#3
Much older pic from the 1920s (I provided it to Fred). But Manos: The Hands of Fate is my choice for worst movie ever made. Even worse than Plan 9 ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008 12:40 Comments ||
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#5
Doc, your list of "worst movies" doesn't include my favorite - When Worlds Collide. It's a class "F" (or worse) '50s sci-fi movie from Britain, and it's BAAAAAADDDDDDD. Saw it on AFN-Europe in the '80s. We always got the "BEST" AFN could find...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 13:53 Comments ||
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#6
Saw "When worlds collide in the 60's, was so bad I still remember it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 14:03 Comments ||
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#7
Battlefield Earth is a near-worst.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 15:06 Comments ||
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#8
Yall obviously haven't seen "Surf Nazis Must Die".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/14/2008 15:24 Comments ||
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#9
Mercifully no, DB.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 15:28 Comments ||
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A suicide car bomb claimed by Taliban terrorists insurgents killed two Afghan doctors working for the United Nations and wounded 18 other people in southern Afghanistan Sunday, officials said. The jihadis rebels also stormed a police post in the east of the country late Saturday and killed four policemen while Afghan and international forces killed several militants elsewhere, authorities said.
The powerful suicide car bomb struck a UN marked vehicle travelling towards the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, police said. "The explosion killed two UN workers," Kandahar province police chief Mutiullah Khan Qatah told AFP, adding they were doctors. He said around 15 people were wounded.
One of the doctors was from the health ministry and the other from the UN's World Health Organisation, the Afghan health ministry spokesman, Abdullah Fahim, told AFP. The health ministry doctor was apparently contracted to the United Nations, which is working on a polio vaccination project in the area. Their driver and 17 other people were wounded, Fahim said.
The Taliban movement, an extremist Islamic militia waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government, said the suicide attack was carried out by one its members. The militia has carried out scores of such blasts and the latest attack came as the governor of the province of Logar was buried near his home in Paghman, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the capital. Mohammad Jan Abdullah Wardak was killed Saturday with two bodyguards and a driver in a roadside bombing also claimed by the Taliban.
Taliban rebels also attacked a district police headquarters in the central province of Ghazni on Saturday, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told. "Four policemen were killed and they have taken two policemen with them," he said. The police chief of Zana Khan district may be among the dead, he said. The Taliban confirmed its involvement. And in another incident blamed on the Taliban, an Afghan interpreter working for the US military was shot dead as he stepped out of his home Sunday, police said.
The governor of Afghanistan's Logar province was killed in a suicide attack near Kabul on Saturday, government officials said, blaming the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan".
Logar police chief, Ghulam Mustafa, said the governor was struck by a suicide car bomb near his home in the Paghman area near the city. "He was targeted by a suicide bomber in which he, a driver and a police (guard) were martyred," Mustafa said. The governor had apparently been on his way to parliament, he said.
The interior ministry, however, said it was a roadside bomb. "This morning his car hit a bomb on the side of the road. The governor has been martyred," spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. He blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a term Afghan officials use to refer to Taliban militants and other extremists or criminals behind a wave of violence.
A body handling provincial governments also said the blast was caused by a roadside mine. "It was a deliberate attack," said Abdul Malik Sidiquee, deputy head of directorate of local governments. "It was the work of the enemies of the country."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Is there a "Friendly" bomb somewhere?
Posted by: Steven ||
09/14/2008 20:33 Comments ||
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Somali Islamists have threatened to stop planes using Mogadishu's main airport as part of an escalating insurgency rocking the Horn of Africa nation. The hardline Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers, said it would stop planes from landing after midnight on Tuesday.
The Mog airport is open???
"We banned all planes from Mogadishu after confirming that American spies, the African Union, Ethiopians and the Bilderburgers infidel government troops use the airport,"said a statement in Somali on www.kataaib.net, one of several sites used by the militants. "We warn the Somali businessmen: Ethiopia gets revenue from Mogadishu airport. (AU mission) Amisom and Ethiopians also transport their injured and dead soldiers from this airport," said the statement that appeared at the weekend.
There was no immediate response to Al Shabaab from the government. But an AU spokesman said such threats were not new. "The airport is not for Amisom but for the Somali people," added AU spokesman Barigye Ba-Hoku. "It would hinder first of all the Somalis who need medicine, who need to leave when sick. So this threat means they don't care for the Somali people." A local airline official, who asked not to be named, said he had received a warning from Al Shabaab.
The threat reflects the growing confidence of one of the main players in the Somali war. The group recently led an Islamist takeover of the southern port of Kismayu, giving it a strategic sea access and proximity to the Kenyan border. Al Shabaab appears to have stepped up activities, and widened its sphere of targets, since being put on Washington's terrorist list earlier this year. In the latest attack, suspected Islamists laid a roadside bomb and fired on a peacekeepers' convoy inspecting for mines in Mogadishu on Sunday, AU staff said. One Ugandan soldier died and two others were wounded in the melee. There was also fighting between Islamists and AU troops at the Kilometer 4 area of Mogadishu on Sunday, locals said. "Two of my kids are missing and what I hear is only the constant crash of mortars," resident Seinab Farah said.
#2
I'm beginning to believe the only way to solve the "Somalia" cricis is to destroy everything that currently exists and start over from scratch. Leave no two stones piled atop one another. Turn roads into heaps of broken rubble and large holes. The only part of Somalia that's not at war with Western ideas or non-extreme Islam is the small portion that has declared its independence from the rest, and set up a functioning government. Puntland is nothing but a haven for pirates, and the rest of Somalia is worse. Doing nothing is no longer an option. If the Islamists win, we'll soon have to defend Kenya, Uganda, and points south. The shipping through the Suez Canal will also be endangered. It's way past time to do some rompin' and stompin'. I'd suggest reopening the production line for A-10s, replace the GAU-8 gattling gun on every other model with a 7.62 chain gun, and start hunting rabbitsIslamists. Sell a few dozen to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, Malawi, Burundi, and anyone else that feels threatened by the scourge of radical islam. Take the war to the #(*&^@^$% enemy, instead of being on the defensive. Make radical islam so expensive no one wants to play. Do it NOW, not 20 years from now.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:06 Comments ||
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#3
Just how far back does the Opium trade go?
Would account for many Of the crazy things out of the mideast.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 14:07 Comments ||
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#4
You've covered it pretty well, OP. What bothers me is that we're importing this same problem right here with cabbies and slaughterhouse employess. We can already see the problems popping up. Won't haul passengers unless it pleases them. Won't work if their schedules and holidays are'nt adhered to. Bad news any way you look at it. Very, very little to recommend any of this crew.
AMERICAN raids on Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan could provoke terror attacks in London, Pakistan's high commissioner to the UK warned yesterday.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan said the US bombings had killed hundreds of civilians but had failed to eliminate any Al-Qaeda leader. "This will infuriate Muslims in this country and make the streets of London less safe," he said. "There are 1m Pakistanis in the diaspora here and resentment is mounting. I'm being flooded by text messages from community leaders saying we must organise our anger.
"The Americans' trigger-happy actions will radicalise young Muslims. They're playing into the hands of the very militants we're supposed to be fighting."
"Nice country you have here. Shame if anything happened to it because of those frisky Americans ..."
Pakistan's newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, arrives in Britain today on what was to have been a private visit to see his daughter off to university in Edinburgh. Instead he will hold crisis talks with Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the foreign secretary. He will appeal to them to exert their influence to halt the unauthorised bombings.
"We hope they will help convince the Americans to stop it, to give space to our fledgling democracy and revive our economy," Hasan said. "Otherwise the army will take over. Is that what they want?"
This article starring:
Wajid Shamsul Hasan
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 15:16 ||
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#1
For a second, I was starting to worry about my buddies in East Lyme.
#2
"We hope they will help convince the Americans to stop it, to give space to our fledgling democracy and revive our economy," Hasan said. "Otherwise the army will take over. Is that what they want?"
Yes, that is EXACTLY what we want. Police your own damn boarders or we WILL do it for you.
Pakistan has cancer (al Queada and the Taliban) and the only cure is radical surgery. You don't worry about the medical bills you are about to get when you have a life threatening problem.
(Xinhua) -- Two blasts hit a residential area near the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture in Japanlate Friday, local media reported Saturday. The explosions, which caused no injuries when they occurred at about 10:30 p.m. in a hilly area of the city, were believed to be an attack against the U.S. military base, said the reports, citing local police.
The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington, which carries 5,600 and 70 aircraft, is scheduled to arrive at the port of Yokosuka on September 25 to replace the carrier Kitty Hawk. The nuclear vessel's deployment caused vast concern in local communities with some residents reacting to its impending arrival with anxiety and anger.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I think the US should send the Japanese a price quote for 2 carriers, air wings, support equipment and 50 years of technical support. Then announce plans to move the fleet to the nearest US territory.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 0:59 Comments ||
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#2
I expect Japan could build their own if they had a mind to. Unlikely to happen but I'd like to see what kind of design they might come up with. Might use a pair of big mother marine diesels instead of nukes? Wouldn't be much for acceleration but 216,000 HP would get a decent top end for just about anything.
#3
You'd probably want four, instead of two. Most modern carriers have four props and three rudders for maximum stability and evasive maneuvers. Sell the Japanese the Kitty Hawk to use until they build their own carriers. They'll need two or three to protect the Ryukyus from China in the near future, and to force-project against a radical Korea. Such a deal would provide the ability to defend all Japanese territory with the least expenditure of force and cash, and it'd still be within their "defensive" posture.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:11 Comments ||
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#4
Might use a pair of big mother marine diesels
When I was a Sailor I was sent to another ship slated for the scrapyard,(Strip the machine shop of all goodies) this was a tanker built near the end of WW2, it had a twin nine cylinder diesel hooked direct drive to the prop, they had sent a team to measure wear, and found enough wear to scrap the ship.
The idea was no expensive reduction gears needed.
It was built around the engine, don't know the stroke, but the heads were off showing bores four fet across, started and reversed by air pressure.
I was told once the pipe burst when docking and they cut a pier in half, no way to reverse the engine. looks considerably similar to this Huge diesel, built about 60 years earlier.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:32 Comments ||
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Police launched raids across the Indian capital today, detaining about a dozen people as part of efforts to track down the bombers responsible for a series of blasts that left more than 20 dead and 100 injured in Delhi.
Five explosions within half an hour caused havoc in one of the city's central parks and crowded shopping areas on Saturday evening - one of the busiest times of the weekend. Television and newspapers put the death toll at 30. Police yesterday confirmed 21 bodies.
Police said they were studying CCTV footage from two of the markets hit by bombs. A further three bombs, also placed in crowded areas of the capital, were found and defused. About a dozen people had been detained in the raids, believed to have targeted mainly Muslim areas of the city. A group called Islamic Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the bombings in an email, written in English and sent to several Indian news organisations.
Islamic Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks in Indian cities in May and July that together killed more than 120.
Police said they had several leads, including talking to an 11-year-old boy who said he had seen two men drop off a large plastic bag at one of the blast sites.
Although Indian police have been quick to round up suspects, it has had little success in convicting perpetrators. After earlier attacks many people were arrested but charges have yet to be filed.
Last week, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the head of Jama Masjid, Delhi's biggest mosque, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested "in the name of terrorist activities".
In its email, Islamic Mujahideen warned India's richest man, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, not to build a 60-storey home on land in Mumbai that was once the spot of a Muslim charity. It also attacked the Indian media for biased coverage.
Police in Mumbai said they were investigating the possibility that the email had been sent from a hacked wireless network in a household in Mumbai's Chembur suburb. "Preliminary investigations show the email may have been sent from Chembur," Mumbai police Chief Hasan Gafoor told reporters.
After the July blasts, authorities questioned an American citizen living in Mumbai when an investigation revealed that the bombers apparently accessed his wireless network to send an email claiming responsibility.
Although India is seen as relatively peaceful compared to neighbouring Pakistan, there have been concerns about the rising number of bombings. The National Counterterrorism Centre in Washington says 3,674 people had been killed in militant attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007, a death toll second only to that of Iraq.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 13:12 ||
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#1
When are they going after the culprits in Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Hyderabad? Don't do half a job, do it all, and do it right.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:12 Comments ||
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As New Delhi bled on Saturday evening, Pakistani army rangers allegedly violated the ceasefire agreement with the specific purpose of pushing in militants across the Line of Control (LoC).
Times Now has learnt that while New Delhi was reeling from the aftershocks of the deadly serial blasts, Pakistani troops were pushing in militants into India. The violations took place between eight in the evening and ten-thirty in the night when the attention of the countries entire leadership was on containing the fallout of the Delhi serial blasts. According to highly placed military sources, Pakistani troops provided 'cover firing' to infiltrate militants in Mendhar and Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.
Pakistan firing was also reported from Druchian posts and Rashid post. This is the 31st incident of firing from the Pakistan side in last 4 months.
Indian troops were on Sunday fired at from across the line of control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving a jawan injured, defence sources said. "There was firing from cross the LoC in Balnoi area of Poonch district. One jawan was hit by a bullet," they said adding the soldier was hospitalised.
One to two rounds of rocket projectile grenades were also fired in the area, they said, adding the militants may have fired the rounds.
Colonel S Jaswal, PRO of 16 Corps, said it was not a ceasefire violation and that no militants had infiltrated during the firing. "There is no ceasefire violation and matter is being blown out of proportion," he said referring to a media report about infiltration of militants.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 12:48 ||
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#1
A GMLRS system with napalm warheads would put an end to that rather quickly, without actually "violating" Pakistani "airspace". India needs to respond more violently to these attacks, or they will increase in both number and savagery.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:14 Comments ||
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Dozens of gun-toting Islamic militants briefly seized a government building in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar late Saturday, but no one was hurt, officials said.
The militants were believed to be loyal to Mangal Bagh, the leader of a radical group accused by officials of kidnapping for ransom in Peshawar, harassing locals and running torture centers and private jails.
Witnesses said the fighters -- who later fled under cover of darkness when security forces surrounded the building -- were heavily-armed and wearing masks.
A security official said the building's security guards were briefly taken hostage, but they managed to alert police, prompting the response from security forces. "We have vacated the building and freed the hostages but the militants have managed to escape," Peshawar police chief Sulaiman Shah told reporters.
Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, is not far from Pakistan's rugged tribal areas on the Afghan border, where the army is battling Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
A senior security official told AFP the hostage-takers had been able to leave the building after tribal elders from the Khyber agency intervened, indicating that an agreement had been made to secure their safe passage. "The attack appears to have been symbolic, to convey a message that they can attack a government building," the security official said.
As well as kidnapping for ransom, Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam group has also been accused of attacking convoys ferrying supplies to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan that travel through the historic Khyber Pass.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Key corps commanders of Pakistan's 600,000-strong army issued orders last night to retaliate against "invading" US forces that enter the country to attack militant targets. The move has plunged relations between Islamabad and Washington into deep crisis over how to deal with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban
What amounts to a dramatic order to "kill the invaders", as one senior officer put it last night, was disclosed after the commanders - who control the army's deployments at divisional level - met at their headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani.
Leading English-language newspaper The News warned in an editorial that the US determination to attack targets inside Pakistan was likely to be "the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had", with even "moderates" outraged by it.
The "retaliate and kill" order came amid reports of unprecedentedly fierce fighting in the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan's tribal areas, an al-Qa'ida stronghold frequently mentioned as the most likely lair of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
At the same time, a series of brutal killings by the militants were reported. The beheaded bodies of two of nearly 40 police recruits abducted a week ago were found near the town of Hangu. Their discovery follows warnings that the recruits would be put to death, one by one, unless Pakistan stopped its big offensive in Bajaur.
The bodies of three local Bajaur men who had been shot in the neck were also found yesterday. Notes were attached declaring the men to have been spies.
In a day of what appears to have been unrelenting combat in Bajaur, helicopter gunships, heavy artillery and tanks were used to strike al-Qa'ida targets.
Officials said at least 100 militants had been killed, bringing the number who have died in the six weeks since the offensive was launched to well over 700. The figure is regarded as remarkable, given that NATO forces in Afghanistan seldom achieve a "kill" rate of more than about 30 in any single operation. Many of those killed are reported to have been "foreign fighters" - mostly Arabs and Central Asians, who have been flooding into Pakistan's tribal areas to join al-Qa'ida and the Taliban.
Ground troops are said to have moved into key areas formerly controlled by the militants, despite a promised ceasefire marking the holy month of Ramadan. "We launched strikes against militant hideouts in Bajaur and destroyed several compounds they were using," an official was quoted as saying.
The order to retaliate against incursions by "foreign troops", directed specifically at the 120,000 Pakistani soldiers deployed along the border with Afghanistan, follows US President George W. Bush's authorisation of US attacks in Pakistan.
Washington's determination to launch such attacks has caused outrage across Pakistan, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani last night strongly backing a warning by General Kayani that Pakistan would not allow its territorial integrity to be violated.
The "kill" order against invading forces, and the sharp deterioration in relations with the US, has far-reaching implications for the war on terror.
Anger at all levels in Pakistani society was summed up last night in The News, not normally sympathetic to the militants. "There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan," the newspaper said. "Many - perhaps most - of them are strongly opposed to the spread of Talibanisation and extremist influence across the country: people who might be described as 'moderates'.
"Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and their burning of girls' schools and their medieval mindset.
"But if you bomb a moderate sensibility often enough, it has a tendency to lose its sense of objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of extremism.
"If America bombs moderate sensibilities often enough, you may find that its actions are the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had."
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
We need to secure the nukes, if we can, and let Pak go into the abyss, which they will do, anyway.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/14/2008 0:26 Comments ||
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#2
The "moderates need to start killing these animals so we don't have to. Clean up your own mess and we'll be satisfied, but the mess will be cleaned up, one way or another.
#4
That Pakistan exists is an affront to the civilized world.. That the US government has paid more than $10 billion in direct aid and billions more for sponsoring the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is an abomination.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought General Mahmud Ahmed's removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmud."[3] Another Indian newspaper, the Daily Excelsior, quoting FBI sources, reported that the "FBIs examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Mahmud Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational reports surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Center. General Mahmud Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."[4]
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:25 Comments ||
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#5
Oh yeah, kill the US invaders. This is such a colossaly bad idea it could only come from a place like Pakistan.
#11
Use one 'nym, Freedom/PeaceSqueaks. We welcome vigorous debate here, cherish well honed snark and ban tendentious trolls when we get tired of them. Which lately tends to be pretty soon after they appear. -- The Mods
#12
I've noticed you guys are a bit trigger happy. My folks need a little OJT. C'mon, help a guy out. Training budgets aren't what they used to be since the price of oil fell below $100.
Posted by: Your supervisor ||
09/14/2008 8:08 Comments ||
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#13
Vote for McCain/Palin then.
Mac has proposed a thoughtful job training & industry seeding effort to better adjust our economy for the 21st century. Among other areas, he's focusing on new energy sources and technologies.
Given that that will change geopolitical and domestic political power relationships a good deal, the economics of the entrenched set are sure to change ... albeit perhaps not in the direction you'd prefer.
#14
It doesn't seem like Pakistan is actually quite as anti-American as this order would make them sound. It only applies to units in the vicinity of an incursion against the units making the incursion. Given the current Pakistani force status and US mission style this is unlikely to matter at all. If this was more than just politics for internal consumption they would stop convoys and cancel overflight permission.
Still, maybe we could learn something and try this approach on our Mexican border (against drug gangs and Mexican army - but I repeat myself.)
#15
Everybody remember that every-thing said in the region is always, consistently, lies. It is a matter of principle in the entire region to never, ever tell the truth when you can lie.
Now that being said, look beyond what was said.
Areas of Pakistan are off limits to the Pak army, by all sorts of agreements and treaties. This creates safe havens for the scoundrels, that they use accordingly. For the Pak army to enter to fight these scum would "break the rules".
Unless, the Pak army entered *not* to fight the scum, but to "fight Americans". Then it would be A-OK.
But it would also put the scum between hammer and anvil.
"We were shooting at the Americans, but the Taliban and al-Qaeda were in the way. They all died in the process, but we drove off the Americans who were "driven off" after all the Taliban and al-Qaeda were dead. We are victorious!"
For domestic consumption only. Remember Kayani was the guy Mullen entertained on the carrier. If this were for export, I'd suspect we'd be replying. But we just keep on doing.
#18
Glenmore: no, it is a lot worse. To an American, it is like bizarro world, where everything is the opposite of the truth. To make matters worse, it is done almost automatically, for no reason. If you ask a man with a watch what time it is, he will lie.
A weird example was in Afghanistan, when after a battle, it was traditional to lie and exaggerate how many enemy were killed. Americans perplexed and fascinated the Afghans by intentionally under-counting enemy killed.
The Afghans knew the Americans were also lying, buy were hypnotized as to *why* they would lie that way, instead of bragging. (It is done to encourage the enemy to overestimate their resources in the field.)
Once the Afghans figured it out, they were very impressed by the Americans, and started lying the same way, under-counting enemy dead, which is just playing havoc with the Taliban command.
However, the one thing the Afghans would never do is give an *accurate* account of enemy dead, because there is no way anyone could ever justify that to them. The British Empire tried to insist on truth telling, and the Afghans just thought they were crazy.
In that part of the world, only a crazy person would tell the truth. To anyone, about anything.
#19
"There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan,"
who exactly are the ordinary people?
geez
Posted by: Jan at work ||
09/14/2008 13:12 Comments ||
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#20
Jihadi groups in Pakistan raise money openly. They collect outside mosques, shopping centers etc.
It is estimated that more than 80 percent of Pakistanis contribute to the cause
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 13:26 Comments ||
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#21
"under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani"
Been telling you guys here for years the ISI is a cancer that must be excised. The CIA *must* start shedding senior and mid-level ISI blood, copiously.
#22
The other thing that needs to be done is for Bush to call the Pakistani Ambassador on the carpet, and give him a lecture on the Hague convention.
Art. 4.
Corps of combatants cannot be formed nor recruiting agencies opened on the territory of a neutral Power to assist the belligerents.
Art. 5.
A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles ... 4 to occur on its territory
Pakistan is ceding its sovereignty when it supports combatants that cross over into other nations and fight there.
Bush needs to lay doewn the law, and trheaten them with dismemberment of the Pakistan nation if they do not remedy their failures that allow recruitment and supply of belligerents and illegal combatants in Afghanistan and India.
#25
"We were shooting at the Americans, but the Taliban and al-Qaeda were in the way. They all died in the process, but we drove off the Americans who were "driven off" after all the Taliban and al-Qaeda were dead. We are victorious!"
Sounds like Tales from the Crossfire Gazette. We'll just have to wait and see if it works out that well. But, speaking of crossfires, how about Pakistan between India and the US?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/14/2008 18:01 Comments ||
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Another CIA-operated spy plane intruded into Pakistan's territory in North Waziristan Agency early Friday and fired two Hellfire missiles.
Senior government officials based in Miramshah told The News that the Predator had attacked an alleged training camp of militants from the Punjab. The officials claimed that all the 12 people who were killed in the attack were hardcore militants belonging to Jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri's group. The residents, however, claimed the dead included women and children. Ilyas belongs to the Pak branch of HUJI.
Soon after the missile strike, some unidentified miscreants attacked a military convoy, which was on its way to Bannu from Miramshah near the Chashma Pul, injuring two security personnel.
In retaliation, the troops also fired shots at the attackers, wounding four tribesmen who were travelling in a passenger coach.Tribal sources told The News that two spy planes had been flying over the villages of North Waziristan Agency along the Pak-Afghan border for the past 24 hours. The residents said one of the planes, apparently a US Predator, fired two Hellfire missiles on a house owned by a tribesman Sadim Khan in Tolkhel village, two kilometres east of Miramshah. The residents, who immediately reached the spot for rescue work, said they had recovered 12 bodies.
According to the villagers, all of the dead were local residents belonging to Sadim Khan's family. The sources said the missile attack also damaged some other adjoining houses in the village, seriously injuring 10 people. The injured were rushed to various hospitals of Miramshah.
However, senior government officials based in Miramshah told The News that the Predator had attacked an alleged training camp of militants from the Punjab. The officials claimed that all the 12 people who were killed in the attack were hardcore militants belonging to Jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri's group.
They confirmed that a US Predator had fired two missiles at the school building that was being used by the militants.The officials said some tribesmen living near the alleged training centre were also killed and injured in the attack.
Sources close to the tribal militants operating in the NWA denied reports that the school building hit by the US spy plane was a training centre and those killed were militants."Every time after the US attack, the government people exaggerate casualties and play up the importance of the victims," said a tribal militant commander based in Miramshah, who wished not to be named.
It was the second attack in one week by the US planes in North Waziristan Agency. In an earlier attack carried out by the US Predator on one of the houses of veteran Afghan Taliban commander, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, on Monday at Danday Darpakhel village near Miramshah, 25 people were killed and several others were injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: HUJI
#1
What's the blast radius of a Hellfire? Ours seem to be unusully powerful in NWFT - can destroy a school and damage buildings around it, killing and wounding their occupants. Either that or unusually shoddy construction.
(sarc)
Eleven-year-old Rohit (name changed) sells balloons on Barakhamba Road. Saturday was just another day in his life until the bomb went off near Gopaldas Building, before his shocked eyes.
Almost one and half hours after the blast, the boy still stood in the melee at the blast site. The pouch of balloons tied around his waist suddenly raised suspicion -- there was a rumour that a live bomb was strapped around his waist.
The police quickly surrounded him. Rohit showed them that it was only a pouch for balloons around his waist.
But he had a lot more to say. He told the police he had seen two men dressed in black get off an autorickshaw and drop a plastic bag into the dustbin. About 15 minutes later, the dustbin blew up. Rohit had become an invaluable witness.
The cops said they were examining the boy and a sketch of the suspects is being drawn up based on the descriptions provided by him. "So far, he has told us about a man clad in black dress, possibly wearing kurta-pyajama. He had a long beard, while the other man was clean shaven and wearing a shirt and trousers," said a senior police officer.
Rohit -- whose photograph we have but have decided not to publish -- is held at the Connaught Place police statio. An NGO working with children, as well as psychatrists, are helping him reconstruct the exact sequence of events. The police also contacted his family members and brought them to the police station. They are also examining other children who were present along with Rohit.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Indian Mujahideen
#1
Kay and Jay? Fighting intergalactic alien activity?
A series of synchronized bomb blasts rocked New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more in some of the busiest market areas of the Indian capital.
Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said five bombs had gone off, and Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil put the death toll at 18, with many more injured. The five blasts of varying intensity included two at Connaught Place -- the city's largest financial and commercial centre -- and two more at the busy, upmarket shopping district of Greater Kailash.
A Muslim militant outfit, Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the bombings in an e-mail. The group has claimed recent bomb attacks in other Indian cities. India's television network NDTV quoted the e-mail as saying, "In the name of Allah, the Indian Mujahideen has struck back again. Do whatever you want. Stop us if you can."
Police in Greater Kailash searched for survivors among a mess of mangled motorcycles and shattered glass from vehicles caught in two blasts that went off within seven minutes of each other.
President Pratibha Patil denounced what she described as a "mindless act of violence."
Police said two unexploded bombs had been found in Connaught Place -- one in a cinema -- and a third near India Gate, one of the country's most iconic landmarks. Both locations are popular with international tourists.
An explosive expert with one of the bomb disposal units said the devices appeared to have been packed with steel ball bearings and nuts and bolts "to cause maximum harm."
Triple blasts in New Delhi in October 2005, blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic rebel groups, claimed nearly 70 lives, while a 2001 attack on India's national parliament complex also blamed on Muslim militants killed 14 people.
The Indian Mujahideen group had claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings in July that killed at least 45 people in the western commercial city of Ahmedabad.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Indian Mujahideen
Pakistan has ordered its jet fighters to confront any attack by the US-led coalition forces on the tribal belt near the Afghan border. Air force fighters have carried out sorties in the tribal region for the first time after US missiles attacks killed dozens of civilians, sources said on Saturday. Those'd likely be the F16s they were so hot to buy from us, wouldn't they?
Air Force Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood, meanwhile, said that the Air Force could respond to violation of the country's air space by the US forces if the government issued orders.
Tribal elders and witnesses in Miranshah told local news networks that they had seen Pakistani fighter planes hovering over North Waziristan. They had also seen warplanes flying towards the Afghan border area.
Earlier, Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani issued a harshly-worded statement, criticizing cross-border attacks by the coalition forces from Afghanistan and vowing to defend the country "at all cost".
The Air Force's decision followed bloody incursions by the US ground troops into the tribal belt as well as a string of missile strikes by US-operated drone aircrafts. The reaction comes after US President George W. Bush endorsed US military raids inside Pakistan without Islamabad's agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#4
The Predator is great for doing somersaults, all the way to the ground.
Gee, DoD and DoS, how's the alternate Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan supply route shaping up? Or is it another case of not planning ahead?
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:15 Comments ||
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#5
You just know that every single fast mover pilot in the region that belongs to the US is sitting there itching for a "Avenge the Predator" mission if Paks are insane enough to fire on one of the drones.
#7
The Air Force's decision followed bloody incursions by the US ground troops into the tribal belt as well as a string of missile strikes by US-operated drone aircrafts
Is that true? Perhaps GWB intends to finish up as America focuses on lipstick.
#9
Gee, DoD and DoS, how's the alternate Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan supply route shaping up?
Word is that the grand reopening of the trans-Persia portion of the Silk Road is almost at hand. Well that or the correction of Afghanistan's status as a landlocked nation.
#11
JFM,
Right you are, sir. On the other hand, my understanding is that with well trained pilots, a superb C3 system (including AWACS) and better mods of the F-16 than the Pakistanis have (their birds aren't as good as ours, and are missing some...um...key systems)they might be able to locate and bring down a drone.
The Paks have none of those things.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/14/2008 8:02 Comments ||
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#12
JFM, are you suggesting the report would be more credible if it came from the MSM? As far as I can tell, they're working for the same boss.
#14
F-16 loiter time? Distance of Predator country from F-16 bases? From Afghan air space 'safe haven'?
Would be a 'shame' if an F-16 missile overshot a Predator and accidentally slammed into a militant Madrassa (but I doubt they can aim that well.)
#15
I had the impression from another article here that the packs might be stepping up enforcement - maybe the additional air power is cover for that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2008 11:29 Comments ||
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#16
The Pakistanis will do all they can to protect their jihadis. They provide it with crucial leverage against Afghanistan and India. Pakistan will not give up jihad.
There are known terrorist compounds less than a kilometer from Peshawar garrison with its sixty thousand regular army troops. They havn't moved.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 12:25 Comments ||
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#17
John... would they move if one of those camps just disappeared?
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 14:50 Comments ||
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#19
Importantly, in another article, off Drudge, it was noted that US drones are now flying in groups of three!
Any of you AF types, what does this mean, other than three times as much firepower? Is there a tactical advantage to this? I note that B-52s at least used to fly in groups of three on Arc Light missions.
#21
I don't think they're going to want to start downing our drones. Especially if the cost is the destruction of their air force. Fighter aircraft are expensive to replace.
#22
C'mon folks, it's a basic ploy, while they're out chasing drones a flight of bombers takes out their landing field.
For added nasty, take the field out as they're on final approach, be sure and have a couple of fighters to make sure their landing is a messy one shoot them down as they make their final flare just before touchdown.
No base, no planes, old tactics.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:11 Comments ||
Top||
#23
C'mon folks, it's a basic ploy, while they're out chasing drones a flight of bombers takes out their landing field.
For added nasty, take the field out as they're on final approach, be sure and have a couple of fighters to make sure their landing is a messy one shoot them down as they make their final flare just before touchdown.
No base, no planes, old tactics.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:11 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped and shot dead three Iraqi journalists from Iraqs Sharqiya TV station along with their driver in the volatile northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the station and police said. It was one of the single deadliest militant attacks on journalists in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Today at noon, armed people kidnapped and killed four of our workers in the channel, Sharqiya, an independent channel based in Dubai and known for its criticism of the Iraqi government, said in a statement read by one of its presenters. It said the dead were its chief Mosul correspondent Musab Mahmoud al-Azawi, two cameramen and a driver.
The staff of this channel, whose hearts are full of mourning today, confirm our determination to go ahead with its independent work, the statement said.
The four went missing in the early hours and police said they recovered their bodies bearing gunshot wounds on the western side of Mosul. They had been filming a programme on charity during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. One of the crew later told Reuters her colleagues were snatched from outside a house where they were filming. She escaped.
The head of Iraqi security operations in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province, Major-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, who has himself survived more than one assassination attempt in Mosul, said Iraqi forces were pursuing suspects. We surrounded the area, chased the suspects and so far weve arrested two of them in a car, he told Sharqiya in an interview. But he added that two others were still on the loose.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
No matter what side the reporters were on, this is a blow to the democracy of Iraq. Free speech is a cornerstone to any democracy.
However, I think we can expect more of this. As we are seeing even here in our own country, the media is no longer about reporting but has become a weapon in political arsenals.
We've always been told that the pen is mightier than the sword. But I think that we have come to realize that is only true when the pen is protected by a mightier sword.
#2
Hopefully, this TV station will file a whopping big lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian Mufti who authorized the killing of TV station employees a week ago. That would make a very interesting trial.
Especially if the families of these TV employees are Shiites, since the Mufti is Sunni. Blood feud time.
#3
"We've always been told that the pen is mightier than the sword. But I think that we have come to realize that is only true when the pen is protected by a mightier sword."
Thus has it ever been, Betty.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 10:51 Comments ||
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#4
The old comic "Odd Bodkins" had an interesting take on the pen and the sword.
One character proclaimed that his pen was mightier than the sword, so the other asked him to set it down, and then chopped it with his sword.
He chopped it in half, but one half of the pen flew up and hit him in the eye, painfully.
Thus the moral: "The sword is mightier than the pen. But the pen is mighty sneaky."
"Our nation and its press will rise or fall together." Without an INDEPENDENT press, things go downhill rather fast. We see that in our own nation. The majority of the Mainlysleaze Media is killing itself, while the Internet news arena is booming. I don't know what these three journalists were doing, but it must have been something good for the terrorists to kill them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:31 Comments ||
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#6
Wasn't it just the other day the Saudi Grand Poobah said it was kosher (yeah, I know... but I don't know arabic for kosher) to kill evil TV journalists. Apparentlty he has a direct line to the baddies.
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Saturday, hours after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian villagers in the occupied West Bank and an Israeli boy received stab wounds.
Palestinian security officials said the 18-year-old was shot by troops after he and a group of Palestinian youths hurled stones at an army patrol near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
An Israeli army spokesman said troops arrived at an area near the village of T'koa after two American tourists were hurt by rocks thrown at their bus by Palestinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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A Palestinian infiltrator stabbed a 9-year-old settler in the West Bank outpost of Shalhevet early Saturday, sparking a settler rampage in the nearby Palestinian village Asira al-Kabaliya that left at least eight Palestinians wounded, two of them moderately.
The mayor of the village, Hosni Sharaf, said dozens of settlers from Yitzhar, the settlement adjacent to Shalhevet, fired their weapons in the air, overturned a car and broke the windows of three homes. The mayor said several residents had been wounded, of which two were shot with live rounds.
The Israel Defense Forces imposed a curfew on Asira al-Kabaliya following the clash. At present, no settlers have been arrested in relation to the violence.
Events began early Saturday when a Palestinian man set fire to an abandoned building in Shalhevet, the IDF said. The boy was stabbed when he spotted the intruder and tried to call for help, the military said. The boy was treated for minor wounds at a hospital in Petah Tikvah.
The resulting rampage continued for almost three hours. Resident Ahmed Daoud said settlers broke windows in his house and shot at water tanks on his rooftop. He said he, his children and a neighbor threw stones from the roof to try to drive the assailants away.
Daoud said his 10-year-old son was lightly hurt by shrapnel and that the neighbor was hit in the face by a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Sharaf said that in all, two villagers were hit by live fire and four by rubber bullets. It was not clear whether soldiers also opened fire to enforce the curfew. One of those hit by live fire, 17-year-old Wafa Subboh, was struck in the shoulder and was treated at Raffidiyeh Hospital in the nearby city of Nablus, hospital officials said.
Another resident of the village, Muhammad Asayrah, 58, told Haaretz described a "cat and mouse" game between troops and the rioting settlers, who he said went from house to house in the village and fired randomly at villagers.
Yehuda Liebman, a member of the Yitzhar settlement security patrol, said Saturday that the stabbing took place directly above an IDF post manned by troops, saying that "the incitement, the fire that raged, the stabbing and the escape of the terrorist" all took place under the soldiers' noses and "no one fired a shot."
Initial IDF investigations have found that troops stationed in Yitzhar did not notice the terrorist entering the Shalhevet neighborhood, and only spotted him when he exited the settlement and was not carrying a knife, and therefore did not raise their suspicion. "There is always movement from the settlement to the outside and therefore it didn?t raise suspicion. He entered the neighborhood without us seeing him, probably by way of a nearby wadi (dry creek bed)," an IDF officer said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The mayor of the village, Hosni Sharaf, said dozens of settlers from Yitzhar, the settlement adjacent to Shalhevet, fired their weapons in the air, overturned a car and broke the windows of three homes. The mayor said several residents had been wounded, of which two were shot with live rounds.
Gee, that sucks. Still, I wonder why it felt alright for them and their brethen when for example their co-religionists rampaged through that parab Christian hamlet after a muslim girl supposedly had an affair with a kufr? Poor paleos, they sure can and love to dish it out, but they can't take it, and they're whiners, too.
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.
Somali Islamists have threatened to stop planes using Mogadishu's main airport as part of an escalating insurgency rocking the Horn of Africa nation. The hardline Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers, said it would stop planes from landing after midnight on Tuesday. 
A series of synchronized bomb blasts rocked New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more in some of the busiest market areas of the Indian capital. 
Pakistan has ordered its jet fighters to confront any attack by the US-led coalition forces on the tribal belt near the Afghan border. Air force fighters have carried out sorties in the tribal region for the first time after US missiles attacks killed dozens of civilians, sources said on Saturday. 
