Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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Link has gone bad and I can't locate the article on their site. My apologies. It was an editorial supportive of the US in remembrance of our liberation of Kuwait in 1991.
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 8:10 Comments ||
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IIRC - and perhaps .com can help me out on this one - there are like 3 papers in Kuwait, all of them controlled by different branches of the al-Jabers, but the Times is the one that counts.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/10/2005 9:57 Comments ||
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You nailed it, Mike. There may be other broadsheets that pop up and fade, but here's the Internet Public Library page for Kuwait Newspapers... All three of the majors have online editions.
RELATIVES of the 7 July London bombers will definitely not be invited to the national remembrance service for the victims, the government announced last night. A spokeswoman for the Department for Culture which is co-organising the event on 1 November said: "The service is intended to provide comfort to the grieving families and friends of the victims. There is no truth in recent coverage which alleges that the families of the London bombers should be invited to the service, or that this was ever going to be the case."
It had been suggested the families of the four bombers who carried out the 7 July atrocities which claimed the lives of 52 people would be invited to attend the event. But the government confirmed the relatives of the bombers would not be on the guest list for the service at St Paul's Cathedral. The spokeswoman said the order of service and the guests were a matter for the Cathedral's Dean and Chapter and the DCMS. She said it would be "inappropriate" to invite the families of the bombers to the event. "We fully understand the anguish of the families of the bombers, but it would be wholly inappropriate to invite them to this service."
She added that the service would be a chance to celebrate the capital's multicultural society. "It also will be an opportunity to be an affirmation of London as one of the world's great cities and an affirmation of our multicultural and multi-faith society," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 12:35 ||
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Don't worry, Red Ken will invite them to come with him.
And I hope the people already in the Cathedral when he arrives tear him limb from limb.
In a wholly multicultural way, of course.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2005 12:52 Comments ||
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Who suggested? C'mon, tell us. Or did they just suck that out of their thumb?
#5
The sad thing is that victim families will have to listen to an imam reading some koranic verse and claiming that islam is a religion of peace.
Insult added to injury.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2005 18:19 Comments ||
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OO2983:
ArchDruid of Wales = Robyn Lewis
Archbishop of Canterbury (aka ap Aneuri) = Rowan Williams
Williams accepted an honorary druidship (Druid of the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards). I think he was an idiot for doing so, and like a good laugh at his expense, but he isn't the archdruid.
Posted by: James ||
09/10/2005 19:07 Comments ||
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The sad thing is that victim families will have to listen to an imam reading some koranic verse and claiming that islam is a religion of peace
I hope their "multi-cultural" experience leaves this out. This is just as bad as having the families of the bombers present, almost like their representatives.
Posted by: Jan ||
09/10/2005 22:37 Comments ||
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The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government, then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was "with the full knowledge and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies".
As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the credibility of the subsequent "war on terror".
For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo. Since July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but protected by MI6.
One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the US authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail, keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.
Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early 1990s, and has boasted of its numerous British Muslim volunteers. Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members of two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and near Lahore. Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research Foundation has argued that there are even "grounds to suspect that the [London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan".
Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment: "To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance" - a statement of breathtaking disingenuousness.
All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary US forbearance towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set of goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military contingents for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan as a base in relation to India and China.
Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail against these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it may depend on whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the truth, can prevail over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and in practice has every opportunity to operate beyond the law under the cover of national security.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:49 ||
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B. Raman over at SAAG was saying much the same (link) shortly after the bombings
#2
Smells like a nutbag conspiracy from Al Guardian. You only have to look at a map to know why the USA needed Pakistan to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and support the new government. No deep conspiracy needed to explain the relationship.
The London School of Economics is a well known communist hotbed. Even more than most schools of higher education, students who start out relatively sensible come out seriously radicalized. And the graduates I knew may have understood economics, but they knew even less than I about money.
To his friends he was known simply by his Urdu nickname "Khaka". In the two months since detonating a bomb that killed six people on the London Underground, Shahzad Tanweer has been portrayed as the naive victim of brainwashing by a svengali, his fellow bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan. But The Independent has uncovered a different picture of Tanweer, one in which the Aldgate bomber is a highly focussed, motivated and independent jihadist, who spent time - without Khan - at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan run by a group linked to the kidnap and murder of an American journalist. He also helped lead a gang in the Beeston district of Leeds that introduced radical Islam to Asian youths and engaged in battles with whites.
The training camp Tanweer visited in Pakistan was run by Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen (the "Movement for Holy Warriors"), a group that had been involved in the kidnap and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and which trains fighters operating alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of Tanweer's former associates said the bomber had received lessons in handling arms and explosives at the camp in Mansehra, a remote area near the Kashmir border, in December and January. This is corroborated by sources in Pakistan, one of whom claims that he had two stints at the camp. Tanweer is known to have visited Pakistan between last November and February with Khan. But Pakistani sources who place Tanweer at Mansehra cannot recall him being accompanied by Khan or any other British Muslim.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:31 ||
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his Urdu nickname "Khaka"
Fitting.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/10/2005 9:58 Comments ||
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So much for the ROP "He was a good boy." crap the press was pushing right after thay were identified.
THE man intelligence experts believe may be the "missing link" between the London suicide bombers and the al-Qaeda network is set to be extradited to Britain from Pakistan. The government yesterday revealed that British and Pakistani diplomats are on the verge of signing the countries' first ever extradition treaty. Zeeshan Siddiqui, 25, a British national who was arrested in Pakistan in May, is expected to be among the first to face extradition. Another six detainees, mostly Pakistani nationals, might also face extradition.
The Home Office yesterday said negotiations on the treaty were in their "final stages". As well as possibly connecting the four British suicide bombers to Osama bin Laden's terror group, Siddiqui might form a link between the men and at least two other plots to bomb British targets. It is believed that Siddiqui met at least one of the London bombers in Pakistan last year. He is also thought to have been at a terror "summit" in western Pakistan last year attended by Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who is said to be an envoy for bin Laden. A security source yesterday told The Scotsman that Siddiqui is "definitely of interest" to Scotland Yard and MI5 investigators.
The ability to extradite suspects from Pakistan is expected to prove "very positive" for the 7 July inquiry, the source said. Attention is being focused on how the four bombers came to conceive and execute the attacks that killed 56 people. Investigators have discounted suggestions of a "fifth man" or mastermind who led the attacks, believing instead that one of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, effectively led the operation. But there remains an intensive search for the people who inspired and "radicalised" the bombers. That inquiry is increasingly concentrated on Pakistan. At least three of the four bombers visited Pakistan in the months before the London attacks.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:41 ||
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A somewhat alternate account of the events in Andijon ...
The horrific violence that struck Andijon in May unfolded in the space of 24 hours. But the struggle to define the event -- to reveal the facts and to explain their significance -- continues. Inside Uzbekistan, the struggle to define Andijon has been fierce, pitting Uzbek officialdom and the media and means at its disposal against a limited number of nongovernment media and a small community of activists who have no other access to the broader public. The result has been, to quote Uzbek President Islam Karimov, an "information war" that has already claimed its first casualties and is poised to provide the troubling backdrop to whatever will happen next in Uzbekistan.
As presented by President Karimov, government spokespeople, and journalists in state-controlled media, the core of the official story is that a group of armed religious extremists tried to foment an Islamist coup in Andijon. The terrorists seized government buildings, took hostages, tortured and murdered officials, and finally initiated a violent confrontation with the security forces that had surrounded them. The ensuing bloodshed claimed 187 lives, the Uzbek Prosecutor-General's Office maintains.
From the outset, the official story has interpreted the violence in Andijon as a threat to Uzbekistan's sovereignty and chosen path of development. As RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reported on 16 May, state-controlled Uzbek television noted in the immediate aftermath of the unrest on 12-13 May, "One thing is clear -- all attempts by individuals with evil intentions to block our nation's ever-strengthening movement toward its great future will fail." Other statements have hinted at foreign involvement and imputed envious motives to Uzbekistan's enemies. In an address on 31 August reported by official news agency UzA, Karimov tied these strands together: "In this dangerous situation, all of us must maintain constant vigilance and further strengthen our independence in the face of forces near and far that will stop at nothing in their destructive and loathsome strivings, eye us with evil intent, and cannot stand the sight of our peaceful life and our assiduous efforts to build a new society."
The insinuations of ill-intentioned foreign meddling have focused in particular on the United States and U.S.-funded organizations (see "Karimov Battens Down the Hatches," rferl.org, 1 August 2005). As official media kept up a drumbeat of reports on U.S. efforts to undermine Uzbek sovereignty with a Trojan horse of democratization, replete with insinuations that extremists may lurk within the horse's belly, the Foreign Ministry on 29 July gave the United States 180 days to vacate the Karshi-Khanabad air base it has used since 2001.
The decision coincided with the airlift of 439 Uzbek refugees from Kyrgyzstan to Romania, a move that greatly angered the Uzbek government. Moreover, it came amid a gathering rapprochement with Russia, leading some observers to trot out the "Great Game" metaphors that treat actions in Central Asia as reactions to great-power stimuli. But the real reason for the eviction of the U.S. contingent from Karshi-Khanabad lay elsewhere. If Karimov initially believed when he allowed the establishment of a U.S. base in Uzbekistan that closer ties with the United States would shore up his power, he had come to fear -- influenced, no doubt, by regime changes in Georgia, Ukraine, and neighboring Kyrgyzstan that the Uzbek government has sided with the Kremlin in viewing as little more than Western-sponsored coups -- that the alliance might now perform the opposite function.
In Moscow, where even a cursory perusal of commentary on state-controlled television and in the pro-Kremlin press reveals a diehard attachment to the zero-sum great-power rivalry that fueled the Great Game and persisted in the Cold War, the Uzbek move elicited considerable satisfaction. But there is little evidence to indicate a causal connection. In foreign policy, Karimov has a successful record both of maneuvering opportunistically between East and West and, perhaps more importantly, resisting attempts by foreign actors to influence domestic policy. The ongoing rapprochement with Russia, which began in earnest in 2004 after years of chilly relations, rests not on the dynamics of patron and client, but rather on the temporarily firm footing of common cause, the natural affinity of political elites that have come to view Western pressure for democratization as an insidious threat to their power.
The official Uzbek version of events in Andijon, then, explicitly states that religious extremists attacked state power and blames terrorists for virtually all of the violence. It implicitly suggests that the extremists enjoyed foreign support. And it has increasingly stressed that while the active phrase of the battle for Uzbek sovereignty ceased when security forces overcame the extremists in Andijon, it continues on another front. As Karimov said on 31 August, "After the Andijon events, after the terrorist assault on us, the biggest damage and the biggest attack on us has been an information war, information attacks started against us, ignoring the fact that many people died and pretending it was something normal."
The "war," as he termed it, rages over the events that occurred in Andijon and what they mean. For if official media have portrayed a terrorist attack and concluded that Uzbekistan has dangerous enemies, media not subject to government control have provided a radically different account and drawn entirely separate conclusions. Relying heavily on independently recorded eyewitness accounts and reports by international rights groups (themselves buttressed by eyewitnesses accounts), nongovernment media have focused less on the initial violence perpetrated by armed militants and more on allegations that security forces massacred unarmed demonstrators who gathered in central Andijon on 13 May, after armed men seized the local administration building. Their two most important conclusions have been that social and economic conditions in Uzbekistan, and in the Ferghana Valley in particular, have produced a potentially explosive situation, and that Karimov and his entourage are willing to use any and all means to suppress dissent.
Government-controlled media in Uzbekistan have responded with a volley of attacks on their perceived foes in the "information war," reserving particular vitriol for foreign-funded outlets that broadcast in Uzbek, such as RFE/RL and the BBC. In late May, the Uzbek-language newspaper "Mahalla" published a lengthy attack on RFE/RL's Uzbek-language broadcasting entitled "So Many Lies..." Similar articles, often containing ad hominem broadsides against specific individuals, have continued to appear in the Uzbek press (see "Authorities Intensify State Propaganda On Andijon Tragedy," rferl.org, 11 August 2005).
Arena (http://www.freeuz.org), a website with materials on free-speech issues in Uzbekistan, reported in a 10 June commentary that officers from the National Security Service bring diatribes against Western and Western-funded media to the editorial offices of Uzbek newspapers, where "no editor can refuse to publish [them]." Commenting on the "aggressive and professional" nature of the campaign, Sergei Yezhkov, an independent journalist from Uzbekistan who writes for Arena, has suggested that Russian spin doctors may have lent their poisoned pens to the fray (see "Is Russia Helping Tashkent Clean Up After Andijon?" rferl.org, 15 July 2005).
The ideological justification for this campaign is not merely that foreign-funded broadcasters are "spreading lies" when they report facts that contradict the official, government-endorsed version of events in Andijon. As a 2 September article in the government-run newspaper "Pravda Vostoka" explained with abundant commentary from a "Russian scholar" identified only as V. Smirnov, foreign-funded media are part and parcel of the same larger threat to Uzbek sovereignty represented by the "terrorists" in Andijon. The article stated: "In order to understand and properly appreciate the significance of the idea of national independence, one must take into account particular patterns in the sphere of ideas. Otherwise, various extremes are possible. We find evidence of this in the real experience of certain post-Soviet countries." Translated from insinuation to statement, the passage means that Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan are "evidence" of a loss of "national independence" after they failed to "take into account particular patterns in the sphere of ideas."
The article continues, "According to V. Smirnov, in many of [these post-Soviet countries], but not Uzbekistan, there was a failure to pay timely and sufficient attention to the activities of various international organizations and NGOs." We hear echoes here of President Karimov on 31 August, emphasizing that "all of us must maintain constant vigilance and further strengthen our independence in the face of forces near and far that will stop at nothing in their destructive and loathsome strivings...."
The article in "Pravda Vostoka" concludes, "Unfortunately, many foreign 'benefactors' are often engaged under various pretenses in activities intended to satisfy their personal or corporate interests." Translating once again from insinuation to statement, foreign-funded media are part of the plot that targets Uzbek statehood and sovereignty. Soldiers in the "information war," they are the enemy.
The martial context is more than a metaphor. As a string of post-Andijon incidents shows, the Uzbek government's perception of imminent peril and its commitment to "information warfare" have combined to produce for nongovernment journalists -- and rights activists, who are often involved in disseminating reports that run counter to officially approved truths -- a daily reality of harassment, expulsion, assault, imprisonment, and worse.
International media watchdog organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as well as RFE/RL's Uzbek Service have documented both the general obstructions facing nongovernment media in Uzbekistan and specific actions against individuals.
CPJ noted in a 16 May news alert that in the immediate aftermath of Andijon, "Uzbek authorities maintained a virtual blockade today on news coverage of civil unrest in the northeastern city of Andijon, expelling journalists from the town and obstructing foreign television news broadcasts." When RFE/RL queried Tashkent residents on 14 May, they said: "Television isn't showing anything. Russian channels are cut off." RFE/RL reported on 14 May that news broadcasts on Russian television channels carried by Uzbek cable were replaced either by still pictures or entertainment programs.
In the weeks after Andijon, individual reporters and specific organizations became targets of harassment. As RSF noted in a 1 August report, Tulqin Qoraev, a freelance correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), was forced to flee Uzbekistan in early July after a campaign of harassment that included arrest, detention, and house arrest. In early August, the U.S.-based media organization Internews announced that a court in Tashkent had convicted two of its Uzbek employees of a conspiracy to produce TV programming illegally. The employees escaped prison terms thanks to an amnesty, but Joshua Machleder, the regional director of Internews Network in Central Asia, said in a 4 August press release on the organization's website, "I think the Uzbek governmentâs ultimate goal is to close us down, and intimidating our staff in this way was just the first step."
In mid-August, Uzbek authorities deported Igor Rotar, a Russian journalist who had come to Uzbekistan on assignment for the Oslo-based religious-rights organization Forum 18. Rotar had arrived to cover reports that Protestants were encountering government harassment in Uzbekistan, but as CPJ noted in a 15 August press release drawing on an interview Rotar gave to fergana.ru, "He believes his detention was part of a broader government crackdown on the media following the 13 May massacre of antigovernment protesters in...Andijon."
Rights activists, and particularly those who spoke out through foreign media, also found themselves targeted in the wake of Andijon, as Human Rights Watch detailed in a 9 June report on the organization's website. In what is perhaps the best-known example, Saidjahon Zaynobiddinov, an Andijon-based rights activist who provided a number of international media outlets with eyewitness accounts of events in Andijon, was detained on 22 May and subsequently charged with defamation and "the preparation or distribution materials that pose a threat to security," as RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reported on 17 August. As of mid-August, Zaynobiddinov's son told RFE/RL that his father was being held incommunicado at an unknown location in Tashkent.
Some incidents have been violent. In late May, an Andijon resident led RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Gofurjon Yoldoshev to the site of a mass grave. The next day, Yoldoshev's guide, a community elder named Juraboy Abdullaev, was stabbed to death. On 1 July, RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Lobar Qaynarova was attacked and beaten outside her apartment while returning home from covering a trial. Her attackers took away her audio equipment and recordings of the trial proceedings. And in late August, a court sentenced RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Nosir Zokirov to six months in jail for "insulting" an officer in the National Security Service after Zokirov called the official in early August to complain about the harassment of a local poet.
The list presented above is representative but hardly exhaustive. Numerous other incidents have occurred. But despite its brevity, the preceding enumeration, viewed against the backdrop of the official version of events in Andijon and the government's belief that it is engaged in an "information war," shows that a stark confrontation now marks relations between the apparatus of state power in Uzbekistan and those who would bring into the public sphere departures from the officially sanctioned general line.
The story does not end with this unsurprising conclusion. Uzbekistan's media environment has long been marked by conflict between the state and "others," and while the escalation of this conflict into a government-declared "information war" is significant, it brings with it several questions. To wit: What considerations govern the current dynamics and future development of this "information war"? Where is the truth? And what is its ultimate lesson?
In any government-directed assault on nonstate media, the real question is not why the state does what it does, but rather why the state does not do certain things that it could. As the preceding makes clear, Uzbekistan's ruling elite now feels that it is in danger, and it has identified control over the flow of information as a way to minimize that danger. The state's repressive mechanisms are capable of much more than targeted harassment. As neighboring Turkmenistan demonstrates, they can be used to shut off the country entirely and reduce the entire media environment to whatever the press office of the presidential administration wishes it to be. This has not yet happened in Uzbekistan. Why?
There are no hard and fast answers, but past and present experience suggest several reasons. For one, despite Uzbekistan's post-Andijon falling-out with the West, international prestige remains a consideration for President Karimov, who has always been acutely conscious of his role as the leader of a sovereign nation that is not only Central Asia's most populous, but also historically rooted in traditions of high statecraft and culture.
For Uzbekistan, the antiterrorism alliance with the United States that emerged after 11 September 2001 rested not so much on a shared commitment to democratization and reforms -- as the record of the past four years indicates -- but on a strong sense of a partnership with the world's remaining superpower. What this means in practical terms is that while Karimov will not yield to Western pressure on issues he sees as vital to his own security -- like the demand for an independent international inquiry into the events in Andijon -- he is unlikely to sanction a crackdown that irretrievably renders him a pariah.
Another factor in this equation is the multivector foreign policy that marks Central Asia's, and Uzbekistan's, relations with the outside world. Between 2001 and the advent of the post-Soviet political upheavals signaled by Georgia's Rose Revolution, the primary thrust of Uzbekistan's foreign policy was toward the West. But this was only one vector. Another ran East, with overtures toward Moscow allowing Tashkent to keep its Western partners on edge and its options open. With the primary vector now running East, the countervector will likely run in the opposite direction, bringing with it periodic relaxations of specific policies deemed particularly odious in Western capitals.
The state's policy toward media gadflies may also be more complex than it appears at first glance, aiming not simply to silence but to co-opt. For example, Yusuf Rasulov, an independent journalist and rights activist, told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service on 30 June that he ran into problems with the authorities when he came to the defense of Sobirjon Yoqubov, a correspondent for the newspaper "Hurriyat" who was jailed in April. Noting that he is now under constant surveillance, Rasulov provided the following insight into his current plight: "I understood from what the prosecutor said that these [media-related] cases are linked to instructions from the top. They said that if I write an article through a friend who works at a local newspaper asking the president for forgiveness and condemning foreign media, I'll be fine."
One should also remember that the mechanisms of state power may not be in perfect working order. Karimov himself has railed at corruption, incompetence, and clan-based factionalism in government, and these should be understood as factors that can impair the successful execution of policy, including policy on the media. And finally, a generation of officials who, like Karimov, came of age in the Soviet Union may have some sense of the fatal paradox that afflicted Soviet media -- the more the state tried to monopolize the media environment, the less credibility official media had. And however the post-Soviet populace might view the event today, when the mighty empire finally tottered and swayed, no one at its core took to the streets to defend it.
The preceding, of course, are mitigating factors. They do not determine the current dynamic of media policy in Uzbekistan, which emerges from the concept of "information war" as defined by the president. They may, however, influence the future development of that dynamic.
What, then, of the truth? For the key issue here is not some abstraction called "media policy," but an event that is about the very life and blood of a nation. Who is right about what happened in Andijon -- the government or its critics?
The initial violence in Andijon on the night of 12 May is murky, but the Uzbek government's charges of an assault on government institutions are well-founded, and its claims of religious extremists run amok at least plausible, if unproven. But the most important question is whether government security forces perpetrated a massacre against demonstrators who subsequently gathered in the city's central square.
On this count, the weight of independently recorded eyewitness testimony, both from the few journalists who were present and the many refugees who subsequently provided their accounts to international organizations, tips the scales toward the fact of a massacre and places the burden of proof on the Uzbek government. The government has not provided such proof. Instead, its adamant refusal to consider the possibility of wrongdoing by security forces, its rejection of any independent inquiry, and its efforts to stifle dissenting voices only tip the scales further.
This admittedly incomplete picture may open the door to various obfuscations, but the not-so-distant Cold War experience of ferreting out the truth from closed societies can still serve as a rough road map for today's efforts. Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" rested on fragmentary, and frequently unverifiable, eyewitness testimony conveyed in a tone of ill will toward the rulers of the Soviet Union. This emboldened his Soviet critics of the time, yet it robbed the work of none of its power and detracted little from its essential truth.
Finally, the broader lesson. It is a simple one, learned many times, perhaps most memorably during the long decline and precipitous fall of the Soviet Union. When a government views information as a weapon to be wielded as though in time of war, when it transforms the media environment into a battleground, it does so for the simple and pragmatic reason that it perceives a real and present danger. And while it fights within its own borders with an arsenal that its opponents cannot hope to match, and will surely win battle after battle, the victories may prove Pyrrhic, and the state's self-declared war may well end in sudden and calamitous defeat.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 01:03 ||
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Not much here apart from the standard rant, but check out Basayev's new title in the "secular" Chechen rebel government ...
Here is a letter of the First Vice-Premier of the government of the ChRI, the Deputy Amir to the SDC-Madjlis ul-Shura of the ChRI, Military Amir Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris (Shamil Basayev). This statement was published as a response to an open letter by Chechen journalist Ahmad Ichkeriiskiy that was published on the "Caucasus Center" site more than a month ago. The response to that letter is published here in full text, uncut and uncensored.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:52 ||
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The Bank of China and two banks based in Macau are under US scrutiny for possible connections to North Korea's illicit fundraising network, which Washington believes finances Pyongyang's nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. A Hong Kong spokeswoman for Bank of China, Clarina Man said: "We have no know-ledge of any such investigation." Nope, wudn't us!
The banks, which could face stiff sanctions, are caught up in a US operation to shut down lucrative North Korean enterprises producing narcotics, counterfeit US currency and fake cigarettes, the newspaper said. It said law-enforcement officials from several countries described the wide-ranging US operation, while several North Korean defectors gave accounts of Pyongyang's financial network.
One of the Macau lenders, Banco Delta Asia, is controlled by Stanley Au a major player in the Hong Kong financial markets who is also a legislator in Macau and serves as an adviser to the Chinese government.
The other bank, Seng Heng Bank, is controlled by billionaire gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, who started a casino in Pyongyang and has close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing. A spokesman for Seng Heng Bank told the newspaper: "We have nothing to provide you. We have no comment." We can say no more!
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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An article charging that Switzerland is the âmost contemptible among the enemies of Islamâ was recently disseminated across several jihadist and password-protected al-Qaeda affiliated forums. The document, originally authored by Colonel Doctor Muhammad al-Ghanam, the former Director of Legal Investigations in the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and a political refugee in Switzerland, explains the alleged false guise of Swiss neutrality, not only on a political level, but on a personal level in light of al-Ghanamâs own experiences.
Switzerland is branded one of the âmost dangerous links in the âinternational pact of the crossâ,â due to its continued participation in the occupation of Iraq, cooperation with the âcurrent renegade regimeâ in Egypt, and applying pressure on Turkey because of its government has become half-Islamic. Al-Ghanam avers that the Swiss neutrality is a mere façade that allows it to conceal its âcrusading faceâ and penetrate Muslim society to collect intelligence. Further, from his own experience with the âaggressive and tyrannical behaviorâ of the Swiss, the author alleges that a forceful attempt was made upon him to infiltrate al-Qaeda groups, that he refused, and he was subsequently arrested under âsome pretext.â He states: âfreedom of opinion is nothing but a war against Islam.â
Concluding the article, al-Ghanam repeats his condemnation of the Swiss government, and reminds Muslims to beware of Switzerland, âyour contemptible enemy hiding behind false claims of neutrality, making war on your religion without your knowledge. However, the Swiss will not slip away with their crimes against Islam and Muslims: "The day we strike the big stroke, we will avenge."
The article received hundreds of views on the message boards, where many members expressed their gratitude for opening their eyes to the Swiss. Two such responses: âWe attack it soon and know that they are enemies of Islam and Muslimsâ and âItâs not Switzerland only⊠but itâs the entire Europe and in fact, itâs all the Jews, Christians, and the non-believers,â are such an example of the membersâ views.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:44 ||
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#1
Isn't Switzerland is where all Muslim leaders keep their money?
#4
Colonel Doctor Muhammad al-Ghanam, the former Director of Legal Investigations in the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and a FORMER political refugee in Switzerland
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2005 15:23 Comments ||
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#5
You know, I've been thinking... maybe this post needs a different title? Seeing "Jihadis Blast Switzerland" brings to mind a completely different image than strongly worded criticism.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/10/2005 15:53 Comments ||
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#6
"[Switzerland's] continued participation in the occupation of Iraq..."
Circumcising girls should be prohibited, says a group of prominent Danish imams.
"Danish! Danish? What in the name of Allan do Danish imams know about the pure faith? Mahmoud, kill them."
The imams stated in their declaration that circumcision is a cultural practice - not a religious one - and can and should be avoided, reported daily newspaper Information on Friday.
The declaration was signed by Abdul Wahid Pedersen, Mohammed Fouad al-Barazi, Ahmed Abu-Laban, Fatih Alev, Abu-Bakar Nur Shirwa, and Adan Yusuf Qanyare.
"Pedersen? What kind of name is that for a good Moose-limb, I asks yez?"
Al-Barzi's status as a prominent Islamic clergyman lent authority to the statement. 'No forms of circumcision of women are required or customary for Muslims, and Danish law prohibits any form of female circumcision - regardless of whether it takes place in Denmark or outside of the country - therefore we recommend that circumcision of girls in all its forms is stopped,' the imams wrote in their declaration.
How many girls in Denmark have been circumcised is unknown, but according to the World Health Organisation, the practice is slowly on the rise internationally.
"Dem wimmins is good for turning out good jihadis. Dat don't mean dey get to enjoy it!"
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Imams call for ban on circumcising girls
Oh Happy Days are here again..it just makes me feel *tingley* all over.
#2
Oh FFS! - I get really pissed off when I hear stories about people called 'Abdul Wahid Pedersen' etc.
If you're not happy living the good life in the West, go live in the arse of the world - no, not Africa (although Lord knows that place is sorry enough), no, go to the real rectum of the planet - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan come to mind.
Female circumcision in the 21st century!! - we're supposed to be living on the moon by now!
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/10/2005 1:13 Comments ||
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#3
another way the ignorant, pawing incompetence of Islamic men is covered up - she'll never know what she never got (an orgasm) from you if you remove the apparatus.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2005 1:19 Comments ||
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#4
Whenever this comes up for mention, just remember that they are only calling for a ban on *female* circumcision.
It's still perfectly okay to chop the perfectly healthy foreskin of a male in most of the world.
#6
" . . . she'll never know what she never got (an orgasm) from you if you remove the apparatus . . ."
Right on. It's always about them.
Now, considering that it's Denmark (which has a certain, shall we say, "focus" on sexuality), I think this is very amusing. The ONLY thing to make it across the "culture" barrier (read: the intelligence barrier, as in the Islamic idiots have none--so it's a wonder). But let's speak plainly. These clerics aren't interested in doing away with a brutal and disgusting abuse against women because they care about women. They want an end to the practice 'cuz they have come to the realization that THEY wll get a better "fix" if the women are intact--probably happened through "observation" of the cultural "norm" in Denmark, but I won't go into that . . . Women are, and always will be, property.
But in this case, I hope they get their way. Moslem women get a chance to be normal, will finally realize how pathetic their male counterparts really are, and hopefully opt for other choices of their own, which eventually will water down and weaken the number of Islamic twerps on the planet. And that's a good thing.
As for the comment about male circumcision, by Anonymoose, female circumcision is not the equivalent. The equivalent is castration.
Or this (excerpted/edited) from another site, explains it:
Types of mutilations:
Infibulation, the cutting of the clitoris, labia minora and at least the
anterior two-thirds and often the whole of the medial part of the labia majora. The two sides of the vulva are then pinned together by silk or catgut sutures, or with thorns, thus obliterating the vaginal introitus except for a very small opening, preserved by the insertion of a tiny piece of wood or a reed for the passage of urine or menstrual blood. These operations are done with special knives (in Mali, a saw-toothed knife), with razor blades (in Sudan, a special razor known as Moos el Shurfa), or with pieces of glass. The girl's legs are then bound together from hip to ankle and she is kept immobile for up to forty days to permit the formation of scar tissue.
Description of an infibulation
. . . goes on to describe the wedding night in Somalia when the husband, having beaten his wife with a leather whip, uses a dagger to open her:
`According to tradition, the husband should have prolonged and repeated intercourse with her during eight days. This "work" is in order to "make" an opening by preventing the scar from closing again. During these eight days, the woman remains lying down and moves as little as possible in order to keep the wound open. The morning after the wedding night, the husband puts his bloody dagger on his shoulder and makes the rounds in order to obtain general admiration.'
Physical consequences
Health risks and complications depend upon the gravity of the mutilation, hygenic conditions, the skill and eyesight of the operator, and the struggles of the child. Whether immediate or long-term, they are grave.
Immediate complications: Haemorrhage from section of the internal pudental artery or of the dorsal artery of the clitoris; post-operative shock (death can only be prevented if blood transfusion and emergency resuscitation are possible). Bad eyesight of the operator or the resistance of the child causes cuts in other organs: the urethra, the bladder (resulting in urine retention and bladder infection), the anal sphincter, vaginal walls or Bartholin glands. As the instruments used have rarely been sterilized, tetanus (frequently fatal), and septicaemia often result. It is impossible to estimate the number of deaths, since the nature of the operation requires that unsuccessful attempts be concealed from strangers and health authorities, and a very small proportion of cases of immediate complication reach hospital. Nevertheless, hospital staff in all the areas concerned are very familiar with last minute and often hopeless attempts to save bleeding, terrified little girls. Operators are not held responsible by parents if death or infection result from the operation.
Long-term complications: Chronic infections of the uterus and vagina are
frequent, the vagina having become, in the case of infibulation, a semi-sealed organ. Sometimes a large foreign body forms in the interior of the vagina as a result of the accumulation of mucous secretions. Keloid scar formation on the vulval wound can become so enlarged as to obstruct walking. The growth of implantation dermoid cysts as large as a grapefruit is not rare. Fistula formation (due to obstructed labour -- rupture of the vagina and/or uterus) causes incontinence in later life, so that many mutilated women are continually dribbling urine. ...
#7
I'm all for the clitorally circumcized Islamic women performing the circumcisions for the Islamic men....dull the knives baby and watch that slip...oops!
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2005 15:16 Comments ||
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Via JihadWatch
Deep inside a Moscow building that was once home to the Soviet KGB, Surgey Nikolayevich Ignatchenko examines a colour photograph of the spoils of war.
The grainy 8 x 10 shows an impressive arsenal of weapons, laid out on a grassy clearing next to a pile of army fatigues and a map of Chechnya, Russia's war- battered southern republic.
"You see a mortar there and RPG-launched missiles, anti-tank missiles, lots of plastic explosives and small arms," says Mr. Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Bureau.
The weapons cache was seized from what Mr. Ignatchenko calls a "serious subversive terrorist group" on Oct. 7, 2004, about two kilometres north of a village called Niki-Kita in Chechnya, where Muslim rebels are at war for their own separate state.
According to two Russian officials, Mr. Ignatchenko, and Vladimir Pavlovich Ktavchenko, the acting prosecutor for the Chechen republic, this is how the weapons were found:
On Oct. 6, a group of Chechen guerrillas left their camp in the forested hills of Chechnya's Kurchaloy district and descended to the village of Tsotsiyurt. The rebels stopped outside the home of a police officer named Batayev.
And then they opened fire.
It was typical of the tactics of Islamist guerrillas in Russia's Muslim-dominated south, who target what they call the occupying forces -- the pro-government police and soldiers who have the unenviable task of trying to maintain law and order amid the chaos of a long-standing civil war.
Following the shooting spree, the guerrillas fled into the hills. They failed at their mission; the policeman was not at home. But a few of his relatives were wounded and Russian troops soon arrived to hunt down those responsible.
During the night, near Niki-Kita, the Russian patrol found the rebel camp in the woods. It was empty but the soldiers kept it under watch.
At 10 a.m., the guerrillas walked into the trap. The Russians moved in. The guerrillas fought back and one of the Russian soldiers was injured.
Most of the guerrillas escaped. But not all of them. When the Russian soldiers advanced, they found the bodies of four men clad in bloody camouflage. Their bodies were riddled with bullets.
One of the dead was a local Chechen named Ayub Guchigov, who had been reported missing by his relatives in July. The others were unfamiliar, but then the soldiers found something.
Inside the uniform of one of the dead, a bearded, athletic young man with dark skin and curly hair, they found a driver's licence issued by the Province of British Columbia and a blue passport that identified him as Rudwan Khalil, age 26, citizen of Canada. Rest of 4 page article at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/10/2005 16:10 ||
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Via JihadWatch
To call life in Gaza difficult would be an understatement. For such a small stretch of land, Gaza is remarkably flush with poverty, militancy and general disrepair.
Jobs are scarce. Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen freely roam the streets, and Israeli helicopter gunships hover overhead, hunting for bomb-makers and terrorist leaders. "OK, the situation here is tough, it's difficult to live, there is no stability here," says Iyad Aqel, who lives in the Nasariut, a Gaza refugee camp.
With so many troubles, it is small wonder some want to leave, and among them were Mr. Aqel's cousins. Two moved to Ontario and another went to Germany.
Upon finishing high school in Nasariut, another cousin, Jamal, announced he was leaving for Canada as well. When he left, he told his relatives he was never coming back.
"He was eager to go there, to study, to have the language and to change his life. He didn't like the life or the style of life here," says Mr. Aqel, an English teacher.
Jamal moved to Windsor and took a truck-driving course, trying to save enough money to finance his university studies. He hoped to get his degree at the University of Windsor.
"He was so happy there," his cousin recalls.
But after a few years, he called his cousins in Nasariut and said he wanted to marry. He was 23. They told him it would be better if he came home and found a Palestinian bride.
And so, in the fall of 2003, Jamal made a fateful trip home. He flew to Cairo and crossed through the fences in the sand that mark the border between Egypt and Gaza. He visited his extended family and met his cousin Shaima. They hit it off and soon they were engaged.
During his visit, however, Jamal met someone else, a wanted member of Hamas. His contact with the terrorist organization began with a man named Mohammed Bashir Abu Matar, also known as Abu Sahil.
They spoke on the phone. The conversation concerned one of Jamal's cousins, who had been killed by Israeli troops. Jamal was upset, but Abu Sahil told him: Don't grieve, get revenge. (Abu Sahil has since been killed in a clash with the Israeli military.)
Abu Sahil introduced Jamal to Ahmed Wahba, better known as Abu Osama. Contacted by the National Post in Gaza, he declined to be interviewed, but an Israeli official said he is a recruiter for Hamas.
"He wasn't one of the leaders but he was a recruiter and he had authority to do whatever he did," says Ofir Gendelman, second secretary at the Israeli embassy in Ottawa.
Abu Osama took Jamal to a farming area called the Mughraka and taught him how to shoot an M-16 rifle. They shot at targets 200 metres away. Eight bullets. The Israelis say Abu Osama was preparing Jamal for an assassination in North America. Rest of 4 page article at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/10/2005 16:08 ||
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I think WaPo registration required, so posted in full
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.
At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.
The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from
weapons of mass destruction.
Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office. Meanwhile, the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement.
A "summary of changes" included in the draft identifies differences from the 1995 doctrine, and says the new document "revises the discussion of nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations."
The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations.
Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."
That and other provisions in the document appear to refer to nuclear initiatives proposed by the administration that Congress has thus far declined to fully support.
Last year, for example, Congress refused to fund research toward development of nuclear weapons that could destroy biological or chemical weapons materials without dispersing them into the atmosphere.
The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons."
But Congress last year halted funding of a study to determine the viability of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator warhead (RNEP) -- commonly called the bunker buster -- that the Pentagon has said is needed to attack hardened, deeply buried weapons sites.
The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite the end of the Cold War, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear weapons use." It says that there are "about thirty nations with WMD programs" along with "nonstate actors [terrorists] either independently or as sponsored by an adversarial state."
To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."
To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."
The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership must "believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past has "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) Big surprise there, huh?, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has been a leading opponent of the bunker-buster program, said yesterday the draft was "apparently a follow-through on their nuclear posture review and they seem to bypass the idea that Congress had doubts about the program." She added that members "certainly don't want the administration to move forward with a [nuclear] preemption policy" without hearings, closed door if necessary.
A spokesman for Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday the panel has not yet received a copy of the draft.
Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to Leave America Defenseless the Natural Resources Defense Council, who forged discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on short notice including new missions."
Kristensen, who has specialized for more than a decade in nuclear weapons research, said a final version of the doctrine was due in August but has not yet appeared.
"This doctrine does not deliver on the Bush administration pledge of a reduced role for nuclear weapons," Kristensen said. "It provides justification for contentious concepts not proven and implies the need for RNEP." Please move all members of the NRDC to the most-likely target cities. Then we'll talk.
One reason for the delay may be concern about raising publicly the possibility of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, or concern that it might interfere with attempts to persuade Congress to finance the bunker buster and other specialized nuclear weapons.
In April, Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Armed Services panel and asked for the bunker buster study to be funded. He said the money was for research and not to begin production on any particular warhead. "The only thing we have is very large, very dirty, big beautiful nuclear weapons," Rumsfeld said. "It seems to me studying it [the RNEP] makes all the sense in the world."
Posted by: William Thrash ||
09/10/2005 22:24 Comments ||
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#2
Oh, ferchrissakes, it's the Pentagon's job to have plans to cover every imaginable contingency (and some unimaginable ones, too).
They've got plans for war with Britain. And Canada. And if the Brits and Canadians have any sense, they've got plans for war with us.
Having a contingency plan doesn't mean we want, desire, or anticipate having to use the plan, but it's their job to have the plans to protect and defend the U.S.
Something the Leftists will never understand, since their one and ONLY plan is to turn the world into a communist "paradise" - where everyone is equal, but the Leftists are more equal than others.
And the only free speech is their speech.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2005 23:06 Comments ||
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#3
First order of business; have everybody involved, sit and watch 'Dr. Strangelove'!!!
By JASBANT SINGH
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia â American and British pilots whose bombs killed Iraqi civilians were murderers, and actions taken by those two countries during the invasion and occupation of Iraq amounted to terrorism, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Friday.
Several British and U.S. diplomats walked out in protest of Mr. Mahathir's speech at a national conference on human rights.
Mr. Mahathir, who ruled majority Muslim Malaysia for 22 years before retiring in 2003, also defended his human rights record in government. He was often criticized for detaining suspects without trial under a security law and for the imprisonment of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Mr. Mahathir decried the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians as a result of the U.S.-led military invasion and occupation. He compared American and British actions in Iraq to rocket attacks by Israel on Palestinians, and referred to those countries as âthese terrorist nations.â
âThe British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cozy in their state of the art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim,â Mr. Mahathir said of the Iraq invasion. âAnd these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate âMission Accomplished.â'
âWho are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?â
He also questioned why there was no tally of Iraqi deaths while every U.S. soldier's killing is documented.
âThese are soldiers who must expect to be killed. But the Iraqis who die because of the U.S. action or the civil war in Iraq that the U.S. has precipitated are innocent civilians who under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein would be alive,â Mr. Mahathir said.
Mr. Mahathir, who when in power was a U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism although he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noted that Washington's reason for invading Iraq invasion was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
âAs we all know, it was a lie,â he said.
âWorse still, the powers which are supposed to save the Iraqi people have broken international laws on human rights by detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere,â he said, referring to U.S. prison camps.
British High Commissioner Bruce Cleghorn and several unidentified U.S. officials attending the conference walked out midway through Mr. Mahathir's speech. British and U.S. diplomats were not immediately available for comment.
Hamdan Adnan, a senior official with the state-backed National Human Rights Commission, described the diplomats' action as âvery distasteful. If they claim to subscribe to the democratic process, why can't they listen?â he told the Associated Press.
Mr. Mahathir regularly launched visceral attacks on the West and Israel while in power, accusing rich countries of holding back developing nations and of discriminating against Muslims.
The U.S. accused Mr. Mahathir of rights violations when he fired Mr. Anwar as his deputy in 1998. Mr. Anwar was arrested after leading anti-government rallies, and sentenced to 15 years in prison on corruption and sodomy charges. He was freed on appeal last year, after serving the corruption sentence.
Washington largely stopped criticizing Malaysia's use of a security law that allows indefinite detention without trial after the government used it to lock up dozens of terrorist suspects, some with alleged links to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Bomb material used in many militant attacks in Indonesia may have been sourced from the turbulent southern Philippines, a senior Philippine police intelligence official said yesterday.
The official, who declined to be named, said intercepted email exchanges between militants indicated that a shipment of high explosives had been sent early this year to Indonesia from the Philippine island of Mindanao.
The southern Philippines has faced a separatist Muslim rebellion for the past 40 years.
âThe militants had successfully purchased materials for bombs to be used in Indonesian targets,â the intelligence official said, citing a classified security report prepared last April. The report summarised email exchanges between suspected Indonesian militant leader, Dulmatin, who has been hiding on Mindanao since April, 2003, and other suspected militants.
The emails, translated from Bahasa and Arabic into English, were shared by Indonesian intelligence with their Philippine counterparts, said the official.
Dulmatin, a key suspect in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people in October, 2002, is believed to be working closely with Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels.
Philippine intelligence officials believe moribund mining and construction companies in the southern Philippines may be the source of explosives bought by the Indonesian militants.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:41 ||
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Some 300 members of the youth wing of the Malaysian opposition party rallied in front of the Thai embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday urging Thailand to repeal an emergency decree and restore peace in the deep South without alienating Muslim citizens. Just surrender peacefully! The protesters had marched on the embassy from a nearby mosque, carrying banners and posters that read: ``Stop the Massacre,'' ``Stop the War'' and slogans denouncing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Associated Press reported. The Central Youth Council of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) handed a three-page letter to the embassy after the 30-minute-long peaceful demonstration, Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said.
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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Defense ministers from four Southeast Asian countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore -- will launch the "eyes in the sky" coordinated air patrol over the Strait of Malacca next Tuesday from Subang Airbase in Kuala Lumpur. Col. Suryo Wiranto, Assistant of Operational Affairs at the Indonesian Navy's Western Fleet Command, said that the patrol would be carried out by personnel from the four countries. The personnel or aircraft could enter each other's territory, but the limit was set at three nautical miles from the coast, he said.
Link fixed. DanNY, please make sure you give us the right link when you upload. AoS.
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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A high-ranking Hizbullah official clearly stated the Lebanese resistance group's position on all United Nations Security Council resolutions pertaining to Hizbullah, saying "reshuffling the Lebanese Army now would undermine current strategies that have kept Lebanon safe" and "Hizbullah's weapons are not negotiable."
"Why change anything now?" said Sayyed Hisham Saffieddine, head of Hizbullah's Executive Council, in reference to Security Council Resolution 1614 calling for the deployment of the Lebanese Army in the South. "What has kept Lebanon safe from its enemies are the current strategies agreed upon between the resistance and the army, so any attempts to change the strategies are attempts to destabilize Lebanon and create division in country trying to remain united," Saffieddine said. Indirectly referring to UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah, Saffieddine said that Hizbullah's arms "will never be used as bargain chips on the political scene."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
"Why change anything now?" said Sayyed Hisham Saffieddine, head of Hizbullah's Executive Council..."
Right, cuz you know, the intifada in Israel paid off for the terrorists. Today Gaza, tomorrow Haifa, the day after, Jerusalem. Jews are pushed off each subsequent edge until there are no edges and no Jews left.
Unfortunately, that view is how the dust is settling in the heads of Islamist criminals.
This Hizbollah/Lebanon issue is one consequence of the schizophrenic terrorism policy that our "partners" in the international community have been hawking. It seems that the "let the fox in the chicken house" approach is winning the day after all. Perhaps it will grow exponentially--a ballooning bastard child of an international political game that shelters an increasing number of terrorists within political parties, armies, governments. Won't that be fun to deal with?
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud is still going to the UN's 60th General Assembly as the head of the Lebanese delegation, despite an outright snub by U.S. President George W. Bush who withdrew an invitation to a reception in New York next week.Bush's invite to Lebanon's Premier Fouad Siniora to the reception still stands, but not Lahoud's, snubbing the Lebanese president internationally. But Siniora has said he would not go if Lahoud goes as the sensitive political situation in Lebanon requires that one of them remain at home.
Local media reported that the White House "has withdrawn an invitation to a reception Bush plans to hold for heads of delegations." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also left Lahoud off the guest list for her reception on the sidelines of the UN summit, despite her meeting the Lebanese president when she visited Beirut in July, diplomats said. This move by the U.S. administration has been seen as a harsh snub to isolate Lahoud internationally, amid calls at home for his resignation after four ex-security chiefs close to him were arrested as suspects in the murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I'll bet the career seditionists at State are beside themselves. Why, who ever heard of actually stiff-arming murderous assholes like this? Oh, I know... Bush stiffed Arafat - the Gay Lion of PaleoLand. What a chimp. He should listen to his betters.
Al-Qaeda leaders in hiding and foot soldiers preparing for terror attacks around the world are turning to outlawed Pakistani extremist groups for spiritual and military training, shelter and logistical support, say US officials, who see them as an emerging threat.
One group -- called Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, (Army of the Pure) -- represents an example of how Osama bin Laden's followers take advantage of scattered Islamic militant allies to maintain momentum four years after a US-led military campaign destroyed al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
Lashkar is among a number of organizations dedicated to wresting control of the Indian-ruled parts of Kashmir. US officials say the group stands out for a number of reasons, however, including its missionary work and other involvement outside the region.
Parts of Pakistan's intelligence services previously supported Lashkar, but Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf banned Lashkar in 2002 for its alleged links to an attack on India's parliament.
Lashkar leaders insist the group's focus is to free Muslims in the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, not attacks on the West. Pakistani officials say the group is local, not international.
In an interview, the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Jehangir Karamat, said he considers Lashkar incapable of international terrorism, particularly working with al-Qaeda, because the groups have different languages and agendas.
"They have no links with any organization in Pakistan," Karamat said, speaking of al-Qaeda. "They don't need them, and they don't have them. Never had them."
Still, the US is watching Lashkar closely because of its apparent willingness to help those involved in the global jihad on a grass-roots level.
The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said they don't believe Lashkar's leadership is coordinating international attacks with groups including the remnants of al-Qaeda. Instead, they worry about connections among foot soldiers -- extremists who may point friends of friends to paramilitary camps.
Last year, the State Department estimated the group had several thousand members.
The Lashkar organization represents a classic example of the diffusion of Islamic extremism -- based in Afghanistan until the US threw out the Taliban regime in 2001 -- that CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence officials have warned of.
Ken Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service, said groups including Lashkar have revived the training infrastructure formerly found in Afghanistan, setting up "Afghanistan East" in northern Pakistan. Some in Pakistan deny the camps' existence.
"I think this is emerging as the next theater to test whether Pakistan is serious about eliminating the al-Qaeda presence," Katzman said.
Some examples of high-profile moments where Lashkar's fingerprints are suspected or spotted:
International authorities are looking into whether an Islamic school run by Lashkar trained, perhaps even spiritually, at least one of the bombers who attacked four London buses on July 7. Officials also are looking closely at the associations of the three other bombers. Pakistani authorities have yet to find direct links and say any tie may be a small piece of the investigation.
In Virginia, a prominent Islamic scholar was sentenced to life in prison this year for encouraging his followers to join the Taliban and fight the US after 9/11. After one fiery speech, several attendees went to Pakistan and received military training from Lashkar. The young men were part of the "Virginia jihad network" that sometimes trained for holy war by playing paintball games in the woods.
US officials say Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a top al-Qaeda operational leader picked up in Pakistan in May, ran from a site associated with Lashkar before Pakistani forces captured him in a graveyard shootout. He is in US custody, accused of planning two assassination attempts on Musharraf. Pakistani officials have said al-Libbi was sheltered by another Muslim militant organization.
In March 2002, another senior al-Qaeda lieutenant and planner, Abu Zubaydah, was captured at a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
The so-called "Australian Taliban," David Hicks, who US forces captured fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was trained by Lashkar in the late 1990s. He is now being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/10/2005 00:40 ||
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#1
Pakistani ambassador to the US, Jehangir Karamat
That would be General (Retd.) Jehangir Karamat, Chief of the Pakistani Army during the mid 90's when the Taliban took over most of Afghanistan and the Kashmiri insurgency turned into a Pan-Islamic Jihad.
I would take his pronouncements about who Al Qaeda works with, with more than a few grains of salt.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/10/2005 3:36 Comments ||
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#2
Also the gent in charge when AQ Khan was busy peddling his nuclear wares to other rogue nations.
He would have had to authorize the transfers.
Unless you believe that nuclear equipment can disappear from sensitive military guarded facilities and be shipped on Pak air force C-130s to North Korea without the Pak Brass knowing about it.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2005 15:01 Comments ||
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BARA: A Frontier Corps (FC) soldier and two suspected kidnappers were killed in an operation against notorious kidnapper Haji Gul in the Khyber Agency on Friday to recover a kidnapped man, administration officials said. Security forces wounded and arrested two accomplices of the gang in the operation near Bara town to free a hostage kidnapped from Peshawar, the officials told Daily Times. Frontier Corps (FC) personnel surrounded the kidnappers' hideout early on Friday, but repeated calls for surrender went unheeded, sources said. The operation was still going and the hostage had not been released, said Maibood, but gave no details about the identity of the hostage. An unconfirmed report said ringleader Haji Gul had also been wounded in the operation. Separately, hospital officials said one of three soldiers who had been wounded on Thursday by a remote-controlled bomb near Miranshah had died of his injuries.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:10 ||
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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has won his country's first-ever contested presidential election with 88.6% of the vote, according to official results announced by the electoral commission. Commission chairman Mamduh Marai told reporters in Cairo on Friday that incumbent Mubarak's win was based on a turnout of 23% of registered voters. Mubarak received 6,316,714 votes (88.6%).
That's up 8 percent from the 80 percent the AP was carrying yesterday.
Does anyone have a spare copy of the Guardian? I'd like to see the Clark County results...
Second place went to Ayman Nour of the opposition Al-Ghad party, with 540,405 votes (7.3%). The other main opposition candidate, Noaman Gomaa of the Wafd Party, received 201,891 votes (2.8%). Before Wednesday's election, officials in Mubarak's ruling party had said they hoped at least 30% of the 32 million registered voters would cast ballots. Mubarak, 77, has been in power since God was in diapers 1981, when he succeeded the assassinated Anwar Sadat.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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Iraqâs government ordered its forces to reopen Baghdad airport on Friday after the private British company that polices it closed the passenger terminal in a dispute over unpaid bills. Global Strategies Group, which closed the airport at dawn in an effort to recover six months of fees due from the government, said, however, that only its staff were qualified to screen bags and passengers so planes would remain grounded.
Acting Transport Minister Esmat Amer insisted flights would resume within hours because the dispute over fees had been settled on Thursday. âMy forces have entered the airport,â Amer told Reuters, adding that Globalâs closure of the terminal for the second time in three months had come as a surprise.
âThe airport is not closed. We are taking some technical measures now and will soon resume the flights, maybe in the next few hours ... We will not let the airport be closed in any way ... It is a matter of sovereignty for us.â Speaking heatedly on another line, he could be heard saying: âNo passenger should leave the airport; all of them will fly.â
Alaa Abdul Ghani, flight control chief at Baghdadâs main link to the world, said state-owned Iraqi Airways would fly. âBaghdad International Airport reopened to passengers at 1 p.m. (0900 GMT) by order of the Transport Ministry. They asked us to tell passengers to proceed to the checkpoint,â he said.
But Giles Morgan, a spokesman for Global Strategies Group which has guarded the airport with about 550 staff since mid-2004, said the ministry lacked the staff to run flights. âThey do not have the personnel who are trained to international standards,â he said, pointing to security rules required by international airlines, most of which already do not fly to one of the worldâs most dangerous airports. âPassenger, cargo screening will not happen ... You canât put on flights ... Itâs just not safe.â
Global continues to guard the airport against insurgent attacks as normal and the only change on Friday was the closure of the terminal to passengers, Morgan said. The airport was closed for two days in June in a similar row that led to new talks between the Transport Ministry and Global.
One of many private firms providing security to the military, government and private organisations, Global has some 2,000 security personnel in Iraq. âGlobal has been in constant negotiations with senior members of the Iraqi government, which is currently not paying the company,â the firm said in a statement. âOnce payment has been made by the client, Global will resume its work and thus allow normal air operations to resume.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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With apologies to the Kurds in particular, at the end of the day, the Iraqi Govt acts just like any other Arab entity. Global is doing what it can do to hold them to the contract - and the Iraqis are trying to screw them, Arab-style. What fun.
KARACHI - Pakistanâs opposition parties called a nationwide strike on Friday to press for the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, but the response was limited, witnesses and officials said.
Code Pink gets a better response protesting at military hospitals.
All those sour grapes just let out a little whine.
Public transport was affected in some areas and the conservative southwestern city of Quetta was âparalysedâ, but most businesses in the capital Islamabad and the major cities of Karachi and Lahore were open. An alliance of Islamic and secular parties says the call is in response to local elections last month which they say were rigged, as well as recent talks between Pakistan and Israel and a crackdown on religious schools by Musharraf. âThe strike was a total failure,â Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. âIt was business as usual throughout the country and people have completely rejected the negative politics of the opposition.â
"So 'nyaaah!', Qazi! 'Nyaah!'"
Traffic was quieter than usual in the commercial hub of Karachi -- Pakistanâs largest city with around 12 million inhabitants -- while shutters were downed in some markets, witnesses said. âThere has been a partial impact but the banks are open and attendance at government offices is almost normal,â said Salahuddin Haider, spokesman for Sindh province, where Karachi is located. Police and paramilitary soldiers had been deployed in âsensitiveâ areas in the volatile southern port city to ensure security during the strike, Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said.
Is there an area in Pakland that isn't sensitive?
Is there anyplace on a boil that's not?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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âIt was business as usual throughout the country..."
Bombing KFC and McDonalds..you know just another day.
#2
Mass protests only occur in Pakistan if the military wishes.
The occasional anti-US protest will be encouraged because it is in the interest of the Pak military to present the country as a hotbed of islamic militancy that is only kept in check by the Pak Army.
This guarantees a steady supply of aid from the USA.
There is actually an ISI authored report (leaked and published in Pak media) that acknowledged this.
The strategy has worked for 60 years. The very first Pak PM Liqait Ali Khan used it.
Musharraf is just following the template.
"Apres moi, le deluge"
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2005 14:57 Comments ||
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday praised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as "courageous" for ordering the withdrawal of Jewish settlements from Gaza, but doesn't plan to follow up a recent diplomatic breakthrough between the countries by meeting him at the United Nations this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2005 00:00 ||
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The Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) said that the approximate number of Iraqis who are eligible to take part in the referendum and elections has increased to 15.5 million voters, after nearly 1 million citizens were added to the voter records of the last elections. Dr. Fareed Ayar, an IECI member, said the deadline for recording voters will end today, when the time period given to Anbar governorate expires. He explained the registration centers have recorded more than 947,000 new voters.
The European Union president welcomed the draft Iraqi constitution and noted the process was difficult, but all Iraqi groups were involved in writing it, according to a statement. The EU encouraged all Iraqis to participate in the next step of the political process through voting in the referendum, which is schedule to take place on October 15. The statement also said that the EU will continue to help the Iraqi people in all possible ways, such as helping in organizing the referendum and election.
U.S. influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says. "It is a matter of public record that in the final weeks of the process the newly arrived U.S. ambassador (Zalmay Khalizad) took an extremely hands-on role," Justin Alexander, legal affairs officer for the office of constitutional support with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) told IPS. "Even going so far as to circulate at least one U.S draft."
Alexander, who oversaw the recent proceedings in Baghdad added: "This involvement was highly inappropriate for a country with 140,000 soldiers in country."
I can't think of a better time to be involved.
Zaid al-Ali, a legal expert who also oversaw the drafting process in Baghdad, made a similar case at a meeting at the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies in London. "There are three ways in which the occupation intervened in the context of Iraq's constitution-writing process," he said. "Firstly, the occupation authorities selected and affected the makeup of the commission that was charged with drafting Iraq's transitional law, and its permanent constitution. Second, the occupation determined the limits and parameters within which the constitution was to be drafted. Third, the occupation authorities intervened directly in order to safeguard its interests in the context of the constitutional negotiations."
Noticed that, did you? No doubt you'd prefer Sammy to be writing the constitution, and getting 100% of the vote.
#4
Article: "It is a matter of public record that in the final weeks of the process the newly arrived U.S. ambassador (Zalmay Khalizad) took an extremely hands-on role," Justin Alexander, legal affairs officer for the office of constitutional support with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) told IPS.
This is why GWB sent him. From Viceroy of Afghanistan to Viceroy of Iraq. Just as he stabilized Afghanistan, Khalilzad will stabilize Iraq. This guy's going places. Maybe he'll become the first Muslim Secretary of State in a future Republican administration.
#6
Heh. I wonder what Justin Alexander would make of the fact, assuming he has the processing power to recognize cognitive dissonance when it lands on him like the proverbial 16 tons, that the US played an even greater role in drafting the UN Charter. I presume that little ditty is OK with him, since he hasn't raised a stink about it by, say, refusing to cash his fucking paychecks. Lol. Parasitic Socialist Jerkoff. Both a proud member of the Vulture Elite and a Grand Master of Clueless Irony, too. Wow.
#7
assuming he has the processing power to recognize cognitive dissonance when it lands on him like the proverbial 16 tons, that the US played an even greater role in drafting the UN Charter
Booya! heh!
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/10/2005 10:02 Comments ||
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#8
The sooner the UN goes to Hell (or Paris, doesn't matter), the better.
The only thing the UN is united about is destroying any form of democracy anywhere in the world.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2005 12:54 Comments ||
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#9
I wouldn't be too upset if UN headquarters were moved to Geneva (Switzerland, of course) either. The restaurants are good, as are the jewelry and pretty underthings shops, and there are no doubt plenty of the oil-rich sort of Arabs there to spread around bribes to the worthy.
MANILA (AP): Muslim militants in the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines and their Indonesian allies have been trying to solicit money from unidentified Middle Eastern financiers to buy weapons and fund new terror attacks, according to government reports.
Details of the fund-raising effort and planned attacks were obtained by Philippine security officials from Indonesian counterparts, who recently captured two suspected militants with knowledge of Filipino rebel activities, the reports said.
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/10/2005 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.
THE man intelligence experts believe may be the "missing link" between the London suicide bombers and the al-Qaeda network is set to be extradited to Britain from Pakistan. The government yesterday revealed that British and Pakistani diplomats are on the verge of signing the countries' first ever extradition treaty. 
The Bank of China and two banks based in Macau are under US scrutiny for possible connections to North Korea's illicit fundraising network, which Washington believes finances Pyongyang's nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. A Hong Kong spokeswoman for Bank of China, Clarina Man said: "We have no know-ledge of any such investigation."
Circumcising girls should be prohibited, says a group of prominent Danish imams. 
A high-ranking Hizbullah official clearly stated the Lebanese resistance group's position on all United Nations Security Council resolutions pertaining to Hizbullah, saying "reshuffling the Lebanese Army now would undermine current strategies that have kept Lebanon safe" and "Hizbullah's weapons are not negotiable."
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud is still going to the UN's 60th General Assembly as the head of the Lebanese delegation, despite an outright snub by U.S. President George W. Bush who withdrew an invitation to a reception in New York next week.Bush's invite to Lebanon's Premier Fouad Siniora to the reception still stands, but not Lahoud's, snubbing the Lebanese president internationally. But Siniora has said he would not go if Lahoud goes as the sensitive political situation in Lebanon requires that one of them remain at home.
BARA: A Frontier Corps (FC) soldier and two suspected kidnappers were killed in an operation against notorious kidnapper Haji Gul in the Khyber Agency on Friday to recover a kidnapped man, administration officials said. Security forces wounded and arrested two accomplices of the gang in the operation near Bara town to free a hostage kidnapped from Peshawar, the officials told Daily Times. Frontier Corps (FC) personnel surrounded the kidnappers' hideout early on Friday, but repeated calls for surrender went unheeded, sources said. The operation was still going and the hostage had not been released, said Maibood, but gave no details about the identity of the hostage. An unconfirmed report said ringleader Haji Gul had also been wounded in the operation. Separately, hospital officials said one of three soldiers who had been wounded on Thursday by a remote-controlled bomb near Miranshah had died of his injuries.
Egyptian President 
Public transport was affected in some areas and the conservative southwestern city of Quetta was âparalysedâ, but most businesses in the capital Islamabad and the major cities of Karachi and Lahore were open. An alliance of Islamic and secular parties says the call is in response to local elections last month which they say were rigged, as well as recent talks between Pakistan and Israel and a crackdown on religious schools by Musharraf. âThe strike was a total failure,â Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. âIt was business as usual throughout the country and people have completely rejected the negative politics of the opposition.â
