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U.N. Security Council OKs Syria Resolution
Today's Headlines
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Arabia
Saudi policeman shot dead in Mecca
RIYADH - Two gunmen shot and killed a policeman patrolling in the Islamic holy city of Mecca overnight, witnesses said on Sunday. The incident took place in an area of the city, in western Saudi Arabia, where more than 1,499,999 1.5 million Muslim faithful were gathered to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

The two assailants opened fire on a police patrol, which had flagged down their car for a routine check. One of the two officers in an all-terrain vehicle was shot in the head, the witnesses said. The victim was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds. The other officer was unscathed but the attackers ran away fled, they added.

A police search for the killers was underway in the Um Al Jud quarter.
They'll have them surrounded any day now ...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is that "1.5 million muslim faithful" thing the same as the "million moron march?"
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Not really, 'cos there really *are* that many hajis making the pilgrimage. The "Million (Your Cause Here)" marches in DC usually run from the low thousands to the low tens of thousands, marked by nasty fights with the US Park Service as to 'official' turnout.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 9:35 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Gunmen attack Jamaican police station
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- Gunmen attacked a police station on Monday, wounding two officers in retaliation for the police killing of one of Jamaica's most wanted men, authorities said. Donovan "Bulbie" Bennet, 43, was killed in a joint police-army predawn raid on his home near Spanish Town, where his Clansman gang operated, said assistant police commissioner Linval Taylor. An associate of Bennet's was also killed in the shootout.

At around 3 a.m. Monday, unidentified gunmen attacked the Spanish Town police station, strafing the facade and two squad cars, presumably in retaliation for Bennet's death. Two police officers were wounded, treated at a hospital and released, said police spokesman Jean McDonald.

Bennett, who was sought for murder and extortion, was on the island's most wanted list for more than 10 years. For the past three years, Bennet led his Clansman gang in a feud with the One Order gang for control of the town, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the capital, Kingston.

More than 1,250 people have been killed so far this year on the Caribbean island of 2.6 million -- 200 of them in Spanish Town, one of the most violent areas. There were 1,467 homicides in 2004. Authorities blame most of the violence on the drug trade.
Quagmire! Better send in the U.N.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 11:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jamaica is the most beautiful creepy place I've ever been. You could't pay me to go back there.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2005 14:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Amen, tu. 30 years ago it was really a jewel. Today it's, well, it's something else... approaching the likes of Haiti, IMHO.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 15:56 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Sydney fugitive linked to Zarqawi
SYDNEY fugitive Saleh Jamal, awaiting a terrorism trial in Lebanon next month, has been linked to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Court documents allege he was sent abroad by an Australian Islamist to stage jihad attacks against US and Israeli interests.
So that'd be Zark in his capacity as a Qaeda leading light, rather than simply as chief of Qaeda in Iraq...
In the prosecution documents, security officials say Jamal tried to join the Iraqi insurgency in April last year. However, he was refused entry by Jordan, along with his brother Ahmed and another man, Mohammed Sultan. Jamal is alleged to have been introduced to Zarqawi's network through a Bosnian militant he met in Lebanon, Abdullah Taratshebak. The Bosnian and another accused terrorist, Abdul Latif, also tried unsuccessfully to enter Iraq from Jordan.
These don't sound like the world's best terrorists. The seem to lack a certain amount of ruthless cunning...
Jamal is accused of being linked to a number of men involved with al-Qa'ida, among them three Sydney Islamists who have been the subject of ASIO surveillance for two years. Lebanon's military court claims Jamal's flight from Australia, using a false passport, was financed by the prominent Sydney Islamist, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Meaning he's gonna go down, but not yet...
Prosecutors say the Sydney Islamist was helped by an Australian resident, Ashref Shaha, who provided $4500 to Jamal. He then skipped bail on charges of shooting at the Lakemba police station in Sydney's southwest in 1998.
Who shot up the cop shoppe? Ashref or Saleh?
Jamal was arrested in May last year at Beirut airport, where he was about to board a flight to Paris.
Gay Paree is not in Iraq. Or did they move it?
He was sentenced to five years' jail for weapons offences and for entering Lebanon on a false document.
"M'sieur? Your passport. It is drawn in crayon."
Prosecutors want to upgrade the charges to serious terrorism offences, alleging Jamal delivered material to terrorists who launched a bomb attack in the Syrian capital Damascus two weeks before his arrest. Two people were killed in the attack near an embassy compound.
I guess what they lack in ruthless cunning they make up in viciousness...
The Australian revealed last week that federal police learned Jamal was in Lebanon through an intercepted phone call he made to his wife in Sydney, during which he said she would never see him again because he was "going to a place that is higher than the mountains".
"Good bye, honey! I shall never see you again! I am going to a place that is higher than the mountains..."
"[Giggle!] Stop it, Sven!"
"Sven? Who's Sven?"
"Never mind! What were you saying?"
Court documents allege Jamal became radicalised while in jail in NSW awaiting trial. "During his jail time, he met some people who changed his personality completely and he became more religious and started going to the mosque," the documents claim.
He was in jug when he met them. Sounds like he was pretty devout already...
"Then he started creating links to people belonging to that organisation ... They started discussing ideas about jihad and that they should not stay quiet about what is happening to the Islamic nations.
"Yeah! It's terrible, what they're doing! We should kill them all!"
(The prominent Sydney Islamist) told him he was going to help him leave the country to Lebanon for a jihadi aim. He said he would help him meet people in Lebanon who would help him achieve his goal. "He had relationships with people who are believed to have links with al-Qa'ida."
Reeeeeeaaaaally? That's never happened before, has it?
The documents do not detail how evidence against Jamal was obtained. However, much of the claims depend on confessions of people convicted of conspiring with him to travel to Syria. Among them are two Palestinian clerics who allegedly provided weapons training in refugee camps in southern Lebanon. Jamal is believed to have forged links in a Palestinian refugee camp with Usbat-al-Ansar, an outlawed group linked to Zarqawi's network.
Which'd put him in Ein el-Hellhole...
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Swiss cuff Islamic hate message duo
Swiss police last week arrested two African men who allegedly used the University of Geneva's computer system to disseminate Islamic fundamentalist hate messages and justifications for terrorist attacks, AFP reports. The two - a 27-year-old Moroccan and a 41-year-old Algerian, both staying illegally in Switzerland - were fingered by German-language newspaper Weltwoche which reported the activity to the uni's authorities. The powers that be alerted the cops, who swooped on the pair. That the duo were able to access the computer system was apparently due to a "code that a student had negligently left lying around".
Translation: Someone wrote his log-in and password down
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 13:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good on The-Register for saying "Islamic Hate" unlike the legacy medja.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2005 15:52 Comments || Top||


Car bomb in Germany seriously hurts two women
LEONBERG, GERMANY - A car-bombing in Germany seriously hurt a 37-year-old Greek woman and an unidentified second woman Monday, police said, but there was no indication of any political motive.
Just felt like blowing up, did it?
The two women were close to, but not inside, the car when it blew up on a car park in Leonberg, near the city of Stuttgart. Police were combing the scene for traces of the explosive as an inquiry began. Helicopters were called to evacuate the victims. Police said it appeared the blast came from a bomb and not from any defect in the car.


Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 10:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Practice run? Ford Pinto? Ramadan Celebration? I bet it was the Jews.
Posted by: JackAssFestival || 10/31/2005 11:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Another tragic case of too much Farfegnughen in too small a car.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 11:36 Comments || Top||

#3  More info need to make any kind of inteligent comments. Do criminals in Germany blow up things?
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 10/31/2005 13:55 Comments || Top||


More violence rocks Paris suburb
Violence has flared for a fourth night in a north-east Paris suburb, but not on the same scale as before. Six policemen were injured and 11 people arrested in the latest confrontations between angry youths and police in Clichy-sous-Bois. Police said one or more teargas canisters were hurled into a mosque from an unidentified source.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is to meet the parents of two teenagers whose deaths sparked the riots. Saturday saw hundreds of mourners pay homage to the teenagers by holding a peaceful procession in Clichy-sous-Bois, which has a large immigrant population. The authorities denied rumours that policemen were chasing the two boys who were electrocuted on Thursday after entering an electricity sub-station.

Flowers now lie near the spot where Ziad, aged 17, and Banou, 15, died.
An official investigation into the boys' deaths is under way. A third young man is seriously ill in hospital. The BBC's Alasdair Sandford in Paris says many in the suburb do not believe the authorities' account that the two boys were not being chased by police. Mr Sarkozy has promised to send special police units into difficult suburbs around France to stamp out violence. But local people in Clichy accuse him of heightening the tensions with inflammatory language.

During Saturday's march in memory of the dead teenagers, there were calls for the government to tackle discrimination against immigrant communities such as theirs.
And which "immigrant community" is that? You sure can't tell by reading this story.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 08:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Islamic immigrants.
But Europe doesn't have a Islam problem. Really....
Posted by: mmurray821 || 10/31/2005 8:21 Comments || Top||

#2  What's interesting is how the silent march was quickly organized, with 200 tee-shirts "dead for nothing printed" for the occasion, and well encadred by, you guess it, "religious figures" (a prayer was held at the electricity sub-station); after Perpignan where also the race riots proved to be very well managed and encadred by the islamoleft, now there is Clichy.
Note that police denied hurling the teargas canister, this might even be some kind of provocation, although the mosque was not neutral ground since it was apparently a regrouping spot for the youth.

In an unrelated incident, a social center in Roubaix, an heavily islamized town in north of France, was sprayed with submachine gun fire; a teen was arrested, with a smg and 200 rounds of ammo; apparently, it was because fo a dispute about a visit at Disneyland (!).

Also, there is a similar ongoing riot at Vaulx-en-velin, near Lyon, or at least there was this week-end, but the media are mum about it.

Anyway, this is business as usual, such "activity" is almost normal; there is an undeclared intifada in France, that's all.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 10/31/2005 8:57 Comments || Top||

#3  And French elites are worried about the decline of the language and culture to "Anglo" America and the UK. Wonder how traditional cultural norms from muslim immigrants will mersh with French culture?
Posted by: MunkarKat || 10/31/2005 9:13 Comments || Top||

#4  "French elites" ... isn't that an oxymoron?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Nicolas Sarkozy hates muslim people!
Posted by: Kanye West || 10/31/2005 10:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Right....
Just like the Religion of Pieces doesn't cut off infidel heads or blow up innocent people.
Have fun with your coming servitude.
Posted by: mmurray821 || 10/31/2005 11:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Islam is the problem Oh Nameless One. It has turned every square meter it rules into shit. Muslims are drowning in shit and fight to flee it everyday. The truly sad part is that wherever they flee to, they do not learn, and turn their host country into shit. But don't fret much longer. The Europeans are sick of wading hip deep in your shit and will kick your sorry asses and shit religion back to where you came from. Confine shit to the cesspool where it belongs and burn it whereever it leaks out.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 11:50 Comments || Top||

#8  No, Islam is more like a civilizational virus. It seeds itself into civilizations (such as Europe) and changes it to shit, then it moves on.

It did it in what is now Iraq/Iran/Pakistan - destroying those once-high civilizations. Then tried to move on to Europe / India but was stopped (by Crusades and Hindu resistance) - it is still trying to spread.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2005 12:05 Comments || Top||

#9  Um, guys, I kinda sorta detected a sarcasm tag on post #6. Would anyone seriously use "pa-tooey"?
Posted by: AlanC || 10/31/2005 13:24 Comments || Top||

#10  "French Elite" Not an oxymoron but certainly redundant. Like a "free gift".
Posted by: intrinsicpilot || 10/31/2005 13:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Saying "Islam is not a problem in France" is like saying Hitler never enjoyed Paris.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 13:47 Comments || Top||

#12  I regret I forgot to sign my "pa-tooey". Now you have my panties all in a bunch.
Posted by: Jacques Chirac || 10/31/2005 13:47 Comments || Top||

#13  Even if the Nameless One was trying to be sarcastic, ed's post still rocks, lol.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 16:00 Comments || Top||

#14  Perhaps, like Muslims, the French are equally incapable of penetrating the mysterious riddle of Cause & Effect. Maybe they need to confer safe haven upon the soon-to-be ousted Iranian mullahs in order to finally gain full appreciation of this timeless conundrum.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 18:58 Comments || Top||

#15  Perhaps, like Muslims, the French are equally incapable of penetrating the mysterious riddle of Cause & Effect. Maybe they need to confer safe haven upon the soon-to-be ousted Iranian mullahs in order to finally gain full appreciation of this timeless conundrum.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 19:28 Comments || Top||

#16  What about our spy in frogistan?

Where's J?
Posted by: anonymous2u || 10/31/2005 19:30 Comments || Top||

#17  I thought pa-tooey meant "of whom I am so jealous" in french.
Posted by: Ominemp Glinesing5278 || 10/31/2005 19:31 Comments || Top||

#18 
Today's Euro can't even put together a document of unity. Today's Western Euro's could not pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel.

The Euro's will appease the Islamic fucks until they have taken over just like history has told us over and over and over. The continent of death has no balls no direction and no new idea's. I would love to see it burn personally.
I would love to see the Eifel tower tumble...maybe I just hate the French...that's not a maybe. I do hate the Frog eating cheese eating surrender monkeys!!
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 10/31/2005 20:06 Comments || Top||

#19  Today's Western Euro's could not pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel.

Gadfrey, another little gem. How I love this place!
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 20:56 Comments || Top||

#20  Neither the German (from ca. 408 AD) or Arab invasions (from ca. 634 AD) were made up of the conquering hordes of myth. Rome and Byzantium had dealt with sustained barbarian infiltration with half-hearted measures to tame them through settlement schemes. Later, they turned over border defense to barbarian mercenaries and were shocked -- shocked I tell you -- when the barbarians opened the borders to their kinsmen. Meanwhile, insane tax burdens and increasing urbanization (Cities, then as now, were places to die, not reproduce. Spengler [over at Atimes] has grasped only part of the depopulation equation. Education produces lower fertility, but urbanization kills it. The American decision in the 50's to promote suburbanization is saving us while our cities die.* Meanwhile, Europe chose to invest in its cities and is dying. It turns out that the "sterile" suburbs are quite fertile.) led to depopulation. The only mistake that our modern Romans in the EU haven't repeated is the mercenary bit. Though by financing Palestinian proxy armies, they seem to be giving it their best.

The French and the rest of the Europeans will continue to decline until their elites let their people live how they want and stop forcing them to live according to failed urbanist theories. Opportunists such as the Muslims will continue to seek advantage as long as the decline continues.

* I want to define what a city is carefully. Detroit, NYC, Baltimore, and East St. Louis are all classical, though technologically modern cities. All have experienced depopulation since WWII with large areas within their boundaries actually abandoned. LA, Houston and Phoenix are all conglomerations of suburbs with no real urban core.
Posted by: 11A5S || 10/31/2005 22:00 Comments || Top||

#21  BTW, we just had a whole city go away (New Orleans) and it barely put a dent in the economy. Classical cities are net revenue sinks and contribute very little to the common wealth since the demise of smokestack industries. The Euros missed a real opportunity in the 50's when they decided to hold onto their cities and rebuild them at any cost. If nukes and biologicals _do_ proliferate (and I think that they will) to the point where they become terrorist weapons, the Euros will pay a heavier price still.
Posted by: 11A5S || 10/31/2005 23:35 Comments || Top||


Iraq
U.S. reduces bases in N. Iraq from 27 to 17
The U.S. military has reduced its presence in northern Iraq.
Over the last year, U.S. officials said, the U.S. military has reduced its presence in north-central Iraq from 27 to 17 bases. They said the Iraq Army has proven capable of assuming security responsibility, but still required U.S. logistical support.

"During our time, we have been able to close 10 U.S. forward operating bases, turning most of those over to Iraqi army units, therefore reducing coalition force presence," Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto, commander of the U.S. Army's 42nd Infantry Division, said. "In fact, soon, the former palace complex of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit, once the headquarters of Task Force Liberty and the 42nd Division, will be turned over to the people of Iraq..."

Taluto, also in charge of the Multinational Division in north-central Iraq, said Iraqi security forces have been steadily progressing. He said the Iraq Army has two division headquarters, five brigades and 18 battalions in his area of command.

"Nearly half of our operations in MND North-Central are led by or conducted only by Iraqi army forces," Taluto said. "They are equipped with over 85 percent of their organizational equipment and are working towards sustainment capabilities."

The general said the Iraq Army and police continue to be hampered by an inadequate logistical infrastructure. Taluto said Iraqi army and police forces were still unable to obtain spare parts, maintenance, repairs, light arms or heavy weapons.

"We want the Iraqi [military] leaders to sustain themselves as the coalition draws down," Taluto said. "They have to improve."

Taluto also reported a decrease in Al Qaida influence in his region. He said suicide bombings have dropped steadily since a peak in June 2005.

"Number one, I think we're getting further division between Al Qaida in Iraq and the Iraqi rejectionists or Saddamists," Taluto said. "I don't think Al Qaida in Iraq's message is resonating very well, and I think we're seeing, at least in North-Central, we're not seeing as much of their influence in there."
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 17:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And in true waffles-centric policraticism, the Lefties have already begun complaining, essens criticizing Dubya "troubled" and "lame duck" Admin. for using the redux to hide his Admins. alleged "serious" probs. of credibility and defective security planning. Goes to show Dubya ahd the GOP can't win no matter what he does, and no matter what pol concessions/compromises he makes wid the Demmies.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2005 18:44 Comments || Top||

#2  True waffles-centric policraticism! LOL
Posted by: Darrell || 10/31/2005 18:56 Comments || Top||

#3  US reducing bases! It's a quagmire I tell you.
Posted by: doc || 10/31/2005 19:09 Comments || Top||


Car Bomb Kills 20 in Basra, Police Say
A car bomb exploded Monday night in a commercial district of
Iraq's second-largest city of Basra, killing at least 20 people and wounding about 40, a police official said.

The car bomb in the southern city of Basra exploded about 8:30 p.m., police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi. The restaurants had been packed in the evening with people breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Dazed survivors, their clothing stained with blood, stumbled in the darkness or wept in despair, and witnesses said body parts were strewn on the street of Iraq's second-largest city.

Also Monday, six American soldiers were killed in separate attacks. A Marine died in action Sunday, making October the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since January. Earlier Monday, U.S. jets struck insurgent targets near the Syrian border and at least six people were killed.

Four soldiers from the Army's Task Force Baghdad soldiers died when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad in an area known as the "triangle of death." Two other soldiers from the 29th Brigade Combat Team were also killed in a bombing Monday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Sunday near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad.

Those deaths raised the death toll for October to more than 90, the highest monthly total since January when 107 American service members died. The latest deaths brought to 2,025 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said there is no readily apparent explanation for why the number of U.S. casualties was higher in October than in previous months. But he said the insurgents' roadside bombs — which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — are getting more sophisticated. "We see an adversary that continues to develop some sophistication on very deadly and increasingly precise stand-off type weapons — IEDs, in particular. They're obviously quite capable of killing large numbers of noncombatants indiscriminately, and we're seeing a lot of that, too," Di Rita told reporters.

The insurgents continually search for new and more effective ways to use IEDs, he said, while U.S. forces look for new ways to counter the IED threat. "We're getting more intelligence that's allowing us to stop more of these things, find more of them. So we're learning from them (the insurgents) and the enemy is learning from us, and it's going to be that way for as long as there is an insurgency," Di Rita said.

Before dawn Monday, Marines backed by jets attacked insurgent positions near the Syrian border, destroying two safe houses believed use by al-Qaida figures, a U.S. statement said. The statement made no mention of casualties, but Associated Press Television News video from the scene showed residents wailing over the bodies of about six people, including at least three children. At the local hospital, Dr. Ahmed al-Ani claimed 40 Iraqis, including 12 children, were killed in the attack. But the claim could not be independently verified.

APTN footage from the scene showed Iraqi men digging through the rubble of several destroyed concrete buildings with a pitchfork or their hands. In the building of a nearby home, women cried over the bodies of about half a dozen blanket-covered bodies lined up on a floor. Some of the blankets were opened for the camera showing a man and three children. "At least 20 innocent people were killed by the U.S. warplanes. Why are the Americans killing families? Where are the insurgents?" one middle-aged man told APTN. "We don't see democracy. We just see destruction." He didn't give his name.

Elsewhere, two separate mortar attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq killed three Iraqi people and wounded 11 on Monday. In other strikes in the capital, two car bombs and five drive-by shootings killed five Iraqis and wounded 10, police said. The body of an Iraqi civilian who had been kidnapped and killed in captivity also was found dumped on a city street.

Iraq's government has had two important victories in October: a national referendum that adopted a new constitution and the start of the mass murder trial of Saddam Hussein. But the insurgents also have been killing coalition forces and Iraqi civilians with roadside and suicide car bombs that seem more powerful and sophisticated than before, based on technology that British officials say apparently originated in neighboring
Iran. The constitution also was adopted despite strong opposition from minority Sunni Arabs, many of whom think the document unfairly favors majority Shiites and Kurds.

On Friday and Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted several raids in Baghdad, detaining 98 suspected insurgents and finding large weapons caches, the U.S. command said Monday. One cache, found hidden in a building in a second-story crawl space beneath a bathtub, included 13 AK-47 assault rifles, three machine guns, 20 AK-47 barrels, a pistol, U.S. currency and an ammunition stockpile, the military said.
Posted by: Edward M. Kennedy, D-Massive || 10/31/2005 14:15 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Car Bomb Kills 20 in Basra, Police Say

no wayu, time for Midas.
Posted by: G Foreman || 10/31/2005 15:06 Comments || Top||

#2  a year ago, when there would be an attack on a muslim event/place, the population would say, "no muslim could have done this"

they don't say that now

but they haven't gotten to the point where they admit to themselves, "only a muslim could have done this
Posted by: mhw || 10/31/2005 15:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Perfect insight, mhw. *kudos*
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 16:02 Comments || Top||


Al Qaida's Lance Armstrong unable to outrun a 5.56 mm round!!!
BAGHDAD -- Task Force Baghdad Soldiers stopped a terrorist Oct. 29 as he tried to emplace an improvised explosive device in an Abu Ghraib neighborhood.
Leader: "Abdul, It's a simple job. Ride your bike, and drop these bags by the side of the road over there, and there. Piece of cake. The sheep won't even know you've gone! Back in five...ten at the most. I'll have tea and hash waiting for you!"
Abdul: "Hokay. allan ahkbar."


This individual is suspected to have emplaced and detonated other IEDs against Iraqi Army units in eastern Abu Ghraib.
"Hey Sarge. What's that guy doing dropping that bag off with the wires on it? I've got him scoped?

The terrorist was observed by Soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment as he rode up on a bicycle and emplaced what looked like a bag having suspicious wires coming out of it.
Abdul is vying for allan's Darwin Award for the month of October.

The Soldiers, determining the suspicious bag was an IED, shot and killed the individual.
Ooopsey. The sheep will be lonely tonight.

The IED exploded moments after the terrorist was shot, but no damage or injuries were reported.
Hmmm. I wonder if Leader had a remote control? Nah. Al Qaida leadership wouldn't do that to a foot soldier.

After sweeping the area, the Soldiers found another IED on the terrorist’s bicycle. An explosives disposal team later destroyed the bomb through a controlled detonation.
sweet dreams, sucker. You've been punked by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment!
Posted by: anymouse || 10/31/2005 13:30 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Was he wearing his yellow Livestrong bracelet?
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 14:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Noooooo. Idiot green bracelets only for the faithful.
Posted by: Abu || 10/31/2005 14:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Morons, you must wait in the Peloton for the feeding area, then throw your souvenir IED on the side of the road.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2005 14:21 Comments || Top||

#4 
Sometimes life imitates Monty Python...
Posted by: macofromoc || 10/31/2005 15:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Was he wearing his yellow Livestrong bracelet?

YEP..but it was a knockoff.
Posted by: Red Dog || 10/31/2005 15:12 Comments || Top||

#6  If only Qaddaffi had returned that sprocket ...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2005 15:31 Comments || Top||

#7  At least he'll get the King of the Mountains jersey - it's a huge climb to get to Heaven...
Posted by: Raj || 10/31/2005 15:45 Comments || Top||

#8  He was wearing a cheap knockoff. It said: "Live stupid"
Posted by: Dar || 10/31/2005 15:52 Comments || Top||


Iraqi VP's brother killed
A brother of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents was shot and killed on Sunday on his way to work in Baghdad, officials said.

A top Trade Ministry official was wounded and two of his bodyguards were killed in a separate attack, police said. Nine Iraqi civilians also died in a series of insurgent attacks in Baghdad and other areas.

Ghalib Abdul-Mahdi, brother of Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, was gunned down along with his driver at 7:45 am while travelling to work at the office of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, two aides to the vice president said.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorised to talk on the record to the media. Ghalib Abdul-Mahdi served as an adviser to the prime minister. One of Iraq’s vice presidents is a Shia and the other is a Sunni. Adil Abdul-Mahdi is a Shia.

An Internet statement posted on an extreme Islamist Web site claimed that al-Qaeda in Iraq had killed Ghalib Abdul-Mahdi. The statement’s authenticity could not be independently verified.

In another part of Baghdad, four gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Qais Dawood Hasan, an undersecretary at the Trade Ministry, after it left his office in the upscale Mansoor neighbourhood, police said.

Hasan was wounded, two of his guards killed, and six other people injured, five guards and an Iraqi passer-by, said police 1st Lt Thair Mahmoud and Dr Mohanad Jawad at Yarmouk Hospital.

On Sunday morning, a roadside bomb destroyed one of several oil tanker trucks driving on a main road in south Baghdad, sending a fire ball up over the area and killing the two men inside, said police Capt Ibrahim Abdul-Ridha. Four civilian passers-by were wounded.

In Samarra, 95-km north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a farmer on his tractor and seriously wounded two other civilians, said police Capt Laith Mohammed. On Saturday night, US troops backed by helicopters and a jet plane attacked insurgents planning an ambush near the Taji air base about 20-km north of Baghdad, killing six militants and wounding and capturing five others, the US command said. The fighting occurred after American troops saw insurgents moving along a canal toward a commonly used ambush site, the US military said in a statement.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 00:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And we jailed our own soldiers for making prison life miserable for these pieces of fecal matter?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 8:37 Comments || Top||


Cabinet Adviser Killed in Iraq Violence
Adviser to the Iraqi Cabinet Ghaleb Abdel Mehdi died of his wound after his car was ambushed by gunmen in Baghdad yesterday. His driver was killed in the attack. Mehdi’s brother — Adel Abdel Mehdi — is one of the country’s two vice presidents.

In violence later in the day, Iraq’s Deputy Trade Minister Kais Dawud Hassan was wounded, an Interior Ministry official said. In the attack on Hassan’s convoy in the west of the city, gunmen killed two of his bodyguards and wounded six more. Hassan was rushed to hospital, but his condition was not immediately known.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Anniversary Of Arafat's Death Puts Israel On High Alert
Tel Aviv, 31 Oct. (AKI) - Israeli police and security forces were on high alert Monday for possible Palestinian terror attempts as Muslims mark the first anniversary of the death of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat [11 November for the Western calendar], and to avenge the killing on Sunday of an Islamic Jihad commander wanted for masterminding last week's deadly suicide bombing in Hadera.
It's been a year already? Time sure flys when you're having fun
Islamic Jihad resumed Qassam rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel on Sunday evening, following the shoot-out with Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank town of Qabatiyah, near Jenin. Three Islamic Jihad members were killed in the clash. One of them is believed to have ordered the suicide bombing in Hadera.

A week of violence has now left 12 Palestinians dead. Nine Palestinians died in Israeli air strikes on Thursday and Friday which the army said were targeting Palestinian militants. Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz has said Israel's strikes were aimed at wiping out Islamic Jihad's ability to carry out suicide bombings. Security officials have said that they are also on their guard against expected terror attempts on 11 November, the first anniversary of Arafat's death in a French hospital.
I'll have to remember to send a card; "Dear, Yasser. Glad you're still dead. Say Hi to Adolph."
Security forces have received general warnings indicating the Palestinians intend to carry out terror attacks to mark Arafat's death, but have no concrete information on the plans of any particular organisation, according to Haaretz.

The Qabatiyah clash and the Palestinian rocket attacks were the latest in a series of incidents in which Palestinians have fired Qassams and carried out suicide bombings, and the IDF has raided and shelled suspected Jihad and Hamas strongholds and targeted commanders of armed squads. The army had entered the town south of Jenin to hunt down members of the Islamic Jihad cell responsible for the Hadera suicide bombing last week, and Palestinian sources said that one of the men killed was Jihad Awidat, the Jihad operative who dispatched 20 year old suicide bomber, Hassan Abu Zaid, to Hadera.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 08:41 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end. The vulture slowly circling, Suha Arafat standing on Yasser's oxygen tube and screeching at the top of her lungs...
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 8:07 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm going to mark his death by passing out candy to children tonight.
Posted by: Jackal || 10/31/2005 8:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Death by "mysterious blood disease" or was it "death by bunga bunga," or is there any difference? Upshot, thank God and Greyhound he's gone!
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 8:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Jackal, I just caught that. Bad Jackal. ;-)
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 8:46 Comments || Top||

#5  we should celebrate his death on its anniversary in the Hebrew caledar, since its a Jewish Holiday :)I'll have to look it up.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 10/31/2005 9:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Nice one. You have made Jackals everywhere proud.

There will be much exchange of manly body fluids mourning in Ramallah tonight.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 11:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Dang...I wuz gonna throw an "Arafat is still dead party?!?"
Posted by: anymouse || 10/31/2005 11:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Has it really been a year?
DON'T I GET A CHECK FOR THAT! A POOR, GRIEVING WIDOW WITH A CHILD TO RAISE!
BASTARDS!!!
Posted by: Suha Arafat || 10/31/2005 13:30 Comments || Top||

#9  "In other news, there is no change in Yassir Arafat's condition; he is still 'merely resting.'"
Posted by: Mike || 10/31/2005 13:39 Comments || Top||

#10  "He's stable, Jim"
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 14:46 Comments || Top||

#11  :> Jackal.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2005 14:48 Comments || Top||

#12  Should read "Anniversary Of Arafat's Death from AIDS Puts Israel On High Alert"
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2005 15:56 Comments || Top||

#13  Lol, jackal! That deserves a coffee alert - damnit, lol.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 16:07 Comments || Top||

#14  a perfect ghoul. Puts halloween in a whole different perspective.
Posted by: 3dc || 10/31/2005 17:15 Comments || Top||

#15  And in late breaking news, after more than 300 long and tumultuous days, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is still struggling to remain dead ...

F&%k almighty that felt good to type. Frankly, I doubt that the devil has even switched over to a new barbed-wire dildo for Yasser's extensive program of "entertainment."
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 23:20 Comments || Top||

#16  No elder of color who has entered the french healthcare system has emerged alive.
Posted by: Hupeasing Jatch2629 || 10/31/2005 23:38 Comments || Top||

#17  welllll I find that kind of blanket statement inanely broad. Who are you, the French Farrakhan?

btw - I don't by any means wanna be responsible for defending any aspect of French life, but jeeebus
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 23:49 Comments || Top||


Gaza may turn into prison camp - Palestinian leader
SEOUL, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said on Monday that the Gaza Strip could turn into a prison camp if there was no solution to the problems of the area. Kidwa's warning came as the region was gripped by the worst violence since Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip in September. "Unless a range of problems in the Gaza Strip is resolved, it will turn into a huge prison camp," Kidwa, speaking through an interpreter, told a news conference during a visit to South Korea.
I had a free-fire zone in mind, but a prison camp works
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza was "a positive step" but must be followed up by actions to hand over real control, Kidwa told the conference after talks with South Korean officials including Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. "There has been no change in the legal status of the Gaza Strip," he said, adding Israel continued to control water resources and passage rights through the region.

On Sunday, Israeli troops shot dead two militants in the West Bank from the Islamic Jihad faction that killed five Israelis in a suicide bombing last Wednesday. Islamic Jihad said it reserved the right to avenge the killings, hours after it had agreed to halt rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip that had drawn Israeli strikes in which nine Palestinians, mostly militants, were killed last week.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 08:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Prison camp? Is that better or worse then refugee camp?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2005 8:50 Comments || Top||

#2  I agree with Steve. Prison imples rules, regulation and regular vists by guards. Free-Fire zone is a much more accurate description. Esp. after they started using arty.
Posted by: 3dc || 10/31/2005 8:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Good fences make good neighbors.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:08 Comments || Top||

#4  May turn into?
Posted by: Spot || 10/31/2005 9:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe they can use Gaza as the set for a remake of "Escape from New York".
Posted by: SteveS || 10/31/2005 10:05 Comments || Top||

#6  I think asylum is the english word he's searching for.
Posted by: mojo || 10/31/2005 10:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Perhaps the PA should offer to evacuate all women, children and unarmed men from Gaza, so that only armed men remain. Any man on the West Bank caught with an unauthorized firearm would be internally deported, with his weapon, to Gaza. In this way, the PA would completely control the West Bank, and the armed men could kill each other in the chaos and the rubble of Gaza to their hearts' content.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 10:59 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh, and Israel could turn loose all of its violent Paleo prisoners to Gaza, too.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 11:00 Comments || Top||

#9  South Korea? I'll bet Mr. Al-Kidwa spends a lot of time on the road until things settle down back home.
Posted by: DoDo || 10/31/2005 14:14 Comments || Top||

#10  How many tin-cups could a C-17 drop per sortie? 30,000?
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2005 14:51 Comments || Top||

#11  "Tin Cups"? In VHS or DVD?
If it will help, I'm all for this. I'd even get you the wholesale rate...
Posted by: Kevin Costner || 10/31/2005 15:14 Comments || Top||

#12  Hogan!
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 15:32 Comments || Top||

#13  The Israeli's are colonialist butchers. This is a real issue. The slow suffocation of a people (by a "people" no less) is a real issue.

You clever folk.

May 24, 2002
Palestinian Enslavement Entering a New Phase
http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=796
Posted by: willtotruth || 10/31/2005 16:33 Comments || Top||

#14  Is it just me, or do all the nicknames that profess to have the 'truth' all arrive here spouting islamist propaganda?

Note to 'willtotruth': you won't get much traction here citing antiwar.com.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 16:39 Comments || Top||

#15  Three and a half years ago, this character who calls himself "willtotruth", reads a bit of agitprop in an online rag and figures he's got insight. Okay, so "willtotruth" apparently doesnt have a "willtoreadawholelot", but at least he's not using CAPITAL letters to express the deep profundity of his outrage. He can't stop himself from a sly ad hominem dig at "you clever folk", but that's relatively mild given that personal attacks constitute over half of your average anti-war argument in my experience.

Lest anyone else waste a few minutes of their lives going over to the link, let's review. The opening should tip off the reader that this is not precisely an objective analysis:

Analysing the Israeli oppression is a like playing chess with the devil: the evil minds behind the occupation are always two steps ahead of you.

The crux of the matter:

"Terrorism" has always served as a good excuse for this premeditated policy(and was served by it in turn).

So "terrorism" is pretext, not an atrocity, not a threat to life, not a deliberate policy of an Authority bent on destroying a Zionist entity with which it pretended a temporary peace even while promising a million martyrs on the road to Jerusalem.

If you believe this, of course anything "evil" Israelis do, anything at all, to protect themselves is illegitimate.

What "willtotruth" (what a sanctimonious nickname) and his(?) ilk miss is any sense of historical context. The Oslo accords changed the dynamic of the region; Palestinians were granted the right to govern themselves and create armed forces allegedly in exchange for ending incitement and agreeing to live peaceably. They failed to live up to the responsibility of self-government. There should be no surprise that in the absence of Israeli military occupation and with the presence of a well armed adversary, Israeli security measures would intrude more into Palestinian life. If Arafat had lived up to what he agreed his people could have gotten most of what they claimed to want. Your argument is with him. The first concern of the Israelis, understandably, was the mass deaths on their buses and in their cafes because of a little dust-up called the intifada.

Now maybe "willtotruth" can find some more recent article to read. Or maybe a book or something. He is, after all, much cleverer than the rest of us.



Posted by: Baba Tutu || 10/31/2005 18:32 Comments || Top||

#16  Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said on Monday that the Gaza Strip could turn into a prison camp if there was no solution to the problems of the area.

The Jews are gone, aren't they? So what exactly is this "problem"?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/31/2005 19:02 Comments || Top||

#17  Sharon and Bush are both playing chess. The Palestinians, Iranians and Syrians are playing Russian roulette.
Posted by: Darrell || 10/31/2005 19:08 Comments || Top||

#18  wot doesn't realize that it's the Palis suffocating their own people.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 10/31/2005 19:34 Comments || Top||

#19  And after I found out about the tax that muslims put on non-muslims living in muslim areas, I have no problem w/Israel controlling the water.

Now why don't the Palis want to be on the receiving end?
Posted by: anonymous2u || 10/31/2005 19:35 Comments || Top||

#20  Let's see ...
Routine threats and vengeance. Check!
Frequent mayhem and fatalities. Check!
Plenty of criminals and felons. Check!
Continuous crime and corruption. Check!
Lots of guns and improvised arms. Check!
Scads of violence and sexual abuse. Check!
Complete hopelessness and futility. Check!

If this wasn't the Palestinians, I'd swear it was a high security prison.

Instead, it is the Palestinians and merely the usual hellhole of their own making.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 23:33 Comments || Top||


Israel vows to exterminate Islamic Jihad
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz vowed on Sunday to wage war on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad until Israel wipes out its capabilities.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "wipes out". Where have I heard that before? No wait, it was "wipe off"

Should we buy more stock in baby wipes? I sold mine after the death of Arafat.
Posted by: 2b || 10/31/2005 0:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Linkey-no-workey:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20051031story_31-10-2005_pg4_6

Too bad the headline doesn't appear in any of the quoted material. "Exterminate" has such an appealing sound to it.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 0:31 Comments || Top||

#3  IJ is a proxy for Iran. Good thing. Strong message.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 10/31/2005 0:34 Comments || Top||

#4  If "Jihad" is peaceful inner struggle, why is this terrorist group named Islamic Jihad. Shouldn't this end the debate on the meaning of the word in their own choice of name.

What a bunch of nancy-boys.
Posted by: Master of Obvious || 10/31/2005 2:19 Comments || Top||

#5  I would imagine Iran has contingency plans for covert ops to commit terror worldwide via Hizbollah and IJ once a war starts. Makes sense for Israel to wipe out IJ prior to carrying out an attack on Iran.
Posted by: jolly roger || 10/31/2005 6:56 Comments || Top||

#6  Makes for good TV too...
Posted by: Howard UK || 10/31/2005 7:27 Comments || Top||

#7  Pak Daily Times seems to have a new webmaster, who uses backslashes ("\") in the URLs, which HTML sees as escape characters. You can switch them to regular slashes ("/") and the links'll work. If I get time, I'll train the 'burg to fix them when articles are published.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 9:11 Comments || Top||

#8  rumor in Israel is that the PA is giving the Israelis intel for use against IJ because the PA is itself scared of being an IJ target
Posted by: mhw || 10/31/2005 9:34 Comments || Top||

#9  jolly roger

I would call that a sure bet, hell the Iranian pres at the last conference admitted such

http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-havent-we-seen-this.html

they have identified memory ehhh 22-29 targets in the US that are critical. And since Iran has no other weapons or even on the drawing board to reach the homefront exept Terrorist is self explainitory.

One bright side is thou I really hope the US intel people have been identifying these guys and everyone they talk to for immediate round up pre-invasion. I do remember right before our move on Saddam we rounded up Iraqi's all over the place or at least had our allies scoop them up. Never heard much of that on the ME but the occasional embasy closing or staff being deported or arrested, but I would garantee Saddam had plans for those guys too. We will have to see.

What I am really curious about is Baby Assad,Syria. This is a major deciding factor. Syria can go alot of different ways from turning into ally sweeping the terrorist Zark, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, various other factions finding safe harbor thier, unfortunatley I see this as unlikly at least under Assad maybe he is taken out by a new blood who is ready to make that jump even thou these two senerios have a good chance into deteriating into choas civil war all the terrorist groups making power grabs spill over into neighbobrs would be soon to follow. I know if I was Zark I would be thinking Syria a set up infastructure weak leadership ripe for conquest or at least good choas would be looking a lot better than Iraq were things are going south fast, Syria would keep the Iraq front open by in essence expanding that front to Damascas were in Syria gaining control in the chaos that would follow a coup and all terrorist groups making power grabs very possible. Not to mention Iran must really be thinking about getting thier proxies to get something going the pressure will soon be turning to them if not.
Posted by: C-Low || 10/31/2005 21:34 Comments || Top||


Shin Bet reveals terrorists' arrest
The Shin Bet revealed Sunday the recent arrest of three Popular Resistance Committee operatives from the Gaza Strip who planned to establish a Kassam rocket network in northern Samaria and attack key Israeli towns and cities located in the heart of the country. The three were caught together with an Egyptian Beduin guide near Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev on October 5, having entered Israel bribing Egyptian border guards to turn a blind eye.
Anybody surprised at that? Bueller?
Southern district police revealed that a fifth person, an Israeli Beduin who they suspect was to have transported the three PRC operatives to the West Bank, was also arrested. According to a senior Shin Bet official, the three PRC members, identified as Sharif Ziadah, 34, Kamel Issa, 33, and Kazem Dieb, 27, received thousands of dollars in funds as well as instructions from both Hizbullah and Hamas operatives, and were caught carrying a USB memory drive containing information prepared by Hizbullah on the manufacture of bombs.
More evidence to join existing piles of it, to be discounted or forgotten by the press...
The three infiltrated into Israel using a new route, the official said. To get out of the Gaza Strip, they burrowed underneath the cement barrier along the Philadelphi corridor that divides Egypt from the Gaza Strip. On the Egyptian side, Egyptian security forces confronted the three, but after negotiations and a bribe of NIS 100 and 20 Jordanian dinars they were permitted to remain in the Egyptian Sinai. There they met up with an Egyptian Beduin guide identified as Salem Barekat who led them into Israel at a point near Mitzpe Ramon, where the four were arrested by Israeli security forces the following day.
"Y'all ain't from around here, air yew?"
Security officials said that the three PRC operatives and the Egyptian did not resist arrest, despite the fact that Ziadah carried a loaded handgun.
"... four... five... six... seven. That's seven guns. What do you count, Kamel?"
"Ummm... I count seven, too. What do we have?"
"A pistol. In my pocket."
"We quit!"
"Good idea. Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!"
According to the Shin Bet, Ziadah was the cell commander, and later confessed his involvement in Kassam rocket attacks and numerous bomb and shooting attacks, including the bomb attack on a Merkava tank in February 2002 near Netzarim in the northern Gaza Strip in which three IDF soldiers were killed. He also underwent special training and is considered to be a bomb expert.
"If I'da had a bomb y'd never have caught us!"
Issa confessed his role in directing a West Bank cell in 2004 that was involved in launching shooting attacks against Israelis, and planned to carry out suicide bomb attacks. He also admitted to being involved in attacks in the Gaza Strip against Israeli targets.
"Uusually we brought more than one gun."
"Normally yer boyz still get wiped out!"
"Yeah. But they had more'n one gun!"
Dieb told security officials that he was sworn into the Hamas and was trained by the organization. He is considered to be a bomb expert, specializing in the construction of Kassam rockets. He also admitted to being involved in the development of anti-aircraft weaponry and various types of bombs.
"Huh huh! I like bombs! Bombs are kewl!"
Two senior PRC commanders who remain at large in Gaza and are considered to have masterminded plans to establish the rocket infrastructure in the West Bank were identified as Jamal Samahdna, 42, of Rafah, and Abed Koka, 43. Samahdna, established the Popular Resistance Committee in the Gaza Strip at the outbreak of the Al Aksa intifada in September 2000 and was involved in numerous fatal attacks against Israeli targets. Koka, who in the past was a member of Hamas and an officer in the Palestinian Authority's security forces, was responsible for manufacturing weapons for the committee and headed the cells involved in making and firing the Kassam rockets.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Jihad renews Qassam fire after IDF kills 3 members
Godammer! I blinked and the hudna was over!
Islamic Jihad resumed Qassam rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel on Sunday evening, following a shoot-out with Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank on Sunday evening, in which three Islamic Jihad members were killed. The shoot-out began after sundown Sunday when Palestinians began firing on Israel Defense Forces soldiers on their way to raid a house in Qabatiyeh. One of those inside the house was suspected of planning last week's suicide bombing in Hadera market, in which five Israelis were killed. The soldiers noticed a Palestinian wearing an explosives belt and shot him dead, and then surrounded the house in question, demanding its inhabitants come outside. After soldiers started a bulldozer, four men, one woman, and two children emerged from the house. The men were taken for questioning, suspected of collaborating with Islamic Jihad. The soldiers exchanged fire with the men who remained barricaded inside the house, Palestinian witnesses said.

At least one Palestinian militant was killed in the shoot-out, and another is also suspected to be dead. It remains unclear whether the wanted suspect is among the dead. According to Palestinian sources, the militant confirmed as killed is Arshad Abu-Zeid, who owned the house. At least eight Palestinians were also wounded in the raid in Qabatiyeh, the same town where the suicide bomber who carried out Wednesday's attack lived.

In a statement from Gaza on Sunday night, Islamic Jihad threatened to hit Israeli towns near the Strip and called on "Palestinian factions to be united to confront the Zionist campaign against the Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian people in the West Bank." The militant group had agreed earlier Sunday to halt the rocket fire that has targeted southern Israel in recent days, if Israel would end its strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hudna lasted from 00:00 to 00:00. I think that's a new record.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 0:37 Comments || Top||

#2  ed..lol! But I think you are off by a negative nanosecond.
Posted by: 2b || 10/31/2005 0:39 Comments || Top||

#3  I look forward to the day when there is a similarly brief interval separating various terminations of Islamic Jihad terrorists.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 1:01 Comments || Top||

#4  The myth-busters recreated Civil War rocket looks more accurate and easier to make then this trash.
Posted by: 3dc || 10/31/2005 8:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Return to WW I rolling barages.
Posted by: SR-71 || 10/31/2005 12:28 Comments || Top||

#6  The Israeli's kill three of them, they put holes in empty date fields. Maybe.
Sounds like a good deal to me...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2005 12:40 Comments || Top||

#7  Easy for you to say INFIDEL!
Posted by: Date Trees Everywhere || 10/31/2005 14:53 Comments || Top||


Islamic Jihad agrees to halt Gaza rocket fire
Islamic Jihad militants agreed on Sunday to halt rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip unless there are more Israeli air raids on the territory, Palestinian officials said.
"See? We're bein' good. You can stop now."
One of the worst surges of violence since a truce began almost nine months ago has soured hopes that Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip in September could energise peacemaking. The officials said the Palestinian Authority had reached a deal with Islamic Jihad for a halt to the cross-border rocket attacks, which prompted strikes from Israel that killed at least nine Palestinians, most of them militants. There had been no rocket attacks from Gaza by 3 p.m. (1 p.m. GMT) on Sunday and no Israeli air raids either.

Khaled al-Batsh, a leader for Islamic Jihad in Gaza said, "if the enemy stops its attacks, our commitment to calm will be maintained." Israeli officials said if rocket fire from Gaza stopped then raids there would stop too, but that operations against Islamic Jihad would continue following a suicide bombing by the group that killed five Israelis on Wednesday. "There is an intent to continue it until they cannot carry out any more suicide bombings," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet. Israeli officials said they expected operations against Islamic Jihad to be concentrated in the West Bank.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Islamic Jihad militants agreed on Sunday to halt rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip unless there are more Israeli air raids on the territory, Palestinian officials said.

This is nothing more than a "save face" moment. Anyone with half a brain knows that Israeli military actions are largely initiated as a result of Paleo attacks. Sounds like these twats just aren't too keen on losing more members of their "senior management".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/31/2005 15:21 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Filippino prisoners confirm stories of terror training camps in Mindanao
THE SEVEN-MONTH trial of the accused in the Valentine's Day bombings in Makati City provided a window into the inner workings of the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah and its local affiliate, the Abu Sayyaf, in Mindanao. Their testimonies confirmed findings by the intelligence community that the Abu Sayyaf had found sanctuary on Mt. Cararao (spelled Kararao locally) in Lanao del Sur province and that Indonesian JI members had been conducting trainings in the handling of weapons and explosives and in the laying of land mines. The terrorists had eluded pursuing soldiers by keeping their numbers low, and by moving all the time.

The testimonies also confirmed that the JI had been using Mindanao primarily as a training base, with the ASG providing the foot soldiers. Intelligence officials described Indonesia as the terror group's "war front" and Singapore and Malaysia, its "financial center." Indoctrination was a key element in that training, according to
Gappal Bannah Asali, alias "Boy Negro," the Abu Sayyaf member who escaped trial by turning state witness against his three cohorts -- Gamal Baharan, Angelo Trinidad and Indonesian Rohmat Abdurrohim. The three were sentenced on Friday to die by lethal injection.

Makati Judge Marissa Macaraig-Guillen had found the three accused guilty of carrying out the bombing of a bus in Makati in February that killed four people and wounded at least 60 others. Trinidad and Baharan, who allegedly placed the bomb in the bus, pleaded guilty. Only Rohmat pleaded not guilty. Asali said he and his colleagues "were indoctrinated on the missions that they would be undertaking."

"These missions (bombings) were supposed to take place in order to show the people in Metro Manila the anger of the Muslims against Christians because of the many acts of violence and oppression perpetrated by Christian soldiers against the Muslims," he told the court. These acts of oppression, Asali said, included the "raping of Muslim women and killing of Muslim men who were defenseless and had not committed any wrong against the Christians."

During training, recruits were required to wear "desert storm brown colored camouflage outfits." They were fully armed, he said. For their "graduation exercise," trainees were tasked with ambushing soldiers, which they did in Jolo town in Sulu province sometime in 2004, Asali said. Cararao is said to be under the operational control of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest secessionist group in Mindanao. The rebel group, however, has repeatedly denied the existence of any training camp for terrorists in the area.

In a confidential report in September 2004, the government said the MILF had been hosting terror training camps for militant groups from Indonesia and Malaysia for at least seven years. The training camp on Cararao was reportedly set up following the fall of Camp Abubakar during a July 2000 military offensive. Rohmat had told the court that he taught martial arts to a small group of armed men in Cararao for 10 months starting in 2003, for which he was paid P100,000. He had entered the country illegally months before. He insisted, however, that it was only months later that he found out that the 15 or so people at the camp were members of the Abu Sayyaf. In the jungle, the group was also known as "Alharo Cator Islamiyah." Rohmat maintained that he came to the Philippines to teach Islam and kung fu, and not bomb-making -- a defense the court found unbelievable.

During the first four months of the training, Rohmat said he physically suffered because the group was "very mobile and [traveled] from one place to another" to elude Philippine troops hunting them. The military had tagged Rohmat, alias Zacky, as a top JI associate sent to the Philippines to train bombers. Members of the cell that carried out the Valentine's Day bombing were among Rohmat's students. Asali said Rohmat personally trained him and two other persons in bomb-making techniques. That training lasted one month and two weeks. During the time that he spent in Cararao, Asali said he saw Abu Sayyaf leaders Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Solaiman, as well as Baharan and Trinidad.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 00:27 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran -- playing "chicken" with the USA
The more I read, these guys all seem to be getting the same talking points. Iran (much like some in the USA) must be wanting back those day's of the '70's. Those 444 days were heady days for them, and now, one of the originals is in charge.
An Adventure That Can Backfire
Amir Taheri

Having secured most key positions in the past few months, the new generation of Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries is now invited to prepare for playing “chicken” with the United States.

“The Satanic powers want to play chicken with us,” says Gen. Muhammad Hijazi, the man in charge of the Islamic army’s office of war preparation. “We must show that we are eagles.”

The idea that the Islamic Republic faces a game of “chicken” against the West was publicized last month by Ali Larijani, the new “security czar” in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration. But the man who first came up with the analysis is Hassan Abbasi who has emerged as Ahmadinejad’s chief strategic guru.

Abbasi heads the Center for Security Doctrines Research of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC). His friends call him “The Kissinger of Islam”, after Henry Kissinger who served as US secretary of state in the 1970s.

“To Iran’s new ruling elite, Abbasi is the big strategic brain,” says a European diplomat in Tehran. “More and more officials quote him in meetings with foreign diplomats.”

According to Tehran sources, Abbasi is the architect of the so-called “war preparation plan” currently under way in Iran.

Last month Abbasi presented an outline of his analysis in a lecture at the Teachers Training Faculty in Karaj, west of Tehran.

The lecture merits attention because it offers an insight into the way the new leadership in Tehran approaches issues of international politics.

According to Abbasi, the global balance of power is in a state of flux and every nation should fight for a place in a future equilibrium. The Western powers, especially the United States, still wield immense military and economic power that “looks formidable on paper.” But they are unable to use that power because their populations have become “risk-averse.”

“The Western man today has no stomach for a fight,” Abbasi says. “This phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man.”

Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved “slightly higher risks” than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind. And even then, the US went into Iraq because of President George W Bush’s “readiness to do what no other American leader would dare contemplate.”

According to Abbasi, the US knows that the only power capable of and willing to challenge it across the globe is the Islamic Republic. The reason is that the Islamic Republic not only enjoys “strong backing from its people”, but also has the support of millions who are prepared to kill and die for it across the globe.

Abbasi claims that the US and its allies have played three games against Iran.

The first was a “carrots and sticks” exercise designed to tempt a section of the Tehran leadership away from radical politics while frightening another section into submission. The next game was “good cop, bad cop” and had the more sinister objective of confusing and dividing the Islamic leadership. Finally, and starting just over a year ago, the “satanic powers” played a new game which Abbasi has dubbed “trigger-at-the-ready.” In this game they put the metaphoric gun at the Islamic Republic’s temple with their finger on the trigger.

Abbasi believes that the trigger was pulled, firing only a blank, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed an anodyne resolution on the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of nuclear power last month.

“Now that the satanic powers have failed to achieve their goal with all those games they are preparing for a new game,” Abbasi says. “ This new game is known as the Chicken Strategy in which the two sides move toward each other with speed until one side quits.”

It is not clear whether Abbasi or other mullas have seen Nicholas Ray’s “Rebel Without A Cause”. But it was in that film, starring James Dean, that “playing chicken” was introduced to broader audiences. According to Webster dictionary, the phrase refers to “any of various contests in which the participants risk personal safety in order to see which one will give up first.” The quitter is designated as “chicken livered.”

Abbasi and his disciples in the new Islamic elite believe that this is the best time to engage the US in a “game of chicken.”

“The Western regimes lack popular legitimacy,” Abbasi told his audience. “The Western economy is based on shaky foundations that depend on oil. Divisions within the Western camp, the West’s economic fragility, and the distrust of the people (in Western countries) toward their governments render their side vulnerable.”

Abbasi believes that when President Bush says that no option is off the table, implying that force could be used against the Islamic Republic, he is only playing chicken.

“The Americans are not ready to send a million men (to defeat the Islamic Republic),” Abbasi said. “Even economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic will fail thanks to opposition from the Western public opinion and the refusal of most countries to implement (them).”

Abbasi claims that in a game plan presented to Ahmadinejad, he has concluded that the idea of a major US military attack against Iran is “a bluff.”

“Our game plan shows that any attempt at imposing an embargo on Iran would push the price of oil to $110 per barrel,” Abbasi said. “And if we were to be subjected to military attack the price could top the $400 mark.”

A brief military clash with the US at this time could do wonders for the Islamic Republic. The regime would be able to crush growing internal opposition in the name of national solidarity. It would also revive the regime’s revolutionary credentials. The raid on the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 gave the new Islamic regime an aura of radicalism that it lacked because a revolution led by the mullas was hard to sell as a progressive, anti-imperialist movement. Abbasi also recalls that Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 was “a blessing from God” because it gave the revolutionary regime another chance to prove its resilience.”

In true Nietzschean form he believes that since a limited war with the US will not kill the Islamic Republic; it is bound to make it stronger.

But it is not only the US that Abbasi wants to take on and humiliate. He has described Britain as “the mother of all evils”. In his lecture he claimed that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the Gulf states were all “children of the same mother: the British Empire.” As for France and Germany, they are “countries in terminal decline”, according to Abbasi.

“Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover,” he told his audience.

Abbasi’s strategy may be in tune with the current macho mood in Tehran. But the new Tehran leadership should think twice before it embarks on a potentially deadly, and totally unnecessary, adventure on the basis of childish assumptions about Iran’s power and the West’s weakness.
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2005 13:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bring it on!

EP
Posted by: ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding || 10/31/2005 14:31 Comments || Top||

#2  What an asshole.



He's only forgetting one thing, Israel. Israel is just itching to bomb the holy living shitballs out of them.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 10/31/2005 14:32 Comments || Top||

#3  “The Western man today has no stomach for a fight,” Abbasi says. “This phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man.”

Didn't Tojo think this too?
He does know that Carter isn't president anymore, right?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2005 14:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Wars are caused by such dangerous and reckless naivete. I lost count of his terrible and false axioms, but they all point to the same, grievous conclusion: Iran thinks it can get away with it.

They think Jimmy Carter is still president, and that the US would use precisely the same tactics as it did in Gulf War I. They have calculated all the counters to those tactics, and in that ONE scenario, they could achieve a stalemate or better.

They plan to attack and neutralize or destroy a US fleet, most likely in the narrow straits of Hormuz, then missile attack the US airbases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Deprived of our airpower, they could savage our ground forces with missiles. Their ground forces in the North border would be defensive, and in the South they would advance into southern Iraq to bog down what ground forces remained.

All the while they would retain the uncertainty that they had more than the one nuke used on the US fleet. Then they begin a heartfelt diplomatic drive to end the war with the US leaving the Middle East as the condition for peace.

Their mission is simple: to drive the US from the region. If that is accomplished, then they win.

However, they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

So now the great question: does the US wait for them to attack, stimulate them to attack, or attack them preemptively?
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 14:47 Comments || Top||

#5  I vote for all 3 Moose.

We covertly attack their nuke facilities(under the guise of an Israeli SF attack), allow them to threaten force against US and Israel vehemently enough in the media to justify any action and then gode these fuckers into supporting attacks or claiming alliance with an attacking group against an EU nation and against a smaller US naval vessel parked in the Gulf.

All three conditions are met, and we scrape up enough UN support to neutralize Russian interests.

That's just my wishful thinking.

EP
Posted by: ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding || 10/31/2005 14:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Your rotting corpse looks lovely in the glow of the mushroom cloud, Hassan...
Posted by: The Anglo Saxon || 10/31/2005 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Interesting flattery towards GB. He basically said Bush does have big balls for doing what he did with a hint of admiration. He also knows the left and democraps will never let him move on Iran. His though process is not faulty especially if he can buy his time until GB leaves office. We at R-Burg seem to think the US will do something about the Mullah's but will world opinion and Cindy Sheehan allow it?
Posted by: Rightwing || 10/31/2005 15:13 Comments || Top||

#8  Don't disagree with
you bigjim, but what's holdng them back?
Posted by: plainslow || 10/31/2005 15:14 Comments || Top||

#9  "They think Jimmy Carter is still president..."

The legacy of Jimmy Carter still haunts the US foreign policy.
Posted by: doc || 10/31/2005 15:29 Comments || Top||

#10  His analysis is probably more true than we would like to believe. Sadly so.
Posted by: Master of Obvious || 10/31/2005 15:40 Comments || Top||

#11  Michael Ledeen at National Review Online has an informative article today... "Surprise.. Iran wants the destruction of ...." http://nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200510310826.asp
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2005 15:42 Comments || Top||

#12  Guys, this guy doesn't want to fight us. He wants us to think he wants to fight us. Iran wants a cold war with all the trimmings, not a hot one.
Posted by: Secret Master || 10/31/2005 15:47 Comments || Top||

#13  If the asshats use even ONE nuclear weapon, even if only at sea against our fleet, we will eterminate them.

They hope to use our restraint against us. Ask the resident of Hiroshima about our restraint.
Posted by: SR-71 || 10/31/2005 15:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Were not "ready to send a million men" into Tokyo either, so we sent a "Little Boy and a Big Boy." Keep it up you goat buggers.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 15:50 Comments || Top||

#15  Iran -- playing "chicken" with the USA

Except Iran is driving a 1970 Pinto, and the U.S. is driving an M1 Abrams TANK!

(sadly, some poor Tank mechanic is going to have to scrape what's left of the Pinto off the front of the Tank)
Posted by: Justrand || 10/31/2005 16:26 Comments || Top||

#16  I wonder what would happen if all of Iran's nuke sites simply exploded one night...

Chemical lasers on 747s, tungsten penetrator GBUs, commandoes (insert nationality here) simply sabotaging a coolant valve or three, concrete filled GBUs, satellite based weapons...

"'Tweren't us, honest!"
Posted by: Parabellum || 10/31/2005 16:56 Comments || Top||

#17  Iranian Hen vs US Eagle

Take on the whole Anglo-Saxon world?
LOL and their not working on nukes?

They're about to get smoked and tossed!!
Posted by: Flinese Phinter9385 || 10/31/2005 17:14 Comments || Top||

#18  Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved “slightly higher risks” than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind.

I sincerely hope this monster-raving-looney is right. America can no longer be bothered with boots-on-the-ground solutions for these incessant piss-ant Islamist temper tantrums.

The next full session of Iran's Majlis needs to be greeted with a aerial formation of HE tipped cruise missiles that will temporarily darken their skies (and, concomitantly, light up Tehran like an octogenarian's birthday cake).

Decapping the entire Iranian power structure is the one sure and swift solution to this insanity. The UN will blow smoke up its own @ss until the sun explodes. Europe will trip over its own d!ck with conciliatory efforts that lead to naught. Russia and China could give a sh!t about the threat a nuclear armed Iran poses to the entire Middle East, Europe and the West, just so long as the cash flows.

Kill the mullahs now. All of them. Trash their nuclear facilities and forward the gunsight videos to North Korea.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 17:20 Comments || Top||

#19  There it is - spot-on, Zen. Ahmadinejad & Co better be thinking in 3 dimensions. Not that it will change anything, of course.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 17:24 Comments || Top||

#20  "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve".
Posted by: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto || 10/31/2005 18:16 Comments || Top||

#21  It was great PR, but not true. Nice try, Admiral, lol.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 18:26 Comments || Top||

#22  Not that it will change anything, of course.

.com, perhaps that is the most hilarious pathetic thing of all. Obsessive-psychotics like the hard-line Iranians are utterly immune to simple logic, overwhelming contradictory evidence or even the potential for complete obliteration.

Such obliviousness confers immunity to even the most glaring facts. For that reason, we have ZERO obligation to meet them with anything remotely resembling ordinary military action. After decades of Iran sponsoring the most horrific terrorist atrocities, they do not have the least right to any sort of conventional military response.

The Persian people also deserve some sort of low-impact deletion of their current oppesive power structure. I'd like to see them get at least one chance at building within their own vision. If they install another theocracy, we can always decap that one too.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 18:32 Comments || Top||

#23  I can run wild for ten minutes … after that, I have no expectation of success.
Posted by: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto || 10/31/2005 18:32 Comments || Top||

#24  My contention is that Iran is Yugoslavia Mark II. Half of Iran's population is not ethnic Farsi. These populations vary in the degree they hate the Farsi's. A democratic Shiia/Kurd run Iraq with a capable military is about the worst possible news there could be for Iran. Once the Iraq internal situation stabilizes. They will become vigorous defenders of their ethnic Kurd and Arab cousins across the border. I give Iran within its present borders 24 months at most.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/31/2005 18:32 Comments || Top||

#25  phil_b, if Iran's acquisition nuclear weapons were entirely out of the question within the next 24 month timeframe, I would concur with your wait and see stance.

Dithering for another TWO YEARS is something we cannot possibly afford. Iran needs an unmistakable message sent to it now. Tehran needs to be the poster child for North Korea, Pakistan and other nuclear proliferators or A-Weapon aspirants.

Despite economic repercussions to the West, the ripples felt in China over their continuing support for the Iranians might be a very positive message regarding what awaits their constant interference with timely action against terrorism sponsors.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 18:40 Comments || Top||

#26  Yamamoto: "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve".

That's a fake quote that originated in the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (i.e. Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!). The giveaway is that it doesn't even sound right - you'd almost expect the next line to be "he who cooks carrots and peas in the same pot unhygienic". What he actually said was that he believed he could win, but success would depend on surprise and speed.
Posted by: Elmenter Snineque1852 || 10/31/2005 18:41 Comments || Top||

#27  You guys just kill me.
Posted by: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto || 10/31/2005 18:48 Comments || Top||

#28  I'm afraid that Abbasi may be right. So, Tommy Franks in '08! Rumsfeld as VP.
Posted by: FeralCat || 10/31/2005 18:49 Comments || Top||

#29  Anonymoose: Wars are caused by such dangerous and reckless naivete.

Actually, they are not.* Wars are usually caused by a desire for territorial expansion (i.e. national gain for a rising power) or the intent to check a rising power (i.e. security for the incumbent power).

* I call this the Barbara Tuchman fallacy, where a spiral of military preparations leads to a war that nobody wants. Wars don't happen for mechanistic reasons. They occur because one side is dissatisfied with the status quo and wants to rearrange the furniture. Military preparations and/or miscalculations by the initiating power merely affect the timing of war - as long as the anti-status quo power and the incumbent power have fundamentally incompatible territorial and security goals and at least one of them is willing to fight to achieve its ends, it will eventually occur.
Posted by: Elmenter Snineque1852 || 10/31/2005 18:56 Comments || Top||

#30  Zen - Fine summation of where we stand, IMHO, Zen. We do not need to put many boots on the ground - depends upon how much of the oil infrastructure we deem at risk, and how much cooperation we're getting with local anti-Mullah factions. If they're ready to take over, with our decap help, then we might also help them with strongpoints so they aren't slaughtered at the outset.

phil_b - I'm mulling your comments about the internal ethnic splits in Iran... might oughtta email that to a friend who has been there many times - last in 2003 on a walking tour (backpacker-style) that lasted a month. He sez we have to be careful about making certain the Persian people understand our intentions are purely anti-theocratic / anti-MullahsWithNukes. His take was that the MMs are widely unpopular with most of the young, almost all of the "middle class" - the young moderns - and almost all of the older population - who remember what pre-Khomeini was actually like, not the propaganda version, but he didn't go into much about different Iranian ethnic groups. The population bubble has come of age thee and is not pro-Mullah. Typical thugocracy situation - just these thugs wear turbans and couch their BS in Shi'a Islamese. IIRC, he went to Tehran, Esfahan, Kerman, and Shiraz this time. He'd have some thoughts on it, I'm sure. Extremely well-traveled and, with some ex-intel background, not prone to overstatement due to personal feelings. Good touchstone for Iran, IMHO.

Admiral, lol - not 6 months, anymore? Ah, the age of instant gratification annihilation, sigh.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 19:02 Comments || Top||

#31  Iff one believes that Hillary wants to be POTUS and also wants eight years of MSM-verified success and properity, her and the Dems GOT NOTHING FOR 2006 andor 2008 - the Radics Islamists can't attack the USA fast enough, Russia-China can't militarily intervene fast enough either. ALL THE ABUSED/MISSING WOMEN AND KIDS ON LATE-NITE NEWS ISN'T ENOUGH TO HELP HILLARY. Iff warmongering, defective unreliable free America = Clintonian Fascist Amerika does NOT attack or wage war, Amer will be attacked and warred against - RIGHT NOW, THE HOPES OF THE DEMS RESTS IN AMERICA'S ENEMIES! The WOT is a BATTLE FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD, AND ANY AND ALL -ISMS - AMERICA EITHER WINS, OR IT WILL BE DESTROYED. ARMISTICE, TRUCE, AND US-SPECIFIC CONCESSIONS IS FOR THE US LEFT, AND ONLY THE US LEFT, NOT FOR THE ASIAN LEFT AND AMERICA'S ENEMIES WHOM WANT TO WIN AND RULE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2005 19:04 Comments || Top||

#32  *wipes screen*


I'm with Zen and .com - no need for boots on Iranian soil in large numbers - the population already knows the threats made daily against us as well as the MM worship of a nuke weapon capability. Do the dirty, get it over with, with minimal reverse civilization effects, and say....."hey! we had to!" I only hope a serious plurality of the MSM is able to witness the attack from up close and hazardously personal. Grow a new crop of reporters who don't remember Viet Nam
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 19:39 Comments || Top||

#33  Let's face facts, ya'll, the "blue states" dwellers are en masse lilly livers who behave more like eurocowards that the strident "red staters".

The folks who roll the sleeves up and do the serious work are from the red states. If you doubt this, research who in the military is doing the fighting and doing the dying.
Posted by: Captain America || 10/31/2005 19:48 Comments || Top||

#34  The truely foolish part of this is that these guys are so convinced that we can't get along without their oil. The only reason we are addicted to oil is that it has been the cheapist form of energy available. Lots of other options are starting to open up. Unfortunately, the left and the environmental kooks seem to always find something that don't like about the alternatives (windmills kill birds, solar panels take up too much precious desert land, coal pollutes, nuclear has nuclear waste, etc, etc)

I know these assholes had a lot of oil. How much is left? It'll be great when it runs out and Iran is left with a huge population of disgruntled fanatics with no money and nothing to do but fight each other. Same with the Saudis...although it'll take a little longer. The truely great part will be when they start fighting over their dwindling oil. They have NOTHING else to give except hatred.
Posted by: Phumble Threck4845 || 10/31/2005 19:59 Comments || Top||

#35  Whoa! Your beloved can-do-no-wrong President made and maintains political-military alliances with Shiite aggressor elements under the control of the Ayatoilets. Can-do-no-wrong twice let al-Sadr's army slip out of US hands. The genius-in-chief's head rainbow-coalitionary - Condi Rice said, last week, that military operations against the Khomenist terrorist entity were not in the scheme of things.

In order to save face among his pathologically sheepish followers, jerk-in-chief must maintain the White House-Qom alliance, until a Hizbollah Corridor runs from Teheran to Tel Aviv. Feed the gullible masses, serial rhetorical doses of "freedom," "decisive" and "resolute" gibberish, and they will continue to resist perception of the nation-building farces in the Iraq and Afghan dog's breakfasts. The next President will find nation-destruction more workable.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler || 10/31/2005 20:02 Comments || Top||

#36  testosterone implant, Vlad?
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 20:04 Comments || Top||

#37  Solutions Vlad, solutions. What are your solutions? Enuf about W, he doesn't need your love.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 20:08 Comments || Top||

#38  How many have you impaled, Vlad?

On wooden stakes, that is, not on your teeny weeny pee-pee.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/31/2005 20:15 Comments || Top||

#39  If they're ready to take over, with our decap help, then we might also help them with strongpoints so they aren't slaughtered at the outset.

Thank you, .com. Per above, the one thing we must absolutely avoid is what happened in Iraq, where the Shiia were left out to dry after promises of American help. If we try to do this with internal cooperation, we'd better have our juvenile waterfowl aligned, just so.

Iran's huge size is a real stickler. What works in our favor is that the Iranian Shiias might not be so prone to trashing their own petro-infrastructure, unlike the Iraqi Sunnis.

This might let us midwife the changing of hands for their power structure while sparing so many of the agonies we've seen in Iraq. I know that a lot of this is blithely optimistic.

I just do not see where we have the resources (nor, as mentioned, any obligation) to confront the Iranians in a conventional fashion. Nothing done by Iran in the last QUARTER CENTURY has been worthy of such respect or regard.

I'm hoping for a swift and dramatic alteration in Iran's political landscape. Once it is denuded of nuclear technology and its oppressive political regime, we need to shelter any nascent democracy there until is can take root. That may well prove the most difficult of all.

Sadly, the time is past to be worrying overmuch about Iran's fate. Their leaders' warmongering has sealed it and America must look towards its own internal security. Even if we did have troops to spare, I do not see the wisdom in engaging Iran when a very few well-placed cruise missiles can achieve much of what we seek.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 20:21 Comments || Top||

#40  After we have eliminated Iran's nuclear capability, we have no further responsibility there. I could care less what happens to them. Let their fate be a lesson to the next nation prepared to sustain a thugocracy ready to destroy us.
Posted by: Slinegum Shonter4096 || 10/31/2005 20:32 Comments || Top||

#41  testosterone implant, Vlad?

No, his ass has healed from the last time it got kicked here and like any mouthbreather, he's forgotten about it.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2005 20:34 Comments || Top||

#42  Amen and amen to #40. Lets NOT get involved in another "nation building" exercise. Kick thier sorry, camel sucking asses and get the hell out. Let the survivors sort it out, or burn it down. Holding thier hands for 2-3-15 years is a non-starter. It's just too damn expensive, and I'm not referring to money.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 20:46 Comments || Top||

#43  I actually agree with you, B. With Iran, NK, Syria, Saudi(?), nation-destruction in the exact amount necessary for OUR security needs is the calculus, no more.
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 21:02 Comments || Top||

#44  Lets not forget that at least the Iranians have gone through the motions of democratic elections. There seems to be much more structural maturity politically than in Iraq. Not sure if this is reality or wishful thinking, just an interpretation of what I've observed.
Posted by: Remoteman || 10/31/2005 21:16 Comments || Top||

#45  Elmenter Snineque1852: That would be a misinterpretation of what I wrote. But what you suggest is only a half-truth. Just wanting something will not cause a war--one must have an expectation of getting it. And this is the naivete I'm talking about.

The Iranian assumptions about the US not being able to stop them are so horribly flawed as to invite disaster. They have no apprehension or fear that the US might be able, through some magical means, of overcoming the obstacles the Iranians imagine.

Look objectively at everything that must go right, all of it, or else their schemes fail miserably. It is naivete in the extreme to posit that your enemy is only capable of following your explicit recipe for their defeat. It is doubly damning if you must have a chain of unbroken successes on top of your enemies' miserable failures.

This is not a case of a situation "spiraling out of control", it is a situation of a myopic dachshund challenging a fighting pit bull because to the dachshund's distorted vision, the pit bull is only the size of a marshmallow peep.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 21:29 Comments || Top||

#46  Moose, almost every war in the last 25 years has been by one ethnic group to free itself from unwanted control by another - Yugoslavia, Eritria, East Timor, Acheh, etc. Iran is the most ethnically divided country in the world. I could put together a thesis that the Mullahs, like communism, was an attempt to have something to unify a multinational state in an age of more or less ethnically homogenous states (obviously excluding the countries composed of immigrants). Until the Iraq war, Iran could point to the odious regimes on its borders as examples of how much worse things would be for the non-Farsi ethnics if they weren't part of the Iranian state (empire). A democratic Iraq smashes that argument.

Also watch for an Orange revolution in Azerbaijan, which could well destabilize the 25 million Azeris in Iran.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/31/2005 21:41 Comments || Top||

#47  .com. for a number of reasons the media and the powers that be always downplay ethnic divisions and assign other causes. I could give you numerous examples, such as Algeria, where a Berber/Arab civil war is portrayed as one against religious extremists. I am sure the Kurds are making a real effort to keep Iranian Kurdistan quiet until they have secured their gains in Iraq. And were they to ask my opinion, I would say wait until the lower hanging fruit of Syrian Kurdistan falls first.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/31/2005 21:55 Comments || Top||

#48  The Iranian assumptions about the US not being able to stop them are so horribly flawed as to invite disaster. They have no apprehension or fear that the US might be able, through some magical means, of overcoming the obstacles the Iranians imagine.

Look objectively at everything that must go right, all of it, or else their schemes fail miserably. It is naivete in the extreme to posit that your enemy is only capable of following your explicit recipe for their defeat. It is doubly damning if you must have a chain of unbroken successes on top of your enemies' miserable failures.


Excellent observations, (as always) Anonymoose. I've always compared such strategizing with chess, in that you never count upon your opponent to make a bad move. One's plans must be designed to succeed even against the most well-organized opposition.

Iran's preparations in the face of even America's most clumsy exertions against them are so miserable in the extreme that it would be hysterically funny if these morons weren't so convinced of their imperviousness.

We owe it to ourselves, in terms of national security alone, to neutralize Iran's nuclear apirations. Yet from a propagandistic standpoint (much like reaching the moon before the Soviets and putting the lie to the efficacy of Communism's "scientifically planned society"), we also owe it to ourselves to thwart Iran's hardliners in such an undeniable fashion that all Islam cannot fail to take notice of its spectacular impotence in the face of modernized Western might.

This is something we owe each of the 3,000 souls who perished on 9-11. Bali, Madrid and London may all bask in the glow of such a smashing defeat, but it is America's duty to herself to deal Islamism repeated and telling body blows that shall bring these fanatics to their knees.

Anything less is not worthy of all we have fought and died for over the last 300 years.
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 22:01 Comments || Top||


Army tightens siege of Palestinian militants
EFL:
As diplomats were mulling the text of the resolution, the Lebanese Army was tightening the noose around seven Palestinian militant bases close to the Syrian border after a militant leader said his men were holding six soldiers captive and the UN envoy called for action to disarm the fighters.

Officers said some 500 soldiers backed by 50 armored cars were now deployed around the camps in the foothills of the Anti-Lebanon range that marks the border — two operated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and five by Fateh-Intifada. Troops were seen manning checkpoints on all access roads to the bases and operating armored patrols on the tracks linking PFLP-GC bases in Sultan Yakoub and Kfarazabad to those of Fateh-Intifada around Halwa, 15 kilometers away.

The immediate trigger for the deployment around the bases was the murder of a surveyor working for the Lebanese military the previous day, which commanders blame on militants of Fateh-Intifada. “We have irrefutable proof that the surveyor was killed by shots coming from a base operated by Fateh-Intifada, which is prevaricating and has yet to hand over the killers,” the officer said. “We will keep up our siege until the killers are surrendered.”

In a new twist to the stand-off, PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril said in comments last week that his men were holding six soldiers captive. A military source in Beirut denied that any soldiers had been captured and said the Army Command would be putting out a statement, but the communiqué was later cancelled. Jibril also charged that the Army had detained three PFLP-GC militants, one of them a commander, but he gave no details about the circumstances of their capture.

He hit out at the tight siege imposed by the army on Sultan Yaakoub and said he had spoken to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora about the deployment by telephone on Wednesday evening. “I told him that we were not against the Army deploying provided they did not come near our bases,” Jibril said. Army units were also closing off, by means of earthen ramparts, several illegal roads leading into the North Hermel area from Syria in order to stop the smuggling of diesel fuel from Syria into Lebanon.

The siege of the Palestinian bases came as UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen presented a report in New York charging that the continued presence of armed Palestinian militants in Lebanon violated a Security Council resolution adopted in September last year. That text called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, eventually prompting Syria to end a 29-year military presence in April, as well as the disarmament of all militia groups, Lebanese or Palestinian.

“The existence of armed groups defying the control of the legitimate government, which by definition is vested with a monopoly on the use of force throughout its territory, is incompatible with the restoration and full respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of the country,” Roed-Larsen said in his report.
He condemned the “illegal transfer of arms and people toward armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon, which has threatened to cast a shadow on the efforts aimed at bolstering Lebanon’s sovereignty.” Lebanese security sources said earlier this month that Fateh-Intifada had received a consignment of weapons from Syria.

Here are key points of Roed-Larsen’s report on implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 on the restoration of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

• On the presence of armed groups:
“The existence of armed groups defying the control of the legitimate government which by definition is vested with a monopoly on the use of force throughout its territory, is incompatible with the restoration and full respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of the country.”

“I am encouraged by my dialogue with the government of Lebanon on the extension of its control over all of Lebanon’s territory. Tangible results are yet to be achieved, and I will continue my efforts in this regard.”

“I am encouraged by the design of a formal mechanism of internal dialogue on the issue of the arms of Palestinian militias in Lebanon, and the recent historic summit between Prime Minister Saniora and [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas.

“I look forward to the formalization of the ongoing domestic dialogue on the issue of the arms of Lebanese militias and their disbanding.”

• On the Shebaa Farms:
“Both the [Security] Council and I have repeatedly stated... that the Shebaa Farms area is not part of Lebanon. Therefore, any Lebanese ‘resistance’ to ‘liberate’ the area from continued Israeli occupation cannot be considered legitimate.”

“In addition even if the Lebanese claim to the Shebaa Farms area were legitimate, it would be the responsibility of the government of Lebanon only to address this claim in conformity with international law and relevant Security Council resolutions.”

• On Syrian withdrawal, the border issue and elections:
“The requirements of the withdrawal of Syrian troops and military assets, as well as the conduct of free and credible legislative elections have been met.”

“Complications have unfortunately arisen from the lack of a clearly agreed upon and demarcated border between Lebanon and Syria, and have highlighted the need for a formal border agreement and demarcation of that border.”

“There have also been difficulties related to the control of the border line between Lebanon and Syria, and the issue of the illegal transfer of arms and people toward armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon, which has threatened to cast a shadow on the efforts aimed at bolstering Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence.”

“Terrorism, in the form of bombings, assassinations, and attempted murders... has not succeeded in destabilizing Lebanon, jeopardizing the holding of free and credible parliamentary elections, or undermining its national unity nor political independence.”
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 12:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


‘Iran not afraid of war, sanctions’
TEHERAN - Iran is unfazed by the threat of war or sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme and mounting international pressure has only hardened its resolve, a senior official said on Monday. “They must understand that such an attitude will only persuade us more to have nuclear technology,” said top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, responding to widespread condemnation of comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinjad.

“There won’t be a war. They do not have the means to go to war on two fronts,” Larijani was quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA in a reference to the continued hostilities faced by US-led forces in neighbouring Iraq. “Iran is a hard target,” insisted Larijani, who was addressing a seminar on nuclear energy. “If they think they can limit us by oil sanctions or other sanctions, they are wrong. Oil sanctions will only increase the price of oil,” he warned. “Iran has not concealed anything,” Larijani insisted. “We agree that the agency can conduct any kind of inspection to make sure that Iran is not deviating from peaceful nuclear technology.”

But he charged that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis were being undermined by “a kind of American fascism”, adding: “I do not consider negotiations the only way for the nuclear issue, although they are the first priority”.

A team of IAEA inspectors is currently in Iran as part of the UN watchdog’s two-and-a-half-year-old investigation of its nuclear programme, and another senior Iranian nuclear official said they had made “remarkable progress”. Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said Iran had recently submitted documents related to P1 and P2 centrifuges -- devices used to enrich uranium to make fuel but which can also be used to make the core of a weapon.
“Some of the documents will be submitted during the inspections,” he was quoted as saying, adding the IAEA team would be in the country until Wednesday.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 12:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “There won’t be a war. They do not have the means to go to war on two fronts..."

Damn straight!
Posted by: Hideki Tojo || 10/31/2005 14:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Centcom still deciding whether to withdraw from Iraq through Damascus or Tehran. Keep yer yap shut, Mahmoud, yer moving up the list.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 14:16 Comments || Top||

#3  If you ask me we are already at war with Iran through their proxies in Iraq. So if we were to move our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran it would simply be taking the battle to the enemy's ground. We have (or should have been) at war since the Iran hostage crisis when Iran violated our embassy.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2005 14:20 Comments || Top||

#4  What's Sistani saying about all this going on?
Posted by: Penguin || 10/31/2005 14:42 Comments || Top||

#5  REGIME CHANGE IRAN.com had an interesting arty yesterday - seems the MSM/Leftmedia forgot to display a promo that Mad Moud was standing next to when he made his "Israel Must be Wiped Off the Map" comment. Showed a broken/cracked globe repres the USA at the bottom of a glass while a globe = Israel was still falling thru the air. THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR - FOR ISRAEL TO BE DESTROYED AMERICA MUST BE DESTROYED FIRST!? A good argument can also be made that the "America globe" also represents the WEST, WESTERN DEMOCRACY/VALUES, and of course JUDEO-XTIANITY. IFF THE COMMIE MAOISTS ARE WORKING WITH ASIATIC RADICAL GROUPS, AND BY MOST REPORTS HAD BEEN SINCE CLINTON'S SECOND TERM, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT 9-11 AND THE COMMUNISTS -eeeerrrrr, meant DE-REGULATED/COMPETITIVE FASCISTS-CONSERVATIVES, etal.!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2005 19:22 Comments || Top||


Syria calls for Arab summit after UN resolution
DAMASCUS - Syria called for an emergency Arab League summit in a bid on Monday to rally regional support in the face of stern UN Security Council action that would force greater cooperation from Damascus in the probe of the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister.

But Arab diplomats, already hedging against a lack of broad support for a summit of all 22 members, suggested a smaller gathering of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Lebanon and Egypt might be organized should others decline out of concern over harming ties to the UN resolution’s prime sponsors - the United States, France and Britain. Speaking at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, the diplomats said Secretary-General Amr Moussa had sent a special envoy to Gulf countries informing them of the Syrian request. The diplomats, who were not authorized to speak for publication, said Syria hoped for the meeting after Eid.

Anti-Syrian Lebanese political leader Walid Jumblatt, meanwhile, warned that Damascus could face chaos and instability like that now roiling Iraq should Assad fail to cooperate with the UN probe into the Feb. 14 assassination of Minister Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was killed along with 20 other people in a huge bombing on a Beirut street. “If (he) acts like Saddam did, yes, we are heading to a situation similar to what happened in Iraq,” Jumblatt said in an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television channel late Sunday. “But if he acts in order to preserve Syria’s national unity and Syria’s interest before (serving) the brother-in-law, a brother or anyone, he can save Syria.”

Jumblatt was referring to Assad’s brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the chief of military intelligence, whose names were listed in an initial report submitted by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis on Oct. 28.

The Syrian media maintained the drumbeat against UN action on Monday, with the English-language Syria Times saying the resolution as drafted was “openly politicised” and too heavily influenced by the United States. “It’s immoral and totally unacceptable that the will of the (international) community remains captive to a unilateral diktat and ... accepts tyranny and hegemony,” the paper said. Tishrin, another government newspaper, criticized the proposed UN document as “tough and unbalanced” and urged the Security Council to adopt “a balanced and objective” resolution “that would not be a clear translation of the US administration’s will.”

Al Thawra daily said the United States wants Syria to “be stripped of its skin, abandon its regional and national role and be turned into a marginal state that carries out orders,” the paper said.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 11:53 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  yeah baby Assad is on his way to civil war choas. I see Zark and boys moving to Syria were a weak Assad would be alot easier target than the Big Satan and their new friends the Iraqi's Kurds/Shia. That move would cause some good chaos for many reasons imagine Assad wont go down real fast so the US will hold back on getting involved, Zark already has formed a base of supporters and the infastructure with his campain in Iraq coming from Syria, their is huge terrorist base already thier Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Fatah, Hezbollah, ect... while not allies they too would be more than happy to make a power grab in the chaos, in lebanon a nation on the verge control and choas such campain would quickly flow across the border dragging them into it with all of thier divides becoming pronounced, all of this with Iranian financing to thier Hezbollah boys and of course all other parties at the same time to keep chaos rolling. This situation would be a ugly thing for the US to jump in the middle of but the chaos would spill across the border into Iraq would continue maybe N. Jordan and not to mention Isreal will they stand by with attacks coming across the border for how long and until how big of a attack? Cleaning up that mess will make Iraq look like a cake walk the UN I am sure with France may show up but the first car bomb and they will retreat and blame the US/Iraq war for it all, even thou the whole middle east has been balancing on a freekin wire since the 80's when radical Islam really took off and the western style strongmen who everyone hated radical or not hated just were holding on by thier teeth all the while following the Soudi model pay off the Radicals as long as they take thier Radical violence out of country.
Posted by: C-Low || 10/31/2005 21:03 Comments || Top||


U.N. Security Council OKs Syria Resolution
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Monday demanding Syria's full cooperation with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister and warning of possible "further action" if it doesn't.

The United States, France and Britain pressed for the resolution following last week's tough report by the U.N. investigating commission, which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri and 20 others. The report also accused Syria of not cooperating fully with the inquiry.

The three co-sponsors agreed to drop a direct threat of sanctions against Syria in order to get support from Russia and China, which opposed sanctions while the investigation is still under way. Nonetheless, the resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which is militarily enforceable. The U.S. invited foreign ministers of the 15 Security Council nations to attend the meeting to send a strong message to Syria to cooperate with the inquiry. A dozen ministers showed up and voted in favor of the resolution.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the council after the vote that Syria had been put on notice by the international community that it must cooperate. "Syria has offered no truthful explanations to these serious allegations," she said. "Instead it has chosen until now to dismiss the commission report as politically motivated."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the Security Council is "putting the government of Syria on notice that our patience has limits." "The people of the Lebanon have become all too acquainted with grief," he said. "We owe them a better future, and this resolution is one way of providing them with that better future."

The resolution requires Syria to detain anyone the U.N. investigators consider a suspect and let investigators determine the location and conditions under which the individual would be questioned. It also would freeze assets and impose a travel ban on anyone identified as a suspect by the commission.

Those provisions could pose a problem for Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as his brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the chief of military intelligence. The Syrian leader has refused a request from the chief U.N. investigator to be interviewed. Investigators also want to question his brother and brother-in-law. Although the final text dropped the threat of sanctions, it said if Syria doesn't cooperate "the council, if necessary, could consider further action." That could, ultimately, include sanctions. In another concession to try to get Russia and China on board, the co-sponsors also agreed to drop an appeal to Syria to renounce all support "for all forms of terrorist action and all assistance to terrorist groups."

Syria, meanwhile, is pushing for an emergency Arab League summit in a bid to rally regional support in the face of the U.N. resolution, said Arab diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity because the request had not been officially made. The diplomats, speaking at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, suggested a smaller gathering of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Lebanon and Egypt might be organized should other countries decline to participate out of concern over harming ties with the U.S., France and Britain.

The diplomats said Syrian Secretary-General Amr Moussa sent a special envoy to Gulf countries informing them of the Syrian request. They said Syria hoped for the meeting later this week, after the Muslim religious holiday that concludes the Ramadan month of fasting.

The Syrian media criticized the U.N. resolution before the vote Monday, with the English-language Syria Times saying it was "openly politicized" and too heavily influenced by the U.S. "It's immoral and totally unacceptable that the will of the (international) community remains captive to a unilateral diktat and ... accepts tyranny and hegemony," the paper said.

Syria's official news agency, SANA, said Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem toured Gulf countries this past weekend bearing a message from the Syrian president concerning "the dangers Syria faces" as a result of the U.N. action. SANA quoted Moallem as saying the resolution was "dangerous" and aimed at hurting Syria, not uncovering the truth in the Hariri assassination. But Moallem said that Syria will "continue to cooperate" with the U.N. investigation despite "legal and political gaps in its report." Assad on Saturday ordered a judicial committee be formed to investigate Hariri's assassination. A presidential decree said the committee will cooperate with the U.N. inquiry and Lebanese judicial authorities.

While Syria has rejected accusations of its involvement in Hariri's killing, it buckled under international pressure and withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year presence in its smaller neighbor.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 11:47 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Pro-Syria Palestinians defy arms ban
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A pro-Syrian Palestinian group rejected Monday a Lebanese government decision to ban armed Palestinian forces outside refugee camps. Ahmed Jibril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command was quoted as saying in Beirut's daily As-Safir Monday that his group would not evacuate two positions south of Beirut and in the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon.

"Whoever believes that we will lay down arms is mistaken ... Let no one dream of that matter because it is still premature," Jibril said. He called on the Lebanese government to remove a siege by the army on the PFLP-GC's positions in order to pave the way for dialogue. "If the Lebanese government insists on maintaining the military measures around our positions, it will increase the risk of incidents between us," Jibril warned.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 09:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, the ball is back in Lebanon's court. Hopefully, they will decide to empty out the Paleo strongpoints, killing anyone who resists. The guests have been making a mess in their country for too long.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 10:55 Comments || Top||


Sanctions Dropped From Syria Resolution
Key U.N. Security Council members dropped the threat of sanctions against Syria on Monday in a last-minute effort to get all 15 nations to back a resolution demanding that Damascus cooperate with an investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.
The resolution co-sponsored by the United States, Britain and France had called for possible economic sanctions if Syria didn't comply, citing the U.N. Charter. But Russia and China objected strongly to mentioning sanctions while the investigation into Rafik Hariri's killing is still under way.

The new text, obtained by The Associated Press, dropped the reference to the U.N. Charter, saying only that if Syria doesn't cooperate "the council, if necessary, could consider further action." In another concession to try to get Russia and China on board, the co-sponsors also agreed to drop an appeal to Syria to renounce all support "for all forms of terrorist action and all assistance to terrorist groups."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters that foreign ministers of the five permanent veto-wielding nations agreed to the changes because of "the prospect of getting a near unanimous vote in the council."
Despite the changes, he said, "it's going to be unmistakably a clear message" and "a strong resolution."

The U.S. urged foreign ministers of the 15 council nations to attend Monday's meeting to cast their country's vote on the resolution and thereby send a high-level message to Syria of the international demand for action. Almost all the ministers flew to New York for the meeting.
British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said that adoption of the resolution by the foreign ministers "is to show the intensity of the concern, and to make it very clear at the highest level what we expect."
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa also flew to New York Sunday to attend the council meeting and meet with some of the foreign ministers and Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The final negotiations on the text began Sunday night at a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for the foreign ministers of the four other permanent council nations — Russia's Sergey Lavrov, China's Li Zhaoxing, Britain's Jack Straw and France's Philippe Douste-Blazy. Lavrov and Li met separately for 45 minutes before the dinner, which lasted more than two hours. The negotiations among the five countries resumed early Monday morning and then the entire 15-member council met behind closed doors. Washington, Paris and London co-sponsored the resolution to follow up last week's report by a U.N. investigating commission, which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others. The report also accused Syria of not cooperating fully with the probe.

The latest draft would require Syria to detain anyone the U.N. investigators consider a suspect and let investigators determine the location and conditions under which the individual would be questioned. It also would freeze assets and impose a travel ban on anyone identified as a suspect by the commission. Those provisions could pose a problem for Syrian President Bashar Assad as the suspects include his brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the chief of military intelligence.

Russia said last week it opposed sanctions against Syria, its longtime ally. Late Sunday, Lavrov said that Russia fully backs further U.N. inquiry into Hariri's murder but criticized what he described as attempts to turn the Security Council into an investigative body. "We are concerned that the draft resolution's co-authors are not just trying to support the commission, but also to meddle into its sphere of responsibility," Lavrov said in comments broadcast by Russia's Channel One television. Tishrin, a government newspaper in Syria, criticized the draft as "tough and unbalanced" and called on the Security Council to adopt "a balanced and objective" resolution "that would not be a clear translation of the U.S. administration's will."

As al-Sharaa headed to New York, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem toured Gulf countries in what appeared to be an effort to rally Arab support ahead of Monday's council meeting. Syria's official news agency, SANA, quoted Moallem as saying he was bearing a message from the Syrian president to the leaders of Gulf countries concerning "the dangers Syria faces" as a result of the U.N. action.

In Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Moallem delivered a message from Assad to King Abdullah "on the current situation in the region ... and the debate under way in the Security Council concerning the (Hariri) investigation," SANA said. Moallem traveled to Qatar on Sunday where he told reporters that the resolution was prepared prior to the release of the report by the U.N. investigation. SANA quoted him as saying the resolution was "dangerous" and aimed at hurting Syria, not uncovering the truth in the Hariri assassination. But Moallem said that Syria will "continue to cooperate" with the U.N. investigation despite "legal and political gaps in its report."

Assad on Saturday ordered that a judicial committee be formed to investigate Hariri's assassination. A presidential decree said the committee will cooperate with the U.N. inquiry and Lebanese judicial authorities. While Syria has rejected accusations of its involvement in Hariri's killing, it buckled under international pressure and withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year presence in its smaller neighbor.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 09:32 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Aaaaargh! Lucy pulled away the football...again.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 10:20 Comments || Top||

#2  U.N. Threatens Syria with a wet noodle.

Not a flicker on the ole suprise meter on this one.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2005 10:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Im disappointed to.

If theyd included the sanctions mention, Russia and China would have abstained instead of voting yes. Russia has said its "premature" to talk about sanctions with the investigation under way. If Syria doesnt cooperate (most likely, I think) The US, UK and France will go back with another resolution.

I note the Russians insisted on dropping the reference to Syrian support for terrorism. From the people always complaining about Western softness on Chechen terrorists, the hypocrisy is overwhelming.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 10/31/2005 10:54 Comments || Top||

#4  That'll happen until it's demonstrated that the Syrians are supporting Chechen Islamists.
Posted by: imoyaro || 10/31/2005 11:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Useless is the word i find most apt to describe the 'UN'
Posted by: Shep UK || 10/31/2005 11:04 Comments || Top||

#6  I hope they send the strongly worded letter COD!!!
Posted by: Master of Obvious || 10/31/2005 11:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Ah yes, the resolution had a visit with the UN dentist.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 10/31/2005 11:18 Comments || Top||

#8  LH...Obviously our "friend" Putin does not want to upset the flow of arms to Syria.
Posted by: anymouse || 10/31/2005 11:20 Comments || Top||

#9  Actually the UN has been quite useful in pressuring Syria -- of course that's because bashir has ticked off every country that borders him plus the Saudis plus the French plus...

At this point I'm a little worried that the Assad dynasty may crumble too fast. There is no unified opposition front yet established that would have the credibility to get the support of the Army (its sad to say this but as bad as the Syrian Army is, it is still the single best institution in Syria for maintaining stability post Assad)
Posted by: mhw || 10/31/2005 11:21 Comments || Top||

#10  I hope they send the strongly worded letter COD!!!

You're a cold-hearted one MOO.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2005 15:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Puttyputz's arrangements with the MMs includes much more than just nuke tech and expertise...
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 16:17 Comments || Top||

#12  Key U.N. Security Council members dropped the threat of sanctions against Syria on Monday in a last-minute effort to get all 15 nations to back a resolution..

Enough of this resolution bullshit already. Withdraw from the UN, boot it OUT of NY and be done with it. This procedural resolution crap got stale several years ago.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/31/2005 19:15 Comments || Top||


President Lahoud Said To Have Made Secret Damascus Mission
Beirut, 31 Oct. (AKI) - Lebanese president Emile Lahoud made a secret visit to Damascus on Sunday to meet his opposite number Bashar al-Assad, Beirut daily as-Safir reports, quoting "authoratitive Arab diplomatic sources" in the Lebanese capital. "The report is credible, and with all probability was leaked by someone from the Egyptian embassy in Beirut," a newsper official told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Most local observers say the purpose of the reported visit would inevitably be for Lahoud to price condos in Damascus assess what level of support he can count on from the Syrian regime in the future. Syria has been under intense international pressure because of the findings to date of the UN commission into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, which has pointed the finger at leading Syrian and Lebanese officials. The UN Security Council will on Monday consider a resolution to impose sanctions against Damascus unless it agrees to cooperate fully with the UN probe.

Since his election in 1998, Emile Lahoud has been a staunch ally of Damascus and the extension of his mandate last year was obtained thanks to intense Syrian pressure on parliamentarians in Beirut. After the assassination of Rafik Hariri in February, Lahoud was accused by much of the anti Syrian opposition and the public of being involved in the attack. The arrests on 30 August of four former top-level security officials - men all closely linked both to Lahoud and to the Syrian regime - for alleged involvement in the attack, only served to confirm such suspicions. In the UN-commisisoned report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, made public ten days ago, Emile Lahoud is called in to question regarding a phone call he allegedly received just before the explosion from a cellphone.

Lahoud's political legitimacy is seriously compromised, and many Lebanese political analysts are now saying it is unlikely he can complete his mandate which expires at the end of 2007. For months now, the rumour mill in Beirut has been churning with speculation on his possible successor, though no political party has officially put forward a candidate.

Under an unwritten rule that is neither contained in the constitution nor included in the Taif accords, which in 1989 put an end to Lebanon's civil war, the presidency must be given to a representative of the Maronite Christian community. The most probable candidates currently are: Boutros Harb, known for his anti-Syrian stance and his long institutional experience; Nassib Lahoud, an independent MP known for his reformist ideas; and general Michel Aoun, who returned to Lebanon earlier this year, after 15 years in exile in France.

For the moment, there is no political common ground on these names, even if the main non-Christian parties (Sunnis represented by the alliance led by Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated politician, the Druze of veteran Walid Jumblatt, and Shiites from the alliance between militia parties Amal and Hezbollah), have all taken a conciliatory stance, saying it would be better that the Christian parties first find some unity on a shortlist of candidates which, subsequently, can be put up for discussion. The Maronite patriarch Boutros Nasrallah Sfeir has however taken a different tack, saying recently that he did not want "the choice of the president of the republic to remain a question limited to the Christian community".
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 08:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Question on Lebanese demographics. What is the catholic composition of the maronite christian bloc? We have a large Lebanese minority in my area and they are all Catholics.
Posted by: Rightwing || 10/31/2005 9:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Maronites are Eastern Rite Catholics - they use the Eastern Orthodox liturgies but are aligned with the roman hierarchy.
Posted by: anon || 10/31/2005 9:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Condos or bunkers, Emile?
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 9:31 Comments || Top||


General spills the beans to Mehlis inquiry team
BEIRUT: One of the four former security chiefs currently facing charges connected with the assassination of Rafik Hariri has started opening up to members of the international investigating committee, according to highly placed sources close to the inquiry. The general is said to be filling in many of the details of the involvement of Syrian intelligence officials and providing members of the United Nations team probing the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister with much new information.
He who talks first gets to cut a deal
The UN team, under German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, presented a report to the Security Council, which is due to discuss a follow-up resolution Monday. The four arrested former Lebanese security chiefs are Major General Jamil Sayyed, of the Surete Generale, Major General Ali Hajj, of the Internal Security Forces, Mustapha Hamdan, of the Presidential Guards, and Raymond Azar, of military intelligence. They are all known to be close to President Emile Lahoud although the four are not noted for being particularly close to each other.
Which is why one of them is ratting out the others
They were formally charged on Saturday, September 3 with "murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act." The talkative general has also been speaking to Mehlis' men about the possible involvement of other high-ranking members of the Lebanese political and military elite in the February 14 assassination.
Meaning it wasn't just the Syrians, which comes as no suprise whatsoever...
Mehlis himself has said in public that President Emile Lahoud is not a suspect in the events surrounding Hariri's murder.
Meaning that particular link in the chain is broken...
However, given the still not satisfactorily explained affair of the famous cellular call to the Presidential Palace at Baabda minutes before the explosion that killed Hariri and 22 others, it is still not clear how much, if anything, the president knew about the plot to kill Hariri.
My guess is lots, but that might just be because Emile's such an unattractive toady. Hariri's falling out with the Assad mob was over having Emile foisted on them for yet another term...
According to paragraph 200 of the Mehlis report, "Mahmoud Abdel-Al's telephone calls on 14 February are also interesting: he made a call minutes before the blast, at 1247 hrs, to the mobile phone of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and at 1249 hrs had contact with Raymond Azar's mobile telephone." Abdel-Al, a member of Al-Ahbash (Association of Islamic Philanthropic Projects), is, like the former security chiefs, currently in custody charged with complicity in Hariri's murder.
They've got a bunch of them in custody, with the exception of Emile and the Syrians. Prior to Mehlis showing up that had nobody in custody and the generals who're singing now were trying to hold on to their jobs.
A Lahoud spokesman denied that Lahoud received a call from Abdel-Al, saying the number was one of several used by Baabda for calls from the public who wanted to make complaints or seek help.
"Hello, Baabda? This is Abdel-Al. I gotta complaint: where the hell is that truck bomb? It ain't gone off yet!"
According to a report in the daily An-Nahar, the number is not among those publicized by the palace as available for public use.
So much for that alibi.
The general is helping the Mehlis team to form a view, even if not definitive, of exactly how much Lahoud did know.
If the guy singing is Azar, Emile may be gone pretty quick...
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "God says he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're &%$@ed." comes into mind.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 10/31/2005 0:38 Comments || Top||

#2  "They've got a bunch of them in custody, with the exception of Emile and the Syrians. Prior to Mehlis showing up that had nobody in custody and the generals who're singing now were trying to hold on to their jobs"

Competent UN action watch. Much more challenging than the moderate muslim watch - this category being that much rarer :)
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 10/31/2005 9:26 Comments || Top||

#3  ROFL!!!

lh, you're unique... Spin, baby, spin. :)
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 16:20 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan-Pak-India
Breaking: Blast rocks western Indian Gujarat, seven feared dead
A blast rocked the western Indian state of Gujarat Tuesday morning and seven people were feared dead with several others wounded, television channel Aajtak quoted state officials as saying.

The report said police were still trying to verify whether the blast in Dahod town was caused by a bomb or was an accidental explosion.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/31/2005 20:59 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Blast in a fireworks factory.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/31/2005 22:05 Comments || Top||


LeT terrorist Mohammad Arif sentenced to death
A Delhi Court on Monday awarded death sentence to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq convicted in the December 2000 Red Fort attack case. Additional Sessions Judge O P Saini awarded life imprisionment to two key conspirators Nazir Ahmed Qasid and his son Farooq Ahmed Qasid who were held guilty of waging war against the state along with Ashfaq. Ashfaq's Indian wife Rehmana Yousuf Farooqui, who was held guilty of harbouring the main accused, has been given a seven-year jail term.
Y'can see how those bus booms caused the judge to change his mind...though it's a pity they all three weren't hanged where they stood.
Posted by: john || 10/31/2005 12:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Death penalty must stay: Lahoti

In a clear rebuff to those pleading a relook at capital punishment, outgoing Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti on Tuesday firmly backed the provision of capital punishment and said perpetrators of bomb blasts like the ones that rocked the capital deserve no mercy.



"Which other penalty is required other than this (death penalty) for this dastardly act. What other punishment is called for. Ask the man who has masterminded this blast," Justice Lahoti, who retires as CJI on Monday, told reporters.

The Chief Justice's remarks are significant in the backdrop of President APJ Abdul Kalam's suggestion to the Government to take a "humanitarian view" on mercy petitions of death row convicts.

On the global debate against capital punishment, Justice Lahoti said keeping in view his judicial experience, he supported retention of capital punishment in the Indian Penal Code.

"The apex court, in its judgements, have made it clear that it should only be awarded in the rarest of the rare cases. Speaking for myself, I think that death penalty must continue to exist," he said adding that "we cannot go by what is happening in the Western countries".

The Chief Justice was responding to a query that a debate has gained momentum after President Kalam's suggestion that in cases of death sentence and mercy petition, humanitarian aspects should be considered.

Referring to Saturday blasts, Justice Lahoti wondered what other punishment should be inflicted on those "who terrorise the country by taking the lives of innocent citizen."

"How many innocent people have been killed and injured. Now if police investigates and are able to lay their hand on the persons and the mastermind behind the blast, please tell me what other penalty is required except the death penalty," he added.

"What happens is that we forget the past. Human memory fails. We forget the victims and we only see the accused before us. We look at his family. We forget the family of those killed, injured and totally uprooted and I am told of a family whose only surviving member is a small child," the Chief Justice said.

"People say that in the death penalty you cannot give the life back. Ask this man who is the mastermind behind this blast.... Can he give the life back of those killed? We forget thousands of those killed and think of only one person," Justice Lahoti said.

He disagreed with the view that only the poor become the victim of the death penalty and the rich get away."I do not agree with it at all," he said adding that "we only see the facts of the case and modus operandi while deciding the quantum of punishment."
Posted by: john || 10/31/2005 16:09 Comments || Top||

#2 
Posted by: john || 10/31/2005 16:21 Comments || Top||

#3  We need Justices like Chief Justice Lahoti in our country.
Posted by: Red Dog || 10/31/2005 23:44 Comments || Top||

#4  see: Democrats - Judiciary Committee
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2005 23:50 Comments || Top||


Pakistan arrests four militants
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani police said Monday they had arrested four members of a Sunni militant group in connection with the murder of a rival Shia leader that sparked deadly riots in a Himalayan town. The four belonging to the Sunni Muslim Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group were picked up during a raid in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, and grenades and weapons were also seized, city police chief Saud Aziz told AFP.

Aziz said the men were wanted for the sectarian murder in January of prominent Shia leader Agha Ziauddin in the remote northern mountain town of Gilgit. The killing touched off violent clashes that left 17 people dead and put Gilgit under curfew for months. Aziz said the suspects were plotting to attack a Shia event last week “but it failed because of tight security”.

Aziz identified the suspects as Shah Raees, Ijaz Wali, Aurangzeb and Amir Abbasi. Three are from Gilgit and one is from Islamabad, Aziz said, adding that police also recovered 160,000 rupees (3,000 dollars) from Aurangzeb.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 12:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Four out of 13,948,309, not a bad day's work. They're moving right along with the clean up program.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 13:19 Comments || Top||


LeT denies involvement in India blasts
LAHORE, Pakistan - A pro-Pakistan militant group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region denied on Monday it was involved in a series of weekend bomb attacks in New Delhi that killed at least 59 people. Analysts and Indian police say the group that claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bombings is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group outlawed in 2002 after being blamed for a bloody attack on the Indian parliament. But a spokesman for Lashkar leader Maulana Abdul Wahid said the group was not involved in the attacks and had no links to Islami Inqilabi Mahaz (Islamic Revolutionary Front), which said on Sunday it was responsible for the blasts.
"Never hoid of 'em! Yez got nuttin' on us, coppers!"
“We are fighting Indian occupation forces in the occupied Kashmir but we are not involved in attacking civilians in any part of India,” the spokesman, who did not want to be named, bravely told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. “We have nothing to do with this group.”
"We know nothing! Tell them, Hogan."
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 12:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


The Shadow Of Al-Qaeda Behind The New Delhi Bombs
Mumbai, 31 Oct. (AKI) - As India mourns the 61 victims of the three simultaneous bomb attacks in New Delhi on Saturday, intelligence sources quoted by the Indian press, believe the carnage was the work of Kashmiri separatist groups sponsored by the al-Qaeda network. The attacks were claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself Islami Inquilabi Mahaz. Intelligence sources are linking the terror attacks to the presence in India of Mohammed Majoodi, an Islamist expert in car-bombs who until recently was based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
"Have turban, will travel. Wire Majoodi, Jeddah"
Earlier this month, Indian national security experts issued an alert for the presence in India of Majoodi. It was the tip-off of Majoodi's presence in the country on 10 October that led the US embassy to step up security around all embassies consulates and major US interests in India.

Senior intelligence experts believe Majoodi is linked to the Kashmiri militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed e Lashkar-e-Toiba. The Indian newspapers and television insist that investigators are focusing tightly on this latter group and say the unknown Islami Inquilabi Mahaz is just one of the names under which it operates. "It's a Pakistani group and it is acting on behalf of Lashkar," said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi.
We could have told him that
Lashkar-e-Toiba, based in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, is one of the most aggressive in the civil conflict which has seen more than 44,000 victims in 14 years and Indian intelligence experts, accuse the powerful Pakistan intelligence services (ISI) of sponsoring it.

The Indian dailies stress that the shadow of suspicion extending to Pakistani institutions, poses a delicate problem for prime minister Manmohan Singh, who has embarked on dialogue with Islamabad to bring peace to Kashmir, a dialogue which seems to have been helped by the climate of solidariety generated by the 8 October earthquake. India has decided to open the highly militarised Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border, in five points in order to allow families and relief items to cross from one side to the other.
Posted by: Steve || 10/31/2005 10:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  SURPRIIIISE SURPRIIIISE Sergeant Carter, have I got a surprise fir you!
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 14:08 Comments || Top||


Al-Qaeda, allies, are primary suspects in New Delhi booms
Dreaded terrorist outfits Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF), comprising Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, may be responsible for the Oct 29 blasts in Delhi, according to a terrorism expert.
Oh, I am so surprised. I must go lie down. Have we any smelling salts?
B. Raman, distinguished fellow and convenor, International Terrorism Watch Programme (ITWP) of Observer Research Foundation, said Sunday only the Al Qaeda and IIF have the capability to organise such well-coordinated blasts in a place like Delhi. "The strongest suspicion points towards the Al Qaeda and IIF, particularly Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad," Raman said in a statement.
I hate it when they repeat the first paragraph in the second paragraph.
Raman, a former additional secretary in the cabinet secretariat, said the blasts have come in the wake of the propaganda against India, stepped up by Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the IIF following the recent visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US in July. "One possibility is that the Al Qaeda and IIF might be targeting India because of its open alignment with the US on matters affecting the vital interests of the Islamic Ummah," he added.
Or because it cheesed off Iran.
He also said it is significant to note that the blasts took place a day after the Al Quds Day and three days before Diwali. The Al Quds Day is observed on the last Friday of the Ramzan fasting period to condemn the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem where the holy mosque of Al Quds is located.
But the Hindoos laugh and smile and joke around during Diwali, so that makes devout Moose limbs want to kill them all.
"Often jehadi terrorists plan their strikes to coincide with the Al Quds Day. The Mumbai serial blasts of March 1993 were initially planned for Al Quds Day, but the perpetrators advanced it by a week following the arrest of one of their supporters by the Mumbai Police. "They were afraid that the man arrested might tell the police about their plans. Interestingly, the blasts also coincided with the first anniversary of the last telecast message of dreaded terrorist Osama bin Laden," he added.
Right. Tell 'em about the number 19...
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 00:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More Allies. Good.
Posted by: plainslow || 10/31/2005 8:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Strangely, it seems the CPI President has had better relations with the US than Vajpayee's BNP. To bad we can't get Mansoor Ijaz on Rantburg he'd answer all my questions.
Posted by: Rightwing || 10/31/2005 9:05 Comments || Top||

#3  "One possibility is that the Al Qaeda and IIF might be targeting India because of its open alignment with the US on matters affecting the vital interests of the Islamic Ummah," he added.

Or maybe it's because muslims killed off the majority of Hindus and Buddhists and ruled all of India untill the British came. Now they plan to do it again. Now give me my consulting fee.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 10:37 Comments || Top||

#4  sorry ed

buh my athiest indian roommate, here for a college education says "no basis or backing.. simply untrue"
Posted by: Dcreeper || 10/31/2005 14:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Link

In a significant breakthrough, Delhi Police has apprehended the "overground activists" of the terror network, which carried out Saturday's serial blasts in the Capital. Those apprehended are being interrogated by police and intelligence to identify other local components involved in the attack and to piece together the loose ends.



Police teams have been sent to Western UP, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir to nab "Sleeper Agents" and those who plotted in the triple blasts. The police are confident of unraveling the entire conspiracy since they have a clear idea of the people involved.

A senior Delhi Police officer directly involved in the investigation said eyewitness accounts and the modus operandi indicated the involvement of locals. The manner in which a bomb was planted in the Outer Mudrika bus in Govindpuri area bolstered the theory. Police believe a local "agent" had picked the particular bus as workers of the Okhla Industrial areas used it after their 5 pm shift. This knowledge could have only been available with locals.

Following this tip, a massive hunt was launched in adjoining areas especially Zakir Nagar. Interestingly, Zakir Nagar had once played host to top operatives of Students Islamic Movement in India (SIMI) and the probe hinted towards their involvement.

Sleuths have also scanned thousands of cellphone calls made before and after the blasts. The movement of certain suspects was being verified to find out whether they were in touch with those who wanted to create mayhem in the city during Deepawali festivities. An analysis of the data has helped police in zeroing in on the culprits.

The teams of Special Cell, Crime Branch and the nine districts have questioned a large number of people. "We are proceeding on the basis of the clues and material evidence and a scientific investigation was being conducted. There are many angles to the conspiracy and efforts are on to arrest those who were the masterminds. And off course the inputs from the central intelligence agencies have also proved to be highly useful. The Commissioner of Police himself was monitoring the entire investigation," the police officer added.

Meanwhile, the forensic examination of the debris has confirmed that RDX was used in the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to cause maximum damage. Experts at Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL), Delhi and Chandigarh and National Security Guards (NSG) have found traces of RDX. It was used to make the bombs more lethal. It also denotes that those who planted the explosives were well versed in assembling IEDs.

One puzzling aspect was the mechanical timers used in the bombs. The bomb, which was planted in the bus in Govindpuri was fitted with a clock and the detonator was mechanically attached to the clock. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is known to employ such technique while planting and detonating IEDs. In 1997 when LeT carried out serial blasts, similar IEDs were used.

There was a definite pattern in the triple blasts and it has now been confirmed that a single module carried out the attack. Police teams are scouring the length and breadth of Western Uttar Pradesh to hunt out the suspects believed to be hiding in peripheral towns, the officer added.

Posted by: john || 10/31/2005 16:12 Comments || Top||

#6  An aritlce on the WSJ Ed page today says the reason Indiahas the highest number of terrorist attacks is because it does the least about them. If this keeps up, we may see India become the place where anti-Muslim vigilantism erupts, though the "youths" of Paris are doing their best to give that honor to France.
Posted by: Thaing Clemble9982 || 10/31/2005 17:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Thailand's definitely in the running, as well, thanks to Toxin's on-again, off-again, limp-wristed response.
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 17:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Dcreeper,
What does your roommate state there is no basis or backing? At the time of the main muslim conquests of India (Buddhist and Hindu area of what is Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc), it had a population of about 100 million. The world population at that time was about 350 million. The muslim invasions began in 997 with Mahmoud, but the deadliest was after 1200. The Hindu and Buddhist death toll for that era is estimated to be 50-60 million and caused a dip in the world population graph. For example, 15-20 million died (Hindus, Buddhists, most muslims were spared) just during the 35 year period of Tamerlane's conquests. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#Timur

Wikpedia: Islamic conquest of South Asia
The historian Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization (1972) that the Mohammadan conquest of India was "probably the bloodiest story in history." Prof. K.S. Lal calculated in his book The Growth of Muslim Population in India that between the years 1000 AD and 1500 AD the population of Hindus decreased by 80 Million.

Mughal Empire in India
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 19:43 Comments || Top||


B Raman on the New Delhi bombings
Only the Sikh terrorists, Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front, of which Al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad are amongst the members, have the capability for organising the kind of three well co-ordinated blasts which struck Delhi on the evening of October 29, 2005, reportedly killing over 50 people.

The strongest suspicion will be on Al Qaeda and the IIF because the blasts took place one day after Al Quds and two days before Diwali, an important Hindu festival. Al Quds is observed by Muslims all over the world on the last Friday of the Ramadan fasting period to condemn the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem where the holy mosque of Al Quds is located. It is considered the third holiest mosque for Muslims after the two in Saudi Arabia.

Often, jihadi terrorists plan their terrorist strikes to coincide with Al Quds. The Mumbai explosions of March 12, 1993 were planned to be carried out on Al Quds, but the perpetrators advanced it by a week following the arrest of one of their supporters by the Mumbai police as they were afraid that during interrogation he may reveal their plans.

The blasts of October 29 have come in the wake of the propaganda against India stepped up by Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the IIF in the wake of the prime minister's recent visit to the United States in July.

One has to await further details on questions such as was it a suicide blast, was it a car bomb etc before attempting a meaningful analysis.

However, one has to seriously take into account the possibility that Al Qaeda and/or the IIF have now targeted India because of its open alignment, as seen by them, with the US on matters affecting the vital intetests of the Islamic Ummah.

Please see in this connection my earlier article titled 'Al Qaeda & India' and my following observations in the article on nuclear Iran:

'The Iran nuclear issue poses a serious policy dilemma for India: How to cooperate with the international community (read US) in preventing the emergence of another military nuclear power with security implications for India while not allowing our traditional good relations with Iran to be jeopardised? How to avoid misperceptions, particularly in the Islamic world, that India which, in the past, accused the US and other Western ountries of adopting double standards in nuclear matters, has now started adopting similar double-standards? How to avoid providing a pretext to Al Qaeda, which has so far kept away from India, for targeting India because of misperceptions that India has become anti-Islam and the Asian poodle of the US?'

Till 2003, Indian Muslims had by and large kept away from the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other Pakistani members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, but recent reports show that the Lashkar is making a breakthrough in the recruitment of Indian Muslims.

The US is far away from the Islamic world, but India is right in the middle of it. Forty-five per cent of the world's Muslims live in the Indian sub-continent. India has to be more cautious in its policies towards the Islamic world than the US.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 00:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  realpolitik: India pre..post 9/11

For fifty years the two countries regarded each other with extraordinary wariness. However, the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the opening of India’s economy, globalization, the revolution in information technologies, increasing economic interdependence, India’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and the war on terror seem to set a new world stage upon which to reappraise the relationship.

Early in 2004 former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared the two countries to be ‘natural allies’..[snip]..On the American side, President Bush defined the relationship as one of ‘strategic allies’..
LINKY: Pratab Bhanu Mehta
AL QAEDA & INDIA B Raman
[snip]
3. The Taliban and its leaders too had generally refrained from criticising India. However, Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami (HEI), which is collaborating with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their present offensive against the American and Afghan troops, has always been virulently critical of India and supportive of anti-India terrorist groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The HEI, which is close to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan led by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, had before 9/11 trained many cadres of the Hizbul Mujahideen headed by Syed Salahuddin in its training camps in Afghan territory.

4. Before 9/11, the Taliban, which was then in power in Afghanistan , and the HEI were at daggers drawn with each other. The Taliban had forced the HEI and the Hizbul Mujahideen to close down their training camps in Afghan territory. Heckmatyar and his cadres were forced to cross over into Iran and take shelter there.

5.After 9/11, under pressure exercised by the US, the Government of Iran ordered Heckmatyar and his cadres to leave Iran. They moved over into the Balochistan area of Pakistan where they were given sanctuary by the the JEI, with the complicity of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Heckmatyar and Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, who is also presently based in Balochistan, decided
to forget their past differences and fight unitedly against the US and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

MR.OSAMA, ARE YOU OK? B Raman taunts OSAMA bin Lurkin (24/10/2005)
********
About India etc. the more I know the less...

B Raman is a patriot of India..I always keep in mind though, that he spent most of his professional career while India was a close ally of the USSR and Russia. An alliance with a neutrality wrapping.
Posted by: Red Dog || 10/31/2005 5:33 Comments || Top||


LeT shares cadres, ammo, and cash with al-Qaeda
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is the primary suspect in the serial bomb blasts in New Delhi, has close links with the global terrorist outfit Al-Qaida, besides Palestinian terrorist outfit Hamas. "We have strong inputs that the cadres, ammunition and funds are shared by al-Qaeda with LeT," a top intelligence officer told TOI.

According to a senior state police officer, Lashkar is a sister or an ally of al-Qaeda because ideologically and nature wise they are alike. Both seek rule of Nizam-e-Mustafa in the world. Lashkar, according to the intelligence sources was born out of the forces that fought in Afghanistan against Russians in 1980s. The success in Afghanistan gave the confidence to Pakistan that it had the expertise to create terrorists and it was in 1983 alone that Markaz-e-Dawa-ul-Irshad set up its terrorist wing Lashkar-e-Taiba to establish pan-Islamic rule in the world. "Since then Lashkar has closely worked and sought assistance from Al-Qaida," an intelligence officer said.

LeT set up its base in J&K in early 1990s and has succeeded in establishing its modules in all Indian states which have substantial population of Muslims. These modules comprise well educated and computer literate Sunni Muslim boys between 20-30 years of age, as per sources in Intelligence Bureau (IB). Only Sunnis are recruited because the group propagates Sunni Wahabism, the pan-Islamic doctrine. The Indian Muslim members of Lashkar are never promoted as top commanders in the organisation. The first and the second rung leadership level is always held by Pakistan nationals.

Lashkar is headed by Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed based at Lahore, Pakistan. After being banned, LeT has been reorganised into two supposedly exclusive bodies, one devoted to preaching of Islam under Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and the other to carry on its violent campaign under the leadership of Kashmiri scholar Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri. It has also taken up its new name as Al-Mansurian in Jammu and Kashmir. It has further divided the leadership into two wings for carrying out violent activities with an agenda to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa, the Muslim rule in India. One head looks after operations in J&K and the other commander deals with terrorist activities in India.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 00:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dear Dan,

Of all of the Kashmiri seperatist groups, the HM seems to be the most homegrown in Indian Kashmir. The tohers lke the LET and the JEM seemed to get picked off on the LOC while the HM are typically tagged conducting Fedayeen activities and random attacks in Poonch, Pool and Srinagar. The question I have is who comprises the Al-Badr group? Are they Arab Mercenaries or Central Asians? They are almost always classified as Al Badr Mercenaries. Any input?
Posted by: Rightwing || 10/31/2005 9:12 Comments || Top||

#2  You can find a primer on Badr here, but it looks like they're the local chapter of Hek's Secret Army of Doom that used to be part of HuM until the two fell out in 1998. Paul or john could probably tell you more.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/31/2005 12:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Thanks Dan!
Posted by: Rightwing || 10/31/2005 15:16 Comments || Top||

#4  John's dead (still can't figure out why we didn't fry that asshole... too many social engineers, methinks) and that's Sir Paul to you. :)
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 15:46 Comments || Top||


Small US units lure Taliban into losing battles
By Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor
Major EFL; this is one you should read in its entirety. It's good. Close to Michael Yon-level good.

QALAT, AFGHANISTAN – It's mid- morning on June 21, and Lt. Timothy Jon O'Neal's platoon has just been dropped onto a dusty field north of a mud-walled village of Chalbar. Their mission: to check out reports that a local Afghan Army commander has defected to the Taliban and burned the district headquarters, and is prepared to fight.

Within minutes, it becomes clear that the reports are true, and the platoon is in trouble. The radio crackles with Taliban fighters barking orders to surround the Americans. Gunfire comes from the hilltops. Lieutenant O'Neal's men are easy targets. The Taliban have the high ground. . . .

As the Taliban start shooting, O'Neal's platoon scurries for cover. But there's no panic. "They think, without a doubt, they have us outnumbered," recalls O'Neal, a native of Jeannette, Pa., and leader of 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company. "We've got only 23 people on the ground, and I would say the Taliban had over 150 before the day was over."

But O'Neal and his men are not alone. Just to the south, 1st platoon is clearing a village; to the east, the 3rd platoon are marching toward Chalbar. O'Neal's platoon calls for close air support from nearby Apache helicopters. But on the ground, 2nd platoon will have to hold its own, and fight for every inch - uphill.

Much is made about the high-tech gear that US soldiers carry: body armor, rapid-firing machine guns, night vision goggles. But the chief advantage of the US military - especially in a low-intensity conflict, pitted against a crudely trained force like the Taliban - is training and air power.

Taliban fighters, meanwhile, appear to gain courage from numbers, the ability to swarm a smaller enemy unit. A sense of safety in numbers, however, is often the Taliban's undoing if a US platoon can fix an enemy's position long enough for aircraft or other infantry units to arrive. This is the backbone of US military strategy in Zabul, and one reason why the Taliban have lost so many fighters this year. . . .

One thing I'd like to know: how come the Christian Science Monitor can do stories like this, but the AP and the NYT can't?
Posted by: Mike || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The hard left that controls mass media and the hard left that infests the Dem Party are allied with this nation's enemies. Always have been. Always will be. There numbers are growing and the harm they do this nation is immeasurable.

On the brighter side, the BBC did relay the Taliban "victory" allowing the US military to engage, surround, kill, capture and scatter the enemy. Bet the BBC will not made that mistake a second time....
Posted by: Hupeasing Jatch2629 || 10/31/2005 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Great article. Afghanistan is not a backwater but is still a front in the WoT. The MSM should be treated like the traitors that they are. I would like to have the Administration give them hell like Gen. Honare or Swartzkopf did. The MSM needs their asses kicked from here to next Sunday. Their liberties with the news and their omissions are costing this country lives and progress in the WoT, that is, the war that is protecting their worthless behinds, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/31/2005 1:19 Comments || Top||

#3  But the ANA still have a disconcerting habit of shooting themselves with their own weapons. "The problem is muzzle discipline," says 2nd Lieut. Ben Wisnioski, a commander of an ANA unit based in Qalat. In the week before the elections, Lieutenant Wisnioski lost three ANA soldiers to self-inflicted wounds.

How, oh how, will we ever break the Muslim obsession with gun sex? Somehow, these guys just can't resist the urge to chlorinate their own genepool. It's all so very confusing because the way they treat their women doesn't seem to indicate any lack of "muzzle discipline". Enquiring minds want to know!
Posted by: Zenster || 10/31/2005 2:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Mike...the reason the NYT can't tell a real story like this is the same reason they lied about Jerry Rivers (I mean Geraldo Rivera) in New Orleans...and why they couldn't fess up and apologize for the lie when they were caught.

The NYT does not care about truth.
Posted by: anymouse || 10/31/2005 7:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Wasn't there an article a couple days ago from a think tank organization about how more and more attention and resources were needed on whiz bang technology?

You still need someone rough to kick in the door and cleanout the trash at the point of a bayonet on the ground. It hasn't changed in 4,000 years of recorded history. It's not going to change anytime soon.
Posted by: Graviger Elmaviper3760 || 10/31/2005 8:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Don't forget about the NYT's article celebrating the 2000 dead americans - where they left out the real story about Jeffrey Starr in order to use this hero's death for their own anti-war purposes...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2005 8:15 Comments || Top||

#7  Time to burn down the NYT.

Good to see that the lessons of Vietnam are being put to good use. The special forces teams did just this in Vietnam, and the lessons have been passed to the regular leg units. Our boys are very, very good and can kick any "insurgent" butt out there. Even outnumbered 100-1. Air support and good training make it easy to do.
Posted by: mmurray821 || 10/31/2005 8:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Yea, all the Rumsfoolian pentagon-speak and hoopla over costly "Future Combat Systems" "shaping the force" and "transformation" (why do I hate that word?). Quite interesting that it boils down to an 11B (or and 18B) humping thru the vil with his mates, calling in arty and air strikes, linking bad guys up with thier 70 virgins.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 8:35 Comments || Top||

#9  And just how do you think they are able to DO that?

With robots that do recon and other things in caves. With UAVs that spot the enemy creeping down the hillside. With jam-proof digital packet radios. With ..... other things we don't need to call out in detail here - but trust me, they are being deployed as fast as we can get them out there, because the troops and commanders are demanding them once they've had a chance to see how they enhance the mission.

Hell, even the thunder run up to Baghdad was a success in part because Blue Force Tracker portion of FBCB2 was installed in the forward tank battalions and used (as I was told by Silver Star winner / battalion commander LTC Rocky Marcone) to keep the tip of the spear coordinated when sandstorms made voice comms iffy.

Go read the accounts of exactly what SOCOM calls on in Afghanistan. A lot of it is precisely the early, partial deployment of what watchers from the sidelines are overly eager to dismiss as 'rumsfoolian'.

Posted by: defense techie || 10/31/2005 9:01 Comments || Top||

#10  shouldn't have fired Sestak.
Posted by: 2b || 10/31/2005 9:15 Comments || Top||

#11  As stated both in the article and in your post, mmurray821, the key is for infantry to actually receive the force-multiplying support that will drop the hammer; the infantry are to find and fix, not to "crush" the enemy. Therefore, efforts should be to secure this capacity, i.e. so that infantry is not cut off and its nominal advantage (small numbers) turned into a disadvantage.

The 11B, the 18B and the 0311 are the core of our military, but that does not invalidate the warrant officers who act as pilots, drivers and systems operators. If we forget that, I don't think it's hyperbole that we'd end up with another incident when SEALs were ordered to do a Ranger operation and paid for that error by brass with their lives. :(

Defense techie is totally right. The rifle may be the core weapon, but "rumsfoolian" procurement seems to be as much a boon to the "boots on the ground" as to the flyboys in the sea, air and land.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 10/31/2005 9:21 Comments || Top||

#12  Thanks for the Northrup Grumman infomercial, UAV's and geospacial info are great, but it usually takes boots on the ground in the end. You could buy boat loads of Infantry and Special Operators (some R&R for those deployed) with the dollars blown on tech concepts and development over the past 20+ years. The bad guys have little in the way of high-end systems and we can't seem to whack them all and break contact. In 1960 the M113 was high tech, the "battle taxi." Buttonage is good, triggerage is better.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:27 Comments || Top||

#13  Ed: As with most Navy programs, SEALS ... like Rustoleum Paint are products of very aggressive advertising, but I've seen few men as tough, or capable. Training at Harmony Church, Eglin, and Dahlonega is certainly rigorous and demanding, but it ain't BUDS. Linking all proper ST missions as waterborne is unenlightened. They do DA/UW quite well indeed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:43 Comments || Top||

#14  Thanks for the Northrup Grumman infomercial

I don't work for NG. I work for the ARMY, and I interact daily with combat veteran commanders and NCOs.
Posted by: defense techie || 10/31/2005 10:53 Comments || Top||

#15  As such, welcome to Rantburg, DT. We always appreciate information about any topic from someone who works with it every day. We won't prevail in this war without both the men willing to kick in the gates of Hell and the technology to pinpoint the gate.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/31/2005 11:04 Comments || Top||

#16  It might be better if there is minimal coverage from Afghanistan. Remember that what they are doing is utterly alien to many civilians, who would recoil in horror when shown the violence involved.

That is, the Pentagon learned long ago that there is *no* way to show pictures of bodies that reflects well on the US military. That is because there is no context, no knowledge, no experience in the public at large.

The public embraces its illusions, refuses to examine what it sees and hears, and is comfortable. Even the MSM propaganda is better than the truth for the masses. Except for the very few who *do* understand, and who *want* to know the truth, the public is angered by those who dispel their illusions.

So a squad of US soldiers armed only with knives slaughters an entire battallion of Taliban who had just beheaded an elementary school. WE can celebrate. The MSM and the public ignore. The squad receives bronze and silver stars, and everyone goes on with their lives.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/31/2005 11:08 Comments || Top||

#17  You could buy boat loads of Infantry and Special Operators (some R&R for those deployed) with the dollars blown on tech concepts and development over the past 20+ years.

And none of those troops would be nearly as well equipped. Lots of learning happens even in the "failed" projects.

The soldier on the ground will always be a necessity and the heart of combat, but if the tech didn't make a difference, we'd be hitting the jihadis with clubs.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/31/2005 12:23 Comments || Top||

#18  Robert: What I'm referring to are pet-rock projects that culminate in 2017 at a cost of billions. I'm not suggesting that we return to the M-1903A1. Airborne platforms aside, take a look at the Land Warrior Program OICW at $ 10,000 per copy. You wanna hump that thing with a basic load of 5.56 and 20mm ammo? Neither does anybody else! It looks like an infantryman's nightmare.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 13:35 Comments || Top||

#19  "take a look at the Land Warrior Program OICW at $ 10,000 per copy. You wanna hump that thing with a basic load of 5.56 and 20mm ammo? Neither does anybody else! It looks like an infantryman's nightmare."

Well....Notwithstanding the fact that the OICW has now morphed into the XM-8, let me quote globalsecurity.org on the xm-29 OICW:

"OICWs weight fielding goal of 14 pounds is 10 to 30% less weight than the current M16/M4/M203 systems. When comparable features such as Thermal Weapon Sight, Optic Sight, Rails, Aiming Light, Leaf Sight and Laser are added, the standard infantry soldier carries 15 to 19 pounds. This weight includes only 1 (30 round) magazine of the 5.56mm and 1 round of 40mm HE ammo. The OICW’s 20mm HE round weighs only 1/4 pound compared to the M203’s 40mm round weight of 1/2 pound – a 50% comparison weight savings with substantially more effectiveness. The 18 rounds of 40mm ammunition in a soldier’s vest weigh 9 pounds. If a soldier was carrying 18 rounds of 20mm the weight is 4 1/2 pounds.

The M203 40mm combat round costs approximately $20. OICW’s 20mm round was projected in FY99 to be $20-$30 each. Cost effectiveness is a critical measurement to consider. Given OICW’s significant edge in effectiveness (5 times more at 300 meters) an engagement cost for the existing M203 would be $80-100 to achieve what a single $30 OICW round can do.

While an M16 costs under $1000, OICW may cost $10,000. That is because OICW is a single system consisting of a fire control and combinatorial weapon. The functions contained within the system include the "add-ons" now used on the M16 or M4 such as optics, thermal weapon system, and aim light. With these functional add-ons, the existing M16/M4/203 system cost exceeds $35,000 each."

Now, I'm not saying that they hit the nail on the head with the new small arms projects, but i think they are steps in the correct direction. Now all we need is to switch to a higher caliber round....


Posted by: Mark E. || 10/31/2005 14:45 Comments || Top||

#20  The OICW, esp. the grenade launcher, is exactly the kind of weapon infantry needs. Nothing currently allows an infantryman to take out the enemy in bunkers, rooms, behind walls and ditches, and light armor up to 1000 meters away. One per fire team gives a huge advantage. The weapon, esp. the electronics, will get lighter and more effective. Hump the OICW or hump your M-16/M203 plus an antiarmor/antibunker rocket.
Posted by: ed || 10/31/2005 15:04 Comments || Top||

#21  Funny, ed, but I recall that DOD was procuring the M72 LAAW -- yeah, that one -- for the purpose you stated... although troops apparently would prefer the RPG, of all things.

Thanks for welcoming DT and saying that tech and man are the key, Seafarious.

Mark E., PEO Soldier has no mention of the XM8, only of the M16A4 and new systems, including the XM25 descendant of the OICW and its XM312 machine gun. However, the XM230 underbarrel grenade launcher and the XM26 underbarrel semiauto shotgun, formerly slated for the XM8, are both there.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 10/31/2005 18:35 Comments || Top||

#22  Tech is good, but if you've actually sat in a TOC and had to implement some of these wonders of modern engineering, you might find yourself taking Besoeker's view. My general view is that if is reduces work (fewer keystrokes, less soldier load, more enemy killed or wounded with fewer rounds) then it is probably a good thing. Otherwise, junk it.

A grenade launcher or a LAW with a laser range finder. Now that's something that a soldier could use! You'd eliminate the range estimation problem and increase first round accuracy to near 100%. And it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper than smart rounds.
Posted by: 11A5S || 10/31/2005 23:24 Comments || Top||


Another girls’ school burnt down in Afghanistan
KABUL - Another girls’ school has been torched in Afghanistan, which is battling insurgents loyal to the ousted fundamentalist Taleban regime that banned education for women, an official said on Sunday.

The primary school, 65 kilometres from Kabul in Logar province, was under renovation and the girls were studying in tents, provincial criminal investigation director Qudratullah Arabzai told AFP. “The school, the tents, the chairs, generator and a vehicle were destroyed in the fire,” Arabzai said.

The building, torched late on Saturday, was the fourth to be burnt in the same district since the collapse of the hardline Taleban regime in late 2001, he said. The official blamed the attack on the “enemies of Afghanistan”, a term usually used to refer to Taleban remnants.
Rat bastards.
A string of similar incidents in southern and southeastern Afghanistan has been blamed on loyalists of the Taleban, which banned girls from going to school. They were ousted by US-backed forces in late 2001. Four years after the Taleban were removed, school enrolment among girls remains among the lowest in the world, with less than 10 percent of girls enrolled in secondary schools, according to a UN report this month.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Take the arsonists, put then in a 4 foot by 4 foot jail cell jail, and force them to listen to a tape chorus of Afghan girls singing the local dialect version of the A B C song, and reciting the multiplication tables 24 x 7 x 365.
Posted by: BigEd || 10/31/2005 5:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Why no uproar from the leftist Femi-nazis and media spin-suckers here in the States? Oh, I see... they are exercising thier freedom of "choice" with regard to gendor and genecidal outrages. How convenient.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Firearms lessons for the girls.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2005 16:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Now that is a damn fine idea Bright Pebbles!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2005 16:52 Comments || Top||


Group with links to Kashmir terrs claims Delhi blasts
NEW DELHI - A single group was probably behind three blasts that killed dozens in New Delhi, police said on Sunday after a group with links to hard-line Kashmiri guerrillas claimed responsibility for the festive season carnage.

The explosions occurred within about 20 minutes of each other. “From the timing, it seems the same group was behind all three cases,” Karnail Singh, joint commissioner of police, told a press conference.

Little-known group Inquilab (Revolution) said it was behind the blasts which killed 61 people and injured 210. It made the claim in telephone calls on Sunday to reporters in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir. “Such attacks will continue until India pulls out all its troops from the state (of Kashmir) and stops inhuman activities in the state,” the group’s spokesman, Ahmed Yar Gaznavi, told the Kashmir News Service. “Activists from our Inquilab group carried out the blasts,” Gaznavi told the news agency.

Singh said the Inquilab claim had yet to be verified but, contrary to what police in Kashmir had earlier said, the group was known to police.
They certainly are now.
“We know that it was created in 1996 and it has not been very active but it has links with Lashkar-e-Taiba,” he said, referring to one of about a dozen rebel groups waging an insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir.
Links to L-e-T doesn't exactly narrow down the list of perps.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: North
Algerian forces kill 9 suspects
ALGIERS - Algerian forces killed nine suspected militants in separate raids in western Algeria that were part of a new security sweep, local officials and the official news agency said.

The violence was part of two days of deadly clashes across the northern rim of the vast North African country that left a total of 12 people dead, including a soldier and two civilians. Algeria has been swept up in new violence since the start of the holy month of Ramadan on October 5 that has left more than 60 people dead — civilians, government forces and militants.

Seven militants were killed overnight Friday to Saturday by security forces in the Sidi Belabas region.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan-Pak-India
Lankan military commander shot dead
Unidentified attackers shot dead the head of a Sri Lankan army intelligence unit near his home in the capital Colombo on Sunday, police and army officials said. Four people were detained for questioning after the authorities found major TM Meedin, 39, shot in the head near his home in the Kiribathgoda suburb of Colombo, police said. “We are questioning four people, but it is too premature to speculate as to who was responsible,” local police chief Asoka Wijetillake said. Army officials said the officer had left his home late Saturday in the company of friends.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ok, it's Monday morning.... the Cdr's briefing is scheduled for 1300. We all knew Meedin had no real friends and he was on thin ice with those his cheesey PPT daily updates to the old man. Now lets kick it up a notch, and put some meat on those intel assessments!
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 8:42 Comments || Top||


Pakistani held for attack on UK soldier
MAZAR-I-SHARIF: One of four men arrested for an attack that killed a British soldier in northern Aghanistan is a Pakistani who had arrived in the country just days earlier, police said Sunday. Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying British soldiers serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday, killing one and wounding five. An Afghan interpreter was also wounded in the attack on an unmarked ISAF vehicle near the city’s famous Blue Mosque. Three of the men detained after the attack were Afghans but a fourth said he was a Pakistani national who had only entered Afghanistan a few days before the ambush, Mazar-i-Sharif police spokesman Shirgan Dorani told AFP. The man had said he had trained at a religious school, or madrassa, in Pakistan, Dorani said.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Another excellent reason to withold earthquake money. Scum, the lot of 'em.
Posted by: Howard UK || 10/31/2005 8:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Gulf Times: More troops likely for AfghanistanPublished: Monday, 31 October, 2005,
LONDON: Defence Secretary John Reid yesterday said he was prepared to send further troops to Afghanistan, a day after a British soldier was killed in the country. The international coalition is seeking to beef up its presence in southern Afghanistan and Britain would be ready to play a role, Reid said. International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops mainly act as peacekeepers in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led campaign ousted the Taliban regime. Britain has about 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and newspaper reports had suggested that a further 3,000 troops could be deployed. Reid said no decision had yet been taken.

“We will be prepared if others are, and if we can get the resources and the right back up,” he told BBC television.

“No reports at the moment can in any way be accurate because I have not made a final decision.”

He said that military means were not the only way of assisting Afghanistan, adding that aid and trade were also crucial. – AFP

Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 8:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Send the Ghurkas to build a few girls' schools.. the Mullahs will freak.
Posted by: Howard UK || 10/31/2005 9:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Go Howard! The haji will love the taste of the Kukri. "Kaphar Hunnu Bhanda Monru Rmaro Chhaa"
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2005 9:51 Comments || Top||


Pakistan: Police seize bombs, arrest terrorist
Police arrested a suspected terrorist and seized explosives and detonators at a railway station in eastern Pakistan on Sunday, an official said. The 28-year-old man, identified as Mohammed Awais, was carrying 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives and other bomb-making material hidden amid clothing in a bag when he was arrested at the main railway station in Lahore, said the city's top police investigator, Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed. Awais is an expert bomb maker and belongs to an outlawed Islamist group, Ahmed said. He would not identify the group or say why Awais may have been carrying explosives.
My guess would be Lashkar e-Jhangvi, but I could be wrong...

Toldja so.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Terrorists blamed for pre-festival attacks which killed 59
Indian police combed the sites of three powerful blasts in New Delhi on Sunday for clues to who carried out coordinated attacks that killed at least 59 people, most of them shopping just before a major Hindu festival. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who blamed the attacks at crowded markets on terrorists, was holding a Cabinet meeting Sunday. At a news conference, police said it was premature to comment about who was behind the bombings, and that no one had been detained.

Asked about a group called Islami Inqalabi Mahaz, who reportedly contacted media in Indian-controlled Kashmir to claim responsibility for the blasts, police said they were investigating. Stores in marketplaces struck by the explosions reopened after cleanup Sunday, still seeing a busy shopping day as New Delhi residents prepared for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

At least 59 people were killed and 210 wounded Saturday when three blasts ripped through the city within minutes of each other -- two at marketplaces and one on a bus in a neighborhood. Government officials called the blasts the work of terrorists, but named no groups, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Police offered a reward -- the equivalent of $2,400 -- for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. "It's a very sad day for all of us because Delhi is celebrating a festive season," Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, told CNN.
That has to be the most unfortunate family name I've ever seen...
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bombs, assasinations & beheadings every fucking day, in the name of allah, all over the world. Cant be arsed to write any more.
Posted by: Shistos Shistadogloo || 10/31/2005 4:21 Comments || Top||

#2  No mention in the UK over the weekend that the likely perps are Muslim. Not sure we need to be told anymore.
Posted by: Howard UK || 10/31/2005 4:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Terrorists blamed for pre-festival attacks which killed 59

Damn CNN...ya sure ya wanna go out on a limb and call them Terrorists? Only 59 civilians kilt and a couple of hondo injured...perhaps their really just freedom fighters? Insurgents? Maybe go with Paradise Seekers so as not to offend any sensibilities.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 10/31/2005 11:46 Comments || Top||

#4  "...Paradise Seekers..."

Lol, DG. That's got just the right accuracy, neutral tone, and MSM derangement to gain traction, heh. I'll borrow it now and then - if you don't mind. *eggcellent*
Posted by: .com || 10/31/2005 15:54 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
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badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
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trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2005-10-31
  U.N. Security Council OKs Syria Resolution
Sun 2005-10-30
  Third night of trouble in Paris suburb following teenage deaths
Sat 2005-10-29
  Serial bomb blasts rock Delhi, 25 feared killed
Fri 2005-10-28
  Al-Qaeda member active in Delhi
Thu 2005-10-27
  Israeli warplanes pound Gaza after suicide attack
Wed 2005-10-26
  Islamic Jihad booms Israeli market
Tue 2005-10-25
  'Bomb' at San Diego Airport Was Toy, Cookie
Mon 2005-10-24
  Palestine Hotel in Baghdad Hit by Car Bombs
Sun 2005-10-23
  Islamist named in Mehlis report held
Sat 2005-10-22
  Bush calls for action against Syria
Fri 2005-10-21
  Hariri murder probe implicates Syria
Thu 2005-10-20
  US, UK teams search quake rubble for Osama Bin Laden
Wed 2005-10-19
  Sammy on trial
Tue 2005-10-18
  Assad brother-in-law named as suspect in Hariri murder
Mon 2005-10-17
  Bangla bans HUJI

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