At least four civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike in Laghman province while six militiamen were killed in a remote-controlled explosion in Paktia province. Separately, two NATO soldiers were injured in a clash with the Taliban in Mizan district in Zabul province. The civilians were killed on Saturday in an airstrike that was part of a "mid-scale" operation against militants in Laghman province, local police chief Abdul Karim Omeryar said. In another incident, a remote-controlled bomb killed six militiamen fighting Taliban rebels in Paktia.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Picture courtesy Human Rights Watch. Go take a look at some of the others...
Gunmen on horseback attacked a truck carrying medicine and aid in Sudans war-ravaged Darfur region and killed around 30 civilians on board, some of whom were burned alive, the United Nations said on Sunday. The African Union had earlier put the death toll at 22 and said 10 others were wounded on Saturday when gunmen attacked the vehicle near Sirba, 45 km north of El Geneina, capital of West Darfur state and close to the Sudan-Chad border.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Two buses carrying employees from a U.S. construction company were attacked west of the Algerian capital Algiers on Sunday, said reports reaching here from Algiers. At least one Algerian driver was killed and another injured in the attack in Bouchaoui, 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Algiers, near a forest on the coast, witnesses were quoted as saying. According to media reports, the attack took place when the two buses were carrying employees of the U.S. company, Brown Root and Condor, to the Sheraton hotel where they were staying on the Algerian coast.
Brown Root and Condor, or BRC, is a joint venture between Halliburton's Brown & Root and Condor Engineering SPA with contracts in Algeria's oil industry.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Not Scrappleface, alas. But an interesting look at the flabby underbelly of our current intel ops. And 'scuse me while I go get my tinfoil hat, d'ya think Google could and would monitor and tinker with search queries originating from Fed IPs?
When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft. Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way -- by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as "Iran and nuclear," three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations.
Policymakers and intelligence officials have always struggled when it comes to deciding how and when to disclose secret information, such as names of Iranians with suspected ties to nuclear weapons. In some internal debates, policymakers win out and intelligence is made public to further political or diplomatic goals. In other cases, such as this one, the intelligence community successfully argues that protecting information outweighs the desires of some to share it with the world.
But that argument can also put the U.S. government in the awkward position of relying, in part, on an Internet search to select targets for international sanctions.
Continued on Page 49
#1
European officials said their governments did not rely on Google searches but came up with nearly identical lists to the one U.S. officials offered.
So Google worked as well as all those highly paid professional (Euro) spooks.
#2
Millions of ethnic minorities and ideological opponents of the Ayatollahs, are more than willing to inform on the Arab wannabes. Intelligence vacuum? Not where you have what the Spooks call "walk-ins."
#4
I'm sure Fred could be convinced to share Thugburg with them. For a reasonable fee, of course.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/11/2006 8:28 Comments ||
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So the CIA does not want to work with a junior State dept guy. Agency fears are probable well founded, just by the nature of this report getting out it shows the state still can't keep its mouth shut. This is not an issue of seams between agencies and the CIA closing the door on our State Dept. The State Dept has a great track record of blowing classified info out into the public sector.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/11/2006 8:39 Comments ||
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#6
I'm still convinced that the most cost-effective way of neutralizing much of Iran's nuclear program is to smuggle some devices into the facilities that quietly sprays enough highly toxic agent to kill everyone inside and make the place totally unusable.
Not only would the facility be ruined, but the vast majority of Iranian nuclear physicists would be killed, a brain drain.
Polonium 210 would be just perfect for that exercise, don't you think?
#11
Couldn't we just send them 100+ lbs of Pelosium?
Sorry, SteveS, that would be considered an attack by weapons of mass disruption. You'd get the entire US sanctioned for that.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/11/2006 13:54 Comments ||
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#12
Bleeding Heart, did your mother never teach you that it's rude to insult your hosts? Obviously you aren't Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian... Would any of Rantburg's Spanish speakers like to help poor Mr. Bleeding Heart understand in his native tongue? His English skills are clearly quite weak, based on the sentence structure and mixture of grammatical formulations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 20:35 Comments ||
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#26
Handy thing, this google.
There were 5 hits for "google is communist," including one from a chap who says that MIT is the center of the communist universe and should be firebombed.
"Google supports terrorism" returned 38 hits.
"Google supports Islam" got 29 hits.
"Google is subversive" also returned 5.
The ever popular "google sucks" and "F*** you, google" returned 37,100 and 5,570 respectively.
RAMESWARAM: The Indian Navy on Sunday seized two more live rockets and accessories near the coast off Rameswaram. This is the second seizure within four days.
Navy personnel recovered the rockets from a boat (RMS 2935) near the second islet well within the Indian waters at 5 a.m. when they were conducting random checks of fishing boats.
Area Commander (South) and Officer-in-Charge, Naval Detachment, Rameswaram, U.C. Barman, told The Hindu that the personnel who intercepted the boat and sought the registration certificate and licence from fishermen, found two wooden boxes with the live rockets.
They were brought to the Naval Detachment at 5.30 a.m. on Sunday.
The fishermen said that they had netted the rockets at the second islet around 11.30 p.m. on Saturday. A Navy party, including intelligence personnel, inspected the spot where the rockets were netted.
The rockets were packed in two wooden boxes, along with cartridges and propellant materials.
The rockets were two-and-half-foot long and half-a-foot wide. The details of their dimension, usages and technical information were found in the paper pasted inside the wooden box.
Mr. Barman said there was not much difference between the rocket seized on Tuesday and Sunday's seized rockets. They could be among the same lot. Though the fishermen pleaded innocence, they would be interrogated.
Ballav Biswal, Executive Officer, Naval Detachment, said a detailed report had already been sent to the Naval State headquarters in Chennai. The details of the rockets particularly the manufacturer and place of manufacture would be known only after proper examination.
Asked whether the rockets were meant for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealem, Mr. Barman said nothing could be ruled out.
Experts at the Naval Armament Depot at Visakapattinam were examining the rocket seized a few days ago. Further details would have to await the team's findings, he added.
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2006 18:12 ||
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#1
Tamils smuggling arms to their friends in Sri Lanka?
Pakistan's appeasement of Taliban sympathisers has resulted in a base in its tribal areas that fighters are using to destabilise Pakistan and Afghanistan, a think-tank says.
Really? People get paid to state the obvious?
It's a think tank ...
So you gotta have a tank and be able to think?
They tried a hot tub, but the fat guys wouldn't fit.
"The Musharraf government has tried first brute force, then appeasement. Both have failed", Samina Ahmed, International Crisis Group's South Asia project director, says. The ICG has suggested in a report published on Monday that instead of appeasing fighters, Pakistan must impose the rule of law in its semi-autonomous tribal lands on the border, where Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathisers have sheltered since 2001, disarm the fighters and shut their training camps. "Islamabad's tactics have only emboldened the pro-Taliban militants," Ahmed said.
The government, which made deals with pro-Taliban groups in 2004 and 2006 in South and North Waziristan respectively, has released militants, returned their weapons and agreed to let foreign terrorists stay on a promise to give up violence, the report says.
"Pretty please?"
The ICG states that this has simply given pro-Taliban elements licence to recruit and arm, resulting in a serious increase in cross-border attacks against US, Nato and Afghan forces.
We noticed...
Pakistan's seven tribal agencies have never been brought under the writ of any government, including British colonialists who saw the mountainous region as a buffer on the northwestern border of their Indian empire. The region, which was a base for US- and Pakistan-backed Afghan mujahidin fighters in the 1980s, became a refuge for Taliban and al-Qaeda after US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's Taliban rulers in 2001.
According to ICG, Pakistan, a major US ally in the war on terror, launched "badly planned and poorly conducted" military operations in 2004 to deny al-Qaeda fighters sanctuary and stem attacks into Afghanistan. After clashes in which hundreds of Pakistani troops were killed, Pakistani authorities forged pacts aimed at ending attacks on Pakistani forces and raids into Afghanistan. The pacts, however, served only to strengthen tribal fighters, and "pro-Taliban elements now have a free hand to recruit, train and arm, said the report.
"The militants now hold sway in South and North Waziristan Agencies and have begun to expand their influence not just in other tribal agencies such as Khyber and Bajaur but also in NWFP's settled districts," it said, referring to North West Frontier Province.
Cancer is like that..
The seven tribal districts, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), are ruled by repressive colonial-era administrative and judicial systems inherited from Britain, the think-tank said. The ICG says the US and EU must tie their support for Musharraf to political reform. "The state's failure to extend its control over and provide good governance to its citizens in FATA is equally responsible for empowering the radicals." The area has to be integrated into Pakistan's system of provincial governments and its inhabitants given political rights. Broad-based development also has to be generated, the ICG report says.
The Pakistan government has defended the pacts saying they were struck with tribal elders and are aimed at reinvigorating tribal power structures and isolating the tribal fighters. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has spoken about the need for reform in the tribal areas and the need to promote development.
ICG further stated that the US and EU need to tie economic and diplomatic support to Musharraf to reform and free, democratic elections in 2007.
They have a free, democratic election in Pakiland, they'll vote in the hardline jihadis, and that'll be the last free, democratic election.
"The US and Europe need to realise that democratic, civilian government, not military rule, is their best and natural ally against extremism and terrorism", Robert Templer, ICG's Asia director, said.
Ahmed said: "These border areas are still run under colonial-era laws that make their people second-class citizens in Pakistan. Unless the government institutes real democratic change, extremism and terrorism will quickly overtake the entire region".
Posted by: Steve ||
12/11/2006 12:17 ||
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#1
I will never understand why we don't level that whole area. We have taken our lumps wrt world opinion on Iraq, but don't we still have moral authority pursuing Al Qaeda? Are we afraid to destabilize the oh so stable Pakistan?
#2
The biggest problem is that we still haven't proven to these gasbags that we're really the baddest of the bad. We need to run ARCLIGHT strikes down through the Tribal Agencies every day for a month, then ask whoever survives if they want to continue to support the Taliban. Bomb from southwest of Quetta to northeast of Peshawar. PROVE to the Taliban that we can be the most heartless bas$$$$s on the globe if we have to be. Give them three days to surrender after the bombing stops. If there's no surrender, expand the strike zone to include all of Pakistan, and don't put a final time limit on the bombing.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/11/2006 14:46 Comments ||
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#3
we still haven't proven to these gasbags that we're really the baddest of the bad
#4
The policy makers at the state department value Pakistan's geo-strategic utility (ally with a voice in the muslim world, keeping it from embracing China too closely, as a counterweight to India) more than they do the war on terror itself.
As long as they do that calculus, Pak is safe.
Recall that they knew all about the AQ Khan network and preferred to let pak go nuclear rather than rein it in.
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2006 15:47 Comments ||
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#5
"After clashes in which hundreds of Pakistani troops were killed, Pakistani authorities forged pacts aimed at ending attacks on Pakistani forces.."
But it's the Americans who can't stomach a fight.
Give the area, independence. Then we can bomb it everyday of it's existence. Give it back to the Paks when we are done. Never mind, the dems are in control.
#6
what OP, john, UB, plainslow, and Shipman said..
"A man with a salad fork who wants to see the color of your insides is going to win nine out of ten over the guy with the .45, the M-16, the Abrams tank, the F-22 fighter, the Aegis cruiser and the W-80 nuclear warhead, but who can't stand the sight of blood."
(Xinhua) -- Militants attacked a crowded passenger train Sunday afternoon in central Indian state Jharkhand, said the local police. A group of militants hijacked the passenger train with about 1,000 people on board when the train, from Jamshedpur in Singhboohm district of Jharkhand, was traveling in the dense forest near the border with neighboring state West Bengal, Shailendra Warnwal, deputy superintendent of Police of Singhboohm, told Xinhua.
The militants looted four rifles from the policemen on the train and left and all passengers were safe, he said. Eyewitnesses said the militants stayed on the train for more than half an hour. This is the third incident of train hijacking in the last few months in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The only time my two boys dress up reasonably decently is just before we go to Church on Sundays. It is on those days that my wife decides to take photos.
The "gentleman" in the photo displays the same attitude that they do when getting their photos taken.
#5
They were CPI(M) - Communist Party of India (Maoist) cadres
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2006 14:47 Comments ||
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#6
An armed citizenry is the cure to brazen banditry. If you know you won't be facing any guns, it's easy to rob others. If you knew the minute you stepped on board that train that as many as one-third of the passengers were packing heat, you'd be far less likely to play bad man.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/11/2006 14:48 Comments ||
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At least four and as many as 25 people were killed and four houses demolished in an armed clash between two rival groups of Khyber Agency on Sunday. One of the groups, Lashkar-e-Islami, claimed to have killed several people from the rival Ansarul Islam group. The Lashkar said it had also destroyed the house of Ansarul Islam leader Maulana Mastameen. Mastameen said that his house had been destroyed, but denied that his group had suffered any casualties. We retaliated successfully and killed four of the attackers, he said, adding that his group also held a rival hostage. He said that his group had demolished the houses of three people from the Lashkar-e-Islami. The fighting reportedly took place in Kamarkhel, housing an army camp, close to the Pakistan-Afghan border.
SANA adds: A government official said on condition of anonymity that at least 25 people had been killed in the clash. He said that he could not give the exact death toll because it was difficult to access the area because of heavy snowfall. Firing started between the two groups on Saturday when one of them opened fired at the security pickets of the other. The gunbattle was continuing till Sunday evening. Local sources said that several people had been killed from both groups. The local political administration and the FATA Secretariat refused to comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Next up: The Yanomamo acquire nuclear weapons and decide to mix-and-match atomic tribal warfare with hallucinogenic ebene snuff. Progressives everywhere are horrified as tropical rain forest becomes collateral damage and America's strategic Jamba Juice reserves are compromised.
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - Insurgents observed emplacing an improvised explosive device were killed Friday in Saqlawiyah, west of Baghdad.
Three insurgents were killed and two vehicles were destroyed when Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 observed insurgents emplacing an improvised explosive device beneath a tractor trailer and a large Bongo truck. The Marines engaged the insurgents with small-arms fire and destroyed the vehicles with air delivered precision-guided munitions, which triggered multiple secondary explosions.
Sniff, I love a happy ending
There were no reports of civilian casualties. No casualties or damage to Coalition Forces were reported.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/11/2006 06:35 ||
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#1
And just down the road, more of the same:
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq-- Coalition forces observed insurgents detonating an improvised explosive device Saturday night in Ramadi.
Coalition forces engaged the enemy with aircraft gunfire and a precision guided munition. The strikes killed two insurgents and wounded two other insurgents.
There were no reports of civilian casualties and no coalition casualties.
While conducting a series of cordon and knocks ... I guess that's more PC than "Search and Destroy".
... throughout Baqubah Friday, Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 5th Iraqi Army, with support from 1-12 Combined Arms Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, discovered an improvised explosive device factory inside a house. The factory contained more than five rocket-propelled grenades, small arms munitions, 1,000 pounds of fertilizer, blasting caps and timers, fuel containers, several hundred feet of detonation cord, two compressed air tank IEDs ... that's a new one AFAIK
... and other IED-making materials. "It is believed that the IED factory used by the terrorists was intended for attacks on Iraqi Security Forces and local citizens based on its proximity to other recent attacks in the area," said Col. David W. Sutherland, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division commander and senior U.S. Army officer in the Diyala province. "The terrorists are using these materials to kill those that desire a safe and secure Iraq. Their goals have no political, economic or religious objectives - only death," Sutherland added. Upon discovery, the unit requested support from a coalition forces explosive ordinance disposal unit. The EOD unit determined the material was too unstable to move and conducted a controlled detonation on site.
Before the controlled detonation, the Iraqi Army soldiers, with support from Coalition Forces, went door to door to ensure the community was informed about the IED factory and cleared from their homes.
"The 5th Iraqi Army Division conducted and led this operation in a very deliberate manner focused on substantiated intelligence on specific targets," Sutherland said. "Their individual performance was respectful to the people in the area and their collective performance is showing improvements in their abilities as a professional security force."
The cordon and knocks were conducted as part of a continuous operation focused on targeting suspected terrorists responsible for kidnapping, murder and IED placement.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/11/2006 06:28 ||
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#1
All sorts of good IED news this morning to compensate for the tragic loss of several more of our soldiers to these bastards this weekend.
#2
Upon discovery, the unit requested support from a coalition forces explosive ordinance disposal unit. The EOD unit determined the material was too unstable to move and conducted a controlled detonation on site.
Blew up the house, did they? Good.
Arrest the dude who comes in demanding reparations...
Posted by: ed ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Eighty percent of Baghdad is mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods. Pacification without domination, is impossible. Shiites in the Iraq parliament, openly supported Hezbollah terrorists in the Israeli intervention in Lebanon. The US has had good relations with Sunni majority states and secular controllers of Shiites (Monarchial Iran), but never with a Shiite majority state. Iraq Shiites are only using the Coalition, to prep for total domination and integration with Iran's Ayatollahs.
#3
And the sunnis, SS, have been supportive of the "insurgency", being resentful of having been knocked off of the top-dog spot in Iraq. Saddam served them well, and they're pissed that they can't command the first and the best of the goodies. So they tacitly support the "insurgency", looking the other way when IEDs are emplanted or mortars fired. Seems to me they're reaping what they sow, but even speaking of that sort of karma gives some people the hives.
There isn't a civil war: what we have are people getting even: a trait that Islam, as a religion, refuses to condemn.
Some good news in here once you get past the hand wringing.
RAMADI, Iraq -- The soldiers swallow diet pills and slurp can after can of Red Bull, fighting to stay awake as they peer from armored Humvees into the pre-dawn darkness. Twangy country music pours from some vehicle sound systems, angry rap from others.
Every few minutes, an explosion is heard, but it's only the Marines blowing down doors as they storm from house to house, searching for sniper rifles, bomb-making materials and suspected insurgents.
"Operation Squeeze Play" is proving easier than expected considering this 20-block section of southeastern Ramadi _ known as "Second Officer's District" because it's home to so many former leaders of Saddam Hussein's army _ was not so long ago a no-go zone for U.S. troops.
"You used to look at a map and it'd be like the Columbus-era, 'South of here lies dragons,' because nobody ever went there," said Capt. Jon Paul Hart, assistant operations officer for the Army's 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment. "All we knew was that it was really bad, really dangerous."
Ramadi, the capital of the western, overwhelming Sunni Arab province of al-Anbar, has seen some of the bloodiest street battles of the war. Sunni insurgents remain well-entrenched here and continue to move freely through parts of downtown where Americans often dare not set foot.
At least 26 people were killed on Sunday in Iraq, including nine Shias in sectarian attacks on two Baghdad families, a security official said. Also, police found the bodies of 60 more apparent victims of sectarian killings gripping the capital.
In the attack on the families, gunmen broke into a home in the southwestern Jihad neighbourhood and killed five Shias brothers, one of them a policeman, after separating them from their sisters, the official said. The women were unharmed.
In another similar attack, gunmen entered a house of another Shia family in the same area and killed a man and his three sons. Both were Shia families, the official said, suggesting the attack was sectarian in nature and carried out by Sunni extremists. The two families were unrelated, the official added, and it was not known whether the gunmen were from the same group.
Five people were killed and six wounded in clashes between Shia militiamen and members of the Sunni Janabat tribe in the nearby Al-Amil neighbourhood on Sunday. The official added that the area had now been secured by Iraqi police.
Southwestern Baghdad is a mixture of affluent Sunnis, poor Shias and then farther to the south, Sunni tribesmen resulting in constant clashes between Sunni and Shia gunmen.
In the restive province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, nine people were killed on Sunday, police said. Seven of those, including a policeman, were shot in a series of attacks in the provincial capital of Baquba, while in Abu Saida gunmen killed two children. Five other people, three of them children, were wounded in the Abu Saida attack, police said, adding that they were all in the same car.
Police Colonel Yarub Khazal from the security team of former deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi was shot dead by gunmen as he was driving his car in west Baghdads Yarmuk neighbourhood, the security official added. In the same area a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed, wounding three soldiers.
In the central city of Tikrit police said gunmen shot dead a security guard from a local hospital while he was on his way to work, while in the northern oil city of Kirkuk gunmen shot dead a barber.
The US military said joint US and Iraqi forces launched an operation in Baghdads restive northern Sunni district of Adhamiyah on Sunday to try to reduce sectarian violence and insurgency activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
In an almost refreshing change of pace, this news:
--Robbers disguised as Iraqi soldiers rob bank truck in Baghdad.
Note the Beeb headline doesn't say Paleo gunmen shoot three children. That would mean they are 'insurgents', causing way too much cognitive dissonance.
Gunmen outside a school in Gaza City have shot dead the three children of a Palestinian intelligence chief linked to the Fatah party. One adult was also killed in the attack, which took place in a street crowded with children. The children's father was named as Baha Balousheh, said to have led a crackdown on the Hamas movement 10 years ago. Anyone notice the resemblence of the Paleos to the average organized crime syndicate? Killing the children of a rival. How brave. How noble. Rat bastards.
Monday's attack took place as children were arriving at a street lined with several schools in Gaza City's Rimal district. The gunmen fired dozens of bullets at the vehicle in which Mr Balousheh's children were travelling. The adult killed in the attack is said to be their driver. According to the Associated Press news agency, the attack left the vehicle with at least 30 bullet holes, covering its seats and a school bag with blood.
Fatah supporters gathered in the streets vowing revenge for the attack. "We shall have Dire Revenge!"
#1
very nice. The Paleos return to their old habits of targetting and killing children. This time it's their own. Before, it was just Jooooos. Do the EU/HRW/AI/assorted Paleo apologists have any rationalizations? Or will they sweep this into the MSM/Memory black hole?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2006 6:46 Comments ||
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#2
Damn. The Mafia at least left the little kids alone.
#3
Shit, the Mafia sent a lot of neighborhood kids to college. Kept the families bought and paid for, but at least there was something in it for them. What's in it for Paleos?
#6
I see. Microbiology and genetic research, eh? Would it be cynical of me to wonder if Kamal is interested in the exciting field of bioweapons engineering?
Also, please note how the headline leaves plenty of room for people to assume that these kids were snuffed by Israeli troops. Perish the thought that such a heinous crime be attributed to the media's Palestinian darlings.
Security officials say a wanted terror suspect arrested in Bethlehem on Sunday is implicated in the killing of three Israel Defense Forces soldiers. Khaled Salhat, a Fatah operative, was arrested in a joint operation by the police, Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces. Salhat was involved in the killing of an IDF soldier in a shooting attack on October 2, 2000, near Bethlehem. On October 17, 2000, he orchestrated a shooting attack on Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. A Border Police officer was critically injured in the attack. On November 1, 2000, he carried out a shooting attack near Bethlehem in which an IDF officer and soldier were killed and three others were injured. Security forces thwarted a kidnapping attack that targeted an IDF officer. Salhat was the main suspect in the incident. Salhat has been remanded for interrogation.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Unknown Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Sunday afternoon at Interior Minister Said Siyam's motorcade, causing no injuries, Palestinian officials said. Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal dismissed the shooting as a random attack and denied that the target was Siyam. The men, driving in a nearby car, apparently shot at a car in the motorcade, but not at the vehicle carrying Siyam, he said.
The incident marks yet another escalation in the tense relations between Fatah and Hamas; Palestinian security officials are continuing to protest over unpaid salaries for the second consecutive day. Hamas blames Fatah for being the driving force behind the protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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COTABATO, Philippines - Three heavily armed men raided the provincial prison in this southern Philippine town, liberating an inmate jailed for the bombing of the city airport, police said.
One jail guard was wounded in the gunbattle when the three men, dressed like soldiers and carrying assault rifles, swooped down on the jail, freeing Badrudin Dalungan, a suspected Muslim extremist who was being held for the 2003 bombing of the Cotabato airport. It was one of a series of bombings that racked the southern Philippines and which were seen as attempts to divert the governments attention from its offensive against guerrillas of the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Dalungan and the men who freed him are believed to be a member of a special urban operations squad of the MILF, said city police chief Superintendent Peraco Macacuja. However MILF spokesmen have never admitted Dalungan was a member of the group. "Lies! All lies!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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I need a coffeee i was sure that said, 'special turban operations squad of the MILF.'
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said on Sunday that al-Qaeda-affiliated militants had plotted to disrupt the 12th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cebu. Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesperson, told the Inquirer by phone that their field commanders monitored the plot, which was hatched by militants active in Mindanao.
The ASEAN meet was moved to January next year because of threats from Typhoon Seniang (international code name: Utor) and not because of terror threats, according to Malacañang. But the day before organizers announced the postponement of the Summit, the United States, Britain, Australia and Japan warned of imminent terror attacks in Cebu.
Kabalu said the intelligence reports filed by MILF field commanders were not verified but said it was good the summit had been moved to another date so that security could be further tightened. "It was difficult to verify the threat but we monitored it," he said.
Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), admitted that militants identified with the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya, who are operating in the region, remained capable of launching attacks outside Mindanao. The Abu Sayyaf and the JI could easily hire somebody to carry out the attacks for them," he said.
But he said the ARMM police had not monitored any plot to disrupt the ASEAN Summit. "We have not monitored reports about terror threats to the ASEAN summit. We have direct contacts with the MILF and those with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)," Goltiao said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Cebu is a wonderful coastal city with great diving and hotels. Unfortunately half the city is infested with NPA and the other is infested with MILF/ASG. The ferry bombing originated from Cebu and it took a while to figure out if the Abu Sayyaff did it or the NPA did it to make them look bad. Hosting the ASEAN summit there is a dumb idea, but not surprising.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/11/2006 8:54 Comments ||
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#2
This headline is misleading. When I saw "MILF Bares" my mind thought the story was about some sexy 30-something actress posing in Playboy. Let's see more of that.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/11/2006 13:17 Comments ||
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#3
MILF is trying to position itself as the "responsible Muslim alternative" in the PI. That is why they are ratting out the Al-Q boyz. Also, MILF does NOT want the formal US Known Terrorist Organization designation put on it, they have been pushing the idea that they are an insurgent group and not terrorists.
#4
On the surface you are correct Shieldwolf. But like most everything in Asia the surface is just good face. The MILF wants no part of being on the list, it will end the million of USAID and World Bank dollars filtering into the MILF in the form of seaweed farm grants and other free dollars that filter back to the MILF. The arms to farms programs are nothing more than a retirement plan for the MILF. Ask USAID how many of the MILF farmers that got grants are over 30 years old, the answer is none. The retired MILF fighters then send parts of their earnings to the MILF in support.
All the while the MILF scream AQ and the ASG are not being supported by them. This is crap. the ASG are given safe passage by the MILF as are the AQ. The ASG and AQ, actually JI, are proteted by the MILF as evident by the MILF providing sanctuary and movement for the ASG when they held the Burnhams. The AQ/JI camps are all in MILF territory.
Last but not least. The MILF do give up a token member now and again in an effort to gain good press. They allow a mule to be part of a operation and later let them get arrested. They know nothing of the inner workings of the MILF, JI, or ASG. Key leaders are never caught or turned in. Kaddafi Janjalani or Hapilon are still at large and protected by the MILF. If the MILF were legit about their wanting a Moro homeland and they want the US and the world to take the ARMM serious they would hand over KJ and Hapilon.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/11/2006 21:45 Comments ||
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Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has come under attack for his views on the Holocaust from an unexpected quarter - a Palestinian activist recently freed after 18 years in an Israeli jail.
A two-day conference on the Holocaust, starting in Tehran tomorrow, has attracted considerable suspicion abroad. The Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is running the event, says 67 international researchers will attend, including some from Britain and Germany. Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned on the eve of the conference by Mahmoud al-Safadi, who was sentenced to 27 years by Israel for throwing Molotov cocktails during the 1988 intifada. In an open letter to the Iranian president, he says that Mr Ahmadinejad's stance is a "great disservice to popular struggles the world over".
"Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians," he writes. "Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.
"Our success and our independence will not be gained by denying the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people, even if parts of this people are the very forces that occupy and dispossess us to this day."
Mr Safadi says that reading the works of Arab intellectuals helped convince him that the Holocaust was a historical fact.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
The Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is running the event, says 67 international researchers will attend, including some from Britain and Germany.
Hmm, I'd have thought the French would have been in attendance as well.
I am coming more and more to the personal feeling that people who deny the Holocaust should be gut-shot. Those who think that they can support the Jews, but not Zionists, are cowards who wish for the Jews to be easy targets who can't shoot back.
A standard answer to those people who say "I am not antisemitic just antizionist" is ask them why they seem not care about ANYTHING else but Israel. Why not about say Soudan? There are more than 200 two hundred more Blacks killed in Soudan but none of our "anbtizionists" care baout them? Why? Because theyt are untermenschen to our libs or because they aren't "interesting" because contrarily to teh Palestoinins they don't plan to exterminate the Jews.
After WWII it became very politically incorrect to be antisemitic but by feigning to be moved by the "plight" of the Palestinians it became possible again to be antisemitic. More than that: to secretly aspire to Jewish extermination, except that this time it would not be directly at the hands of the Europeans but of the Arabs.
It is significative that the first terrorist group to ally itself with teh Paleos was the German Baasder Meinhoff: feigning to believe the crap about Jewish opressing the Palestinans allowed those descendants of Nazi voters to get rid of any feeling of guiltiness.
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.
At least four civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike in Laghman province while six militiamen were killed in a remote-controlled explosion in Paktia province. Separately, two NATO soldiers were injured in a clash with the Taliban in Mizan district in Zabul province. The civilians were killed on Saturday in an airstrike that was part of a "mid-scale" operation against militants in Laghman province, local police chief Abdul Karim Omeryar said. In another incident, a remote-controlled bomb killed six militiamen fighting Taliban rebels in Paktia.
(Xinhua) -- Two buses carrying employees from a U.S. construction company were attacked west of the Algerian capital Algiers on Sunday, said reports reaching here from Algiers. At least one Algerian driver was killed and another injured in the attack in Bouchaoui, 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Algiers, near a forest on the coast, witnesses were quoted as saying. According to media reports, the attack took place when the two buses were carrying employees of the U.S. company, Brown Root and Condor, to the Sheraton hotel where they were staying on the Algerian coast. 
When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft. Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way -- by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as "Iran and nuclear," three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations.
(Xinhua) -- Militants attacked a crowded passenger train Sunday afternoon in central Indian state Jharkhand, said the local police. A group of militants hijacked the passenger train with about 1,000 people on board when the train, from Jamshedpur in Singhboohm district of Jharkhand, was traveling in the dense forest near the border with neighboring state West Bengal, Shailendra Warnwal, deputy superintendent of Police of Singhboohm, told Xinhua. 
At least four and as many as 25 people were killed and four houses demolished in an armed clash between two rival groups of Khyber Agency on Sunday. One of the groups, 
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - Insurgents observed emplacing an improvised explosive device were killed Friday in Saqlawiyah, west of Baghdad. 
Security officials say a wanted terror suspect arrested in Bethlehem on Sunday is implicated in the killing of three Israel Defense Forces soldiers. 
officials said. Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal dismissed the shooting as a random attack and denied that the target was Siyam. The men, driving in a nearby car, apparently shot at a car in the motorcade, but not at the vehicle carrying Siyam, he said. 
"Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians," he writes. "Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.
