Former Afghani premier Gulbuddin HekmatyarâsHizb-e-Islami party repudiated allegations it had any role in two bombing attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. âWe have no whatsoever link to the terrorist attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca,â the party said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net on Thursday, June 26. "Lies, all lies"
In a scratchy videocassette, run by the Associated Press TV on June 21, a masked man, claiming to speak on behalf of Hizb-e-Islami, Taliban and Al-Qaeda, said the Riyadh and Casablanca attacks in mid-May were jointly carried out by the three groups. âWe have no member who goes by the name Abu el-Hareith Abd el-Hakim,â said the statement, in reference to the name given by the masked man on the tape. âWe once again reiterate our denunciation of terrorist attacks, and consider them a violation of the Islamic sharia and principles of humanity,â said the statement, condemning the Riyadh and Casablanca attacks which only âkilled innocentsâ. He doesn't want to lose his Saudi funding.
"Couldn't possibly be us. That guy uses six or seven other names..."
âThere are no political or military treaties between Hizb-e-Islam and al-Qaeda or Taliban,â stressed the statement. "Since they are one and the same, why would we need a treaty?"
It also threw discredit on the AP report, arguing it was âpart of an organized media campaign against the party to undermine its repeated calls for stability and national reconciliation as well as the establishment of an Islamic government in Afghanistan.â It's all a zionist american plot to discredit him.
Everybody knows the only way to stability and national reconciliation is through jihad...
Hekmatyar, recently designated a terrorist by the United States, shrugged off on Sunday, February 23, links with Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He is also known for his staunch opposition to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar had charged the American âoccupationâ forces of committing heinous crimes in Afghanistan. In its statement, Hizb-e-Islami also denied allegations by the AP that its correspondent obtained the video from the groupâs senior intelligence official in Pakistan. âThe party had shut down all of its offices in neighboring Pakistan, given they were unnecessaryâ it added.
Observers had questioned the authenticity of the AP video, as the man appeared with a face covered by a black turban, a tactic rarely used by Al-Qaeda members and leaders who used to appear unmasked on the screen, even those who claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks. Maybe they have learned to avoid the spotlght?
Either that, or he's afraid somebody's going to recognize him at the next JUI-F meeting, back in Peshawar...
When airing the tape, CNN stressed it was unable to verify its authenticity. But since it was sweeps week, they aired it anyway.
The White House declined to comment on the video and Pakistani intelligence officials denied any knowledge of the video. "We don't watch CNN anymore, Fox has hotter babes."
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 10:26:22 AM ||
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ABU DHABI â Saudi Arabia will import an increasing number of Pakistani military and security advisers and personnel. Gulf defense sources said Riyadh agreed to permit additional Pakistanis for a number of projects as well as to replace some of the Westerners who have left the kingdom over the last year. Pakistan is regarded as a leading ally of Saudi Arabia. Islamabad helps train Saudi military and security personnel as well as help operate aircraft and naval vessels, Middle East Newsline reported. Moreover, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have engaged in a joint venture to produce light weapons and ammunition in the kingdom. The sources said the two countries plan to expand the project to include mortar and heavy munitions. Islamabad has reported that Saudi Arabia has increased manpower levels for Pakistani nationals for construction projects. They included the construction of a transmission line from the Saudi cities of Mecca to Taif. Saudi Arabia has instituted a law that requires that 35 percent of the manpower by foreign companies be composed of Saudi nationals. But the law has been relaxed to facilitate major projects in communications, energy and the military. Pakistani nationals also serve as doctors, paramedics and nurses in the kingdom.
They're a little late getting to this story. (Maybe we should change the slug to "Next year's news today"). A move like this is a further confirmation that people do not â repeat, not â act from rational motives. Make me the potentate of a major Middle Eastern power, with a jewelled turban and comely dancing girls, and then tell me we need technical assistance to upgrade our armed forces and see who I hire... Go ahead. Do it...
Well, anyway... Does it make sense from the standpoint of rationality to have the Paks train one's military and security personnel? We're talking about Pakistan, whose president admits it's a failed state, whose security forces are riddled with fifth columnists, and whose army hasn't managed to win a war yet. I think I'd go with India, who beat the Paks three for three, or at least France, who did at least manage to conquer Mexico 150 years ago, for awhile. The Soddies instead tell themselves, "They're Islamists, which means they're just like us! We should stick with them! Besides, their generals sound very ferocious and have lotsa medals. And they have a bomb. Never know when you're gonna need a bomb. And nobody would ever retaliate on us, 'cuz we're the Guardians of the Holy Mosques™..."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/27/2003 1:06:39 PM ||
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Galloway ups the ante. Let battle commence!
George Galloway has issued libel proceedings against a newspaper over claims he accepted money from Saddam Hussein. The Glasgow Labour MP is taking action against the Daily Telegraph. The newspaper's editor, Charles Moore, said it will defend the action, standing by its allegation that Mr Galloway took a cut of oil money worth at least £375,000 a year. The claim against Telegraph Group Ltd, the newspaper's publisher, is for damages and an injunction to refrain further publication of specific allegations or any similar defamatory allegation of or concerning Mr Galloway.
Last week, an American newspaper apologised to Mr Galloway after it too alleged that he accepted millions of pounds from Saddam Hussein. The Christian Science Monitor admitted that a set of documents upon which it based its story on were "almost certainly" fake. Mr Galloway, who is on a speaking tour of the UK, has always strenuously denied that he took any money from the Iraqi regime. On Friday he said he did not want to comment on the forthcoming legal battle. "This is now a legal matter and I don't really want to add anything to the fact that the writs have been issued." The MP has refused to accept the apology from the Christian Science Monitor and has demanded an inquiry into the forgery. He pledged to continue his legal action against the newspaper, which is published by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. Last week, Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore said the Christian Science Monitor's retraction had "no bearing" on his newspaper's report. He said: "Our story was based on a different set of documents found in a different set of circumstances. They were not supplied or given to us but unearthed by our reporter, David Blair, in the foreign ministry in Baghdad. We have complete confidence in our story, our reporter and the authenticity of our documents."
Mr Galloway is currently suspended from the Labour Party over comments he made in an interview to an Arab television station branding Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush "wolves". Both the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, and the Charity Commission, are also conducting investigations into allegations that he accepted Iraqi cash. Mariam?
Slightly EFL
CANBERRA, Australia - The Australian government on Thursday branded multilateral forums such as the United Nations as "ineffective and unfocused" and said its future foreign policy would increasingly rely on "coalitions of the willing" like the one that waged war in Iraq. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also said that in Canberra's view, other nation's sovereignty was "not absolute."
Kind of an echo of the argument against extreme libertarianism that "your right to throw a punch ends where my nose begins."
The assertive new doctrine outlined by Downer comes a day after Australia announced it would lead an international force of troops and police to restore order to the violence-wracked Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific. Downer's speech reflected comments late last year by Prime Minister John Howard that Australia would be prepared to launch pre-emptive strikes against terror targets in Asia â words that sparked outrage in Asia. Australia's decision to support the U.S.-lead war in Iraq without U.N. sanction "has signaled that we are prepared to take the hard decisions to enhance our security," Downer said in a nationally televised address to the National Press Club. "Some multilateral institutions will remain important to our interests," he said. "But increasingly multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator." Just letting folks know you won't be tied down by the UN should start to downsize the problem.
Australia has been an unflinching supporter of U.S. President George W. Bush, sending 2,000 troops to the Iraq war and backing Washington's so-called "pre-emptive strike" policy in which the United States would invade countries if it believed they were harboring terrorists. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Canberra was a harsh critic of the U.N. Security Council, where France and other nations wanted to give weapons inspectors more time to determine whether Baghdad was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Howard has stood with the United States in its war on terrorism and earlier contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. "We are prepared to join coalitions of the willing that can bring focus and purpose to addressing the urgent security and other challenges we face," Downer said. "Sovereignty in our view is not absolute. Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important."
Neat grab at the UN's boilerplate...
Howard and Downer announced Wednesday that Australia stood ready to send troops and police to the Solomon Islands if New Zealand and other Pacific nations joined the peacekeeping force. The proposed force follows a request for help from Solomons Prime Minister Alan Kemakeza. The Solomons have been torn by ethnic violence since 1998, and the government has little control outside of the capital, Honiara. Howard said the Solomon Islands was in danger of becoming a failed state that could be exploited by "international drug dealers, money launderers, international terrorism." Australia would "pay dearly" if it did not act, he said.
When the cops are coming to your neighbors' house at all hours it's not making your neighborhood any better, is it?
Downer's decision to so clearly articulate such an assertive approach to foreign policy is likely to cause further unease among Asian neighbors. Australia's strident support for Washington during the seven years of Howard's conservative government has often been a source of concern in Southeast Asia. Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation and longtime critic of Australia, has accused Howard of acting like a deputy sheriff to Washington.
I'd call this development, or at least the articulation of the reasoning behind it, very significant â and another nail in the UN's coffin.
When it was just us, the argument could be that Bush was a cowboy, he was stoopid, he didn't know any better; a Democrat like Mr. Clinton would eventually replace him and the world would get back to normal. Now we'll go through the period where it's us and the other warmongers and puppets â Cowboy Bush and That Awful Howard and Poodle Blair. There's also Berlusconi â probably a Mussolini in the making â and Aznar (insert some sort of nasty comment about Franco, whether plausible or not). Oh, and the Eastern Europeans â they don't know any better... Eventually, the impatience with the drool coming out of the UN will broaden the numbers of those acting decisively in their own interests (and coincidentally those of the real humans making up humanity, versus the faceless "masses") to the point where the UN is going to be nothing more than a propaganda outlet.
I think this is a process that's only accelerated by the WOT, by the way. The UN had already gone past the point of no return with the Durban conference, the month before 9-11. It's probably also a bad thing, in that the framework the UN pretends to provide could, say 100 years from now, provide the brake to other actors who act "decisively" â like Chuck Taylor and his imitators, Milosevic, the late Zviad Gamaskhurdia, the 1991 model Sammy, most of Pakistan's generals (see the compendium below, under India/Pakistan), the VHP in India, Qaddhafi on those days when he's had his coffee and Viagra...
Posted by: Bulldog ||
06/27/2003 9:54:55 AM ||
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This is the second time Sabine's graced Rantburg. Hope we see... ummm... more of her...
Sabine Herold, 21, has been called France's answer to Margaret Thatcher. She is a political science student, very beautiful and speaks perfect English. She has also just become the most famous 21-year-old in France. Dubbed France's Lady Thatcher by the newspapers, Mademoiselle Herold has been leading the rallies against the unions who have been crippling her country. Standing on a telephone box in her pearl earrings and high heels, she addresses crowds of 80,000, urging them to rise up against the striking teachers, Metro workers, rubbish collectors and air traffic controllers who are ruining people's lives. With her student friends, she has set up an organisation: Liberte J'Ecris Ton Nom, which has thousands of members, demanding that France reforms.
Now, she wants to come to Britain. Her email is simple: "I would like to spend my time meeting politicians. I don't wear jeans; I like red meat; please could I bring a camera crew?" Here, she has been called Joan of Arc. "That is stupid," she says. "I love Britain. I love Margaret Thatcher. I love the way you have overcome the unions and are not afraid to privatise. I love the way you work so hard. In France, we have become lazy and staid. We think only of weekends, holidays and how great we once were. We need a dose of Thatcherism." She doesn't want to go to Wimbledon. "No, I am here to work. Margaret Thatcher lived on five hours' sleep; so can I."
She has been to Britain before - as an exchange student in Birmingham for a year, where she earned extra money as a "dinner lady" in a canteen. Was the food awful? "No - in France, our supermarkets close at 6pm, so I never get there in time. In Birmingham, the supermarkets stayed open all night, and I cooked myself delicious suppers. My hobby is cooking five-course dinner parties to relax." She wants to go to Speakers' Corner. In one corner, a Christian is ranting against sex in public lavatories; in another, a Muslim is sounding off against the Iraq war. "In France," says Sabine, "we have no freedom of expression. Being different is frowned upon. Everyone must conform. I want to give power back to individuals."
At supper, she meets three of the youngest high-flying Tory MPs: Boris Johnson, MP for Henley; David Cameron, MP for Witney; and George Osborne, MP for Tatton. She is smitten. They start talking about the 48-hour working week. "In France, it is 35 hours - ludicrous, no?" George Orwell's Animal Farm, she tells them, was the first political tract she ever read. "It blew me away. In France, communism is not a dirty word - many of the trade unions are openly communist. Being Right-wing and libertarian is considered dangerous."
She asks them for advice on addressing crowds of 80,000. "After 10 minutes of shouting, I lose my voice," she says. They explain that they have never addressed rallies that large, and are more used to village fetes. "But you must," she says. "It is the most exciting thing in the world, getting up in front of a huge crowd. I have had a few threatening letters, and I have two student bodyguards, but it is worth it for the adrenalin." The next day, we go to the Palace of Westminster. We take the Jubilee line which, amazingly, is extremely prompt, clean and efficient. "In Paris, I never know whether I will get to my lectures on time. The crowds who joined our rallies are young, working people who have had enough of their lives being disrupted by workers who are just greedy for more money, more pensions and less work."
We arrive at the paintings of the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo. "It is a pity that France and England still fight," she says. "President Chirac was spineless over the war. I led a pro-war rally. I almost collapsed in shock when I heard he was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. It was Saddam Hussein's regime, not President Bush's, that was despicable. I adore France. I will never leave - I love my cafes too much - but that does not mean I hate Britain or America." She admires Mr Blair. "He was very brave in Iraq. But now he is starting to raise taxes, and that is very bad."
Anji Hunter, Tony Blair's former aide, explains how to get the best out of the unions. Sabine agrees: "I am not anti-union, just anti the communist ones." The next day, her mother, who "wishes I'd keep my head down", rings to tell her that there has been a big article about her in Liberation, the Left-wing French newspaper. The French press are in a frenzy about her stay in London. Is she being a good ambassador for France? "Of course. It is because I love my country that I want to reform it." Every 10 minutes, another French cabinet minister is on the phone, asking her to lunch. She explains that, before her first demonstration, politicians were desperate to distance themselves from the student rabble. "Now that they see the rallies are attended by ordinary, fed-up people, rather than nutters, they are all saying they are my best friend - when I haven't even met them. But I think I will meet the Prime Minister."
The stories in our newspapers fascinate her. "What is this anti-smacking law? What is wrong with a quick smack? I thought only the French liked these silly laws. She wants to go to a bookshop. We pass the pile of Harry Potters, but she heads straight for Wilkes and Burke: "Your great writers about freedom". She is surprised by the amount of books that are anti-American. "I thought it was just us. In France, we are taught in school about American imperialism, that all Americans are either fat or work in sweatshops." A French businessman who has offered to finance her group meets her for lunch. Businessmen, he says, are also sick of the unions, but unlike Sabine, they haven't got the guts to say so. She tells him that the unions have stopped protesting for the moment - "But they will be back this autumn after their long holidays, and we must be prepared." As we head for the Eurostar, she is wistful. "I would love to live here, but my place is in France. I want to make us great again."
Posted by: ColoradoConservative ||
06/27/2003 11:40:05 AM ||
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Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers invited Teresa Heinz â wife of a Democratic presidential hopeful, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry â to speak to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists here last week. Heinz instructed the 150 cartoonists from around the country on how not to draw Kerry in the coming months, using an overhead projector to display cartoons she already disliked: "My husband should not be confused with Punxsutawney Phil. He isn't a basset hound. Please resist the impulse to use Heinz products when drawing my husband & " Concentrate, she said, only on "his noble chin, focused gaze and & smile. In other words, draw him like this." Up on screen flashed a cartoon of John F. Kennedy.
More on the cartoonists convention:
"Whoever the government is, we should never agree with them," syndicated columnist Ted Rall told his colleagues.
"Certainly not if they're right..."
Steve Kelley, editorial cartoonist for the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, plugged for the traditional variety. "I like to think of symbols as bullets in our belt," said Kelley. "My God, Ted, even writers use metaphors." But in this overwhelmingly white male profession (judging from the crowd), Kelley probably knew he was outnumbered. "It's all right to do a sucky image & if it's Bush," he complained.
Ummm... I suppose that means something, if only that Kelley isn't white, or perhaps not male...
The enthusiastic reception given liberal Al Franken, speaking at the conference's close, (I guess I shouldn't be surprised. At this point we should all say together "What liberal media bias?")
likely did nothing to change Kelley's impression. "Looking at the faces here, I have to applaud you for not letting this affirmative-action nonsense" affect the profession, Franken told the group. He cruised through his take on recent history ("The hijackers of 9/11 ruined it for the normal hijackers. Normal hijackers watched that and went, 'Ah, shit.'"), then he launched into the Bush administration and right-wing media in preview of his fall book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. He decried conservative television commentators stringing news clips together selectively against the Democrats: "Why is that different than Jayson Blair? Can you explain it to me?" Should the country's terrorism alert level ever rise to red, Franken said, the only sacrifice we can expect George W. Bush to ask of us is "to shop online."
An excerpt from an article over at Janes concerning the effectiveness of Apache's in the war. Also mentions the different role and tactics of the SuperCobra and Kiowa's
By Robert Hewson
A force of around 32 AH-64D 'Longbow' Apache attack helicopters were sent on a deep strike mission in the vicinity of Karbala on the night of 23-24 March. The Apaches entered the so-called 'Red Zone', in advance of ground units of the 3rd Infantry Division, where Centcom planners believed that between eight and 10 Iraqi divisions were formed up in a defensive ring around Baghdad. Karbala is about 113km southwest of Baghdad and the attack occurred around the nearby village of Abu Mustafe, north of Hillah.
The Apaches were on a textbook mission: a co-ordinated strike during the hours of darkness to sweep away Iraqi mechanised forces and prepare the ground for the US advance. The intention would have been to engage vehicle and infrastructure targets at a safe stand-off distance, relying chiefly on the Apache's long-range Hellfire missiles. Instead the Apache force became engaged in a dangerous melee during which the helicopters were checked by unprecedented (and certainly unexpected) ground fire. The unit was unable to undertake a speedy withdrawal from that fire and suffered heavy damage without making a serious impact on the Iraqi armour. While no crews were seriously injured, 31 of the 32 Apaches sustained combat damage, some of it serious. A crash on landing destroyed one of the aircraft after it had returned to base. Another AH-64D came down in enemy territory and its crew was captured and held until the end of the conflict.
Even though commanders in the field knew exactly where the lost aircraft was, it was not destroyed to keep it out of enemy hands as it should have been.
The good performance of Apache units in the deep strike role during Operation 'Desert Storm' in 1991 must have been in the minds of those who planned the Karbala mission. However, the successes of 'Desert Storm' have not been repeated. The 24 AH-64A Apaches sent to Albania in preparation for operations over Kosovo during Operation 'Allied Force' in 1999 were not deployed because of fears of their vulnerability. During fighting in Afghanistan in 2001, eight Apaches that were launched on a mission in support of Operation Anaconda sustained serious damage from enemy ground fire.
Official US reports of the Karbala action emphasise a significant level of Iraqi preparedness. Reportedly, Iraqi agents were monitoring the Apaches at their forward aircraft refuelling point and called warnings of their departure on cellular phones. Another issue for Army Apaches is their tendency to come to the hover and stop before shooting. This is largely a function of the laser-guided Hellfire which needs an uninterrupted line-of-sight between the designator and the target. The experience of the Apache crews at Karbala stands in contrast to the US Marine Corps AH-1W SuperCobras. The Marine Cobras were used intensively in the close support role in what was always a high-risk environment. None were lost to enemy action and they were highly praised by the US and British Commanders who tasked them. The Cobras, armed with Hellfires as well as TOW missiles, never stayed still over Iraq â in fact they speeded up. The US Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warriors had a similar approach. As one experienced pilot said: "It is all about training and adapting to your environment. You'll never catch me hovering. If you want to stay alive, you've got to keep moving."
Posted by: Domingo ||
06/27/2003 10:10:35 AM ||
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The spokeswoman for the UNHCR said yesterday that Syrian refugees were expelled from their houses in Iraq under the threats of weapons since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in April. Tap, tap, nope.
Millitta Sonietch said "the Syrians face the same problem faced by the Palestinians, of whom 800 families were expelled from their homes," noting that "some stressed to me they were expelled under threat of weapons." She continued that "criminals came and threw them out and confiscated their properties and sold them before they controlled their flats." "Criminals" meaning the owners of the houses who were forced by Saddam to let these "refugees" live in their property at little or no rent. Now it's payback time.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 9:51:35 AM ||
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MAJAR AL-KABIR: British forces were hunting down gunmen who killed six British military police after a violent demonstration that left four Iraqi civilians dead. Iraqi gunmen - enraged by the deaths of their countrymen at the hands of British soldiers - killed two UK military policemen during the demonstration Tuesday and then stormed a police station, killing four more. "We hope that we'll be able to bring those who are guilty of these attacks to justice," L. Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad on Wednesday. British military officials provided few details on the violence, which came on the same day another ambush wounded eight British troops, three of them seriously. At least four Iraqis were killed and 15 injured in the clashes. British military officials met with seven members of the city's administrative council in the nearby town of Amarah on Wednesday, seeking the killers' surrender, said Qassem Nimeh, an official in the mayor's office in Majar al-Kabir.
But a British Army spokeswoman, Capt Gemma Hardy, denied reports that the army had issued an ultimatum demanding the surrender of the killers within 48 hours. "That is absolutely categorically not the case," Hardy said. "The whole situation is being investigated. We are actively seeking them." The violent demonstration was the second in two days apparently sparked by soldiers' searches for heavy weapons in villagers' homes, said Abu Zahraa, a 30-year-old local vendor.
"Damn Brits! Come stormin' into people's houses and carryin' off the family heirlooms from over the mantle, claimin' they're 'heavy weapons'! Goddammit! That SCUD was my grandaddy's!"
Posted by: Fred ||
06/27/2003 9:14:15 AM ||
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One of the most remarkable figures of the Iraq war has resurfaced for the first time since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf - dubbed "Comical Ali" for his deadpan insistence that Iraqi forces were crushing the invading Americans - appeared in brief interviews on Al-Arabiya and Abu Dhabi TV. "Good Morning America" will be next.
The ex-information chief looked much older than he did during his daily press briefings three months ago with his hair now completely grey. But that has been put down to the fact that in post-war Iraq he cannot get hold of the black hair dye he used to use. I called it yesterday!
Mr Sahhaf said that he had surrendered himself to US forces, who had released him after questioning. American military leaders would not confirm his claim that he had been interrogated and freed. "We don't have him, and there is no information from our people on the ground to back up these reports," a spokeswoman for US Central Command said. "He is an interesting story teller and we look forward to hearing what he has got to say," she added. Bet he walked up to some GI's on the street and they listened to him for a minute and told him to get lost.
Mr Sahhaf is not on the US list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. He declined to tell the TV stations about the final days before Baghdad fell, but he revealed plans to publish his memoirs. He said: "The full picture will only emerge when I write my book. The time is not yet ripe to say what happened. When history's ready, then we can talk about it. Itâs a big picture and I am just a small part." Bingo! He's on the book circuit, I'm two for two.
He also denied being part of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, saying he was a professional doing his job. The "I was just following orders" defense.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 8:38:31 AM ||
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The president ordered the military to crack down ``swiftly and forcibly'' on communist rebels Friday, a day after guerrillas allegedly killed 17 people in a remote army camp in central Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said it was unfortunate the communist New People's Army guerrillas exploited ``a weak spot'' in the government's defense.
``We have the duty to protect our own far-flung military and police outposts with forward intelligence coverage,'' Arroyo said. ``Meanwhile, I have also directed that these fresh waves of attacks be dealt with swiftly and forcibly.'' She was really trying to sign a ceasefire and deal with all these thugs, but they had to keep up their attacks. Now I think she's fed up and the military has been let loose. Good.
Considered the biggest attack in more than a decade, about 200 guerrilla fighters raided the army camp on Samar island Thursday, killing 11 government militiamen, five soldiers and the wife of a soldier, said Lt. Col. Ruby Bongabong, spokeswoman for the army's Central Command. Concentrated their forces on a small outpost
Two other soldiers were reported wounded in the two-hour firefight, after which the rebels withdrew on boats.
``Our troops were overwhelmed,'' Bongabong said.
Troops pursuing the rebels recovered the boats in nearby Arteche, Bongabong said. The boats had bloodstains, indicating the guerrillas also suffered casualties, she said. Arroyo vowed to stop isolated insurgent groups from roaming in the countryside. ``I am directing the military and police to combine their intelligence resources so that we can obviate the element of surprise that is being used to our disadvantage,'' Arroyo said.
In a statement Friday, Communist Party spokesman Gregorio Rosal congratulated the Samar guerrillas for the raid on the army patrol camp outside Oras town, in Eastern Samar province.
He said the rebels ``exhibited correct guerrilla tactics.'' The rebels ransacked the camp's armory, and the ``additional arms and munition will help arm the growing number of NPA fighters,'' he said. The New People's Army, which claims to have about 13,500 fighters, has been battling for a Marxist state for over 30 years. Its attacks usually target military positions and camps as well as business establishments that refuse to pay ``revolutionary taxes.'' The military estimates the rebel army has 10,000 fighters.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 9:00:25 AM ||
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The federal government on Friday accused 11 men, nine of them U.S. citizens, of training in the United States to launch terrorist attacks against targets abroad. In a 41-count indictment, the men were "charged with conspiracy to train for and participate in a violent jihad," said U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty in Alexandria, Va. "After the Sept. 11 attacks, Virginia jihad network members were told that it was time to engage in violent jihad, that it was appropriate for these members to take up arms in jihad," McNulty said. The men are alleged to be part of an extremist Muslim organization called Lashkar-e-Taiba whose main goal is driving India out of the disputed Kashmir territory in South Asia. The organization, whose name means "army of the righteous," is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations and is characterized as strongly anti-U.S.
I'll bet the guys arrested weren't named Smith, Jones, and Johnson. And I'll bet the nine "citizens" are newly minted...
The FBI arrested seven of the defendants in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania on Friday. "These indictments are a stark reminder that terrorist organizations of various allegiances are active in the United States and these groups exploit America's freedom as a weapon to recruit and position themselves on our shores, in our society," McNulty told reporters. The indictment said the group, from early 2000 through last May, prepared for military action abroad in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington and in St. Louis, Mo., and trained in small-unit military tactics near Fredericksburg, Va., using AK-47 assault rifles and other firearms. They also used toys to fire paintballs in their combat simulations.
U.S. authorities obtained a number of warrants this year to conduct searches of the suspects' homes to look for evidence of militant or terrorist activities, officials said. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that some of the suspects played warlike paintball games in Northern Virginia and attended lectures given by a Muslim scholar whose home was also searched. "Muslim scholar", you knew there was one of them involved here somewhere, didn"t you?
One suspect, identified as Ahmed Abu-Ali, also has been taken into custody in Saudi Arabia by officials there who are investigating the May 12 bombings in Riyadh in which nine attackers and 25 other people were killed, U.S. officials said. Wonder if Ahmed is a Saudi or just visting?
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 3:52:36 PM ||
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UNITED NATIONS - Saying it was ``deeply concerned'' about fighting in Congo, the Security Council on Thursday extended the U.N. peacekeeping force in the central African nation through the end of July while council diplomats consider a proposal to make the force even stronger. Saying it was "deeply concerned" about the credibility of the UN, Rantburg giggled most of the day while Fred considered a proposal to make the back end of the server even better.
The resolution, which was adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, renewed the mandate for a month, noting a recommendation by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to prolong the mission for a year and to increase the number of troops from 8,700 to 10,800. "Look! Dessert!"
``Some members of the council said that they would prefer to study the recommendations in more depth and everybody agreed that this time should be given,'' Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, whose country holds the rotating council presidency, told reporters. Doesn't thatjust sound like a UN diplomat?
France and many African nations are backing Annan's call for a larger U.N. peacekeeping force with a more robust mandate, but the United States appears reluctant to agree. Annan has asked the Security Council to increase the U.N. force from 8,700 to 10,800, to focus mainly on ending unrest in Bunia and the surrounding Ituri province. He also asked for a stronger mandate.
I think asking for ammunition would be more to the point...
On May 30, the council authorized the separate deployment of a French-led emergency force to Bunia to protect refugees and aid workers. The force, which will have 1,500 troops when fully manned, can use its weapons to defend civilians, but its mandate lasts only until Sept. 1, when a U.N. contingent from Bangladesh is supposed to be deployed in the town.
They'll be allowed to defend civilians, but not using weapons. They're recruiting people who're very good at hollering even as we speak blog...
During fighting in Congo Thursday, three people were abducted by tribal fighters in Bunia hours after rival militants withdrew from the town under orders from the French-led force. Either this is a challenge to the French or the snatchers were pretty hungry.
The unidentified people were taken late Wednesday by fighters from the Lendu tribe who sneaked into Bunia as rival Hema tribal fighters were withdrawing, said residents. The victims were all Hema, the residents said. The Hema, who had controlled Bunia, were ordered to withdraw or be disarmed by the force. At least 500 people were killed in the clashes and tens of thousands were forced to flee.
So nobody's going to be particularly concerned over three people who're probably being digested at this moment...
The mandate of the U.N. troops, which had been due to expire on June 30, only allows them to fire in self-defense. They have not attempted to stem the violence between rival factions of the Hema and Lendu tribes that has killed more than 500 people in and around the northeastern town of Bunia since the beginning of May. Brilliant plan, Kofi, send a regiment that isn't allowed to do anything.
The resolution adopted Thursday also singled out fighting in the eastern province of North Kivu. Rebels from the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy captured a key town in the province last week, hours before signing a cease-fire. The council called on ``all the parties in the area for an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities and complete withdrawal up to the previously agreed positions,'' Lavrov told reporters. Excellent job, Kofi, once again showing us how useful the UN is.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/27/2003 12:59:14 PM ||
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NAIROBI (AP) - British Airways said Friday it will resume daily flights to Nairobi early next month. The announcement came a day after the British government lifted its six-week ban on commercial flights between London and the Kenyan capital. Flights to Nairobi will resume next Thursday, the airline said in a statement. In unrelated news, Air Ukraine announced cessation of flights to and from Nairobi, citing a sudden loss of ticket sales.
Britain suspended flights to Kenya on May 15 because of a ``credible'' threat, prompting British Airways to cancel its daily service between London and Nairobi. Since then, British Airways has been flying daily to Entebbe in neighboring Uganda. Passengers departing from Kenya were placed on a charter flight to Uganda. Ah, Entebbe, the Paris of Africa.
Kenya has been the scene of two terrorist attacks - both blamed on al-Qaida - in the last five years and U.S. and British intelligence has raised fears of another attack. This won't last one, the al-Q hard boys will cook up something, and we'll sniff it out.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/27/2003 12:55:17 PM ||
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JPost - Reg Req'd - EFL
Sgt. Erez Ashkenazi, 21, of Kibbutz Reshafim, was killed in a battle with Hamas men early Friday morning in the village of Mujarkha south of Gaza City.
Four Palestinians were killed in the battle. Contrary to previous reports, local leader Adnan al-Ghoul, whose house the soldiers destroyed, was not involved. Also known as "The Engineer," he was the target of the raid.
In the two-hour battle, soldiers fired more than a dozen tank shells as combat helicopters fired machine guns toward groups of dozens of gunmen, while the Palestinians threw grenades, one of which killed Ashkenazi.
Al-Ghoul, 42, is the chief bombmaker of Hamas, and has overseen the construction of homemade Qassam rockets the group has been firing at nearby Jewish settlements and Israeli border communities. He has been wanted for more than a decade by both by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has repeatedly tried to kill him in recent years.
Israel Radio reported that Palestinian forces were informed of the raid. The military turned over the bodies of the three dead Palestinians, according to Palestinian doctors. Here - you take 'em, they're starting to stink
The raid began around 4:30am, and the echoes of gunfire could be heard in nearby Gaza City.
Hamas issued a statement blaming the United States for this and other recent strikes, but refrained for the first time from making customary threats of more attacks against Israel.
On Thursday, troops intercepted four Palestinians carrying two backpacks stuffed with explosives, killing two in a clash and capturing the others.
Maj.-Gen. Amos Gilad, coordinator of government activities in the territories met on Friday afternoon with and Palestinian Minister of State Security Muhammad Dahlan to discuss the final details of transferring security control in Gaza and Bethlehem over to Palestinian control.
And the Palestinians confirmed that Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad reached an agreement to halt attacks on Israelis for three months.
BFD - rearming and reorganization time
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/27/2003 11:45:39 AM ||
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Hugh Hewitt is the host of The Hugh Hewitt Show, a nationally syndicated radio talkshow, and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard. He identifies a key concept here: since September 11, "it is okay to overestimate a threat, but it is never okay to underestimate one."
THIRTEEN MONTHS AGO, Senator Hillary Clinton rose on the Senate floor to demand answers to questions about what President Bush knew about the September 11 attacks before those attacks occurred. Dick Gephardt (then minority leader in the House) echoed the demand, asking "what the president and what the White House knew about events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it, and most importantly, what was done about it at the time." The Notebook editors at the New Republic couldn't resist a little second guessing of their own--directed at Attorney General John Ashcroft's post-attack request for a higher budget for counterterrorism: "[S]omeone should ask why he didn't mobilize some of those resources beforehand," scolded the magazine in its June 17, 2002 issue.
It's a year later and leading Democrats are again throwing bricks at the president's handling of intelligence. So is the New Republic. But this time the charge is that the president overestimated the threat to American security posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. A year ago he was too cold. Now he's too hot. The Democrats and their allies want the president to be just right.
The trouble with both sets of attacks is not their inconsistency--though that is amusing--it is that they lack a standard to instruct a commander in chief's action. This is the freedom that lack of authority brings: Every action can be second guessed, even if the second guessing makes no internal sense.
It appears as though the public has already concluded that the attacks on Bush of this spring are like the attacks on Bush of last spring—partisan cheap-shots of the worst sort since they concern national security. I think a good majority of the electorate has also come to an intuitive understanding of the key concept: It is okay to overestimate a threat, but, since September 11, it is never okay to underestimate one. If Bush overestimated the threat from Iraq, he certainly gave Saddam every opportunity to open the doors, and even at the end, to quit the country. Bush was unwilling, however, to run any serious risk of WMDs reaching terrorists. His 2003 critics have apparently reversed their 2002 positions, and would have preferred him not to highlight the threats in his intelligence briefings.
I will leave it to the foreign policy mavens like Marshall to come up with a more precise standard, but I think the layman's rule is this: If the commander in chief perceives a significant risk of severe casualties to Americans, he uses whatever force is necessary to remove that risk. Is this too liberal of a standard? Too much of a carte blanche?
The forgery of documents related to purchases of uranium from Niger, or the lack of a detailed Baghdad hotel bill from Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, in no way detracts from the correctness of the president's assessment of all the evidence of risk. The attempt to impeach the president's conclusion by impeaching parts of his data set establishes a standard under which many future September 11s could never be prevented because of the distinction between "signals and noise in intelligence collection." One final note about the New Republic's analysis: As with Joshua Micah Marshall, I host Peter Beinart each week on my radio program. Peter has a particular attachment to the idea that Bush radically overstated the threat Iraq's unmanned aerial vehicles posed. This refrain is picked up by Judis and Ackerman, and they, like Beinart, chastise the October 7 warning from the president that "We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." Judis and Ackerman conclude that this "claim represented the height of absurdity. Iraq's UAVs had ranges of, at most, 300 miles. They could not make the flight from Baghdad to Tel Aviv, let alone to New York."
It would be useful to know if the authors considered the attack on the USS Cole or the attacks on our embassies in Africa to have been missions targeting the United States. It felt that way to most Americans, but apparently not to these writers. The refusal of the public to be conned by such ploys reflects a reassuring attachment to common sense, and to a fundamental truth: It is best to be right in the assessment of danger, but it is also better to be wrong than dead.
Posted by: ColoradoConservative ||
06/27/2003 11:22:15 AM ||
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#1
I find it interesting that you use two seperate arguements, one that the administration didn't consider Al'Quida to be a significant threat before the terrorist attack and that the Bush administration overestimated Saddam's weapon threat. These are two seperated instances, and on both we see a lack of leadership. You say that the Democrats are suggesting that the president have his hands tied, and therefore you attack the credibility of anyone in that party who agrees on both instances, which is a Ad hominem argument. You then degenerate into a Straw man argument of UAV's in Iraq, If you've ever flown a model airplane, you would experience the extent of Iraq's UAV program.
Here are the facts, for fundemental truth is by definition not fact, but an assertion of fact from authority or group agreement, again a flawed argument.
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Pearl had pre-planned the removal of Saddam prior to the Bush presidency (PNAC 1997) and then took advantage of terrorism (911) in this country as a method of controlling the president's leadership, we all get to go along with them now, instead of what Bush ran on, which was a policy of non-interference with sovereign countries and no nation building (campaign speech 2000).
If that's not being conned, then Condeleza Rice didn't have an Chevron oil tanker named after her.
Israelis Exonerated in Activist's Death
PETER ENAV Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Israel's military prosecutor has exonerated Israeli soldiers in the death of an American peace activist, who was crushed to death by an army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, the army said Thursday.
Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia, Wash., died March 16 trying to block the demolition of the house of a doctor in the Rafah refugee camp by standing in front of the bulldozer. The army said the home was being destroyed in an effort to block arms smuggling.
What about the tunnels used for smuggling arms? Nary a mention.
Members of her (anti-Israeli) pro-Palestinian group, International Solidarity Movement, claimed that Corrie was visible to the bulldozer driver and that her death was malicious.
"When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside, (Rachel) climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it ... to look directly at the driver, who kept on advancing," the group said in a statement.
Announcing the ruling, the army said the driver did not see her, claiming she was standing behind a mound of earth.
Military police investigating the Corrie case found that the soldiers operating the bulldozer had no intention of harming her, the army said in a statement.
"Rachel Corrie was injured as a result of earth and building material falling on her when she tried to climb on a pile of earth while work was being carried out by an armored Israel Defense Forces bulldozer," the statement said. "The crew of the armored bulldozer did not see Miss Corrie, who was standing behind a pile of earth, nor could they have seen or heard her."
International Solidarity Movement spokesman Ghassan Andoni said Thursday that he was not surprised by the army findings. "We have received so many negative signals from them," he said. "Their only concern is to protect their people and not arrive at the truth." What a crock.
Over the past two months Israeli authorities have adopted an increasingly tough attitude toward pro-Palestinian foreign activists, trying to deport as many as possible.
On April 30, two Britons with loose ties to International Solidarity Movement carried out a suicide bombing at a bar in Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis. I've gone to the ISM website. Couldn't find any denouncement of this action.
Posted by: ColoradoConservative ||
06/27/2003 10:58:41 AM ||
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Libya's Leader of the Revolution Colonel Muammar al Qathafi received in Tripoli on Wednesday the President of Zimbabwe Robert Moghabi who is visiting Libya. The Libyan official news agency said that Qathafi and Moghabi discussed issues pertaining to the African continent and means of enhancing the African federation so as to achieve peace and stability in the continent. Translation: Bob is trying to sell more of his country to Muammar to raise cash. Also checking to see how his young thugs are doing with their training. Saw report on a African news service last week that plane loads of Zimbabwe youth are traveling to Libya for "higher education".
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 9:57:53 AM ||
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You just can't make this stuff up:
As sometimes happens with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), he let his mouth race ahead of his brain Wednesday night at a gathering of Young Democrats at the Washington nightspot Acropolis. After presidential candidate Howard Dean spoke, Kennedy delivered an impassioned peroration against President Bush's tax cut. We hear that Kennedy told the crowd: "I don't need Bush's tax cut. I have never worked a [bleeping] day in my life." With that he got the audience's attention -- the dropping-jaws kind. "He droned on and on, frequently mentioning how much better the candidates would sound the more we drank," a witness told us. He's been hanging out with Uncle Ted.
"Finally, he had to be stopped by a DNC volunteer." Kennedy's spokesman, Ernesto Anguilla, told us yesterday: "He was talking to the crowd; it was a rally-the-troops kind of speech about the tax cut. He was energizing the crowd and got caught up in it and used an unfortunate word, which he regrets using. . . . And no one pulled him off the stage."
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 9:35:30 AM ||
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Liberia's main rebel group has declared an immediate ceasefire to avoid what it called a humanitarian catastrophe in the capital. Translation: They need time to reload.
Rebels battling the Liberian government were fighting their way back into Monrovia when they called the ceasefire Friday. Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy released a statement saying the ceasefire took effect at 10 a.m. Friday. The rebel group is fighting to oust besieged President Charles Taylor as international pressure mounts for him to step down. U.S. President George W. Bush is among those to have called for an end to the fighting. "President Taylor needs to step down ... so that his country can be spared further bloodshed," Bush said Thursday, adding that his administration was working for peace in the war-ravaged country. Liberia's government offered a muted response, thanking Bush for his interest but warning that any hasty solution "could lead to anarchy, chaos and further deterioration of an already critical humanitarian situation." I'm not sure it could get a whole lot worse.
Journalist Alphonso Toweh said people are angry that the United States is not doing anything to help stop the fighting, and calls are growing for U.S. military intervention to repel the rebels. "They said, 'If the U.S. can go into Iraq, why can't they come to Liberia? Liberia has oil as well,'" Toweh cited many Liberians as saying. If we were really out for oil, we would go in and no one would say a word. Well, a few, but no one that counts.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/27/2003 8:50:14 AM ||
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Italy is close to signing an accord with Libya to send troops there to curb illegal immigration via the Mediterranean, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said. Under the agreement, Italian soldiers would control Libyan ports and borders. Speaking to the Senate in Rome, Mr Berlusconi said Italian ships would also be authorised to patrol Libyan waters. The statement goes further than a previous Italian decision to supply Libya with night-vision goggles and other border-control equipment - subject to a partial lifting of the international arms embargo against Tripoli.
Libya - a former Italian colony - has already acknowledged that it cannot police its long sea and desert frontier. Correspondents say the issue has gained urgency after more than 200 illegal migrants drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy in the last 10 days. Mr Berlusconi said fighting the illegal tide of migrants would be a priority during Italy's six months at the helm of the European Union presidency starting in July. A similar plan to stop illegal immigrants from Albania, which allows Italian military police to set up base in Albania and patrol the Adriatic, has been successful. The Libyan authorities were unavailable for comment on the announcement.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
06/27/2003 5:46:56 AM ||
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Israel is ratcheting up the pressure on Hamas and therefore the rest of the palestinian infrastructure. This might possibly take us somewhere interesting - like a paleo civil war (he hopes).
Israel killed three Palestinian militants and a civilian bystander Friday in an attempt to capture a master Hamas bomb-maker, a further blow to efforts to prop up a collapsing "road map" peace plan. The United States, which unveiled the road map three weeks ago, said Thursday a truce by militants would not be enough to bolster the plan.
Somebody's letting reality intrude here...
It also urged European Union and Arab countries to cut off support for political wing of the militant Hamas movement which has orchestrated a number of suicide bombings in Israel. But Palestinian officials said U.S. calls to disarm the popular militants could provoke civil war, while Israel has vowed to keep pursuing them, complicating efforts to forge a cease-fire.
The Paleothority is simply scared of them. They're not sure they're going to win in any fight...
Witnesses said Israeli troops swept into the village of Mughraqa in the central Gaza Strip before dawn Friday and surrounded the family home of Hamas explosives expert Adnan al-Ghul, precipitating a clash. They said three helicopter gunships accompanied by 15 tanks fired into the area, killing a brother and son of al-Ghul who were also Hamas members, and an operative of the allied Islamic Jihad militant faction. Witnesses said Adnan al-Ghul was not at home at the time and his whereabouts were unknown.
Did they look under the bed?
The fourth dead person was a civilian in an adjacent house. An Israeli military source said the army had carried out a "targeted arrest operation" against wanted Hamas members in Gaza. He said one soldier was lightly wounded but gave no further details. Security sources said Adnan al-Ghul was a senior Hamas militant wanted by Israel for some time. He escaped an Israeli army "track-and-kill" operation last year that killed his son. Otherwise in the article Condeleza says the right things.
Posted by: Phil B ||
06/27/2003 2:54:22 AM ||
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EFL
Former South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, the nation's longest-serving senator and former "Dixiecrat" candidate for the presidency, died Thursday in Edgefield, S.C. He was 100.
G'bye, Strom. The feelings are mixed, to say the least...
Thurmond died at 9:45 p.m. after being in poor health in recent weeks, said his older son, Strom Thurmond Jr. Thurmond, born Dec. 5, 1902, had been living in a newly renovated wing of a hospital in his hometown of Edgefield since he returned to the state from Washington in early 2003.
Direct from the Senate to the geriatric wing...
The Senate temporarily suspended debate on Medicare legislation to pay tribute to Thurmond. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said, "Strom Thurmond will forever be a symbol of what one person can accomplish when they live life, as we all know he did, to the fullest." Frist, R-Tenn., then led the Senate in a moment of silence. Thurmond's career in public service stretched over almost 70 years, from his election to the South Carolina State Senate in 1933 to his retirement from the U.S. Senate in January 2003. Far from a political wallflower, he was a populist firebrand famous for his defense of segregation and opposition to the civil rights movement. Running for the presidency as a States' Rights Democrat, or "Dixiecrat," in 1948, he declared that, "all the laws of Washington, and all the bayonets of the Army, cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation." However, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965, Thurmond's politics shifted with the growing number of black voters. Having switched to the Republican party one year earlier, he found federal money to provide services for his black constituents, and became the first Southern senator to hire black staff members â in 1971 â and appoint blacks to high positions. What can I say? (Admittedly nothing, but I leave it to the readers ...)
Posted by: Lu Baihu ||
06/27/2003 1:45:12 AM ||
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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.
