Police found nine pounds of explosives in one of the largest mosques in the Afghan capital, averting a possible terrorist attack, the interior ministry said. Thousands of Muslims were at Kabul's Blue Mosque for traditional morning prayers for the Islamic holiday Eid el-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The explosives were discovered in a structure used to store shoes, said Interior Ministry spokesman Alishah Paktiawal. Witnesses said police also found two grenades. Paktiawal said police had searched mosques across the capital after receiving intelligence that indicated a terrorist strike might be imminent. Hiding explosives in a mosque just seems so... so... appropriate!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:15 pm ||
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*laughs ass off* Y'know, they didn't say that they found a BOMB. They said they found EXPLOSIVES.
Indulge me for a moment: Let's say you suspect that Mosques are being used as storage/staging areas for terrorist attacks and want to search them. However, if you DO search them, you have a good chance of sparking riots. Soooo, how to get in?
Psychological Ju Jitsu: circulate a "credible" rumor of a bomb attack AGAINST a mosque. They'll fall for this, since it appeals to that "We'll get you back the way you got us" mentality that they have, and thus invariably project on everyone else they consider an enemy. They fall all over themselves allowing the police to conduct the bomb search, since it would provide evidence for their contention that "the world hates Islam."
Of course, you probably got that,since you said "HIDING" instead of "booming".
Source: Daily Islam, Translated By Jihad Unspun
According to very reliable sources, ... some guy down at the mosque...
it has been learned that in order to control the natural resources of the countries such as Pakistan, Iran, China and Central Asia, America has decided to store large number of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. The US has completed a survey of Southern central, Southwestern and Eastern Afghan provinces for suitable locations for the weapons facilities and important intelligence has also been gathered. According to sources, priority will be given to the Eastern provinces where there is less armed resistance than in the southern and south western regions. There is also a very strong prediction that America has allocated several mountain passes as well as mountains ranges for this cause and survey work has been completed. Americans forces have been underway with suspicious activities in Kantar and Tora Bora area for quite some time now which gives strength to the fact that America has chosen these areas to store their nuclear arsenal. Both the American and Karzai administration has refused to comment officially on this matter. This is obviously the work of one of the Great Minds of the Twentieth (or Twenty First) Century! Take what's still one of the most unstable countries in the world, crawling with gunnies, snuffies, mullahs, Arabs, Pak Secret Agents, rapists, wife-beaters, lunatics, and free-lance crazed killers, a house of cards that could collapse at any time, and stash nuclear weapons there. Why? To "control the natural resources of the countries such as Pakistan, Iran, China and Central Asia"! Both the American and Karzai administrations probably couldn't comment because they were laughing so hard. Yes! Yes! Why didn't I think of doing that? We should also put our chem and bioweapons stocks there, and any national gold reserve we have left! What more secure place could there possibly be?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 02:53 pm ||
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Bad translation. The word wasn't "store", it was "use". Try it, it works!
#5
You know, the great thing about having ICBMs (on submarines, among other places) is that you don't have to store 'em anyplace but in your own hot little hands.
German law-enforcement officials have discovered potential links between the Hamburg terrorism cell that launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and Saudi Arabia but have run into roadblocks trying to get U.S. and Saudi officials to help investigate them. What a surprise.
The business card of a Saudi Arabian diplomat and phone numbers for prominent Saudi Arabian dissidents were found among the belongings of Mounir el-Motassadeq, a 28-year-old Moroccan arrested late last year in Hamburg for aiding the hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. German investigators also determined that Mr. Motassadeq called the Islamic Dar al Assima al Nahr, a Saudi Arabian organization that specializes in Islamic law, in late 2000. "It's legal to kill infidels, right? Yes. OK, Thanks."
But German and U.S. records show fruitless attempts by German authorities to get help on that front over months from Saudi and U.S. authorities, stymying their efforts to follow up that information and search other links. Senior U.S. officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged they couldn't provide all the information on Saudi connections German authorities requested. They cited longstanding legal and diplomatic agreements barring them from passing on information to third parties, and noted that they did provide 63 pieces of evidence in 1,000 pages of other information about Mr. Motassedeq.
The troubles in tracking Mr. Motassadeq's Saudi ties underscore gaps in international cooperation in the global war on terrorism. His trial already has strained relations across the Atlantic, as U.S. officials have refused to allow a former member of the Hamburg cell in U.S. custody, Ramzi Binalshibh, to testify against Mr. Motassadeq. Germany, for its part, has withheld some information that could be used in a separate U.S. trial of suspected would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, because he could be subject to the death penalty. And the Saudi Arabian government has come under renewed pressure over its pursuit of terror financers in its midst.
Mr. Motassadeq has been charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged role as the hijackers' logistical helper in Hamburg, where three of the four pilots had studied and lived with him. The Saudi diplomat's business card emerged as evidence this week in the Hamburg trial of Mr. Motassadeq. The other links haven't been disclosed previously.
According to police records, he also had the phone numbers for several well-known Saudi dissidents: Sheik Safr al-Hawali, Sheik Salman al-Awda and Sheik Nassar al Hamd. Messrs. Hawali and Awda were jailed in the early 1990s for criticizing the Saudi government and calling for an end to U.S. military bases there. The two were released in 2000 and are still spiritual leaders among radical Muslims. Oooo, they named names. Wonder if these are the same guys that took those calls from the Russian theater?
This is the second time Mr. Hawali has been linked to al Qaeda. Irish government records also list him and other Islamic scholars from Mecca as the incorporators of a defunct organization based in Dublin called Mercy International. The group, which was purported to be a charity but never legally registered as one, was used by al Qaeda in Nairobi, Kenya, for travel documents and logistics during the planning of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, according to documents and testimony from subsequent trials in New York of the bombing plotters.
Germany's foreign intelligence service says in a March 8 report that the release of Mr. Hawali "was ordered by Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Nayef Ibn Abd al-Aziz, in response to pressure by Islamic extremists, such as the Jihad al Islamiyya group, which threatened violent attacks should the imprisonment continue." It's Prince "The Jews did it" Nayef again.
German investigators have been stymied in tracing calls from the Saudi numbers to Germany, which they hoped would yield information on other ties between Germany and the radical Saudi center and clerics. One question is how the Hamburg hijackers, who are widely seen as having led the Sept. 11 attacks, came into contact with the 15 Saudi men who also participated in the attacks, investigators say. Old college roommates, perhaps?
On May 27, German investigators wrote to the Saudi embassy's police liaison officer, Saleh al-Harbi, for help in ascertaining how Mr. Motassadeq obtained the business card of Mohammad J. Fakihi, a Saudi diplomat and head of the Islamic department at the embassy in Berlin. "Did el-Motassadeq visit the embassy or Islamic department? On what business? Who did he come with? Did he visit the embassy more than once?" the investigators wrote in their letters to the Saudi embassy.
Two weeks later, Mr. Harbi responded, according to a German document describing the phone call, and said the written request violated protocol. He asked for a more informal "verbal note" from the German foreign ministry. Mr. Harbi said that his government would provide the information within a week of the request and that embassy officials were already collecting it. German officials are still waiting for a response. Don't hold your breath.
On March 12, the Germans sent the FBI an 18-page fax asking for notarized copies of bank records and other evidence needed in Mr. Motassadeq's trial. Among the requests was "the findings of the FBI concerning the following Saudi Arabian telephone numbers secured with the suspect Mr. el-Motassadeq." What followed on the fax were the clerics' phone numbers. On Oct. 2, the U.S. answered, sending the requested documents. The request for information on Mr. Motassadeq's Saudi links, however, was ignored. Another day, yet another Saudi story. Beginning to smell a policy change on our Saudi so-called friends?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/06/2002 01:57 pm ||
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Three out of the four pilots, eh? No matter if there were a hundred hijackers on each plane, if none of them could fly the plane, they'd be useless.
At least the article pointed out that the Krauts withheld information from us due to their concern for capital punishment. How high and mighty of them. That we withheld our info because of INTERNATIONAL agreements is so noble and oh so MULTILATERALIST of us. What? Complaining that we're not acting like a cowboy now????
#2
Actually, Hawali and Awdah (who still lives in Soddy) were jailed after they attended Teheran's annual terrorist meeting. Los Wahabos thought they were too friendly with the Shi-Hizbis.
Posted by: Born In A Taxi ||
12/07/2002 7:59 Comments ||
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An Islamic militant group with reported links to Al Qaeda has withdrawn today from areas it briefly seized from the Kurdish autonomous government, Kurdish military and government officials said. The repulsed group, Ansar al-Islam, or Supporters of Islam, operates in a tiny portion of the Kurdish enclave near Iraq's northeastern border with Iran.On the other side of the Kurdish fortifications near here, its militants have created a miniature version of the Taliban's Afghanistan, with an estimated 650 extremist fighters maintaining a rigid Islamic society among about 8,000 civilians, according to unverifiable Kurdish accounts. Kurdish officials say that from this base militants plan raids and terrorist attacks with the support of Al Qaeda. The group, which formed late in 2001 in opposition to the autonomous and largely secular government in the Kurdish enclave, is mostly composed of Kurds. But Kurdish leaders here say that about 150 of its members, mostly Arabs, trained in Qaeda-sponsored camps in Afghanistan, and that Osama bin Laden's network has an interest in its success.
"This is a group that Al Qaeda set up here as an alternative base of operations in the Middle East," said a senior Kurdish official familiar with the intelligence collected on Ansar. "It is certain from various sources that this was to be an alternative base to Afghanistan." The official declined to be identified. Although this oft-repeated assertion has not been publicly confirmed by Western officials, Ansar al-Islam's bold assault on Kurdish defenses, begun before sunrise Wednesday by nearly a third of its fighters, offered a detailed look at the tactics and apparent savagery of a rearguard enemy whom American soldiers might face if they enter northern Iraq.
The battle was fought for two small hilltops that in the course of 12 hours changed hands twice. It was no high-technology affair. The surviving soldiers described an old-fashioned fight, with light weapons and at intimate range, within the distance that men can throw hand-grenades and shout curses back and forth. It left more than 50 Kurdish infantrymen dead.
The autonomous Kurdish government in the northern part of Iraq said as many as half of the dead among its soldiers were executed when they ran out of ammunition and surrendered, or after being wounded and overrun. Interviews with the soldiers themselves suggest that the official assessment of the brutality could well be accurate. There was also a religious and social significance in the attack that did not escape its victims' notice. The militants, shouting the name of God as they advanced, rushed the Kurdish barricades on the day before the Muslim holy festival of Id al-Fitr, which in the West would be like an ambush on Christmas Eve. But,I thought you couldn't fight during Ramadan?
Kurdish lines at the Ansar front are anchored near Halabja, a village resting in a level basin beneath the snow-capped Zagros Mountains, which continue into Iran. Kurdish control ends at a valley just behind the village. Squarely in front of the valley's mouth are two small hills, Drozna and Tapa Qura, where Kurds had built forward defenses. Each hill offers unobstructed observation and fields of fire, and a chance to control the valley's entrance. Kurdish military policy toward Ansar al-Islam has essentially been one of containment. Early Wednesday, the Islamic militants tried to break out.
They showed signs of tactical cunning, striking when Kurdish officers were certain enough of a holiday lull that they had sent about 1,000 of the region's 3,500 troops home on leave.
They also showed a degree of field competence, spending the night quietly infiltrating the lowlands, creeping into positions beneath the hills about 4 a.m. An hour earlier, the garrisons, which had kept many soldiers up on watch, had decreased their guards. An officer on Tapa Qura, named Sarkawt Fayaq, said he fell asleep just before Ansar's first rush at 4:20. A grenade struck his building. He woke and looked outside. Bearded fighters were storming from several directions, under the protection of supporting machine gun and mortar fire. Someone has been doing some training.
"We all ran to the barricades and started shooting at them, but I was hit with a bullet in my left hand and I fell down," he said. "I stood up and they hit me with another bullet in the shoulder. Then a grenade was thrown at me, and something hit my head." Within hours Ansar controlled the two hills. Kurdish reinforcements were able to push the Ansar fighters back and reclaim the hills before nightfall Wednesday, and by this morning Kurds had rushed in about 2,000 more soldiers, bringing their local troop strength to about 4,500.
With their convoys filling the roads, a lull was apparent this morning. Ansar had pulled back. But as Kurdish soldiers searched the field they found 53 dead soldiers, with at least 30 wounded. Accounts of brutality circulated quickly. One bloodied soldier after another described fighting for the first hours, then running out of ammunition and crawling away from the battle to hide in farming ditches and wait for reinforcements. Those who could not fight or hide faced hideous fates. One soldier, Dyary Mohammad, 18, said he was hiding in a small creek near Drozna when a comrade named Saman surrendered to five militants. Saman begged for his life.
"He was screaming, `in the name of Allah, don't kill me,' " he said. "They took a jerrycan of benzene from a Land Rover, and poured it on him and set him on fire. After leaving him to roll on the ground for a while they shot him with a bullet."
Kurdish commanders estimated that Ansar lost 10 to 15 men, but cautioned that these numbers might not be reliable because Ansar was thought to have carried away many of its casualties.
There was also some sense that Ansar, after a few hours of success, had suffered a setback of its own. Barham Salih, a leader of the Kurds' eastern zone, said that among the Ansar dead was Mullah Abdullah Khalifani, the deputy commander of the group's military wing. His account could not be independently confirmed. A few Special Forces guys directing B-52 strikes will give them a setback they won't forget.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/06/2002 01:35 pm ||
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The Russian foreign minister issued harsh criticism Friday of Britain's decision to free on bail a senior Chechen official wanted by Moscow on murder and rebellion charges. Akhmed Zakayev, an aide to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, was arrested at Moscow's request Thursday night at London's Heathrow airport after flying from Denmark, which refused to extradite him to Moscow. Police released Zakayev early Friday. He was to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court in central London for an extradition hearing Wednesday.
Zakayev's release, just days after Denmark freed him from custody and refused to extradite him to Russia, angered Moscow. Russian authorities say Zakayev was a senior Chechen military commander and helped to murder at least 300 Russian security personnel in 1996. "Say another terrorist turned up in London, Bin Laden ... and he were to announce that new terrorist attacks were forthcoming against civilian sites in the United States," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov asked. "How would you deal with him? Would you react in the same way as with Zakayev? Would you talk to him in a police station and let him out again onto the street?" The Russers seem to be getting precious little Eurocooperation on Zakayev. They deserve better than that from the Brits — but I have a horrible suspicion something similar might happen if the guy came here, and I have just as horrible a suspicion that he could.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:11 pm ||
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Vandals broke into a synagogue in southwestern France, ransacking the sanctuary and destroying holy books, police and Jewish leaders said Thursday. The attack on the synagogue of Perigueux, in the Dordogne region, occurred before dawn Wednesday after worshippers and officials already had left. It came during the eight-day Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, which ends sundown Friday. Rolph Hammel, one of the synagogue's officials, said the vandals ripped apart paintings and holy books inside the temple and stole money hidden in an office. The synagogue is 50 yards from the town's police headquarters and municipal offices. "Legume, did you notice anything usual about le synagogue down the street?"
"Yes, M. le Inspecteur. All les Jews were wearing turbans!"
"Ahah! Anything else?"
"They were building a bonfire of their holy books in the parking lot..."
"Oui. Legume, make a note! Tomorrow we must speak sternly to the rabbi about this violation of the fire ordinances! Such impertinence is intolerable!"
It was the first reported attack on a Jewish target in France in several months, after a wave of violence against Jewish schools, temples and cemeteries that coincided with new fighting in the Middle East. In the most serious of more than 400 incidents, a synagogue in southern Marseille was burned down in March. Separately Thursday, Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy urged legislators to back a proposed law that would toughen penalties for anti-Semitic and racist acts. The bill is to go before parliament next week. "Racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia are insults to the ideals of the country," Sarkozy told lawmakers. He was not referring specifically to the synagogue attack. No, I suppose he wouldn't. Might make someone with a turban mad at him...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:11 pm ||
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Okay, so breaking and entering, vandalism, and theft AREN'T already covered by french laws?
The State Department alerted Americans on Thursday to a possible terrorist threat in Turkey. The department said it had received unconfirmed and fragmentary information that suggested unknown terrorists might be planning to conduct a terrorist incident in southeast Turkey. The target, the department said, would be official U.S. government facilities or personnel. In a statement, it warned U.S. citizens to be particularly cautious if they traveled in or out of the Gaziantep airport, which is being used while the airport at Adana is under repair. The Turkish government has taken "prudent measures" to deal with the possible threat, the department said. It's to be expected. Sammy's friends have been active all around the area: Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Kurdistan, and now Turkey. It'll be interesting to watch the investigation afterward, if something does happen. Nobody does truncheons and moustachios better than the Turks.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:11 pm ||
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Chechen rebel envoy Ahmed Zakayev faces possible extradition to Russia after arriving in the UK to seek political asylum. Mr Zakayev was arrested on his arrival at Heathrow airport on Thursday, but later released on bail. Russian reports say his bail was paid by the Trotskyite actress, Vanessa Redgrave. We can put Vanessa up there on the list with Chomsky and Fisk and the other loons...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:34 pm ||
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Vanessa's never met a terroristmurdererinsurgent rebel she didn't like!
#2
Not so long ago, Redgrave (ironic name, huh?) would have supported any and all demands emanating from the Kremlin. Times change and even terror-apologist dupes must change with them.
(BTW, how do you that mark-out thing?)
A former United Nations commander in Bosnia has told a Dutch parliamentary inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre that it was clear to him that Dutch authorities would not sacrifice its soldiers for the enclave. Srebrenica was the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II. About 7,000 Muslim men were killed after Serb forces took over Srebrenica in 1995, which was under the protection of Dutch peacekeepers. Retired British General Rupert Smith was speaking during the last day of hearings in the inquiry at The Hague. He said the impression he had received from Dutch authorities before the massacre was: "It is not worth dying for this." Christ almighty! I hope to hell I'm never anyplace defended by Dutch troops. I'm too old and fat to be massacred...
If the inquiry's report shows that a lack of information between the Dutch army and the government could have prevented the slaughter, it may pave the way for claims for damages against the Netherlands.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:38 pm ||
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A software company whose clients reportedly include the FBI was raided early Friday by Customs agents as part of a terrorist investigation, a federal law enforcement official said. The company, Ptech Inc., says its clients also include Naval air systems, the Air Force, NATO, the House of Representatives and the Energy Department. ABC News reported that the raid was coordinated by the White House and came in the middle of the night. A federal law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press confirmed the raid. "We're investigating whether a businessman on the list of alleged or potential terrorist financiers is a part-owner of the firm," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The question is whether there is a potential for U.S. government computer systems being compromised. For example, does the software company have the ability to access computer systems using knowledge of the software?"
Messages left with Quincy-based Ptech were not immediately returned, and no one could be seen at the company's office. A spokesman at Customs in Washington said information about the case was being handled by the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts. No one answered the door or the phone Friday at the home of the company's chairman and chief executive officer, Oussama Ziade. A woman who answered the phone at the home of vice president Hussein Ibrahim and declined to give her name said he was not available. Ummm... Not to do any "racial profiling" or anything, but who the hell gave an FBI software contract to a company run by somebody named Osama?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:11 pm ||
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Like any government contract, they just went with the lowest bid (or highest bidder, wink).
Posted by: Steve ||
12/06/2002 15:43 Comments ||
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This is the tip of the iceberg. Most top-of-the-line US software companies brag about the use of overseas 'development' staff, based on hyderabad and China. You think its likely they have been infiltrated? Imagine the consequences if someone was able to compromise the rollout of windows allowing a backdoor patch to be put onto every desktop and many servers ( ok, most every desktops and a few servers. Someday Linux will rule, just not today....)
Remember gang, you dont have to blow up a a bank to destroy it, you just have to make people loose faith in the bank itself. if youve got access to the ERP software that tells the bank "whats up", its not that hard to make it seem like the bank is out of control, causing a run on the bank itself.
Watch this one, its more interesting than it appears.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
12/06/2002 18:35 Comments ||
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It took the commandants of the Military Academy and the Naval Academy to straighten things out, but the great Army-Navy goat caper has been resolved. West Point will return Billy, Navy's Angora goat football mascot, to the midshipmen. "We are notifying our naval counterparts that we are very happy to report that the goat has been located and that their beloved mascot will be returned to them," Lt. Col. James Whaley, the West Point spokesman, said yesterday. Following an old tradition of pre-Army-Navy-game pranks, a handful of West Point cadets disguised as slackers in Grateful Dead T-shirts and ski caps kidnapped Billy over the Veterans Day weekend from his home at a dairy farm not far from Annapolis. They released a picture, hostage style, of the Navy goat in the hands of a masked cadet. "Meet our demands or the goat dies!"
As the West Point brass stifled giggles, the Naval Academy leadership bristled. There was an anti-mascot-rustling agreement in effect between the academies, the Annapolis spokesman said Wednesday. That meant, he said, that he did not believe Army cadets would be so dishonorable as to steal the goat. But Colonel Whaley, the Army spokesman, admitted yesterday that cadets had done the deed. He said they came forward and received amnesty in exchange for disclosing Billy's whereabouts: a farm in Pennsylvania. Just how Billy will get back to Annapolis was not clear, the colonel said, since yesterday's snow storm made travel difficult and the possibility remained that the goat would be turned over tomorrow at the Army-Navy game at Giants Stadium in North Jersey, the larcenous cadets' original plan. Colonel Whaley said the academy was ready to lend Navy a mule. "But we found the goat and we are very happy that they will be able to have their mascot back." I'm sure that the cadets that pulled this off will receive a stern letter of counseling that will be worth a lot of promotion points during their Army careers.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/06/2002 01:49 pm ||
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I can imagine the conversation between some of the future Marine officers at the Academy:
"Hey, Mike, they branded the f$#&*@# goat!"
"What the hell? What's the brand?"
"Some letters on the ass end!"
"What's it spell?"
"I dunno -- 'A - R - M - Y'. Mean anything to you?"
Sorry, just a little jarhead humor. :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/06/2002 15:34 Comments ||
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Well, y'know what they say:
The Army got the mules, and the Navy got the Marines.
Markaz-ud-Dawat, Pakistan chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed on Monday said Jihad against atrocities being committed against Muslims in India, Palestine and elsewhere in the world would continue as it was the only way to resolve problems of the Ummah. Which involve not being in control of the entire world...
Addressing the participants at an Iftar here, he said Muslims are not terrorists instead India and the US are committing state terrorism against Muslims. Hafiz Saeed added that non-Muslims had lunched a vilification campaign against the Muslims and Islam. "They want to make the Muslims their slaves," he said and added the Muslims would not allow the non-Muslims to commit atrocities against them in Palestine and Kashmir. "Atrocities can only be committed against Muslims by good, practicing Muslims..."
Hafiz Saeed said that India and the US wanted end to the Jihad because it was going on in Kashmir against the Indian army. But he warned that Jihad could not stop until the atrocities against Muslims in Ahmedabad and Kashmiri were stropped. "Jihad will continue forever as without Jihad the problems of Muslims cannot be resolved," he said. "Even when we're in control of the whole world, we'll still conduct holy wars against anybody who disagrees with us!"
He called for UN sanctions against India for her refusal to implement the world body's resolutions on Kashmir. "The World must rise to impose sanctions on India and declare her a terrorist state," Hafiz Saeed said. Hafiz, if you have a bad memory or you're new to the site, is the founder and behind-the-scenes head of Lashkar i-Taiba.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 03:15 pm ||
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Addressing the participants at an Iftar here, he said Muslims are not terrorists instead India and the US are committing state terrorism against Muslims.
Is it me, or is this a variation of Pee Wee Herman's tagline, "I know you are, but what am I?"
But then, everything prompts Palestinian rage, doesn't it?
Thousands of angry Palestinians have taken to the streets of the al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip to bury 10 people killed in overnight fighting with Israeli troops. Mourners, some wearing masks, followed the bodies of those killed through the narrow streets of the camp chanting "revenge, revenge". What else? What else? They never seem to chant "Omigod! He's dead! And he was such a nice man, who never hurt anybody!" I dunno why...
"We are committed to the continuation of jihad⢠and martyr operations until our land is liberated," members of the militant group Hamas shouted through loudspeakers. "The more corpses, the closer we are to, uh... extinction!"
Israel says at least five of those killed were members of Hamas and the group itself has issued a statement saying six of its people died in the raid, including two from its military wing. The camp's Mayor, Kamal Baghdadi and an official from a nearby hospital, Ahmed Rabah, have said they believe four of the dead were from the Mansour family, whose home they say was hit in the raid. "Yar! We be the Mansours! We be peaceable sorts, an' if you don't like it, we'll kill ye!"
Two Palestinian homes were targeted in the raid - the house of Ayman Sheshnya, an activist from Mr Arafat's movement Fatah who is wanted by Israel, and the home of Jamal Ismail, a suicide bomber who blew himself up last month. He doesn't need the place anymore, after all...
The incursion came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that militants from Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were active in Gaza - a claim derided by Palestinians. And confirmed by al-Qaeda...
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat described the incursion as "Israeli terrorism". But then, he always does...
"It is a new massacre," he said. "What happened is a continuation of the massacres against the Palestinian people. This is Israeli terrorism against our children, our women and our holy shrines from Rafah [in southern Gaza] to Jenin [in the West Bank]. Isn't what they are doing daily terrorism?" No. What they're doing daily is military operations, involving disciplined troops with a command structure and accountability for their actions. Sending people to explode on buses or to shoot little kiddies in their beds is terrorism.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:30 pm ||
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Indonesian police have said that two explosions which hit the island of Sulawesi on Thursday were caused by bombs. National police chief Da'i Bachtiar said the blasts, which hit a McDonald's restaurant and a car dealership in the island's capital Makassar, were caused by a lower-level explosive than that used in the 12 October Bali bombings. "There are still groups of people that want to create security problems and fear among the people with these bombs," he said. When you're busy jugging Islamists left and right, you can expect a series of explosions. You'll know you've got the last one when there aren't any more explosions...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 01:43 pm ||
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National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the perpetrators who planted the bomb that exploded at a McDonald's outlet on Thursday may be the same persons who set off a bomb at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in November 2001. They used the same type of explosives, Da'i told reporters after inspecting the blast site on the ground floor of the Ratu Indah shopping mall. There was no casualty in the blast at the KFC outlet, but police to date have yet to solve the mystery. Thursday's blast at McDonald's left three people dead and 11 injured. Police had earlier identified the bomb used as black powder, a type of low explosive. A year ago they weren't as interested in solving a minor bombing directed against infidels here or there. Things have changed since then — at least temporarily.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/06/2002 02:33 pm ||
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Saddam Hussein's right-hand man Tariq Aziz, officially Iraq's deputy prime minister, has been far less to the fore in recent weeks, in marked contrast to previous crises when he has been the voice of Iraq on Western television.
His much lower profile has had some tongues wagging in Washington, New York City and elsewhere, with diplomats questioning whether he has fallen out of favor with his boss, a possibility some discounted considering he boasts one of the most impressive survival records in Iraqi politics.
Even last year, when his son was arrested for taking bribes from a foreign importer, he appeared not to have lost the trust of the Iraqi dictator.
In fact, the reason for his lower prominence is simple: Aziz, 66, who has been close to Saddam for more than a quarter of a century, is suffering from cancer and has had to make frequent trips to a cancer clinic in Johannesburg for treatment, according to well-placed sources in South Africa.
Now, where did I put that itty bitty teeny violin...
His illness has been a closely guarded secret. In October, The Times of London published a detailed profile of Aziz but failed to discover that he was ill.
While undergoing treatment both in South Africa and Iraq, Aziz has been giving some media interviews, but Iraqi sources say his influence has waned somewhat with his frequent absences.
This may go some way to explaining why Saddam decided to accept a return of U.N. inspectors -- Aziz is a hard-liner, and his illness could well have affected the mix of advice Saddam has been receiving, say diplomats contacted by Insight.
Others dispute this, arguing that Aziz owes his survival to sycophancy. One apocryphal joke on the diplomatic circuit has Saddam asking Aziz the time. "What time would you like it to be, Mr. President?" Aziz replies.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
12/06/2002 06:22 pm ||
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#1
Aziz is Saddam's Vyatcheslav Molotov,the sycophantic foreign minister whose wife Stalin put in Ljubjanka (GPU HQ and jail) just to see if Molotov could be provoked to protest to his master.He didn't and that's why Stalin let him live.I read somewhere (Hitchens?) that Saddam has been playing the same game with Aziz's son,imprisoning him just to see how he would react. This guy is a major-league submissive.
Posted by: El Id ||
12/06/2002 19:51 Comments ||
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#2
Loooong way from Baghdad to Johannesburg. Just about anything could happen. And Aziz knows where a lot of bodies are buried -- literally and figuratively.
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