this a very interesting but very long article. so just go to link. you guys should like it cuz it about arabian. time to go shave the beard.
These are days of heady promises, when kings and despots are making emphatic gestures of reform. There are petition drives in Syria and Saudi Arabia and women's rights negotiations in the United Arab Emirates. Human rights initiatives are suddenly being aired by members of oppressive regimes. Saddam Hussein's fall unsettled Arab leaders by demonstrating that the United States is willing to do away with hostile regimes. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said it best: We must shave our beards, he warned, before others shave them for us.
But behind the gestures of political change, contradictions and resentment are as thick and dark as the pools of oil under Saudi sands. One year after the campaign to oust Hussein, other regimes have lost their sense of invulnerability and appear uncertain of the new order. Pro-democracy reformists from Damascus to Dubai took strength from the disintegration of the Iraqi regime â but also were saddled with the poisonous label of American sympathizer... ...more
Good catch, Muck. Good article, but I kept waiting for the writer to state that "it was a dark and stormy night."
#4
The author conspicuously fails to make one of his own best points.
Cynics found proof of their suspicions in the spectacle of Moammar Kadafi, Libya's eccentric despot and a longtime foe of the United States. Late last year, Kadafi agreed to pay settlements to Libya's terrorism victims, renounced weapons of mass destruction and welcomed weapons inspectors.
"Kadafi never became democratic â he just gave up his arms and then he became a friend," said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian analyst. "So the Arab regimes know the game is clear."
For America's forceful claims of democratic superiority to be taken seriously in the Middle East, Libya must institute representative government as a mandatory part of Kadafi's readmission fee into world politics. If the United States is seen to congratulate itself solely for the questionable success of retrenching a reformed dictator's repressive autocracy, we will have lost much face on the Arab street.
I guess this gives credence to this old post claiming Abu Qatada was living in an Mi5 safe house when he was supposedly on the run. Iâm suprised that British intelligence would be duped like this, and makes me wonder if Abu Hamza and others are also âhelpingâ MI5..
One of al-Qaedaâs most dangerous figures has been revealed as a double agent who fooled MI5, raising intense criticism from European governments who had repeatedly called for his arrest. Britain ignored warnings from friendly governments about Abu Qatadaâs links with terrorist groups and refused to arrest him. A leaked copy of a judgment by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has revealed how British intelligence chiefs hid from their European allies how they were hoping to use the cleric as an informer against Islamic militants in Britain. Qatada boasted to MI5 how he could prevent terrorist attacks in Britain and hoodwinked agents into believing he would expose dangerous extremists arriving, while all along he was setting up a safe haven for his terror organisation in the country. Abu Qatada is a very big fish, his religous credentials seem to put him on a similar level to other holy men like Abu Bakar Bashir and the Blink Sheikh.
Among the scores of young militants who visited him was the chief suspect in the Madrid train bombings. His followers also included volunteers to be suicide bombers for al-Qaeda, including Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. The judgment copy, obtained by Britainâs Channel 4, revealed yesterday there was evidence that Qatada "has been concerned in the instigation of acts of international terrorism". A security source in Madrid said: "How much violence and bloodshed could have been prevented if Britain had heeded the warnings about this man a long time ago." Authorities in many countries asked to question Qatada about his links to al-Qaeda, but were refused. A Jordanian, Qatada arrived in Britain with a forged passport in 1993 claiming asylum. Jordan told Britain he had been convicted of terror attacks in Amman seven months before September 11. Spanish investigators produced evidence of how a militant in custody in Madrid - Abu Dahdah - had visited the cleric more than 25 times, bringing money and recruits. Implying that Abu Qatada was in charge of Europe in an operational sense, and not just issuing bloodthirsty fatwas now and then.
Abu Qatada was billed as Binny's "ambassador to Europe." What a coup if they did manage to turn him!
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/26/2004 12:10:41 AM ||
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Abu Qataba is a Palestine muslim cleric who has also been linked to 911. More here
#2
And, if you recall, the UK has been ADVERTISING to recruit Agents. Prolly with a strong preference for native Arabic speakers, too, ya think? I dunno about you, but this episode certainly doesn't inspire confidence.
So does "M" stand for Mahmoud, now? Get a grip, guys - THEY CAN'T BE TRUSTED - ESPECIALLY IF INDOCTRINATED FROM BIRTH.
In the unguarded or rare moment of honesty you hear the hardcore fact: they are Muslims First and Always. It's in the programming.
#3
I think that the UK is slowly beginning to overcome its naivety in this regard. There are a hell of a lot of them over here and the unjugged ones are currently having the time of their lives - Abu Hamza, you'll get yours one day, sunshine.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/26/2004 4:25 Comments ||
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Informants work well enough for the Israelis. You've just got to keep a close eye on them, and acknowledge that an informant, particularly a big fish, who seems too good to be true, probably is.
#5
dot com - this was a man who was high up in the jihadi movement in Britain, and was recruited PRECISELY because of his high level role - using him was clearly a high risk operation. Using an off the street muslim, of average piety, is clearly not in the same category. Like the difference between recruiting a local commisar as an agent, and trying to turn a Politburo member.
OF course the people you recruit as agents (distinct from operatives) arent trustworthy - hell if they were they wouldnt be agents, right? But you got to watch them.
Muslims first and always? Like Kemal and his followers in Turkey? Like the troops who have just died fighting Jihadis in South Wazirstan? Like the Zalmay Khalilzad?
Bulldogs point is well taken - the Israelis have made excellent use of informants, who are ALSO muslims. But they seem to run them more intelligently than MI5 ran Qatada. The difference isnt a war of civs thing, its a smart intell thing, I think.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 00:28 ||
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On Thursday he defended his proposal, saying Mr Howard's government had "no exit strategy" for the troops in Iraq, Australian media reported.
"We are going to be much safer as a nation if we have our troops here instead of on the other side of the world," he was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
However Mr Howard, a staunch supporter of the US government over the recent conflict in Iraq, condemned Mr Latham's proposal as "un-Australian" and said it sent the "wrong signals" to both its allies and the Iraqi people.
"At the moment, people should be holding firm and staying strong," he told Australian radio.
Recent opinion polls have put Mr Latham's centre-left Labor Party ahead of Mr Howard's conservative coalition.
Watch how Latham and Zapetero try to avoid followin gthe Seldon Plan. Watch how history brings them to heel regardless. I think that history would/will do the same to John Kerry.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 7:39 Comments ||
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On Thursday he defended his proposal, saying Mr Howard's government had "no exit strategy"
Leftists/liberals love exit strategies, don;t they? They think it's advance strategic planning and they believe such thinking makes them look like military oriented people, when it fact it is just advanced stategic defeatism.
Leftist brand deprecating the defenses of the nation, wrapped inside of some nonsense called 'exit strategy.'.
How stoopid do you have to be to come to the conclusion to believe that killing terrorists in a military setting of our own choosing is not preferable no having the troops at home with no target rich environment.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to al-Qaida and suspected of heading a terrorist network in Iraq, is now believed to have been the brains behind the deadly Madrid railway attacks, a French investigator told The Associated Press on Friday.
Called that one, didn't we? They shoulda asked us first and saved all that bus fare...
Investigator Jean-Charles Brisard said Spanish officials told him some suspects held in the March 11 attacks were in contact with al-Zarqawi as recently as a month or two before the bombings, which killed 190 people and wounded more than 1,800. "They believe today he was the mastermind," Brisard, who is probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, said in a telephone interview from Geneva, Switzerland.
First have a look at the usual suspect. If he was someplace else, it might be somebody else. Otherwise, it was probably him. Rinse. Repeat.
The Spanish Interior Ministry declined to comment on his assertions. "The investigation is at a critical stage," a ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Brisard's comments came as the probe spread to Germany, a key staging ground for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. German police raided an apartment in Darmstadt where a Moroccan suspect arrested Wednesday in the Madrid train bombings stayed briefly last year. The 28-year-old man is suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization, a prosecutor said. But German officials said they had no evidence that the Madrid attacks were planned or prepared in Germany.
My guess is that they weren't. Morocco and Moroccans seem to be playing a starring role.
Morocco, the native country of at least nine of the suspects, reported its first arrests in the case, although a senior official said they had not yielded significant information. In Spain, authorities announced another arrest Friday, and a judge charged a 12th suspect in the case. Spanish investigators believe six or seven of the 18 people now in custody in Spain helped plan the Madrid attacks and that al-Zarqawi was behind the plot, Brisard said.
"So, Mister Big! We meet at last!... Hey! Aren't you...?"
"Yes, Legume. It is I. Zarqawi. Are you surprised?"
"I can't say I'm surprised."
"Mahmoud, hit him in the groin."
"Well, maybe I can say it!"
In just two weeks, Spanish police say they have put together most of the pieces of the puzzle behind the bombings, Brisard said. "The picture is almost complete now. They are basically telling me that several of these people are talking a lot," Brisard said, referring to suspects he did not name. Brisard is working for lawyers for relatives of Sept. 11 victims and has a copy of a dossier prepared by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is investigating an alleged al-Qaida cell in Spain. Garzon says the cell's alleged leader and other members helped prepare the Sept. 11 attacks. Suspicion in the Madrid bombing has fallen on an Islamic extremist group from Morocco. The lead suspect, a Moroccan named Jamal Zougam, was described last year by Garzon as a follower of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of the Spanish al-Qaida cell. The description appeared in an indictment returned in September against Yarkas, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and 33 other terror suspects.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi ||
03/26/2004 16:15 ||
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Zarqawi is a palestinian who holds a Jordanian passport. I expect the mainstream media to be all over this (not!)
With terrorism casting a wider shadow of death, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder declared on Thursday that his government would step up efforts to wipe out the threat. His comments came shortly before TV station n-tv reported that three Moroccans suspected of planning the recent terror attack in Madrid had lived in the Rhine-Main region close to Frankfurt and had been known to the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation as âpotentially violent Islamists.â Olâ Gerhardâs ready to rock-and-roll. (/yawn)
An explosive device went off in a high school on the outskirts of Paris on Friday without injuring anyone or causing damage, but heightening tension in France after a railway bomb alert earlier this week. It was not clear who planted the device, which sent thick clouds of smoke billowing through the school in the working class suburb of Stains, north of the French capital, a spokesman for the Education Ministry said. "It was a makeshift bomb, an explosive device, which went off at 14.15 (8:15 a.m. EST) in a corridor of the school," he said. The secondary school, which has 1,260 pupils, was evacuated.
Might have been a student prank, or??
Education Minister Luc Ferry immediately visited the scene of the explosion, which comes amid a climate of tension two days before regional elections which are expected to deal a defeat to the ruling conservatives.
Hummmmm, elections, huh...
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 4:14:28 PM ||
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Ze old cherry bomb in ze toilette trick?
Well, it is Friday...
German prosecutors said Friday they are investigating suspected terrorism links of a Moroccan arrested in Spain after the Madrid train bombings because the man briefly lived in Germany. ...The 28-year-old suspect, whose identity was not released, apparently spent "only a few days" in Germany last fall, prosecutors said in a statement. ...One of three suspects arrested in Spain this week was enrolled to study electrical engineering at a Darmstadt university, said Fritz Behrens, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state. ...People at a Darmstadt residential building said police commandos blew open the door to an apartment Thursday night, then several dozen officers swarmed in and searched the unit. ...The apartment search turned up no evidence of terrorist activity, said the ARD report, which cited no sources. They [the German prosecutors] said they have no evidence that the March 11 attacks were planned or prepared in Germany. Germany became a focus of terrorism investigations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States when it emerged that three of the suicide hijackers had lived and studied in Hamburg. Are we seeing a pattern here?
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/26/2004 2:09:08 PM ||
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Islamic cells suspected of terrorism and operating in Italy are under observation by Italian intelligence services, said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a meeting of the inter-ministry committee for information and security, called in relation to the Madrid attacks and the terrorism alert in Europe.
"We're keepin' a eye on yew, boyz!"
During the meeting, which saw participation by the chiefs of SISMI and SISDE, as well as the ministers of the Interior, Defence, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Industry, and Economy, the urgency of focussing all efforts on the danger of Islamic terrorist organisations emerged. And concerning the problem of prevention, the heads of intelligence said that since September 11, 2001, SISMI and SISDE operatives are fully working on fighting Islamic terrorism, both abroad as well as in Italy, where extremist groups suspected of terrorism for alleged contact with Salafita or Al Qaeda members, are constantly under surveillance. As far as the Madrid attacks are concerned, police investigators are actively collaborating with the Spanish counterparts.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:38:57 AM ||
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quit observing them blow stuff up and prevent them from doing it.
Posted by: B ||
03/26/2004 13:37 Comments ||
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Nothing like some good ol' blood letting to really pull Europe together...
Anti-terrorist police detained three suspects in connection with an investigation into a mysterious group's threats to bomb French railways, police said Friday. The suspects, two men and a woman, were taken into custody Thursday in Paris and the suburban Val-de-Marne region, police officials said. They were being held for questioning at the headquarters of French anti-terrorist police. An obscure group that calls itself AZF has threatened to blow up bombs at French railway targets unless it is paid millions of dollars. On Thursday, the group issued a cryptic letter suggesting it could carry out an attack to surpass the terror bombings that killed 190 people in Madrid, Spain. But the group, which previously claimed to have mined railway tracks, also announced it was suspending its operations so it can perfect them.
"Our group will be closed for training. Please call back later, your millions are important to us."
The letter came a day after a bomb was found half-buried on a train track near the town of Troyes, some 100 miles southeast of Paris, triggering a massive inspection of France's rail network. AZF has not carried out attacks, but its threats to blow up rail targets have heightened concerns â laid bare by the March 11 train bombings â about the vulnerability of European public transport systems. Police said the three suspects' movements corresponded in a "troubling" manner with certain elements of the AZF inquiry, police said. They were questioned all night, police added.
"Truncheon" is a French word, after all.
AZF first contacted the government in December, then threatened in February to attack railway targets. The group directed authorities to a bomb, recovered Feb. 21, that was buried in the bed of a railway line near Limoges in central France. That bomb and the second one found Wednesday were made from an explosive mixture of nitrates and diesel fuel. The second bomb had seven detonators, attached in the same way as the first, and both were housed in identical see-through plastic boxes, police said.
So they were identical.
The discovery of both bombs prompted the state train authority to send about 10,000 employees out on foot to check 19,800 miles of track. Police say they know little about the group. They have communicated with AZF using special phone lines and newspaper classified ads that addressed the blackmailers as "My big wolf." Investigators signed off as "Suzy."
That's what happens when blackmailers keep talking, sooner or later the cops track you down.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 10:31:27 AM ||
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Spanish police arrested two more suspects in the Madrid train bombings on Friday, Telecinco television reported. The Interior Ministry and court sources could not immediately confirm the arrests. Investigators believe two of those being held actually placed the bombs on the trains but that most of the others behind bars played lesser roles. They believe the people who planned the bombings are still at large.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:15:17 AM ||
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Posted by: Jonathan ||
03/26/2004 13:07 Comments ||
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I remember an old naval expression that seems to apply. I beleive it went, "if it were up your a*&, you would know where it is." Hopefully I got that right. It has been a while since I practiced my sailorese. Pappy might remember more accurately.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 20:10 Comments ||
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You got it right, SH. Funny, I was thinking that myself.
A 33-year-old Tunisian man will go on trial in Berlin on 4 May on charges of aiming to carry out bomb attacks in the German capital, the Berlin regional court said Monday. The suspect identified as "Ihsan G." is also charged with seeking to build up a terrorist grouping. Fred, I love Rantburg. I searched for "Ihsan" to see if we had noted his arrest last year. Yep, we sure did. This dirtbag was a terror cell leader in a Berlin mosque, and buddy-buddy with a Saudi Diplomat, Muhammad J. Fakihi, who was (donât bother calibrating the surprise meter) chief of the embassyâs Islamic-affairs branch, and also tied to the 9/11 planners, and subsequently went missing.
The man was arrested in March 2003 in Berlin, having illegally entered Germany two months earlier after having undergone training at a camp in Afghanistan run by the terror network al-Qaeda. Federal prosecutors said Ihsan G. was planning, along with four others, to carry out bomb attacks in Berlin. The court date announcement comes amid rising official concern about al-Qaeda members and sympathisers operating in Germany and the possibility, as in Spain, of Islamic terrorists staging deadly attacks. The title-page story of the latest issue of the weekly Der Spiegel on Monday, titled "Al-Qaeda Base Germany" said that German authorities have their eyes on some 270 "Arab mujahedin" suspects inside the country. Hope they can make these charges stick. TGA, can you let us know how this trial develops?
Posted by: Seafarious ||
03/26/2004 2:12:12 AM ||
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A French newspaper reported Monday that Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi personally asked Osama bin Laden to help finance a Moroccan group suspected in the Madrid bombings and the attacks last May in Casablanca, Morocco that killed 45 people including 12 terrorists. Bin Laden was at first reluctant but eventually gave al-Zarqawi $70,000, Le Figaro said, quoting a senior Moroccan official. This was the genesis of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which may have had a supervisory role over the attacks in Casablanca and Madrid, Le Figaro said.
Called that one, didn't we?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 1:12:52 AM ||
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Spain's outgoing leader Jose Maria Aznar has put his Socialist successor on the spot over a threat to pull the country's troops from Iraq by telling him he must decide on costly troop movements in April. Aznar's outgoing government says a rotation of Spain's troops is scheduled for April 21 and it would be a huge waste of money to go through with the rotation only to pull the troops out for good just 10 weeks later. The two political rivals met Thursday to go over details of the transition of power and Aznar aides said he told Zapatero a decision has to be made quickly on what to do with the troops. "I have to take a decision. I want to know your opinion how it should be done," a government source quoted Aznar as saying. He said Zapatero agreed to give Aznar an answer in writing.
Zapatero is not expected to take office until late April so Aznar will make the formal order on the troops issue. If Zapatero says the troop rotation should go ahead and then pulls all the troops back a few weeks later, he could be accused of wasting money as rotations are very costly. Zapatero's pledge to withdraw the troops from Iraq has broad popular support inside Spain but has damaged relations with the United States and Britain after years of close alliance under Aznar. Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair both raised their concerns in meetings with Zapatero in Madrid Wednesday but he stood firm. Zapatero has called the Iraq occupation a "fiasco" but Aznar and critics abroad say the decision to leave the military alliance in Iraq smacks of appeasement to Islamic militants.
So Aznar now plays him -- pull out early and incur more allied wrath?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:56:47 AM ||
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heh..heh...go Aznar!
But I think that Zappy is too green behind the ears to grasp that his unprofessional BMOC bluster is hurting him more than US. I think he is under the complete and total delusion that he makes himself look big by calling a bigger man names. In the end, it just makes everyone take note of how much smaller he is.
#2
DO you think that Zapatero understands just how attached the American people, on both sides of the aisle, servicemen in particular, are to Powell? I wouldn't really have had a problem with him dissing Al Haig. In several years Powell could have the presidency quite easily if he desires that particular headache. Zappy the Pinhead is fooling with the possibility of two decades or more of extreme American displeasure. While Zapatero was certainly right to see Chiraq first, starting full fledged negotiations while there is a man waiting at the door is not appreciated.
On the other hand, I am very intrigued by Aznar. Why would he face adversity by standing by us? Did living under Franco give him insight into what the Iraqi people were enduring under Sadaam? How is Aznar's perspective so radically different than Zappy's?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 7:31 Comments ||
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He must want to emulate the stunning success Jacques Strap Chirac had at opposing the U.S.
Posted by: Uncle War ||
03/26/2004 9:18 Comments ||
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It has worked for the Arab leaders for centuries. I think Jacques Strap and Zappy are just jealous they don't get to have their own billion dollar palaces and mass graves to eliminate their opponents.
Aznar is doing the right thing. Would you expect any less of Bush? Or of Kerry?
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/26/2004 10:48 Comments ||
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Mr. Davis, I am suggesting that it would be good PR for the Iraq war to release an Asnar biography that compares Franco to Sadaam. I know next to nothing about Franco other than that he was a dictator that reined for a long period. Maybe he was benevolent, if not the Spanish people might see the parallel between the plight of the Iraqi people and their own.
Maybe he has lead a boring life. If he didn't, writing his biography might be a very lucrative and worthy task for an independent journalist. I doubt an AP writer will take up the challenge.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 14:26 Comments ||
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A man accused of leading a radical Islamist group which has been linked with the Madrid and Casablanca bombings came forward yesterday to distance himself from the atrocities and say he was the victim of a smear campaign.
"Nope. Nope. Wudn't me."
In an interview with the Guardian, Mohammed al-Gerbouzi confirmed that he was suspected of being involved in a radical organisation known as the Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco. He admitted that he had been questioned several times by the Moroccan secret services and MI5, and said he believed he had been given a 20-year jail sentence in his absence in Morocco in connection with last year's suicide attacks in Casablanca.
"I think it was me. I think it was 20 years. I sure ain't goin' back to make sure!"
Mr Gerbouzi was born in Morocco but has lived in London since 1974. He accepts that his visits to Pakistan and Turkey had raised suspicion, and described himself as an outspoken critic of the Moroccan government. But he dismissed supposed links to radical groups as "complete nonsense".
"Lies! All lies!"
"The British and Moroccan authorities know where I live and have my telephone numbers. I'm not hiding away in a forest. If they have proof they must come forward and present it."
"And then I'll bitch and moan and have somebody blow something up."
Since the Casablanca attacks in last May, which killed 44 people, Mr Gerbouzi's name has been linked to the GIC, one of a number of amorphous Moroccan radical groups. Some media reports have said that he trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, that he visited Turkey shortly before the Casablanca attacks, and that he may have given the order for the suicide bombings to go ahead.
What was that address again?
He is also said to have been a student of Abu Qatada, the influential radical preacher suspected of being a key al-Qaida leader in Europe, and of meeting Abu Dahdah, the Syrian cleric arrested in Spain after the September 11 attacks. After the Madrid bombings and the arrests of a number of Moroccans, Mr Gerbouzi's name surfaced again. A father-of-six who lives in a flat in north London, he told the Guardian that he had followed his father, a hotelier, to Britain from Larache, a coastal town not far from Tangiers, in 1974, and became a British citizen in the mid-nineties. He said that he had discovered he was a marked man in the late eighties when he went to the Moroccan embassy in London to apply for documents for his family. A friendly official tipped him off that there was a file which painted him as an opponent of the Moroccan government. Mr Gerbouzi, 44, who describes himself as a trader, admitted that he had spoken out about the regime and in recent years he has organised demonstrations outside the embassy. Soon after learning about the file, he says, he had a row with a Moroccan official in London. he claimed that the man told him he would get even with him when he next visited Morocco. He said: "I used to go to Morocco every summer. From that time I didn't go. I was scared. Morocco was finished for me."
"'cept for plantin' bombs, ya know."
Mr Gerbouzi, who has four brothers and three sisters, all living in Britain, claims his reputation grew from then. He says his family were harassed when they travelled to Morocco. One of his brothers, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian that when he visited Morocco two years ago he was whisked to a hotel by eight secret servicemen. He said: "Most of the questions were about my brother. They wanted me to bring him to Morocco. I asked them: 'Why don't you go to London and talk to him yourselves?' It was very intimidating."
al)Guardian just sucks this stuff up, don't they? I guess, having to get a paper out every day and such, they can't really get any indication whether the statements are smoke or for real...
Four months before the attacks in Casablanca Mr Gerbouzi was approached by two men in Shepherd's Bush. One was from the Moroccan secret service; the other, who introduced himself as my cousin "Steve", purported to be from MI5. The three men talked in a nearby internet cafe. According to Mr Gerbouzi the Moroccan agent said: "Many people are talking about you." He said they were saying he had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Notice how the Army of Steve⢠was on to this guy early.
Mr Gerbouzi accepts that he has visited Pakistan - to help deliver aid. He denies having been in Afghanistan.
What, they didn't need aid?
The old NGO story again...
The agent began putting the names of radical Islamist groups to Mr Gerbouzi and asked him about people detained in Guantánamo Bay. The man also allegedly suggested that had he facilitated the passage of Islamist terrorists through London. "I said to him: 'You have come from Morocco and are just putting all these names to me. Where is the evidence, the proof?'"
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!"
Mr Gerbouzi said he met the man and a second MI5 officer next day in a hotel in Paddington. Several weeks later he was in Golborne Road, west London, an area with a large Moroccan community, when he encountered the Moroccan agent again. This time it was put to him that he had visited the Sudan, which he says he had not.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Shortly before the Casablanca attack, Mr Gerbouzi was in Turkey. He said: "I have been accused of raising £40m for al-Qaida, and while there gave the green light for the attack on Casablanca. "In fact I have family in Istanbul, I stayed there for two weeks and traded in clothes. That's what I do." Mr Gerbouzi said he was "shocked" when his name was linked to the Casablanca attacks and subsequently to the Madrid bombings.
But not so shocked as to voluntarily turn himself into the Spanish police.
He said he had not been spoken to by security agents or the police since the Spanish attacks, and had not been officially informed that he had been sentenced to 20 years in connection with the bomb in Casablanca. And contrary to reports in some British papers, he said, he did not go into hiding after the Madrid killings. "I continued to take my children to school and attend the mosque. I'm here talking to you. I have nothing to hide."
My Guilt-o-Meter's hanging right on 9.8...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:48:28 AM ||
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"...Four months before the attacks in Casablanca Mr Gerbouzi was approached by two men in Shepherd's Bush. One was from the Moroccan secret service; the other, who introduced himself as "Steve", purported to be from MI5..."
That's what all the guys named Steve say.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/26/2004 1:21 Comments ||
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Doubtless one of the Finsbury Park Mosque crew or one of the 200+ UK citizens reportedly trained in Afghanistan. Shame 'Steve' didn't put a bullet between his eyes. Off to Bellmarsh for you Mr Gerbouzi. Enjoy 'The Cage'!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/26/2004 6:29 Comments ||
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That's what all the guys named Steve say.
Bwahahaha, you don't think we're going to tell anyone who we really work for do you?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 9:03 Comments ||
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No, not the CID, DIA maybe not FBI, OSS but don't say anything.
Posted by: Col Flagg ||
03/26/2004 9:36 Comments ||
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damn shame he's alive to contest the allegations. A work accident in preparation perhaps?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2004 15:25 Comments ||
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BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union leaders Thursday picked a skilled politician with no experience in terrorism issues as the bloc's first anti-terror czar, moving to bolster the continent's defense after the deadly Madrid train bombings.
Bwwwahahahaha!!
Gijs de Vries, who was born in New York and holds joint U.S.-Dutch citizenship, will coordinate work done by the EU's foreign affairs and interior departments in an echo of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
What's the Dutch word for figurehead? Het boegbeeld?
De Vries, a former deputy interior minister in the Netherlands, will start work Monday and report to Javier Solana, who heads the EU's foreign and security department. "He has the right profile for the position since he's a nobody who won't threaten my job," Solana said. "What is important is coordination. All the internal, domestic aspects of terrorism need to be tied in with the external, international aspects."
The appointment of de Vries was one of a series of emergency measures enacted by EU leaders in the wake of the Madrid bombings. Others included:
- Improving cooperation among their police and intelligence services;
- Enacting laws on an EU-wide arrest warrant;
- Increasing border controls and tracking of phone records;
- Cracking down faster on terrorist finances; and
- Creating a European database of terror suspects.
Anti-terror experts say cooperation among intelligence services - for example between France and Britain - has paid dividends in thwarting attacks since Sept. 11. However, wider coordination at European level has proved difficult because of differing legal standards, extradition delays and civil liberties concerns. "The shortcomings and delays are unforgivable now after Madrid," said Romano Prodi, the EU Commission president. "The cultural obstacles to cooperation cannot continue."
There's quite a lot that's unforgivable, eh?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:24:23 AM ||
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Here's his curriculum vitae. He certainly looks Froggy enough...
#5
Frank, I'm 6'-1/2" and was in your weight class but sadly my better-half is making me do weigth watchers so I am headed towards two bills. Anybody got an extra candy bar?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 20:14 Comments ||
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Bean town will be interesting in late July. Vets against Kerry are organizing right now for a protest at the Dimmy's convention. There are already a lot of bad feelings. I've seen it in the Dims I've spoken too. The hate thing promulgated by the left is having an affect alright. This may be like the Chicago Dimmy convention again.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
03/26/2004 20:26 Comments ||
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I stopped short. How Boston goes so will so will NYC. You already got the Sox Yanks thing going on. The Dims and their leftie loons (goons now??) will be protesting in the Big Apple. This will be loverly.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
03/26/2004 20:29 Comments ||
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"The hate thing promulgated by the left is having an affect alright."
Two years ago, the hatred was evident only in the most rabid, whacked-out left-wing fringe; nowadays, the "Bushitler" lunacy is being actively promoted by the Democratic Party leadership.
May they reap what they've sown, in abundance.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/26/2004 20:35 Comments ||
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On the drive home tonight I passed some clown wearing a mask and holding a "Bush Lied, Thousands Died" sign. The farthest I would have gone would have been to roll down the window and yell "Hey, coward! Take off the mask!"
Anyone want to place bets on what color shirts the Democrats will have their thugs in? Brown, red, or green?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/26/2004 20:38 Comments ||
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Robert, I think a more appropriate color is yellow. Your point is well taken. I read a poll taken in a Texas paper today about this election that 66% of the registered voters are already into this election. That number wasn't hit until September of 2000 last time around.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
03/26/2004 20:54 Comments ||
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The Dems is kwazy peoples! Brave to counter protest but smarter to have cops nearby just in case.
Iâve put this under politics because of the obvious link between oil prices, the economy and the US election this year. OPECâs plan to cut its oil production target by 4 percent appears to be unraveling, as group members ignore their self-imposed quotas to take advantage of high crude prices and meet the surging demand for oil in China and the United States. Despite announcing two production cuts in six months, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has boosted its actual output to try to keep pace with the rising market. OPEC agreed last month to reduce its output ceiling by 1 million barrels a day starting April 1, in an effort to keep prices from tumbling during a seasonal lull in demand this spring. and to punish Bush
But as OPEC representatives prepare to meet Wednesday in Vienna, Austria, to review the oil market, some are no longer treating next monthâs cut as inevitable and are suggesting instead that all options - even an increase in output - are now open. That could portend cheaper and more plentiful crude, but it probably wouldnât be enough to comfort American motorists. U.S. gasoline prices have risen to a record national average of $1.75 a gallon due mostly to a robust domestic demand, limited refining capacity and concerns about possible shortages in blending components for reformulated gasoline. Some analysts say that any foreseeable increase in oil supplies probably wouldnât translate into bigger gasoline inventories in time for the peak summer driving season. but they would in time for the Fall election - and the last thing the oil producers want is political sentiment to drill in ANWR or build more nuclear power plants ....
Crude prices have risen by about $6 a barrel since OPEC announced its latest cut on Feb. 10. U.S. prices have bumped uncomfortably close to the psychologically important threshold of $40, though theyâve backed off somewhat in recent days on evidence of a build-up in crude inventories. Futures contracts of U.S. light, sweet crude for May delivery were trading Friday afternoon at $35.68 in New York. "Youâd have to be a complete idiot to cut production when prices are at these levels," said Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank in London. and your point is????
Excluding Iraq, which doesnât participate in the groupâs quota agreements, OPEC has pumped an estimated 26 million barrels a day so far in March. The logistics of reducing crude shipments now would make it impossible for the group to comply with its new ceiling of 23.5 million barrels even if it wanted to, said Leo Drollas of the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. Costlier crude is now a political issue in major importing countries. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card urged OPEC this week to increase its production and said the Bush administration would be talking to its "allies" in the group to ensure that they kept supplies flowing, he told MSNBC television. "Who wants to be a bigger Billionaire by supplying the US?"
OPECâs 11 members supply about one-third of the worldâs oil. The groupâs president, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, told reporters this week that OPEC would discuss three possible strategies when its delegates meet Wednesday in Vienna, Austria: trimming the output target as planned, leaving it unchanged at its current level of 24.5 million barrels a day, or raising it. Purnomoâs newfound flexibility attests to the mixed signals coming from the oil market. Although crude prices are high, some analysts insist there is no real shortage. They point instead to futures markets, where an unusually large number of "long" positions have helped drive the market upward. Gee, who could be manipulating those???
A long position is one in which a trader pays a fixed price for a paper contract of crude in the expectation that prices will rise and let him cash in his contract later for a profit. At the same time, many analysts - including those at OPEC - foresee an excess in physical supplies of crude this spring. Purnomo predicted that global demand for oil would fall by 2.5 million barrels a day in the second quarter. Wary of a consequent plunge in prices, OPEC announced pre-emptive cuts in its output ceiling in September and again six months later in February. However, the unexpected strength in demand from China and the United States has eroded OPECâs resolve to follow through on either cut. cold winter here, growth there
"Iâm very confused now - the market is also very confused," Qatarâs Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamed al-Attiyah said this week. One possible result would be a decision to postpone the planned decrease in OPECâs production ceiling. Obaid bin Saif Al-Nasseri, oil minister of the United Arab Emirates, said earlier this month that OPEC might need to reconsider its decision to lower the ceiling, though he later backtracked and said a postponement was just one idea among many. The slow and fitful recovery in crude production from Iraq and Venezuela should help ease OPECâs anxiety about a springtime plunge in prices. "Certainly thereâs no likelihood of a collapse," said Deutsche Bankâs Sieminski. hard to sort out the motives here. Profit-taking, revenge against Bush and a fear of Iraq coming on line ... perhaps also a desire to generate cash to pump into at least the image of "refoms" at home. ???
EFL
By Yatindra Bhatnagar
[this person may be an ex Muslim or not but is affiliated with the faith freedom site which is predominately made of ex-Muslims - fred has a link to this site on the right]
An Israeli air strike killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin .... The Secretary General Kofi Annan has said âthe attack on Sheik Yassin is contrary to international law.â Would Annan tell us which international law permits, or covers, suicide bombings, and indiscriminate killings, of innocent Israelis? Is there such an international law that only Kofi Annan knows, practices, and sanctions?
I am also shocked to read that British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has called the attack on Yassin âunacceptable.â Are brutal attacks aimed almost daily at, and regular killings of, innocent Israelis, and others in the wide world by Jihadi terror organizations âacceptableâ to this Jack? Even the Bush Administration is âdeeply troubledâ by Yassinâs death. What if the man was Osama bin Laden, or Al Zawahiri, dead because of American strikes? Itâs shameful to mourn the death of a terror leader. Itâs outrageous to condemn a country that showed the courage to strike, and kill one of the top terror leaders. Israel should be congratulated for striking a bold blow for the war on terror.
I have no sympathy for those Muslims who mourn this terror leaderâs death. They keep confirming my suspicion that Jihadi Muslims have brainwashed, influenced, terrorized and dominated almost the entire Muslim world. Itâs difficult to find a real Muslim who openly opposes terror organizations, and condemns terror attacks on innocent Americans, Russians, Israelis, Hindus, Indonesians, Philippinos, and other victims of Jihadi terror.
To come back to Sheik Yassin. ... He was a terror leader, committed to destruction of Israel and had formed the terror group to fight and kill, and kill and fight, till every Jew is annihilated. The teens in Arab nations, especially in the parts that are called â Palestine ,â have been taught by people like Yassin, that all the Jews should be killed and that the state of Israel should be destroyed. ...
#1
Did you read this from the Washington Times?
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040326-121658-5191r.htm
"The terrorist organization Hamas invested millions of dollars during the past decade in real-estate projects nationwide, including in suburban Maryland, as part of a scheme to raise cash to fund acts of terrorism, records show."
Posted by: Barry ||
03/26/2004 17:54 Comments ||
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The FBI has denied allegations by former White House adviser Richard Clarke that al-Qaida was placing operatives in Boston via tankers from Algeria. Clarke, in his book "Against All Enemies," wrote that the FBI learned in December 1999 that terror suspects entered the United States on tankers carrying liquefied natural gas to Boston Harbor. He charged local officials should have been informed of the threat. "We didnât brief the mayor (of Boston) that there was an al-Qaida cell here because there wasnât one," FBI Special Agent Kenneth Kaiser told the Boston Globe. Kaiser said the possible threat from LNG tankers was investigated and no link with suspected terrorists entering the country by that method was found. He said the task force that looked into the possibility included local and state police, the Globe reported Friday. The FBI agent told the newspaper that Clarkeâs allegations were based on "incomplete information" because the White House adviser had been told of the investigation before it was complete.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:42:25 AM ||
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What? Clarke doesn't know what he's talking about?
Nope. Not a twitch on the surprise meter.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/26/2004 12:43 Comments ||
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The terrorists slipped into Boston were not surprising news for people who lived in Boston before 1999. I give you one example. I never thought foreigners could enter Boston without proper entry papers. I mentioned the same during a lunch time in the Galleria near the Harvard Medical School. Just in a day or two, a tall main land Chinese told me in front of others that he had been coming to Boston via Canada as often as he desired without any visa or paper work. It was not surprising that he could slip into Boston except that he was bragging about it in a public place with no fear at all. Boston at those times had open doors as wide as you could imagine. I also have one for the law enforcement agency of Boston. I was made to pay 90 dollars for towing and more to junk my old car that was stolen and left on street within a day after I complained to the Boston drug enforcement agency that I suspected drug dealers were using a dumpster near my parking lot as a transfer site. I guess, it could be a rare coincident of stealing almost a junk car or the drug dealers had informants in the law enforcement agency and I was punished.
Across the globe we watch the terrible drama play out. Car and suicide bombings in Baghdad are aimed at American aid givers, U.S. peacekeepers, Iraqi civilians, and provisional government workers. Spanish civilians are indiscriminately murdered â as are Turks, Moroccans, Saudis, and Afghans.
President Musharraf is targeted by assassins. Synagogues are blown apart. Suicide murderers try to reach a chemical dump in Ashdod in hopes of gassing Jews to the pleasure of much of the Arab world and the indifference of Europe. Indeed, Palestinian murderers apologize for gunning down an Arab jogger in Jerusalem â for the colossal mistake of thinking that he was Jewish. The world yawns, but is then outraged because Israelis take out a mass-murderer during a time of war. We are witnessing a grand struggle between those who create things and those who can only destroy them, between those who are confident and build civilizations and those who have failed and turned vicious.
Daniel Pearl is executed on television. The U.N. is singled out as a target for mass murder in Iraq, as are synagogues in Istanbul. Again, we in the West are supposed to tremble at the devilishness of the jihadists or turn on each other in fear. âWe worship death, you cling to life,â they warn us. Al Qaedaâs message to Europe â which they hate even more than the United States, because it is not only wealthy but soft and weak as well â is that of every mythical monster who promises his trembling prey that with proper flattery he can be gobbled down last.
We should remember that this war of barbarism against civilization is global and connected. Poor Mr. Villepin may ignore that his countryâs appeasement and profit-making in Iraq were helpful to Saddam Husseinâs state-sponsored terrorism and he may believe that things are worse in Baghdad now. But he will learn that past French double-dealing, flamboyant anti-Americanism, and obsequiousness to Iranian theocrats will win him no reprieve from these purveyors of a new Dark Age. The extremists will be just as likely to murder French children over banning headscarves as they would have had three Gallic divisions fought in Iraq.
The Spanish may think that bin Ladenâs past fury over the Reconquista and the Crusades was silly while the present anger over Spaniards in Iraq is logical. But they too will soon learn that appeasement wins them temporary quiet from enemies and general disappointment from friends â not a permanent pardon from terrorist attacks. If they believe al Qaeda is a rational interlocutor, they should assume that the U.S. withdrawal from Saudi Arabia and cessation of the embargo of Iraq â replaced by massive American aid â have met bin Ladenâs original 1998 demands and that peace is at hand.
What is our enemiesâ ultimate agenda? Judge them by what they say and then do: Any who champion women are targeted. Those who are Jews should die. Expressing tolerance for other religions is a capital crime. Secular law and government are a betrayal. Apostasy from Islam justifies murder. Hypocrisy does not matter â whether that means using a hated Western computer or flocking to a despised Western capital. This craziness is actually an agenda of sorts, proclaiming to the wretched, "Purge yourself of the modern West (sort of) and fool yourself into thinking that you will have power, honor, and wealth as never before."
When terrorists are rounded up now in Spain or the United States or deported to Britain, they deny rather than brag of their erstwhile Afghan training, and plead that they are either innocent or were misled. None throw down the gauntlet and bore us with the old long harangues â a la Richard Reed â about the imminent death of the West.
While Ted Kennedy and John Kerry pontificate about losing the war on terror, al Qaeda is nearly finished. What we have been seeing lately are its tentacles flapping about in search of prey, after the head has been smashed â still for a time lethal, but without lasting strength. We should remember that perhaps the bloodiest month for Americans in the European theater of World War II was not during 1943 and 1944 amid the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, or Normandy, but rather in January 1945, a mere five months before the close of the war, when GIs fought back the last bitter German offensive.
Likewise a mere four months before the surrender of Japan the United States began the most bloody campaign of the entire war at Okinawa, where almost 50,000 Americans were killed, wounded, or missing. The fighting, which killed the commanding generals of both sides, did not end until a mere two months before the surrender. What later is seen rightly to be last gasps at the time often appear as irrefutable proof of inexhaustible strength and endless war to come.
Instead, a much better measure than the weekâs explosions is a systematic examination of al Qaedaâs position, then and now.
The terrorists have been routed from their sanctuary of Afghanistan and cannot come back as long as the United States and its allies are determined to stay the course. They are being slowly drawn and quartered inside Pakistan, where the Musharraf government has finally agreed to begin to close down its frontier border sanctuary. Terroristsâ ties with rogue regimes like Saddam Husseinâs and Khaddafiâs Libya are now cut. Saudi, Syrian, and Iranian subsidies and sanctuaries of old are now under scrutiny. Reformists in all of those countries are organizing.
The United States has imposed a global crackdown on terrorist funding, and muscled suspect regimes like Yemen and Jordan into deporting or jailing jihadists and their sympathizers. Pakistan and India are talking, which is bad news for the fundamentalists in Kashmir and the badlands along the Afghan border. The Palestinian killers have brought only misery to their people and now a wall â ensuring that their constituents will soon have a chance to enjoy from Mr. Arafat the same good government that the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and the Iranian clerics extended to their similarly isolated people.
But perhaps the worst development for the fundamentalists has been a radical change of attitude in the United States. No longer do we say to autocrats "pump oil, and keep out communists â and do what you want with your own people."
Yet we can do far more in this time of war that is also a military, political, ideological, and economic struggle. We must explain to the world that no nation has done more to save Muslims â whether in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq. In the last quarter-century we have given billions in aid to Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians. We are the most tolerant of Western countries to Muslim and Arab immigrants. In Iraq now, we â not Arab intellectuals, not "moderate" Arab governments, and not the Europeans â are bringing consensual government and billions more in aid to the Arab Middle East.
The problem is not "getting the message out," but having the intellectual courage to tell the truth and not to be browbeaten by faux intellectuals who talk monotonously of mythical pipelines and Zionist aggression. The fact is, beneath the hype, Iraqis will soon appreciate American help and idealism far more than French perfidy. It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom â never.
Nor do we have anything to apologize about to the Europeans. We liberated the continent, sent it billions in aid, protected it from Soviet Communism, supported the EU and German reunification, created NATO in part to keep internal peace, intervened in Kosovo to stop more European genocide, and have well over 100,000 troops there still to protect it sixty years after it nearly destroyed itself. We no longer expect gratitude or even memory of the past, but we do expect maturity and not the patronizing lectures from a Spanish or French foreign minister who should know better â given the respective histories of their countries and our own during the last century.
So, yes, they are our allies. And yes, we must be polite and considerate as we all work together to hunt down terrorists. And yes, we are often undiplomatic when there is no need to be given our stature. But there is a reason for Europeansâ anger and it transcends George Bush â having everything to do with the fear that America is a stubborn, powerful, moral antithesis to their own global socialist utopia. What the Spanish did recently was only an affirmation of what France has done with Saddam for twenty years.
Finally, for the duration, to sustain both our military power and foreign largess, we also must look to ourselves inasmuch as we are running vast trade deficits, along with unsustainable budget shortfalls, and are stuck in an entitlement craze where government payouts bring not gratitude but shrill demands for even more subsidies. Our borders are porous and yet we are paralyzed and afraid to enforce our own laws â even as 12 million illegal aliens inside the United States cannot be identified or even be referred to as illegal.
Our educational system is increasingly therapeutic and turning out too many poorly educated youth who have not inherited the tradition of American expertise and competence and cannot in the immediate future ensure our privileged position as the worldâs most affluent consumer society. The Chinese, Europeans, South Koreans, and Japanese are all lending us money for consumption. But they do so only in the trust that our legal system, stability, and competence will continue to justify such debts, which can only be paid back on the expectation that America can sustain its global civilizing role and lead the world in technological innovation and capital formation.
So to press on, we must begin to look at the struggle across the spectrum in this new multifaceted war: bring consensual government to the Middle East; destroy the last al Qaeda holdouts; put Syria and Iran on notice to cease their support for terrorists; reexamine the location and purpose of all our bases; encourage candor and a new honesty with our allies; and seek to bring a new discipline to our own government and citizenry.
We have the chance not merely to win this war and do the world a great deal of good, but also to aspire ourselves to be a stronger and better people after it. We at least owe the dead of September 11 that much.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/26/2004 9:35:31 AM ||
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I love VDH... but yet another clone is found: add "Khaddafi" to the list!
Osama bin Laden may have escaped with his life in the last years of the Clinton administration because of a misunderstanding between the White House and the CIA over whether US spies had permission to kill him, it emerged yesterday. The breakdown in communication was described to the national commission examining the events leading up to September 11, and served to divert some of the scrutiny from the Bush administration on the politically explosive issue of whether the 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York could have been prevented.
A report compiled by the commissionâs staff found that senior officials in the Clinton White House said they had made it clear the CIA had a licence to kill the Saudi fugitive and not just capture him. But "if the policy makers believed their intent was clear, every CIA official interviewed on this topic by the commission, from [the CIA director, George Tenet] to the official who actually briefed the agents in the field, told us they had heard a different message. What the United States would let the military do is quite different, Tenet said, from the rules that govern covert action in the field".
The distinction may have made a crucial difference to the hunt for the al-Qaida leader, who later ordered the September 11 attacks. "CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to capture Bin Laden, except in the defined contingency. They believed that the only acceptable context for killing Bin Laden was a credible capture operation," the report said. It quoted a former chief of the Osama bin Laden unit as saying: "We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him."
Sandy Berger, the national security adviser in the Clinton White House, told the commission yesterday the president had made it clear that he was willing to kill Bin Laden, pointing to an attack on an al-Qaida camp in August 1998 using more than 50 cruise missiles. "If there was any confusion down the ranks, it was never communicated to me, nor to the president and if any additional authority had been requested I am convinced it would have been given immediately," Mr Berger said.
The commissionâs report gave some support to Mr Bergerâs assertion, pointing out that no one in the CIA "ever complained to the White House that the authorities were restrictive or unclear". Mr Tenet, testifying before Mr Berger, said: "I never went back and said, âI donât have all the authorities I needâ."
-snip- background
Mr Tenet came to the presidentâs support, testifying that George Bush had asked for "face-to-face contact" with him on a daily basis. That, he said, "gets your adrenaline flowing early in the morning ... and obviously itâs important."
Mr Berger argued, however, that there could be no substitute for regular principals meetings. Why is Berger being asked about the Bush years? One would think that his expertise would be the Clinton years. He said that under the Clinton administration, names of suspects would surface from the CIA, and the attorney-general, Janet Reno, who was present at the meetings, immediately gave orders for the FBI to follow up the leads. Mr Clarke has argued that such high-level intervention would probably have led to the capture of at least two of the 19 hijackers.
Another bitter debate has revolved around the Predator unmanned surveillance aircraft. It was first deployed in 2000, and led to two possible sightings of Bin Laden. However the commission staff found that its use in Afghanistan was stopped in 2001, while work was underway fitting it with a missile.
Administration critics say that decision blinded US intelligence at a critical moment. In his testimony Mr Berger said warships had been stationed in the Arabian sea in 2000, ready to launch cruise missiles that could strike within six hours of the sighting. However, Mr Tenet argued that the continued use of an unarmed Predator would have stripped it of its element of surprise, which would add to its potency once it was equipped with missiles by autumn 2001.
In yesterdayâs testimony, Mr Berger was also on the defensive over the Clinton administrationâs failure to take action against the Taliban in Afghanistan after the October 2000 suicide attack on the American destroyer USS Cole off the Yemeni coast. The Clinton administration had earlier warned the Taliban that it would suffer the consequences of any future attack from al-Qaida. The former national security adviser said that when the administration left office in January 2001 there was no definitive proof of al-Qaida involvement. The commission, however, pointed to CIA findings in November 2000 that al-Qaida members were considered suspects, although Mr Berger said those findings were only "preliminary" and could not justify a major attack on Afghanistan.
Fact, the CIA was hamstrung prior to 9-11. Note - I heard a radio caller ask Rush Limbaugh when Congessional failure to fund intelligence and defense projects would become the focus of the commision. What a card. The guy should be writing for Letterman - Congress holding itself accountable and trying to improved itâs own performance. Sheesh.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 1:32:50 AM ||
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You know, true or not, I suspect we are all here to learn a particular lesson before we are allowed out of purgatory and into Utopia, aka: Heaven. The Clintons just can't seem to learn their lesson - no matter how obvious the task, or how many chances they are given.
The lesson they need to learn is to admit they made a mistake and move on - or, AT THE VERY LEAST - to just shut up and/or try to change the subject when their mistakes are exposed. Once you do, people will forgive and move on.
But instead of standing tall, they always look for someone else they can have crucified in a mistaken belief it will rid them of their sins.
Ironically, it is always the people who attempt to help the Clintons who end up in flames.
#2
B, your statement assumes the Clintons want what's best for America.
They are liberals and only want what's best for good socialists they approve of and F*CK everyone else. And if that means a lot of dead GIs along the way, well then, that's a cost they are willing to make others pay.
Deprecating the defenses of the United States is part and parcel of a liberal agenda. Clinton went about as far as he could go to open the US for attack and with Kerry in the office they will break down our military and American culture even further.
Emboldened by their deadly success in Spain, terrorists could attempt to influence the U.S. election and shock the world by launching attacks during this year's presidential nominating conventions or at the Olympics in Greece, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday.
"We understand that between now and the election, there is a window of time in which terrorists may well wish to influence events, whether it's in the United States or overseas," Mueller said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He also said that Islamic extremists are changing tactics to focus on recruitment of local sympathizers less likely to arouse suspicion than outsiders. And terrorist groups may well move away from fortified targets, such as airports and government buildings, he said.
"I do believe that when we enhance our security, harden targets, terrorists look for other targets that are soft targets," Mueller said. When new security measures are taken, he said, "the terrorists are thinking about ways to circumvent them."
"In the wake of what happened in Madrid, we have to be concerned about the possibility of terrorists attempting to influence elections in the United States by committing a terrorist act," Mueller said. "Quite clearly, there will be substantial preparations for each of the conventions."
U.S. officials also are deeply concerned about security for the Athens Olympics in August. Mueller said he was awaiting a review of a recent anti-terrorism exercise to "see again what we could do if there are areas that need to be shored up."
Asked if security would be adequate by the time the Olympics begin, Mueller said: "It's premature to make any definitive judgment as to where we are in the stages of preparations."
Regarding new al Qaeda recruiting tactics, Mueller pointed to the May 16 suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, as evidence of change. In those attacks, local Islamic extremists were recruited by outsiders probably linked to al Qaeda to carry out the mission.
"We, along with our counterparts, have to be alert to that type of combination of local persons as well as others who may have expertise in timing devices, and constructing (bombs), coming together with those who are willing to sacrifice themselves," Mueller said.
He said there is no good explanation as to why no suicide bombings have been attempted in the United States -- "knock on wood," he said -- other than an effort by the FBI to raise awareness among state and local law enforcement officials "understanding that this is a threat and understanding the need to be alert to it."
Mueller praised the efforts of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in assisting U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Saudi Arabia in particular has moved aggressively to root out al Qaeda cells since last May's bombings in Riyadh, discovering tons of explosives and large caches of weapons.
"Saudi Arabia has become a very inhospitable place for al Qaeda," Mueller said. "That was not always the case."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 12:38:59 AM ||
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Funny how wave after wave of suidice bombings on Israel does not elicit any response from it. But when an actual terrorist kingpin gets killed --- ooooh --- resolution time, biyatch! Hey --- one manâs terrorist is another manâs freedom fighter, right?
Article deleted, duplicate of earlier post. AoS!
Posted by: Vivek ||
03/26/2004 7:33:26 AM ||
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday condemning Israel's assassination of a Hamas leader, calling the measure "one-sided" and saying it ignored the group's bloody record of terrorism. The United States had demanded that the resolution on the death of Ahmed Yassin include a mention of attacks by Hamas and other militant groups. Algeria, the resolution's sponsor, had resisted identifying the groups by name or citing specific attacks.
Flush!
"This Security Council does nothing to contribute to a peaceful settlement when it condemns one party's actions and turns a blind eye to everything else occurring in the region," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said before the vote that came after days of bitter debate.
The vote was 11 countries in favor, three countries abstaining, and one country against - the United States.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of bombings and shootings of Israelis during 3 1/2 years of violence. Israel says it is weakening Hamas by targeting its leaders, but critics say killing suspects without arresting or trying them violates international law and breeds resentment among Palestinians. "Israeli policies are not part of the battle against international terrorism; it's part of the problem of creating terrorism," said Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian representative.
Negroponte said the United States, too, was "secretly satisfied though we can never admit it openly" "deeply troubled" by the killing of Yassin. "Israel's action has escalated tensions in Gaza and the region, and could set back our effort to resume progress towards the roadkill map peace," he said. He said the United States could not support the resolution because it failed to mention recent attacks by Hamas, including a suicide bombing in Ashdod that killed 10 Israelis last week. The document also limited its condemnation to violence in the Palestinian territories, omitting attacks in Israel.
"A mere trifle, Mr. Ambassador!"
"The council should be focused on ways to advance the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," Negroponte said. "The one-sided resolution before the Council does not advance that goal."
Failing that, one state and a seething swarm held back by a wall.
Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman accused the Palestinian Authority of siding with Yassin. "The Security Council ... would have committed an unforgivable act of hypocrisy had it come to the defense of a man whose life's work was the eradication of peace, a man who was nothing less than a mass murderer," Gillerman said.
The 11 Security Council members who voted for the measure on Thursday were: China, Russia, France, The Philippines, Angola, Chile, Pakistan, Spain, Algeria, Benin and Brazil. Britain, Germany and Romania abstained from the vote.
Not one surprise there.
The Algerian delegation said it might take the resolution to the full, 191-nation U.N. General Assembly. That body overwhelmingly sides with the Palestinians in such issues, but lacks the prestige authority and good humor of the Security Council.
Gillerman criticized "those council members who were recently victims of horrendous terror" for casting votes in favor of the measure. It was an apparent reference to Spain, where bombings in Madrid killed 190 people on March 11; and Russia, where a Moscow subway attack killed 41 on Feb. 6. "If you knew before the bloody massacre of your citizens took place who was going to carry that horrendous act out, would you have sat still and let it happen?" Gillerman asked.
Nah, Zapatero would never do that. He'd turn the other cheek, withdraw his troops from Madrid and offer to pay the bombers for their out of bombvest pocket expenses.
The vetoed resolution condemned Yassin's death and called for a "complete cessation of extrajudicial executions." It also condemned "all terrorist attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction." However, it did not mention any militant groups by name - a traditional U.S. demand.
"Who, specifically?"
"Um, those guys. You know."
"As we said, who?"
A U.S. draft proposal would have deleted all condemnation of "extrajudicial executions." That issue is a touchy one for the Americans, because the United States has marked suspected terrorists for death in the past.
And plan to in the future.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:11:48 AM ||
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Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 0:24 Comments ||
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#2
When people thought the Madrid bombs were palnted by ETA. The UNSC passes a resolution condemming it. As soon as its known to be Islamo crazies then we have a resolution condemming the victims of Islamo terrorism. Unbelievable!
#7
"This Security Council does nothing to contribute to a peaceful settlement when it condemns one party's actions and turns a blind eye to everything else occurring in the region," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said before the vote that came after days of bitter debate.
#8
mhw - I think Kerry has to go farther than condemning one sided resolution on Israel. Unless he spefically condemns the countries that SUPPORTED the resolution, and (in appropriately diplomatic language) makes it clear that they are tainted as participants in the Mid east peace process, and that they have forfeited their moral claims wrt to coalition policy in Iraq.
Indonesian police have obtained a letter that allegedly identifies jailed militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir as the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked terror network Jemaah Islamiyah, a senior intelligence official said Friday. The official described the letter as sufficient evidence to bring fresh terror charges against the cleric, who is soon to be released from prison despite protests by Washington and other foreign governments. Indonesian police, however, declined to comment. They said no decision had been made on reopening the case against Bashir, who is doing time for minor offenses after being cleared by Indonesiaâs court system of earlier treason and terror counts.
My guess is that it won't happen, that the vice presidential fix is in...
Speaking by phone from his Jakarta jail cell, Bashir branded the letter, which was dated four years ago, as a fake that contained "lies concocted by America."
"Lies! All lies!"
The intelligence official said the letter was found last year. It was signed by two senior Jemaah Islamiyah members, now in custody, and refers to Bashir as "emir," or leader of the Southeast Asian terror network blamed for several terror attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings. "Police have confiscated a very important document that proves that Abu Bakar Bashir is the true leader of Jemaah Islamiyah," the official said. "Itâs enough evidence to give Bashir a new trial." The intelligence official said he hoped that publicizing the letter would increase pressure on Indonesia to reopen Bashirâs case.
I'm not sure there's any cure for intentional blindness...
However, Brig. Gen. Sunarko Danu Ardanto, deputy national police spokesman, said police have not yet decided whether to bring new charges. "We are still studying the information and compiling more evidence that can support the allegations," Sunarko said.
See what I mean?
The intelligence official told AP the letter had been sent by two alleged militants who are currently detained in Indonesia: Mustafa, said to be a top Jemaah Islamiyah operative who had trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and his Malaysian deputy, Nasir Abbas. He said the letter was written from a militant training camp in the southern Philippines under an organization calling itself the Islamic Military Academy. He said the document provided information on the condition of trainees at the camp. Bashir was defiant when he talked with the AP by phone from prison on Friday. "The Indonesian intelligence are all lackeys of America, who will buy off anyone with their dollars," he said. "I have never received the letter. I have never heard of the military academy in the Philippines."
"I've never received a letter in my life! And I've never heard of the Philippines!"
Separately, Ansyaad Mbai, who heads the counterterrorism desk at Indonesiaâs Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs, said Friday that terrorists in Indonesia are plotting new attacks to disrupt parliamentary elections set for April 5. His comments follow similar warnings from top Indonesian officials after police confiscated explosive material and arrested more than two dozen people near Jakarta last weekend following a small blast at a house allegedly being used to host bomb-making classes. No one was injured.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:33:29 AM ||
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Police in the Indonesian capital said Wednesday they are searching for eight more terror suspects following the arrest of 10 Muslim radicals for making bombs. They said the original group -- who were arrested after one device detonated accidentally during a bomb-making class in a rented house -- is thought to be linked to a larger terrorist network. "These wanted names were involved in the training and the bomb assembling but when the blast took place, they were not in that house," said Jakarta police spokesman Prasetyo, quoted by Detikcom online news service.
Asked in a separate television interview if police have determined whether the 10 are linked to a known terror group, Prasetyo said: "It is true that we are going that way." The spokesman did not mention the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) but said the explosive chemicals -- potassium chlorate and sulphur -- which the group was using were similar to those found in other incidents.
Police say the new group intended to use the bombs to battle enemies of Islam. They are expected to be charged under an anti-terror law. Prasetyo, who could not be reached for comment, told ElShinta radio it was unlikely the group was an independent one and it needed a financier. He said its members had admitted conducting bomb-making classes in two or three other places, in addition to the house at Depok on Jakarta's southern outskirts where the bomb went off on Sunday. The incident heightened fears of bombings during the current campaign period for the April 5 general election. Material for nine bombs was found at the Depok house in addition to the one which exploded.
Police have quoted key suspect Oman Rahman as cautioning his relatives, in a confiscated letter, against visiting "dangerous" shopping malls. Rahman also urged them not to take part in the election, which he called an "act that runs against the religion." However, national police chief Dai Bachtiar said none of the suspects had told interrogators they aimed to disrupt the election. "They did possess (explosives) and perhaps they were preparing (for an attack) but it is not yet clear what it was aimed at," he told reporters.
An unidentified police investigator, quoted by Media Indonesia newspaper, said Rahman had received bomb-making training in Afghanistan. The bomb scare was the second this month after a device containing five sticks of explosives was found at a supermarket in the city of Medan on March 9. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is helping police investigate that attempted attack. Antara news agency, quoting an unnamed intelligence source, said the explosive was made in the United States and might have come from an arsenal in Thailand that was recently robbed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 12:59:46 AM ||
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Despite the threat of U.S. sanctions, hard-line Syria led calls Friday for next week's annual Arab summit to take a tough stand against Israel in the wake of the killing of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Damascus' insistence that Israel be punished for assassinating the Palestinian leader in a rocket attack March 22 in Gaza could become the focus of the two-day summit that starts here Monday, instead of an American-backed blueprint for Middle East political reform and attempts to revive a stalled Arab peace plan. more...
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency today said an audiotape purported to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri, second in command to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is ``likelyââ to be authentic, the U.K.âs Sky News cited Reuters as reporting.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:30:09 AM ||
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#1
These guys have been saying all kinds of crap about released audiotapes. Seems to me that since they seemingly don't know what the deal is, it would be best to just say, "It sounds like the guy, but we don't know for sure, and if it is indeed him, there's no way to tell if it was made yesterday or a few years ago."
From Geostrategy-Direct, requires subscription...
Ukrainians and criminal networks inside Iraq are smuggling Russian-made military equipment out of the country and into Iran, according to a Baghdad press report. One Ukrainian soldier working at the Hamurabi camp, which was once a headquarters for the Iraqi Republican Guard unit, sold a T-72 tank to black marketers for $11,000. Several traders were spotted in the area with Iraqi-accented Arabic men from the Al-Ahwaz region of Iran. The traders have purchased several tanks and were disassembling them for transport to Iran. Hundreds of tanks have been smuggled, the Baghdad newspaper Al-Nahdah reported March 15. The tanks and other military vehicles were covertly purchased in the Al-Hafriyah, Al-Suwayrah, Al-Nahrawan, Jablah and Al-Husayniyah regions, the report said. The tanks and vehicles managed to pass through U.S. and coalition military checkpoints. Who is dumb enough to buy T-72 tanks in Iran and what will they use them for? Iranian resistance? Hey, wanna buy tanks by the part?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/26/2004 9:26:05 PM ||
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#1
ssshhhhh - let's let then build their "armored fist of Allah"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2004 22:14 Comments ||
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"Mahmoud! You paid $11,000 for a used tank with a remote-detonated bomb welded under the driver's seat!"
"Yes, Effendi! But we found it, didn't we?"
"Except that it has 'bomb number 3' painted on the side!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2004 22:22 Comments ||
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Disassembling tanks???
"Mahmoud! Is that a turret in your suitcase, or are you just happy to see me?!?!"
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/26/2004 22:57 Comments ||
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Well that's a new one. I had only heard about the Ukrainians doing a little two-way contraband operation involving their aircraft and certain agricultural products. But that was just a rumor.
#6
On the modern battlefield, they would end up as Purina Tank Chow, but a T-72 might be just the thing to take on cranky students, disgruntled citizens and other members of the unarmed populace.
Personally, I wouldn't mind having one. Always thought they were kind of cool. But then, I'm not planning on going head to head with the US Army.
#7
Are these the T-72s with the extra tank on the back, over the engine, thin enough to be punctured by a .223?
If so, they're not really suited even for suppressing civilians.
Found via Drudge. Completing the trifica of robot posts...
The Israel Defense Forces is equipping its forces with a new range of spy drones small enough to fit in a soldierâs backpack, including one that weighs less than a can of soda, the army said Thursday. The Israel Air Force has frequently used larger unmanned spy planes to track and target Palestinian militants during airstrikes. The new mini-drones would also give army forces in the field on-the-spot access to aerial intelligence. The small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVâs) and the futuristic looking micro UAVâs were displayed Thursday at a conference held by the armyâs Ground Force Command on low intensity conflicts. The new baby drones have already been supplied to some ground units. The portable planes give the units almost immediate access to aerial photographs "when the need arises," a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We use them to take aerial photographs of the (Palestinian) territories," he said. On display Thursday were the BIRDY and the Spy There mini-drone,s produced by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI).
BIRDY - with a weight of 1.3 kilograms (3 pounds) - can be carried and launched by a single soldier, who guides the drone by clicking on coordinates on a laptop computer. It has a five-kilometer (three-mile) range, IAI said.
The slightly larger Spy There is operated by a two man crew and has twice the range, IAI said. Both UAVâs can fly for an hour while transmitting pictures back to their operators.
IAI also displayed two prototype micro-drones, the Mosquito and the Mosquito 1.5. These tiny spy gadgets weigh a mere 250 grams (9 ounces) and 500 grams (18 ounces) each. The Mosquito, equipped with a miniature video camera, has already completed several successful 40-minute trial flights, IAI said. Cool!
The army currently rents the drones from IAI but has issued a contact offer to supply them with the small UAVâs, the official said. I wonder if they would be willing to rent some to the U.S for our southern border.....
#1
Actually, the American Border Patrol, a private group, has built and deployed three UAVs so far, and they're proving effective in identifying unlawful border crossers. The big problem is getting Border Patrol agents to do something about it. Now if we could get about 5000 former Marines and Army types organized into a "Retired Militia", sanctioned by the US government, and give them a bounty of say, $25 a head for all they catch and detain, maybe we could STOP the stupidity on our southern border.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/26/2004 18:03 Comments ||
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Any Old Crows around here will remember those Bekah Valley drone deployments in the early 1980s. During that time I crashed a few Mirassou library tastings with Messieurs Addington and Campbell in attendance. Trust me, way back then America already had the ability to alias inbound aircraft return signatures so that they resembled patchy fog or a flock of birds. Even early stealth fighters had the radar cross-section of a BB
Israeli RPV (Remote Piloted Vehicle) preflight sorties up the Bekah back-fed nearly realtime telemetered recon of source guided lock-on frequencies, tracking system light-ups, target painting wattage and vital jamming bandwidths. Even today, few low-grade militaries can afford the agile frequency-hopping VCOs (Voltage Controlled Oscillators) needed to outwit advanced targeting systems.
Israel's new generation of miniature drones benefit substantially from Sony Walkman era rare earth magnets and selectively plated printed motor windings. Compact multiaxis laser gyros are a bit of help as well. But these mini-drones are merely Hollywood style flying minicam platforms that have been repackaged into small form factor composite material micro-aircraft.
The most significant evolution of all is occurring in the area of hovering reconnaissance. Third generation miniature drone technology is a modern day equivalent of early mosaic array stare-down satellite technology at a mere fraction of their original cost.
Peace with Pakistan is permanent and the South Asian rivals are unlikely ever to fight again, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Friday in a bid to capitalize on a thaw in ties ahead of elections. Vajpayee was speaking at an election rally in Amritsar, after his deputy, Lal Krishna Advani, swept into the Sikh holy city at the end of the first leg of a nationwide campaign tour. "I donât think we will fight ever again. This peace will be permanent, the friendship will last. There is no other way out for neighbors but to live peacefully," Vajpayee told a crowd of more than 5,000 people. "Had anyone imagined that we would have such good ties with our neighbor and play cricket with them?" Vajpayee asked, referring to an ongoing cricket series between India and Pakistan, the first between the rivals in 14 years. Hey, itâs good that theyâre talking this way but... mark me down as skeptical.
#1
I like the Hell Brick....but I'm gonna have to stick with my own SPLATS 666 (Self Propelled Laser Assisted Turban Snuffer) It's still in the testing phase but I can loan out a couple to the IAF ...no problem.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/26/2004 13:35 Comments ||
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Posted earlier this morning. Had to think whether or not I'd leave it in...
Sure glad I didn't delete it when I had the chance, I'd hate to spoil your fun :-)
Waziristan is the largest tribal area of Pakistan. What is going on in Waziristan i.e operation in Wana against al-qaeda and taliban fighters is shameful for pakistani govt.
Having to clean up insurrection and sabotage can be embarrassing for a government, especially if they've ignored it for awhile when they should have been attending to it...
Doesn't this show that in fact we are the terrorists i.e Pakistan is a terrorist country. Because if we are not terrorists then why there are so much terrorists (mujahideens) in our country.
We've often wondered the same. We put it down to large parts of Pakistan remaining primitive and uncivilized, coupled with a strong strain of religious fanaticism throughout the country...
In fact we have forgotten that we are Muslims and that Jihad is the duty of every muslim.
Now, I'd have said the opposite: You spend entirely too much time dwelling on how Muslim you are, and not enough time on things like building businesses and feeding your families. You can do both, for the greater glory of God, if you like. But both are harder than waving guns, rolling your eyes, and rushing off to kill infidels.
So the warriors in Wanna are not terrorists but they are mujahideens.
That statement doesn't logically flow from the previous statement, less so if you stop and read my comments.
If the US and Pak army are giving them the name of terrorism then we will do this terrorism because "no compromise on religion".
Religion is the driver behind the actions of the Bad Guys, not the target of the Good Guys. Religion provides a mere excuse for bumping people off. Foul actions are foul actions, whether you paint them in religious colors or carry them out for a few bucks (or rupees, in your case). The poor dead guy doesn't care whether the guy who killed him did it for religion or to lift his wallet.
I don,t know how the Pakistan govt and US forces had forgotten our past history. we born free and will maintain our freedom on each cost. If the pak govt is doing voilence on childrens and women there then we will feel no hesitation in killing them.
If they're targeting women and children and baby ducks, that's grounds for complaint. But professional armies, even armies with the pitifully low level of professionalism the Paks are exhibiting, don't target non-combatants. It's a waste of ammunition. Terrorists are fond of taking hostages, however, which seems to be the case in the present instance.
Al-qaeda and talibans are our guests and we know how to sacrifice our lives for our guests.
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. Or perhaps it's a case of like seeking out like.
The flower which a common waziristani tuck on his ear is a sign that he love peace and the rifle which he decorates on his shoulder is an indication to all that every waziristani is ready for war.
But there's no sign he's interested in doing anything productive with his life.
Abbas maseed Ravian (ex-razmian)
GC University Lahore
Posted by: ZAHEER ABBAS MASEED WAZIRISTANIAN ||
03/26/2004 7:25:12 AM ||
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When you really look at this through my very skewed scope, Waziristan is an example of the power of the 2nd Amendment. The populous is well armed, so subjugating them is nearly impossible. Occupying that section of Pakistan would be extremely costly for the government with respect to blood, money and political will.
Too bad the population is a bunch of izzoid earth-sacks.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 13:26 Comments ||
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Too bad the population is a bunch of izzoid earth-sacks.
And you think this can't be the case in the US? 'Tis a double-edged sword.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/26/2004 14:12 Comments ||
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True,Rafe.But most everyone I know that owns a weapon(and that is most everyone I know)isn't ready to start shooting because someone looks funny at a religious book.
EFL. The headline makes you think the separate events are more closely related than they really are.
BAGHDAD, Iraq â U.S. troops have been involved Friday in an intense battle with enemy fighters in Fallujah, who were apparently heavily armed with mortars and rocket propelled grenade launchers.
Although no U.S. casualties have been reported, doctors at the local hospital said four Iraqis died and six wounded in the assault. The battle apparently erupted when U.S. forces moved in to carry out house-to-house searches in the town west of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, several hundred miles away, oil wells and pipelines are being targetted in what Iraqi officials have called terrorist acts. A pieline was set on fire near Basra, causing a huge blaze, and, in yet another different place, in northern Iraq a bomb set off a large fire at an oil well. The oil well fire raged for 24 hours before being extinguished, a senior Iraqi security official said. . . .
The blast on the Northern Oil Company well in the Khabaz area, about 55 miles west of Kirkuk, occurred Wednesday night, said Gen. Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps chief in Kirkuk. The fire was extinguished late Thursday.
The well was not being tapped at the time of the blast and was not closely guarded, he said.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/26/2004 11:11:58 AM ||
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#3
Hey Tex, don't let little mucky get under your skin. Muck4doo is actually the nom de guerre of one of our regular posters who likes over-the-top satire.
#6
Every time I hear about the Eye-Rakkies trashing their own means of climbing out of their hole, I can't help thinking of the way writer P.J. O'Rourke used to describe self-inflicted stupidity - to the effect "It looked as if a (Baathist) heavy mortar team had been hard at work for several weeks, continually lobbing rounds STRAIGHT UP..."
It seems that our Army is engaged in a battle of its own attrition,just to try to stop the Eye-Rakkies from destroying their own infrastructure. How long are we going to put up with that ?????
Ah, well, at least our Amry is getting tuned up for things to come - elsewhere. It looks to me as if the coming of the battle of annihilation is just a matter of time.
Pakistani tribesmen in South Waziristan have refused to hand over 14 soldiers and officials until the army ends its 11-day offensive there. The Yargulkhel, who have been fighting alongside suspected al-Qaeda militants, rejected a plea by tribal elders for the hostages to be freed. Pakistanâs information minister says more troops are to be sent to the area and the operation will continue. Mohabbat Khan Shirani, one of nine elders negotiating with the hostage takers, told the AFP news agency: "Members of the Yargulkhel tribe have refused to negotiate until troops leave." The hostages were taken at the start of the army offensive last week.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 10:35:50 AM ||
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sounds like Perv's military's gonna eat this one and look like pussies to the Indian eye, or the hostages and these "tribesmen" will be dead...
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2004 11:06 Comments ||
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Number 1, for $20, Bob!
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2004 11:31 Comments ||
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sounds like Perv's military's gonna eat this one and look like pussies to the Indian eye,..
Not good. Either Musharraf controls territory within his boundaries or he doesn't. If he does (or if he wants to), then he has to lower the boom on these tribesmen.
To begin with, President Bush should invite John Kerry to the White House for a confidential discussion on how to bring the world wide threat of terrorism to an end. Kerry will have no choice but to accept the invitation; and the press will be fed tips from high governmental officials that the meeting between the two men will have the profoundest historical consequence. Bush will have earlier issued a statement that, at this dangerous juncture in history, there can be no hint of a partisan divide on our nationsâ approach to the problem of terrorism; and that it is imperative that any proposal coming from the current administration will be backed one hundred percent by the opposition party.
Kerry arrives, but does not leave. The press is told that the joint discussion is going so well, and has reached such a critical level, that Senator Kerry has been invited to stay at the White House as an overnight guest -- and, indeed, let the Senator stay there for three or four nights -- just to increase the dramatic tension.
The leaks are flowing profusely by now. Talk is circulated in the media about the "breathtaking" and "astonishing" proposal that will be announced in a joint statement by both the President and the Democratic candidate for President.
This is what the joint statement, when it is finally released, will say:
"The United States had decided to open negotiation with Islamic terrorists, including Al Qaeda. Our only demand is that the terrorists must formally state their demands to us in a written document, and this document will become the basis of any future negotiation. These demands may be for cutting off all support for Israel, or for banning American presence from the Middle East, or for the mass conversion of all American citizens to Islam. Everything will be open for discussion."
Now how can the terrorists -- or their American and European apologists -- ask for more than that?
But what about the fine print. Certainly there must be some strings attached somewhere?
In fact, there are two very minor conditions.
First, it must be possible for the United States to comply with the terroristsâ demands without the aid of a time machine. They are therefore barred from requiring us to "do over" episodes of history that are over and done with, such as American defilement of Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War. However, the United States will be happy to consider paying compensation for all such misdeeds in the past.
Second, the various terrorist organizations must unite behind one common front. This may be Al Qaeda or Hamas or what group the other terrorists decide to let represent them in their negotiations with the United States -- it makes no difference to us. All that really matters is that there be one clearly identifiable group that is authorized by Muslim terrorists everywhere to speak for them.
Third, the list must not be a laundry list of complaints or grievances. It must be expressed in a form of ten priorities, ranked in accordance with their importance to the Muslim terrorists; and again, it is essential that all the Muslim terrorists will agree on the ranking of the relative demands -- there can be no argument about which demand has to be met first.
These demands are only common sense. After all, the whole point of opening negotiations is to provide a definitive solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism; hence, the United States has every right to insist that the party with whom they are negotiating has the authority to secure such a definitive solution. It will not do to have the United State accede to the demands of one group of terrorists, only to find another group of terrorists making different demands on us, and justifying their acts of terror on the basis of our failure to meet these new demands. When one nation sets about negotiating with another nation, it is presumed that the other nationâs negotiating team can uphold its end of the bargain -- otherwise, what is the purpose of negotiations?
Now by this point I expect that many of my readers will be convinced that I am advocating virtual surrender to the terrorists. But in fact I am urging precisely the kind of policy that Otto von Bismarck adopted -- to create a trap in which your enemy will irresistibly fall, simply because he will have no clue where the trap has been set.
Consider the only two responses that the Muslim terrorists can make in such circumstances.
First, they can reject the offer to negotiate their demands with the United States, in which case they will be announcing to the world that they have no genuine political demands to make, but are simply indulging in terrorism for the sake of terrorism. This may not be enough to disillusion the many apologists for terrorism in the West, but it certainly will stop them from attacking the United States for its failure to pursue a more conciliatory path.
Second, the various Muslim terrorist groups can accept the offer to negotiate, whereupon they will immediately fall into bickering over which group has the legitimate authority to speak for the entire Muslim world, not to mention which of their various demands should take priority over other demands, and which need to be included in the list of ten demands, and which should be left off this list.
The result of this bickering would almost certainly be an orgy of mutual slaughter -- just the kind of thing that happens to gangs when they are trying to establish their dominance over each other. Each would be competing with the rest to be allowed to represent the Muslim world in its negotiations with the United States.
Otto von Bismarck could have done such a thing. We probably canât. And yet by simply contemplating such a scenario it becomes instantly clear why the crisis we are facing is so different from any crisis in our past. Every war in our past could, in theory, have been capable of a solution had we been simply willing to give up enough to those who were our enemies. Had we abandoned the Pacific to the Japanese, that would have appeased them; had we kept out of the European war, Hitler would have been fine with us. Had Wilson simply accepted the German sinking of our ships on the high seas, as William Jennings Bryan had urged, we would have never gotten involved in the First World War.
In our current situation, however, the mere willingness to yield to the demands of the enemy is not enough to bring about a definitive solution, simply because while we have enemies, they are not even close to being organized enough to constitute something that we could plausibly call the enemy. Indeed, let us suppose that, instead of trying to open negotiations, we simply decided to flat out surrender. To whom would we surrender? And if we surrendered to terrorist group A, how could we be sure that we were not thereby embroiling ourselves in a war with terrorist group B, who might decide to insist that we surrender to them instead, and to underscore this insistence with terror strikes of their own?
As long as a handful of people in the Muslim world believe that they have a grievance against us, and are willing to use terror to express this grievance, it will be impossible for us either to achieve a negotiated solution to the problem of terrorism, and equally impossible for us even to surrender. This means that even the most peace-loving dove must accept the fact that we have no choice but to fight -- and to fight with whatever weapons come to our hand. Either that, or just to stop caring when hundreds or thousands of human beings are brutally murdered for no reason at all.
In H.G. Wellsâ novel, The Time Machine, the hero is transported into a far distant epoch of manâs future. There he is astonished to discover an innocent and carefree race of beautiful and child-like human beings, called the Eloi. Yet, just at the moment when the hero believes he is seeing the return of the Golden Age, an incident happens. A beautiful girl suddenly loses her footing and falls into a river along which she and her friends had been walking just moments before. The girl screams as she falls into the water, but her companions merely give her a glance, and then casually, as if nothing had happened, they continue their way, utterly unaffected by their friendâs desperate shouts.
Wellsâ hero immediately sees his duty, and does it, jumping into the river to save the drowning girl, but, as he does so, he asks himself, How could human beings possibly reach such a point where they thought nothing of the death of their friends and companions?
Since we cannot negotiate or surrender, even if we wished to, our only realistic alternative to fighting our enemies is to adopt the attitude of the Eloi, and to ignore the deaths of those of us whom they kill, and to go our merry way as if nothing had happened to them
Posted by: tipper ||
03/26/2004 10:43:32 AM ||
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Hey? It's a start!
Posted by: Tom Swift ||
03/26/2004 10:54 Comments ||
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"may not be enough to disillusion the many apologists for terrorism in the West, but it certainly will stop them from attacking the United States for its failure to pursue a more conciliatory path."
now who's being naive?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2004 10:56 Comments ||
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Inviting Kerry to the White House for a joint meeting is fine but to impose your solution on both Bush and Kerry is a little of an overshoot.
Anyway, the entire concept here presupposes that terrorism apologists and appeasers would respond to a logical demonstration. If that supposition were true, they would already have responded. That is to say 'arguments not founded on reason are not swayed by reason'.
#4
mhw, thank you... that's exactly what I was going to say. They can't be reasoned with. You can't use logic to argue with them. The terrorists must be exterminated and the appeasers must be ignored. Have you ever tried to have a logical argument with one of these appeasers. You end up siting facts, figures and logical aruguments and they argue back with anecdotes.
The author here is working off of the faulty assumption that we are working in the same framework as the terrorists and the appeasers. We are not. We are logical and good. They are either or both illogical and evil.
#5
I don't think Lee Harris' article was intended as a "proposal", but rather a thought experiment to show just how absurd the idea of negotiating with the jihadis is. He's saying that it doesn't matter what ridiculous lengths we go to (like the ones he "proposes" here) to accomodate them, the outcome simply cannot be anything other than complete futility; so fuck it.
At least that's my surmise, given the tone of his past articles.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/26/2004 12:32 Comments ||
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Dave D.'s right. This is no more a real proposal than Johnathon Swift's "Modest Proposal" that the English take up the eating of Irish babies to cure the "Irish" problem. A fine intellectual tool to show the absurdity of reasoning with these morons.
From Jihad Unspun
... were launched at four locations in Peshawar on Tuesday night wounding two people. One rocket landed near the Frontier Corps Headquarters. This is the paramilitary organization that was initially the main group in the Wana operation until the Pakistan army took over. Three rockets were fired at Lady Gress School, a Christian missionary school, the Peshawar Sectariat (Provincial Assembly) car park and the Judicial Complex. ... Two policemen were killed during an attack on an army convoy on Bannu - Meran Shah road. .... the local political establishment held the entire Mir Ali tribe accountable and started confiscating cars and arresting people belonging to the tribe. The markets of the tribe were all sealed off and 150 other commercial units were of the Mir Ali tribe were also sealed....
Meanwhile, Mujahideen fired three rockets at a base camp of the Jandola Scouts. One of the rockets missed its target and landed near a camp of tribal nomads but thankfully it did not cause any damage. The second rocket hit heavy transmission lines of electricity, disrupting electricity for some areas in South Waziristan. .... Also of interest was that is was discovered that a local private telephone exchange that is independent of the government telephone system was being used by the Mujahideen to communicate with each other.
Houses belonging to the subtribes of Achmedzai tribe, Zalikhel, Yargulkhel in Wana are to be bulldozed. Four hundred houses have been marked for demolition and many bulldozers have arrived at the location and have started their work. The campaign will involve bulldozing some 1007 homes and will continue for some several days .... Meanwhile at the Rustum Bazaar, a major market in Wana, the people of Yargul Khel tribe spend the entire day Monday moving their merchandise because they fear that along with the houses, their shops will also be bulldozed. ....
The operation is now expanding ... to the village of Alam Shah, which is 8 km from Wana. The Assistant political agent Rehmat Ullah Wazir ... told the merchants to empty roughly 2000 shops because they were to be bulldozed. The Pakistan army helicopters opened fire yet again on a group of tribesmen who were moving from their besieged homes to more peaceful locations on Tuesday. .... Villagers from Shula and surrounding villages have been told to evacuate their homes as the Pakistani soldiers having received some fire from that village .... The political agent of the Waziristan agency still blame the Zali Khel tribe for the war and said that unless the Zali Khel tribe came to its senses, more carnage will follow.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/26/2004 10:26:45 AM ||
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Sounds like the Paks are getting their butts handed to them by a bunch of simple (tho well trained in small unit tactics) sheperds.
#2
shipman - I'm sure that's what the writer wants you to believe, anyway. I'm not saying that it's been a cakewalk - but I'm alway a bit suspicious of the quamire stories.
Posted by: B ||
03/26/2004 10:47 Comments ||
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Just like establishing central government authority in the old west (except for the bulldozers, jihadis, and lack of Judge Roy Bean)
#5
my take is somewhere between Ships and Raptors - the Paks made a gain in the assault on the compund near Wana - 50 hostiles killed, 150 captured, a key fortress put out of business, and the ability to operate in the FATA demonstrated. OTOH the tribes are starting to rally against the army, and they are showing they can make things very hard by the army, by attacking convoys, disrupting lines of supply, picking off patrols, etc. Fortunately the Pak army, while not as efficient as one might like, aint no ARVN. And Perv is very motivated, Unfortunately there are probably turncoats inside the ranks of the Pak army, and many in the ISI. And as Dan says elsewhere, probably about 25% of the Pak population is pro-AQ. So its a real hard to call thing.
#7
bulldozing some 1007 homes I expect a UNSC resolution at any moment. The UN has repeatedly condemmed this practice in the past. And the UN's reputation for fairness and honesty will ensure it is consistent.
Iâm speechless
The family of Husam Abdu, 16, of Nablus, who was caught on Wednesday at an IDF checkpoint with an explosive vest strapped to his body, has reacted with fury to reports that he had been dispatched to carry out a suicide attack.
His mother, however, said she would not have opposed the decision to send her son on the suicide mission had he been over 18.
Many Palestinians expressed shock at the internationally televised footage showing the boy removing the explosive vest at the Huwara checkpoint south of Nablus.
"If I find out who sent him on this mission, I will not hesitate to fire two bullets at his head," said Abduâs uncle, Abu Muhammad. "I donât even mind spending the rest of my life in prison. Those who did this are criminals."
He said he strongly condemns the recruiting of Abdu as a suicide bomber, noting that no one from the family had ever been involved in terrorism.
"We were completely surprised to hear about this incident," he said. "We condemn those who sent the boy to blow himself up. He was an innocent and quiet boy. He was a short, naive boy who had been struck in the head when he was a child and has been suffering from an illness since then. We always kept an eye on him because we knew he was a small child. Although heâs 16, he thinks like a 10-year-old."
Abu Muhammad said those who sent his nephew on the suicide mission had manipulated him by promising him 72 virgins in heaven and NIS 100.
"They deceived him," he said. "Heâs a boy who doesnât know good from bad."
The boyâs father, Bilal, expressed his fear that the IDF would now target the family.
"Weâre very worried that they will come to our house in Nablus," he said. "I prefer to go to them before they come here. I want to talk to my son and find out what happened."
He said he is angry at Israel because its actions encourage young men to carry out suicide attacks.
Abdoâs mother, Tamam, also criticized those who sent her son to carry out the attack.
"I blame those who gave him the explosive belt," she said, adding that she does not know who was responsible. "Heâs a small child who canât even look after himself. Heâs only 16... He never had a happy childhood. He still hasnât seen anything in life."
Asked whether she would have supported her son had he been older, the mother replied: "If he was over 18, that would have been possible, and I might even encourage him to do it. But itâs impossible for a child his age to do it."
The boy, in a videotape provided to journalists by the IDF, said he decided to blow himself up because "people do not like me."
Abdu lives in the comfortable Makhfiyeh neighborhood. He has four sisters and a brother. His brother and father run a supermarket. After school, he used to help out in the shop, play with the computer, and occasionally play soccer â but complained that his friends keep mocking him.
"My friends at school make fun of me," he said. "They call me âBrains â but they also make fun of me because Iâm small and ugly. They call me âThe Ugly Dwarf.â It hurt so much I wanted to kill myself."
He said he learned about the pleasures of heaven from his teacher.
"My teacher in school told us about it," he explained. "He told us to fast, to pray, and to do good deeds to reach paradise. He told us about the life of pleasure which is waiting for us there: a river of honey, a river of wine, and 72 beautiful girls.
"Since I am studying the Koran, I know about the good life which awaits there. The people who gave me the suicide belt told me this was my only chance to have sex."
He said he decided to become a suicide bomber the night before he was caught at the checkpoint.
"On Tuesday night I was sitting with friends, and I made the decision," he said. "When they put the explosives harness on me I was scared. I didnât tell anyone what I was about to do. I didnât tell my mother and I didnât tell my father.
"When I reached the checkpoint, I became less scared. But when the soldiers stopped me, I didnât pull the detonator cord. I changed my mind. I didnât want to die any more. I took the battery out of the bomb harness."
He said he didnât usually join in demonstrations against the Israelis.
"Iâve never thrown any stones, either. What use is a stone? Anyway, Iâm frightened of getting into trouble with soldiers."
He said he wasnât motivated by economic distress.
"We donât have any problems. I have a computer, and I like playing âTerrorist and the Policeman.â Iâve heard a lot of music on the Internet. At one time I wanted to work in electronics when I grow up â open a store in Nablus and repair radios and televisions.
"Now, I know that they will send me to prison for 25 years. I donât want to be in prison. Iâm sorry for what I did."
Many residents of Nablus expressed outrage at Abduâs story, accusing the local armed groups of exploiting innocent children in a cynical and ruthless manner.
"This is one of the worst cases I have seen," said a Nablus municipal official. "Whoever recruited this boy should be put on trial. This is a big crime."
Khawlah Khalil, a nurse at a local hospital, said she was shocked when she saw the boy on TV removing the eight-kilogram bomb from his body.
"This is a barbaric act," she said. "I wasnât able to sleep all night after watching the boy on TV. This is very harmful to the Palestinian cause."
Fatah leaders in the city denied responsibility, arguing that their group does not recruit children for suicide missions.
"We donât use children under the age of 17," said Hashem Abu Hamdan, a local leader of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades. He and other Fatah activists accused Israel of concocting the story with the aim of defaming the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, 60 prominent Palestinian officials and intellectuals called on the public to refrain from retaliatory attacks following the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, saying it would ignite a new round of violence that would only hurt Palestinian hopes for independence.
A half-page advertisement in Al-Ayyam urged Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest to end the occupation.
Those who signed the petition â including legislator Hanan Ashrawi and Abbas Zaki, a leading member of Fatah â said revenge attacks would lead to a strong Israeli retaliation.
The group called on the public to "rise again in a peaceful, wise intifada." They appealed to the Palestinians to reconsider what are the benefits of a violent struggle
Posted by: tipper ||
03/26/2004 9:48:39 AM ||
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"The group called on the public to "rise again in a peaceful, wise intifada." They appealed to the Palestinians to reconsider what are the benefits of a violent struggle."
At the risk of being the proverbial devil's advocate, I wonder what the Israeli reaction (or lack of reaction) would be if the Palistinians came to a Gandhiesque decision one day and stated, en masse, "We're tired. We've disarmed. We're going home." And then they started walking to Israel from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon all at once, quietly, peacefully.
My gut says, nah, the only people they hate worse than the Israelis are themselves. Never happen.
Still...
Posted by: James A ||
03/26/2004 12:48 Comments ||
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The Israelis should get this kid laid. I'll bet he would stop reading the Koran then. Poor SOB. Sounds like he could barely determine right from wrong.
Posted by: remote man ||
03/26/2004 13:38 Comments ||
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"I changed my mind. I didnât want to die any more. I took the battery out of the bomb harness."
Son, that was really an excellent move. Regardless of what anyone says, you're on the far right-hand side of the bell curve.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/26/2004 14:30 Comments ||
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Man, I am not sure at all what to make of this kid's family. Is this normal in Palestine?
Golda Meier said, "We will have peace with the Palestinians when they learn to love their children more than them hate us." She's been dead for years and it ain't happened yet. Nor do I expect it to.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/26/2004 18:14 Comments ||
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The Palestinians are defeated. Clearly. Ashrawi is now saying it's time quit fighting? They are running out of cannon fodder and battle fatigue has obviously set in. This is the time for Israel to be bold.
Take out Rantissi. Take out Arafat. Finish off the leadership. Defeat these people utterly. THEN they can talk, but not until.
At least 39 people have been arrested following a series of bomb attacks targeting prominent people and a tourist hotel in Zanzibar. Deputy Internal Affairs Minister John Chiligati said the attacks were politically motivated but refused to link them to any specific group.
Guess who?
Unknown assailants bombed the residence of a government minister and a government-appointed religious leader. A grenade was also thrown at two diplomats but failed to go off.
Hint 1 - what group is known for ineffective grenade tossing?
Diplomatic sources confirmed that a British and an American envoy were present at a restaurant during a failed bomb attack last weekend.
Hint 2 - who likes booming western diplomats?
Mr Chiligati said the crackdown on people suspected to be involved in the attacks was ongoing and that the police had been instructed to use all means at their disposal to ensure they are prosecuted. Media reports in Tanzania say the bomb attacks were intended to disrupt German President Johannes Rau's tour in the country.
And the answer is........
The government of Zanzibar has been locked in a confrontation with Muslim activists protesting at repressive laws.
Meter didn't twitch.
However, the Muslim activists, have distanced themselves from the bomb attacks.
Distanced themselves just out of the blast zone.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 9:16:06 AM ||
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Ambassador Bremer had a meeting with the Baghdad City Council and they indicated that they needed beautification projects, if you will, for the city of Baghdad -- creation and rehabilitation of city parks, rest areas, public squares, playgrounds, recreation areas, installation and repair of lighting to illuminate outdoor public places. Ambassador Bremer at the meeting with the Baghdad City Council agreed to disperse $10 million within the next three months for city beautification projects. The funding will be distributed equally to each of Baghdadâs nine belladiahs (ph), which equals just over $1.1 million for each district.
Two days ago, a patrol was attacked by small-arms fire near Hamam al-Ali (ph). One soldier was wounded with non-life-threatening injuries. He was evacuated to the 67th Support Hospital and is stable condition. Our snipers engaged the attackers and are believed to have killed one of the attackers.
Drive-by shooters also attacked an Iraqi traffic-control point near Hamam al-Ali (ph). The Iraqi police returned fire and killed two of the assailants.
Yesterday a patrol was engaged north of Taji, resulting in one coalition soldier killed and one wounded. The unit returned fire and killed three enemy personnel.
In the southeastern zone of operations, a hasty operation to capture the leader of the Garmasha (ph) tribe was conducted in Basra. The target was successfully captured and his home searched, resulting in the discovery of 50 million dinar and two rifles. The target has been detained for further questioning.
We remain concerned at what is clearly a program of intimidation and targeting of not only the Iraqi police service, but all Iraqi government officials. It is true that a significant number of Iraqi police have been killed over the past year, somewhere on the order of about 350. What I would say is that itâs a credit and itâs a tribute to the Iraqi police service that despite the amount of attacks that they endure on almost a daily basis that they still have a tremendously high morale. Sadly but proudly, they recognize that the death of their colleagues has occurred because they are working towards a new Iraq, one that is free, sovereign and democratic. They are attempting to impose the rule of law into this society. And we have not seen a significant downturn in either the recruitment or the retention rates of the Iraqi police service; again, a tribute to not only their bravery, but their patriotism and their mission focus. And we should all be very, very grateful for their service to this country, particularly under the trying circumstances of which they operate every day.
But the important point is, there is general agreement with the heads of the -- with the leadership of the peshmerga and the Kurdish leadership on the importance of winding down that security organization. There is agreement on the importance of individuals who serve in every -- any Iraqi security organization do so as individual Iraqis serving to protect the unified Iraq, not as representatives of some political organization or sectarian militia. And now weâre just working on the implementation.
edited for brevity.
Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, the army said Friday. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled. Paleo-phibians?
No. Dead guys.
The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on the Tel Katifa settlement in Gaza.
Such examples of tactical brilliance are seldom seen...
Hamas has threatened to carry out attacks on Israelis to avenge the assassination of its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
What're they gonna do next? Drive nails through their foreheads?
In a farewell video, two attackers posed in their wetsuits, with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs and goggles pulled above their foreheads. The video also contained footage of a training session in which two men charged toward a rocky cliff, firing assault rifles.
A rocky cliff firing assault rifles?
The settlement attack is the first of "earthshaking operations to come," a Hamas leaflet said. Yeah, a real tsunami. You guys should concentrate on training more and running your sucks less if you want to be any good.
Thousands of Hamas supporters marched in the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah on Friday, threatening revenge.
Were they wearing wetsuits and flippers, too?
In the Nablus, the protest was led by about 200 men in masks and military-style dress. At one point, they torched a large model of an Israeli bus and ran in a circle around it.
Chinese fire drill flambee?
In the nearby Balata refugee camp, a Palestinian militant was killed when a car he was driving exploded because allah hates morons. Palestinian security officials said the car carried explosives that apparently blew up prematurely. No shit, ya think?
The blast which killed Ahmed al-Abed, of the Al Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigades. In the Gaza attack, the assailants came ashore late Thursday. From the beach, they fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades toward the Israeli army post guarding the settlement, and soldiers returned fire. Obviously the soldiers did better. Ari Odes, a Tel Katifa resident, said he and his wife were driving toward the settlement when they heard shooting. Moments later, he saw the attacker on the road, aiming at the car, Odes told Israel Radio. "I pulled my head down and tried to aim the wheel so as to run him over but he jumped onto the shoulder of the road and I drove into the settlement," Odes said. "There was a second terrorist who shot massive fire at the gate of the settlement and the outpost." An Israeli army officer said the Israeli navy spotted three men swimming toward the beach and that two approached the settlement. A third man was wounded and footsteps indicated that he fled into the sea, said the officer, identified only as Lt. Ayelet. Soldiers found rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles and explosives on the beach, along with flippers. The military believes the attackers were trying to build a bomb on the beach for use in an attack on the settlement, she said. Paleo-seals - swift, silent, incompetent.
Tensions have increased significantly since Israel assassinated Yassin on Monday. At the United Nations, the United States on Thursday vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for the assassination. The U.S. ambassador complained that the text did not mention Hamas attacks against Israelis. The cause of the effect. Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the U.S. veto will be seen by Israel "as an encouragement to continue the path of violence, escalation, assassination and reoccupation." Damn right.
At Friday noon prayers at Jerusalemâs Al Aqsa Mosque, Islamâs third holiest site of about 3,035 other places that some so called prophet relieved himself at, the prayer leader harshly attacked the United States. "The United States is not the sponsor of peace, it is the sponsor of international terrorism, and this veto is a green light to continue the assassinations," said the cleric, Yousef Abu Sneineh. More amusement from our little warriors in paleostine.
Posted by: Jarhead ||
03/26/2004 8:57:08 AM ||
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fleeing bleeding into the sea..... do you get 72 virgin clams if you get eaten by sharks?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2004 9:45 Comments ||
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balestine's best.... not good enough to deal with IDF 4th string reservists.
#5
I have a mental picture of the next Yusuf Bond film, with the paleophibians emerging slowly from the sea, spitting out their regulators, hoisting their rifles, and fleetly running along the surf with their flippers still on. "Yar! We be pyrates!"
#3
Interesting, arriving on the heels of the company of French Special Forces and a company of British SAS?
Why do I have a feeling that there is a whole lotta murderin' about to be goin' on?
#4
Seems like 10th Mountain's been there for 3 years
The weather is much nicer there in the winter than back home in Buffalo.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 10:03 Comments ||
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#2 Seems like 10th Mountain's been there for 3 years.
It just seems that way. It's the rotation thingy. Elements of the 10th have been there since last Aug and should have been replaced by a Brigade from the 25th (Hawaii)in Feb. Obviously, the 10th has not rotated out. (The Hawaii guys are waiting for their long johns issue.) See Order of Battle Afghanistan 5 and Rotation Plan.
#6
Afghanistan has no coast for an amphibious landing. I wonder if the Pakistani people will notice the Devil Dogs driving through their country. I guess that camouflage will prevents detection. If we attach longhorns, tusks or a rack of antlers to the grill of each vehicle, maybe the locals will think it is just a stampede.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 13:38 Comments ||
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Afghanistan has no coast for an amphibious landing
Not yet.
Eight Russian soldiers were killed late on Thursday when a military truck hit a mine in central Chechnya, Russian defence ministry officials said early on Friday. "A military column was leaving the town of Shali (some 25 kilometers, 15 miles southeast of Grozny) when the explosive device went off, killing eight servicemen," the ministry's press service was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
However, a source in the Northern Caucasus military headquarters told the RIA-Novosti news agency that the truck, driven by a heavy vehicle battalion's commander, was about to leave the local military base without permission when it hit the mine defence line. The driver and seven servicemen who tried to stop the car died in the blast, as "the truck broke through the gates and the officer drove out despite being forbidden to do so by servicemen at the gate, and hit a mine," the source said. Police were investigating the incident.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 12:59:07 AM ||
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Boris? Don't you have a moose and a flying squirrel to go after?
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
03/26/2004 11:19 Comments ||
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There's a second version of this story that says two drunken soliders took the truck out for a drive and the officer and other soldiers were trying to flag them down and warn them about the minefield when the truck went boom. That sounds better, an officer would have had someone driving him around.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/26/2004 11:40 Comments ||
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Army special forces have captured a three-member band of shot-firers from rebel groups under Chechnyaâs ex-president Aslan Maskhadov, a spokesman for the staff of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, Colonel Ilya Shabalkin said.
A Corporal-Shot-Firer and two Shot-Firers-First Class.
He told Itar-Tass on Thursday that the bandits made powerful explosive devices with which they committed bloody terrorist acts in Chechnyaâs cities and villages.
Special units have seized 140 kilograms of the explosives.
A certain Avdorkhanov supervised the preparation of the terrorist acts, Shabalkin said.
The three bomb-makers were arrested near the village of Alleroi.
Under pressure of incontrovertible proof there showed the location of a base and a cache containing several powerful explosive devices.
The cache belonged to the band of Avdorkhanov, a former commander of the presidential guard and chief of security of Maskhadov, Shabalkin said.
âEleven powerful explosive devices have been found in the cache. These were buckets filled with TNT and metal fragments. A total of 140 kilograms of the explosive substance have been seized. All explosive devices were equipped with electric detonators,â he said.
According to operational information, the band reporting to Maskhadov specialized on the manufacture of explosive devices, which a seized video recording indicates.
The bandits have used some of the bombs. They planned to use the rest in attacks on officials in the capital Grozny and in some villages of the Kurchaloi district.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2004 12:55:40 AM ||
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Rebels and the main opposition party pulled out of Ivory Coast's power-sharing government Thursday after 25 people died in deadly clashes between security forces and opposition supporters, who marched in defiance of a government ban.
The street skirmishes were the bloodiest to hit this West African nation's commercial capital since a failed September 2002 coup bid split the country in two. Among the dead were two police and 12 civilians killed by protesters armed with machetes, Abidjan Police Chief Yapo Kouassi told reporters. Security forces struggling to maintain order shot dead several others, he said, giving no details.
They're dead, right? What details do we need?
Amid the violence, Air France suspended flights to the country, and the French Foreign Ministry called on all parties not to kill any French to show restraint. There are about 4,000 French soldiers in the Ivory Coast not doing their jobs at the moment.
The events dealt a serious blow to the January 2003 peace deal brokered by France that established a power-sharing government. "We have suspended our participation in the government to protest against today's killings," rebel spokesman Alain Lobognon said. Rebel forces in the north were put "on alert," he added without elaborating.
Orange or red?
Bacongo Cisse, spokesman for the main opposition Rally of the Republicans, said his party also would suspend its participation to protest the violence. The opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast pulled out of the government March 4, saying President Laurent Gbagbo was not fully implementing the accord. The same complaints were behind Thursday's march.
Integration Minister Mel Theodore blamed the opposition for the violence. "In insisting on their wish to demonstrate, they are trying to create troubles for the government, which is at the stage where it wants reconciliation," he said.
"And we'll shoot the first sob who won't agree to reconcile!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:30:51 AM ||
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Damn, I wanted to Frisk this story...sob. Oh well, the CNN story was a little more graphic, wit great phrases, such as:
"very many people were wounded by bullets." and, "It's deplorable; the Ivorian army must stop shooting at the population," rebel chief Cherif Ousmane said from his stronghold in the northern town of Bouake. "If they don't stop, we're going to suspend all negotiations at every level."
Be that as it may, it is to be noted that the rebels of the north are Muslim, and much like Kosovo, the French are enabling an ethnic cleansing of the Christian and Animist southern portions of the Ivory Coast.
The United States, IMHO, should have actively armed the Government, and it was elected before French intervention, against the Rebels of the North...and let the killing commence.
Pakistanâs army faces a widening backlash to its hunt for Al-Qaeda fighters and their tribal supporters, in its toughest challenge yet since joining the US-led war on terrorism, analysts said on Thursday. Since unleashing their fiercest-ever offensive against Al Qaeda suspects on March 18, the main northwest city of Peshawar has been showered with rockets and 19 soldiers and police have been killed in four separate attacks in the semi-autonomous frontier tribal zone. âThese incidents are most probably a backlash to the rebellion anti-terrorism military operation,â a senior security official told AFP.
The most recent attacks were mounted outside the scene of a battle with hundreds of trapped Al Qaeda-linked militants and their tribal supporters near Wana in South Waziristan, within 20 kilometers of the Afghan border. âClearly these attacks reflect an effort on the part of the terrorists and their supporters to enlarge the area of conflict,â the security official said, adding that a backlash from the militantsâ supporters had been expected. The zone, made up of seven districts hugging 1,250 kilometers of the mountainous Afghan frontier, is inhabited by fiercely-independent and heavily primitives armed Pashtun tribes who live under separate laws from the rest of Pakistan. The tribes are devoutly Islamic, stubbornly ignorant ultra-conservative, and scornful of the United States and Pakistanâs cooperation with it. âThe ... attacks indicate a widening of the area of resistance by foreign militants and local tribal supporters, which is indeed a dangerous trend fraught with worrying implications for the army and the government,â said Riffat Hussain, head of Strategic Studies at Islamabadâs Quaid-e-Azam University. Military commanders have conceded that the militants could have slipped the cordon through underground tunnels, and there is little sign that an unidentified âhigh value targetâ has been or will be captured.
I didn't really think there would be...
The troops are dealing with âan enemy that has hideouts, vehicles and tunnels and has the advantage of familiarity with the terrain and some local support as well,â the security official said, adding that access to credible intelligence on the movement of suspects is limited because of widespread local sympathy for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But the army cannot risk an even wider backlash by mounting a full-scale bombardment of the villages where the fighters are dug-in. âThe army could finish the job quickly through sustained heavy bombardment. But then it will be difficult for them to contain collateral damages, including the loss of civilian lives,â the security official said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/26/2004 12:37:30 AM ||
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#1
Looks like AQ's strategy is working great. I don't see what Pakistan could have done differently. So much for the Spring Offensive.
#2
The ... attacks indicate a widening of the area of resistance by foreign militants and local tribal supporters,
How is it a "widening of the area of resistance" when the fighters were already there? Seems to me it would be more appropriate to call it a new offensive into an already existing area of resistance.
EFL
The U.S. military inaugurated a project on Thursday that is supposed to speed reconstruction and win over skeptical Afghans in a former al-Qaida stronghold that is still on the front line of Americaâs war on terrorism. Military and Afghan officials cut a ribbon across the entrance to the office of the Khost provincial reconstruction team, the 12th of its kind and a symbol of Americaâs changing strategy in the face of a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency. "Combat has been necessary in the past to defeat the terrorist threat, which is our common enemy," Maj. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the U.S. second-in-command in Afghanistan, told dozens of Afghan elders and officials at the ceremony. "But our concern now is the future. Our emphasis must remain on setting the conditions for reconstruction and development," Austin said.
Commanders claim that Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts are now so weakened that they can be finished off by bringing long-delayed relief and reconstruction aid to their former strongholds in the south and east. Yet attacks on aid workers and military targets continue, and the number of mainly U.S. soldiers here has risen some 2,000 -- to 13,500 in all -- in recent months as the military seeks to capture al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The reconstruction team in Khost, and others like it, is key to victory, commanders said. A squat concrete building, its walls still wet and its windows yet to be glazed, will house a small group of American soldiers with orders to catalyze reconstruction and aid work. Austin said the team would build schools, wells and clinics to bolster local services. Streets in Khost city are also to be repaved. All the projects are intended to pour money into the local economy. Top U.S. commanders at Wednesdayâs ceremony were not available to speak to reporters covering the event, embellished with national anthems and flags and a bout of traditional Afghan music and dance. Bearded American soldiers in civilian clothes moved in and out of the heavily guarded base in dust-caked Humvees and pickup trucks, betraying how the war continues. Does that rankle and AP guy or what? Why wonât they talk to me? Canât they see that Iâm the Press?
Instead, it was left to a reservist physician at a small clinic in the barren, rock-strewn base to defend the reconstruction effort in what is still a combat zone. "There is a âhearts-and-mindsâ aspect and you canât overestimate that," said Capt. Steve Travis, a native of Guthrie, Okla. But weâre really making a difference," Travis said, pointing to more than 9,000 mostly female patients treated since November. "Itâs not eyewash." At the ceremony, Khost Gov. Hakim Taniwal pleaded for international aid groups and the United Nations to return to his province. Fat chance with the Paki fight going on.
But officials acknowledge that aid workers spooked by the deadly shootings of mine clearers and well-diggers still donât believe the border areas are safe. I wonder if giving the press the ice cold shoulder is payback for the slanted coverage.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 12:36:36 AM ||
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#1
I wonder if giving the press the ice cold shoulder is payback for the slanted coverage.
Partly. It also makes it harder for the press to backhand stuff, when the speaker is, say, a reservist physician rather than somebody from the brass.
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Responding to roadside attacks on military trucks and Humvees in Iraq, the Pentagon intends to provide reinforced glass and other protection for about 10,000 vehicles by the summer, a spokesman said Thursday. The military is making much of the protective equipment on its own, but has contracted out some of the work to speed the process, said Maj. Gary Tallman, a Pentagon spokesman for Army weapons and technology issues.
The upgraded armor is designed to thwart snipers, suicide bombers and others who have attacked non-combat military vehicles. "In Iraq, you've got an unconventional enemy that targets combat support units," Tallman said.
Among the private firms manufacturing the protective equipment is St. Louis-based Engineered Support Systems. Vehicles like Humvees and trucks were not originally designed with heavy armor because they are not traditionally used at the front of combat, Engineered Support spokesman Daniel Kreher said. "This type of stuff, armies have never been engaged in," Kreher said. "People are hitting at the fringes. Now, with what's going on in Iraq, (the Pentagon) decided we have a lot of vehicles that need ... extra protection."
Some trucks and Humvees have canvas doors and traditional windows. On some vehicles, doors have been removed. The upgraded armor includes reinforced glass, thicker doors and floor boards that are more difficult to penetrate, but don't hinder the vehicles' speed and maneuverability.
The roadside attacks in Iraq had become so concerning that some units were customizing their own trucks and Humvees. Tallman said the Pentagon has been developing the upgraded armor since last fall, though individual units can still customize their own armor as long as those upgrades meet specifications.
Still say that letting Iraqi contractors do it on site is better. Spread some money around, get more small businessmen on our side.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2004 12:21:15 AM ||
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#1
Since the addition of gear to tanks to allow them to plow through the hedgerows of Normandy, combat zone modifications to armor has been an excellent use of the innovative creativity of the American solider.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 14:33 Comments ||
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EFL and registration required
Despite statements by some of its top leaders threatening to take the issue to the streets, the six-party religious alliance, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has only announced low-profile protest demonstrations against the army-led operation in Wana in South Waziristan. The army and paramilitary troops are currently engaged in a major operation in the area in a bid to catch some of the most wanted Al Qaeda militants suspected of hiding in the area. By all indications, this is the biggest military engagement within the country since the army was called out in 1974 to quell the Balochistan insurgency. Many people are asking the question of why the MMA is soft-peddling the issue. Indeed, one of the component parties, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, has already accused the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam of Fazlur Rehman and the Jamaâat-e Islami (the two biggest component parties) of not doing enough to protest the issue. However, many political observers believe the religious partiesâ low-profile campaign is a âfixedâ affair. âThere has been no street agitation or a call for a million-march to Islamabad. They never shied from doing that,â says one analyst, who thinks the JUI-F is downplaying the issue to save its government in the NWFP. If this is correct, and many observers think it is, this could also lead to some friction between the JI and JUI-F. Both have stuck together recently because the other component parties have accused them of hijacking the alliance. The past campaigns by the religious parties have been violent. The high watermark of sustained street protest orchestrated by them was the PNA movement of 1977. The movement forced then-premier zulfikar Ali Bhutto to agree to new elections but before the agreement could be formalized, the army struck and took over. The religious parties have also engineered violent demonstrations against the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Strange that they only destabilise civilian governments.
This time the response has been weak. The current phase of the Wana operation was launched some two weeks ago but so far the MMA has failed to orchestrate any big demonstration in any city of Pakistan. And while there is criticism galore, there have been no calls. Indeed, the MMA has not even called a meeting of its supreme council to specifically discuss the issue. The JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman did not cut short his visit abroad and no MMA leader has tried to visit South Waziristan. âIt seems like both the JUI-F and JI want to stay away from the situation and have allowed the army to clean up the foreign mujahideen,â says a leader of the rival faction of JUI-F led by Maulana Sami-ul Haq. âThis is what we called a sell-out.â Sami is just mad because he isnât important enough to get his own payoff.
But the most important factor seems to be the MMAâs consideration that it must not create a situation which might force General Pervez Musharraf to change his mind about doffing his uniform. Interestingly, some pro-Musharraf elements have already started asking Musharraf to reconsider his decision. In fact, the PML-Q legislators said in the assembly recently that they would ask the president to not quit f the MMA persists in its opposition to the national security council bill. The leaders of PML-Q and also the MQM are interested that Musharraf continue as the army chief. Technically, Musharraf would require a two-thirds majority if he wants to get out of his commitment to the MMA, which is part of the agreement on the Legal Framework Order passed by the parliament as the 17th amendment. But, say sources, if the situation deteriorates, Musharraf always retains the option of declaring emergency and prolonging himself as the army chief. Insiders say many in the MMA, but especially Qazi Hussain Ahmed want to wait for the new army chief before deciding their next move. Since the percentage of the Pakistani population living in poverty has increased from 25% to 30% in the past 5 years, the Islamists can afford to take things slowly, as theyâll have plenty of new supporters to draw on.
No one really knows the toll on both sides since the military has not allowed any journalists to go into the area since the operation began. However, intelligence sources say they believe that most of those who gave shelter to al-Qaeda, were the supporters of the outlawed movement, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) whose chief Sufi Mohammad is still in jail. Ironically, the presence of such a large number of Al Qaeda members whether they are Arabs or are from Central Asia, contradicts Islamabadâs earlier claims that there was no Al Qaeda network in Pakistan. We havenât heard from the TNSM in a while, I guess the Afghans sold enough Pak Jihadis back to their families that they have been able to reorganise. The TNSM was a rival to the JUI (since the latter participates in infidel democracy), so that might be another reason why Fazl is keeping quiet.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/26/2004 12:10:34 AM ||
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Arrested for blasphemy
According to Insaf, 30 people came out on the streets in a village near Sialkot and started shouting slogans against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and the great caliphs, whereupon the local chief of Sipah Sahaba got the police to register a case against them. The police then rounded up the 30 offenders under blasphemy law and sealed the FIR. The paper pointed out that Sipah Sahaba was banned in the area but did not indicate why the police did not arrest its leader and instead arrested the accused under his direction. It also did not say if the matter was sectarian in which case the local chief of Sipah Sahaba was not a reliable plaintiff.
America did it!
Columnist Ataul Haq Qasimi wrote in Jang that he was greatly uplifted when he heard the Iraqi Shia saying that the 200 of them killed in Iraq on ashura was not the work of Muslims (read Sunnis) because no Muslim could do such a thing. The Shia in Iraq instead said that the evil deed was done by someone else. The columnist then said that the Shia of Pakistan should develop the same kind of thinking about the ashura massacre of Quetta which killed nearly 50 Shia.
General Karamatâs son escapes
According to Khabrain, the son of ex-army chief General Jahangir Karamat, Farrukh Jehangir, escaped to America instead of appearing before a court hearing a case against him of embezzling Rs 208 million from the Emirates Bank in Lahore some years ago. NAB had issued non-bailable warrants for him but Farrukh now wanted that his lawyer should represent him in Lahore while he stayed in America.
America did it!
Columnist Irshad Haqqani wrote in Jang that a foreign office spokesman in Islamabad had stated that the ashura massacre in Quetta had the hand in it of the Indian consulate in Afghanistan. In the Senate the opposition senators thought that it was a conspiracy hatched by a big foreign power.
Case pending for 17 years
According to daily Pakistan a case at a Lahore court was pending for 17 years. The case was in hudood jurisdiction and concerned a girl who had accused a man of robbing her home and abducting her and keeping her in illegal custody before the police got her freed. The boy concerned said that she had married her. The case was once again postponed because the steno of the additional judge Zafar Ali Khan was on leave! In all, 14 judges had heard the case without handing down a judgement and the parties involved had become old and the girl could not get married because the defendant had claimed that she was married to him.
America did it!
Famous columnist Abdul Qadir Hassan wrote in Jang that the ashura massacre in Quetta was just like the massacre in Baghdad and Karbala and the Muslims were convinced that it was not by the Muslims themselves. In present times when America had unleashed its aggression on the Muslims no Muslim group could think of killing another Muslim. In the case of the Quetta massacre, another country (read India) could join America in committing this evil deed. Those who investigate the massacre should keep the idea of foreign hand in their mind.
Sipah Sahaba shootout in Gilgit
According to daily Din, a week after ashura the banned Sipah Sahaba blocked the path of a Shia procession after which the administration deployed its paramilitary troops. There were 500 members of the banned organisation and they opened fire on the troops. Two men were seriously injured by the fire. After that the army was called out to patrol the city of Gilgit.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/26/2004 12:10:21 AM ||
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#4
They keep repeating the same theory about the American Government actively causing trouble throughout the world. This is pure fantasy. We should provide all Pakistani journalists with a video of a randomly chosen US government worker busily asleep at his or her desk. That should provide them with a more realistic idea of the odds of the US government actively fomenting trouble throughout the globe.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/26/2004 20:03 Comments ||
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Check this out. Iâd have never thunk it, but some Paleos seem to have been finally hit with the cluebat. (Or "thought club" as our Kemalist friends might call it....) [Slightly EFL, but still long] Family of would-be teenage bomber expresses outrage
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
The family of Husam Abdu, 16, of Nablus, who was caught on Wednesday at an IDF checkpoint with an explosive vest strapped to his body, has reacted with fury to reports that he had been dispatched to carry out a suicide attack. His mother, however, said she would not have opposed the decision to send her son on the suicide mission had he been over 18.
Well, in that case why not let him go now? What's a couple years?
Many Palestinians expressed shock at the internationally televised footage showing the boy removing the explosive vest at the Huwara checkpoint south of Nablus. "If I find out who sent him on this mission, I will not hesitate to fire two bullets at his head," said Abduâs uncle, Abu Muhammad. "I donât even mind spending the rest of my life in prison. Those who did this are criminals." He said he strongly condemns the recruiting of Abdu as a suicide bomber, noting that no one from the family had ever been involved in terrorism.
Except for Mom, apparently...
"We were completely surprised to hear about this incident," he said. "We condemn those who sent the boy to blow himself up. He was an innocent and quiet boy. He was a short, naive boy who had been struck in the head when he was a child and has been suffering from an illness since then. We always kept an eye on him because we knew he was a small child. Although heâs 16, he thinks like a 10-year-old."
Abu Muhammad said those who sent his nephew on the suicide mission had manipulated him by promising him 72 virgins in heaven and NIS 100. "They deceived him," he said. "Heâs a boy who doesnât know good from bad." The boy, in a videotape provided to journalists by the IDF, said he decided to blow himself up because "people do not like me."
I'd guess nine out of ten teenagers think that at some point. Some are even correct...
Abdu lives in the comfortable Makhfiyeh neighborhood. He has four sisters and a brother. His brother and father run a supermarket. After school, he used to help out in the shop, play with the computer, and occasionally play soccer â but complained that his friends keep mocking him. "My friends at school make fun of me," he said. "They call me âBrains â but they also make fun of me because Iâm small and ugly. They call me âThe Ugly Dwarf.â It hurt so much I wanted to kill myself."
Coulda found a less destructive way...
"Since I am studying the Koran, I know about the good life which awaits there. The people who gave me the suicide belt told me this was my only chance to have sex."
I dunno. I've seen some pretty ugly guys manage to get laid. Occasionally I've been one of them...
"On Tuesday night I was sitting with friends, and I made the decision," he said. "When they put the explosives harness on me I was scared. I didnât tell anyone what I was about to do. I didnât tell my mother and I didnât tell my father. When I reached the checkpoint, I became less scared. But when the soldiers stopped me, I didnât pull the detonator cord. I changed my mind. I didnât want to die any more. I took the battery out of the bomb harness."
That's why the call him "Brains."
He said he didnât usually join in demonstrations against the Israelis. "Iâve never thrown any stones, either. What use is a stone? Anyway, Iâm frightened of getting into trouble with soldiers."
Not as dumb as he's made out to be, is he?
He said he wasnât motivated by economic distress. "We donât have any problems. I have a computer, and I like playing âTerrorist and the Policeman.â Iâve heard a lot of music on the Internet. At one time I wanted to work in electronics when I grow up â open a store in Nablus and repair radios and televisions."
Many residents of Nablus expressed outrage at Abduâs story, accusing the local armed groups of exploiting innocent children in a cynical and ruthless manner. "This is one of the worst cases I have seen," said a Nablus municipal official. "Whoever recruited this boy should be put on trial. This is a big crime."
Khawlah Khalil, a nurse at a local hospital, said she was shocked when she saw the boy on TV removing the eight-kilogram bomb from his body. "This is a barbaric act," she said. "I wasnât able to sleep all night after watching the boy on TV. This is very harmful to the Palestinian cause."
Not nearly as harmful as it would have been to the kid...
Meanwhile, 60 prominent Palestinian officials and intellectuals called on the public to refrain from retaliatory attacks following the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, saying it would ignite a new round of violence that would bring glory to our brave shaheeds only hurt Palestinian hopes for independence. A half-page advertisement in Al-Ayyam urged Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest to end the occupation. "But... but... What about the Dire Revenge (tm)???"
Yasser doesn't want to try and catch a Mav...
Those who signed the petition â including legislator Hanan Ashrawi and Abbas Zaki, a leading member of Fatah â said revenge attacks would lead to a strong Israeli retaliation. Did the cycle of violence blow a tire?!?
The group called on the public to "rise again in a peaceful, wise intifada." They appealed to the Palestinians to reconsider what are the benefits of a violent struggle.
Blowing up short bus 16 year olds seems to be one of them...
#1
You know, if the palestinians went ghandi and peacefully protested completely turning away from violence they would get the entire world community on their side. They would get more than they could ever hope to get from Israel with violence and they would prosper economically as Israel would not be afraid to let them work in Israel.
Until they do Israel must be ruthless and exterminate Hamas and other terrorist groups, but the day the palestinians abandon violence is the day I'll support their right to have a state.
#2
The entire world community already *is* on their side...who supports the other side, other than the USA?
But I can sympathize with his ostracism, and wanting to die. If someone had told me when I was 16, "here, take this bomb and kill yourself, along with a bunch of people we hate," I would have thought seriously about it. Anything to stop the constant pain of going to school every day and having to be humiliated again and again.
#3
"The people who gave me the suicide belt told me this was my only chance to have sex."
Judging by the trolleys he was wearing I aint surprised.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/26/2004 4:28 Comments ||
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#4
"Since I am studying the Koran, I know about the good life which awaits there. The people who gave me the suicide belt told me this was my only chance to have sex."
Well, this sentence certainly certainly pisses me of, lets get a division of US marines and israelis in there and kill of all the terrorists we can get our hands on.(slowly)
"...My friends at school make fun of me," he said. "They call me âBrains â but they also make fun of me because Iâm small and ugly. They call me âThe Ugly Dwarf.â It hurt so much I wanted to kill myself...."
I guess Dennis Kucinich would have been a suicide bomber if he had been born in Paleo world.
#8
"A half-page advertisement in Al-Ayyam urged Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest to end the occupation."
Under the PA the idea of peacefully resisting is considered treason, IIRC.
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
03/26/2004 10:55 Comments ||
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#9
His mother, however, said she would not have opposed the decision to send her son on the suicide mission had he been over 18.
I have a better idea: if she's supportive of suicide/murder bombing by adults, then SHE can don a belt and have a go at it. And I would hope that the IDF would put a bullet in her head for her efforts.
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.
