Several U.S. Marines were wounded in an explosion while clearing old ordnance at Kandahar airport, CNN reported. CNN said it did not know the number or condition of the casualties but said emergency vehicles had rushed to the scene and helicopters were taking away the wounded. FoxNews reports three Marines were injured, one seriously. The men were evacuated to Camp Rhino or medical treatment.
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Tribal fighters said they took the last al-Qaida positions at Tora Bora, killing more than 200 fighters and capturing 25 but finding no sign of Osama bin Laden. "This is the last day of al-Qaida in Afghanistan," said Mohammed Zaman, the eastern alliance defense chief. "There is no more need for American bombing. Our men have the situation under control." Tora Bora was the last major pocket of al-Qaida resistance in the country. Other, less dangerous, holdouts include the Shindand area, Helmand province, and the Kandahar vicinity itself.
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Zaman said he had no information on the whereabouts of bin Laden. A cave where alliance commanders had thought bin Laden might be hiding was the last al-Qaida holdout. "There were only six people. One was killed by our forces and the others were captured," said another alliance commander, Hazrat Ali. "A few days before today I had information he was here, but now I don't know where he is." Zaman said several hundred routed al-Qaida men might be on the run toward the border with Pakistan. He and Ali said their forces were pursuing the fleeing fighters.
Our guess: Bin Laden beat it during the "surrender" negotiations and is now having tea with Gen. Hamid Gul in Pakistan, having a little chuckle over the attack on India's Parliament building. After a little rest, he'll pop on over to Saudi Arabia and Yemen to visit the folks, then head for Somalia or Chechnya to start rebuilding his operations.
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Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew into Bagram Airbase and held talks with Hamid Karzai. "We were here for the sole purpose of expelling terrorists from the country and establishing a government that would not harbor terrorism," Rumsfeld said.
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The attack on Parliament was planned by the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba militant groups, said Ajay Raj Sharma, New Delhi police commissioner. The police commissioner told a press conference that the breakthrough was achieved after police and central intelligence agencies found a Delhi University lecturer Syed A R Geelani had connections with the killed militants. Geelani who teaches Arabic in Zakir Hussain college was picked up on December 15. He revealed during interrogation that two more people - Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Hussain - had been in touch with the militants who carried out the attack on Parliament, he said.
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"Pakistan is prepared for joint impartial inquiry into the attack on Indian Parliament. If any evidence is found in the inquiry about the involvement of any individual or group from Pakistan's soil, Pakistan will initiate action in its light", Pakistan's defence spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi told BBC.
Hmm. Taking it a little more seriously, are we? Or is the intent to join the investigation and muddy the waters as much as possible?
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Security forces have launched a massive operation to arrest Ghazi Baba alias Doctor, supreme commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed, who was hiding in the hills of south Kashmir. A conversation between an ISI controller in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir identified as "Khyber" and some of the militants had also been intercepted in which details about the plans were being worked out.
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Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said Pakistan's ISI masterminded the attack on Parliament saying "we have got sufficient proof of their involvement in the attack... Pakistan's allegation that Indian agencies had stage-managed the attack clearly speaks of that country's acceptance of its involvement in the dastardly act," Fernandes said. "No person with common sense will ever make such an irresponsible statement." What follows is little more than well-coordinated police work. The hit men, their support network, and their controllers were uncovered in less than four days. Perhaps rather than offering FBI help to Inida, the US should request help from the Indian cops. Or do we have similar networks mapped out and we aren't telling?
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The five militants involved in the attack have been identified as Mohammad, Hamza, Haider alias Tufail, Rana and Raja. Mohammad was the ring leader of the suicide squad and all were Pakistani nationals. They were in constant touch with Gazi Baba, controller of operations of Jaish-e-Mohammad in India.
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According to Afzal, Mohammad, the leader of the five attackers, stabbed to death a honeymooner in the ill-fated Indian Airlines plane that was hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999.
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Delhi Police Commissioner Ajay Raj Sharma said four people arrested in connection with the assault were trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. During investigation, Mohammad Afzal was found to be the main coordinator of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Delhi.
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Geelani disclosed that Shaukat and Afzal had left for Srinagar on December 13 afternoon after the attack on Parliament was carried out. A police team raided Shaukat's residence and picked up his wife. She confessed that she was aware of the attacks, as several meetings had taken place in her house. She also informed that both Shaukat and Afzal had left Delhi for Srinagar. Srinagar police were informed and Shaukat Hussain and Mohammad Afzal were apprehended along with two drivers and a cleaner. A laptop and a sum of cash were seized from them. Afzal had made three trips to Kashmir since October and brought the five Pakistani militants to Delhi.
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Authorities are decoding e-mail messages between the conspirators and their controllers, archived on the laptop computer seized from Mohammed Afzal and Shoukat Hussain.
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Israeli helicopters attacked a refugee camp north of Gaza City, just hours after a frustrated United States recalled its Middle East peace envoy Anthony Zinni. Two military helicopters launched missile attacks on a Palestinian police station and another security building in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City. There were no reports of injuries. The two-storey police station had nearly collapsed and the nearby building used by the personnel of the head of preventive security in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Dahlan, was hit head-on by the missiles. Earlier in the day, the Israeli army had pulled out of Beit Hanun. Four Palestinians were killed during that incursion. Those killed were a Palestinian border policeman, two teenagers and 12-year-old boy, while another 75 were injured. Another Palestinian was killed near the Gush Katif settlement bloc overnight by the army, which suggested he may have been planning an attack. Another Palestinian was killed by an explosive charge he detonated on the "Green Line" separating Israel from the West Bank near Tulkarem. Police said they thought he was preparing a suicide attack on Tel Aviv.
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Chairman-for-Life Yasser Arafat called for a halt to anti-Israeli attacks by radical groups and for Israel to end its "unjust" war against the Palestinian people. "I am calling once again for a halt to all operations, particularly suicide attacks which we have always condemned," he said in a televised address marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. He also called for Israel return to the negotiating table, saying peace talks were the only way of resolving the conflict.
Arafat is staring into oblivion. The Palestinians are getting their nether regions kicked and returning to yap-yap can take the heat off while the attacks on Israel start up again with onesie-twosie hits. Israel would do best to maintain the pressure and keep to its resolution to look for someone else to talk to. Like King Abdullah.
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Palestinian police closed offices affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sealing doors with red wax or changing locks. At least 26 such offices in Gaza and the West Bank have now been closed. Palestinian police seized documents from some offices during the operation, partly filmed by television crews. Many centers provided sports or medical services. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the closure of the offices was no substitute for arresting the ringleaders behind attacks. Israel says it will continue operations against militants if Arafat fails to do so. "We have to do everything necessary to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure... A closed office won't stop a terrorist en route to Israel," Gissin said.
Do we detect a lack of trust in Palestinian sincerity? Could there be some justification?
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In Kashmir, in the second militant attack on the BSF headquarters at Tral in four days, a suicide squad of the Hizbul Mujahideen made a bid to storm the complex which was foiled by the troops who gunned down all the four terrorists.
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A Nepal Telecommunications Corporation tower 90 kilometres north-west of Kathmandu, was destroyed in an attackby Maoist rebels. A group of about 40 to 50 rebels threatened two security guards at the tower with their lives and bombed the repeater tower after the two ran away. A suspected Maoist, Pitamber Pant, a resident of Nepal, was arrested by Indian police while he was trying to cross the border. He will be handed over to the Nepalese authorities.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
