Iran holds the foreign forces in Afghanistan responsible for the escalation of insecurity and spread of extremism in the war-torn country.
"Seven years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, which was amid at curbing insurgency and drug trafficking, we are witnessing a surge in drug production and an increase in violence and extremism," Iran's Parliament Speaker, Ali Larijani said in a Sunday meeting with the Afghan Vice-President, Abdul Karim Khalili in Tehran.
Aided and abetted by Iran ...
Tehran says the 'war on terror', along with the extra-regional interference in Middle Eastern affairs, is the root of immense problem that the region is faced with.
Earlier in December, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned against the spread of extremist policies in the Middle East, suggesting that the US was provoking violence and aggression.
The seven-year US occupation of Afghanistan has not made the country a safer place. This year alone, over 5,000 people have been killed and US military casualties have reached their highest levels since the 2001 invasion.
"The fight against the production and transit of narcotics in Afghanistan was among the main pretexts of foreigners' presence in the region," Larijani said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
See also WAFF > BRITISH MUSLIMS TRAIN FOR TERROR IN TRIBAL AREAS, to include likely TERROPS = ATTACKS AGZ LONDON, BRITAIN???
Also, WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD > TALIBAN [+ various Locals] PAID PROTECTION MONIES AGZ ATTACK BY NATO CONVOYS [MNC Contractors, Afghan-Pak Govt. Agencies].
Switzerland is ready to deploy military personnel to defend its merchant ships from pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa, Swiss President Pascal Couchepin said in remarks published on Sunday. "There is no formal decision, but the position of the government is clear - we are in principle ready to send Swiss soldiers to Somalia," Couchepin told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Huzzah! The legendary Swiss Navy makes its appearance!
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Without detailing the scope and scale of such an operation, the president added: "There is no solution other than to send some soldiers when our ships are threatened." The government now is clarifying "what juridical, financial and practical consequences" such an action would take, he said.
"Arrgh, I smell an opportunity to pirate administer some 'questionable' bank accounts. Thar's been some interesting convoying of monies from off the Indianman through our halls it appears. So, that would be the Second Bern Accounting Shock Battalion in action." This will be later known as the Swiss gambit for banker bailout resolutions.
#2
Personally i think the world should demand Liberia and Panama do something as the bulk of the ships grabbed by pirates are no doubt Liberian and Panamanian flagged ships. These two nations give cheap flagging rights knowing the great powers are actually providing the security (most of the time that is).
If Panama and Liberia don't do something then ships with their registration should be banned from ports and the whole charade ended.
#4
Let the US stay well clear of this coming clash of titans.
Posted by: ed ||
12/22/2008 18:44 Comments ||
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#5
Rabid Whitetail, that is my point. They make money registering ships when one of the main responsibility of a register is to protect those ships. They know that is done by others so they make a mint without doing anything.
#6
WORLD MIL FORUM > INTERNATIONAL FIGHT AGZ SOMALI PIRACY IS OPPORTUNITY FOR CHINA'S PLAN TO SET UP NAVAL BASES IN KENYA, TANZANIA, MOZAMBIQUE,
.... AND MADAGASCAR TOO!
A Yemeni confessed on Monday to killing a Jew, saying in court that he had warned that the minority should convert to Islam or leave the country, but his lawyers said he was mentally disturbed.
How could they tell?
"I killed the Jew," Abdul Aziz Yahya al-Abdi, 39, screamed from the dock, referring to Masha Yaeish al-Nahari, whom he shot dead over a week ago in the town of Raydah, in the northern province of Amran.
"I have told them in a letter that they should either convert to Islam or leave Yemen, or I would kill them," he said, speaking of the minority of a few hundred Jews who continue to live in the Arabian peninsula country.
Well then ...
Only the immediate relatives of the victim were in court which was filled with members of Abdi's tribe, along with five lawyers who volunteered to defend him.
The hearing was the second, following the opening of the trial on Saturday.
"This man has wronged us," said the victim's father, addressing the judges, pointing at Abdi who appeared in a blue prison uniform.
Abdi said his act was "in accordance with a masters' dissertation I wrote on their electronic war and jihad (holy war) in the name of God."
Well THAT should settle it.
Defence lawyers retorted that Abdi was "mentally disturbed" and had quit his previous posting as an air force pilot due to his mental illness. They added that he had killed his wife two years ago. "He does not understand what he has done," the defence said, requesting a referral for psychiatric tests.
"Such statements help the Jews against me... I want an American lawyer," Abdi screamed in response, calling upon his tribesmen to sack his legal team.
The court agreed to the defence's request to refer Abdi to psychiatrists despite objections by the prosecution. It adjourned the hearing to December 31.
Some 250 of Yemen's remaining Jewish minority of around 400 live in Amran.
In 1948, Yemen's Jewish community numbered some 60,000 but with the creation of the Jewish state that year, more than 48,000 emigrated to Israel in the following three years. The community continued to dwindle in the following decades and by the early 1990s it numbered only around 1,000 people. The lifting of a longstanding travel ban in 1993 sparked a fresh exodus.
#1
I want an American lawyer," Abdi screamed in response, calling upon his tribesmen to sack his legal team.
He might be surprised at the last names of a large number of American lawyers.
Not to blame the victim, but I don't understand why any Jew is left in Yemen. Yemen is like the hillbilly cousin of Saudi Arabia. They didn't let the Jews leave when almost every other country kicked them out. Israel should have sent as ship and let every Jew aboard who wanted to go.
#2
I think he specifically wanted the firm of Cohen, Cohen, Cohen and Katz.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 11:48 Comments ||
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#3
When I think of Yemen and Jews the old sephardic Yemenite Songs come to mind as Ofra Haza sang them.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/22/2008 11:51 Comments ||
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#4
One of the reasons for the spread of Islam was its utility for those seeking to overthrow the powerful Jewish kingdoms in the Yemen
Posted by: john frum ||
12/22/2008 12:46 Comments ||
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#5
Yup, much of the Arabian peninsula at that time was either Jewish or Byzantine. The Byzantines and the Sassanids (Persians) had fought a big war and were exhausted, but that didn't stop the Byzantines from persecuting the minorities on the peninsula for various minor religious infractions. When Mo' and his cult started to spread there were lots of people only too willing to convert and help if it meant doing in the Jewish and especially Byzantine governors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/22/2008 13:43 Comments ||
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#6
Well, gee - as long as he had a good reason, I guess it's all cool, huh?
#7
They didn't let the Jews leave when almost every other country kicked them out. Israel should have sent as ship and let every Jew aboard who wanted to go.
Huh? Google "Operation Magic Carpet." As far as I know, the ones that remain are anti-zionist, in the way that the Satmar Hasids are anti-zionist.
Ramna police yesterday arrested four activists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) and Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) from Moghbazar area in the city on charges of distributing leaflets containing derogatory remarks against Awami League (AL).
The detained students are Zahidul Islam, Himel and Abdus Samad of Dr MA Rashid Hall and Iqbal of Suhrawardi Hall of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet). Huge number of anti-AL leaflets, along with some leaflets of Sammilita Chikitsok Parishad which seek vote for BNP, were also seized from their possession.
Ramna Zone Deputy Commissioner (DC) Atiqul Islam told The Daily Star, "After the investigation, action would be taken against them if they are found guilty of violating electoral code of conduct."
They would forward the investigation report to the election commission through the higher authorities, DC Atiqul added.
At least eight activists of JCD and ICS were distributing the leaflets among the local people asking them to form their opinion about AL, police and locals said. While they were distributing the leaflets, the local people and police caught four of them from the spot. The others managed to flee by a microbus.
Police said the anti-AL leaflets contain some quotes from the recent write-up of Joy, son of AL chairperson.
Dr Dilip Roy, health secretary of Dhaka city unit of AL, filed a case with Ramna police on charges of violating electoral code of conduct and of sedition in this connection.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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Iran is using its warm relations with Venezuela to dodge UN sanctions and use Venezuelan aircraft to ship missile parts to Syria, an Italian newspaper reported Sunday. Citing US and other Western intelligence agencies, La Stampa said Iran is using aircraft from Venezuelan airline Conviasa to transport computers and engine components to Syria for use in missiles.
The material comes from Iranian industrial group Shahid Bagheri, listed inthe annex of UN Security Council Resolution 1737, adopted in December 2006, for involvement in Iran’s ballistic missile program. The resolution instructed all nations to “prevent the supply, sale or transfer” of all material or technology that could be used for Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme and the development of weapons to carry nuclear warheads.
Syria is a close ally of Iran in the Middle East, with the two nations having signed a military cooperation pact in June 2006.
In return for providing aircraft, Iran has made available to Caracas members of its Revolution Guards and the elite Al-Quds unit to train and reinforce the Venezuelan police and secret services, La Stampa reported.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez—who share deep hostility towards the United States and the outgoing Bush administration—have signed several agreements on economic cooperation. Chavez has also voiced support for Iran’s nuclear program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/22/2008 16:21 ||
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#1
since we have been at war for 7 years now why haven't we brought back political assasinations?
For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.
Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.
On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip - with reporters in tow - to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving. But the size and scope of Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/22/2008 14:26 ||
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#1
Would that the next president follow this noble task as well. and also do it on out of the public eye.
#2
Love him or hate him, it is hard to argue that he did not succeed in accomplishing one of his key campaign promises from the first election - restoring the dignity of the Office. Behaviors like these are how it was done.
#4
We're going to miss Bush far more than we know right now. Every day Bama is in office will make GWB look better.
I just shake my head in sadness and disbelief at the choices we had in the last election. How could a once-great country sink so low? In 300 million people there HAVE to be two better choices than McCain and Bama.
If the dictum that "a people get the government they deserve" is true, we're in extremely serious trouble as a nation.
#5
People make bad choices when supplied with bad information. While the news media, who as a whole identify with the extreme left of the socialist agenda, are the main culprits, the president and his office must also share blame for their utter failure to engage and shape the information flow. These private meetings are just one small example.
Posted by: ed ||
12/22/2008 18:22 Comments ||
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#6
ed, that's part of the problem - if Bush had publicized that he was doing this, the press would have ripped him apart. Code Pink and their ilk would have done their best to disrupt every meeting with the families. The fact that he continued to do it without saying anything earns him a hero award in my eyes.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/22/2008 19:16 Comments ||
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Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) provincial President Gul Naseeb on Sunday warned the JUI-F will overthrow the NWFP government if it abolished the Islamic banking system in the Bank of Khyber (BoK).
"We shall overthrow the government within a month if they end the Islamic banking system in BoK," Naseeb told the 'Mulk Bachao' or save the country conference organised by his party at the Nishtar Hall.
He accused the Awami National Party-led government of working on a strategy to pave the way for a greater Pakhtunistan. Installation of billboards showing maps of Pakhtunistan was part of the same 'conspiracy', he added.
He claimed that instead of taking steps to improve the situation, the provincial government was deliberately worsening it as "a conspiracy to dismember the country".
Naseeb alleged the ANP government was responsible for breaching the peace agreement with the Swat-based Taliban, adding that the government now planned to create a Swat-like situation in other districts of NWFP as well. The JUI-F leader said the provincial government could have saved the May 21 truce with the Swat Taliban if it wanted to.
About law and order, Naseeb said the lives and property of citizens were at stake. Even the chief minister and ministers were unable to come out of their offices and residences, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Overthrow"? That is subversion; arrest them all.
Pakistan and India have summoned their high commissioners for consultations amid rising tensions following last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Shahid Malik and Satyabarata Pal will brief Islamabad and New Delhi respectively on their interaction with the authorities after the Mumbai attacks.
Talking to Daily Times, Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq denied that it was an unusual development, and called it 'routine activity'. "There is nothing unusual about it. It is a routine activity for the two countries to call back their high commissioners," he said, adding that Malik had returned on Saturday.
Regarding Malik's engagements, the spokesman said he would meet officials in the Foreign Office and would leave for India in "two to three days" as per schedule.
Asked why the Indian high commissioner had been called back at the same time, amid soaring tensions, Sadiq said Pal had gone to India to attend an envoys' conference.
"His visit to India is also not unusual. There are reports already published in the media that an envoys' conference is planned in India. He has gone to attend the conference," he added. Pakistani Deputy High Commissioner in India Afrasiab Mehdi Hashmi and the Indian Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan Mun Preet Vohra will act as high commissioners until the two envoys return, Online reported.
Ties between the two countries worsened after terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that India blames on elements based in Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Meanwhile in the Bay of Bengal, the INS Ranvir test launches one of its cruise missiles
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba was operating in the guise of Jamaatud Dawa and Pakistan would have been isolated in the world if the group had not been banned, a private TV channel reported Federal Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi as saying on Sunday. However, the minister said no religious organisation, including Jamaatud Dawa, was involved in terrorist activities, the channel reported. Those two statements would appear to be mutually contradictory, unless he's saying Lashkar's not a terror org.
Kazmi said Jamaatud Dawa was banned under pressure from the United Nations. They're hoping nobody but JuD noticed when they immediately started ignoring the ban...
The minister also denied reports that people were sent to perform haj on government expenses, APP reported. He said some United Arab Emirates-based philanthropists had deposited money in Pakistan and the returns on it had been used to facilitate people who wanted to perform haj.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan is the playground for the Saudis!!! Spam content is 0 percent
Pakistan has been given enough evidence regarding the Mumbai terror attacks and "Islamabad must act", Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday.
"Not once, twice or thrice but as many as ten times we have given evidence. Please pursue those evidence and take action as per your (Pakistani) law," he said addressing Pakistan at a conference at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata.
"Instead of contradiction and denial, they will have to take action," Mukherjee added. "We want that you keep the commitments given, one by former president Pervez Musharaff and the other by the current president (Asif Ali) Zardari that Pakistan's territory will not be allowed to be used by terrorists. Keep that commitment."
He said Islamabad must arrest and hand over the fugitives of Indian law taking shelter in Pakistan as well as Pakistani suspects required for terror probes in India. "Those who are Indian citizens, hand them over to us. Those who are required for investigations, may be your citizens, also hand them over to us."
Diplomatic campaign: The Indian government has convened a two-day conference of India's 120 ambassadors and high commissioners today (Monday) during which Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will initiate a global campaign to build international pressure on Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Indian media said in various reports on Sunday.
Prior knowledge: Sources in the Indian government said New Delhi believed Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had prior knowledge of the Mumbai attacks. "They may not have authored attacks, but they knew of both the Kabul as well as Mumbai attacks," they said.
The assessment was shared at a security meeting chaired by Prime Minister Singh on Saturday night. Indian ministers, top security and intelligence officials and services chiefs attended the meeting.
Indian Army believes such terror outfits cannot be curbed unless the Pakistani military's war-waging potential is severely damaged. There was also talk of launching "covert actions" against ISI either targeting its headquarters or using air and missile strikes on pinpointed targets without ground operations. But, that is likely to heighten tensions with Pakistan. A section within the security establishment is favouring limited actions within AJK.
An action like Operation Parakram -- a grand deployment of Indian troops along the Pakistani border in 2001 -- is also being discussed with the aim to hit Pakistan's economy.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
India has waited too long. They lost their momentum and will not do anything but wring their hands and write letters condeming the acts just like the UN.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
12/22/2008 13:16 Comments ||
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#2
See also PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > INDIAN AIR FORCE/IAF PLANS TO HIT TARGETS IN 24 HOURS? [Pakistan]. Two high-ranking US Army Officers + UN INTERPOL Deputy General on rush visits - ex-PK Army CoS argues that Pakistan should allow India to strike by air select Militant targets inside Pakistan???
#3
Some NET POSTERS believe that INDIA may choose to attack select targets inside BANGLADESH or MYANMAR also, as per COVERT SMUGGLING NETWORKS FROM SAME TO INDIAN-BASED TERROR GROUPS, and to include smuggling to ANTI-INDIAN GROUPS BASED IN PAKISTAN.
BASRA, Iraq -- The top U.S. general in Iraq said he will make a decision about the future role of American troops in early spring, to allow enough time to address any violence that may arise from January's provincial elections.
Army Gen. Ray Odierno told the Associated Press that the two-month period after the election will allow U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces to ensure those legitimately elected can take office. He also said U.S. troops will move into southern Iraq early next year to replace departing British forces.
"So we have to make sure in the election those who didn't win understand that, and we will be able to seat the new government properly," Odierno, the overall commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, told AP late Saturday. "And once we get to that point, it's now time for us to take a look at what is right for the future."
Violence is dropping sharply throughout the country -- an Iraqi military official said Sunday that murder rates have returned to pre-war levels.
Military officials say Odierno has already outlined for Pentagon leaders a withdrawal plan that would pull thousands of troops out of Iraq early next year. "I expect we will start to thin our forces in '09. It's the right time to do that," he said. "We will do it in a deliberate, careful way to make sure we have enough combat power to support the Iraqis in case there is the unexpected, a resurgence of an extremist group of some sort that tries to have an affect of the stability inside Iraq."
Aswat al-Iraq: The Sunni province of al-Anbar is bracing for the forthcoming provincial council elections as 800,000 are to cast their votes to select their representatives among 38 blocs vying for local administrative positions.
Khaled Rajab al-Muhammadi, the director of the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC)'s Anbar office, told Aswat al-Iraq that there are 800,000 eligible voters among a total population of 1.400 million in the province, adding 13,000 civil servants from the education and higher education ministries will work in the ballot stations on election day. "There are about 277 stations all over the province, where 38 blocs are running over 29 seats in the city's local council," Muhammadi said.
He denied any logistical or security problems facing the electorate, noting during the previous elections there were security-related problems impeding citizens to cast their votes, which is not the case now.
Salah al-Dulaimi, a university professor, wished that the IHEC would observe neutrality and independence towards all candidates. "I think the opposite is just right. In light of the chaos overwhelming Iraq, some parties pushed its loyalists inside the IHEC, which, we wish, should purge itself of those non-independent members," said Dulaimi.
The IHEC's Anbar office, however, argued that the commission members in the province are "neutral, professional, independent and highly trained as attested by the United Nations," adding "it would be impossible that elections would be rigged because there are international and local observers as well as representatives of civil society organizations and political parties".
The Iraqi provincial council elections are scheduled to be held on January 31, 2009.
Khamees al-Abtan, a candidate running for the (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, said the IHEC is doing so well. "Success will be the commission's ally because it is fair and neutral and comprise independent and professional members," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with the Islamists.
The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister after a snap election in February both vowed to topple Hamas, which has run Gaza since violently seizing power there in June 2007.
Militant rocket and mortar fire continued on Sunday, the Israeli army said, reporting that one person was slightly wounded. A Palestinian medic said a woman had been injured in northern Gaza by shrapnel from a tank shell but the military denied firing in the area.
"Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the governing Kadima party, was quoted as saying by Israeli media. "Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets."
Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party which is leading in opinion polls, echoed the sentiment. "In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule," he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news website as he toured the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of militant rocket attacks from Gaza. "Right now we have to go from passive response to active assault."
Senior defence officials said after the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel was preparing to take action to halt the rocket strikes. "We are preparing our response to the Hamas threat, with the decision yet to be taken on the timing and the scale," Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told public radio.
A senior Israeli defence official told AFP that a major military confrontation in the besieged territory was unavoidable. "It is obvious where we are heading in Gaza. The situation is intolerable but clear. The army's considerations are the only thing that is deciding when events will unfold," the official said on condition of anonymity.
In Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian woman in her 40s was wounded by shrapnel from a tank shell on Sunday, a Palestinian medic said, but the Israeli army denied opening fire in the area.
The army spokesman said militants had fired 19 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, wounding one person slightly and causing some damage. The armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is loosely linked to the Fatah movement of president Mahmud Abbas, claimed it was behind the rockets.
Tensions around Gaza have risen steadily since Friday, when Hamas said it would not renew a six-month truce with Israel that came into effect in June after months of Egyptian mediation. Since then, Gaza militants have launched several dozen rockets, causing some damage and slightly wounding a handful of civilians, and Israel has retaliated with air strikes, killing one militant and several other Palestinians.
Although several Israeli ministers have for weeks been calling for the army to oust the Islamist masters of Gaza, observers say the government is wary of launching a major offensive less than two months before the election for fear it would not be able to score a decisive victory.
"The politicians aren't in any rush to reach election day with an incomplete military operation and only partial results hanging around their necks," wrote military analyst Alex Fishman in top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot. "And worse than that, to be accused of having ordered a military operation just to improve their chances at the ballot box," he said.
Israel responded to violence that erupted around Gaza in early November by tightening its blockade of the territory and halting deliveries of humanitarian aid and other basic supplies.
#3
Divide Gaza up into districts and everytime Gaza attacks Israel a district is leveled (working from the border inward to create a buffer zone). Soon the Pals will be living in hovels on the Egyptian border mostly out of rocket range.
#2
During the Viet Nam war, one of the arguments for resisting the draft was "The North Viet Namese are not trying to kill me!" Given that the Hamasses have declared their intention to massacre the Jews, not fighting back seems...shortsighted. Not every war is Viet Nam.
Palestinian Muslim worshippers witnessed a second round of mosque desecration as they arrived at a mosque near the Jaffa Port only to discover graffiti on its doors with the words "Muhammad is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs" spray-painted. But why? They're such good neighbors!
The Jaffa mosque graffiti marks the second desecration incident in December, following the desecration of mosques and cemeteries in Israeli-occupied West Bank villages by Jewish settlers.
Islamic Movement representatives in Jaffa filed a complaint with the police. "The miserable and un-deterring punishments against those who carried out similar offenses only encourage their repetition," Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajawa, head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch in Jaffa, told Yedioth news, adding that the incident was "a continuation of the incitement against Muslims and Arabs, in which senior politicians take part."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The elites are useless, the change has to come from the People.
#5
Jews spraypaint Mosques. Mulsims burn Synagogues. I'm not sure they really should be complaining lest the Jews start playing with fire as well.
The Arabs destroy Joesph's tomb without any repercussions.
I'm telling you I'd seriously consider blowing up the Al Aqsa mosque if I was running Israel. Islam can't hate the Jews any more than they do. The world couldn't favor the Muslims any more than they do.
#6
The Israelis spray paint on a house of worship. The Palestinians spray bullets. I'm sure I could make a case for moral equivalency after another cup of coffee and removing part of my brain.
#10
Now if they'd used pigs blood for paint they would have shown that would have gotten a gold star for the effort but just spray paint? Well any gang in the US can spray paint any non-moving target. There really isn't much to it.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election.
"The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza," Livni told members of her centrist Kadima party. "The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic."
Israel's prime minister earlier brushed aside calls for an immediate large-scale operation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as Tel Aviv and Hamas forces solidified the end of a six-month ceasefire with strikes from both sides.
Palestinian forces have fired more than 50 makeshift rockets at Israel, which often cause no damage or injuries, and Israel responds with air strikes that are usually fatal and kill civilians.
Unless Hamas stopped the salvoes, Israeli cabinet minister Isaac Herzog said the army would have no choice but to take "severe action", though he did not say what that might entail.
"It needs to be clear. A strike in Gaza will come, and it will be hard and painful," Herzog said after the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas ended on Friday.
The ceasefire initially broke down last month after a fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza coupled with its crippling blockade of the impoverished strip, a move Israel says is for its protection, but world leaders and organizations have slammed as "collective punishment" of Gaza's 1.5 million people.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with Hamas. The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister in February's parliamentary polls both vowed to topple Hamas.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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Soon after al-Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, a U.S. federal judge issued a warrant for Khalid al-Fawwaz, an accused conspirator in the attacks and a confidant of Osama bin Laden.
British police promptly arrested Fawwaz, a Saudi national, at his home in London. Two other al-Qaeda suspects were later detained nearby. British authorities pledged to extradite the men to the United States as swiftly as possible so they could stand trial.
But a decade later, none of the defendants has moved any closer to a U.S. courtroom. One died of cancer in July. The other two, including Fawwaz, remain in prison here as their hearings drag on.
As the long-delayed British extraditions show, it is extraordinarily difficult to bring international terrorism suspects to justice by prosecuting them in U.S. civilian courts. The cases underscore the challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama as he tries to find a way to close the Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and end the military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to handle terrorism cases from abroad.
Britain and other allies have long complained about Guantanamo, the tribunals and extralegal U.S. tactics used to fight al-Qaeda. At the same time, however, they have often blocked or resisted efforts by the U.S. government to prosecute accused terrorists in federal court.
Fawwaz and the others are among half a dozen accused terrorists whom the U.S. government has been seeking for years to extradite from Britain. Despite British approval of a "fast-track" extradition law in 2003 and a new treaty with the United States, the defendants have thwarted every attempt to deport them, aided by a British bureaucracy in no hurry to move the cases along.
"When we follow the letter of the law, it's not good enough for them. I think they're just trying to thumb their nose at us," said Daniel J. Coleman, a retired FBI agent who investigated the 1998 embassy bombings and pushed for Fawwaz's arrest. "They view us as the Belgian Congo. It's insulting to the United States. Our justice system is better than theirs."
Other allies have also been reluctant to extradite terrorism suspects for trial in the United States, sometimes letting them go free instead.
In December 2005, Germany freed convicted terrorist Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who had hijacked a TWA flight in Europe in 1985 and was serving a life sentence. Instead of deporting him to the United States, where he had been indicted for murdering a U.S. Navy diver during the hijacking, Germany allowed him to return to his native Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Washington. U.S. officials filed a diplomatic protest in Berlin and are offering a $5 million reward for Hammadi's arrest.
In Yemen, the government has refused to extradite three al-Qaeda members indicted in the United States, including two men charged in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Yemen says it cannot extradite the men because they are Yemeni citizens. But it has also refused to keep them locked up, ignoring $5 million rewards posted by the U.S. State Department for their capture.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings, the United States has managed to extradite a handful of minor terrorist figures. Oussama Kassir, accused of running terrorist Web sites and other crimes, was extradited from the Czech Republic in September 2007. Wesam al-Delaema, charged with trying to kill Americans in Iraq, was extradited from the Netherlands in January 2007. But most al-Qaeda leaders in U.S. custody have been apprehended overseas by the CIA, in secret operations designed to avoid judicial oversight.
Obstacles to extradition have loomed especially large in Britain, where al-Qaeda suspects have exploited a cumbersome legal process and a slow-moving bureaucracy to stave off deportation.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark. 
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba was operating in the guise of Jamaatud Dawa and Pakistan would have been isolated in the world if the group had not been banned, a private TV channel reported Federal Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi as saying on Sunday. However, the minister said no religious organisation, including Jamaatud Dawa, was involved in terrorist activities, the channel reported. 
BASRA, Iraq -- The top U.S. general in Iraq said he will make a decision about the future role of American troops in early spring, to allow enough time to address any violence that may arise from January's provincial elections. 
Aswat al-Iraq: The Sunni province of al-Anbar is bracing for the forthcoming provincial council elections as 800,000 are to cast their votes to select their representatives among 38 blocs vying for local administrative positions.
Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with the Islamists.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election. 
Soon after al-Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, a U.S. federal judge issued a warrant for Khalid al-Fawwaz, an accused conspirator in the attacks and a confidant of Osama bin Laden. 
