The brutal crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad may finally be getting the attention of world leaders -- but apparently not enough to stop Syria from becoming the newest member of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
And despite calling for an independent investigation into the crackdown, which has left hundreds dead, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon apparently won't do much about blocking Syria's path to the human rights group. Why not add Iran and Libya and make it an all Mooselimb thing.
Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems has delivered the first production copy of its next ship-defense missile to the U.S. Navy for final testing.
The first Standard Missile-6, a longer-range version of the Standard Missile-2 series of ship-defense weapons, was delivered on time and on budget in March after five years of development, the company said Monday.
The first missile is part of an initial batch of 89 missiles Raytheon is producing under a three-year, $368 million contract for low-rate initial production awarded last year.
The range of the supersonic SM-6 is classified but is substantially longer than SM-2's official range of about 90 nautical miles.
Godrej and Boyce - the last company left in the world that was still manufacturing typewriters - has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India with just a few hundred machines left in stock.
'Till 2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year. But this might be the last chance for typewriter lovers. Now, our primary market is among the defence agencies, courts and government offices.'
The company is now down to its last 200 machines - the majority of which are Arabic language models.
The firm began production in the 1950s - when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru described the typewriter as a symbol of India's emerging independence and industrialisation. It was still selling 50,000 models annually in the early 1990s, but last year it sold less than 800 machines.
The first commercial typewriter was produced in the U.S. in 1867 and by the turn of the century had developed into the standardised format - including a qwerty' keyboard - that we know today.
#1
The company is now down to its last 200 machines - the majority of which are Arabic language models.
Really? I find that ... interesting. Actually, in 1995 it would've been interesting. In 2011 it's BWAHAHAHAHhahahahahhahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.........................[gasp] funny.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2011 22:41
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered a new sentencing hearing for convicted police killer and death-row activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, finding for a second time that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at his 1982 trial were potentially misleading.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered prosecutors to conduct the new sentencing hearing within six months or agree to a life sentence. Abu-Jamal's first-degree murder conviction nonetheless stands in the fatal shooting of Officer Daniel Faulkner.
Prosecutors said they were considering another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"While it upheld the defendant's conviction for first degree murder, the federal third circuit court of appeals today affirmed the order of the federal district court granting a new sentencing proceeding," District Attorney Seth Williams said in a statement. "We continue to maintain that granting this new sentencing hearing is contrary to clearly established precedent of the United States Supreme Court, and we are now considering whether to seek further review of today's decision in the Supreme Court."
Abu-Jamal's lawyer is Widener University law professor Judith Ritter.
Tuesday's ruling is the latest in Abu-Jamal's long-running legal saga.
A federal judge in 2001 first granted the former Black Panther a new sentencing hearing over the trial judge's instructions on aggravating and mitigating factors. Philadelphia prosecutors have been fighting the order since, but the 3rd Circuit ruled against them in a pivotal 2008 decision.
In rejecting a similar claim in an Ohio death-penalty case last year, the Supreme Court ordered the Philadelphia appeals court to revisit its Abu-Jamal decision.
On Tuesday, the 3rd Circuit judges stood their ground and noted differences in the two cases.
Under Pennsylvania law, Abu-Jamal should have received a life sentence if a single juror found the mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating factors in Faulkner's slaying. The three-judge appeals panel found the verdict form confusing, given its repeated use of the word "unanimous," even in the section on mitigating circumstances.
"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court failed to evaluate whether the complete text of the verdict form, together with the jury instructions, would create a substantial probability the jury believed both aggravating and mitigating circumstances must be found unanimously," Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote in the 32-page ruling.
Tuesday's decision upholds the 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who first ruled that the flawed jury instructions warranted a new sentencing hearing. While prosecutors were fighting that ruling, Abu-Jamal has been fighting unsuccessfully to have his conviction overturned.
Faulkner, a white 25-year-old patrolman, had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother on a darkened downtown street in 1981. Prosecutors say Abu-Jamal saw the traffic stop and shot Faulkner, who managed to shoot back. A wounded Abu-Jamal, his own gun nearby, was found at the scene when police arrived.
Abu-Jamal is now 58. His writings and radio broadcasts from death row have made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books and movies. Hundreds of vocal death-penalty opponents and supporters typically turn out for hearings in his case.
Totally disregard that "..nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" ichy part of the written Constitution, that with due process one may be deprived of life. The ruling class does not want the people to ever have capital punishment. That's reserved in the hands of the predators and other sociopaths to carry out against the citizenry. Remember we and our loved ones are expendable to their secular morality.
#2
What Galbraith says is mostly correct - In practice all you are doing in Afghanistan is providing the Taliban with revenues.
He doesn't mention the real issue in Afghanistan, which is the attempt to create a multi-ethnic society. Something that is doomed in any reasonable timescale.
A NATO airstrike earlier this month killed a key Al Qaeda number three operative in Afghanistan -- a regional commander in charge of suicide bombings and cash flow, the international military coalition said Tuesday.
NATO identified the man killed in the April 13 airstrike in Dangam district of eastern Kunar province as Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani. The alliance said the strike also killed a number of other insurgents, including another Al Qaeda leader known as Waqas.
The U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday it had killed the second-most-wanted insurgent in Afghanistan, a senior al Qaeda leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for setting up terrorist training camps and launching attacks on U.S. and Afghan forces.
The Saudi, identified by the coalition as Abu Hafs Al Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, operated mostly from the mountainous Kunar province in northeast Afghanistan. A list of the 85 most wanted terrorists released by the Saudi government in 2009 placed him 21st; that list gave his real name as Salef Nayef Eid al Mahlafi, and put his current age at 27.
Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, a Saudi Arabian, was killed 12 days ago in Dangam district, on April 13, as he met other senior insurgents and al Qaeda members, an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) statement said.
"Abdul Ghani was responsible for the co-ordination of numerous high-profile attacks. On the morning of his death, he reportedly directed the suicide attack that killed tribal elder Malik Zarin and nine other Afghan civilians," ISAF said.
ISAF said he was one of more than 25 al Qaeda operatives killed in Afghanistan during operations over the past month in the lead-up to Afghanistan's summer fighting months.
SAF began hunting him in Afghanistan in 2007.
It looks like the connections mapping program we used to such effect in Iraq is starting to pay dividends in Afghanistan. Well done to all involved!
#5
Detailed information not released until about two weeks later.... I wonder - did we perhaps send some SpecOps folks in after the attack to collect cell phones, computers, etc.? Will we be seeing 5-10 similar reports in another 2 weeks? One can only hope.....
He peers out from the photo in the classified file through heavy-framed spectacles, an owlish face with a graying beard and a half-smile. Saifullah Paracha, a successful businessman and for years a New York travel agent, appears to be the oldest of the 172 prisoners still held at the Guantánamo Bay prison. His dossier is among the most chilling.
In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Paracha, 63, was one of a small circle of Al Qaeda operatives who explored ways to follow up on the hijackings with new attacks, according to the classified Guantánamo files made available to The New York Times.
Working with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 planner who in early 2002 gave him $500,000 to $600,000 for safekeeping, Mr. Paracha offered his long experience in the shipping business for a scheme to move plastic explosives into the United States inside containers of womens and childrens clothing, the files assert.
Detainee desired to help Al Qaeda do something big against the U.S., one of his co-conspirators, Ammar al-Baluchi, told Guantánamo interrogators, the files say. Mr. Paracha discussed obtaining biological or nuclear weapons as well, though he was concerned that detectors at ports would make it difficult to smuggle radioactive materials into the country, the file says.
Mr. Parachas assessment is among more than 700 classified documents that fill in new details of Al Qaedas efforts to make 9/11 just the first in a series of attacks to cripple the United States, intentions thwarted as the Central Intelligence Agency captured Mr. Mohammed and other leaders of the terrorist network.
#1
It seems to me the requirement that men from certain countries register with the government -- which led to deportations and a mass exodus of families not in the country quite legally -- may have had something to do with the lack of successful attacks following 9/11. From a biased source, but matching my memories of the time:
In December 2002, the U.S. government ordered men over 16 from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Libya with non-resident visas to report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for "special registration"--to be photographed, fingerprinted, and interrogated. Over the following months, Arab, Muslim, and South Asian men from 20 other countries were ordered to report to the INS for such registration.
The government justified the mass registration by declaring it needed to keep "closer monitoring" of certain immigrants because of the September 11 attacks.
Over 82,000 immigrant men came forward voluntarily and registered. Most thought the procedure would be routine. Many had applications pending for permanent resident ("green card") status-- and believed that obeying the government order would help them in the process.
They were wrong. One immigration attorney said, "This is the biggest trap I have ever seen."
Hundreds who came forward willingly to register were detained under brutal and humiliating conditions. Most of those detained were released after days of such outrageous treatment. But that was not the end of their nightmare.
Now, the government is targeting as many as 13,000 men--out of the 82,000 who underwent "special registration"--for deportation.
None of the people threatened with deportation is charged with any "terrorism"-related crime. The government accuses the men of overstaying their visas, working without proper documents, or other immigration violations. For this, they face separation from their families and friends, loss of their jobs, and other great hardships.
The immigrants from the targeted countries who aren't deported--for now--are required to register yearly with the INS and immediately report any changes in address, job, or school. They will be watched and treated by the government as "potential terrorists."
The "special registration" and threats of mass deportations are part of the fascistic clampdown on immigrants after 9/11--especially focused on Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrants. Immediately after 9/11, the government began to round up hundreds of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian men and detained them for weeks or months without any charges. Many were deported for minor immigration violations.
#3
I'm wondering if this batch of releases is having the impact Wikileaks had intended.
You mean demonstrating that President Bush and his team were right, Nimble Spemble? Or in shutting down frank internal communications, for fear of what might one day be leaked?
An al Qaeda "assassin" accused of bombing Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan was working for British intelligence at the same time, according to leaked files.
The claim about Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili is made in secret reports on detainees at the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp obtained by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The Algerian, who was captured in Pakistan in 2003, was described by interrogators as a "facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al Qaeda". They also believed he had withheld important information from Canadian and British intelligence and (was) a "threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan".
The files, handed to The Guardian and Daily Telegraph by WikiLeaks, also indicate at least 35 terrorists held at Guantanamo had been radicalised by extremist preachers in the UK.
Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza are identified in the documents as having recruited and sent dozens of extremists from all over the world to fight against the West in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
#1
No surprise.
Its not the propoganda issue to me its the leaking back to the Taliban of information about military operations.
The Brits need to have an upclose personal and very loud conversation with the leadership of the BBC. This says the BBC is working against British interests.
They could actually have been leaking information on investigations back to terrorist cells.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/26/2011 14:14
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#2
Need the zero surprise meter on this one. I mean, we didn't need a leak to figure out the BBC wears kneepads and no pants.
#4
disgraceful. In no way is US foreign policy anything at all to do with why Osama Bin Laden launched the 911 attacks.
OBL himself said he attacked the US because the US is the strong horse. If you show the world you are stronger than the strong horse, they turn and follows you
all those muslims watching him attack the symbols of western society... all those new recruits for his movement.
Islamists don't just attack the US either, they attack schoolteachers in the southern Philippines, and Christians in Indonesia. Nothing to do with US foreign policy. Everything to do with a fascist, expansionist religion.
BTW: Thank you to all who commented on the FEMA video, it was good to put in context. Didn't have time to check until now, comments now closed. I would still rather stay out of a place with a watchtower and a double barbed wire perimeter fence.
#5
To assert that "occupation" can result in adverse reactions is not "Blaming the Victims". Nor is it, as some often claim, providing justification for the sinister actions of islamists. Admit it or not there are repercussions to intervention in the affairs of other nations. It's not unfair to view Ron Paul's gravitation twoards isolationism in the face of global terrorism as naïveté. But to assume that an aggressive interventionist foreign policy won't result with some negative consequences is equal folly.
#6
I don't think he's blaming the victim any more than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson when they expressed non-interventionist views. The truth is, as we run out of money, we can choose a path toward non-intervention in the rest of the world's affairs, or we can simply wait until it is forced upon us by fiscal realities. Personally, I'm all for going after our enemies but leaving the nation building to others.
#7
wRONg PAUL. wrong then, wrong now. 0bama's Ross Perot.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
04/26/2011 12:51
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#8
Ron Paul does have a point in that Western 'foreign intervention' and 'occupation' is an incoherent and in all likelihood pointless mess.
There's a 'War on Terror' against an unspecified enemy because naming the enemy would hurt the enemies feelings and we can't have that.
There's the military occupation of enemy nations; overwhelming military strength is supposed to be used to impose change for the better. Any yet we've ending up subsidizing their disgusting and very very bad old ways while simultaneously signaling surrender even at home in the West.
An American in the US has been arrested to preempt a Sharia violation in the future. A Danish citizen is being prosecuted for ideologically deviant speech made in Denmark, by moderate and pro-western Jordan. In the future any international travel will amount to a game of Russian Roulette for Westergaard.
What I find strange about Paul's politics however is his deafening silence when it comes to the encroachment of civil liberties in the US at the behest of a foreign belief system.
Did he support the free speech rights of Salman Rushdie, Molly Norris, Comedy Central and Yale Press etc? Did he defend Pastor Jones' 1st Amendment rights as he defended the Ground Zero Mosque?
If not why not?
Maybe his libertarianism is just a Sharia apologist's mask.
#14
WHERE in Texas is this dippy-doodle from? Austin? ("Keep Austin wierd", the sign says.)
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2011 22:31
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#15
He gets the economics, thus he's right where he should be: Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, occasionally seen haranguing Bernanke on C-SPAN. I'd cheer wildly were he appointed SecTreas or Fed Chairman. Otherwise, yeah, what Turkeyneck and Fi said.
Paul is also 75 years old. Right now. So 77 in Jan 2013, 81 by the 2016 elections. Adding to the electability problem, and the dementia problem too.
Terrorists Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb to attack the governor of Pattani province Tuesday morning but no one was wounded.
The explosion of the bomb hidden in a motorcycle blew out three tires on Governor Nipon Narapitak's vehicle. But the governor had his driver continue to drive out of the area to seek help from the Panare district police station.
The explosion occurred at 9:30 a.m. while the governor was returning from attending a ceremony at a private Islamic school.
Contrary to the claims made by Gholam-Reza Jalali director of the Iranian Center for Non-Military Preemptive Defense regarding the nature of the virus and Irans capabilities in dealing with the fallout, Stuxnet has wreaked serious and perhaps fatal havoc on the foundations of energy structure and the operating systems of the Bushehr nuclear installation. According to the Green Liaison news group, over the past year and a half the Bushehr plant has incurred serious damage and has lost major capabilities.
An individual involved in Irans nuclear activities reports that this virus was placed in the system by one of the foreign experts contracted to Iran. The virus has automatic updating capabilities in order to track and pirate information, and can also destroy the system hardware step-by-step. The internal directives programmed into the structure of the virus can actually bring the generators and electrical power grids of the country to a sudden halt, or create a heart attack type of work stoppage.
#2
I can imagine Stuxnet working once. But after a shutdown and systems purge, and checking the reactor systems, and cutting off Bushehr from any external computers that might be affected, their system will be clean. Unless there is a trusted person on site who reinfects.
#3
It is the processing fuel rods etc that was permanently damaged as well as mis-matched equipment. This virus was the most brilliant form of defense against Iran's nuclear program.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqs Parliament Speaker, Usama al-Nujeify, has reiterated that the presence of the foreign forces in Iraq was under discussion by the government, but said that the Parliament had the final say to approve or reject that, according to a statement by his office on Monday.
Nujeify, in a reception given to the Japanese Ambassador to Baghdad, has reiterated that the people of Iraq rejects the presence of foreign forces on its territory, the statement said, adding that Nujeify had confirmed that the decision must be taken by the leaders and politicians of Iraq.
He said that the issue was presented to the government, which is the owner of the first word whether there is any need for the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi territories, adding that the final and decisive word would be issued by the Parliament, to approve or reject such presence.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/26/2011
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#1
I don't think these drooling idiots understand that we have no particular wish to stay. In their active and retarded fantasy lives, Uncle Sam may get some kind of benefit from having troops in Iraq, but in reality, we are spending $100B a year having troops deployed there. I am seriously looking forward to the day that the last GI has boarded the last transport back to the US of A. We will finally have closed a chapter in our history that cost us about $5T in budget deficits - thanks to war expenditures and the war's greasing of Obama's path to the presidency.
#2
They had better hope that the US doesn't take them up on their offer - Iran and the terrorists are waiting until there are no more American forces there to defend them.
#3
Just provide all the members of Parliament a pamphlet of photos of Germany in 1919 juxtapose with images of 1946 titled - If We Have To Come Back Again!
[Iran Press TV] Saudi security forces have attacked anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Qatif, firing tear gas and live rounds to disperse the demonstrators.
Anti-government protesters in Qatif are calling for human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... reforms, freedom of expression and the release of political prisoners. None of which they have in Iran, either, but that never stops a master propagandist from his calling...
Of course they have such things in Iran, for a very specific definition of each, where all mean complying with the official government line.
They are also calling for the immediate withdrawal of Saudi troops from neighboring Bahrain.
After dispersing the protesters by force, Saudi troops attacked several homes in the city and incarcerated many people. They also destroyed vehicles parked in the streets.
Soddy Arabia's east has been the scene of anti-government protests over the past months.
Human Rights Watch says more than 160 dissidents have been incarcerated since February as part of the Saudi government's crackdown on anti-government protesters.
"Saudi authorities have incarcerated over 160 peaceful dissidents in violation of international human rights law since February 2011," HRW said in a statement last week.
HRW also criticized the European Union and the United States, Soddy Arabia's allies, for not taking a harder line over Riyadh's arrest of dissidents.
"As the list of Saudi political prisoners grows longer, the silence of the US and the EU becomes more deafening," Christoph Wilcke, a senior Middle East researcher at HRW, said in the statement.
A Saudi-based human rights group had earlier reported that Saudi authorities have incarcerated 100 protesters for taking part or organizing anti-government demonstrations.
Human Rights First Society (HRFS) also revealed that some of the detainees were subject to torture both physically and mentally.
In Soddy Arabia, protest rallies and any public displays of dissent are forbidden and are considered illegal. Senior Wahhabi holy mans in the kingdom have also censured opposition demonstrations as "un-Islamic."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Iran Press TV] French Interior Minister Claude Gueant seeks to ban praying in the street as part of a continuation of recent discrimination against Mohammedans in the western European country.
Gueant said that he plans to make praying in the streets for Mohammedans illegal, although all public prayers in La Belle France receive government approval beforehand.
"Here we have the hypocrisy of the French right. On one side, they authorize in the street and on the other side, they say 'look French people, Mohammedans are taking over our streets and speak of invasion'," French politician Axel Urgin told a Press TV correspondent.
Even though La Belle France has the greatest Mohammedan population in Europe, Gay Paree has only one mosque. This lack of mosques leaves French Mohammedans no choice but to attend Friday prayers at about a dozen street locations across La Belle France.
"If we are praying in the street, it's because we have no other choice. We are using what we have, and that is the street," the president of Mohammedan Association of Openness, Moussa Niambele said.
French politicians use the country's 1905 secularism law as reasoning why taxpaying Mohammedans cannot be financially assisted by the government to build mosques. Right-wing mayors also allegedly refuse issuing construction permits to those who have the money.
Although another large mosque is currently under construction in the French capital of Gay Paree, many say it will not be sufficient.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
Praying in the middle of a street is Jihad against the people of France. It is the act of stopping all traffic during "prayer time". Which essentially forces everyone traveling that street to submit to Islam.
#4
What's wrong with house mosques, analogous to house churches? A small congregation meeting in someone's living room to pray together. Or renting a conference room for a larger group... There's no need for these 10,000 person monstrosities with congregations so large the members can't possibly get to know one another.
#8
"French Interior Minister Claude Gueant seeks to ban praying in the street as part of a continuation of recent discrimination against Mohammedans in the western European country."
Oooo, you're catching on.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/26/2011 21:21
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[Dawn] The supply of goods to NATO forces in Afghanistan will resume on Monday after remaining suspended for three days owing to the rally and sit-in organised by Pakistain Tehrik-i-Insaf in the scenic provincial capital against US drone attacks in tribal areas.
The president of All Sarhad Goods Transport Federation, Ashraf Khan, told Dawn that about 6,000 vehicles had been stopped owing to sit-in but they would start transporting goods from Monday`s morning. "We would resume work from tomorrow," he said.
He added that the sit-in had caused huge financial losses to the government. He said that government had already cut NATO supplies as now only 100 trucks were allowed to take goods to troops in Afghanistan every day via Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and Khyber Agency.
The route, he said, was also used by other large containers supplying rice, pulses and other commodities to Afghan markets. Only 200 trucks of cements were transported to Afghanistan per day, he said.
On the other hand participants of the sit-in claimed that it was first show of its kind that stopped NATO supplies at least for three days.
"It shows that we can do it for longer period," said a participant Farman Ali, a student of Swari College in Buner. To participate in the rally, he embarked a bus to lend his support to Imran Khan ... who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... . Like him, hundreds from Islamabad, parts of Punjab and other areas passed sleepless night on the road to convey their anger to the government on an issue, which they said, was related primarily to illusory sovereignty of the country.
"We shouldn`t indulge in number game. Simple is that we have stopped NATO supplies for three days, which means we can do it," Javed Umar from Rawalpindi said.
Many said they were jubilant over the success of the rally and sit-in.
However, The all-purpose However... the venue of the rally irked residents of Hayatabad as Bagh-i-Naran Chowk hosted the excited and emotional PTI workers. Some of the activists even tailored clothes from PTI flags.
Caps of Insaf Students Federation were a common sight. The sit-in didn`t draw as many people as expected but it was an organised effort and also caused political problems to local leaders, who were supposed to do the job before someone else.
Of late, the US drone strikes had increased to a level that even National Assembly had adopted a resolution against those attacks but staging a protest to block supplies to Afghanistan was something new.
Friday`s night was fun-filled. Young PTI workers danced at a show, organised by the party`s culture wing to energise the youths after the day-long fatigue and sweating.
Lawmaker from the violence-wracked Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central Akhunzada Mohammad Chitan, who spoke in afternoon, set aside the impression that drone attacks were becoming popular in the tribal areas.
He demanded that drone attacks should be halted immediately. The PTI set an example to hold an agitation against drone strikes, he added.
Many others also delivered speeches. Some leaders stayed away from the show despite announcing support to it.
Crooner Musharraf Bangash sang endlessly throughout the night. His song ` Qurban qurban me sar ao mall shah warna waziristan da pakhtano watan de ` (I`ll sacrifice my life for the motherland, Wazoo is the land of Pakhtun) aroused people, especially the tribal youths, who danced to the rhythm for hours.
His other numbers sung and written after 2001 that showcase life before and after war in tribal areas sent warmth all around and at times it seemed an exclusive music show because the participants were responsive.
Even the speakers of other languages enjoyed Bangash`s songs and the background music.
The sit-in was also different on another count. The participants were educated jean-wearing modern boys as well as simple-looking semi-literate villagers. Women portion also had people from different strata of the society.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: An improvised explosive device attached to a presidential vehicle went off in southern Baghdad on Monday, leaving two persons aboard wounded, a security source in Baghdad said.
The IED, attached to a presidential pickup truck, went off near Dhu al-Tabiqayn bridge in the area of al-Jadiriya, southern Baghdad, leaving two persons aboard injured, the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The wounded persons were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, the source added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/26/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Two prison escapees have been rubbed out while 26 others have been recaptured after hundreds of cut-throats beat feet from a jail overnight in troubled southern Afghanistan.
Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar Province says security forces will continue the operation to recapture other inmates who broke out of Kandahar prison, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Nearly 500 inmates beat feet through a 360-meter-long tunnel, which cut-throats had dug from the outside.
Reports say the beat feet inmates are all Talibs, who represented over one-third of the prison's total population.
There were over a hundred Taliban capos among the escapees.
This is the second major escape in Kandahar in three years. In 2008, around 1,000 prisoners beat feet after the Taliban used a truck bomb to blow open the jail's gates.
The deadly incidents come as Talibs are believed to have been making inroads in different parts of Afghanistan.
The surge in violence comes despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops in the country.
The US-led invasion took place in 2001 with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the war-ravaged country.
Anti-war groups have highlighted the fact that Afghanistan still remains unstable ten years after the invasion.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Dawn] Last week the capital police incarcerated a jihad boy affiliated with Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab chapter for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of an inspector and a patwari.
The jihad boy -- Sibghatullah Mavia -- was incarcerated from Vehari. He is the brother of Asmatullah Mavia, head of the TTP Punjab chapter, and is reported to have studied at Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan.
Sibghatullah has allegedly led a gang that has carried out a number of kidnappings for ransom. During interrogation he confessed to his involvement in kidnappings, adding that a jihad boy from Khanewal was also involved.
Sibghatullah is in policy custody for the moment.
However, The contradictory However... his capture is not just being celebrated because he can be held accountable for the crimes he has committed but for what his release can lead the Taliban to do.For the past few months, the police have been focusing on the case of the
kidnapping of Inspector Rana Pervez and Patwari Arshad Mehmood. Both went missing from Tarnol on December 3; later it was said that they were kidnapped by the TTP.
Investigations revealed that the TTP wanted to kidnap a property dealer -- Rana Sadique -- for ransom. The kidnappers set up an appointment with him on the pretext of wanting to buy property.
However, The contradictory However... Sadique could not make it to the appointed meeting and instead sent his 'brother', Rana Pervez. The latter, who is an inspector in the police force, is a business partner of Sadique and close enough for the property dealer to consider him a brother.
The inspector asked the 'prospective buyers' to meet him at his house in sector G-8/4 from where they all left together to see the property in Tarnol. En route they also picked up the patwari.
No one has since seen the inspector or the patwari. Oddly enough, the kidnappers have not contacted the inspector's family or the police for ransom money or made any other kind of a demand in exchange for his release. However, The contradictory However... the patwari's family has been hit by a ransom demand.
On December 20, three suspects were picked up when they arrived at Chungi No 26 to get the ransom the patwari's family had agreed to pay -- one of them was a homeopathic doctor.
However, The contradictory However... all the accused were released on bail after a behind the scene agreement with the Taliban that in exchange the two hostages would be freed. Three month later, the families of Rana Pervez and Arshad Mehmood continue to wait.
This delay has worried the police, as in their experience, the TTP finalises a deal (financial or otherwise) in 20 days to a month and sets the victim free after getting the amount. A four-month period is rare, to say the least. However, The contradictory However... mediators, which include tribal jirgas that have been organised to secure their release, assure the police that the two hostages are still alive.
In the meantime, the Sherlocks have rounded up around a dozen people, including cut-throats as well as the secretary of a slain leader of banned Sunni bad turban group. These people have been picked up not to provide leads but to serve as 'bait' to get the kidnappers to agree to free the hostages in exchange for these people in the custody of the state.
Sibghatullah is also seen as part of this 'bait'.
However, The contradictory However... the questions that no one seems to be asking is why the police are legitimising a kidnapping by getting involved in negotiations with the kidnappers and even carrying them out. Just because the police are not handing over money and are offering hostages in exchange does not make their action any better.
The world over, the police tend to discourage distraught families from handing over the ransom in exchange for kidnapped hostages. But in Pakistain, the police, instead of stopping the families, are carrying out the exchange themselves; more serious still, they are picking up people and holding them in jug till they can be exchanged for the hostages. Surely, this is unethical and far from legal.
Agreed that kidnapping is emerging as a serious crime in Pakistain and the law enforcement personnel have to make every effort possible to ensure the release of the innocent citizens. However, The contradictory However... Is your neck tired yet? carrying out exchanges may serve to encourage the kidnappers.We need a long term solution, not a short term firefighting.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Ten robbers were killed in shootouts with police and mob beating in Cox's Bazar yesterday.
That's quite a haul. Usually they only get one or two.
A villager was also killed in the exchange of fire between the gang and the police that left at least 21 others including four coppers bullet-hit.
"Sergeant O'Siddique!"
"Yes, captain?"
"Daily target practice for the men until they can hit what they're aiming at, Sergeant. On-side bullet-hitting just isn't done, and I don't like wounded miscreants. They talk."
The robbers carrying guns and sharp weapons also attacked villagers who chased them.
Someone in that sentence made an unwise decision...
The series of incidents started at Ratnapalong village in Ukhia upazila
On the map...
around 2:30am
A good time to be miscreanting...
as a gang of 23 dacoits looted valuables from four houses, police said.
Hey! At least they're not lolling about living off the taxpayer. These twenty-three men are clearly working hard to support themselves, not to mention any dependents desperate enough to depend on such desperate miscreants.
Of the dacoits, six were killed in firing while trying to escape a police dragnet and four were beaten to death by villagers.
Efficiency is a force multiplier, especially when the local population can be gotten to supply the additional force.
The dead were suspected as Rohingya refugees,
No wonder they're desperate. What is a Rohingya?
Cox's Bazar Superintendent of Police Nibash Chandra Majhi told The Daily Star.
The villager killed in the shootout was identified as Jasim Uddin, 28, a returnee from Dubai, and son of Abul Khayer of Goalia Palong Nayapara village in Ramu upazila.
One hopes for his family's sake that Mr. Uddin was one of those who prospered among the sons of Arabs, not the many who spent a decade going deeper in debt to the man who hired him.
Police tossed in the slammer one of the robbers, Abul Kashem, at Goalia on the boundary of Ukhia and Ramu upazilas. He hails from Banshkhali upazila of Chittagong.
Earlier, on information from locals,
More members of the Weasel clan...
a squad of Ukhia police led by Officer-in-Charge Niaz Mohammad had rushed to Ratnapalong village. Sensing police presence,
"My Spidey senses, they burrrrn!"
the robbers opened fire on them triggering a shootout.
Four cops, Jasim Uddin and 16 other villagers were hit by bullets. Jashim died on way to local upazila health complex.
"Yes, Jim, he is dead. Good catch, lad."
The SP along with Ukhia and Ramu police cordoned Goalia area at about 5:30am. The gang members again traded fire with the law enforcers.
BANG BANG BANGETY BANG!!
Police later found the bodies of six robbers in a bush.
It was a large bush, or perhaps the robbers were very small.
About 200 shots were fired during the shootout with the gang, police said.
Search for the other robbers continued for hours. Police recovered a locally-made rifle and six bullets.
At about 2:00pm, the villagers caught four robbers when they were trying to escape to hilly areas. They were beaten to death.
Of the four bullet-hit coppers, Sub-Inspector Gobinda Das and constable Rashedul Islam were admitted to Ukhia upazila health complex.
Two others -- Morshed and Tutul-- were shifted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital as their condition deteriorated. They suffered head injuries.
The others with bullet injuries were admitted to the upazila health complex, Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital and clinics.
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"What is a Rohingya?"
Rohingya via Wikipedia - appear to be Burmese Mooselimbs
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/26/2011 11:02
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Thank you, Mullah Richard. I do love asking questions round these parts, because someone always seems to have the answer. :-)
Yemeni security forces have opened fire on anti-government protesters, killing and wounding several civilians, medics say.
Despite a deal that would see President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... stand down within a month, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters erupted into the streets across Yemen on Monday, calling on Saleh to quit immediately.
Protesters say they do not trust Saleh to leave office as promised since he has made similar pledges in the past which he did not keep.
In the city of Ibb, south of the capital Sana'a, at least one protester was killed and over 30 others maimed after security forces and Saleh loyalists attacked a protest march.
"Security forces rubbed out a protester and maimed 30 others, eight of them by live rounds," a medical source in Ibb told AFP.
According to witnesses, gunnies "belonging to the ruling party" also attacked a sit-in demonstration in the southeastern province of al-Bayda, killing at least one protester.
Also in the flashpoint city of Taizz, at least 10 protesters were maimed after security forces fired live rounds and tear gas at anti-regime demonstrators to disperse the huge crowd.
Similar anti-Saleh rallies were also held in Sana'a, Mukalla and Hudaydah. However, The essential However... there were no reports of festivities there.
"No rest, no respite for the executioner," the protesters shouted.
Protesters also condemned an exit plan offered by Arab states of the Persian Gulf under which Saleh would hand over power to his deputy in 30 days in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Yemen's ruling party, the General People's Congress, accepted the plan on Saturday. Saleh has ruled Yemen for 32 years.
According to local sources, at least 300 protesters have been killed and many others injured during festivities with riot police and forces loyal to the Yemeni president armed with batons, knives and sticks.
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[Emirates 24/7] Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy's office in his immense Tripoli residence was destroyed in a NATO air strike early Monday, while loud kabooms were heard in several districts of the capital as warplanes roared overhead.
A Libyan official accompanying journalists at Qadaffy's compound said 45 people were maimed, 15 seriously, in the bombing. He added that he did not know whether there were victims under the rubble.
"It was an attempt to assassinate Colonel Qadaffy," he affirmed.
Seif Al Islam, Qadaffy's son, described the bombing as "cowardly."
"This cowardly attack on Muammar Qadaffy's office may frighten or terrorise children but we will not abandon the battle and we are not afraid," he said, claiming that NATO's battle was "lost in advance."
NATO warplanes had already late Friday targeted the Bab Al Aziziya district, where the presidential compound is located.
"Have you seen all these people who are at Bab Al Aziziya despite the raids?" Seif Al Islam asked. "How are you going to vanquish these people?"
At around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) smoke was still rising from part of the building that was hit, watched by dozens of people shouting slogans praising the Guide.
A meeting room facing Qadaffy's office was badly damaged by the blast.
African leaders had met these with Qadaffy two weeks ago to propose a peace plan that was accepted by the regime, but turned down by the rebels.
The international coalition had already destroyed a building in the presidential compound, calling it a command centre.
Heavy kabooms had shaken the centre of Tripoli shortly after midnight Monday (2210 GMT Sunday) as warplanes overflew the Libyan capital. The blasts, the strongest to have hit the city so far, shook the hotel in which foreign correspondents here are staying not far from downtown.
The kabooms hit several districts of Tripoli, which has been the target since Friday of intense NATO raids.
Libyan state television transmissions were briefly cut off right after the kabooms, before resuming a few minutes later.
The official state news agency JANA quoted a military source as saying that "several military and civilian sites in the city of Tripoli were the targets of raids by the crusader colonialist aggressor (NATO) which caused human and structural damage."
An international coalition intervened in Libya on March 19 under a UN mandate to end the bloody suppression of a revolt that started in mid-February against the Qadaffy regime, which has been in power for 41 years.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation took over command of the military intervention on March 31.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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The war on masonry continues...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/26/2011 13:49
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#2
Odds on who's lining up for the rebuilding contracts?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Claudine Auger aka Bond girl Dominique "Domino" Derval (Sans Voice) in "Thunderball" aka Laura in "Black Belly of the Tarantula" aka Paulette in "Triple Cross" aka Jacqueline Meyrand in "The Killing Game" (age 70)
[Tolo News] At least five Afghan civilians were maimed in a roadside kaboom blast in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, local officials said.
The incident happened at 09:00 am local time in Chaperhar district of Nangarhar ...on the main road from Lovely Peshawar. The capital is Jalalabad. The population of 1,334,000 consists mostly of Pashtuns with a few Arabs and Pashais... province when a roadside kaboom struck a civilian car, Ahmad Zia Abdulazai, a front man for governor of Nangarhar told TOLOnews.
The maimed were taken to a nearby hospital in the province, he added.
No group including the Taliban has grabbed credit for the incident.
Once again the Taliban are silent on the subject, having realized entirely too late that it really was not A Brilliant Idea after all.
Insurgents used Improvised Explosive Devices to target Afghan and foreign forces in the province.
Nangarhar province is bordered by Pakistain and forces of Evil are active in most villages of the province.
Momand Dara, Lal Poor, Goshta and Acheen districts are the insecure districts in the province where cut-throats often carry out attacks on Afghan police check posts.
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[Tolo News] A total of 453 beturbanned goon leaders have been jugged or killed so far this year, Isaf Spokesperson said on Monday. ... or approximately the number that broke jail yesterday...
Speaking at a conference Isaf Spokesperson Gen. Josef Blotz said more than 2,000 low level faceless myrmidons have been captured and 500 other faceless myrmidons have been killed.
"More than 30 suicide kabooms have been targeted in soft targets since the beginning of the year," Gen. Blotz said. "While the overall number of suicide attacks continues to decrease as it has since 2008."
The number of Haqqani linked beturbanned goon leaders have been incarcerated or killed in the operations this year hit 50, he said.
"High profile attacks are likely to continue or even increase as faceless myrmidons attempt to promote a perception of instability. This tactic by faceless myrmidons causes large number of civilian casualties," he said.
"The operations against Islamic movement of Uzbekistan and Haqqani leaders are part of a broad campaign to disrupt and defeat beturbanned goon networks throughout the country."
Security condition has been the worst these months since the beginning of US-led combat back in 2001.
Recently faceless myrmidons have shifted their attack tactic by targeting public locations and high profile government officials.
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04/26/2011
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#1
That almost makes up for the 500 who escaped a few days ago. That and the $50 billion spent so far this year.
#2
we should take no further prisoners due to this revolving door prison policy.
all enemy fighters should be killed on the battlefield.
would solve a multitude of problems
#4
#1 That almost makes up for the 500 who escapedreleased by Host Nation for big bucks a few days ago. That and the $50 billion spent so far this year.
Posted by Zebulon Thranter9685
#5
What happened to charging the executed for the cost of the bullet, as the Chinese used to? Send the bill to the Arabs/Pashtuns/Pakiwakis, let the sons of their grandsons be paying forever for this. If a Dane can bring the wrouth of Jordan onto the whole of Denmark through a drawing, etc, surely Lawfare and the cost of doing things can be demanded equally at cost per dirtmonger killed divided by interested tribal Moslem nations, and let the reckoning stand for generations until it is paid. I, for one, am sick of this shit.
[Arab News] An kaboom at a hotel killed three people and maimed 14 others in northeastern Nigeria only days before the state's gubernatorial election, police said Monday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
A second kaboom went off Monday morning at a cattle market in the town of Maiduguri, which has long been wracked by violence related to the radical sect.
There were no casualties from that blast, police chief Mike Zuokumor said.
"The enemies of Nigeria are scaring people from coming out to vote," Zuokumor said as election workers prepared for Tuesday's gubernatorial poll. Officials already have delayed governor elections in two other northern states after violence following the April 16 presidential vote left at least 500 dead.
The radical group known as Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... had released a statement earlier Sunday defending its string of deadly attacks on police and religious leaders in recent months.
"All the people that we are killing, including ward heads, politicians, the police and the army have erred, because they are associating themselves with the government in its effort to arrest our Mohammedan brothers and sabotage Islam," the group said in its statement released Sunday.
While the presidential vote sparked deadly riots across northern Nigeria, Borno state has seen little violence directly related to the voting so far this month. The group did, however, claim responsibility earlier this year for killing Modu Fannami Gubio, the Borno state candidate of the All Nigeria People's Party.
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[Dawn] The chief of banned organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has challenged India to prove his organisation's link to the Mumbai attacks, claiming India would never be able to substantiate this allegation.
Speaking to DawnNews, Saeed said that India had sent a 400-page report to the Pak government in an attempt to substantiate its claims but had failed miserable.
He accused the government of being spineless and succumbing to the pressure from India and the United States.
"Pakistain's Interior Ministry tried hard to defend the Indian stance but failed. Pakistain is confronted with internal and external challenges and India is benefiting from that. Even the US is now talking India's talk," said Saeed.
He disclosed that he had written two letters to UN Chief Ban Ki Moon to clarify his position and the workings of his organisation.
"We had asked Ban Ki Moon to bring our case in an international court and we had stressed that we are ready to appear before the court. The only response we had from him was informing us that he had received our letters," said the JuD chief.
Saeed strongly condemned US activities in Afghanistan and Pakistain and said the suicide kabooms were a response to the drone attacks.
"When you spill innocent blood and the people you kill are not even technologically advanced like you -- then such suicide kabooms should be expected as a natural reaction," argued Saeed.
He also stressed that his organisation had nothing to do with Lashkar-e-Taiba.
But they all cross train, they lend one another supplies and personnel as needed, they meet together with their ISI handlers to divide responsibilities for the Pakistani jihad that must eventually lead to the expansion of the Land of the Pure to its natural boundaries as mapped out by Jinnah and his fellows back in the early part of the twentieth century.
"Lashkar-e-Taiba operates in the Indian Kashmiree while we are based in Pakistain. There are many other freedom movements operating in occupied Kashmire," said Saeed while calling for the formation of a Mohammedan version of the United Nations. ...an organization whose definition of human rights is interesting, to say the least...
"The UN has shown disregard for Mohammedan issues. The Mohammedan nations need to end their ties with the United States and struggle for their rights," he said.
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[Iran Press TV] Bahraini authorities have jugged three players from the national football team who expressed support for anti-regime protests across the kingdom.
Six clubs, two in the top division and four in the second, were also withdrawn from domestic leagues after they refused to play to protest against Manama's brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. Sheik Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the vice president of the Bahrain Football Association, said the clubs would also be fined for their refusal to play, adding that two top division clubs could also face relegation.
The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, however, says that the suspended clubs mostly belong to protest-hit villages and that they were suspended from the league for two years and fined USD 20,000.
Bahraini authorities had earlier suspended nearly 200 athletes, coaches and referees for joining the anti-regime campaign.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. It smelled phony... anti-government activists have launched a Facebook campaign calling on Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone not to reschedule the Bahrain Grand Prix (GP) until "basic human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... and freedoms are restored" in the kingdom.
The Bahrain GP was scheduled to be the F1 season-opener on March 13 but was canceled in February by Bahrain's crown prince after the beginning of anti-government protests. The F1 season began, instead, at the Australian GP in Melbourne on March 27 and Formula One's governing body has given Manama until May 1 to decide if a new date can be set this year.
More than 30 protesters have been killed and scores of others injured since the uprising began in Bahrain in mid-February.
Many journalists, bloggers, doctors, lawyers and opposition activists have been incarcerated as part of a widespread crackdown on anti-regime protests. One never sees that in Tehran...
Protesters are demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty. Protesters say they will continue their street demonstrations until their demands for freedom, constitutional monarchy as well as a proportional voice in the government are met.
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[An Nahar] Syria on Monday sealed off its border with Jordan, the kingdom's information minister Taher Adwan said, hours after troops backed by tanks swept into the Syrian southern flashpoint town Daraa.
"Syria closed its land borders with Jordan. The Syrian decision is related to the internal situation in Syria," Adwan told the state-run Petra news agency.
"We hope movement at the border goes back to normal soon."
Thousands of Syrian troops backed by tanks swept into Daraa, around five kilometers from the Jordanian frontier, firing on residents and leaving bodies lying in the streets, activists and witnesses said.
One witness reported seeing five bodies in a car that had been riddled with bullets.
"We tried to cross into Syria but the Syrian authorities closed the only two border posts with Jordan, Daraa and Naseeb," a Jordanian witness in Amman told Agence La Belle France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... .
Another witness said he could "see Syrian tanks, armored cars and troops blocking the road to Daraa."
However, The contradictory However... Syria's official news agency SANA cited the director general of customs, Mustafa Bukai, as denying the border had been sealed.
"All the border posts with our neighbors, including Jordan, are open. The movement of cars and goods is normal," he said.
The military assault comes as Syria is engulfed in anti-regime protests and amid a crackdown on demonstrators across the country in which according to rights activists and witnesses more than 135 people have been killed and scores incarcerated since Friday.
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[An Nahar] Syrian troops backed by tanks stormed the flashpoint town of Daraa on Monday killing at least 25 people, witnesses said, as a leading rights activist accused Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... of opting for a "military solution" to crush dissent.
Troops also launched assaults on the towns of Douma and al-Muadamiyah near Damascus, witnesses said, as the head of the U.N. human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... agency slammed what she said was the Syrian security forces' disregard for human life.
Amman said Syria had Monday sealed off its border with Jordan in a statement quickly denied by a top Syrian customs official.
An activist in Daraa, Abdullah Abazid, told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone that Syrian forces were bombarding the town near the Jordanian border with heavy artillery and that "at least 25 deaders have fallen."
"There are still bodies sprawled in the streets," he said as loud kabooms and shooting could be heard in the background.
"They are pounding the town with heavy artillery and machine guns," Abazid said, adding that snipers posted on rooftops were also shooting.
Rights activists said a 3,000-strong military force swarmed into Daraa in the early hours of Monday, with tanks taking up positions in the town center and snipers deploying on rooftops.
A witness reported at least five bodies in a car that had been raked by gunfire.
"We saw with our own eyes, they were in a car that was riddled with bullets," the witness said, adding that he was on a rooftop and could hear intense gunfire reverberating across the town.
"The minarets of the mosques are appealing for help. The security forces are entering houses. There is a curfew and they fire on those who leave their homes. They even shot at water tanks on roofs to deprive people of water."
Later Monday, a military official said troops entered Daraa on Monday at the request of citizens to hunt "extremist terrorist groups."
"In response to calls for help from the inhabitants of Daraa, who urged the armed forces to intervene and the killings and destruction by bad boy terrorist groups, units entered Daraa this morning to restore calm and security," state television quoted the military official as saying.
"The army is now pursuing these groups with the help of the security forces and has incarcerated several of them and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition," the official added.
"As a result of the confrontations there were a number of deaders in the ranks of the army and the security forces," he noted, adding that an unspecified number of suspects were "killed and maimed."
A massive crackdown was also underway Monday in Douma, 15 kilometers north of Damascus, and nearby al-Muadamiyah, rights activists said, reached by telephone.
"Security forces have surrounded a mosque and are firing indiscriminately. Streets are cut off from each other and Douma is isolated from the outside world," said an activist, adding that there have been sweeping arrests in the town since Sunday.
The military assaults come as Syria is engulfed in anti-regime protests that have sparked security force crackdowns in which more than 360 people have been killed, according to rights activists and witnesses.
Of these, more than 140 people have died since Friday alone.
The crackdown comes despite President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... signing on Thursday decrees ending a draconian state of emergency, imposed by the Baath Party when it seized power in 1963, to placate more than a month of pro-democracy protests.
He also abolished the state security court that has tried scores of regime opponents outside the normal judicial system and issued a decree "to regulate" peaceful demonstrations.
Rami Abdul Rahman, a prominent rights activist told AFP that Monday's assaults showed Damascus had decided to crush the protests militarily.
"It is clear that the Syrian authorities have taken a decision for a military and security solution," Abdul Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP by telephone.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called on Syria to stop the use of violence against protesters.
"The government has an international legal obligation to protect peaceful demonstrators and the right to peaceful protest," Pillay said in a statement issued in Geneva.
"The first step now is to immediately halt the use of violence," she added.
Pillay called the Syrian government's response to the demonstrations erratic.
"Just a few days after the announcement of sweeping and important reforms, we are seeing such disregard for human life by Syrian security forces," she said.
Meanwhile diplomats said that Perfidious Albion, La Belle France, Germany and Portugal are seeking a U.N. Security Council condemnation of the killing of demonstrators in Syria and a call for an independent investigation.
After new violence in Syria, the four European nations on the 15-member council distributed a draft statement to other countries on Monday and hope it could be quickly agreed upon, a council diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"The statement condemns the violence and calls for restraint," the diplomat told Agence La Belle France Presse.
It backs a call made by U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon at the weekend for a "transparent" independent investigation into the killings of hundreds of demonstrators in Syria in recent weeks.
Ban said Assad's government must "respect international human rights, including the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, as well as the freedom of the press."
The European statement also notes a move by Assad to end a five-decade-old state of emergency and highlight's Syria's importance to stability in the Middle East, the envoy added.
A diplomat from a second council nation confirmed that the draft statement was being considered. The statement's success will depend on the attitude of Russia and China, which traditionally resist initiatives that they see as interfering in a country's internal affairs.
Tens of thousands swarmed cities and towns across Syria on Friday to test implementation of the reforms authorized by Assad a day earlier, but security forces used live rounds and tear gas against them, activists said.
Jordan's Information Minister Tahen Adwan, meanwhile, said Syria had "closed its land borders with Jordan", a few hours after the start of the assault on Daraa, which is situated around five kilometers from the frontier.
But Syria's official news agency SANA cited the director general of customs, Mustafa Bukai, as denying the closing of the border and saying "all the border posts with our neighbors, including Jordan, are open."
The protests against Assad's regime started mid-March in Daraa and spread to other major centers, including the capital Damascus.
Syria blames "armed gangs" for the unrest aimed at fuelling sectarian strife among its multi-religious and multi-ethnic communities.
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#2
Wikipedia on Hafez al Assad's ascension to power:
In 1970, then-Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and instigated a "Correctionist Movement" in the Ba'ath Party.[29] His coming to power has been compared to "an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming tsar in Russia â an unprecedented development shocking to the majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries."[26]
The following Wikipedia background may provide clues as to why Iran is Syria's natural ally, as long as it remains under Alawite rule, regardless of the fact that Syria is secular, whereas Iran is theocratic:
Alawis are self-described Shi'i Muslims, and have been called Shia by other sources[8][9] including the highly influential Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr of Lebanon.[31] On the other hand, conservative Sunnis do not always recognize Alawi as Muslims.[1] At least one source has compared them to Baha'is, Babis, Bektashis, Ahmadis, and "similar groups that have arisen within the Muslim community", and declared that "it has always been the consensus of the Muslim Ulama, both Sunni and Shi'i, that the Nusayri Alawi are kuffar unbelievers and mushrikun polytheists."
The problem for Alawites is that defeat could mean marginalization and exile at best, or large scale massacres and exile for the survivors at worst. Not the ideal outcome for a people who are thought to be descended from the original Hittite inhabitants of the area, as opposed to the Sunni Arab usurpers of their land:
Professor Felix von Luschan (1911), according to his conclusions from anthropometric measurements, makes the Druze, Maronites, and Alawites, together with the Armenians, Bektashis, âAli-Ilahis, and Yezidis of Asia Minor and Persia, the modern representatives of the ancient Hittites.[22]
NATO forces flattened a building inside Muammar Qadaffy's Bab al-Aziziyah compound early on Monday, in what a press official from Qadaffy's government said was an attempt on the Libyan leader's life.
Foreign journalists were brought to the scene in Tripoli when firefighters were still working to extinguish flames in a part of the ruined building a few hours after the attack.
The press official, who asked not to be identified, said 45 people were hurt in the strike, 15 of them seriously, and some were still missing. That could not be independently confirmed.
Qadaffy's compound has been struck before, but NATO forces appear to be stepping up the pace of strikes in Tripoli in recent days.
In Brussels, a NATO front man, said the alliance is increasingly targeting facilities linked to Qadaffy's regime with government advances stalled on the battlefield.
"We have moved on to those command and control facilities that are used to coordinate such attacks by regime forces," the front man said, on condition of anonymity, of the strike on Bab al-Azizya.
A target nearby, which the government called a car park but which appeared to cover a bunker, was hit two days ago.
The United States, Perfidious Albion and La Belle France say they will not stop their air campaign over Libya until Qadaffy leaves power.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow... Saif al-Islam Qadaffy, the Libyan leader's son, struck a tone of defiance. He claimed that Qadaffy has "millions of Libyans with him" and said NATO's mission was doomed to fail.
"The bombing which targeted Muammar Qadaffy's office today...will only scare children. It's impossible that it will make us afraid or give up or raise the white flag," he was quoted as saying by the Jana state news agency.
"You, NATO, are waging a losing battle because you are backed by traitors and spies. History has proved that no state can rely on them to win."
Washington has taken a backseat in the air war since turning over command to NATO at the end of March but is under pressure to do more. This week it deployed Predator drone aircraft, which fired for the first time on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
"You, NATO, are waging a losing battle because you are backed by traitors and spies.
History has proved that no state can rely on them to win."
You bring up a really good point there Saif ol' boy. But the fly in your ointment is nobody on the NATO team has been willing to actually define victory. Seems like their "win" was already achieved by simply initiating this multilateral experiment in the first place. Blowin da shit outta you boys is just a bonus.
#3
Look, here it is: you send a fleet of predator drones over Tripoli to monitor Gadaffys movements. When he sticks his head out - kill him.
How hard is this?
#4
I'd like to see you identify & keep track of one goofy-looking old man in a crowded city from at least a thousand feet up, while looking through a series of moving straws.
Killing one guy with drones is worst than a game of Battleship with live explosives.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/26/2011 13:51
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#5
look for a moving pile of flamboyant drapery
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2011 14:09
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#6
When he sticks his head out - kill him.
How hard is this? Posted by: Mikey Hunt
Very, very difficult in fact. It is a complex process. You wouldn't buy an automobile having only examined the spare tire.
[Iran Press TV] A series of bomb kabooms at a cop shoppe in Pakistain's northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar have maimed several people, officials say.
Did they time them with their standard issue Casio watches?
According to Pak police officials, three back-to-back bombs went kaboom! inside Gulbahar cop shoppe on Monday, a Press TV correspondent reported.
At least eight people, including four police officials were hurt in the blast which also damaged nearby buildings.
Some of the seriously injured have been transferred to nearby hospitals.
Security forces have remained a constant target of turbanhard boyz who are trying to overthrow the government in Islamabad.
More than 4,000 people have died in kabooms across Pakistain since 2007.
In a separate development, the head of the Tehreek-e Insaf party has warned of a wave of protests if the US fails to stop the non-UN-sanctioned drone attacks on Pakistab within a month.
Imran Khan ... who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... issued the warning at a sit-in blocking a key road near the northwestern city of Peshawar. The route is used for delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Khan said the rallies would be aimed at halting deliveries of goods to foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Several other protests against US drone attacks have been held in Pakistain over the past weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
Local islamos banned music. Slaves of allah need something to listen to. Terror bombs please allah.
[Bangla Daily Star] Rapid Action Battalion yesterday tossed in the calaboose two members of banned Islamist thug outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI), Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west.
including its acting chief Abdul Hannan Sabbir, from a hideout at Keraniganj.
Keraniganj Upazilla (the things are apparently capitalized when part of a place name, like County Cork) is somewhere in the middle of Dhaka District, which is somewhere in Bangladesh. It can most definitely be found on a map of sufficient detail. It is noted for giving the world Mohammad Rafique, Left Arm Spinner (no doubt something awfully grand) for Bangladesh National Cricket Team.
Sabbir, 51, is an accused in sensational cases for carrying out kabooms on an Udichi programme in Jessore and a Pahela Baishakh celebrations event at Ramna Batamul, said Rab officials at a presser at its headquarters in the capital.
A miscreant of the first water, that man.
The other arrestee Ainul Haq, 28, was coordinating recruitment and secret training of HuJI thugs.
Not quite as secret as hoped, poor dear.
Sabbir was also sued in a case filed for planting a 76 kilogram bomb at Sheikh Hasina's rally venue at Kotalipara in Gopalganj in 2000.
Whoops!
According to Rab, the arrestees rented a house near Pachgona Government Primary School in Ati Bazar area a month ago by disguising themselves as garment workers.
They dressed in patchwork, which fooled everyone, especially the school kiddies up the street.
Three teams of Rab-10, including members of its bomb disposal unit, jointly raided the house around 2:00am yesterday and captured the HuJI men.
Mahmoud the Weasel's fourth cousin twice removed on his mother's side was actually the landlord. That and brickyard owner are two of the favored professions of the Weasel clan.
The law enforcers also recovered some compact disks (CDs), a bomb-making manual and organisational books of the outfit.
And cell phones?
HuJI has been trying to reorganise recently, claimed Commander M Sohail, director of Legal and Media Wing of Rab.
"HuJI members were visiting different madrasas to recruit members and impart training to them. Analysis of such activities suggests they were planning to carry out subversive activities," he told The Daily Star.
Of course. That's why zakat money supports such institutions. It is better give of your substance to support a jihadi than to go on jihad yourself, after all.
An Afghan war veteran Sabbir was the founding organising secretary of HuJI and later acted as commander of its northern unit.
Hailing from Bogra, he used to reside in Rajshahi and run a women's madrasa there.
He absconded from Rajshahi after the present government took over and launched a combing operation against thugs, mentioned the Rab official.
The thug took training on arms and explosives at camps in Ukhia under Cox's Bazar to join Iraq war in 1988, but Indian police tossed in the calaboose him for trespassing.
Trespassing? That seems a bit mild, given what he was doing while spending time uninvited on someone else's property...
Later in 1993, he returned home and started training the new recruits of HuJI.
"All right, lads -- attach the red wire to the black wire, twist together and get the wire nu-- NO, Belalullah, NOT the green wi--"
BOOM!!
"Dammit, we lose more trainees that way. Who knew inbreeding led to so much colourblindness!"
On December 14 last year Rab busted a HuJI den at Raujan of Chittagong and tossed in the calaboose four military trainers. Sabbir was present there and managed to escape arrest.
The mills of the Rab grind slowly, but...(you know the rest, of course.)
According to confessions made by already tossed in the calaboose HuJI leaders, the beturbanned goons are responsible for more than 20 deadly bomb and grenade attacks since 1999 that killed over 100 people.
Hang 'em high. After a fair trial, of course.
This article starring:
ABDUL HANNAN SABIR
HuJI
AINUL HAQ
HuJI
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Dawn] Days before the March 8 kaboom in Faisalabad that killed at least 32 people and injured 125 others at a gas station located right next to the office of an intelligence agency, reliable sources in law-enforcement agencies had informed the Herald that a bad boy organisation, Al Tauhid Wal Jihad (ATWJ), in the central Punjab city has had Dire Revenge on its agenda since early last year.
Sources in the Punjab police had said that the group had planned to hit back after its main leader Dr Umar Kundi alias Maaz was killed in February 2010 -- also in Faisalabad -- in a joint raid conducted by the local police and the intelligence agencies who had come to arrest him for his alleged role in the May 2009 attack on the Lahore office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The ISI doesn't seem to have a sense of humour about such things.
Investigators say Usman Ghani, one of the criminal masterminds and main perpetrators of the Faisalabad blast, was working closely with some other members of the group. Ghani was placed in durance vile on the day of the blast while trying to escape on a bicycle about a kilometre away from the site of the bombing. A citizen, who had earlier seen him with a remote-controlled device near the site of the blast, recognised and overpowered him with the help of other local residents before handing him over to the police. During investigations,
"Send for the pliers and s barrel of the strong mustache wax!"
Ghani disclosed the names of some of his accomplices and Sherlocks tell the Herald that they have placed in durance vile one Maulvi Rab Nawaz, the former prayer leader at the mosque of University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, and his son for their alleged involvement in the terrorist act.
Sources further elaborate and say that ATWJ snuffies had procured the explosives for the blast over a period of many months from markets within Faisalabad city without raising the suspicion of local police. Ghani is reported to have claimed to his interrogators that the blast was not a suicide kaboom. "I was present near the gas station to detonate a boom-mobile from a distance," he is quoted as saying. Another, but unconfirmed, version of the events suggests that ATWJ paid him 30,000 rupees to drive the car to the gas station before leaving and blowing it up. There is also evidence that at least one man was still in the explosives-packed car when it went kaboom!. If this account is to be believed, that man was killed because Ghani pushed the button before the other attacker could leave the car.
A mere No. 4, who should be grateful for the opportunity to give his life to keep the car from being towed as abandoned.
Interestingly, the ATWJ could not employ a jacket wallah for this venture. "There is a shortage of suicide bombers," Ghani is quoted to have said, "many ATWJ members have been killed or placed in durance vile and those who are still active do not have contact or access to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) high command to have acquired a suicide bomber for the task."
The TTP keep 'em stocked in warehouses called "madrassas" against future need.
Senior police officials in Lahore tell the Herald that Kundi's death was the biggest blow to the group. "His death left the group scattered besides suspending links with the central leadership of TTP," one official says. The law-enforcement agencies have also placed in durance vile several members of the group over the last year or so. Two of them, Asif Mehmood and Shoaib Cheema, have been in detention for the last many months for their alleged involvement in the 2009 bombing of the ISI office in Lahore though it was only last month that the Lahore police made their arrest known to the media.
Mehmood, a 30-something bearded chemical engineering graduate from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, and Cheema, a former businessman in his mid-40s who has traveled widely across the world, spoke to the Herald at a detention centre in Lahore that their group started targeting Pak security agencies and installations after the military operations in the tribal areas. "When the Pakistain Army started to fight against [the bad boys], the war entered Pakistain," one of them says. They claim that they had received ideological training from an Arab called Sheikh Eesa al Misri
Isaac the Egyptian?
who told them that "those who were fighting against [the bad boys] were the enemies of Islam." The two say that they also considered them enemies "whether they were Americans or Paks." They disclosed that they had also fought against the Americans as well as against the Pakistain Army in Afghanistan and South Wazoo after getting training in a camp run by al Misri.
Their group, subsequently, identified many sensitive locations and installation for targeting but its most spectacular hit was at the ISI's Lahore office that killed at least 30 people, including four officials of the intelligence agency and 14 coppers. The placed in durance vile duo, while talking to the Herald, accepted the responsibility for that attack and divulged some of its disquieting details. According to them it was Kundi himself who had selected the target and Mehmood, with his training in chemical engineering, played a crucial role in putting the explosives together. Other members of the group would purchase different chemicals and other materials in small quantities from different markets in cities such as Faisalabad and Lahore to avoid suspicion, and he would assemble explosives from them. "At times, I accompanied the others when they shopped for chemicals and acids," Mehmood says.
Unlike now, ATWJ clearly had their organisational structure working and their contacts with TTP alive and active. "Two suicide bombers were then made available [from the tribal areas] after paying a handsome amount to the TTP high command," Cheema claims.
Do they have a catalog? Some like them to be fine speicimins of Muslim manhood, after all, while others want to take the opportunity to clear the gene pool of the downside of inbreeding...
Other ATWJ members, meanwhile, surveyed the targeted area and gathered as much information as they could about the ISI office. "For maximum damage we decided to hit in the first half of the day when most employees of the agency were on the premises," Cheema tells the Herald.
Awaiting trial by an anti-terrorism court, the two do not show any remorse for the innocent lives lost because of their terrorist acts. "We were working only to save Islam," Mehmood says.
Saving Islam from the ISI is not a bad goal, as these things go.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Dawn] US President Barack B.O. Obama Monday gathered top national security and intelligence staff for his regular review of Afghan and Pakistain strategy, amid suggestions of fresh tensions with Islamabad.
The talks, in the secure Situation Room of the White House, went ahead amid a rumbling US disagreement with Islamabad on the fight against faceless myrmidons in the volatile Afghan-Pakistain border region.
At Obama's side in the talks were Defense Secretary Robert Gates, UN ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and James Clapper, his director of national intelligence.
But not his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... , top Afghan war General David Petraeus and the US ambassadors to Pakistain and Afghanistan joined the session via secure video-link, the White House said.
No link for Secretary Clinton, either. Perhaps she begged off for a much-needed day with the family.
On Saturday, Pakistain's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... said that the "backbone" of faceless myrmidons in Pakistain had been broken, despite US criticisms of his country's strategy against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked rebels.
The White House criticized Pakistain's efforts to defeat the Taliban in its border regions, in a report immediately rejected by Islamabad earlier in April.
Obama is also beginning to reach the point when he must consider recommendations by the military for the promised partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan which he has demanded from July this year.
However, The over-used However... his press front man Jay Carney said that Monday's session was not a "decisional" meeting, but was rather a regular review of US policy.
There are signs that any drawdown of troops from the decade-long fight against the Taliban will be mainly symbolic as Washington and its allies increasingly focus on the security "transition" from foreign to Afghan control.
The administration has gradually de-emphasized the timeframe, instead saying that most US forces would leave in 2014, the date set by last year's NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... summit for putting Afghans in charge of their own country's security.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
Why doesn't NATO work on putting Europeans in charge of European security?
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
04/26/2011 6:32
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#2
isn't a Carney a person that runs a circus?
what a great name for a Presidential spokesman
#4
Obama is also beginning to reach the point when he must consider recommendations by the military for the promised partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan which he has demanded from July this year.
Petreaus is in Pakistan urging thier military to increase pressure on the border regions in order to further impede the flow of fighters and weapons. At the same time, contractors and trusted atmospherics feelers have teamed, and are circulating the battlespace as we speak, interviewing small unit leaders, taking note of regional progress, then reporting back to Petraeus and his top brass? The blueprint for unit withdrawls is being formulated. Obama MUST achieve some kind of success or validity relative to his stated withdrawl strategy. He will obviously not gain any mileage at the polls with his economic policies.
#5
I think that Obama is looking to retreat from Afghanistan as a bone to throw to his true believers. The hard left is angry at Obama right now and he has to keep his core support together for next years election.
Military recommendations and the reality on the battlefield will have nothing to do with the decision to leave. This as was posted,a "circus", to give the impression the decision is being made in real time instead of two and a half years ago when he took office.
Of course, it will be complete fiasco, complete with mass executions of US supporters, an escalation of terrorist activities world wide and a new boldness by the ISI to continue their neferious ways.
The day we announce we are leaving Iraq starts the countdown to the next major terrorist attack on the US.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/26/2011 13:59
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#6
Good point Bill.
I would like to point out that Obama, and his supporters are hell-bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and make Iraq into another Vietnam war.
[Iran Press TV] Several people have been killed and many more injured after gangs clashed with Syrian security forces in the southern city of Daraa.
Syrian authorities say at least seven people, including four soldiers, were killed during the overnight festivities in the city. Some reports, however, put the corpse count at 25.
Witnesses say thousands of Syrian troops backed by tanks have entered Daraa.
Syrian authorities blame gangs and foreign elements for the violence.
Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... has repeatedly denied allegations that security forces are responsible for the death of protesters, saying they have been given clear instructions not to hurt civilians.
According to human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... activists, hundreds of people have been killed since the beginning of protests in Syria in mid-March.
Two Syrian politicians have resigned to protest against security forces' failure to protect the people. The mufti of Daraa is also reported to have resigned.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Dawn] US general David Petraeus on Monday visited Pakistain and held talks with its army chief on ways to bolster regional security, the US embassy said in a statement.
"Gen. David H. Petraeus, Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, visited Pakistain today to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... Pakistain's Chief of Army Staff," the embassy said.
"They discussed topics of mutual interest and ways to improve regional security," it said in a statement.
This is Petraeus' sixth visit to Pakistain as the NATO ISAF commander, it said.
"He has long-established relationships with General Kayani and the Pak military from his time as the US Central Command commander," the statement said, adding that his last visit to Pakistain was January 31, 2011.
On Saturday Kayani said his forces had inflicted deep wounds on the rebellion after the United States had criticised the country's efforts to quell Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bully boyz holed-up in its tribal belt.
"The terrorists' backbone has been broken and God willing we will soon prevail," Kayani said in a speech at a passing-out parade at the Pakistain Military Academy in northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad.
The White House this month criticised Pakistain's efforts to defeat the Taliban in its border regions with Afghanistan, in a report immediately rejected by Islamabad.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, subsequently accused Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of having ties with the Afghan Taliban in the northwestern tribal belt.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
"The terrorists' backbone has been broken and God willing we will soon prevail,"
I translate this as "The infidel Americans and their accursed drones are kicking the crap out of our guys"
Ah, to be a fly on the wall at that meeting! (Or an armed surveillance drone orbiting overhead) Given the recent and *very* public statements from some US officials, the discussion will be heated.
[Iran Press TV] A new survey has indicated that a majority of non-retired Americans are pessimistic about the financial status after their retirement.
The poll conducted by Gallup said on Monday that 53 percent of non-retired Americans do not think they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. The new figure is up in comparison with the 2002 poll.
At that time, when Gallup asked non-retired Americans about their projected retirement resources, they were twice as likely to say they would have enough money to live comfortably as to say they would not.
By 2009, a majority of Americans said they would not have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. That percentage abated slightly last year, but is up to a new high of 53 percent in this year's survey, conducted April 7-11.
General economic attitudes affect how Americans look at retirement. Americans were more positive about the overall economy -- and retirement -- prior to the recent recession.
The ongoing political discussion about the fragility of the country's Social Security and Medicare programs may also reduce non-retired Americans' comfort with projections of their monetary resources in retirement.
Non-retired Americans now project that they will retire at age 66, up from age 60 in 1995.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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#1
Both Perts + Bloggers/Netters are effec saying the same thing - those Amers already retired andor soon-to-retire may end up being the hardest hit iff the US formally defaults on its debts. THE $$$ LIKELY WON'T THERE ANYMORE FOR RETIREE, MORTAGOR, LENDEE, DISABLED OR BANK???
That's a vague definition. What's comfortable? It varies with individual. If it's having a second home in Puerta del Sol Mexico, traveling extensively, eating out most of the time, we're dealing with something other than securing the basic needs of life.
Substituting resource insatiable and power hungry government bureaucrats for the extended family, of a hundred years ago, in old age support might not have been as good as a trade off as some had thought. That and the damn unhelpful attitude of people living way too long beyond the expectations of demographers./sarc off
#5
Socialists in the United States are creating crisis after crisis in order to take control of all aspects of American life.
i.e.
Not only has the new socialist government taken over health care, the increase of the price of fuel caused by the EPA banning drilling is causing airlines and many other American industries to now loose money. It gives the Socialists in the US a chance to take over those industries.
They have no concern about Americans, only to take control of Americans through the crisis they are creating as fast and hard as they can, while the rest of us sit around and just let it happen.
#6
Forget the term "Democrat" party. There is no such party any more. It has been taken over and replaced with a hard line "Socialist" party agenda. And clearly, their plan is to take over all of America and Americans by bleeding them of everything they have, and at the same time import anything and anybody who is pro-Socialist, marshalling illegal aliens to come across the borders, to allow religions foreign to our Christian heratige to come in set up and some day outnumber the original people of America.
THAT is what is happening this very moment. And if it keeps up, yes, Pelosi WILL be speaker again, Obama's little wet dream
Munir Maqdah, commander of Fatah's general headquarters in Leb, said that it's impossible for al-Qaeda Orcs and similar vermin or Fatah al-Islam A Syrian-incubated al-Qaeda work-alike that they think can be turned off if no longer needed to keep the Leb pot stirred. cut-throats to enter the Paleostinian refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh.
"It is not at all easy to infiltrate Ain el-Helweh", he said to Voice of Leb radio on Monday.
Moreover, he reassured that the current security situation in the camp is very good and positive.
Regarding the clash that took place at the camp Saturday night, Maqdah said that the gun fight took place at a check point.
The follow up committee that was formed by the two sides involved in the clash had successfully ended the fight that damaged a huge number of cars and houses.
"It was cut short a few hours after it began", he told the station.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Scores of Yemenis have been maimed in shootings carried out by the country's security forces to disperse demonstrators in the southern city of Taiz, while nationwide anti-government protests continue.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters in the critical city faced the security forces who fired bullets and tear gas to break them up, AFP reported Monday.
The protesters, who have been demanding the ouster of the longtime Yemeni President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh since January, chanted "No rest, no respite for the executioner [Saleh.]"
The Yemeni protesters carried banners that read "No negotiations, no dialogue."
Yemen's Deputy Information Minister Abdoh al-Janadi earlier confirmed at a presser that Saleh will step down and that the transition of power will take place in accordance with the Yemeni constitution.
The Yemeni opposition has agreed to the deal, which also calls for a unity government to be formed within a week.
The anti-government protesters also demand that the Yemeni incumbent president should be held accountable for the violent crackdown on protesters.
The Yemeni protesters have faced the government's brutal crackdown by riot police and supporters of Saleh, who are often armed with knives and batons.
According to local sources, the corpse count in Yemen has surpassed 300 since anti-government protests began in late January.
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04/26/2011
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[Yemen Post] In a blurb issued today by Joint Meeting Parties, JMP, they welcomed the GCC initiative and accepted being part of a national unity government on condition that this takes place upon the submission of President-for-Life Saleh's resignation.
The GCC proposal calls on the opposition to form a unified government as soon as the agreement is signed, but the JMP said they will do 30 days later, when Saleh is asked to step down.
The opposition acceptance of the GCC proposal with their comments were handed over to the Secretary-General of the GCC. The JMP thanked the GCC for thier efforts in helping Yemen get out of its crises.
The JMP asked its partners in the GCC to put more pressure from on the Yemeni regime to stop the bleeding and to respect the constitutional right of Yemenis as they express themselves peacefully.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] Witnesses say Syrian security forces are opening fire in the suburbs of Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... and in the southern town of Daraa.
Both areas have become flashpoints for violence since the uprising against President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... regime began five weeks ago. The witness accounts could not immediately be confirmed.
In Daraa, one witness said Syrian army tanks and soldiers rolled into the city on Monday and gunfire was heard. In the Damascus suburb of Douma, security forces sealed the town before opening fire, witnesses said.
More than 300 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad's regime began in mid-March, according to rights groups.
Friday was the deadliest day to date with 112 killed. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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[Bangla Daily Star] Eminent jurists Rafique-ul Huq and Dr M Zahir yesterday told the Supreme Court that fatwa (religious edict) is a kind of opinion without any legal force.
Go have religious force, O fatwazers, and leave legality to the legal experts!
They said this while offering expert opinions as amici curiae (friends of court) to the Appellate Division during the hearing of an appeal against a High Court verdict that had declared fatwa illegal.
Senior counsel TH Khan, another amicus curiae, favoured the appeal saying fatwa should not be declared outright as good or bad.
Waffler. The question isn't how good it is, but whether it has legal force. Honestly -- you'd think a senior counsel would be able to read the words on the paper in front of him.
A six-member Appellate Division bench, headed by Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque, will continue hearing the appeal today.
As per the constitution, everybody has the right to give fatwa as an opinion, but cannot instigate others to commit a criminal offence, Rafique-ul Huq told the court.
Nobody can punish anyone in the name of fatwa and any aggrieved person can move to the court against the instigators, he added.
He also observed the HC verdict imposing a complete ban on fatwa is not right.
M Zahir opined anybody can give fatwa as advice but must not interfere into other's rights. He apprehended social problems if the SC makes fatwa permissible.
If the SC declares fatwa illegal as a whole, it will be an injustice, mentioned TH Khan adding, it could lead to a movement in the society.
They'll riot about it. They can't help themselves, and someone will have to clean up the mess.
The court should be confined within the facts of the case, rather than giving any venture opinion on this issue, added the legal expert.
On January 1, 2001, the HC declared illegal all punishments imposed in the name of fatwa after a hearing on its own suo moto ruling. The court issued the ruling following a newspaper report on hilla marriage (marriage with a third person).
Two maulanas -- Mufti Mohammad Toyeeb and Abul Kalam Azad -- challenged the verdict at the SC in the same year.
And now, a mere ten years later,
The apex court started hearing the appeal on March 1 this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Bahrain accused Hizbullah of attempting to topple its regime, reported the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
It made its accusation in a report sent to United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon last week.
It said that Hizbullah is training the opposition in camps in Leb and Iran.
Bahrain also accused Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other party members of personally conspiring with the Shiite opposition to defy the ruling family.
The Wall Street Journal reported U.S. intelligence as saying that it had tracked contacts between Iran, Hizbullah, and the Bahraini opposition since the start of the protests in the Gulf state in February.
Furthermore, Bahrain called on the United Nations to work on curbing Hizbullah's activity in the Gulf.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
KIRKUK / Aswat al-Iraq: A combined force arrested seven wanted persons, including a financier for the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) group, in two operations in Kirkuk on Monday, a senior security official said.
A force from the Kirkuk Districts Police Department and Iraqi army, backed by U.S. troops, arrested in accordance with Article 4 of the law on terrorism six wanted men members of the ISI, including a financier of the armed group, in the district of al-Huweija, KDPD Director Brig. Sarhad Qader told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The first raid covered the villages of al-Hanaf and al-Gheraib, in the district of al-Abbasi, (80 km) southwest of Kirkuk, while the second covered Debij village, in the district of al-Touz, Salah al-Din province, he said.
Meanwhile, a source from the Kirkuk-based Joint Coordination Center said an improvised explosive device went off near a military vehicle boarded by a JCC officer in Huweija, leaving a guard wounded and the vehicle damaged.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under:
#1
Seven dudes nabbed? That's a good operation which indicates some sophistication on the part of the Kirkuk coppers & jundies. Next time just do it in Baghdad where more of the ISI slimeballs are probably operating.
Posted by: American Delight ||
04/26/2011 13:36
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#2
the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) group
As terrorists have no sense of irony or humor, it is the opinion of Lt. Joe Leaphorn that this is no coincidence.
[Dawn] A Jordanian court on Monday put on trial in absentia Danish artist Kurt Westergaard who is being sued in the kingdom for blasphemy over a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad.
"A court in Amman began today the trial in absentia of those who insulted the Prophet, including Westergaard and Danish newspapers which published his offensive cartoon," said Tareq Hawamdeh, lawyer for local journalists and activists who brought the suit.
"Judge Nathir Shehadeh adjourned the trial until May 8 to hear the witnesses," Hawamdeh said in a statement.
The court subpoenaed Westergaard on April 14 after accusing him of committing "the crime of blasphemy" for depicting the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban in 2008.
A Jordanian prosecutor summoned Westergaard for questioning that year after 30 independent newspapers, websites and radio stations in Jordan sued him over the cartoon, which was published in at least 17 Danish dailies, sparking violent protests in a number of Mohammedan countries, including Jordan.
Westergaard, 75, said after the subpoena that "I have not heard about this trial and have not been informed."
"In any case, I have no intention of going even if I am asked to," he said on Friday, pointing out that "I do not want to risk becoming familiar with the Jordanian prisons, which would be hell."
Jordanian MPs have demanded that the government sever ties with Denmark, and Amman has condemned the caricature, warning that it could spark further extremism and harm relations between Denmark and Mohammedan countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
It is an interesting observation that shitty little moderate and pro-western Jordan is officially less respectful of western freedom and sovereignty than the Soviet Union was (at least since Khrushchev.)
Here's a Danish citizen in Denmark, ethnically Danish, not a Muslim, exercising his right to free speech in a perfectly legal way. He's criticizing a violently intolerant totalitarian belief system. His right to exercise his freedom in this manner is a nonnegotiable core principle of western civilization.
And yet the West lets this corrupt little regime turn him into an international pariah with impunity.
Where's the protest? Where are official western sanctions? Where are covert ops to deter this behavior? (A little polonium in your sushi Mr Shehadeh, Mr Hawamdeh?)
What's the point of zapping goat molesting losers in Afghanistan when 'moderates' are free to wage a legal terror campaign against individuals in the West?
In 2011 it is likely that the governments of major western powers as well as NATO's military leadership in Afghanistan approve of this trial.
Maybe the Soviet Union should have tried Ronald Reagan in absentia for Anti Soviet Propaganda in his 'A Time for Choosing' speech in 1964. This might have preempted Reagan's political career and it would have been a warning for others.
#4
Oh my, this is a neat idea. "Try" somebody in another country for something that you don't approve of.
So let's try the so-called leaders in Iran, Arabia, etc., for their crimes against decency, freedom, women, homosexuals, etc. Call witnesses from NOW and some of the homosexual-supporting groups (can't think of any acronyms at the moment) and let them explain why a public policy of murdering homosexuals and treating women as property is a crime.
Stuttering, backpedaling, and Hilarity would ensue.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/26/2011 19:18
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[Emirates 24/7] The criminal mastermind of the 9/11 attacks warned that Al-Qaeda has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe that will unleash a "nuclear hellstorm" if Osama bin Laden is captured, leaked files revealed on Monday.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told Guantanamo Bay interrogators everything and we mean everything the terror group would detonate the device if the Al-Qaeda chief was captured or killed, acording to the classified files released by the WikiLeaks website.
Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed criminal mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been held at Guantanamo since 2006 and is to be tried in a military court at the US naval base on Cuba over the attacks.
His nuclear threat was revealed in Perfidious Albion's Daily Telegraph newspaper, one of several media outlets which have published the classified assessments of detainees at Guantanamo.
Sheikh Mohammed, captured in 2003 in Pakistain, also claims to have personally beheaded US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 with his "blessed right hand" and to have helped in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.
This article starring:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
And, even worse things will happen if Bin Laden is not captured!
#2
I picture some jihadi in a Hamburg flat eating massive amounts of tabouli, falafel and ful with a butt plug super glued in tight, waiting by the phone for the launch code.
#4
Ha, ha. That is a funny one. Tell me another. What, you'll huff and puff and turn off the anti-matter containment in the warp drive? Oh, now I am really worried.
#8
Arab bloviation. To carry out an act, you need both intent and capability. We know they have the intent. If they had the capability, they would have already used it. No sale.
#10
Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed criminal mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been held at Guantanamo since 2006
I assume it was in 2006 or shortly thereafter that this threat was revealed. Certainly we were discussing the possibility of suitcase nukes as far back as 2004, here at Rantburg. As I recall, it was decided that Al Qaeda couldn't possibly have the highly trained technicians necessary to perform the frequent maintenance required to keep such things from turning into radioactive paperweights.
If you were sentenced to five years in prison but had the option of receiving lashes instead, what would you choose? You would probably pick flogging. Wouldn't we all?
I propose we give convicts the choice of the lash at the rate of two lashes per year of incarceration. One cannot reasonably argue that merely offering this choice is somehow cruel, especially when the status quo of incarceration remains an option. Prison means losing a part of your life and everything you care for. Compared with this, flogging is just a few very painful strokes on the backside. And it's over in a few minutes.
#1
We also gave up literally branding thieves et al a good while ago. Other than appearing in public without a shirt to display for the world your personal record, it might help in dating asking your companion to see your backside just for a quick check. Then again, there is that tendency for girls to go for 'bad boys'. It might start a trend.
#2
No thanks. If someone kills somebody and gets 50 lashes instead of 25 yrs I won't be impressed. I'd prefer they be bubba's b*tch for 2 and a half decades.
#3
A rapid, affordable and humane way to bring condemned criminals to justice who have committed capital offenses without the prolonged burden and cost on society of imprisonment is beheading by guillotine. You can behead 75 murderers, rapists, or pedophiles in 90 minutes. For more information about the efficiency and history of the guillotine, check out http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/guillotine.html
Posted by: Fi ||
04/26/2011 15:06
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#4
Plus the over-worked flogger wouldn't have to risk flogger's elbow, Fi.
#5
An interesting idea - but people can endure pain. Only two lashes per year of sentence is really not much - if you have a ten year sentence, that is only twenty lashes. Unless the flogging is done with a cat of nine tails with iron balls, you would probably recover quickly. And if you were allowed to be dosed with pain killers ahead of time, and treated with antibiotics right away afterward, you would hardly even notice it.
Besides, how many lashes do you get if you are sentenced to life? Would it depend on how old you are, and what your life expectancy is?
Of course, if the flogging were two lashes per month of jail time, and you weren't allowed to have pain killers before or after the flogging, the plan might have more merit.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/26/2011 17:42
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#6
The plan has zero merit. The purpose of jail is to separate civilised society from those in jail.
#8
If we're reviving old punishments, I vote for murderers, rapists and kidnappers to be broken on the wheel and allowed to die of exposure. The record is 4 days.
#9
A major use of imprisonment is: exclusion of the offender from the community that they harmed. As for the parlor question: i suppose I would take the lashes, as long as there would be no permanent scarring.
#10
I don't mind bringing back corporal punishment for petty offenses, say a first arrest for shoplifting or first offense for drunk driving. But I wouldn't use it in lieu of any jail sentence longer than one year.
The reason is that most first offenses of this sort that are charged as adults tends to be people who are fairly young. Getting a few lashes on the steps of the county court house in public does several things to the brain.
It might well dissuade one from a further life of crime. But if it doesn't work that first time, I wouldn't favor using it again. At that point one should go to jail.
The thing about corporal punishment of that sort is that there is no way to negotiate your way out of pain. And once administered it is over and done with. Prison guard unions hardest hit.
I might also favor use of it inside prisons for minor offenses but it would have to be very tightly controlled so guards don't become abusive.
Someone caught with contraband, for example, might expect a few lashes.
#11
FWIW, Mrs. Bobby served a few years in Texas probabtion and observed that 10-15% had made a mistake, followed all the rules and requirements of probation, and would never be back.
85% were habitual offenders, in her opinion. Flogging would just lead to 'floggers elbow'.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2011 23:36
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[Iran Press TV] Commander of the Islamic theocracy Guards Corps (IRGC) says Iranian submarines will engage in asymmetric warfare against enemy vessels in the Persian Gulf in the event of an aggression.
"The new equipment (submarines) are smaller and faster under water and operate similar to our small speedboats, which terrify our enemies on the surface," Mohammad-Ali Jafari said in an interview with Fars News Agency on Monday.
Jafari said the IRGC is not seeking to build large submarines that are easily targetable for enemy forces and reiterated the Guard's asymmetric combat strategy.
The brigadier general said that the country's enemies are aware of their vulnerability in the Persian Gulf and are likely to move their forces out into the Indian Ocean before launching a strike against Iran.
"We are trying to increase our operational range and reach enemy vessels there [in the Indian Ocean]," Jafari concluded.
Earlier this month the Iranian military's navy announced plans to manufacture and deploy a new 500-ton submarine that is larger than the Ghadir submarine.
The 120-ton Ghadir submarines joined the Iranian naval fleet in 2007. The Islamic Theocratic Republic navy is believed to be operating more than ten of the light-weight subsurface vessels, primarily in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.
In recent years, Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems.
The Islamic Theocratic Republic has repeatedly assured that its military might poses no threat to other countries, stating that Tehran's defense doctrine is based on deterrence only.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
GEN. JAFARI = Iran is essens saying that Iran will dev the mil capability to oppose iff, not destroy, any external enemy(s) even iff said same Milfors are located outside the Persian Gulf andor in the Indian Ocean.
As per SHIA-IRAN-VS-SUNNI-SAUDIS COMPETITION FOR REGIONAL, IDEO-RELIGIOUS DOMINANCE, I don't see how the Saudis can NOT respond in kind.
in this aspect + Globalism" + "OWG-NWO", the KSA = RISNG CHINA = has to learn to stop being ISOLATIONIST iff it hopes to successfully counter "RISING IRAN" + "NUCLEAR ISLAMISM".
9-11 + GWOT = WAR FOR ANTI-STATUS QUO = ISLAM, LIKE AMERICA, IS NOT EXEMPTED FROM CHANGE - IFF THEY DON'T CHANGE VOLUNTARILY THEY MAY OR WILL BE CHANGED FORCIBLY???
#4
There is some method in this madness, both the for Iranians and the Chinese. To have a lot of smaller, simpler submarines that are deployed in teams of two.
One of the two sits and waits as the other prowls about. Then, when a silent US submarine goes noisy, by opening its torpedo bays and preparing to fire on the noisy sub, the second sub acquires it and fires its torpedoes.
The strategy is that by sacrificing a small and cheap sub, they might bag a world class sub--and assume that if the US loses some boats and maybe surface ships, they will wimp out.
#6
#5 Good response but what is your take on the new " It is almost totally silent, radiates virtually no heat and is constructed entirely from non-magnetic metals". Stealth sub technology.
It is thought that some country's have units in operation. Germany just had some success with their program.
#7
It is ridiculous to take Iranian 'military equipment' proclamations at face value - they usually refer to one off mockups that are supposedly full scale production units, that never seem to be produced in any numbers. The Chinese have improved their sound issues with their submarines by building and buying dozens of improved Russian full sized subs, that is not what the Iranians are claiming. The Mark 48 torpedo mated with American sub fire computers can track 6 distinct targets under water, at least that is what open source information claims.
[Tolo News] President Karzai's Office on Monday denied having received a proposal from Pakistain consisted of Pak government demands.
At a presser President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's Spokesperson Waheed Omar called the reports claiming Pakistain submitting a proposal to Afghanistan inaccurate.
"Nurse, the bottle of blue pills -- stat! The entire Pakistani government is doing that thing again!"
Mr Omar told news hounds that Pakistain had not offered any specific petition regarding domestic issues of Afghanistan.
"There, there, pets. You just swallow these pills for Nursey, and in a few minutes the lovely chemicals will transport you to the same universe the rest of us live in. You'll enjoy the visit, I promise."
After Pakistain's Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... visited Kabul, there were rumours suggesting he submitted a paper to Karzai's Office consisted of demands that could bring Afghan illusory sovereignty under question.
Unprecedented issues were discussed during Pak Prime Minister's visit to Kabul which is welcomed by the Afghan government, Mr Omar said.
Pakistain's cooperation in Afghan peace talks and boosting the understanding of joint fight against faceless myrmidons in Pakistain were the pivotal topics discussed during the visit.
"We hope that Pakistain takes some practical steps about peace and stability in the region," Mr Omar said. "Pakistain has not submitted any suggestion related to Afghan domestic issues and it won't be accepted if it ever suggests."
Things discussed between Kabul and Islamabad will also be discussed with the United States, Mr Omar said.
Long term strategic partnership agreement between Afghanistan and the US beyond 2014 has turned into a dominant discourse nowadays.
Mr Omar said national interests, regional concerns and establishment of a long-term relation with the US and Western nations will be considered in the US-Afghan strategic agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
In past, the Perv government offered to close off the border between the two countries, except for major crossings, and Karzai adamantly refused it. While it would not have been airtight, it would have the classical "wall" effect, which would have strongly inhibited the Taliban.
As with Hadrian's wall, and the Great Wall of China, the purpose of such walls is not to keep invading armies out, but to slow down fast moving raiding parties, that swoop in, pillage, and run away before they can be counterattacked.
Karzai's opposition to this clearly indicates that his sympathies lie with the Taliban, and that was at least six years ago.
Otherwise, the only way to subdue the Pushtun is for Pakistan to annex southern Afghanistan and their cross border tribal territories.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A NATO airstrike earlier this month killed a key Al Qaeda 
Punjab
Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
[Dawn] The chief of banned organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has challenged India to prove his organisation's link to the Mumbai attacks, claiming India would never be able to substantiate this allegation.
[Iran Press TV] Bahraini authorities have 
[An Nahar] Syrian troops backed by tanks stormed the flashpoint town of Daraa on Monday killing at least 25 people, witnesses said, as a leading rights activist accused 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Wazoo
Joe 
[Dawn] US general David Petraeus on Monday visited Pakistain and held talks with its army chief on ways to bolster regional security, the US embassy said in a statement.
[Dawn] Witnesses say Syrian security forces are opening fire in the suburbs of 
Bahrain accused Hizbullah of attempting to topple its regime, reported the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
[Dawn] A Jordanian court on Monday put on trial in absentia Danish artist Kurt Westergaard who is being sued in the kingdom for blasphemy over a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad.
