NATO and Afghan forces fought a three-hour ground battle with suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghan mountains, killing 15 of them, police said Friday.
No NATO or Afghan forces were hurt in Thursday's fighting in Helmand province's Kajaki district, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhel.
NATO could not immediately confirm the clash.
Malakhel said the troops recovered bodies of some militants, assault rifles, heavy machine guns and grenade launchers. A Taliban group commander, Mullah Azizullah, was among the dead, he said.
Also in Helmand, three suspected Taliban died when a land mine they were planting late Thursday on a highway in Grieshk district exploded prematurely, Malakhel said.
Five Afghan militiamen were killed and four others injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in volatile southern Afghanistan, said a senior military official on Thursday. The militiamen, hired by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help with security, were killed on Wednesday in southern Uruzgan provinces Taliban-dominated Charchino district, said Afghan General Rahmatullah Raufi.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi called AFP from Quetta an unknown location and said that the landmine was planted by Taliban rebels. We had put the mine to target the foreign and Afghan troops. It was detonated by a remote-controlled device, said Ahmadi, who often calls media to claim attacks on behalf of the Taliban.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Imagine a world in which the media used their 'skills' finding and reporting the location of scumbag spokesman like this mutt.
Yesterday they were assaulting. Today they're preparing. C'mon guys, don't turn French on us.
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somali troops backed by Ethiopians prepared to launch a major assault Friday on the last stronghold of Islamic movement militiamen. U.S. Navy warships were patrolling off the Somali coast to prevent the militiamen from escaping by sea. But sharks lined up waiting for service at Allan's Snackbar.
The Somali and Ethiopian force captured a southern town near the Kenyan border Thursday evening. Col. Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, the Somali defense minister, said Islamic militiamen were dug in with their backs to the sea at Ras Kamboni at the southernmost tip of Somalia.
Dug in = 'pre-buried'.
"Today we will launch a massive assault on the Islamic courts militias. We will use infantry troops and fighter jets," said Shire, who left for the battle zone on Friday. "They have dug huge trenches around Ras Kamboni but have only two options: to drown in the sea or to fight and die."
Somalia's interior minister said Thursday that 3,500 Islamic fighters are still hiding in the capital.
They look just like civilians, they do. Ask our guys in Iraq for details.
Kenya closed its border amid fears militants would slip across the frontier. The U.N. said thousands of refugees are also near the border, unable to seek safety in Kenya.
Residents of Mogadishu, Somalia's ruined seaside capital, have been on edge since the government took over. The city is still teeming with weapons, and some of the feared warlords of the past have returned to the city with their guns.
"What do you think, Achmed?"
"I dunno, I just feel ... on edge!"
Ethiopian MiG fighter jets and tanks were vital to helping the weak Somali military rout the Islamic movement. Now, though, Ethiopia wants to pull out in a few weeks, saying its forces cannot be peacekeepers and cannot afford to stay.
Yeah, let's replace the effective Aethiops with ineffective Nigerian, Angolan or Bangladeshi troops. There's the ticket to peace right there. Just hide the young women.
The ease with which Somalis can get weapons is a major problem. Thursday was Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's deadline for residents to voluntarily give up their arms, but only a handful were seen doing so. But Gedi said the disarmament program was working.
"We got five!"
Gedi swore in thousands of troops to the army Friday who had served under Siad Barre's regime. Most were well over 50, wore old uniforms and carried no weapons.
Hassan Hashi Mohamed, 60, said he saved his camouflage uniform for 16 years. "They called on us from the radio, so we came here," Hassan Hashi Mohamed, 60, said from a former base of Barre in Mogadishu, where the troops had gathered. "We are old now, but we will get some young men too."
#2
Ras Kamboni has a long-established training camp. That, and having no place to go means a fight to the finish for the Islamists. Hence the preparations.
OSAMA bin Laden's top aide has urged Somali Islamists to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign of suicide and other forms of attacks against Ethiopian forces in Somalia.
Ayman al-Zawahri put out the call in an audio tape posted on the internet today. "As happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the world's strongest power was defeated by the campaigns of the mujahideen troops going to heaven, so its slaves shall be defeated on the Muslim lands of Somalia," al-Zawahri said.
"You must ambush, mine, raid and (carry out) martryrdom campaigns so that you can wipe them out," said Zawahri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader.
The tape was posted on a web site used by Islamist militants and al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Ethiopian forces helped Somalia's interim government rout Islamists in a two-week war.
#3
"Of course, as the supreme Imam of Mogadishu, I must avoid the "delights" of 72 virgins in paradise... However for each dupe er martyr I can convince of the delights of the 72 virgins, I can remain here on the earth, and "suffer", knowing what's under all those hot burkas... And, with all the young competition I have convinced to turn themselves into red goo splattered all over the place, there is less competition"
#4
This is exactley what all the people (me included) have been saying all along, when they say "faster please". If they start going there, we can kill them faster, and they have less recruits to Iraq. Going there would help us more than any other one thing they could do.
#5
Once again an islamist calls for others to be his dupes, being muslims they are more then happy. Any Black African who falls for this new form of slavery is doubly a fool.
(SomaliNet) Unknown gunmen have attacked the Ethiopian troops in Somalia capital, Mogadishu with a hand grenade or similar device on Thursday evening in an attempt to resist the presence of the Ethiopian soldiers in the country. The troops responded with firing at the attackers.
"Die Aethiop scum ... oh hey! wait, you can't shoot bac .... [thunk] [thwip] [bangety-bang] rosebud ..."
Reports say that the body of unknown person was laying on the ground shortly after the accident. No casualty was reported on the Ethiopian soldiers.
An eyewitness told Somalinet tonight that the bomb explosion has occurred near Sahafi Hotel in south of Mogadishu where the Ethiopian forces are stationing. Unknown armed men have thrown a a hand grenade at Ethiopian soldiers standing outside of their base and they responded with opening fire on the attackers, a local shopkeeper who declined to be identified said.
Reports say that the body of unknown person was laying on the ground shortly after the accident. No casualty was reported on the Ethiopian soldiers. It is not yet clear who was behind tonight's attack and no word from the government officials yet.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
This "I'll shoot over your head, and you shoot over mine" might work with muslims, but the Ethiopians are Christian. I think the Somali "militias" might learn the true meaning of "war" before this is all over, and they won't like it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2007 15:07 Comments ||
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MOROCCAN security forces have dismantled a radical Islamist cell recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and arrested 62 people, the Government said on Thursday. "The first elements of the inquiry reveal the existence of ideological links with and financial and logistical support for international terrorist groups," it said in a statement. Those groups included Al Qaeda, the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and other international terrorist organisations, it added. All those arrested were Moroccan.
Morocco, a staunch US ally, says it has broken up more than 50 militant Islamist cells, some linked to Al Qaeda, and arrested more than 3000 people since suicide bombings in the country's financial capital, Casablanca, in 2003. In August, the Government said it had broken up a cell planning to declare a holy war in northeast Morocco, attack tourist sites and assassinate people who symbolise the state. It said the capture proved the existence of an increasingly sophisticated menace to the stability of the country of 32 million people before parliamentary elections expected this year.
The latest group's links with the GSPC could also alarm anti-terrorism officials already concerned that the GSPC is drawing in growing numbers of radical Islamists in the region and providing them with weapons and military training. Some analysts say the GSPC has been weakened by an Algerian Government crackdown on the movement since more than a decade of civil conflict in the country ended. They also question the threat posed by foreign Islamist fighters in Iraq, saying the country's descent into chaos is now blamed mostly on the work of local sectarian militias. "You used to hear the Americans say this is all the work of foreigners but now, in terms of the pure terrorist attacks where the goal is to kill civilians, ... most of this is Iraqi led," said Kevin Rosser, a terrorism expert at risk consultancy Control Risks Group.
But Mohamed Tozy, political science professor at Hassan II University in Casablanca, said the idea of fighting the US-led occupation of Iraq still seemed to appeal to young Moroccans, even those who are not fervently religious. "It seems the idea of going to fight in Iraq is no longer so closely tied to Islamism and Jihadism," he said. "Simply being young might now be enough to predispose some people to follow this path."
The Government statement said those arrested in the latest round-up would be brought before judicial authorities in line with Morocco's anti-terrorist laws. Rights groups say hundreds of the people arrested since 2003 have faced ill-treatment or unfair trials, something the Government denies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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(AKI) - A group of Islamic militants who engaged in a gunbattle with Tunisian security officials Wednesday in the area of Soliman, 40 km south of Tunis, hailed from Algeria, according to a report Thursday published by London-based Arabic language daily al-Hayat. Security forces shot dead 12 people and arrested 15 near Tunis after the rare gunbattle, a government source said on Thursday.
Al-Hayat reported that those killed were part of a larger group of militants who had crossed the border from Algeria. Authorities claimed that Wednesday's clash during a hunt for a gang of criminals who clashed with police in Tunis on 23 December. In last month's incident, two gang members were killed and two policemen wounded, the authorities said at the time.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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A South Korean abductee has escaped from North Korea after more than 30 years in the communist state and is now in China, an activist said Thursday. Choi Wook-il, 67, fled the North in December and is in a "safe place" in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji, said Choi Sung-yong, the head of a group of relatives of South Koreans allegedly kidnapped by the North.
Choi Sung-yong said he orchestrated the escape and has asked the South Korean government for help in bringing the abductee home. He said the government has promised to cooperate but has taken no action. A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said Seoul would try to bring him home through consultations with China.
The abductee ended up in the North when his fishing boat was seized off South Korea's east coast in 1975. He is among 485 South Korean civilians believed to have been kidnapped by the communist regime, with the rest believed to still be held there. Besides the civilian abductees, South Korea also estimates that about 500 soldiers from the 1950-53 Korean War are still alive in the North. North Korea denies holding any prisoners of war, and claims that civilians voluntarily defected.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The targets are possibly (probably) Lucas Heights reactor & Harbour Bridge, but police are keeping a lid on it, as best they can.
Taha Abdul Rahman was arrested at a house in Leumeah, in Sydney's south-west, early on Friday morning and charged with 17 offences over seven rocket launchers allegedly stolen from the Australian Defence Force.
Man arrested over supplying weapons
[...]
Police say Abdul Rahman, 28, supplied five of the Light Anti-Armour Weapons to one of the men arrested in anti-terrorism raids in Sydney last November over a plot to blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.
[...]
A SYDNEY man has been charged with passing on seven stolen rocket launchers, five of which allegedly went to a person on terror charges. A joint operation by Australian Federal Police, New South Wales Police and ASIO led officers today to a house in Leumeah, in Sydney's southwest, where the 28-year-old man was arrested.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Frank Prendergast, who is the AFP's counter terrorism national manager, said the 28-year-old man supplied two rocket launchers to one man, and five of the weapons to another man. "The person who received five is facing terrorism charges on another matter,'' Prendergast said. "It is a matter of great importance to us to recover the six outstanding weapons.''
The charged man is believed to be one link in a "chain of supply'', Asst Commissioner Kaldas said. He was due to face Sydney's Central Local Court today.
He also apparently doesn't have a name. Wonder why the News didn't disclose it?
On September 30 last year, police recovered one of the rocket launchers, believed to be the property of the Australian Defence Force.
The man was charged with two counts of dishonestly receiving stolen property, seven counts of unauthorised possession of a prohibited weapon, and seven counts of unauthorised supply of a prohibited weapon. He has also been charged with possession of ammunition.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas said today's arrest was not the end of the investigation. "I want to assure the public that we have significant resources working on finding these weapons," he said. "It is important that if anyone in the community has any information regarding prohibited or illegally obtained weapons, they should contact police immediately."
Army chief Lieutenant General Peter Leahy said earlier that the Defence Department was investigating claims that former soldiers may have sold anti-tank rockets on the black market to criminals or even terrorists. Lt Gen Leahy said the department was auditing all such weapons in its armories around the country. "We've done a fair bit of work to do a stocktake of our own and the defence force announced before Christmas that we are imposing extra restrictions on their use to make sure they are used only for operational purposes," he said.
"I think that we've taken quite stringent steps to make sure that we have control over the weapons in our control and I think beyond that we should listen to what the Civil and other authorities are doing to investigate."
#1
Taha Abdul Rahman, 28, was arrested at a house in Leumeah, in Sydney's southwest, early today following a joint operation by the AFP, ASIO and the NSW Police over the theft of seven rocket launchers from the Australian Defence Force.
He was charged with 17 offences, including supplying a prohibited weapon.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/05/2007 5:45 Comments ||
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#4
"Taha Abdul Rahman sounds like a muslim name"
Now, now, Howard, his name could be British (Danish, French, German,...). Oh wait, the muzzies don't recognize 'state governments', do they?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/05/2007 7:48 Comments ||
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#5
I think Hosni Mubarak's interrogators routinely remind muzzies that there is a 'state government' of Egypt.
A series of bomb blasts across the Mediterranean island of Corsica killed a suspected separatist planting some of the devices, officials said Thursday. The overnight explosions occurred one day before a visit to the French territory by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative presidential candidate. They fit the pattern of separatist attacks that has dogged Corsica for three decades.
Five of the blasts went off in and around the southern port of Ajaccio, the island's biggest urban centre, lightly damaging four banks and a tax office. "The two banks in the city center and the main tax office suffered minor damage to their front and other windows," said a security official.
A sixth blast, in the northern town of Sollaro killed a man in his 50s believed to have been carrying the bomb at the time. A suspected accomplice was injured and was in hospital in a serious condition. A seventh explosion in Sollaro, apparently caused by a device on a timer planted by the pair, came shortly after the sixth. It destroyed an empty villa.
Separatist bomb attacks frequently target buildings associated with French rule, such as police stations, banks and post offices, as well as holiday villas owned by non-Corsicans, but it is unusual to have so many in one night. The blasts usually take place at night, when properties are vacant, and are not aimed at claiming lives. Sarkozy is to visit the island on Friday for meetings with local officials and businessmen on rural and agricultural development.
#1
Every time the Corsica issue turns up here, I delight in posting that link about the peculiarities of corsican society (scroll down for full effect).
#5
How about cutting off the "put up and shut up" money? Hmmm? Hard for leaders to keep their gunmen quiet without $$$. They just might turn on them and each other.
#11
Not unless Abbas publicly denounces and dumps the Fatah a**wipe who just last week promoted attacks on Americans. Ready to raise a blog stink, fellow WoT patriots?
#13
Mr. President, merely because Abbas has been too busy for the past two or three weeks to ask in Arabic for the destruction of Israel, doesn't mean you can believe him when he tells your State Dept. that he's committed to living in peace with the Jews.
The president and CIC should not be asking for more taxpayer money to give to the Palestinians. His request for same should be respectfully denied.
I would prefer to see the $83M put into a fund to source a group of well trained gentlemen whose mission is to pay late night visits to problematic imams throughout the middle east whose islamist sermons can be accessed at MEMRI.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
01/05/2007 19:03 Comments ||
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#14
President Bush is asking Congress to provide $83 million for security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, as the U.S. tries bolstering him for prospective peacemaking with Israel.
Bush has told Congress he would like Abbas' forces to receive the aid, which would be for training, uniforms, vehicles and other support, a senior U.S. official said Friday. The amount could be increased a few million, said the official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to make announcements.
And they're not even trying to say it's for relief efforts or "the children" (who's got that TM thingie?) or anything. They're openly saying the money's for Abbas' security forces!
Training, vehicles, and other support my ass! It's going to go straight into some ragheaded Paleo assholes' pockets and there won't be a dime's worth of accounting or paper trail to see where it does actually go.
Use the $83M to start building the damned border fence - or raise some of those 10k worth of border patrol officers you promised way back a few years ago - or better yet, use that $83M to buy our border patrol their own training, vehicles, and other support!
That's taxpayer money, you moron (and I voted for you - TWICE!). It's not your money to piss away down some foreign rathole!
#16
I like Bush but he has a few blind spots, specifically illegal immigration and Palestine. I voted for him for the same reason I voted for Schwarzenegger: the alternative was too bleak to bear.
#17
Looks to me like Georgie boy hit a nerve, or tow this time.
And the "OK Dems, make yourself useful" comment was IMHO a snark-free from the heart comment. Allow me to second that. (Damn, I picked a fine day to quit sniffing glue.)
Buh-bye...
DETROIT - A Muslim leader from Ohio who was convicted of lying about his involvement with a group the U.S. government designated a terrorist organization has been deported to his native Palestinian territories, immigration authorities said Friday. ...and I'll bet he thought Cleveland was bad. Fawaz Damra, 46, was convicted in June 2004 of concealing his ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994. Oh, that Islamic Jihad! Why didn't ya say so?
Damra, who served imam at Ohio's largest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland, was deported on Thursday, said Tim Counts, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was flown to Amman, Jordan, then crossed to the West Bank. Have a nice trip. Don't forget to write...
A message seeking comment with his lawyer, Michael Birach, was not immediately returned. Case closed. No more billable hours. When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's him.
Damra immigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s and is married with three U.S.-born children. Feel free to take them all with you.
In Ohio, he had become involved in interfaith activities, particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But soon after, a tape of a 1991 speech in Chicago became public in which Damra said Muslims should be "directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." Ummmmmm...ummmmmmmm. That was taken out of...context. Yeah! That's it!
Damra apologized and said he made the remarks before he had any interaction with Christians and Jews. Really, I am much fonder of monkeys and pigs now. Really. Honest.
At his 2004 trial, prosecutors showed video footage of him and other Muslim leaders raising money for an arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The State Department placed the group on its list of terrorist organizations in 1989. Oh. Is that me? I guess the camera really does add ten pounds...
Damra had been imam of a Brooklyn, N.Y., mosque in the mid-1980s that became a focus of fundraising for anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. His replacement there, Omar Abdel-Rahman, was convicted in a 1995 foiled plot to blow up New York City landmarks. ...and a proud Jihadi tradition continued.
A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.
According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat. The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.
The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.
This had better never happen again, or otherwise calm, ordinary citizens (like me) are going to have blood in their eyes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I think it will happen again. The Guardsmen are there just for show.
#3
where is the outrage from our government?
This needs to stop. "Those guardsmen were forced to retreat."
unf***ingbelievable. That gunmen from Mexico are able to come into our country like this. "However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident."
So what, we'll wait until more are killed before we act?
Posted by: Jan ||
01/05/2007 0:36 Comments ||
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#4
A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.
START DEFENDING THE DAMN BORDER!!!!!
Arm the Border Patrol and NG with large-caliber automatic weapons and orders to fire on ANYONE attempting to cross the border. Shoot to kill, and don't ask questions later.
Our enemies are never going to fear us so long as we're too damn squeamish to defend our own borders against armed invaders.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/05/2007 7:12 Comments ||
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#9
US Colonels and Generals are relieved of command when their troops run away, no matter what the circumstances, including overwhelming enemy force.
Unless of course the troops were withdrawing under orders from higher command or previously established ROE's. Then it isn't so much a matter of "running away" as it is spinelessness on the part of those in command and their civilian masters.
The Government (Federal or State) isn't going to do anything...period. The Feds, because they are in favor of this, the States won't do anything effective because of the threat of losing Federal funds.
N O T H I N G, is going to be done until regular citizens take direct action in an organized fashion, regardless of personal legal consequences. Want to do something? Bring your friends, supplies and weapons and meet me at the border. Otherwise, everyone that whines about this is wasting their time. The Government does nothing, because we do nothing, of any substance anyway.
Want to see the fuse lit on the powder keg? Then let a few hundred private citizens kill a bunch of border violators. The whole issue would come out of stealth mode real quick.
Posted by: Chuck Darwin ||
01/05/2007 8:45 Comments ||
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#10
Update: I'm sorry, this should have said:
N O T H I N G, is going to be done until regular citizens take direct action in an organized fashion, regardless of personal legal and financial consequences.
Posted by: Chuck Darwin ||
01/05/2007 8:47 Comments ||
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#11
The pols won't seriously react till there is another Columbus, New Mexico incident.
#15
This has been happening more and more frequently lately. The American public (by a LARGE majority) favors sealing the border rubbermaid tight and pronto. Why won't the beltway types listen? We've had several shootouts at the border, one B.P. agent killed, and one incursion (supposedly by the Mexican military itself, not just the drug/illegals runners) TEN MILES inside our border! Geebus, this p!sses me right off!
The Minutemen Project had their head full of steam with public support. Corruption floundered that (although, I understand they're still building that private fence in AZ). Actually, we need to take it one step further, because just being "eyes and ears" for the B.P. is a waste of time, as long as the federal "catch and release" game is played. Add to it, California's prison population is now upwards of 25% illegals (I'm sure TX and AZ aren't far behind), that costs US billions! This one issue (along with general Uncle Sam spending) probably cost Bush & Co. the 2006 Congressional elections.
I just can't get over how simple it is to see (and how much TRULY it's tied to the WoT) that Bush can't "get it." If the pubbies ran on a shut down the border/deal with those here later platform, they'd be running Congress for the next 20 years!
Posted by: BA ||
01/05/2007 11:11 Comments ||
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#16
tu: Yeah, it was started by the MSM by NOT even reporting it in the first place. Note you have to find it on www.azcentral.com to even read about it.
Posted by: BA ||
01/05/2007 11:12 Comments ||
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#18
If you think this border shit is an accident, think again. This comes direct from Bush. No engagements. NG on the border was a show horse only. These people probably have direct orders to not engage and cause incidents (otherwise known as dead Mexican Federal Police ). The border is to remain wide open. Ports are wide open. What a farce. We send soldiers everywhere on the globe , but none to defend US. When private citizens venture forth, they are threatened by the US gov't. What is going on??
#20
That's right and if you scumbag citizens don't like it, then go to hell. And pay your own way, your not getting shit from us elites in the Fed.
And if this bullshit whining keeps up, you'll get martial law. So shut up !
[/snrk]
#21
I don't believe this is spinelessness on the part of our "beltway types". I think it's worse than that. I believe that there are some very influential fat cats who have too much money at stake to allow anything to be done about this. Drugs, cheap labor...you name it. Our government is just as crooked as Mexico's.
#23
I just can't get over how simple it is to see (and how much TRULY it's tied to the WoT) that Bush can't "get it."
Bush "gets it", they all get it. It is being done deliberately. The country has been sold down the river! Lock, stock and barrel, and the checks have been cashed. The media is complicit. I predict that 2007 is the year it all comes unraveled.
Posted by: Chuck Darwin ||
01/05/2007 13:03 Comments ||
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#24
Chuck Darwin: We are rapidly reaching the point where there will be a cross-border "incident" with a bunch of people getting killed.
I would prefer that they be uniform wearing, but ex-Mexican army Zetas that are hosed north of the border, with lots of gruesome photos showing their dead bodies. Of course, they may also be Mexican army regulars.
However, I suspect that it will be when a large band of Mexicans crosses over and slaughters a bunch of Americans. Essentially a Columbus, NM raid, but very bloody, with lots of arson, rape and robbery.
#28
Two Reasons our politcal cowards won't do sh*t:
1) Cheap non-union labor for duplicitous un-patriotic corporations/companies etc who give big campaign contributions to RINO's in order to ensure nothing happens to their infinite flow of labor on the border.
2) Potential voting block of ignorant manual laborers for the parasitical (yet oh so dementedly compassionate) demorats.
That's all there is to it. Look where most of the senators in the aforementioned border states stand on immigration - McCain is a total p*ssy and will be an even worse president wrt illegals. Tancredo is the only guy (Colorado) that I have seen who has a clue & is trying to stop this sh*t. I won't even mention any dems because 80% of them love this. I think maybe only the blue dog dems will be any source of reason in congress, and I don't give that much water.
F*ck both sides of the aisle. We've had yrs to un-f*ck this and they sit on their asses. What's the avg congressional work week? Like 3 days or something according to some non-partisan FWA watchdog groups - damn sickening. I worked 7 days a week in Iraq for almost 7 months to protect another country's sovereignty and these jokers can't do more than 12 days a month!! I think it may be time to invoke Jefferson and water the tree of liberty.
(rant/off)
I love my country but some times hate my gov't.
Of course, that's only if JOE M doesn't succeed in his bid, mind you!
Posted by: BA ||
01/05/2007 15:20 Comments ||
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#31
I think it's time to start emailing our Congresscritters a copy of the Declaration of Independence, with the second half of the second paragraph highlighted and underlined. I doubt they get the message, but maybe, just maybe, it'll give them an idea why their asses are being targeted by "fine, upstanding, honest, gun-totin', tax-paying citizens".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2007 15:40 Comments ||
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#32
The benefits of illegal alien labor go to rich, well connected people who give generously to political parties. The costs are spread out over every taxpayer. As a politician who spends the majority of time raising campaign cash, who are you going to listen to, Ritchie Rich with a $5-10,000 check or Joe Sixpack with a gripe about losing his middle class job and relegated to an $8/hour McJob?
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2007 15:54 Comments ||
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#33
This will come back to bite us in the ass if it hasn't already. We have no control of our borders. We have no idea who is in this country. The illegals could be Mexicans or AQ or any other group wanting to conduct terrorist activities. Our nutless feckless politicians are incompetent to do anything or don't want to do anything because of self-interests.
#34
McCain and PC took away the soapbox. OJ and multiculturalism took away the jury box. Dem voter fraud and Trunk fecklessness took away the ballot box. What's left, the ammunition box?
#35
It's attacks on our nation like this that make me despair. This won't be solved until we end up with a second Mexican-American war.
Posted by: Charles ||
01/05/2007 17:05 Comments ||
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#36
You folks aren't Dire enough, I fear the Wetback Bomb and the incineration of all that is good and holy in South Texas. Naturally I blame Bush and his slaveholding mentality for this horrific development.
#37
#22..right..Nat'l guard are unarmed...
But now so are the Tijuana police...all 2300 of them...3000 Army/federal police have moved into TJ this week and are collecting weapons from the TJ police..ballistic tests to follow...
US President George W. Bush is expected to announce next week the replacement of the top US general in the Middle East, John Abizaid, and the senior general in Iraq, George Casey. Gen Abizaid, 55, Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) comprising the Middle East, who in December announced he would retire in early 2007, would be replaced by Admiral William Fallon, the Commander of the US Pacific Command, said ABC quoting US officials.
Gen Casey, 58, who is not expected to step down before June, would be replaced by General David Petraeus, 54, Commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq, the television channel said. The changes are expected to be made public next week before Mr Bush announces his new strategy for Iraq. "The president wants a clean sweep,'' an unidentified US official said on ABC.
Gen Abizaid went from No.2 to head of CENTCOM in July 2003, after Saddam Hussein was overthrown in Iraq three months earlier. In mid-November, Gen Abizaid told a congressional hearing that increasing US troop levels was not the solution to Iraq's problems.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Fallon is a former carrier pilot - and former commander of carrier attack forces in the Middle East during Gulf War I.
'Just the guy to have in place if and when the CIC decides to actually USE the two carrier battle groups that will soon be trolling around the Gulf.
Hey Iran - do you want to send yor Navy - or your Air Force - out to play?
#2
Cleaning house is a damn good idea, but I'd have felt better with, maybe, Petraeus as CENTCOM head and James Mattis taking Burnside'sFredendall's Casey's place.
One more thing...does everyone remember COL H. R. McMaster, the guy running an Armored Cav regiment near Tal Afar? The one who did such a good job the town's mayor personally appealed to President Bush to extend the ACR's tour? Why hasn't this guy, and others like him, been rapidly run up the ladder to two or even three stars? The hell with time-in-grade and War College or staff duty ticket punches - we're in a war, and today's James Gavins and Terry Allens need to be found and pushed to the top.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
01/05/2007 1:12 Comments ||
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#3
Why hasn't this guy, and others like him, been rapidly run up the ladder to two or even three stars?
It's one of the short comings of the modern military bureaucracy. The personnel system is way too rigid. There's no leeway for fast promotions like Ike's run by Marshall. Ike wouldn't qualify today because he wouldn't have had 'command' time at brigade or division level. Too many fill in the block assignment requirements. Because of Goldwater-Nichols [Act], those successful battalion/brigade commanders can't be jumped above others because of requirements for 'joint' [multi-service] assignments before assuming joint commands. We settle for mediocre in place of brilliance, because we don't want to hurt peoples feelings and its easier to 'manage'.
#4
When President Bush stands up and squares with the American people, as in telling them that Iraq is really Round #2 in a long war against the Isalmo caliphate, and stops trying to slather "politically correctness" all over this ugly fight, the bad guys will continue to win the PR war. And mishandled PR will lose this war early.
#5
Abu Babaloo, excellent suggestion (too late, apparently, to influence Dubya's decisions). It still seems likely Petraeus will be an improvement over Casey, a smart and good guy totally committed to a strategy that was clearly inappropriate from the start (not hindsight - when many of us looked at the campaign plan last year, we shook our heads, as apart from an emphasis on AQ in Iraq its priority assigned to putting unready Iraqis in charge looked, felt, and smelled wrong).
I'd heard that Casey would transfer sooner than June, as the article has it - I sure hope so. While already overdue by several years, a serious effort to win this thing may not be able to take yet another few months of the status quo.
#6
FWIW...Fallon is COMPACOM. His claim to fame is his relentless China-appeasment policies during his tenure. I do not think this is a WH move to strike fear in the hearts of anyone. I beleive it is a clear statement that the WH is moving toward appeasment and diplomacy in Iraq-Iran-Syria.
#7
I am not comfortable with Fallon either.... In my gut, I feel Gen. Abizaid is getting dumped on like Secy Rumsfeld did, because of the PC policies of the West Wing which tied their hands...
#8
I would suggest all Rantburgers do a little Fallon-spadework. Most thought Fallon was going to retire after his PACOM tour. He is old...even for a 4 star. He will hit 40 commissioned years this year and is going on 62. He has been a 4 star for almost 7 years...which is extraordinary.
The mandatory retirement age for all flag officers is 62 (this can be deferred to age 64 in some cases by SECNAV, SECDEF, or POTUS). To serve for 2 years as CENTCOM will require the special dispensation.
The Fallon selection is no accident and is part of the new WH Iraq-ME policy shift.
... two men accused of furnishing thousands of dollars and fresh recruits to a Palestinian terrorist network...
two men accused of furnishing thousands of dollars and fresh recruits to a Palestinian terrorist network rested their case Thursday following testimony from an expert on torture. Closing arguments were set for Monday at the racketeering trial of former Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah, 53, and Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48, a former assistant professor of business at Washington's Howard University.
Federal prosecutors say the two men were members of the Palestinian group Hamas and helped to bankroll a wave of terror that included bombings, kidnappings and murder aimed at toppling the Israeli government. Dr. Metin Basoglu, an authority on the psychological mechanisms created by torture, testified over a live video feed from Istanbul where he lives.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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Unidentified gunmen shot dead Shia leader Syed Ali Imam Jaffari in Kotwali police precincts on Thursday, police said. Police said that the assailants opened fire on Jaffari when he was going to an imambargah in the Kotwali area of the city. Jaffari was the caretaker of Imambargah Ali Imam and a former president of the Tehreek-e-Jaffaria in Kotwali tehsil.
Jaffaris relatives and a large number of Shias gathered outside the hospital where his body was brought after the attack, and protested against the killing. They demanded the government provide security to the Shia community in the city. City SP Sher Akbar said the police had started investigating the murder.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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The new police chief of NWFP, Sharif Virk, will face a difficult time trying to stop the Taliban extending their influence over districts in the province and abolish the notorious thana culture, observers say. Mr Virk takes charge as local Taliban have extended their sway to Darra Adam Khel, a tribal town just 30 miles from Peshawar.
The frontier regions of Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Kohat have also been taken over by the Taliban.
A Daily Times investigation based on interviews with officials dealing with tribal areas and tribal elders in several regions reveals that the frontier regions of Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Kohat have also been taken over by the Taliban.
Because of the takeover of frontier regions, the Taliban influence extends to settled areas of Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Kohat districts and there the police have failed on many counts, said a police official who served in one of the affected districts, wishing not to be named.
Administratively, the frontier regions are regarded as soft targets for the Taliban since neither the police nor paramilitary force are deployed there in normal peacetime. The Taliban are performing the police job particularly in Tank city, close to the border with South Waziristan, arresting criminals and parading them through the streets in front of the public. Such moves by the Taliban serve two purposes. First, they show the people that they can perform better than the police. Second, such a humiliation has a strong psychological effect on the common man, the police official said.
Darra Adam Khel is particularly important as the town manufactures lots of weapons that can be sent to fighters in Waziristan, and is close to the provincial metropolis. They (Taliban) are in control of Darra Adam Khel now and they must be trying to hook themselves up with like-minded people in Peshawar to extend their influence to the provincial metropolis, said a resident of Darra Adam Khel who is associated with an NGO.
Upon arrival in Darra Adam Khel, the Taliban have terrorised music and video shop owners, non-governmental organisations and girls schools with bomb blasts. Official reports suggest the Taliban in Darra Adam Khel have a direct link with the Taliban in North Waziristan, where they are sending young recruits for training, while weapons are being supplied to militants in North Waziristan from Darra Adam Khel. Some time ago, the military seized weapons near Kohat that it said were being transported to militants in North Waziristan from Darra Adam Khel.
In the north of the province, the situation does not look good as jihadis are spreading across Malakand region and moving up to Hindukush Mountains in Chitral district. Officials blamed the growing influence of the Taliban beyond North and South Waziristan on the police failure to stop the Talibanisation of settled areas. Thana culture, a reference to police misbehaviour with citizens in police stations, means people dont trust the police, and this, coupled with the near-collapse of the justice delivery system, will play into the hands of the Taliban, warned a retired police official.
Where law and order and justice vanish there the Taliban emerge and the public response is positive because the people want protection irrespective of who provides it, he added. Mr Virk must fight on the two fronts the Taliban and the thana culture simultaneously. Observers say the new police chief is knowledgeable about the area and all that remains to be seen is his determination to take on the two major problems the Frontier province is faced with.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Why are they so against Girls Education????
They know women are the key to inflicting maximum damage to Islam from within!!!!
The Indian army on Thursday killed four alleged Pakistani militants in its part of disputed Kashmir after a three-hour gunfight, police said. We had a tip-off that alleged Pakistani militants were hiding in the forests. A special team of police and army cordoned the area, after which a gunbattle started. Four militants were killed, senior police official Basant Rath said. The fighting took place in Ramban district, 250 kilometres from Jammu. The Indian army suffered no losses.
On Wednesday, a blast in Lablotha, a village 200 kilometres north of Jammu, killed a teenager and injured another person, police said. Initial indications showed the explosion occurred after the two handled a device they found along the road, said Abid Rafiqee, a local police officer. Meanwhile, at least nine people were hurt in Srinagar on Thursday when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas shells to disperse hundreds protesting the execution of Saddam Hussein, police said. The violence broke out near the ancient Jamia Masjid mosque after Muslim protesters pelted stones at police and shouted Down with America ... Saddam is a martyr. Six people were wounded in the clashes, a police spokesman said, adding that three policemen were also hurt when angry protesters attacked and damaged a police vehicle.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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ISLAMABAD - Thousands of people were left without power and heating in southern Pakistan after suspected tribal militants blew up two electricity pylons and a gas pipeline, news reports said on Thursday. No one was thought to have been hurt in the attacks Wednesday in the town of Dera Bugti, located 350 kilometres east of Quetta, according to the English-language Daily Times newspaper.
The blasts followed operations by government forces against militant training bases in the province of Balochistan, which is the scene of a long-running conflict over autonomy and profits from exploration of natural gas deposits.
The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for these and other recent bombings of power-supply infrastructure.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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AN Australian citizen has been arrested by coalition forces in Iraq on suspicion of conspiring to commit terrorist acts. Warya Kanie, 39, an Iraqi Kurd, came to Australia about three years ago with his young daughter as part of the humanitarian refugee program to join his three brothers, who were already living in Adelaide.
Repaid that generosity handsomely, didn't he?
Mr Kanie, who had divorced his wife, was living in a housing trust apartment on unemployment benefits and receiving additional benefits as a single father.
A member of the Australian Iraqi community, who spoke to The Weekend Australian on condition of anonymity, said Mr Kanie was a Sunni and "had extremist views".
Mr Kanie left Adelaide about seven months ago, after gaining Australian citizenship, telling his family that he was going to look for a new wife in Iraq. But he allegedly told a friend that he was leaving Australian "to go on jihad".
Wife, jihad, what's the difference?
Mr Kanie is alleged to have been staunchly opposed to the occupation of Iraq and supported terrorist acts against Western forces and Iraqis co-operating with them.
Sharif Ali bin Hussein, imam of the Marion Road mosque in Adelaide's southern suburbs where Mr Kanie is thought to have worshipped, denied through an interpreter knowing him.
"No, no, certainly not!"
Mr Kanie travelled to Jordan with his daughter, whom he left with his sister before going on to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Coalition forces detained Mr Kanie for allegedly engaging in anti-coalition activities in Baghdad in mid-October. He has since been held as a security internee.
And let's keep him there, regardless of the hand-wringing from the squeamish progressive types.
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs said consular officials met Mr Kanie on November 10 and spoke to him by phone on December 15. "He is well," the spokesperson said. "Officials in Canberra are in touch with his next of kin."
Mr Kanie's family expressed concern in Adelaide yesterday at the lack of information on why he was being held. "Why he is in the prison, I have absolutely no idea," his brother Danna said.
They just told you: a rifle in one hand and a Qur'an in the other. Oh right, that's not illegal as far as you're concerned ...
Danna Kanie told The Weekend Australian a meeting with ASIO officials a few weeks ago had shed little light on the circumstances of his arrest. "They've got no information at all," he said. "They're just waiting for information from Iraq. I don't know if they have moved Warya and didn't tell me."
Danna Kanie said he had not seen his brother in the past two years. "We've got problems," Danna said. "I didn't like to see him anymore." Another brother, Zaniar, said that Warya Kanie had gone to Baghdad looking for a wife, "as is our culture". "Until now, they say there is no proof, no evidence (against him)" he said.
An Australian Iraqi told The Weekend Australian that the rift between Mr Kanie and his brothers might have developed because he was the only fundamentalist in the family.
#1
"Sharif Ali bin Hussein, imam of the Marion Road mosque in Adelaide's southern suburbs where Mr Kanie is thought to have worshipped, denied through an interpreter knowing him."
Imagine my surprise that the "imam of the Marion
Road mosque" (Islamic Society of South Australia, Incorporated - 658 Marion Road, Park Holme 5043) denied knowing him.
"Danna Kanie told The Weekend Australian a meeting with ASIO officials a few weeks ago had shed little light on the circumstances of his arrest. "They've got no information at all,"
Just a routine meeting with ASIO (happens all the time).
Posted by: Sheik of Scrubby Creek ||
01/05/2007 12:31 Comments ||
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#2
Mr Kanie, who had divorced his wife, was living in a housing trust apartment on unemploymentbenefits and receiving additional benefits as a single father
So its not only Europe/US that they are living on Western handouts!!!
Two bombs exploded at a petrol station in Baghdads western Mansour district on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 22, police and an Interior Ministry source said. The first blast was a roadside bomb that hit people lining up for fuel at the petrol station, police said. When rescue services arrived on the scene, a car bomb exploded. The Interior Ministry source said both were car bombs.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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(AKI) - Unidentified gunmen on Thursday shot dead a prominent Shiite member of the Karbala's provincial council, Sheikh Akram al-Zubaidi, and two of his body guards outside the central city of Karbala. The gunmen, who had set up a false road block, opened machinegun fire on al-Zubaidi's car three kilometres from Karbala was he was heading home, killing him instantly, before fleeing, police sources said. The gunmen wounded two other bodyguards in the attack, the sources added.
Al-Zubaidi was disciple of the revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Mohammed al-Sistani. Karbala is the site of an important Shiite shrine. Scores of people have been killed and wounded in several bomb attacks there in the past year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
A warning to Sistani from Iranian-backed Shia or more Sunni/AQ anarchism efforts?
Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Muslim cleric after he delivered a sermon in the Gaza Strip on Friday calling for an end to fierce factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah, hospital officials and local residents said.
The cleric's shooting in central Gaza came hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said he and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had agreed to keep rival gunmen off Gaza's streets after clashes in which eight were killed.
Tension remained high across the coastal strip as thousands of Palestinians loyal to Fatah took part in funeral marches for a commander killed in a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades fired by Hamas gunmen on Thursday. Brushing aside Haniyeh's plea for calm, Fatah issued a harshly worded statement in Gaza: "Blood for blood and aggression for aggression... and all the sons of the movement should retaliate to each aggression openly."
The Muslim cleric, who was in a car when the gunmen opened fire, was affiliated with neither Hamas nor Fatah. No group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which occurred after services at a mosque in the Maghazi refugee camp. Residents said the cleric had sharply criticised internal fighting in his Friday sermon.
At one of the funeral marches, members of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened to assassinate Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar and Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas. "Zahar and Seyam, you have to leave Gaza. We will tear your bodies to pieces," an al-Aqsa member screamed through a megaphone as gunmen fired into the air.
Overnight, Hamas-controlled militants and police forces stormed the house of senior Fatah leader Sufian Abu Zaida in northern Gaza Strip, smashing furniture. Abu Zaida, a former cabinet minister, was unhurt.
Haniyeh said after late-night emergency talks with Abbas, their first meeting in two months, that they had agreed to "withdraw all gunmen from the streets and deploy police forces to keep law and order". Similar pacts in the past have quickly been shattered by violence and Gazans said they feared another eruption of bloodshed later in the day when Thursday's dead are buried.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 10:42 ||
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#1
Oh I do so hope that the Israelis are doing everything in their power to fan the flames of this civil war.
I want to see large bands of gunmen rapidly assemble and just butcher an enemy town.
#3
"Blood for blood and aggression for aggression... and all the sons of the movement should retaliate to each aggression openly."
There you go, the "Religion of Peace" being "peaceful" again...
"Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Muslim cleric after he delivered a sermon in the Gaza Strip on Friday calling for an end to fierce factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah, hospital officials and local residents said."
Mafia turf wars. Calm? What is calm...
I feel sorry for any Palestinain who wants to tone down the violence. This proves that the leadership will silence anything with the remotest sense of reason. Pure Evil in both Hamas and Fatah.
#7
lol
Let the animals destroy each other.
Eze 25:15 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul, to destroy, from old hatred;
Eze 25:16 therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I stretch out my hands upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Kerethites, and cause the remnant of the sea-coast to perish.
#12
BTW, what I really hate about clerics is how they cant use the best weapons, but still dont get really powerful combat spells at least at lower levels.
#13
Take a step back and just look at the barbarism that's become the norm since Israel evacuated Gaza (well, before then, actually, but the evacuation merely throws a klieg light on it). There was a great opportunity for paleos to demonstrate how well they can self govern. What do they do instead? Buy guns and weapons (with what little money they have). Dig tunnels to smuggle them. Kill each other. Seethe. Blame Israel.
It's certainly not the "occupation" that's at fault.
Yet the world is remarkably silent about these incompetent, corrupt, hate-filled people. If they hadn't spent the last two generations conditioning their children for murderous revenge, they'd be able to make the transition. Instead, they reap what they've sown.
2 state solution?!! HA!!! the only state these people are capable of living in is anarchy and misery. And it has nothing to do with Israel.
#14
PlanetDan: You forgot the complete and total destruction of a thriving economy by the gaza-tards within minutes of Israel's departure.
they deserve exactly what they get.
#1
Do a search on Google news for 'Sderot' and 'rocket' sorted by date. Now count the number of news outlets outside of Israel that are carrying the story. Hmmmm ... lemme see ... that would be ... none.
Four PA Arabs were arrested, four others were killed and four soldiers were lightly hurt Thursday when IDF troops sought to arrest a wanted terrorist. In Bethlehem, a similar operation succeeded.
An IDF spokeswoman said that the wanted PA terrorist in Ramallah escaped capture. The operation was the largest in Ramallah, the seat of the PA's governing bodies, since last May. Similar operations to arrest terrorists, however, take place routinely in other areas of Judea and Samaria, though usually with less dramatic results.
For instance, a similar operation took place in Bethlehem at approximately the same time. An IDF force made straight for the Fatah terrorist's house and surrounded it; when he opened fire, the soldiers returned fire, wounding him, and then made the arrest. The wounded terrorist was first taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment, however. He is wanted for involvement in shooting attacks, recruitment of other terrorists, bomb-making and weapons smuggling.
In Ramallah, however, things did not work out as well. The special undercover force initially sent to apprehend wanted PA terrorists in the city called in a backup unit for support and additional firepower as the clash with enemy gunmen developed. Heavy armored vehicles were deployed as IDF forces exchanged intense fire with the PA forces in central Ramallah, leading to the deaths of the four PA residents. At least 20 other people were injured in the crossfire and PA sources said that two of the injured were journalists.
Saeb Erekat, senior PA negotiator and top aide to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the operation and its timing, several hours before a scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "Such incursions and such Israeli policies are absolutely undermining such efforts," he told the Al-Jazeera television network.
Abbas harshly condemned the IDF operation as well, saying it "proved that the Israeli calls for peace and security are false." In fact, however, the operations - a daily affair - are designed to prevent terrorist attacks and thus maintain peace and security.
In a statement released to the press, Abbas appealed to the international community to rein in Israel and demanded US$5 million as compensation for damages sustained by Ramallah residents during the clash.
Speaking in Sharm El-Sheikh, following a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel regrets the deaths of innocent civilians, but emphasized the importance of such actions.
"It must be remembered," Olmert noted, "that Israel must take measures to prevent terrorists from harming Israeli civilians. The operation today was aimed at arresting a terrorist who has harmed innocent people. During the operation, Israeli soldiers came under fire and, to my regret, things developed not as originally planned and people were hurt even though they were not involved. It was not our intention, nor our desire."
On Friday, an IDF force arrested two wanted Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Tul Karem region, east of Netanya.
#1
Yeah Olmert, just dont let the short lease IDF disturb your pen 'collection'
Now if it were settlers you and your police henchmen would be real brave against young woman and innocents..
what a drek pot
Israeli undercover troops burst into a West Bank vegetable market Thursday, seizing four fugitives and exchanging heavy fire with Palestinians in the first major raid since the Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to try to ease tensions.
Also, a senior Palestinian security officer and Fatah loyalist was killed Thursday in an assault on his house by Hamas gunmen, Palestinian officials said. The officer, Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, had appeared on Palestine TV just moments before his death and appealed for help. Ghayeb's wife was seriously wounded in the attack, in which Hamas fired assault rifles and rockets at the building. Ghayeb was the chief of the Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza, and his killing was expected to trigger revenge attacks by the men under his command.
Separately, in the Jebaliya refugee camp in Gaza, a member of a Hamas security force was killed Thursday when the car he was driving in came under fire from unidentified assailants, a force spokesman said. Four other people were wounded. Hamas accused Fatah of the attack, but Fatah denied involvement.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Only 10?
It's a start....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2007 0:28 Comments ||
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran's U.N. ambassador denied on Friday reports circulating on the Internet that Tehran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died.
"We checked last night and there is no truth to it," Javad Zarif, Iran's chief envoy to the United Nations, told Reuters about the reports, which first appeared on Web sites on Thursday.
"Lies! All lies!"
"I mean, the rigor mortis is all passed now."
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2007 16:56 ||
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#1
He's irrevocably dead unless the mullahs release a photo of Khamenei reading tody's Defender-Scimitar.
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2007 18:00 Comments ||
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The envoy then added "ee's just pining for the Fjords".
The chief of the State Security Forces (SSF) in Iran's south-eastern city of Iranshahr was killed during armed clashes with "bandits", the official news agency reported on Thursday.
The report quoted an anonymous SSF official as saying that Colonel Gholam-Hossein Jafari was shot and killed during a skirmish in the suburbs of the village of Delgan, close to Iranshahr. One of the bandits was also killed, it said.
Iranshahr is situated in the impoverished province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan which has been a hotbed of anti-government activities since 2005. In recent months, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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A source close to Pajamas Media has learned that Irans Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has apparently succumbed to the cancer that hospitalized him last month, as exclusively reported by Pajamas Media, at age 67. He has been Irans most powerful figure since replacing Ayatollah Khomeini in the role of Supreme Leader in 1989.
UPDATE: Some sources, evidently including a family member, are reporting that Khamenei, in grave condition, was alive as recently as yesterday. Our source reported that he died today. More to come. It is the middle of the night in Iran.
MORE: Farideh Vafai - spokeswoman for Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran - made the following comment to PJM Washington Editor Richard Miniter: We cannot confirm this news. We have heard rumors but so far have no confirmation. Ms. Vafai was reached at Pahlavis Secretariat in Falls Church, VA.
In other news, the Iranian-government-in-exile is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
WORLDNEWS.com > looks like Rafsanjani didn't wait long to criticize Dubya-USA.
#3
Where they run a very nice Persian restaurant that serves great lamb dishes. Yum, lamb...
Posted by: Jonathan ||
01/05/2007 10:55 Comments ||
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#4
Let's try that again:
In other news, the Iranian-government-in-exile is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia.
Where they run a very nice Persian restaurant that serves great lamb dishes. Yummm, lamb.
(I need to lay off snark in the new year.)
Posted by: Jonathan ||
01/05/2007 10:57 Comments ||
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#5
"Pore Khameni's Daid" , sung to
Song: Pore Jud Is Daid From "Oklahoma", By Rogers & Hammerstein
Ahmadnejad:
Pore Khameni's daid,
Pore Ali Khameni's daid,
All gather 'round his cawfin now and cry
Bank accounts were full of gold
And he got to be quite old
Oh why it took the feller so long to die?
Pore Khameni's daid,
Pore Ali Khameni's daid,
He's lookin' oh so peaceful and serene
Kofi Anan: And serene!
Ahmadnejad:
He's all laid out to rest
With his hands acrost his chest
His black tuban has never been so clean!
(Spoken)
Then the imam'd get up and he'd say:
(Chanting)
Folks, we are gathered here to moan and groan over our brother Ali Khameni, who died when he sar a wummun witout a burker
(Spoken)
Then there'd be weepin' and wailin'... from some of those sheeps. Then he'd say:
(Chanting)
Khameni was the most misunderstood man in this here Persia. People used to think he was only interesed in stonins and whippins
that he hated kite flyin' and music
(Sung)
But the folks that really knowed him.
(Chant)
Knowed that beneath that thar scraggly beard
(Sung)
There beat a heart as big as all outdoors Kofi Anan:
As big as all outdoors. Ahmadnejad:
Ali Khameni loved his feller man (cept them Jooz) Kofi Anan:
He loved hes feller man (cept them Jooz)
Ahmadnejad (Spoken):
He loved the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. He loved the goats and sheep in the barns, and he treated
the dogs like equals, which was right. And he loved little children. He loved everybody and everything in the whole world! (cept the Jooz)
Only he never let on, so nobody ever knowed it.
(Sung)
Pore Khameni's Daid
Pore Ali Khameni's Daid
His friends'll weep and wail for miles around
Kofi Anan: Miles Around!
Ahmadnejad:
The daisies in the dell
will give out a different smell
Because Pore Khameni'ss underneath the ground.
Kofi Anan:
Pore Khameni's Daid
A Candle lights his haid
He's layin' in a cawfin made of wood
Ahmadnejad: Wood...
Kofi Anan:
And folks are feelin' sad
Cause they useter treat him bad
But now they know their friend is gone for good
Ahmadnejad: Good..
Both: Pore Khameni's Daid a candle lights his haid!
Ahmadnejad:
He's lookin' oh so purty and so nice
He looks like he's asleep,
It's a shame that he won't keep
But it's summer and we're running out of ice.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2007 8:41 Comments ||
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#4
She's got Betty Grable Thighs
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2007 9:41 Comments ||
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#5
Yup, Frank, and she doesn't have Marty Feldman eyes.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/05/2007 13:27 Comments ||
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#6
9/11 woke me up a bit. I started tuning in to news a lot more than I had been. For a while I was a regular visitor to Instapundit. One day, I decided to snoop around at the links he had. While scrolling through them I saw a link with a great name, Rantburg. I haven't been back to Instapundit since. I have been having my head annointed with oil ever since.
I remember the 'Burg back when the articles were only posted by our benevolent master, Fred the Omnipotent. Back when the only tag line was, "Civil, well reasoned.." you know how it goes. I remember a regular appearance by a Turkish troll named Murat. I remember when
Al-Aqsas Martyrs Brigade was involved in a 'Burg article almost daily. I remember when Verlaine was Verlaine in Iraq. (What the fuck happened to .com for a while anyway? - I never got the scoop on that.)
The point is, I have been visiting this site for a long time and have seen many improvements since my first visit, but none - and I mean none - have been as great the the introduction of the Scimitar. Fred hath introduced a new oil to annoint our heads with, and it is good. Bow down in front of our master and hit the friggin tip jar woodja?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/05/2007 17:46 Comments ||
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#7
Every once in awhile somebody says something that makes it all worth it...
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2007 18:41 Comments ||
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#8
Thank you for your work Fred.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/05/2007 19:15 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Five Afghan militiamen were killed and four others injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in volatile southern Afghanistan, said a senior military official on Thursday. The militiamen, hired by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help with security, were killed on Wednesday in southern Uruzgan provinces Taliban-dominated Charchino district, said Afghan General Rahmatullah Raufi. 
OSAMA bin Laden's top aide has urged Somali Islamists to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign of suicide and other forms of attacks against Ethiopian forces in Somalia.
(SomaliNet) Unknown gunmen have attacked the Ethiopian troops in Somalia capital, Mogadishu with a hand grenade or similar device on Thursday evening in an attempt to resist the presence of the Ethiopian soldiers in the country. The troops responded with firing at the attackers. 
MOROCCAN security forces have dismantled a radical Islamist cell recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and arrested 62 people, the Government said on Thursday. "The first elements of the inquiry reveal the existence of ideological links with and financial and logistical support for international terrorist groups," it said in a statement. Those groups included Al Qaeda, the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and other international terrorist organisations, it added. All those arrested were Moroccan. 
(AKI) - A group of Islamic militants who engaged in a gunbattle with Tunisian security officials Wednesday in the area of Soliman, 40 km south of Tunis, hailed from Algeria, according to a report Thursday published by London-based Arabic language daily al-Hayat. Security forces shot dead 12 people and arrested 15 near Tunis after the rare gunbattle, a government source said on Thursday. 
A South Korean abductee has escaped from North Korea after more than 30 years in the communist state and is now in China, an activist said Thursday. Choi Wook-il, 67, fled the North in December and is in a "safe place" in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji, said Choi Sung-yong, the head of a group of relatives of South Koreans allegedly kidnapped by the North.
A SYDNEY man has been charged with passing on seven stolen rocket launchers, five of which allegedly went to a person on terror charges. A joint operation by Australian Federal Police, New South Wales Police and ASIO led officers today to a house in Leumeah, in Sydney's southwest, where the 28-year-old man was arrested. 
A series of bomb blasts across the Mediterranean island of Corsica killed a suspected separatist planting some of the devices, officials said Thursday. The overnight explosions occurred one day before a visit to the French territory by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative presidential candidate. They fit the pattern of separatist attacks that has dogged Corsica for three decades.
Attorneys for one of 
Unidentified gunmen shot dead Shia leader Syed Ali Imam Jaffari in Kotwali police precincts on Thursday, police said. Police said that the assailants opened fire on Jaffari when he was going to an imambargah in the Kotwali area of the city. Jaffari was the caretaker of Imambargah Ali Imam and a former president of the Tehreek-e-Jaffaria in Kotwali tehsil.
The new police chief of NWFP, Sharif Virk, will face a difficult time trying to stop the Taliban extending their influence over districts in the province and abolish the notorious thana culture, observers say. Mr Virk takes charge as local Taliban have extended their sway to Darra Adam Khel, a tribal town just 30 miles from Peshawar. 
The Indian army on Thursday killed four alleged Pakistani militants in its part of disputed Kashmir after a three-hour gunfight, police said. We had a tip-off that alleged Pakistani militants were hiding in the forests. A special team of police and army cordoned the area, after which a gunbattle started. Four militants were killed, senior police official Basant Rath said. The fighting took place in Ramban district, 250 kilometres from Jammu. The Indian army suffered no losses. 
ISLAMABAD - Thousands of people were left without power and heating in southern Pakistan after suspected tribal militants blew up two electricity pylons and a gas pipeline, news reports said on Thursday. No one was thought to have been hurt in the attacks Wednesday in the town of Dera Bugti, located 350 kilometres east of Quetta, according to the English-language Daily Times newspaper.
AN Australian citizen has been arrested by coalition forces in Iraq on suspicion of conspiring to commit terrorist acts. 
(AKI) - Unidentified gunmen on Thursday shot dead a prominent Shiite member of the Karbala's provincial council, Sheikh Akram al-Zubaidi, and two of his body guards outside the central city of Karbala. The gunmen, who had set up a false road block, opened machinegun fire on al-Zubaidi's car three kilometres from Karbala was he was heading home, killing him instantly, before fleeing, police sources said. The gunmen wounded two other bodyguards in the attack, the sources added.
Four PA Arabs were arrested, four others were killed and four soldiers were lightly hurt Thursday when IDF troops sought to arrest a wanted terrorist. In Bethlehem, a similar operation succeeded. 
Israeli undercover troops burst into a West Bank vegetable market Thursday, seizing four fugitives and exchanging heavy fire with Palestinians in the first major raid since the Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to try to ease tensions. 
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran's U.N. ambassador denied on Friday reports circulating on the Internet that Tehran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died.
The chief of the State Security Forces (SSF) in Iran's south-eastern city of Iranshahr was killed during armed clashes with "bandits", the official news agency reported on Thursday.
