January 18, 2006: Why are U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, and why do most Afghans accept this? The main problem in Afghanistan is that the people who hosted al Qaeda are still there. Most Afghans still see these pro-Taliban elements as a threat. Most Afghans also feel that, without the United States; Pakistan and Iran would once again meddle in Afghan affairs. Most Afghans blame the Pakistani government for inflicting the Taliban dictatorship on them, and continuing to support unrest.
The Taliban were mainly leaders from a few Pushtun tribes that tried to impose their brand of conservative Islam, and tribal customs, on the rest of the country. This was never popular, but many Pushtuns still see this approach to running the country as worth fighting for. The Pushtun tribes make up about 40 percent of the Afghan population. And even more Pushtuns live across the border in Pakistan.
U.S. troops have behaved well in Afghanistan from the beginning. The first U.S. troops entering Afghanistan in October, 2001, were U.S. Army Special Forces operators, many of whom spoke the local languages and understood the customs. That went over real well. In addition, there were CIA operators who spoke the languages, and some of them had helped Afghans fight the Russians in the 1980s. These CIA guys were local heroes to the Afghans, and instantly established trust.
When regular American troops came in at the end of 2001, and into 2002, they were sent to areas where pro-Taliban fighters were operating. The Taliban had acquired a reputation as being thugs and bullies, so the Afghans were glad to have the Americans helping to chase down the diehards. The American troops also got involved in a lot of aid and reconstruction projects. Thus the Americans were seen as generous, warriors, and not a greedy neighbor. The Afghans know about 911, and their tribal code of revenge made it understandable that the Americans wanted to chase down those responsible for the attacks.
Because of the al Qaeda terrorists, Taliban marauders, and potential meddling by Iran and Pakistan, not to mention the money and goodies that accompany American troops, Afghanistan is in no hurry to see them leave. This sort of thing can go on for a long time. For example, when American troops began to pull out of Germany in the 1990s, after being there for half a century, most Germans were unhappy to see the G.I.âs depart, and German politicians even came to Washington to try and stop the withdrawals. This was mostly about jobs, but also about a good relationship between Germans and the American troops.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2006 08:50 ||
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#1
The Afghans are a hard people who we have a pretty good history with in a highly strategic location. I think a long term base should be considered.
The US could probably form a foriegn auxilery of peace keeping forces from some of these nations like a afghan brigade, phillipino, iraqi, romanian, colombian, ect of peace keepers from what I can tell some decentley well trained peace keeping forces are becoming rather profitable. This would give US a force of peace keepers to use for the PR UN crap in peace time and in cases like Iraq to augment our forces by taking over in the more tame areas. Not to mention we would be basicly raising freindly's who we trained taught and know that over time would go home and take places of authority. The intel possibilities down the road are huge.
I was hesitant at first but it looks more and more that the US like it or not has been delegated the job of world stability if for no other reason than our economy. We should leverage this, use the UN/EU as a money source and take friendly nations like minded but just downtroden and form auxilary units under OUR/US command. They get training money we get peace keepers to deploy instead of our regular forces who are best at killing bad guys not walkin a beat. The UN pays the upkeep and has a deployable force that is competent and decentley trained.
#2
Afghanistan has been cursed for so long it is almost beyond imagination that it could ever be peaceful and prosperous again. Just by resoring order and some semblance of peace, the US has accomplished a miracle, even if the country had to be "softened up" first by the Russians and then the Taliban.
However, in what may be the first real chance in two thousand years, I truly wish that we could change Afghanistan's karma forever. By creating a brilliant framework for economic advancement, as Paul Bremer did in Iraq, perhaps we could break that curse.
If well done, it is bizarre to think that only 10-20 billion dollars could end two millenia of suffering and death.
#3
Very interesting ideas, C-Low. The long-term trickle down effect of those Special Forces troops on their own nations bears thinking about. It would be lovely, f'r instance, to see some real leadership in the Philippines and in Mongolia, about whom lotp and Master Fred have spoken so positively, and it would be brilliant to be able to point to the results wrought by troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- not to mention how proud their home folks would rightfully be.
But I'm not certain the U.N. route is the way to go. I would hate to see our guys (and they would be ours, through special affection if nothing else) parked in, say, Sudan or the Israeli border, with the kind of restrictive rules of [non]engagement that the mighty Uruguyans -- or worse, the Dutch! -- are hobbled with. Rather, let's use them where NATO plays games not to go. Can you imagine Afghani troops fixing up the situation in Iraq, and vice versa? Basra would never have had a chance to get into its current fix!
#4
C-Low is proposing an American version of the French Foreign Legion. Not a bad idea, seeing how the FFL is probably the ONLY effective fighting force the French have.
...but I'm with TW on the reluctance to put the AFL (American Foreign Legion) under UN control. Anyone who voluntarily joins a military arm of the United States deserves the American Umbrella, from military AND civilian alike. I may not fight, but I sure do pay through the nose in Federal Taxes: Since 9/11 I have actually felt PLEASED on every subsequent April 15.
#6
Interesting article in today's WSJ about the booming heroin traffic in Afghanistan. That is going to be a serious impediment to the establishment of a strong central government. Hopefully the heroin issue will be a shorter term situation.
SPINBOLDAK, Afghanistan (AP) -- More than 5,000 people chanting "Death to Pakistan!" marched through two Afghan border towns Wednesday to protest a suicide bombing they blame on the neighboring country.
Since they are not chanting "Death to America!", we won't see this protest on the nightly news
The blast at a wrestling match on Monday killed 21 people, making it the deadliest suicide attack since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. No one has claimed responsibility, and a purported spokesman for the Taliban rebels denied involvement.
"Death to Pakistan! Death to al-Qaida! Death to the Taliban!" the protesters shouted as they marched to the towering Friendship Gate that marks Waish's border crossing with Pakistan. The protesters also made their way through the larger town of Spinboldak, another key border crossing. Most shops in the two neighboring towns were closed because of the protest.
Afghan officials have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban and other militant groups have training bases in Pakistan and are receiving support from that side of the border - an accusation Islamabad denies.
"Nope, no training bases here. We asked and everything"
An Afghan tribal elder who spoke at the demonstration said that attackers in Monday's bombing had trained in Pakistan. "They kill us Afghans. They kill tribesmen and they want tribesmen living in Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight with each other," said Akhtar Mohammed Qabail.
Hours before Monday's explosion, President Hamid Karzai told reporters he believed most of those responsible for about 20 suicide attacks in the past three months have been foreigners, though he did not say from where. Pakistan strengthened security on its side of the border during the protest and the crossing was closed temporarily until the demonstrations subsided.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2006 08:25 ||
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#1
"Since they are not chanting "Death to America!", we won't see this protest on the nightly news"
Your right. But I did see on all three channels last night, a guy got his vet back. I consider this story more helpful to America than the vet story. But then again, I guess that's your point.
#2
More than 5,000 people chanting "Death to Pakistan!" marched through two Afghan border towns Wednesday to protest a suicide bombing they blame on the neighboring country.
#3
The story is reported on the Fox News website, so presumably it will be on-air as well. The same details posted above are at the tail end of a very confused story about those Al Qaeda Bigs suddenly sent off to Allah while at dinner. If I'm reading the story correctly, Zawahiri must have been tipped off; he skipped out of dinner, sending his best bomb-maker and a senior lieutenant in his stead, except... but... it appears... But the AP stringer did arrive on the scene long before the authorities; I wonder if he'd been invited to the dinner party, too.
The US envoy to Nato has said that a British-led military force due to move into southern Afghanistan must be ready to fight resurgent Taleban militants. Ambassador Victoria Nuland said Nato would need to provide "a strong and robust fighting force" in the region.
Scores have died in a spate of attacks in the south in recent months, among them a Canadian diplomat on Sunday. Nato has about 9,000 peacekeepers in Afghanistan and will expand its role to the south where US-led troops operate.
BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says British troops are going to the south to guarantee reconstruction, not to engage in American-style capture and kill missions.
Swell..
But Ambassador Nuland said there should be no illusions about the "rigorous environment" in the south. "Nato forces, in providing security and stability throughout the country except to the east, will be prepared to perform missions up to and including what we call counter-insurgency, which obviously will require a strong and robust fighting force," she said.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2006 08:18 ||
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#1
British troops are going to the south to guarantee reconstruction, not to engage in American-style capture and kill missions
Hint: The reconstruction actually goes faster when you do a little capturing and killing first...
#3
NS---LOL! Troops need to be more sennnnnnnnnnnnnsitive to meet todays Jihadi challenges.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/18/2006 11:04 Comments ||
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WOT US warns on UK Afghan troop role
Afghanistan
IRAN
Pak Land-Balochistan
It's hard to imagine that our strategist are going to allow Nato or the Brits to backslide on all the progress we've made in the Pushtun tribal areas in the South of Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
The Taliban and their Pak helpers haven't given up the struggle for control by any means. The enemy surely would take advantage of Nato forces if they pulled back and used maninly defensive tactics.
There's so much at stake, Iran and the Nuke standoff. I hope we're already a few moves ahead.
Security forces have arrested five suspected Al-Qaeda militants, including one foreigner, following a raid in Riyadh. The security forces also learned that the group was planning terrorist attacks in the Kingdom. The statement from the Interior Ministry carried by the Saudi Press Agency said: âFour nationals and one (foreign) resident were arrested during a raid on a hide-out in Riyadh.â
There was an improvised bomb-factory inside the hide-out. None of the five men were on a list of 36 most-wanted terrorists issued by the ministry last year. âDuring a search of their hide-out, the (security forces) confiscated... explosive materials in addition to electronic CDs and documents which prove that they are members of the deviant group,â the ministry said. The documents also indicated âcriminal plans to carry out destructive attacks inside the Kingdom,â the ministry said. The security forces also discovered âequipment to forge documents.â
Informed sources said police also confiscated more than SR1 million and 12 hand grenades from the Riyadh hideout after arresting the five.
On Monday, security sources said that police arrested at least four suspected militants in raids on different houses in the northeast Riyadh neighborhood of Al-Fahs Al-Dawry. Dozens of police cars backed by security forces filled the streets of the neighborhood which includes a number of male-only cafes and gay bath rest houses.
In December, security forces killed Abdul Rahman Al-Miteb and Muhammad Abdul Rahman Al-Suwailemi, who were No. 4 and No. 7 respectively on the list of 36 most-wanted terrorists. According to Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, security forces have prevented 52 terror attacks in the country during the past three years.
Addressing the global terrorism conference in London on Monday, the prince said: âWe have killed 120 terrorists and our battle against the terrorists is continuing.â He estimated the number of terror suspects who have been arrested since Sept. 11, 2001, at more than 800. He said the Kingdom had also taken a series of measures to eliminate financial support for terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:22 ||
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An alleged outlaw and suspect of Bamihal police killing and arms loot incident was killed in 'crossfire' between the members of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and his accomplices in Singra upazila of Natore early yesterday.
No, I don't know where that is.
Rab members arrested Nazrul Islam of Bias Union in Singra upazila at Amin Bazar in Dhaka on the night of January 16 and took him to a Rab camp in Natore, said a Rab press release yesterday evening.
"Come with us, Nazrul, we wanna have a chat with you."
On his confessional statement, ...
... aided as always by Mr. Pliers and Detective Vise-grips ...
... a Rab team set out for Bias Union at about 2:30am yesterday, taking Nazrul with them.
They certainly weren't going to leave him behind.
When they reached Ratal Dighipara area, Nazrul's accomplices opened fire on the Rab men, ...
... said accomplices having no fire discipline and worse aim ...
... prompting them to retaliate.
Prompting the accomplices to flee, leaving Nazrul to suffer his fate alone ...
Rab said Nazrul was shot as he tried to flee during the shootout.
One would say his feets failed him, but getting shot in the back of the head from eighteen inches isn't conducive to fleeing ...
He was rushed to Singra Health Complex ...
... not a Level One trauma center, though it wouldn't have mattered if it had been ...
... where the doctors declared him dead.
Where Dr. Quincy was happy to leave the case until the morning.
Nazrul was convicted and charge sheeted in a number of cases including three for murder, according to Rab press release.
Which means his mother didn't even love him anymore.
A shutter gun, three bullets and five cartridges were recovered from the scene.
After which the shutter gun was put back carefully in the police lockup so as to be conveniently available for tomorrow night's crossfire.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2006 00:02 ||
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#1
*smile* As comforting as a familiar bedtime story, indeed.
#2
That story must have been told at least an hundred times here in Rb, but I still haven't the slightest idea of what a shutter gun might be.
Did I miss the memo or something, or does this fact remains one of the great unexplained mysteries?
#4
As near as we can tell, there's only one shutter gun in all the world, and the RAB keeps it safe in the evidence locker until it's time to take it out and plant find it on the corpse of the dread criminal...
#5
Same here, A5089. I can imagine several sorts of weapons from the name, but no solid clue as to which it might be. Regards the memo, well, I guess we're not on the distribution list. *sniff* ;-)
#8
When all this nonsense about a "Shutter Gun" first surfaced I made a thorough web search.
I found that a "Shutter Gun" is aparently a paintball gun.
Makes sense, you could fire other small spheres with it that are not paint filled, a lead ball at paintgun velocities would be a really severe hit, but not as bad as a real bullet
Or maybe a "Paintball" filled with acid or poison.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/18/2006 13:47 Comments ||
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#9
RAB stories can only go so far. I need nuggets.
#10
I came across a reference that seemed to say a shutter gun has an exchangeable chamber that allows firing of types and calibre of ammunition. Otherwise they seem to be manufactured in several countries. Why they should be so 'popular' in Banga, I have no idea.
PATUAKHALI, Jan 17: Charge sheet against 4 JMB men for their alleged connection with bomb blast on August 17 last year in Patuakhali district headquarter have been submitted after 4 months and 13 days after the incident. Abul Hossain, SI of Patuakhali Sadar thana and the investigation officer of the incident submitted the charge sheet on December 31.
Charge sheeted accused were identified as Al-Amin alias Mintu alias Abdullah, (28), and Mostafa Hassan, (30), of Islampur village under the district of Barguna in Sadar Upazila, who also charge sheeted on the same issue in Barguna, Name of the rest two accused persons, were not disclosed by police. All of them are of Barguna residents.
Sadar Thana police arrested Al-Amin, regional chief of JMB (Patuakhlai-Barguna) on December 4 from Kathaltali health sub-centre under Mirzagonj Upazila and Hafej Mostafa arrested Barguna Sadar Thana.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2006 00:00 ||
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Just a brief note that not all of the inhabitants of the North Caucasus are Basayev's drones.
Kavkazky Uzel reported that relatives of rebels killed during the October 13 operation in Nalchik had expressed indignation over the Kavkazcenter interviews with rebel leaders Shamil Basaev and Anzor Astemirov. "A young woman calling herself Fatima, whose husband died in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria and who was left with three children, cursed Anzor Astemirov, whom she considers guilty of the death of her husband as well as other Muslims," the website wrote on January 10. It quoted her as saying: "He says that he prepared the armed campaign of Muslims many months, and brags that no one betrayed them. I would like to ask him about how he prepared this operation incompetently, knowing that there was a leak of information and in fact sending nearly a hundred people to a certain death. And if dying for one's faith is a blessing, then why didn't he himself die instead of saving his own skin?"
According to Kavkazky Uzel, a majority of the mothers of those who died in Nalchik believe that Basaev, Astemirov and other rebel leaders manipulated the religious feelings of their sons. At the same time, the website reported, the mothers believe their sons would not have allowed themselves to be used in this way had there not been "oppression" at the hands of Kabardino-Balkaria's police. "Shogenov and Basaev acted together against our children," Kavkazky Uzel quoted the mothers as saying, referring to Kabardino-Balkaria Republic Interior Minister Khachim Shogenov.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:16 ||
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On January 10, the day after it published its interview with Shamil Basaev, Kavkazcenter posted an interview with the man who it said led the October 13 raid in NalchikâAnzor Astemirov (a.k.a. Emir Seifulla) head of the Kabardino-Balkarian sector of the Caucasian Front. Echoing Basaev, Astemirov said that despite "heavy losses," the Nalchik raid was a strategic success. "We achieved the main thingâwe accomplished the first step on the path of the jihad," he said. "Our dead are in paradise, whereas their dead are in hell." Astemirov compared the operation to the Koran's Battle of Uhud, in which the Prophet Muhammad took part and in which the Muslims were defeated. "We had too strong a desire to square accounts with the infidels and hypocrites for the outrages they had inflicted on us Muslims, and too much self-confidence," he said. "Although we had sufficient forces to achieve and consolidate success in this operation, not everything turned out as we would have liked."
Asked about the "jihad" in Kabardino-Balkaria, Astemirov answered: "If in Chechnya the jihad has been going on for years, in other parts of the Caucasus it is only just beginning. If before we thought it would be enough to go to Chechnya and help our brothers there in their fight against infidels, we don't think this is enough now. That is why the whole of the North Caucasus, God willing, has become a combat zone and a territory for jihad." The Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria support the rebels and help them "in every way," Astemirov claimed. "A striking example of the support by the population is the fact that the infidels and hypocrites were unable to find out about the preparations for this operation, which we prepared for many months," he said. "Only just before the very start of the operation was there a leakâbut, again, not from the population."
Astemirov also dismissed anti-Wahhabi declarations made by residents of Kabardino-Balkaria at the urging of local authorities (Chechnya Weekly, November 10 and 17, 2005). "And as for âgatherings of people' taking decisions, this is an outdated way of intimidating Muslims, which the infidels used in Dagestan in 1999," he told Kavkazcenter. "It is also a way for the hypocrites to hide their fear of us and at the same time gain dividends at the price of treachery. Their âdecisions' don't particularly concern us."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:15 ||
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The year 2006 in the North Caucasus has started with a new fierce battle in Dagestan's mountains. On January 2, a special police unit that was combing a gorge between the villages of Gimri and Shamil-Khala ran into an ambush and had to retreat. Additional troops sent to the area also met strong resistance and entered the gorge only after three days of non-stop shelling and bombing of the area. Yet the insurgents had left the gorge by this time and the security officials only found an empty dugout. The dugout was huge; official reports said that up to 60 people could hide there at a time. It is quite possible, however, that this hiding place is not the only one. Sources of Kavkazky Uzel in the Dagestani police say that the rebels could have a network of secret bases around Gimri (Kavkazky Uzel, January 5).
Gimri, an old Dagestani village situated in the mountainous Untsukulsky district, is the site of several fierce clashes between insurgents and federal forces that took place in the republic recently. They are not by accident: Gimri has an old, established tradition of rebellion and guerrilla war.
Khazi-Mullah, the first Imam of the North Caucasus, was born in Gimri, and it is here that a council of elders proclaimed him the Imam and the Leader of Gazavat (or Jihad) of the Caucasian nations against the Russian Empire in 1830. The third and most famous Imam of the North Caucasus, the national hero of Dagestan, Imam Shamil, was also born in Gimri. During the 19th century Caucasian War, the village was assaulted by Russian troops several times. The most famous assault took place in October 17, 1832. Almost all defenders of the village were killed, and Imam Khazi-Mullah and his assistant Shamil, the future Imam, were blockaded in a watchtower. Khazi-Mullah was killed while the wounded Shamil managed to escape.
During the period of Soviet rule, when Stalin proclaimed Imam Shamil the leader of the national-liberation movement of the Caucasian nations against imperialist Russia of the tsars, Gimri became the spiritual and cultural center of Dagestan. A memorial plaque was attached to the house where Imam Shamil was born. The village was visited by Dagestanis from all parts of the region as well as by guests of the republic.
After the first Chechen war, when various separatist and Islamic groups in Dagestan started to talk about independence and establishing Sharia law, the residents of Gimri kept silent. Their neighbors, residents of the Buinaksk district villages of Chabanmakhi and Karamakhi, openly declared Sharia law on their land, but Gimri was not ready to support them. People in Gimri silently observed how the Russian troops and Dagestani policemen were destroying Chabanmakhi and Karamakhi in 1999, after rebels from Chechnya raided Dagestan.
The situation in Gimri changed beginning in 2000. Women started to wear the hijab or even a black veil. There is still an administration head in Gimri, and the Russian national flag still flies in the center of the village, but the real power is in the hands of the Imam of the local mosque. Each decision of the Gimri administration has to be confirmed by the Imam. If, for example, the Imam wants to ban the sale of alcohol in the village or make girls and boys study separately, nobody protests this even if it violates the laws of the Russian Federation.
Two years ago, people calling themselves members of Sharia Jamaat, a Dagestani rebel group, began visiting Gimri. In contrast to the 1990s, this time they were welcomed in the village. Many young Gimri boys decided to take the path of Jihad. In 2004, local militants stepped up their activities. On October 10, 2004, Untsukulsky district police chief Khadzhimurat Azizov and his assistant were killed near the Gimri tunnel on a strategic road that runs near the town of Gimri and connects the mountainous part of Dagestan with the valley. It was the first time that security officials paid attention to Gimri. Russian military units (the 102nd Brigade of the Interior Ministry's Internal Troops and the 136th Brigade of the Ministry of Defense) combed the area after the assassination but found nothing. Nevertheless, Russian generals suspected that some rebel groups might be hiding in the Untsukulsky district. They even considered using the air force (Chechnya Weekly, October 27, 2004).
Early last November, special-task police units started a massive mopping-up operation in Gimri that lasted several days. On November 3, according to Shamil Magomedov, head of the Gimri administration, a shoot-out between policemen and insurgents took place in the village (Nezavisimya gazeta, November 8, 2004). The rebels managed to escape, and Gimri was surrounded by federal forces. Dagestani Interior Minister Adalgirei Magomedtagirov came to Gimri and demanded that the residents hand over to the police anyone who was a Sharia Jamaat member. Magomedtagirov threatened to dispatch helicopter gunships to strike the village with missiles if they refused. When this information was immediately published by the separatist Kavkazcenter website, the interior minister realized his mistake, understanding that news of a missile strike or even the possibility that Imam Shamil's native village might be bombed could enrage the entire Dagestani society. The security officials vehemently repudiated the report about the minister's threat, but the commotion surrounding the situation in Gimri forced the federal side to retreat. The plan to close the Gimri tunnel to traffic and to conduct a Chechen-style "zachistka" in the village was dropped.
In December, the police units came back to Gimri and the clashes there resumed. On December 15, Special Forces tried to surround a group of rebels in a house, but the gunmen returned fire and escaped. One soldier and one militant were killed in the shoot-out (Interfax, December 15).
After the failure to destroy the rebel group in the gorge during first days of this year, federal forces again started to cleanse Gimri. It is unlikely, however, to produce any results. Unlike their ancestors, the modern warriors of Islam in the Caucasus prefer to hide in secret mountain dugouts rather then to fight to the death in blockaded villages. However, the insurgents know quite well that, in contrast to local policemen or the Russian troops, they are always welcome in places like Gimri, where they can readily get food, shelter and everything else they need from the local population.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:10 ||
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#2
If the boys are joyously choosing the path of jihad, soon there will be plenty of extra girls for the Chinese to marry. Any thoughts about whether China might be adding some spices to this particular pot of stew?
Kavkazky Uzel reported on January 10 that Aleksandra Zakharova, the London-based lawyer for Rasul Kudaev, the former detainee at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo, Cuba, who was later detained by Russian authorities for allegedly participating in the October 13 rebel raid on Nalchik, had sent a statement to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg on behalf of Kudaev's mother claiming that he had disappeared from a remand prison in Nalchik. Kudaev's mother, Fatima Tekaeva, said she found out that her son had been removed from the prison when she tried to deliver medicine to him. Prison officials advised her to appeal to Aleksei Sovrulin, head of an investigative unit of the federal Prosecutor General's Office, concerning her son's whereabouts. Zakharova, however, reported that Sovrulin hung up on her when she called him on Tekaeva's behalf. Zakharova said she inquired in the administration of Kabardino-Balkaria Republic President Arsen Kanokov but that the head of the administration, Oleg Shandirov, said he had no information that Kudaev had been removed from the prison. Zakharova said that Amnesty International, which has already expressed concern about Kudaev's situation (Chechnya Weekly, November 3, 2005), has also directed an inquiry concerning his whereabouts to the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities. Zakharova said that if his whereabouts were not clarified in the near future, she would direct a legal inquiry to the Kremlin.
Kudaev's mother told Kavakazky Uzel on January 9 that he had been removed from the prison at the end of December after meeting with Kabardino-Balkaria Republic President Arsen Kanokov and presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak and telling them that he had been tortured.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:09 ||
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#1
At least we don't lose people. That's pretty bad bureaucracy.
#7
Maybe we could ship some more prisoners to Russia and they could in turn "lose them"? Since Russia is part of that good country network that everybody seems to love nobody would raise too much of a stink if we asked them to look after most of our prisoners. Also it has got to be cheaper to keep these Jihadis in a say Siberia than in Gitmo and we would get brownie points from the left for closing Gitmo eventually. Can someone point out the downside of this?
The separatist Chechenpress news agency's website posted a statement on January 11 from the Sharia Jamaat, the armed Dagestani Islamic militant group. In it, the group claimed that its "Dzhundulla" sub-unit had killed three members of an Interior Ministry unit in the village of Novolakskoe on December 27. The group also claimed it had killed three "hypocrites" while losing one of its members in a battle in the town of Gimri on December 15, and had detonated a landmine on December 9 that killed a Dagestani policeman and a policeman from Bryansk and wounded four other policemen. The Sharia Jamaat also claimed it had detonated a landmine that derailed a freight train traveling from Gudermes to Moscow on December 8, and that its "Abdulla" sub-unit had blown up a vehicle carrying police and military servicemen in the city of Buinaksk in December, killing an unknown number of them. The group also claimed it was continuing an operation in Gimiri and had killed more than 80 members of Dagestan's OMON special police unit (Chechnya Weekly, January 5; also see article below).
The statement by the Sharia Jamaat, which has killed dozens of Dagestani police officers, warned "all police and other hypocrites" to "fear Allah and revenge by Muslims," adding: "We will shut your mouths with bullets." Addressing Muslims who had not joined its ranks, the group stated: "The destruction of opponents of Sharia is a forced but necessary measure prescribed by the Koran and the Sunnah. The war against the infidel will continue until all power belongs to Allah."
Meanwhile, Itar-Tass reported on January 10 that law-enforcement agents in Dagestan had detained a member of al-Qaeda. The news agency identified the suspect as Ali Soitekin Ollu, a 28-year-old Turkish national. "During interrogation, Ali Soitekin Ollu confessed to taking an active part in terrorist activities as a member of the gang led by al-Qaeda representative Abu Hafs," Itar-Tass quoted the public relations department of the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying. It was apparently referring to Abu Hafs al-Urdani, the Jordanian mujahideen commander in Chechnya.
According to the FSB, the alleged Turkish al-Qaeda member served in the Turkish army in 1996-1997 and was recruited by Islamic extremists in 2001 to carry out terrorist activities in Chechnya. "To this end, he traveled to Baku with a group of fellow countrymen, took a bus to Tbilisi and then reached the Pankisi Gorge by taxi where Abu Hafs was staying at the time," the FSB claimed, adding that Ollu was trained there for about a year as part of a group of 35 Turkish citizens led by a Turkish national known as Abu Zar. According to the FSB, Abu Hafs trained two groups of foreigners numbering 35 to 40 people each and sent them into Chechnya. Ollu arrived in Chechnya in August 2002 as part of a group led by the late Chechen rebel field commander Ruslan Gelaev and "took an active part in hit and run attacks on federal forces" across Chechnya during 2002-2004. These attacks included a June 2004 attack on the Shali district village of Avtury in which, the FSB claimed, terrorists led by Abu Hafs, Shamil Basaev, Aslan Maskhadov and Rappani Khalilov took 12 civilians hostage. Ollu was wounded in June 2004 and taken to Dagestan for treatment, where he hid for a year, Itar-Tass reported.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:08 ||
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Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev gave an interview to Kavkazcenter that the separatist website posted on January 9. Basaev, who holds the titles of "First Deputy Prime Minister of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, head of the Military Committee-Majlis ul-Shura, and Military Emir of the mujahideen of the Caucasus," was asked what were the "objectives" and "tasks" of the "assault operation" in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, on October 13. Basaev responded that the operation's aim was to "strike at the enemy" but that it was "also partially a rebellion of the Muslims of the KBR [the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic]," who were driven by "the neo-imperialist, satanic policy of Rusnya"âBasaev's favored derogatory term for Russiaâto liberate Nalchik from "the infidels and hypocrites." Basaev said that when he was in Kabardino-Balkaria two years ago he "failed to find any mutual understanding" among the majority of the Muslims there, but that "this spring they themselves summoned me there." The main achievement of the October 13 operation, he said, was "the conscious fulfillment by the Muslims of the KBR of their Islamic dutyâŠto the Almighty and the fulfillment of their duty to wage a holy war for their faith, freedom and honor."
Basaev was also asked if the Nalchik operation was part of "a strategy of widening the war" on the rebels' part or whether the widening of the war is "objective" in nature and therefore not dependent either on the Russian authorities or the rebel leadership. Basaev answered that the strategy of widening the "jihad"âwhich, he said, was taken by the separatists' Military Committee-Majlis ul-Shura in 2002âremains thus far "subjective" in nature, meaning that it is still dependent on the Russian authorities and the Chechen rebel leadership. "Rusnya has the chance to stop the war before we cross the Volga, which, incidentally, we plan to do in the summer of 2006," Basaev said.
Still, Basaev said the widening of the war "is being successfully implemented" in part thanks to the behavior of the Russian authorities and "their local puppets" toward Muslims in the North Caucasus. "Whatever they say verbally and whatever labels they pin on us, they are showing by their actions that this war is being waged not against the freedom of the Chechens but against all the Muslims of Rusnya," he said. "Muslims do not have freedom of worship, mosques are being destroyed and shut down, Muslims are being subjected to abuse and torture because they wear beards, do not drink spirits and do not smoke. Even pregnant Muslim women are being insulted and beaten because they wear headscarves and dress modestly." Later on in the interview, Basaev claimed that a growing number of Muslims "are raising the issue of the declaration of a single Imam of the whole Caucasus" and that Chechen separatist president Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev is already "virtually" the imam of the whole Caucasus because "the mujahideen of the whole Caucasus have sworn allegiance to him." The rebel leadership, Basaev said, is planning to hold "a great unifying Majilis" this spring on the issues of naming a single Imam of the Caucasus and forming "a Shura of Alims of the Caucasus."
Basaev also attacked the Russian Orthodox Church, stating that "warlike Satanists led by the horned Putin" are in charge in Russia, and that the Russian Orthodox Church, or RPTsâwhich, he asserted, "is being served" by "residents" of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and military's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)âis in the vanguard of these evil forces. "The RPTs leadership has the same relationship to Christianity that the Kremlin-appointed muftis have to Islam," Basaev told Kavkazcenter. "Therefore, in the autumn, at a session of the Majlis of the Caucasian front in the city of Cherkessk, a decision was taken to declare the RPTs an extremist organization in the vanguard of Rusnya's colonialist imperialist policy and to ban its activity in the Caucasus until the end of the war."
Kavkazcenter also asked Basaev whether he had "final figures" for the number of rebel fighters killed during the October Nalchik raid. He said that 37 were killed, adding that a quarter of those "who earlier were presumed dead turned out to be alive." According to official Russian government claims, around 90 militants were killed in fighting. Basaev told Kavkazcenter that 217 rebels took part in the operation and that they were unable to bring in another 150 rebel fighters because the authorities discovered one of the rebel groups on the morning of October 13 and closed roads leading into Nalchik. Basaev also suggested, as have other observers, that many of those included in the official count of dead and arrested militants were in fact civilians. Basaev said the operation was a tactical defeatâ"because we were unable to achieve the goal we set ourselves"âbut strategically "a great victory," and would still have been so "even if all the 400 mujahideen brought in to this operation had died." Basaev indicated that he was in Nalchik at the time of the October 13 raid, telling Kavkazcenter that he left the city on the night of October 15.
Asked about the situation in Chechnya itself, Basaev said that after leaving Nalchik, he visited Ossetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya, meeting with the "emirs" of most of the sectors of the rebels' Caucasian Front and visiting "many" rebel bases. Basaev said he subsequently spent a week in the mountains with rebel commander Dokku Umarov "and also held a council of the southwestern front with the participation of emirs of the Ingush and Ossetian sectors of the Caucasian Front whom I took with me when I visited Dokku." Basaev said he then visited a number of sectors of the eastern front and spent a week with Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, reporting to him on "the situation throughout the Caucasus" and "discussing and agreeing on our plans of action for 2006." He and Sadulaev, Basaev told Kavkazcenter, did not "focus special attention on the pig show called âparliamentary elections in Chechnya' because, as our mujahideen say, âpigs may gruntâthe holy war goes on.'" Basaev claimed he was in Grozny at the time of Chechnya's parliamentary electionâwhich was held last November 27âand "saw the so-called voting on the deserted streets of the city."
Basaev concluded the interview by saying that the Nalchik raid showed Russia's weakness and vulnerability. "The jihad is expanding and the only difficulty we are experiencing now is with funding and media coverage of our jihad," he said. "But God willing we will solve these issues by the spring."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:08 ||
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#1
Basaev, who holds the titles of "First Deputy Prime Minister of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, head of the Military Committee-Majlis ul-Shura, and Military Emir of the mujahideen of the Caucasus,"
So that's where all those schprockets come from! *slaps forehead*
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#6
As long as the Saud and Paki terrorist entities keep their jihad finance license, the terror-war will expand.
Will the following penetrate the warped minds of the limited-war/democratic-inclusivism fanatics (and that is exactly what you are)? The problem with Islamofascists is their lives and the solution is in popular revolution against serial Western indulgence of our mortal enemy, followed by a war of extermination against the wild animals who have forfeited their right to live. Future generations will hold pilgrimages to spit on the graves of our misfeasant leadership who allowed Muslim pigs to live in the West, while facilitating a genocidal arms buildup in their belligerent homelands (jihad terror bases).
Russian security services in cooperation with foreign partners have suppressed activities of a number of international terrorist organisations that have been supporting terrorists and extremists in the Chechen Republic, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview published by the Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Wednesday.
According to him, as a result of joint operations conducted jointly with their colleagues from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Uzbekistan the security services detained and extradited to Russia a number of persons wanted for crimes of terrorist nature.
Patrushev stressed that criminals are extradited to Russia not only from the CIS member countries, but also from countries of the West. Thus in June 2005 Sweden extradited to Russia Musa Isayev who was placed by the Russian Prosecutor Generalâs Office on the international wanted list for his participation in the attack on Buinaksk in 1995. Stekhnovsky, a person who is accused of participation in the assassination of the Russian State Suma lower house of parliament member, Galina Starovoitova, has been also extradited to Russia in cooperation between the Belgian police and Interpol.
Speaking about interaction with foreign partners during the tragic events in the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow and North Ossetian city of Beslan Patrushev pointed out that the headquarters for informing the foreign partners was working under Russiaâs FSB and âsecurity services of a number of foreign states displayed readiness to provide practical assistance to usâ in the efforts. According to the FSB director, âMany of them offered their databases for checking the necessary information.â In the words of Patrushev, âSuch reaction of the partners to the Dubrovka theatre and Beslan events promoted deepening of our interaction in the sphere of fighting against international terrorism.â
The FSB chief noted that the understanding of the fact that Russia is facing in the Caucasus, and in Chechnya, in particular, not only separatism, but international terrorism as well is gradually coming not only to Russia, but also to other countries.
âI would like to stress simultaneously that we live in Russia, which is a multinational and poly-confessional country and are sure that it is categorically inadmissible to identify terrorism with a certain nationality, religion or culture,â Patrushev said. âThe fight against terrorism should bring closer together all the international community members and become a catalyst for the creation under the UN aegis of a global system of counteraction to new challenges and threats,â the Russian FSB director noted.
Hew said as well there should be âno double standards in the fight against terrorism, otherwise such fight becomes less effective,â Patrushev said.
âRussia and its allies have a common understanding of this fundamental principle,â Patrushev said. âProviding to terrorists, their supporters and sponsors asylum and backing in fact means the justification and even more - encouragement of their crimes. Such steps undermine unity and mutual trust of the antiterrorist coalition participants,â the FSB director emphasised.
âIn this connection the following facts cannot but cause regret â Great Britain is still providing asylum to Zakayev who is accused of serious crimes, the United States provides asylum to another figure of the Ichkeria republic â Akhmadov who acts under the cover of a mask of the fighter for independence and in actual fact he was engaged in terrorist and extremist activities in the Russian territory. Nukhayev and Udugov who are also hiding abroad have not been extradited to the Russian side as well,â Patrushev said.
The FSB director also said, âIn the process of the expansion of international cooperation the exchange of secret information is growing, including interstate, political and military-technical issues.â âOn these issues we are working with our partners on the basis of intergovernmental agreements in the sphere of protection of secret information signed by the Russian Federation government,â Patrushev noted. According to him, Russia has signed â29 such agreements, including nine - with countries members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 17 â with the Western states and three multilateral agreements within the framework of the CIS, CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation),â the FSB director said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:56 ||
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Four Russian soldiers and one pro-Russian Chechen police officer have been killed in a mine explosion in Chechnya, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
The troop carrier blew up after hitting a mine on Monday in the restive republic.
In a second attack on Monday in the capital, Grozny, one police officer was killed and three others were injured in a landmine explosion, RFE/RL reported.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:55 ||
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About 750 militants are active in Chechnya, and they are divided into 70 to 75 small groups, the head of the Interior Troops in Chechnya said Tuesday.
Lieutenant General Oleg Khotin said fighters were concentrated in Chechnya's rugged mountains, but he acknowledged they also retained a significant presence in Grozny, Interfax reported.
Last week, officials said nearly 300 militants were killed by federal forces in Chechnya last year. On Tuesday, Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said "a stinging blow was delivered to armed groups last year."
Alkhanov also said 121 Chechen police officers died over the past year in actions against militants and that 283 others were wounded.
Also Tuesday, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said 77 people were abducted in the republic last year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:53 ||
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A major cache with unguided rocket projectiles and other ammunition has been found in the Pamir section of the Tajik-Afghan border, Itar-Tass learnt at the press service of the Tajik State Border Committee on Tuesday.
The cache, which was found during a search operation in the area of the border village of Pushkharvi, contained two unguided rocket projectiles and 10 fuses for them, over 140 fragmentation mines, several pieces of antitank shells and other ammunition - - a total of more than 300 pieces.
According to frontier-guards, the cache was laid during the civil confrontation in Tajikistan in 1992-1997.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:34 ||
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Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam spoke out on Tuesday about his worries of disorder in the city. "There is unrest in the city", he said after talks with the chairpersons of Amsterdam's 14 districts. The meeting was organised following several incidents involving young people in a few parts of the city since the start of the year. "There is an underlying feeling whereby it would only take minor incidents to cause an outburst," Cohen said. He said there was a revival of unrest, after a period of relative calm in Amsterdam, due to the activities of about 100 young people with behavioural problems. "We are now working with justice officials to find a solution," he stated.
Cohen said officials in all the city districts are poised to nip any unrest in the bud. Moroccan-Dutch youth were involved in many of the incidents Cohen was referring to. A group of youths broke the windows of 39 cars in the southern part of the Pijp district around New Year.
Locals in the area have also complained about an increase in threatening behaviour by groups of young people. A Jewish resident was threatened and a firework was thrown through the window pane of his home. A gay couple have reported being the regular victims of harassment. A group of youths threw stones at a police station and set a car on fire in the Slotervaart district last week after a 17-year-old scooter rider died in a crash while apparently fleeing from a police officer.
But Cohen said there were many more incidents "that had not reached the media" whereby groups of native Dutch youth were involved.
#1
Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam spoke out on Tuesday about his worries of disorder in the city. "There is unrest in the city", he said after talks with the chairpersons of Amsterdam's 14 districts.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/18/2006 12:41 Comments ||
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#4
The Dutch have one up on the French because the Dutch actually do care, even about the bad boyz. Ironically, this means that while the French ignore problems and let them fester, the Dutch will continually, non-stop try to integrate the foreigners. These unblinking efforts do erode the hostility over time--it being increasingly difficult to de-humanize people who are always trying to be friends with you.
Having stayed in Amsterdam for some length of time, it is a very international city, reflecting lots of cultures, but very little of you would think of as Dutch. Were you unfamiliar with the place, it would be hard to guess where you were.
It is utterly and almost seamlessly integrated. How the Moroccans can maintain a feeling of alienation is almost mysterious. I doubt a third generation, "Dutch-Dutch-Moroccan", will be able to maintain this hate.
#5
"But Cohen said there were many more incidents "that had not reached the media" whereby groups of native Dutch youth were involved."
Native Dutch ? Is this code ?
#6
What he's trying to say is that the non-Muslim Dutch youth are "just as bad" as the islamothugs, but that the media are trying to portray this as a purely racial thing.
In other words, he's saying "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Amsterdam does not have a Muslim problem".
Which of course it *does*, as Theo's corpse, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the continuing problems with the Hofstad Group will attest.
#7
Beheading is too good for Muslim pigs. This scum needs to suffer the fate of a Sikh who was boiled alive, at the hands of Muslim slime.
http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/martyrs/dyaldass.html
Since the early 1990s, Western law enforcement agencies have noted an increasing reliance on criminal activity by terrorist networks around the world. Funding sources from the Persian Gulf, charities and other non-governmental fronts have been placed under pressure. This development, compounded by the arrests of several high-ranking coordinators and financiers of operations in Europe and North Americaâsuch as Abu Doha and Fateh Kamelâhave compelled jihadi networks to adapt and further diversify their funding sources. Consequently âtraditionalâ criminal activities like drug trafficking, robbery and smuggling are rapidly becoming the main source of terrorism funding. In fact, many recent terrorist attacks have been partly financed through crime proceeds.
Throughout the 1990s, European law enforcement officers tasked with combating the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) networks noticed that operatives had penetrated local criminal structures in Europe and North Africa by using ethnic and cultural links. With the jihad in Algeria at its height, the under-funded GIA became actively involved in drugs and weapons trafficking through logistics and financial support cells in Europe. GIA members such as Djamel Lounici and Mourad Dhina also trafficked stolen vehicles and forged documents. Similarly, for years the Fateh Kamel network in Montreal and an affiliated cell in Istanbul benefited from trafficking in stolen vehicles, theft and credit card fraud. One of its Montreal members, the Millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, had also planned a series of armed robberies to secure funding for his aborted attack on the Los Angeles airport in 1999.
While a number of violent crimes involving jihadists have taken place in North Africa and Europe over the last decade, the full synthesis between criminality and terrorism took place in 1996 with a series of deadly armed robberies in the French town of Roubaix, which police initially assumed were perpetrated by criminals motivated solely by money. Following the attempted bombing of a G-7 meeting in Lille, French authorities discovered that the Roubaix gang was in fact a small Islamic militant organization that had also committed robberies in Bosnia to fund the jihad. An added benefit of these actionsâfrom the Roubaix gangâs point of viewâmay have been that these unconventional âfundraising operationsâ were, in fact, terrorizing in themselves.
In December 2005, co-leader of the Roubaix gang and French convert Lionel Dumont was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Moreover, similar groups have been dismantled in France in the past months, including in a December 13th joint operation involving five French law enforcement agencies that netted over 25 suspects as well as high-grade explosives and weaponry. The group included known jihadists, radicalized delinquents and common criminals. Some of the members of this Zarqawi-linked cellâincluding presumed leader and ex-convict Ouassini Cherifiâwere also involved in a number of armored car robberies that were undertaken to raise funds for the movement of recruits to Iraq.
While networks were initially involved in drugs-for-weapons exchanges, many eventually shifted to direct drug trafficking. Moroccan sources suspect drug money to be the main source of funding for the May 16, 2003 attacks in Casablanca. Moreover, according to Spanish police, the funding for the March 11, 2004 Madrid train attacks came from drug trafficking, and many of those who took part in the preparation and execution of the attack had been involved in criminal activities such as stolen vehicle trading, jewel thefts and various types of counterfeiting (La Vanguardia, May 24, 2005). Furthermore, over half of the members of the group planning suicide strikes against the Spanish High Court later that year were already in jail on drug-trafficking-related charges.
Additionally, in June and November of this year, Spanish police uncovered operational and logistics cells of the GSPC and the Zarqawi networks, and discovered that the suspects had engaged in credit card fraud, robberies, drug trafficking and vehicle theft. At times an operational cell may partially fund itself, as when police found 7 kilograms of hashish in the hideout of the suspects planning to bomb the Strasbourg cathedral in 2000. Although financed by Abu Doha, the group had been raising funds through drug trafficking in Frankfurt and London. Many other Islamist cells dismantled in Europe following September 11, 2001, had engaged in drug trafficking, including an al-Qaeda linked group operating in Antwerp and Brussels and a cell in the Netherlands involved in the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Aside from narcotics, militants and sympathizers also traffic in precious stones and metals, mainly because they are easy to transport and difficult to trace. This was the case with a Tunisian man charged in Germany with planning attacks against Western targets, who had used a travel agency as a front for gold and silver trafficking (Agence France-Presse, November 30, 2004). Front companies are ideal vehicles to transfer illicit funds and since the mid-1990s, dozens of terrorist front companies have been dismantled in Europe. Recent arrests in France uncovered a GICM support cell (linked to the Madrid bombings) operating various business ventures, just as Ould Slahiâinvolved in major al-Qaeda plots and closely linked to al-Qaeda financier Khaled Al Shanquitiâwas first arrested in 1999 for laundering drug money through his import-export firm.
Since traffickers and terrorist organizations have similar logistical needs, there is ample room for collaboration in money laundering and even facilitating illegal immigration. Recent evidence from Morocco strongly suggests that jihadists are increasingly reliant on outsourcing to specialized migrant smuggling networks to infiltrate or exfiltrate targeted countries (La Gazette du Maroc, February 9, 2004).
There are additional concerns that trafficking channels can be used to move heavy weaponry and even weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and WMD components. In December 2004 members of Takfir were arrested in Barcelona for allegedly trying to purchase over 400kg of industrial explosives and material from a Czech source to build a âdirty bombâ (MAP Maghreb Arebe Presse, October 28, 2005). Moreover, in a recent case of arms smuggling from Russia, traffickers attempted to sell high-powered armsâand reportedly uraniumâto an FBI informant posing as a middleman for al-Qaeda.
To retain legitimacy, contemporary terrorist groups are particularly concerned about providing religious justification for their acts, criminal or otherwise. The writings of a 13th century Islamic jurist, Ibn Taymiyya, are an important source of authorization in regard to seizing the enemyâs property during jihad. During the Algerian jihad, Ali Benhadj (a leader of the Islamic Salvation FrontâFIS) quoted Ibn Taymiyya in declaring a fatwa authorizing GIA groups to assassinate and seize the property of all Muslims who opposed them. Terrorist mastermind Sheik Abdel Rahman had also authorized robbery against âthe miscreants and the apostate state,â while in 1998 Osama bin Laden echoed this in his call to kill Americans and âplunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.â In January 2004 a member of the Moroccan group, Salafiya Jihadiya admitted being shown videos that legitimized and promoted robbing âinfidels and hypocrite Muslims,â suggesting that encouraging criminal behavior is emerging as an integral feature of al-Qaedaâs internal propaganda.
While Islamists are widely viewed as uncompromising literalists, pragmatism in the search for funds is evident in the religious decree by Salafist ideologue Nasreddine El Eulmi, which authorized the use and sale of drugs during the Algerian jihad. The most radical of contemporary terrorist groups, the Takfir, explicitly encourages robbery and drug trafficking as long as a fifth of the proceeds are used to fund the Islamist cause (Le Parisien, September 8, 2002). Arrests in Morocco in 2002 confirmed that its members were encouraged by their emir to steal âjewels, credit cards and moneyâ from their victims (Maroc-Hebdo, August 3, 2002).
For terrorist organizations, the source of funding is irrelevant and only matters because it procures weapons, facilitates movement and produces propaganda. Even major operations cost relatively small sums when compared with the vast revenues of organized crime groups. For example, major operations like the Madrid bombings cost anywhere between $15,000 to $35,000, while the annual profits from cannabis trafficking in Europe alone are estimated at $12 billion.
The incorporation of organized criminality into terrorist ideology and operations shows the flexibility of terrorist organizations in adapting to dynamic fundraising environments. The border between the two worlds is ever more porous, with terror suspects now often imprisoned on multiple charges, both criminal and terrorist.
This poses significant challenges to law enforcement agencies, which have traditionally targeted terrorism and criminality separately.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 02:06 ||
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#1
Since the early 1990s, Western law enforcement agencies have noted an increasing reliance on criminal activity by terrorist networks around the world.
This is new? Guess the Mafia, the Corsican Union, and the IRA don't count, since they're 'homies'.
ABC News has learned that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan. Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of three known al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit conference in the village of Damadola. The United States had posted a $5 million reward for Mursi's capture. He is described by U.S. authorities as the man who ran al Qaeda's infamous Derunta training camp in Afghanistan, where he used dogs and other animals as subjects of experiments with poison and chemicals.
"This is extraordinarily important," said former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant, who was the senior agent on the FBI's al Qaeda squad. "He's the man who trained the shoe bomber, Richard Reid and Zacharias Mousssaoui, as well as hundreds of others." Pakistani authorities tell ABC News they have confirmation that Mursi was among those on the guest list for the late-night meeting. The authorities say al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was also expected to attend but apparently changed his mind.
Thanx to Charlie for the headzup!
I'll be ululating and having gun sex for the rest of the afternoon, if anybody calls...
(Reuters) - ABC News reported on Wednesday that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan. The network did not say in the report on its Web site why it believed he had been killed but it reported that Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of three known al Qaeda leaders present at a conference in the village of Damadola.
Posted by: Fred & Thromomp Gluque9990 ||
01/18/2006 16:31 ||
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#2
Earlier we read that five bodies where immediately pulled from the buildings and secreted away after the blast. This would be the first one to be identified that leaves four more to go. Anyone hearing from Zawahiri? Hello....
#8
Excellent. Now Pakistani TV will be flooded with late night infomercials on "How to Plan an Eid Feast and Make $5 Million". It's all about who you know.
Posted by: ed ||
01/18/2006 17:56 Comments ||
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#9
I remeber the original story stated the Pak army was 'waiting 'til sunrise' to start pretending to search for the bodies.
#14
I had Abu Khabab for dinner last night. It was a little gamey for my taste.
Posted by: Tibor ||
01/18/2006 19:43 Comments ||
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#15
Ima still thinking we won't see Zawahiri picking the superbowl winner, or any other current events. Innocent villagers seem to scurry pretty hard to erase all evidence of bodies, parts, plasma, DNA paste, etc....CSI and a bottle of luminol make that a waste, though
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2006 20:18 Comments ||
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#16
Although a distant second, the silencing of al Qaeda's top brass through sheer fear is still quite acceptable. I do continue to prefer "catastrophic disassembly" and its noisy variants. One thing is for sure, these suckers aren't around to rally the troops very often anymore. That I like. Having them dead I would like even better.
Some of the foreigners killed in last Friday's U.S. airstrike in the remote Pakistani village of Damadola were of Egyptian origin, according to a knowledgeable source.
U.S. officials have said "very solid" intelligence indicated that senior al Qaeda members were expected to attend a dinner celebrating the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid and that Osama Bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, could very well be among them.
Although these officials believe a number of "significant" al Qaeda figures were killed in the attack, there is no evidence so far that al-Zawahiri was among them. Pakistani officials have said he apparently was not there.
The knowledgeable source -- who declined to be identified more specifically -- on Tuesday was not clear how many foreigners were killed by the airstrike, but said, "certainly some of them were of Egyptian origin," and had direct ties with al-Zawahiri.
A Pakistani provincial official said Tuesday that "four or five" foreign fighters were killed in the strike.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:50 ||
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#1
Yup ... sure looks like innocent civilians to me. I'm astounded that this appears on CNN. /sarcasm
The provincial government said Tuesday that in addition to 18 civilians, four or five foreign militants were killed by the American airstrikes on the village of Damadola on Friday, but that their bodies were removed from the scene by companions. In all, 10 to 12 militants had been invited to a dinner in the village that night, it said.
The findings, the first official statement that militants had been among those killed, were from a preliminary joint investigation at the scene by government agencies.
The initial investigation found the attack was "directed against some foreign terrorists who were present in the area at the time of occurrence," the statement said, quoting Fahim Wazir, the political administrator of the Bajaur region, where the attacks took place.
The deaths of 18 civilians, among them 6 children, have stirred anger among the population in Pakistan and put pressure on the government to explain what happened in Bajaur.
Villagers from Damadola insisted to local journalists that there had been no militants in the area that night. Yet President Pervez Musharraf said the day after the strikes that there had been a foreign presence in the village, and he urged the population not to harbor foreign militants.
The government has since come under a flurry of accusations from opponents that Pakistani and American government officials have leaked false information that Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other militants were in the village, in order to make excuses for the attack.
The government statement goes part way to countering those accusations, since the bodies of the militants, it said, were taken away from the scene.
"At least four to five foreign elements had also been killed in the incident, but their bodies were removed from the scene within no time by their companions, so as to suppress the actual reason of the attack," Mr. Wazir said, according to the statement.
"It is highly regrettable that this attack led to the killing of 18 innocent local people," he said, "but this is also an undeniable fact, that at least 10 to 12 foreign miscreants were invited to a dinner in this village on that night." Investigations were continuing, the statement said.
American officials have said the airstrike was aimed at Mr. Zawahiri. Pakistani officials say Mr. Zawahiri was not at the site of the attack, having failed to show up for the dinner.
An American counterterrorism official said Tuesday that the attack had been based on good intelligence about Mr. Zawahiri's location, and said that there was still no conclusive evidence as to whether he had survived. The official said there were indications that the other Al Qaeda members killed in the attack had included some who, like Mr. Zawahiri, are of Egyptian origin.
In interviews, American counterterrorism officials said American military and intelligence personnel had moved in recent weeks to intensify a campaign against Mr. Zawahiri, second only to Osama bin Laden in the Al Qaeda hierarchy.
Mr. Zawahiri, believed to be hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan border, has served as Al Qaeda's primary intermediary with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who heads Al Qaeda's efforts in Iraq. American officials believe that if Mr. Zawahiri is killed, he would not be easily replaced.
President Musharraf addressed the nation on television on Tuesday night, yet in an hour and a half speech did not mention the American airstrikes. He spoke instead on various pressing national issues, like criticism of government relief for victims of the earthquake in October.
The information minister, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, in a briefing to journalists in Islamabad, insisted that Pakistan had played no role in the attack, and despite its support for American in the war against terror, had not provided any intelligence in this case. "We have an understanding, and we support them, but in this incident no intelligence was given," he said.
"The loss of life is regrettable," he said. "Pakistan is committed to the elimination of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations but our sovereignty should also be respected."
For its part, the White House said the United States would continue to work with Pakistan to hunt down members of Al Qaeda, despite protests over the airstrike.
Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, expressed no regret for the attack, saying the United States would continue to "work closely with Pakistan and others to go after Al Qaeda and bring their leaders to justice."
"Al Qaeda continues to seek to do harm to the American people," Mr. McClellan said. "There are leaders who we continue to pursue, and we will bring them to justice. The American people expect us to do so, and that's what this president is committed to doing."
In television interviews over the weekend, a Republican and a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee defended the raid, while Pakistan's ambassador to the United States questioned whether it had should have been carried out.
Jehangir Karamat, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said Monday on Fox News that "to my knowledge there was no prior notification" from the United States to Pakistan about the particular raid.
Still at issue, Mr. Karamat said, was "whether this strike should have been carried on our side of the border, and whether there was enough intelligence, accurate intelligence, to warrant this strike."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:33 ||
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Egyptians?!?
Could they be related to Mohammad Atef, Osama's Egyptian friend who got zapped by a Predator early on in Operation Enduring Freedom?
At least four foreign militants died in last week's air strike that targeted Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, but apparently missed him, Pakistani authorities confirmed today.
Hurrah!
Friday's attack by CIA drones armed with missiles killed several women and children, and sparked angry protests across Pakistan, whose government said it had lodged a formal complaint with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Witnesses and local officials say four jets also bombed the mud-brick compound, which they said was under surveillance by drones for four days before the attack shortly after 3 a.m. Friday.
If they knew it was under surveillance, that's why Ayman didn't show.
But in a statement today, Pakistan's federal administrator in the border region confirmed that the house was targeted because 10 to 12 foreign extremists had been invited to dinner there to celebrate a Muslim holiday. Four or five militants died in the strike, and villagers took their bodies away, according to a statement issued by authorities in Bajaur, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal areas where support for Muslim militants is strong among the mainly Pashtun population.
Guess you'll have to beat them until they tell you where they are, won't you?
Two fugitives described as al-Qaida facilitators, Faqir Mohammed and Maulana Liaquat, were also present when the house was attacked, Fahim Wazir, federal political agent in charge of Bajaur, said in his statement. "It is regrettable that 18 local people lost their lives in the attack, but this fact also cannot be denied, that 10 to 12 foreign extremists had been invited (to) a dinner," the statement added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2006 00:00 ||
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It seems like this could cause some bad blood within the organization. Zowie skipped a dinner which was then bombed, suggesting that maybe he knew or suspected what would happen. But he didn't warn the others, and some of his colleagues are now dead as a result. Wouldn't that make some people angry?
A threatening phone call that forced the United Nations to temporarily close offices in southwestern Pakistan said al Qaeda would attack the world body's offices there, the top U.N. official in Pakistan said Tuesday. The phone call was received Monday by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, and the United Nations closed all offices in the province of Baluchistan that day and Tuesday, said Jan Vandemoortele, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan. "Al Qaeda was mentioned twice in the phone call," Vandemoortele said, adding that the caller said "they were going to attack the offices." "It was found to be a credible threat," Vandemoortele said. "Since security is priority No. 1 for me, I decided to withdraw our staff from the field."
There have so far been no attacks or suspicious movements against U.N. operations in the region, Vandemoortele said. The world body has about 25 staffers in the region, mostly based in the provincial capital of Quetta. The United Nations will reassess the security situation on Wednesday and decide then whether to resume operations, he said. It was unclear who made the phone call, but the United Nations was able to log the caller's number and turned it over to authorities. Pakistani police were investigating the incident, Vandemoortele said.
The United Nations has six main agencies operating in Baluchistan, another U.N. official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Included in the closures were local offices of the World Food Program and the UNHCR. Two years ago, aid workers from the United Nations and other international agencies sought refuge in a heavily guarded hotel after Pakistani authorities received intelligence reports that the Taliban were targeting their offices with suicide attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2006 00:00 ||
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"The caviar and Cristal are rigged to blow!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2006 0:03 Comments ||
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Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq are to be released early. The six will be freed because there is insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said.
The US forces have refused to confirm the releases, but say they would not be based on any operational activities. The group holding US journalist Jill Carroll has said she will die unless all Iraqi women prisoners are freed.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
01/18/2006 16:20 ||
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Lemme guess - the two NOT being sprung are Dr. Death and Mrs. Germ?
#2
This reeks. The odds are good she's already dead and the Iraqis must NOT set the precedent. Life is hard - indeed - but it gets a LOT harder if you're stupid enough to step onto this slippery slope.
The number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq fell by more than a quarter in 2005 from a year earlier, Pentagon records show. Military officials call that a sign that insurgent attacks have declined in the face of elections and stronger Iraqi security forces. The number of wounded dropped from 7,990 in 2004 to 5,939, according to the Defense Department. There hasn't been much change in the number of deaths, however. Pentagon figures show 844 U.S. troops were killed in the Iraq war during 2005, compared with 845 in 2004.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2006 11:29 ||
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I think the number of large scale offensive operations in 2005, as opposed to 2004, is partly the cause of the reduced number of wounded. There could also be some change of classification.
The interpretation problem shows that even hindsight isn't 20-20.
For months now, the main danger to U.S. forces in Iraq has not come from insurgent combat troops but from what Americans call IEDs â the homemade bombs made from artillery shells and other explosives that can be buried beside roads and hidden in booby traps and set off in a variety of ways.
CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart reports that FBI technicians using breakthrough forensic techniques have made major strides in identifying where these devices are coming from and who is making them.
CBS News has learned that U.S. explosives experts have succeeded in identifying â by name in some instances â the terrorists responsible for building many of the improvised bombs used in everyday attacks in Iraq.
Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, are responsible for nearly half of all the U.S. combat deaths recorded in Iraq since March 2003. Reducing the frequency and lethality of those attacks is considered crucial to the U.S. war effort.
The identifications were made possible by piecing together fragments of over 1,500 exploded IEDs as well as disassembling numerous bombs that didn't go off, and gathering signature elements from each of the bombs.
In some instances experts have reconstructed entire explosive devices including their unique timing mechanism and linked them to individual bombers.
At the request of the FBI, CBS News has agreed not to report specific findings about the reconstructed devices. The FBI expressed concerns to CBS that revealing such details might compromise ongoing operations and jeopardize the safety of U.S. personnel in Iraq.
The forensic signatures led analysts to suspect that many of the IEDs were constructed by a relatively small number of master bomb makers, such as those whose "how to" videotapes were posted on a terrorist Web site. Some bomb makers were linked to dozens of explosive devices. Some have been captured as a result of the identification and other terrorist technicians, CBS News was told, have been identified by name and are being sought.
Work on the devices was conducted at the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, a joint FBI, ATF and Department of Defense project, located at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Va.
Neither the FBI, the ATF nor the Pentagon would comment on the center or its work. However in a little-noticed House subcommittee hearing last March, FBI Director Robert Mueller talked about the center.
"Identifying and reconstructing timing devices, explosives and producing an analytical product that is distributed throughout the military or throughout law enforcement in the United States may well enable us to prevent the use of those devices in the future," Mueller said.
And clearly they've already had some success. Several bomb makers have been taken out as a result of this work. But the terrorists just keep coming back. The military now reports that insurgents have developed an IED that literally leaps into the air and detonates when helicopters are passing overhead.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:52 ||
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It'll also help to have man-portable andor vehiiickle-portable versions of MRI, includ but not limited to solid state VHR imaging. Article reminds me of a COLBERT REPORT comedy skit on Canada -"Its called a TV - signals fly magicly thru the air and lands inside a box".
American helicopters in Iraq are facing a new threat from so-called aerial bombs, which are fired into the air from the ground and explode close to passing aircraft.
The new home-made weapons, known to the Americans as "aerial improvised explosive devices" have been used on numerous occasions.
"The enemy is adaptive. They makes changes in the way they fight, they respond to new flying tactics," Brig Edward Sinclair, a US army aviation commander, told Defense News, which first revealed the new threat.
He refused to say whether they had brought aircraft down. The aerial devices are placed along known flight paths and are triggered when insurgents see a low-flying helicopter approaching.
They are then fired to a height of about 50ft before a proximity fuse detonates the explosive, filling the air with thousands of metal shards.
Based on old anti-aircraft or artillery shells, the bombs would have a devastating effect if detonated close to a thin-skinned helicopter.
Any new threat to helicopters is deeply worrying for coalition forces. Rotary-wing aircraft are widely used in Iraq and although at least 25 American aircraft have crashed in the past three years, they are considered to be safer than road transport.
Ambitious insurgents also know that helicopters are likely to carry more people than road vehicles and that a crash is likely to prove fatal.
In the past fortnight US forces in Iraq have lost three helicopters. In the most recent incident an Apache attack helicopter crashed on Monday, killing two crew.
The earlier crashes of a reconnaissance helicopter and a Black Hawk, in which a total of 14 servicemen died, are still officially unexplained.
Brig Sinclair, who leads a team in the US working on helicopter anti-insurgency tactics, said the army was altering flight paths and seeking new technology to counter the threat.
But another new insurgent technique is proving still harder to counter: guerrillas have begun targeting medical evacuation helicopters.
The new ambush tactic exploits an already tested formula.
Insurgents first attack an American patrol with a roadside bomb. When troops summon helicopters to evacuate the wounded, insurgents detonate further devices pre-positioned on likely helicopter landing sites.
According to Defense News, the Americans say they have lost "more than one" aircraft to this new tactic.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:48 ||
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They are getting a LOT of outside help, training, and materiel... these are the same people who shit on their own living room rug.
#2
Its not a "new" tactic - the Commies tried it in KOREAN WAR 1, VIETNAM, and even in Central America. Iff anything is new, its the lack of numbers of US helos being used in comparison to the "heicopter war" aka Vietnam - we're still winning though.
#4
Sounds like the Bouncing Betty(tm) from hell.
I was wondering when the Hajjis were going to develop an anti-helo system. I thought they would use something like a MON 200 rigged to fire upwards, tho. (MON=soviet apers mine. MON 50=copy of M18 claymore. MON 100=Bigger version of claymore, 100m range. MON 200=Caymore Of Unusual Size(tm), 200m(!) range.
BTW how do you get that superscript (TM) thingy to work? I am such a non-HTML compliant looser.
Posted by: N guard ||
01/18/2006 9:29 Comments ||
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If a proximity fuse is used to trigger the device, it should be easy to detect and either trigger remotely or set a counter ambush. If manually triggered, they are probably inaccurate (speed, depth perception and reaction time) and emplaced near settlements (for the triggerman's concealment) and pose a bigger shrapnel threat for the neighbors.
Posted by: ed ||
01/18/2006 10:03 Comments ||
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N Guard: you can also type in "& trade ;" with spaces removed. ™
Here's a site with some of the more common characters.
1. The first message indicates that eleven Iraqi police officers were killed yesterday, Monday, January 16, 2006, during a confrontation with the groupâs mujahideen that culminated with the detonation of a car bomb in Shahraban.
2. An IED was detonated today on a âCrusadersâ convoyâ in al-Latifiya, destroying a Humvee and killing two soldiers.
3. Two employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hareth Mohsen and Harb Mohsen, were assassinated today in the al-Jihad section of Baghdad.
6. Today, Sayed Hussein, a companion of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, was assassinated in the area of al-Ghazaliya.
7. The seventh message states that a captain in the Iraqi National Guard was killed in the area of al-Dawra in Baghdad.
The Mujahideen Council, according to their statement of establishment, is composed of six insurgency groups in Iraq: al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the âunbelievers gathering with different sidesâ and defend Islam.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:38 ||
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the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades
#2
the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades
Sorry, clearly I need more caffein before posting. You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up -- the name choosers are clearly suffering from the results of inbreeding.
#6
Sorry, clearly I need more caffein before posting. You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up -- the name choosers are clearly suffering from the results of inbreeding.
Actually TW, I would say that they are suffering from pan-arabic overstatement syndrome⢠... All of the people in that region are given to wild overstatement (remember Baghdad Bob?)
I used to think that this was limited mainly to arabic speakers, but reading Khomeini, the Young Turks, and hearing Ahmadinejad carrying on have disabused me of this notion.
#7
True, Chinter Flarong9283, but I'll bet you never thought to connect Pan-Arabic Overstatement Syndrome⢠(or should we be open-minded and call it Pan-Muslim, etc, or Dar al Islam, etc... near-East/Mid-East won't work, because the Israelis don't do it, not even the ones who came from that part of the world) to inbreeding. ;-) Lovely diagnosis, by the way. It's a keeper.
Thank you! You're right, I never paid attention to how close their eyes seem to be... :-)
To expand my now-approved diagnosis a bit more:
- Don't test Israel, there is too much European influence. Israel will NEVER suffer from PAOS.
- Don't test the Christians either. Some of the worst effects of PAOS are neutralized when you are heavily outnumbered and everyone want to kill you (This goes for Israel as well!)
- I think the interesting test would be: do the Iraqi Kurds suffer from it? Are they given to the wild passionate fantasies that everyone else in the area seems drunk on?
Sadly, I don't know any Kurds. So: no data = no theory.
#9
CF9283, all the Kurds I've met have been charmingly tied into reality; but I've never been to their native habitat, so I can't say if they just adjust well to their new environment. I don't know if it counts as a data point, but
the English king Richard Lionheart thought very highly of Saladin, and counted him as a friend. ;-)
A six-minute video titled: âA Message from an Immigrant Mujahid to the Scholars of the Nation,â was recently released by al-Qaeda in Iraq, questioning these Muslim scholars for their lack of support to the mujahideen. A masked mujahid sits in front of an image of the Gulf region where Iraq is highlighted in red and yellow, and asks that if the jihad in Iraq is according to Islamic Shariâa, or law, then why have the scholars branded the mujahideen âdissentersâ and allowed the people in al-Fallujah to eat tree leaves and urinate blood as many Muslims died from thirst.
As he castigates the scholars, the mujahid, also referred to as a military leader, reminds of the destruction wrought upon the people of al-Qaim, Tal Afar, Samarra, and Rawah, and alleged crimes against Muslim women and children by Americans and Shiâites. Further, he states: âWe are ignorant but we will not have mercy in the day of resurrection. We will hang to your necks and demand our Shariâa rights imposed on you by Allah.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2006 01:37 ||
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Colorful stuff. Scholars. Right. I'd say video doesn't pack the punch needed, but that's just me.
The real key is that, en masse, the "scholars" and imams haven't done much of anything except look after their own narrow asses and interests, thus far. Sadr and Sistani both make that case rather well.
#3
I thought the headline was literal. I'm dissapointed.
Patience, phil_b, patience. As soon as they're done sorting out this nettlesome Sunni - Shiite flap, they'll start whacking their own version of the decadent academic elite within Islamic circles. If all this internecine strife wasn't accompanied by a full calendar of atrocities against the West, I'd just sit back and applaud.
Nachshon Battalion soldiers shot and killed the senior Hamas commander in Tulkarm, Tabeth Salah a-Din, early Tuesday when he opened fire while attempting to evade arrest. One soldier was wounded and was evacuated to hospital in Israel. Soldiers searching Salah a-Din's home uncovered a makeshift bomb factory containing 10 kilograms of explosives, home-made bombs and electrical components used to make detonators.
Rafat Nasif, a Hamas leader in Tulkarm, blamed Israel for provoking bloodshed and warned that Salah a-Din's death would be avenged. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Nasif said "this crime was committed while Hamas is abiding by the state of calm. The aim is to torpedo the calm; we will not remain silent."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2006 00:00 ||
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"A state of calm before we blow you up" - typical Paleos BS. A weapons factory? Nice catch and no prisoners...Finish the wall
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2006 0:02 Comments ||
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Hamas is "abiding" nothing. These maggot weasels merely let someone else take credit for the ongoing bloodshed. As if they're not arming more people, building more bombs and rockets and planning more mayhem in the interim. Until Hamas drops its insistence upon destruction of the state of Israel, they can go p!ss up a rope.
Damascus (SANA)- The witness Ibrahim Michel Jarjoura said he was forced to offer a false and fabricated testimony against Syria at the international investigation committee into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik al-Hariri because he was under threats and pressures to do so.
Jarjoura told Lebanese satellite NEW TV channel in an interview overnight that some Lebanese figures, particularly Deputy and Minister Marwan Hamada, forced him, in return to some promises, to retell the fabricated story to the international probe and the Lebanese Attorney Said Mirza as well as Bahiya Hariri, sister of the slain Hariri.
He said he is a Syrian national of Lebanese mother, adding he went to Lebanon to work and before that he looked for a job in Egypt, Iraq and Oman. He went back to Lebanon 14 days before late Hariri was assassinated with a Lebanese passport where he stayed there for six months at his grandfather house. The witness said the Lebanese military detained him at an army checkpoint six months after the expiry of his residence in Lebanon as written in the passport. After that, he was taken to prison where all his former inmates were released except him.
He added that three days later he was taken the Interrogation Department in Beirut where they told him he was working for the Syrian state security intelligence, and asked him if he had any information about the assassination of Hariri. He said he denied having any information on the issue, but despite that he was left to an assistant in the interrogation called Mohammad or Ahmad, to blackmail him.
Jarjoura said he was set free three days later, but a man called Wisam contacted him. This man turned out to be an intelligence agent and a bodyguard of Marwan Hamada as he took him to Hamadaâs house. He added that he was taken several times to Information and Interrogation security offices in Beirut, and finally he met Marwan Hamada in his house and was inspected by Wisam himself.
The witness said he told Hamada that he knew nothing and he wanted no money or anything else, but Hamada hit kicked and swore him badly and told his bodyguards to coerce him into assisting them to fabricate the story about the assassination of Hariri and implicate Syria.
"They did things to me. Terrible things!"
He added that Hamada and others told him to go to Ms. Bahiya Hariri house and tell her that he had information about who killed late Hariri without saying that he met Hamada. They ordered him to tell Bahiya that he worked for the Syrian intelligence which trained him. âThey made me memorize what Iâm going to say to BahiyaâŠand tell her that Syrian General Hassan Khallouf and General Hassan Khalil had trained me to monitor figures in Lebanon, including the procession of Rafik Hariri.â He said he told her what was ordered to state, and thought of escaping to report to his government but failed to do so as he was under constant monitoring by the Lebanese security.
Jarjoura said they forced to add other names to the alleged list he was monitoring, including Saâad al-hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Marwan Hamada, Jebran Tueni, Samir Qassir, Layla Muawad, Elias Atallah, Fares Said, Boutross Harb and Samir franjieh. They also asked him to say that Syrian Gen. Hassan Khalil and Gen. Hassan Khallouf gave him these names by means of Brigadier Gen. Suheil Barakat of Palestine security branch.
He added that last time he gave his registered testimony before the investigation committee was in the presence of a Lebanese woman translator, saying they showed him the photo of President Bashar al-Assad, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. Later they showed him the photo of Gen. Assef Shawkat and the four other detainees in Montverde but he didnât recognize them. Jarjoura said he was sadly forced into a perjury by swearing the Bible for the first time in his life, adding he is repentant to do so.
He pointed out that â I have more important things than his current testimony and would only disclose them to my government in Syria âŠ.I will not sell my country off âŠ.I received no money from anybodyâŠand I was not sentenced in LebanonâŠand all the false information came from Marwan hamada.â The witness said he sought several times to escape but couldnât.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2006 09:24 ||
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Talk about incoherent stories...
He went back to Lebanon 14 days before late Hariri was assassinated with a Lebanese passport where he stayed there for six months at his grandfather house.
Hariri was assassinated with a passport? A big, exploding passport, maybe? And whose grampa was it, Hariri's or JarJar's?
Istanbul, 18 Jan. (AKI) - Three Turkish paragliders kidnapped almost a month ago in southeast Iran close to the Pakistan border have been released. The three - Serdar Durna, Yurdaer Etike and Avni Ozan - were expected to fly back to Turkey on Wednesday. A Sunni Muslim group Jundallah (Soldier of Allah) seized the three Turks on 24 December 2005. A one-million-euro ransom was demanded for the release of the three paragliders who had been making their way to Nepal when they were seized. On Tuesday the Iranian government announced that the Sunni group, which authorities in Tehran believe is linked to Osam bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, had released the three Turks. There has been no word on fate of eight Iranian soldiers, also seized by the Jundallah last month.
"Weâre very happy but of course our happiness will be greater when we see them here [in Turkey]â said Huseyin Ozan, elder brother of paraglider Avni Ozan, reacting to the news of the release. Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul said that intense efforts had been made to save the lives of the Turks and also thanked the Iranian government and Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, for their help.
Both Gul, and Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said that no ransom paid to Jundallah.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2006 09:11 ||
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the three paragliders who had been making their way to Nepal when they were seized
Turkey, to Southeast Iran or Pakistan/ to Nepal. That's a long way to paraglide.
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.
Security forces have arrested five suspected Al-Qaeda militants, including one foreigner, following a raid in Riyadh. The security forces also learned that the group was planning terrorist attacks in the Kingdom. The statement from the Interior Ministry carried by the Saudi Press Agency said: âFour nationals and one (foreign) resident were arrested during a raid on a hide-out in Riyadh.â
An alleged outlaw and suspect of Bamihal police killing and arms loot incident was killed in 'crossfire' between the members of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and his accomplices in Singra upazila of Natore early yesterday.
PATUAKHALI, Jan 17: Charge sheet against 4 JMB men for their alleged connection with bomb blast on August 17 last year in Patuakhali district headquarter have been submitted after 4 months and 13 days after the incident. Abul Hossain, SI of Patuakhali Sadar thana and the investigation officer of the incident submitted the charge sheet on December 31. 
Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev gave an interview to Kavkazcenter that the separatist website posted on January 9. Basaev, who holds the titles of "First Deputy Prime Minister of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, head of the Military Committee-Majlis ul-Shura, and Military Emir of the mujahideen of the Caucasus," was asked what were the "objectives" and "tasks" of the "assault operation" in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, on October 13. Basaev responded that the operation's aim was to "strike at the enemy" but that it was "also partially a rebellion of the Muslims of the KBR [the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic]," who were driven by "the neo-imperialist, satanic policy of Rusnya"âBasaev's favored derogatory term for Russiaâto liberate Nalchik from "the infidels and hypocrites." Basaev said that when he was in Kabardino-Balkaria two years ago he "failed to find any mutual understanding" among the majority of the Muslims there, but that "this spring they themselves summoned me there." The main achievement of the October 13 operation, he said, was "the conscious fulfillment by the Muslims of the KBR of their Islamic dutyâŠto the Almighty and the fulfillment of their duty to wage a holy war for their faith, freedom and honor."
ABC News has learned that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan. 
At least four foreign militants died in last week's air strike that targeted Al Qaeda's deputy leader 
A threatening phone call that forced the United Nations to temporarily close offices in southwestern Pakistan said al Qaeda would attack the world body's offices there, the top U.N. official in Pakistan said Tuesday. The phone call was received Monday by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, and the United Nations closed all offices in the province of Baluchistan that day and Tuesday, said 
