Recovery crews searching through the last mountains of World Trade Center debris have found more human remains in the past three weeks than in any comparable period since October. Nearly 3,000 body parts have been discovered since March 1, when workers began concentrating on the last heaps of rubble, including the footprint of the south tower, the first skyscraper to collapse. That's body parts, not bodies, lest we forget. The people we're fighting now drove airplanes full of screaming non-combatants into those buildings and dropped the structures to crush and burn the inhabitants. I will never forget. I will never cease hating the killers.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf reportedly told the US ambassador in Islamabad that he would rather hang Sheikh Omar Sayeed himself rather than extradite him, one of many instances of backsliding that has called into question Pakistan's credibility as a frontline state in the war against terrorism. Musharraf's comment on the danger (to Pakistan) in extraditing Saeed was reportedly made to US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain, who conveyed it back to Washington, according to Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland. Behind the refusal to extradite Saeed lie fears that he may expose the deep ties between Pakistani intelligence services and terrorist organisations. You heard it here first...
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03/29/2002 ||
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Israel cautiously welcomed a sweeping Mideast proposal after it was unanimously endorsed yesterday by leaders at an Arab League summit.
A government spokesman in Jerusalem called the plan, outlined by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a "very important and interesting initiative."
U.S. officials called the formal adoption of the Saudi plan a positive step. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the proposal "can help shape a more positive environment for peacemaking."
The declaration, issued at the end of the two-day summit in Beirut, called for peace and normal ties with Israel if it returns all occupied Arab land. "Now, we have a sharp weapon to influence the international community and pressure Israel," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said. "If Israel refuses peace, we will return to violence. We will return to the threat of widening conflict and to instabilities and God knows what happens."
The declaration danced around some key issues. For example, it said Israel must agree to a "just solution" to the problems of thousands of Palestinian refugees - but avoided the long-standing demand for a Palestinian "right of return." Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the refugee issue could be a major obstacle. He insisted Arab nations must open "direct negotiations with Israel" on that and other differences. Thought they rejected it yesterday?
If I was Sharon - and I'm not; my hair's the wrong color - I'd say, "We accept. Our only condition is a stable and non-belligerent Palestinian authority." Trouble is, it'll be two or three weeks after Doomsday before we see that.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was trapped in his burning office compound this morning, under siege by Israeli tanks after Jerusalem's Cabinet declared him "the enemy." Arafat "will be isolated," vowed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Tanks roared into the Ramallah area early this morning, closing in on the Palestinian Authority headquarters from two directions. They quickly bulldozed through a protective fence and began firing on the building. Three of Arafat's personal bodyguards were wounded in the intense firefight in and around the compound, and initial reports indicated one Israeli soldier had been killed. "Israeli tanks fired shells at President Arafat's offices and the building is on fire, and we are inside," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters by telephone. "It seems they will storm the building."
Israel launched the siege after Arafat, fearing he's a marked man, tried to ward off a military assault yesterday by claiming he was ready to accept a U.S.-backed cease-fire agreement. Has Yasser finally made them say "He's gone too far this time" one too many times? Will the slippery old thug finally buy the very small farm? (Arab News had an editorial yesterday about how the PA leadership had "failed its people.") Or will he live, to hatch more plausibly deniable nefarious schemes? Stay tuned for more...
Israeli troops stormed Yasser Arafat's headquarters complex and moved room to room toward the Palestinian leader, knocking through walls and trading fire with his guards in a building where Arafat took cover in a windowless office. Five Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed, 25 of Arafat's guards were wounded and 70 Palestinians were arrested in the assault on this West Bank city. What a nice picture: Yasser in his windowless hidey-hole with his gun on the desk in front of him, while the Israelis clean out the rats' nest. We'll be back to more of the same next week, but this week is prime.
The troops also seized a large number of weapons, including anti-tank missiles, forbidden under the terms of the Oslo accords, as well as equipment used by the Palestinians to eavesdrop on Israeli telephone conversations. They'll get more. Don't worry. Probably on their way from Iran right now, as soon as the Saudi check clears.
A Palestinian official said Arafat told him by cell phone that by nightfall Israeli troops had taken over the entire office building except the middle floor. Electricity and land phone lines were cut. Now just keep him there. Forever. Wall him in. Don't let him out, don't let anyone in. Eventually his cell phone battery will go dead. At little more eventually so will he.
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03/29/2002 ||
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A female suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to a Jerusalem supermarket, killing herself and two other people. At least 19 people were injured in the blast at a strip mall in Kiryat Yovel, a working class Jewish neighborhood in southeastern part of the city. The bomb sprayed glass and debris onto the sidewalk and brought police and rescue workers rushing to the bloody scene. Israel's Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki said apparently three people were killed, including the bomber, though he was not absolutely certain about the figure. The Al Aqsa Brigades, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility in a phone call, and identified the bomber as Ayat Akhras, 18, from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem. As word of the bombing spread through the camp, some residents celebrated, handing out candy and firing guns into the air.
Two Israelis in their seventies on their way to synagogue were they were attacked, one on the synagogue steps and the other nearby, and knifed. The Hero of the Arab People was shot like a mad dog by Israeli soldiers as he tried for his third victim. Islamic Jihad claimed the glory for the attack in a message to Reuters. And the Palestinians counterattack with boomers and street thugs...
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03/29/2002 ||
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Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, his pistol on a table before him, gave one telephone interview after another to Arab TV stations as Israeli tanks rumbled below his window. He stopped only when aides whisked him away when his office came under fire, Palestinian officials said. "They are firing directly at Arafat's office. They are targeting him. His life is in danger. The situation is very, very dangerous," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said by telephone. The army denied firing at his office. Arafat was not hurt.
"Nobody is shaken, afraid, or retreating," Arafat told Qatar-based al-Jazeera television in a calm voice. "We are going to Jerusalem, giving millions of martyrs on the way," he added. If the world is really lucky, Yasser will be one of the millions, and close to the head of the line. It's about time he got his 72 flat-chested 12-year-olds and let the rest of us try and live in a world that's not built on a foundation of dead bodies.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday that Israel has assured the U.S. government that Palestinian President-for-Life Yasser Arafat will not be harmed or captured during the incursion into his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Damn. No daisy farm? I'm so disappointed. So are millions of others...
Steven den Beste thinks the Israelis will bump him off, maybe "accidentally." I think they'll be careful not to. I also think it'll be a mistake.
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03/29/2002 ||
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"Hours after the Arab peace initiative was issued... Israel replied with a barbaric war and a flagrant and brutal aggression," said Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. The Israeli action "confirmed once again that Israel is a terrorist state that rejects peace." Seems like it was also hours after a barbaric attack by Palestinians on Israelis civilians.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher called the offensive "foolish, illegal and a message of war and aggression to the Arabs as a response to their message of peace." Maher said he spoke with Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, asking for help to stop Israeli attacks. That's what the Palestinian campaign is designed to make him do: Do something intolerable, call the retaliation intolerable, and try and shame somebody into throwing his weight onto the Palestinian side.
Several hundred worshippers at Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque called on Arab leaders to reject normalization of relations with the Jewish state. "Our leaders, open the door to jihad (holy war)!" they shouted. Has a day gone by in the past 100 years without some idiot declaring "jihad" on somebody? That's the second objective, to get the "Arab Street" fired up and maybe get a few International Brigades going.
Essam Al-Eryan, a leading member of Egypt's largest Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, criticized Arab leaders as ineffectual, saying they were watching Arafat "under direct threat and they can't do anything about it." Maybe they wouldn't want to do anything about it, even if they could.
Qatar, current chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, called for an emergency U.N. Security Council session to discuss the situation. If it'd have been that important to them, they'd have been working contructively toward putting together a mutually acceptable agreement, wouldn't they?
In Jordan, Palestinian refugees in two camps near Amman, called for jihad, or holy war, and for the removal of the Israeli ambassador from the country. In the heart of the capital, heavy police presence confined anti-Israeli protests to the mosques. More jihadis, more hollering...
In Iraq, President Saddam Hussein's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, called the Israeli assault "a Zionist reaction to the Arab unity in the summit." Either that, or an understandable reaction to barbarism. An Iraqi party hack wouldn't be able to understand that, though.
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03/29/2002 ||
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A carefully worded, almost skeptical reaction came from the White House Thursday to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's announcement that he will immediately begin implementing a cease-fire and start neutralizing Palestinian terrorists. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told Fox News: "We've heard what Chairman Arafat has said. We are examining what he said. We are looking at his words." McCormack added: "Our diplomatic people are in touch with Palestinian Authority representatives. Our diplomats are in constant contact with the State Department." How do you say "pusillanimous" in Arabic? (How do you spell it in English?)
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03/29/2002 ||
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About 600 activists, most of them European members of the Public International Protection group, arrived in Ramallah for 10-day stays with local families. The town is Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters. "We are going to stay here in Ramallah in particular to provide the Palestinians with protection," said French farmers' union leader Jose Bove. "The Israeli government and our governments all know that we are in Ramallah. (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon must understand that if he decides to bombard Ramallah he is going to bombard hundreds of foreigners." Well, okay then. If you walk into it willingly, you can't really bitch about any shrapnel that comes your way, can you?
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03/29/2002 ||
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The government also decided that the army would mobilize over 10,000 reservists - an indication that the planned military operation in the territories, which began late Thursday in Ramallah, is expected to be wide-ranging and drawn out. Sharon said later Friday that the operation would continue for weeks, if not longer. He also called on all Israelis to unite behind the government, saying he expected mounting international pressure over the military operation. And they will have it. That's the purpose behind the continuing atrocities. Who'll be the first (outside the Arab world) to holler "overreaction"? My money's on the Frenchies.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Israeli police also stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, using stun grenades to disperse stone-throwing Muslim worshippers. Close it down. Don't let anybody back in. Ever.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Via Drudge:
Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, under pressure Friday as the Israeli military stormed his headquarters in Ramallah, became angry during a live telephone interview with CNN and hung up when he was asked about the U.S. call for him to reign in Palestinian violence. Relax, Yasser. Take a deep breath. Count to ten...
"Are you asking me, who is under a complete siege?" he asked correspondent Christiane Amanpour after her question about comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. "Well, yeah. That's why I called you..."
"You have to be accurate when you are speaking to General Yassir Arafat," he continued: "Be quiet! You are covering the terrorist occupation and the Israeli crimes. ... Thank you. Bye, bye." Have you noticed he's started referring to himself as a general lately? I never noticed that before this month...
Before he hung up the telephone, Arafat said the Israeli army had destroyed seven buildings around his office during a day that for him was filled with arms fire. Terrible. Just terrible. It'd have been worse if there'd been people in them, but I guess your attackers are just too civilized. It's not like they're Hamas or al-Aqsa or Islamic Jihad...
"You have to understand that it's the Palestinian people who are fighting this occupation, and I'm sure they will continue to," he said. "This is the real terrorism - of the occupation." They're also the ones who're getting waxed and blowing themselves up in his half-assed offensive. Those generals, y'know, they're too valuable to get popped on the street with the common folk.
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03/29/2002 ||
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The Islamic Tawheed Movement said Thursday that the âheroic suicidal operationâ carried out in Netanya proved that confrontation was the sole way for liberation and recovering the Palestinian peopleâs rights. The Tripoli-based Islamist group added that with the Netanya attack, the Palestinian people seemed to âaffirm their choice to continue the struggle and not depend on any initiative that is not based on rights, justice and liberation.â The attack, which killed 20 Israelis and wounded over 130, was met with marches of jubilation in Palestinian refugee camps in the north of Lebanon, as participants declared their rejection of initiatives aimed at âabortingâ the intifada or settling the Middle East problem âat the expense of the Palestine cause.â Islamic Tawheed Movement is a fundamentalist sect based in Tripoli. It appears to be aligned with Iran.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Palestinian factions from across the political and religious spectrum united in defiance against Israelâs assault on Yasser Arafatâs compound and promised to fight back.
The Nationalist and Islamic Forces, a 13-member coalition which groups Arafatâs secular Fatah movement and radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, promised to defend Palestinian territories after Israeli tanks rolled into Arafatâs compound in Ramallah. The coalition, which has helped coordinate Palestinian strategy since the start of the 18-month uprising, or intifada, against Israeli occupation said it would unite to defend the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. âThe National and Islamic forces met Friday in Gaza City and called for all the military groups to unite against the (Israeli) aggression and defend the Palestinian people,â a coalition member from Hamas said.
A Fatah official, Zakaria al-Agha, who has been a key figure in talks between the Palestinian factions, warned that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon âhas declared war on the Palestinian people. It is natural that we unite."
Hamas, which claimed two deadly attacks against Israelis over the last two days, swore Israel would pay dearly for its occupation of Ramallah, where the army stormed Arafatâs compound and machine-gunned his offices. âThe Israelis will pay a high price for its aggression in Ramallah,â said Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, a leader of the groupâs political wing in Gaza City. In Gaza City, demonstrators rallied Friday outside the Palestinian Parliament and shouted pro-Hamas slogans. âHamasâs day has come,â demonstrators shouted in the presence of Hamasâs crippled and near-blind spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. âSharon, death is near,â they said.
Islamic Jihad, which claimed the stabbing of two elderly Israelis in the Gaza Strip Friday morning, also promised more bloodshed. âThe coming days will see an unprecedented intensification of the Palestinian resistance,â said Jihad official Khaled al-Batsh, adding that the groupâs armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, would carry out more attacks on Israel.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an ultra-left militant group, threatened that âEvery Israeli will be the target of the Palestinian people. We will resist Israelâs extermination war by all means, and the Palestinian people inside and outside (the occupied territories) will hit everywhere,â Maher Taher, a member of the PFLPâs political bureau, said in Damascus. âWe will wage a global war to defend our existence, and the Palestinian peopleâs capacities have not dried up,â he warned.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the third major member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation after Fatah and the PFLP, urged âPalestinian fighters to unite and fight back with weapons against the tanks and the army of Israeli occupation.â It demanded Syria, Lebanon and Jordan allow their massive Palestinian refugee populations to âexit the refugee camps to go support the intifada in the Palestinian territories,â the group said in a statement.
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03/29/2002 ||
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A court in Pakistan set an April trial date for four men accused in the kidnap-slaying of Daniel Pearl. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the alleged mastermind of the Jan. 23 kidnapping, and three accomplices will face trial April 5 before an anti-terrorism court on charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism, chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi said. The trial will be held at a jail for security reasons. Saeed asked that his case be heard before a religious court based on Islamic law, but Judge Shabir Ahmad refused. Islamic courts in Pakistan do not deal with murder cases, focusing instead on adultery or civil disputes. Family and friends of the defendants gathered outside the judge's chambers, some shouted Quranic verses. Saeed attempted to scream a message to the crowd after leaving the courthouse, but police pushed him into an armored personnel carrier and whisked him back to jail. This should be fairly Barnum and Bailey, providing an opportunity for a few riots and some anti-American shouting and posturing by the fundos. Regardless of the sentence handed out, Omar will probably be back on the street in a year. And because he's going on trial in Pakland, they can't extradite him to the US because that'd be double jeopardy.
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03/29/2002 ||
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"Early this morning a group of heavily armed militants fired with automatic weapons at a BSF (Border Security Force) camp at Kalakote," a police official said. "Two soldiers were killed and at least three others were injured." Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack.
A security patrol vehicle was damaged in a land mine blast in Pattan township but none of the passengers were hurt.
Gunnies killed two activists of Kashmir's ruling National Conference party in in Kupwara district. A woman was seriously hurt in the shootout.
Three civilians, two militants and a soldier were killed in separate incidents of mindless violence across the state since Thursday evening, police said. The Learned Elders of Islam have moved Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen toward the top of their active list to take some of the heat - mostly international - off Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad because of the number of people within their ranks who needed a map to find Kashmir. Jamiat presents a more indigenous face for the killings.
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03/29/2002 ||
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Two people were killed and 18 were wounded when two home-made bombs ripped through a packed outdoor market in Algeria on Friday. "The final toll is two dead and 18 hurt, three of them seriously wounded," a hospital official said. The bombs exploded at Guessab market in the small town of Ouled Yaich in Blida province, about 30 miles south of the capital Algiers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Markets and bus stations are easier to take out than military installations or cop shops, and there aren't nearly as man guns if you get caught setting the explosives.
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03/29/2002 ||
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The International Red Cross is investigating a grave incident in which a PA Red Crescent ambulance was found to be carrying an explosive. On Wednesday morning, IDF soldiers stopped the ambulance at the A-Ram Checkpoint north of Jerusalem and found the bomb hidden under a stretcher occupied by a child, who was reportedly being transported to a Jerusalem hospital. The International Red Cross is treating the incident seriously. Well, ain't that a first? They've been denying previous similar incidents.
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03/29/2002 ||
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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.
