[The Nation (Nairobi)] Fazul Abdullah Mohammed had more than 10 fake names and, was said to be able to disguise himself as either an African, an Arab or Asian depending on circumstances.
Although he was said to have been born in Comoros, he lived in Mombasa in SabaSaba area for several years before his name was linked to the August 7, 1998 twin bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
Those who know him said he dressed casually and liked wearing baseball caps. He spoke French, Swahili, Arabic, English and Comoran and he was said to be a computer wizard.
The US State Department had put a reward of US $5 million (Sh425 million) for his arrest in connection with his involvement in 1998 bombings and the 2002 attack of the Israeli-owned hotel in at Kikambala in Kilifi District that happened simultaneously with the aborted attempt to down an Israeli airline at Moi International Airport, Mombasa.
How lovely -- more reward money that needn't be spent, since he's dead. At this rate the federal deficit isn't going to be a problem after all.
His other aliases included Abdallah Fazul, Abdalla Fazul, Abdallah Mohammed Fazul, Fazul Abdilahi Mohammed, Fazul Adballah, Fazul Abdalla, Fazul Mohammed, Harun, Haroon Fazul, Harun Fazul, Fadil Abdallah Muhamad, Fadhil Haroun, Abu Seif Al Sudani, Abu Aisha, Abu Luqman, Fadel Abdallah, Mohammed Ali and Fouad Mohammed.
Stopped by a Pakistani passport shop during his peregrinations, did he?
And despite the millions of dollars offered by the US Government for his arrest, Fazul had managed to evade arrest on numerous occasions by dramatically escaping from anti-terror dragnets in different parts of the world.
Here in Kenya, he evaded arrest more than three times. In 2002 he was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock by police in Mombasa but was released under mysterious circumstances.
In 2008, the terror runawaybeat feet the anti-terror dragnet twice in two weeks in Mombasa and Malindi.
The police had planned a normal search at a house near Sabasaba without knowing that the terror suspect was holed up in the building.
This was one week after he managed to evade arrest at a police road block along the Mombasa-Malindi road.
During the incident, the anti-terror police stopped a van he was driving near Kijipwa Police Station on suspicion it was carrying Fazul.
Fazul was coming from Malindi with his wife and a friend. The police, however, mistook him (Fazul) for a known holy man and let him pass the police roadblock.
Fazul is also said to have beat feet numerous air strikes in Somalia targeting him and other Al Qaeda operatives believed to be holed up in the war torn Horn of Africa country.
In 2007, he not only managed to escape from the US air strikes but also ensured that his family that included his wife and children arrived safely in Kenya where they were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock and briefly jugged before being flown to Comoros.
Fazul was believed to have a direct line with the late al Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden ... who no longer has to waste time and energy breathing... himself.
He was al Qaeda's top trainer and fixer and he was tied to numerous al Qaeda businesses and charity organisations in East Africa region.
Apart from being proficient at obtaining and producing forged documents, he was also said to be an accomplished bomb-builder and was involved in building the Nairobi embassy bomb in 1998 and the Kikambala bomb in 2002.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] A top Pak official has told TOLOnews that he calls the Taliban 'tyrants' and identifies them as hired murderers.
Pakistain's Interior Minister Rahman Malik stressed the need for joint combat against terrorism at the sideline of talks between Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... and Pak President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... and Pak Premier Yosuf Raza Gilani.
I want to tell the people of Afghanistan let's together launch a joint fight against cut-throats who are against peace and stability in Pakistain and Afghanistan, Pak Interior Minister Rahman Malik told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pound, Zebulon finally found just the friend he'd been looking for... Hina Rabbani Khar Pakistain's State Minister for Foreign Affairs told TOLOnews that Pakistain is prepared to act honestly for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
Pakistain and Afghanistan should act like two brothers against their common enemy, Rahman Malik said.
If there is peace in Afghanistan, the situation in Pakistain will also go better. Security in both nations depends on joint cooperation between the two nations. We should fight against our common enemy, Rahman Malik said.
Hina Rabbani Khar told TOLOnews that a peaceful Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistain.
I would like to assure you that Pak government will not only consider and study suggestions from Afghan government based on mutual interests, but it will also take concrete measures, Hina Rabbani Khar said. Now it's up to Afghanistan to make clear what type of cooperation it wants from Pakistain.
She said formation of joint commission for peace and stability between Afghanistan and Pakistain is a vital step taken in the path to peace in Afghanistan.
Pakistain would be the first to suffer if there was no peace and stability in Afghanistan, she said.
Pakistain is immensely believed to play a crucial role in Afghan peace efforts considering the country's knowledge of cut-throats mainly sheltered in lawless Northern and Southern regions.
During his last visit to Kabul Pak Premier Yosuf Raza Gilani insisted that Pakistain should be considered as part of the solution, not the problem.
The Americans are angry, and angry Americans are unwilling to part with all that lovely money.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Diplomats say Sudan's leader has agreed to pull its troops out of the disputed Abyei border region before July 9.
Tensions between Khartoum and south Sudan flared after northern forces occupied the fertile Abyei region on May 21. The north has refused calls from the US, the UN and southern officials to withdraw.
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, "has agreed to pull his troops out before July 9, with Ethiopia sending two battalions as peacekeepers. They will be deployed under the UN flag", one diplomat, who asked not to be named, said.
South Sudan is due to secede on July 9, but the split with north Sudan has been complicated by unresolved questions such as how to share oil revenues and the exact position of the common border.
Fighting has also continued for nearly a week between the northern army and south-aligned gangs in the northern oil state of Southern Kordofan, which borders the south.
Southerners voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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The United Arab Emirates Sunday recognised the National Transitional Council in Benghazi of the rebels battling to oust Muammar Gaddafi, the official WAM news agency reported.
The decision to recognise the NTC as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people was announced by Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan, who said the UAE would soon open a provisional office in Benghazi.
The NTC has, in practice, become the representative of Libya and the Libyan people. Therefore, the United Arab Emirates will create relations with it at government level in all questions concerning Libya, the minister said.
The UAE move comes after a meeting in Abu Dhabi of the contact group on Libya. The federation becomes the 12th nation to recognise the NTC, after Australia, Britain, France, Gambia, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Qatar, Senegal, Spain and the United States.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says Tehran is prepared to present its plan for resolving Bahrain's crisis whenever Manama announces its readiness.
In his presser on June 7, Iran's President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad said Tehran would present a plan to resolve Bahrain's problems when "certain conditions are met."
"We are holding various talks [with different parties]," Salehi told Fars News Agency on the sidelines of the second International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Tehran on Sunday.
Anti-government protests against the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain began in mid-February.
On March 14, Soddy Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed troops to the country to help Bahraini forces suppress nationwide protests.
Scores of people have been killed and many more incarcerated in the Saudi-backed crackdown on peaceful protests in Bahrain -- a longtime ally of the US and home to a huge military base of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.
Commenting on US sanctions against Iranian military and security officials, Salehi said Iran's Majlis has taken measures in this regard and announced the names of a number of Western officials who have committed different crimes such as drug trafficking.
Earlier in May, Majlis imposed sanctions against 26 American officials who have a history of rights violation.
The blacklisted officials include the commander of US forces in Iraq General Raymond T. Odierno, former FBI chief Thomas J. Pickard and the former commander of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Geoffrey D. Miller.
Current Guantanamo commander Rear Admiral Jeffery Harbeson and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are also among the blacklisted officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
See also SPACEWAR > IRAN PREPS MEHDI ARMY [Moqtada Sadr] FOR GULF OPS [terror?].
IMO most likely to occur once the US begins its phased troops' withdrawals.
#3
DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > WIKILEAKS: US QUIETLY EXPANDING ITS MILITARY TIES WID SAUDIS, on a vast scale. Importance of Stability + Security of Saudi Arabia to US interests in ME, Gulf Regions cannot be understated.
Secret documents relating to a "major Islamist plot" have shown that security staff from a leading university have been filming students on campus as a method of monitoring potential extremists.
OMG!!! A nefarious plot!!!1!!11!
More than 200 university documents -- along with material from the Met's counter-terrorism command, Special Branch and the Crown Prosecution Service -- reveal the controversial techniques being used to monitor students.
Waterboarding? Breaking into their rooms to bug their laptops?? Reading their texts??!?!?!?
The documents, published today [June 11] on the website Unileaks, follows the government's publication of its Prevent strategy, aimed at targeting radicalisation in universities but has fueled concerns that it could encourage Islamophobia.
The material charts the results of the May 2008 arrest by counter-terrorism officers of Nottingham student Rizwaan Sabir and of Hicham Yezza, who worked at the university's school of modern languages.
Sabir had downloaded an al-Qaida training manual as part of research for a dissertation, and had sought Yezza's help in drafting a PhD proposal because of his position as the editor of Ceasefire, a political magazine.
Although campaigners say the manual was available in the university's own library and that versions are widely available from retailers, university officials alerted the police. Both men were released without charge six days later.
Even so, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the arrests were mentioned in a report, cited by the Home Office, called Islamist Terrorist Plots in Great Britain: Uncovering the Global Network.
They also reveal how the security staff kept a log of Middle East-related activities on campus, including records of talks and seminars revolving around Palestine and other issues.
A wise move, given current realities.
A spokesman for Nottingham University, whose security officials filmed a demonstration against the arrests last month, rejected the idea that the university secretly filmed students on campus. He said students were fully aware of the procedure and that security staff were often filmed themselves.
Staff and students who spoke out in support of Yezza and Sabir were logged by a Whitehall counter-terrorism unit called the Research, Information and Communications Unit, which is embedded in the government's Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. Shami Chakrabarti, director of pressure group Liberty, said: "Is it right that universities are taking on policing duties?"
Do they want their universities to continue to be hotbeds of radicalization and terror recruitment? Or do they want to be a force for education and training for the benefit of both the students and society?
Last month, Nottingham University lecturer Dr Rod Thornton was suspended for writing an article critical of the university's treatment of Sabir.
In a paper prepared for the British International Studies Association, he alleged the university "refused to apologise to the men" and attempted to smear them.
"Untruth piled on untruth until a point was reached where the Home Office itself farcically came to advertise the case as a 'major Islamist plot'," he wrote.
The university responded by suspending Thornton, who lectures on security issues and is a former infantryman who served in Northern Ireland. That prompted an international outcry in which 67 academics, including Noam Chomsky, demanded his "immediate reinstatement". The group claimed the original arrests were "indicative of a growing tide of Islamophobia".
#2
The university responded by suspending Thornton, who lectures on security issues and is a former infantryman who served in Northern Ireland. That prompted an international outcry in which 67 academics, including Noam Chomsky, demanded his "immediate reinstatement".
Well if Noam Chomsky is peeved at the university, you can bet that they did the right thing.
#3
IIRC, post-Osama "interim" Al-Qaeda Leader SAIF ADEL has vowed to launch major terror attacks on LONDON = UK.
2011-2020/2025 = PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION = EXPANSION, ESCALATION OF VIOLENT JIHAD = US + UK, other Allied Top Leaders = Families are at high risk of becom victims to Terrops.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez underwent unscheduled surgery for a pelvic abscess in Cuba and will remain on the Caribbean island for several days to recover, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said.
"Behold, a god who bleeds!"
Chavez, who had been recovering from a knee injury sustained on May 10 before traveling to Brazil, Ecuador and Cuba this week, had tests that revealed the abscess during his official visit to the socialist nation and was operated on yesterday, Maduro said on state television, citing an official statement.
The knee surgery is a month removed in time from the pelvic surgery. Less likely they're related.
Diagnostic exams revealed the existence of the pelvic abscess which prompted the immediate decision from Chavez to proceed with surgery, the statement said.
The diagnostic exam was likely a CT. If it were a simple abscess he could have that handled in Caracas. Venezuelan medicine for the wealthy is pretty good and Hugo as the Chief Thug would get the best. Cuban medicine for the Castro boys is decent, but Fidel (for example) required a Spanish surgeon. So this was something more than a simple abscess.
The operation was satisfactory and Chavez has begun the recovery process in company of his family, doctors and part of his cabinet. His medical team believes that in a few days the president will be in a condition to return safely to Venezuela.
If he doesn't we'll know something is seriously wrong.
During his foreign visits this week Chavez used a small metal crutch to walk to relieve pressure on his knee.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
06/13/2011 1:03 Comments ||
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#4
Not much trust in his own doctors
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/13/2011 2:09 Comments ||
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#5
A part of me is hoping that the legendary (lack of) quality control for which the Cuban "universal" health care system is known will manifest itself in this case. Does that make me a bad person?
Posted by: Mike ||
06/13/2011 8:24 Comments ||
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#6
so, at least one person believed Moore's propaganda film?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2011 8:46 Comments ||
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#7
pelvic abscess
Obviously an extreme case of cranial rectal insertion to get that deep.
#9
Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
All the boys in the newsroom got a running bet...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/13/2011 9:08 Comments ||
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#10
Just to be on the safe side he is having a sex change. His Al Qaeda brethren were caught because their disguise was incomplete. He is also changing his name to Chauvet because everyone knows the odd are from France(Coneheads). I think the virginity test will be foregone also(agents request I believe).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/13/2011 17:18 Comments ||
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#15
Ah Moose, your pic reminds me of the old days working at San Francisco General's Mission Emergency. Radiology doc had a rather extensive portfolio of OMG x-rays.
[An Nahar] Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted party clinched a record landslide in Sunday's parliamentary polls but appeared short of the two-thirds majority it needs to rewrite the constitution, unofficial results showed.
That's something, anyway, though they are fond offsetting numerical disadvantage by intimidating -- and arresting en masse - the opposition.
With more than 95 percent of the vote counted, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) was leading with 50.3 percent of the vote for a third straight win, according to results on CNN Turk television.
It was the party's highest electoral score since it came to power in 2002.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was second with 25.9 percent, followed by the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) with 13.1 percent.
The AKP got enough parliamentary seats to once again form the government on its own, but appeared to fall just short of the 330-seat majority in the 550-member parliament it was seeking to unilaterally amend the constitution, the legacy of a 1980 military coup.
It was set to win 325 seats, according to CNN Turk.
Thousands of ecstatic supporters gathered outside AKP offices in Ankara, dancing and singing, as the refrain of the party's election song "Come on, once more!" blared from loudspeakers.
"Turkey is proud of you," they chanted, referring to Erdogan.
More than 50 million people were eligible to vote, out of a population of some 73 million.
The AKP owes its enduring popularity mostly to economic success and improved public services following years of financial instability that haunted Turkey under shaky coalition governments in the past.
Under the AKP, the economy grew by 8.9 percent in 2010, outpacing global recovery, and per capita income has doubled to $10,079.
His economic credits aside, Erdogan -- once the driving force of EU-sought reforms -- has come under fire for autocratic tendencies and growing intolerance of criticism.
With dozens of journalists in jail, the opposition is alarmed also over creeping restrictions on the Internet and an unprecedented outbreak of compromising wiretaps and videos of opposition figures circulating online.
Sex tapes forced 10 top MHP members to quit the election race, following a similar scandal last year that saw the veteran CHP leader resign.
Led by a popular new chairman, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the secularist center-left CHP built its election campaign on pledges of democratic reform, arguing the AKP is turning Turkey into a "police state".
"Enough is enough. We are fed up with intimidation. I want a country where I can live without fear," Meryem, a teacher in her 40s, said in Ankara's upscale district of Cankaya after casting a vote for the CHP.
Erdogan has promised a more liberal constitution but has refused to specify what the overhaul would entail, fanning speculation with his advocacy of a presidential system for Turkey -- presumably with himself at the helm.
The AKP needs at least 330 seats to amend the constitution without support from other parties and put it to a referendum.
A two-thirds majority of 367 seats would enable the party to pass the amendments unilaterally.
Kurdish-backed candidates running as independents to circumvent the 10-percent national threshold were expected to win up to 35 seats, according to the partial results.
Violence marred voting in Ankara, where opposition supporters attacked AKP members over an alleged attempt to sneak fake ballots papers into a polling station, Anatolia news agency reported.
Police fired shots in the air to end the melee and put the AKP members on a bus as enraged opposition supporters pelted the vehicle with stones, Anatolia said, adding that 14 people were jugged.
In the mainly Kurdish city of Batman, police jugged another 34 people on charges they threatened voters to support nationalist Kurdish candidates.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
If the AKP wins ~325, it will have fewer seats than it did after the 2002 vote (~360) or after the 2007 vote (~340).
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
06/13/2011 19:58 Comments ||
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During the probe, accused Abdul Razzaq said that he had been residing in Frontier Colony for the last many years and worked for the TTP Punjab group. He was trained in Wana in Waziristan under the command of Waliullah Mehsud.
He said that he was sent to Karachi and assigned to recruit young boys in the organization and to train them as bombers. Moreover, he was also assigned to kill people who had differences in religion, commit kidnappings for ransom and robberies to generate funds for the organization and the entire stolen money he had sent to Wali Mehsud in Waziristan. It was also disclosed by Razzaq that he had sent many young boys to Waziristan to be trained as bombers.
Moreover, during the year 2009 he sent six teenage boys, Ibadullah of Jamia Islamia, Mohammed Arif, Abdul Qadeer, Ali, Waqar and Arshad to Waziristan. During their training period, a drone attack took place on the training camp in Waziristan in which Ibadullah, Arif, Abdul Qadeer and Ali were killed, while Waqar and Arshad were injured. They were later sent back to Karachi for treatment.
#2
How do we cut off the supply line from Pakistan as the Pak Army/ISI are not interested.They are making money out of the war and hoping US goes bankrupt!
[Dawn] Leon Panetta, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, left Islamabad on Saturday morning after a meeting with Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... and ISI head Gen Shuja Pasha, but without a deal on resetting the relationship between the spy agencies.
Mr Panetta, who arrived on Friday evening, did not meet anyone other than the Kayani-Pasha duo who he met at the Army House over dinner and discussed what was described by the ISPR as "framework for future intelligence sharing".
Mr Panetta's departure without routine calls on President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... was seen by observers here as a sign of stalemate in his discussions with the military leadership. According to sources, Mr Panetta was surprised by the rigidity shown by the military, which went to the extent of even declining an offer by Washington of security assistance.
But government officials insisted that unlike in the past this time he was not scheduled to meet anyone else.
While Gen Kayani had even before his visit made it clear that the Army would not allow the CIA to carry out independent operations and that any future intelligence cooperation would be reciprocal and transparent, Mr Panetta did little to pacify Pak generals and instead confronted them with "evidence of collusion with Talibs".
This, a source claimed, would further sour the relationship which had already been under strain since the start of this year and got worse after the May 2 Abbottabd raid on the late Osama bin Laden's ... who is no longer with us, and won't be again... compound.
According to US media reports, Mr Panetta shared with the military leadership video and satellite imagery of snuffies leaving two bomb-making factories in Wazoo after allegedly having been tipped off about a raid.
The US reportedly shared the information with Pakistain last week, asking it to take action against the two sites. But Mr Panetta alleged at the meeting that the information was leaked within 24 hours of sharing and by the time the raiding teams reached those places, the snuffies had melted away.
A defense source said the CIA chief, who is set to take over as the next US defense secretary, reportedly used this as an instance to tell the army and intelligence chiefs why America distrusted Pak military establishment and needed to have its own independent operations inside the country to deal with Al Qaeda and Taliban.
Efforts to get a version from official sources in Islamabad did not bear fruit.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
PAK has repor told Panetta it expects the US to abide by its troop withdrawal plans.
* INDIAN DEFENCE > CIA HAS CREDIBLE EVIDENCE OF PAK ISI'S LINKS WID AL-QAEDA [Militants] + CIA DIRECTOR WARNS PAKISTAN ON COLLUSION WID MILITANTS.
* SAME > [RANA trial = Chicago]]PAK INTELLIGENCE, MILITARY AT SERVICE OF LeT.
* SAME > US SENATOR [Cronym]: LeT, CHINA THE GRAVEST SECURITY THREAT TO INDIA + USA.
#2
Mr Panetta was surprised by the rigidity shown by the military
Jeez, I could have told him that. The only language they speak is carrot ($) and stick (India). I say stick it to 'em.
[Dawn] Two of the five foreigners killed by security forces in Kharotabad last month on suspicion of being jacket wallahs were identified on Saturday by a Tajik couple as their son and daughter-in-law.
The couple, who visited the mortuary of the Bolan Medical Complex to recognise the bodies, was accompanied by a Tajik diplomat.
They filed an application with the police surgeon of the hospital, requesting him to hand over the two bodies. They said the bodies would be buried in a Quetta graveyard on Sunday.
PPI adds: The couple had arrived here from Tajikistan earlier in the day. Their son was identified as Noman. He's the guy who poked the Cyclops in the eye...
Deputy Chief Protocol Sheraz Ali and officials of the Tajik Embassy were present.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD: The suggestion by a US congressman that Iraq repay the United States for the money it has spent in the country has stirred anger, with an Iraqi lawmaker ridiculing the idea as stupid and others saying Iraqis should be compensated for the hardships theyve endured.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, suggested during a trip to Baghdad with fellow lawmakers Friday that once Iraq becomes a rich and prosperous country it should repay the US.
Not only is it a dumb thing to say in public, it simply isn't going to happen.
That comment triggered outrage among an Iraqi public and political establishment that had little or no say in the US-led invasion of 2003. Iraqis are largely glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein but blame the US for the chaos and sectarian violence that followed the invasion.
They could blame themselves too, since Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd took a while -- shall we say -- to learn to get along with each other without the shooting and ethnic cleansing. They could blame al-Qaeda, Syria, Iran and a host of others. We Americans weren't perfect, and we did some stupid things, but the blame isn't all ours.
We as a government refuse such statements, and we have informed the American embassy that these congressmen are not welcome in Iraq, said government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh on Sunday.
Al-Dabbagh said the government was also upset by comments from the six-member congressional delegation about an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq.
The American lawmakers came to Iraq to investigate the deaths of 34 members of the Peoples Mujahedeen Organization of Iran during an April 8 Iraqi army raid on the groups headquarters, known as Camp Ashraf.
Seems like good riddance to bad rubbish...
The Iranian exiles were given refuge by Saddam, but have since become an irritant to Iraqs Shiite-led government, which has ties to Shiite power Iran and would like to see the group gone.
But it was Rohrabachers comments about repayment that resonated most with Iraqis who have suffered through years of war. The head of the Iraqi Parliaments foreign affairs committee, Humam Hmoudi, called his comments stupid and said it is the Iraqi people who should be demanding compensation.
This provokes us and the Iraqi people as well to demand compensations for losses Iraq suffered during the invasion, he said.
Another lawmaker from one of the main political blocs, Etab Al-Douri, called the repayment idea a humiliation. We are the ones who should ask for compensation and not them, and we demand the occupiers withdraw now, she said.
The blowup comes at a particularly sensitive time in the US-Iraq relationship. Iraq is weighing whether to ask US troops to stay in the country longer. There are currently about 47,000 American troops in Iraq, and US officials have been pushing Iraq to decide if they want a US military presence past Dec. 31.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he thinks the US would agree to staying longer in Iraq if asked.
Al-Dabbagh played down the suggestion that Rohrabachers comments would have any long-term effect on US-Iraq relations. He described Rohrabachers comments as a personal statement from a congressman who was trying to make himself famous. The US Embassy in Baghdad sought to distance itself from Rohrabachers comments. In a statement Saturday, embassy spokesman David J. Ranz said the embassy has a responsibility to host congressional visitors but that their views do not necessarily reflect those of the administration or a majority of Congress.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Dana Rohrabacher, they do not owe us for our invasion. They had no choice. If you would like nice friends in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter, then shut the hell up.
#2
I don't think the US should have to pay Iraq anything, we have spent a lot. For those trying to make money off the US, this kind of pre-empts any attempts that America will give it away freely. I'm glad it was only a low level congressman who blurted it out.
RAMALLAH, West Bank: Fatah on Sunday nominated caretaker Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to head the national unity government. Hamas promptly rejected the nomination.
Jamal Mhaisen, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, said that the partys decision-making body met late Saturday and nominated Fayyad to lead the technocratic government that will be formed in accordance with the national reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas signed early last month in Cairo.
Mhaisen hoped other Palestinian factions would accept the nomination. The Palestinian factions are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the formation of the new government.
Salah Al-Bardawil, a Hamas spokesman, said his movement will oppose the choice of Fayyad. "We will not hand over the unity government to Fayyad, who has driven the West Bank into debt," Al-Bardawil said, and added that Fayyad "is an undesirable personality for the Palestinian people."
In Saturdays meeting, Fatahs Central Committee also decided to expel onetime Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan from the movement on charges of financial corruption and murder," an official said.
The decision must now be approved by a two-thirds majority of Fatah's Revolutionary Council.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has opposed Fatah's nomination of Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... for the post of prime minister in a transitional Paleostinian government, exposing differences over implementing a Paleostinian reconciliation deal between the rival groups.
At a meeting late on Saturday, Fatah's Central Committee, the secular movement's highest decision-making body, named Fayyad, an internationally respected former World Bank economist, as its candidate for prime minister.
But on Sunday, two days before talks with Fatah in Egypt on cabinet staffing were due to begin, Salah al-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official, said: "It is certain that we will not accept Fayyad, neither as a prime minister of the unity government nor as a minister in it."
Bardaweel accused Fayyad of co-operating with Israel's blockade of the Gazoo Strip. He said that Fayyad, as prime minister, shared responsibility for the arrest of Hamas leaders and members in the West Bank in recent years.
Asked whether Hamas's rejection of Fayyad would hinder reconciliation, Bardaweel stopped short of declaring the deal dead but he cautioned against any cabinet nomination that would be seen by any side as a provocation.
Internationally respected Jamal Mhesen, a Fatah Central Committee member, said Fatah wanted a prime minister who could attract international support - a leader "whose job would be to end the blockade of Gazoo, not to cause a blockade in the West Bank, too".
Supporters of Fayyad, an independent, say his standing abroad is an asset to the Paleostinians in ensuring the continued flow of international aid and in pursuing a bid for UN statehood recognition in September.
But Israel has said the reconciliation agreement signed in April is an obstacle to reviving US-sponsored peace talks with the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , the Paleostinian president and Fatah leader, whose forces lost control of the Gazoo Strip to Hamas in fighting in 2007.
Under the unity deal, Hamas and Fatah agreed to set up an interim government of technocrats, or ministers who are not members of any political movement, in the run-up to elections within a year.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called on Abbas to tear up the agreement with Hamas, which has rejected Israeli and Western demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace deals signed by the Fatah-led Paleostine Liberation Organisation in the 1990s.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The central committee of the Fatah party led by Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has voted to expel strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah official said on Sunday.
A committee member, speaking to Agence La Belle France Presse, said the movement was expelling Dahlan over allegations of corruption and murder, and recommending his case be referred to the attorney general.
"The Fatah central committee decided to expel the central committee member Mohammed Dahlan from the movement on charges of financial corruption and murder," the official said, without giving further details.
The decision came after an internal Fatah inquiry into allegations against the former strongman, and the committee voted to expel him with 13 voting in favor, six abstaining and no votes against, the official said.
The decision must now be approved by a two-thirds majority of Fatah's revolutionary council.
"The central committee decided to transfer Dahlan's file, which includes corruption and crimes mentioned in the inquiry commission's report... to the appropriate authorities," the official said.
The body also voted to authorize the committee that investigated Dahlan to extend their inquiry to include individuals with ties to him.
Dahlan, a former minister of internal security and ex-chief of the Gazoo Strip's once powerful security force, was once a leading figure in the mainstream Fatah movement.
He is known for his fierce opposition to the Islamist movement Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, which now rules Gazoo.
Dahlan led a merciless crackdown on the group in the 1990s, rounding up thousands of Islamists who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the newly created Paleostinian Authority.
Once considered a U.S. protege, Dahlan fell from grace after the humiliating rout of his forces by Hamas fighters in June 2007 in Gazoo. But he returned to the political stage in August 2009 when he was elected to Fatah's central committee.
In December, however, the Fatah central committee announced it had suspended Dahlan while a commission of inquiry examined his finances and claims he tried to set up a personal militia.
In April, the Paleostinian mission in Algeria condemned an "liquidation attempt" against ambassador Hocine Abdelkhalek, accusing Dahlan of having instigated the attack by three men armed with knives and sticks.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
They could prolly overlook the murder, a fairly trifling thing, but messin' with the sacred boodle - simply not acceptable...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/13/2011 9:20 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] A political analyst says the recent unrest in Syria has been the result of wicked US and Israeli policies and the Turkish government executes such policies in the Arab nation.
Political analyst in Middle East affairs Hadi Mohammadi told Fars News Agency on Sunday that Ankara is playing a double game -- claiming to support the Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... government in order to have greater influence in the Middle East, while at the same time supporting and providing a safe haven for armed gangs seeking to incite revolt in Syria.
He noted that the United States has now formed operational headquarters in southern Turkey close to the border with Syria to direct the riots in the Arab country after its attempts to cause unrest in southern Syria were unsuccessful.
Mohammadi said that the United States has assigned Turkey to carry out its anti-Syria plan. It has hence provided aid to the Turkish Army to assist Syrian dissidents in crossing into Turkey and settle in tent villages set up in Turkey's Hatay Province.
Hundreds of people, including security forces, have been killed during festivities in Syria since the beginning of unrest in the country in mid-March.
The shadowy opposition accuses security forces of being behind the killings. But, the government blames armed gangs for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... has vowed to bring those behind the killings to justice as several members of armed terrorist groups have been locked away so far.
The detainees have confessed to receiving weapons and money from foreign organizations to kill Syrian civilians and security forces and create chaos in the country.
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06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] U.S. sources have informed caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. about a plan to assassinate him in Beirut, "which was supposed to be carried out in May," Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported.
In a report to be published Monday, the newspaper said the U.S. warnings to Hariri "coincided with similar warnings from the Saudi and French authorities."
Al-Rai noted that Washington, Gay Paree and several capitals in the region have been following up on surveillance operations conducted by parties in Leb since August 2010 to track Hariri's movements, adding that these capitals have urged the Lebanese leader to be extremely careful while traveling in Leb.
"Surveillance operations were carried out to track Hariri's convoy as it passed along the (Beirut) airport road, and sometimes at the airport itself," the newspaper quoted the U.S. sources as saying.
The U.S. sources advised Hariri "to stay outside Leb during this period to avoid political and security traps," according to Al-Rai.
"The U.S. administration always expects the worse, especially during periods of domestic and regional tensions," the sources added, noting that "when the events in Syria had started to deteriorate day after day, ... the indications pointing out that an liquidation operation against Hariri was being plotted increased in an unprecedented manner."
In this regard, the newspaper quoted a U.S. official as saying that "after the U.S. intelligence agencies unveiled the liquidation attempt previously scheduled for May, and after the intelligence agencies of the friendly countries confirmed the presence of such a plan," officials in Washington started to "try to figure out the possible political motivations behind the plot to murder Hariri."
According to the same official, Washington believes that the liquidation of Saad Hariri is apt to "turn the tables in Leb, as well as in the region, and turning the tables at the moment is in the interest of Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... 's regime, which is struggling for survival in the face of the popular uprising."
As to how Assad could benefit from assassinating a non-Syrian figure behind Syria's borders, the newspaper quoted U.S. sources involved in the aforementioned political evaluations as saying that murdering Hariri is apt to "lead to full-blown sectarian chaos and tensions in Leb, and consequently a Sunni-Shiite confrontation which Assad would use as an excuse in his bid to militarily quell the popular revolt in Syria."
The same sources told the newspaper that "Assad has asked Hizbullah to ignite the south Leb front and launch a war against Israel, but Hizbullah does not feel that it is in trouble like its ally Assad, and hence does not see the need to engage in a vicious war with Israel that would not guarantee the survival of the Syrian president's regime."
But, according to the U.S. sources, Hizbullah is "willing to engage in a Lebanese civil war, as it knows in advance that it will emerge as the strongest party in it."
Such a war "is apt to deviate the world's attention from what's happening in Syria," the sources added.
Al-Rai quotes another U.S. official as saying that "Assad needs another operation similar to the May 7, 2008 operation, during which Hizbullah conquered its rivals in Leb, and murdering Saad Hariri is the only available means at the moment for the Syrian regime to ignite a major inferno, which it believes the international community will beg it to douse."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Asif Ali 
Mahmoud 
Wazoo
[An Nahar] The central committee of the Fatah party led by Paleostinian President 
A political analyst says the recent unrest in Syria has been the result of wicked US and Israeli policies and the Turkish government executes such policies in the Arab nation.
President-for-Life Bashir 
President-for-Life Bashir 
