JEDDAH Saudi journalist Rabah Al-Quwayi, 24, has been detained by Hail authorities in connection with his writings posted on Internet forums, which they allege place his Islamic faith in doubt.
Heresy, by Allan! Fire up the auto-da-fe!
Al-Quwayi, a reporter for the Riyadh-based daily Shams, has been in Hail police custody since Monday. They asked me about topics I wrote on the Internet four years ago, Al-Quwayi told Arab News from his detention center.
Hail police chief Gen. Nasser Al-Nowaisser said Al-Quwayi is detained under a warrant requested by the Grand Inquisition Commission for Prosecution and Investigation. Our job was to execute the warrant. As his case is not a public offense, we have nothing to do with the course of the investigation, said Al-Nowaisser.
When Arab News contacted Ahmad Al-Mashhour from the Hail office of the commission, he refused to comment on the case. Lawyer Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem announced yesterday that he would be representing Al-Quwayi. The lawyer said he is still unclear who the plaintiffs in the case are; nobody has come forward as the accusers. The commission has the legal right to detain any suspect for up to six months, said Al-Lahem, but the reasons have to be clear. The crime must be a serious one, like drug-trafficking, theft, or when there is a likelihood of the suspect fleeing the country, said the lawyer.
The story of Al-Quwayis detention goes back to November when he was based in Hail as a part-time reporter for the Okaz newspaper. He said that unidentified people had been tracking his postings on Internet forums regarding religious extremism. His car was subsequently vandalized and a note was left on the dashboard that said: In the name of God, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful: This time it is your car but next time it is you. Return to your religion and forsake heresy. This is the last warning.
"We kills heretics in these here parts!"
Al-Quwayi says that he believes the harassment is based on his Internet writing and not anything hes published in the two newspapers he has worked for. In a telephone interview with Arab News on Tuesday night, Al-Quwayi said that authorities in Hail contacted him asking him to come in and fill out some paperwork related to his complaints of harassment that stem from the incidents last November. He responded that he had obligations at his job and couldnt come in. The police sent an explanation letter to the editor in chief of the paper, and Al-Quwayi was given permission to go to the police station. He was immediately arrested upon arrival. Police told him they had discarded his complaints of harassment and opened a new investigation into his Islamic faith. They told me that if I didnt complain to the police in the first place they wouldnt have suspected my beliefs, said Al-Quwayi.
Al-Quwayi said the commission inquisitors investigators were peppering him with questions that were meant to determine his religious knowledge. He added that commission inquisitors investigators argued with him on topics he posted on the Internet four years ago.
"I told them 'E pur se muove,' but they didn't get it. Looks like I'm gonna be burned at the stake. G'bye, Mom!"
Lawyer Al-Lahem said that now that hes taken on the case, his first steps would be to review the warrant to make sure it has been done according to proper procedure, and to request the case be moved to Riyadh where he and his client live.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 01:06 ||
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Poor bastard is rotting in Hail. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
The recent disclosures that the six militants arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police in connection with the terrorist attack in Sankat Mochan Temple and railway station in the holy city of Varanasi on March 7, belonged to Bangladesh based outfit Harqat-ul-Jehad al-Islami (HUJI), have highlighted the dangers that a talibanised Bangladesh poses to its neighbours. The serial blasts had killed 21 people and injured 62 in a city which is considered the holiest by Hindus. The blasts were clearly intended to provoke retaliation with the aim of raising communal tensions in the most populous state of India.
According to police a local area commander of HUJI, Waliullah was directed by HUJI commander Maulana Asad Ullah to carry out the blasts. Waliullah acted as a conduit for the three terrorists sent from Bangladesh to carry out the attacks. The terrorists returned to Bangladesh after planting the bombs via Kolkata.
The fact that a Bangladesh based radical fundamentalist outfit can have branches in India is bad enough, that it plans to carry out attacks inside India is much worse. These incidents have once again highlighted the dangers of growing talibanisation of once liberal and tolerant Bangladesh under the current government. The recent attempts by the Bangladesh government to arrest the leaders of various militant outfits, coming at the fag-end of its tenure, are at best a case of too little too late.
For most of its tenure Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government of Begum Khaleda Zia, has been a hostage to two of its smaller coalition partners Islamic Oika Jote (IOJ) and Jamaat-e-Islami a party that had opposed the creation of Bangladesh and had collaborated with Pakistani military junta during the liberation war. Both these Islamic parties succeeded in forcing the government to turn a blind eye to the violence perpetrated by Islamic extremists, who systematically encroached upon Bangladeshs traditional tolerance.
Minorities have been persecuted under the influence of these Islamic parties and the worst sufferers have been the Ahmediyas, who number around 100, 000 out of a total population of 140 million in Bangladesh. As they are regarded as apostates by some Muslims, they have been systematically persecuted during the current regime. Human Rights Watch in its report published in June 2005, had clearly established that the Ahmediyas were being subjected to a campaign of hate, discrimination, expropriation and violence. In January 2004, even their religious publications were banned at the behest of IOJ, ironically in a country that was initially set up as a secular republic and even today ostensibly claims to allow every citizen freedom to practice his own religion.
The telltale signs of fundamentalism have been there for all to see - the mushrooming of Madrassas, pressure on women to wear veil, suppression on traditional forms of entertainment, which have been termed as unislamic. The madrassas have been used as recruitment centres by the fundamentalists. Though a number of international publications highlighted the growth of fundamentalist organizations in Bangladesh and their possible links with Al Qaeda and other international Islamic groups, yet the government chose to turn a blind eye to this growing menace of fundamentalism. At first the BNP government flatly denied the existence of any of these Islamic groups in Bangladesh and even after February 2005 when it banned some of these organisations, its attempts have been half hearted. Despite the terrorists proclaiming their reach and strength to the world by blasting 400 bombs in 63 of Bangladeshs 64 districts on August 17, 2005, the governments attempts to control the menace have lacked the necessary intent.
The present Bangladeshi government has mastered the art of denying the obvious. Besides the presence of a number of Islamic terrorist organisations on its soil, it has routinely denied the presence of Indian insurgent groups fighting in Indias North East, even though media has published frequent reports not only about their presence but also about their meetings with various officials. Bangladeshi government also denies that there is any illegal migration from Bangladesh to India although even a blind man can feel the presence of these illegal migrants in most Indian cities. The increasing manifestation of violence by the Islamic groups including suicide attacks carried out in Ghazipur and Chittagong in November 2005 have however, forced the government to acknowledge their presence but its attempts to curb the menace have proved to be totally ineffective.
For too long has the international community considered the growing fundamentalism and radicalisation of Bangladeshi society as an internal problem of Bangladesh. However, the participation of Bangladeshi terrorists in attacks in Varanasi indicates that the involvement of Bangladesh based outfits in attack on American Centre in Kolkata on January 22, 2002, was not an isolated incident. Bangladesh has now started exporting terror and India, which shares a 4,095 km porous border with Bangladesh, is one of the prime targets. The Indian government therefore has a bonafide stake in preventing talibanisation of Bangladesh, as it not only threatens the liberal civil society in Bangladesh but also the peace and harmony in India.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:25 ||
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A female NGO worker was found murdered at her house at Hazipara in the city yesterday.
Police recovered the body of Baby Begum, 30, a field worker of Care Bangladesh. Blindfolded, her body bore marks of injury with a piece of cloth inside the mouth and a scarf around the neck.
"Legume! Look carefully at the body. The burn marks around the neck, the cloth inside the mouth -- I believe she was strangled. And the blindfold means that she never saw it coming."
"Brilliant, inspector, brilliant!"
Police sent the body to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital morgue in the afternoon for autopsy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2006 00:01 ||
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Baby Begum gottem Wacked, whats the world coming to.
Every night every day
In this house filled with shame
I can say I care
But there's no one there
There's no truth in my lies
There's no light in my eyes
And it's all I guess
That I'll ever miss
What's the world coming to
What's the world coming to
Everyone's gone to the moon
What's the world coming to
The Chechen sources published an address by Sheikh Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, the Chechen and Caucasus Mujahiddeen leader. He claimed Mujahiddeen forces had destroyed "dozens of pieces of enemy equipment" on "all fronts of the war" this winter. "The most odious figures in the camp of the national traitors, who were decorated with medals and crosses by their bosses, have also been liquidated," Sadulaev said. "God has helped us to defeat them. The greatest successes have been achieved in Dagestan where the traitors' leaders have been wiped out. Successful combat operations are also being waged in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, although not so actively as in the main areas of the mujahideen's attacks in Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygeya."
Sadulaev claimed that Mujahiddeen forces had also "performed well" in the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, carrying out "successful operations there with far-reaching consequences"including one in which, he claimed, 10 members of an OMON special police unit were killed and Mujahiddeen fighters managed to break out of an encirclement after losing only two men. Sadulaev was apparently referring to a shootout in Tukui-Mekteb, a village in Stavropol Krai's Neftekumsky district, last February. The Associated Press reported on February 10 that two days of fighting in Tukui-Mekteb had killed 12 suspected Mujahiddeens and seven policemen.
Sadulaev also claimed that Mujahiddeens in North Ossetia this winter had destroyed all the armored equipment of one federal battalion. He said, however, that he had "no definite information" that Mujahiddeen forces were behind the incident in the Chechen village of Kurchaloiwhich, he claimed, "completely wiped out" a "battalion of Yamadaev's munafiqs [hypocrites]." Sadulaev here was referring to the February 7 explosion at a two-story military barracks of the Vostok Battalion of the federal Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), which is commanded by Sulim Yamadaev. The Emergency Situations Ministry reported on February 8 that 13 people were killed and more than 20 injured in the explosion at the barracks, and some officials said they believed the blast was caused by a gas leak while others said a bomb could not be ruled out.
"We are aware that Kadyrov's criminals are at loggerheads with Yamadaev's men, but until we are in possession of the facts we are unable to say that it was our mujahideen who carried out this operation," Sadulaev said of the Kurchaloi explosion. "When we do get final information, I shall give a further report in my next address about the results of this operation. All we know for certain is that one company of a battalion of Yamadaev's terrorists was completely destroyed. But the only person who could believe that there had been a domestic gas explosion is some amateur dilettante who has no idea that a war is going on or that Putin is in the Kremlin. Nobody else believes such nonsense. The mujahideen know how a gas cylinder explodes, how a shell explodes and how a building collapses when it has been mined on all sides with explosives. The building was mined in such a way that no one could possibly have survived."
Sadulaev suggested that the Kurchaloi blast could have been the result of a bomb placed by pro-Kadyrov forces. "We know that Ramzan Kadyrov has declared the village of Kurchaloi a zone of his influence, that he has trained many munafiqs there and that there is deadly enmity between them and Yamadaev's men," he said. According to Sadulaev, Ramzan Kadyrov and his father Akhmad were behind the March 2003 killing of Sulim Yamadaev's brother, Dzhabrail, who was deputy military commandant of Chechnya. According to press reports at the time, Dzhabrail was killed by an explosion in a house in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno in which he was staying along with three bodyguards. The blast was blamed on the Mujahiddeens, who in fact subsequently took credit for it. Sadulaev, however, noted: "Earlier we said that Dzhabrail Yamadaev had been destroyed by the mujahideen, believing that our fighters had done this. After a mujahideen investigation, it transpired that this had been done by the KadyrovsAkhmad and Ramzanwho paid the FSB 100,000 dollars to carry out this operation. Sulim Yamadaev, who later wiped out four of Dzhabrail Yamadaev's personal bodyguards who were involved in his murder, also knows this. He is afraid of taking vengeance on Ramzan Kadyrov, because he fears his Russian bosses. Otherwise, he would have done something."
Referring to the overall situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, Sadulaev said "the fact that Putin has spoken about the end of the war in the North Caucasus and establishing peace" shows that "the Russians have lost all hope of victory"that "they have had enough and want to end the war by any means." The "territory of the war is expanding," he added, "and the Russians are taking desperate steps to prevent this, refuting their own statements about the war being over."
Sadulaev also suggested that the law signed by President Vladimir Putin in early March setting up a National Anti-Terrorism Committee headed by the Federal Security Service director to coordinate the government's response to terrorism showed that the federal authorities are panicking that they are increasingly "losing control of the situation."
Sadulaev compared the new committee to the State Defense Committee that Stalin set up during World War II. "A military committee is not set up in a country where a war has ended," Sadulaev said. "This is a mechanism of power to be created when the need arises to switch all the power and functions of rule by the state and the whole economy over to conditions of war. The Russian leadership's statements about ending the war and creating a State Defense Committee are completely contradictory The policy of the United States in the world and chance that crops up periodically to boost the economy with increased prices for oil are the only things helping them to bear the burden of the war and postpone recognizing their utter defeat."
Sadualev also suggested that Ramzan Kadyrov's moves to establish Islam and apply Sharia law in Chechnya were signs of desperation. "Given the complete failure of ideological work the Russians have begun using the mouths of the munafiqs to talk about establishing Sharia law and Islam in Chechnya," he said. "They are now instructing Kadyrov, who has been expanding his network of shops selling drugs and spirits, to declare a war on narcotics. He is suddenly starting to show concern for the morals of the Chechens and for Sharia law. This absurd policy is being conducted as a result of the defeat of his bosses. It was also carried out in the former times, when the Russians suffered defeat and the national traitors who followed them lost all hope. They used to say: `And we also allow you to follow Islam and to observe Muslim customs.' Such `cunning' speaks to the grave position of enemies."
Sadulaev's statement reiterated his earlier comments about "traitors" who had "switched to the side of the occupation forces" and were now expressing regret. "There are people among them who are helping us, as we saw from an example in Vedeno, where Kadyrov's men killed someone called Mola and his brother because they were helping the mujahideen," Sadulaev said. "We have received reports that they are dead, and if this is so, then may God have mercy on them. This shows that the conscience of these people, whom the Russians and the munafiqs deceived, has begun to be restored. Thanks to God, this is mercy from God! However, it is also true that whatever stories you bring us, we do not need you alongside us. You are people who once turned your backs on the truth, and there is every chance you will do so again. Despite this, we will be glad if just one of those who have realized the bloody deeds of the non-believers and the small bunch of hypocrites returns to the true path. I say this not because we need comrades alongside us. We will not accept you even if you all come back to us; you are people who doubted the truth and victory, who broke down and were under the command of the non-believers. At the same time, if your hands are not stained with blood, we are prepared to find ways to spare your lives. And if you will help the mujahideen and the ordinary people in some way we shall not reject your good deeds and this will be to your advantage."
Finally, Sadulaev said that Ramzan Kadyrov's elevation to the post of puppet prime minister was the result of the "complete collapse" of Russian policy. The only thing Kadyrov can do "is torture prisoners and treat them brutally," Sadulaev said. "Putin likes that and it suits him. But that is all he can offer Kadyrov. This shows how weak the enemy is. After all, if the enemy were sharp, he would have found an intelligent and capable henchman who could talk to the people. This shows there is no future for the Kremlin's policy. And such a bankrupt Kremlin policy will speed up our victory in the Caucasus, although it will not be easy for those people who are being tormented."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:56 ||
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Boy, Sadulayev spins faster than a neutron star! This guy is a fitting replacement for Baghdad Bob, and equally believable.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/09/2006 13:22 Comments ||
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North Korea has said it won't return to six-way talks on its nuclear weapons programme unless the United States lifts its sanctions on North Korean companies. "Is there anything to do if the United States does not change its position?" said Song Il Hyuck, a member of the North Korean delegation at a security conference in Tokyo.
Song said North Korea had never been opposed to the six-way talks on halting its nuclear programme. He said it was ready to return to talks if the US lifts financial sanctions imposed on North Korean companies for alleged illegal activities. North Korean officials have no plans to hold bilateral meetings with their US counterparts, but would oblige if there was a request, Song said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 21:07 ||
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North Koreas defence minister warned Saturday that a pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States, in comments carried by the Norths official news agency. We will never sit with arms folded and watch until the US attacks us, said Kim Il Chol, vice marshal of the Norths Korean Peoples Army, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. A pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the US, he said.
The warning, which is not new, came as North Koreas top nuclear envoy was in Japan for a security conference that also is drawing his counterparts from the US and other participants in six-nation talks on the Norths nuclear programme.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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slamming the spoon on the highchair for attention again?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2006 0:16 Comments ||
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Kimmie-boy is just pinning for another visit from Halfbright thats all.
Arrested, tortured, held by the US in Guantanamo Bay for three years without charge and then suddenly released - Mamdouh Habib has been back in Australia for a year. But his homecoming hasn't been smooth. Since returning home he's been stabbed, threatened, and last week arrested and thrown in a paddy wagon after he rang the police to report witnessing a shooting.
THE Federal Government is considering a national criminal identity database as a weapon against terrorism. Under the proposal, existing police data bases would be integrated and cross-referenced so potential terrorist activities in one area would lead to alerts in other areas. The proposal is being pushed by Liberal backbencher Jason Wood, a former member of the Victorian police counter-terrorism unit, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt. The two have written to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock outlining a detailed plan. A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the Attorney-General was "cautiously supportive".
In the letter, obtained by The Sunday Mail, Mr Wood and Mr Hunt recommend that the ID database be structured around the existing national money-laundering watch, CrimTrac. The letter says: "In further support of the Prime Minister's recently announced terrorism measures we would like to propose that the CrimTrac data base be extended to include holders of the new aviation and maritime identification cards, ammonium nitrate fertiliser licence holders, high-consequence dangerous goods licences and licence-holders for explosives including underwater explosives techniques courses."
The Australian Federal Police has suspended an officer after he consulted a clairvoyant about a death threat made to the Prime Minister.
They knew this would happen, of course...
The officer disclosed classified information and details of the death threat to a small-town psychic he knew socially, breaching the AFP code of conduct regarding confidentiality and national security, The Sunday Age newspaper reported. "I can confirm we are currently investigating the matter. A member of the AFP has been suspended," an AFP spokesman told the newspaper. "The AFP takes seriously all allegations of misconduct by officers, and does not condone the use of psychics in security matters."
The Sunday Age named Elizabeth Walker, a Scottish-born medium based in the NSW Snowy Mountains town of Cooma, as the clairvoyant. She told the newspaper she could not comment but added: "I don't divulge any of the stuff I do. I've done lots of people. I've done political people, famous people, but I don't talk about who's been in. I don't even discuss it with my husband."
AFP senior staff were alerted to the security breach in December. The officer was not part of John Howard's personal AFP security detail but knew about the death threat and that it was being treated seriously. Knowing some investigations had hit a wall, the officer took matters into his own hands and turned to Mrs Walker. A spokesman for Mr Howard said: "We don't run the AFP and, if there is a matter regarding discipline or an individual officer, it really is something for them to deal with."
"All we need is an after-action report in triplicate and his scalp."
More than 50 Muslims who have returned to Germany from fighting in Iraq are under observation by German authorities two months ahead of the football World Cup, Focus news magazine reported.
Citing security forces in Berlin, Focus, in a report made available ahead of Monday's publication, said those in question had been identified by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The BfV did not want to confirm the report on Saturday.
Germany is imposing strict security at the June 9-July 9 World Cup which brings together 32 teams and is played in 12 cities. The authorities have no direct terrorist threat against the tournament, but will take nothing for granted. The BfV rates Islamism a threat for internal German security.
Focus said that some 300 Muslims overall from Western Europe have fought in Iraq since 2003 against the US-led forces.
Spains Supreme Court on Friday threw out the convictions of three men found guilty last year of being part of an al-Qaida-linked group after prosecutors agreed there was not sufficient evidence to jail them, a court official said.
The men Driss Chebli, Sadik Merizak and Abdelaziz Benyaich had received sentences of between six and eight years Chebli for collaboration with an al-Qaida-linked terror group, and the others for belonging to a terror organization. They were among 18 people convicted in a high-profile trial last year linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Prosecutors this week acknowledged there was not sufficient evidence to jail the three and the Supreme Court agreed, said the court official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his offices ground rules prohibit him from being identified. The court was hearing appeals by all 18.
On Thursday, prosecutors also urged the court to throw out a conviction for murder conspiracy against the leading suspect in the case, Syrian-born Spaniard Imad Yarkas, 46. Yarkas is alleged to have founded and led an al-Qaida cell in Spain, which investigators say was a staging ground for the Sept. 11 attacks, along with Germany.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:44 ||
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Police have detained two army conscripts after they took at least two people hostage in a fast food outlet in protest at the treatment of soldiers in southeast Turkey. The gunmen, in their early 20s, were detained on the roof terrace of the Burger King restaurant in central Istanbul after one of them fired his pistol into the air, said a Reuters reporter at Taksim square, which had been surrounded by police. Celalettin Cerrah, Istanbul's chief of police, said the two men, who had gone without leave of absence from the army in Egirdir, had taken several people hostage but none had been harmed. Cerrah said: "They said they were carrying out this act to protest at the incidents in the southeast in recent days."
Clashes between the security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have escalated in recent weeks. A rebel group linked to the PKK has also claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in recent days. A man, who gave his name only as Cengiz, said as he carved a kebab at one of the food restaurants on Taksim square: "It seems they were very upset by what has happened in the southeast. They shouted that nothing was being done to protect the martyred soldiers."
Dozens of police flanked the mini-van which took away the two men, wearing red and white T-shirts with the word "Turkey" on them, with locals booing them as they left.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:12 ||
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The Super Mario Brothers Tamil Tigers have been added to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations, the National Post has learned. The designation was to be finalized yesterday, a day after Cabinet met to accept a recommendation from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. An official announcement was scheduled for Monday. The Brothers Tigers are the 39th terrorist group to be outlawed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the first added to the list by the new Conservative government.
Posted by: john ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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Details contained in court documents about the four others charged along with Jose Padilla with being part of a North American terror support cell.
KIFAH WAEL JAYYOUSI: 44 years old. Naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jordan. Doctorate degree in civil engineering and U.S. Navy veteran. Began publishing in 1994 the Islam Report that federal investigators say was used to raise money for Islamic extremists and report on Muslim radicals worldwide. Founded American Islamic Group, "the voice of the mujahideen." Has wife and five children living in Detroit. Arrested March 2005 after returning from Qatar.
ADHAM AMIN HASSOUN: 43 years old. Palestinian born in Lebanon who came to United States in 1989. Worked as computer programmer in Broward County but was allegedly the main East Coast representative of Jayyousi's AIG. Prosecutors say he helped distribute Islam Report in South Florida and provided extremist recruits. One of them was Jose Padilla, investigators say. Originally arrested in June 2002 on an immigration violation charge.
KASSEM DAHER: Lebanese national with Canadian residency status. Lived in Le Duc, Canada, and helped distribute the Islam Report. Was allegedly involved in planning to provide money and fighters for jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere. Was close associate of Mohamed Zaky, a former associate of Jayyousi who was killed in 1995 while fighting Russians in Chechnya.
MOHAMED HESHAM YOUSSEF: Another alleged recruit of Hassoun's for violent Islamic extremism. Investigators say Youssef, living in Egypt, frequently discussed with Hassoun the travel logistics of mujahideen fighters. Hassoun frequently wired money to Youssef for these "brothers," among them Jose Padilla. One FBI intercept has Youssef telling Hassoun that Padilla had "entered into the area of Usama" - a reference to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:55 ||
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KIFAH WAEL JAYYOUSI: 44 years old. Naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jordan. Doctorate degree in civil engineering and U.S. Navy veteran.
#2
Not only not good, but extremely bad. Notice that these shitbags are from all over. Common trait is Muslim. Well educated..here no doubt. Well indoctrinated into American society. Lived here among us comfortably many years. Perfectly willing to betray us. We need to wake up to the Muslim death cult. All mosques should be shut down.These people are all betrayers of western beliefs and out to subvert us and our way of life. Let's start getting rid of them now. if they expect to live in the West, let them renounce any affiliation to Moonbatism. otherwise, move along...quickly.
The FBI investigation that yielded criminal charges against former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla began more than a dozen years ago, after the arrest of a charismatic blind sheik in New York revealed the existence of a North American network supporting Islamic extremists worldwide.
Although Padilla is by far the most famous, his co-defendants in a trial set for Miami this fall were allegedly more active for a much longer period in recruiting would-be terrorists and advocating radical Muslim causes, according to court documents.
In fact, the original FBI terrorism probe began a few months after Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, was released from a Florida prison in 1992 after serving a year on a firearms violation. Over the next decade, the investigation would lead from New York to San Diego to Detroit to Sunrise, Fla., where Padilla's alleged terror recruiter was operating.
A potential obstacle to trial in the Miami case was removed Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected an attempt by Padilla's lawyers to use his case to challenge President Bush's wartime powers to detain people indefinitely without charge.
After the al-Qaida terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the investigation would lead to terror support indictments against two alleged leaders of the network - Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi - and later against Padilla, who was held by the U.S. military without charge for 3 1/2 years as an "enemy combatant."
Padilla was arrested May 8, 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and later accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city. The Miami indictment, however, does not mention that alleged plot.
The FBI probe began in 1993, the same year that al-Qaida first attempted to topple the World Trade Center towers with bombs in an underground garage. It was also the year radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman was arrested on charges of plotting to bomb New York landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He was later convicted.
Thousands of telephone calls between those charged in the Miami case were monitored by the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies over more than a decade, but no one was arrested in the case until June 2002 and no terror-related charges were brought until October 2004.
One reason for that was a legal "wall" that existed for years at the FBI to separate intelligence and criminal investigations. Passage of the Patriot Act by Congress a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks removed that wall, allowing criminal investigators access to a vast trove of intelligence intercepts, wiretaps and informants.
The early focus of the alleged terror support operatives charged in the Miami case were the violent Muslim movements in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Eritrea and Somalia.
Jayyousi, a Jordanian national and naturalized U.S. citizen, was a "supporter and follower" of Rahman, frequently talking with the jailed sheik by telephone in 1994 and 1995, according to the FBI. Shortly after Rahman's arrest, Jayyousi had founded the American Islamic Group, which published the Islam Report. This newsletter carried news about the sheik and details glorifying the exploits of jihadists around the world.
"Jayyousi would update the sheik with jihad news, many times reading accounts and statements issued directly by terrorist organizations" in Jordan and Egypt, FBI agent John T. Kavanaugh said in an affidavit.
Jayyousi, who lived in San Diego, Detroit, Baltimore and Egypt during the probe, also allegedly used the Islam Report to raise money for Muslim extremists through nonprofit organizations used as cover: Save Bosnia Now, later changed to American Worldwide Relief. This purported charity had offices around the world, including San Diego, Bosnia, Germany and Croatia.
According to his lawyer, Jayyousi was interviewed by FBI agents eight times between 1995 and 2003 about his activities but wasn't charged until April 2005. He has a wife and five children in Detroit and was recently released on bail - the only defendant in the Miami case to win pretrial release.
Jayyousi, who has a doctorate degree in civil engineering and served in the U.S. Navy, said in court papers that he never advocated terrorism and that his words in the Islam Report are protected by the Constitution's free speech guarantees.
"Dr. Jayyousi has not been accused of personally participating in any violent activity," said his lawyer, William Swor.
Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, worked during much of the 1990s as a computer programmer in the Broward County suburb of Sunrise. He was also an associate of Jayyousi, helping distribute the Islam Report in South Florida and looking for young recruits willing to become mujahideen to fight overseas for extremist Muslim causes, according to the FBI.
Hassoun was originally arrested on an immigration violation in 2002 and later indicted in the terrorism case. But he had been under FBI investigation since a January 1993 telephone call between Hassoun and Rahman, the blind sheik, according to court papers.
One of his recruits allegedly was Padilla, otherwise known as "Ibrahim" and "Abu Abdullah the Puerto Rican," court documents say. Padilla had begun the conversion to Islam after his 1992 prison release.
Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, leader of the Dar Uloom Islamic Institute in Pembroke Pines, said in an interview that he taught Padilla both Arabic and the Koran. He said Hassoun in the late 1990s attempted to speak at his mosque - Hassoun was affiliated with a Sunrise mosque - but that he was refused permission, partly because Hassoun was known to harbor extremist views.
As for Padilla, Mohamed said he was "a quiet guy" who never demonstrated any radical tendencies.
"I never heard him say or do anything that would give me the slightest idea he would think like that," Mohamed said. "Somebody must have seen his good nature and brainwashed him and turned him into that."
After they hooked up, Hassoun in 1996 told Padilla to get ready to move to Egypt, which he finally did on Sept. 5, 1998, according to intercepted conversations. Padilla would eventually find his way to Afghanistan, where he allegedly attending an al-Qaida training camp and was eventually given the "dirty bomb" assignment by top al-Qaida leaders.
Hassoun has also denied being an advocate of terrorism or that he recruited jihad fighters.
A fellow Hassoun recruit named in the Padilla indictment is Mohamed Hesham Youssef, who had left the United States in 1996, the court documents say. Youssef, who is believed in custody n Egypt, provided assistance to Padilla in Egypt and frequently provided reports about their welfare to Hassoun, according to transcripts of intercepted conversations.
The final Padilla co-defendant is Kassem Daher, another follower of Sheik Rahman who lived in Le Duc, Canada, and helped distribute Jayyousi's Islam Report in Canada. Daher left Canada for Lebanon in May 1998 and is still there, according to the FBI.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:54 ||
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Twenty years? Must have been some serious detecting going on!
PESHAWAR: The Islami Jumaat-e-Talba (IJT) activists held a protest demonstration against the administration of Peshawar University at the press club on Saturday for banning Quran teaching classes in the campus.
The protestors chanted slogans against university administration and said no ban on Quran-teaching classes would be tolerated. IJT General Secretary Samiullah Shehbaz alleged that campus police tear-gassed and baton charged them at the department of Pharmacy, as they were going for their Quran teaching class. He claimed that the police also arrested some of their colleagues. He demanded the NWFP Governor Khalil-ur-Rehman and Chief Minister Akram Khan Durani to take action against vice chancellor and administration of the varsity and release their arrested activists.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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There are no foreigners in North Waziristan Agency and if the government has proof that there are it should release it in the media, according to Maulana Naik Zaman, member of the National Assembly from North Waziristan. Many local tribesmen have been killed under the guise of military operations against foreign militants, Zaman said in an interview with the BBC. Locals used to cooperate with the military, but there is now increasing hatred of the army among the local population because of the killing of innocent civilians, he added. Bazaars and residences have been razed and tribesmen who had been protecting the border with Afghanistan for the last 55 years are being killed, he said.
And doing one hell of a job of it, we might add...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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Pakistan is ready to discuss freezing the production of nuclear weapons in South Asia, Tasneem Aslam, the Foreign Office spokesperson, said on Saturday. Aslam was commenting on the US suggestion that South Asia freeze all nuclear weapon production. She said, however, that any such move should be done in consultation with Pakistan. Aslam said that Pakistan did not want to enter into a regional arms race, adding that it had been proposing a strategic restraint regime with India. She said that talks could be still held with India on a restraint regime. She said Pakistan had apprehensions on the India-US nuclear deal because it would affect regional stability.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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Translation.
(a) The heathen Hindoos have more of them than us righteous Muslims.
(b) They, being a decadent Democracy, will keep any agreements reached---thus, giving us time to caught up.
Indian schoolgirl Julita Oraon, a devout Christian, never misses Sunday mass, but the rest of her week is spent studying Arabic and Sufi literature among other subjects at an Islamic religious school, or madrasa.
Oraon is one of tens of thousands of Hindu and Christian students in the state of West Bengal now attending such schools, considered breeding grounds for religious intolerance and even terrorism in much of Asia.
In this part of India, madrasas are emerging as beacons of tolerance. While a predominantly Hindu state, a quarter of West Bengal's population of 80 million are Muslims and one per cent are Christians.
Thousands died in communal violence before and after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. There was more violence in the 1960s and 1970s after the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Hindus from what was then East Pakistan and became Bangladesh.
But there have been no major communal clashes for decades in the state, which has been ruled by communists for most of independent India's history, and who have gained at the polls from policies designed to boost Muslim employment.
They have been handsomely rewarded with Muslims overwhelmingly supporting the left at the ballot box.
Community policing and street plays stressing religious harmony play their part as the state's leaders constantly push a message of tolerance.
But in the wake of the violence in the 1960s and 70s, officials also moved to reform the state's schools and especially its madrasas.
In 1977, they started reviewing the Islamic schools, introducing history and social science to the staple of Koranic study.
And after 2002, on the recommendation of a specially appointed committee, students had to study science, geography and computing. There are plans for foreign languages soon.
The changes have been credited with bringing about a change in the social outlook of the state's various faiths, and have attracted both teachers and students from other religions to the madrasas. School boards have recruited non-Muslims in a bid to find the best tutors for their students.
Now about 25 per cent of the 400,000 students who attend madrasas, and 15 per cent of their 10,000 teachers, are non-Muslims, officials say.
"In the 1970s, the mistrust grew and Muslims were thought to be friends of Pakistan and mostly spies," says Ahmed Hasan Imran, the general secretary of the Muslim Council of Bengal. "But that perception gradually changed with the reforms in the madrasas as well as other education institutes."
Swapan Pramanik, a leading sociologist and vice-chancellor of Vidya Sagar University in Kolkata, agrees that the reforms have helped bridge the divide.
"The conservative outlook of the Muslims as well as Hindus have changed," he says. "The changes have rubbed off on parents and whole communities, who have been able to spread the message of harmony."
The reforms have saved lives, experts say.
After a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque in the northern holy city of Ayodhya in 1992 much of India was wracked by deadly communal riots. But in Bengal students from madrasas, both Muslims and Hindus, led processions denouncing the demolition, Imran says.
In the aftermath of the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots a decade later, Bengal's Hindus, Christians and Muslims were quick to meet to ensure passions were cooled. The state government offered riot victims the chance to come and settle in West Bengal.
"People find it difficult to believe, but our madrasas ... are reflecting modern aspirations and expectations of the community irrespective of religion," Kanti Biswas, the state's education minister, told Reuters.
"We had carefully planned the madrasa reforms to make young minds understand the values of religious tolerance and it is finally paying off."
In Jalpaiguri district, about 500 km (300 miles) north of the state capital, Kolkata, 14-year-old Julita is posting higher marks in Arabic tests than her Muslim classmates at the Badaitari Ujiria Madrasa.
"I like the subject very much and that fact that I am a Christian has never been a problem with my Muslim friends."
Tapas Layek, the Hindu headmaster of a madrasa in south Kolkata has several co-religionists as colleagues. "We are loved and respected by our Muslim students who are also friendly with their Hindu classmates," he said.
Bengali Muslim scholars say that the view that madrasas are simply Islamic finishing schools is a corruption of their traditional role.
"Our madrasas are the perfect examples of what such institutes should really be," said Dr. Mohammed Sahidullah at Calcutta University.
Renowned Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen, a former jury member at the Cannes festival, said the state's experiment should be copied across the country.
"I can't help but be amazed at the way some of these religious schools are working towards communal harmony," he said.
Officials from other states -- including Maharashtra and Rajasthan -- have come to West Bengal to see the impact of the changes for themselves, said education minister Biswas.
"The perception of the respective communities about different culture and religion has helped residents of West Bengal to bridge the gulf of mistrust and come together," said sociologist Pramanik. "This has been a significant development in madrasas for the entire world to see."
Posted by: john ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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It is Debka reporting this so salt to your taste!
Mubarak warns Iraq war could spill over into entire Middle East if US withdraws its troops.
Arab intelligence chiefs conferred in Cairo urgently and secretly a few hours earlier on ways to put a stop to Iran's advancing takeover of Iraq. Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman called together colleagues of the key Middle East and Gulf Sunni regimes to align positions on the US-Iranian talks opening in Baghdad on Iraq's future. They fear Tehran will make the running because of the ground Washington lost when on April 4 US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and UK foreign secretary Jack Straw failed to achieve a breakthrough in the stalled Iraqi talks on a national unity government four months after Iraq's general election.
Present at the Cairo conference were the secret services directors of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey. Syria and Lebanon were absent.
Their concern is that a second Shiite power after Iran will rise in Baghdad. This transformation will boost fundamentalist Islamic forces and the Shiite minorities in all the Arab countries. Hence Mubarak's warning.
In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother's family was killed, Yaseen's monotone voice and stream of tears suddenly stopped. He looked up, paused and pleaded: "Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can't handle any more."
The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes' family has redefined Haditha's relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee on Haditha's main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.
The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterwards and thought it was coming from the area around Younes' house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed.
Eight were from Younes' family. The only survivor, Younes' 13-year-old daughter, said her family wasn't shooting at Marines or harboring extremists that morning. They were sleeping when the bomb exploded. And when the Marines entered their house, she said, they shot at everyone inside.
The Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an investigation in February after a Time Magazine reporter passed on accounts he had received about the incident. A second investigation was opened into how the Marines initially reported the killings - the Marines said that 15 people were killed by the roadside explosion and that eight insurgents were killed in subsequent combat.
On Friday, the Marines relieved of duty three leaders of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which had responsibility for Haditha when the shooting occurred. They are Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and two of his company commanders, Capt. James S. Kimber and Capt. Lucas M. McConnell. McConnell was commanding Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion, the unit that struck the roadside bomb on Nov. 19 and led the subsequent search of the area.
The Marines' announcement didn't tie the disciplinary actions directly to Haditha, saying only that Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, had lost confidence in the officers' ability to command.
They were relieved because of "multiple incidents that occurred throughout their deployment," said Lt. Lawton King, a spokesman at the Marines' home base at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to which they recently returned. "This decision was made independent of the NCIS investigation."
The events of last November have clearly taken their toll on Yaseen and his niece, Safa, who trembles visibly as she listens to Yaseen recount what she told him of the attack. She cannot bring herself to tell the tale herself.
She fainted after the Marines burst through the door and began firing. When she regained consciousness, only her 3-year-old brother was still alive, but bleeding heavily. She comforted him in a room filled with dead family members until he died, too. And then she went to her Uncle Yaseen's house next door.
Neither Yaseen nor Safa have returned home since.
Indeed, many in this town, whose residents are stuck in the battle between extremists and the Americans, said now it is the U.S. military they fear most.
"The mujahadeen (holy warriors) will kill you if you stand against them or say anything against them. And the Americans will kill you if the mujahadeen attack them several kilometers away," said Mohammed al-Hadithi, 32, a barber who lives in neighboring Haqlania. With a cigarette between his fingers, he pointed at a Marine patrol as it passed in front of his shop. "I look at each of them, and I see killers."
Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people in Anbar province, undeniably is an insurgent bastion. Around the time of the attack, several storefronts were lined with posters and pictures supporting al-Qaida, although residents said they posted them to appease extremists.
Insurgents blend in with the residents, setting up their cells in homes next to those belonging to everyday citizens, some of them supportive.
There is no functioning police station and the government offices are largely vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents.
The military wouldn't release statistics, but attacks on U.S. troops are frequent.
Indeed, Haditha has been the site of some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. forces. On Aug. 1, six Marine reservists were killed in an ambush; two days later, a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines traveling in an amphibious assault vehicle just outside the town, the deadliest single attack ever on U.S. forces.
On Nov. 19, according to military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, the Marines were hit four separate times by roadside bombs and were fired on multiple times by gunmen they couldn't see.
Three years after the war began, the U.S. military concedes it hasn't figured out how to tell a terrorist from an ordinary citizen in places like Haditha.
A newly poured spot of asphalt now marks the spot where the IED, or improvised explosive device, exploded. It was 7:15 a.m. and the blast was the first IED of the day. Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, died instantly. The armed fire attack started immediately, according to the Marines.
There is as yet no official public version of what took place next and U.S. officials familiar with the investigation would discuss the incident only if their names were not used.
According to these officials, a car approached the convoy at about the same time the shooting began. The Marines signaled it to stop and it did. But it was too close to the convoy and when four men jumped out of it, the Marines, suspecting the men had been involved in the IED attack, shot them dead.
Yaseen said he and his brother's family were asleep in their houses about 100 yards away when the explosion woke them. Minutes later, they heard the Marines blocking off the road.
Yaseen, citing Safa's account, said Younes started to prepare the family for the search they knew was coming, separating the men from the women and the children, as is custom during searches.
Younes moved his five children and sister-in-law into the bedroom, Yaseen said Safa told him. There, his wife was lying in bed, recovering from an appendectomy. They waited.
The Marines moved into another house first, according to U.S. officials. In that house, the Marines saw a line of closed doors and thought an ambush was coming. They shot, and seven people inside were killed, including one child. Two other children who stayed in the house survived. A woman who ran out with her baby also survived, military officials said.
Yaseen said Safa told him that her father heard something so he went to the front of the house. Seconds later, Safa said she heard several gunshots. She didn't know it at the time, but her father was dying. Four Marines then moved into the bedroom, where some of her sisters were standing at their mother's bedside, hugging her.
Yassen said Safa told him that one Marine started yelling at them in English, but that they didn't understand what he was saying. The women and children started screaming in fear, which Yaseen could hear from next door. This went on for several minutes, he said.
He said he never heard gunshots, only a long sudden silence.
Desperate, he tried to get next door and find out what happened, but Marines wouldn't let him pass.
"The waiting was killing me," Yaseen said. "We didn't know what happened."
Three hours later, someone knocked at Yaseen's door. He could hear a young voice wheezing and sobbing on the other side. It was Safa, covered in blood and dirt. Yaseen said he couldn't remember what she was wearing; he only saw the blood.
The family was dead, Safa told Yaseen.
Yaseen's wife cleaned Safa up while Yaseen prepared a white flag. Marines were still blocking the area. Carrying the flag, Yaseen, his wife, and Safa ran 200 yards to another relative's house where they have stayed since.
Safa trembled as Yaseen told the story to a visitor. She tried to tell it herself, but she couldn't. "My father told us to gather in one room, so the Americans could search," she said. And then she started to cry.
Yaseen said that Safa told him that four soldiers came into the bedroom, but only one did the yelling. Her mother, who had heard the shooting asked: "What did you do to my husband?" Her sisters, mother and aunt were crying. And then the one soldier who had been yelling started shooting.
Frightened, Safa fainted. She thought she had died. When she awoke, she remembered seeing her mother still lying in bed. Her head was blown open. She looked around and heard her 3-year-old brother, Mohammed, moan in pain. The blood was pouring out of his right arm.
"Come on, Mohammed. Get up so we can go to uncle's house," she told her brother. But he couldn't.
In the same room where her mother, aunt and sisters lay dead, Safa grabbed the toddler, sat down and leaned his head against her shoulder. She put his arm against her chest and held it to try to stop the bleeding. She kept holding and talking to him until, like everyone else in the room, he too was silent. And then she ran next door.
Yaseen didn't see the rest of his brother's family until he went to Haditha Hospital the next day to pick up the bodies. Dr. Waleed Abdul Khaliq al-Obeidi, the director of Haditha Hospital, said they arrived around midnight, about 12 hours after Safa left her house.
According to the death certificates, Younes died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. His wife, who was lying in bed, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. The daughters were all shot in the chest. Mohammed bled to death.
Younes didn't have a weapon, military officials confirmed.
According to the U.S. military officials, the Marines entered five houses that day. In the third house, they found a group of women and children and asked where the men were. The women pointed out the house and the Marines left, without firing a round. At that house, they found four men, some of them armed, and shot them dead.
Another group of Marines entered a fifth house, which appeared to be a terrorist cell. It had sleeping bags, weapons and a pile of Jordanian passports, military officials said. The men there were detained without incident.
Late last month, an IED exploded near the same spot where Terrazas was killed. Nearby shops started closing in the middle of the day, telling customers they feared being detained. Drivers suddenly stopped and pointed to the rising plume of smoke.
"That might have targeted the Americans," one driver said to another stopped and fearful about what to do next. "The Americans are coming."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:39 ||
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"fair and balanced" NANCY A. YOUSSEF
Knight Ridder Newspapers
#2
Why does this read like typical leftist propaganda? Because it is. It's not just the "facts" It's the facts carefully crafted to undermine the Marine Corps and individual Marines.
We don't need "journalists" like this. In fact I don't think we need most of them at all.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/09/2006 13:27 Comments ||
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#3
This may or may not have happened. It may have happened this way or another way. Point is, in guerrila confrontations, where these yellow cowards hide among the populace these incidents occur. No way to prevent them. We never learn these lessons. We went through this exact scenario 40 years ago. We can't participate in this. We have to have an American public mandate to go to these countries, if necessary, and eliminate as many as possible. Then, we need to leave. We can't deal with populations who are culturally against us. We either isolate them and leave them to their devices, or decide as a nation to eliminate as many as necessary to stop a threat. Anything else is waste.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Al-Arabiya satellite channel that most Shiites across the Arab world are loyal to Iran first rather than the countries where they live, AFP reported.
"There are Shiites in all these countries (of the region), significant percentages, and Shiites are mostly always loyal to Iran and not the countries where they live."
He singled out Iraq for special attention. "Naturally Iran has an influence over Shiites who make up 65 %of Iraq's population," Mubarak said when asked about Iran's role in neighbouring Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:33 ||
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ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bushs administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaedas operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Ladens second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.
Israel passed the letter in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity.
Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site.
Bush then referred to it during his weekly address. The Al-Qaeda letter points to Vietnam as a model, the president declared. Al-Qaeda believes that America can be made to run again. They are gravely mistaken. America will not run and we will not forget our responsibilities.
Israeli intelligence sources said officials who had worked on Operation Tiramisu inside Iraq took emergency steps to protect their sources, but it was not clear how successful they had been in averting the damage to their intelligence network.
They said Bushs indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:24 ||
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Hamas is to abandon its use of suicide bombers, who have killed almost 300 Israelis, in any future confrontations with Israel, its activists have told The Observer.
The Islamic group, which leads the Palestinian Authority, says, however, that it may resort to other forms of violence if there is no progress towards Palestinian statehood.
Yihiyeh Musa, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said Hamas had moved into a 'new era' which did not require suicide attacks.
'The suicide bombings happened in an exceptional period and they have now stopped,' he said. 'They came to an end as a change of belief.'
As Hamas toned down its rhetoric, Israel increased pressure on the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza. Two militants were killed in an airstrike near Gaza City yesterday and five men and a five-year-old boy were killed on Friday night.
Each day hundreds of artillery shells are fired by Israel at northern Gaza. Palestinian factional tension is also high and the price of commodities such as flour and sugar has more than doubled as a result of Israel closing border crossings.
Hamas is keen to gain acceptance from the international community. On Friday the European Union announced it was stopping direct funding of the PA, while the United States has halted aid projects. Hamas needs outside funding of $150m each month to pay PA wages or else the Palestinian economy will collapse.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, warned in an interview published yesterday that any attempt by Israel unilaterally to impose unjust borders on the Palestinians would lead to another war within 10 years.
Hamas was the first Palestinian group to use suicide bombers and its tactics provided inspiration for Islamic insurgents and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, the US and Europe. Hamas declared a ceasefire last year and in January was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority. However, despite the ceasefire, Hamas still carries the legacy of its suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.
Musa said Hamas only embarked on suicide bombing campaigns as a response to extreme provocations by Israel, such as the killing of 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1993. It had been a policy of desperation.
According to the Israeli army, since October 2000, Hamas carried out 51 suicide attacks, killing 272 Israelis. Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade carried out 34 each, killing 98 and 80 Israelis respectively. Almost 5,000 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed over that period.
Many Palestinians believe that suicide bombing damaged their cause, portraying them, not Israel, as the aggressors.
'The occupation government with its outside allies succeeded in labelling all Palestinians as terrorists as a result of the suicide bombings,' said Musa.
Ghazi Hamed, the spokesman for the government, said in future any military action would be restricted to the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.
Israel and the international community have demanded that Hamas recognise Israel and renounce violence as a precondition to normalising relations but it has so far refused.
The ascent of Hamas to political power has led its leaders to modify its positions but opinion is divided as to whether this is a fundamental change or a tactical expedient. Israel says Hamas remains true to its original aims, as stated in its charter, of destroying the state of Israel.
Mordechai Kedar, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, said Hamas's rejection of violence was tactical. 'If they succeed in stabilising their state then they will take out their different agenda and start where they left off. For months they have been smuggling long-range missiles. They are preparing for the next phase but for the time being they have more urgent problems,' he said.
Other commentators say Hamas has always had a moderate wing. Khaled Hroub, director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project and the author of Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, said that even among members of Hamas, suicide bombing was controversial.
'If one looks at the conduct of Hamas in 1996 there was huge controversy even in the ranks of Hamas over its bombing campaign. Hroub says Hamas has the potential to make the transition to a purely political organisation. 'The concept of the two-state solution is now the cornerstone of their thinking. I doubt we will see the old Hamas again,' he said.
Hamas now finds itself turning from poacher to gamekeeper. Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade have said they will continue to attack Israel. But Hamas fears that if armed groups are carrying out attacks and firing missiles, it will make its government look weak. Hamas hopes to persuade other groups to stop their attacks but insists it will be be prepared to use force.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:40 ||
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Thats ok. They will just 'splinter' into a new group which will continue the fight while 'hamas' collects the funds Jizziya tax from the infidels and pay 'salaries' to the security forces terrorist thus freeing up Saudi funding for ammo, guns, and bomber-belts to kill jooos.
#6
Wall climbing with all those explosives, wires, fuzes, clackers..... sounds too much like work, and we all know what Paleos thing about work. Keep the 120mm's coming, the counter-battery fire is thrilling.
Two Indonesian terrorist suspects have confessed they surveyed some Japanese targets in at least two cities in East Java Province last year as a part of "programs" to rob, kill and kidnap Americans and citizens of U.S.-allied countries, according to a prosecution document obtained Saturday.
Government prosecutors sought 10 years of imprisonment each for the suspects, Ahmad Rafiq Ridho and Joko Trihatmanto, late last month. The two have been on trial since January, and verdicts are expected within a few weeks.
Both have been brought to justice for hiding Malaysia's Noordin Mohammad Top, the most-wanted terrorist suspect in Southeast Asia, and helping him to collect money to finance terrorist activities.
According to the document, Ridho and Trihatmanto met Top on an unspecified date last year in the East Java town of Mojokerto.
During the meeting, Top briefed them on his "programs" to target the interests of the United States and its allies and kidnap and kill Americans and people whose countries are U.S. allies, the document says.
Top later instructed them to survey possible targets for robberies, kidnapping and killings in the provincial capital of Surabaya and towns of Malang and Mojokerto, it alleges.
"They were ordered to investigate whether a mushroom factory in Surabaya belongs to a Japanese national. It was found later that it was not, but it belongs to a Chinese-descent Manadonese," the document says, referring to an ethnicity in North Sulawesi Province.
They were also asked to check whether the locations of the Japanese and U.S. consulate generals in Surabaya were "matched to a map owned by Noordin Mohammad Top and they were," the document adds.
Ridho and Trihatmanto, it says, were ordered to check whether there were citizens of the U.S. and its allies working at the Paiton power plant in Mojokerto, but after checking, they were unsure.
The plant is run by P.T. Paiton Energy Co., which is partly owned by Mitsui & Co. of Japan, General Electric Capital Corp. of the United States and International Power Plc. of Britain.
Ridho and Trihatmanto also checked to confirm whether the general manager of the Novotel Hotel in Surabaya was an Australian, but they failed.
Some malls in Surabaya and Malang, which were not identified in the document, were surveyed to find whether Americans and people of other targeted nationalities shop and eat there, but both terrorist suspects only found ethnic Chinese Indonesians.
They traveled around Surabaya and Malang to find synagogues, but found none.
Ridho is the brother of Fathurrohman al-Ghozi, a high-ranking member of al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, who was shot to death by Philippine troops in 2003.
Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for a series of bombing attacks in Southeast Asia, including on the resort island of Bali in 2002 during which 202 people were killed, mostly Western holidaymakers.
He was arrested in April last year for illegally possessing weapons and explosives as well as helping Top to collect money for carrying out his terrorist attacks.
Trihatmanto, 34, was arrested in August last year for his alleged involvement in the bombings in front of the Kauman Great Mosque and the Central Post Office in central Java's Yogyakarta on the 2000 New Year Eve.
Police later found out that the cellular phone vendor had hidden Top at his house in December 2004.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:59 ||
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Iran has been conducting a sort of grand military parade up and down the Gulf this week, displaying its defensive hardware, test-firing sophisticated-sounding new weapons systems, and proclaiming its readiness to repel all would-be aggressors. Revolutionary Guard General Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander of the Great Prophet exercises, declared that Iran was now able to confront any extra-regional invasion.
Neighbouring Sunni Arab states, locked in political and territorial disputes with Tehrans Shia leadership, may feel duly intimidated not that any of them were planning to attack. A new high-speed torpedo called Hoot (meaning whale), so-called flying boats and various radar-avoiding surface-to-sea missile launches may also have seriously frightened local marine wildlife.
But the United States, the principal intended audience of Irans martial ostentation, is unimpressed. We know the Iranians are always trying to improve their weapons systems, a Pentagon spokesperson said. The Iranians have also been known to boast and exaggerate their technical and tactical capabilities.
The US has repeatedly declined to rule out military action if coercive diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute over Irans nuclear activities. And if the issue at hand is relative US-Iranian military might, it is really no contest. Total US defence-related spending will rise this year to about $550-billion; Iran allocated $4,4-billion to defence in 2005. It cannot begin to match US weapons, technology and expertise.
Irans great strength is its manpower: an army numbering 350 000 soldiers, plus 125 000 Revolutionary Guards, says the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Yet such an imposing host will be of little use if any future attack on Irans suspect nuclear facilities is directed, as is thought likely, from the air.
Because of Western sanctions, ostracism and a lack of spare parts, Iran has few modern fighter aircraft, although Russia recently proposed a $1-billion sale of 29 Tor-M1 missile systems for anti-aircraft defence. The air force still relies in part on Iraqi MiGs flown to Iran for safety by Saddam Hussein at the start of the Gulf War in 1991 and never returned.
Michael Knights, writing in Janes Intelligence Review, said Iran was likely to try to repel any attack though a mobile defence of highly integrated local networks of interceptor aircraft and ground-based SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. This would provide layered protection for strategic locations such as the Isfahan and Bushehr facilities and Bandar Abbas at the mouth of the Gulf.
While Great Prophet may have failed to predict Iranian military success, it has made a number of discomfiting points to the US and its allies. By focusing on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran reminded the West that up to one-third of the worlds exported oil supply must pass through a channel that US strategists call a global chokepoint. The exercises alone have driven up crude oil prices.
American planners, trying to anticipate Irans likely response to an attack, say it could block the strait using mines. Unnamed intelligence officials told The Washington Post this week that there was a growing consensus that, if attacked, Iran would also resort to terrorism against civilian targets in the US and Europe, and would use Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad to foment trouble in Israel-Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. No evidence was cited for these claims.
By highlighting external threats, this weeks exercises have propaganda value for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads government, anxious to shore up domestic support for its hard-line stance. Irans rejection of the United Nationss 30-day deadline for nuclear compliance was reaffirmed this week by the Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.
Parading its own capabilities, the US has meanwhile made a point of publicising tests in Nevada of deep penetration bunker-buster bombs that could be used against underground nuclear facilities. And moving perilously close to enemy lines, it plans its own naval exercises in the Gulf next month. The codename? Arabian Gauntlet.
The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.
No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it.
According to current and former officials, Pentagon and CIA planners have been exploring possible targets, such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although a land invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives ranging from a limited airstrike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and political targets.
Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush's agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.
Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.
"My sense is that any talk of a strike is the diplomatic gambit to keep pressure on others that if they don't help solve the problem, we will have to," said Kori Schake, who worked on Bush's National Security Council staff and teaches at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
Others believe it is more than bluster. "The Bush team is looking at the viability of airstrikes simply because many think airstrikes are the only real option ahead," said Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon policy official.
The intensified discussion of military scenarios comes as the United States is working with European allies on a diplomatic solution. After tough negotiations, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement last month urging Iran to re-suspend its uranium enrichment program. But Russia and China, both veto-wielding council members, forced out any mention of consequences and are strongly resisting any sanctions.
U.S. officials continue to pursue the diplomatic course but privately seem increasingly skeptical that it will succeed. The administration is also coming under pressure from Israel, which has warned the Bush team that Iran is closer to developing a nuclear bomb than Washington thinks and that a moment of decision is fast approaching.
Bush and his team have calibrated their rhetoric to give the impression that the United States may yet resort to force. In January, the president termed a nuclear-armed Iran "a grave threat to the security of the world," words that echoed language he used before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Vice President Cheney vowed "meaningful consequences" if Iran does not give up any nuclear aspirations, and U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton refined the formula to "tangible and painful consequences."
Although Bush insists he is focused on diplomacy for now, he volunteered at a public forum in Cleveland last month his readiness to use force if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries to follow through on his statement that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
"The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally, Israel," Bush said. "That's a threat, a serious threat. . . . I'll make it clear again that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."
Bush has also been privately consulting with key senators about options on Iran as part of a broader goal of regime change, according to an account by Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker magazine.
The U.S. government has taken some preliminary steps that go beyond planning. The Washington Post has reported that the military has been secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004 using radar, video, still photography and air filters to detect traces of nuclear activity not accessible to satellites. Hersh reported that U.S. combat troops have been ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data, but sources have not confirmed that to The Post.
The British government has launched its own planning for a potential U.S. strike, studying security arrangements for its embassy and consular offices, for British citizens and corporate interests in Iran and for ships in the region and British troops in Iraq. British officials indicate their government is unlikely to participate directly in any attacks.
Israel is preparing, as well. The government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a plan involving airstrikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.
Iran appears to be taking the threat seriously. The government, which maintains its nuclear activity is only for peaceful, civilian uses, has launched a program to reinforce key sites, such as Natanz and Isfahan, by building concrete ceilings, tunneling into mountains and camouflaging facilities. Iran lately has tested several missiles in a show of strength.
Israel points to those missiles to press their case in Washington. Israeli officials traveled here recently to convey more urgency about Iran. Although U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran is about a decade away from having a nuclear bomb, Israelis believe a critical breakthrough could occur within months. They told U.S. officials that Iran is beginning to test a more elaborate cascade of centrifuges, indicating that it is further along than previously believed.
"What the Israelis are saying is this year -- unless they are pressured into abandoning the program -- would be the year they will master the engineering problem," a U.S. official said. "That would be a turning point, but it wouldn't mean they would have a bomb."
But various specialists and some military officials are resisting strikes.
"The Pentagon is arguing forcefully against it because it is so constrained" in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA Middle East specialist. A former defense official who stays in touch with colleagues added, "I don't think anybody's prepared to use the military option at this point."
As the administration weighs these issues, two main options are under consideration, according to one person with contacts among Air Force planners. The first would be a quick and limited strike against nuclear-related facilities accompanied by a threat to resume bombing if Iran responds with terrorist attacks in Iraq or elsewhere. The second calls for a more ambitious campaign of bombing and cruise missiles leveling targets well beyond nuclear facilities, such as Iranian intelligence headquarters, the Revolutionary Guard and some in the government.
Any extended attack would require U.S. forces to cripple Iran's air defense system and air force, prepare defenses for U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and move Navy ships to the Persian Gulf to protect shipping. U.S. forces could launch warplanes from aircraft carriers, from the Diego Garcia island base in the Indian Ocean and, in the case of stealth bombers, from the United States. But if generals want land-based aircraft in the region, they face the uphill task of trying to persuade Turkey to allow use of the U.S. air base at Incirlik.
Planners also are debating whether launching attacks from Iraq or using Iraqi airspace would exacerbate the political cost in the Muslim world, which would see it as proof that the United States invaded Iraq to make it a base for military conquest of the region.
Unlike the Israeli air attack on Osirak, a strike on Iran would prove more complex because Iran has spread its facilities across the country, guarded some of them with sophisticated antiaircraft batteries and shielded them underground.
Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consists of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand and rocks in between, according to Edward N. Luttwak, a specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst. "Could we do it with conventional munitions? Possibly. But it's going to be very difficult to do."
Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, an expert in targeting and war games who teaches at the National Defense University, recently gamed an Iran attack and identified 24 potential nuclear-related facilities, some below 50 feet of reinforced concrete and soil.
At a conference in Berlin, Gardiner outlined a five-day operation that would require 400 "aim points," or targets for individual weapons, at nuclear facilities, at least 75 of which would require penetrating weapons. He also presumed the Pentagon would hit two chemical production plants, medium-range ballistic missile launchers and 14 airfields with sheltered aircraft. Special Operations forces would be required, he said.
Gardiner concluded that a military attack would not work, but said he believes the United States seems to be moving inexorably toward it. "The Bush administration is very close to being left with only the military option," he said.
Others forecast a more surgical strike aimed at knocking out a single "choke point" that would disrupt the Iranian nuclear program. "The process can be broken at any point," a senior administration official said. "But part of the risk is: We don't know if Natanz is the only enrichment facility. We could bomb it, take the political cost and still not set them back."
Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said a more likely target might be Isfahan, which he visited last year and which appeared lightly defended and above-ground. But he argued that any attack would only firm up Iranian resolve to develop weapons. "Whatever you do," he said, "is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than destroy it."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/09/2006 05:33 ||
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#1
Ya think? Lol. A sewing circle of wannabees and has-beens fluffing away for WaPo. Hope they got lunch out of it.
#3
Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said [...] "Whatever you do is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than destroy it."
And there you have it, the liberal, defeatist mantra for the entire war: whatever America does, it's wrong.
These assholes are going to get us all killed.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/09/2006 9:20 Comments ||
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#4
I really think that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons with little difficulty if it simply got its hands off of Iraq, stopped its blustering, and relaxed its domestic clampdowns. What is it that they see that I don't?
#10
Well, the first thing that you do is to take out domestic gasoline refining capability and storage facilities (tank farms). That will get the yellowjackets all agitated, and go from there.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/09/2006 14:24 Comments ||
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#11
get em agitated and clip their wings....then the bombers sprayer moves in?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2006 14:34 Comments ||
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#1
It appears that the Iranian troops either don't believe in overhead cover, or the environment is so devoid of timbers or other structural supports to make such cover possible. Just stand off and rain VT artillery down on them, and they're history.
#5
interesting how they are all (bar one) shots taken in good daylight hours - my point being what capability do the Iranians have to scrap during the night time? my guess is that 95% of that stuff is useless at night time, thats gotta be a big kicka for them if they wanted to keep tempo fast on any ops they might try.
#14
This photo, 13_8501170180_L600, of the tug with the huge forward superstructure landing the helicopter, is one of my favorites. Talk about a radar cross section begging for a hit!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/09/2006 14:30 Comments ||
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#15
apparently, the mono-brow is required?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2006 17:17 Comments ||
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#16
It appears that the Iranian troops either don't believe in overhead cover
Poorly trained and led troops don't dig in, camouflage their positions, do range cards, etc.
"Netko" wrote in message
news:0001HW.C05DD0E1001E903AF04885B0@nntp.dsl.pipex.com...
> On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 11:21:56 +0100, PLMerite wrote
> (in message <89MZf.468$8g3.223@trnddc02>):
>
>> These guys are all dead a day after the shooting starts
>
> You think?
>
> I assume these pictures are from the Great Prophet exercises of the
> past week. Nice find. Thanks for posting them.
>
> Also, what's the story with the half dozen or so 132-part files you
> posted towards the end of the series? My server has still only got
> the first part of each, nearly 10 hours later. Is this my server's
> fault or did you cancel the post or something?
My bad. They don't have a file extension at the end and I didn't check.
Put .jpg on the end and they'll work okay. They came up okay in my browser
and I just right-clicked 'em into a folder and posted them from there.
BEIRUT (Rantburg News Service): Hizbullah's deputy secretary-general says he expects President Emile Lahoud to remain in office until the last day of his current mandate, and maybe until Doomsday, despite the best efforts of the populace to evict him. In an interview with the Arab daily Ad-Diyar published Saturday, Sheikh Naim Qassem insisted that anyone who wants to undertake change must first provide justification, ideas, mechanisms, a crowbar, and enough evidence to persuade other parties who don't want to be persuaded. "The fact that Emile was installed as a puppet president by the Syrians doesn't count," he said, stressing that any alternative candidate could only assume the reins of power in 20 months. "We like Syrians. We think it's fine that they choose our president."
He added that the recent clash between Lahoud and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in Khartoum was all Siniora's fault, and that it had not not orchestrated by MP Saad Hariri. He added that he pitied MP Walid Jumblatt and accused him of being influenced by the United States. "Far better," he added, "for him to be influenced by a powerful, successful regime closer to home, like... ummm... Syria."
In another interview published Saturday, pro-Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah agreed with Qassem's prediction that the president would complete his mandate because there is no agreement on any alternative candidate so far. "Most people agree they don't want Emile, of course," he stated, "but so far we've managed to keep the pot stirred enough so that there's no one single candidate to replace him. As long as everyone's at each other's throats, he'll be fine. I'll admit, for a while there I thought he'd be out on his ear by the end of March, but if we can keep this up, he'll finish out his term. He'll be ineffectual, and he'll always be one step from being bounced, and he'll be a national embarrassment, but who knows? Something might turn up. This is Lebanon, where the politix are so convoluted you sometimes find yourself voting against yourself."
Commenting on the Shebaa Farms issue, Fadlallah argued that demarcating the border in the area would not be possible until the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from them and a resumption of ties with Syria. "How can we possibly determine if it's ours or Syria's when they're sitting on it? Sure, the Syrians have said it's not theirs, but how do we know that? Far better to keep Hizbollah in the south, with as many guns as they can carry, firing the occasional missile or artillery shell into Israel. That's the only way we can ensure peace in the region."
In comments to the central New Agency, Hizbullah's commander in South Lebanon said the party had no qualms about creating a problem for the U.S. and its political plans in the Middle East: "On the contrary," Sheikh Nabil Qaouk said, "this honors us. What are we here for, if not to create problems? With no problems, there's no justification for our existence, so the more problems the better."
His comments came in response to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's claim this week that Hizbullah was Lebanon's "biggest problem." Qaouk added that U.S. interference in Lebanon was hampering national unity and consensus. He also expressed gratitude at Syria's support of Lebanon's right to liberate its territories and resist to Israeli aggression and adoration of the sublime leadership of the noble Bashir Assad, calling the man a saint.
Meanwhile, Lahoud met Friday with his only friends outside of Hizbollah, the head of Parliament's Popular Bloc in Zahle, Elie Skaff, former Minister Suleiman Franjieh, former Minister Talal Arslan and former MP Emile Lahoud Junior, to plot a comeback.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:33 ||
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Tehran, Iran, Apr. 07 Iranian police held up a 10-year-old girl in Tehrans Mehrabad Airport for mal-veiling, state-run Persian-language websites reported on Friday.
The incident took place Tuesday afternoon as the unnamed girl and her father were in the airport heading to the city of Kerman. Security officers held up the girl and accused her of wearing too short a manteau the knee-length over-garment that all women must wear outdoors under Irans Islamic laws.
The report said that the girls father became incensed at the officers conduct towards his daughter and began to yell that his daughter knew more about Islam than they did. What crime has my daughter committed? he yelled, as he slapped her once out of frustration.
He's frustrated at the police, so he slaps her? This explains a lot of what's wrong over there.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2006 00:21 ||
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#1
Misogynistic mental cases. islams real face. The face of opression of women, children minorities and any other faith.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/09/2006 0:32 Comments ||
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BEIRUT: Serge Brammertz, the head of the UN probe investigating the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, "is expected to meet with the Syrian leadership this weekend," judicial sources said Friday. The sources added that Brammertz "will also be meeting with several Syrian officials," without identifying them, and that "he will be requesting answers regarding new-found evidence and important information."
The UN probe's spokesperson told The Daily Star in a telephone interview that the investigation had no comment on Brammertz's moves or the course of his work. One of the reports circulating in the Lebanese media on Friday said that "Brammertz will most likely meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Sharaa on Sunday." Lebanese daily An-Nahar quoted a Syrian source as saying that the meeting with Assad would be "an ordinary one that is part of Assad's regular reception of visitors." The paper added: "The president will also brief Brammertz on developments in Syrian-Lebanese relations."
Brammertz has already made two trips to Syria, during which he met with Sharaa and Riad Daoudi, the legal advisor to the Syrian Foreign Ministry. He has also met with Daoudi in Beirut. In a report which he presented to the UN Security Council in mid-March, Brammertz said he would be meeting with Assad and Sharaa in April.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:17 ||
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Tehran, Iran, Apr. 08 Parts of Tehrans Lavizan Forrest, where one of Irans controversial suspect nuclear sites is situated, were set on fire on Friday by unidentified individuals, state media reported on Saturday.
Several unidentified individuals set fire to dried leaves and tree branches in the forest, east of Tehran, which were being collected by city officials, the state-run news agency Fars reported. The blaze quickly spread to cover a vast section of the forest.
"Nice work, Tyrone."
"Thanks Dave. Got any MREs?"
Fire-fighters battled the flames for some six hours before the situation was brought under control. There were no casualties, according to media reports.
A second fire broke out in the forest at 3 a.m. on Saturday which spread rapidly from burning woods that had not been put out entirely. Emergency teams were battling the blaze until after 7 a.m.
Lavizan-Shian is a military site in northwest Tehran. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency became interested in the site after the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran charged in May 2003 that Irans Revolutionary Guards were conducting clandestine nuclear activities there. Soon after, Iran razed buildings and removed topsoil from the site to eliminate traces of illegal activities there. In April 2004, the NCRI revealed that Iran had transferred work and equipment from the site to another nearby military site, which later became known as Lavizan II.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2006 00:15 ||
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didnt they hack a whole forest down not long ago near tehran cos it had 'dust' or some sht from thier nuclear meddling in it that woulda given the game away? Maybe i dreamt it but i coulda sworn it happened about a year ago. Maybe this was another 'cover up' job.
#7
"Iran's Revolutionary Guards have taken the extraordinary step of cutting down thousands of trees in Teheran to prevent United Nations inspectors from finding traces of enriched uranium from a top-secret nuclear plant. News of last month's cleansing operation comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board meets in Vienna today to decide whether Iran should be reported to the United Nations Security Council for failing to comply with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to western intelligence sources, more than 7,000 trees which may have contained incriminating nuclear traces have been lost in a popular parkland area in the city near the Lavizan atomic research centre." Here is the article. Trees seem to be disappearing fast in this area, one way or another.
Paris, Apr. 08 A Swiss judge has issued an international arrest warrant for the former head of Irans notorious secret police for his role in the assassination of a prominent Iranian dissident. The warrant was issued to law enforcement agencies for the arrest of Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, who for years headed Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Fallahian was charged with masterminding the assassination of Prof. Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate and elder brother of Iranian opposition leader Massoud Rajavi.
Kazem Rajavi, then the representative of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland, was gunned down in broad daylight by several MOIS agents on April 24, 1990 as he was driving to his home in Coppet, a village near Geneva.
A statement released by the NCRI on Saturday said that the warrant issued by Swiss Investigative Magistrate Jacques Antenen called on law enforcement agencies to arrest Ali Fallahian, former Minister of Intelligence and Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran and transfer him to the Canton Vaud Prison in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Swiss judges ruling added that prior to the assassination of Kazem Rajavi, Fallahian had also ordered the assassination of Massoud Rajavi.
No word on where these jokers are, or whether they can be arrested.
The NCRI charged that Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were also directly involved in ordering the assassination and should be issued international arrest warrants as well. 13 persons were involved in planning and carrying out the murder. All of them had service passports, marked on assignment. A number of those documents had been issued on the same day in Tehran, Judge Antenen announced.
He added that the MOIS had close ties with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), particularly the Qods (Jerusalem) Force, and Minister Fallahian was responsible for assassinations and issuing the orders for all such missions.
Kazem Rajavi was Iran's first Ambassador to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva following the 1979 Islamic revolution. Shortly after his appointment, he resigned his post in protest to the repressive policies and terrorist activities of the ruling clerics in Iran. He then intensified his campaign against mass executions, arbitrary arrests, and torture carried out by Irans theocratic leadership. At the age of 56, he held six doctorate degrees in the fields of law, political science, and sociology from the universities of Paris and Geneva.
Two of the hitmen were later discovered in France and arrested by French police. Despite a warrant for their arrest by the authorities in Switzerland, the French government boarded them on a direct flight to Tehran. The French action drew international condemnation including from the United States Department of State.
Which was nothing new for them.
Fallahian, who is currently an advisor on security affairs to Supreme Leader Khamenei and a member of the Assembly of Experts, is believed to have plotted other high-profile terrorist strikes and assassination of Iranian dissidents elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East.
In 1997, a court in Berlin implicated Fallahian, Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and then-Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati in masterminding the 1992 killing of four Kurdish dissidents in a restaurant called the Mykonos.
Iranian exiles charge that the MOIS continues to have a heavy presence in Europe and has stepped up intelligence gathering operations against Iranian dissidents since hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office as President.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2006 00:07 ||
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Syria marked the 59th anniversary of the founding of the Arab nationalist Baath party which rules the country, against a backdrop of growing US pressure for Damascus to change its policies. To celebrate the occasion, military barracks and buildings were decorated with Syrian flags, banners and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian television broadcast an entire day of patriotic songs and documentaries about the history of the Baath party and the country's armed forces.
The Baath party, inaugurated officially in 1947 in Damascus, preaches Arab unity. It seized power in Iraq on February 8, 1963 in a coup d'etat. One month later, another coup saw it installed in Syria. The Baath, which means "resurrection" in Arabic, promotes pan-Arab nationalism and socialism.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
what's the proper gift for 59th anniversary? Rope necktie?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2006 0:28 Comments ||
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#3
Now in their 60th year, let's shower them with the fire and hardness of diamond. And no flowers when they're gone, either. There is no flower associated with the 60th anniversary. Apparently anything white will do. How appropriate. Lillies are fine.
Five inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Tehran on Saturday to visit the countrys uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities, Tehrans state-run television reported. Irans deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, confirmed that the inspectors would immediately visit the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, both in central Iran.
The inspectors, who landed in Iran on Friday, were scheduled to remain in the country for five days. Saeedi described the inspectors visit as a prescheduled trip within the framework of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who is due to visit Iran next week to try and wrest concessions from Tehran on its atomic programme, could arrive in the country as early as Sunday or Monday, Irans official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. While ElBaradeis trip is meant to defuse tensions caused by fears Iran could be seeking nuclear weapons, a partial success could actually exacerbate differences among the five permanent members of the Security Council. If Iran commits to some Security Council requests, but does not meet demands to freeze uranium enrichment, that might placate Russia and China, which oppose tough measures against Iran. It would, however, fall short of the full compliance sought by the United States, France and Britain on enrichment and other issues.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2006 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.
JEDDAH Saudi journalist Rabah Al-Quwayi, 24, has been detained by Hail authorities in connection with his writings posted on Internet forums, which they allege place his Islamic faith in doubt.
A female NGO worker was found murdered at her house at Hazipara in the city yesterday. 
North Korea has said it won't return to six-way talks on its nuclear weapons programme unless the United States lifts its sanctions on North Korean companies. "Is there anything to do if the United States does not change its position?" said Song Il Hyuck, a member of the North Korean delegation at a security conference in Tokyo.
North Koreas defence minister warned Saturday that a pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States, in comments carried by the Norths official news agency. We will never sit with arms folded and watch until the US attacks us, said Kim Il Chol, vice marshal of the Norths Korean Peoples Army, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. A pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the US, he said. 
Arrested, tortured, held by the US in Guantanamo Bay for three years without charge and then suddenly released - Mamdouh Habib has been back in Australia for a year. But his homecoming hasn't been smooth. Since returning home he's been stabbed, threatened, and last week arrested and thrown in a paddy wagon after he rang the police to report witnessing a shooting.
THE Federal Government is considering a national criminal identity database as a weapon against terrorism. Under the proposal, existing police data bases would be integrated and cross-referenced so potential terrorist activities in one area would lead to alerts in other areas. The proposal is being pushed by Liberal backbencher Jason Wood, a former member of the Victorian police counter-terrorism unit, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt. The two have written to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock outlining a detailed plan. A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the Attorney-General was "cautiously supportive". 
The Australian Federal Police has suspended an officer after he consulted a clairvoyant about a death threat made to the Prime Minister. 
More than 50 Muslims who have returned to Germany from fighting in Iraq are under observation by German authorities two months ahead of the football World Cup, Focus news magazine reported. 
Spains Supreme Court on Friday threw out the convictions of three men found guilty last year of being part of an al-Qaida-linked group after prosecutors agreed there was not sufficient evidence to jail them, a court official said.
Police have detained two army conscripts after they took at least two people hostage in a fast food outlet in protest at the treatment of soldiers in southeast Turkey. The gunmen, in their early 20s, were detained on the roof terrace of the Burger King restaurant in central Istanbul after one of them fired his pistol into the air, said a Reuters reporter at Taksim square, which had been surrounded by police. Celalettin Cerrah, Istanbul's chief of police, said the two men, who had gone without leave of absence from the army in Egirdir, had taken several people hostage but none had been harmed. Cerrah said: "They said they were carrying out this act to protest at the incidents in the southeast in recent days."
The 
PESHAWAR: The Islami Jumaat-e-Talba (IJT) activists held a protest demonstration against the administration of Peshawar University at the press club on Saturday for banning Quran teaching classes in the campus.
There are no foreigners in 
Pakistan is ready to discuss freezing the production of nuclear weapons in South Asia, 
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 07 Iranian police held up a 10-year-old girl in Tehrans Mehrabad Airport for mal-veiling, state-run Persian-language websites reported on Friday.
BEIRUT: 
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 08 Parts of Tehrans Lavizan Forrest, where one of Irans controversial suspect nuclear sites is situated, were set on fire on Friday by unidentified individuals, state media reported on Saturday.
Syria marked the 59th anniversary of the founding of the Arab nationalist Baath party which rules the country, against a backdrop of growing US pressure for Damascus to change its policies. To celebrate the occasion, military barracks and buildings were decorated with Syrian flags, banners and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian television broadcast an entire day of patriotic songs and documentaries about the history of the Baath party and the country's armed forces.
The inspectors, who landed in Iran on Friday, were scheduled to remain in the country for five days. Saeedi described the inspectors visit as a prescheduled trip within the framework of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. IAEA chief, 
