Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Lauren Holly aka Mary Swanson in "Dumb & Dumber" aka Maxine Stewart in "Picket Fences (TV Series 19921996)" aka Gillian Grady in "Final Storm" aka Audrey Valentine in "You're So Cupid!" aka Liza Genson in "The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll" aka Rachel Purdy in "Raising Flagg" aka Daphne Widesecker in "The Pleasure Drivers" aka Kim Davis in "Down and Derby" aka Maggie Davidson in "Fatwa" aka Molly Mahoney in "The Godfather of Green Bay" aka Buckley Clarke in "Pavement" (age 48)
[Washington Post] Taliban fighters launched separate attacks on two U.S. bases in Kandahar on Thursday, exploding a car boom outside a military outpost west of the city and firing rocket-propelled grenades at another garrison downtown, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.
The violence, which killed at least three Afghans and maimed six Americans, indicated that the Taliban still has the ambition and ability to take on the symbols of American power in southern Afghanistan. U.S. officials have been encouraged by months of declining violence in Kandahar city and some of the surrounding farmlands, but the hard boyz have carried out high-profile liquidations in recent months that have tested the emerging stability.
The attack downtown began at 2:15 p.m., when four Taliban fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at Camp Nathan Smith, the U.S.-run headquarters of the provincial reconstruction team, which houses both State Department officials and U.S. soldiers who focus on improving governance and development in the area.
Over the course of six hours, tower guards and an Afghan police swat team exchanged gunfire with the thugs, who were holed up on the top floor of a three-story building 100 to 200 yards from the base, said Maj. Kevin Toner, a U.S. military front man at the base. About 10 rocket-propelled grenades landed in or near the compound, and at least two car booms went kaboom! outside, he said.
The police swat team, commanded by provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Razziq, cleared the first two floors of the building then stopped at the top floor, where the door was barricaded with barbed wire, Toner said.
"They did not want to breach that," not knowing what was on the other side, he said.
About 8:30 p.m., a U.S. military helicopter fired a Hellfire missile into the building, ending the standoff, Toner said.
"They made no attempts here to breach the gate. It was just shooting at us from that compound," Toner said.
The kabooms inside the base killed an Afghan civilian and maimed five American soldiers, an American civilian contractor and an Afghan soldier, Toner said. The head of Kandahar's health department said that one police officer also died and another was maimed.
U.S. Embassy front man Gavin Sundwall said in a statement that "the civilians who serve in Afghanistan will not be intimidated by this kind of cowardly attack."
"All those requests to transfer to Jakarta? Coincidence."
The other attack occurred in Panjwayi, a rural district to the west of the city. A suicide car boomwent kaboom! outside Combat Outpost Pul, a U.S. military base. A U.S. military front man in Kandahar said that no American troops were killed or maimed in the blast and that the base perimeter had not been breached. One Afghan civilian died in that attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
We need remote weapons at every operating base in Afghanistan. No one should be putting their heads up to shoot at these idjits and a good remote can shoot at 7.62mm with pinpoint accuracy. If they put their head up, it comes off while the operator sips his coffee. All good.
[Yemen Post] Local official announced this morning that an air strike conducted Wednesday night in the southern province of Abyan where al-Qaeda hard boyz have been battling the government forces for the past few months, having seized several towns and villages throughout the coast in inland.
A raid in Shaqra, a coastal city in Abyan left 3 alleged al-Qaeda hard boyz dead and another 6 severely maimed. The town had been under the control of an offshoot of al-Qaeda, "Ansar al Shariah", a group claiming to want to return to a more Islamic rule of law.
In Zinjibar, the picturesque provincial capital of Abyan, where most of the fighting has been taking place was once again pounded from the air, backed up by heavy shelling from the ground, as the government forces were attempting to drive out the armed hard boyz from their northern base in the city.
As a result an alleged 3 al-Qaeda gunnies were killed and several dozens maimed.
Military sources also announced that 2 of their men had been injured in the attack, added that they were being treated at the hospital.
Despite its many efforts the government has yet to conquer its lost territories "Ansar al Shariah" seems to continue its advances in the south, pushing no only towards the Oil rich provinces of Mareb and Shabwa where it is believed they have established bases but also towards the strategic Seaport of Aden.
Many security analysts have warned that if Aden was to fall into the hands of Islamist Death Eaters, it would severely put the Oil shipping route in jeopardy as the gunnies would certainly use Aden's position to their advantage, disrupting the flow of goods throughout the region.
They added that a potential alliance with Somali pirate groups was probably in the cards as well, stressing the importance of dismantling the organization.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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At least one policeman was killed and another injred after a group of security forces came under gunfire on Friday in Dagestan, said a local police source. He said unknown assailants set up an ambush and opened fire on a group of policemen near the village of Bairamaul in the Khasavyurt district.
[Yahoo News] A suspected radical Islamist gunman who opened fire Friday near the US embassy in Sarajevo was maimed and jugged, a police front man told Bosnian television.
"The person who fired an automatic weapon was maimed and jugged during the police operation. After receiving medical treatment on the scene the person was hospitalised," police front man Irfan Nefic told national BHT television.
"Sarge, there's blood squirting everywhere! What do I do?"
"Slap a band-aid on it, Krtekovic. We've got to get him to Dr. Quincy right away."
Earlier media reports said the man, identified as a member of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, was killed by a sniper after firing a Kalashnikov rifle at the US mission.
Embassy spokeswoman Sanja Pejcinovic would not go into details of the apparent attack.
"We can confirm there has been an incident in front of the embassy. The building is closed and we are waiting for the police to seal off the area," she told AFP.
Bosnian national radio said police were searching the vicinity of the embassy for possible accomplices.
"Several police patrols were sent to the scene. Two police men were maimed, one in the leg and one in the head," the radio reported.
Jasminka Fisic, who was close to the embassy -- located in the centre of Sarajevo near the iconic Holiday Inn hotel -- told AFP by telephone that the entire area was sealed off with police cars speeding towards the embassy.
Bosnia is home to a small minority of followers of Wahhabism, a strict and ultra-conservative brand of Islam which is dominant in Soddy Arabia.
During Bosnia's 1992-95 war between its Croats, Mohammedans and Serbs, a large number of volunteers from Mohammedan nations flocked to the Balkan country to take up arms.
Many of these Mohammedan fighters stayed on after the conflict and obtained Bosnian citizenship. Some in the mostly moderate Bosnian Mohammedan community have converted to the more radical Islam preached by several ex-mujahedeen.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 12:56 ||
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#1
Drudge has "Terror in Bosnia".
More like pathetic attempt to do something and gets shot down like a dog.
[An Nahar] German authorities Wednesday freed two men initially suspected last month of acquiring chemicals for a possible bombing ahead of the September 11, 2001 attacks' anniversary and a papal visit.
Prosecutors pressed no charges against the men, a 24-year-old German of Lebanese origin and a 28-year-old Paleostinian from the Gazoo Strip.
Police took the pair into custody on September 8 and raided their homes as well as a mosque in the working-class neighborhood of Wedding in Berlin.
However the federal prosecutor's office, which normally handles major terror cases, did not open its own investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Europe
As an American-born Muslim of privilege tried to protect himself yesterday with the Constitution he's accused of betraying, prosecutors began drawing for jurors a sinister portrait of a young man the feds said both al-Qaeda and the FBI recognized was becoming a mouthpiece for jihad. Tarek Mehanna even had all-American code phrase for jihad, prosecutors said: Peanut butter and jelly.
By moderating online chats from the "cushy bedroom" of his parents' home about the terrorist he thought of as his "real father," Osama bin Laden, and translating bin Laden's recorded messages into English subtitles, assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty said Mehanna, 29, "viewed himself as part of the media department of the terror group.
"It meant killing, it meant bullets, it meant martyrdom," said Chakravarty, noting that in the summer of 2005, al-Qaeda "personally solicited" Mehanna to translate works by Ayman al-Zawahri.
And to a great extent, Mehanna's attorney J.W. Carney Jr. -- admitting his client was bitter about the war in Iraq -- didn't disagree.
"Yes, he expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden. He didn't hide his beliefs; he wore them on his sleeve," Carney said on the first day of an anticipated two-month trial. While perhaps treason to some, Mehanna's religious and political beliefs are "what make America so great, so strong, so free," said Carney.
Not really, no. But apparently this is a common mistake among immigrants in certain circles. I blame the entertainment industry.
Testimony begins today. Star witnesses for the prosecution will include a married father granted immunity to tell jurors how he, Mehanna and another man flew out of Boston on Super Bowl Sunday 2004 with the intent of going to Yemen to enlist in a terrorist training camp.
Carney plans to counter with a Yemen scholar from Princeton University, who will vouch for the rich Islamic education opportunities that Mehanna claims were the real reason for his journey.
At least 13 members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, including a deputy of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the group's emir, have been killed in a previously unreported US Predator airstrike.
The airstrike took place on Oct. 26 in South Waziristan, according to Reuters, but was not immediately reported. The exact location of the strike was not provided. Two missiles were fired at a compound. Pakistani officials said that 13 Taliban fighters were killed, but tribal leaders put the number of deaths at 22. All are said to be "militants."
Among those thought to have been killed was Taj Gul Mehsud, whom Reuters described as "a senior Taliban commander and close aide" to Hakeemullah. Taj Gul's death has not been confirmed, however.
[Dawn] Six persons, including three members of different anti-Taliban peace committees and two bully boys, were killed in separate incidents of violence in Khyber and Bajaur agencies and Tank district on Wednesday.
Sources said that a volunteer of a local peace committee and two activists of a banned bully boy organization were killed in exchange of fire in Akkakhel area of Bara subdivision in Khyber Agency.
"The incident took place at Meeran Talab when volunteers of peace committee and activists of Lashkar-i-Islam came face to face as the former were patrolling the area," they added.
In Tank, a pro-government tribal elder and member of peace committee, was killed along with his host. Police said that Shahabuddin Barki, accompanied by an unidentified associate, was staying at the hujra of Asmathullah Mehsud in Civil Line Colony.
Apparently, the unidentified companion of the tribal elder killed both, Mr Barki and his host, in their sleep. Ghulam Rasool, the father of Mr Mehsud, told police that he rushed to the hujra on hearing gunshots and found both his son and his guest lying in a pool of blood.
Badly injured but breathing they were rushed to a hospital but died on the way. There was no sign of the assailant, who would have decamped after committing the crime, he added.
Taliban front man Maulvi Farhad grabbed credit for the murders. Maulvi Farhad called journalists, including Dawn`s correspondent in Laddah, by phone from an unspecified location to say that people who worked against Taliban would meet the same fate.
In Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central, Malak Rahmat Jan, a pro-government tribal elder and member of peace committee, was killed when snuffies from across the Afghan border targeted his house with missiles and mortars in Zari area of tehsil Lowi Mamond.
"Malak Rahmat was killed and his house was partially damaged in the attack," officials of political administration said while confirming the report.
They said that security forces and volunteers of local peace committee retaliated and targeted the locations from where the house of the pro-government tribal elder was attacked.
They said that the attackers decamped after heavy firing by the local peace volunteers and security forces. They said that snuffies residing in Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... of neighbouring Afghanistan were attacking the tribal region to target security forces and pro-government rustics.
Also, three workers of Frontier Works Organisation were maimed when their vehicle was targeted by a landmine on Jandolla-Makeen Road near Manzai Ziarat area on Wednesday.
The workers of the construction company were going to Hathala camp from Jandolla when they met the fatal incident at 8:30am. They were taken to Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... CMH.
The security forces cordoned off the area soon after the blast and launched a search operation. According to some sources, three suspected persons were incarcerated by security forces during the operation.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard... Khasadar Force incarcerated an Afghan national at Torkham border in Khyber Agency and recovered arms from his possession. The recovered arms included rocket launchers, mortars and cartridges. He was shifted to Landi Kotal lockup for interrogation.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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[One Pakistain] Pakistain has sacked two coppers over the killings of four unarmed Russians, one of them pregnant, and a Tajik in the southwestern city of Quetta, police said Thursday.
"We have taken action against these coppers and removed them from service in the light of recommendation from the inquiry tribunal of the Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... High Court," Ahsan Mehboob, Quetta police chief, told AFP.
"The court, in its recommendation, held these coppers responsible for negligence that caused the tragic incident in which five foreigners, including three women, one of whom was pregnant, were killed," Mehboob said.
On May 17, police and paramilitary from the Frontier Corps opened fire on the group, claiming they were jacket wallahs who attacked a checkpoint in Kharotabad on the outskirts of Quetta.
A subsequent judicial commission found that the Tajik and four Russians, three of them women, were unarmed.
It accused former city police chief Daud Junejo and Frontier Corps Colonel Faisal Shehzad of incompetence. Junejo has since been pushed into retirement, but Shehzad remains in the job.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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[One Pakistan] The United States on Thursday accused Pakistain of allowing Death Eaters to fire on US troops in Afghanistan as it renewed its call on the uneasy war partner to crack down on jihad boys.
US officials have reported a sharp rise in cross-border attacks against its forces, amid a deterioration of relations after US forces secretly raided Pakistain to kill the world's most wanted man, the late Osama bin Laden ... who went shovel-ready... Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, the deputy commander of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... -led force in Afghanistan, said that the rocket and mortar fire against his forces appears to come from within sight of Pak military posts.
"In some locations from time to time you will see what just appears to us to be a collaboration... or at a minimum a looking the other way," he told news hounds in Washington via video link.
He said that the border forces come from Pakistain's Frontier Corps, who are locally recruited and not as highly trained as regular army units.
Top US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Elihu B. Washburne ... last week visited Pakistain to press for action against Islamic jihad boys, particularly the Haqqani network which is blamed for anti-US attacks in Afghanistan.
"I explained that trying to distinguish between so-called good Death Eaters and bad Death Eaters is ultimately self-defeating and dangerous," Clinton said as she testified about her visit to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"No one who targets innocent civilians of any nationality should be tolerated or protected.
"We look to Pakistain to encourage the Taliban and other Death Eaters to participate in an Afghan grinding of the peace processor in good faith -- both through unequivocal public statements and by closing off the safe havens," she added.
Clinton used unusually strong language on last week's trip, saying that US tolerance has worn thin after indications that the Haqqani network is targeting Americans, including through a 19-hour siege of the US embassy in Kabul.
The top US diplomat supported the assessment of the outgoing US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, who last month said that the Haqqani network was a "veritable arm" of Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence.
US politicians told Clinton at the hearing that they had deep concerns about Pakistain and supported the B.O. regime's decision to suspend about a third of the annual $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistain.
"Our two countries are at a crossroads. We cannot sustain a partnership with Islamabad if it pursues policies that are hostile to US interests and jeopardize American lives," said Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the Republican-led committee.
Representative Howard Berman, the top politician on the committee from Clinton's Democratic Party, also voiced concern about Pakistain but said it was critical to maintain the $1.5 billion-a-year package in civilian assistance.
"These are the critical building blocks of a peaceful and prosperous Pakistain -- and ultimately, a stable Afghanistan and South Asia," Berman said.
During Clinton's visit, Pakistain's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that both her country and Afghanistan can do more against cut-throats but denied any official support for the Haqqani network.
Pakistain, once the primary backer of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, switched sides to join the United States in its military campaign after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But the partnership has been unpopular with the Pak public, amid a wave of violence that has killed thousands of troops and civilians.
Some experts believe that Pakistain is hedging its bets as the United States prepares to draw down its combat forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Clinton, responding to a politician's question, said that the administration has held three rounds of internal talks this year on the future relationship with Afghanistan and that the text was "90 percent agreed to."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
the border forces come from Pakistain's Frontier Corps, who are locally recruited and not as highly trained as regular army units
Not to mention the FC being a conduit for ISI "project money".
#3
Pakistan dont want peace in Afghanistan unless they choose the leadership ie The Taliban they control/created and more popular in Pakistan than Afghanistan!
Posted by: Pablo ||
10/28/2011 8:41 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Reading another article, it's clear why they aren't doing anything....link
Clearly, Pakistans position is that while assisting the US in disengaging in Afghanistan, it will not be pushed into doing anything that creates more risks inside its borders.
They expect us to be gone soon so theirs no point in upsetting the status quo.
#6
See also PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > [SecState HILLARY] CLINTON WANTS MULLAH OMAR [+ Quetta Shura = Afghan Taliban] INVOLVED IN ANY AFGHAN PEACE TALKS | US CAN'T FIGHT TERRORISM WIDOUT PAKISTAN, SAYS CLINTON.
AYMAN ZAWAHIRI + other???
Acknowleddges that the HAQQANI NETWORK has veritable "safe havens" in Pakistan where it can stage strikes throughout AFPAK.
[Dawn] A second US drone strike on Thursday killed at least four Death Eaters in Pakistain's troubled tribal area along the Afghan border, security officials said.
The unmanned aircraft fired four missiles, hitting a house in Hisokhel village, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of the North Wazoo tribal district, security officials told AFP.
The strike came hours after another unmanned aircraft attack killed four Death Eaters including the brother of a Pak Taliban capo in Azam Warsak, 20 kilometres west of Wana, the main town of the neighbouring South Waziristan tribal district.
"A US drone fired four missiles. At least four Death Eaters were killed," a security official said of the second attack.
The identities of the Death Eaters killed in the second attack were yet not immediately known, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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[One Pakistan] Two US drone strikes on Thursday killed at least 10 beturbanned goons in Pakistain's northwestern tribal belt including the brother of a Taliban capo, local officials said.
Four hard boyz were killed in the first strike, when four missiles slammed into a pick-up truck in Azam Warsak, 20 kilometres (13 miles) west of Wana, the main town of South Wazoo tribal district, officials said.
In the second strike six beturbanned goons were killed when four missiles hit a house in Hisokhel, 30 kilometres east of Miranshah, the main town of neighbouring North Waziristan tribal district, security officials told AFP.
The covert drone programme -- which US officials refuse to discuss publicly -- is the chief US weapon against Taliban and Al-Qaeda beturbanned goons who use Pakistain's lawless tribal areas as launchpads for attacking US troops in Afghanistan.
The first strike indicates that US intelligence has penetrated the close family circle of Maulvi Nazir, a Pak commander who leads Islamist beturbanned goons in battle against American troops across the border in Afghanistan.
"Nazir's younger brother Omar Wazir has been killed, it has been confirmed," a Pak security official told AFP. Another Pak intelligence official also confirmed his death.
Residents and security officials in the region described the 27-year-old as the operational head for the Nazir group, and a close aide to his brother.
He adopted a low profile, going to Afghanistan, assigning duties to fighters and supervising logistic arrangements for their missions, they said.
Another close relative of Nazir's was also among the dead, Pak security officials said, but the identities of the beturbanned goons killed in the second strike were not immediately clear.
Thursday's strikes were the first for nearly two weeks, after four fighters were killed in the mountains further west of Wana on October 15.
Nearly 60 US drone strikes have been reported in Pakistain so far this year, dozens of them since Navy SEALs killed Al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who no longer exists... in the garrison city of Abbottabad, close to the capital Islamabad, on May 2.
Relations between Pakistain and the United States deteriorated sharply afterwards, and again over accusations that Pak intelligence was involved with the Haqqani network, blamed for last month's siege of the US embassy in Kabul.
Visiting Islamabad last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Gray Eminence ... called on Pakistain to take action within "days and weeks" on dismantling turban havens and encouraging the Taliban into peace talks.
But although Pakistain recognised it could do more in clamping down on Afghan bad turbans, it offered no details on how, and commanders are unwilling to launch a sweeping offensive in North Waziristan, base of the Haqqani Taliban faction.
On Thursday a US general accused Pak forces on the border of allowing hard boyz to fire on American troops in Afghanistan.
"In some locations from time to time you will see what just appears to us to be a collaboration... or at a minimum a looking the other way," said Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, deputy commander of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -led force in Afghanistan.
Clinton's visit to Islamabad was seen as papering over some of the divisions, including her admission that the US had held one exploratory meeting with the Haqqani network, facilitated by Pak government officials.
Pak policy makers have argued that military operations offer limited gains and that now is the time to concentrate on a comprehensive reconciliation ahead of the planned NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday: "We look to Pakistain to encourage the Taliban and other hard boyz to participate in an Afghan grinding of the peace processor in good faith -- both through unequivocal public statements and by closing off the safe havens."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Iraqi police and health officials say 18 people have been killed in twin bombings in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... . Police say the blasts targeted a music store in a Shia neighborhood Thursday night.
Two people were killed in the initial kaboom shortly after 7 p.m. local time.
Four minutes later, as people rushed to the scene, a second bomb went kaboom!, police said. Additionally, 36 people were maimed in the attack.
A medic at Imam Hussein hospital confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to news hounds.
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10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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Publicly thanked the Israeli and American officials who got him released and the Egyptian authorities who treated him so well "in accordance to the tenets of their religion," ate a hamburger and French fries with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and prepared to fly home to America with his parents in the morning.
From the comment thread following the article:
(rant on)
Ilan Grapel: "I want to thank the Israeli people..."
Great. You're welcome. Be thankful we only had to release some drug dealers and other criminals trying to undermine Israel to get you out of there, and not 1027 terrorists.
Now, what the heck were you thinking going there in the first place in the middle of their revolution? Did you think that was a smart place for an Israeli American Jew who had served in the IDF to be, in Tahrir Square in Cairo of all places. Your idiocy is astounding. At least, your family must be relieved you're out of there. Tell us, are you thinking of going back to another Arab Muslim country so they can arrest you again on any trumped up charge? Your walking around Tahrir Square with the kipa on your head shows everyone you must be mentally challenged.
In a potentially consequential blow to Indonesia's counter-terrorism efforts, Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has had his sentence cut by six years on appeal. The 73-year-old's trial, for funding and planning a terrorist militant training camp in Aceh, ended in June with him a 15 year jail sentence, which would have been likely to have put Bashir away for the rest of his life.
It was the biggest prosecution by the Indonesian state against an Islamic terrorist since the executions three years ago of 2002 Bali bombers Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Huda bin Abdul Haq (Mukhlas).
However, the Jakarta High Court has reduced Bashir's sentence on appeal to nine years, which could see Bashir, also tried but ultimately acquitted of conspiring in the 2002 bombings, freed by the end of 2017.
It is up to state prosecutors, who had wanted a life sentence for Bashir on the Aceh charges, to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, there was no word from authorities by last night.
The sentence reduction, as is often the case in Indonesia, was decided without any announcement or even notification to Bashir's lawyers. It was confirmed by a court spokesman yesterday: "The chief judge verbally confirmed that Bashir's sentence has been reduced to nine years," official Ahmad Sobari said.
The decision was apparently taken last Thursday. Bashir lawyer, Ahmad Richdan, said,"We lawyers haven't received any court decision, so we cannot comment yet. They should tell the lawyers first . . . it's a pity that we learn from the media - I tried to confirm the news today but nobody was picking up the phone."
The lawyer confirmed that Bashir's team would continue to try to have Bashir's convictions overturned completely and the cleric freed.
Philippine troops have occupied a Muslim rebel base in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay following days of fierce fighting that killed and wounded dozens on both sides, officials said on Thursday.
Soldiers have recovered an M60 machine gun left behind by rebels under Wanning Abdusalam, who is believed to be behind recent kidnappings and terrorism in Mindanao Island. But there was no evidence of Abdusalam or his group, even though military commanders insisted that the rebel leader had been injred in the fighting. General Raymundo Ferrer, commander of troops in Mindanao, said they have destroyed Abdusalams base.
Soldiers were also searching for arms reported hidden by rebels in the local marshlands during their escape. He said, "We have occupied Waning Abdusalams fortified structures and our focus right now is clearing the area of unexploded mines and searching the mangrove where it is reported that they hastily dumped their firearms. Efforts are also being exerted to locate the wounded criminals who may have slipped the cordon during the night."
Abdusalam, a leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front(MILF), which is currently negotiating with Manila, was disowned by his own group on Tuesday following deadly air strikes by the military on a guerilla base on a remote village called Labatan in Payao town.
Ferrer said army troops were combing the rebel base for mines and explosives planted by rebels and that a burial site was discovered on Thursday where the bodies of 15 rebels had been buried.
The military earlier said that two soldiers and six rebels were killed in the clashes and 40 MILF gunmen and four army troopers were also injured in three days of fighting.
There were no reports about Abdusalam but another security official said he could still be in the town.
He said, "We could not move freely (in the camp) since our EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal team) has to mark first the safe areas where we can pass through. The area is so defensible and lined with mines that you have to admire the ground troops for their steadfast determination to regain the territory from the lawless group."
"The safe haven of kidnapping operations and terroristic activities in Zamboanga Sibugay has fallen. We have reestablish our authority in this part of Payao, and we owe it to the joint forces our army, air force, navy and the police who fought long and hard."
The military also blamed the rebels for a series of attacks in Zamboanga Sibugay last week that killed 8 soldiers and policemen. 19 soldiers were also slain by the MILF fighters in an intense battle recently in Basilan province after troops were sent on a test mission to a rebel stronghold in the town of Al-Barka to arrest a rebel leader Dan Asnawi who is accused as behind the series of kidnappings.
[An Nahar] Hezbollah Unknown assailants tossed a hand grenade at the car of Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... official Fadi Shibli in the town of al-Qaroun Wednesday night, reported the National News Agency on Thursday. No one was injured in the incident and the damage was restricted to the car. Security forces soon arrived at the scene and an investigation has been launched in the affair.
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10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Syrian troops early on Thursday were seen planting mines along a region bordering the northern Lebanese area of Wadi Khaled, a local Lebanese official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the troops began planting the mines at dawn in an area facing two Lebanese villages -- Knaysseh and al-Hnayder.
"Lebanese officials told us the Syrians undertook the measure to prevent weapons smuggling," he said.
"A number of Syrian soldiers were also seen deploying on their side of the border, near the Syrian villages of Heet and Buwayt," he added.
The area is separated only by mounds of earth and for long has been used to smuggle goods between the two countries. Lebanese and Syrian nationals previously also circulated freely between the two countries.
But tension in the region has mounted since the revolt against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... 's regime erupted in March and some 5,000 Syrians, among them defecting soldiers and opposition activists, have sought refuge in Leb.
Experts say weapons smuggling from Leb to Syria has thrived since the revolt began but not on a large scale. They also point out that, the smuggling appears to be the work of individuals rather than political parties opposed to the Assad regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Is it just me, or does this sound just "too coincidental" = PCorrect-Deniable wid Hezbollah's "GALILEE" Schema for future war wid Israel???
Taken collectively, it strongly appears to me that Baby Assad is more interested in keeping Nasrallah's Hezbollah Boyz [+ IRGC elements = Iran] in Lebanon, + preventing or making it too costly for the IDF Ground Forces to wage maneuver war outside of Israel???
[An Nahar] Syrian security forces and snipers Thursday killed three people, including a teenager, in the central region of Homs and the southern province of Daraa, two hotbeds of dissent, activists said.
"A 15-year-old minor was killed and three people were maimed by security forces during raids," in the town of Dael, near the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
More than 5,000 people on Wednesday demonstrated in Dael calling for the fall of the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... , the Observatory said, adding that 23 people were tossed in the clink in the town.
Further north, two non-combatants were killed in the region of Homs, one shot by sniper fire, the other by security forces, the Britannia-based watchdog said.
The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network spurring protests on the ground, said security forces entered several towns to the east of Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... looking for people "on the basis of lists."
State television, meanwhile, broadcast images of a huge pro-Assad rally in the coastal city of Latakia, saying the rally showed people's support for (Assad's) reform program and their rejection of foreign interference.
Assad on Wednesday received a delegation of Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... ministers led by Qatar, which announced that a new meeting would take place on Sunday in a bid to find a political solution to the crisis.
The Arab League's visit, which sought to mediate between the regime and the opposition, coincided with a new wave of violence that left at least 27 people, including 11 military, dead in Syria, activists said.
The regime's brutal crackdown on protest has killed at least 3,000 people since mid-March, according to U.N. figures.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2011 00:00 ||
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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.
[Washington Post] Taliban fighters launched separate attacks on two U.S. bases in Kandahar on Thursday, exploding a 
[Yemen Post] Local official announced this morning that an air strike conducted Wednesday night in the southern province of Abyan where al-Qaeda 
As an American-born Muslim of privilege tried to protect himself yesterday with the Constitution he's accused of betraying, prosecutors began drawing for jurors a sinister portrait of a young man the feds said both al-Qaeda and the FBI recognized was becoming a mouthpiece for jihad. 
At least 13 members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, including a deputy of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the group's emir, have been killed in a previously unreported US Predator airstrike.
Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
The United States on Thursday accused Pakistain of allowing 
Hillary Clinton
[Dawn] A second US drone strike on Thursday killed at least four 
Two US drone strikes on Thursday killed at least 10 
Hillary Clinton
In a potentially consequential blow to Indonesia's counter-terrorism efforts, Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has had his sentence cut by six years on appeal. The 73-year-old's trial, for funding and planning a 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
