Ugandan rebels shot and burnt to death 192 people in a camp for displaced civilians in their bloodiest attack in years, a local official said on Sunday. The killings by guerrillas of the Lordâs Resistance Army (LRA), a group based in lawless areas of neighbouring southern Sudan, cast fresh doubt on repeated recent assertions by the Ugandan government that its Army is about to defeat the LRA. The Chief Administration Officer of northern Lira district, Daniel Odwedo, said authorities had counted 192 bodies after the attack on Ogur camp. âRebels attacked the camp of 4,000 people with automatic weapons and hand grenades and then set fire to grass-thatched huts in which people were hiding," he said.
ââAccording to the local militia, rebels started the attack using artillery fire. The militia, seeing they were overpowered, told the villagers to flee into the nearby bushes but the villagers fled into their grass-thatched huts which the rebels set on fire,ââ Father Sebat Ayala said by telephone from Lira town. The Eritrean-born Catholic priest said the 36 militia guarding the camp of 4,800 inhabitants were no match for the 100 or so heavily-armed rebels. Most camp dwellers escaped into the nearby bush and returned to the camp on Sunday morning, the priest said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:20:42 PM ||
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Rebels fighting a yearlong insurgency in western Sudan ambushed an army convoy, killing 150 soldiers and destroying 10 trucks and a tank, a rebel spokesman said Saturday.
Hurrah! Hope he's telling the truth...
Some 200 rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army, armed with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery, attacked the convoy of 700 soldiers Friday travelling near Khazan Gadid town in south Darfur region, SLA spokesman Hassan Mandela said. Five rebels were killed in the fighting, which lasted for several hours. Government officials could not be immediately contacted for comment. When asked why the rebels suffered so few casualties, Mandela said: "Itâs our land, we know the place, where to place our ambushes." Mandela said the rebels had changed their tactics, moving out of towns and villages they controlled in a bid to prevent civilians being targeted by government forces. "Our strategy now is to block roads and fight groups of army. We attack towns to chase the army away and then leave the towns," Mandela said. He said government forces were, however, still bombing villages inhabited by Africans.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:18:09 PM ||
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Presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles said Sunday that government will be pulling out its troops from the former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) camp called Buliok Complex in central Mindanao as part of confidence-building measures ahead of renewed peace negotiations with the MILF. Deles said the pullout would be gradual, based on consultations with the Armed Forces and the local government units (LGUs). She said the pullout starts this month. A battalion-sized force composed of 500 to 600 men was initially pulled out from the three-hectare complex straddling several towns of Maguindanao and North Cotabato Saturday but military officials said it is just part of the regular repositioning of troops.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:15:58 PM ||
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Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas struck again in separate areas in the southern Philippines, leaving one Abu Sayyaf fighter dead and a girl wounded, the military said Sunday. An Abu Sayyaf member was gunned down Saturday after he sneaked into an army camp in the southern island of Jolo and attacked a soldier with a machete. It was believed that the slain man was seeking to steal firearms when he was spotted by a sentry, prompting him to attack. Another group of Abu Sayyaf fighters opened fire on houses in Talipao town on Saturday, wounding a young girl. The motive for the attack remains unknown. A band of Abu Sayyaf gunmen also waylaid a motorboat off the island of Basilan on Thursday, robbing four fishermen aboard before taking their boat and forcing them to jump off and swim for shore, military spokesman Colonel Fredesvindo Covarrubias said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:14:46 PM ||
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Ah... yes... The fearsome Abu Sayyaf. Attacking fierce houses and little girls.....
Six Russian soldiers were killed in rebel attacks and by land mines in Chechnya over the past day. An official in Chechnyaâs Kremlin-backed administration also said today on condition of anonymity that Russian troops in Chechnya have been put on alert ahead of tomorrowâs 60th anniversary of the mass deportation of Chechens to Kazakhstan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:11:50 PM ||
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As guru of a doomsday cult, Shoko Asahara looked and sounded the part. Almost blind, his black beard flowing onto his chest, he claimed he could levitate, see into peopleâs past lives and foretell the apocalypse. On Friday, a Japanese court will decide whether he also commanded his disciples to murder, most terrifyingly in the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 people, sickened thousands and alerted the world to the threat of terrorism by mass slaughter. The closing of his trial is forcing Japan to revisit a horrifying moment in its modern history.
The shock of the attack and the Aum Shinrikyo cult behind it has been profound and long-lasting. A nation proud of its affluence and stability was confronted with the grisly spectacle of its brightest young minds bewitched into committing crimes of stunning savagery. "The sarin attack shattered the image of Japan as a peaceful utopia," said Masaki Kito, a lawyer who has battled several cults in Japan. "This crime greatly increased the sense of crisis among the people."
Defense lawyers say Asahara -- whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto -- had lost control over his violent flock by the time of the attack, but many of his top lieutenants have testified to his puppet-master role. In a country with a 99 percent conviction rate, his guilty verdict and death sentence are widely expected. Eleven of his disciples are already on death row, though none has been hanged yet. "Heâs the most responsible for what happened," said Hiroyuki Nagaoka, the father of a former cult member. "Without Asaharaâs orders, cult members would not have become capable of killing." Nagaoka, the head of an anti-Aum support group, was also a victim of the cult. An Asahara disciple sprayed him with VX nerve gas outside his home in January 1995, just two months before the subway attack.
The crackdown on the group opened a window to its bizarre rituals. Initiates paid hefty sums to drink Asaharaâs dirty bathwater, sip his blood and wear electric caps to keep their brain waves in sync with their masterâs. He used a long list of drugs to sedate his abused acolytes into submission or dazzle them with hallucinatory visions. A huge microwave oven at the cultâs Mount Fuji headquarters was used to incinerate the bodies of victims. Flush with millions of dollars from membersâ savings, fees and businesses, the cult shopped around the world for technology, components and machinery to amass an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons. Some cultists dreamed of a nuclear bomb.
David E. Kaplan, co-author of "The Cult and the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum," considers the cult to be "the blueprint" for subsequent terrorist groups like Osama bin Ladenâs al-Qaida network. "If you look at the firsts that they did, the first mass attack with a chemical weapon on a civilian population, the ability for a group -- not a nation -- to operate viable programs for weapons of mass destruction, it really is extraordinary," Kaplan said. "They were multinational, they were high-tech and they were incredibly destructive."
Aum counted on a core of driven, highly educated scientists from the countryâs finest universities for brains. Asahara provided the inspiration, concocting a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism and yoga and promising his cowed flock Armageddon followed by paradise on Earth. The trial has taken nearly eight years, lengthened by Japanâs chronic shortage of lawyers and judges, the complexity of the case and a six-month delay caused by Asaharaâs firing of his first attorney. The verdict also comes amid fears that although Aum has renounced its violent past and renamed itself Aleph, its remnants show signs of greater allegiance to Asahara. Agents this month raided the offices of the group, which still claims 1,650 members in Japan and 300 in Russia -- a shadow of the 10,000 members in Japan and 30,000 in Russia the group claimed at its height, but still a concern.
Despite the horrors of Aum, Japan remains a ripe breeding ground for eccentric religious groups. Police last year raided the headquarters of the Pana Wave Laboratory group, for example, on suspicion that members beat a fellow cultist to death. Five cultists were arrested in December. Experts attribute the prevalence of cults in Japan to many causes: the countryâs strictly conformist culture, a pressure-cooker education system, the lack of spiritual awareness in a materialistic society. For the victims of the subway attack and their families, however, the myriad causes are embodied in Asahara. Their anger has only been inflamed by the guruâs failure to do whatâs often expected of criminals in Japan: confess and apologize. Asahara has stayed mostly silent in court, save for occasional, incoherent rants in broken English. "He hasnât given up his beliefs. He didnât say anything in the trial. He didnât apologize to the victims," said Shizue Takahashi, whose husband, a subway worker, died trying to help passengers reach safety above ground. "So thereâs only the death penalty," she said. "I canât even think of any other sentence."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:10:07 PM ||
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An Egyptian-born Canadian has been detained in his homeland for suspected al Qaida connection, and the Egyptian government is refusing to release him, media here reported Saturday. Elsherief, 63, is believed to have connections with Ahmed Said Khadr, who has been accused by Canadian security officials of being a member of al Qaida. The Egyptian government says Elsherief was held at the request of a foreign government. The Canadian government will formally approach Egyptâs ambassador to Canada this week. Elsherief was returning to Egypt from a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and was detained on Feb. 5 during a stopover in Egypt. He came to Canada in 1976 and became a Canadian citizen three years later. For a brief period, he was a principal of an Islamic school attached to the Salaheddin Mosque in the eastern Toronto suburb of Scarborough.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:05:05 PM ||
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Saudi Arabia confirmed on Sunday that one of the kingdomâs 26 most wanted suspects, Amer al-Shihri, had died after he was wounded in a clash with security forces in Riyadh more than three months ago. An Interior Ministry statement said tests on a body found buried in a grave north of Riyadh showed it to be Shihriâs. The Interior Ministry said he died in late December of chest wounds sustained in November and was buried in the desert north of Riyadh. A medical report issued on Thursday said tests confirmed the body was his. Saudi state television showed footage of what it said was the house where Shiri was hiding, his bed and medical supplies. It also showed authorities digging up a body from a desert grave and transferring it to a vehicle. "(Authorities) extracted the corpse and handed it over to the mortician who said... that one of the fingers was shattered and two artillery rounds were found in the chest, as well as a fracture in the right hand," the television said.
That sounds like it was very painful, there at the end. I'm so happy!
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:03:21 PM ||
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I didn't go to medical school but I'll hazzard a guess that the fractured right hand did him in. Dr. Steve . . . ?
An Australian pilot has been killed in Afghanistan after a helicopter was shot down by Taliban fighters. The helicopter belonged to US construction company, the Louis Berger Group, and was forced down by gunfire about 60 kilometres from the southern city of Kandahar. Two passengers on the helicopter are believed to have been injured. Louis Berger Group vice-president Tom Nicastro says the Australian pilot was shot first. "One of two helicopters we have subcontracted for was downed taking off early this morning around Kandahar..." Mr Nicastro said. "The craft came down and other people were wounded."
The BBC reports that a military operation is under way in southern Afghanistan after the civilian helicopter came under fire. A security official in Kandahar says 500 Afghan soldiers along with American forces have surrounded the area and five suspects have been arrested. Louis Berger oversees reconstruction work on the main highway linking Kabul with Kandahar in the south. The route has been plagued by attacks and kidnappings claimed by members of the hardline Islamic Taliban militia ousted from power by US-led forces in late 2001 for sheltering the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. The rebels claimed responsibility for Sundayâs attack, saying that people on board were spying on the Taliban and using the opening of a school as an excuse to fly over the area. Mullah Sabir Momin, Taliban deputy commander of operations for southern Afghanistan, said: "When the helicopter landed we fired on it with machine guns from two sides. I donât know how many casualties, but the attackers fled."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 8:01:44 PM ||
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Is Louis Berger trying to make a move on racist, racist, Haliburton?
PAKISTAN has denied any knowledge of al-Qaeda terror network leader Osama bin Laden being cornered by US and British special forces in a mountainous area in the northwest of the country. Britainâs Sunday Express newspaper quoting "a US intelligence source" said bin Laden and "up to 50 fanatical henchmen" were inside an area 16km wide "north of the town of Khanozai and the city of Quetta". Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said bin Laden had not been "boxed in".
Maybe Sheikh Rashid doesn't know? Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise?
"I do not have any such information," he said.
If you're the information minister you're supposed to know this stuff...
"He is boxed in," the unidentified source was quoted as saying, adding that US special forces were "absolutely confident" that he could not escape. According to the source, bin Laden moved into the area, "in the desolate Toba Kakar mountains", about a month ago from another area 240km to the south, the Sunday Express said. In Washington, a Defence Department spokesman declined to comment. Pakistan has stepped up security near the rugged border with Afghanistan ahead of new operations aimed at cornering Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Pakistani intelligence sources said yesterday. Bin Laden was not the immediate target of the operation, they said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/22/2004 7:59:42 PM ||
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Jewish researchers and students say they are being attacked in Switzerland. Researcher Veronique Elefant-Yanni, of the University of Geneva, says she recently was attacked in a campus elevator by Arab students. When she reported the incident to her supervisor, he reportedly told not to wear her Star of David in public. In the city of Lausanne, Ilan Levy, a local Jewish student leader, says he was attacked twice in public and has decided not to wear his yarmulke in public.
#1
They should leave and come the the US. We're more than happy to have them... someone needs to let them know that there are places in the world (not many) that aren't anti-semetic and they don't need to live in a place that is.
Chest pains forced President Robert Mugabe, who just turned 80, to cancel a speech at the funeral of a former ruling party legislator, the state broadcaster reported Sunday. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation later said Mugabe attended the funeral of 67-year-old Julia Zvobgo but could not speak because of a "problem with his voice." That can happen when you have angina. As a doc I donât ordinarily wish anyone ill health, but if Bobâs coronaries arteries were to be 95% blocked right now, itâd only be merciful for me to wish him a quiet and speedy exit.
The report came a day after Mugabe in an interview marking his 80th birthday revealed a suspected attempt on his life by a presidential cook who allegedly put ground glass in his food. Perhaps it was ergotamine that the chef slipped in there.
Police refused to confirm the date of incident or identity of the chef. Or whether heâs still alive.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2004 2:58:21 PM ||
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I respect www.strategypage.com as a source of information a lot more than I do British tabloids. And this is what they have to say on the subject of bin Laden.
February 22, 2004: Apparently, the use of Special Forces and CIA agents along the Pakistani border for the last two has peeled away the layers of protection that kept them from knowing where Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar have been hiding. Pakistan has 70,000 troops stationed along the Afghan border in the tribal areas where bin Laden has been hiding. The Pakistanis will apparently coordinate their operations with coalition forces (especially American and British commandoes) in order to nab bin Laden once the snows melt. In the meantime, even the media has gotten reports of bin Laden, and fifty bodyguards, being seen around the border town of Quetta. This looks promising. The only thing I have a problem buying is the "wait til Spring" stuff. It seems to me that the winter snowcover would actually restrict Binnyâs range of free movement.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
02/22/2004 2:54:44 PM ||
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One other thing to consider: Thermal sights detect even better against cold backgrounds. Better contrast.
Sooner may be better than later regarding colder versus warmer weather. Apply Standard disclaimer about neither confirming or denying...
#2
The wait-til-spring thing may be disinformation. It has taken time (and a few attemped booms on Perv) to get Pakistan off their collective behinds and get going. We also have the issues of questionable loyalties and downright subversive elements, a la Tora Bora show.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 17:46 Comments ||
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Efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis intensified Sunday as the United States and Asian allies met in Seoul to forge a common stance ahead of crucial six-nation talks. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Mitoji Yabunaka arrived in Seoul on Sunday to hammer out details with their South Korean counterpart Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck. The United States, Japan and South Korea agree that North Koreaâs alleged uranium-based atomic weapons program must be addressed in the upcoming negotiations. But South Korea and Japan have recently on North Koreaâs offer to freeze its nuclear activities as a first step to resolving the standoff, in return for economic concessions from the United States. But Washington has demanded that North Korea first start dismantling its nuclear programs. Looks like Japan is waffling a little.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that any North Korean nuclear freeze must also allow inspections. "On the assumption that nuclear inspections should follow, North Koreaâs freeze of its nuclear weapons programs must be the first step toward the ultimate abolition of them, including the one based on highly enriched uranium," Ban told South Koreaâs Yonhap News Agency during a trip to Saudi Arabia. So they accepted our position on the uranium. Good.
Earlier Sunday in Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said "everything depends" on North Korea at the upcoming talks. "On the one hand, they could break down in a day," she said of the talks. "On the other, in a best-case scenario, North Korea would acknowledge possessing enriched uranium, agree to give up all its nuclear activities and shoot Kimmie invite inspections." North Koreaâs alleged uranium-based nuclear program could be a key stumbling block in the Beijing talks. The nuclear crisis flared in late 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea acknowledged having the program in violation of a 1994 agreement. North Korea has since denied having a secret uranium program, in addition to its plutonium-based one, and on Saturday called the U.S. accusation a "whopping lie." Which is tantamount to KCNA admitting that itâs true.
Some experts believe, however, that Pyongyangâs denial has been undercut by recent disclosures that the founder of Pakistanâs nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had assisted the communist stateâs uranium program. As just one example.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2004 2:54:20 PM ||
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So the basic choices are a confrontation (not necessarily military) or appeasement. How long this thing drags out depends on China and SKOR in the amount of enablement aid they give the NORKS. Folks, we cannot back down to the NORKS this time. 50 years is long enough. Even if the NORKS are appeased, Seoul will never cease to be a vulnerable target until the NORKS fall.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 16:38 Comments ||
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The presiding judge in Slobodan Milosevicâs war crimes trial will resign for health reasons, the U.N. tribunal said Sunday. Judge Richard May of Britain will step down from the high-profile judgeship in three months, coinciding with the start of the former Yugoslav presidentâs defense at the U.N. war crimes tribunal. "Judge Mayâs letter of resignation states that his recent illness will make it increasingly difficult for him to continue the performance of his duties and that he believes, however reluctantly, that his resignation is in the best interests of the tribunal," said tribunal President Theodor Meron. Prosecutors are to conclude their case this week after two years. The trial has been repeatedly delayed by Milosevicâs own illnesses. How convenient for Slobo. A few more fake illnesses and perhaps all the judges will have croaked.
Milosevic, who faces 66 counts of war crimes including genocide, is to start his defense case after a three month break for preparations. He is representing himself. Three months? Oh, right, theyâre using European rules. Lucky for them that Sloboâs victims will be no more dead then than they are now.
Under the courtâs statute, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will appoint a successor. It was not immediately clear what delays or other effects the resignation would have on the course of the trial. "I am confident that Judge Mays resignation will not have an unduly disruptive effect on any proceedings before the tribunal," Meron said in a statement. I think heâs right but not for the reasons he thinks he has.
There were no immediate details about Mayâs illness. Threatened impending traumatic headache?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2004 2:48:53 PM ||
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Does the Hague mean talk him to death in Dutch?
Is there a betting line on whether Saddam gets his before Slobo? How about Binny before Slobo.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
02/22/2004 16:03 Comments ||
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For all we know Binny is dead Davis. The administration talks like he is alive, but we can't be sure. Sammy will get his shortly after he's handed over to the Iraqi's I expect, and Slobo is a Clinton Era dictator.
Funny thing about Slobo is, he didn't collapse until Bush came into office. Bill Clinton will still get credit for bringing him down. Along with a Stealth fighter.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/22/2004 16:30 Comments ||
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*sigh* Hat tip LGF"
A northern Islamic state in Nigeria that is at the heart of a spreading Africa polio outbreak declared Sunday it would not relent on its boycott of a mass vaccination program which it called a U.S. plot to spread AIDS and infertility among Muslims. "Kano state will not participate in tomorrowâs polio campaign. Our team made the discovery of contaminants first, remember," state government spokesman Sule Yau Sule told The Associated Press, referring to tests the state says its scientists conducted on the polio vaccine last year. "Unless we are convinced by our committee (of health experts) that the oral polio vaccines are safe, the exercise remains suspended in Kano state."
Fine. Quarantine them. Forever.
U.N. aid agencies insist the door-to-door drive to inoculate 63 million children in 10 west and central African countries, including Nigeria, is critical to stemming a growing polio outbreak spreading out from Nigeriaâs predominantly Muslim north. Globally, the World Health Organization says the standoff endangers a massive effort that had worked toward stamping out polio entirely. The 16-year-old public health project has reduced the number of cases worldwide from 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 1,000 last year. There was no immediate word Sunday whether the other two northern states that had blocked the vaccine â Zamfara and Kaduna â would now allow the emergency immunization campaign.
Nigerian officials had hoped to resolve the controversy by dispatching a team of scientists, politicians and Islamic religious leaders to observe a battery of tests on the vaccines in South Africa and India earlier this month. Nigeria Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo would not divulge the outcome of the visit, which he said ended last week. He gave no explanation of why the results were not being revealed â saying only that Nigeriaâs government would forge ahead with the campaign regardless of opposition. "We are not going to be bothered" by the boycott, Lambo told The Associated Press, without elaborating. "The immunization is going ahead as planned. We have got our results and we are going ahead with the immunization."
Kano had been expected to deny permission for the emergency campaign. In October, similar door-to-door drives were blocked entirely in Kano, Zamfara and Kaduna. Residents in other northern states where volunteers tried to administer the oral vaccine house-to-house to toddlers and infants were frequently turned away by residents. Homeowners at times reportedly set dogs upon the volunteer health workers. The boycott by Kano, where 89 cases last year made it the epicenter of the outbreak, "puts more children at risk from being crippled by polio, not only in Nigeria but also the region," said Gerrit Beger, spokesman for the United Nations Childrenâs Fund in Abuja. "We risk reversing our gains. We canât eradicate polio globally if everyone does not take action," Beger said. Last year, Nigeria accounted for close to half of the more than 700 polio cases documented worldwide. Many of the rest were in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where officials say they are making headway.
All (including India) hotbeds of Islamism...
In recent months, dozens of polio cases spread from Kano and other predominantly Muslim states to other Nigerian states. The outbreak also expanded to seven African countries where the disease was previously thought to have been eradicated. Kano state officials there say their lab tests carried out late last year found estrogen and other female sex hormones in the polio vaccine â proof, they say, that the vaccines are contaminated. "UNICEF has been immunizing children around the globe for decades and our biggest wish is to continue to do the job and eradicate polio once and for all in Nigeria and worldwide," the organization said in a statement. "Any delay of immunization activities will result in a wider spread of the virus, crippling more innocent children in Nigeria and neighboring countries."
#2
What they should do, is forcibly quarantine those states that won't allow vaccination and those looking to leave should be allowed to only after agreeing to be vaccinated, otherwise it's back they go. Time will take care of the rest of them, including the clerics.
#3
What they should do dispose of the clerics, not quarantine. If they did that you would hear cries coming from ANSWER for reform. On the bright side, it would be funny to see the people at DUMB twist this around to Bush=Hitler and Sharon=Stalin.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/22/2004 16:23 Comments ||
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#4
This is so staggeringly stupid that I sometimes must despair for the whole human race. This is just so unbelievable than no amount of my ranting could assuage my rage...well, sigh.
#5
This just in, imported foods and AK47s cause Muslim's balls to fall off. Spread the word.
Posted by: ed ||
02/22/2004 21:33 Comments ||
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What they should do dispose of the clerics, not quarantine.
The problem with that approach is that it doesn't weed out people who are susceptible to Islamist-inspired stupidity. The people that don't buy into the clerics' bullshit will leave and be vaccinated and can live out a normal life. The ones that don't will bite the dust, preferably along with the clerics that created this whole problem.
Of course, I'm not entirely unreceptive to just killing the clerics in question...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 12:19 ||
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is this the same source that said he's trapped in just a 15 square km area. If its true about the 15 km bit then binny really is doomed, fingers crossed
It [the operation] will centre on suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda men who Pakistan believes have married Pakistani women and are living in the tribal areas -- the remote and historically autonomous regions that have never really been brought under the control of Pakistan's central government.
It will be conducted in the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province, intelligence sources said.... "We are now tracking al-Qaeda fugitives to get clues from them about him."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:41 Comments ||
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#5
Waitasec ... didn't they say that USSOCOM had him cornered? So what's the SAS (UK) doing in their subtitle? (Unless it's a joint operation, which is cool.)
Posted by: Lu Baihu ||
02/22/2004 14:12 Comments ||
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#6
You can bet SOCOM doesn't have that many bodies (15 sq KM is a lot of land in that area - mountains, etc).
And the Brits and Aussies stood by us, so they should get a share of the glory.
And, more importantly, the SAS/SBS has some of the best damned operators in the world. When you care enough to send the best, you dont quibble over little things like nationality amongst friends. (Note that France and Germany and Russia are NOT on that list).
EFL...cannot make this stuff up!
While Western intelligence policed the globe to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, a Pakistani company that specialised in enriching uranium offered its expertise to interested buyers in glossy brochures. Fancy, eh?
One pamphlet from Khan Research Laboratories (KLR) featured a picture of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistanâs nuclear programme, against a background of missiles, rocket launchers and the mountains where the Islamabad government conducted its 1998 nuclear tests. KLR...I missed that one on the NYSE.
"The main focus of our expertise/service is terror on the promotion of joint ventures for the manufacturing of advanced defence weapons/equipment," a brochure seen by Reuters said. We also help arrange lovely holidays in the mountains as well! Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea knew where to shop for sensitive nuclear technology in a marketplace that stretched across Europe into Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but the UN nuclear watchdog and some Western intelligence agencies have said they were in the dark until recently. "This was a massive intelligence failure," a non-aligned diplomat told Reuters.
#1
Once again, our over-reliance on signals intelligence, to the detriment of our human-intelligence capabilities, comes back to bite us in the ass.
To the Democratic Party do-gooders who long ago gutted our humint activities so we would not be getting our dainty little fingers dirty playing around with shady characters in the back alleys of foreign lands, I say, "Way to go, shitheads!!"
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/22/2004 12:26 Comments ||
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Political Science professors at the Kuwait University have criticized a statement by the President of the Iraqi Transitional Governing Council, Mohsen Abdul Hamid, who was quoted Saturday as saying in response to a query from Baghdad consultative council member, that Baghdad could consider territorial claims over Jordan and Kuwait in the near future. Reacting to the statement published earlier by several news agencies, political science professors at the Kuwait University said anyone who keeps repeating Kuwait is part of Iraq will enter the trashbin of history.
If I was running Kuwait, which I ain't, I think I'd take the position that Iraq is the remaining 18 provinces of Kuwait and negotiate from there...
The professors have come to the conclusion, such statements only portray bad Iraqi intentions towards Kuwait. The members of the interim government have inherited these ideas from Saddam Hussein and it will take Iraqis some time before they abandon these theories. Professor Abdullah Al-Enezi said the statement by Abdul Hamid only proves the amateur policies adopted by governing council. It also proves a large number of Iraqis still follow Saddam Hussein's doctrine that Kuwait is one of Iraq's provinces. "We are not surprised but Kuwait must take its time before rushing into any sort of relationships with the Iraqis. This is how we dealt with Saddam Hussein and now we are no longer sure with whom we must deal, particularly since it appears members of the Iraqi government have inherited the teachings and theories of Saddam," said Professor Enezi. "It is sad Kuwait rushes towards Iraq to please the United States of America, but we must adopt a careful approach in rebuilding Iraq and on the issue of opening borders between the two countries particularly since the true intentions of the Iraqis are strange," he added.
I think Iraq has enough problems right now, without worrying about trying to gobble up Kuwait at some point in the indefinite future. Followed by Jordan. Are they handing out "kick me here" signs in Baghdad this week?
Commenting on Abdul Hamid's statement, Professor Falah Al-Mudairees said, "the statement shows the Iraqi politicians are not keen in this field. If what Abdul Hamid said is true, he is harbouring bad intentions towards Kuwait, in spite of the fact that Kuwait was never a part of Iraq as the Iraqis claim." Calling the statement irresponsible, Al-Mudairees said, the borders separating both countries were approved by the United Nations before the invasion of Kuwait and after its liberation. Throughout history, Kuwait was never a part of Iraq, he added. "We heard similar statements from the supporters of Al-Julaibi during the National Conference of Iraq. They said the borders are colonial are incorrect, although Kuwait is an independent state while Iraq was a part of the Ottoman Empire. So this statement is baseless," he said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 12:11 ||
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Before Mr. Hamid explains why Kuwait is an Iraqi province, he ought to prepare the theoretical groundwork by explaining why Kurdistan is an Iraqi province.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:32 Comments ||
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Professor Falah Al-Mudairees went on to say "nyaa, nyaa. Keep it up and our friends the Americans(our friends when we need them at least)will kick your lily ass".
Be careful Mr Hamid those Kuwaitis are some bad mothers...
Mr Hamid sounds like an idiot, but I can't work up too much respect for anything these Kuwaiti twits say either.
Over the last week, you and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war, and my commitment to the defense of this nation. Just today, Saxby Chambliss-- a man elected to the US Senate on the back of one of the most despicable campaigns ever conducted against Max Cleland, a true American Hero-- was carrying this attack for you.
As you well know, Vietnam was a very difficult and painful period in our nationâs history, and the struggle for our veterans continues. So, it has been hard to believe that you would choose to re-open these wounds for your personal political gain. But, that is what you have chosen to do.
I am fighting to become the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Even before Democrats make their choice, youâve launched a campaign of attacks against me. I am determined to run a campaign on the great challenges facing this country-- from creating jobs, to solving our health care crisis to getting our nationâs ballooning deficit under control. But I will not sit back and allow my patriotism to be challenged.
America deserves a better debate. If you want to debate the Vietnam era, and the impact of our experiences on our approaches to presidential leadership, I am prepared to do so.
This is not a debate to be distorted through your $100 million dollar campaign fund. This is a debate that should be conducted face to face.
Mr. President, I hope you will conduct a campaign worthy of this nationâs future.
Sincerely,
John Kerry
I took the liberty of responding for the President:
Dear Whiney Senator John Friggin Krybaby,
After six-months listening to charges of being AWOL, liar, cheat, murder, and just plain stupid I find your letter most comical. You did your time in Nam and you have a fine record there. When you returned you dishonored yourself and accused you fellow soldiers of despicable war crimes. If that wrong please correct YOUR testimony before Congress.
As for flying fighter jets and not going to Vietnam. While no one was shooting at me I was intercepting TU-95s over the North Pole while flying an outdated Fighter. Not exactly work for the faint of heart or pussies. Of course we didnât have the cheap liquor and whores to visit after the mission either. Is that where you sustained your âwarâ injuries? Can we view your medical records for that time period?
Exactly how long did you expect to run around the country leveling charges about me, my administration, and my family before we responded? So you donât have a large election budget? Well blame that on the âreformâ you idiots passed in Congress (you voted for it). Maybe your wife will loan you a few bucks if you âtake care of businessâ (if you know what I mean). Or possibly you can get that Capitalists turned Commie Soros to channel money to you. But that not my problem!
I loved to write more but I have a team building seminar with my staff this afternoon. We're racing diesel trucks on the Artic refuge and then clubbing harp seals for dinner. You should try it sometime. On Monday I have a meeting with my dark overlords at Haliburton and Exxon. We are shaving puppies and using a sling shot to fire them into shark infested waters (WHAT FUN).
See you on the Campaign trail, W
Posted by: ||
02/22/2004 11:15:15 AM ||
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nice post - take credit for it, whoever wrote it...
Kerry's trying to use Max ("I picked up a grenade at a radio relay station and it exploded - I'm no hero") Cleland as a shield for his dishonest, dishonorable, and objectionable actions after the war and in Congress. W would be a fool to do anything but ridicule this pussy's whining.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 11:41 Comments ||
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Porphyrogenitus had this to say about negative campaigning:
I hereby assert that the Democrats, not the Republicans, are superior at negative campaigns. [....]Any fool can run a negative campaign. But it takes special skill for the Democrats and their supporters, like the NAACP, to run the sort of campaigns they have and maintain a "clean" reputation. Or maybe special dispensation rather than special skill. The worst that is ever said in the press about Democratic negative campaigning is that "both sides do it". For the last several months, the Democratic candidates have been saying scathing things about President Bush and Republicans in general. At every debate that I've seen, a question has been directed at the leading Democratic candidate on the subject of negative campaigns. However, it has always gone something like this:
Newsperson Panelist: "As you know, the Wascally Wepublicans are just waiting to unleash a torrent of negative campaign tactics against you, if you win the nomination, what will you do about it?
Candidate: You know, Tom, I want to run a positive campaign on the issues of how Bush decieved us and ruined the economy and denies people the drugs they need to live. I'm going to run a positive campaign about how Republicans are selfish, have turned this into a third-world country filled once again with Hooverville shantytowns and are enriching their Enron buddies while starving the troops of funds, and Nixon got us into Vietnam, how there are two Americas: one with fat Republicans in stovepipe hats conspiring over Trusts while putting the other America, of workers, to the wall and sicking their Pinkertons on them, and how you canât trust Bush. Thatâs my positive vision for America, the one I want to campaign on. But I'm ready for the Republicanâs negative hit-job campaign of character assassination and lies like when they'll try to point out I voted against funding the troops or say I want to raise taxes just because I do want to raise taxes, and I'll fight back when it comes.
Panelist: Thank you
Post-debate Analyst: That was a very good answer [John Kerry/Howard Dean/Fill in Candidate Here] gave on how they're running a positive campaign but will fight back when the Republicans say mean things about him. [....]
#3
I just about fell off my chair this morning when I heard this. All this is an intimidation tactic to try to get the GOP not to say anything about his postwar activities. And did you hear his message later something to the effect "I don't know what it is about all the republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam trying to disparage the patriotism of us democrats who did." I hope his last statement pisses off a bunch of republican veterans like myself.
The dems are trying to rebuild themselves as the party of the military. I think their voting record and action over the past couple of decades speak for itself.
Posted by: AF Lady ||
02/22/2004 12:07 Comments ||
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I guess I forgot to put my contact info on this. It's my post but the titled was altered, rightly so I might add. What the letter should have said was: I am out of money and ideas! Please don't pick on me until I get some of each. IMO Cleland needs some meds, but what democrats doeasn't?
#6
Bwahhahahhhhaaaa! Now that Nader is in the race, Kerry is stepping to the center so fast that he's tripped.
Perhaps someone should explain to Kerry the concept of publicity. I'm sure the Bush campaign is so busy faxing out copies of Kerr's letter that their fingers are sore. Discussions re: Kerry's anti-war activities can only benefit Bush.
Posted by: B ||
02/22/2004 12:59 Comments ||
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When did W challenge Kewwy's patriotism? His letter sounds like everybody's little sister, whining to the parents. If he wants to go after the male vote, of which he has about 5%, he should try another tactic.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
02/22/2004 13:07 Comments ||
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The funniest thing about this: the criticism hasn't even been that bad... yet. I 'spect come around August the blogosphere will be white hot with this issue.
Take heart, folk. We KNOW where Kerry is vulnerable now, and he will be toast in Nov. 2004.
#9
Anyone knows what medals were awarded to Kerry? The French press is portraying him as a war hero but the idea of being awarded with a medal just for being wounded (and Kerry's wounds were light) ever looked silly to me. It reflects on a guy's lack of luck but real medals are awarded for performance (eg Sregent York bagging over 100 bad guys) or heroism (eg going into no-man's land to rescue a wounded comrade).
So did Mr Kerry do something hearoic or did he just collect a million dollars wound? (for the political clout)
#12
Lt. Kerry served honorably for FIVE months of his 12-month tour. Then he turned tail and RAN. He used his three FLESH WOUNDS -- which did not prevent him from performing his duty -- to take advantage of a US Navy regulation allowing a sailor with three Purple Hearts to transfer out of the war zone. To take that easy out and leave his band of brothers behind was COWARDICE. He turned CHICKEN. And it is relevant as Senator Kerry has a tendency to turn CHICKEN too. He voted to send our military to war in Iraq, turned CHICKEN, and voted to defund the war. Kerry is a COWARD who has repeatedly provided AID and COMFORT to this nation's enemies. Kerry has pissed off Vietnam Veterans and voters like me -- the children of Vietnam Veterans.
#13
As for Capt. Max Cleland who was injured by a socalled "grenade accident" in 1971, it was more likely a FRAGGING. In 1971, Hanoi John was a leader in Vietnam Vets Against the War which was encouraged US military personnel in Vietnam to FRAG their officers. When I see Max Cleland today clapping for Hanoi John by patting his arm stump with his one remaining hand, I feel very sorry for Max. He is being EXPLOITED like a sideshow freak at a carnival.
#14
Let's see. A Bronze and Silver Star for a dubious action where the only witnesses were a four-men crew (who also got their share of rewards for the action). And three insignificant wounds in rapid succession who did't incapacitate him but put him out of Vietnam. Am I the only one who thinks that this smells as if at least the two non-incapacitating wounds could have been self-inflicted?
BTW Where are the Bronze and Silver Stars in the hierarchy of medals? "El Cheapo" medals distributed left and right or something awarded for really admirable actions just behind the Medal of Honorr?
#15
The man served. He was awarded medals. To split hairs about "flesh wounds" and such is neither fair or useful. The focus should be on Kerry's public record since returning from Vietnam, not on whether his awards were justified. Attacking his medals serves no useful purpose and focuses attention AWAY from Kerry's rather revealing public record post Vietnam.
#17
Anonymous is on the mark! Do not denigrate his Viet Nam service. His actions after, and his votes in Congress are open game - that's why he's trying to0 cover his sorry ass by pre-empting any rightful criticism. He's got skeletons in the closet and is afraid they'll be exposed. Do it Karl!
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 18:06 Comments ||
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I dont want to call into question his service in Vietnam. I *do* however want him to open up his service record for full disclosure like Bush did.
My response to Kerry's letter would be:
Dear Kerry,
Put up or shut up. Your side opened up the whole debate about Vietnam and now you don't have the belly for it?
Open you your service record for all to see like Bush did.
And, yes I do have every right to question your service when you are running for President. You questioned Bush'es now its your turn...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/22/2004 20:26 Comments ||
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I found the comment about the non serving republicans to be a bit humorous also. Especially since the 108th congress has 91 republicans with military service and only 63 democrats with service.
My son was home from college this weekend and he brought along three of his friends who are avowed liberals. The five of us sit up late at night and argue politics, and this morning when we all saw and heard Kerry's remarks, the three Kerry supporters, hung their heads and mumbled something that sounded like "what is this idiot trying to do?"
Despite political arm-twisting, the top American diplomat for the Western Hemisphere left Haiti without reaching a deal with the political opposition to share power with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A diplomat involved in the talks, which lasted several hours, said the results were unclear but that the political opposition would respond on Monday. The situation is fraught because armed groups are also seizing ground to challenge Mr. Aristide. Assistant Secretary of State Roger F. Noriega and other top diplomats from the Americas and Europe spent the day here pushing an urgent proposal to replace the current government with a multiparty cabinet, while allowing Mr. Aristide to keep his salary complete his term in office. Despite hours of hard negotiating, the opposition refused to budge, insisting that Mr. Aristide must resign immediately. At one point during talks with a group of opposition leaders, one diplomat could be seen hammering the table with his fist. But the visiting diplomats evidently had few inducements to offer the opposition. "The plan calls for us to build a government with Mr. Aristide, but that is not acceptable," said Rosemond Pradel, leader of one opposition group, who briefly left the talks in a luxury, hillside hotel. The president, while backing the plan, again insisted that he would complete his term that ends February 2006.
Your term's usually considered complete when you're dead. Jean-Berty should think seriously about making a state visit someplace in the near future.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 11:14 ||
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Anyone have a clue has to the dispersation pattern of salt from 30,000 feet? OP would it be better to use a C-130 or a C-17?
Government forensic investigators examining how terrorists manufacture improvised explosives have found indications of a global bomb-making network, and have concluded that Islamic militant bomb builders have used the same designs for car bombs in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, government officials said this week. "Linkages have been made in devices that have been used in different continents," said one forensic expert involved in the intelligence effort. "We know that we have the same bomb maker, or different bomb makers are using the same instructions."
The previously undisclosed intelligence operation has expanded on studies of past cases like investigations of the thwarted shoe-bomb attack aboard a Paris to Miami flight in December 2001. In a test, detonation of a similar bomb on a grounded aircraft blew a 2 feet by 2 feet in the fuselage â a potentially catastrophic event aboard a pressurized plane in flight. In another example of the investigators' work, bomb analysts have collected fragments from hundreds of improvised devices detonated in attacks in Iraq, including large car and truck bombings and smaller assaults using explosives packed in empty artillery shells and even concrete blocks. That project has led to a better understanding of the devices and to efforts to provide commanders in Iraq with faster countermeasures to help protect American troops. But there are many questions still unanswered about who is behind various bombings, including some of the major suicide bombing attacks in Iraq. Intelligence analysts have said they believe that Al Qaeda has been weakened by the campaign against terrorism and lacks a central command, as well as financial and recruiting structures. But the bomb investigations suggest that the terrorist network still may be disseminating bomb-making skills to a generation of militants who have fanned out around the world.
Many bomb makers may have learned how to make improvised explosives in the 1990's at Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, and the methods taught there may now be showing up elsewhere. Intelligence analysts did not say there was evidence of a single controlling entity behind the construction of the larger car and truck bombs often used in the most deadly attacks, although they suggested that there might not be many people with the technical skills to build larger bombs. Some counterterrorism officials have emphasized the need to identify and locate the relatively small number of master bomb makers responsible for the most lethal bombings.
That would seem to be an excellent idea. I'd suggest a special office within one of the major intel agencies to track them.
Behind the effort to analyze the bombs is a new forensic intelligence unit, the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, or Tedac. The F.B.I., which took the lead in the center's creation, has found that in the last five years almost 90 percent of terrorist attacks against Americans have involved improvised explosives. "Tedac is a multiagency effort to analyze improvised explosive devices," said Dwight E. Adams, director of the F.B.I. laboratory. "It gathers and shares intelligence related to the construction of these devices. Its purpose is to save lives." The center's work has not previously been disclosed. Terrorism specialists in Congress were briefed on it this week.
So now everybody in the world knows about it.
While there is still debate about who is behind the bombings in Iraq, and none of the larger and most deadly attacks by suicide bombers have been solved, intelligence analysts said that they believed followers of Al Qaeda or ideologically sympathetic allies may be involved in some of the bombings. But the examination of bombs used in Iraq has so far yielded little information about the identity of who made them. Many bombs of different types explode every day in the country.
Mainly because Iraq is littered with every kind of explosive imaginable. Sammy collected the things compulsively.
Examining tiny bits of bomb housings, wirings, detonation cords, fuses, switches, the chemical composition of the explosives and the electronic signatures of remote switching devices often used to detonate bombs, experts at the center have begun to compile a data bank about terror bombs. In some cases, forensic scientists have been able to obtain evidence of who made the bomb through a fingerprint or DNA material left on an explosive part. The unit became operational in December after President Bush approved it, and lawmakers were told of the existence of the organization in recent days.
Whereupon they promptly blabbed, to show how in-the-know they are. It's a power thing, whether it makes any sense or not...
In countries like Iraq, even sophisticated analysis has often failed to solve terrorist bombings. Investigators have collected valuable clues, including the fingerprints of the driver and license plate of the truck that carried the bomb that detonated outside the United Nations mission in Iraq in August 2003, killing dozens of people. Even so, in a country with no fingerprint files or vehicle records, authorities still do not know who was behind the attack.
A further confirmation that as bloody-handed dictators go, Sammy was particularly incompetent. He doesn't even make it to Mussolini-grade — more a Papa Doc kind of dictator. Mugabe's probably got a better handle on things.
The study of the unexploded device built into the sole of the shoe worn by Richard Reid, a British citizen who was sentenced to life in prison, is a model for how the new analysis center will operate. In that case, forensic examiners were aided by experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration. Mr. Reid acknowledged he was a follower of Al Qaeda. But subsequent forensic investigation showed that the design of his shoe bomb followed specific details in training manuals found by American forces at training camps in Afghanistan. The design closely followed the manuals. For example, the fuse was cut at precisely the angle the manual advised. It remains unknown who built the shoe bomb, but investigators doubt it was Mr. Reid.
He seems to have been exceptionally stoopid, even for cannon fodder...
Forensic analysts found a partial fingerprint on the bomb and a single strand of human hair, but neither matched Mr. Reid's. The forensic conclusions about the seriousness of Mr. Reid's shoe bomb have deepened concerns about the possibility of attacks aboard commercial airliners and provided a backdrop to the concerns that led American authorities to cancel abruptly several international flights to the United States in recent months.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 11:07 ||
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Islamic craftsmanship is outstanding also in techniques of counterfeiting identification documents.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:00 Comments ||
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Fred wrote: That would seem to be an excellent idea. I'd suggest a special office within one of the major intel agencies to track them.
Something happened to your software, Fred, because it mangled what I'm sure was the rest of your last sentence: "... to track them and then kill them."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2004 14:30 Comments ||
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Am I the only one who read the title and imagined something like the "Home Shopping Network" for bombmakers?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/22/2004 19:30 Comments ||
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This isnât in the papers or wire service. A Rantburg exclusive! Hurrah!
I live in an area where some Congressmen live (DC area). One of them (an anti Bush democrat who is coordinating with the Bush admin for this purpose) is flying to the Hague to give a speech about Israelâs need to defend itself. When the Paleos found out about it they immediately petitioned the Hague to allow them to hold a âwe should be allowed to kill Israelisâ protest next to the Congressmanâs speech (it isnât in the court itself since the US maintains the Intl Court doesnât have jurisdiction). The Hague security office told the Paleos that the only way they could get a protest permit in this case was to build a temporary fence separating them from the Congressman because otherwise the security office could not maintain security.
Aside from a nice bit of irony, this also illustrates the fact that the EU police and anti terrorism units have a much more realistic view of the threat than do the policitians.
Posted by: mhw ||
02/22/2004 10:26:13 AM ||
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who said irony was dead?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 11:03 Comments ||
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Is it me or are the Arabs building lots of walls around themselves lately?
Posted by: Charles ||
02/22/2004 11:13 Comments ||
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In days of yore, cities used to have walls around them to keep out marauding barbarians. Looks like walls may be making a comeback, and with good reason. I'm thinking of investing a few dollars in alligator and crocodile farms, since moats are probably the next step. And I'm trying to put together an international consortium to build oil boilers. We're gonna be rich!
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2004 11:58 Comments ||
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Fred are you assuming most moats will be in climate that can support alligators and crocs? If not I'm thinking the serious money is in the support structure for your heated moats.
Posted by: Les Nessman ||
02/22/2004 12:22 Comments ||
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Hey, I will design an monitor nozzle system for distributing and dispensing hot oil, in the manner that nozzle and pipeline systems ran hydraulic gold mining operations in the times of yore. You guys name the flows and the temperatures and where you want them and we will have a system that is the envy of the woild. Heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 14:02 Comments ||
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Not to be left out on this, I'll help Fred by using genetic engineering to build better alligators and crocodiles, so that they can function in any climate. Expect the improved crocs by 2007, and version 3 alligators (capable of working in Norilsk) by about 2011.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2004 14:13 Comments ||
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The idea of Prestone crocs is going to give me a few nightmares.
#12
Actually, this is an awfully smart thought by Fred...I'm kind of surprised that I haven't see this anywhere before. I'm going to work on this a bit, (hummm...to be honest, I mean steal it, the highest form of flattery ). Well, smart is smart. Thanks for making me think.
#13
It exists: "Poisonous Non-Consumables"
You can see their catalog here but careful what you buy as the Feds watch every purpose. It might help if you are a witch doctor or witch.
Followup to Frank's post, below...
Ten people were killed and 44 injured in a suicide bombing on the number 19 bus in Jerusalem yesterday. Of the injured, 13 were in a serious condition, 13 were moderate and the rest lightly injured. Fatahâs military wing took responsibility for the attack. The Palestinian Authority said it condemned all injury to innocent people. Of course the PA doesnât consider any Israeli an innocent, same as Bin Laden doesnât consider any American an innocent.
The suicide bomber, Ali Juara, 24, was a member of the Palestinian tourist police in Bethlehem and a resident of the cityâs Aida refugee camp. In the "will" he wrote before carrying out the attack, he said that it was to avenge the Israel Defense Forces operation in Zeitun, in the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, in which eight Palestinians were killed. The attack took place around 9 A.M. when the bus was crowded with people on their way to jobs or studies. Jerusalem police said Juara apparently carried the six-kilogram bomb, which was spiked with iron shards, in his knapsack. He blew himself up at the back of the bus, and the force of the blast sent the rear section of the roof flying through the air. Pieces of metal siding landed as up to scores of meters away from the site of the explosion on the corner of Gaza and Arlosoroff streets. The Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir initially had trouble identifying the victims, both because the bodies had been badly damaged in the blast and because most of the victims were not carrying any identification. By early evening, however, all 10 had been identified and named.
Posted by: TS ||
02/22/2004 10:26:17 AM ||
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Hezbollah wants 30 dead bodies. If Ali Juara's body is now in 30 pieces, is that good enough?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:08 Comments ||
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JPost - Reg Reqâd - defies snarky comments - KILL.THEM.ALL
At least seven people were killed and 62 people were wounded in a suicide bombing on a bus Sunday in the German Colony neighborhood in Jerusalem. Six men and one woman were killed in the deadly attack. Five were identified, but only three names were released so far. Lior Azulay, 18, a high-school student from Jerusalemâs Gimnasya Rehavia, will be laid to rest at 4:30 p.m. at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem; Bnayahu Yehonatan Zukerman, 18, also a high-school student, will be burried at 5:00 p.m. at Har Tamir, Jerusalem; St. Sgt. Netanel Habshush, 20, from Jerusalem, will be laid to rest at 8:15 p.m. at the Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. Also killed - Yuval Uzana, 29, who will be burried at 8 PM in Givat Shaul, and Yonatan Beayahu-Zukerman, who will be buried at 5:30 Sunday afternoon. Ten of the wounded were reported to be in serious or critical condition.
The explosion took place while the bus was standing at a street light outside the Liberty Bell Park, near the Sonol gas station near Emek Refaim. According to the initial police investigation, the bomber boarded the bus in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem while carrying a bag containing five kilograms of explosives. Al-Aksa Brigades claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem sucide bombing on Sunday, which took place one day before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague is scheduled to begin hearings over the West Bank security fence, Army Radio reported. Al-Manar TV in Lebanon identifed the bomber as Muhammad Zaal, from the Bethlehem area, a member of the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz scheduled a meeting Sunday night to discuss Israelâs reaction to the deadly attack. Prime Minister Sharon maintained a stone-faced silence at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday morning, not reacting to the attack.
Jerusalem Police Chief Miki Levy said that the blast, which occurred at around 8:30 a.m., took place in the middle of bus No. 14A, which runs from Har Homa through the center of town to Beit HaKerem. Levy said that there were no specific warnings for this attack. It is the second time that the bus line has been a target of terror attacks. The blown-up bus was removed from the scene and the surrounding streets have reopened. A Ministry of Education official said that 11 students were wounded in the attack. Psychologists and social workers arrived at schools around Jerusalem to speak with the students and provide support for the teaching staff. Yoram Levy, a teacher at the Gymnasia High School in Rehavia, said that one of their students was killed in the attack and that an additional 12 students were injured.
Hours after the attack IDF forces imposed a blockade around Bethlehem. Officials noted that the intensive IDF activity in the West Bank had succeeded in thwarting attacks but there is no such thing as hermetically sealing the area to attackers. Describing the recent weeks as "imaginary calm", officials noted that all the terrorist organizations continue to work around the clock in an attempt to launch attacks in Israel. Shin Bet officials said that there were 52 terror warnings on Sunday. However, there was no specific warning regarding a terror attack in Jerusalem. Channel One Arab Affairs correspondent Oded Granot reported that internal Palestinian dialogue over the past few days between the PA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad indicates that the PA had asked the terror groups not to carry out attacks during the Hague fence trial.
Initial reports indicated that an organic phosphoric agent was part of the explosives detonated in the attack. Later police said that the chemical element was apparently from spray cans carried by passengers aboard the bus. "These are difficult days, and we are making huge efforts to stop terror attacks," Police Chief Levy said. "However, you cannot put a security guard on every bus at every given moment. It is impossible to prevent all attempts to carry out terror attacks." A spokesman for Egged said that a security guard was on the bus but disembarked meters before the blast took place. He added that the guard was under interrogation. The Egged bus driver was lightly wounded in the attack.
Referring to the hearing at The Hague on Monday, Levy said that the attack is somewhat connected to the hearing. "The fence is very important for securing the lives of Israelâs citizens," he added. The wounded were evacuated to Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem, Hadassah Hospital at Mt Scopus, Bikur Holim and to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Professor Yonatan Halevy of Shaare Zedek Hospital said that of the 17 wounded that arrived at the hospital, four or five are in serious conditions. Halevi added that one person died in the ambulance, on the way to the hospital. Two people wounded in the attack arrived at the Terem Emergency Room, 20 wounded arrived at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, six people at Hadassa Mount Scopus hospital and 13 wounded arrived at Bikur Holim Hospital. The explosion took place near the Liberty Bell Park which is situated not far from the Prime Ministerâs and the Presidentâs official residences. An American delegation, staying in a hotel near the park, also arrived on the scene. "The closeness reminds (us) that everyone can be a victim of terror and nobody is immune," said Malcolm Hoenlein, an official with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, visiting the wounded at Shaare Zedek Hospital said that the attack proves the need to complete the Jerusalem envelope fence. "Things are really upside down when in The Hague they are asking whether or not we have the right to build the fence," Lupolianski said. "A state must protect its citizens and this shows that we must complete the Jerusalem envelope."
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned the attack and urged "the United States to step up its efforts to revive the peace process."
Which came to a halt with a similar bus boom...
Israeli officials said the blast proved the need for the security barrier it was building in the West Bank. "Palestinian terror continues to pose a clear and present threat to Israeli civilians," said David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharonâs office.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 10:21:43 AM ||
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Al-Aksa Brigades claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem sucide bombing on Sunday, which took place one day before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague is scheduled to begin hearings over the West Bank security fence, Army Radio reported
As noted on Powerline, this is Arafat's response - his group (AAMB) - kill him now!
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 10:25 Comments ||
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I know it works to reduce panic... but it still freaks me out how quickly names are released after these tragedies.
#3
Tommorrow Isreal will retaliate against the terrorists and the Hague trial will begin. I bet this was planned to get Isreal to attack them for propoganda purposes at the trial.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/22/2004 11:09 Comments ||
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#4
This may sound gruesome but I think Isreal should bag up the body parts and literally dump them on the 'bench' of this international court at the Hague.
#5
The Palestinians' anger is understandable, because Israel is building that fence.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:10 Comments ||
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Sharon should walk into the Hague tomorrow morning, and start talking. He should be accompanied by 20 of the most fearsome Israeli troops he can find, all armed to the teeth, and daring anyone to oppose them. He should look the judges in the eye, and tell them:
"You're right, the fence won't work. There are too many idiots that want to start up where the Holocaust left off, and kill every living Jew. That's why, as of 8:30 this morning, Israel time, we have started a thorough cleansing of Israeli territory - the original territory under the old Balfour treaty - of every Arab we find. We will truck them to Jordan from the West Bank. We will bus or march them to Egypt from the Gaza. We will do whatever we have to do to evict them from our land. Those that resist will be shot, whether they are 3-year-old tots or 80-year-old grandmothers. We will not stop until it is done. From now on, any Arab found in Israel will be hanged as a terrorist. We WILL live in peace. The "International Community" can go to hell."
God, I'd love to hear that!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/22/2004 14:13 Comments ||
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Sharon needs to keep his cool and keep building the wall, evacuating Gaza and West Bank settlements that are indefensible. He needs to have the wall a smooth and defensible perimeter without a bunch of lobes. Then all the Paleos that visit to work need to be locked out. If they get a chance at taking out Yassin or some other bigwig, than do it. But little league tit for tat doesn't cut it. Keep with the Plan and the Paleo money will dry up and the Paleos will have their civil war until their money runs out. Israel will have to keep its eye on Syria and Hesb'allah, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 16:47 Comments ||
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The United Nations has submitted detailed proposals to Israel and Syria pressing them to revive their peace talks frozen since January 2000, the Financial Times reported yesterday, quoting Western diplomatic sources. It gave no details of the proposals, described by the sources as âvery preciseâ. The daily said the UN had suggested that the negotiations be supervised by several parties, including the United States, Israelâs strongest ally, and France, which has solid relations with Damascus. âIf thereâs a will you could easily go to the negotiating table,â a diplomat familiar with the UN move was quoted as saying. But diplomats also admit to hurdles along the way. Last month, Syrian President Bashar al Assad told his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak he was ready to negotiate with Israel without conditions if the Jewish state did the same. Previous negotiations between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and the late Syrian president Hafez al Assad, Basharâs father, collapsed in acrimony in January 2000 over Damascusâ demand for the return of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. The Financial Times said Syrian officials were not hopeful that the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would agree to return all of the Golan. But it said Damascus seemed eager to restart a peace process to fend off mounting US pressure.
This is a good primer on foreign policy, from the Bush perspective. Lots of links. Excerpt
"The Bush Doctrine defines the enemy threat as a horrible combination of âradicalism and technologyâ that is not vulnerable to Cold War concepts of deterrence and containment. That is, terrorist groups and rogue states, who are unrestrained by the prospect of mutually assured destruction, create a new threat that demands an unprecedented response. To wait until they attack, as we might have historically preferred, is a far greater risk then can be justified. As President Bush warned at West Point, âIf we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long.â The basic outlines of the Bush Doctrine are:
the United States will combat terror wherever it can be found using all means at its disposal including preemptive force;
relationships around the world will be defined in terms of countries that support the war on terrorism and those that do not; and
rogue nations and/or terrorist organizations cannot be allowed to acquire and/or threaten the United States with weapons of mass destruction.
The key sentence in the National Security Strategy for many critics has been, âTo forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.â Critics of the doctrine argue that it appears to make first strikes the rule rather than the exception and ignores Teddy Rooseveltâs caution to âspeak softly and carry a big stickâ and instead, substitutes a policy of carrying a big stick with a loud voice."
Posted by: tipper ||
02/22/2004 8:17:13 AM ||
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The entire article provides a good overview of historical, moral, legal and political considerations. A few more sentences, from the conclusion:
For more than a decade prior to its announcement, there were many signs of shadowy enemies who were committing acts of war against us, for which we had no clearly stated policy by which we could respond. The Bush Doctrine attempts to close this strategic vulnerability.... The domestic political process, with all its messy complications, is the agent by which the public's understanding and support will be shaped and measured. The Bush Doctrine is not a radical departure, as some would argue.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 9:42 Comments ||
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this is a truly historic time - there were only two other docturines that have carried us for 200 years. Monroe and Truman doctrines in the near future you will need to add to this (and I am sure regardless of this election), Bush doctrine.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/22/2004 9:56 Comments ||
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Again.. speaking of the Truman Doctrine can you believe it... George Kennan turned 100 last week.
#4
What many poeple in this country can't seem to get their minds around is that we have been in a war for 25 years. This war started on the day in 1979 that the Ayatolla Cockamamie got of the plane in Tehran.
#5
Hell, many can't seem to get it through their minds that we're at war, period. And many of those who do, think it started on 9/11.
I would dispute your figure of 25 years, though; myself, I count the beginning as being back in the late sixties, when radical Arabs first began organizing (first around socialist ideology, then later around Islamism) in the aftermath of the 1967 Mideast War.
The bottom line is, these people have been at war with us for at least a third of a century- it's just that we didn't pay them anything more than passing attention until 9/11.
At least George Bush is paying attention now; the Democrats, of course, are not: they'd rather have a war against Republicans than a war against Islamic totalitarians who aim to kill us all or convert us to their vile "faith".
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/22/2004 10:33 Comments ||
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Cheddarhead---Even before 1979, Ayatolla Khomeni had been living in France with no objections from the government. So France may have not been a shootin' enemy, but they have consistantly been on the side of people like Khomeini, Sammy, and others. And they complain about us supporting dictatorships! (And they get a pass...whatcha think, Kandidate Kerry?)
Bush and Rummy call them as they see them, and everyone has a heart murmer....jeeze louise!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 16:26 Comments ||
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Cheddarhead, agreed, but when it really started was the Black September massacre of the Israeli atheletes at the 1972 Olympics, masterminded by Arafat and friends.
Yasser is truly the Father of modern Islamist Terrorism.
(And, yes, I'm very worried about this summer's Olympics in Athens.)
#8
For those who don't know, insiders are reporting that a "mini-war" is about to be launched against terrorists in the Sunni Triangle. The city of Fallujah will be attacked by at least two brigades, with the purpose of liquidating the terrorists, piecemeal. Pockets of terror will be heavily bombed. The plan appears to involve pushing the terrorists into a single sector, where fed-up locals will collaborate with US forces. I think, and pray, that the plan will work.
Terrorists like to know that their work will be duly noted. They are not going to set off Road-Siders, under combat circumstances where they will be rolled over a few seconds later. Cut-and-run means: cut-and-die.
February 2, 2004: The U.S. Marine Corps is returning to Iraq with as many Dragon Eye mini-UAVs as they can get their hands on. The five pound aircraft is launched with a large rubber band
(Does it also drive the propellor?)
and transmits pictures back to a laptop computer, which also contains the software that controls the aircraft. With a 45 inch wingspan, the battery powered Dragon Eye can stay in the air for about an hour and can fly up to ten kilometers from the operator. Only one Dragon Eye went to Iraq last year, and it was out of action after a week when the laptop that controlled it broke. But for that one week, the Dragon Eye performed well, and continued to do so when the marines returned to the United States.
Sounds like they need some spare laptops, too...
The Dragon Eye has proved very useful in training, and the marines are trying to get as many as 180 of the small UAVs for the units returning to Iraq this year. Eventually, the marines plan to buy 1,026 of the aircraft and 342 ground control units. The Dragon Eye uses many of the same components as the Air Force Desert Hawk mini-UAV. That means that the operator doesnât have to "fly" the UAV, just indicate on the laptop screen what route it should take, and use a mouse click to show it where it should just circle. Each $100,000 Dragon Eye unit has three aircraft, a ground control station (radio transmitter/receiver, laptop) and maintenance equipment. The aircraft is very popular with company commanders, who can quickly send a Dragon Eye up to check out an area before they enter it, and keep an eye on surrounding areas during operations.
Posted by: Evert Visser ||
02/22/2004 7:43:36 AM ||
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Gotta love those jarheads, wouldn't suprise me to find out that they're trying to improvise a little "stinger" for it.
#2
The flipside of the UAV issue is that commanders have tended to become dependent on them. In the event of UAV unavailibility (bad weather, mechanical problems, the latest MS-Windows worm infecting the laptop), commanders become reluctant to act. And who can blame them, really? "Captain, you knew your UAV assets were unavailible, and yet elected to go forward with the raid anyway? Not promotable!" and so on.
#4
Some articles I have read make me suspect that a fair share/most of US army tools for battlefield supervision are built on top of Linux not MS Windows. So much for virusses. It is possible/probable they use the SELinux contributions from the NSA who serious curtials the amount of damage an attacker can do, even if he were able to gain root privileges. The SELinux parts will be standard in Linux 2.6. Notice that the above refers to the US Army. I don't know what the Marines are using.
#6
Actually, Microsoft doesn't support the imagery collection program. It's a self-built operating system and GUI that's unique to the program itself. If you COULD get a deep look at the inner workings, you just MIGHT find bits and pieces of Unix/Linux code, but that would just be accidental, wouldn't it?
The original software was written in the late 1970s for a totally different system, but it's goine through umpty-gillion changes to what it is today. It's extremely stable, and designed for only one purpose: to display, interpret, and report using those little mosquito drones. My last boss before I retired is running one program for the Air Force. It's not perfect, but it works, and no "blue screens of death".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/22/2004 14:01 Comments ||
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Certification is expensive and at one time Linux companies didn't have that kind of money. Now IBM and HP are investing billions of dollars in Linux. Some of that money has probably gone into certications. For Windows being certified either they certified it for definitely light duty or someone had his palm greased. Let's remember what happenned when the US Navy tried to have one of its ships controlled by Windows: it had to be towed to the nearest harbour.
#8
I've seen the Dragon Eye featured on History Channel's 'Mail Call' and Tech TV's 'Future Fighting Machines'. A cheap, realiable, user friendly system made to augment ground troops, Super Cobras and LOACHes. I doubt that the Marines will ever become 'too dependent' upon Dragon Eye. It's a tool. To used wisely. And well.
Posted by: Jack Deth ||
02/23/2004 0:00 Comments ||
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The first two of Israelâs newest Sufah fighter planes, known also as Lockheed-Martinâs F-16i, will arrive in Israel tomorrow. The jets were built in the United States in accordance with Israeli specifications, and are, according to Israeli pilots who have flown them in simulation, a "totally different world." Israel is scheduled to receive, over the next several years, 102 F-16iâs in a record $4.5 billion deal.
(sweet)
The money comes from funds given Israel by the U.S. in military grants. The new Sufah (Thunderstorm) plane will strengthen the IAFâs long reach, enabling it to fly a round trip of 1,640 kilometers without refueling.
(I"m looking forward to: "Osirak: the sequel")
An IAF officer told Arutz-7âs Shimon Cohen that preparations to accept the new planes and form the four new squadrons have been underway for two years. The pilots have spent the last several months in the U.S., learning from American veteran pilots of the Vietnam War. "The new plane," said the pilot, "is a combination of the skeleton of the F-16 and new Israeli technology and innovations. The cockpit has two seats - for the pilot and for the navigator/weapons engineer, who will spend less time on navigation and more on guiding the weapons. The computer displays are in color and three-dimensional, such that you can know exactly where you are. The plane can fly at very low altitudes, even in bad weather, enabling the plane to avoid enemy radar. The weapons systems is the most advanced in the world, and it has additional removable fuel tanks that do not affect maneuverability."
(even sweeter)
Another pilot said, "The plane was built practically for us, with lots of Israeli technologies that are appropriate specifically for our region. Some are secret, but I can mention helmet displays and special electronic systems that other countries donât have and that are not relevant to them." He said that, when flying at its highest altitude and fastest speed, the Sufah could fly from Metulah to Eilat in 5-10 minutes. Other internal and external advancements and modifications of which the Sufah can boast: enhanced mission avionics and chaff and flare dispensers; satellite communication gadgetry made by Rafael Israel Aircraft Industries; internally mounted FLIR (forward looking infrared) viewers;
(Very good for targetting cars or motorcycles)
and Israeli-made cutting-edge weapon system hardware that allows for simultaneous, multi-target air-to-air engagement and increased standoff and survivability capabilities.
(Moshe! Look! its the Syrian airforce. To late.)
The Sufah has also been earmarked to receive the new Python 5 imaging infrared-guided high agility air-to-air missile produced by Rafael, which has a new seeker less prone to countermeasures, lock-after-launch capabilities, and an extended operational engagement time once fired. In addition, the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-68(V)9 multimode radar increases the distance of airborne engagement by 30% over the older system, and affords the Sufah with a high-resolution synthetic-aperture ground mapping capability. The additional 102 new planes will give Israel a fleet of 362 F-16s, second-largest only to the United States Air Force.
Posted by: Evert Visser ||
02/22/2004 7:27:22 AM ||
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DOH!
MY appologies, the computer I f***** up during posting. A little to hungover this morning i guess.
#4
If kerry is elected these will be the planes that will be taking out targets in iran end of next year beg of '05 with nukes.
Scenario- kerry wins - us pulls back somewhat - preferring diplomacy with countries like iran and military force with, eh..somalia....- iran is already getting some balls back and by this time will be fullbent on nukes and may just have them.---So what do you think israel will do? Not a hard conclusion based on what has already been said/done.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/22/2004 9:44 Comments ||
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LOL Sounds like we've finally got the TFX down!
#6
Dan---gotta have a Plan B. Iran needs to be dealt with, no matter who is playing politics. Israel has no buffer time and distance, like we have. And Connex nukes or whatever can eliminate our buffer. Only some Dims have not caught onto that. Jeeze, this is like the pre WW2 thirties all over again. Why do we have to keep relearning History 101 all over again, at the cost of thousands of our citizens???????!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2004 19:28 Comments ||
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A little bit more detail on that "hypersonic weapon" the russkies had from yesterday
Russia successfully tested a space vehicle that could lead to weapons capable of penetrating missile defenses, a senior general said Thursday. He insisted the device was not meant to counter U.S. efforts to develop an anti-missile shield. Funny I couldâve sworn he just said yesterday that it would make âany missile defence useless,â must be back tracking already for future um...mishaps.
Analysts said the device may be part of a campaign to bolster Russiaâs global clout gee ya think?
and burnish President Vladimir Putinâs image ahead of March elections he is expected to win. It could also be an effort to restore prestige to the countryâs military, which has suffered near-collapse since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991... The Russian news Web site Gazeta.ru, citing unnamed General Staff officials, said the vehicle was a warhead with engines that would direct it as it approached a target, rather than going into free fall. Whoopee..they got a MARV, a bit behind the times arenât they? Phil Coyle, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said Russia had been working on such a system for years and âit would not be surprising if they finally succeeded.â Yes especially since we had them 15 years ago with the Trident D-5âs at the very least.
Putin said that the weapons development wasnât directed against the United States, and Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement. Wonder who its aimed at intimidating then?
âThe experiment conducted by us mustnât be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defense because we designed this thing,â Baluyevsky told The Associated Press. âWe have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention to build this craft tomorrow.â Yuh I guess those pesky cash problems can build up, especially when your missiles donât launch, or when they DO launch they prematurely explode. Doesnât quite bode well eh guys?
Now the US response..
The United States reacted calmly to the Russian plans. âIf youâre in that business â intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads â you want them to be survivable, and maneuverability is one way to increase their survivability against any potential defenses,â Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked about the statements Putin made Wednesday. âTheyâve got to design a missile force that they think is sufficient for deterrence, just like we do.â Gen. Myers was noticed whispering to Rumsfeld later on inquiring if the "Death Star Project" was complete yet.
The Russian militaryâs widely reported troubles â including severe funding shortages, low morale, poor conditions for servicemen and the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster of 2000 â have undermined Putinâs push for Russia to reassert itself as a military power. Underscoring that, the exercises were marred this week by two failed missile launches from nuclear submarines... Yes I suspect all that would undermine the militaryâs efforts not to mention morale
Baluyevsky also said that Russia was developing a new, submarine-based ballistic missile and a new nuclear submarine equipped to carry it that would enter service this decade. And he said the military was developing a new ground-based missile. Russia had informed the United States about its intention to conduct the experiment and U.S. officials didnât complain, he said. Sounds like we wanted to see if they actually made some improvements. RTWT One final note, yesterday the article said it was a "hypersonic weapon", hypersonic speeds generally 5 to mach 10, above that we start getting into orbital entry velocities. So unless this warhead is slowing down from its re-entry velocity of mach 20-30 to mach 10, this would be more approriately named a MARV (Manoeuvrable Re-entry Vehicle. Oh and sorry for the length Fred
Posted by: Valentine ||
02/22/2004 3:04:03 AM ||
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a new submarine eh, should be fun to watch the rescue effort. Like i said yesterday speed of light weaponry such as lasers, ABL and SBL or microwave beams would make short work of these new Russkie toys
#2
I don't mean to be critical, but IMO the Russians just need to improve their Deltas... they've always had this obession with multiple major projects going on.... Maybe it's an internal power thing. They've done this sort of constant improving in their space progam and it's proven to work... What mark of Soyuz are we on these days? It's the most dependable spacecraft on this planet and it's essential design hasn't changed since 1968.
The home security service MI5 is to expand by 50% in response to the terror threat to the UK, the BBC has learned. The home secretary will announce plans to recruit another 1,000 staff in parliament next week. It will take several years to find and vet the staff, principally to carry out surveillance and intelligence work. Opposition parties welcomed the news, although a Conservative Party spokesman said the expansion was overdue. Previously focused largely on Cold War and IRA suspects, the move highlights MI5âs shift to recruit many more Arabic speakers and focus on the threat from al-Qaeda. The increase will bring MI5 back up to World War II staffing levels. The agency believes there are thousands of young people moving in and out of Britain with links to groups close to the terrorist network. MI5 has been criticised in the past for failing to penetrate radical Islamic groups. MI5, which was founded in 1909, has recently embarked on a campaign to recruit more widely, as only 4% of staff are black or Asian.
Not being a lib, I think I'd look at the percentage that are competent versus in-, rather than at skin color or ethnic background. But maybe that's just me.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/22/2004 2:30:27 AM ||
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MI5, which was founded in 1909, has recently embarked on a campaign to recruit more widely, as only 4% of staff are black or Asian.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. If they hire as many foreigners as they say they're going to, look for MI5 to start leaking like a sieve*. Note the case of Katherine Gun, who took the position of her native country (China) over that of her adopted one (the UK) on Iraq.
* If MI5 is lucky, merely to the press - otherwise to foreign intelligence services.
Hundreds of academics and professionals in Saudi Arabia have sent a petition to Crown Prince Abdullah urging him to speed up political reforms. The AFP news agency says the petition called for broadening public participation, electing the Shura or Consultative Council and creating trade unions and other civilian institutions. The petition was a follow up to a national dialogue session in the Saudi city of Mecca in December. The 800 signatories, including women activists and businessmen, also called for religious discourse, greater tolerance, combating extremism, freedom of expression, enhancing womenâs roles and respecting intellectual diversity. Wonder what the reprecussions could be for such a large group?
A related story: Saudi dissident says reforms will end monarchy
LONDON: A leading Saudi dissident said on Thursday that the conservative kingdomâs rulers were stifling debate over political change and that any serious reforms would spell the end of the monarchy. âAny proper reform is incompatible with their stay in power. They have to go,â said Saad al-Fagih, head of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. Fagih dismissed the ânational dialogueâ set up by Saudi Arabiaâs de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah to address political, social and economic grievances, saying delegates could not speak freely. The Saudi-Wahhabi family should begin to realize they should allow reform or collapse altogether. Collapse and the ensuing vacuum wonât be a pretty sight.
Posted by: GK ||
02/22/2004 1:45:34 AM ||
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Allah created the Saudi royal family and the Wahabbi clerics to rule the people in Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 9:21 Comments ||
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I'm starting to see allahs' plan thanks to you Mike.... this is all tied in with allahs understanding of women, burkas and cars.
Israel on Sunday planned to tear down a section of its controversial West Bank barrier that cuts through a Palestinian village, a day before the World Court opens hearings on the legality of the project. Workers will start dismantling a five mile section of the barrier, a fraction of the project, in the West Bank on Sunday, a day before hearings begin in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The route of the partially constructed barrier, which snakes deep into the West Bank and plans to extend for 452 miles, has come under international criticism, including from the United States -- Israelâs main ally. Israel says completed sections of the barrier -- a network of razor wire and concrete -- are already stopping Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab. Hundreds of Palestinians marched in West Bank demonstrations on Saturday to protest against the barrier and are planning a "Day of Rage" at the start of the World Courtâs hearings.
The problem with that, of course, is that it's so difficult to tell it from any other day. Seethe and be damned...
Israeli Defense Ministry Director General Amos Yaron said the timing of the removal of the barrier east of the Palestinian village of Baka al-Sharqiya was unrelated to the court hearings and was planned months in advance. Ummm, okay.
But Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said he had urged parties to take the step and acknowledged that Israel could reap public opinion benefits from changing the barrierâs route, which cuts off Palestinians from their fields, schools and clinics. "Iâve said this before (the hearings) in The Hague, so that the world will know that we do not want to harm (the Palestinians)," he told Israelâs Channel 10. "If this is media spin, than it is very positive media spin." Yaron said original plans had the barrier crossing through an inhabited area of a Palestinian village and would have forced the demolition of 40 Palestinian homes. After almost two years of local lawsuits, the decision was made to scrap the section.
The World Courtâs ruling is non-binding, but Israel fears the United Nations General Assembly -- which asked for the advisory opinion and where pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong -- could use the ruling to lobby for sanctions against it. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said on Saturday that the Israeli step did not go far enough, telling reporters: "We will not agree to even one millimeter of the barrier."
Posted by: Seafarious ||
02/22/2004 1:30:00 AM ||
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It's been a bad week for walls. Robert Frost was right: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall."
#3
I watched an amazing section on the BBC last week. It was a standard piece of the wall is terrible cutting villages from their fields blah blah, then interviewed a palestinian women who said that the wall represented the most terrible catastrophe in her life separating her house form her village blah, blah and ends by showing you the gate built by the Israelis especially for this woman. She has a key and apparently can use the gate any time she wants.
As I said, a truly amazing piece where the fact of Israeli concern for people was wrapped in blatantly anti-Israeli propaganda.
Anti-fence rallies close Palestinian schools
By RONIT SELA
Palestinian schools in most of the West Bank will not hold classes between 12:00-1:00 p.m. Monday to enable their students to participate in demonstrations against the security fence, Israeli media institute MEMRI reported.
The three-day hearing in The Hague regarding the disputed West Bank fence is due to begin Monday. Various Palestinian and Israeli organizations, from both sides of the fence and of the political spectrum, are planning large demonstrations along the fence route and in The Hague.
MEMRI said that the Palestinian Ministry of Education sent out instructions to all schools, asking them to devote the first class Sunday and Monday morning to the fence and its negative consequences on the Palestinian people.
"The fence is proof that all of Israel's security measures have failed," the ministry's briefing said. "Already in the Koran we are told of the cowardice nature of the Jews."
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 11:02 Comments ||
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#6
Already in the Koran we are told of the cowardice nature of the Jews.
The Koran is all lies from beginning to end. You can see for yourself that the parts about the Jews being cowards are obvious lies.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:16 Comments ||
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Yemen and the United States plan to hold a major military exercise. The military exercise will take place on Saturday in Aden and come under the direction of U.S. Central Command. Yemeni sources said Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid will oversee the exercise and also meet senior officials to discuss military and security cooperation. The exercise will include air, ground and naval forces and marks increased military cooperation between Sanaa and Washington. [....] It was not clear what assets would be contributed by Yemen and the United States. On Sunday, Yemen received eight naval vessels for Sanaaâs new coast guard. The navy and the coast guard will participate in the exercise. HMMMmmm. This should get AQâs shorts in a knot.
Posted by: GK ||
02/22/2004 1:21:58 AM ||
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This is good - gives us some operational intel in the yemen theater. Gives opportunity for contact with any profesional (if any) soldiers in yemen. al queda must be pissed.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/22/2004 9:37 Comments ||
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be better if they held it in the tribal areas, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 11:04 Comments ||
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be better if they held it in the tribal areas, no?
Frank, the sand's too deep in the tribal areas. Besides, no self-respecting spy would be caught dead out there. We want them to KNOW how strong we are. This is a show of force. Hell, hold it in downtown Aden! Now THAT would get some knickers in a bind! Especially if we had a Marine Regimental Combat Team come ashore on either side of the city (Can't do that, nasty hills on the west that come down all the way to the water, but you get my drift...).
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/22/2004 11:57 Comments ||
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EFL.
Saudi Arabia has agreed to dismantle a barrier it was building along the Yemeni border after the two countries settled on steps to improve frontier security, the Yemeni president said Saturday. Yemen protested last month when the Saudis began building a barrier, described as a cement-filled pipe, along their 1,120-mile border. Remember itâs not a wall. Zionists build walls; Muslims build concrete âscreensâ.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Riyadh on Feb. 17 and asked for the barrier to be taken down, saying it violated a 2000 agreement between the two states. Saleh said the two governments have "agreed on creating routes for security patrols, paving roads on both sides of the border, building surveillance towers." They will begin to implement the measures next week. Saleh said be he believed that with telephones, radios and cameras, the two countries could control the border effectively. They settled much sooner than expected.
Posted by: GK ||
02/22/2004 1:12:34 AM ||
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I assume that much of Yemen's economy is based on smuggling across that border.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 9:24 Comments ||
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Yemen's economy as summarized in the CIA Factbook sez your assumption is a good one, Mike. At one time at least 30% of Yemen's work force was employed abroad. It's not clear if the GDP figures include these workers.
#3
Yemen's agricultural economy is increasingly devoted to growing qat, a mild narcotic. Every afternoon the entire country basically shuts down as men gather to chew great wads of the stuff and talk (about jihad and other fun things).
His face wreathed in smiles, a captured suicide bomber declared Saturday he would have been "happy" to have died while staging an attack on Delhiâs international airport, an act that was aborted by his capture.
"But since I'm not dead, how about some of those chapatis? And look at that girl, wouldja? She's so pretty! I never noticed how pretty some of those girls are before. And look at my arm, wouldja? See? The fingers work! And I can take a deep breath! I ain't dead! Whoopee!... But... ummm... Yeah. I'da been happy to die. Uhuh. Can I have some pie, too?"
"We are not scared of death. Had we done what we were supposed to, we would have been happy in our death," Assadullah told reporters of the attack he and two others were to carry out Friday. Pakistani nationals Assadullah, Mohammad Bashir and Rashid of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group were captured earlier this week, the first time the Jammu and Kashmir police have laid their hands on fidayeen bombers. Assadullah was presented to reporters here Saturday. After prefacing his remarks with "It is nice to see you here", he lapsed into typical jehadi language - that dying while attacking the oppressor results in divine attainment. "We were to attack the airport in Delhi and achieve martyrdom. We could not do it. That makes me sad," he said.
"But I'm alive. Alive, I tell yez! ALIVE!"
He then burst into maniacal laughter but soon returned to his coherent self. "Indian security forces are committing extreme atrocities on Muslims in Kashmir. It is our duty to fight and target these oppressors," he contended.
"But I ain't dead. Tomorrow morning, I'm gonna wake up and I'll still be breathin'... And how pretty those girls are! Just the sight of 'em makes life worth livin', don't it?... Almost, I mean."
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/22/2004 12:18:06 AM ||
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dying while attacking the oppressor results in divine attainment
I'm sure, Asshole-ullah, that Allah intended to measure your divine attainement by your success in fighting oppressors in the passenger terminal at Delhi International Airport. Now that you have failed that test, Allah will measure your divine attainment by your ability to comply with prison rules for the next couple of decades. Be the most obedient prisoner you can possibly be. Obey even your cellmates!
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:09 Comments ||
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handcuffed wrists to ankles - throw him a bone, so to speak. He'll wish he were dead
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2004 12:13 Comments ||
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A nice axehandle in the face, so some of the bones break and the muscle attachment points are re-arranged. Let him heal, then throw him back in Packland to live out his life as a FAILED "suicide bomber". He'll pray for death a thousand times.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/22/2004 12:30 Comments ||
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Malaysia declined to say on Saturday what would happen to the man police say confessed to a web of dealings with Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, including selling nuclear centrifuges to Iran.
As little as possible would be my guess...
Malaysian police released a report on Friday detailing evidence from Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, suspected middleman in Pakistanâs illicit nuclear parts trade. In the report, Mr Tahir told of a $3 million sale to Iran of nuclear centrifuge parts made in Malaysia, and how Dr Khan arranged the shipment of enriched uranium to Libya. Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar brushed off questions on Saturday about what was next for 44-year-old Tahir. Though the businessman remains free in the country, a Malaysian intelligence source said on Friday he had left his house but remained in Kuala Lumpur. The minister told reporters police would handle any US government inquiries on Mr Tahir. Mr Tahir told police of cash-filled briefcases left in a Dubai apartment and meetings in Casablanca, Morocco, Dutch-design nuclear centrifuge units airlifted from Pakistan to Libya and machine shop parts in Tripoli bought from Italy and Spain. He named British and Swiss nationals, detailed Dr Khanâs contact-building from Germany and Switzerland to Turkey and South Africa and described how a consultant of his worked at Malaysian firm Scope on a contract to make centrifuge parts.
Sounds like he spilled his guts, at least...
Police have absolved the company of any wrongdoing. The firm is part of publicly listed Scomi Group Bhd, which is controlled by the Malaysian prime ministerâs son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, and two other investors.
Just coincidentally...
âI am delighted that the police have come out in the open about their investigation. This goes to show that whatever we have said has been totally vindicated and we hope we can put this issue to rest,â Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak told reporters on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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Uh huh...he just meeesteeriously "disappeared". I like that..I really like that.
#2
Police have absolved the company of any wrongdoing.
STATEMENT BY H.E. AMBASSADOR HASMY AGAM, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF MALAYSIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS AT THE FIRST SESSION OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR THE REVIEW CONFERENCE OF THE STATE PARTIES TO THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MONDAY, 8 APRIL 2002
[excerpt]
Malaysia reiterates its commitment to pursue its long-term goal towards the total elimination of all nuclear weapons and underscore the importance of the multilateral approach towards disarmament.
We strongly believe that the search for genuine measures for disarmament and non-proliferation, in particular in the area of nuclear disarmament, remains a high priority on the international agenda.
In this context, we continued to introduce for the sixth consecutive year, a resolution on the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the legality of the use and threat of nuclear weapons at the 56th Session of the General Assembly, which was supported by the overwhelming majority of member States. The resolution, inter-alia, continued to underscore the unanimous opinion of the Court that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 12:24 Comments ||
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A Sunni Muslim cleric was shot dead Saturday after he left a mosque in the Iraqi capital, a spokesman for a religious group said. Sheik Dhamer al-Dhari was walking down a street near his mosque when gunmen opened fire from a car, killing him, according to Sheik Mohammed al-Faidhy, spokesman of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Al-Dhari was not a prominent member of the association, but his half-brother, Hareth al-Dhari, serves as the organization's secretary-general. Last week, the Association of Muslim Scholars issued a statement saying that "no one in his right mind" would reject elections in principle "but at the same time we don't want to have nominal or hasty elections and pay a hefty price for that."
That's unusual. It's usually the Shiite holy men who're bumped off...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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Well, Al-Dhari apparently lost that scholarly argument.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:51 Comments ||
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Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who has led Iraqâs top Shia Muslim political group since his brotherâs assassination last year, said in remarks published on Saturday he believed Al Qaeda played a role in his brotherâs death. Al Hakim said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that he had âreliableâ intelligence that Osama bin Ladenâs network was involved in the car bomb attack that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and more than 80 others in August.
Al Qaeda was among the top suspects at the time, though there were a lot of other candidates. But, yeah. I can see it as a Zarqawi boom.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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A major reason to go onto the military offensive -- as we did when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq -- is to disrupt, disperse, disorganize, hurry and confuse your opponents. In such a situation, your opponents tend to make many more and much more consequential mistakes.
Al Qaeda's decision to explode that particular bomb was a colossal, irreparable blunder, decided in panic, haste and desparation. By killing those 80 Shias, Al Qaeda turned all Shias everywhere against itsef.
IF we had responded to the September 11 attacks with only a patient, gradual, international strategy, we would not have forced Al Qaeda to make so many mistakes like this.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 11:13 Comments ||
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Islamic conservatives hostile to President Mohammad Khatamiâs liberal reforms swept towards a predictable victory over shackled reformists on Saturday after a disputed parliamentary election with a sharply reduced turnout. Interior Ministry figures showed conservatives won 133 of the first 194 provincial seats declared, Deputy Parliament Speaker Behzad Nabavi said. A total of 289 seats were at stake. Reformists won 37, independents 17 and five were reserved for Iranâs religious minorities â Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. In 31 districts where no candidate polled more than 25 percent, there will be a run-off later. There was not one woman among the first 194 lawmakers elected. There were 13 in the outgoing parliament. Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said the national turnout was about 50 percent and in Tehran just 29 percent, sharply down on the 67 percent who voted nationwide in 2000, when President Mohammad Khatamiâs reformist allies won two-thirds of the seats.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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Surprise meter:
(tap, tap), nope. not budging off the zero peg. at all.
Key now is getting the student protests off the ground in the spring. And supporting them from Iraq, clandestinely with material and oprganizational training, and openly with TV, radio and free press.
The mullahs dont realize it but they just signed their own eviciton papers. Only question left is how many die in the process.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/22/2004 0:40 Comments ||
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There is a dispute over exactly what is the voter turnout. Both sides are claiming different figures.
Part of the reason for the low turnout maybe that many in Iran are disenchanted with the lack of success that the moderates had the last time even though they gained much of the seats.
#4
Uh, Bernardz, part of the reason for the low turnout was a grassroots boycott of the election called by the reformists.
I can't wait for the Iranian people to get rid of the mullahs, but what I wanna know is why does the mainstream Lib media keep calling the mullahs and their enablers "Conservatives?" (Like I can't guess.)
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/22/2004 2:01 Comments ||
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Jennie and Paul you're both wrong--they are theocrats like John Ashcroft--may God help save our republic from the religious nutz
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
02/22/2004 3:14 Comments ||
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NMM, that's why I was being sarcastic when I said I could guess why.
Thanks for illustrating my point, Mr. Stupid White Man.
AG Ashcroft has yet to let his personal faith interfere with the performance of his job, unlike his predessor Mr. Janet Reno who enjoyed roasting innocent Christians and their little children alive.
Don't forget it was your boy Gen. Wesley Clark who loaned Janet the tanks for that episode.
#8
Another NNM post in the wee hours of the morning. This time, it's not a weeknight - it's a Saturday night! Who the Hell is awake at 3 o'clock on Saturday night, sitting in front of the computer posting far-left material on a weblog? At 3am on Saturday night, either you're asleep, or partying, or passed-out drunk from partying.
Instead, NotMike Moore is hunched over the computer, cackling as he posts his knee-jerk responses (and guffawing as gullible posters respond to him on his own terms). At 3:15am. On Saturday night.
I'm all for seeing some opposing opinions in here, but jeez, even if NNM was posting material I agreed with 100%, he's still a loser for being on the computer on Saturday night.
#9
Please forebear Mr. Gromky, NMM is not a "loser". He is a lonely man who misses his hometown, he is stuck in the south but in his mind he is destined for New York or Chicago. Unfortunately NMM is a little too old for going on to Al Franken great things... but NMM does have his set of blogs. Most sadly is my patients lack of hourmor, it could save him from being a troll, but alas his houmor gland was destroyed in a childhood accident. This is the same reason he rides a girls bike. He was showing some signs of progress until Mr. Hussein was capture. I'm worried about him. Please be nice if possible.
#10
the national turnout was about 50 percent and in Tehran just 29 percent
It must be much harder for the Mullahs in Tehran to stuff ballot boxes than it is in other areas of Iran.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:46 Comments ||
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OldSpook -- Please tell me that this IS going to happen. We should be doing everything possible to undermine the Iranian regime from within. But are we? I haven't seen many signs.
A top leader of Maulana Samiul HaqâsJamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI-S) said on Saturday his party had âpracticallyâ parted ways with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and would take a formal decision about the future of its relationship with the MMA at a meeting of its central executive council. âWe are a separate entity. We were dedicated members of the MMA, but the situation has completely changed now. For all practical purposes, we are no longer in the alliance,â Mufti Usman Yar Khan, deputy secretary general of the JUI-S, told Daily Times. Mr Khan, one of the four deputy chiefâs of Sindh MMA, said the alliance had drifted from its manifesto and its two leading parties, the JUI-Fazlur Rehman and the Jamaat-e-Islami, had made the six-party alliance a hostage. âThe smaller members of the alliance have become non-entities and are being given no importance in major decision-making,â he said. âVirtually, the religious alliance has become a show of two parties which have acquired self-assumed powers of vetoing any suggestions from their colleagues, no matter how worthy the suggestions are.â He said his party was unanimous in the decision to make the JUI-Sâs differences with the MMA public, and there was no dispute within his partyâs ranks.
Being "practically" out isn't the same thing as being "out." If you're only practically out, then the other members of the alliance can suck up to you and massage your Fearless Leader's ego and ultimately cut him in for a bigger slice of the swag. If you're out, then you've actually got to perform on your own.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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heh, heh ....the Jihadi groups complaining that their democratic voice isn't being properly represented. Isn't the whole purpose of Jihad to make sure that ultimately only one guy gets to decide for them? Idiots.
Roughly 20 rockets hit Balochistanâs Sui area but no casualties were reported, said a Sui Police Station official on Saturday. He said 12 rockets hit a compression plant in a gas field and the Frontier Corpsâ (FC) Bhambhor Rifles headquarters late Friday night. Bhambhor Rifles personnel opened fire, but no casualties were reported. Eight more rockets hit the Sui area on Saturday night, he said, adding that their target could not be confirmed and a police contingent had been dispatched to investigate. Earlier, residents in Sui said they heard six explosions. Reports from Sui stated that the FC had demolished civilian houses in an area allocated for a cantonment and that the local residents had retaliated. Several elders told a press conference that the FC personnel had violated the norms and values of the area and had rendered many residents homeless.
Haven't heard much from the Bugtis lately. Good to see they're still around.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:30 ||
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I believe Balochistanâs is on the border with afganistan?????????????????????????
Could this be retaliation for what has been reported about pak's getting tough with terrorists?
Posted by: Dan ||
02/22/2004 9:50 Comments ||
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I doubt it. The Bugtis and their various feudin' partners periodically launch rockets here or there in the Sui area as part of their on-going hereditary conflicts, which probably started about the time of Ally Oop. When the government shows up to try and calm things down they shoot rockets at them, too. There's a major gas pipeline at Sui and the locals are fond of trying to hold it hostage for whatever they feel like the gummint owes them that week. This particular incident looks like it's the result of tearing slums down to build new slums.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2004 10:02 Comments ||
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The provincial government has banned more than 300 hardline clerics from leaving their home districts to prevent them inciting violence during Muharram. On Friday, the government issued a list of 341 clerics, mostly Sunnis, who would be confined to their home districts for 90 days. âThere are reasons to believe that they will make speeches or indulge in activities prejudicial to public safety,â the order said. Police and paramilitary rangers have been put on high alert, especially outside the Shia mosques to prevent any attacks. In Karachi, additional police and paramilitary troops were being deployed, provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider said. âThere is a possibility of reaction from extremist religious elements as the government is trying to root out extremism from society,â he said. âWe can not afford to take any chances.â
Wow. This hardly even seems like Pakland...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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There is less tolerance of jihadism in Sindh, than in the rest of Pakistan. In fact, the Sindh based MQM party has long advocated banning of Qazi Hussein Ahmad's perverse "Jamaat-i-Islami."
Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, the Muzaffarabad-based chief of Harkatul Jihad Islami, was released on Saturday after a one-month detention for suspected links with suicide attackers who rammed their vehicles into President Pervez Musharrafâs convoy on December 25. The government arrested Mr Kashmiri in the first week of January.
Looks like the heat's letting up...
Sources said suicide bomber Sardar Jamil had first joined Mr Kashmiriâs outfit and defected to Jaish e-Mohammad later. Sources said the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC) was instrumental in getting the authorities to release Kashmiri. âThe MJC held many meetings with the authorities and finally convinced them that Mr Kashmiri had no links with the suicide attackers,â sources said. They said Mr Kashmiri was a prominent leader of the Harkatul Jihad Islami (Qari Saifullah Akhtar group) before forming his own faction. He had previously spent two years in jail in Held Kashmir. Ilyas Kashmiri was arrested in Kotli along with 130 members of his outfit. Sources said Jamil was the nephew of Jamiat ul Ansar head Farooq Kashmiri, but not a member of his uncleâs militant outfit. âThe news of Mr Kashmiriâs release came as a surprise,â said a leader from a Azad Kashmir-based militant outfit who recalled MJC head Syed Salahudin meeting with President Musharraf in January. âSyed Salahudin requested that commander Ilyas be allowed to meet his family on Eidul Azha but the presidentâs response was stern and he was not prepared to listen to the MJC head,â he said.
The authorities have also released Maulana Abdul Rauf, the younger brother of Tehrik-e-Khuddam ul Islam (TKI) head Maulana Masood Azhar and Haji Abdul Jabbar, head of the defunct Jamaat ul Furqan. Sources said Mr Jabbar, former commander of the defunct Jaish Mohammad was seen in Azad Kashmir some time ago. He was arrested in Midhranjha, a town near Sargodha, in July 2003 in connection with the Taxila church blast and an attack on a missionary school in Murree in 2002. Mr Azhar had expelled Mr Jabbar and 12 other members of his outfit for their alleged involvement in sectarian killings. Mr Jabbar formed Jamaat-ul-Furqan after his expulsion but his organisation was banned in November 2003. Sources said the suicide attackers had links with Jamaat ul Furqan. âJabbar was in custody at the time of the suicide attacks but he gave important information to the intelligence agencies about the militants who could have planned the attacks on President Musharraf,â sources said. Intelligence agencies had also suspected the TKIâs involvement in suicide attacks and therefore detained Mr Azharâs brother for questioning.
Bargained his way out, did he? I hope what he traded was worth the eventual cost of his release...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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The Pakistan government is obviously very well informed about these characters and their activities.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:28 Comments ||
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Officials of the Federal Investigation Agencyâs Special Investigation Group (SIG) on Friday night took into custody a person from Islamabad for his alleged links with Al Qaeda. Sources said the man, whose name they did not release, was detained ahead of a massive operation by the Pakistan Army being planned in the countryâs Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.
They locked up Mahmoud the Weasel?
The SIG officials conducted the raid in Islamabadâs Sector F-11 in the vicinity of Golra Police Station on Friday night and apprehended the person for corresponding with Al Qaeda. Sources said the Cyber Crime Wing of the officials had helped the SIG trace the man. âThe Cyber Crime Wing and officials of the SIG had been tracing the people who had email contacts with terrorist organisations including Al Qaeda,â they said. Officials traced a person who was in constant touch via Internet with the Al Qaeda leadership, sources said. They said the FIA traced the activities of the person and arrested him at his residence late on Friday night after confirming his contacts, sources added.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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tracing the people who had email contacts with terrorist organisations including Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda is toast.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:32 Comments ||
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The Irish Republican Army tried to abduct a leading IRA dissident from a Belfast bar, Northern Ireland's police chief said Saturday, reviving arguments over whether the outlawed group will ever renounce violence and disband.
My guess is "no" to both...
Leaders of the moderate Catholic and Protestant parties demanded clear, new peace commitments from the IRA after Chief Constable Hugh Orde revealed Friday night's abduction attempt. Police responding to a telephone call from the pub prevented the gang from escaping by ramming into their van at a nearby intersection. Inside the van, they found four IRA suspects and the would-be abductee, alleged IRA dissident Bobby Tohill. Police were questioning the four men arrested on Saturday, a process that could last for up to a week under British anti-terrorism laws. Witnesses said as many as three other people fled from the vehicle into West Belfast, a Catholic area. Police later arrested two more men on suspicion of involvement. Tohill, 44, was hospitalized with cuts and bruises but later discharged himself. Orde said the four suspects are connected to the mainstream IRA, formally called the "Provisional" IRA or PIRA. The Provisionals have been observing a cease-fire since 1997, but dissident groups called the Real IRA and Continuity IRA are trying to break it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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Well maybe if the Brits buggered off and let Ireland become one country like it was meant to be there wouldn't be problems like that! Of course British and Israeli occupations are to be glossed over in the New World Order
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
02/22/2004 3:10 Comments ||
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In point of fact, NotMike, Ireland will never be one country. The Protestants in the North fear that they will be reduced to nothing more than a powerless minority in a unified Ireland. Which, given the population numbers, is pretty much the truth.
I don't give a rat's ass for either side, but I am able to do the basic math. The Catholic majority will have the Protestants by the short hairs, politically, ecomonically, and socially. IF (and yes, I admit, it IS "iffy") the Catholics so choose, they could reduce the Protestant population to second class citizens in less than a week, making them not unlike black Americans during the pre-1968 era.
Ideally (and this has been espoused by MANY members of the IRA on an unofficial basis, ie, "It's only my PERSONAL opinion, but..."), the more militant members of the IRA would simply like to charge in and force all Protestants to either convert, or get the hell out of Ireland.
Ethnic cleansing that's no different than the madness in the Balkans.
I don't accuse you of being a troll, NotMike... not on this subject. The insanity of Ireland is a sort you have to be steeped in, a madness I got to see first hand in my mother's family. She was Scots-Irish, born and bred. My grandfather almost KILLED my grandmother when he discovered that she was part-English, relenting ONLY when he learned that she was of a bastard line out of a truly annoying English lord, one that had been "swept out" of England over inheritance issues. (That made her a "victim" of the bloody English, same as him, so that made her okay. *rolls eyes*)
No, the madness of Ireland has to be experienced, not read about.
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
02/22/2004 3:29 Comments ||
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#3
like it was meant to be there wouldn't be problems like that!
What is it with Left and their rush to demonstrate their ignorance of every subject under the sun. Northern Ireland was created to avoid a civil war between the protestants and catholics. There have been regular elections ever since and always a solid majority to stay part of the UK.
#5
Ed,
You obviously have no clue about what is going on in Northern Ireland. How do you know if thier will be a united Ireland or not? There are nearly 5 million Catholics on the island of Ireland and 1 million Protestants. How could anyone who agrees with the principal of democracy agree with the fact that this 1 million dictates to the rest as regards the constitutional position of Ireland?
As regards your comments about the Catholics reducing the Protestants to second class citizens, they border on the rediculous. There is a protestent minority living hapilly south of the border and they are not down trodden second class citizens. The option is open for them to move to the north where the Protestent people are in the majority, but very few chose to do this because they are treated no better and no worse than Catholics here.
Your little theory about the IRA wanting to force Protestants to convert or face expulsion is the most rediculous annalysis of the situation in the north of Ireland that I think I have ever heard.
The man who is looked to as being the founding father of Irish Republicanism is a man called Theobald Wolfe Tone: a Protestant. Republicans are fighting to remove the British pressence from Ireland, not the protestant people. The want to create a situation in which all people of the island, be they Catholic or Protestant, live together free from foreign domination.
The 'madness' you say you have witnessed first hand does not exist.
Posted by: Rob c ||
02/23/2004 9:52 Comments ||
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An explosion outside a sports arena in Kosovo wounded a government minister and four associates as they left a basketball game on Saturday, police said. Environment minister Ethem Ceku and the other victims were taken to a nearby hospital, but their conditions were not life-threatening, hospital officials said. The blast occurred at 10 p.m. in Pec, some 50 miles west of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Police said a car had exploded, but it was unclear whether it was the vehicle the minister was in. Ceku is a member of an ethnic Albanian party in the province.
Wonder if this is some of the Arabs the Greeks are worried about? We don't get a lot of car booms in Europe these days.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has declared wanted a prime suspect behind a February 3 terrorist attack in Vladikavkaz. "Vladimir Khodov, born in Berdyansk (Ukraine) in 1979, has been declared wanted on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist attack near a branch of the Gamid bank," a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office department for the North Caucasus said. The suspect was identified, in particular, after a recording, made by an outdoor video cameras, was examined, the spokesman said. "At the moment he committed the crime, Khodov was staying in the village of Elkhotovo in North Ossetia," he said. "Other people who might have been involved in the terrorist attacks, are being determined," he said. A 122-mm artillery projectile planted in a car, which was parked near the Gamid bank, went off killing a woman and a cadet and wounding another 10 people, mainly cadets, who were in a passing military truck.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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President Jean-Bertrand Aristide agreed Saturday to a U.S.-backed peace plan to share power with political opponents, but his rivals resisted, saying he must step down for there to be peace in Haiti. A delegation of diplomats led by Roger Noriega, the top U.S. envoy for the Western Hemisphere, ended a one-day trip to Haiti after failing to win over Aristide's opponents, but said they were optimistic that an agreement could be reached.
I think Jean-Bertrand's got another week. Maybe he can move in with Chuck Taylor...
Aristide, who would remain president under the plan, said he had agreed to a new prime minister and government to organize elections. But he declared he would "not go ahead with any terrorists," meaning he would not negotiate with rebels who have led a bloody two-week-old uprising that has killed more than 60 people and chased police from a score of towns.
Get as huffy as you like, J-B. You're toast.
One of the gang leaders who began the rebellion asked where the plan left him. "What about me? When the international community come into Haiti ... they (will) take my gun," Buteur Metayer told Associated Press Television News in Gonaives, the biggest city held by the rebels. "He (Aristide is) going to kill me."
So bump him off first. No skin off my fore...
The opposition politicians are not allied with the rebels, but both want to see Aristide step down. The political opponents met with foreign envoys Saturday and promised to deliver a formal response to the peace proposal by 5 p.m. Monday. But they indicated that their answer would remain the same. "We expect the international community to understand our position ... which will not change," said Gerard Pierre-Charles, a leading opposition leader once allied with Aristide. Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell of the Bahamas remained optimistic that the opposition could be won over, telling reporters, "While we did not get a yes, we did not get a no."
I think I'd expect a "no," Fred...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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An attempt to burn another community school foiled at Rim Tangir Valley of Diamer District. Police also arrested on Saturday five more suspects for torching the schools. Police said all detained suspects belonged to outlawed religious organisations.
Tap. Tap. No reaction on the old surprise meter...
The police said early in the morning some people tried to set afire a primary school set up under the Social Action Programme, but the policemen on duty fired on them. The attackers fled. It was 10th attempt on the community primary schools in different parts of the Diamer district. Northern Areas IGP Sakhiullah Tareen told journalists there was no proper security systems in 118 community schools. He said they had sent over 500 police personnel to Diamer.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/22/2004 23:29 ||
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#1
all detained suspects belonged to outlawed religious organisations
Free-Association Test: Read the phrase and name the first religion that comes to mind.
Torching schools
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/22/2004 10:39 Comments ||
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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.
Just a followup to 
