February 19, 2008: The presence of NATO troops (with their smart bombs and UAVs) makes the traditional Afghan combat methods (a couple hundred guys with guns) impractical. So the al Qaeda bomb tactics have been adopted more frequently. Apparently the Taliban missed the part where al Qaeda got run out of Iraq, by Iraqis, because of the large number of civilians killed by terrorist bombs. The same cycle is playing out in Afghanistan. There were 140 bomb attacks in Afghanistan last year, and the Taliban are apparently trying to up that number this year. The Afghan police are arresting a lot of the terrorists. Many of the most skilled terrorists (who can build bombs and deploy them) are foreigners, and easy to spot. The skill level of Afghan suicide bomb teams is still low, with bomb makers still getting killed by their own creations, and most attacks killing nothing but bombers and civilians. This years "Spring Offensive" will apparently feature more suicide bombs, and attempts to manipulate the Western media (to pressure Western governments to withdraw troops from Afghanistan).
Posted by: Mike ||
02/20/2008 07:58 ||
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#3
They can't launch the Spring Offensive until after the Brutal Afghan Winter subsides.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/20/2008 9:47 Comments ||
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#4
You guys misunderstand. The Spring Offensive is shorthand for "Irish Spring is Offensive" which means that they will not bath again this spring despite promises.
#8
in all fairness though, Iraq had a structured, trained military up through March 2003. Most of todays IA (and all the officers, presumably) are veterans of the old IA.
Afghanistan hasnt had a functioning "army" since 1992 or so, and THAT army was severely weakened by 12 years of playing helper to the Soviets in a civil war. From 1992 to 2001 it was nothing but warlord militias and the Taliban. Last time they had a real professional army was 1979.
The US military has been holding an Afghan journalist working with Canadian Television (CTV) for three months because of his professional contacts with Taliban militants, media watchdogs alleged Tuesday. A US military officer at the largest military base at Bagram, north of Kabul, confirmed that the reporter, identified as Jawad Ahmad, was in detention. However, "He is not being detained because he is a journalist," Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta told AFP, refusing to give details of charges.
Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said Ahmad, 22, had been held at Bagram since November 2007. "The US soldiers accused him of having the numbers of Taliban leaders in his mobile phone and of interviewing them," it said in a statement that called on US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. "The lack of legal procedures and material evidence confirms that his detention is unjustified," it said.
The US military was also holding at least two other journalists -- Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj at its Guantanamo Bay facility and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein in Iraq, the watchdog said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, said separately it was "deeply troubled" by the Ahmad case. His brother, Siddique Ahmad, had said the reporter was arrested apparently because "the US military believed he had contacts with local Taliban leaders and was in possession of a video of Taliban materials," the CPJ said in a statement. "The United States military must explain the reason for his detention and accord him due process. If he is not charged with any crime then he must be released immediately,"
This article starring:
Jawad Ahmad
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"must" huh? sounds like Zen found a new job...
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/20/2008 8:17 Comments ||
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#2
Zenster's posting regularly at Belmont Club, FWIW.
Kyrgyzstan is home to a U.S. military airbase used to support U.S. military operations in nearby Afghanistan. A source in the parliament told Reuters the country's Financial Intelligence Service, which oversees anti-money laundering activities, had uncovered several al Qaeda agents.
The head of the Financial Intelligence Service, Maksatbek Sadyrov, made the announcement at a parliament sitting, the source said. "He said (the last) al Qaeda agent had been uncovered last Friday," the source said. The Financial Intelligence Service and the State Security Committee declined to comment on Sadyrov's speech.
Kyrgyzstan, a Muslim nation which has been unstable since 2005 when its current president came to power, lies on one of the routes for smuggling drugs out of Afghanistan to Europe. Its authorities have long accused unspecified "terrorists" of trying to destabilize the situation in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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China said on Tuesday its stance on fighting terrorism was no different from the rest of the world, after it announced police had killed two "terrorists" in its Muslim-dominated far northwest.
"On the attack against terrorists, our position is the same as the international community. Our stance is firm," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.
He declined to comment further, saying only he was aware of reports in state-run media that Chinese police late last month wiped out a "terrorist" group, killing two of its members and arresting 15.
The Global Times newspaper, run by the official Xinhua news agency, characterized the January 27 raid in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang region, as the biggest anti-terrorism move by police in the past year.
Xinhua said the targets of last month's raid were suspected of collaborating with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the United Nations has designated a terrorist organisation.
Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily reported last week that at least 18 people had been killed in last month's raid.
Authorities in Xinjiang did not answer requests by AFP for further information and it was impossible to independently verify either version of events.
Independent information gathering is difficult in Xinjiang, made particularly hard by China's heavy security presence in the strategically vital region, which has a Muslim-majority population and borders Central Asia.
Rights groups have consistently accused Chinese authorities of repression in Xinjiang, with some saying Beijing uses the cover of a "war on terror" to brutally silence anyone who expresses opposition to, or anger with, Chinese rule.
"China has the right and has the duty actually to protect itself and its citizens from terrorist acts. No doubt about it," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"The concern is whether they use this incident, which seems very isolated, as a justification for a broad denial of basic rights, as we see in Xinjiang."
The operations were carried out almost exactly one year after 18 people were killed and 17 captured in an army raid on an East Turkestan Islamic Movement training camp in Xinjiang, according to Chinese authorities.
East Turkestan refers to two short-lived republics established in Xinjiang between 1930 and 1949 by the Muslim Uighur minority, and the minority group continues to harbour independence ambitions.
Nearly 10 million Uighurs live in Xinjiang, making up nearly half of China's officially recognized 18 million Muslims.
"Chinese police late last month wiped out a scare quotes "terrorist" /scare quotes group, killing two of its members and arresting 15."
I'd prefer 17 killed and none arrested, but it's a start....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/20/2008 18:45 Comments ||
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#2
China has a understanding of what Islam is all about it seems, too bad the west is so willfully clueless. Islam is not a race it is a cult. Saying Islam is evil is not racist it's common sense.
#3
Still waiting for the "DEATH TO CHINA" chanting to begin throughout the muslim world--waiting--waiting.
Well,I guess their really not that stupid,are they?
#5
And the Communist Chinese are very good at math, and very BAD at "human rights"!
Ummm, didn't the Chinese institute a "One child per Family" Program some years back?
And didn't we hear that because of this policy Chinese women were aborting females in favor of male children?
And further I remember hearing that now the Chinese demographics were skewed, more boys than girls?
And I distinctly remember the serious ideas that now China needed a war to dispose of the surplus males.
Taking all the above together, the Islamics are seriously Fucked.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/20/2008 22:14 Comments ||
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Pakistans main alliance of religious parties faced heavy losses on Tuesday, five years after winning control of the NWFP, unofficial election results showed. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance, with 50 seats, was the third-largest grouping in the previous parliament.
But they had won just three seats out of 235 counted in unofficial results announced by the Pakistan Television channel on Tuesday afternoon. Formed in 2002, the alliance won control of the NWFP on the back of fierce anti-American sentiment after US-led troops overthrew the hardline Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001. Their electoral success raised international fears about a growing influence of hardline Islam in politics in Pakistan.
Peshawar residents: Residents in Peshawar welcomed the setback for the mullahs on Tuesday with gunfire and street celebrations. In one constituency, up to 4,000 people gathered early to celebrate the victory of Arbab Alamgir Khan of the Pakistan Peoples Party, an AFP reporter witnessed. Long live Bhutto! they shouted, firing volleys of gunfire into the air from pickup trucks.
These people did nothing for us during their five-year tenure and just strengthened the hands of Islamists and those supporting militancy, said Raees Zaidi, a property dealer. People believe that there should be moderate and progressive parties to lead them in a right direction and steer the province out of the turmoil caused by the MMA.
Ifran Jan, an auto-rickshaw mechanic, called the mullahs religious fanatics and said a vote for them would be wasted. These mullahs made our lives miserable, said Jan, his hands stained with engine oil. They showed us dreams of a prosperous NWFP but left us at the mercy of militants. This situation was simply unacceptable.
A senior government official said the results showed a clear verdict by the people against those who use religion as a tool to gain political clout.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
Didn't the Islamists say they were boycotting this election? Aren't elections haram in Islam anyway? (Except to get power that is, it's a one-way valve.)
#5
1. Yeah, MMA was divided IIUC
2. This may have been a cleaner election than 2002
3. Around the Islamic world, from Algeria to Gaza to Paki, Islamists win elections on promises of doing better than the secular (often socialist or ex-socialist) parties. Less corrupt, more efficient. When they fail to deliver, theres a tendency to toss them out. In Pakiland, unlike Gaza, the state overall was able to implement a new democratic election.
Footage of al-Qaida training children, including the children practicing kidnapping and raiding techniques. This footage was recovered by U.S. military during a raid northwest of Baghdad. Provided by Multi-National Forces Iraq Public Affairs.
Posted by: ed ||
02/20/2008 15:32 ||
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Or maybe Americans attempt to hide from the Brave Lions of Islam by using children as human shields.
BALAD, Iraq Three Iraqi children playing soccer were killed during a terrorist mortar attack outside Coalition forces Logistical Supply Area Anaconda near Balad Feb. 19.
Seven other children were injured in the indirect fire attack and were treated for wounds at a Coalition forces hospital.
The indiscriminate violence wrought by these terrorists is intolerable, said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, spokesperson for Multi-National Division North. We will continue to pursue terrorists and disrupt their networks across our area of operation.
This may explain why the news releases have been light the past few days.
UPDATE: Coalition forces positively identify terrorist killed in operation Sunday
BAGHDAD A terrorist killed during an operation Sunday has been positively identified as Abu Karrar. Karrar, also known as Arkan Khalaf Khudayyir, was a senior intelligence leader involved in the al-Qaeda in Iraq network ... There's an oxymoron for you!
... in Baqouba. He was also a terrorist facilitator for the suicide bombing network in the Diyala River Valley region, which conducts attacks in Baghdad, to include attacks by female suicide bombers. Reports indicate the network has been disrupted by recent successful Coalition operations in the area.
Karrar was killed when Coalition forces conducted an operation near Khan Bani Sad Sunday afternoon. As Coalition forces arrived in the target area, they observed Karrar and another suspect fleeing their vehicle. Karrar brandished a weapon with the perceived intent to fire on Coalition forces. The assault force engaged, killing both men. Coalition forces discovered an AK-47 and ammunition in the vehicle, and they destroyed the vehicle to prevent further use for terrorist activity. And so his buddies wouldn't know what information we recovered from it - let them assume Abu and all his stuff just got blown up.
"Iraqi and Coalition forces will relentlessly pursue terrorist leaders, like Abu Karrar, who plan al-Qaeda's indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians," said Maj. Winfield Danielson, MNF-I spokesman.
#1
We at Associated Press take umbrage at characterizing Arkan Khalaf Khudayyir as a terrorist.
We at AP found him to be a humanitarian and good fellow especially when compared to the culturally insensitive United States Occupation Forces. harumph!
Posted by: AP ||
02/20/2008 20:43 Comments ||
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American and Iraqi forces have begun their final offensive against al-Qa'eda in Iraq having surrounded the organisation's last major stronghold in the northern city of Mosul.
After setting up a security cordon around the outskirts of the city and an inner ring of police stations, a joint force of almost 11,000 troops is now mounting strikes on hundreds of terrorist sanctuaries between the two rings in an effort to eradicate the al-Qa'eda threat.
The operations are fraught with danger as streets and houses are often booby-trapped.
The city, which has a population of 1.6 million, has no sectarian divides, so al-Qa'eda bases are intermingled with civilian homes.
But house by house, the force intends to clear the city of terrorists in what Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has called a "decisive battle".
On an operation attended by The Daily Telegraph yesterday, one of the first in the new mission, US and Iraqi forces targeted an al-Qa'eda safehouse used by terrorists.
After rescuing a grateful local man, Wassim Mahmoud, who had been kidnapped and stashed beneath a trap door in the floor of the building, the commanding officer, Capt Alexander Rasmussen, consulted members of the 2nd brigade Iraqi Army on what to do with the compound. "Do we blow it up or set an ambush?"
With suspicious wires indicating a booby-trapped arms cache, the Iraqis persuaded Capt Rasmussen to set a trap. Before driving off, Capt Rasmussen stopped at local houses to apologise for ripping down electricity cables.
The gesture paid off when an elder told the patrol about a freshly planted roadside bomb just 50 yards away.
Local residents appear to be ready to offer Americans conditional support - provided the military can install a sense of security on Mosul's streets for the first time since Saddam Hussein's demise.
"We need a peaceful living environment," said Abdullah Qais, a retired merchant. He added: "There are good people living in good houses in Mosul but they are scared. The bad people can come at any time and you cannot stop them."
A year after Washington and Baghdad introduced a "surge" in troop numbers the north of the country has become the epicentre of terrorism in Iraq.
The country's biggest Sunni Muslim city has seen an influx of fighters seeking refuge from elsewhere in the country.
"Mosul is the elephant in the room," said Lt Col Michael Simmering, of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment. "It is the last major stronghold of al-Qa'eda and home to a fractured insurgency of many different groups."
The Ottoman trading outpost traces its roots to Biblical Nineveh and Nimrud. Mosul's Sunnis prospered under Saddam's Ba'ath Party, dominating Iraq's professions and the army.
But powerful families disenfranchised by the 2003 invasion quickly became the bedrock of Iraq's insurgency.
#2
After setting up a security cordon around the outskirts of the city and an inner ring of police stations, a joint force of almost 11,000 troops is now mounting strikes on hundreds of terrorist sanctuaries between the two rings
The way I read that, the 11,000 is IN ADDITION to the two rings, not inclusive of them.
#3
This is the reason we were running the IA through divisional and corps level ops at the end of 2007. It's their ballgame, a real life pass or fail test.
(Xinhua) -- Eight members of Iraqi security forces were killed and at least 15 more wounded along with two missing by a truck bomb in Baghdad, police said. The blast occurred after dusk in southeastern Baghdad's Al-Obeidi neighborhood, from which series of mortars and rockets were fired at a nearby U.S. military base on Tuesday afternoon, said a police officer. A truck parked there suddenly came into explosion when the police and army rushed to a suspect site of rocket launches targeted at U.S. military bases and just began inspecting the area, he said.
Eight Katyusha rockets simultaneously struck two U.S. bases in eastern Baghdad earlier on Tuesday, causing no casualties, an Interior Ministry source said. On Monday, over ten rockets hit the area near Baghdad's international airport and inside the adjoining U.S. Camp Victory base, killing five Iraqis and injuring two U.S. soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like there's a cell in Al-Obeidi that sees their days running short and figures they need to 'use it or lose it.'
A couple and their son as well as a woman neighbour taking part in the fight against Al-Qaeda have been killed by gunmen near the restive Iraqi city of Baquba, police and relatives said on Tuesday. "Armed men of Al-Qaeda attacked the home of Faraj Dahshem al-Zaydi in Sheikh village on Monday. They killed the 60-year-old man, his wife, their son Mustafa, 18, and a 35-year-old neighbour," police Liutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidi told AFP. "The armed men put the three members of the family in a room of their home and gunned them down," he said.
Civil, wel-reasoned discourse, Islamic-style.
The head of Baquba hospital's morgue, Ahmad Fuad, said four bodies were brought in. Villagers and family members said at the hospital that they had joined one of the local "Awakening" groups which have sided with the US military in fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
An army officer, meanwhile, said Iraqi soldiers killed two Saudi nationals and an Algerian suspected of belonging to the Al-Qaeda terror network in a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday near the northern city of Samarra. Iraqi special forces arrested a local Al-Qaeda leader, identified as Mahmud al-Rahmani, after an operation against a hideout in an industrial district of Samarra, Lieutenant Muthanna Shakir Mahmud said. During an interrogation, Rahmani told the soldiers of a second hideout in a Samarra suburb. The soldiers raided the site and clashed with the Saudis and the Algerian, killing all three, Mahmud said.
[BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!] "Stick 'em up!"
Soldiers discovered a weapons cache at the site that included rockets and bombs, he added.
In Mosul, northeast of Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his car in an attack on security forces, killing an Iraqi soldier and wounding three others. And a police officer was killed when two gunmen fired into his vehicle near the city of Baquba, security sources said.
US and Iraqi forces have been seeking for more than a year to flush out Al-Qaeda operatives and have pacified several areas, including districts of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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Egypt has deported some 350 Gazans who were arrested in recent days in northern Sinai, Egyptian security officials said Tuesday. The officials said that some 150 additional Palestinians staying in an El-Arish youth hostel would soon be expelled. According to Egyptian estimations, about 2,500 more Gazans remained in the Strip after last month's border breach.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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IDF troops killed a Palestinian gunman who approached the central Gaza border fence overnight Monday. The army said that the armed man opened fire toward Givati Brigade troops stationed in the area. The soldiers then returned fire, hitting the Palestinian.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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A 46-year-old Buddhist man was shot and then set ablaze as he tried to escape an attack by suspected Islamic terrorists separatists on Tuesday in Thailands Muslim-majority south, police said.
Netr Noh-uma, a highway department official, was shot as he was riding a motorcycle with a colleague in Pattani, one of three provinces along the Malaysian border hit by four years of jihad separatist unrest, police said. A 34-year-old man was riding the motorcycle with him. He was also shot but managed to run away, police said.
Netr was too seriously wounded to escape. Police said that when he fell off the motorcycle, two terrorists militants doused him with petrol and set him on fire. "They burned him alive after he was shot and fell from his motorbike."
Top military officials announced the arrest of a suspected top member of Jemaah Islamiah and his two alleged contacts by the Army last Sunday in a barangay (village) in Davao Oriental province, also in Mindanao. They presented Mohamad Baehagu, 26, an Indonesian and supposedly carrying the aliases Latif, Salman and Tatoh, to the media during a press conference in Camp Aguinaldo, the militarys headquarters in Quezon City.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2008 00:00 ||
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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.
Kyrgyzstan is home to a U.S. military airbase used to support U.S. military operations in nearby Afghanistan. A source in the parliament told Reuters the country's Financial Intelligence Service, which oversees anti-money laundering activities, had uncovered several al Qaeda agents.
(Xinhua) -- Eight members of Iraqi security forces were killed and at least 15 more wounded along with two missing by a truck bomb in Baghdad, police said. The blast occurred after dusk in southeastern Baghdad's Al-Obeidi neighborhood, from which series of mortars and rockets were fired at a nearby U.S. military base on Tuesday afternoon, said a police officer. A truck parked there suddenly came into explosion when the police and army rushed to a suspect site of rocket launches targeted at U.S. military bases and just began inspecting the area, he said. 
A couple and their son as well as a woman neighbour taking part in the fight against Al-Qaeda have been killed by gunmen near the restive Iraqi city of Baquba, police and relatives said on Tuesday. "Armed men of Al-Qaeda attacked the home of Faraj Dahshem al-Zaydi in Sheikh village on Monday. They killed the 60-year-old man, his wife, their son Mustafa, 18, and a 35-year-old neighbour," police Liutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidi told AFP. "The armed men put the three members of the family in a room of their home and gunned them down," he said.
