Kidnapped Italian International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) volunteer Eugenio Vagni walked free yesterday after almost six months of captivity at the hands of the Abu Sayyaf.
Footage of U.S. and Afghan forces fighting through an ambush in and around the village of Laui Kalay, in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. Anti-Afghanistan forces engaged with small arms, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades from two locations. U.S. and Afghan forces returned fire and called in mortar and OH-557 Kiowa air support. Provided by 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.
#1
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > MEHSUD [TTP Leader] REJECTS MULLAH OMAR'S APPEAL TO STOP TERROR ACTIVITIES IN PAKISTAN [Growing Talib-vs-Talib Fissure]. TTP BMehsud versus TALIB EL SUPREMO MULLAH OMAR.
Footage of COP Zerok being attacked with rockets and mortors. Soldiers return fire with indirect and direct fire weapons. Provided by Combined Joint Task Force - 82 PAO.
#1
It might sound odd to you military folks but why aren't the mortars computer controlled? Just 2 electric window motors would be enough, and all you'd have to do it just plug in the laptop and click where on the map you'd like to hit and it could do the rest.
#3
They do have "Smart Rounds" for mortors, but are very rarely used. Mostly, mortors are indirect fire weapons that are designed to cover an area with exposives in a very short period of time.
[Quqnoos] Afghan and Coalition troops regained the control of a remote district in Nooristan province on Sunday, officials said. The control of Barg-e Matal district of the eastern Nooristan province is regained three days after Taliban militants forced government officials to flee the Afghan district, bordering Pakistan.
And now it's the turn of the Taliban to flee, like water flowing back and forth. Or so they will think.
The joint Afghan and US-led coalition troops retook the district during an brief operation that according to the provincial governor, the forces did not confront a major resistance from the Taliban.
"Two militants have been killed in an offensive aimed to get the district back from the Taliban," said a border police official, Col Qasimkhail.
Taliban militants who intensified their attacks across the country have not yet commented on the battle.
Militants killed at least 8 policemen and detained eight others Thursday in an offensive to capture the district of Nooristan, a restive Afghan province. In the Thursday's gunfire, around two dozens of militants were also killed in Nooristan, officials said.
According to the border police official, more security forces will be deployed in Barg-e Matal district to prevent any militants' offensive to the district in the future.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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[Quqnoos] A bomb blast near incumbent Karzai's campaign office in Panjshir province damaged the building, an official said
A spokesman for Hamid Karzai's campaign centre, Wahid Omar said, the blast occurred Saturday midnight in Rukha district of the most secure Afghan province of Panjshir, 80km north of Kabul. "No casualties caused by the bomb that went off overnight," provincial police chief, Gen Abdul Saboor told Quqnoos.
The spokesman for President Karzai who is seeking a second term in office, dismissed any militants involvements in the incident, highlighting political means behind the bombing.
Politics is more intense in Afghanistan, doncha know.
It was a sudden blast caused by an explosive device near the campaign building for President Karzai, Panjshir Police Chief further said, denying the involvements of anyone behind its detonation.
"Surely you've heard of spontaneous explosive combustion," he added.
This is the first campaign offices for an Afghan elections hopeful that is damaged in an explosion so far.
But there is still time...
Afghan presidential and provincial council elections are slated for August 20 this autumn, where 41 hopefuls, including President Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai are running for a victory.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > NYT: A NEW INSURGENCY GAINS IN PAKISTAN [Balochi Nationalism-Resistance]; + DIVISION OF THE PUNJAB, SOVEREIGNTY OF THE COUNTRY!?
#2
They set a bomb off in front of former governor Thompson's campaign office in Madison, Wisconsin a few years back (that one did building damage, too). Same 'peaceful' style of folks who did it, too I presume.
This incident will most likely get more media attention than the domestic one did.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/13/2009 18:27 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Somali government troops backed by African Union peacekeepers battled insurgents on Sunday in clashes that killed at least 43 people in north Mogadishu, residents and officials said.
Somalia's government and a 4,300-strong AU force (AMISOM) have been unable to take control of rebel strongholds in Mogadishu and other parts of the Horn of Africa nation despite international support and training.
"We have killed 40 fighters from al-Shabaab group and we continue to repulse them. We have now pushed them back from three northern districts of Mogadishu. AU peacekeepers were assisting us," said Salad Ali Jelle, a parliamentarian who was involved in Sunday's fighting. Rebels were not immediately available for comment.
Mogadishu's deputy mayor said the insurgents had captured an area near the presidential palace at the weekend. "AMISOM backed us up in this latest operation because the rebels were only one kilometer to the presidential palace," said Abdifitah Shawey. "We lost three soldiers in battle."
Somalia's interim government has been pushing for a stronger mandate for AMISOM to allow its soldiers to help government forces fight opposition groups. Ugandan and Burundi peacekeepers are only allowed to defend themselves if attacked and protect key sites such as the presidential palace, airport and harbor.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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[Maghrebia] Algerian anti-terror units on Saturday (July 11th) dismantled a terror cell and arrested nine people, including several women, in the eastern Algiers suburbs of Bordj El Kiffan and Kouba, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. A suspect arrested as part of the investigation into al-Qaeda's El Fateh brigade in Algiers provided key information. According to security sources, the network had being submitting information to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on the movement and the organisation of security services in Algiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A Swiss hostage held by a branch of Al-Qaeda since January has been freed, Switzerland's foreign ministry confirmed Sunday, adding that he had received medical attention and would be heading home. "The Swiss Foreign Ministry learnt with joy that the efforts towards the liberation of the last Swiss hostage in Mali has been successful," said the ministry in a statement.
" Mali did everything -- everything. Unfortunately, he was killed in the end "
Malian official
"The last hostage has been freed in Mali. The Swiss citizen has been taken care of medically and will be repatriated to Switzerland to rest," it added, thanking the Mali authorities for their support.
Werner Greiner, who was abducted on January 22, was the last western hostage still being held by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) of six westerners seized in the Sahel region in December and January. He was snatched along with his wife Gabriella Burco, and fellow tourists Marianne Petzold of Germany and British national Edwin Dyer in Niger, near the border with Mali.
Burco and Petzold were released on April 22, along with two Canadian diplomats kidnapped in December but Greiner and Dyer were not freed. Dyer was beheaded on June 5. "Mali did everything -- everything. Unfortunately, he was killed in the end," a Malian official told AFP, calling the murder "terrible."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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The Penal Court in Sanaa on Monday sentenced six convicted al-Qaeda militants to death for carrying out terrorist attacks on national and Western interests in the country in 2008. The court also sentenced other 10, including four Syrians and a Saudi national, to 8-15 terms in jail for participating in the same terrorist attacks.
The court convicted defendants of carrying out 13 terrorist attacks on local and foreign targets in the country including a school for girls adjacent to the US Embassy in the capital Sanaa, a housing compound for foreigners in Hada zone in Sanaa, oil facilities in Hadramout, security camp in Sayun city in Hadramout in addition to killing Belgian tourists in Dawaan in Hadramout.
After hearing sentences, one of the convicts said the sentences would not stop them to continue Jihad for Allah. The convicts have also threatened to kill the judge and labeled him as communist.
The trial of the group, called Terim terroist cell, started in March 11, 2009.
Police shot dead two Uighur men and wounded a third Monday after they attacked officers who broke up a street fight, a week after deadly ethnic riots erupted in this western Chinese city. The police were attacked after they stopped the three from assaulting a fourth Uighur with knives and rods, said an official in Urumqi city who gave only his surname, Fan.
The incident, which broke a relative calm in Urumqi where ethnic unrest left more than 180 people dead and another 1,680 wounded was the first time officials have said police opened fire on anyone. "The police fired into the air as a warning, but that did not stop the attack. The police then shot them according to law," Fan said. He said the wounded man was taken to hospital. His condition was not known.
The shootings played out in front of frightened residents near one of the city's main Uighur neighborhoods. Photos taken at the time show one policeman raising his rifle to strike a man. Beaten, the man in a blue shirt with blood on his right leg lay on the ground. Police formed a ring around him, pointing their guns up at surrounding buildings.
One witness, Zhang Ming, a construction worker at a building site near the incident, said he saw three men with knives come out of a mosque and attack a group of paramilitary police standing in a cluster along the road. Riot police then chased them, beat them and fired shots, he said. A few hours later a large splotch of blood smudged the street. Squads of helmeted riot police took up positions on the road, which was closed to traffic.
The incident came as authorities try to impose a sense of normality on Urumqi after the July 5 riots. The death toll in China's worst ethnic violence in decades could rise as 74 of the more than 900 people still in hospitals have life-threatening wounds, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Earlier Monday, security vehicles previously deployed on People's Square were no longer there but helmeted riot police remained in the area. Small groups of paramilitary police with riot shields stood guard on street corners and helicopters flew over the city.
#1
IIRC PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUMS??? > NO UIGHURS, WOMEN NEED APPLY FOR JOBS IN XINJIANG [Males and Han Chinese only]???
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > NAXALITE-MAOIST REBELLION ENCUMBERS 40% OF INDIA + GREATEST SINGLE THREAT TO INDIA IS CENTRAL ASIAN TRIBALISM [Notsomuch China, but MINORITY PAN-ETHNIC/LOCAL NATIONALISM].
The US Central Intelligence Agency had a secret plan to capture or kill Al-Qaeda operatives but it was terminated by new CIA Director Leon Panetta, The Wall Street Journal said late Sunday. Funny, here I thought that was kind of the point of having a CIA. Silly me. Even Al Gore understood that you had a CIA to do the stuff that you couldn't do legally and openly.
Citing unnamed former intelligence officials familiar with the matter, the newspaper said the precise nature of the highly classified effort remained unclear, and the CIA would not comment on its substance. According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training of its operatives for the mission, the report said. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. But the initiative had not become fully operational at the time Panetta ended it. I'd like to hear his reason why.
Citing three unnamed former intelligence officials, The Journal said that in 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of Al-Qaeda leaders. But those discussions tapered off within six months. Neither Panetta nor members of Congress provided details, said the Journal, adding that he quashed the CIA effort after learning about it on June 23.
Meanwhile, Representative Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little money had been spent on the project -- closer to one million dollars than 50 million. "The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts," The Journal quoted Hoekstra as saying.
The New York Times reported on its website Saturday that former US vice president Dick Cheney had ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years. Because he knew it would end up on the front page of a newspaper. I rest my case.
Panetta, who ended the program when he learned of its existence, revealed Cheney's role in a closed briefing to the Senate and House intelligence committees, the paper said, without specifying the nature of the program.
#1
It was a secret that we wanted to kill Al Qaeda operatives and now, thanks to Panetta we don't want to kill them? I don't understand. Sounds like the guy is defining himself out of a job.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/13/2009 14:55 Comments ||
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#2
that's why I posted the same story (different link) in Seedy Politicians
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/13/2009 15:03 Comments ||
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#3
Promoted both stories to WoT ops.
AoS
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/13/2009 17:13 Comments ||
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#4
What a complete wuss.
My word, the Russkies and the Stasi were running about zapping defectors and getting the Pope shot and we are afraid to hunt these unterminsche down like the animals they are?
Crazy, completely crazy.
I wonder what kind of odds a London bookie will give me on which city and when AQ vaporizes another 3 or 5 thousand of us.
Panetta neither has the guts or emotional armor for this job. Almost makes me long for the days of George Tenent and Richard Clarke.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/13/2009 17:47 Comments ||
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#5
I am starting to believe the Obama administration and his leftist minions have spent more energy on Bush and Company than Al Qaeda. Tends to lead credence to who they think the real threat is.
Posted here because a) a Finding is a Legal Term indicating direction and informing by teh POTUS, DCI, and Congress, and b) The Donks are totally lying to cover for Pelosi's lies and would throw the CIA and National Security under the bus for their own craven political cover, and c) WTF? Panetta killed this? That'll be a winning position for the Donks. *spit*
A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.
The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn't clear, and the CIA won't comment on its substance.
According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/13/2009 13:16 ||
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#1
Why the fuss?
Is this not a proper job for the USA CIA, to eliminate criminal leaders of terror groups that threaten the nation, and indeed, the world?
For Pete's sake, it's not like we're talking about assassinating leaders of state here.
This is nothing more than BS posturing and diversion on behalf of the Donks. Playing politics with our national security like this really chaps my ass.
#3
I don't know what role the CIA had, if any, in the elimination of Zarquawi, and the crazy sons of Saddam, and a host of other AQ in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakiland but are these not targeted assassinations? When a predator tracks an AQ and unleashes a missile is that not a targeted assassination. When Clinton lobbed missiles into Afghanistan prior to 911 were these not intended to be targeted assassinations of AQ?
Sounds like much ado about nothing. Thought BO wasn't going to look back. Why is AG Holder trying to dredge up all this stuff now unless just politics?
Wag the dog politics going on--deflecting attention from legislation that is being pushed through Congress.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. ...Ambrose Bierce
The current crop of Dhimmicrats ought to be careful for what goes around comes around--The next administration might choose to look back also and start dredging up $hit.
#4
I heard a lot about this over the weekend. According to Fox News the initiative hadn't reached the stage whereby Congress had to be informed and that Cheney never told anyone at the CIA not to tell congress. This is pure bullsh*t to cover Pelosi's lies and to divert attention from Obumble's failed Swindle-us Bill.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/13/2009 15:36 Comments ||
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#5
More misdirection from the Ozero Administration - attempting to deflect attention from the burgeoning deficit and unemployment situation.
Ten people including seven children were killed and dozens wounded Monday in an explosion at the home of a Muslim cleric in central Pakistan where pupils were taught the Koran, officials said. It was not immediately clear why the explosives detonated on the outskirts of Mian Channu, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Multan in the heart of Pakistan's most populous and politically important province, Punjab.
"Remember always to connect the red wire to the red, and the green wire to the green. Are any of you students colour-blind?"
"But Teacher, all my wires are grey!" BOOOM!!!!
"Ten people were killed and 70 others wounded in the explosion," local district police chief Kamran Khan told AFP. He said an audio cassette, pamphlets of a previously unknown militant group, two suicide jackets, detonators, six rockets and two rocket launchers were recovered from the debris of the house.
"After this, we'll work on how to be a jacket wallah. The girls love jacket wallahs, you know."
Naeem Sadiq, a doctor at the local hospital, said the dead included three women, a 15-year-old boy and six children aged between six and 12. "Ten seriously injured have been shifted to the main hospital. We have declared an emergency," he added.
Police said up to 25 homes were damaged due to the force of the explosion, which gouged a huge crater out of the ground. Only the outer walls of buildings were left standing, as rescue workers sifted through the rubble under the burning sun and a rocket launcher was visible sticking out of the debris, according to television footage. "The blast took place inside the house of a local cleric. Children used to come to his house for religious education," Khan told reporters. "The blast was so severe that it formed a big crater and around 25 houses collapsed," he told the private Geo television channel.
Rana Sanaullah, a provincial cabinet minister, said that an investigation was under way into the cause of the blast.
Everyone who thinks it was illicit explosives, raise your hand.
"This was not a formal madrassa but children used to come to get a Koranic education," he told Geo.
NEW DELHI More than two dozen police officers and a rural police chief were killed in two attacks by Maoist guerrillas on Sunday in Raj Nandgaon, a district in the violence-plagued state of Chattisgarh in India. The attacks were the deadliest in what has been a grim year in the decades-long, on-and-off struggle between Maoist fighters, known as Naxalites, and the Indian government.
The rebels have expanded their grip over vast areas of central and eastern India, claiming to be fighting for the rights of landless peasants and laborers in rural areas left behind by Indias rapid economic growth. They have been flexing their muscles in several parts of India, fighting government troops and killing hundreds of soldiers, police officers and civilians each year for the last few years.
Indias government last month banned the Maoist political party, with which the rebels are affiliated, after beginning a broad offensive against the rebels in several important states.
Pawan Dev, a deputy inspector general of the Chattisgarh police, said in a telephone interview that 27 officers were killed in two attacks. Two officers were killed in the first attack, and the rebels ambushed officers who had rushed to respond to it, Mr. Dev said. The district police chief, V. K. Chaubey, was one of those who died, Mr. Dev said.
This year, 148 people have been killed in Maoist violence in Chattisgarh, according to government officials.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
CHINESE MIL FORUM > NAXALITE REBELLION MENACES THE HEART OF INDIA.
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUMS > PAKISTANI TALIBAN PREDICT THE COLLAPSE OF THE USA [Among other, ISLAMIST FIGHTER argues that AFPAK Talibs-MilTerrs must maintain contact with those fighting and suppor Islamic Jihad in INDIA]; + THERE COULD SOON BE INDIAN TALIBAN.
[Geo News] Curfew has been imposed in Miranshah, Shawal, Datakhel and Ghulam Khan areas of North Wazristan from 10 PM to 6 AM, political administration said Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] A hand grenade blast occurred on Sarki Road area here located near industrial police station, which left one on duty police official injured, police sources said on Sunday. According to police sources, two unknown armed militants, riding motorcycle, hurled a hand grenade near industrial police station, which exploded injuring a policeman wounded, but no loss of life was confirmed. Police said they have commenced investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] The security forces claimed to have killed as many as eleven more militants during new wave of counterinsurgency operations here in South Waziristan Agency on Sunday, security forces said.
Meanwhile, a remote controlled bomb blast left member peace committee and his son critically injured, sources said.
According to sources, the remote controlled bomb blast occurred in Azam Varsak area of SWA when member peace committee Malik Sheerin Jan was driving his vehicle with his son.
Two received critical injures amid blast while they have been rushed to Wana hospital for medical treatment, sources added.
In the mean time, security forces have killed 11 militants during counterinsurgency operations in the outskirts of Sarokai area of SWA while a stronghold of Taliban located at a local school was also shelled, security forces sources claimed.
The political administrator of the area said the curfew has been clamped in Mir Ali, Miram Shah, Shawal, Data Khel and Ghulam Khan areas from 10pm to 6am on Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2009 00:00 ||
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A church in Iraq was bombed Monday, the seventh Christian house of worship in the country to be bombed in three days. At least three children were wounded in Monday's attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, an Interior Ministry official told CNN. The car bomb exploded in the morning, damaging the church in the al-Faisaliya district of eastern Mosul.
Six churches in and around Baghdad were bombed over the weekend, leaving four dead, officials told CNN. A total of 35 people have been wounded in the wave of attacks, including the three children Monday.
One Christian Iraqi, interviewed outside Sacred Heart Church -- one of three churches bombed Sunday afternoon -- said the bomb went off shortly before 5 p.m., as members were arriving for Sunday evening mass. No one was hurt, Sabhan George told CNN, but the bomb damaged the church building and some cars outside. George said he is concerned about the church bombings. If this continues, he said, "there will be no Christians left in Iraq."
The first bombing took place Saturday night at St. Joseph's church in western Baghdad, according to an Interior Ministry official. Two bombs placed inside the church exploded about 10 p.m. (3 p.m. ET). No one was in the church at the time of the attack.
Earlier Sunday, three bombs exploded outside churches, wounding eight civilians, the official said. The bombs detonated within a 15-minute span, between 4:30 and 4:45 p.m. local time (9:30 and 9:45 a.m. ET). Two of the churches are in central Baghdad's al-Karrada district, and the third is in al-Ghadeer in eastern Baghdad.
Sunday evening, a car bomb exploded outside a church on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad just after 7 p.m. (12 p.m. ET), the official said. Four people died, and 21 were wounded. And in southern Baghdad's Dora district, a bomb outside a church wounded three other civilians. Most of the churches were damaged in the bombings, according to video footage.
St. Joseph's was one of six churches hit by coordinated bombings of Christian houses of worship in Baghdad and Mosul in 2004. The church is in the al-Jamiaa neighborhood of Baghdad, a former stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq. There have been recent reports of an increase in targeted attacks in the area.
Many of Iraq's estimated 1 million Christians have fled the country after targeted attacks by extremists. In October, more than a thousand Iraqi families fled Mosul after they were reportedly frightened by a series of killings and threats by Muslim extremists, who apparently ordered them to convert to Islam or face possible death. At least 14 Christians were killed in Mosul in the first two weeks of October.
This what happens when nice little Hitler Youth boys grow up.
TEHRAN -- When the protests broke out here last month, Mehdi Moradani answered the call to crush them.
On the first day of the unrest, the 24-year-old volunteer member of Iran's paramilitary Basij force mounted his motorcycle and chased reformist protesters through the streets, shouting out the names of Shiite saints as he revved his engine. On the fourth day, he picked up a thick wooden stick issued by his Basij neighborhood task force and beat demonstrators who refused to disperse.
Anyone think of grabbing the stick from him and beating him over the head with it?
By the eighth day, demonstrators alleging that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had rigged his re-election were out by the hundreds of thousands. Mr. Moradani says he mobilized in a 12-man motorcycle crew, scouting out restive neighborhoods across Tehran. He battled protesters with a baton and tear gas. The demonstrators fought back with rocks, bricks and bottles.
The story of Mr. Moradani, a midranking Basij member, offers a rare glimpse into one of the most mysterious and feared arms of Iran's regime -- and into the group's most significant mobilization since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. This portrait of Mr. Moradani is based on interviews with him conducted in person and by phone, both before the uprising and after the crackdown began.
The Basij became the most visible target of the opposition's fury. In some neighborhoods, protesters covered streets with oil to thwart Basij motorbikes, surrounding and beating fallen Basij riders.
Before the election, Mr. Moradani campaigned for Mr. Ahmadinejad. He printed campaign posters and pasted them on walls. The day after the vote, with his candidate declared the winner, Mr. Moradani bought a box of chocolate cupcakes and drove his motorcycle to one of Mr. Ahmadinejad's campaign offices to celebrate.
A few hours later, he recalls, he was shocked to see demonstrators filling the streets. They set plastic trash bins afire along Tehran's long Vali Asr Avenue. Men and women, gathered in clusters across town, shouted "Death to the Dictator."
Riot police chased them away. The demonstrators regrouped and began chanting again -- a cat-and-mouse game that played out for days.
"I never expected the protests to be so intense and last so long," said Mr. Moradani in a phone interview from Tehran this week. "I thought it would be over in a few days."
Basij members organized to support riot police and other security officials across Tehran. Protesters, most of them young, fought back. "You saw young people on both sides mobilizing with vengeance and willing to kill," said Issa Saharkheez, a political analyst in Tehran, in an interview shortly after the election. Mr. Saharkheez was subsequently arrested in detentions that followed the unrest.
At the height of the street battles, in Sadaat Abad, a middle-class neighborhood in east Tehran, young men and women organized themselves into an unofficial militia to fight the Basij, with a "commander" taking responsibility for each street. Every afternoon, they would meet to prepare for the evening's expected battle, according to a 25-year-old student who was involved with the group.
They collected rocks, tiles and bricks from construction sites and spilled oil on the roads, an attempt to sideline the Basij's motorcycles. When a Basij rider would go down, the young men would beat him, according to the student. Women stood back, screaming "Death to the Dictator" and stoking bonfires in the street. Older supporters remained indoors, throwing ashtrays, vases and other household items from their balconies and windows onto the Basij motorcycle riders below.
"There was a war going on here every night," the student says. "We are not going to stand and let them beat us."
At the end of the first week of protests, Mr. Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, led Friday prayers and endorsed Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory. He ordered all demonstrators off the streets.
A few hours after Mr. Khamenei's sermon, Mr. Moradani got a call at home. The local Basij headquarters was holding an emergency meeting. About four hundred members showed up. A top Basij commander briefed them on the riots and their responsibilities going forward. He called protesters "havoc makers" and accused them of having ties to Western countries aiming to sow chaos in Iran. The commander said the protests were no longer a matter of election unrest, but had become a serious, national-security threat.
"It is now everyone's Islamic and revolutionary duty to crush these antirevolutionary forces," Hossam Gholami, the 27-year-old chief of Shahr Rey Basij, told members, he recalled in a telephone interview this week. "You are not dealing with ordinary people. They are our enemy," he said he told them.
Mr. Moradani lined up with his comrades to receive an official letter of deployment, signed and bearing the seal of the Revolutionary Guard. He was given new equipment: a camouflage vest to wear over his clothes, a plastic baton, handcuffs and a hand-held radio.
On the streets the next day, a Saturday, the Basij and other security services cracked down, resulting in some of the bloodiest clashes with protesters. Mr. Moradani says he and his brigade roamed the streets, attacking what he says were violent protesters. Alerted about a burnt-out mosque, he rushed to the scene to secure the area.
One day, Mr. Moradani says, a mob chased him. He fell off his motorcycle and the crowd beat him with sticks and rocks, he says. His leg was bandaged for a few days, and he still walks with a limp, he says. Dozens of Basij militia have been killed and injured, he says. Protesters have attacked his friends by throwing acid on their faces, he says.
Mr. Moradani says a young man in his group was killed when a protester in a black sports car ran over him, he says. The driver, he says, was arrested and confessed to driving over 11 Basij members. Mr. Moradani's account was impossible to independently verify.
For Mr. Moradani, the biggest shock during the election turmoil came in his personal life. He had recently gotten engaged to a young woman from a devout, conservative family. A week into the protests, he says, his fiancée called him with an ultimatum. If he didn't leave the Basij and stop supporting Mr. Ahmadinejad, he recalls her saying, she wouldn't marry him.
He told her that was impossible. "I suffered a real emotional blow," he says. "She said to me, 'Go beat other people's children then,' and 'I don't want to have anything to do with you,' and hung up on me."
She returned the ring he gave her, and hasn't returned his phone calls. "The opposition has even fooled my fiancée," he says.
More background information at the link. Poor Mr. Moradani joined the Basij youth group at age fourteen, then moved to the adult branch later. As of 4:47 pm there are 91 comments attached to the article.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/13/2009 16:28 ||
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But ambitious, OldSpook. He only need pass the all-day interview to get into the Republican Guards, where his daddy used to be a commander. He's already passed the written tests, although he failed the interview twice already.
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.
campaign office in Panjshir province damaged the building, an official said 
[Maghrebia] Algerian anti-terror units on Saturday (July 11th) dismantled a terror cell and arrested nine people, including several women, in the eastern Algiers suburbs of Bordj El Kiffan and Kouba, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. A suspect arrested as part of the investigation into al-Qaeda's El Fateh brigade in Algiers provided key information. According to security sources, the network had being submitting information to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on the movement and the organisation of security services in Algiers.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A Swiss hostage held by a branch of Al-Qaeda since January has been freed, Switzerland's foreign ministry confirmed Sunday, adding that he had received medical attention and would be heading home. "The Swiss Foreign Ministry learnt with joy that the efforts towards the liberation of the last Swiss hostage in Mali has been successful," said the ministry in a statement.
Ten people including seven children were killed and dozens wounded Monday in an explosion at the home of a Muslim cleric in central Pakistan where pupils were taught the Koran, officials said. It was not immediately clear why the explosives detonated on the outskirts of Mian Channu, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Multan in the heart of Pakistan's most populous and politically important province, Punjab.
[Geo News] The security forces claimed to have killed as many as eleven more militants during new wave of counterinsurgency operations here in South Waziristan Agency on Sunday, security forces said.
