THE British navy has completed a discreet clean-out of the senior figures involved in the debacle over the arrest by Iranian Revolutionary Guards of 15 British sailors and marines.
Those involved in the Royal Navy's humiliation at the hands of Tehran have been pushed out of their high-profile jobs as part of an attempt to sweep away any reminder of the debacle, regarded as one of the biggest humiliations to befall the navy since the failure of Admiral Byng to relieve Minorca in 1756. He was executed for his incompetence.
The victims include two vice-admirals, the captain of the ship on which the boat crews served and a senior official in the failed public relations operation that followed their return to Britain.
There was widespread anger when the 15 sailors and marines, including a woman, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, gave up without firing a shot after being left with no helicopter cover during the standoff in March last year when they were boarding suspect vessels in the Gulf to check for insurgents or contraband.
Tehran said they were in Iranian waters when seized by Revolutionary Guards. The British insisted they were in international waters.
The crew were released after 13 days' captivity and shown in front of television cameras in ill-fitting suits talking to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They thanked the Iranian authorities for their good treatment. The seven sailors and eight marines were then given "goody bags" to take home.
The navy's embarrassment was compounded by the decision to allow two of the arrested sailors, Turney and Able Seaman Arthur Batchelor, the youngest at 20, to sell their stories to British tabloid newspapers. Batchelor made it worse when he revealed the extent of his ordeal while in Iranian custody involved his jailers flicking their fingers against his neck, calling him "Mr Bean" and confiscating his iPod.
Then prime minister Tony Blair insisted there would be "no witch-hunt" and no individuals were blamed for the fiasco or the decision to allow the sailors to sell their stories. Behind the scenes, however, senior figures have departed. The most senior was Vice-Admiral Charles Style, assistant chief of the defence staff in charge of operations, who had the job of explaining to the media what had happened. Defence sources claim he was unfairly treated. Vice-Admiral Sir Adrian Johns, the second sea lord, who publicly took the blame for approving the decision to allow Turney and Batchelor to sell their stories, was also replaced.
William Pitt the Elder, then Leader of the House of Commons, told the king: "the House of Commons, Sir, is inclined to mercy", to which George II responded: "You have taught me to look for the sense of my people elsewhere than in the House of Commons."
Byng's execution was satirized by Voltaire in his novel Candide.
Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres
"in this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others"
Posted by: john frum ||
12/07/2008 19:53 Comments ||
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#4
#2 It's a start. Posted by: Nimble Spemble
Only if they intend to continue to have a Navy. The Labor Party in peacetime has always wanted to slash the Navy to the bone. They still believe it's "peacetime". That may be enough to bring them down come the next election, but I won't be placing any bets.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/07/2008 19:55 Comments ||
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Byng was railroaded. Fighting Instructions was crap anyway. Read Tuchman.
A verdict is due Tuesday in the trial of a Lebanese man accused of a botched attempt to bomb German passenger trains that investigators say could have ended in a bloodbath.
German authorities say Yusef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, 24, was a hardened Islamic extremist who was trying to kill as many people as possible in revenge for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in Europe.
Men identified by police as Dib and a Lebanese associate, Jihad Hamad, were captured on security cameras placing suitcases packed with homemade explosives on two trains carrying 280 people on July 31, 2006. The images ran in heavy rotation on national television as the country digested how close it may have come to the first Islamist attack on German soil since the anti-US suicide hijackings of September 11, 2001, which were planned in part in the German port city Hamburg. Germany was never closer to an Islamist attack, state prosecutor Duscha Gmel said.
Prosecutors argue that the explosions could have killed up to 75 people, saying only a technical fault prevented a massacre in a plot allegedly modelled on the deadly train blasts in Madrid in 2004 and London the following year.
Dib could face life in prison, generally 15 years in actual jail time in Germany, if he is convicted on multiple counts of attempted murder. He told the regional superior court in this western city on December 2 at the end of his year-long trial that he had never planned to murder anyone but had aimed to frighten the German public over the Mohammed cartoons. I swear by God Almighty that it was never my intention to kill, he said in a final statement to the court, adding that he knew there would be no explosion when he left the device on the train.
He said Hamad, who is serving a 12-year sentence in Beirut over the case, was lying when he told Lebanese investigators that the two had plotted mass murder. It is because he was tortured, Dib asserted.
Both men had lived as students in Germany. After putting the suitcases on the trains, they each disembarked at the next station and flew from Cologne to Istanbul and then Lebanon, where Hamad was captured. Dib was arrested after he returned to Germany days later.
His defence lawyer Bernd Rosenkranz told the court that Dib had made a conscious decision not to include oxygen in gas canisters used in the homemade bombsthe missing ingredient necessary for an explosion. The aim was to frighten people with a mock-up, he said.
Presiding judge Ottmar Breidling expressed doubts about this version of events in a hearing in late October, noting that dummy explosives would have no need for detonators, as were found in the suitcases on the trains.
#1
Dib swears, in the name of God, that meant to harm noone. Seems to me that he may have some explaining to do when he knocks on the doors of heaven and asks to enter.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/07/2008 10:30 Comments ||
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Washington -- The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will take up a controversial Bush administration legal policy and decide whether the president has the power to order the military to arrest and hold a civilian in the United States on the basis of suspected ties to terrorists. The justices voted to hear the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only person who remains in military custody in this country as an "enemy combatant." Administration officials say he came to the United States on a "martyr mission" for Al Qaeda.
Once again courts that have no clue how to handle the war on terrorists will judge the people who do ...
The court will hear arguments in March, two months after the Bush administration has left office. The case presents an interesting test for the incoming Barack Obama administration, which could defend the government's handling of Marri's case or change course and prosecute him in criminal court.
"The Supreme Court's decision to grant review will compel the incoming Obama administration to quickly focus on U.S. detention policy," said Sharon Bradford Franklin, a lawyer for the Constitution Project. "We hope that President-elect Obama will resoundingly reject the current administration's breathtaking claim that the United States may hold a civilian in military detention indefinitely."
He's not a civilian. He's an agent in a time of war.
Marri, a native of Qatar, entered the United States with his family on Sept. 10, 2001, and said he was seeking a master's degree at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. He had earned a bachelor's degree there a decade earlier. Three months later, the FBI arrested him and said agents found on his laptop computer information about cyanide and other poisonous chemicals. Officials said they also learned that he had received payments from Al Qaeda financiers.
At first, the government intended to try Marri on charges of credit card fraud. But in June 2003, President Bush signed an order designating Marri as an "enemy combatant," and he was taken to a military brig in South Carolina. He has been held there in virtual isolation for more than five years.
The Supreme Court will not decide whether Marri is an agent of Al Qaeda. Instead, the justices will decide whether the Bush administration had the legal authority to bypass the nation's civilian laws and to hold a civilian in military custody.
The 5th Amendment says "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," and that constitutional protection has been interpreted to apply to all persons in this country, not just citizens.
Does it apply to enemy agents?
In their appeal on Marris behalf, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said his case raises "a question of exceptional national importance." Since the nation's founding, they said, the Constitution's due process provision has been understood to mean "people arrested in this country have the right to a speedy criminal prosecution."
Reacting to the court's announcement, ACLU Legal Director Steven R. Shapiro said he was hopeful the justices would "ensure that people in this country cannot be seized from their homes and imprisoned indefinitely simply because the president says so."
The Marri case is separate from the litigation over detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those prisoners were captured abroad and have not officially entered the United States.
Earlier, Jose Padilla, a native New Yorker, had been held in military custody in the U.S. as an enemy combatant. He had been arrested at O'Hare Airport in Chicago in 2002, on his return from Pakistan. The Supreme Court did not rule on his case, however. One of his appeals was on its way to the court when the administration switched course and brought criminal terrorism charges against Padilla in Florida. He was convicted and imprisoned.
Bush administration lawyers had urged the court not to hear Marri's appeal. They said his "military detention is lawful given [his] close association with Al Qaeda and entry into this country for the purpose of committing hostile and war-like acts."
Sorta like when the Germans sent agents into the U.S. early in 1942. That didn't work out so well for the guys involved ...
They argued that the president was given the power to hold "enemy combatants" when Congress adopted the Authorization for the Use of Military Force:S.J.RES.23.ENR: a week after the 9/11 attacks. It says the president may use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
Some Democrats in Congress have said that the resolution gave the president the power to use military force abroad but did not change the law in the United States.
In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Virginia issued a fractured ruling in Marris case. The court ruled 5-4 that the president could indefinitely hold an alleged terrorist in military custody. By the same margin, the court also said Marri deserved a hearing before a judge to review the evidence against him.
Pepperdine Law Professor Douglas Kmiec said the Supreme Court's vote to hear the case "is quite a surprise." He said the justices could have allowed the hearing to continue, while the Obama administration formulates a new policy on how to handle such cases.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Sorta like when the Germans sent agents into the U.S. early in 1942. That didn't work out so well for the guys involved ...
You're dealing with facts. Justice Kennedy has no need for facts, or for that matter precedent. Justice Kennedy's only basis for leading these charges is to reinstate the old saying - "L'Ãtat, c'est moi."
#2
Fortunately, it will probably be decided 5-4. That's why it's good to be heard now. Once Bambi starts stocking the Court, things may not end well at all.
Former Inter-Services-Inetlligence chief Hamid Gul on Sunday dismissed as "nonsense" reports that Pakistan has agreed to arrest and hand him over to India in connection with the probe into the Mumbai terror attacks.
"It is nonsense, it is disinformation because (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice and America want my name to be included," Gul told a private Indian channel from Rawalpindi. He was reacting to a Washington Post report that said Pakistan has agreed to a 48-hour timetable set by India and US to take action against Lashkar-e-Toiba and arrest at least three Pakistanis believed to be linked to the Mumbai attacks.
Citing a top unnamed Pakistani official, the Post said among the people India asked Islamabad to arrest and hand over is the former ISI Director Gul. "The US doesn't like this loud voice in which I condemn them, their aggression, their oppression, their invasion over Afghanistan and lies in Iraq. I expose them, their 9/11 was a fraud, it was an inside job," he told NDTV.
"I want to say to the Indian public and the Indian leadership please don't fall into their trap, look at what they have done to us, they are deceitful and they will use you for their own purpose," he said.
No more "India will give its land when it will be divided into many pieces. India will have to break. If India does not give us our land we will go to war and divide India." Hamid?
On his links with the Pakistani spy agency, Gul said: "I left the ISI 20 years ago ... I have no contact with ISI." The former ISI head claimed that the US now wanted Indian troops to be "committed" to Afghanistan "because they have run short of their own troops and NATO is pulling out." Asked whether he will cooperate with India in probe into the deadly attacks, Gul said he is ready to help if his government tells him to do so. However, he said New Delhi [Images] should show "more sagacity" in dealing with Islamabad.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/07/2008 08:31 ||
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India's foreign minister said on Sunday that Pakistani reports about a hoax call made in his name during the Mumbai siege were an attempt to divert blame for the attacks.
The call, from someone claiming to be Pranab Mukherjee to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, put Pakistan on high alert of a military strike by India while militants were still fighting security forces in Mumbai. The caller told Zardari that India would take military action if Islamabad did not hand over those behind the attacks, Pakistani newspapers reported on Saturday.
"I had made no such telephone call," Mukherjee said in a statement explaining how India rushed to clarify that the call was a hoax. "I can only ascribe this series of events to those in Pakistan who wish to divert attention from the fact that a terrorist group operating from Pakistani territory planned and launched a ghastly attack on Mumbai."
Pakistan responded to the hoax call by putting its air force on stand-by, and the incident triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity as world leaders feared a row between the nuclear-armed rivals could lead to war.
Mukherjee said it was "worrying" that Pakistan could "even consider acting on the basis of such a hoax call".
In another sign of how high cross-border tension rose last week, Pakistan's ambassador to Britain said international diplomats also feared India was about to launch a military strike on Pakistan. "There was circumstantial evidence that India was going to make a quick strike against Pakistan to teach her a lesson," Wajid Shamsul Hassan, Pakistan's high commissioner to London, told the BBC. "This is what we were told by our friends -- that there could possibly be a quick strike at some of the areas they suspect to be the training camps, an air raid or something of that sort," he said on Saturday.
The US sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India and Pakistan last week to keep a lid on tensions between the neighbours, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
Pakistan has repeatedly called for " concrete proof " from India, which says the only gunman captured alive has admitted that all the attackers had come from across the border.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign ministry on Sunday dismissed as "rubbish" reports that it had agreed to a 48-hour timetable to take action against Pakistanis accused of involvement in the attacks. The Washington Post said on Saturday that Pakistan had agreed to a deadline imposed by the United States and India to arrest three people, including the head of the Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba group alleged to be behind the strikes.
Indian police resumed interrogation on Sunday of two men arrested on suspicion of providing mobile phone SIM cards to the attackers. One was reported to be from Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed in whole by each. Both men are said to be Indian nationals.
Suspicion in the Mumbai attacks has fallen on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has fought Indian rule in Kashmir and was blamed for a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.
Pakistan, a supposed close US ally in the "war on terror," is half-heartedly fighting its own brutal Islamist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives, and officials seemingly reject claims that the government supports terror groups.
But elements in the country's powerful military intelligence service are widely suspected of at least tacitly supporting some militant groups.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/07/2008 08:13 ||
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LAHORE, Pakistan -- For a suspected terrorist watched by Washington and wanted in New Delhi, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed seems remarkably carefree. He lives openly in Lahore, and on Friday, he led prayers at his group's mosque, lecturing about sacrifice to almost 10,000 followers as three armed men stood behind him.
The extradition of Saeed, founder of the Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or "army of the pure," was demanded by Indian authorities after the 60-hour siege in Mumbai that killed at least 171 people. He is a suspect in several other attacks in India; the U.S. has listed both Lashkar and its parent group, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as terrorist organizations.
But Saeed's apparently lax treatment in Pakistan highlights the challenge facing the fledgling civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani: how to restrain militant groups once and still supported by the security forces but now refueling animosity with Pakistan's archfoe India and immense new pressure from the U.S.
Without directly pointing fingers on her visit to Islamabad last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded Pakistan actively respond to India's allegations that Lashkar or other Pakistani militants were responsible for the Mumbai attacks.
Lashkar and other groups were founded in the 1980s and early 1990s with the help of the military and spy agencies to fight in the conflict over Indian-controlled Kashmir, disputed since the independence of Pakistan and India in 1947. Although Pakistan banned the groups in 2002, most kept operating and just took new names.
For many Pakistanis, Saeed, 63, is a hero. His group, which reverted to its original name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa after being banned, now professes to perform only charity work.
Just providing a little help for the Widows Ammunition Fund ...
His group's spokesman claims that Saeed is barely involved with Lashkar and describes the group as based in India. And while he has been placed under house arrest several times in the past, Saeed is allowed to go wherever he wants nowadays.
The country's powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, helped create most of the Kashmiri groups, experts say. But it's not clear what role the ISI or the army have had with the groups recently. Most analysts doubt any government agency had a role in the Mumbai attacks, although rogue and former government operatives may have been involved.
Since winning power, the civilian leaders, have tried to rein in the ISI. Last summer they attempted, without success, to place the agency under the control of the Interior Ministry. They also nominated a new ISI chief, considered a U.S. ally, and pushed to dismantle the agency's political wing.
Analysts said that it was extremely unlikely that Pakistan would turn over Saeed or 19 other men on India's wanted list, or two Lashkar leaders Indian authorities say masterminded the Mumbai attacks. If they did so the already weak government would face a major backlash.
Saeed and the Jamaat group are very popular in Lahore. On Thursday, the group's spokesman offered reporters a tour at the group's elaborate compound outside the city.
At Friday prayers, everyone waited quietly to hear every word Saeed said. According to a Pakistani journalist who heard the sermon, Saeed said Muslims should not fear bloodshed nor sacrificing themselves for Islam but denied that Jamaat-ud-Dawa had anything to do with the attacks in Mumbai.
He is hardly the only militant wanted by the Indian government who appears to operate freely in public in Pakistan. Maulana Masood Azhar, a militant leader released by India in exchange for hostages on a hijacked airliner in 1999, is building a giant mosque in Bahawalpur.
Jamaat also seems more out in the open than ever, even though many experts say the group uses relief work to recruit new militants. Last month, it held two large meetings in Lahore's Punjab province, the first large meetings Jamaat held since Lashkar was banned. Saeed talked about the idea of jihad, and some women were so impressed with his speeches that they gave the group their gold jewelry, said Jamaat spokesman Muhammad Yahya Mujahid.
There are now also posters, even in relatively moderate Lahore, advertising the group. One billboard proclaimed: "We can sacrifice our lives to preserve the holiness of the prophet."
This article starring:
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed
Maulana Masood Azhar
Posted by: john frum ||
12/07/2008 07:58 ||
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#1
Perhaps now would be a good time to help our Indian friends learn to fly drones. Just like Allah's Angels of Death, these things rain down from on high and they is no way to escape their destruction.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/07/2008 10:24 Comments ||
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Governor NWFP Amir Haider Hoti, condemned the blast carried out at Mohammad Ali Johar Road on Wednesday, terming it as inhuman. Amir Haider Hoti stated this while paying a visit to Government Lady Reading Hospital where he visited the injured of the blast. He said it was the handiwork of those elements who were carrying out terrorism in the tribal areas. The Chief Minister said although it was difficult to prevent terrorism, it was not entirely impossible to stop it. He said the provincial government was taking measures to strengthen the hands of police, adding that funds allocated for undertaking development work would be reduced and used for improving the law and order situation in the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
No sh*t, and here I thought it were pro-state elements.
Pakistan High Commissioner in Britain, Wajid Shams-ul-Hasan Saturday said it is likely that Inida may launch an offensive against Pakistan. He said some of his friends had cautioned that there is a risk of a military assault against Pakistan from India. Wajid Shams-ul-Hasan said there could be a limited air strikes in some of the areas of Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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A week after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Indian officials on Friday stepped up their efforts to draw a connection between the violence and Pakistani government agencies.
In New Delhi, a high-level source in the Indian government, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said India has "clear and incontrovertible proof" that an Islamist militant group based in Pakistan, Lashkar-i-Taiba, planned the attacks and that the group's leaders were trained and supported by Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI.
"We have the names of the handlers. And we know that there is a close relationship between the Lashkar and the ISI," the source said.
U.S. intelligence officials, however, were more cautious in their interpretation of the evidence. Although U.S. analysts acknowledged historical ties between Lashkar and ISI, as well as more recent contacts between militants and Pakistani intelligence officers, they said they were not convinced that Pakistan supported the attacks in any significant way.
"Even if there were contacts between ISI and Lashkar-i-Taiba, it's not the same as saying there was ISI support," said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official would not dismiss the possibility that further evidence would reveal active ISI involvement but said: "The evidence we've seen so far does not get you there."
Indian and U.S. investigators have identified Yusuf Muzammil, a Lashkar-i-Taiba leader, as the mastermind behind the attacks, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Pakistan to hand him and other suspects over. Pakistan denies any involvement in the attacks and has called on India to divulge its evidence.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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Islamist militants who attacked Mumbai and killed more than 160 people probably took drugs to stay alert throughout their murderous siege, a report quoting senior police officials said Saturday.
Police said 10 gunmen who held hostages at two hotels and a Jewish prayer centre for 60 hours last week had likely taken amphetamines to remain alert without food or sleep for long stretches, the Hindustan Times reported.
"We believe that the terrorists had consumed amphetamines," the Hindustan Times quoted deputy police commissioner Vishwas Nagre Paril of the anti-narcotics division as saying.
Amphetamines, which are readily available on the sub-continent, would have kept the men awake, alert and focused, and suppressed their appetites, said Rajendra Chikle, a police inspector from the same division. He told the newspaper amphetamines also heightened the senses so the "terrorist hence can hear the noise of the lowest decibel and remain awake for a very long time".
Media reports have said that an autopsy on one of the militants had found his stomach empty, indicating he had not eaten for days and raising suspicions that the attackers were on drugs.
Earlier this week the Indian Express said the body parts of Abu Dera Ismael Khan had been kept at Mumbai's Nair hospital for further tests.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
i thought it was nagainst islamic law too take drugs?
Washington should respect Pakistan's sovereignty, ex-PM Nawaz Sharif said after meeting with the defeated US Presidential Candidate Johan McCain.
"The repeated US air strikes into our territory are tantamount to waging a war against 160 million population of Pakistan", Sharif told a press conference on Saturday, a Press TV correspondent reported. He said the use of force was not the solution to root out the menace of terrorism, adding, the US should respect Pakistan's territorial sanctity.
Just like Pakistain respects the territorial sanctity of Afghanistan and India ...
The only option to address the problem of terrorism is peaceful negotiations with stakeholders in the tribal areas," PML-N chief added.
He said that government should adopt a clear cut policy, towards US-led war on terror, "a policy which represents the sentiments and wishes of Pakistani nation".
The US drone attacks have become an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan where anti-American sentiment is rising. Islamabad has repeatedly protested against the attacks and has called for a halt to the raids. More than 400 people - among them civilians as well as suspected militants - have been killed in the attacks in the tribal belt.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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The lone gunman to survive the Mumbai terror attacks was a petty street thug from a dusty Pakistani outpost who was systematically programmed into a highly trained suicide guerrilla over 18 months in jihadist camps, India's top investigator into the attacks said Saturday.
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, was one of the 10 men who came ashore on a small rubber raft Nov. 26, divided into five pairs and attacked some of Mumbai's best known and most beloved landmarks.
Kasab and his partner rampaged through the city's main train terminal, then shot up a police station and a hospital, carjacked a police van--killing the city's counterterrorism chief and four other police inside--and stole a second car. They finally were brought to a halt in a shootout that killed Kasab's partner and left Kasab with bullet wounds in both hands and a minor wound in his neck, said Rakesh Maria, the chief police investigator on the case.
Photographs of Kasab walking calmly through the train station with his assault rifle made him a symbol of the attacks.
In the days since Kasab's capture, police have repeatedly interrogated him about his background, his training and the details of the attack. Maria declined to divulge the interrogation methods, saying only that Kasab was "fairly forthcoming."
Kasab said he was one of five children of Mohammed Amir Kasab, a poor street food vendor in the Pakistani town of Farid Kot, Maria said.
But residents of the impoverished town of 7,000 people, 90 miles south of the Pakistani city of Lahore, said they had never heard of Kasab or his father. "Absolutely wrong, we don't know Mohammed Ajmal Kasab and no person having such name lives here," said butcher Mohammed Ramzan, 60. Ramzan said he had seen Kasab's photo on TV and was certain he had never seen him before.
Mayor Ghulam Mustafa said police and investigators from Pakistan's spy agencies had also investigated the gunman's link to the town and found nothing.
Maria said that as a teenager, Kasab become a low-level thief, robbing people at knifepoint. But he dreamed of starting his own gang, and began poking around Lahore, trying to buy guns. He was put in touch with a man who offered to send him for weapons training, and he readily agreed, Maria said.
Kasab soon found himself in a camp run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, Maria said. Lashkar, a banned Pakistani militant group, has alleged ties to Pakistan's powerful intelligence agencies.
Though he had always been a religious Muslim, Kasab had never ascribed to the violent ideology of some extremist groups, Maria said.
That quickly changed in the camp.
"The moment he came under their wings, the indoctrination started. And that's when he decided there should be some meaning to his life and jihad (holy war) was his calling," he said.
For 18 months, Kasab was put through a multiphase training program at different camps in Pakistan. It started with physical fitness and jihadi indoctrination, proceeded to small arms lessons, moved on to explosives training and eventually to classes in the handling assault rifles, Maria said. He was also trained in how to navigate a boat.
The training was done in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and the mountain town of Mansehra, in Pakistan's deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, which was a center of training for Kashmiri militants before Pakistan began its peace process with India. Some was also done in Murdike, the base of the Islamist charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which has been accused by the U.S. of being the front group for Lashka-e-Taiba.
Three months before the attack, Kasab, along with nine other men he had never met, were put in isolation in a house in Pakistan and trained for the assault on Mumbai by three or four operatives, Maria said.
The 10 men were divided into teams of two and each was given a target. Kasab and his partner were assigned the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station. They were shown maps of the area on the internet and quizzed on detailed photographs of the station that appeared to have been taken by an accomplice in Mumbai, Maria said.
Their mission was "to open indiscriminate fire at CST, take people hostage, go to a vantage point and prolong the siege as long as they could," Maria said. After killing dozens of people, the two men abandoned the station under police pressure and continued their killing spree outside, he said.
The other teams--two targeting the Taj Mahal hotel, one the Oberoi hotel and one a Jewish center--also studied detailed photos and were given the same instructions, Maria said.
All the men were given fake IDs from Indian universities to confuse authorities about the source of the attacks, Maria said. None expected to survive the attack, he said: "It was a suicide mission."
Under questioning, Kasab has steered authorities to the Indian boat the men hijacked to get to Mumbai, told them where to find their GPS trackers and satellite phone and divulged the real names of his nine fellow gunmen, Maria said.
Maria declined to reveal the names Kasab gave of his recruiters and contacts in Lashkar, saying he was waiting for independent verification. But he said everything else Kasab said has checked out.
This article starring:
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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Democratic [sic] presidential candidate in the recent US elections and US senator John McCain has said that America's new management would respect the sovereignty of Pakistan.
He said that during his presidential campaign, he had opposed the violation of Pakistan borders.
He said this during a meeting with prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani here on Saturday. On this occasion, senator McCain also said that the Pressler amendment was a blunder. He said that during his presidential campaign, he had opposed the violation of Pakistan borders. Regarding Mumbai carnage, Yousuf Raza Gilani said that Pakistan had offered India the setting up a joint commission. The prime minister reiterated his resolve that the Pakistan territory would not be allowed to be used for terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Shut up, John.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2008 0:29 Comments ||
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#5
Now, now, he's the fella saying nice things in public, and likely nasty things in private. Politicians and diplomats frequently say bland, stoopid stuff in public; that's their job.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/07/2008 1:31 Comments ||
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#6
Respect that the borders are inviolable, or that there are areas within those borders where the Pakistani government does actually exercise some measure of control that ought to be acknowledged? Senator McCain is a politician; blunt-spoken as he can be, I'm sure he can also be diplomatic when he thinks that is called for. For a given definition of diplomatic, I mean.
#7
This is a Pakistani sopurce putting spin on whatever he said. Here is what it sounds like in India.
US Senator John McCain has said he believes that if Pakistan does not act against individuals and groups linked to the Mumbai terror attacks, it could be a "matter of days" before India carries out surgical strikes against such elements. There is enough evidence of the involvement of former Inter-Services Intelligence officers in the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks and terrorist training camps are still operational in Pakistan, McCain told a small group of senior Pakistani journalists at an informal lunch in Lahore yesterday. Ejaz Haider, a senior editor with the Daily Times group, quoted McCain as saying that he believed it could be a "matter of days" before India carried out surgical air strikes if Pakistan did not act on the evidence provided to it on elements linked to the attacks.
#8
So the foriegners are confused as to what party McCain is too.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
12/07/2008 7:58 Comments ||
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#9
How about promising to stop, but not stopping, just stop claiming credit. These Fackers live by lying to themselves and everyone else, give them their own shiite right back!
Of course Syed, we'll cease blowing terrorists up in your homeland "BOOOM" - that wasn't us. See, we can all just get along.
The NWFP government has 'lost control' of Swat district, Awami National Party (ANP) Senior Vice President Haji Adeel said on Saturday.
What was your first clue, Your Enormity?
The ANP leader also questioned the role of thousands of army and paramilitary troops engaged in combatting militancy in the valley for more than a year. "What will be the credibility of the military operation in Swat when houses of ministers are destroyed and their family members are queued up for shooting," Adeel said at a one-day seminar organised by the Joint Action Committee.
"What I see is that the situation has gone out of control of both the federal and provincial governments and the people have lost confidence in the government and the army," Adeel said. The ANP leader said that in spite of the fact that Swat did not share a border with Afghanistan, it was still restive, adding that the armed forces failed to control the Taliban. He once again offered an olive branch to the Taliban and said the ANP government in NWFP was ready to revive the May 21 peace agreement if the Taliban agreed to lay down weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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The United States is dusting off a long-discarded proposal to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism. But with the Bush administration now in its final six weeks in office, a decision in this regard is being left to the incoming Obama government, sources said, contingent on corrective actions taken in the meantime by Islamabad to the satisfaction of India, US and other countries affected by Pakistan's toxic export of death. Welcome to DC, Zero. Now let's hear more of that that tough talk about invading Pakiland.
The White House itself lost faith in the Pakistan Army's bonafides several months ago which led to Washington's decision to withdraw support to military ruler Pervez Musharraf and back a new civilian government, officials and congressional aides who spoke on background explained. The decision to dump Musharraf was taken at vice-president Dick Cheney recommendation, they added, because of evidence that Pakistan was continuing to help Taliban elements attacking Nato forces. Nice going away gift. Teach you to be careful what you wish for. On the other hand, anonymous sources laying it all at the evil Cheney's feet doesn't build credibility.
Washington has little doubt that the terrorist attack on Mumbai was sponsored and planned with state support, US officials are saying privately. One things is certain; this was not a run-of-the mill LeT operation.
"I think this event looks a lot more like a classical Special Forces or commando-style raid than it does like any terrorist attack we've seen before," David Kilcullen, a counter insurgency military analyst who served as an advisor to Gen. Davis Petraeus tells Fareed Zakaria in the upcoming edition of his program GPS, articulating what US officials are saying in private. "No al-Qaida-linked terrorist group and certainly never Lashkar-e-Taiba has mounted a maritime raid of this type or complexity."
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Nash, who worked with the Afghan police, made a widely discussed slide presentation on his return to Washington, saying "ISI involved in direct support to many enemy operations ... classification prevents further discussion of this point." The support included "training, funding, [and] logistics," he added.
But the most damning, and most recent, piece of evidence came after the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul when US intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack. The messages, US officials said later, indicated that the ISI officers involved in the bombings were not "renegades," or "stateless actors," and "their actions might have been authorized by superiors."
Washington now believes that is also the case with Mumbai, which is why, notwithstanding a soft public stance, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has conveyed to President Zardari what her predecessor Baker told Nawaz Sharif: Pakistan is on track to being declared a state sponsor of terrorism if it does not act.
It was because of this long history of Pakistan's corrosive terrorist record that an outraged Rice dismissed Islamabad's request for evidence this time, saying, there is a "lot of information about what happened here, a lot of information... And so this isn't an issue of sharing evidence."
#1
I've got this nasty itch on the back of my skull that says Mumbai was just a rehearsal for a larger raid "elsewhere". I would say the US was the logical target, and Obama's inauguration would be the planned event to disrupt. However, I don't believe it's JUST the US that's being targeted. We may see multiple, coordinated hits in several capitals around the globe. I do hope our intelligence services are on the ball.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/07/2008 21:48 Comments ||
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THE head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear activity have been a failure.
"We haven't really moved one inch toward addressing the issues," said Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in the Los Angeles Times. "I think so far the policy has been a failure."
Oh, you really think so? Thanks for speaking up AFTER the American election, jerk.
Iran has faced three sets of UN security council sanctions over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment activities, but over the past five years Tehran has pressed on with its controversial nuclear work.
Demonstrating, as Saddam did, that UN sanctions are toothless and aren't worth the effort.
The IAEA said last month Iran had more than 5000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in operation.
Mr ElBaradei, 66, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and frequent critic of the administration of US president George W. Bush and its hardline approach to nuclear talks, said White House successor President-elect Barack Obama gave him "lots of hope".
"He is ready to talk to his adversaries, enemies, if you like, including Iran, also (North) Korea," he said of Mr Obama, who has advocated the abolishment of nuclear weapons and more dialogue with political foes. "To continue to pound the table and say 'I am not going to talk to you' and act in a sort of a very condescending way - that exaggerates problems," he told the newspaper.
Because as we just demonstrated, talking will solve the most intractable problems ...
Mr ElBaradei, who has headed the IAEA for 11 years, said sanctions may have led to "more hardening of the position of Iran", the report said. "Many Iranians who even dislike the regime (are) gathering around the regime because they feel that country is under siege."
Then again, they may be losing hope since no one in the West will speak up for them ...
For the past year, we've been inundated with news of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al Sadr's power and influence. Last year, the American Spectator's George H. Wittman asked if Sadr was a kingmaker or a king. This spring, just days after the fighting in Basrah began, Time magazine's Charles Crain wrote an article explaining how Muqtada al Sadr won in Basrah.
Just before the fighting against the Mahdi Army began in lat March, Patrick Cockburn, The Independent's Middle East correspondent, lauded Sadr by saying the Shia "regard Muqtada as a sort of god." Sadr plays "a very critical role" in Iraqi politics, Cockburn told us. He is "the biggest Shia leader with the most popular support. If there were elections tomorrow he would probably sweep Shia Baghdad and most of the south."
How quickly the narrative on Sadr has changed. Today, the Washington Post describes a weakened Sadr, with a near-toothless political movement, struggling to find its path after suffering a stinging defeat after the passage of the Status of Forces agreement between the United States and Iraq.
The day after the agreement's passage, anger lined the face of Hazim al-Araji, Sadr's top aide. Inside a gold-domed shrine in Baghdad's Kadhimiyah neighborhood, he railed against Iraq's lawmakers. "They ignored our ideas and thoughts when they signed this agreement," he said from his pulpit. "They paid no attention to all our martyrs who gave their blood fighting the occupation."
Araji, 39, stands at the center of Sadr's efforts to shape his followers into a religious and social movement that can maintain his popularity. In interviews across Baghdad and in the Shiite religious heartland of Najaf, where Shiite groups are vying for their community's leadership, Sadrists insist they still have the power to divide Iraq or keep it together.
Melding Koranic verse with political invective, Araji urged the crowd to resist the pact and their movement's foes. "Iraq has been killed! Iraq has been sold!" he thundered. "America is now the enemy of God."
The congregation of a few thousand was smaller than usual, a sign of the Sadrists' uncertain future.
The decline in Sadr's power and influence began long before the Iraqi government's offensive to drive his Mahdi Army from the streets of Basrah, Baghdad, and the cities of central and southern Iraq. Despite media accounts to the contrary, Sadr declared a six-month ceasefire in Najaf in August 2007 because his forces suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of the Iraqi security forces when his thuggish Mahdi Army initiated fighting during a religious festival. Despite the ceasefire, U.S. and Iraqi forces continued to dismantle Sadr's Iranian-backed Mahdi Army. In February, Sadr renewed the ceasefire as Iraqi and U.S. forces stepped up pressure and targeted senior Mahdi Army ands Sadrist leaders.
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki became overconfident and jumped the gun in late March, launching an offensive to clear besieged Basrah of the Mahdi Army. The initial offensive stumbled, but elite Iraqi units, more than a division's worth, were rushed to Basrah. Sadr soon capitulated. The fighting spread to Sadr City, but the Mahdi Army relented after suffering staggering casualties during six weeks of fighting. Sadr then ordered the disbandment of the Mahdi Army and pulled the Sadrist movement from the upcoming election. Still, Iraqi security forces pressed against the Mahdi Army in southern and central Iraq.
Sadr's militia was systematically being taken apart for well over a year, and his political capital started to wane during that time. The vote over the status of forces agreements showed just how isolated and out of the mainstream the Sadrist movement is in Iraqi politics. Of the 199 votes cast, 149 voted for the agreement, 35 voted against, and 15 abstained. Thirty of the votes against the agreement came from the Sadrist bloc. All of the signs of the demise of Sadr and his movement have been there. The media either missed it, or chose to ignore it, until now.
#2
It's time for Sadr to get his teeth fixed and to look for a new job. This one is about over.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/07/2008 10:19 Comments ||
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#3
Atari Boy was an outgrowth of US passivity and Iraqi chaos.
He actually lost most of his military cred long ago, when his guys were routed from Najaf and Karbala (2004). That was the first of a perfect record of no wins in every confrontation with the US.
His influence grew mostly due to US inactivity during the barbarous Sunni terror offensive of 2005-2006. Iraqi Shi'a who loathed him and his ilk for all of the conventional reasons (they were seen as underclass thugs and gangsters, and tools of Iran's IRGC), in their desperation, came to support him, if only briefly (I saw this with my own eyes).
Once we re-seized the initiative, the JAM's days were numbered (that is, as anything more than a drug or oil smuggling gangster outfit). Then we finally adopted a delicious, almost Israeli-bold strategy of publicly praising the cease-fire (which was a surrender, like the "stand-off" in the south in '04) while continuing to pick his organization apart, esp. his most Iranian-linked elements, at our leisure. Recall how MNF-I consistently referred to "rogue" or "break-away" elements as the targets of our ops?
Naturally the whole time the "press" talked of him and his outfit in terms that were utterly delusional (hopeful?). Nice to know many of us saw it clearly from the start. Still an inexcusable outrage that we allowed him to become more than a rabble-rouser through our passivity during the "lost years," which of course also put the entire enterprise in peril.
Aswat al-Iraq: A number of citizens from Basra, Tikrit, and Missan expressed belief that sentences issued by the Supreme Criminal Court against suspects in the 1991 al-Intifada al-Shaabaniya case are 'just', others considered them as 'political', and most of them agreed that Ali Hassan al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali, deserves the death sentence.
"The death sentence issued against Ali Hassan al-Majid is considered as a strong slap on the face of those who perpetrated crimes against the Iraqi people. He was like Hitler and this is a just sentence," Mustafa Karim, a Basrian citizen, told Aswat al-Iraq.
Another citizen from Basra, Ali Salman, agreed with Karim, saying "it was a just sentence for what al-Majid perpetrated against hundreds of Iraqi people. Everyone watched him on television beating and killing citizens during al-Intifada."
For his part, Abdullah al-Jasem, retired brigadier from Tikrit, told Aswat al-Iraq, "the sentences have political aim to retaliate from the former army leaders."
Hussein al-Ubeid, a professor at the Tikrit University, said "we expect the sentences, however some sentences were surprise."
He pointed out that al-Tikriti deserves to die for killing hundreds of Iraqis. "Most of the suspects are military officers who implement orders and it is not logic to convict them for crimes made by politicians," he explained.
Udai Abdul Khaleq, a teacher from Missan, told Aswat al-Iraq "television helped citizens to follow the case," noting that the case proved that Chemical Ali was the mastermind if several violations and killing operations against innocent Iraqis. "He deserves the life sentence," he asserted.
"This was a day of justice," Abbas Fakher from Missan said. "Those who killed innocent people must be killed," Fakher underlined. "It is a day of joy and victory for all Iraqis," he pointed out.
Last Tuesday, the Supreme Criminal Court sentenced to death Ali Hassan al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali; and Abdul Ghani Abdul Ghafour, a former Baath Party official, after found guilty in the 1991 al-Intifada al-Shaabaniya case. Life sentences were handed down against Ibrahim Abdelsattar Mohammed; Iyad Fatieh al-Rawi, former chief of staff and a Republican Guard commander; Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, former assistant chief of staff; and Saber Abdul-Aziz al-Dori, the former chief of military intelligence.
Other defendants in the case are Abad Hamid Mahmud, Saddam's personal secretary; Sabaawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, former President Saddam Hussein's half brother; Iyad Taha Shehab, a former intelligence chief; Latif Mahal Hamoud, former Basra governor; Walied Hamid Tawfiq al-Naseri; Sufyan Maher al-Tikriti, a former Republican Guard commander; Saadi Taama Abbas, the former minister of defense; Saber Abdul-Aziz al-Dori, the former chief of military intelligence; and Qays Abdul Razzaq Mohammed al-Adhami, the commander of the Republican Guard Hamourabi forces.
The 1991 incidents, known in Arabic as the al-Intifada al-Shaabaniya, or the Shaaban uprising, were a series of rebellions in southern and northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The revolts in the predominantly Shiite cities of Basra and al-Nassiriya broke out in March 1991, sparked by demoralized Iraqi army troops returning from Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War. Another uprising in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq broke out shortly thereafter. Although they represented a serious threat to his regime, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was able to suppress the rebellions with massive force and maintain power, as the expected United States intervention never materialized. The uprisings were eventually crushed by the Iraqi Republican Guard, which was followed by mass reprisals and intensified forced relocations. In few weeks, tens of thousands of civilians were allegedly killed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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The Islamic Jihad on Saturday urged all Palestinian factions in the territories to immediately retaliate for the assaults on West Bank residents carried out by riotous settlers following the evacuation of a disputed home in the town of Hebron, Israeli media reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#3
A classic case of "Hey, let's you and him fight!" Might as well go ahead. It's not like the Israelis are strangers to kicking your asses. And with any luck, you'll have Rooters or an NGO in audience for another round of "Help, I'm being opressed!"
U.S. President George W. Bush said Friday that Iran's nuclear program remained a threat to peace and the United States would not allow Tehran to develop an atomic weapon.
The West has offered Iran diplomatic and economic incentives to suspend uranium enrichment and to support a civilian nuclear power program, Bush said in a speech released by the White House.
"While Iran has not accepted these offers, we have made our bottom line clear: For the safety of our people and the peace of the world, America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," Bush, who leaves office January 20, said in prepared remarks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2008 00:00 ||
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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.
THE British navy has completed a discreet clean-out of the senior figures involved in the debacle over the arrest by Iranian Revolutionary Guards of 15 British sailors and marines.
A week after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Indian officials on Friday stepped up their efforts to draw a connection between the violence and Pakistani government agencies.
Washington should respect Pakistan's sovereignty, ex-PM Nawaz Sharif said after meeting with the defeated US Presidential Candidate Johan McCain. 
Posted by Bill Roggio on December 5, 2008 
