According to military sources, around 1m litres (1.8m pints) of beer were shipped to German troops stationed in Afghanistan last year, as well as almost 70,000 litres of wine and sekt, a German sparkling wine.
The admission has shocked a country that has never had much time for the Afghan mission. Newspaper reports under headlines such as Drink for the Fatherland and Bundeswehr Boozers have suggested that alcohol is the only way of keeping soldiers onside at a time when it is becoming ever harder to recruit them.
The figures suggest that the 3,600 German soldiers based in Afghanistan as part of Nato's ISAF reconstruction mission, are each consuming around 278 litres of beer a year each, about 490 pints, as well as 128 standard measures of wine. The figures are set to rise by around 10% this year as troop numbers also increase.
US troops face an alcohol ban when on mission while British and other armies are allowed to drink moderately when not on duty. This discrepancy led to the claim made at a Nato conference on Afghanistan that "some drink beer while others risk their lives." Out of respect for TGA, wherever he is, and the two dozen or so German soldiers who have died in Afghanistan, I'm going to bite my tongue here. But somebody remind me again why we're in NATO.
Posted by: Matt ||
11/14/2008 21:22 ||
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#1
On the positive side, all that alcohol must make the jihadis' seething heads explode. Does the Bundeswehr also get a girly mag ration?
Posted by: ed ||
11/14/2008 23:24 Comments ||
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A Japanese journalist and an Afghan colleague were shot and wounded in Peshawar, in the latest of a series of attacks on foreigners in the northwest Pakistani city, police said. The shooting comes a day after an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped and his police bodyguard shot dead in the city, while an American aid worker was gunned down on Wednesday.
"A car chased these journalists and fired at them in Hayatabad," Superintendent Abdul Qadir said, referring to the same neighbourhood where the American was killed. The journalists had been seeking an interview with a militant commander in the wake of the spike in violence in Peshawar, according to another police officer, Banaras Khan.
The Afghan reporter, who sometimes works with Western media, was hit in the chest and hand, according to a journalist who saw him in hospital. The same journalist had no information on the extent of the Japanese reporter's injuries.
Somalia's Shebab fighters imposed Sharia law on the port of Merka Thursday, as the Islamist group continued to tighten its grip on the Horn of Arica country.
The insurgents also briefly occupied three small towns on the outskirts of Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Thursday, but melted away as Ethiopian forces headed south from the city to confront them.
The capture of Merka on Wednesday gave the Islamists a new base for their near-daily attacks on the Western-backed interim government and its Ethiopian military allies. Hours after taking over Merka town, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Mogadishu early Wednesday, Shebab commander Mohamed Sheikh Abdi Muse ordered traders to close businesses during prayer time. "Our aim is to implement Islamic Sharia in the region and everybody should know that we are equal," Muse told a crowd of residents.
The Shebab is the resurgent military and youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union which briefly ruled most of the country before being ousted in 2006. Many locals have welcomed the Shebab's takeover of the town, accusing the ousted local gunmen of extortion and blaming them for rising insecurity.
The Shebab said they would not disrupt operations at Merka port, a key entry point for the international food aid urgently needed by more than a third of Somalia's population.
Islamists have made significant military gains in recent months, leaving the embattled western-backed transitional federal government in control of only some parts of the capital Mogadishu and Baidoa, where parliament is seated.
Rights issues
Two men were flogged in public in Mogadishu earlier this month and a teenage rape victim deemed to have committed adultery by an Islamic court was stoned to death in the southern port of Kismayo late last month.
When in power in 2006, the Islamists carried out executions, shut cinemas and photo shops, banned live music, flogged drug offenders and harassed civilians, mainly women, for failing to wear appropriate dress in public. In addition, they banned most everything foreign music, romances between unmarried teens, all commerce and public transport during prayer times and decreed that Muslims who did not pray daily could be punished by death.
A branch of the ICU is now engaged in the U.N.-sponsored Djibouti peace process and has committed itself to joint security efforts with the transitional government. But the Shebab and allied hardliners have insisted that they will only enter negotiations once all Ethiopian troops have withdrawn from the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Stoning to death of 13 year old rape victims to commence shortly.
Posted by: ed ||
11/14/2008 0:24 Comments ||
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#2
Fuck it, let em implement sharia law, across all of Somalia as far as i'm concerned - *way more than anything else*, sharia has the ability to turn folks off of wahhabi/takfiri ideology
A video by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, posted November 12, 2008 on Islamist websites, shows mujahideen setting up a road block in Algeria, in broad daylight, for the dual purpose of handing out propaganda material and apprehending government employees.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
Ya know, we should try to set up something like this in the US - no propaganda but the apprehending of government employees, especially the legislative branch might be something to look into. Just sayin'
Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles into a Pakistani tribal region on Friday, killing 12 people, including five foreigners, in an area known as a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Pakistani officials said the attack targeted a house in a remote village on the border between North and South Waziristan, where Mehsud, an al Qaeda ally, has been bottled up by Pakistani forces since early this year. "We have reports that 12 people were killed, including five foreigners," a paramilitary official told Reuters by telephone from the area. It was unclear if the dead foreigners included Arabs, who usually signify an al Qaeda presence.
A relative and aides to Mehsud, and Pakistani government and paramilitary officials said the attack happened at around 1:45 a.m. (2045 GMT), and up to four missiles were fired. "There were two drones flying in our area and they fired four missiles," a paramilitary official in the area said. "They were American."
Mehsud, who was accused of being behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto last December, married a second wife in a ceremony held earlier this week in the Makeen area of South Waziristan. "Around 50 guests attended the marriage. They were all his close friends. It was a simple ceremony," close aide Mufti Wali-ur-Rehman told Reuters. His new wife is a madrasa-schooled daughter of a cleric from his own Mehsud tribe. Mehsud has no children by his first wife. Under Islamic custom a man can take up to four wives.
There are hopes in Pakistan the incoming administration of Barack Obama will be less aggressive than the outgoing George W. Bush administration in its approach to counter-terrorism operations inside Pakistan. "It's undermining my sovereignty and it's not helping win the ... hearts and minds of people," President Asif Ali Zardari told CBS News in an interview aired overnight. Zardari, whose 8-month-old civilian government is desperate for financial support to avert an economic meltdown, denied media speculation Pakistan had silently agreed a deal with the United States to allow missile strikes, and said more cooperation was needed.
Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani is visiting Brussels next week where he will raise the issue of the strikes and their repercussions during talks with NATO officials, according to Pakistani military sources.
The latest attack coincided with a visit by the commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan to Islamabad. General David McKiernan met with Pakistani parliamentarians at the U.S. embassy on Thursday to brief them on the security situation and efforts to combat the militancy threat, according to a lawmaker in attendance, who asked not to be named.
A suspected US missile strike before dawn on Friday killed at least nine people in a village near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Two officials said the strike hit a house in the North Waziristan tribal region. There was no immediate word on the identity of the victims.
Posted by: Vladimir I ||
11/14/2008 02:16 ||
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At least three labourers were injured when three rockets fell in the Swat Scouts Camp near Warsak Dam on Thursday, local sources told Daily Times. Two other rockets landed in the Sher Bridge area of Malagoori tehsil in Khyber Agency and damaged a house and a factory, but no casualties were reported. Meanwhile, the political administration asked the local tribesmen to expel Taliban from their areas or face action. Political tehsildar Bakhtiar Mohmand said the administration issued notices to tribal elders of Jamrud and put up posters. A local said an unidentified resident of the area expelled a Taliban from his house after the warning.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
When I went to Boy Scout camp our Estes rockets always landed in the camp after the fuel burned out. Gravity works.
At least two Taliban including a commander were killed and several others were injured when security forces retaliated to a Taliban rockets attack on Saidu Sharif airport early on Thursday. Military spokesman Colonel Nadeem identified the dead commander as Ibrahim. APP said the local Taliban commander was a resident of Shamozai. Thursday was the seventh day of curfew in Kabal tehsil, where troops continued the operation against Taliban. Several clashes were reported in the tehsil's Kabal Khas and Akhund Kalay areas. There were no casualties. Meanwhile, a military statement said the Mingora-Kalam road had been reopened for traffic and the two damaged bridges on the road had been repaired.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
That's 144 virgins, that is! (Incidentally, knowing these people proclivities, are the virgins in question female?)
Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.
He says the big problem everybody is talking about now is corruption. But hey, we have that here, too. He'll be heading to Afghanistan next week. "Afghanistan is a bad situation, but on Iraq I can't believe things have turned out so well."
He thinks that Obama will be able to pull troops out, and send some to Afghanistan, without creating problems in Iraq. Michael will be reporting from Afghanistan soon, and sending back video, so stay tuned. Things aren't going swimmingly there.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/14/2008 11:38 ||
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It seems like the donks are a package deal. One wins and they all win.
#5
Subjectively speaking, in Iraq the US = US-Allies won a BATTLE, NOTSOMUCH A "WAR" OR "GWOT" AS RADICAL ISLAMISM ISN'T ABSOL DEFEATED OR DESTROYED YET.
Iff the 10th Mountain, etc. US MILDIVS like not having to use their weapons in combat = righteous indignation/amgst, the US GOVT-NPE + USDOD has better make sure IRAN + ISLAMISTS DON'T GO NUKULAR VEE PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION + STRATEGIC WEAPONIZATION, THAT IRAN EVOLS INTO A DE FACTO WESTERN ALLY IN THE GWOT, NOT A PRO-TERROR NUCLEAR ENEMY, OR AN ANTI-US BELLIGERENT "MODERATE".
* CLINTON ADMIN = DUBYA ADMIN = NEW OBAMA/BAMELOT ADMIN > Iff PAN-GOVT US-WESTERN PERTS BELIEVE THAT IRAN IS A PROB, THEN EITHER MIL INVADE AND OCCUPY IRAN, ETC. TO PRECLUDE A MORE DANGEROUS FUTURE NUCLEAR-TERROR THREAT TO THE US-WORLD, OR IN THE ALTERN GET IRAN TO REFORM + ON OUR SIDE.
* GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR SAYING > "NO ONE HATES WAR MORE THAN THE [combat]SOLDIER", becuz a Soldier(s) ultimately will be placed in the forefront of REPAIRING OR REPLACING WHAT HE HIMSELF HELPED TO KILL ANDOR DESTROY, TO PROTECT HIS OWN!
(AKI) - The death toll continued to climb from a series of bomb attacks that shook the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday. At least 21 people were killed and another 80 injured in the multiple attacks that struck the city, according to police and Iraq's Interior Ministry. The surge is over. Time for the cockroaches to crawl back out from under the Iraqi baseboards and reconstitute.
In the most serious bomb attack on Wednesday, at least 12 people died and 60 others injured when a booby-trapped car and roadside bomb exploded almost simultaneously in eastern Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said.
Earlier a car bomb killed four people and injured 14 during the morning rush hour in a central shopping area.
Police also said five people were killed and 12 wounded in an explosion on the north side of the capital.
It is the third consecutive day of bombings in Baghdad. More than 30 were killed earlier this week in blasts with struck during the morning rush-hour.
The latest attacks came as the Iraqi military announced new measures in a bid to stop the increasing number of terrorist attacks. Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, said greater efforts would be placed on intelligence gathering and pre-emptive strikes against suspected opposition fighters.
Also on Wednesday, an Iraqi soldier shot dead at least two Americans in the northern city of Mosul, the US military said. "Two soldiers were killed and six wounded in a small-arms fire attack in an Iraqi Army compound in Mosul today. Initial reports indicate the attacker was an Iraqi soldier," a US military statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
That's what comes from not addressing root causes (a culture of zero-sum players).
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at militants in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday and Palestinians sent rocket barrages flying into Israel, officials said, as newly resumed violence threatened to bury a five-month-old truce. The renewed rocket fire from Gaza prompted Israel to seal its crossings with the territory, halting shipments of food aid and fuel.
Israel's military said the airstrike targeted rocket launchers and Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza's Health Ministry said two gunmen were moderately wounded.
Hamas militants in the northern Gaza Strip unleashed a barrage of rockets at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, where Israeli rescue services said they were treating one person wounded by shrapnel. Several rockets hit agricultural communities near the Israel-Gaza border, and more rockets hit the coastal city of Ashkelon. No casualties were reported in those strikes. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the rockets in a text message sent to reporters.
Israeli police and rescue services announced they were raising their alert level in preparation for more attacks.
Israel blocked humanitarian supplies from entering the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the United Nations said it would be forced to suspend food distribution on Thursday.
In addition to preventing aid agencies from delivering food to 1.5 million Gaza residents, Israel held up shipments of European Union-funded fuel to the territory's sole power plant. Palestinian officials said the plant would be shut down later in the day. "They have told us the crossings are closed today. At the end of today we will suspend our food distribution," said UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness. "Our warehouses are effectively empty," he told AFP. "
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said a truck it sent to the Kerem Shalom crossing was turned back. Israel usually allows some humanitarian supplies into Gaza, but even this has stopped over the past week, leading to harsh criticism from aid agencies and human rights organizations. "Pushing people to the brink of desperation every few months and forcing UNRWA into yet another cycle of crisis management is not in the interest of anyone who believes in peace, moderation and stability," said Gunness. Rocketry is, of course...
"The imposition of the blockade on Gaza by Israel with the cooperation of Egypt is a clear violation of international law and constitutes collective punishment," Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Right Watch's Middle East division, told AlArabiya.net.
"The Israelis have been careful calibrating what they let in so there is no death by starvation," though he added that Gazans do not have a healthy diet or get enough to eat.
ICRC mission chief Katharina Ritz said that "every day the situation is getting more and more precarious for Gazans," adding that there was a desperate need for medical supplies.
Israel held up shipments of fuel to the only power plant in Gaza Israel had initially said it would allow the delivery of fuel and some 30 truckloads of food and other humanitarian supplies into the enclave, where a flare-up in cross-border fighting threatens a 5-month-old truce.
Several rockets were fired at southern Israel earlier on Thursday, causing no casualties, the Israeli army said, a day after soldiers killed four Hamas forces during a raid into the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA usually distributes emergency food rations to about 750,000 people in the impoverished, overcrowded sliver of land whose economy has been crippled by a tight blockade Israel says is aimed at forcing militants to stop firing rockets and mortar rounds at the Jewish state.
The Israeli military confirmed the closure of Gaza continued on Thursday. "The crossings will remain closed today for security reasons," defense ministry spokesman Peter Lerner said. Reopening the crossings "has been delayed because of the mortar shelling that impedes the proper functioning of the crossing points," he said.
Gunness said Israeli officials were non-committal about allowing in supplies on Friday. The crossings are generally closed mid-day Friday through Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2008 00:00 ||
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"The imposition of the blockade on Gaza by Israel with the cooperation of Egypt is a clear violation of international law and constitutes collective punishment," Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Right Watch's Middle East division, told AlArabiya.net.
#2
If the situation is so impossible, perhaps those Gazans not involved in amateur rocketry and similar pursuits ought to consider joining their cousins who long since moved to somewhere more congenial.
In the economic sphere, most of this . . . was the result of access to the . . . Israeli economy: the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule.
During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the worldahead of such "wonders"as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. . . . GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, [but] expand[ed] tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715. . . . By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's. . . . Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.
Anyway, does anybody else here find very, very tiring that the paleos should feel entitled to live on welfare, mostly from the West's good will, whereas they not only are anti-israeli, but also plainly anti-westerners, claiming to be involved ina greater Jihad, including the return of al andalous, the conquest of Europe, the conquest of the white house (ok, that one is partly done already),...?
Bizarro world, of course, just as when the soviets pushed armed revolutions all over the world in the name of "peace", and all the useless idiots would fall for it, and have demonstrations to support "peace".
Some members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are now in possession of a US spy plane which crashed in Guindulungan town in Maguindanao early this month, a rebel official said Friday.
In a phone interview, Mohagher Iqbal, who chairs the MILF negotiating panel, said the drone crashed on Nov. 1 and subsequently recovered by MILF troops the following day. It was not shot down (by the MILF) but it crashed The body is intact," the official said, adding that MILF rebels are currently playing with it because its small."
Iqbal was uncertain when asked if they are going to return the drone. Whats important is we found it. If it's a diamond, the ones who found it, keep it To us, it has no value, but to the high-tech owners, it may be important. To us, its just like a kite,"he said. On whether this indicates that the US is helping the military in the ongoing offensive against rogue rebels, Iqbal said: I cannot say that."
Sought for a comment, Eastern Mindanao Command spokesman Maj. Randolph Cabangbang said it was impossible that a US spy drone would crash in the area, adding the Americans are not using such aircraft in the area.
Last month, a survey plane of the US crashed in Pikit, North Cotabato. The survey plane was supposedly gathering information for Americans involved in "civic action programs" in the province. On the possibility that a survey plane of the US crashed in Maguindanao, Cabangbangbang said: We have no information on that."
Three civilians, including a 5-year-old boy, were killed and nine were taken hostage by Muslim separatist rebels in two attacks in the southern Philippines, police said Friday. The civilians were slain when Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attacked a military outpost Thursday in Midsayap town in North Cotabato province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, said the town's police chief, Inspector Renante Cabico.
Cabico said the victims were among 150 people caught in the crossfire between the MILF guerrillas and army troops. 'They were visiting relatives when the clashes between the army and the MILF occurred,' he said. 'They were hit by stray bullets as they fled with about 30 families.'
In Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila, MILF rebels stormed two villages in Maluso town and took nine people hostage, said Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar, provincial police director. Macapantar said the guerrillas raided the villages Friday and took the hostages as they fled. He said government security forces have been dispatched to hunt down the rebels and rescue the captives.
The attacks occurred as the military launched fresh airstrikes against MILF rebel positions in nearby Maguindanao and Lanao del Norte provinces. The military offensives have triggered new evacuations of refugees in the affected areas, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross.
TRIPOLI, LEBANON - Ten kilos of explosives were found during a raid on a home in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Thursday, a Palestinian official said. "Ten kilos of explosives, six modern timer systems, 10 remote controls... and a large number of grenades were found in an apartment in Beddawi," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Ten kilos of explosives? Since when is that newsworthy for a Paleo camp?
Beddawi is one of 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon and home to an estimated 16,000 refugees.
The official said security forces stormed the apartment on information from a Palestinian arrested last week in a raid that turned deadly when a passerby was killed in a shootout between security forces and the wanted men. The Lebanese army does not enter the camps, leaving responsibility for security to Palestinian factions, but extremists believed to have links with Al-Qaeda have settled in some of the shantytowns.
Beddawi's population is thought to have swelled after an influx of refugees from the nearby Nahr al-Bared camp which was almost completely destroyed after a 15-week battle last year between the Lebanese army and an Al-Qaeda inspired militant group.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/14/2008 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.
A Japanese journalist and an Afghan colleague were shot and wounded in Peshawar, in the latest of a series of attacks on foreigners in the northwest Pakistani city, police said. The shooting comes a day after an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped and his police bodyguard shot dead in the city, while an American aid worker was gunned down on Wednesday. 
Somalia's Shebab fighters imposed Sharia law on the port of Merka Thursday, as the Islamist group continued to tighten its grip on the Horn of Arica country. 
Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles into a Pakistani tribal region on Friday, killing 12 people, including five foreigners, in an area known as a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud. 
(AKI) - The death toll continued to climb from a series of bomb attacks that shook the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday. At least 21 people were killed and another 80 injured in the multiple attacks that struck the city, according to police and Iraq's Interior Ministry.
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at militants in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday and Palestinians sent rocket barrages flying into Israel, officials said, as newly resumed violence threatened to bury a five-month-old truce. The renewed rocket fire from Gaza prompted Israel to seal its crossings with the territory, halting shipments of food aid and fuel. 
Some members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are now in possession of a US spy plane which crashed in Guindulungan town in Maguindanao early this month, a rebel official said Friday.
