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Posted on 02/24/2004 3:19:05 AM PST by Revel
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:19:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
February 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has dispatched the elite commando force that hunted down Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan for a new operation aimed at getting Osama bin Laden, officials said yesterday. Military sources confirmed that members of the shadowy Task Force 121, the unit that conducted the high-tech search for Saddam and his henchmen, have recently begun operating in the remote mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where bin Laden and key al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are believed to be hiding. The Task Force is made up of highly trained Delta and SEAL commandos, as well as CIA paramilitary operators. It operates outside normal military channels.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Mohammed al-Zawahri is seen in this undated photograph taken while in police custody in Egypt. Egyptian authorities, for the first time, Thursday, March 4, 2004, acknowledged having the longtime Jihad member in their prisons. Al-Zawahri is the younger brother of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. (AP Photo/Asharq al-Awsat).
David Asner interviewed Senator Pat Roberts this morning on Fox News Live and even questioned the Senator if the US had knowledge of this, in which the Senator responded that he could not answer that question.
Did you teach your son to look both ways before crossing a street? How about being careful with sharp kitchen knives or not touching a hot burner in the kitchen? If you thought enough of your son to teach him how to behave safely in the presence of these common dangers, then why have you failed to teach him how to safely handle a firearm? You can't be present to supervise you kids every moment of their lives. If you take the time to learn safe handling of firearms, they are no more dangerous than a kitchen knife or a fast car. Remaining ignorant is a sure way to encourage tragedy at some point in the future.
All of my kids have been taught safe firearms handling and basic marksmanship. They handle guns safely and have no "curiousity" about something they have been prevented from handling. Your local range can provide training. An afternoon shooting a few boxes of .22LR at the range is cheap entertainment.
Senator Roberts is on the intel committee, so one would not expect him to inform the media of what he knew or did not know.
At this point the way it looks to me is that this Mohammed Zawahri info is not new news to the higher ups. I think it just may have been brought back up because he is being retried. If you do a google search on him you don't come up with very much.
Head of Yukos' holding company killed in air crash
Stephen Curtis, managing director of Menatep Group that controls key shareholdings in Russia's embattled oil giant Yukos, was killed in a helicopter crash in Britain, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
Stephen Curtis, managing director of Menatep Group that controls key shareholdings in Russia's embattled oil giant Yukos, was killed in a helicopter crash in Britain, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
Menatep spokesman Yuri Kotler said that Curtis, who succeeded Platon Lebedev as head of the Russian industrial group last November after the later was detained in July on charges of theft of state property and some other financial crimes, was killed in the accident outside London.
Only Curtis and the pilot was aboard the helicopter, said Kotler, adding no more details are available now.
Menatep Group Limited has over 30 billion US dollars assets in Russia and abroad. One of its main assets is the shareholdings in Yukos, which is undergoing a massive legal investigation process said to be a Kremlin-backed political move but was firmly denied by President Vladimir Putin.
Many of Yukos' leaders and main shareholders, including former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky that sponsors Putin's political rivals, are either held in custody pending trials on their alleged financial offenses or living in exile in foreign countries.
Managing 44 percent of Yukos shares, Menatep itself is controlled by Khodorkovsky and his allies, including Lebedev.
Russia dismisses property chief for connection with Yukos case
Russia sacked Thursday Federal Property Fund chief Vladimir Malin, who is charged with abuse of power in connection with an allegedly fraudulent sale of state-owned shares that triggered an investigation into the oil giant Yukos.
Russia sacked Thursday Federal Property Fund chief Vladimir Malin, who is charged with abuse of power in connection with an allegedly fraudulent sale of state-owned shares that triggered an investigation into the oil giant Yukos.
Malin was dismissed by acting Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko"under an article of the Labor Code," and his deputy Kirill Tomashchyuk has been appointed acting head of the fund that is the nominal owner of all of Russia's state assets, Itar-Tass newsagency reported.
The Prosecutor General's Office has charged Malin with powerabuse in connection with a sale of 20 percent of the stocks in the State-owned fertilizer giant Apatit in the 1994 privatization deal.The privatization of Apatit has been the focus of the caseagainst oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his longtime businesspartner Platon Lebedev, who are in detention pending trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Prosecutors said the shares were sold at a price far less than their potential worth and the company that purchased them failedto invest 283 million US dollars in Apatit as promised.The investment was guaranteed by Bank Menatep, which was then controlled by Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, but the investments nevermaterialized, prosecutors said.
Many leaders and key shareholders of Yukos, which is undergoing a massive judicial investigation, are either detained for alleged financial offenses or living in exile in foreign countries, and Malin is the first senior Russian officials that was toppled inconnection with the case.
Critics claimed that the legal probe into Yukos was a Kremlin-backed move to revenge Khodorkovsky that sponsored the political opponents of President Vladimir Putin.
The incumbent leader, who is set to win his re-election in the March 14 presidential poll, has firmly denied the allegation and described it as part of the anti-corruption campaign.
China's first anti-jamming satellite -- capable of carrying radio and TV signals to the whole of China -- is scheduled to be sent skyward next year in the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
China's first anti-jamming satellite -- capable of carrying radio and TV signals to the whole of China -- is scheduled to be sent skyward next year in the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Officials with the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, which developed the satellite, said the SINOSAT-II, was designed "in full consideration of resisting possible interference'' from outside sources.
However, the officials, declining to be identified, said "we cannot tell you right now how effective the satellite will be to resist such interference. Everything will be clear after the satellite is launched.''
The possible interference refers mainly to the attacks by Falun Gong cult devotees on television signals transmitted by the Sino Satellite (SINOSAT) system which covers the whole of China.
One of the latest attacks occurred in October, when Falun Gong cult followers prevented Chinese viewers from watching broadcasts of China's first manned space mission by blocking SINOSAT.
The signals sent by cult activists interfered with the broadcast of the Shenzhou V flight and other regular programmes of China Central Television and some local TV stations.
The illegal signals originated in Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.
The SINOSAT-II, designed and developed solely by China, is of large capacity and has a 15-year mission life, the China News Service quoted Zhou Zhicheng, chief designer of the satellite, as saying.
In the days to come, an experimental satellite will be sent by air to Xichang for a one-month rehearsal.
The rehearsal should test how well the SINOSAT-II and the launching system work so that next year's launch will be a success, the sources said, adding that the real SINOSAT-II is currently being manufactured.
If successful, SINOSAT-II will become China's stepping stone to the international large-capacity communication satellite market, sources said.
Currently, there is no China-made large-capacity communication satellite selling in the international market and China itself is renting other country's satellites.
With a record number of satellite launches planned for this year, China's space programme is entering a pivotal period.
The country is looking to place 10 satellites into orbit in 2004, more than any other year in history, according to Zhang Qingwei, a top aerospace official.
Last year the nation not only blasted half a dozen satellites into orbit but joined the very small club of nations who have put humans into space. Other than China, only the former Soviet Union and the Unites States have accomplished the feat.
Source: China Daily
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