(AKI) - The former imam of the northern Italian city of Varese, Abdelmajid Zergout, has been sentenced to five years in prison for a series of suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca in 2003. Forty-five people were killed - including 12 suicide bombers - in several attacks which occurred in the Moroccan city in May 2003. The bombings were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country's history.
In April 2008, nine people were convicted over the bombings and one of them was sentenced to death, while six others received life imprisonment. According to media reports, prosecutors had been seeking a 30-year sentence during the trial that took place in Rabat. Among the charges, the former imam was accused of "founding a criminal gang to undermine public security".
Zergout had already faced two trials in Italy on charges that he founded the Moroccan group and was extradited to stand trial in Morocco after facing judges in a Milan appeals court. The former imam is married with three children.
This article starring:
Abdelmajid Zergout
al-Qaeda in Europe
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Forty-five people were killed - including 12 suicide bombers - in several attacks which occurred in the Moroccan city in May 2003.
In my opinion, this should read: 33 people were killed. In addition, 12 subhumans also died.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/31/2009 21:15 Comments ||
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Bangladesh has imposed travel restrictions on people suspected of war crimes, the Bangladeshi interior minister said on Friday, as the new government prepared to put them on trial over atrocities committed during the 1971 war that led to the country's creation.
Sahara Khatun's statement came a day after parliament unanimously adopted a proposal for speedy trials of war criminals in line with an election pledge by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who took power this month.
"My ministry has already ordered concerned authorities to guard all points so that no war criminal can flee the country," Khatun told reporters.
The war criminals include people who opposed the creation of Bangladesh. Around 3 million people were killed during the war, according to official records in Bangladesh. Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's founding leader and first president, launched a move for trying the war criminals but it stalled after he was killed in a 1975 army coup.
No successor government initiated the trials but Hasina said she would pursue the guilty if her party was voted back to power.
"All relevant information about the war criminals has already been sent to the respective places," Khatun said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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The US and Europe are among the most threatened by jihadists following Israel's recent operations in Gaza.
IntelCenter's "Gaza Response: Analysis of Jihadist Statements & Threatened Targets v1.0 - 30 Jan. 2009" report illustrates how developments in one part of the world can significantly increase the threat level faced by countries not directly involved.
Since there is a well-established correlation between changes in threat messaging and where attacks are executed, especially for groups in the al-Qaeda orbit, there is a significant level of increased risk faced by those targets identified in this report. Twenty-three out of 53 statements issued by jihadists on Gaza included threats. The US was the target of 46.7% of the threats while Israel came in at 30% and Europe 10%. Israel's withdrawal of forces is unlikely to have a significant calming effect and the motivation for retaliatory strikes will remain high for the forseeable future. Terrorist planning for large-scale events occurs over a period of month and years, not weeks. The impact of this planning cycle is that retaliatory attacks are likely to occur long after the most recent fighting in Gaza has been forgotten in the West but will still be fresh in the minds of jihadists.
Full report: http://www.intelcenter.com/GazaResponse-v1-0-30Jan2009.pdf
#1
wow. knock me down with a feather another tequila. They're targetting us?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/31/2009 20:43 Comments ||
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#2
They are already doing their worst possible.
How worst that sending your own children to blow
themselves up can you possibly do...
Now, they're down to empty threats.
Until we allow them nukes...
Then, upwind from a major city, a dirty bomb
will explode in an old freighter tramp ship, sickening, killing millions.
Nothing we can do about any of this, but hang
their enablers, the leftards that voted
the magic negro in...
Posted by: Ming the Merciless ||
01/31/2009 21:36 Comments ||
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#3
Well, now that CAIR has finally been jettisoned by the FBI (long over due), the Holy Land Foundation shut down, will the HAMAS support apparatus begin what they have not yet done in the USA...take violent action?
#4
I doubt it. Th epublic is far from fat,dum, and complacent, which is their prime seeding ground. If they stir up shit now, they will meet zero sympathy among the populace (regardless of the roll-over-and-beg attitude now in the Executive gov't branch). People are pissed, and not willing to tolerant shit IMHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/31/2009 21:56 Comments ||
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Four soldiers were killed and eight injured when an army convoy was attacked with a remote-controlled bomb in Malakand, a private TV channel reported on Friday. The channel said security forces cordoned off the area after the attack, which occurred in Jalala area of Malakand.
Swat: Six persons were killed as the military operation in Swat continued on the sixth day. The forces continued pounding Taliban hideouts in several areas of Chaharbagh tehsil, including Coat and Darul Uloom. Troops advanced into the valley and consolidated their positions in Matta and Manglawar areas of the district.
The curfew in Sangota, Koozabandai, Darra Bandai, Nangoi and parts of Shakardara also continued on Friday.
Education: A private TV channel said Swat Taliban chief Maulvi Fazlullah had 'permitted' education for girls in the valley up to the fourth grade.
Also on Friday, the security forces in Bajaur Agency blew up the house of a Taliban commander, Umar Sheikh, in the agency's Nawagai tehsil, sources said. The forces continued pounding Taliban hideouts in Sparay, Gataki and Rawishah areas of Mamoond tehsil.
Meanwhile, officials of Peshawar's Yakatoot police station arrested two suspected terrorists from the Ring Road area, sources told Daily Times on Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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(AKI) - Pakistani security forces on Friday continued an operation against militants in various parts of the troubled Swat valley in the country's North West Frontier Province. One person was killed and two others injured in the town of Charbagh after they violated a curfew that has entered its sixth day, reports quoted security forces as saying.
The curfew remains in place in Charbagh, Sangot, Manglore, Kozabandai and Darra Banka areas reports said.
Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani pledged on Wednesday to restore government control of the Swat valley, which is currently controlled by Taliban militants in an Islamist insurgency that began there two years ago.
The Taliban have established their own writ in Swat with a parallel system that includes courts, police and even a electric power-distribution network and road construction.
A Taliban bombing and arson campaign has also forced hundreds of private schools to close in a campaign to end education for girls in the district. The Taliban claim education for girls is un-Islamic. Nany CD shops and barbers' salons have been set ablaze.
Hundreds of people have died in battles between troops and militants in Swat, a mountainous region of the NWFP which until two years ago was a popular tourist area.
Civilians deaths are frequently reported in the violence. The Taliban linked militant leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah's men are accused of killing dozens of state employees and government supporters.
Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari, also vowed this week to curb militancy in Swat and prevent the Taliban from setting up its own courts. His pledge came as security forces on Wednesday found eight bullet-ridden bodies in Swat's main town of Mingora on Wednesday.
Pakistan rejects western accusations that its security forces are not doing enough to clamp down on the upsurge of militancy in Swat and other areas of the Northwest which United States believes is a haven for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.
More than 1,500 people have been killed in a huge surge of militant attacks across Pakistan over the last year and a half, waged by militants opposed to the government's support for the so-called US-led war on terror prosecuted by former president George W. Bush.
The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, will make his first trip to the region next week, the US State Department said on Thursday.
US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of strategy in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Iraqi police banned vehicles from Mosul's streets on Friday ahead of Saturday's election, which is the first in three years. Voters go to poll on Saturday to select members of ruling provincial councils here and in most of the country. As a sign of the tension, Mosul residents to stay at home until they are ready to vote the following day. Similar bans were not due to take effect in the rest of the country until late Friday. The measures in Mosul were imposed the day after gunmen assassinated a local Sunni candidate.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: A ban on vehicles was announced in the city of Karbala on Friday evening on the eve of the country's local elections, an official source in the province said.
"The ban will be effective as of Friday evening until 10:00 a.m. Saturday (Jan. 31) with the exception of vehicles carrying special badges including journalists'," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
"The ban is part of a security plan in preparation for the provincial council elections that are due to start at 07:00 a.m. Saturday (Jan. 31)," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: Security forces seized a weapons cache in an abandoned house in Falluja on Friday, the city's police chief said.
"A joint force from the 6th Emergency Contingent and the Falluja Police Department seized on Friday (Jan. 30) arms and munitions inside an uninhabited house in the area of Amiriyat al-Falluja based on intelligence tip-offs," Col. Mahmoud al-Issawi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
"The cache contained 11 mortar shells, 13 improvised explosive devices with detonation wires, 24 RPG-7 shells, target-setting field maps, BKC bandoliers and four Kalashnikov assault rifles," Issawi said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: A ban will be imposed on vehicles all over Thi-Qar as part of tight security measures to protect the course of the local voting process on Saturday while Iraq's Independent Higher Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced the start of electoral silence and removal of all electoral banners and stickers, a police official in the province said on Friday.
"The ban will be imposed all over Thi-Qar as of 10:00 p.m. today (Jan. 30) until Saturday (Jan. 31)," Brig. Rasoul Khayoun al-Jabiri, the province's police assistant chief, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Provincial council elections are scheduled to be held in 14 Iraqi provinces on Saturday (Jan. 31).
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: Policemen on Friday clashed with four gunmen suspected of killing a candidate in Mandili district, eastern Baaquba, shooting down one of them and arresting three others, a Diala security source said. "Police forces clashed with four gunmen in a house in the village of Muhammad Malih, south of Mandili district, (55 km) north of Baaquba, arresting three of them and killing a fourth who declined to surrender," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
An official security source in Diala told Aswat al-Iraq earlier on Friday that an armed group suspected of affiliation to al-Qaeda network had intercepted during a late hour of Thursday (Jan. 29) Abbas Farhan, a candidate from the Reform & Development bloc, in a village in Mandili, where he was campaigning, and opened fire at him, killing him instantly along with his brother and cousin who were escorting him.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: A gunman who shot down a U.S. soldier and wounded another in the district of Baiji was killed by U.S. army fire on Friday, a police source said. "A gunman from Baiji opened fire on Friday afternoon at U.S. soldiers who were standing in front of al-Rifaie school, which is used as a voting center, in the central part of the district, (35 km) north of Tikrit city, killing one of them and injuring another," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The U.S. soldiers fired back at the gunman, killing him instantly," the source said, adding "the U.S. soldiers arrested the gunman's brother inside his house in central Baiji".
Aswat al-Iraq news agency managed to contact a source within the U.S. forces' Joint Coordination Office who said that "a gunman opened fire at the U.S. servicemen in Baiji district and the U.S. soldiers fired back and shot him down".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
#1
"Don't shoot him, you'll just make him mad."
Anybody else know where the quote's from?
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
01/31/2009 15:48 Comments ||
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#2
Mongo - Blazing Saddles
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/31/2009 15:53 Comments ||
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#3
Mongo like candy
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/31/2009 19:27 Comments ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: The Diwaniya Police Department has taken draconian security measures within preparations for the country's local elections, the department chief said on Friday. "Police forces tightened security measures to protect ballot stations and voters on Saturday (Jan. 31) as 15,000 personnel were deployed all over the province of Diwaniya," Brig. Abdelaziz al-Salihi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Enough security forces were sent to ballot stations in the province and all the roads leading to the stations with heaps of dust and barbed wires," Salihi added.
After the inclusion of those born in 1991, the number of voters in Diwaniya province reached 594,000. Candidates in the province are 888, including 238 women, from 57 political entities, six of which are coalitions, vying over 28 seats in the upcoming provincial council of Diwaniya.
Meanwhile, Hassan al-Waeli, the chief of Iraq's Independent Higher Electoral Commission (IHEC)'s office in Diwaniya, said that 10,500 employees will work in 243 election centers distributed over 1,569 stations all over the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
The idea of a free and fair election must scare the bejeebers out of these AQ and Mehdi Army types.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/31/2009 14:33 Comments ||
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Egyptian security forces arrested two armed Palestinians as they emerged from a border tunnel with the Gaza Strip on Friday, and were searching for seven others believed to have slipped into Egypt, security sources said.
"Two Palestinian smugglers were caught immediately upon exiting a tunnel in the al-Barahma area of the border between Egypt and Gaza, and they were armed," one source said.
The sources said the detained Palestinians told investigators that seven other Palestinians had entered Egypt through the tunnels earlier on Friday, and Egyptian security forces were searching the area.
For the 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip, the tunnels have become a main source of goods, including fuel, since Israel tightened its embargo after Hamas seized control of Gaza from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
Israel bombed the tunnels during its recent 22-day Gaza offensive, and its military fears Hamas could use them to re-arm. But many tunnels have sophisticated systems and seem to have survived weeks of Israeli bombardment.
Roughly 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the Gaza offensive before both sides declared an end to the fighting on Jan. 18.
While Egyptian forces frequently report finding and destroying tunnels on the border with Gaza, the tunnels are usually found empty. Arrests of Palestinians accused of smuggling or caught in the tunnels are rare.
Egypt, which has kept its Rafah border crossing with the territory largely closed, has agreed to help stop the tunnel smuggling with international technical assistance.
But no firm plan is yet in place as Israel and Hamas argue through Egyptian mediators about installing a longer term ceasefire that would meet Israel's demands for shutting off the arms supply and Hamas' demands for an easing of the blockade.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2009 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.
(AKI) - The former imam of the northern Italian city of Varese, 
(AKI) - Pakistani security forces on Friday continued an operation against militants in various parts of the troubled Swat valley in the country's North West Frontier Province. One person was killed and two others injured in the town of Charbagh after they violated a curfew that has entered its sixth day, reports quoted security forces as saying.
Aswat al-Iraq: Policemen on Friday clashed with four gunmen suspected of killing a candidate in Mandili district, eastern Baaquba, shooting down one of them and arresting three others, a Diala security source said. "Police forces clashed with four gunmen in a house in the village of Muhammad Malih, south of Mandili district, (55 km) north of Baaquba, arresting three of them and killing a fourth who declined to surrender," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Aswat al-Iraq: A gunman who shot down a U.S. soldier and wounded another in the district of Baiji was killed by U.S. army fire on Friday, a police source said. "A gunman from Baiji opened fire on Friday afternoon at U.S. soldiers who were standing in front of al-Rifaie school, which is used as a voting center, in the central part of the district, (35 km) north of Tikrit city, killing one of them and injuring another," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The U.S. soldiers fired back at the gunman, killing him instantly," the source said, adding "the U.S. soldiers arrested the gunman's brother inside his house in central Baiji".
Aswat al-Iraq: The Diwaniya Police Department has taken draconian security measures within preparations for the country's local elections, the department chief said on Friday. "Police forces tightened security measures to protect ballot stations and voters on Saturday (Jan. 31) as 15,000 personnel were deployed all over the province of Diwaniya," Brig. Abdelaziz al-Salihi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Enough security forces were sent to ballot stations in the province and all the roads leading to the stations with heaps of dust and barbed wires," Salihi added.
Egyptian security forces arrested two armed Palestinians as they emerged from a border tunnel with the Gaza Strip on Friday, and were searching for seven others believed to have slipped into Egypt, security sources said. 
