Even the little altercations are becoming rarer. Bill Roggio, who has done a superb job of keeping abreast of the Iraq situation, can only run a story from last week, in which our guys rounded up a bunch of insurgent wanna-bes after killing their leaders who were hiding in a hole in the ground:

Iraqi and US forces killed five al Qaeda fighters and captured 149 suspects, including two senior leaders, during operations in Iraq’s North over the past three days. In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier shot and killed two US soldiers and wounded six others during a joint patrol in the eastern part of the city.

Iraqi forces killed five al Qaeda fighters and rounded up 67 suspected al Qaeda operatives and insurgents were in the northeastern province of Diyala. Nine local al Qaeda emirs were captured “in an underground bunker used for torturing and beheading captives,” AFP reported, while five operatives were killed when troops raided a weapons cache.

So it’s not early to make this call. It wasn’t too early a couple of months ago, when Michael Yon first brought the subject up. And don’t be fooled by a little bit of trouble here and there; go read what Zombie has to say about that.

It’s over, over there.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/17/2008 at 03:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - November 16, 2008

Iraqis accused of murdering British troops get thousands of pounds in legal aid .

Thought this whole thing rather Moonbat like although maybe not bizarre given today’s legal system.
Bet the Brit taxpayer really happy to fund this. yeah right. 
gotta go, running behind. Hope I can post more later.

Reinforces the thought, First we kill all the lawyers.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, and Ben Leach
Last Updated: 10:42PM GMT 15/11/2008

Two Iraqis accused of murdering British prisoners of war have been granted thousands of pounds in legal aid to fight being handed over to the Iraqi authorities to face trial.

Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi are accused of killing Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp in cold blood during the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.

The British government wants to hand the two Iraqis over to the Iraqi government for trial. But their British lawyer has launched a High Court legal challenge saying such a trial would breach his clients’ human rights.

If he succeeds, the men, who are currently in British custody in Iraq, could be brought to the UK to face trial. Senior British Government officials are concerned that the two men will claim political asylum if they are tried in the UK.

The challenge, to be heard this week, has angered the dead British soldiers’ relatives and opposition politicians.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and a former infantry commander, said: “ It seems totally wrong to me that these men are being given legal aid. Would we have given legal aid to Nazis who committed war crimes in the Second World War – of course not – this is arrant nonsense.

“What the hell is the point of fighting a war to try and establish democracy in a tyranny and then show a complete lack of trust in the new regime by failing to deliver alleged killers for trial? If these men do not stand trial in Iraq it would make a mockery of the blood spilt by British troops in fighting this war.”

The murder of SSgt Cullingworth, 36, and Spr Luke Allsopp, 24, both members of 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) provoked a storm of outrage in the UK, with Tony Blair claiming that the two men had been executed by the Iraqi Army.

The soldiers were travelling as part of a convoy which was ambushed by Fedayeen militiamen on the outskirts of the town of Al Zubayr in southern Iraq on March 23, 2003.

While half the convoy escaped, SSgt Cullingworth, who was married with two sons, and Spr Allsopp, were taken to a local Ba’ath party headquarters and then to an Iraqi intelligence base, where they were shot dead.

Photographs taken of the soldiers at the compound as they lay dying, surrounded by a baying mob of Iraqis, were later shown on the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera. The soldiers’ graves were discovered a month later and their bodies were exhumed.

The judicial review of the men’s case has been launched by the firm Public Immunity Lawyers who have been funded through legal aid.

Phil Shiner, of Public Immunity Lawyers, believes that Mr Saadoon, 56, and Mr Mufdhi, 58, would not get a fair trial in Iraq and could face the death penalty if found guilty. He also believes they would be tortured and abused by other inmates.

Mr Shiner told The Sunday Telegraph that the Iraqi Higher Tribunal, where they would be tried, was a “politicised court” established by the US-led coalition to try senior members of the former Ba’athist regime, and had already ordered the execution of several regime members including Saddam Hussein.

Mr Shiner, who confirmed that the judicial review was being funded by legal aid, will claim that to try the alleged killers in Iraq would be a breach of their human rights under the Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

He said: “The IHT have a track record of sentencing people to death and we, the UK, have a policy of not handing over people to a jurisdiction if there is a risk of the death penalty being applied.”

The Sunday Telegraph understands, however, that senior officials in the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice have been given assurances at the “highest level” that the two accused will receive a fair trial and treatment, whatever the outcome of the case.

It is also understood that one of the families of the British dead have written to the Iraqi court and asked for clemency in the event that the former Iraqi soldiers are found guilty. 

(proves there’s ALWAYS one out there, doesn’t it?)

Margaret Cullingworth, 83, the mother of Simon Cullingworth, who lives in Ruthin, North Wales, said: “They should be tried and brought to justice in their own country. It was a horrible crime. We could have accepted it if they had been killed in battle but they were prisoners and were murdered.

“We do have confidence in the UK authorities and believe they will do the right thing. Simon’s widow has been left to bring up the children on her own and she has found it very hard – we all have.”

A spokesman for the MoD said: “The Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary have received assurances from the Iraqi Government that Mr Al-Saadoon and Mr Mufdhi will be treated humanely when they are transferred to Iraqi custody. The assurances have been considered and found credible, and they have agreed that the two suspects can be transferred to the Iraqi authorities, provided that the UK courts finds this lawful.

http://tinyurl.com/6kpvts

Posted by peiper     on 11/16/2008 at 04:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • UK • War On Terror • War-Stories •  
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   Tuesday - November 11, 2008

Obama Will Close Gitmo

Isn’t that special? He’s going to send all the terrorists and POWs home. The rest will come to the US to get trials ... which will get thrown out for a myriad of reasons.

As one of his first acts in the White House, Barack Obama is preparing to move hundreds of detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison to the US where they will be given legal hearings, trials or face yet-to-be-established special terrorist courts.

Mr Obama has a long-standing commitment to shut down Guantanamo, which has become a symbol of injustice for human rights campaigners, and a lightning rod for anti-US criticism since it opened eight years ago. Closing the prison, which is on a part of Cuba leased to the US, will bring to an end one of the most poisonous legacies of the Bush administration while sending a signal that the “war on terror” is under more enlightened management.

During his election campaign, Mr Obama described Guantanamo and the CIA’s secret prisons around the world as a “sad chapter in American history”. Other aspects of Mr Bush’s “war on terror” will also demand Mr Obama’s urgent attention such as yesterday’s revelation by the New York Times that the US military has, during the past four years, conducted up to a dozen secret raids in Pakistan and other countries not at war with the US.

Mr Obama’s plans for Guantanamo inmates should see most detainees, against whom there is little or no evidence, being released to their home countries after years in legal limbo. Others will face prosecution in US criminal courts. One problem for those courts will face is deciding whether evidence from anonymous intelligence sources or obtained without any legal process can be taken into account.

“Most of the detainees are goat herders, or Arabs who volunteered to help the Taliban, but they are not hardcore terrorists. The real problem is getting their home countries to accept them back.”

My ass. At the very least every single one of these creeps is a POW. Many of them are ... softcore terrorists? Does that mean they just show a little bit of bomb, but never press the button? But even as the rest of this article goes all mushy as it leans to the left and has 3 rousing rounds of singing Kumbayah for these poor, poor mistreated ... goat herders ... a little bit of truth sneaks out by accident. If they’re all so good, pure, kind, innocent, and nearly holy ... why won’t their home countries welcome them back?

Posted by Drew458     on 11/11/2008 at 01:52 PM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - November 09, 2008

Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain

Just the thing I wanna see very first thing on a sleepy Sunday morning.. 

Oh btw ... can NOT deport many of these sub humans due to civil and human rights issues.  I’d no idea insects or vermin had civil rights, but I guess so.

Report identifies UK terrorist enclaves
Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked Government intelligence report.

By Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:48AM GMT 09 Nov 2008

The document, which was drawn up by the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Defence, MI5 and Special Branch, states that “some thousands” of extremists are active in the UK. They are predominantly UK-born and aged between 18 and 30, and many are believed to have been trained in overseas terrorist camps.

Under the heading “International Terrorism”, the report, which is marked “restricted” states: “For the foreseeable future the UK will continue to be a high-priority target for international terrorists aligned with al-Qaeda. It will face a threat from British nationals, including Muslim converts, and UK-based foreign terrorists, as well as terrorists planning attacks from abroad.”

The report states that the threat from the Islamist extremist community in the UK is “diverse and widely distributed” but adds that the numbers of terrorist in Britain is “difficult to judge”.

The document does state, however, that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which is based in MI5’s headquarters at Thames House in London, estimates that there are “some thousands of extremists in the UK committed to supporting Jihadi activities, either in the UK or abroad”.

A year ago Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, said in a speech that his organisation had identified that there were at least 2,000 individuals who posed a threat to national security and public safety.

Since 2001, over 1,200 terrorist suspect have been arrested, over 140 have been charged and more than 45 have been convicted of terrorism offences, according to Home Office figures. It is also estimated that there are some 200 terrorist networks functioning in Britain today who are involved in at least 30 plots.

But this latest security assessment appears to suggest that the number of individuals who now pose a threat to the UK is even higher.

The report continues: “The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are male, typically in the 18-30 age range.

“The main extremist concentrations are in London, Birmingham, with significant extremist networks in the South East, notably Luton. Extremist networks are principally engaged in spreading their extremist message, training, fund raising and procuring non-lethal military equipment to support the Jihads in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and sending recruits to the conflicts.

“UK-based extremists, either under the direction of al-Qaeda, or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology of global Jihad, have also engaged in attack planning in the UK.”

Although the document specifically names London, Birmingham and south east England as areas of extremist activity, MI5 believe that the threat posed by Islamist extremists comes from across the UK. In an attempt to deal with the growing number of terrorists, MI5 now has nine regional offices and has almost doubled its staff numbers from 1,800 in 2001 to 3,500 today.

There are around 1.5 million Muslims in Britain, a million of whom live in London. There are 150,000 Muslims in Birmingham and a further 27,000 in Luton. There are also an estimated 10,000 Afro-Caribbean Muslims or white converts.

Some of the terrorists involved in the plot to bring down airliners using liquid bombs came from London, where a bomb factory had been established.

Birmingham, one of the centres of Islamic radicalisation in Britain, was where a plot was formed to kidnap and behead a British soldier.

The plot was lead by Parviz Khan, an unemployed charity worker who formed a terrorist cell in the city. The extremists planned to video the execution and release the film on the internet.

Luton has a growing Muslim population and has been a hot-bed of radical activity. The extremist group al-Muhajiroun has also been very active in the town. The 7/7 bombers assembled in Luton, before travelling to London to carry out their attacks.

The document also reveals that many of the terror networks operating in the UK include extremists who have been trained in terrorist camps overseas and have “some ability to construct improvised explosive devices, incorporating home-made explosives”.

It adds: “The availability of training/guidance and the necessary components to build improvised explosive devices (IED), allied with extremists’ known targeting preferences, mean that IED attacks against crowded places, intended to cause mass casualties, are the most likely form of attack in the UK.”

It is also made clear in the report that al-Qaeda cells are planning further attacks in UK with the so-called Government Security Zone (GSZ), an area which covers the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, Buckingham and St James’ Palaces, as a possible target. The threat level in the GSZ is described in the report as “severe”.

Security officials are convinced that UK-based al-Qaeda cells will attempt to carry out another “spectacular” inside the UK with major transport termini, such as airports and train stations, being the most likely targets.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, said al-Qaeda now had support in large parts of the country, especially around Luton which was the spot where the 7/7 terrorists assembled before travelling to London to mount the Tube bombings.

He added: “We know that subversion and support for al-Qaeda is taking place in campuses and prisons all over the UK. The fact that we have not been attacked for over two years should not be taken by anyone as evidence that the threat has gone away, in fact it is just the contrary.”

http://tinyurl.com/5tbfy6

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2008 at 03:34 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • UK • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - November 02, 2008

America decides to fight and win in Afghanistan. (What? We weren’t interested earlier?)

This report today from the Sunday paper.  Kinda reads like maybe we weren’t trying before?

The comment re. the Russians sending 140,000 troops and still losing, ignores the fact that they were also fighting us.
That is, we were arming their enemies.

I confess I never quite understood just why we were supporting ppl opposing the Russians in that godforsaken place.  Except that their enemy was our friend sort of thing. Bah ... that’s one time we should have allied ourselves with the russkies as we did in WW2.  Or stayed out of it altogether and let the Russians finish the job.  If they could have.

You might say with some justification that I am not too terribly fond of that country or their people.  Maybe I shouldn’t think that way but it’s hard not to.

BTW ... is this being reported this way in the states?  Is it a story there at all?

Analysis: America decides to fight and win in Afghanistan
When British and American soldiers were called to Kabul’s Ministry of Culture last week, those who had served time in Iraq were greeted with a grimly familiar scene.

By Nick Meo
Last Updated: 11:31PM GMT 01 Nov 2008

Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry’s Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul’s foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.

It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.

General David Petraeus, the ‘warrior-scholar’ credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato’s confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.

His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.

American commanders have barely bothered to disguise their growing frustration with their European and Nato allies whose war has been uncoordinated and inadequately resourced. Major military forces from Germany and France have avoided sending their troops to Taliban-dominated areas, while Holland and Canada, whose soldiers have seen ferocious fighting, will soon restrict their troops to training Afghans. It is clear from their actions that many of America’s allies increasingly believe that the war is unwinnable and not a place to put any more troops in harm’s way.

American commanders have looked at all the options in a thorough review and come to a different conclusion; they have decided that now is the time to fight.

“What will eventually win this war is American military power,” a senior Nato source in Kabul told the Sunday Telegraph. “There is no question of America withdrawing from Afghanistan. They are simply not prepared to let the people responsible for September 11th move back in.

“If the Europeans decided to go they wouldn’t that much missed, frankly. Some of them are in the way.”

Although the American military colossus is preparing to shoulder aside its European allies and escalate the war, the plan will almost certainly be very different from the successful strategy in Iraq, where a short-term but massive surge of troops proved instrumental in achieving a degree of peace.

General Petraeus has repeatedly stressed that the Afghan challenge is different. Indeed, some of his army rivals consider him more lucky than brilliant – he took command just as Sunnis had become sickened by the bloody excesses of al Qaeda in Iraq, and they were in a mood to strike deals with Americans.

In Afghanistan, although the Taliban is not popular, its support is growing. And with roughly only a third of the 150,000 troops he had at his disposal in Iraq, Gen Petraeus will simply not have enough manpower to flood the villages and mountains along the Pakistan border.

Instead, the Sunday Telegraph understands that American commanders will soon be presenting the new president in Washington, whoever he is, with plans to fight an intense five-year war against the guerrillas, a war that commanders think looks winnable unlike the morass troops are in now.

Britain will remain a key partner. But battles in Helmand will increasingly be fought by American combat troops and American commanders will call the shots. A serious effort will also be made, at last, to get a grip on the crippling problems of Kabul’s corrupt and ineffective government.

“President Karzai will be told bluntly that it is time for the Kabul government to change its ways.,” the NATO source added. “They will have to get rid of corrupt governors and police chiefs, introduce responsibility and generally improve their act and look like a government worth fighting for.”

President Karzai, who rarely leaves the gloomy confines of Kabul’s Arg Palace, is now said even by his own supporters to be exhausted. He still plans to stand in next year’s presidential elections, much to the dismay of most Westerners in Kabul and plenty of Afghans too.

The rot is so deep within his government that it is not clear how America or anyone else can force him to change, though, however much they may wish to.

The US is so fed up with corrupt and inefficient Afghan police and army forces that it is already considering arming village militias – a plan that sounds very similar to the Sunni Awakening programme that successfully energised Iraqis against al Qaeda.

Afghans fear that it could instead make petty warlords more powerful, and point to the fact that historically, every Western dalliance with warlords in Afghanistan has been a disaster: the Taliban itself was an indirect by-product of US funding of the mujahedeen movements against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s.

The other radical new element of America’s strategy will be talking to the Taliban. But this will be less an attempt to come up with a grand deal, and more an effort to split and demoralise the enemy – and it risks backfiring if anti-Taliban Afghans think a deal will be a figleaf for Britain and America to pull out and leave them to their fate.

America’s military power will have to be the instrument of persuasion for America’s Afghan supporters who are waiting to see if America really means to win.

Nick Day, CEO of Diligence Global Business Intelligence and a former Special Boat Service officer and British Intelligence agent who now monitors Islamist groups, believes that increased US military power could win the war.

He said: “All the drone aircraft and helicopters they can bring in will make a huge difference, and the Americans have learned a lot about counter-insurgency in Iraq. Their soldiers are professional and committed.

“And once the violence level has been dampened down, then it will be time to look for an exit.”

What is not clear, however, is exactly how many more troops General Petraeus will have.

The US military is exhausted after years of combat in Iraq, from where the general plans to gradually withdraw his men.

US commanders have asked for 20,000 more soldiers to reinforce the 64,000 Western troops currently in Afghanistan, but so far the Pentagon has approved only one army brigade – about 4,000 men. More will arrive next summer, but they will certainly be less than the 30,000 extra troops that were sent to Iraq for last year’s troop surge.

If they prove to be not enough, and if the jihadists continue to flock in, American troops could find themselves struggling in an increasingly bloody quagmire instead of getting to grips with the Taliban.

The Soviets, after all, sent 140,000 men to fight Afghan guerrillas at the height of their war and still lost.

As fresh American troops drive between their heavily-fortified bases next year, past ambush points and along roads where the ground can erupt at any moment in a minestrike, they will often see the carcasses of Soviet tanks. And they may reflect that every other army that has tried to win Afghanistan by sending in more troops has left the same way; in humiliation and defeat.

http://tinyurl.com/59h36l

Posted by peiper     on 11/02/2008 at 09:39 AM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - October 30, 2008

Nice cache catch

via Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal, some news from the war in Iraq. Remember Iraq? Remember that there’s a war going on over there? Funny, it never makes the news anymore.

Iraqi troops uncovered a massive weapons cache and factory inside the northeastern neighborhood of Sadr City. The cache contained 34 of the deadly explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), the weapons that are the hallmark of the Iranian-backed Shia militias. This is the third large cache found in Sadr City since Oct. 20.

The find is “significant as it included the machines used by the enemy to manufacture explosively-formed penetrators – the number one killer of our US soldiers,” said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad.

The soldiers found 34 EFPs, 53 copper plates and 40 shaped plates, which are used for the EFP’s shaped warhead, 160 blocks of C4 explosives, and 14 107 mm rockets and launch rails. Also found were three presses and a punch, machinery that is thought to be used to mill the copper plates into the cone-shaped warhead.

Since Oct. 20, Iraqi troops found two other large caches in Sadr City. A raid by troops from the 3rd Battalion, 42nd Brigade of the 11th Iraq Army Division on Oct. 20 resulted in the discovery of 61 rockets, 368 mortar rounds, 263 mortar tubes, shape charges, an IED, 32,000 rounds of ammunition, seven DSHKA machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades launchers and grenades, and other equipment.

The same Iraqi Army unit also found a large cache in Sadr City the day prior. The troops found 15 EFPs, an IED, two 72.5 mm rockets, two 64 mm rockets, numerous RPG launchers and warheads and hand grenades, and other equipment.

In all, 49 of the deadly EFPs have been found by Iraqi troops since Oct. 20.

Sounds like the Iraqi Army is doing a pretty fine job. And, along with our guys, they’re rounding up “insurgents” and Qod Force fighters at a good rate - several dozen so far this month, including a couple of the money men.

Qods Force has supported various Shia militias and terror groups inside Iraq, including the Mahdi Army, which it helped build along the same lines as Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran denies the charges, but captive Shia terrorists admit to being recruited by Iranian agents, and then transported into Iran for training.

Bravo. Well Done. And there’s more, including the capture of 180 AQ “suspects”. Go read the rest.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/30/2008 at 06:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq • Military • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - October 23, 2008

Remembering The Past But Forgetting It’s Lessons

Bless the memories of these brave men who died trying to stop a war. Never again let our troops be used as an expendable cushion between opposing forces; instead stand with the just side and lay utter and unrelenting waste to the enemy. And if you can’t figure out which is the just side and which side is the enemy, then stay home.

Debbie Schlussel writes a very strong essay on this today, showing the horror and pain suffered then, and pointing out the weakness in our country’s foreign policy that allowed this kind of atrocity to happen again and again and again for nearly 20 years, and is still weak today. I call it required reading.

They were there as peacekeepers--to protect Palestinian Sunni Muslims who invaded Lebanon from Israeli forces who were trying to clean up Lebanon from these Palestinian terrorists, who raped Shi’ite daughters and murdered Shi’ite sons in front of their parents. The mass-murdered Marines were there to protect Muslim barbarians from Maronite Christians who were trying to hold on to their fragile majority in the country and control of its government so their country wouldn’t turn into the extremist hellhole it has now become.

Then read this article, which Debbie links to

The Beirut bombing “cut a hole in the soul of the Marine Corps,” says Jack Matthews, a retired lieutenant colonel who commanded the Marine battalion before the bombing and later wrote a doctoral dissertation about it.

It gave a boost to terrorism. “That’s where the bad guys in the world today got their first bragging rights,” says Eric Hammel, author of The Root: The Marines in Beirut, a history of the bombing.

It changed the way leaders thought about power:

• In a speech in 1984, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had opposed the Beirut mission, enunciated the lesson he drew from Lebanon: Don’t commit insufficient military forces to an ill-defined mission with no clear national interest or exit strategy.

Weinberger gave the speech at the National Press Club nine months after President Reagan — who had said after the barracks bombing that the United States would never back down from terrorists — withdrew the Marines from Lebanon.

Weinberger’s warning did not prevent a similar debacle nine years later in Somalia, where U.S. forces had been sent in support of a United Nations humanitarian mission. After two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Somali militias, U.S. forces were withdrawn.

I can not understand how it is that Hezbollah yet lives. I can not understand why we have not laid waste to Palestine. And Syria. And Yemen. And Somalia. And at least embargoed Iran to the point that it’s government collapses. Even if we must fight this war with one hand tied behind us, why does the free hand have to be covered in a soft fluffy mitten so that it can not wield a sword?

Posted by Drew458     on 10/23/2008 at 09:53 AM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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   Tuesday - October 21, 2008

One Hell of a Rumor

A bit of an update on that pirated Iranian freighter, the MV Deyanat. The one with the mystery cargo that somehow killed a whole bunch of pirates. And they all showed signs of massive radiation poisoning.

Once again I’m a week late to the party with this story. But by being late, I’ve had the time to think things through a little bit. And this story leads me to think that an awful large part of the story is not being told. And I don’t know why. Actually I do know why. If this rumor is true, it’s one of the largest casus bellis that ever was. But we aren’t geared up to fight such a war right now, and 7 years into the Global War On Terror we’ve done absolutely nothing to even start those gears turning. NOTHING. This ship may have been an act of attempted terrorism on a scale many times greater than 9/11. And for some unknown reason, such attempts - big or small - are always denied and swept under the rug. Nothing to see here, move along. I have to call this one a rumor because not one of the many blogs covering the story have a source link or even a name for the Russian person or agency that is quoted. And that makes me wonder.

The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes” and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up. The Iranian ship’s captain and the engineer were contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo” but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil” but then claimed it contained “minerals.” Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil” ....

Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. and they witnessed some of the deaths due to exposure to ‘something on that ship.’

Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea.. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.

Ok, so somebody had some inside info, and somebody else put one and one together and came up with the largest Number Two in recent history. And the grim humor here is that one bunch of pisslamic loonies screwed up the plans of another bunch of pisslamic loonies. But like self-detonating Achmed, falling down the stairs while wearing his suicide vest (BOOM!), we’ve seen this Three Stooges routine many times before. Nothing new there either.

Now comes the really scary part.

Somali pirates release Iranian ship

(source: Iranian news agency) Somali pirates have released an Iranian ship, Dianat, two months after being hijacked in the notorious Gulf of Aden, Iran’s shipping company says.

On August 21, the pirates seized the Iranian bulk carrier, carrying 42,500 tons of minerals and industrial products.

“The ship Dianat was released on Friday morning after seven weeks of negotiations with Somali pirates and all 29 members of the crew are safe,” Said public relations office of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL).

The ship is sailing towards international waters, IRISL added.

And no word at all from anyone that this ship has been seized, searched, boarded, scanned, or anything by western naval forces which are in the area in strength. We just let them go on their merry way? To where? Something doe not add up here. Not at all.

A bit of an update, just as disquieting:

The ship was released by Somali pirates on October 10, after a $250,000 cash bribe was paid by the U.S. Navy for her release. The MV Iran Denyant was taken into immediate custody of a joint naval taskforce present, to include Russian and French ships. Crew members had all been interrogated and all of them, deemed “uninformed of the ship’s course or cargo” were duly released to their diplomatic representatives. The ship was boarded, occupied and thoroughly searched by U.S. Navy specialists but a subsequent report on the suspicious cargo containers has been heavily classified.(‘Top Secret- Galactic’)

Russian sources indicate that the ship was carrying a “highly radioactive” cargo in specially built” containers and that this cargo was falsely listed in the ship’s manifest.

A “ransom” of $250,000 was eventually paid by the U.S., the ship boarded by the Navy, her cargo secured and the crew interrogated and eventually released and the ship was moved, under her own power and with an American crew, to the Muscat port where the U.S. Navy has docking rights. Her manifest was entirely false. The ship was not going to Rotterdam and there was no “German businessman” to take charge of the fictional cargo.

The entire matter has been shut up and you will never see any mention of it in any mainstream media. The matter is now considered closed. There still remain a number of questions that need to be answered. Both Israel, and at her behest, from Washington, there has been a great outpouring of animosity directed at Tehran, and many threats; for economic sanctions by the United States and overt attacks by Israel. In light of this past behavior, the most important question is why this incident, with its horrifying implications, has been studiously ignored, even shut down, by both countries.

I know that Iran is the enemy. You know that Iran is the enemy. We all know it. Why does our country hide from this reality? Ok fine. We buy their oil on the international market. So what? If the US comes right out and says Iran is an enemy nation, then we can’t do that? Fine. Send in the Dutch to get the oil, then we’ll buy their oil from the Dutch. It’s all the same thing. And it’s not like the US isn’t internationally forever guilty of hypocrisy anyway. So what’s one more charge of it, even if this time it turns out to be mostly true. We’d just be being practical, like the fwench.

Did the US actually seize and search this vessel, find a radioactive cargo and evidence of it being rigged as a bomb, and then let the ship go, either armed or disarmed? And then not tell us? Horry Clap. Like I said at the top, this is one hell of a rumor. The author of the above linked post claims to have a copy of the ship’s manifest. Publish it then. But really, what good would that do? How could it be accepted, since it’s a copy (whatever that means). A lying media and Fake But Accurate destroyed any faith in any information source. Truthiness or not - no document can ever again be believed to be real.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/21/2008 at 10:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Iran • Middle-East • Military • Pirates, aarrgh! • War On Terror •  
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   Monday - October 20, 2008

Woman aid worker gunned down by Taliban motorbike killers in Kabul for ‘spreading Christianity.

One of the comments posted at the Daily Mail on this story has this to say.

The poster does have a valid point.  Surely the poor woman must have known how dangerous was her position.  Maybe she felt safe and so gave no thought to it.  I have to feel sorry for her and her family, even if I think she just didn’t belong there.  Well, thinking about it I guess help has to come from somewhere.  But I wonder just how much actual good it all does.  That place has been a stone age culture since forever.  And why do some Christians think they are duty bound to convert anyone else if those others are perfectly content with what they already have and believe in?  I don’t know if they’re brave or foolhardy. Maybe a bit of both?  Still, it is damn sad.

And Colin Powell doesn’t approve the way Republicans on the right treat with or view muslims.  Gee, can’t understand that either. They are rational, civilized people who belong to a religion of peace after all.  quick ... where’s the barf bag? 

A PS for BMEWS viewers least you think I can’t spell.  I refuse to spell muslim or islam with caps. I’m not certain anymore but I think I may have picked that up from Skipper, and so it will remain.

British woman aid worker gunned down by Taliban motorbike killers in Kabul for ‘spreading Christianity’

Last updated at 12:58 PM on 20th October 2008

A British woman working for a Christian charity helping disabled Afghans was shot dead by the Taliban in Kabul as she walked to work early this morning, officials said.

Gayle Williams worked for SERVE Afghanistan, which describes itself as a Christian charity. It confirmed the incident but would not give any details.

‘Our people carried out this attack in District 3 of Kabul this morning at 7am,’ the Taliban’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed said.

‘The reason that we killed her was because she was spreading Christianity.’

A government spokesman, Zemarai Bashary, said: ‘Two armed men sitting on a motorbike shot her dead. Some bullets hit her body and some hit her leg and when police got there she was dead.’

A witness said he had seen the woman walk along the same route to work in the upmarket western Kart-e-Char suburb for about two years.

A builder, who gave his name as Daulad, said he had heard seven shots and when he looked into the street he saw a woman lying on a footpath.

It is rare that foreign nationals are killed in the Afghan capital, although there have been several kidnappings.

There have been three assassinations in the southern city of Kandahar in recent weeks, also carried out by men on motorbikes.

The insurgent Taliban - in government between 1996 and 2001 - claimed responsibility for two of the killings involving the city’s most senior policewoman and a government official.

The third was of a top tribal elder shot dead with his son, a former bodyguard of President Hamid Karzai, as they left a mosque early in the morning.

An NGO security group said last week that attacks on aid workers by insurgents in Afghanistan were at the highest level in six years.

There had been 146 security incidents involving non-government organisations to September this year compared to 135 for the whole of 2007, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said in a quarterly report.

They included 28 killings, among them five international workers, and 72 abductions, the group said.

Among the victims were three Western women aid workers with the International 90 Rescue Committee who were gunned down with their driver about 30 miles outside of Kabul in August.

The women were a British and Canadian citizen, a Canadian national and a Trinidad and American national.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders, the worst involving the foreign aid community in years.

ANSO said in its report that it was reluctant to support the idea that NGOs were being directly targeted for their own activities rather than for being mistakenly associated with the international military forces in Afghanistan.

The watchdog urged aid groups to begin ‘strongly reinforcing their independence and moving away from political and military actors’ for their own protection.

http://tinyurl.com/5g26uq

Posted by Drew458     on 10/20/2008 at 07:06 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • War On Terror •  
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AND THESE ARE THE FOLKS WE’RE TOLD WE SHOULD NEGOTIATE WITH. ALL IN A DAYS WORK.

Some pols have suggested that the west needs to talk to these folks. Right.  How does one carry on a conversation with an insect?

Taliban kill 30 on bus in southern Afghanistan
Taliban militants have stopped a bus travelling on the Afghanistan’s main highway, seized about 50 people on board and slaughtered around 30 of them.

A Taliban spokesman said the militia’s fighters carried out the attack in the country’s south and that they had killed 27 Afghan army soldiers riding on the bus. However, Afghan officials said no soldiers were aboard and that the militants had killed civilians.

The bus was travelling in a two-bus convoy in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, a Taliban-controlled area about 40 miles (60 kilometers) west of Kandahar city.

Matiullah Khan, the provincial police chief, said bout 50 people were taken hostage, though several were freed.

Officials offered varying death tolls from the attack, which occurred in an area of Afghanistan that government forces cannot safely travel to without heavy military protection.

The Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, said 31 people were killed. Six of the dead were beheaded in a separate area of Maiwand from where the other 25 bodies were found, he said.

Mr Khan said authorities had arrested four Taliban commanders in connection with the attack.

Gen Azimi dismissed the Taliban claim that 27 soldiers had been killed. “Our soldiers travel by military convoy, not in civilian buses. And we have military air transportation.

“The Taliban want to hide the news that they arrested and killed innocent Afghan civilians,” he said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said militants looked at the documents of those traveling on the bus, released all the civilians and killed only soldiers. Taliban spokesmen often exaggerate their claims but occasionally their information matches with the government version of events.

Mr Khan said two buses had been traveling together, and the militants had tried to stop the first one but failed. He said the insurgents fired at the first bus and killed one child on board.

Taliban attacks have become increasingly lethal this year, as the militia has gained power and surged throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan. Violence in Afghanistan this year has killed more than 5,100 people — mostly militants.

http://tinyurl.com/598xdz

Posted by Drew458     on 10/20/2008 at 02:23 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - October 12, 2008

“unwinnable” Afghanistan

Well Ok then. This is a bit of positive news I can get behind. Looks like the towel heads got yet another smack down and that their latest banana stand is burning merrily. I gather they made their big push before winter sets in, and not only got shot to bits, they also lost a whole bunch of supplies, lost a suicide bomb factory, and had yet another one of their leaders turned into banana pudding. I think this calls for a drink.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban militants launched a surprise attack on a key southern Afghan town, sparking a battle that killed some 60 insurgents, an Afghan official said Sunday. A second clash in the same region killed another 40 militants.

Taliban fighters used rockets and other heavy weapons to attack Afghan forces on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, said Daud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand’s governor.

Militants attacked the city from three sides starting just after midnight and were pushed back only after a battle that involved airstrikes, Ahmadi said. Rockets landed in different parts of the city but there were no civilian casualties, he said.

Authorities recovered the bodies of 41 Taliban fighters on the city’s outskirts, from where the attack was launched, he said. He estimated the bodies of another 20 fighters were taken from the battle site by the militants, citing intelligence reports.

British forces are responsible for protecting the area around Lashkar Gah.

In a second battle in Helmand province, Afghan and international troops retook the Nad Ali district center — which had been held by militants — during a three-day fight, Ahmadi said. That battle, which also involved airstrikes, ended Saturday, Ahmadi said.

Afghan police and soldiers were now in control of the district center. There were no casualties among Afghan or NATO troops, Ahmadi said.

Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal backs this story up and adds lots more detail:

US, British, and Afghan forces defeated two Taliban attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan on Sunday. Seventy Taliban were killed during the two engagements. Five were killed as they attempted to attack from inside Pakistan.
...
In southern Afghanistan, US and Afghan forces killed more than 65 Taliban fighters after they attempted to attack an Afghan National Security Forces outpost in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province. The Taliban were seen gathering outside the town and were preparing a mortar attack when British and Afghan forces launched a counterattack. An airstrike resulted in most of the casualties, ISAF said in a press release. Mullah Qudratullah, the commander of the Taliban force, was killed in the attack, the provincial governor’s spokesman told Reuters.

Al-Reuters actually confirms this, adding quotes from NATO commander General David McKiernan

“We are not losing in Afghanistan,” General David McKiernan told a news conference. But, he said, “we have insufficient security forces here to adequately provide for the security of the people of Afghanistan.”

... speaking on the latest attacks by insurgents and the ass-whupping handed to them :
“A large number of insurgents in the hundreds were detected and were acted upon by a combined operation, a partnered operation between Task Force Helmand and the Afghan National Army,” McKiernan said.

“A large number of insurgents have been killed. I have not heard of reports of civilian collateral damage or civilian casualties,” he said.

In terms of the Afghanistan conflict, these were pretty huge confrontations. Helamand Province is in the southern end of the country, down by the Pakistan and Iranian borders. It is the opum growing center of the nation, producing more than half of Afghanistan’s opium crop. And Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opium. And it’s harvest time. Am I the only one who sees a connection? Let’s hope our side used massive quantities of napalm to deny these cretins any cover.

And Then?

At the same time all of this was going on, the Pakis were gittin ‘er done on their side of the border, taking out almost 30 Talis and destroying a suicide bomb factory

12 bombers among 27 slain in Orakzai

* 13 Taliban dead in Bajaur airstrikes
* Kanjoo elders convene jirga after meeting Taliban

Staff Report (same story, different source, here)

PESHAWAR: Security forces said they have killed 27 Taliban in an airstrike in Orakzai Agency on Sunday.

“In a highly successful action in Orakzai Agency, a combat aviation strike killed 27 Taliban,” said a statement from the Frontier Corps (FC) headquarters. The statement said those killed included two important Taliban commanders.

Credible sources confirmed that 12 persons among those killed were would-be suicide bombers, said the statement.

And Then?
Well, how about Afghan an coalition forces busting up the Taliban supply lines and snagging lots of their shit, from heavy weapons to explosives to medical supplies? Tough being Joe Kewl Fighting Taliban Guy without any supplies aint’ it? tut tut tisk tisk, gee, too bad Hassan.

ANSF, ISAF forces successfully disrupt insurgent leadership, supply lines in Panjwayi

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan National Security Forces and ISAF soldiers conducted security operations aimed at disrupting insurgent leadership and supply lines in eastern Panjwayi district, Kandahar, 2-10 October.

During the operations, which took place near Nakhonay, ANSF and ISAF forces seized heavy weaponry, ammunition and vast quantities of insurgent medical supplies. Substantial quantities of explosives and components used for making roadside bombs were also seized and destroyed.

“Afghan forces have seized considerable caches of insurgent supplies, bomb-making material and weapons,” said General Zazai, the commander of Afghan National Army’s 205th Corps. “We fully expected to find these caches, and the insurgent capability to operate will be impacted and public safety improved as a result of the efforts of the ANSF and ISAF.”

out-friggin-standing!

And Then?
Well, that’s about it, but the details are coming out on that supply capture. It turns out that a little kid tipped our guys off about it, and that it was a dog that actually sniffed out the stuff! And it’s a lot of stuff ...

NAKHONAY, Afghanistan — The initial tip came from a boy who warned that the compound and grape vineyard was a “bad place,” and that he and other children in the village had been warned not to go there.

Afghan troops took a quick look around and declared the small farm held nothing of interest. But Canadian soldiers advising the Afghans decided to send in a bomb-sniffing dog to investigate, just to be sure.

Their caution paid off. The dog hit upon a land mine and two containers of homemade explosives. Soldiers also uncovered the wheel carriage for an anti-tank gun and several canisters for its heavy rounds.

The discoveries grew. Within hours, the troops had found an 82 mm recoilless rifle, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a PKM machine gun, two AK-47 rifles and several anti-personnel mines. They also uncovered a number of grain sacks stashed among the grape vines that were stuffed with hundreds of individual rounds of munitions, including RPGs, mortar bombs, artillery rounds and several calibers of small arms ammunition.

The soldiers also discovered bomb-making materials, handheld radios, winter clothing and more than a dozen boxes of medical supplies that included IV bags, antiseptics, pain medicine and bandages. Several boxes bore the label of the International Red Cross Logistics Center in Peshawar, Pakistan. Others indicated that the contents had originated in Europe, Canada and the United States.

The discovery of the cache Wednesday appeared to be one of the biggest finds of Taliban weapons and supplies in Kandahar province in recent months.

Good job Canada. Well done.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/12/2008 at 07:00 PM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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   Monday - October 06, 2008

War in Afghanistan cannot be won, British commander Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith warns .

It’s June 5th and Ike finally says, We can’t win this war.
Of course the Germans hear that too and so ......

August 6, 2008
Sie haben Papiere? Sprechen Sie Deutsche?

War in Afghanistan cannot be won, British commander Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith warns
The war in Afghanistan cannot be won, Britain’s most senior military commander in the country has warned.

By Caroline Gammell
Last Updated: 11:53PM BST 05 Oct 2008

(just what these grunts wanna hear, right?  risking and often losing life and limb, they gotta wonder just what the hell they are doing this for if a high ranking officer says they can’t win.  and now we might not. because the enemy knows all they gotta do is wait us out.  good strategy brigadier. )

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect “a decisive military victory” and that he believed groups of insurgents would still be at large after troops pulled out.

In June, he claimed that British forces had reached a “tipping point” against a weakened Taliban after their leadership was “decapitated”.

But on Sunday the army officer said it was time to lower expectations and focus on reducing the conflict to a level which could be managed by the Afghan army.

Brig Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade - which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan - said talking to the Taliban could be an important part of that process.

He insisted his forces had “taken the sting out” of the Taliban for 2008 as winter and the colder weather approaches, but warned that many of the fighters would return in May or June.

He said British forces had killed six important Taliban commanders and delivered a vast turbine to Kajaki dam to significantly bolster electricity supplies.

However, he told a Sunday newspaper: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.

“We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency… I don’t think we should expect that when we go, there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world.

“That would be unrealistic.”

Brig Carleton-Smith, who took the unusual step last month of calling for 4,000 more troops, said the goal should be to find a non-violent resolution.

“We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of a gun to one where it is done through negotiations,” he said.

“If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.”

“That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesman defended the brigadier’s comments and said the aim was to provide a secure infrastructure for the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army.

“We have always said there is no military solution in Afghanistan. Insurgencies are ultimately solved at the political level, not by military means alone,” the spokesman said.

“We are not looking for a total military victory, it is much wider than that, improving the infrastructure to alllow the country to move forward without the need for a total defeat of the Taliban.

“We fully support President Karzai’s efforts to bring disaffected Afghans into society’s mainstream with his proviso that they renounce violence and accept Afghanistan’s constitution.”

Joining the debate about how long troops will stay in Afghanistan, Brig Carleton-Smith said he expected tactical military responsibility to be handed over to the Afghan government within five years.

Defence Secretary Des Browne has already warned it will take years to establish a stable democracy and told a think-tank in Washington in July that it would be a “longer haul” than Iraq.

Last week, the British ambassador to Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was linked to disparaging remarks about the role of international troops in Afghanistan.

A French newspaper printed what it claimed was a leaked memo which quoted Sir Sherard as saying that foreign forces were “slowing down and complicating and eventual end to the crisis”.

http://tinyurl.com/4s9yb4

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 09:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • Terrorists • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - September 28, 2008

Iconic Afghan policewoman shot dead.  (form the other side of the world via Al Jazeera)

Well heck.  When will women simply learn their place and be happy raising multiple children and accepting slave status?  Is that too much to ask?
Jews too. And other infidels like Christians and in fact, everyone who isn’t a talibanee.  Cretins!

Story Credit: AlJazeera

A woman regarded as Afghanistan’s most prominent female police officer has been shot dead in the southern city of Kandahar, a government official has said.

Malalai Kakar, the head of the city’s department on crimes against women, was attacked by armed men on Sunday as she left her home, Zalmay Ayoobi, a Kandahar government spokesman, said.

“Today between 7am [0230 GMT] and 8am when she was [in her car] outside her house and going to her job, some gunmen attacked,” Ayoobi said.

“Malalai Kakar died in front of her house. Her son was wounded.”

Kandahar is a traditional stronghold of the Taliban, which is fighting an armed campaign against the Afghan government and US and Nato forces in the country.

Kakar, who was in her late 30s, was shot in the head, a doctor said.

“She died on the spot and her son, who was badly injured, is in a coma in the hospital,” he said without giving his name.

A spokesman for the Taliban said that the assassins were from his group.

“We killed Malalai Kakar,” Yousuf Ahmadi, spokesman told the AFP news agency, said.

“She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”

Death threats

Kakar, a police captain and mother of six, led a 10-strong team of women police officers and had reportedly received numerous death threats in recent months.

She was well-respected in the police force for her bravery, one of her colleagues said on condition of anonymity.

Her work attracted attention from international media outlets interested in her work in Kandahar.

She was the first woman to enrol in the Kandahar police force after the 2001 removal of the Taliban and had been involved in investigating crimes against women and children, and conducting house searches.

The head of Kandahar province’s women’s affairs department was killed in a similar way two years ago.

Assailants shot dead a female police officer in June in the western province of Herat in what was believed to be the first assassination of a female police officer in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s police force was destroyed by the time the Taliban were removed and is being rebuilt with international assistance. It numbers about 80,000 people, including a few hundred women.

About 750 policemen have been killed in the past six months, mostly in Taliban-linked violence sweeping the country.

http://tinyurl.com/4z4wzt

Posted by Drew458     on 09/28/2008 at 01:20 PM   
Filed Under: • International • RoPMA • Terrorists • War On Terror •  
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Terror arrests linked to controversial Muslim book.  (here we go again?)

Well now this is a big surprise, is it not?

North London terror arrests linked to controversial Muslim book
Four people have been arrested in London over an alleged terror attack on the publisher of a controversial book on the prophet Muhammad.

By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
Last Updated: 9:44AM BST 28 Sep 2008

The arrests are connected to a fire at a property in Islington, north London, which is used as the home and office of Martin Rynja, a publisher.

His company, Gibson Square, recently bought the rights to a novel which is considered by some to be more controversial than Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses. The new book, about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride, is entitled The Jewel of Medina.

The blaze yesterday, which led to people being evacuated from the house, may have been started by a petrol bomb pushed through the letter box.

Initially, three men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were detained at around 2.25am yesterday after a fire broke out at a property in Lonsdale Square, Islington. Two were stopped by armed officers in Lonsdale Square, and the third was seized when a car was stopped by armed police near Angel underground station.

Random House US, the major publishing group, announced in May this year that it was dropping its plans to publish Sherry Jones’s debut novel following warnings that it could incite acts of violence from radical Muslims. The Jewel of the Medina was also pulled from bookshops in Serbia last month after pressure from an Islamic group.

Gibson Square, which has previously published other controversial books, bought the rights to Jones’s book after Random House pulled out. It paid what it described as a “compelling” advance to acquire The Jewel of Medina. The book will be published by Gibson Square next month [October] in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In the US, the book will be published by Beaufort Books.

Speaking before yesterday’s attack, Mr Rynja said: “In an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear. As an independent publishing company, we feel strongly that we should not be afraid of the consequences of debate.

“If a novel of quality and skill that casts light on a beautiful subject we know too little of in the West, but have a genuine interest in, cannot be published here, it would truly mean that the clock has been turned back to the dark ages. The Jewel of Medina has become an important barometer of our time.”

Mr Rynja added that as a small publisher, Gibson Square would be more capable of handling any controversy. “With a book that is controversial – and we’ve done a number – it is incredibly important that it is looked at from all sides. That is very difficult for a large publisher to do as they are looking at 200 titles a month so a controversial one is just one in the mix.”

He said that he hoped that once people read the novel in its entirety there would be a “healthy discussion” about its content. “[Jones has] done very careful and detailed research for the novel – she’s writing about this love story which even after 1,400 years we don’t know much about.” Mr Rynja was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Ms Jones, also speaking before yesterday’s attack, said that her novel had was not intended to be disrespectful to Islam. “I have deliberately and consciously written respectfully about Islam and Mohammed … I envisaged that my book would be a bridge-builder.”

Random House was told by security experts and academics that the novel, for which it paid a $100,000 (£55,000) advance, was potentially more incendiary than both The Satanic Verses and the Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad. Random House decided not to publish the title “for the safety of the author, employees of Random House Inc, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book”.

(SO .... MUS-SLIMES WIN AGAIN.  NICE TO KNOW THE BASTARDS CAN DICTATE WHAT BOOKS SHOULD BE PUBLISHED IN THE WEST.)

The publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 saw attempts made on the lives of Rushdie’s Italian and Norwegian publishers, while the Japanese translator of the book was killed.

Police also searched four addresses around north-east London yesterday - two in Walthamstow, one in Ilford and one in Forest Gate.

The men, who were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, were being questioned at a central London police station.

Later yesterday a fourth person, a woman, was arrested at a property in Ilford for allegedly obstructing the police, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said.

The police confirmed that there had been small fire inside the property in Lonsdale Square, which had to be put out. “At this early stage it is being linked with the arrests,” the spokesman added.

Residents in Lonsdale Square said armed police, assisted by fire-fighters, broke down the door to the targeted property at around 2.30 yesterday morning.

Francesca Liebowitz, 16, who lives nearby with her parents, said: “The police couldn’t get the door open so the fire brigade battered it down.

“There was smoke coming from around the door, but I don’t know whether that was because of the door being broken down. They evacuated people from the house. It’s a bit scary to have this happen on your doorstep.”

A neighbour and friend of Mr Rynja said the company normally published books on current affairs, and said the publisher had never expressed concerns that his work might endanger his safety. A green hoarding covered the doorway to the four-storey town house yesterday afternoon.

http://tinyurl.com/3gtdyb

Posted by Drew458     on 09/28/2008 at 10:57 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • UK • War On Terror •  
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