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Paks head off to join the jihad
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Afghanistan
Paks head off to join the jihad
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    Thousands of Pakistanis are heading to Afghanistan, vowing to join the Taliban's jihad against America. The wannabe mujahedeen were armed with "assault rifles, machine guns, even rocket launchers. A few even carried axes and swords." The Taliban's response? Thanks, but no thanks, according to London's Telegraph. "If they go there, there will be a lot of congestion and the probability of mass casualties will be higher," says Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Talib envoy in Islamabad. "If they are needed then we will tell them. With the air strikes in Afghanistan it is very dangerous for them to be in Afghanistan so we have not requested their presence at this stage."
    Gee, it's good to have friends like these.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Talibs complain of US chem weapons
  • By Sayed Salahuddin (Reuters)
    The Taliban accused the United States of using chemical weapons and invited foreign observers to check the claim. But one deputy minister acknowledged that the war-shattered country did not have the facilities to test for chemical use. Public Health Minister Mullah Abbas said the hardline Muslim militia had proof that chemical weapons were being used. "Our findings prove that this is true. These bombardments have radioactive rays and chemical materials that also cause cancer,'' he told a news conference.
    We used them directly after we nuked Kabul and the giant earth borer gobbled up most of Kandhar.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bombing enters fourth week
  • NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
    AS THE MILITARY campaign in Afghanistan entered its fourth week, U.S. planes dropped at least two bombs in Gora Tangi, near the Pakistan border, killing two people. The day’s targets also included al-Qaida and Taliban command and control facilities and Taliban armor and troop concentrations. The attacks on bin Laden’s suspected hideouts may signal the beginning of a new phase of the conflict aimed at “smoking out” bin Laden and his al-Qaida followers. U.S. and allied forces have previously concentrated on attacking al-Qaida training camps and Taliban military forces and supply lines.
    The supply lines are the important part at this stage.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Anne Applebaum: Like 'em or not, we're stuck with Northern Alliance
  • Slate By Anne Applebaum
    As the bombing campaign began, however, our new friendship with the Northern Alliance lost its bloom. In the early days, American planes did not bomb Taliban front lines, apparently on the grounds that the administration did not trust the Northern Alliance and did not want its commanders to march into Kabul too quickly. The press coverage changed tone as well. Salon, among others, accused the alliance's leaders of "shocking human rights records, thievery and sheer governing incompetence." A more recent Washington Post report described the alliance as "tired, hungry and ill-equipped to face the Taliban." In the past few days, however, we seem to have returned to square one: The most optimistic scenarios for the war have been abandoned. Three weeks have passed, but we haven't found Bin Laden and haven’t forced the Taliban leaders to make mistakes. Fewer Taliban soldiers have defected than expected. Perhaps this explains why, according to this morning's reports, we have finally begun to bombard Taliban artillery which threatens the alliance. Like it or not, the Northern Alliance are the only serious fighting force in the country. Like it or not, they are still our only potential friends in Afghanistan.
    The Northern Alliance is a mixed lot, with some of them very bad characters indeed, others a lot better than painted. The whole lot of them was tarred with the brush wielded by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who blew away a considerable portion of Kabul because he couldn't have his way. Dostum and Ismael Khan, in particular, are much more competent than they're painted, and Masood, had he lived, would have made a fine head of state -- perhaps Afghanistan's only hope.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Three Brit, two American traitors doorknob dead
  • AP
    Three British and two American Muslims, who went to Afghanistan to fight against the United States, were killed in the bombing of the Afghan capital, an Islamic group said Sunday. ``All of them had gone to Afghanistan in early October to wage jihad, (holy war) against the unjust policies of America,'' Hasan Butt, leader of the al-Muhajiroun said by telephone from Lahore. ``We have learned from our contacts that they were martyred by the American bombing on Wednesday,'' he said.
    Gosh. I never knew them, but I'm glad they're all dead. I hope it took a long time and was very painful.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Northern Alliance holds war council. Talibs continue blather.
  • By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
    In Islamabad, Pakistan, Taliban Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef said the first phase of the American military campaign ``had achieved no significant achievement that the Pentagon wished to achieve, except the genocide of Afghanistan people.''

    Afghan opposition forces are complaining that U.S. bombing is too light to drive out Taliban forces defending Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Unhappy at the pace of efforts to capture Taliban-held territory, key opposition commanders assembled for a five-hour session to sketch out a major offensive on Mazar-e-Sharif, opposition spokesman Ashraf Nadeem said in a telephone interview. Commanders also talked of joint offensives on the surrounding provinces of Balkh and Samangan, Nadeem said. Present, he said, were longtime figures in the opposition's long-stalled struggle: Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum, Shiite Muslim leader Mohammed Mohaqik and Atta Mohammed, commander of deposed Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Nadeem said he had reports the Taliban had reinforced defenses in Balkh and Samangan provinces near Mazar-e-Sharif with 2,000 more troops. Moving forward would take heavy U.S. air support, he said. ``For the new operation, when it happens, we will need American help,'' the opposition spokesman said.

    Meanwhile, the supreme leader of Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that it will learn a ``tougher lesson'' in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union did. Omar told the Algerian newspaper El Youm that Taliban forces had not yet begun the ``real war against the Americans because of their technological power.'' Once the ground war begins, he said, America will lose its edge.
    In that case the real war will never begin because our technological power is just as pronounced with our ground troops.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Fifth Column
    Antiwar goofs bitch about US taking action - any action
  • By ARMANDO VILLAFRANCA Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
    AUSTIN -- Bob Buzzanco, a University of Houston history professor and member of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, criticized U.S. policy that bypasses international law in favor of a direct military response. Though he is uncertain whether Taliban leaders would have negotiated in good faith, he said President Bush should have pursued negotiations for the surrender of Bin Laden and al-Qaida members more fervently and enlisted the international community to apply more pressure toward that end. "You can use force to get somebody like Osama bin Laden, and nobody wants to see him running free, nobody wants to see al-Qaida continue to do this kind of thing. What we're suggesting is that the action taken really jumps most of this steps in the interim," Buzzanco said. "Our concern is that when you say no negotiations, we're not going to take this to the international bodies, when you're going to ignore international law and when you skip all these things in between and you immediately go to the most extreme option, which in this case is bombing Afghanistan."
    Any action, taken any time, after no matter how much thought, is considered by the professional Left to be hasty, ill-timed, and ill-conceived.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Home Front
    Nashville journalist warns of attack on city's sewage supply
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    The Nashville Scene reports on an investigative journalist who doesn't know water from (ahem) Shinola: After warning that terrorist saboteurs might try to poison Metro water with "anthrax" or "smallpox," WTVF-Channel 5 reporter Rob Manning thought he'd show viewers how easily that could happen by dramatically crawling under a wire fence just "a few hundred yards" from the city's "water supply." While the camera focused ominously on some large, nearby water tanks, Manning reported from inside the fence, "It's not too hard to crawl underneath. . . . It took me less than 20 seconds." . . .

    If only the terrorists were that dumb. Instead of cracking security at one of Metro's water collection facilities, located several miles away, Manning had only managed to break into the sewage treatment plant.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Feds say expect more attacks
  • Washington Times, by Daniel F. Drummond
    Terrorist groups are using anthrax attacks as a diversion and taking advantage of an overburdened law-enforcement system to plan more attacks on America, federal law-enforcement and intelligence sources say. The sources, all of whom are either working on or have close knowledge of the investigations of both the anthrax and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said that regardless of whether Osama bin Laden or the al Qaeda terrorist network are behind the anthrax attacks, they are taking advantage of the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies' dedication to solving and dealing with the anthrax attacks as well as hoaxes and scares. "Our guard is down now because we are looking at mail," one intelligence source said.
    I'll be very surprised if there aren't more attacks. September was only the first stage in the war, and unless we kill them they'll keep it up.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Center for Constitutional Rights bitches about detentions
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    In an article on suspects and witnesses the FBI has been detaining since Sept. 11, the New York Times quotes David Cole of the Center for Constitutional Rights as saying: "It begins to feel like those countries where they lock people up and don't tell anyone about it. That's not how this country was run until Sept. 11." Hey, good work there, David. It took you less than seven weeks to figure out that things changed on Sept. 11.
    Why, he asks, would anyone want to indulge in something so old-fashioned as self-preservation?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Jonah Goldberg on Cynthia McKinney
  • Jonah Goldberg NRO
    The idea that criticism equals censorship is pretty popular these days among Lefty intellectuals and journalists like Susan Sontag and David Talbot, but it's an idea no less idiotic for their subscription to it. I think this must be the fifth time I've written about this, but let me say it one more time: Criticizing people for saying or writing stupid or wrong things is not a violation of free-speech rights but a celebration of them. Ms. McKinney thinks she's a hero for saying unpopular things. But a bad idea doesn't become a good one simply because it is unpopular.

    Ms. McKinney wants to assume the mantle of a brave dissident, but she forgets that dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies. Ms. McKinney decided to suck up to a deep-pocketed scion of an authoritarian theocracy in order to exploit a national tragedy for her own political agenda. Her decision makes her unpopular. It doesn't make her the conscience of the nation.

    As for Ms. McKinney's suggestion that "many" Americans don't want to hear what African-Americans have to say about foreign policy — this idea is simultaneously arrogant, offensive, and moronic (a trifecta!). It's arrogant because it doesn't hold open the possibility that she could actually be wrong on the merits. It's offensive because, in her arrogance, she assumes that anybody who disagrees with her is not only wrong, but racist.

    And, it's moronic — oh, golly — it's moronic on all sorts of levels. Leave aside the fact that if Americans don't care what blacks have to say about foreign policy, then she needs to explain why I keep finding these quotes in my morning paper by Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. It's also dimwitted because you simply cannot assume the role of free-speech champion while simultaneously accusing everyone who disagrees with you of racism.

    While Ms. McKinney's Washington Post op-ed is a veritable piñata of asininity, worthy of being whacked from any angle, let's stick with this last point. Ms. McKinney thinks — as many prominent black activists do — that you cannot disagree with a black person for reasons other than racism.
    This is one of the most spot-on demolitions of a nitwit I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It should be required reading in all English and Political Science courses.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Post Office will irradiate mail against anthrax
  • USA TODAY, by Anita Manning
    The U.S. Postal Service will soon begin irradiating mail to reduce the threat from letters laced with anthrax, which has killed a Florida man and two Washington, D.C., postal workers. Irradiation systems that use high-voltage electron beams to kill bacteria have been ordered from Titan Corp. of San Diego. The first eight will be delivered in early November at a cost of $40 million, Titan CEO Gene Ray said. There is an option for the Postal Service to purchase 12 more.
    They can probably add 20 - 30 cents to the price of a stamp by riding this.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Noo Yawk has changed... for now
  • William S. Repsher NY PRESS
    Barring the early-morning earthquake that sounded like my rotund landlady rolling on her apartment floor above me, this weekend brought the largest shock I’ve felt since 9/11: a good article in the New York Times “Sunday Styles” section. In “Downtown, the Private Party Has Ended,” Jennifer Steinhauer writes of the struggle for downtown businesses to get back on their feetmore in terms of restoring consumer confidence close to Ground Zero than trumpeting an air of exclusivity, which served as their old selling point. Previously snooty restaurants are less catty about taking reservations. The sales staffs in shops and boutiques, if not exemplary, are at least cognizant that the customers are human beings and not toads interrupting their self-absorbed cellphone calls.
    Don't worry. They'll bounce back. New Yorkers are a versatile lot. Soon they'll be just as rude and snotty as ever. It's not even November yet.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    CAIR wants the bombing to stop
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    The Web site of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the group was founded "to promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America." The group's actions, however, are undermining that goal. At a time when Americans are nearly unanimous in support of the war, CAIR is among a group of Muslim organizations that have endorsed a statement urging America "to cease the bombing campaign and other military actions." Many American Muslim groups refused to sign the statement, including the American Muslim Council and the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whose executive director, Salam Al-Marayati, tells the New York Times: "We support the president's initiative to defeat terror. The country was attacked, and we want the perpetrators brought to justice."
    A little gesture to the powers that be could also go far toward ensuring self-preservation. One thing I've never seen addressed in the press: which of the Muslim organizations are Sunni, Shiite, Ismaili, or "Reform"? I'd suspect CAIR is at least Sunni with Salafist overtones.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    NY Post on the Quagmire
  • NY POST EDITORIAL
    Can you believe it? It's been three whole weeks, and America still hasn't won its war on terrorism. The enemy must be tougher than first thought, no?

    Puh-leeze.

    From the outset, the only sure thing about this war was that Americans would very soon be asked to doubt their leaders - and themselves. Now the news is full of stories speaking of how long and tough the war will be - as if anybody who knew anything ever expected it to be different.

    Wasn't anyone paying attention when President Bush said last month that this would be a "long struggle" and asked the nation to summon its collective resolve? "This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion," he said in his speech before Congress. "It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat."
    The war's barely started yet. Why, the antiwar Lefties haven't even found a good tub to thump.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    No anthrax on 9-11 killers' cars
  • Miami Herald, by DANIEL A. GRECH
    Federal officials investigating a possible connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the sending of anthrax to American Media Inc. in Boca Raton said Sunday that tests on two cars owned by hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi showed no evidence of anthrax spores. The hijackers sold the cars -- a red Pontiac Grand Am and another, unidentified vehicle -- a week before Sept. 11 and they were washed and waxed before FBI investigators took custody of them. Samples from the cars, found later at a Tamarac dealership, were analyzed at a state lab in Miami. With no evidence to link the hijackers to the anthrax attack, investigators are now saying they have no immediate plans to look for anthrax in a Delray Beach apartment connected to nine of the suspected terrorists.
    I'd be surprised if it was them. The (coordinated) follow-up attack would be carried out by a second line that they might not even be aware of.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Maharishi sez to dump Bush
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has called for the removal of President Bush, saying that his bellicose posture has opened the road to the gates of hell. Speaking from the Netherlands, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement told followers that many unintelligent people believe in arms. He said Bush's ignorance of science has led him to rashly go out and destroy the world, according to a statement by followers.
    In the Gulf War he recommended "yogic levitation." We should listen to him, 'cause that worked so well.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    American Red Cross acknowledges rake-off
  • The Wire, by DIEGO IBARGUEN
    NEW YORK (AP) — The American Red Cross acknowledged Monday that some of the $550 million in donations to a special fund established for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be used for other broad-based needs instead. ``It takes a lot of money to do a lot of work. We believe very much that we are honoring donor intent,'' Red Cross spokesman Mitch Hibbs said. ``Yes, we are helping the families, but we're also helping everyone else.'' Soon after the attacks, the Red Cross took the unusual step of creating a special account, the Liberty Fund, that was designated for terrorism relief efforts. But a portion of that money will go to broad-based activities such as a blood reserve program, a national outreach effort, and a telecommunications upgrade. Philanthropic watchdogs, while careful to note the Red Cross meets high standards overall, said the group has not clearly publicized its distribution plans for the Liberty Fund. They also questioned the need for a separate collection effort in the first place. "I wish they hadn't set up that separate fund,'' said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a watchdog group based in Bethesda, Md.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush will attend World Series
  • NY DAILY NEWS Bill Hutchinson
    President Bush is expected to attend tomorrow night's World Series game at Yankee Stadium. President Bush will be on hand at Yankee Stadium to cheer the Diamondbacks in Game 3. Supertight security is expected for the presidential visit to the Stadium, where backpacks and umbrellas have been banned since the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks. About 1,000 cops will be deployed at the Bronx ballpark.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Administration dismisses war criticism
  • Chicago Tribune, by Bob Kemper
    The Bush administration dismissed criticism of its military campaign against Afghanistan on Sunday, saying the war was progressing as planned despite increased civilian casualties and violent unrest in neighboring Pakistan, a key U.S. ally. "It's not a quagmire," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said after defending U.S. strategy on morning talk shows and signaling that the Pentagon is prepared to fight through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to defeat the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Eric Alterman rejects "Hate America" crowd
  • Eric Alterman, The Nation
    This "Hate America" left must be rejected for reasons of honor and pragmatism. It is difficult enough to "talk sense to the American people" in wartime without having to defend positions for which we have no intellectual or emotional sympathy. Principled dissent is never more necessary than when it is least welcome. American history is replete with examples of red scares, racist hysteria, political censorship and the indefensible curtailment of civil liberties that derive, in part, from excessive and abusive forms of superpatriotism. We are already seeing the beginnings of a concerted attack on civil liberties, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Given the importance most Americans place on patriotism as a bedrock personal value, it is folly to try to enjoin them in a battle that fails to embrace their most basic beliefs.
    The "attacks" on civil liberties are envisioned as short-term measures of self-preservation. The Hate America crowd, finding fault with everything the nation does just to be finding fault, would have us surrender to people who openly demand our eradication.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Alliance
    Pilger says the war is a fraud
  • By John Pilger, Former Mirror chief foreign correspondent Mirror.co.uk
    The war against terrorism is a fraud. After three weeks' bombing, not a single terrorist implicated in the attacks on America has been caught or killed in Afghanistan. Instead, one of the poorest, most stricken nations has been terrorised by the most powerful - to the point where American pilots have run out of dubious "military" targets and are now destroying mud houses, a hospital, Red Cross warehouses, lorries carrying refugees...

    None of those directly involved in the September 11 atrocity was Afghani. Most were Saudis, who apparently did their planning and training in Germany and the United States. The camps which the Taliban allowed bin Laden to use were emptied weeks ago. Moreover, the Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians. The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal. With secret US government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan... Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the administration of George W. Bush, which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it...

    The Royal Marines, who will do the real dirty work, will be little more than mercenaries for Washington's imperial ambitions, not to mention the extraordinary pretensions of Blair himself. Having made Britain a target for terrorism with his bellicose "shoulder to shoulder" with Bush nonsense, he is now prepared to send troops to a battlefield where the goals are so uncertain that even the Chief of the Defence Staff says the conflict "could last 50 years".
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Jordan jugs thug
  • NY POST, by WILLIAM NEUMAN
    Authorities in Jordan have arrested an al Qaeda operative who may have key information about a series of terror attacks, including the suicide strikes on the United States. The unnamed suspect is believed to have knowledge of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the bomb attack on the USS Cole, and a terror meeting in Malaysia attended by two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Newsweek reported. Jordanian officials are questioning the man and say they will share any information he gives them. An FBI source said that some suspected al Qaeda associates picked up over the last two months have begun to cooperate with probers.
    The question then becomes, how much of what they say is true and how much is false?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Al-Muhajiroun says 1000 Brit Muslims have joined jihad
  • by Danielle Demetriou and Patrick Sawer This is London
    According to al-Muhajiroun, nearly 1,000 British Muslims have travelled to Afghanistan since 11 September. One recruiter on the Pakistani border claims 60 per cent of foreigners fighting for the Taliban are from Britain. Hassan Butt, 21, from Manchester, is one of about 40 Britons in Lahore recruiting for the Taliban. He said: "I've been in contact with a thousand British Muslims who are going to the holy war. Hundreds have passed through here on their way. There are more fighters joining jihad from Britain than anywhere else in the West. News that the first Britons have been lost will not deter those who will follow."

    British passport holders are believed to be among the Harkat ul Mujahideen group in Afghanistan, which has close links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and is classified as a terrorist organisation. It recruits through hardline Islamic leaders. Sources confirmed today that police in Britain are investigating the recruitment. It is understood that al-Muhajiroun and its Tottenham-based leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, will be the focus of attention.
    I'm having a hard time understanding why Muhajiroun hasn't been broken up and Hasan Butt hanged.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Pak religious loons threaten to paralyze Pakland
  • The News - Jang : Opinion Imtiaz Alam
    The Council for the Defence of Afghanistan (CDA), a conglomerate of religious and jihadi parties in Pakistan, has given November 7 as the deadline to reverse the current policy of alignment with the US and withdrawal of whatever limited cooperation Islamabad has been providing to the allied forces. Failing which the CDA will launch a movement for civil disobedience that will include occupation of highways, wheel-jam strikes, resignations of state-employees, non-payment of taxes and a sustained agitation leading to the overthrow of the rulers it has dubbed as "security risk". One wonders whether the religious right is working against Pakistan or the US, as it prepares for a bloody showdown? It seems, the religious extremists have finally decided just not to take on the Musharraf government, but also paralyse Pakistan, a front-line state in the ongoing war against terrorism.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Brits arrest Masoon assassination accomplice
  • Chicago Tribune, by Stephen J. Hedges
    LONDON -- In Egypt, Yasser al-Sirri is a wanted man, convicted in absentia for a terrorist bombing plot that inadvertently killed a 12-year-old girl. In Britain for the past eight years, he has found freedom and safety. And, despite the death sentence hanging over him, he has been anything but anonymous. Al-Sirri, 38, founded the Islamic Observation Center and fashioned himself as a supporter of master terrorist Osama bin Laden. His statements, pamphlets and press releases, though, always fell within Britain's right to free speech. Even after Sept. 11, when al-Sirri posted bin Laden's threats of further attacks on his Web site, he drew little attention. But his protected life in Britain changed last week. London police arrested al-Sirri on Tuesday during a dawn raid on his apartment and nearby office. Police say there is evidence that al-Sirri helped arrange press credentials for two bin Laden operatives, who, posing as a television crew, assassinated Gen. Ahmed Shah Massood, the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, on Sept. 1, just days before terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Al-Sirri's arrest may signal the beginning of the British government's promised crackdown on known or suspected terrorists.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Egypt sez to stop bombing during Ramadan
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    Osama el-Baz, a top aide to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, says America should stop bombing the Taliban for the month of Ramadan. "Continuing to bomb Afghanistan at current levels during Ramadan would be an 'affront' to Muslims everywhere," the Associated Press quotes el-Baz as saying.
    Running an airliner filled with non-combatants into two large buildings in a major city really offended my sensibilities as an American. Muslims will be more considerate in the future, won't they?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Binny sister sez royal family members back him
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    The Times of London reports that Carmen bin Laden, Osama's sister-in-law, "has outraged members of the family after claiming that they and sections of the Saudi royal family gave financial backing to the terrorist leader." Says Carmen: "What I have heard is he has the backing of some of the royal family. They think the same way. Not all of them, but some of them. You have to understand, I think in Saudi Arabia Osama Bin Laden has a little following. And in my opinion, this is what makes him dangerous. Because he has... the backing of a lot of people there."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Palestinian mouthpiece sez Giuliani obsessed by hatred of Arabs
  • BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Best of the Web Today
    And here's another gem from the indispensable Middle East Media and Research Institute: Joining the attacks on Giuliani were columnists in the Palestinian Authority mouthpiece Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. Editor Hafez Al-Barghouthi wrote: "New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani was obsessed by his hatred of Arabs even before the terrorist attacks on New York. He hides his first name, chosen for him by his Italian father, so as not to remind the Jewish voters of the infamous Rudolph Hitler [sic]. This is why he prefers to shorten it to Rudy."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/29/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



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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.
    Click here for more information

    Meet the Mods
    In no particular order...
    Steve White
    Seafarious
    tu3031
    badanov
    sherry
    ryuge
    GolfBravoUSMC
    Bright Pebbles
    trailing wife
    Gloria
    Fred
    Besoeker
    Glenmore
    Frank G
    3dc
    Skidmark

    Two weeks of WOT
    Mon 2001-10-29
      Paks head off to join the jihad
    Sun 2001-10-28
      Talibs reported to have killed Hamid Karzai
    Sat 2001-10-27
      Abdul Haq captured and killed
    Fri 2001-10-26
      Binny sez he has nukes
    Thu 2001-10-25
      15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis
    Wed 2001-10-24
      Anthrax message published
    Tue 2001-10-23
      Hoon says all nine active al-Qaeda camps destroyed
    Mon 2001-10-22
      Northern Alliance Prepares for a Ground Battle
    Sun 2001-10-21
      Kandahar raid struck leadership compound
    Sat 2001-10-20
      Rangers raid Kandahar
    Fri 2001-10-19
      NY Post employee with skin anthrax
    Thu 2001-10-18
      US strikes enter 12th day, focus to shift to ground
    Wed 2001-10-17
      700 more Talibs jump ship
    Tue 2001-10-16
      Anthrax panic...
    Mon 2001-10-15
      Daschle gets anthrax letter

    Better than the average link...



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