On this day in history: April 23rd
1597 William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is first performed, with Queen Elizabeth I of England in attendance.
1941 Greek government and King George II evacuate Athens before the attacking Wehrmacht.
1942 German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.
1948 Haifa, the major port of Israel, is captured from Arab forces by the 1948 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Haifa, the major port of Israel, is captured from Arab forces. 1948 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Haifa, the major port of Israel, is captured from Arab forces.
1949 Chinese Civil War: Establishment of the People's Liberation Army Navy.
1985 Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. (Lasted 3 months)
1988 Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon leaves the charts for its first time after spending a record of 741 consecutive weeks (over 14 years) on the Billboard 200.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A teenaged pirate captured by United States forces in a high-seas drama off Somalia was ordered to stand trial as an adult Tuesday on charges that could put him in jail for life.
Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the sole surviving accused pirate from the foiled bid to hijack huge U.S. container ship the Maersk Alabama earlier this month, was put in custody until his next court appearance on May 21. Muse, who prosecutors said "conducted himself as the leader of the pirates," is charged with piracy, conspiracy to seize a ship by force, conspiracy to commit hostage taking and related firearms offenses.
The captain of the Maersk Alabama, Richard Phillips, was held hostage on a lifeboat for several days after he volunteered to go with the pirates in exchange for the crew. He was rescued when U.S. Navy snipers killed three pirates and captured Muse.
A crime against all nations
" An act of piracy against one nation is a crime against all nations "
Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin
Muse appeared at a hearing in Manhattan federal court after being brought to New York by U.S. authorities late on Monday.
"An act of piracy against one nation is a crime against all nations," Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said in a statement. "Pirates target ships and cargo, but threaten international commerce and human life."
Muse was first to board the ship, took the lead in issuing demands and said he had hijacked other ships, according to the complaint.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Deirdre von Dornum, one of Muse's lawyers, said the legal team was investigating the possibility Muse may have been "kidnapped and taken hostage."
She also said she was looking into whether the Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of war captives, applies in this case since Somalia is engaged in civil war.
Parts of the hearing were closed to the public due to questions about whether Muse was less than 18 years old. Defense attorney Philip Weinstein said he spoke to Muse's father in Somalia, who said his son is 15 years old but prosecutors said Muse told the FBI he was 18. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck eventually ruled Muse is 18 years old.
No money
Muse at one point cried out and appeared to wipe away a tear. When told by the judge he would be represented by lawyers free of charge, he said through a Somali translator, "I understand. I don't have any money."
Photographs of Muse arriving on Monday showed him smiling broadly, while local media reported he did not speak English and seemed unaware of the gravity of his situation.
Asked about that by reporters, Weinstein said, "He comes from a place with no electricity, no water" and has a "very limited education."
"He is obviously scared, confused and is obviously troubled by what's going on," Weinstein said.
The teenager, wearing a dark blue prison jumpsuit over a red T-shirt, was not required to appear in court but von Dornum said she wanted him to "so that he would be able to understand what was happening and have some trust in us."
He wore a large, white bandage over his left hand.
Professor of international law at Fordham Law School Thomas Lee said he believed this to be the first piracy charges brought in more than a century since the Spanish American War.
This article starring:
Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I hope the bailiffs x-ray that bandage every time he shows up in court.
#3
Wait until the left makes him a "cause-celebre". The tip jar at Daily Kos and Puffington Host will be overflowing.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
04/23/2009 11:17 Comments ||
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#4
She also said she was looking into whether the Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of war captives, applies in this case since Somalia is engaged in civil war.
Another "person" confused about what the Geneva Conventions are all about, and how and where they apply. He was NOT acting as a combattant when trying to capture the Mearsk Alabama - he was acting as a pirate, a kidnapper, and an extortionist. The Geneva Conventions apply to nations at war with other nations, not to any group of hairy, arrogant morons with a weapon.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/23/2009 12:30 Comments ||
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#5
I'm a dumbo but... why the hell is this guy in the US?
What good can possibly come of having this guy on trial in the US?
#6
I (almost) find this problematic. Here's a teenager growing up in an environment where he possibly never had a decent chance to comprehend that what he was doing was a "crime against all nations".
A little less dramatism here, please. That boy grows up with a bunch of people and he does what everyone does. He's growing up in a place where nothing of the moral values that a 16yo American boy would be accustomed to applies. Thousands of boy soldiers in Africa are in the same position.
I could see other people better suited to be made an example of.
When in fight throw those pirates into the sea, fair enough. But transporting teenage boys to the U.S. for a trial and subsequently spending a million dollars on his possible life incarceration is a waste of time and money.
And no deterrent. Pirates know they risk their life any minute. You think that "don't do this or you will be sent to a US jail" will make a difference?
The average U.S. jail will be better than the average life in Somalia.
Sorry, the current strategy doesn't work. That's not how you fight piracy. You need to wipe out their bases on firm land, Tortuga or Somalia.
Everything else is a waste of time and money.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/23/2009 14:50 Comments ||
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#7
"Everything else is a waste of time and money."
That pretty much sums up the Bambi adminstration, EC. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2009 16:00 Comments ||
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#8
But transporting teenage boys to the U.S. for a trial and subsequently spending a million dollars
I'll consider us very lucky if we end up spending only a million on this circus of a trial.
#9
So the question is whether we will run out of time or money first
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/23/2009 17:15 Comments ||
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#10
And no deterrent. Pirates know they risk their life any minute. You think that "don't do this or you will be sent to a US jail" will make a difference?
Spot on. The worst prison in the US is paradise compared to what the Somalis made for themselves. It's a waste of our resources and an attractant to more piracy. Crewman says pirate glad to have attacked US ship A crewman from the Maersk Alabama says the sole surviving pirate -- who now faces charges in the U.S. -- seemed happy that he'd raided an American vessel. The crewman -- "Zahid" Reza -- says Abdiwali Muse told him it was his dream to come to the USA. Reza stabbed Muse in the hand during a struggle on the ship and guarded him for several hours.
Via Instapundit.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2009 17:56 Comments ||
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#11
Dude will end up on The View telling the shrews how the awful Bush policies are to blame for the pirate 'problem'.
[ADN Kronos] A North African Al-Qaeda leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has resumed his armed struggle in Algeria after two years of inactivity, security officials said on Tuesday, quoted by Algerian daily el-Khabar.
Belmokhtar, also known as Khaled Abu Al-Abbas, is considered is considered one of the key leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and one of the most wanted terrorists in the Sahara desert region.
Authorities said he marked his comeback by kidnapping Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his assistant, Louis Guay, on their way to a United Nations mission in Niger last December.
He has also been implicated in the kidnapping of four tourists from Britain, Switzerland and Germany.
Belmokhtar (photo) reportedly suspended his terrorist activities in late 2006 because of differences between him, as leader of the so-called Mulatahamoun faction and militant leader Abdel Hamid Abu Zaid of the Tarik Ibn Ziyad group.
There was also a rift between Belmokhtar and Abdel Malik Droukedel, the current leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), one of the main components of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
However, Algerian media reports said Droukedel sent a representative and military advisor Yahia Djouadi, alias Yahoia Abu Amar, to reconcile the parties in 2007.
Belmokhtar is wanted by the international police organisation, Interpol, and is the subject of sanctions imposed against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda by United Nations resolution 1267 which includes an asset freeze, a travel ban and an arms embargo.
Fowler, UN special envoy to Niger, and Guay, deputy director of the Sudan task force in Ottawa, and their Niger-based driver were kidnapped on 14 December 2008 about 45 kilometres northwest of Niamey.
While the militant Front des Forces de Redressement initially claimed that its members had kidnapped Fowler and three others, a spokesman for the group later denied the claim.
In January four tourists, a Swiss couple, a German woman in her 70s and a Briton, were seized in the border zone between Mali and Niger as they were returning from a Tuareg cultural festival.
The North African branch of Al-Qaeda has claimed the kidnappings in an audio tape broadcast by the Arabic channel Al-Jazeera.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Maghrebia] An Algiers court on Tuesday (April 21st) sentenced four terrorists to four years in prison for plotting suicide car bombings in 2007 and 2008, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. Khaled Lounès, Boubkeur Snikra, Messaoud Mebarki, and Tahar Kadri were reportedly in regular contact with the emir of a terror cell operating in Tizi-Ouzou about attacking the Algiers headquarters of the national security agency (DGSN) and the national gendarmerie.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Four years! You get five years for stealing a bycicle in Algiers.
[Bangla Daily Star] Chief Judicial Magistrate court of Kushtia yesterday placed 10 out of 31 Hizb-ut Towhid men including its regional chief on a four-day remand. Earlier on Sunday, the same court sent them to jail.
The Hizb-ut men placed on remand are the outfit's regional chief Mahbubur Rahman, two alleged trainers Anisur Rahman and Saidur Rahman and seven top leaders of different areas in the region-- Mirza Jibon, Saiful Islam, Jahangir Hossain, Liton Miah, Abdul Hannan, Habib and Shafiqul Alam.
Police said the Hizb-ut men would be interrogated on various issues including their activities in the areas, association with other militant outfits and the ongoing militant activities in the country.
A team of Kushtia Sadar police led by Officer-in-Charge (OC) Babul Uddin Sardar arrested 31 members of the outfit last Friday amid a secret meeting. Police seized books, leaflets and two kinds of powders, which are yet to be identified. A case was filed with Kushtia Sadar Police Station on April 19 in this connection.
According to police, Hizb-ut Towhid, one of 29 Islamic organisations suspected for militant activities in the country, has been operating in the region including Meherpur, Jhenidah, Magura and Chuadanga for last few years.
Earlier, police had arrested at least 100 activists of the organisation in several districts in the region. However, all were released on bail.
Rezaul Islam, investigation officer (IO) of the case said they will start interrogation from today under a special cell in Kushtia. S.M Mahfuzul Haque Nuruzzaman, Kushtia police super told the daily star that the militants would not be spared. They would be brought to book.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] British police said on Wednesday they would bring no charges against 12 men seized in raids to foil a suspected al-Qaeda plot that were brought forward due to a security breach. The men, 11 Pakistanis and one Briton, were arrested around northwest England on April 8 as part of a counterterrorism operation.
Police said all the suspects, aged between 22 and 38, had been released although 11 had been handed over to immigration officials and face deportation on national security grounds. Prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to justify holding them any longer or bringing charges, police said.
"As there are ongoing issues of matters of national security around this investigation, it does limit what we are able to say," said Chief Constable Peter Fahy. "We had a duty to act to protect the public and a subsequent duty to investigate what lay before us. We don't take these decisions lightly and only carry out this kind of action if it is wholly justified."
Media reports at the time of the arrests said police believed a large attack in Britain was in its final stages. An unnamed source close to the investigation was quoted by the BBC as saying it was a "very, very big attack."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at the time the operation involved a "major terrorist plot," which briefing documents said was linked to al-Qaeda.
A Border Agency spokeswoman said: "The government's highest priority is to protect public safety. Where a foreign national poses a threat to this country we will seek to exclude or to deport, where this is appropriate."
The government has come under pressure to strengthen its visa rules after it emerged that 10 of the Pakistani men were in Britain on student visas.
Relatives of the suspects in Pakistan had pleaded their innocence and demanded access to them, saying neither the British nor the Pakistan government had provided them with information on their detention.
"Protecting the public is the main focus of the police. These arrests were carried out after a number of U.K. agencies gathered information that indicated a potential risk to public safety," the police spokeswoman said Tuesday. "Officers are continuing to review a large amount of information gathered as part of this investigation. Investigations of this nature are extremely complex."
Brown angered Pakistani officials after the April 8 arrests by calling on Pakistan to do more to "root out the terrorist elements in its country".
Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan responded by saying Britain should do more by allowing Pakistan to scrutinize people applying for visas.
Several plots to launch attacks on Britain have had links to Pakistan, including suicide bombings in 2005 which killed 52 people on three trains and a bus in London.
The Muslim Council of Britain criticized Brown for his remarks. Spokesman Inayat Bunglawala said the decision to deport the men following their release was "very dishonorable."
"When these arrests took place, in very dramatic circumstances with students being pulled from universities and thrown to the floor, we were told by the Prime Minister no less that this was part of a very big terrorist plot," he said. "We would hope that senior ministers and the Prime Minister will understand that it is completely unfair to make prejudicial and premature remarks in cases like this."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] District courts in Buner have been shut down by force while all the records from the courts have been removed. According to sources, TNSM Amir Maulana Sufi Muhammad had given a deadline of April 23 for appointment of Qazis after removing judges besides setting up of Darul Qaza. This has led to the closure of the district courts, sources added. Some of the Taliban had visited the courts and they said that these courts will be shut down tomorrow, sources said. But the Taliban leaders have denied issuing any orders in this regard. They further said that they are only on a visiting mission in response to an invitation. They said the government and Maulana Sufi Muhammad have reached a pact on a judicial matter and that they will continue to stick to the orders of Sufi Muhammad.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Dec. 1, 1948 story in The New York Times
Posted by: john frum ||
04/23/2009 15:47 Comments ||
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The Taliban have said they will not leave Buner until the Nizam-e-Adl was implemented in Malakand division. "The Taliban will leave Buner after enforcement of the Nizam-e-Adl," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Muslim Khan told AFP from Swat. "The government writ is not being challenged" in Buner and the Taliban were not creating problems for the administration there, he said. "We went into Buner because the administration there had totally failed to provide justice to the people and resolve the problems being faced by them," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Just as one whiff of non-pine scented ammonia is one too many, I can get my fill of Taliban by looking at one picture, and Im good for about the next six months. Sigh.
[ADN Kronos] Maoist rebels briefly hijacked a train with around 500 passengers in eastern India on Wednesday, a day before the second stage of India's general election. Police said about 250 Maoists are reported to have boarded a passenger train and forced the driver to take it to Latehar district in a remote area west of Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state, before they fled from the area.
"All the passengers have been released and they are safe," Sarvendu Tathagat, a local government official in Jharkhand, said. "They (the rebels) left the train and fled into the jungles."
India's Maoist rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of landless labourers and poor farmers, have stepped up attacks in central and eastern India during the general election.
There were no reports of casualties but extra police were being transferred to the forested area in eastern Jharkhand state after the attack.
Maoists have taken over trains in past years in a show of strength, often holding them up for several hours before leaving. In 2006, a train was hijacked in Latehar and 200 people onboard were later released unharmed.
Five election officials were killed by Maoist rebels in a landmine blast in Chhattisgarh state last Thursday during the first stage of the election.
Authorities believe Wednesday's attack was an attempt to disrupt voting Thursday in India's national election. The rebels have asked people in the region to boycott the polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] Abducted DCO Dir Bala Atif-ur-Rehman has been released here on Wednesday. Commissioner Malakand Division Syed Muhammad Noor told Geo News that the abductors have released the DCO and his guards after successful talks. It may be reminded there that Atif-ur-Rehman and his three guards were kidnapped by unknown persons on other night. Earlier, Taliban in a statement denied their involvement in the kidnapping incident and termed it a conspiracy to sabotage the Swat truce deal.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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A restaurant and aid distribution targeted.
Two suicide bombers wearing vests full of explosives blew themselves up in separate attacks on Thursday, killing 76 people, including many Iranian pilgrims, in what appeared to be Iraq's bloodiest day in over a year.
Shortly after the two attacks, the authorities in Baghdad said they had arrested the purported leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. His arrest, which has been reported before, could not be confirmed.
The blasts occurred as apprehension grows in Iraq ahead of a pullout by U.S. troops from city centers in June, and after warnings from officials that insurgent groups may try to take advantage of that to launch attacks.
A year-end election also threatens to stir a resurgence in violence just as the sectarian bloodshed and insurgency triggered by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion appeared to be receding.
One of the attacks occurred near Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, in the volatile province of Diyala. The suicide bomber targeted a group of Iranian pilgrims in a crowded roadside restaurant at lunchtime.
All but two of the 48 dead were Iranian pilgrims, who have flocked to Iraq in the millions since the fall of Sunni Arab dictator Saddam Hussein to visit Shi'ite Muslim religious sites. Seventy-seven people were wounded, police said.
It was the single deadliest attack since 50 people were killed by a suicide bomber in a restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk on December 11 last year.
"I just left the hospital of Baquba. The scenes there are catastrophic," said Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah, who marked his first day in office as Diyala governor on Thursday. "Words can't express it. It is a dirty, cowardly terrorist act."
The other blast took place in central Baghdad as a group of Iraqi national police were distributing relief supplies to families driven from their homes at the height of the violence.
Twenty-eight people died, and 50 were wounded, police said. At least five children and two Red Crescent workers were among the dead. Some witnesses said the bomber was a woman.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2009 15:58 ||
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BAGHDAD -- Seven Iraqi goldsmiths were killed by unknown gunmen in Al-Toubaji area near al-Mansour neighborhood eastern Baghdad, police said Sunday. Needing funding, or settling scores?
The killed, of the Mandaean faith, were shot down by silencer guns, whereas their stores were robbed afterwards, a security source said. I suppose the bad guys felt the need to be quiet - an improvement of sorts.
Baghdad Operations' Command, on the other hand, said it had set up an investigation panel to unveil happenings of the incident.
Major General Qassem Atta, Spokesman of the Command, said that the attackers were on board three vehicles when they barged into the stores.
BAGHDAD -- The suspected leader of an Al Qaeda-linked militant network was captured Thursday by Iraqi military forces, security officials said, in what could mark a significant blow against Sunni insurgents as they step up attacks. Two separate homicide bombings, meanwhile, killed at least 42 people.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has been a key target for U.S. and Iraqi forces for years as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant factions that is believed dominated by Al Qaeda in Iraq. But little is known about his origins or real influence over insurgent groups, which have staged a series of high-profile attacks in recent weeks, including, apparently, the two homicide blasts Thursday in Baghdad and north of the capital in Diyala province.
The U.S. military has even said al-Baghdadi could be a fictitious character used to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreign Al Qaeda fighters. But Iraqi security forces said he was in custody.
Iraqi state television quoted military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi as saying al-Baghdadi was arrested in Baghdad. Security officials also told The Associated Press that he was captured. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information. No other details were immediately available about the arrest. In the past, Iraqi officials have announced arrests of key militant figures that later proved wrong.
In March, a 17-minute audio message attributed to al-Baghdadi called Washington's announcement of a combat withdrawal timetable from Iraq "recognition of defeat." The statement was carried on militant Web sites.
#3
I've been saying for years that if al Baghdadi was fiction, they should just have invented his arrest. You kill a lie with a lie, and you imprison a fiction within a narrative.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/23/2009 11:36 Comments ||
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#4
Cold, Besoeker, cold ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2009 12:03 Comments ||
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#6
Mitch H.: However, even a fictional Baghdadi could be very useful to the good guys as well, because only a few of his "subordinates" would know he was a fiction. This creates a major problem for the bad guys with authentication. How do you know the orders are from him, and not some crafty American G-2?
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] The American lieutenant in full battle gear strode like a giant in front of the wiry Iraqi soldiers in tilted helmets and oversized flak jackets lined up in front of him. "I want this soldier, and this one too," Lieutenant Gordon Bostick said, picking out troops for a night raid on a suspected Al-Qaeda base south of Baghdad, on the kind of mission that is in theory led by the Iraqis.
The troops assembled by torchlight at Camp Falcon for a mission to the farming village of Owessat, which American and Iraq forces believe is being used as a staging ground for bombings in and around the capital.
As with nearly every operation in Iraq these days, the Americans insisted that the Iraqis were in charge, leading the fight against Al-Qaeda and other armed groups with US forces cast in a supporting role. But the scene at Camp Falcon told a different story: six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the Americans not only vastly outnumbered the Iraqis, but they were giving orders and providing vital logistical support.
Under a security pact signed in November, Iraqi forces are to assume full responsibility for security as US forces withdraw from cities and towns by June 30 and from the country as a whole by the end of 2011.
Iraqi and US leaders and commanders have repeatedly said that Iraq's 560,000 police and 260,000 soldiers will be able to maintain security as the Americans pull back and have vowed to adhere to the timeline of the security plan.
But on the Owessat operation this month, 600 US troops backed by helicopters were joined by a group of 40 Iraqi soldiers who, over the course of the 21-hour raid, repeatedly took their cues from the Americans.
On the night of the mission, as the Americans tried to catch some sleep at the staging area using their helmets as pillows, the Iraqis huddled under flashlights eating US military rations. Then the order came, and everyone assembled at the runway before piling into five large Chinook twin-rotor helicopters.
"Moonlight, that's perfect for this kind of operation," Captain Brian Bonnema said at 2:30 am (1230 GMT) as the helicopters buzzed over the Euphrates river to avoid possible fire from the palm-lined banks.
Twenty minutes later the Chinooks touched down in a swamp along the banks. The soldiers plunged into the mud and raced to take cover in the trees as the helicopters lifted off again. Then the waiting began. The US soldiers had fanned out in a protective perimeter, the Iraqis huddled behind.
As the first light of dawn trickles in through the palm branches overhead, an Iraqi soldier reported to Bonnema. "The Sahwa told him there is a weapons cache 700 meters from here," an interpreter said, referring to the local Sahwa (Awakening) group, a US-allied militia made up largely of former insurgents. "There could be a cache in a house. They would like to check."
The Americans gave the order, and everyone moved out.
They poured into Owessat, a farming hamlet of mudbrick houses, where they found only women, children, and a few elderly men. Over the next six hours, as they scoured houses, barns and orchards, they did not encounter a single man of fighting age, and not a single shot was fired. Someone in Owessat appeared to have known they were coming.
An Iraqi officer's radio sputtered. "There may be a cache of weapons in a house in the village," the interpreter said. "They should go?"
Bonnema hesitated a moment before giving another order. "Okay, go there."
The troops resumed their patrol of the village. The Americans moved in precise formations, and when they stopped the soldiers crouched and scanned their surroundings.
The Iraqis did not. Tired from a sleepless night, they walked down the middle of the streets, showing little enthusiasm for the mission.
The Americans grew more frustrated as the day wore on. At a roadblock one of the Sahwas asked the Americans for medicine, raising his white ankle-length robe to reveal black spots on his torso.
"Tell them there is nothing I can do," Bostick told the interpreter. "It's up to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army to take care of them now."
"The Iraqi army?" the Sahwa replied with a touch of sarcasm.
That afternoon the troops finally found what they were looking for, a box of seven mortar rounds buried along the banks of the river. "They must have been here for quite a long time, maybe two or three years," an American lieutenant said. "But they can be used for IEDs" he added, using the military term for a roadside bomb.
Bonnema later said the operation had been "very successful" and that troops had seized another weapons cache containing 155-millimeter artillery casings. "We deterred AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq] from using the Owessat area by conducting this Iraqi-planned and led operation on a large scale in an area that had not traditionally seen this type of attention," he told AFP. "This was a 100 percent Iraqi-led operation. At the request of the Iraqis, we conduct operations generally by, with and through the Iraqis."
But when asked why the Americans vastly outnumbered their Iraqi counterparts, Bonnema admitted that "the 17th Iraqi Army Commando Battalion does not have quite the numbers that we do."
As the exhausted troops returned to Camp Falcon nearly a full day after launching the operation, the US company's last before returning home, some soldiers were less optimistic.
"Once we've left, I'm not sure the Iraqis can make it alone," a US soldier who has been on four deployments to Iraq said, asking not to be identified. "They are getting better, but they are not ready. We have had some problems helping them to understand that they have to take responsibility."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Hmpf. Sounds like a two-year old NY Times piece.
I'll take my news from Yon.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/23/2009 7:25 Comments ||
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#2
no matter who it is from it's about time the iraqis stood up and took the reins instead of expecting the Americans too do everything. They had no problem keeping their ppl in check under saddam so why they act like such pusses now?
Two border policemen were killed in a roadside bomb and gun attack in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, officials said Thursday. The policemen were on patrol in Yala province Wednesday when their pick-up truck was hit by a bomb hidden inside a fire extinguisher. Terrorists Suspected militants then opened fire, the officials said. One policeman died on the way to hospital Wednesday and the other died Thursday morning.
Separately, trains to the south resumed full services Thursday after a 13-day suspension imposed after a railway worker was killed by jihadis insurgents April 10, officials said.
[ADN Kronos] The Philippines Red Cross has declined to comment on media reports that an Italian aid worker kidnapped by Islamic militants is unable to walk due to failing health after three months in captivity. Eugenio Vagni, 62, is reported to be in need of surgery for a hernia but a Red Cross spokeswoman in Manila refused to confirm or deny reports about his health.
According to the Filipino daily, Manila Bulletin, the military on Wednesday confirmed that Vagni was alive but could no longer walk because he has a hernia.
Islamic militants from the separatist Abu Sayyaf seized Vagni and two other Red Cross workers on the southern island of Jolo in January. Filipina hostage Mary Jean Lacaba was released on 2 April while Swiss captive Andreas Notter was freed on Saturday.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Arevalo told the media in a statement that Vagni could no longer walk.
Security officials hope that Vagni's immobility forces his captors to release him, said Lieutenant-Colonel Edgard Arevalo, a spokesman for the kidnapping crisis.
"The 62 year-old Italian ICRC worker Eugenio Vagni is alive but under tight guard. Reports say he is well but unable to walk due to a hernia," Arevalo said.
Government officials said they have been using all possible means of communication to re-establish contact with the Abu Sayyaf and deliver medical supplies to Vagni.
Arevalo also told the media that the Abu Sayyaf had splintered into small groups in a ploy to confuse security forces in the jungles of Indanan and nearby towns.
"Aside from the calibrated pressure to deny the bandits freedom of movement, the kidnappers are saddled with the fact that Vagni is not ambulant and must be carried as they move," Arevalo said.
The Abu Sayyaf was founded in the 1990s in a bid to establish an independent Islamic state. The group later branched off into high-profile abductions and bombings.
The abduction of the Red Cross personnel is the most high-profile kidnapping of foreign nationals since 2001, when two dozen tourists were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants from an island resort in the western Philippines.
An American tourist was beheaded, a second was killed during a military operation and the third was rescued.
The Red Cross, Pope Benedict XVI and the Italian and Swiss governments have appealed to the militants to release all three hostages.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] A POWERFUL homemade bomb exploded at a public market in the southern Philippines, injuring two people, the military said on Wednesday.
The improvised explosive device was fashioned from a 60mm mortar shell rigged to a timing device, and went off late on Tuesday at the market in a town in Sultan Kudarat province, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce said.
Ponce said witnesses reported seeing a man leaving a suspicious backpack at the site minutes before the blast. 'The man left his bag. The blast injured two people,' Ponce said, adding it may have been carried out by Islamic separatist rebels.
The attack is the latest to have hit the volatile south this week.
On Monday four people were injured when a bomb tore through a passenger bus in North Cotabato province. Earlier that day, militants bombed a bridge in the city of Iligan, cutting it off to commerce and leading to delays in transport of goods.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lankan soldiers have pushed deep into the sole remaining Tamil rebel enclave and killed 43 guerrillas while nearly 82,000 civilians have fled the northern war zone within the last 72 hours, the military said yesterday.
Troops in recent months have ousted the rebels from all their former strongholds and hemmed them into what the government previously deemed a "no fire" zone to protect civilians. But troops entered the 20 sq km zone this week to fight remaining rebels and free civilians trapped there.
Meanwhile, thousands more civilians fled Sri Lanka's war zone Wednesday as troops pushed deeper into the Tamil Tiger rebels' sliver of remaining territory and the government vowed again that the end to the 25-year-old conflict was near.
The latest photographs released by the military showed people arriving at beaches carrying their belongings in bundles on their heads. Mothers held infants and some carried sick relatives as they disembarked from the boats they used to flee the fighting. The navy has been escorting those vessels into government territory.
The UN and humanitarian groups called for an immediate stop to the fighting, so more civilians could escape. Over the past three days, the military says more than 80,000 have fled after forces broke through a key rebel embankment protecting their territory.
The Sri Lankan military said it broke through a key rebel bunker in the coastal strip on Monday and that tens of thousands of civilians have been fleeing the area since then. By Wednesday, 81,423 civilians had escaped, the military said.
Troops advanced deep into the zone and captured a part of during fighting with insurgents on Monday and Tuesday, killing at least 43 rebels, said Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman.
Tamil rebels are cornered into a stretch of about eight kilometers, he said.
Army commandoes attacked a car carrying rebels and killed four Tuesday, while another four insurgents were killed by commandoes in a separate attack, Nanayakkara said. Other 35 rebels were killed in separate attacks on Monday and Tuesday.
He said government forces also suffered casualties, but did not provide details.
"We suffered casualties because we are not using heavy and long-range weapons. We only use small weapons," Nanayakkara said, accusing rebels of firing artillery shells.
The UN estimates that more than 4,500 civilians have been killed in the past three months and has called for a negotiated truce to allow others to leave the shrinking rebel-held enclave.
On Tuesday, the rebels accused the government of killing 1,000 civilians in their latest offensive a charge the military denies.
Dr Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, one of the few doctors working in the war zone, said the bodies of 80 civilians were brought to two makeshift hospitals soon after Monday's raid but said more people were probably buried on the spot.
Fighting continued Wednesday and shells fell near a Roman Catholic church, wounding a priest and killing three civilians who had pitched their tents in the church compound, Sathyamurthi said.
The military denies targeting the civilians or using heavy weapons at populated areas.
"We suffered casualties because we are not using heavy and long-range weapons. We only use small weapons," Nanayakkara said, accusing the rebels of firing artillery shells.
It is not possible to confirm accounts from the war zone because independent journalists are barred from entering it.
The United Nations, many countries and human rights groups have expressed grave concerns for the remaining trapped civilians, fearing the government may launch an all-out assault soon after giving the rebels a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender. The deadline expired Tuesday with no response from the rebels.
The Red Cross said civilians could face a "catastrophic" situation under such a military assault.
Amnesty International urged the government and rebels on Wednesday to "take all necessary measures immediately to prevent unlawful killing of civilians and ... fully comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law."
It was impossible to get independent accounts from the war zone because journalists are barred from going there.
The UN estimated more than 4,500 civilians have been killed in the past three months.
The rebels said more than 1,000 civilians died Monday in a government raid, but the military denied the allegation.
Human rights groups say the rebels are holding many people in the enclave against their will and using them as human shields. Those groups have also accused the government of indiscriminate shelling in the region. Both sides deny the allegations.
The number of fleeing civilians made it clear that the government had vastly underestimated how many people were caught in the fighting. While aid groups had estimated that about 100,000 civilians were trapped ahead of this week's exodus, the government had said the figure was only about 40,000.
The US government released satellite images Tuesday showing about 25,000 tents housing civilians squeezed into the last small strip controlled by the rebels. The State Department estimated about 125,000 people were in the conflict zone before the exodus over the past two days.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
End games are always sorrowful and bloody.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
04/23/2009 11:22 Comments ||
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#2
Did anybody consider the possibility that there might be less suffering in the long run if the Sri Lankan army is allowed to finally bring this war to an end?
#3
#2 Did anybody consider the possibility that there might be less suffering in the long run if the Sri Lankan army is allowed to finally bring this war to an end?
But it'll cost the UN and dozens of NGOs hundreds of jobs that could be saved if Sri Lanka agreed to a cease-fire. So what if the civil war goes on another ten or twenty years - those cushy jobs will be secure!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/23/2009 22:30 Comments ||
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#4
"We've got to protect our phoney-baloney jobs!"
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2009 23:55 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Maghrebia] An Algiers court on Tuesday (April 21st) sentenced four terrorists to four years in prison for plotting suicide car bombings in 2007 and 2008, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. Khaled Lounès, Boubkeur Snikra, Messaoud Mebarki, and Tahar Kadri were reportedly in regular contact with the emir of a terror cell operating in Tizi-Ouzou about attacking the Algiers headquarters of the national security agency (DGSN) and the national gendarmerie.
[Bangla Daily Star] Chief Judicial Magistrate court of Kushtia yesterday placed 10 out of 31 Hizb-ut Towhid men including its regional chief on a four-day remand. Earlier on Sunday, the same court sent them to jail.
[Geo News] District courts in Buner have been shut down by force while all the records from the courts have been removed. According to sources, TNSM Amir Maulana Sufi Muhammad had given a deadline of April 23 for appointment of Qazis after removing judges besides setting up of Darul Qaza. This has led to the closure of the district courts, sources added. Some of the Taliban had visited the courts and they said that these courts will be shut down tomorrow, sources said. But the Taliban leaders have denied issuing any orders in this regard. They further said that they are only on a visiting mission in response to an invitation. They said the government and Maulana Sufi Muhammad have reached a pact on a judicial matter and that they will continue to stick to the orders of Sufi Muhammad.
The Taliban have said they will not leave Buner until the Nizam-e-Adl was implemented in Malakand division. "The Taliban will leave Buner after enforcement of the Nizam-e-Adl," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Muslim Khan told AFP from Swat. "The government writ is not being challenged" in Buner and the Taliban were not creating problems for the administration there, he said. "We went into Buner because the administration there had totally failed to provide justice to the people and resolve the problems being faced by them," he said.
BAGHDAD -- The suspected leader of an Al Qaeda-linked militant network was captured Thursday by Iraqi military forces, security officials said, in what could mark a significant blow against Sunni insurgents as they step up attacks. Two separate homicide bombings, meanwhile, killed at least 42 people.
