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Saudi forces thwart attack on oil facility
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
6 00:00 Frank G [336103] 
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 4: Opinion
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Africa North
Al-Qaeda TV praises attack on Libyan consulate
A message praising the violent attack on the Italian consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi last Friday appeared on Thursday night on Islamic internet forums linked to the al-Qaeda terror network. The message, which lasted 2 minutes and 40 seconds and was signed 'the throat cutter', announced that a film was being made on the attack against the consulate. It said: "The Italian consulate in Benghazi, one of the most important cities for Libya and Jihad, was destroyed and set on fire. You will see similar things in the future."

The message broadcast a short video with as soundtrack music used for films by the group of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq. The images showed the Italian consulate after the attack last Friday, during which 14 protesters died and the damages on the building.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 01:14 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, yes, yes! Kill all the infidels in dir el sociopath, and eat sand.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 11:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Italian General Election April 9. Expect more and thank Zappy.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 11:08 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Bodies burned in open after Nigeria riots kill 146
Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days. Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died. "We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them. Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security services overnight, residents said.

Uncertainty over Nigeria's political future is aggravating regional, ethnic and religious rivalries in Africa's most populous nation and top oil exporter. Elections are due next year and many Nigerians believe President Olusegun Obasanjo and some state governors will try to stay on after eight years in power. The prospect angers those who want their own ethnic or regional blocs to have their turn. Militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta have waged a three-month campaign of attacks and kidnappings, which has cut exports and driven up world oil prices. One of their demands is greater control over their region and its resources.

There was no fighting in Onitsha on Thursday but Emeka Umeh, of human rights group the Civil Liberties Organization, called it "the peace of the graveyard". Some charred corpses were still lying on the streets and hundreds of Muslim men, women and children fled the city crammed into open-top trucks for fear of more killings. Thousands more were hiding in army barracks and police stations. Umeh said most of the bodies his group counted were Hausa, but some Ibo were killed too. The Hausa are the main ethnic group in northern Nigeria and most are Muslim, while the Ibo are dominant in the southeast and almost all are Christian.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 09:07 || Comments || Link || [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good grief, payback's a bee-yatch. Although, I would've hoped the Christians (of which I am one) wouldn't stoop to the muslims' level. Turn the other cheek (on a personal level), but I don't know what I'd do if they'd killed my daughter (as was reported yesterday, several Christian children were murdered in the whole cartoon protest brewhaha). I'm not calling for eye-for-eye at all (in fact, I'd argue against it), but for a country that's more used to tribal warfare, it's understandable this would be the results.
Posted by: BA || 02/24/2006 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Biafra II is just around the corner.
Posted by: 3dc || 02/24/2006 10:01 Comments || Top||

#3  It's easy for us to condemn from over here, we don't have to live with it. Sounds like the Christians tried turning the other cheek for a long time, and when that didn't work they tried something new. How's that saying go? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Something like that.
Posted by: BH || 02/24/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Its reconquista 2006.
Posted by: Ulinelet Spaing9954 || 02/24/2006 10:23 Comments || Top||

#5  "We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider
Me too, very happy.
BA, turning the other cheek only results in being stabbed in both lungs. There is a time to defend your right to exist. In Nigeria, that time is now. When will it be now in your town ?
Posted by: wxjames || 02/24/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Good to see that somebody fights back.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 10:52 Comments || Top||

#7  I think that "Christian" and "Muslim" have less to do with each other than being "of my tribe" and "of their tribe".
Posted by: gromky || 02/24/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||


#9  Anyone surprised? They try that over here, and same thing will happen. The Christians have finally said, "Enough!" See punk. See punk run. Cowards.
Posted by: Rosemary || 02/24/2006 11:05 Comments || Top||

#10  WXJ: I probably didn't explain myself clearly enough. I believe that Christ's teaching of turn the other cheek is for PERSONAL use only, not against someone else. In other words, smack me, I turn the other cheek...but smack my wife, daughter or son (or country, for that matter), I'm wide open to immediate retaliation. And, even for my personal use, if I get smacked a 2nd time ("run out of cheeks"), then it's time for retaliation (much like, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me). I think Nigeria has long past turning the other cheek. I was just noting that while I'm glad they smacked the muslims and smacked 'em hard, I don't like seeing the "after-action" of burning the corpses, which in my mind, is a very "tribal" or "muslim" thing to do (remembering how they treated our contractors' bodies in Iraq that one time and how - rightly - angry we were). Like BH says, it's very difficult for us to condemn from over here, but (and this is as a CHRISTIAN, not an American) I don't like seeing that level of brutality anywhere, but especially from my brothers. That is, I don't (as a Christian) feel we should sink to "their level."
Posted by: BA || 02/24/2006 11:12 Comments || Top||

#11  Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days. Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.

I disapprove of the response, but not because the response was retaliation: BA and I agree on the limits of "turn the other cheek". However, "eye-for-eye" NEVER works if the retaliation is not directed at the true perpetrator. As I bolded in the quote above, the muslim killers were in NORTH Nigeria, while the Muslim victims were in SOUTHEAST Nigeria.

"We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them. Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security services overnight, residents said.

There is absolutely zero percent chance of this happening, for several reasons:

1. The dead muslims would certainly have tried to fight back, and happened to lose. The Imams up north would declare them sahids, and state that their biggest problem right now is deciding which of 72 virgins to hump next.

2. Despite the claim that Muslims care for each other, the truth is that such care is mostly verbal, and only displayed when the Muslim speaker in question needs to incite fellow Muslims. Since the attack is not personal, direct, and up close, the Northern Muslims will care about the SouthEastern Muslims as much as they care for the Palestinians.

3. The perpetrators were Christian youths. Other than the locals, nobody really worries about rioting youths. It's when the ADULTS do this stuff that people will start worrying: Adults shoot GUNS. Adults PLAN their attacks. Adults direct the youths to attack where it REALLY HURTS. Adults VOTE and change governments. Adults act on principle and have a greater capability of digging in for the long haul and being a dagger, not a thorn, in one's side. Adults determine if the youths continue rioting or get grabbed by the ear, whupped, and grounded.

Call me back when the Adults start going after the REAL perpetrators.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/24/2006 13:18 Comments || Top||

#12  Let's see, Muslims feel free to protest over cartoons even though some of them are unrelated and outright fabrications. They destroy the property of individuals and corporations who have absolutely nothing to do with the publication or origin of these cartoons.

However ill-thought-out it may be, it should hardly be much of a surprise if some southern Nigerians have taken it upon themselves to express their dissatisfaction with the way their fellow northern Christians are being raped and slaughtered.

At some point Islam must realize that its collective conduct is setting a defacto standard. When that selfsame standard is returned in kind, it really can't be much of a shock to anyone. In the case of fighting fire with fire, Islam's love of collective punishment, as in 9-11 for US government intervention or burning Danish embassies for the cartoons, will finally come back to haunt them.

Countries forced to intervene and thwart Islamist terrorism will likely be obliged to use collective punishment in order to impress upon the Muslim population as a whole the dire mistake that supporting terrorism represents. This payment in kind will first happen in less restrained countries and slowly expand in scope and usage until major superpowers are forced to obliterate entire Islamic nations at a stroke with each increasingly heinous atrocity. Islam, and Islam alone can change the outcome of this forbidding scenario. No one else is obliged to resolve this issue for them, not that anyone can save this world's Muslim population if they themselves are not motivated to do so.

I fear it will take the vaprization of at least a few Islamic countries before the import of correcting their collective behavior becomes clear. Personally, between 9-11, Bali, Madrid, Beslan, London and Darfur, I am already at the point where even another single atrocity needs some sort of decisive response in kind. The outrageous spectacle of Islamists being handled with kid gloves simply goes beyond the pale.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 16:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Corpses burnt in religious riots

He said: "We don't want these mosques here anymore. These people are causing all the problems all over the world because they don't fear God."

He angrily scrawled "Muhammad is a man, but Jesus is from above" with a burned stick on a shattered wall.
Posted by: john || 02/24/2006 18:56 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi forces thwart attack on oil facility
Riyadh - Saudi security forces foiled a bomb attack on Friday against an oil gathering centre where two blasts were heard in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, industry sources and residents said.

Security forces thwarted an attempt to attack the center in Abqaiq using car bombs, the oil sources said.

Residents of Abqaiq said that they heard two blasts near the plant and saw two burned-out cars outside. It was not immediately clear if the abortive attack was the work of suicide bombers.

Dozens of security forces and civil defense vehicles were seen outside the plant in Abqaiq, 35km south of Dammam, the main city of the Eastern Province, and about the same distance from the oil hub of Dhahran.

It was the first known attempted attack on an oil installation in Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, which has been battling a wave of violence by suspected al-Qaeda militants since May 2003.

A Saudi security expert said last September that the kingdom, which sits on a quarter of global oil reserves, had boosted spending on the protection of its oil industry to as much as $1,5-billion (about R9,1-billion) a year.

Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 9,5 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) and has an output capacity of 11 million bpd.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 02/24/2006 12:14 || Comments || Link || [336162 views] Top|| File under:

#1  THE Saudi branch of the Al-Qaeda terror network has claimed responsibility for the foiled attempt to blow up a major Saudi Arabian oil processing plant, in a message on its internet site.
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2006 22:02 Comments || Top||

#2  great: "we didn't accomplish anything, but get our guys martyred - but we claim total responsibility for that!"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 22:31 Comments || Top||


Gunfire, Explosion Reported at Saudi Oil Refinery
CAIRO, Egypt — Shots and an explosion have been heard at an oil refinery in eastern Saudi Arabia, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya TV reported Friday. A Saudi oil official said there had been an explosion at the refinery near Dhahran, but he did not know the cause. The channel's reporter speculated that the shooting and the explosion may have been part of an attempt to break into the refinery.

Posted by: Glaing Sloluse2980 || 02/24/2006 08:35 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Update:

CAIRO, Egypt - An explosion occured Friday at a major oil refinery in Buqayq, eastern Saudi Arabia, a Saudi oil official said.
The pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya TV reported the authorities foiled an attempt to bomb the refinery with two vehicles packed with explosives. The channel did not give a source for the report, which appeared on its scrollbar.
Earlier Al-Arabiya quoted its reporter in the kingdom as saying shots as well as an explosion were heard, and they may have been part of an attempt to attack the refinery.
The oil official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he did not know the cause of the explosion in Buqayq, which lies 45 miles southwest of Dammam.
Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press in Cairo: "I have no information. I am following this up."
The Baqiq refinery is a major oil complexs on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia.
The al-Qaida terror group has long called for attacks on Saudi oil installations, accusing the country's government of selling oil to the West at cheap prices. The group is run by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden who seeks to topple the Saudi monarchy and replace it with an Islamic state.
The Saudi authorities have said their oil facilities are well protected.


Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2006 9:05 Comments || Top||

#2  More:

The blast damaged a pipeline at Buqayq, a large complex that processes crude oil 45 miles southwest of the oil hub of Dammam on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya said. Oil stopped flowing briefly but then resumed, it reported.
Security guards opened fire on the explosives-packed cars as they attempted to drive through the facility's gates, the Saudi-owned television network said. The two cars bore logos of Aramco, the state oil company that owns the facility.
One vehicle was stopped, and two people inside it were killed. The other vehicle exploded when the guards fired on it, the Al-Arabiya correspondent said. None of the guards were hurt, he said.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2006 9:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Way to go, True Believers. It's a fine mess you're creating here.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 9:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Binnys boys threaten UAE,
Kuwait releases all of their prisoners
then the Bugtistinians pipeline blows up
Then the holey shrine of Hidey Maddy
Now the Soudis oil

Are you guys sure you dont wanna bit of foreign investment in your port thingumys?
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 02/24/2006 10:32 Comments || Top||

#5  If a person from Iraq is called an Iraqi,
then a person from Buqayq would be called a...
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 02/24/2006 10:33 Comments || Top||

#6  the Buqayqi

the indigenous sticky ppls.
Posted by: RD || 02/24/2006 10:51 Comments || Top||

#7  He, he, he.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||

#8  The attack was thwarted but the price of oil spikes anyway. Win/Win for the kingdom. F**kin' A**holes.
Posted by: Mark Z || 02/24/2006 11:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Not totally unexpected.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2006 11:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Heh, probably never heard of this place, eh? Mebbe only the old hands will realize it's typical Saudi goofiness. Buqayq, my ass. This is Abqaiq (ab-cake), aka Baqaiq (back-ache, lol). It's spelled that way on the highway signs and even designated within Aramco as ABQ. Buqayq. Lol. Saudi fuckwits. BTW, it's very easy to fake an Aramco vehicle - they're all Crown Victorias or Caprices and dumped, after a few years, on the auction block, so it's easy to pick one up and reapply the logos.
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 14:02 Comments || Top||

#11  for .com's attention:
Core area resignations may start rolling in now.
Thank goodness Stabilizers were not touched.
Crude cannot be stopped briefly because of liquid inertia so that rumor cannot be true. Gate valves are primarily used to stop feeding a fire.
My guess these people came from southeast of Hofuf.
.com did you work in core area. Heard of OSPAS?
Posted by: DhRTAbqUdh || 02/24/2006 17:28 Comments || Top||

#12  Give us the woid .com!
Posted by: 6 || 02/24/2006 17:38 Comments || Top||

#13  DhRTAbqUdh -
Dhahran
Ras Tanura
Abqaiq
Udhaliyah

Heh, great handle. I worked in the Core Area, mostly - Tower and Engineering Bldg - but also Westpark for awhile.

OSPAS (Oil Supply Planning and Scheduling) is the Big Boy (HQ) controlling product refining and distribution, right?
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 17:47 Comments || Top||

#14  Correcto mundo .com
I have a 5 digit badge number. Was in OSPAS for 14 years. WestPark huh! Now there is North, and East Parks, plus the old LIP area. West Park is now a part of Main Camp. Women can drive out there without leaving camp. The camp bypasses the old Palace hotel. Perimeter of camp now has 24/7 lights and motion detection. Boy Scouts can only camp inside the 4 compounds, just by the jebels.
On the phone to Dh today. Wife is there with one kid. Two other kids flying back tonight from US. I expect the gossip will take on a feel of "well is the the right timeto consider leaving?" I expect the 1600 or so US expats will seriously consider sending all family home, leaving it a bachelor camp by Sept. After 70 years it is a funny way to see the place heading. Do you check out the Aramcobrats chat site? That must be buzzing.
Posted by: DhRTAbqUdh || 02/24/2006 17:57 Comments || Top||

#15  Lol. A "5 digit badge number" - this means I can get a loan from you to, say, buy a small Caribbean nation, lol. Good for you - but I'm thinking you're right about exit time approaching...

I was a lowly contractor - don't shun me! - lived in Zahra in al Bustan Village - and my JVC Co was in the al Rashid PetCtr. When the Khobar Massacre occurred, I saw a small exodus of my friends remaining there - mostly among Aramcons. I expect there was another immediately after the Yanbu attack, just not felt much in Dhahran. Now they've tried Abqaiq... That's the Big Banana, alright, heh. Glad that IS went gonzo on them.

Wymyns driving all over inside Aramco areas, lol, I'll bet that gives IndSec some heartaches, lol.

If I'm not mistaken, the wait list on the One bdrm units is loooong. They're gonna have to do something, such as let Aramcon solos (having sent family back to The World) to share the 2's and 3's, else they'll have a riot on their hands. I wish I could toss some names out into the void here, but I know that wouldn't be appreciated - whether they're still there or back here.

I certainly hope you're being careful and staying in-camp as much as possible. IS is a weird outfit, but they're some serious people, as far as I could tell, and I don't think you'll see them bail on you. I was once part of a "lunch group" that went into Khobar for Thai food every Wednesday - the one near the old al Shula Mall ruins. It continued until the Khobar Massacre - then I think they abandoned it.

I'm not a "brat", technically, since a contractor, so I'm not aware of their chat scene / site, lol.

You may enjoy this site. I'll wager you've been there long enough to have serious overlap with the author.
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 18:19 Comments || Top||

#16  BTW, since I smoked, I was out in the Plaza of the Core Area 4-5 times a day and I used to go to the Dining Hall a bit - and if you saw me you just might remember, lol. I had a Fu Manchu beard, classic gray, of 14" length - that seems to be its limit. :-)
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 18:25 Comments || Top||

#17  .com, I follow your comments often here. It is fun to see how people are slowly becoming more aware of what is happening. In many ways it is like 1938. But I have said too much here. It is best to keep a low profile on the web. Too many ears and eyes. In my situation I have to just be satisfied with just reading Rantburg. I am sure you understand. Just wanted you to know that you have a reader of your comments back on main camp. The locals have not gotten round to blocking the site, but now that I have said this, they may start. Whoops. Take care, fellow cartoonist....
Posted by: DhRTAbqUdh || 02/24/2006 19:12 Comments || Top||

#18  This was a gold flight. In those days, part of oil royalties was paid to the Saudi Arab government in solid gold. (They certainly were foolish to stop demanding gold and start accepting dollars.) The gold, in the form of British sovereigns, was picked up in Montreal, Canada. The seals had been taken out of the front half of the cabin, and the gold, packed in what looked like nail kegs, was lashed down in their place. There was thirteen tons of the stuff, worth eleven million dollars. I was glad to see it there. I didn't know how much I was worth to the company, but I knew they were going to take damned good care of that gold.

This is a great story! Back to reading..
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 19:13 Comments || Top||

#19  PS Hi to the Aramco folks. Glad you found our li'l corner of the Net.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 19:15 Comments || Top||

#20  Story gets better:

King Abdul Aziz was visiting town. He brought with him the usual mob of soldiers and hangers on. They took over Hamilton House and every other empty house in town. This put a major workload on the company, though the biggest job was cleaning up after they had left. All the houses the King's men had occupied had to be completely redecorated, and almost rebuilt. Building fires in the kitchen sink to cook coffee and slaughtering sheep in the bathtubs tend to run down a place.



King Saud was, in many ways, even a bigger headache. He liked to bathe only in ZamZam water from the sacred well in Mecca. So we brought in a 10,000 gallon tanker full of the stuff, installed a special water heater, and piped it into the royal suite bathroom. He also didn't like the smell of food cooking, so a duct was run from the kitchen vent all the way around the house to the far side, and a big fan installed to blow the odors the other way. I guess that if you're king, you're entitled to have things the way you want.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 19:23 Comments || Top||

#21  :) I'm humbled - seriously so. I don't do it much, anymore, since most everyone's heard 'em by now, lol. I'm cutting back across the board, in fact. I wish you could take over for me! Please don't be a stranger -- especially when I get things wrong - and I'm sure I do, lol. There are other vets from Lalaland here, too - GK (Gasse Katz) and Mike Kozlowski immediately come to mind.

You should find yourself howling at the Larry Barnes memoirs - if you haven't checked them out before - they're hysterical and enlightening - as Sea seems to have found, heh.

Your insights would be appreciated here, to whatever extent you feel comfortable, especially regards both ends of the situation, from historical perspectives (e.g. the reference to 1938 went over my head!) to what's afoot now - I've been gone since mid-2003.

Now I'll embarrass you - I really miss you guys, lol. A solid percentage of the best people I ever met were there, in the Great Litterbox. Smart, tough, truly worldly, canny, amazingly generous, hard-working folks who have learned how to manage the most insane shit with ease - and elan, I must add, lol - while weenies back in The World bitch about most every little inconvenience. Please take care (duh - me telling you, lol) and help us out when you can. From dodging prayer times to driving there to enduring security searches to dealing with the Govt and IS - I'll wager that at least 50% of what I've posted here is disbelieved or not understood, lol.

My Best Regards! :-)
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 19:37 Comments || Top||

#22  A bit more:

There was an empty area in front of the mosque that looked just right for a park, so I made up a drawing showing lawns, walks, hedges, benches, bushes, trees. I presented it to my boss, Frank Lincoln, who passed it on upward. Amazingly, it was approved and constructed. Barnes park was born. At least that is what I called it. No one else did.

Whenever something is accomplished, it appears that a new problem is introduced. The park was no exception. The local population soon decided that all this green grass and leaves would make excellent fodder for their sheep and donkeys. In a few days most all the greenery had been grazed out of existence. Was my humanitarian idea doomed to die? No. Once again American inventive genius was to save the day.

I lined up a meeting with the Emir of Saudi Camp and the Chief of Police and made a suggestion to them. The next day notices were posted throughout the area stating that any animals found in the park after that date would automatically become the personal properly of the Chief of Police. He was more than willing to enforce the edict. Instantly the animals disappeared and the grass grew. Unfortunately, Arabs aren't much to sit in parks, but that is beside the point.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 19:40 Comments || Top||

#23  Funny, sad, and several boggles to come, Sea, heh. It really is an eye-opener that everyone should read just to get the bits about the Saudis they won't get anywhere else. ;-)
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 19:48 Comments || Top||

#24  'Looking back over my shoulder' He ends with the comment about retirement 'come on in the water's fine. ...and the old Lucky McKlusky etc. etc. Yess, know it well. In fact know some of the people in the book, and their children. I have it in PDF format if you would like it. But I don't know how to forward it. I have all the rest of the books like 'Kings and Camels' 'Big Oil Man from Teaxs', 'Out in the Blue' which is recent. Autor was at Stenike giving away some copies 2 years back. Basicallly these are all Aramcon accounts of life in Arabia. Barnes' was a private printing. Have to go now. Bye.
Posted by: DhRTAbqUdh || 02/24/2006 20:12 Comments || Top||

#25  DhRT, feel free to send anything you'd like to me...I'll pass it along to .com
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 20:16 Comments || Top||

#26  Thx, Sea!

and Thx DhRTAbqUdh!
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 20:24 Comments || Top||

#27  Welcome DhRTAbqUdh and thanks for the posts. Stay safe, but come back when you can.

and .com, thanks too.

What a place to learn.
Posted by: Hupomoger Clans9827 || 02/24/2006 21:16 Comments || Top||

#28  That was a real treat for me, lol.

I tell ya, if he comes back stateside and begins contributing, we could all learn some truly fascinating stuff about The Magic Kingdom... the bit about the 5-digit EmpNo makes him a bona-fide "old hand" and, being in OSPAS - they control the entire process once the oil is out of the ground, I assure you he knows stuff that will evoke the entire range of reactions, lol... I've got my fingers crossed he'll do just that.

As an example, he could sketch out everything you'd need to know, at the detailed level, for making The Republic of Eastern Arabia a reality.
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 21:45 Comments || Top||

#29  What a thrill!

Expats are a whole nother animal, and those that thrive in the wild and wooly bits of the world are even beyond that. And .com, I don't know about anyone else, but I believe everything you say... even about the Vegas showgirls. Of course, Mr. Wife tells me I'm gullible... ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 22:18 Comments || Top||


US asks Yemen to jug Zindani
The United States has officially asked Yemen to arrest a prominent scholar whom Washington accuses of funneling funds to terror groups, Yemeni state media said yesterday. Sheikh Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani, 56, is listed by the United Nations and the United States as one of the financiers of terror activities.

“The American side has asked the Yemeni government to arrest Sheikh Al-Zindani, freeze his assets and prevent him from traveling abroad,” said the Defense Ministry’s newspaper ‘26 September’.
And keep him away from cell phones.
Quoting official sources, the paper said President Ali Abdullah Saleh has received a message from US President George W. Bush in which he criticized Saleh for letting Al-Zindani join the official delegation that accompanied him to the OIC summit held in Makkah last December. “The message noted that Al-Zindani is listed on the UN list of terror financiers, and that taking him abroad as part of an official delegation is a violation of the UN resolutions,” said the paper.

It added that Bush warned Saleh that such personal ties with Al-Zindani “could harm joint efforts of both countries (US and Yemen) and their partnership in the fight against terrorism.”

According to the report, the Yemeni government asked the United States to present “clear evidence” proving the charges against Al-Zindani before Yemen could take any measure against him.
So that Zindani can kill the ones who squealed on him.
The US Treasury Department added Al-Zindani in February 2004 to the list of people suspected of supporting terrorist activities, dubbing him as “a loyalist to Osama Bin Laden and supporter of Al-Qaeda.” It accused him of playing a key role in the purchase of weapons on behalf of the terror network and other terrorists. A senior Yemeni government official said yesterday that the government could take any measure against Al-Zindani except handing him over to the United States. “Whatever happens, we would not hand him over to the Americans. It is against our constitution,” the official told Arab News, asking anonymity.
"And you know how important the law is to a Yemeni!"
Al-Zindani, who chairs the central committee of Yemen’s biggest opposition party (Islah), has abruptly changed his flamboyant ways of speech and now rarely attends public meetings after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.

The United States accuses Al-Zindani, who runs Sanaa-based Al-Iman Islamic University, of supporting “terrorist causes”.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 00:53 || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yemen has reluctantly agreed to arrest Zindani, but only after completion of his current term at the Combone School of Mines and Tunneling.
Posted by: Visitor || 02/24/2006 8:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Upon graduation, he'll change his name to al-Houdini...
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#3  "could harm joint efforts of both countries (US and Yemen) and their partnership in the fight against terrorism."
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2006 12:07 Comments || Top||

#4 
That RED beard, natural or Clairol?

Only his hair dresser knows for sure!

Posted by: Vinkat Bala Subrumanian || 02/24/2006 13:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Looks like Henna #4 from the Yakov Redish Oktober Factory of MakeOvers.
Posted by: 6 || 02/24/2006 17:40 Comments || Top||

#6  or the Rula Lenska line of henna'd honeys
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 18:57 Comments || Top||


Al-Zindani collects millions to sue Yemeni journalists
Sheikh Abdulmajeed Al-Zindani, head of the opposition Islah party’s Shoura Council and Al-Iman University head, confirmed that European insult to the prophet is due to their ignorance of his value. He added that researchers and Orientalists who studied his profile made fair judgments about him.
He's referring to pious scholars like... ummm... himself, of course. Besides being head of Yemen's Islamist opposition and a molder of young minds, Zindani's also a member of the Supreme Council of Global Jihad...
Additionally, Al-Zindani disclosed formation of a public legal committee to defend the prophet, adding that it has collected YR 5 million in fees for lawyers who will sue Yemeni journalists who republished the offensive caricatures. Al-Zindani declared that republishing the caricatures repeated the insult. He said that they will see to it that anyone insulting the prophet will stand trial, explaining that it is the judiciary that has the right to condemn those republishing the caricatures.
It will also demonstate the utter lack of freedom of the Yemeni press.
In a press release, journalist Al-Jaradi, Journalists Syndicate information committee secretary, called on Al-Zindani to use the money to indict the U.S. Administration, whose soldiers tore the Qur’an and threw it in the dirt.
The U.S. has studiously — and stupidly — tried to stay out of the cartoon fray. It's done us a lot of good, hasn't it?
Al-Jaradi told News Yemen network that Al-Zindani should do that instead of suing Yemeni journalists who republished the caricatures out of good will to defend the prophet. He added, “If the journalists were wrong, many scholars have asserted that they were free of bad intentions, a matter that was met by an understanding, which led the judiciary to free them.”
"Dudn't matter. Dudn't matter. They still gotta die."
Al-Jaradi said he is sure that many Al-Iman University scholars are wondering about Al-Zindani’s insistence in this matter. Al-Jaradi stressed the necessity of the presence of an establishment specialized in issuing fatwas in Yemen, which should be done through competent individuals capable of issuing fatwas.
In normal countries, those bodies are known as "parliaments," and their fatwahs are called "laws."
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...an establishment specialized in issuing fatwas in Yemen.."

The tyranny of the Imams.
Posted by: Monsieur Moonbat || 02/24/2006 0:53 Comments || Top||


Yemen: students denounce prophet cartoons
The Sana’a University teachers syndicate, in cooperation with the General Students’ Union, held a rally Tuesday, Feb. 21. The rally included students and denounced the Danish caricatures insulting the prophet Mohammed (PTUI pbuh), which were republished by other European newspapers. Many speeches were made at the rally to denounce and disapprove of insult to the prophet.
They're referring to the cartoons they've never seen, of course...
The speeches assured that the caricatures were a series of campaigns fueling hatred and abhorrence, as well as inciting alienation and collision between civilizations. Demonstrators called for continuing public boycotts and forming national committees to boycott the goods of all countries that offended the prophet. The demonstrators affirmed that all protests should be civilized, peaceful and free of violence.
The mere fact that they're "demonstrating" over cartoons that they've never seen casts some doubt on whether they're "civilized." The ashes of multiple embassies say they're not peaceful, though perhaps Yemen will be different...
The head of the Students’ Union confirmed that the rally was meant to encourage the spirit of resistance and enhance awareness of threats targeting Islamic nations in this critical period. The Students’ Union leader requested Yemen’s government and all other Arab and Islamic governments to withdraw their ambassadors from countries that insulted the prophet and cancel all forms of cooperation with them.
They obviously haven't thought that one through. If they don't want help, they should say "no, thank you."
The student leader also called for forming a joint Arab-Islamic market to activate the boycott, as Arab and Islamic markets are the biggest consumers.
Biggest consumers of what?
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Biggest consumers of what?

Danish Flags?
Posted by: pihkalbadger || 02/24/2006 4:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Building materials.
Posted by: Hupomoger Clans9827 || 02/24/2006 19:12 Comments || Top||

#3  isn't that Jim-Jim from Speed Racer?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 19:57 Comments || Top||

#4  More cartoons, more tramplings, more economy crippling demonstrations, more alienation of foreign investment, more dead Islamists. Faster, please.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 21:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Biggest consumers of what?

Infidel embassies...
Posted by: Raj || 02/24/2006 21:19 Comments || Top||

#6  In other news, Sun Rises in East.
Posted by: mojo || 02/24/2006 21:32 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
RAB destroy explosives in Gazipur
Grenades and other explosives, recovered by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on December 14 last year from a hideout of Jama'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), were destroyed at an army demolition ground in Gazipur Wednesday noon, reports UNB.

Following a court order, some 34 items including 27 hand grenades, 107 detonators, 32 power gel, 18 water gel, 2.95 kg potassium chlorite, 600 grams gunpowder, 16 kg ammonium nitrate, 500 ml facial quality picric acid, 9.1 kg lead styphnate, 39.95 gram lead azide, 62 batteries and 12 circuits were destroyed at the Sreepur demolition ground of the Army Ordnance Corps.
They're saving the shutter gun for the midnight stroll.
According to statements by JMB military wing chief Ataur Rahman Sunny and his sidekick Enayet, intelligence wing of RAB made the haul of arms and explosives from a house at Dakkhin Manda in the city on December 14.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under:


Shibir leader still at large, cops' role questioned
Rajshahi University Islami Chhatra Shibir President Mahbubul Alam Shalehi, a key suspect in the killing of Prof S Taher Ahmed, is still not arrested despite his public appearance, giving rise to suspicions that authorities are reluctant to arrest him.
Reeeeeeally? That's never happened before, has it? Especially in Bangla...
Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Commissioner Nayeem Ahmed has confirmed five people including Shalehi are found to be involved in the murder. "Four were arrested and we are looking for Shalehi."
"Didja try his house?"
"He ain't there. The guy that answered the phone said he wudn't."
Police sources said they could not arrest Shalehi even after he took part in a Shibir rally due to "a deliberate delay" by the government high-ups in giving a green signal in this connection. The delay was a result of the pressure by Jamaat-e-Islami, a major component of the four-party ruling alliance, they added. The police on February 5 sought the government nod to arrest Mohiuddin and Shalehi, who the arrestees -- Jahangir, Abdus Salam and Nazmul -- named as the masterminds. The approval for Mohiuddin's arrest came just hours before the confession made by Jahangir before a magistrate on February 7. But the police had to wait five more days to get the nod to arrest Shalehi. However, the police delayed their efforts to arrest the Shibir leader apparently due to threats of creating violence by top Jamaat-Shibir leaders.
Yep. Terrorism works.
Police officials said there are similarities in the killings of Prof Taher and his economics department colleague Prof Yunus, who was killed in December 2004. In both the cases the suspected killers were found to have had links with Shibir, student wing of Jamaat, and were sheltered by party's top leaders. "We've noticed strong efforts by Jamaat-Shibir leaders to save Shalehi although confessions of three held killers go against him," observed a senior police official.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Series of terrorist attacks disrupted in Chechnya
A series of large-scale terrorist attacks militants planned to make on Fatherland Defenders' Day has been prevented in Chechnya, the North Caucasus republic's interior minister said Thursday. Ruslan Alkhanov said policemen had been monitoring a gang led by Isa Muskiyev, suspected of "supervising" gangs acting in the republic's Shali, Kurchaloi and Argun districts.

Alkhanov said 11 powerful self-made explosive devices had been seized from a cache in Grozny. "They were made in the form of buckets and canisters containing metal balls and reinforced concrete parts filled with explosives and covered with sealing foam," the minister said. Besides, the cache contained seven artillery shells militants had planned to use as landmines, four grenade launchers and many ammunition items for small arms.

Alkhanov said the search for militants who had planned attacks was underway. A source in the republic's law enforcement agencies said another two caches had been discovered in Chechnya's Vedeno and Shatoi districts.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 00:57 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The headline should be
Series of Attacks by Islamists disrupted in Chechnya.

Not

Series of Attacks disrupted in Chechnya.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/24/2006 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Seems redundant to me. Headlines strive for brevity.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  There's a big difference between "Brevity" and deliberate disinformation, leaving facts out is not "Brevity"
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2006 13:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Still there is a certain redudancy factor.
Posted by: 6 || 02/24/2006 17:42 Comments || Top||


NATO to boost troops in Balkans to maintain regional security
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Clinton legacy in action.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 11:44 Comments || Top||


Europe
Finnish magazine editor fired for new cartoons
The editor of a small Finnish culture magazine was fired on Friday for publishing new Prophet Muhammad cartoons satirising the global row over the caricatures, said the magazine. Jussi Vilkuna, the editor-in-chief of Kaltio, was sacked after he refused to remove the cartoons from the publication's website as
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 21:11 || Comments || Link || [336103 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Any chance of getting the cartoons? Or the rrrrrrest of the story?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 21:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, they're Finnished.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 21:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Well, they're Finnished.

Heh.™

Reminds me of when I was six years old in Germany at a port city (Sassnitz?). My family was pointing out the flags of various ships, and every time someone pointed out a Finnish flag I heard "finish" flag, and wondered if the ship was ready for the scrap yard. I forget who finally clued me in to the awful truth.
Posted by: xbalanke || 02/24/2006 22:13 Comments || Top||

#4  link doesnt work
Posted by: Omavith Gleatle8151 || 02/24/2006 22:41 Comments || Top||

#5  It was a bad post. The server gagged, which is why it cuts off in the middle of a sentence. I didn't realize it made it through -- the real one's up for tomorrow.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 22:53 Comments || Top||

#6  so maybe I didn't FUBAR my link the other day???


Nahhhh.... I did
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 23:41 Comments || Top||


Vatican gets angry
After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities.
"Ummm... Nope. We couldn't do that! We got laws against that sort of thing!"
Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries. Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria. "If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.
I'd say they don't have the right to destroy us whether they're offended or not. Tits and tats are usually the same size and shape, so they could maybe feel free to offend us back. It just takes a lot more to offend Westerners than it does to offend Muslims, probably because we've have so much experience offending each other.
"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera. Reciprocity -- allowing Christian minorities the same rights as Muslims generally have in Western countries, such as building houses of worship or practicing religion freely -- is at the heart of Vatican diplomacy toward Muslim states. Vatican diplomats argue that limits on Christians in some Islamic countries are far harsher than restrictions in the West that Muslims decry, such as France's ban on headscarves in state schools. Saudi Arabia bans all public expression of any non-Muslim religion and sometimes arrests Christians even for worshipping privately. Pakistan allows churches to operate but its Islamic laws effectively deprive Christians of many rights. Both countries are often criticized at the United Nations Human Rights Commission for violating religious freedoms.
The natural extension of "reciprocity" would, of course, be the right to prosyletize. That's forbidden in virtually all Moose limb countries.
Pope Benedict signaled his concern on Monday when he told the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican that peace can only be assured by "respect for the religious convictions and practices of others, in a reciprocal way in all societies." Morocco is tolerant of other religions, but like all Muslim countries frowns on conversion from Islam to another faith.
Wouldn't that tighten the old turbans? On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the thought of Arab Baptists...
Christians make up only a tiny fraction of the population in most Muslim countries. War and political pressure in recent decades have forced many to emigrate from Middle Eastern communities dating back to just after the time of Jesus. "Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves," Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, thundered in the daily La Stampa. "The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights," he said.
Posted by: plainslow || 02/24/2006 07:59 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  'Bout' damn time.
Posted by: raptor || 02/24/2006 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  They have more spine then most of the West. At least they are being true to thier beliefs.
Posted by: plainslow || 02/24/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#3  This, Nigeria, Denmark. I wonder if we've reached a tipping point on Islamism. I've been fed up for decades. It's good to see others feel the same.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 10:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria.

Concerned? I'd be a little more than concerned if I were them.
Posted by: Ulinelet Spaing9954 || 02/24/2006 10:24 Comments || Top||

#5  I think this will have as much effect as a sternly written UN letter of repremand.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/24/2006 10:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Christians make up only a tiny fraction of the population in most Muslim countries.

Now. Even 50 years ago Christians were a substantial proportion of the population.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 10:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Wouldn't that tighten the old turbans? On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the thought of Arab Baptists...

I don't know, plains...I'm Baptist and we have some FINE BBQ (pork no less) dinners on the grounds! A lot better than the other options, lol!

I actually see this as a HUGE movement in the Catholic church (from touchy-feely "turn the other cheek" stuff to actually (albeit, only verbally) fighting back). Those of us on the Protestant side of the house have always been fighters. Heck, in my church, we PRAISE our troops, encourage them to attend in uniform, and around July 4th have a service dedicated to the military (with the respective songs sung for each of the armed services, including Coast Guard). Even ask for all veterans to stand (who, obviously, mostly are out of uniform) and I'm always shocked how many vets (even of the WWII age) we have in our congregation. These statements are a few days old and COULD (I don't know for sure) have pushed the Nigerian Christians into actually (physically) fighting back against the Muslims there. Much like Radio Free Europe, or Bush's SoTU address to the Iranian PEOPLE, this serves to encourage a specific people (in this case, Catholics) to rise up and have "permission" to fight back!
Posted by: BA || 02/24/2006 11:00 Comments || Top||

#8  "Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves"

It's enough to Piss off the Pope!
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2006 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  I wonder if we've reached a tipping point on Islamism.

I say, yes. Modern communication (e.g., newspaper cartoons) and mobility have exponentially increased the points of contact that Islam has with the outside world. The global population is beginning to notice how so much of that contact generates nothing but friction. All of this is augmented by the frequency and way that Islam itself voluntarily instigates this friction and does so in a spectacularly offensive and atrocious manner.

The tipping point is being reached. Once the world perceives that the cost of trying to co-exist with Islam far exceeds the cost of exterminating Islam, the scales will tip and Islam will become an object of study for historians and a few brave archaeologists in lead lined suits scholars.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 12:10 Comments || Top||

#10  Vatican and Islam
Posted by: I. B. DePrimate || 02/24/2006 13:53 Comments || Top||

#11  I think this will have as much effect as a sternly written UN letter of repremand.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam

(sniff) Do not underestimate that a sternly worded demarche can be devestating to the ego!
Posted by: Inspector Clueso || 02/24/2006 14:14 Comments || Top||

#12  I'm Baptist and we have some FINE BBQ (pork no less) dinners on the grounds! A lot better than the other options, lol!

I actually see this as a HUGE movement in the Catholic church (from touchy-feely "turn the other cheek" stuff to actually (albeit, only verbally) fighting back). Those of us on the Protestant side of the house have always been fighters. Heck, in my church, we PRAISE our troops, encourage them to attend in uniform, and around July 4th have a service dedicated to the military (with the respective songs sung for each of the armed services, including Coast Guard). Even ask for all veterans to stand (who, obviously, mostly are out of uniform) and I'm always shocked how many vets (even of the WWII age) we have in our congregation. These statements are a few days old and COULD (I don't know for sure) have pushed the Nigerian Christians into actually (physically) fighting back against the Muslims there. Much like Radio Free Europe, or Bush's SoTU address to the Iranian PEOPLE, this serves to encourage a specific people (in this case, Catholics) to rise up and have "permission" to fight back!


I was referring to the idea of some of the fire and brimstone Baptist preachers I've run into, and more of them that I've heard of. Qazi, Fazl, and Sami are fire and brimstone preachers, too. My point was that it may actually be easier to change the theology than it will be to change the temperament. The Christians of Alexandria and Antioch were noted for their penchant for rioting before the Profit (PTUI) was a gleam in his daddy's eye. Imagine a post-Muslim Middle Eastern Protestantism, where everybody's free to issue his own fatwah.

Nor would I wax too rhapsodical over Protestantism's sterling record in defending the faith. Episcopalians, Unitarians, United Methodists, and the National Council of Churches Nobody Goes To are all Protestant, despite their occasional emulation of St. Peter in the Garden.

It would be amusing to watch a church full of Pashtuns passing the snakes, though.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 15:15 Comments || Top||

#13  lol, Fred! Now, I'm gonna have a mental image of a snake-handling Pashtun, lol.

You're right on the Protestant thing though. I'd maybe reclassify Baptists into those hated "Evangelical" categories. I actually think those churches you mentioned who are getting into touchy-feely political arenas are NO CHURCHES at all, but just religious country clubs who are falling for today's multi-culti, "diversity" driven, "tolerant", open-minded to the point of their brains falling out crowds.
Posted by: BA || 02/24/2006 15:32 Comments || Top||

#14  empty ritual centers for people without the imagination to become wiccans.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 02/24/2006 15:34 Comments || Top||

#15  Ok, now I've got an image of snake-handling Pushtuns with their brains falling out, while the preacher thunders about fire and brimstone from the pulpit, and the choir sings in the background. Thank goodness I've already eaten lunch, and it isn't quite time for tea!
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 15:35 Comments || Top||

#16  #14, there are a few Episcopalian priests in PA who also do Druid ceremonies ....

sigh.
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 15:39 Comments || Top||

#17  Pass the Pork Ribs Abu.

Fire and Brimstone is a big turn off to most Protestants these days. More are Evangelical these days. I wonder if that is the case in Islam too?
Posted by: Sock Puppet O' Doom || 02/24/2006 16:14 Comments || Top||

#18  I'd give it more credence than a "strongly worded UN declaration".

The Pope may not have a bunch of "divisions", but ol' JPII managed to do a number on communism.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 02/24/2006 17:02 Comments || Top||

#19  lopt: #14, there are a few Episcopalian priests in PA who also do Druid ceremonies

Well, what they think are Druid ceremonies.

I can imagine the old archdruids saying, "You are neither warm nor cold..."
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 02/24/2006 17:17 Comments || Top||

#20  I grew up in St. Druids on the Main Line.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 17:32 Comments || Top||

#21  Yes, I rather imagine they would spit them out .... ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 17:33 Comments || Top||

#22  Well, Merlin crossed a few lines..
Posted by: 3dc || 02/24/2006 18:17 Comments || Top||

#23  When the last pope kissed the koran I almost schit my pants. Enough is enough and I wish this pope nothing but good luck. Heh, maybe we will get lucky and he'll call for another crusade!?

What I don't get is how anyone can expect a terrorist worshipper to act civil. Muhamhead never did and the porkoran is pretty clear about the conversion or death thing.
Posted by: Ebbique Thromoth8192 || 02/24/2006 19:04 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Another Clinton Appointed Fed Judge Screws the Pooch
A US federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move which would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there.

Some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terror being held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been held as long as four years. Only a handful have been officially identified.

US District Judge Jed S Rakoff in New York ordered the US Defence Department to release uncensored transcripts of detainee hearings, which contain the names of detainees in custody and those who have been held and later released. Previously released documents have had identities and other details blacked out.

The judge ordered the government to hand over the documents by March 3 after the Defence Department said Wednesday it would not appeal his earlier ruling in the lawsuit filed by the AP.

On January 23, Rakoff ordered the military to turn over uncensored copies of transcripts and other documents from 317 military hearings for detainees at the prison camp. There were another 241 detainees who refused to participate in the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and the Defense Department said no transcripts exist of those hearings.
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 16:40 || Comments || Link || [336120 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The vast majority of Democrats do not beleive we are in a war. That many of them are in the government bureaucracy and Judicial organs is very worrying. They just don't "get it". People like this "Judge" need a visit and sit down talk by people from high level operatives in or inteligence agencies to educate them. If they persist in their assholery after that remove them from their positions using existing law.
Posted by: Mahou Sensei Negi-bozu || 02/24/2006 16:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe they can release an uncensored transcript of "Judge" Jakoff's latest 1-900 call.
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 16:53 Comments || Top||

#3  another example why elections matter
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 17:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Stop. Taking. Prisoners.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 17:36 Comments || Top||

#5 
Hemp. Neckties. For. Clinton. Appointees.

Liberals too!

Posted by: Vinkat Bala Subrumanian || 02/24/2006 17:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Ask the judge how he intends to enforce his order.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/24/2006 17:55 Comments || Top||

#7  What CF said
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/24/2006 18:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Well, unless they plan to disappear these turd burglars, sooner or later they will need to release their identities. So the question becomes, at what point are they of such little value that it doesn't matter.

I doubt there are many left there we intend to hang. And fewer still we want to try in a civilian court. So what do you do with the buggers?

Optimum, I would guess we send them back to their home countries, at least if they show any inclination to hang them. Maybe some of the more cooperative ones will quietly retire from the scene, and a few will be allowed to run free while we watch their every move.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/24/2006 18:17 Comments || Top||

#9  If we send anymore back we should (at least) tell them that we embedded an undetectible (to xray...) GPS device in their butt...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/24/2006 18:20 Comments || Top||

#10  Interesting location, CF, the proctologists will be excited.
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 18:40 Comments || Top||

#11  This is stupid. If the military doesn't want the unfound camel jockies to know that Abdulla what's his name is in Cuba, then the judge is doing nothing but helping our islamic enemies.

I'm willing to bet the moron was offended by the Muhamhead cartoons too.

He is a traitor and that is all there is to it.
Posted by: Glong Slineter5328 || 02/24/2006 18:52 Comments || Top||

#12  Actually, the IRC does know. They have observers on site. However, they've agreed to abide by the rules which limits transmission of detailed information. So I doubt that anyone is 'disappearing' as in Cuba proper, N.Korea, Iran, etc. So what's the reason for this action?

Congress has long ago gone AWOL on its responsibility of oversight of the judiciary, particularly since some members of that branch now actively believe they are indeed the new Princes, Barons, and Dukes to rule America. They're back!
Posted by: Slaiter Unimp8179 || 02/24/2006 20:24 Comments || Top||

#13  The Dems, espec their national Leadership, "get it" - the question is do GOP-Conservatives get it?
The WOT for the Left is about getting the Right to save and justify their -ism for the Left, and to force knowingly Failed Socialism, includ Communism, and OWG upon an unsuspecting population. When it comes to electing a Dem POTUS in 2008 and beyond, Dubya and GOP'ers are ADOLF HITLERS whom need to be wiped out, NOT just merely defeated in elec years; when it come to unducing America to dev new Global Empire and spreading [anti-American] Amer "Liberalism"/
Socialism around the world, Dubya-GOP are mere unruly, active-agressive, incompetent Male Brute LIMITED SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS whom need PERFECTOID/PERFECTNIK/PERFECT-ISTA MOTHERLY COMMIES AND REGULATORY/TOTALITARIAN CENTRALISTS TO TEACH THEM THE WAYS OF STALINISM AND MARXTOPIANISM, or in the alt to "spank" GOP-Conservative Rightist Bad Boyz by exterminating them. The Lefties are RINOS, etc. for a reason, and that reason is, ultimately, to kill you, yours, and free America as we Americans know it. The DemoLefties prob is not alleged "Fascist' SOCIALIST America waging war - its Fascist-Rightist America winning the war and COMMUNIST SOCIALIST AMERIKA, i.e. weak Amerikan SSR/USR/USSA under OWG, NOT BEING THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THE WOT AND AMER'S FIGHT FOR "RIGHTEOUS" EMPIRE IN RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION AFTER 9-11. The DemoLefties are waiting for American Hiroshima(s) and Anti-American Global=Geopol "BRINKMANSHIP" to "justify" Americans losing control of their own Govt., their own Country, and to PC wipe out Bush, wipe out the GOP, and wipe out any anti-Clinton, anti-Left fractions of the NPE. Rest assured the Commie AIrborne will be here in America only to "help" America and America's "surviving leadership" whom hath suffered greatly under Male Brute, warmongering GOP-Rightism whom brought America to the brink of nuclear war and national destruction. ONLY A MOTHER(S) AND OWG CAN "SAVE" ALL MEN AND MALE BRUTE AMERICANS FROM THEMSELVES
[theme from DRAGNET/WHITE RABBIT] - what more proof does anyone need of INCOMPETENT AMERICA, INCOMPETENT AMERICANISM, and INCOMPETENT AMER FASCISM/FASCIST SOCIALISM than VPOTUS "Dickie's Got a Gun... Whole World come Undone" CHENEY shooting his family's own friend ala QUAIL/
TWEETIE-GATE, by "accident"??? The world must be saved from America, so that Butterflies, Quails, and Bad Ole'Puddy Tats, etc, ... and nay the SUN ITSELF, might live.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2006 22:11 Comments || Top||

#14  The Left > America, "Fascist" Amerika, Dubya, and Cheney, etal. to come = LIKE AEROSMITH'S SONG "GOTTA TAKE 'EM DOWN EASY". Russia-China contain or restrain America's foreign policies -milactions overseas; while domestically the Dems induce Washington to take over everything and anything, i.e. to Subsidize, Martialize, Militarize, Bureaucratize, Centralize, Welfarize, Statutize/Legalize, Nationalize................
......@Socialize and Stalinize unto infinitum.
The Left > FASCISM = DE-REGULATED COMMUNISM, COMMUNIST CAPITALISM, etal.SOCIALISM.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2006 22:20 Comments || Top||

#15  Wow joe... i am in AWE!

Did you type #13 all on one breath?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/24/2006 22:49 Comments || Top||

#16  Whew! Joseph, dear, take a deep breath -- you're running out of oxygen, there! ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 22:51 Comments || Top||

#17  what makes you think Joe breathes oxygen?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 23:42 Comments || Top||

#18  Lol!
Posted by: .com || 02/24/2006 23:44 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
FBI Probes Chicago Car Crash After Suspicious Items Found
This just might turn out to be terrorism-related, so I'm posting it. It got big play in the Chicago tube and papers.
(CBS) CHICAGO A stunning discovery inside a car involved in a deadly crash on the Stevenson Expressway Wednesday has sparked a federal investigation. Two people were killed in the crash involving a number of cars and semi trucks.

CBS Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports one of the people killed was carrying several suspicious items. State police investigators along with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force are looking into why a check written for a large sum of money, along with a sizeable amount of cash and multiple IDs, were found in a 1999 Kia Sportage involved in the accident, District Chicago Master Sgt. S. Nowak said.

There were at seven vehicles, including two semis, involved in the 1 p.m. crash that had the southbound Stevenson shutdown for more than six hours Wednesday and left two people dead. The fatal victims were identified as Dorothy L. Walsh, 76, of 4001 S. Maplewood Ave., and Lafi Nofal, 45, of 10240 S. 86th Court in Palos Hills, who was a passenger of the Sportage, according to Nowak.

"I heard a loud noise, looked in my mirror, saw a semi jackknife. Two seconds later, a Jeep rear ends me,” Omar Majdobah said. "It was mayhem. Four or five cars, two nearly totaled, two semis hugging each other."

In addition to the fatalities, at least four other people were injured in the crash, including the driver of the Sportage, Amjad J. Husein, who was taken to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn with serious injuries, Nowak said.

One of the truck drivers, Benton D. Chapman, of Oklahoma, was later cited with driving too fast for conditions and for equipment violations, according to Nowak. Chapman was also taken to MacNeal where he was likely treated and released, the master sergeant said.

But it is what authorities found in the wreckage, specifically in the car of the 45-year-old man who died in the crash, that has drawn top-level investigators. Sources originally told CBS 2 he was carrying a $1 million check, plus other checks, a large amount of cash and nearly a dozen unused credit cards. That’s prompted calling out members of the elite FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.

The FBI is now saying several "financial instruments" were found in the car. A spokesman has confirmed "...we are at the scene assisting the Illinois State Police investigating things that came up in the accident."

Sources caution against reading too much into the presence of the terrorist task force, which has a number of financial crimes specialists. They hint that the investigation could just as likely lead to a major counterfeiting operation as it could terrorism or terrorist financing.
And there you have it.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 14:55 || Comments || Link || [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What's a "financial instrument"? Is that a cop code word for stolen credit cards or something?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 02/24/2006 15:21 Comments || Top||

#2  The article mentions a $1 million check, plus other checks and a multitude of virgin credit cards. Also a number of IDs. Doesn't sound like the deceased Lafi Nofal and the injured Amjad J. Husein were exactly model citizens.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 15:46 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm thinking they either owned a cellphone store or a local variety store that sold about 20 million bucks of cigarettes a year...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2006 15:51 Comments || Top||

#4  What's a "financial instrument"?

It's usually used to mean stocks, bonds or similar. It could be a bearer bond. A bond that can be cashed without proof of ownership.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/24/2006 16:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Hope they got a few good armed guards watching the driver in the hospital. The obvious reason that the dead tell no tales.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O' Doom || 02/24/2006 16:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Its Chicago. Why is this particularly suspicious?

It's not like someone with concrete shoes in the trunk or several boxes of votes from the last election.
Posted by: Clolugum Phomogum8353 || 02/24/2006 16:43 Comments || Top||

#7  sounds like typical Esquimeaux ops
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 17:25 Comments || Top||


More on the arrested marines
The arrests of several Marines charged with stealing and reselling ballistic vests and other military items destined for U.S. troops in Iraq were isolated incidents in a system that works to ensure full accountability of all controlled equipment, a Marine Corps spokesman told American Forces Press Service today.

Abuses of this system won't be tolerated and the violators will be held fully accountable, Maj. Doug Powell, a Headquarters Marine Corps spokesman, said.

The Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that nine people, including several Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., were arrested following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

Several additional suspects in the investigation are believed to be serving in Iraq, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement release. Some of the ballistics vests, stolen from Camp Pendleton, were later resold on the Internet and illegally exported to customs agents posing as international arms merchants, the release said.

Yesterday's announcement followed the sentencing of Erika Jardine, a Vista, Calif., resident, to six months in jail followed by three years of supervised release, a community service obligation and a $6,500 fine. Officials said she sold and illegally exported 18 stolen military ballistic vests to undercover customs agents.

Information developed through the Jardine case led agents to several Marines at Camp Pendleton who allegedly sold her small-arms protective inserts, or SAPI plates, and outer tactical vests, officials reported. ICE and DoD investigators began working with the North County Regional Gang Task Force in San Diego to target civilians and military members who possessed or were distributing stolen government property, they said.

The Camp Pendleton investigation, lead by NCIS, focused on identifying the amount and type of U.S. military gear being stolen. The goal was to disrupt the operations as quickly as possible to reduce the thefts' impact on the operational readiness of Marines preparing for overseas deployments, officials said.

Ultimately, the investigation identified 12 Marine suspects as well as several civilians, officials said. More arrests are expected as the investigation continues, officials said.

The Marines involved will be held fully accountable for the actions, Powell said. "This type of activity will not be tolerated," he said.

The theft or resale of military-issued items is not only a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but also a breach of the Marine Corps ethos, officials said.

The investigation also resulted in the recovery or purchase of more than $63,000 in equipment. It included 104 SAPI plates, worth $500 each; 14 outer tactical vests, worth $577 each; seven Kevlar helmets; three fragmentation vests; 74 M16 magazines; two gas masks; and more than 100,000 Iraqi dinars, officials reported.

The Marine Corps works to ensure accountability of military equipment through a system that includes bar coding of equipment, quarterly inventories and periodic field audits by the inspectors general, Powell said.

While acknowledging the gravity of the case, Powell said the thefts had no impact on Marine Corps readiness. The thefts identified represent "a fraction of 1 percent" of all protective equipment the Marine Corps has fielded, he noted. So far, the Marine Corps has sent more than 240,000 SAPI plates and more than 190,000 outer tactical vests to the field, he said.

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary Julie Myers said the case flies in the face of the effort to ensure deployed U.S. troops have all the protections they need while serving overseas. "At a time when our troops in Iraq need all the body armor they can get, it is extremely troubling to see bulletproof vests destined for those troops being stolen from our military bases at home for resale to the public," she said. "It is even more troubling that individuals would try to sell these items for profit to people they believed were international arms dealers."

Ed Bruice, spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said the case "goes straight to the heart of force protection."

"We will continue to partner with ICE and other agencies around the world to safeguard our troops, especially those on the front lines who are depending on gear such as these vests to save their lives," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 01:10 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  too bad we cannot bring back the firing squad....seriously, what a bunch of selfish assholes - I hope they receive general court martials across the board and hard time in Kansas. I imagine one of these clowns will roll over on the others and get a plea down.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 02/24/2006 3:10 Comments || Top||

#2  According to an article I posted yesterday, the civilian woman who was selling the stuff on Ebay has been very helpful in building cases against the others -- as well she should, since Erika Jardine was the one who went looking for suppliers on the base to begin with.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 6:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Jardine got a slap on the wrist compared to the punishment she originally faced: .... a maximum possible sentence of 20 years imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, 3 years of supervised release and a $200 special assessment.
Posted by: GK || 02/24/2006 9:38 Comments || Top||

#4  In the past week or so the MSM has been bleating on about the (Marine or soldier, don't remember which) who was mustering out of the military and was required to pay for the body armor his buddies had to cut off him when his humvee got boomed.

This story might provide some answers as to why.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 9:43 Comments || Top||

#5  The emphasis on punishment seems limited to the marines (not fit to use a capital 'M'), and while I find it beyond disgusting behaviour, what is going to happen the the civilians? Are they civil service or contractors? They should be receiving the same sort of treatment as the uniformed member ( less any "Special High Intensity Training" that Real Marines provide to these sh!tbags. I do not want to see the civvies let off just because they are civvies. send all of them to Kansas.
Posted by: USN, ret. || 02/24/2006 14:40 Comments || Top||

#6  I do not want to see the civvies let off just because they are civvies.

ditto
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 14:48 Comments || Top||

#7  I would be surprised to see that happen unless they dropped the dime on the rest of the gang. It will likely take them longer to see the slammer because things like this just work slower in civilian coruts. One area where the military is more efficient.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 14:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh for the good old days, prior to theUCMJ,when these shitbirds would dealt with under the "rocks and shoals" system and placed in a "red-line brig." Disgrace.
Posted by: Sgt. D.T. || 02/24/2006 15:20 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Suicide squad formed to kill Danish cartoonist
A cleric who offered $1 million and a car for the death of those cartoonists who drew blasphemous caricatures said yesterday that suicide bombers had volunteered to “kill the blasphemers”.

Yousaf Qureshi, the prayer leader at the 300-year-old Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, announced the reward on Friday. “The blasphemers will not live and there are mujahedin who visited me to assure that such people will not be allowed to live for their unpardonable act,” the cleric told a news conference. “Mujahedin suicide bombers have contacted us and they are ready for this mission. They are college and university students.”

Qureshi is considered close to the Jamaat-i-Islami party, which is at the forefront of the ongoing campaign against the cartoons in Pakistan.

The imam also hit back at criticism from both Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu that rewards for murder were forbidden by the Holy Quran. “The OIC secretary-general is ignorant of Islamic teachings,” he said.

He said the Danish foreign minister “lost sense” after he realised the strength of the Muslim world’s reaction to the cartoons.

The only solution to the crisis was the trial of the blasphemers under Islamic laws, Qureshi said. “Nothing else is accepted than capital punishment under Islamic laws to the cartoonists,” he said.
"Nope, nope, can't do nuttin' else, religion of peace demands death, nope."
Our correspondent adds from Peshawar: Maulana Qureshi, defending his decision regarding reward for killing of the cartoonist, said Muslims have the right to do so as the act was initiated by the United States and its allies. “The US and its allies are not only involved in aggression against the Muslim countries but they are also announcing rewards against Muslim leaders,” the prayer leader added.

Qureshi said the government is unable to denounce the plots against the Muslim as the rulers are more interested in power than their religious obligations. However, he praised the NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani for leading a peaceful demonstration. But he was harsh about the silent role of the chief ministers of the other three provinces.

He urged the government to demand of the Danish government to extradite the cartoonist.
Which will never happen, thus providing Qureshi, Qazi and the rest with a convenient excuse to whip up the masses ...
Qureshi condemned the government, for what he called, demolishing the houses and killing of innocent people just to please the Western world. "Mujahideen are being bombed and targeted in Pakistan.”

The imam demanded of the government to ask all the foreign countries to withdraw their troops from Pakistan at the earliest.
There are foreign troops in Pakland?
He demanded an end to the military operation in the tribal belt.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 01:11 || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A cleric who offered $1 million and a car

How the fu*k are they going to drive a car when they're in a million pieces?
Posted by: Howard UK || 02/24/2006 4:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Yousaf Qureshi, the prayer leader at the 300-year-old Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, announced the reward on Friday

When Life imitates Rantburg...
YJRCFMTSU
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 02/24/2006 4:59 Comments || Top||

#3  What a clever idea: announce that anyone coming to Scandanavia from Pakistan is likely to be a murderer. How many will be able to illegally immigrate now, d'you suppose?
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 6:39 Comments || Top||

#4  How many will be able to illegally immigrate now, d'you suppose?

You really think the threat will have any effect on immigration policies?

Remember that 9/11 had no effect on the American policy of letting Saudi travel agents approve visas for visiting the US.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/24/2006 7:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Howard UK, well, apparently paradise is running out of virgins, so they gotta come up with something to reward the stupid, right? ;)
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 02/24/2006 8:08 Comments || Top||

#6  Why not a car with one virgin in the back seat, and save the million bucks ?
Posted by: wxjames || 02/24/2006 10:31 Comments || Top||

#7  That puts a crimp in my plan to earn 1000000$.
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 11:01 Comments || Top||

#8  how about 1 car with a driver and 72 virgins,, oh never mind
Posted by: mhw || 02/24/2006 12:06 Comments || Top||

#9  mhw---maybe a driver and bus with 72 virginians. I think that we have driven this logic over the cliff and it's time to be done with it.....next story, please.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/24/2006 12:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Yousaf Qureshi
Posted by: I. B. DePrimate || 02/24/2006 13:09 Comments || Top||

#11  1 car and 72 virgin wimmin drivers. Yeehaw!
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 13:13 Comments || Top||

#12  LOL IBDP!!
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 02/24/2006 14:04 Comments || Top||

#13  Robert, those Saudis came here legally. My question is about those who don't. I can see all Pakistanis, in fact all those with darker skins, being stopped at various Scandinavian borders because of the perceived risk that they might be potential murderers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 15:08 Comments || Top||

#14  Yousaf Qureshi, the prayer leader at the 300-year-old Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, announced the reward on Friday.

The harming or death of even a single cartoonist should result in the demolition of Mohabat Khan mosque. Preferrably during peak capacity prayer hour.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 16:10 Comments || Top||

#15  The best thing about all this cartoon crap is that even the Hate America First liberal flag burners have been forced to see the true face of pIslam.
Posted by: Spavitle Angease1620 || 02/24/2006 19:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Blasphemy! Destroying the Moonbat Khan mosque would put the homeless mujahedin back on the street! (give the money and car to good ole' mom and it's ok) :)
Posted by: Inspector Clueso || 02/24/2006 19:15 Comments || Top||


Insurgents blow up gas pipelines in Balochistan
I've put this story on my F9 key.
QUETTA: Suspected tribal rebels blew up two pipelines supplying gas to the national grid Thursday in the latest violence to hit the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, officials said. One blast hit a pipeline in the Pesh Bogi area, near the town of Dera Bugti where tribesmen and security forces are locked in a two-month-old standoff, local administration official Abdul Samad Lasi told AFP. The other blast knocked out a 15-inch gas pipeline from Pirkoh, while pipelines at Wells No 33 and 37 were slightly damaged by firing. However, with the Pirkoh Gas Plant shut down, only a small amount of gas was released. Lasi said the insurgents also fired some 20 rockets at paramilitary troops who have been deployed in the area to protect government installations. "They targeted eight check posts, bunkers and a paramilitary base but luckily no one was injured," Lasi said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  These balochis: harming infrastructure instead of blowing up civilians; are they really Muslim?
Posted by: gromgoru || 02/24/2006 11:47 Comments || Top||


Army operations suspended in North Waziristan
Military operations against militants in North Waziristan were suspended and tribesmen given charge to flush out foreign terrorists, NWFP Governor Khalil-ur-Rehman told a Jirga. The governor, however, set no timeframe for tribal elders to purge North Waziristan of foreign militants.
Comes as a surprise, huh?
“The government has suspended operations in North Waziristan because it believes that the tribesmen are able to restore peace and normalcy through their own customs and traditions,” Rehman told Utmanzai Wazir and Daur tribes in Miranshah, regional headquarters of North Waziristan. Khalil’s visit to Miranshah follows last month disturbing images when local Taliban “mutilated” corpses after killing who they said were bandits. The announcement also comes days after Afghanistan delivered Pakistan a list of wanted Taliban leaders for their handover to Kabul. “It doesn’t mean that the government has backed out of its earlier determination rather we want to show that the tribesmen can improve the situation themselves,” the governor told the Jirga elders.
I thought they'd already shown they either can't or won't?... Oh. Wait. I understand. That was in South Wazoo. Sorry for the mistake.
“However, if there is no improvement (in the ground situation), the (military) operations would be resumed with full vigor and severity” Governor Rehman warned the tribesmen. “The tribesmen should realize the gravity of situation and discharge their responsibilities to evade further operations.”
I'm sure they will do just as they always have.
The governor said the government was taking action against the elements that were “our foes as well as enemies of the entire world and humanity. If we do not fix them up, others are ready to follow them till total elimination.”
"Eventually the Americans will lose patience and do it for us. We'll bitch, of course, and probably ally with the Chinese."
Rehman lauded the tribesmen for their patriotic sentiments and loyalty to the country saying, “Now again the time has come that the tribesmen should demonstrate the same spirit to uphold the dignity and prestige of the country.”
The same spirit as what?
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Groundhog Day?

Who knew?
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 0:37 Comments || Top||


Sangla Hill case: Yousaf Masih, 88 Muslims acquitted
LAHORE: The Lahore Anti Terrorist Court on Thursday acquitted Yousaf Masih, of alleged blasphemy in Sangla Hill, and 88 people of burning churches because of lack of evidence.
Joe's acquitted, but he's toast.
Justice Muqarab Khan gave the judgment on Wednesday and ordered the release of all accused. Masih was acquitted after the accuser told the court that Yousaf was not the man who burnt a Quran Mahal. Also, missionary representatives submitted that the arrested 88 Muslims were not those who set the churches and other missionary properties on fire.
"Ummm... No, yer honor! I wudn't them. It wuz... ummm... another 88 guys."
On February 18, the court ordered the release of 64 men, charged in the Sangla Hill Church case. The court ordered the men be released on bail bonds of Rs 50,000 each. The court also ordered the release of 11 under-aged children.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't suppose the neighboring mosques will take up a collection to rebuild the churches, being as Islam is such a peaceful and loving religion?
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2006 6:41 Comments || Top||


MMA anti-cartoon protests today
The MMA has called for nationwide protests today against the publication of caricatures of Prophet (peace be upon him). The protestors will also condemn heavy-handed police tactics at previous anti-cartoon rallies, attacks on churches in Pakistan and the destruction of a holy Muslim shrine in Samarra, Iraq. Clerics will in their Friday sermons condemn the caricatures. Later demonstrations will be held outside the main mosques of the city. Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad will address traders at Jamia Mosque Allama Elahi Buksh near Shah Alam Chowk at 4.30pm. The Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis Pakistan will hold a protest on Lawrence Road, the Jamaatud Dawa near Chauburji Chowk, while Markazi-Ahl-e-Sunnat will organise a conference at Jamia Ghaus-ul-Qamar-ul-Islam, Cantt.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:


Indian editor arrested for publishing caricatures
The editor of an Indian magazine has been arrested for publishing the offensive caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PTUI PBUH) that had angered Muslims worldwide, the police said on Thursday. Alok Tomar, editor of Hindi magazine Senior India, was charged with hurting the religious sentiments of a community and causing harm to national integration, media reports said.
That's the sort of laws they want for Europe and the U.S., of course...
Deputy police commissioner Praveer Ranjan confirmed Tomar's arrest but gave no further details. Police said they had seized all copies of the magazine, which is published fortnightly in New Delhi. Senior India's publisher and other staff were not available for comment.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


International-UN-NGOs
UN may have to solve cartoon row, says Danish PM
A worldwide row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) may have to be solved through the United Nations, said Danish Prime Minster Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday. "I would not rule out the idea that, at the end of the day, the solution to the crisis will be found at the UN," Rasmussen told reporters after a meeting of parliament's foreign policy committee.
I think I would. Matter of fact, the idea never even occurred to me.
He said he still favoured a Europe-led solution to the crisis, noting that the crisis between Denmark and the Muslim countries had evolved into a matter for the European Union.
Which is in fact loads more effective than the UN, just as a tortoise is faster than a slug.
EU foreign ministers were likely to discuss the matter on Monday, he added, calling European cooperation in the case "precious".
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yea, the UN is the root of all that's good and right. You betcha
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 0:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Is Rasmussen known for his humour? European foreign ministers are certainly precious.
Posted by: Jake-the-Peg || 02/24/2006 7:46 Comments || Top||

#3  EU foreign ministers were likely to discuss the matter on Monday, he added, calling European cooperation in the case "precious".

Ya know, when I refer to the actions of adults as "precious", it's usually meant sarcastically.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/24/2006 7:58 Comments || Top||

#4  If i wuz the head of a small country, id try to position this as something involving a larger group I belong to, instead of just my country.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 02/24/2006 10:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Me, too, LH. Just not sure the UN can fill those shoes. If I had just one word to describe the UN, what would it be? Ethicless? Impotent? Catatonic?

Nah, cuckoo seems to fit best...
Posted by: Jules || 02/24/2006 10:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe the UN can form a joint commitee with the Arab League and figure out...where they're gonna eat?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2006 11:12 Comments || Top||

#7  Which is in fact loads more effective than the UN, just as a tortoise is faster than a slug.

ROFLMAO! Fred, that is a classic in the RB vernacular. Into the files it goes! If we look at this story, we realize the Europe has a long way to go before it will stand up to Islam for its own rights and heritage.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/24/2006 12:19 Comments || Top||

#8  I, for one, think that this is a splendid idea. Imagine what perfect reciprocity the Arab world would experience. Consider the endless letters of reprimand and innumerable stern warnings issuing forth from First Avenue and 46th Street. It would be a perfect mirror of the same dynamic and steely resolve shown by the UN towards condemning Arab anti-Semitism. Reaching a final position and path of action with respect to the Danish cartoons could take years, maybe even decades! By all means, let the UN resolve this nettlesome and vital issue.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#9  Turn it over to the 'World Court'. How many years has Slobodan Milosevic been in the docket?
Posted by: Clolugum Phomogum8353 || 02/24/2006 12:57 Comments || Top||

#10 
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 15:41 Comments || Top||

#11  Answer to the problem. Tell the diaperheads to shut the fu@k up. When they don't, nuke mecca, twice for good measure.
Posted by: Whuque Ulaviling7008 || 02/24/2006 19:08 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Fierce streetfighting in Baghdad Reported by Zayed at "Healing Iraq"
I don't know if you all know this guy - hes been posting for several years and is for the most objective
Friday, February 24, 2006
# posted by Zeyad : 2/24/2006 11:00:00 PM
Fierce streetfighting at my doorstep for the last 3 hours. Rumor in the neighbourhood is that men in black are trying to enter the area. Some armed kids defending the local mosque three blocks away are splattering bullets at everything that moves, and someone in the street was shouting for people to prepare for defending themselves.

There's supposed to be a curfew, but it doesn't look like it. My net connection is erratic, so I'll try to update again if possible. The news from other areas in Baghdad are horrible. I don't think it's being reported anywhere.


My father and uncle are agitatedly walking back and forth in the hallway, asking me what we should do if the mob or Interior ministry forces try to attack us in our homes? I have no answer for them.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/24/2006 15:44 || Comments || Link || [336116 views] Top|| File under:

#1  http://www.foxnews.com/video2/bagCam.html

This a Baghdad webcam but it isnt working for me
Posted by: Omavith Gleatle8151 || 02/24/2006 16:31 Comments || Top||

#2  This is what ethnic cleansing looks like up close.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/24/2006 17:42 Comments || Top||

#3  This is what lack of security looks like up close.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/24/2006 21:50 Comments || Top||

#4  This is what the religion of peace looks like up close. And they want to force the rest of the world to convert...go figure.
Posted by: Sneang Clurt9946 || 02/24/2006 22:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Who says Arabs are born blood thirsty killers? I think I read that in Britannica.
Posted by: Sneang Clurt9946 || 02/24/2006 22:15 Comments || Top||

#6  it's called:
"we've had enough"
signed, The Shia
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 22:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes the ROP at it's best. I guess the ISALM assumption is even if the world gets "converted" you still have to choose a side. Will it be Sunni or Shiite?

Sort of like matter antimatter. complete destruction.
Posted by: Bill Nelson || 02/24/2006 22:44 Comments || Top||


A Baghdaddy baddy bites the dust
Snip, duplicate. Love the title!
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/24/2006 09:38 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Goodie gum drops.
Posted by: wxjames || 02/24/2006 10:21 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope he had a painful and slooo death
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 10:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Dibs on the smoking turban:)
Posted by: Hyper || 02/24/2006 11:37 Comments || Top||

#4 
As Allan willed it
Posted by: macofromoc || 02/24/2006 13:39 Comments || Top||


Al Qaeda Leader Killed in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Al Qaeda in Iraq's leader in northern Baghdad was killed in a raid Friday, the U.S. military said. The military identified Abu Asma, also known as Abu Anas and Akram Mahmud al-Mushhadani, as an explosives expert with close ties to important car bomb manufacturers in Baghdad.
Buh-bye, Abu Anus. Only your fleas will mourn you.
He died in a northern Baghdad raid conducted by coalition forces with the help of Iraqi police, a military statement said. "Intelligence reports indicated Abu Asma was in possession of and expected to use suicide vests against the Iraqi people and security forces," the statement said. "He was directly responsible for many deaths and injuries of coalition and Iraqi security forces." No further details were provided.
They're still scraping Abu's details off the pavement.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2006 09:37 || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yippee! Should we all dance in the street, you know, like they do? LOL. Scum of the earth, one more down...
Posted by: Rosemary || 02/24/2006 10:59 Comments || Top||

#2  write on his grave,

because he is gone, people will live
Posted by: 2b || 02/24/2006 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  rest in pieces b*tch.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 02/24/2006 11:37 Comments || Top||


Shrine attack deals blow to anti-US unity
Asia Times column
Spring is only a month away, and preparations for Nauroz (the Persian new year) are well under way. In Iran this year, however, Nauroz was due to come with a deadly dimension: the start of a new phase of a broad-based anti-US resistance movement stretching from Afghanistan to Jerusalem.

Wednesday's attack on a revered shrine in Iraq could change all this.

The presence in Iran of the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as members of the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, is well known, as is the presence of other controversial figures related to the "war on terror", such as al-Qaeda members. Security contacts have told Asia Times Online that several al-Qaeda members have been moved from detention centers to safe houses run by Iranian intelligence near Tehran.

The aim of these people in Iran is to establish a chain of anti-US resistance groups that will take the offensive before the West makes its expected move against Tehran.

Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program, which the US and others say is geared towards developing nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to present a final report to the Security Council next month, after which the council will consider imposing sanctions against Tehran. Many believe that the US is planning preemptive military action against Iran.

With Wednesday's attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra in Iraq, home to a revered Shi'ite shrine, the dynamics have changed overnight. Armed men detonated explosives inside the mosque, blowing off the domed roof of the building. Iraqi leaders are trying to contain the angry reaction of Shi'ites, amid rising fears that the country is on the brink of civil war. At least 20 Sunnis have been killed already in retaliatory attacks, and nearly 30 Sunni mosques have been attacked across the country.

The potentially bloody polarization in the Shi'ite-Sunni world now threatens to unravel the links that have been established between Shi'ite-dominated Iran and radical Sunni groups from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Two of the 12 Shi'ite imams - Imam Ali al-Hadi, who died in AD 868, and his son, Imam Hasan al-Askari, who died in 874 - are buried at the mosque. The complex also contains the shrine of the 12th imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, who is said to have gone into hiding through a cellar in the complex in 878, and is expected to return on Judgment Day.

Nevertheless, the sanctity of the tombs is of equal importance to Sunnis. Like the tombs of the Prophet Mohammed, Imam Ali and Imam Hussain, no self-respecting Muslim, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, would ever think of attacking such a place.

Further, the custodians of the shrine in Samarra have for many centuries been the descendants of Imam Naqi, called Naqvis, and they believe in Sunni Islam, as does the vast majority of the population of Samarra.

The present custodian is Syed Riyadh al-Kilidar, whom this correspondent met before the US attacked Iraq. Riyadh was arrested by US troops after Iraq was invaded, but released after brief detention.

The same is true of the Mosa Kazim Shrine in Baghdad, where the custodians have for many centuries been descendents of Imam Mosa Kazim. They are called Mosavis, and are Sunni Muslim. The previous custodian was Sayed Sabah bin Ibrahim al-Mosavi, whom this correspondent also met before the US invasion. He was a member of the Iraqi parliament during Saddam Hussein's era. After the US invasion he moved to Pakistan. Now the shrine is managed by Najaf Ashraf (al-Hoza).

Both the Ansar al-Sunnah Army and the Mujahideen Shura Council - an alliance that includes Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda-affiliated group - are suspected of perpetrating the attack. Both groups have insurgents operating in Samarra, and have claimed responsibility for attacks against US and Iraqi forces there in recent weeks. No group has claimed responsibility for the Samarra attack.

Given that the sensibilities of both Shi'ites and Sunnis have been violated by the attack, the foreign factor in the Iraqi resistance could be curtailed.

At the same time, escalating sectarian strife will hamper the national resistance movement in cities such as Basra in the south and Baghdad, which have strong Shi'ite populations. People in these areas could quickly turn against what is perceived as a largely Sunni-led resistance, with a strong al-Qaeda link.

Leaders have scrambled to limit the damage. Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani immediately called for seven days of mourning following the attack, and urged Shi'ites to take to the streets in peaceful demonstrations. The cleric, who rarely appears in public, could be seen on Iraqi state television in a meeting with other leading ayatollahs.

Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was in Lebanon as part of a regional tour, headed back to Iraq to join his supporters, who were already out in full force. Speaking to al-Jazeera television on Wednesday, Muqtada blamed all parties in the ongoing Iraq conflict for the attack. "It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam al-Hadi ... but rather the occupation; the Takfiris [those who accuse other Muslims of being infidels], al-Nawasib [a derogatory reference to those who declare hostilities against others] ... and the Ba'athists," he said. "We should not attack Sunni mosques. I ordered the [Imam] al-Mehdi Army to protect the Shi'ite and Sunni shrines and to show a high sense of responsibility, something they actually did."

The violence comes at a time that Iraqi leaders are trying to form a new coalition government that will bring Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds together. This process, like the resistance, is now also in jeopardy, as calls for separate, quasi-independent regions are bound to intensify.

The anti-US resistance movement had wanted to use Shi'ite Iran as the final base to link the resistance groups of this whole region. If the current volatile situation results in Shi'ites sitting on one side, and Sunnis and al-Qaeda-linked groups on the other, this is unlikely to happen.

Instead, Iraq could become a new battlefield, not only against US-led forces, but between different factions. Iran, meanwhile, would be left to deal with the West on its own.
We'll see on all this ....
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 08:12 || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Muqty is talking pro-Sunni, but i heard somewhere in the MSM that its mainly his guys who are doing the reprisals. Im not sure whats really going with him.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 02/24/2006 10:31 Comments || Top||

#2  He's taking out competitors and he really doesn't cre what brand they are.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/24/2006 10:46 Comments || Top||

#3  "The aim of these people in Iran is to establish a chain of anti-US resistance groups that will take the offensive before the West makes its expected move against Tehran."

The invasion of Iraq in 2002 was described (I believe) by Victor Davis Hanson as the longest telegraphed punch in the history of warfare, giving Saddam all kinds of time to prepare, misdirect, and stash whatever he wished.

Too bad the lesson wasn't learned while dealing with Iran.
Posted by: Hyper || 02/24/2006 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  The bombing of the shrine was terrible, but its def. going to completely bacfire on al qaeda. They are unfortunately brutal but fortunately stupid. When your group is too radical for al-sadr thats saying something. I think in the end this attack is going to unite the sunnis and shites against the terrorists. BTW You would never ever read an article like this from the associated press.
Posted by: bgrebel || 02/24/2006 14:13 Comments || Top||

#5  FWIW, John Batchelor (radio guy who posts at spectator.org) says his sources indicate Iran was involved.

I am skeptical of his sources, and would welcome comments. His thesis is that Iran is not waiting for us to attack but is instead trying to turn Iraq into chaos to prevent us from doing anything there.

Among his tidbits of evidence is that the explosives were placed so as not to harm the tombs in the shrine, just the dome. Not sure if this is checkable here.
Posted by: JAB || 02/24/2006 14:53 Comments || Top||

#6  I don't believe this at all....

Try this instead...

1) Zarq is the main suspect
2) Zark has ties support from Iran
3) The main retaliation, per Iraqi blogger Zayed seems to be pushed by Mucky Sadr
4) Mucky is in Iran's pocket.

I think it possible, verging on probable, that the blast is a strategic initiative by Iran to cause enough civil war in Iraq to fracture it allowing them to pick up the Shiite portion around Basra, which is oil-rich and contains the best access to the sea.
Posted by: Mercutio || 02/24/2006 15:07 Comments || Top||

#7  "I ordered the [Imam] al-Mehdi Army to protect the Shi'ite and Sunni shrines and to show a high sense of responsibility, something they actually did."

BS. His "black clad al-Mehdi Army is up to it's hips in the current attacks on Sunni practitioners.
Posted by: Mahou Sensei Negi-bozu || 02/24/2006 17:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Tomb of the Prophet? I thought he was assumed bodily into heaven or something like that. Isn't that the whole and sum of why Jerusalem is important to Muslims?
Posted by: Mitch H. || 02/24/2006 17:49 Comments || Top||

#9  ...longest telegraphed punch in the history of warfare, giving Saddam all kinds of time to prepare, misdirect, and stash whatever he wished.

Too bad the lesson wasn't learned while dealing with Iran.


While I wish we could be more covert, with today's instant communications and the need for political backing for any such move, it's virtually impossible not to telegraph our punches.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 02/24/2006 17:53 Comments || Top||


Iraq implements curfew to stem violence
One phenomenon that I noted to Bill Roggio the other day is that these reprisal attacks aren't targeting US troops - the 7 soldiers who were killed yesterday all died as the result of IED attacks in traditional insurgent areas.
Iraq's government put Baghdad under curfew on Friday in a bid to stop sectarian violence among crowds from rival mosques on the Muslim day of prayer, setting a critical test for its authority and its U.S.-trained forces.

After two days of reprisal attacks on minority Sunni mosques following Wednesday's suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine, the United States and United Nations are backing efforts to avert a slide toward all-out civil war that could wreck U.S. hopes of withdrawing troops and inflame the entire Middle East.

U.S. President George W. Bush called for calm and the U.N. envoy invited all parties to talks on a way out of the gravest crisis Iraq has faced since the U.S. invasion three years ago. Sunni political leaders pulled out of negotiations on forming a government from groups elected in a ballot in December.

Shi'ite Iran maintained its fiery rhetoric against the U.S. role in its neighbour; some suspect Tehran could try to divert U.S. pressure on it by fuelling trouble in Iraq, where Washington hopes a friendly democracy would transform the oil-rich region.

Senior Iraqi officials said leading clerics, including the revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, were making strenuous efforts to rein in Shi'ite militants -- but one said privately he feared even Sistani might be unable to control some gunmen, as evidenced by the dozens of attacks on Sunni mosques so far.

U.S. forces, mistrusted on both sides and whose prospects for departure Bush has staked on forging a stable, national unity government, have adopted a low profile in the capital.

The largely untested Iraqi police and army will be in the front line of Shi'ite-led government attempts to stop previously expected protest marches on Friday over the bloodless but symbolic bombing of Samarra's Golden Mosque and revenge attacks that officials reckon have killed more than 130 people.

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in two attacks on Wednesday.

Residents reported fierce clashes in at least two areas in and around Baghdad overnight, both in areas where sectarian tensions are exacerbated by communities in close proximity.

Friday will be a test of the loyalties of Shi'ite militias nominally following the ruling Islamist parties, which have called for order, and of the loyalties of U.S.-trained troops and police, many of them drawn from those very militia groups.

Outspoken young Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the powerful, pro-Iranian SCIRI party joined calls for restraint. But their respective and rival militias, the Mehdi Army and Badr movement, have been out on the streets.

Competition for influence among these Shi'ite factions nominally united in the ruling Islamist Alliance may play a role in how events develop, analysts say.

"No one should move," one government source said of the curfew, which was announced on state television. "Police will detain anyone who goes out, even to go to prayers."

Extending an overnight shutdown, it will last until 4 p.m.

(1300 GMT), after midday prayers, in Baghdad and surrounding provinces where Sunnis and Shi'ites live side by side.

The 130,000 heavily armed Americans stand ready in the background to keep order; some see them as the only real force capable of stemming a full-scale assault by majority Shi'ites on Sunni neighbourhoods around the capital after years of restraint in the face of Sunni rebel attacks that have killed thousands since U.S. forces overthrew Sunni leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"The issue hangs on the next few days. Either the gates of hell open into a civil war or the Shi'ites will take more power," said Baghdad political science professor Hazim al-Naimi.

"Only the U.S. military is preventing war in some areas."

A senior official in the Shi'ite Alliance said: "The question is how long will the Shi'ite public keep on heeding Sistani and staying calm...Things could spin out of control and then nothing will stop Shi'ite anger if attacks continue."

Bush, keen for progress toward a troop withdrawal from Iraq before congressional elections in eight months, said: "I appreciate very much the leaders from all aspects of Iraqi society that have stood up and urged for there to be calm."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told Australian radio on Friday there was now no early prospect of coalition forces being withdrawn although "the signs were looking good" until the mosque attack.

Among Thursday's dead were 47 people, apparently both Sunnis and Shi'ites, whom gunmen dragged from vehicles after a demonstration to show cross-sectarian solidarity near Baghdad.

Many of the 27 million Iraqis stayed at home amid a security clampdown on the first of three days of national mourning.

"I stayed home," Nasser Ahmed, a Sunni shopkeeper, said in Baghdad. "I was expecting mass killings in the streets."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 00:49 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


150 killed in Iraqi violence
Iraqi authorities struggled to contain a convulsion of sectarian violence on Thursday in which more than 150 people died in massacres, armed clashes, suicide bombs and reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques.

A day after the destruction of the gold-domed mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia shrines, Sunni religious authorities said 128 Sunni mosques had been attacked and three clerics killed.

The fallout from the attack also hit home on the political front as Sunni leaders suspended participation in talks to form the new government and senior Sunni religious figures made unprecedented criticisms of their Shia counterparts for "encouraging protests".

The government also ordered a daytime curfew in Baghdad and three neighbouring provinces on Friday in response to the violence.

Shias, including members of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi army, took to the streets on Thursday vowing revenge for the attack on the shrine.

In the deadliest single incident, 47 people were dragged from their cars in the province of Diyala, north-east of Baghdad, and shot dead. Their bodies were dumped in a ditch. Officials said the gunmen, suspected of being Sunni insurgents, had planned to kill people returning from a demonstration against the bombing of the mosque. In Baquba, also north-east of Baghdad, at least 16 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a market.

Three Iraqi journalists were shot on the outskirts of Samarra after reporting on the bombing. Atwar Bahjat, a respected correspondent for al-Arabiya satellite channel, was killed with two colleagues from a local media company.

Al-Arabiya said Bahjat, who was born in Samarra to a Sunni father and a Shia mother, had been conducting interviews when two gunmen approached in a pickup truck. They shot in the air and shouted: "We want the correspondent." The gunmen then shot the three and fled, the station reported.

President Jalal Talabani's office said the killing was "a criminal and cowardly act" and praised Bahjat and her colleagues as professionals who "never stopped defending the truth". In Basra, police said Mehdi fighters had broken into a prison, removed 12 Sunni prisoners and shot them dead. Mahdi fighters also fought gun battles with Sunni insurgents in the town of Mahmudiya. In Shia strongholds in Baghdad, al-Sadr's gunmen roamed the streets. The radical Shia cleric, who cut short a visit to Lebanon, said: "If the authorities can't protect us then we will defend our holy places with our blood."

There were also indications that Sunni insurgents were fighting back. Four US soldiers were killed on patrol near Hawija, 240km north of Baghdad, and three others died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Balad, 80km north of Baghdad, according to the US military.

Talabani, gathered political leaders for a crisis meeting at his home in Baghdad. Some Sunnis boycotted in protest at what they said was the inadequate protection given to Sunni targets in the past two days. The leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc, announced that they were suspending their participation until Shia leaders apologised for anti-Sunni violence.

Sunnis accuse Shia parties of running death squads from the interior ministry, and demand that security be transferred into more neutral hands. This week both British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the United States ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, backed those calls. But a senior western diplomat in Baghdad said on Thursday night: "After [the] attack on the shrine, it is difficult to imagine that the Shia will relinquish control of anything."

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday's dawn attack on the mosque, which houses the graves of two ninth-century imams, but suspicion has fallen on Sunni militants such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The Mujahideen Council, a militant organisation that includes Zarqawi's groups, blamed the Iraqi government and Iran yesterday, and promised revenge for attacks on Sunnis.

International condemnation continued, with US President George Bush calling the bombing "an evil act" intended to create strife. "I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out," he said. "And we will continue to work with those voices of reason to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy."

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the bombing was the work of Zionists and the CIA.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 00:42 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll take Iranian proxies for a thousand, Alex.

Ask yourself who has the most to gain from a fractious Iraq.

Posted by: DanNY || 02/24/2006 6:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Today is the critical day, but I am 'pleasantly' surprised that there have been so 'few' killings so far. Given the magnitude of the instigation and the justified rage of a huge number of Iraqis, I think it is commentary on the fundamentally civilized nature of Iraqis that wholesale vengeance has NOT broken out.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/24/2006 9:08 Comments || Top||

#3  This whole episode is a lesson in the egomania of the state of Islam.
Flaming lunatics led by egocentric madmen shooting and slashing in all directions, Islam 2006.
Posted by: wxjames || 02/24/2006 10:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Form what I'm reading at other sources, it seems that things are cooling off, that religous leaders from both sides are calling for calm and that people are actually using the event to pull together rather than break apart.

This dome destruction could be a watershed event, just not the one that the MSM was hoping for.
Posted by: remoteman || 02/24/2006 12:34 Comments || Top||

#5  I really, really, really hope you're right Remoteman.
Posted by: 6 || 02/24/2006 18:06 Comments || Top||


Iraq cancels leave for all police, army personnel
BAGHDAD - Iraq has cancelled all police and army leave and extended curfew hours in Baghdad and other cities to help staunch sectarian violence, an interior ministry source said on Thursday. Security personnel have been placed on the highest alert, the official said. Curfew hours were extended indefinitely in Baghdad and will now run from 8 pm to 6 am (1700 to 0300 GMT), instead of 11 pm to 5 am.

The moves are in response to incidents around Iraq since the bombing of a major Shi’ite shrine in Samarra on Wednesday.

Iraqi police and army officials said on Thursday at least 40 bodies were found in one spot just south of Baghdad. It was not clear if the number included the 53 people already reported by police to have died in Baghdad since Wednesday’s bombing. At least 25 people have been killed in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

A bomb targeting an Iraqi army foot patrol killed 12 people and wounded 21 in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, an army source said.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:


130 dead in Iraq sectarian bloodshed
Gunmen have shot dead 130 people in two days of sectarian violence in Iraq after the bombing of a revered Shia shrine, prompting renewed political paralysis and warnings of civil war. The spiralling violence threatens to derail negotiations on setting up a government of national unity, with the main Sunni political party declaring a boycott of talks with the Shia-led government over the reprisal attacks. The main Sunni alliance, the National Concord Front, also boycotted an emergency meeting of national leaders held by President Jalal Talabani in a bid to restore calm.
If they boycotted that particular meeting, that means they don't want to restore calm. They think they're going to get concessions out of the violence, and they think they can stop it when they're ready.
"To put out the fire is a holy duty and will be achieved through national unity," Talabani told reporters after the meeting.
"National unity" isn't going to do it. Destroying the killers, and not innocent bystanders, will do it.
The surge in sectarian violence follows the bombing Wednesday morning of a Shia shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and reprisals against Sunni mosques nationwide. Eighty bullet-riddled corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the deputy director of the morgue, Doctor Kais Mohammed, told AFP. "I've only been able to carry out autopsies on 25 of them," he said, adding that all had been shot. Many of the bodies, which were dumped in Baghdad and its suburbs, could not immediately be identified, but they were widely believed to be those of Sunnis.
The question I have is which Sunnis? Are they the local hard boyz, rounded up and offed even though there's no evidence that they did what everybody knows they did, or are they the nearest guys with the right colored turban?
Another 47 bodies of men shot to death were discovered along with 10 burned out cars alongside a road near Nahrawan, southeast of Baghdad, police said. The corpses were found near a brick factory and it was not immediately known if the victims were workers from the factory.
My guess would be that they were, and that they weren't bad guyz. There's nothing wrong with killing people that need killing, but just picking people out and slaughtering them at random is stoopid. It's a waste of ammunition, and it makes the underlying problem worse.
One Sunni was also killed Thursday and two wounded in a drive by shooting outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, northeast of the capital, and a Sunni sheikh was shot dead in Hillah, south of Baghdad, police said.
My first guess would be that the drive-by killing targeted a bad guy — the murder rings are run from the mosques. My first guess on the sheikh would be Zark's guys, but he could also be another targeted killing. [Insufficient data! Bzdeep! Shutting down!]
Iraq has placed its security forces on high alert and cancelled all leave. The night curfew in Baghdad was brought forward from 11:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Wednesday. The upsurge in killings came after suspected al-Qaeda linked militants bombed the 1,000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, one of the countries' main Shia shrines, in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
If all those 130 corpses belonged to suspected al-Qaeda militants, then they'd be accomplishing something. If most of them are brick makers they're being stoopid. I'm guessing that there's at least some thought going into the carnage, since they dragged a dozen or so foreigners out of jug in Basra and killed them. But it's also providing the excuse for the guys who didn't throw Sammy out of office to strut around waving guns and looking ferocious.
Early Thursday police also reported finding the bodies of three Iraqi journalists working for Dubai-based Arabiya satellite television who were kidnapped near Samarra Wednesday evening while reporting on the shrine bombing. "The bodies of the presenter Atwar Bahjat, of cameraman Adnan Abdallah and of soundman Khaled Mohsen were found early this morning some 15km north of Samarra," police said.
That one sound like it's probably murder most foul...
In other violence, at least 12 people were killed in a powerful roadside bomb attack in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, of which eight were Iraqi army soldiers and four other civilians, police said, adding 20 others were wounded. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, renewed calls to his community to remain calm and forsake revenge for the bombing of the shrine.
That's working well, isn't it?
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "The main Sunni alliance, the National Concord Front, also boycotted an emergency meeting of national leaders held by President Jalal Talabani in a bid to restore calm.
If they boycotted that particular meeting, that means they don't want to restore calm. They think they're going to get concessions out of the violence, and they think they can stop it when they're ready. "

Mebbe. Or mebbe theyre afraid of losing support in their own community if they talk.

"Are they the local hard boyz, rounded up and offed even though there's no evidence that they did what everybody knows they did, or are they the nearest guys with the right colored turban? "

well thats the problem with having militias run around killing people with zero judicial procedure A. You will likely kill the nearest guys B. Even if you kill the right guys, the folks who mistrust you have every reason to think that you didnt. (and if anyone thinks the shiite militias, or even the Iraqi security forces, are in position to carefully identify and execute the right bad guys a la the IDF, then ive got a nice bridge to sell you - and BTW, the Israelis arent looking to share a state with the Pals long run)

Once again, look at the Brits in Malaya. A govt has to act like a govt, and use processes of law. In an emergency you of course suspend that - but declaring an emergency is a major concession of how bad things are (and an act the Iraqi govt has NOT done)

"Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, renewed calls to his community to remain calm and forsake revenge for the bombing of the shrine.
That's working well, isn't it? "


Now youre sounding like the NYT. 130 dead isnt 500 dead. or 2000 dead. And the Shiites have been subject to extreme provocation for 3 years. I aint calling for nobody to be killed, but Im not sure 130 reprisal deaths is panic button time. Seems to me thats still restraint, and restraint largely cause of Sistani. Anyway, lets see if the Friday sermons lead to more or less violence.


Posted by: liberalhawk || 02/24/2006 10:25 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israeli Army Kills Top AAMB Militant

These might be the same five hard boyz that Fred notes in a post below, or they might be five more new awardees of the white raisins.
BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Israeli troops on Thursday killed five Palestinians, including a top militant who said just a day earlier that he would never be caught, in the largest West Bank military operation since Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer.
"you'll never get me alive, coppers!"
"Bang!"
"Hey, maybe was psychic?"

The three fugitives from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades were hiding in a crawlspace above the bathroom of a Balata house when soldiers ringed the building. A gun battle ensued, and at one point, the gunmen threw an explosive device toward the soldiers. Two soldiers were wounded, one seriously.
"what's that smell?" "I smell militants. Or the sewer's backed up again"
At the time of the blast, a group of medics and journalists had assembled nearby, after being prevented by troops from entering the camp, witnesses said. One medic, Khaled Saragic, said that when a soldier standing next to a jeep heard the blast, he started firing toward medics and journalists, wounding three people.
"oops, sorry Medics. I was figuring the journalists were packing..."
Also, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel charged that soldiers were impeding the movement of ambulances. Late Thursday afternoon, they said, four ambulances were trapped inside the camp. "waaaahhhh"
Keep the guns and ammo from coming in, and the hard boyz from making an early exit ...
The military denied that soldiers fired indiscriminately or that ambulances were detained. However, the army said ambulances were checked because of attempts to smuggle fugitives out of the camp.

The military said it was not aware of such incidents, and said all gunfire was directed toward armed Palestinians or those throwing firebombs.
AKA the targets
Since the Balata sweep began Sunday, eight Palestinians have been killed by army fire, including the five shot dead Thursday. More than 50 Palestinians have been injured by live rounds and rubber-coated steel pellets, Palestinian hospital officials said. The military said 15 fugitives have been arrested.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the operation and warned it would endanger a cease-fire that has been in effect for a year, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.

In Gaza, Hamas backers marched toward the Palestinian parliament building to protest the Israeli operation in Nablus. After winning elections last month, Hamas has taken control of the parliament. Addressing the rally, incoming Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas denounced the "aggression committed against our people" and expressed solidarity with the Palestinians resisting the Israeli military in the refugee camp. He said Hamas has a two-pronged program for the people: "One hand resists and the other hand builds."

One of those killed Thursday was identified as Mohammed Shtawi, a top Al Aqsa fugitive. On Wednesday, Shtawi told an AP reporter that earlier in the day soldiers surrounded his hideout for five hours, but he and several friends slipped away. "They will never catch me," he said at the time.
Knock on wood? No? Bad mistake...
Technically he's correct ...
Israeli forces have been carrying out nightly arrest raids in the West Bank, rounding up suspected militants, but the incursion into the Balata camp is the largest and longest since the summer pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank. Dozens of army vehicles and hundreds of soldiers are involved.

Israeli security officials have been warning that with the pullout, Palestinian militants would switch their operations to the West Bank. Nablus has been a focus of attention for months, with soldiers keeping a tight grip on the city, which is encircled by roadblocks.

The Israeli military said troops entered Balata after receiving warnings that Al Aqsa and two other militant groups in and around the West Bank city of Nablus were planning attacks against Israelis. Before the raid, soldiers in the Nablus area seized four bomb belts, said Maj. Sharon Assman, an army officer in the area. Such belts are used in suicide bombings.

On Thursday morning, dozens of jeeps patrolled Balata and sealed off the refugee camp of 18,000 people from adjacent Nablus. Balata is a stronghold of the Al Aqsa group, a violent integral part offshoot of Abbas' Fatah Party. Al Aqsa fugitives have been skulking around moving from hideout to hideout since the army raid began.

Fighting in Balata began at midmorning Thursday when one of the jeeps broke down on the outskirts of the camp. Several teens began throwing stones at the vehicle, witnesses said. Soldiers opened fire, killing a 19-year-old man. The Israeli military said soldiers fired at the man because he was holding a firebomb. In another area, Palestinians threw stones at a jeep and soldiers opened fire, hitting one man in the jaw, witnesses said.

An AP photographer who heard the shots and rushed to the scene found the man lying on the ground, with blood gushing from a large hole in his jaw. Bystanders quickly bundled him into an ambulance, and hospital officials later reported he was in serious condition. The Israeli military said the man was targeted because he held a firebomb.

Also, a 22-year-old man was shot and killed by a bullet to the chest while he was standing on his roof in Balata, witnesses said. The military said he was armed when he was shot and that he was an Al Aqsa fugitive.
nice sniping!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reach out and touch someone, that be you.
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Speculation - Hamas is ratting on their rivals ?
Posted by: buwaya || 02/24/2006 0:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I would say that is an affirmative on the Hamas fingering of AAMB. Just like Fatah had been fingering Islamic Jihad for the Hellfire Express. Old Arab custom - scream and yell about the Jews, but use them to kill your political opponents.
Posted by: Shieldwolf || 02/24/2006 2:51 Comments || Top||

#4 
'Oooooh hapPy nessss is a warm Gun.
Posted by: RD || 02/24/2006 3:07 Comments || Top||

#5  "Such belts are used in suicide bombings."

Thanks for the clarification. I thought it was just a fashion faupax that they wore suspenders and a belt at the same time
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Another article I read sez Fatah is cranking up the seetheometer and getting more violent now that Hamas gets all the pretty girls...

* I just remembered, it's over at "The Hot Zone with Kevin Sites" at Yahoo! news, in his photo essay of a Fatah funeral. In which he notices there's a lot more swagger and bullets than actual grief.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/24/2006 13:23 Comments || Top||


Shin Bet: We foiled Fatah attack on Gilo
Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin revealed yesterday that the security forces had recently captured a Fatah cell that was planning a two-tier attack on Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, using mortar shells and light weapons' fire.

Appearing before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Diskin said the cell was uncovered in Bethlehem at the beginning of this month, in a joint operation of the Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces' undercover units. The cell's five local operatives from the Popular Resistance Committees were arrested, but their leader, Jaber Ahras, a member of the Palestinian National Security Service, is still at large.
Taking the fall is for little guys.
The cell was caught with an IDF-issue 60-millimeter mortar launcher, eight shells ready for launching and a machine gun. According to the Shin Bet, the cell's capture foiled plans to attack Gilo a day or two later. The cell had already carried out shooting attacks in the area, without causing casualties.
Learned to shoot from Hek, did they?
The leader, Ahras, is a Gaza Strip resident who has lived in Bethlehem for the past few years and operates out of the Palestinian government building there. The Shin Bet holds him responsible for the murder of two IDF soldiers in a shooting attack on the Tunnels Road in 2003.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder what type of Israeli response an attack on Jerusalem might evoke????
Posted by: Danking70 || 02/24/2006 0:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Mortar shells in Jerusalem, eh ?

That sounds like the escalation and new weapons these guys were threatening.
Posted by: buwaya || 02/24/2006 0:45 Comments || Top||


Shin Bet Nabs Paleo Big
Yesterday the Shin Bet security service revealed that it arrested an officer in the Palestinian Authority security services in December who is suspected of involvement in a shooting attack that killed an IDF soldier in 2000. The soldier was killed near the Allenby Bridge when shots were fired at the civilian bus in which he was traveling. A civilian was wounded in this attack.

The arrested man is Nadim Awad of Nablus, a member of the PA's General Intelligence Service who was stationed in Jericho at the time. According to the Shin Bet, Awad confessed that he and two other PA security service personnel were involved in the attack, which he said was ordered by senior General Intelligence Service officers in Jericho.
Always get their man.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Explosives Factory in Nablus All Blowed Up
The Israel Defense Forces blew up an explosives factory in Nablus yesterday, as part of a major operation that the army has been conducting in the city for the last three days. At least three Palestinians were wounded in yesterday's operation.

According to the IDF Spokesman, one of the wounded Palestinians was an armed man who was shot during an exchange of fire, a second was shot as he was throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Israelis, and the third was shot after throwing a solar heater onto the troops from a rooftop.
A solar heater? What's next, gonna try to fry the Israelis with a magnifying glass?
No IDF soldiers were wounded in these incidents, or in two other incidents in which bombs were thrown at them.

Throughout the three-day operation, the IDF has imposed a curfew on the city's Balata refugee camp, and Balata residents accused Israel of impeding ambulance access.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:


Israeli army kills 5 Palestinians
NABLUS: Israeli troops killed five Palestinians on Thursday during the biggest raid against West Bank militants for months, stoking tension as Hamas Islamists held talks to form a new Palestinian government. “This is a war crime aimed at continuing the escalation and undermining Hamas efforts to form a government,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. “We are committed to resistance and the occupation will pay the price for these crimes.”
"We will have Dire Revenge™!"
Abu Zuhri did not say exactly what Hamas would do.
"We'll think of somethin'! Prob'ly blow up a bus, maybe a disco. Something like that."
Like there's something else they could do?
Though formally committed to destroying Israel, it has largely followed a truce for the past year. Its election victory last month knocked any hopes that Middle East peacemaking might be revived. Medics said three gunmen were among the dead in Nablus on Thursday. Two other men were shot dead when Palestinians confronted troops with stones and petrol bombs.
Brought stones to a gunfight, did they?
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Note the inflamming "shot dead" remark in the final paragraph.
________________
"War means fighting, and fighting means killing!"
Gen. Sherman
Posted by: borgboy || 02/24/2006 15:33 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Global Hawk UAV welcomed home after three-year deployment
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- After supporting the Global War on Terror for three years, Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle No. 3 (UAV-3) received its official homecoming today when its wheels touched down at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.



(PressZoom) - During its overseas deployment, UAV-3 logged more than 4,800 flight hours supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and the Combined Task Force—Horn of Africa.

On hand at the homecoming event, were Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, commander, Air Force Flight Test Center; Randy Brown, director, Global Hawk Systems Group; Gary Ervin, sector vice president, Northrop-Grumman Integrated Systems Western region and Maj. Mike Lyons, Global Hawk pilot and chief of standardization and evaluation, 12th Reconnaissance Squadron.

The Global Hawk program is managed by Aeronautical Systems Center’s Global Hawk Systems Group of the Reconnaissance Systems Wing here.
....
follow the link
Posted by: 3dc || 02/24/2006 15:08 || Comments || Link || [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  UAV-3 logged more than 4,800 flight hours

Yes, I'm impressed. Time to give that sucker a Christian name.

I propose the Spirit of Crabapple Cove.

Posted by: 6 || 02/24/2006 18:12 Comments || Top||

#2  HangFire
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 19:12 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Two Muslims shot dead in Thailand’s restive south
No, it's not good news.
NARATHIWAT, Thailand -Two Thai Muslims including a village chief were shot dead by suspected Islamic militants in separate attacks on Thursday in Thailand’s troubled southern provinces, police said. One was shot three times early Thursday morning by two suspected militants as he rode his motorcycle to take morning tea. “It’s the work of militants because he was a village chief who was considered by militants as their target,” a police official said.

In the second attack, a rubber-tree tapper was shot dead by an unknown number of gunmen.

Thailand’s south, where most of its minority Muslim population lives, has been hit by two years of unrest that has left more than 1,100 people dead in near-daily shootings, bombings and arson attacks.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran threatens to attack Israeli nuclear power plant

If the United States launches an attack on Iran, the Islamic republic will retaliate with a military strike on Israel's main nuclear facility. Dr. Abasi, an advisor to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said Tehran would respond to an American attack with strikes on the Dimona nuclear reactor and other strategic Israeli sites such as the port city of Haifa and the Zakhariya area.

Haifa is also home to a large concentration of chemical factories and oil refineries. Zakhariya, located in the Jerusalem hills is - according to foreign reports - home to Israel's Jericho missile base. Both Israeli and international media have published commercial satellite images of the Zakhariya and Dimona sites.

Abasi, a senior lecturer at Tehran University, was quoted in the Roz internet news site, identified with reform circles in Iran.
Oh, he sounds like a real reformist.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/24/2006 19:40 || Comments || Link || [336114 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Darn it. Please move to Iran page. Sorry.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/24/2006 19:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like a belecose Iranian threat of war no matter what any one does.

The UN should be on notice. No requests for UN permission are required. Nations have the right to premptive acts of defense. The US has the right to aid it's allies and Israel has the right to act before Iran strikes.
Posted by: Mahou Sensei Negi-bozu || 02/24/2006 19:47 Comments || Top||

#3  For some reason I'm reminded me of this scene:

Posted by: xbalanke || 02/24/2006 20:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Perfect call, xbalanke . My single most favorite scene out of the entire movie.
Posted by: Zenster || 02/24/2006 20:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Hey dumbass if we strike the reactors, we are taking out your airforce and missle sites too.
Posted by: djohn66 || 02/24/2006 20:58 Comments || Top||

#6  If you have any airforce left after a strike and it can get over Iraq and not get shot down by our aircraft and isn't wiped out by Israel after it gets over the border, we surrender. You obviously have UFOs. I for one welcome our new alien, Islamic overlords!
Posted by: mmurray821 || 02/24/2006 21:10 Comments || Top||

#7  They are undoubtedly planning a solely missile attack against everybody. They have become convinced that their missiles make them both unstoppable and invulnerable.

It seems that they don't really have much of an appreciation for scale.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/24/2006 21:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Okey Dokey, so instead of waiting for March 28, ergo proving the Lefty MSM wrong, Iran decided to up the ante and attack first [Samarra?]??? IRAN > D*** YOU, DUBYA, WE DEMAND/WANT TO BE INVADED - ATTACK US NOW OR WASHINGTON WILL GLOW IN THE DARK!
VOTE FOR HILLARY AND MOTHERLY COMMIES, INFIDEL DEVILS = SAVIORS!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2006 21:26 Comments || Top||

#9  moose - wait til their missiles fail to make it past the Iraq *ahem ....Arrow* border....turban-tightening extremes!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 21:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Throttle back, Joe. Here, have a patented lime slider with a gin drop tank. Happy Saturday night in Guam.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/24/2006 22:05 Comments || Top||

#11  I would imagine an Israeli Reactor would be heavily reinforced and dug in deep. The one or two that would actually make a direct hit would not be a game ender (besides the core would be nice and cool weeks before things go their).

Two wild card variables thou,
1) Syria are they going to jump over the cliff with Iran? (Personally I think Baby Assad will be thinking more along saving his own a*s.

2) How will Israel respond to being hit with missiles?

3) Iran knows its the end would they pull the WMD tips out of storage? Their missiles are not accurate enough for buildings or even reactors but cities very doable.
Posted by: C-Low || 02/24/2006 23:03 Comments || Top||


Germany Foils Iranian Spy Ring
German police launched a nationwide raid against a suspected spy ring. One report links the suspects, who were interested in missile technology, with Iran.

The early morning raid on Thursday covered 12 locations across four German states, and netted an unspecified number of suspects, according to Germany's federal prosecutor.



"The accused are suspected of attempting, in the service of a foreign intelligence agency, to obtain parts for delivery systems and conventional weaponry for armed forces," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.



Police would not say what foreign agency that might have been, but a source told the Reuters news agency that the country involved was Iran. Police were interrogating the suspects after raids in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland. Two men were arrested in Frankfurt, according to a police spokeswoman.



Second espionage case in a month



Prosecutors charged two German citizens last month with espionage for helping an unidentified intelligence agency acquire "dual-use" missile technology. The term is applied to technology that can be used for both conventional machines and weapons.

Germany, together with France and Great Britain, has been unsuccessfully negotiating for the end of Iran's nuclear program ambitions. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has not ruled out referring Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions -- a move advocated by the United States.

Russia is currently trying to broker a deal by which Iran would avoid the Security Council, but no longer have control over its uranium-enriching process.
Posted by: Captain America || 02/24/2006 16:46 || Comments || Link || [336081 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If they want missile technology we should send them some.

In a balistic trajectory.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 02/24/2006 17:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Can you say, "waterboarding?" LOL!

These towel heads are skrewed. The Germans have to problem with ripping fingernails out.
Posted by: Thromomble Glogum2123 || 02/24/2006 18:54 Comments || Top||


Nuclear use goods bound for Iran from Italy, intercepted in Turkey
From Geostrategy-direct, subscription.
Authorities in Turkey have uncovered Italian-made aluminum that is linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
Turkish security services in December intercepted two large trucks carrying nearly four tons of an aluminum alloy produced in northern Italy. The goods were destined for Teheran.
Not alloys for your run-of-the-mill soda pop cans.
The specialty metal was believed intended for use in Iranian missiles or uranium enrichment, specifically in manufacturing a large number of centrifuges used in uranium processing.
The intercepted shipment resulted from coordination between the Turkish MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati), Italy’s SISMI (Intelligence and Military Security Service) and the CIA.
Nice to see the agencies cooperating.
The trucks were stopped at a narrow border pass at Gurbulak/Bazargan between Iran and Turkey.
Good place to stop them, no way out.
According to Turkish and Italian press reports, three aluminum containers, each weighing 3,233 kilograms, were found on the two trucks. They were being sent to Shadi Oil Industries in Iran, believed to be a cover for the nuclear program.
The oil company was to transfer the goods to Iran and the Step Standard Technical Components Industry and Trading Corp. that is owned by two Iranians in Istanbul named Mohammad Javad Jafari and Mahin Falsafi. The manufacturer was the Milan company called Fond.
Officials of the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) investigated the shipment and identified the goods as being dual-use items that could assist Iran's nuclear program.
“The aluminum containers could be utilized in enriching uranium needed for the production of nuclear weapons," the TAEK report stated.
Italians, Germans .... lots of people looking to cash in
Posted by: Al-Aska Paul || 02/24/2006 15:21 || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The EU industry is not up to speed on dual use export items as it appears? Or is it just greed and stupidity?
Posted by: Sock Puppet O' Doom || 02/24/2006 16:19 Comments || Top||

#2  dont see anything there
Posted by: Omavith Gleatle8151 || 02/24/2006 18:49 Comments || Top||

#3  What part of "mooslums are making a nuclear bomb" do these morons not get?
Posted by: Wheans Phirong5013 || 02/24/2006 18:57 Comments || Top||

#4  They were being sent to Shadi Oil Industries in Iran,

YJCMTSU
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2006 19:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Yup, definately "ShadI"
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2006 20:12 Comments || Top||

#6  What part of "mooslums are making a nuclear bomb" do these morons not get?

The part about it being aimed at them eventually.
Posted by: lotp || 02/24/2006 20:26 Comments || Top||


Iran Amok
Another terrific article by Dan.
"IRAN CONTINUES TO HOST senior al Qaeda leaders who are wanted for murdering Americans and other victims in the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings. We have called repeatedly for these terrorists to be handed over to states that will prosecute them and bring them to justice. We believe that some al Qaeda members and those from like-minded extremist groups continue to use Iran as a safe haven and as a hub to facilitate their operations."

So said a high State Department official in a speech in Washington on November 30. The assertions by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns were nothing new. Though often overlooked, they have been the position of the U.S. government for some time. As discussion of Iran's nuclear program and its hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intensifies, Iranian aid to al Qaeda should not be allowed to drop off the radar screen.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/24/2006 00:43 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dan,

You might also look into Iran's relationship with Cuba's Castro and Venezuela's Chavez. They have become vocal supporters of the Iranian Nuclear ambitions and are stirring up a second front against the U.S. in Latin America. Taken in context with the fake "outrage" troubles around the world you end up with a picture of Iranian provacateurism trying to distract the west from acting in its best interests.
Posted by: DanNY || 02/24/2006 6:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Personally I think the Iran-Cuba and the Iran-Chavez relationship is largely rhetorical and has very little operational implication

On the other hand the Cuba-Chavez relationship is both rhetorical and operational (e.g., Cuban security types are wandering around Venezuala).
Posted by: mhw || 02/24/2006 8:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Ahmadisnutz
Posted by: I. B. DePrimate || 02/24/2006 13:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Since it seems there will be an air show over Iran in the not to distant future, perhaps a few units could be set aside for ...um, targets of opportunity?
Posted by: Flins Elmoper3279 || 02/24/2006 15:15 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2006-02-24
  Saudi forces thwart attack on oil facility
Thu 2006-02-23
  Yemen Charges Five Saudis With Plotting Attacks
Wed 2006-02-22
  Shi'ite shrine destroyed in Samarra
Tue 2006-02-21
  10 killed in religious clashes in Nigeria
Mon 2006-02-20
  Uttar Pradesh minister issues bounty for beheading cartoonists
Sun 2006-02-19
  Muslims Attack U.S. Embassy in Indonesia
Sat 2006-02-18
  Nigeria hard boyz threaten total war
Fri 2006-02-17
  Pak cleric rushdies cartoonist
Thu 2006-02-16
  Outbreaks along Tumen River between Nork guards and armed N Korean groups
Wed 2006-02-15
  Yemen offers reward for Al Qaeda jailbreakers
Tue 2006-02-14
  Cartoon protesters go berserk in Peshawar
Mon 2006-02-13
  Gore Bashes US In Saudi Arabia
Sun 2006-02-12
  IAEA cameras taken off Iran N-sites
Sat 2006-02-11
  Danish ambassador quits Syria
Fri 2006-02-10
  Nasrallah: Bush and Rice should 'shut up'

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