Ten suspects charged with membership in an al-Qaida cell that allegedly helped prepare the Sept. 11 attacks have been jailed to prevent them fleeing Spain ahead of their trial, court officials said Saturday. The 10, including Al-Jazeera reporter Tayssir Alouni, were arrested earlier this week and jailed Friday after being free on bail for more than a year. They were among 40 people, including Osama bin Laden, indicted by Judge Baltasar Garzon on charges of belonging or collaborating with al-Qaida. Eleven people, including the alleged leader of al-Qaida in Spain, Imad Yarkas, were already in jail while the rest, including most of the principal suspects, are at large.
Garzon charged some of the 40 with actually helping prepare the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Garzon, who issued the first indictments in September 2003, argued that al-Qaida used Spain as a staging ground for the attacks so he had jurisdiction to seek prosecution. Along with Alouni, the other nine jailed Friday were Basam Dalati Salut, Sid Ahmed Boudjella, Ghasoub Al Abrash Ghayoun, Mohamed Khair El Saqqa, Abdalrahman Alarnot, Kamel Hadid Chaar, Jamal Hussein Hussein, Waheed and Ahmad Koshaji Kelani. National Court prosecutor Pedro Rubira urged the 10 to be sent to prison saying "the nearness of the trial increased the risk of flight from justice, especially given that the charges relate to a terrorist organization that has the means to prevent its militants appearing before court and being tried."
Court officials expect the trial to begin by the end of February. Lawyers for the 10 criticized the order saying their clients had had no intention of fleeing given that they had abided fully by their bail conditions and that they had lived and worked in Spain for years. "How am I going to run away?," the leading daily El Pais reported Alouni as having asked in the court. "If I flee I risk my entire journalistic career."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:01:46 PM ||
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THE military has killed at least 10 people in an air raid on a suspected meeting between the Abu Sayyaf kidnap gang and Jemaah Islamiyah extremists in Maguindanao, a senior military official said Saturday. But the allegation was denied by a spokesman for the country's main Muslim separatist group who said that the attack had hit members of his organization in violation of a cease-fire in place with the government.
Four MG-520 helicopters and two OV-10 planes blasted two houses in the marshlands of Maguindanao on Friday, where about 50 Abu Sayyaf members were believed meeting with two Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah members, said Major General Raul Relano, regional military chief. About 10 bodies were seen floating in the marsh waters after the attack, but it could not be confirmed if they were Abu Sayyaf or Jemaah Islamiyah members, Relano said. Two Huey helicopters tried to land troops in the area but could not touch down due to the deep water, he said, and this had forced the military to resort to air strikes owing to the difficulty of entering the marsh by foot. One Huey helicopter was slightly damaged by return fire, Relano said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:37:54 PM ||
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The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, last night organized a march in the city of Qalqilia to celebrate the release from Zionist occupation jails of Sheikh Hasan Yousef, the Movement's West Bank spokesman. The march hit the city streets with dozens of masked men at the forefront who congratulated the Palestinian people via loudspeakers on the release of Sheikh Hasan.
"Who was that masked man?"
The speakers affirmed that the question of Palestinian detainees in Zionist jails would remain a top priority and that the Movement would exert strenuous efforts to ensure their release. One of the Hamas leaders in the city told PIC correspondent that his Movement was adamant on persisting in the resistance march until ejection of occupation. He affirmed the importance of forming a unified national leadership grouping all forces and factions to represent the Palestinian people within and outside the occupied homeland. The one-sided decision-making ran contrary to the Palestinian people's interests, he elaborated, noting that a unified Palestinian stand based on resistance was the sole means to confront the Zionist premier Ariel Sharon. The Hamas official reiterated his Movement's insistence on holding simultaneous general elections grouping the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections. He said that the Palestinian people were looking forward to the day when they got rid of corrupt leaders and revitalized Palestinian institutions in a way serving the Palestinian people's interests.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 10:05:17 PM ||
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Zionist terrorist forces stormed the city of Tulkarm in a pre-dawn raid today, ransacking civilian houses and arresting ten Palestinians including five brothers. The troops focused on the eastern suburb where they arrested the five brothers Khairi Mahmoud Salama, an Aqsa Martyrs Brigades activist and his brothers Basel, Ahmed, Yousef and Mohammed, all in their twenties. In the same suburb the occupation soldiers arrested Assad Abu Shanab, 28, and father of the martyr Saleh Nassar who is 55 years old. In Al-Salam suburb, the invasion troops captured Samer Zuhdi Lifdawi, 28, and his two brothers Saher, 25, and Ahmed, 20. Meanwhile, resistance fighters engaged the occupation soldiers to the east of the nearby Tulkarm refugee camp.
Witnesses reported that a number of explosive devices were blasted in the advancing Zionist armored vehicles and a violent exchange of gunfire ensued but no casualties were reported. In Bethlehem, Palestinian youths reportedly hurled Molotov cocktails at a convoy of Jewish settlers on the bypass road near Housan village. Zionist sources said that the attack inflicted material damage to the vehicles. A firebomb was also tossed on a Zionist bus to the south of Bethlehem city, Zionist sources said, adding that army units combed the area in search of the attackers but apparently they fled unharmed.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 10:03:37 PM ||
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Four suspected militants were killed and five others were arrested in a pre-dawn raid by US-led and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan , officials said on Saturday. The men were killed when they engaged coalition and Afghan forces in a gunfight in Barikaw district of eastern Nangarhar province, provincial official Faizanul Haq said. "They were killed during a exchange of fire," Mr Haq who is a close aide to provincial governor Din Mohammad told AFP. The fighting erupted when armed men attacked the troops from a house where the soldiers later arrested five other armed individuals, he added. US military spokesman Major Mark McCann said he had no information on the incident. "We are still looking into it," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:29:27 PM ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:28:26 PM ||
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#1
Dear India,
Love you guys, but the fact is: England srewed you years ago by allowing a Hindu to "rule" a majority Muslim populace.
Suggestion to India: Give up the Kashmir with this one proviso to President Perv. If ONE f**king Muslim is found have to cross the border to commit an act act of terrrorism against India, we (India) launch our nukes. You're responsible Prev. Sleep well.
Sincerely,
India
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
11/20/2004 22:10 Comments ||
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The Mehsud tribesmen have opposed house-to-house search operation being conducted by security forces in different parts of the South Waziristan tribal region. A jirga of the Mehsud tribe, held in Tank on Saturday, alleged that law-enforcement agencies were disarming tribesmen in the name of arresting foreign and local militants in the area.
"Gimme them guns, Mahmoud!"
"I ain't no militant! I'm a robber!"
"Oh. Never mind."
Witnesses said that about 300 elders of the Mehsud tribe attended the jirga which was addressed by Malik Mohammad Alam, Malik Janan and Malik Humayun Mehsud. The army and paramilitary troops have launched house-to-house search operation in many parts of the South Waziristan, inhabited by the Mehsud tribe. Authorities believed that a local militant commander Abdullah Mehsud, who allegedly masterminded the kidnapping of the two Chinese engineers along with his foreign and local accomplices, was hiding in the mountainous region. The sources said that about 300 mud houses had been searched in Kotaki, Spinkai Raghzai, Dela, Khunakhela Zamaray and Khad so far where the security forces had seized arms and ammunition. According to reports, the security forces had recovered about four tons of Chinese and Russian-made ammunition and explosives from these houses. However, the authorities could not find any foreign or local militant. The Mehsud jirga alleged that the security forces were violating honour and security of the tribesmen in the name of the search operation. It was pointed out that the tribesmen possessed arms and ammunition for personal security and it should not be linked with anti-state activities.
"We need tons of arms and ammunition for self-defense around here!"
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:05:26 PM ||
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Eight days after the Americans entered the city on foot, a pair of marines wound their way up the darkened innards of a minaret, shot through with holes by an American tank. As the marines inched upward, a burst of gunfire rang down, fired by an insurgent hiding in the top of the tower. The bullets hit the first marine in the face, his blood spattering the marine behind him. The marine in the rear tumbled backward down the stairwell, while Lance Cpl. William Miller, age 22, lay in silence halfway up, mortally wounded.
"Miller!" the marines called from below. "Miller!" With that, the marines' near mystical commandment against leaving a comrade behind seized the group. One after another, the young marines dashed into the minaret, into darkness and into gunfire, and wound their way up the stairs. After four attempts, Corporal Miller's lifeless body emerged from the tower, his comrades choking and covered with dust. With more insurgents closing in, the marines ran through volleys of machine-gun fire back to their base. "I was trying to be careful, but I was trying to get him out, you know what I'm saying?" Lance Cpl. Michael Gogin, 19, said afterward.
So went eight days of combat for this Iraqi city, the most sustained period of street-to-street fighting that Americans have encountered since the Vietnam War. The proximity gave the fighting a hellish intensity, with soldiers often close enough to look their enemies in the eyes. For a correspondent who has covered a half dozen armed conflicts, including the war in Iraq since its start in March 2003, the fighting seen while traveling with a frontline unit in Falluja was a qualitatively different experience, a leap into a different kind of battle. From the first rockets vaulting out of the city as the marines moved in, the noise and feel of the battle seemed altogether extraordinary; at other times, hardly real at all. The intimacy of combat, this plunge into urban warfare, was new to this generation of American soldiers, but it is a kind of fighting they will probably see again: a grinding struggle to root out guerrillas entrenched in a city, on streets marked in a language few American soldiers could comprehend. The price for the Americans so far: 51 dead and 425 wounded, a number that may yet increase but that already exceeds the toll from any battle in the Iraq war.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 8:17:51 PM ||
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#1
What an incredible group of young men!! God love 'em and watch over 'em. This is the kind of reads we need everyday from the battlefield, telling their stories. Honoring these guys....
God bless them.... and those "Angels" who have checked in with St. Peter for their orders and are now guarding the streets of heaven.
#2
I don't know, I felt kinda sad reading this. Just level the damn place.
Posted by: Rafael ||
11/20/2004 21:24 Comments ||
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#3
Yes it is sad. But they do not die in vain. As you can see in the other posts US forces are finding things of inteligence value that will save lives down the road. Even the identity of the terrorist bodies is proving useful. When ever we identify a Saudi national it gives us a little more wedge. Also there are some civilians in there and this is important. They will and are spreading very negative opinons on the terrrorists and their actions durning the last days. The terrorist leadership who cut and ran so fast are not looking good to the Sunnis. To cut it short the sacrifies of today are going to make the sacrifices of tommorow smaller. Also compared to what happed to the Russians in Grozny which is a comparable situation we are having really low casualties. As usual the MSN is doing it's darndest to snatch a save defeat from the jaws of victory.
#4
Not sad here but humbled. And elated to hear yet again of the extraordinary competence of our professional military, that finds and trains and motivates such exceptionally brave and talented young men. This inspires great confidence.
One more reason to be cheerful: this appeared in the NYTimes. Apparently Exec Editor Bill Keller took note of the election results. Or, more likely, the shareholders did. Could this be the start of a trend?
#5
A friend of my son's from kindergarden died the Falluja attack. I don't care how brave the rules of combat required them to be. We should have just leveled the town with a dozen MOABs.
#6
A small town in southeast Louisiana buried a Marine, Lance Corporal Justin McLeese, yesterday. Archbishop Philip Hannon, the former archbishop of New Orleans and a paratrooper-chaplain with the 82nd Airborne in WWII, said at the funeral:
"Justin did not die in vain. He died in a war that we must win and will win in order to save civilzation as we know it."
Several hundred people were at the funeral.
Thank God for men such as this.
Posted by: Matt ||
11/20/2004 22:59 Comments ||
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#7
Matt, do you have a link to an account of Justin's funeral? with more quotes from Archbishop Hannon's sermon?
thanks in advance,
lex
Posted by: Matt ||
11/20/2004 23:45 Comments ||
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#9
Yes, thank God for the Men of this great nation that have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Semper Fi, Lance Corporal Miller. Semper Fi.
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
11/21/2004 0:03 Comments ||
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#10
The sunnis have, in no way, given up the fight. If wishes were fishes, I would have started this by dropping a 1000lb bomb on each mosque and flattening every "villa", i.e. wealthy, upper-class, house. That is where the real support for the insurgents lies.
US forces have faced fierce fighting with rebels near Baghdad airport following a day of attacks in the Iraqi capital. Earlier, the US military found the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers in northern Mosul. All nine had been shot in the back of the head and seven of them were decapitated, said Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings. He said the bodies were found in south-central Mosul off a major road about a mile from the Tigris River. US troops made the discovery after getting a tip from the Iraqi National Guard. The men, who were not in uniform, have been identified as part of the Iraqi regular army based at the al-Kisik military base.
US-led forces have attempted to expel insurgents from Mosul this week after a recent uprising in support of guerrillas in Fallujah. Some 30 suspected guerrillas were detained during multiple raids on Friday. Meanwhile, rebels have killed three policemen in a dawn strike on their station in Baghdad's Sunni Aadhamiya district. An American soldier was killed and nine wounded when a patrol was caught in an ambush in the Iraqi capital. The attacks came as a US general acknowledged it was hasty to claim this month's offensive on Fallujah had broken the back of the insurgency.
#2
Every time I see "widespread" in such reports I relax and think, oh, OK, there was some shooting in a few places that someone bothered to report, probably because it involved foreign troops and not just the normal issues (local gangster activity).
Every time I see "fierce fighting" in such reports I get excited, because of course every time there actually is any real fighting, the enemy is slaughtered.
The USMC general who used the "break the back" phrase should be forced to drop and give us all 50 push-ups. He may well be right, but he knows with today's dysfunctional media you never, never say such things, even AFTER they've been proven correct. Having said that, I support him and his troops all the way, and think they're the best things the US (or Iraq) ever had going for them.
A friend who's with the USMC in al-Anbar denied -- sort of half-heartedly -- that the Corps had adopted a "blackout" press strategy in that region. But aside from Fallujah, think back to how many times the news of US casualties was accompanied by almost any detail on the engagement involved. That's right, never. I think the USMC's unspoken blackout strategy is the right one -- just win the war, achieve your objectives expeditiously, and let the media in the dark to wonder what's going on. I think the innacuracy, lack of integrity, and lack of comprehension characterizing most media coverage of Iraq may have introduced a new wrinkle in all the homilies about war requiring cultivation of public support in a democracy. I know many folks who trust the military and administration to get the job done, who know enough that they'll sense if that trust is misplaced, and in the meantime mostly ignore the gross distortions and selectivity of the media. In that context, a blackout makes sense. No video of US "war crimes" coming from Tel Afar and other hot areas, is there?
#3
I've noticed that about the Marine al-Anbar press releases. They give no details on daily fighting and if there is a casualty all they say is that information is being withheld for security reasons, which is the way it should be
I also agree with this supposed end of the world reporting that the press is doing to be nothing but anti-war propaganda. There's no more violence now, and overall might be less if you take out the offensives of our side, then there was before Fallujah.
Five German tourists have gone missing for several days in a Sahara desert region in Algeria where 32 Europeans were kidnapped by Islamic militants last year. The Algerian government on Saturday denied earlier reports that the group had been found.
"Sorry, effendi! That was another group that was found..."
The five have not been heard from since Wednesday when they "gave their guide the slip" in the Djanet region, 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) southeast of the capital, Algiers.
Oh, that was bright.
Tourism Minister Mohamed Seghir Kara had allegedly said that the group had been found in Tadrart, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of Djanet, "without their guide." The daily El Khabar said Saturday that the tourists had disappeared after parting company with their guide in "mysterious circumstances" in Djanet where they were visiting historic sites and oases, and the foreign ministry in Berlin had said they were looking into the report.
"Ahah! Mysterious circumstances, was it?"
"I can say no more!"
Journalists have compared their disappearance with the abduction in 2003 of 32 European tourists by the extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). The tourists were finally released in two groups after several months, during which one woman tourist died of sunstroke in the desert.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 6:50:37 PM ||
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#1
Gave their guide the slip in an area known to harbor German capturing/killing terrorists? Why is anyone looking, call it just deserts desserts
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/20/2004 19:24 Comments ||
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#2
"Oh, but nobody told us it was DANGEROUS down there?"
Damn I'm getting tired of this. I heard Grosny is lovely in fall...
The video cassette in the Sony Handycam told the story of how the mujahideen of Fallujah prayed, lived, and died, even as US forces invaded 10 days ago. Found along with a laptop computer, stacks of CD-ROMs, and a number of telephones in an insurgent safe house Thursday, the trove is just one of many intelligence finds in Fallujah that are shedding light on the insurgency. Those finds - along with that of a vast weapons cache and safe house operating under the cover of an Islamic medical charity, which contained flags of Al Qaeda affiliate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - are one reason US marine commanders want to keep pushing the offensive.
While firefights continue, the battered city echoed throughout the day Thursday with the crashing booms of US military explosives experts destroying one weapons stockpile after another. "It's going to take a long time [for insurgents] to reconstruct what they had in this city, for command and control, to push people out to Ramadi, Tikrit, and down south," says Col. Craig Tucker, commander of the Regimental Combat Team-7, which has waged the attack. They have to reestablish their ratlines." Those who would do that - if they are still alive - are the young, thinly bearded men on the captured video, which translators believe features some fighters from Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Clearly militants, they are first shown mourning a martyr whose body lies on a stretcher with a white strip of cloth around his head. There is an AK-47 assault rifle behind him in one scene; in another, the gun is clasped to the dead man's chest. The film also shows tanks in Fallujah - apparently US Army tanks from the first day of assault - and a militant popping up on a rooftop with a rocket- propelled grenade (RPG), and firing wildly away from the target. The cameraman can be heard speaking in awe: "Oooohhh."
The video shows what appears to be suicide bombers preparing for battle and talking with black-turbaned comrades. It also shows insurgents with an unmanned US drone surveillance aircraft, a Pioneer labeled "Crazy Horse 1054." Also on tape is an antiaircraft gun mounted in the back of a truck, and night battles, with tracer rounds arcing across the sky. The computer was password protected, and is now being examined by US intelligence officers. The light armored reconnaissance unit that discovered the safe house during a random check blew it up Thursday.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 4:57:44 PM ||
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#1
LOL 'The computer was password protected' , ooh please .......
#2
The computer was password protected, and is now being examined by US intelligence officers. The light armored reconnaissance unit that discovered the safe house during a random check blew it up Thursday.
#4
The rats left in a hurry.Would like to see their faces when Zargawi asks where the lap top is and afterwards with that bullet in their skull.Maybe thier code is on the lap top.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/20/2004 17:54 Comments ||
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#6
"LOL 'The computer was password protected' , ooh please ......."
Well...you can scoff if you like. But, If they are using something like F-Secure's FileCrypto on the disk partitions, then it could be a significant impediment to accessing the contents.
But I'm sure you knew that, right?
-AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
11/20/2004 18:47 Comments ||
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#7
Note to AR: password-protected is not synonymous with encrypted (let alone 'strongly encrypted").
Few people truly understand such distinction. One may hope stressed and soon-to-be-corpse jihadis don't either.
#8
The odds of these guys having password protected a laptop in a manner that we can't break are zero. Doesn't mean they ALL use "BINLADEN" or "KERRYEDWARDS"...ut just means we have good code people!
crazyhorse...whether THESE morons are stupid enough to go fess up to Zargawi or not, I think a lot of these boyos will soon adopt a new motto for their Jihad: "Fuck THIS!"
FileCrypto uses well-known fast block cipher algorithms , namely Blowfish and 3DES (These algorithms work on chunks of specific sized data along with a secret key resulting in blocks of cipher text) . This does not make things secure , it makes things slower to crack but not 100% secure in this day and age . Now a home user would find it impossible to break , but maybe just maybe you could by networking up 1000's of computers to reduce time (as this is the main factor )or use the lastest super computers , which im sure the US government has hehe . Decryption is done by applying the reverse transformation to the block of ciphertext using the same key .
Interesting fact for you
In 1998, the RSA Challenge II contest was won by Electronic Frontier Foundation. They cracked DES in 56 hrs using a supercomputer.
In 1999, Distributed.net won Challenge III and cracked DES in 22 hrs.
Dedicated hardware can be built to crack DES much faster. For an investment of $1 million, DES can be cracked in less than an hour.
Look at the dates , that was years ago .
The issue with cracking 3DES is 'computing power' to break the 168-bit keys . Network up a few *cough* super computers who's sole purpose in 'life' is to churn Maths you sort of get the picture , it may take a while but it will be done .
As Justrand points out the odds of these guys having password protected / securely encrypted a laptop in a manner that we can't break are zero . I think for the most part , all that will be found on the jihadi computers is alot of porn and bill gates crap .
#13
OOooh and to have a look at the mind set of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and friends , one should read a book called 'An Evil Cradling' by Brian Keenan , hence my assumption that there will be alot of porn on it hehe (repressed twats that they are) . An absolutely facsinating read ifnot 'shocking ' . A must for any rantburger with time on their hands .
Atomic Conspiracy linked to this in the comments section of another article, and I thought it should be on the front page.
Baghdad exploded in violence Saturday, as insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead. Nearby, a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. patrol passed in the Khadra area, wounding two U.S. troops, according to policeman Ali Hussein of the Khadra police station. The U.S. military had no immediate confirmation.
In downtown Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle just after noon at an intersection on Saadoun Street, a bustling commercial street. One Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded in the blast, which sent black smoke rising above the city center and set several cars ablaze. And in the western part of the city, gunmen in a car chased down a vehicle carrying employees of the Ministry of Public Works on their way to work Saturday, opened fire and killed four of them, a ministry spokesman said. Amal Abdul-Hameed — an adviser to the ministry in charge of urban planning — and three employees from her office were killed, said spokesman Jassim Mohammed Salim.
The spasm of violence came a day after Iraqi forces backed by U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque — one of the country's most important Sunni mosques — as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers in the Azamiyah neighborhood. The operation appeared to be part of a government crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 others arrested. Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
11/20/2004 12:41:36 PM ||
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#1
This sounds so very......quagmire-ish. These guys couldn't be trying to undermine American resolve, could they? Naaaahhh.......
#2
These aren't what I would call big stories. Remember that the rebels are under the impression that they can derail the January elections, and are thus throwing everything they have at the US. Guerrilla war works a lot like a dimmer switch (vs an on-off switch) - guerrilla activity dies down slowly. I expect that in five years, we'll be hearing about sporadic activity every other day, at worst.
#3
This is no worse then the violence that was going on before Fallujah and possibly less overall. The difference is the U.S. and Iraqi forces being on the offense. I think this will die down as we flush out more of the remaining cells and clean out Ramadi which may be happening very soon.
The wires just have to keep pressing their anti-war leanings.
#4
Whoops, I meant the article; it sounds like something designed to play on the public's fears. Phrases and sentences like:
"Baghdad exploded in violence"
"The spasm of violence came a day after Iraqi forces backed by U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque" (there's no definitive indication that the presence U.S. forces inside the mosque caused the aforementioned "spasm", although that's no doubt the impression it's trying to send)
"Insurgents have carried out a wave of violence across Iraq coinciding with the Fallujah offensive"
"Shops were in flames" (how many shops? Two? Four? A dozen? A hundred? it doesn't say)
"Clashes spread in Azamiyah before dawn,.." (how many clashes?)
It's a quagmire!!!!! But wait, at the bottom of the article it says, "Copyright 2004 The Associated Press."
A land mine planted by suspected communist rebels blew up a police truck in northern India on Saturday, killing 18 officers, police said. The attack happened near Naughar, a village 250 miles southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, said Yashpal Singh, a police director-general. Singh said there were 30 policemen in the truck and they were searching for suspected rebels who killed three forest guards on Thursday. Some of the 12 officers who survived the assault were wounded, Singh said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 11:29:23 AM ||
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Guerrillas have attacked Iraqi and U.S. forces in Baghdad in daylight, hours after a top U.S. general conceded it was too early to say if a big Falluja offensive had broken the backbone of the insurgency. A dawn assault on Saturday with rocket-propelled grenades on a police station in the Sunni district of Aadhamiya killed at least three officers -- a day after Iraq's U.S.-backed National Guard raided a mosque revered by the Sunni Muslim minority. Elsewhere, a Polish woman freed by kidnappers in Iraq and flown to Warsaw said she was treated well, raising hopes for other foreign hostages after a week in which the only other woman held captive, a British aid worker, was thought to have been killed.
In Aadhamiya, U.S. tanks and helicopters helped beat off the insurgents after a three-hour battle near the Abu Hanifa mosque, where four worshippers were killed and 17 arrested on Friday. A U.S. soldier was killed and nine wounded when their patrol was caught in an ambush in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Thick columns of black smoke rose over Aadhamiya. Apache helicopters buzzed overhead. Tanks rolled through the streets. An armoured convoy carried away two wrecked U.S. vehicles. The police compound was badly damaged and cratered by bullet holes. In the western Amriya district, gunmen in cars opened fire on a National Guard unit. A Guard at the scene said seven of the assailants were killed and seven passers-by wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2004 9:36:57 AM ||
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#1
Not mentioned in the Al Reuters propaganda piece, but other M3s (Michael Moore Minutemen) chased down a carload of Iraqi public works employees and murdered four of them in cold blood.
A Polish woman held hostage in Iraq by a militant group since late October has been freed, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka has said. "The Polish woman kidnapped in Iraq has been freed and is safe and sound," Belka told a news conference on Saturday. Teresa Borcz Khalifa is married to an Iraqi and also holds Iraqi citizenship. She was kidnapped on October 27 in Baghdad by a little-known group that demanded Poland withdraw its troops from Iraq, a call flatly rejected by Warsaw.
#1
then who was the blonde western woman disemboweled and dismembered in fallujah?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/20/2004 10:16 Comments ||
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#2
I just so this gals picture. There is a reason they let her go.
Joking aside the universal reactions recent murder of a female muslim hostage pretty much made holding any female a libality. The worm is starting to turn.
AN Afghan court sentenced a man to death today for the 2001 killing of an Australian and two other foreign journalists and an Afghan colleague — pulled from their cars and shot as they rushed to cover the collapse of the Taliban. The four were Tasmanian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters news agency, Maria Grazia Cutuli of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo. A three-judge panel also convicted Reza Khan of raping one of the victims before she died and of killing his own wife with a single shot from a pistol. "You are sentenced to death," presiding Judge Abdul Baset Bakhtyari told Afghanistan's Primary National Security Court after a brief hearing this morning.
"Bailiff! Stretch his neck!"
"What length, yer honor?"
"Three feet!"
The journalists were in a convoy from the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad when a group of armed men stopped them on November 19, 2001 — six days after the hardline Taliban militia abandoned Kabul after heavy US bombing. It was unclear if Khan would use his right to appeal the death sentence for the killings and the separate 15 year jail term for committing "adultery by force" with Cutuli. Italian diplomats in the courtroom to observe the trial declined to comment on the verdict.
"Three feet? 'Atsa not long enough!"
Khan had admitted shooting one of the foreigners — it was unclear which — and raping Cutuli in a confession broadcast on Afghan state television in August. Appearing in the chilly courtroom on Wednesday wearing a woollen cap and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Khan admitted his role in the killings. But he denied the rape charge, and said he and other members of the gang had been following the orders of a local militia commander. "We had to do what he told us," he said, pleading in vain to the judges not to hold him responsible. "I'm just a poor man ... I am not a killer."
"A rapist, yes. A trigger-puller, yes..."
He stared intently but without emotion at the judge as he read out the verdict before a policeman led him back to a jail in the government compound which also encloses the court.
Posted by: tipper ||
11/20/2004 8:13:13 AM ||
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#1
It will be interesting to see if he is effectively excuted or if he is pardonned: a Muslim is not supposed to be sentenced to death for the killing of a kaffir in Sharia's "justice".
Too many times we have seen Muslim murderers being pardonned for the deaths of kaffurs and quitely released a few (usually very few) years later.
The executioon of this guy would be a clear signal that in Afganistan a murder is a murder whatever
the perpetrator or the victim
Osnat Dodo tells of the night she survived the attack of a suicide bomber in Jerusalem last year to Catherine O'Brien [Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), November 20, 2004]. Here are some excerpts:
My brother Yoram spotted him first, but a split second later I saw him too. He was small, like a child -- he can't have been more than 17 -- and he was wearing a big smile. It was a sinister rather than a happy smile, the smile of someone whose mind has been skewed by drugs.
As he reached the cafe door, I could see he was hiding something underneath his shirt. Yoram shouted, but it was too late. There was an ear-splitting noise and a blinding light, then darkness, silence and a smell I cannot describe: the reek of shredded, burning flesh. I had been standing at the front of the cafe, behind a pillar. Yoram had been outside by one of the pavement tables. As I looked up, the floor-to-ceiling glass that separated us was cascading like a waterfall. I looked down. Incredibly, thanks to the pillar, I appeared to be unharmed. Then I looked right and left and, through dense, black smoke, I saw things that no one should see....
EFL. Subscription required.
When the PMLQ Secretary General Mushahid Hussain demanded in a senate speech the release of political prisoners, Asif Ali Zardari, Javed Hashmi and Yousaf Raza Gilani, most observers were caught by surprise. A US diplomat has told TFT the 'abrupt' proposal was presented with the support and pressure of the US government. The source told TFT that the idea of a 'grand reconciliation' between the government and the opposition was first floated by the US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf a few months ago. "Making the junta agree to start thinking about the release of these prisoners was not an easy job," said the diplomat. "When Armitage initially presented the proposal before Musharraf, he [Musharraf] was quite unenthusiastic and unsympathetic. In fact, Musharraf actually pleaded with the Americans that he did not have the power to force Pakistani courts to release them," the diplomat added. "At that time, the deputy secretary did not feel the need to get into a long debate with Musharraf over the issue of the prisoners' release," said the source. "Washington's priorities were different then." According to the source, now that America is feeling content and has realised that sufficient amount of work has been done in the war on terrorism, it is more concerned about the state of democracy in Pakistan.
"There is definitely US pressure on the government," admits an official in the know of things. Apparently, Washington wants Musharraf to open the space for opposition parties and that is only possible if the government takes some confidence building measures as Senator Hussain mentioned in his speech. The Bush administration realises that its talk about promoting democracy in the Muslim world does not sit well if it has close links with undemocratic or quasi-democratic regimes. "This means we need to expend more effort now to convince Musharraf to take a political course that is inclusive," says the diplomat. "The issue of 'political victimisation' in Pakistan is a source of embarrassment for the Bush administration, especially when it has to defend Pakistan before other nations. This is why the issue of releasing political prisoners was made a part of the classified official working papers prepared by the US authorities at the time of the talks between Armitage and Pakistani leaders and officials."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
11/20/2004 6:06:21 AM ||
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Insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades have skirmished with U.S. and Iraqi forces in Sunni Muslim areas of Baghdad, killing at least three police and seven insurgents. Guerrillas attacked a police station in the northern area of Aadhamiya on Saturday killing at least three policemen, police said. Columns of thick black smoke rose into the air and gunfire and explosions echoed over the rooftops while U.S. Apache helicopters buzzed overhead. U.S. tanks were rolling through the streets. One armoured convoy clattered past carrying away two wrecked U.S. vehicles. In the western Amriya district, gunmen in several cars opened fire on a group of Iraqi National Guards deployed in the area. A guard at the scene said seven of the assailants were killed in the gunbattle that ensued and seven passersby wounded. The fighting came a day after Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers raided a major mosque in Aadhamiya and clashed with worshippers. At least four people were killed in the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque and nine wounded, the Muslim Clerics Association and witnesses said.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/20/2004 5:33:17 AM ||
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U.S. troops have discovered four decapitated bodies and captured dozens of militants during operations to purge northern Mosul of insurgents, the military said Saturday. All four bodies, whose identities were not established, were found on Thursday, and have been turned over to Iraqi authorities, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia. Three of the bodies were found by the roadside in a northeastern neighborhood of Mosul, while the fourth body was discovered in the southwestern part of the city, he said. "Our troops came across them. They were by the roadside," Hastings said. Good Lord, what our troops must be going through because of these sick, demented killers.
On Friday, a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said it had "slaughtered" two Iraqi National Guard officers "in the presence of a big crowd" in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified.
Any word on which part of the Geneva Conventions apply here? Amnesia International? Human Rights Watch? Bueller? Anyone?
There was no way of saying whether the bodies had been decapitated in a public manner, as the Web site claimed, said Hastings, adding that U.S. troops were "not able to identify them and say whether they were bodies of Iraqi National Guard, police or just anybody."
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/20/2004 4:47:28 AM ||
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#1
well if they are finding the multiple headless remains - I would wager that Zarqawi can't be too far off.
#2
Speaking of bheadings: Lets start a fun new rumor among the Mohammedans--
Zarquwai(sp?) has converted to worship of either Ba'al or Huitzipolitchil(sp?)! He's an Apostate, gone to Idol Worship! (this is even worse than being a jew in islamic eyes) It even has the virtue of matching his behavior.
Any comments?
Posted by: N Guard ||
11/20/2004 10:31 Comments ||
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re #2 The most appropriate idol would be Molech, or Moloch, the "Abomination of Moab," to whom the various Canaanites would offer their children to be burned on the altar.
FYI: the Encyclopaedia Britannica spells it "Huitzilopochtli." Gesundheit!
#6
"The most appropriate idol would be Molech, or Moloch, the "Abomination of Moab," to whom the various Canaanites would offer their children to be burned on the altar."
Oh, like a psychopath like al-Zarqawi needs encouragment to move from beheading people to burning them alive...
#8
Good point, Sgt. Mom. Maybe we could start spreading a rumor that Zarq is a student of Shirley MacLaine? of the Raelians? Any other less Chaotic Evil gurus out there?
Iraqi forces backed by American soldiers raided one of the country's most important Sunni mosques as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers - part of a crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 arrested. Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.
I'm surprised the reporter didn't describe the attack dogs brought inside the mosque.
American troops were seen securing the outer perimeter of the mosque, located in the Azamiyah district, and sealing it off before Iraqi police entered. At least 10 U.S. armored vehicles were parked at the mosque, along with two vehicles carrying about 40 Iraqi National Guardsmen, witnesses said. Five people were wounded in addition to the three deaths and roughly 40 arrests, according to members of the congregation. The U.S. military referred questions on the raid to the Iraqi government, which declined comment.
"We will say no more!"
The mosque, built around the tomb of the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, has stood for 1250 years. When Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1257, he used it to stable his horses, but otherwise it has escaped indignities from the many forces that have invaded Baghdad. It is the most important Sunni mosque in Baghdad, and a site of pilgrimage for Muslims worldwide.
The 2,587th holiest site, after all.
American troops have raided the mosque repeatedly since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.
I'd guess it keeps appearing on hard drives taken from dead Bad Guyz...
U.S. troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border, a cleric said Friday, calling it retaliation for opposing the Fallujah offensive. Imam Maudafar Abdul Wahab said his mosque was gathering arms and ammunition food and supplies for Fallujah, and that the Americans took about $2,000 worth of Iraqi currency meant for IEDs mosque repairs.
Yeah, sure. I'll believe anything anybody named Wahhab tells me...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/20/2004 12:18:08 AM ||
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#1
A mosque or Islamic centre, In Iraq, in Iran or in America are the hot beds of jihadic instigators. When the plotters & planners of jihad hatch their anti-western on slots within the confines of majority of Western nations, they do it tax free.
But our enemies are not only allowed but given grant money in the hundreds of thousands, via the U.S. tax payers, for simply completing a few lousy federal forms.
Now that's totally insane & self defeating.
I give you The City of Boston's Islamic Society of Boston (ISB.
Another massive monetary coup pulled off with the willing help of a number of Boston's leading politicians. Those which elected you say,'Thanks for nothing!'
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/20/2004 1:18 Comments ||
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Mark,
Are you a Bostonian ??
Posted by: Elder Of Zion ||
11/20/2004 4:09 Comments ||
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Elder, I am, just not living in Bean Town right now. A lot of friends are very upset about this situation in Roxbury (section of Boston), as are many residents in Roxbury.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/20/2004 4:33 Comments ||
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>Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence<
Their version of the strip-mall university? I wonder if this is the flog-em-to-death lot or the beheading jurisprudence crowd. Must make for interesting debates when they get together.
#5
Mark,
Nice city, Boston. Good for tea parties.
BTW, I used to read a lot of Sufi Literature
in the good all days when I believed in Peace
and wisdom.
I wonder why there is such a thundering silence
from more "moderate Islamic circles" regarding bestial gihadi practices. Are we really witnessing the "silence of the Sheep" ?
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
11/20/2004 8:53 Comments ||
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#6
The Hanafi School of Islamic Jurisprudence? What a train wreck that must be. I'd hate to be the head of the class at that school.
In me youth my 3rd computer caught the Mama Cass Virus, at that primitive time nothing could be done except to forcibly try to remove the ham sandwich from the Winchester Drive.
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.
Ten suspects charged with membership in an al-Qaida cell that allegedly helped prepare the Sept. 11 attacks have been jailed to prevent them fleeing Spain ahead of their trial, court officials said Saturday. The 10, including Al-Jazeera reporter 
Four suspected militants were killed and five others were arrested in a pre-dawn raid by US-led and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan , officials said on Saturday. The men were killed when they engaged coalition and Afghan forces in a gunfight in Barikaw district of eastern Nangarhar province, provincial official Faizanul Haq said. "They were killed during a exchange of fire," Mr Haq who is a close aide to provincial governor Din Mohammad told AFP. The fighting erupted when armed men attacked the troops from a house where the soldiers later arrested five other armed individuals, he added. US military spokesman Major Mark McCann said he had no information on the incident. "We are still looking into it," he said.
Five German tourists have gone missing for several days in a Sahara desert region in Algeria where 32 Europeans were kidnapped by Islamic militants last year. The Algerian government on Saturday denied earlier reports that the group had been found. 
AN Afghan court sentenced a man to death today for the 2001 killing of an Australian and two other foreign journalists and an Afghan colleague — pulled from their cars and shot as they rushed to cover the collapse of the Taliban. The four were Tasmanian television cameraman 
Insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades have skirmished with U.S. and Iraqi forces in Sunni Muslim areas of Baghdad, killing at least three police and seven insurgents. Guerrillas attacked a police station in the northern area of Aadhamiya on Saturday killing at least three policemen, police said. Columns of thick black smoke rose into the air and gunfire and explosions echoed over the rooftops while U.S. Apache helicopters buzzed overhead. U.S. tanks were rolling through the streets. One armoured convoy clattered past carrying away two wrecked U.S. vehicles. In the western Amriya district, gunmen in several cars opened fire on a group of Iraqi National Guards deployed in the area. A guard at the scene said seven of the assailants were killed in the gunbattle that ensued and seven passersby wounded. The fighting came a day after Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers raided a major mosque in Aadhamiya and clashed with worshippers. At least four people were killed in the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque and nine wounded, the Muslim Clerics Association and witnesses said.
Islamic Society of Boston (ISB. 
