Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 12:05 ||
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#1
Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Billie Dove aka Princess Isobel in "The Black Pirate" aka Rodeo West in "The Painted Angel" aka Lilli de Rosseau in "Cock of the Air" aka Jean Hurd in "The Age for Love" aka Millicent Howard in "The American Beauty (1927)" (Died in 1997 at age 94)
[Iran Press TV] Fourteen civilians, including women and kiddies, have been injured in a Taliban missile attack in northeastern Afghanistan.
During a Taliban attack on a US military base in Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral... on Friday morning, a missile fired by the snuffies missed its target and hit a residence, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Seven children, who sustained injuries during a wedding ceremony at the residence, were among the injured.
Last March, another tragedy struck Kunar province when a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... Arclight airstrike killed nine children.
Pundits have been quick to point out that the rise in civilian casualties in NATO attacks has strained relations between President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... and his Western allies, who are under increasing pressure at home over the unpopular war.
Over the past few months, public opinion has been turning against the war in the United States and other countries, and thus US President Barack B.O. Obama's upbeat assessments about progress in the Afghan war will probably not go down well at home or abroad
According to official figures, around 2,451 US-led soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.
The corpse count for foreign forces deployed in Afghanistan was 710 in 2010, making it the deadliest year for the occupiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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TRIPOLI (Reuters) Libyan state television carried brief audio tape remarks it said were by Muammar Gaddafi in which he taunted NATO as a cowardly crusader whose bombs could not kill him.
The comments were aired on Friday after Italy's foreign minister said Gaddafi had probably left the Libyan capital and been wounded by NATO air strikes. Libyan officials dismissed the Italian minister's remarks.
"I tell the cowardly crusader (NATO) that I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me," said the man on the audio tape, whose voice sounded like Gaddafi's.
"Even if you kill the body you will not be able to kill the soul that lives in the hearts of millions," he said.
[Dawn] Sixteen "civilians" have been killed in a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... air strike on Brega, to the east of the Libyan capital, state TV on Friday quoted a military source as saying.
Both Al-Libya and Al-Jamahiriya ... An Arabic neologism coined by Muammar al-Qadaffy. The word jamahiriya was derived from jumhuriya, which is the usual Arabic translation of republic. It was coined by changing the component jumhur ‐ public ‐ to its plural form, jamahir — the masses. Thus, it is similar to the term People's Republic, only more denigrating to the actual inhabitants of the country... channels carried the report, which could not be independently verified.
Al-Libya said that in addition to those killed, there were "dozens of maimed" from the strike "last night."
An international coalition began carrying out strikes on forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi on March 19. NATO took command of operations over Libya on March 31.
Massive protests in February -- inspired by revolts that toppled long-time autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt -- escalated into war when Qadhafi's troops fired on demonstrators and protesters seized several towns.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Libyan state television has aired what it says is a statement by Muammar Qadaffy, in which the Libyan leader denies reports that he has been maimed.
In the audio message, broadcast on Friday evening, Qadaffy said he is alive and safe despite air strikes from the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... military alliance on his Bab al-Aziziyah compound in the capital, Tripoli, on Thursday.
Qadaffy said he is in a place where NATO bombs can not reach him.
"I want to tell you that your bombing will not reach me because millions of Libyans bear me in their heart," Qadaffy said, thanking heads of state who had asked about his health after the air strike.
"I tell the coward crusaders - I live in a place where you can't get to me," he said.
His address came hours after Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, was reported to have said that he believed Qadaffy had decamped Tripoli, adding that the Libyan leader may have been injured during NATO air strikes, the Rooters news agency reported.
Speaking in Tuscany, Frattini said he had received information on Qadaffy from Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Catholic bishop in Tripoli, adding that it was credible.
Earlier, the minister told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that "I am of the view that he has probably decamped from Tripoli but not from the country."
However, The all-purpose However... the Libyan leader's spokesperson dismissed Frattini's claims on Friday afternoon, ahead of Qadaffy's own statement.
"The leader is in high morale. He's in good spirits. He is leading the country day by day. He hasn't been harmed at all," Mussa Ibrahim said.
And the US state department, meanwhile, said on Friday that it has no information to confirm reports that Qadaffy has been maimed.
Al Jizz's Tony Birtley, reporting from the opposition-held Libyan city of Benghazi, said the speculation that Qadaffy may have decamped to southern Libya had not yet been confirmed.
But he said that it was notable that Qadaffy's statement was audio. By not showing the leader, it did not offer definitive proof of his physical condition.
"A lot of people have been remarking that these speeches of the Libyan leader started at three hours and are now a minute and a half," Birtley noted.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Ennahar] According to investigations led by security services on the trail of blood discovered just after the removal of the treasurer of the al-Feth phalanx, a branch of Jund al-Ahoual in the central region, last May 2, these would belong to the (emir) leader of the groupe
This would be Kirouani Fatah, alias Khaled Echenkiti, according to analysis done on the blood, at the scientist police laboratory in Chateauneuf.
Fatah Kirouani, residing in Boudouaou, in the province of corpse-littered Boumerdes was dead and buried by the elements of his phalanx.
Ennahar had already published in a previous edition that the national army forces were conducting research on another terrorist who was with the treasurer of the katiba, Merbeh Abdallah, alias Abdallah Ennouri, aged 59, eliminated May 2 in the region of Benoura in the town of Kedara, province of corpse-littered Boumerdes. The latter would have joined terrorist groups in 1994.
Blood tests found confirm the death of the Emir of Katiba al-Fath, Kirouani Fatah, alias Khaled Chenkiti.
ANP forces have recovered a Kalashnikov rifle, ammunition and a mobile phone.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Ennahar] Seven soldiers were killed and three "terrorists" eliminated in the night from Thursday to Friday in an attack against a military outpost in Jijel, 350 km east of Algiers.
An eighth member is missing and two were maimed in the submachine attack perpetrated in Tizrarane gun, 40 km west of Jijel, in a barracks where soldiers were sleeping.
A search operation was immediately launched with the help of helicopters by the army which killed three forces of Evil and recovered at least seven automatic weapons, the source said.
Last week, May 6, five soldiers were killed and five maimed in a kaboom that was perpetrated in the same region against a military convoy.
These attacks, not claimed, are generally attributed to the forces of Evil who continue to operate in the country. However, The well-oiled However... they fell with the national reconciliation policy launched by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him... six years ago to the attention of all who lay down their arms.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Magharebia] Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mahmoud Jibril on Friday (May 14th) will visit the White House to meet with US President Barack B.O. Obama's national security advisor.
The meeting comes amid renewed attempts to push for the recognition of the rebel council as "the sole legitimate interlocutor of the Libyan people".
"All we need is for the world to understand our cause and help us get our legitimate rights realised," Jibril told CNN.
"If I meet President B.O., first of all I would really thank him for the role the United States has played so far, and I would strongly urge him to play a more active role, because there is a lot at stake strategically for the United States if that role is not played properly," Jibril said. "There is a lot to be lost."
A couple of days earlier, rebels secured fresh gains, seizing the strategically important Misrata airport and capturing large quantities of weapons.
"Misrata is fully freed from the Qadaffy brigades," NTC front man Abdelhafed Ghoga said at a Thursday presser in Benghazi. "His battalions are only present 40 kilometres away from the city."
The rebel front man on Thursday met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, the first European chief diplomat to visit the rebel stronghold.
"My presence here is proof that Poland has forged practical contact with the council," said Sikorski.
Though no accords were signed, the European official pledged full support for the Libyan people and agreed that Muammar Qadaffy ... Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years ... must step down.
"The whole world has agreed on Qadaffy's departure," Ghoga said. "We support his trial for crimes against humanity and genocide."
Sikorski's visit came in co-ordination with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... countries. Ashton announced that the union would open an office in Benghazi "to move forward on the support" for rebels.
Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... a wave of anti-government protests swept across Tripoli this week. A source familiar with NATO confirmed that Qadaffy troops are "re-deploying around the capital to contain the uprising in the city and prevent it from linking up with rebel lines in the future". The Tripoli protests spurred celebrations in Benghazi and other rebel-held towns, including Darnah, Tobruk, al-Bayda and al-Marj.
Four powerful kabooms on Thursday rocked downtown Tripoli, two of them reaching the fortified compound of Bab Aziziyah. A source from Tripoli said NATO aircraft hovered for two hours above the capital before firing missiles. The strikes came hours after Qadaffy made his first public appearance in two weeks.
Libyan TV late Wednesday released footage of Qadaffy receiving a delegation of tribal elders from the east of the country in a Tripoli hotel. Some, however, questioned the authenticity of the screening, claiming that the footage was old.
Several Qadaffy loyalists reportedly tried to detonate a bomb in eastern town Wadi El Kuf. According to a ranking officer in al-Bayda, the perpetrators belong to a major cell of the revolutionary committees, numbering more than 300 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Maghrebia] Security forces in eastern Mauritania tossed in the clink a soldier for alleged links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, ANI reported on Thursday (May 12th). The suspect is a warrant officer in an army battalion based in Bassiknou, in the fifth military region of Nema.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have attacked anti-government protesters in several cities as demonstrators erupted into the streets to mark the "Day of Sacred Defense."
Regime forces and pro-government thugs fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters in the villages of Daih, Ma'ameer and a village near Sitra.
Witnesses say regime forces are firing on homes and private properties and gunshots can be heard from different parts of the villages.
In Diah, Bahraini troops have reportedly used a fearsome Apache helicopter gunship, designed to destroy tanks on a battlefield, to disperse protesters.
Activists of Bahrain's 14th of February revolutionary movement have urged Bahrainis to fight back if they are attacked by regime forces on the "Day of Sacred Defense."
So far, there have been no reports of festivities between anti-regime protesters and security forces.
Bahraini protesters demand an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Since the beginning of protests in Bahrain in mid-February, Manama showed itself capable of great brutality in suppressing anti-regime protesters.
Scores of protesters have been killed and many others have been tossed in the slammer during Manama's violent crackdown on protesters.
Regime forces have also raided dozens of mosques, schools, sacred sites and even graves in persisting efforts to suppress all opposition.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
if it's a Friday, some mooslim rubes are getting revved up by a bloodthirsty Imam somewhere, and getting their heads thonked by other mooslims. It's like clockwork a calendar
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/14/2011 8:16 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] At least four Yemeni anti-government protesters have been rubbed out after regime forces met the demonstrators with hot lead in the city of Ibb.
Dozens of others were also injured after thousands of Yemeni protesters erupted into the streets of the city on Friday to demand the immediate departure of President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower... , who has been in power for 32 years.
Regime forces also attacked anti-Saleh protesters in the southern city of Taizz, injuring at least four demonstrators.
Taizz has been the scene of heavy government crackdown since the beginning of protest rallies across Yemen.
On Thursday, regime forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in the city, injuring over 250 people.
However, The well-oiled However... despite heavy government crackdown, protests have shown no sign of abating.
At least 300 protesters have been killed and many others have been injured during festivities with riot police and armed forces loyal to the embattled Yemeni president since the anti-Saleh demonstrations began in late January, local reports say.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Suspected al-Qaeda rebels ambushed an army vehicle and killed five soldiers near the Yemeni town of Marib, east of the capital Sanaa, on Friday, a security official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The vehicle was ambushed with an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and all five soldiers inside died," the official said. "Al-Qaeda is suspected of carrying out this attack."
The Saudi and Yemeni al-Qaeda branches merged in January 2009 to form the Yemen-based al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Four days after U.S. forces killed al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... in a commando raid on his hideout in Pakistain, a U.S. drone targeted U.S.-Yemeni holy man and terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaqi who narrowly beat feet in southern Yemen.
Yemen has come under intense pressure to crack down on jihadists' local franchise since a Christmas 2009 attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner that was claimed by AQAP.
Washington has expressed fears that al-Qaeda could take advantage of a prolonged political crisis in Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral homeland, where President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower... has faced mass protests since late January calling for him to step down.
Saleh, who is clinging to power, has been a close U.S. ally in Washington's fight against al-Qaeda.
Friday's ambush by the jihadists came a day after Yemeni forces killed 19 demonstrators opposed to Saleh over a 24-hour period prompting renewed international criticism of his government for using excessive force.
Supporters and opponents of the veteran president, in power in Sanaa since 1978, were due to hold rival mass rallies in the capital after the main weekly Mohammedan prayers later on Friday.
Opposition activists urged impoverished Yemen's wealthy Gulf Arab neighbors, who have been mediating in the crisis, to support their "people's revolution."
Gar-rich Qatar announced on Thursday that it was withdrawing from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council's mediation effort.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani informed GCC chief Abdullatif al-Zayani of his government's decision by telephone, a foreign ministry front man said late on Thursday.
The decision was based on "indecision and delays in the signature of the proposed agreement" and "the intensity of festivities" in Yemen.
The GCC chief earlier condemned the violence and called on all parties to sign up to the bloc's proposals for a peaceful transition. Saleh has so far refused, insisting that he wants to serve out his current term of office, which expires in 2013.
The GCC plan proposes the formation of a government of national unity, Saleh transferring power to his vice president, and an end to the deadly protests in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation.
The president would submit his resignation to parliament within 30 days, to be followed two months later by a presidential election.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] Qatar has withdrawn from the GCC initiative to end the political crisis in Yemen, with Gulf media outlets saying the withdrawal was justified due to the delay in finalizing the deal by President-for-Life Saleh ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... and the opposition in the country.
Media quoted Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani as saying that the Qatari withdrawal was also because of the bloodshed and rising corpse count amid the continuous protests demanding an immediate ouster of Saleh across Yemen.
A week ago, the governments of Yemen and Bahrain turned down the deal launched in early April, though it was officially accepted by President Saleh and the Joint Meeting Parties, the opposition bloc here, Aljazeera.net said.
But the GCC Secretary General Al-Zayani expressed hope over the GCC West-backed effort, as he announced that he will arrive in Sana'a on Saturday to push the power transition initiative.
The initiative called for the resignation of President Saleh in a month since he sings a final agreement with the opposition in return for immunity for him and officials in his regime including his relatives from prosecution after leaving office.
President Saleh, who personally accepted the initiative, refused to finalize the deal as the president, saying he will sign it as head of the ruling party instead, raising fears about whether the deal can hold.
While the opposition warned of any delay to finalize the deal and urged the GCC to pressure Saleh to sign it immediately, the hundreds of thousands of the antigovernment protesters at the squares of change and freedom in many cities rejected any deal that does not ensure an immediate and unconditional resignation of Saleh.
In the last few days, the security authorities stepped up the crackdown on the protests leaving almost two dozens killed and thousands injured in cities including the capital Sana'a and Taiz.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#4
Perhaps more worrying than the evidence of advanced technical equipment is that the drug gangs are also showing increased sophistication in their use of "urban guerrilla" strategies. According to the video report, groups like the Zetas are known to travel in convoys of ten to 20 vehicles, carrying up to five gunmen each. They carry out carefully planned attacks, ambushing targets such as a military patrol, making use of side streets to encircle and trap their intended victim.
Where did they get their training that they can take on the Mexican military?
#5
The Zetas originated as a Special Forces unit in the Mexican Army that was trained by US Special Forces. After being screwed over repeatedly by the Mexican Government on pay, equipment, housing, death benefits, and everything else, they took the families and accepted the offer from the cartel working in their area. The cartel paid in cash everything it promised, gave their families everything including fully furnished houses and paid benefits immediately. Oh, and the cartel spent the money to buy the best equipment from some of the gunrunners in Central America, and at first, the Zetas were only sent after rival cartels. Then, they started getting into firefights with the police at a later date.
#6
Where did they get their training that they can take on the Mexican military?
Zeta are, at the top at least, former Mexican and Guatemalan special forces. They recruit special forces people, probably washouts and the like,, train them on weapons and tactics then give them their own gang and area.
The last time the Zetas attempted a "sophisticated ambush" was last week in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon where they they used eight SUVs, set up a multi-lane ambush, targeting a mixed group of state police agents and soldiers, and killed exactly none of their targets, but stray fire killed a man on a bus. The bad guys did wound one soldier.
Media, such as this Soros funded outfit, report drug war news either with breathlessness and sensationalism that bespeaks of an agenda, or in a tongue in cheek tone that shows the writers and publishers regard the cartel murders, which compose 90 percent of the killings in Mexico, as just a cost of doing business to get pot and crystal into the US.
And cartel shooters aren't urban guerrillas, they a buncha gawddam thungs
#7
Almost all of the original Zetas are dead now, and the name has just been tacked onto street bangers with guns. When the original Zetas were operating, they were taking down large groups of rival cartel gunmen at a single time, and usually without any Zeta casualties.
US officials arrested three Pakistani Americans including two imams Saturday, charging them and three others with providing or seeking to provide "material support" to the Pakistani Taliban, the Justice Department said.
The defendants, five men and one woman, "are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban," the department said in a statement.
Three of the defendants, including a 76-year-old imam of a Miami mosque, "are also charged with providing material support to the Pakistani Taliban," namely the transfer of funds to finance the group, which Washington lists as a terror organization.
At least five of the defendants are members of the same family.
The two men arrested in Florida, identified as US nationals Hafiz Khan, the imam and family patriarch, and his son Izhar Khan, 24, also an imam at a separate Florida mosque, are due to appear in federal court in Miami on Monday.
A second son, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles. Three others, including Khan's daughter and her son, are at large in Pakistan.
#1
The absurd Obamaholic (whistling past the graveyard) passage:
The Justice Department, clearly wary of the sensitivities of linking religious figures to terror groups, repeatedly made clear in its statement that the indictment does not charge or accuse the mosques of wrongdoing, and that the defendants have been charged based on their role in providing "material support to terrorism," and not on their religious beliefs or teachings.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
05/14/2011 15:08 Comments ||
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#2
conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban
Wonder what prompted this? I thought the Taliban wasn't listed as a terrorist org, choosing to "diplomatically" address them, prompting the ridiculous ROE in Afghanistan
#4
anonymous- exactly what I've said for some time...why allow this Crapistan country rope a dope us for decades to come?
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
05/14/2011 19:29 Comments ||
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#5
well. As usual I did nae read the article, just add another billyion to that magic number of 6 and you be getting the picture. Kill them all, dead, gone, space-dust, fertiliser.
#6
Jack Salami: Because as long as we do, they won't give the terrorists nukes. Oh sure, they give them material support, arms, logistics, but not freagin NUCLEAR WEAPONS. And I mean anything nuclear, since I have doubts they even have more than a handful of properly-maintained nukes.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/14/2011 19:43 Comments ||
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#7
Charles: More likely they turn into a wacky Islamist mullah-esque, aggressive, country and push us and India around with nuclear ace card.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
05/14/2011 19:58 Comments ||
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A "US" man was jailed for 25 years on Monday for smuggling goods including surface-to-air missiles from China in the first conviction under a 2004 anti-terrorism law, officials said.
Yi Qing Chen was convicted last October on charges of smuggling drugs and counterfeit cigarettes as well as conspiring to import missile systems designed to destroy aircraft, the FBI said.
The evidence presented during the two-week trial showed that Chen, 49, conspired to smuggle Chinese-made QW-2 shoulder-fired missiles into the United States.
#1
Yeah, "U.S. Man"...I kept bumping into him at the Dodger's games.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
05/14/2011 9:31 Comments ||
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#2
Good news. Hopefully, it will put anyone else with similar ideas on notice. Eventually we will find you and you will get busted. Unless he was planning on using the drugs and cigarettes himself, I wonder who he was planning on selling them to? I hope that the FBI is going through his books with a fine tooth comb.
After killing the al Qaeda leader in a May 2 raid, the United States has made clear it will go after Islamist militants in Pakistan if it finds them, and at the top of any list would be Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
For years, U.S. officials have said the one-eyed Omar is based is in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, not far from the Afghan border, where he heads a Taliban leadership council, or shura.
Pakistan rejects assertions that Omar is in Pakistan, or even that the so-called Quetta shura exists. But such denials ring hollow after the al Qaeda leader was found in the country after years of similar protestations.
People in Quetta are nervous and some are scornful of both sides in the fight against Islamist militancy.
"I have no sympathy at all for Mullah Omar or the Taliban but I have none for the Americans either," said Zulfiqar Tareen, a pharmaceutical company representative taking orders from shopkeepers in one of Quetta's main markets.
"Yes, the Taliban are terrorists but so is America." Well then, you'd do best to stay out of our way...
For the United States, desperate to find some way to end the nearly decade old Afghan war, catching or killing Omar could prove decisive.
"If they really want to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan they should go after Mullah Omar. He is the key," said an Arab diplomat in Pakistan. "It would not surprise me if he is the next target."
Quetta has a population of about 2.5 million, including many Afghans, and sprawls across a flat valley surrounded by rocky mountains.
The city has long been a hub for Afghan refugees and Taliban sympathizers, about 100 km (60 miles) over a mountain pass to the border and Afghanistan's violence-plagued Kandahar province.
Afghan officials say Quetta is a virtual rear base for the Taliban where fighters can rest and get medical care and where their leaders plot. Heavily bearded and turbaned Pashtun men eye strangers with suspicion in some neighborhoods.
Security in the capital of gas-rich Baluchistan province is heavy with numerous checkpoints on roads while guards with rifles slung over their shoulders pace the pavements outside buildings.
But trouble in Quetta comes more from autonomy-seeking separatist rebels than from Islamists like the Taliban.
City hotel worker Nasir Khan said Pakistan should be left out of the U.S. war against the Afghan Taliban.
"Mullah Omar has noting to do with Pakistan, he's just fighting the Americans in Afghanistan, his country ... He's not our enemy so we shouldn't get involved," Khan said.
Despite its reputation as a Taliban hub, there's no obvious militant hold on the city and women make up many of the shoppers in markets where shops sell Indian movies and pop songs.
"TRICKY"
Whether or not the shadowy Taliban supremo is in Quetta, security officials are nervous.
"It's a very tricky situation," said a senior intelligence official who declined to be identified. "If you ask us if Mullah Omar is in Quetta, the answer is 'no', we have no such information and we are confident about it."
Nevertheless, he said his men had stepped up efforts to track Omar although the had no new leads.
"We'll definitely get him if we know where he is. It's very important for us to get him before the United States does. We don't want another Abbottabad-like situation," he said.
The discovery and killing of bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad, 50 km (30 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad, was a huge embarrassment for Pakistan. The government and military are facing U.S. suspicion that authorities knew where bin Laden was hiding as well as criticism at home for what Pakistanis sees as a violation of their sovereignty by the helicopter-borne U.S. raiders.
There have been no confirmed sightings of Omar since the Taliban government he headed was swept from power by U.S. air strikes and attacks by U.S.-led Afghan fighters weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States by his ally, bin Laden.
Afghanistan says he is not there but in Pakistan and many people in Pakistan suspect that is right. There has been talk that Omar, fearing strikes by U.S. drone aircraft in Quetta, had gone to ground in the port city of Karachi.
Pakistan, though officially denying support for the Afghan Taliban, has long seen the ethnic-Pashtun dominated Islamists as natural allies in Afghanistan, where most other ethnic and political factions are close to Pakistan's old rival, India.
With Afghanistan entering what could be an end-game as U.S. prepare to begin a withdrawal, Pakistan would likely want to protect its cards, and Omar would be the biggest.
[Dawn] At least five NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... oil tankers bound for Afghanistan caught fire on Friday after a bomb planted beneath one of them went kaboom!, but there were no casualties, officials in Pakistain said.
"A remote-controlled device planted under one of the tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan went off, triggering a fire that engulfed four more tankers," local administration official Iqbal Khan Khattak said.
The tankers were parked in the Torkham area of the troubled Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border.
Khattak said that there were a total of 21 tankers parked in the terminal, but the other vehicles were safe after being moved away from the blast site.
A local intelligence official confirmed the incident and said there were no casualties.
No group has grabbed credit for the blast but the Taliban has said it carried out such attacks in the past.
The bombing follows twin suicide kabooms on Friday that killed 80 people at a paramilitary police training centre in Shabqadar in northwest Pakistain, in what the Pak Taliban said was Dire Revenge™ for the killing of the late Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is dead.
He took two shots to the head.
That made him frown
and he had to lie down.
Osama bin Laden is dead.
Most supplies and equipment required by foreign troops in Afghanistan are shipped through Pakistain.
The main northwestern border crossing was closed to NATO supply vehicles for 11 days last September after a cross-border NATO helicopter assault killed two Pak soldiers.
Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked snuffies frequently launch attacks across northwestern Pakistain and the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, which Washington has branded the most dangerous place in the world.
Under US pressure to crack down on Islamist havens on the border, Pakistain has in the past two years stepped up military operations against largely homegrown snuffies in the tribal regions.
Islamabad launched its most ambitious military offensive against Talibs in South Wazoo in 2009, expanding the campaign to many of the other seven semi-autonomous tribal districts along the border.
Washington says wiping out the beturbanned goon threat in Pakistain's semi-autonomous tribal belt is vital to winning the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and defeating Al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
#$@!% Start adding a few Trojan tankers now. Filled with fuel oil and ammonium-nitrate that can be set off remotely based on video and other data broadcast by sensors on the tank trailers.
When you see them planting a bomb - blow the truck up and convert a huge section of one of the Pak cities/truck stops into a crater.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/14/2011 10:02 Comments ||
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[Dawn] A US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle in Pakistain's tribal district of North Wazoo on Friday, killing at least four turbans, local security officials said.
The attack took place in Kharkamar area, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Miranshah, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked turbans.
"A US drone fired two missiles targeting a turban vehicle, killing at least four turbans," a security bigshot told AFP.
It was the fourth such attack reported in Pakistain's tribal badlands on the Afghan border, which Washington has dubbed the global headquarters of al-Qaeda, since US commandos killed the late Osama bin Laden ... who is currently rooming with Hitler and Himmler... in a Pak city on May 2.
The new attack coincided with a joint sitting of parliament in Islamabad, where Pakistain's intelligence chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha and army chief of staff Ashfaq Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... were briefing politicians on the bin Laden operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] George Mitchell, the B.O. regime's special Middle East peace envoy, has resigned after more than two years of trying to press Israel and the Paleostinians into negotiations, US officials said.
The White House announced on Friday that the former senator and broker of the Northern Ireland peace deal had stepped down for personal reasons.
Hillary Clinton, ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Tallyrand ... US secretary of state
Accepting Mitchell's resignation, Barack B.O. Obama, the US president, said in a statement that the veteran mediator "has contributed immeasurably to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security".
"As a nation, we remain committed to peace in the Middle East and to building on George's hard work and progress toward achieving this goal," he said.
David Hale, the deputy Middle East envoy, has been asked to serve as the acting envoy by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.
"I have every confidence in David's ability to continue to make progress in this important effort," Obama said.
Al Jizz's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said Mitchell's resignation could be "a sign or symbol that the B.O. regime is going to refocus its efforts on the Israeli-Paleostinian process".
"Mitchell did make a push for peace, but weeks later it fizzled because of Israel's refusal to stop the settlement building. Since then it really has dropped out of the headlines in the US," she said.
Unfruitful efforts
Mitchell, 77, had spent much of the last two years shuttling between the Israelis and Paleostinians in a bid to restart long-stalled peace talks.
Direct peace talks resumed briefly last year but broke down over Israeli settlement construction on occupied land.
Faced with deadlock, the US in December scrapped efforts to relaunch direct peace talks and Mitchell
has not visited the region since then.
In recent months, his activity had slowed markedly as the two sides drifted farther apart.
"From the Senate to Northern Ireland to the State Department, his work has brought peace and increasing prosperity to millions of people around the world and made our own country stronger and more secure," Clinton said in a statement on Friday.
Obama has recently made changes to his Middle East policy team and named Daniel Shapiro, a senior adviser who has helped shape the response to the Middle East upheaval, as his nominee to be the new US ambassador to Israel.
"We've been hearing from the White House that president Obama is going to give a big speech where he'll place a new focus on the Middle East grinding of the peace processor," said Culhane.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"has contributed immeasurably to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security".
#6
Mitchell - better known as the weak horse. If he had brought forward an agenda as Senate leader, then he would be President now. And he would be better than Obama. But he didn't. And he is not. Good bye...Good bye.
[Straits Times] PHILIPPINE police say Al-Qaeda-linked hard boyz are believed to be holding a Malaysian trader who was kidnapped on a restive southern island.
Regional police chief Bienvenido Latag Jr. says informants reported that Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... gunnies seized Mohammad Nazarudin bin Saidin on Sunday.
Mr Latag said on Friday that Indanan township police on Jolo island are leading the rescue operation.
Malaysia's consulate in southern Davao city says no group has grabbed credit and no ransom has been demanded for the 38-year-old businessman who was buying geckos in Indanan.
The Abu Sayyaf has been blacklisted by the US as terrorist group involved in bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] [Asharq al-Aswat] Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... is coming under increasing pressure from the international community with regards to the brutal crackdown being carried out by the Syrian authorities against the protests and demonstrations taking place in the country. Earlier this week, the European Union [EU] imposed sanctions targeting 13 members of Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... 's inner circle, including his brother and several cousins.
According to an official in Gay Paree, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, "the Syrian regime is in the process of burning its final cards, and time is running out for it to change its behavior." The official added "the international community will not stop putting pressure on Damascus."
The French source acknowledged that Bashir al-Assad is dragging Syria deeper into the international wilderness, and stressed that the US and the EU will continue to increase the pressure on Damascus for two inter-connected reasons; firstly in order to put an end to the Syrian regime's suppression and use of military force against protestors and demonstrators, and secondly in order to urge the Syrian regime to carry out genuine reform in response to the demands being made by the protest movement in the country, from implementing political pluralism and allowing the establishment of political parties to allowing various freedoms, including freedom of expression.
Since the beginning of the protests in Syria, human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... groups estimate that between 600 and 700 people have been killed, whilst at least 8,000 people have been tossed in the slammer.
The French source also confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the international community's position towards Syria "will change according to changes in Syria's behavior" but stressed that this pressure will not be limited to imposing additional sanctions on Syria, or expanding the list of Syrian figures whose assets have been frozen, or whose names have been added to the travel ban list. The source stressed that the Brussels travel ban and asset freeze list may be expanded to include Syrian President Bashir al-Assad himself, and a number of his close advisers, which is something that Perfidious Albion, Germany and others in the EU have been pushing for, despite the reservations of a number of other EU states.
The source told Asharq Al-Awsat "can you imagine that the Syrian president will not be allowed to visit any of the 27 European capitals...these sanctions will not be raised overnight, but will last as long as the reason that they were first issued lasts."
The source stressed that communications were taking place between Gay Paree, Washington, and London, to look at what additional steps can be taken against Syria, in addition to the harsh sanctions taken against Damascus by the US and Europe, whether this is via the UN Security Council or through unilateral measures. The source acknowledged that the UN route may no longer be viable today due to Chinese and Russian opposition, but stressed that this "position may change" if the Syrian authorities continue to violently suppress the demonstrators, referring to the Libyan scenario, which saw both Russia and Moscow initially oppose any UN sanction, before ultimately allowing Security Council resolution 1973 to be passed by abstaining from the vote.
Gay Paree has previously stated that the international pressure on Damascus can be increased in stages, and the French official who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that there are 4 additional steps which can be taken. These include increasing the sanctions to personally include President Bashir al-Assad, which is the next step being taken by the international community. Following this, the international community could announce that the Syrian regime has lost its legitimacy due to the violence it is carrying out against its own citizens, following this pressure could be increased by the EU calling on the regime to step down from power, and finally through calls for the international judiciary to intervene in the situation in Syria.
Until now, Gay Paree has not reached the "point of no-return" with Damascus, and the EU, as well as Washington, is continuing to call on Damascus to review its policies and implement reform, but as the source stressed, "time is running out for Syria."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Geez, the global tough guys, thefreakingfrench, are out there playing international cowboy and hoodlum berating and browbeating helpless dictators again.
Where'd these guys suddenly get the cajones to act like this? George? Is Connie Rice consulting with them on how to grow a pair?
Or, is it just the contrast between our namby pamby sissified foreign policy and thefreakingfrench?
Okay so the empty suit under the desk in the oval office issued the order to kill OBL. I think he was forced into it. What else could he do? Panetta comes to him with OBL's location and he says naw, that's not nice, we might offend someone? Do you think that would forever sink his re-election chances that are not already underwater?
I still can't belief those notorious wine sipping pinkie curling Quay D'Orsia guys are not the new tough guys in international affairs. Did someone let those guys in the Foreign Legion our of their cages and give them a desk in the foreign ministry?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/14/2011 12:01 Comments ||
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#2
If the Brits go along with it, the French could use British bases on Cyprus to rain bombs on Assad's infrastructure. It wouldn't be unthinkable, given that Syria and Lebanon used to be French territory. It would also be the second time France has sided with Sunnis against Alawites and other minorities in what is now Syria.
AFP - At least three protesters were shot dead in Syria on Friday despite an order from President Bashar al-Assad for security forces not to open fire on demonstrators, rights activists said.
Oh sure, the security forces just couldn't restrain themselves in defending Pencilneck to the last drop of the demonstrators' blood...
Activist Nawar al-Omar said Fuad Rajab, 40, was hit by a bullet to the head when security forces fired to break up a demonstration in the central city of Homs. Two others were also killed, but there were no immediate details.
In Hama, the army used batons, tear gas and water cannons to scatter anti-regime rallies, but protesters succeeded in ripping down a town hall portrait of the president, an activist said.
And in the southern flashpoint town of Daraa, security forces fired warning shots to disperse thousands of anti-regime demonstrators, another activist said. The gunfire erupted as thousands of demonstrators took to Daraa's streets after weekly Muslim prayers, said the activist in the town that was the scene of a massive 10-day military operation that ended last week.
In Ibtaa, a small village near Daraa, protesters demanded a new president, according to amateur videos posted online.
Other videos showed rallies in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, and the port city of Latakia, where demonstrators held up banners that read: "A dignified life, or death."
Thousands marched in the northern, mostly Kurdish regions of Qamishli, Derbassiye and Amuda, as well as in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, where security forces tore down anti-regime banners, activists told AFP.
After several days of sweeping arrests in protest hot spots, soldiers and security services were deployed in a massive show of force for the latest showdown with demonstrators across Syria on the Muslim weekly day of prayers.
Louai Hussein, a writer and leading activist, said earlier the protests would go ahead as planned following midday prayers in mosques, after Assad's office promised him that security forces would not shoot at demonstrators. In a message posted on his Facebook page, Hussein said senior Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban had "told me during a telephone conversation that strict presidential orders were given not to fire on the demonstrators."
"All of those who violate these orders will assume full responsibility," he quoted Shaaban as saying.
And then will be promoted...
The activist went on to call for "peaceful protests, regardless of the behaviour of the security services."
The army started to pull out of the coastal province of Banias where it deployed in force last week to curb anti-regime protests, Information Minister Adnan Msaid.
"After having ensured a return of security, the army divisions have started a gradual withdrawal from Banias and its province," Adnan Mahmud said.
To go elsewhere to fire upon demonstrators...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"...Hey, whaddyagonnado? Always some goombah who doesn't get the memo. Wanna cannoli?"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/14/2011 10:44 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Qadaffy, in which the Libyan leader denies reports that he has been 
Bouteflika
Most supplies and equipment required by foreign troops in Afghanistan are shipped through Pakistain.
Hillary Clinton,
