Phoenix police were called out to a fight Wednesday morning, and ended up finding a lot of weapons and drugs. Officers said they arrived at a home near 4100 North 27th Street and found 100 pounds of pot and blood stains but no people.
That home led detectives to two other West Valley homes where they found another 700 pounds of marijuana, 49 AK-47s and 6 bins full of ammunition. Officers arrested four men on drug and weapons charges. Both areas have Mexican enclaves. A desert area in West Phoenix has long been a body dumping ground for drug gang murders.
#1
If Phoenix had a cartel arsenal, Tucson probably has several, as yet undiscovered. I imagine the Phoenix PD are right now quietly getting very upset. Police rightfully hate being outgunned.
#2
Heck, got to do better than a mild manner optometrist in Albuquerque. "52 rifles and hand guns, 10 thousand rounds of ammo, 2 ounces of heroin and a lot of pot plants.
#3
The guns and ammo are no big deal but the Heroin and pot are. And his lack of sanitation (animal and human feces on the floor) doesn't make me wish to have him working on my eyes.
#7
Be interesting to see nation of origin for those AK-47 (assuming they are the real deal, full auto). Venezuela or Iran would certainly be interesting.
#8
Nonsense, OldSpook. They were purchased here at a gun show and were just being gathered up for shipment to Mexico. The president of the US and the president of Mexico said so.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/21/2010 13:07 Comments ||
Top||
#9
We have a criminally negligent government with their worthless ICE department aiding this mayhem all for a voting block you are not going to want.
It needs to get called out and pin the blame directly on the Democrats.
#11
newc, actually, the Republicans have a hand in this. Business owners like the cheap labor. Otherwise, we would have had a fence during the Bush administration.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/21/2010 15:54 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Would that be the approved fence that was un-funded by the Pelosicrats in '07?
#13
an ACTUAL (triple) fence got built in the San Diego sector. The cut in Illegal Alien infiltration was HUGE
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2010 18:57 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Pappy, that's very probably the case. Problem is a civilian cheapo Egyptian Maadi looks the same as an AK-47, and the press is unremittingly stupid when it comes to firearms. We are fortunate enough they got a designation other than "Assault rifle" they usually use for anything bigget than a pop gun.
If these are the real thing, select fire AK47, then they likely did come from the south, to the north for distribution.
#15
Mexican press generally knows what an AK and an AR-15 is, but as with their American counterparts, not so free with the information as to whether they are select fire or just semi-automatics. When you read about assault rifles in Mexican press, that is really what they are.
#16
I could be mistaken, but my assessment would be new, commercially manufactured semi-autos. Military contract weapons from Russia, FSU, or Chinese manufacturers come multiple count to the crate, not in individually boxed with faded, milspec ammo pouches as seen in the photo. Kalashnikov's with bulky, full wooden stocks are not the preferred choice of terrorists or drive-by drug dealers. Looks like a gun show sideline or hobby business to me.
#17
got a very nice SKS(Like an AK-47 (Like an AK but semi only) at a gunshow and it came out of an wooden box alongside 20 or so others, wooden stck as you said, with ONE magazine and three stripper clips.
I had to de-visqueen it.
I agree, I'd have to see the side whether or not it had a select fire lever.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/21/2010 22:26 Comments ||
Top||
[Al Arabiya Latest] Afghan police said Friday that 30 security guards had been killed in a clash with Taliban fighters and that another 15 had been wounded.
"The Taliban attacked and during the fighting, which lasted the whole day, 30 guards were killed, around 15 were injured and some others were taken by the Taliban," said the deputy police chief of southern province Helmand.
The clashes took place in Helmand's volatile Sangin district on Thursday, Kamaludin Sherzai told AFP.
Officials earlier said they believed that around 12 guards had been killed when the heavy gun battles broke out between thugs and guards working for a road construction company in Sangin.
Helmand provincial front man Daud Ahmadi said a dozen bodies were evacuated Friday to a hospital in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.
"We know that they were killed during yesterday's fighting with the Taliban. We don't know whether they are guards or workers," he said.
The Taliban claimed involvement in Thursday's attack.
"We launched an attack on the road construction company along the Sangin and Gereshk road," Zabihullah Mujahed, a rebel front man, said by telephone, referring to the region where authorities said the fighting took place.
"We took more than 30 check posts along the road and killed more than 50 guards," he said, speaking from Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location.
The Taliban are known to exaggerate the impact of their operations.
Helmand, along with neighboring Kandahar, is one of the most unstable regions of Afghanistan, where Taliban-linked thugs have been fighting the Kabul government for almost nine years.
The United States and NATO have 141,000 troops in the country trying to quell the intensifying war, with many new deployments heading south.
Abdul Mohammad, an employee of the road construction company, said he accompanied the bodies to the hospital.
He described the fighting as "fierce" and said at least another 20 bodies had been either left behind or removed from the battle scene.
"Yesterday the Taliban attacked us. We requested help from Afghan and foreign forces but no one helped. Lots of people were killed, I think more than 20 other bodies were left in the area or have been taken elsewhere," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
The Taliban are known to exaggerate the impact of their operations.
No shit sherlock, only the NORKs Lie more.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/21/2010 11:45 Comments ||
Top||
An explosion overnight at a formerly "safe" house used by insurgents in the Somali capital killed at least 10 al-Shabab terrorists militants, including seven foreign fighters, the Somali Information Ministry said Saturday.
The statement said the blast, in a southern Mogadishu neighborhood, may have been caused by a premature car bomb explosion. "D'oh!" *BOOM*
Three Pakistanis, two Indians, an Afghan and an Algerian were among the dead, the statement said. Little far from home, weren't they?
The government cited "security sources" as the basis for its information. "we counted 10 noses, some dark, some lighter, some hooked. All very Islamic"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2010 14:40 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
All very heartening news indeed.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
08/21/2010 15:57 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I am thoroughly disappointed - that the boom wasn't followed up by a thousand troops surrounding the neighborhood, every house searched, and any armed men of military age hauled off for questioning. Following that, napalm any house where you found an Al-Shablob weenie.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/21/2010 21:57 Comments ||
Top||
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Seven men suspected of being Al-Shabaab Orcs and similar vermin were spirited away from a Kapsabet hospital by the police on Thursday.
Officers stormed Kapsabet District Hospital and jugged the seven after an operation to remove bullets from their bodies. It is not known where they were taken.
Doctors and charity workers were outraged with the police action, saying the seven were banditry victims from northern Kenya and not Orcs and similar vermin.
They had been operated on by health workers from the Kenya Red Thingy Society and Spain conducting free surgery.
They could not speak Kiswahili or English but their interpreters claimed they had been shot by bandits in northern Kenya.
Nandi police boss Nelson Okioga said the seven failed to produce their national identity cards.
"We are not taking any chances on terrorism. They will be thoroughly vetted before any action is taken," he said.
The Nandi Kenya Red Thingy deputy governor, Dr Mohammed Said, said about 700 Kenyans had received reconstructive surgery in the last six years and others had bullets removed from their bodies.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
Nandi police boss Nelson Okioga: "they had the bullets removed at the hospital. We put the bullets back in...plus a few"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2010 10:13 Comments ||
Top||
[Ennahar] Three soldiers were killed and two injured Wednesday in Algeria by an IED which hit their convoy near Baghlia, east of Algiers. The bomb, apparently operated remotely, went kaboom when a military convoy was passing arround 10:00 pm (local, 21:00 GMT) on a road near the thriving little village of Dar El Beida, between Baghlia and Taourga, about 90 km east of Algiers.
Automatic weapons fire against the convoy after the bomb went kaboom, according to the site of the daily Al Watan for which the toll is three dead and four wounded.
The information has not been officially confirmed. This attack is the first committed in Algeria since the beginning of Ramadan, August 11.
But on August 6, the mayor of the town of Baghlia was killed outside his home by an armed group. "The mayor of Baghlia was killed outside his home by gunnies", said an official from his party, the National Liberation Front (FLN in power).
The town of Baghlia is located east of the province of Boumerdes, a region known for being one of the strongholds of Islamist armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
[Al Arabiya Latest] Thirteen soldiers and two non-combatants were killed on Friday when the army fought gunnies in the scenic city of Loder in south Yemen, a local security official told AFP.
Eight of the soldiers were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their armored vehicle, Loder regional security chief Yahya al-Barkani said.
A security source said the gunnies involved in the firefight may belong to al-Qaeda, while another local official said the gunnies may have links with a southern separatist movement.
Friday's fighting followed a two-hour clash on Thursday in Loder in which gunnies killed two soldiers and maimed two others.
The fighting broke out after the assailants attacked two soldiers in the marketplace and seized their weapons, leading to the intervention of the army.
South Yemen is feared to have become a base for al-Qaeda Boskonians to regroup, under the network's local franchise, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[Bangla Daily Star] Investigators of the August 21 grenade attack believe they will find all masterminds of the incident making a departure from the tradition of other grievous crime probes where enquiries are finished with main culprits remaining unknown.
"We have identified some of the masterminds of this attack and we are still hopeful that we would be able to find the rest," Abdul Kahar Akand, investigation officer of the attack told The Daily Star yesterday.
Today is the sixth anniversary of the carnage in which 24 were killed and over 200 others maimed. On this day in 2004, grenades were hurled at an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, was injured and President Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman was killed.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[Arab News] Six city police officers were arrested Friday in connection with the killing of a mayor in northern Mexico as the country's escalating drug violence targets more public officials.
The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was seized on Sunday.
The officer was kidnapped with the mayor but was later freed unharmed.
The officers confessed to being involved in the Cavazos' killing, said Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Alejandro Garza y Garza.
"We still looking for others who were involved as well," Garza y Garza said.
The body of the 38-year-old mayor was found handcuffed and gagged Wednesday outside of his town, a popular weekend getaway for residents of the industrial city of Monterrey.
One of the officers took part directly in the kidnapping, while the others kept watch on roads surrounding the mayor's home, said Adrian de la Garza Santos, director of the state investigations agency.
Shortly after the kidnapping, the guard on duty told authorities he had been thrown in the trunk of one of the kidnappers' cars and driven around for 15 minutes before being dumped unharmed by the side of the road, De La Garza said. The guard is now accused of being involved.
Cavazos' death comes amid increasing violence in the northeast of the country attributed to a dispute the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas.
Meanwhile, a federal judge presiding over the case of former Cancun mayor facing drug-related charges survived an attack Thursday in the west-coast state of Nayarit, according to a federal official who was not authorized to be identified.
The assault, which killed one of two bodyguards of Judge Carlos Alberto Elorza, came hours after President Felipe Calderon said Mexico should consider appointing anonymous judges for drug-trafficking trials.
Calderon's proposal in a forum on security Thursday was unexpected because it contradicts the efforts he has promoted to build a more open judicial system.
Elorza is the judge in the case of Gregorio Sanchez, a former Cancun mayor who was forced out of the Quintana Roo gubernatorial campaign when he was charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.
The Nuevo Leon attorney general didn't indicated which gang may have been responsible in Cavazos' case, which has prompted authorities to call for more patrols by both the army and federal police in Nuevo Leon.
Mauricio Fernandez, mayor of the San Pedro Garza Garcia, another town on the outskirts of Monterrey, said Cavazos had received death threats from gangs warning him to stay out of their way and had sought advice on how to handle the threats.
Officials at the state attorney general's office said Cavazos had never informed authorities about any threats.
Gen. Guillermo Moreno, who commands troops in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states, said the army had never received complains from the mayor or requests for protection.
The leading candidate for governor in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Nuevo Leon, was shot to death a week before the election. A mayoral candidate in Tamaulipas also was shot in May.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
WORLDNEWS > MEXICO: LAUNCH PAD FOR TERRORIST INVASIONS [agz USA]; + IRAN'S SECRET
PIPELINE INTO THE US.
HT to Weasel Zippers!
The Islamist Islamic exemplarsuspected of being the sinister mastermind behind two suicide kabooms on the Moscow subway in March has been killed during a clash with police in the Caucasus region of Dagestan, according to Russia's national anti-terror committee. they know how not to take a prisoner, or at least let him live after interrogation
Magomedali Vagabov, whom Russia describes as the number-two figure after Doku Umarov in the Islamist insurgency that is plaguing the Russian Northern Caucasus, was killed in the quiet city of Gunib in the mountains of Dagestan, along with four other faceless myrmidons.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2010 18:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Good for Moscow. DC take note of the correct way...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/21/2010 18:11 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Works for me. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/21/2010 19:17 Comments ||
Top||
AP. Madomedali Vagabov and 4 evil henchmen killed in action by the Russkies. He has been described as Count Doku's Doku Umarov's number two in the region. Doku and his pals want "an Islamic emirate across the North Caucasus that adheres to Shariah law."
Authorities in China's restive Xinjiang region believe two suspects, a man and a woman, were behind a kaboom that killed seven people and injured 14 others, state media reported on Friday.
The pair allegedly tossed explosives from a three-wheeled vehicle into a crowd on Thursday in the suburbs of the scenic city of Aksu, not far from the border with Kyrgyzstan, the Xinhua news agency and Global Times newspaper said. Five people died at the scene and two others died later in hospital, the report said.
The female suspect died in the incident, though it was not immediately clear if she was included in the corpse count of seven. Regional government spokeswoman Hou Hanmin told AFP that the injured male suspect, who was detained at the scene, was a member of Xinjiang's Uighur minority. She said on Friday that it was "still not clear" whether more than one suspect was involved.
Hou said investigators had ruled out accident as a cause for the explosion, but reiterated that it was too early to say whether the blast was an "act of terrorism."
The spokeswoman denied reports that martial law had been imposed in Aksu, according to the Global Times.
China has blamed the unrest on "separatists" but provided no evidence of any organised campaign. More than 25 people have either been executed or received the death penalty for their involvement in the violence, state media say.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
VERSUS
WAFF/TOPIX > WILL TURKEY BUILD A MILITARY BASE IN AZERBAIJAN IN RESPONSE TO RUSSIA-ARMENIA AGREEMENT [Moscow guarantees Armenian borders + national security].
* TOPIX > TURKEY AND AZERBAIJAN SIGN STRATEGIC COOPERATION AND PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT.
"GREATER TURKEY" = "GREATER IRAN = both Nations have large Ethnic Minorities throughout the
"-STANS" + CENTRAL ASIA + CHINA.
A hijack threat halted an American Airlines flight just before takeoff, leaving the New York-bound jet sitting on the tarmac for several hours while it was searched and passengers were removed for extra scrutiny. The FBI later determined that the telephoned threat was not credible.
A witness inside Boeing 767 said a man and a woman sitting in the back row were taken off in handcuffs. But they were quickly released and allowed to rebook their flights.
A fellow passenger suggested the couple may have been targeted because of their appearance. Michael Anderson, a student, said he remembered seeing the couple as he was checking in for the flight to New York and saw them carrying passports from Pakistan. "It definitely seems like it was racial profiling, based on what they look like physically and the fact they are Pakistani," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
You look for racial profiling and that's all you think about all day, you're going to find it. The man simply does not understand Pakistani terrorism.
#2
Sigh... what is stopping this country from adopting the labor-heavy, tech-light, intelligent approach used by the Israelis, who simply ask each traveler a few basic questions and scrutinize their facial and body language intently as they respond? ie Why do you have no luggage for a one-way flight, sir / why are you so nervous / so you're an architect, OK, who was Le Corbusier? etc
The cost, while considerable, of maybe 100,000 well-trained college graduate screeners would still be far less than the billions p!ssed away by Homeland Security on Beltway Bandits and useless technologies each year.
[Dawn] One policeman was killed and two injured when unknown gunnies opened fire on a cop shop near Multan road in Dera Ismail Khan, Pearl of the Pashtun Lands on Thursday.
Two passer-bys were also injured during a stampede that broke out after the firing.
The culprits opened fire when coppers were opening their fast at the check post.
The government once again shut down cell phone services which were opened for few days after 11 months of closure. The government said that target killers were using mobile phone service for killings.
Police has so far failed to arrest the culprits behind the assassinations in Dera Ismail Khan. After assassinations in the city, police has often jugged suspects, however they are mostly released after no evidence is found against them.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] Eight hard boys and a soldier were killed in clashes that ensued after bad turbans attacked security forces' base with rockets and heavy machineguns in Tapo Kalley area of Orakzai Agency on Friday, official sources said.
They said that five gunnies were also wounded in retaliatory action by security forces. Following the attack, the security forces launched a search operation in the area and targeted suspected positions in Mamozai area.
During the search operation, landmines, rockets and other ammunition were recovered. The sources said that security forces had extended scope of operation to adjacent Chinarek area in Kurram Agency, home of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, not necessarily in that order.
Helicopters were also used and two turban hideouts were destroyed. According to unconfirmed reports, five Islamic exemplars were killed and eight wounded in the air attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
CID of city police has jugged two men allegedly affiliated with the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and involved in the killing of the MPA Raza Haider.The suspects were jugged by a CID team under the supervision of SSP Fayyaz Khan. The police recovered two pistols and nine rounds from their possession.The investigators said the men admitted they were involved in the killing of the MQM lawmaker along with their accomplices Waseem and Abdullah, who were jugged by the city police a few days ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
NINEWA / Aswat al-Iraq: Quick Response Department forces jugged on Friday a leader of al-Qaeda group in western Mosul, a source from the QRD said.
"Acting on a tip-off, QRD forces jugged a senior leader of al-Qaeda group, Jamil Khedr Awad, in al-Islah al-Zeraie neighborhood in western Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
"The man is wanted for several operations against civilians and security elements," he noted.
This article starring:
JAMIL KHEDR AWAD
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
[Al Arabiya Latest] An Al-Qaeda group on Friday claimed it was behind a suicide kaboom on a crowded Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed 59 people in the deadliest attack this year, US monitors said.
The Islamic State of Iraq said Tuesday's attack, which coincided with the holy Mohammedan month of Ramadan, "struck a group of Shiites and 'apostates' who sold their faith for money and to be a tool in the war on Iraqi Sunnis," according to the SITE group which monitors Islamist websites.
The attack occurred ahead of the Aug. 31 end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq, a milestone in the war launched by former President George W. Bush 7-1/2 years ago. U.S. troop numbers will fall to 50,000 by the end of the month, from 52,000 now.
In a statement posted on a website often used by Islamist radicals, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a local al-Qaeda umbrella group, said the target was in a highly secure area.
"One of the heroes of the State of Islam ... armed with a suicide vest, targeted a gathering of disbelieving cattle and other apostates who sold their religion for little money ...," the statement said.
It said the army recruits were offering themselves as weapons in a war against Sunni Mohammedans waged by the Shiite-led authorities of Iraq.
"Our brother triggered and exploded his vest after plunging himself into the crowd," the statement said.
The sectarian conflict between minority Sunnis and majority Shiites that began after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion has largely subsided but a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency opposed to Shiite dominance of Iraq persists and attacks continue.
The Orcs and similar vermin have sought to exploit a political vacuum created by a failure of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions to agree on a coalition government five months after an inconclusive March 7 parliamentary election.
U.S. and Iraqi security officials say the attacks are also a message to supporters that the groups remain effective despite a series of blows to al-Qaeda's network, including an April raid that killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said in early June that 34 of the top 42 al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq had been killed or captured in the previous 90 days.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq
#1
WORLDNEWS > UNDER NEW AMERICAN MANAGEMENT [4 US Citizens + 1 Permanent Resident], AL QAEDA NOW POSES INNER THREAT.
* SAME > [RIAN.RU] US WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ: ENDING THE WAR OR OUTSOURCING THE WAR? Given that the IRAQI GOVT is deemed by many to NOT be ready to take over responsibilities from the US + UK.
Forty families whose houses were destroyed in conflict with Israel took over a building belonging to Gaza's Hamas rulers this week in a sign of dissatisfaction with the Islamist movement's failure to provide shelter.
Angered by living in tents for two winters and now baking in the midst of an intense heat wave, the squatters took over the unfinished apartment house and have already resisted one police effort to evict them.
"The heat and cold hurt our children. Where are you?" read a banner pasted on the wall of the building, in the first overt move against government property since Hamas seized power strip in 2007, ousting forces loyal to the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Bassam Jamil, one of the squatters, said 43 families had moved into the building which was still under construction in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip. It belongs to the Hamas-run housing ministry.
"We have lost faith that anyone will rebuild our homes. We have taken shelter in the building from the heat in the tents we've been living in," Jamil said.
Thousands of homes and factories were destroyed by Israeli bombing and shelling in a 3-week offensive in Dec-Jan 2008-09 against Hamas militants, to stop them firing rockets at Israeli towns close to the Gaza Strip.
International donors pledged nearly $5 billion in reconstruction aid but no money has arrived, partly because of the feud between Hamas and Fatah. Israel's blockade of the territory also restricts supplies of cement and steel, which it says could be used for military purposes by Hamas.
Earlier this week, Hamas police tried to evict the families but were confronted with resistance by women and children.
The building has 44 unfinished apartments. The squatters say they are still better than tents. They have fitted their own doors and are now asking city authorities to turn on electricity and water.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
A Thai court Friday ordered the extradition of alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death", to the United States on terrorism charges, prompting an angry response from Moscow.
Bout, said to have inspired the Hollywood film "Lord of War" starring Nicolas Cage, has been fighting extradition since his March 2008 arrest in Bangkok in a sting operation involving US agents posing as Colombian rebels. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted in the United States on charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals and to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.
His young daughter broke down in tears after a Bangkok appeals court delivered its ruling, which his wife Alla later said was "unfair" and made under political pressure from the United States.
"The court has decided to detain him for extradition to the US," judge Jitakorn Patanasiri said, overturning an earlier decision by a lower court. "This case is not political, it is a criminal matter," the judge said. Moscow strongly criticised the ruling. "We regret what is in my opinion an unjust decision, a political decision that the appeals court in Thailand has taken," Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on a visit to Armenia.
Bout, a 43-year-old former Soviet air force pilot who is said to speak six languages and go by at least seven different aliases, refused to talk to journalists as he was led out of court in shackles.
The United States, which has described Bout as "one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers," had lobbied hard to have him handed over. The US State Department summoned the Thai ambassador this week "to emphasise that this is of the highest priority of the United States," spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters on Thursday.
"We believe that we've presented significant evidence to justify his extradition to the United States," he said. US lawmakers had urged the ambassador to let authorities in Bangkok know that rejecting the request would harm ties with Washington and said the kingdom's judiciary handling of the case had not been "fair and transparent."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Notice that the extradition is possible under current U.S. law. Meanwhile, Carl Levin has been pushing a bill in the Senate, the Incorporation Transparency Act, that Levin claims would help stop people like Viktor Bout. Time Magazine has also used the Bout example for why S. 569 should be passed. It's all a farce--we don't need new laws to prosecute terrorists--these laws are already on the books.
Posted by: American Delight ||
08/21/2010 8:41 Comments ||
Top||
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.
An explosion overnight at a 
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Seven men suspected of being Al-Shabaab 
[Dawn] One policeman was killed and two injured when unknown 
NINEWA / Aswat al-Iraq: Quick Response Department forces 
[Al Arabiya Latest] An Al-Qaeda group on Friday claimed it was behind a 
