PRESIDENT George W. Bush has ordered a review of US strategy in Afghanistan, a senior Pentagon official said today, amid rising insurgent violence and tensions with Pakistan. The review is being led by Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, a deputy national security adviser, with the participation of senior representatives from the Pentagon and other departments, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Clearly this seems to be a larger, more cross-governmental approach to what we do here on a regular basis," the official said, referring to the Pentagon and its regular reviews of military strategy. "I think we're trying to get everything in order and make sure were on a footing for long-term success," he said.
With only months left to the current administration, the White House wants to move quickly, the official said. "I wouldn't necessarily assume that there is going to be a complete new strategy. That's what's being considered. Are these things that require adjustments?" he said.
It comes amid growing concern in the military and elsewhere over signs that insurgent groups operating from safe havens in Pakistan have coalesced and gained strength over the past two years.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmkers earlier this month he was not convinced that the United States was winning. He said he had commissioned a strategy review by the Joint Staff that would encompass not just Afghanistan but Pakistan as well.
The Pentagon official said the Joint Staff has participants in the White House review, along with senior Pentagon officials responsible for policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said there was broad support for an approach that "doesn't look at Afghanistan as an island, but looks at it in connection with Pakistan". "The problems we are seeing in (eastern Afghanistan) are directly attributable to what is going on the other side of the border," he said.
#3
Does he have an illiquid asset that he is willing to discount? Because the only people we are talking to now are stupid people who have no income but own a house worth 80% less than their mortgage.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/24/2008 12:49 Comments ||
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#4
"The solution, the bottom line, is that political stability will only come to Afghanistan when all political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beard, are given their just due share in the political dispensation in Afghanistan."
The length of their beard? Is that some quaint Pak hillbilly colloquialism or an actual political qualification?
#7
Thought $10 million was being offered by the FBI for information on this guy. Invite to the get together where the free barbecue grill is given to perps.
#10
and why would this help bring any peace too this region. There sure as hell wasn't any there before the US started kicking the shit out of the Taliban
#12
What the heck else would a Pakistani governor say? A - he's probably a Taliban symp. B - even if he weren't a Taliban symp, asking Uncle Sam to crush the Taliban would probably result in his death by suicide bombing. The fact is that the Taliban can kill Afghan governors, and they don't even run Afghanistan. Think about what they can do to Pakistani political figures, given that they run significant chunks of Pakistan.
An Afghan journalist held for nearly a year in Afghanistan said Tuesday he would stop at nothing to get justice to compensate for the "hell" he went through at the torturing hands of the U.S. military.
Jawed Ahmad, a 22-year-old reporter who worked for Canadian TV (CTV), was detained Oct. 26, 2007, at a NATO base near the southern city of Kandahar. He was initially labeled by the U.S. military as "an unlawful enemy combatant" but was released 11 months later without charge.
Ahmad was accused of having contact with Taliban leaders, including possessing their telephone numbers and video footage of them.
Oh, so he was working for Reuters ...
"I want justice. I'll knock the doors of (U.S.) Congress, I'll go to (U.S. President George W.) Bush, I'll go to (Democratic presidential hopeful) Obama, to everywhere and everyone until I get justice," Ahmad said.
"I was tortured and jailed for 11 months and 20 days for doing nothing," he said in Kabul. "They have destroyed my future, my soul. I'll fight until they apologize to me and give me back what I have lost," he said.
Ahmad, also known as Jo Jo, said his U.S. captors had tortured him by depriving him of sleep for nine days, beating him and putting him in a cell with "mentally sick" prisoners who had attacked him and broken two of his ribs. Ahmad also said he was repeatedly kicked, that his head was slammed into a table and forced to stand barefoot in the snow, which led to him to pass out twice.
Asked how he would fight, Ahmad said: "I'm not a terrorist, I have never been a terrorist. I'm a journalist. With the help of other journalists and human rights (organizations), I'll fight for my rights."
His allegations could not be independently verified and the U.S. military headquarters at Bagram rejected the charge. "We don't have any evidence of his mistreatment while in detention here," U.S. Captain Christian Patterson said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
If we are as evil as he claims, then why did we not just kill him and lose the body?
#3
Because we're not the Great Satan. If we were the Great Satan, we'd kill him and when Amnesia International complained we'd say, "Sure. Of course we killed him. We're the Great Satan. It's in the rules, we're allowed to wax him. And you too if you get too yippy. Now scram."
That is, if we were the Great Satan.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2008 2:47 Comments ||
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#5
Kill him and lose the body? Its still not too late. Find someone who needs the money and get a cutout to offer to pay him what the job is worth. Then bye-bye Jawed Ahmad.
Put a tail on him and find out where he goes, then tag him in a quiet spot between point A and Point B. Then:
Just do a snatch and put him in a mailbag.
Do we have any flights to somewhere about 35,000 feet over the Indian Ocean?
Get Guido to handle it. Allocate the money thru Clemenza.
#6
Some terrorists fight with a gun, some with a camera. I'm sure that they don't arrest and jail people for being journalists, though I can think of a few I'd love to see in the slam. Suck it up son, you got busted and did a relatively short stretch for an unlawful enemy combatant.
#7
"I want justice. I'll knock the doors of (U.S.) Congress, I'll go to (U.S. President George W.) Bush, I'll go to (Democratic presidential hopeful) Obama, to everywhere and everyone until I get justice," ..... mess with me and you're messing with the entire trailer park.
#9
Ahmad was accused of having contact with Taliban leaders, including possessing their telephone numbers and video footage of them.
How many of those Taliban leaders have met the booming end of a missile since then, I wonder? And how many of those who didn't will be willing to be video taped by their dear friend Mr. Ahmad, now?
#15
I'm very confused : reporters have souls? Wow. That's very interesting, in fact, it means they are a whole lot more like human beings than I thought, it's as if they only lack the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
#22
"I want justice. I'll knock the doors of (U.S.) Congress, I'll go to (U.S. President George W.) Bush, I'll go to (Democratic presidential hopeful) Obama, to everywhere and everyone until I get justice," ...
Sure, Jawed, talk to everyone, just avoid McCain, the one person who might just explain to you what real torture looks like.
#23
"I want justice. I'll knock the doors of (U.S.) Congress, I'll go to (U.S. President George W.) Bush, I'll go to (Democratic presidential hopeful) Obama, to everywhere and everyone until I get justice," ...
Sure, Jawed, talk to everyone, just avoid McCain, the one person who might just explain to you what real torture looks like.
I don't think this strategy is gonna work...
Copenhagen - A Danish navy vessel freed 10 suspected pirates on a beach in Somalia rather than hand them over to the authorities there, the navy and Denmark's defence minister said on Wednesday. Officers released the suspects overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday after holding them for six days in the Gulf of Aden, said the statement on the navy's website.
Before being released, they were given back their personal effects, but weapons and communications equipment were confiscated, the statement added. "It was the lesser of two evils, for the other solution, which would have made me uneasy, would have been to hand them over to a regime where they risked being tortured and killed," Defence Minister Soeren Gade told Denmark's TV2 news. Gade announced the news to deputies late on Tuesday, saying that under Danish law it was not possible to prosecute them because of a lack of evidence. They had considered transferring them to other vessels in the multinational Task Force 150 fleet operating off the coast of Somalia, but rejected the idea, he added.
On September 17, just two days after taking command of the task force, the Danish navy vessel Absalon intercepted two suspect high-speed boats spotted by a Danish helicopter in the Gulf of Aden and detained the 10 armed men on board. The men were armed with sub-machine guns and four anti-tank shells sometimes used by pirates during attacks on civilian vessels, said Denmark's naval command. Fishing trip no doubt...
The mission of Task Force 150 is to pursue pirates and armed smugglers operating in the northern waters of the Indian Ocean. ...and let them go apparently.
Security forces aboard a U.S. naval vessel fired warning shots toward two approaching small boats off the Somali coast Tuesday, the U.S. military said Wednesday. The rounds landed in the water, prompting the boats to fleerun away turn around, and no casualties were reported, the military news release said.
It is unclear whether the boats were trying to attack the 41,000-ton USNS John Lenthall, the military said. "It is clear they were not following the international rules of the road observed by mariners around the globe," it said.
The release noted that the location of the incident, the types of boats involved and the maneuvering were all "consistent with reports from previous attacks on merchant vessels in the region."
The USNS John Lenthall is one of 14 "fleet replenishment oilers" in the Military Sealift Fleet Support Command, according to a U.S. Navy Web site. Oilers refuel Navy ships at sea and any aircraft they may be carrying.
Looks kinda like the ships the pirates have tried to board before. Bet they didn't expect 'resistance'. Hope (as NS says) it wasn't just small arms fire.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/24/2008 14:13 Comments ||
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#5
Naval security detachments generally have .50 cal as their heaviest weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The African Union has asked the U.N. Security Council to freeze the ICC case against al-Bashir, which can do so if it deems the prosecution as a threat to peace and security. While the Security Council took note of the request in July, it had said it would revisit it later.
(AKI) - The masked men who kidnapped 19 people in Egypt come from the central African country of Chad, according to the Arab television network, Al-Jazeera.
Egypt says negotiations are continuing in a bid to secure the release of the group abducted near the southern city of Aswan on Friday. Five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian, along with eight Egyptians were kidnapped while on safari. The government says they were taken across the border into Sudan, and the hostage takers have demanded a ransom.
Sources told Al-Jazeera that secret service agents from Italy and Germany are working directly with the wife of the tour operator, who was abducted, to free the 19 hostages.
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini, said on Monday the government was monitoring the situation closely and working with Egyptian officials to free the hostages.
Since news of the kidnapping broke on Monday, there has been a significant fall in the flow of tourists, particuarly European tourists, in the region surrounding Aswan.
Egyptian officials said early reports suggesting the tourists had been freed were premature. The tourists and the Egyptians were abducted near the Gilf al-Kebir plateau, close to the Libyan and Sudanese borders.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Mauritania's junta, widely condemned since coming to power in a coup last month, could gain Western support by pledging to fight "terrorism" after a grisly attack blamed on an Al-Qaeda-linked group, analysts say. Eleven Mauritanian soldiers and one civilian who went missing following an ambush of a patrol in the country's north on September 14 were found decapitated over the weekend.
Their capture had been claimed by Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa in a statement on a Web site purporting to be from the group, and Mauritanian authorities have attributed the attack to the organization.
The group, which calls itself Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, is suspected of carrying out attacks throughout the region, gaining the attention of Western powers.
"The junta has been weakened. It is a military setback, the army has been humiliated," the editor in chief of the Mauritanian weekly Tahalil Hebdo, Isselmou Ould Moustapha, told AFP. "However it is also strengthened in other ways because there is a sympathy with the victims." The junta will seek "sympathy from the West, which is very sensitive to the terrorist threat and often ready to compromise" to help regimes facing Islamic extremism, he added.
Following the attack, France paid tribute to the "resolute commitment in the fight against terrorism" by "the nation and the army," without mentioning the junta.
France, the former colonial power in the northwest African nation, had led international condemnation of the August 6 coup that overthrew the country's first democratically elected leader. Besides France, Mauritania's other main donors - the European Union and the United States - also condemned last month's bloodless coup that ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. They have called for a return to constitutional order and for the president to be released from house arrest, but some say the September 14 attack could help change the diplomatic tone.
On Sunday, the European Union issued a statement condemning the attack and expressing its "solidarity in the fight against terrorism."
The September 14 attack "will strengthen the junta's arguments that the international community should not sanction or isolate the country because the security situation remains fragile," said Alain Antil, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.
A diplomatic source signaled that the mood of the international community could already be changing. "This is a difficult time for Mauritania, but we should not remain passive under the pretext that we do not recognize the military regime," the diplomatic source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Last week, the European Union invited the junta, led by General Mohammad Ould Abdel-Aziz, for talks related to the situation created by the coup, and the meeting could be held in the second week of October.
Until recently largely untouched by attacks, Mauritania has been shaken by four in under a year blamed on extremists linked to Al-Qaeda. The decapitations of the soldiers, in the middle of Islam's holy month of Ramadan, has sent shock waves throughout the country. "This is the first time something like this has happened in Mauritania," said Antil. "They wanted to shock public opinion."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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(SomaliNet) The United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) on Monday urged the immediate release of 90 children kidnapped in the Democratic Republic of Congo by rebels from Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). ''UNICEF demands the unconditional release of the abducted children," said Julien Harneis, Unicef's chief of field operations in the eastern DRC.
UNICEF cited local authorities as saying the children were snatched from their schools on September 17 in simultaneous attacks on the eastern villages of Kiliwa, Duru, and Nambia. The children are presumed to have been taken to nearby LRA bases in the forest, it added. "These children were taken from their schools; Unicef is very concerned that they will now be forced to fight or support fighting, putting their lives at risk," Harneis said.
A village chief and two Italian missionaries were also abducted in the LRA attacks, during which at least three civilians were killed, health centres were looted and houses burnt.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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A video of hardline Islamic preacher Abu Hamza, which was said to have been made in Belmarsh Prison, has appeared on YouTube.
A photograph of the radical cleric is displayed with an announcement that it is by "Sheik Abu Hamza Al Masri from Belmarsh Prison in Britain". During the three-and-a-half minute clip he delivers nine verses of poetry in Arabic. He praises "the spirit of the martyr" and asks for jihad fighters to be given God's mercy.
Hamza, 49, is serving seven years for spreading racial hatred and inciting the murder of " nonbelievers". The hook-handed cleric preached at Finsbury Park Mosque and was convicted of 11 of the 15 charges he faced. He was found guilty of having audio and video tapes intended to encourage racial hatred and having a document for terror purposes. Conservative MP Patrick Mercer has called for a Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to investigate the alleged Belmarsh video. He said: "How is it this poisonous man seems able to communicate at will with the outside world from within Britain's most secure prison?"
A Prison Service spokesman said: "There is no proof this recording was made by Hamza and no evidence it was made in prison." Neil Doyle, an expert on cyber-terrorism, said: "I have spent hours listening to Hamza recordings. I am 1,000 per cent sure it is him."
French prosecutors have started building a case against six alleged Somali pirates captured in the Indian Ocean this month in a commando operation to rescue a couple held aboard a hijacked yacht. Special forces stormed aboard the Carre d'As on September 15 to rescue its crew, a French couple who had been abducted nearly two weeks earlier. One suspect was killed and six captured and flown to France.
It was the second French operation against Somali pirates this year, and President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to get tough with the gangs who prey on shipping in the waters off east Africa's most troubled state.
Prosecutors in Paris have now opened an inquiry, which a judicial source said would be conducted by gendarmerie officers with a view to charging the six captives with hijacking, hostage-taking for ransom and conspiracy.
How about charging them with 'piracy'?
A legal source said that the gang had demanded $2 million for the safe return of the boat and its crew but that no talks had been entered into before the commando raid.
The charges carry life sentences and are the same as those facing six more Somalis captured in April in an earlier raid launched by French commandos after another French-owned yacht was captured and its crew ransomed.
Sarkozy has promised that French forces will continue to fight piracy and France has called for the creation of an international naval patrol to protect shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and escort humanitarian aid to Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
It's a big ocean. Remember that the next time you capture these guys.
#3
Guillotines aren't anywhere as attention-getting as a body hanging from the Eifel Tower. It might also work on some of France's current non-French residents. Public hangings act as a deterrance, whether the EU is willing to acknowledge it or not. Hanging someone for a capital crime such as piracy or murder can't be called racist, as hard as some people might try to push it, especially if you hang anybody that commits a sufficiently heinous crime, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, or lack of personal hygiene.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/24/2008 21:14 Comments ||
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The man accused of being the architect of September 11 has turned the tables on a Guantanamo judge by demanding to know whether he is an "extremist".
Mohammed, acting as his own attorney, asked Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann about his views on religion and torture at an unusual pre-trial hearing of five accused September 11 co-conspirators.
"We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist," Mohammed told the judge.
"If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial towards us," he said, referring to U.S. evangelical Christian leaders who have denounced Islam as violent.
Kohlmann replied that he did not belong to a congregation.
"When I have attended church, I was a member of various Lutheran churches and Episcopal churches, and I have not attended any of them for a long time because I have moved so often," the judge said.
Kohlmann dismissed as "inaccurate," an assertion by co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh that he had a "Jewish name."
Kohlmann was also asked about how he followed news coverage on the day of the attacks and replied that his memory was imprecise.
He also said he had no opinion on the facts of the September 11 incident, which triggered President George Bush's "war on terror."
Binalshibh, Mohammed and three other defendants -- Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali -- are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill civilians in the attacks.
The men face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Prosecutors want to execute them if they are convicted.
Extensive exploratory questioning of a judge's qualifications and bias by the defense is unique to military courts, including the commissions set up by Congress to try suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo U.S. Naval base.
Defence attorneys said they had not yet decided whether to ask Kohlmann to disqualify himself based on his answers.
Mohammed is one of three al Qaeda suspects known to have been subjected to CIA waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used in interrogation that human rights groups consider torture.
He asked Kohlmann about a high-school seminar the judge conducted in 2005 on interrogation and torture, and about his views on waterboarding.
Kohlmann said he had given two articles to the class at his daughter's high school, discussing the pros and cons of harsh interrogation techniques in circumstances such as when a suspect knows of an imminent attack. "I set out the scenarios ... to try to show it's a complex question," he said.
Binalshibh was absent from Monday's session, but appeared on Tuesday after his co-defendants urged him in letters to appear rather than be brought in by force under the judge's order. Binalshibh appeared relaxed and unrestrained at the hearing, and chatted with co-defendants.
Kohlmann put a firm stamp on court proceedings.
He ruled out a late start to accommodate the Ramadan fasting schedule of the five Muslim defendants, and brushed off a request to end the day early for Ramadan. He denied Mohammed's request that he order some women participants to dress more modestly.
And after rejecting one request by the lead prosecutor for a bathroom break, Kohlmann relented 3 1/2 hours into the morning session, with an admonition that court participants should watch their fluid intake. "You all should be able to go as long as me without having to step out," he said.
#3
KSM admitted to being the planner for 911. He is responsible for killing around 3000 innocent people. That makes him a major terrorist in my mind. If one stoops to arguing with pigs, one ends up in the slop too.
#1
No it can't. Say, I have a stuffed head and ringing in the ears from antibiotics. I am not sure what I am thinking in that state. A machine couldn't know what I don't.
#4
"According to our readout, that guy is either sexually aroused, late for his flight, a terrorist, a football player or fan thinking about a game, losing money on the stock market, has recently had too much coffee, or may be psychically controlling us to make us think he is thinking those things. We had better search him."
#5
Question.
Wouldn't people with those symptoms also be, sick, tired, horny, pissed off, stressed out, having a bad day, ect?
That's going to be a bout 1/3 of everyone walking through an airport security screening station.
Quick, get the Japanese to miniaturize it and make it portable. I can see selling about 50 million units to guys who've spent their lives just trying to 'read minds'. This is going to beat the CERN accelerator in discovering the greatest mystery that men have faced since creation. :)
#15
In a Homeland Security video showing the system in action, targeted subjects are asked questions such as "are you attempting to smuggle an explosive device"...
Oh, yeah. I can see how this will go:
TSA: Are you attempting to smuggle an explosive device?
Passenger brain: Oh my god terrorists there could be terrorists on my plane I was trying to forget about that why did you bastards have to remind me die kill death pain Mommy!
Adrenal glands: Red Alert! All hands to stations!
Sensors: Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
TSA: Step this way, please. Jose, full body cavity search for this one.
The decision of Jamia Milia Islamia to defend Delhi serial blast accused Mohammed Shakeel and Zia-ur-Rahman would amount to misuse of public funds. There is no provision under the funding rules promulgated by the University Grants Commission under which a university/college can defend an employee or student booked for a criminal act. "The decision of Jamia Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan is most unfortunate as the public funds would be used to defend somebody who is being booked for waging war against the nation," said a UGC official.
The claim made by the Jamia Vice-Chancellor that the university being an autonomous body was well within its rights to take decisions on such matters has come to be questioned. Within hours of suspending two students who were arrested in connection with the Delhi serial blasts, Mushirul Hasan declared on Monday night that the university would defend its students in court.
While releasing funds to the universities/colleges, UGC issues guidelines on how the expenses have to be made from these funds. The executive head of the institutions that is the Vice-Chancellors in the case of the universities and Principals in the case of the colleges are made responsible for the expenditure of the funds in accordance with the guidelines. If the expenses are not made according to the guidelines it amounts to financial misconduct.
Mohammad Shakeel, a student of MA (Economics) and Zia-ur-Rehman, a student of final year BA (Pass), were suspended by the Vice-Chancellor on Monday but soon thereafter he succumbed to the pressure of Islamist elements on the campus announcing the decision to defend the subversives.
In cases where the guidelines are silent, the General Financial Rules (GFR) of Government of India have to be followed. It's a practice that an officer from one of the Central financial services is posted to the Central universities as Financial Adviser to monitor the expenditure of the public funds. "In the name of autonomy, the university cannot promote subversive activities," said a senior intelligence official.
There is provision for legal expenses in the universities under non-recurring budget. But these expenses have to be made where the university/college has been made a party. These cases generally relate to the civil and service matters. If a principal/head has been booked for a criminal case or in civil matter, he has to arrange for his own defence. "When Zakir Hussain College lecturer SAR Gilani faced a similar case, he arranged for his own defence. He was suspended from the service till he was declared innocent," said a Delhi University official.
Claiming that Jamia's reputation was at stake, Hasan had said in a statement, "The university feels morally bound to defend its students until proven guilty and we will use the legal apparatus for this." Mohammad Shakeel, a student of MA (Economics) and Zia-ur-Rehman, a student of final year BA (Pass), were suspended by the Vice-Chancellor on Monday but soon thereafter he succumbed to the pressure of Islamist elements on the campus announcing the decision to defend the subversives.
This article starring:
Jamia Milia Islamia
MOHAMED SHAKIL
Indian Mujaheddin
Mushirul Hasan
ZIA UR RAHMAN
Indian Mujaheddin
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2008 08:23 ||
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Top|| File under: Indian Mujahideen
#1
Tactics directly out of the Geo Soros and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) playbooks.
NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani on Monday said a network of would-be suicide bombers was building up in the Punjab and there were also reports of women's recruitment for the purpose.
The NWFP governor, accompanied by Fata Additional Chief Secretary Habibullah Khan, was giving a briefing on the situation of the areas at the Governor's House. Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was also present.
Governor Salman Taseer said the total number of militants in Fata was estimated at 10,000 including foreigners. He said each militant was paid between Rs 20,000 and 30,000 per month while the annual aid received by the militants was estimated at Rs 3.5 billion. He said militants were scattered across the country. He disclosed the main supply line of militants to Fata was from religious seminaries in Southern Punjab, particularly Bahawalpur and DG Khan divisions.
Taseer said some battle-hardened students from Southern Punjab were now leading militant gangs in FATA. Taseer urged the nation to back the government in eliminating the militants and the trend from the country. He also asked the media to tell both sides of the story and positively focus on military personnel's heroic struggle.
Terming ongoing military operations in Fata a regular war, Taseer cautioned the masses against ignoring the threat posed by militants. "This is not just a war restricted to Fata, it can spill into other parts of the country if not checked timely," he warned.
Responding to queries by journalists, the NWFP governor termed Fata the defence line of Pakistan, saying the war against insurgency could continue for an indefinite period. He said militants in Swat were on the run and successful action had forced many into laying down arms. He said the government had rescued around 0.3 million peaceful people from the conflict-ridden area.
Earlier, Fata Additional Chief Secretary Habibullah Khan said militants were highly organised, trained and battle-hardened.. He said the existing system of governance in Fata had been out-gunned and out-funded by the new phenomenon which had the full backing of foreign elements. He said the militants were divided into various groups, including al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, local non-Taliban groups, religious zealots and criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Bomb blasts including the attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad have nothing to do with jihad but are blatant acts of terrorism, which must be eliminated, Jamatud Dawa Pakistan head Hafiz Muhammad Saeed said on Tuesday. Talking to Express News Saeed condemned the Islamabad suicide bombing and said that he did not think that the government would be able to investigate the bombing. Opposing cross-border raids by United States-led forces into Pakistan, he said that the US should ask the Pakistani government to try any person wanted by the US on suspicion of terrorism.
This article starring:
HAFIZ MUHAMAD SAID
Jamatud Dawa Pakistan
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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The government should review its policy on war on terror by discussing it in parliament, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman said on Tuesday. Addressing a news conference after his arrival from Saudi Arabia, he said Interior Adviser Rehman Malik should admit the state's failure to pre-empt the Marriott hotel attack instead of claiming that the country's top leadership was saved due to the last-minute change of the venue. The interior adviser has said the government had planned an iftar dinner in the hotel, but the venue was changed to Prime Minister's House at the last moment. The hotel's owner has denied Malik's claim, saying there was no booking for such a dinner.
This article starring:
FAZLUR REHMAN
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
Interior Adviser Rehman Malik
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has called for the government to take the nation into confidence on the ongoing war on terror.
"Now, we will have to face the challenge as a nation, as innocent women and children are being killed with impunity," PTI Media Adviser Zahid Hussain Kazmi said in a statement issued here on Monday. "Pakistan, today, is one of the most insecure countries because of the disastrous policies of the rulers following the 9/11 events," he said.
The PTI leader opposed allowing the US or British spy agencies to investigate into the Marriott suicide attack, asking if they were to probe into such acts, why the local agencies were being allocated hefty budgets.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Ulema from different schools of thought on Monday unanimously condemned the truck-bomb attack at Marriot Hotel and termed it unIslamic and against humanity.
Chairman, Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, Mufti Muneebur Rahman termed the attack a deliberate move to distort the image of the country and Islam. ''Suicidal attacks are against the teachings of any religion, law or ethics in any country and it is condemned by all beliefs,'' he said while talking to APP.
He called upon the government to make concrete steps to investigate the sad incident and try to probe the root-causes of terrorism to eradicate this menace permanently. He said it is a clear-cut ëalarm and challengeí to the security agencies and the government.
Maulana Zafar Abbas Naqvi also expressed deep condolence and sorrow over the colossal tragedy at the Marriot Hotel, which, he said, has left a trail of grievances across the world. ''Suicide can neither be endorsed as Islamic or from ethical point of view while it has largely been condemned across the world,'' he maintained and called it as ''Haraam'' (unfair).
Maulana Zafar said that love for ones homeland and its inhabitants is also part of the religion. ìIf any body could not meet this important part of the religion, he would not be called a Muslim.î He demanded to arrest the culprit behind the gory incident to avoid further killing of innocent people and restore law and order in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
So where are we in the script?
Terrorism is unIslamic, sir.
Oh, right. "Terrorism is unIslamic."
Very nice, sir.
karachi Hotels in Karachi which have been enjoying good times for the past several years with occupancy rate touching 90 per cent, have started feeling the effects of the Islamabad blast as occupancy rate has declined to 30 per cent in recent days.
Pshaw! That was all the way up in Islamabad. You don't have moose-limb crazies in Karachi, do ya?
Since Saturday hotels in the city have witnessed an alarming drop in bookings from foreigners as well as Pakistani nationals and many occupants have checked out before their departure date fearing a Islamabad type attack by a suicide bomber.
Looks like Harold and Maude are vacationing in Mauritania instead ...
Although business is usually sluggish in the holy month of Ramadan as foreigners tend to avoid visiting Pakistan, ...
... good advice the whole year 'round ...
... the deteriorating law and order situation in the country has also not helped the cause of the hotel business in Karachi.
A hotel industry official told Khaleej Times on Tuesday that after the Islamabad bomb blast, the city hotels have been incurring a combined loss of Rs7 million daily while all over the country the loss stood at around Rs30 million per day.
We got some hedge-fund operators who might need a place to stay ...
Karachis three five-star hotels have admitted that they had been flooded with cancellation calls from overseas clients. They are also losing millions of rupees of business daily as private companies and individuals have cancelled Iftar and dinner parties, a major source of income in Ramadan. a sources in the hotel industry said.
Managements of the five-star hotels of the city feared the worst in the coming months for the hotel business unless the law and order situation all over the country and especially improved considerably. If the present law and order situation persists and bomb blasts go unchecked it will be disastrous for the hotel industry and could lead to largescale retrenchements and loss of jobs, he said.
They'll go from five stars to one star, and that might not be low enough.
Meanwhile, hotels in Karachi have adopted more stringent security measures by boosting the number of armed guards at its entrance gates besides restricting movement of cars into car parks. The city police have also placed more personnel around the hotels to provide security.
The management in Islamabad thought they had increased security enough, too ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Do not stay in a hotel.
I know a lovely little Bed and Breakfast in Swat that's just charming.
U.S. President George W. Bush bid farewell to the United Nations on Tuesday as he slammed Syria and Iran for continuing to sponsor terrorism and called for sanctions against North Korea and discussed the financial crisis. In his final address to the annual U.N. General Assembly, Bush said nations such as Syria and Iran "continue to sponsor terrorism, yet their numbers are growing fewer and they are growing more isolated."
The vastly unpopular in all the right places U.S. president, who made no mention of the battle to succeed him in January, also cautioned against letting up in the global war on terrorism he declared after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Bush went on to promise world leaders fearful of a global economic meltdown that Washington would implement a financial bailout package "in the urgent timeframe required."
Bush warned that failure to act would be "devastating." "I can assure you that my administration and our Congress are working together to quickly pass legislation approving this strategy, and I'm confident we will act in the urgent timeframe required," said the U.S. president.
Just four months before the end of his eight-year run at the White House, Bush leveled some of his toughest-yet criticism at Moscow over its war with Georgia. "The United Nations charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words," he said, vowing to keep supporting the former Soviet republic's territorial integrity.
"Young democracies around the world are watching to see how we respond to this test," he said, naming Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Liberia and Iraq. "We must stand united in our support of the people of Georgia."
With hope ebbing for a Middle East peace deal before he leaves office, Bush pressed for U.N. support of Lebanon and for "the people of the Palestinian territories, who deserve a free and peaceful state of their own."
Bush also touched on Pakistan and expressed his "deepest condolences" over Saturday's devastating suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which left at least 60 people dead. "Pakistan is an ally, and I look forward to deepening our relationship," he said after offering condolences to the families of the deceased.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
the battle to succeed him in January
We call that an 'election' in these parts, Abu. We have one every four years, like clockwork; no gunfire, bombing or murder involved.
Any truth to the rumor that Bush unleashed a giant robotic John Bolton that stormed thru the halls of the UN building and destroyed the offices of the UN Commission on Human Rights?
#2
Lashes out
sounds like the discription of a foaming at the mouth deranged lunatic
kind of sounds like that nazarene hippie who went on a rampage in the Temple courtyard driving out livestock with a whip, throwing money changers' coins in the dirt, upsetting evil traders' tables
vastly unpopular
I'll bet on that
Is this according to liberal push polls?
Is this unpopularlike the Congress is unpopular?
We want Barrabus for Christ's sake!
"We want Barrabus, we want Barrabus"
"We want Barack Obama, we want Barack Obama"
"I love you man."
Heston's (Moses') last words,
"From my cold, dead hands!"
Posted by: Uncle Bush ||
09/24/2008 1:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
And exactly what has GWB done about Saudi terror financing? Zero! Why? The House of Saud owns the House of Bush.
#4
I've caught a part---he was talking about "small group of extremists/great religion" again, I've changed to Bollywood channel.
I guess, the only way I'll learn to appreciate George lackawit is if Obama is elected.
#6
And exactly what has GWB done about Saudi terror financing? Zero! Why? The House of Saud owns the House of Bush.
Well, watching for the last couple years I've noted a lot of traffic accidents in the desert of Saudi extended family members and various people of importance. Quietly the Saudis have been killing a fair number of cockroaches and retiring a number of imams from their posts. Now they did get away with not interfering in the process those imams were working sending their koolaid drinkers followers off to distant lands to die at the hands of the infidel. Which resulted in a different version of 'house cleaning' for them. It appears that the Saudis have been doing a far more effective job of cooling the boys at home than the Paks, one way or another. I suspect there are things we'll never know about some Saudi cooperation because it would destabilize the family's standing [and we all know how well destabilizing worked with the Shah of Iran].
BAGHDAD, Sept 24 - Iraqs parliament unanimously approved a provincial elections law on Wednesday after months of bickering between Arabs and Kurds, and called for the vote to be held before Jan. 31 next year, legislators said.
The polls had been scheduled for Oct. 1 but the law governing how the vote should be conducted stalled in parliament over how to treat the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where control is disputed by Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turkmen.
Parliamentarians said elections in Kirkuk would be delayed until a formula satisfactory to all sides was worked out.
The elections, which will select provincial councils across Iraq, will provide clues on how Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish factions will fare in national polls scheduled for late 2009.
Both the United Nations and the United States had been urging Iraqi leaders to pass the law, saying the elections would be a vital step in building on recent decline in violence and would boost national reconciliation efforts.
Overall violence has fallen to four-year lows in Iraq, but militants continue to carry out sporadic large-scale attacks.
Gunmen killed 20 people including 12 policemen in an ambush northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.
In what appeared to be a sophisticated assault, gunmen first attacked a village checkpoint near the city of Baquba, killing one policeman. They then ambushed reinforcements, killing a further 11 policemen, local Sunni Arab patrol group members and civilians, police said.
Faraj al-Haidari, head of the Electoral Commission, said while much of the organising work for the local polls had been finished it might be 4-5 months before the vote could go ahead.
If the presidency (council) approves the law, we need 140 to 150 days to complete all the preparations to hold the elections, Haidari told Reuters.
Parliament will now submit the law to Iraqs three-member presidency council, headed by President Jalal Talabani, for approval. Talabani rejected an earlier version that was approved by MPs in July and sent it back to parliament, but given the law on Wednesday was approved unanimously it should be a formality.
Salim al-Jubouri, from the Sunni Arab Accordance Front, said both Arabs and Kurds had made concessions on Kirkuk.
A separate law for elections in Kirkuk as well as a power-sharing formula for the citys administration would be drawn up, Jubouri said.
Local elections are seen as a test of Iraqs democracy and Washington hopes they will help reconcile rival groups, especially Sunni Arabs who boycotted the last provincial polls in 2005 and, without a say in most local governments, now feel marginalised in areas where they are numerically dominant.
But the polls could also lead to tension between competing groups, especially in the Shiite south where there is expected to be a struggle for power in a region that holds most of the countrys proven reserves of oil.
UN, US PRAISES COMPROMISE
Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special representative to Iraq, congratulated lawmakers for reaching a compromise on Kirkuk.
The Iraqi people will now have a chance to express their own opinion and their own vote about who is going to lead them at the provincial level, De Mistura told a news conference with parliamentary leaders.
U.S. embassy spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh added: The law passed with unanimous support reflects a spirit of consensus and demonstrates Iraqs full commitment to the democratic process.
The earlier version of the law passed by parliament and rejected by Talabani, a Kurd, would have divided council seats equally between Kirkuks ethnic groups. Kurdish MPs had boycotted the session in protest.
Kurds believe they are numerically superior in Kirkuk, which they consider their ancient capital and want to fold into their largely autonomous northern region. Kirkuks Arabs and Turkmen want the city to remain under central government authority.
The committee was able to fix a tough problem that remained unsolved for months, said Khalid Shwani, a Kurdish lawmaker.
The new law changes some of the voting procedures from legislation used for the last local elections in January 2005.
One significant difference is it uses an open list electoral system -- where voters can choose specific candidates. Under the old law, a closed list system was used, where they can only selected political parties.
(AKI) - Israeli police has denied the family of the so-called Palestinian 'car terrorist' to hold a traditional Arab funeral for their son on Tuesday.
Qasim Salah al-Mughrabi, 19, an Arab Israeli resident of East Jerusalem on Monday rammed his car into a group of 17 people, mainly Israeli soldiers, in Jerusalem's Tzahal Square, close to the Old City's Jaffa Gate.
After al-Mughrabi's black BMW hit a wall, the youth was shot dead by one of the soldiers who reportedly feared he would restart the car and strike more people.
The family of the attacker claims al-Mughrabi did not have a driver's licence and that the incident was a traffic accident, reported Israeli daily Haaretz quoting Israel Radio. A report said al-Mughrabi had been in an 'agitated state' after a spurned marriage proposal. He had no previous security record, police said.
The police have reportedly barred the family from setting up the traditional Arab mourner's tent at their home. But the family has rejected allegations that al-Mughrabi belonged to any militant organisation.
The Palestinian news agency Maan reports that the attack was claimed by a group called Nisour al-Jalil, while the Palestinian militant organisation Islamic Jihad endorsed the attack.
Terrorist or not, Pops, that's all the justification the Israelis need.
The attack follows two similar incidents by Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. In July an attacker drove a bulldozer into a bus before he was shot dead. Three Israelis were killed and over 30 were injured in the incident. Ten days later another bulldozer drove into several Israeli vehicles, wounding more than 30 people.
This article starring:
Qasim Salah al-Mughrabi
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Again, they should keep a bottle of rancid pork fat around just for such an occasion, then loudly announce that it is pork fat when pouring it on the living or dead Muslim.
The family of a Palestinian shot dead after his car plowed into pedestrians at a busy Jerusalem intersection challenged on Tuesday Israeli police allegations that he had carried out a deliberate terror attack.
But police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities were convinced the attack was politically motivated. "We're 100 percent sure ... he deliberately drove into people," Rosenfeld said.
Israeli police on Tuesday beefed up patrols around Jerusalem, hours after
More than a dozen soldiers, on a late-night excursion to the city ahead of the Jewish New Year next week, were injured in Monday's incident. No Palestinian group has made a credible claim of responsibility.
Police, including undercover agents, were out on Jerusalem's streets in larger numbers, on the lookout for suspicious activity and conducting spot checks of Palestinian pedestrians and vehicles, Rosenfeld said. Officers were also patrolling Arab neighborhoods of the city, including village of Jabel Mukaber, where the driver had lived.
Police announced Monday night that the incident was a terrorist attack, the third of its kind using vehicles against Israelis in the city since July and involving Palestinians from East Jerusalem and have wide freedom of movement.
The driver of the black BMW was identified as Qassem Mughrabi, 19. Mahmoud Mughrabi, 49, his father, said his son did not have a driving licence and apparently lost control of the car. "My son was murdered, they killed him. He did not carry out a terrorist attack. This was a car accident."
Mughrabi, owner of a trucking business, said at his home where police had barred him from setting up a traditional Muslim mourning tent. Mughrabi said he wished the soldiers a speedy recovery, a remark not typical of parents of Palestinian militants killed by Israeli forces.
IDF Lieutenant Elad Amar, who shot and killed Qassem Mughrabi, said Tuesday that he fired a hail of bullets into the BMW after it hit a wall, because he feared that the driver would restart the car and strike more passers-by. Amar told Israel Radio that the driver pointed the car directly at the group of soldiers and "floored it. I didn't see his face, just the car as it neared us."
"He ran into them, they flew into the air, some landing on the hood, people you were laughing with, joking with, just a moment before," Amar said. "They're my friends and I love them."
Army Radio said the Palestinian terrorist was shot 11 times.
This article starring:
Qassem Mughrabi
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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[2 views]
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#1
Hard to blame them for thinking they'll eventually win.
A senior negotiator for the Palestinian group Fatah said on Tuesday that Fatah was no longer asking rival group Hamas to restore the status quo that existed in Gaza before the Islamists took control in June 2007.
Nabil Shaath, the head of a Fatah delegation in Cairo for talks with Egyptian mediators on a Palestinian reconciliation package, said Fatah was taking a more flexible position.
For months Fatah has said that reconciliation with Hamas depends on reversing what Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly called a Hamas coup in Gaza. But Shaath told Reuters: "We are not calling for this (the reversal of the coup)... We are not asking anybody to apologize. We are not asking anybody to go back to where we were. We want to go forward, not backward."
He said Fatah, which continues to control the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank, accepted an Egyptian proposal that the Palestinians form a new "national government of consensus".
"It may or may not have people from any of the (Palestinian) organizations but it will have people accepted by the organizations and also accepted by the Arabs and also have international acceptance," he added. Asked if this meant that Fatah was taking a more flexible position in the talks, Shaath said: "Yes."
A national consensus government would end exclusive Hamas control of Gaza but simultaneously give the Islamist movement more influence in the West Bank.
The settlement proposed by Egypt would reunite Palestinian security forces, ending Hamas's monopoly over security in Gaza in favor of a force acceptable to both sides.
Officials of Hamas and Fatah said privately that Shaath's remarks may represent a change of tone. But they also said that Fatah's underlying position was the same as before. Senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad, who is in Cairo with Shaath's delegation, told Reuters by telephone: "There is no change in Fatah's position."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "There was nothing new in the statement by Nabil Shaath because Fatah and other PLO factions stick to the legitimacy of the president and marginalize and sideline the other legitimacies."
"In Hamas we stress that any dialogue and any results of a dialogue should be based on respecting the results of the parliamentary election (won by Hamas in 2006) and all the Palestinian legitimacies," Abu Zuhri added.
Shaath's delegation had talks on Tuesday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been meeting all this month with a succession of Palestinian factions. Shaath said that talks between Suleiman and a Hamas delegation would start on Oct. 8 and the Egyptians would bring together all the factions in the first week of November.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday accused the United States of encircling his country, and said Washington was the real threat to world stability. Ahead of a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Iranian leader defended his confrontational stand against the West and Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2008 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
ION FREEREPUBLIC > FEAR GROWS IN LEBANON AS SYRIA MOVES 10,000 ARMY TROOPS TO LEBANESE BORDER.
#3
Right, cause we're the ones that are always making threats of annihilation on TV, believe that we have halo's and sit around waiting for a guy to pop out of a well and lead us to world domination.
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.
(AKI) - The masked men who kidnapped 19 people in Egypt come from the central African country of Chad, according to the Arab television network, Al-Jazeera.
A video of hardline Islamic preacher Abu Hamza, which was said to have been made in Belmarsh Prison, has appeared on YouTube. 
French prosecutors have started building a case against six alleged Somali pirates captured in the Indian Ocean this month in a commando operation to rescue a couple held aboard a hijacked yacht. Special forces stormed aboard the Carre d'As on September 15 to rescue its crew, a French couple who had been abducted nearly two weeks earlier. One suspect was killed and six captured and flown to France.
Bomb blasts including the attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad have nothing to do with jihad but are blatant acts of terrorism, which must be eliminated, 
The government should review its policy on war on terror by discussing it in parliament, 
U.S. President George W. Bush bid farewell to the United Nations on Tuesday as he slammed Syria and Iran for continuing to sponsor terrorism and called for sanctions against North Korea and discussed the financial crisis. In his final address to the annual U.N. General Assembly, Bush said nations such as Syria and Iran "continue to sponsor terrorism, yet their numbers are growing fewer and they are growing more isolated."
(AKI) - Israeli police has denied the family of the so-called Palestinian 'car terrorist' to hold a traditional Arab funeral for their son on Tuesday.
A senior negotiator for the Palestinian group Fatah said on Tuesday that Fatah was no longer asking rival group Hamas to restore the status quo that existed in Gaza before the Islamists took control in June 2007. 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday accused the United States of encircling his country, and said Washington was the real threat to world stability. Ahead of a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Iranian leader defended his confrontational stand against the West and Israel.
