Canadian forces arrested 10 suspected Taliban during a raid in southern Afghanistan and handed them over to Afghan authorities, the Canadian military said on Friday. The men were arrested in southern Kandahar province on May 8 in an area where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast last month. They were rounded up in a village in a strike launched after tip-off and were suspected of being "Taliban or their sympathisers", a Canadian military spokesman said on condition of anonymity. The men were captured not far from a Canadian army base in Gumbad. A large sum of Pakistani money was discovered on them and they were "equipped to carry out military operations", the spokesman said. They were taken to a coalition air base in the main southern city of Kandahar and eventually handed over to Afghan police.
Weren't even there long enough to change their money, huh? Good work, Canucks!
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Nothing quite like setting up an attack base when all of a sudden you hear several automatic weapons charging around you.
Followed by a brisk "DROP ALL WEAPONS, YOU HOSERS!"
Militants fired a rocket at a car carrying UNICEF workers in western Afghanistan on Friday, killing two Afghans and seriously wounding a third, police said. The rocket was fired as the car was traveling to Herat, said Nisar Ahmad Pakar, a district police officer. The driver and a passenger were killed, he said. Another passenger was seriously wounded.
Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for UNICEF in Kabul, the capital, said a UNICEF driver, an Afghan UNICEF staff member and a third person from another aid group were in the car. He said the UNICEF staff member was seriously injured and police had informed the U.N. agency that two people were killed. He said he couldn't confirm if either was a UNICEF employee. Carwardine said the attack against the U.N. children's agency was unusual, and that he could not recall any UNICEF fatalities in the last four years in Afghanistan. The UNICEF vehicle was accompanied by another car with armed guards in it, which is standard procedure for UNICEF in Herat province, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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A new front in the fight against terrorism has broken out on the streets of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, as a group of Islamists battle Somali warlords allied with Washington's aim of rooting out Muslim extremism from the region.
In six days of some of the worst street combat since the central government collapsed in 1991, nearly 150 people have been killed, most of them noncombatants caught in machine-gun and artillery fire.
On Friday morning, heavy shooting could be heard in some parts of the disintegrating capital, although the gunfire appeared to subside somewhat later in the day, according to Mogadishu residents reached by telephone from Kenya.
While the American Embassy in Nairobi called on all parties to cease fighting, the United States government has been accused of backing the warlords, who have fashioned themselves into an antiterrorism alliance, rooting out elements of Al Qaeda in their midst.
"It's a well-established fact for the last few years that U.S. counterterrorism officials and other intelligence officials have been working through Somali partners to fight extremists," said Suliman Baldo, director for Africa policy at the International Crisis Group, a Geneva-based advocacy group that studies wars around the world.
"From the little we know, the U.S. is not supporting the warlords with arms, per se," Mr. Baldo said. Instead, he added, American operatives were paying the warlords to help track down and apprehend those in Somalia suspected of being members of Al Qaeda.
In one episode outlined in an International Crisis Group report last year, American intelligence officers offered a Somali clan leader $4 million if he captured Tariq Abdallah, a suspected Qaeda leader traced to a Mogadishu guest house. When the clan leader's militia launched a raid on the house, however, the suspect (also known as Abu Talha al-Sudani) was not found there, the report said.
The warlords, who say they have joined America's fight against terrorism, are calling themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. They are led by Mohammed Deere, Mohammed Qanyare and Bahire Rageh, all powerful figures in Mogadishu.
In interviews, American officials declined to detail their relationship with the warlords, and said only that their goal was to support both the fight against terrorism and the recently formed transitional government that is struggling to gain a foothold.
But the president of that transitional government pointed his finger at the United States and said American counterterrorism efforts would work better if they went through Somalia's fledgling government, not through individual warlords.
"They really think they can capture Al Qaeda members in Somalia," President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said. "But the Americans should tell the warlords they should support the government, and cooperate with the government."
The United States has kept a wary eye on Somalia since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, fearing that extremists would take advantage of the country's anarchy to use it as a base of operations, just as occurred in Afghanistan in the 1990's.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld even ordered military commanders to examine options for an attack on Somalia, according to the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report.
Initial Pentagon suspicions of Qaeda training camps in Somalia have not yielded anything. But evidence has emerged of the presence of some terrorists in the country.
Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, a suspect in both the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel on Kenya's coast and the 1998 bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, held one of his planning sessions in Mogadishu, according to a United Nations study of the weapons flow into Somalia.
In recent months, diplomats and other analysts in the region say, Western intelligence officials have been delving into the murky world of Mogadishu, where money buys loyalty, at least for a while.
The American government's approach toward Somalia, which seems to put the fight against terrorism above all else, has drawn some criticism in Washington.
"If our principal objective is to fight terrorism and extremism in Somalia, what have we achieved thus far in light of the huge financial and security investments in the region?" asked Ted Dagne, an Africa analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. "Somalia is still without a central government, divided, and controlled by warlords."
He added, "If we fail to focus on this generation of Somali kids and help them, they could become the next warlords out of necessity and desperation."
The warlords who are fighting the Islamists say they are acting out of principle, not pay.
"These terrorists want this country to adopt a Taliban style," said Hussein Gutale Rage, a spokesman for the warlords' alliance. "The Americans have not given us anything so far. We share their hatred of terrorism."
The alliance is battling a loose coalition of Islamists who are allied with the Islamic law courts that have popped up in Mogadishu over the last decade. With a lack of government control, the courts have emerged as an independent power center, largely outside the clan hierarchy.
Accusing the warlords of being puppets of Washington, the Islamists have filled a gap left by the lack of government structure, winning converts to their ideology by running local schools and charities.
One of the leaders of the Union of Islamic Courts is Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, an imam and former soldier whom the American government has linked to Al Qaeda. The United Nations has accused him of receiving a large cache of arms from a nearby country in violation of the embargo on providing weapons to Somalia.
"We will have to liberate our people from these warlords, who have been shedding our people's blood for the past 15 years," he told The Associated Press recently. He also told the BBC that he was part of the "mujahedeen who are fighting back."
Another person linked to the Islamic courts is Aden Hashi Ayro, a protégé of Sheik Aweys who, some say, has become a renegade militia leader who answers to no one. Mr. Ayro is suspected of being linked to a string of assassinations of businesspeople, intellectuals, peace activists and others in recent months. The killings are believed to have been intended to send a message against any foreign tampering in Somalia.
In 2005, Sheik Aweys led an attack on an Italian cemetery in Mogadishu, in which human remains were dug up to protest foreign intervention in Somalia. His fighters have also joined with other militias to close down cinemas in the capital that were accused of showing immoral films. They oppose proposals to bring an outside peacekeeping force into Mogadishu.
"This is a resource conflict and a religious conflict," said Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, director of Center for Research and Dialogue. "Everybody wants to make money, but the religious leaders are also turning this into a war against the West."
#2
The spin on this article is so bad that it is just a downright boring read. This is the same money scam that liberals always fall into. A region is a total cess pool and has been and will be for some time. Then when we go in to get rid of really bad guys and the cowardly handwringers say it is all our fault the place is a cesspool and demand we do nothing except throw billions of our tax dollars at the problem. But the money always goes to the guys who made the place a cess pool in the first place who use the money thrown at them to get stronger armies and kill more people.
#4
Nah! This is your basic United Nations fuck up. They created the country which didn't exist prior to their involvement and most of the ex-country has defacto separated and is peaceful.
The fighting in Mog is over UN and other international goodies. International welfare + unintended consequences + the shining example of the Paleos who have kept this scam going for 60 years.
Nine bombs exploded across Ethiopia's capital Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens in what police said was a coordinated attempt to discredit the government. No group immediately took responsibility for the blasts, which focused on government-owned companies and public transportation. But the bombings could point to growing militant opposition to the government. The attacks came days before anniversary Monday of last year's general election. International observers had called the balloting seriously flawed and opposition politicians have refused to take up their posts to protest what they called government rigging. "This is just a futile attempt to (give) the impression that there is no peace or tranquility in the city," federal police spokesman Commander Demsash Hailu said, reading a government statement. "However, it is evident that the people of Addis Ababa, as usual, are leading their lives."
Police have blamed other small bombings in recent months on alleged militant elements of the opposition. No groups claimed responsibility for those bombings, which rarely caused injuries or significant damage. All the leaders of the main opposition parties are now in prison and standing trial for treason and genocide. In the past, other groups such as Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front, both fighting for greater autonomy for their regions, have claimed responsibility for attacks outside Addis Ababa. Agents from neighboring Eritrea are also frequently blamed.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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A man opened fire on guards at the US consulate in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Friday as he drove past but no one was hit, the Saudi interior ministry said. Police chased and arrested the suspect after wounding him in a shootout when he fled from his car, a ministry statement said on Friday. The incident was being investigated. It was not immediately clear whether it was politically motivated, security sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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A landmine killed a Turkish officer on Friday near the southeastern Turkish borders with Iraq, said Turkish security sources. Turkish Ikhlas News Agency reported the governor office of Hakkari province as saying that the officer was killed after stepping on a landmine believed to be planted by members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party.
During the past few months, insurgents of the Kurdish party increased the ratio of attacks against Turkish army and strategic targets. The party began a military campaign against Turkey in 1984 in an attempt to establish an independent state in southeastern Turkey, which claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Khasadar force jawan in North Waziristan Agency on Friday, authorities said. Local authorities said that Hamza Ali was gunned down at Razmak Adda in Miranshah. Local officials registered a case, saying that further investigations were under way. Sources said that a search operation was also being carried out to track down and arrest the gunmen. Political authorities were investigating if the attack was the result of a personal feud or an act of terrorism, they added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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Four suspected militants have been arrested in connection with a series of blasts targeting the firing range facility of a police training school at Koh-e-Murdar in Quetta earlier this week, Senior Police Superintendent (SSP) Ghulam Muhammad Dogar said on Friday.
"We are interrogating them and are hopeful of getting some valuable information from them," the SSP said, adding that the police were also focusing on nationalists' involvement after the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed responsibility for the blasts. BLA spokesman Meerak Baloch had telephoned newspapers offices in Quetta on Thursday to claim responsibility for the blasts and warned of more attacks. He said: "We have told all people in Balochistan to refrain from agencies and forces taking part in the military activity against them." However, a local police officer said on condition of anonymity: "We have arrested some suspects, but not the key men."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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TWO members of the Saudi branch of Al-Qaeda have been killed in fighting in Iraq, militants linked to the extremist network claimed on an Internet website overnight.
"Abu Hassan al-Makki and Abu Nasser al-Chadi were being sought by the Saudi security services," the website said, giving the two men's war names. It also posted a video of the men before their alleged deaths.
If their identities are confirmed, this will be the first time that the site of the Mujaheddin Consultative Council, which specialises in issuing Al-Qaeda statements, has shown pictures of Saudians sought by the Riyadh government.
The Mujaheddin Consultative Council is a movement of Sunni militants operating under the aegis the Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda, led by Jordan's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The video on the website shows the two men speaking to camera, their faces uncovered, surrounded by armed men in balaclavas.
"The end of the Saudi regime is nigh," says one of the man, identified as Abu Hassan al-Makki.
"I left the Arabian Peninsula to come and fight in Iraq," says the other, identified as Abu Nasser al-Chadi.
In June 2005, the Saudi authorities published a list of 36 people suspected of being involved in a series of attacks that have plagued the kingdom since May 2003. The attacks have been claimed by self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda supporters.
In November 2005, the US army quoted a study carried out by the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region as saying around 3,000 foreign fighters had joined forces in Iraq with local militants.
Saudis made up 12 percent of these fighters, third in number behind Algerians -- 20 percent -- and Syrians -- 18 percent, the study reportedly said.
On 22 April a man claiming to be a member of Al-Qaeda and to have escaped from a US jail in Bagram, Afghanistan, said on a video on the same website that Saudi Arabia would be the extremist network's next target after Afghanistan and Iraq.
#1
If Saudi Al-Qaeda are being killed in Iraq, dose'nt that prove that they were right going nto Irag? It proves that they run to the battle. Have the battle there, and they will come (or go to die)
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four US Marines drowned when their tank rolled off a bridge into a canal, the military said on Friday. Gunmen killed a Sunni preacher and his son in the mostly Shia city of Basra despite an appeal for tolerance by Iraqs top Shia cleric.
The four Marines died on Thursday near Karmah, 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad in Anbar province, a focus of the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency. A US statement said the accident was not due to hostile fire. We are a close-knit family and this loss affects us all, said US Col. Larry D. Nicholson, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these Marines during this difficult period.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
A tragedy.
All of us who have served in armor can probably relate a tale or two about a night/tactical movement that resulted in a submerged/inverted track and 1 or more KIA.
The profession of arms is not an inherently safe profession.
Posted by: N guard ||
05/13/2006 0:15 Comments ||
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#3
Having been in the loaders seat of an M1, I can tell you ther's dozens of ways to die there even in peace time. There are usaully s few fatalities every year, especially during the old Team Spirit exercises and Foal Eaglen (Terrain in Korea is just crap for tanks in many places). This is the fourth or fifth one of these I've heard in the Iraq theater of operations. God bless those tankers and speed them on their way.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/13/2006 8:15 Comments ||
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#7
No floor emergency hatch?
Nope. A major design goof, IMAO.
The M-60s we used to have in the Guard in the 20th Century, did have a driver escape hatch in the floor. But the driver was the only one who could have gotten out in time. To leave the turret would require it being turned around backwards.
Posted by: N guard ||
05/13/2006 9:34 Comments ||
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#8
Eternal Father, grant, we pray,
To all Marines, both night and day,
The courage, honor, strength, and skill
Their land to serve, thy law fulfill;
Be thou the shield forevermore
From every peril to the Corps.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/13/2006 9:39 Comments ||
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#9
Was this likely to have been an M1, or some other armored vehicle which the reporter is misidentifying as a tank? I didn't think the Marine Corps had M1s, I thought they were all in the Army. Also, isn't the M1 a three-man crew? I am not a military expert and I am not claiming to be one, so please be gentle with me if I'm completely off base.
#11
Re #9: The Marines have had the M1 and its variants since Gulf War I. The current variants of the M1 have four man crews, though there is a variant (only on the drawing board, I think) that has an automated turret and three man crew. God be with the families of the fallen.
#12
They'll never go with the 3 man crew. You can't maintain a tank in the field with a crew of 3. That was the downfall of the old Soviet designs with the autoloader. Plus when it breaks you're hosed, and its yet another piece of gear to be maintained (one that has a lot of motion and hard mechanical wear).
Not a good idea. Driver, gunner, loader and TC. Ya need them all.
#13
Re: #10
Not realy. It was hard to get to, difficult to open, even more difficult to secure. you had to move the driver's seat, and only the driver could realy use it. At the range at summer camp, I just used a piss bottle, and tossed it out the top hach with the rest of the trash at the first opportunity.
The M60, like the M1, has a basket under the turret. betwen the supports for the basket, and the ready ammo storage tubes in the turret(!) (No blow-out ammo compartment in case of ammo fire!) you could only get to the driver's position from the turret when the turret was traversed to certain positons. I cannot recall the mil numbers that the turret had to be traversed to. It's been a while.
Having served in both tracks, I understand why they omitted an escape hatch. Positioning it and utilizing it would be even harder in an M-1. For the other (non-armor) rantburgers out there, the M-1 hull and turret is crammed full of machinery. the four crew members positions are almost form-fitting sockets. Moving around inside the hull is not something you do quickly and easily. And that is with the hull upright, not full of water, and with lots of daylight coming in thru all the open hatches.
Posted by: N guard ||
05/13/2006 13:36 Comments ||
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#14
Agreed NGaurd - that loaders seat is claustro with the knee switch, amo bin , bore, breech and light panel being the only things you end up remembering after you spend time in there. The size of a small closet. That and how damn sore my back got.
Hear the TC and gunner GunnerAntennaTankRIGHTFRONTgotit sabot Smack kneeswitch grab round put in bore punch fwd with fist no fingers if you dont want to lose em slam breech shut lock it check light yell round type UP get your arms back across your chest if you want to keem them in one piece and let off the knee switch too hear ON THE WAY BOOOOM...
And repeat.
And pray the driver didnt have a bad MRE because his gas is coming straight back to you.
#15
Lots of ways to get killed in a tank that don't include enemy fire. Bless the men that choose armor as a way of life.
When I was an armor crewman in Germany in 1979 (Oh God... is it so long ago?) we hit a cross-country electric train power line with our antenna. Spark jumped to the ready rack in the turret and two rounds blew up. Fortunately, the loader caught most of the flame/shrapnel in the ass ('cause he was facing forward in the turret (fortunately the turret wasn't in travel-lock or he'd a been facing the ready rack and caught the full force of the explosion to his crotch.) The TC caught some of shrapnel in his legs too. I was sleeping (face into a blanket) in the gunners position and woke up to a turret full of flames and smoke. Tunnel-vision escape time! I was up the commanders hatch, down to the sponson boxes, down the ground (injured knee on that jumpl), and 100 feet away from the tank before I looked back. The TC was standing in front of the tank yelling for me to "Get out!" (I was already gone.)
Spent two weeks in the hospital in Nurnburg recovering from from the burns to my face. Looking at my scortched uniform later... I can hardly believe that they didn't catch fire.
It's a dangerous profession. You're the biggest, toughest target on the battlefield and the tank itself is an unforgiving beast.
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#18
God bless them and their families. After reading the comments its clear rantburgers understand the dangers our men and women face in the profession of defending our freedoms, seeing how most have been there and done that. Thanks to you old dogs as well.
NSDQ
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/13/2006 21:39 Comments ||
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#19
Mod, Thanks for the sink trap. He deserves a good bitch slap.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/13/2006 21:41 Comments ||
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#20
Ha ha ha ! Die evil scum !
Meanwhile in my country , Canada The Superior , we wave flags (not like when The Yanks wave flags , its inferior/wrong/etc when " they " do it )
and shed tears for our Glorious Warriors who die in accidents and combat , o wait , i forgot , we don't do that combat thing , we are PEACEKEEPERS ! .
And The Yanks are murderers , at least thats what i hear on the " Canadian Street " .
Note that when Canadians raped , tortured and murdered multiple people in Somalia and (former) Yugoslavia and other areas we actualy blamed America .
When we bombed a civillian train and caused other " collateral damage " in Yugo and elsewhere , guess whos fault it was ? (hint , not ours)
A roadside bombing north of Baghdad has provoked fierce clashes between two Iraqi army units. According to Iraqi police sources one of the army units was Kurdish and the other made of Shias.
The US military provided a different account of the incident that occurred after a bombing near Duluiyah, about 75km north of the capital on Friday. The US account said one soldier from the Iraqi army's First Battalion was killed and 12 were wounded in the attack. Ali Ibrahim from the Iraqi police said four were killed and three others wounded. He identified the soldiers as Kurdish but did not specify their unit. The wounded were rushed to the US military hospital in Balad and police said that when the Kurdish soldiers drove up to the hospital, they began firing weapons to clear the way, killing a Shia civilian. When security rushed to the scene, the Kurds decided to take their wounded elsewhere, Iraqi police said. Iraqi troops from a separate Shia unit tried to stop them and shots were fired.
The US statement did not say what prompted the soldiers to try to take wounded comrades away from a hospital that is one of the best equipped American medical facilities in Iraq. A third Iraqi unit set up a roadblock in the area and stopped the soldiers who were leaving, the US said. American troops then arrived on the scene and calmed the situation down. The US said the Iraqi army was now investigating the incident.
Thousands of Kurdish peshmerga militiamen were integrated into the Iraqi army in order to provide security in areas with large Kurdish populations, some of which are located near Shia and Sunni Arab communities. The peshmerga also provides security in the three provinces that form the Kurds' self-governing entity in the north.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like a Peshmurga discipline problem. There should be US advisers all over that to nip any incorrect behavior in the bud. In fact, their entire Kurdish chain of command should get re-evaluated and clarified as to policy.
#2
The main problem I see is that in Iraq you are a Kurd, or a Shia, or a Sunni, or a Salafi. You can't just be "Joe Blow", you have to be somebody's enemy everywhere you go.
#3
They should ensure integration down to the squad level. Its not that way these days - I think they self-segregate at the battalion level. They need to start cross attaching companies (form a battalion Soviet style from 3 companies - 1 each Sunni Kurd Shia), then interlace platoons the same way. Then interlace the squads in the platoon the same way.
If they dont do this they will only have an amalgamation of militias, not an Army. The US Army figured this out a long time ago regarding regionalism (took a bit longer for race).
Note that the Kurdish unit is not identified, nor is the Shia one.
This may be something as simple as the Marines and Navy festivities during Fleet Week.
There are few, if any ethnic units in the IA. The IP, OTOH, has many. My suspicion is that some paramilitary IP got into it. The IP is where the majority of the problems are right now.
Three US fuel transport tankers were set on fire Thursday in an attack by militants in North Baghdad, eyewitnesses said Friday. The witnesses told KUNA unknown militants attacked late last night a convoy of US army trucks near Al-Mshahda, North Baghdad. They added three fuel tankers were burned completely. The witnesses also said US forces quickly returned fire and surrounded the scene while helicopters were seen hovering in the area in search for the perpetrators. According to witnesses' accounts, civilians are still banned approach to the area and it is not possible to assess damage as yet. The Multi-National Forces would not comment on the incident for the time being.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Nothing a little heavy handed head busting wouldn't avoid in the future.
#2
Simple - go road warrior on thier asses. Anyone caught as part of the ones that did the ambush gets strapped to the bumpers of the next fuel convoys. Soaked in Gasoline.
Two terrorists were killed and three Iraqi policemen were injured during armed clashes in Tel Afar in Northern Iraq Friday, the multi-national force (MNF) said. It added that unknown gunmen attacked a police patrol in Tel Afar in Mosul causing injuries to three police officers and the killing of two of the attackers. A back-up force arrived in the scene of the attack and inspected a nearby building that was used by the attackers. Different kinds of weapons and ammunitions were found in the building, said MNF.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi police said three mortar shells fell inside the police academy in Eastern Mosul. The attack caused material damage but no human casualties were reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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Iraqi police also killed two terrorists in Tal Afar yesterday when the two men attacked a police patrol. Task Force Band of Brothers soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, arrived to assist the police and searched the building the terrorists were using. The soldiers uncovered a false wall that led to a tunnel system and another hidden door that opened into a room used as clandestine sleeping quarters.
The "Ready First" soldiers discovered a variety of weapons and munitions scattered throughout the tunnel and underground room. A Katusha rocket, rifle grenades, mortar rounds, homemade bombs and mortar tubes were seized. An explosive ordnance disposal team conducted a controlled detonation of the weapons and munitions, destroying the house and tunnel system to prevent terrorists from using them again. Three police officers were wounded in the initial attack and were taken to the Tal Afar hospital.
Unknown gunmen killed the son of Medhat Mahmoud, the chief of supreme judicial council in Iraq, and two of his boyguards in Northern Baghdad on Friday, a security source said. He told KUNA the assailants sprayed Ahmad Medhat Mahmoud and his two bodyguards with bullets near the Anbar mosque in Aadhamiya district in Baghdad. The victims died immediately and the attackers fled the scene, added the source.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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A car bomb went off nearby the headquarters of Islamic Dawa Party in Zafaraniyah area in southern Baghdad. A Ministry of Interior source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the car bomb was detonated at about 3:00 p.m., noting that no property nor human losses were reported in the incident. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maleki is member of the Islamic Dawa Party, led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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The Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian territories resumed supplies Friday as motorists rushed to tank up after a three-day stoppage that saw some petrol stations run dry. "Supplies have resumed. We have already received 1.5 million litres (330,000 gallons) at our depots this morning," Mujahid Salameh, head of the state-owned General Petroleum Corp (GPC) told AFP. Queues quickly formed in the West Bank town of Ramallah at petrol stations where GPC tankers dropped of early morning supplies and where business is typically sleepy on the weekly day of rest and prayers.
Dor-Alon, the main supplier of fuel to the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, had stopped supplies early Tuesday, on the grounds of an unpaid debt of 120 million shekels (27 million dollars). If post-dated Palestinian Authority cheques to Dor-Alon were added to the amount in arrears, the debt would climb to 88 million dollars, Salameh said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#5
Very odd. Is somebody calculating that intermittent supplies and uncertainty will be more irritating to the average al' than never having gas at all? Or are they hoping for miracles again?
Posted by: James ||
05/13/2006 11:17 Comments ||
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#7
The Israelis have to disengage from the Paleos. Only Israel does concessions. The Paleos make none. They lie, they cheat, they go boom, and they never meet the Israelis halfway. Israel plays tit for tat with the Kassim rockets. A few artillery rounds, some hellfires, but NO serious consequences to attack actions of the Paleos. Now the Israelis are faced with the prospect of a coordinated attack from Gaza and the West Bank, with help from Iran. If the Paleos do not pay for their resources, like petrol, then they need to be cut off. There are no consequences for their actions. This is national suicide for Israel on the installment plan. It just floors me.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/13/2006 11:55 Comments ||
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#8
It shouldn't Paul. The current Israeli govenment is mainly leftist.
#10
Reminds me of a recent conversation (too use a polite term , it was more like i was being lectured/preached to) in Canada with some guy complaining about late payments from Israel for Palestinian property damaged during IDF operations .
I admit he did have " a point " , but i just gritted my teeth and stopped myself from confronting him with " so you had to do some paper work and wait a few months to get your check " .
If he lived in Darfur or Somalia or etc etc i think he would have to wait a little longer (never) for " compensation "
Since i live in Canada for my own protection i need to reiterate " yes , waiting for compensation has hurt your people , please don't think i am your enemy , etc etc etc "
#11
not at all - the Paleos re lying welfare queens. They have million (billions?) tied up for the elite to play with yet starve the populace for PR. F*&k em. They also don't deserve the tax money Israel's holding per the Oslo accords. The Paleos have NEVER lived up to their responsibilities under Oslo, ergo the treaty is null and void
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/13/2006 18:20 Comments ||
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#12
Israel should let them starve and die of thirst. They deserve nothing more than they can make with their own hands and if that isn't enough to feed them, too damned bad. The Israelis were crazy to do this.
Posted by: mac ||
05/13/2006 18:32 Comments ||
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An Israeli court on Friday charged four Palestinian militants in the 2001 assassination of a Cabinet minister, two months after troops snatched the men in a brazen military raid on a Palestinian jail in the West Bank. The suspects, members of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, did not comment to reporters as they entered the court. Two of the men smiled to cameras and looked to be in good spirits. In a closed hearing, the men were charged with murder, membership in a terrorist group and handling explosives for terrorist purposes, Israeli media said. Their next court date is scheduled June 8.
The men were rounded up during a 10-hour Israeli invasion of a Palestinian prison in Jericho on March 14. Israel launched the operation after the new Hamas-led Palestinian government said it would release the men. The suspects are accused of carrying out the murder of Rehavam Zeevi, who was gunned down in a Jerusalem hotel in 2001.
PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat was also arrested in the March raid. But Israel's attorney general has said there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him in the Zeevi killing. Saadat remains in Israeli custody and will be tried separately in a military court for unspecified security offenses. Saadat spent more than three years in the Jericho prison based on Israeli accusations he had masterminded the assassination.
The PFLP claimed responsibility for the assassination, saying it was in retaliation for Israel's killing of its leader. Saadat was named leader of the military group days before Zeevi's killing. After years of insisting Saadat was behind the murder, Attorney General Meni Mazuz's inability to find the necessary evidence to put him on trial was an embarrassment to Israel, experts said. A sixth suspect snatched from the Jericho prison, Fuad Shobaki, the alleged financier of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinians several years ago, will also be tried in a military court.
Saadat and the other suspects were supervised in the Jericho prison by American and British wardens under the terms of an unusual 2002 arrangement. Israel stormed the prison just after the wardens left.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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A chopper of the Lebanese Army crashed in central Beqaa killing all those on board, four military personnel, military sources told KUNA. The sources said the crash was most probably due to technical failure that led to collision into high rocky terrain. The Beqaa region hosts a base for the Lebanese Air Force.
Is it duck season already?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#4
Ah yes, the Beqaa valley. Was the home of the Iraqi WMD, which by this time may be in Sudan. But SOMEBODY wants to keep that valley in Syrian hands, so I wonder just what's still there???
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Canadian forces arrested 10 suspected Taliban during a raid in southern Afghanistan and handed them over to Afghan authorities, the Canadian military said on Friday. The men were arrested in southern Kandahar province on May 8 in an area where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast last month. They were rounded up in a village in a strike launched after tip-off and were suspected of being "Taliban or their sympathisers", a Canadian military spokesman said on condition of anonymity. The men were captured not far from a Canadian army base in Gumbad. A large sum of Pakistani money was discovered on them and they were "equipped to carry out military operations", the spokesman said. They were taken to a coalition air base in the main southern city of Kandahar and eventually handed over to Afghan police.
Militants fired a rocket at a car carrying UNICEF workers in western Afghanistan on Friday, killing two Afghans and seriously wounding a third, police said. The rocket was fired as the car was traveling to Herat, said Nisar Ahmad Pakar, a district police officer. The driver and a passenger were killed, he said. Another passenger was seriously wounded.
A new front in the fight against terrorism has broken out on the streets of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, as a group of Islamists battle Somali warlords allied with Washington's aim of rooting out Muslim extremism from the region.
Nine bombs exploded across Ethiopia's capital Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens in what police said was a coordinated attempt to discredit the government. No group immediately took responsibility for the blasts, which focused on government-owned companies and public transportation. But the bombings could point to growing militant opposition to the government. The attacks came days before anniversary Monday of last year's general election. International observers had called the balloting seriously flawed and opposition politicians have refused to take up their posts to protest what they called government rigging. "This is just a futile attempt to (give) the impression that there is no peace or tranquility in the city," federal police spokesman Commander Demsash Hailu said, reading a government statement. "However, it is evident that the people of Addis Ababa, as usual, are leading their lives."
A man opened fire on guards at the US consulate in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Friday as he drove past but no one was hit, the Saudi interior ministry said. Police chased and arrested the suspect after wounding him in a shootout when he fled from his car, a ministry statement said on Friday. The incident was being investigated. It was not immediately clear whether it was politically motivated, security sources said.
A landmine killed a Turkish officer on Friday near the southeastern Turkish borders with Iraq, said Turkish security sources. Turkish Ikhlas News Agency reported the governor office of Hakkari province as saying that the officer was killed after stepping on a landmine believed to be planted by members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party.
Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Khasadar force jawan in 
Four suspected militants have been arrested in connection with a series of blasts targeting the firing range facility of a police training school at Koh-e-Murdar in Quetta earlier this week, Senior Police Superintendent (SSP) Ghulam Muhammad Dogar said on Friday. 
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four US Marines drowned when their tank rolled off a bridge into a canal, the military said on Friday. Gunmen killed a Sunni preacher and his son in the mostly Shia city of Basra despite an appeal for tolerance by Iraqs top Shia cleric.
A roadside bombing north of Baghdad has provoked fierce clashes between two Iraqi army units. According to Iraqi police sources one of the army units was Kurdish and the other made of Shias.
Two terrorists were killed and three Iraqi policemen were injured during armed clashes in Tel Afar in Northern Iraq Friday, the multi-national force (MNF) said. It added that unknown gunmen attacked a police patrol in Tel Afar in Mosul causing injuries to three police officers and the killing of two of the attackers. A back-up force arrived in the scene of the attack and inspected a nearby building that was used by the attackers. Different kinds of weapons and ammunitions were found in the building, said MNF.
Unknown gunmen killed the son of Medhat Mahmoud, the chief of supreme judicial council in Iraq, and two of his boyguards in Northern Baghdad on Friday, a security source said. He told KUNA the assailants sprayed Ahmad Medhat Mahmoud and his two bodyguards with bullets near the Anbar mosque in Aadhamiya district in Baghdad. The victims died immediately and the attackers fled the scene, added the source.
A car bomb went off nearby the headquarters of Islamic Dawa Party in Zafaraniyah area in southern Baghdad. A Ministry of Interior source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the car bomb was detonated at about 3:00 p.m., noting that no property nor human losses were reported in the incident. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maleki is member of the Islamic Dawa Party, led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari.
The Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian territories resumed supplies Friday as motorists rushed to tank up after a three-day stoppage that saw some petrol stations run dry. "Supplies have resumed. We have already received 1.5 million litres (330,000 gallons) at our depots this morning," 
An Israeli court on Friday charged four Palestinian militants in the 2001 assassination of a Cabinet minister, two months after troops snatched the men in a brazen military raid on a Palestinian jail in the West Bank. The suspects, members of the radical 
