The warlord Padsha Khan Zadran is a beefy, gun-toting, illiterate, accused of killing 36 people in late April by randomly lobbing rockets into Gardez because he couldn't have his way. To confront Zadran, who claims control over three provinces, Afghanistan's interim government has chosen Hakim Taniwal, a slightly built, bespectacled sociology professor. He's playin' the Gary Cooper part...
Taniwal, the man dispatched by Kabul to be Khost's governor, has reported progress in his mission. Tribal leaders had been acting as go-betweens. They told him Zadran had agreed to recognize his authority here in Khost, a city so impulsively violent that some of the traffic police tote hand grenades. Things are getting better though. For a right turn on red without stopping they'll just shoot you up.
"Padsha Khan sees he is going down, that his days are numbered," said the professor. "He thought Khost exists for his personal booty. Now, I think he sees this can no longer be so." Taniwal then reconsidered these statements, admitting that the unpredictability of Zadran worried him. "Of course, the man is totally out of his mind," he said. "You know, people call him Saddam. He is very stubborn and bitter. He is growing more and more mad each day. I am glad we are moving toward a solution. At least, I hope we are." You hope so, Perfessor, but you never know with homicidal maniacs, do you? And there's a shortage of those coats with the very long sleeves in Afghanistan...
Of Afghanistan's many warlords â among them Ismail Khan in the west, Abdul Rashid Dostum in the north, and Gul Agha in the south â Zadran appears to be the only one in a great amount of trouble. "He sits in a room and is afraid to come out," said the warlord tauntingly. "He is not acting as governor. All matters are controlled by me." That's what the Clanton gang said about all those Earps, too...
The facts suggest otherwise. Mr. Zadran, a participant in the Bonn agreement that brought the country an interim government, was named governor of Paktia Province. But when he tried to assume office, forcing his way into Gardez with 800 soldiers, he was routed by a rival warlord, Hajji Saifullah. In late April he sought his revenge, ordering the rocket attack on the city. Hamid Karzai, expressed outrage, calling Zadran a murderer. Sounds like a pretty accurate description...
Taj Muhammad Wardak, who is serving as the governor of Paktia Province in the warlord's stead, ordered his rival to surrender. "Hah!" declaimed Mr. Zadran again today. "Wardak has control of one square kilometer of Gardez, and I have the rest. Tell me, who should surrender: him or me?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 06:31 pm ||
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Hans Blix is hoping for a better reception from Saddam Hussein than that accorded to his ill-fated predecessors at UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission). Blix, executive chairman of UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring and Verification and Inspection Commission), is providing his team of 230 weapons inspectors with lessons on Iraqi history and culture in advance of what he hopes are renewed weapons inspections in the near future. Blix, who has increased the nationalities represented by his team threefold, to 44, is also stressing proper on-the-job behavior to his staff, noting that negotiations between Iraq and UNSCOM hit rock bottom when weapons inspectors and Iraqi officials sparred over access to presidential sites. UNSCOM left Iraq in 1998. âThe more intrusive inspections you have, the more important it is that inspectors behave correctly,â he told the Middle East Forum on Friday. âThatâs the way we want our police to behave â effective but correct.â Y'know, if you indulge in too much sensitivity training you'll grow hair on your palms. Or go blind.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 09:14 am ||
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K P S Gill, security advisor to the Gujarat Chief Minister, on Sunday directed senior police personnel, including intelligence officials, "not to spare gulity" involved in case of rioting and asked them to file "regular reports" on the progress of cases. Terming the "meeting of senior police and intelligence officials" as "highly fruitful", sources in Gill's office said here that the supercop had stated that "law should take its course and culprits arrested and prosecution should be pursued at top level." Giving them the orders is one thing, getting them to actually move is another...
Police officials briefed Gill about steps being taken to revamp policing, which came for severe criticism during last two months. With damned good reason, we might add...
The supercop was told that despite some incidents of stabbing "efforts of reconciliation and appeal made to the people, especially minority, have been able to stop any strong retaliation". Gill also emphasised on proper check of people with "criminal bent of mind", who were now taking advantage of the communally volatile situation. The local coppers should know who their troublemakers are. The problem is the Cattelmen's Association behind-the-scenes powers protecting the Dalton Gang troublemakers...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 12:42 pm ||
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A severed womanâs head was discovered at Amrousieh, Lebanonâs compost separation plant on Friday. The scene was reminiscent of the grisly discovery of a foot at the same plant last month. The head of the woman, believed to be in her 20s, was found as workers were separating trash at around 6pm. Security sources reported that Mount Lebanonâs assistant public prosecutor, Jean Fahd, ordered it to be taken to the Baabda government hospital and examined by a coroner. The sources said that Ahmad Mazloum examined the head and determined that it belonged to a young woman who had been repeatedly beaten with a sharp object and then had her head severed with a knife. Mazloum put the time of death at no more than 24 hours prior to its discovery. The sources predicted that it would be difficult to determine the location of the crime because the plant receives more than 200 truckloads of trash daily. SoundsprettyIslamic, doesn't it?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 01:14 pm ||
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The army will release a limited number of reservists called up for a planned assault on the Gaza Strip, after Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer decided over the weekend to postpone the operation, security sources said. The defense minister convened top IDF brass in Tel Aviv on Friday for an assessment. The decision to back down from assaulting Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists was blamed on too many details on the military mission having been leaked, allowing Palestinian terrorists time to flee and others to prepare defenses. Somebody blabbed. Of course, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that Gaza would be next on the list, and they were fortifying before the boomer went.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 09:08 am ||
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French President Jacques Chirac raised the possibility yesterday of âconsequencesâ if Israel does not put a halt to a campaign presenting France as an anti-Semitic country, the presidentâs spokeswoman said. In a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Chirac spoke out âwith force against the campaign,â spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said. âAt a time when the French massively demonstrated their refusal of racism, of xenophobia, and of anti-Semitism, this campaign is not acceptable,â Chirac was quoted as saying. They did? When did they do that?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 09:10 am ||
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A senior Shiite cleric said Friday that it was wrong for Washington to criticize Syria for allegedly seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction when Israel already has such weapons. US Under-Secretary of State John Bolton warned Syria on Monday against trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, saying the United States would take action to ensure that Damascus did not give "terrorists" such arms. This is already known as the "Axis of Just as Evil" speech...
Is it "evil" for a state "whose land is occupied to try to use different weapons to expel the occupier and defend itself?" Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah asked in a Friday sermon. Ummm... We'd say yes. Matter of fact, we already have...
"Is there any country that represents the 'axis of evil' like America, which stirs political, economic and military evil around the entire world?" Why, sure. Lots of 'em. Why do you ask?
Fadlallah ridiculed Boltonâs speech, which was titled Beyond the Axis of Evil. I suppose that's fair. I ridicule Mullah Fudlullah for being one of the Learned Elders of Islam.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 12:03 pm ||
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Arafat seemed astonished that the group would even be involved in militant violence. "Al Aqsa Brigade is engaged in terrorism? Give me one, one example." His funding of Al Aqsa and other such groups should be compared to the U.S. government's welfare program, he said. Many of the group members lost jobs in Israel when hostilities heightened and live in poverty, he said. "I am proud I am giving help for those who have lost their work in Israel," Arafat said. "If I am giving money, I am proud of it." If you can't believe General Yasser Arafat, who in the world can you believe? And being a crazed killer is a perfectly honorable profession in some cultures.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 08:41 pm ||
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Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Sunday he is prepared to accept a Jewish state called Israel. The Palestinian Authority president-for-life said the land of Israel and the Palestinian territories is "terra santa" -- Latin for holy land -- for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Any independent Palestinian state, he said, will have room for them all. "We hope that we will have this independent Palestinian state side by side with Israeli Jewish state," he told CNN. Asked whether he accepts the Jewish state of Israel, he replied, "Yes. A part of the Jews are Palestinians, and they are represented in our legislative council. Till now, we don't call them Jews. Do you know what we call them? Our cousins." Arafat recalled how as a boy he had Jewish playmates. "Historically, we are cousins." Cousin Shlomo? Now I've heard everything. They have Jews in Egypt? Or maybe they did when Yasser was a tad.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 09:20 pm ||
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U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the major remaining concentrations of al Qaeda fighters are in western Pakistan, rather than in Afghanistan, but Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to launch large-scale attacks against them, officials in Washington and Pakistan said. We guessed at both of those. The former from the fact that there haven't been any large scale fights in Afghanistan, the latter from the fact that the religious loons are threatening civil war.
U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan to act against what they believe are groups of al Qaeda fighters concentrated in the Waziristan area of western Pakistan, near the Afghan border. "We know where there is a large concentration of al Qaeda," one Pentagon official said last week, noting that there were several hundred in one border town, which he asked not be identified. But, he added, "Our guys haven't been getting the cooperation" requested from the Pakistani government." That's because the Bad Guys have powerful friends, some of them in the Pak government, others forming a vociferous bloc against it.
Pakistani officials responded that, with or without U.S. aid, they are reluctant for several reasons to launch the attacks. They said they fear an internal political backlash, both in the unruly border area and from Islamic extremists across the nation. They said their military already is strained by the standoff with India. In addition, they said they lack confidence in U.S. intelligence reports about the supposed buildup of al Qaeda forces on their territory. "There can't be any such large-scale concentrations in any area of Pakistan," Pakistani Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, director of the Interior Ministry's crisis management cell, said Friday. "It isn't possible." Which is what's known as a willing suspension of disbelief.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 09:30 am ||
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Aftab Ansari, the alleged mastermind of the Kolkata American Center attack, has revealed he had a close association with Saeed Omar Sheikh, the prime accused in the US journalist Daniel Pearl murder case. Revealing close nexus between Pakistan-based terrorists and the Indian underworld, Ansari also told his interrogators that the January 22 attack was undertaken because Lashkar-e-Taiba wanted to take revenge against the US and he wanted to avenge the killing of his close associate Asif Raza Khan by the police. Revenge is very important, y'know...
Ansari, who is in the custody of the Delhi Police since last Monday, has also disclosed that he met Omar Sheikh, a senior leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist outfit, first in an Indian jail. That's where all these guys seem to meet. And Omar Sheikh seems to be one of the major players in the entire terror network, doesn't he?
Sheikh was among the three terrorists released in December 1999 to end the Indian Airlines plane hijacking crisis. Ansari later went to Pakistan and Omar Sheikh provided all kinds of logistical and other kinds of support to him there. "Omar Sheikh even got Ansari's Pakistani passport made in the name of Azhar in February 2001," the sources said, adding he had stayed in Pakistan for over a year. Omar Sheikh was also instrumental in introducing Ansari to ISI operatives who sought the latter's cooperation in carrying out its subversive activities in India, the sources added. And there's the tie again between Jaish, Omar Sheikh, and the ISI. The Indos keep coming back to ISI, but probably with pretty good reason.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 01:03 pm ||
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After efforts for reconciliation failed between the factions led by Abdul Majid Dar and Syed Salahuddin, the dominant Kashmiri militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen is likely to soon announce expulsion of Salahuddin and some other leaders besides dissociating itself from the Islamabad-based command council. Hmmm. Sounds like a schism...
The move is aimed at establishing complete local control over the outfit besides re-structuring its command council, which would be headed by Dar, who was expelled by Islamabad-based command council for his "anti-Hizb" activities. Terming the decision to expel Salahuddin as a "hard one", sources close to Dar said that Hizb leaders in the valley were left with no option but to expel "the leaders sitting across the border" and only "narrating what had been fed to them." And never getting shot. Don't forget that part.
"By terming Dar and other leaders of Hizb, who have sacrificed the comfort of their life for the Kashmir cause, as traitors, they (Pakistan-based Command Council of Hizb) have insulted each and every Kashmiri," the sources said. The Hizbul Mujahideen sources said this had left the group with no other option than to expel Salahuddin and other leaders of the outfit, who were "speaking the language of their masters who had been milking the Kashmir cause for their own benefit." By golly! It is! It's a counter-excommunication. Get the bell, the book, the candle...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/12/2002 01:08 pm ||
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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.
