This Day in History:
1894 - In Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA, Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
1918 - Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint-Petersburg held this status for 215 years.
1928 - In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing over 600 people. (Mulholland f-ed up so they named a street after him)
1933 - Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation, the first of his "Fireside Chats." (Not on TV Joe Biden)
1947 - The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism. (Give em hell Harry)
1993 - Several bombs explode in Bombay (Mumbai), India, killing about 300 and injuring hundreds more. (You know who did it)
Security forces on both sides of the Irish border are hunting tonight for a dissident republican bomb, after intelligence reports the Real IRA has smuggled a large device into Northern Ireland from the south, the Guardian has learned.
The alert began on Monday before Continuity IRA killed PC Stephen Carroll. He will be buried tomorrow after requiem mass in his home town of Banbridge, County Down.
As border security tightened with extra checkpoints and patrols, sources in Dublin and Belfast said "intelligence traffic" indicated a plot to explode a bomb in the north, and the device had been transported across the border by car.
"The red light went up on Monday and there is a panic on that the next thing to happen is a bomb somewhere in the north," one veteran security officer said yesterday. "The problem is that no one either in the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland] or the Garda appears to have specific intelligence where it is destined for." The security forces believe the device is similar in size to the 300lb car bomb that dissidents left abandoned in Castlewellan, County Down last month.
With political parties united in condemning the dissidents for the recent killings, the focus turned yesterday to peace rallies that took place in Belfast, Londonderry, Newry, Lisburn and Downpatrick. Five thousand people joined the demonstration in Belfast, with protesters bearing placards that read: "No going back."
In Dublin the taoiseach, Brian Cowen, told the Dail that co-operation between police on both sides of the border had never been closer. He said he would be joining Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, and deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, in the US , where they flew yesterday for a visit lasting a week that will coincide with St Patrick's Day.
"It is important that the voices of the democratic representatives of the people are heard loud and clear at this moment, when the democratic institutions which have been established by the Irish people are being challenged," he said. "Those institutions are being challenged by a tiny and unrepresentative group of evil people who have no mandate and no support. Their actions are futile. They cannot succeed and they will not succeed."
Pope Benedict XVI yesterday described the murders in Northern Ireland as "abominable acts of terrorism".
Meanwhile, fears over possible loyalist paramilitary retaliation in response to the upsurge in Real IRA and Continuity IRA violence eased yesterday after the Ulster Defence Association ruled out revenge attacks. Jackie McDonald, UDA leader, also praised McGuinness for his condemnation of the dissidents, who killed two British soldiers and a member of the PSNI since the weekend.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Thirty-odd years ago, a friend took me to Finn MacCool's bar in Chicago for St. Patrick's Day. Supposedly they sent funds to IRA. Yech. It was a lot of drunk people singing, "If you hate the Queen of England, clap your hands." We got out of there in a hurry. The atmosphere poisoned my Harp.
#3
Thirty-odd years ago, a friend took me to Finn MacCool's bar in Chicago for St. Patrick's Day. Supposedly they sent funds to IRA. Yech. It was a lot of drunk people singing, "If you hate the Queen of England, clap your hands." We got out of there in a hurry. The atmosphere poisoned my Harp.
Thats nothing. In the late early 70's if you went to Gaelic Park in the Upper Bronx for the Sunday football and hurling games you would come across IRA recruiters and fundraisers at every gate. They literally had 55 gallon drums in which anyone attending would drop in whatever change and folding money they believe would keep them from getting knee-capped. More than scary since the guys were beating those drums with crow bars. Outside of being a straight guy in San Francisco, the bar at Gaelic Park still ranks as the best pickup place I have ever known.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/12/2009 13:12 Comments ||
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#5
NB:
That should have read late 60's early 70's.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/12/2009 13:13 Comments ||
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#6
Nothing could top the IRA sympatico boyos in Southie bars on Paddy's Day back in the 70's and 80's. They'd give Belfast joints a run for their money...
By this summer, combat troops in Afghanistan could be getting re-supplied by giant unmanned aerial vehicles, a Marine Corps general told Congress Wednesday.
The Marines are working with industry to build a cargo-carrying UAV capable of hauling up to 1,200 pounds of battlefield essentials — such as ammunition, water and batteries — to ground troops in remote places, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. John Amos told the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense.
The move is part of a short-term plan to find new ways to reduce the weight Marines carry into combat. Details are sketchy, but Amos said “I’m looking for something now. We want to get a solution into Afghanistan by this summer.”
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who also testified at the hearing, told Army Times in an interview that he was unsure if the Army will use cargo UAVs in the future. He said that the Army has been able to deliver up to 26,000 pounds of supplies a day using precision air drop.
#1
It will be interesting to see the reasoning as "large, low and VERY slow" means target practice for even the AK-47. I assume (?) they are talking remote controlled Lighter Than Air though the article is very vague. If so, the winds over that terrain should be a real challenge even without someone trying to pot the engines or controls.
#5
In that situation, I would opt for high altitude blimps. They have enormous cargo capacity, and could drop GPS parachutes right on target. At the same time, they could provide superior ground intelligence.
Minneapolis has become the focus of a wide-ranging FBI investigation into a terrorist group's recruitment of young immigrant men for service in Somalia's ethnic and religious warfare.
The group, Al-Shabab, an Al-Qaida offshoot, is suspected of being involved in the disappearance of as many as 20 young Somali-Americans who have vanished from their homes in the Twin Cities and turned up with the radical Islamist group in Somalia.
While cases like Shirwa Ahmed's and Burhan Hassan's have made Minneapolis the focus of the FBI's investigation, Somali youths have also been recruited in Columbus, Seattle and San Diego.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/12/2009 13:37 ||
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#1
Get DNA samples from all their relatives, "for when we need to identify the bodies." Question: can citizenship be revoked for joining a foreign terrorist group?
#5
Here's a thought: don't let the muzz into this country in the first place. They wanna escape harsh life in Somalia? Go to Yemen. Stay the fuck out of the USA.
The attorney for alleged Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali al-Marri said Tuesday he hopes that what his client endured for five years will never be repeated in the United States. "Hopefully, I think you have seen the end of it," Andy Savage told reporters after his client appeared in federal court for an initial hearing on terrorism charges.
Marri was turned over to civilian authorities earlier in the day after being held in a nearby Navy brig as an enemy combatant without charges since 2003. President Barack Obama last month ordered Marri surrendered to civil authorities after he was indicted in Peoria on charges of providing material support to terror and conspiracy.
Marri, a 43-year-old native of Qatar, is expected to enter a formal plea in Illinois. However, Savage will argue in court next week that Marri should be released on bond.
The government has said Marri met with Osama bin Laden and volunteered for a suicide mission or whatever help Al Qaeda wanted. A Bradley University graduate, Marri arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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A suspected U.S. missile strike struck a Taliban den in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least seven militants, including suspected Al-Qaeda operatives, security officials said. "The strike was in the Kurram belt. It destroyed a suspected den used by Taliban militants, killing at least seven militants, including foreigners," a senior security official said, adopting a term used to mean Al-Qaeda members.
A second senior security official confirmed the strike and the same details.
The U.S. military as a rule doesn't confirm drone attacks, but it and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.
#1
Two missiles fired by an unmanned drone struck the den in the tribal area of Kurram, one of seven such semi-autonomous regions near Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan, where US troops are battling Taliban fighters.
"Twelve militants, mainly Afghan Taliban, were killed in the missile strike at their training centre in Kurram. Dozens are wounded," a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The training centre was run by local Taliban commander Fazal Saeed and training was underway at the time of the strike," the official added.
Taliban militants have sealed off the area and were retrieving bodies from the rubble of the building late Thursday, officials said.
Mountainous and remote, Kurram is a known hub of Taliban led by Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's most wanted militant, and Siraj Uddil Haqqani, de facto commander of Taliban groups on the border area.
#2
Where's the follow on shots? Nothing wrong in making their buddies scared shitless and letting them bleed out.
Posted by: ed ||
03/12/2009 16:09 Comments ||
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Looks like there may have been some...
"The training camp was completely destroyed," said Noor Islam, a villager in Barjo. He said 14 bodies had been recovered from the debris of the blitzed camp.
U.S. drone attacks in Kurram are rare, as al Qaeda and Taliban militants have been mostly targeted in the nearby Waziristan region.
"Four missiles hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Barjo area," a senior government official in Kurram told Reuters.
#6
training was underway at the time of the strike
You could say that the Taliban received a very important lesson. Too bad they aren't around to absorb the implications.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/12/2009 17:38 Comments ||
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#7
I am a drone operator now in Iraq but previously in Afghanistan. Hope they keep our job security by doing it more. Let's get the real infidels...Go USMC!!!
NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour survived an attempt on his life on Wednesday, but five other people including two women were killed when two attackers blew themselves up after firing at Bilour, police said.
Bilour, the Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader in the NWFP Assembly, was travelling home after the inauguration ceremony of a road located in the Sarki Gate area of his constituency when the two attackers fired at his motorcade.
A passer by and a child were killed in the ensuing gunfight. The attackers fled and barged into a nearby house for shelter. They threw a grenade on women inside the house, killing two of them and a boy. The attackers then blew themselves up.
Bilour told reporters one of the attackers shouted 'Allah-o-Akbar' (God is great) as he fired at him. The minister said that the attacker tried to blow up his explosives-laden jacket near his car but it did not explode.
Bilour said the attempt to kill him was a conspiracy to destabilise the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Bilour said the attempt to kill him was a conspiracy to destabilise the country.
NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani on Wednesday signed the draft of Nizam-e-Adl (Shariat) Regulation 2009, for forwarding it to the president for a final approval, official sources told Daily Times. The sources, however, did not confirm if the draft had been sent to the president. Prob'ly President Ten Percent will put off signing it as long as he can, but odds are 100 percent he will sign.
NWFP Law Minister Arshad Abdullah said the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009, was expected to be implemented in Malakand division and Kohistan district by March 15, and would have a retrospective effect from February 16, 2009. The minister said President Asif Ali Zardari had verbally agreed with the NWFP government to sign the draft as soon as he received it. "But, really, it's not here yet. It may be lost in the mail..."
He said that the government had begun a two-day workshop in Swat for training area qazis and district qazis in accordance with the new law. He said 23 qazis were participating, who would be trained by scholars from the International Islamic University. The Nizam-e-Adl regulation will repeal the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Ordinance 2001, the law through which the executive magistracy was abolished across the country on August 14, 2001, and will revive the former system including the offices of district magistrate, additional district magistrate, sub-divisional magistrate and other executive magistrates.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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Forty-five men had been arrested in a two-day search operation in Hangu district, police said on Wednesday. Among the 45, 18 were fugitives carrying heavy weapons.
According to Hangu District Police Officer (DPO) Sajjad Khan, the operation was carried out to restore law and order in the region. During the operation, men charged with murder, attempted murder and suspects having links with the Taliban were taken into custody. Fifteen kalashnikovs, 12 rifles, 22 pistols, ammunition and drugs were recovered from them. The DPO also said steps had been taken to ensure security for Jashan-e-Noroz.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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Unidentified gunmen on Tuesday torched a truck carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, leaving its driver and a helper wounded, police said.
The men snatched the truck in Soorab, 200 kilometres south of Quetta, and set it ablaze after injuring the driver and his helper, senior police official Khaild Baqi told AFP. "The injuries to the driver were serious, but his helper's condition is stable," Baqi said.
Police chased the attackers and traded fire with them, but the search for them was continuing, he added. Baqi said some 150 truckers parked their vehicles to protest against the attack but that the authorities were negotiating to persuade them to continue their journey.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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DERA MURAD JAMALI: A security personnel was killed and a police official injured in a landmine blast near Goth Magsi in Rabi Canal area on Wednesday, police said. The deceased was identified as Muhammad Asghar Ali and the injured police constable as Khadim Hussain. Meanwhile, Nobat Khan and Muhammad Ismaeel sustained severe injuries in another landmine explosion in Goth Muhammad Ismaeel. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where their condition was reported to be stable.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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Security forces backed by helicopter gunships killed at least 35 Taliban during a two-day operation in Darra Adam Khel in Kohat Frontier Region, ISPR sources said on Tuesday.
The security forces targeted Taliban in Buland, Mirali and Torchena areas. Three security personnel had also been injured in the operation, the sources said, adding that several Taliban hideouts had been destroyed during the operation, APP reported. Meanwhile, local Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir Muhammad has asked his comrades to suspend all their activities and to ensure the implementation of a peace agreement in letter and spirit in Bajaur Agency, online reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
You can cure rabies but with a shot to the head. Don't slack up, keep it up. Kill them all...Good job!!!
The Gujrat police on Wednesday arrested an alleged terrorist and seized a large quantity of arms and explosives from his possession here. According to SSP Headquarter Gujrat Afzal Kosar, Lari Addi police, after receiving a tip-off, raided a house and nabbed the suspected terrorist. Several passports, explosives, Kalashnikovs, hand grenades, pistol, TV camera, telescope and mobile phones were recovered from his custody, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Hurrah for the cell phones, but why on earth did the gentleman have a telescope?
#2
why on earth did the gentleman have a telescope
He had only one eye? Didn't know how to use binoculars? Wanted to do some stargazing? "All the stars are out tonight. I can even see Cary Grant." Groucho Marx.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/12/2009 17:36 Comments ||
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#3
I left ot one. He wanted to see Uranus.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/12/2009 17:36 Comments ||
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Tariq Aziz, formerly the urbane, Westernised frontman for Saddam Hussein and the only Christian in the Iraqi dictator's inner circle, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for crimes against humanity.
Aziz, who was the face of Saddam's regime for years, looked shocked when the sentence was given out at his trial in Baghdad and asked to sit down. He has been suffering ill health for some time.
He was found guilty on four counts of crimes against humanity, including complicity in murder and torture in connection with the execution of 42 Iraqi merchants who had been accused by Saddam of being involved in increasing food prices at a time when the country was struggling under international sanctions. They were rounded up in July 1992 and executed soon after a quick trial.
Prosecutors in the trial said that the former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister was complicit in the deaths because he was a member of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council that rubber-stamped Saddam's decision to have the merchants arrested.
Aziz was one of those named on a US list of "most-wanted" regime members that was published in the form of a deck of cards. He was number 43. But the man often seen in public with a cigar in his mouth, and who tried to defend Saddam on the world stage, gave himself up soon after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.
In court he wore a blue jacket, black shirt and his trademark thick, black-rimmed glasses. After he was sentenced he kept his eyes closed as other defendants stood up to hear their sentences.
Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim, director of public security - both half-brothers of Saddam - were sentenced to death on the same charges. Ali Hassan al-Majeed, better known as Chemical Ali - who has already been given three death sentences from previous cases - was also given a 15-year prison sentence for the death of the merchants.Three other defendants received sentences of life in prison, 15 years and six years. Issam Rashid Hweish, formerly of the Central Bank in Baghdad, was acquitted owing to lack of evidence.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Cool! I can be part of a mass murdering crew and only get 15 years!
Army troops have captured a suspected bomb-maker who was carrying powerful explosives during a clash with Muslim militants in the southern Philippines, a military official said Monday.
Troops were looking for communist guerrillas behind a recent bomb attack on a cell phone transmission tower when they clashed with at least five Muslim militants in a jungle near Pantukan township in southern Compostela Valley province on Sunday, Maj. Gen. Reynaldo Mapagu said.
Troops captured Giovanni de Ocampo during the clash, but four of his companions escaped. Ocampo told investigators he has links with the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah, Mapagu said, adding authorities were verifying his statement. "He was carrying homemade bombs and a lot of bomb parts and it is clear that we have pre-empted some planned attacks," Mapagu told The Associated Press by telephone.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/12/2009 00:00 ||
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At least 14 people were killed and 46 others, including the minister, were wounded in the blast. This is the first suicide attack in Matara, the southernmost region and populated overwhelmingly by the majority Sinhala community.
The minister was later airlifted to Colombo National Hospital where he underwent an emergency surgery.
"He is still in the intensive care unit (ICU), but his condition is getting better. His condition is certainly a lot better than yesterday (Tuesday) after the surgery," director of the Colombo National Hospital accident service, Hector Weerasinghe told IANS Wednesday.
The defence ministry said Wednesday that the suicide bomber "had arrived at the place on a push-bike and exploded himself among the Islamic devotees going to the mosque in a procession".
"Among the deceased and injured were several local government representatives," the defence ministry said.
Tuesday's suicide attack came as the military was in the final phase of recapturing the last strongholds of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has now been boxed into a land stretch of less than 40 square km in the north-eastern Mullaitivu district.
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.
The attorney for alleged Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali al-Marri said Tuesday he hopes that what his client endured for five years will never be repeated in the United States. "Hopefully, I think you have seen the end of it," Andy Savage told reporters after his client appeared in federal court for an initial hearing on terrorism charges.
NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani on Wednesday signed the draft of Nizam-e-Adl (Shariat) Regulation 2009, for forwarding it to the president for a final approval, official sources told Daily Times. The sources, however, did not confirm if the draft had been sent to the president. 
Tariq Aziz, formerly the urbane, Westernised frontman for Saddam Hussein and the only Christian in the Iraqi dictator's inner circle, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for crimes against humanity. 
