A Yemeni security team will head for Washington today to receive a number of Yemeni detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, official sources said. "The visit comes within the framework of efforts undertaken by Yemen to follow up the issues of Yemeni detainees, assess their conditions, and verify the number of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and the Bagram base," the source said.
The sources said the approval by the US administration to hand over the detainees came at Yemen's request. Yemen promised to investigate the charges against the detainees, and put those involved in terrorist acts or any other punishable crimes on trial according to Yemeni laws. "The security team will verify the identities of the Yemeni citizens and their exact numbers by comparing the documents." Earlier, Yemen demanded verification of the identities of 106 detainees on the list it had received from the United States. Earlier this month, a US judge in New York blocked the transfer of 13 inmates to Yemen for "fear they would be tortured".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Yemen said yesterday it would hand over 24 Saudi citizens wanted by Saudi Arabian authorities for various terror and security issues. "Dr Rashad Al Alimi, Minister of Interior, has sent a letter to Prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Interior of Saudi Arabia, relating to the arrangements for extradition of 24 men to Saudi Arabia during the coming few days," a state-run newspaper quoted a security official as saying. The official said the extradition of the men, who were arrested inside Yemen, comes in the framework of a security cooperation agreement signed between the two neighbouring countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2005 00:00:00 ||
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A police chief in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan escaped a roadside assassination attempt today, the regional branch of the interior ministry said. Assailants detonated an explosive device as Colonel Akhmed Magomedov, the head of the criminal police in a district of the capital, Makhachkala, was driving by. He was taken to hospital suffering from several injuries. His three bodyguards were also wounded but their lives are not in danger, Dagestani Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Musayev said. The attack is the latest in a spate of violence targeting officials in the republic. So far, 16 policemen have been killed and another 20 injured in attacks this year, according to the agency.
On Tuesday, a bomb exploded near the prosecutor's office in Makhachkala, causing minor damage but no casualties.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2005 12:21:21 AM ||
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Breaking News A cafe in Sydney's south-west has been destroyed by a large, loud explosion overnight. The blast happened just after midnight at a Panania pizza and kebab cafe on Anderson Avenue. It sent the cafe's roller door flying into the air and shattered many nearby shop windows. New South Wales Fire Brigade Superintendent Ian Krimmer says it was a massive blast. "As a result of the incident there was a subsequent fire which threatened to spread to several adjoining buildings," he said. "Fire crews were on scene within eight minutes - they had quickly contained the fire to the building origin."
He says the explosion damaged buildings 50 metres away. "There is a fair amount of debris and bricks that have fallen onto the roadway in front of this particular shop," Supt Krimmer said. The cause of the explosion is yet to be determined. Police are asking people who own businesses in the vicinity of Panania Post Office to contact Bankstown or Revesby police about securing their property.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
03/26/2005 7:22:29 PM ||
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#1
Okay, so who owns/frequents/insures the store and is there some level of mob activity in the area? Or is this going to be even more interesting than that?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/26/2005 23:31 Comments ||
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#2
South Western Sydney is the poorest and most crime ridden part of Sydney. Bankstown and surrounding areas have a big Arab population, but it sounds like a business dispute of some sort.
The area has recently also seen some violence between Serbs and Croatians, with firebombings and shootings.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/26/2005 23:48 Comments ||
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A shadowy Islamist group which claimed it carried out last week's suicide bombing in Qatar said in an Internet statement it was responsible for an oil refinery explosion in Texas that left 15 people dead. "It was a new kind of operation as we promised before," said the "Jund al-Sham Organization" (Organization of Soldiers of the Levant) in the statement posted on an Islamist Web site and dated March 24. "Jund al-Sham is able to attack with an iron fist all the enemies of Allah wherever they are," added the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified. "This operation was a big surprise, which we spoke of in other statements, and we will continue our suicide operations inside and outside America, and we will attack the economy of America as America did the economies of the Muslims," it added. The group also threatened to carry out attacks in Britain and Italy, and said these would continue "until the last soldier of the Crusaders or Jews is no longer in an Islamic country."
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has rejected claims purportedly from two Islamist groups of responsibility for Wednesday's blast, which rocked the third-biggest petrochemical complex in the United States, run by British multinational BP at Texas City. "We've found no evidence to support criminal or terrorist activity," Al Tribble, spokesman for the FBI office in Houston said Thursday. He said he did not know the names of the groups, which made the claims through e-mails. BP said the cause of the blast was still being investigated, but has ruled out terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The British government warned its citizens on Wednesday against traveling to the Philippines, saying it believed a terrorist attack was being planned for the region. "We believe that terrorists are in the final stages of planning an attack," a spokesman for the Foreign Office said, on customary condition of anonymity. Officials in Manila said Monday operatives from the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah were suspected of plotting with the Abu Sayyaf militant group to launch bomb attacks during the Easter holiday. Extra police have been deployed in shopping malls, churches and other crowded places for the Easter weekend. "We advise against all travel to central, southern and eastern Mindanao, and the Sulu archipelago including Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Jolo, where military and police operations against terrorist and rebel groups are continuing and where kidnappings and bombings have taken place," the Foreign Office said in a statement. It said Philippine authorities had warned there maybe bomb attacks in Manila and other cities. "There continue to be threats against Western interests and there is a danger of collateral damage from terrorist attacks targeted at others," the statement said.
Algeria's main rebel group with alleged ties to al Qaeda has killed two soldiers in an ambush east of the capital Algiers, a newspaper said on Saturday.
The attack on Thursday evening near the town Thenia, 30 km (20 miles) east of Algiers, came a day after a summit of Arab heads of state was held in the capital.
Two soldiers in civilian clothes were on their way home when they were killed by a unit of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), newspaper Liberte said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2005 2:12:52 PM ||
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Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. helicopters killed several suspected insurgents and seized 131 more in a dawn raid Saturday, capturing tons of explosives earmarked for attacks on the holy city of Kerbala, officials said. "It was a surprise operation based on intensive surveillance by military intelligence," Defense Minister Hazim al-Shaalan told Reuters. "It was very successful."
Earlier this week Iraqi police commandos said they killed 85 militants in a raid on a suspected insurgent training camp near Baghdad, hailing it as a breakthrough against the insurgency.
Shaalan said several suspected militants were killed in the latest operation, which began late Friday and culminated in the dawn raid just outside Kerbala, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Baghdad. The vast majority of the 131 captured were Iraqis, although officials said many faked Iraqi identification papers were also found. It was not clear how many people were killed. "We carried out this operation so that visitors to Kerbala can go there in peace," Shaalan said.
Kerbala, an important Shi'ite Muslim holy city, has been targeted by militants several times in the past. Next week it will draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from throughout the region for Arbain, a major mourning ceremony.
Another defense ministry official said many of those detained were from Ansar al-Sunna, a militant group based in northern Iraq (news - web sites), near the border with Iran (news - web sites), that has carried out several high-profile attacks over the past 18 months. "This group was intending to attack Kerbala," he said.
Seized along with the suspects were three tons of TNT explosive, at least three ready-made car bombs, hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades, several Katyusha rockets, more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition and other equipment. In terms of the number of people detained and the amount of weaponry seized, it marks one of the most successful Iraqi-run operations in the past two years.
Iraqi officials say their intelligence network is improving, while Iraqi security forces are also growing stronger, giving them fresh impetus in the battle against the two-year-old insurgency.
Posted by: ed ||
03/26/2005 12:18:25 PM ||
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#1
the good news keeps rolling in
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2005 14:15 Comments ||
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#2
Seems like we are over a tipping point.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/26/2005 14:31 Comments ||
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#3
I hear that the main reason the insurgents are so upset is that the raid broke up there gay sex orgy.
#6
Effectively, a (US sized) BATTALION of bad boys has been taken down this week, with almost nothing for them to show for it. That has *got* to hurt their "war effort".
#7
If this report is true, then indeed it is good news. Enemy concentrations are harder and harder to for them to muster, which means less effective and organized actions on their part. Less bases for ops and less supplies for their actions. And the Iraqis are taking a larger and larger part of the effort.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/26/2005 16:58 Comments ||
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#8
Whatever happened to the quagmire? I thought we had a quagmire here? Oh, it's a quagmire for the terrorists, nevermind...
From milblogger Blackfive, the after-action report of a Kentucky National Guard MP squad which responded to an ambush on a convoy. You should go read the whole thing, really, but here's a taste:
On Sunday afternoon, in a very bad section of scrub-land called Salman Pak, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad, 40 to 50 heavily-armed Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy of 30 civilian tractor trailer trucks that were moving supplies for the coalition forces, along an Alternate Supply Route. These tractor trailers, driven by third country nationals (primarily Turkish), were escorted by 3 armored Hummers from the COSCOM [(Corps Support Command)]. When the insurgents attacked, one of the Hummers was in their kill zone and the three soldiers aboard were immediately wounded, and the platform taken under heavy machinegun and RPG fire.
Along with them, three of the truck drivers were killed, 6 were wounded in the tractor trailer trucks. The enemy attacked from a farmer's barren field next to the road, with a tree line perpendicular to the ASR [(Alternate Supply Route)], two dry irrigation ditches forming a rough L-shaped trenchline, and a house standing off the dirt road. After three minutes of sustained fire, a squad o f enemy moved forward toward the disabled and suppressed trucks. Each of the enemy had hand-cuffs and were looking to take hostages for ransom or worse, to take those three wounded US soldiers for more internet beheadings.
About this time, three armored Hummers that formed the MP Squad under call sign Raven 42, 617th MP Co, Kentucky National Guard, assigned to the 503rd MP Bn (Fort Bragg), 18th MP Bde, arrived on the scene like the cavalry. The squad had been shadowing the convoy from a distance behind the last vehicle, and when the convoy trucks stopped and became backed up from the initial attack, the squad sped up, paralleled the convoy up the shoulder of the road, and moved to the sound of gunfire. "Let's roll!"
They arrived on the scene just as a squad of about ten enemy had moved forward across the farmer's field and were about 20 meters from the road. The MP squad opened fire with .50 cal machineguns and Mk19 grenade launchers and drove across the front of the enemy's kill zone, between the enemy and the trucks, drawing fire off of the tractor trailers.
The MP's crossed the kill zone and then turned up an access road at a right angle to the ASR and next to the field full of enemy fighters. The three vehicles, carrying nine MPs and one medic, stopped in a line on the dirt access road and flanked the enemy positions with plunging fire from the .50 cal and the SAW machinegun (Squad Automatic Weapon). . . .
The MPs proceeded to execute a textbook example of how to defeat an ambush, and demonstrate again why our soldiers are the best in the world. While you really should read the whole thing, there are a couple of "punchlines" I'll mention here:
* Two sergeants, including the team leader, dismounted and cleared the trenchline, accounting for a good proportion of the enemy KIA. The team leader is a woman.
* There's a link to the video. The bad guys had their camcorders out, and were planning to send the home movies to al-Jazeera.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/26/2005 9:27:03 AM ||
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#1
Two sergeants, including the team leader, dismounted and cleared the trenchline, accounting for a good proportion of the enemy KIA. The team leader is a woman.
Combat sometimes like photography, close with the subject.
#2
Terrorists really have unreliable camera crews. I can't recall one frame in which the picture was steady, even when they were just filming traffic!
Posted by: Charles ||
03/26/2005 10:05 Comments ||
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#3
Well, that was a lot of nothing. I hope that camera muj took one in the head. He couldn't even film the traffic steadily before the guns started going off. Of course, judging from the news in an earlier Rantburg post, maybe his nails weren't dry yet.
I would like to be able to know what they were saying when the NG Humvees started rolling in. That's about the only part of the clip I could actually see and understand.
Posted by: Dar ||
03/26/2005 10:37 Comments ||
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Yeah, subtitles on that thing would be fantastic. What's the Arabic translation for "Is that a Humvee, Mahmoud? I think I just shat my pants."
Insurgents assassinated a senior Iraqi army commander on Friday and staged two suicide car bombings, killing 15 people, in violence that politicians fear may deepen if a new government is not formed soon.
Almost two months after an election, politicians from Iraq's main parties, the Shi'ite alliance and the Kurds, pursued talks to form a government but were squabbling over top cabinet posts.
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a key Kurdish negotiator, said Iraq's new parliament would meet for the second time on Tuesday and would name key officials in the new cabinet.
Officials had earlier hoped to strike a deal in time for parliament to meet by Sunday, but agreement has proved elusive. The Shi'ite Islamist bloc that came top in the polls and the Kurdish coalition that came second have been so far unable to agree on a new government, nearly two months after the polls.
Many Iraqis who defied insurgent violence to vote in the historic Jan. 30 elections say they are increasingly angry at the failure of politicians to agree. And as talks draw on, insurgents have continued their attacks.
Gunmen shot dead Major-General Suleiman Mohammad, who commanded a National Guard division in southern Iraq, in the New Baghdad district of the capital, and wounded two of his sons.
Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq said it killed Mohammad, according to an Internet statement. Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq said five of the officer's bodyguards and entourage were also killed or wounded in the attack.
Suicide car bombers also mounted two attacks in Iraq, killing at least 15 people and wounding 23.
In an attack in Iskandariya, in a lawless area just south of Baghdad, a bomber blew up his car beside an Iraqi army convoy, killing four soldiers and wounding nine troops and civilians, two seriously, local police said.
A suicide bomber blew up his car at a checkpoint in the western city of Ramadi on Thursday, killing 11 Iraqi commandos and wounding nine police, two U.S. soldiers and three civilians, the U.S. military said.
The Islamic Army in Iraq said it was behind the Ramadi attack in an Internet statement.
"A martyrdom-seeker of the Army broke through the first barrier set up by the American enemy and the pagan (National) Guard ... and the car exploded as it neared the second barrier," the insurgent group said in the statement.
In another violent assault, five women, four of whom worked at a U.S. military base, were found dead in a car in Baghdad. Those working for U.S. forces, including cooks, laundry staff and translators, are frequently targeted by insurgents.
Iraqi officials said talks on forming the new government, whose overwhelming priority will be tackling the country's relentless insurgency, were moving forward, albeit slowly.
Politicians were focused on trying to resolve differences over who would take the main government portfolios.
"There is a justified point of view that says the political process is taking a long time but at the same time we don't want to be in a hurry at the expense of this country's future," Salih told Reuters.
"We have big security and economy problems and we are looking for total national unity.
"The main challenge for us is to build a country that can face terrorism and also the economic challenges," he said.
He added parliament would convene again at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Tuesday. Officials had previously hoped that parliament could meet by Sunday. The parliament has met once already, but with no government the meeting was purely symbolic.
One of the key issues in the talks has been the status of Kurdish peshmerga militiamen and whether they should, as the Shi'ites want, be absorbed into the Iraqi armed forces.
On Thursday, the Kurdish peshmerga and local Arab police engaged in a gunbattle in northern Iraq, highlighting the deep division and suspicion between the two sides.
At least five policemen and two security guards were killed in the fight near the town of Rabia after peshmerga fighters stormed a grain silo building believing the guards there were behind a roadside bomb attack that hit their convoy.
Lieutenant-Colonel Yahia Hamid said the peshmerga had shot guards at the silo and then detained all inside. He arrived with other police to end the incident, but the peshmerga attacked the new arrivals.
"I identified myself but the peshmerga wouldn't listen and started screaming at us and then gunfire broke out," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2005 12:09:17 AM ||
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'Why is America after our virginity?'
Writing in Nawa-e-Waqt Irfan Siddiqi asked why was America bent upon violating our ismat (virginity) and abroo (honour). Why was it playing with our virginity every day? What spell had been cast on Pakistan? What had robbed Pakistan of its power of speech? Was our cooperation in American Crusade meant to sell our domestic assets as honour for sale in the market (jins-e-bazari)?
Pushtun 'invasion' of Balochistan
Quoted in Jang, ex-chief secretary of Balochistan Sherdil Khan stated that Balochistan went through a major demographic change during the Afghan war. One million Afghans stayed in the Pushtun areas and many Afghans acquired properties in Quetta, Pishin, Loralai and Qila Abdullah areas, got ID cards made and acquired Pakistani passports. They also became registered as voters. Big American money was distributed via the ISI and much of it went into the wrong hands. The Pushtun became prosperous but the Baloch nation became unhappy and poor.
A school in Narang Mandi
According to Nawa-e-Waqt a village near the border town of Narang Mandi in Punjab had a school which had been rendered a ghost school. When an inspection team went to the school it found that out of the ten lady teachers at the girls' school only two were present. Even the head mistress was absent and the children were playing around instead of studying. The villagers told the team tha at the state-owned school teachers came and marked themselves present in the register, then went away. A dozen other schools in the area were also without teachers in similar fashion.
Mira slaps Indian actor
According to daily Pakistan, famous Pakistani actress Mira presently acting in Indian movies slapped Indian actor Sunil Shetti during a party in Bombay. It happened after the Indian actor tried to get fresh with her (izhar-e-muhabbat). When the incident developed into a quarrel between the two, host Salman Khan threw the Indian actor out of his party.
Balochistan and Pakistan
Daily Jang quoted ex-chief secretary Balochistan Sherdil Khan as stating that after 1947 the tribes and jirgas of Balochistan accepted Pakistan except for the Khan of Kalat where Pak army's raid was resented. In other areas Punjabi school teachers and other functionaries were accepted. In 1970 there was no resentment in Balochistan but in 1973 Bhutto lit the fire by dismissing the Mengal government without valid reason. Discovery of Iraqi arms from the embassy was a false allegation after which Sardar Ataullah Mengal was arrested and kept in Sargodha jail. Bhutto sent troops into Mengal and Marri tribes on a signal from Shah of Iran after making Nawab Akbar Bugti governor of Balochistan. The operation lasted till 1977 at the fall of the Bhutto government. The Baloch had a tough time during this period and became alienated because of lack of development. General Zia freed Mengal but he went into a long self-exile in London.
Sardar Akbar and the Kalpar Bugtis
According to Sherdil Khan in Jang, Sardar Akbar Bugti was a great administrator and did a great deal for Balochistan during his governorship, but in his area of Sui the PPP became powerful and got the rival Bugti sub-tribe of Kalpars to stand against him in elections. This led to a blood feud wherein Akbar's son was also killed. He began crushing the Kalpars who were forced to flee into Punjab. After 1993 Ms Bhutto and her interior minister gave Kalpars money as compensation but it was covertly meant as assistance. The Kalpars bought weapons with it to confront Nawab Bugti.
Khair Baksh Marri and Marxism
According to ex-chief secretary Sherdil Khan in Jang, Sardar Khair Baksh Marri was influenced by Marx and Lenin in his student days and was a partisan of the October Revolution. During the Afghan war he went with his tribe to Afghanistan to fight on the side of Afghan communists. But after the Soviet defeat he and his tribe suffered greatly and were called back after chief minister Taj Jamali requested Ghulam Ishaq Khan to bring the sardar back in a C130 plane. Marri tribe was also allowed to return to Balochistan but this incident made Khair Baksh even more extreme in his views, given the current situation.
Robbers fought like commandos
According to Jang, three dacoits were killed in a police encounter near Gujranwala. The dacoits killed three police officials too before they were shot. The police said the high official casualty was because of the trained way in which the dacoits faced the police. They said that the three seemed to be trained guerrillas who had come out of jihad and turned to robbery.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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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.
A Yemeni security team will head for Washington today to receive a number of Yemeni detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, official sources said. "The visit comes within the framework of efforts undertaken by Yemen to follow up the issues of Yemeni detainees, assess their conditions, and verify the number of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and the Bagram base," the source said.
Yemen said yesterday it would hand over 24 Saudi citizens wanted by Saudi Arabian authorities for various terror and security issues. "Dr Rashad Al Alimi, Minister of Interior, has sent a letter to Prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Interior of Saudi Arabia, relating to the arrangements for extradition of 24 men to Saudi Arabia during the coming few days," a state-run newspaper quoted a security official as saying. The official said the extradition of the men, who were arrested inside Yemen, comes in the framework of a security cooperation agreement signed between the two neighbouring countries.
A police chief in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan escaped a roadside assassination attempt today, the regional branch of the interior ministry said. Assailants detonated an explosive device as Colonel Akhmed Magomedov, the head of the criminal police in a district of the capital, Makhachkala, was driving by. He was taken to hospital suffering from several injuries. His three bodyguards were also wounded but their lives are not in danger, Dagestani Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Musayev said. The attack is the latest in a spate of violence targeting officials in the republic. So far, 16 policemen have been killed and another 20 injured in attacks this year, according to the agency.
A cafe in Sydney's south-west has been destroyed by a large, loud explosion overnight. The blast happened just after midnight at a Panania pizza and kebab cafe on Anderson Avenue. It sent the cafe's roller door flying into the air and shattered many nearby shop windows. New South Wales Fire Brigade Superintendent Ian Krimmer says it was a massive blast. "As a result of the incident there was a subsequent fire which threatened to spread to several adjoining buildings," he said. "Fire crews were on scene within eight minutes - they had quickly contained the fire to the building origin."
A shadowy Islamist group which claimed it carried out last week's suicide bombing in Qatar said in an Internet statement it was responsible for an oil refinery explosion in Texas that left 15 people dead. "It was a new kind of operation as we promised before," said the "Jund al-Sham Organization" (Organization of Soldiers of the Levant) in the statement posted on an Islamist Web site and dated March 24. "Jund al-Sham is able to attack with an iron fist all the enemies of Allah wherever they are," added the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified. "This operation was a big surprise, which we spoke of in other statements, and we will continue our suicide operations inside and outside America, and we will attack the economy of America as America did the economies of the Muslims," it added. The group also threatened to carry out attacks in Britain and Italy, and said these would continue "until the last soldier of the Crusaders or Jews is no longer in an Islamic country."
'Why is America after our virginity?'
