Kenyan police have arrested the 'biggest suspect' in the recent piracy case off Somali coast which involved a 'weapon-laden' Ukrainian ship. The director of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme's branch in Kenya, Andrew Mwangura, has been named the 'biggest suspect' in the case by the Kenyan police who placed him under arrest on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Mwangura is suspected of collusion with the Somali pirates in their most recent hijacking during which they seized the 'Kenya-bound' Ukrainian ship, the Faina.
The arrest reportedly follows accusations of connivance directed at Mwangura by the Faina's owner company. The police, themselves, said they suspected Mwangura having found him to be the first to inform the media outlets of the hijackings near Somalia's coastal region of Puntland where the pirates' presence has complicated naval transportation. He is, as well, said to have been at liberty to contact the Faina's crew and is said to have requested large sums of money from them.
The vessel purportedly has around 100 pieces of military hardware on board including tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and automatic weapons.
Mwangura is to be questioned regarding his allegations that the ship was heading for Sudan and not Kenya. Our correspondent, last Friday, quoted a number of Somali politicians as charging that the ship was originally taking the weapons to the pirates.
While the vessels carrying WFP food aid are heavily guarded, it is hard to believe that the Kenyan authorities did not seek more protection for the consignments destined for their country knowing that the Somali pirates could pose a great threat to it, they added. The US, whose warship is keeping a close eye on the pirates' movements in the area, on the other hand, corroborates the claims that the ship was destined for Sudan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Pirates need shore facilities, both for themselves and their ships, and for moving the loot.
Has to start someplace.
It's getting worse. There was a raid on a town in Nigeria recently, going after banks. Colonial towns with ocean connections had fortifications against pirates, not necessarily on account of war with another nation.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
10/03/2008 8:19 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe this is the staw that breaks the camel's back. I hope they use this incident to dismantle the pirates' organization.
#3
I posted the Somalia piracy incident map the other day. It shows the incidents and the havens. Strafe the boats and ports as a free introductory offer. More incidents, level the place. End of story. We have the means, not the will. Remember the Barbary pirates.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/03/2008 11:27 Comments ||
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#4
The police, themselves, said they suspected Mwangura having found him to be the first to inform the media outlets
#7
Sounds possibly like he ticked off the wrong people:
The gangs, [Mwangura] says, are masterminded by crimelords in Dubai and Nairobi who monitor shipping routes for lucrative targets. They pass directions on to as many as five pirate gangs who pay a "licence fee" to Somali politicians or clan elders.
Italy's top criminal court on Thursday upheld the conviction on international terrorism charges of an Egyptian jailed as one of the chief suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, a lawyer said. The Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction of Rabei Osman and upheld a previous eight-year jail sentence by a Milan appeals court, said lawyer Luca D'Auria.
Osman's lawyer said his client remained jailed in the northern town of Voghera and has served four years of his sentence. Osman was arrested in Italy in June 2004 after allegedly saying in wiretapped conversations that he was the mastermind of the March 11 attacks. He has repeatedly denied it was his voice in the calls.
Previous rulings found Osman had ties to the terror cell that carried out the bombings on the Madrid commuter rail system that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.
Spanish courts have also tried Osman. He was acquitted on mass murder charges for insufficient evidence, while judges ruled that because he had been sentenced in Italy for association with a terror group, he could not be condemned again for the same crime. Osman was living in a Milan apartment after the bombings, and Spanish authorities tipped off the Italians to his presence.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Europe
SDERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Two suspected U.S. missile strikes in villages close to the border with Afghanistan killed three fluffy bunniesbabies people Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The strikes took place in two villages in North Waziristan, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The officials said two missiles believed to have been fired from U.S. unmanned drones launched from neighboring Afghanistan hit the villages just before dusk. A missile strike in one village killed three people, while there were no reported casualties in the other, they said. The officials did not identify the victims.
#2
It's up to 12 now. No reported kittens or bunnies yet.
"Two suspected U.S. missile strikes Friday on villages close to the border with Afghanistan killed at least 12 people, most of them militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said."
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's war against Islamic extremists will go on until the country is "terrorism-free," a senior official said Friday after mounting violence prompted the United Nations to raise its security stance.
Pakistan is under intense pressure from the United States to combat militants responsible for rising attacks at home and in neighboring Afghanistan. Its faltering efforts so far have been met with a blur of suicide bombings that have killed nearly 1,200 people since July 2007, according to army statistics released this week.
In remarks broadcast Friday, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said the government was undaunted. Previous Pakistani military campaigns against Islamic militants in the wild tribal belt along the Afghan frontier were halted too soon, he said an apparent reference to the policies of former President Pervez Musharraf.
Malik said the current government, which came to power after February elections and forced Musharraf to resign in July, will fight until militants are either killed or forced to flee Pakistan. "There is no other option," Malik told Express News television. "We will not stop any operation unless we reach its logical conclusion. That means that this war will continue until we make Pakistan terrorism-free."
Pakistan's army is battling militants in at least three areas of the northwest. The most intense fighting has been in the Bajur tribal region, where the military claims to have killed 1,000 rebels for the loss of about 60 troops.
Most recent suicide attacks have been in the northwest. A blast on Thursday killed four people in a failed bid to assassinate a prominent anti-Taliban politician in the region. There have also been several attacks in the capital, Islamabad, including the Sept. 20 truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel, which killed 54 people, including three Americans and the Czech ambassador.
#5
This comment and prior should again indic to mainstream America that the US WAR AGZ RADICAL ISLAM IS, ULTIMATELY, AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING WAR TO THE DEFEAT ANDOR DEATH OF THE OTHER.
Many Amers and World Citizens seem to had forgotten this premise of late.
(Xinhua) -- A spokesman for Pakistan's Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Polish engineer in northern Pakistan.
The Polish engineer was kidnapped by unidentified militants in Attock district on northern border of Pakistan's Punjab province on Sunday. The militants also shot dead the engineer's guard and two other Pakistani people. The kidnapping took place when the Polish engineer, working for an oil company, was conducting survey at Basal area of Attock district.
The police has launched a search operation for the engineer in surrounding areas. Muslim Khan, spokesman for the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan's Swat valley, said the Polish engineer is in their hands, Dawn News TV channel said. But the spokesman did not elaborate on conditions for release of the Polish engineer.
This article starring:
MUSLIM KHAN
TTP
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Alexander Gram Bellski: the world's first telephone Pole.
The United Nations has raised its security level in Pakistan and will withdraw the children of its foreign staff based in the Pakistani capital Islamabad after last month's bombing at the Marriott Hotel, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Trust the rats to know when it's time to abandon ship.
Suicide bombers struck two Shiite mosques in Baghdad on Thursday as worshippers marked the Eid al-Fitr prayers, killing 16 people and wounding 40, police said.
Police said a car bomber slammed his explosives-filled car into an Iraqi military armored vehicle at a checkpoint near a mosque in the Zafraniya district. Another suicide bomber blew himself up targeting worshippers leaving a mosque in the eastern Baghdad New Baghdad district. Both are Shiite areas in the east of the capital. The two attacks left 16 people dead and 40 wounded.
Six people were also killed when gunmen opened fire at a minibus near the city of Baquba, the capital of the restive province of Diyala, a security official said.
For most of Iraq's Shiites, Thursday is the main celebration of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, which Sunni Muslims already began celebrating earlier the week.
Government officials have warned that militants might launch attacks during the holiday, one of the most important in the Muslim calendar.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
Suicide bombers attacked Shiite worshipers at two mosques in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 50 in a grim reminder of the sectarian tensions that brought the country to the brink of civil war in the recent years. Zarqawi is dead, and his successor's just a pedestrian mass murderer. He lacks the twisted genius it would take to set of jihad and counter-jihad.
In Diyala province, north of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a minibus outside the provincial capital of Baqubah, killing six members of a Sunni family, including children ages 5 and 6, according to Col. Raghib al-Omaiery of the Diyala military command. Had we killed the kiddies by accident we'd be hearing about it for years -- and still might, even being totally uninvolved.
Such sectarian violence has dropped dramatically in recent months. But many analysts fear it could flare again as Iraq confronts a host of unresolved political problems. The Iraqis are over the strategic hump now. Barring something not only unforeseen but actually out on the very bounds of imagination, they're going to kill the terrs. That doesn't mean they're ever going to be totally free of the infestation, and in fact it's likely the masters of terror will attempt to build a new infrastructure to replace AQI, possibly even trying to avoid its mistakes. But it's likely the violence will decline in the next few years to levels something like Egypt or Morocco sees.
The mosque attacks occurred as Muslims were leaving morning prayers celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan. In the Zafaraniya neighborhood, a white sedan exploded at an Iraqi security forces checkpoint near the Mohammad Rasoul Allah mosque, officials said. The blast blew apart a Humvee, killing six people and injuring 23, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, a spokesman for Iraqi military operations in Baghdad.
The second explosion occurred near a mosque in another working-class southeastern neighborhood, Baghdad al-Jedidah or New Baghdad. A teenage boy in a long robe blew himself up about 8 a.m. at a makeshift checkpoint manned by mosque guards, officials said. At least 10 people died, including the bomber, and 31 were wounded, Atta said.
A few hours after the blasts, officials at the Baghdad al-Jedidah mosque sat in an anteroom off the carpeted prayer area, blaming Sunni extremists associated with the former government of Saddam Hussein or with the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. "Every day, every Friday at prayer time, we fear this," said Imat Abu Muhammad, one of the mosque managers.
Asked if revenge would follow, he and a mosque security official vigorously shook their heads. "No, we will never think like that," said Abu Muhammad.
But a young Islamic studies student in a long tan tunic, Ali Lazim, spoke up. "That doesn't mean we will keep staying quiet," he vowed. "We may have to reply to them, at a time of our own choosing. This will be according to an order" from Shiite religious leaders, he said.
While there was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, the U.S. military said it suspects al-Qaeda in Iraq carried out both attacks. U.S. military officials say the group has lost influence and strength in Baghdad in recent months, but they have blamed its members for a string of recent deadly attacks, many targeting Iraqi security forces. "The appalling use of a teenager as the suicide bomber shows how monstrous al-Qaeda in Iraq truly is," said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a military spokesman.
On Wednesday, a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in Balad killed four worshipers and injured 15, the U.S. military said in a separate statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq
#1
What kind of tourist attractions does Iraq have?
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has a new leader: Ustadz Yasser Igasan. According to a reliable Army Commander, Igasan is a religious scholar, not a warrior. Sulu Representative Yusof Jikiri said he had heard Igasan was "very spiritual," but he also noted Igasan was a Tausog, an ethnic group known as fierce fighters.
Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, established Darul Imam Shafin in 1988. Khalifa's International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) funded the religious school.
When the news first leaked that ASG commanders had met to choose a new leader, not much was known about Igasan. Since then, a more complete portrait has emerged. Igasan, in his 40s, was among the original members of ASG, along with its founder, Ustadz Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani. In 1993, Igasan was a classmate of Abdurajak's brother, Khaddafy Janjalani, at Darul Imam Shafin, an Islamic institution in Marawi City. Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, established Darul Imam Shafin in 1988. Khalifa's International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) funded the religious school. The IIRO ostensibly was engaged in charity work. Investigators say Khalifa was funneling funds to terrorists and supporting secessionist movements in the southern Philippines. He was ASG's link to al-Qaeda. The Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council has since frozen IIRO accounts.
As a teenager, Igasan reportedly traveled to Afghanistan to fight the then-Soviet army. How involved Igasan was in any fighting is unclear. The Arabs of al-Qaeda and their Taliban allies regarded Southeast Asian Muslims as not real Muslims. They often gave them lesser duties in camp. Igasan met Janjalani in Afghanistan, and the two talked about a separate Islamic state in the Philippines. When they returned home, they cooperated in establishing the Abu Sayyaf Group. Igasan was in the first ASG camp in Basilan-Camp Al-Madinah. He was there when marines overran the camp. Igasan also was with the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas who raided the town of Ipil in 1995, killing more than 50 people. He reportedly was wounded during the army's pursuit operation.
In 1998, Janjalani's death left ASG with three choices for a new leader or emir: Igasan, Khadaffy Janjalani and Radulan Sahiron. The election quickly became a choice between Igasan and Khadaffy. Those who favored Igasan noted that although he and Khadaffy were fellow students at Darul Imam Shafi, it was Igasan that Khalifa had appointed "mushrif"-top of the class. Igasan subsequently became head of Quranic Studies for the IIRO. Igasan also was Khadaffy's senior by three years and thus had three years more field experience. Igasan's supporters believed he had religious credentials almost as good as those of the elder Janjalani. In the end, however, the field commanders threw their support behind Khaddafy, the dead emir's brother.
By the late 1990s, Igasan had left the Philippines for further Islamic studies in Libya and Syria.
By the late 1990s, Igasan had left the Philippines for further Islamic studies in Libya and Syria. He took a lesser role in ASG after Khaddafy's election and left the country again in 2001. This time, he traveled to Saudi Arabia as an overseas Filipino worker, but it was a cover for his real activities. Igasan made contact with Abu Abdurahman, who was involved with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Igasan began to funnel money from jihadist supporters in Saudi Arabia to Abu Sayyaf. He also might have facilitated the travel of two unidentified militants from Yemen, who were in Basilan with ASG. They left for Mindanao with Khadaffy and his second-in-command, Abu Solaiman. Hostages confirmed the unidentified Yemenis were present when the militants celebrated the September 2001 attacks in the United States.
ASG commanders might have supported Igasan's election because of his foreign contacts. They badly need funding, and Igasan's past activities provide the guerrillas with legitimacy as jihadists rather than common criminals. Igasan's next move likely will be to target Westerners in kidnappings for ransom, particularly foreign aid workers, businessmen and tourists. The abductions also can be a tactic to persuade foreign militants that Abu Sayyaf is part of the global jihad.
Igasan's religious credentials make him an equal religious authority with the Muslim religious scholars who have issued fatwas, or religious edicts, condemning ASG. His background also could curry favor with Ustadz Habier Malik, a renegade member of the Moro National Liberation Front who withdrew from a peace agreement with the government. In addition, Igasan as leader would make Abu Sayyaf more appealing to the regional Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group.
Sources inside the Moro Islamic Liberation Front discount all the speculation about Igasan. They say ASG has adopted the loose "inverted pyramid system of leadership" favored by al-Qaeda. Such a leadership style allows individual commanders autonomy to protect the secrecy of their operations. It means that Igasan would function as a spiritual guide rather than operational planner.
The Air Force on Thursday claimed to have bombed the LTTE's "military headquarter complex" in Kilinochchi even as the military announced that its troops are 3.5 km away from the Kilinochchi town.
Sri Lankan Air Force spokesperson Janaka Nanayakkara told journalists here that fighter jets targeted the LTTE headquarters located two km northeast of Kilinochchi town. However, in a statement posted on its website, the LTTE alleged that the "LTTE Peace Secretariat and the Political Head Office" were targeted. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I'd say...
"In this attack, which took place around 12.45 pm, two civilians were killed and another five injured while they were passing the nearby road. Several houses situated in the close proximity of these offices were also badly damaged," it said. My heart bleeds [urp!]
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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A grenade blast in an area of the northern city of Tripoli early Thursday has injured one person, , a security official said. The same restive northern Lebanese city has seen bloody clashes between two rival factions.
The grenade was thrown in the Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh region where some 23 people were killed in June and July in battles between Sunni Muslim supporters of the government and their Damascus-backed rivals from the Alawite community in Tripoli.
Tensions between the two communities had eased in the past few weeks after both sides signed a reconciliation accord and the army had deployed heavily. But concern that the situation could escalate again mounted this week after a car bomb targeting the army on Monday left seven people dead, four of them soldiers, and nearly 30 people injured. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Mike N. ||
10/03/2008 14:41 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Do you wanna go back two days even if you can't put comments in on the second day stuff?
That's for everybody else to tell me.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 14:45 Comments ||
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#13
This will probably cross the 'civil well reasoned discourse' line and this is Fred's toy to play with as he chooses, but it looks awful Daily Kos-like.
#14
Pure coincidence, since I can't recall ever having seen Daily Kos.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 14:55 Comments ||
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#15
I got
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /home/www/www.rantburg.com/htdocs/dstp.php on line 228
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/03/2008 15:01 Comments ||
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#16
I was trying something that didn't work at that moment...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 15:04 Comments ||
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#17
Oh wow. Every time I reload I get a different pic!
Wonder if Angie Harmon is in the rotation ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/03/2008 15:23 Comments ||
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#18
I like the overflow style element on the divs that make for the little scroll bars within the page. I didn't know you could do that. Ya learn something new every day. Plus the color pic of Jayne Mansfield when I first went to it. I nearly jumped outta my seat.
#21
I'v been thinking about it, Fred - don't really like it but couldn't figure out why. Maybe Dino says hits it. I do like the present system - I can scan all the headlines quickly and open only those that interest me. It's very helpful when I have only a few minutes to check Rantburg.
Or maybe I'm just a stick-in-the-mud....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/03/2008 17:20 Comments ||
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#23
The DS&TP format puts the posts in reverse order of entry -- most recent at the top. It's handy if you've read in the morning and want to see what's been posted since.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2008 19:10 Comments ||
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#24
Yeah, but a lot of times I'm also interested in seeing the latest snark comments to stories that particularly caught my eye. And the way it is now, the newest stories post at the top of the categories, so we still know what's the latest.
But that's just me, and we all know I'm a computer idiot no computer genius. ;-p
I certainly wouldn't stop coming if you make the change permanent.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/03/2008 19:19 Comments ||
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#25
I think we see it as an alternate way to scan the Burg, not as a replacement. As a mod, when I check in the morning I use the Editor (special page for us mods) since like you I'm interested in seeing the whole Burg. In the afternoon I use the current mod version of the Research page since I'm more interested in figuring out what's new and what I might have to edit or fix.
So the idea for a regular reader is, if you came in the morning and scanned the main page and now are back in the afternoon, the Scimitar page allows you to find what's new very quickly.
But I don't think we're going to replace the main page at all.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/03/2008 19:45 Comments ||
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#26
Whew!
Thnx, Steve.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/03/2008 19:56 Comments ||
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#27
Hmm, you put a bunch of work into this update. Thank you, I am impressed, and only offer these comments because you asked. I trust you to make this a great place no matter how it is styled.
I often download the main page onto my computer prior to getting aboard an airplane and so this layout with the articles in their own element adds more information on the page without needing to click to somewhere else, which is good.
I dearly hope you will put the article table of contents in here somewhere though. I use that every day to sort out the articles that I want to read from those that I don't. Without some structural element, I would be lost in a sea of words. The pink colored lines you have used in the good morning graphic to separate the background might make a good section divider. No doubt your good sense can think of several ways to organize. I relate to the categories like sections in the newspaper and don't really care about what the categories are, just that they provide relationship structure to the information in each section.
The new header is too wide a page for my computer to display. I only have 800x480 on this, and the articles look fine at that resolution, but the header is wider. Also, I dearly love the good morning front page graphic with the news of the day neatly arranged along with the pictures. I'm sure it is a total pita to do every day, but it provides that visual cue that says this is like reading the newspaper. That is part of the Rantburg brand--at least for me. Perhaps if the header stayed inside the white frame it would both be smaller while evoking that broadsheet look.
Thanks to you and the mods for all the hard work you do each and every day.
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.
Kenyan police have arrested the 'biggest suspect' in the recent piracy case off Somali coast which involved a 'weapon-laden' Ukrainian ship. The director of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme's branch in Kenya, Andrew Mwangura, has been named the 'biggest suspect' in the case by the Kenyan police who placed him under arrest on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported. 
Italy's top criminal court on Thursday upheld the conviction on international terrorism charges of an Egyptian jailed as one of the chief suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, a lawyer said. The Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction of Rabei Osman and upheld a previous eight-year jail sentence by a Milan appeals court, said lawyer Luca D'Auria.
(Xinhua) -- A spokesman for Pakistan's Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Polish engineer in northern Pakistan. 
Suicide bombers attacked Shiite worshipers at two mosques in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 50 in a grim reminder of the sectarian tensions that brought the country to the brink of civil war in the recent years. 
The 
A grenade blast in an area of the northern city of Tripoli early Thursday has injured one person, , a security official said. The same restive northern Lebanese city has seen bloody clashes between two rival factions. 
