The hourglass was set on the present "Operation Defensive Wall," which may now have only several days to run before the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, arrives in theatre. But this operation has already achieved most of its objectives, in a surprisingly short time, thanks largely to the preparatory work of "Operation Root Treatment" before it. There have been huge intelligence hauls in Ramallah and elsewhere, weapons collecting on an unprecedented scale, and a breakthrough round-up of wanted terrorists. The feverish Palestinian executions of "collaborators" are among several indications that they, too, give the Israelis high marks.
At the time of writing, the operation still had not extended into the Gaza strip. I believe the reason is that the whole thing was aimed at Mr. Arafat's own terrorist infrastructure. With the isolation of Arafat in Ramallah, Gaza has increasingly become Hamas territory, to be dealt with separately, and less urgently, since Hamas is clearly on the U.S. State Department's list of international terror organizations, and will raise fewer objections in future.
The vexing question, "What to do with Arafat?" will, thanks to Mr. Bush's present posture, become more and more a public one. Earlier this week, according to my information, both the Israelis and the Americans were negotiating with Morocco's King Mohammed about his future digs.
Given the increased clarity with which we've come to view Hamas of the past few weeks, I think it's next on the list of targets, as soon as Yasser's Apparatus of Evil has been whacked hard enough. I'm not sure there's been enough time to do that, though Lord knows they've tried to roll it up quickly enough; the IDF knew they wouldn't have long when they went in, and it doesn't look like the objective of driving Yasser off the deep end worked. Darnit. But Gaza Strip could be the "two" in a "one-two" punch.
I don't see Gaza as being all that important, for the reason that Friedman, in his rare lucid moments, keeps harping on: borders. Gaza has straight, defensible, and well-defined borders, and sealing it off is an order of magnitude easier than sealing off the rest of the PA human bomb factory. Posted by Joel Rosenberg [www.slovotskys-laws.com] 4/8/2002 1:28:00 PM
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Rand Simberg writes thoughtfully on the implications of the fact that we've been at war with the Saudis for thirty years and only just noticed the fact seven months ago. That's a point I've made before and come back to time after time. It's a point that's become more and more obvious to anyone who reads Rantburg or LGF (preferably both, of course) on a regular basis. There are two main terror centers pushing Islamofascism: Palestine and Pakistan. Palestine has Hamas, and it's funded by the Saudis. Pakistan has its excellent network of madrassahs and they're funded by the Saudis. Smaller centers like Indonesia and the Philippines have nascent clones of these two areas, and they're funded by the Saudis. Binny is a Saudi loose cannon, jumping the gun on them because he was convinced mujaheddin could take on the West and win. He's a Saudi, and the men behind him were Saudi clerics - and princes. The Real Enemy is finding it increasingly difficult to hide.
Yup. Follow the money, and the bodies. It isn't accidental that the majority of the Black Tuesday shahids were Saudi nationals, nor is it coincidental that the Afghani and Pak madrassahs were funded by Saudi money, nor is it coincidental that payment to the brave shaheeds of the noble Palestinian attacks on discos, supermarkets, and seders come from Saudi Arabia.
The good news is that the Saudi nut will be the easiest to crack, given the will -- the 82nd Airborne could do it in about a day, or a platoon of Marines could do it in a lazy afternoon. The bad news is that the considerable money and political influence of the Saudis is quite carefully directed at keeping that subject off the table. Posted by Joel Rosenberg [www.slovotskys-laws.com] 4/8/2002 1:25:28 PM
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At least two rockets were fired a building housing multi-national peacekeeping troops in Kabul early Sunday morning, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. It was not clear who was responsible was for the attack, which caused no injuries or damage and came days after Afghan officials said a plot to destabilize the interim administration had been foiled. Afghan officials said Sunday they would not rule out involvement of fundamentalist groups in the rocket attack, including remnants of the vanquished Taliban regime and followers of one-time prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. "The guards on duty at that time reported what they thought was a rocket-propelled grenade attack against the location which houses the Kabul headquarters of the multi-national brigade," Lieutenant-Colonel Neal Peckham told reporters. "The impact was merely two hundred meters from the perimeter fence" of the headquarters, he said. Sounds like firing off rockets for the sake of firing off rockets, a way to saying "we're here" even though they can't really be effectual - yet. And it's as likely Hekmatyar men as Taliban, not that there's a great difference between the two.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the strongest signal yet he would support U.S. military action against Iraq, said Sunday that Saddam Hussein must allow weapons inspectors into his country "any time, any place the international community demands" or face consequences. Blair, ending a weekend of talks with President Bush, urged the international community to confront terrorist regimes with military force if necessary - then called Saddam a brutal leader who must be dealt with. He stopped just short of specifically threatening military action against Iraq.
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President Pervez Musharraf has "threatened India with the atom bomb" in the event of war over Kashmir whose "blood runs in our hearts", he was quoted on Saturday as telling Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. Indian news reports quoted the magazine as saying that Gen Musharraf condemned "India's great power illusion" and told "India to count on the fact that if the pressure on Pakistan becomes too great, then nuclear weapons use (is possible) as a last means of defence".
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Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Saturday filed his second application in the Supreme Court for issuance of an urgent restraining order against President Gen Pervez Musharraf for announcing various steps in his speech on Friday. The petitioner submitted that despite the limited authority vested in the respondent, he had ceaselessly tried to cling on to the reins of power under pretext of his indispensability for Pakistan and announced in a nationwide broadcast that he was proceeding to arrange a referendum. Ummm... Qazi? He's a dictator. Dictators do that. If you ever get to be dictator, you'll do that, too.
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The Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal is all set to launch a campaign against President General Musharraf's decision to hold referendum in the country. In this connection, all parties conferences in all the four provincial capitals will be convened this month to devise a strategy to foil the General's bid seeking another term as the president. Thought they were already doing that? Or is this the execution of the plan they were talking about before?
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Gasoline bombs were hurled at police guarding a French synagogue again, part of a wave of anti-Semitic violence in France since fighting worsened in the Middle East. Three thugs assailants hurled Molotov cocktails at three officers guarding the Merlan Synagogue in Marseilles late Saturday. No one was injured and no property was damaged. The assailants got away. Two attackers had hurled gasoline bombs at the same synagogue Tuesday. "Alphonse? Do you smell something burning?"
"Why, yes, Gaston. I believe I do."
"Have you seen any perpetrators?"
"Why, yes. I believe that is one over there. Here, you! Halt!"
"Merde. He did not halt. Ah, well. Have you any decent frommage? This poor stuff I have doesn't smell anything like feet."
On Friday, prosecutors said three North African bully boys young men of Moroccan origin confessed to throwing Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in the southern city of Montpellier on Thursday. "These three men were coming out of a party and had been drinking quite a lot when they decided to carry out this attack against the synagogue," Montpellier prosecutor Leonard-Bernard de la Gatinais said Friday. "They were acting based upon what they had seen in the news," he said, and called the suspects "unemployed, confused people." See? Nothing there. Not a thing to worry about.
As the famous Cuban philospher R.Ricardo once said, "I dun bliv it." Unemployed, confused people might hold up a liquor store, but they don't firebomb synagogues and churches. Terrorists and psychopaths do that.
The government stepped up police patrols of Jewish religious sites after another synagogue in Marseille was burned to the ground by arsonists on Wednesday. Seems to have been very effectual.
The little Swabian towns I was garrisoned by in Germany often had nice little parks in them with brass plaques saying:
"Here was the site of the Synagogue, burned on [day and month] 193x."
Wonder if the French will use this sort of plaques, and cut the grass and plant flowers as nicely as their German neighbors? Posted by Tom Roberts 4/7/2002 6:36:38 PM
My guess would be that the Frenchies will wind their stylish new turbans a little tighter and build mosques on the sites. If you own a copy of the Song of Roland, don't sell it. Posted by Fred 4/8/2002 9:49:55 AM
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Israeli forces pounded the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin Sunday and battled gunmen in alleyways, defying U.S. calls to end an offensive which has sent the Palestinian death toll soaring. The Israeli government hailed its West Bank campaign to root out Palestinian militants as a success, but a cabinet statement pointedly ignored President Bush's pressure to withdraw the troops from Palestinian cities without delay. Israel is widely expected to continue its 10-day-old offensive until Secretary of State Colin Powell visits the region later this week. Palestinians fear this means the army will intensify its assaults over the next few days. The army, which has also suffered mounting casualties, said it had killed more than 30 armed Palestinians in close combat since Friday in Nablus, where it has met dogged resistance from gunmen who erected barricades and planted makeshift mines.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair Sunday praised a Middle East peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah and called for it to be enshrined in a United Nations resolution. Blair also welcomed Bush's call for Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas "without delay," stressing the need for an external force to intervene in the conflict and help the two sides back to negotiations. Blair said the top priority was to get a cease-fire and added: "In parallel with a cease-fire, the principles he (Abdullah) set out should be incorporated in a further U.N. Security Council resolution as the way forward politically. "You need a political vision of the final settlement and small practical steps going together to get on the road to peace," he said in a speech to the George Bush Senior Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Now that they're on record as promising "normal" relations...
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Hours before leaving on a crucial peace-seeking mission to the Middle East, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday he may meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but cautioned that he might not return with a cease-fire deal. Appearing on Sunday news talk shows, Powell said he spoke early in the day with Israeli President Ariel Sharon who understands President Bush's desire for a halt to its incursions into Palestinian lands but did not offer a timeframe for withdrawing from its military sweep of the West Bank. On Fox News Sunday, Powell said he hoped Sharon had taken Bush's "injunction very much to heart and will speed this up and start to withdraw, as President Bush said, without delay. And he means now." I think most of us doubt greatly he's going to return with a cease-fire deal. Because of the Europressure, Israel will withdraw from the West Bank, at which time the Palestinians will stupidly "counter-attack" from the Gaza Strip while the West Bank thugs strut around pretending they "drove the IDF out." If the "counter-attack" results in enough dead Israelis, the Gaza organizations can be stomped next, possibly as early as week after next. Watch to see if the reservists are demob'd. My guess is that they won't be.
NPR said this morning that Powell's first stop was in Morocco. Now, Morocco hasn't exactly been a diplomatic powerhouse recently, but they did offer to take in Yassir if he suddenly needed to relocate. Perhaps Colin is doing some advance Apartment hunting?
Of course, I still want to see the Saudi's take him in, and make him live with Idi Amin. Posted by Hermetic 4/8/2002 12:03:06 PM
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President Bush's national security adviser said on Sunday that while Bush wants Israel to withdraw without delay from Palestinian cities, he understands "that it can't be helter-skelter and chaotic." The comment from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition" came as Israel defied a U.S. appeal to pull out of Palestinian cities. If we don't want a disorderly pullout, then they're not defying us, are they, Rooters?
I think that the Israelis are defying us _according to plan_. The more I read the more it looks like Bush has decided to give the Euroweenies and Arabs a taste of their own techniques. The Israelis will "defy" us and we'll sob to the Euroweenies "oh, what can we do, they're so upset they just won't listen! Could you get the Palestinians to make a gesture?" I mean, when Zinni suckered the Palestinians into forming that committee, I knew that somebody on the Bush team is just yanking their chain. Posted by Annoying Old Guy 4/8/2002 1:17:37 PM
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"In Jenin, we are at the verge of ending the fighting in the refugee camp," army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey told The Associated Press. "The resistance there was very tough, perhaps tougher than estimated." Kitrey made clear, however, that troops won't pull out of the Jenin camp - where Palestinian militants traditionally have been strong - once fighting ends. "We will try to search for the wanted militants, their homes, their bases, the armories and explosives stores. ... The operation will take time, as long as needed," he said. Kitrey said he doesn't expect resistance once the heavy fighting ends, though Israeli forces thus far had not penetrated the heart of the camp. Israeli soldiers have taken up positions in houses and buildings in eastern and western neighborhoods from which they have been exchanging fire with Palestinian gunmen, said Jamal Abdel Salaam, a Hamas militant group leader inside the camp. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged to try to "expedite" the military operation, in which more than 1,400 Palestinians have been arrested, but has not announced a withdrawal deadline.
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In Bethlehem, a standoff between Israeli forces and scores of Palestinian gunmen holed up with Palestinian police officers and clerics in the Church of the Nativity, built over the traditional birthplace of Jesus, entered a sixth day. Throughout the night, Israeli soldiers using loudspeakers urged the gunmen inside to surrender: "Get out. ... It is a holy place. ... We have food. ... Surrender."
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In the Gaza Strip, which hasn't been part of the current offensive, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians early Sunday as they were placing a 175-pound bomb near the Israeli Morag settlement, the army spokesman said. The bodies were handed over to Palestinian security. No group immediately claimed the men as its own. "Hello? This is Hamas calling. Look, do you have two dead guys over there?... Yeah. Well, we want to claim them..."
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Nine days after a crackdown was launched by the joint teams of FBI and local agencies in Faisalabad against Al Qaeda men, six more arrests taking place at a hideout in Muslim Town the same day came to light on Saturday. Sources revealed that the men picked up from a house in Muslim Town were believed to be main characters of Al-Qaeda and were shifted to Lahore immediately after their arrest. The raiding team also seized some files, photographs, a computer, two mobile phones, and other belongings of the arrested persons. So they kept the arrests secret? That could be because they don't want to tip off other nests of thugs who might be on the list for the next raids.
The watchman of a house adjacent to the hideout revealed that heavy police contingents accompanied by some foreigners, including two women, had raided the house in early hours of March 28 and none of the area people was allowed to get close to the place during the operation. Notice the US military denied involvement. FBI and CIA didn't.
"The team arrested seven or eight persons, including six foreigners. They were immediately shifted in a police van guarded by commandos of the Elite Police Force. Some commandos were covering the faces of the arrested persons with black masks when they were presented before a team of foreign commandos," the watchman claimed. Those would likely have been the CIA guys, and maybe any Brits involved.
He told that the raiding team had also encircled a Madressah situated only metres away from the hideout to avoid retaliation from its students. Very interesting, this confluence of madrassah and terrorist hideout. The questiona again comes up, whose madrassah is it? How many of its students actually study, if any?
The house is owned by Mohammad Tariq, the owner of the National Plant Designing of Hajiabad, and was rented through property dealers Saleem and Taj Mohammad for Rs15,000 a month a couple of months ago. Which means nothing. A house let through a rental agent can go to anyone who looks clean enough to pay the rent every month. But that madrassah next door...
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Inept gunnies fired a rifle grenade towards a BSF camp in Srinagar. It missed the target and fell in a nallah. No loss of life was reported.
Three gunnies were waxed by security forces in an encounter that broke out during a cordon and search operation in Mendhar area of Poonch hills.
One snuffy was iced by troops in an encounter in Surankote hills of Poonch. Police claimed recovery of an AK-47 rifle with four magazines and 65 rounds, one radio set, four hand grenades and some documents.
Two hard boys were zapped in encounters in Rajouri.
Police recovered the silted head of a teacher (Eeeeew!), Mushtaq Ahmad Mir, from Nagbal in Pulwama.
An army jawan was killed and three others injured when gunnies engaged them in a shootout at Bankote-Bafliaz in border district of Poonch.
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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.
