This isn't a problem. It shows how reasonable we and Karzai are, and it's a no-brainer because Blinky will never accept.
The US administration found itself in an awkward position on Monday after Afghanistan's offer of peace talks with Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader long seen by Washington as an arch-enemy.
US officials spoke cautiously when asked about a possible negotiation with one of the most wanted men in the world, a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai's offer of reconciliation.
Backing Karzai's proposal would mark an about-face for President George W. Bush's administration, with the Pentagon last month ruling out any reconciliation with a man who has "the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands."
But explicitly rejecting such a move would put the US government at odds with one of its staunch allies, Karzai, at a moment when Afghanistan faces mounting violence.
"We support Hamid Karzai," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, when asked if the administration endorsed Karzai's offer. "What we have seen from the Taliban, however, and from Mullah Omar -- who we haven't heard from in some time -- is an unwillingness to renounce violence."
Karzai said on Sunday he would go to "any length" to protect Omar if the Taliban leader agreed to peace talks, and was willing to risk a rift with his international partners.
The Afghan president has for years pushed for peace talks with the Taliban as a way out of a deadly insurgency in which foreign militants, including those from Al-Qaeda, are said to be playing a part. However he has always insisted that his government would only consider talks with "Afghan Taliban" who do not have ties with Al-Qaeda and agree to lay down their weapons and accept the post-Taliban constitution.
Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question of Omar but said that the time would come to hold talks with elements of the Taliban who were willing to reconcile. But the time was not yet right, he said.
Good cop, bad cop ...
Mullen said the same approach was used successfully in Iraq and in counter-insurgency efforts elsewhere, saying that it was "very realistic" to pursue talks with insurgents in Afghanistan.
At the White House, Perino said US officials "are skeptical about what the Taliban's ultimate intentions are." "But we recognize that, at some point, there might be some Taliban that are willing to reconcile and to renounce violence and to be productive members of the Afghanistan society."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said "it's hard to imagine" any circumstances under which US forces would offer safe passage to senior Taliban leaders.
The Afghan president told reporters he would offer protection to the Taliban leader even if it meant defying Afghanistan's international partners, who could remove him from his job or leave the country in disagreement. "If I hear from him that he is willing to come to Afghanistan or to negotiate for peace ... I, as the president of Afghanistan, will go to any length to provide protection," Karzai said. "If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices -- remove me or leave if they disagree," he said.
The Taliban, driven from government in a US-led invasion for sheltering Al-Qaeda after the September 2001 attacks, have said they would only agree to negotiations if international troops helping the government pull out.
But Karzai reiterated Sunday that his government would accept no preconditions from the group.
Saudi Arabia confirmed last month that it had been sponsoring talks between the Afghan government and representatives of the Taliban at the request of Karzai in a bid to restore stability but indicated further talks may be difficult.
Omar, who has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, headed the 1996-2001 Taliban regime that sheltered Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and his followers.
#6
Yes, it is clearly time to go. We are dealing with a tribal/strongman society that very very unlikely to ever resemble a modern nation-state with a stable central government. I don't like giving the Talibs/Al Q any type of moral victory, but no one else is stepping up to the plate and helping us out and we can't keep doing this alone...either in blood or treasure. So I say screw em and if there is even a hint of hanky panky from either Afghanistan or FATA, call in OP's B-52's and bounce the rubble.
#7
TOPIX/MIL FORUMS > OBAMA: BIN LADEN HUNT, END TO THREAT OF 2009 NEW TERROR ATTACK AGZ USA WILL BE TOP ON HIS WHITE HOUSE AGENDA [post Jan.2009 POTUS swear-in].
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > CHINA WILL HELP MALAYSIA BECOME A MAJOR ISLAMIC [and World] FINANCIAL CENTER + CHINA WILL SEND NUCLEAR-ARMED PLA COMBAT FORCES, WARSHIPS TO NATIONS IN SE ASIA THREATENED BY ISLAMIST MILITANCY [ destabilization and breakup/protection of Chin citizens = ethnics].
#8
Guess we know why DUBYA reportedly OBAMA that PAKISTAN will be Amer's real strategic challenge.
PAKISTAN = NOTSOMUCH PAKIS PER SE, BUT IS SYMBOLIC OF ASIAN "STATUS QUO" = HISTORICAL, POST-COLD WAR, AND FUTURE ASIAN ORDER AS THREATENED BY RADICAL ISLAM, including but not limited to PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION, + US-SPECIFIC ROLE IN PAN-ASIAN, POST-WOT NWO AFFAIRS.
A convoy supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan drove through the Khyber Pass yesterday as Pakistan reopened the crossing for the first time since militants hijacked and looted 13 lorries last week. About 50 vehicles carrying oil, food and military hardware made its way to the frontier from the northwestern city of Peshawar, escorted by 100 Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries in vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns. The escorts had orders to shoot on sight.
Helicopter gunships patrolled overhead and 100 security personnel were deployed along the route through Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, where armed forces are fighting al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.
Another 450 lorries were stranded in Peshawar, where they have been waiting since last week, as Pakistani authorities reviewed security on the road to Afghanistan. We're happy about the armed escort, but we have to get the other trucks moving, Shakirullah Afridi, the head of the PakAfghan Goods Transport Association, told The Times. People are losing money.
Nato and US forces in landlocked Afghanistan have to import about 70 per cent of military and civilian supplies through Pakistan - one of the reasons it is a key ally in the War on Terror.
This is why we can't just bitch-slap the Paks ...
After being shipped into the port of Karachi, some supplies are taken by lorry through the Chaman border post between the Pakistani province of Baluchistan and southern Afghanistan. Because of the strong Taleban presence in southern Afghanistan, most supplies are driven across Pakistan, over the Khyber Pass and through the border town of Torkham to Kabul, the Afghan capital. The supply line has come under attack on both sides of the border this year, raising fears that the Taleban are mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and Soviet forces two decades ago.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like bait on wheels to me. Why troll when they can be attracted to the hook.
#2
"... raising fears that the Taleban are mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and Soviet forces two decades ago."
duh ... if this is just "raising fears" in someone's mind, then "someone" needs to head to their playpen, for nap time.
Afghanistan is a no-win situation, and we need to get the f%#k out. Recruit and hire the toughest of the bad guys, pay them well, and have them exercise dictatorship over the rest of the Afghans. Tell them that if any hint emerges anywhere in the world of a violent act that traces back to Afghanistan, we will cut off all payments, obliterate all the poppy fields, saturate all mountain passes with scatterable mines, destroy all telecom and air transport links in and out of the country - and leave them to go back to the stone age.
There is nothing more ludicrous that placing precious military forces into a landlocked, remote, isolated mountain environment - in winter - in an extreme part of the world - and try to sustain them indefinitely, while they chase locals around the mountainsides. There is nothing worth protecting in the entire country.
Or - create the walled city of Kabul - surrounding by a moat, and then a one km wide sanitized area, level as a billiard table, devoid of vegetation, covered by miniguns. Strip search everyone entering or leaving. Call that city Afghanistan - and the rest of the country a tribal area. Cut the tribal area off from everything.
The entire US Armed Forces combined - all on the ground in Afghanistan at the same time - couldn't convert it into a permanently changed place. The bad guys live according to stone age time schedules - they can last five years, ten years, a hundred years - they have nowhere else to go, no big ambitions, and treat fighting - among themselves, or against outsiders - as routine sport and entertainment. What our troops see as a wasteland shit-hole - they see as as "the neighborhood".
#3
Sounds like the ISI just wanted the Taliban resupplied first, and then NATO would get what was left.
Visions of that German train that was designed to be bait for fighter plane attacks jump into my mind as a countermeasure. Everything looked normal until all kinds of guns would pop out of the train and blow away anything that approached from the air.
#4
The entire US Armed Forces combined - all on the ground in Afghanistan at the same time - couldn't convert it into a permanently changed place. The bad guys live according to stone age time schedules - they can last five years, ten years, a hundred years - they have nowhere else to go, no big ambitions, and treat fighting - among themselves, or against outsiders - as routine sport and entertainment. What our troops see as a wasteland shit-hole - they see as as "the neighborhood".
Then push the bad guys out into the margins and give the rest something to protect.
#5
I really don't understand this need for us to do the majority fighting for one side of the continuing Afghan civil war. All we care about is that islamists don't retake power and use it to launch another attack on us. It was shown in 2001 that a few hundred US forces and air power were enough to overthrow islamist rule and install any faction we want. Very little footprint or cost.
Posted by: ed ||
11/18/2008 7:57 Comments ||
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#6
Yeah, we gotta get out of the Nation Building business. We kinda suck at it, but we're hell on wheels in the Nation Breaking dept.
We should stick to what we're good at.
#7
I always wanted to see nation-building in a place like Afghanistan done in the following manner:
1) lay out lots and lots of gravel roads (not paved) in a hexagonal grid across the want-a-be nation.
2) have said grid of gravel roads trickle down to nothing about 10 miles from the border.
3) Do not build highways and other critical infrastructure. A nation with an insurgency should not have critical infrastructure rather self-sufficient distributed nodes.
Why?
i)Old coots are revered elders in remote backwards areas. If the youngsters can drift elsewhere then the old coots are just old coots and not revered elders.
ii) Highway type rectilinear road systems are easy to block. There is one major intersection everywhere that can be blocked to keep the youngsters on the farm (opium plantation?). With a hex grid of gravel roads you can always take a root-mean-square curve from anywhere to anywhere... and to block them in a town you have to mine/invest six intersections.....
iii) a side effect of increased mobility of the young is a sense of nation over tribe and family. This makes a nation out of a jumble of tribes and weakens more old coots powers.
iv) If the roads dribble off before boarders it makes it tougher for neighbors like say Pakiwakiland to have controlling interest in the development of a sense of nationhood. In addition, it makes it a bit harder for them to slip stuff in...
v) While at it .. if the space was Afghanistan ... mine the hell out of the border with Pakistan.
It makes it hard for the ISI to bring Taliban in and hard for heroin smugglers to bring stuff out.
vi) The nice gravel road network of hexs makes it easy to bring troops from the interior to border flashpoints. The increased number of paths to said flashpoints require more mine teams to knock them out so more men and expense for groups like the ISI/Talibunnies.
Oh and only give them decentralized type aid. Local wind generators and such. That way there is no strategic infrastructure to protect. (Powerlines... pipelines etc... ) If they let somebody into a village and they destroy the local decentralized infrastructure - why that community learns a valuable lesson. That being... Don't let people wreck your stuff or you have nothing... so better defend it yourself if it means something to you. With the gravel road system others will quickly hear what happens. Either the communities will get smart or live in the stone age...Darwin at work!
#9
Places like Afghanistan can be easily subdued, but it needs will. Use only mercenary forces with no ROE constraints.
Pay them by the number of testicles lodged after each operation.
As Nixon said "When you've got their balls, their hearts and minds follow"
#10
OK. Go ahead and get out. But arclight the tribal areas in Pakistan first. Arclight 'em good and then make no further aid payments to anyone in Pakistan. Leave them to understand that we can bomb the crap out of them again whenever we feel the need.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/18/2008 12:48 Comments ||
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#12
OP - wouldn't a treatment of BZ gas accomplish essentially the same thing as an Arc Light with no violence and destruction and deaths to upset the squeamish?
#13
No, NS. Abu Uluque is a mock nom de guerre for Ebbang Uluque6305. I came up with it when I was posting from a different computer that didn't have the Ebbang cookie. I couldn't remember that whole nym at the time and didn't know what else to do. Hope the mods don't mind too much. Hope OP doesn't mind that I used his term. My understanding is that it means heavy bombing from B-52s. Correct me if I'm wrong. I just think it'd be a good idea, if we're gonna pull out of Afghanistan, to take a few parting shots in hopes of getting lucky and actually hitting OBL. You never know when you might get lucky.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/18/2008 16:13 Comments ||
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#14
Just kidding, Abu.
You're right about the ARCLIGHT definition, but I think you are both wrong about its value in this situation. If we had any idea where Binny is, he'd have a Hellfire up his butt with a much higher kill probability than with an ARCLIGHT.
That's why we'll probably never see one again. They're great against massed forces, but a great reason not to mass forces. The effect on troops subjected to the bombardment was truly devastating. I often wonder which was worse, ARCLIGHT or a WWI artillery bombardment.
#15
Even I picked up that Abu Uluque and Ebban Uluque are the same person, and Nimble Spemble is ever so much cleverer about such things than I, dear X Uluque. After all, I never twigged that NS = Rantburg's beloved Mrs. Davis -- he had to actually tell me, in words of less than one syllable.
Oh, and pop over to the O Club. We apparently have to have a drink any time Arc lights or Q ships are mentioned. ;-)
#16
Whoops! I almost forgot the comment I intended to make: I heard an interview on NPR today, a recently retired US lieutenant colonel, who said the Afghan army is up to 70,000 troops currently fighting alongside the internationals, and hopes to double that. He stated in no uncertain terms that we are capable of doing in Afghanistan what we did in Iraq via the Surge, and practically begged us not to prevent that from happening by bringing the troops home too soon.
OK, I made it about two seconds before I started to snicker.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister condemned the "outrageous" hijacking of a Saudi oil supertanker by Somali pirates and said Tuesday that his nation would join the international effort to eradicate piracy.
The MV Sirius Star was seized Saturday far off the Kenyan coast and was being taken to the Somali port of Eyl, one of the African country's main pirate ports.
In the Saudi government's first public comments on the attack, Prince Saud Al-Faisal said piracy is a complex problem that requires an international response. "This outrageous act by the pirates, I think, will only reinforce the resolve of the countries of the Red Sea and internationally to fight piracy," he said during a visit to Athens. "Piracy is against everybody. Like terrorism it is a disease that has to be eradicated."
The tanker's owner says the ship is fully loaded with crude -- a cargo worth about $100 million. Its owners say the ship's 25 crew members are safe.
Saud said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have been registered this year. "This is an initiative in which we are going to join and so are many other countries of the Red Sea," Saud said. He did not elaborate.
Let's see the vaunted Saoodi Navy in action ...
A NATO flotilla of seven ships -- destroyers from the U.S. and Italy, frigates from Germany, Greece, Turkey and Britain -- and a Russian missile frigate are already fighting piracy around Somalia. NATO, however, says its priority is escorting World Food Program ships that deliver basic rations for 3 million hungry Somalis.
India says it is sending warships to the area, and South Korea is considering dispatching vessels.
Posted by: ed ||
11/18/2008 12:36 Comments ||
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#8
How did those pirates get onto the tanker in the first place? It's not like you can step off of the skiff to the deck. Sounds like someone in the crew may be getting a share.
The revelation of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh's (JMB) explosives cache sends a chill down the investigators' spine that the outlawed militant outfit has developed expertise to manufacture powerful grenades and explosives using materials available in the local market.
Some investigators say they were stunned to see JMB could produce such explosives again even in the heart of the country and without smuggling in materials from abroad. "We had information regarding JMB regrouping and recruitment moves through dawat [invitation] activities. But after the latest operation, we learned they have gone further as they stockpiled explosives too," Col Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, Rab additional director general, told The Daily Star yesterday.
During the August 17, 2005 countrywide synchronised bombing, JMB collected from the local market some materials including battery, wire, capacitor, resistor, switch and electric circuit but smuggled in detonators, power gel and other explosives materials from abroad, sources say.
On Saturday, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) seized 70kg of explosives in the capital following information revealed by Hanif, a JMB ehsar (full-time member), arrested the same day in Mirpur. The elite force also recovered 40kg of nitric acid, 150 cases of improvised grenades, a large quantity of bomb-making materials, and over 2,000 Jihad-related books raiding two houses in Mirpur and another house in Shanir Akhra in Dhaka.
Speaking anonymously, a Rab official said a local in Mirpur, being suspicious about the activities of the Mirpur house, gave the information to Rab.
Momtazur Rahman, a deputy director of Rab Bomb Squad, said the seized explosives are a bit less powerful than TNT (trinitrotoluene). "If TNT's devastation capacity is measured at 1, JMB's explosives would be 0.8," he added.
Admitting their failure to obtain information regarding JMB's specific targets, another Rab official seeking anonymity said the outfit was preparing for fresh attacks.
Officials involved in the Rab operation said Hanif claimed during Rab interrogation that he did not know where the explosives would be used as the outfit works very covertly. A Rab official said they came to know primarily that Hanif got involved with JMB one and a half years ago and was working with its 'dawat' wing. But he was placed on JMB's military wing at least 15 days before his arrest.
Primary painful interrogation reveals that one Shahid trained Hanif on manufacturing explosives and two others were involved in manufacturing grenades, said a Rab official. He added they have information that JMB's explosive expert 'Boma' Mizan, absconding since the blasts in 2005, was in India but recently returned to the country.
Col Gulzar said they may know the plans behind storing explosives if they can arrest Mizan, Mawlana Sayeed and Sayem (names disclosed by Hanif) and JMB's incumbent chief Saidur Rahman.
A Rab official who took part in Saturday's operation said Saidur narrowly escaped arrest during the raid in Mirpur. Saidur is leading the outfit as its ameer since execution of its former ameer Abdur Rahman and infamous Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, says a source.
The Rab officials said it was beyond their imagination that JMB was collecting explosives in rented houses in the capital, exactly what they did earlier before the 2005 blasts.
Col Gulzar said they have formed special cells in all the 12 Rab battalions to prevent militants and the cells have started functioning this month.
A Rab source said the elite force had information that Saidur Rahman held a meeting in Badda in Dhaka after Eid-ul-Fitr. But they got the information a few days after the meeting.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Nitric acid, nitrate fertilizer, ammonia, cotton balls and lots of courage = gun cotton - that stuff's about as stable as Pakistani politics. If you do it right (pressure, temp, flow rates, etc.), you get an explosive that is actually a little MORE powerful than TNT.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/18/2008 11:40 Comments ||
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In his first major post-election interview, with CBS program "60 Minutes," President-elect Barack Obama vowed to pull troops out of Iraq, crush al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and shut down the Guantanamo Bay camp as part of a dramatic foreign policy break with George W. Bush.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
What do you do with the Gitmo inmates when their nations either don't want them, or are likely to torture them to death? I'm not sure Obama has thought it through.
On the bright side as least the media and left will give him a pass on whatever happens.
#3
Are any of these guys really in a position to be a problem anymore? It might be better to either deport them to a place where the natives will take good care of them, like Beslan, or just put them back in Pakistan where they will do something stupid and get killed five minutes after they are released. Or maybe Antarctica. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems they would do more damage to our intelligence collection methods if they were tried in civilian courts than if someone just put a gun in their hands and released them in a kindergarten in their hometowns.
#8
There's a host of things Obama cannot do. This is one he CAN. Rest assured, he'll close GITMO and bask in the headlines. What he'll do with these buggers is anyone's guess.
#12
Obama will release the Gitmo prisoners in Chicago. He'll extract an agreement whereby they must promise to behave and to vote Democrat. Bill Ayers will put up a bunch of them at his house. He'll find they share a common view of the USA.
#13
Send them back to their respective countries. That would be a far worse fate for them than anything we could do. Many have been cleared, but no country will accept them.
#14
"What do you do with the Gitmo inmates when their nations either don't want them, or are likely to torture them to death?"
I'd tell you what I would do with them RJ, but there would be certain whiners here that would lash out. A permanent solution to these scumbags is the only real solution.
#15
send them home whether they want them or not , their citizens their problem and just maybe they will get the justice they deserve
Posted by: chris ||
11/18/2008 10:40 Comments ||
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#16
He'll first have his staff label them as lobbyists in their field of endeavor, then hire them to work his administration on the premise that they won't 'lobby' for 2 years...
#20
We can't send many of them back to their home country because many have death sentences waiting for them there - so say the same leftards who are braying to shut down gitmo.
Way to go NOOBama.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/18/2008 12:46 Comments ||
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#21
Catch and Release, yes Rahm and friends are definately on board!
Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi (b. August 2, 1978 April 26, 2008) was a Kuwaiti citizen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo detainee ID is 220. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports that he was born on August 2, 1978, in Almadi, Kuwait.
On September 2, 2003 attorneys Thomas Wilner, Neil H. Koslowe, Kristine A. Huskey, and Heather Lamberg Kafele filed a Petition for writ of Certiorari on behalf of Al Ajmi and eleven other Guantanamo detainees.
In March of 2008, following his release, Al Ajmi took part in three suicide bomb attacks in Iraq. He was reported to have been killed in one of these or a subsequent bombing. In April 2008 Al Ajmi was reported to have conducted a suicide attack in Iraq
Neil H. Koslowe
Harvard University, Law School, J.D. 1969
Yeshiva University, B.A., 1966, magna cum laude
Militants have over the last 10 days carried out a series of attacks in the northwest against a key airport and military supply route and have killed several tribal chiefs. The attacks may be seen as part of a deliberate bid to prevent the Pakistani military from taking part with NATO in a joint operation to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan's Kunar Valley and in the troubled Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Militants have launched 17 rocket and missile attacks this month against the airport in Peshawar, the main town in North West Frontier Province.
The militants blockaded the key Khyber Pass route for fuel tankers and trucks supplying international forces in Afghanistan. The route re-opened on Monday after the government barred the movement of convoys on safety grounds following the hijacking and looting by militants of 12 trucks and two Humvee armoured vehicles last week.
Militants have in recent days killed several key tribal chiefs in Bajaur who were trying to form pro-government lashkars (militias) to fight against the Taliban, and have abducted several others.
On Tuesday a clash between Taliban militants and pro-government tribal elders left at least five people dead, according to official government sources in Bajaur.
The Pakistani government launched a major offensive against militants in Bajaur three months ago and Pakistani troops and tribal militias are continuing to battle Taliban guerrillas there.
Taliban gunmen exchanged fire with tribal leaders holed up in a fortress-like compound in Bajaur for several hours late on Monday. Suspected Taliban militants are also reported to have killed several tribal elders there the same day.
Taliban militants carried out attacks in the Orakzai tribal area a few weeks ago and forced local tribes to stay neutral and abandon all tribal militia activities against the Taliban instigated by the government.
The government's efforts to sow divisions within the militants' rank and file has also proved ineffective.
Taliban commander Abdul Wali chose to keep out of the conflict but refused to support the Pakistani army against the militants in Bajaur. The various small groups previously working under Wali's command however, backed the militants in Bajaur against the army.
A tribal warlord in the Khyber tribal area bordering Afghanistan, Mangal Bagh, has also made clear to the government that he would rather remain neutral and not take up arms against Taliban militants seeking to hijack NATO convoys in the region and cut off supply routes.
The overwhelming majority of supplies for international forces in Afghanistan are shipped into the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi and cross the border via Balochistan and the Khyber Pass. There are virtually no alternative routes available.
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- Indian police clashed with separatist groups as voters went to the polls in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday. Muslim separatist groups blocked polling stations and shouted anti-election slogans as they protested Indian rule and alleged voter intimidation.
So separatists blocked the polls alleging voter intimidation. Boggle ...
Police dispersed the angry demonstrators with batons in North Kashmir's Bandipore district, one of the areas where the first phase of voting is taking place.
I'm hoping Mukkarjee got the kinks out of his baton swing ...
The state elections began after months of violent protests, both by anti-Indian groups, fearful state elections will firm up Indian control of the Muslim majority state, and by Indian nationalists, fearful that separatist groups will gain control over the Himalayan state.
"We are voting to elect our local representative to take care of our local needs of roads, water and power supply. Our vote cannot resolve the Kashmir problem," said local resident Mohammed Afzal.
Despite the violence, long lines of voters wrapped around polling stations in Bandipore early Monday morning. Forty-four percent of Bandipore district residents voted Monday, according to chief election officer B.R. Sharma. Voter turnout in the seven other constituencies where voting opened without major protests Monday was around 55 percent, Sharma said.
Indian-controlled Kashmir will have a seven-phase polling process leading to a newly elected government by the new year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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The U.S. military has barred Iraqi interpreters working with American troops in Baghdad from wearing ski masks to disguise themselves, prompting some to resign and others to bare their faces even though they fear it could get them killed
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
Maybe trying to lead by example? Might give the population more confidence in the situation if they see that the folks they trust (like the interpreters) are willing to forego the masks?
(AKI) - Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be released at the beginning of December. Olmert made the remarks following a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who he met in Jerusalem to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Gaza Strip.
The prisoner release is seen as a goodwill gesture from Olmert to the moderate Palestinian leader. There was no mention of which prisoners would be released.
A resolution by the European Parliament on the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails said in September that more than 11,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, are being held in Israeli prisons and detention centres. The European Parliament resolution said that most of those detainees were arrested in the Palestinian territories. It noted that the practice of holding Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in jails inside Israel contravenes the Jewish state's obligations under international law and urged it to uphold these.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
olmert is a fool, sorry just personal opinion right as the truce is about too end and Israel is talking tough about going into Gaza again tand giving them 250 more fighters
Posted by: chris ||
11/18/2008 10:37 Comments ||
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Via Gates of Vienna
When Kosovos Albanians celebrated the major Muslim holiday of Bajram, at the end of September, more than a few worshippers were conspicuous for their absence.
A trickle of media articles over the past few months have dealt with the issue of religion in Kosovo from a relatively unreported angle: the curious phenomenon of conversion. Apparently, Albanians in this Muslim-majority statelet have been increasingly returning to the Catholic religion, which their ancestors had forsaken centuries ago. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
11/18/2008 14:25 ||
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TEHRAN (Rooters) - Iran is aiming to commission its first nuclear power plant in 2009 after years of delays, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel under a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran. But the start-up timetable has frequently been put back because of issues such as a row over payments.
Russia agreed to build the plant in 1995 on the site of an earlier project begun in the 1970s by German firm Siemens. The Siemens' project was disrupted by Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"The commissioning stage of Bushehr nuclear power station has begun and we are hopeful the power station will be commissioned in 2009 as per the agreement we have had with the Russian party," the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohsen Delaviz, was quoted a saying. He did not give a more precise date.
"There is a good environment prevailing in our relations with the Russians and we are hoping they will honor their commitments," he added.
Atomstroyexport, the Russian firm building the plant, said in September the plant was nearing completion and that it would start "technological work" in December 2008 to February 2009 that would put the plant on an "irreversible final" course.
Analysts say Russia has used Bushehr as a lever in relations with Tehran. It had previously said it expected the plant to start up some time this year.
#3
I would go for a Thanksgiving Day bombing of the plant. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2008 18:14 Comments ||
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#4
ION IRAN, PAKSIATNI DEFENCE FORUM > MUSHARAFF RESIGNATION > MUSHARAF FACED SERIOUS CHARGES OF PERSONAL COMLICITY IN IRAN NUCLEAR CONNECTION [AQ Khan data includ design/blueprint for Chinese Nuclear Warhead]!?
ROLEX/SEIKO-GATE > Britain's MI6 believes that Tehran-based KALAYE ELETRCIC COMPANY, a noted proclaimed manufacturer of WRISTWATCHES, WAS COVERTLY DEV ADVANCED VERSIONS OF P2 NUCLEAR CENTIFUGES FOR IRAN'S NUCPROGS INCL. FOR NUCWEAPDEV???
IMO, RADICAL ISLAM'S JIHAD CAMPAIGN THRU ASIA IS MORE ABOUT PROCURING "STRATEGIC" NUCLEAR-WMD TECHS, NOT MEDIUM, INTERMEDIATE, ABDOR TACTICAL NUCTECHS AS PER AQ KHAN.
#5
ION NUKULAR, WORLD MIL FORUM > HU JINTAO VISIT TO UNCLE FIDEL/CUBA > US MEDIAS: CHINA COULD DEPLOY NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO CUBA IFF A US-CHINA MILITARY CRISIS ARISES OVER TAIWAN + HU JINTAO: CHINA, CUBA TO INCREASE ECONOMIC, INTELLIGENCE [Listening Posts, INTEL Stations]COOPERATION [+ by extens MILITARY COOPER].
Also from WMF Poster > USA, RUSSIA ARE FINISHED:CHINA'S RISE TO WORLD LEADERSHIP IS INEVITABLE. WORLD MUST RECOGNIZE CHINESE-LED ASIAN AND WORLD ORDER.
(AKI) - Iran will not obstruct Turkey's mediation between the US and Iran, according to an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi. Reacting to remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to a US daily that Turkey was ready to mediate between both countries, Qashqavi said: "We think the comments ... stem from Turkish goodwill and good and growing neighbourly ties between Iran and Turkey, so we will certainly not raise any obstacles."
"But the reality is that the issue and problems between Iran and the United states go beyond the usual political problems between two countries," warned Qashqavi.
Washington has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when university students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini took over the US embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Since that time, the relationship between the two countries remains strained.
United States president-elect Barack Obama has said that direct talks are possible between both countries. However, the administration of outgoing US President George W. Bush has correctly called Iran part of the so-called 'Axis of evil' and has not ruled out military action.
Turkey's offer of mediating between the US and Iran is the latest in a series of diplomatic efforts by Ankara to bring peace to the region. Recently, Turkey has played a key role in mediating four rounds of indirect talks between Israel and Syria since May.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2008 00:00 ||
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NEW YORK (Rooters) - An accused Syrian arms dealer on trial for agreeing to sell weapons to Colombian rebels was driven by greed and was not working with Spanish intelligence as the defense claims, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Monzer al-Kassar, 62, a longtime Spanish resident known as the "prince of Marbella" for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town, is accused of conspiring to sell millions of dollars of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
U.S. prosecutors have called him one of the world's most prolific arms dealers and in closing arguments rejected the defense assertion that Kassar was a legitimate arms merchant who, when dealing with two U.S. informants on the FARC deal in 2007, was instead spying on them for Spanish intelligence.
The defense had made that assertion during the two-week trial at a federal court in Manhattan.
Kassar's motivation was purely financial, prosecutor Boyd Johnson told jurors. "The defendants weren't working for Spanish intelligence on this deal, they were working for themselves," Johnson said.
The U.S. government hired undercover operatives to pose as FARC arms buyers and to videotape negotiations in Spain with Kassar and another defendant, Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, 59. "Monzer al-Kassar and Moreno were obsessed with the money," Johnson said.
Throughout the trial prosecutors played videotapes and showed e-mails and handwritten notes found in Kassar's Marbella home as evidence of the deal. They also showed documents found in Kassar's briefcase when he was arrested at the Madrid airport in June 2007.
Kassar is charged with conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and officers, conspiring to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and providing support to a terrorist organization. "Al-Kassar knew the missiles would be used to hit U.S. helicopters in Colombia," Johnson said. "The defendants thought the weapons were going to be used to kill Americans."
The U.S. Embassy in Madrid said Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia.
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.
A convoy supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan drove through the Khyber Pass yesterday as Pakistan reopened the crossing for the first time since militants hijacked and looted 13 lorries last week. About 50 vehicles carrying oil, food and military hardware made its way to the frontier from the northwestern city of Peshawar, escorted by 100 Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries in vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns. The escorts had orders to shoot on sight.
Militants have over the last 10 days carried out a series of attacks in the northwest against a key airport and military supply route and have killed several tribal chiefs. The attacks may be seen as part of a deliberate bid to prevent the Pakistani military from taking part with NATO in a joint operation to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan's Kunar Valley and in the troubled Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas on the Afghan border.
(AKI) - Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be released at the beginning of December. Olmert made the remarks following a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who he met in Jerusalem to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Gaza Strip.
TEHRAN (Rooters) - Iran is aiming to commission its first nuclear power plant in 2009 after years of delays, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (Rooters) - An accused Syrian arms dealer on trial for agreeing to sell weapons to Colombian rebels was driven by greed and was not working with Spanish intelligence as the defense claims, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
