Posted on 07/15/2005 4:38:18 PM PDT by Gucho
Jul 15, 2005 4:33 pm US/Mountain
(CBS/AP) - Authorities arrested an Egyptian chemist who studied in the United States and investigated a possible al Qaeda connection in Pakistan as the search widened for those behind London's suicide bombings, officials said Friday.
Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar, 33, who was arrested in Cairo, denied any role in the attacks, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement. He was taken into custody after the July 7 transit bombings and was being questioned, it said.
No charges have been filed against him. London police said a man has been arrested in Cairo, but they would not confirm his name or characterize him as a suspect in the attacks that killed at least 54 people, including four bombers.
Also Friday, police in Leeds raided a shop selling Islamic books and DVDs just blocks from where at least two of the four suicide bombers lived, and they seized materials.
CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports the police investigation is evolving very fast, but that's little comfort to Britons who heard London's police chief tell them today that another attack remains a strong possibility.
Muslim leaders have said the young bombers might have been inspired by radical literature. It was not immediately clear whether any of the four bombers had links to the shop, but neighbors speculated that the owner or manager may have met the suspects there.
Palmer (video) reports el-Nashar rented the apartment used as the bomb-making lab and may have been the technical brains of the operation.
An earlier search of a flat in Leeds rented by el-Nashar found evidence of explosives similar to those used in the failed 2001 shoe-bombing plot involving Richard Reid, according to The Times of London.
U.S., British and Egyptian officials had been in contact concerning el-Nashar following the blasts, according to an Egyptian government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was providing information not in the ministry's statement.
El-Nashar was vacationing in Egypt and had intended to go back to Britain to continue his studies, the ministry said, without specifying the date he was taken into custody.
"El-Nashar denied having any relation with the latest events in London. He pointed out that all his belongings remained in his apartment in Britain," it said.
British and FBI officials had been looking for el-Nashar, who recently taught chemistry at Leeds University, north of London.
Leeds University said el-Nashar arrived in October 2000 to do biochemical research sponsored by the National Research Center in Cairo, Egypt. It said he earned a doctorate May 6.
FBI agents in Raleigh, N.C., had joined the search for el-Nashar. North Carolina State University spokesman Keith Nichols said a person named el-Nashar studied there as a graduate student in chemical engineering in early 2000.
Detectives who searched el-Nashar's flat found signs that quantities of a compound called TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, had been converted into a powerful explosive, the Times of London reported.
In 2001, Reid used an improvised shoe bomb rigged with TATP, which is difficult for bomb-sniffing dogs to detect, when he tried to board an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami and blow it up over the Atlantic. Reid was subdued by passengers when he tried to detonate the explosive. He pleaded guilty to U.S. charges and is serving a life sentence.
TATP is a highly unstable explosive made from commercially available chemicals.
Terrorists "like it because its ingredients are easy to obtain and difficult to detect," explosives expert Hans Michels tells Palmer.
A spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the report or say what type of explosive was used in the attacks.
Andy Oppenheimer, an explosives expert with Jane's Information Group, said TATP is strong enough to have caused the damage wreaked by last week's bombs.
But he added that making such a highly volatile explosive stable enough to carry out closely synchronized attacks would have required advanced knowledge of chemistry. Police say the three subway blasts happened within a minute.
The New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corp. also reported that TATP was found in a search of a Leeds home.
Earlier, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said investigators were hunting the organizers of the London transit attacks — perpetrated by what he called "foot soldiers" — and confirmed police were focusing on a Pakistan connection.
Three of the bombers who carried out last week's terror strikes were Britons of Pakistani descent. Pakistani intelligence officials said Friday that local authorities are looking into a connection between one of the three and two al Qaeda-linked militant groups in that country.
Blair told the BBC that police believed they would discover an al Qaeda connection to the blasts.
"What we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear al Qaeda link, a clear al Qaeda approach, because the four men who are dead, who we believe are the bombers, are in the category of foot soldiers," Blair said.
Authorities in Pakistan, meanwhile, were looking into a connection between one of the London suicide bombers and two al Qaeda-linked militant groups in Pakistan, including a man arrested for a 2002 attack on a church near the U.S. Embassy, two senior intelligence officials said.
The investigation is focusing on at least one trip that 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer made to Pakistan in the past year, said the officials, who work at two separate intelligence agencies and are involved in the investigation. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of their jobs.
One of the officials said that while in Pakistan, Tanweer is believed to have visited a radical religious school run by the banned Sunni Muslim militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
The sprawling school in Muridke, 20 miles north of Lahore, has a reputation for hostility. Journalists who have traveled to the school in the past have been threatened and prevented from entering.
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba was banned by Pakistan for alleged links to a 2001 attack on India's Parliament.
ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported that the attacks were connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore. Names on a computer that authorities seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al Qaeda, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, most of whom lived near Luton, where the alleged suicide bombers met on their way to London shortly before last week's blasts, according to the report.
Authorities have now discovered ties between Mohammed Sidique Khan — one of the July 7 bombers — and members of that cell who were arrested last year, ABC said.
In another international development in the inquiry, Jamaica's government said it was investigating a Jamaican-born Briton as one of the bombers. Reports identified him as Lindsey Germaine.
On Thursday, police released closed-circuit TV video showing one of the four suicide bombers — 18-year-old Hasib Hussain — wearing a backpack as he passed through the Luton train station on his way to London.
Hussain allegedly set off the bomb that killed 14 people aboard the bus. That blast occurred nearly an hour after three London Underground trains blew up, and investigators don't yet know what Hussain did during that hour or when he boarded the bus.
Trying to map out Hussain's movements, police appealed for information from anyone who may have seen him in or around King's Cross station, where the four parted ways.
Police officially identified two of the suicide bombers Thursday — Hussain and Tanweer, whom they say attacked a subway train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations.
News reports have identified the fourth bomber as 30-year-old Mohammed Sidique Khan.
Hussain's family issued a statement Friday, saying they were devastated by the attack and had no idea he could have been involved.
"We had no knowledge of his activities," his family said, adding that had they known, they would have stopped him. "We urge anyone with information about these events, or leading up to them, to cooperate fully with the authorities."
It was Hussain's mother who gave investigators a key break in the case when she called them the night of the bombings to report him missing. Her description of Hussain's missing clothes led police to conclude that he was the likely attacker in the bus bombing that killed 14 people.
July 15, 2005
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA - Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq The leader of Iraq's most feared terror group fled Baghdad about two weeks ago because a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the capital was threatening his al-Qaida movement, Iraq's interior minister said in a television interview aired Friday.
Bayan Jabr told the U.S.-owned Al Hurra television that the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and many of his al-Qaida in Iraq followers fled Baghdad because of the success of Operation Lightning, launched May 28.
Despite claims that the operation was successful, at least 30 people were killed in a wave of car-bombings and roadside explosions in the capital Friday. Jabr said "the terrorists" often have more weapons than the police.
He nonetheless claimed many al-Qaida members had left the capital "because they have lost the battle." Al-Zarqawi fled Baghdad 12 days ago after several car-rigging factories were discovered in a security operation, he said.
"Al-Zarqawi is in his last months," Jabr added.
In the past, Iraqi officials have variously placed al-Zarqawi in the Fallujah area west of Baghdad and in eastern Iraq. Some accounts claimed he had even been wounded and had fled to Iran, a charge the Iranians deny.
Jabr also confirmed that several detainees had suffocated in a police vehicle last weekend because it was new and officers did not know how to use the air conditioner.
Major Sunni Arab groups expressed outrage over the deaths of about 10 Sunnis who were detained after a gunfight and suffocated after being locked in a van without air conditioning for hours in 115-degree heat. The minister said three officers had been arrested in the case and that there were also allegations of torture.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
What...got the Watchtower and retaliated with mass murder?
I would say it was complete brainwashing after some indoctrination in Pakistan.
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, July 15, 2005
TEL AVIV — Palestinian insurgents have launched one of their biggest missile attacks since they agreed to a cooling-off period in the war against Israel in February 2005.
More than 40 missiles and mortars have been fired toward Jewish communities in Israel and the Gaza Strip since Thursday evening, Middle East Newsline reported. One woman was killed in a salvo of four Kassam-class, short-range missiles launched from the northern Gaza Strip.
"There has been a worsening of the situation," Interior Minister Ofer Pinas-Paz said on Friday. "There's no question that the ceasefire has dissipated."
A 22-year-old Israeli woman was killed in a salvo of missiles that struck the Israeli community of Netiv Ha'asara, located just north of the Gaza Strip and which has been demanded by the Palestinian Authority. Israeli military sources said the salvo was fired from the area of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
Another salvo of four missiles struck the area around Kibbutz Nahal Oz, located in Israel just east of the Gaza Strip. One missile struck a border police jeep, but nobody was injured.
On Friday, about 10 additional Kassam missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, with four of them landing in Sderot. There were no reports of major injuries. Officials said Sderot's new missile alert system, termed "Red Dawn," sounded sirens to warn of the incoming projectiles.
In all, at least 18 Kassam missiles were fired in a period of 14 hours, almost all of them from Beit Hanoun, officials said. Hamas and the ruling Fatah movement claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
Overnight Friday, Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles toward three Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, Israeli military sources said. Hours later, the military sent main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers to the area.
Israel's ground forces did not respond to the missile and mortar salvo. Military sources said Southern Command has been using its forces to seal the Gaza Strip from Israeli non-residents in preparation for the withdrawal from the area in August.
The PA confirmed the missile attacks as Palestinian sources said at least two people were killed and nine others injured in a battle between PA police and Hamas. The fighting in Gaza City on Friday took place as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas sought to meet Hamas leaders in another effort to end attacks against Israel.
"We will take the most energetic measures to put an end to this firing and to find a solution," PA Interior Minister Nasser Yusef said.
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, July 15, 2005
BAGHDAD — The Iraq Army and security forces have been assigned 20 percent of all counter-insurgency operations in the country.
U.S. officials said 35 battalion-size operations take place daily in Iraq. They said Iraqi security forces have been responsible for about 20 percent of these missions. The Iraq Army operates two brigades in the Baghdad area.
Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a U.S. spokesman for Multinational Force, Iraq, said the Iraqi military presence has encouraged the flow of intelligence on insurgents and their weapons. Alston told a briefing on Thursday that several weapons caches were being discovered weekly in the Baghdad area, Middle East Newsline reported.
The caches include counterfeit U.S. money, mines, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft guns, dynamite and bombs. Iraqi forces have also foiled suicide car bombings on a nearly daily basis.
U.S. officials said coalition forces have captured two high-ranking Al Qaida operatives with ties to network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. Officials identified the operatives as Abdullah Ibrahim Muhammed Hassan Al Shadad, or Abu Abdul Aziz, and Khamis Farhan Khalaf Abdul Fahdawi, or Abu Seba.
Abdul Aziz, captured on July 10, was said to have served as both a cell leader in Baghdad and an operations officer for Al Qaida in Iraq. Abu Seba, described as a senior Al Qaida aide, was captured the previous day in Ramadi and believed responsible for attacks against diplomats from Bahrain and Pakistan as well as the recent killing of Egyptian ambassador Ihab Salah Al Din Ahmad Al Sharif.
On Thursday, Iraqi security forces in Baghdad prevented an attack by a car bomb and two suicide vest bombers. Alston said Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint quickly spotted the suspicious vehicle, which exploded about 200 meters away. A civilian was said to have been killed in the explosion.
At that point, two suicide bombers who were in front of the destroyed car began walking toward Iraqi soldiers. Officials said an Iraqi soldier shot one suicide bomber and his explosive belt detonated.
Shrapnel from that explosion wounded the second suicide bomber. When the soldiers saw that the wounded man was wearing an explosive belt, he, too, was shot by Iraqi troops.
Iraq's military and security forces number more than 170,000, most of them police. They include special police units that have been guarding foreign embassies in Baghdad.
On July 9, members of a special Iraqi police unit discovered a rocket-propelled grenade round near the Kuwait embassy. An explosive ordnance disposal team was called in and safely removed the round.
"Casualties were minimized because they performed their critical jobs so well," Alston said. "They continue to make progress and develop their capability to provide for the defense of their country."
Alston said that over the next few weeks Iraqi forces would be given additional areas of responsibility. He said the transfer of security responsibility would depend on the readiness of the Iraqi forces.
"Our constant pressure on insurgents, the continued progress of the Iraqi security forces and the reconstruction projects that are being completed will help them achieve those aims," Alston said.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reaffirmed the expanding security responsibility of Iraq's military and police. Myers told the Foreign Press Center in Washington that an Iraqi battalion has taken over from El Salvadoran forces in Diwaniyah, southeast of Baghdad.
This was the third area transferred by the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqi military and security forces. The others areas were in northern Baghdad and in Kirkuk.
"This is significant because it demonstrates that yet another unit is capable of planning and executing and sustaining operations with some level of coalition support," Myers said on Thursday.
By Jim Garamone - American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 15, 2005 – When Marine Gen. Peter Pace visited Afghanistan July 11 to 13, the gratitude of the people was proof to him that progress is being made in the country.
Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his unannounced trip to Afghanistan primarily to thank servicemembers in the country, an official who traveled with him said.
"It is always good to see firsthand what is going on in a place," Marine Col. Katie Haddock, the vice chairman's spokeswoman, said. "This was the general's first visit to the country since last November, and he was impressed with the progress he saw there. The markets are full; billboards are up advertising items; kids are going to school; there are vehicles on the streets; and there are repairs being made."
Pace met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai; Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the commander of Combined Forces Command Afghanistan; Turkish army Lt. Gen. Ethem Erdagi, International Security Assistance Force commander; and Army Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiyah, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76.
He visited U.S. and Afghan officials in Kabul, Bagram, and Forward Operating Base Langman.
Pace said he is impressed with the progress that has been made and the feeling in the populace. He said the mood is good in the country as the Sept. 18 national-assembly and provincial elections approach.
By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 15, 2:36 PM ET
BERLIN - German opposition leader Angela Merkel said in an interview published Friday she will follow the lead of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government and not send troops to Iraq if she wins upcoming elections.
The vow drew derision from Schroeder's party, who pointed out that she had been a leading critic of Schroeder's stance against the war.
Merkel, who is seen as more supportive of America than Schroeder, told the Hanover-based Neue Presse daily that a conservative-led German government "will put Europe's relationship with the U.S.A. back on a sensible footing."
Her party platform promises to "reinvigorate" relations with the U.S., strained by Schroeder's vehement opposition to the Iraq war. But she is treading carefully on Iraq ahead of the election, reflecting the war's huge unpopularity in Germany.
Asked whether voters could count on her continuing Schroeder's policy of keeping German soldiers out of Iraq in the future, Merkel replied: "Yes."
Polls show Merkel, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, has a strong chance to become Germany's first female chancellor in elections expected in September.
Earlier this week, Merkel backed the Schroeder government's current policy of supporting Iraqi reconstruction by helping train the Iraqi police and military in the United Arab Emirates. "This course should be continued," she said.
Schroeder's Social Democrats are still highlighting their opposition to the war in their election manifesto, which asserts: "German troops would now be in Baghdad — with all the consequences" if Merkel's party had won in 2002.
"German voters are too wide awake on questions of war and peace to fall for Mrs. Merkel's crafty evasions," senior Social Democratic lawmaker Gernot Erler said.
Merkel criticized Schroeder in 2003 for opposing military action under any circumstances, arguing that his stance made war more likely by taking pressure off Saddam Hussein. She traveled to Washington and met with top U.S. officials on the eve of the war, a visit the Social Democrats are eager to remind voters of.
"Angela Merkel's embarrassing visit to Washington to curry favor remains unforgotten," Erler said.
"Anyone who hasn't forgotten how the Christian Democrats' candidate for chancellor curtseyed to George W. Bush back then will be under no illusions as to how Angela Merkel would react in a similar situation in the future," he added.
Schroeder and Bush have moved to mend ties over the past two years, but their relationship remains businesslike at best.
While a Merkel government's policies may remain similar, she is expected to bring a change of tone to trans-Atlantic ties.
Schroeder — whose stance on Iraq helped him narrowly win re-election in 2002 — has aligned himself closely since then with his fellow anti-war leaders, French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We will continue the strategic partnership with Russia," Merkel said in Friday's interview.
"We want to push forward the European Union at France's side — what is important is that this is done together with everyone, including the small European countries," she said.
Merkel said she would travel to both Washington and Moscow soon after an election victory, but she will not visit either the U.S. or Russia before the vote.
Today's Afghan News:
Bombs Injure Two at Afghan Election Office
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
15 July 2005 -- Afghan police say two bombs exploded at an election commission office in the northeast city of Khost, injuring two policemen.
The first blast late Thursday destroyed the office, which was housed in a mosque. Police say a second bomb exploded minutes later as investigators reached the area.
Reports say an attempt at a similar attack failed last week. Police discovered that device and defused it.
www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-16 10:39:28
WARSAW, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Poland has finished its fifth and last large-scale rotation of troops to Iraq, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
The main task for the newly deployed 1,600 Polish troops is to carry out the training for Iraqi security forces, said the ministry.
Poland has maintain the fifth largest troop contingent in Iraq,after the United States, Britain,Italy and South Korea, serving inthe US-led coalition in Iraq.
In April, the Polish government announced that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of this year.
(07/11/05, 14:35)
German newspaper: Explosive material used by British terrorist who blew himself up on Tel Aviv beachfront in 2003 very likely the same as that used by terrorists who staged London attacks last week, Mossad tells Brits
By Roee Nahmias and Ronen Bodoni
TEL AVIV – The terror attack in London last week may be tied to a suicide bombing on Tel Aviv’s beachfront in April 2003, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported Monday.
According to the paper, Mossad officials informed British security authorities that the explosive material used in the Tel Aviv attack on Mike’s Place pub was apparently also utilized to stage the series of bombings in London on Thursday.
Moreover, the Mossad office in London received advance notice about the attacks, but only six minutes before the first blast, the paper reports. As a result, it was impossible to take any action to prevent the blasts.
“They reached us too late for us to do something about it,” a Mossad source is quoted as saying.
‘Very powerful explosive’
According to the German report, the Mossad relayed an analysis of the explosives used in the Mike’s Place attack to British security officials. Mossad sources are quoted as saying there is “high likelihood” the explosives used in Tel Aviv were the same ones used in London.
However, the story makes it unclear whether the Mossad is involved in any way in the investigation into the London bombings.
After analyzing the explosive material used in the Mike’s Place attack, the Mossad concluded it was produced in China and later smuggled into Britain, the paper reports. The explosives were apparently stashed by terrorists connected to al-Qaeda who were able to evade raids by British security forces.
According to the newspaper, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan said the explosive in question is very powerful, and “much more lethal than plastic explosives and can be smuggled undetected due to its composition.
The Mossad was also able to determine the substance was developed and produced at the Chinese ZDF arms factory, located about 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) from Beijing, the paper reports.
3 people murdered at Mike’s Place
The Mike’s Place attack claimed the lives of three people, Yanai Weiss, 46, Ran Baron, 24, and Caroline Dominique Hess, 29. The bombing was carried out by two terrorists, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, who were recruited by Hamas in Britain.
The two managed to enter Israel using their British passports.
Hanif blew himself up at the pub, but Sharif failed to detonate his explosive belt and fled the scene. A few weeks later, his body was washed ashore in Tel Aviv.
The terrorists’ relatives were detained in Britain in the wake of the attack on suspicion they knew of the plot and did nothing to prevent the attacks. The relatives’ trial ended in July of last year, with the court ordering a retrial for Sharif’s sister and brother.
Meanwhile, Sharif’s wife was cleared of the charges against her.
Mike’s Place bombers – recruited by Hamas. (Photo: Reuters)
Jul 15, '05
(IsraelNN.com) Seemingly in preparation for some type of military operation, IDF armored vehicles can be seen moving into Gaza.
The move comes following 24 hours of non-stop Kassam rocket and mortar shell attacks against Jewish communities in Gaza and southern pre-1967 Green Line Israel.
(Reuters)
16 July 2005
AMMAN — Jordan’s recent arrest of 12 militants has given extensive leads on how Syria is becoming a major training ground for fighters heading to Iraq to join the anti-US insurgency, officials said yesterday.
Security officials said interrogations of the Jordanian militants, arrested this year, exposed how neighbouring Syria became a haven for youths to organise clandestinely for jihad in Iraq.
“We are finding that many of these people are getting help from Syrian radicals who are helping them to undergo training and financing and even equipment like explosives detonators they smuggle back to Jordan or use in Iraq,” said one official involved in the case who requested anonymity.
Officials and security sources, however, deny there is proof the Syrian militants were operating with the consent of Damascus.
But stronger bonds are developing among young militants from across the region in Iraq galvanised by fighting a common cause against US troops in Iraq. “They meet in Iraq and those who return home cement their ties with their associates in other Arab countries,” a security official said.
Updated on 07-16-2005 at 02h50
LONDON (AFP)
British police investigating the London bombings confronted doubts in Egypt about whether an Egyptian biochemist, arrested in Cairo during a visit from England, was involved in the plot.
Officials at the Egyptian interior ministry said Magdy Mahmud Mustafa Nashar, 33, detained in Cairo on Thursday, was "being investigated to find out whether he was involved in the bombings that recently took place in London".
"He has denied any involvement," said a ministry statement, adding that Nashar had lived in Britain since 2000, studying for a doctorate at Leeds University, and that he was planning to return.
Interior Minister Habib al-Adly said Nashar "has no links with the Al-Qaeda network," which British police suspect was behind the July 7 bombings that claimed the lives of 54 people on three London subway trains and a bus.
In a statement published Saturday in the government daily Al-Gumhuriya, the minister said media reports about Nashar "are unfounded and are only hasty deductions."
ABC News in the United States claimed that the Cairo arrest might have produced the man who made the bombs that went off July 7.
The Egyptian interior ministry said Nashar had gone to Britain to study at Leeds University and had resided in Britain since 2000 until now to obtain his doctorate, which he did earlier this year.
Previous reports in Britain said police were seeking a suspect with a similar name who had been studying chemistry at Leeds University, in the northern city where three of the suspected bombers lived.
London's Metropolitan Police said it was "aware" of an arrest in Cairo, but declined to give further details into what a spokeswoman called a "fast-moving investigation" that has taken on a multi-national character.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair confirmed on BBC radio that there was "a Pakistan connection" to the bombings, in which three of the four suspected perpetrators were Britons of Pakistani origin.
But he added: "There are also connections in other countries."
In Islamabad, security officials said Britain had given Pakistan a list of suspects with possible links to the London attacks, while two Islamic religious schools denied having hosted one of the youthful suspected bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, 22.
The Times newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that Nashar was "of interest" to the investigation and that the anti-terrorist branch plans to send detectives to Egypt to speak to him.
In Leeds, investigators broadened their search Friday to an Islamic bookshop, the Iqra learning centre, around the corner from Tanweer's home.
Commissioner Blair said: "What we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear Al-Qaeda link, a clear Al-Qaeda approach."
"The four men who are dead and who we believe to be the bombers -- though we have only confirmed two identities absolutely -- are in the category of foot soldiers," he said.
"What we've got to find is, who encouraged them? Who trained them? Who's the chemist? Those are the things in which we are now so interested."
BBC television's "Newsnight" programme said evidence of acetone peroxide, used to make the powerful explosive TATP, had been found at a home in Leeds linked to one of the bombers.
It was the same type of explosive that Al-Qaeda "shoe bomber" Richard Reid tried to detonate on a Miami-bound flight in December 2001, three months after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington that killed some 3,000.
The development suggests that the explosives used in London were homemade, and not of military origin as had initially been thought.
Blair described the BBC report as "reasonably fair".
Meanwhile, about 20 senior Muslim theological leaders in Britain Friday condemned the bombings in London and said those who carried them out could not be considered martyrs.
"We regard these acts as utterly criminal, totally reprehensible, and absolutely un-Islamic," they said in a statement read by the imam of the central mosque of the English Midlands city of Leicester, Mohammad Shahid Reza, on their behalf.
In addition to Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, 18, is the only other suspect named by the police.
Press reports have widely named a third -- like the other two a Briton of Pakistani heritage living in or near Leeds -- as Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30.
The fourth is said to have been a 19-year-old Jamaican immigrant to Britain, living in Aylesbury, northwest of London, who changed his name from Lindsay Germaine to Lindsay Jamal when he converted to Islam.
The Times said Jamal was said by US intelligence sources to have been on a terror watch list and was monitored when he visited relatives in the United States, but he had dropped "off the radar."
Updated: Saturday, 16 July, 2005, 07:20 GMT 08:20 UK
Three British soldiers have been killed by a suspected roadside bomb while serving in Iraq, the MoD has confirmed.
The troops, from Task Force Maysan, died from injuries they sustained during an incident in Amarah early on Saturday morning, a spokesman said.
He said: "We can confirm that three soldiers have died from injuries sustained in hostile action."
Task Force Maysan is a battle group featuring the 1st Battalion Staffordshire Regiment.
It is supported by other troops.
An MoD spokesman said the Task Force had been operating in southern Iraq for "several months".
He said: "We think it was a roadside bomb."
Further details will not be released until the soldiers' next of kin have been informed.
On 29 June, the death of signaller Paul Didsbury brought the number of British troops killed in Iraq to 89.
16 Jul 2005 07:18:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, July 16 (Reuters) - Israel launched fresh missile strikes in Gaza early on Saturday, a day after it killed six Hamas militants, and vowed to keep targeting gunmen to prevent rocket attacks ahead of its withdrawal from Gaza next month. The latest air raid injured two Palestinian bystanders and destroyed three workshops in Gaza City and the Khan Younis refugee camp, which the army said was used by Hamas to produce weapons. Palestinians denied weapons were produced there.
Militants hit back on Saturday morning, firing two rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip. One of the rockets slammed into the courtyard of a house but nobody was hurt, the army said. The other landed in an empty field.
One Israeli woman has been killed and two others wounded in rocket barrages on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza over the past two days. The Israeli army said since Thursday militants have fired 25 rockets and 52 mortars.
The flare-up of violence in Gaza and the West Bank, which began on Tuesday when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people in an attack in the coastal town of Netanya, has badly undermined a cessation to hostilities declared by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in February.
It has also raised the prospect of a disruption to Israel's planned pullout of 8,500 settlers from occupied Gaza next month which had stirred new hopes of reviving Middle East peace.
Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef said the Israeli missile strikes were unjustified and would create more tension. He added that the Palestinian leadership was trying to salvage the truce which he said no faction had the right to end.
Faced with a collapsing truce, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arranged an unscheduled visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week to "encourage both sides to take appropriate seps to restore order," a spokesman said.
"They need to make (a) maximum effort ... both individually and working together, to ensure that this withdrawal is a successful withdrawal," said Sean McCormack, State Department spokesman.
SHARON VOWS TO STOP MILITANT FIRE BEFORE WITHDRAWAL
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said the army would put a stop to rocket barrages and attacks by Gaza militants ahead of the withdrawal which is scheduled to begin in mid-August with the evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza.
Israeli military officials have said in the past they would carry out wide-scale raids and possibly reoccupy Palestinian areas near the settlements due to be evacuated to prevent the withdrawal from taking place under fire.
Israel massed several military vehicles around Gaza late on Friday and news reports quoted security sources as saying the Jewish state might raid militant strongholds in the area in the coming days to try to stop rocket launchers.
"The pullout can not commence under fire," Sharon told Channel 2 television in an interview on Friday night.
On Friday, an Israeli missile killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank and troops shot dead his comrade after he escaped and fired at them. A second raid killed four gunmen in a car in Gaza, which Hamas officials said carried makeshift rockets.
Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, has warned that the air strikes would "open the doors of hell" on Israel and said it was reconsidering its commitment to honouring the truce. (Additional reporting by Megan Goldin, Corinne Heller and Mohammed Assadi)
AlertNet news
16 Jul 2005 06:19:21 GMT
Source: Reuters
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 16 (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas hanged a pro-government tribal chief in the troubled southern Afghan province of Zabul, accusing him of being an American spy, officials said on Saturday.
Malik Agha's killing was the fifth in the past six weeks and came as violence mounts in the run up to the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections that the Taliban have vowed to disrupt.
Agha was kidnapped on Friday by Taliban remnants as he came out of a mosque in Atghar district of Zabul and was hanged in a tree, district chief Gul Habib said.
Agha was the chief of a powerful tribe in Zabul near the border with Pakistan, he said.
Abdul Latif Hakimi, a spokesman for the Taliban, said Agha was hanged because he was "a spy for the American forces".
Agha's death came a day after U.S. forces killed 24 suspected Taliban and al Qaeda militants in fierce fighting on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
On Friday, the militants hit back elsewhere on the border, killing at least seven Afghan policemen and wounding five. The guerrillas have vowed to kill anyone supporting President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government and dozens of officials, soldiers, police and civilians have died in growing militant violence in the run up to the polls.
Last Friday, suspected militants stabbed to death a senior pro-government cleric and his wife in their home in the southeastern province of Paktika. Days later, they shot dead another cleric in southern Helmand province.
Another Ulema Council member was shot dead near the city of Kandahar on July 3.
U.S.-led forces overthrew the radical Taliban government after it refused to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 2001 attacks on the United States.
AlertNet news
Bomber was given House of Commons tour by a Labour MP
Saturday, 16th July 2005
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND JAMES KIRKUP
ONE of the London suicide bombers was allowed to tour the Houses of Parliament as the guest of an MP months after police and intelligence services became aware of his links to another alleged bomb plot, it emerged last night.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, was a guest of the Labour MP Jon Trickett in July 2004, four months after he had been identified by intelligence officials as a "criminal associate" of one of the subjects of a major counter-terrorism operation that had resulted in several arrests.
The extraordinary visit emerged as an Egyptian biochemist who may be linked to the bombers was arrested in Cairo, where he was due to be questioned by Scotland Yard detectives.
The astonishing revelation about the killer's Commons visit throws into question previous assertions that none of the bombers was known to police in connection with terrorist allegations and comes amid growing concerns about how the bombers were allowed to strike.
Britain's "slack" border controls were already in the spotlight after it became clear that a significant al-Qaeda suspect had entered the country undetected and slipped away again hours before the London suicide attacks, which claimed the lives of 54 people.
The suspected terrorist was not put under surveillance after entering Britain, but is now being urgently sought by the intelligence services in connection with the bomb blasts.
The revelation - which came as police warned that another attack was "a strong possibility" - prompted calls from opposition parties and immigration staff for tighter controls on people entering and leaving Britain, and raised questions about security precautions before the London attacks.
Downing Street indicated yesterday that an internal investigation was being carried out into whether mistakes were made in the run-up to the attacks. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "We are going to let the investigation take its course. We are going to let the review mechanisms take their course, and we will do this properly."
Doubts have also been raised about why the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre had relaxed the terrorist threat status from "severe general" down to "substantial" before the attacks.
There was, however, some good news for police and intelligence services yesterday as the Egyptian biochemist sought in connection with the attacks was arrested in Cairo. Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar, 33, who until recently had been teaching chemistry at Leeds University, was being questioned last night by Egyptian authorities. El-Nashar is thought to have rented one of the homes police searched in Leeds in a series of raids on Tuesday.
El-Nashar is said to have told the authorities that he arrived on holiday about two weeks ago and had intended to go back to Britain to continue his studies.
Police are still hunting the man who is believed to have masterminded the attacks, and the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said he was convinced that a link between the attackers and al-Qaeda would soon emerge.
"What we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear al-Qaeda link, a clear al-Qaeda approach, because the four men who are dead, who we believe are the bombers, are in the category of foot soldiers," he said.
Pakistani intelligence officials are looking into a connection between one of the three Britons and two al-Qaeda-linked militant groups in that country. They confirmed that Shahzad Tanweer spent four or five days at a complex run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba - as first reported by The Scotsman - and said he also met a member of another al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani terrorist group who was later arrested for bombing a church in Islamabad.
More details emerged yesterday that there had been indications an attack was imminent. Plans for attacks on targets in both the United States and Britain were discovered among material found during the capture of Abu Faraj Farj al-Liby, one of the most senior al-Qaeda leaders, and of a Pakistani computer expert, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan. Some intelligence officials said those plans included attacks on London's transport system, as well as Heathrow Airport.
Last night, the Labour Party released more details about the Westminster visit by Khan, who killed himself and six commuters in the Edgware Road Tube blast. He had been invited in his capacity as a learning mentor at Hillside Primary School in Beeston, Leeds, where Mr Tickett's wife, Sarah, is the headteacher.
Mr Trickett's son was in the same school year group as Khan 17 years ago, and Khan had visited Mr Trickett and his wife at their home.
In July last year, the Hemsworth MP's wife took a number of her pupils on a trip to London and Khan accompanied the party as a member of school staff. The Labour Party said the group visited a number of attractions, including the London Eye and St James's Park.
During the visit, the Leeds Central MP, Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, joined the group in Portcullis House to talk about his role as their local MP.
They then met Mr Trickett, who used to represent Beeston on Leeds City Council, and who accompanied the group on the rest of their visit around the Palace of Westminster.
It also emerged yesterday that Farida Patel, Khan's mother-in-law, was pictured at a Buckingham Palace garden party with her husband, Abdul Aslam, and their daughter, Hasina. In 1998, she became the first Asian woman to attend a Palace garden party. Yesterday, she was being guarded by police in a safe house as forensic detectives continued to comb her home for clues.
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1637032005
This is getting old. Can we finally begin the same identification process?
... told the Terrorist-owned Al Jazeera television that the ...
... told the Communist-owned CNN television that the ...
... told the Fake but Accurate CBS network that the ...
Something along these lines.
The news of the Hamas "commitment" to "honoring" the truce must have been circulated the day I was absent.
Saturday 16th July, 2005
At least four people died and 14 others were injured in an explosion Saturday on a minibus in the Turkish Aegean resort of Kusadasi.
A suicide bomber, a woman, is believed to have died in the attack.
The blast occurred six days after a similar bombing in the nearby town of Cesme, which left at least 20 people injured, the BBC reported.
Militants both from the far left and from Islamist groups have carried out bombings in Turkey in the past, as have Kurdish rebels, the BBC said.
By Peter Munro - London
July 17, 2005
The British Government has declared war on Islam's extremist clerics who preach the "evil ideology" of terrorism and make martyrs of suicide bombers.
Those found guilty of "endorsing or glorifying" terrorist attacks such as the July 7 London bombings could face prison under new anti-terrorism laws.
The Government wants to introduce laws that would ban indirect incitement of terrorism and make it illegal to provide or undergo terrorist training.
The laws are designed to stop the flow of British recruits to terrorist training camps and schools in Pakistan and Iraq, while making it a criminal offence to describe those who carry out suicide bombings as martyrs.
Officials said the measures were drafted before the July 7 bombings. The proposed bill will be a follow-up to a controversial law, adopted earlier this year, that empowered the authorities to slap "control orders" on individuals with suspected terrorist links.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will talk to Muslim leaders on Tuesday on combating the local extremism, especially among Muslim youth, that helped to spawn the London suicide bombers.
One of those men, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the Edgware Road bomber who killed seven, visited the Houses of Parliament in July last year as the guest of a Labour MP.
It has also emerged that Shehzad Tanweer, 22, who murdered seven people on a train near Liverpool Street Station, reportedly met a member of a group linked to al-Qaeda during a visit to Pakistan in 2003.
Police in the eastern Pakistani city of Faisalabad said on Friday that four suspects had been detained in connection with the London bombings, The Guardian reported. New anti-terrorist measures, announced on Friday night, will be discussed in cross-party talks at Downing Street this week.
Hazel Blears, the Police Minister, said that radical preachers who supported suicide bombings could be imprisoned for "indirect incitement" to commit terrorist acts.
"It would apply where people would seek to glorify terrorist activity, for example saying 'it's a marvellous thing that this has happened, these people are martyrs'," she said.
Such comments could be seen as an endorsement of terrorism.
Extremists who provide or receive terrorist training would also face prosecution as "acts preparatory to terrorism".
Evidence of terrorist training could include bomb-making instructions or using terrorist-related websites. A third new offence would make it easier to convict those providing finance, safe house, or chemicals for terrorist acts.
As police track those who "encouraged, trained and financed" the terrorists, a rift has opened between Scotland Yard and MI5 over claims of a failure in intelligence.
Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police commissioner, described the four suicide bombers as "foot soldiers", suggesting a link with al-Qaeda. But there were claims that a significant terrorist suspect entered Britain just before the bombings, but was not placed under surveillance.
Jamaican-born Jermaine Lindsay, the Piccadilly line bomber, was allegedly on a terrorist watch-list five years ago but had disappeared "off the radar", according to FBI sources.
He was monitored by American authorities during two visits to the US in 2000 and 2003.
But US embassy officials in London lost track of him soon after he returned to Britain.
By Haji Mujataba
Sat Jul 16, 8:41 AM ET
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Thousands of Pakistani tribesmen shouted anti-U.S. slogans on Saturday as they buried three of 24 suspected Islamist militants killed inside Pakistan by U.S. forces operating out of Afghanistan.
Mourners chanted "Down with infidel America" and "Long Live Islam" at the funeral held in two villages in the North Waziristan tribal region, 300 km (180 miles) southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
"These 24 people are martyrs and our entire Waziristan region is ready for jihad (holy war)," Maulana Abdur Rehman, a local prayer leader said at the funeral of two suspects.
Pakistan's tribal belt is overwhelmingly Pashtun and most people are deeply conservative Muslims, sharing common religious and ethnic roots with Taliban fighters trying to oust U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan.
Tension has been building for months in Pakistan's North Waziristan since the army completed a series of offensives against al Qaeda militants in neighboring South Waziristan.
On Thursday, a senior U.S. administration official in Washington said the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan needed to squeeze insurgents along the rugged border where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden might be hiding.
The same day, Major-General Akram Sahi, commander of Pakistani troops in North Waziristan warned tribesmen of an imminent offensive unless they handed over foreign militants.
Pakistan military officials said the militants killed on Thursday night near Lowara Mandi, a border village, included Taliban and their al Qaeda allies.
The U.S. military said its forces killed the suspected militants after coming under rocket fire from across the border. One Afghan soldier was killed in the insurgents' attack.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said the militants fired 25 rockets, while U.S. forces replied with eight artillery shells and fire from aircraft.
Pakistani officials said they were checking whether any territorial violation was committed by the U.S. forces while hitting the suspected militants.
Despite its status as a key U.S. ally, Pakistan has bridled in the past at U.S. sorties across the border.
Intelligence officials in North Waziristan said they had rounded up four suspected militants on Saturday, raising the toll of detained suspects to 11 in two days.
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
July 16, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eleven U.S. soldiers have been charged with assaulting detainees in Iraq, the military said Saturday, while three British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in a rare attack in the relatively stable southern part of the country.
Also Saturday, suicide attackers killed at least nine Iraqi forces in separate attacks in Baghdad and just south of Mosul as insurgents kept up their campaign against the nation's U.S.-trained security force.
Iraqi police also arrested a would-be suicide bomber in the capital before he could detonate an explosive belt among a crowd mourning the victims of an attack earlier this week that killed 27 people, mostly children, an official said. It was the second thwarted attack this week.
The U.S. military said in a statement that the charges against the 11 troops, who served in the Baghdad area but were not otherwise identified, were filed Wednesday after another soldier complained about the alleged assaults.
"None of the insurgents required medical treatment for injuries related to the alleged assault," the statement added. "Only one of the suspected terrorists remains in custody of coalition forces at this time."
The soldiers had been assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad but were taken off-duty pending the investigation, the military said, adding that the Army's Criminal Investigation Division would determine whether they should face trial by court-martial.
"Allegations of illegal activities will always be thoroughly investigated," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.
U.S. commanders have been especially sensitive about alleged mistreatment of detainees since the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison resulted in a major scandal involving America's handling of prisoners both here and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The attack against the British occurred as the troops were on patrol about 2:30 a.m. in the city of Amarah in Maysan province, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad. Three British troops were killed and two wounded, according to Britain's Ministry of Defense.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch U.S. ally, expressed his condolences for the dead soldiers.
"The bravery of our armed forces was yet again underlined as they help Iraq and its people towards the democracy they so desperately want," Blair said Saturday.
The fatalities brought to 92 the number of British servicemen who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003. Britain has about 8,500-troops in the country, mostly based in the largely Shiite south, where support for the Shiite-led government in Baghdad is stronger.
British losses have been far fewer than those suffered by the larger U.S. force, which is bearing the brunt of the fight against Sunni Arab insurgents in northern, western and central Iraq. At least 1,763 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started.
In other violence Saturday, a suicide attacker detonated an explosive belt inside a police station 10 miles south of the northern city of Mosul, killing six policemen and wounding 20 others, Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed said.
A suicide car bomber also struck an Iraqi police patrol in the Baghdad subdivision of Dora, killing three commandos and wounding five civilians, hospital and police officials said.
Elsewhere in the capital, a suicide car bomber struck near a U.S. military convoy in the southeast of the city, setting a Humvee ablaze, police Lt. Col. Hassan Salloub said. No U.S. casualties were reported.
The attacks came a day after a wave of suicide car bombs and explosions targeting U.S. and Iraqi security forces rocked the capital, killing at least 33 people and wounding at least 111, including seven American soldiers.
One of the bombings hit after sundown on a bridge over the Tigris River near the home of President Jalal Talabani. Four security guards were killed and nine people were wounded in that attack. Talabani was at home at the time, aides said, but the target may have been a U.S. convoy.
Al-Qaida's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility in Internet statements for several of the attacks, but the authenticity could not be confirmed.
The would-be bomber arrested Saturday in Baghdad said he was Libyan, according to police Lt. Mohammed Jassim.
Jassim said police grew suspicious of the man, stopped him and discovered the explosives belt.
On Thursday, Iraqi and U.S. forces captured another suicide bomber before he could detonate his explosives belt as part of coordinated assaults just 150 feet from the Green Zone, the site of the U.S. Embassy and major Iraqi government offices.
A car bomb exploded successfully. But one pedestrian bomber was killed after an Iraqi policeman shot him, setting off his explosive vest. Five policemen and four civilians were wounded by the blasts and gunfire.
Iraqi PM arrives in Tehran
TEHRAN, July 16 (KUNA) -- Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari arrived here Saturday on a three-day visit, the most senior Iraqi official to visit the Islamic Republic in decades.
Jaafari will meet Iran's spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, President Mohammad Khatami, President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials.
A number of bilateral agreements will be signed during the visit.
Jaafari is accompanied by a ranking delegation.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=752506
I'm just hearing this on Fox. 40 miles south of Bagdad. A massive explosion. Confirmed dead at 54.
thank you"GuchO"translation
"She was about to post this. On behalf of her thank you for article you have posted. Keep your head up; this is war: whoever thinks they can run away from their murders deeds are going to be surprise. Remember loosing is not on option here; time is their enemy; fore by fore they will fall."BE STRONG!!!!!thank you all
Gucho, how can we convince these IDIOTS that not only will they NOT have a special place in heaven that they will have a SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL!
God be with the grieving families..
This is terrible
"Gucho, how can we convince these IDIOTS that not only will they NOT have a special place in heaven that they will have a SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL!
God be with the grieving families..
This is terrible"thank you"DollyCali"translation
"There is God! There is evil; in hell they cry out for help; nobody will hear them none. We grief with families who are affected by this; same time we pray God would give his strength to armies of coalition forces and Iraq people: who are exposed to most cunning deceitful evil this world has seen."thank you all Be Strong good G-D do will help!!!thank you all
Hi Sara, I am taking a break from working on a pretty large power point from chuch, about 170 slides & lots of complexity. It is from thje week of VBS.
thanks for your comments. It is always good to see you!
"Hi Sara, I am taking a break from working on a pretty large power point from chuch, about 170 slides & lots of complexity. It is from thje week of VBS.
thanks for your comments. It is always good to see you!":}}}}}}thank you good friend be strong be strong!!!!translation
"May god bless you good deeds will always be repaid. If you should need any images/pictures for your project; please feel free and let her know. Below you will also find some links of story above. Evil is running rampant; no dignity; no respect just pure hate have consume people life’s. When will people wake up and see this cunning serpent; help will come from above; beforehand will people who proclaim policy of appeasement understand this grave situation?."thank you good friend
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050716/ap_on_re_eu/britain_bombings;_ylt=A86.I0xNYtlCwaYA6hqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050716/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_blast;_ylt=A86.I0xNYtlCwaYA3hqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
Great stuff and great pix ~ Thank you Sara!
May they burn in hell for eternity!
Amen..I wish I could send the bomb makers and their suppliers to paradise more quickly...and before they kill innocent people.
They just get more murderous it seems..and it does not matter who they kill..dozens of children, civilians, Iraqis working for their own people or our soldiers.
These bombings are horrific.
Anyone in their right mind should be able to see that the roaches are pouring in from around the world, desperate to stop their defeat.
G-d Bless our troops and allies and may he strengthen and protect their minds.
From post #26:
Israel launched fresh missile strikes in Gaza early on Saturday, a day after it killed six Hamas militants, and vowed to keep targeting gunmen to prevent rocket attacks ahead of its withdrawal from Gaza next month.
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