Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told Abu Dhabi Television that "Iraq is ready to discuss the return of the U.N. weapons inspectors, provided that any dialogue with the United Nations takes place with no preconditions," he said in an Aug. 10 interview aired in full Thursday. If you say something different every day, it can take years to figure out what you actually mean. If you don't actually mean anything, it can take forever...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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A defiant Iraq warned the United States it would be taught a lesson it will never forget if it launched a military campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime, threats of which it said left the Iraqi people unbowed. "The Iraqis are ready to engage in a war against the United States and are determined to teach the Americans a lesson they will never forget," the official Al-Iraq newspaper vowed Friday. "Statements and threats by American officials cannot terrorise the people of Iraq because their victory over the United States is guaranteed." Yeah. We keep forgetting how they thrashed us in Gulf War I...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 11:39 am ||
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Yes, well, we indeed will never forget the lesson. Unfortunately for them, the lesson we learn won't be the lesson they're thinking/hoping for.
Like the song title, it'll be "Is that all there is?"
Posted by: fred ||
08/16/2002 19:46 Comments ||
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Iraq is to say it will agree to the return of UN arms inspectors if they are accompanied by neutral observers including British religious leaders, union officials and the media. The Independent, quoting what it described as senior diplomatic sources, said Baghdad was sending a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, which was likely to demand that any observers ensure the inspections are not spying missions. The letter would also demand that "doctored findings of weapons of mass destruction" were not used to justify an American attack against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the sources told the paper. Iraq would insist that a large proportion of the delegation came from Europe, and that the United Nations does not let the US administration veto its composition. And they should all be redheads. And left-handed...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 11:42 am ||
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Authorities have charged a third suspect in a bomb attack that killed 43 people in the southern Russian region of Dagestan, the chief investigator in the case said Thursday. The suspect, whose name was not released, is one of 12 people arrested for the blast in the city of Kaspiisk, which ripped through a military parade on May 9, when Russians celebrate the World War II victory over Nazi Germany. Investigators said the suspect was not a member of the extremist group headed by local warlord Rappani Khalilov, whom authorities have accused of ordered the bombing. Two other suspects, both allegedly members of Khalilov's group, have been charged, and investigators are searching for 10 others. The Russers have a lot of acts to clean up in the Caucasus. Rappani looks like as good a place as any to start. Under the Soviets, Rappani would have been either a dutiful party member or living several miles east of Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, and wearing a summer shirt in the wintertime...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Rioting broke out at a sectarian flashpoint in east Belfast late Thursday when rival mobs each consisting of about 200 people threw gasoline bombs across a "peaceline" separating Protestant and Catholic communities. Alfie McCrory, a community worker in the city's Protestant Cluan Place, said that a woman had been seriously injured by a blast bomb, and a 15-year-old had been taken to hospital with injuries. The volatile area has seen Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists engaged in a series of clashes in recent months. I wonder what it feels like to be Just Like Pakistan?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:34 am ||
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Two unidentified gunmen riding on a motorcycle shot and seriously wounded a senior Pakistani government officer and his driver Friday in the southern city of Quetta. Sa'adat Hussain Naqvi, a director at the provincial agriculture department, was going home in his official car when the assailants pulled alongside and fired several shots, wounding him critically. Four bullets hit Naqvi, while one round hit the driver in the back. Both were taken to a hospital where they were in stable condition. Police in Quetta said they have sealed off all the town, near the border with Afghanistan. The attack was the second assassination attempt on a senior government official in the city in a week. The motives remain unclear, but police and interior ministry officials said the assailants had targeted officials belonging to Pakistan's minority Shiite Muslim community. It could be Sipah, but it could also be any number of other nut case organizations allied with the Three Amigos.
Reader Paul sent me a link, by the way, to a bio article in Friday Times on the Three Amigos. I've excerpted it and stashed it in core dump% for future reference, since Friday Times links die each week. It's well worth reading, if you're interested in the "legit" face of the Deobandi terror movements...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Thursday that religious groups opposed to the country's support for the US war on terror would unite to contest elections and seek to create a "sovereign Islamic state". It was the Wave of the Future in 668 A.D...
He said that the alliance would not make Islamabad's backing of the international war against terror an election issue in the Oct 10 parliamentary vote. "It is a major tragedy that has not yet disappeared from the minds of people... but we want to contest the elections on the basis of ideology and not for the sake of a single issue," he told Reuters in an interview. Since the Taliban did lose. And Fazl got jugged for inciting to riot...
JUI and five other religious groups have forged an election alliance â Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) â that Fazl says will strive to make Pakistan a true Islamic state. That way they can be just like Iran and Soddy Arabia, only with Pashtuns...
But Maulana Fazl sought to dispel suspicions that the groups were following in the footsteps of the ousted Taliban by seeking to create a pure Islamic state in Pakistan. "The Taliban belong to Afghanistan where there is no political party or political force," he said. "But we have a political doctrine to run state affairs. I think it would not be true to compare the people of Pakistan with the people of Afghanistan," he added. Certainly not. I can't think why, but certainly not.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 01:01 pm ||
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Under the existing Pakistan constitution, which Mushy promises not to amend, all law must conform to shariah.
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal president Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani alleged on Thursday that various NGOs had received Rs800 million from various foreign countries to have people of their own choice elected to parliament. He said at a news conference at the residence of MMA information secretary Pir Ijaz Hashmi that the money had been transferred to the bank accounts of the NGOs and the government had been informed accordingly. He said an inquiry had been ordered by the government. That's interesting. I don't think he's talking about the Soddy money behind the fundo groups...
The Maulana said secular forces wanted the 1973 Constitution abrogated and the blasphemy laws repealed. However, he said, the MMA would defeat such forces in the elections. Never know when you might want to bring a charge of blasphemy against somebody you want bumped off...
In his opinion the October elections were going to be a contest between secular, pro-US forces and the ones which wanted to uphold the supremacy of the 1973 constitution and bring about Islamic system. The MMA chief alleged that vested interests were also involved in terrorist activities to influence the general elections programme. "Vested interests" presumably other than the lovable clerics running MMA...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 01:10 pm ||
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Police claimed on Thursday to have arrested 12 alleged terrorists involved in bombing of Christians in Murree, Taxila and Islamabad. Punjab IG Malik Asif Hayat told newsmen that police had got the lead from the belongings of a terrorist killed during a terrorist attack on the Taxila chapel on Aug 9. The police then conducted raids and arrested 12 members of a group that had vowed to kill government officials and foreigners, especially the Westerners. Six rocket-launchers, 490 detonates and 20 kg of explosive have been recovered from their possession. Five members of the group were still at large and the police would soon hunt them down. The IG said the group was "Afghanistan trained" and most of its members belonged to a banned militant organization. Which one? And where were they trained in Afghanistan? At the Harkat camps?
During interrogation, it was revealed that the terrorists visited Afghanistan to wage a war against the US lead forces. On their return to Pakistan they made plans to attack certain government officials for their support to the US and Western nationals, he said. That's 'cause they got the stuffing beat out of them, and revenge is apparently the central tenet of Islam...
Malik Asif said the group used to make a team of three members to carry out the attacks. Before each strike, the terrorists rented houses near their targets and hid weapons at another place. The IG said that this group was financed by some one from Karachi. So far, they had been paid about Rs600,000 to buy weapons and to meet other expenses, he said. He said that the police teams had been constituted to track down the financiers. He said the terrorists had bought the weapons from tribal areas. Now that's really interesting. Wonder if the financier will turn out to be a Saudi trader, who has, of course, no connection with the Soddy government?
The IG said that the group had no connection with Shiekh Omar, Naeem Bukhari and Akram Lahori."It's a new group reacting to the US-led attacks on Afghanistan. Many government officials and Christian's worship places were on their hit list." The IG said that besides these 12 terrorists who came back to Pakistan after the war in Afghanistan, the government had arrested 29 other terrorists. "Some 60 were still on the run." He said that the terrorists had attacked Taxila chapel because it was hugely financed by the foreigners. That's the same foreigners who financed the eyeball hospital.
"Mr IG! Mr IG! What's the difference between the new group and the old groups?"
"Ummm... It has a different name."
"But the same members?"
"No, no. Of course not. They're not members of the old groups anymore..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 01:39 pm ||
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At least four people were killed and another 50 were injured Thursday when students from an Islamic religious school clashed with residents of a government housing complex over a disputed mosque in the Bangladesh capital. Both sides fought with bamboo sticks, bricks and stones. Witnesses said some security guards at the complex opened fire, and riot police who arrived later used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the two groups. The clash erupted when residents of the housing complex tried to shut down the mosque, which was built illegally inside the housing complex in Dhaka's Malibagh district several years ago. Students from the nearby seminary resisted the move and tried to break down a wall to take over the mosque. Three of the four killed were seminary students. One of those killed had yet to be identified. Seminaries — aka madrassahs — are where they train holy men...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:39 am ||
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A 5-year-old child was killed Thursday in a residential area of Khan Younis in the central Gaza Strip, near an Israeli settlement, Palestinian residents said. His grandfather and another man were critically wounded, they said, charging that the shooting was unprovoked. In a statement about the incident, the Israeli military said three Palestinians opened fire at soldiers and fled in a car. The soldiers fired back, wounding one of the men in the car. The military said it knew nothing of a wounded child. "Honey, round up one of the kids, wouldja? I gonna go attack some Zionists..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad announced creation of a holding company that will handle all Palestinian Authority funds, a key reform demanded by the United States and others. U.S. and European governments have complained for years that the Palestinian financial structure is not transparent and does not allow donors to follow their money to projects for the benefit of the people. Moving control of public and private funding to the new holding company, Fayad said, "I think it can ensure accountability and transparency and it will encourage the investors, especially those in the private sector." It'll probably take several hours for Yasser and his minions to figure a way to jigger the system...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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It'll take less than that if they hire Arthur Anderson to do the accounting. Though I wonder if Anderson would stoop so low -- it's one thing to conspire with low-lifes like Enron, but daggummit, those are OUR low-lifes!
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/16/2002 9:10 Comments ||
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Israeli soldiers destroyed two houses belonging to suicide bombers in the West Bank. The military said soldiers destroyed the house of Iyad Sawalha, an Islamic Jihad member who was responsible for a suicide attack in which a bomber blew himself up next to an Israeli bus, killing 17 passengers on May 6. Troops also knocked down the family home of Murad Abu Asal, who blew himself up on Jan. 30, wounding two Israeli soldiers. Palestinians said Sawalha, an activist in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, has not been apprehended by Israeli forces. Actually, I guess Murad doesn't need a residence anymore, since he suddenly became very short. But his Mom and Dad probably liked having someplace to lay their weary but childless heads at night. And Sawalha probably hasn't been home very much since he's been on the run...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Israeli soldiers shot and killed two armed Palestinians who were crawling toward the fence around Gaza, apparently planning to attack soldiers or infiltrate Israel, the military said. The two were carrying a large bomb, the military said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Hamas vowed to continue inter-factional discussions on a united Palestinian leadership despite a Palestinian official's announcement that the talks had failed. "We will continue the negotiations next week, because the talks between us last night did not yield any result," Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab told AFP. Shanab is one of the four members of the politburo...
International cooperation minister Nabil Shaath told AFP Thursday night that the Palestinians' efforts to hammer out a common strategy towards Israel and agree on a united leadership document had failed because of Hamas. He said Hamas had backed away from articles in the document endorsed by secular nationalist factions, including Fatah, that called for an end to attacks inside Israel and the creation of a state inside the 1967 borders. We knew they were gonna do that...
In an interview with Al-Jazeera, another Hamas leader, Abdelaziz Rantissi confirmed the points his group rejected but reacted angrily at Shaath's announcement that the talks were over. They react angrily to everything...
"I object to Nabil Shaath's groundless accusations. More than five factions reject some items in this document. However, Nabil Shaath did not mention them," he told Al-Jazeera. Yeah, dammit. You should kill him for that...
"Palestinian dialogue has not stopped," he added, as the 13 Palestinian factions, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah looked set to enter a second week of talks on a common strategy. "In fact, the nattering and yapping will probably continue indefinitely so the rubes think we're actually doing something other than killing people..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 11:50 am ||
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Crazed Islamic killers insurgents killed 26 people early Friday, including women and children, in a rural hamlet in western Algeria, the official APS news agency reported. The agency said the victims were members of three families in Bokaat Laakakcha in the region of Chlef, 155 miles west of the capital, Algiers. The attack was carried out by a ''terrorist group,'' APS said, language used to refer to Islamic extremists who have been locked in a bloody 10-year battle with security forces. That's 'cause they really are terrorist groups. I just can't figure it, though. Since Algeria's not under Zionist occupation, why are all these people getting killed?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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Yup, and our good friends in Belgium hosted a leadership convention for this murderous group, a couple of weeks ago.
Four terror suspects being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay have tried to kill themselves in their cells. One man tried to slash his wrists with a plastic razor, and three others tried to hang themselves with "comfort items" at Camp Delta, the prison in eastern Cuba where 598 men are being held, said Army Lt. Col. Joe Hoey, a detention mission spokesman. The suicide attempts occurred in July and August, but military spokesmen gave no details on exactly what they used or how seriously they were hurt. Comfort items include towels and sheets. "All of these men are monitored very closely and their attempts were not successful," Hoey told The Associated Press. Hoey said all four had returned to their cells. Wotta mindset: If you can't find someone else to kill, kill yourself...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
08/16/2002 08:25 am ||
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They didn't quite understand that you need a bomb attached to your body for your suicide to kill Jews.
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.
