Nasser Nijer Naser Al-Mutairi says he survived three years at the US Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid hunger strikes, beatings, harsh interrogations and suicide attempts. But nothing frightened him as much as the constant message from the guards: "You are never going to go home." Wednesday, he went home.
That's too bad...
Al-Mutairi was picked up on the Afghan battlefield, his lungs and right leg severely injured. He was shipped to the military prison in Cuba. There he underwent several chest operations and one interrogation session, an ordeal that he said left him near death. Last August he was officially declared an enemy combatant. A military tribunal rejected his pleas that he was on a religious mission when he was taken into custody. Instead, US officials determined he was a "member of, or affiliated with, Taleban forces." They pronounced him unfit for release.
That "religious mission" story wore thin after the first couple dozen hard boyz trying to look pious and inoffensive. Since Mutairi was prob'ly the 638th time the intel guys heard the same story, they can be forgiven for not taking it too seriously.
Then in January, without explanation, they released him to Kuwaiti authorities. On Wednesday, the government of Kuwait released him on bail, and he joined his family at home. "I cried when they told me," he said in a series of telephone interviews through an English translator Wednesday from Kuwait. "None of us had any hope. Especially when the interrogators and guards there were always telling us, 'You will stay here for a lifetime.'"
I wonder if the Afghan ladies blubbered when Mutairi or men just like him were whipping them with battery cables for not having an escort in public? Or if the guys whose hands were lopped off at the football field by Mutairi or thugs just like him blubbered the same way? Inquiring minds want to know.
Al-Mutairi is the latest among a handful of released prisoners to speak out on his experience. Although others have been repatriated, how many remains uncertain. The Pentagon does not always provide precise numbers, and it never gives the names and countries of those turned loose. Among those whose fate is known, there have been elderly men too confused to provide details about the prison. Some have demanded cash for interviews, calling into question their credibility. The US military says some have taken up arms against the United States and its allies, and some have been recaptured or killed.
Like Nek Mohammad and Abdullah Mehsud, both innocent as babes, pure as the driven snow. Kindly men of a religious bent, interested in nothing so much as bringing man closer to God...
Al-Mutairi described a world that for the most part remains shrouded in secrecy. Those accused in the war on terrorism are held outside the United States in a specially constructed prison known as Camp Delta. Because he was unable to provide much to his captors in the way of intelligence, Al-Mutairi said, he was basically left alone by guards and the prison administration. He said he saw fellow detainees struck and dragged into interrogation sessions. Other inmates launched three hunger strikes to protest the harsh conditions, and he said he knew of two prisoners who had tried to take their own lives. "It was so bad," he said, "that I cannot explain to you exactly what I felt when I heard I was being handed back to my government."
I'll bet it wasn't a bit like those guys the Taliban crucified at Herat...
His account is consistent with statements by lawyers for other detainees who claim their clients have been mistreated.
My heart bleeds...
In the latest such case, lawyers in Boston for six men still at the prison camp filed suit Wednesday alleging new instances of prison abuse. The Pentagon, as it has in the past, said reports of prisoner abuse are routinely investigated. "With regard to allegations of detainee abuse," Department of Defense spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said, "US policy requires that all detainees be treated humanely."
Whether they deserve killing or not...
Al-Mutairi, now 28, said he left home in October 2000 to work as a teacher and minister in small mosques and schools in Afghanistan. In November 2001, two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was captured during an uprising in Afghanistan. He said he was shot by Northern Alliance troops and then exposed to smoke and fire as he and others hid in the basement of an old house. "I was dragged to the basement, and they put smoke and fire down there on us," Al-Mutairi said. "I inhaled a lot of smoke." The battle was the same incident during which "American Taleb" John Walker Lindh was captured and CIA Agent Johnny "Mike'' Spann became the first US casualty in the new war.
The "old house" was Qala e-Jangi. The Northern Alliance troops exposed the poor fellow to smoke and fire after he and others decided to "unsurrender" after the siege of Konduz. The remnants were driven to the cellar of the prison and they were flooded and burned out. It's too bad Mutairi survived.
Almost a year later, the Kuwaiti government told Al-Mutairi's family it had learned that at some point he had taken ill and was in a hospital in Kandahar. The family next learned from television that he had been turned over to the United States.
"Here! You take the sonofabitch. We don't want him!"
In truth, he was already nearly a year into his captivity at Guantanamo Bay. That first year, he said, guards were especially ill-tempered and quick to strike and drag detainees from their cells for interrogation sessions. Some interrogations lasted 36 hours, he said.
Yeah. I guess 9-11 was still fresh in their minds. And Mike Spann.
He said his interrogation was relatively mild, because his injured lungs made him unable to withstand a long encounter. He recalled two operations on his chest at Guantanamo Bay, and one for his right knee. At his interrogation, soldiers showed him a video of scenes taken before the uprising where he was captured. He said they asked him to identify Lindh and Spann, but he could not recall them. In contrast to his interrogation, Al-Mutairi said other inmates told him they were struck and kicked in lengthy grillings. He said he sometimes heard their cries. Other times, he said, female guards taunted detainees and sexually humiliated them.
"Hey, there, Mahmoud! Ever see any of these?"
He said their Qur'ans were taken and handled disrespectfully.
Oh, the horror of it all!
"Five or seven guards would come to your cell and tie you down and drag you out," he said. "Some of them sat on you. It happened to me once, when they dragged me out. Another time they pushed me very hard, even when I was limping and couldn't walk straight." He said it was not until the long-delayed tribunals got under way last year that much of the harsh treatment eased up. At his tribunal, according to a military transcript of the proceedings, Al-Mutairi admitted carrying a Kalashnikov rifle and two grenades while on the Taleban front line.
Strictly for religious purposes, of course...
He maintained he was there "for the purpose of Rabat," a religious mission, and that he promptly turned over his weapons once the Northern Alliance drew near. "I did have a Kalashnikov and I was on that line, but all I did with the weapon was clean, disassemble and reassemble it," he told the panel of three US military officers. "I was there not to fight but to do Rabat. It's a form of worship....There is a great reward in my religion for doing Rabat. If someone dies while on the line while doing Rabat, they are considered martyrs and go to heaven. Rabat is the opposite of jihad, because Rabat is defending the line and jihad is attacking the line."
Right. Gotcha. The distinction is obvious, isn't it?
At the close of the tribunal, Al-Mutairi worried that he had not been taken seriously. "Are my words clear?" he asked. "Is everything that I said understood?" The tribunal president answered, "I believe it is clear."
"We think you're ignorant cannon fodder, lying out your anus."
With that, Al-Mutairi felt doomed to spend his life on Guantanamo Bay. Then, without explanation, he was released on Jan. 16 and flown home on a Kuwaiti military aircraft. He was held there on charges that included committing an act of aggression against a foreign nation. He was released Wednesday on bail of 200 dinars, roughly $680, with his case scheduled to be heard June 1. Until then, he is a free man.
By which time the brutality and savagery of Konduz and Qala i-Jangi will be still further in the past.
This article starring:
NASER NIJER NASER AL MUTAIRI
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Al-Mutairi, now 28, said he left home in October 2000 to work as a teacher and minister in small mosques and schools in Afghanistan.
Yeah, a simple "holy man" just trying to spread the word caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seems to happens a lot to these guys, doesn't it?
#5
More from Al-Mutairi on his brutal treatment... On the U.S. Naval Base, he felt there was "a psychological war" against prisoners. Food was rationed in small amounts. When prisoners asked for seconds, guards threw the food out of the serving pans instead of giving it to them, he said. "They deliberately poured tea and left it to become cold before they served it to us," he said. "They bothered me when I prayed by playing loud music or stamping their feet hard beside me."
No cake and ice cream, no ponies. Get Human Rights Watch on the phone, will ya?
#7
"Some have demanded cash for interviews, calling into question their credibility".
Sooo, if he dont demand money then he must be telling the truth about the guards inflicting "hunger-strikes" and "suicide attempts" upon his poor innocent self. Not to mention his near death ordeal of proper medical care for his wounds.
#8
But...but... but... Jihad and murdering and raping innocent women and childing are a religous obligation of Islam. just look at the perfect life of Mohammad (MHRIH)....
#10
Nothing worse than cold tea. In the States that's called "iced tea," and it's considered a treat during the summer months. Al-Mutairi should learn to become more appreciative of other cultures.
An April 11, 2005, Saudi press report documented the exportation and use of drugs by members of al-Qaeda in incidents that occurred over the past year. The London-based Arabic paper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported strong ties between a Saudi al-Qaeda cell and the international drug network. The group, which organized the killings in al-Jofi, used the drug called "hashish." The report said that this was not an isolated incident. "This is not the first time a connection between al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and the drug trade has been revealed."
Another drug-related incident took place July 5, 2003, when "the Canadian of Kuwaiti origin, Abdul Rahman Jabara was killed, along with Turki al-Dandani, who blew them up. Found on the men were 13,000 riyals and fake documents, some of which were drug proceeds for the group, especially, Turki al-Dandani. Pills were found in his pockets during the search. An analysis of his corpse showed that he was consuming this kind of drug.
The newspaper report also said that al-Qaeda's drug ties are not confined to Saudi Arabia. "It is said that many al-Qaeda members and their supporters were trained in Afghanistan, one of the biggest drug-producing countries of in the world. According to some statistics, Iran confiscates about 200 tons of drugs every year at its borders. In Afghanistan, half of the Taliban government's budget was dependent on drug money." Some al-Qaeda members believe that exporting drugs hurts the West.
This article starring:
ABDUL RAHMAN JABARA
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
TURKI AL DANDANI
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:03:22 AM ||
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The complex and lengthy trail that led to Kamel Bourgass's convictions began when detectives launched an investigation, following the 9/11 attacks, into a number of loosely-aligned north African al-Qaida sympathisers living in Britain. At first, police thought these individuals were no more than a financial support network, raising money for terrorists abroad through document forgery and credit card scams. "Intelligence told us these people were engaged in wholesale fundraising for terrorism, and that this money was being moved abroad, as it was certainly not reflected in the very spartan, simple lifestyles of those involved here," said a senior security source. "But we wanted to explore the boundaries, to see if it stopped at fundraising."
But the discovery of the photocopied recipes for ricin, and other poisons, including cyanide, and information on explosives and bomb-making, in a house in Thetford, Norfolk, in September 2002 strengthened the belief that some of those individuals could be terrorists plotting an unconventional attack in the UK.
It was the arrest that same month of Muhammad Meguerba, whom police admitted initially underestimating as a minor figure, that would eventually expose Bourgass's activities. Police found a false documents and a fake French passport in Meguerba's premises, but as he was then married to an Irish woman, he was able to show he was in the UK legally, and was bailed pending further inquiries. Meguerba skipped bail, and fled the UK through Liverpool, travelling first to Spain, then to Morocco and back to his native Algeria, where he was picked up by the authorities in December 2002.
He told them he had been part of a UK-based group trying to make ricin. He gave a name, Nadir Habra, believed to be Bourgass's real name, and described a flat in north London, which although he was un able to give a precise address, British police established was a particular flat in High Road, Wood Green, Bourgass's former residence. The information dove-tailed with the photocopied ricin recipe British police had found in Thetford three months earlier and the nationwide hunt for Bourgass began.
At the Wood Green flat in January 2003, police found the handwritten originals of the recipes for ricin and other poisons, and various ingredients, including cherry stones and apple seeds. While police were surprised at the ramshackle nature of the operation - the fruit seeds stored in plastic cups in the back of a messy wardrobe seemed more third form science project than 21st century warfare - they were in no doubt about the seriousness of what they found. "It exploded the myth that CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] materials are made in some sort spotless Dr Strangelove laboratory," said a source. "This was garden shed, kitchen chemistry, stuff you pick up in the average high street. It required adolescent knowledge upward."
While government scientists at Porton Down found no evidence of actual ricin, they agreed the recipes were viable, and police were convinced they were looking at serious attempts to launch a poison attack in the UK. Tremendous effort would have been necessary to produce even a minuscule quantity of ricin or cyanide, using Bourgass's recipes. But detectives believed the intention was to cause panic by either targeting individuals, placing contaminated items in shops, or even smearing the poison on door handles in north London.
Acting on intelligence, officers went to Bournemouth to search for Bourgass there but he had already moved on. It was by chance, during a separate operation against illegal immigrants in Manchester, that Bourgass was discovered in a flat in Crumpsall Lane, sparking the attack which led to him murdering DC Stephen Oake on January 14 2003. The inquiry spread throughout London and the UK, including the highly sensitive search of Finsbury Park mosque in June 2003. Eight other men were arrested and charged in connection with the ricin plot. Four were tried with Bourgass and were acquitted of all the conspiracy charges. Charges against four others who were to have stood trial in the next month, were dropped yesterday.
All four tried with Bourgass are Algerian and had links to him, to a greater or lesser degree, although their attitudes towards him differed. The youngest of the group, Sidali Feddag, 20, gave him a place to stay while his own asylum application was being heard. Feddag had come to the UK in 2000 as a teenager with his father and had to fend for himself when his father returned to Algeria, leaving him alone in London. He applied for asylum in 2001, was refused and then appealed.
He was placed in local authority accommodation in High Road, Wood Green, and allowed Bourgass to live there, where the pair shared the room in which some of the supposed ingredients for poisons were found. He later moved, he said, to Leyton, in east London. Feddag always denied being a party to any plot and declined to give evidence. His defence was that he had been collecting the ingredients for innocent purposes and that they constituted traditional Algerian herbal medicines. Like three of his co-accused, he had bogus documentation, his being a false French passport which he said he had obtained on Blackstock Road, in Highbury, north London, for £190. He had made up a new name and details for himself and chosen a date of birth in 1980, adding five years to his age.
Mouloud Sihali, in his late 20s, appeared to be the most worldly of the defendants. He had a number of Lithuanian, Swedish and German girlfriends and worked as a waiter to make ends meet. He was also a computer expert who told police when he was detained that he had studied nuclear physics in France. As far as the prosecution was concerned, he was said to have provided passports and to have been an expert in false documentation. He kept a diary with details of his own various false identities but was arrested in an attempt to commit an alleged fraud for a loan of £12,000 to £15,000 from an internet banking service. He told the police who arrested him that he had been in the UK for three years and added: "You will find out I'm OK." He used a cousin's identity.
A third co-defendant, David Khalef, 32, had already pleaded guilty to possession of five false passports which were found hidden in a bed base in High Road, Ilford, Essex. Neighbours said he would disappear from his flat for months on end and he spent time in Halifax and East Anglia where he had found work picking fruit. Although he had a false French passport and claimed to be French, he was, in fact, Algerian and had done military service in Algeria. He arrived in England in 1998 and claimed asylum which he was refused in December 2000. His appeal was turned down in June 2001 and he became an illegal entrant. With an IQ of 75, he was borderline mentally handicapped and described in court as being of "very low intelligence". Arrested in Thetford he was asked "Do you speak English?" and replied: "Yes, but I am not a terrorist."
Mustapha Taleb, 34, worked in the bookshop at the Finsbury Park mosque and was the person who handled requests to use its photocopier. It was through a fingerprint on one of the recipes which had been photocopied at the mosque that he was linked with Bourgass. He was the only defendant legally in Britain. At his home in Finsbury Park, north London, his laptop had 50 files which contained Algerian opposition material and one file on bomb-making which was "incomplete and incoherent" according to experts.
The five Algerian men in the dock were accused of two conspiracies: the first, to murder between January 1 2002 and January 23 2003 in the UK and the second to commit a public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear and injury in the same time period. The case against them suggested that the five had conspired together, according to the prosecution, "in furtherance of their extremist Islamic cause. They were part of a group, based in London, sharing common beliefs and a common aim."
The evidence against them, as the prosecution saw it, indicated that, with Kamel Bourgass at the centre, the five men were aiming to cause either death or panic on the streets of Britain. It was this case that the jury rejected this week after four weeks of deliberation. The trial of the five was one of the most complex and lengthy ever held at the Old Bailey. The first legal submissions were made last July and the jury sworn in last September. There were frequent delays and the jury was often sent home amid legal arguments or because of illness among jurors. In the end, the verdicts came only after four weeks of deliberation with one of the jurors absent.
The accused have been held in Belmarsh prison for the last two years and remained there throughout the trial. According to their lawyers, all have suffered from varying degrees of depression. Security was intense with sometimes as many as 14 prison officers in the dock with the defendants behind plexiglass screens.
This article starring:
DAVID KHALEF
al-Qaeda in Europe
KAMEL BURGAS
al-Qaeda in Europe
MUHAMAD MEGUERBA
al-Qaeda in Europe
MULUD SIHALI
al-Qaeda in Europe
MUSTAPHA TALEB
al-Qaeda in Europe
NADIR HABRA
al-Qaeda in Europe
SIDALI FEDAG
al-Qaeda in Europe
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:52:58 AM ||
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#1
Not guilty because the Peelers and Crown Prosecution can't even piss straight.
One conviction for murder.
One of these dorks is a flipping certifiable MORON OK how about them DEPORTED immediately? I feel embarassed for the UK.
#2
I think the issue with deportation is that the Algerian government might be nasty to them upon their return cuz they're, y'know, terrorists.
So they walk ...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 2:29 Comments ||
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#3
Ineffective legal system + porous borders = big f*cking mess. It's no hyperbole to say there are more mooks than Brits in London - almost every serious crime on last night's crimewatch was committed by a foreign national. Somalis, Nigerians, Kosovans, Slovakians, Turks. We are seriously screwed. Time to leave the country I'm afraid... New Zealand here I come..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 6:33 Comments ||
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#4
Howard, Kiwiland is beautiful and Kiwis are great fighters, but Helen Clarke! Join phil_b ot the US, but NZ has become just Canada with good weather.
Or do you have a thing for sheep?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/15/2005 7:03 Comments ||
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#5
Well, I am a Derby County fan. I have family on Long Island - Somewhere near Jones Beach would suit me fine. Wouldn't mind Florida either - would have to be somewhere near Shipman.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 7:26 Comments ||
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#7
You have a big UFO problem? What are they? - Look like crop circles to me.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 7:48 Comments ||
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#8
You can live in the loft at the Deacon Blues Pork Palace and Potables Parlour. We'll even teach you how to ride a horse.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/15/2005 7:49 Comments ||
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#9
After London I may just require an isolated shack on the prairie with no-one to bother me. Deacon Blues Pork Palace and Potables Parlour? Db - you have a ranch?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 8:19 Comments ||
Top||
#10
11.3 acres with some woods, a creek, pasture, 5 horses 7 dogs, 4 cats, 10 chickens, 2 ducks, a goose, a pig, and Connie the Short Bus Lady. We're so far out in the boonies even the presbyterians handle snakes. We have wild rasberries in the spring that Connie makes in to wine, I make beer, and we have a good garden. I got the pig to raise for bacon but Connie won't let me make bacon. The pig's name is Elsbeth. If you read the dumb crook news from yesterday we tend to have an interesting time here. We're in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. We just picke a nice bunch of morrels They grow wild here and are delicious.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/15/2005 9:02 Comments ||
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#11
Sounds beautiful. Must be like a Steinbeck novel without the tragedy... Feel free to send me a link to your part of the world.. I fear we digress tho'...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 9:46 Comments ||
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#12
Come to Western Australia Howard, 2 million people, and its like California, just a lot bigger.
#13
Rhode Island Beaches are quite nice as well. In good ole' Westerly we have a few Brits but mostly swamp yankees - Americans of British descent like myself. No crime and no disaffected minorities.
Posted by: Howard Uk ||
04/15/2005 17:10 Comments ||
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#16
LOLOL!! You'd fit right in. Phil across the road and down a little plays a mean mandolin and I have a stand-up bass. We could make a trio. I think I identify with both.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/15/2005 17:52 Comments ||
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#17
More Faulknerian? No way, his sentences aren't nearly long and rambling enough. Why, his last post had four periods, but not one single sweet little hard working comma.
#20
morrels - I know they are really really tasty Deacon... just be careful - their look alike costs a liver...
BTW... Howard if you move near Mizzoula a Bozeman you could even be cougar food.... so careful ...
(And places like that are colder than a well diggers.... in the winter... and hotter than (well not hotter than baghdad) hell in the summer.
Much more fun though...
If you think of Flordia.... gator tastes really good....
THE failed al-Qaeda plot to carry out a chemical attack in Britain may have been the final act of an extensive terrorist network established by a leading Algerian Islamist. Kamel Bourgass, who is expected to spend at least 30 years in prison for the ricin conspiracy and the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake, was part of a worldwide cell headed by the notorious Abu Doha.
Bourgass was just one of the fanatics recruited, inspired and guided by Doha, 39, who is also known as Dr Haider, the Doctor, Rachid, Amar Makhlulif and Didier Ajuelos.
Others included Ahmed Ressam, jailed in the United States over a planned millennium bomb attack on Los Angeles airport, and Nizar Trabelsi, in prison in Belgium for plotting to blow up a Nato airbase.
Those in the front line against terrorism are reluctant to claim that the Abu Doha network has been wound up. "It would be foolhardy to say it was finished," a senior anti-terrorist officer said. "The Abu Doha network is very resilient and our experience shows that these networks do change and can mutate very quickly."
But the thwarting of the ricin plot was a major success and since then the bulk of terror threats in Britain have come from different cells, often of Asian or domestic origin. Doha was a member of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), a terrorist group which has carried out widespread atrocities in Algeria. In 1998, according to a US indictment, he won permission from Osama bin Laden to set up the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan for Algerians and other North Africans. Hundreds trained at Khalden and some who have since been arrested have testified that bin Laden visited regularly. Many left to fight alongside Islamists in Chechnya, but others were encouraged to base themselves in the West and carry out attacks there.
With his camp established, Doha stationed himself in North London amid the growing Algerian population fleeing the bitter conflict in their homeland. The Finsbury Park mosque was a focal point for the community. Authorising the detention of one of his associates, a judge described Doha as "a senior terrorist". Mr Justice Ouseley said: "In Afghanistan, he had held a senior position in training camps organising the passage of Mujahidin volunteers to and from those camps. He had a wide range of extremist Islamic contacts inside and outside the United Kingdom, including links to individuals involved in terrorist operations. He was involved in a number of extremist agendas.
"By being in the United Kingdom, he had brought cohesion to Algerian extremists based here and he had strengthened the existing links with individuals associated with the terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan and in Pakistan."
Doha was in regular phone contact with Ressam, whose plan to attack Los Angeles airport was foiled when he was arrested near Seattle with explosives and detonators in his car. Ressam had been refused refugee status in Montreal and was the subject of an immigration arrest warrant. Facing a 130-year jail term in the US he agreed to co-operate with the FBI and provided invaluable intelligence.
In December 2000 German police raided a flat in Frankfurt and found bomb-making equipment. Four men were arrested. They also discovered a recent video of the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, with a commentary describing the crowds as "enemies of God". The German authorities had acted after a tip-off from British Intelligence which had intercepted a phone call between one of the men and Doha. Four men, three of whom had lived in Britain, were jailed by a German court for the plot in March 2003. Doha himself was arrested at Heathrow airport in February 2001 attempting to board a flight to Saudi Arabia with a false passport. A search of his London home recovered false passports and diagrams for bombs similar to those found in Ressam's possession. Doha remains in Belmarsh prison, southeast London, fighting extradition to the US.
Such is the nature of the al-Qaeda phenomenon with its activists trained to be freelance, self-sufficient operators that his network continued without him. Rabah Kadre, known as Toufiq, took command. In July 2001 Djamel Beghal, who had lived in Leicester, was arrested in Dubai and allegedly admitted a plot to attack the US Embassy in Paris. He is in prison in France.
Days after the September 11 attacks Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian former professional footballer, was detained in Brussels in possession of bomb-making materials. He had trained in Afghanistan, volunteered to be a suicide bomber and is in jail for plotting to attack the Kleine Brogel Nato airbase.
In December 2001 emergency powers were introduced to detain foreign terror suspects without trial. Many of those rounded up were associates of Doha. They are now free under the terms of terrorist control orders. Almost a year later the network suffered another blow when its new head, Kadre, was arrested in London. Police believe that he had come to activate the ricin plot. Two months later the poisons conspiracy was smashed and Bourgass was arrested. The authorities dare not say it out loud, but their very real hope is that the Doha cell is finally defunct.
This article starring:
ABU DOHA
al-Qaeda in Europe
ABU DOHA
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
AHMED RESAM
al-Qaeda in Europe
AMAR MAKHLULIF
al-Qaeda in Europe
AMAR MAKHLULIF
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Detective Constable Stephen Oake
DIDIER AJUELOS
al-Qaeda in Europe
DIDIER AJUELOS
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
DJAMEL BEGHAL
al-Qaeda in Europe
DJAMEL BEGHAL
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
DR HAIDER
al-Qaeda in Europe
DR HAIDER
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Finsbury Park mosque
KAMEL BURGAS
al-Qaeda in Europe
Khalden training camp
NIZAR TRABELSI
al-Qaeda in Europe
RABAH KADRE
al-Qaeda in Europe
RABAH KADRE
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:33:02 AM ||
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The cracking of an al Qaeda poison plot in Britain lends credence to longstanding warnings from police and security services that militants would attempt an attack using toxins.
But experts say that, while deadly agents such as ricin are relatively easy to produce even in the home, they are more suited to sowing panic than inflicting mass casualties.
In Britain's highest-profile Islamist militant trial, Algerian Kamel Bourgass was convicted on Wednesday of plotting poison or bomb attacks and jailed for 17 years. He had been separately sentenced to 22 years for killing a policeman.
While no actual poison was found, police discovered recipes and ingredients for making ricin, cyanide and other toxins.
Toxicologists said ricin, extracted from castor beans and fatal even in doses of less than a milligram, could easily be made in an ordinary kitchen.
"It's rather easy to do that and you don't need any special training. If you have a recipe you probably can do that, yes," said Professor Ralf Stahlmann of the Free University of Berlin.
Professor Harry Smith of Britain's Birmingham University said that while ricin was "all right for assassinating people," it was unsuitable for killing large numbers.
"It's a question of disseminating a large amount of it. Dispersal is the hard part," he said.
Bourgass and eight other men, who were all acquitted, were arrested in 2003 after another suspect told Algerian authorities they were keeping ricin in a jar of skin cream and planned to smear it on door handles in London.
Stahlmann and Smith both said such a plan would have failed, because ricin is poorly absorbed through the skin. It is most deadly when injected -- as in the notorious case of Bulgarian exile Georgi Markov, who died after being stabbed in the leg with a ricin-tipped umbrella in London in 1978.
Despite the difficulties faced by militants in dispersing poisons to kill on a large scale, security officials fear any such incident could sow widespread panic.
Some analysts use the term "weapons of mass disruption" to describe the kind of arms -- from dirty bombs to biological agents -- that could create havoc without necessarily claiming large numbers of casualties.
Intelligence sources say al Qaeda's interest in chemical and biological agents is well documented. An attack by such means would be in keeping with its predilection for constantly varying its tactics and reaching for new weapons and targets.
Al Qaeda manuals on preparation of biological agents were discovered at the group's training camps in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in 2001. Bourgass had attended one such camp.
In an overview of the network's capabilities, German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning told a security conference in Berlin this week that al Qaeda was already assumed to possess a range of biological and chemical weapons.
Among biological agents, he said it had acquired poisons such as botulinum and ricin, may have bacteria like anthrax and plague, but was unlikely to have got its hands on viruses, such as Ebola and smallpox.
Among chemical weapons, Hanning said al Qaeda was assumed to have poison gases, probably had blistering agents like lewisite, which attack the skin, and possibly also nerve agents like soman and sarin, the substance that killed 12 people in a 1995 attack by the Aum Shinri Kyo cult on the Tokyo subway.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:25:55 AM ||
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I'm speechless. Note that I'm a half-believer in Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" european geopolitical project (perhaps in a less conspiratorial way), and this is in perfect accord with the requirements of the dhimmitude pact.
Official blamed terrorism on 'Israeli occupation' in secret meeting
A top European Union official held a secret meeting in Gaza with the leaders of Hamas, in spite of EU denials to the contrary, in which he praised the terror organization's work, blamed terrorism on "Israeli occupation," referred to Hamas militants as "freedom fighters" and failed to contradict claims Israel was responsible for the September 11 attacks, according to transcripts of the conversation obtained by WorldNetDaily.
There were some leaked reports of the 2002 meeting, but the transcripts for the first time expose what was discussed with Hamas and may shed light on various aspects of EU Mideast diplomacy.
The transcripts, seized from the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security compound in Gaza during Israel's 2002 Defensive Shield operation and released through Israel's Center for Special Studies, document a discreet meeting between Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in March 2004, and Alistair Crooke, the security adviser for Miguel Moratinos, then EU special envoy for promoting the peace process in the Middle East.
The meeting conflicts with a November 2004 statement issued by a spokeswoman on behalf of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana denying Solona or his staff ever met or held "direct contacts" with Hamas or other groups featured on the EU list of banned terrorist organizations.
Also present for the secret EU discussions were Hamas senior members Mahmoud al-Zahar, head of the group's Gaza faction, and Dr. Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, a senior Hamas official recently assassinated by Israel.
The documents, authenticated by security experts, are written in Arabic by Palestinian officials on PA stationary.
According to the confidential transcripts, Crooke explained to Hamas leaders he requested the meeting, in part, because he was worried a speech to be delivered by U.S. President George W. Bush regarding American policy toward the Middle East might reflect negatively on the EU.
"We are currently in an extremely grave situation," said Crooke, according to the documents. "Europe doesn't know what President Bush is going to say in his speech to the Middle East. So far there are about 27 drafts of that speech, and there are disagreements in the American administration over that issue."
Crooke urged Hamas to keep the meeting private so that, the envoy explained, Israel and the U.S. could not take advantage of the conversation, according to the transcripts.
Crooke immediately voiced his appreciation of the terror group's welfare programs, which include schools and health care centers, and praised Hamas as an "important political factor."
He told Yassin and the other top Hamas leaders present: "The main problem is the Israeli occupation," explaining he understood it was impossible for Hamas to lower the level of violence unless Israel and the Palestinians were engaged in a political process.
Crooke reminded Yassin the Mitchel Report, an independent list of recommendations that had just been released and of which Crooke was a co-author, determined it was impossible for violence to cease without a foreseeable political solution.
Yassin responded he was satisfied with Crooke's "understanding" that the source of violence in the Middle East is Israel's "occupation," which Yassin said refers to the entire state of Israel, founded in 1948, not just the West Bank, which Israel obtained following the 1967 Six Day War.
"The Israeli army conquered the land in 1948 and followed in our footsteps in 1967," said Yassin. "It kills civilians, the elderly, women and children and prevents us from earning livelihood. What are we to do? Are we to raise a white flag and surrender?"
Therefore, Yassin explained, according to the transcripts, Palestinians must rise up against the occupation, and the international community cannot ask the Palestinian people to stop defending themselves.
Yassin told Crooke he was dissatisfied with an EU decision to place Hamas on an official list of terror organizations, suggesting the Europeans should support Hamas "the way you supported the [Muslim] fighters in Afghanistan."
Crooke replied Europe sympathized with the Palestinian people, adding, "I explained to Solana and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair that the status of Europe in the eyes of the Palestinians has started to decline. ... We do not consider Hamas' political wing to be a terrorist organization."
Crooke talked about different definitions of terrorism: "As for terrorism, I hate that word. I've spent some time in my life with freedom fighters like in Colombia. âŠ"
Hamas, a major force in the West Bank and Gaza, has perpetrated thousands of attacks that have killed several hundred Israelis, and is behind many of the Qassam and mortar attacks that have been hitting Jewish communities in Gaza.
Hamas also maintains a political wing that pollsters now say is likely to do well in upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections in which the group announced this week it will run. Hamas is currently supported by about 25 percent of the Palestinian population and is considered a formidable challenge to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, which is backed by about 48 percent of Palestinians.
At the 2002 meeting, Yassin informed Crooke of his goal to replace Israel with a "true state" encompassing the entire territory of "Palestine," based on Arab and Islamic tradition and distanced from the corruption that Yassin said originates in Israel and the West.
Without addressing Yassin's comments, Crooke continued by stating the EU objected to Israeli settlement activity.
"There must be a total halt of the settlement [activity]," said Crooke.
Yassin then blamed Israel for the September 11 terror attacks.
"Time will tell that Israel knew [in advance] what happened in America, and that it was global Zionism that paralyzed the American security so that war could be declared on the Islamic world and [on] Hamas. Approximately 100-120 American Zionist agents [knew about it] and did not report it. I do not rule out the possibility that they attempted to induce Hamas [operatives] and other Islamic operatives [to do it]. "
Crooke, who according to the documents again didn't respond to Yassin's charges, expressed his wish that dialogue with Hamas would continue, preferably through the mediation of Palestinian Authority representatives, in order "not to cause embarrassment to any side."
For many in Israel, the release of the transcripts may fuel longstanding charges of anti-Israel bias on the part of the EU. The Israeli government many times has expressed dissatisfaction with EU decisions it claims negate the Jewish state's security and political position.
Israel was upset that EU nations, particularly France and the UK, maintained close relations with late PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who was blamed for directing terrorist activity, despite U.S. and Israeli calls to isolate him. And Israeli officials blasted recent European criticism related to the construction of a West Bank security barrier that has been directly credited with decreasing the number of suicide bombers able to infiltrate Israel.
Observers attribute the EU's traditional pro-Palestinian stance to its close economic ties to Arab countries and growing Muslim populations throughout Europe.
The EU previously adamantly denied meeting with Hamas, although in one interview, given to the BBC, Solana mentioned he had "had direct contact with Hamas, but not in the last few days."
Yesterday, EU envoy Mark Otteh met Palestinian leader Abbas, offering to train Palestinian police, some of whom have been connected to acts of terror, and discussing the possibility of renewed economic assistance to the PA.
"Of course the EU is biased against Israel. This is nothing knew," said a deputy from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office who was aware of the transcripts. "But to read [the Crooke] conversations is still shocking. The level of immorality displayed by it is very telling of the EU approach to the Middle East."
#2
This is about a meeting that took place in 2002. It's hard to be outraged at the EU, considering that the same man has since facilitated a meeting between Hamas and Americans. Details here.
Hattip LGF "Our content platform is burning," wrote David Schlesinger in a memo intended for 10 senior managers, but was read by thousands of employees in the company's daily briefing. "Our news is perceived as not having enough insight; our data is perceived as having terrible quality problems. Both news and data are not nearly the differentiating factors in Reuters' offering that they should be, that they could be, that they need to be."
The memo continued to say the group had a "web of inefficient and duplicative technology." According to a friend of mine who worked for Rooters, their problem is pompous old school tie racists.
#5
they get paid by syndicating their "news". Once local papers lose faith in their "news" (hellloooo Dan Rather!), the syndication prices drop to keep customers
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2005 18:07 Comments ||
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The United Nations suffered a further blow on Thursday when US authorities revealed that at least one high-ranking official in the organisation might have been bribed in connection with the Iraq oil-for-food programme by a South Korean lobbyist for the Baghdad government.
The disclosure, in a complaint by the US attorney for the southern district of New York, came as criminal charges were also brought against three businessmen linked to Bayoil, a Texan oil company said to have played a "pivotal" role in subverting the humanitarian relief scheme.
The indictments, which target allegedly central figures in the scandal, mark a significant step forward by investigating authorities. They follow two damaging reports carried out by a separate UN-appointed independent inquiry led Paul Volcker which found severe flaws in the oversight of the programme.
According to David Kelley, the attorney, Park Tongsun, a Korean working on behalf of Saddam Hussein's regime, conspired to influence the design of the multi-billion dollar oil-for-food programme in the 1990s.
The charges allege that Mr Park met senior UN officials in New York and Geneva, and received at least $2m for his services from the Iraqi government, delivered in cash in diplomatic pouches.
"It was allegedly understood . . . that some of the money would be used by Park to 'take care' of [one high-ranking] UN official," the charges say.
Having never registered in the US as an agent of the Iraqi government, as required by American law, Mr Park, if found guilty, faces a maximum five years in prison, plus a fine. Mr Kelley said on Thursday that Mr Park was believed to be in South Korea.
According to the charges, in 1992 Mr Park started working with an unnamed, co-operative witness, believed to be Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in connection with the investigations.
In February 1993 Mr Park arranged a meeting at the Manhattan home of the high-ranking UN official. In March he met the official again in Manhattan, and in June in Geneva. In late 1995, Mr Park told the witness he needed $10m to "take care" of "his expenses and his people".
In January 1996 he asked for the money to be wired to a bank account in London. The following month Iraq also agreed to pay money to a bank account in the Channel Islands.
Later, when Iraq threatened to cut off funds, Mr Park arranged a meeting in a Manhattan restaurant attended by a second high-ranking UN official. After that official left, Mr Park allegedly told the witness he had used a $5m guarantee to "fund business dealings" with the second official.
The indictment also alleges that Mr Park invested $1m in a Canadian company set up by the son of the second high-ranking UN official, but "the money was lost because this Canadian company failed soon after".
Separately, David Chalmers, head of Bayoil, a Texas oil company, and two associates were charged with taking part in a scheme to pay "millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime".
Mr Kelley said Mr Chalmers, John Irving, a London-based oil trader, and Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian resident in the US, "conspired to deflate the official selling price of Iraqi oil" by giving UN overseers "fraudulent information".
Lawyers for Mr Chalmers and Mr Dionissiev said their clients would plead not guilty.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 1:04:10 AM ||
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#1
By the time the NYC prosecutors actually charge most of the senior and mid-level U.N. bureaucracy with criminal conduct related to OFF, the large number of 'civilians' already convicted will prevent world opinion from doing anything more than sigh in frustration. Popcorn, anyone?
#2
The MSM spin here is fascinating. The FT gets it right: "The United Nations suffered a further blow..."
But the NY Times leads its page 1 above-the-fold UNSCAM story-- the only time IIRC that they've played up the story so prominently-- with the header, "Texan Is Indicted in Iraq Oil Sales..."
Just in case you don't get the Times' drift, they headline it not "American," but "TEXAN." Thus hard story of Oil-for-Fraud morphs imperceptibly into the conspiracy memes of Blood-for-Oil and Cooked-Up-In-Texas. Shameless.
#3
I'll go one further. How much do you want to bet that David Chambers is not a Texan, but just somebody living here in Texas.
Posted by: Bill ||
04/15/2005 16:56 Comments ||
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#4
Kofi Annan's very own executive official and also his son line their pockets in UNSCAM? No need to cover the story at all, let alone put it on the front page of the Times.
One "Texan" with no connection to the US government is indicted in UNSCAM? Splash it across Page 1, and be sure to lead with the word TEXAN.
A Houston oilman and two traders from Texas and England paid millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, cheating the United Nations oil-for-food program out of humanitarian aid funds, authorities said Thursday. David B. Chalmers, owner of Bayoil (USA) Inc., and Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, were arrested Thursday morning at their homes in Houston. U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley said he will seek extradition of defendant John Irving from England.
Kelley called two indictments unsealed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan "two more pieces in the oil-for-food puzzle." He added: "It's a broad and large investigation. ... We're going to wring the towel dry." One indictment accused the three defendants were accused of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks so Houston-based Bayoil and another Chalmers company, Bayoil Supply & Trading Limited, based in Nassau, Bahamas, could continue to sell Iraqi oil under the oil-for-food program. The kickbacks, between mid-2000 and March 2003, involved funds otherwise intended for humanitarian relief, Kelley said. Kelley said $100 million would be "a conservative estimate" of the value of the oil the defendants dealt with.
A second complaint charged Tongsun Park, a South Korean citizen, with conspiracy to act in the United States as an unregistered government agent in the Iraqi effort to create the oil-for-food program. If convicted of the charges, Chalmers, Irving and Dionissiev each could face a maximum of 62 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million. Park could face up to five years in prison. The defendants could also be ordered to make restitution.
Tongsun Park is still around and in business? And he still hasn't gotten around to registering as a foreign agent?
Now that an American has been indicted, the NYT will finally move the Oil-for-Food scandel to page 1 -- without mentioning Kofi and Koko, of course.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
They should be held in pre-trial confinement in Gitmo. Use the Patriot Act to prosecute these guys.
#2
I hope and pray that some eager and ruthless young U.S. Attorneys will now start closing the legal vicegrips on these guys testicles. It will be interesting to see who wants to snitch-off the biggest fish in order to avoid becoming a gelding. Squeeze baby squeeze!
A ranking leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) claimed Saturday that a recently arrested Indonesian with alleged links to the Jemaah Islamiyah was a "spy of the Philippines or the United States government."
Muhammad Ameen, secretary to the office of MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, said the arrested Indonesian national Rohmat, alias Zaki, is "another deep penetration agent," or spy, of the Philippine military or the US Central Intelligence Agency tasked "to infiltrate the Abu Sayyaf."
Ameen raised his belief in the wake of the treatment Rohman got later on.
"Freely allowing Zaki to be interviewed on television few days after the military provoked controversy for their stiff opposition to interviews of 'terrorists' is highly suspicious," Ameen was quoted as saying in a report posted at the rebels' website.
Earlier, Lieutenant General Edilberto Adan, Armed Forces of the Philippines deputy chief of staff, urged the media to shun from giving interviews to terrorists in line with the fight against terrorism.
Ameen charged that Rohmat "have himself arrested to tell a story already scripted."
Rohmat, who was arrested last month in Maguindanao, later appeared in national television and told his story.
He admitted participation in the series of bomb attacks in the country last February 14--in the cities of Makati, Davao and General Santos--that left eight people dead and over 150 others injured.
Rohmat claimed that he was around when Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Solaiman planned the Valentine's Day bomb attacks.
The Abu Sayyaf further planned to bomb other places in Metro Manila and Mindanao, the suspect said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:43:32 AM ||
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Kurdish fighters who want to overthrow the government in Iran to establish autonomy for ethnic Kurds in the country, are hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq, training and waiting for the opportunity to strike. According to a report in the daily Gulf News, these fighters are ready for a full-scale guerilla war. "Our armed struggle began in Iranian Kurdistan and will continue until we have freedom," said Ebrahim Alizada, the founder and leader of the rebel group, Komala.
Komala is a group of militant, socialist Kurds whose aim is to bring down the government in Tehran. According to the news report, hundreds of young men and women armed with AK47 rifles, machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers are training in northern Iraq. The group claims that rebels already in Iran conducting covert operations.
Founded in 1969, Komala is fighting for the autonomy of the five million Kurds in Iran. They believe that these Kurds are under Iranian government control and are oppressed and living in primitive conditions. The group cooperated briefly with the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran. Since 1979, it has reportedly waged guerrilla warfare against government forces with the aim of achieving Kurdish autonomy.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 1:09:34 AM ||
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#1
When they start wacking the MMs at will, start the popcorn and give me a call.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was aggrieved that his country's efforts to combat terrorism and promote peace were going unnoticed by the international community.
Probably has something to do with the terror organization headquarters in downtown Damascus. Could have something to do with Syrians heading some of the terror orgs, too. Might also have something to do with the Syrians captured in Iraq who've confessed to being owned body and soul by Syrian intel.
"We have made every effort to fight terrorism but these moves and other positive initiatives have been ignored by the international community while Israel raises obstacles to every development in the peace process," Assad said at a dinner Wednesday for visiting Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
"If they were only to give us everything we want and a little more, why, things'd be fine!"
Syria has faced intense US-led pressure over its dominant role in neighboring Lebanon and Washington's allegations that it is sponsoring terrorism and playing a role in the insurgency in Iraq. Assad said his country was committed to the "unity and stability" of Iraq. "We have not interfered in Iraq's domestic affairs and we have supported the political process in the country."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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ah yes, ... turnabouts fair play as in good ole killer kane wearing the old mind-control helmet....
Lebanon slipped further into crisis as tensions mounted a day after Prime Minister Omar Karami stepped down after he failed to agree on a Cabinet with pro-Syrian allies. The crisis deepened yesterday when the caretaker Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh warned that a delay in parliamentary elections could lead to unrest, as the search for a new prime minister began with time running short to form a government and arrange a vote.
That's what it's supposed to do, of course...
Franjieh threw the pro-Syrian allies in disarray when he said he could no longer work with President Emile Lahoud, another top ally of Damascus.
Bailing, are we, Sully?
The continuing crisis in Lebanon, with the leaders still squabbling over the formation of the government, could make May elections unlikely, though Lahoud holds consultations with lawmakers today on naming a prime minister-designate to keep alive hopes that a government could be formed quickly to supervise the poll. Political sources said among the frontrunners for the job were former minister Najib Mikatti and current minister Adnan Qassar, both wealthy businessmen who are moderate politicians having good ties with Syria but acceptable to the opposition. The comments by Franjieh, whose ministry organizes the vote, came a day after the opposition threatened to resort to street protests to force the government to call an election. The opposition is confident of winning the vote and ending Syria's domination of Parliament. "I am for elections no matter what the results are, no matter whether we win or lose," Franjieh told a news conference in his hometown of Benashei in northern Lebanon. A delay of several months could lead to uncertainty, he added. "I don't know whether we'll be heading toward defusing the situation. Things may become more complicated and it might lead to protests," he warned. His comments reflected deep divisions and bickering among pro-Syrian factions as Damascus was expected to complete the withdrawal of its army from Lebanon. Karami was unable to form a government in part because of a dispute with Franjieh over a post and the elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The United States is giving European efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program a few more months before considering tougher measures, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published yesterday. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rice also played down the threats from Iran and North Korea, and said stabilizing the Middle East overrode the nuclear issue as the top challenge for President George W. Bush's administration. Rice said efforts by Britain, Germany and France to wean Tehran off its suspected nuclear arms programs were "the right course" but added, "obviously at some point in time the UN Security Council is an option."
Asked how long Washington would wait before deciding to seek tougher UN action, Rice said, "I don't want to put a timeline on it, but I think we probably want to make an assessment this summer and see where we are and see how far we've gone." Rice's remarks, the first official hint of any deadline for the talks, came after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for tougher action to halt what he called an Iranian nuclear program near "a point of no return." The chief US diplomat sought to tone down the Israeli alarm. She said Sharon's presentation to Bush at their summit Monday "wasn't a new revelation" and the concern was less about Iran's current capability than its efforts and intentions.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Another Neville Chamberlain 'setup' is coming, I fear!
#3
My suspicions are that the US and Israel have moderately-discreetly laced the whole "region of concern", that is, Israel, Saudi Arabia's oilfields, and the Persian and Arabian Gulfs with seriously advanced, multi-eschelon anti-missile capabilities. In essense, letting them have their cake but not eat it. For if they missile alert-launch, we'll first shoot it out of the air, and then we have probably "made arrangements" with the other powers to *severely* punish Iran for trying to start a nuclear war. Even France couldn't justify Iran using a nuclear weapon, and we would already have their agreement in writing. Then Iran's stuff would be weak. Ultimatum time. Either they cut off every mullah's turbaned head, or their entire nation is sterilized. Their choice. They have 24 hours to comply. Please put the heads in a nice, neat row with their faces pointing skyward for the satellites.
#4
This looks like the Vietnam strategy of escalation. First Jacques looses the EU constitution vote, we know for sure who is in charge in the UK, then Schroeder is out of office in Germany, Kofi is clearly indictable in the OFF scandle or absconded to Venezuela, and a vote in the summer of 2006 will make the Dhimmis put up or shut up for the fall elections as was done in 2002. Who are the Mullah's friends then, if they're still in power? Pooty who? Wu who? Woo hoo hoo hoo.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/15/2005 12:25 Comments ||
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Perhaps they were tipped off by their 'millitant' friends. Prepared a template based on September story to have a content skeleton and replace the old data with new data once it is confirmed. Event did not materialize. The editor let the story go thinking it's real. Cow pie of mighty proportions.
MSM does seem to do everything in their abilities to undermine their own credibility. Or are they trying to bush boundaries to see where it would lead them?
Posted by: Sobiesky ||
04/15/2005 3:54:57 AM ||
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#1
Wow! I saw this on Google news and was going to post here. I agree with LGF this smells like more than a simple foulup.
#2
Simply amazing. And rather ironic given how we were poking fun yesterday at Pravda'a reputation for minimal amounts of truth. Yep, things sure are different here in the West. Isn't that true, Mr. Rather?
#3
A perfectly natural progression.
(1) Slant actual occurences slightly to influence readers to your point of view.
Got away with it?
(2) Slant the news more extensively.
Got away with it?
(3) Start inventing things outright (e.g. Jeningrad).
Got away with it?
(4) Start living in a completely separate reality.
#5
The journalist did some copy and paste of the earlier reporting of the "twin car bombings" in Israel last year to write up an article about the recent "twin car bombing" in Baghdad.
Then things got messed up and the old article was re-published, probably because both had "twin car bombing" as a subject.
#6
TGA, the article included a particularly graphic quote from a person whose name produces just one Google hit, the Reuters article. This is definitely not accidentally posted old news. See LGF for details.
#8
Boy, I sure am glad that the mainstream press is staffed by highly-trained journalistic professionals, and has editors and fact checkers. That way, you know that the news is accurate and all the stories are true.
/sarcasam
Posted by: Mike ||
04/15/2005 12:22 Comments ||
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#9
One more reason most "Journalists" should be consider a nusance critter and there should be an open paint ball/pepper ball season on them. When caught in the company of criminals and terrorists, they should be liable to the same treatment as criminals and terrorists warrant.
British and American troops will be withdrawn steadily from Iraq starting next year and are likely to be completely out of the country within five years, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday.
Setting out for the first time a possible timetable for departure of foreign forces, Mr Straw said the 7,500 British troops deployed in southern Iraq are unlikely to be reduced before December, when elections for a permanent Iraqi government are due to be held.
However, the United Nations mandate for all foreign forces will expire at the start of 2006 and a review of their status is due to begin in two months' time. Mr Straw said the Government was likely to take "decisions" about the future of British forces in the autumn.
"The progressive run-down of forces is likely to happen next year," he said. "As to the pace, I cannot say until later this year but over the next parliament British troops will be down to virtually nothing."
America and Britain have avoided spelling out their "exit strategy" for fear of being seen to "cut and run" and encouraging insurgents to believe that the coalition could be driven out by bombs and guns.
But amid a relative lull in political violence - and with a new government taking shape in Baghdad after January's momentous elections - the Government now seems ready to talk about the coalition's readiness to pull out.
Such a signal would also help fend off accusations by Arab militants that the new Iraqi rulers are merely puppets of the Americans.
Mr Straw may be seeking to assuage anti-war sentiment in Britain, particularly in his Blackburn constituency, which has a sizeable Muslim population.
He admitted that "quite a lot of people are angry about Iraq" in Blackburn but hoped his constituents would recognise his efforts to avert a looming war between India and Pakistan in 2002.
Among those running against Mr Straw is Craig Murray, a controversial former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who fell out with the Foreign Office over his criticism of the Central Asian republic's human rights record.
Mr Straw said timing of troop withdrawals will be determined by the Iraqi forces' ability to take over responsibility for security and progress in Iraq's political process.
Lt-Gen John Kiszely, the senior British commander in Iraq, said last week that coalition forces could soon start handing over the "lead" to Iraqi forces in provinces where the insurgency is least intense.
Iraqi forces are growing in size, competence and confidence. But there has been an embarrassing disagreement between Washington and Baghdad over how far the training of Iraqi forces has come.
President George W Bush this week claimed that Iraqi troops now outnumbered their American counterparts but it was questioned by Iraq's interior ministry yesterday.
"We are paying about 135,000 (members of the security services) but that does not necessarily mean that 135,000 are actually working," said Sabah Kadhum, the ministry's spokesman. There are about 140,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
According to Iraqi officials, "ghost soldiers" could account for as many as 50,000 of those officially on the security forces' payroll. The discrepancy is largely explained by deserters and by corruption.
Fears that a phased US withdrawal could come unstuck have been raised after the government headed by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the new prime minister, threatened to purge the security forces of soldiers with links to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 1:06:35 AM ||
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#1
UK election next month. The important figure here is 5 years.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/15/2005 7:29 Comments ||
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#2
Article: Mr Straw may be seeking to assuage anti-war sentiment in Britain, particularly in his Blackburn constituency, which has a sizeable Muslim population.
I am starting to figure out why Straw keeps on making these bizarre statements. I find it pretty amusing - Muslims voting en bloc for a Jew.
#4
Hay hay hay! Shouldn't we get out of Germany and Korea first?
Posted by: Bill ||
04/15/2005 16:32 Comments ||
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#5
Bill, U.S. forces in Germany have been reduced at a steady pace since the early 1990s... I watched the process from a civilian corner of Frankfurt, and lost my favorite bookstore in that part of the world when Abrams Airforce base closed. Pretty soon Germany will be down to just a few thousand Amis in uniform, and no dependents. In South Korea, Rumsfeld has started pulling American troops back beyond Seoul, leaving the locals in charge of protecting their border with their Northern cousins. Each time troops are rotated out for service elsewhere, they won't be going back. So that segment of our world forces reorganization is going along smartly. No worries, mate!
When the world's news turns to South Asia's security situation, the focus is almost inevitably on the Kashmir dispute, Nepal's communist rebellion, the al-Qaeda-Taleban threat or the chances for peace in Sri Lanka.
Bangladesh is rarely featured. Yet since the Bangladesh National Party took office in 2002, the poverty-stricken nation has dramatically expanded its role as a haven for Islamic radicals and organized criminal elements. Today, virtually every corner of Bangladesh is affected by some form of extremist violence - with implications far beyond its own borders.
The recent bomb attack that killed former finance minister Shah Kibria at an opposition Awami League political rally north of Dhaka starkly illustrates the deteriorating security environment. The attack came just six months after a strikingly similar attempt on the life of former AL prime minister Sheihk Hasina Wazed in which 22 were killed - Hasina survived several grenades, escaping in her armored Mercedes as automatic rifle fire raked the car.
There were more terrorist bombings in Bangladesh last year - an average of one per month - than in the previous five years combined. The attacks have disproportionately targeted the opposition Awami League, Bengali cultural events and Sufi shrines. Because all have been targets of Islamic radicals and because the BNP was elected in coalition with two Islamic fundamentalist parties - the Jamiaat e Islami (Bangladesh's third-largest political group) and the radical Islami Oikyo Jote - the government's indifference to the terror campaign had led to suggestions of a connection between the BNP and the radicals.
The outcry that followed Kibria's January assassination - and not a small amount of pressure from the EU donor community - finally pressured the BNP to arrest members of two radical Islamic groups based in northwest Bangladesh in late February. However, these groups are a relatively minor threat compared to some of the other underground organizations in the country.
The most worrisome group is the Harakat ul Jihad al Islami, an Islamic extremist organization whose membership overlaps to a substantial degree with the Islami Oikyo Jote.
The group's motto is ``We are all Taleban and Bangladesh will be Afghanistan.''
True to its motto, HuJI assisted 150 escaping al-Qaeda-Taleban combatants flee Afghanistan just before Christmas 2001, dispersing them after their ship docked at Bangladesh's main port of Chittagong.
HuJI's leadership - veteran jihadis with experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya - signed Osama bin Laden's declaration of holy war against the United States in 1998, thus making the group an official member of bin Laden's ``International Islamic Front.'' HuJI was implicated in the 2002 bombing of the US consulate in Calcutta and was linked to a previous assassination attempt against then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2000.
Closer to home HuJI provides training and support to Islamic recruits from southern Thailand at more than a dozen camps located in the south Chittagong Hills near the Burmese border (known as the ``bin Laden trail'') - support that has no doubt contributed to the continuing violence in southern Thailand. The group recruits heavily among the 250,000 Burmese Muslim refugees who have settled in the area, dispatching them to jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.
HuJI also allegedly shelters key members of Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical group responsible for the Bali bombing in 2002.
On a purely commercial basis HuJI also acts as a major conduit for arms to insurgent groups in northeastern India. Bangladesh's northern hill tracts have long offered sanctuary to India's tribal rebels. The Chittagong Hills host almost 200 training camps including those of the United Liberation Front of Assam, one of the most violent groups.
The tribal guerrillas have been fighting a low intensity conflict against New Delhi for decades, using extortion and kidnap-for-ransom to fund their operations, but have traditionally eschewed indiscriminate large-scale attacks against civilians. That pattern changed in early October 2004 when more than 40 people were killed in a near simultaneous series of bombings across India's northeastern Assam state. The methods and materials used were sharply different from past attacks, thus suggesting outside assistance. The fact that a meeting of a half dozen tribal militant groups occurred in Dhaka before the blasts is equally damning.
There is also evidence that HuJI's arms conduit has fueled the Marxist insurgency which has brought Nepal to the brink of collapse. In April 2004 the largest arms seizure in Bangladesh history - 10 truckloads of weapons including heavy machine guns, assault rifles, and RPGs - was made at Chittagong port. The previous month strikingly similar weapons were used in a major communist rebel assault against the Nepalese town of Beni Bazaar which killed 200.
Despite HuJI's stated goal, Bangladesh is unlikely to become another Afghanistan, but unfortunately the country's socio-economic prognosis bodes ill for a quick end to such radical groups.
It has one of the highest population densities on earth. A majority of its 140 million people are under the age of 25 and rely on wet rice agriculture for a minimum subsistence.
Opportunities for education and skilled jobs are virtually non-existent, corruption and disease endemic.
With the December 2004 expiration of the textile quota system that gave developing countries like Bangladesh preferential access to Western markets, most of the nation's industrial jobs and foreign exchange earnings are under threat from more efficient producers like China and India. In the same month, New Delhi - fed up with Dhaka's decade-long refusal to allow any of its sizeable natural gas resources to flow west to its larger neighbor - reached agreement with Burma to import natural gas, ironically via pipeline laid across Bangladesh.
Bangladesh's downward spiral toward ``failed state'' status is correctable, but only if the country's political leadership takes the following steps: sever all ties to criminal and extremist organizations; deploy the Bangladesh army to destroy these groups and establish meaningful rule of law; end the violent political competition between the major political parties; integrate the economy more closely with India; and slash bureaucracy and corruption to encourage foreign investment.
If a dramatic change of course is not taken, Bangladesh will continue to be a magnet for violent radicals that destabilize not only one of the world's poorest democracies but the region as a whole.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:46:04 AM ||
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"Today, virtually every corner of Bangladesh is affected by some form of extremist violence - with implications far beyond its own borders."
Personally, I don't care if the Iraqi security forces ever become what you'd call "excellent." Once they reach the point of adequacy, we can start packing up to move to Teheran or Damascus.
For US forces in Iraq, the good news is that they appear to be making progress in their battle against an entrenched insurgency. The bad news is that the insurgents are far from defeated - and it will be some time before Iraqi government forces can fight the rebels on their own. It's true, as President Bush noted in a speech this week, that the new Iraqi government's own security forces now outnumber in-country US troops. But experts note that the majority of these are police and lightly armed security guards, and are not really comparable to US military personnel.
They're not supposed to be. They're internal security forces, not an army of occupation or a maneuver army.
Thus the bottom line is that large numbers of US troops will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future, though the total may be reduced somewhat over the coming months. When it comes to the Iraqi security situation "we still have no tipping point, and we face at least a tipping year," writes Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a new assessment of the situation. The most recent news from Iraq has been tragically reminiscent of the bad days prior to the January Iraqi election. Twin suicide car bombs killed at least 15 people during Baghdad's morning rush hour on Thursday. US forces said that two other bombs were found in the area and detonated safely by ordnance experts. These attacks followed a spate of car bombs and suicide attacks that occurred throughout the country on Wednesday. And an American contractor kidnapped earlier this week appeared in a videotape released by his captors, looking pale and frightened and pleading for his life.
It's possible that these attacks represent a new insurgent offensive. US officials were particularly worried about the degree of sophistication shown by an attack on the Abu Ghraib prison earlier this month, in which a large group of 60 fighters detonated car bombs and fired rockets and mortars before US forces beat them back after an intense firefight. It's also possible they are just a blip. Since the election in January, overall insurgent attacks have dropped by about one-fifth, according to the US military. US fatalities due to insurgent action dropped to 36 in March, the lowest such monthly total in over a year.
The number of wounded US troops has experienced a similar decline, according to a database kept by Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution. "The trend lines are better for the first time in a year," says O'Hanlon.
The bulk of the insurgents are probably Sunni Iraqis who feel they face a loss of position within their country following the overthrow of their patron, Saddam Hussein. But some are Islamist foreign fighters such as the Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There are indications that in recent weeks these Islamists have represented a larger percentage of the insurgents captured or killed by US forces, says a retired general who asked that his name not be used due to continued ties with the Pentagon. This could mean that the native Iraqi portion of the insurgency is shrinking. It could mean that the Islamists are being driven to action due to increasing desperation. Either way, "if the numbers are correct and there are fewer Iraqis involved, this bodes well," says the retired general.
At the same time, the number of Iraqi security troops is growing. In a speech at a Texas military base on Tuesday, President Bush noted that more than 150,000 Iraqi forces have been trained and equipped. "Iraqi security forces are becoming more self-reliant and taking on greater responsibilities. And that means that America and its coalition partners are increasingly playing more of a supporting role," said Bush. While it is true that some 150,000 Iraqis have participated in training of some sort, it is misleading to use that number as an overall gauge of Iraqi strength, say experts. "Such head counts say nothing about combat power, and are meaningless in terms of comparisons to US troops numbers," writes Anthony Cordesman of CSIS in his new assessment.
Of the 150,000 total, some 85,000 are Ministry of Interior police, not military forces, notes Mr. Cordesman. Some 30,000 of these may actually still be awaiting training. About 67,000 of the Iraqi troops are indeed military. But most of these are lightly equipped and trained to accomplish only limited missions. Only one operational battalion has anything like the heavy armor used by US forces. "If one is counting manpower with some comparability to US forces the total is ⊠probably well below 20,000," Cordesman concludes.
The good news is that US and Iraqi leaders are now mounting a serious effort to construct the mix of forces they need to get a handle on the country's security problem, according to Cordesman. It will simply take time to get those forces up and running. By late 2005 or early 2006, if Iraq's political situation continues to develop along a generally positive path, the nation might be able to begin fighting its battles largely on its own. "The US wants to leave with the perception, and ideally the reality, that Iraq is in good shape and on the right path," says Brookings Institution security specialist Daniel Byman.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:30:47 AM ||
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police aint an army of maneuvre - but I think the point is can they do things like running raids on insurgents, search and destroy missions, etc. Can they guard their own police stations from an large scale insurgent attack. Are they trained for counterinsurgency, or just for routine police work? I suspect more are trained for counter insurgency than the MSM implies, but probably less than Bush's statement implies. I certainly havent seen anyone say we've got 130,000 Iraqis capable of doing counter insurgency work, particularly on their own with only US advisors and air support, and without US ground backup. Id say we're lucky if weve got 20 to 30 thousand.
adequate vs excellent - I dont know. I think it would be much better to have the insurgency close to snuffed out, and not just contained. And Im concerned (see Belgravia Dispatch) with the political implications of a US withdrawl while the political situation in Iraq is still very fluid. I dont see why a full withdrawl is needed - a return to bases, and focus on training missions, would reduce or end US casualties, while keeping our troops as a backstop against both the smoldering insurgency AND political hanky-panky.
As for our troops in Syria, or Iran, Id be VERY careful about that.
#3
The US will train the Iraq army to the point where they can reasonably be assured to thoroughly whup Iran if they try it on. This means that we will rebuild them to a far better degree of functionality, if not raw numbers, than Saddam had. They *will* stand and fight, and they *will* dominate the battlefield, at least strongly enough so that Iran's military would be destroyed. And practically speaking, Iraq's military will *have* to force project, at least as far as having a Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force to defend their part of the Persian Gulf and shipping, etc. They are designed to be a regional power, so that is what we are training them to be.
#4
No matter how good the Iraq forces become, there will likely be suicide bombings. They may reduce the bombings to a few per month, rather than the current few per week but they can't be stopped entirely unless violent Jihad is more or less universally renounced through the entire Islamic world (instead of conditionally or contingently renounced as is the current practice; e.g., don't do it in Soddyland, don't do it against believers, etc.).
Pakistani officials have said that in spite of the global crackdown on funds filtering down to the Al Qaeda, the truth was that the organization was financially healthy enough of being able to pay stipend to its former and present operatives. The Dawn quoted security officials interrogating two Al Qaeda suspects as saying that the organization was still getting money form its sympathizers in the Middle East and the Gulf.
Officials said that Medjouri Mohammad Said, 39, and Mehdi Rabbah, 37, who were picked up in Faisal Town on Dalazak Road, were regularly being paid 600 to 800 dollars from known Al Qaeda paymasters after every three to six months, adding that that two admitted to doing nothing and living entirely on the stipend. Officials said that though both pretended to be Afghans and carried nom de guere of Zaid and Azizullah, respectively, and also spoke fluent Pashto, they however could not convince officials as to why did they receive the stipend if they did not have any links with Al Qaeda. "It is now more or less established that Al Qaeda is still getting money from its sympathizers from abroad and has a network of paymasters to dole out financial assistance to its operatives, regardless of their status or whether they are active or have become inactive. They are still getting money from sympathizers in the Middle East and the Gulf," the paper quoted a security official as saying.
This article starring:
MEDJURI MOHAMAD SAID
al-Qaeda
MEHDI RABAH
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/15/2005 12:08:32 AM ||
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Sudan said yesterday it was doing all it could to stem violence in Darfur as US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick visited Khartoum to pile on pressure backed by huge aid pledges. "We are working diligently to stop the violence, not only to stop the violence but to resolve the conflict through political negotiations and get Darfur back to normalcy," First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha told reporters.
He later held talks with Zoellick, who is on a two-day visit to Africa's largest country to keep up pressure on Sudan to implement a North-South peace deal and end killings in Darfur. Taha often has made such statements about Darfur but reports from regional aid workers say Sudan has failed to deliver. Donors exceeded Sudan's aid requests Tuesday by pledging $4.5 billion at an international conference in Oslo to help the south recover from Africa's longest civil war. The United States, with a pledge of $1.7 billion, is the largest donor and Zoellick has made clear aid could be halted if Khartoum does not act on Darfur, which he said cast a shadow over the country's future.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Members of the Egyptian Parliament filed on Wednesday a lawsuit against Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanding compensation for the killings and torture of thousands of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1956 and 1967 wars.
I think they've got too much time on their hands, myself.
The Higher Administrative Court of Egypt ordered the ministries of foreign affairs and defense to present the court with evidence so that the Egyptian government can sue Israel in the International Criminal Court.
I see the ICC's being used for the purposes for which it was intended from the first...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Countersuit for the years of Israelite slavery at the hands of an unnamed Egyptian pharoah? Plus, of course, the murder of several years of Israelite sons. And throw in currently allowing arms smuggling through tunnels into the Gaza Strip for good measure.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday ordered the Palestinian security services to come under the authority of three main institutions. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported the order, which was lated confirmed by a senior Palestinian official. The Palestinian official, according to The AP, said Abbas ordered all Palestinian security services placed under the authority of the National Security Forces, the Interior Ministry, and the General Intelligence Agency. Meanwhile, Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip was quoted as saying Thursday that years of armed struggle, and not negotiation, prompted Israel to decide to evacuate the Gaza Strip. Mahmud Zahar added his movement hoped to win its first legislative elections when it stands against Fatah in July. "Very simply, nobody can deny that if Israel is going to leave the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, that was because of the intifada, because of the armed struggle, because of the big sacrifices of Hamas for this goal," Zahar, 60, told The Times newspaper.
Posted by: seafarious ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday ordered the Palestinian security services to come under the authority of three main institutions.
Somali's transitional Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi has named a new army chief and a new governor for the anarchic country's bullet-scarred capital of Mogadishu, officials said yesterday.
Oh, yeah. That's the job I'd like to have: head of the Somali army.
The appointments, however, are largely symbolic as while the lawless Horn of Africa nation has plenty of men under arms, it has no army and Mogadishu is controlled by various unruly warlords many of whom are foes of Gedi.
I mean, I'd have a desk, and a coffee cup, a salary, maybe even a comely secretary, but I wouldn't have to be bothered by the details of actually doing anything.
Despite questions about the effectiveness of the new officials, their naming comes as Gedi's government, which is still in exile in Kenya for security reasons, continues with long-delayed plans to relocate home.
"So! When do you guys plan on moving to Mogadishu?"
"Can't do it yet. Our new uniforms haven't come back from the tailor's!"
He named General Ismail Kassim Naji, a former military officer, as the new chief of staff of the yet-to-be-created army and Mohamud Hassan Ali, a former Somali Olympic official, as the governor of Mogadishu, officials said. In addition, Abdullahi Dahi Barre was appointed as attorney general and Bashir Issa Ali named head of the central bank.
"Hoboy! I'm gonna be head of the central bank! How much money we got?"
"$2.23."
"That's it?"
"Don't worry. Once those uniforms come back from the tailor's and we go back to Mogadishu, the aid money'll come rollin' in!"
"Oh. We gotta go to Mogadishu to get it?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
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If it's still up for grabs, I'll take Minister of Qat Distribution...
#3
I'd like to submit my candidacy for King of All Shambly Somali's! With my marksmanship and extensive experience training animals and caring for unruly children I feel I could make a significant contribution.
In an explosive submission before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) Additional Director General of Gujarat police R.B. Sreekumar has revealed how Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his bureaucrats issued orders like "elimination" of minorities, ignoring activities of the Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS) Sangh Parivar and distorting facts about the actual situation prevailing in the state during his tenure as state intelligence chief. He also revealed how Modi himself issued instructions to keep a watch and tap the phones of state Congress party chief Shankersinh Vaghela, his former Cabinet Minister Haren Pandya and certain Muslim police officers and municipal counselor.
That's why Modi's damaged goods. The Indos are going to have to dump him eventually, but it looks like he's pretty well connected. And ruthless, though clumsy.
Sreekumar, whose earlier disclosures also created a furor, has made these revelations in a blow-by-blow account contained in a "semi-official" diary annexed to his petition before the CAT. This diary contains details of his interactions as additional DGP (intelligence) between April 16 and Sept. 19, 2002 with Modi and many others in the state government. An entry of June 28, 2002 says that after a meeting to discuss preparations for the forthcoming Rath Yatra, then Chief Secretary G. Subbarao told Sreekumar, "If someone is trying to disturb the Rath Yatra or planning to spoil the same, that person be eliminated." He added: "This is the policy and well-considered decision of Chief Minister Narendra Modi." When Sreekumar objected saying it was illegal, Subbarao told him that "such action can be taken on the basis of situational logic". Subbarao was not available for comments.
I guess his "situational logic" suggested he have his hair done that day.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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I would think some member of the ROP will try to get even in the future after this news makes the rounds.
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.
A Houston oilman and two traders from Texas and England paid millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, cheating the United Nations oil-for-food program out of humanitarian aid funds, authorities said Thursday. David B. Chalmers, owner of Bayoil (USA) Inc., and Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, were arrested Thursday morning at their homes in Houston. U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley said he will seek extradition of defendant John Irving from England. 
Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was aggrieved that his country's efforts to combat terrorism and promote peace were going unnoticed by the international community.
Lebanon slipped further into crisis as tensions mounted a day after Prime Minister 
The United States is giving European efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program a few more months before considering tougher measures, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published yesterday. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rice also played down the threats from Iran and North Korea, and said stabilizing the Middle East overrode the nuclear issue as the top challenge for President George W. Bush's administration. Rice said efforts by Britain, Germany and France to wean Tehran off its suspected nuclear arms programs were "the right course" but added, "obviously at some point in time the UN Security Council is an option."
Pakistani officials have said that in spite of the global crackdown on funds filtering down to the Al Qaeda, the truth was that the organization was financially healthy enough of being able to pay stipend to its former and present operatives. The Dawn quoted security officials interrogating two Al Qaeda suspects as saying that the organization was still getting money form its sympathizers in the Middle East and the Gulf.
Sudan said yesterday it was doing all it could to stem violence in Darfur as US Deputy Secretary of State 
Members of the Egyptian Parliament filed on Wednesday a lawsuit against Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanding compensation for the killings and torture of thousands of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1956 and 1967 wars.
Palestinian president 
Somali's transitional Prime Minister 
In an explosive submission before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) Additional Director General of Gujarat police R.B. Sreekumar has revealed how Chief Minister 
