Posters on the wall herald the march of Islam, but tonight the Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood is a different kind of war room. Essam el-Erian, chief political strategist for the banned but officially tolerated fundamentalist group, performs evening prayers with a dozen other officials and then starts working the phones like James Carville, checking on the results of the final round of the parliamentary elections held last week in Egypt. The early returns are promising. Later that evening, he heads to the Brotherhood's operations center, where banks of computers and election charts, rather than Islamic symbols, line the walls. By then, with the Brotherhood victorious in one race and ahead in others, el-Erian is beaming. "Mabrouk!" he shouts to party members monitoring returns. "Congratulations!"
After years of government repression, activists like el-Erian have a lot to cheer about. The final round of balloting gave the Brotherhood, whose candidates ran as independents, 88 seats in the 454-member parliament, making it the main opposition to President Hosni Mubarak's secular, military-backed regime, which has ruled Egypt for 24 years. The result, a sixfold increase over the group's 15 seats in the current national assembly, came despite clashes between Brotherhood supporters and government police who tried to prevent them from voting. The violence left 12 dead and hundreds injured. And the election raised the possibility that the Brotherhood, which ran a media-savvy campaign that appealed to its fundamentalist base as well as to Egyptians fed up with one-party rule, could eventually take power through the ballot box in the Arab world's most populous country. "We are in a transition period in the history of Egypt," el-Erian says. "We are the real representatives of the country."
The Brotherhood's emergence has set off political tremors across the Middle East--and poses a quandary for the Bush Administration's strategy of promoting democracy and free elections in the region. Founded in 1928, the Brotherhood has never renounced its goal of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate and has long been associated with radical ideologues like Sayyid Qutb, whose writings helped inspire al-Qaeda. During a visit to Egypt last June, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out meetings with the group out of respect for Egypt's laws. And Egyptians across the political spectrum say the Brotherhood's vague slogan "Islam of the solution" masks a militant agenda. "If the country continues to go this way, we are going to move from a military dictatorship to a theocracy," says Hisham Kassem, chief of the liberal Al-Masry al-Youm daily newspaper.
How the Brotherhood uses its clout may be determined by younger leaders like el-Erian, who heads the party's political department. A practicing physician, el-Erian, 51, joined the group after Israel's defeat of the Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War helped spur a revival of Islamic fundamentalism in the Arab world. He was among thousands of activists rounded up at about the time a Muslim extremist assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. After a year in prison, el-Erian won a seat in parliament in 1987, serving three years before being jailed again in 1995.
El-Erian's latest tussle occurred this year, when authorities sent him back to prison for six months for organizing antigovernment street protests. He was released only three weeks before the first round of parliamentary voting. Though freed too late to run for parliament, el-Erian took command of the party's political wing and set up an operations center to coordinate activists, respond to reports of voter intimidation and conduct exit polls. Interviewed by TIME after the final results, el-Erian downplayed fears that the Brotherhood would focus on such issues as banning alcohol and veiling women according to Islamic rules, saying it would seek gradual change in line with the sentiment of the electorate. El-Erian says that in parliament, the Brotherhood's immediate agenda will be "freedom, freedom, freedom."
El-Erian's geniality could make him a future presidential rival of Mubarak's son, Gamal, 42, who has not ruled out a presidential bid in 2011. It also won't hurt the Brotherhood's image with the U.S. As an activist in the 1980s, el-Erian became friendly with Francis Ricciardone, then a young embassy official and currently ambassador to Egypt. So far, the old acquaintances have failed to reunite. Ricciardone suggests the U.S. ban on meetings could be waived for the Brotherhood's M.P.s, telling TIME, "We have always had contact with elected independent members of parliament." Now that they're entering Egypt's halls of power, el-Erian and the Brotherhood aren't likely to be ignored much longer.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/12/2005 03:03 ||
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This was the topic of this most important debate:
A leader of the Khulna Zila Imam Parishad warned both the print and electronic media of dire consequences for covering "unfounded" reports against Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist organisations in future. Mufti Abul Kashem pronounced the threat at a rally of the Imam Parishad held yesterday at 10:30am at the Duckbungalow Square in the city to protest against the countrywide bomb attacks by Islamist militants and suicide bombers. He further threatened to demolish the newspaper offices that will publish any story implicating the Jamaat and other Islamist parties with the outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and its destructive activities. Hearing the threat, the journalists present at the rally moved to safer places.
The speakers at the rally demanded that the government find out the real Islamist militants and suicide bombers and their godfathers, and give them exemplary punishment by enacting a new law, if necessary. They also called upon the suicide bombers and the masterminds of the attacks to stop killing people and committing suicide in the name of Islam as the religion does not approve of these activities. The speakers reiterated that none of the Imam Parishad members, no matter which Islamist party he belongs to, is involved in militancy.
Unless it involves wrecking a few newspaper offices because the turbans don't like what they printed...
POLICE hunting a man suspected of killing the police officer Sharon Beshenivsky called off an armed siege of a house in South Wales early this morning. Dozens of homes in Newport were evacuated and people living near by were told to stay in the back of their houses when 40 officers surrounded the property yesterday morning. It is understood that Gwent Police, who were being assisted by West Yorkshire Police, believed that Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, 24, was in the house. But shortly before 1am they said the man they were looking for was not in the area.
Mr Shah, 24, is one of two men police still want to question over the murder of WPC Beshenivsky in Bradford on November 18. Mr Shah, also known as Pesci or Mr P, is regarded as the most dangerous of the suspects and is suspected of being the person who fired the fatal shot. Police are also looking for Mustaf Jama, 25, whose brother Yusuf, 19, has already been charged with WPC Beshenivskyâs murder. Her colleague WPC Teresa Milburn was shot in the shoulder during the bungled robbery of a travel agency.
The Cromwell Road area of the city was cordoned off from about 7am until midnight, with a helicopter circling the area for much of the time. Police said residents had been moved away for their own safety. Crimestoppers has offered £50,000 for information leading to the conviction of the killers of PC Beshenivsky. Posters across Britain are urging people to look out for the two men still wanted for questioning. Officers had feared that they would try to leave the country.
A leading Russian newspaper, the Iranian government and a Chechen separatist website have all dismissed a British newspaper report claiming that Iran is training Chechen rebels.
Citing "Western intelligence reports" as its source, the Sunday Telegraph reported on November 27 that "teams of Chechen fighters" are secretly being trained "in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces" at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran. The "Chechen volunteers," the newspaper further claimed, "undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom." According to the Telegraph, the Iranians "are growing increasingly suspicious of Moscow's intentions." despite the fact that Russia, which is helping Iran build the Bushehr nuclear reactor, has offered Iran "a face-saving formula" to avoid being reported to the United Nations Security Council for its failure to cooperate fully with U.N. nuclear inspection teams. Moscow has offered to oversee Iran's nuclear enrichment activities to ensure that only partially enriched uranium, which is not of weapons grade, is produced. Western intelligence officials, the newspaper wrote, believe that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sanctioned the training of Chechen fighters. The Sunday Telegraph quoted "a senior intelligence official" as saying of the Iranian regime: "Just as they have orchestrated attacks against British troops in Basra to pressure Britain to drop its opposition to Iran's nuclear program, so they are trying to put pressure on Moscow by backing Chechen fighters."
The author of the Sunday Telegraph article, Con Coughlin, was interviewed by Moskovskie novosti on December 2. He said that according to his sources, Iran is using the Chechen fighters as an "instrument of pressure" on Moscow in order to ensure a "positive outcome" of a Russian inspection of the Iranian nuclear program, as reported on the Russian newspaper's website. Coughlin refused to identify the "senior intelligence official" he cited in his article, but described him as being of the highest reliability and competence. Asked whether the information he reported might have been a deliberate leak by the special services aimed at forcing Moscow to change its position vis-Ã -vis Iran's nuclear program, Coughlin said he did not have an answer to that question but added that according to his information, Iran's connections to the Chechen separatists dated back to 1999 and that Ahmadinejad, who is closely connected to the Revolutionary Guards, has sanctioned the expansion and intensification of the Chechens' military training in Tehran.
The Chechen separatist Kavkazcenter website called Coughlin's report about Iran's alleged training of Chechen separatists "complete nonsense" in an item posted on November 29. "It has long been common knowledge that in relation to Chechnya, Tehran has always taken a clear and unambiguous position," the Kavkazcenter item stated. "Iran in every way justifies Moscow's occupation of Chechnya and will never put its military-economic ties with Russia under threat because of the Chechens." Kavkazcenter added, however, that the "disinformation put out by the British" may have been disseminated "with the consent of Moscow," which is looking for "a convenient pretext to freeze nuclear cooperation with Tehran."
Like Kavkazcenter, Izvestia wrote on November 30 that the Sunday Telegraph report "might verge on the sensational." "Tehran has no need to spoil relations with Moscow by harboring âChechen separatists' on its territory. It is thanks to Russia's restrained policy that the âIranian dossier' has not yet been handed over for examination by the U.N. Security Council. And that means that the British press reports are nothing more than badly executed misinformation, experts believe." Izvestia described the Sunday Telegraph report as "another shot fired in the information war that the West is waging against the Iranian regime," adding that "a quarrel between Tehran and Moscow would make the Western diplomats' work easier."
Tehran weighed in on the Sunday Telegraph article in a press release issued by its embassy in Moscow on December 6. "Public opinion knows well about the clear and unambiguous position of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) regarding issues concerning the Republic of Chechnya," Interfax quoted the pres release as saying. "The IRI has always condemned terrorist acts that lead to the killing and injuring of innocent people, not only in the Republic of Chechnya but everywhere in the world, while regarding phenomena of this kind as violating the holy law of Islam and moral norms generally accepted in the world. The policy of the IRI continues to be built on non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and states. Therefore the IRI regards the issue of the Republic of Chechnya as being in the competence of Russia and its internal matter. In the view of the IRI, the government of Russia and the sides to the conflict should put forward all proposals for settling the problems."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/12/2005 03:24 ||
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Uzbekistan has agreed to allow German troops to continue to use the Termez military base near the Afghan border. The agreement reached on Saturday in Tashkent means Germany is now the only Nato country allowed to deploy troops in Uzbekistan.
Last month the Uzbek government told several European countries they could no longer station troops in the central Asian state or use its airspace. The United States had already been forced to hand back its base. Uzbekistan has been an important hub for US-led operations in Afghanistan since late 2001.
Moscow-Berlin-Tashkent axis
But relations between the West and Tashkent have soured following international criticism of the way Uzbek forces suppressed mass protests in the city of Andijan in May. Uzbekistan is under intense pressure over the Andijan killings
There has been no official explanation as to why Germany alone is able to retain its base. One suggestion is that Moscow, to whom Tashkent has moved closer in recent months, also has strong relations with Germany. Observers also point to the decision by the German authorities to grant the Uzbek interior minister a visa on medical grounds, despite the minister being one of 12 Uzbek officials banned from entering the European Union.
HT to Drudge
A systematic effort by hackers to penetrate US government and industry computer networks stems most likely from the Chinese military, the head of a leading security institute said. The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity.
"These attacks come from someone with intense discipline. No other organization could do this if they were not a military organization," Paller said in a conference call to announced a new cybersecurity education program.
In the attacks, Paller said, the perpetrators "were in and out with no keystroke errors and left no fingerprints, and created a backdoor in less than 30 minutes. How can this be done by anyone other than a military organization?" CSI - Cyberspace
Paller said that despite what appears to be a systematic effort to target government agencies and defense contractors, defenses have remained weak in many areas.
"We know about major penetrations of defense contractors," he said.
Security among private-sector Pentagon contractors may not be as robust, said Paller, because "they are less willing to make it hard for mobile people to get their work done."
Paller said the US government strategy appears to be to downplay the attacks, which has not helped the situation.
"We have a problem that our computer networks have been terribly and deeply penetrated throughout the United States ... and we've been keeping it secret," he said.
"The people who benefit from keeping it secret are the attackers."
Although Paller said the hackers probably have not obtained classified documents from the Pentagon, which uses a more secure network, it is possible they stole "extremely sensitive" information.
He said it has been documented that US military flight planning software from its Redstone Arsenal was stolen.
Pentagon officials confirmed earlier this year that US Defense Department websites are probed hundreds of times a day by hackers, but maintained that no classified site is known to have been penetrated by hackers.
The US military has code-named the recent hacker effort "Titan Rain" and has made some strides in counter-hacking to identify the attackers, Paller said. This was first reported by Time magazine. let's see anti-spammer efforts too!
Paller said a series of attacks on British computer networks reported earlier this year may have similar goals, but seems to use different techniques.
In the United States, he said there are some areas of improvement such as the case of the Air Force, which has been insisting on better security from its IT vendors. But he argued that "the fundamental error is that America's security strategy relies on writing reports rather than hardening systems." dammit
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2005 19:52 ||
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"The fundamental error is that America's security strategy relies on writing reports rather than hardening systems." This is a vast oversimplification, neglecting hundreds, if not thousands of hours of impressive Powerpoint presentations.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
12/12/2005 21:26 Comments ||
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Sounds like he's trolling for training/speaking engagements and contracts. Civilian corporations are pretty well-protected - I can't imagine that military contractors are less so.
A close relative who is a computer security specialist has been going around to defense contractors modifing security systems. The feds have been pushing hacking protection for some time now and are treating it as a high priority.
The first mistake is letting them fly in. Wonder who's paying the airfare?
In Wan Chai, the entertainment district closest to the venue, manhole covers have been welded into place so they cannot be used as missiles and overhead walkways have been covered in wire mesh so nothing can be thrown on to the streets. Hospitals are on standby and all leave has been cancelled. Prison inmates have been relocated so that police have the space to detain large numbers of people.
Hopes are scarcely more optimistic for the action inside the vast convention centre, used for the 1997 handover, where 6,000 delegates will gather tomorrow to thrash out the global trade disputes that have gridlocked the latest WTO round. Few expect anything more than incremental progress; at worst, some fear a repeat of the deadlock that undermined the last summit at Cancún in 2003.
The first demonstration of the week passed off peacefully yesterday, a colourful, if noisy, march by more than 2,000 people. But, to the concern of free-speech campaigners, immigration officials are said to have a blacklist of known activists, who will be denied entry into the territory.
Nah, let them enter .. into bullpens filled with HK coppes holding #7 truncheons ...
Korean farmers, who have been in the frontline of previous WTO protests, say the authorities put pressure on hotels to refuse them rooms, but more than 1,000 are expected to fly in today. They say the liberalisation of the rice market has driven several farmers to suicide, including Lee Kyung-hae, who killed himself at the height of the demonstration in Cancún. "We want to protest peacefully," said Seo Pil-Sang of the Korean Agricultural Federation Trade Union. "But we are desperate. Lee died in Cancún. And unless the WTO listens to the voice of Korean farmers, I'm worried that someone else may kill themselves."
If the rice farms are failing, where's the money for the airfares?
Access will be limited. Although 2,000 accredited non-governmental organisations will be allowed inside the hall, most protesters will be restricted to a nearby "demonstration zone". "I don't think there'll be trouble like in Seattle in Cancún," said Helena Kwong, a marshall. "Hong Kong people are peaceful. We are against unfair trade, but we are not in favour of violence."
In the past three years, hundreds of thousands of local people have taken to the streets to campaign for democracy, but the demonstrations have all passed peacefully. Hong Kong also has more reason than most to be thankful for global trade, which has transformed it into one of the most prosperous cities in the world. Police say the risk will come later and from outside: from European and US anarchist groups and Asian farmers' organisations.
Some local businesses are taking no chances. Two nearby banks and several outlets of international retailers plan to close during the summit. At an Audi showroom close to the venue, sales executive Kenneth Chui said: "We are worried about the safety of our staff. We will board up our windows for at least the opening day. Then, we'll see what the situation is like."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2005 00:40 ||
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This will be very interesting - it ain't your Daddy's HK, anymore, kulture kiddies.
"But, to the concern of free-speech campaigners, immigration officials are said to have a blacklist of known activists, who will be denied entry into the territory."
ROFL! As we used to ask the n00bs in Saudiland when they went bonkers over, well, any number of insane things that passed as normal there:
Just where the hell do you think you are, Mr Twinkie? STFU, and "just lie back and enjoy it"*, lol.
* Hat Tip to Clayton Williams, one-time Donk candidate for Gov of TX who offered that advice on the campaign trail to wymyn during rape.
Q - You're right. He was trying to run as a Pub(bie, lol) and that was quite the rare thang back then - according to the Wiki folks he would've been only the 2nd PubGuv since reconstruction, lol. I shoulda Googled before I posted, lol. I did remember the quote and his Good Ol' Boy campaign, though. It was, um, colorful, lol.
DB - Tiny fonts strain yer baby blues, do they? Lol - sorry! I'm looking forward to the headbusting confrontation between low-IQ anarchists vs. low-IQ control freaks, heh. Pink tanks will be lost on the Chinese, methinks, lol.
Seven people have been injured, cars and shops trashed, and rock and flares hurled at police in a second consecutive night of mob violence in Sydney.
Eleven men were arrested as a new wave of unrest hit the city overnight in apparent reprisal attacks for Sunday's race riot at Cronulla, where alcohol-fuelled mobs chased and bashed people of Middle Eastern appearance.
The trouble began last night when a group of 200 mostly Muslim men gathered at Lakemba Mosque, in Sydney's south-west, apparently after rumours that an attack on the building was imminent.
Rocks and flares were thrown at police trying to disperse the group, and a female constable was injured when a projectile struck her leg.
Police were also hit with projectiles as a crowd of about 100 people gathered for a second night in Brighton-le-Sands, in Sydney's south.
Two police cars were damaged and rubbish bins were thrown at shopfronts as officers attempted to control the crowd.
A family was forced to move out of their apartment after their five-month-old son narrowly escaped being injured when a bottle was thrown through their apartment window, shattering the glass.
At Cronulla, about 50 men arrived in cars last night before rampaging through the beach community, smashing car windows and shopfronts with baseball bats.
Gunshots were heard near the Northies Hotel, opposite north Cronulla beach, where some of the worst violence was seen on Sunday.
Meanwhile, more than 30 molotov cocktails and crates of rocks were found during a rooftop search at south Maroubra, not far from where a mob smashed car windows on Sunday.
Cricket bats, rocks and iron bars were also confiscated by police monitoring about 100 people who gathered near Maroubra beach.
Six people were arrested at Cronulla and on the Kingsway, in nearby Caringbah, after shops and vehicles were attacked.
Two men and three youths were arrested at Maroubra beach after police discovered a replica pistol in the bushes.
Police said the injured included a Bexley couple attacked as they left a restaurant in Caringbah about 10pm (AEDT).
A 35-year-old Lansvale man suffered head injuries and severe facial bruising after being attacked at a youth hostel at Caringbah. He was taken to Sutherland hospital in a stable condition.
A 45-year-old Cronulla man suffered broken ribs and head injuries when he was attacked as he put his rubbish bin out on the street.
A 51-year-old Woolwooware man suffered a broken arm after he was attacked with a baseball bat at Cronulla.
Details of the seventh person's injuries could not be confirmed.
Police are braced for further violence after new text messages, including one declaring war between Sydney's Middle Eastern youths and Australians, began circulating.
The new messages follow a round of similar ones sent last week, calling for retaliation after an attack on surf lifesavers at Cronulla on December 3.
One of the new messages congratulates Australians for the fight they put up against the Lebanese at Cronulla during Sunday's riots, and called for more attacks.
"We'll show them! It's on again Sunday," The Australian newspaper reported the message said.
Another warned of retaliation from the Middle Eastern groups.
"The Aussies will feel the full force of the Arabs as one - 'brothers in arms' unite now..." it read.
Another called for "straight up WAR. The leb's/wogs won't stand for this".
Police have formed a task force to try to prevent a repeat of Sunday's riots, which have been condemned by NSW Premier Morris Iemma.
#1
After all this subsides, I hope the local constabulary will be a little more prompt when someone calls and complains about harassment from Muzzies due to minimal clothing. The warm season is ahead, and the numbers of people dressed in a manner that Muzzies don't care for will only increase.
#2
The morning 'news' shows are full of the usual nonsense and the word 'muslim' is never mentioned. However, a couple of segments were more insightful focusing on the history of weak or non-existant law enforcement against certain ethnic groups (read muslims), because of a lack of political will to address illegal behaviour by these groups, which have resulted in a vigilante type response.
I can't help but think the muslims will consider they have won this round. The significant incident for me in last night was outside the Lakemba mosque a police riot squad was pelted with rocks and bottles resulting in several injuries. The police then withdrew.
#5
In Australia it originally referred to Greeks and Italians, but now it can mean anyone born outside of Australia. In the UK it means Africans or Afro-Caribbeans, though it's hardly ever heard these days, it's a bit of a 70s relic. (Thank god.)
Turkey and the United States plan to hold a military summit on the future of the Kurdish Workers Party in Iraq. Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit was scheduled to meet U.S. military commanders in Washington during a four-day visit. The visit was meant to begin on Dec. 10 and focus on the PKK presence in northern Iraq and othe regional issues. Officials said Buyukanit, expected to be appointed military chief of staff in 2006, would press the U.S. military and Defense Department to honor their pledge to eliminate the PKK presence from northern Iraq. They said Turkey intends to launch a joint operation to expel the PKK from the Kandil mountains before the start of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 12:12 ||
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Al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world, vowed to raise the issue of the provocative caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) recently published by Denmark's main daily, with the UN and international human rights organizations. "This has trespassed all limits of objective criticism into insults and contempt of the religious beliefs of more than one billion Muslims around the world, including thousands in Denmark," Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy said in a statement issued on Saturday, December 10.
"No one has a right to hold our religion in contempt, regardless of anything we might do."
"Al-Azhar intends to protest these anti-Prophet cartoons with the UN's concerned committees and human rights groups around the world," read the statement signed by Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayed Tantawi.
The eminent sheikh seems to have no aversion to looking like an ass, it would seem...
Twelve drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in Denmark's largest circulation daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30. In one of the drawings, an image assumed to be that of the Prophet appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his head. The images, considered blasphemous under Islam, have drawn rebuke from the Muslim minority especially with the paper's adamancy to apologize on the ground of freedom of expression.
It would appear that only Moose limbs have freedumb of expression...
Samha said they need Arab and Muslim support to ensure such violations would not be repeated. Al-Azhar reiterated full respected for freedom of opinion and expression, saying it should be protected by law and constitutions.
Unless it irritates the hypersensitivities of Moose limbs, of course...
"Yet international law experts have agreed that freedom of expression should not be in violation of other guaranteed freedoms and rights, including individual and collective sanctities," read the statement.
That's what I just said. "Crusaders and Jews," "Monkeys and pigs," that's freedumb of expression. Cartoons of the Profit (PTUI), that's oppression.
The ambassadors of eleven Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Indonesia, have written a letter to Danish Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen to protest the caricatures and demand an official apology from the newspaper. Rasmussen said in a written reply that he would not intervene in the affair, on the grounds of freedom of expression. Al-Azhar urged the Danish government to reconsider its position before this "affects the interest of Denmark and its people and undermines cooperation between Danes and Arabs and Muslims."
If a demand doesn't work, try a threat...
Sheikh Tantawi has met with a five-member delegation representing 21 Islamic centers and organizations in Denmark. "Support from Arab and Muslim countries will help our demand for an official apology from the Danish government and a promise such violations would not be repeated," Mohamed al-Khalid Samha, the delegation's spokesman, told IOL. "We came to Cairo seeking the backing of the Arab League and Al-Azhar," he added. Samha said the delegation will also visit other countries including Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and the Vatican.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 11:54 ||
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Tell you what. Why don't all the offended Danish Muslims express their dissatisfaction by boycotting any further habitation of such an offensive nation. I'm quite confident their home countries have far more tolerant policies regarding freedom of expression. At least for Muslims, that is.
Israel has accused the European Union of breaching international laws against terrorism by maintaining contact with the radical Islamist groups Hamas and Hizbollah, in a sign of new tension between Israel and Europe.
Last month, EU foreign ministers gave the green light to contact with Hamas candidates in next monthâs Palestinian parliamentary elections. An official EU monitoring mission will be allowed contact with election candidates, including Hamas, only as part of its technical work.
The Israeli foreign ministryâs accusations, prepared in a legal analysis seen by the FT, came as EU foreign ministers were expected on Monday to discuss an EU report that in its draft version severely criticises Israeli policies in east Jerusalem, saying they demonstrate Israelâs intention to consolidate its annexation of the Arab half of the city.
Many EU officials believe the inclusion of Hamas on the EUâs list of proscribed terrorist organisations has constrained its work in trying to persuade the militant group to renounce violence. Israel has long argued that the west should suspend all engagement with Hamas and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah. âThe EU in its contacts with Hamas and Hizbollah is clearly not maintaining its legal commitment concerning the war against terrorism,â said an Israeli official familiar with the draft foreign ministry report. It cites UN Security Council resolution 1373, adopted after the September 11 attacks on the US, which stipulates that member states must refrain from providing either active or passive support to those involved in terrorism.
The Israeli government has yet to decide what further action it might take against the EU.
Ambassador Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, head of the European Commission delegation in Jerusalem, said on Sunday the EU was not weakening its ban on talks with Hamas and that the EU remained committed to its political dialogue with Israel.
Israel could come under criticism at two conferences in London ...
wow, THAT's never happened before
... this week on ways to boost the Palestinian economy following Israelâs withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this year. In the wake of a suicide attack last week, Israel suspended talks with the Palestinians on a bus link between Gaza and the West Bank, which was due to start on Thursday.
David Welch, US assistant secretary of state who was in the region over the weekend, said he expected the agreement on Palestinian movement to remain on schedule. The bus link and opening of the Rafah crossing were part of an accord brokered by Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, last month.
Shaul Mofaz, Israeli defence minister, on Sunday joined Ariel Sharonâs new party Kadima, which was formed by the prime minister following a rebellion by rightwingers in the Likud party opposed to this yearâs Gaza withdrawal. Mr Mofaz said he would remain defence minister if Kadima won in Marchâs general elections.
The Democratic National Committee chairman recently has been under fire for comments he made on Iraq, in which he said: âThe idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.â After the political firestorm, Dean sought to clarify his remarks, saying he was speaking in metaphor â by âthe United Statesâ he meant âDemocrats,â and by âwar in Iraqâ he meant â2006 elections.â
Can't include picture of Howlin' Howie from Firefox at home.
Here he is ....
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/12/2005 19:17 ||
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The Democrats are in a fix. For them to win or even advance the United States has to *LOSE* the war on Terror [they have no ideas of their own so they will work to 'defeat' Bush and the Republicans by forcing their plans in the WOT to fail - and if a few thousand americans soldiers die, all the better, they usually vote conservative! ] -- and that is what they are pushing for and that is what Howling Dean, Kerry, Kennedy, Muthra, and the others are actively (and I think with full and complete knowledge) working toward - the Defeat of the United States and the Free West in the War on Terror.
Not so much that the Terrorists win - but that the Republicans (and conservatives) lose. They will do anything to score points and win power.
I remember what Kennedy said about the Prison simply 'changing management' (deeply implying that we are also feeding people to shreaders, rape rooms, etc...).
I remember what Dublin said. And the new Democratic Idol 'Mother [f-ker] Cindy Shithan' equilating those who deliberately target and murder innoccent civilians with American 'freedom fighters'. Much like Michael Moore's calling them 'miniutemen'. They disgust me!
These statements are not 'haphazard' or mistakes, the Democratic leadership isn't stupid - they are deliberatey chosen to target and demoralize our troops who are in harms way as well as embolden and encourage those who would like nothing better then the destruction and enslavement of the west.
Howard Dean's target and goal is more dead american soldiers. All to push up the casualty numbers and public outcry for his 'call to withdrawl' and fulfill his goal of an american (and Bush and Conservative) defeat.
They cant help themselves - they placed all their eggs on opposing the war. Declaring it 'illegal' (even after they themseves voted *for* it) or based on deliberate lies (without a shread of proof - that is for republicans like Delay!). They are so deep in the defeat of the U.S. (and by extension Bush and Co) that they couldn't change even if they wanted too..
They don't care about the little guy - the minorities, the poor except as 'votes' so they will introduce programs to Woo and Expand the poor . keep them in bondage (as slaves) to government handouts, and dependant on the Democrats to deliver the drugs - in this case money-for-'free'.
Their worse then the terrorists - at least Bin-Laden doesn't hide his hatred behind a smile, 5 lbs of makeup, and blow-dried hair.
You disagree with the president in a time of war - thats fine and ok and leads to a stronger policy. BUT You MEET WITH HIM AND DISCUSS IT! And you RESPECT THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You do not air your dirty laundry in public for everyone too see.
Yes: Behind its moderate face, the Muslim American Society has deep ties to radical Islam Via JihadWatch
Each Islamic terror attack inevitably prompts calls for Muslim groups to speak out against the killers. And many do, to the relief of non-Muslims of good will eager to be reassured that mainstream Muslims reject violence in the name of their religion. However, a recent case shows that you can't always take the word of these organizations at face value.
This past summer, the Muslim American Society (MAS) announced that, prompted by the second wave of bombings to rock London in two weeks, it would launch a campaign to combat terrorism. The group issued a news release explaining that it planned to build youth centers to keep young Muslims "away from the voices of extremism" and to work with imams and Islamic centers to promote a moderate interpretation of the faith.
In October, MAS petitioned the Richardson City Council suburb of Dallas Texas for a special permit to build one of these youth centers, which it likened to a YMCA, in an area zoned for industrial use. After the council said it would need to learn more about the organization first, MAS withdrew the petition.
Islamic YMCAs to steer young Muslims away from extremism sound great, right? This past July, Mahdi Bray, the executive director of MAS' Freedom Foundation, appeared on Fox News and stated that MAS wanted to "inoculate our young people by making sure they're actively and constructively engaged in positive activities that reflect the main views of their faith tradition, as opposed to someone who would want to influence them into extremist points." Given the radical indoctrination that occurs even in the United States, this kind of work is necessary â and one would naturally like to believe that MAS can play a constructive role.
Unfortunately, a look beneath MAS' current rhetoric into the organization's connections, teachings and prior public statements reveals that extremists founded MAS and that, despite efforts to clean up its public image, the core of its teachings remains unchanged.
A 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that, after a contentious debate, U.S. leaders of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood decided in 1993 to begin calling themselves the Muslim American Society. The Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamist group that largely operates underground. The Brotherhood's goal is to spread the rule of Islamic law throughout the world. Key Muslim Brotherhood ideologues, including founder Hassan al-Banna, have endorsed violence as a means of doing so.
Today, MAS' leaders admit that the group was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, but claim that MAS has evolved since then. For example, former MAS Secretary General Shaker Elsayed told the Tribune, "Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS, but MAS went way beyond that point of conception." If true, perhaps MAS could help counter extremism, despite its radical origins.
However, the available evidence suggests that MAS has not moved away from the Brotherhood's extremist principles. MAS has an internal educational curriculum consisting of literature that Muslims must read in order to advance to a higher membership class â a syllabus that gives the group's game away.
MAS' national Web site does not outline this curriculum, but it was posted on the Minnesota chapter's Web site until an article I wrote for the Weekly Standard exposed it. According to the Web site, goals for "active" members include "building the correct unified comprehension of Islam as outlined in Message of the Teachings by Imam al-Banna." Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
12/12/2005 13:40 ||
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The group issued a news release explaining that it planned to build youth centers to keep young Muslims "away from the voices of extremism" and to work with imams and Islamic centers to promote a moderate interpretation of the faith.
Even if they're sincere [don't laugh, it could happen], rotsa ruck as long as the Soddy money keeps pouring in to these "Islamic Centers".
They never get tired of writing this stuff, do they? I think they generate it like horses generate horse apples.
See. I told you so! There is often a smug feeling of satisfaction when this phrase is used. But no self-indulgent pleasure can be derived when we speak of the regretful situation in Iraq. It defines the continuing immorality against humans and is being carried out by none other than the President of the United States of America.
Zark is not the president of the U.S. Neither is Izzat Ibrahim.
Today, as more and more information on the pre-planning and thinking behind this heinous crime is filtering to the surface, our reservations three years ago on the subject of an illegal invasion and occupation are being widely substantiated.
I'd suggest not only that you don't believe everything you read, but also that you don't write something you'd like to believe, then read it and believe it. You end up with the snake eating its own tail.
In a campaign based on lies, greed, and the wiles of Ariel Sharon of Israel, Bushâs military adventurism into Iraq has won no war on terror.
It's not won yet, though there's a pretty high stack of bodies to show for it. The charges of lying come from parsing isolated phrases over and over. The greed doesn't seem to have paid off yet. Ariel Sharon didn't invade Iraq and probably doesn't even like the place. What Bush's military adventurism actually has done is throw an old-fashioned tin-hat dictator out of office and break up a ruling oligarchy made up of sadists and crooks, to allow Iraqis the privilege of screwing up their own country the way they prefer, rather than the way he prefers. Bush has been trying to devolve the rights that accrue to the state under Baathism to the individual. The fact that the adherents of the old regime don't like that and are fighting tooth and nail to stop it is rather a point in his favor than against him. That they're willing to ally themselves with international terrorism and to slaughter their own people is more a reflection on them than on him.
It is now factually documented that the planned invasion of Iraq began long before the events of Sept. 11.
I'd guess war plans were first drafted about the time the troops came home from the first Gulf War, updated every year or two, and then mostly discarded and rewritten when we actually decided to stomp the sucker this time.
There have been reports from US federal agencies that the White House chose to ignore warnings on possible terrorist attacks on American soil, perhaps to bring together the impetus needed to garner world sympathy and license these âdemocratic lawmakersâ to pursue their diabolical objectives.
Whatever warnings there may have been were pretty vague, if there at all. The "Bush knew" argument consists mostly of sophistry, from what I've seen, though it is much beloved of crackpots.
To manipulate his own constituents into a state of fear, in a State of the Union address back in January 2003, Bush stated âOur intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent... US intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents... We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.â
Now, the really funny part about that is that Sammy seems to have thought the very same things.
And to tie Al-Qaeda in this whole scheme, some more fabrication was needed. âEvidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al-Qaeda,â stated Bush. All these statements today have proven to be untrue.
People like Zarqawi, in fact. So Sammy aided and protected Zark, and now Zark is returning the favor.
A couple of months later, oil hungry Vice President Dick Cheney on âMeet the Pressâ stated: âWe know heâs been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.â
Sammy's acquisitive greed on the subject of weapons of any kind was near legendary. It actually seems to have been a form of mental illness.
Alarm bells and a state of siege was being declared on US citizens with threats of Anthrax, poisened water reservoirs, blown bridges, etc. A very well choreographed setup.
Yes. I remember the anthrax scare in the wake of 9-11. I'm guessing it didn't work as well as the perpetrators intended. As far as I know, it's the first intentional biological weapons attack anywhere, though rumor has it the Soviet accident with the same substance in the late 70s caused a lot more casualties. But I doubt if it was Cheney sending out infectuous letters. Based on who got 'em, I'd guess the perpetrator was an Islamist.
We all know what happened next. Following the âshock and aweâ display of power boasted by Rumsfeld, there were no garlands of flowers, no rejoicing in the streets.
"Shock and awe" was actually scheduled, but they seem to have changed their mind at the last moment because they were squeamish about wiping out the large numbers of cannon fodder we were capable of killing. Instead, they used more precision tactics, leaving a large portion of the Iraqi army to live to demobilization. In gratitude for our mercy, they're now running around blowing up civilians, since they're not very squeamish themselves. And there actually were a few garlands of flowers, there actually was a certain amount of celebrating in the streets, simultaneously with the Sunni weeping and gnashing of teeth, coupled with vows of Dire Revengeâ¢.
Instead there were rising US body counts and coercion by the US military against Iraqi doctors who were brave enough to tell the world of the âotherâ unreported body counts, that of Iraqi civilians.
The rising U.S. body counts aren't rising very quickly. We've been there 32 months, with around 2200 dead, for an average of 68 or 69 dead per month. To achieve the 50,000 dead we took in Vietnam we'd have to remain in Iraq for 60 years. Iraqi "civilian" body counts are always subject to suspicion, since they're routinely inflated for political purposes by the other side, and probably deflated for the same purposes by our side. Additionally, there's the problem of identifying which of the "civilians" are actually non-combatants, rather than bad guyz, who, recall, are technically civilians.
There were indiscriminate killings, and some with more intent. The bombings of Al-Jazeera offices in Baghdad and the murder of one of their correspondents were not in error. They were simply following a similar pattern of when the US bombed the Kabul offices of Al-Jazeera just before the Northern Alliance entered the city. The attempted killing of an Italian journalist, shocked at the atrocities she had witnessed firsthand at Fallujah, took place at a US military checkpoint soon after. In that an Italian intelligence officer was killed in the process, well, we've heard enough about collateral damage. To top it off, the Commander in Chief himself made clear to Tony Blair of the UK that he wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere.
I guess that's a risk you take when you're a war correspondent for an organization that's openly opposed to one of the combatant sides. Correspondents for Volkischer Beobachter probably would have fared about the same at Monte Cassino, or from Asahi Shimbun at Tarawa. I have no more sympathy for the ink-stained wretches than they do for our Marines.
Lame attempts by some spin doctors cannot diminish the sinister attempts by this administration to silence the truth at any cost.
Always depending on your definition of truth, of course.
So long as the simple folks back home donât know the real story, everything shall be hunky dory. Heck, for extra insurance, they'd even recruited journalists on their payroll.
And they've even put lying live feeds right up front with the troops so we can't tell what they're doing. They've embedded journalists with those troops to pass lies back to the simple folk. There are emails flowing from the troops to the home front, reinforcing the lies and deceit. Never in history has a war been reported with so little filtration and "interpretation," and the results are lies, all lies!â¢
Guantanamo, Abu Ghuraib, and scores of secret torture chambers spread out in eastern European countries marks the underhandedness of this administration.
We're much less merciful than the Iraqi bad guyz, in that rather than lopping off the heads of those we capture â and we could build one of those pyramids of skulls that occasionally dot Islamic history and no one else's if we did â we intern the bastards, keeping them alive, feeding them, clothing them, and eventually decided they're not a threat before sending them back to the hellholes they came from, whereupon they embark anew on the road to jihad. My personal preference would be to drop them off at Bikini Atoll and allow them to fend for themselves until the war is over, at which time any who hadn't been slaughtered by their fellows over doctrinal or tribal differences could be patriated to someplace in Antarctica.
The use of outlawed weaponry and chemical warfare used against civilians in Fallujah and elsewhere is a despicable affront to humanity.
It would be, if it had occurred...
There is enough hard evidence to reveal that white phosphorus was deployed as a weapon in Fallujah. US infantry officers confessed that they had used it.
More like admitted to having used it. There's a difference between an admission and a confession. Confession implies you've done something wrong. An admission is often accompanied by a questioning look and the phrase "Why do you ask?"
White phosphorus burns people, and is both incendiary and toxic. The gas it produces attacks the mucous membranes, the eyes and the lungs.
It's a very unpleasant substance. On the other hand, being blown to shreds by high explosive is just as unpleasant. Being kaboomed by a suicide boomer wearing a vest containing rat-poisoned hardware is also unpleasant. What's yer point?
The US Army knows that its use as a weapon is illegal, but yet there were no attempts by the Commander in Chief to forbid its use. Talk about chemical warfare against the innocent!
Actually, the Army knows no such thing. The fact that you want it to be illegal doesn't make it so.
In a statement to the BBC recently, Peter Kaiser of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons stated, âIf... the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is prohibited, because... any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.â
The heat produced by WP, while unpleasant, is not one of its toxic properties. As I've stated before, WP is not a chemical weapon unless the definition of chemical weapons is changed.
One eventually loses score of the numerous war crimes that have been committed as a result of this illegal and immoral invasion and continuing occupation.
Lost your train of thought, didja? Happens to me sometimes, too.
Nor would a score of columns of print be sufficient to highlight all these crimes. Over a 100,000 innocent civilians, many who were just children, have lost their lives because of Bushâs adventurism.
I believe the 100,000 figure's been pretty well discredited by now, but I'd also add that it's about a third of the numbers recovered to date from Sammy's mass graves. So let's do a little cost benefit analysis here. Assuming Sammy continued in his methodical manner and we in ours, I'd make that three people saved for every one destroyed. I've also pointed out that even if the number of 100,000 is correct, and all were "civilians," are are not "innocent" civilians, unless one has a pretty greasy definition of innocence...
There is indeed no âpie in your faceâ sense of satisfaction in all of this.
You seem to be imitating it well enough...
Today, as I watch the pitiful figure of Saddam Hussein in court, on trial facing charges of crimes against humanity while he was in command, I ask myself: âShouldnât Mr. Bush, et al, be sharing the seat next to him?â
I don't think so. Millions of us don't, in fact. The fact that you wish it could be so doesn't matter squat.
U.S. moonbat peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who won wide attention with a vigil outside President George W. Bush's ranch in the name of her soldier son killed in Iraq, is the subject of a new play by Nobel laureate Dario Fo.
"Peace Mom" received its world premiere in London on Saturday night, starring British actress Frances de la Tour, with both Sheehan and Italian dramatist Fo in the audience.
The one-woman show is based on extracts from Sheehan's letters to Bush and other writings. De la Tour delivered the monologues beneath large pictures of Sheehan's son Casey and a tank in the Iraqi desert in front of a plume of fire.
"Frances did such an amazing job of conveying my feelings of anger and betrayal," a tearful Sheehan said after the play. She said she hoped the play would help "put a human face" on the war. Sorry, no Human face. Just yours.
Sheehan, from Vacaville, California, has become one of the best-known figures calling for U.S. defeat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq since she protested for several weeks outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August.
Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan over the death of her son in 2004 but will not pull out U.S. forces. Some of his supporters on Rantburg have gone further, accusing her of being an advocate of surrender in the face of terrorism.
The play was rushed into production to conclude a day-long conference of activists opposed to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, with de la Tour reading some passages from a script.
Fo, the leftist playwright who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature, said his wife and artistic partner Franca Rame would star in a longer final version of the play in Italy. A leftist winning the Nobel. I'm so surprised.
Hundreds of anti-war protesters, including American Cindy Sheehan, attended an international peace conference in London on Saturday to condemn the Iraq conflict. Tony Benn, a veteran leftist politician in the governing Labour Party, opened the one-day meeting by calling the war "illegal, immoral and unwinnable." He said the peace movement wants to see coalition troops withdrawn from Iraq, justice for Palestinians and a ban on any Western military attacks on Iran or Syria. Benn said anti-war sentiment was growing in the United States and Britain, whose armed forces dominate the coalition's military presence in Iraq.
Up to 1,500 anti-war protesters and activists gathered for the 10-hour conference, which was organized by the Stop the War Coalition. The scheduled speakers included Sheehan, who has become a focus of anti-war sentiment in the United States by camping outside the Texas ranch of President George W. Bush; Hasan Zergani Hashim, a spokesperson for Iraq's radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr; and leftist British legislator George Galloway.
In an interview with Sky TV, Galloway urged British forces to leave Iraq. "The only thing the Iraqis want from the British government is to see the backs of their heads as they leave the country," he said. "If occupation is ugly, then resistance will hardly be pretty," he said, in an apparent reference to the deadly attacks that are being conducted by insurgent groups in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 00:28 ||
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This is the face and the voice of the anti-war movement that we want to see. It's pathetic and self-refuting. In a way, I've come to love Sheehan. She makes for wonderful material - so wrong-headed it's funny. I love the fact that all the more mainstream-aspiring anti-war types in the media (Dowd, Huffington, etc. have now quietly backed away as the extend of her looniness became unmistakeable and irrepressable, despite the elite's best efforts to groom, and manage her into a more marketable anti-Bush figure). She's naturally gravitated to fringe where she belongs.
The best possible course is to give her the microphone and the spot light and let her do her thing with Galloway and al-Sadr's reps. Make sure everyone knows what she's about. Sensible Democrats (an increasingly rare breed) will be having ulcers.
#2
I find it interesting that news agencies feel sports and Weather are important enough to have experts but when it comes to war reporting any newbie (or political pundit) will do.
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12/12/2005 18:54 Comments ||
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The Balochistan Jafari Alliance, has urged members of the provincial assembly, particularly ministers of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal in the coalition government, to play their role in curbing terrorists who wanted to fan sectarianism to create misunderstanding between the two major sects. Speaking at a press conference at the press club on Sunday, Allama Maqsood Ali Domki, chief of the alliance, alleged that within the past week a religious personality was killed in Dera Murad Jamali and another person was killed in Quetta. He said that the government was indecisive about punishing terrorists.
He said that Sunnis and Shias and different ethnic groups had been living in Balochistan like brothers for centuries but for couple of years terrorists had killed hundreds of innocent people belonging to the Shia sect, and added that such activities by a small group were aimed at fanning hatred between both the sects. Mr Domki stated that it was the responsibility of parliament members, nazims and councillors to raise voice against the oppression. He said that the provincial government, especially MMA ministers, should not remain silent regarding the excesses being committed against innocent people.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 16:31 ||
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Via DhimmiWatch
Same old. Same old. Coming to a fashionable arrondissement near you.
MEET Sanno Amra and his wife Champa: a middle-aged Hindu couple. They live in a small, simple but spotlessly clean home in Karachiâs Punjab Colony.
Until six weeks ago, they lived with their five children, reasonably content with their lot. Sanno worked as a chauffeur, and his wife cooked for a family. On October 18, their lives suddenly fell apart: Champa returned home from work to discover that her three oldest daughters were missing â Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17) had seemingly vanished without a trace. This is any parentâs worst nightmare, but the coupleâs woes had only begun.
After searching frantically for the girls, they went to the local police station where the SHO put them off without registering a case. A couple of days later, they met the deputy superintendent of police for Clifton. This proved to be the only bright spot in the entire tragic episode, for DSP Raza Shah went out of his way to help. He forced his subordinates to file an FIR, and his intervention was invaluable in ensuring the safety of the parents. And just for the record, the MQM âsector-in- chargeâ also lent them his organisationâs support.
On October 22, a police FIR for kidnapping was duly prepared, naming three young men from the
On October 22, a police FIR for kidnapping was duly prepared, naming three young men from the neighbourhood as the principal suspects. Immediately, Sanno and his wife started getting threats from their neighbours. Earlier they had never had any problems, although they were the only Hindu family in a predominantly Muslim locality. But now, the same people were pressuring them to remove the names of the local boys from the FIR.
Within days, they received a package by courier containing three identical affidavits signed by their daughters, stating that they had converted to Islam of their own free will. The declaration concluded: âThat since my parents are Hindu and after conversion of my religion, it is not possible for me to live and pass my life in Hindu system/society [sic] and therefore, I have decided to live separately...â
According to their affidavits, the girls (now calling themselves Afshan, Anam and Nida) were living in the hostel of the Madarsa Taleem-ul-Quran, and were being instructed by a local moulvi. On November 10, a court order directed the police and the administrators of the seminary to arrange a meeting between the girls and their parents.
When Sanno and Champa finally met their daughters, they were shocked to see that they were in burqas that concealed them from head to toe, leaving only their eyes uncovered. The eyes of the youngest girl were bloodshot from weeping. At this supposedly private meeting, a dour woman was present throughout as were a moulvi and a couple of cops. In subdued voices muffled by heavy fabric, the girls said they wanted to stay where they were. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
12/12/2005 13:51 ||
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When night fell after the Oct. 8 quake, many survivors burned broken furniture to stay warm. Some, however, stormed the shattered state-run Khursheed National Library, pulling out books and newspapers to make bonfires.
An estimated 10,000 books went up in smoke that night. Three days later, half the library's books â including Qurans â had been turned into ashes, when the army stepped in and stopped it.
Mohammed Hanif, a clerk at the library for 14 years, "did not believe it" when his brother came rushing to Hanif's home and told him what was happening at the library.
"But when I rushed there I saw several people taking books to a nearby park where they were staying with their families after their homes were destroyed" Hanif said. The books are like my children. I wept when they were throwing the books into the fire."
"I tried to stop them, but they started beating me."
After the army halted the looting, Hanif came back and retrieved what was intact, salvaging copies of an American encyclopedia, a Quran, books of novels and nonfiction works.
The 25,000 books that survived are in two garages that Hanif guards. They will be sent to a library in Mirpur, another city in the Pakistani part of Kashmir, and returned when the Muzaffarabad library is rebuilt over the next two years.
The 7.6 magnitude quake killed at least 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Aid workers have been racing against time to get aid and suitable shelter to the needy with the arrival of the brutal Himalayan winter and plunging temperatures.
The library housed rare books on Kashmir, handwritten manuscripts hundreds of years old, government records and the works of local poets.
Some of the library's 1,500 members who borrowed books before the earthquake are returning them while others are asking to borrow materials, Hanif said.
"But we don't have either the staff or records to issue books," he said.
Nazir Durrani, a government official who frequented the library, said he did not believe people realized that copies of the Quran were going into the fire.
"The burning of these books was a tragedy. When I think of those who did it, they would never be forgiven by God," he said.
Posted by: john ||
12/12/2005 07:05 ||
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Burning books is a tragedy, freezing to death is a greater tragedy, books can be replaced.
Get over it, it's not even remotely related to the German book burnings of WW2, that was Fanaticism, this is survival.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/12/2005 9:58 Comments ||
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True, but I bet it was a holy man who pointed out the building full of infidel combustibles to the freezing locals...
#3
... they were throwing the books into the fire." "I tried to stop them, but they started beating me."
Somewhere, the unveiled Saudi girls who burned to death after they were forced back into their burning school are smiling. If there is anything unholy, it is people freezing to death for fear of keeping themselves warm.
Music and TV have been banned. Women are confined to their homes. Shops must close five times a day for prayers, an edict enforced by armed religious police who patrol the streets. These changes, say local residents and reporters, have come just within the past few months to Waziristan, a restive region along the Afghan border that is seen as a possible hideout for Al Qaeda leaders.
When you find Talibs enthusiastically oppressing everybody in sight, that's a pretty good sign the place is a "possible hideout for al-Qaeda leaders." Whenever they set up, they do the very same thing, which is to enforce their view of how everybody else should live.
Last year, under pressure from the US to clean up the semi-autonomous zone, Pakistan launched military operations that ended 10 months ago in a peace deal with some rebel tribes. Now the harsh edicts and an upsurge in violence suggest that Waziristan is far from pacified.
The area's under the political control of the MMA, which is the "legitimate" face of hard boyz. The locals claim to love their holy men 'most to death. So in this case, the change is only incremental.
Observers say it is slipping back into the hands of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, despite the 60,000 Pakistani troops and paramilitaries garrisoned there.
I doubt it's "slipping back into" their hands. They're only showing their hand more clearly because they feel stronger. 60,000 Pakistani troops is a significant force, I guess, when opposed by shopkeepers and Qadianis and Shiites, but they don't do really well against other armed forces, not even Pashtun irregulars.
"Since [the deal], the government authority seems to have become weak," says Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist who reports on Pakistan's tribal area. "The vacuum has been filled by these militants."
The government's authority was merely revealed as weak. The peculiar arrangement within the tribal areas actually excludes actual government control, demanding, rather good behavior from the tribals. They're free, in most cases, to define "good."
In a tally compiled from official sources and newspaper reports, more than 60 pro-government tribal and religious leaders have been killed, two local journalists have been gunned down, and hundreds more people have fled since February. "They do what they feel like doing and there is no one to stop them," says a local reporter there who left the South Waziristan district capital Wana after receiving threats from militants. "And it's the foreign elements among them," he says, referring to Al Qaeda, "who are calling the shots."
Those are the ones the local big turbans keep assuring the gummint aren't there.
Just this past week, a bomb blast in the bazaar in Jandula left 12 dead. Separately, four paramilitary troops patrolling Wana were kidnapped by militants. And in North Waziristan, armed Islamic seminary students clashed with a group of bandits, killing at least 20. With a ferocity that harkens back to the early days of the Taliban, the students hung their victims in the streets of the district capital Miranshah, stuffing their mouths full of money.
It's well it should "harken back to the early days of the Taliban." It was Taliban who dunnit. The Talibs originated in the madrassahs on the Pak side of the border. These are the very same people, with the very same education, doing the very same things. The Pak gummint hasn't drained the fever swamps, so the 12-year-old seminary larvae continue to grow into 20-year-old psychopaths.
The violence came days after an unmanned aircraft killed five suspected militants, including, Pakistani officials say, Abu Hamza Rabia, a top Al Qaeda figure.
Cheezed 'em off, did it? Or were they going to do it anyway? My guess is the latter.
Senior Pakistani officials say it's too soon to jump to the conclusion that terrorists were behind last week's violence. "I don't think it should raise eyebrows or concern," says Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukut Sultan.
... adjusting his rose-colored glasses.
"It appears these incidents are more related to local politics between the tribes.... It is more related to that than terrorism."
The two are as intertwined as the threads in the general's turban, as he well knows. Therefore he has a reason to pooh-pooh the thought...
But analysts point out that tribal battle lines have been drawn of late between groups that allied themselves with the Army, and those who sided with the militants. There is increasing evidence that Arab, Uzbek, and Chechen fighters linked to Al Qaeda are operating in the area, according to Mr. Yusufzai and others. Locals, none of them willing to be quoted, said the militants had gone so far as to open recruiting offices in North and South Waziristan to recruit fighters for their "jihad" against the Pakistan Army and US forces in Afghanistan. Video released by the militants, and sold in local shops as part of their recruitment drive, show militants training openly.
I would guess that we — the Americans, not our Pak allies — have very good photo maps of where those training camps are located. We may share that information with the Paks, but when we do my guess would be that they claim the information's wrong — that they're not training camps, but... ummm... Pashtun recreation areas or something.
The militants have even held public gatherings, the most recent in October to mark the year anniversary since the Pakistan military bombed a militant camp in Dela Khula, killing 40 of their comrades. As part of the February deal, militants pledged to renounce violence and end attacks in Afghanistan. Yet Afghan officials in the three provinces that border Waziristan, contacted by the Monitor, say the frequency and sophistication of cross-border attacks have actually increased.
Could it possibly be that they were lying through their turbans for tactical gain? Has that ever happened before? Lemme think, now...
"They launch suicide attacks, plant bombs, and launch ambushes," says Paktia police chief Aghul Suleiman Khan. "Increasingly, we see Arab fighters leading them."
Here's the trend that's been growing under the noses of the guys who should be watching it: Want a caliphate? Don't bother waiting for the local government to fall. Just set up your own. Put your holy men in place and start enforcing your favorite flavor of shariah. Nobody's going to do anything to stop you.
You can see it in full flower in Waziristan, but you can also see it it Fallujah and Ramadi. You can see it happening right now in Bangla. You can see it in Luton and in Gay Paree and in Barcelona and, still in infancy, in Toronto. In Fallujah and Ramadi we have the luxury of boming them out. Every other place, they're growing like a cancer, while the governments who're entrusted with the safety of their citizens dither and argue and pretend it's not so.
Watch the trend. It's not going to be pleasant.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/12/2005 03:12 ||
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#1
I'm thinking the Master of the Obvious graphic. I'm also thinking this should become the PakiWaki Ground Zero... Then radiate outward in a spiral until the whole freaked-out place is a set of smoking holes.
I can see it now...a millenia or two on, when man migrates back to temperate climes and finally regains space flight after the spirited games with Islamic Jihad HS and Golden Dragon HS are, um, over, they'll see the design - and conclude that only visitors from outer space coulda done it. How would you say Eric Von Daniken in Inuit Esperanto? Heh. He could call the book Dogsleds of the Gods has a catchy ring, doncha think? Mush, baby, mush.
#3
But, IIRC, we don't have the neutron variety anymore - I think it was Geo41 who signed a Presidential finding or something "outlawing" them from our inventory.
Looks like Dubya's gotta fix yet another dumbass legacy decision from the old man's crew. I'm all for reopening production lines for these babies, myownself. They make one helluvalot of sense. :-)
#4
I have to agree with the idea of neutron bombs. They always struck me as the kindest method available -- the subjects of the bomb evaporated, leaving a clean and relatively undestroyed place available for resettlement, with no residual radiation to affect the health of the survivors and the settlers. Quite unlike the tales after Hiroshima about eyeless people wandering around with their skin falling off until they fell over dead.
#5
tw. neutron radiation is probably the worst type there is. It takes an awful lot of lead to shield something from neutron radiation. Boron impregnated polyeurathane works as well but the best is a combination of the 2. Thpeople affected are affected differently based on their distance from the ignition point. They still die from radiation sickness but it is a quicker death in most cases. The neutron radiation is not lingering because their are no radioactive particles lying around. Neutrons themselves are not radioactive but do destroy (ionize) cell nuclei. That is what kills.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/12/2005 9:51 Comments ||
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#6
You entirely forget the corpses lying around and rotting, don't think that the radiation will sterilize all of them, and one rotting corpse will provide all the germs needed to infest the others.
Such vectors as birds and vermin will spread the germs from infested corpse to "Sterilized" ones in a day or so.
Three days to "Uninhabitable" is a fair estimate.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/12/2005 10:06 Comments ||
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#7
My earlier post was a facetious misquote from a film. Enhanced radiation weapons are the truly nasty apogee of the weapon smithâs craft, their effectiveness lies in their ability to rapidly mutate nucleic acids destroying the cellular capability to repair or replicate successfully. Death by cellular failure or eurythrocytic leukemia is not a death a human should wish on another. Unless they are Welsh or look funny of course.
#9
Deacon Blues: Actually neutrons are radioactive, with a halflife of about 10 minutes. I can think of a couple of additional pathways for damage: scattering off protons, which stop quickly and dump a lot of energy locally; and (when the neutrons have slowed down via scattering) getting captured by a nucleus and activating it, which I'd expect to then decay with beta or gamma emission. Neutrons (being neutral) don't do direct ionization as they fly through cells.
Posted by: James ||
12/12/2005 17:36 Comments ||
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#10
So, if I understand you correctly, Deacon, neutron bombs are so effective because they are more intensely radioactive at the time of explosion? The follow-on to that thought seems to me to be that those within the effective radious of the explosion (is that the correct terminology?) will be hit by a brief but exceedingly high dose of radiation, which would kill more quickly than a traditional nuke. Given my understanding of the ugliness of traditional radiation-induced dying, I don't find this objectionable. As for the large number of rotting corpses, that is the customary result of war, and the customary response is mass graves or pyres. But the stench of rotting flesh is not nearly as dangerous for the survivors as high levels of residual radiation. I know which I would choose for myself, if I had to choose.
#11
TW: No high-levels of radioactivity remain - that's the beauty/rub with Neutron bombs. The people (animals too) die, but the area can be occupied quickly afterward by your troops
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2005 21:08 Comments ||
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#12
"by your troops"
I like the sound of that, Frank. How many troops do I get? ;-)
#13
The Talibs originated in the madrassahs on the Pak side of the border. These are the very same people, with the very same education, doing the very same things.
To steal a line from someone else: they're the only religious students on earth who know how to drive tanks..(or something like that).
and, still in infancy, in Toronto
Um, no. That was shot down by the provincial(?) Liberals. No more religious courts, arbitration, or whatever, for whoever.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/12/2005 21:18 Comments ||
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Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) chief Nawab Akbar Bugti and National Party chief Sardar Attaullah Mengal have said the government is planning a military operation in Balochistan. Talking to BBC on Sunday about the situation in Balochistan, Akbar Bugti said personnel from the Sindh and Punjab Rangers and Frontier Corps (FC) had surrounded the province and could advance at any time. He said the number of FC personnel had been increased to 15,000 and that a part of the operation had started on a limited level in Turbat, Nushki and Kalat. He also denied the involvement of the Baloch in bomb blasts.
Attaullah Mengal said the government had shut down all political options and was now using force. He said he was ignorant about the Baloch Liberation Army and Baloch Liberation Front, but that he supported them morally as they are working for Balochistanâs cause. He said there would be no talks with Musharraf on the Kalabagh Dam issue and that he would resist its construction.
FC officials said no military operation was being undertaken in the province and that the FC presence in Nushki and Kalat was not for military purposes, but for security surveys.
The Red Cross has codified a set of rules on warfare aimed at making it easier to prosecute people who commit acts of terror and other crimes. The code, which took a decade to draft, sets out the "customary rules of warfare" and is particularly intended to help bring to justice those combatants who commit crimes but may not belong to the army of any state.
With the fast-changing nature of warfare that increasingly involves attacks on innocent civilians, "the implications for conflicts based on the use of terror should be obvious," senior Red Cross official Michael O'Brien said. Lawyers at a conference in New Delhi to mark the regional launch of the code hailed it as a legal landmark. "It's a major step in holding to account those who commit crimes in conflicts who might not have otherwise been held to account," Mr O'Brien said.
The three-volume work was prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross with the help of experts from over 50 countries. It draws its "customary rules of warfare" from those found in common usage among "civilised states". Its 161 rules define as illegal attacks on innocent civilians, torture, the use of human shields and a host of other offences. The code was commissioned 10 years ago by the 192 states which signed the Geneva Convention that lays down rules of warfare. While virtually all states have ratified the 1949 Geneva Convention, not all have ratified treaties dealing with such matters as internal conflicts and the code is aimed at helping plug the gap, Mr O'Brien said. "These rules bind people whether or not they're fighting for a state that has accepted treaties on warfare conduct or whether even they belong to an army of a country," he said.
The warfare rules in the code are backed-up by a host of legal precedents from around the world and examples of international practices based on military manuals and legislation. The code does not have to be ratified by any country but is intended to be used as a source of law to help prosecute combatants who commit offences. It "significantly strengthens the body of law" applicable to armed conflicts and especially civil wars, Mr O'Brien said. "(This code) not only minimises the effect of non-ratification of treaty law by some states, it also addresses the applicability of humanitarian law to non-state actors," he said.
The new Red Cross code "is one of the most important documents on humanitarian law in warfare I've seen in my lifetime," said Francoise Hampson, a member of the UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. "It holds the individual responsible for their acts," he said. "Any person not bound by treaty law is going to be bound by customary law."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 00:25 ||
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#1
Got a Confidence Meter Fred? One with the needle wrapped around the zero peg two or three times?
If only .001% as much honest effort was put into eliminating corruption, graft, backward and barbaric customs, irrational fear-mongering, nepotism, despotism, and authoritarian rule, the world could become a far more prosperous and safe place... negating most of the modern day reasons for war.
I trust the Int'l Red Thingy about as much as I do those who are applauding, such as the UN. Parasites all.
#2
Lawyers at a conference in New Delhi to mark the regional launch of the code hailed it as the most important source of new Porches and beach houses in a decade.
#3
"It holds the individual responsible for their acts," he said. "Any person not bound by treaty law is going to be bound by customary law."
How long before this will be used against an un-suspecting former US military person vacationing in Europe? There's that judge in Spain...
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/12/2005 2:15 Comments ||
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"These rules bind people whether or not they're fighting for a state that has accepted treaties on warfare conduct or whether even they belong to an army of a country," he said.
"(This code) not only minimises the effect of non-ratification of treaty law by some states, it also addresses the applicability of humanitarian law to non-state actors."
1. NGOs have no power to promulgate binding law.
2. "Minimizing the effect of non-ratification" is aimed squarely at forcing the US to comply with the 1977 Protocol I to Geneva Convention III. The US is not a signatory, and it's not followed enough to constitute customary law, because it would extend POW protections to terrorists, guerillas, and insurgents. (One such protection is the right not to be interrogated). Protocol I is the ICRC's basis for demanding access to all our GWOT detainees, so this "code" amounts to a bald grab at global lawmaking.
3. "Non-state actors" means employees of US contractors, not terrorists of various nationalities. The ICRC knows as well as we do that publishing a little guidebook isn't going to suddenly make the head-choppers play nice, whereas we cave to international pressure all the time.
Argh!
Posted by: ST ||
12/12/2005 3:01 Comments ||
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#5
ST has it right: an NGO has no right to legislate, and we are not bound by treaties we have not signed, period.
#6
Wonder how NGO's feel if Congress passed laws making it a criminal act to attempt to exert unlawful and non-consentual powers over the government and people of the United States without the proper Constitutional executive and legislative recognition? Tack on conspiracy charges to the process as well. This could be fun!
#9
"...it also addresses the applicability of humanitarian law to non-state actors."
How do Customary Laws that don't address the ramifications for non-adherence by non-state actors "hold the individual responsible for their acts"?
And it only took a decade to draft these laws?
President George W. Bushâs administration is drawing up plans to carry out the biggest overhaul of the US foreign aid apparatus in more than 40 years in an attempt to assert more political control over international assistance, according to officials and aid experts. The proposed reorganisation could lead to a takeover by the State Department of the independent US Agency for International Development. USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, managing aid programmes, disaster relief and post-war reconstruction totalling billions of dollars each year.
Critics in the aid community fear the reorganisation will lead to a politicisation of foreign assistance, where aid will become subordinated to the Bush administrationâs drive to promote democracy.
Horrors! What a thought! And do you have any IDEA what that will do to the NGOs???? The nerve of the man!
Supporters of the proposed reforms argue that USAID must be brought more in line with policy goals focused on post-conflict reconstruction and democratisation rather than pure development aid where they allege funds are squandered ...
yup
... and the agency is driven more by efforts aimed at self-perpetuation.
double yup
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and Stephen Krasner, head of policy planning, are leading the reforms. Officials said proposals could be put to Congress next month. A new position of deputy secretary of state for aid and development is being considered.
Previous administrations have considered similar ideas but rejected them as impractical or unlikely to pass Congress, and officials concede this could happen this time round. A precedent of sorts exists in the controversial 1999 merger into the state department of the independent US Information Agency, a move that has since been blamed by all the correct people in part for failures in US public diplomacy.
A spokesman for USAID said no final decision had been taken. He noted that rumours of the agencyâs demise surface regularly. Andrew Natsios, head of USAID for nearly five years, announced his resignation on December 2. No replacement has been announced. The USAID spokesman said his departure was not connected to a possible reorganisation. Mr Natsios was credited with effective responses to natural disasters, such as the Asian tsunami. But experts say USAID and the Pentagon share blame for the failure of state building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Failure in Afghanistan? That's been a success story so far. There's a state there that wasn't there before.
Carol Lancaster, a Georgetown University professor and co-author of âOrganising US Foreign Aidâ says merging USAID into the state department would be a mistake. âIâm concerned that a real merger has the very great danger of eventually undercutting the development mission because of tensions, pressures and the nature of foreign policy,â she commented. âThe pressure to use money for short-term crisis management, or the war on terror, could be overwhelming.â
It isn't like the development side has been a smashing success.
A State Department official, who asked not to be named, said the goal of the reforms was to make US aid better linked to the administrationâs democracy and development agenda. âThere is a feeling that we need to be more strategic,â he said. The administration wanted more flexibility in how money was spent, he said, noting that a considerable portion of the US aid budget was heavily âearmarkedâ by Congress tying aid to particular countries and projects. The Bush administration began the reform process by setting up the Millennium Challenge Corporation which rewards countries with records of good governance. Welcomed as a good concept, it has also been criticised for moving too slowly.
#1
For the benefit of current USAID employees, NGOs, PVOs, recipient countries and everyone else with their hands out or issuing their opinions, would it be imprudent or arrogant to remind them of the fact that it's our money, the tax-payers of America, and that President Bush and VP Cheney are the only elected officials who answer to all Americans?
It's our money. It should serve our interests alone. Everybody else, and that means you, Kofi Anon and Jan Egeland, and your parasitic Vulture Elite UN in particular, can STFU.
#2
Article: Critics in the aid community fear the reorganisation will lead to a politicisation of foreign assistance, where aid will become subordinated to the Bush administrationâs drive to promote democracy.
Where aid money goes is a political decision, since we, the taxpayers, provide that funding.
#8
HAts off to Bush for FINALLY getting to this. .com, you stole our thunder and are exactly right! It's the Taxpayer's money and it shoud serve our interests! Having been forced to work with AID I can tell you it is full of Cindy Sheehan, burkenstock, tree hugging, anything the govt says is wrong, type moonbats!
Carol Lancaster's comments are really taken as the objective statement for AID. Thank god something is about to happen, the agency is extreemly important and completely mismanaged.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/12/2005 8:01 Comments ||
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The proposed reorganisation could lead to a takeover by the State Department of the independent US Agency for International Development.
Oh, yeah, right. So we'll have the fox watching the hen house now. Big deal. State gets a reward for back stabbing the President. I'm so impressed. Next, independent audits by Arthur Anderson.
#10
Condoleeza Rice is an active shepherd at State. Granted, it must be much like herding cats, but I can't imagine the diplomatic corp are running as freely as they have in the past. The power to hire and fire is a powerful incentivizer, and I wouldn't mind seeing her stay home for a bit to concentrate on cleaning out that particular Aegean Stable.
#11
I worked for a few months at an NGO that was funded by USAID. When I started, my boss gave me a quick sketch of the organization and showed me how the funding and programming were washed through at least 20 stateside 'entities' before it went to the outposts in-country. The coffee, donut, and bagel bills just for the meetings between all these entities in DC alone prolly consumed half the funding. And the big boss had to fly twice a year to the Lagos office because shockingly, the Nigerian accounting systems differed somewhat from international standards.
#12
Way over due. Hopefully now the food and other crap we send to the Norks all over Africa and lots of enemies or dictators ect... The LLL's problem is that they are welfare believers that if you give someone a fish suddenly they will learn how to live you have to show them how to catch a fish or you just create a dependent that the more you take care of the more they mulitple and the more that is needed. Not to mention they begin to think you owe it to them and they dont even appreciate what you give them.
#13
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and Stephen Krasner, head of policy planning, are leading the reforms.
I love it, going to be damn near impossible to play the "Black folks get screwed" card with her in charge.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/12/2005 10:26 Comments ||
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#14
Perhaps we should use the money to fund our chunk of the UN and then tell the former recepients that any money not getting through to them was probably stolen by UN Bureocrats and perhaps they should help us straighten out the den of thieves and liars instead of kneejerk voting against the USA because it makes you feel manly and poor.
#16
Redneck - their just call her an oreo (black on the outside and white on the inside) and get away with it. Or a 'slave of Bush' or anything but a respectable Doctor or PhD!
After all a black (or woman or 'latino' or ....) simply couldn't have earned all her honors on their own - without Democratic help! (That is the Democratic mindset not mine).
This can't be. EFL. An opinion poll suggests Iraqis are generally optimistic about their lives, in spite of the violence that has plagued Iraq since the US-led invasion. But the survey, carried out for the BBC and other media, found security fears still dominate most Iraqis' thoughts. Their priority for the coming year would be the restoration of security and the withdrawal of foreign troops.[See below] A majority of the 1,700 people questioned wanted a united Iraq with a strong central government.
The poll by Oxford Research International was commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and other international media organisations, and released ahead of this week's parliamentary elections in Iraq. Although most Iraqis were optimistic about the future, the poll found significant regional variations in responses. In central Iraq respondents were far less optimistic about the situation in one year's time than those in Baghdad, the south and north.
The BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says the survey shows a degree of optimism at variance with the usual depiction of the country as one in total chaos. The findings are more in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by US President George W Bush, he says. ...his lips being screwed on tight, his head exploded instead.
However, our correspondent adds that critics will claim that the survey proves little beyond showing how resilient Iraqis are at a local level - and that it reveals enough important exceptions to the rosy assessment, especially in the centre of the country, to indicate serious dissatisfaction.
Interviewers found that 71% of those questioned said things were currently very or quite good in their personal lives, while 29% found their lives very or quite bad. When asked whether their lives would improve in the coming year, 64% said things would be better and 12% said they expected things to be worse.
However, Iraqis appear to have a more negative view of the overall situation in their country, with 53% answering that the situation is bad, and 44% saying it is good. But they were more hopeful for the future - 69% expect Iraq to improve, while 11% say it will worsen. In all, 1,711 Iraqis were interviewed throughout the country in October and November 2005.
When asked to choose a priority for the new government due to be formed after this week's elections, 57% wanted to focus on restoring public security. Removing US-led forces from Iraq came [a distant] second with 10%, while rebuilding the country's infrastructure was third.
Half of those questioned felt Iraq needed a single, strong leader following December's vote, while 28% thought democracy was more important. However, opinions changed when people were asked about what Iraq would need in five years' time. Support for a strong leader fell to 31% and that for democracy rose to 45%. Yup. It's a quagmire.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/12/2005 19:31 ||
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Iyad Allawi reckons he could be Iraq âs prime minister again after Thursdayâs election -- and this time, he says, it wonât be Americans who put him there but, possibly, old enemies whose rebel towns he once ordered bombed.
"They know I wasnât after them," he said in an interview, chuckling at the popularity his strongman image has lately won him in a town where a year ago he gave U.S. troops the go-ahead to crush a revolt by minority Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Now, running on a broad, non-sectarian slate, the secular Shiâite said late on Saturday he is talking to representatives of the insurgents and winning them over with promises to address their grievances and pump money into battered towns like Falluja.
"The others, of course, if they get me, theyâll cut me into little pieces," he added, referring to the al Qaeda Islamists he vows to "fight from room to room" if his hopes are realized of returning to power at the head of a coalition government.
Still troubled by wounds he sustained in an axe attack by Saddam Hussein âs agents in London in 1978, and after fleeing gunmen wielding machetes at a mosque a week ago, the 60-year-old neurologist knows plenty about the dangers of Iraqi politics.
Undaunted, he said that has strengthened his resolve to fight al Qaeda "terrorists" and militias he said have been given free rein by the Shiâite Islamist- and Kurdish-led government.
Eleven of his supporters have been killed and about 20 wounded in the past couple of weeks of campaigning, he said, leaving no doubt he blames pro-government militiamen.
"The rules of politics in this region can be ... quite dangerous," he said. "But this really will increase our resolve."
"To leave (Iraq) in the hands of militias to play around and to take the rule law into their own hands and inflict damage on the people of Iraq ... can only be dangerous."
No opinion polls are available but anecdotal evidence suggests Allawi, long an ally of U.S. and British intelligence who returned from exile in London to lead the first, appointed government after the U.S. invasion, is picking up strong support.
"We will have a fair chance," he said, if a visibly well- funded campaign can match or better the 40 seats he won in the 275-seat assembly in January -- a view of possible coalition deals shared by diplomats in the U.S.-led Coalition in Baghdad.
"We think we are a balancing party...We do reflect various constituencies...We frankly enjoy with most of the groups quite good relationships," he said. "We can play a significant role."
Allawi denies charges from his Islamist opponents, who can still expect to form the biggest single bloc in parliament, that the remedy he offers is a return to the days of brute force.
"Dealing with insurgents is unlike dealing with terrorists -- with terrorists there is no way but force -- but insurgents, you have to use force, you have to use political gestures and you have to identify the causes," he said, recalling what he called successes in opening dialogue with Sunni rebels last year.
"The most important is the economy. If people feel disenfranchised and they donât have salaries and they have families to look after then you need to address this issue. To resolve the insurgency is mostly about political gestures and dialogue. Then force comes in," said Allawi, who said he hopes to triple Iraqâs oil output in four years to refloat the economy.
Denying a report he shot prisoners while prime minister, a rumor he said offended his medical instincts, even if it enhanced his standing among some Iraqis sick of guerrilla violence, he said: "You need to be strong. But not in the sense of killing. Once you have decided, the most important thing is to implement decisions. This is what I see as strength."
While open to dialogue, he said he would build up Iraqâs army and intelligence services and crush any group that could not be negotiated with. He repeated his complaint that U.S. officials made a "major mistake" in disbanding Saddamâs forces.
"Saddam is finished," he said. "If you want to bring in a person like Bin Laden, weâll fight you room to room."
When first appointed in 2004, he was widely viewed as an American agent and U.S. officials clearly like his non-sectarian rhetoric. He is keen to play down those past links, however.
Asked how much of his conspicuously generous campaign funding was coming from Washington, he said with a hearty laugh: "This does not happen at all ... Not a single cent."
His campaign was funded by Iraqi donations and helped by free services like printing and help from Arab entrepreneurs.
He would raise the sore subject of widespread detentions of Sunnis by U.S. forces with American commanders, he said.
And although he joins most Iraqi politicians in calling for U.S. troops to withdraw, he echoed the line from Washington that this can only happen as Iraqi forces become more capable.
"Itâs premature ... to start listing dates," he said. "We need to have conditions met."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/12/2005 03:14 ||
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Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari ruled out any dialogue with insurgents if he stays in office after elections, saying on Sunday even those who fought only U.S. troops had no place in Iraq. "There is no room for dialogue with anyone who carries arms in Iraq," the Shi'ite Islamist politician told Reuters in an interview.
Jaafari's tough comments came five days before parliamentary polls that Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders hope will draw Sunnis into peaceful politics and defuse the insurgency led by the minority sect. Asked how flexible he would be with insurgents who want to disarm and try politics, Jaafari insisted he could not accommodate any militant movements who have sent suicide bombers on missions and killed any Iraqis.
But the former exile also ruled out ties with Iraqi guerrillas, even those who had only fought U.S. forces, whose presence infuriates many Iraqis. He said foreign troops were in Iraq with the blessing of the international community to help stabilise the country. Jaafari's policies contrast sharply with those of his toughest electoral competitor, former prime minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who says he is talking with representatives of insurgents and listening to their grievances.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 00:00 ||
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Iraq's government announced on Sunday stringent security measures for the upcoming parliamentary elections, including the closure of all borders and airports, an extension of curfew hours and a ban on travel across provincial boundaries. The measures would take effect Tuesday, two days ahead of the vote, and last until early Saturday.
Under the restrictions, the curfew will be 10 p.m. and last until 6 a.m. All airports and borders will be closed from midnight Monday until 7 a.m. Saturday
Israel's Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has dropped out of the contest to become leader of Likud and defected to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party, army radio says. Mofaz's switch means that seven cabinet ministers have followed Sharon in jumping ship from Likud to Kadima. Mofaz said on Sunday that he quit the Likud because "extremists" have hijacked the party. "The Likud party ... is growing away from me, and to my sorrow, is moving in the direction of what we call the rightwing extremists of the political map," he told a news conference.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 20:32 ||
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#3
Not just the Western Wall, Xbalanke, but the whole Temple Mount upon which the Al Aqsa mosque was built. And when it falls in, killing whoever is inside, they will blame it on the Jews.
#4
Arab stewardship of the Wailing Wall has been somewhat less than auspicious. If it is such a holy site, why were Palestinians using it as a urinal during their custody of it? These f&%kwit @ssholes need to go p!ss up a rope.
The British Sunday Times reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the IDF to prepare to attack Iran's nuclear facilities at the end of March 2006, after Israeli intelligence supposedly discovered a number of secret uranium enrichment sites that were disguised as civilian buildings. The article claimed that "military sources" have revealed that "Israel's armed forces have been ordered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran."
In response to the Sunday Times article, Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's foreign policy department, said in an interview to Israel Radio that while a military operation against Iran's nuclear facilities could not be ruled out, Israel was a partner in international diplomatic efforts to address the threat from Teheran. Gilad denied the Times allegations that Israel planned to attack Iran in March 2006.
On Saturday, the same day UN nuclear watchdog chief ElBaradei received the Nobel peace prize, he appeared to warn Israel not to bomb Iranian atomic reactors. The report said ElBaradei did not mention Israel, but it was clear he was referring to its increasingly open discussion over whether to protect itself by bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.
Israeli officials declined to respond to the report directly, but Sharon's spokesman Ra'anan Gissin did say, "Israel has no intention of launching an attack against Iran, definitely not before all diplomatic options have been exhausted." He stressed that "Israel is not leading the campaign against Iran," but that that whole international community - chiefly the US and Europe - has been concerned and active on the issue. He added that statements suggesting Israel will bomb Iran weren't helpful, in part because they "exonerate the Europeans" from taking action, "which is something we don't want to happen." He described the Europeans as "the ones who hold most of the cards to influence Iran."
No date has been set for the talks between Iran and the EU3 - France, Germany and Britain - which broke off in August. They had been set to resume in early December but did not. The parties maintain they are committed to resuming negotiations.
Iran opened the door Sunday for U.S. help in building a nuclear power plant — a move designed to ease American suspicions that Tehran is using its nuclear program as a cover to build atomic weapons. The offer, which did not seem likely to win acceptance in Washington, was issued as Israel said it had not ruled out a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. "America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a news conference.
Asefi was apparently talking about a 360-megawatt light water nuclear power plant that the head of the country's atomic organization said Saturday would be built in southwestern Iran. Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by building nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2005 00:45 ||
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#1
Smooth move, you gotta admit.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/12/2005 1:39 Comments ||
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#2
How long till this gets pulled back by the Nutball president? This sounds more like the diplos working than it does the Terrorist-in-Teheran.
#3
You mean there's an ounce of sanity to be found in Tehran?
Sounds like someone had an "oh shit" moment following reports of Israel's (alleged) military planning.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/12/2005 2:22 Comments ||
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#4
I suggest they contact Acme's Targets 'R Us division.
#6
Construction is one thing. How will the plant be fuelled? What happens to the spent fuel?
The plants that India wishes to buy from the USA and Russia would be IAEA safeguarded. The enriched fuel would be imported and the spent fuel shipped back to the country of origin for reprocessing and waste disposal.
Would Iran agree to the same conditions?
Of course, the capability of two countries are not equivalent. India builds its own reactors and has complete fuel cycle technology (from mining of ore to enrichment and fuel fabrication to plutonium reprocessing and waste vitrification). It also has actual weapon technology - building boosted fission and thermonuclear warheads. But India is a declared weapon state while Iran has publically forsaken nuclear weapons as un-islamic. There should therefore be no problem with this.
Posted by: john ||
12/12/2005 14:20 Comments ||
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#7
and we all know how badly Iran needs nuclear fuel.
Iranâs parliament on Sunday gave a clear vote of confidence to Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh as oil minister, endorsing the fourth nominee from President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad. Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh said he would give priority to âdomestic capabilityâ, casting further doubt on Iranâs ability to attract the foreign investment analysts say is needed to continue daily production of about 4m barrels.
The nomination marked a political retreat for Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, as Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh, caretaker minister for four months, is a ministry insider uneasy with the presidentâs populist slogan of fighting an âoil mafiaâ. Of 259 parliamentarians, 172 voted for Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh, with 53 against and 34 abstaining. Proponents argued that his 32 yearsâ experience in the ministry, mostly in senior management, combined with piety, which is important to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, made him more suitable than previous nominees.
In a speech to parliament, Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh supported using the Oil Stabilisation Fund, which absorbs windfall oil revenues, to develop oil and gas fields âspeedilyâ and so raise production. âIf we take over financial management [from oil majors] and use the OSF as the best way of investment, the countryâs industries will be revived and equipment can be built domestically,â he said.
Speaking as Tehran remained enveloped in its heaviest traffic smog for years, he called for a reduction in energy consumption, which he said was 5.3 times the world per capita average.
That's why they need the nukes, no doubt.
As acting oil minister, Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh criticised the âbuy-backâ system that has governed foreign companiesâ involvement in Iranâs oil and gas industry for eight years and disliked by oil majors, although he has not proposed an alternative. âWe are reviewing buy-back and must think about a system that can be trusted both by people and government,â he told the Financial Times.
Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh added it was ânot only the oil ministry which decides about projectsâ. But many deputies are convinced Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who took a conciliatory tone yesterday when he promised to abide by parliamentâs decision, has no choice but to compromise. âItâs post-election and he should moderate his slogans,â said one conservative.
"I watched his father on the BBC, and thought to myself: two Pakistani families left Pakistan, one for Bradford, the other for Singapore, produced children, brought up in two totally different environments, quite distant from the Islam of Pakistan, and yet they both end up fighting in Afghanistan. This Islamist pull is more powerful than that of communism. The communists never fully trusted one another across racial boundaries. The Vietnamese communists never trusted the Chinese communists and so on. But with the Islamists there is total trust: You are a warrior for Islam, so am I: We swear to fight together."
TIME: How serious is the threat?
LEE: This battle is going to be won and lost in the Middle East. The problem in Iraq is very grave. If the jihadists win there, I'm in trouble here. [Their attitude will be]: We've beaten the Russians in Afghanistan, we've beaten the Americans and the coalition in Iraq. There's nothing we cannot do. We can fix Southeast Asia too. There will be such a surge of confidence for all jihadists. The U.S. must be seenâif not to have prevailed or to have created a democratic Iraqâto at least to have denied the jihadists a victory. Because otherwise the consequences for America and for the world are horrendous.
TIME: The 2002 plot to blow up seven embassies in Singapore using truck bombsâour sense is that you were taken completely by surprise.
LEE: Of course. How could we, in this most cosmopolitan and open of cities, where 15% Muslim Malays are completely mixed up with Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and others, go to English-language schools, do similar jobs, live in similar homes, produce 30-plus would-be jihadists?
TIME: You had no idea?
LEE: No idea at all. It was a stroke of good fortune. Our intelligence had under surveillance a few religious types [in Singapore]. One of them left for Karachi and went on to Afghanistan, soon after the country was bombed by the Americans [in late 2001]. He was captured by the [anti-Taliban] Northern Alliance. He was of Pakistani descent. So we found that this wasn't just a religious study group. If that fella had not gone off to Karachi to fight with the Taliban, we would have been hit with seven truck bombs. The nitrates were sitting [across the causeway] in [the Malaysian state of] Johore.
At the same time that this Pakistani, born and bred in Singapore and English-speaking, was caught by the Northern Alliance, another Pakistani born and bred in Bradford, U.K., was caught in Iraq and sent to Guantánamo Bay. I watched his father on the BBC, and thought to myself: two Pakistani families left Pakistan, one for Bradford, the other for Singapore, produced children, brought up in two totally different environments, quite distant from the Islam of Pakistan, and yet they both end up fighting in Afghanistan. This Islamist pull is more powerful than that of communism. The communists never fully trusted one another across racial boundaries. The Vietnamese communists never trusted the Chinese communists and so on. But with the Islamists there is total trust: You are a warrior for Islam, so am I: We swear to fight together.
TIME: Both the rise of China and the rise of radical Islam require very sustained, long-term engagement by the U.S. Are you confident that Americans have the ability and the patience for the long-term view, the long-term engagement?
LEE: In the past the U.S. had the option of opting out, as in Vietnam. Now Americans know they are vulnerable; 9/11 brought this home dramatically. American embassies and American businesses are being attacked worldwide. Opting out is not an option. To make the long-term burden sustainable you need a broad alliance, to spread the load, to reduce excessive burdens on yourself. You need others to agree on the basic causes and solutions. It's not poverty, it's not deprivation, it's something more fundamental, a resurgence of Arab and Islamic pride, and a belief that their time has come. The objective must be to reassure and persuade moderate Muslims, the rationalists and modernizers, which I believe the majority are, that they are not going to lose, that they have the weight, the resources of the world behind them. They must have the courage to go into the mosques and madrasahs and switch off the radicals.
Posted by: john ||
12/12/2005 08:38 ||
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#2
TIME: Western analysts did not expect President Hu Jintao to pay so much attention to the Communist Party, or crack down on the mediaâor to see so much nationalist sentiment surface. The West has a certain unease and wariness about China's leaders.
LEE: They are communist by doctrine. I don't believe they are the same old communists as they used to be, but the thought processes, the dialectical, secretive way in which they form and frame their policies [still exist]. Their main preoccupations are stability, the continuation of their rule over China, and economic growth. Without a strong center they fear that they will never become competitive, they will never get rid of their state-owned enterprises, and they could have trouble in their inland provinces that are not doing well. A year before they took power, both Hu and Wen left me with the clear impression that they were going to redress this inequality, as best they could. To do that, they need a Party that responds to their orders, not have powerful barons in the provinces.
Posted by: john ||
12/12/2005 12:14 Comments ||
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#3
The objective must be to reassure and persuade moderate Muslims, the rationalists and modernizers, which I believe the majority are, that they are not going to lose, that they have the weight, the resources of the world behind them. They must have the courage to go into the mosques and madrasahs and switch off the radicals.
#4
Yep. switch off in the Singapore context probably means... Behave or we'll cane you. Break the peace and we'll hang you).
Posted by: john ||
12/12/2005 14:06 Comments ||
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#5
john: Yep. switch off in the Singapore context probably means... Behave or we'll cane you. Break the peace and we'll hang you).
The really weird thing is that the rigors of the law as practiced in Singapore were inherited from its time as a Crown Colony, prior to independence. Singapore's British masters have now become more civilized effete, and consequently face a more pressing problem with terrorism than does Singapore. Singapore's Muslim population is 15% of the total and it is surrounded by Muslim colossi. Britain's Muslim population is 1% of the total and it is right next to the heart of Western Christendom. But yet it is Britain that got the subway bombings and not Singapore. The West's cult of the Noble Other Savage has gotten out of hand, and is getting in the way of both anti-terrorist operations and its long-term survival as a distinct civilization.
#6
It's stranger than that ZF. Britain has a million or so Iraqi immigrants but who blew up stuff in the name of protesting the occupation of Iraq? A bunch of Pakistanis and a Jamacian convert.
At the time, the meeting hardly seemed notable--let alone the start of the world's deadliest partnership. It was late in 1999, and Osama bin Laden was sheltering in Afghanistan, already deep into his plot to attack the World Trade Center. His visitor was a burly young Jordanian, bruised and furious after spending six years inside his country's worst prisons. Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi had traveled to Afghanistan with a proposal for the al-Qaeda chief: he wanted to rally Islam's "true believers" to rise up against corrupt regimes in the Middle East. Bin Laden was skeptical. While al-Zarqawi advocated a war on all fronts, bin Laden was fixated on attacking the U.S. and Israel. He was unsure whether the abrasive, ambitious al-Zarqawi would make a reliable lieutenant. But al-Zarqawi would not be dissuaded. According to an account of the meeting by Saif al-Adel, a former member of bin Laden's inner circle, that appeared on jihadist websites, al-Zarqawi "doesn't retreat on anything ... He doesn't compromise."
So began an odyssey that would transform al-Zarqawi from a brawling thug to the leader of the jihadist insurgency in Iraq, a man deemed so threatening to U.S. security that he commands the same $25 million bounty offered for bin Laden. By turning Iraq into a breeding ground for al-Qaeda foot soldiers, al-Zarqawi has given new shape to an organization that was fractured when the U.S., in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, ousted the Taliban and sent bin Laden into hiding. And as al-Zarqawi's stature has risen, his relationship with bin Laden has apparently grown more complex and contentious, like that of an apprentice who has eclipsed his master. At stake in their struggle for control, say those who track the two men, is the future of the global Islamic terrorist movement and its war with the U.S. and its allies.
In the four years since bin Laden disappeared during the siege of Tora Bora, intelligence agencies around the world have struggled to glean information about the whereabouts and inner workings of al-Qaeda's high command. U.S. intelligence on al-Zarqawi, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is not strong. But counterterrorism and intelligence officials tell TIME they believe al-Zarqawi has expanded his reach outside Iraq's borders to the extent that he has become al-Qaeda's most dangerous operative. The U.S. believes al-Zarqawi has contacted about two dozen other terrorist groups in more than 30 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia in an effort to raise funds for his network and coordinate international operations. His network has forged links with jihadist groups in Europe that may be planning attacks similar to the London bombings last July. According to Arab counterterrorism authorities, since his arrival in Iraq, al-Zarqawi has been involved in attacks in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco and, most recently, the Nov. 9 triple-suicide bombing in Jordan. And American counterterrorism officials are worried that al-Zarqawi may also be reaching out to extremists hidden in the U.S. "He's certainly trying to assume the mantle of bin Laden," says an American intelligence analyst who has studied al-Zarqawi. "It may be that bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's time has passed."
The two al-Qaeda leaders are certainly under pressure. In a statement said to have been taped in September and aired by al-Jazeera last week, al-Zawahiri claimed that al-Qaeda is "spreading, expanding and strengthening" and that "bin Laden is still leading its jihad" against the West. But intelligence officials say it's striking that bin Laden himself has not issued a videotaped statement for more than a year--a sign, U.S. intelligence believes, that while he is probably still alive, he has been forced to go further underground to avoid detection.
So, is bin Laden still in control? By tracing his relationship with al-Zarqawi through a variety of sources--interrogation of captured operatives, encrypted codes on jihadist websites, chains of messages spanning from Iraq to Afghanistan--terrorism experts have assembled a picture of the way bin Laden turned to his former acolyte to revive al-Qaeda after the fall of the Taliban. It also reveals the ways in which al-Zarqawi has steered al-Qaeda in directions his bosses probably never intended or approved of--and why that makes the terrorist threat more unpredictable, and perhaps more dangerous, than it was before Sept. 11.
The pair's first purported meeting, in Afghanistan in 1999, provided hints of their future rivalry. A senior Pakistani military officer who once advised the Taliban's inner circle says, "Osama's camp was not open to everyone. People like al-Zarqawi, who were temporary visitors, were never trusted by him." According to the officer, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was warned by al-Qaeda not to be swayed by al-Zarqawi's global war cry. The officer says, "Those around Mullah Omar made it clear that the Taliban should avoid fighting in other people's wars"--especially in gulf states where the Taliban and al-Qaeda had plenty of wealthy backers.
But according to a biography of al-Zarqawi written by al-Adel (now believed to be under detention in Iran), bin Laden thought it "unwise to lose the chance of mobilizing al-Zarqawi and his companions in those regions"--especially if al-Zarqawi, with his ties to Jordan's militant underground, could help carry out an attack against Israel. According to al-Adel's account, bin Laden instructed al-Zarqawi to set up his own camp, far from bin Laden's activities, in the stony hills behind Herat, near Afghanistan's western border with Iran. By 9/11, al-Zarqawi was training several dozen fighters from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq at his Herat camp. He and other jihadis brought out their wives and children and formed an armed, Islamic commune, with al-Zarqawi as self-anointed emir, or prince.
When U.S. forces attacked in October 2001, al-Zarqawi rallied with al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Kandahar, the last bastion of the militants. No match for the laser-guided bombs of U.S. warplanes, al-Zarqawi and a select band of fighters fled westward into Iran and eventually northern Iraq, where he had ties with the radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam. U.S. intelligence sources say they believe that a few months after the U.S.'s March 2003 invasion of Iraq, bin Laden dispatched a trusted aide, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, to see about organizing an al-Qaeda cell there. A former major in Saddam Hussein's army, al-Iraqi seemed the perfect choice. But al-Zarqawi was reportedly enraged that bin Laden had sent someone else as terrorist ringmaster and apparently refused to cooperate with al-Iraqi. U.S. intelligence officials can't confirm that account, but they do say bin Laden's choice later returned to Afghanistan. Today, say the officials, al-Iraqi acts as al-Qaeda's most lethal commander in Afghanistan, employing tactics and bombmaking skills honed in Iraq and shared over the Internet and by returning fighters.
By the time of the al-Iraqi mission, the organizational structure of al-Qaeda had been revamped. In the wake of 9/11--according to a classified report detailing elements of the U.S. interrogation of former bin Laden aide Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the contents of which were confirmed to TIME by a senior French counterterrorism official--al-Qaeda leaders delegated day-to-day authority over the group's global network to a "management committee" of five operatives, including al-Libbi. From that point on, only attacks on the U.S. homeland required approval from bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. The high command's decision to devolve authority empowered operatives like al-Zarqawi. In February 2004, U.S. authorities in Baghdad intercepted a letter believed to be from al-Zarqawi to al-Zawahiri in which the Jordanian laid out his plan to provoke Iraq's Shi'ites into a civil war with the Sunnis, one that would draw in Salafi Sunni extremists from across the Islamic world. Arab intelligence sources tell TIME that al-Zarqawi's incendiary aim may have had bin Laden's backing. The sources say that in a letter found in the possession of Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani operative arrested in Iraq in January 2004, bin Laden urged al-Zarqawi to "use the Shi'ite card"--to launch attacks on Shi'ite targets in Iraq--as a way of pressuring Iran to free a number of top al-Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden's son Saad, who fled to Iran from Afghanistan in December 2001.
In October 2004, after further meetings with bin Laden's emissary al-Iraqi, al-Zarqawi publicly joined al-Qaeda, becoming the self-proclaimed prince of its operations in the "Land of Mesopotamia." As the jihadist insurgency gained momentum, the open wariness that once characterized al-Zarqawi's dealings with bin Laden dissipated, although counterterrorism officials believe their alliance was rooted more in pragmatism than affection. "Al-Zarqawi needs bin Laden for his credibility," says a U.S. intelligence analyst. "Bin Laden needs al-Zarqawi because he is doing the real work." But the celebrity al-Zarqawi has gained through his reign of terror in Iraq has marginalized bin Laden and shrunk his circle of loyalists. A senior Pakistani intelligence officer says "several hundred" al-Qaeda jihadis, spurred by al-Zarqawi's attacks on U.S. troops, left Afghanistan for Iraq in two waves, one via the gulf and the other across the Iran-Turkmenistan border; scores were killed in Iraq, and many fell in the battle of Fallujah in November 2004.
Terrorism experts say bin Laden remains the spiritual leader of global jihad but is no longer calling the shots. "Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri may have turned al-Zarqawi into something bigger than themselves," says French counterterrorism expert Roland Jacquard. "Strategically, they didn't have much choice. They needed to give the Iraq jihad the backing and legitimacy of al-Qaeda's direction. But it's turned out to be a very emancipating development for al-Zarqawi." Evidence suggests,though, that he may have gone too far. In October the U.S. released a letter that it said was sent in July from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi--in which bin Laden's deputy urged the Jordanian to refrain from attacking Shi'ites in Iraq. It has provoked the anger of moderate Muslims around the world. Al-Zawahiri suggests such attacks "be put off until the force of the mujahid movement in Iraq gets stronger."
Although some experts speculate that the letter was drawn up by Iranian intelligence to dupe al-Zarqawi, the CIA and Pentagon insist that the 13-page missive is not a forgery and that it reveals differences between the old al-Qaeda leaders and al-Zarqawi over tactics and ideology. At the same time, the letter also indicates an acknowledgment by al-Zawahiri that the al-Qaeda hierarchy has been reordered. "It wasn't the letter of an overall commander pulling the choke chain of a subordinate," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp. think tank in Washington, who believes it is genuine. "It was diplomatic, cajoling, flattering and in essence sucking up to [al-Zarqawi]."
What does that mean for the future of al-Qaeda? Intelligence officials generally believe that al-Zarqawi has surpassed bin Laden as an inspirational figure for budding jihadis. "People have forgotten about bin Laden because they don't hear about him anymore," says an Arab intelligence source. Al-Zarqawi's twin challenges will be to survive divisions within the Iraqi insurgency as well as the U.S. military's hunt for him. The Pentagon believes its commandos have come close to capturing him several times. If al-Zarqawi manages to survive, he may try to attain bin Laden's global reach. He has reportedly outlined to his associates a strategy that calls for the overthrow of moderate Arab governments and the establishment of a pure Islamic state in the region in the next decade, with the ultimate goal of launching a world war against nonbelievers.
For now, although al-Zarqawi has ties to jihadist groups across Europe, they don't necessarily take orders from him, counterterrorism officials say. But over the long term, his efforts in Iraq position him to become the voice and inspiration for disaffected Muslims around the world. "More and more people are veering into Islamic extremism and embracing the Iraqi cause ... all converging on al-Zarqawi's struggle," says a senior French counterterrorism official. "To our great distress, he's doing just fine without ever turning his attention from Iraq." As long as that's true, al-Zarqawi will be at the forefront of the war against the West that his old boss started.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/12/2005 03:04 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Posters on the wall herald the march of Islam, but tonight the Cairo headquarters of the 
A leader of the 
POLICE hunting a man suspected of killing the police officer 
Turkey and the United States plan to hold a military summit on the future of the Kurdish Workers Party in Iraq. Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit was scheduled to meet U.S. military commanders in Washington during a four-day visit. The visit was meant to begin on Dec. 10 and focus on the PKK presence in northern Iraq and othe regional issues. Officials said Buyukanit, expected to be appointed military chief of staff in 2006, would press the U.S. military and Defense Department to honor their pledge to eliminate the PKK presence from northern Iraq. They said Turkey intends to launch a joint operation to expel the PKK from the Kandil mountains before the start of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
See. I told you so! There is often a smug feeling of satisfaction when this phrase is used. But no self-indulgent pleasure can be derived when we speak of the regretful situation in Iraq. It defines the continuing immorality against humans and is being carried out by none other than the President of the United States of America.
Hundreds of anti-war protesters, including American 
Music and TV have been banned. Women are confined to their homes. Shops must close five times a day for prayers, an edict enforced by armed religious police who patrol the streets. These changes, say local residents and reporters, have come just within the past few months to 
Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) chief Nawab Akbar Bugti and National Party chief Sardar Attaullah Mengal have said the government is planning a military operation in Balochistan. Talking to BBC on Sunday about the situation in Balochistan, Akbar Bugti said personnel from the Sindh and Punjab Rangers and Frontier Corps (FC) had surrounded the province and could advance at any time. He said the number of FC personnel had been increased to 15,000 and that a part of the operation had started on a limited level in Turbat, Nushki and Kalat. He also denied the involvement of the Baloch in bomb blasts.
Prime Minister 
Iraq's government announced on Sunday stringent security measures for the upcoming parliamentary elections, including the closure of all borders and airports, an extension of curfew hours and a ban on travel across provincial boundaries. The measures would take effect Tuesday, two days ahead of the vote, and last until early Saturday.
The British Sunday Times reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the IDF to prepare to attack Iran's nuclear facilities at the end of March 2006, after Israeli intelligence supposedly discovered a number of secret uranium enrichment sites that were disguised as civilian buildings. The article claimed that "military sources" have revealed that "Israel's armed forces have been ordered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran."
