A bit of Wapo handwringing and a long background story on Saturday's front page, with the headline In Morocco's 'Chemist,' A Glimpse of Al-Qaeda Bombmaker Typified Resilient Network
CASABLANCA, Morocco -- On March 6, Moroccan police surrounded a cybercafe here and arrested a fugitive who many people assumed had fled the country or was dead. Saad al-Houssaini, known as "the Chemist" because of his scientific training and bombmaking skills, had vanished four years earlier after he was accused of helping to organize the deadliest terrorist attack in Moroccan history.
It turned out that Houssaini hadn't gone anywhere. Since 2003, according to Moroccan police documents, he had remained underground in Casablanca as he rebuilt a terrorist operative network and recruited fighters to go to Iraq. He also spent time honing his bombmaking techniques, designing explosives belts that investigators believe were used in a string of suicide attacks this spring, including one that targeted the U.S. Consulate in this North African port city.
"The Chemist" provides a vivid example of how veteran members of al-Qaeda's central command have continued to plot major terrorist attacks around the world, particularly in Europe, North Africa and Iraq, despite the capture or deaths of many of the network's top operatives since Sept. 11, 2001. His long underground career demonstrates the limits of stepped-up anti-terrorism cooperation between governments in the past five years -- Houssaini, now 38, eluded not just Moroccan authorities but intelligence agents from France, Spain and the United States who feared he was involved with sleeper cells in Europe.
Houssaini, the Moroccan, abandoned his graduate studies in chemistry in Spain in the mid-1990s. He went to Afghanistan, where he trained in al-Qaeda camps and consulted with high-ranking members of the group, including deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who would later become chief of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to documents and interviews.
While there, he helped found an affiliated network known as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which is blamed for the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid. As operational commander of the group, he was suspected of fashioning the bombs used in coordinated suicide attacks in Casablanca in May 2003 that killed 45 people.
Four years later, suicide bombers struck in Casablanca again, blowing themselves up on three separate occasions in March and April, including the attack on the U.S. Consulate. No bystanders were seriously injured in the attack on the consulate, but the diplomatic post remained closed for nearly two months because of security concerns. At first, Moroccan authorities described the perpetrators as amateurs who lacked any international connections. But since then, investigators have concluded that the bombers intended to strike hotels, cruise ships and other tourist targets. Houssaini's arrest disrupted the plans and exposed the network, they say. Much more at WaPo link, if you're interested in his background and travels...
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/07/2007 13:32 ||
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NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritanias justice minister denied on Friday allegations that his country is hosting secret CIA prisons, the state-run news agency AMI said. There are no secret American prisons in our country, Limam Ould Teguedi told the countrys national assembly. We are an elected government of a democratic country, we respect human rights.
Just as much as any other Arab state!
US magazine the New Yorker recently reported that the west African country was among the countries housing secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to interrogate war on terror suspects.
Seymour Hersh is at it again.
The prisons were part of a global spiders web of detentions and illegal transfers spun out around the world by the United States and its allies after the September 11, 2001 attacks, said the June 8 Council of Europe report.
Defence Minister Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed Lemine told the parliament that the government of the Islamic republic has not even received any US request to set up a military base in the northwest African country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/07/2007 00:09 ||
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LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday he believed that investigators had got to the bottom of the cell responsible for the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow a week ago. But he also urged people to stay vigilant in view of the possible danger that would-be terrorists would use crowded places for explosions.
Speaking on television, Brown said the three attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow a week ago were designed to cause maximum carnage. I believe that, from what I know, we are getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what has happened, Brown told BBC television. I want people to know that the authorities have acted very quickly to deal with potential future incidents, said Brown.
Said all that and not a word about the people or the reasons behind the attack.
People would have to face a summer of intensified security checks in the wake of the recent events. We have got to avoid the possibility - and it is very, very difficult - that people can use these crowded places for explosions, said Brown.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/07/2007 00:06 ||
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#1
So, how long until some MI5 genius surmises that not all Jihadi doctors may bother to prepare bombs---some may just, occassionaly, prescribe a wrong treatment to an infidel patient?
#2
Sorry, Gordon, old chum, but you won't get to the bottom of a terror cell until you destroy every mosque and deport every muzzie in the UK. Then you just might get close to "bottoming out".
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/07/2007 12:07 Comments ||
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All four doctors picked up for questioning by Australian cops had formerly worked in Britains National Health Service and had come into contact with Haneef, Australias federal police chief Mick Keelty said on Friday. Meanwhile, the police got permission to hold Haneef for four more days.
Sensing a building bias, Muslim groups in Britain on Friday came out against terrorism. The Muslim United Coalition placed advertisements in British newspapers praising the emergency services as "courageous" and the British government for its "calm and proportionate" reaction to the crisis. The ads quoted the Quran: "Whoever kills an innocent soul, it is as if he killed the whole of mankind. And whoever saves one, it is as if he saved mankind." The organisers have set up a website, www.islamispeace.org.uk, to promote its message.
A British newspaper claimed that the London and Glasgow foiled terror attacks had the blessings of Osama. It quoted a foreign intelligence source as saying: "The warning an Al Qaida leader in Iraq delivered to Canon Andrew White Those who cure you will kill you certainly suggested that he knew of the doctors plot." Its now becoming clear that Kafeel Ahmed and Bilal Abdulla, the duo that sought to ram a gas cylinder-laden jeep into the Glasgow Airport last Saturday, had placed the two car bombs a day earlier in Londons Haymarket which were detected before they could explode. Kafeel, who has suffered 90% burns, was moved on Friday from Paisleys Royal Alexandra Hospital where co-terrorist Bilal worked to a specialist burns unit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Kafeel is on a ventilator and seems to be losing the fight for life. He is, therefore, in no state to be questioned by the cops.
According to at least one of Kafeels former acquaintances, British Pakistani former radical Shiraz Maher, he was best mates with Iraqi medic Bilal Abdulla. Describing Kafeel as more radical than Abdulla, Maher claimed that the only reason the Indian did not formally join the violently-extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir was because the Iraqi kept him away.
Kafeel is now thought to be the chief bomb-maker, who constructed the devices that were planted in central London and carried in the Glasgow jeep. The Bangalorean, who listed his British address as the Islamic Academy in Cambridge in 2005, is said to have described his speciality on his CV as "computational fluid dynamics". He used the email identity of "kingkaf", with all its grandiose pretensions.
Kafeels brother, Sabeel, who is also under arrest for his involvement in the terror plots, had repeatedly applied for jobs in various hospitals in Australia, only to be turned down because of inadequate qualifications and experience. But the Australian authorities claim that Kafeel too had unsuccessfully applied for a job in Australian hospitals does not square up with the fact that Kafeel has been described as an engineer with a PhD, not a medical doctor. The intensifying pace of the Australian crackdown on and round-up of Indian doctors came as the head of the countrys Medical Association, Professor Geoff Dobb, insisted the Indians alleged complicity in terrorism would not affect publics attitude to "overseas-trained doctors".
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Let me know when they openly denounce taqiyya. Until they publicly renounce Islam's moral and ethical carte blanche their words are meaningless. Its all just lip service.
#5
What good would denouncing taqiyya do? Could be just more taqiyya. When your 'prophet' says you can say or do anything to advance the faith, no one can ever trust your word.
#6
What good would denouncing taqiyya do? Could be just more taqiyya. When your 'prophet' says you can say or do anything to advance the faith, no one can ever trust your word.
Damn, PBMcL! Not afraid of stating the unvarnished truth, are we? Bravo, sir. You have successfully cut to the chase. Any renunciation, any reform, any modification of doctrine, essentially anything at all done by Muslims cannot remove the taint of their putrid self-absolving and self-sanctifying doctrine.
This is why I continue to agitate for the total dismantling of Islam. It can never be trusted to do anything more than what it now does. Which is spreading murder, mayhem and suffering wherever it goes. Islam is the abuse of human rights personified and our world will be a better place once it has been deposited squarely in history's dustbin.
it was done as a public relations move, not because they TRULY feel that way.
What we are seeing is merely self-preservation coming into play. Muslims have begun to realize that while their own culture may not recognize silence as consent, ours does. What they have yet to find out is thatafter a whilesilence is no longer consent, silence becomes a LIE.
We have been lied to for far too long. Muslims have screened fellow jihadi co-religionists from view with their lack of concern or outright participation, which one it is no longer matters. Through the sin of omission, they have all become complicit in Islam's atrocities.
#9
Translation: we are playing lip service against terror while we support groups that engage in it. We support the killing of US, UK, Israeli, Russian, Indian, etc civilians because our Koran tells us to kill Allah's enemies unless they are "innocent." Keep giving our social groups integration funds while we use same to isolate Muslims from kafir depravity, and allow more immigrants to your country so that we will have the numbers to prevail in final jihad. God is great.
With the British media identifying the Glasgow airport attack Jeep driver as Kafeel Ahmed, brother of detained Indian doctor Sabeel Ahmed, and a court in Australia granting the police four more days to question Mohammed Haneef, the other doctor from Bangalore held for the plot, authorities here now believe that the man who organised a Chechnya Day meeting in Bangalore in February 2006 could be the same Kafeel Ahmed.
Called in the name of the Forgotten People of Chechnya, Muslims in Crisis, the meeting was held on February 19, 2006 at the Crescent School behind a mosque in Bangalores Basavangudi area. One of the chief organisers of this meeting, held four days before the World Chechnya Day on February 23, was a man called Kafeel Ahmed. Police sources said the mobile phone contact number of Kafeel Ahmed, who organised the Chechnya meeting, was 9844021070 and it was traced to Dr Maqbool Ahmed, a resident of Bangalores Banashankari area and father of Sabeel Ahmed who was arrested in Liverpool.
A marble plaque on one of the gates outside the home of Dr Maqbool Ahmed and his wife Dr Zakia Ahmed has the names of their three children Kafeel Ahmed, Sabeel Ahmed and Sadia Ahmed. The family, which briefly interacted with the media yesterday, remained in their home today.
The e-mail contact that Kafeel Ahmed dropped for the Chechnya meeting was kingkafeel@hotmail.com, the e-mail id of the Kafeel Ahmed being named in the UK terror plot is kingkaf@yahoo.com. We believe he was in India from sometime in early 2006. He returned to the UK in April 2007, police sources in Bangalore said. The sources said Kafeel Ahmed was an engineer pursuing a Ph.D in computational fluid dynamics in the UK.
Dr Zakia Ahmed, Kafeel and Sabeels mother, confirmed that her elder son was pursuing a Ph.D but declined to say more. He is pursuing a Ph.D, that is all I can say. I dont want to speak about him, she said.
An Internet jobs database for computational fluid dynamics experts, however, revealed a resume answering to the name Kafeel Ahmed with the e-mail id kingkaf@yahoo.com. In the Internet resume last updated on March 5, 2005 Kafeel Ahmed is shown as a bachelor of mechanical engineering from India and an M.Phil degree holder in aeronautical engineering from the UK, with some work experience as research engineer in Belfast. He is shown as being in the UK from at least September 2003.
He is stated to have been residing in Cambridge, UK at the time and pursuing a Ph.D in fluid dynamics at the Anglia Polytechnic University. Apart from fluid dynamics, Kafeels stated interests include aerospace design and fluid-structure interaction. An online 2005-06 report on faculty research at the Anglia Polytechnic Universitys showed the presence of a post-graduate research student named Kafeel Ahmed at the Chelmsford campus of the college, researching a fluid dynamics topic Computational Approach to Ink-jet Printing of Tactile Maps.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Let Russia ask for him...
Posted by: Matt K. ||
07/07/2007 0:48 Comments ||
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Bangalore, July 6: Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, the puritanical Bangalore brothers accused of involvement in the failed London and Glasgow bombings, had hardly spent a decade of their lives in India, sources said today. Both spent their formative years in Saudi Arabia.
Their parents, Dr Zakia and Dr Maqbool Ahmed, lived in Iran from 1979 to 1983, a period when their sons were born. Zakia did travel to India for childbirth on each occasion, though.
Later, in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war, the family left for Saudi Arabia and stayed there a further 11 years till 1994. When they returned to Bangalore, Kafeel and Sabeel would have been 14 and 13.
Kafeel left for the UK just seven years later, in 2001, and Sabeel followed him a couple of years on.
Zakia and her daughter Sadia, an MBBS student, were secretly questioned outside their home today by a Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) team that arrived in the city this morning.
They were asked if they knew that the brothers were planning attacks in the UK, if they followed the hardline sect Tabliqui Jamat, and when the brothers had turned radical, a source said.
The sleuths also interrogated the mother and siblings of Mohammed Haneef, the Indian doctor detained in Australia. Tomorrow, they are expected to speak to Haneefs wife Firdous, who is staying with her parents.
The move comes after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday offered to help the British government as well as the three suspects families in Bangalore.
Sources said the agency has been asked to pass on all information to the Prime Ministers Office. Delhi hasnt decided about extending consular support to the accused.
The city police had questioned the Ahmeds last night and this morning at their home. Immediately after that, the familys lawyer, B.T. Venkatesh, left the house with Zakia, Sadia and a relative.
Venkatesh told the waiting journalists the family was headed to a relatives house. But sources later said the lawyer drove Zakia and Sadia to a guesthouse where the RAW team questioned them for over four hours.
Posted by: John Frum ||
07/07/2007 7:03 Comments ||
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The sources said Kafeel Ahmed was an engineer pursuing a Ph.D in computational fluid dynamics in the UK.
Hmmm. Nice bit of science for developing your more aerodynamic missle or improving the explosive mix of say, an air bomb?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/07/2007 12:16 Comments ||
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A study of 300 mosques in the UK found that 50 percent of the head clerics were from Pakistan, 20 percent from Bangladesh and 15 percent from India.
That's... ummm... carry the four, square root of the inverse of 41... 85 percent.
The other fifteen percent are from Knights of Columbus. Ask anybody.
The study, carried out by Chester University on behalf of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was aimed at gauging the ability of the clerics to adapt to the needs of modern Britain.
Whereas the imans were gauging the ability of the populace to adapt to the needs of the Master Religion.
Around 66 percent spoke Urdu as a first language with 52 percent delivering sermons in Urdu. Only six percent of those preaching in the UK spoke English as a first language. The research found that only eight percent of the clerics preaching in British mosques were born in the UK. The report acknowledged that the use of English was becoming more prevalent in Friday sermons in the country but said that more research was required to assess the frequency and quality. Professor Ron Geaves, the author of the report, said, The study reveals a deeply conservative body of individuals maintaining traditional languages and qualifications, and still largely recruited from the place of origin. The clerics were overwhelmingly qualified in the traditional Islamic curriculum, he said, which had changed little since medieval times.
Which is precisely the problem, but you won't hear the BBC say that.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Also predominantly pakistani: Murderous aliens.
#2
The study was aimed at gauging the ability of the clerics to adapt to the needs of modern Britain.
You mean learn English and convert to Christianity?
The clerics were overwhelmingly qualified in the traditional Islamic curriculum, he said, which had changed little since medieval times.
So deport them already. You never should have let these snakes into the country in the first place. And, BTW, where did the money to build the mosques come from? Contributions from the local muzzies who are all on the dole?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/07/2007 12:48 Comments ||
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If 8% of the Imams were born in the UK, and 6% of the Imams speak English as their first language, that means that at least a quarter of Imams born in the UK are not fluent in English.
This doesn't bode well for inter-faith relations, does it?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/07/2007 16:46 Comments ||
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A 15-member delegation of women led by female Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal parliamentarians was prevented from going to Jamia Hafsa for securing the release of women and children stranded inside the madrassa.
The authorities prevented them from entering, adding that the militants inside the mosque could also abduct the women and cause more problems for the government. The delegation, however, kept insisting that they be allowed to enter the mosque at their own risk. The delegation consisted of Samia Raheel Qazi, Dr Kausar Firdos, Inayat Begum, Bilqis Saif, Zubaida Asfghar, Shakila Shahid, Jamila Akhtar and Asia Zia, among others. Meanwhile, a 60-member delegation led by Maulana Abdul Aziz also sought the governments permission to enter the madrassa and negotiate with the militants, but the government turned down their offer because of security reasons.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Well meaning idiots, or just idiots?
You decide.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/07/2007 11:58 Comments ||
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Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Qasim Zia said on Friday that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), after coming to power, would ban all madrassas involved in terrorism. He told reporters at his assembly chamber that giving military training to students was a conspiracy against the state and that the PPP would take stern action against seminaries imparting such training to their students. The PPP wanted legal action against the seminaries involved in spreading sectarianism and extremism, he added.
He said Lal Masjid clerics should be given exemplary punishments for abducting citizens as well as law enforcement personnel and challenging the governments writ. The clerics had used innocent students first to carry out their heinous acts and then as a human shield, he added.
Qasim said the delay in the Lal Masjid operation was the governments failure and that it could have taken timely action to avoid bloodshed in the capital. Supporting the Lal Masjid operation does not mean that the PPP is supporting President General Pervez Musharraf.
Commenting on recent acquittal of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari from a Rawalpindi accountability court, he said it was part of a fair trial and that there was no deal between the PPP and the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Would they change their name please. Everybody knows PPP is a computer communication protocol.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi should surrender to the government instead of resisting the operation, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opposition leader in the National Assembly, said on Friday. This way, many innocent people trapped in Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa will be saved, he said. Rehman spoke with Daily Times early on Friday morning as he was leaving for Islamabad.
The main point of discussion at the conference will be how to make the Constitution and democracy in Pakistan functional. The general elections, judicial crisis and international and domestic dangers for Pakistan will also be discussed.
This article starring:
ABDUL RASHID GHAZI
Taliban
MAULANA FAZLUR REHMAN
Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami-Fazl
Jamia Hafsa
Lal Masjid
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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Ghazi had rejected his offer saying his associates were not ready to surrender and that they would fight till death.
offer of being placed under house arrest instead of detention, Aaj TV reported. Shujaat said he had talked with Ghazi via telephone and pressed him to surrender and release female students and children. He said that he had offered to Ghazi that he and his mother could be kept under a house arrest. He said Ghazi had rejected his offer saying his associates were not ready to surrender and that they would fight till death. He said he had consulted with authorities concerned before making the offer.
This article starring:
ABDUL RASHID GHAZI
Taliban
Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Lal Masjid
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Muhammad Ejazul Haq said on Friday that the operation against Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa was being delayed to ensure the safe exit of all female hostages in the madrassa. The government has been adhering to the policy of restraint and negotiations since the Lal Masjid issue arose in January, he said, adding that many interpreted this policy as the governments inability to handle the problem. But today, he added, the entire world has appreciated the governments approach to the problem.
The minister was briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs at a meeting chaired by Senator Maulana Sami-ul-Haq at the Agriculture House here. Ejazul Haq said President General Pervez Musharraf has strictly directed the security forces to move with patience so that the lives of the innocents in Jamia Hafsa would not be endangered. He said more than one hundred militants, most of them from Balochistan, were in Jamia Hafsa and had taken the female students hostage.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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A majority of viewers approved of the governments handling of the Jamia Hafsa issue, according to an opinion poll conducted by Pakistan Television. According to the poll, 82.15 percent of respondents backed the governments handling of the issues, while 11.63 percent expressed disapproval with government tactics. The poll, which received a total of 5,337 text messages (SMS), revealed that 6.22 percent of the respondents were undecided or uncertain about the governments handling of the Jamia Hafsa. The messages were received by various mobile services of Pakistan with 49.64 percent of the respondents using Mobilink, 34.87 percent using Ufone, 9.3 percent using Telenor, 3.83 percent using Paktel, 1 percent using Warid and 0.8 percent using Insta. The poll was open for 7 hours to allow the maximum number of respondents to register their opinion over the governments handling of the issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
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The US has raised concerns with the Chinese government about the discovery of Chinese-made weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Richard Lawless, departing senior Pentagon official for Asia, on Friday said Washington had flagged the issue with Beijing. In recent months, the US has become increasingly alarmed that Chinese armour-piercing ammunition has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq.
A senior US official recently told the FT that Iran appeared to be providing the Chinese-made weapons. He said Washington had no evidence that Beijing was complicit, but stressed that the US would like China to do a better job of policing these sales. Mr Lawless said the question of origin was less important than who was facilitating the transfer.
The concerns about Chinese weapons follow months of allegations from US officials that Iran is helping attack US troops in Iraq, and more recently Afghanistan, by providing technology for bombs that can destroy Humvees and other heavily armoured US vehicles.
Mr Lawless also expressed concern about North Koreas missile programme. Last week, Pyongyang tested a new short-range missile that could target not only the US military base at Pyeongtaek but also Seoul. He said North Korea was close to being able to field the solid-fuel, highly mobile rocket.
Mr Lawless said the US military relationship with China was overall, not bad, but there was a need for more engagement between the militaries, particularly at the senior levels. They have been more willing to engage, but it is in millimetres and increments, he said.
He said the Pentagon was disappointed that China had not given Admiral Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, the same kind of access that his Chinese counterpart received during a visit to the US. Adm Mullen, who has since been nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ended up not visiting China.
Mr Lawless also said it was important for China to hold talks with the US about its nuclear forces. A recent Pentagon report concluded Beijing was developing a more survivable nuclear force, including submarine-launched missiles, and mobile land-based missiles.
Since Presidents Hu Jintao and George W. Bush last year discussed increasing military exchanges, China has not responded to an offer for the commander of its strategic nuclear forces to visit US Strategic Command.
There is a great shortfall in our understanding of Chinas intentions, said Mr Lawless, referring to the overall Chinese military build-up. When you dont know why they are doing it, it is pretty damn threatening . . . they leave us no choice but to assume the worst.
Mr Lawless also suggested that the Pentagon had refused a request from Japan for extensive data on the F-22 fighter jet. Japan wants the data to consider whether the advanced fighter which under current law cannot be exported would meet its defence needs.
Mr Lawless said the Pentagon had offered Japan only basic data, which would not require a change in US law.
#4
Makes sense that China would want to see its weapons field-tested against American forces. Knocks the painful front end off their learning curve if they end up in direct combat against us in the future.
#7
If anyone at the burg is looking for historical parallels to the current conflict in Iraq, I suggest looking, as mentioned in #5, to Spain.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
07/07/2007 13:19 Comments ||
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#8
Cut off their supply of Iranian oil and see how they like it. But then China would cut off WalMart's supply of plastic crap.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
Agreed about the Spanish Civil War analogy. I always felt like the Falklands served that sort of purpose for Britain and the USA. We really need to do everything possible to expand and steepen China's learning curve. They are up to no good and we are their principal target.
THE start of the weekend is cause for celebration all over the world, but for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip even taking time off has become a battleground in the bitter struggle between the Hamas and Fatah factions.
As if life was not already difficult enough for the 1.4 million people living in the impoverished and war-torn Gaza Strip, they have now been presented with an almost impossible dilemma. They can either take off the Hamas weekend of Thursday and Friday - and risk not being paid by Fatah - or face the wrath of the all-powerful Hamas gunmen by observing the Fatah weekend on Friday and Saturday.
While Hamas controls the streets of Gaza, it is the Fatah-aligned rival government in the West Bank that pays their salaries.
The dispute, which is due to continue today, turned violent on Thursday when ministry of finance staff arrived at work in keeping with the directive from the government in Ramallah. They found the doors chained shut and guarded by troops from Hamas' Executive Force who threatened to arrest the employees if they did not leave. According to workers, the Hamas militiamen fired in the air and when the employees still refused to leave, shot into the ground near one of them.
The dispute, which is due to continue today, turned violent on Thursday when ministry of finance staff arrived at work in keeping with the directive from the government in Ramallah. They found the doors chained shut and guarded by troops from Hamas' Executive Force who threatened to arrest the employees if they did not leave.
According to workers, the Hamas militiamen fired in the air and when the employees still refused to leave, shot into the ground near one of them. A spokesman for the Executive Force conceded later that shots were fired, but he stressed that there were no orders to open fire, only to bar the workers from the offices. An employee who identified himself only as Imad said: "We told them that the government in Ramallah announced new weekend days, but they said the people in Ramallah are not the government." He said workers would not go to work on Saturday despite Hamas' insistence, saying that refusal to heed the Hamas working week was "the beginning of the battle against the coup government in Gaza".
The dispute is a direct result of the Palestinian Authority's fracturing last month along factional and geographical lines with president Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, dismissing Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya and appointing an emergency government in Ramallah following the Islamic movement's armed takeover of Fatah security installations in Gaza.
Each government claims the other is illegitimate. Has anyone considered the distinct possibility that both of these "governments" terrorist organizations are "illegitimate"?
On Wednesday, Hamas was put on the defensive as the Ramallah government succeeded in making the first full salary payment in a year and a half to 140,000 Palestinian Authority employees after Israel released millions of pounds in frozen tax revenues to the moderate Ramallah government. The Fatah-aligned government decided not to pay some 25,000 workers who it said were taking instructions from the Hamas government.
Hamas hit back with a statement saying Allah would provide for the Hamas-aligned civil servants. "Be aware that daily bread is in the hands of God and that God-given release from suffering is near. Be forbearing," it said. It added in a reference to the Ramallah government: "This matter is one of rebellion against God. The punishment of those using daily sustenance to war against our nation will be to perish from our midst."
The Ramallah government is making clear its view that staff should be staying at home. "I am the legitimate minister and I am calling on the workers not to work on Saturday," Ramallah-based health minister Fathi Abu Mughli said. A two-day weekend is something relatively new in Gaza. Traditionally, Friday, the Muslim holy day, was the only day off. After the Palestinian Authority split into two governments,
Fatah quickly decided to make the weekend Friday and Saturday. Gaza-based analyst Talal Awkal said: "Friday is a holiday in Palestine, Saturday is a holiday in Israel and Sunday is a holiday in Europe. So having Thursday off also meant that the banks were shut for four days." He also sees anti-Israeli sentiment in Hamas' definition of the weekend. "They are saying that Saturday is a holiday for Jews and that 'we don't want the holiday for the Muslims to be the same as the one for Jews,'" he said.
"Gah, it is not possible for us to have anything in common with the dreaded Joooooos!!!"
Of course, not having offices open during the outside world's regular work week will only close the window on just that much more commerce that could be done. But that's the way it is when your entire business plan consists of "Inshallah".
As one commentor at the news site noted, "It is now official that these people could not agree on the colour of shite." I think that sums it up rather tidily.
These are the article's last few paragraphs. RTWT for even more insights into this calamity in the making.
Israel and the Palestinians
The limited surface resources have led to widespread scarcity of the fresh water resources, resulting in a heavy reliance on groundwater as the major source for various uses. The contribution of surface water to the overall water balance is limited and marginal. "Nowhere are the problems of water governance as starkly demonstrated as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories." According to the UNDP report, "Palestinians experience one of the highest levels of water scarcity in the world." This scarcity is attributed to physical scarcity and political governance.
The report estimates that, on a per capita basis, people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have access to 320 cubic meters of water annually, "one of the lowest levels of water availability in the world and well below the threshold of absolute scarcity." The Israeli population, which is about twice the size of the Palestinian population, uses seven and a half times the amount of water used by the Palestinians. The discrepancy in the use of water has to do with politics as well as with life style, the ratio of urban population and the levels of economic development.
Any future settlement between Israel and the Palestinians must address the issue of water. The UNDP report recommends the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan as a model for Israel and the Palestinians. The agreement allows Jordan to store winter waters in Lake Tiberias [Lake Kinneret]; at the same time, it allows Israel to use, on a rental basis, a number of water wells in Jordan to irrigate Israeli agriculture.
The report also refers to a regional initiative for regional cooperation. The Middle East Desalinization Research Center, based in Muscat, Oman, has been successfully promoting multilateral research into effective desalinization techniques for more than a decade. Its council has representatives from the European Commission, the U.S., Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority.
Virtual Water Trade
Some of the findings of the UNDP report are both fascinating and disturbing, none more so than the observation that it takes 11,000 liters of water-roughly the daily amount available to 500 people living in an Urban slum-to produce a single hamburger. Countries can reduce water stress by importing cereals and grains and, hence, the water imbedded in them. Stated differently, by importing cereals countries save the water, often in shrinking quantities, they would otherwise use to produce their own cereals. To produce their own with the use of scarce water resources, would drive many countries into the equivalency of water bankruptcy. Putting to best practice the principle of "comparative advantage," water-poor countries must rely on water rich countries to supply them with their grains and even their beef.
Conclusion
As the competition for water between a growing population and agriculture intensifies, it is certain that the issue will be settled in favor of the population, driving many countries in the Middle East into a growing dependency for their grains and cereals on countries, mostly democratic and liberal, for their survival. The "virtual" water trade could become a "real" threat to the security and independence of the importing countries much as these same countries feel threatened by their dependence on oil from non-democratic countries.
Water will remain one of the most volatile issues in the Middle East and the source of potentially serious conflicts. The oil rich countries have resolved their water shortage through desalination. Israel is moving in that direction as well. Countries with more restricted financial resources such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen are constrained from going through the desalination path. Rapidly growing population and a trend toward urbanization will heighten water shortages and exacerbate potential political or military conflicts.
Water is the key to war or peace. Borders can be redrawn, refugees resettled, trade barriers can be removed and agriculture reformed and made more efficient. But water will still be required to meet basic human needs. Population growth and a shift toward urbanization will render these needs even greater in the future.
The entire article is a fascinating examination of the role water plays in Middle Eastern politics. Nowhere is it a more contentious subject than with the Israelis and Palestinians. The conclusion above notes some truly momentous shifts that are taking place as water supplies increasingly are diverted from agricultural use over to public consumption. Inadequate waste water treatment or plain dumping of raw sewage, salt accumulation in arable soil, intrusion of seawater into aquifers and industrial effluent pollution all play a serious role in reducing available drinking water supplies.
Insufficient attention has been focused upon the Palestinians and their lackluster efforts to create infrastructure in lieu of armaments. The diversion of sewage piping into rocket manufacturing highlights their irresponsibility with respect to water management. It should come as no shock then that the Palestinians experience some of the highest levels of water scarcity in the world. What remains far less publicized is that their water poverty is largely self-imposed. Through their irresponsible conduct they endanger not only themselves but the water supply of other nations as well.
Totally unsurprising is the fact that Palestinian water mismanagement has the greatest negative impact upon Israel. Dumping of their raw sewage into the Mediterranean threatens intake quality and performance of Israeli desalination plants. Excessive pumping from deep level aquifers is allowing seawater intrusion to ruin them for drinking purposes. As hostile Arab nations undergo water depletion, their abandonment of farming makes them vulnerable to those that export the cereal grains they are becoming more dependent upon. These grain exporters are usually Western countries that are growing increasingly intolerant of Islamic terrorism. They eventually could impose mass starvation simply by halting food sales to MME (Muslim Middle East).
It defies comprehension that so much of the MME routinely antagonizes those who will eventually control their fate. Islams monumental hubris simply cannot humble itself long enough to grasp the consequences of committing constant terrorist atrocities against those who hold the keys to this worlds food larder. Death by starvation is every bit as final as death by bombardment with nuclear weapons and there is no residual radioactive fallout afterwards. The MME is teetering on the brink of devastating environmental collapse even as they continue to stab at those who could rescue them. The Wests patience wears ever more thin in the face of such monstrous ingratitude.
#3
A few days ago I was going to post my speculations on the Bush Administration's engineering of APEC (The Association of Agricultural Exporting Countries) as a counter to OPEC.
Look at a list of (net) food exporting countries. Then look at a list of food importing countries.
Then think of biofuels, not as a way of reducing oil import dependence but of financially attacking the food importers.
Now throw in a bad harvest worldwide due to global warming or a cold wet summer (ENSO La Nina and a couple of other multi-decadal cycles turning negative) and you have a worldwide food crisis and food exporters getting an OPEC like cash bonanza.
#4
phil_b, a lot of emergency food stock is provided as humanitarian aid, a freebie, so the cash flood may not be that great. But yea, food and water can be utilized as a great "incentive".
#5
Then think of biofuels, not as a way of reducing oil import dependence but of financially attacking the food importers.
If biofuels can simultaneously reduce our oil dependence and shrink the quantity of available agricultural exports due to more profitable domestic markets, then suddenly there's a whole lot more to like about them.
I look forward to the day when we get to tell MME (Muslim Middle East) countries: "Eat sand and drink oil."
#6
2X4, we have food stockpiles (of grains) because 4 or 5 countries have produced over demand for years. My point was that the vulnerability of food importers is to supply, which can be affected by other demands (for the grains) and the weather.
ANd BTW, if you don't think we are at risk from abrupt climate cooling, then read the link below.
The money quote,
If the lowest prediction is borne out, this will have a large and negative effect on Canadian
grain production, for example, and on all high latitude agricultural production. The
experience from the Dalton Minimum was that the winters were longer and harder. And
this effect will be on us very soon.
#9
Phil_b, you may be on to something. Right now food is not scarce, globally. Producers give it away or sell it cheaply to consumers, allowing exponential expansion of consumer populations. When you look at who these populations are it becomes apparant that, statistically, we're subsidizing our enemies.
So, in the name of environmentalism and other PC causes, a cynical leadership (or a naive leadership with cynical advisers) can pump up demand for food within the producing countries by creating a huge new market - biofuel. With food surplus burned up, much reduced supply will be available to subsidize population expansion of the net consumers.
Didn't some general once say 'an army fights on its belly' (meaning food supply logistics, not crawling in the mud)? You want your army hungry, but not starving.
#10
Anybody who bothered to study economic history of Middle East knows that Arabs are, literally, "Death of the Land".
And, IMO, anybody who haven't studied history doesn't have an opinion worth listening to.
#11
The reason that the west will win in the long term over the islamic forces (if we survive the short term) is the fact that the arabs and their birth rate are not sustainable without western help. They don't have the resources, the technology or the education to help themselves. Remove the western help, and the whole middle east will collapse under its own rotten weight. With climatic change, or a depression in the west we can expect to see a famine and civil wars on a truly biblical scale over there.
#13
Didn't some general once say 'an army fights on its belly' (meaning food supply logistics, not crawling in the mud)?
That would be Napoleon who said:
"An army marches on its stomach."
Even thoughas always with the Frenchit's all about the food, I'm quite certain he meant it as the superb double entendre that it is. Although Napoleon was revolutionary in the use of light weight kit and preserved foods, processing technology was nowhere developed enough to facilitate feeding such huge troop movements as his. Read "War and Peace" for a good idea of the logistics required to keep nearly half a million troops fed while on campaign.
At some point America needs to consider jacking up the price of any food we sell to the MME (Muslim Middle East). We are being milked like the last cow on the farm and it is time to play turnabout. It will never be too soon to begin reading the MME the riot act. The specter of starvation needs to loom large over their political landscape.
If, as I advocate, we recongregated this world's Muslim population back in their lands of origin, how long do you think those countries would last with all that extra population to feed? The sooner we implode the economic eggshell that is the MME, the better off this world will be.
We have bloated these violent psychopaths with our petrodollars for way too long. The time is now to make them begin confronting the reality of how barren and unsustainable their environments are. Starving psychopaths have a way of calming down in a New York minute when they don't even have the energy needed to lift a sword. Furthermore, more than one government in history has fallen from an inability to feed its masses. We need to chain a wolf at the door of these abusive Islamic regimes that will make their populations acutely aware of how their corrupt leaders wallow in luxury while they starve.
#16
Walter - how many Catholics do you think practice "no birth control"? In America, I'd say 5% max (my guess). I got snipped after 3 beautiful kids. I understand Mexico is experiencing a great decline in birth rates as they become more educated - that extrapolates worldwide. The Church may stick to the dogma, but real people living their lives have decided differently
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/07/2007 20:28 Comments ||
Top||
Israel and the Palestinian Authority are working together with the United Nations to increase the flow of goods into Gaza by making improvements at the Kerem Shalom Crossing.
Until the Hamas take over of Gaza last month, Israel along with Fatah security forces and personnel had manned the crossings at Karni and at Erez. But since June 12, Karni, which is the main commercial passage way into Gaza, has been closed for everything except for the transfer of wheat for flour. Erez has been open for limited pedestrian traffic and the transfer of medical supplies. Unable to fully reopen both crossings without Fatah or an alternative Palestinian body, Israel has relied instead on two secondary passages at Sufa and Kerem Shalom to allow humanitarian aid such as basic foods supplies and animal feed into Gaza.
Neither Sufa or Kerem Shalom, however, can duplicate the capacity of Karni. On Thursday night, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that, "the UN, PA and Israel are working together to increase the capacity of the [Kerem Shalom] Crossing by opening two conveyer belts and increasing the hard stand area for truck-transfer operations."
Kevin Kennedy, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Territories, said that even without the expansion, flow of humanitarian aid has improved in the last week. "We are at 70 percent of the estimated needs in Gaza, which is a significant increase from last week, so I think we are moving ahead," said Kennedy.
The UN provides some 1.1 million of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza with basic food supplies such as flour, sugar, beans, rice and powdered milk. At the end, Kennedy said, there was no duplicate for the Karni Crossing, which he too said, must be reopened. "But we are still focused on the immediate needs," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
The Palestinians are damned lucky that Israel doesn't "improve" the crossing with some extra spools of concertina razor wire and land mines.
"the UN, PA and Israel are working together to increase the capacity of the [Kerem Shalom] Crossing by opening two conveyer belts and increasing the hard stand area for truck-transfer operations."
Thank goodness Israel has the brains to install a conveyor belt so that no Palestinian truck bombs can be sent through to thank them for their troubles.
The complete and total hipocrisy of the world condemning Israel at every turn while the Jews continue to show such completely unwarranted humanity to their sworn enemy is dumbfounding. It is gratifying in the extreme to finally hear Palestinians in Gaza bemoan the good old days of Israeli occupation. They deserve nothing less than Hamas' Wahabbist-style repression and stringent pseudo-morality.
#2
The complete and total hypocrisy of the world condemning Israel at every turn while the Jews continue to show such completely unwarranted humanity to their sworn enemy is dumbfounding
Since when despising a sucker became unacceptable?
Israel destroyed more than 100 mosques in Palestinian villages incorporated into the state, including the site where the head of Imam Hussein was allegedly buried, a leading daily reported on Friday.
According to archives quoted by the Haaretz newspaper, Israels legendary general Moshe Dayan himself an avid amateur archaeologist gave the order to blow up the mosque while he was a young lieutenant colonel. Haaretz said the Mashhad Nabi Hussein in Majdal, now Ashkelon, dated back to the 11th century and was where tradition had it that the head of Imam Hussein, killed in 680 by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in Karbala, was interred.
Around 9,000 Arabs who lived in Majdal fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and 3,000 who remained in a ghetto were subsequently forced out by Israel. The Mashhad Nabi Hussein mosque was blown up deliberately as part of a broader operation that included at least two additional mosques, one in Yavneh and the other in the nearby Mediterranean city of Ashdod, Haaretz said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
Around 9,000 Arabs who lived in Majdal fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
Are these part of the 'Palistinians' who voluntarily, of their own free will, left Israel before the war with assurances that they would be able to return after Israel is destroyed and get in on the spoils?
#2
Considering the genocidal filth preached in so many mosques, I can hardly blame Israel. All of this resembles nothing more than that well-known bus full of lawyers on the lake-bottom. Namely, a good start.
#11
It was a terrible strategic mistake to allow any Muslims, or their buildings, to remain. After the 1967 war, every square inch of the new territories should have been cleansed then integrated into Israel as part of its permanent lands.
#15
And Saint Sophia was returned to the Orthodox when?
The early church in Damascus was returned to the Catholics when?
The churches in East Timor were rebuilt with Muslim aid when?
The bishops in the Philippines were restored to life when?
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.
NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritanias justice minister denied on Friday allegations that his country is hosting secret CIA prisons, the state-run news agency AMI said. There are no secret American prisons in our country, Limam Ould Teguedi told the countrys national assembly. We are an elected government of a democratic country, we respect human rights.
LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday he believed that investigators had got to the bottom of the cell responsible for the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow a week ago. But he also urged people to stay vigilant in view of the possible danger that would-be terrorists would use crowded places for explosions.
A study of 300 mosques in the UK found that 50 percent of the head clerics were from Pakistan, 20 percent from Bangladesh and 15 percent from India. 
Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Qasim Zia said on Friday that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), after coming to power, would ban all madrassas involved in terrorism. He told reporters at his assembly chamber that giving military training to students was a conspiracy against the state and that the PPP would take stern action against seminaries imparting such training to their students. The PPP wanted legal action against the seminaries involved in spreading sectarianism and extremism, he added.
A majority of viewers approved of the governments handling of the Jamia Hafsa issue, according to an opinion poll conducted by Pakistan Television. According to the poll, 82.15 percent of respondents backed the governments handling of the issues, while 11.63 percent expressed disapproval with government tactics. The poll, which received a total of 5,337 text messages (SMS), revealed that 6.22 percent of the respondents were undecided or uncertain about the governments handling of the Jamia Hafsa. The messages were received by various mobile services of Pakistan with 49.64 percent of the respondents using Mobilink, 34.87 percent using Ufone, 9.3 percent using Telenor, 3.83 percent using Paktel, 1 percent using Warid and 0.8 percent using Insta. The poll was open for 7 hours to allow the maximum number of respondents to register their opinion over the governments handling of the issue.
