The United States admitted that the trail had gone cold in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and that it was unclear even if he was dead or alive. After bombing the mountains of Tora Bora for days in the belief that the al-Qaeda "mastermind" was hiding there, the Pentagon said that intelligence âchatterâ had gone quiet and that he may have escaped the area. A senior Pentagon official said that âanybodyâs guess is the latest thinkingâ on bin Ladenâs location. As the air assault on the area was scaled back and special forces joined Afghan fighters in moving from cave to cave in the White Mountains in search of final pockets of resistance, the fear was that bin Laden had escaped, possibly to Pakistan.
(Yawn!) Really? What a surprise.
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Hamid Karzai has warned rival anti-Taleban factions to submit to the control of a central defense ministry. Many observers have expressed fear that, with the Taleban now overthrown, feuding warlords could again vie for control of the country. "We have a ministry of defense and all forces in Afghanistan must eventually be under the ministry of defense," Mr Karzai told reporters.
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12/18/2001 ||
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The United States warned any country that might consider harboring Osama bin Laden to learn from Afghanistan, where the U.S. military helped to oust the Taliban government that sheltered him. "I just think any country any in the world that would knowingly harbor bin Laden would be out of their minds,'' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said. "I think they've seen what happened to the Taliban and I think that's probably a pretty good lesson for people not to do that.'' "Two, three, many Afghanistans!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/18/2001 ||
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One of the most recent rumors had a team of plastic surgeons sneaking into Afghanistan from Pakistan to give Osama bin Laden a radical new look. "We have concrete reports that they were hired on heavy expenses," an unnamed Northern Alliance official supposedly told an Iranian newspaper. "They have totally changed bin Laden's looks." Was that really Elvis you saw at the Burger King? Y'say he was carrying an AK-47? And had 14 bodyguards? And he was six-foot-five? And couldn't sing? Well, guess what, Bunkie...
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Two Pakistan-based terror groups active in Jammu and Kashmir are likely to be declared foreign terrorist organisations by the US either this week or early next week. The decision to put Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad on the list of FTOs was taken immediately following a high-level meeting convened by Secretary of State Colin Powell a day after the attack in Delhi. When a senior US official was asked if Lashkar and Jaish's inclusion in the FTO list will not be objected to by Pakistan, he said: "President [Pervez] Musharraf has been very clear that the groups involved (in terrorist activities) will suffer the consequences." Good for the USA. Ball's in your court, Perv.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/18/2001 ||
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A Saudi princess was arrested at a luxury Orlando resort and charged with beating her servant and pushing the woman down a flight of stairs. Princess Buniah al-Saud, niece of King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, was booked into the Orange County Jail on a charge of aggravated battery of her Indonesian maid, Memet Ismiyati. (Link via Andrea Harris) Y'see, that's why they don't let 'em drive. If this nasty, spoiled woman had a driver's license, the maid would have a set of tire tracks down her body.
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12/18/2001 ||
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Speaking during debate in Parliament, Union Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah said though diplomacy was the government's primary goal, "no government will be able to say it will not use force. If the need arises, we will." The NDA government, he said, was not an irresponsible government, pointing out that India could have crossed the LoC after the Kargil war but did not do so. Referring to former prime minister Chandrashekhar's statement that under no circumstances should India go to war, Abdullah said India had been the victim of a war for the last 15 years, with many casualties and at huge expense. If the need arose to meet it with force, the country would do so, he said. And there we have it. To recap, India is thoroughly and justifiably cheezed. It will rely on diplomatic means to the extent possible, and if that doesn't work it will thump Pakistan. And it's tired of the Kashmir nonsense, which Pakistan has been driving.
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12/18/2001 ||
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A top separatist politician in Kashmir urged India and Pakistan to tone down their rhetoric over last week's attack on the parliament complex in New Delhi. "I appeal to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to cool down tempers," said Yasin Malik, a senior Executive member of All Party Hurriyat Conference. "I request both the leaders to show courage, vision and true statesmanship by co-operating with each other in exposing the culprits," Malik said, piously.
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12/18/2001 ||
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Gen. Rashid Qureshi has accused India of propagating propaganda to rename Kashmiris' freedom struggle as terrorism. "The Kashmiris are fighting for self determination and it has nothing to do with Pakistan except that we provide them moral and diplomatic support which we will continue to do." He said the freedom struggle in Kashmir is not Jihad but a movement for liberation. "The UN also recognises the disputed status of Kashmir. India is always trying to crush the Kashmiris' right to self determination... We have always demanded strict action against the terrorists who spread message of hatred and extremism. If Jihadi organisations are involved in such acts Pakistan will never allow it", he said.
Quick analysis reveals the balogna content of Qureshi's statements at near 100%. Pakland somehow "allowed" the jihadis to stampede from within its borders to aid and abet the Taliban against the Americans, even while publicly and officially deferring to the heavy artillery. Prior to that the government somehow "allowed" its jihadis to form a significant portion of the Taliban itself. "Kashmiri militants" are usually referred to in the Pak and international press as "jihadis" and they refer to themselves as "jihadis." And then there's the Kargil War, which looked in many ways like a dress rehearsal for the Afghan war.
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12/18/2001 ||
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Iraqi president-for-life Saddam Hussein has appealed to Arab leaders to convene an emergency summit to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In a speech broadcast to the Arab world, the Iraqi president said the Arabs had not done enough to support the Palestinians. Saddam said the summit should be devoted exclusively to what he called aggression against the Palestinians. Yup. That should help resolve things. Everybody listens to Sammy.
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12/18/2001 ||
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Yemeni -- in Yemen, fer God's sake! -- forces conducted operations against suspected al-Qaida members in Marib and Shabwa provinces. Tribal sources said members of the Abida tribe -- which had refused to hand over the men -- opened fire on the government troops from mountain villages in the province, sparking heavy fighting involving tanks, artillery and machine guns. Four tribesmen were killed and eight people, including several soldiers, were injured. A number of people accused of hiding the wanted men were arrested. Security officials in Marib said special forces were pursuing at least five men in the province's al-Halsun region.
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European opposition to any move against Iraq remains strong, but Middle Eastern diplomats say Turkey's leaders have signaled that the United States could use Turkish bases if the administration were committed to toppling the President-for-Life and successful romance novelist. Arab governments, including Jordan, Egypt and Yemen, have sent emissaries to Mr. Hussein counseling him to do nothing that might provoke the United States. But instead of taking the advice, Mr. Hussein and his deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, have engaged in saber- rattling toward Kuwait and bluster toward the US. Over the weekend Secretary of State Powell reiterated that it is United States policy to overthrow Saddam and that "we are constantly reviewing ideas, plans, concepts" to achieve that goal. Powell also indicated for the first time that his dispatch of a State Department team to northern Iraq last week was part of an evaluation of "putting in place an armed opposition inside Iraq." Victor Davis Hanson has a very good, possibly over-optimistic assessment of both Sammy and Arafat in NRO.
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12/18/2001 ||
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An Iraqi opposition leader has lobbied the US government with a war plan against Saddam Hussein, calling for an air assault and the deployment of American special forces. He also wants the participation of Iran, which has reportedly agreed to accommodate offices of the opposition Iraqi National Congress and would allow an invasion across its border into southern Iraq. The Bush administration has been encouraged by its success in Afghanistan, and some quarters are pushing for similar action in Iraq, using the opposition led by Ahmed Chalabi.
Sadly, this is based on a Seymour Hersh story in the New Yorker -- one of the world's least reliable reporters (Remember: KAL007 was an American spy plane.) -- as reported in The Guardian.
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12/18/2001 ||
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Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has stressed he has got guarantees during his visit to Washington that Yemen is not targeted in the terrorism fighting campaign. Saleh spoke with clergy, government officials and businessmen in the Yemeni provinces of Aden, Abyan and Lahj in the southern part of Yemen: "We have certain names not exceeding two or three and they are currently chased to be arrested and then find out if they are from al-Qaeda organization."
The gist of those "guarantees" was probably: "Clear up the daggone problem yourselves, or we'll come in and do it for you."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/18/2001 ||
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A top-level delegation of Pakistani officials is visiting Saudi Arabia. Musharraf is shortly to embark on a five-day visit to China.
Seems likely they're expecting the US to side with India in the dispute, and trying to line up a counteralliance.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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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.
