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Turkish police detain 50 Qaeda suspects
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 6: Politix
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yvonne Craig the top heavy ballet dancer



Daily Gam Shot

American Graffiti

The "X" Factor

Cool Cutie

68 Years Young

Nightie Night


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/16/2009 4:23 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Roadside bomb kills four US troops
A ROADSIDE bomb attack killed four US soldiers in southern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

"Two US service members were killed and two died of wounds sustained in a single improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan October 15," a statement read.

No further details were immediately available but US troops are operating in restive southern Afghanistan as part of a push to quell a resurgent Taliban in what is their spiritual heartland.
Posted by: tipper || 10/16/2009 09:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't get mad; don't get even; get disproportionate pay-back. The life of a jihadi is worth less than cockroach shht.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Grerelet4852 || 10/16/2009 17:22 Comments || Top||


56 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan, Taliban claim
They count as well as the Arabs, then -- off by an order of magnitude or two?
[Iran Press TV Latest] Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan say they have killed at least 56 NATO soldiers in separate incidents across the war-ravaged country over the past 24 hours.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, Taliban spokesman, claimed on Thursday that forty soldiers were killed when their Shinok helicopter went down in Gorak district, Kandahar province.

The spokesman noted that twelve Romanian soldiers were also killed in the troubled southern Zabul province, while four others lost their lives in Uruzgan and Badgis provinces.

Ahmadi emphasized that most of the lethal attacks took place in the southern and eastern provinces where US troops have been fighting bloody battles with the insurgents in the past months.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  Numbers might not be off much if they actually hit a loaded Chinook - and it absolutely IS possible to down those, especially if they've been supplied with modern anti-aircraft weapons from someplace (Iran? China?) I've been surprised more Stinger-equivalents have not been hitting us so far.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/16/2009 18:10 Comments || Top||

#2  TOPIX > WORLD BLOG [NBC]: AN AFGHAN THREAT GREATER THAN THE TALIBAN/AFGHAN LAWMAKER: KARZAI GOVT. "LIKE THE MAFIA OR TONY SOPRANO" ["Sopranos" TV SHow].

Uh, uh, D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, FERGEDDABOUTIT... YUZE NEVAH HOID ANYTHING ZABOUTIT, SEE!

THEME LYRIC > IIRC "Get yourself a Gun, get yourself a Gun..."

Gut nuthin.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/16/2009 21:01 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Thousands rally in S.Yemen for independence
[Al Arabiya Latest] Separatists in south Yemen used the anniversary of an uprising against colonial power Britain to press their claim for independence on Wednesday, while President Ali Abdullah Saleh promised to crush rebels in the north.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand a breakaway state, as they celebrated the anniversary of an anti-British uprising in the 1960s.

" They are the forces of backwardness because they have forgotten the past when there were no schools, hospitals or electricity "
President Ali Abdullah Saleh

Bearing flags of the former southern republic, the demonstrators in Al-Habilayn, Lahej province, criticized Sanaa's policies on the impoverished south, where residents complain of economic and political discrimination.

Veteran ruler Saleh is facing two challenges to his rule from Zaidi Shiite Muslims in the north who have been in rebellion against central authority since 2004 and southerners of the former South Yemen.

Both complain of political and economic marginalization by government and the Zaidis also say they are persecuted by Sunni Muslim radicals who have gained in influence.

"We promise you that victory is coming soon," Saleh told a rally in Sanaa also marking the uprising in 1963 against Britain in the southern port city of Aden.

"They are the forces of backwardness because they have forgotten the past when there were no schools, hospitals or electricity," he said, describing unity of north and south Yemen in 1990 as the southern revolution's greatest gain.

The conflict in the north has intensified since the army unleashed Operation Scorched Earth on Aug. 11. Aid groups, who have been given limited access to the northern provinces, say up to 150,000 people have fled their homes.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Actually, South Yemen once had the only marxist government in the Arab countries. Most Islamonazis live in the north.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Grerelet4852 || 10/16/2009 17:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Country of Aden.
Posted by: newc || 10/16/2009 18:10 Comments || Top||


Europe
Turkish police detain 50 Qaeda suspects: report
[Al Arabiya Latest] Turkish police on Thursday rounded up some 50 people with suspected links to the al-Qaeda network who were allegedly planning attacks against NATO, U.S. and Israeli targets in the country, reports said.

The suspects were taken into custody in early morning raids in nine provinces, among them Istanbul and the eastern cities of Van and Erzurum, the CNN-Turk and NTV news channel said. Although police officials confirmed the raids, they have refused to give figure on the total number of people detained.

Six of the suspects caught in Istanbul were jailed immediately as they had been convicted in absentia two years ago of involvement in four massive suicide bombings in Istanbul in 2003 that were blamed on al-Qaeda, the report said.

Most of the remaining suspects were believed to be members of the Islamic Jihad Union, which has links to al-Qaeda, the report said, adding that some had received military training in camps in Afghanistan.

Following police interrogations, the suspects are to appear before courts, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to bring formal charges against them.

The raids follow comments by al-Qaeda's second-in-command last month scolding Turkey for its forthcoming assumption of the leadership of NATO forces operating in Kabul.

"The Turkish forces in Afghanistan will lead the same (kind of) operations that are conducted by the Jews in Palestine. How could the free zealous Turkish people accept this crime against Islam and the Muslims," Ayman al-Zawahiri said in an audiotape aired last month.

A Turkish cell of al-Qaeda was held responsible for truck bombs against two synagogues, the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul in 2003, which killed 63 people, including the British consul, and left hundreds injured. Seven men were jailed for life in 2007 over the bombings, among them a Syrian national who masterminded and financed the attacks.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Turkey

#1  So, is that for real or just head ROPers standard trick of distracting attention whenever they do something that the West cannot overlook?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2009 9:36 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Woman suicide bomber in twin attacks
A WOMAN suicide bomber blew herself up on a motorcycle in a twin suicide attack outside a police building in Pakistan's city of Peshawar today, police confirmed.

"Police tried to intercept a woman sitting on a motorcycle with a terrorist. She blew herself up and after that there was another blast when a suicide attacker sitting in a car exploded," said Liaqat Ali Khan, city police chief.
Posted by: tipper || 10/16/2009 06:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  For a moment I thought the same woman blew herself up twice and I thought: "How does that work?" Then I thought she had a twin and they blew themselves up at nearly the same time. There is a problem with being too literal. Anyway, there is a splodadope pandemic.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2009 15:18 Comments || Top||


Police arrests 2 terrorists in Islamabad
[Geo News] Police has arrested two terrorists here along with suicide jackets and hand grenades, Geo News reported on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan

#1  You reap what you sow!

I read there is alot of tension going on between the Islamist army/ISI and democratic civil govt!

Civil war on the cards?
Posted by: Glavitle B. Hayes4065 || 10/16/2009 15:19 Comments || Top||


Air strikes in South Waziristan kill 17
[Dawn] Warplanes hit militants' hideouts and some civilian areas in South Waziristan, leaving 17 militants and some non-combatants dead. According to sources, two planes bombed militant positions in Saam, Khasura, Spinkai, Gorgoray and Tangi Bazay areas. According to local people, one of the bombs hit a cave-house in Spinkai area, killing one Nekum Khan and eight members of his family and injured six others.

Security officials said the father of local Taliban leader Noor Wali Mehsud was killed when a bomb hit his house. They said the total number of militants killed in the attack could not be ascertained.

Sources said that the number of casualties in the air strikes which started on Tuesday was 26.

The town of Sara Rogha which had almost been destroyed during a military operation last year also came under attack on Wednesday.

Nine people were killed in an attack on Maulvi Khan Sarai on Tuesday. Houses of two tribal elders, Yaqoob Shah and Allauddin Mehsud, were hit in Shinkai Mela.

According to reports reaching here, militants have asked shopkeepers and about 200 people living near Razmak town in North Waziristan to move to safe places.

Thousands of tribal people, it may be mentioned, left the area amid reports of an imminent military offensive in the Mehsud area. Security forces are reported to be consolidating their positions and moving tanks and heavy artillery towards Makin and Razmak. Troops are also building strategic roads on Mamo mountains.

In Bajaur, troops have intensified action in Salarzai where air and ground offensive was launched on Monday.

Local people said that troops backed by tanks and artillery entered the area on Wednesday and set up checkpoints. They were received by elders of Salarzai tribe and volunteers of the local lashkar.

Witnesses said that a convoy of more than 80 vehicles had entered Pashet and headed towards Mulla Said and Torget areas.

Elders of Salarzai had been asking the government for some time to send troops to the area and have raised a lashkar against militants.

Security forces have secured hilltops and other key locations to curtail movement of militants.

Meanwhile, helicopter gunships attacked militants' hideouts in Mamond on Wednesday. Five suspected militants were killed and seven others injured. Troops have also claimed destroying several bunkers.
This article starring:
Noor Wali Mehsud
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  the father of local Taliban leader Noor Wali Mehsud ...

Another Mehsud? Find every Mehsud, toss 'em all into a sack and toss the sack into a raging river ...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/16/2009 13:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Doc, that would be a war crime. Effective, but a war crime.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/16/2009 18:07 Comments || Top||


US drone strike kills four in North Waziristan
[Dawn] A US drone missile attack on a suspected militant hideout in a remote tribal area in northwest Pakistan early Thursday killed at least four people, security officials said.

The pre-dawn strike targeted the suspected militant compound in Dandey Darpa Khel in the North Waziristan region near the Afghan border, a security official said.

'It was a drone strike and initial reports said at least three people were killed and several wounded,' the official said, requesting anonymity.

A senior security official later said four people were killed and six wounded. A third security official said two missiles were fired by the pilot-less aircraft. They hit a house belonging to an Afghan refugee, he said.

'It was a suspected militant hideout,' he added.

Afghan Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani's group is said to be active in the area.Haqqani served as a minister in the Taliban government which was ousted in late 2001 in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Northwest Pakistan is seeing a surge in US strikes as the United States tries to stem the flow of militants waging a deadly insurgency against about 100,000 foreign troops stationed across the border.

The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones without pilots in the region.

The fatalities are impossible to verify independently due to the lack of confirmation of the strikes by the United States and because the targets are deep in Taliban-controlled territory.

Islamabad publicly opposes the US missile strikes, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty. Since August 2008, dozens such strikes have killed nearly 600 people.

But the Pakistani government welcomed the death of Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack on August 5, and analysts say Islamabad gives its tacit support to the strikes.

Pakistan's security forces are also engaged in a fierce offensive against Taliban fighters in the northwest whom they blame for a wave of attacks across Pakistan that has killed more than 2,100 people in the past two years.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Thousands flee S Waziristan ahead of offensive
[Dawn] Streams of civilians jammed into cars and trucks to flee the militant stronghold of South Waziristan as the government pounded the area with air strikes ahead of an expected ground offensive against the Taliban along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Early Thursday, a suspected US missile strike hit neighboring North Waziristan, killing four alleged militants as the Americans, too, kept up pressure on insurgents in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, intelligence officials said.

Bombing runs over suspected militant hide-outs have sharply increased in recent days after a string of bloody attacks on military and civilian targets killed scores of people across Pakistan. Government officials said the wave of terror was forcing them to take the fight to the insurgents' heartland.

The army, which gave no timeframe for the offensive, has reportedly already sent two divisions totaling 28,000 men and blockaded the region.

Fearing the looming offensive, about 200,000 people have fled South Waziristan since August, moving in with relatives or renting homes in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan areas, a local government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The exodus intensified with the increase in airstrikes in recent days.

Since the weekend, about 80 vehicles a day have been carrying fleeing families past one checkpoint at Chonda on the edge of Dera Ismail Khan, said Naimatullah Khan, a police officer based there.

Police at the isolated checkpoint stopped the departing vehicles Wednesday, checked people's identification, searched their luggage and frisked some of them. Many of those fleeing had to take circuitous routes over back roads to dodge the military blockade.

Haji Ayub Mehsud, 55, said the increased bombing forced him to flee with his six children.

'It is difficult for local people to stay there in peace. I had to bring out my family,' Mehsud told an AP reporter at Chonda.

As of last month, at least 80,000 people had registered with the government as displaced from South Waziristan, said Ariane Rummery, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency. Government officials say only half of those fleeing the area have bothered to register.

The UN has distributed various types of aid -- from kitchen sets to jerry cans -- to around 6,500 families and is monitoring the situation, Rummery said.

An offensive in South Waziristan is not expected to create anywhere near the refugee problem the government faced when its Swat Valley offensive earlier this year rapidly displaced 2 million people and forced many into tent camps.

The residents of South Waziristan have had plenty of warning about the expected operation, appear to have places to stay nearby and the region has far fewer residents, with population estimates of around 500,000 before the recent exodus.

The US has encouraged Pakistan to take strong action against insurgents who are using its soil as a base for attacks in Afghanistan, where US troops are bogged down in an increasingly difficult war.

The US has carried out a slew of its own missile strikes in South and North Waziristan over the past year, killing several top militants including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistani formally protests the missile strikes as violations of its sovereignty, but many analysts believe it has a secret deal with the US allowing them to carry out the strikes.

A push into rugged South Waziristan could be difficult for Pakistan's army, which was beaten back on three previous offensives into the Taliban heartland there and forced to sign peace deals.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  Government officials said the wave of terror was forcing them to take the fight to the insurgents' heartland.

This is the KEY, and always has been. Question is, will there be any follow-through.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/16/2009 18:13 Comments || Top||

#2  ION WAFF/PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUMS > PAKISTAN AIR FORCE STARTS BOMBING OWN COUNTRY + PAKISTAN"S ARMY, GOVT. ON COLLISION COURSE [recent MilTerr Attacks], + PAKISTAN HAS NO ANSER TO ESCALATING GUERILLA WAR + PAKISTAN POLICE ACCUSE INDIA OF FIVE TERROR ATTACKS IN ONE DAY.

* SAME + TIMES OF INDIA > INDIA'S AGNI-5 MISSLE CAN TARGET OUR HARBON CITY: SAYS CHINESE DAILY; + INDIA TO CHECK IFF CHINA IS BUILDING BRAHMAPUTRA DAM + BBRAHAMAPUTRA DAM CAN LEAVE ASSAM DRY. CHIN repor plans to build FIVE DAMS which INDIA believes can seriously affect ecology = environ in its Northern States'.

POSTERS > PROPOSED CHIN DAMS Projects = CATALYST FOR NEW SINO-INDIAN WAR over WATER [by extens SINO-INDIAN GEOPOLITICS].

* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > A CLEAR CUT CASE OF WAR ON PAKISTAN, allegedly waged by defunct Religious Organizations suppor = induced by INDIA'S RAW Intel Agency + BACKED BY AL QAEDA in order to destabilz Pakland and take control of PAKIS GOVT. + espec PAKIS NUCLEAR STATE.

INTEWESTING > ARTIC - claims that OSAMA, etal = RADICLA ISLAM is supporting covert INDIA-SPONSORED MILTERR OPERATIONS-ACTIVS AGZ FELLOW MUSLIM STATE PAKISTAN.

SAME > EMBATTLED PAKISTAN FACES ITS WORST CASE SCENARIO [YEARS, iff not DECADES of Asymetric, Taliban-led Terror violence + insurgency, SEEMINGLY "UN-WINNABLE" BY EITHER THE PAKIS GOVT-STATE NOR ANTI-GOVT, US ISLAMIST MILTERRS, but as combined or simul occurring wid worsening domestic economy].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/16/2009 20:49 Comments || Top||


Huge blast strikes Peshawar, several injured
[Dawn] Several people were injured and a child was killed when a blast took place in Peshawar's Gulshan Rehman Colony on Thursday, DawnNews reported.

Preliminary reports suggest the attack was carried out by a car bomb, Peshawar's CCPO Liaquat Ali told DawnNews.

The CCPO said that a car packed with explosives was parked at the scene, and that it was later detonated by remote control.

Police cordoned off the area and the injured were being shifted to the Lady Reading hospital.

People trapped under the rubble were still being dug out, and sources told DawnNews that eight injured survivors and the body of a dead child were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital.

Earlier, the city of Peshawar had been placed on high alert, after reports that terrorists had entered the city.

Residents interviewed by DawnNews said that they were unhappy with the security which had been provided by the government, and that they had been trying to arrange for private protection for some time.

Initial reports suggest that the bomb exploded outside the NWFP chief minister's driver's house.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Eleven killed in Kohat suicide attack
[Dawn] Eleven people were killed and several others wounded when a car bomb exploded near the Cantt Police Station in the northwestern Pakistani town of Kohat, police officials said.

'It was a suicide attack,' district police chief Dilawar Bangash said.

The bomber ploughed his car into the outer wall of the police station in the town of Kohat, he said, adding that the building was badly damaged. 'Some school children are among the dead,' another policeman at the scene added. Some 20 others have also been wounded. The toll may go up, another police official, Fazle Naeem, added.

Kohat is an area close to the militant-riddled tribal regions.

Pakistan has suffered a string of suicide attacks in the past two weeks that have killed more than 100 people. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of the assaults and warned of more if the army proceeds with an offensive in their main stronghold in South Waziristan tribal region.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Spate of attacks leaves 27 dead, 30 injured in Lahore

[Dawn] Teams of gunmen attacked three security sites on Thursday in Lahore, killing a total of 27 people and leaving at least 30 injured.

One of the attacks, on the Elite Police Academy on Bedian Road, lasted into Thursday afternoon before security forces killed the five attackers and freed a family they were holding hostage, police said.

The assaults paralysed the cultural capital of the country, showing the militants are highly organised and able to carry out sophisticated, coordinated strikes against heavily fortified facilities despite stepped up security across the country.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion fell on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan who have claimed other recent strikes. The attacks on Thursday also were the latest to underscore the growing threat to Punjab.

'The enemy has started a guerrilla war,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. 'The whole nation should be united against these handful of terrorists, and God willing we will defeat them.'

The wave of violence halted activity in Lahore. All government offices were ordered shut, the roads were nearly empty, major markets did not open and stores that had been open pulled down their shutters.

The violence began just after 9 a.m. when a group of gunmen attacked a building housing the Federal Investigation Agency, a law enforcement branch that deals with matters ranging from immigration to terrorism.

'We are under attack,' said Mohammad Riaz, an FIA employee reached inside the building via phone by The Associated Press during the assault. 'I can see two people hit, but I do not know who they are.'

The FIA building was the target of a suicide truck bomb in March 2008 that killed 24 people and wounded more than 100.

Thursday's attack lasted about one-and-a-half hours and ended with the death of two attackers, four government employees and a bystander, senior government official Sajjad Bhutta said. Senior police official Chaudhry Shafiq said one of the dead wore a jacket bearing explosives.

Soon after that assault began, a second band of gunmen raided a police training school in Manawan on the outskirts of the city in a brief attack that killed five police officers and four militants, according to DawnNews. One of the gunmen was killed by police at the compound and the other three blew themselves up.

The facility was hit earlier this year in an attack that sparked an eight-hour standoff with the army that left 12 people dead.

A third team of at least eight gunmen scaled the back wall of an elite police commando training centre on Bedian Road, not far from the airport and attacked the facility, Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said. Senior police official Malik Iqbal said at least one police constable was killed there.

Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmad said five attackers were slain in a gun battle and suicide blasts in the facility, and Shafiq said security forces freed a family that was being held hostage at the compound.

Seven people were injured in the Bedian attack. Out of the 13 terrorists involved, three were females, said an official.

Television footage showed helicopters in the air over one of the police facilities and paramilitary forces with rifles and bulletproof vests taking cover behind trees outside a wall surrounding the compound. Rana Sanaullah, provincial law minister of Punjab province, said police were trying to take some of the attackers alive so they could get information from them about their militant networks.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  Wind -> whirlwind.

Wonder when the Pakis will begin to regret turning their country into a terrorist factory? I think it may not take TOO much longer.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 10/16/2009 1:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Pardon for stating the obvious, but this is Mumbai II. Only worse...

The terrs targeted the very police who are in charge of hunting them down. The message is obvious- don't interfere, and you won't be targeted.

India should be very worried about this. If these crazies can turn their backs on the Pak security forces because such forces fear retribution, India will be the big loser. Western targets are also affected.

*sigh*
Posted by: Free Radical || 10/16/2009 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Only worse...

How so---given that this time they only killing each other?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2009 9:38 Comments || Top||

#4  This time.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/16/2009 9:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Things could get much worse. If Pakistan had a conflict as intense as the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, the casualties would be thousands (or more) each month (they are probably in the low hundreds per month now).
Posted by: lord garth || 10/16/2009 9:56 Comments || Top||

#6  And that's worse because?
Posted by: Galactic Coordinator Cloter6973 || 10/16/2009 13:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Because Pakistan has nukes and delivery systems.
Posted by: Gleremble the Bunyip3319 || 10/16/2009 16:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Actually, the Punjabi majority has the nukes, etc. We can't win without playing the Punjabi card. Pashtos are the enemy, and - yes - the Afghan leader is a Pashto.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Grerelet4852 || 10/16/2009 17:27 Comments || Top||

#9  I think the Punjabi jihadi groups would consider themselves our enemy, too. They just want to conduct that war after they gain control of the government's nuclear weapons and take over Pakistan, not before.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/16/2009 23:01 Comments || Top||


Two injured in grenade attack in Quetta
[Dawn] Two people were injured after unknown militants attacked security officials with grenades on Sariab Road, DawnNews quoted sources as saying.

The injured security personnel were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital for medical treatment, according to the police.

Earlier in the day, militants launched attacks in Lahore, and carried out bombings in Peshawar and Kohat.

Target Killings
Unknown gunmen also killed one person inside a shop and injured another, in what police are describing as a target killing.

The assailants shot the shopkeeper when Quetta's Jinnah road was at its busiest. The attackers then abandoned the body of the victim and fled from the scene.

Quetta has been hit by four target killings in as many days, highlighting the precarious security situation in the city.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Suicide bomber kills 12 in Iraq mosque
TWELVE worshippers were killed in an Iraqi mosque when a suicide bomber shot dead the prayer leader and then blew himself up in a town near the restive northern city of Mosul.

The attack targeted a Sunni Arab mosque in Tal Afar, a mostly Shi'ite Turkmen town in Nineveh province between the city of Mosul and the Syrian border.

It took place at around 12:30pm on the Muslim holy day of prayer and left 67 people wounded, police and medical officials said. Witnesses and security officials said that after the mosque's imam began to speak, the attacker pulled out a gun and shot him, then set off a belt full of explosives as other worshippers tried to tackle him.
Gallant people, charging a crazed gunman ...
"As the imam took his place and began to speak, someone in a black jacket pulled out a gun and killed him, shouting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest)," said Mohammed Othman, who suffered chest and head injuries in the blast.

"When the people went after him, he blew himself up," the man in his 40s said, speaking from Tal Afar hospital.

Salah Ahmed, a 49-year-old worker who was sitting outside the mosque when he heard the gunshots, said he ran to "try and see what was going on, but then the explosion happened. I woke up to find myself in the hospital."

Dr Hanni Mohammed at Tal Afar Hospital said the facility had received 12 dead bodies so far, and added that 67 people had been wounded, some of them taken to clinics close to the mosque. "Some of the wounded have very serious injuries, and some of them are undergoing surgery," he said.
Posted by: tipper || 10/16/2009 11:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  SHIA suicide bombers are rare.

this may have been an alt-sunni versus sunni op
Posted by: lord garth || 10/16/2009 11:50 Comments || Top||

#2  SHIA suicide bombers are rare.

The Shia are the ones who started the suicide bombing tend on the middle east.
Posted by: ed || 10/16/2009 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  We probably won't hear the "rest of the story", but I wouldn't be surprised if the "suicide bomber" turned out NOT to be an Iraqi, but someone from "elsewhere", imported from Syria. Al-Qaida is still trying to foment a civil war, and would do anything to achieve that end. To the rest of us, it's just another senseless attack by one group against another for political control, both in violation of common sense and their own religion. The one thing it's NOT is an aberration - this has been going on in that part of the world for 5000 years.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 10/16/2009 14:29 Comments || Top||

#4  To the rest of us, it's just another senseless attack by one group against another for political control, both in violation of common sense and their own religion

You're too good for this World, OldPat.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2009 15:26 Comments || Top||


Top al-Qaeda leader arrested in northern Iraq
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iraqi security forces have reportedly arrested a senior military commander with links to the terrorist al-Qaeda network in Iraq's northern Nineveh province.

"Special forces arrested Moussa Zalou at a hospital in central Mosul on Wednesday," a security source told Voices of Iraq news agency.

The Iraqi official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, added that the al-Qaeda chief was undergoing surgery in a Mosul hospital and was transferred to the Tal Afar public hospital under tight security.

In late March 2007, massive truck bombings in Shia areas of Tal Afar killed 152 and wounded twice as many, making it the single deadliest bombing since the US-led occupation began in 2003. Moussa Zalou is thought to have masterminded the bloody terrorist bombing.

One suicide bomber lured victims to buy wheat loaded on his truck, and then detonated it. A second truck bomb exploded in a used car lot.

After the bombings, gunmen roamed the town's Sunni neighborhoods for two hours shooting at Sunni residents and homes. At least 70 people were handcuffed and shot in the head.

Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq are said to have formed an alliance with the remnants of the Baath Party, founded by the former dictator Saddam Hussein -- a move American and Iraqi officials describe as a marriage of convenience. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is believed to supply the suicide bombers, while the Baathist extremists provide the logistics and planning.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Reports: Palestinian detained over alleged attack plot
Ma'an - Israeli forces seized a Palestinian on Thursday, news reports said.

The Hebrew-language news agency Walla reported a man was arrested at Bethlehem's "container" military checkpoint on suspicions he planned to carry out a shooting attack.

According to the news site, Israeli forces searched the young man's car but found no weapons. Nevertheless, he was handed over to internal security services for interrogation, the agency said.

The Jerusalem Post, an English-language newspaper, reported that a resident of Abu Dis was seized, in cooperation with the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet, before being transferred elsewhere for interrogation.

If confirmed, the young man would be at least the 16th Palestinian detained on Thursday, according to Israeli reports. Palestinian sources said six of those were seized in overnight raids.

A Palestinian Authority police report said soldiers seized Muhammad Tawfiq Al-Hindi, 22, Ahmad Rebhi Shalabi, 22, and Raed Farid Shalabi, 23, from their homes in the village of Termesaya, near Ramallah.

In the Salfit area, Israeli forces reportedly seized three residents, whose names were not included in the report, in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan.

A separate report on the Israeli news website Ynet stated that 15 Palestinians were seized in night raids in the West Bank because they were "wanted."
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Jordan jails 12 Qaeda suspects for church attack
[Al Arabiya Latest] A court in Amman on Thursday imposed jail sentences of 15 to 20 years on 12 Jordanian alleged al-Qaeda members accused of attacks against a church in the kingdom last year, a court official said.

Five of the men, aged between 19 and 28, received the death penalty but the state security court commuted the sentence to 20 years in prison "because they are young and should be given a chance to repent," the official told AFP.

" The al-Qaeda members tried to attack a Latin church in Irbid (in the north) in July last year after a Christian boy allegedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed, but the attempt failed "
Official

The other seven collected 15-year sentences.

The convicts, most of them of a Palestinian origin, were charged in July 2008 with "carrying out terrorist attacks and manufacturing and using explosives."

"The al-Qaeda members tried to attack a Latin church in Irbid (in the north) in July last year after a Christian boy allegedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed, but the attempt failed," he said.

"Following that, they attacked the same church again using Molotov (cocktail bombs) and a Christian cemetery in Irbid, but caused no casualties."

In March, the military tribunal sentenced three Jordanians to 22 and a half years in prison for plotting a suicide car bomb attack on a church in Amman last year.

They plotted to bomb a Roman Catholic Church in Amman's eastern district of Marka after initially planning to strike against a police battalion in protest at the jailing of Islamist suspects.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


Southeast Asia
3 militants killed in Philippines
[Straits Times] THREE suspected Muslim militants were killed in a clash with the military on a Philippine island close to where two US soldiers were killed recently, the military said on Thursday.

Five soldiers and one other gunman were wounded in the fighting on Jolo island in the southern Philippines on Wednesday, Marine Major Ramon David Hontiveros, the regional military spokesman, told reporters.

He said the three slain gunmen were believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic militant group that has carried out many of the country's worst terrorist attacks.

The Abu Sayyaf was blamed for setting off a roadside bomb late last month in Indanan, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) away from Wednesday's fighting, that killed two US troops and a Filipino soldier.

Small groups of US military advisers are stationed on Jolo and elsewhere in the southern Philippines to train Filipino troops in how to combat the Abu Sayyaf.

The Abu Sayyaf, set up in the 1990s allegedly with seed money from the Al-Qaeda network, has been fighting for an independent Muslim homeland on Jolo and other areas of the southern Philippines.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israel releases footage of Hezbollah home blast
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Israeli military released footage from one of its drones on Tuesday allegedly showing Hezbollah members recovering dozens of rockets from a home that was hit by an explosion in southern Lebanon the day before.

The military video allegedly shows members of Hezbollah sealing off the explosion site, recovering dozens of rockets, some four meters long, and driving them away in two covered trucks. The content of the video, including the date and location, are yet to be verified by Lebanese officials.

The Lebanese army said the blast at a Hezbollah member's home in the village of Tayr Filsay, near the southern port city of Tyre, was caused by an exploding shell and injured one person. The army statement gave no details about the shell that caused the blast. Hezbollah acknowledged the home belonged to one of its members.

The blast prompted Israel's President Shimon Peres to warn that Hezbollah and its growing arsenal are turning Lebanon into a "powder keg" standing in the way of peace.

Lebanese officials said that the garage may have been used to store weapons, a violation of the United Nations resolution that ended the month long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The U.N. resolution called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and for an international arms embargo against the group. Israel claims Hezbollah has tripled its arsenal since the war and now has tens of thousands of rockets.
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Lebanon's Funniest Home Videos.
Posted by: ed || 10/16/2009 13:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Would that be a blooper?
Posted by: gorb || 10/16/2009 22:46 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2009-10-16
  Turkish police detain 50 Qaeda suspects
Thu 2009-10-15
  Pakistani Police Attacked in Two Cities; 15 Killed
Wed 2009-10-14
  Italy: Attempted terror attack against army barracks injures soldier
Tue 2009-10-13
  Charges against Hafiz Saeed dismissed by Lahore High Court
Mon 2009-10-12
  Pakistain says 41 killed in market bombing
Sun 2009-10-11
  Pak army frees 30 at army HQ, ending siege
Sat 2009-10-10
  'Al-Qaeda-linked' Cern worker held
Fri 2009-10-09
  B.O. gets Nobel Peace Prize, just like Arafat
Thu 2009-10-08
  Car bomb at India's Kabul embassy
Wed 2009-10-07
  Terrorist cell found in Hamburg. Surprise.
Tue 2009-10-06
  Zazi had senior al-Qaida contact
Mon 2009-10-05
  Bomb Hits UN Office in Pakistan Capital; 4 Killed
Sun 2009-10-04
  Tensions in Jerusalem after new Al-Aqsa clashes
Sat 2009-10-03
  Tahir Yuldashev confirmed titzup
Fri 2009-10-02
  20 Palestinian prisoners freed after Shalit video released

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