Al Qaida has succeeded in fighting its way into the U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia and holding the facility for several hours. Saudi security sources said five Al Qaida operatives, employing a car bomb and grenades, blasted their way into the U.S. consulate in Jedda on Monday and held the facility for about two hours. The sources said Al Qaida insurgents killed at least four Saudi National Guard officers and injured a U.S. staffer before Saudi commandos stormed the consulate and killed most of the attackers. A U.S. official later denied that any Americans were injured.
"I can confirm there has been an attack on the U.S. consulate in Jedda," U.S. embassy spokeswoman Carole Kalin said. At one point, Al Qaida was believed to have held up to 18 hostages inside the U.S. consulate. Within an hour of the attack, about 200 Saudi troops, backed by attack helicopters, surrounded the building and then stormed the consulate.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:15:50 AM ||
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what makes me cringe is saudi security forces are responsive and reactive , not pro active . This lets the terrorists set the pattern and pace of events . Now is this deliberate , you tell me ?
#2
Remembering that many members of the Saudi security forces -- including those who guard the royal family -- are either al Qaeda sympathisers or actually on two payrolls, should we think that the security forces merely reacting to events as they happen?
#3
Agreed. What did the terrorists and the Saudis (is there a difference?) do with files and information found while they were in the consulate? Just a vicious black bag job? By whom?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 11:49 Comments ||
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Methinks they loaded the files into a waiting BMW's spacious trunk, its powerful V-12 left idling out back, and, before they could be stopped, was able to make a screeching getaway with AKs blasting away from every window while silk head bands blow in the wind. Large toothy smiles could be seen inside the sleek, leather trimed, sedans interior.
The Saudi branch of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror group used an Islamist web site to claim yesterday's unprecedented attack on the US consulate in the Saudi port of Jeddah, stating that some assailants had managed to flee after the operation. "Your brothers of the squadron of the martyr Abu Annas al-Shami stormed one of the bastions of the American crusaders in the Arabian peninsula, in Jeddah," the statement said. "They were able to withdraw from the consulate and reach a safe place, after losing two martyrs who covered the retreat of the mujahedeen, two of whom were wounded and are being treated," said the statement signed by the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula.
The attackers raided the Red Sea beachfront consulate compound in broad daylight in a hail of bullets and explosions that set off a fire and sent black smoke billowing into the sky. The Saudi interior ministry said in a statement issued early today that five members of a "deviant group" hurled bombs at one of the gates of the US consulate as a vehicle belonging to the mission was driving in. The five men "then managed to get in the area surrounding the consulate and tried to torch one of the buildings, attacking those who were on the site," said the ministry statement, read on state television. Security forces rushed to the scene and besieged the assailants, killing three on the spot and wounding the two others, one of whom later died in hospital, the statement said. "As a result of this criminal action, five people on the scene - a Yemeni, a Sudanese, a Palestinian, a Pakistani and Sri Lankan - were killed," said the interior ministry statement.
US officials said all Americans at the consulate were safe and accounted for, but five non-American employees and contractors were killed. The Saudi interior ministry said eight people were slightly wounded: two Yemenis, two Pakistanis, a Lebanese, a Palestinian, an Indian, and a Sri Lankan. Five security officers were injured, a number of whom were subsequently discharged from hospital.
The five gunmen claimed to be members of an "Al-Fallujah Brigade", in a call to the authorities made shortly after attacking the consulate, Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, said in Washington. US President George W Bush said the raid proved that terrorists were still active and the Saudi government vowed there would be no let up in its fight against Islamic extremists. "The attacks in Saudi Arabia remind us that the terrorists are still on the move," Bush said in Washington. "They want us to leave Saudi Arabia, they want us to leave Iraq, they want us to grow timid and weary."
Initial reports said staff at the consulate had been seized by the attackers before the security forces moved in, but a police officer at the scene later said no one had been held hostage. The police officer at the scene said four Saudi national guardsmen had been killed, and two were seen lying on the ground outside the compound after apparently being hit by bullets. But a Saudi security source denied any had been killed. As US authorities tried to assure the safety of Americans in the rest of the city and Saudi forces sealed off the consulate, the US embassy in Riyadh and consulate in the eastern oil city of Dhahran were closed as "a precautionary measure".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:10:28 AM ||
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I did an RB search on the martyr al-Shami. He was one of Zarq's senior lieutenants and we iced him in Iraq early this fall. Too bad, so sad.
A high court on Sunday put a terrorism case on hold and agreed to wait for another court's decision on the constitutionality of a case against four Bahrainis charged with planning terror attacks in the country and having contacts with foreign terrorists, a defence attorney said. A three-judge constitutional court panel heard the defence's challenge and, after meeting privately for a few minutes, granted the defence's request. "We have a very strong case, this trial is unconstitutional," said Abdullah Hashim, one of three attorneys that brought forth the case, who said the court has the jurisdiction to examine the basis of a trial and rule on its validity.
"Yeah! We got a constitutional right to plan terror attacks!"
The four suspects were arrested June 22 and released a day later, then re-arrested July 14 after investigators searched their computers and allegedly found documents on making bombs and poisons. Government prosecutors could not be reached for comment on the ruling.
They were out back pounding their heads in frustration.
It is not clear when the constitutional court will make a ruling on the case. Hashim said a ruling by the court in the defense's favor would remove the "basis for the trial," though the prosecution could appeal the decision. The four — Yasir Kamal, Bassam Bukhuwa, Bassam al-Ali and Moheiddin Khan — were later released on November 1, but the charges were not dropped. Kamal, however, was jailed last month for fleeing from court in September.ÂÂ
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/07/2004 1:09:10 AM ||
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Eleven Russian soldiers were killed in the past 24 hours in various attacks and mine explosions in another wave of violence in the war-torn rebel republic of Chechnya, military sources said yesterday. The biggest single loss came when six interior ministry soldiers were killed and one injured when their truck was blown up on Monday by a remote controlled mine in the rebel capital Grozny, a Russian military source in Chechnya who asked not to be further identified told AFP. Two soldiers were killed and three injured when another army truck was blown up yesterday. Meanwhile, gun battles killed two Russian soldiers and a sapper died while trying to defuse a bomb outside the capital, military sources said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 9:57:26 AM ||
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Two Russian soldiers have been killed and seven others injured in a wave of attacks by separatists in Chechnya that included the capture of two pro-Russian Chechen policemen, military sources said. The two soldiers were killed on Monday in the mountains of southern Chechnya where most of the fighters are based. Similar attacks struck the capital, Grozny, where the pro-Russian policemen were seized, said the military sources. One of the policemen was taken from his home and another grabbed out of his car while he was on patrol on the war-ravaged capital.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:18:43 AM ||
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Basayev's right-hand man and the leader of a militant group in Chechnya's Nauri district, has been arrested in Chechnya, Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for the Regional Operational Headquarters for the Anti-terrorist Operation in the North Caucasus, told RIA Novosti. "Law enforcers have detained a 26-year-old resident of Chechnya who was hiding in the Rubezhnoye village in the Nauri district. He was reportedly an active member of the illegal militant movement and was appointed by Shamil Basayev to lead a gang that was active in the Nauri district," said Mr. Shabalkin.
The arrestee confessed he had undergone a month long blasting and mining course and had been trained by Arab mercenary Abdulhakim, a subordinate to warlord Abu al-Walid, according to Mr Shabalkin. "The arrestee also confessed that he had committed a series of grave crimes along with militants trained in Hattab and Abu al-Walid's camps," said Mr. Shabalkin. In June 2001, for example, the arrestee blasted a railroad section not far from the Mekenskaya station in the Nauri district. In November 2002, he blasted a section of the Terek-Nauri railroad when a freight train was en route. In 2003, the criminal activated an improvised bomb on the Nauri-Terek motorway, blew up a freight train on the Nauri-Nikolayevskaya railroad span, fired a vehicle carrying law enforcers from a grenade launcher on the Nauri-Ishcherskaya road and perpetrated a blast on the Terek-Nikolayevskaya railroad section. In September 2004, the militant shelled a police car, while in November 2004 he made an assassination attempt at the Rubezhnoye village administration chief.
[In other news:]
A militant was killed in a clash in Chechnya's Itum-Kalin district. Two federal servicemen were wounded, according to a Chechen interior ministry source.
Gunmen have kidnapped a police officer and a jobless man in Grozny, a source in the law enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti on Monday.
A woman came to a police station yesterday saying unknown men in camouflage uniforms had broken into her home a few hours earlier. They threatened her cousin and an inspector of the Zavodskoi district's interior department with weapons, forced them into their cars and driven them away.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:26:10 AM ||
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Will this asshat lead to Basayev? One can hope that the Russkies use all of their wiles in extracting info. Bagging Basayev, though I don't care a whit about Putty, would be a very satisfying moment. Beslan deserves an annihilation of him and his entire deranged gang.
The organizer of the bombing of the Chechnya's House of Government in December 2002 died while being detained in Ingushetia, a republic in the North Caucasus bordering on Chechnya, Ingushetia's Interior Ministry reported. According to the Interior Ministry, Alikhan Saduyev, a terrorist, had been on the federal wanted list and known to law enforcement agencies as the organizer of the bombing of a building near the Ingushetia department of the Federal Security Service on September 15, 2003. Two of his accomplices died in the fight during Mr. Saduyev's arrest. Chechen Interior Ministry identification papers were found on all three militants.
According to the ministry, law enforcement agencies conducted a special operation to arrest Mr. Saduyev in Ingushetia's Malgobek district yesterday. "While the suspect was being arrested in a car by Chechen Interior Ministry officers," the ministry said, "they rendered armed resistance and were killed in the return fire." The source said the militant was carrying Chechen Interior Ministry identification papers. "The police are investigating the involvement of the two other passengers in the car in various other crimes," the source said.
Mr. Saduyev was known as an active member of Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev's gang, the Ingush police reported. Yunus Shavlayev and Yunadi Vakhayev were the other two men in the car. Three Stechkin pistols, 200 bullets, a PSM pistol with no registration number, and six grenades were taken from the car. The bombing of the Chechen House of Government killed 71 people including 48 government staff members and 23 police officers and soldiers.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:29:25 AM ||
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The Netherlands plans to ban all terrorist groups listed on the European Union's blacklist. Active involvement with such groups will be a criminal offence, the Dutch government said on Tuesday. The groups on the blacklist include the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party, now called Kongra-Gel), the Palestinian group Hamas, the Islamicist organisation Al-Takfir, the Muslim Al-Aqsa Nederland foundation, and the Marxist New Peoples Army (NPA) of the Philippines. Other foreign groups can also be declared by a court to be operating in breach of public order, the government said. The new measures are part of a legislative proposal unveiled by Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner and Interior Minister Johan Remkes. The proposals will be submitted to the Dutch Parliament for consideration, the website regering.nl said.
Under present regulations, the Dutch government can only freeze the bank accounts of organisations named on the EU list or recognised terrorist groups. In future, these groups will no longer be allowed to operate in the Netherlands and will not be able to recruit members or appoint leaders. The Cabinet's proposal states that inclusion on the EU's list is sufficient reason to ban an organisation in the Netherlands. Organisations are only placed on the EU list if all 25-member states agree. The EU is advised by the United Nations over which groups to place on the terror list. Some of these groups have links with the terror network al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan, news agency Novum reported. A ban does not necessarily mean the group will be disbanded, but continued work in the name of the organisation will become a criminal offence. Conviction will carry a sentence of 12 months jail. Members have nothing to fear if they are not active in the group.
The legislative proposal would allow give Dutch authorities the power to take action against foreign groups that are not listed on the EU terror list, but who carry out illegal activities in the Netherlands. Before the activities of these groups can be ended, public prosecutor (OM) will have to apply to a civil court judge for a ruling that the organisation has operated in breach of public order. Once such an order is granted, people who continue to work on behalf of the organisation will face 12 months in jail.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/07/2004 12:47:28 PM ||
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The Netherlands plans to ban all terrorist groups listed on the European Union's blacklist.
German prosecutors on Tuesday accused a 30-year-old Iraqi man of recruiting militants for the Iraqi insurgency and smuggling wounded fighters back to western Europe for treatment. Federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said Lokman M. was a leading figure in the West European branch of militant group Ansar al-Islam, with close ties to its leader in Iraq and to other members in Italy and Sweden. In a second case, also involving Ansar al-Islam, Nehm said he believed that three Iraqis arrested last Friday had been planning to assassinate visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, despite the authorities' failure so far to discover any weapons or explosives. "We are convinced that we prevented an attack on Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi," Nehm told a news conference.
Nehm's accusations were among the most detailed to emerge so far concerning alleged activities of Iraqi militants in Europe, and their links to the insurgency raging against U.S.-led forces and the interim Iraqi government. Nehm said Lokman M. had procured medical equipment for fighting units in Iraq and arranged for volunteer fighters to travel there. "In addition to that, he was responsible for smuggling members who had been wounded in Iraq into western Europe for medical treatment," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. "In this way, in September 2003 he organized, among other things, the smuggling in of a severely wounded leading official of Ansar al-Islam from Italy via France to Great Britain."
Security sources say fighters have traveled to Iraq from a number of European countries to join the insurgency. A probe into Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, the suspected brains behind the Madrid train bombs in March, indicated he recruited volunteers in France, Belgium and Italy to fight in Iraq. In Italy, a judge charged six North Africans in September with recruiting suicide bombers to go to Iraq. Prosecutors are also investigating a suspected recruitment network in France. They believe French militants may have entered Iraq via Syria, noting an increase in the number of French Muslims traveling to the country, ostensibly to study Islam, in 2003. A 19-year-old Franco-Tunisian man was killed in fighting in the rebel Iraqi town Falluja in July. The European Union's counter-terrorism chief told Reuters in an interview last week such recruitment represented a worrying trend. Among other things, security officials fear militants who gain experience in Iraq will return and pose a threat back home.
Nehm gave further details of the probe into the alleged Allawi plot, saying the three suspects had been detected via intercepted phone calls in which they spoke in code. One of them, Berlin-based Rafik Y., had carried out a reconnaissance trip in the German capital and reported by telephone that he had "inspected the building site." Nehm said Rafik, after getting the go-ahead from the others, initially considered targeting Allawi at an event last Thursday evening where the premier had been due to meet Iraqi exiles. When this was canceled in the light of the intercepted phone calls, he switched his attention to a Friday morning meeting Allawi was due to hold with businessmen at Deutsche Bank in Berlin, Nehm said. The three men were arrested in raids in the early hours of Friday, but that meeting too was canceled as a precaution. Nehm said last week the alleged plot was an "ad hoc" affair and the raids had been launched after police intercepted a series of increasingly "hectic" telephone conversations pointing to an attack.
They're not very good at "spur of the moment" attacks, they rely too much on orders from higher up. You see the same problem with Arab armies, lower level personnel won't make decisions on their own. It's a cultural thing that works in our favor. We keep disrupting their planning cycle and they have to start from scratch.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/07/2004 10:48:00 AM ||
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/ But the world would still be better off had the Coalition not invaded Iraq to forcibly remove the war criminal and genocideer Saddam Hussein. /end "anti-war" idiocy
A mysterious group has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb attack on a Hydro-Quebec tower.
I love a mystery
The message was received in French by news media outlets on Monday. The Initiative de Resistance Internationaliste (IRI) denounced what it describes as the "pillaging" of Quebec's resources by the United States. "An explosive device was placed under a Hydro-Quebec pylon of the Radisson-Nicolet-Des Cantons power line, near the American border. Through this operation, we are making public our refusal to be silent witnesses to the waste and pillaging of our resources at the hands of the United States empire," said the statement, translated from French by CTV's Montreal bureau. "We are also acting against Hydro-Quebec's exploitation to the benefit of private enterprises, which profit from each opportunity that imperialism provides."
Private enterprise + profit = Bad
The group, which sent its communique to al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite TV news network, also dragged Iraq into the equation -- along with Bolivia, Colombia and the Palestinians.
Cuz they're all connected in the struggle of the international proloteriat!
"We refuse to allow all the weight of resistance to fall on the noble Iraqi people, who are being massacred because they were an obstacle to the American energy hegemony, or to the Bolivian peasants courageously mobilizing against the pillage of their gas resources, even risking their lives," the note said.
It's all about the oil, and the water power, apparently.
"We also refuse to let the Colombian and Palestinian people confront the imperial army alone, whether or not it is hidden behind a national banner." It isn't clear when the attack occurred, although a hunter on an all-terrain vehicle discovered damage to a hydro tower Nov. 30.
The IRI said authorities hid news of the attack "from the population during the chief dictator's visit" -- possibly a reference to the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 visit to Canada by U.S. President George W. Bush. If true, one student leader who was involved in anti-Bush protests said the IRI's act of sabotage went too far.
"I think it makes people afraid, and I don't think that was the kind of message we meant to get out when we went to Ottawa," said Tim McSorley of the Canadian Federation of Students.
The incident happened near Coaticook, which is in Quebec's Eastern Townships. A bomb squad was dispatched Friday to the site by the Quebec provincial police.
Test results of materials found near the tower have not been released, so an explosive attack can't be confirmed yet. Police say they've never heard of the group before this. However, they have seized the original letter sent out to some Quebec media outlets to analyze it. They won't confirm if the details in the group's note are accurate.
A Hydro-Quebec spokeswoman said the tower is part of a line that delivers electricity from James Bay to the Boston area, adding that service wasn't disrupted. We are taking that event seriously, and we are increasing security around our strategic installations," said Marie Archambault of Hydro-Quebec.
The ongoing investigation involves the provincial police, Hydro-Quebec and the Canadian counter-terrorism force. Security analyst Michel Juneau-Katsuya said: "This is an act of sabotage, but we're just a step away from terrorism. And for that reason, the United States will be very interested to see how we respond to it."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:02:31 AM ||
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So separate, already.
Like most of their ilk, they're all whine, no action (terrorist acts don't count as "action" among civilized people - but of course this is Frogistan-Lite we're talking about, so "civilized" may not enter into the picture).
Geez.
Take a cue from Nike: Just do it.
Or shut up.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/07/2004 10:16 Comments ||
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Or Ledeen, Faster! Please!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 10:19 Comments ||
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They can't just do it, Barbara. Its like Puerto Rico... every time they take a vote (at vast expense to the national government, of course) it turns out that the peepul prefer the status quo. So what's a poor separatist to do? (This nonsense is why my mother-in-law finally got American citizenship -- apparently the whine has been unchanged for generations)
More info from previous story:
A Yemeni sheik facing terrorism-financing charges in Brooklyn explicitly promised to use money raised in the United States to finance Hamas, Al Qaeda and "everybody that we learn is fighting jihad," federal prosecutors said in a court filing made public yesterday. The filing included previously undisclosed excerpts from sealed transcripts of conversations during a sting operation in Germany last year. In secretly recorded meetings in a Frankfurt hotel, the sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, met with an American agent playing the part of a former Black Panther who was eager to contribute $2.5 million to terrorist causes. The sheik said he would pass on money raised in America to "everybody that we learn is fighting jihad to raise God's word," according to the prosecutors. "The way we see it is to support all organizations," including "Hamas, Al Qaeda, prisoners, mujahedeen and such," the prosecutors quoted the sheik as saying.
The comments were among the most damaging attributed to Sheik Moayad by the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn in a case that they have said may be the largest terrorism-financing case in the country. The filing portrayed the sheik, who is now in jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial, as applauding and laughing about deaths caused by a suicide attack in Israel. It also quoted him vowing revenge after his arrest in 2003 by German authorities who were working with American law enforcement officials. "Allah will bring storms to Germany and America," the prosecutors quoted the sheik as saying.
The trial of the sheik and an aide, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, on charges of supplying material support to terrorist organizations is to begin in United States District Court in Brooklyn on Jan. 10. The lead prosecutor, Kelly Moore, has said the sheik raised money for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups at mosques in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Several of the sheik's comments that were disclosed yesterday came during the meetings in Frankfurt in January 2003 in which a Yemeni informer working with the F.B.I. played a central role. The informer, Mohamed Alanssi, drew wide attention to his role last month when he set himself on fire outside the White House after a tangled dispute with the F.B.I.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:14:33 AM ||
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I have a serious question. Why in the name of all that is holy, do we give vermin the benefit of any trial? They only deserve Total Extermination.
MILITARY troops stormed a remote Muslim enclave early Sunday and arrested three alleged members of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), the military said. The military also said it foiled a planned terror attack in Zamboanga City. The raid shortly before 2 a.m. in the coastal village of Taluksangay came barely 10 hours after security forces gunned down a suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorist Bahan Madhar (also identified as Majan Bajar) and arrested four other suspects near downtown Zamboanga City, said Marine spokesman Captain Rommel Abrau.
He said two other Abu Sayyaf gunmen were able to escape the latest operation in Taluksangay village. "In a follow-up operation, the same elements raided another ASG safehouse in the village of Taluksangay, which resulted to the arrest of 3 other ASG companions. During the raid, two ASG suspects were able to elude the raiding teams," Abrau said in a statement. He identified those who escaped as Abu Ibrahim, leader of an Abu Sayyaf unit in Zamboanga City and a man named Dujana. "Security forces are tracking them down," he said. The military tagged Bahan Madhar as one of those behind the series of bombings in Zamboanga City that killed dozens of civilians and a U.S. soldier participating in an anti-terrorism training with Filipino troops in 2002.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:30:33 AM ||
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Egypt said it has charged an Iranian diplomat and an Egyptian national over a plot to assassinate an unidentified public figure. Egyptian Mahmud Aid Dabbus is accused of being paid 50,000 dollars by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to kill the unnamed target and of spying for the Islamic republic, charges that carry a possible 25-year prison term. His alleged accomplice was identified as Mohammad Reda Doust, who served in the Iranian interests section in Cairo but left the country about a year ago for another post and will be tried in absentia.
He'd be Mahmud's controller, most likely back in Iran or assigned to another embassy somewhere.
The charges were announced by prosecutor general Maher Abdel Wahed, who told a news conference that Dabbus had been under surveillance for some time and was on the verge of carrying out a "terrorist operation" in Egypt when he was arrested nearly a month ago. The attorney general said Dabbus had provided Iran with information on "political, economic and social conditions in Saudi Arabia", as well as on foreigners living in the kingdom. The suspect used to work in Saudi Arabia, according to the charge sheet. Dabbus was also accused of providing Iran with details on a petrochemical facility at the Saudi port of Yanbu, where six Westerners were killed in a shooting rampage in May that was blamed on Islamist militants.
Blamed on al-Qaeda, of course there are none of them in Iran, right?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/07/2004 10:27:53 AM ||
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Anyone willing to bet Mr.Doust is now working in an Embassy in Europe?
Posted by: Stephen ||
12/07/2004 20:45 Comments ||
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Police have arrested a Dutch national once sought by the United States on suspicion of supplying thousands of tons of ingredients for mustard gas and nerve gas to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. "The man is suspected of supplying thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons between 1984 and 1988 to the former regime in Baghdad," the public prosecution service said in a statement Tuesday.
The 62 year-old suspect, identified as Frans van Anraat on Dutch television, was arrested in Amsterdam Monday. The United Nations described him as Saddam's most important middleman for acquiring chemical materials, prosecutors said. "The chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government in the war against Iran and against the Kurdish population in north Iraq," the statement said. Iraq used chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988 and fought a brutal war with Iran from 1980-1988.
Van Anraat is suspected of breaching the law of war and of complicity to genocide, and will be brought before a court in the Dutch town of Arnhem later this week. He is suspected of having had direct contact with Iraqi authorities and using financial fronts to cover his tracks, according to the international investigation which led to the arrest. He worked through a Panamanian company based in Lugano, Switzerland, according to investigations by authorities in the Netherlands, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Jordan. The inquiry centered on 36 deliveries of raw materials for chemical weapons. The ingredients for mustard gas and nerve gas came from Japan and the United States.
A criminal investigation by U.S. customs authorities based in Baltimore a few years ago found that Van Anraat had been involved in four shipments of thiodiglycol, an industrial chemical used in making mustard gas, to Iraq.
The shipments originated in the United States, were shipped to Europe and reached Iraq after passing through Belgium's Antwerp port and Aqaba in Jordan.
Washington had asked the Dutch government to arrest Van Anraat in December 1997, but police could not track him down, according to a transcript of parliamentary questions to the Dutch Interior Minister last year. The request for his arrest was withdrawn in November 2000, without an explanation.
Van Anraat was detained in Milan in January 1989 following a U.S. request, but he was released after two months. He then headed to Iraq where it is thought he stayed until the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 when he returned to the Netherlands through Syria, the public prosecution said.
Wonder what he knows about Iraq's more recent chemical program? Bet he'd be willing to cut a deal, being he's in it for the money and not a jihadi.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/07/2004 9:41:10 AM ||
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"I don't know nothin!"
"Here's a $20."
"Look in the basement at the old Fallujah hospital complex."
Posted by: Charles ||
12/07/2004 11:31 Comments ||
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Palestinian militants killed one Israeli soldier and wounded four others when they detonated a booby-trapped chicken coop in the central Gaza Strip.
The attack was claimed by Hamas, which said two of its fighters were killed in gun battles following the explosion.
No word on the fate of the baby chicks
O, the avianity!
The Israeli army quickly struck back, killing a militant from the Islamic Jihad group in a missile attack. There have been few such clashes in the weeks since the death of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The renewed fierce fighting comes just over a month before Palestinians vote for a new leader of the Palestinian Authority on 9 January. The chicken coop exploded in a huge blast during an Israeli search for hidden weapons on Tuesday on the Karni-Netzarim road south of Gaza City just before dawn. An Israeli soldier was killed and four wounded, Israeli army and Palestinian sources said. Palestinian militants hiding nearby are then thought to have opened fire on the troops. Israeli forces hit back, firing a missile which killed an Islamic Jihad fighter and at one point making a brief incursion into al-Sejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, which is controlled by militants. Hamas said two of its fighters were believed dead in the 45-minute shoot-out. Other reports suggest four Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded or died.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/07/2004 9:33:28 AM ||
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The chicken coop exploded in a huge blast during an Israeli search for hidden weapons
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld indicated Monday that he expected American troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years, but he cautioned that any final decision hinged on the progress that Iraq's civilian government and security forces made by then. Asked by reporters traveling with him whether United States forces would be out of Iraq by the end of his second four-year term, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I would certainly expect that to be the case and hope that to be the case." He noted that President Bush had repeatedly said American forces would stay as long as needed in Iraq. But his answer offered intriguing clues to his thinking on two crucial subjects: the duration of the American military presence in Iraq and how long he will stay in his job.
If they're gonna be out in four years, that means they won't be needed there in four years (or we'll have decided by then it's a lost cause, I guess...)
The Defense Department announced last week that it would increase the number of American troops in Iraq to 150,000, from 138,000, by early next month, to help provide security for the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 and to keep pressure on the insurgency. Pentagon officials said the increase was only temporary, through next March. But many American military officers and senior Iraqi ministry officials have forecast that the United States will have to keep a sizable troop presence in Iraq for years to come to battle a resilient and deadly insurgency and to help prevent the country from spiraling into civil war.
Mr. Bush asked Mr. Rumsfeld last week to stay on as defense secretary, a request Mr. Rumsfeld confirmed Monday that he "enthusiastically" accepted. But he said they had not discussed how long he would remain, and he declined to go into the subject. Speaking to reporters aboard his plane on Monday, Mr. Rumsfeld struck an unusually reflective tone and ticked off several points that suggested he would relish the opportunity to serve another four-year term. Ultimately, of course, that decision rests with Mr. Bush. He said he enjoyed working with Mr. Bush, whom he called "an excellent executive," was in good health, had no young children and was eager to tackle of series of continuing professional challenges, from revamping the military's overseas basing arrangements to overhauling the Pentagon's personnel system. He remained defiant in the face of critics who say the United States failed to send enough troops to Iraq initially to handle postwar security and, now, to combat the insurgents.
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Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 2:00:21 AM ||
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One of the dumbest things Rumsfeld has done.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 9:45 Comments ||
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I disagree. He just put Iran, Saudi, Syria on notice that they can forget about us leaving after the elections next month - we've got unfinished business
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2004 10:00 Comments ||
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He could have done the same thing by saying "As long as it takes." Any time you give squirrels like this light at the end of the tunnel, they gain a new weapon, patience. He should say we're still in Germany and Korea and we'll stay in Iraq that long if that's how long it takes. This is announcing the abandonment of an ally. As bad as 1975.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 10:06 Comments ||
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you think the bad guys can maintain status quo for one year, much less four? How would we be abandoning an ally? All it would take is a "revisiting" of security assumptions in a yr or two to change anything he said off the cuff today
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2004 10:08 Comments ||
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I think the bad guys are not just al-Q, but Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. So yes, I think they can wait and will. Their current strategy has failed and createing a new one is easier with a date certain for U. S. withdrawal. I agree that all it will take is a "revisiting" but it was still a bad signal to send to the enemy.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 10:12 Comments ||
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fair enough. I just don't think they have 4 yrs...the landscape will look a lot different in less than a yr or 2, IMNSHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2004 10:19 Comments ||
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I agree completely that things are changing, but the Chinese curse. I don't know how long the Iraqis will want us there in what capacity. I wouldn't be surprised if they want us infidels out soon. I also wouldn't be surprised if they concluded it's a rough neighbourhood and it would be a good idea to keep a protector nearby. At come point we have to accept it's their country and we have to go with what they want.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 10:23 Comments ||
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post- election, sign long term basing rights (particularly those nice ones (H1, H3) we're renovating in the western desert) with Allawi
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2004 10:28 Comments ||
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Is it not also sending a message that if we stay in perpetuity there, that Iraqis won't have to exert quite as much energy and capital into their democracy themselves? What incentive is there for Iraqis to take responsibility for their country if we do all the tough lifting for years and years?
I agree with you to this extent Mrs D-we should avoid boxing ourselves into a corner with too explicit and rigid language about the departure date.
#10
If you read the net, vice the MSM, the iraqi people know some of the terror and destruction going on in their country is the work of Iran and other neighbors. Once a stable government takes hold in the next four years, don't you think they will want some form of American military force, much like we did in Germany, to keep potential threats from using or threatening to use military force against them. However, it is better for the Iraqi to ask rather than for the American to insist.
Posted by: Don ||
12/07/2004 10:36 Comments ||
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I suspect it will be a lot like all American occupations. We'll leave the minute you formally ask us, but you live with the consequences. I wonder if the Phillipines have ever had second thoughts about throwing us out.
Frank, several eastern bases might come in even handier, I hope.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 11:18 Comments ||
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yep
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/07/2004 11:25 Comments ||
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My question is this: If we stay in Iraq for 4 year, what about Syria and Iran? Are the plans for them scrapped?
Posted by: Charles ||
12/07/2004 11:35 Comments ||
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That's what they'll have to keep asking themselves every morning when they wake up and see a U. S. base across the border. Just that might have an ameliorative effect.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 11:44 Comments ||
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I love Rummy, but... I hope this is some wheels within wheels thing beyond my ken. Sigh.
#18
That's the only beneficial construction I can see, but it could have been done better privately.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/07/2004 13:00 Comments ||
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I have to disagree here. I think it was brilliant. It tells the ordinary Iraqi that we will be leaving allowing them to want/enjoy our protection while it's here and to plan for the future when we are gone. This will prevent them from getting the Euro-complacency of depending on Americans while at the same time blaming us for being.
Rumsfeld has made clear - enjoy the protection we are offering now - we'll be gone soon and you're on your own.
#20
And I see two groups sighing in relief, with a couple of potential reactions...
The asshats think they'll be around to see it - but reality says that's not likely.
Joe (Yagoub) Iraqi thinks, "Hmmmm. If they're leaving, then mebbe we don't need to march around carrying banners and other stupid shit... mebbe we should get bizzy with this election thingy..."
#21
I suspect that those troops will be on the move within the 4 year window, perchance to Syria, perchance to Iraq, perchance to Saudi, perchance to Turkey...
#22
Iran WILL NOT be allowed to develop or keep Nuclear Weapons. You can draw your own conclusions on that, but I suspect that many Iraqi's will join us in the eventual move on Iran.However, Iraq's participation MAY NOT be a military move. It could EASILY BE the contrast between an Iraqi democracy and Iran's theocratic dictatorship.
As for Secretary Rumsfeld's comment, he is very cagy, so I will wait and see.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, working in Jordan and Iraq to train Iraq's newly established Department of Border Enforcement, have been key players in the arrest of 41 terrorists seeking to join al Qaeda insurgents, CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said yesterday. The terrorists, arrested by CBP border-support teams working with newly trained Iraqi border-enforcement agents, had sought to enter Iraq for what Mr. Bonner called "continuing violence and terrorism" aimed at U.S.-led coalition forces, Iraqi authorities and civilians. Those arrested maintained a weapons route effectively arming the insurgency within Iraq, he said.
"I had a chance to visit our CBP training teams and border-support units to thank and salute them for the dedication they have shown and the sacrifices they have made on a voluntary basis to help rebuild Iraq," Mr. Bonner said in a telephone interview from Amman, Jordan. "They needed to be told how much their efforts are appreciated by the Iraqi people, the governments of both countries and the American public in helping to support U.S. objectives of building strong and effective governmental institutions in Iraq." More than 20 CBP officers in Jordan have trained 1,600 Iraqis since August at the Jordan International Training Academy in Amman — all of whom were assigned to the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement. Another 500 Iraqis started new training classes this week, and will graduate in January.
"The Iraqis are charged with securing and controlling the border and, like CBP, they are the front line for border and customs enforcement," Mr. Bonner said. "This may be the only other country in the world besides the United States that has aligned all its border agencies into one. "The United States in building effective and credible government institutions in Iraq, and I am glad CBP is playing an important role in that effort," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 1:55:15 AM ||
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"My, what a lovely Syrian accent you have...Hands on top of your head, fingers interlaced. NOW!"
U.S. troops captured 14 Iraqis, including 10 wanted for making explosive devices to attack coalition forces, the military said Tuesday. The soldiers, from the 1st Infantry Division, detained seven members of a car bomb-making cell Monday evening in As Siniyah, south of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. Another seven people, including three suspects wanted for making roadside bombs, were captured during raids conducted later Monday on six houses in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown, 80 miles north of the Iraqi capital. During a search of one house, soldiers found three complete improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, a weapon which has been used to deadly effect against hundreds of American and Iraqi soldiers since the onset of the war last year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/07/2004 1:49:34 AM ||
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U.S. troops have captured 34 Iraqis, including 10 wanted for making explosive devices to attack coalition forces, the military said Tuesday. South of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed three Iraqi National Guardsmen. Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division detained seven members of a car bomb-making cell Monday evening in As Siniyah, about 150 miles north of Baghdad. Another seven people, including three suspects wanted for making roadside bombs, were captured during raids Monday in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, about 80 miles north of Baghdad. During a search of one house, soldiers found three homemade bombs, a weapon that has been used to deadly effect against hundreds of American and Iraqi soldiers since the onset of the war last year. Several hundred U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 20 suspected militants Sunday in the southern Baghdad district of Rashid following a short firefight, the military said in a statement Tuesday. Exxxcellent
Posted by: Spot ||
12/07/2004 8:35:32 AM ||
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Several hundred U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 20 suspected militants Sunday in the southern Baghdad district of Rashid following a short firefight, the military said in a statement Tuesday.
Kill 'em. If the Paleos can execute suspected collaborators without any outcry from human rights groups, why not apply the same standard in Iraq?
A criminal court here on Monday opened a trial of five Moroccans who had formerly been held by the United States at its prison camp in Guantänamo Bay, Cuba, including a man suspected of being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. The trial is the first of former Guantänamo detainees to be held in an Arab country.
The men, who were all arrested during the invasion of Afghanistan and whom the Americans turned over to the Moroccan government in August, are charged with belonging to or assisting a criminal group that was preparing to commit terrorist acts. Moroccan investigators say all of the men were either members of Al Qaeda or had been heavily influenced by the group's teachings while living in Afghanistan. The judge set Dec. 20 as the men's next court date. The defendants were identified as Muhammad Ouzar, Ibrahim Benchekroun, Muhammad Mazouz, Redouane Chakouri and Abdullah Tabarak, whom officials suspect was a bodyguard for Mr. bin Laden.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/07/2004 7:19:03 AM ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"Law enforcers have detained a 26-year-old resident of Chechnya who was hiding in the Rubezhnoye village in the Nauri district. He was reportedly an active member of the illegal militant movement and was appointed by Shamil Basayev to lead a gang that was active in the Nauri district," said Mr. Shabalkin.
The organizer of the bombing of the Chechnya's House of Government in December 2002 died while being detained in Ingushetia, a republic in the North Caucasus bordering on Chechnya, Ingushetia's Interior Ministry reported. According to the Interior Ministry, 
