I've rebuilt the Dead Pool, to help track the Learned Elders of Islam and some of our favorite Tin Hats. Now taking nominations. I'll probably add a "Date Jugged or Deposed" field as well...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2004 5:29:24 PM ||
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#5
I'd like to see them all on one page. Rantburg's front page is huuuuge, and seeing the back-up just trying to get through the letter A...it'd be nice to survey the whole shebang at once.
Reminds me of a story I read of a soldier(WW2 shortly after D-day landings)This soldier was out of amo for his primary weapon.He ran around a corner and came face to face with a Panzer,he drew his .45 and charged.The tanks main gun fired knocking the soldier out.Later in an ambulance he met the tank crew.the crew were heard to say"The war is lost,these Americans are insane". Photos at the site.
"Christmas Eve morning a soldier came into our clinic at the Ibn Sina Hospital in downtown Baghdad covered in his own blood. He recounted an incredible story. Early Christmas Eve morning, two squads were assigned to sweep and clear two adjacent homes where Iraq terrorists were holed-up. The patient, SGT C, was leading one of those assault squads. The other squad hit their target first.
SGT C said that he heard a lot of small arms fire and yelling, so he thought he would round the corner and size up the situation before advancing his team. Unfortunately, as he turned the corner, he found himself staring directly into the barrel of a 9mm automatic pistol. SGT C said he never had time to be scared, he just knew he was dead. The terrorist pulled the trigger and, miraculously, SGT C found himself still standing. He figured the bullet had missed. He advanced on the Iraqi, who immediately surrendered. After the enemy was rounded up, SGT C said he started to feel light headed and one of his soldiers insisted that he proceed to the hospital. He realized at this time that he had lost his front tooth in the gun fight. He figured the ballistic shock from the weapon's blast had knocked it loose. He was wrong.
When he presented early that morning Major Kimberly Perkins, our oral surgeon, took a panograph and discovered the incredible truth. The 9mm bullet did NOT miss SGT C. He was hit directly in the face. The bullet entered just below his nose where it impacted the apex of #8. The energy from the bullet was transferred to the tooth, literally ejecting the tooth from its socket, and stopping the bullet in its track. Other than the missing tooth, the majority of SGT C's injuries were confined to soft tissue.
Here is the pan with the bullet clearly visible, embedded in the upper lip.
SGT C is a citizen soldier - a reservist. When he returns to the states, the Army will see he has an implant replacement for the missing #8. Meanwhile, the prosthodontist in Baghdad, LTC Richard Druckman, made him an acrylic interim treatment partial. When SGT C came in for the prosthesis, I said "Can you imagine what the enemy thought when he shot you point blank in the face, and you just kept coming at him! Americans are invincible. No wonder he surrendered so fast!"
SGT C smiled and said, "This is why you should always brush your teeth!"
AnnaLee Kruyer DDS"
Las Vegas, NV
Here is the web address if the link doesn't work:http://braden.weblogger.com/2004/12/08
Posted by: raptor ||
12/11/2004 10:16:19 AM ||
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#1
Duplicate on page 1. Fred or Steve please combine or delete.
A grenade exploded at a concert of Indian movie stars and entertainers in Sri Lanka's capital Saturday, killing at least two people and injuring 15. The grenade was thrown at the crowd as the three-hour show was nearing its end, military spokesman Brig. Daya Ratnayake said. A man identified as a journalist for a local newspaper and a woman were killed, he said. Audience members first mistook the explosion as part of a fireworks show accompanying the concert until they saw people bleeding, a doctor at Colombo's national hospital told the Press Trust of India. At least 12 of the injured were admitted to a hospital with shrapnel injuries cause by a hand grenade or small bomb.
The Indian entertainers were unhurt, officials said. The show, titled "Temptation 2004," featured Indian stars Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Saif Ali Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Javed Khan and Celina Jaitly. Earlier, police used tear gas to break up a protest by about 200 Buddhists who tried to prevent the concert, held a day before the anniversary of the death of a leading Buddhist cleric. Sunday is the first anniversary of the death of Gangodawila Soma — a popular preacher who campaigned against conversions of Buddhists by Christians. Monks are a powerful political force in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka. Earlier Saturday, concert organizers met a group of monks and offered an apology for the event's timing, which the clergy accepted. But the monks' lay supporters protested the decision, accusing the monks of betrayal. It was unclear whether the grenade explosion was related to the monks' protest.
My guess is that it was. What's yours?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2004 7:00:57 PM ||
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Some 18,000 American troops have started a winter offensive against Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, vowing to eliminate insurgents who could threaten parliamentary elections slated for the spring. The U.S. military said Saturday that it hoped the new push, dubbed Lightning Freedom, would persuade insurgents to accept an amnesty offered by President Hamid Karzai that could stabilize the country and allow foreign troops to pull back. "It's designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally we believe go to ground during the winter months," spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said. "It's going on throughout the country of Afghanistan." The operation was initiated after Karzai's inauguration Tuesday as the country's first democratically elected president, McCann said. He didn't know exactly when it began and gave no details of any specific moves against militant targets.
18,000 troops sounds like it's a bigger operation than the usual "we're gonna getcha"...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2004 6:54:42 PM ||
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#1
But...But...what about the Dread Afganistan Winter(TM)?
Posted by: N Guard ||
12/11/2004 19:03 Comments ||
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#2
Those warm targets show up on infrared even better in the winter.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/11/2004 19:22 Comments ||
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#3
We need some operation, dubbed Waziristan Turkey Shoot to take care of these bad elements.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2004 19:53 Comments ||
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#5
Operation No Prisoners would be nice. Can I ask for that for Christmas?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2004 20:13 Comments ||
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#6
18,000 troops sounds like itâs a bigger operation
18,000 is almost the entire force in Afghanistan, isn't it? So this is a way of saying that everyone will be involved. The final push before the final withdrawal??? Or is this the mother-of-all-searches for OBL's remains?
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/11/2004 20:20 Comments ||
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#7
Good. The worse the weather, the better for us. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow shall deter our bullets from their intended targets.
Deadly ambushes, suicide car bombings and roadside bomb blasts took place across the country, killing at least 10 Iraqis and wounding six U.S. soldiers.
Ramadi hospital ambush
U.S. soldiers were ambushed late Friday in Ramadi, a hotbed of anti-American violence 70 miles west of Baghdad, by insurgents firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms from the city's hospital and medical academy, the Marines claimed in a statement Saturday. Insurgents hid inside the Ramadi General Hospital and Medical College and in nearby areas waiting for the soldiers to move into their ambush zone, said Capt. Bradley Gordon, spokesman for the 1st Marine Division of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "Some of the muzzle flashes of insurgent firing positions were observed as originating from windows within the hospital," he said. Officials from both the Ramadi General Hospital and Medical College, rejected the U.S. claims that they were used in the ambush, but said fighting occurred nearby. I categorically reject it!
"No, no! Certainly not! Those flashes were reflections off the Christmas ornaments!"
Two Iraqi civilians, including judge Omar Abdul Aziz Rashid, were killed during fighting, but no U.S. casualties were reported. "It was very hard to identify my husband's body, because it was charred inside the car," the judge's wife, Dr. Eman Abdul Qadre, said.
Missing: Sudanese men
Separately, police on Saturday found seven bodies apparently killed several days ago and dumped near a highway about 20 miles west of Ramadi. Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jubouri said the seven were dark-skinned and didn't look Iraqi, while a hospital official said two Sudanese men asked about the bodies at the morgue. The Sudanese Embassy said it has heard of the grisly finds and sent an official to investigate.
Little far from home, aren't they? Musta gotten lost in a snowstorm.
Various ambushes and booms
Gunmen also killed two Iraqi police, including a colonel, in an ambush north of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, on Saturday, killing one of each as they traveled to work, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said.
Another two police officers were killed, including one captain, and two more wounded by militants while patrolling Baghdad's northern Azamiyah suburb late Friday, police Lt. Mohammed al-Obeidi said.
In the nearby Shula neighborhood, Shiite cleric Salim al-Yaqoubi was killed by gunmen near his house early Saturday, a police spokesman said.
A second Shiite cleric, Sheik Ammar al-Jibouri, was slain on Friday near Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, as he was driving to the capital. Al-Jiborui once headed a religious court of followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the southern holy city of Najaf. Al-Sadr aide Sheik Ali Smesim said al-Jibouri's killing was aimed at "flaring a sectarian war between Iraqis."
In the central Iraqi city of Samarra, a mortar shell slammed into a car, killing one occupant and injuring another, U.S. military spokesman Master Sgt. Robert Powell said. The attack happened late Friday near a river ferry terminal and a mile from a U.S. military base.
In northern Iraq, a suspected suicide car bomber wounded two U.S. soldiers in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, while two more were wounded in a car bomb blast near Kirkuk, about 60 miles to the north.
Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb outside of Hawija, near Kirkuk.
Elsewhere, a car bomb in Mosul exploded near a U.S. military convoy, killing a civilian but causing no American casualties, witnesses said.
Posted by: (-Cobra-) ||
12/11/2004 10:59:53 AM ||
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#1
Speaking of sweet little nuggets from Iraq. Have anyone at RB made any Kevin Sites sightings (no pun intended) lately?
#2
Good question, PR. Kevin Sites has a blog site: http://www.kevinsites.net/ However, his last posting was a November 21 letter to the "Devil Dogs of 3/1", the unit to which he was embedded.
#9
Now that's a Merry Christmas story. Just wasn't his time.
Caught a bullet in his teeth. dang! Isn't it amazing our MSM refuses to tell these stories. I know i go on and on and on about it, but it never ceases to amaze me.
Pakistan has arrested the head of a militant Islamic group wanted in connection with the kidnapping of three UN workers in Afghanistan. Syed Akbar Agha, from a group that calls itself the Army of Muslims, was captured in a raid on an appartment block in the southern city of Karachi. The UN workers were captured in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in October, but were released nearly a month later. Afghan officials say no deal was done to free Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Angelito Nayan from the Philippines and Shqipe Habibi from Kosovo. The Army of Muslims - Jaish-e-Muslimeen (JM) - is believed to be a splinter faction of the Taleban, Afghanistan's hard-line former ruling group.
It's significant, but not surprising in the least, that Agha's in Karachi. He probably lives there.
The BBC's Zafar Abbas in Islamabad says it is not clear what led to the arrest. But he says there are unconfirmed reports that a former member of the militant group tipped off security services, after disagreeing with Mr Agha about a ransom allegedly received for the release of the trio. The suspect was arrested in a raid on an apartment block in Karachi, where he had been hiding along with his family.
Toldja he lived there...
He was still with Pakistani security forces and it was unlikely he would be handed over to Afghanistan, the minister added. Mr Agha commanded Taleban forces in the Maidan-Shahr area, west of Kabul, for 11 months in the mid-1990s. He founded the Army of Muslims in December 2001, soon after the regime fell. But he then fell out with the movement's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/11/2004 7:37:35 AM ||
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#1
sounds like an Army of Oneâ¢
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2004 8:51 Comments ||
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But he says there are unconfirmed reports that a former member of the militant group tipped off security services, after disagreeing with Mr Agha about a ransom allegedly received for the release of the trio.
Naughty, naughty, Agha. No hogging all the ransom money. Any thug worth his weight knows you've got to keep all the palms greased so that they don't tend to pick up knives once your back is turned.
Immigration staff at Islamabad on Friday offloaded eight passengers from three flights as they had bogus documents. Immigration staff intercepted four passengers, Tariq Mahmood, Muhammad Afzal, Muhammad Hanif and Farooq Ahmed, as they were boarding the London-bound flight PK-835. Immigration staff checked the travelling documents thoroughly and found them to be fake.
"Whaddya mean, 'fake'? My Grandaddy gimme that passport!"
During the preliminary investigation, the accused told the immigration staff that they had paid Rs 500,000 each to a travel agent, Kashif Mahmood, for arranging visas and other travelling documents.
"And you didn't find it unusual that the visa stamp was drawn with crayon?"
"Hey, what do I know about how they do things in England? I'm from Peshawar!"
"We can tell that from the cut of your turban."
Three people were offloaded from a Johannesburg-bound flight. The accused, Muhammad Sajjad, Qamer Abbas and Sohail Ahmed, were found guilty of carrying bogus travel documents. Muhammad Mujtaba was prevented from boarding a Jeddah-bound flight SE 725 on the charges that he was carrying someone else's papers. The accused confessed that he had purchased the passport from Gul Khan for Rs 40,000.
"But Gul Khan's a friend of my cousin Mahmoud, so it's okay, right?"
The accused were shifted to FIA Passport Cell, Rawalpindi for further legal proceedings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2004 12:09:54 AM ||
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#1
Aye, they be raisin' the bar on passport quality, me Pakistani chums. Better luck next time.
Great comments, Fred, got quite a chuckle! Visa stamp drawn with crayon, indeed! LOL!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2004 2:25 Comments ||
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Still funniest Fred line.....
Loose the cheap watch Mahmoud!
But my Imman give it to me!
#3
It's interesting that many young woman in South
Africa who apply to the Deptartment of home Affairs for documents find that they have been mysteriously classified as 'married'. The name 'Muhammed' sometimes appears on the fake marriage certificate. The corrupt Department has been raking in bribes to wangle citizenship for these Muhammeds and others, many apparently from Asia. The will to tackle the corruption is noticeably absent and the Department cheerfully continues to rake in the cash and to deny the young victims their identities as genuine South Africans. Their lives have to put on hold because when they try to get identity documents they are told that nothing can be done about it until they are 'divorced'.
I'm convinced that the first destination of Muhammed and friends on arrival at Johannesburg International Airport would have been the Department of Home Affairs.
Pakistan said on Friday it would not allow any foreign country or agency directly or indirectly to question nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. "Pakistan has full confidence in the efficacy of its investigative system and procedures," Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said in Islamabad.
"Plus, he's not feeling too well right now. Flowers and a card? No, no, not necessary. We'll let him know that you called."
His comments followed a report in London's Financial Times newspaper, which said Pakistan was expected to allow UN nuclear investigators to put questions in writing to Dr Khan. Quoting western diplomats, the newspaper said such indirect access would fall short of face-to-face interviews, which it has been seeking. But it could still prove an important step in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) efforts to untangle the network of manufacturers and middleman that supplied sensitive machinery and know-how to Libya, Iran, North Korea and perhaps others, the paper said. The spokesman said Islamabad "has received no such request".
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2004 11:42:35 PM ||
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SRINAGAR, India - Security forces were rushing to a remote mountain village in India's Jammu-Kashmir state on Friday, where suspected Islamic militants were attacking a police post and had killed at least four constables, police said. The battle was continuing late Friday morning in Magni, a remote village 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Jammu, the state's winter capital, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. About a dozen policemen had been stationed at the post, he said. While details about the attack were sketchy, he said at least four constables were killed in the initial assault early Friday, and police and paramilitary soldiers had been dispatched to the scene as reinforcements.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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Just a snippet from a larger story.
In a worrisome sign, one of the candidates on the 228-member United Iraqi Alliance list was killed after ignoring warnings to remove his name. Sattar Jabar, a leader of Iraq's Hezbollah Shiite movement, was gunned down with two other people Thursday night, aide Essa Sayid Jaafer said. "Sattar Jabar received a threatening letter two days before the assassination," Jaafer said. "The letter mentioned that if you are nominated, you will be killed, but he did not give the threat any attention."
#6
I believe this coalition (United Iraqi Alliance), though dominated by Shia, is more broadly based. They went to great lengths to convince some Sunni & Kurd (&, I think, Chaldean) leaders to participate. It would be no surprise if the more radical Sunni thugs murdered a 'traitorous' Sunni who agreed to participate in the election.
#9
HV, Hizb'Allah means Party of God or Army of God, something like that. (Any Arab speakers online? I need some help here!). There are lots of transliterated variations out there, depending on the flavour of the Arab who is speaking, and the aural acuity and spelling acumen of the reporter. Some of these groups are related, others not, but they are all radical ... and not at all nice people.
Kidnappers have released two truck drivers, one from Bangladesh and the other from Sri Lanka, after holding them hostage in Iraq for more than a month. The two have appeared briefly before reporters at the Sri Lankan embassy in Baghdad and looked relatively well, smiling and waving to television cameras. Bangladeshi Abul Kashem, 44, and Sri Lankan Dinesh Rajaratnam, 37, had been seized on October 28 while transporting supplies to Iraq from Kuwait. Both are employed by a Kuwaiti trucking company.
Thousands of truck drivers, many of them from poor regions of Asia, have come to the Middle East over the past 18 months to find work transporting goods into Iraq. Scores have been killed by insurgents determined to disrupt attempts by US and Iraqi authorities to rebuild the country, or by bandits seeking to steal their produce. Dozens of others have been kidnapped and threatened with death if the companies employing them do not cease operating in Iraq. Despite the dangers, there appears to be no shortage of drivers willing to take the risk to earn up to $US300 a month.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/11/2004 5:13:35 PM ||
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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.
Pakistan has arrested the head of a militant Islamic group wanted in connection with the kidnapping of three UN workers in Afghanistan. 
Pakistan said on Friday it would not allow any foreign country or agency directly or indirectly to question nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. "Pakistan has full confidence in the efficacy of its investigative system and procedures," Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said in Islamabad. 
