At least 12 people were killed when captured al-Qaeda grabbed weapons and opened fire while being taken to jail by Pakistani guards. Six of the prisoners and five security forces were killed in the revolt. A bus driver also died. 156 prisoners were being taken by bus from a detention center in Parachinar in the Kurram tribal agency, to Peshawar when the revolt broke out. Many of the captives tried to run away, some had been rounded up and the rest had been surrounded. The prisoners were mainly Arabs who had escaped from eastern Afghanistan and had not been handcuffed.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Northern Alliance forces moving into Interior Ministry offices found eight direct phone links to Islamabad, proving close ties between the Taliban and Pakistan's military intelligence service. Gen. Niamaullah Jalili, the head of Afghanistan's Secret Intelligence Service, said they were run as local phone call lines, not long distance. This proved the Taliban closely cooperated with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), he insisted.
Hmm. Yes. You might say that. Gen. Qureshi will of course say it's "proposterous," but we're ready to believe six preposterous things before breakfast.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Eight FBI agents interrogated al Qaeda captured during the battle in the mountains of Tora Bora at a newly built detention center at Kandahar airport, trying to find out if bin Laden had planned any more attacks on U.S. targets.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Johnny Jihad's Mom and Dad are complaining that he isn't being represented by a lawyer. The Jihad family mouthpiece, James Brosnahan, of San Francisco, insisted that the lad has constitutional rights, "whatever the accusation." The White House begs to differ: "Right now Mr. Walker is being treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Convention's protection for enemy belligerents who are captured as prisoners of war," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "So long as he is in military custody and is not being questioned for law enforcement purposes he does not have the constitutional right to a lawyer."
They can't shoot him without one, but he doesn't get one until they're ready to shoot him. War's hell, ain't it? Perhaps he shoulda consulted with Mr. Brosnahan before running of to fight jihad and beat other men's wives.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Home Minister L K Advani asked Pakistan to hand over Maulana Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and others involved in terror strikes in the country to prove its credibility in fighting the menace. Advani also renewed New Delhi's proposal for an extradition treaty with Islamabad. Coming down heavily on Pakistan for its role in sponsoring terrorism, Advani said if it wanted to prove it had nothing to do with terrorism, it should not only take action against the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, but also hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim whom it is sheltering. Advani sought to dispel any fear among minorities, saying the fight against terrorism was not a Hindu-Muslim conflict but a fight between civilisation and barbarism, democracy and terrorism.
Interesting coincidence that a "Hindu-Muslim" conflict comes on the heels of a "Christian-Muslim" conflict. Wonder if there's anything they have in common?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border shot and wounded a Lebanese man after he threw firecrackers at them. Ali Jamil "Butthead" Hussein, 33, was hit in the leg and rushed to a hospital, but his wound was not considered serious.
"Huh huh. Hey, Beavis! There's some heavily armed troops at an outpost on a hostile border. Watch what happens when I throw firecrackers at them! Ow." Guess those Zionist oppressors just don't have much of a senzayuma.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah criticized Arab regimes for silencing their people regarding the conflict in the Palestinian territories. âThe problem which remains is the lack of a popular movement in the Arab world especially concerning what is happening in Palestine and Afghanistan,â Fadlallah told worshipers on Sunday at the Hassanein mosque in Haret Hreik. He said Arab regimes had âconfiscated the opinions of their peoples and had forbidden them from staging demonstrations,â and accused them of âsecretly coordinating with the Zionist enemy.â He said: â(Arab regimes) want to be liberated from the Palestinian cause rather than liberate Palestine.â
Yeah. Let's get some fanaticism going there, you Arab regimes!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/19/2001 ||
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Israel offered to loosen its military grip around the biggest Palestinian city in the West Bank to help Yasser Arafat crack down on militants. "(The Palestinians) are complaining all the time that we are hindering their efforts to take action," an Israeli source said. "In order to lay to rest all these excuses, we said: 'Take a given area, we'll pull out of there, we'll stop all our operations there.'" The source said Israel had proposed Palestinian-ruled Nablus, the largest West Bank city, as a starting point. "In Nablus they have a lot of Hamas activists and suicide bombers, not to mention bomb factories." Ahmed Abed-Rahman, an Arafat aide, said the offer did not go far enough. "The issue is not lifting the siege in one area in order to conduct a security mission...we need to see a comprehensive and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli troops from all Palestinian territories and an end to the closure and siege," he responded.
No pleasing some people, is there? Translated: Israel offered to quit kicking the Palestinians in the balls if they don't go back to throwing stones at them. The Palestinians said no, not until Israel stops hitting them on the head, too. Guess it makes sense. Not much, though.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/19/2001 ||
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Speaking out of the other side of his mouth, Chairman-for-Life Yasser Arafat has appealed for martyrs in the war against Israel. In an address in Ramallah, Arafat said all Palestinians are martyrs and that he is willing to sacrifice 70 Palestinians to ensure the death of one Israeli. "We will defend the holy land with our blood and with our spirit," Arafat told supporters from Jerusalem. "We do not only wear uniforms; we are all military. We are all martyrs in paradise."
If this report (from World Tribune) is accurate, the sleeves on Arafat's jacket are way, way too short.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/19/2001 ||
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The Palestinian Authority has arrested at least 12 of its own security men as part of its efforts to crack down on anti-Israeli militants. The men, all from the southern Gaza Strip, had been arrested since Monday, the day after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called for militants to stop suicide bombings and armed attacks on Israelis.. The detainees, who hold security posts in the forces of the Palestinian Authority, also belong to a militant wing of Arafat's Fatah movement. Tuesday the Authority closed six offices in Gaza of the militant Islamic group Hamas.
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12/19/2001 ||
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A team of Indian Special Cell cops led by Inspector Ved Prakash apprehended two Nepalese nationals at the Old Delhi railway station. On searching their belongings, the police recovered 50 kg explosives, 28 gelatin sticks, 389 detonators, 46 bundles of fuse wires and literature relating to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
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12/19/2001 ||
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A senior Hamas official said that the movement was calling a halt to its suicide bombings against Israel. "Hamas has taken an internal decision to stop martyrdom operations but we are not going to make an official declaration," said the official, who insisted on remaining anonymous. Is it just me, or is this not the hardest news story ever written?
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12/19/2001 ||
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Indian security forces smashed two hideouts in Pahalgam's Lidder valley, where Ghazi Baba and his men were believed to be hiding. Ghazi Baba alias Doctor, commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) for Jammu and Kashmir, is believed to have moved to the Kishtwar area. JeM headquarters in Pakistan have asked Ghazi to get the hell out of Kashmir and come back to Pakistan, sources said.
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12/19/2001 ||
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Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir killed 11 rebels, including six from the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and found an underground hideout of the group near the Pakistan border. A man died and more than 50 were wounded when a grenade exploded at a crowded crossing in Pulwama town, south of Srinagar.
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12/19/2001 ||
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France's ambassador to Britain cannot remember referring to Israel as "that shitty little country'' during a private conversation with a newspaper owner. A spokesman said the ambassador, Daniel Bernard, was shocked to see media reports of a private dinner conversation he had had with Conrad Black, owner of the Daily Telegraph.
Cheeze. Better wait a couple weeks before telling him about the saxophone player and the cigarette girl. And don't even mention the redhead and the Harley; it'd just set him off again. Headache any better?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/19/2001 ||
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Yemen sent special army troops led by the son of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to search for Muslim militants linked to Osama bin Laden a day after clashes killed at least 18 people from both sides. "Special units led by Colonel Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh ... have been dispatched to support army units in Marib and Shabwa provinces," a security official said. Ahmed heads Yemen's Republican Guard, an elite force to protect the president. Government officials said the army did not exchange fire with the militants and their tribal protectors but the search operations were going on. "This is a hot pursuit that will continue until the terrorist elements are arrested," one official said. The government's al-Thawra newspaper said Tuesday's three-hour clashes were part of Yemen's efforts to join the international coalition against terrorism. But it added: "Pursuing suspected terrorists is a Yemeni decision and is conducted by using its own national resources." The paper said some of the militants were non-Yemeni Arabs, who had "shown no respect for Yemen's hospitality ... because of their involvement in destructive activities."
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12/19/2001 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
