So how does this altercation escalate within a few minutes, and that too in the early morning before many people are up and about, into a large mob of Muslims arriving at the scene equipped with Molotov cocktails and acid bombs? Does this look like a spontaneous response to an act of provocation, or does it look like a pre-planned, well-thought-out plan for mass murder? What kind of 'provocation' leads someone to randomly execute women and children in the most gruesome manner possible, by burning them alive?
Read the whole thing. What the writer doesn't dwell on is the reaction to the atrocity, which produced almost ten times the number dead, slaughtered in just as gruesome a manner. VHP responded to the Muslim "counterprovocation" with similar lunacy that put it in the same category as the Muslim thugs. Doing so directed international attention on some of its activities, which seem to the outside observer to consist of deliberately belligerent actions stepping on Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs. That the government is allied with them is a black mark on the government.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
Mark Byron equates the Return of Sisyphus Zinni to the "peace" process to giving a corpse an enema. (Monty Phython?) A month or so ago, at a private dinner Zinni described Yasser as "an unreformed liar" and compared him to Carlo Gambino. That probably hurt Carlo's feelings, and he's dead. Mind you, the dinner at which he was supposed to have made the remarks never took place, and even if it did he was out of town, and anyway his remarks were "grossly distorted." Rumor has it he'd rather be in Philadelphia at 4-1, Pittsburgh at 6-1, or Akron 8-1.
Actually, it came out a (pre-PC) Jewish humor book I was given as a teen. A lot of tacky ethnic humor thankfully isn't usable any more. Solidarity and Pope John Paul did in the Polock joke book, while PC made most of the rest off limits, like the Italian tire and tank jokes. Posted by Mark Byron 3/9/2002 8:45:01 PM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11122 views]
Top|| File under:
Airstrip One continues his very valuable Zim Watch. I've already chewed off a thumbnail and I've started nibbling the other. Morgan may be no prize, but Bob's worse.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
China plans to ask Afghanistan's interim government to repatriate Chinese Muslim Uighurs found fighting alongside Taliban forces. An unspecified number of Muslim separatists seeking an independent state in Xinjiang tried to sneak back into China, Xinjiang governor Ablat Abdureshit said. "They are not large in number. Some of them have tried to infiltrate back into China and some of them have been captured," he said during an annual two-week session of the National People's Congress. "Some of them have been left in Afghanistan."
Abdureshit declined to say how many Uighurs had been captured crossing back into Xinjiang from Afghanistan and said it was too early to say whether the number of Uighurs still in Afghanistan numbered in the dozens or hundreds. In December, a senior U.S. official said Uighurs had been caught in Afghanistan but that the United States would not hand them over to Beijing due to differing interpretations of what constitutes a terrorist. The definition I'd go with would be, if they were caught in Afghanistan, and they weren't born there, they're foreign terrorists. In most cases I'd be against repatriation, but in the case of the Chinese, I think they'd be disposed of fairly neatly: A brief, very intense headache, and it's all over.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
Polish Deputy Defense Minister Janusz Zemke has said that the operation to send a Polish military contingent to Afghanistan will begin "shortly after 15 March." Zemke said the operation will be phased in, since the Ukrainian cargo planes that are to airlift Polish soldiers to Afghanistan will also have to carry heavy military equipment. It is planned that the troops will remain in Afghanistan for six months, and their stay will be extended if necessary. Welcome, guys. You're getting there just in time for the Brutal Afghan Spring.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under:
Day Seven of the biggest ground battle in the five-month-old war was once more fought mostly in dreary weather that left the sky with the tint of frozen glass and slowed the American air attack. Nevertheless, with conditions improving late in the day, warplanes managed to fly 200 missions and drop 75 bombs, according to Brig. Gen. John Rosa of the Air Force. America's precision-guided bombs are weapons at least two generations younger than the rolling armor that was sputtering its way from Kabul.
"I am told the enemy is not putting up much resistance now," said Gen. Muhammad Nasim, famed in this country as a tank commander. He had plenty of time to chat, what with his old Soviet-built T-55 stalled on the main road. "We should have brought more spare parts," he said in frustration. "There is something wrong with the clutch." "Our" Afghans have the same leftover junk the Bad Guys have stashed. T55 is an up-gunned modification of the T54s that are supposed to be hidden away in the caves. Their chief advantage is that they're easy to maintain - if you remember to bring spare parts, of course. Fox video shots from the area show pretty heavy snow falling, and our guys are probably not having a lot of fun coping with the cold. That doesn't mean they're not trained for it, only that it's not fun. Expect a few frostbite casualties, but we'll probably cope very will with the Brutal Afghan Winter.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
At the same time, Pakistani troops encountered more fighters trying to slip into Pakistan this week. Pakistani officials asserted that the border was mostly secure and that they did not believe that the forces now battling American troops in eastern Afghanistan had re-entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. They said they believed that those forces were among the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who had adopted a low profile after the fall of Kabul but never left Afghanistan, and had kept their military supplies there. "They didn't need to be supplied from the Pakistani side of the border, which is effectively sealed."
Officials said they estimated that as many as 1,800 Al Qaeda members and more than 3,500 Taliban fighters might have slipped into Pakistan since November. Only about 600 have been detained by Pakistani authorities, one senior Pakistani intelligence officer said. Of those detained, about 280 have been handed over to the United States, but none are major leaders. Pakistani officials said the flow of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters into the country was at its peak in December and early January and had since declined considerably. Since the border is notoriously porous, I'd tend to discount any claims of it being sealed tight. "We're doing all we can" carries a lot more ring of truth than "There's nothing getting through."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11122 views]
Top|| File under:
Families from the United States will leave Izmir for security and safety reasons within 12 months following the notice of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. According to the information given by the Joint Command Southeast (JCSE) Public Information Office, the family members of the U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen will phase out in accordance with the decision by the U.S. Secretary of Defense to make this a 12-month unaccompanied tour. Link is via Instapundit. Could be in response to internal Turkish realities, but it's more likely it's a security measure in anticipation of action against Iraq.
I wonder how many US families live in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They all seem like potential hostages and kidnap victims. Posted by Anonymous 3/10/2002 3:05:24 PM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11122 views]
Top|| File under:
A group of 20 soldiers from an antichemical warfare unit left for Kuwait on 7 March. The group is to prepare the ground for the arrival of the rest of the 250-strong contingent by mid-March. The unit is to remain in Kuwait for six months. Routine training? III Corps Forward moved out to "Central Command," which includes about half the world, in November. Anybody know where they went?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11123 views]
Top|| File under:
Twelve Iranians apparently seeking to secure the allegiance of commanders in western Afghanistan have been seized by Afghans and handed over to American military officials. An American military official confirmed that "around 12" people believed to be Iranians were being held and interviewed at the Kandahar Airport. The Iranian government has made no public statement about those apparently detained after being captured this week in Shindand, in Farah Province. One of the men was a high-ranking general with close ties to the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The captives were turned over to the Americans, who took them to the airfield. Officials in Washington said they had no comment on the men taken captive, but some government officials suggested they may be ethnic Hazaras rather than Iranian nationals. Seems like a pretty clumsy operation. Is that egg on the Ayatollah's face?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
Russia and Georgia have reached an agreement over the repatriation of Chechen refugees living in Georgia's volatile Pankisi gorge. Russian authorities and President Vladimir Putin are ready to help refugees return home, and that means not only women, children and the elderly, but also those who took part in the war but did not commit any crimes. President Shevardnadze said law enforcement officials in both countries "have information on who did what". Tbilisi is insisting that repatriations must be voluntary, whereas Moscow wants the Pankisi gorge -- which it charges is being used as a rebel base -- to be entirely cleared of Chechens. That's always assuming they can be dislodged, of course...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
The Bush administration removed hundreds of Pakistanis detained after September 11 from the United States and is sending them home at a 'hectic' pace that is expected to culminate by the end of April. Officials in the Justice Department and Pakistan Embassy said about 130 captives have already been deported, released on bond or have agreed to return to Pakistan voluntarily in recent weeks. The US authorities had detained thousands of people in a post-September 11 swoop on immigrants from Middle East and Pakistan, majority of whom on visa violations. They were, however interrogated on suspicion of possible involvement in terrorist activities. 130 suspects doesn't sound real "hectic," especially when some are out on bail or have made "voluntary" agreements. Saying they were held on visa violations makes it sound like the only problems were paperwork screwups. Remember they got Capone on his taxes because they couldn't hang the murders and robberies on him.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
India has reduced the number of troops massed on the border with Pakistan. Indian forces have thinned out from various positions from the borders along Pakistan. The Indian air force has also stood down from its battle-ready stance. Pakistan has invited home minister L K Advani to visit the country to discuss all contentious issues. Interior minister Moinuddin Haider extended the invitation when he met visiting information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj at the SAARC information ministers meeting in Islamabad yesterday. I think the internal Indotroubles were as much incentive toward this as the often lip-service measures taken by the Paks. Vajpayee and Advani have a lot of cleaning up to do after the Godhra riots and they don't need to be distracted. If the Indian efforts are more successful than the Paks' look for the tensions between the two to resume in a year or two. If they're not, look for India's internal politics to become more like Pakland (bad thing!) and the tensions to resume in year or two.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
The Pakistani government is preparing to expel thousands of Arab, Afghan and other foreign students now studying at religious schools across Pakistan, out of concern that their presence might be a step toward possible militant activities. To continue studies at a Pakistani religious school, each of the more than 36,000 current foreign students must obtain a formal endorsement from his home government, according to an Interior Ministry plan described by the officials. The plan is to be presented next week to President Pervez Musharraf. Good move. Yemen did the same thing, not long ago. Strange, seeing the logical thing being done. Or at least talked up.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
The detained JUI chief, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, has given a go-ahead to his party to strengthen the newly-formed alliance of religious political parties "Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal" (United Action Conference) to serve as an electoral alliance for the coming election. Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, secretary general of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) said that Maulana Fazlur Rahman was briefed by him on recent meetings of Majlis-i-Amal and the all-party conference convened by Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan in Lahore.
Maulana Fazl, he said, was extremely perturbed over reports of American pressure on the government for doing away with the constitutional article declaring Qadianis as non-Muslim. He demanded that the government should register its protest to the US Congress for moving a resolution to this effect as an act of interference in our internal affairs. Keep in mind that the mullah, one of Binny's best friends, is doing all this plotting and planning while "jugged" in a rest house. Some crackdown.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
Riot police Saturday clashed with voters angered by huge polling station queues in Zimbabwe's election, which the opposition charged were a deliberate tactic to prevent their supporters voting. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, President Robert Mugabe's toughest challenger since independence from Britain in 1980, accused him with wholesale cheating and called for voting to be extended by two days after Sunday's scheduled finish. At least 12 people were injured when police used teargas, rubber bullets and whips on a crowd at a polling station in Harare's western township of Kuwadzana, witnesses said. Hmmm... The way the rules read, if you're not a member of ZANU/PF your polling place is in Uraguay. And you have to produce your granddaddy to vouch for your identity. And the ballot's printed in Finnish.
The voting has gone fairly smoothly so far, and the government are even talking about extending the voting deadline.
It is however bloody slow, and we've got a lot of silly rules to blame for most of that. However, if you've been to Africa you'd know that the mixture of English informality and African efficiency can make for a lethal combination. In my opinion this is also a major factor to the speed of voting. One interesting stastic is that there are now (I think for the first time) more registered urban voters than rural voters, showing that the voting rules are not impenetrable. Posted by Emmanuel Goldstein [www.airstripone.blogspot.com] 3/10/2002 6:44:03 AM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
Robert Mugabe predicted victory on Saturday as he cast his ballots in presidential and local elections at a primary school in Harare's working-class suburb of Highfield. Asked if he would accept the results of the hotly contested election, Mugabe said: "I will accept it - more than accept it - because I will have won." The 78-year-old former guerrilla leader, who has governed since independence in 1980, took another swipe at the former colonial power Britain and ther western nations, which he said have prejudged the vote. "They don't want the president of Zimbabwe to remain the president of Zimbabwe," he told reporters outside the school. Wonder who he voted for?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
The Hizb al-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party) has denounced Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's peace plans for the Middle East as a ''gift to Sharon the butcher'' and called on Muslims to reject it. In a leaflet distributed after Friday prayers outside the Saudi-funded Islamic Centre in Brussels, the group said the Palestinian question was not limited to withdrawal from PA territories or from the West Bank or from territories occupied in 1967 but was the liberation of all Palestine from Zionist occupation. The Arabic leaflet said the Saudi plan would now be made an official Arab document by the Arab summit scheduled to be held in Beirut at the end of March. It said the Saudi plan ''is an indirect US attempt to solve the problem as envisaged by the Mitchell and Tenet plans.'' Hizb al-Tahrir is banned in most of the Arab countries because it calls for the creation of one Islamic Khilafat rule in the Muslim world. When it comes right down to it, if these goobers are against it, that makes me view it more favorably.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
Israeli forces have rounded up hundreds of Palestinian men at Tulkarm in the West Bank and moved them to an army base. Palestinian officials put the number of detainees at 640, accusing Israel of seeking to terrorize the population. The PA said most fighters at the camp had slipped the Israeli dragnet. The Israeli army said about 500 men, described as "armed activists,'' were being held under provisions that allowed them to be detained for up to four days without access to lawyers. The Palestinian Authority said at least 16 Palestinians, including civilians, had been killed in fighting at the camp since the Israeli raid, backed by tanks and helicopters, began on Thursday. An Israeli soldier has also been killed. So all the real gunnies beat it at the appearance of a real military force, leaving their little brothers to be rounded up with the spare guns. Wonder how many of the small fry will be keepers?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud met with representatives of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this week and left the door open for more direct meetings in the future. Sharon sent a message to the Saudis requesting secret contacts with him via Daniel Abraham, chairman of Slim-Fast Foods and the Center for Middle East Peace, and US Congressman Robert Wexler (Dem-FL) a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee.
The crown prince outlined his initiative to the envoys, who relayed it yesterday to Sharon. The proposal calls for Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 lines in return for full diplomatic relations, normalized trade, and security guarantees from Arab countries. "Abdullah said he genuinely wants to see a termination of the conflict," said an official present at the envoys' meeting with Sharon. "At this point he just has a series of ideas, but by the time the plan is fleshed out, he doesn't want to have any issues left out, including the refugee issue." It'll be interesting to see if it ever gets out of the talks stage. At this point, the Israelis are more inclined to buy peace - probably the impetus behind the wave of boomers and shooters in the past week - and the Saudis are inclined to come up with something to make themselves look like good guys after 9-11. Having started the ball rolling, neither side can let go until they can point to the other as having derailed the process.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
Twenty people, including 13 snuffies, three securitymen and four civilians, a seven year old child among them, died in terrorism-related incidents across Kashmir. Nine persons including a soldier sustained injuries. The dead included five suspected Laskhar-e-Taiba. The child was killed, and four others were injured, when a grenade they were fiddling with exploded. According to reports, the kiddies found the grenade on the road side and started playing with it. "Aisha, have you seen my grenade?"
"Why, no, Mustafa. Didn't you have it with you when you got out of the car?"
"Musta fallen out of my pocket."
"Well, don't worry about it. We'll get you another one."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
Abu Sayyaf, which has been holding an American missionary couple hostage in the jungles here for nearly 10 months, has offered to release them for about $1 million. The offer, which came to the Philippine government through another Islamic group, was relayed to the American Embassy here this morning. Although Philippine government policy is not to pay ransoms, the officials said that some cabinet members were inclined to do so in this case, but that the government would not act over any objections from the United States. If they get the swag, expect them to try and fade back into the woodwork for a year or two, until the heat's off and the US as gone away.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
Despite warnings of an imminent terrorist attack in the area, a suicide bomber succeeded in entering the Eshel Hashomron Hotel complex near the entrance to Ariel, wounding 10 Israelis and one tourist from the US in the lobby. Both Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed credit. He's part of the first contingent of the Zinni Welcome Committee.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11122 views]
Top|| File under:
Police are searching for a would-be boomer who fled the town of Karkur. Sasson Partush spotted a Palestinian man carrying a pigeon coop near the entrance to the community. Partush approached him to ask where he was from and what he was doing. Startled, the man dropped the pigeon coop, whereupon Partush whipped out a heater and demanded the man lift his shirt. The Palestinian did so, revealing the belt of explosives he was wearing, and started to fumble with it.
Fearing the snuffy was about to detonate, Partush stepped back, and the attempted boomer ran to a waiting car. Partush saw him on his way with some hot lead, apparently without hitting him, and went to call the cops.
In the meantime, a woman resident (we'll call her Rilli Notzobreit) who passed by saw the coop. "What a nice coop!" she said to herself. She picked it up, lugged it back home, and put the thing in her yard. Meanwhile the cops stood around scratching their heads and wondering where the hell it went. Eventually, they found Rilli and called in the bomb squad, who determined it concealed at least three kilograms of explosives. It was removed to a safe distance and duly went "boom." And they all lived happily ever after, even the boomer, once he changed his pants.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
U.S. troops may use their brand-new military base in Kyrgyzstan for as long as it takes to pacify and stabilise Afghanistan, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev said on Thursday. Led by the United States, more than 1,000 troops from six countries have arrived at the rapidly expanding facility at Manas international airport on the outskirts of Bishkek. Senior U.S. officials have said the plan is not to establish a permanent base in Kyrgyzstan, but they have given no indication of how long the troops might remain in place. U.S. and Kyrgyz authorities have said the base may grow to some 3,000 soldiers and 40 aircraft. Surprisingly, there doesn't appear to be any internal Russian controversy. Even the chauvinists can't imagine we have any interest in Kyrgyzstan.
Our presence in Kzxcgtrbvcn probably frees up the Russians to watch their border with China. We need to send them some vowels! Posted by Anonymous 3/10/2002 3:02:18 PM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
