Kabul's mayor on Friday offered to resign after President Hamid Karzai said there was corruption in city hall. Karzai told business leaders in a speech last week that bribe-taking city government officials were hurting the Afghan capital. The president did not mention Mayor Fazel Karim, but the mayor said he was "very upset" about the criticism and has not been to work in six days. "If he has problems with someone, it is better to talk to the responsible officials," Karim told The Associated Press at his home. "If he doesn't want me he can appoint someone else." When you do that in Afghanistan, generally the "responsible officials'" gunnies turn out and start shooting people up...
Karim, who previously served as mayor in the early 1990s, said he hoped to meet with Karzai again to discuss problems facing the war-ravaged Afghan capital.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:08 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has formally appointed the brother of his slain vice president as governor of the province of Nangarhar, officials said on Friday. Haji Deen Mohammad, brother of Haji Abdul Qadir, who was assassinated this month, had already declared himself governor five days before his official appointment, after Karzai had said the powerful family would be asked to fill the position. "Today he is formally appointed...discussions are going on regarding the vice-president's post," Karzai's spokesman Sayed Fazal Akbar said. Might as well keep it in the family. And it does avoid those tiresome shootouts...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:08 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Mullah Omar has pledged that Taliban would soon come back to power and resume governing Afghanistan.In his message distributed in Khost and Kandahar through audio tapes and pamphlets the Taliban Supreme Commander said that day is not far when Taliban will be in the high echelons of government and manage all its functionaries. In his message the Supreme Commander cleared to get back all lost Islamic values that once prevailed in their regime. The supreme commander criticised the recent trends in Afghanistan and also warned all those who are following them. As a result of this message political uncertainty has once again gripped Afghanistan. It has been learnt that Afghan Commanders Lamdan, Kabir Ain Uddin and Abdul Wahid have left Khandar and are reported to be in the forests of Ghulistan. Eyewitnesses have also reported that Mullah Omar and his companions are seeing roaming around freely in Afghanistan without any bodyguards and are often seen offering prayers on the graveyards of martyred. If a true story, which I'd tend to doubt, it sure would be nice to know just where he's roaming about all footloose and fancy free. Betcha somebody else's wedding would be disrupted...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 10:08 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Bush administration is moving forward aggressively with planning to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, laying the groundwork for a possible U.S.-led invasion early next year, according to senior U.S. officials and individuals involved in the planning. Under one scenario being discussed at the Pentagon, a force of 250,000 to 300,000 U.S. troops would invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam, backed by massive airstrikes. Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar have indicated they would allow their territory to be used for an attack. But some civilian aides to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are pushing for a quicker â and, critics say, riskier â thrust in an attempt to catch Saddam off guard. That strategy would involve roughly 80,000 troops and could be in place by this fall. "If it happened in October, I wouldn't be completely surprised," said one official involved in the planning. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity. Or it could be a completely indiginous operation, with an army recruited and trained by the Iraqi National Congress. Or it could be the same, only made up of Kurds. Or Turkomans. Or we could have a nightime paradrop of 25,000 troops at strategic locations throughout the country and in effect stage a coup d'etat using our own forces. Or we could hire the whole thing out to Senegal, cuz they could use the money.
That's today's authoritative war plan wrapup from Rantburg. Tune in again tomorrow for more news you can rely on!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:16 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Just thought I'd make my contribution to the continuing blizzard of war plans for Iraq. Doesn't matter if they make any sense...
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2002 11:06 Comments ||
Top||
The Iranian State Broadcaster, IRIB, showed TV images of liberal dissident Siamak Pourzand on Thursday apparently 'confessing' to promoting western culture, violating Islamic principles, as well as cooperating with the CIA, other Western Intelligence Agencies and Reza Pahlavi's office. The 71 year old's own words weren't actually broadcast, and he was merely quoted by a voice over. He was alleged to have made the comments in an interview with state news agencies including IRNA (The Iranian News Agency) and ISNA (The Student News Agency). He was quoted as having confessed to working with Western Intelligence Agencies and Monarchists before and after the revolution. The voice over said that Pourzand confessed to "promoting western values" against the Islamic Republic through "a chain of publications and cultural centers" with these "activities leading to some successes." To authoritarian theocrats, this looked like a really good idea. I suspect it doesn't to a large percentage of Persians.
In Iran today, the people have the right to be devout Muslims and to support the government, or at least the conservative theocrat side of it. Under the repressive regime of the shah, Iranians had the right to be devout Muslims, Ba'hais, Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, or nothin' special. The right to support the government, while pretty strictly enforced by western lights, wasn't as strictly enforced as it is today.
Persians as a group aren't stupid, and even though many of them have been born into the current system, they're still seeing peeks at the rest of the world. They also read their own history, even though distorted through the Islamic lens. From its inception, from the time of Cyrus, Persia was tolerant of other religions and cultures â it had to be because it absorbed so many of them. A year from now, or five years from now, or even ten, Persians will look back on this and try and figure how the hell they got stuck with such a nasty regime.
Meanwhile, today, the ayatollahs are standing in front of the teleprompter, scratching their turbans as they prepare to address the nation, asking each other, "What the hell does mene mene tekel upharsin mean?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:35 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
A Sudanese minister called on neighbouring Egypt on Friday to help preserve Sudan's unity, despite a peace deal which offers the south the option of breaking away through a future referendum. Sudanese Agriculture and Forests Minister Mazjoub al-Khalifa Ahmed said Egypt, which will join the next round of peace talks, had an interest in preserving the unity of Africa's largest country after 19 years of civil war. "The points of view between Egypt and Sudan are consistent on Sudan's unity. Egypt must stand with us to face this challenge," Ahmed told reporters in Cairo where he arrived for a meeting on Sunday of a top Egyptian-Sudanese committee. They can "support" unity all they want, but if Sudan breaks apart because one bunch can't get along with the other, they'll have to "support" that, as well. I think all they're going to get out of Egypt is a bit of prestige. I suspect southern Sudan will one day become something similar to Eritrea.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:53 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Greek police continued penetrating the inner circle of the deadly November 17 terror group Friday, arresting a man who allegedly helped mastermind a 27-year campaign of violence while running a ceramics shop in central Athens. The suspect, identified by Greek media as Nikos Papanastasiou, 50, is believed to have helped create the group that emerged in 1975 with the ambush slaying of the CIA station chief in Athens, Richard Welch. "Hey, Nikos! Whaddya wanna do tonight?"
"I dunno, Alexandros. Whaddya you wanna do?"
"Howzabout we get all our relatives together and kill everybody we don't like?"
"Hokay."
Another alleged founder - 58-year-old Alexandros Giotopoulos - already is in custody and accused by one suspect of pulling the trigger on the CIA's Richard Welch outside a Christmas party. Giotopoulos denies any connection to the terrorist organization. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't me."
November 17 is linked to 23 slayings, including Welch and three other Americans. Its most recent victim was British defense attache Brig. Stephen Saunders in June 2000. On Friday, a hospital telephone operator accused of being November 17's second-in-command admitted being a lookout during Welch's killing and said the triggerman was Giotopoulos, judicial sources said Friday. The surprise, late-night confession by Pavlos Serifis, 46, added important details about the ambush killing that launched a 27-year string of assassinations, bombings and robberies by the once-untouchable group. Serifis also said he was a lookout during the 1980 slayings of two Greek policemen and said Giotopoulos was one of the two assassins, judicial sources said on condition of anonymity. Serifis, who worked at an Athens children's hospital, at first denied any link to November 17 after his arrest Wednesday in the northern city of Karditsa. "Nope. Not me..."
But late Thursday, he began detailing his involvement in Welch's killing in a confession ending just before dawn Friday, the judicial sources said. "I confess! I dunnit! I dunnit and I'm glad! Glad, y'hear me! Bwaaahahahahaha!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 09:35 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The trial of four men accused of gang-raping a woman on the orders of a traditional village jury began in Pakistan Friday. Shackled in handcuffs and chained together, the four emerged from the back of a police van with their co-accused and were led into the courtroom in the regional center of Dera Ghazi Khan. Three other men are also charged in connection with the rape, which happened in a remote village in southern Punjab where women are often the pawns in feudal disputes driven by honor and revenge. And the rest of the time they're breeding stock...
Abdul Khaliq, Ghulam Farid, Faiz Mohammad and Allah Ditta, aged between 20 and 40, deny the charges against them. "Nope. Wudn't us..."
"None of the seven accused is guilty," said defense lawyer Malik Mohammad Saleem. Pure as they driven snow. They wuz just walkin' down the street, see? An' this here woman, she jumps out, and she rapes them! Yeah! That's what happened...
"This is a case of 'hang them first, try them later'," his aide added. "There was not a single eyewitness to the rape." "I mean, the woman was there, but what the hell good is her word?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:08 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Snuffies suspected separatist guerrillas® ventilated with extreme prejudice three members of Kashmir's ruling party, police said Friday, on the eve of a visit to South Asia by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Oh, wotta surprise!
The attacks came ahead of Powell's weekend visit aimed at calming tension between the nuclear rivals over Kashmir and nudging them toward peace talks. Militant assaults in Kashmir often surge before or during trips to South Asia by diplomatic envoys. Y'don't say? We'd never have noticed that...
Crazed killers militants shot dead two National Conference activists at Bachipora.
Gunnies in the nearby village of Kantbagh killed another National Conference party activist Thursday night. That's three dead pols...
Two members of the outlawed Al-Badr militant group were killed in a fierce gun battle in Budgam district. Gun battles are seldom desultory or gentle...
Police said two policemen and two Bad Guys were killed in a gun battle Friday in Anantnag district, south of Srinagar.
Islamic Heroes abducted and beheaded a retired soldier in Poonch district, southwest of Srinagar. That's cuz cutting people's heads off is just soooo Islamic. Gets you a couple extra virgins when your picture goes on the shaheed poster...
Elsewhere, three Bad Guys and a civilian have been killed in separate shootouts since Thursday evening.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 08:09 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Mutahidda Jihad Council (MJC), a conglomerate of 15 Jihadi organisations fighting Indian rule in occupied Kashmir, on Thursday warned New Delhi to stop its oppression in Held Kashmir, otherwise Jihadis would widen their struggle to India. "Can't get a war going between Pak and India any other way, guess we'll try it this way..."
''Freedom fighters would launch the Jihad in India as a revenge, if New Delhi donât stop its brutalities and atrocities against the innocent people in the Occupied Kashmir,'' vowed Syed Salahuddin, chief of MJC. Salahuddin said that India would have to pay a heavy price, if it harms any Kashmir leader, currently languishing in Indian prison cells. That's cuz revenge is one of the central tenets of Islam. It sez so right in the Koran someplace. You could look it up.
Salahuddin, who is also amir of Hizbul Mujahideen, was of the view that he believed that Pakistan could not think about compromising on Kashmir issue. ''India has never recognised Pakistan from the core of its heart and Kashmir freedom movement is Pakistanâs first defence line and if this line breaks then Islamabad will have to fight this war inside its territory,'' he warned. He's probably right. Deep down, I think India regards Pakistan as its low-rent district, where they put the goofs when the Brits left. That's gotta hurt the Paks' misplaced pride, especially since the Indos are right...
Responding to another question, he claimed that freedom fighters have enough technology and weaponry to fight the war against India for a long time.''Kashmiris have an easy access of supply of arms even from the Indian side and other areas,'' he continued. All it takes is a pot full of money, and Soddy Arabia's got lotsa that...
About forthcoming Indian-sponsored elections in the Held Valley, he said that Kashmiris had outrightly rejected the election ''drama'' by New Delhi, saying such polls cannot be a substitute to plebiscite. ''The solution of this long-standing and lingering lies in the implementation of the United Nations resolutions or through tripartite talks among Pakistan, India and Kashmiri representatives,'' he pointed out. Actually, the Indos should go ahead and hold the plebiscite. Get the damned thing out of the way, whichever way it falls. If the Kashmiris want to be part of Pakland, that's their tough luck. If they want to be part of India, then India will probably have to fight a war with the Paks to enforce it, but they'll be able to point with pride, etc., etc. And if the Kashmiris want to be independent, let 'em. The "tripartite talks" idea is pretty crummy, because deciding who the Kashmiri representatives would be would set off yet another war.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 11:54 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Anyone ever notice who controls the upper third of Kashmir? China does. Funny how no one is even trying to talk them out of their illegal occupation.
Based on what Ive heard from my Pakistani tech breatheren, if you held a plebecite in pakistan right now and allowed expats to vote, they would go back to being a part of india.
Funny how no matter where you go in the world, muslims have more protection and ability to thrive in non-muslim countries than they do in countries controlled by their own religion.
Posted by: frank martin ||
07/26/2002 12:05 Comments ||
Top||
Four Israelis, including a child, were killed Friday afternoon in two shooting attacks south of the West Bank city of Hebron. At least three of the dead were from the same family. In the first attack, shots were fired at a car reached the Zif intersection. Three passengers in the vehicle were killed. In the second attack, one Israeli was killed when shots were fired at a vehicle near the Carmel settlement. One person was seriously wounded and two others were moderately hurt. Abu Dhabi Television said it had received a claim of responsibility from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. David Baker, an official in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Friday's attack was "graphic proof of the extent of Palestinian terror and how totally devoted they are to killing innocent Israeli civilians. "Israel is resolved to rid itself of the noose of terror hanging over us," Baker said. "No people can be expected to tolerate this terror and Israel will certainly not do so." Is that a hint they're going to wax another Big?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 01:58 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A Malacañang official was blamed yesterday for foiling the planned surrender of Pentagon kidnap gang leader Faisal Marohombsar, who escaped from his detention cell in Camp Crame along with three of his cohorts last month. Marohombsarâs surrender was still being negotiated when President Macapagal-Arroyo announced in a radio interview that the Pentagon leader was already in custody. Later, the President corrected herself and admitted that Marohombsarâs surrender was still being negotiated. But she promised that Marohombsar would be under government custody ''within the day.'' Ooops. Loose lips and what they do to ships...
''There seems to have been some miscommunication,'' said Norberto Gonzales, presidential adviser on special concerns. ''She (the President) was told that the project I was working on was already positive.'' He ought to put some sirloin on that eye. It's really swollen...
Marohombsarâs camp had been senÂding surrender feelers as early as last week, Gonzales said. However, they were still in the ''initial stages of discussion'' when Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo made the announcement, according to Gonzales. "Ummm... Madame President, I think you mighta hosed that. No, no! I mean, I hosed it. Yeah. It was me..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 06:53 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Source: Azzam Publications, Uncensored
Despite operations against various religious and Jihadi groups, and the arrests of activists in Pakistan on orders from the FBI, the US and Pakistani governments still have no useful information about the Al-Qaida network in Pakistan. According to highly reliable sources, the FBI, having had no success so far, has started investigations in to international Islamic organisations that carry out their work underground. A majority of the workers in these organisations are from Arab or Asian states. These organisations include 'Al-Ikhwan', 'Uzbek Islamic Movement' and 'Hizb-ut-Tahrir'. I like it when a propaganda piece gives away enough sidebar information to make it a valuable piece of the puzzle...
Al-Ikhwan is an Egyptian organisation with many Arabs and Pakistanis working for it, as with many other organisations, in a clandestine manner. Its headquarters is located in Karachi and it must be noted that this organisation has no link at all with the famous Egyptian Islamic movement 'Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun'. That's an interesting, if inadvertent, clarification. If it is inadvertent, and not a pious disclaimer...
The Uzbek Islamic Movement is a Central Asian organization and the majority of its workers are from the Central Asian countries including Chechnya. Having the support of various tribal leaders, this organisation is engaged in activities along the border regions of Pakistan. Interesting that it ties in with the Chechens, too. I hadn't seen that before. Wonder which is the dog and which is the tail?
Another movement under investigation by the US is Hizb-ut-Tahrir. A significant portion of its workers are from Jordan, Libya and other Arab states. This organisation was started to gather support for the establishment of a Khilafa in Pakistan. The center of its activities so far has been Karachi. Only a few of its members are currently openly known. The Hizb is world- or at least Asia-wide, with activity centers in England and Belgium. I think it's another Qazi Hussein Ahmed/Jamaat i Islami front organization...
Highly placed and very reliable sources have said that all these organisations have no link whatsoever with Al-Qaida. Probably a correct statement. I think they're emulating al-Qaeda's approach, and probably absorbing the gunnies as they look for new employment...
The US, however, using these false investigations by the FBI, is trying to create a link between these movements and Al-Qaida so that all Islamic movements can be quashed, and permanent intelligence and surveillance centres can be set up in all Asian states. The so-called War against Terrorism can also be justified by this and by having these intelligence centres, the American government can exert considerable control over Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Asian countries. That's a pretty neat logical diversion. Because the movements aren't linked to al-Qaeda, therefore the attempt to link the Pak religious loons to them is invalid, which it isn't. The three organizations named probably represent the second generation (or maybe third, since al-Qaeda's an outgrowth of Ikhwan) of international terrorism. Two out of three are centered in Pakistan and the third cooperates with the Pak organizations. Assuming the Soddy money keeps rolling in, Qazi might be the most dangerous man in the world, with the exception of the Iranian ayatollahs, and not excepting Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the entire Chechen command structure. And Qazi has the advantage of being an obscure holy man that no one who's not a regular Rantburg reader has ever heard of.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
07/26/2002 11:00 am ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
