Talks between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria have focused on regional developments and boosting bilateral ties.
"The two leaders discussed the range of Arab issues, including recent developments on the Palestinian front... developments in Lebanon and the confrontation between the West and Iran over its nuclear file," Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad told reporters, following the talks late on Friday.
The two leaders also discussed bilateral trade which has increased to 2.8 billion dollars annually, Awad said.
He said the two leaders discussed Egypt's invitation to Palestinian factions to hold talks in Cairo, adding that "we are waiting to receive answers from all the Palestinian factions before we set a date (for the inter-Palestinian talks)."
With regards the Iranian nuclear crisis, Awad called on Tehran to adopt a "principle of transparency" with regards its nuclear activities, urging the West "not to drag the whole region into a dangerous situation."
President Mubarak met with Oman's Sultan Qaboos on Thursday and is due to meet Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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The Bangladesh guerrilla group (JMB), responsible for some 400 blasts nationwide on a single day in 2005, has been effectively crushed, officials say. This is from Iran Press TV. They seem to have just picked up on the fact. If they'd been reading Rantburg all along they'd have known it.
Authorities say since August 17, 2005, the government has cracked down on the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) after they carried out serial blasts throughout the nation, on one single day killing 28 people and injuring scores of others. The security force launched the crackdown following criticism that Dhaka was turning a blind eye to growing extremism. Turned out certain members of the government had been in cahoots with them, since they had the same Islamic goals...
According to Hasan Mahmud Khandaker, security head of Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion, the government is confident that this terrorist group can pose no more threats as at least 1,000 of its members have been arrested. I'd guess 900 of them are dupes, pawns, cannon fodder, and innocent bystanders. The actual organization was pretty much a clan affair.
He added that they have successfully dealt with. And there's the secret to dismantling a terror organization: Hang all the ones you don't shoot.
Over the last two years bomb attacks have become a rarity. The disintegration of JMB though not yet complete, has seen the group "very much under control", Khandaker said after a Bengali-language newspaper Prothom Alo warned the JMG was regrouping. The large-scale arrests of JMB guerrillas have blunted its influence. Rebel leader Sheikh Abdur Rahman and his deputy Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai are in state custody, while six senior rebels were executed last year after a court sentenced them to death for killing two judges, AFP quoted Khandaker as saying. That's the first we've heard of Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai still being alive. Supposedly they had their necks stretched on March 29th of last year.
This article starring:
Hasan Mahmud Khandaker
Rapid Action Battalion
SHEIKH ABDUR RAHMAN
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh
SIDIQUL ISLAM BANGLA BHAI
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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ISLAMABAD: Israeli President Shimon Peres is desperately trying to help his friend President Pervez Musharraf and is putting indirect pressure on the coalition government through different diplomatic channels not to impeach him, Foreign Office sources reveal.
The sources claim that Peres wants a safe exit for Musharraf and he is also ready to provide security to his friend outside Pakistan. These sources also claim that Peres and Musharraf are in regular contact with each other for the last three years. Both met first in Davos in January 2005 and since then they have been writing letters to each other and exchanging pleasantries on telephone regularly.
According to the sources, Peres wrote his first-ever official letter to Musharraf in October 2007, appreciating his efforts in the fight against terrorism. Musharraf, in his response, thanked the Israeli president for his support and good wishes. These letters were exchanged through diplomatic channels of Turkey.
Peres called his Pakistani friend again a few days ago. Though the details of their conversation were not available with the Foreign Office yet it is believed that Peres offered his friend some help.
Informed sources are of the view that Israel has strong friendly relations with Turkey and is in a position to provide security to Musharraf in Turkey. One close friend of Musharraf is also busy in lobbying for him in the Jewish lobby in the US these days. This friend of Musharraf has met many leaders of the World Jewish Congress recently. Musharraf even praised this friend publicly in recognition of his services for facilitating him to address the Jewish lobby in New York. This special friend still enjoys ministerial status in Pakistan without being elected and despite the fact that he is an American citizen. It has been learnt that the same friend is requesting his American Jewish contacts to do something for the safe exit of Musharraf through Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Peres had openly said in October 2001 that he prayed for the life of Musharraf every morning as he (Musharraf) had signed his death warrant by changing the Afghan policy of Pakistan. After that, Musharraf also came into contact with the late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. He also met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in January this year in Paris.
Diplomatic sources claim that Musharraf is the most popular Pakistani leader in Israel. He was the first Pakistani leader who was invited to address the World Jewish Congress in the US in 2005. After that historic event, the then foreign minister of Pakistan Khurshid Kasuri met his Israeli counterpart Silvon Shalom in Turkey in 2005.
Musharraf had asked the Foreign Office in early 2007 to prepare a plan for the recognition of Israel but it did not materialise due to the political turmoil started in March 2007. It is also pertinent to mention here that Indian National Security Adviser MK Narayanan was the first foreign leader to come out openly in support of Musharraf on Wednesday, saying his impeachment would only help extremist elements in the country. The same Indian leader had declared on December 19, 2007 that India could trust Musharraf but not Benazir Bhutto.
Musharraf knows that he is still popular among the Indian and Israeli establishments and has a lot of friends in Western capitals as well. If provided a safe exit, he can find a new role for himself in international diplomacy.
Highly placed sources in the coalition government claim that Musharraf is now completely isolated and he has informed Asif Ali Zardari, through the governor Punjab, that he would resign if provided special indemnity. However, the coalition government is not ready to provide him indemnity and in that case he would face the first-ever humiliating impeachment process, which would definitely make history in Pakistan.
Hamid Mir is the Executive Editor of Geo TV in Islamabad and he has also interviewed Osama bin Laden, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, General Pervaiz Musharraf, Hamid Karzai, L K Advani and other international leaders.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/17/2008 10:12 ||
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In each of the dozen major bomb blasts that have taken place in India over the past three years, the name of one organization has cropped up with unerring constancy. Indian police and investigative agencies explored possible links of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) after each terrorist blast, but achieved a breakthrough only after 27 serial bombs ripped through western Gujarat state's principal city Ahmedabad on July 28 killing 56 people. The Gujarat state police announced on Saturday that it had arrested nine people - most of them were SIMI activists - and the suspected 'mastermind' behind the blasts.
The SIMI, a Muslim fundamentalist organization, was founded in 1977 in Aligarh town of Uttar Pradesh, known for its famous Muslim university. Mohammad Ahmadullah, who currently holds an academic position in the United States, founded the SIMI 'to educate and enlighten Muslim youth in India.' In a recent interview with website rediff.com, he states he no longer has any links with the SIMI as it has been hijacked by radical elements.
The SIMI, in its publications, lists as its objectives, the propagation of Islam and jihad for the cause of Islam. The organization saw rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s with units established in several states spread as far as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala in the south, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west, central Madhya Pradesh and eastern West Bengal and Assam. SIMI activists believe in a pan-Islamic state, a Muslim ummah, and have said they want to convert India into an Islamic land. SIMI literature and pamphlets have referred to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the true believers or mujahid who have taken up jihad or holy war for the ummah. Omar, particularly, is a role model for many SIMI leaders. It is believed that SIMI gets substantial funds from international organizations for Muslim youth based in the Middle East.
The Indian government banned the SIMI in 2001 on the grounds that it was inciting communal violence. But intelligence officials say the organization simply went underground, regrouped its core membership and continued to draw new recruits. It currently operates through various front organizations such as religious study groups, research centres and non-profit organizations, they said. According to the police the SIMI has a core membership of at least 400 full-time cadres and 200,000 members. It is believed the SIMI's ranks swelled substantially after the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002 in which more than 1,500 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.
The police have been tailing SIMI activists over the years and several have been arrested. SIMI chief Safdar Nagori was picked up as recently as March 2008 by the police in Madhya Pradesh along with 12 other activists. He is in jail and has been charged with sedition and inciting communal trouble. Nagori is believed to have been instrumental in setting up sleeper cells of activists and organizing camps where members were trained in using guns, guerrilla warfare, jungle survival, withstanding interrogation and raising legal issues about their rights if arrested. Both Kerala and Madhya Pradesh police have reported that such camps were held in forest areas in their states.
Police say the SIMI has links with Islamic terror groups based in Pakistan and in Bangladesh. They are also believed to have links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but the police has not yet been able to establish any direct link in connection with the recent Gujarat blasts. The SIMI and Pakistan-based Islamic terror groups have been named by the Indian police in connection with every major bomb attack in India over the past three years, including the serial bomb blasts on Mumbai's rail network in 2006, which killed 187 people.
Tens of thousands of Muslims have massed in India-administered Kashmir to pay homage to a separatist leader and 21 other protesters killed by police in protests over the past six weeks.
Sheikh Aziz, a senior Kashmiri separatist leader, was killed when police opened fire this week in one of the biggest protests in the region in recent years.
Mourners streamed in cars, buses and trucks into Pampore, Aziz's home town, on Saturday to take part in the outpouring of grief and anger. Protesters carried black and green flags and shouted: "We want freedom," "Indians go home" and "Kashmir is ours".
Aziz was a leader of Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference. Security forces remained at a distance to avoid provoking further deadly clashes.
Call for independence
The weeks of demonstrations have been sparked by a row that pits Muslims in Kashmir against Hindus in Jammu, the two main regions which make up the Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir. A dispute over land allocated to Hindu pilgrims visiting a shrine in Kashmir has snowballed into fullscale anti-India protests, uniting separatists and reviving calls for Kashmiri independence.
The crisis has also raised tensions with nuclear rival Pakistan. India has criticised Islamabad for interfering in its internal affairs by calling for UN intervention in the region that both claim in full but rule in parts.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Here, let me pay my respects to the deceased (visualize pig entrails on his grave).
Al Qaeda's number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri slammed Pakistan's embattled President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam, in a first English audio message posted online on Saturday. Nothing he hasn't said before. It remains false on its face, unless you're another takfir.
In the message, excerpts of which were aired by Pakistan's ARY One television last week, Zawahiri also dismissed the Pakistani army as a "band of mercenaries" controlled by the US administration. Just not a very good one...
"Musharraf has proven himself to be one of the biggest enemies of Islam, if not the biggest," Zawahiri said in the purported message, which was posted on a website usually used by Islamist militant groups. He chided Musharraf for offering "all support to topple the Muslim emirate in Afghanistan." It was either him or them at the time. If he'd said "no" there's no telling what might have happened to Pak. We can be pretty sure it wouldn't have been pleasant.
"It is evident that during the past years, the Pakistan Army's primary duty has been to take part in the killing of Muslims from Kabul to Islamabad," he charged. The Pak army's primary duty is to present a threat of some sort to India. It's actually not used as an instrument of domestic oppression most of the time, that being the job of the police. The Frontier Corps, of course, is a different matter. Their job seems to be to stop bullets or to have their heads chopped off by Muslims within the borders of Pakistain. English: Zawahiri said he chose to speak in English against his wish in order to address the people of Pakistan in a language they can understand, saying he would have spoken in Urdu had he mastered the "charming" language. He has to make due with Arabic, the language of the Master Race, with Pashto, the language of natives, and with English, the language of civilization.
Zawahiri said that he went to Pakistan first in 1980, to help treat the Mujahideen wounded in the war in Afghanistan against the Russians. He was forced to leave in the early 1990s due to American pressure, Zawahiri said. "All of us have enjoyed the warm welcome and the caring attention of most Pakistanis, which has been most evident during the past crusade being carried out by Musharraf and his hunting dogs, in compliance with the orders of their master in Washington," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
If it were true that would mean Musharraf is a good guy.
#4
Wonder if this was an older 'recording'? Seem to remember hearing that Uncle Ayman might have had a 'medical issue' due to some unfortunate missile strike.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/17/2008 7:37 Comments ||
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#5
Convenient that he attacks Perv when the Pak President is fighting for his job and needs support.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/17/2008 10:38 Comments ||
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#6
Does someone have some kind of a souvenir scorecard, program, or cheatsheet on a small laminated card for Pakistan?
Posted by: Alaska Paul back from SE Alaska ||
08/17/2008 13:28 Comments ||
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#7
He wears glasses... aren't they a Western Fashion statement ... esp. in these days of Lasik?
Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, dashed to Pakistan for talks with the government over its plans to impeach President Musharraf, a senior official said Saturday. His first question was "Are you people all crazy?" Within a half hour it was obvious they actually were, so subsequent discussions proceded from that premise.
"Yes, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz did visit Pakistan on Friday and met senior government officials," a senior coalition official told AFP requesting anonymity. "The main purpose of the visit was to find an amicable solution to the (Musharraf impeachment) issue and that no one should become a laughing stock," the official said. Heh heh. Way too late for that.
Asked what solution the coalition regarded as acceptable, the official said "Musharraf should step down" but that it was "really up to Musharraf" if his plans included exile to Saudi Arabia. "Saudi Arabia is a very strong ally of both Pakistan and the US and the visit was a sincere and friendly effort to interact with all and sundry to settle the issue," the official said. "The Saudis have very strong bonds of friendship with us. President Musharraf has also been very close to Riyadh during his rule," the official added.
This article starring:
Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Also to make sure the Pakistanis don't forget who owns "their" bombs?
In a statement issued on Saturday, the TTP media wing said Mohammad Raees would head the four Taliban committees. The committees would cover the four units where Mehsud tribe lives. These are Barwand, Srarogha, Makeen and Saam.
Two Baloch organisations claimed at a press conference at the National Press Club on Friday that there are 700 checkpoints in Balochistan, which they called "an occupied land" littered with military cantonments.
In answer to a question, Wahid Baloch of the Baloch Society of North America asserted that there is nothing wrong with the Sardari system and the Baloch sardars have never hurt their own people, but done their best for them. He ascribed all such allegations to Pakistan "government propaganda".
Minority: Another expatriate Baloch leader Ahmar Mustikhan said that the Baloch people are afraid of being turned into a minority in their own land. He also asserted that Balochistan was never a part of Pakistan and that the treaty signed by the Pakistan government with the ruler of Kalat was signed under coercion. He also called the Pakistan army a "jihadi" force deployed against the Baloch people. He charged that Pakistan was involved in the 9/11 attacks, besides holding it responsible for the upheaval and fighting in Afghanistan. But for the sanctuaries Pakistan provides to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, there would be peace in Afghanistan, he declared.
Wahid Baloch told the thinly-attended news conference that the Pakistan army is "Taliban in uniform holding US arms". He also questioned Pakistan's sincerity as a US ally in the war against terrorism.
Terror campaign: He called Pakistan the main source of terrorism. He said the Pakistani and Iranian "jihadi" armies cannot fight the Indian and Israeli armies, but are carrying out a terror campaign against defenceless Balochi civilians. "The genocide of the Baloch nation is continuing on both sides of the border. The US F16s and Cobra gunship helicopters given to Pakistan to hunt down Taliban terrorists are being used in Balochistan against innocent, secular Balochi people. He accused the army of having attacked a village in Dera Bugti last week and killing 48 people, while arresting hundreds, who were later taken to a military camp and "summarily executed in Nazi style". Their bodies, he alleged, were dumped in mass graves. He said just because the majority of Baloch people is Muslim does not give Iran and Pakistan the right to continue to occupy their lands, plunder their resources and kill them at random. He said Pakistan had carried out its 1998 nuclear test in Balochistan without the consent of the Baloch people.
The American Friends of Balochistan and the Baloch Society of North America, were joined by Dr Nazir Bhatti, editor of the Pakistan Christian Post, who demanded an end to the "killings of Christians" and adequate representation in parliament after an unbiased population census. "There were five elected members in Pakistan Assembly of 1948, in house of 48 and which are decreased to four seats when house constitutes with 342 members in 2008. A transparent census is very important issue in for the Christians to get their due share," Bhatti said. He called on US Congress to place an embargo on all military supplies and equipment to Pakistan until it grants the Baloch people the right to self-determination, hands over terrorists like AQ Khan, Osama bin Laden, Ayman Alzwahiri, Daud Ebrahim and Rashid Rauf to the US and rolls back its nuclear weapons programme.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I support the territorial integrity of Pakistan and self determination for the Balochis.
#2
McZoid --- you must be givin' text to Obama's talks off teleprompters, cause you string together three and four syllables words together that sound brilliant, but make absolutely no sense.
My reading comprehension skills allow me to speculate, that like Obama, following Kerry, you just stated, "I actually did vote for it before I voted against it."
You devil you, state a contradicting statement, then challenge us with "And don't contradict me here."
None here at Rantburg are really that dumb.
My vote? I vote you off the island. You can do better than this.... Too much Saturday nite up there in Vancouver?
#5
Well I think its a curious question now that the Kosovo situation is settled, and still in the dust up over S.Ossetia.
Who exactly has the right of independence? Anyone who claims it? We've taken the cork out of the bottle so to speak, expect about a hundred separatist movements to flare up now.
And I see what you are saying McZoid, if you think about it for more than 2 seconds it makes sense.
#6
It's quite possible to have local self-rule within national borders. The Native American reservations have that, as does California. They just don't make their own international policy or have standing armies, and if they disagree with federal policy with regard to highways or education, they need not take federal funds, unless an issue regarding Constitutional rights is involved.
Our Declaration of Independence settled that issue back in 1776 - "all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The problem is to have the capability to defend that government against those that would oppose it. We had that acted out this past week as Russia crushed the Georgian nation as Georgia tried to impose its writ throughout its territory. Georgia may end up losing considerable territory and population because Russia opposes Georgia's freedom.
If you're going to declare independence, you need to be willing and able to defend it. The politicians of the United States learned that in 1776, but seems to have forgotten it lately.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2008 16:02 Comments ||
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RAMADI, IRAQ -- As Iraqi officials and the U.S. military haggle over when to let Anbar province take control of its own security, a row of broken-down Ford pickups in a Ramadi schoolyard offers a sobering picture of the readiness of the region's security forces.
The U.S. military gave the vehicles to the police officers stationed in a former school here, but the Iraqi government hasn't provided parts or a maintenance system to keep them running. The officers work on their own vehicles, picking parts from the junkers.
A shaky connection with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad is just one of the problems confronting American efforts to disengage from the predominantly Sunni Arab province more than a year after the U.S. military joined with local security forces, former insurgents and tribal warriors to take on Al Qaeda in Iraq here.
A formal transfer from U.S. to Iraqi control over security in Anbar had been scheduled for early July, then put on indefinite hold after a suicide bomber targeted a town council meeting in the town of Karmah, killing three Marines and at least 22 Iraqis. The U.S. military initially blamed poor weather for the postponement, but several local leaders said the bombing showed that Iraqi security forces were still not prepared.
The transfer will be a milestone in the war in Iraq, as a declaration of victory in the birthplace of the insurgency and a province that only two years ago was considered lost to Al Qaeda in Iraq. The delay has put a damper on hopes for a triumphant U.S. withdrawal soon.
Yet even as the ceremony hangs in limbo, Marines and Iraqi police officers in Ramadi are transferring the reins of security, little by little.
On a recent day, Capt. Jonathan Hamilton, commander of the weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, dropped by the Forsan station, with its impromptu salvage yard.
For more than a year since the Forsan police station was established as an outpost in the abandoned school, a detachment of Marines has lived and worked there alongside the Iraqi police.
Hamilton said it was time for the station to stand on its own. The young police force had proved its capability to maintain the rule of law in this provincial capital of 400,000.
Gradually, the Marines are trying to demilitarize the city, Hamilton said. One by one, they're pulling out the units that billeted in 11 police stations, rolling up their razor wire and withdrawing to bases outside the city.
"We're not leaving, for sure," Hamilton said. "We're just reducing our footprint."
But during his visit to Forsan, the generator conked out. Hamilton had his meeting with police Col. Hassan Nayif Abd, the south precinct commander, in the dark.
"Col. Hassan," as the U.S. commanders call him, was comfortable with the Marine detachment leaving his station, but he certainly didn't want to go cold turkey. Could Hamilton send one of his engineers by to fix the generator, he wanted to know.
Power failures are not the only challenges facing Ramadi's new police force as it lurches toward self-sufficiency. During four days spent with Hamilton's weapons company, The Times observed numerous issues with the management of police stations, including inefficient procurement systems and meddling by tribal sheiks.
At the same time, both U.S. military and Iraqi police commanders are confident that the training and professionalism of the line policemen has progressed so far that there is no immediate concern about a possible resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
"The security situation is good and it is progressing every day," said Lt. Col. Dhahir Mahmoud Allawni, who runs the Warrar police station, where insurgent suspects are detained. "The people will not accept that Al Qaeda returns."
Almost unanimously, local Iraqi police commanders said that they were ready to assume full responsibility, but that it would be better to delay the transfer until after provincial elections, which had been scheduled for October but are delayed indefinitely amid political wrangling.
What concerns them is not Al Qaeda in Iraq, they say, but the complex claims to power that have yet to be resolved since the expulsion of the extremists.
"We have some political conflict," Allawni said. "We have some greedy politicians. They put their self-interest in front of the people's interest. We have a big number of political parties delineated according to their tribes. The terrorists might exploit the conflicts."
The political ferment in Ramadi arose from the nearly complete collapse of legitimate local institutions while Al Qaeda in Iraq controlled the city and during the subsequent fighting.
#1
Anymouse's son is home and we are celebrating. He corroborates that his last 2 months in the Al Anbar were "boring". (but I can assure you not for anymouse and his Mother). Semper Fi!
#2
Congratulations, Anymouse! Please tell your son that most of this nation--the intelligent part--holds him and his Marine buddies in the highest regard and is extremely grateful for their service. Semper Fidelis indeed!
#3
Congratulations here, too, Anymouse! Our family's Marine was over in the 'wild west' 2005-06. His stay was definitely not boring, but he's glad that what he and his company did for the area created the scenario that keeps your son, his team and the locals safer from the AQ types.
Outstanding!
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/17/2008 7:29 Comments ||
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#4
Welcome home with our thanks, anymouse junior! You continue a proud family tradition.
#5
Thanks TF, Mullah, and JM. We are proud (though relieved). He is pretty low key and modest. He does not expect to deploy to Iraq again, unless as an advisor. Marine focus is shifting to Afghanistan, of course.
#9
Anymouse Jr. just another grateful American wanting to say thanks on behalf of a lot of other Americans! There's lot of us grateful Americans out here and don't ever forget that.
And a great big thanks to Amymouse and Mom -- your caring and sharing has brought his service close to your friends here in Rantburg.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims poured into Iraq's holy city of Karbala on Saturday for a rite that has become an annual show of strength for Shiites, defying bomb attacks across the country.
At least six people were killed in the latest such attack, when a car bombing in Baghdad on Saturday targeted Shiite pilgrims heading to of Karbala for the religious festival, police and hospital officials said.
The attack was the latest in a wave of bombings since Thursday that have now killed at least 36 people, most of them pilgrims, despite a massive security operation.
Saturday's attack, in the northeastern Baghdad district of Ur, also wounded 11 people, the officials said.
Late on Friday, a van packed with explosives was detonated at a bus station where pilgrims were assembling in Balad, a Shi'ite town in a mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 40, according to police.
Many of the pilgrims have walked for days in temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) to mark the birth of Imam al-Mehdi, a Messiah-like figure Shi'ites believe vanished centuries ago and will return to bring peace on earth.
More than 40,000 soldiers and police have been mobilized, including 2,000 female security workers, to boost security in and around Karbala ahead of a festival on Sunday commemorating an eighth century imam.
Bloodshed routinely marks Shiite pilgrimages. On July 28, three female suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of pilgrims near a Baghdad shrine, killing 25.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held talks Saturday evening on security and political matters, officials from both sides said.
The two men meet at Barak's residence in Tel Aviv for discussions on "security and political questions" according to a defense ministry statement.
The talks touched on the expected release of more than 150 Palestinian prisoners Sunday, along with the deployment of new Palestinian police forces in the West Bank, military radio reported.
Barak and Fayyad met in Jerusalem in June with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
A statement from Fayyad's office said he insisted that Israel must halt settlement construction and cease military raids into the West Bank in pursuit of alleged Palestinian militants, which the Palestinian premier said undermine his government's authority.
The statement said Fayyad also repeated Palestinian demands for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the highest Fatah official in Israeli custody, who is serving multiple life terms for involvement in deadly attacks on Israelis.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday criticized moves to cut the defense budget for 2009, saying that "sound, responsible leadership can not support cuts in the defense budgets in light of the threats posed by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas."
Barak also condemned Finance Minister Roni Bar-On statement's that in order to balance the budget, cuts must be made either to social welfare programs or defense. "The attempt to present a dilemma between security and welfare is deceiving," Barak said, adding that "both welfare and education are part of the security of the citizens of Israel, and the civilian leadership must find a way to invest in both simultaneously."
Barak's statements came after Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Head Tzachi Hanegbi and the heads of the body's seven subcommittees sent a letter to the Knesset on Friday demanding that the government avoid making cuts to the Israel Defense Force's 2009 budget, calling the current budget "a red line that cannot be crossed."
In their letter, the seven subcommittee heads said The Second Lebanon War "painfully demonstrates to all of us the price of neglecting the army and the cuts in defense spending made in the years before the war. The drop in the level of IDF inventory, reductions in training hours for active and reserve duty troops, and the damage caused to the battle-readiness of combat units, all came directly as a result of defense spending cuts."
Over a year ago, the Knesset approved the 2009 budget, and shortly thereafter, the Finance Ministry recommended a NIS 2 billion cut in defense spending in order to accommodate the new budget.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
cuts must be made either to social welfare programs or defense
#3
#2: NIS2 billion cut in Defence? Are they mad?? I hope the new Prime Minister addresses that aggressively. Posted by: trailing wife||
Sounds like Israel has the same problem with the Left the US has. For some reason, the Left can't understand that there are really and truly people "out there" that will kill them simply because they're "not like them". Obamanation is one such idiot.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2008 16:10 Comments ||
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Oil-rich Arab monarchies in the Gulf chided Iran on Saturday for setting up facilities on an island claimed by the United Arab Emirates, two days after Abu Dhabi protested to Tehran over the move.
Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general Abdurrahman al-Attiyah "strongly denounced Iran's opening of two administrative offices on Abu Musa island, which belongs to the UAE and is occupied by Iran," a GCC statement said.
The Riyadh-based GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Attiyah renewed the GCC's support for the UAE's "full sovereignty" over Abu Musa as well as over Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb -- two other strategic Gulf islands controlled by Iran and claimed by Abu Dhabi.
He also urged the Islamic republic to "respond to the UAE's sincere and repeated calls for resolving the issue through direct negotiations or recourse to the International Court of Justice," the statement said.
The Emirates, backed by other Arab states, has consistently proposed settling the dispute through direct talks or by resorting to the ICJ or international arbitration, but Iran has always refused.
The UAE said on Thursday it had summoned Iran's charge d'affaires in Abu Dhabi and handed him a protest note after Iranian state television reported that Tehran has established a maritime rescue office and a ship registration office on Abu Musa.
Iran, then ruled by the pro-Western shah, gained control of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa as British forces left the Gulf in 1971.
Iran took possession of Greater and Lesser Tunbs, while Abu Musa -- the only inhabited island -- was placed under joint administration under a deal with Sharjah, now part of the UAE.
But since then, the UAE says, the Iranians have taken control of all access to the island, installed an airport and military base there, as well as encouraged settlers to move in to change its demographic make-up.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Not to worry. The UAE's United Nations membership and long running military cooperation with the United States means no regional bully would dare invade and occupy its sovereign territory.
#2
This particular matter simply highlights what I said before - unless words are backed up by the ability to inflict significant pain against those that tresspass on your property, they mean nothing. Look at how many "gun-free zones" have suffered attacks. The ability to strike back HARD is the only thing that deters a bully.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2008 16:14 Comments ||
Top||
Iran on Friday denied accusations by France, Britain and the United States that its banks were involved in illegal nuclear activity and in financing terrorism.
The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of limited sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment, including a round in March that introduced financial monitoring of Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.
Iran has refused to comply with repeated international demands to halt nuclear enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The U.S. suspects the program is aimed at making nuclear weapons, but Iran maintains it is for peaceful purposes.
Earlier this month, Britain, France and the U.S. argued in a letter to the UN Security Council that Iranian banks were trying to get around sanctions by covertly conducting transactions.
Iran rejected the charge in a letter to the Council on Friday, saying Iranian banks have never been involved in any illicit activities... because there no such non-peaceful nuclear activities in Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Try using the words 'martyrs' or 'freedom fighters' and see what their answer is.
#2
Iran rejected the charge in a letter to the Council on Friday, saying Iranian banks have never been involved in any illicit activities... because there no such non-peaceful nuclear activities in Iran.
The test is that if the Iranian leaders and the mad mullahs lips are MOVING, they are lying.
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.
The Bangladesh guerrilla group (JMB), responsible for some 400 blasts nationwide on a single day in 2005, has been effectively crushed, officials say. 
In each of the dozen major bomb blasts that have taken place in India over the past three years, the name of one organization has cropped up with unerring constancy. Indian police and investigative agencies explored possible links of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) after each terrorist blast, but achieved a breakthrough only after 27 serial bombs ripped through western Gujarat state's principal city Ahmedabad on July 28 killing 56 people. The Gujarat state police announced on Saturday that it had arrested nine people - most of them were SIMI activists - and the suspected 'mastermind' behind the blasts. 
Al Qaeda's number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri slammed Pakistan's embattled President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam, in a first English audio message posted online on Saturday.
The 
RAMADI, IRAQ -- As Iraqi officials and the U.S. military haggle over when to let Anbar province take control of its own security, a row of broken-down Ford pickups in a Ramadi schoolyard offers a sobering picture of the readiness of the region's security forces.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held talks Saturday evening on security and political matters, officials from both sides said. 
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday criticized moves to cut the defense budget for 2009, saying that "sound, responsible leadership can not support cuts in the defense budgets in light of the threats posed by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas." 
