name of Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaida refuses to negotiate on the demands. "Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech," he said in the seven-minute video. Remember when we used to laugh at people like that?
#4
This piece of Whale excrement makes every other lose look like Donald Trump. If Planned Parenthood ever needed a poster boy then he is the perfect candidate.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/30/2007 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It's not too late for a late term abortion with this asshole. And we have things planned that are worse than Iraq or Afghanistan goat shagger boy.
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.
KATHMANDU - A bomb exploded on Tuesday killing nine people inside a house in southwest Nepal, officials said. The blast was reported from the remote village of Gothadi in Palpa district, 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Kathmandu. The explosion has totally damaged the house, killing a family of five and four guests, chief district officer Balkrishna Panthi told AFP by telephone.
A car bomb outside the Peshawar High Court (PHC) building killed a court employee and injured eight people, including a six-year-old child selling juice, on Tuesday. 
Erbil, 30 May (AKI) - Contacts are underway between Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Baathist faction of Izzat al-Douri, former vice president during the Saddam era, according to a report on Kurdish language daily Aso. The scope of the contacts is "for reconciliation between the government and this political wing" the paper said. It quoted sources close to the government saying "the prime minister has created a high commission for directing the talks with the Douri faction, to be headed by an ex-aviation official."
LONDON - Britain confirmed on Tuesday that five British nationals had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital. Gunmen in police uniforms earlier abducted a group of Westerners from a government building in Baghdad.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is trying to put the need to stop the smuggling of arms from Sinai to Gaza high on the world's agenda, telling foreign leaders it is critical to reducing violence in the South. Diplomatic officials said Livni was not promoting any particular way of sealing off the Philadelphi Corridor between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, nor was she asking for funds for the project. Rather, she was arguing that any cease-fire will only be temporary unless weapons can be prevented from pouring into Gaza. There are an estimated 30 tunnels being actively used by terrorists to smuggle arms under the Philadelphi Corridor.
Two Palestinian operatives were killed late Tuesday night in an IAF airstrike on a rocket-launching crew, Palestinian security officials said. Hamas radio said the two dead belonged to its military wing. The IDF said it had attacked a group of armed men in the area of the Jebalya refugee camp, but gave no further details.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has limited his public appearances because he fears being targeted for assassination by Israel, his spokesman said Tuesday.
The S.P.E.C.T.R.E. of Al-Qaeda is looming over Lebanon as the army battles a shadowy band of Islamist fighters inspired by the ideology of Osama bin Laden's terror network. "If there is no quick political solution which brings an end to the siege of Nahr al-Bared ... the combatants of Al-Qaeda will be flowing into Lebanon," warned Omar Bakri Mohammad, an Islamist preacher who was barred from Britain two years ago for his radical views. "Fatah al-Islam has succeeded in creating ties with the city's Salafist movements," said the Syrian-born Bakri, who had praised the Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as the "magnificent 19." 
An American member of al-Qaida issued a stern warning to US President George W. Bush on Tuesday demanding the US leave all Muslim lands or else his country would face an attack worse than September 11, according to a new videotape. Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name of Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaida refuses to negotiate on the demands. "Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech," he said in the seven-minute video.
