I want to thank everyone here who responded to my request concerning Sgt. Hank Harvey and also to the moderators who allowed me to make the request. Hank is doing just fine and your letters really helped. He said he will try to respond to each one of you personnally. He is now and will be for some time really angry with our "media" for their stoking the fires of the jihadis against his fellow soldiers. A bunch of us took him out on Friday for a "Welcome Home and a Job Well Done" celebration and he had a great time and got absolutely wasted. He earned it. He doesn't think he did anything special and was a bit self-concious about the attention we paid him. He was in command of three gun trucks for convoy security and with all the rules about when to fire and the consequences of making a mistake in the heat of a firefight it was a very stressful tour. He told me of more than one occasion when a group of children would gather to wave at them and suddenly some terrorists who would be among the children would open fire. He said he was impressed with the progress the Iraqi armed services was making in taking over their own defence and security and they seemed to be very effective in finding these nutjobs both before and after their attacks. He said he knows a lot of attacks were prevented by the Iraqis themselves but didn't probe into the methods of how they got their information. Raj, He said he's really considering the clambake.
Again, thank you all for your support. Hank is really a fine man.
Sincerely, Deacon Blues.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/13/2005 09:26 ||
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#1
Thanks for filling us in, Deacon. Can you send me his address too? I forgot to ask you. And Raj, what's this about a clambake? I might be up Boston way in August...
#4
I've got the horse and am holding it in escrow. His soon-to-be-ex doesn't know where I live so the horse is just fine. Sea, I'll send you his address. I don't have it here at work.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/13/2005 16:08 Comments ||
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#1
BBC, CNN, Al-Jizz.
Congrats on the hat trick, kid. I don't think you have to explain the move. It looks like a natural progression.
I look forward to you running the show at Jihad Unspun in a couple of years...
#4
Riz is seen mostly on CCNI and every year (even before 911) would do a week long special report from Mecca/Medina on the Haj. He is very Islamic and an apologist. He is only making the natural progression from BBC to CNN to Al-Jazeera and when Binny takes over the world will become his press secretary.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/13/2005 14:55 Comments ||
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#5
I believe step 4 on that career ladder is suicide bomber.
Posted by: ed ||
06/13/2005 14:57 Comments ||
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#6
Then he can become OBL's press secretary in hell....
#7
Ed: naw, first he has to get "kidnapped" so some dhimmi government can slip a few mil to the jihadis. Next, he'll have to produce a few beheading videos. Then, perhaps, they'll let him be a true shaheed and get his 72 raisins.
Posted by: ST ||
06/13/2005 15:14 Comments ||
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#8
So what, the asshole hates freedom in the west, or the asshole hates freedom in the east. Maybe someone over there will want to listen to that shit. Good riddance.
Well, that's Show Jizz! Personally, I'm not suprised by the transition from BBC => Al Jiz. I used to read the BBC webpage daily, back in the pre-Rantburg era. No more. Praise be to Allan for the snarky, info-goodness of Rantburg!
#12
America's oil-patch dhimmi President may finally be bending to the pressure of those like me who oppose democraticizing Islamofascism.
Rantburgers: I conscript you in the total war campaign against Islamofascism, and order you to cease and desist in supporting subsidized jihadism in the Muslim junk states. Read of our following success in knocking the oil-patch kiss-butt orientation to the Sauds, out of the alcohol sotted brain of GWB.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8733850
And here is some bipartisanism education for the fat-headed:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/703azlsf.asp
Hearts and minds are for bullets. Thank me!
Posted by: War on Islam ||
06/13/2005 22:26 Comments ||
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#13
bite me
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2005 23:25 Comments ||
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Mr al-Saadi, 42, was driven to his family in Baghdad, where relatives and friends danced and slaughtered a Shia sheep in his honour. That's just what I do, just as soon as me and 40 of my closest friends fire willy-nilly into the air with automatic weapons.
There were suggestions that M Chirac authorised the payment of a ransom to the kidnappers who were holding Mme Aubenas and her guide. Robert Menard, the secretary-general of the press freedom lobby group Reporters Without Borders, said that the hostage-takers had demanded $15 million (£8.3 million) within weeks of the disappearance of the journalist on January 5. However, the French Government denied that a ransom was paid. "There was absolutely no demand for money. No ransom was paid," Jean-François Cope, a spokesman, said. Nothing to see here, move along!
I'd start looking for some wealthy terrorists with nice, shiny new weapons.
Analysts say that the French authorities are unlikely to have paid the full $15 million demanded by the gang that kidnapped Mme Aubenas and Mr al-Saadi.
Well sure, the French always know how to bargain at a market ...
In December two other French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were freed after four months as hostages in Iraq. In their book on their ordeal, they said that the "going rate" for securing a Westerner's freedom was about $2 million. Boy, Italy sure got hosed on the Giuliana Sgrena deal.
Bernard Bajolet, the French Ambassador to Iraq, said that the journalist and her assistant, who spent their first night of freedom on Saturday in a secure embassy building, were in good health and high spirits.
In France a national campaign, spearheaded by the media, kept "Florence and Hussein", as they were known, in the headlines and the Government under pressure. The DGSE, the French intelligence agency, which led the ransom rescue efforts, is believed to have established contact with a credible intermediary capable of transmitting the kidnappers' demands, and the French responses, within the past month. The agency will question Mme Aubenas over the next few days.
Posted by: ST ||
06/13/2005 00:01 ||
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#1
A ransom was paid to be sure, anything to make US Soilders bleed and die the French will gladly do.
#4
Whell, one ovf our journaleests ees whurth tehn ovf yhoure keeling macheens. Kermit de Frog
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 8:46 Comments ||
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#5
In a nutshell this is why France and Italy and Germany and the rest of "old" Europe are dying from a million cuts - one at a time. Its pathetic to watch and some how I think we are going to have to come to the rescue again.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/13/2005 8:59 Comments ||
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#6
thanks Jacques! New money for IEDs to kill our troops!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2005 10:07 Comments ||
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#7
It must be getting harder for France to contribute to the cause if they have to hide it in a 'hostage' ransom nowdays....
The Supreme Court refused Monday to be drawn into a dispute over President Bush's power to detain American terror suspects and deny them traditional legal rights.
It would have been unusual for the court to take the case of "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla now, because a federal appeals court has not yet ruled on the issue. Arguments are scheduled for July 19 at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.
A year ago, the court ruled the Bush administration was out of line by locking up foreign terrorist suspects at the Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without access to lawyers and courts. But justices declined to address a separate issue: whether American citizens arrested on U.S. soil can be designated "enemy combatants" and held without trial.
Padilla has been in custody since 2002 when he was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after returning from Pakistan. The government views him as a militant who planned attacks on the United States, including with a dirty bomb radiological device, and has said he received weapons and explosives training from members of al-Qaida.
A federal judge sided with Padilla and ruled that an endorsement of indefinite detentions would be a "betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties."
Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, said the lower court ruling "marks a substantial judicial intrusion into the core presidential function of determining how best to ensure the nation's security."
Padilla's lawyers had wanted to jump over the appeals court and have the Supreme Court intervene. "Delay increases the chance that Padilla could be faced with an unconstitutionally coerced choice - for example, whether to plead guilty to a crime or to give up other rights in order to avoid further months of detention as an enemy combatant," his lawyers told justices in a filing.
The court is already familiar with Padilla's case, which they debated last fall but then threw out on grounds that Padilla's lawsuit had been filed in the wrong jurisdiction. The latest round comes from South Carolina, where Padilla is being held in a Navy brig. Officials contend Padilla received weapons and explosives training from members of al-Qaida, and planned an attack with a "dirty bomb" radiological device.
Padilla, a New York-born convert to Islam, was one of just two U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants, a designation that allows indefinite detention without charges for al-Qaida suspects and their associates. The other one, Yaser Esam Hamdi, was released last fall after winning a Supreme Court appeal. The justices said Hamdi, a U.S.-born suspected Taliban foot soldier captured in Afghanistan, could use American courts to argue that he was being held illegally.
The Monday case is Padilla v. Commander C.T. Hanft, 04-1342.
This article starring:
JOSE PADILLA
al-Qaeda
Posted by: too true ||
06/13/2005 13:31 ||
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A Saudi held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on suspicion of terrorism, was forcibly injected with fluids, grilled in the proximity of military dogs and straddled by a female soldier, according to secret logs obtained by Time magazine.
Not quite the same as dying a glorious Islamic death and being served for all eternity by 72 doe-eyed virgins, is it?
Mohammed Al-Qahtani was forcibly injected with an undisclosed volume of fluids after refusing food and water in late 2002 at the Guantanamo camp, according to US interrogation logs obtained by Time and released yesterday. The logs parts of which are incomplete provide a detailed account of some of the measures used against a detainee at the prison, many of which have been harshly criticized by rights groups.
Luckily for those doing the criticizing, they weren't where al-Qatahni could get to them to kill them...
Al-Qahtani was captured fleeing Tora Bora, Afghanistan in December 2001 and transported to Guantanamo two months later, Time said.
So he's obviously innocent as a babe, pure as the driven snow, his poop smelling of attar of roses. It's not like Tora Bora was a battle fought with Arab mad-dog killers in a desperate attempt to shield their Fearless Leader while he flew the coop, leaving them in the lurch...
US authorities subsequently discovered he was deported from Florida in August 2001 and believe he had sought entry to America to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Time said.
But he stunk so loudly even the 9-10 INS turned him away...
The logs detail how Al-Qahtani was interrogated for 50 days from early November to early January 2002-2003, during which 16 additional interrogation methods were approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Pretty hard core, was he? And what terrible things happened to him?
Often woken at 4 a.m. and probed until midnight, Al-Qahtani was forced to stand or sit on a chair, shown pictures of 9/11 victims, and told he could not pray.
Poor Babykins didn't get his beauty sleep, huh? Gee, golly. I feel for him. I used to hate it when I had long days like that when I was in the Army. Of course, I didn't have to look at pictures of people my cohorts had murdered, so maybe that was what made it so much easier to take. Not that it was nearly as hard as jumping from the 85th floor of a burning building...
At one point, Al-Qahtani mounts a food and water strike and becomes so dehydrated that medical corpsmen "forcibly administer fluids by IV (intravenous) drip." After a struggle, the Saudi is restrained, strapped down and "given an undisclosed amount of fluids," according to Time.
I'd guess it was enough to keep him from croaking himself through dehydration. Hopefully, it was administered with the dullest IV needle they could find, by the most thumb-fingered tech available.
Al-Qahtani subsequently tells his interrogators he works for Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, before urinating in his pants.
I think we noticed he worked for al-Qaeda and Binny when we picked him up at Tora Bora. But peeing himself will look good on his resume.
After Rumsfeld approved the new interrogation measures on Dec. 2, 2002, he was subjected to a drill known as an "Invasion of Space by a Female."
Oh, no! Not a Female! I'll bet she had nice tits, too. Oh, the humanity!
"He was laid out on the floor so I straddled him without putting my weight on him. He would then attempt to move me off him by bending his legs in order to lift me off but this failed because the MPs were holding his legs down with their hands," one log entry states.
On Dec. 7, Al-Qahtani's condition deteriorated so badly that he was not interrogated for 24-hours. Over the next month Al-Qahtani after his condition improves is stripped naked, told to bark like a dog and pictures of scantily clad women are hung around his neck. The logs recount Al-Qahtani saying he wants to commit suicide.
"No, jerkwad. You can't commit suicide until we tell you you can commit suicide!"
He was probed in the presence of a military dog, but "no details are given beyond a hazy reference to a disagreement between the military police and the dog handler," Time said.
Hey, Time! If you're reading this, it doesn't bother me a bit. If the tick wanted good treatment, he should have sung. And if he didn't want to go to Gitmo he should have stayed home in Arabia. Instead, he went tromping out with the other lords of creation, lording it over the natives and hollering "Death to the Great Satan." He bought the Islamic story, so now he can live with the consequences, which include us laughing at him while he pees his pants. As far as I'm concerned, he should be dead.
This article starring:
MOHAMED AL QAHTANI
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:00 ||
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#2
As far as I'm concerned, he should be dead.
You'll get no argument from me in that regard. What's the point of warehousing these folks? Just kill jihadists, forget about interrogations and giving them 3 square meals a day courtesy of the US taxpayer. How much intel do we get for the most part, as opposed to bad publicity and high maintenance costs? And by bad publicity costing us, I don't mean with the ACLU or the US Law Society. I mean with our erstwhile Muslim dominated countries, like Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, etc. I think those countries are helpful for the most part, but when our own traitorous MSM (eg. Izakoff) focus on Gitmo "abuses" it makes life difficult for folks like Mushareff to stay on board. Gitmo is more trouble than it's worth IMO.
#8
My bad. The sink trap is clogged right now; hang on whilst I call a plumber ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2005 9:42 Comments ||
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#9
Fixed now...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 10:05 Comments ||
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#10
This is the sort of nonsensical bullshit you put up with from lying Jihadi's when you let those miserable pieces of shit walk out of there alive.
Of course all self hating Americans, the MSM, the dhimmi's and Euro's will continue to buy this horeshit lock, stock and barrel, undermining the war effort.
Solve the problem by shooting these scumbags the moment intellegence believes they've been tapped for all they know.
And at one point the reader might assume that if something really bad had happened, we might have read about it by now. I know a little bit about modern journalism, and we tend to emphasis the splintery plunger up the butt over the mocking puppet show. In any case, this detail makes you almost want to weep in frustration; domestic politicians are posturing for the camera, huffing about then horrors of Gitmo, insisting that the rest of the world wonât forgive us until we close the joint down and pave it. Over what? A Punch and Judy show? If we gang-mimed the guy and had 17 men in striped shirts with white makeup pantomime falling out of a burning skyscraper, would the critics demand we not only let the guy go but pay him a per diem for his troubles? Iâve read the story twice, and I keep wondering if I missed the part where the suspected 20th hijacker spits teeth into a chamberpot rimming with own bloody urine while massaging the welts the jumper cables left on his groinal division. I mean, I take all that for granted, because our soldiers are all killbot brutes - except for the lower-class ones who got drafted against their will and can only hope Bruce Springsteen sings a monotonal account of their disaffection.
Puppet shows and secret code / I donât know who to trust / Iâm the metaphorical twin of old Tom Joad / inasmuch as we both dealt with dust / his was the kind that got in your eyes / mine gets in your gun / but they both get down deep in your soul / whaddya mean, sing âBorn to Runâ?
He is taken to a new interrogation booth, which is decorated with pictures of 9/11 victims, American flags and red lights. He has to stand for the playing of the U.S. national anthem.
Okay, this is torture. But only if youâre interrogating a poster on the Democratic Underground.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/13/2005 10:18 Comments ||
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Oh my God! Straddled by a female soldier? Last time that happened to me (weeping) I had to marry that soldier (tears flowing). Like me that poor bastard probably never saw it coming.
#14
That asshole is lucky I wasnt doing the interrogation. He'd be wearing a colostomy bag and breathing with the aid of a machine, however we would have alot more info from him. If giving him IV fluids because he wouldnt eat and having a woman straddle him is the worst that they did to him I am ashamed of the army.
#15
âInvasion of Space by a Femaleâ? I think I saw that on the Sci-Fi channel...and it DID make me want to confess to all sorts of crimes. So if they forced this poor bastard to watch it...repeatedly, then yeah, that's torture.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 11:23 Comments ||
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#19
âInvasion of Space by a Femaleâ ? I think I saw that on the Sci-Fi channel...
Naah, it was on the Lifetime Channel ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2005 12:13 Comments ||
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#20
This leaves me very disappointed with Rumsfeld. I was thinking more along the lines of shoving a double-barreled shotgun in Al-Qahtani's mouth and playing Gitmo roulette until the game was over by default.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/13/2005 13:09 Comments ||
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#21
We should allow Al-Qahtani to fulfill his destiny and desire. Namely, being aboard an airplane as it crashes into a building.
So the next time we locate a bad-guy hangout in Iraq we strap Al-Qahtani unto a drone and fast-track him to virginville. Works for me, and him too I'm sure.
#22
A double barreled shot-gun? Infidel Tom shows an unexpected merciful-side.
Posted by: Farmers General ||
06/13/2005 14:48 Comments ||
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#23
I am now convinced more than ever that journalists at Time, Newsweek, NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc. are idiots. If they think that this kind of story based on this interrogation log is going to make us all run to the UN and ask forgiveness or worse rescind our votes and have Kerry take over they are nuts. What it does is make it more apparent that ever that we are not doing ENOUGH tough stuff to get these murdering sobs to cough up the goods (as Cagney would say). But then it also wouldn't suprise me that Time wrote this story for their Internationale readers and not us moronic, rightwing, rednecks here in Amerika!
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/13/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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#24
I am now convinced more than ever that journalists at Time, Newsweek, NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc. are idiots.
You're just now convinced of this?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/13/2005 16:01 Comments ||
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#25
just out of curiosity... has anyone heard of this method? wheeler-serotonin
not that I'm against the medieval approach, but wringing him (completely) dry first is the priority, right?
#33
Of course Old Spook can't comment. He's much to dainty. (Would you like some decaffinated tea (it's too late for the regular stuff) to go with that belly laugh, OS dear?)
AN UNSPECIFIED amount of ransom money was believed paid to members of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf for the safe release of two kidnapped Indonesian sailors in the southern Philippines, Filipino security sources said Monday. The duo, Yamin Labaso, 26, and Erikson Hutagaol, 23, who were kidnapped last March 30 by Abu Sayyaf gunmen off Mataking island near the Sabah border, had been recovered by troops at dawn Sunday in the hinterland of Indanan town in Sulu, about 950 kilometers south of Manila.
A security official earlier said the duo escaped from the Abu Sayyaf in Mt. Tumantangis near Indanan town with the help of a local villager, Nijal Aradani. It was not immediately known why Aradani helped them escaped or what role he played for the safe release of Labaso and Hutagaol. But sources in the island said ransom money was believed paid to the kidnappers under Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad and Gumbahali Jumdail and that negotiations for the release of the remaining Indonesian hostage Ahmad Resmiyadi, 32.
The hostages were crew members a Malaysian boat firm, and were returning to Sandakan in Sabah from East Kalimantan when the bandits attacked them. "We received reports that ransom money was paid to the kidnappers and that the hostages were dropped off from a specified rendezvous, and there are negotiations for the release of Ahmad Resmiyadi," sources said, adding, the remaining hostage is being held captive by another Abu Sayyaf faction under Salip Abdulla in Indanan town. But the military said the two hostages were rescued after a firefight with the kidnappers in Indanan town.
Indonesian Ambassador to the Philippines Sanusi on Monday flew to Zamboanga City and met with Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Alberto Braganza to thank the military for the safe recovery of the hostages. Sanusi later met with Labaso and Hutagaol, but Filipino soldiers said the ambassador did not want reporters near the military hospital where the pair were resting. Soldiers also prevented news photographers from taking Sanusi's picture while he was talking with the victims.
Sanusi also did not give a statement to reporters, but was later spotted waving to photographers on his way back to the airport. "We want to give Sanusi the chance to air his side about the ransom payment, but he did not want to give any statement. He also did not want reporters and photographers to cover his visit to the escaped hostages," a Filipino journalist said.
"It would be great to see Sanusi's pictures on Indonesian newspapers, so his compatriots would know that for once embassy officials have visited the freed captives or just to show that they are now so concerned about the sailors," another Filipino journalist, who is are working for international news agencies, said.
A group of Indonesian lawmakers led by Junus Effendi Habibie is also expected to arrive in Zamboanga City this week to see the hostages, Braganza said. "The Indonesian ambassador is elated over the rescue of the hostages, and Indonesian lawmakers are also arriving here this week," he added.
The kidnappers have earlier demanded three million ringgits ($789,600 dollars) in exchange for the safe release of the three hostages. The kidnap group said it will kill one of the hostages if ransom is not paid. The demand was sent last month to the Indonesian Consulate in Sabah. The spokesman of the Indonesian consulate Bambang Gunawan earlier said the kidnappers had sent mobile phone text messages to consulate officials and asked a video camera so they can air their demands. The captors also demanded medicines for the hostages, he said, but Filipino security officials claimed these information were not passed on to them.
Troops are scouring the West Java city of Indramayu for five cars carrying bombs made by al-Qaeda-backed militants linked to the Bali bombings.
Military authorities believe the bombs were made by recruits of Malaysian terrorism fugitive Noordin Top, who is accused of being one of the masterminds behind a spate of recent bombings in Indonesia.
The Koran Temp newspaper cited a military telegram in Indramayu that carried details of the five suspect cars.
The chief of the Indramayu district military command Lt-Col Bambang Heriyadi had confirmed the memo's existence, the newspaper reported.
"All military personnel have been ordered to be more watchful and vigilant in monitoring strangers.
"This is an early prevention step against bombing threats," the paper quoted Lt-Col Heriyadi saying.
He said all five cars had Jakarta-issued licence plates.
The city of Indramayu is located on the northern coast of Java island, 175km east of Jakarta.
Police have said Noordin Top and fellow Malaysian Azahari bin Husin are among the perpetrators of a series of blasts in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali atrocity that killed 202 people, the 2003 Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta which claimed 12 lives, and last year's blast near the Australian embassy that killed nine.
Police have warned that Azahari and Top, alleged key members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah militant terror network, are currently recruiting guerrillas and planning another attack.
Last week, an Indonesian court jailed Top's wife for three years for helping him evade a police manhunt.
Australian security forces also said last week that they had received intelligence reports suggesting that plans by terrorists to carry out attacks in Indonesia were in advanced stages.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/13/2005 16:10 ||
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BANGKOK, June 13 (Reuters) - Militants set off two bombs and ambushed motorists in Thailand's Muslim-majority south on Monday, killing two and wounding four in the latest violence in a region where more than 700 people have been killed in 18 months. One bomb exploded when the garbage truck in which it was hidden drove past Sungai Padi police station in the province of Narathiwat, along the Malaysian border, killing one of the garbage workers and injuring two, police said. A policeman parking his motorcycle near the road was also injured.
Two hours earlier, a bomb blew up outside a bank in nearby Waeng district, although nobody was injured, police said.
In nearby Pattani province, Buddhist twin brothers were shot with an M-16 while riding their motorcycle home from school, police said. One boy was killed instantly and the other was wounded. The government has imposed martial law in parts of the three southernmost provinces to curb the violence, which first erupted in January 2004 when gunmen raided army barracks and stole 400 assault rifles, including M-16s.
Shootings, bombings and arson attacks have since become daily occurrences.
However, authorities in the mainly Muslim region, which has a century-long history of often violent opposition to the Buddhist government in Bangkok, appear no closer to bringing an end to the unrest or identifying its masterminds.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 13:49 ||
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The Indonesian military is said to be searching around a West Java city for five cars believed to be carrying explosives made by Al Qaeda-linked militants.
The report by Indonesia's Koran Tempo daily follows warnings from the Australian and US governments and Indonesian police that militants belonging to Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah were set to launch more attacks in Indonesia. Koran Tempo said the alert for the explosives-laden vehicles was issued to troops in Indraymayu district in West Java province.
A local military chief told the paper all five cars had Jakarta-issued licence plates.
Top of the police wanted list are two fugitive Malaysians alleged to be key members of the Jemaah Islamiyah group: Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top. Koran Tempo said Mohamed Top made the bombs allegedly being carried in cars in West Java. Police have said Mohamed Top and Azahari are among the perpetrators of a series of blasts in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people, the 2003 JW Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta which claimed 12 lives, and last year's blast near the Australian embassy that killed 10.
Two of three Indonesian sailors kidnapped by suspected Abu Sayyaf extremists fled to freedom before dawn yesterday in the southern Philippines, officials said. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Buenaventura Pascual said Yamin Labaso and Erikson Hatagol escaped from their captors at around 12.30 a.m. from the bandits' jungle hideout in Mt. Tumatangis in the island of Jolo, about 950 kilometersm south of Manila. Pascual said a villager named Nijal Aradani helped the duo escape. He did not elaborate.
"The Indonesians are now under military doctors in Jolo," Pascual told Arab News. "We are now only going to have to rescue just one. Hopefully, we may be able to get him in the next few days," Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Lt. Gen. Efren Abu told reporters. A Malaysian intelligence report last month suggested that two hostages died in captivity and that the third had escaped from the Abu Sayyaf. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry had also said last month that it received reports suggesting that one hostage died in captivity. Hutagaol and Labuso were snatched on March 30 while sailing near Malaysia's Sabah state along with a third Indonesian identified as Ahmad Resmiyadi, and taken to Jolo, the officials said. The freed hostages were flown by helicopter and taken to a military hospital in southern Zamboanga city, where they were presented to the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Is it really a good idea to go around naming people who help hostages escape from hostile territory? Disinformation is the only thing I can think of.
Some within the U.S. intelligence community think Osama bin Laden is in eastern Iran, instead of the rugged tribal areas of Pakistan's northwestern frontier, where most American officials think he is still on the run.
Golly. What a new theory! Dan, did you ever imagine such a thing?
U.S. officials said in interviews that the Iran theory, which is held by a minority, is based on bits of intelligence information and the fact that months of CIA intelligence operations, along with search-and-destroy sweeps by thousands of Pakistani troops, have failed to find the al Qaeda leader or his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri. Asked whether the U.S. intelligence community thinks bin Laden may be in Iran, a senior administration official told The Washington Times, "Some people think he is."
Do a little better than that. Some people think the world is flat or that Al Franken is funny... Wait. I'm not too sure about that last statement.
That source said there is great frustration, especially within the inner circle around Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that bin Laden has not been caught or even unequivocally spotted in Pakistan's border region. The frustration is fueling speculation that bin Laden may not be there after all.
Wotta surprise.
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and House Armed Services Committee member, writes in his new book, "Countdown to Terror," that a reliable Iranian source he identifies only as "Ali" told him that bin Laden has been in Iran for some time.
"Ali," huh? I'da used "Mahmoud," myself.
"The course of world events have established incontrovertibly that Ali is a high credible source of reliable intelligence on Iranian and other terrorist activities," Mr. Weldon writes.
So's Mahmoud. Nobody better, by golly. What's the real intel show? Or do you only have what somebody told you over drinks at the golf course?
But the Bush administration's official position is that bin Laden is most likely in the border region straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan and that he is hidden by tribal allies. "The consensus is that bin Laden remains in the border region," said a U.S. intelligence official.
Could be, I suppose. The concensus used to be that he was dead.
Asked about reports that bin Laden is in Iran, which borders both Pakistan and Afghanistan, the official said, "That would be a big risk for the Iranians. ... There are all kinds of rumors that these guys go in and out of Iran, but that always struck me as odd."
Today's troll's expecting us to whack Iran over it's nuclear program. It's just as likely we'll whach Iran over sheltering bin Laden & Sons, Inc.
Bin Laden lived near Kandahar, Afghanistan, the Taliban cultural headquarters, until the 2001 U.S. invasion. He moved north to the Tora Bora mountain range, then slipped across the border into Pakistan.
My guess is that he went to Fazl's guest house. He got a shave and a haircut and changed his turban and curly-toed slippers. From there he went to Lahore to say hello to Hamid Gul, then took a boat from Karachi to Yemen, and probably into Assir province of Soddy Arabia, where he hung out with family until the heat died down. At some point, according to his cook, he went to Chechnya, but I imagine that was just for a state visit to Khattab and didn't last very long. Getting caught by the Russers would have been uncomfortably terminal and getting caught in Azerbaijan would have been nearly so. Now, that story may or may not be true in overview or detail, but I have at least as much evidence to back it up as Welcon does.
Gone are the heady predictions of early 2004, when the U.S. command in Afghanistan predicted bin Laden would be killed or captured by year's end. No commander is making such predictions now, and privately, some officers say the trail has gone cold.
Yeah, I'd say so. You could cool your beer with that trail. But precisely because of that, I suspect he's in either Iran or in Assir, with Iran the more likely, since the couriers were heading in that direction when they got stopped in Iraq.
Bush administration officials have accused Iran, a U.S.-designated sponsor of terrorism, of harboring al Qaeda lieutenants who escaped from Afghanistan in 2001.
Iran owns Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as its domestic Hezbollah and, apparently, Soddy Hezbollah. It finances Islamic Jihad as well. Even though it's a Mooselimb Brotherhood mob, it kicks in to support Hamas. To me that's 3+2 terror organizations Iran sponsors, before we get into the minor leaguers like PFLP-GC.
The administration has stopped short of providing the names of the al Qaeda fugitives or suggesting that bin Laden is among them.
Rumor had it that Suleiman Abu Gheith was in custody in Iran, and that Seif al-Adel and Saad bin Laden were both operating from within the country. And then there's Zark...
The U.S. also has intelligence that Abu Musab Zarqawi, who heads al Qaeda in Iraq, has slipped in and out of Iran since 2003 to evade capture. Officials say that is why Mr. Rumsfeld and the new Iraqi government have publicly warned Iraq's neighbors not to take in Zarqawi, whom Islamic Web sites say was wounded and needed medical care.
And that sort of thing will provide a casus belli, if Bush prefers...
Washington thinks one of bin Laden's sons as well as a top operations chief are in Iran. Iran denies harboring al Qaeda, but has said it has arrested and detained some members.
Like Sully, presumably. We haven't heard a peep out of him that I've noticed since he warned us to "fasten our seatbelts" three years ago almost to the day.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/13/2005 16:15 ||
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I had often thought that OBL was in Iran over the past several years as it is one of the few countries that would harbor him, and where he could continue his activities safely under the protection of State security services.
#3
Given his past participation in a pogrom against Shia civilians, Bin Laden would not be safe in Iran.
The Shia are waiting for revenge. It was a Shia airman who brought down General Zia Ul Haq's plane (in retaliation for the pogrom he ordered, executed by Bin Laden and Pakistani SSG troops).
Bin Laden is not on the Pak-Afghan border?
This is not news.
My money is on Rawalpindi cantonment
#4
I am sick and tired of hearing about some jerk in DC telling us idiots in the hinterland about how Bin Laden is hiding out in some region of the world that is completely inaccessible to us. (Duh, we've been to the moon already...) Bin Laden is either being protected by somebody or we don't have the faintest clue about where he is.
#5
WITT, I agree with you. I just pray to my God (unfortunely the one that let's you pee on his own symbol, without killing people in my own belief), that he's either killed this a hole, or let's us do it soon.
A Saudi newspaper said Monday the Jund al-Sham for Jihad and Unity group were planning terrorist attacks to establish Islamic states in and beyond Syria. The semi-official al-Watan daily said Syrian authorities, who recently discovered the group, seized documents in the possession of al-Jund al-Sham elements showing preparations were being made to launch attacks in the country and sending its members for training abroad. It added the documents showed that Syria would be divided into five areas, each being an Islamic emirate with a leader and its own organizational structure, with plans to expand to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and other countries.
Ah, that would get the Syrians moving. Much as the Saudis, they support jihad elsewhere, but don't try it at home.
The paper quoted unidentified "well-informed sources" as saying the discovery of this group came through a woman whose son was killed by a bomb he was planting on the Damascus-Beirut road in November 2004.
Mom found his diary?
They added the aim of that operation by the group was to target a prominent Syrian government official while he was heading to Lebanon to attend a meeting of the Higher Syrian-Lebanese Committee.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 09:14 ||
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There's another angle on this too, the old Reichtag Fire trick. Maybe this will allow Baby Assad to clmap down?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 12:31 Comments ||
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In the meantime it will certainly allow Assad to protest to Bush that he, too, is at risk from Islamist terror groups. Obviously we are on the same side, so won't Bush please stop picking on him!?!
Iran was rocked by bombings on Sunday, killing at least nine and wounding more than 30, as dozens of journalists from around the world gathered in advance of the presidential election this Friday. One of those journalists, actor Sean Penn--covering the events for the San Francisco Chronicle--was involved in a separate incident, and had his video camera confiscated for a time.
Several hundred women at a sit-in outside the entrance to Tehran University demanded rights revoked after the 1979 Islamic revolution. As chants and taunts arose, police and plainclothesmen surrounded the demonstrators, pushing away those trying to join the group. Officials also cut off cell phone service in the area, and challenged reporters nearby. In the process, they briefly seized the video camera of Penn, 44, acccording to The Washington Post. He had arrived in Iran as a reporter for his friend Phil Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Penn was spotted on Friday with a notebook in hand covering a prayer service. He has also written about his visits to Iraq for the Chronicle.
I had a brief vision of Sean Penn being raped and beaten to death in a Iranian prison. Is that wrong?
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 08:48 ||
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Wasn't it Penn that had a penchant for beating up photogs back in the 80's? Oh, the irony...
Posted by: Dar ||
06/13/2005 9:07 Comments ||
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Go get 'em, kid. You'll get to the bottom of things. Might even be a Pulitzer in it for ya...
Posted by: The Ghost of Walter Duranty ||
06/13/2005 9:11 Comments ||
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Steve, it's OK. Everything is OK. Methinks mild brutality inflicted upon Penn in his role as "journalist" would be a beautiful irony for the little thugeen. He could then devote some of his endless intellect to that one and ponder the irony. He should stick to acting. On second thought, he's not so good at that either. The Marines could have saved him had he enlisted years ago.
#4
IIRC,Peenis also is a strong proponet of gun control(for thee)he was busted for illegal posetion of a hand gun.(Peenis,typo but it looked appropriate)
#6
"But . . . but . . . but . . . I'm on your side!"
Posted by: Mike ||
06/13/2005 10:04 Comments ||
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Need a contest to see who gets closest to how he will play this as America's fault. Be hard even for him, to say it's American's fault that women are rising up for more rights, when they should just cover up and get back in the house. This could be fun.
#8
Although I would love to hear that Sean Penn was thrown into an Iranian prison and sexually molested (for weeks), this might be a case where Penn can do more for the conservative side than the liberals. The Chron can't tells us how nice the mullahs are while those same mullahs are giving the bum rush to their star reporter. His report on Iraq AFTER the fall of Saddam was most telling, because he said claimed that he now heard those voices of dissent against the Saddam. Of course that report got buried deep in the Chron and never saw the light in hte MSM. Time will tell but I am hoping Penn does a good job while in Iran, because few reporters are going to be able to report on what transpires.
#9
CS -- Aside from the obvious humor value, I am also somewhat encouraged by this incident. Maybe Penn will get a dose of reality when he's in Iran and doesn't have some corrupt regime kissing his butt and giving him a dog-and-pony show, as he did in Iraq from Saddam before the invasion.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/13/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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Sean Penn wouldn't have to play reporter if he was a better actor.
Posted by: Ben Affleck ||
06/13/2005 11:29 Comments ||
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I'm not a reporter but I play one in Tehran...
Iran's interior minister has asked security agencies to protect campaigners in Friday's presidential election after a speaker was beaten up at a reformist rally in Qom. Newspaper photographs showed Behzad Nabavi with a black eye and cuts on his head from the attack on Thursday after a rally that he said had been disrupted by people using teargas. "I haven't been beaten like this since the days of SAVAK," Nabavi, a leftist stalwart of the 1979 revolution, told a news conference. SAVAK was the Shah's secret police.
Nabavi, a former deputy parliament speaker, is a supporter of Mostafa Moin, a leading reformist candidate in the 17 June election. The campaign had been relatively free of violence. "Apparently in recent days there is an order from certain centres of power for organised physical confrontation with Moin's campaign meetings," Nabavi said. "The fact that they used teargas and handcuffs ... shows they were members of parallel security and military entities."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:00 ||
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Behzad, darling, the Revolution has moved on and left you behind. Not only are you no longer central, you are barely peripheral. Your time in the sun was more than a quarter century ago. The majority of your fellow citizens were still unborn when people cared what you had to say. I am terribly sorry to be the one to tell you this, but those of your political pursuasion tend to be a bit slow to notice these things.
#4
Thank you, Shipman. I do try. Mama said one should always maintain one's tools. But I leave grindstones to the professionals, and I'm not sure what that other thing is. Mr. Wife prefers me to stay away from sharp things -- he's afraid I might accidently cut something off. Which is awf'ly silly of him -- I haven't yet, even the time I snuck out and used the chainsaw.
The Mauritanian Army claims to have absolute proof that a radical Islamic group from neighboring Algeria was linked to a raid on a military post that killed 15 soldiers last weekend. At a news conference, military spokesman Colonel Alioune Ould Mohammad produced the Algerian registration document for a truck left at the scene on Wednesday.
Ould Mohammad said two of Belmokhtar's top aides, Abd-Lekhdime and Abdel-Aziz, had been killed in the attack. "These two men are known to be under Belouar's thumb, never left him, and as a rule did not take part in combat, which proves that he himself directed this operation," he added.
Ould Mohammad also said that a claim of ordering the attack attributed to the GSPC had been authenticated. Military sources said a widespread hunt for the raiders was still going on. Mauritanian Defense Minister Baba Ould Sidi announced last week that some 150 insurgents had attacked a military base in the remote northeastern Lemgheitty region, sparking a bloody confrontation that left 15 soldiers and five assailants dead and 17 wounded.
A statement on the GSPC Web site said the attack, in which two soldiers were also abducted, was a reprisal for a crackdown against Islamist leaders in Mauritania begun in April. The government of President Maaouiya Ould Taya has accused the Islamists of links to the Salafists, who have known ties to the Al-Qaeda terror network. Mauritania's Islamist movement has denied the charges. Critics of the Taya government say the allegations of an Islamic security threat is merely a ruse to stifle dissent and to curry favor with the U.S.
This article starring:
ABDEL AZIZ
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
ABD LEKHDIME
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
BELAUAR
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
Colonel Alioune Ould Mohammad
Defense Minister Baba Ould Sidi
MOKHTAR BELMOKHTAR
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
President Maaouiya Ould Taya
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/13/2005 16:43 ||
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Renewed clashes between Mauritanian soldiers and Islamic militia have been reported in the desert area near the border with Mali. Mauritanian sources, quoted by Arab daily al-Bayane, say the violence erupted on Sunday night and the Mauritanian army bombarded bases of the Algerian Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and attacked militants of the "Cavaliers of Change" opposition group, considered responsible for three failed coup attempts in Mauritania.
A Mauritanian military source said that in recent hours the government had decided to intensify the presence of its military in the area; in particular soldiers have been deployed along the border areas with Algeria and Mali, to tackle the Algerian Salafite guerillas.
The Mauritanian government decided to send new troops into the north of the country after the 4 June attack in which 18 of its soldiers were killed in a commando raid on their base by Islamic militants. The GSPC, in a statement published on an internet site, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The UN's IRIN news service reported that tens of thousands of people protested in the capital Nouakchott last week responding from a call by the ruling party to protest the terrorist attack on the military camp.
The increase in tension in Mauritania coincided with the start of US-led counter-terror exercises in the area. The training exercise began last Monday in Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and, for the first time, Algeria. Twelve-man U.S. special forces teams will conduct infantry training with African units and carry out border patrols, as well as instruct on human rights and the laws of land warfare. Five other countries will take part in the second phase.
On June 16, officials from all nine countries will participate in a "command post exercise" in which they'll be given a terrorism scenario and be asked to solve it together.
Terror analysts say the 4 June attack in Mauritania involving the al-Qaeda linked GSPC reflects strains in the relationship between the Algerian terrorist formation and the international network.They say that the GSPC took responsiblity for carrying out the attacks on the detachment of the Mauritanian army in an attempt to get back in favour with al-Qaeda, which the analysts allege has lately been distancing itself from the GSPC, due to the high number of defections in its ranks.
The stand-off is said to have started April when Tunisian police arrested ten alleged terrorists heading to the Algerian mountains to join guerilla training camps. The ten were reportedly preparing a major attack against the capital Tunis, but Tunisian police managed to uncover the cell as a result of informants within the Algerian Salafite group.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/13/2005 16:41 ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - The military announced the killing of four more U.S. soldiers over the weekend, pushing the American death toll past 1,700 -- more than double what it was a year ago. Since last June 13 -- when 825 members of the U.S. military had died in Iraq -- the insurgency that took shape with the fall of Saddam Hussein has increased its toll on American forces and Iraqi soldiers and civilians alike. When the toll gets to the number of innocent Americans killed in one day 4-1/2 years ago, somebody let me know.
Separately, Reuters reported that a senior U.S. diplomat survived on Monday when a suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad. The report cited several police sources although the U.S. embassy said it was unaware of the incident. A spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni Muslim grouping, said the official had just left its compound in western Baghdad when the explosion went off. Talking to the Sunnis and almost got wacked? A leak, perhaps?
A snippet of good news. Iraq has fulfilled a number of key goals set by the Bush administration, including historic elections, a new government and the drafting of a new constitution. But the deaths continued.
In the volatile town of Tal Afar where a U.S.-Iraqi offensive to rout terrorists has been launched, three mortar rounds missed an Iraqi army barracks and landed on a house Sunday, killing a 6-year old child, police Capt. Amjad Hashim said. The motar rounds came from un-named Heroes of the Islamic Revolution, I guess.
In one of Sunday's bright spots, the French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi returned home after five months in captivity. Hoo-ray! A journalist was freed!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 12:01 ||
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Cool inline! I remembers when Bman lerned to trademark. :)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi judge has questioned Saddam Hussein about the killings of dozens of men from a Shi'ite village where he survived an assassination attempt in 1982, the Iraqi special tribunal said on Monday. It also released film of Saddam and other members of his administration being questioned by presiding judge Raad Jouhi, which a spokesman said had taken place on Sunday. The killings at Dujail are a relatively minor incident among the crimes of which the former president is accused but there has been speculation that they might be used as a test case in an early trial.
Iraqi government officials have said they would like to put Saddam on trial in the next few months, before an election, although tribunal officials have said the timetable is not set. A spokesman for the elected government, dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds, said this month that it was interested in a swift trial and death sentence for Saddam, and that therefore it was not necessary to prepare cases on all the many charges of genocide and crimes against humanity he faces.
Just as long as he swings
There has been speculation that prosecutors may find it easier to produce evidence of direct personal involvement by Saddam in the killings at Dujail than in some of the more prominent accusations.
One source in the Iraqi government has told Reuters that two of five people currently charged in connection with Dujail -- Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan -- were ready to testify that Saddam had personally ordered the killings.
The prosecution will allege that over 100 executions were carried out in reprisal for an attempt to assassinate Saddam as his motorcade passed through the village, north of Baghdad, in July 1982. The village's date groves were destroyed and hundreds of residents were interned in the south of the country.
The tribunal also released a list of four other people, including Barzan Abdel Ghafoor, commander of the Special Republican Guard and a cousin of Saddam, and Muzahim Saab al- Hassan, a former air defense commander, who were questioned about the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds, during which poison gas killed 5,000 civilians at Halabja.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 10:20 ||
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"the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds, during which poison gas killed 5,000 civilians at Halabja."
Whoa! And it's taken the US over two years to kill 12,000 (IIRC) but Saddam got 5,000 in a single event! We'd better sharpen our collateral damage skills!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 12:20 Comments ||
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Bobby, those Kurds were not collateral damage, they were the targets.
Listed criminal killed in "crossfire" with police
A listed criminal of the district was killed in a "crossfire" between police and his accomplices in Rangunia upazila under the district early yesterday. Detective Branch police led by Additional Police Super Jahangir Hossain Matubber arrested Md Salim alias "Karate Salim", 34, along with his three accomplices from a hotel in the city's Chawk Bazar area on Saturday night, police said.
"Evening, boys. Stick'um up!"
During interrogation, Salim confessed of possessing more than 30 illegal firearms that he rented out to robbers in different areas of the district. Police went out to search for illegal firearms taking Salim with them at a hideout of criminals in Majumderkhil under the upazila at around 3.30am.
Of course, when else would you go looking for criminals hidden arms?
As police reached near Majumderkhil School, Salim's accomplices opened fire on the law enforcers, triggering a gunfight.
Bang bang bangity bang!
Trying to flee, Karate Salim fell in the line of fire and received bullets behind the right ear. He was rushed to the local upazila health complex where the on-duty doctor declared him dead, police said,
"He's dead, Jim"
adding that Constable Wahiduzzaman was also bullet-hit during the incident. Police seized a local made gun, one LG and seven bullets from the spot. Karate Salim was accused in over 13 criminal cases.
RAB nabs Juba Dal leader
The Rapid Action Battalion has arrested a Juba Dal leader in Rangpur on charge of gun attack on a businessman in 2003. The police said Nazmul Alam, senior vice president of district unit of Juba Dal, youth front of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was arrested from his residence at Guptapara in the town Saturday night. He was charged for the attack on Moslem Uddin on November 5, 2003. Later, a local court sent Nazmul to jail.
Another shady case of Rab 'crossfire'
The killing of a plumber in Rab 'crossfire' on May 11 in Narsingdi has now taken a new turn with witnesses saying it was a murder in cold blood. "The Rab men fired a couple of rounds in the air and then fired Nazmul in cold blood shoving him to the ground with a foot on his chest," a witness told The Daily Star in the locality this week.
Yeah, that's about what I figure normally happens
The Rab-3 members said Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan, alias Nazu, resident of Malita village under Palash Police Station (PS) in Narsingdi, was killed in an "encounter" at the BSCIC industrial estate at Kararchar under Shibpur PS in the district.
They said Nazmul, armed and accompanied by several friends, gathered near a water tank at the BSCIC area with the aim to commit muggings. The Rab also claimed to have recovered a pistol from Nazmul's possession and arrested two youths--Nurul Islam Dulal and Sohel Miah--from the spot. Witness accounts, however, gave a totally different picture.
Should have picked a more deserted spot
The spot where Rab men shot Nazmul was just some 100 yards east of the Dhaka-Ghorasal highway and at the southwest corner of the BSCIC area. The witnesses were sitting at the roadside tea-stalls, some 150 yards from the spot, or walking in front of the mill-gates where they work.
"Nazmul was talking to two motorbikers--Dulal and Sohel--at around 3:00pm when a few Rab men came there in plainclothes," an employee of one of the mills at the BSCIC, who was walking to a tea-stall, said on condition of anonymity. "Nazmul did not recognise them as Rab men and engaged into an altercation with them," said a shopkeeper in the locality, adding that Nazmul traded heated words with them and at one point pushed one of the Rab members.
The Rab men then put on their Rab jackets and identified themselves to the youths, the witnesses said. Realising the mistake, Nazmul got down on his knees and begged the Rab men for his life, said another witness who was standing some 100 yards from the spot. "The Rab members then held the three youths and dragged Nazmul to a nearby crop field," said the mill-employee. "The Rab men first fired into the air and then shot Nazmul pinning him to the ground with a foot on his chest," he added.
Shot in the air being "fired upon", triggering the "crossfire"
Another witness expressed his surprise to this correspondent, saying, "Is this thing called 'crossfire'? They [Rab] shot him as if killing a bird or an animal!" The Rab members then cordoned off the whole area and did not let anyone go near Nazmul's body, which lay in the field, the witnesses said. "For the next couple of days, the Rab randomly patrolled the area, threatened us not to tell what we had seen, and ordered us to tell that Nazmul died in 'crossfire'," said a shopkeeper.
The following day, Subedar Sarwar Jahan of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) filed a case with the Shibpur PS and handed over Dulal and Sohel along with a pistol and their motorbike. In the FIR (first information report) Sarwar said that, acting on a tip-off, he along with Sub-Inspector (SI) Jahangir Uddin, Corporals Khairul, Anwar Hossain, Ershaduzzaman and Mosharraf, Lance Nayek Harun, Sepoys Nur Mohammad and Jabed Ali went to the spot at around 2:30pm. The Rab members were informed that some armed youths had gathered at the BSCIC area to commit some criminal activities, he said in the FIR.
As the Rab men reached the spot, the youths, sensing their presence, opened fire indiscriminately from the water tank, prompting the Rab members to counter with bullets, the FIR said. During the shootout, the Rab men held three youths, one Nazmul- bullet-wounded with a pistol in his hand, it said. Nazmul was taken to Narsingdi Sadar Hospital where the doctors declared him dead.
"He's dead, Jim."
The FIR also said the Rab members picked three shopkeepers who saw the seizure of the pistol from Nazmul. The two arrested youths also confessed in front of the Rab witnesses that they gathered there with arms intending to commit crimes.
"We were inside our shop and heard a couple of gunshots," said one of the FIR witnesses. "After the firing, some Rab men came to me and asked me to go with them," he said, adding, "Going to the field, I saw a youth lying dead and the Rab men showed us a pistol saying they had recovered it from him." Another FIR witness also said the same while the third one went to his village home during the investigation.
I believe this is known as "creating witnesses"
The Shibpur police have already given the charge-sheet in one of the three cases--arms case, murder case and one for barring government officials from duty--filed with them.
SI Rafiqul Islam, the Investi-gation officer (IO) of the case, told The Daily Star that he had submitted the charge-sheet in the arms case stating that a pistol was found in the possession of the youths. He also said that he brought the two arrestees, who are now in Narsingdi jail, on remand and made an investigation in the locality. He, however, refused to reveal his findings but hinted that those are similar to that in the FIR. When asked about the findings of The Daily Star investigation, Major Anis, in-charge of Rab-3 at the Adamjee camp which conducts operations in the Narsingdi area, said he does not have anything to say beyond what has been said in the FIR.
Both Palash and Shibpur police stations admitted that they did not have any criminal records against Nazmul, who was also the vice-president of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal Charsindur union unit. Nazmul went to Saudi Arabia and came back in 2001. Since then, he was working in a factory near the Ghorasal fertiliser factory and has also been a contractor in the locality. At his village, this correspondent found Nazmul was regarded as an amicable and friendly person. "I want justice," said Nazmul's wailing mother, adding, "You wouldn't find such a charming, gentle and lively youth in the village."
Yeah, yeah, "good boy, kind to his mother, reads his koran daily, etc".
"We have been traumatised for almost a week since we heard the news and received his body the following day," she said. The family did not even file any case, fearing the Rab may harm them.
2-km crack in Jessore village creates panic
Panic has gripped several thousand people in Dalennagar and Andalpota villages in Jessore sadar upazila as a crack has developed on the earth surface of the area stretching about two kilometres. The crack is up to two feet wide and 10-14 feet deep at places, villagers told this correspondent yesterday. The area is about 20 kilometres off the district town. They said the stretch of the crack is increasing.
I'd take that as a sign to move
A nor'wester blew over the area Monday evening when houses shook, possibly due to a tremor, the villagers said. The next morning they saw the long chasm on the earth surface.
Signs and portents, next comes the giant firebreathing lizards
People offered special prayers as they thought it was a sign of a powerful tremor yet to come. Ainal Haq, headmaster of a local government primary school, said many panicked villagers are thinking leaving homes.
There goes the property values.
Jessore Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Abdul Wazed visited the area yesterday. He told the villagers that he will inform authorities concerned in Dhaka about the incident and ask to send a team of seismologists to investigate the matter.
In the movie version, we'd expect a bright young scientist to predict doom, the local politicians to surpress the report and the scientist to team with a beautiful journalist to save the day.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 09:28 ||
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#7
I think the AOS is responsible for this turn of events.
Hey, I told them to use the deserted brickyard at 4am and make sure there were no witnesses. I can't help it if they got careless.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 16:20 Comments ||
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Security forces yesterday arrested chief of Myanmar's antigovernment guerrilla group National United Party of Arakan (NUPA), Tai Jo Khoy, and his three associates at Naikkhongchhari. BDR sources confirmed the arrest but did not disclose the whereabouts of the arrestees. But a well-placed source said the four were being interrogated in a secret place and they have disclosed significant information about hidden firearms and ammunition.
Don't go for any late nite drives...
Acting on secret information, the security forces comprising army and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) members raided Narkelbunia area in Naikkhangchhari upazila yesterday afternoon and nabbed Tai Jo Khoy, Mohin, Maisha and Domo, BDR sources said. Tai Jo and his associates, aged below 30, were unarmed and could not resist the security forces during the raid in the remote bordering village. Tai Jo admitted that he is the president of the antigovernment guerrilla group, the sources said. Details of the operation were not available immediately.
The operation was part of an army-BDR joint anticrime campaign in Bandarban that began on May 21. Security forces had seized huge caches of arms and ammunition from Naikkhongchhari border in several operations last year and early this year. There were press reports over the last few years that some Myanmar rebels have taken shelter and set up temporary camps in Naikkhong-chhari. They are engaged in the smuggling of firearms, using the region as transit route. The government, however, termed the information false. After Tai Jo's arrest, sources in the security forces said they are verifying the information.
Sources said a section of NUPA leaders split and formed Democratic Party of Arakan (DPA) to wage armed struggle against the Myanmar government. The DPA, which is operating in the remote jungles of Myanmar, India and Bangladesh, also runs firearms trade.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/13/2005 09:22 ||
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AT least seven people have been killed and 70 injured by a powerful car bomb explosion near a school in a busy southern Kashmir town. The blast shook the town of Pulwama, 30km south of the Indian Kashmir summer capital of Srinagar, about 11am (1530 AEST) when it was bustling with life.
Four people were killed on the spot while three died on the way to hospital in Srinagar, police said. "So far seven people have died and over 70 are injured," a spokesman said.
The explosion took place near a high school, and students were among the injured, police said. Eight of those hurt were in critical condition. Army spokesman Vijay Batra said the blast had been caused by a car bomb.
Ambulances ferrying the injured from Pulwama, a district headquarters, were seen arriving at Srinagar's main hospital. Private cars and mini-buses also rushed to Srinagar with the injured, their drivers pleading with policemen to clear traffic snarls. "It was a massive explosion that brought us out of our homes," retired government employee Ghulam Mohammed said by telephone. "I could see people lying on the ground, some of them bleeding profusely."
Many vehicles were damaged in the explosion that also smashed the windows of several dozen shops, houses and office complexes and sent people running for cover Mr Mohammed said. The blast closed all shops, banks, post offices and schools in the town, which is prone to rebel attacks. "The town is in chaos," Mohammed Ayub, 35, said by telephone. "People are running from hospital to hospital to look for their missing relatives."
#1
"one of the world's bloodiest conflicts" But now the only one. In 2003, some 300,000 people died in all wars. I assume the definition of "war" included police actions, insurgencies, wars of colonlial agression, etc. In the same time period, over one million died in automobile accidents. Life is tough. Then you die.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 7:53 Comments ||
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The Palestinian Authority has carried out its first executions since 2001, killing four convicted murderers as part of a new campaign to rein in lawlessness and chaos. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the four men, who were executed on Sunday, were sentenced to death by a Palestinian court. Spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa added that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the execution orders on Saturday. Three of the men were hanged and one was executed by a firing squad.
The Palestinian Authority has had the death penalty in place since its establishment in 1994. However, late president Yasser Arafat halted the death penalty in 2001 after criticism by international human rights groups. Sunday's executions approved by Abbas, under intense internal pressure to stamp out rampant crime, appeared to be an attempt to deter criminals and send a message to the public without confronting resistance groups. "There is a new policy of enforcing the law, to face and fight the chaos and lawlessness in the Palestinian territories," Abu Khoussa said.
Fifty-one Palestinians are on death row, about half of them alleged collaborators with Israel. Palestinian officials said last month that they had suspended plans to execute the collaborators, fearing their deaths would inflame tensions with Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:11 ||
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BAGHDAD - The Iraqi Central Criminal Court has found 321 of 482 suspected terrorists guilty during a series of trials, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the Iraqi Communications Ministry.
It did not say over what period the trials had taken place. It concentrated on three cases in which five persons were found guilty of possessing unlicensed weapons found in raids conducted in August 2003, and January and December 2004. Although the names of the accused were given, the locations of the raids were not mentioned. The sentences handed down ranged from 18 months to life imprisonment.
Life? Excellent. Iraqi legal system is getting warmed up.
Weaponry found included rifles, revolvers, machineguns and various types of mortar shells and grenades, including those used in rocket- propelled grenade launchers. Explosives and firearm ammunition were also found, plus ID cards for the Afghan army, an instruction booklet for flying a 747 aircraft, and tyres for a US Humvee all-terrain vehicle.
The guy whose fingerprints were on the 747 manual? He gets life.
Iraq also said it had released 259 detainees on Thursday and Saturday after finding that there was insufficient evidence supporting the accusations against them.
Hmmm, the new Iraqi legal system also seems to be more, um, just than the previous one.
The persons were freed on the recommendation of a joint committee of representatives of the ministries of human rights, defence and interior, and high-level armed forces officials. The committee has reviewed the cases of 12,500 persons, and recommended releasing some 7,000, but did not mention over what period it had been operating.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2005 00:09 ||
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#1
Hmmmmm.... Maybe it's time to send them some folks from Gitmo?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 7:21 Comments ||
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an instruction booklet for flying a 747 aircraft
Iraqis inspecting the damage of US air strikes in western Iraq have accused the Americans attacking "indiscriminately", saying there were no guerrillas in the area.
"Nope. Nope. Nobody there. See for yerself!"
The US military said on Saturday (local time) that seven precision air strikes on the outskirts of the town of Karabilah killed 40 insurgents who had been stopping vehicles at gunpoint and threatening Iraqi civilians. "There were no mujahideen (fighters) or armed men in the area. The planes attacked indiscriminately," said one man, who did not give his name, as he inspected the rubble of a house.
"It wuz just a buncha civilians stopping cars at gunpoint and threatenin' people!"
Quite how many may have died, or their identities, remained unclear. Residents would not let a Reuters cameraman film two of the houses that were hit by the strikes. The military said there were no reports of civilian casualties after the US troops fired on large groups of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles. "The target was more of a compound with scores of armed men. No women or children were observed the entire day," said a US military spokesman on Sunday (local time).
"Well, they wudn't dressed up like wimmin and children, but that's what they wuz! [Snif!] An' all them poor puppies an' kittens an' fluffy bunnies an' baby ducks, too!"
Was someone getting married in the compound that day?
He said troops would not be going to the site to sift through the rubble. Television footage did not reveal whether buildings damaged in the air strikes had been occupied by guerrillas or civilians during the attack. No bodies were visible in the footage. Residents said three people had already been buried.
"Yeah! We buried poor ol' Grandmaw soon's we wuz sure she wuz dead!"
Hamdi al-Alusi, chief of the nearby Qaim hospital, said three civilians from houses in the nearby district of Rumana were brought in wounded after the air strikes, including a 12-year-old boy who later died. The US military spokesman said Rumana was not targeted during or after the strikes. "These are children's clothes," said one man, picking up a shirt from the rubble left by the strikes.
US troops have launched several offensives on areas near Karabilah in the rebellious Anbar province in a bid to weaken the Sunni Arab insurgency, which has killed more than 850 Iraqi security forces, officials and civilians since a new, Shiite-led government was formed in late April. Last year, Marines killed around 40 Iraqis in an air attack on a house in the western desert near the Syrian border. The US military said the house was a staging point for foreign fighters but survivors said a wedding party had been massacred. The US military says it always tries to avoid civilian casualties and has accused insurgents of using civilians as human shields.
#2
Oh yes, another wedding party. The US hates weddings. We stand uniformly opposed to weddings. No wedding for you!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/13/2005 1:54 Comments ||
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Television footage did not reveal whether buildings damaged in the air strikes had been occupied by guerrillas or civilians during the attack. So THEREFORE, no one can DISPROVE the innuendo that it was civilians. And anyway, the military does not attack "indiscriminately" - it focuses on Sunnis, newsmen, Baathists, young men, women and children, old men, and good people minding their own business in a quiet and undisturbed little corner of the cradle of civilization.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2005 7:49 Comments ||
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It might really help if they put signs on the buildings. "Terrorists", "Civilians", "Wedding in Progress". Might help cut down on these incidents.
#6
A previous posting mentioned child soldiers used in the Pakistan region as well as other documented cases around the globe. Why doesn't the Euros and Amnesty International protest the use of children by terrorists in Iraq? Americans can never please them. The liberals seem short on ideas lately. Maybe France could take the detainees off our hands, and serve them champagne with their honey glazed chicken, courtesy of Parisians?
French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter returned home to emotional welcomes yesterday after they were released from a five-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, triggering a joyful wave of relief across France and beyond. Aubenas, a 44-year-old senior reporter for the newspaper Liberation, was being flown back to Paris on a small French air force jet due to arrive today. Her interpreter, Hussein Hanun, was driven to his Baghdad home in a French embassy car, and was immediately embraced by his crying wife and family. The pair were "in good health," President Jacques Chirac said in a televised address after French officials announced the release. "On behalf of everyone, I want to express to Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanun our happiness and that of the entire nation to know that they are free," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
This French for one, is not overcome with joy.
First of all, would have there been one thousandth of the mediatic mobilization (day after day TV bulletins started with a remainder about how long Miss Aubenas had been captive) if instead of a journalist she had been of ANY other profession, even a doctor or a nurse.
Second: Once again our politicians have caved to the chattering classes, the ones who can make or unmake a candidate to an election
Third: Her liberation has not been funded with the money of her paper (whio BTW is one of the more pathologiaclly anti-american in France, still more than "Le Monde" but through both political concessions and my taxes. A money who will be spent tomorrow in IEDs in Irak and the day after, who knows, in placing bombs in French commuter trains. How generous from Chirac (who doesn't use commuter trains) to try to regain popularity with my money and the political price France, not him, will pay.
#2
JFM, you need to come to the States with as many as your like-minded friends as you can find, have lots and lots of children, and prepare yourselves for the French reconquista. After all, after France falls to the Muslims there will be an interregnum before the Muslims achieve the population levels and variety of skills to properly run their new country. That's when you and your compatriots Blitzkrieg, as was done in Iraq, and take back France for the true Frenchmen. Ahhh, what a partner your France will be, the Sixth and final Republic. ;-p
Sudan has formed a special court to try alleged criminals in its remote Darfur region and its chief judge insisted yesterday it would be independent, amid international pressure for war crimes trials abroad. The president of the court, due to start work on Wednesday, told Reuters he would be ready to try anyone, no matter how senior, and said he would resign if there was any government interference in the court proceedings.
"Nothing that will interfere with our work has ever happened nor will happen and if it ever happens I as a judge will quit the court," Mahmoud Mohamed Saeed Abkam, who is also one of the roving court's three judges, said in an interview.
"Your Honor, I just got a letter for you from Mr. Big."
"Yeah, what's it say?"
"'Shuddup or we'll kill you.'"
"Hokay, I quit!"
Senior government and military officials, militia and rebel leaders, and foreign army officers are among 51 war crimes suspects on a secret list drawn up by a United Nations-appointed commission of inquiry into the Darfur conflict.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I think a pic of a kangaroo would be appropriate here.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2005 13:59 Comments ||
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#5
RKBs right that's a lefthanded Submarine slinger, takes good knees to stand-in against a quality big red roo. I figure he's a closer, submariners rarely make good starters.
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.
A Saudi held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on suspicion of terrorism, was forcibly injected with fluids, grilled in the proximity of military dogs and straddled by a female soldier, according to secret logs obtained by Time magazine. 
Two of three Indonesian sailors kidnapped by suspected 
Some within the U.S. intelligence community think Osama bin Laden is in eastern Iran, instead of the rugged tribal areas of Pakistan's northwestern frontier, where most American officials think he is still on the run. 
A Saudi newspaper said Monday the 
Iran was rocked by bombings on Sunday, killing at least nine and wounding more than 30, as dozens of journalists from around the world gathered in advance of the presidential election this Friday. One of those journalists, actor 
Iran's interior minister has asked security agencies to protect campaigners in Friday's presidential election after a speaker was beaten up at a reformist rally in Qom. Newspaper photographs showed Behzad Nabavi with a black eye and cuts on his head from the attack on Thursday after a rally that he said had been disrupted by people using teargas. "I haven't been beaten like this since the days of SAVAK," Nabavi, a leftist stalwart of the 1979 revolution, told a news conference. SAVAK was the Shah's secret police.
Listed criminal killed in "crossfire" with police
Security forces yesterday arrested chief of Myanmar's antigovernment guerrilla group National United Party of Arakan (NUPA), Tai Jo Khoy, and his three associates at Naikkhongchhari. BDR sources confirmed the arrest but did not disclose the whereabouts of the arrestees. But a well-placed source said the four were being interrogated in a secret place and they have disclosed significant information about hidden firearms and ammunition. 
The Palestinian Authority has carried out its first executions since 2001, killing four convicted murderers as part of a new campaign to rein in lawlessness and chaos. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the four men, who were executed on Sunday, were sentenced to death by a Palestinian court. Spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa added that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the execution orders on Saturday. Three of the men were hanged and one was executed by a firing squad. 
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi Central Criminal Court has found 321 of 482 suspected terrorists guilty during a series of trials, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the Iraqi Communications Ministry.
Iraqis inspecting the damage of US air strikes in western Iraq have accused the Americans attacking "indiscriminately", saying there were no guerrillas in the area. 
French journalist 
