It's the New Quagmire...
KABUL, Afghanistan - More U.S. and NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq for the second straight month.
An Associated Press count finds that attacks in Afghanistan killed at least 44 international troops in June. About 30 international troops have died in Iraq this month.
A record number of U.S. and NATO troops now patrol Afghanistan's dangerous countryside, exposing more soldiers than ever to danger.
But Taliban attacks are becoming increasingly complex, and in June, increasingly deadly. Four attacks in June killed four soldiers. No single attack had killed more than three international troops since last August. So 4/4=1. How "complex" is it for AP to do the math?
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led forces backed by warplanes battled militants in southwestern Afghanistan, killing 28 rebels including several Taliban commanders, an Afghan official said Monday.
Other violence claimed the lives of two Afghan soldiers, two militants and a government worker, while three troops from the U.S.-led coalition died when their vehicle rolled into a river bed. The accident occurred Sunday when the troops were patrolling in Arghandab, a valley in Kandahar province that foreign and government forces recently retook from Taliban militants, the coalition said. It released no other details.
Fighting between insurgents and security forces has been escalating, damping the prospect of the Western-backed effort to stabilize the country succeeding any time soon. The violence has killed more than 2,000 people so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally.
In the bloodiest of the latest incidents, the U.S.-led coalition said its troops came under fire Sunday in the Khash Rod district of Nimroz province as they searched compounds for a Taliban leader suspected of involvement in suicide attacks. The troops killed "multiple militant groups" with small-arms fire, and airstrikes killed two more groups of attackers, the coalition said. There were no coalition casualties, it said.
While the coalition said only that "several" militants died and another was detained, Nimroz Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said 28 rebels were killed. He said some of the victims were torn apart in the late-night bombing, making the body count difficult. Azad said local officials had told him that four civilians also died. His account could not be independently verified.
The governor said the slain militants included three Taliban commanders, each of whom controlled a group of some 40-50 fighters. He said they were suspected of targeting road construction crews with bombs and planning attacks on food relief convoys. The U.N. reported Sunday that one of its relief convoys was attacked on its way to Nimroz and neighboring Helmand province, and that several trucks were burned. Other convoys have been looted.
Elsewhere, the Afghan Defense Ministry said it lost two soldiers to a roadside bomb in Zurmat district of Paktia province on Monday. Three more soldiers were wounded. Two militants were killed in a clash with Afghan soldiers in Helmand province, it said.
In Logar province, just south of the capital, officials said militants attacked the government office in the town of Azra on Monday morning, killing one civilian employee and wounding three police.
In Washington, the Department of Defense announced that a special forces soldier was fatally wounded by a bomb during a patrol on June 27. The coalition said the incident occurred in Ghorak, a district of Kandahar.
(AKI) - Egyptian authorities have carried out anti-terror raids over the past few days and arrested 110 suspected terrorists, according to a local media report. The Egyptian daily, al-Masri al-Youm, said on Monday that three senior terrorist leaders were believed to be among those arrested.
Security sources said that the authorities had disbanded three alleged terror cells which were considered ideologically close to al-Qaeda and active in Egypt and abroad, according to the report. The alleged leaders of the terror cells are Muhammad Farid Faraj, Ahmad Abdel Hadi and Hisham Muhiy al-Dina. All three controlled the mosques in which they allegedly indoctrinated young Egyptians into the al-Qaeda ideology. Weapons, explosives, money and the plans of Egyptian institutions were found in their homes when they were arrested.
One of the most important cells operated from a mosque located on the outskirts of capital Cairo, while others were based in the area of al-Qulyubiya. All were suspected of being tasked with committing terror acts in three Egyptian cities.
The alleged terror suspects are now being detained at the al-Fium and Abu Zabel prisons where they are being interrogated by Egyptian authorities Ouch...
#1
Egypt, the land of low hanging fruit. Plenty more there I'm sure, but has Egypt the stomach to collect them all ? The brotherhood will not be pleased.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Monday it is charging a Saudi Arabian with "organizing and directing" the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and will seek the death penalty.
Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal adviser to the U.S. military tribunal system, said charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.
The charges still must be approved by a Defense Department official who oversees military tribunals set up for terrorism suspects. If they are approved, al-Nashiri he will be the first person charged in the United States in connection with the attack nearly eight years ago. Hartmann said the allegations include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury. Seventeen American sailors were killed and dozens wounded when the Navy destroyer was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden as it refueled.
Al-Nashiri is also accused of a role in the Oct. 6, 2002, suicide attack on the Limburg, a French oil tanker, Hartmann said. The attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden. Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo Bay last year that he confessed to helping plot the Cole bombing only because he was tortured by U.S. interrogators.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said early this year that al-Nashiri was among terrorist suspects subjected to waterboarding in 2002 and 2003 while being interrogated in secret CIA prisons. Asked at a Pentagon press conference if evidence obtained from the waterboarding is tainted, Hartmann said that would be considered at any trial. "We will look at the evidence, all of the evidence that is associated with the case," Hartmann said. "While there has been an admission that there was waterboarding, there may well be other evidence in the case. That's not ... necessarily the only part of evidence in the case."
According to U.S. intelligence, al-Nashiri was tasked by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to attack the Cole, and also was al-Qaida's operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002.
Hartmann read a charge sheet, alleging the following against al-Nashiri:
_He is a member of al-Qaida and met with bin Laden on several occasions.
_He rented apartments overlooking the port of Aden in 1999 to prepare for the Cole attack.
_His co-conspirators failed in an attempt to blow up the USS The Sullivans in January of 2000. Al-Nashiri and others salvaged the explosives and refitted the boat from that plot, then he went to Afghanistan to discuss reorganization of the plot with bin Laden.
_When the Cole entered the port on Oct. 12, 2000, al-Nashiri's co-conspirators piloted the boat next to the U.S. ship and detonated explosives that blasted a 40-foot hole in the Cole's side.
At his hearing last year, al-Nashiri acknowledged meeting with bin Laden many times and received as much as a half million dollars. The money, he said, was used for personal expenses, including for marriage and business deals. Al-Nashiri said he told interrogators that he used some of the money to buy explosives used to bomb the Cole, but in reality he said he gave the explosives to friends to help dig wells. Yeah...ummmmmmmm...wells! That's the ticket!
He said he confessed to involvement in several other terror plots in order to get the torture to stop including the 2002 bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg, plans to bomb American ships in the Gulf, a plan to hijack a plane and crash it into a ship and that bin Laden had a nuclear bomb.
"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way," al-Nashiri said, according to the transcript. "I just said those things to make the people happy. They were very happy when I told them those things." Yes, but did they pee on his Koran?
Asked why it had taken nearly eight years for the U.S. to charge anyone in the bombing, Hartmann said it takes time to gather and prepare evidence.
Another one of the alleged masterminds in the bombing Jamal al-Badawi was convicted in 2004 in Yemen of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing. He is wanted by the FBI, but Yemeni officials have said it is against their constitution to hand him over to the U.S.
The Bush administration maintains waterboarding was legal when it was used by CIA interrogators in 2002 and 2003 on al-Nashiri and top al-Qaida detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. Hayden said waterboarding was used, in part, because of widespread belief among U.S. intelligence officials that more catastrophic attacks were imminent. The CIA banned its personnel from using waterboarding in 2006.
#1
Officials in Khyber told the BBC the house of Haji Namdar, leader of one of the three militant groups active in the area, was blown up at about 0330 local time (2230 GMT).
"Some witnesses say the house was hit by missiles, but it is also possible that explosives stored in the house blew up," a local official said.
oopsie!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/30/2008 5:44 Comments ||
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After returning from Saudi Arabia to the Tirah valley in Pakistan's Khyber Agency, tribal chief Haji Namdar set about enforcing laws echoing the Ministry for the Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue in Taleban-run Afghanistan.
Like the Taleban's Mullah Mohammad Omar, 35-year-old Haji Namdar's word was considered final.
But after operating fairly discreetly since last November, his organisation has now split into two factions, with some tribal chiefs accusing him of "religious terrorism".
Initially, the valley's mainly Afridi tribes people welcomed the organisation's commitment to curbing lawlessness.
It offered an alternative to the Khyber Agency's official administration - a political agent endorsed by the government - which many regarded as incompetent.
But the tide of popular support slowly disappeared.
As one tribesman put it: "The organisation is effectively mirroring what the Taleban did in Afghanistan. It won public support by addressing the security deficit and then it shifted focus to introducing a more rigid form of Islam."
*** ahhh.. Ye Olde 'bait & switch'***
Former federal minister and a local tribal chief, Malik Waris Khan, told the BBC: "Initially, it did some laudable deeds like settling old tribal disputes. But then it started losing direction.
"People grew weary of it because of the use of violence to make people pray."
Volunteers hit men for not covering their heads or not growing beards in what is deemed the proper style and length.
Music was banned, as was television. Every worshipper had to sign the mosque's register to verify they had offered prayers.
Absenteeism from communal prayers incurred a fine of 500 rupees ($8.50).
Haji Namdar's opponents say he ran three private jails with names such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to punish those who defied his orders.
LOL!
Last December it set up an illegal FM radio station to broadcast strict interpretations of shariah law.
Jan Mohammad, a member of the Bar Kambarkhel tribe, said: "Everyone is obliged to adhere to them. Any show of reservation or questioning is immediately branded as defiance, a crime which ran the risk of severe punishment."
The radio station was halted on government orders, but the seeds of discord had been sown.
A group led by tribal chief, Haji Malik Zareef, rebelled against Haji Namdar.
The factions have been involved in fierce clashes and a number of lives have been lost.
Haji Malik Zareef says: "Haji Namdar had resorted to religious terrorism. He started doing things that were completely unacceptable to the tribes. People were beaten up with batons like animals."
***..not to mention the odd detached head or two 45 dozen.
'Hue and cry'
In a nearby camp, hundreds of followers of Haji Namdar are sitting in a small mosque built with donations from Qatar.
A few vehicles fly white, Taleban-style flags.
Haji Namdar was not to be found, but his deputy, Haji Shamsher Khan Afridi, is here.
"Our aim was to ensure peace and security and to enforce the Islamic code," he says.
"But since we took action against smugglers and other criminals it was natural we would face opposition. The very people we fined and punished are making a hue and cry."
'Deaf ear' [ ..not to mention headless corpses]
Many are questioning why the central government has remained silent on the Tirah valley issue when it is more active on hard-line Islamists in other tribal areas.
Tribesman Ghalib Afridi says: "On the one hand the Musharraf government is telling the world it is against religious extremism, but at home he is turning a deaf ear to it."
Governance in the Khyber Agency has often been a grey area, with a number of private, armed organisations operating in the name of improving security.
In 1995, the Benazir Bhutto government crushed one such organisation.
But after a few years, other organisations began to surface to fill the vacuum in public security.
Perhaps surprisingly, the security chief in the tribal lands, retired Brigadier Mehmood Shah, says the government has no objection to organisations that "help it improve law and order in the tribal areas".
However, Brigadier Shah says the government will not permit them to run private prisons, make arbitrary arrests or set up radio stations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vice-and-Virtue
Shaving the beard is forbidden in Islam and I feel duty-bound to make every Muslim of my tribe sport a beard, said Haji Namdar.
"Yes Haji.. No More Shaving, I feel it's every correct citizen's duty, ....Vote for Obama!"
By the statute of Winchester, 13 Edw. I cc. 1 and 4, (1285) it was provided that anyone, either a constable or a private citizen, who witnessed a crime shall make hue and cry, and that the hue and cry must be kept up against the fleeing criminal from town to town and from county to county, until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able-bodied men, upon hearing the shouts, were obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal, which makes it comparable to the posse comitatus. It was moreover provided that a hundred that failed to give pursuit on the hue and cry would become liable in case of any theft or robbery. Those who raised a hue and cry falsely were themselves guilty of a crime.
.5MT, If it weren't for the absolute Horror show these primitives are guilty of, we could just sit back and enjoy observing their preposterous antics...
like watching them swap Holy Grimaces while they strut from one circle jerk to another. lol!
#9
Mysterious blasts' in Rawalpindi caused by sonic boom
Reports said the sounds could have been caused by aircraft breaking the sound barrier over the two cities.
Last time this happened was when India flew one of its recon Mig-25Rs over Islamabad. All Pakistan could do is lodge a complaint with the Indian ambassador.
I think they retired all of those birds however... wonder if the IAF bought a few Mig-31s as replacement?
Posted by: john frum ||
06/30/2008 16:14 Comments ||
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#10
Ah.. it was the PAF (Chinese junk)
An F-7P fighter aircraft of Pakistan Air Force crossed the sound barrier Monday, causing a big boom, which was heard in the twin cities and other areas, according to a PAF statement issued here.
The aircraft was on a scheduled Functional Control Flight Mission when it crossed the sound barrier in Pindigheb area. At the time the aircraft was in a process of transition from 40,000 feet altitude to 15,000 feet.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/30/2008 16:15 Comments ||
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#11
Should tell Monkey Boy there that it was Allah farting out his discontent with the current situation.
I'd bet he'd buy it.
The Frontier Corps discovered a torture chamber during their searches of the Khyber Agency, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said on Sunday. He told reporters at Bala Hisar Fort that troops had also destroyed a radio station run by a militant outfit. He said the operation had been well planned and there had been no collateral damage. He said the writ of the government had been established in Bara. He also assured journalists that only paramilitary forces were participating in the operation. Malik said Peshawar was safe and told BBC radio that the present undertaking was a targeted action and not an operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Actual torture chambers in Iraq -- not news.
Torture claims by former imates of GITMO who had been coached and trained to make such claims without even a shread of actual evidence -- 24/7/365 news coverage.
At least seven people, including two security personnel, were killed in Swat on Sunday. The soldiers were on a routine patrol when a bomb planted by suspected pro-Taliban militants exploded on a roadside, a local military spokesman, requesting anonymity, told AFP. Swat Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan has claimed that his militants had no involvement in the attack. Unidentified attackers in different areas of Swat killed another five people, including a tribal elder, police said.
This article starring:
Muslim Khan
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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A powerful bomb explosion on Sunday in the Darya Khan Market of Mingora city damaged about 25 shops, police sources said. The bomb was planted at godown causing the damage to the shops and adjoining constructions. Mingora Police Station Inspector Muhammad Jan Khan said that no causality had been reported.
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06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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QUETTA: Unidentified persons damaged the Sui-Och gas pipeline in the Chathar area of Dera Murad Jamali affecting gas supply to the Och power plant, Dera Murad Jamali police told APP. Dera Murad Jamali is Nasirabad districts headquarters.
The men had planted explosives under the pipeline supplying gas from the Sui town of Dera Bugti to the Och power plant in Nasirabad district, damaging a three-feet segment of the 26-inch-diameter pipeline.
Bugtis feeling frisky again ...
Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC) sources said that the power supply from the plant would not be affected as alternate arrangements have been made to supply gas.
You just said it did affect supplies ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
It just tickles me to no end to think that all these militants were originally nothing more than useful idiots for Pakistan to use against India and eventually the U.S. The chickens have really come home to roost in Wakiland.
BARA: Soldiers backed by armoured vehicles retook control of Bara town in the Khyber Agency on Sunday, and prepared to advance to other areas in the district, including the Tirah Valley.
Looks like someone loaned the Frontier Corps a backbone ...
It is pretty much out of character, isn't it? It couldn't possibly be that it's all for show?
An official said that Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) chief Mangal Bagh had fledrun away moved to the remote Tirah Valley before the launch of the governments offensive, Reuters reported.
Not that anybody called him and suggested he get out of Dodge until the 'operation' was over so that no one, including him and the caller, would get hurt...
I think it was the opposite: Mangal directed the show and conveniently absented himself stage left ...
The second day of the NWFP governments operation against militancy ended without any resistance, as the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) troops continued their advance into the tribal region near Peshawar.
In Bara, the situation was completely calm, as Bagh had directed his supporters against fighting government forces.
Right. They saw the Mighty Pak Frontier Corps coming and they beat feet.
In Bara, the situation was completely calm, as Bagh had directed his supporters against fighting government forces. Were peaceful farmers and giving way to the security forces; we are not going to fight, said Mangal Baghs 16-year-old son Tayeb while standing near the debris of his razed house. He told Daily Times that around 200 security personnel had demolished his familys home with bombs.
Wonder if he lost his cricket card collection ...
Local official Muhammad Siddiq Khan said the FC had also encountered no resistance as it moved into areas outside Bara, AP reported. An AFP photographer said that troops had setup sandbag checkpoints after retaking control of Bara.
Question is, how long will they stay, and what will they do when the Talibs and LI begin to snipe at them ...
They won't be there long enough to get sniped at, unless there are Shias among them.
In that case get ready for an earth-shattering kaboom ...
Muhammad Ilyas, a bodyguard of Mangal Bagh, confirmed that the LI forces had been strictly directed against fighting government troops by amir sahib.
During the operations second day, security forces razed several buildings, including the Mehboob Markaz, the Tayab, Misri and Gud Malang centres and a private jail. A security official told AFP that soldiers also blew up a building belonging to the Taliban-linked group Ansarul Islam (AI).
However, FATA Additional Secretary Habibullah Khan declined to comment on the target of the operation. This operation is not against a particular individual or group, he told reporters when asked if the operation was targeting Mangal Bagh and the LI. He said that no one would be allowed to run a parallel government.
The 5,000-troop contingent of FC soldiers that launched the operation on Saturday was supplemented with a fresh deployment of 400 troops and 20 vehicles on Sunday.
There are sixty thousand regular Pak army troops garrisoned in Peshawar. They haven't moved an inch.
If India attacks Peshawar, though, they're ready.
This article starring:
Mangal Bagh
Muhammad Ilyas
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"There are sixty thousand regular Pak army troops garrisoned in Peshawar. They haven't moved an inch."
My guess is that it would be the Frontier Corps that has been getting all the training from our Special Forces. This is probably live fire training exercise for them. The regulars might not be in the lineup for this game.
Iraq's Salahuddin province has been known for years as a violent stronghold of Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida. But lately it has been relatively quiet. U.S. military units there say that's because former rebel fighters are turning themselves in by the hundreds including some who had been the most virulently anti-American leaders.
One of the most prominent insurgents to come over to the American side is Mullah Nadhum al-Jubouri. Jubouri was a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group that was once closely allied with al-Qaida.
Guarded by a group of masked gunmen, the cleric called for holy war against the Americans and for the defense of Sunnis, a call that was widely understood to mean attacks against the Shiites.
Mullah Nadhum, now 30, doesn't deny his violent past, but he says militants took up weapons because they believed they were defending their country against the occupation. He says his group eventually broke with al-Qaida because it rejected al-Qaida's terrorist tactics of attacks against Iraqi civilians.
Mullah Nadhum now leads a U.S.-funded force that guards against al-Qaida and other insurgent groups. He says he threw his lot in with the Americans after he realized that Iraqi insurgents were being manipulated by Syria and Iran to create chaos in Iraq.
One reason that Mullah Nadhum has become an American ally is that the local American military commander, Lt. Col. Bob McCarthy, has set up a program that allows fighters to turn themselves in and "reconcile" with the Army. McCarthy's 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry unit of the 101st Airborne Division has lost five men in fighting with insurgents since January.
Gradual Process of Reconciliation
McCarthy's intelligence officer, Capt. Christian Wollenburg, says the reconciliation was a gradual process that started with word of mouth among local sheiks after McCarthy's unit and Iraqi army units made serious inroads against the insurgents.
He says that after the first few insurgents turned themselves in and found that they were treated fairly by the Americans, more came in. The unit and the court system in Balad worked out a formal plan for dealing with former militants.
If the insurgents are considered high-value targets and are wanted by the U.S., Wollenburg says they are warned that they will be arrested when they turn themselves in, but they are promised fair treatment.
If Iraqi authorities have warrants for the insurgents, the insurgents are given court dates when their cases will be heard by an investigating judge. Wollenburg says that of more than 500 fighters who have turned themselves in, about 170 have been given court dates.
Stressing that the process is just beginning, Wollenburg says more than two dozen former insurgents have been acquitted by a court in Balad. If the men are not wanted by the U.S. or the Iraqis, they can sign a cease-fire agreement and return to their homes as free men.
Wollenburg says the programs have several advantages for the U.S. military. For one thing, the soldiers are able to get identification for every man who comes in, including photos, fingerprints and retina scans. He says many of these men were never known to the military before.
Another payoff for the military comes in the form of information, an almost overwhelming amount, Wollenburg says some new, and some confirming intelligence that soldiers have received in the past.
Building Trust in American Soldiers
Mullah Shakr al-Azzawi is another Sunni cleric who was part of the insurgency but now leads a local guard group funded by the U.S. Army. He says life for gunmen and their families was miserable because of constant pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces. "If a woman was about to give birth," he says, "we couldn't even drive her to the hospital. It was too risky."
Mullah Shakr says that even so, he wouldn't have turned himself in if it were not for his trust in American soldiers as fair intermediaries. He acknowledges that he has been charged with two murders and a kidnapping, and he says he is relying on an American officer to go to court with him.
Mullah Nadhum says the main concern now is to assure former insurgents that they will get fair treatment if they turn themselves in. He says there have been allegations that some men who came in were mistreated, not in the local courts at Balad but in the higher Iraqi court at Tikrit.
Mullah Nadhum estimates that there are about 1,800 gunmen in the area around the town of Balad, and he says he believes that most of them will eventually reconcile.
Not everyone believes that the motives of all of the reconciling gunmen are pure, or that their hands are as clean of innocent blood as they say.
But as one Iraqi put it, "For now, everybody's trying to be an angel on Earth."
#2
Nobody disrupts crime like a cop that is tough, honest and reasonable. They can't beat them, they can't corrupt them, so they have to wheel and deal with them.
#3
Plus things are heating up with Iran. That province could find itself between a hammer and an anvil if ground based fighting escalates. Not a good place for an unreconciled Sunni insurgent to be if that happens.
#4
Yes, Muslims, every American is as just and fair as Allan. A land of Allans, this shining city on the hill. Allan be praised, all of you Allans be praised.
#5
The insurgents are obviously worried that Barry will be the next US president and finally get tough on their little war. Better to surrender now than face the Democrats' wrath.
BAGHDAD (Rooters) - Five Iraqi appeals court judges escaped assassination attempts on Monday when bombs exploded outside their homes in eastern Baghdad, an apparent attempt to intimidate the court, police and a judicial official said.
All five bombs in different neighborhoods detonated but failed to kill or wound their targets. The wife of Ali al-Alaq, one of the judges, was wounded. Alaq and the other targets, Sulaiman Abdullah, Ghanim Janab, Alaa al-Timimi and Hassan Fouad are all judges in one of Baghdad's two appeals courts.
The attacks came just days after gunmen shot dead the court's chief judge, Kamel al-Shewaili, as he drove to his home in eastern Baghdad.
Abdul Satar Birqadr, a spokesman for Iraq's High Judicial Council, said the bombings must have been planned. 'These attacks were organized. All happened on the same day, in the same way and the same part of Baghdad,' he said.
It was unclear who carried out these attacks. Judges and other professionals have been targeted by militants. Judges were being targeted largely because they were doing a good job and staying neutral, Birqadr said. 'These attacks have merely increased our resolve to stick to the principles we adopted,' he added. 'There are bodyguards and compounds but we can't always stop these things from happening.'
Birqadr said the High Judicial Council had appealed to the government for better security for judges. He said the council was building a secured village for them to live in but that it had not yet been finished.
A car bomb in the central Iraqi town of Dhuluiya killed on Sunday at least seven policemen and wounded two more, the towns police chief told AFP. Lt Col Muhammad Khalid said the explosion occurred at around 7.30am in the town 70 kilometres north of Baghdad in the central Sunni province of Salaheddin. The police received a call that there was an abandoned car on a road. A team of policemen went to check and as they reached the car it exploded, Khalid said.
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06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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(VOI) A total of 13 suspects and wanted persons were arrested over the past 24 hours in different parts of the Iraqi capital, an official spokesman for Baghdad's operations command said on Sunday, noting that a large amount of arms and ammunition were seized during the operations.
'Security forces captured nine wanted individuals and four suspects, defused five improvised explosive devices, and seized a large amount of arms, ammunition, and explosives throughout the past 24 hours in different parts of Baghdad,' Major General Qasim Ata told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). 'Five displaced families returned home in the past 24 hours ,' the spokesman noted. Three Iraqi security personnel were wounded during field operations in different parts of the capital, he added.
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(VOI) Three farmers and a civilian were wounded in two separate attacks north and south of the city of Baaquba on Sunday, a police source in Diala said.
'Unidentified gunmen opened a volley of fire on three peasants while heading for their orchard in the area of al-Tahwila, al-Khalis district, (15 km) north of Baaquba, wounding all of them,' the source, who asked to remain unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI). The wounded were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, he added. Meanwhile, the same source said, an improvised explosive device went off on Sunday near a pickup truck, wounding its driver.
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(VOI) A force from the Iraqi army's Quick Intervention unit unearthed a mass grave west of the city of Samarra containing 50 decomposed bodies, the unit commander said on Sunday. "The grave, discovered on Saturday evening in the area of al-Tharthar, (30 km) west of Samarra, contained 50 bodies in the form of skeletons. Some of them were buried randomly," Maj. Muthanna Shakir told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The victims were clad in civilian clothes and showed signs of having been shot," said Shakir, adding the corpses were found in area where al-Qaeda network used to control in the past.
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#1
"The victims were clad in civilian clothes and showed signs of having been shot," said Shakir, adding the corpses were found in area where al-Qaeda network used to control in the past.
#2
What really sucks is that sites like icasualties.org will lump these 50 in with this month's civilian casualties and make this month's numbers look worse than they are.
I have a feeling that such graves will be unearthed for years to come.
#3
So what's your point. The U.S. was still a country in 1972, even earlier actually. I hear roumors of mass graves soon to be found in the City of Mexico. Folks in the know say Cortez Bush
(VOI) A female suicide bomber struck near a Sahwa (Awakening) council in northeastern Baaquba city, wounding three council members, Iraqi authorities said on Sunday. "A female suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew herself up near a Sahwa council in al-Wajihiya district, al-Muqdadiya, wounding three Sahwa fighters," a source from Diala police, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq- (VOI). The source did not provide further details of the attack.
The attack is the sixteenth by female bombers in Diala province throughout the past six months, according to figures announced by the head of the provincial council, Ibrahim Bajlan. On June 22, a woman blew herself up near the building of the local administration in downtown Baaquba, killing 13 persons, including a police captain, and wounding 30 others.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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Basra, Jun 29, (VOI) Unidentified gunmen assassinated the Basra intelligence chief while he was on vacation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a security source in Basra said on Sunday.
"The gunmen showered Brig. Abdul-Jabbar Munshid's vehicles with bullets in the eastern Baghdad area of al-Naieria on Saturday evening, killing him instantly," the source, who asked that his name not be mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI). The gunmen then escaped to an unknown place, the source said, not mentioning further details about the assassination.
"I can say no more!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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Hamas security officials in Gaza on Sunday arrested the spokesman of a Palestinian militant group that claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel in violation of a truce, the mans family said. Muhammad Abu Irmana, the spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Brigade, was visiting his relatives in the southern Gaza town of Rafah when he was detained, his brother Adham said. Irmana, also known as Abu Qusai, was arrested because the armed group, which is loosely linked to the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, said it was behind two rocket attacks on Israel on Thursday, Adham said.
This article starring:
Abu Qusai
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Muhammad Abu Irmana
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
they havent arrested IJ terrs, only AAMB (IE Fatah affiliated) so Id say this is more about internal Gaza politics than about trying to keep the "calm"
Israel reopened three of its border crossings with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday following a halt to Palestinian cross-border shelling attacks that had strained an Egyptian-brokered truce, said officials.
An Israeli military spokesman said Sufa commercial crossing, the Nahal Oz fuel-transfer depot and the Erez border terminal for travellers resumed operations at 8 am (0500 GMT), with some restrictions still in force. Another commercial crossing, Karni, remained closed. Peter Lerner, an Israeli defence official, cited a policy decision for the continued closure but did not elaborate.
Israel shut the crossings on Wednesday after an Islamic Jihad rocket attack that the Palestinian faction called retaliation for Israels killing of one of its West Bank chiefs. Other Gazan militants fired a rocket and two mortar bombs in two separate incidents. There were no Israeli casualties. The truce, which began on June 19, calls for Hamas to stop cross-border rocket fire and for Israel to gradually ease its embargo on Gaza. It does not apply to the West Bank. Hamas, which has stuck to the truce, called last week for smaller Palestinian factions to abide by the ceasefire and said it would take necessary measures against violators.
Palestinian man killed: Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
Residents said the 17-year-old was killed while confronting Israeli troops patrolling the village of Tubas, near the city of Nablus. An Israeli army spokesman said troops shot at a group of militants who threw firebombs at them, hitting one.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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Ma'an Two homemade bombs exploded in front of shops in the Az-Zawiya market in the centre of Gaza city on Saturday night. No casualties have been reported.
The interior ministry of the Hamas-run de facto government said that explosions caused material damage, and that police opened an investigation into the incident.
Spokesperson of the de facto interior ministry, Eyhab Al-Ghusein described the assaults along with three other assaults last week as attempts to spread security chaos in the streets of the Gaza Strip following what he said was a period of security and safety.
Al-Ghusein said his Ministry would deal with such incidents "strictly." He said that his forces had arrested two people believed to be involved in other violent attacks in Gaza in recent weeks.
On 16 June, a bomb destroyed a hairdresser's salon in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. On 24 June a homemade bomb exploded outside the home of a prominent member of an armed faction known as the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#4
We would just need to be careful of the 300 or so surface to surface missiles they have covering the strait. That would be the hardest part about keeping the gulf open.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won his cabinets approval on Sunday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah under which two soldiers held by the Lebanese guerrilla group, and believed to be dead, would be recovered. The seizure of army reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 2006 border ambush triggered a month-long war in Lebanon, with Olmert ruling out talks on their return. He then relented, negotiating through a U.N.-appointed German mediator.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
This deal seems stupid to the point of ludicrous. The Israelis are giving up a convicted terrorist, Samir Kuntar (whose murder victims included a 4-year-old child whose head he bashed in with a rifle butt) as just one of the many prisoners to be released and the Israelis are getting back corpses (Olmert has announced that they have information that the captured soldiers were killed). It signals terrorists that they are free to murder prisoners and they will still have similar trading value to live hostages. It validates the original Hizb'Shaitan raid which was mostly for the purpose of having bargaining chips for Kuntar. It ups the amount that Hamas will expect for their presumably alive prisoner. This deal is so ridiculous that it makes it seem that there must be an important hidden aspect. But what could possibly be enough to compensate for all the disadvantages?
#2
Remember, the loathesome ghouls at Hezbollah have the unstinting support of a large part of the worlds academic and media elite.
Imagine the outcry if Israelis or Americans savagely desecrated dead bodies, then taunted the survivors with the mutilated remains. It is really worse than that: Imagine the outcry if this were done with official sanction and the gleeful support of the leadership and the collaborationist media, as it is with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yet the global elite react only with excuses for the barbarians and condemnation for their victims.
This tells us more about the modern, media-based left than it does about their clients like Hamas and Hezbollah. They are a demonic force and the true enemy in the present global war.
Olmert is essentially complying with the global media double-standard, not realizing that he can no more win them over than he can the Hezbollah savages.
We can only hope that Israel will survive until Netanyahu or someone like him can take charge and initiate corrective action.
Covert action along the lines of Operation Gideon is the only appropriate response, revisionist media cowards like Steven Spielberg be damned.
The media cult is the enemy, do not try to appease them.
#3
Olmert is essentially complying with the global media double-standard, not realizing that he can no more win them over than he can the Hezbollah savages.
Sadly I have quoted this that it might be seen again in italics.
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
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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.
(AKI) - Egyptian authorities have carried out anti-terror raids over the past few days and arrested 110 suspected terrorists, according to a local media report. The Egyptian daily, al-Masri al-Youm, said on Monday that three senior terrorist leaders were believed to be among those arrested. 
The Frontier Corps discovered a torture chamber during their searches of the Khyber Agency, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said on Sunday. He told reporters at Bala Hisar Fort that troops had also destroyed a radio station run by a militant outfit. He said the operation had been well planned and there had been no collateral damage. He said the writ of the government had been established in Bara. He also assured journalists that only paramilitary forces were participating in the operation. Malik said Peshawar was safe and told BBC radio that the present undertaking was a targeted action and not an operation.
Unidentified militants kidnapped nine officials of the Hangu water management department on Sunday. According to sources, 
At least seven people, including two security personnel, were killed in Swat on Sunday. The soldiers were on a routine patrol when a bomb planted by suspected pro-Taliban militants exploded on a roadside, a local military spokesman, requesting anonymity, told AFP. Swat Taliban spokesman 
A powerful bomb explosion on Sunday in the Darya Khan Market of Mingora city damaged about 25 shops, police sources said. The bomb was planted at godown causing the damage to the shops and adjoining constructions. Mingora Police Station Inspector Muhammad Jan Khan said that no causality had been reported.
QUETTA: Unidentified persons damaged the Sui-Och gas pipeline in the Chathar area of Dera Murad Jamali affecting gas supply to the Och power plant, Dera Murad Jamali police told APP. Dera Murad Jamali is Nasirabad districts headquarters.
BARA: Soldiers backed by armoured vehicles retook control of Bara town in the Khyber Agency on Sunday, and prepared to advance to other areas in the district, including the Tirah Valley.
Iraq's Salahuddin province has been known for years as a violent stronghold of Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida. But lately it has been relatively quiet. U.S. military units there say that's because former rebel fighters are turning themselves in by the hundreds including some who had been the most virulently anti-American leaders.
BAGHDAD (Rooters) - Five Iraqi appeals court judges escaped assassination attempts on Monday when bombs exploded outside their homes in eastern Baghdad, an apparent attempt to intimidate the court, police and a judicial official said.
A car bomb in the central Iraqi town of Dhuluiya killed on Sunday at least seven policemen and wounded two more, the towns police chief told AFP. Lt Col Muhammad Khalid said the explosion occurred at around 7.30am in the town 70 kilometres north of Baghdad in the central Sunni province of Salaheddin. The police received a call that there was an abandoned car on a road. A team of policemen went to check and as they reached the car it exploded, Khalid said.
(VOI) A total of 13 suspects and wanted persons were arrested over the past 24 hours in different parts of the Iraqi capital, an official spokesman for Baghdad's operations command said on Sunday, noting that a large amount of arms and ammunition were seized during the operations. 
(VOI) Three farmers and a civilian were wounded in two separate attacks north and south of the city of Baaquba on Sunday, a police source in Diala said.
Basra, Jun 29, (VOI) Unidentified gunmen assassinated the Basra intelligence chief while he was on vacation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a security source in Basra said on Sunday.
Hamas security officials in Gaza on Sunday arrested the spokesman of a Palestinian militant group that claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel in violation of a truce, the mans family said. 
Israel reopened three of its border crossings with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday following a halt to Palestinian cross-border shelling attacks that had strained an Egyptian-brokered truce, said officials.
