(Reuters)
The Taliban have shut down the U.N. Afghan communications network, taken over its office in Kandahar and seized 1,400 tons of U.N. food aid, crippling the world body's aid operations in the country, U.N. officials said Monday.
``We condemn this serious violation and call on the Taliban to ensure the safety of our staff and to allow aid workers to continue their humanitarian work,'' World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Khaled Mansour told Reuters. ``This is a serious development which could disrupt, if not completely stop, our food distribution,'' said Mansour, adding that the WFP office and warehouse had also been taken over by the Taliban.
This article starring:
Khaled Mansour
World Food Program
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09/24/2001 ||
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Ha'aretz
Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah said Monday that Afghanistan was mobilizing an additional 300,000 men to help fight off any U.S. attack to punish Kabul for sheltering Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of thousands more were signing up to help fight a "jihad", or holy war, against any U.S. invasion, Obaidullah said in a statement sent to Reuters in Kabul.
At a news conference in Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, also said Kabul was mobilizing for war in view of the U.S. threat to punish Afghanistan for sheltering Osama bin Laden. He gave no details. "All detachments of the national defense ministry are ready for the defense of their religion and country with full vigor and order," Obaidullah said in his statement. "In view of the current conditions, 300,000 well-experienced and equipped men have been stationed in the center (of the country), at borders and other significant areas in addition to its former detachments," he added.
This article starring:
MULLAH ABDUL SALAAM ZAIF
Taliban
MULLAH OBAIDULLAH
Taliban
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09/24/2001 ||
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FoxNews
Fighting has escalated in northern Afghanistan as the United States prepares for military strikes against the Taliban unless they hand over Osama bin Laden. In the strategic Panjshir Valley 45 miles north of Kabul, heavy exchanges of mortar and artillery fire could be heard shortly before dawn Monday.
Speaking in the Panjshir Valley, Rakhmat Ramazan, a spokesman for the northern alliance, said Taliban troops pounded opposition positions with artillery starting late Sunday. Raising his voice to be heard over the thundering explosions, Ramazan told reporters the opposition was preparing a counterattack.
Heavy fighting was also reported late Sunday and early Monday in Balkh province, 175 miles northwest of the valley. Another opposition spokesman, Mohammed Ashraf Nadeem, said his forces were attacking the Taliban to try to win control of the district of Aq Kupruk.
Battles has been under way in Balkh and the bordering province of Samangan for days. The Taliban have admitted losing control of the Balkh provincial village of Zari, 60 miles south of Mazar-e-Sherif. Loss of the village threatens Taliban control of a strategic highway linking central Afghanistan with Uzbekistan to the north.
This article starring:
Mohammed Ashraf Nadeem
Rakhmat Ramazan
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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AP
Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terror attacks on the United States, called on Pakistan's Muslims to fight "the American crusade."
"I announce to you, our beloved brothers, that we are steadfast on the path of jihad (holy war) with the heroic, faithful Afghan people, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar," said a statement provided to Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel Monday. The statement was signed by bin Laden and dated Sunday.
In the statement broadcast Monday by Al-Jazeera, bin Laden said he was informed that some "of our Muslim brothers in Karachi (Pakistan) were killed while expressing their opposition to the aggression of the American crusade forces and their allies on Muslim lands in Pakistan and Afghanistan." He said he was praying to God that they would be accepted as martyrs, and "their children are my children and I will be their caretaker."
"We hope that they are the first martyrs in Islam's battle in this era against the new crusade and Jewish campaign led by the big crusader Bush under the flag of the cross."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Seattle Times
"What I'm hearing is people struggling over what it would mean to launch a war where the lives of tens of thousands or more civilians would be lost," he said. "I have heard some thoughtful people ask: Doesn't that put us on the same page to those who had no regard to the loss of civilian life in this country? Do we really want to be a nation that embraces 'an eye for an eye'?" Lemme think. Yes.
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09/24/2001 ||
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Seattle Times
The coordinator of a national group organizing peace rallies in Washington, D.C., and other cities next Saturday said response to its efforts have been mixed. The group has received e-mails accusing it of being unpatriotic although fewer than expected while others are expressing gratitude, said Richard Becker, coordinator of International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism).
"This is a time where people might think it is inappropriate to express anything other than condolences and grief over what has happened," Becker said. "But we believe our government is moving so rapidly down a dangerous course that it is potentially disastrous for us to not react at this time. Any reaction we have, however, must take into account the magnitude of the tragedy we have just seen."
This article starring:
International ANSWER
Richard Becker
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Slate
A few readers have pointed out that Slate itself blundered badly last week in its "Breakfast Table" feature with this baseless and fairly loony semi-accusation by John Lahr:
"Perhaps it's eerie serendipity, perhaps it's my paranoia, but an acid thought keeps plaguing me. Isn't it odd that on the day--the DAY--that the Democrats launched their most blistering attack on 'the absolute lunacy' of Bush's unproven missile-defense system, which 'threatens to pull the trigger on the arms race,' what Sen. Biden calls today in the Guardian, his 'theological' belief in 'rogue nations,' that the rogue nation should suddenly become such a terrifying reality. The fact that I could even think such a thought says more to me about the bankruptcy and moral exhaustion of our leaders even in the face of a disaster where any action, in the current nightmare, will seem like heroism."
This article starring:
John Lahr
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Lucianne.com
Especially in a time of national crisis, the most patriotic thing journalists can do is to remain as objective as possible. That does not mean journalists are not patriots. All of us are at a time like this. But we cannot signal how we feel about a cause, even a justified and just cause, through some sort of outward symbol."
ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider on why on air reporters can not wear flag pins.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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NRO Kumbaya Watch
"Out Out No Flags" is the title of Katha Pollitt's latest diatribe in The Nation, and the title pretty much tells it. Pollitt begins with a heartwarming anecdote: "My daughter," she writes, "who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I'm wrong the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism."
Then, a concession: "In a way, we're both right," because the American flag is "the only available symbol" and must bear "a wide range of meanings, from simple, dignified sorrow to the violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has already resulted in murder, vandalism and arson around the country and harassment on New York City streets and campuses." (Reading writers like Pollitt, one would think that angry mobs were putting Muslim neighborhoods to the torch while the police looked on.) In the end, mercifully, a mother-daughter compromise ensues: "I tell her she can buy a flag with her own money and fly it out her bedroom window, because that's hers, but the living room is off-limits."
This article starring:
Katha Pollitt
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Washington Times
In North Carolina, Curtis Gatewood, chairman of the Durham chapter of the NAACP, urged blacks to sit out the war on terrorism. Many of the companies in the World Trade Center discriminated against blacks, he said, and "our brothers" should not help fight a war on terrorism because America "has not protected our rights."
Kweisi Mfume, national chairman of the NAACP, distanced himself and his organization from Mr. Gatewood. "Mr. Gatewood surely has a right to his beliefs, but they are not the beliefs of the NAACP," he said. Mr. Mfume issued a strong statement of support for President Bush last week in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. "This is not a time to sit back and pontificate with pointed fingers about the fact that there are imperfections in our society," he said. "This is a time to find a way as Americans without the hyphen to work together to protect our way of life and the lives of innocent people."
This article starring:
Curtis Gatewood
Kweisi Mfume
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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(CNSNews.com)
"Terrorists are going to realize they can't face down freedom," President George W. Bush said Monday morning, as he stepped into the Rose Garden to announce his first attack in the war on terrorism. "At 12:01 this morning, a major thrust of our war on terrorism began with a stroke of a pen," he said. "Today, we have launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network."
The president signed an executive order immediately freezing the U.S. assets of, and prohibiting U.S. banking transactions with, 27 groups and individuals linked to terrorism. The affected parties include terrorist organizations, individual leaders, a corporation that serves as a front for terrorism and several nonprofit "charitable" organizations.
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09/24/2001 ||
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The Weekly Standard By Stephen F. Hayes
Twenty-four hours after launching what his aides touted as an assault on President Bush and his foreign and defense policies, Senator Joseph Biden found himself accepting the president's thanks. As members of Congress scattered following last Tuesday's attack - some to their homes, some to Capitol Hill bars, some to protected locations - Bush phoned the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Air Force One to express his gratitude.
The day before the attack, Bush's relationship with Senate Democrats generally, and Joe Biden specifically, could not have been more strained. On top of unrelenting criticism on the budget - now, practically meaningless - Democrats were preparing a fresh attack.
Shortly before he was scheduled to speak at the National Press Club last Monday, Biden's staff eagerly distributed an article from that morning's Los Angeles Times. According to the paper, Biden was going to lead an "assault" by his party on President Bush's foreign policy, a "policy offensive" focused on Bush's proposal for missile defense funding. Senate Democrats would "challenge the Bush administration's vision of threats to the United States in the post-Cold War world," because they saw "a political vulnerability on foreign policy." Biden's speech was beyond blunt. The president's missile defense policy was deemed "nonsense," his advisers "relics of the Cold War."
Missile defense opponents maintain that the speech was prophetic. "The real threat comes to this country in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane, or smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack," Biden argued. To hurt the United States, he asked rhetorically, are you more likely to fire a missile, or "put somebody with a backpack crossing the border from Vancouver down to Seattle, or coming up New York Harbor with a rusty old ship with an atom bomb sitting in the hull?" But it's not likely to have a place in any future Biden press kit.
The Press Club speech - and a preview of it on Meet the Press the day before - was to have been just one element in a sort of coming out week for Biden. Often mentioned as a potential 2004 challenger to Bush - speculation he has not discouraged - Biden was all set to play an important adversarial role in two high-profile confirmation hearings....
Outside the Capitol shortly after the Negroponte hearings on Thursday, Biden was full of praise for Bush. "The president, God love him, has an overwhelmingly difficult job right now," Biden said. "There is a coalescing of liberals, conservatives, moderates, everyone. And I think the administration is doing a hell of a job."
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09/24/2001 ||
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WSJ Best of the Web Today
London's Sunday Telegraph has a rundown of the Iraqi connection to the terrorist attacks on America, reporting that Saddam Hussein "put his troops on their highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on America in the strongest indication yet that the Iraqi dictator knew an atrocity was planned." The paper notes that in the past four months "at least three high-ranking Iraqi intelligence officials--among them Hassan Ezba Thalaj, a veteran officer with a reputation for ruthlessness--have visited Pakistan to meet representatives of al-Qaeda," Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
This article starring:
HASAN EZBA THALAJ
Iraqi Baath Party
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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World Tribune.com,
Lebanese officials said the government in Beirut has agreed that it will not relay information on those living in the country. In addition, the officials said, Beirut will not extradite Lebanese residents believed by the United States to be involved in terrorism. The United States has asked the Lebanese government to hand over at least 40 suspected terrorists, many of them from the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah group, Lebanese sources said. The Al Muharer weekly said one name is Imad Mughniyeh, said to have been responsible for the 1984 kidnapping and death of CIA station chief William Buckley.
This article starring:
IMAD MUGHNIYEH
Hezbollah
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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NRO
We can all be grateful to the New York Times, once known as the newspaper of record, more recently as the newspaper of lament, for publishing Kofi Annan's plea to put him in charge of our war against terrorism on Friday. "This was an attack on all humanity," he tells us, "an all humanity has a stake in defeating the forces behind it."
...there are enemies common to all societies...they are not, are never, defined by religion or national descent. No people, no region and no religion should be targeted because of the unspeakable acts of individuals...Terrorism threatens every society...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Jakarta Post
Hundreds of members of several radical Muslim groups went to five-star hotels here on Sunday to find out whether Americans were staying there, insisting that U.S. citizens should leave if the U.S. attacked Afghanistan. Riding cars and motorcycles, the groups, who called themselves the Anti-American Terrorist Soldiers, also went to nearby Adi Sumarmo International Airport, where they checked whether there had been any Americans landing in Surakarta over the last few days. "Some of them brought sticks with them but no sharp weapons," a security guard at Quality Hotel, told The Jakarta Post.
"Thank God. They soon understood and left after I told them that no foreigners were staying at the hotel," Aris Supriyadi, a duty manager of Sahid Raya Hotel, told the Post. The three other hotels that were checked were Novotel, Agas and Lor In. Before leaving the hotels, they attached posters, which read, "Once Afghanistan is attacked, people from America and its allies have to get out of Solo (Surakarta)".
Aris Supriyadi from a local hotel expressed concern over the groups' action because it might discourage visitors to the city. He said that the 'anti-American-sweep' in the city last year had caused the hotel occupancy rate in the city to drop to below 20 percent a day.
This article starring:
Aris Supriyadi
HAWARIYUN FORCE
Al Islah Force
HISBULLAH BRIGADE
Al Islah Force
SALAMAH FORCE
Al Islah Force
Al Islah Force
Anti-American Terrorist Soldiers
Jundullah Force
Laskar Santri
Surakarta Front of Islam Defender
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Chicago Tribune
As the leaders of six Persian Gulf states met in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss the depth of their military involvement, diplomats and observers warned that if U.S. warplanes are launched from Arab soil, there likely would be an anti-U.S. backlash. The reaction could lead to economic boycotts or attacks on U.S. targets, according to some participants in the meeting. "American installations are at great risk," said retired Egyptian army Gen. Talaf Massalam, an expert on Arab military affairs. "They would definitely feel the anger of the people."
This article starring:
Talaf Massalam
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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WSJ Best of the Web Today
The Saudis have played a double game for years, more or less as Stalin did with the West during the second world war. They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be found, just as Stalin promoted an 'antifascist' coalition with the US while carrying out espionage and subversion on American territory. The motive was the same: the belief that the West was or is decadent and doomed.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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News.Telegraph (UK)
THE head of the German equivalent of the SAS has angered senior Nato officers by predicting a "bloodbath" if special forces from allied nations move into Afghanistan to try to hunt down Osama bin Laden. In a deliberate call for caution, Brig Gen Reinhard Gunzel, who commands the elite Kommando Spezialkrafte (KSK), said success would be "almost impossible" without severe and unacceptable losses to his special troops and those of other allied nations.
Even if such a combined force did find bin Laden, this would not mean victory, he said. "Behind him stand so many fanatic followers that another one would immediately replace him." The 57-year-old brigadier general added: "Special forces would come lightly armed and unprotected. There would be a bloodbath. No special unit in the western world could agree to such an action." The Brig Gen insisted that troops with a "western philosophy" and a will not to die would have "little chance against men who are willing to give their lives in a fight".
This article starring:
Reinhard Gunzel
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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(AFP)
Iran's press was highly sceptical Monday over the visit of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, saying he would end up going home without getting Tehran's backing for a US-led anti-terrorism drive. Newspapers lambasted Straw for trying to secure Iran's participation in an international coalition to track down wanted terror suspect Osama bin Laden in neighbouring Afghanistan, and said he would return to London empty-handed. "Once again, the bad smell of the British," ran the headline in the hardline Jomhuri Eslami paper, just hours before Straw was to become the highest-ranking British official to visit since the 1979 Islamic revolution. "London's diplomacy is doomed to failure as long as it sides with a bullying and belligerent figure like (US President George W.) Bush," the English-language Tehran Times said. "If London really wants to distance itself from the terroristic policies of the US president and join the international campaign against terrorism, it definitely should not participate in the massacre of a Muslim nation," it said.
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09/24/2001 ||
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FoxNews
"The United States should think a thousand times before attacking Afghanistan," said Maulana Sami ul-Haq, rector of Haqqania. "Religious fervor is something that can't be assessed beforehand. If America attacks, then jihad becomes an obligation, and then there is no saying what will happen."
"Oh Allah, defeat the enemies of Muslims and make Islam and the Taliban victorious over the Americans," an all-boy class of 12-year-olds prays before beginning a lesson on the Quran, Islam's holy book.
Fired by a conviction that Islam must be defended, older students at the Haqqania school and thousands like it across Pakistan are ready recruits for the Taliban in a "jihad," or holy war, against the United States. "The only thing we talk about these days is whether America will attack," said Syed Samiullah, 24, a student at the school, located in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province that borders Afghanistan. "I am ready for jihad, and so is every student you talk to at the school," he said.
This article starring:
SAMI UL HAQ
Jamaat-eUlema-Islami
SYED SAMIULLAH
Jamaat-eUlema-Islami
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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NY Times
President Vladimir V. Putin tonight offered the United States broad support for antiterrorist operations in Afghanistan, including opening Russian airspace to relief missions, taking part in some search-and-rescue operations, and arming anti-Taliban forces inside Afghanistan. Combined with a Russian effort over the weekend to rally Central Asian countries to the American side, the announcement provided crucial support to the international coalition that the White House seeks to build in the wake of this month's terrorist attacks.
It also appeared, after long deliberation and some doubt, to cast Russia's lot firmly in the Western antiterrorism camp. In doing so, Mr. Putin rejected arguments in some military and political circles that the Kremlin was not only inviting the United States into its strategic backyard, but flirting with another war with Islamic militants.
In his brief speech on national television, Mr. Putin said Russia would provide the "active international cooperation" of its intelligence services and supply "weapons and military equipment" to the coalition of forces aligned against the radical Islamic Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Howard Schneider Washington Post
CAIRO, Sept. 23 A group of six Persian Gulf Arab states pledged support today for an international coalition against terrorism, providing important support for Washington's efforts to track down those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Gulf Cooperation Council, meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, expressed "the willingness of its members to participate in any joint action that has clearly defined objectives. It is willing to enter into an alliance that enjoys the support of the international community to fight international terrorism and to punish its perpetrators," said Bahrain's foreign minister, Mohammed Bin Mubarak Khalifa.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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The Independent (UK)
All this was never going to be easy, though the first few days have not gone badly. There has been no further terrorism. In the Arab world, there has been less enthusiasm for Mr bin Laden than might have been expected. It was inevitable that young militants would take to the streets shouting anti-American slogans, but they have received less support than one might have feared. Even though the Saudis are clearly fearful of their own religious extremists which has led them to vacillate and to talk out of all four corners of their mouths none of the West's allies in the region has yet come under serious threat. If the campaign goes wrong, there will be drastic consequences in the region and for the world economy, via the oil price. But so far, the West's diplomatic position is favourable.
We will have to go on holding our nerve and disregarding the peace movement. Those who are urging restraint are doubly mistaken. In the first place, the Americans are already showing restraint. They have not rushed into action; they have waited to marshal their forces, their allies and their intelligence. Second, if restraint meant that Mr bin Laden survived, it would in no way diminish his hatred of the West or his ability to strike again and he would have learned that he has nothing to fear from retaliation.
This crisis has occurred because of America's weakness. By allowing Saddam Hussein to survive the Gulf War and by allowing Bin Laden to live on after murdering large numbers of Americans, the United States sent every wrong signal to its enemies, actual and potential.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Poughkeepsie Journal
Two city men were arrested Thursday by federal authorities on charges of marriage fraud, which is a felony. Jamshed Iqbal, 25, and Jawaid Iqbal, 29, both of Hemlock Avenue in Kingston, were arrested by agents from the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to officials at the FBI's Kingston office. The two men are brothers. They were arraigned and indicted in Northern District federal court in Albany by Magistrate Judge David Homer, FBI officials said. Then they were remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/24/2001 ||
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Ha'aretz
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he did not have detailed information about the identities or locations of foreign banks holding bin Laden's assets. The list of financially banned organizations will be expanded, Bush said.
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.
