The Pentagon warned the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees that the website WikiLeaks.org "intends to release several hundred thousand" classified U.S. State Department cables as soon as Nov. 26. Does anyone know how these people stay in business? The operations directorate at the CIA is out of practice ...
The documents "touch on an enormous range of very sensitive foreign policy issues," Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Elizabeth King wrote yesterday in an e-mail to the defense panels.
"We anticipate that the release could negatively impact U.S. foreign relations," she wrote, telling committee staff members that "we will brief you once we have a better understanding of what documents the WikiLeaks publication contains."
King said The New York Times, the U.K.'s Guardian and Der Spiegel of Germany "are each currently working with WikiLeaks to coordinate the release of these State Department documents."
These three publications were given advance access to two earlier WikiLeaks releases of U.S. military documents: almost 400,000 related to the Iraq war dated between 2003 and 2010 and about 75,000 from the same period on the Afghanistan war. The Iraq documents were published on Oct. 22 and the Afghanistan documents on July 25.
When the Iraq documents were released, a Pentagon spokesman, Marine Colonel David Lapan, described them as "raw observations from the tactical level of combat operations" and said their publication posed a risk to national security. In her e-mail to lawmakers yesterday, King had similar comments about the State Department documents.
"State Department cables by their nature contain everyday analysis and candid assessments that any government engages in as part of effective foreign relations," she wrote. "The publication of this classified information by WikiLeaks is an irresponsible attempt to wreak havoc and destabilize global security. It potentially jeopardizes lives."
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed that the e-mails had been sent to the two committees.
The Pentagon "had indications for some time" that WikiLeaks planned to release more documents, Whitman said in an interview yesterday. "As a result, we felt we had a responsibility to notify key leaders with oversight responsibility of the department like we normally do," he said.
State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said WikiLeaks has previously said that it plans to release additional classified documents.
"We are doing due diligence," Crowley said in an e-mail yesterday. The department is "assessing the possible impact on our on-going diplomatic activity and notifying both Congress and other governments what may occur."
Crowley told reporters today in a briefing that "we're in touch with our posts around the world," which "have begun the process of notifying governments that a release of documents is possible in the near future."
The State Department has had similar conversations with members of Congress "to let them know what we are prepared for," Crowley said.
"The kinds of cables that posts send to Washington are classified," he said. "They involve discussions we've had with government officials, with private citizens. They contain analysis, they contain a record of the day-to-day diplomatic activity that our personnel undertake."
WikiLeaks receives confidential material that governments and business want to keep secret and posts the information on the Internet. I know they have identified one douche-bag. Assuming the leaks compromise national security, and/or put our military in harms way...when they find who else has done this they need to prosecute/court martial, and execute them for treason.
Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, ... who used to be known as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... hailing the 2014 withdrawal date, says it would have been better to consider as truce as well
Haroon Zarghoon, a front man for Hezb-e-Islami, told TOLOnews in a telephone interview, that his party will agree if Nato announces a cease-fire.
Mr Zarghoon approves of the 2014 target date set for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, but he is doubtful of the forces will really leave on the target date.
"I don't think foreign forces will leave Afghanistan, but if they do so, it will be a positive step. Foreign forces should declare a ceasefire first. If a ceasefire is announced, we will also try to observe it," Haroon Zarghoon, told TOLOnews.
Although, some relatives of the Hezb-e-Islami leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, had taken part in the Maldives talks, but Mr Zhargoon denies participation of his party members in the talks.
"No Hezb-e-Islami member had participated in the talks. We actually had not decided to send any representatives to Maldives," Zarghoon added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... a Pak political analyst, Rahimullah Yosufzai, says the Afghan government doesn't have the authority to hold talks with the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami.
"All of them are Afghans. Whether the Taliban or Hezb-e-Islami and those in the current government. I think they all want to bring security, but do not know the approach, because they have no authority," Rahimullah Yosufzai told TOLOnews.
The comments come after President Karzai recently said that if the people do not allow others to interfere in the affairs of their country, no one will be able to interfere.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Afghanistan has released the final results of September's parliamentary elections after a fraud probe revealed nearly a quarter of the votes invalid and many candidates disqualified.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday released the final results following long delays to probe widespread fraud that saw nearly a quarter of the votes canceled.
"Holding elections is a difficult process," the election commission chief, Fazil Ahmad Manawi, told news hounds in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
"But fortunately with all the difficulties the Afghan nation managed to hold an election and today we witness what the people have voted for," he added.
Afghans voted on September 18 in their second parliamentary polls since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001, but investigations into widespread fraud have delayed releasing the results.
As the war-torn country is releasing the results, election candidates have taken to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday to protest against the polling process which they say is corrupt.
The IEC has already disqualified 119 candidates for suspicion of involvement in vote-rigging. The losing candidates, however, claim that they were deprived of victory.
The election commission has also thrown out a quarter of the votes because of fraud.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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Delivering a speech on Wednesday in Kabul, President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai urged religious holy men and tribal elders to prevent forced marriages and violence against women. He wants them to stop beating their donkeys, too...
President Karzai said the Taliban should avoid setting fire to schools and killing students, calling such actions against the principals of Islam and humanity. So's exploding without warning, but I guess that'd be asking too much...
While pointing out some progresses among Afghan women, he said men are responsible for an increase in violence against women. Come to think of it, there haven't been a lot of catfight stories coming out of Afghanistan...
He classified women and girls' selling, "Bad" (girls are forced into marriage to end tribal conflicts), forced marriages and torture as the main violence against women in the country. "A man who raises his hand to beat a woman is not a man. He is a coward," he said.
One of the things that could decrease violence against women is literacy, the president added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... women's rights organisations slammed the insufficient work of the Afghan government in the fight against violence against women.
Women's rights organisations argued that rapers and those responsible for spraying acid on female students should have been brought to justice.
Around 2,000 incidents of violence against women have been recorded this year including 14% psychological violence, 9% sexual assaults, 23% forced marriages, according to the statistics provided by UNIFEM (the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society Development Fund for Women).
It is said that violence against women is mostly kept secret and perpetrators are moving about freely without fear of being brought to justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] The Attorney General's Office Wednesday evening declared the final results of parliamentary elections illegal and ahead of time
With the issue of a statement, the Attorney General's Office said some high-ranking Afghan officials are involved in the illegal announcement of the final results.
The Attorney General is determined to investigate frauds and violations in electoral commissions to bring fraud organisers to justice.
After months of investigations on votes, ruling out bulk of votes and disqualifying many candidates in the process, the Independent Election Commission eventually announced the final results of elections on Wednesday.
The IEC has denied being under any sort of pressures by the government, foreigners and power-holders and as ever before emphasised on its independence.
The Attorney General suspended the spokespersons for Electoral Complaints Commission and Independent Election Commission on Tuesday over corruption allegations.
"Decisions over the fate of candidates have been taken in Dubai and Kabul money exchange market. I have evidence about it," said Afghanistan's Attorney General at a presser on Tuesday.
But in reaction to the allegations by Attorney General's Office, head of the IEC urged the Attorney General to provide evidence.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society, in a statement released today, "strongly" welcomed today's certification of the final results.
The statement also supported IEC's decision to take more time to finalise certification of Ghazni province poll results.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] A demonstrator has been killed and several others injured as hundreds of Orthodox Coptic Christian protesters clashed with Egyptian police after permission for the building of a new church was refused.
Al Jizz has learned that the Christian protester was killed after being shot by the security forces.
The riots erupted on Wednesday outside a municipal building in the Cairo suburb of Giza, after authorities halted construction of the church, claiming the local Christian community had violated a building permit.
Protersters threw stone and petrol bombs as scores of police surrounded the area and fired tear gas to break up the demonstration. A security source said at least 93 protesters were nabbed after a scuffle with police.
Rocks thrown
Around 20 police were maimed in the festivities, including Giza's deputy security chief, as well as around 15 demonstrators.
Some of the protesters were led away with blood on their faces, after police hurled rocks at them from a bridge, a security official told the AFP news agency.
"Look, this is our government throwing rocks at us. All this because of a church," Samuel Ibrahim, on of the Coptic protesters, told the Rooters news agency.
Christians make up about 10 per cent of Egypt's 79 million population and often complain about discrimination in the Mohammedan-majority country.
Church permits are often a source of tension, as Christians say they are not given the same freedom to build places of worship as Mohammedans.
Non-Mohammedans are required to obtain a presidential decree to construct new religious buildings and must satisfy numerous conditions before permission is granted.
"People here feel very discriminated against. We can't build the church - why are they stopping us?" Samih Rashid, one of the Copts at the protest, said.
"Every street has a mosque, every church has a mosque next to it."
The protestors had blocked the road near the governor's office before the violence began.
"With our blood and with our souls, we will sacrifice our lives for you, oh cross," the crowd chanted.
'No authorisation'
Sayyed Abdel-Aziz, the governor of Giza, said the Christians appeared to have used a permit for a social centre to start work on the church.
"When we noticed indications that it was turning into a church, we told the church authorities to halt construction because a church would require a different licence," he told the state news agency.
"I am completely willing to help Christian leaders get the permit for a church, but they have to stop turning it into a church without authorisation."
The Copts said they did have permission and were continuing to work without machinery, which was being blocked from entering the site, the reports said.
Christian and Mohammedan religious leaders emphasise sectarian harmony, but communal tensions can erupt into criminality and violence, usually sparked by land disputes or cross-faith relationships.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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Kenyan authorities have arrested seven young men, including a Nigerian with a British passport, for trying to go to Somalia and join up with an al-Qaeda-linked group there.
The Daily Nation quoted a coastal police official who said that six Kenyans and a Nigerian were arrested on the island of Lamu as they boarded a boat headed for nearby Somalia.
The men were in possession of jihadi propaganda and confessed that they had been radicalized by an imam in Mombasa.
#4
Detectives began digging deeper and surveillance was set up, and undercover officers began tailing the BMW around Derby and gathering evidence and keeping watch on Liaqat and Siddique, who was wearing an electronic tag at the time having been convicted of an assault on a woman.
#6
It's confusing but when the UK says "asian' they mean from the sub-continent. Ie: Indian or Pakistani.
"At home, Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat, both of whom were married with young children, were considered clean, upstanding family men as well as devout Muslims."
Then they trawled the streets with 13 other gang members from the ROP picking up girls aged 12 to 18 and raped them.
It happened in Australia too. We had rape gangs of up to 200 lebanese muslim men.
One or two would "befriend" girls travelling home including one smartly dressed returning from a job interview.
They were sure always to pick white girls or at the very least non-muslims.
That is because their culture and family told them non-muslim women were like "uncovered meat", were asking for it and were 50% responsible for rape.
then they would abduct them, rape them, drive them to a relatives house where more men would rape them, hose them down with the garden hose and rape them again . this would go on for up to 8 hours and involve hundreds of muslim men.
In the end just 2 were convicted: the Skaff brothers.
Their female relatives spat at the victims outside court as if they had no right to justice.
This is how the ROP teaches muslim men to respect non-muslim women.
I note that in this gang of 13, a couple got acquitted while others received sentences as small as 7 years for rape. That man will be out in less than 3.
Why are they not stripped of their citizenship and deported? Marked never to return? Separated from their families forever if they don't move also. Ie: a real punishment.
look at the rape gang similarities... from Lebanese muslims in australia to Pakistani muslims in the UK - and I believe Somali muslims in Sweden also? I have heard of similar attacks on young girls there.
They always pick the young girls because they want virgins to protect themselves from the possibility of catching diseases.
they are dirty disgusting pedophiles and we should not go to the expense of locking them up in the heaven of a Western prison. We should send them to serve their time in their country of origin and strip their citizenship.
8 years in a pakistani hell hole with no hope of return to Old Blighty would be much more fitting punishment.
#9
Endless time and effort can be spent trying to stop such "werewolves", yet there will remain werewolves. A much better plan is to train young girls to fight like maniacs against them.
I'm a big advocate of a social sanction that *requires* girls and women to have knives with them in public, and to use them if attacked. A social sanction is not a law, but is demanded by everyone in society as an unwritten law. The end result is that girls in public without their knife should feel as uncomfortable as if they weren't wearing any pants.
There is nothing quite like a big, bleeding knife wound to take the fun out of rape in a hurry.
#10
Some public examples might help too. After conviction, castrate them, eviscerate them and then put them in big glass jars with air supply in the public square. Include a water line so they can drink and die of starvation/blood loss/infection for the public's amusement.
It's long past time such rabid animals start winding up dead.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Lost Drill Bit Division - Halliburton ||
11/25/2010 20:33 Comments ||
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South Korea's defense minister resigned Thursday as increased defense measures were announced two days after a North Korean attack, the government said.
Defense Minister Kim Tae-young submitted a letter of resignation to President Lee Myung-bak amid criticism the South Korean military was unprepared for the artillery attack on its base on the island of Yeonpyeong, officials told the Yonhap news agency.
#1
So how would you prepare for an artillery attack? Warm up the anti-arty Phasers?
Posted by: Bobby at the Kids Place ||
11/25/2010 10:31 Comments ||
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#2
Well, for one not have citizens standing by, gawking at it. Like in the pictures. Secondly the NK Artillery should have been reduced to scrap metal in quick order after the fisrt shots.
Posted by: Charles ||
11/25/2010 13:42 Comments ||
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Target and attack a certain bunker in Pyongyang - Maybe with a thermo-nuke...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
11/25/2010 16:28 Comments ||
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#4
The chain of permission is so cumbersome that it took about 13 minutes to respond?
(KUNA) -- US President Barack Obama pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with South Korea, in a call with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak late Tuesday over the situation in the Korean peninsula.
President Obama "strongly condemned the attack by North Korea on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which took the lives of at least two Koreans and injured many more," a White House statement said.
Obama also offered condolences to the families of those killed or wounded, and to all the Korean people.
"President Obama said that North Korea must stop its provocative actions, which will only lead to further isolation, and fully abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement and its obligations under international law," according to the statement.
During their conversation, the two leaders agreed to "hold combined military exercises and enhanced training in the days ahead to continue the close security cooperation between our two countries, and to underscore the strength of our Alliance and commitment to peace and security in the region," according to the White House.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Except his right shoulder will be resting against their right should, and his left shoulder will be against their left shoulder. Ideal position to get screwed.
(KUNA) -- China on Wednesday said it was worried about the situation after the deadly exchange of fire between North Korea and South Korea, and urged both sides to stay calm while refraining from similar events, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
"China pays great attention to the event. We feel grieved and regretful about the casualties and property losses, and feel worried about its development," Foreign Ministry front man Hong Lei said in a statement Wednesday night, carried by Xinhua. On Tuesday, North Korea fired about 170 rounds of artillery, with 80 of them landing on a South Korean island, killing at least two South Korean soldiers and two civilians.
Beijing is Pyongyang's closest ally. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Wednesday urged China to use its influence over North Korea to prevent the nation from taking any more provocative actions.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
China was worried.... worried the US sent an aircraft carrier instead of getting down on its knees and begging it to please intervene and we will drop our demands for a higher yuan
(KUNA) -- South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Wednesday his country's military will toughen its policy on the use of force against North Korea, in response to the North's artillery attack on Tuesday, Yonhap News Agency reported. Lawmakers grilled the defense minister during a parliamentary session in Seoul over the military's failure to have its fighter jets strike back immediately, despite the fact that the North's bombardment on a populated South Korean island was a military provocation, the report said.
"We will toughen our rules of engagement to allow the military to strongly respond to" any North Korean provocations, Kim was quoted as telling politicians. On Tuesday, North Korea fired about 170 rounds of artillery on Yeonpyeong Island and the surrounding waters near the tense Yellow Sea border, with some 90 shells landing on the island. The attack resulted in the deaths of two marines and two civilians. 15 marines and at least three civilians were maimed.
About 13 minutes after the North's attacks, South Korea returned fire with some 80 cannons and scrambled six fighter jets. The fighter jets, however, didn't engage because they need approval from the presidential office before unleashing counter attacks.
"At that time, the fighter jets were deployed to launch counter attacks if North Korea fires more artillery," Kim said, adding that his military is reviewing changes to the rules in the direction that would require fighter jets to immediately launch an air-to-ground strike.
Some politicians criticized the military for showing what they called hesitation in returning fire against the North's attack, according to the report. It took around 13 minutes for South Korean forces on Yeonpyeong to strike back with their K-9 self-propelled guns. But Minister Kim defended his military's response, insisting the front-line unit on the island acted promptly in response within the short time, given the chain of command. The minister also said he would deploy more artillery on the island. "We have six K-9 self-propelled guns at Yeonpyeong Island and we plan to deploy more of them," Kim said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Six guns? Sixty would be better.
And don't bother going after their artillery unless you can hit it. Hit something they care about instead.
#2
The defense minister resigned. All fire positions are already laid out in NORK. Just like in Ranger School. He was not allowed to return fire. "I Quit"
Both the ROK and Ameican Military are on the same page on targets inside of NORK. It's a political will issue.
American success against al Qaeda has had a lot to do with the experience of nations that have earlier destroyed similar Islamic terrorist organizations. In particular, the U.S. adopted the Israeli tactic of concentrating on the leadership and technicians.
Long term, the U.S. has found that you don't have to kill terrorist leaders to disable them. For example, when American troops drove al Qaeda and the Taliban out of Afghanistan in late 2001, they captured large quantities of records dealing with al Qaeda administration. This was revealing. The al Qaeda leadership was constantly being criticized by subordinates for stupid mistakes, while the leaders were constantly monitoring their people for stealing and malingering. The U.S. made sure a lot of this dirty linen was leaked, and eventually the media in Moslem nations began reporting on it.
As al Qaeda popularity declined, so did donations from the Moslem world. This forced the terrorists to resort to crime to raise money. This was publicized, along with details via captured documents, by the Americans. As a result, Moslems began to regard Islamic terrorists as criminals, as well as thoughtless killers.
The final blow came from the mouths of captured terrorists. Most of these men tended to speak freely once captured, and often complained about how hard life was as a terrorist.
This media campaign against al Qaeda was not, itself, publicized, but was carried out aggressively and discretely. It worked, and it continues to work. Some things just don't survive the bright light of exposure.
A charitable front for Lashkar-e-Taiba and three of their senior leaders have been targeted by the Treasury Department as global terrorists.
The Treasury added the Falah-i Insaniat Foundation (FIF) as a terrorist organization, and FIF leader Hafiz Abdur Rauf, Mian Abdullah and Mohammad Naushad Alam Khan, to the list of designated global terrorists. This designation allows the US to freeze their assets and prevent them from using financial institutions, and prosecute them for terrorist activities.
"Few individuals are more integral to LET's fundraising than Hafiz Abdur Rauf and Mian Abdullah," said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.
The designations took place twenty days after the Treasury sanctioned Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders Azam Cheema, a top commander in the planning of the Mumabi assault, and Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, a politican. Jaish-e-Mohammed and its leader, Maulana Massod Azhar, were designated as terrorist organizations at the same time.
Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist, remains free in Pakistan despite open support of jihad in India and Pakistan, and regardless of LeT's involvement in the Mumbai attack as well as others. Pakistani Army corps commanders openly associate with Saeed.
(KUNA) -- India asked Pakistain to address New Delhi's concerns on cross-border terrorism in an "effective and transparent" manner.
According to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said on Wednesday that redressal of India's concerns was necessary for a "comprehensive, serious, and sustained" dialogue between the two countries.
Vouching for continuation of bilateral talks for better ties, she said that India had consistently been proposing a step-by-step approach for normalization of relations and that this approach did not preclude discussions on any issue.
The Indian official also said that her country was committed to resolving all outstanding issues with Pakistain through dialogue.
Reiterating India's commitment to remove all obstacles in bilateral trade, Rao said, "We are open to looking at the existing bilateral visa agreement that was signed in 1974 to facilitate travel by bonafide businessmen from both countries."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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The Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, is actually a Muslim shrine, according to an official report published this week by the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Information.
The document, written by Al-Mutawakei Taha, a senior ministry official and respected writer, states that the Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, not a piece of the Second Jewish Temple that was destroyed by Romans 600 years earlier.
The report claims that Jews have lied about the wall's age and that they never worshipped there prior to 1917.
"Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque," Taha wrote. "The Zioinist occupation falsely and unjustly claims that it owns this wall, which it calls the Western Wall or Kotel."
Taha said "many studies" by Jewish experts "have affirmed there is no archaeological evidence that the Temple Mount was built during the period of King Solomon."
Jews and Muslims have violently clashed for years over the Western Wall and Temple Mount complex.
Israelis said Taha's report contained lies that will only undermine the fragile peace process.
[An Nahar] Druze leader Walid Wally Jumblat ... who's been on every side in Leb at least four times... on Wednesday accused the U.N.-backed probe into the murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri of being politically motivated and urged the cabinet to unanimously reject it. "Really, there's no need for an investigation by an outside party. Hezbollah would be happy to conduct one for us, in fact. Or we could just forget the whole thing. After all, he's been dead for five years now.
"This tribunal is aimed at destabilizing Leb rather than rendering justice," Jumblat told Agence France Presse. "It would be appropriate at this time for the cabinet to meet and unanimously denounce the tribunal and its (upcoming) verdict)."
According to unconfirmed reports, high-ranking Hizbullah members stand to be accused by the Special Tribunal for Leb (STL) for Hariri's murder. Wally appears to be on the Hezbollah side this week.
Jumblat said the rumors and press reports surrounding the STL probe and its findings had become "a dangerous soap opera" that threatened Leb's stability.
"It is clear that this probe is being used for political purposes," he said. "It is clear that the Sherlocks are leaking information and are working for countries that have accounts to settle."
He added that Leb's politicians would do better to address mounting extremism in certain regions of the country rather than focus on the tribunal. "The real danger facing Leb is the rise of turban groups and the political class should stop being distracted by these endless arguments over the tribunal and face the real danger," Jumblat said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
This would be a great time for MOSSAD to slip out the names of some of the Hizb who "might" be implicated, along with their Syrian handlers. Assad has long be terrified that he would be named, so the Israelis could do him one in the eye about it.
[Iran Press TV] Hezbullies has censured Israel's new development project in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and described it as a systematic plan to further Judaize the city.
According to a statement released by Hezbullies on Tuesday, the ongoing Israeli acts of aggression against Islamic and Christian sanctities around the Western (al-Buraq) Wall are aimed at Judaizing the Paleostinian-occupied territories.
Hezbullies also lashed out at Arab nations over their inaction and called on Mohammedans, Christians and all freedom-loving people across the globe, as well as international institutions, to take effective measures to bring the 'criminal plots' to a halt.
On Sunday, the Israeli cabinet gave the green light to an investment of $23 million in a project, which seeks to improve access to both the Western (al-Buraq) Wall and nearby sites in a five-year period.
The project would help accommodate 8 million visitors a year to East al-Quds, where Paleostinians hope to establish the capital of their future state.
The Paleostinian Authority (PA) has also slammed the project as "illegal," saying that the new Israeli project stifles Islamic sanctities.
"It is illegal because what they want to do is in an occupied area and they have no right to make any change in occupied areas, especially in East al-Quds (Jerusalem)," a front man for the Paleostinian Authority, Ghassan Khatib, said on Monday.
He added that such a project would only block attempts to reach any peaceful solution because any solution with Israel must include East al-Quds.
Khatib also called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop any project aimed at changing the ground in East al-Quds.
The Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary,) which houses the al-Aqsa mosque compound, stands above Western (al-Buraq) Wall.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
The best bet for Israel right now is to move as well on other fronts. They could really make a slam down by nationalizing all "holy sites" in Israel. Declare them property of the state, only available for lease to responsible tenants.
So, for example, if Wahabbis cut up rough at the Jerusalem mosque, the Israelis can cancel their lease, and offer it to the Sufis, for example. The Wahabbis would soil their breeches at the prospect.
[An Nahar] Hizbullah MP Walid Sukarriyeh, commenting on a CBC report which presented evidence implicating Hizbullah in Hariri's liquidation, said the report aims to sow discord. "Even if Hizbullah killed (former) PM Hariri, there is no interest in destroying Leb," Sukarriyeh said in remarks published Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] An Iranian politician has censured a UN resolution accusing Tehran of human rights ... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you... violations, describing it as part of a smear campaign by the Zionist lobby against Iran. "Them Jews got it in for us!"
"The hostile position of the global arrogance That'd be us. They get tired of bitching about the Great Satan™ sometimes. against the Islamic Theocratic Republic has always been obvious. This time it made mischief and approved a worthless resolution," Samad Fadaei told IRNA on Wednesday. He added that the resolution was passed by countries that merely claim to defend human rights but, in fact, are carrying out heinous crimes.
"Those who wear the mask of support for human rights have malicious faces and easily violate the absolute rights of many countries in order to meet their own interests," the Iranian politician said.
He expressed confidence that all freedom-seeking people in the world would condemn the recent Western-sponsored UN draft resolution against Iran. "The resolution lacks any value and will have no impact on the will of the Medes and the Persians and statesmen," Fadaei said.
He noted that the Human Rights Committee of the Iranian Parliament has presented to the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society cases of human rights violations by Western countries.
On November 18, the Third Committee of the UN, in a draft resolution, accused Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar of violating human rights, but the resolution is yet to be approved by the UN General Assembly. The draft resolution was sponsored by the US, the European Union, Canada, and other Western countries.
Iran has denounced the resolution as an illegal move criminally masterminded by the United States and its allies.
The Non-aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have also condemned the resolution against Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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This is a neat description of what appears to be excellent intuitive intel work. Captain Eid's death was a loss to civilization.
[An Nahar] An investigative report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) has revealed that Capt. Wissam Eid's discovery showed that "everything" in the liquidation of ex-PM Rafik Hariri was connected to landlines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital south of Beirut.
It gave a detailed report about Eid, saying that before his violent death in 2008, he was an unusual figure in the murky, often corrupt world of Arab policing.
Eid had never actually wanted to be a policeman, or an intelligence officer, CBC wrote. In authoritarian Arab society, he had no interest in becoming an authority figure. And yet, he'd had no choice. When he was doing his military service in the 1990s, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) noticed Eid's degree in computer engineering.
The security service was then trying to build an information technology department. And that was that.
By the time Hariri was killed in 2005, Eid was a captain in the ISF. His boss, Lt. Col. Samer Shehadeh, brought him into the investigation.
It was a Lebanese investigation, Eid was told, but it was also a U.N. one. Eid was to co-operate with the foreigners working out of the old abandoned hotel in the hills above Beirut, CBC went on to say.
It said Eid reasoned that finding the first traces of the killers was a process of elimination. From Leb's phone companies, he obtained the call records of all the cellphones that had registered with the cell towers in the immediate vicinity of the Hotel St. George, where the massive blast had torn a deep crater.
Once Eid had those records, he began thinning out the hundreds of phones in the area that morning, subtracting those held by each of the 22 dead, then those in Hariri's entourage, then those of people nearby who had been interviewed and had alibis. Soon enough, he had found the phones the Hariri hit team had used, the CBC report added. The U.N. would eventually dub it the "red" network.
But he didn't stop there, it said. Exhaustively tracking which towers the red phones had "shaken hands with" in the days before the liquidation, and comparing those records to Hariri's schedule, Eid discovered that this network had been shadowing the former Premier.
The red-phone carriers were clearly a disciplined group. They communicated with one another and almost never with an outside phone. And directly after the liquidation, the red network went dead forever.
But Eid, according to the report, had found another connection. He eventually identified eight other phones that had for months simultaneously used the same cell towers as the red phones. Signals intelligence professionals call these "co-location" phones.
What Capt. Eid had discovered was that everyone on the hit team had carried a second phone, and that the team members had used their second phones to communicate with a much larger support network that had been in existence for at least a year. Eventually, the U.N. would label that group the "blue" network.
CBC said the blue network also exercised considerable discipline. It, too, remained a "closed" network. Not once did any blue-network member make the sort of slip that telecom sleuths look for.
But these people also carried co-location phones and Eid kept following the ever-widening trail of crumbs, it said.
The big break came when the blue network was closed down and the phones were collected by a minor electronics specialist who worked for Hizbullah, Abd al Majid al Ghamloush, the report said. It said Ghamloush was, in the words of one former UN investigator, "an idiot."
Given the job of collecting and disposing of the blue phones, he noticed some still had time remaining on them and used one to call his girlfriend, Sawan, in the process basically identifying himself to Capt. Eid. He might as well have written his name on a whiteboard and held it up outside ISF headquarters.
Ghamloush's "stupidity" eventually led Eid to a pair of brothers named Hussein and Mouin Khreis, both Hizbullah operatives. One of them had actually been at the site of the blast.
Capt. Eid kept going, identifying more and more phones directly or indirectly associated with the hit team. He found the core of a third network, a longer-term surveillance team that would eventually be dubbed the "yellows."
Eid's work would also lead to another discovery: Everything connected, however elliptically, to land lines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital in South Beirut, a sector of the city entirely controlled by Hizbullah, CBC added.
It has long been said that the fundamentalist fighters operate a command centre in the hospital.
Eventually, telecom sleuths would identify another network of four so-called "pink phones" that had been communicating both with the hospital and, indirectly, with the other networks. These phones turned out to be tremendously important. It turned out they had been issued by the Lebanese government itself and when the ministry of communications was queried about who they had been issued to, the answer came back in the form of a bland government record.
CBC has obtained a copy of this record provided to the commission. On it, someone has highlighted four entries in a long column of six-digit numbers. Beside the highlighted numbers, in Arabic, was the word "Hizbullah."
Finally, Eid was handed a clue from the best source possible: He was contacted by Hizbullah itself and told that some of the phones he was chasing were being used by Hizbullah agents conducting a counter-espionage operation against Israel's Mossad spy agency and that he needed to back off.
The warning could not have been more clear, CBC said.
As though to underscore it, Eid's boss, Lt. Col. Shehadeh, was targeted by bombers in September 2006. The blast killed four of his bodyguards and nearly killed Shehadeh, who was sent to Quebec for medical treatment and resettlement.
By that time, Capt. Eid had sent his report to the U.N. inquiry and moved on to another operation.
The Eid report, according to CBC was entered into the U.N.'s database by someone who either didn't understand it or didn't care enough to bring it forward. It disappeared. A year and a half later, in December 2007, when the Eid report finally resurfaced, the immediate reaction of the U.N. telecom team was embarrassment. And then suspicion.
Eid claimed to have performed his analysis using nothing but Excel spreadsheets and that, said the British specialist, was impossible. No one, he declared, could accomplish such a thing without powerful computer assistance and the requisite training. No amateur, which is how the specialists regarded Eid, could possibly have waded through the millions of possible permutations posed by the phone records and extracted individual networks.
The most recent outbreak of large-scale sectarian violence was in January and February 2008 when armed militias fought in the streets of Tripoli and other large centers, the report said.
This Capt. Eid must have had help, it said, thought the telecom experts. Someone must have given him this information. Perhaps he was involved somehow?
By now it was January 2008. A new U.N. commissioner was in charge, Daniel Bellemare. Investigators were finally beginning to believe they were getting somewhere. A deputation of telecom experts was dispatched to meet Eid. They questioned him and returned convinced that, somehow, he had indeed identified the networks himself.
Eid appeared to be one of those people who could intuit mathematical patterns, the sort who thinks several moves ahead in chess. Even better, he was willing to help directly. He wanted Hariri's killers to face justice, Hizbullah's warning be damned.
It was an exciting prospect for the U.N. team. Here was an actual Lebanese investigator, with insights and contacts the UN foreigners could never match.
A week later, a larger U.N. team met with Capt. Eid and, again, all went well.
Then, the next day, Jan. 25, 2008, eight days after his first meeting with the UN Sherlocks, Capt. Wissam Eid met precisely the same fate as Hariri. The bomb that ripped apart his four-wheel-drive vehicle also killed his bodyguard and three innocent bystanders.
Because there was no doubt in the mind of any member of the telecom team why Eid had died: Hizbullah, they deduced, had found out that Capt. Eid's report had been discovered, that he'd met with the U.N. Sherlocks and that he had agreed to work with them.
Immediately, the telecom team had the records of the cell towers near the Eid blast site collected, reasoning the killers might once again have left digital footprints they could follow.
Not this time, though. There was nothing. This time the killers did what they should have been doing all along: They'd used radios, not cellphones. Radios don't leave a trace.
That left the U.N. team with the obvious problem. Their adversary obviously knew not only what the U.N. Sherlocks were doing, but knew in considerable detail.
And the more the U.N. Sherlocks thought about it, CBC said, the more they focused on one man: Col. Wissam al-Hassan, the new head of Lebanese police intelligence.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
Very good post Fred. I enjoyed reading this piece.
Shame isn't it that these people exist but go unrecognized "one of those people who could intuit mathematical patterns". A good example of intense focused thought.
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[Al Jazeera] A demonstrator has been killed and several others injured as hundreds of Orthodox Coptic Christian protesters clashed with Egyptian police after permission for the building of a new church was refused.
Kenyan authorities have arrested seven young men, including a Nigerian with a British passport, for trying to go to Somalia and join up with an al-Qaeda-linked group there.
South Korea's defense minister resigned Thursday as increased defense measures were announced two days after a North Korean attack, the government said.
[An Nahar] Druze leader 
[Iran Press TV] 
[An Nahar] Hizbullah MP Walid Sukarriyeh, commenting on a CBC report which presented evidence implicating Hizbullah in Hariri's 
