RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia denied Monday that it had released repentant terrorists who planned bombings in which many people were killed. A spokesman at the interior ministry, who requested anonymity, told United Press International, "Reports on the release of two repentant terrorists among those who proved to have planned the terrorist attacks are completely untrue."
"But..."
He stressed that "a few have been released among those who deviated slightly from the right path of Islam and then acknowledged that they were wrong and repented." The source said the repentant extremists were released only after their families promised to keep them on the right path.
So, you only released slighty deviant islamists who promised to be good.
Saudi daily newspaper Okaz reported Sunday that several prisoners held on suspicion of having planned terrorist attacks were released after repenting for their wrongdoings.
They released them, but didn't release any of them except for the ones they admit releasing. Got that?
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 10:56 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So did they free the ones who were sorry they killed, or the ones who were sorry they didn't kill more infidels?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/24/2005 13:46 Comments ||
Top||
#3
." The source said the repentant extremists were released only after their families promised to keep them on the right path.
Oh yeah, right.
Doesn't their religion allow them to lie?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/24/2005 13:48 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I imagine that freedom really equated to going to work for Nayef... a more twisty-curvy miasma of Arab-style logic and loyalties is hard to imagine.
RIYADH, , Saudi Arabia, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia said Monday a rocket fired from inside Yemeni territory exploded on the Saudi side of the border. Daily al-Watan quoted a security source as saying an explosion, which occurred in the border province of Najran, was caused by a rocket fired from a distance of 25 kilometers (15 miles) inside Yemeni territory.
That's a pretty fair sized rocket
The source did not say when the incident happened but stressed a joint investigation was being undertaken by the Saudi and Yemeni authorities to identify the source of the rocket. "Cooperation with the Yemeni authorities is continuing and we will reach the truth soon," the source said.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 10:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#7
I recall one of the early V2 tests at Ft Bliss Tx/White Sands ended up in Juarez Mexico
Damn! Really? I would have loved to have talked to the ground crew when the path became apparent. Course it's hard to understand what a buncha Nazis would think about droping an IRBM on a neighboring country. You see, it was a long time ago, different time. Things were different then. Rocket fuel could be safely mixed with orange juice and quality tobacco was available to soothe the rough edges of diplomacy.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Saudi authorities captured one of 36 most-wanted terrorists suspected of involvement in bombing attacks that rocked the kingdom. The Daily al-Yom Monday quoted interior ministry spokesman Mansour Turki as saying police seized the suspected terrorist Saturday in the Nazim neighborhood in eastern Riyadh after he left a mosque. The man was driving a small truck accompanied by his family, including women and children, at the time, Turki said.
No name as of yet
The Saudi government last June issued a list of 36 terror suspects believed to belong to the al-Qaida network. It was the second such list released by the authorities in a year.
Earlier Monday an interior ministry spokesman who sought anonymity told UPI reports repentant terrorists involved in fatal bombings had been released were untrue. The Saudi daily Okaz reported Sunday several prisoners held on suspicion of having planned terrorist attacks were released after repenting for their actions.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 10:43 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
Riyadh, 24 Oct. (AKI) - A thirteen-year-old boy was among 13 terror suspects arrested by the Saudi security forces in a residential area of the capital Riyadh. The men in the group are believed to be members of al-Qaeda, and one is said to be the brother of a militant on the government's latest list of 36 most wanted terror suspects. Saudi newspaper Al-Watan said it was the first time a group mainly composed of young suspects under the age of 16 had been arrested. They were found when the security forces tracked down one suspect on the road between Riyadh and Mecca. After arresting him, he is said to have eventually given them the address of the building where the suspects were discovered, and which was reportedly used for storing weapons.
At the end of June this year, the Saudi Interior Ministry issued its third most wanted list, and offered rewards of up to seven million Saudi riyals (just under 2 million US dollars) to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of militants or preventing further terror attacks.
As part of its crackdown on militant activities in the kingdom, the Saudi authorities have boosted patrols in border areas known to have been used by terrorists. In the last six months, Saudi security forces have arrested 682 suspects on the Iraqi border. Between 2001 and August 2005, border guards seized 14.8 million rounds of live ammunition, 16, 300 weapons and more than 7,000 kilograms of explosives, according to Saudi newspaper Arab News.
But which direction were they headed?
The latest arrests come as a member of the Shoura consultative council, Abdul Mohsen al-Obaikan, revealed that a number of suspects who had given shelter to terrorists have been released after repenting their wrongdoing.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 09:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
13 yr old trying to be a man, caught up with the wrong crowd
The probe into the August 17 countrywide blasts seems to have been stalled as the investigators are now busy completing the charge sheets of the cases.
Take care of the paperwork and the work will take care of itself, right?
The state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, at a meeting on October 17 announced that trials of the cases would begin from the end of this month and the verdicts are expected within three months. But lawyers expressed doubts about the trials being completed in such a short period.
"Not if we have anything to say about it!"
Terming the governmentâs announcement over-optimistic and an attempt to dazzle the public, the Supreme Court Bar Associationâs president, Mahbubey Alam, said such fast trials would protect the persons who were working behind the scenes, because there would not be enough time for investigators to uncover them.
Isn't that the whole idea?
âThe blasts of August 17 are the outcome of a long-term plan of the militants and it needs more time to complete investigation of the incidents so that the masterminds can be identified,â he said. âHow can the investigation into the countrywide blasts be completed when the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on the Awami Leagueâs rally, that killed 22 people, has remained unsolved till date?â asked Mahbub, and alleged that completing the trials after incomplete investigation would tarnish the countryâs image.
Bangla's image takes a lot of tarnishing. And the AL blast investigation isn't done because the gummint didn't want it done.
Moreover, the chiefs of the two militant organizations most under scrutiny, Shaikh Abdur Rahman of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, are yet to be caught although the government announced a large bounty for them more than a month ago.
I don't think I'd wait for them to be caught before starting the trials of their underlings.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
OMG The surprise meter is just priceless!
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
10/24/2005 0:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Framing charge?
Anybody seen Purbo Banglar around?
A number of Libyan fundamentalists residing in Britain fear they will be deported to Tripoli following the memorandum of understanding that London and Tripoli concluded recently and which requires the British authorities to hand over to their Libyan counterparts persons suspected of having connections with terrorism under guarantees that they will not be ill treated.
Libyan Ambassador in London Muhammad Al-Zaway has asked Britain to hand over to Libya members of the "Libyan Islamic Fighting Group" (LIFG) on the basis that they "pose a threat" to Britain's security.
A Libyan Islamist told Asharq al-Awsat that the number of LIFG leaders is nearly in the dozens and the British police arrested five of them at the beginning of this month in preparation for deporting them to Libya under the new British plan for combating terrorism. He added that Libya gave London after the 9/11 attacks a list of the names of 25 (LIFG) elements residing in Britain.
On his part, Libyan Islamist Numan Bin-Othman, an expert in fundamentalist movements, expressed his conviction that the British authorities are serious about deporting LIFG elements and pointed out that the arrest of five of them was a message to the supporters of the Libyan jihadist tendency or the fundamentalist one in general that Scotland Yard police would not tolerate any activities considered tantamount to "backing or preparing for terrorism."
The Libyan Islamist did not appear sure of the measures that Tony Blair's Government might resort to following its adoption of the new antiterrorism measures. Bin-Othman, the asylum seeker who has been living in Britain for 10 years, said the picture is vague and bleak, especially after the London bombings that created turmoil in British society. But he did say he was expecting British traditions to triumph in the end so that no one would be extradited to another country. He said: "If the British law is applied to the letter, then no one of the Libyan fundamentalists will be extradited."
Ashur al-Shamis, the Libyan opposition jurist who runs the "Akhbar Libya" (Libya news) website, called Libya's demand for the extradition of the LIFG elements an exploitation of events in Britain since the 7 July bombings and said: "The real fears are the absence of a real and honest judiciary in Libya if the Islamists seeking political asylum in London are deported."
AFP yesterday cited the Libyan ambassador in London as saying, "we believe that all the LIFG members should be handed over to the Libyan authorities and not just a number of them because their presence will sooner or later pose a danger to Britain's security due to their connections with Al-Qaeda organization." He added that this group "believes in violence and therefore the general rules that apply to the terrorist organizations apply to it." He pointed out that this "group's members are living on British soil and specifically in Belfast, Manchester, and south London." The Libyan ambassador did not rule out "the trial of the wanted persons that Britain will extradite to Libya if they are wanted by the judiciary in Libya or had committed terrorist actions." He added: "Anyone with no criminal record will be welcomed among his family and his country." He also said that Libya "has not received anyone so far" and that the "agreement concluded with Britain stipulates that the front's members will not be tortured or sentenced to death and that their personal and civil rights will be guaranteed." He asserted that the Libyan authorities "do not hate anyone and there is a difference between a devout man and an extremist who carries out terrorist actions."
The British Government signed last Tuesday an agreement with Libya that allows Britain to deport to Libya foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorism that included a guarantee they will not be ill treated. The memorandum of understanding was signed in Tripoli by British Ambassador Anthony Layden and the Libyan Foreign Ministry official in charge AbdalAti Ibrahim al-Ubaydi, according to a British Foreign Office statement. This is the first of agreements that Britain wishes to sign with other countries that lift the ban on the deportation of foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/24/2005 13:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A MAN who was reported to have been asked to join the group of suicide bombers which attacked London in July has been arrested by police.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed yesterday that anti-terrorist officers had arrested a 27-year-old man in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, on Saturday.
He was held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Scotland Yard said he was arrested following comments made to the News of the World.
The newspaper is understood to have passed an interview with a man they named as Imran Patel to police involved in the investigation into the London bombings.
Patel, believed to be an auditor in Leeds, is reported to have had military training in Pakistan. The newspaper said he was in his early thirties.
Patel allegedly told the newspaper he met the suicide bombers - Mohammad Sadique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18 - in Dewsbury after he returned to the UK.
He told the paper Khan had asked him to join the bombing mission. However, he decided not to take part after the group suggested attacking a school where children would have been the victims.
Patel was reported to have said he would never attack a target in Britain but would willingly do so abroad.
He also said he had a young Muslim friend who was close to launching an atrocity in Britain.
Patel was reported as saying: "He is definitely ready. This guy is married. I said to him, 'What about the wife?'
"He said, 'I'll ask permission from my wife, but if it's not granted it's permissible for me still to go.'"
Patel said he also knew of at least six other Muslims from Dewsbury who had trained in camps in Pakistan, and who were now back in Britain. Patel said he agreed to speak to the newspaper to make people "understand that Jihad is valid". Jihad is an Arabic word that refers to the Islamic struggle to do good. Many extremist Muslims use it to refer to holy war.
He told the newspaper: "It is permissible, but only in appropriate places, and Britain is not one of them."
He was reported to have been among a group of British Muslims recruited by a mullah in Dewsbury to go to Pakistan for military training in 2003.
Two residential addresses are being searched in connection with the Dewsbury investigation, a police spokesman said. Khan also lived in Dewsbury. The two were reported to have met at Patel's house, where they watched Jihad videos calling for Muslims to launch a holy war. They were also reported to have held discussions about their "mission" to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain.
The paper said Patel had not given the bombers' identities to the police after refusing to take part in the attacks because he did not want to see his Muslim "brothers" jailed.
The Met spokesman said the man had been taken to a West Yorkshire police station for questioning. He said: "We thank the News of the World for drawing the matter to our attention, and material passed to the police by the newspaper is being assessed by the Anti-Terrorist Branch."
⢠Police were last night granted more time to question three terror suspects following a series of armed police raids across the South East of England. Officers from the Anti-Terrorist Branch said the arrests were not connected to the London transport explosions.
They now have until Thursday to question the three, who were in custody in a central London police station.
#1
Should have just shot him , otherwise he will be out in a few months helping the next lot
Posted by: Tom ||
10/24/2005 4:38 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The guy had enough sense not to soil his own nest, but was in favor of attacks in other countries?
This would have been fine in France or Italy, but Britain still holds the quaint idea that they are responsible for what happens outside of their borders when the causes originate from within their borders.
(London) "Scotland Yard admits that for the second time, its special anti-terrorist police shot dead a suspect. Only this time, Scotland Yards insists it got the right man."
A dripping and cavernous tunnel, three miles through the belly of the mountain and lighted only by a spindly strand of dim bulbs, marks the entrance to the land of deep gorges and outlaw villages of the Caucasus range.
Emerging in the bright daylight on the other side is like entering another world, a Russia that is not Russia. Road signs every few feet are bright green with Arabic script: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet." Several dozen signs bear the words of a legendary Caucasian warrior: "He who thinks about consequences is not a hero."
Since the 19th century, Russia has tried to tame the 650 miles of snowy peaks and fertile lowland slopes between the Caspian and Black seas. Today, the Caucasus wars seeping out of Chechnya through the surrounding, predominantly Muslim republics are increasingly being waged under a banner of militant Islam.
This creeping Islamic revolution, analysts suggest, is the latest outcome of the Kremlin's failure to adopt a coherent policy for combating religious extremism in a nation with 23 million Muslims.
Moscow's disorganized and violent attempts to suppress Caucasian Muslim insurgents have swept up thousands of innocent believers in the process. The brutal arrests, police raids and mosque closures appear to be alienating a population that until now had largely sympathized with Russia's attempts to quash terrorist attacks and bring peace to the region.
In areas like this mountainous region of Russia's Dagestan republic, the battle for hearts and minds may be lost. Ghimri, a tiny village of terraced gardens on the slope of a 5,000-foot abyss, is known as a lair of insurgency that outside police rarely enter except in force.
Islamic militancy is no stranger to Ghimri, from which 19th century warrior Imam Shamil fought under the banner of Islam against Russian troops until his surrender in 1859.
Today, women and even young girls wear head scarves, and some cover their faces. Arabic, the language of the Koran, is taught to all students. The local imam moved last year to establish separate schools for girls and boys and was thwarted only when no second building could be found. The mosque in the neighboring village, where the imam is chairman of the town council, broadcasts two hours of Islamic programming four days a week.
The village of 3,800 has also imposed many aspects of Islamic Sharia law as a supplement to Russian law. Thieves may be asked to make a public apology at the mosque, rather than going to a government-run jail.
Residents here have unabashed contempt for the regional government.
"People turn to Sharia law because the authorities who are supposed to represent the law breed lawlessness. People have very little hope of getting any justice from the secular authorities, so they turn to the muftis for support," said Kazimagomed, 38, an unemployed construction worker who declared "it will be the end of me" if his last name were published.
Already, Kazimagomed said, there are signs of a clash of civilizations at his own doorstep. "If we don't change everything from the roots to the very top in Dagestan, then war will be inevitable â and not war like Chechnya, or some of those other places, those small run-ins, but a war that will last for centuries."
In a report to the Kremlin leaked to the Russian media this year, President Vladimir V. Putin's envoy to the region, Dmitry Kozak, warned of a backlash over corruption and poverty that he said could lead to instability across the northern Caucasus.
"Sharia enclaves" â a logical projection of what is starting to happen in Ghimri â could lead to the emergence of an Islamic state in Dagestan's mountains, the report predicted.
"The unsolved social, economic and political problems are now reaching a critical level. Further, ignoring the problems and attempts to drive them down by force could lead to an uncontrolled chain of events whose logical result will be open social, inter-ethnic and religious conflicts in Dagestan," said excerpts of the report published in July by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.
That's the openly declared goal of Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, who unsuccessfully tried to invade Dagestan in 1999.
Basayev has made no secret of his hope of sparking a regional uprising that would lead to Russia's pullout from the Caucasus and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate across the mountainous republics. He miscalculated in 1999: Dagestanis fiercely fought the Chechen incursion, and Russia declared its second war on Chechnya.
Now, many observers here believe Basayev's strategy is to wait for Islamic revolution to seep in of its own accord.
In Dagestan, where 90% of the 2.6 million people are Muslims, the greatest frustration is with the Moscow-backed authorities, whose pervasive corruption has established a stranglehold on nearly every conceivable form of economic enterprise.
Magomedali Magomedov is the Kremlin-backed leader of the republic. His three sons control oil transshipment and two of the other most lucrative businesses in the republic. Businessmen close to the government control everything else â from big industry to corner mini-marts. Residents who hope to get a leg up by getting a government job or studying at the police academy must pay thousands of dollars in bribes.
Meanwhile, the average Dagestani earns $101 a month, less than half that in the rest of Russia. At least 30% of the people are unemployed.
Resentment has soared over the last two years with a series of crackdowns on non-government-sanctioned Islamic practice all over the North Caucasus â the response to a sharp increase in militant Islamic insurgent attacks. More than 970 Russians, soldiers and civilians alike, have been killed in the last two years. Dagestan has seen almost daily attacks against police and government targets.
In the republic's capital, Makhachkala, police have swept through mosques and arrested hundreds of worshipers during prayer. In southern Dagestan, police destroyed the minaret of a mosque, said the editor of an Islamic newspaper in the area.
A massive insurgent attack that authorities say left more than 125 people dead in the nearby republic of Kabardino-Balkaria this month was preceded by the closure of mosques, the harassment of men with beards and women with head scarves, and numerous brutal interrogations of suspected insurgents.
The situation there became so aggravated that 400 Muslims asked Putin in August for permission to emigrate â a petition that was ignored.
"Up until now, the people of the Caucasus saw Moscow as a possible arbiter and supporter in their clash with the local clannish elites," said Kheydar Jemel, head of the Moscow-based Russian Islamic Committee, who has been a strong advocate of Muslim rights. "But the Kremlin's errors have been so insistent and so stupid that at last I think people have lost all hope of using Moscow as a base for reform â and the worst separatist has become the Kremlin itself."
Gassan-Hadzhi Gasanaliyev is the imam at a Dagestani mosque raided by the police last year. "It's as if the police were waging war against their own people," he said. "They don't ask who's guilty and who's innocent. People go searching for their relatives who've been taken away, no one knows where they are. They disappear, or come back maimed.
"People dream of revenge," the cleric said. "There is now an undeclared, invisible war that no one can stop."
Authorities say the vast majority of Muslims reject violence and do not wish to see their religion hijacked by extremists.
"The most dangerous thing about [the extremists] is that they consider anyone who does not agree with their ideology to be enemies of Islam, against whom any violent measures can be taken, including physical annihilation," said Akhmad Magomedov, head of Dagestan's official Committee on Religious Affairs, which acts as a government liaison to officially sanctioned clerics.
"Such an approach is unacceptable to the absolute majority of Muslims in the North Caucasus who want to live in the secular state of the Russian Federation, where they are guaranteed full freedom of worship and religion," he said.
Such sentiments notwithstanding, many clerics in the remote mountain regions have slipped outside the control of the official spiritual boards and are "competing for legitimacy and influence" with the local secular authorities, said Nabi Abdullaev of the Center for Eurasian Security Studies in Moscow.
"Imagine this local village mayor: He's got two policemen, while the imam has a congregation of 200 people who respect and trust him. The mayor has a choice: either enter into confrontation, call for backup from Makhachkala, which may or may not come ⊠or go to the imam, show your respect and start coordinating your future activities with him," said Abdullaev, a native Dagestani.
"Gradually, what you get is a sort of creeping Islamic revolution."
People here in Ghimri insist that they are looking not for the establishment of an independent Islamic state, but for the election of honest government officials, jobs, an end to brutal police operations and gardens big enough to grow vegetables.
"If a referendum were held in Dagestan, 50% would support Sharia law. They're the true believers. The other 50% would support corruption, prostitution, mafia, drug addiction and bribery," said Kazimagomed, who sat one evening last week in a vine-covered courtyard with his friend Shamil, 40, as the sun slipped below the dizzying granite cliffs that rise above the village.
Kazimagomed said he had been unable to find a job since getting laid off from a nearby hydroelectric construction project 2 1/2 years ago. He supports his wife and two children on government stipends of about $5 a month, plus the occasional odd job. Shamil hasn't worked since the tunnel was finished in 2000.
"Only about 5% of the population works. The rest live without money. I have three children, me and my wife â five people. How do I feed them? What do I do?" Shamil said.
The two men traveled to Moscow last year and worked on a construction project for two months. But when it was over, the employment agency that issued their contract went bankrupt â a common scheme â and didn't pay them.
"If you're interested in finding some kind of militant or contract killer, it isn't that hard to do," Kazimagomed said.
"If you come up to somebody and work them over psychologically, for $25,000 or $30,000, they'll do anything," he said. "Look at me. I'm impoverished. I'm indigent. I have nowhere to turn. And if you offer me that amount of money, what do you think will happen?"
As the muezzin made the evening call to prayer marking the end of the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan, they each lighted cigarettes, smilingly apologizing that it was frowned upon in Islam, but they couldn't help it.
"We don't support all this talk about separatism," Kazimagomed said finally. "I want to take my wife and children to go to the sea, to Moscow. I don't want to only see these four mountains on all sides of me for the rest of my life."
But the road out of Ghimri goes through a tunnel three miles long, and off the road lies the abyss. Some Dagestanis say they long ago came to believe there is no exit from the impasse with Russia.
One recent morning in Makhachkala, two old friends drove through the city center. One of them, Magomed, railed at the government. "Russia was our motherland â but she turned into a mother-in-law!" he grumbled.
"He's always complaining," the other man, Ali, said, smiling. "You want to know what it reminds me of? There's sometimes a fish that gets caught in a net. The fish keeps writhing and striving, because she has one hope in her mind â the sea.
"But I can see her from a distance," he said. "I know she'll never get out."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/24/2005 14:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Very alarming and interesting overview of the situation in the Caucasus.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/24/2005 15:03 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I have no problem with rebellion by the "republics" that don't want to live under Putin's boot. And in predominantly Muslim "republics" that will certainly be a Muslim rebellion. My only problem is with the terrorists like Basayev who target innocents who have nothing to do with Putin's boot.
#3
I hope Putty nukes the lot of them. They certainly will try and export what ever they establish. I am all for people who of their own free will follow peaceful religious or philosophical paths. The problem is Nation States (Iran SA) who have an interest in exportation of thier sect and doing so by violence when peaceful and subversive means don't work.
This is not a purely homegrown Russian situation. It has been exported into the region to fill the gap left by the disolution of the Soviet Communist Empire. How Russia reacts is going to effect the rest of us. I hope it's quick, harsh and complete. Save us the pain bloodshed and tears the Islamic movements have planned for us.
#5
The Russian way of dealing with such things may no longer work in the modern world. In is not impossible to imagine a comfortable and peaceful Middle East at ease with the west, because of US methods; and a vicious and simmering multi-time-zone unconventional war throughout Central Asia against Russia, simultaneously.
Not given to an easy resolution, this could result in a 30 years' war in that region.
#8
But the road out of Ghimri goes through a tunnel three miles long, and off the road lies the abyss.
Simple solution, blast the tunnel and let them rot.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/24/2005 20:24 Comments ||
Top||
#9
[Foghorn Leghorn]
I say ... I say there RasPutin. There ain't anything I like better than a low-down underhanded Bushehr reactor building weasel like you. Any o' this penetrating that lil ol' cinched up KGB bonnet of yours?
Security has been stepped up at embassies and foreign agencies in Bosnia following the arrest of two men accused of planning a suicide attack.
The two individuals, who have been detained under anti-terrorism laws, are being held in Sarajevo. One of them is said to have recorded a video reciting Islamic prayers which may have been intended to be found following his death. They were arrested last week but details are only now emerging.
The two men hold Swedish and Turkish citizenship but are believed to have originally come from the former Yugoslavia. According to sources close to the investigation, they were carrying explosives at the time. Weapons and other military equipment were found at premises linked to the men.
There is no indication as to what the target of any attack would have been. There are 7,000 European Union peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia as well as several international aid agencies.
The two men are being held in prison in Sarajevo while the investigation continues. A third man, a Bosnian, was also arrested under anti-terrorism laws but is being held at separate facilities.
The chief international envoy to Bosnia, Lord Ashdown, described the matter as serious but said the arrests showed that Bosnia was a capable partner in the international fight against terrorism. In the past there have been suspicions that Islamic extremists may have used Bosnia as a base, but such suspicions have never been confirmed.
Posted by: Farmin B. Hard ||
10/24/2005 18:06 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Albanian authorities took possession of office space Tuesday (18 October) at the so-called "Twin Towers" of central Tirana. In 2004, the government confirmed that the location was being used to launder financial activities for the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
The seized premises belong to a fugitive Saudi Arabian citizen named Yassin Qadi, a businessman who was named a specially designated global terrorist by the US Treasury Department in October 2001.
Qadi owned 18 per cent of shares in the two buildings, located opposite the Albanian prime minister's office.
"The seizure procedures are based under the Council of Ministers' decision on 3 December, 2004, in the framework of the measures to prevent terrorism funding. Even though it has been ten months since the decision was taken, it has not been executed until now," the finance ministry said in a press release.
According to the ministry, the premises will not be sold but rather managed by state authorities. One option is to rent them out to state institutions or private firms.
Both the government and the opposition have been anxious to show they are taking the problem of terrorist-related activity seriously. Earlier this year, the opposition Socialist Party vowed to seek a probe into how thousands of foreigners -- including people allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden -- were able to get Albanian citizenship during the last 13 years.
Qadi is thought to have had close links to Abdul Latif Saleh, a Jordanian-Albanian dual citizen who has been designated by the US Treasury Department as an al-Qaeda supporter. According to Washington, he is associated with a number of Albanian NGOs linked to Egypt's Islamic Jihad -- a group with ties to al-Qaeda -- and has received $600,000 from Osama bin Laden to establish extremist groups in Albania.
Saleh set up an Albanian jihadist organisation, financed by the Al Haramain Foundation, with the goal of destabilising Albania by "fomenting conflict among the different religious groups in the country," the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
In addition, Saleh and Qadi ran several joint business partnerships, including a sugar importing business, a medical enterprise and a construction business. "Saleh served as the general manager of all of Qadi's businesses in Albania, and reportedly holds 10 per cent of the Qadi Group's investments in Albania," the department said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/24/2005 13:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
An Iraqi-born man was sentenced Monday to nearly five years in prison after trying to buy machine guns and hand grenades in a federal sting operation. Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily, 34, was arrested last October during the investigation prompted his alleged threat about "going jihad" against the United States, investigators said. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force said Al-Uqaily paid $1,000 for two disassembled machine guns, four disassembled hand grenades and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Al-Uqaily pleaded guilty in May to illegal possession of weapons and possession of unregistered firearms. Under a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 57 months in prison and three years supervised release. He can be deported to Iraq after he serves the prison time. Prosecutors said they were not sure what Al-Uqaily planned to do with the weapons, but felt he was no longer a threat.
Well, at least for five years
Defense attorney David Baker wouldn't comment.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 15:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
They were probably puzzled because he wasn't interested in buying stingers, RPGs, plastique, or nuclear weapons, and kept mumbling about "...those damn raccoons!"
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Two enormous bombs, including a cement-mixing truck packed with explosives, blew up outside the Palestine Hotel - home to many foreign journalists - wounding at least six people and causing considerable damage. Arab satellite television networks said 11 people were killed in the vicinity of the bombs. Associated Press Television News pictures showed the cement mixer exploding in a huge ball of flame and a cloud of smoke billowing into the central Baghdad sky.
Fox News has the video, it was a big boom
Iraqi security officials said the explosions occurred two minutes apart, not long before Muslims marking the Islamic holy month of Ramadan were preparing to break their day-long fast. Shortly before the explosion a truck was seen coming under fire nearby, according to APTN.
Inside the hotel, light fixtures were blown out, pictures were blasted off the walls and windows were shattered. An AP photographer at a checkpoint at the northwest corner of the hotel said at least three fellow photographers were injured and taken away by ambulance. Two TV personnel inside the hotel also sustained minor injuries. The death toll of 11 was reported by the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera and the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya networks, quoting Iraqi security officials. The attacks caused heavy damage to the south side of the 19-story hotel, forcing journalists, including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station to take refuge in the corridor. Fox and Alhurra said their staff members were safe.
After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently firing at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel. It did not appear that the car bombers managed to penetrate the high concrete blast walls around the Palestine Hotel, which was last hit by an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004.
Maj. Abbas Mohammed Suleiman said earlier that the hotel compound was hit by rockets and car bombs.
APTN video taken immediately after the explosions from inside the hotel showed people evacuating through damaged hallways with panels from the ceilings and walls blown out in the stairwell. Debris from the blasts was seen on the floor of one empty room, where a television set was still turned on. The hotel has been attacked several times since the war started in March 2003. On April 8, 2003 - the day before Saddam Hussein's regime fell - U.S. tank fire killed two TV cameramen - a Spaniard and a Ukrainian - at the hotel.
The nearby Firdous Square was the site of a statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled as Baghdad fell to the U.S.-led coalition. Concrete barriers topped with barbed wire guard the Palestine and the nearby Sheraton, which is also home to foreigners.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 11:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Breaking Good News
Jurnos get to witness feel quackmire close up. More Doom 5..4..3..
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/24/2005 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Oh gee, darn I feel bad about terrorist propegandists journalists dying and all...
#3
What does the Spanish judge have to say? Will he be issuing arrest warrants soon? Wow. Imagine that, journos in trouble and no Americans involved. What's the Tranzi world coming to?
#6
If Mohammad will not go to the mountain [leave the bar at the Palestine], I guess the mountain must go to Mohammad [for their propaganda war feed]. Bad timing though as Wilma is upstaging their fireworks show.
#11
Grunter: Reports said first bomb tried to breach the outer blast wall, then more went off (two?) closer to the hotel. I would think that is why they have the later explosion on camera.
#12
CNN had two of them on their video. One looked like a car bomb on the other side of the square and the cement truck rammed a chain link gate (real secure) and went off inside one of the walls.
#13
On a historical note, the world's most bombed building is/was the Europa Hotel in Belfast. It was bombed a total of 40 something times. The Europa Hotel was where the journalists used to stay. Their need for copy and film at 11 creates an unholy alliance of comvemience with the terrorist's need for publicity.
#15
Looked like the first car bomb breeched the outer concrete barrier. A second car bomb blew up on the other side of the compund. At that time, the cement truck drove through the breech caused by the first bomb. Then the truck encountered an inner concrete barrier where it then blew up. So the truck bomber never made it to the hotel.
So was it poor recon not taking the inner barrier into account, or a poor plan to breech the internal barrier?
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2005 19:29 Comments ||
Top||
#16
This is terrible. I feel a great deal of sympathy.
For the Iraqis.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/24/2005 20:25 Comments ||
Top||
#17
Palestine Hotel boomed? Whoda thunk that!?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2005 20:50 Comments ||
Top||
#18
ed, it was reported everywhere, with dramatic film footage of the explosions and Our Brave Correspondent Showing Where He Was When The Attack Occurred. Mission accomplished, all concerned are satisfied (except for the ones who have to clean up the mess, of course).
Rockets and car bombs hit the Palestine Hotel on Monday, wounding at least five people and causing considerable damage to the building that houses many foreign journalists, Iraqi police and journalists said. Associated Press Television News pictures showed a huge explosion on the northwest side of Firdous Square, which is adjacent to the hotel. Thick clouds of smoke and dust billowed from the area, and at least one fire was started by falling debris.
Pics at the link show a LOT of black smoke.
Security sources said the explosions occurred two minutes apart. Inside the hotel, light fixtures were blown down, pictures were blasted off the walls and windows were shattered. An AP photographer at a checkpoint at the northwest corner of the hotel said at least three fellow photographers were injured and taken away by ambulance. Two TV personnel inside the hotel also sustained minor injuries. The attacks caused heavy damage to the south side of the 19-story hotel, forcing journalists, including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station to take refuge in the corridor. After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently firing at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel. It did not appear that the car bombers managed to penetrate the high concrete blast walls around the Palestine Hotel, which was last hit by an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004. Maj. Abbas Mohammed Suleiman said the hotel compound was hit by rockets and car bombs.
APTN video taken immediately after the explosions from inside the hotel showed people evacuating through damaged hallways with panels from the ceilings and walls blown out in the stairwell. Debris from the blasts were seen on the floor of one empty room, where a television set was still turned on.
If you want to know the heart an minds of deranged muslim...read on.
An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two, the U.S. military said on Sunday. The Sept. 20 attack in the mostly Sunni Arab town of Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad, was reported for the first time on Saturday by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph and confirmed by the military on Sunday.
The convoy, which included U.S. military guards riding in Humvees, made a wrong turn into Duluiyah and insurgents opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for Task Force Liberty in north-central Iraq, told The Associated Press. "Task Force Liberty soldiers, which have a forward operating base in that area, responded to assist the convoy, administered first aid to two wounded contractors and evacuated the remains of four contractors killed," Goldenberg said. He said he had no information about what the U.S. soldiers riding in the convoy had done during the attack.
The attack caused no U.S. military casualties, but Goldenberg said his men, acting on a tip, returned to the area two days later to detain an individual suspected of ties to the attack. The U.S. troops killed two insurgents after coming under fire.
The Telegraph reported the contractors killed and wounded were employees of the Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq. But Goldenberg could not confirm that. The Telegraph reported that two of the contractors not killed in the initial attack were dragged alive from their vehicle, which had been badly shot up. They were forced to kneel in the road before being killed. "Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight," the paper reported. "Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames." It's hard to imagine the kind of mental illness associated with this group of sub-humans.
The crowd then "dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-U.S. slogans," the report said.
The Telegraph cited U.S. Capt. Andrew Staples, a member of the Task Force Liberty battalion that patrols the area including Duluiya, who told the paper he had talked to soldiers involved in the attack. But none of the soldiers involved were identified. It was not immediately clear why the U.S. military had not reported the deaths earlier. But two other military spokesmen said Sunday that the military generally relies on U.S. government officials to report the deaths of American civilians and contractors in Iraq.
This sounds a little strange. We had military personnel in the convoy? What did they do? What were their RoE? Did they fight? I'd like to know more.
In a similar attack in March 2004, a mob of Iraqis in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah killed four U.S. security contractors, mutilated their bodies and hanged them from a bridge. I am not sure what to say.
#1
"Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight," the paper reported. "Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames."
***
So what do we do but weep? In a more manly era, the time of my father and uncles, the Bs would have been unleashed. Bs as in B-17s, B-25s, B-24s, and B-29s ... get the picture?
#2
Yesterday Oldspook gave the proper prescription; level everything within 100 yards of the incident. Except, in this case I'd go for 200. Rubble now.
#3
The Telegraphs story is somewhat different from that of ABC: In another development, the U.S. military on Sunday confirmed that four American contract workers were killed and two wounded in Iraq last month when their convoy got lost. The attack occurred on Sept. 20 when the convoy, which included U.S. military guards riding in Humvees, made a wrong turn into the mostly Sunni Arab town of Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad.
Insurgents opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for Task Force Liberty in north-central Iraq, told The Associated Press.
Alerted of the attack, a quick reaction team went to the scene, finding all four Americans still in their vehicles with bullet wounds, one of them burned from a fire in the vehicle. One was still alive but died later of his wounds, the military said. Two others were wounded and survived the attack.
So, what happened to the "dragged from vehicle" part? Ya don't suppose it never happened now?
Three of the dead worked for Houston-based Halliburton Co.'s KBR subsidiary, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq. It was not clear who the fourth slain American worked for.
Another case of "fake, but accurate"? Or just wishful thinking on the reporters part?
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 11:31 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Did some more checking, seems the Telegraph story is the only source for the "dragged from the vehicle and burned" meme. And only of couple of sites add the disclaimer: Details of the account could not be independently verified.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 11:49 Comments ||
Top||
#5
In this case, as cold as it sounds -- I'm gonna hang back and wait for more to be uncovered. If the attack took place on September 20, that's over a MONTH of delayed news, with ample time for "embelishment" along the way.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
10/24/2005 13:39 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Hummm... yep. This sounds like Sunni spin of death.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. soldiers and warplanes killed 20 insurgents and destroyed five "safe houses" Saturday during an operation against militants who shelter foreign fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq near the Syrian border, the military said. Three U.S. Marines and an Army soldier were reported killed in three different areas of Iraq earlier this week as the American death toll in the war inched toward 2,000.
One Marine, who was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), died in an explosion near Haqlaniyah on Friday. During the subsequent engagement fellow Marines killed four insurgents and destroyed a bunker adjacent to their position with an unknown number of militants firing from inside, the military said. The fighting occurred on the final day of Operation River Gate, an offensive that began Oct. 4 in western Iraq.
Elsewhere, two Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed Friday by a roadside bomb during combat operations near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. On Thursday, a U.S. Army soldier died of a "non-hostile gunshot wound" in central Baghdad. That term often is used to describe an accident or a suicide. The incident was being investigated, the military said.
The deaths raised to at least 1,996 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, defense lawyers in Saddam Hussein's trial rejected protection offered by the Iraqi Interior Ministry after the kidnap-slaying of a colleague. The attorneys suggested they wanted U.S. protection, being deeply suspicious that the Iraqi police force has Shiite Muslim elements behind killings of Sunni Arabs. The murder of lawyer Saadoun al-Janabi terrorized the 12 remaining attorneys who appeared at the first session of Saddam's trial Wednesday representing the ousted dictator and seven former officials from his Sunni-dominated Baathist regime.
In Saturday's fighting, 20 insurgents suspected of harboring foreign extremists were killed and one was captured by U.S.-led forces during raids on houses in Husaybah, a town near the Syrian border, the military said in a statement. Coalition forces raided two neighborhoods in Husaybah and discovered two large weapons caches containing small arms, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, explosives and bomb-making materials that included radios and detonators, the statement said. The soldiers destroyed a car bomb found near one of the buildings, and Air Force planes then used precision-guided munitions to destroy the "safe houses," the military said.
In Washington, U.S. intelligence officials said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, has expanded his terrorism campaign from Iraq to two dozen groups scattered across almost 40 countries, creating a network that rivals Osama bin Laden's. The U.S. officials said the threat to American interests from al-Zarqawi compared with that from bin Laden, to whom al-Zarqawi pledged his loyalty a year ago.
In other violence Saturday, two roadside bombs and a drive-by shooting killed three Iraqi policemen and wounded four in Baghdad, authorities said. Gunmen also killed a former Iraqi soldier in front of his home in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, police said.
Iraqis were still waiting to learn the outcome of the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum. Initial returns indicated the charter passed, but an unusually high "yes" vote in some areas fueled charges of fraud from Sunni Arab leaders who opposed the constitution. A team of international and Iraqi experts pored over some of the results Saturday looking for any irregularities. The audit in Ninevah and three other provinces would delay announcement of the final results until at least Monday or Tuesday, the Electoral Commission said. Commission officials, however, insisted that no fraud had been uncovered. "We did not find any significant violations that would have any effect on the final results of the referendum," member Safwat Rashid said at a news conference in Baghdad.
Iraqi government officials met late Friday to discuss improving security for the defense lawyers in Saddam's trial. "We have decided to take some measures to protect the lawyers," Deputy Interior Minister Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal told The Associated Press on Saturday, though he refused to give details. But one of Saddam's two lawyers said the entire defense team rejected an offer of guards from the Interior Ministry. He said they were talking with U.S. officials about getting protection from American troops.
Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi pointed to frequent Sunni Arab accusations that Interior Ministry forces or Shiite militias linked to the government have killed of Sunni Arabs. "We refused because of our lack of trust in the Iraqi security agencies," al-Ubaidi said. "Everyone knows there are elements in the Interior Ministry that assassinate Iraqis."
Al-Janabi, a lawyer for one of Saddam's co-defendants, was abducted Thursday night when men wearing police and military uniforms barged into his Baghdad office and took him away. Hours later, his body was found dumped on a nearby sidewalk, with two bullet wounds to the head and signs of torture. Police said the gunmen were wearing the uniforms as a disguise. But it was reminiscent of other abductions in recent months in which Sunni Arabs were taken away by men in uniform claiming to be with the Interior Ministry, only to turn up dead.
Sunni leaders have blamed those slayings on Shiite death squads in or linked to the ministry. The government denies any role, blaming the attacks on insurgents, who have been known in other cases to wear stolen uniforms to carry out attacks.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 09:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
An insurgent blew up his car in a Baghdad square, killing four people in the first significant suicide bombing in the capital in weeks. More than 20 Iraqis died in a swell of violence, including a bomb that killed a police colonel and four children. In Sunday's attack, the bomber plowed his explosives-laden car into two police vehicles in downtown Tahrir Square at 11:30 a.m., killing two police officers and two civilians. U.S. troops rushing to the scene in Humvees found bystanders tending to 11 wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
IDF artillery rained fire on north Gaza Monday evening in response to the trajectory ammunition fired at Sderot from the Gaza Strip earlier in the evening. Cannons were firing at the area from which either Kassam rockets or mortar shells had been launched. IAF planes flew overhead, purposely creating sonic booms. Sderot's early warning system indicated five launches toward the city. IDF sweeps discovered the remains of two rockets or mortar shells, and no one was reported wounded in the attack.
Early Monday morning, the IDF raided Tulkarm in search of Islamic Jihad terrorist, and killed prominent Jihad member Louie Sa'adi. The Jihad vowed to avenge Sa'adi's death, and this was probably the reason for the artillery fire into Israel, although the Jihad has still not formally claimed responsibility. All border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel have been closed following the latest outbreak of violence.
Two Palestinian gunmen were killed in arrest raids in the West Bank town of Tulkarm before dawn Monday, including a top Islamic Jihad official. One Israeli soldier was lightly injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the troops from a passing car, an army spokesman said. In an ensuing exchange of fire, the two Palestinian fugitives were killed. One of the men raised his gun and aimed it toward IDF soldiers; they shot and killed the man.
The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades identified the gunman as one of its members, Majed al Askar. Al Aqsa has ties to the ruling Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The other man killed was Louie Sa'adi, the mastermind behind the suicide bombing at the Stage nightclub, the Netanya suicide bombing outside of the Sharon mall, and an attempted terror attack in Shavei Shomron. He was also involved in a car bomb in Mevo Dotan and three attempts to smuggle suicide bombers into Jerusalem.
Ephraim Brigade Commander Col. Aharon Haliba told Army Radio on Monday morning that Sa'adi's cell had been planning to attack Israel in the near future. "Louie Sa'adi's hands are covered in Israeli blood⊠I think that this injury to them [Islamic Jihad] on this day, on the eve of the holiday, saved many lives." Sa'adi was released from prison in a deal with the Hizbullah.
The Islamic Jihad has called for revenge. "Our response to this crime will be unprecedented, in accordance with the status of the man," vowed Abu-Abdullah, the group's spokesman in Gaza. Islamic Jihad has been ambivalent about a temporary truce accepted earlier this year by the Hamas. A total of 26 Palestinian fugitives were arrested overnight, the army spokesman said Monday. In the past month, 800 wanted Palestinians have been arrested.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 16:28 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Pity about the Israeli soldier being injured; I hope he's fine.
#3
wait til the "puppies and ducks and infants" report comes in
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2005 20:11 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Hopefully they set up a counterbattery network that can either pre-emptively take down missile and mortars being set up before firing, preferably, or return fire even before splash.
The preemptive counterbattery fire would almost have to be done with 24/7 blimp reconnaisance. The blimp wouldn't even need to be manned, only tethered.
#5
Heh, Moose - it would have to be tethered damned high, lol.
But what prompted me to post was the instant visual of the rain of lead from all the fire that would be directed at the blimp, lol. It would be a whole new type of flypaper if they had one of the instant triangulation systems for small arms fire. :-)
Ramallah, 24 Oct. (AKI) - In a message posted to Islamist websites on Monday, the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad group announced that "from today" it will no longer respect an eight-month unofficial ceasefire. "Following the killing of Islamic Jihad's military wing al-Quds Brigades' leader Luai al-Saadi, and as long as the Israelis continue their military incursions in the West Bank, we are free of the obligation to respect the ceasefire and will respond to the Zionist aggression" the group's message read.
Israeli troops shot dead al-Saadi - most senior Palestinian militant killed since the start of the ceasefire - in Tulkarm on Monday. The previous day, they targeted an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member, Majed al-Ashkar, killing him in a raid because, like al-Saadi, he had allegedly been planning attacks on Israelis. The Israeli army later imposed a curfew on Tulkarm, including the Nur a-Shams Palestinian refugee camp, al-Jazeera Net reported. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are linked to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' mainstream Fatah party.
Islamic Jihad vowed "blood for blood" and suggested the truce could be on the verge of collapse after Israel's killing of al-Saadi, accused of masterminding suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis since the ceasefire was declared in February. Islamic Jihad has said those were attacks were in retaliation for Israeli truce violations, although it had stated to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas its commitment to maintain the "calm" until the end of the year.
The army has made frequent raids into Tulkarm and other major West Bank cities and towns during a 5-year-old Palestinian uprising. "We condemn the Israeli incursion and assassinations in Tulkarm. This threatens the ceasefire we're trying to maintain," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement. The mounting violence in the occupied territories is jeopardising the fragile ceasefire and undermining hopes that Israel's Gaza pullout from Gaza and four West Bank settlements in September could revive peacemaking.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 16:24 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
oooohh.. major seething, eye-rolling, and dire threats! Looks like Moshe banged a big one!
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2005 16:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Buckle your seatbelts, it's time to ride the Dire Revenge⢠rollercoaster again.
#7
And in late breaking news, construction efforts on a portion of Israel's security fence inexplicably veered rather sharply into Palestinian territory today. Tape at 11:00.
Oct 24, 2005 â GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza fired rockets toward Israel on Monday in what the group said was an "initial response" to Israel's killing of one of their top commanders in the West Bank. Palestinian witnesses and the army said no casualties were reported in the first such salvo in about a month, when top militant groups said they would stop anti-Israeli attacks from Gaza to honor an eight-month truce. The witnesses said most of the rockets landed in the northern Gaza Strip, including one that slammed into a mourning tent for a dead militant.
Allen has a sense of humor
Islamic Jihad had vowed to avenge Israel's killing hours earlier of a top commander of the group who was accused of masterminding suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis. The militant group said after the killing that the truce could be on the verge of collapse.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 13:28 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A leading commander of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has been shot dead in a raid by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Israel said Luay Saadi had helped carry out recent bomb attacks on the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Netanya. Another Palestinian gunman is alleged to have been killed as Israeli soldiers carried out an operation in Tulkarm. Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the West Bank town of Tulkarm on Friday. An Israeli army spokesman said the Palestinians were killed in a gunfight but witnesses said the troops had opened fire on protesters who were throwing stones at the army vehicle.
Luay Saadi was shot dead after Israeli forces surrounded the house where he had been hiding in Tulkarm. Another gunman, identified as Majed al-Askar of the al-Aqsa Brigades, also died in the raid. According to the Israelis, one of the men had opened fire on the Israeli soldiers. A white car he used as cover was left riddled with bullets. Palestinian witnesses told the Associated Press news agency a pool of blood was left behind near the stairwell of the building where the other man was killed.
Islamic Jihad has confirmed the death of one of its commanders and threatened Israel with revenge. The group has said it was behind recent bomb attacks on the Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv and another bombing in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya. The other major Palestinian militant group, Hamas, says it is observing an informal truce.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has warned that the latest Israeli operation could upset the truce. "We condemn the Israeli incursion and assassinations in Tulkarm. This threatens the ceasefire," he told Reuters news agency.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 08:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yep. The asshat decided to come out shooting despite being surrounded by Israeli soldiers, and the end results: He's very dead as is his friend.
JANES: With the release of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission interim report on 20 October into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri increasing international pressure on Syria, a diplomatic source has said that Damascus is nevertheless pursuing what they describe as "an innovative chemical warfare [CW] programme in co-operation with Iran".
Isn't that special
The essence of this co-operation, the source told JDW, "is Tehran's contractual commitment, made to Syria a few months ago, to provide Iranian CW technical assistance to facilitate Syria's CW programme".
Utilising this assistance, they said, Syria hopes to reach an independent production capability of precursors for producing CW agents, which it has so far been unable to achieve.
According to the source, Iran will assist Syria in the planning, establishment and pilot operation of about four or five facilities throughout Syria for the production of precursors for VX and Sarin nerve agents and mustard blister agent. "This project is unprecedented and millions of US dollars have been allocated to implement it," the source said. "The project includes building major facilities, including advanced equipment to produce tens to hundreds of tonnes of CW precursors per year that are sufficient for CW industrial manufacturing pilot production."
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 10:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Guess we need to add GPS coordinates for Damascus to Tehran's and Pyonyang's. Make it decisive.
#3
Were it not for the restraint, humanity and patience of the USA, this conflict could be over in 45 minutes.
Islam has the will to win but not the means. Western Civilization has the means to win but not the will.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Waving placards and pictures of their president, tens of thousands of Syrians protested in a pro-government rally Monday over a U.N. report on the killing of a Lebanese leader. "Mr. Mehlis: we are not murderers," read one banner, referring to Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who wrote the report that implicated top Syrian security officials in the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Organized to show support for the beleaguered government of President Bashar Assad, the demonstration in central Damascus came a day before the U.N. Security Council is due to debate the report. The United States and Britain are calling for the council to take a firm stand on Syria. "With our soul and our blood, we redeem you, Bashar," the crowd chanted in Sabe Bahrat Square. The people held up large posters of Bashar as well as his father, the late President Hafez Assad. The protesters shouted slogans against the United States and unfurled banners with messages such as: "Get away from Syria" and "Syria will never be another Iraq." "Wake up Arabs, your turn will come soon," read one banner, in an attempt to draw pan-Arab solidarity.
What, no giant puppets?
Demonstrators-Are-Us⢠reports that all their giant puppets are leased out to various western moonbat organizations. I mean, you go with the money.
To ensure a big turnout, the government granted students a holiday and encouraged civil servants to attend. Officials from the ruling Baath Party took part in the demonstration, which was organized by state-controlled labor unions.
Sounds like they are using the same playbook as the Dems
Policeman blocked roads to traffic to make way for the protest.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have called on the world to take a strong position on the U.N. report, which found that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were complicit in the bombing that killed Hariri and 20 other people in Beirut on Feb. 14. Syria has dismissed this as an unproven allegation. The report also said Syria's government cooperated with U.N. investigators only "to a limited extent" - a charge that Syria rejects. "The report indicated that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated," Straw told the BBC on Sunday. "We also have evidence ... of false testimony being given by senior people in the regime. This is very serious."
Straw said earlier that UN Security Council members would consider sanctions against Syria, but it is not clear whether the United States and Britain would receive the support of members such as Russia, an old ally of Syria. For more than a year, the United States has been putting pressure on Syria, accusing it of interfering in Lebanon, allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq and supporting Palestinian militant groups. Syria denies these charges.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 09:10 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
As Lebanon and the world prepare themselves for UN Chief Investigator Detlev Mehlis' briefing to the United Nations Security Council Tuesday on his controversial report on the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, a new wave of related arrests has been carried out.
Mehlis was subject to heavy questioning from the international media at a news conference he held Friday to explain why his report was released in two different versions, one citing the names of top Syrian officials, including the brother and brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the other with them deleted. The German prosecutor, who left unsatisfied media hunger for the real reason behind the deleted parts of his report, issued a statement after the conference saying: "I established a rule that any person named in witness testimony should not be named in the report unless that person has been charged with a crime related to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri."
Despite that, Beirut MP Saad Hariri, son of the slain premier, said in televised speech from his residence in Saudi Arabia: "The investigation's report is a major first step in uncovering the truth. We look forward to continuing chapters toward justice, which alone will be the source of total comfort for the Lebanese people." The leader of the Future parliamentary bloc added: "The culprits who planned this terrorist crime and participated in executing and covering it up will face, God willing, the punishment they deserve."
Also on Saturday, the Cabinet discussed the Mehlis report, which it said was based on "strong facts and a high level of professionalism." The Cabinet called on Syria to cooperate with the investigation, but Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the probe "will not affect ties with Damascus. Lebanon's excellent relations with Syria must not be affected or regress under any circumstances."
"No matter how many of us they kill. Unless it's me."
On Sunday, Ahmad Jibril, leader of the pro-Syrian Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command, who was named in the report as a possible suspect who plotted the assassination with Syrian and Lebanese officers, slammed Mehlis' investigating techniques. Jibril said Mehlis had never approached him or his group for a statement as he did with other people who were named by "supposed witnesses." "This report is not professional and doesn't include any ethical standard of work nor the objectivity it should have," he said. Jibril added: "I have never met any of the Syrian or Lebanese officers who Mehlis' witness claimed I did."
"Never hoid of 'em. Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers!"
He said the accusation "aims at disarming Palestinian factions, including ours."
Meanwhile, a Lebanese presidential spokesman refuted on Sunday media allegations that President Emile Lahoud had refused to meet with Mehlis. He also commented on a paragraph in the report claiming that, three minutes before the blast that killed Hariri, Lahoud had received a call on his cellular phone from a mobile used by suspects in the case. "The cellular phone in the president's office is one of several lines known to everyone and on which the president's office receives calls from citizens and politician making complaints or appointment requests," he said. "So if the call was made on one of the lines in the president's office that does not mean the call was made to the president."
The phone call was made by a Mahmoud Abdel Al, an official in the Islamic Al-Ahbash group, according to the report. According to judicial sources, Lebanese authorities arrested Mahmoud Abdel Al late Saturday on orders from State Prosecutor Said Mirza. Despite some reports that the arrest is the first in connection with Hariri's murder since publication of the report, security sources confirmed to The Daily Star that a State Security general, Faisal al-Rashid, and several military officers were detained early Friday, shortly after the report was issued to the press. The report had cited Al's brother, Ahmad Abdel Al, as a key figure in the assassination plot. Ahmad is currently being held for illegal arms dealing, after the authorities found a large number of weapons in a warehouse belonging to him.
Security sources also said four men were arrested Saturday on charges of carrying out terrorist acts, including explosions, under orders from former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon General Jamaa Jamaa. The four men are being held for questioning. Eleven Lebanese officials were reported to be banned from traveling outside the country, although there is no confirmation of this.
The Future Movement staged a demonstration Sunday near Hariri's grave in Martyrs' Square, demanding those named in Mehlis' report be punished for involvement in assassinating Hariri. Bilal Hatab, head of the Association of Graduates from the Hariri Foundation, called on everyone who took part in the March 14 demonstration, (also known as the Cedar revolution), to stand united. Nader Naqib, spokesman for a group of youth organizations, demanded the setting up of an international court to try the culprits.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
We look forward to continuing chapters toward justice, which alone will be the source of total comfort for the Lebanese people
The United States and Britain called Sunday for an international stand against Syria in the wake of a U.N. report that implicated Syrian officials in the assassination of a former Lebanese leader. Syria countered by discounting the report as an American plot and began a diplomatic drive to explain its position. A Syrian official, deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, said the pressure on Syria was because of America's aim of dominating the region. He denied that he had threatened the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, days before Hariri was assassinated as the U.N. report said. "This is totally untrue," Moallem said in the first response by a Syrian official named in the report.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened. Wudn't me."
The U.S.-British call for action, in a joint BBC interview by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, underlined the growing pressure on Syria as it faces possible action by the U.N. Security Council later this week. "The report indicated that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated," Straw told the BBC. "We also have evidence .... of false testimony being given by senior people in the regime. This is very serious." Rice called for "a firm response" from the international community.
And we all know how firm the response from the International Community™ can be...
Officials in Washington have said privately that the United States is considering pushing for possible U.N. sanctions against Syria, or to have any criminal cases heard by an international tribunal.
I'd actually call that a good move, despite the existence of Carla del Ponte. Holding the trial in Leb would open up a bidding war between Syria and the rest of the world to buy the judges, who would also have to be extremely careful when starting their cars. Holding the trials in Helsinki or Barcelona would help keep the corpse count down.
Straw said earlier that U.N. Security Council members would consider sanctions. But it is not clear if the United States and Britain have members like Russia on their side.
They usually don't. That's why UN sanctions are such a laughingstock.
in an interview published Sunday in the Le Parisien newspaper, called on Syria to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into Hariri's murder and said any country involved in the killing should face economic sanctions.
Well, that oughta do it...
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday sent a message to the members of the U.N. Security Council concerning Syria's position and the consultations on the U.N. report, Syria's official news agency reported. The Syrian Foreign Ministry delivered the letters to representatives of the countries in Damascus, but the content of the message was not divulged.
Probably the usual pious denial. It's too early in the game to be asking for terms of surrender...
Syria's parliament also set up a committee of specialists to study the U.N. report.
And I'm sure they'll get right on it and cough up all the perps with blinding alacrity...
Also in Damascus on Sunday, the Central Command of Syria's National Progressive Front criticized the U.N. report, saying it was based on "suspicions and testimonies of unreliable persons who lack credibility."
Well, they had to take testimony from Baathists. Who else was involved?
The front, headed by Assad, is Syria's highest decision-making body. A front statement, carried by Syria's official news agency SANA, said the report contained "contradictions and twisting of facts."
... something which is easily recognizable in Syria.
In addition, about 100 Syrian lawyers marched to the United Nations' headquarters here to protest the report. They handed a U.N. official a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, which said the report contained "gross legal mistakes and violations of the simplest rules and measures of judicial authorities." The letter said the report was based on the testimony of witnesses biased against Syria politically.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
... Syria's official news agency SANA, said the report contained "contradictions and twisting of facts."
At which point the SANA official put aside the corkscrew he had just been using for a straightedge.
Militant Palestinians fought members of a Lebanese leftist party in a gun battle Sunday that left one man dead and three wounded outside a refugee camp, Lebanese security officials said.
Guess which one?
The gunbattle between the Palestinian Jund al-Sham group and the Lebanese Nasserite Popular Organization took place on the fringe of the Ein el-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon. The camp is the largest of Lebanon's 12 refugee settlements for Palestinians.
I believe "Ein el-Hilweh" is Arabic for "festering sore of the lower bowel."
The disarmament of Palestinian factions in Lebanon was discussed last week when Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora met Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Paris.
That worked well, didn't it?
The Lebanese army, which maintains checkpoints outside the camp, did not intervene, witnesses said.
"Eh! Let 'em kill each other. No skin off our collective fore."
Lebanon's army does not enter the camp, which is home to about 75,000 Palestinian refugees, and their descendants, who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
is home to about 75,000 Palestinian refugees, and their descendants, who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
NEW YORK - An Afghan drug lord allegedly linked to the Taliban has become the first man ever extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges, authorities said Monday. The man identified in an indictment as Baz Mohammad is believed to have close ties to the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said in announcing a news conference. He arrived in the United States late last week, according to a federal law enforcement official speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the official announcement. Mohammad, also known as Haji Baz Mohammad, is accused of smuggling more than $25 million of heroin into the United States and elsewhere.
The indictment unsealed Monday alleged that Mohammad and a co-defendant identified as Bashir Ahmad Rahmany had conspired since 1990 with others to violate narcotics laws. Rahmany is in custody and awaiting trial.
According to the indictment, Mohammad said in 1990 that selling heroin in the United States was a form of jihad because they were taking the money of Americans and the heroin was killing them. It said the pair led an international heroin-trafficking organization responsible for manufacturing and transporting hundreds of kilograms of heroin in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The "Baz Mohammad" organization, as prosecutors called it, then arranged for the heroin to be imported into the United States and other countries and sold for tens of millions of dollars, the indictment said. Proceeds were laundered back to the drug organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the indictment said. The government said Mohammad was the leader of the organization and controlled the organization's supply of heroin. Rahmany worked with other co-conspirators to distribute the heroin in the United States, it said.
In June, President Bush added Mohammad to the nation's list of individuals and organizations the administration deems to be major foreign narcotics traffickers. Those on the list are subject to a variety of economic and other U.S. sanctions.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/24/2005 15:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"We're never givin' up the Kingpin's suitcase!"
-- Big Trouble
SECURITY agencies in the country may have been placed on red alert following an alarm raised by the Federal Government that it had uncovered a 10,000-man terrorist organisation in the Niger Delta region whose motive is to disrupt Nigeriaâs oil production by kidnapping and killing oil workers.
To paraphrase Gomer Pyle, "Surprise, surprise, surprise."
Government also expressed concern over the activities of an Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat (GSPC), believed to be affiliates to the dreaded Al-Qaeda, which it said has recruited and trained many Nigerians on destructive and sabotage acts against the countryâs interests. After you lose in Algeria go to Nigeria.
Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Uche Okeke, who made the revelations in Abuja, disclosed that these groups were being sponsored by foreigners in connivance with wealthy individuals within the country who mean Nigeria no good. He told Sunday Vanguard: âThough some people might dispute this, the fact is that terrorist activities have been established in the Southern part of the country, particularly in relation to the activities of the Ijaw militants in the Niger Delta area. This area has remained volatile with incessant disruption of oil exploration activities, kidnapping and killing of oil workers. This group whose total strength is estimated at 10, 000 is equipped with sophisticated weapons that facilitate its attacks against oil related targets especially oil installations in the area. But for the intervention of the federal government through dialogue, the situation would have been worseâ, the DG said, explaining, âHow and where this group acquired its weapons is still a mystery and source of concern to government.â
He disclosed that the recent spate of violence in Nigeria particularly in some Northern states like Yobe and Borno had underscored the reality of the presence of terrorist intentions against Nigeria. âThe fact that Nigeria was listed by Osama Bin Laden among five apostate states ripe for revolution also confirms our worst fearsââ the intelligence chief said and pointed out: âIt is on record that out of these five states, Nigeria is the only country yet to experience a major attack by Al-Qaeda or its sympathizers.â
âFurthermore, the activities of the Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat (GSPC), in the Sahel countries of West Africa from Mauritania to Niger Republic and Nigeria are sources of concern to usâ, Okeke said. It is instructive that three Nigerians were among the GSPC combatants captured by Chadian soldiers during an exchange of fire between Chadian forces and GSPC terrorists in April 2004. There were also some Nigerians among those killed by the Chadian troopsâ, he disclosed.
The NIA boss concluded: âYou would recall that at least 17 people were killed in Yobe between December 2003 and January 2004 when the self styled Talibans, otherwise known as ââAl-Sunna wal Jammaââ attempted to impose what they called purification of Islam on the community where they set up their well fortified military styled camps. The group also attacked two local government headquarters in Borno State in September 2004 causing death, destruction and pain to many people. These events are linked with international terrorism organizations, and there is evidence of foreign funding for the group.â
âYou may also want to know that in December 2003, the NIA provided information about a planned terrorist attack on the MEGA PLAZA in Lagos, which is owned by an Israeli citizen. The Agency, the department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force mobilized pre-emptive forces on receipt of the plan.â
âThough the attack did not take place most probably because of the presence of security operatives in and around the area, it shows that Nigeria is very vulnerable and could become target for terrorist attacks from international terrorists organizations.â Okeke disclosed that, âin July this year, operatives of the NIA interrogated one Al-Qaeda operative in Tripoli, Libya who confirmed that he was sent to Nigeria by the Al-Qaeda organization in late 2003 to arrange a number of targets for them.â
âHe successfully concluded his assignment and sent his reports to his handlers in Afghanistan through a Nigerian he recruited before leaving the country in October 2004. The Nigerian was arrested by Pakistani authorities while trying to return to Nigeria having delivered the Al-Qaeda operatives work to their handlersâ.
Al-Qaida issued a video appeal for Muslims to rush help to quake-hit Pakistan last night despite its violent opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's pro-American government. "I call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organisations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a helping hand to the victims there," said the second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a message broadcast on al-Jazeera. Osama bin Laden's deputy said he knew Mr Musharraf was an "agent" of the US. Unlike Zawahiri, who is an agent of mass murder.
"Despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the help of their brothers in Pakistan," he said. The videotape, in which al-Zawahiri is wearing a white turban and sitting beside an AK-47 assault rifle, was an unexpected intervention from a group that has vowed to overthrow Mr Musharraf and wage jihad against the west.
The message came as international aid continued to flood in but UN officials warned that thousands of lives were still at risk. With the fierce Himalayan winter just weeks away an odd mix of western and local soldiers, seasoned aid workers and Islamic charities are rushing shelter and food to the victims of the October 8 quake. Possibly to al-Zawahiri's dismay, America is at the forefront of the charge. Lick and like it, Zawahiri.
President George Bush has given $50m (£28m) in immediate assistance and diverted a fleet of 19 helicopters, many of them from the fight against Taliban rebels in neighbouring Afghanistan. More troops and aircraft have been promised. Especially for that pesky cave-riddled frontier region.
The American soldiers find themselves with unlikely bedfellows. Among the Islamic groups distributing blankets, tents and medical supplies are the al-Rasheed Trust - which the Bush administration has accused of channelling funds to al-Qaida - and Hizb ul-Mujahideen, the largest militant group fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir. I hope there's no ban on cameras and other electronic recording devices. Some mug shots photo albums would be a huge comfort later on.
The scale of the devastation remains unclear. Provincial authorities put the death toll at 79,000 but the central government has confirmed just 53,000 casualties. Although last December's southeast Asian tsunami claimed far more lives, aid workers say the earthquake aftermath poses a far stiffer challenge.
A shortage of tents is a leading concern. Like the ones that may have been squirreled away by those military guys in Muzaffarabad?
Officials estimate that up to 540,000 tents are required but there could be a shortage of 200,000. And some of those available will offer little protection against the winter. Yesterday morning 300 tents had been pitched in Bassian, a valley settlement six miles from quake-ruined Balakot. While some were made with heavy canvas, others had been cut from parachute cloth, according to one soldier. "Rain they can keep out, yes. But snow, no," he said. After a hesitant start the Pakistani army has taken a lead role in the theft of emergency relief. It now plans to herd tens of thousands of refugees into tented camps for the winter. But some western aid professionals say such camps should be a last resort. "They are against all best practice - they create madrasahs dependency, are open to abuse, and just like madrasahs once opened can take years to close down," said one head of mission, who preferred to remain anonymous.
The World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, said Pakistan would need billions to rebuild. Figures released by Unicef yesterday gave an indication of the quake's human and material cost. In Muzaffarabad district alone an estimated 1,442 schools had collapsed, 622 were considered too dangerous to use, (Not that they weren't put to extremely dangerous uses before, but only for us infidels.)
and some 12,000 students and teachers had died. Since the vast majority of them were males devoting themselves to memorizing the Koran, it'll be hard for me to get very dewy about this.
#1
How could pakiland need Billions to rebuild? The whole goddamned county isn't worth billions. Maybe they should consider selling their nuclear arsenal to pay off the debt. Isreal is probably in the market.
Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, urged Muslims in a video broadcast on Sunday to help Pakistan's earthquake victims even though its government was an "agent" of the United States.
"I call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organizations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a helping hand to the victims there," a bespectacled Zawahri said in the tape aired on Al Jazeera. Wearing a white turban and seated beside an assault rifle, Zawahri denounced Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
"We all know that Musharraf's government is an agent of the United States but despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the help of their brothers in Pakistan," he said.
"We all know the United States is against the activities of Islamic charities," said Zawahri, the Egyptian right-hand man of Osama bin Laden. he is wanted by Cairo for anti-government attacks.
The tape appeared to have been recorded on October 9, as Zawahri said the earthquake had occurred the day before.
U.S. intelligence was studying the videotape but results were not expected until later in the week, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject involved classified counterterrorism operations.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/24/2005 01:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
We all know he's got a special interest in the aid and relief effort in the PAK but couldn't bother much with the tsunami that hit the asian-pacific ummah ... how arab of him.
WANA: Assailants shot at three off-duty Pakistani soldiers in Mir Ali, North Waziristan Agency, on Sunday, killing one of them and injuring the others, an intelligence official said. The soldiers were shopping in a bazaar when the unidentified gunmen opened fire with assault rifles, the official said on condition of anonymity. No one claimed responsibility for the shooting and the attackers fled. Officials suspect militants for attacks against the soldiers.
Inspector! How do you do it?
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia denied Monday that it had released repentant terrorists who planned bombings in which many people were killed. A spokesman at the interior ministry, who requested anonymity, told United Press International, "Reports on the release of two repentant terrorists among those who proved to have planned the terrorist attacks are completely untrue." 
RIYADH, , Saudi Arabia, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia said Monday a rocket fired from inside Yemeni territory exploded on the Saudi side of the border. Daily al-Watan quoted a security source as saying an explosion, which occurred in the border province of Najran, was caused by a rocket fired from a distance of 25 kilometers (15 miles) inside Yemeni territory. 
The probe into the August 17 countrywide blasts seems to have been stalled as the investigators are now busy completing the charge sheets of the cases.
An Iraqi-born man was sentenced Monday to nearly five years in prison after trying to buy machine guns and hand grenades in a federal sting operation. Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily, 34, was arrested last October during the investigation prompted his alleged threat about "going jihad" against the United States, investigators said. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force said Al-Uqaily paid $1,000 for two disassembled machine guns, four disassembled hand grenades and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Rockets and car bombs hit the Palestine Hotel on Monday, wounding at least five people and causing considerable damage to the building that houses many foreign journalists, Iraqi police and journalists said. Associated Press Television News pictures showed a huge explosion on the northwest side of Firdous Square, which is adjacent to the hotel. Thick clouds of smoke and dust billowed from the area, and at least one fire was started by falling debris.
An insurgent blew up his car in a Baghdad square, killing four people in the first significant suicide bombing in the capital in weeks. More than 20 Iraqis died in a swell of violence, including a bomb that killed a police colonel and four children. In Sunday's attack, the bomber plowed his explosives-laden car into two police vehicles in downtown Tahrir Square at 11:30 a.m., killing two police officers and two civilians. U.S. troops rushing to the scene in Humvees found bystanders tending to 11 wounded.
IDF artillery rained fire on north Gaza Monday evening in response to the trajectory ammunition fired at Sderot from the Gaza Strip earlier in the evening. Cannons were firing at the area from which either Kassam rockets or mortar shells had been launched. IAF planes flew overhead, purposely creating sonic booms. Sderot's early warning system indicated five launches toward the city. IDF sweeps discovered the remains of two rockets or mortar shells, and no one was reported wounded in the attack. 
Oct 24, 2005 â GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza fired rockets toward Israel on Monday in what the group said was an "initial response" to Israel's killing of one of their top commanders in the West Bank. Palestinian witnesses and the army said no casualties were reported in the first such salvo in about a month, when top militant groups said they would stop anti-Israeli attacks from Gaza to honor an eight-month truce. The witnesses said most of the rockets landed in the northern Gaza Strip, including one that slammed into a mourning tent for a dead militant. 
A leading commander of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has been shot dead in a raid by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Israel said Luay Saadi had helped carry out recent bomb attacks on the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Netanya. Another Palestinian gunman is alleged to have been killed as Israeli soldiers carried out an operation in Tulkarm. Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the West Bank town of Tulkarm on Friday. An Israeli army spokesman said the Palestinians were killed in a gunfight but witnesses said the troops had opened fire on protesters who were throwing stones at the army vehicle. 
As Lebanon and the world prepare themselves for UN Chief Investigator 
The United States and Britain called Sunday for an international stand against Syria in the wake of a U.N. report that implicated Syrian officials in the assassination of a former Lebanese leader. Syria countered by discounting the report as an American plot and began a diplomatic drive to explain its position. A Syrian official, deputy Foreign Minister 
Militant Palestinians fought members of a Lebanese leftist party in a gun battle Sunday that left one man dead and three wounded outside a refugee camp, Lebanese security officials said.
NEW YORK - An Afghan drug lord allegedly linked to the Taliban has become the first man ever extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges, authorities said Monday. The man identified in an indictment as Baz Mohammad is believed to have close ties to the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said in announcing a news conference. He arrived in the United States late last week, according to a federal law enforcement official speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the official announcement. Mohammad, also known as Haji Baz Mohammad, is accused of smuggling more than $25 million of heroin into the United States and elsewhere.
SECURITY agencies in the country may have been placed on red alert following an alarm raised by the Federal Government that it had uncovered a 10,000-man terrorist organisation in the Niger Delta region whose motive is to disrupt Nigeriaâs oil production by kidnapping and killing oil workers. 
WANA: Assailants shot at three off-duty Pakistani soldiers in Mir Ali, North Waziristan Agency, on Sunday, killing one of them and injuring the others, an intelligence official said. The soldiers were shopping in a bazaar when the unidentified gunmen opened fire with assault rifles, the official said on condition of anonymity. No one claimed responsibility for the shooting and the attackers fled. Officials suspect militants for attacks against the soldiers.
