An elderly Muslim cleric was convicted Monday of funneling thousands of dollars to support the Pakistani Taliban terror organization, which is blamed for suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed both Americans and Pakistanis.
The jury returned its verdict on its fifth day of deliberations after the two-month trial of Hafiz Khan, the 77-year-old imam at a downtown Miami mosque. Khan was found guilty of two conspiracy counts and two counts of providing material support to terrorists.
Each charge carries a potential 15-year prison sentence.
Prosecutors built their case largely around hundreds of FBI recordings of conversations in which Khan expressed support for Taliban attacks and discussed sending about $50,000 to Pakistan. There were also recordings in which Khan appeared to back the overthrow of Pakistan's government in favor of strict Islamic law, praised the killing of American military personnel and lauded the failed 2010 attempt to detonate a bomb in New York's Times Square.
"He said these things. He admitted these things. He did all of these things," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley said during closing arguments.
Khan, who testified over four combative days in his own defense, insisted the money he sent overseas was for family, charity and business reasons - above all, his religious school, known as a madrassa, in Pakistan's Swat Valley. Khan also said he repeatedly lied about harboring extremist views to obtain $1 million from a man who turned out to be an FBI informant wearing a wire to record their talk.
"That is not supporting terrorism," said Khan attorney Khurrum Wahid in a closing argument. "That is an old guy running a scam, who got scammed."
It is illegal to run a financial scam. It is, in fact, the kind of thing for which people go to jail.
Prosecutors, however, said the purported $1 million offer is never heard on any tapes and no other witnesses testified about its existence. The informant, identified in court papers as Mahmood Siddiqui, did not testify.
"That is an absurd story," Shipley said. "This whole defense is a lie."
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2013 17:49
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#3
the F-16s we just gave Egypt won't be much good in this situation
however, Egypt also got a bunch of Abrams tanks
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/04/2013 18:05
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#4
"however, Egypt also got a bunch of Abrams tanks"
As I understand it, lg - and I certainly could be wrong - tanks need point guards (or whatever they're called) around them, or it's fairly easy to come up behind or from the side and disable the treads or stick a limpit-type mine/bomb on/under them. Aren't tanks blind except for in the front? Do you think the Egyptians know they need to guard the tanks' flanks while the tanks are in action? Or will they think Allen will take care of it?
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/04/2013 18:28
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#5
the M1 Abrams is a pretty powerful and also pretty sophisticated assuming it was maintained by and is being controlled by trained personnel.
In Iraq, the enemy, who were, at times disciplined and armed with various explosives weren't able to do much against them.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/04/2013 21:01
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#6
"assuming it was maintained by and is being controlled by trained personnel"
True, lg - but does their version of "trained personnel" involve inshallah?
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/04/2013 22:21
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A United Nations investigator called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on the CIA's Bush-era program of rendition and secret detention of terrorism suspects.
Ben Emmerson, U.N. special wrapper rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, voiced concern that while President Barack Obama's administration has rejected Central Intelligence Agency practices conducted under his predecessor George W. Bush, there have been no prosecutions.
Haven't had any under our current Nobel-prize winning LightWalker™ either...
"Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States," Emmerson said in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he will address on Tuesday.
Emmerson, an international lawyer from Britain, has served since forever as a progressive mouthpiece August 2011 in the independent post set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2005 to probe human rights violations committed during counter-terrorism operations worldwide.
The "war on terror" waged by Bush after al Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 led to "gross or systematic" violations involving secret prisons for Islamic militant suspects, clandestine transfers and torture, Emmerson said.
Life rather sucked for the people in the World Trade Center too, though Emmerson rather predictably didn't comment on that...
#1
*shrug* Nobody is responsible for the misbehaviour of relatives. And anyway, his father's family had nothing at all to do with him until he wandered over as a tourist doing the Roots thing in adulthood. Nor, for the most part, have they had much to do with him since,
#2
Nor, for the most part, have they had much to do with him since,
Maybe TW, other than the fact Obummer had him as his best man at his wedding. Maybe Obummer threw him under the bus?
#4
Maybe TW, other than the fact Obummer had him as his best man at his wedding.
I did not remember that, tipper -- I do hate cluttering up my mind with information about the honourable gentleman, useful though it can be. But honestly, I can see him sending for an assortment of relations to bolster his reputation as an exotic international fellow, and then never so much as sending a Christmas card afterward, Although I seem to recall he campaigned for some half-relative in Kenya at one point...
#2
Non-eco friendly and have fuel and maintenance tail costs which are quite large. Congratulations on your purchase. IMA waiting for the HESCO and domestic FOB construction contracts.
#4
I just watched the vid. Fairly liberal use of the term "operator" vs policeman. The line between police and military is beconing increasingly vague.
#5
At the end of the day, they've got to climb out of those vehicle and billet somewhere. Watch for construction of compounds or base camps, not just to accommodate the operators, but their families as well. Then become paranoid.
#6
So then speaking of Order of Battle, what would this break out to in terms of unit strength?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/04/2013 11:11
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#7
Not sure about Homeland Security force structure, MTOE, etc, but I'm adding black MRAP's to my black helicopter US gummit paranoia file. If they don't pull good PMCS and exercise those beasts, they might as well park them on a slab in front of the VFW or American Legion.
#8
Interesting that they are MRAPs (Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles) and not just armored personnel carriers. These are for use against an enemy who is actively fighting back, not just for hauling troops around. 2,700 vehicles / 50 states = 54 per. Kinda seems like a lot.
Back in the Soviet era, I always thought it was curious that the Ministry of the Interior had their own troops. The more things change,...
Want another ladle of irony? The administration is creating jobs - in the previously evil military-industrial complex.
#9
The socialists want your guns. All of them. And are arming up to come and get them, by any means necessary. It's all for the "social good". When the right social situation occurs, they will use thier "authorities" (Department of Homeland Security) to come after YOUR guns. It has ALWAYS worked over seas when Hitler, Mao and the Bolshevicks carefully planed and carefully executed thier domestic control plan.
#12
Maria is from Brazil. A nation surrounded by tyrants. Her country also has a taste of federal tyranny. I was surprised when I just mentioned the information this morning about Obama's DHS purchase of the tanks and she immediately replied "You want me to go home, right?".
She is solemnly aware of what is going on here in this country. Brazilians live under the Federal Policia machine gun towers that are every where in their major cities.
#13
And even though she has lived here for 25 years and has raised a family here, she knows very well what is being done here and what the response will be because ahe was born into federalism before moving here. After all, her children have fought evil in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2013 14:37
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#15
Food, fuel, water.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/04/2013 16:59
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#16
Food, fuel, water, shelter, ammo...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2013 17:02
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#17
I say I can still build an abatis faster than any man in the room.
Block the road, make them get out to clear a path and you've got them...just saying, they have to dismount to use their toys and then they have to fight on MY terms. The VC were pretty good at dictating the terms of the fight and DHS probably hasn't studied that stuff that much.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/04/2013 17:48
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#18
Steve, from some of the news reports lately, DHS has LOTS of ammo.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/04/2013 17:49
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#19
How resistant are these MRAPS to RPG's or LAWS (or equivalent) rockets? The people will need a can opener.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
03/04/2013 17:59
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#20
A SHERIDAN is a "light tank", a CHAFFEE is a "light tank" - A MRAP is a MRAP, which is not a "light tank".
#21
DV, I don't get paranoid because I know that whoever will be operating those things has to know how. And I am confident that a very large majority of those with such training would refuse to carry out whatever the Bolsheviks might have in mind. They took the same oath that many of us did, to defend the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
#22
They took the same oath that many of us did, to defend the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Obama FEMA Youth. His own private Army. There are plenty of available recruits for whom the oath means bupkis. If they even took an oath.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
03/04/2013 19:37
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#23
Shhh, my common sense is tingling, Now I'm riled up.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/04/2013 20:16
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#24
They took the same oath that many of us did, to defend the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
If this was 1995 when some of this crap was floating around, I would agree. However something has changed. The America that was then isn't the one we have now. I view everything this government does with suspicion now and am wary of any agency he gives support and power to.
I swore that oath and I view Obama as a domestic enemy. I just believe that there are still enough people out there that won't stand for his takeover that he will have to leave when his term is over. He will try everything to keep that from happening I think, even an emergency declaration, but he will go in the end more or less peacefully. I hope.
#27
Obama FEMA Youth might become good at driving those light tank thingies in formation, but that's not the same as being a fighting unit. SWAT units they would not be, nor a regular army tank unit.
Would they be better in a city like New York or Detroit to help put down rioting and civil unrest -- I'm thinking gangs gone wild in the absence of proper policing, eg. during a flu pandemic -- rather than driving through the countryside into abatis?
#28
DV, I agree: I swore that oath and I view Obama as a domestic enemy too. I also agree that America has changed since 1995, for the worse.
But I also know people pretty high up in DHS who took the same oath, and share our view. Quite a few ex-military folks at DHS, due to veteran's hiring preference. They quietly do their assigned duties - dry, apolitical, bureaucratic minutiae - but they would also quietly sprinkle sand in the gears if they came across anything truly nefarious.
Even given the radical change in culture over the last 20 years, the sorts who crow about how they'd happily fire on their own countrymen, tend to be the same ones who think guns are icky and scary and have never even touched one. Many also have a rap sheet that DQs them from a federal job with any meaningful authority.
I also think Obozo is too lazy to cling to power. He lusts for fame and fortune - but expects it to just be handed to him, as has almost everything else in his life. Some time ago, I think gr(o)m said it best: Obozo's best qualities are that he is stupid and lazy. Indeed, and thank goodness.
So I understand your concerns, but I think it's just a matter of gritting our teeth until it's over. This too shall pass.
The looming budget crisis will hit the Defense Department very hard. But there is a place where we can cut budgets and improve our security: reforming the process by which security clearances are granted.
[Recently] an OPM investigator contacted me about my clearance renewal. She would need two hours with me, my secretary was told. No way, I thought. How wrong.
At the appointed hour a pleasant but mechanical investigator arrived. After presenting her credentials and informing me of my rights, she suggested we proceed.
“Is your name John Julian Hamre?” she asked.
Yes, I replied.
She asked if I lived at my street address.
I paused, a bit surprised, then replied, “Yes.”
She asked if I was born on my birth date.
I paused again. “Ma’am, do you plan to read to me my SF-86 form?” I asked. If I lied in completing the form, I noted, I was unlikely to admit it in the interview. Let’s just go to the end, I suggested. “I will swear it is all true, and if you find a fault, you can accuse me of perjury.”
My common-sense suggestion had no effect. “We prefer to read the questions to you and ask you to respond,” I was told.
In other words, to grant a top-secret clearance in the United States, we ask a potential spy to fill out a form, which is given to an employee, possibly a contract worker, who then asks the candidate to verbally confirm what he has written.
#1
Actually getting a clearance can be very valuable. I just heard ads on a DC radio station offering a $25K signing bonus for people with a TS/SCI clearance.
Too bad mine expired twenty years ago.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/04/2013 15:06
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#2
This guy is FOS. We don't ask you to re-state everything on your SF-86. My 86 is 73 pages. We ask a few starter questions to A - get the person comfortable talking to an investigator and B - to verify we are talking to the person. I've done this interview many times. The interview questions are written by gubmit lawyers - the investigators just follow the script. What a douche.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/04/2013 17:10
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#3
Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
#4
Who? Bangkok Billy, ohhhhh THAT Bangkok Billy. Who gave you my name? Other names? Well yes.... I actually knew him by another name. I think he uses several.... why do you ask?
#5
Spousal Unit just went through a security clearance update; they did read all the questions and to add insult told her she had perjured herself regarding education; seems a secretary at her alma mater gave bad gouge regarding degree status. Took several days to correct S.U. Fedex'ed certified copy of diploma to Mr big headlildick to prove actuals.
Londoninistan - Police used a Taser on a man seen pointing a knife at his own throat outside British Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street residence, police said on Monday.
The 42-year-old man, who had been seething and shouting in the street, failed to respond when challenged by police shortly before 21:00 on Sunday, and was then hit with the electric weapon.
He suffered a minor head injury when he fell and was taken to hospital as a precaution. He was later arrested on suspicion of possession of a knife and affray, and remained in custody on Monday.
The prime minister's apartment and office is at 10 Downing Street, a road now sealed off by high gates at both ends.
The incident came exactly a month to the day since police used a Taser on a man brandishing knives outside Buckingham Palace, the sovereign's official residence.
Nigel Talhat Rehman, 54, was charged with affray [a fight or noisy disturbance] in a public place and possessing a bladed weapon in public.
U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, according to an unconfirmed report by World Tribune.
The report quotes anonymous "Israeli sources."
According to the report, Obama, who is scheduled to arrive in Israel on March 20, wants Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to present him with a detailed Israeli withdrawal plan during his visit to Israel. The sources said the Israeli plan "would be considered in what could be an imminent U.S. initiative to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank in 2014."
“Obama has made it clear to Netanyahu that his visit is not about photo-ops, but the business of Iran and a Palestinian state,” a source said. “The implication is that if Israel won’t give him something he can work with, then he’ll act on his own.”
The sources noted that "Obama aides" have stressed that Congress supports the establishment of a Palestinian state as a U.S. priority.
“The Obama people are making this a litmus test of Netanyahu’s leadership and credibility,” the Israeli sources said. “Obama supporters in Congress have sent Netanyahu a similar message.”
#13
Pffft. Like Obozo even knows where Judea and Samaria are. All tucked down there by Denmark or something. His jooo-hating staffers, OTOH, now that I'd believe.
#15
TW, I hope I did not cause you any discomfort. It's just that, a man who speaks of "the Austrian language" and cheerfully confuses Maldives with Malvinas, probably could not find his own ass with a mirror and a flashlight.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out once again at his supposed ally, Pakistan, saying Monday that a statement by a Pakistani cleric endorsing suicide bombings in Afghanistan shows the neighboring country is not sincere in efforts to fight terrorism.
"Afghanistan wants a real struggle against terrorism and wants the Pakistani government to realize that both our nations are burning in the same fire," the Afghan leader said, speaking at a press conference with visiting NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
"The Pakistani government has an essential and important role in putting out this fire," Karzai added.
Karzai made the comment in response to a question about a statement last week by the head of the Pakistani clerics' council who had been scheduled to travel to Afghanistan for a meeting of the two countries' religious leaders.
The cleric, Tahir Ashrafi, said in a television interview that suicide attacks in Afghanistan are lawful because NATO troops are invaders that have occupied the country.
Karzai noted that Ashrafi was appointed to the delegation by the Pakistani government, implying that the government in Islamabad was backing his views.
"We see that practical steps are not being taken to fight terrorism," Karzai said, and added that a series of recent attacks in Pakistan show that the neighboring country is falling into chaos.
Neither Ashrafi nor Pakistani officials could be immediately reached for comment.
#2
I read an interesting book called "confessions of a mullah warrior" -- described the fight against the russkies and then the arab radicalization after. Author claimed that Bin Laden was among a small group of arabs involved (they only had 1 arab unit) and trying to say the mujahadeen turned into the talaban and were thus created by the U.S. is a farce.
While Secretary of State John Kerry will not travel to Israel during his first tour of the Middle East since assuming the top U.S. diplomatic post, he will be meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmud Abbas in Riyadh on Monday, a state department official told reporters.
Kerry, who is on his first trip to the region since succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as the top United States diplomat, will have lunch with the PA leader, who arrived unexpectedly in Riyadh on Sunday, AFP reported.
Kerry's tour does not include Israel, but he will reportedly accompany President Barack Obama when he meets Israeli and Arab leaders in Jerusalem and Ramallah during a visit on March 20-22.
Abbas "will present the Palestinian point of view to the new US administration ahead of Obama's visit," PA envoy in Riyadh Jamal al-Shawbaki told the "Voice of Palestine" radio station.
Abbas, in his first meeting with Kerry, will also highlight the so-called "Israeli violations" in Jerusalem, "settlements", and the issue of "Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike," said Shawbaki.
The issue of Arab prisoners in Israeli jails once again made headlines as the PA accused the Israeli Shin Ben of assassinating Arafat Juradat, a terrorist detainee who died while in Israeli custody in his Megiddo prison cell.
Protesters descended on the Foreign Ministry in Cairo on Saturday, as US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr inside. The protesters carried placards with anti-US slogans, and burned a cartoon of Kerry.
Saturday's demonstrations came as several opposition leaders turned down an invitation to a meeting with Kerry, saying Washington favoured the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated government in the country's on-going political turmoil.
During the past few months, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has seized absolute power over his country.
The Muslim Brotherhood leader enjoys support from the Obama administration, but his opponents call him a dictator who wants to turn Egypt into an Islamic state. Some have even called him Egypt's "new Pharoah."
He is the most powerful man in the Arab world's most influential country. He's referred to America as an enemy. And as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, he denies al Qaeda was behind that attack.
Yet he's due to receive sixteen F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks from the Obama administration this year. A majority of Republican senators signed off on the deal.
So who is this questionable ally that America is helping to arm?
"He's a rough personality. He's quite hostile -- he doesn't like to answer questions," Eric Trager, with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said.
Trager studies the Muslim Brotherhood and has interviewed Mohammed Morsi face-to-face.
"He was considered within the Brotherhood as a hardliner -- somebody who was there to enforce the Brotherhood's most hardline ideas whether it came to saying that women and Christians can't even run for the presidency of Egypt, whether it was their foreign policy ideas, their hostility toward Israel," he said.
Morsi put that hostility on full display in a series of interviews before he became Egypt's president.
In one, he called Israelis "bloodsuckers" and "warmongers" and referred to Israel and America as "enemies." He also quoted from the Koran, calling Jews "the descendants of apes and pigs."
In another interview, Morsi called on the Muslim world to confront Israel and boycott goods from any nation that does business with it, including America.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia is sending hundreds of soldiers to a Borneo state to help neutralize armed Filipino intruders who've killed 8 policemen in the country's bloodiest security emergency in years.
Nineteen Filipino gunmen have been slain since Friday in skirmishes that shocked Malaysians unaccustomed to such violence in their country.
[FT] France's Socialist government is considering replacing its stricken 75 per cent top income tax rate on earnings above €1m, with a 65-66 per cent rate on households earning more than €2m. The proposed new rate is working its way through the National Assembly as part of budget measures aimed at redressing France's growing public deficit.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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#1
How's that song go.....................oh yah...."tax the rich, feed the poor, until there are no rich no more"...............
Of course the logical conclussion of that is everybodies poor. But it is so elgantarian
By the way are guillotines still used in France or have the French Socialist sequestered the engineering plans for the devise while they are in office?
#4
If the government really treated everyone equally then surely they would all pay exactly the same for the government services!? Regardless of what they earned privately.
[Bangla Daily Star] n utter inhumanity, Jamaat-Shibir men yesterday gauged out one eye of a policeman and hacked him indiscriminately to death at Sanatanpur police camp under Harinakundo upazila in Jhinaidah.
With the murder of constable Omar Faruque, the corpse count of law enforcers rose to six in a countrywide reign of terror that Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... and its student body Islami Chhatra Shibir
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[Dawn] Authorities deployed soldiers in a northern Bangladeshi district Sunday after activists of the country's largest Islamic party clashed with police, leaving three people dead during a nationwide general strike called to denounce an ongoing war crimes trial.
Separately two people died Sunday in a northwestern district during similar festivities.
With the latest casualties, the corpse count in days of rioting has risen to 51 since Thursday after a war crimes tribunal sentenced Jamaat-e-Islami
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Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] Syria and Iran joined forces on Saturday to condemn moves by Western powers to aid rebels fighting against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... , with the Syrian leader singling out Britannia as a "shallow and immature" power.
In an television interview with The Sunday Times newspaper shown in London late on Saturday, Assad said Britannia's involvement in the Syria crisis had been naive and unrealistic.
"I think they (Britannia) are working against us, and they are working against the interests of the UK itself," Assad said in English-language remarks broadcast by Britannia's Sky TV.
"This government is acting in a naive, confused and unrealistic manner. If they want to play a role they have to change this, they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way."
Assad added: "How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better, more stable, how can we expect them to make the violence less when they want to send the military supply to the terrorist?"
Backed by the United States, Britannia and much of Western Europe, Syria's opposition has made plain that Assad can play no role in a future Syrian government.
But as the situation deteriorates on the ground, the opposition is increasingly frustrated with the West's reluctance to get directly involved in the fighting, and wants foreign powers to send weapons to help its fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[Dawn] A ban on armed wings of political parties, deweaponisation and political tolerance are essential to restore peace to the city, said speakers on the opening day of a two-day peace conference on Saturday.
Representatives of political parties, civil society, lawyers, labour unions and minority communities attending the conference held at the Arts Council also called for implementation of the apex court order, which was handed down in the suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... case related to frequent assassinations in the city, in letter and spirit.
The event was organised by the Sindh High Court, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Malir bar associations.
Anis Haroon of the Aurat Foundation said that absence of war did not mean peace. But peace could be established through social justice and protecting the rights of all segments of society, she said.
"The level of tolerance against violence is growing in society, which is one of the main factors behind violent incidents," she observed, adding that violence and injustice must not be tolerated at any cost.
She was of the opinion that the law and order situation of the city was a political issue and recommended that political parties should ban their armed wings for the sake of peace.
Lawmaker Iqbal Qadiri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... said that some elements had weakened state institutions for their vested interests. It was an international conspiracy to destroy the peace of Karachi, he said.
He appealed to the judiciary to convict the culprits instead of going into technicalities as its key to keep peace.
Bashir Jan of the Awami National Party suggested that free and fair election in accordance with the orders of the apex court, indiscriminate operation against criminals, deweaponisation and amendments to the anti-terror law for witness protection were necessary to pave the way for establishing an abiding peace.
MQM's Muqeem Alam said local government and local policing systems besides acceptance of public mandate could improve law and order.
Zia Abbas of the National People's Party said there was a need to develop political tolerance in order to keep peace and improve governance.
He added that armed wings of political parties must be banned. He also believed that foreign elements were involved in the breakdown of law and order in Karachi and Quetta.
Mehfooz Yar Khan of the Awami Mohammedan League said that ethnic and sectarian elements were behind the violence. He called for deweaponisation of the city. He also said that strict action should be taken against those involved in pre-poll rigging and land encroachment.
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Ian Steadman at Wired spent a week in Nork-land in 2010. Given the Rodman story earlier this week, he wrote this piece. He offers a long but clear-eyed view of the repressive Hermit Kingdom. Worth the read.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled out a general amnesty for Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members in connection with the resumption of talks between Turkish security forces and jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, AA reported.
"Amnesty can not be discussed. We do not intend to forgive the killers of children. This is a lie, do not believe rumors. As long as my party (Justice and Development Party, AKP) is in power, the amnesty will not be discussed", Erdogan said.
Erdogan made this remarks amid reports that the Turkish secret service has started a new round of talks with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK leader has been serving a life sentence at a Imrali prison on an island off Istanbul since his capture in 1999.
In December 2012, the Turkish National Intelligence Organization started negotiations with the PKK with an ultimate goal of disarming the movement.
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Waving Venezuelan flags, the protesters rallied to a street where some 50 university students have staged a week-long sit-in to demand more transparency about Chavez's condition.
"We want to know what is going with Chavez's health, if he is alive or dead, and we want elections," said Dario Alberici, 55, a public accountant who was blowing on a plastic trumpet in the yellow, red and blue colors of Venezuela.
Government supporters held their own rally for Chavez in another part of the capital, chanting "Uh, ah! Chavez won't go!"
Vice President Nicolas Maduro revealed Friday that the leftist leader is undergoing embalming chemotherapy in a Caracas military hospital, but he says Chavez remains in charge.
In power for 14 years, the once omnipresent president has not emerged in public since undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba on December 11. Chavez was first diagnosed with cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011, but the government has never disclosed its exact nature, severity or location.
Sarcoma of some kind, not curable, last-ditch chemo now...
"Nobody knows where he is," said Hector Gonzalez, a 70-year-old engineer. "If he is recovering, they should show him. The country cannot continue in this uncertainty."
Others said Venezuela was now under a "de facto" government as Chavez, who was re-elected in October, missed his January 10 swearing-in ceremony. The Supreme Court backed the inauguration's delay. When he left for Cuba on December 8, Chavez told Venezuelans to vote for Maduro if he became incapacitated and an election was called.
Across town, a few hundred pro-government students gathered in front of a stage featuring a huge photo of Chavez with one of his daughters and the phrase "Now with Chavez more than ever."
The government has only released one set of photos of Chavez, showing him bedridden and smiling with his two daughters in a Havana hospital on February 15, three days before he returned to Caracas.
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[BBC.CO.UK] At least 45 people have been killed by a bomb kaboom in the Pak city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , police say.
The blast in the mainly Shia Moslem area of Abbas Town destroyed several buildings and set others on fire. Some reports spoke of a second kaboom.
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[Dawn] Ten people, including three activists of the Majlis Wahdat-e-Moslemeen and one of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ...which is the false nose and plastic mustache of the murderous banned extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain, whatcha might call the political wing of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi... , were bumped off in the city on Saturday, police said.
The killings were mostly reported during the first half of the day and the deadliest one was that of three young friends in Orangi Town.
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A bomb exploded this afternoon in front of the hotel in Dhaka where India's President Pranab Mukherjee is staying on his official visit to Bangladesh. Nobody was wounded.
The president was in his suite at the Hotel Sonargaon when the blast took place nearly half a kilometer away, Deputy High Commissioner Sandeep Chakravarty said. He added that the explosion was part of the protest that have become a near-daily occurence in Dhaka, was caused "by a harmless device" and that the president was not the target.
The retrial of former Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak on charges related to the killing of protesters during the uprising against his nearly three-decade rule will begin on April 13, state television reported Sunday.
He's gonna die of old age before he gets executed...
Mubarak, 84, was toppled in February 2011 after an 18-day revolt and sentenced to life in prison in June 2012, dpa reported. In January, a top court granted Murbarak's appeal and ordered a retrial. He is staying at a military court near Cairo for medical treatment.
Mubarak's interior minister, Habib al-Adly, and six former security officials will also face retrials over the killings of protesters, according to the broadcaster.
A fact-finding mission found that at least 846 people were killed and more than 6,000 wounded during the state's crackdown on the uprising.
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[Times of Israel] The Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, government has begun imposing new restrictions on residents of the Gazoo Strip, forcing them to apply for exit permits to enter Israel or the West Bank.
The Ministry of Interior issued a statement on February 27 insisting that all Gazoo residents wishing to leave the Strip through the Erez Crossing with Israel submit an application to the Interior Ministry in advance.
Hamas's decision came a day after Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the closing of the commercial Kerem Shalom crossing following the firing of a Grad rocket from Gazoo at the city of Ashkelon. The passage of residents through Erez was limited by Israel to humanitarian cases only and to Gazooks whose have registered addresses in the West Bank.
The crossing was expected to reopen Monday.
According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, 5,219 citizens crossed into Israel through the Erez crossing during the month of January, and 120 permits are given to Gazoo businessmen on a daily basis.
The Paleostinian Center for Human Rights, a Gazoo-based watchdog, expressed "grave concerns" regarding the new Hamas procedures.
"This decision increases the suffering of the already limited groups of people who are permitted to travel via the crossing by the Israeli forces," read a statement published by the group.
Since Israel usually issues entry permits for Gazoo residents on the day of travel, Hamas's new restriction would gravely impede their ability to leave the Strip, PCHR said.
Human rights organizations in Gazoo told The Times of Israel that they were not informed by the government in Gazoo about the reasons for the decision.
Khalil Abu-Shammala, director of the local human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... organization A-Dameer, said that in the past individuals were prevented by Hamas from leaving the Gazoo Strip on suspicion of maintaining ties with the Israeli intelligence.
"Most decisions of this kind have a security pretext," Abu-Shammala said, noting that Hamas has also prevented members of Fatah from leaving Gazoo as a punitive measure. Just last week, he said, Hamas prevented Fatah Central Committee member Amal Hamad from leaving the Gazoo Strip and traveling to the West Bank.
This was not the first time Hamas has tried to implement this measure, said Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO dealing with Paleostinian freedom of movement. A year and a half ago Hamas tried to impose a travel restriction, but popular protests forced the government to back down.
Ali Abu-Shahla, a Gazoo-based businessman who travels to Israel every two to three weeks, said that according to his understanding, the new decision does not apply to merchants who frequent the Erez Crossing on a regular basis.
"This only applies to people who leave on a one-time basis, like the sick who need treatment," he told The Times of Israel. Abu-Shahla said that under Israeli regulations, merchants leaving Gazoo must inform the PA ministry for civil affairs two days before the intended date of travel and gain Israeli approval to exit the Strip.
[GUARDIAN.CO.UK] US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... on Sunday rewarded Egypt for president Mohammed Morsi's pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250m in American aid to support the country's "future as a democracy". Sequester? What sequester?
Isn't that the money that the House Foreign Affairs Committee forbade disbursing, so long as Egypt's new government insisted on being so Islamist?
Yet Kerry also served notice that the B.O. regime will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that additional assistance would depend on it.
"The path to that future has clearly been difficult and much work remains," Kerry said in a statement after wrapping up two days of meetings in Egypt, a deeply divided country in the wake of the revolution that ousted longtime president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
Egypt is trying to meet conditions to close on a $4.8bn loan package from the International Monetary Fund. An agreement would unlock more of the $1bn in US assistance promised by President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... last year and set to begin flowing with Kerry's announcement.
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#1
Too bad it wasn't his own money. He would've wrote them an IOU on a bar napkin. For about 12 bucks...
[Ynet] Protest is northeastern city over controversial court ruling spirals into riot, festivities with security forces
Clashes between protesters and police in the Egyptian city of Port Said have so far left 253 people maimed.
The riot in the northeastern city broke out after a decision by the Interior Ministry to move 39 prisoners awaiting trial to an unknown location. The prisoners are awaiting a verdict over their alleged involvement in a deadly football riot.
The verdict, expected next Saturday, is for the remaining defendants in a case which resulted in death sentences in January for 21 defendants, sparking festivities that killed at least 40 people.
A security official said protesters threw petrol bombs and stones at the cop shoppe in the restive Suez Canal city, where a general strike entered its third week. Police responded with tear gas.
Protesters on Saturday torched a cop shoppe in Port Said and prevented fire engines from reaching the blaze.
Residents of Port Said and other canal cities have long complained that Cairo marginalizes them. Last year's football riot which killed 74 people, mostly supporters of a visiting Cairo team, exacerbated Port Said's isolation, they say.
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[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] Despite having been unwell with a stomach bug for several days, the Queen displayed her usual fortitude and dedication by giving up part of her weekend to present a long-service award to a loyal member of her staff on Sunday morning. I feel so royal. Our whole household is down with it.
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#1
I've had it all weekend.
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03/04/2013 10:21
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Should have kept your distance from the downstairs maids Deacon, you must have known they were all down with it.
[Dawn] Pakistain's security forces conducted operations in the Khyber and Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... s killing 15 suspected hard boyz and destroying three bad boy hideouts, DawnNews reported on Sunday.
At least seven suspected hard boyz were killed during a security forces operation conducted in Sipah Lakhkar area of Khyber tribal region.
Military jets bombarded several targets in Mamozai area of Orakzai Agency's Tirah vally destroying three suspected hideouts.
Eight alleged hard boyz including a key commander were killed during the blitz in Arghanju and Sama Bazar areas, according to Assistant Political Agent Muhammad Rafiq
In another unrelated incident two CD shopes were blow up in Mian Mandi Bazar in Haleemzai area of Mohmand tribal region.
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[An Nahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... said he is ready to negotiate with the country's opposition but refuses to consider stepping down, in a rare interview with a UK newspaper.
Assad offered to hold talks with rebels in a bid to end the crisis on the condition they lay down their arms, but made the distinction between the "political entities" he would talk with and "armed terrorists".
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The performance of a play about the embattled Russian protest group Pussy Riot was interrupted in Moscow when immigration officials approached the Swiss director to demand his travel documents.
Immigration authorities confirmed they had entered the Andrei Sakharov Museum, where the play was being staged, and determined that director Milo Rau was holding a business visa that did not allow for “work activity.”
The play was later disrupted again when Orthodox activists and Cossacks gathered outside the venue to protest what they claimed was the playÂ’s antireligious content.
The play, called “The Moscow Trials,” portrays the story of last year’s trial of three Pussy Riot members for hooliganism after staging a protest against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral.
[An Nahar] British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was "delusional" for failing to see that the bloodshed in his country was at his own hands.
Hague said that he would this week announce more assistance to the Syrian opposition in the form of non-lethal equipment and refused to rule out the possibility of arming them in the future.
In an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times, Assad accused London of wanting to arm terrorists in his country.
Britain has been pushing to lift a ban on the sale of arms to Syria's rebels, but at a meeting last month European Union foreign ministers ruled that only "non-lethal" aid and "technical assistance" could be given to the opposition.
"How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists and don't try to ease the dialogue between the Syrians?" Assad said in a rare interview with Western media.
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[An Nahar] At least 50 Al-Qaeda-linked rebel fighters have been killed in recent days in festivities with French and Malian troops near the town of Gao in northern Mali, a Malian military source told AFP on Sunday.
"Fighting continues on Sunday morning some 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Gao between Islamists and Malian troops supported by the French army. We have the situation under control," said a Malian military source contacted by phone from the capital Bamako.
"At least 50 MUJAO Islamists have been killed since the day before yesterday (Friday)," he added, referring to rebels from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.
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As violence spread in Sabah, the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) were urged yesterday to intervene and initiate negotiations between Malaysia and the Sultanate of Sulu. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which made the request, however, said the Philippine government should be excluded from the negotiations.
MNLF leader Nur Misuari also urged Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to stop sending more troops to Sabah and "tone down your voice."
Misuari said he and his clan are the true owners of Sabah and the Malaysian state of Sarawak. He said history would bear out that Sabah and Sarawak were the original properties of his great, great grandfather.
Any wars between then and now? Poland used to be about half a country over before the second World War, and Russia used to own the entire Soviet Union -- plus satellites -- before they lost the Cold War.
Habib Mujahab Hashim, chairman of the MNLF'S Islamic Command Council, said their organization could serve as mediator between the Sulu sultanate's army and Malaysian forces. He said OIC members Brunei or Indonesia could mediate on behalf of the organization of Islamic states.
Hashim urged the UN, through its committee on human rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to send representatives to Sabah to observe measures being carried out by Malaysian forces against Filipinos.
The sultanate of Sulu claims much of Sabah, as ancestral land, and receives an annual payment from Malaysia. The sultanate wants the payment to be increased.
Misuari arrived in Davao City Saturday night for a meeting with Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. He said, "The blood of our brothers in Sabah is sacred. I hope Najib will not persecute our civilians in Sabah as it will trigger bigger trouble and it will drag us into war, and I don't like that. I am calling on Najib to please tone down your voice. All of us want peace. We do not want war."
He said the Sabah conflict could be settled in a "brotherly way... to the best interest of everybody."
The MNLF chief said his grandnephew is a relative of the Malaysian prime minister, whom he considered a friend.
Misuari admitted that some of those who went to Lahad Datu were his relatives and members of his group, but denied instigating the trip to Sabah. He said, "How can that be? I was in Africa for more than a month with my wife and I have nothing to do with the move of the sultan."
He emphasized that sending "only 200" men to Sabah "is not my style."
Philippine president Aquino was reportedly furious and suspected that certain quarters instigated the Lahad Datu incident to sabotage the peace process with the MNLF's breakaway group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Misuari said, "I pity the President. He does not know what he is talking about. He will become a laughingstock in the whole world."
Misuari noted reports that he would be arrested for the Sabah incident. He said, "They blame me for it. Why am I being blamed for this? They said I financed it. But where would I get the money to finance a takeover?"
Vice Mayor Duterte said there was no evidence linking Misuari to the incident in Sabah. He said, "I'm very sure that Nur Misuari would not do that."
#1
The sultanate of Sulu claims much of Sabah, as ancestral land, and receives an annual payment from Malaysia. The sultanate wants the payment to be increased.
#3
IMO the MNLF is still at odds wid the MILF + other Mindanao-based Moro opposition groups.
Personally, at this time I'd to know iff AQ-linked ABU SAYYAFF + Malay-Indonesian, etc. foreign Islamist Milterr Groups are planning like MNLF to militarily intervene in the crisis???
Egyptian protesters blocked the road to Cairo's airport on Sunday, delaying US Secretary of State John Kerry's departure for around two hours after his two-day visit to Egypt, DPA reported. Football fans, known as the Ultras, burnt tyres and blocked the road for almost half an hour before security forces pushed them to another street.
Kerry was due to leave to Saudi Arabia at 1400 GMT, but his flight was delayed for around two hours, airport officials said. Security forces secured Kerry's motorcade, which included 16 vehicles, and changed its course to let him into the airport through another entry.
As protesters brought traffic in both directions to a standstill, passengers were seen leaving cars and walking to the airport in order to catch their flights.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Absurd it may look, but a picture of convicted war criminal Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... superimposed on the face of moon posted in Jamaat-Shibir Facebook page "Basherkella" was actually sold to a large number of people as an omen.
And that omen, to these people, is a call to fight the government and free Sayeedi, a top Jamaat leader, at any cost.
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[MAGHAREBIA] At least one person was killed and another wounded in the Libyan town of Mizdah on Friday (March 1st) following clashes between two rival tribes, according to a member of the General National Congress.
Congressman Ibrahim Abu Shaala, a member of the Mashashiya tribe, said that a brigade from the Guntrar tribe, itself linked to the Zintan tribe, was attacked by unknown assailants late Friday night.
Mashashiya residential neighbourhoods then came under fire from rocket launchers and tanks, according to the congressman. He added one family was slightly wounded and five homes were destroyed.
The Nefusa Mountain town witnessed a number of ethnic clashes last year between rival tribes, before the interim government intervened and deployed army forces to quell the violence.
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[Dawn] The Emergency Operational and Security Guidelines issued by the government for polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccination after the killing of 15 people in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... has ended the role of Unicef in social mobilisation campaigns, officials claimed.
The Unicef, which is supporting the government in polio eradication in the country, had signed a contract with the government of Pakistain and CHIP Training and Consulting (private) Limited under which the former had pledged Rs230 million to create demand for oral polio vaccine (OPV) in the 33 'high risk' districts of the country.
Since last year, the Unicef had created Communication Network (COMNet) by recruiting 1,072 communication officers at the district and union council level on lucrative salaries, but the security guidelines had ended their role.
"There is no role for about 204 COMNet staff recruited in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 144 in Federally Administered Tribal Areas after the security guidelines. Majority of them received salaries for doing nothing," the officials said.
The COMNet staff doesn't come under the supervision of the health department due to which they don't have any role left for them after the deterioration of security situation.
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[An Nahar] A key Syrian opposition group on Sunday accused the government in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... of intervening in the country and "attacking the Syrian people," a day after festivities were reported near the border.
"After the Iraqi government headed by (premier) Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party.... gave political and intelligence support to the Syrian regime... the Storied Baghdad regime has moved on to a new level of intervention in Syrian affairs," the Syrian National Council said.
It charged that Storied Baghdad was "attacking the Syrian people, their basic rights and their territorial illusory sovereignty."
An Iraqi official said on Sunday that one Iraqi soldier was killed and three people including a soldier were maimed inside northern Iraq during a shootout near a border post the day before.
The casualties were caused by "fighting at the Yaarubiyeh border crossing inside Syria" between regime forces and rebels on Saturday, defense ministry front man Mohammed al-Askari told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Four Syrian soldiers were also treated at an Iraqi hospital after the clash, Askari added.
The SNC called on the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... and the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aim of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... to condemn Storied Baghdad for what it called an attack "on Syrian illusory sovereignty," saying the international community should "at the very least condemn this aggressive behavior."
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#3
I note that Brittney has a potential "button popping" problem.... not that I am saying that this is bad, only that I would like to be present when it happens...pleeease.
Oh and the germam shepherd looks a little hungry, did the cameraman get away ?
[Ynet] Egyptian paper says Islamist terror group recently refused to accept shipment of long-range missiles from Libya after preliminary examination allegedly found spy gear inside
*snicker* Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition Mossad!
The Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabea reported Sunday that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, had recently refused to accepted an arms shipment faring it may contain Israeli tracking devices.
According to the report, the shipment, which originated in Libya, was meant to arrive in Gazoo Strip via the Sinai Peninsula.
Hamas turned it down, alleging that the shipment was harboring "Israeli tracking devices and spy gear" that the IDF would be able to use to locate both the shipment and its handlers.
The report quoted a source "closely affiliate with arms traffickers in Sinai" as saying that the shipment contained 28 long-range missiles. The missiles were supposed to make their way into Gazoo via one of the underground smuggling tunnels running between Rafah and the Strip, but a Hamas weapons expert, who rendezvoused with the smugglers in Egypt decided to refuse it.
Al-Youm Al-Sabea quoted its source as saying that the expert -- a senior operative of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing, found tracking devices hidden in it.
Hamas, the reported added, recently severed its ties with a large number of arms traffickers based in Sinai, after finding that they had "divulged details of their ties with Hamas to the authorities." The report did not name the authorities in question.
Most likely Egyptian...
The report stressed that despite Hamas assumption in the matter, the origin of the spy gear found on the shipment is unknown.
Other sources quoted by the Egyptian daily expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... that the leaks found in Hamas' weapons acquisition operation may place the lives of Egyptian smugglers at risk, should the Islamist terror group decide that they are trying to spy on its operations or infiltrate their networks in Libya and Sudan.
The report further said that senior commanders in Hamas vowed that "the incident will not remain unpunished."
#1
Damn, they caught us. Or did they??? I thought it was all in the shipment before? Or is it one of the ones coming up?
Whaddya mean the records burned up in a fire?
Posted by: The MOSSAD ||
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Hopefully the ,0009 delayed launch site detonating MANPADS have gotten through.
[Bangla Daily Star] It was all lies -- outright and outrageous -- but it worked. Jamaat's propaganda machine used a photoshopped image of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... 's face on the moon yesterday to entice people to unleash a second wave of terror that left at least 19 people, including a policeman, dead in five districts.
Bogra witnessed the worst, as Jamaat-Shibir men assembled locals through repeated announcements over loudspeakers that "Sayeedi's face was seen on the moon and it's your holy duty to save him; otherwise, we all will go to hell". Around 4 in the morning, they launched into attacks on police in different upazilas.
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[An Nahar] A policeman was killed and an army officer was among dozens of people maimed on Sunday in the Egyptian city of Port Said as residents clashed with police, the military said.
The army said the policeman died and the military officer was hit in the leg when they were struck by gunshots fired by unknown assailants outside the headquarters of the Port Said governorate in northeast Egypt.
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[An Nahar] Security forces on Sunday foiled an attempt to liberate a prisoner from a hospital in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , only eight days after gunnies stormed another hospital in the northern city and set free a man under arrest for allegedly being involved in the shooting at Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami's convoy.
"Prisoner H. M. slashed parts of his body with a sharp object and after he was rushed to one of the city's hospitals, a group of people arrived and tried to liberate him, prompting security forces to fire in the air to disperse them," state-run National News Agency reported.
The prison was quickly transported to Tripoli's serail, NNA said.
Al-Jadeed television reported earlier that heavy gunfire was heard in the vicinity of Monla Hospital in Tripoli.
For its part, LBCI television said security forces foiled an attempt by "unidentified, knife-wielding assailants to liberate a prisoner from Monla Hospital in Tripoli."
On February 23, an gang stormed the Islamic Hospital in Tripoli and freed prisoner Mohammed Youssef who is accused of involvement in the attack on Karami's convoy.
Youssef was handed over to security forces a few hours later after a mediation by Mohammedanholy mans.
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[An Nahar] Gunmen have attacked an Egyptian Coptic church in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, assaulting two priests, the foreign ministry said Sunday, days after dozens of Egyptian Christians suspected of proselytizing were incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
The foreign ministry said it "strongly condemned Thursday's attack on the Egyptian church... and the aggression towards Father Paula Isaac and his deputy by the irresponsible gunnies."
It did not elaborate on the attacks or give any details of injuries.
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[Dawn] A key prosecution witness in the Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... murder case did not testify in the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Rawalpindi on Saturday after receiving threats from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP).
The witness is a police officer, Sub Inspector (SI) Ashfaq Ahmed. He is at present working in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Lahore.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Dawn] BANGLADESH seems to be headed towards a major political crisis as the fatality toll in three days of violence, following Thursday's sentencing to death of a Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leader, has crossed 50. The widespread violence resulted from festivities not only between the police and Jamaat workers but also between the latter and supporters of the ruling Awami League. A disturbing development for the government is the decision by the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, to join the protests. Reacting to the death sentence passed on Jamaat vice president Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... and using strong language, BNP leader Khaleda Zia
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
#1
Yep. Move on. Nothing to see here. Mass murder and rape. All is forgiven.
After a well organized military buildup in East Pakistan the military launched its campaign. No more than 267 days later they had succeeded in killing perhaps 1,500,000 people, created 10,000,000 refugees who had fled to India, provoked a war with India, incited a counter-genocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis, and lost East Pakistan.
Posted by: john frum ||
03/04/2013 7:36
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The Blood telegram (April 6, 1971) was seen as one of the most strongly worded Dissent Channel[4] messages ever written by Foreign Service Officers to the State Department.[5] It was signed by 29 Americans. The telegram stated:
Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy,(...) But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected.
(U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Dissent from U.S. Policy Toward East Pakistan, April 6, 1971, Confidential, 5 pp. Includes Signatures from the Department of State. Source: RG 59, SN 70-73 Pol and Def. From: Pol Pak-U.S. To: Pol 17-1 Pak-U.S. Box 2535;)[6]
In an earlier telegram (March 27, 1971), Blood wrote about American observations at Dhaka under the subject heading "Selective genocide":
1. Here in Decca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak[istani] Military. Evidence continues to mount that the MLA authorities have list of AWAMI League supporters whom they are systematically eliminating by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down
2. Among those marked for extinction in addition to the A.L. hierarchy are student leaders and university faculty. In this second category we have reports that Fazlur Rahman head of the philosophy department and a Hindu, M. Abedin, head of the department of history, have been killed. Razzak of the political science department is rumored dead. Also on the list are the bulk of MNA's elect and number of MPA's.
3. Moreover, with the support of the Pak[istani] Military. non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.
(U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Selective genocide, March 27, 1971)[7]
Posted by: john frum ||
03/04/2013 7:39
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#3
Thanks John. Interesting bit of history, and confirmation of the hopelessness of the Islam.
#4
I'd call it a confirmation of the singular brutality of Pakistain. The scale of the murders puts them up there with the Nazis. The collaborators of 1971 are the same people hacking cops to death and burning down Hindu houses now.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013 9:10
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#5
Holy cow.
I thought I was a pretty good history/international affairs wonk but the genocide in East Pak/Bangladesh is new ground for me.
Did our media run cover for State even back then?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/04/2013 10:08
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#6
"Did our media run cover for State even back then?"
No Mr. Bill, they were too invested in making us lose Vietnam at the time (not that we hadn't already).
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/04/2013 10:48
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#7
1971 was Cold War era. Since India went the non-aligned-but-sleeping-with-the-Soviets route, Pakistan by default won the Miss US Cold War Ally-Indian Penninsula title.
Base any actions taken, rightly or wrongly, in that context.
[An Nahar] Islamist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and his supporters staged a sit-in Sunday at Nejmeh Square in central Sidon after security forces prevented them from heading to al-Karameh roundabout, where the protest was initially scheduled to be held.
The sit-in was held amid strict security measures enforced by the army and the Internal Security Forces, state-run National News Agency reported.
"The state's practices against us increase our determination to carry on with our protests until all demands are fulfilled, especially the evacuation of the tenants of the two apartments operated by Hizbullah and loaded with weapons in Abra," Asir said during the sit-in.
Asir and his supporters had also rallied on Friday and Saturday near the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque in the Sidon suburb of Abra to protest claims that Hizbullah rented apartments in the vicinity of the mosque.
On Sunday, army units and the ISF blocked all roads leading to Abra and diverted traffic to Sidon's western boulevard as a security precaution, NNA said.
MTV said the army closed all roads in Abra with military vehicles ahead of the protest.
"The army has encircled al-Karameh roundabout in Sidon and prevented vehicles coming from outside the city from approaching it," LBCI television reported.
"We're determined to hold a sit-in at al-Karameh roundabout and we will head there on foot if we were prevented from moving forward," sources close to al-Asir told LBCI.
Later, LBCI said Asir and his supporters blocked the road at Nejmeh Square.
"We reject the security siege and media blackout," Asir said during Saturday's protest.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Salafists
#1
for a second I thought it said Aesir and I got a tad excited. Damn - it would have been cool...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/04/2013 1:20
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[Bangla Daily Star] Three top Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leaders yesterday failed to show up before International Crimes Tribunal-2 for the third time in connection with a contempt of court rule issued against them.
Even though the prosecution had again sought arrest warrants against them, the tribunal gave the Jamaat leaders another chance to appear before the court on Wednesday.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[An Nahar] Angry residents of a town in northern Tunisia hurled stones at the car of visiting Islamist leader Rached Ghannouchi on Sunday, a security source said.
At the sight of Ghannouchi, several dozen people in Thala shouted "Get out!" -- one of the rallying cries of the revolution that toppled the regime of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
The chief of Tunisia's ruling Ennahda party quickly got back in his car, which some protesters then pelted with stones, breaking the rear window, the same source said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Dawn] Three separate attacks in Shia-dominated areas on Sunday in central Iraq have killed at least four people and maimed 14, officials said.
The deadliest was in the Husseiniya area northeast of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , where three roadside kabooms went off simultaneously, killing three civilians, a police officer said. He said 11 others, including three coppers, were maimed.
Another police officer said a soldier was killed when a bomb attached to his car went kaboom! in the northern Utaifiya neighborhood of Storied Baghdad.
Two health officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release information to news hounds.
In Karbala, 90 kilometers south of Storied Baghdad, a jacket wallah set off his explosives-laden belt near the two revered Shia shrines and maimed three people, Gov Amal-Din al-Hir said.
Violence has ebbed across Iraq in recent years, but forces of Evil frequently attack security forces and civilians in an attempt to undermine the country's Shiite-led government.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
[MAGHAREBIA] A group of baton-wielding salafists on Saturday (March 2nd) prevented secondary school pupils from performing the "Harlem Shake" dance in El Kef.
The incident at the "Ahmed Amara" lyceum in the northern governorate came a day after hundreds braved the rain in front of the education ministry in Tunis to perform the dance.
The Friday action came in response to a probe ordered by the education minister into a dance video recorded at the Imam Mohammedan High School in the Menzah 6 district of Tunis.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[15 views]
Top|| File under: Salafists
#1
The Harlem shuffle? Jeez, what happened to the goofy looking Korean guy...
#2
Since twitter and facebook didn't usher in an era of Enlightenment style democracy and peace, this is being seized upon as the force that will. Sheesh...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/04/2013 8:35
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[An Nahar] Nigeria's military said Sunday that it killed 20 Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists while repelling an attack by the bully boy group in the embattled northeastern state of Borno.
"Boko Haram beturbanned goons attempted to attack a military barracks (in Borno) at about 5:00 am (0400 GMT)," front man Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa said in a statement.
He said the attack occurred in the village of Monguno, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Borno's restive capital of Maiduguri, considered Boko Haram's home base where the radical group has been blamed for scores of deadly attacks.
The raid on the military barracks "was repelled," Musa said. "The encounter led to the deaths of 20 Boko Haram terrorists."
He said that the gunnies, armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers had stormed the military site in three 4X4 trucks and eight cycle of violences.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[12 views]
Top|| File under: Boko Haram
[An Nahar] An Iraqi soldier was killed and three people including a soldier were maimed inside north Iraq in fire exchanged between regime forces and rebels in Syria, the defense ministry front man in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... said.
The casualties were caused by "fighting at the Yaarubiyeh border crossing inside Syria" on Saturday, Mohammed al-Askari told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone.
"The Iraqi forces that were hit by the fire were about 600 meters (yards) away from the crossing" into Iraq's Nineveh province, Askari said.
He also said that four maimed Syrian soldiers were treated at an Iraqi hospital during Saturday's fighting.
Mohammed Rahim al-Shammari, the head of the Nineveh provincial council security and defense committee, told Agence La Belle France Presse that no one was controlling the Syrian side of the crossing on Sunday, and that there was no activity there.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2013
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[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
Rodman and Pudgy get a tongue bath in this revolting, superficial NPR piece. Leave it to the progressive Left to revel along with Rodman about a genocidal, odious thug-boy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2013
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[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Mr. Rodman now has more foreign policy experience than Mr. Zero had <2008. 2016 is on the way...!
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.
While Secretary of State John Kerry will not travel to Israel during his first tour of the Middle East since assuming the top U.S. diplomatic post, he will be meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmud Abbas in Riyadh on Monday, a state department official told reporters.
EVIL al-Qaeda warlord Mokhtar Belmokhtar -- known as Mr Marlboro for smuggling cigs to fund terrorism -- is believed to have died.
[Dawn] Authorities deployed soldiers in a northern Bangladeshi district Sunday after activists of the country's largest Islamic party clashed with police, leaving three people dead during a nationwide general strike called to denounce an ongoing war crimes trial.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dawn] A ban on armed wings of political parties, deweaponisation and political tolerance are essential to restore peace to the city, said speakers on the opening day of a two-day peace conference on Saturday.
Anis Haroon of the Aurat Foundation said that absence of war did not mean peace. But peace could be established through social justice and protecting the rights of all segments of society, she said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled out a general amnesty for Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members in connection with the resumption of talks between Turkish security forces and jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, AA reported.
Waving Venezuelan flags, the protesters rallied to a street where some 50 university students have staged a week-long sit-in to demand more transparency about Chavez's condition.
[BBC.CO.UK] At least 45 people have been killed by a bomb 
[Dawn] Ten people, including three activists of the Majlis Wahdat-e-
A bomb exploded this afternoon in front of the hotel in Dhaka where India's President Pranab Mukherjee is staying on his official visit to Bangladesh. Nobody was wounded.
[Times of Israel] The 
[GUARDIAN.CO.UK] US Secretary of State 
Orakzai Agency
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Nouri al-Maliki
[Ynet] Egyptian paper says Islamist terror group recently refused to accept shipment of long-range missiles from Libya after preliminary examination allegedly found spy gear inside
[Bangla Daily Star] It was all lies -- outright and outrageous -- but it worked. Jamaat's propaganda machine used a photoshopped image of 
[An Nahar] Gunmen have attacked an Egyptian Coptic church in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, assaulting two priests, the foreign ministry said Sunday, days after dozens of Egyptian Christians suspected of proselytizing were 
[Dawn] BANGLADESH seems to be headed towards a major political crisis as the fatality toll in three days of violence, following Thursday's sentencing to death of a 
[Dawn] Three separate attacks in Shia-dominated areas on Sunday in central Iraq have killed at least four people and 
[MAGHAREBIA] A group of baton-wielding salafists on Saturday (March 2nd) prevented secondary school pupils from performing the "Harlem Shake" dance in El Kef.
[An Nahar] Nigeria's military said Sunday that it killed 20 
