The Taliban regime was toppled more than four years ago, but the rebels still continue to spread violence and terror in Afghanistan, as is shown by the most recent fighting which claimed scores of lives.
The battle earlier this week that reportedly claimed over 100 lives was the worst since the US-led coalition removed the Taliban from power at the end of 2001 and shows that the rebels are far from being defeated.
On the contrary, they appear to have gained in strength, and the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating steadily. The situation in the south, where the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is deploying this summer, is particularly dramatic.
Along with the violence, dissatisfaction among the Afghan people is also on the rise.
The statement released by the US military after the battle Thursday in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar expressed confidence that the insurgency could be defeated.
There is justification for this view. Wherever there are clashes with the coalition forces the Taliban always suffer considerably higher casualties.
But the offensives and bombings are beginning to look like a struggle against a multi-headed Hydra. Whenever one head is cut off several grow in its place. The rebels evidently do not lack replacements for their fallen fighters.
They do not give up, but merely change tactics. The increasing number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan - there were two on Thursday alone - is "serious cause for concern" according to a top Western diplomat in Kabul.
Even in the relatively peaceful north of the country, where ISAF has been operating since the end of 2003, the situation is seen as "definitely not peaceful and not stable."
"People in the provinces are increasingly dissatisfied and subject to threats and temptations," the European diplomat says. "More money, more development and more visible improvement are all needed," he says.
The anticipated peace dividend in the provinces where violence reigns has not come about, and a vicious cycle has developed. The unsafe situation has forced the aid organisations to withdraw, particularly from the south, with the result that reconstruction is not progressing as hoped.
Frustration at the lack of progress is driving the local people into the arms of the rebels, and this serves only to destabilise the region further. The Afghan government and the international community are not coming to grips with the country's problems despite their best efforts.
Progress is slow, the diplomat says. Corruption has become "endemic", he says.
And he adds another worrying factor: "The slow but systematic progress of Islamist ideas frightens me."
Opium poppy production has increased once again this year, and the Taliban is said to be securing funds from the drugs trade.
The international community is now facing a new and dangerous test. The ISAF reconstruction mission is being extended into the south, where US-led troops have been fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The most recent clashes in Kandahar and the neighbouring province of Helmand should provide a foretaste of what the ISAF troops from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands could encounter when the US starts cutting its troop strength in the south.
The Taliban is reported to have announced that it intends to target the ISAF forces.
Political circles in Kabul believe this strategy is aimed at driving up the number of casualties and thus applying political pressure on the respective governments for their troops to be brought home.
Should the rebels see any success in this strategy, this would be the worst-case scenario, according to the European Union's special representative to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell.
"The message must be very clear. We will not withdraw," he says.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:42 ||
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The president of semi-autonomous region of Puntland ...
'semi-autonomous'? What's semi about it?
... Gen. Adde Muse Hersi has defended the decision by his administration to severe ties and collaboration with the transitional federal government, particularly with premier Ali Gedi, whom he accused of putting the regions progress in jeopardy. Speaking with the local media overnight, Gen Adde Muse said the Somali prime minister had attempted in several occasions to pause Puntlands plan to produce the oil in its soil, noting that the premier has sent letters to states and firms contracted with exploring the resources in Puntland regions asking to stop their mission.
In a letter sent to Somali prime minister in this week, Mr. Adde said his government backed out its confidence and cut ties with the transitional government of Somalia. The government of premier Gedi has no land to rule and we will continue the missions to produce our resources and we are prepared to defend ourselves against any assault said Mr Adde. President Adde Muse said the solution might come only if Puntland is freed for its resources, particularly its oil reserves.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
It is "semi" only because Western politicos don't have the stones to recognize both Puntland and Somaliland as independent countries that have split off from the failed Somalia. And the reason for this lack of stones is the wailing, hair-pulling, and gnashing of teeth by the Left about the "racist, imperialist" West if we dare go against that conclave of dictators, the African Union -- which forbids such recognition. AU is against that since there are several failed/failing African nations that could be carved up into functional nations if only the world would support it, and then the dictators would be out of a job or missing their heads. The Congos are a prime example of this, as is Nigeria.
Senior United Nations diplomats seek to persuade Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government on Tuesday to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in the western Darfur region.
"Nope. Nope. Ain't gonna do it!"
"C'mon! Name your price!"
"Well, that's more like it!"
Despite a peace deal signed by the government and the main Darfur rebel group on May 5, dozens have been killed in clashes between rebels and government-armed Arab militias. An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force is cash-strapped and ill-equipped.
Which is why Omar wants nobody but them...
Khartoum, under international pressure to accept a transition to U.N. peacekeepers, initially resisted and said such a deployment would cause an Iraq-like quagmire that would attract Islamist militants into attacking the U.N. troops. But since the peace deal was struck, the government has softened its stance and says it does not reject a U.N. force but wants to be consulted about its mandate in Darfur -- an arid ethnically mixed region the size of France.
They'll reject competently-led troops. They'll have to be from Islamic countries, like Bangla. Nobody over 5'7". No lefties. Nobody whose name rhymes with "snuff." And they all have to be redheads.
Veteran troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi and U.N. peacekeeping head Hedi Annabi are due to arrive for a two-day visit during which they plan to meet Bashir and other government leaders. "We are hoping that we can work out an agreement with the government because ... this (deployment) should not be done without the agreement of the government," said U.N. deputy spokesman Bahaa Elkoussy. The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution this month that envisages U.N. peacekeepers taking over from the some 7,000 AU troops.
"We'll accept UN peacekeepers, but only Antarcticans."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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Lahcen Daoudi is a curious kind of Islamist. A top leader in Morocco's Party of Justice and Development, a legal Islamist movement emerging as a political force, he fights off suggestions that he wants to Islamise society, blaming his secular rivals for spreading false rumours. "People cannot eat from Islamist slogans. They come to us because they want solutions."
A good-humoured, economics professor and opposition MP, the clean-shaven Mr Daoudi looks younger than his 59 years and repeatedly bangs his hand on the table to emphasise his points. The PJD's objective, he says, is to improve "productivity" and "efficiency" in a country of 30m people reeling from massive youth unemployment in urban areas and a literacy rate of just over 50 per cent.
"The government is simply not performing," he says. "If it were, Moroccans wouldn't be looking for an alternative."
Barely eight years after it was officially created from an existing party and a collection of Islamist associations, the PJD is emerging as a powerful alternative, with a good chance of winning legislative elections schedule for the second half of next year.
A leaked poll conducted by the US's independent International Republican Institute earlier this year showed that up to 47 per cent of the electorate were leaning towards the party. A second just-concluded IRI poll is believed to confirm this.
The party's rise is in line with the trend across the Arab world, where Islamist groups are capitalising on their image as honest movements dedicated to social justice and riding the wave of discontent with existing regimes and discredited secular parties.
But what makes the PJD's experience all the more significant is that it is seen by the US as an acceptable interlocutor, unlike the Palestinian Hamas or Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
As Washington grapples with the empowerment of political Islam that is the consequence of its drive to democratise the Arab world, it appears to have found in the PJD a rare Islamist party it can engage with.
The PJD, which now has 42 deputies in the 325-seat parliament, benefits from US assistance and training programmes available to parties in Morocco. During a private trip to the US this month, Saadeddine Othmani, the PJD's secretary-general, met an American deputy assistant secretary of state. His trip was part of an international charm offensive launched by the PJD and it followed visits to France and Spain.
"It is in the interest of Morocco that the world community knows the PJD. I don't want investors to flee because of us," says Mr Daoudi, pointing to the economy's dependence on tourism and foreign investment.
That Morocco is a monarchy, where King Mohammed VI still holds the main levers of power and both the government and the parliament have limited authority, makes the risk of a PJD victory next year more palatable to the US.
Moreover, unlike Justice and Charity, probably the largest non-violent Moroccan Islamist movement, the PJD does not challenge the legitimacy of the monarchy. A moderate Islamist party is also seen as a buffer against al-Qaeda-inspired groups that have sought to mobilise impoverished Moroccans. It was a group of young men from the slums of Casablanca, the country's financial hub, that launched the May 2003 suicide attacks against western and Jewish targets.
But if the PJD has been successfully building bridges with the outside world, it remains controversial at home, where politics outside the palace have been dominated by the leftist Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the nationalist Istiqlal.
Government officials and secular rivals accuse it of spreading a radical ideology through its press while putting on a moderate face to the world. Nabil Benabdallah, the government spokesman, says that the PJD goes against the vision of modernity promoted by the king, including a 2004 code that strengthens women's rights. He points to demands by PJD-affiliated associations for the banning of Marock, a daring new film directed by a young woman and showing scenes that ridicule praying and fasting.
Well-organised and recognised even by rivals as hard working, the PJD is not monolithic, although the most radical within it have been gradually pushed out of the top positions.
Mustafa Ramid, a popular MP from Casablanca, has openly criticised Mr Othmani's trip to the US, for example, and says he is against Marock. He has also called for the palace to play the role of arbiter and says he sees little point in joining or forming a government when the institutions have so little power. "My fear is that under the current system we will not be able to deliver," he says.
The debate over the PJD has intensified in recent months as the party has adopted a more assertive attitude. The Islamists lowered their profile after the 2003 Casablanca attacks, which led to a torrent of criticism that the PJD was contributing to a climate of intolerance. The attacks also provoked a new law banning political parties based on religion, leading the PJD to emphasise that it was no more than a party with "Islamic references".
Party officials have indicated that they are likely to contest elections across Morocco next year, departing from a more gradualist approach adopted so far that saw them field candidates in less than 60 per cent of constituencies in 2002.
Controversy was fuelled by the IRI poll. The palace was reported to be rattled by what it saw as American meddling in Moroccan affairs while political rivals considered the poll a confirmation of their worst suspicions - that the US was secretly promoting the PJD.
Mr Daoudi says he is gearing up for a difficult election year but urges Moroccan secularists not to deepen the polarisation in society. "It will be a year when the PJD is demonised," he says.
"But the PJD is a barrier against radicalisation. If you crush it, it is not you who benefits, it's the others, the radicals."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:44 ||
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#1
Sounds like another dumb move by the US. It's not hard to guess what the PJD would do once they got into power; 'moderate' Muslims have an alarming habit of morphing into 'extremist' Muslims whenever it suits them, as shown by the Van Gogh killing and countless other examples.
SANAA A former Yemeni prisoner in US secret detention has appealed to UN and human rights groups worldwide to help him and two other mates get fair compensation from the US government for material and psychological damages.
He also demanded that all detainees in secret and illegal detention be released and compensated for "unbelievable abuses and suffering."
The 37-year-old Mohammad Faraj Bashumaila, who languished in US secret detention for 20 months, says he can no longer find a job in his country or elsewhere to support his 14-member family after being unfairly dubbed a terrorist.
"I can no longer find any job now because I'm a terrorist in the eyes of the world. The United States has portrayed us as terrorists, and that's the problem we face now after being released," Bashumaila told Gulf News here this week.
The man was put in at least two different secret US locations after he was arrested in Jordan in October 2003 on suspicion of terror links. It is learnt he had travelled to Afghanistan in the middle of 2000 and stayed there for about four months as a visitor.
"Unfortunately, people now cannot understand our situation and I would never beg for help from anyone. I want to work like normal people do. I was a respected businessman in Indonesia," he said.
"My family sold my house, my car, my business in Indonesia, not to mention the psychological damage inflicted on my family and on me in that complete isolation from the world for about two years, after I was kidnapped from Jordan."
It may be recalled Bashumaila left Yemen in 1999 along with his mother and father for Indonesia where he married and started a business in cooperation with his cousins who were living there.
After a very short trial, the Yemen State Security Court ordered in March the release of Bashumaila and his two colleagues Salah Nasser Salem and Mohammad Abdullah Al Assad. The three men languished for nearly a year in Yemeni intelligence prisons after they were handed over by US authorities in May 2005.
Sermons in mosques should be delivered in English to help stop young Muslims being drawn towards radical preachers of hate, a South Yorkshire peer said.
Muslim peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said that imams - Islamic preachers - should conduct their Friday prayers in English and translate sections which have to be spoken in Arabic, so that youngsters who may not understand do not feel isolated.
He said extremists such as Omar Bakri had used the isolation of young people within some mosques to draw them to their own breakaway meetings where they were radicalised.
Lord Ahmed wants to set up an advisory body which would provide training for all imams and set up certain standards.
He told fellow peers during a debate in the House of Lords: "While some mosques have been used as an effective vehicle for social change by providing moral, social and spiritual development of individuals through worship education and recreation, unfortunately many are still run as tribal and regional centres, disconnected from the local British Muslim community and from the mainstream of British society.
"For instance we know that an overwhelming majority of British Muslims attend Friday prayers but 60 per cent of those who are British born are disconnected in many ways because of the language spoken.
"Sermons are delivered in Urdu, Arabic or another language."
"Of course all the religious teachings have to be done through the Koran and the Hadith, which are in Arabic, but I think we should ask everyone to deliver their sermons in English and to translate everything into English so that they can connect with young people," he added.
He said he still faces resistance from some quarters on the speaking of English in sermons.
"Things have not changed much and we need to put pressure on Muslim leaders to ensure they connect with the British Muslim youth."
#1
If they gave their sermons in English, the English would know what they're preaching, and might take offense. About the best that will happen will be happy-friendly-Islam-means-peace crap will be spouted once a week while all the other services are the pigs-and-apes, jihad-jihad-jihad crap.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/23/2006 7:41 Comments ||
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too easy, Rob.
I reckon it's heads we lose, tails they win.
Force them to preach in English they save the pigs and monkeys stuff for Arabic anyway and by preaching in English can reach out and convert more native British.
A councillor who has been at the centre of attempts to bring communities together in Leeds following the London bombings will today become the city's first Asian Lord Mayor.
Mohammed Iqbal was prominent in his condemnation of the July 7 atrocities in the capital.
Since it emerged three of the bombers either lived or worked in Leeds, he has been at the forefront of work in the city to come to terms with what happened.
Mr Iqbal is a Labour councillor for the City and Hunslet ward and is due to be confirmed as Lord Mayor at a meeting of the full council this evening.
He said: "I'm delighted. It's the greatest honour that has been bestowed on me.
"It's a great opportunity to pay back a city that has welcomed me from the age of eight-and-a-half."
Mr Iqbal is now a successful businessman but he said he came to Leeds in 1970 with little education and hardly able to speak English.
He said he believed his elevation to Lord Mayor sends out a strong message about community integration.
"We've had some difficult times over the past year, especially in the Beeston Hill area but its given us more courage and strength," he added.
"This is a diverse city but it is a city full of opportunity.
"I was not born here but this is my home, my city."
Mr Iqbal is married with two children.
His 22-year-old daughter Sayeka will be his Lady Mayoress.
#2
Might be to give her a way to be visible, active in the community, set an example for the other Muslim girls and young women. Also, his wife might not be comfortable in that role.
Tehran, 23 May (AKI) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez assured his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a phone conversation late on Monday that Venezuela will support Tehran's ambition to pursue uranium enrichment on an industrial scale. Iran's conservative Mehr news agency reported that Ahmadinejad spoke to Chavez about Iran's plans to boost cooperation with Latin American countries - mainly Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela - to create a broad alliance against the US.
Hugo is just stupid enough to put Iranian missiles in Venezuela. His good buddy Fidel was pissed when those cowardly Russians pulled theirs out.
Iran has announced it will pursue uranium enrichment on an industrial scale - so far rejecting international calls to abandon its nuclear programme over fears that Tehran is trying to build atomic weapons.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 08:44 ||
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#1
There are also Hezbollah cells in South America, especially Brazil and Argentina. Iran could export missiles to Brazil and move them overland from there. I've heard they are heavy, but can be concealed in tankers, logging trucks, and any ship with cargo space...just the sort of things that never get noticed because they look like they belong there.
#2
yup. While we should push back against proliferation, that alone is not a defense at this point.
Hence, antiballistic missile defense and a bunch of other technologies under development and test, like tactical high energy lasers for defense against rockets, artillery and mortar rounds.
We plan to deploy all of these ... are doing so. We've offered them to friends as well -- they can come under the shield or take their chances outside, I guess.
Hugo Chávez has announced that director Leni Riefenstahl Oliver Stone is planning to make a film of the attempt to oust the Venezuelan president in 2002. US officials deny Mr Chávez's claim that American officials were behind the botched coup. Oscar-winner Stone, who in 2003 directed Comandante, a documentary of his meeting with his hero Fidel Castro, the Cuban president and Chávez ally, is teaming up with British producer John Daly, Mr Chávez said. He added that they would announce the film at the Cannes festival.
An alliance of politicians and dissident military officers took power on April 12 2002, after reports that Mr Chávez resigned when people were killed at an opposition march. He insists he never resigned, and he was put back in power on April 14. The coup has been a theme in Mr Chávez's war of words with Washington.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 08:38 ||
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The fish dies from his mouth, meaning that from too much eating, eating anything on sight, and by extension from talking too much (keeping the mouth open too often). this is what is happening in Venezuela as I can really this delicious gossip: Chavez announced last Sunday that Oliver Stone was had started directing a movie on the 2002 events just to be untold yesterday by Oliver stone himself saying that there was no such project.
#8
Oliver Stone to make Chávez film Stone to give Chavez expensive public blow job. Using other moonbats' people's money.
There. Accuracy is important.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/23/2006 17:36 Comments ||
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#9
Stone sez no flick
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2006 17:42 Comments ||
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#10
As for myself, I look forward to a definitive biopic on PAPA DOC! They don't make'um like that anymore. Chavez is merely a shrill fool with loads oil! Papa Doc had few resources...besides Charisma and Voodoo with which to control the scene....
The Supreme Court of North Ossetia, Russias ethnic republic in the North Caucasus, continued to read the indictment in the case of Nurpasha Kulayev, the only surviving gunman who was involved in the attack on a secondary school in Beslan and mass hostage-taking in September 2004.
The presiding judge, Tamerlan Aguzarov, read the testimony of each victim, making pauses from time to time. It was established on the basis of Viziyevs testimony that his wife worked as a mathematics teacher and went to the festive gathering on September 1. She was taken hostage and died as a result of the terrorist actions, the judge said.
His voice quivered as he pronounced the word died for almost the one-hundredth time in one day.
During the break, the victims were saying among themselves, Let them read on. Revenge is a cold dish.
In the middle of the day, the judge finished reading the testimonies of the victims and moved on to the testimonies of the witnesses. The first to be read were testimonies given by members of the crisis management headquarters.
Former head of the Federal Security Services branch in North Ossetia, Valery Andreyev, said after reports about the hostage taking had been received, Operation Seizure was activated in order to free the people.
Contact was established with the gunmen, who had put forth demands and threatened to slay the hostages if one of them were killed. They acted quite harshly, Andreyev said.
Former North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, who was also at the headquarters, said, The main goal was to rescue the children in the first place.
We offered the gunmen a corridor for them to leave but they rejected this plan, he said.
The judge read the testimonies of other witnesses as well. The last to be read were the testimonies of law enforcers. About 30 of them were wounded during the crisis. The judge also read the testimony of an army serviceman who said he had been sent to the school on September 1, 2004 in order to take part in the operation to free the hostages and used RPG-26 and RPO-A grenade launchers. He fired at verified targets, namely at the attic of the school and then at the gunmens firing positions. He also fired a grenade launcher on the night of September 3 after the hostages were gone.
The judge said the overall damage caused to the peoples flats and automobiles by shooting had amounted to about 5.5 million roubles.
The indictment also included the testimony of a former North Ossetian education minister, who said that the children had been allowed not to go to school for security reasons. Teachers did not work for several days, too.
The judge read the testimony given by paediatrician Leonid Roshal, who had participated in the negotiations with the terrorists. In his words, the terrorists rejected all offers of food and water for the hostages and declined to negotiate with the elders or their relatives.
The testimonies of the witnesses questioned are borne out by the fact that after taking hostages the gunmen sent over notes, in which they demanded that troops be withdrawn from Chechnya and put forth other anti-constitutional demands, as borne out by one of the notes passed over on behalf of Shamil Basayev to the president of Russia, as well as the video made in the school by the participants in the attack, the judge said.
He finished the day by reading the names of people who had died as a result of the hostage-taking crisis and who had been identified by their relatives.
The hearings were then adjourned till May 23.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:34 ||
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SYDNEY terrorist suspect Faheem Khalid Lodhi today denied he was telling "a pack of lies" at his NSW Supreme Court trial.
The 36-year-old architect is accused of planning to bomb the national electricity system or Sydney defence sites.
He has pleaded not guilty to four terrorism-related charges.
In October 2003, Lodhi allegedly inquired about buying chemicals capable of making explosives in preparation for a terrorist act.
The jury has heard that when ASIO raided his office later that month, they found 15 pages of handwritten notes containing recipes for explosives, including urea nitrate.
The prosecution has described the document as a "terrorism manual".
Lodhi told the court he was planning to export chemicals to make detergents, and had forgotten about the notes at the time he inquired about chemical prices.
During cross-examination, Crown Prosecutor Richard Maidment SC suggested Lodhi was trying to disguise the fact that he wanted to buy urea and nitric acid, two ingredients of urea nitrate.
"Your story to the jury about your interest in manufacturing detergents is a load of rubbish ... you had in mind to prepare for a terrorist act," Mr Maidment said.
"No, it's not right," Lodhi said.
Lodhi told the court he had copied the information in the handwritten notes three or four years before the ASIO raid, from a website he stumbled across while using a computer at Sydney University.
He said he spent one or two hours copying down the information, which he translated from English into his native language, Urdu.
Lodhi said he looked at the website out of curiosity and had "foolishly" written down some of the information he found.
He denied writing in Urdu to disguise the information or because he had "a guilty conscience" about the contents.
Lodhi said he had not intended to keep the document and never even thought about using it.
"I suggest that your story about finding this accidentally on the Internet ... is a load of rubbish," Mr Maidment said.
"No, it's true," Lodhi replied.
"You're telling the jury a pack of lies, aren't you?" Mr Maidment asked.
"No, it's true," Lodhi said.
Mr Maidment suggested Lodhi's evidence was "absolutely made up from start to finish", to cover up the fact that he had the notes "for a purpose connected with the preparation for an act of terrorism".
Lodhi denied it.
The trial continues before Justice Anthony Whealy.
Shades of "Camp of the Saints"
The French capital seems to have been contaminated by the same phenomenon which has already stricken Belgium.
According to the representative of a French union defending illegal migrants, Bahija Benkouka, a group of people, claiming the regularisation of their situation, occupied Sunday evening the St Merri Church.
The non-regularised protestors also claim (want?) the cancellation of Sarkozy's project law on immigration which was approved on Thursday by the French parliament.
The contacts between the church's priest and the group's representative Benkouka have not yet yielded any results.
St Merri's occupiers have probably followed the example of the illegal migrants who, after occupying Saint-Boniface Church in Belgium's Ixelles Commune, have been granted regularisation.
The Saint-Boniface Church example was followed in several Belgian cities, namely Brussels, Cherleroi, Mons, Namur, LaLouvière, Gand, Anvers and Verviers.
Now, the arm-twisting occupation seems to have been adopted outside Belgium.
#3
The French capital seems to have been contaminated by the same phenomenon which has already stricken Belgium.
Nope, nope.
Occupying churches (and desecrating them in the process) is SOP since at least a decade and the occupation of the Saint-Bernard church, during which the illegals were forcibly removed; after the outcry, both the authorities and the church dare not use force anymore (and besides, many leftist priests are actually complicit).
Of course, all this is done by pro-immigration groups organized by the trotskysts (and paid by the taxpayers' money, since they are subsidized bt the gvt), with the support of the showbizness "elites" and the msm (for example, they've won the battle of words, as they're not called "illegals" or "cladestines" anymore, but only "sans-papiers"/"documentless people").
Even the Saint-Denis church, the resting place of french kings was occupied that way, this is such a dire symbol.
Only time a mosque was occupied like that (this was organized by the mrap islamo-leftist "antiracist" org, funny given their orientations), police was called as soon as possible, and the illegals were forcibly evicted right away.
I remember having a catholic priest comment on tv on why mosques were evacuated while churches remained occupied, and he told that "it was obvious, mosques were places of worship"!!! Nice dhimmi.
#5
In 2003 about 1/3rd of the french declared themselves atheist. Only 12% are praticing christians (mostly catholics, who went from 70+% in the 80's to about 50% now), but only 2% among young people.
Many churches are thus empty and unused; a increasingly common practise is to... you guessed it, convert them into mosques by renting the building for a symbolic euro or an equivalent way.
#6
All this to say that the dechristianization of France (and probably Europe, though I'm not knowledeable about that) is quite real. We ARE post-christian. All we've got left is the religion of the Human rights, and the worship of the State, which has phagocyted the Nation. France is dead, all that's left is the Republic.
A Greek fighter jet and a Turkish warplane collided Tuesday near the island of Karpathos in the Aegean Sea, the Greek government said. A rescue operation was launched for the three missing pilots, two Turks and one Greek.
Greek government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said it appeared the incident occurred as the Greek plane was intercepting the Turkish jet. Greek and Turkish fighter planes frequently intercept each other over the sea, mostly in areas of disputed airspace.
Greece says its national airspace extends to 10 miles, but Turkey recognizes only six miles the same distance as territorial waters.
The Greek Defense Ministry said a Greek F-16 collided with a Turkish R-F4 jet, about 12 miles south of Karpathos in the eastern Aegean Sea. The Greek jet was based at Souda Air Force base on the island of Crete.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry and military did not immediately confirm the incident.
Long-standing disputes over airspace and territorial rights in the Aegean have nearly led to three wars between the NATO allies since 1974.
Relations between Greece and Turkey have been steadily deteriorating in recent months, despite Athens' promotion of Ankara's candidacy for European Union membership and Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanalis' personal friendship with Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
#1
I agree with the author on most points but I really wish he/she hadn't made the Walter Durranty connection at the beginning. No matter how bad things are in Sweden, there's no genocide and starvation so the comparison is extremely ill-conceived. Any reader closer to the Paul Krugman mind-set will have an easy time dismissing the rest of the valid points as more overblown rhetoric.
AMSTERDAM A majority of MPs in the Dutch parliament have demanded to know how many other former asylum seekers have been stripped of Dutch naturalisation because they lied about their identity.
The governing Christian Democrats (CDA) and Liberals (VVD) supported the opposition green-left party GroenLinks in calling for an investigation to establish how often the sanction has been applied since the law came into force in 1989.
This is the latest element in the political storm over the position of former Liberal MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The Somali-born critic of Islam announced last week she is leaving the Netherlands for the US after Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk cast doubt on the validity of her Dutch naturalisation.
In a television documentary days earlier, Hirsi Ali said she had lied about her name and date of birth to get asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. She became a Dutch citizen five years later. Hirsi Ali has been open about these lies since 2002 when she joined the VVD. Verdonk, also a member of the VVD, said she had not been aware of the lies prior to the television programme.
The Minister came in for a lot of criticism in relation to the way Hirsi Ali has been treated. But Verdonk argued she was merely following a Supreme Court ruling that said it is unclear who has been naturalised if the applicant uses an assumed name.
Parliament passed motions to compel Verdonk to review Hirsi Ali's case and to ensure she keeps her Dutch nationality.
This has led to calls for equal treatment for everyone. "Ayaan must not be treated better or worse than others," CDA MP Mirjam Sterk said. "We want to know what criteria were in force in recent years and how they were applied".
Liberal MP Arno Visser said "clearer insight" was required with a view to drafting a new amendment of the law. He said the intention was not to reverse all previous cases in which a person's citizenship was removed.
#3
Lot's of Dutch political games going on here. Apparently Verdonk did deport someone a few weeks ago for exactly what HA did and that is part of her justification for doing it to HA also. Otherwise a double standard. Another part may have ber V's jealousy of HA's rise in the party. But this may have backfired bigtime. Do we have a Dutchman on board who can tell us what is really going on?
Some 40,000 protesters took to the streets of Turkey today to noisily support their country's secular traditions, a day after a suspected Islamist militant shot dead a judge.
Members of Turkey's pro-Islamist government were booed as they attended memorial services, and the Turkish President issued a warning that "no one will be able to overthrow the (secular) regime".
The entire leadership of the Turkish military, which has led three coups in the past and regards itself as the guardians of secularism, lined up beside the flag-draped coffin of Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, at his funeral today.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, was however conspicuous by his absence from the funeral.
The outpouring took place the day after a militant burst into Turkeys highest administrative court shouting "I am a soldier of God", and shot five judges, fatally wounding Ozbilgin.
The suspect, a 28-year-old lawyer, reportedly told police that he was retaliating for the courts recent ruling that a teacher who wore an Islamic-style head scarf outside of work should not be promoted.
The headscarf has long been a flashpoint between Islamists and secularists. Since the founding of the modern Turkish state nearly 80 years ago, the country has banned wearing headscarves in universities, in state offices and at state functions, fearing that the headgear symbolizes a desire to weaken the secular identity of the state.
The Government has made no secret of its desire to lift a ban on headscarves and had strongly criticised the courts February decision. Mr Erdogan and many other ministers have their political roots in a pro-Islamic party that was forced from government by the military in 1997.
The Prime Minister's wife, Emine, who wears a headscarf, cannot attend many state functions. The wife of Abdullah Gul, the Foreign Minister, and many other wives of Cabinet members also wear headscarves. Mr Erdogans Government has vowed to try to ease the restrictions and has been trying to raise the profile of Islam.
The shooting stunned the secular establishment. More than 15,000 angry Turks, from students to judges dressed in their robes, marched to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern and secular Turkey, in a show of loyalty to secularism. Many were chanting "Turkey is secular and will remain secular."
They laid a wreath decorated with red and white carnations, the colours of the Turkish flag, at the mausoleum. Some were tearful as they kissed the marble stones of the mausoleum. The procession was broadcast live on national TV.
Later, some 40,000 people marched to the citys main mosque to attend memorial services for Ozbilgin, many of them chanting slogans calling for the governments resignation.
They also booed when Abdulkadir Aksu, the Interior Minister, Cemil Cicek, the Justice Minister, and Abdullatif Sener, the Deputy Prime Minister, arrived at the mosque and chanted "Murderers out".
Police were forced to escort Mr Aksu into the memorial service, and Mr Cicek had to use a back entrance to flee a group of protesters who threw a bottle of water at him, private CNN-Turk television reported.
"This is the September 11 of the Turkish Republic," wrote Ertugrul Ozkok, chief columnist for Hurriyet, a secular daily paper. "One of the main pillars of the regime, justice, was hit. This is an attack against all of us."
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, himself a former judge, said that the shooting "is indeed an attack on the secular republic."
In an apparent warning to the Government and to pro-Islamic newspapers, Mr Sezer said that "those who provided the reason for this attack must review their attitudes and behaviours".
Opposition parties said that they held Mr Erdogans Government responsible for the attack.
Prosecutors today filed charges against Vakit, a pro-Islamic newspaper, accusing it of supporting terrorism. The newspaper had printed the photos of the judges in February.
Vakit today condemned the attack but questioned whether it was being used by the pro-secular establishment to crack down on the Islamic movement.
Police captured the suspect, a 28-year-old lawyer, after the attack, and NTV television reported that he was also one of the people who threw grenades at the Istanbul offices of the pro-secular newspaper Cumhuriyet.
At least three more suspected accomplices have been arrested, and police are reported to be searching for more suspects.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:39 ||
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Al Qaeda suspect Louai Sakka, who is being tried in Istanbul for the November 2003 suicide attacks in the city, was not allowed into the courtroom on Monday after he tore his clothes apart in protest prior to the hearing.
Security forces decided not to take Sakka before the court jury, fearing that he would disturb the hearing and make further protests.
The trial of 73 suspects in connection with the 2003 Istanbul suicide attacks continued on Monday in spite of the protest of top suspect Sakka. Twenty-nine detainees appeared before the court today.
Sakka tore his clothes in the security vehicle, uncovering orange prison clothes like those worn by detainees in the notorious US Guantanamo prison.
Syrian national Sakka was apprehended in Diyarbakir province in August 2005 in possession of false papers, on suspicion of planning a bomb attack against ships carrying Israeli tourists which were due to dock at Antalya.
Sakka was arrested for his suspected part in the Istanbul November 2003 blasts for which he faces a life sentence. He has declared to the media that he will make important disclosures during his trial.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:07 ||
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#1
Sakka tore his clothes in the security vehicle, uncovering orange prison clothes like those worn by detainees in the notorious US Guantanamo prison.
(Multiple updates to this story at MilBlogs and Hot Air)
JESSE MACBETH is a fraud. An imposter. A poseur warrior, and not even a very convincing one.
MilBloggers explain why:
BLACKFIVE: "The photo on the wall of this "ranger" is completely laughable."
JIMBO: "This spindly little weasel wouldn't have made it through 10 seconds of RIP, let alone Ranger school or life in a Ranger Batt. The pic on his wall shows the wrong t-shirt, wrong sleeves roll, wrong flash, this boy is so many flavors of wrong I can't keep up."
1. Special Forces Combat Patch (Wrong)
2. Two "Tabs" sewn above SF patch (Wrong- Only One)
3. No Ranger Tab
4. No Airborne Wings
5. No Unit Crest
6. No Sewn on Rank
7. No One in the Army rolls their sleeves like that.
Bonus: 8. Mustache is out of regulation by extending past the corner of the mouth.
McQ shows us what insignia MacBeth would be wearing, were he a real Ranger.
POSEUR WARRIORS are not a new phenomenon. A junior sailor from my first ship was busted in the San Diego airport for impersonating a Navy SEAL. He was wearing choker whites with ensign shoulderboards and a SEAL trident. A Naval officer spotted him easily, because the shoulderboards were attached upside down.
He was busted to E-1, and put on restriction for a month. But his real punishment was the years of ridicule that he got from his fellow Sailors.
ALLAHPUNDIT has the roundup. Stay tuned to MilBlogs headquarters for more developments.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/23/2006 12:39 ||
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#1
Now he needs to be put in a room with real vets for some "Wall to wall counseling".
#4
If he tries, it will be fun to watch him get shredded by the msm under milblogger influence - or to have the msm shredded if they don't cover the story.
#6
Snicker, the trolls over in Democratic Underground are ripping their "hero" Jesse apart now that he's resigned from the Iraq Veterans Against the War and shown to be a fraud. Some of them think he was a plant to discredit the real anti-war soldiers. Heh.
Also his name may have been changed when he was two years old, Jesse Adam MacBeth appears to have been born as Jesse Adam Al-Zaid. That part may or may not be correct, but how many Jesse Adam MacBeths can there be? He does look like he's at least part arabic in this photo.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 14:14 Comments ||
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#7
Jesse has been running this scam for awhile. From Arizona Indymedia; April 2004, EFL:
In early March, a young veteran of the war in Iraq, Jesse MacBeth, 20 years old, was banned from Coffee Plantation, where he had he was enjoying a drink that he had bought. His crime? He was dressed in his informal military uniform, which had insignia on it, and he was told by the owner that he could not sit at the table dressed in it, that it was offensive.
Coffee Plantation has recently embarked upon a campaing of discriminating against, refusing service to, and banning people that the owners do not think fit its image, which the new owners want to clean up. While this discrimination is mostly targeted at homeless people, who are also being unfairly refused, the Coffee Plantation has also refused service to other unsuitable people, including Jesse, a fully employed and housed veteran!
While Jesse was drinking his coffee, he was approached by the owner of the store and a security guard. After being told that his uniform was not appropriate dress, he was asked to leave. He rightfully refused. Many other people at the restaurant began defending his right to be there and drink the coffee he had paid for. The owner and the security guard called the police on him, and, when asked to show identitfication, he showed his Military ID card. He was thus only escorted (and not directly arrested) from the property and told that he couldnt return to all of Centerpoint, lest he wish to go to jail. He asked the police officer if it was possible that the owners could legally refuse service to anyone, including people of color, for any reason, and he was told that they could. As a black veteran, he found this very disturbing.
Previously, Jesse used to go to Coffee Plantation all the time, and would spend $30 to $40 dollars a week there, buying hot chocolate and coffee, and playing chess. He started hanging out on Mill Avenue after coming back from Iraq because he wanted to get back into civilian society and civilian life.
Now, Coffee Plantation has a sign that says that they don't refuse service to veterans, but he still can't go in there, and he knows it is a lie.
For five nights in a row, Jesse held up signs near the Coffee Plantation that read, Coffee plantation is anti-American, I fought and killed for freedom but I am not free to drink their coffee, and If I can fight and die for American freedom, then how come I am not free to drink coffee in America?
Jesse talked about the injustice inherent in the whole affair. If America is supposed to be about freedom, equality, and justice, that is supposed to be the country that millions of other soldiers and vets fought and died for then why are still supporting companies that discriminate against soldiers. Nowadays they can be considered terrorists, because who else would have something against the American soldiers if they are not terrorists?
Coffee Plantation claims that it has never discriminated against any veterans.
The fact is, Coffee Plantation banned a veteran of the Iraq war from their property, who had already bought a drink and was sitting peacefully, telling him that his outfit (military garb) was not appropriate and that he had to leave!
Is this what freedom looks like?
Soldier struggles with memories of Iraqi war
By Pam Crandall, staff writer
Eastern Arizona Courier
11-03-2003
http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2003/11/03/news/news02.txt
The war in Iraq was officially called to an end a few months ago, but according to Private First Class Jesse MacBeth, 19, of Pima, the turmoil has just begun.
MacBeth, a ranger in the U.S. Army, returned to the states two-and-a-half months ago after sustaining an injury in his back. He spent 14 months serving in the Middle East -- first in Afghanistan and then in Baghdad. Formerly from Tucson, MacBeth now resides in Pima, where he has family, friends and a fiancé. He said that small-town life is the perfect remedy for the various traumas that he suffered during his service in the Middle East.
"Loud noises startle me," he said. "Its nice and quiet here. I live in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere." According to MacBeth, his reaction to loud noise stems from the horrible experiences that he had while in Iraq. After returning to Ft. Benning in Georgia, he was officially diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and received both medication and counseling to help him adjust to a non-combative environment.
"The Iraqis would stand in a crowd and shoot at us. We had to kill civilians to get to them because we were ordered to shoot anything that came at us," he said. "I keep having nightmares about it."
MacBeth and others in the 10-man unit in which he served were some of the first soldiers in Baghdad. He said his unit had a special duty to perform. "We had to clear the loyalists from the tunnels under the city. Some were from the Republican Guard."
MacBeth was shot in the back by an M-16 rifle while in a tunnel. He remembers that he had to continue fighting after a Canadian nurse quickly stitched up his wounds. "They would sew you up and you'd have to just keep on going," he said. MacBeth is haunted daily by the memories of his service in Iraq. "We didn't think about what was going on while we were there," he said, "but it's coming back in dreams. I don't like to remember it." He recalls watching his buddies die, which he said is nearly unbearable for him to think about at times. "I lost good friends that I trained with," he said. "I gave some dog tags to family members personally."
For MacBeth, one of the most important duties during the war was protecting those he served with. He said that after the traumas U.S. soldiers faced daily, loyalty became their main area of concentration. "It wasn't for the glory," he said. "We fought to protect each other."
He remembers the conditions that he and fellow soldiers faced in Iraq with much trepidation. "There was so much stress and pressure there," he said. "I saw grown men that I looked up to crying." MacBeth said that often American soldiers went for days without sleeping or eating due to the stress and paranoia brought on by the dangerous environment. "We never knew where the gunfire was coming from," he said, "and we were losing battles. A lot of my friends wanted to kill themselves over there."
According to MacBeth, the attitude displayed by Iraqi civilians further dampened the U.S. soldier's spirits. "Some people were grateful that we were over there, and that helped," he said. "But that was only a handful of people. Most of them hated us." The vehemence displayed by the Iraqi people is not completely unjustified, he said. "We wouldn't like it either if soldiers came into our homes with weapons and forced us to live a certain way."
MacBeth joined the army when he was 17 with hopes of defending America's security. He said that he felt a strong sense of duty and a desire to serve during his days of military training. After his experiences in Iraq, he said his feelings have changed. "All of the values like honor, pride and integrity don't mean anything in war," he said. "There's nothing honorable about killing kids. I did nothing heroic."
Though he has been scarred by the desolation of war, MacBeth said he wants to start a new life. He plans on marrying soon and wants to find work and buy a home here in the valley. Counseling sessions to battle his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are still on his agenda and he is undergoing surgeries to remove shrapnel from his back. In November, he'll attend a hearing for his medical discharge from the military. The battle in Iraq is behind him, but MacBeth said he will struggle with his memories of war for a lifetime.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 14:33 Comments ||
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#8
Correct me, but isn't it a crime to impersonate a soldier/sailor/airman/marine? I would pay money to see this turd frog marched to the local police station for booking.
#11
Snicker, the trolls over in Democratic Underground are ripping their "hero" Jesse apart now that he's resigned from the Iraq Veterans Against the War and shown to be a fraud.
"I woulda gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling milbloggers!"
Posted by: Mike ||
05/23/2006 16:19 Comments ||
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#12
"They would sew you up and you'd have to just keep on going,"
Your mission Mac, should you decide to accept it... is to FIND that Canadian nurse and have her "sew up" your anas!"
#13
Besoeker -- the funny thing is, Canada didn't deploy anyone to Iraq.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/23/2006 16:24 Comments ||
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#14
He had to resign, cause he's deepcover like me. Folks laughed when I recalled my days of swooping down on the enemy both minigunz blazing and doing crazy loops in AH-64 mini-gunship. You peoples should google Fascist Chas Johnsons site for my exploits. I'm deep covr now. Out!
Being liberal requires flexibility of principle, but it's been fascinating to watch the contortions of journalists who argue that revealing Ms. Plame's identity was a serious breach of national security which must be prosecuted, but the other leaks are boons to the republic which should be applauded.
The Bush administration disagrees. Investigations into the NSA and "secret prisons" leaks are nearing completion. A senior CIA official has been fired for leaking, and, reportedly, is singing like a canary to avoid prosecution. The FBI knows who's been talking to journalists, ABC's Brian Ross said a source told him.
Journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said on ABC's "This Week" program Sunday.
I doubt journalists will be charged under the Espionage Act, but I do expect vigorous application of the precedent Mr. Fitzgerald set when he jailed Ms. Miller. Reporters who have published or broadcast classified information can expect subpoenas, and can expect to cool their heels in the pokey until they disclose who leaked to them.
That precedent may be Mr. Fitzgerald's lasting legacy. The case against Mr. Libby is weak, and he is disappointingly small potatoes for liberals who have their hearts set on bigger game. At a conference at Princeton University last week, Retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman told several Web loggers the actual target of Mr. Fitzgerald's apparently endless investigation is Richard Armitage.
Mr. Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state, is thought to be Mr. Novak's source, and the source also for Washington Post editor Bob Woodward. He is a logical target, but a most unsatisfying one for Bush haters.
After all the cheerleading journalists have done for Mr. Fitzgerald, it would be ironic if he were remembered most for handing prosecutors the weapon they used against journalists to shut down the leaks on which journalists depend.
#1
"After all the cheerleading journalists have done for Mr. Fitzgerald, it would be ironic if he were remembered most for handing prosecutors the weapon they used against journalists to shut down the leaks on which journalists depend."
Heh.
Make it so. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/23/2006 20:51 Comments ||
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#2
Fitz is one cocky lawyer who would rather spend taxpayer dough than admit the case against Libby is a wet dream.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/23/2006 21:50 Comments ||
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#3
Imagine the Koskids howl when they realize Fitzmas has blown up in their cherubic little tantrum faces
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2006 22:09 Comments ||
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#4
nice image frank, dem kOs Kids have gottum the Royal Whines!
HT to Drudge
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd said today he has "decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008." change my politix, quit drinking with Ted and no more waitress sandwiches...oh, and quit being a jerk
The Connecticut Democrat will hire staff, raise money and travel around the country in the next few months as he tries to enlist support.
Like other presidential contenders, Dodd said during a lengthy interview in his Capitol Hill office that he will not formally decide until early next year whether to make his bid official. At the moment, he joins about 10 other major Democratic Party figures who are considering a run.
Dodd came close to running in 2004 but never entered the race. Circumstances are different today -- he is not up for re-election to his Senate seat, and colleague Joe Lieberman is not running for president. so ...it's safe, and all he can lose is other people's money (OPM) and his delusions of grandeur
Dodd, who turns 62 Saturday, was elected by a wide margin to a fifth Senate term in 2004. He has never lost an election, but starts his White House effort as a long shot -- invisible in most presidential preference polls.
He is highly regarded among his Senate colleagues as a skilled backroom negotiator who has won passage of major legislation, notably the Family and Medical Leave Act, help for minority voters and huge budget boosts for Head Start and child care. rrriiigghhtt
He has been able to get liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans to back such measures, yet he's known among Democratic insiders as an outspoken advocate for partisan causes.
Dodd came within one vote of being chosen Senate leader in 1994, and weeks later he became the Democratic National Committee's general chairman. He overcame early skepticism by many party leaders outside New England and proved to be a popular partisan speaker around the country, particularly with minority constituencies.
But a Dodd White House run would faces numerous hurdles. He lacks the name recognition of candidates such as 2004 ticket-mates John Kerry and John Edwards, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., and others. And the $2 million Dodd has on hand for a race is dwarfed by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's estimated $20 million and Kerry's estimated $17 million. Plus - he's wrong on almost every issue and out of step with America
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2006 10:10 ||
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#4
I want to see lots of Democratic candidates throw their hats in the ring. That forces a discussion of all sorts of issues, for the edification of the voters. Not to mention spending funds otherwise available for all sorts of mischief. Go, Doddy, go!
A prosecutor at the trial of a Pakistani immigrant charged with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station used his closing argument yesterday to urge the jurors to ask themselves a question:
How would they react if someone who shared their anger and passion about a closely held political opinion suggested that they bomb a busy subway station to get their point across?
The prosecutor, Todd Harrison, an assistant United States attorney, told the jurors he believed that each of them, whether the opinion was about the war in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or the new Medicare plan, would say, "Are you crazy?"
"I've got political opinions, but I don't think putting a bomb in crowded subway system in New York City is the way to go," Mr. Harrison said, adding what he thought the jurors would answer: "Thanks, but no thanks."
Mr. Harrison said the four-week trial in Brooklyn federal court boiled down to that simple question and suggested that the jurors use their common sense today, when they begin to weigh the fate of the man charged in the plot, Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23.
One of Mr. Siraj's lawyers, Martin R. Stolar, sought to present a more complex picture in his closing argument. He contended that the plot was driven by a paid police informer, a 50-year-old Egyptian-born man he had sought to portray throughout the trial as a canny and greedy manipulator and the real mastermind.
It was the informer, he said, who treated the younger man like a son and entrapped him by inflaming his political passions with pictures from Abu Ghraib and talk of abuses of Muslims in America and in the Middle East.
He said that his client was not "the brightest bulb in the chandelier" and that it was the informer, Osama Eldawoody, who had convinced him that it was his duty as a Muslim to wage jihad against the American economy, though he urged him to avoid killing.
"The problem here is the firebrand who stirred the pot is a government agent, not some stranger or imam," Mr. Stolar told the jury during his two-hour summation. "And the law does not allow the government to create a crime; it just is not permitted. That is why the defense of entrapment exists."
Throughout the arguments, Mr. Siraj appeared downcast, seated between two of his three lawyers. His fingers were laced together on the defense table, and he was wearing a blue pinstripe suit and a light gray open-collared shirt.
His mother, who prayed in the courtroom hallway during much of the trial, fingering light-green prayer beads and sometimes chanting, sat in the back row of the courtroom, rocking slightly back and forth.
In his opening statement at the trial, Mr. Stolar had acknowledged that his client had taken part in the plot along with another man and Mr. Eldawoody, a nuclear engineer who secretly recorded more than 30 hours of conversations, mostly with Mr. Siraj. The other man, James Elshafay, 21, pleaded guilty and testified against Mr. Siraj.
Mr. Stolar has argued that the government manufactured the crime, noting that Mr. Eldawoody had told the two men that he was part of a nonexistent terrorist group and would supply the explosives. Mr. Stolar stressed to the jury that if they found that his client was not predisposed to commit an act of violence, they should find him not guilty.
Mr. Stolar conceded that many of the statements his client made on the recordings were "despicable stuff" the young man praised Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks, said he approved of suicide bombings in Israel and Palestine and repeatedly talked about killing Jews.
"But the verdict you make is not because you dislike the man, it's because you follow the law," he said. "If your verdict sheet could say 'reluctantly not guilty,' that's the box I want you to check."
Earlier in the day, another prosecutor, Marshall Miller, hammered away at Mr. Siraj's entrapment defense. He detailed statements by Mr. Siraj that he said undercut the argument that he was not predisposed to violence before he met Mr. Eldawoody.
Mr. Miller cited the testimony of an undercover detective who had frequented the Islamic bookstore where Mr. Siraj worked nearly a year before the young man first met Mr. Eldawoody in September 2003.
The detective, who wrote dozens of reports about his conversations with Mr. Siraj, was called to rebut the testimony of Mr. Siraj, who testified that he had never talked about violent jihad or support for terrorism until he met Mr. Eldawoody.
The detective, testifying under a pseudonym, recounted statement after statement that Mr. Siraj had made long before he met the informer, including saying that he hoped Al Qaeda operatives would attack America again and that he would carry out a suicide bombing for revenge if someone killed his family. The detective quoted Mr. Siraj in one of his reports as saying that bin Laden "was a talented brother and a great planner" and said he hoped he "planned something big for America."
Mr. Miller told the jurors they had heard "conversation after conversation of the defendant spouting violent jihad and describing his own violent activities" long before he met Mr. Eldawoody.
Addressing the entrapment defense directly, he argued that the prosecution of Mr. Siraj was justified because he was disposed to carrying out an attack. "If there are people out there who are ready and willing to bomb the subway system, then law enforcement should be out there trying to arrest them before attacks happen," he said.
Mr. Stolar dismissed the government's arguments about his client's statements, saying that just because Mr. Siraj said he could understand suicide bombings in Israel, that does not mean "he is predisposed to blowing up a subway station in New York."
"It's his First Amendment right to have and express that opinion," Mr. Stolar said. "It does not mean that it makes him disposed toward killing or a violent crime."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:41 ||
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#1
How would they react if someone who shared their anger and passion about a closely held political opinion suggested that they bomb a busy subway station to get their point across?
That depends is the subway station in balochistan?
They dont have subways or stations or roads or running water or electricity or much of anything in Balochistan.
Oh thats Ok we dont believe in killing innocents anyway, do you?
INFIDEL! INFIDEL! may allah smite you with his mighty meaty mightyness you profane the very ground you walk on, you refuse jihad.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) Federal prosecutors say the indicted owner of the La Shish restaurant chain has ties to top officials of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as terrorist.
Talal Chahine, 51, of Dearborn Heights and his 39-year-old wife, Elfat El Aouar, of Plymouth, are charged with four counts each of tax evasion. The government says they concealed $16 million or more in cash received by the southeastern Michigan restaurants.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
#1
Holy moly, I used to eat at the La Shish restaurants back in Detroit. Really good middle eastern chow. If this guy's found guilty string his ass up & close down his chain.
#2
I used to enjoy eating at a little deli near my office 'til I took a closer look at the cover of their takeout menu. It is cream colored, with a stylized drawing of the Capitol dome in brown, under a green star and a green crescent moon.
I can't help but wonder if the owner's zakat is going to Hezbollah or Hamas...and no, I don't eat there any more.
"Shish" brings to mind an old Johnny Carson bit - Carnak the magnificient comes to mind - he'd "read" and answer magically to an envelope he was holding, then open the envelope and read the question. Funny stuff.
(Carnac holds the sealed envelope up to his turban)
CARNAC: Shish boom bah.
ED McMAHON: Shish boom bah?
(Carnac rips the envelope open and removes the card)
CARNAC (reading): Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes.
#4
Strip the convicted pair of all their assets, then after they've served their sentences, ship them to Lebanon with the clothes on their backs. Lebanon isn't much fun when you are penniless, a burden on unwilling cousins, and the wife is seriously displeased about the situation.
The last man charged as a member of the "Virginia jihad network" went on trial yesterday, with prosecutors saying Ali Asad Chandia trained at a terrorist camp and helped a foreign terrorist group, while defense attorneys portrayed him as a kindly third-grade teacher who did nothing wrong.
Chandia, 29, is accused of helping Lashkar-i-Taiba acquire an electronic autopilot system and video equipment for use on model airplanes. The group, which the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization, is battling the government of India and runs terrorist camps in Pakistan. Prosecutors said Chandia trained at one of those camps in late 2001 or early 2002, although they acknowledged that they have no eyewitnesses to that.
"He is a radical Islamic jihadist who glorified the use of lethal violence against non-Muslims whether they be in India or the United States," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Laufman said in opening statements at Chandia's trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He said a search of Chandia's College Park home found materials praising the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including "images of our fellow citizens jumping from the burning towers to their deaths." Chandia was indicted in September.
Defense attorney Marvin Miller said that Chandia, who teaches at a Muslim school in Maryland, is "a scholar in his Islamic faith." He denied that Chandia trained at a Lashkar camp, saying he was in Pakistan to attend his brother's wedding.
"He is not on trial for what he thinks -- or he shouldn't be. And he is not on trial for what he believes," Miller told the 10-woman, four-man jury, which includes two alternates. "He is on trial for you to decide whether or not he did anything."
The trial brought back some of the emotion surrounding what prosecutors called the jihad network case. Over the past several years, 10 Muslim men have been convicted of training for holy war against the United States or inspiring others to do so. The training included playing paint ball in the Virginia countryside, and some of the defendants attended Lashkar camps in Pakistan.
Federal officials have described the case as one of the most important domestic terrorism prosecutions since Sept. 11, but some Northern Virginia Muslims have accused prosecutors of targeting their religious community.
About a dozen supporters of Chandia's were in court yesterday. One Maryland man, Steve Lapham, briefly disrupted jury selection by yelling: "I object to these show trials against my Muslim American neighbors!" As court security officers led him away, he added: "It's a joke!"
Tanweer Ahmad, whose daughter attends Dar al-Huda school in College Park, where Chandia works, said in an interview that he views the case as "just the government, again, trying to play on people's fears."
Chandia is charged with four counts of providing or conspiring to provide material support to Lashkar. If convicted, he faces up to 60 years in prison. Also named in the indictment is Mohammed Ajmal Khan, a British national whom prosecutors called a top Lashkar official. He is serving a prison term in Britain for terrorism offenses.
Prosecutors said Chandia traveled to a Lashkar office in Lahore, Pakistan, in November 2001 shortly after resigning from his job at a Costco store. He is accused of working with other defendants to help Khan obtain equipment for the group. The equipment allegedly included 50,000 paint balls and components of an "electronic automatic pilot system" that can be installed on a small remote-controlled airplane using Global Positioning System coordinates.
It is unclear whether any of the equipment was used by Lashkar -- or if any was intended for use in the United States. "Nobody knows where it is. It's never been seen," Miller told the jury.
Armed with details of billions of telephone calls, the National Security Agency used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to create a template of how phone activity among terrorists looks, say current and former intelligence officials who were briefed about the program.
The template, the officials say, was created from a secret database of phone call records collected by the spy agency. It has been used since 9/11 to identify calling patterns that indicate possible terrorist activity. Among the patterns examined: flurries of calls to U.S. numbers placed immediately after the domestic caller received a call from Pakistan or Afghanistan, the sources say.
USA TODAY disclosed this month that the NSA secretly collected call records of tens of millions of Americans with the help of three companies: AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The call records include information on calls made before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Verizon and BellSouth released statements last week denying they had contracts with the NSA to provide the call information. A Verizon spokesman said the company's statement did not include MCI, the long-distance company that Verizon acquired in January.
The "call detail records" are the electronic information that is logged automatically each time a call is initiated. For more than 20 years, local and long-distance companies have used call detail records to figure out how much to charge each other for handling calls and to determine problems with equipment.
In addition to the number from which a call is made, the detail records are packed with information. Also included: the number called; the route a call took to reach its final destination; the time, date and place where a call started and ended; and the duration of the call. The records also note whether the call was placed from a cellphone or from a traditional "land line."
"They see everything," says Sergio Nirenberg, director of systems engineering at Science Applications International Corp., a Fortune 500 research and engineering company that works with the federal government. Nirenberg said he does not have direct knowledge of the NSA database.
The disclosure of the call record database has raised concerns among lawmakers, such as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that the records give the government access to information about innocent Americans. President Bush has insisted that intelligence efforts are only "focused on links to al-Qaeda and their known affiliates."
The intelligence officials offered new insight into one way the database of calls is used to track terrorism suspects.
The officials, two current U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the program and two former U.S. intelligence officials, agreed to talk on condition of anonymity. The White House and the NSA refused to discuss the template or the program.
Using computer programs, the NSA searches through the database looking for suspicious calling patterns, the officials say. Because of the size of the database, virtually all the analysis is done by computer.
Calls coming into the country from Pakistan, Afghanistan or the Middle East, for example, are flagged by NSA computers if they are followed by a flood of calls from the number that received the call to other U.S. numbers.
The spy agency then checks the numbers against databases of phone numbers linked to terrorism, the officials say. Those include numbers found during searches of computers or cellphones that belonged to terrorists.
It is not clear how much terrorist activity, if any, the data collection has helped to find.
Not every call record contains the same level of detail. Depending upon how a business has its phone system set up, the call detail records might not register complete information on an outgoing call, Nirenberg says.
The records might note only the general number of the business, not the desk extension or, in the case of a hotel, the room extension. Incoming calls that don't go through the switchboard and are dialed directly would have complete call detail records, Nirenberg says.
Not all local calls generate a call detail record, Nirenberg says. But that's not to say that phone companies can't create a record for local calls.
"It's just a matter of whether they enable that function" that allows that to happen, he says. Cellphone calls, on the other hand, create call detail records in almost every case.
Toll calls meaning those that aren't technically long-distance but still cost extra also generate call detail records, he says. "If they charge you separately for it, they have a call detail record," Nirenberg says.
The current and former intelligence officials say that the point of the database is to create leads. The database enables intelligence analysts to focus on a manageable number of suspicious calling patterns, they say.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:46 ||
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Call detail records are useful up to a point.
With the CRAB WALK of CDMA they might not tell the complete story and dropped calls don't aways have a reasonable reason for the drop encoded in the message.... One of the problems with a Call Detail Log.. esp in cellular is that their can be too much useless information in it. Only a few people have a real feel for the truely useful info. In that sense mining them can be an art.
#2
Bastards. Thanks for giving away one of the most useful tools to find terrorists in our midst.
Posted by: ed ||
05/23/2006 1:04 Comments ||
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The orignal aspect of this type of report is for engineering and billing purposes. (Engr being primary)
To quote:
CDLs are generally used to answer questions about a specific call that has completed and about which some question has arisen. They are also used to spot large numbers of call failures or short duration calls that are associated with specific equipment, and are also used to provide an indication as to why specific types of call failures occurred. Note that performance management statistics and call processing exception reports also provide critical information about abnormal call behavior. Performance management statistics provide an overall view of system performance (e.g. number of calls, equipment usage) and aggregate various failures so that problem areas can be spotted. Call processing exception reports provide information about failures associated with a specific call. Information from both the CDL and from exception reports may be necessary to diagnose a call.
The key word is diagnose. They are used to solve problems when you the customer has a complaint or when some equipment fails.
#4
you always know it's a very effective terror fighting tool when the Dem party comes out demanding answers and more information on how it works. Remember, some of these folks are on our intelligence committe and defense committies.
#6
Same technology's being used by Frito Lay to decide where to stock what products and by credit bureaus to reduce lending risks. You give a whole lot more info to your grocery store, if you pay with a credit card, than NSA could possibly extract from the call records.
#7
These guys are wedded to their kewl cell phones. They won't be able to give them up for long. The Number 1s and #2s, perhaps, but not the #3s and the cannon fodder... all it needs is the end of the thread to pull to unravel the whole thing. And, the call histories can't be changed by stopping now, not to mention that radically changing a pattern of behaviour is equally revealing.
Or so, based on reading entirely too many novels, I suspect.
#8
I wonder what the tinfoil beanie set would make of the phrase "control sample."
Posted by: James ||
05/23/2006 13:51 Comments ||
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Pakistan could call Britain, who calls from a hotel and texts someone in code to enact another calling tree or e-mail notification so clusters of calls don't show up, but most aren't bright enough to figure it out. I think this is a great use of computers, but I think it would also pick out the criminals operating with cell phones. Call girls, drug dealers, and other illegal businesses would show clusters of incoming calls. Then there are the real traitors, who do understand how it all works and thought they had it all covered but are sweating it out as they wait to see if they are snagged in someone's else's web. Pretty tough to cover electronic tracks made years ago :)
#10
We were kind of freaked by one guy who was in cell phone calls exactly 40hrs a week.
(You can't listen in so...)
After making a study of him for a month or so my friend couldn't figure it out. Most of his calls were made to him. I commented that maybe he was a bookie or a pimp or drug dealer. See what his numbers map to.
We always simled about that guy and threw him out of or data analysis after one of the guys called him and figured out quickly he was a bookie.
EFL: After years of barely noticed and largely piecemeal operations against the Karen National Union (KNU), the ethnic minority's resistance movement, Burma's junta has launched its biggest offensive in Karen state since 1997. The army's operations are seen as a bid to annihilate the largest of the half-dozen ethnic minority fighting forces ranged against it.
Since seizing power in 1962, the military has turned Burma into one of the most repressed and reclusive nations on earth. The only time the generals allowed an election, in 1990, they were soundly defeated by the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She was never allowed to take office and since then the repression has increased dramatically. Forced labour is common, Ms Suu Kyi is among the estimated 1,300 political prisoners and all democratic institutions have been emasculated.
As the economy has collapsed and international demands for change have mounted, the junta's paranoia has also risen markedly. Last year it moved the capital from Rangoon to a purpose-built, heavily fortified city near Pyinmana, deep in the jungle.
The junta's information minister, Brigadier Kyaw Hsan, admitted last week that the army is attempting to "clear up" the last of the KNU "terrorist'" resistance, and recent media reports have labelled events in remote eastern Burma as a war or conflict.
Resistance
But in fact the under-equipped, poorly trained forces of the Burmese army are refusing to take on the several thousand-strong Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), which has perfected its guerrilla tactics over 57 years of resistance. The forces are instead trying to eliminate the KNLA by starving it of money, food and recruits through the systematic razing of all Karen villages in the predominantly highland areas they do not control.
Fewer than 100 civilians have been killed since the offensive began in November because as soon as villagers are tipped off about an attack, they flee. This year the operation has spread, and recently the number of destroyed villages has climbed to more than 60, with more than 16,000 people on the run, according to reports from advocacy groups such as the Free Burma Rangers and the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG).
Aid groups say tens of thousands of civilians are under imminent threat because the junta appears to be forgoing its usual withdrawal for the monsoon season, which has just begun. "Our sources tell us the [army] are now transporting more food rations, ammunition and reinforcements to the frontlines," said Gilbert Shu of the Karen Office of Relief and Development. "It's clear they're preparing to fight on an even bigger scale than before, despite the weather." More at link
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 08:35 ||
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So the ruling Junta of Burma have no economy to speak of, no foriegn relations, no allies, no popular support. Just enemies and paranoid fantasies.
#2
A couple of years ago, 2003-2004, I read a surprisingly positive story (as in "this is the USA we like vs Chimpiebush's one" in a very anti-US mag) about an ex-US Special Forces medic who after his retirement had joined an humanitarian christian group, and helped the Karen fight for survival.
He so smuggled medical supplies and others commodities in the jungle, along with a team of Karen guerilla (though he was apparently unarmed, from what I understood), and helped refugees the best he could.
I also saw a tv documentary about the Karens, same timeframe, in which he was featured.
All this to say that this whole mess is an a particulary sad case of an ethnic/religious (Karens are christian) minority being oppressed, slaughtered, and "culturally genocided" by its own gvt (it's called ethnocide, I think)... in absolute msm silence!
The same public opinion formating elite who swallow the paleo/muslim propaganda hook line and sinker is completely silent about that (and the Darfur ethnic cleansing, and Nigeria "religious strife", and Chyprus ' occupation,...). I think they don't just care, it doesn't suit their agenda, it doesn't even register.
The main Kashmiri separatist parties on Monday decided to stay away from the second roundtable meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Srinagar on Wednesday. The moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and the Shabbir Ahmed Shah-led Democratic Freedom Party turned down Singh's invitation on the grounds that there could be no serious discussions in the crowded conference attended by as many as 30 pro-India groups.
At a crowded press conference in Srinagar, Mirwaiz said his alliance was, however, willing to meet the prime minister separately during his two-day visit to Kashmir. For the past a few days, intelligence agencies and officials of the Prime Minister's Office lobbied hectically to seek the participation of the moderate Hurriyat and a separate meeting was seen as a way out of the impasse. But the pro-India National Conference (NC) threatened to boycott the meeting if the prime minister met Hurriyat leaders separately. The party president, Omar Abdullah, said when Pakistan had recognised their party and its president, Pervez Musharraf, had met him separately, "why is Hurriyat being so rigid?".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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Pakistan has asked Kabul to concentrate on addressing its internal problems through political processes instead of blaming Pakistan for the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. "The Afghan government's failure to deal with the situation cannot be placed at Pakistan's door," Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said in her weekly briefing in Islamabad on Monday.
Aslam said the recent violence in Afghanistan showed that the Taliban were operating from inside Afghanistan and Kabul should not blame Pakistan for its weaknesses. She said the Afghan government had failed to tackle the unrest and become frustrated, making baseless allegations against Pakistan. She said Pakistan had tried its best for peace in Afghanistan but it was the duty of the Afghan government to work for national reconciliation. Pakistan had made several suggestions to bring peace in Afghanistan, including increased tripartite coordination, fencing of the Pak-Afghan border, return of Afghan refugees and regular meetings of foreign ministers.
She said Pakistan was also suffering from infiltration from the Afghan side and had done more than anyone to control terrorism in the area by deploying over 80,000 troops and setting up 800 border posts.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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Top bosses of Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) are to appear, for the first time, before the Senate body on defence to brief members about the agency'ss functions and covert operations, as well as the role of the agency's infamous political cell in the making and breaking of political governments in Pakistan since its creation by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 70s.
The National Assembly also has a standing committee on defence, headed by the Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, but the body has never asked ISI officials to brief members of the lower house about its function, role and responsibilities. However, the ISI bosses will testify to the senators at a closed-doors meeting, as the Senate Standing Committee on Defence is the only parliamentary committee whose deliberations are not open to journalists.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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Lt Gen (r) Ali Jan Muhammad Orakzai will replace outgoing NWFP governor Khalilur Rehman, sources told Daily Times on Monday. Sources said that President General Pervez Musharraf had decided to appoint Orakzai as the new NWFP governor. "A notification in this regard will be issued soon," they said. The president accepted the Rehman's resignation on Monday, they added. "Rehman will likely be appointed as an advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz."
Orakzai has served as the Peshawar Corps commander and currently is the Defence and Production Division secretary. Sources aid that Rehman sent his resignation to Aiwan-e-Saddar. He resigned from governorship after less than a year in his tenure. Rumours about the outgoing NWFP governor's resignation had been spreading for several months and it had been reported that he would leave the office soon.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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CCCI Convicts 12 Terrorists Insurgents; One Sentenced to Death, Four Sentenced to Life in Prison
BAGHDAD, Iraq The Central Criminal Court of Iraq convicted 12 security detainees May 10 through May 16 for various crimes including organizing, heading, leading, joining armed groups, murder and possessing illegal weapons.
The trial court found Mahdi Ahmed Musa Ali al Jabouri guilty of violating Article 194 and Article 406 of the Iraqi Penal Code for organizing, heading, leading, joining armed groups and murder, and sentenced him to death. Coalition Forces apprehended him for leading a terror cell in Mosul. The defendant said he believes in killing Coalition Forces, Iraqi Police and Iraqi National Guard members because he says they are not enforcing Gods will. The defendant has regularly kidnapped people, interrogated them and then killed them, frequently in front of their families. He has attacked Iraqi Police stations with sniper shots and RPGs, stolen their computers and weapons and set the stations on fire. The defendant confessed to the murder of an Iraqi National Guard colonel in order to discourage people from supporting the Iraqi government.
The trial court found Kareem Abdellah Sabbar, Munzir Ali Khamis, Qasey Hamid Abid and Khaleel Abid Al-Hussein Ali guilty ... sentenced to life imprisonment.
Coalition Forces apprehended them after searching their house where they found five 122mm mortars, five functional charges, a burlap sack with five types of rounds and increments for other mortars and one AK-47 with four magazines. Coalition Forces returned to the site the next day and completed a detailed search of the property where they found a kidnapped Egyptian man who had been held there for 18 days and had been severely beaten and tortured.
....
To date, the CCCI has held 1069 trials of insurgents suspected of anti-Iraqi and anti-Coalition activities threatening the security of Iraq and targeting MNF-I. These proceedings have resulted in 960 individual convictions with sentences ranging up to death.
#3
State Department abolishes death penalty, Iraqi government reinstates it:
The Iraqi authorities have hanged 13 people accused of taking part in the insurgency, the first execution of militants since the US-led invasion.
"The competent authorities have today carried out the death sentences of 13 terrorists," a cabinet statement said.
The name of only one of those executed was released. Shuqair Farid, a former policeman, allegedly confessed he had enlisted Iraqis to carry out attacks.
Three convicted murderers were hanged last September.
The US-led coalition abolished the death penalty in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but it was re-instated during the handover to Iraqi control in June 2004.
#6
maybe the 9th court, Ginsberg, Kennedy, and Arlen Specter will cite this foreign law and support capital punishment? Selective appreciation, I guess
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2006 16:45 Comments ||
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I think the Iraqis need to appreciate some of their more appropriate traditions and bring back Hassan with the really big scimitar for public beheadings of scum like these.
May 23, 2006: The war in Iraq may actually be drawing terrorists away from other targets, as official US claims assert. But this does not necessarily mean that the neglected targets are in the Western. The real objective of Osama bin Laden and other Islamists is the overthrow of the Saudi regime, in order to secure control of the Moslem Holy Places in Mecca and Medina. This would provide the extremists with considerable legitimacy in the Moslem world.
The Saudi security forces had kept al Qaeda at bay up until 2003, when the American invasion of Iraq stirred up Islamic radicals world wide. While that led to al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia, many more Saudi Islamic militants went off to Iraq, which was seen as the main battlefield. The Saudi government did little to halt this exodus, although it did pay attention to those who survived and returned. Most did not make it back, instead they were (usually) killed or (in a few cases) captured. This exodus gave the Saudi police a lot fewer terrorists to run down on their own turf. As a result, after two years, al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia was reduced to a small group of fugitives. Al Qaeda was still a dangerous force in Saudi Arabia, but not nearly as lethal as it might have been if so many of its most ardent supporters had not gone off and gotten themselves killed in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia was not the only Arab nation to benefit from the carnage in Iraq. An equal number of suicidal Islamic terrorists from other Middle Eastern nations also showed up, usually dead, in Iraq. Their governments back home were glad to see them go, although some of the families complained to the government in an effort to get their sons back. But since these trips were usually made illegally (by going to Syria, where an al Qaeda smuggling operation got them across the border), there was little the government could do except contact Iraqi officials and try to get the bodies back. Often there were only body parts, as many of these volunteers ended up as suicide bombers. American intelligence tried to identify as many of the suicide bombers as possible, including the use of DNA. The intel folks wanted to know where the bombers came from, and who they were. This allowed police back home to look into the dead man's friends and associates. That led to more al Qaeda getting arrested. Dead men do tell tales.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 09:54 ||
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Conversely, the US is missing a bet, here.
The US military figured out a while ago that pictures of dead bodies and coffins, no matter of who, or where, or why, always works against the US war effort. This is why they go to such great lengths to control such unexplained media from the American public.
However, they have not made use of this phenomenon elsewhere. That is, how many would be inspired to become jihadis if they were deluged with pictures of mangled and dead, fly-covered, bloated bodies of other jihadis, rotting in the gutter?
The US should encourage Moslem countries to revel in carnage photography. Let *them* see mass graves, weeping parents who want to bury their son's leg--all that remains of him. Let *them* see their children as hospitalized, crippled and maimed prisoners, all in a futile and senseless massacre.
Everywhere they look they should see the horror, misery and death jihad has brought forth, the utter failure of it, and the brutality of the beasts that inflict it on mostly other Moslems.
Interspersed with pictures of the war-mongering Mullahs who constantly call for it. The fat and insolent cowards who tell others to charge the guns and be mutilated and die agonizing deaths, while they, the Priests, rest in idle luxury and wealth.
The US found during Vietnam how demoralizing such photography can truly be. I say that we share the wealth, and provide them with more 8x10 glossies of goatse-quality grotesquery than all but the heartiest of their stomachs can endure.
A statement dated May 18, 2006, from the Mujahideen Army [Jeish al-Mujahideen] in Iraq describes the Resistance Strategy Facing the Controlling Strategy, which concerns a plan to effect Muslim victory over the aims of the big Crusader/Zionist colonial project. The group begins by recommending that people must be allocated to the fields to which they are specialized, and preachers are to impress upon Muslims the high standards of Islam and solve any doctrinal problems that may arise. These, and a complete resistance involving a comprehensive, international movement with Iraq as the locus and patience, are means to stop the encroachment of the enemy in Islamic community structure culturally, socially, and economically.
The Mujahideen Army advocates continued attacks upon economic targets, harming Americas ability to import oil, and affecting the state culturally, by exploiting their big international mistakes and uncovering additional instances of prisoner abuse. They state that these changes will only be wrought by the faithful Muslims: Really its a good chance to realize the hope which hangs on the horizon - it is true and not dreams - that the end of the American offense will be by the hands of the believers, as the Soviet offense was ended. To this end the group entreats Muslims to place greater trust in Allah and His ability to weaken the enemy forces, as it allegedly happened in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and to look upon the mujahideen favorably, reversing the damaged caused by the Crusaders.
In summation of the strategys goal, the statement indicates: The chance is ready now for the Muslims to form a new global order starting from the Iraqi land which Crusaders want to start their project to change the Muslims and the world to be herds of slaves in the global crusaders Zionists empire within the American empire project.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:30 ||
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Next month they will release the cheat codes.
Posted by: ed ||
05/23/2006 1:57 Comments ||
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LOL, ed. A lot of games will be lost between now and then, I think.
#3
In summation of the strategys goal, the statement indicates: The chance is ready now for the Muslims to form a new global order starting from the Iraqi land which Crusaders want to start their project to change the Muslims and the world to be herds of slaves in the global crusaders Zionists empire within the American empire project.
Nice mix of paranoia and megalomania... one can really feel the arabo-muslim touch in it!
#5
"The chance is ready now for the Muslims to form a new global order" - this, unfortunately, is what we're seeing wid MadMoud of the Apocalypse, as Moud and the Mulahs are going hell-bent towards nuclear-armed Regional-Global Caliphate, come Asteroid, Super-nova, Paris Hilton sex video or another Britney Spears pregnancy.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - Iraqi officials believe they can double their daily oil output quickly if a new government improves security, US Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Monday. Snow spoke to reporters travelling with him after a private meeting with Sinan Al Shabibi, Iraqs central bank governor, about conditions in Iraq now that a new national unity government is in place. The governor indicated he thought it was well within reason to think that with security, and the investment that would come with security, Iraq would have daily production through the pipeline on the order of 3 to 3.5 million (barrels) and that could be achieved quickly, said Snow.
Snow said Iraqs daily production was running at around 1.6 million barrels. Snow said it was heartening that Iraq finally had a government in place under Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki with a cabinet that includes Shiites, minority Sunnis and Kurds and that it is committed to combating violence.
He said the countrys prospects hinge on its success. The framework has now been put in place, but that framework can only produce good economic results when the missing ingredient -- security -- is in place, Snow said. Security is now everything in terms of the path forward.
Snow and Shabibi were in the Red Sea resort city for talks on Sunday among members of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) group that aims to promote greater regulatory integration and development in the region.
The two held a separate meeting on Monday. Iraqs newly named finance minister, Bayan Jabor, was not in Egypt for the discussions. Snow declined to comment when asked about reports that Jabor was disliked by US officials who felt that Jabor, a member of a powerful Iraqi Shiite political group, had failed to rein in Shiite militias while he was interior minister. I dont know him, Snow said, adding that Shabibi had described Jabor as a personal friend who had considerable business experience. I look forward to meeting him soon, Snow said, but added that he was unsure when that might happen.
While he and Shabibi did not discuss a timeline within which Iraq needs to establish increased security, Snow said it needed to happen soon to benefit the Iraqi economy. The next six months will be the time for this government to come together, show what it can accomplish, take charge of the security issue, Snow said, so that Iraq is seen as a safer investment site. With security will come investments, with security will come much better performance of the electricity sector, which had been badly hurt by saboteurs. With security will come investment in oil and much higher oil output, Snow said.
I'd downplay the 'six month' theme; don't want to give the Left an excuse to proclaim failure all over again.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/23/2006 00:52 ||
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Perhaps the consumers of Iraqi oil might help out with the "security". It's easier for them to carp and do nothing. It's their stagnating economies and citzens who suffer because they never ever do the right thing. All they doo is tut tut and but, but.
Iraqi guards at Saddam Hussein's trial manhandled a defense lawyer from the court on Monday before witnesses, including one of the former president's half-brothers, gave testimony for some of his co-defendants. Lebanese attorney Bushra Khalil, a vocal presence in previous televised appearances for the defense, yelled in protest and threw off her black court robe. "Are you a lawyer or a gang boss?" Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman barked at Khalil, who slapped the hand of a guard as he dragged her out of the chamber.
"A gang boss. Why do you ask?"
At the start of the hearing, Khalil had objected to her ejection from court in a previous session. After the argument with Abdul Rahman rose in pitch, he ordered her removed from court and described her behavior as "an insult to justice". Amid the clamor, Saddam stood to object and declared: "I am the president of Iraq", only to be told sharply by Abdul Rahman: "No you are a defendant."
Saddam's half-brother Sabbawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti appeared as a witness to speak in defense of his own full brother Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's former intelligence chief. Sabbawi said he would also later testify for Saddam. He described himself as a "presidential adviser until April 9, 2003" -- the day Saddam fled U.S. forces invading Baghdad. Sabbawi, like his brothers Barzan and Watban, has been in U.S. custody. The three brothers are sons of Saddam's mother's second marriage.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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Perfect pic. (Ugh. Clowns. Only things worse are mimes... *shudder*)
The Jordanian government on Monday threatened to close its embassy in Gaza City in response to the killing of the Jordanian ambassador's driver during clashes between Hamas and Fatah gunmen, Palestinian Authority officials here told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the officials, senior Jordanian government officials expressed deep concern over the growing violence in the Gaza Strip and warned that Jordan would close its embassy and recall its ambassador unless the two parties put an end to the daily clashes.
"The Jordanians are very angry," said one official. "We hope they won't take any drastic measures following the unfortunate incident."
PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas phoned the Jordanian ambassador, Yahya al-Karalla, and expressed deep regret over the death of the driver, who was identified as Khaled Radaidah, 48, who is a Jordanian citizen. Ten others were wounded in the clashes, most of them passersby.
Radaida's body was flown home Tuesday for burial, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
Radaida's coffin, draped in the Jordanian flag, was escorted by Palestinian police to the Erez crossing into Israel, Palestinian security officials said. From there, the body was taken to the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, where a Jordanian helicopter flew the body to Amman, said Yossi Tzemach, an official at an Israeli liaison office at Erez.
Monday's killing brings to eight the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of the month in internecine fighting. Earlier in the day, 23-year-old Muhammed Abu Toaymeh, a Fatah gunman, was killed in an armed clash with Hamas militiamen in the town of Abbasan in the southern Gaza Strip.
PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders also phoned the ambassador to offer their condolences.
The driver was shot and killed during heavy clashes that erupted between Hamas's new security force and Fatah gunmen near the offices of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza City. Eyewitnesses said Radaidah was hit by stray bullets after his car was caught in the crossfire.
Fatah and Hamas held each other responsible for the killing. Abdel Hakim Awad, a Fatah spokesman, claimed the Jordanian driver was shot and killed by members of Hamas's security force.
"These black militias are responsible for the anarchy in the Gaza Strip," he said. "They are patrolling the streets in unofficial vehicles and their identities are unknown. Today's clashes began when the Hamas militiamen opened fire at Palestinian security officers."
Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, said Interior Minister Said Siam was responsible for the growing tensions because of his decision to establish the new Hamas force. "This is a mafia and a gang that has been terrorizing the people," the group said in a statement. "We call on the Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip to prevent their sons from joining this mafia which belongs to the Interior Minister."
Hamas, on the other hand, claimed that Radaidah was killed by members of the PA's Preventative Security Service. A top Hamas leader told the Post that the assassins belong to the Preventative Security Service's "death squad" headed by Nabil Tamous. "They opened fire from automatic weapons at Hamas gunmen stationed near the Palestinian Legislative Council, killing the Jordanian driver," he said.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, said the clashes erupted between Hamas's security forces and "suspicious" gunmen. "These clashes were not between the [Hamas] special force and the Palestinian security forces," he said. "Some suspicious gunmen are trying to trigger civil war and dissension."
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called on Haniyeh to dismantle the new security force. The appeal was made during a meeting between a PFLP delegation and Haniyeh in Gaza City. PFLP representative Rabah Muhana told Haniyeh that the decision to deploy the 3,000-strong force was a mistake because it was illegally established.
The Palestinian people will not descend into a civil war, and the rival Hamas and Fatah groups will overcome the current round of violence that has plagued the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Tuesday.
"We are concerned about ending this crisis. The term civil war does not exist in our dictionary," Haniyeh said as he entered a meeting with the 13 Palestinian factions to discuss the recent events.
"I assure our people that we can overcome these incidents. These incidents have taken place before and we have overcome the similar incidents," he added.
#2
The term civil war does not exist in our dictionary,
That's why we use the term banana. No matter who wins, it will be a green banana. But if the Joooos get involved, it will be a yellow banana. When that's done, it will be a brown banana. Inshallah.
May 23, 2006: American troops can finally get a hot cup of coffee in the combat zone. Over the last two decades, U.S. troops have lost the ability to cook their own food, including just preparing a cup of coffee. The World War II era "steel pot" helmet was great for boiling water (for coffee), and the aluminum mess kit could be used for cooking. The helmet was replaced with a Kevlar model, that gave better protection, but was unusable for cooking. The mess kit was replaced with MREs, and withdrawn from service because of the difficulty of providing cleaning facilities (to prevent dirty mess kits from spreading disease.) In the field, when there were portable kitchens, paper trays and plastic utensils were provided. There was still the metal canteen cup, but even that was disappearing, as rigid canteens were replaced with flexible ones. Preparing hot coffee, or any other hot beverage, using the canteen cup and heating tabs was messy and a hassle. Many troops, it turned out, just didn't bother. Fighting a war without coffee is one of things the troops would rather avoid.
So the army finally relented and provided a new system that is simple, convenient, and works. Troops mix instant coffee with water in a Hot Beverage Bag (HBB), then slide it into the flameless ration heater bags normally used to heat up meals. A chemical reaction within the ration bag heats the water in the HBB. After a few minutes, the coffee is hot and ready to drink. But not out of the bag, obviously. A foldable cardboard carton is used to protect the hands from the heat and, in effect, creates a coffee cup with a plastic liner.
While veterans are often nostalgic about the steel pot and mess kit, and warming up food over a campfire, in the combat zone this was often not possible. Such fires would draw unwanted attention from the enemy. The HBB/heater bag/cardboard carton combo works anywhere, anytime, and does not reveal your position to the enemy. The troops like it a lot, and it proved particularly popular in Afghanistan this past Winter. While it gets chilly in Iraq during the Winter, it gets downright freezing cold in Afghanistan. A hot cup of coffee, for guys standing guard at 4 AM, was much appreciated.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 10:02 ||
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#1
Bout bloody time! I always did wonder what the *&^*&% they were thinking, issuing tea bags and coffee, with no way to heat drinking water.
What I had to do was purchase a small camp stove, and lug that thing with me everywhere.
OTOH, I was very popular at remote sites, and with the Jundis (I A privates) out in the field.
Fyi: I used a MSA Dragonfly-- It can be modified to run on Diesel/JP8. Lightweight, and small enough that it can fit in a cargo pocket when folded up. ~$200
Posted by: N guard ||
05/23/2006 10:22 Comments ||
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Yes, and you would get in deep trouble for using your steel pot for cooking. Either your NCO would kick you up one side, if you were lucky, or you be surprised in the future by frag cutting through your helmet like butter, if you weren't lucky.
#4
This article is crap. This is not new. These bags have been around for years. I first saw them in Panama in '93 while I was in the Mississippi National Guard.
No- Not the UAV-- a small, commercialy made liquid fuel camp stove. The Dragon[name] series of UAV's are a Marine thing. The closest version the army has is called a Raven.
I'm hanging on to my 1qt. canteen and cup. In Iraq I found them to be more useful than the camelbak, interestingly enough.
ob1- I concurr WRT your comments about cooking using a steel pot helmet. I disagree about the heaters though. Yes, we've had the flameless heaters for years, and they heat the ration packs well enough, but no one in any unit i've ever been in has been smart and/or ranger enough to figure out a reliable way using the existing heaters to heat water w/o poisoning the water. It was one of those little annoyances of army life.
Course, in Armor, we do have our tank's 1500 deg. exhaust jet.(Mr. Abrams coffee maker, anyone? :) ) When our tanks are available, and we are not being used for some non-armor related task.
Posted by: N guard ||
05/23/2006 19:04 Comments ||
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MSA stoves are great. I've used the same Whisperlite going on 20 years new.
A hardcore commando would have lashed up a road kill chili pot to the tank exhaust.
Posted by: ed ||
05/23/2006 21:54 Comments ||
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President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said.
The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.
"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.
Eliot A. Jardines, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for open source, said the amount of unclassified intelligence reaching Mr. Bush and senior policy-makers has increased as a result of the center's creation in November.
#4
Alpha, the dog is in the tobacco. Repeat: Alpha, the dog is in the tobacco.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/23/2006 9:36 Comments ||
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Hi Guys! If you're ops get back to the range or fieldcraft, if you're an analyst go bug NSA/NRO for some of the good stuff. And if you're log, stop jacking around on the web and go fix something.
Regards to General Hayden and the big Axe he is going to split the place with.
Posted by: kelly ||
05/23/2006 10:07 Comments ||
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I think one of the O Club beavers is bugged
Hmpf. How ... untactful, Frank. Bucky wasn't "bugged" he ... had a slight environmental problem due to insufficient water levels in the pond out back. Being a good environmentalist, he avoided bathing as often as usual and ... um ... well ... Frontline works wonders, it turns out, and is waterproof to boot.
AND, I should add, Miss Gentle did NOT have a similar problem.
Shame on you, Frank. It's sensitivity training for you!!!
#11
Hi Guys! If you're ops get back to the range or fieldcraft, if you're an analyst go bug NSA/NRO for some of the good stuff. And if you're log, stop jacking around on the web and go fix something.
#13
If your management, keep reading, we'll tell you what to do.
GET RID OF THE MSM, before they get us all killed.
If you can't, pass the word on to someone who can and will.
#15
Hi CIA guys! Oh, and the guy that sits in room 231 in the 3rd cube on the right, Dude... change your diet. You are killing us in the bathroom. DAMN! See a doctor. Really.
#21
In the unlikely event your search engine hasn't pick the rant up yet.... Osama, Osama bin Laden, Osama ben Laden, Osoma Ben Laden, Ossama Bin loden, UBL, Binladan, bin Laden's.
#27
Guys, it's the CIA for crying out loud. They're web surfing over at KOS and DemocraticUnderground and MoveOn.
Naaaa, those are considered FRIENDLY sites. They're hanging around Michelle Malkin, Power Line, and the RIGHT wing stuff, looking for clues. Of course, many of the people at CIA are so blind even the biggest clue would elude them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/23/2006 18:16 Comments ||
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I wish SOMEONE would decode Joes' posts and tell me what they say.
SOUTHEAST Asian extremist groups have turned to the internet to recruit people and raise funds but they have not yet been able to mount cyber attacks, a security expert says.
Rohan Gunaratna, head of the political violence and terrorism centre at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) used the internet extensively to spread its propaganda.
"It will take a very long time for Southeast Asian groups to develop the capability to attack the internet," he said. "Instead of attacking the internet, they are using the internet."
He was in Malaysia to address Southeast Asian security officials on US-backed training on counter-terrorism, including cyber-terrorism and suicide bombing.
A Malaysian counter-terrorism official told the meeting that the threat from cyber attacks in the region was real but offered no information of any specific threat.
"The threat is real. It's not the question of how or what, but it is only of when," said Yean Yoke Heng, deputy head of the Malaysian-based South East Asia Regional Center for Counter Terrorism.
"We need a better coordination ... to be better prepared to face any cyber attacks by hackers, by terrorist groups," he said.
Malaysia announced recently that it would set up a centre that provides an emergency response to cyber attacks on the economy or trading system of any country.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said companies such as Symantec, Trend Micro and Kapersky Lab had agreed to be key partners.
Mr Gunaratna, who has written books on al Qaeda and JI, played down the possibility of such attacks by regional militant groups.
"There are no groups in Southeast Asia that are capable of attacking the internet at this point of time," he told reporters.
"But there are a number of terrorist groups that are using the internet very effectively to distribute propaganda, to recruit, to raise funds and to coordinate terrorist attacks," he said.
They included JI, al Qaeda's franchise in Southeast Asia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:07 ||
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rohan gunaratna is a phoney expert who has been exposed. He was only an expert on the Tamil/sri Lankan situation and that translated to 'terrorism expert' (in tamil tiger terrorism) when he had a useful idiotarian quote for SBS or the ABC when they wanted to support the Religion Of Peace.
BEIRUT - Lebanese Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamadeh, a close aide to Walid Jumblatt, said that Syrias arrest warrants against the prominent MP were worthless, in remarks published on Tuesday.
The Syrian warrants are worthless ... since they are addressed against a person who has parliamentary immunity, said Hamadeh. Interpol will deal with these warrants just as it deals with warrants issued by countries of dictatorships such as North Korea and Baathist Syria, he told reporters.
The real warrants will soon be issued by the judge of the international enquiry commission, which is investigating the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, he said.
Ouch, that'll leave a mark
Two UN reports have implicated Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariris murder which triggered domestic and international protests that forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence and political domination in Lebanon in April 2005.
Jumblatt, Lebanons Druze leader is a key member of Beiruts anti-Syrian parliament majority, which has accused Damascus of involvement in a series of bombings, including Hariris murder and a failed attempt on Hamadehs life. In December 2005, Jumblatt called for regime change in Syria.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 09:07 ||
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TEHRAN, May 23 (UPI) -- Iran blasted Saudi Arabia for being skeptical about the true motives of its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful objectives.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asafi said Iran's nuclear program is fully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and that Tehran deals with the issue on the basis of trust.
"We are surprised by the repeated unrealistic comments by Saudi officials about Iran's nuclear program," Asafi was quoted as saying Tuesday by Iranian news agency IRNA.
"Iran was at no time in the process of making a nuclear bomb and it is not in need for it and we expect Saudi officials not to fall for allegations of others," he added, referring to the United States and the European Union.
He stressed that Iran wants a region free from weapons of mass destruction, noting that "using nuclear energy for peaceful objectives is the right of all countries, including Iran."
Asafi charged that countries criticizing Iran over its nuclear program "forget that the Zionist entity (Israel) possessed nuclear arms."
He said Iran has assured many Arab Gulf countries about its nuclear program and its good intentions and believes that direct negotiations are beneficial to exchange points of view.
Saudi Arabia, which leads the six-state oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, has expressed concern about Iran's nuclear program.
Lebanons Hezbollah, a close ally of Iran, would not jump to Tehrans defence if the US launched a strike against its nuclear programme but would step in if the conflict spread to Lebanon, its deputy chief said yesterday.
Sheikh Naim Kassem said that the guerrilla group, which was established by Iran in the early 1980s but has since grown into a political party with 14 seats in parliament, had no plans to get involved in regional battles.
Hezbollah is not a tool of Iran, it is a Lebanese project that implements the demands of Lebanese, Kassem said in an interview in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut.
Iran is a big country with real capabilities and can defend itself if it is exposed to American danger.
Western diplomats and Middle East analysts say that any attack on Iran would almost certainly increase tensions between Hezbollah and its foe Israel.
Kassem said it was hard to predict how any conflict would play out and that decisions would be made according to the situation on the ground, but that in principle Hizbollah would only intervene to defend Lebanon, primarily from Israeli attack.
Kassem painted another scenario in which Israel fired first to preempt any possible Hezbollah action if fellow Shiite Muslim Iran was attacked.
Hezbollah has no decision to enter any battle related to the region and has said repeatedly that its position is one of defence against aggression, he added.
But we cannot say to Israel, which might attack Lebanon one of these days, that we are going to sit back and watch, even if Israel called this attack a protective measure for fear that Iran might benefit from the situation in Lebanon... Such pretexts are rejected.
#3
At least they are teachable. Decided they didn't like their spies and sleepers in the U.S. hunted down. Well, too little, too late.
Posted by: ed ||
05/23/2006 8:40 Comments ||
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Hizb'Allah is just as much an enemy as Iran. They are a client of Iran. They need to be hunted down and taken out as much as the MMs need to be. There are 241 Marines who were killed in 1983 by a suicide bomb in Lebanon that demand some justice.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/23/2006 9:49 Comments ||
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#5
I doubt Hezbollah or any other armed radical group have to do anything - its a given that MadMoud and the Mullahocracy want aymmetric, PC People's War or War of National Resistance in case of any invasion by Amer-Alied milfors. The ultimate ace for Iran and the other Rogues, besides SIno-Russian anti-US mil interventionism, are the anti-Amer Americans already within the Amer NPE and MSM. For the time being Iran needs to keep up the PDeniable facade that Iranian-suppor covert terror groups are fighting legit "Wars of Resistance" against decadent American-Western invaders and imperialists ["crusaders"], as opposed to Iran-centric/domin Regional-Global Caliphate. THE CHICOMS/COMMIES
"WAR/BATTLE/LOCAL ZONE" ANTI-US STRATEGY > [NUCLEARIZED] TAKE-AND-HOLD > HEZBOLLAH, etal. ARE ALREADY IN-PLACE IN LEBANON AND AROUND ME.
Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.
As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.
The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation,
including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of
Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my
sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.
Interestingly, the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.
I raised the issue not as a news story, because news of the new law was already several days old, but as an opinion column to alert the outside world to this most disturbing development.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:53 ||
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the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.
And that's the basic issue here. When/how that concept is applied is just details - albeit details with a potentially serious impact on real people. But the THREAT of such an impact will hang over every non-Muslim in Iran, or whom Iran can control, without such a rejection.
#2
For a brief moment, those that had still successfully managed to ignore what is going on in the Middle East were given an opportunity to realize exactly what their calls for Peace in Our Time were going to get them. But now they can console themselves because it was all a mistake. They aren't making them wear yellow arm bands. Phew! Go back to your poetry and Bush-bashing, the world is safe.
Former Prime Minister Omar Karami is expected to announce Monday the formation of a new "National Front" allied with Syria, An Nahar reported. The daily said that Karami will make the announcement from his Beirut home at 5 p.m. It said the new alliance will be comprised of pro-Syrian figures including former legislators and ministers. An Nahar said Karami, former MP Suleiman Franjieh, former Vice Speaker Elie Firzly, ex-Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Murad, Druze leader Walid Jumblat's rival Talal Arslan and former Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud are among the prominent members of the new front.
Last month, Karami and Franjieh announced at a joint news conference that they were in the final stages of launching the new coalition. Karami then said the main goals of the new coalition will be replacing Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's cabinet with a national unity government, followed by holding early parliamentary elections. The former premier accused the anti-Syria parliamentary majority of bringing the country to a standstill because of ongoing bickering with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and his allies. He told reporters that he and Franjieh decided to unite to confront "the devastation that we're seeing on all levels."
Karami, a Sunni Muslim and Franjieh, a Maronite Christian, are Syria's closest allies in northern Lebanon where they head powerful clans. Franjieh was Interior Minister in a cabinet headed by Karami when ex-Premier Rafik Hariri was killed in Feb. 2005. Franjieh has denied that his front would be used as a tool by Syria to serve the neighboring country's interests in Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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A Syrian military magistrate Monday issued an arrest warrant to detain MP Walid Jumblatt and handed it into Interpol, according to Syrian lawyer Hussam-Eddine al-Habash. "Interpol's office in Damascus has received an arrest warrant to detain - by force - Walid Kamal Jumblatt," Habash, an attorney close to the case told AFP. Habash said the warrant was "issued by the top military examining magistrate in Damascus and signed by the director of military justice, General Nabil Scouti."
"The warrant will be sent today, Monday, by fax and addressed to the Beirut office" of the Paris-based international police organization, he said. "This measure was taken because of the lack of cooperation of the relevant Lebanese authorities," he said. Habash said the move came after the "failure to respond to the warrant issued on May 3, by Syrian military justice, despite a seven-day delay [for Jumblatt] to appear in court freely." On May 3, Jumblatt, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, was summoned by a Syrian military court to appear within seven days on charges of "inciting the U.S. administration to occupy Syria," Habash explained. Jumblatt is a key member of the country's anti-Syrian Parliament majority, which has accused Syria of involvement in a series of bombings, including the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.
Syria is still under the impression that Lebanon is a suburb of Damascus.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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LOL. If you live long enough, you'll eventually see just about everything.
#5
Seems like Syria's just putting a marker down in anticipation of Lebanon's requesting the same treatment for the Hariri felons - wonder how Interpol will treat those? Should get interesting.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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"Lebanon, you should be happy to be a vassal state to Syria. It was good for you. You need someone to look out for you. Trust us, we're Russians. We know that only a strong authoritarian government can give peace and prosperity to other countries, like we did for eastern Europe. They, too, would be happier if we were still in charge."
The Lebanese-Syrian Joint Committee for Dealing with Border Disputes on Monday held a meeting in the Bekaa Valley city of Zahle, at the local governor's office. Speaking to reporters later, Bekaa Governor Antoine Suleiman said the meeting was a regular one for the committee and dealt with various issues of land and property disputes between the two countries. "It also dealt with the issue of road blocks and the need for removing them," he said.
The road blocks were erected by the Syrian side in a gesture that was seen as a provocation by the Lebanese side. "Work is underway by both the Lebanese and Syrian sides to remove all the road blocks. This will take about a week," he said. He said the Syrian side was "cooperating with the process of road block removal." In a related development, a joint statement by the Lebanese and Syrian sides that attended the meeting said that agreement was reached to remove the road blocks from the Zemrani, Shahoot, Martbaya, Wadi Khishin and Hawarta areas. The two sides agreed to hold their next meeting at the Reef Damascus area next Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2006 00:00 ||
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FROM hideouts in South Asia, the Spanish-Syrian al-Qaeda strategist published thousands of pages of internet tracts on how small teams of Islamic extremists could wage a decentralised global war against the US and its allies. With the Afghanistan base lost, he argued, radicals would need to work primarily on their own, though sometimes with guidance from roving operatives acting on behalf of the broader movement.
Last October, Pakistani agents seized Mustafa Setmariam Nasar in a friend's house in the border city of Quetta and turned him over to US intelligence operatives, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. With Spanish, British and Syrian interrogators lining up to question him, he is a prize catch: he is not a bombmaker or operational planner but one of al-Qaeda's prime theorists for the post-September 11, 2001 world.
Counterterrorism officials and analysts see Nasar's theories in action in terrorist attacks in Casablanca in 2003, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In each case, the perpetrators organised themselves into local, self-sustaining cells that acted on their own but also likely accepted guidance from visiting emissaries.
Nasar's masterwork, a 1600-page volume titled The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance written under the pen name Abu Musab al-Suri, has been circulating on websites. Nasar, 47, outlines a strategy for a global conflict on as many fronts as possible and in the form of resistance by small cells or individuals, rather than traditional guerilla warfare.
"The enemy is strong and powerful, we are weak and poor, the war duration is going to be long and the best way to fight it is in a revolutionary jihad way for the sake of Allah," he said in one paper.
Intelligence officials said Nasar's doctrine has made waves in radical Islamic chat rooms and on websites about jihad. "He is probably the first to spell out a doctrine for a decentralised global jihad," said Brynjar Lia, a counterterrorism researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, who is writing a book on Nasar. "In my humble opinion, he is the best theoretician among the jihadi ideologues and strategists out there. Nobody is as systematic and comprehensive in their analysis as he is. His brutal honesty and self-criticism is unique in jihadi circles."
After the bombings in Madrid and London, investigators fingered Nasar as the possible organiser because he had lived in both cities. But so far, investigators have unearthed no hard evidence of his direct involvement in those attacks or any others.
Nasar was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1958 and studied engineering. In the early 1980s he took part in a failed revolt by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood against the Syrian strongman, Hafez al-Assad. According to his written accounts, he fled the country after that, then trained in camps in Jordan and Egypt. He arrived in Spain in 1985, married a Spanish convert to Islam, and spent the next 16 years in Europe - where he set up al-Qaeda groups in Italy and France, and attracted the attention of the Spanish and British authorities - and Afghanistan where he forged close ties with the Taliban.
In London, he did publicity work for al-Qaeda, helping to arrange interviews with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan for CNN and the BBC.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/23/2006 10:04 ||
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What can you say about Al-Q?
They have killed maybe 6,000 since 2000.
The countries in the WOT have killed 100,000 arabs in our quest to wipe them out. Who has really won here? What have they achieved in the past? What are they likely to get in the future?
Provocative, No?
#3
Provocative? No. Especially since if we were trying to wipe them out, there wouldn't be any left long since.
And I think it can be said categorically that Saddam Hussein and his family have lost, those who used to benefit from them being in power have lost, and all those associated with Al Qaeda who've been captured or killed, simply because Osama bin Laden went to an open war footing a decade too soon, have lost. Of course, I'm just a little housewife -- what do I know? Perhaps the CIA open source experts have more substantiated opinions of the winners and losers thus far.
#5
The salient point isn't the body count, it's whether the majority (preferably large majority) were affiliated with or sympathized with the other side.
Lewis Attiya Allah, a known al-Qaeda ideologist, recently distributed to a password-protected al-Qaeda-affiliated forum a document titled: Why I Love Usama. In this piece written as an ode, Lewis Attiya extols what he believes to be the greatness of Usama bin Laden, Emir al-Qaeda, as both a man and personality, surpassing revered historic Islamic figures and leaders. He calls upon personal experiences, citing in one section his watching the American Hollywood movie, Independence Day, and his disgust at America depicted as leading a worldwide revolt and upset that he could not find the resulting jubilation with victory in current Islam, and in another section, meeting Usama bin Laden in Saudi Arabia and questioning how he could send young men to jihad in Afghanistan.
Until September 11, 2001, Lewis Attiya writes that he in particular and Muslims in general were suffering from a malaise arising from their humiliation, hopelessness and subjugation to enemies of Islam. From the point nineteen employees of al-Qaeda struck America in airplanes, Usama bin Laden galvanized Muslims around a common cause, and according to Lewis Attiya, gave them a source of pride. He vividly writes of his experience hearing of the attacks on New York and Washington, stating: I was in hysterical shock of feelings mixed with joy and screaming and all these kinds of insane things which a person feels when he is very happy. I screamed with all my voice while I was in the car. I said Allah is Great! Allah is Great!, and if I werent on an expressway I would go to the street jumping as the fans do when their soccer team scores a goal
The document then presents bin Laden as granting independence to the Islamic nation from the Crusaders occupation, invoking a dormant widespread spirit. He writes: In general, we like Usama bin Laden because we believe that he made a way for us. He proved through it that we can really apply Islam radically. And he proved also that there is nothing impossible.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:11 ||
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Usama bin Laden galvanized Muslims around a common cause, and according to Lewis Attiya, gave them a source of pride. He vividly writes of his experience hearing of the attacks on New York and Washington, stating: I was in hysterical shock of feelings mixed with joy and screaming and all these kinds of insane things which a person feels when he is very happy. I screamed with all my voice while I was in the car. I said Allah is Great! Allah is Great!, and if I werent on an expressway I would go to the street jumping as the fans do when their soccer team scores a goal
He wasn't alone, many reported similar spontaneous demonstrations by Moderate Muslims(Tm) in France, in Belgium, UK,... this truly was what he describes, a "source of pride". This is truly a sick civilization, not in the morale sense, but in the clinical one, schizo, stuck in between its delusiosn of Grandeur and its impotency... and the more they will see them "fighting back" and able to win, the more they will be deluded and aggressive.
But, remember, it was the "Zionists"/"Neo-cons"/military-industrial complex who did 9/11...
A series of four video clips as part of a one hour and fifteen minute compilation of jihad in Turkistan was recently distributed amongst jihadist forums. Some segments bear the logo of as-Sahab, an al-Qaeda multimedia producer, and others feature clips from attacks executed by the Islamic Army in Iraq and Mujahideen Army, depicting commonness amongst the mujahideen groups operations. Islamic nasheeds play over opening scenes of mujahideen carrying weapons and backpacks through a mountainous region, then distributing armaments amongst members and performing training exercises involving the hurling of grenades and firing guns and mortars. Images of smoke rising from the World Trade Center towers are then followed by footage of mujahideen in a forest area preparing for an operation, the camera panning on a vehicle being fired upon as shouts of Allahu Akbar are shouted.
Myriad shots of destroyed Humvees and enemy forces observing the damage and engaged in battle are also shown. Following is what seems to be a segment from a documentary on guns and explosives used in wars, subtitled in English, over which Turkic language is watermarked.
Additional scenes of martyrs and lengthy speeches by three masked mujahideen conclude the compilation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 01:08 ||
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AS THE IRAN DEBATE has progressed, a somewhat disturbing trend has emerged in which those who have previously warned of the dangers posed by Tehran have now sought to ignore or downplay these earlier statements. Perhaps this is because they are fearful of the prospect of a military confrontation with Iran and do not wish to be seen as supplying anything resembling a casus belli. This is essentially the reverse of what the Bush administration is accused of doing during the run-up to the war in Iraq, with information being presented selectively for the purpose of downplaying the Iranian. This seems unwise.
An honest assessment of the Iranian threat is necessary, beginning with the Iranian regime's role in the events leading up to September 11. According to the text of the 9/11 Commission report:
Khallad and other detainees have described the willingness of Iranian officials to facilitate the travel of al Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan . . . Such arrangements were particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al Qaeda.
. . . In October 2000, a senior operative of Hezbollah visited Saudi Arabia to coordinate activities there. He also planned to assist individuals in Saudi Arabia in traveling to Iran during November. A top Hezbollah commander and Saudi Hezbollah contacts were involved.
. . . In November, Ahmed al Ghamdi flew to Beirut, traveling--perhaps by coincidence--on the same flight as a senior Hezbollah operative. Also in November, Salem al Hazmi apparently flew from Saudi Arabia to Beirut.
In mid-November, we believe, three of the future muscle hijackers, Wail al Shehri, Waleed al Shehri, and Ahmed al Nami . . . traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative was on the same flight that took the future hijackers to Iran. Hezbollah officials in Beirut and Iran were expecting the arrival of a group during the same time period. The travel of this group was important enough to merit the attention of senior figures in Hezbollah.
. . . In sum, there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of senior al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers. There is also circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future muscle hijackers into Iran in November 2000.
The Commission's final report noted that it had found "no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack," but closed that section of the report by stating that, "We believe this topic requires further investigation by the U.S. government"--a position which was also taken by the Commission's co-chairs, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, in interviews following the publication of the final report. Kean said that "We know of a relationship [between Iran and al Qaeda]; how deep that relationship is . . . that's really going to require more research." Hamilton agreed, saying that the relationship "really does need more investigation."
Unfortunately, with the exception of then-Interim CIA director John McLaughlin's repeated assertions that there was "no evidence that there is some sort of official connection between Iran and September 11," (a claim made nowhere in the Commission report) there appears to have been little progress made by the U.S. intelligence community in learning more about the information brought to light by the 9/11 Commission report. Indeed, to the extent that the 9/11 Commission's findings have been invoked, they have been done in order to "debunk" claims of ties between the former Iraqi regime and al Qaeda, rather than to illuminate ongoing ties between the terror network and Iran.
The status of (or the willingness to conduct) the investigation into the information unearthed by the 9/11 Commission is extremely relevant to the current Iran debate. If Iran, or its Hezbollah proxies, are shown to have assisted the transit al Qaeda members whose numbers included the future 9/11 hijackers--under what appear to be extremely curious circumstances--shouldn't those facts be included in discussions over how to deal with Iran?
The issue of al Qaeda ties to Iran are not simply a matter of historical interest. In March 2006, U.S. intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times that they believed that "the Iranian regime is playing host to much of Al Qaeda's remaining brain trust and allowing the senior operatives freedom to communicate and help plan the terrorist network's operations." Another U.S. intelligence official was quoted in the same article as being far more skeptical, but noted that "the relationship between Tehran and Al Qaeda officials within Iran was largely unknown to U.S. and allied intelligence, especially since Ahmadinejad's election last summer."
Whether the United States is planning to fight or talk with Iran, it might be a good idea to know more about the nature of that relationship.
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:20 ||
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#1
I thought this was going to be about Nancy Pelosi.
#2
hey! This is by Dan Darling. Great piece. And this is a great line, "This is essentially the reverse of what the Bush administration is accused of doing during the run-up to the war in Iraq, with information being presented selectively for the purpose of downplaying the Iranian."
That actually might break through to a few. And it will be a great line in an argument when confronted with the repetitive droning from the bush lied crowed.
From secret hideouts in South Asia, the Spanish-Syrian al-Qaeda strategist published thousands of pages of Internet tracts on how small teams of Islamic extremists could wage a decentralized global war against the United States and its allies.
With the Afghanistan base lost, he argued, radicals would need to shift their approach and work primarily on their own, though sometimes with guidance from roving operatives acting on behalf of the broader movement.
Last October, the writing career of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar came to an abrupt end when Pakistani agents seized him in a friend's house in the border city of Quetta and turned him over to U.S. intelligence operatives, according to two senior Pakistani intelligence officials.
With Spanish, British and Syrian interrogators lining up with requests to question him, he has turned out to be a prize catch, a man who is not a bombmaker or operational planner but one of the jihad movement's prime theorists for the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world.
Counterterrorism officials and analysts see Nasar's theories in action in major terrorist attacks in Casablanca in 2003, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In each case, the perpetrators organized themselves into local, self-sustaining cells that acted on their own but also likely accepted guidance from visiting emissaries of the global movement.
Nasar's masterwork, a 1,600-page volume titled "The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance," has been circulating on Web sites for 18 months. The treatise, written under the pen name Abu Musab al-Suri, draws heavily on lessons from past conflicts.
Nasar, 47, outlines a strategy for a truly global conflict on as many fronts as possible and in the form of resistance by small cells or individuals, rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. To avoid penetration and defeat by security services, he says, organizational links should be kept to an absolute minimum.
"The enemy is strong and powerful, we are weak and poor, the war duration is going to be long and the best way to fight it is in a revolutionary jihad way for the sake of Allah," he said in one paper. "The preparations better be deliberate, comprehensive, and properly planned, taking into account past experiences and lessons."
Intelligence officials said Nasar's doctrine has made waves in radical Islamic chat rooms and on Web sites about jihad holy war or struggle over the past two years. His capture, they added, has only added to his mystique.
"He is probably the first to spell out a doctrine for a decentralized global jihad," said Brynjar Lia, a senior counterterrorism researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, who is writing a book on Nasar. "In my humble opinion, he is the best theoretician among the jihadi ideologues and strategists out there. Nobody is as systematic and comprehensive in their analysis as he is. His brutal honesty and self-criticism is unique in jihadi circles."
After the bombings in Madrid and London, investigators fingered Nasar as the possible hands-on organizer of those attacks, because he had lived in both cities in the 1990s. But so far, investigators have unearthed no hard evidence of his direct involvement in those attacks or any others, although they suspect he established sleeper cells in Spain and other European countries.
Nasar was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1958 and studied engineering. In the early 1980s, he took part in a failed revolt by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood against Syrian strongman Hafez al-Assad. According to his own written accounts, he fled the country after that, then trained in camps in Jordan and Egypt. Later, he said, he moved to Europe when it became clear that Assad was firmly entrenched in power.
He arrived in Spain in 1985. He married a Spanish woman who had converted to Islam, and through that connection, he became a dual Spanish-Syrian citizen. He also made contacts with other Syrian emigres who belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood. His neighbor in a small town in the province of Granada was Tayssir Alouni, a journalist for the al-Jazeera satellite television network who would later interview Osama bin Laden. Another friend was Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who was convicted last fall on charges of running an al-Qaeda cell in Spain.
In 1987, Nasar journeyed to Pakistan and Afghanistan to help Muslim fighters in their rebellion against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. He trained at camps, met bin Laden and joined the ruling council of al-Qaeda, according to a Spanish indictment filed against him.
When he returned to Spain in 1992, he concentrated on building his own cell there and also traveled widely in Europe to set up other al-Qaeda groups in Italy and France, according to the Spanish.
"He's pretty much designed the structure of the cells that have operated in Europe," said Rogelio Alonso, a terrorism expert and professor at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. "He was the one with the prominent role as the individual who had the links with the higher echelons of al-Qaeda."
Although Nasar attracted the notice of Spanish police, investigators did not classify him as a serious threat. According to Spanish court papers, detectives had Nasar under surveillance in 1995. But when he moved to London that year, they stopped paying attention.
In London, Nasar led an above-ground life as a writer and voice of Islamic extremism. He did publicity work for al-Qaeda, helping to arrange interviews with bin Laden in Afghanistan for CNN and the BBC.
He edited an Arabic-language newsletter called al-Ansar, which was devoted primarily to the cause of fundamentalists fighting a long and bloody civil war in Algeria. Even in London's sizable community of Arab exiles and radical Muslims, Nasar stood out for his strong views and unwillingness to compromise.
In his newsletter, he defended the Armed Islamic Group, the Algerian rebel force known by its French acronym, GIA, for targeting Algerian civilians in a series of massacres that destroyed entire villages. When other Arab dissidents decried the tactics, Nasar turned on them as well, denouncing his critics in letters and in person.
"In Algeria, he pushed people to violence," said one Arab exile living in Britain who tangled with Nasar in the mid-1990s. "He was not just an editor. He served as a strategist for those people and played a very bad role in what happened in Algeria," said the exile, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he feared harassment from al-Qaeda supporters.
British intelligence officials also took note of Nasar's activities in their country and questioned him on at least two occasions, according to people who knew him. But he was never placed under formal investigation, they said.
"He's very intelligent and powerful in making his arguments," said an Arab dissident who knew Nasar well and also spoke on condition of anonymity. "But he is also a very difficult man. His tough attitude created many, many enemies for him, even in jihadi circles."
With his pale white skin and red hair, Nasar physically blended into British society more easily than many Islamic fundamentalists. But he sometimes struggled to reconcile his beliefs with his surroundings.
For instance, friends said, he was well educated on the finer points of Western classical music and enjoyed talking at dinner parties about composers. But he refused to actually listen to the music, for religious reasons. And while he rejected the authority of secular institutions, he once filed a libel lawsuit in a British court against the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat.
Unlike many of his acquaintances who favored arranged marriages, the unsmiling Nasar possessed a romantic streak and surprised friends by doting on his Spanish-born spouse. "I was in his house once and he was putting out all these romantic touches for his wife," said one of the Arab dissidents. "I asked him, 'Where did you learn how to do that?' He said, 'We Syrians, we know these things.'"
Nasar departed London in 1998 to return to Afghanistan, according to intelligence sources. There, he forged close ties with the new Taliban government and swore an oath of allegiance to Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader. He was given a position in the Taliban defense ministry.
He also resumed his contacts with al-Qaeda, but frequently clashed with bin Laden, according to Arab dissidents and Nasar's own writings.
In an e-mail to bin Laden in 1999, recovered from a computer hard drive in Kabul by the Wall Street Journal, Nasar complained that bin Laden was getting a big head from his frequent media appearances. "I think our brother has caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause," Nasar wrote.
In public statements and in interviews with Arab media, Nasar said he was happy to work with al-Qaeda but emphasized that he was an independent operator. His theories of decentralization had already taken shape: It would be a mistake, he said, for the global movement to pin its hopes on a single group or set of leaders.
"My guess is that he saw bin Laden as a narrow-minded thinker," said Jarret Brachman, research director for the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. "He clearly says that al-Qaeda was an important step but it's not the end step and it's not sufficient."
Nasar's theories of war also called for the most deadly weapons possible. In Afghanistan, he worked with al-Qaeda leaders to train fighters in the use of "poisons and chemicals" at two camps near Jalalabad and Kabul, according to the State Department. After the Sept. 11 hijackings, Nasar praised the attacks. But he said a better plan would have been to load the hijacked airplanes with weapons of mass destruction.
"Let the American people those who voted for killing, destruction, the looting of other nations' wealth, megalomania and the desire to control others be contaminated with radiation," he wrote. "We apologize for the radioactive fallout," he declared sarcastically.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Nasar went into hiding, moving to Iran, northern Iraq and Pakistan, according to intelligence officials. In November 2004, the State Department posted a $5 million reward for his capture.
Within a few weeks, Nasar responded by posting a lengthy statement on the Internet. He denied reports that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks or the Madrid bombings, but issued warnings of his own.
"As a result of the U.S. government's declaration about me, the lies it contained and the new security requirements forced upon us, I have taken the decision to end my period of isolation," he wrote. "I will also resume my ideological, media-related and operational activities. I wish to God that America will regret bitterly that she provoked me and others to combat her with pen and sword."
Around the same time, Nasar posted his 1,600-page book on the Internet. In it, he critiqued failed insurgencies in Syria, Egypt and Afghanistan and offered a new model aimed at drawing individuals and small groups into a global jihad.
Reuven Paz, director of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements, in Herzliya, Israel, called Nasar's book "brilliant from their point of view." He said researchers fear that it is already serving as a how-to manual for uniting isolated groups of radical Muslims for a common cause.
"We are witnessing a new generation of jihadists who were not trained in the camps in Afghanistan," Paz said. "Unfortunately, this book has operational sections that may be more appealing to this new generation."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/23/2006 00:08 ||
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#1
Could such a global decentralized Jihad(Tm) could have any strategic effect, "military" speaking, WMD excepted?
Sometimes I think theses clowns truly have no idea what total industrial war is, and have real delusions of adequacy. Many analysts say we don't know "them", while "they" perfectly know us, but I wonder, as they know only what we've become.
I'm much more afraid of the "soft" approach of the muslim subversives, which take its strenght in the West own identity weakness, and in demographic shifts. In this approach, terror is an useful sting for them, used for frightening dhimmis into submission, and presenting them as "moderates".
Search engine giant Google has cut off its news relationship with a number of online news publications that include frank discussions of radical Islam the New Media Journal becoming the latest termination. as its owner just discovered. Frank Salvato, who began the agreement with Google News last September, said he received a reply from the company's help desk Friday indicating there had been complaints of "hate speech" on his site, as first reported by media watchdog Newsbusters.org. The e-mail, which cited three articles that dealt with radical Islam and its relationship to terrorism, read:
Hi Frank,
Thanks for writing. We received numerous reports about hate content on your site, and after reviewing these reports, decided to remove your site from Google News. We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints in Google News (although referencing hate speech for commentary and analysis is acceptable).
For example, a number of the complaints we looked at on your site were found to be hate content:
Newsbusters says it has observed a pattern of intolerance toward conservative sites that deal with radical Islam and terrorism.
Rusty Shackleford, owner of The Jawa Report, received a similar e-mail message March 29 informing him: "Upon recent review, we've found that your site contains hate speech, and we will no longer be including it in Google News."
Two weeks later, Jim Sesi's MichNews.com was cut off, with Google providing three examples of "hate speech" by conservative writer J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Newsbusters commented: "At first blush, one can easily ignore such business decisions by the most powerful company on the Internet as being routine. However, on closer examination, such behavior could give one relatively small technological corporation (when measured by the size of its workforce) a degree of political might that frankly dwarfs its current financial prowess."
The media watchdog noted columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin wrote in February 2005 her difficulties in becoming part of Google News. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs had a similar complaint.
When Google News launched its beta site in April 2002, it said its mission was to construct an unbiased news engine free of human intervention using new methods of aggregating news from sources worldwide. According to the April Nielsen/NetRatings report, 49 percent of all searches conducted in the U.S. in March 2006 were carried out on Google.
Along with the dropping of conservative news providers, Google has received other complaints of liberal bias. Last June, a conservative book publisher said Google rejected his ad for a book critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton while continuing to accept anti-Bush themes. Eric Jackson, CEO of World Ahead, said his ads for "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine" were rejected, without further explanation, due to "unacceptable content."
As WND reported, 98 percent of all political donations by Google employees went to support Democrats. CEO Eric Schmidt gave the maximum legal limit of donations to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry and to primary candidate Howard Dean. Schmidt also contributed the maximum amount to Sen. Clinton, whose role in helping her husband intimidate his female accusers is addressed in the new book.
In May 2005, Google rejected an attempt by the conservative activist group RightMarch.com to run ads critical of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., while continuing to run attack ads against besieged House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Also, Google agreed to allow the communist Chinese government to have the search engine block "objectionable" search terms such as "democracy."
In addition, the company came under fire for an editorial decision to rank news articles in search results by "quality," giving preferential placement to large and predominately liberal media outlets such as CNN and the BBC over conservative news sources, even if they are more recent or pertinent.
#4
sad. "They" lost control of the news with the internet and now they are working to control that too. I suppose they will be successful since our governments and universities are complict. We are in for some hard times ahead.
#5
I read those three articles
last one by an Iranian dissident.
Who the hell are Google to moralise and say an ex-Muslim cannot criticise their old religion?
Who is anyone to restrict the free criticism of a belief system? It is now a crime in many European countries and yes, even in Australia under our vilification laws.
Freedom of speech, debate and discussing ideas is dead.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for not vilifying people on the basis of genetic characteristics over which they have no control: race (hair, eye colour), sex (being female/male) or sexuality (born gay, straight or bi).
But it should be CONSTITUTIONALLY protected that people have the right to criticise any and all ideas and belief systems because people can be wrong and people can change.
If someone has a ridiculous religious cult like aum-Shinrikyo, I should be free to criticise and despise it all I want. And even if it is large, followed by many people like Islam, Christianity, Buddhism etc, the same rules should apply!
#7
Oh and on that basis - can I start gettingthem to ban all kinds of lefty plcase that attack Catholicism and Christianity? Or those sites that promote islamic violence?
heh. Go looking folks - then hammer Google with the TRUTH to excpose thier political biases.
#11
Here's a challenge: there are a lot of conservative techies around. Google's specific text retrieval approaches are patented and in some cases trade secrets, but the field is pretty mature. Maybe it's time for a group of conservatives to fund and put up an unbiased version of Google News.
The issue would be the copyright bit for articles indexed, maybe.
#17
"Mr. Murdoch owns Fox. Mr. Clinton was charged by President Bush to raise funds for people, earthquake vistims, etc. Former President Bush was also."
Mr. Clinton is a former President of the United States. Mrs. Clinton is a current United States Senator from the State of New York. Mr. Murdoch is aiding Senator Clinton in her fundraising.
I am not sure which is the bigger sin for a Rantburg reader, the failure to comprehend what one reads, or political ignorance.
#18
The Failed Left > eight years of Bill Clinton in and by itself wiped out any each every and all defects or failures of Leftism-Socialism and aligned in all forms since the beginning of time, thus it should be no surprise that the burden is on America and Rightism-Conservatism, and only the same, to "justify" Leftism for the Lefties, Secularism for the Secularists, Communism and Totalitarianism for the Commies and extreme Absolutists, ...etal. so why not Radical Islam andor general Islam for the Radical Islamists and Muslims. Within this context, the Left > America's and Dubya's utility is to help Radical Iran achieve its nukes and Iran-centric Regional-Global Caliphate, NOT hinder or stop them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The president of semi-autonomous region of Puntland ...
Senior United Nations diplomats seek to persuade Sudanese President 
Hugo Chávez has announced that director 
A Greek fighter jet and a Turkish warplane collided Tuesday near the island of Karpathos in the Aegean Sea, the Greek government said. A rescue operation was launched for the three missing pilots, two Turks and one Greek. 
Pakistan has asked Kabul to concentrate on addressing its internal problems through political processes instead of blaming Pakistan for the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. "The Afghan government's failure to deal with the situation cannot be placed at Pakistan's door," Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said in her weekly briefing in Islamabad on Monday. 
Iraqi guards at Saddam Hussein's trial manhandled a defense lawyer from the court on Monday before witnesses, including one of the former president's half-brothers, gave testimony for some of his co-defendants. Lebanese attorney Bushra Khalil, a vocal presence in previous televised appearances for the defense, yelled in protest and threw off her black court robe. "Are you a lawyer or a gang boss?" Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman barked at Khalil, who slapped the hand of a guard as he dragged her out of the chamber. 
Former Prime Minister Omar Karami is expected to announce Monday the formation of a new "National Front" allied with Syria, An Nahar reported. The daily said that Karami will make the announcement from his Beirut home at 5 p.m. It said the new alliance will be comprised of pro-Syrian figures including former legislators and ministers. An Nahar said Karami, former MP Suleiman Franjieh, former Vice Speaker Elie Firzly, ex-Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Murad, Druze leader Walid Jumblat's rival Talal Arslan and former Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud are among the prominent members of the new front. 
A Syrian military magistrate Monday issued an arrest warrant to detain MP Walid Jumblatt and handed it into Interpol, according to Syrian lawyer Hussam-Eddine al-Habash. "Interpol's office in Damascus has received an arrest warrant to detain - by force - Walid Kamal Jumblatt," Habash, an attorney close to the case told AFP. Habash said the warrant was "issued by the top military examining magistrate in Damascus and signed by the director of military justice, General Nabil Scouti."
The Lebanese-Syrian Joint Committee for Dealing with Border Disputes on Monday held a meeting in the Bekaa Valley city of Zahle, at the local governor's office. Speaking to reporters later, Bekaa Governor Antoine Suleiman said the meeting was a regular one for the committee and dealt with various issues of land and property disputes between the two countries. "It also dealt with the issue of road blocks and the need for removing them," he said.
