MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Three Bahrainis, arrested four years ago in the war on terror, headed home on Friday after being released from the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Bahraini officials said. The release comes after intensive efforts by the king of Bahrain, "who has given this case special priority," Information Minister Mohammed Abdulghaffar told the official Bahrain News Agency.
The minister said the three would appear before the prosecutor-general "to take the necessary measures followed in such cases." But a senior Bahraini government official said the released men would not stand trial, the Emirates-based Khaleej Times newspaper said.
The three were arrested four years ago by Pakistani authorities and handed over to U.S. forces during the 2001 war in Afghanistan, lawmaker Mohammed Khaled said. "They were only distributing humanitarian aid among Afghani refugees, but some Pakistanis sold them to U.S. forces claiming that they are al-Qaida members," Khaled told The Associated Press.
Just distributing alms and arms to the widows of Afghanistan. Why on earth would anyone bother them?
Khaled said there are three other Bahrainis being held at Guantanamo and that the Bahraini Foreign Ministry was negotiating their release. "Most of the detainees were interrogated and the three remaining were subjected to severe torture over the past four years," Khaled said.
Chapter 18 in the manual.
One of those named by Khaled, Juma'a Mohammed al-Dossary, 32, has allegedly tried twice to commit suicide in Guantanamo.
I suppose we have to stop them from doing so, at leat til we send them home.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/05/2005 00:39 ||
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#1
I suppose we have to stop them from doing so, at leat til we send them home.
Just the oposite. Encourage them. That way we can ship the bodies home to Bahrain quickly.
Four persons arrested in Los Angeles are part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering ring, federal investigators said, and the suspects caused serious compromises for 15 years to major U.S. weapons systems, including submarines and warships.
U.S. intelligence and security officials said the case remains under investigation but that it could prove to be among the most damaging spy cases since the 1985 one of John A. Walker Jr., who passed Navy communication codes to Moscow for 22 years.
The Los Angeles spy ring has operated since 1990 and has funneled technology and military secrets to China in the form of documents and computer disks, officials close to the case said. The ring was led by Chi Mak and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, along with Mr. Chi's brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, officials said.
Key compromises uncovered so far include sensitive data on Aegis battle management systems that are the core of U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers. China covertly obtained the Aegis technology and earlier this year deployed its first Aegis warship, code-named Magic Shield, intelligence officials have said. The Chinese also obtained sensitive data on U.S. submarines, including classified details related to the new Virginia-class attack submarines.
Officials said based on a preliminary assessment, China now will be able to track U.S. submarines, a compromise that potentially could be devastating if the United States enters a conflict with China in defending Taiwan.
Mr. Chi, an electrical engineer, also had access to details on U.S. aircraft carriers and once was aboard the USS Stennis. A Pentagon report made public earlier this year said China's military is building up capabilities to attack U.S. aircraft carriers. China also is thought to have obtained information from the spy ring that will assist Chinese military development of electromagnetic pulse weapons -- weapons that simulate the electronic shock caused by a nuclear blast -- that disrupt electronics. It also is thought to have obtained unmanned aerial vehicle technology from the spy ring.
All four persons were arrested yesterday and charged with theft of government property. Law-enforcement officials said that the charges are expected to be upgraded to espionage or espionage-related once the nature of the information involved is fully investigated.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/05/2005 01:20 ||
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#1
This is one of those times when it pains me to be civilized. These assholes, whose espionage will certainly lead to American deaths at some point, perhaps many, perhaps far more than many, will likely only get prison time.
They should be flayed. Then filleted. Both done very slowly. Very publicly. Return the tongues to Peking. Special delivery.
#2
How exactly were these people allowed anywhere near the systems documentation or otherwise any physical system otherwise something else fishy is going on here and this may be potentially bigger than it first seems.
#3
After all the Chinnies spies that have been busted why are they even being hired?Who ever hired these folks+the investigators who did the background checks should(at the least)be fired.
#4
If China really has Aegis and some of these sub technologies, it should be interesting to see the effects of the some of the proposed procurement cuts on some future conflict over Taiwan. Wouldn't it be ironic if an effort to save $15B a year leads to the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in American hardware? But I forget - all we need are more infantry units - they'll hold the line against improved Chinese warships and submarines.
#6
Bring the little wonks over here, send them to engineering school, give em a clearance and DoD high paying job.....duhhh, what ya think they're gonna do? Multiculturalism at it's finest. I wonder how many more of the communist bastards are sitting in DoD civilian pesonnel offices looking after the recruitment and placement of more moles. What a venue.
Federal authorities in Los Angeles have quietly charged four people in an alleged conspiracy to steal U.S. military secrets â including a quiet propulsion system for Navy warships â and turn over the intelligence to the People's Republic of China, it was learned late Thursday.
Though U.S. officials declined to comment, an FBI agent's 42-page affidavit unsealed earlier this week identifies the four suspects as Chi Mak and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu of Downey, and Chi's brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, of Alhambra. Chi and his wife are originally from China and became naturalized U.S. citizens 20 years ago. Tai and his wife both entered the United States from China in May 2001 and are lawful permanent residents.
Rebecca Chiu's attorney, Michael Meza, described his client as a relatively minor player in the case. Attorneys for the other defendants could not be reached.
According to the affidavit filed by FBI Agent James E. Gaylord, federal authorities began their investigation after receiving information that Chi Mak, Tai Mak and Rebecca Chiu might be stealing government-owned information from Power Paragon, a subsidiary of L-3/SPD Technologies/Power Systems Group in Anaheim.
Gaylord's affidavit identifies Chi as the lead project engineer on a Power Paragon research project involving the Navy's so-called Quiet Electric Drive propulsion system, a technology so sensitive that it has been banned from export to certain countries, including China.
The FBI investigation has uncovered evidence that Chi transferred information about the propulsion system and other government projects from his workplace to his home and then copied the data so it could be delivered to his brother, Tai, according to the affidavit. Tai then encrypted the information with the assistance of an unidentified accomplice and made arrangements to take the encrypted data to China, Gaylord said.
All four suspects were arrested last Friday night after a federal judge issued a sealed arrest warrant based on the FBI's suspicion that Tai and his wife were about to leave the U.S. with the encrypted data on a midnight flight to Guangzhou.
"In this case, because I believe the targets are foreign intelligence agents who likely have escape plans in place and who are already worried about being caught, I believe good cause exists to authorize nighttime execution" of search and arrest warrants "to avoid the destruction of evidence and the escape of the targets," Gaylord said in his affidavit.
During its investigation, the affidavit said, the FBI employed court-authorized wiretaps and other surveillance during which agents allegedly overheard the suspects engaging in coded conversations.
Additionally, according to the affidavit, agents combing through the trash at Chi's residence found a number of documents torn into small pieces. Gaylord said one document was machine-printed in China and contained a list of military technologies that were being sought, including a space-based electromagnetic intercept system, submarine torpedoes and aircraft carrier electronic systems. A second document, hand-printed in Chinese, contained another nine related technologies, the affidavit says.
The defendants are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 15.
#1
tip of the iceberg, i'm afraid. If tec transfer stopped before transfer, kudos FBI.
many more successful arrests plz.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/05/2005 0:56 Comments ||
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#2
Fuk Heung??? An alias for sure. Sounds like the wife's already rolling over on the others
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 1:08 Comments ||
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#3
Tai and his wife both entered the United States from China in May 2001 and are lawful permanent residents.
"Permanent"? Assuming they are convicted and imprisoned, stripping them of their citizenship and deportation should be the final consequence of their actions.
#4
Permanent residents implies they don't have citizenship. I wouldn't deport them. Deportation means they would escape without penalty.
Posted by: Rafael ||
11/05/2005 1:24 Comments ||
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#5
I believe good cause exists to authorize nighttime execution...
...but unfortunately, he was refering to search and arrest warrants.
Posted by: Rafael ||
11/05/2005 1:28 Comments ||
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#6
Frank: Fuk Heung???
Yeah, haven't you heard? Fuk Heung is married to Wang Chiu.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/05/2005 1:39 Comments ||
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BAR: "Permanent"? Assuming they are convicted and imprisoned, stripping them of their citizenship and deportation should be the final consequence of their actions.
I would say that deportation is a little on the lenient side. At minimum, they should get consecutive life terms for each count on which they are convicted. At worst, they could bring the chair out of retirement.
AN inflammatory pamphlet urging Muslims to oppose Western governments was handed out at a major Islamic festival in Melbourne yesterday.
The flyer, distributed at a family carnival to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan in Preston, bore the name of the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir - which is banned in Britain and Germany.
It claimed new terror laws were part of a conspiracy to eradicate Islam in Western countries.
And it said Muslims had "enormously rejected their evil and corrupt rulers that the West have appointed over them, and they are looking forward to consigning them to the dustbins of history".
The pamphlet said Muslims overseas had "heroically resisted" invasion and "inflicted the most humiliating lesson on supposed superpowers".
It claimed Prime Minister John Howard's recent summit with Muslim leaders was a "smokescreen designed to rubber stamp the Government's proposals".
In August Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he had no evidence that Hizb Ut-Tahir had breached current laws, but he was already reviewing the rules for declaring a terrorist organisation after elements of the group called for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, Iran, the US and Israeli interests.
In Sydney the group has drawn gatherings of up to 200 calling for the creation of an Islamic super-state.
"Ally yourselves with those who work day and night to confront this war against Islam," the pamphlet says in what was virtually a call to arms.
Melbourne's most senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Fehmi, urged Muslims at the celebration - expected to attract up to 10,000 visitors over the weekend - to ignore the pamphlet.
He said Ramadan was the time for spiritual purification and reflection for Muslims.
"We're not terrorists and we're not thinking of terrorist acts, we're not going to do anything in the future - God willing."
Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian ||
11/05/2005 09:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like its time for some immediate incarcerations followed by permanent deportations back to country of origin. If you can't play nice in the West, then you can go back to the hellhole you came from. Nobody's going to cry any tears because some scumbag Muzzy has been booted.
Posted by: mac ||
11/05/2005 10:30 Comments ||
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#2
I want you to ignore the pamphlet that says, "Ally yourselves with those who work day and night to confront this war against Islam"
And I want you to ignore the pamplet that says, "Muslims overseas had "heroically resisted" invasion and "inflicted the most humiliating lesson on supposed superpowers".
Yes my followers, ignore the pamphlet our elders are passing around and let me again point out to you all of the things I want you to ignore.
#3
"We're not terrorists and we're not thinking of terrorist acts, we're not going to do anything in the future - God willing."
And yet...
It claimed new terror laws were part of a conspiracy to eradicate Islam in Western countries.
So lemme get this straight. The Muslims had allowed the distribution of a pamphlet equating anti-terrorism with anti-Islam. Then their spokesman says "God willing, we're not going to commit any acts of violence".
Well, pardon me, but that sounds like at some point this fellow might say, "Well, God just willed us to kill some kaffir" and start setting off boomers.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/05/2005 11:17 Comments ||
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#4
I do believe Australian's are well armed citizens. Those lucky bastards!!
#5
Actually, LHR, I'm pretty sure the Australians sold their arms for false security.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/05/2005 14:10 Comments ||
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#6
Oz rounded up all the guns and turned them into scrap. Very few persons in Oz have firearms. This just happened just a few years ago. Same thing that happened in the UK but on a bigger scale. Turn them in or go to jail.
Gun registration is not a good thing it leads to confiscation. Can you say Hilary Clinton? I knew you could.
Posted by: NRA member ||
11/05/2005 15:22 Comments ||
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The Australian gun owning culture is different to the US, and not really comparable. Major difference is very low handgun ownership levels. Much less use of guns for self defence. Though handgun use is rising, mostly by criminal elements.
Long guns are a different story. Rifles and shotguns are ubiquitous in the bush, much less so in cities, unless by city based hunters or target shooters.Every farmer would have a few rifles for kangaroos, pigs etc in the crops. Australia abounds with problem feral animals and some tasty native ones. Speaking personally, I have hunted rabbits, hares, foxes, cats, dogs, dingoes, donkeys, goats, ducks and the odd kangaroo. Fairly typical for an Australian country boy, I would say.
Licences to own firearms are required and widely ignored. Police do not bother responsible firearm users.
Firearm ownership is pragmatic. If you need a rifle or shotgun, you get one. Very few law abiding Australians would consider owning a handgun, unless they were in crocodile country.
#9
Well.....for some reason I was thinking other wise.
My friend in Switzerland is Aussi and we would go to a Swiss indoor range and blast away. I remember him saying that the Aussies were well armed. But that was...almost 4 years now.
#11
If anyone is interested, this is the kind of shit you have to go through to get a licence in Oz.
It's one reason why a lot of cockies can't be bothered getting a licence and the ferals are over running the bush
#12
Hmmmm...seems to me that when a Government cannot trust its own law-abiding citizens to own and responsibly use firearms to protect themselves and their families from the human "crocodiles," then it follows that what you have is a POLICE STATE where rights are doled out by the Government, rather than the powers of government being severely limited and granted ONLY by the consent of the governed.
And, ladies and Gentlemen, we are just beginning to see the tip of this radical Islamofacist iceberg coming south from Indonesia and points west. D'ya really think that these people will be encumbered by decency and restraint? Their incitement and open organizing for violent action is reason enough to DEMAND that your citizens have the absolute right to be armed as appropriate.
TROOPS with shoot-to-kill powers could be deployed on Australain streets within hours of a terrorist attack or threat under laws likely to be introduced before the Commonwealth Games.
Defence Minister Robert Hill yesterday revealed the move amid fears newly identified terrorist cells were planning attacks in Melbourne and Sydney. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald Sun, Senator Hill said next year's Games were one reason the Government would move quickly with sweeping changes to make it easier to call out the military. He said that in response to an attack or threat, capital cities would be flooded with special forces soldiers flown in by Black Hawk helicopters from Holsworthy Military Base. They would have stronger powers, including the right to detain people, to search and seize and the power to shoot to kill.
Senator Hill said the new laws could be ready by the start of the Games in Melbourne on March 15. "There would be greater flexibility in the call out provisions to meet a wider range of scenarios," he said. "It would ease the processes for calling out the military."
Senator Hill said call-out powers under the Defence Act were insufficient to deal with terrorism. He said that at present calling out the armed forces was "constitutionally fraught" and the laws were too "complex" and "awkward" in a rapidly developing environment.
Senator Hill said other changes would be that troops could be deployed on a nationwide basis to deal with a 9/11-style situation of multiple attacks. The Reserves would be mixed with regular units - currently not allowed. Maritime or aerial attacks also would justify a call-out.
He said the new laws could streamline the approval process for a call-out, but the details would still have to be worked out. Under existing laws, Commonwealth interests must be at risk - or state police forces must be unable to cope. The Attorney-General, Prime Minister and Defence Minister must agree. The Governor-General then must approve and authorise the Chief of the Defence Force to act.
The military was last called out to aid civil power in 1978 after the bomb blast at Sydney's Hilton Hotel during a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Senator Hill said the Government would introduce the new laws as soon as practically possible. "Assuming it gets Cabinet support, we would be looking to introduce a Bill by the end of this session, which is not all that far away," he said. "It would then have committee consideration over the Christmas break, with a view to it being debated in Parliament at the beginning of the next session (February).
"It would have to be dealt with almost immediately to be in place by the Commonwealth Games."
Senator Hill said exercises had been run under existing call-out powers. "It became obvious the processes were really quite awkward. And they may not easily fit a terrorist scenario as it could develop," he said. The processes were "quite restrictive" in the situation to which they would apply.
Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian ||
11/05/2005 08:55 ||
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AUSTRALIA faces new terrorist threats from a radical group that has only this week been identified by ASIO, according to intelligence sources.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is investigating the new terrorist cell. It is said to be planning attacks - designed to cause mass casualties - in Melbourne and Sydney.
Sources say security services were surprised by revelations of the group's existence.
The group is believed to be made up of Australian-born children of Muslim immigrants.
An intelligence source said: "This is a disturbing development.
"This new group appears to have been planning or considering carrying out extremely violent acts that would result in very large numbers of casualties.
"This is something new - it is not related to people whose names are already in the public domain."
The Sunday Herald Sun also has learned that Chechen terrorists skilled in bomb making have established links with radical Islamic groups in Melbourne and Sydney.
It is understood some members of these groups have travelled to the southern Philippines, where Chechen groups have been instructing Islamic militants in bomb making techniques.
The new terror threat was relayed to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock on Monday and then made public on Wednesday by Prime Minister John Howard.
Mr Ruddock called on Australians yesterday to be alert to new threats, and help authorities.
"All Australians should be alert to unusual activities that suggest something might be possible," he said.
"It is better to be prudent and use the 1800 number (1800 123 400). My view is that it is better if people err on the side of caution.
"I would have to say the authorities have been aided in a number of inquiries from information they have received from the public."
ASIO has long been probing links between radical Muslims in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as any connections they had to al-Qaida or Chechen terrorists.
In June, ASIO raided on houses in Melbourne and Sydney. The raids were part of Operation Pandanus, a year-long investigation prompted by people acting suspiciously outside the stock exchange in Melbourne.
But ASIO received new information this week that pointed to plans being hatched by a new group, believed to be Islamist and violent.
This week's threat prompted the Government to recall the Senate to pass an amended law giving authorities greater power to act against terrorists.
Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian ||
11/05/2005 08:54 ||
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#1
"All Australians should be alert to unusual activities that suggest something might be possible," he said.
LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France.
"Bring out the FemBots!"
The Libyan national news agency reported that Mr Chirac thanked Colonel Gaddafi for his interest and reassured him that the situation was under control.
"All is wellllll!"
Colonel Gaddafi was reported saying Libya was "disposed to help France overcome these events," which he described as "regrettable."
One thing about old Muammar, he's not afraid to thump a few turbans...
The report did not outline what kind of aid might have been forthcoming. French authorities have stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots, in which hundreds of vehicles were set alight, as suspicions grew that gangs were becoming increasingly organised.
#1
I'm sure his intentions were honorable. Just like when he paid $25 million ransom to the ASG to free some french and german hostages on Jolo. The ASG were only asking a few hundred thousand total but good old Gaddafi wanted to make it happen fast. Thus he funded ASG operations for the next three years. I'm certain he could infuse a sizeable ammout of funds into the area and make a bad situation worse.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/05/2005 17:50 Comments ||
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#2
Wow, look at all those medals. He is obviously a great warrior and general. Alexander the Great probably didn't have many famous battlefied victories as this guy. And heck, he's only a Colonel! WTF is up with that? So brave, so handsome and photogenic, he even has the Mussolini lower-lip-boner down pat.
#3
that's actually an aerial map of EuroDisney on his coat
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 18:30 Comments ||
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#4
I'd be wearing dark glasses too. With all those shiny objects and the intense sunlight, cornea damage is a real danger. That gold thing in the middle, is that some sort of Mexican Aztec Joint Service medal?
France has been detecting, or at least fearing, loyalty problems among the fifteen percent of its soldiers who are Moslem. The military insists that these second and third generation soldiers of, for the most part, Arab descent, are loyal. But many Christian soldiers, NCOs and officers are not so sure. Harassment of Moslem troops by Christian soldiers is common. There have been no major incidents of soldiers turned terrorists, but the abuse from paranoid soldiers, NCOs and officers might push Moslem soldiers to go bad. This is believed more likely because there are no Moslem chaplains. Thus Moslem soldiers seek spiritual advice from clerics with no military experience, and possible a radical agenda. More worrisome is that radicalized soldiers will leave the army equipped with skills they can use for terrorist attacks.
Death For Cowardly Akbar!
By Dave Gibson (07/18/04)
I would like to refresh everyone's memory about a particularly heinous act which occurred in March of 2003. The scene was Camp Pennsylvania, the Army's 101st Division's 1st Brigade Headquarters inside Kuwait. In the wee hours of the morning on Sunday March 23, 32 year old Sgt. Hasan Akbar lobbed several grenades into a tent of his fellow soldiers.
That attack on a tent of sleeping U.S. Army soldiers, which killed two officers is not only sickening--but also strangely absent from the glare of our liberal news media. No great shock that the news media refuses to talk about a Muslim traitor! How thick do you think the coverage would be if it had instead been a white, Christian soldier?
I am stunned and quite puzzled why this Muslim terrorist has not yet been put in front of a firing squad. I know the government is so very afraid of offending everyone, that apparently applies to the people who wish to kill us as well.
This murderous traitor killed two Army officers (Army Captain Christopher Scott Seifert of Easton, Pennsylvania and Air Force Major Gregory Stone of Boise, Idaho), as well as injuring 14 other soldiers who were catching up on some much needed rest. Akbar, turning his back on the country that had fed, clothed, and trained him, cowardly killed these men in their sleep. Does this make anyone else's blood boil?
When this killer joined the Army his name was Tony Kooks, he later changed it to Hasan Akbar after he found his true calling-- becoming a Muslim murderer! Such a true coward!
I have two questions...Why has the media completely dropped this story? The more troubling one is...Why are we keeping this traitor alive? I cannot think of any other time in U.S. history when a soldier committing this kind of act, would not have either been immediately killed or brought before a military board and summarily executed. Can you imagine an Airborne unit in 1944 allowing this murderer to see the next morning?
The answer as to why the taxpayers are still feeding this Muslim terrorist does not lie with the Army... but with the politicians who tell them what to do. What a shame!
The only place suitable for Hasan Akbar is in front of a firing squad. My question is when or if this nation's government will have the guts to do it? If they do not follow 'war time law' and kill this coward, may they then be haunted by the ghosts of Captain Christopher Scott Seifert and Major Gregory Stone...Yes, the victims do have names and undoubtedly devastated loved-ones.
#3
I know I repeat the same stuff over and over, thus illustrating my lack of knowledge and deep thought (and mad cow disease?), but :
- a survey found that only 1 in 10 muslim teen would fight for France.
- an internal survey by the french army found similar results (don't remember the exact figures, but it was circa 1 in 10 too) when asking if muslim volunteers would fight against a muslim ennemy; one tv reportage about the integration by the army showed young males and females talking about their committment to the army, and, yes, they told they wouldn't fight against "their country" (algeria, Morocco,... possibly extended to any muslim nation).
Btw, french army is which an all-volunteer force modelled after the brit army (that was one of the grand project of Shiraq's first mandate), and a bankrupt one, I might add; a large part of the equipment is not working due to logistical issues (I don't remember the exact numbers I read in an army mag complaing about that, because I'm sub-average, but theses were in the vicinity of 1/3 of X vehicles are not available due to lack of parts, 2/5 of Y,...).
All in all, french army is in very bad shape, low morale, recruitment problems, cohesiveness issues (due to, you guessed, it to an affirmative action drive aiming at recruiting youths from the 'hoods, who bring their "habits" with them... about 20% of french army is now muslim, up to 30-40% in active duty units like paratroopers), political troubles (Michèle Alliot-Marie, probably on behalf of our Dear Leader sacked officers, including a general, due to the death of an ivorian cutthroat while in custody, this is seen as a scapegoating move to bail out of the ivorian quagmire, and possibly as an attack agains tDominique Galouzeau "de Villepin"). The only truly functioning part of our army is a "colonial" force, marines, special forces, some selected units (paratroopers and alpine troops) and foreign legion, which retains high standards.
In relation to the low level urban guerilla around Paris, I've read and am led to believe the army wouldn't be able to step in on a large scale; it could only act in localised spots, and would be unable to counter a massive uprising, and even less fight an counter-insurgency war (like it very successfully did in algeria).
Later Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met eight key ministers and the head of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur. After the meeting, Mr Boubakeur urged a change in tone from the government. "What I want from the authorities, from Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, the prime minister and senior officials are words of peace," he said.
Just give us what we want and no one gets hurt," he later added.
#2
They need to kick-it-up a notch and cap Villepin immediately for uttering such treasonous crap. Get it going REAL good, then call in the French Army and turn it over to professionals instead of politicians and diplomats.
#6
Boubakeur is the mouthpiece of the algerian gvt. He lend rioters "muslim credibility" after the teargas cannister was thrown (by whom?) into that mosque, but when he came for phot op, his car was pelted with stones ;-)... guess there is a lot of infighting in the muslim side too.
He represents the gvt-friendly "moderate islam" (his sermons are not jihadist, they are written by algerian security... "french" islam is totally under the spell of the native countries or intenrational islamic orgs like MB), but a while back he sided with the UOIF, the muslim brotherhood front in France.
#7
France needs to grow some balls. These thugs are terrorizing the suburbs and the French leaders are trying to negotiate. From now on whenever these terrorist thugs want something all they have to do is riot and they will get their own way.
Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian ||
11/05/2005 19:26 Comments ||
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As the night falls, the âtroublesâ start; and the pattern is always the same. Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones, and, ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. Once the police have arrived on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats. The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back, with real bullets.
The scenes described above are not from the West Bank but from 16 French cities, most of them close to the capital Paris, that have been plunged in a European version of the âintifadaâ which at the time of writing appears beyond control.
When the troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago Franceâs bombastic Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to âimpose the laws of the republicâ and promised to crush â the louts and hooligansâ within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no âoutburst by criminal elementsâ that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons. By last Monday everyone in Paris was speaking of âan unprecedented crisisâ. Both the interior minister and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.
But how did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: Stealing parts of parked cars. Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened as the police have not been present in that suburb for years. The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something that meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them. Once the police arrived on the scene the youth, who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years, got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted. Once news of their death was out, Clichy was all up in arms. With cries of âGod is Greatâ, bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee. The French authorities, however, could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from part of the French territory. So, they hit back by sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.
Within hours the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the âoccupied territories.â By mid-week the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris with a population of 5.5 million.
But who lives in the affected areas?
In Clichy itself more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns the Muslim immigrant community accounts for between 30 and 60 percent of the population.
But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent. In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see âreal French lifeâ only on television.
The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of âassimilationâ which was supposed to turn immigrants from any backgrounds into âproper Frenchmenâ within a generation at most. The policy of assimilation worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.
France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: The obligatory military service that was abolished in the 1990s.
As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for âcalmer placesâ, thus making assimilation still more difficult. In some areas it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.
The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid. Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be re-organized on the basis of the âmilletâ system that was in force in the Ottoman Empire. Under that system each religious community is regarded as âmilletâ and enjoys the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.
In some parts of France de facto âmilletâ system is already in place. In these areas all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist âhijabâ while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheikhs. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling wine and alcohol and pork products, forced âplaces of sinâ such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters to close down and, seized control of much of the local administration often through permeation.
A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulany-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out!
âAll we demand is to be left alone,â said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local âemirsâ engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheikhs, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.
President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a âticking time bombâ.
It is now clear that a good portion of Franceâs Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into âthe superior French cultureâ but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life.
So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an advisor on Islamic affairs to Chirac, is the creation of âa new Andalusiaâ in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.
The problem with Kepelâs vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power: Who will rule this new Andalusia â Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?
Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.
See also this AFP report - it's getting bad. From the French press about last night:
Nearly 900 vehicles were torched and 250-plus people arrested as French police desperately battled the country's worst rioting for decades, which has now raged for nine consecutive nights.
Again, the bulk of the violence on Saturday hit deprived suburbs with large immigrant populations on the fringes of Paris, although rioting again spread to several cities elsewhere in France, following a pattern seen in recent nights.
With authorities seemingly powerless to stem the tide of violence despite the mobilisation of hundreds of riot police, gangs of youths set cars on fire around Paris, especially in the northern suburbs where the trouble began.
A hundred people were evacuated overnight from two apartment blocks in one northern suburb after an arson attack set dozens of cars alight in an underground garage. Two textile warehouses and a car showroom were also torched to the northeast of the city.
A total of 253 people were detained for questioning, some of them minors caught with fire-bombs
Widespread riots across impoverished areas of France took a malevolent turn in a ninth night of violence, with youths torching an ambulance and stoning medical workers coming to the aid of a sick person. Authorities arrested more than 250 people, an unprecedented sweep since the beginning of the unrest.
Bands of youths also burned a nursery school, warehouses and nearly 900 cars overnight as the violence spread from the restive Paris suburbs to towns around France. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to the airport through the affected areas.
At the nursery school in Acheres, west of Paris, part of the roof was caved in, childrensâ photos stuck to blackened walls, and melted plastic toys littered the floor.
The town had been previously untouched by the violence. Some residents demanded that the army be deployed, or that citizens rise up and form militias. At the school gate, the mayor tried to calm tempers.
âWe are not going to start militias,â Mayor Alain Outreman said. âYou would have to be everywhere.â
Violence spreads
Fires and other incidents were reported in Lille, Toulouse, Rouen and elsewhere on the second night of unrest in areas beyond metropolitan Paris. An incendiary device was tossed at the wall of a synagogue in Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris, where electricity went out after a burning car damaged an electrical pole.
âThis is dreadful, unfortunate. Who did this? Against whom?â Naima Mouis, a hospital worker in Suresnes, asked while looking at the hulk of her burned-out car.
On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people took part in a silent march in one of the worst-hit suburbs, Aulnay-sous-Bois, filing past burned-out cars to demand calm. One banner read: âNo to violence.â Car torchings have become a daily fact in Franceâs tough suburbs, with about 100 each night.
Interior Ministry said nearly 900 vehicles were burned throughout France from Friday night to Saturday morning, most in the Paris area.
Arrests were also up sharply, with more than 250 people detained overnight, nearly all in the Paris area, said national police spokesman Patrick Hamon. Police deployed in smaller teams and used a helicopter to track bands of youths going from attack to attack, he said.
Police had made just 78 arrests in the Paris region the previous night.
The violence â sparked after the Oct. 27 accidental electrocution of two teenagers who believed police were chasing them in Seine-Saint-Denis â has laid bare discontent simmering in Franceâs poor suburbs ringing big cities. Those areas are home to large populations of African Muslim immigrants and their children living in low-income housing projects marked by high unemployment, crime and despair.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin oversaw a Cabinet meeting Saturday to evaluate the situation.
Some 30 mayors from the Seine-Saint-Denis region where the unrest started met Friday to make a joint call for calm. Claude Pernes, mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois, denounced a âveritable guerrilla situation, urban insurrectionâ that has taken hold.
A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mails â arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations.
U.S., Russia issue warnings
The persistence of the violence prompted the American and Russian governments to advise citizens visiting Paris to avoid the suburbs, where authorities were struggling to gain control of the worst rioting in at least a decade.
An attack this week on a female bus passenger highlighted the savage nature of some of the violence. The woman, in her 50s and on crutches, was doused with an inflammable liquid and set afire after passengers were forced to leave the bus, blocked by burning objects on the road, judicial officials said.
Late Friday in Meaux, east of Paris, youths prevented firefighters from evacuating a sick person from an apartment in a housing project, pelting them with stones and torching the awaiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry officer said. The officer, not authorized to speak publicly, asked not to be named.
âIâm not able to sleep at night because you never know when a fire might break out,â said Mammed Chukri, 36, a Kurdish immigrant from northern Iraq living near a burned carpet warehouse. âI have three children and I live in a five-story building. If a fire hit, what would I do?â
A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination between gangs in the various riot-hit suburbs. He said, however, that neighborhood youths were communicating between themselves using cell phone text messaging or e-mails to arrange meeting points and alert each other to police
#1
Nearly 900 vehicles were torched and 250-plus people arrested as French police desperately battled the country's worst rioting for decades, which has now raged for nine consecutive nights.
Clue #1: There's a way to deal with these rioters, and arresting them is not it.
#4
On the bright side Villepin and Chirac's careers are now toast. I suppose it's possible, but it's hard to believe that the French could do worse than those two.
#5
I feel for the French citizens it reminds me of how I felt after time and time again in the 90's when we were attacked by terrorist but our "peace-love-&-happiness" leadership did nothing after all thier family and freinds were safe up in the ivory towers while us peasants were left to the hinderlands and barbarian wills.
The LLL leadership that is even stronger in EU than here has proven itself totaly inept of handling todays world or tommorows. I just pray that the enebitable day when the EU people go back to the right were sanity and national pride not peace-love-&-happiness and self hatred is strong, I just hope they go US style right and not back to the old Iperialist, Colonialist, Faciast ideas of the old EU right.
It really is sad to see LLL leadership that is so polluted that after 9days of riots and even spreading of such they still cant bring themselves to deploy the military declare martial law and start shooting people. Even Lousiana with their LLL gov (well as long as they are stealing food its OK they are just hungry, retardation that was proven so after the walmart cookies were left while big screens a flowith) and their LLL mayor (atop the hotel partying with the foriegn tourist while the police crumbled and the city fell into mad max, even with this line up the guard was deployed martial law was declared and in what by the 2nd day of looting it was over with a mere 8people shot trying to rob some workers, word travels fast about such and the point was made game over or DIE.
#6
I want to feel for the French people, but they got the government and society they asked for. It is a bitter, painful lesson and hopefully one that doesn't kill them. The rest of the world needs to take note, you just can't reason with barbarians.
#7
According to a gentleman I "know" (read internet relation) and who toured the areas, what's happening is not rioting; he's seen and lived through rioting in Guyana and Africa, their effect and their aftermath, and this is not it.
What he has seen and been told (he's got a card press) is more reminiscent of ponctual, targeted destructions. This is urban guerilla.
#8
Send in the Foreign Legion with fixed bayonets...
Posted by: Jim ||
11/05/2005 11:50 Comments ||
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#9
are the Muslim extremists really this stupid? It's just like in Israel. Their ability to fight depends on the patience of their western hosts. So they exhaust it. Has a more self-destructive group ever existed?
#10
âWe are not going to start militias,â Mayor Alain Outreman said. âYou would have to be everywhere.â
That is the beauty of militias, they can be everywhere the police aren't. Self-empowerment is a wonderful thing. The problem for the elite is: How do you put the genie back in the bottle when once you have turned it loose?
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/05/2005 11:55 Comments ||
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#11
mmurray
I agree you cant deal with barbarians exept with a 5.56 pointing thier way. However you got to feel for the common frenchman on the street. Yeah they voted for the gov they got and they are going to pay the price just as they are right now BUT that could be us in 01' Bush barely pulled out a victory over Gore that would have never invaded Afghanistan maybe some bombing raids of empty training camps with notice of overflight just in case sent to the Pak security then forwarded to the targets. And in 04' it wasnt much better and you look today with the meida short Fox which latley is falling into the flow constant harping of our defeat in Iraq, I mean we lost 3000 civilians in one day on 9-11 after 4yrs of war two invasions and 3yrs of occupation of two hostile populations with a meger 2000 dead in historical comparison that is unheard of yet it has been turned into a defeat that even the Right now accept as such that is pitifull. Look at Kosovo or Bosnia still a mess still UN peace their and still problems thats been running since mid 90's for gods sake yet I hear no quagmire comments??? the Peace-love-&-happiness mind set is heavily ingrained even in a lot of our Right. I feel for the french becuase that could very very easily be us tommorrow we have the same LLL mentality enstrength her in this nation just like thier the only differnce is today we have our Right in charge but tommorrow who knows? Many on the right are pretty damm light themselves McCain for one so the idea of actually shamming or pressing the threat of the peace-love&-happiness mentality into shame or even prosecuting some of this open Sedition is not very likley even thou it is looking more and more nessecary. In todays enviroment can you imagine a war in Iran or for gods sake one on the scale of WW2 we would have never made it to Midway before surrendering totaly demorilized and broken at home with the leadership in prison for not knowing about the attack general Mc Aurthur in prison for holding on so long wasing all of those lives on a hopeless defence.
We are not far behind the EU and what is happing thier today is could in just one election happen here tommorrow. So yeah I really feel sorry for the French and the EU common people.
yes, self-destructive groups have existed and still are. In evolution, these are called parasites. And the more, the better these adapt and find new victims (too "democratic" societies where responsibility is ignored, covering with "human rights").
#14
A hundred people were evacuated overnight from two apartment blocks in one northern suburb after an arson attack set dozens of cars alight in an underground garage.
Another instance of the lack of deaths being more the result of luck than of design.
What he has seen and been told (he's got a card press) is more reminiscent of ponctual, targeted destructions. This is urban guerilla.
Well, yeah. That's what we've been saying.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/05/2005 12:14 Comments ||
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#15
What he has seen and been told (he's got a card press) is more reminiscent of ponctual, targeted destructions. This is urban guerilla."
All the more reason to shoot on sight.
We have heard time and again that once push comes to shove and their OWN interests are directly threatened by terrorists, the french can be as ruthless as any, if not more so. Well, it looks like that time is rapidly approaching. Time for the french to defend themselves and the very fabric or their society. If they can't summon the will and energy even for that, then they're as good as dead already.
#18
Frankistan as a state is slowly ceasing to exist, no doubt about it. Where is the French Army, where is the legendary Legion Etrangere?
I guess it is time for a partition of a rotting corpse - first Spain should get back her Roussillon; Savoy, Nice and Corsica go to Italy, Alsace-Lorraine - to Germany and the North (Flemish Westhoek) to Belgium.
And the rest can slowly simmer...
Posted by: Matt K. ||
11/05/2005 13:28 Comments ||
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#20
They'll be part of the Caliphate before they get around to partitioning the country, Matt. My guess is sooner rather than later, just as Zapatero is negotiating with the Arabs for just such an outcome.
#21
Friday is Muzzie prayer day. Why don't these articles tell about the calming words the leaders of the religion of peace offered on Friday and how they calmed the youths?
The solution is not a single thing. But to start curfew (I haven't heard of one) and troops on the street with a shoot on site order. Then the other things that are needful can begin. The government of France is diddling around. This is the only way.
The current Government of France is considered "right wing" even though right wing. What will replace will be a Socialist now I fear.
The UK has places where Fire trucks and Ambulances need police escorts too. It's got the same problem.
I am going to catch hell for this but I believe every human should have the possibility of a living wage job. No matter how stupid or handicapped they are, useful work should be available to them. Lots of these problems wouldn't exist at the level they do if that was the case. Idle hands are the devils playground.
#26
You know, the easy way to stop this is to turn off the utilities to the area: no cell phones, no phones, no electricity, no gas, no water. Put these punks back in the 7th century. Arm the police and shoot to kill. First shoot the media jackals, then the lawyers, then the sociologists, then any bleeding heart who opens his mouth. Then march through the cites arresting every male over 12. Interrogate to find the bad guys. Throw them in jail or shoot them. Send the rest to Algeria.
Posted by: Random thoughts ||
11/05/2005 18:41 Comments ||
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#27
First shoot the media jackals,
Er, um, NO.
Since I've posted articles on Rantburg, that would technically make Me a "media jackal."
#28
Now would be a great time for Germany to attack France again!! Matter of fact France should beg Germany to attack. BTW - What is the EU doing about this?
#29
When things get this bad, there is only one thing to do at a time like this: Sing Along:la Marseillaise
Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!
Refrain To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions
Let us march, Let us march!
That their impure blood
Should water our fields
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
More
La Marseillaise en français
Listen to la Marseillaise
Bastille Day article
Bastille Day online games
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!
What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!
Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! (repeat)
Everyone is a soldier to fight you,
If they fall, our young heros,
France will make more,
Ready to battle you!
Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!
Refrain
We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their casket,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!
Refrain
To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions
Let us march, Let us march!
That their impure blood
Should water our fields
Is there a connection between the Moslem-led youth riots in France, and the ones taking place at the same time in Denmark? The week of riots in poor neighbourhoods outside Paris, which has spread to 20 towns, has been well covered by the international media.
Not so for à rhus, Denmark. âNothing of it has penetrated to the English-language sections of Danish media,â laments the Viking Observer.
The Observer took the trouble to translate into English the following from Danish Jyllands-Posten: translation follows:
Rosenhoj Mall has several nights in a row been the scene of the worst riots in à rhus for years. âThis area belongs to us,â the youths proclaim. Sunday evening saw a new arson attack.
Their words sound like a clear declaration of war on the Danish society. Police must stay out. The area belongs to immigrants. Four youths sit on a wall in Rosenhoj Mall Sunday afternoon, calling themselves spokesmen for the groups, that three nights in a row have ravaged and tried to burn down the restaurant and other stores.
Around the parking lot, cars with youngsters from the immigrant community are swarming, and many are walking around, greeting each other with a sense of victory after the worst riots in à rhus for years. Every night 30-40 youths took part, especially immigrants. Only two were arrested, âThat was a victory.â
From the 1990s, groups and organizations formed by extremist Moslems, which present a serious threat to the Danish Jewish Community, have been active in Denmark.
French authorities have said that the riots [in France] are not spontaneous but well organized. Threats issued by youth rioters in Denmark that âThis area belongs to us,â seem to indicate the same thing.
Meanwhile, the whole world may be aware that Paris is burning, but few are aware of the nightly youth riots in à rhus, Denmark.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/05/2005 00:56 ||
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#1
Not sure, but I think there might be troubles in Belgium too, from what I've read in forums.
#4
IMHO - if there's not already active coordination between these riots in different countries, there soon will be. The opportunity's too ripe for a muslim Lenin to step fwd. Time for Europe to clean house WITHOUT US troops. If this is not what NATO was for, after the USSR, then fold the tent
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 13:08 Comments ||
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#5
At this point, I'm not calling them riots. I'm calling them an urban insurgency, because they meet all the standard criteria: destruction of symbols and locations of authority, intent to take and hold local areas of control, demands that focus on the removal of central authority and law enforcement in the area, terror turned on the locals to assert their own control (the handicapped woman who was burned yesterday is a good example, so is the father who said his 14 yr old boy drew a knife on him recently ....).
AUBERVILLIERS, France (AP) - Marauding youths set fire to cars, warehouses and a nursery school and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas.
Rioters burned more than 500 vehicles Friday as the unrest grew beyond the French capital for the first time. Unrest returned to the streets in the evening and early Saturday, the ninth night in a row. Police said troublemakers fired bullets into a vandalized bus and burned 85 more cars in Paris and Suresnes, just to the west. In Meaux, east of Paris, officials said youths stoned rescuers aiding someone who had fallen ill.
Meanwhile, warehouses in Suresnes and Aubervilliers, on the northern edge of Paris, were set ablaze. Officials said other fires raged outside the capital in Lille, Toulouse, and Rouen, while an incendiary device was tossed at the wall outside a synagogue in Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris.
Some 30 mayors from the Seine-Saint-Denis region where the unrest started Oct. 27 met Friday to make a joint call for calm. Claude Pernes, mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois, denounced a "veritable guerrilla situation, urban insurrection" that has taken hold.
You might ask the Israelis what it looks like, I think they know.
A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mails - arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations.
The commuter train line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport ran limited service Friday after two trains were targeted Wednesday night. The U.S. Embassy called the protests "extremely violent" and warned travelers against taking trains to the airport because they pass through the troubled area. Russia, meanwhile, warned citizens against visiting the suburbs.
The Foreign Ministry said it was concerned that foreign media coverage was exaggerating the situation. "I don't have the feeling that foreign tourists in Paris are in any way placed in danger by these events," ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said, adding that officials were "sometimes a bit surprised" by the foreign coverage.
We're used to it, we watched the MSM cover New Orleans.
Late Friday in Meaux, east of Paris, youths prevented firefighters from evacuating a sick person from an apartment in a housing project, pelting them with stones and torching the awaiting ambulance, the Interior Ministry officer said.
Dozens of residents and community leaders were stepping in to defuse tensions, with some walking between rioters and police to urge youths to back down. Abderrhamane Bouhout, head of the Bilal mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois, said he had enlisted 50 youths to try stop the violence. "We've had positive results," he said.
"We got 'em on their heels, boyz, so calm down a bit and let me see what I can squeeze from them."
"Okay, boss!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/05/2005 00:47 ||
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#1
Apologies for the length of this comment, but the recent abominations in France have awakened some memories in me ...
I visited Marseille on a daytrip from Avignon in 1982, walking from the railway station in broad daylight through the "North African" section of town to my destination, the Vieux Port. I imagined, somewhat embarrassingly, the idle young toughs who lined the streets to be sizing up the thickness of my wallet, wondering if it was worth their bother to liberate it from the young tourist in their midst. I pressed on, walking calmly, but purposefully, and proceeded uneventfully to my destination.
A few hours later I sat down at a bistro to eagerly devour a lunch of genuine Marseille bouillbaise, striking up a conversation with a friendly 60ish local couple. Our chitchat was quite amicable until they mentioned "les arabes". Although my youthful liberal sentiments prevented me from joining the condemnation of their newly arrived countrymen, my politeness dissuaded me from objecting. They persisted in their denunciations for several minutes, my own unsettling, albeit brief, experience springing to mind as they spoke.
I've often thought of that old couple, fiercely proud of a France they feared slipping away, even as we chatted so many years ago, bitterly resentful of the ungrateful, usurping foreigners, perhaps shamed by the knowledge they were powerless against them. I am reminded now again of their fears, fears many native French have doubtlessly come to share.
The cheap laughs I've enjoyed mocking the French the past few years are over for me now. They are fellow members of western civilization, and I will no sooner abandon them, nor even the fools among them, in this hour than I would the 47% of Americans who foolishly supported John Kerry.
I pray that France, and Belgium, and the Netherlands, and Spain, and, yes, America, have not become so blinded by self-loathing, post-modern, multicultural idiocy as to realize that our very civilization, that of Charles Martel, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Rene Descartes, Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur, and Madame Curie, is in peril.
#2
"I don't have the feeling that foreign tourists in Paris are in any way placed in danger by these events," ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said, adding that officials were "sometimes a bit surprised" by the foreign coverage.
I won't have a feeling Jean-Baptiste, when you meet Mr. Cluebat.
Some 30 mayors from the Seine-Saint-Denis region where the unrest started Oct. 27 met Friday to make a joint call for calm
fu*kin brilliant...
goshems, why havent the Israeles ever thought of this?
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/05/2005 1:27 Comments ||
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#3
... to realize that our very civilization, that of Charles Martel, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Rene Descartes, Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur, and Madame Curie, is in peril
You can't even begin to comprehend the degree to which I just don't give a damn.
#6
Well good for you,Kirk.Personally I'm laughing my ass off.Serves the duplicitus Frogs right for being the the lying traitorus dogs they are.
My appolagies to you,JFM.Your one of the good guys,and remind me that some French still have a sense of class and are Honorable.
#7
So the real question is: what do we all want mid- and long-term.
Yes, the French have backed themselves into this situation and have been insufferably smug and hypocritical. And the riots are an opportunity for schadenfreude - especially since there is little sign that they admit how their choices have get them into this mess.
BUT ..... if Europe goes Islamacist it WILL mean that our future is much more restricted and threatened. I'm with Kirk and Condi Rice on this: it is in OUR best interests to hope and work to help the French solve this problem.
I'm not at all sure that they will be able to do so ... I fear Europe is on a serious decline with few chances of reversal. And the intent of Zapatero in Spain to forge a "Mediterranean civilization" with the Arabs is most likely the final nail in the coffin.
Nonetheless, insofar as we can help to slow that decline, it serves US well - economically and politically.
#8
Well exactly what can we learn from this? Is it that France is a unique, one of a kind country and this sort of thing can never happen here or in the UK (see Chinese Spy story), or is it time for everyone to re-examine immigration, foreign visitors, and cultural and decide just what type of country we wish to be? I believe we may be at a crossroads. The mulitculutral myth has finally been seen for what it is. I just about lost my cookies the first time I heard 'W' talk about the "wonderful faith of Islam." There should be no doubt about it's "wonder."
#9
Thanks, lotp, for saying what needed to be said. Do we have to be reminded that an Islamic France means an Islamic nuclear France?
It appears at the moment, France is in deep sh*t. We may hate the French for their lying and cheating, and their insane PC culture, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help in some fashion.
I hope the CIA is taking advantage of this situation. This is the perfect time to insert spooks in a confusing situation, and getting them to work up the chain of command of the terrorists.
Well, I have no sense of class (if I had, I wouldn't be a bum like I am), and I'm not honorable (more like a whining immature oversheltered brat), but I don't like what's happening in my country.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty used to anglo-saxon prejudice against froggies (basically you see us like we see the italians, lol, and anyway we've got our own prejudices about the USA : americans are cowards who can't fight except by overhelming technology, they're totally materialistical, they're coarse and childish,... this is bullsh*t, of course, but so are your own preconceptions), so this won't even p*sses me off anymore, except when this borders on racism, and it sometimes does or is patently false (that's usually when JFM steps in with his historical knowledge).
I'm not concerned by french-bashers who indulge in shadenfreude, I'm more concerned by the slow-motion death of western Europe. If you bypass traditional rivalry between countries, IMHO what you call "France" is actually the statist/jacobinist, socialist, "progressist" oligarchy which has seized power a long time ago and is responsible for selling out France to its own interests (dubbed "national interest"). Theses are theses people, our own "Enlightened Elite", who are lying to the french people (for example feeding him anti-americanism as a diversion from his own problems), who are leading him to economical suicide, who crushed his spirit and killed his soul... all this was done willingly, thinked about and enforced through social engeneering. They are not "gallic", they are "tranzis" to use a word you understand.
They are "the other side" of the culture war that is still raging in the USA. In a large part of western Europe (can't really talk about other countries, though), that culture war has long been long by western civilization. True, there is european History, but the USA are also to blame, the whole new left of the 60's came from you (through it originated in Europe pre WWII, and was ultimately born from european marxism and gramscism), exactly as fascism was a progressist, leftist idea born in Europe, refined in the USA, and adopted in Europe.
I'm sorry, ok, the USA are turning themselves to Asia, becoming less european through immigration,... but we're still all part of western civilization; as lotp remarked, we're all together in this; the USA are the "third djihad"'s opponent, but Europe is the prize. If/when it falls, you'll be in deep, deep trouble, and the next to go.
Schadenfreude is ok when you're not involved. Look at Europe, and see the USA's future if you do not take the adequate measures and succumb to cultural suicide : you're not off the hook, there is *no* guarantee you'll win this war, and that's especially true if Europe is islamized.
#11
I look forward to MSM reports of cannibalism and unburied, half-eaten bodies lying around, like in the Superdome. It being France, I wonder what sauce they would use?
#14
I'm sorry for all of the French who have had their culture destroyed by bad leadership.
There would be no America without the French and no France without America.
Those of you enjoying the shadenfreude, stop and consider for just a moment how easily the the 2000 or 2004 election could have gone the other way. John Kerry would now be in charge. Then read this (from LGF) and remember how easily it could have been us. The World Can't Wait
Probably more communist moonbats in the greater SF area than in all of France combined.
#16
anonymous5089, Sorry that your country is going down the tubes and fast. Yes I respect the fact that if it hadnât been for Louis XVIII the USA might have remained a British Colony or at least had a longer war of independence. I hope you appreciate the some of the glee I feel when I see the Socialists getting their due with respect to immigrants, their warped economics, and Anti-American tantrums. The modern world would be a much better place if France hadnât always held the stand âOther then Americanâ in their foreign policy. Their decision to not support the Iraq war was based partly on this foreign policy and partly as appeasement to the Arab masses that they corralled into ghettos and left to fester. I guess they are learning that appeasement only goes so far.
#17
Anon, the reason we're hostile to France -- OK, the French government -- is the way it stabbed us in the back over Iraq. Before that, the US attitude towards France wasn't much different than the attitudes Americans have towards other states.
You want to convince us France is on our side? Toss out the government and put in one that acts like it. France still has elections, right?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/05/2005 11:12 Comments ||
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#18
Kirk,lotp,bad,5089
When we called on France(several times)they stabbed US in the back.
France built they're pig pin,France populated it,France let turn septic.
What do you expect US to do send the 1st I.D.,bullshit been there done that.Until the Frogs grow a pair,send in the an armored infantry brigade and muck that pig stye of French construction you all and France can kiss my red ass.
Please don't be to hard on us. After all, as you say, "France" is actually the statist/jacobinist, socialist, "progressist" oligarchy".
So, knocking France is a whole lot easier to type than "the statist/jacobinist, socialist, "progressist" oligarchy".
Plus being a democracy we sort of assume that the majority of the people agree since they were voted in.
Personally I doubt that there is absolutely anything that the US can do to help. The French must solve this mess on their own. I sure hope that their solution is not surrender.
#20
I don't get this desire to kick France when it's down. Had the Gore/Kerry moonbats managed to lie/cheat steal their way into office that we too would deserve such a fate.
I'll stand with anyone who wants to fight for freedom and justice. I don't care where they are from.
A toast to our French freinds who stand for freedom. I wish you well.
#21
Multicultural societies have no glue to hold them together. There needs to be a national identity, based on a core sense of values or the society will fragment.
France is a runaway train going down the grade. The first thing that you do to slow down is not to stoke the firebox. If the government cannot stop the rioting and turn things around, well the French citizens better step in. The government is divided and paralyzed against the threat of anarchy. This stuff has been building for years through the policies of the French govt. I am concerned about French nuke and reactor security for all of our sakes, but it is up to the French to save their country, if they feel that it is worth saving.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/05/2005 11:32 Comments ||
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#22
Its easy to rant that the frogs have it coming, but wars make for strange bedfellows. There is a war against western values and culture. We are not idiots. We all know that despite having the best thing going globally, that we have problems from within and from out. The frogs have been bashed over and over bit it don't croak yet. They are still part of the west. before we stomp the frog even harder and with zeal while they deal with their own disaffected and defranchised ethnic groups, let us not forget what is brewing right here at home in America. The children of illegal immigrants will probably face a whole different set of issues than that of their fathers and mothers. Who is to say that these young folk don't turn into chollos & chollitos? There are groups right here in America just drooling over thoughts of tearing down the system and sending the gringo and gringas packing. Take for instance the Atzlan movement. It may be more concept than action, but the mind-set behind it is just one step from transformation to reality. It only takes a spark to start a fire. Two kids in France get electrocuted while fleeing police and we witness the aftermath. We have seen what a PCP-laced crackhead can spark when fighting arrest by doubly-determined law enforcement officers in Las Angeles. Before criticizing whats happening in the neighbors backyard, lets take a look at the mess brewing beneath our feet. The liberals and extremists want to distract us and color the issues right here at home in a different shade for their own personal agendas. But... we as common folk are going to be left dealing with the mess in the long run.
#23
MUST.NOT.RANT.... Uh, what Kirk said. But damnit WHY do we always end up having to save their asses? (Not that I think we can in this case)
Posted by: Jim ||
11/05/2005 12:00 Comments ||
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#24
And just what would you have us do,US.Do you want us say"Ah,poor France(snif).All is forgiven,how can we help.
Something you have not considered(you sound Euorpean)with your"gringo and gringas"comment we gringo and gringas are heavly armed,know how to use those arms,and are not afraid defending ourselves.Can you say the same for France(and the rest of Western Euorpe).
#25
raptor: True, politically the Frogs did stab us in the back with regards to Iraq ( and we know why ), just like the left does at every turn. Doesn't mean they should have to face the threat of Islamic culture.
People who believe and will fight for freedom must be more grownup than those who fight against their own personal interests.
And besides: France is a nuclear armed nation. Whether you like it or not, this is our problem. I would hate to see what the First Islamic Republic prime minister Abu WhooDu does with a nuke and I don't wanna find out.
France is in deep sh*t at the moment, we have to at least show some sympathies to the good folks in France.
FoxNews just showed a clip the native French who live in those suburbs marching in protest past the projects. The marchers were older whites. The people looking out the project windows appeared Arab. The streets were covered with gutted wrecks of buses and cars.
All I could think with the government constraints on the police were that the police should make sure if there was a fire in a neighborhood why then the mosque in the neighborhood should somehow catch on fire too.
Also in the report - first words from the government that perhaps Islamic Militants were behind it....
So...
Back off a bit and ask why now?
Was that not answered in Zark and AlQ's recent complaint where they accused the US and France of running the anti-terror HQ out of Paris?
It's a Zarkboy type payback.
The fucker really needs to be killed ASAP.
If he's burning cities in France and hiding in small burbs in Iraq.... perhaps a few small burbs in Iraq need to disappear from some maps...
Sort of filter all the people in the burb looking for zark. (they can stand in the desert till done) If found raze the town. IF not found... they get the message.
#27
Even if I was so inclined as to help France(wich I am most certainly not)we can not do much to help them if they have no will to defend themselves.I ask agin what would you have us do?
#31
27 Even if I was so inclined as to help France(wich I am most certainly not)we can not do much to help them if they have no will to defend themselves.I ask agin what would you have us do?
Exactly. After all, we've helped before, with the effect of facilitating the rise of the statist multiculturism that is eating France alive now. If we step in too soon to help out, we'll simply be rescuing the same system that is the cause of France's problems--and does anyone really believe we'll more gratitude than resentment on this go-around?
Hell, I'm still pissed that we sent any aid to the Paks.
Sometimes, the best thing to do with a fire is let it burn itself out.
#32
Sometimes, the best thing to do with a fire is let it burn itself out.
unless it threatens to burn down your own home in the process.
Personally, I've always preferred the concept of a back-fire, myself. I guess these stupid jihadis don't realize thay are lighting them for us - guess they don't understand the concept of blow-back.
This is a turning point for the French. They are now forced to fight or capitulate. I have no clue how this will turn out, but other than in the rotted media, there will be no more snide "my child would never do that" BS coming from France. This, like 911, is a world-changing event. This isn't a ballgame. I'm cheering for the average Frenchman.
#33
You're right, 2b: this isn't a ballgame. It's a war for the survival of the West, for all that we hold dear.
Believe me, I hold NO love for the French I've personally worked with or met while travelling. They managed to combine an astonishing degree of arrogance with equal ignorance of actual life in the US. They refused to work beyond set hours each week but complained when the Brit and American employees got bonuses. And on and on ...
But frankly this is much bigger stuff at stake than how unwarranted the famous French arrogance is - or how much of what they face is of their own making.
Badanov said it and people are ignoring it: France is a nuclear armed state -- and those arms are NOT co-located with, co-commanded or co-controlled by NATO.
Repeat after me: failed nuclear states are a Bad Thing for US
I'm not at all sure we can do a damn thing to help France at this point -- other than to assert the values we do hold in common and to encourage them not to give in to short-term appeasement.
What is happening in France and Denmark is not rioting: it is the opening salvos of an intentional urban insurgency. All of the markers are there: destruction of symbols of state authority, claiming areas for their own control, imposing control on frightened civilians in those locales, and so on. If you think fighting insurgency in Iraq is hard, consider what it takes to fight one against your own citizens, in your own country.
And yes, it would help if French citizens were able to be armed and to defend themselves.
-- signed, gun owner and NRA member in good standing
#34
One other comment: I know some French military officers. Y'all are mistaken if you think Chirac and Dominique d' Wormtongue speak for all of France.
#35
good points, lotp. Freedom loving westerners need to unite and fight together against these 7th century barbarians. To hell with our past differences. Times have changed.
#36
Send me a set of orders, I'd go to France. Maybe that is what it will take to repair the damage done by the diplo-dinks and politicians over the past few years.
#37
unless it threatens to burn down your own home in the process.
I understand your point, but I prefer to look at this from a cold eyed cost/benefit perspective.
I certainly don't want the jihadis to be in control of France's nukes in the future, but would help to France at this point prevent that day from coming or merely delay it?
Do we actually protect our interests if we jump in to rescue the current French system, or do we simply buy ourselves more problems in the future?
I think France needs to go through a lot more of this before they draw the lesson that whatever "tutelage" they were hoping to exercise over the Arabs is a pipedream.
As Chirac's behavior demonstrates, they are a long way from that point.(Maybe the average French citoyen is ahead of their elites on this issue, but I suspect that they have more false info about what happened in New Orleans than true info about what is happening in Paris)
#38
On another tack, I'd love it if our political leadership would take the opportunity of this "teaching moment" (as the lefties like to say) and point out that neither France's opposition to Iraq Freedom nor the vaunted "social model" saved them from this barbarism.
#39
I don't really see what the USA could do to help us. This is an internal problem, a self-inflicted one, an immunatory system disease, there's nothing you can do, except pay attention and avoid the same mistakes.
Like I see it happening, theses events will stop sooner or later (it's cold on november night, add a week of raining and everybody's back at home playing with playstation or watching dvds), and the reaction of the gvt will be appeasement... it already calls for "dialog", has delegated its sovereignty to obviously islamic "mediators", and there is now a judicial procedure ("non-assistance to endagered person")against the police officers involved in the initial "incident" (that is the excuse of all this) that sparked this whole mess, they may end up prosecuted for letting the two teens electrocutate themselves... this is insane, insane.
There might be a "Marshall plan" for the suburbs in the making, with more money thrown at it, a policy of entitlement, a relaince on the islamic orgs to pacify theses resteless territories,..
Sarkozy, whom I don't like, but who at least passes for "rightwing" in France (he's free-market oriented & atlantist), is now villified by the left and the msm (pleonasm) for having "inflamed" the situation and "provoked" the youths by calling the perps "scum" and "thugs", Galouzeau "de Villepin" and Shiraq will use that to kill him politically (his tough stance may prove popular with fed-up public, though), they already sided with Azouz Begag the underminister of "equality of chances", who excused and justified the unrest, against Sarko (note : we've got a "minister of social cohesion", too. Remind yourself this is supposed to be a *conservative* gvt).
Next presidential elections are in 2007. I frankly don't know what will happen then.
My gut instinct is France is going to keep its suicide run until it runs out of gas, all the while lecturing the whoel world : Argentina-like State bankruptcy.
We're already almost there, we ARE bankrupt, this year France borrowed 139 billions euros to balance her budget, we're borrowing money to pay our expenses, the gvt spends 25% than it earns, 1200 billions euros debt (2000+ with social debt), the social security system is bankrupot too, and won't withstand the coming demography (we're already there too),...
As soon as the money dries, then the fun starts.
#40
Mous 5089 - as much as I love to bust on the French Government, they can be too easy a target, I agree this fight is not about helping France. We paid back our debt to France in the 40's. This is all about western civilization's survival as we know it. If called, we will come, bitching and complaining all the while, but we will come. Hell, we are in that Goat smelling Saudi Arabia, at least France has good food and great women! I was in Northern France ten years ago and in the small towns I visited the people were extreemly understanding of my non-french speaking ass. When they realized I was a soldier I could not buy a beer and the glasses were lined up full and cold. Outside of Paris I found our bonds are still there. Lets pray that cooler heads prevail and contain this, then go in and clean out the scum. Best of luck.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/05/2005 18:45 Comments ||
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#43
The French are actually in the streets demanding the Government "dialog" with the vermin setting their country ablaze. You can not help people this stupid! If the Islamonutzoids learn that the EU will not defend themselves then hell will be let loose. Watch and wait...for now.
#47
Raming a McDonalds....
When do you go with hot rounds?
This is just a joke at this point. If this government is not thrown out...my goodness this is a complete government failure...
What compares to this in modern democracy's? Anything?
Marauding youths set fire to cars, warehouses and a nursery school and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas.
A savage assault on a bus passenger highlighted the dangers of travel in Paris' impoverished outlying neighborhoods, where the violence has entered its second week. Attackers doused the woman, in her 50s and on crutches, with an inflammable liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran Wednesday, judicial officials said. The bus had been forced to stop because of burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with severe burns. Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident, saying it caused him "great emotion."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/05/2005 00:49 ||
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#1
It's on TV, though nothing new
Just rebels morons without a clue
Ask Sarkozy, de Villepin, too
Get psychobabble from the socialist view
The manic glee, the bombs they threw
The animals are burning the zoo
The innocents flee the hellish milieu
The cops just enjoy the view
Now it's monkey see, monkey do
Coming soon to a city near you
#2
What happened to that poor women should have been the trigger for a full out assault.But I guess that's to much to ask.Has anybody noticed that the riots,in one day,in Argentina has gotten more media attention than the entire 9 days of French Shame?
#3
Yes. And for my part I've made sure I'm passing the European accounts of the French riots to all my friends and acquaintances ... at least the ones who will listen at all.
Cut/paste or pass links to people, folks. Let them see what we here all know: how very selective the MSM news reporting is.
More importantly than just attacking the MSM: We have GOT to get our public to see what is going on in the world and to understand why we must act.
Dutch television announced on Friday that Netherlands police arrested a youth who allegedly intended to shoot down an El Al airplane at Schipool Airport outside of Amsterdam.
Samir Azuz, 19, a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested with six other co-conspirators, Israel Radio reported.
According to the Netherlands intelligence service, the suspects enlisted the cooperation of two employees at an office near Schipool in order to perform reconnaissance. They also acquired weapons. Reports revealed that Azuz, apparently expecting to die while bringing down the airplane, had prepared a videotape saying goodbye to his parents.
Approximately six months ago Azuz was acquitted on charges of attempting to vandalize a nuclear power plant in the Netherlands. learned his lesson and repented like a good moooslim, eh, Naif?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 00:29 ||
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#1
Good on the police in the Netherlands. I hope they remain this lucky.
#3
Small detail, after his first arrest he went to the University and became a student in chemical studies.......He has been kicked out of university only last week....
#9
How thoughtful, now the little bastards can say goodbye from PRISON! I'm afraid we've not seen the end of this airline crap. I hope who ever is in charge of this collection TSA affirmaive action misfits is watching closely. Absolutely gags me to think my tax dollars are paying for these slime balls.
What government organization in the Netherlands is named "TSA"?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/05/2005 14:05 Comments ||
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#14
Thanks, Sea, now I recall this 19 year old squid.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/05/2005 16:05 Comments ||
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#15
Besoeker, I'm not a 'bright lad'.
I'm a woman who's probably old enough to be your mother, who has direct experience with both business and military issues internationally and who reads English rather well along with several other languages.
Of course, it needs to be well written to convey meaning.
#16
no snarky comments lotp or I'll alert the mods :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 17:55 Comments ||
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#17
No problems Frank, my bad. Could be an eating disorder, or simple post menopausal depression that set'er off. I'll try and write more clearly and concisely now that her US State diplodink bonefides have been formerly presented. How was I to know?
#19
US State doesn't willingly make too many visible visits to such a fine site as Rantburg - They might get dirty. People here are a bit more earthy. Think again Besoeker. (^8
EPINAY-SUR-SEINE, France (Reuters) - Violence erupted again in poor suburbs of Paris where youths torched buildings and dozens of cars and sporadic unrest spread in the early hours of Saturday to at least three other French cities. In a potentially worrying development for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's beleaguered government, police said more cars were set alight outside the greater Paris area than in the capital's suburbs, the epicenter of riots for more than a week.
"The general impression is that the situation in the greater Paris area is the same as last night but there are some scattered incidents elsewhere," a police official told Reuters.
Rioting by youths, many of whom are Muslims of North African and black African origin, has partly been stoked by their frustration at high unemployment and the perception they lack economic opportunities.
Out of a total of 152 vehicles reported burned nationally, less than half were in the greater Paris region, with about a dozen or more cars set alight in each of Strasbourg, in east of France, Rennes in the west, and Toulouse in southwestern France. Police said minor incidents were reported in provinces elsewhere in the country but were inclined to blame such disturbances on copy-cat violence before the weekend.
Rioters in Paris suburbs appeared more inclined to harass police than clash with them head on, an official said. Firemen rushed to put out blazes in the Paris suburb of Val d'Oise after 10 cars and two buildings, one a bakery, were set alight late on Friday, while others in Seine-Saint-Denis battled to extinguish fires at two warehouses.
POLICE PRESENCE
The latest outbreak of violence came despite a high-profile police presence. About 1,300 officers were deployed in Seine-Saint-Denis, the area worst hit in the disturbances and where the violence first began last week after two teenagers of African origin died while fleeing police. More officers patrolled other suburbs where unrest had broken out, national police said, adding that the units were more mobile than previously.
The violence that began in Seine-Saint-Denis has escalated this week and spread to a few other towns in France even before Saturday -- Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south were all affected overnight between Thursday and Friday. This has put mounting pressure on the government to restore order without alienating minority and underprivileged groups but Villepin's calls for calm have so far fallen on deaf ears. Religious leaders will lend their support to government efforts to cool tensions with Catholic, Protestant and Muslim leaders planning a silent march on Saturday in Aulnay-sous-Bois, one of the violence-hit suburbs.
Squabbling within the government about how to tackle the unrest has now been papered over, with Villepin and his bitter political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, joining forces to stress the need to balance firmness and justice. Villepin met about 15 young people from riot-hit Paris suburbs late on Friday to discuss possible ways to restore calm.
"I think he appreciated this meeting and wanted to learn things. It was a very good initiative, he is really looking to solve the problems," Anyss, an 18-year-old in his final year of high school in Seine-Saint-Denis, said after the meeting.
However, the opposition remained critical, with the Socialists attacking the government's response. "Your government bears part of the responsibility for these events. It is now up to you to take full stock of the crisis," Socialist leaders said in letter to Villepin on Thursday.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/05/2005 20:25 ||
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#1
Villepin is talking with 15 yutes!?!?!? This is a joke right? What the fuck is the clown looking MF going to do?
There was no rest on the MOOOOOOSLUM Sabbath.
This get's better every single minute.
I hope somebody throws some gasoline on the fire tomorrow to really get them pissed off!! Let's see'm try to tip the Eifel tower!!
#4
I don't know where that article got the 152 torched cars figures, the ones I've heard on teevee and radio are 800-1000 nationally (ok, let's say 900), about of third of it being outside Paris.
Also, torched warehouses, automobile garages, one school IIRC, attacks in broad daylight... total cost so far is already in the tens of millions of euros.
All in all, supposedly less direct clashes with the police, a whole lot more arrests (about 250, but you've got to remember that so far sentencing for caught rioters have been in the vicinity of 1-3 months, sometime probationary), but more "urban guerilla" with small groups practicing an hit and run tactic they've mastered over the years.
Funny. About 10 years ago, when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to speak with a riot cop (I think he was a gendarme mobile), and we discussed the various types of demonstrations/riots : the easiest to manage were unions (excellent order service), the toughest physically were the "white trashes" ("petits blancs"), such as independent peasants, artisans, small shops owners,.. who suffers a lot under France's system and really go for the jugular when they riot, and the most frustrating and dangerous were the suburbians, since the tactics of the locals were/are to harass the police with projectiles (stones, heavy objects dropped from the towers, even acid bottles or molotov cocktails) all the while avoiding contact and sprouting insults. Also, intervention there was very sensitive, and had to be okayed by the powers-that-be. And this was in the 90's; since then, there was an influx of weaponry, straight from Yugoslavia. If/when the situation gets out of hand (so far it isn't and remains manageable, problem will be lack of reserves if this last longer than say 2 weeks, police is overstretched), law enforcement would be in trouble.
#5
This is the 'Burg, Anon. Be precise. He actually GAVE a charge...remember the blue dress?
I thought the French were going to do something about this. Looks like they're just going to roll over and give up. What a bunch of wimps! Eurabia isn't coming, it's already here.
Posted by: mac ||
11/05/2005 8:02 Comments ||
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#6
As usual, when it comes to France, Scott Ott and Scrappleface are writing history before it has happpened. http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2057
Thirteen men have gone on trial in Belgium accused of membership of a militant group that has been linked to bombings in Madrid and Casablanca. Prosecutors say the men - all Moroccans or Belgians of Moroccan descent - did not take part in bombings themselves, but supported others who did. Defence lawyers say the only evidence against some of them is that they knew men charged with serious crimes. The men are accused of belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), accused by the US of aiming to establish an Islamic state in Morocco and supporting al-Qaeda's jihad against the West. Some are accused of providing false papers, safe houses and other logistical help to GICM militants. Correspondents say this is one of the most important terror trials in Europe since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.
One of the suspects, Khalid Bouloudou, aged 30, is accused by prosecutors of supporting bombers who killed 191 people in Madrid in 2004, and 45 people in Casablanca in 2003. Another, Youssef Belhadj, has been extradited to Spain on suspicion of appearing in a videotape admitting responsibility for the Madrid attacks. Prosecutors say they have a phone-tap recording of a third defendant, Mourad Chabarou, talking by phone with the suspected architect of the Madrid attacks, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, discussing "friends" who planted the bombs. Mr Chabarou is accused of giving refuge in his house in Brussels to one of the Madrid bombing suspects, Mohammed Afalah. Correspondents say some of the defendants are alleged to be close to the Netherlands-based Islamist group called Hofstad, one of whose members has received a life sentence for killing Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh.
Of the 13 accused, 11 were present in court on Thursday. Four, including Mr Bouloudou, were born and raised in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 on Belgium's border with the Netherlands. Lawyers have questioned the strength of the case against their clients. "Contacts, links, sympathy with people linked to a terrorist movement, is that really enough to consider that they have taken part in a terrorist organisation?" asked lawyer Filip Van Hende. Yes. Next question.
Another lawyer, Nathalie Gallant, told Reuters she would plead the innocence of Mostafa Louanani, who is accused of being one of the four leaders of the suspected cell. She said the only evidence prosecutors had against him was that he knew men charged with more serious crimes. A lawyer for three of the defendants requested permission to defend his clients in Dutch rather than French. The request was rejected because it was made in Dutch rather than in French, the designated trial language. The lawyer said he would appeal. The trial opened amid high security and was adjourned until 16 November.
#1
"Contacts, links, sympathy with people linked to a terrorist movement, is that really enough to consider that they have taken part in a terrorist organisation?"
What does this guy need,I.D.cards,a picture with them playing kissy face with Osama.Christ what a lawyer.(I'm using the word laywer like curse word)
Several Border Patrol officers said they are worried the exemptions may leave airports and land borders open to terrorist infiltration. One Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent at Dulles International Airport said he was recently told to waive the US-VISIT requirement for about 70 people arriving from Saudi Arabia who were affiliated with the Saudi royal family.
"People coming from known terrorist countries [are] to be fingerprinted and photographed for a reason," said the CBP officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "When you start making exceptions, you start losing the credibility of the program."
Posted by: john ||
11/05/2005 13:07 ||
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#2
70 flight training students? No problem. Thanks for covering down on the threat Homeland Security and TSA. Everyone knows there's no connection between the majic kingdom and terrorism, no worries.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 1, 2005 â More than 2,400 rounds of unexploded ordnance were discovered and destroyed in a 12-day operation in rural east Baghdad.
U.S. soldiers from Headquarters Troop, 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, and up to 45 Iraqi contractors were involved in the operation Oct. 9 through 23 to deny terrorists the use of bomb-making material.
A scrap-metal junkyard was cleared of unexploded ordnance, which included 1,135 mortar rounds, 632 artillery rounds, 195 rockets, 22 mines and six bombs.
"The operation takes possible improvised explosive devices off the streets," said U.S. Army Sgt. Frank Neal, the small-arms master gunner for the troop.
Neal said the operation to destroy the ordnance was completed with a focus on safety and that none of the soldiers or Iraqi contractors who helped collect the munitions suffered any injuries during the controlled detonations.
Photos at link, including the detonation!
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/05/2005 14:24 ||
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The American military launched a major offensive near the Syrian border on Saturday aimed at destroying al-Qaida in Iraq's ability to smuggle in foreign fighters, money and equipment. The feared insurgent group warned foreign diplomats to flee Iraq after announcing it would kill two kidnapped Moroccans.
The offensive of about 2,500 Marines, soldiers and sailors in the town of Husaybah will remove insurgents from the western province of Anbar ahead of Iraq's parliamentary election on Dec. 15, the military said. An unspecified number of Iraqi forces were taking part.
The offensive is part of a larger ongoing U.S. military operation designed to deny al-Qaida in Iraq the ability to operate in the Euphrates River valley, which stretches through Anbar province, and to establish a joint permanent security presence along the Syrian border.
"Operation Steel Curtain marks the first large-scale employment of multiple battalion-sized units of Iraqi army forces in combined operations with coalition forces in the last year," the military said.
Husaybah is located near the border town of Qaim and is about 200 miles west of Baghdad.
The Dec. 15 election and the training of new Iraqi forces are aimed at one day allowing U.S. forces to begin withdrawing from Iraq.
Insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security troops and an American soldier in separate attacks.
The warning to foreign diplomats came in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq, which also claimed responsibility for the July kidnap-slaying of two envoys from Algeria and one from Egypt as well as the abduction and beheading of many foreign hostages.
On Thursday, another Internet statement attributed to al-Qaida said the two Moroccan Embassy employees had been condemned to death. There was no indication Friday that they had been killed.
"We are renewing our threat to those so-called diplomatic missions who have insisted on staying in Baghdad and have not yet realized the repercussions of such a challenge to the will of the mujahedeen," Friday's statement said. "Let them know that there is no difference in our judgment between the head of a diplomatic mission and the lowest-level employee."
The al-Qaida threat appeared aimed at undermining support for the U.S.-backed Iraqi government within the Arab and Islamic worlds. In addition to the Egyptian and Algerian diplomats, senior envoys from Pakistan and Bahrain escaped kidnap attempts in July.
Also Friday, the U.S. military announced it killed five senior al-Qaida figures during an airstrike Oct. 29 against three buildings in Husaybah, a town near the Syrian border that is a major infiltration route for foreign fighters and would-be suicide bombers entering the country.
The five included at least one North African and were holding a strategy meeting when the airstrike occurred, the U.S. statement added.
Iraq was relatively quiet Friday as the majority Shiite Muslim community began celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Sunnis began the three-day holiday Thursday.
Still, the country was not free of violence.
Insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi police checkpoint near Buhriz, a Sunni Arab stronghold 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, then stormed the position firing from eight vehicles, police said. Six policemen were killed and 10 were wounded, according to officials.
Five Interior Ministry commandos died when a roadside bomb exploded close to their convoy near Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said. Four commandos were wounded.
An American soldier from Task Force Baghdad was fatally wounded Thursday when a roadside exploded near his convoy in east Baghdad, the military said. Another soldier died Thursday near Talil, 170 miles southeast of Baghdad, apparently of non-hostile causes, the military said. The deaths brought to 2,042 the number of U.S. military service members who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Elsewhere, insurgents fired a mortar round that missed an American base on the western outskirts of Baghdad but struck a home, killing a child and wounding the mother and another one of her children, police 1st Lt. Ahmed Ali said.
Gunmen shot and killed Tarik Hasan, a former colonel in the Iraqi air force, as he drove through Baghdad on Thursday, said police Capt. Talib Thamir. Rumor has spread through Baghdad that Shiite "hit squads" are hunting former air force officers, especially those who fought Shiite-led Iran during the 1980-1988 war.
Despite the security crisis, families turned out in parks around the capital, putting aside their fears to celebrate the Eid holiday. In the Shiite district of Sadr City, children lined up for rides at small amusement parks. Security by police and local militias remained tight to protect people from bombs and drive-by shootings.
"We cannot fully enjoy Eid because of all the explosions we hear," said Karar al-Aboudi, 25, owner of a stall near one park. "We have no reason to celebrate under occupation and terrorism. We pray to God that in the next Eid, our country will be stable and free."
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/05/2005 01:54 ||
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#1
This should be heavily trimmed down to the content that matches the headline. The good stuff:
"U.S. military operation designed to deny al-Qaida in Iraq the ability to operate in the Euphrates River valley, which stretches through Anbar province, and to establish a joint permanent security presence along the Syrian border.
"'Operation Steel Curtain marks the first large-scale employment of multiple battalion-sized units of Iraqi army forces in combined operations with coalition forces in the last year,' the military said."
#2
This sounds like a brigade ftx that becomes a permanent deployment. First the place is thoroughly cleared, and the brigade gets to know its turf on the ground, each and every building and useful terrain feature. Then, right behind them come the engineers, to build whatever facilities they need for permanent camp in the area.
#3
Go get 'em guys! From the reports I've seen, the Iraqi units are getting better and better. Right now, they are most likely the best arab force in the region. Not close to western armies, but gaining rapidly.
#4
As they say for speeches ...start well and end well. This reporter had a little something for everyone.
For Americans and Iraqis The American military launched a major offensive near the Syrian border on Saturday aimed at destroying al-Qaida in Iraq's ability to smuggle in foreign fighters, money and equipment.
For Anti Americans and Terrorists The feared insurgent group warned foreign diplomats to flee Iraq after announcing it would kill two kidnapped Moroccans[oooh...feared in the face of 2,500 Marines]
For Americans and Iraqis families turned out in parks around the capital,
For Anti-Americans and Terrorists We have no reason to celebrate under occupation and terrorism. [But you are celebrating, now aren't you? No doubt this one gloomy quote represented the viewpoint of all present]
#5
Gunmen shot and killed Tarik Hasan, a former colonel in the Iraqi air force, as he drove through Baghdad on Thursday, said police Capt. Talib Thamir. Rumor has spread through Baghdad that Shiite "hit squads" are hunting former air force officers, especially those who fought Shiite-led Iran during the 1980-1988 war.
Who is directing this effort and why? Vengeful Shiia Iranian Red guard who know we're going to need the Iraqi air forces to back us up when we crush Iran?
Or Southern Iraqi Shiia who were put down by these same pilots in 1991 during the Shiia uprising.
This is the great mystery from theis article that I'd like answered. Sounds more like the Red Guard to me putting a message out there for the Shiia community that actions against Iran will be punished Iraq or no Iraq.
#7
Elvis, I've been asking myself the same question. Saddam's fly-boys were instrumental in gassing Iranians and in gassing Kurds, if you follow the revenge angle.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/05/2005 13:16 Comments ||
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#8
If you recall, a good many of those Iraqi airframes never saw the first Gulf War. Brave muzzies that they were they high tailed it to Iranian sactuary early on. Oh, Captain Fezuli, you would now like to reside in Iran, have we got a deal for you!
The country's most feared terror group warned foreign diplomats Friday to flee Iraq after announcing it will put to death two kidnapped Moroccan Embassy employees. Insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security troops and an American soldier in separate attacks. The warning came in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq, which also claimed responsibility for the July kidnap-slaying of two envoys from Algeria and one from Egypt as well as the abduction and beheading of many foreign hostages.
On Thursday, another Internet statement attributed to al-Qaida said the two Moroccans had been condemned to death. There was no indication Friday that they had been killed. "We are renewing our threat to those so-called diplomatic missions who have insisted on staying in Baghdad and have not yet realized the repercussions of such a challenge to the will of the mujahedeen," Friday's statement said. "Let them know that there is no difference in our judgment between the head of a diplomatic mission and the lowest-level employee."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/05/2005 00:53 ||
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WASHINGTON - A sniper fires on American troops in Iraq. In the milliseconds before the bullet hits - in fact, before the shot is even heard - a computer screen reveals the gun's model and exact location.
That's the kind of intelligence that can save soldiers' lives. The Army is currently testing the technology in combat.
The devices are made by Radiance Technologies, a small Alabama company, and differ in their approach to gunfire detection from systems already deployed in Iraq that rely on acoustics.
Radiance's invention, WeaponWatch, is powered by infrared sensors that detect missiles or gunfire at the speed of light.
"Obviously when the first shot is fired, you can't do anything about it," said George Clark, president of the company founded in 1999. "But what it does do is it allows you to not have a second fired."
WeaponWatch is a major reason that Radiance, which had only three employees six years ago, now has 275. Over that period, it's been one of the 500 fastest-growing small businesses in the United States.
Nobody seems to dispute that WeaponWatch is the fastest such system on the market, but the challenge for company executives was persuading the Pentagon that those few extra nanoseconds provide any practical advantage over the existing sonar versions, which have a wider field of vision.
After all, human reflexes are far more sluggish than either light or sound.
Cambridge, Mass.-based BBN Technologies makes one of the leading acoustic devices. Its system detects enemy gunfire with an array of microphones and is known as Boomerang. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, it was deployed in Iraq last year.
More than 100 of its units have been built, though the company is unsure how many are being used by soldiers.
Stephen Milligan, BBN's technology director, says a likely advantage of sonar is that it produces fewer false alarms than infrared.
"There are many ways to create an infrared flash," Milligan said. "I would guess it is ultimately possible to spook it."
But Charles Kimzey, who manages the Pentagon's research program that includes weapon detection systems, says that while both acoustic and infrared each have their advantages, early tests indicate Radiance's device is superior.
"The feedback we've gotten has been quite favorable," Kimzey said.
For security reasons, Pentagon officials refuse to disclose which U.S. military units have used WeaponWatch and where.
Walt Smith, a technology director at Radiance who traveled with the system to Iraq during its March 2004 launch, said soldiers like it because of its precision.
"A person who has a rugged tablet personal computer can see an image," Smith said. "Someone on the second floor, third window from the right, shot from that location."
The system was tested on top of a building where there was a high concentration of insurgent gunfire. Within a few days, American troops were able to use WeaponWatch to return fire more rapidly, Smith said, resulting in a noticeable drop in enemy attacks.
And that was the old 400-pound version - clunky, cumbersome and highly susceptible to damage from high temperatures and the sand kicked up by desert winds. The newest version is less than 30 pounds and about the size of a lunch box. It can be stationary or placed on Humvees, tanks, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.
"It has limitations like all technology," Smith said. "There's no perfect, silver bullet. But it's very effective in certain circumstances in an urban environment. In a desert environment it can be extremely effective."
WeaponWatch picks up on the infrared signature of every weapon the moment it is fired, instantly identifying it from a database of thousands of weapons muzzle flashes.
Kimzey said that because the technology has become so mobile and keeps getting smaller, there's virtually no end to the possibilities.
For example, the Marines recently tested a program that links the infrared detector to an automatic weapon. It would allow the combatant wielding that weapon to get a shot off almost immediately after the enemy fired.
Kimzey said such an invention could be problematic because military rules of engagement require that a human being, and not a machine make firing decisions in the field of combat.
The federal government has invested nearly $15 million over five years in developing the infrared technology. Besides the four test models being used in Iraq, another 20 have been ordered.
Kimzey said it's unclear how much the Pentagon will spend on the program when it moves from research to deployment, but he said it's definitely an investment the Defense Department plans to make.
"As the sensor develops its capability and becomes convincing, folks are knowing about it and they're asking for it," Kimzey said.
#1
military rules of engagement require that a human being, and not a machine make firing decisions in the field of combat
I suppose an automatic device could take out a little girl playing with a mirror, but in a war zone, I'd rather save several of our folks for a little "collateral damage"...I think...
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/05/2005 13:26 Comments ||
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#2
It's possible we'll see unmanned devices battling each other at some point in the future, in which case auto-response without humans in the loop would be technically of interest. Whether it will be acceptable legally and doctrinally remains to be seen.
HT to LGF Six foreign Al-Qaeda suspects including a woman were killed when a bomb they were making exploded in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said. "It seems the explosion occurred when these people were busy making an improvised explosive device for terrorist activity," chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP on Saturday, quoting local administration officials.
Residents said the blast happened at about 1:30 am (2030 GMT Friday) in a house near Mir Ali, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the rugged tribal zone of North Waziristan. Sultan said six people were killed, one of whom was female, and they were all believed to be foreigners although their exact nationalities were still being investigated. The blast during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr came days after security forces killed an Arab Al-Qaeda suspect and seized another in a shootout in the southwestern province of Baluchistan I guess festivities ARE called for!
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/05/2005 18:26 ||
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I don't suppose the ACCORDIAN version of "Send in the Clowns" was playing on the radio when they had their "oops" moment?!?
And here it is where ironic justice strictly quantitative science so aptly triumphs over even the best sort of however-much-sighted faith.
Regardless of any imputed predestination, we all of us know that the room those murderous psychotics occupied just then became a rather perfectly "hot place".
Isn't it breathtakingly hilarious to watch virtual and literal reality collide with such precision?
Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel's owners said. Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats' occupants attempted to get onboard, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The ship outran them and changed its course.
"Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good said, adding that the crew had been trained for "various scenarios, including people trying to get on the ship that you don't want on the ship." The attackers never got close enough to board the Spirit, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, said Debrah Natansohn, president of the cruise line.
Press Association, the British news agency, said passengers awoke to the sound of gunfire as two 25-foot inflatable boats approached the liner. Edith Laird of Seattle, who was traveling on the ship with her daughter and a friend, told British Broadcasting Corp. TV in an e-mail that her daughter saw the pirates out of their window. "There were at least three rocket-propelled grenades that hit the ship, one in a state room," Laird wrote. "We had no idea that this ship could move as fast as it did and (the captain) did his best to run down the pirates."
The vessel's 151 passengers, mostly Americans with some Australians and Europeans, were gathered in a lounge for their safety, Good said. None were injured. The Spirit had been bound for Mombasa, Kenya, at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt. It was expected to reach the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean on Monday, and then continue on its previous schedule to Singapore, company officials said. The 10,000-ton cruise ship, registered in the Bahamas, sustained minor damage, Good said. "They took some fire, but it's safe to sail," he said.
#2
Edith Laird of Seattle, who was traveling on the ship with her daughter and a friend, told British Broadcasting Corp. TV in an e-mail that her daughter saw the pirates out of their window.
"There were at least three rocket-propelled grenades that hit the ship, one in a state room," Laird wrote. "We had no idea that this ship could move as fast as it did and (the captain) did his best to run down the pirates."
Given what details there are, I'll second the hostage-taking attempt. No doubt how it would have turned out with a less-professional crew.
#3
Where is Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus when you need him...
Posted by: john ||
11/05/2005 16:03 Comments ||
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#4
I'm betting that Carnival's subsidiary lines have some very interesting security arrangements. On the cruises I've been on, most of the "security petty officers" at the gangways were Nepalese Gurkha veterans. You'd sometimes see some supervising security officers, mainly tough-looking Brits who just had the look of folks who spent at least part of their young-adult years jumping out of planes or approaching shorelines at night in little boats. I bet that there was probably a very well-stocked arms locker somewhere, too...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/05/2005 16:08 Comments ||
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#5
Bring back skeet shooting to the cruises in that area and see what the pirates think then.
#6
I can go you better, RG...how about hosting the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot on a cruise ship? :-D
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/05/2005 16:39 Comments ||
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#7
Remember the poor pirates a couple years ago that thought that Navy Replenishment ship was a civvie freighter? I'll wager they filled their pants when the ship opened up on them with it's dual .50's.
#10
Last time I was in the Indian Ocean on a liner ... Skeet was constantly shot off the back of the ship. Lots of times they would let it hit the water and shoot at the sharks lunging for it.
When did skeet shooting quit on cruises? (showing my age...) (course that last trip was before the peoples democratic republic of south Yemen long since part of Yemen)
Police in India's technology hub are searching hotels and questioning people after an intelligence tip-off that the militants who killed 60 people in last weekend's bombings in faraway New Delhi might come to hide there, the police chief said on Thursday. Police in Bangalore - 1,740 kilometers south of New Delhi - began their searches after receiving intelligence that the perpetrators may sneak into the city, said Director General of Police Bhupendra Singh Sial. "Bangalore is a soft spot for terrorists," said Sial, head of the police force in Karnataka state of which Bangalore is the capital. Police in Bangalore increased the number of traffic checkpoints and intensified foot and vehicle patrol. Sial said Bangalore police raised vigilance after the bombings because the city has served as an asylum for criminals in the past.
Investigators in New Delhi on Wednesday released sketches of a man suspected of planting a bomb on the bus. The suspect is described as a young man in his twenties, with a thin mustache and wearing a bandage on his left forearm. A little-known Kashmiri group, Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, on Sunday claimed responsibility for the bombings. Nearly a dozen Pakistan-based Islamic rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Muslim-majority Kashmir's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with Pakistan. Witnesses said the suspect in the sketch left an explosive-laden bag on the bus before fleeing. Police say they haven't yet established whether the Kashmiri group that claimed credit for the bombings is indeed responsible. However, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday told Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a telephone call that there were "external linkages" to the attack, and asked Islamabad to crack down on terrorism directed at India from Pakistani soil.
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.
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Three Bahrainis, arrested four years ago in the war on terror, headed home on Friday after being released from the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Bahraini officials said. The release comes after intensive efforts by the king of Bahrain, "who has given this case special priority," Information Minister Mohammed Abdulghaffar told the official Bahrain News Agency.
Four persons arrested in Los Angeles are part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering ring, federal investigators said, and the suspects caused serious compromises for 15 years to major U.S. weapons systems, including submarines and warships. 
Federal authorities in Los Angeles have quietly charged four people in an alleged conspiracy to steal U.S. military secrets â including a quiet propulsion system for Navy warships â and turn over the intelligence to the People's Republic of China, it was learned late Thursday.
LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France.
France has been detecting, or at least fearing, loyalty problems among the fifteen percent of its soldiers who are Moslem. The military insists that these second and third generation soldiers of, for the most part, Arab descent, are loyal. But many Christian soldiers, NCOs and officers are not so sure. Harassment of Moslem troops by Christian soldiers is common. There have been no major incidents of soldiers turned terrorists, but the abuse from paranoid soldiers, NCOs and officers might push Moslem soldiers to go bad. This is believed more likely because there are no Moslem chaplains. Thus Moslem soldiers seek spiritual advice from clerics with no military experience, and possible a radical agenda. More worrisome is that radicalized soldiers will leave the army equipped with skills they can use for terrorist attacks. 
Marauding youths set fire to cars, warehouses and a nursery school and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas.
EPINAY-SUR-SEINE, France (Reuters) - Violence erupted again in poor suburbs of Paris where youths torched buildings and dozens of cars and sporadic unrest spread in the early hours of Saturday to at least three other French cities. In a potentially worrying development for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's beleaguered government, police said more cars were set alight outside the greater Paris area than in the capital's suburbs, the epicenter of riots for more than a week.
Thirteen men have gone on trial in Belgium accused of membership of a militant group that has been linked to bombings in Madrid and Casablanca. Prosecutors say the men - all Moroccans or Belgians of Moroccan descent - did not take part in bombings themselves, but supported others who did. Defence lawyers say the only evidence against some of them is that they knew men charged with serious crimes. The men are accused of belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), accused by the US of aiming to establish an Islamic state in Morocco and supporting al-Qaeda's jihad against the West. Some are accused of providing false papers, safe houses and other logistical help to GICM militants. Correspondents say this is one of the most important terror trials in Europe since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States. 
The country's most feared terror group warned foreign diplomats Friday to flee Iraq after announcing it will put to death two kidnapped Moroccan Embassy employees. Insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security troops and an American soldier in separate attacks. The warning came in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq, which also claimed responsibility for the July kidnap-slaying of two envoys from Algeria and one from Egypt as well as the abduction and beheading of many foreign hostages.
Six foreign Al-Qaeda suspects including a woman were killed when a bomb they were making exploded in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said. "It seems the explosion occurred when these people were busy making an improvised explosive device for terrorist activity," chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP on Saturday, quoting local administration officials.
Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel's owners said. Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats' occupants attempted to get onboard, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The ship outran them and changed its course.
Police in India's technology hub are searching hotels and questioning people after an intelligence tip-off that the militants who killed 60 people in last weekend's bombings in faraway New Delhi might come to hide there, the police chief said on Thursday. Police in Bangalore - 1,740 kilometers south of New Delhi - began their searches after receiving intelligence that the perpetrators may sneak into the city, said Director General of Police Bhupendra Singh Sial. "Bangalore is a soft spot for terrorists," said Sial, head of the police force in Karnataka state of which Bangalore is the capital. Police in Bangalore increased the number of traffic checkpoints and intensified foot and vehicle patrol. Sial said Bangalore police raised vigilance after the bombings because the city has served as an asylum for criminals in the past. 
