Agha was speaking to thousands of Afghan men gathered for prayers on Islam's holiday Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Slaughter. "I have helped many Taliban. I can try to help free Muttawakil," Agha told worshippers over the public address system in the high-domed blue mosque in a muddy field that Kandahar reserves for Eid services. Wonder how much that little bit of support cost?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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A new Arabic language Web site offering information on the post-Taliban Afghanistan has started carrying statements and messages it says are by Osama Bin Laden. Earlier this week, the site -- www.alneda.com -- placed a joint condolence message it said was from Bin Laden, his Egyptian lieutenant, Dr. Ayman l-Zawahiri, and Taliban leaders Mullah Mohammad Omar and Mullah Mohammad Hasan on the death of Pakistani religious scholar Shaikh Hamza Dani. Dani died in Karachi, Pakistan, last week.
Although the content of the six-page message could not be independently verified, it is the first such message attributed to Bin Laden. It also may be the first joint statement by Bin Laden, Omar and other senior Taliban and al Qaida leaders.
"If the condolence message was indeed sent by the four men, it could be taken as evidence that they were alive," wrote senior Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai in Thursday edition of the News newspaper. "It would also mean that they were in contact with each other and also with those who maintain the Web site." The Web site was said to have been launched a few weeks ago, but it is not clear who runs it or where it is based. The News quoted an Arab source as saying that "the Web site is run from somewhere in Afghanistan." Hmm. The domain name seems to have been registered December 20th. Seems like it should be well within the realm of feasibility for the Feds to track down the proprietors and find out whether the messages are genuine or made up. Hitting them very many times might help. I tend to guess the messages are made up.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Iraqi President-for-Life and best-selling romance novelist Saddam Hussein has issued a defiant response to speculation that his regime will be the next target in the United States' war on terrorism. In sarcastic comments issued by Iraq's official news agency, Saddam said he would prefer to see his regime deposed than the country bombed. "We give our support ... to the option of overthrowing the regime -- a civilized slogan -- which is better than attacking, striking the population, harming it and destroying its resources," Saddam told military officials at a meeting to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Sounds like a deal to me. We should take it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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North Korea rejected President Bush's renewed offer to start a dialogue over the country's weapons program and called him a "politically backward child." A spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry also accused Bush of "slandering" the communist state's political system and its "supreme headquarters," a reference to totalitarian leader Kim Jong Il. "We are not willing to have contact with his (Bush's) clan, which is trying to change by force of arms the system chosen by the Korean people. Useless is such dialogue advocated by the U.S. to find a pretext for invasion."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Iran has decided to scrap, for the time being, the costly "Shahab-4" ballistic missiles and concentrate on the production of anti-aircraft rockets, according to the international Arabic daily "Al Sharq Al-Awsat". Quoting "highly informed" Iranian military source, Dr. Alireza Noorizadeh, an Iranian journalist attributed the change in the policy concerning the production of missiles to the latest threats by American President George W. Bush against Iran. Could be they saw what B52s did in Afghanistan and don't want to be daisy-cut. Bush putting pressure on them? That'll never work. Will it?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed to "liquidate terrorists" from his country after the slaying of Daniel Pearl, promising not to flinch in his crackdown on extremism. "I think our resolve increases with such acts to move more strongly against all such terrorists and those organizations that perpetrate such terrorism, to move against them and liquidate them entirely from the country," Musharraf said. "I am going to take this opportunity to express my resolve and the resolve of my government to move strongly, with all our force, against terrorism in Pakistan. If the objective of these terrorists or those who perpetrated this murder was to move us away from our resolve, let me tell them that they are sadly mistaken."
The general acknowledged last week on a visit to Washington that Pearl's kidnapping may have been part of a backlash against the crackdown on Islamic extremism he announced in a January 12 speech. He can start by "liquidating" the ones he has in custody. Omar Sheikh's neck should be a yard long by now. Likewise all his accomplices. Likewise all other members of Jaish and Lashkar, starting with their leadership, followed by Jamiat Ulema Islami fuehrer Fazlur Rehman and his accomplices. That's not something I think he'll do, which means Pervez is just blowing smoke again.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Acting Amir, Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Munawar Hassan, has said that the present Eidul Azha is being observed in a situation of fears and threats from across the border. Munawar said the nation needs to forge unity among its ranks in order to counter internal and external challenges. At present Muslims all over the world are passing through an acute testing time as innocent Muslims are being killed by the Indian forces in held Kashmir and by Israeli forces in Palestine. Muslims in these parts of the world are suffering from the gravest oppressions in human history while no human rights organisation in the world, is feeling their pains to curb the oppression and to punish the oppressors. He said America is playing the role of international goon against Muslims and it is leading the alliance of Israel, India and infidels against the Ummah. On pretext of curbing terrorism, the US is implementing the plan of crushing Islamic and Jihadi movements, he said and added a tragedy of this episode is that majority of Muslim rulers are siding with the anti-Islamic forces. With rants like this on a near-daily basis, Pakland still won't crack down on the extremists.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Angola reports that Jonas Savimbi's body was shown Saturday to journalists in Lucusse, where the government said he the rebel leader was killed in battle. Savimbi was shot 15 times in the clash between his National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and government troops in the region of Luvu. Lawmaker Jose Domingos Maluca, who belongs to a pro-Savimbi group within parliament, said he was "cautious" about the news and was still waiting for confirmation from UNITA. Analyst Justino Pinto de Andrade said the government now had to take the initiative, because "if Savimbi was, as the government has always claimed, the cause of the war, it's up to the government to cease hostilities." Pinto also warned that Savimbi's death could create an uncontrollable situation within the rebel movement, and that an internal power struggle could prolong the war. The war in Angola's been grinding on for 30 or 35 years. UNITA now has an excuse to stop it. Since we're talking about Africa, they probably won't.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Government forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels began observing their first internationally monitored truce as hopes mounted for a permanent end to a conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. It is the first step on the road to negotiations between the government and the LTTE, which has been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the Sinhalese-majority island. Depending on the way the wind blows, the truce might have an effect. Whether it will have an effect or not probably depends more on the effectiveness of suppressing the other terror networks in the region. It'll only work if the guns and ammo stop arriving in quantities sufficient to maintain a war.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Pakistani police were searching for Amjad Hussain Farooqi, blamed in the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl. Kops said Farooqi is an Islamic militant (wotta surprise!) they believe drove Pearl from a hotel January 23 on his way to captivity and eventual death. "So far there is no clue as to when and where the murder was carried out," an investigator said scratching his head and gazing out the window. "We are engaged in frantic efforts to find the body" and Farooqi, he said, stepping out of the office for a long lunch.
Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said police were looking for four more accomplices in the killing, using descriptions provided by a journalist who delivered a videotape showing Pearl being decapitated. Investigators also said police were hunting another suspect, an Arab who is thought to have helped Farooqi kidnap Pearl. Even though I knew intellectually that Pearl had been killed not long after being kidnapped, I was still shocked - and furious - when I heard about it on CNN. My emotional reaction was that the kidnappers are stupid, vicious animals who should be hunted down and killed like dogs, especially when I learned how he had been killed. The Pak cops have shown apalling ineptitude in their attempts at investigation, but the worst part is that they set the incident up to happen by leaving Omar Sheikh and the other Kandahar hijacking thugs free to roam around and play at their filthy games. The net effect was collusion in the killing. The next phase will probably include the Paks regretfully declining to extradite those they've rounded up to the US, instead trying them in their own courts and sentencing them to something stiff, like six months house arrest. Then they can do it again, just like they did it before.
Normally, I have only passing sympathy for journalists who are KIA. This is probably a generalization on my part, based on a tiny sample - the two I ran into personally in Vietnam were arrogant jugheads who spent most of their time in Saigon, staying safe while they rode the coattails of Bernard Fall and Dicky Chapelle. As a rule, journalists are not as brave as the average infantryman and they're more expendable - less mission essential. Had Geraldo actually been bagged at Tora Bora when he pulled his "dodging a bullet" stunt, I'd have said "Poor Geraldo" and moved on to the next subject. If you hang out with grunts, you take your chances with grunts. My respect for him would have gone up a couple notches, but that wouldn't have mattered to him because he'd have been dead.
Pearl's killing is outside the Dead Journalist category. He was in the zone because he was a journalist, but he was killed because he was an American. This wasn't an attack on journalists or on the Wall Street Journal, it was an attack on us.
The US should dump the Paks. The country's a failed state and it's incapable of providing any utility to Western aims.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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The second kamikaze slayer of Ahmad Shah Masood last September was a 29-year-old Tunisian textile worker residing in Belgium, RTL-TVI broadcasting reported. The Belgian station identified him as Burawi El Wahir. El Wahir was believed to have planned the Masood assassination in Brussels with the second man, Abdessattar Dahman, 39, a former journalism student at the University of Tunis. The station said the two men met in Brussels, "probably" through a third man, a Muslim named Tarek Maaroufi, an avowed sympathizer with Algerian Muslim fundamentalists. Maaroufi was arrested in Belgium last December 18 for recruiting people for terrorist activities, said RTL, which added that he had sent Dahmane et El Wahir to Afghanistan. The two men were believed to have gone to an Afghan training camp run by Osama bin Laden, and been trained by a Tunisian identified as Mohamed Zitli. Zitli, who went to Afghanistan in 1998 with his Belgian wife and their five children, was arrested on February 15 in Iran after entering the country from Afghanistan. That ties up that end of the investigation. Next step is to resolve who the inside man was, who set Masood up for the hit. My guess is still the Saudis' creature, Rasool Sayyaf.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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An Italian court convicted the suspected head of Osama bin Laden's European arm, handing down the first guilty verdict in Europe tied to the al-Qaida network since the Sept. 11 attacks. But the judge gave him a reduced, five-year sentence on charges not directly related to terrorism, under a relatively lenient Italian law in place before Sept. 11. Essid Sami Ben Khemais, a Tunisian known as "the Saber," was convicted on charges he intended to obtain and transport arms, explosives and chemicals. He was acquitted of actually possessing the weapons.
Three other Tunisians who were tried with him -- Belgacem Mohamed Ben Aouadi, Bouchoucha Mokhtar and Charaabi Tarek -- were convicted on similar charges and also acquitted of the aggravated weapons charge. They were sentenced to prison terms as long as five years in prison. Wowzers. A five year break from bombing, shooting, knifing and decapitations. Yessir. The world's a safer place when we've got Italian judges on the case.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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THE murder of Daniel Pearl, whose kidnappers filmed him as they slit his throat, was greeted with revulsion and outrage in Pakistan, America and the rest of the world. The video, which was said to have been given by two men to an FBI agent in Karachi who was posing as a journalist, apparently contained three separate scenes showing Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, being interviewed, then having his throat cut and, finally, his dead body. Reports that the third scene showed Pearl's decapitated corpse could not be confirmed. FBI agents in Karachi are studying the tape for clues. They should be filmed as they're dangling from ropes.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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US Delta Force soldiers and British Special Air Service (SAS) troops have formed a 40-man operation in a bid to hunt down Osama bin Laden in Jammu and Kashmir, The Daily Telegraph said. However, the Indian defence ministry described the report as 'rubbish'. "There is no question of allowing American or British or any foreign troops into Jammu & Kashmir. The report is totally incorrect and baseless," a defence ministry spokesman said. He said he could not comment on whether American and British forces could be operating in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The report said that US Delta Force soldiers and British Special Air Service troops have formed the operation in a bid to hunt down Bin Laden who is being protected by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Indian intelligence told the US Central Intelligence Agency in January that they believed Bin Laden was hiding in Kashmir's Himalayan mountains.
The report said the special forces teams were employing a range of high-tech devices to hunt Bin Laden. A spy satellite above the Indian Ocean operated by US and British intelligence is being used to monitor possible communications between Bin Laden and members of his al-Qaeda terror network. Could be happening, even as the Indos plausibly deny it. Any arrangement along those lines would involve high-level coordination. Gen. Myers met with Fernandes a week ago...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Two Hizbul Mujahideen and two Jaish-e-Mohammad gunnies were among seven people killed in separate incidents evening in Jammu and Kashmir. Two suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba involved in the massacre in Poonch last December were apprehended. The two Hizbul militants were killed in a gunbattle with security forces in Ganderbal area on the outskirts of Srinagar. Security forces also blew away two Jaish-e-Mohammad militants including a self-styled ââdistrict commanderââ. The other three dead included a policeman, a paramilitary and a suspected police informant. Getcher daily death toll right here! Good thing Pakland is against terrorism in any form. At least the Indos are picking them off across the organizational spectrum.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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The district police and investigating agencies have failed to find any clue to Amjad Hussain Farooqi, involved in kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. Farooqi has three aliases - Imtiaz Farooqi, Haider and Mansoor Hussain. Police had arrested his two brothers Muhammad Javed, Muhammad Amer and two relatives Muhammad Mohsin and Muhammad Ilyas a week ago. They were detained while police raided different places across the country without any success. A source disclosed that Farooqi had no contacts with his parents or relatives and nobody knew about his whereabouts. "I ain't sayin' nuttin', copper! Nuttin'!"
"Hit him again, Mahmud."
"Might I suggest the claw-hammer and testicle approach, Inspector?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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Police arrested an thug affiliated with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned sectarian outfit. Police said Asghar Ali had provided shelter to the assailants of a man gunned down in Bahawalpur while jogging last year. Police said that the killers had been identified and they would soon be apprehended. Meanwhile, arrested hitman, Abdullah Jan admitted his involvement in the bomb blast at Shia Jamia Masjid some six months ago where nine people were killed. Lashkar-i-Jhanvi is either a terrorist outfit with a sideline as crooks and robberts, or a robber band with a sideline as a terrorist outfit. They specialize in bumping off Shi'a Muslims, who are, of course, not really Muslims to the Hanafi Sunnis of western Pakland.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/23/2002 ||
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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.
