Via Counterterrorism Blog
A declaration of war on Britain and the West is continuing to be issued by British Muslims in the United Kingdom, as the pro-jihad message of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, recently banned from Britain, is echoed by his followers who have remained behind. Bakri, who is now based in Beirut, once headed the al-Muhajiroun group, linked to the 2003 terror attack on the Mikeâs Place Bar in Tel Aviv. The suicide bomber behind that attack was a British Muslim.
Using internet sermons, recordings, videos and documents, followers of Bakri, who say they are in touch with the Lebanon-based preacher, call on British Muslims to join al-Qaeda and to carry out acts of terrorism.
Ynetnews has monitored late night chat room sessions on the Paltalk chat network, used by Bakri six months ago to declare war on Britain. âWeâve always had these two camps,â said the chat roomâs administrator, âMizaan,â in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in a room called âThe Muslims in the UK.â
Mizaan, who told listeners âthat is my real name,â said: âThere is the camp of Islam and the camp of Kuffar (non-Muslim). Today we still have these two camps. And today there is the camp of Islam behind Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, the emir (leader) of jihad today, and we have the camp of kuffar led by George Bush with his cross. So yes we are two distinct groups, and we should never stand with the kuffar.â
âIslam is better than everything and it will rule over the whole world, whether the kuffar likes it or not,â declared Mizaan.
'It's not illegal'
âWe should, all of us, glorify the terrorism. And we should incite religious hatred. Donât worry⊠itâs not illegal for us to say that mujahadin (jihad fighters) on 9/11, were the magnificent 19, and itâs not illegal for us to say that Mohammad Sidique Khan (the suicide bomber who blew himself up in London) and the four on 7/7 (London attacks), that they were the fantastic four â now we can say so without any worry.â
âWe will always glorify killing the kuffar in the name of Allah. To raid the kuffar in the name of Allah. Even if some women and children are caught in the raid by accident. They are part of them, it is not your fault,â said Mizaan.
âThe kuffar wants to force their own homosexuality on the Muslims. The mujahadin have every right to hit back. So donât be surprised if the mujahadin do another 7/7, and another 9/11,â he said.
'Give them another magnificent day'
âIn fact, we should give them another magnificent day in history. Another fantastic four (the four London suicide bombers). We should hit them time after time, day after day, every single week, every single month, every single year, we should hit them from every side, from the left and the right. From the planes above them, and the trains below them, we should hit them every way we can.â
âEven if itâs just a man kuffar, if your target kills him, even if 20 women among them are killed by accident on the way, it is no problem. And that is what happened with the shahada (martyrs) when they went to raid,â said Mizaan. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
10/21/2005 06:36 ||
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#1
IRC is so so easy to track.
Hopefully MI5 aren't as awful as I expect for a secretive State Bureaucracy.
#3
A declaration of war on Britain and the West is continuing to be issued by British Muslims in the United Kingdom, as the pro-jihad message of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, recently banned from Britain, is echoed by his followers who have remained behind.
Rounds 'em all up, and what y'all do with them is your business.
Azerbaijan's fired economic development minister has been charged with plotting a coup with an exiled opposition leader, authorities said Thursday, raising anxieties two weeks before parliamentary elections. Farhad Aliev, who was fired on Wednesday, was arrested the same day on charges of conspiring with opposition leader Rasul Guliyev to incite unrest and seize power, a government statement said.
Frequent street protests Azerbaijan have stirred government fears of an uprising similar to those that helped topple the government in three other former Soviet republics — Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan — following flawed elections over the past two years.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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BEIJING (AP) - China's President Hu Jintao will visit North Korea next week, amid international efforts to convince the isolated country to grow up and stop bothering the adults stop developing nuclear weapons, the Chinese government announced Friday.
Hu will begin a two-day trip to North Korea next Friday before visiting Vietnam Oct. 31-Nov.2, China Central Television said. China is North Korea's last major ally and a key supplier of food and energy aid.
Hu was invited to the North by its leader, Kim Jong Il, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Kim, who rarely ventures out of his country for fear of being whacked, last visited Beijing in April 2004 amid tight secrecy.
China last week congratulated North Korea on the 60th anniversary of its ruling communist party and promised closer supervision cooperation. A telegram from Hu at the time said Chinese-North Korean relations were a ``precious treasure'' that should be developed. China's Vice Premier Wu Yi and Commerce Minister Bo Xilai were in Pyongyang to participate in the anniversary celebrations. Hu's telegram praised Kim's leadership and said stronger ties would help to maintain regional peace and stability.
That telegram and three bucks will get you a bowl of soup.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/21/2005 01:37 ||
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IOW, like IRAN fat Kimmie from starving North Korea can have enough nukes to inflict PC US MSM-"sufficient" asymmetric casualties amongst American and Allied milfors but NOT enough to challenge Beijing's control over North Korea NOR to STOP ANY COMMIE MIL INTERVENTION FORCE TO "SAVE" NORTH KOREA = IRAN FROM THE AMERICANS IN ORDER TO ELECT HILLARY.
#2
Why don't we just do a Ronald Reagan and run these fuckers into bankruptcy court? Keeping an army on alert is fantastically expensive, so why don't we antagonize them just enough to keep them on alert?
Sure the media will make us out to be the bad guys, but they are going to do that anyway. So let's just run them broke.
TOKYO - North Korea would accept a visit at an âappropriateâ time by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), US politician Bill Richardson said on Friday after a trip to the Stalinist state. âThey (Pyongyang officials) ... indicated they would, at an appropriate time, invite IAEA officials including (its head) Mohamed ElBaradei to North Korea,â Richardson told journalists in Tokyo.
That would be a nice propaganda coup, Kimmie and the NOBEL PRIZE WINNING asshat El-Baradei.
They âreaffirmed their commitment to rejoining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, also adhering to IAEA safeguards,â said Richardson. North Korea suspended its membership in the nuclear NPT in 1993 and placed limitations on IAEA inspections. It withdrew from the treaty altogether in December 2002 and kicked out inspectors.
Richardson, now governor of the US state of New Mexico, came to Tokyo after his four-day tour of North Korea, where he met with top government officials, including Kim Yong-Nam, the Stalinist countryâs number two for the moment.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/21/2005 01:33 ||
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Richardson, the Jesse Jackson of the Santa Fe set.
#5
he's also the paragon of integrity who offered to hire Monica Lewinsky at Vernon Jordans's request to get the fellatrix intern out of the white house
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2005 13:07 Comments ||
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Kimmie wants to polish ElBaradei's Nobel Prize with the oil off of his own nose.
#2
What the war in Iraq has done is radicalize these people and make some of them prepared to support terrorism. Iraq is a great recruiting sergeant."
yeah right. Easy to see how the Nazis ran through them like a hot knife in butter. To bad there were no lessons learned. When the Islamists do it, don't be surprised if we are just a little to busy that week.
#3
Speaking of French debacles in the making today is the anniversary of Trafalgar. Slow and inept reaction rarely carries the day. Some lessons just never get understood no matter how often and brutally they are taught. The game and stakes have changed yet the mentality seems stuck.
#4
Reap what you have sown France. You were one a very good friend to us, but you let your government get over run with socialists and your country over run with muslims and now what do you have?
The prosecutor's office at Spain's National Court has asked the tribunal not to issue an international arrest warrant for three US soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other, a court official said. Prosecutor Pedro Rubira said in his appeal: "Spain lacks jurisdiction to investigate causes of death in a military conflict and death of a Spanish citizen resulting from US military gunfire."
Rubira also said in his appeal that the three men have not been indicted, as the case is still in an early phase, the court official said on Thursday on customary condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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Rapport freely downloadable here
http://www.cf2r.org/fr/activites/rapports_recherche.php (french)
I must confess having not read it yet, just articles commenting on it, but I'm a poser.
Note that islamization is not limited to security or retail; for example, in the Seine Saint-Denis department, home of a large muslim community, a post office internal survey found that in postal hubs, packages from Israel systematically went "missing", or that packages from the USA got damaged (slashed with boxcutters,...); also, IIRC the Renault car manufacturer had to adapt itself to an unpleasant fact : cars to be exported to Israel were sabotaged... The jihad has multiple frontlines. On an even more sinister note, the Paris airports are heavily islamized, with many security concerns, such as organized thieves rings from the muslim suburbs preying on luggages and post parcels.
PARIS -- The influence of radical Islamist groups is a growing threat to French business, a leading intelligence expert warned on Tuesday, citing the discovery of secret prayer-rooms at the Disneyland theme-park outside Paris.
In a report commissioned by several retail and courier companies, Eric Denece - director of the French Center for Research and Intelligence - said that the Islamists' strategy is to "take control of Muslims within the workforce" and then "challenge the rules in order to impose Islamic values.
"There are numerous instances, even if few businesses are willing to speak openly about them," Denece said in the report, which was based on interviews with police, intelligence officials and company staff.
"For example, around 10 prayer-rooms have been discovered at EuroDisney," he said.
The claim was originally made in a report by the police intelligence service RG in mid-2004.
Spokesman Pieter Boterman said: "We are a multicultural and non-discriminatory company with more than 100 nationalities and all the main religions represented. But we do not think the company is the place for people to express private religious convictions."
Denece also quoted the head of a freight company employing 3,000 people at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris who complained to the RG of "the presence of a small group of Muslims bent on imposing their work methods under the threat of repeated strikes".
"The growth in power of radical Islamism is a new menace, which can threaten the integrity of a business," Denece said.
Supermarkets and other large stores are a prime target, according to the 30-page report.
"Hypermarkets have noted that employees who are heavily involved in proselytizing systematically seek out jobs as telephone operators, delivery-men, cashiers and security officers - positions which allow easy exchanges of information, money and goods," the report said.
Muslim women working at supermarket cash registers are also being placed under pressure to wear the headscarf, it said.
According to Denece, the primary threat of Islamism to business is "sectarian", because it can undermine the loyalty of employees and destroy morale. It should therefore be "treated in the same way as the threat from scientology and other sects", he advised.
But he also said that there are increasing instances of patent illegality - including theft, embezzlement and the supply of inside information to criminal gangs.
"These practices have two goals: petty delinquency using Islam as a pretext and local financing of terrorism," the report said.
Denece also criticized the "lack of transparency" in the trade in ritually slaughtered halal meat, which in France generates an estimated â¬45 million ($54 million) a year in fees to Islamic organizations.
Though the officially recognized French Council on the Muslim Religion (CFCR) is trying to impose some order on the system, there is known to be widespread fraud, the report said.
Last month an RG report to the French government said that Islamic militants are moving away from mosques that they know are now under close surveillance, and are congregating in secret prayer-rooms - often attached to businesses.
The same report noted that Islamist groups are increasingly raising money from clothes shops offering "street wear" for youths from the high-immigration suburbs. These are replacing butcher's shops and Islamic libraries as a principal source of funds, the RG said.
Militia elements have infiltrated the police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, British Army chief General Sir Mike Jackson acknowledged Thursday. Sir Mike, chief of the UK general staff, told BBC domestic radio he believed that there was an Iranian influence in the infiltration, though that was not necessarily directed by the Iranian Government in Tehran. The British Government has alleged that Iranian-sourced weaponry has been used in attacks on British forces in Iraq.
Asked by the BBC if security in Iraq is getting better or worse, Sir Mike replied "It is a varied picture. I think that is true of all of the lines of development. Without doubt, it seems to me that the political process is moving on, I think to the admiration of everybody, who see Iraqis exercising at long last their democratic rights. The ... Iraqi security forces, particularly the Army, which I spent some time looking at last week, is quite impressive, in my view. It is true that the security level and the incidents are anything but what we would want at the moment. But we need to keep a sense of proportion here, that this is not representative of the vast majority of Iraqis. These incidents appear to be perpetrated by people who wish to prevent that better, democratic future for Iraq."
And asked about the influence of militias in Basra, which is patrolled by British forces, Sir Mike said "It is clear that to some degree, it is more difficult to be precise, but to some degree the local police have been infiltrated by people whose loyalty is to some sectoral group, and not to the people as a whole. This is obviously not the right answer, and we are taking steps alongside the Iraqis themselves, to put this right".
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 22:19 ||
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October 21, 2005: One interesting aspect Americans discovered while training Iraqi troops is that they tend to be very familiar with firearms, especially the Russian AK-series. The country is heavily armed with rifles and assault guns. In some regions, these weapons are so common that even boys of 12 or so may have one. One would think that this would make training them relatively easy, but in fact it doesnât. While Iraqi recruits tend to know a lot about firearms, even to the extent that they can maintain them reasonably well, they donât know a thing about weapons safety. Consider the Arab custom of firing their weapons into the air on happy occasions (they are called âjoy bulletsâ in Arabic), often with deadly consequences. When someone is killed or injured by the bullets that, inevitably come back to earth, the injury is shrugged off, or blamed on a handy enemy (Palestinians blame Israelis, some Iraqis blame any armed foreigners in the vicinity, or nearby Iraqis they don't get along with).
Thus, American trainers quickly learned that safety training is very important for Iraqi recruits. Indeed, it was found that gun safety training needed far more emphasis for Iraqi troops than for Americans, who live in a culture of safety. Resistance to safety training by Iraqi recruits is pretty high, at least initially. But once they understand the purpose, they become surprisingly good students, perhaps because they all know someone who lost a goat or a family member to a bullet that was simply obeying the law of gravity. The presence of Egyptian or Jordanian trainers is particularly helpful in accelerating the process of getting Iraqi recruits to accept firearms safety; as brother Arabs and Moslems. In this case thereâs less resistance to an âinfidelâ notion of being careful while using assault rifles.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/21/2005 10:25 ||
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...because they all know someone who lost a goat or a family member to a bullet that was simply obeying the law of gravity.
Sucks when your goat gets blown away.
Oh yeah, a family member too.
October 21, 2005: Money plays a big role in whatever happens in Iraq. For example, media reports of large numbers of Iraqi troops deserting their units are often based on the fact that many Iraqi troops are absent for up to a week each month so they can take their pay back to their families. There is no national banking system in Iraq, so commanders allow troops to go home to bring money to their families. Because many of the soldiers are Kurds or Shia Arabs operating in Sunni Arab areas, this journey can take up to a week. Thereâs no such thing as mass transit, much less rapid transit, in Iraqi either. Commanders also realize that giving their troops more time off, helps deal with the stress of performing security operations in hostile Sunni Arab areas. Iraqi troops do not, like American troops, go home after six or twelve months of combat operations.
The battle against terrorists has long included searching for the money men. These are usually former Saddam cronies, who disperse millions of dollars a month to Sunni Arabs willing to take a chance and participate in attacks. Many lower level bagmen have been caught, but on October 19th, a major money man was caught. Yasir Sabhawi Ibrahim, son of Hussein's half-brother, was arrested in Egypt several days after Syria, under pressure from the United States, expelled Ibrahim. Saddam Hussein ran Iraq as a family business, and many of his kin, who fled the country with billions of dollars, are bankrolling most of the terrorist attacks in Iraq. The Hussein clan know that their only chance of hanging on to their money, and their freedom, is to get Sunni Arabs back in control of Iraq. Without that, they eventually face eventual arrest and trial for the many crimes they committed in support of their leader. The Iraqi government is also looking to get the stolen money back.
Opinion polls show 75-80 percent of Iraqis support and trust their security forces (army and police). Most of this has to do with more troops and police out and patrolling. These forces are noticeably less corrupt, and more competent, than their counterparts who served Saddam. That accounts for a lot of the popularity. That leads to people being more willing to give tips about terrorist activities. These tips have led to more successful raids (seizing bomb workshops, weapons, explosives, bomb makers and terrorists in general) in the last few months, than all of last year. The newly proficient Iraqi police also played a major role in preventing any significant terrorists violence during the October 15th voting. The terrorists had tried to plant bombs in likely polling places (the exact locations of the polling places were not revealed until the last minute, to prevent this). In some cases, the terrorists guessed right, but the police and soldiers were ready, and searched polling places for these bombs, and found them all. This was a point of pride for the cops, and most Iraqis, who have never had efficient and honest cops. But the Iraqi police still retain some of the old ways. When it comes to raids, some Iraqis would prefer to get hit by U.S. troops, if only because the Americans are more disciplined. That means there is less likely to be any gunfire, or things missing from the house after the search is done.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/21/2005 10:20 ||
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#1
Maybe you should compare notes with the investigators following the UN money trail, too. UBS, ECI, the Central Bank of Iran, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and off-shore accounts such as in Antigua and Macau may tie some loose strings together for you. Don't forget Italy, too, as many antiquities sold off to pay for terrorism seem to end up there.
Surprise, surprise! Figured out he was one of them! Caught via LGF
Guardian journalist Rory Carroll, freed on Thursday after 36 hours in the hands of Baghdad kidnappers, said he wanted to go on reporting on Iraq. "The next move is unclear but I would like to report on Iraq in the future," the 33-year-old correspondent for the London newspaper told Reuters by telephone shortly after his release.
He said he did not know who was responsible for snatching him on Wednesday; Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was present when he was released after a day and a half in darkness. "I don't know who took me," Carroll said. "I was released about an hour ago. I'm fine. I was treated reasonably well," he added. "I spent the last 36 hours in the dark. I was released into the hands of Dr. Chalabi."
Another reason not to trust Chabbers.
The Guardian had claimed said Carroll, who has been in Baghdad since January, was allegedly seized as he left the home of a Shi'ite Muslim family who had suffered under Saddam Hussein and were watching the first day of his trial on television.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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Anti-Americans released another Anti-American, or one that works for a gener anti-Amer org.
#2
Seized outside a Shi'ite home and turned over to Chalabi, a Shi'ite Govt Weenie, this has the earmarks of a, duh, Shi'ite operation... was it to scare the little bugger - since he's an alG reporter and automatically a jihadi (read: Sunni) symp? Was it a payback hit, but someone talked the Shi'a group out of it?
This wasn't the usual jihadi "kill an infidel" grab or bogus "fund-raising" grab... these were Shi'a, not Sunnis. This is something new - and it sounds like "payback", Shi'a payback, fits the facts best.
Interesting. He's a moron and I almost wish they'd aced him and planted him in the desert, but it's still interesting.
The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says Canadians have joined the insurgency in Iraq. James Judd, the director of CSIS, revealed Thursday evening that some of the foreign fighters in Iraq battling coalition troops are Canadians. He said there aren't many, but more are expected to join. I'm not surprised. Is anyone?
Speaking to reporters at a break during a security conference in Montreal, Judd was asked if Canadians were in Iraq fighting against the American-led coalition. "Yes, I believe so," he said. He said there weren't many, "we're talking single digit numbers." But he said "we're aware of several others who are contemplating leaving." When asked if CSIS, or the government, could do anything to prevent people from joining the insurgency Judd said didn't think there was anything legally that could be done. "They tend to vote Liberal."
"In some instances we found out about it after the fact, and to the extent that we did have some certainty about it we would want to advise our friends and allies," said the CSIS director. Friends and allies = Europe, not US
According to Keith Boag, the CBC's Ottawa bureau chief, the Prime Minister's Office was "flabbergasted" that such sensitive information could be released by the head of the spy agency. "They didn't know it was being spoken about publicly and for that they [the PMO] are very angry." Oops.
"The prime minister never comments on intelligence matters and they were under the impression that CSIS didn't either," said Boag. Acknowledgment that Canadians are fighting in Iraq raises a number of questions, such as what will their status be if they decide to return to Canada. They'll be given membership in the Liberal caucus, why of course.
"It raises the longer-term question of what do they bode for the future?" Judd said. Dhimmitude, probably.
Posted by: Rafael ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
The Generals and Admirals of the Cindy Sheehan Commie Airborne Army and aligned RR forces must be licking their chops after this news. Good Canadian Islamists demand to live in dirty mud houses-tents instead of large two-story + Canadian middle class domiciles - CAMELS, FOREVER, D*** YOU.
#5
"...Canadians have joined the insurgency in Iraq..."
I'm sure that is true, but I bet their names aren't 'John' or 'Jacques'. More like 'Mohammed' & 'Abdullah'. And I am quite sure they are not 'Liberal' (if they were, they wouldn't fight).
#6
I was visting friends in Toronto recently; we went to the little amusement park at Centre Island. There were lots of people at the park that day, and easily 85% of them were large Muslim families, all veiled / bearded / traditional dress.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/21/2005 9:38 Comments ||
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Mobile Beaver Brigades Communique #4 - Drop that Molson brother! It is the poison drink of kaffir made by the great global capitalist zionist satan infidel America.
Immigrants tend to vote Liberal. If they did not before, they do now, considering how much lip the Liberal government has been giving the US since 9/11. The largest group of immigrants come from three regions: India/Pakistan,China,Europe. Not exactly hotbeds of pro-American affection.
Posted by: Rafael ||
10/21/2005 12:23 Comments ||
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In case he wasn't clear enough during an exclusive interview this week with WorldNetDaily in which he said his terror group would target the ranch of Israel's prime minister with rockets, the spokesman for a coalition of three Palestinian terror groups warned on an American radio show the same day his "first and foremost goal" is to kill Ariel Sharon.
The Committees has taken responsibility for many of the rockets fired at Israeli towns the past few years and for more than a dozen suicide attacks. It also was blamed for the bombing of a U.S. convoy in Gaza in October 2003, killing three Americans. "I want to say the first and foremost goal is to kill Sharon. I want to make life hell for him because he made life hellish for Palestinians," Abdel-Al said during the segment, which aired Monday on the nationally syndicated John Batchelor Show.
The interview questions were translated live into Arabic and Abdel-Al's responses were translated back to English.
Batchelor and Klein also ask Abdel-Al about the American convoy attack and whether he was trying to embarrass Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas by committing attacks ahead of his visit with President Bush yesterday.
Abdel-Al's threats to Sharon came one day after the Israeli Defense Forces found a Qassam rocket just outside Sharon's Sycamore ranch, located a few kilometers from Sderot, the town at which more than 20 rockets were fired immediately following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last month. The Qassam rocket at the prime minister's ranch was found next to the grave site of Sharon's wife, Lili. IDF sappers said the attack took place three weeks ago, during the latest round of rocket fire at southern Israel from Gaza.
Abdel-Al told WND both his group and Hamas launched many rockets the past few weeks and he cannot confirm which batch hit near Sharon's ranch. But he warned, "We shall use these rockets against Sderot, against Sharon's ranch and against every city in Israel any time there is need to do so. The Israelis shall wait for surprises from the Palestinian resistance. ... If there is need, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and everywhere in Israel can become our target. Israelis must also know that we have already transferred the knowledge and the technology of producing rockets to the West Bank."
US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush said Thursday that he was not sure that the Palestinians would have an independent state before he leaves office in January 2009. After talks at the White House with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Bush praised his guest and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as "partners in peace" and repeated his backing for creating a Palestinian state.
"I believe that two democratic states living side by side in peace is possible. I can't tell you when it's going to happen. It's happening," Bush said during a joint appearance with Abbas in the White House Rose Garden.
"If it happens before I get out of office, I'll be there to witness the ceremony. And if doesn't, we will work hard to lay that foundation so that the process becomes irreversible," the US president told reporters.
"I'm a heck of a lot more confident today than when I was when I first came into office," said Bush, who coupled praise for Abbas' efforts to crack down on anti-Israel violence with a call to do more against "armed gangs."
"The way forward must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine" as well as "to lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians," said the US president.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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he doesn't need the "Legacyâ¢" like Clinton did. His changes are real, not faux, like a Nobel Peace Prize accomplishment. W will be acknowledged long after his presidency for a ground-shift in the US's dealings with the rest of the world. Some may not like the pace, but can you say any previous prez did more? He's not done yet, IMHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2005 0:09 Comments ||
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#2
The Pales. and its PA are still focusing on getting concessions from Israel, as opposed to controlling Radic groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah/Hizbollah, etc. and getting them or forcing them to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. ISRAEL in reality is the Pales. best hope for any Pales.-specific national development as other regional Muslim govts don't care too much for the Pales. or their agenda. As long as bloody pro-Pales., anti-Israeli violence keeps occurring, neither Tel Aviv andor the IDF has any reason to respect the demands of the PA.
#3
As for CLINTON, methinks it can be safely said that Darth Bill wilfully destroyed any US-specific legacy he and the Dems, or even Hillary, could hope to claim from the 1990's in favor of discrediting America for OWG and Global "Liberalism" - eeeerrrr, Global Socialism-Communism-Totalitarianism. Iff anything, Darth Stainous/Seminous own PC wafflins' and dissins' of America, his own Party, and the NPE, etc. only proves 9-11 and the WOT was preplanned for years, and that Hillary the Dems acting like RINO's. Democratists-in-Name-Only, and "Good Conservatives" is a temp, PC, MSM facade for disguising the fact that America is actually in WW3 ags Russia-China.
#4
Someone who looks to the Paleos to provide a "legacy" is seriously dellusional. Anyone who thinks someone needs such a legacy is seriously stupid.
Posted by: john ||
10/21/2005 8:29 Comments ||
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#5
The Roadmap is flawed to begin with so as long as the violence continues, the Israelis can stay where think a Paleo state can be formed in pockets in the midst of Israel. The Palestinians will not listen to reason or any other ideas. The new BAR has some articles about the homeland of the Philistines (Palestine is a translation error on old Roman maps)and they have Gaza, Sidon, Tyre, Edom (Jordan), towns in Syria and even Ur in Iraq, as they were also dispersed by the Assyrians. The Ten Tribes of Israel occupied the West Bank and they should not have to leave. Christians would have more claim to the Galilee than they do! Maybe doing DNA tests and tracing ancient ancestral tribes would settle this issue. Science is more definitive than the rewritten history they try to push as fact.
#7
US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush said Thursday that he was not sure that the Palestinians would have an independent state before he leaves office in January 2009.
Why should he care? There are other more important and pressing matters that need addressing. The time for more focus on this is when and if Mazen decides to do something decisive about terrorists on his soil besides "co-opting" them. Until then, it's not even worth a passing thought.
#8
US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush said Thursday that he was not sure that the Palestinians would have an independent state before he leaves office in January 2009.
Oh come on!. This is GWB here. Read what he says and work from there (I believe this only works with foreign policy ;) Basically, the Paleos are not going to get their 'state' whilst GWB is in office. End of Story.
What happens after that is something else entirely.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/21/2005 17:32 Comments ||
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Syria on Friday hotly dismissed a U.N. report linking embattled President Bashar Assad's regime to the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, and Damascus geared up to fight growing Western sentiment to punish it with economic sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telegraphed the Bush administration's next move by declaring that Syria must be held accountable for the slaying of former Lebanese said during a visit to Alabama. Actually, she spoke. She didn't use a telegraph.
The U.N. report is the latest development in what has been an extremely bad diplomatic patch for the authoritarian Syrian regime, which is facing intensifying censure from many parts of the world over its conduct in the Middle East. The findings were also likely to deepen explosive political divisions between Lebanon's pro- and anti-Syrian groups. Syria's foes there hailed the report as a long-awaited truth-telling about Damascus' complicity in the assassination and its interference in Lebanese affairs. Pro-Syrian politicians vilified the findings.
Hariri's murder touched off street protests in Lebanon and heated up international pressures on Damascus, forcing Assad's regime to end a nearly three-decade military occupation of its neighbor. Syria also has been under increasing U.S. pressure to stop interfering in Lebanon, to shut its border with Iraq to anti-American terrorists insurgents and to halt support for Palestinian terrorist militant groups. Syria has denied doing any of those things. "Cetainly not!"
"This is the worst period in Syria's modern history," said Hazem Saghieh, a senior Lebanese columnist with the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. "I do not rule out a confrontation with the international community and sanctions on Syria."
While the U.N. findings did not directly incriminate Assad, the report cited a witness who said Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law and Syria's military intelligence chief, forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred. The report also said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to the investigating commission. Al-Sharaa lied, Hariri died!
Assad's government repeated its claim of innocence in the Hariri killing and declared that the U.N. document was heavily politicized because of Syria's staunch anti-Israeli position. Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf Mahdi Dakhlallah said the report lacked hard evidence and was based on witnesses "who are well known for their anti-Syria stands."
The report also said Lebanese intelligence officials helped organize the Hariri killing. It further said Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, got a phone call minutes before the assassination from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group who also called one of four Lebanese generals arrested later in the killing. Lahoud's office issued a statement "categorically" denying that the president received such a phone call. "There is no truth to it," the statement said.
In Damascus, few Syrians were willing to comment, but those who did took the Assad regime's view of the U.N. report for fear of being next. "This is a big fabrication," said Basil Deheim, a 26-year-old marketing executive sitting with friends at a packed coffee shop. "I don't believe it," he added to the nearby secret police, pointing to a large-screen TV showing continuous coverage of the probe on an Arab satellite channel. No other customer was watching.
In one of the most critical parts of the U.N. report, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis said Syria must cooperate if the investigation is to succeed. So I guess we know the result there. The inquiry, which was ordered by the U.N. Security Council on April 8, was extended for a second time by Secretary-General Kofi Annan â this time until Dec. 15.
Even before the report, Syria was suffering growing isolation, with an unstated moratorium in place on visits by high-ranking Western officials and the shelving of a European Union-Syria trade agreement. Syria's relations with other Arab countries also have deteriorated.
The drive for sanctions against the Assad regime was under full steam. Earlier this week, a U.S. official and two U.N. diplomats said the United States and France were preparing Security Council resolutions critical of Syria for its role in the Hariri assassination and its alleged arming of anti-Israeli militias in Lebanon. Sanctions would further weaken Syria's struggling economy. But strengthen its smuggling economy.
Joshua Landis, a University of Oklahoma professor who is spending the year in Damascus as a Fulbright scholar, said Syria's political establishment is divided on how to deal with the U.N. report. He said hard-liners believe Syria is in a strong position, arguing the United States is mired in the Iraqi insurgency and its failure to curb Iran's nuclear program.
Those who are more moderate, he said, contend Washington is succeeding in creating a new order in the Middle East despite problems in Iraq. They also say Syria no longer has any allies and must remake itself by opening up the economy and cooperating with its neighbors, he said. Landis put Assad in the moderate camp. "He wants to modernize but he wants to keep an authoritarian state structure." He wants to be like China? Or the EU?
Syrian President Bashar Assad insisted in an interview published Thursday that his country is "100 percent innocent" in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and said Damascus has "no understanding for such crimes." Many in neighboring Lebanon blame Syria for the Feb. 14 assassination, a charge that Syria denies. Assad's latest comments came days before chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis is due to report on his findings. "We are 100 percent innocent," Assad was quoted as telling the weekly Die Zeit. "We have absolutely no understanding for such crimes."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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"110% or 220%, whatever it takes"
paraphrased, of course
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2005 0:11 Comments ||
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99.999% to allow for statistical error
Posted by: Rafael ||
10/21/2005 0:41 Comments ||
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"We have absolutely no understanding for such crimes."
Lebanon's state-run telephone system has billed the government for more than $11 million in unpaid telephone charges run up by Syrian troops before they left the country earlier this year after a nearly three-decade occupation. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the government would pay the bill, noting that Syrian troops had "paid in blood for our sake." An unknown number of Syrian soldiers were killed in trying to quell Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.
The unpaid charges were for calls dating back to 1976 and were placed within Lebanon or between Lebanon and Syria, said Marwan Hamadeh, minister of Post, Telephone and Telegram. The bill, he said, amounted to $11.3 million.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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Bwahahahahahahaha!
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
10/21/2005 1:55 Comments ||
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Holy smoke! They haven't written off bad debts made in 1976? I guess they would rather be owed for the charges than cheated out of them.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/21/2005 4:25 Comments ||
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Hello, Mr. Assad? Hi. This is Lebanon Bell. Yes. We would really like to work with you on getting this situation rectified. We could setup a payment plan or...
The chief of the Lebanese Shia movement Hizballah has said the UN report into the murder of ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri must not take any political side, warning of dangerous consequences.
Sounds like a threat, doesn't it?
"We fear that the Mehlis report could be politicised as this is a report that will have dangerous repercussions since the crime is serious," Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah told supporters in Beirut on Thursday.
Afraid people are gonna recall the pro-Syria demonstrations Hezbollah staged right after the kaboom?
Nasrallah was speaking as the UN investigator probing Hariri's murder, Detlev Mehlis, handed over his report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York. The document could be made public on Friday.
... and he didn't have the good sense to keep his mouth shut and his head down.
"We want to have clear and irrefutable conclusions," said Nasrallah. "We are in favour of the criminals being punished whatever their identity."
Except that he's hoping the conclusions are susceptible to being muddied.
The UN chief said on Wednesday that the Mehlis report would be a purely "technical" one and warned against attempts to politicise it. Annan also appealed for calm and restraint in anticipation of the inevitable political fallout.
Of course it's going to be "politicized." Syria's occupation of Leb was a political act. Ruling Leb as a colony was a political act. The intricate, but probably not stately, minuet that's going to follow in the next month is going to be exclusively political — unless Hezbollah decides to blow something up, in which case it'll become military.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 00:00 ||
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he'd be a nice assassination target - just to get Hezb moving
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2005 0:15 Comments ||
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Heh, we used to call this sort of hoof 'n mouth idiocy cruising for a bruising...
Writing in Jang (September 19, 2005) Mehmood Sham stated that as he prepared to sit at the table arranged by the World Jewish Council for Pakistani journalists he noticed that there were only sandwiches, tea and cold drinks for the Pakistani journalists. He remembered that Jews were famous for kanjoosi (miserliness). Behind the mikes on the stage the backdrop was of black cloth, just like the black past of Pakistan-Israel relations and possibly future also.
Posted by: john ||
10/21/2005 17:06 ||
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You know, _most_ people would probably just think "Hey, free food!"
"Sandwiches and tea" describes about four of my meals this week. Add on TV dinners and you've probalby got about seven. (And we're not going to mention the "It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno" incident).
Posted by: Phil ||
10/21/2005 18:02 Comments ||
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Ahmed deconstructs many of the conspiracy theories and biases rampant in the Urdu press ... and he does it with a light but masterly touch. Nicely done!
Sudan's government and rebels were wrapping up a sixth round of talks on the crisis in the country's western Darfur region Thursday. While the negotiators were meeting in Nigeria, violence that included attacks on African Union peacekeepers spiked in Sudan, dimming already slim chances for a breakthrough. Nonetheless, a new round of talks was to open November 15.
The latest round of peace talks had opened September 15 with the rebels fighting among themselves, further undermining a difficult process that has seen earlier rounds make little progress and ceasefires repeatedly violated. "I don't name it failure and I don't call it a success," Yusuf Abdallah, a government negotiator, said of the latest round, adding he was encouraged by a sense of optimism among participants, but found progress coming slowly.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2005 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.
Azerbaijan's fired economic development minister has been charged with plotting a coup with an exiled opposition leader, authorities said Thursday, raising anxieties two weeks before parliamentary elections. Farhad Aliev, who was fired on Wednesday, was arrested the same day on charges of conspiring with opposition leader Rasul Guliyev to incite unrest and seize power, a government statement said.
BEIJING (AP) - China's President Hu Jintao will visit North Korea next week, amid international efforts to convince the isolated country to 
TOKYO - North Korea would accept a visit at an âappropriateâ time by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), US politician Bill Richardson said on Friday after a trip to the Stalinist state. âThey (Pyongyang officials) ... indicated they would, at an appropriate time, invite IAEA officials including (its head) Mohamed ElBaradei to North Korea,â Richardson told journalists in Tokyo.
The prosecutor's office at Spain's National Court has asked the tribunal not to issue an international arrest warrant for three US soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other, a court official said. Prosecutor Pedro Rubira said in his appeal: "Spain lacks jurisdiction to investigate causes of death in a military conflict and death of a Spanish citizen resulting from US military gunfire."
Militia elements have infiltrated the police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, British Army chief General Sir Mike Jackson acknowledged Thursday. Sir Mike, chief of the UK general staff, told BBC domestic radio he believed that there was an Iranian influence in the infiltration, though that was not necessarily directed by the Iranian Government in Tehran. The British Government has alleged that Iranian-sourced weaponry has been used in attacks on British forces in Iraq.
The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says Canadians have joined the insurgency in Iraq. James Judd, the director of CSIS, revealed Thursday evening that some of the foreign fighters in Iraq battling coalition troops are Canadians. He said there aren't many, but more are expected to join. 
US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush said Thursday that he was not sure that the Palestinians would have an independent state before he leaves office in January 2009. After talks at the White House with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Bush praised his guest and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as "partners in peace" and repeated his backing for creating a Palestinian state. 
Syrian President Bashar Assad insisted in an interview published Thursday that his country is "100 percent innocent" in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and said Damascus has "no understanding for such crimes." Many in neighboring Lebanon blame Syria for the Feb. 14 assassination, a charge that Syria denies. Assad's latest comments came days before chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis is due to report on his findings. "We are 100 percent innocent," Assad was quoted as telling the weekly Die Zeit. "We have absolutely no understanding for such crimes."
Lebanon's state-run telephone system has billed the government for more than $11 million in unpaid telephone charges run up by Syrian troops before they left the country earlier this year after a nearly three-decade occupation. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the government would pay the bill, noting that Syrian troops had "paid in blood for our sake." An unknown number of Syrian soldiers were killed in trying to quell Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.
The chief of the Lebanese Shia movement Hizballah has said the UN report into the murder of ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri must not take any political side, warning of dangerous consequences. 
Sudan's government and rebels were wrapping up a sixth round of talks on the crisis in the country's western Darfur region Thursday. While the negotiators were meeting in Nigeria, violence that included attacks on African Union peacekeepers spiked in Sudan, dimming already slim chances for a breakthrough. Nonetheless, a new round of talks was to open November 15. 
