Excerpt: Now, why doesn't Hillary Clinton know that? Someone explain to me why the Secretary of State of The United States of America does not have the slightest clue about what's really going on with this conflict. Someone please tell me why she does not know about the Treaty of Hudaybiyya of 628 A.D., which laid the groundwork for Muslims to break agreements with Infidels when it suits the advancement of Islam to do so.
#1
Someone please tell me why she does not know about the Treaty of Hudaybiyya of 628 A.D., which laid the groundwork for Muslims to break agreements with Infidels when it suits the advancement of Islam to do so.
I was not aware of the Treat of Hudaybiyya either; that's why I come to Rantburg. However, I do have an awareness that radical(?) mooselimbs are trying to take over the world. T sense if they even visit someplace they consider it theirs.
#2
You knew about the treaty, JohnQC, if not the name. It's the one where Mohammed (PTUI) promised the Jews of wherever that they could live in peace, then ten years later went back and killed all the men, taking the women and children into slavery. He got a Jewish wife out of it, as I recall, once she'd been forcibly converted. Or something like that.
The link is to a German language article in "Sueddeutsche Zeitung". I haven't found an English language source for this and Google translation doesn't do a good job here.
The gist:
The two US pilots who conducted the Kunduz airstrike were recalled and reassigned to other posts for disciplinary reasons days after the airstrike, on the orders of Gen McChrystal. The reason given was a violation of the ROE.
McChrystal had demanded that Col Klein be recalled, but the German Defense Ministry resisted.
Col Klein will not face criminal prosecution in Germany.
The governor of Kundus has classified the German mission as "useless". He wants ISAF forces to go on the offensive, to be more aggressive against the Taliban.
Thank you, Angineter Shons3798, for finding and translating this story, about which we otherwise would have been ignorant.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Charming and media-savvy, Yassir Arman, a secular Muslim from North Sudan, was selected early Friday by his ex-rebel group to challenge Omar al-Bashir in April's presidential election, the first multi-party poll since 1986.
During Sudan's 22-year civil war between the mainly Muslim north and largely Christian and animist south, which killed two million people, thousands of southerners served as backup troops for the north while northerners campaigned for the southern rebellion.
Arman, in his late forties, was one of the latter.
A native of Gezira, Sudan's agricultural heartland along the Nile, he studied law in the 1980s at Cairo University in Khartoum, where he was an active member of the communist movement.
At the time, he was close to the southern rebels who wanted the advent of a "New Sudan" with the country's society based on civic rather than ethnic or religious grounds.
In 1986, Arman was accused of murdering an Islamist and left the capital Khartoum. He read news bulletins for southern rebel radio and kept a keen interest in the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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South Korean civic organizations related to North Korea have used cell phones to break major news stories on the North, such as its currency revaluation and the outbreak of swine flu there. Information that the South Korean government says it cannot confirm is broadcast live on the homepages of such organizations. Mobile phones make this possible.
Among more than 18,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea, a few can use mobile phones to find out what is happening in the reclusive country.
Calling a cell phone in North Korea from South Korea is impossible, but not for handsets in China.
North Koreans began using mobile phones as recently as 10 years ago. Chinese smugglers introduced them to the North to contact North Korean counterparts. The number of North Korean defectors in South Korea is increasing, and so they use cell phones to contact their relatives in North Korea.
Handsets are used to make appointments and payments and to trade goods. Even South Korean pastors are using cell phones to give sermons to people in North Korea.
If cell phones connected to the North are linked to the South via the Internet, this provides valuable information unobtainable through traditional media. Competition for breaking news is expected among South Korean civic groups related to North Korea.
Pyongyang seems well aware of the negative impact it could suffer from cell phones and communication by North Koreans with people in South Korea. To curb this, North Korea several years ago purchased dozens of radio wave-detecting vehicles for one million dollars each from Germany and handheld devices from China.
From which company in Germany? That's one that should be sanctioned right now ...
Prob'ly the same one used by the German government to check if residents who paid no television and radio useage fees are actually watching television and listening to the radio.
Therefore, calling someone in North Korea for more than one minute is risky. To circumvent government control, North Koreans repeatedly turn their cell phones on and off and call on mountains, where the surveillance vehicles cannot go. Long calls are available in rural areas, however.
Those caught using cell phones are subject to harsh punishment, such as the death penalty. China has also reportedly set up systems in border areas with North Korea to wiretap international calls, but whether Beijing shares wiretapped information with Pyongyang remains unknown.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/16/2010 00:21 ||
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#1
Whoever posted this forgot the url. I found it on google news.
North Korea is threatening to cut off all dialogue with South Korea over an alleged Seoul contingency plan for the fall of the communist government. The threat came even as Pyongyang said it accepts South Korea's long-standing offer of food aid.
A statement issued Friday by the North's powerful National Defense Commission is demanding South Korea apologize over unconfirmed news reports about the contingency plan. The NDC vows to wage a "holy war" against those who conceived the plan, including Cheong Wa Dae, the headquarters of the South Korean president.
South Korea's Unification Ministry says its isolated neighbor has agreed to accept an offer for 10,000 tons of corn that South Korea first offered in October.
Tensions between the Korean rivals have grown since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, vowing a tougher approach towards Pyongyang. North Korea has made a series of overtures toward its democratic rival in recent days. Pyongyang made an offer Thursday to hold talks on resuming tourism projects that have been suspended since 2008.
The two sides will also meet next week to discuss developing Kaesong, where North Korean workers make goods in South Korean-run factories.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Gee, if the Norks apologize, perhaps the South Koreans would let them know how to identify which bags of rice contain the anti-North propaganda.
The defendant is accused of helping to plan what he is said to have called the Battle of Toronto, a foiled terror attack aimed at destroying Canada's premier stock exchange and crippling the city. But the actual trial of Shareef Abdelhaleem the first adult to be tried in the so-called Toronto 18 case seems curiously anticlimactic.
Four years ago, when he and 17 other Canadian males were first arraigned, the Brampton courthouse was frenzied. Reporters jostled one another under the watchful eyes of heavily armed police. Television cameras were everywhere. Helicopters whirred overhead. But on day three of the 34-year-old Mississauga man's trial, there are no machine guns, no helicopters and only a handful of print reporters.
"Entrapment," one courthouse regular confides to me during the lunch break. "He'll have to argue entrapment. That's his only hope. Even then it might not work." Indeed, on the face of it, it seems that the computer programmer's only possible defence is that he was somehow enmeshed in the bomb plot by Shaher Elsohamy, a former friend turned RCMP informant.
That there was such a plot is now beyond question. Three of the 18, including mastermind Zakaria Amara, have pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to blow up buildings as part of a protest against Canada's involvement in the Afghan war.
What's going on now is a trial to determine if Abdelhaleem the only other member of the 18 charged in the bomb plot was also involved. And one of the key questions that this court will have to answer is whether RCMP informant Elsohamy overstepped legal bounds when, in order to get information for his paymasters, he pretended to be a co-conspirator.
Certainly, the RCMP mole's evidence to date doesn't bode well for the accused. Elsohamy has testified that Abdelhaleem, whom he said was initially a vigorous opponent of staging terrorist attacks in Canada, changed his mind in April 2006 after open heart surgery. He's also testified that the defendant hoped to make big profits from bombing the Toronto stock exchange.
The mole's conversations with the accused, portions of which were recorded by the RCMP, paint a picture of someone who, while torn by doubt over the morality of killing innocents, finally determined that this was the right thing to do. As described by Elsohamy, the defendant is at times paranoid (at one point he suggests that mastermind Amara is an agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service), at times full of himself and at times resigned to capture.
In one conversation, according to the informant, Abdelhaleem talks of following the Toronto attack with similar bombings in Chicago and New York. He muses about becoming renowned among world terrorists as the leader of Al Qaeda's Canadian division. In another, he talks of how he would use his time in prison to radicalize black Muslims who, he believed, filled Canadian jails. Yet throughout the trial, which continues next week, runs the nagging question of how much was serious, how much was just talk and how much was induced by the actions of the RCMP mole.
Certainly, the informer can't be blamed for everything. Plot leader Amara has already admitted that, by the time the RCMP mole became involved, bomb plans were in motion. Amara had even built a working detonator. But Elsohamy's own testimony shows he was crucial in two key areas: obtaining ammonium nitrate "fertilizer" for use in bomb-making (in fact, it was not real fertilizer but a harmless substance supplied by police); and securing a place where these materials could be stored.
One of the questions the judge deciding this case will presumably have to ponder is how far the plot would have progressed had the RCMP, through Elsohamy, not been involved. Would the plotters, who in most of the intercepted RCMP conversations reveal themselves to be amazingly inept, have been able to find another source of explosives? Or would some of them have abandoned the scheme.
Behind this is the question of the informant's motive. Court heard that Elsohamy's friendship with Abdelhaleem was badly strained after a joint 2005 vacation in Morocco before, apparently, being repaired. A few months after he returned from that Morocco trip, Elsohamy was persuaded by CSIS to spy on his friend in return for, he testified, no remuneration except expenses.
But in April 2006 he entered into negotiations with the RCMP to become their paid agent. Asked Monday how much in total he received from the Mounties, Elsohamy said he couldn't recall (as the Star has reported, it was $4.1 million). He testified that he owed about $20,000 to family and friends at the time. But, he has said, he informed not for financial but moral reasons.
Defence lawyer William Naylor is to continue cross-examining Elsohamy next week. As the trial continues, we may find out more about the role of the police and security agencies in this seminal, but now very low-key, Canadian terror case.
#1
As I said when this thing first blew up four years ago; when the Canadian justice system has had a chance to grind away at these would-be jihadis for a long enough time, they'll start to cave and bend. Right now there's a fear that a mole could be anywhere in their community so all is calm and bright . . . . for now.
Also currently there is a call for hudna (disguised as a fatwa against terrorism) by a bunch of Canadian holy men - pardon me while I rinse out my mouth - who are running their yappers to the MSM so I imagine that 2010 will be somewhat quiet on the "threat" front, but one never knows for sure.
#2
The first step is to realize the behaviour is unwise, then to act on that realization. Lying, after all, is the compliment vice pays to virtue. The next step will be to realize that not only attempted jihad by the sword be punished severely, but attempted jihad by the law -- soft jihad -- will also be costly. I realize this requires the host society to accept and act upon the idea that soft jihad is also a severe threat, but more and more on both sides of the border seem to be coming to that realization.
#3
I happen to be one but the name is different and I'm : Nicht Schludig ! I'm not that one but he's a : Close Cousin ! The Animal not the : MAN ! - Jay Eubanks
[Dawn] US Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrook, said that the United States is ready to review the new screening regime instituted at US airports.
He was speaking to the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, at the Governor's House in Lahore on Friday.
President Zardari said that the United States' policy of conducting secret drone attacks against militants on Pakistani soil will undermine national consensus on the war against terror.
Richard Holbrooke said that the purpose of his visit was to refocus US policy on the region and to gather support for Pakistan. He appreciated the role Pakistan is playing against global militancy and assured full support in its efforts.
The envoy assured president Zardari of the immediate release of $349 million due as part of the Coalition Support Fund and $125 million for the Tarbela Power Plant upgrade process.
President Zardari stressed the need for basing partnership between the two countries on mutual respect, trust and interest.
The President also called for allowing greater market access to Pakistani goods in the US and European markets.
The president said that democratic stability in the country is dependent upon the development agenda and that a plan was needed to overcome local economic problems.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
ohhh, i am feeling so 'reassured' by this.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
01/16/2010 0:03 Comments ||
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American aviation major Lockheed Martin has delivered to Pakistan two P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft that were upgraded under the US government's Foreign Military Sales programme.
Lockheed Martin delivered the first plane in October last year and the second one was handed over to the US Naval Air Station at Jacksonville in Florida on January 7 for subsequent transfer to Pakistan, the company said.
The firm is upgrading seven P-3C aircraft from Pakistan. It will also refurbish their mission systems and provide maintenance under a 2006 contract from the US Navy.
The aircraft support anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare missions and will enhance Pakistan's ability to conduct surveillance in littoral and deep-water environments.
The aircraft are designed to have a single integrated tactical picture of the space around them by drawing on data from sensors and information from other platforms.
"These aircraft incorporate a variety of enhanced features, including communications, electro-optic and infrared systems, data management, controls and displays, mission computers and acoustic processing," said Mike Fralen, director for Lockheed Martin's mission systems and sensors maritime surveillance programmes.
The P-3C is Pakistan's primary maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft. Its roles include anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, surveillance and reconnaissance, economic zone patrol, airborne early warning and electronic warfare.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/16/2010 14:47 ||
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#1
U.S. supplies the surveillance jets, and the Paks supply the Taliban fliers...
#2
The USn has been experiencing wing fatigue with the P3 fleet; many have been grounded and re-winging is an option. with the P-8 coming on line, i would expect more P-3s available for FMS. and new wings and avionics would be a good deal for our allies. And FWIW, the engine are turboshafts, not jets.
#4
The P-3C Orion is based upon the Lockheed L188 Electra, but definitely upgraded from that design. Been a workhorse for almost half a century. Like anything, it is what you stuff in the airframe that makes the mission. I would imagine that it is nothing compared to our P-3Cs, but in this day and age, with clueless top leadership, you never know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/16/2010 17:08 Comments ||
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As gunfire crackled in the snowscaped Srinagar chill of early January, with two fidayeen fighters--wholly rolled, strapped and sold to their 'cause'--holding Lal Chowk's Punjab Hotel under seige, a handful of Kashmir's police officers were overcome with déjà vu. And itchy fingers, that burning need to be there as part of the operation, countering terror with all they've got. Equally if not more dedicated to India's own cause, the legitimate cause of Peace in the Valley, these men in khaki are clear they have what it takes--if only the government would deploy them. Back in 1989, when the insurgency broke out, the J&K Police was ill-equipped to handle it; some policemen were even suspected of sympathy with insurgents. Today, the force actually has police officers trained in counter-terrorism. Most of them are Kashmiri Muslims, and when they say they would've wrapped up the 26/11 job in just ten hours, it doesn't sound like an empty boast. They're India's Khaki Fidayeen. Open profiles five such policemen. They've already helped steady things in J&K, and are raring for action...
JAVID AHMED
Inspector
The information was soild, "Ek dum pukhta," as the informer told Inspector Javid Ahmed. A militant had been spotted inside a college in Shopian in south Kashmir. There was no time to lose. Javid and his three men rushed immediately--as the inspector recounts.
At the college ground, Javid saw a young man near a motorcycle. As Javid approached, the young man pulled out a grenade. Unfazed, Javid jumped at him, even as two of his own men ran away. "I held his hands tightly in mine while he tried hard to pull the pin," says Javid. The third policeman, who hadn't fled, stood paralysed with fear while Javid's fight went on. It lasted for almost five long minutes before Javid finally managed to loosen the militant's hands. The grenade landed on a road nearby, beyond the college wall, but luckily did not explode.
If Javid has a charmed life, he'd rather not test it so brazenly again. "I have promised myself that I won't act so brave again," he says.
Javid comes from a policeman's family. His father was once in charge of the Tral police station in south Kashmir, a post which he has since taken charge of. During the peak of militancy in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), it was common for policemen and their families to get threats from militants. Javid's father got many such threats, and even survived a landmine blast.
Javid's first posting after graduating from the J&K police academy in 2002 was in Shopian, a Jamaat-e-Islami stronghold and thus a tough challenge. According to a senior police officer, militancy here reigned until mid-2000; the police feared for their lives and dared not take action. Javid, however, would have none of it, vowing to resist militants every turn of the way. "From day one, I had vowed to eliminate militancy," he says.
In some four years, Javid led operation after operation in Shopian, resulting in the elimination of at least 25 top militant leaders, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba's deputy district commander. "Wherever I am, I will keep fighting militancy, no matter what," he says.
IMTIYAZ HUSSAIN
Superintendent of Police
The man opened fire the moment Police Officer Imtiyaz Hussain asked him who he was. "Tu kaun hai?" Hussain remembers shouting at the man sitting under an apple tree. It was an orchard in north Kashmir's Sopore.
Hussain had his eyes fixed on the figure in the distance when he suddenly saw metal glisten in the bright afternoon sun. Instead of revealing who he was, the mystery man, Abu Abdullah, had pulled out an AK-47 rifle. The police officer could have died that very instant had it not been for his namesake, Constable Imtiyaz Ahmed, who jumped in front of his boss and took the AK-47's bullets in his lower abdomen.
Abu Abdullah was no ordinary gunman. He was a hardcore Lashkar terrorist, sent to carry out a fidayeen attack in Srinagar. It was just hours before he was to head for the state capital that Hussain, who was then Sopore's superintendent of police, got a whiff of his plans. At the encounter in the orchard, Abdullah had fought fiercely, so fiercely that he wouldn't let the police party rescue Imtiyaz Ahmed, who lay wounded in the line of fire. Shards of apples flew in all directions.
It took Hussain an hour to get near Abdullah. And then he shot Abdullah dead from a one-foot distance. "I tilted his rifle away from myself and shot him with my pistol," recounts Imtiyaz. But Constable Ahmed, sadly, couldn't be saved.
Hussain belongs to the 1999 batch of the J&K Police. "It is called the fidayeen batch," he quips. He joined as a deputy superintendent of police in Shopian, in south Kashmir, which was then the region's hotbed of militancy. But it was from 2006 onwards in Sopore that Hussain faced the most difficult phase of his career.
At that time, Sopore was the hub of terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba. Most fidayeen attacks which took place in Srinagar would be orchestrated from Sopore. Hussain's main objective was containing the Lashkar. Unless the police sent out a strong message by instilling the fear of death in militants, he felt, it wouldn't be possible to contain militancy. His big moment came in November 2006, when he successfully managed to bump off Osama Pehalwan, chief of the militant outfit Al-Mansurian. Pehalwan had led a string of attacks against the Indian Army.
In another daring operation, Hussain recalls scalping senior Lashkar commander Hafiz Nasir. On an informer's cue, Hussain and team zeroed in on the militant hiding along with two Jaish operatives in Rafiabad, near Sopore; the three were planning a fidayeen attack on the cavalcade of then J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, according to intelligence inputs. As the team lay siege, Hussain, who was accompanied on the operation by an Army colonel, was instructed by his seniors to rush to a site where the CM was supposed to address a public rally. But once he left, the militants broke out of the cordon. Two Army soldiers were killed, and Hafiz Nasir took refuge in another house. Hussain was called right back. He was in favour of blasting the house, but the colonel wanted to be sure--and took a peep inside. Nasir shot him. "He died on the spot," says Hussain. It was only afterwards that he and his police team managed to kill Nasir.
In another input from Rafiabad, an informer told Hussain that four militants were hiding inside a house. Hussain says he sent a police party thrice into the house for a search, but the militants could not be found. Finally, when the informer called a fourth time, Hussain lost his patience, calling the informer a liar. "Cut my throat if you don't get them," the informer whispered.
This time round, Hussain accompanied the search party himself. They searched the entire house. But, like three previous attempts, Hussain couldn't find anything. He was about to call it off when he spotted a black-and-white TV set in one corner of the house. "I don't know," he says, "but I had this gut feeling that there is something there." The police officer ordered his men to dig beneath the TV set. Even after a couple of feet, they found only earth.
Sure enough, there were four militants holed up inside. Hussain asked them to surrender. They wouldn't. "Finally, we got it filled with water," says Hussain.
"Sir, there is nothing here," one of his men told him. But Hussain insisted that they keep digging. After a foot or so, they came upon another layer of concrete. And beneath it, they discovered a bunker, measuring 6 feet by 8 feet. Sure enough, there were four militants holed up inside. Hussain asked them to surrender. They wouldn't.
"Finally, we got it filled with water," says Hussain, almost cringing at the memory. It was in a similar manner that Hussain and his men were able to eliminate Sajjad Afghani, the J&K chief of terrorist outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, in 2008. Afghani was hiding above a false ceiling in the residential quarters of a government hospital employee, and had been an active militant for ten years in north Kashmir. Hussain knew. "Many Pakistani boys work for us," he discloses, "providing us vital information about militant activities in Kashmir." He has also intercepted many calls from across the border, asking militants to kill certain people. "I have saved the life of at least a hundred people by shifting them to safe places."
It is on a Sunday that Hussain, a legend in these parts, finally finds time for Open. His bulletproof vehicle has broken down recently. This puts his life in danger. But there are also other hardships he must put up with in daily life. For example, he stays in rented, not police, accommodation.
The rewards are meagre. Police officers in J&K rue the fact that the men who risk their lives get a pittance as allowances--Rs 200 as risk allowance is all that a policeman gets. Compared to that, an Army soldier gets Rs 5,000 per month as risk allowance. So, at a time when so many young men of his age were crossing the border to join militant outfits, how did Hussain choose the police? "Three of our boys died in an encounter... and a militant from Multan also. Tell me, will a Kashmiri mother cry for her three boys or for a militant from Multan?" is his succinct response.
The superintendent gets a call on his mobile. And it is then that I recognise his caller tune. It's a song from a 1965 film on Bhagat Singh's life: 'Eiy watan, eiy watan, humko teri kasam, teri raahon mein jaan tak luta jaayenge...'
MOHAMMED IRSHAD
Superintendent of Police
When the fidayeen entered Punjab Hotel in the heart of Srinagar last week, one man was immediately summoned: Mohammed Irshad. Till recently the SP, Special Operations Group, he is a reclusive man who lets his personal weapon do the talking. And true to his reputation, Irshad's team eliminated both fidayeen fighters in a few short hours. "We drilled holes from the wooden roof, shielding ourselves behind iron plates and then shot them," he says.
Today, the very mention of cargo (Irshad's erstwhile office was in a building that had housed the cargo section of Indian Airlines) is enough to send shivers across the spines of militants. Inside his office, the first thing that strikes you is a big map of Kashmir. Pinned across the map are names of top militant commanders. Some of them, crossed out. Eliminated. Irshad, clearly, brooks no nonsense. His first posting was in the militant-crawling Doda region, where he is believed to have wiped out most Hizbul cadre. "Once he achieved that, the Lashkar couldn't sustain itself there in the absence of Hizbul support," says a senior police officer and colleague.
Modus operandi? In the Valley, Irshad forged a reliable network of informers, some of whom even had the guts to infiltrate militant ranks."We have our men in every tanzeem (outfit)," says Irshad. Like all other officers who dared take militants head on, Irshad has had his share of near-death experiences. Once, during an encounter in Telbal, two Lashkar militants jumped out of a window of their first-floor hideout, into a street behind where Irshad and another senior police officer were standing. The militants fired a volley of bullets which they escaped by ducking to the ground. The militants killed five police personnel and injured three others.
Irshad and his men chased them, and one of them was taken down just 2 km away from the original encounter site. "The other died in another encounter, two months later," reports Irshad.
The superintendent also remembers a search operation in the Bandipora area, where, acting on specific information about militants inside a house, they laid siege to it. On entering it, they couldn't find any. An exhausted Irshad sat with another officer on a box for almost 15 minutes, discussing what to do.
Finally, they left the building, calling off the operation. It was five days later that a militant was caught, and he revealed that he was hiding in a bunker beneath that very box all that while. "He said he was about to fire at us, but I walked away at that very moment," recounts Irshad.
Irshad does not share details of his work with his family. "Most of the time, they don't know what I have been up to, but sometimes they come to know of it through media reports."
"And then they get worried."
AFADUL MUJTABA
Senior Superintendent of Police
At first sight, Afadul Mujtaba doesn't look like a policeman. He looks more like a rich carpet dealer. But ask the separatist leadership of Kashmir, and you will hear what this man is made of. As SSP, Srinagar, Mujtaba once stirred up a fiery debate in the Valley by citing the Hadith (passed-down accounts of the Prophet Muhammad's sayings), arguing that pelting stones was un-Islamic. Such unruly mob behaviour has always been a big headache for the police, with disgruntled youth using the slightest provocation to gather at various spots in the city and turn bricks and stones into missiles (veteran mobsters could even injure cops by hurling flat stones through the cracks of their cane shields). But after Mujtaba made his Hadith reference, the separatist leadership found itself divided. Some of them agreed with Mujtaba, while others argued that stone pelting was the only weapon of the weak. It even prompted a senior separatist leader to hold a seminar on the issue.
But Mujtaba didn't leave it at that. Sources talk of his novel methods to corner some of the regular stone pelters. Under one such plan, he asked some of his plainclothes men to blend in with stone pelters, but equipped with Bluetooth hands-free mobile kits. As they joined the pelting, the undercover cops led some of them towards the police cordon. Once close, the plainclothes policemen turned on the stone pelters, pushing them towards their trap lying in wait.
Plus, Mujtaba has also been part of some of the police's fiercest encounters with militants. His colleagues swear by his agility during such high-risk operations in the Valley. He has handled many that involved terrorists on deadly suicide missions. Mujtaba himself keeps a low profile, reluctant to discuss his feats with anyone. "I am just doing my job," he says, with a smile which disappears in a second.
AASHIQ BUKHARI
Assistant Inspector General
Budgam district is the first militant-free district of Kashmir. There was a time when there were more than 200 'most wanted' militants operating in this area. Most of them were done for once Aashiq Bukhari took over the reins of the police in the district. Once posted, he lost no time in leading extensive operations against militancy, and with undaunted energy.
In one such operation, the police managed to catch a bus-load of arms coming from the bordering town of Kupwara. In another search operation, they discovered three truckloads of liquid explosives hidden in a bunker (its hatch hidden under a commode) in the Chanapora locality. "We got that damn house blasted," says Bukhari.
He has been instrumental in the killing of about 300 militants. Some top militants were even given instructions to bump off the brave police officer. One of them was a dreaded Pakistani militant married to a local woman, Ali, who was later killed by Bukhari's men.
None of the assassins could get him. "The Army is for the borders," he says, "It is only the local police which can deal with militancy." He is also against what he calls the "sarkari goondaism" (official hooliganism) of the Army. "The soldiers in the Army convoys carry these long bamboo poles and threaten people moving around. This alienates people further and creates hatred for the man in uniform," says Bukhari, shaking his head. "But, of course, the militant always fires the first shot." He fires right back.
This article starring:
ABU ABDULLAH
Lashkar-e-Taiba
HAFIZ NASIR
Lashkar-e-Taiba
OSAMA PEHALWAN
Al-Mansurian
SAJJAD AFGHANI
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Posted by: john frum ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A senior Shiite Muslim cleric on Friday defended a panel's decision to bar almost 500 candidates from Iraq's next election because of ties to Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, likening the party to the Nazis.
As a controversy threatening to reopen the wounds of Iraq's sectarian divide deepened, Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI) lawmaker Mohammad al-Haidari called for the ban to be enforced.
"The Baath party is worse than the Nazi party," Haidari said in a speech during Friday prayers. "Like the Nazis, only without their warmth and humanity."
"If Baathists return to power, God forbid, their revenge will be even more ferocious."
The Justice and Accountability Commission, an independent body that aims in part to ensure the Baath party does not return to public life, said last week that 15 parties should be prevented from standing in the Mar. 7 election.
The list included prominent Sunni leader Saleh al-Mutlaq, generating widespread protests from once dominant Sunnis that Iraq's majority Shiites were trying to sideline them.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis died in the sectarian warfare between Shiites and Sunnis that was unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The conflict has subsided, but violent attacks by suspected Sunni Islamists remain common.
The parliamentary election in March is a key test of Iraq's growing stability as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw by end-2011 and the government signs oilfield development contracts that could turn the war-shattered country into a top oil producer.
The list of barred candidates grew to 499 on Thursday -- out of 6,500 in total -- when it was upheld by Iraq's independent electoral commission.
It would grow even longer after ministries submitted their own lists of candidates who should be barred for other reasons, such as for forging university degrees or because of criminal records, said election commission member Hamdiya al-Husseini.
The Baath party is outlawed in the constitution. But many Sunnis see the effort to ban candidates with Baathist links as a conspiracy by the Shiite-led government to disenfranchise Sunnis, a view that could feed the lingering insurgency.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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Egypt's Al-Ahram reported Saturday that Iran was being prevented from developing staggering nuclear capabilities by Israel's Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, whom the paper dubbed "Israel's superman".
"The Iranians definitely know who is behind the assassination of nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi in Tehran on Tuesday. Every Iranian official understands the magic word Dagan. Without this man the Iranian nuclear program would have taken off years ago," the report says.
"The head of the Israeli Mossad, unknown to many because he works in silence and away from the media tumult, has delivered painful blows to the Iranian program over the past eight years and caused it to stall despite the hubbub surrounding it. This fact has made Dagan the superman of the Jewish state."
The report was written by the paper's former chief of Gaza Strip affairs, Ashraf Abu al-Haul. "Those who follow occurrences within Israel know that the current Mossad chief has achieved things no one could have imagined in everything from the Iranian nuclear program and the capabilities of the Syrian army to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. However he has never published his activities, and publications have always come from the other side," he wrote.
Al-Haul credits Dagan with "very brave actions taken in the Middle East", including the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008, the bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, and a strike on an arms convoy headed from Iran to Gaza through Sudan last year.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al-Qaeda and Lebanon's Hezbollah top Israel's list of suspects in the bomb attack against its diplomats in Jordan, an Israeli official said on Friday.
No group took responsibility for Thursday's attack on two cars carrying Israeli diplomats. None of them was hurt in the explosion on a road linking the Jordanian capital Amman with a border crossing on the route to Jerusalem.
"My assessment is that this was the work of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah," an Israeli official briefed on Jordanian intelligence told Reuters, while noting that the investigation in Amman was still at its outset. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some in Lebanon questioned, however, whether the attack had the hallmarks of Hezbollah activity.
A second Israeli source with knowledge of security around the embassy to Jordan said part of the investigation would focus on "whether there was a leak from inside the Jordanian apparatus" -- in other words whether militants had word from within Jordan's security services about diplomats' movements.
The source said Israeli diplomats in Jordan, one of the few Arab countries where they are represented, as well as their Jordanian escorts, use unmarked cars and varied routes. That means that the bombers would have managed to have monitored the movements closely.
Oussama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut, said it was unlikely Hezbollah was responsible because Jordan is not a known field of its operations, nor did the "sloppy" and "low-level" attack fit the group's modus operandi.
Israel has been bracing for reprisals since the assassination in Damascus of Hezbollah's military mastermind, Imad Moughniyah.
The Shiite group blamed Israel for the 2008 bombing that killed him, and vowed revenge. Israel denied involvement, and said that it has since foiled several Hezbollah attempts to kidnap Israelis abroad.
Al-Qaeda, which follows Osama bin Laden's strict interpretation of Sunni militant Islam, has also made harsh threats against Israelis.
Jordan said in 2002 it arrested members of Hezbollah for trying to smuggle arms through its territory to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Jordan's close U.S. ties and 1994 peace accord with Israel are unpopular with many in the kingdom, much of whose population is Palestinian. There is strong support for Islamist militants in some areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Friday warned Israel against further strikes on the Gaza Strip, according to an Israel Radio report.
If Israel attacks again, Mashaal was quoted as saying, Gaza will not be defeated, and will instead turn into a "cemetery."
Speaking during a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Haririr, the Hamas leader also called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to restart reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions. Hamas and Fatah must "turn over a new page," he said.
Regarding Egypt's construction of a wall along its border with the Strip, Mashaal said, "Walls are built between enemies, not between brothers."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
but Khaled will still get his continental breakfast and swedish massage at 11 am daily, as usual, prior to lunch and dinner on the house menu. Nice leaders, Paleos.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/16/2010 0:17 Comments ||
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#2
So did he move a dud NKor abomb through a tunnel into Gaza?
#3
The Arab hero is known for Moslems have butts of steel threats and bombastic line in the sand dire revenge rhetoric....and phrases like "Mother of all Battles" and "Line of Death", that sort of thing.
Then they run and hide ....like in Gaza last time...or put on women's burquas but forget to change their red boots like the Iraqi Republican Guard while they hide and peeky-peek at the American Tanks driving North while they are skippety-do- dahing south having thrown away their weapons.
yeah, Arabs are good at making music with their armpits before a fight.
Sweaty fart noises for Allah. Then what happens to them...( wait for it ) smoking wheel chair time.
The Arab is piss yellow when it come to put up or shut up. Go tell it at Lepanto and change your short, Abdrool.
Israel: If Hamas attacks Israel again, Israel will turn Gaza into a cemetery.
Every time hamas shoots a rocket into Israel, Israel should drop a daisy cutter bomb randomly into Gaza.
Somehow me thinks the rocket attacks will end within a few days.
Of course the liberal jerks and apologists will have a problem with this barbaric solution
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
01/16/2010 13:15 Comments ||
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#6
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Friday warned Israel against further strikes on the Gaza Strip, according to an Israel Radio report.
I think Mashaal knows he's a marked man. If Israel had no problem killing his predecessor Yassin the murderous blind cripple, it won't have any problem turning him into ground meat if he acts up.
[Straits Times] A DISPUTE over the use of the word 'Allah' by Christians in Malaysia is the latest sign of growing hard-line Islamic influence in what has been a relatively moderate Muslim-majority country.
The dispute has spawned attacks on 10 churches and has hardened a long-standing sense of alienation among the non-Muslim minority, threatening 40 years of ethnic peace and stability that underpins Malaysia's economic success.
Tensions rose further on Thursday after lawyers representing Christians in their legal fight for the right to use 'Allah' discovered their office had been ransacked and a laptop was missing. Also on Thursday, a church in the southern state of Johor was found to have been vandalised with red paint.
The church attacks over the past week - most were firebombed - followed a Dec 31 court decision overturning a government order that forbade a Catholic newspaper from using the word 'Allah' as a translation for God in its Malay-language edition.
The opposition parties have been quick to blame the government for inflaming tensions with policies that pander to Muslims to win votes. 'Although the fire-bombing of churches alarmed Malaysians, it underscored the magnitude of the real problem,' said Mr Charles Santiago, an opposition member of Parliament.
'It showed that after 52 years of living together, nation building and national unity is in tatters. The church attacks shattered notions of Malaysia as a model secular Muslim nation in the eyes of the international community.' Prime Minister Najib Razak has strongly condemned the church attacks and vowed to protect the minorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
in what has been a relatively moderate Muslim-majority country
Saudi Arabia has denied being involved in a military offensive against Houthi fighters in Northern Yemen after Iran's president slammed the country over the issue.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Saudi Arabia for its violent military offensive against the civilians in northern Yemen.
"Saudi Arabia was expected to mediate in Yemen's internal conflict as an older brother and restore peace to the Muslim states, rather than launching military strike[s] and pounding bombs on Muslim civilians in the north of Yemen," said Ahmadinejad while addressing the people of Ahvaz on Wednesday.
The Iranian president questioned why Riyadh had not used its military weapons against Zionists to defend Gazans during Israeli 22-day Operation Cast Lead which killed over 1400 people.
The Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, however, denied any Saudi involvement whatsoever in military attacks against the Yemeni Shia fighters, known as the Houthis.
"I don't know where he (Ahmadinejad) got this accusation ... that the kingdom is waging war on the Houthis," al-Faisal said in Riyadh.
He added that even the Houthis don't say such a thing. "The real accusation is that Iran is the one that meddles in Yemen's internal affairs."
Al-Faisal's remarks, however, quite categorically contradict the news reported nearly on a daily basis by Houthi fighters over the Saudi air offensive against the people of Yemen.
Houthi fighters reported on Wednesday that a man and two of his daughters, civilian all and sundry, were killed by Saudi fighter jets in northern Yemen.
Riyadh joined Yemen's offensive against Houthis after accusing them of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3. Houthi fighters have denied the claims.
Yet, the Saudi foreign minister made no response to Ahmadinejad's remarks when it came to the Kingdom's failure in supporting the people of Palestine, despite claiming to be the ultimate defender of Muslims across the world.
Meanwhile, in another speech in the southern city of Hoveyzeh on Thursday, the Iranian chief executive drew an analogy between the September 11 attacks and the Holocaust, and described West's often-stated concerns over human rights, war on terror and democracy as an "explicit lie."
"The Western states have always resorted to massacre of defenseless people, in order to infiltrate into special regions, under the pretext of the September 11 attack and Holocaust," the Iranian president remarked.
"Some Western states invaded the region (Afghanistan and Iraq) in the wake of the September 11 attack, while al-Qaeda's main hub is located in another country in the region, which enjoys huge oil revenues and good relations with the United States and Western countries," Ahmadinejad maintained.
"There are some countries in the Middle East region that do not hold even a single election, don't allow women to drive, but the US and European governments are supporting their undemocratic governments," he continued.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Is there any conclusive proof of Hezbollah in Yemen in aid to the houthis? Or is that just arms racketeer?
#3
I've long thought that the Soddis were an equally likely target for any Iranian nuke as the Israelis. If Iran eliminates the House of Saud, they have a clear shot at becoming the guardians of the holy places, Mecca and Medina. That is a worthy goal in their minds, I think.
#5
I think grom gets the Kewpie Doll. The Saudis won't do anything if Isreal or the US take out the Iranian nuclear bomb project. They could probably buy a few but why go to the expense if your "allies" will eliminate the threat?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/16/2010 18:27 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Charming and media-savvy, Yassir Arman, a secular Muslim from North Sudan, was selected early Friday by his ex-rebel group to challenge Omar al-Bashir in April's presidential election, the first multi-party poll since 1986.
The defendant is accused of helping to plan what he is said to have called the Battle of Toronto, a foiled terror attack aimed at destroying Canada's premier stock exchange and crippling the city. But the actual trial of Shareef Abdelhaleem the first adult to be tried in the so-called Toronto 18 case seems curiously anticlimactic.
[Dawn] US Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrook, said that the United States is ready to review the new screening regime instituted at US airports.
Egypt's Al-Ahram reported Saturday that Iran was being prevented from developing staggering nuclear capabilities by Israel's Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, whom the paper dubbed "Israel's superman". 
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Friday warned Israel against further strikes on the Gaza Strip, according to an Israel Radio report.
