The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday renewed its authorization for countries to use military force against pirates operating off Somalia who have crippled one of the world's most important shipping lanes.
The U.S.-drafted resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, extends for one year the right of countries with permission from Somalia's transitional government to enter Somali waters to pursue and attack pirates.
"The international community is sending a very strong signal of its determination to deal with piracy," said French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.
He told reporters it would enable the European Union to start an air and naval operation off Somalia on Dec. 8. The operation is expected to involve five to six ships at any given time, plus maritime surveillance aircraft. "We think it will act both as a deterrent and also (provide) some immediate capacity to follow on and pursue pirates, if we can catch them," Ripert said.
Believe it when I see it ...
One unresolved issue is jurisdiction over captured pirates and where they can be prosecuted. U.S. envoy Rosemary DiCarlo told reporters Washington hoped more countries would use a 1988 convention against unlawful acts committed at sea to put captured pirates on trial.
Hanging them from a yardarm is no longer an option?
Ripert was confident the EU operation would improve security in the Gulf of Aden, a major sea lane for Middle East oil used by ships heading to and from the Suez canal.
There are already several international naval operations along the Horn of Africa, including a NATO mission to counter piracy, but they have done little to deter hijackers, who have been paid tens of millions of dollars in ransoms.
Nikos Tzanetakos, deputy captain of the Greek tanker Ellivita which crossed the gulf last month carrying Saudi oil to the United States, told Ta Nea newspaper his crew prevented pirates from boarding by draping the hull in electrified wire. "The military ships are only acting as traffic police in the Gulf of Aden," Tzanetakos said. "The situation there is permanently out of control and there is panic among the sailors, who have to pass through those waters."
Last weekend pirates came within 300 yards (meters) of the Nautica cruise ship operated by Miami-based Oceania Cruises Inc, the company said. "One of the (pirate) skiffs ... fired eight rifle shots in the direction of the vessel before trailing off," Oceania Cruises said in a statement. "No one aboard Nautica was harmed and no damage was sustained."
President-elect Barack Obama Monday formally announced a national security team that is led by his onetime chief Democratic rival and includes a top member of President Bush's Cabinet -- a bipartisan group that he said shares his pragmatism and his commitment to strengthen America's standing in the world.
In a news conference in Chicago, Obama introduced Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state, bringing on board the candidate who battled him for the Democratic presidential nomination during a long primary season. As America's top diplomat, Clinton will be the face of Obama's efforts to remake the country's foreign policy.
Obama also announced that Bush's defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, has agreed to remain in the job in the new administration, providing continuity while taking on what the president-elect said would be a new mission: "responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control."
In response to questions, Obama said, "I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made." He vowed to counter the danger of "group-think" that precludes dissenting views and pledged to welcome "a vigorous debate inside the White House."
He stressed, however, that he will set policy, will be responsible for his administration's "vision" and will expect his team to implement decisions once they are made. "So, as Harry Truman said, the buck will stop with me."
As he introduced Clinton, Gates and other members of his team, Obama said that "in the 21st century, our destiny is shared with the world's" and that the United States has a stake in global events regarding such matters as financial markets, public health, climate change and security from terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Hillary's appointment is unconstitutional. More hope and change I can't believe in.
#3
I don't see any democrats bothered by any section of the constitution, they just ignore the laws they don't agree with,(And always have, in my memory at least)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/02/2008 17:50 Comments ||
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#4
He vowed to counter the danger of "group-think" that precludes dissenting views
After running the campaign he just finished...that statement took some real chutzpah.
A paid FBI informant in the case of five men accused of plotting to kill soldiers on Fort Dix said he didn't understand at first why his handlers sent him to make contacts in a place that hardly seemed like a hub of criminal activity. In July 2006, Besnik Bakalli was to seek out three Albanian-speaking brothers in a Dunkin' Donuts shop in Cinnaminson in suburban South Jersey.
A few weeks later, he told jurors, he saw why the men might seem dangerous to authorities: Riding with them and another suspect to a fishing spot on the Jersey shore, the men laughed as they showed him videos of American troops being shot by snipers in Iraq and U.S. military vehicles exploding. "I was scared," Bakalli told jurors. "I never saw these videos before. I'm thinking, 'Who are these people and what am I doing here?'"
The accused men, all in their 20s at the time of their May 2007 arrests, are foreign-born Muslims who lived for years in the comfortable Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill. They are charged with conspiracy to kill military personnel, attempted murder and weapons offenses. If convicted, the men could face life in prison.
The government built the case against them largely with hundreds of hours of secret recordings made by Bakalli and another paid informant, Mahmoud Omar, who spent 13 days testifying earlier in the trial. Defense lawyers deny the men were seriously planning anything.
In more than five hours of testimony Monday, Bakalli said the defendants talked about Islam, their admiration for Osama bin Laden, martyrdom, a war between America and the Muslim world and guns. But he was not asked by the prosecutor who questioned him about either Fort Dix or any specific plan to attack it.
Bakalli told jurors he was in jail in May 2006 as the government tried to have him deported. FBI agents came to him and offered him work as an informant. Bakalli, who was once convicted , and later pardoned , for shooting a man in his native Albania, said he was willing to help the government in the hope that he could stay in the United States. "I can have a better life here that I never had in my country," Bakalli told jurors.
So in early July 2006, his handlers sent him to the Dunkin' Donuts. Indeed, three Albanian brothers , Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka , showed up. Bakalli told jurors he spoke Albanian into his cell phone to get the attention of the men. It worked. That day, he drank coffee with them. Within a few weeks, he was going to their mosque and, later that month, on the fishing trip with them and Mohamad Shnewer.
In February 2007, he went with the men and others on a weeklong retreat at a rented house in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. He said he hoped the trip would merely be a relaxing vacation. Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick asked him what the trip turned out to be. "Training," Bakalli said, "for jihad" , or holy war. He said the men spent the first night looking for guns to buy, then went to shooting ranges and played paintball. "It was not a vacation for me," Bakalli said. "I started to figure that out."
On one recording, made the night before they went to the Poconos, Dritan Duka is heard as he is showing a gun to Bakalli, who had told the men that he spent three months in the Kosovo Liberation Army. Bakalli, who keeps describing guns as "hot" and "cute," tried to open the weapon. Dritan Duka teased him when he wasn't able to do so.
Fitzpatrick asked if he was afraid he'd be discovered as an informant. Bakalli said he was.
I seem to remember a demand like this in Sept 2001.
India picked up intelligence in recent months that terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, an official said Tuesday, as the government demanded that Islamabad hand over suspected terrorists believed living in Pakistan.
A list of about 20 people -- including India's most-wanted man -- was submitted to Pakistan's high commissioner to India on Monday night, said India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee.
India has already demanded Pakistan take "strong action" against those responsible for the attacks, and the U.S. has pressured Islamabad to cooperate in the investigation. America's chief diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will visit India on Wednesday.
Among the prisoners sought by India is Dawood Ibrahim -- a powerful gangster, the alleged mastermind of 1993 Mumbai bombings, and India's most-wanted man. Also included is Masood Azhar, a terror suspect freed from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999.
Pakistan would consider India's request and respond after receiving the list, said Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman. "We must try to dampen down the discourse of conflict and work toward regional peace," she said.
While the cross-border rhetoric between Pakistan and India has increased since the attacks, both countries -- by their often-bellicose standards -- carefully refrained from making statements that could quickly lead to a buildup of troops along their already militarized frontier.
In India, Pakistan's high commissioner met with foreign ministry officials late Monday and was told that "elements from Pakistan" had carried out the attacks. The commissioner was told that India "expects that strong action would be taken against those elements," said foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash. ...
This article starring:
Dawood Ibrahim
Masood Azhar
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2008 07:46 ||
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#1
While it is true that every nation including us here in US get MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE warnings every now and then, you simply CANNOT afford to act on EACH one of them - how do we all think 09/11 happened???
This is a repeat - such kind of news keep coming at this time although I AGREE that the Indian officials do not act decisively even on some of the serious ones - they are too busy with the freaking politicking!!
At the end, I do want to emphasize for ALL of us, that this is called KARMA - if we (americans) do GOOD KARMA and REALLY help decimate this terrorism (regardless of whether it happens in one of our friends territory), it WILL come back to us as a good deed - if we do this as another wishy-washy eye wash, we are NOT progressing...
This is the least I expect from the new administration - get this Pakistani "agencies" including the current administration to ACT and it will help us long term!!
#2
We all pray that you are correct in your expectation, Captain Uleremp6677, that the president-elect will act at least as firmly against the jihadis as the current president has done these last eight years.
INDIA received warnings from US intelligence in October of a possible terrorist attack "from the sea" on targets in Mumbai, CNN and ABC News reported today.
Unnamed US intelligence officials told ABC they had warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack "from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai". One intelligence official even mentioned specific targets, including the Taj hotel, the TV news service said.
CNN said Indian sources confirmed that US officials warned them twice of a possible attack on Mumbai.
About ten gunmen landed in rubber dinghies on the beaches of Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in a 60-hour assault that killed at least 172 people, including two Australians, and injured close to 300.
Indian intelligence officials told ABC News that on November 18 they intercepted a satellite phone call to an address in Pakistan used by the leader of the Lashkar e Taiba terrorist group, revealing a possible sea-borne attack. The group is believed to be behind the bloody Mumbai attacks.
US officials also said US intelligence has been tracking prepaid SIM cell phone cards recovered from the Mumbai terrorists, which has led them to a "treasure trove" of leads from Pakistan and several possible connections to the United States, ABC reported. They said one of the SIM cards may have been purchased in the United States.
No further details were provided because of the ongoing investigation, ABC reported.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2008 06:11 ||
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#1
Hope the US Intel Community underscores that some of that telephone traffic (that the story is based on) passed through the US, so we need to indemnify US companies from law suits. We have 14 terrorists at large, perhaps in India already, so let's get on this.
#4
Disturbing that some were based here and had help.
I didn't read that those who carried out the attacks were from the U.S., DarthVader, but rather that the LeT have connections providing support in the U.S.-- probably money and "stuff". We already knew there are those here whose support is not only vocal but material; it's nice that Intelligence now has actual phone numbers to trace.
And as many signs point to LeTÂ’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks, it should be noted that LeT terrorists are known to be operating inside the U.S. A number of LeT operatives trained in Pakistani terror camps have been arrested, tried, and convicted here at home, most notably those involved in the Northern Virginia jihad network. Other U.S. citizens have trained in LeT camps and been killed in operations, including Jibreel al-Amreekee, a 19-year-old convert to Islam from Atlanta killed in 1997 during a LeT attack on an Indian Army post. And two of the brothers of LeT leader and founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed were arrested in December 2006 on immigration charges while serving as imams of mosques in the Boston area.
#3
Ahmed added that the U.S., Israel and India are working to dismantle Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and the country's nuclear program.
I sure hope so. The entire world would be a lot better off.
#4
More and more I like the idea of India deploying a division or two to Afghanistan, to seal the border with Pakistan. Not only would it put the blocks to the terrorists who cross the border, but it would force the Pak army to occupy the troublesome enclaves.
The Pak seething would be amazing. No need for India to attack directly.
In January 2002, the government of Pakistan reluctantly announced that it would ban Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri guerrilla group suspected of crossing the border into India and storming the Parliament in New Delhi, an incident that nearly triggered a war between the two nuclear-armed countries.
Almost seven years later, Lashkar-i-Taiba, or Army of the Pious, once again stands accused of helping to carry out a stunning terrorist attack in India, this time in Mumbai. The group, although technically still outlawed in Pakistan, has managed to expand its membership, its operational reach and its influence among the constellation of radical Islamist networks seeking to spark a revolution in South Asia.
Inside Pakistan, Lashkar still operates training camps for militants, runs a large charitable and social-services organization that has been embraced by Pakistani officials, and even has designated spokesmen to handle inquiries from the news media.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
Dawood Ibrahim
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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(AKI) - India has lodged a formal protest with Pakistan's envoy over the brutal terror attacks in the city of Mumbai last week. Indian officials have repeatedly said in recent days there was evidence that the militants behind the attacks on two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre in Mumbai had Pakistani links.
The Ministry of External Affairs late Monday summoned the Pakistan High Commissioner, Shahid Malik, to the ministry's office in New Delhi to protest against the attacks.
Islamabad has denied any involvement in the attacks and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has warned that any escalation of tension between the two neighbours would be disastrous. But he conceded the terrorists may have come from Pakistan. "All the terrorists involved in the Mumbai blasts are related to Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Toiba," Zardari told London's Financial Times newspaper. "We are seriously concerned and the government won't let such acts go lightly."
India's new Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram vowed to "respond with determination and resolve" to the crisis.
The White House says it has heard nothing to suggest the Pakistani government was involved.
At least 188 people were killed - including 22 foreigners - after the attackers opened fire in several locations, including two hotels, a restaurant and a Jewish centre. The attacks on the two hotels - the luxurious Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi - and the Jewish centre resulted in three days of conflict between government security forces and militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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(AKI) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, saying militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region. In an interview with the British Financial Times newspaper, Zardari urged Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resist any attack if speculation confirmed the militants came from Pakistan.
"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Toiba, who do you think we are fighting?" asked Zardari. We're not too sure, actually, since Hafiz Saeed's not in jug.
Pakistan is supposedly fighting militants from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban on the border of Afghanistan.
"We live in troubled times where non-state actors have taken us to war before, whether it is the case of those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the United States or contributed to the escalation of the situation in Iraq," said Zardari. "Now, events in Mumbai tell us that there are ongoing efforts to carry out copycat attacks by militants. We must all stand together to fight out this menace," he said.
New Delhi was facing growing criticism over its failure to anticipate the attacks and its response. The chief minister of the Indian state of Maharashtra has offered to resign amid criticism of the handling of the Mumbai attacks. Vilasrao Deshmukh said he was awaiting a Congress party decision. His deputy, RR Patil, has already resigned.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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India on Monday demanded Pakistan take swift action over deadly attacks in Mumbai it said were carried out by militants from its rival neighbor. Indian investigators said the Islamist gunmen who raided India's financial capital, killing 183 people in a three-day assault, had months of commando training in Pakistan.
The fallout prompted a second senior politician from the ruling Congress party to resign as fury grew among Indians over apparent intelligence lapses and a slow response from security forces.
The attacks against two luxury hotels and other landmarks in the city of 18 million are a setback for improving ties between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
After days of finger pointing, India called the Pakistani ambassador in New Delhi to the foreign ministry. "He was informed that the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai was carried out by elements from Pakistan. Government expects that strong action would be taken against those elements, whosoever they may be, responsible for this outrage," a foreign ministry statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The U.N. mission in Iraq expressed "serious concern" Tuesday about overcrowded prisons and the treatment of detainees in Iraqi custody in its latest report on the human rights situation in the country.
Don't worry, we'll be blamed, we always are ...
The report, which covered the first half of the year, also singled out the problem of so-called honor killings of women in northern and southern Iraq.
Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.'s special representative in Iraq, warned that the issue of detainees will be a major challenge as the United States prepares to turn over control of thousands of inmates in its custody. "There is no secret that the (Iraqi) prisons are overcrowded and frankly not in very good condition," de Mistura said at a news conference to release the 13th report on the situation of human rights in Iraq.
How were they when you inspected them during Saddam's time ...
He cited one example of a prison in which 123 detainees were crammed into a 540-square-foot cell.
Reports of widespread mistreatment and torture of detainees also continue and need more thorough investigation, he said. "So far we have not seen one case of prosecution," he said.
The U.N. called on the Iraqi government to speed up legal reforms and strengthen the judicial system, saying improvements in the rule of law are necessary to ensure security gains are sustainable. It also promised to help and said training programs were being held to improve the administration of detention centers as well as the justice system.
Just what the Iraqis need, the UN training their people in European-style justice ...
"More sovereignty means more responsibility and more responsibility means less impunity," de Mistura said.
The report only covered the six-month period that ended in June due to staffing issues, so the numbers of detainees included was outdated. The U.S. has released thousands since then under an amnesty program.
De Mistura, who heads the U.N. Assistance Mission to Iraq known as UNAMI, estimated Tuesday that there were a total of 40,000 detainees, including some 15,000 being held by the U.S. military. "UNAMI remains gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees, particularly those being held in pretrial detention facilities, including police stations," the report said.
It also renewed concern about the U.S. detention of suspects for prolonged periods without judicial review of their cases. Women also faced more violence, including the killing of women for perceived offenses to their families' honor. The problem is of particular concern in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and in the mainly Shiite southern area of Basra.
A U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against Shiite extremists in Basra has failed to stop the killings, according to the U.N.
It wasn't designed to stop honor killings, only extremism ...
De Mistura said 80 to 82 women had reportedly been killed there so far this year, but there has been only one prosecution. The government has made a more concerted effort to stop the killings in Basra, but the grim statistics show "that the problem needs to be addressed more forcefully," he said.
UN administrators shouldn't use the word 'forcefully', it just doesn't work for them ...
The U.N. human rights report, which previously was issued quarterly but is now biannual, used to be closely watched for Iraqi civilian casualty figures. That practice stopped when the Iraqi government refused to release the spiraling figures to the U.N. De Mistura said the situation had improved and he was hopeful casualty figures could be included in the next report.
#5
UN agency feeling safe enough to be present thanks to US military power and sacrifice: check
UN agency singling out troubling conditions in a former dictatorship that only has a chance at a more civilized/open society thanks to US military power and sacrifice: check
Logically, I don't believe there's such a thing as "moral authority" - the whole point of morality is that it's above and outside individuals or organizations made up of individuals. Moral principles stand alone and can be applied logically to facts to yield judgments, and nobody has superior ability to identify the principles (though demonstrated ability to apply logical reasoning obviously varies substantially).
(end of geeky rumination on moral authority)
But .....
If there's anything like "moral authority" to judge and criticize Iraqi prison conditions and judicial processes, it is possessed solely by the US.
Note also the disingenuous slander that never dies: suspects are "held without trial" indefinitely (outrageous!) - because in fact they are NOT part of a normal judicial process, but detainees in a war emergency situation where normal civil judicial processes are neither feasible nor effective.
#6
exactamundo, Verlaine. The biggest mistake our internal and external traitors opponents have made is to apply criminal law protection to those who have neither earned nor deserve that distinction. Lawfare will be the undoing of us or the death of the opposition when the backlash hits. I expect the latter as they overreach and a "releasee" goes on a killing spree here at home
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2008 20:15 Comments ||
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MUHALLADIYA, Iraq -- At this dusty combat outpost 4 miles west of Mosul, Iraqi soldiers complain that they haven't been paid in four months, even though the nation's coffers are bulging with tens of billions of petro-dollars.
Stationed along a key highway used by insurgents, the soldiers live in old shipping containers without water or electricity. Their only furniture is a few mattresses flung on the floor. "In the winter it's very cold, and in the summer it's boiling," said Ibrahim Hassan, 36, who shared a container with four other soldiers.
Short on everything from housing to Humvees to bullet-proof vests, their training suspect and their society racked with tensions, Iraq's security forces are being reborn in places like this, with massive American assistance to prepare them for the moment when U.S. troops are no longer on the ground.
The clock is ticking. President-elect Barack Obama, when naming his national security team Monday, reiterated that his promised 16 months for withdrawing U.S. combat forces was "the right time frame." And he said the recently approved U.S.-Iraq security accord--requiring all 150,000 U.S. forces to withdraw from major cities such as Mosul by mid-2009 and the rest of the country by the end of 2011--put the U.S. on a "glide path" toward accomplishing that.
The area around Mosul, a city of 1.8 million people that straddles the Tigris River, offers a good window into the Iraqi soldiers' preparedness and challenges. In 2006 and 2007, it was overrun by insurgents and has seen some of the toughest fighting since.
During a visit by a journalist last month, U.S. officers, Iraqi commanders and residents painted a generally positive picture of the progress being made, even if slip-ups at checkpoints and outbreaks of gunfire offer persistent hints of how difficult the road ahead may be.
"The situation is better than it was five or six months ago," said Gen. Abdullah al-Sattar, commander of the 17,000-strong 2nd Iraqi Army Division, headquartered in Mosul. "I'm not going to be afraid if the coalition forces leave. The 16 months will be enough time for us."
The general's confidence was not shared by everyone under him, though. "I want [the U.S. forces] to stay a long time," said Col. Tawfiq Abdullah, one of the general's officers. "This is my opinion. . . . I think three years--until we have all parts of our military [ready]."
Five years after the Iraqi army was dissolved by the Bush administration, the readiness of the new Iraqi security forces varies from place to place, with the military generally much further along than the nation's lightly regarded police force.
In Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, where Al Qaeda in Iraq remains potent, several hundred U.S. troops still operate from bases in the city and patrol its streets backed by hulking Stryker Armored Vehicles, evidence that Iraqi forces still need U.S. soldiers as advisers and partners in combat.
Only two years ago, Iraq's police force was little more than a collection of militias that, in some cases, acted as death squads, according to U.S. military officials. In Mosul, the Iraqi military lived on large bases on the city's periphery and rarely challenged the insurgents.
Using the troop surge strategy that worked elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. commanders initially sent in several thousand U.S. troops with armored vehicles and took back Mosul. Then, with Iraqi assistance, U.S. troops set up traffic checkpoints throughout the city to deter insurgent movements and built dozens of heavily fortified bases in many of Mosul's most dangerous neighborhoods.
As the violence ebbed, Iraqi forces stepped forward to operate the checkpoints and launch raids and patrols--often in conjunction with U.S. forces--from the fortified bases.
One neighborhood in Mosul where security has improved dramatically is Hay Al Tinek, where signs of past fighting can be seen in concrete walls blasted to rubble and roads littered with burned-out vehicles. Hashim Qasim, 44, a teacher at the Halab elementary school, said last year that the neighborhood was controlled by insurgents. They kidnapped and killed residents, set land mines and detonated so many bombs that he often prohibited students from playing in the school courtyard.
Today, he said, the Iraqi army controls the neighborhood. The troops operate out of a combat outpost opened in September only about a mile north of the school. "Before there was no army or police here," he said. "When the army came, the situation changed."
#1
I'm still assuming that this insanity - actually exiting Iraq any time in the near future - was just a foolish campaign stance that will be easily finessed into the memory hole. If that twink about to become president actually does it, it will be among the greatest betrayals in our history, not to mention a self-inflicted strategic catastrophe.
How anyone in uniform (or thinking about it) could accept such an amateurish eff-up is beyond me.
(AKI) - Sri Lanka was close to defeating the Tamil Tiger militants fighting for a separate homeland in the north of the country, according to President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Speaking to the media in Rome, Rajapaksa said government forces had "cleared" the eastern province and was now focused on the north.
"I am confident," Rajapaksa said of the armed forces' prospects. "We have cleared the eastern province, we have had elections."
Now the president said the armed forces had made key gains in fighting members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the country's north. "We have got very close to their headquarters, we may be able to take over that too," he said.
Sri Lanka's military said on Monday it had recaptured a key northern town near the Tamil Tigers' Kilinochchi stronghold. They said that troops on Sunday took Kokavil, 20 kilometres south of Kilinochchi, 18 years after it was seized by the insurgents.
The pro-rebel TamilNet website has accused the air force of dropping cluster bombs at a camp for internally displaced people. On Thursday the Tigers' leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said that the government was living in "dreamland" if it expected outright military victory.
Rajapaksa made a two-day unofficial visit to the Italian capital Rome where he met Pope Benedict XVI before flying to Turkey.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader praised the three Bali bombers recently executed in Indonesia and criticized Saudi and other Arab leaders for participating in a U.N. interfaith conference in a recording posted on the Web Monday.
Ayman al-Zawahri said in the audio recording on an Islamic Web site that Indonesia and other governments in the Islamic world are protecting the interests of the "Crusaders" and the Jews and preventing Muslims from joining the jihad, or holy war, against them. The 22-minute recording is al-Zawahri's third in less than two weeks.
The recording contained short statements by two of the men executed in Indonesian in which they call on Muslims to continue the jihad against the United Sates and the West. The three men had urged retaliation for their pending deaths in countless TV interviews broadcast to a national audience in Indonesia before they were executed by firing squad on Nov. 9, prompting some critics to accuse authorities of allowing them to cultivate an image as Islamic martyrs. Al-Zawahri praised the three men as "unshaken heroes who adhered to their faith."
Al-Zawahri described a Nov. 13 U.N. interfaith conference as a "ridiculous play organized by the Saudi government under the pretext of interfaith dialogue that other Arab and Islamic governments took part in." He said the meeting was "an exposed trick to hold direct talks with Israel." The 80 countries at the event issued a declaration rejecting the use of religion to justify acts of terrorism and other violence against innocent civilians. The two-day meeting was initiated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and brought 14 world leaders to New York, including the heads of Pakistan and Afghanistan and Israel's president.
The al-Qaida posting included video images from the conference showing Israeli President Shimon Peres addressing the meeting, as well as the Saudi king and two senior clerics from al-Zawahri's native Egypt. "The strange thing is that the Saudi rulers who call for dialogue are far away from talking to their people. ... They are ready for a dialogue with anyone whom the United Sates orders them to talk to," he said.
Osama bin Laden's deputy also accused the Saudis of helping the United States form and finance the groups of former insurgents who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq known as awakening councils.
The Web posting was produced by al-Qaida's media arm, al-Sahab, and was posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently carries al-Qaida statements.
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.
President-elect Barack Obama Monday formally announced a national security team that is led by his onetime chief Democratic rival and includes a top member of President Bush's Cabinet -- a bipartisan group that he said shares his pragmatism and his commitment to strengthen America's standing in the world. 
(AKI) - India has lodged a formal protest with Pakistan's envoy over the brutal terror attacks in the city of Mumbai last week. Indian officials have repeatedly said in recent days there was evidence that the militants behind the attacks on two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre in Mumbai had Pakistani links. 
(AKI) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, saying militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region. In an interview with the British Financial Times newspaper, Zardari urged Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resist any attack if speculation confirmed the militants came from Pakistan.
India on Monday demanded Pakistan take swift action over deadly attacks in Mumbai it said were carried out by militants from its rival neighbor. Indian investigators said the Islamist gunmen who raided India's financial capital, killing 183 people in a three-day assault, had months of commando training in Pakistan.
Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader praised the three Bali bombers recently executed in Indonesia and criticized Saudi and other Arab leaders for participating in a U.N. interfaith conference in a recording posted on the Web Monday.
