World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #6 Disinformation, Inc.

February 24, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News

Saudi pressuring Syria to support Lebanon's Hariri Tribunal
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/02/saudi_pressurin.php

Bahrain Reports Insurgency Training Camp - Raided camp used by
Iranian-aligned insurgents
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2007/february/02_23_1.html

Hamas Seeks Closer Ties to Al Qaida - Hamas's alliance with Iran angers
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2007/february/02_25_2.html

(Israel) Prevention of Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bombing attack
in Tel Aviv - New info from ITIC
http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/eng_n/html/ct_e22feb07.htm

Iran's Move in Latin America
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/02/irans_move_in_latin_america.php

(Iraq) Blast may hint at growing Sunni conflict (39 dead at Sunni
mosque)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=A0WTcUPDE.FFEqYAOgis0NUE

(Iraq) Surge tactics to tame Ramadi, city of anarchy
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434544.ece

(Iraq) New Video: Al-Qaida's "Convoy of Martyrs" in Iraq
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/02/new_video_alqaidas_convoy_of_m.php

(Spain) Protest in Madrid over cutting of ETA jail term
http://www.euronews.net/index.php?article=408335&lng=1

Turkish Administrative Court Freezes Yasin Al-Qadi's Assets
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/02/turkish_administrative_court_f.php

5,101 posted on 02/25/2007 7:33:17 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

5,102 posted on 02/25/2007 7:43:59 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Thanks to Milford421 for this report:

News
Published: Feb 24, 2007 - 10:23:47 pm CST
News

City officials tight-lipped on `explosion'

http://www.irontontribune.com/articles/2007/02/25/news/news611.txt
From Staff Reports

Saturday, February 24, 2007 10:23 PM CST

What exactly happened on Fourth Street in Ironton early Friday
morning?

That is what emergency response officials are trying to determine,
but all parties involved are staying extremely tight-lipped while
the investigation is conducted.

At approximately 6:40 a.m. Friday morning, Lawrence County 911 and
Ironton Police dispatchers received several calls reporting loud
noises that were believed to be gunfire or possible explosions in
the area, Ironton Fire Chief Tom Runyon said Friday.

According to the Ironton Police Log, several callers reported a car
fire, explosions and the possibility of a homemade explosive
device.

Officials said there was no damage done to any vehicles in the area
but would neither confirm or deny any other reports at this time.

"The case is under investigation and is in the hands of us (the
Ironton Fire Department), the Ironton Police and the Ohio State Fire
Marshal's Office. More information is forthcoming once the
investigation is complete," Runyon said. "Right now, we cannot
release any information that may jeopardize the investigation."

Runyon said more information may be available this week.

Officials are urging residents who hear any more suspicious noises
that sound like gunfire or possible explosions to notify officials
immediately. Anyone who may have any information can contact the
fire department at (740) 532-0043 or the IPD detective's bureau at
(740) 532-5606.

5,103 posted on 02/25/2007 7:47:18 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

To: All; milford421

Sanjhauta blasts: Kerosene found at house; on-the-run suspect is rail
employee

Samjhauta blasts: Suspect sent to Panipat

[ 23 Feb, 2007 1533 hrs IST - PTI ]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Suspect_sent_to_Panipat_for_further_inter
rogation/articleshow/1666849.cms

BIKANER: The man who resembles one of the two police sketches of the
suspects of the Samjhauta Express blasts was on Friday sent to Panipat
for
further interrogation though his identity remains "doubtful".

Salman, 35, reached here from Mumbai about a month ago but "there is no
criminal case against him and no case has been registered against him
in
connection with the train blasts either though he has a previous
criminal
record", Bikaner range Inspector-General of Police Laxman Meena said.

"His identity is doubtful," Meena said referring to his being picked up
for
questioning on the basis of the police sketches of the two suspects who
alighted from the train on Sunday before the blasts.

He said Salman was handed over to the Haryana police for further
interrogation.

He had been staying with Sayara Banu alias Sora; whose husband Taj
Mohammad
fled the joint raid on their house on Wednesday. Twenty-five bottles
filled
with kerosene, petrol and diesel were seized from the house in
Nayashahar,
Meena said.

"Taj is a railway employee and will be caught soon," he said adding a
case
under the Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act was pending against the
husband-wife for alleged involvement in the flesh trade.

Salman told police during interrogation that Sora was a "distant
cousin" but
she has denied any family ties with him.

So far, Salman and Sora have been grilled here and one Kamrudeen in
Gangashahar, Meena added.

5,104 posted on 02/25/2007 7:50:59 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

To: All; struwwelpeter

(Part II) The Guardian: Who's killing Putin's enemies?

Who's killing Putin's enemies? (Part II)

Sunday February 25, 2007

The Observer

Propaganda has become more sophisticated and possibly more effective
than it was during the Soviet years, when television was a tool used to
sustain an ideology. The goal today is simpler: to support the Kremlin
and its corporate interests. 'It's a magic process now,' Anna
Kachkaeva,
who broadcasts a weekly interview show on Radio Liberty, told me.
Kachkaeva, who is also the head of the television department at Moscow
State University, went on: 'There is no censorship - it's much more
advanced. I would call it a system of contacts and agreements between
the Kremlin and the heads of television networks. There is no need to
start every day with instructions. It is all done with winks and nods.
They meet at the end of the week, and the problem, for TV and even in
the printed press, is that self-censorship is worse than any other
kind.
Journalists know - they can feel - what is allowed and what is not.'

Article continues
The Kremlin's relationship with this pliable, post-Soviet press corps
becomes obvious in any political crisis. Last January, for example,
every channel helped wage an information war against Ukraine during
that
country's price dispute with Gazprom. Oil and gas revenue is almost
wholly responsible for Russia's current economic boom - not to mention
the Kremlin's rapidly growing political confidence. Since Gazprom is
the
central instrument of that success, Putin keeps a careful watch on its
interests. Dmitry Medvedev, the chairman of the Gazprom board, is also
Putin's first deputy prime minister and a likely presidential candidate
next year. (Many commentators have wondered if he and Putin will simply
switch jobs.) In the corporatist, semi-authoritarian structure that
Putin has created - the Kremlin refers to it as 'sovereign democracy' -
what is good for Gazprom is good for Russia, and no Russian television
station would have dared to present the Ukrainian side of the story.

The Putin government has made a clever calculation: a few newspapers,
with tiny elite audiences, can publish highly critical investigations
and editorials as long as that reporting and criticism stays absolutely
disconnected from television. (And as long as their reporters keep out
of Chechnya.) Anna Politkovskaya began writing about the war in 1999,
after the rules of press freedom changed, and she violated those rules
every time she went to work. Not long before her death she wrote, 'I
will not go into the ... joys of the path I have chosen - the
poisoning,
the arrests, the threats in letters and over the internet, the
telephoned death threats, the weekly summons to the prosecutor
general's
office to sign statements about practically every article I write (the
first question being, "How and where did you obtain this
information?").
Of course I don't like the constant derisive articles about me that
appear in other newspapers and on websites presenting me as the
madwoman
of Moscow. I find it disgusting to live this way. I would like a bit
more understanding.' The fact that Novaya Gazeta continued to exist
says
more about the paper's minimal impact than about its openness.

Politkovskaya, like many others, attributed the precipitate decline of
press freedoms to Putin's background and his reflexes. In her 2004 book
Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy she wrote that he is 'a
product of the country's murkiest intelligence service,' and 'has
failed
to transcend his origins and stop behaving like a KGB officer.' Putin
has indeed presided over a remarkable resurgence in the power of the
secret services, and many current Russian leaders are products of the
KGB and its successors.

'Reform of the KGB never really happened,' Evgenia Albats, a professor
of political science at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, said a few
weeks ago, after the deaths of Politkovskaya and Litvinenko. Albats has
written more incisively about the KGB than any other Russian
journalist.
'The organisation was broken into several agencies in the early
Nineties, but the reforms were abandoned, especially after Putin became
president,' she went on. 'The KGB's capacity to be a political
organisation is back. And, unlike in the Soviet era, the secret
services
are now in full power.'

'Those years are now increasingly called the Golden Age of the great
power, which preceded the turmoil of Gorbachev and Yeltsin - theirs was
the age of a weak and lost Russia, ended by the return of Russia's past
grandeur under President Putin,' the columnist Sergey Strokan noted in
Kommersant

Like Brezhnev, Pinochet evoked a sense of stability, a lack of turmoil.
Russia's most popular paper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, asked readers if the
country needed its own Pinochet. The overwhelming response was yes. 'We
don't need a dictator,' the liberal legislator Irina Khakamada wrote.
'But we might need an economic Pinochet.' Others were far more
effusive.
'Pinochet made an exemplary and glamorous nation out of Chile,' one
typical reader wrote. 'Stable and strong.'

Putin, who has called the break-up of the Soviet Union 'the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe of the century', clearly agrees. Sick of the
queues, the empty shops and the false promises of Soviet life, Russians
looked first to the west - and particularly to the United States - to
provide an economic model. What followed was an epic disaster: the
sell-off of the state's most valuable assets made a few dozen people
obscenely rich, but the lives of millions of others became far worse.
The healthcare system fell apart, and so did many of the social
services
networks. Russia became the first industrial country ever to experience
a sustained fall in life expectancy. Russian males born today can, on
average, expect to live to the age of 59, dying younger than if they
were born in Pakistan or Bangladesh. It is not surprising, then, that
by
the time Putin became president most Russians were only too happy to
exchange the ideas of free speech and intellectual freedom for the
concrete desires of owning a home and a car and possessing a bank
account. They also wanted to feel that somebody was in control of their
country.

In today's Russia, as Politkovskaya wrote, stability is everything and
damn the cost. Gorbachev and Yeltsin are seen by an overwhelming
majority as historical disasters who provoked decline, collapse, chaos
and humiliation before the triumphal west. The opportunities created in
those years, the liberation from totalitarianism, have been forgotten.
'Yes, stability has come to Russia,' Politkovskaya wrote. 'It is a
monstrous stability under which nobody seeks justice in courts that
flaunt their subservience and partisanship. Nobody in his or her right
mind seeks protection from the institutions entrusted with maintaining
law and order, because they are totally corrupt. Lynch law is the order
of the day, both in people's minds and in their actions. An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth.'

'I don't know of a single case in the past six years when the duma
voted
against any presidential initiative,' Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the last
liberal legislators willing to speak critically and publicly, told me.
'I also don't know of any case where the duma adopted an initiative
that
came from the regions. One man makes all the rules in Russia now, and
the duma has become like a new Supreme Soviet.'

No company, foreign or domestic, can prevail in an argument with the
Kremlin. That became clear on 25 October 2003, when armed and masked
FSB
agents stormed a private jet and arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky as he
was
about to depart from the Novosibirsk airport in Siberia. Khodorkovsky
was Russia's richest and, after Putin himself, easily its most
influential man. He ran Yukos, the largest - and, by most estimates -
the best managed oil company in the country. Khodorkovsky had failed to
honour an unspoken pact with the Kremlin: stay out of politics and stay
rich. Instead he had begun to speak out, act independently, and support
Putin's opponents. He even started appearing in foreign capitals, often
acting more like a head of state than an oil magnate. Khodorkovsky was
charged with fraud and tax evasion, and then convicted in a trial that
few observers, in or out of Russia, believed was fair. He was sentenced
to nine years in prison and is serving them at Prison Camp IZ-75/1, in
Chita, one of Siberia's most inhospitable regions. The Kremlin then set
out to destroy his company, suing Yukos for billions of dollars in what
it said were unpaid taxes. Yukos's assets are being distributed among
the president's allies, the biggest beneficiaries being the two
companies that are sometimes referred to as the only meaningful
political 'parties' left in Russia: Gazprom and Rosneft, the state-run
oil concern.

The Russian government has become bolder and more assertive throughout
Putin's tenure. On New Year's Day 2006 Russia abruptly cut gas exports
to Ukraine after the government there objected to a sharp rise in the
prices charged by Gazprom. Gas heading to Europe from Russia passes
through Ukraine, and the disruption - which was widely seen as
punishment for Ukraine's political intransigence - affected many
European countries. This month Belarus was treated in the same fashion:
Russia doubled the price it charges for gas and began to impose much
higher export duties on oil. Putin clearly sees today's ideological
battles in economic, rather than military, terms. Vladislav Surkov, who
is essentially the Kremlin's chief ideologist, told delegates at a
meeting of the president's party last year, 'For all globalisation's
benefits, all the talk of friendship, the Americans count their
dividends at home, the British count theirs - and we count ours. The
majority count their losses. So when they tell us that sovereignty is
outdated, as is the nation-state, we should ask ourselves what they are
up to.'

The Kremlin recently provided a particularly audacious example of how
it
sees its role as an 'energy superpower': Royal Dutch Shell, which had
invested billions of dollars to develop the world's largest oil-and-gas
field, Sakhalin II, in the Russian far east, was forced by the
government to sell its controlling stake in the project. The company
had
endured a year of regulatory harassment - including ludicrous threats
that the pipeline would not meet Russia's environmental standards. The
moment Shell surrendered to Gazprom, however, those environmental
concerns vanished. And what was Shell's response after its holding in
the project was reduced from 55 to 25 per cent? 'Thank you very much
for
your support,' the company's chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, told
Putin at a meeting three weeks ago. 'This was a historic occasion.'

With 30 per cent of the world's gas exports, Russia can impose its will
for one simple reason. 'The entire world is obsessed with energy
security and resources,' Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in
Global
Affairs, told me. 'You need it. We have it. It is up to us to decide
how
to deal with that. India and China are seeking new sources of energy to
secure their very rapid growth. The US is lost in its war in Iraq, the
European Union has no idea what it is any more. And then there is
Russia: stable, wealthy, controlled very solidly. No opposition. There
is really a feeling of superiority, a sense that Russia is now an
indispensable nation, as Mrs Albright [Clinton's secretary of state]
said just a few years ago about the United States.'

For the first time since the Eighties, when a steep drop in the price
of
oil brought on an economic crisis that helped destroy the Soviet Union,
Russia feels truly independent. Throughout the Nineties every Russian
leader, including Putin during the first years of his administration,
was preoccupied with financial problems in an attempt to repair the
broken Soviet economy, or to respond to humanitarian crises, or,
finally, and most humiliatingly, to persuade the International Monetary
Fund to help the country survive its birth. 'Today, it is ridiculous to
remember,' Lukyanov said, 'but through much of the Nineties economic
decisions in Russia could be taken only after consultation with the IMF
and sometimes after the approval of the American Embassy in Moscow.
Russia was weak. Russia didn't know what to do. And today's greed is a
reaction to all of that. To poverty and humiliation. Our official
ideology is to make more money.'

Moscow has changed even more. Parts of the city are coming to resemble
colder versions of Riyadh or Dubai. One afternoon, as I walked to the
Lenin Library from my hotel, I noticed that one of the library's main
signs now shares space with another local landmark: Planet Sushi.
Nearby, a few hundred yards from Red Square, is the Moscow Bentley,
Ferrari and Maserati dealership, and each new model seems to sell out
faster than the one before.

Putin is proud of Russia's economic achievements, and he took advantage
of the press conference in Germany where he spoke with so little
passion
about Anna Politkovskaya to describe them in detail. 'When I became
president, our foreign currency and gold reserves stood at $12bn, and
now they have increased by $80bn over the first half of this year
alone,
and currently come to a total of around $270bn,' he said. 'We have paid
off our debts in full. We have now become a grain-exporting country.'
He
added, 'But none of this would mean anything if it did not bring change
to people's lives,' noting that incomes and pensions have risen nearly
10 per cent each year since he became president. Nevertheless, the
people are literally dying. When Yeltsin took office, the population
stood at 150m. By 2050, most projections suggest, the number may fall
below 100m. In describing the new Russia, neither Putin nor his
loyalists mention the country's rapidly expanding Aids epidemic, its
endemic alcoholism, or the vast differences in incomes among its
citizens. Nor do they acknowledge that, despite the robust GDP,
Russia's
rankings on such essential global economic issues as competitiveness
and
labour efficiency are appallingly low.

'The majority of the population, they are absolutely happy,' Alexei
Volin, who served for three years as deputy chief of staff in Putin's
government and now runs a highly successful publishing house, said when
we met in Moscow. 'They get more money. Consumption has increased two
and a half times in the past six years. People are buying cars, country
houses, they are going to big shopping malls - as big as those in the
United States.' Volin, a trim, clean-cut, 43-year-old man dressed in a
white button-down shirt and khaki Dockers, smiled. 'They are just as
happy as they can be,' he said. 'They don't have a headache because of
some political problem or the concentration of power. They don't watch
TV news. They don't care.' He went on: 'There is another group. They
are
unhappy, because political life has been frozen. They don't like the
situation with Russian television or the press. Several months ago, I
talked to one important Kremlin person and I asked him why is our TV
news so awful and dull. And his answer was, "Why are you watching TV?
People like you should go read the internet if you want information. TV
is not for you. It's for the people."'

In this context, freedom of the press doesn't matter much and,
increasingly in Russia, doesn't exist. 'Here we have this question of
freedom or wealth,' Aleksei Venediktov, who runs the radio station Echo
of Moscow, told me. It's the one remaining station in the capital that
broadcasts truthful, and even combative, news reports and live call-in
shows - a genre that has disappeared from Russian television. 'People
chose wealth. They do not understand that freedom is a necessary
condition for preserving the wealth and security that they have come to
value. To be engaged in honest reporting about delicate subjects like
corruption or to travel to Chechnya is too dangerous. People don't want
it, they don't ask for it, and they really don't understand that they
need it.'

Zakayev looks more like a lawyer these days than a revolutionary; when
we met he was wearing a blue suit, a white shirt and a red tie. His
shoes were spit-shined. When Litvinenko died, on 23 November, Russian
prosecutors once again began an effort to extradite him, and
Berezovsky.
'Putin won't stop till every one of us is dead,' Zakayev told me. By
'us' he meant not only the Chechen people but also those who oppose
Kremlin policies, people such as Politkovskaya and Litvinenko.
'Alexander and Anna were killed to send a message,' he said. 'I am sure
of that.'

A couple of days before leaving Moscow, I went to see Viktor
Shenderovich at what was once an NTV building; it still houses Vladimir
Gusinsky's cable channels. The place looks like a Courtyard Marriott -
a
central atrium with big trees, a glass roof and lots of chrome. It is
one of the last refuges for liberal journalists in Moscow. Shenderovich
is a grumpy-looking former stand-up comedian whose satirical television
show Kukly (Puppets) aired on NTV between 1994 and 2003. For much of
that time it was required viewing for anyone who cared about politics.
Shenderovich was savagely funny, using his puppets to ridicule whoever
held power. Nobody was spared, not Boris Yeltsin nor Mikhail Gorbachev,
and certainly not Vladimir Putin. But Putin does not take well to being
made fun of. A few weeks after he was portrayed by a puppet as a nasty
dwarf, Shenderovich was out of a job. He now has a weekly radio
broadcast on Echo of Moscow and another on Radio Liberty.

Shenderovich had just received a phone call from his daughter, who had
heard something about Garry Kasparov, the chess champion. Kasparov has
emerged as the most prominent man in what is called the Other Russia -
a
coalition of Putin's most outspoken critics. 'The office is being
raided
as we speak,' Shenderovich said. 'The police are there locking down
computers and confiscating everybody's cell phone.' They took away
newspapers, books and other literature to see if any of it was
'extremist' and therefore illegal.

The raid occurred a few days before the Other Russia planned to hold a
Saturday afternoon march from Triumphalnaya Square to the Kremlin;
permission was denied, so more than 1,000 people gathered across from
the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. There were nearly 10,000 police officers
-
in green, blue, and brown uniforms, denoting different services - and
two helicopters hovered above. To enter the square it was necessary to
walk through one of the many metal detectors the police had provided -
and one might as well have walked through a time machine. The protest
was a bizarre ideological stew; Kasparov spoke about liberty and
openness, but Communists spoke about liberty and openness as well.
Ancient Stalinists stood on the kerb selling anti-Semitic literature,
Order of Lenin badges and yellowing copies of Zavtra!, one of Russia's
most rabidly right-wing newspapers. There were chess players, too.
Speakers talked of 'saving Russia from the horrors that had descended
upon it'. People chanted for a while, and then everyone went home.

The next afternoon, Sunday, brought glorious weather, and thousands of
people took advantage of it to do some shopping. Many of them ended up
in Red Square. Workmen had placed a giant skating rink between Lenin's
tomb and Christian Dior's new flagship store at GUM. Hundreds of young
parents stood in line holding their children's hands as they waited to
skate. They seemed happy. The grey, 1,000-yard stare so representative
of Soviet life was gone, replaced with, of all things, a smile. It was
not difficult to see why so many Russians - more than 70 per cent in
most polls - seem to support the president.

Since Alexander Litvinenko's death, there has been much public
discussion of what Putin will do next year, when his term concludes. He
has promised to step down, but he has also said that he intends to
'retain influence', and people have speculated on the many ways he
could
do that: as prime minister, for example, or as chairman of Gazprom.
Russia today, and not for the first time, has wagered its wellbeing on
the price of oil, and as long as salaries continue to rise, people seem
untroubled by the future and unwilling to dwell on even the most
compelling warnings from the past. Oil prices have crashed before. In
recent months, they have fallen more than 20 per cent. At some point,
if
the fall continues, it way no longer be possible to ignore Russia's
dead
Cassandra.

'I have wondered a great deal about why I am so intolerant of Putin,'
Politkovskaya wrote. 'Quite simply, I am a 45-year-old Muscovite who
observed the Soviet Union at its most disgraceful in the Seventies and
Eighties ... Putin has, by chance, gotten his hands on enormous power
and has used it to catastrophic effect. I dislike him because he does
not like people. He despises us. He sees us as a means to his ends, a
means for the achievement and retention of personal power, no more than
that. Accordingly, he believes he can do anything he likes with us,
play
with us as he sees fit, destroy us as he sees fit. We are nobody, while
he whom chance has enabled to clamber to the top of the pile is today
Tsar and God. In Russia we have had leaders with this outlook before.
It
led to tragedy, to bloodshed on a vast scale, to civil wars.' For her
part, she said, 'I want no more of that.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2019139,00.html

5,105 posted on 02/25/2007 7:56:00 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT; LucyT

Thanks go to Milford421 for this report:

'Non-Specific' Terror Threat Made Against LAX

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_056024030.html

Feb 25, 2007 5:00 pm US/Pacific

'Non-Specific' Terror Threat Made Against LAX
(CBS) LOS ANGELES A "non-specific" terror threat was made against
Los Angeles International Airport Saturday night.

Airport officials are tight-lipped about the unspecified threat,
which was received about 8 p.m. Officials have not shut down any
airport operations as a result, and no flights were canceled or
delayed, said Nancy Castles of Los Angeles World Airports.

The threat was "non-specific," Castles said.

Due to an ongoing investigation, she would not say who made the
threat or how it was delivered.

5,106 posted on 02/25/2007 7:58:58 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Friendship on Temple Mount

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3368454,00.html
The wonderful story of Jewish-Muslim cooperation under Turkish rule

Yehuda Litani Published: 02.22.07, 18:39 / Israel Opinion

A delegation of Turkish experts is expected to visit the excavation works at the Mugrabi Bridge near the Temple Mount within the next few days. This is in accordance with an agreement reached between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and his counterpart Ehud Olmert during the latter's visit to Turkey last week.

And already Arab Knesset member Talab a-Sana is begging to know what on earth do the Turks have to do with the Temple Mount, and wouldn't it be easier for the Israeli government to coordinate the works with the local Waqf than with far off Turkey? It's as if a-Sana wanted to say: A close neighbor is better than a distant brother. But that same distant brother once ruled the nation, and throughout the 400 years of its rule here, Jerusalem's Ottoman governor was responsible for the third most sacred site to Islam after Mecca and Medina – the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

In the years 1992-3 the late King Hussein of Jordan financed the renovations of the golden dome, which was carried out by a construction company from Northern Ireland. On a visit to the site during those renovations I discovered a story that wasn’t known until then, regarding the Jewish-Ottoman-Palestinian connection to the mosques on Temple Mount.

Story of the iron panel

The Dome of the Rock was surrounded with scaffolding, and before ascending one of them a friend of mine drew my attention to an iron panel that lay on the floor and was inscribed in French. The foreman of the Irish construction company said the panel had been found between the two halves of the crescents at on top of the mosque, and was temporarily dismantled so that the dome could be coated in gold.

The words in French revealed that the Mosque had been renovated in 1899 during Turkish rule, and that the works had been assisted by the Jewish community in Jerusalem led by a public figure called Avraham (Albert) Entebbe, who among his numerous other activities was also the principal of the city's "Kol Israel Haverim" school.

Entebbe, who was the undersigned on the French inscription, was known for his courageous ties with the heads of the Ottoman rule, and the inscription noted that for the purpose of renovating the mosques on the Temple Mount five acclaimed Jewish artists had been invited to Jerusalem. The Jewish stone carvers, wood carvers and iron mongers from various cities in the Mediterranean basin, shared their skills with their Muslim brothers during months of work.

Zenith of Jewish-Muslim cooperation

The inscription also noted that all the students at Entebbe's school were given a three-month leave in order to assist their Muslim brothers in the renovations works on Temple Mount. In the last lines of the inscription, Entebbe described the ideal cooperation and understanding that prevailed between Jews and Muslims in the Holy City, which reached its zenith when the Jews undertook renovations of the Temple Mount mosques in 1899.

I told the Irish foreman about my discovery, and asked him to look after the iron panel so that I could take a photograph of it. The foreman apparently told Waqf representatives about the panel, and when we came back to the site the next day the panel was no longer there. The foreman said the Waqf had taken it away. When I asked one of them a few days later where the iron panel was, he said that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

The iron panel, which told the story of the wonderful cooperation between the Jews and Muslims under Turkish rule, disappeared. There is no chance of it reappearing in the future, because it doesn't serve the Waqf's current interests. Yet at a time of harsh words and hatred it's rather nice to reminisce on days gone by.

5,107 posted on 02/25/2007 8:00:58 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Thanks to Milford421:

Whitman, MA - Foreign Object Found in Object

Link won't work - Foreign object discovered in ice cream - regional
factory being investigated.

5,108 posted on 02/25/2007 8:02:24 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Court considers reporter privilege

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5301406?source=rss
Court considers reporter privilege
Attorney general, local newspapers support less restrictive guidelines
By Stephen Hunt
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 02/25/2007 01:18:23 AM MST

Utah is one of only three states without a formal rule or law
protecting news reporters from revealing their confidential sources.
A Utah Supreme Court advisory committee has been working to change
that. It has drafted a proposal to create a reporter's privilege in
judicial proceedings, allowing journalists to protect the identity of
confidential sources.
But attorneys for local news organizations say journalists are
better off without a rule than they would under the committee's
proposal.
"It's more like Swiss-cheese protections," said media attorney
Michael O'Brien. "There's lots of holes in it."
News media attorneys have received support from Utah Attorney
General Mark Shurtleff, who backs an alternative version of a
reporter's privilege for confidential sources.
The issue of whether journalists should be allowed to protect such
sources drew national attention in 2005 when New York Times reporter
Judith Miller refused to name a source during her grand jury testimony
in a special prosecutor's investigation into the leak of a CIA
operative's identity. Miller served almost three months in jail for
contempt. In California, blogger Josh Wolf has been jailed for more
than six months after he refused a judge's order to hand over video
footage he had shot of a protest.
Nationally, several bills to create a "shield law" that would
protect reporters from having to divulge confidential sources have
failed in Congress.
John Lund, chairman of the Utah Supreme Court advisory committee,
noted the group is charged with formulating rules of evidence for
court proceedings, not creating a rule tailored to benefit reporters.
"This is an advisory committee on rules, not a legislative
process," Lund said. "If the rule doesn't do it for [news media
attorneys'] constituency, they have other options," such as
legislation to create a shield law.
Still, Lund said, the proposed rule respects the First Amendment
by allowing reporters to protect confidential sources.
"If you sit down with a confidential source and the source says,
'My problem is, if you get dragged into court, then I'm at risk, and I
need to be sure you won't disclose me,' we wanted reporters to be able
to say, 'Yes,' to that question," Lund said.
But O'Brien and attorney Jeffrey J. Hunt - who represent the Utah
Press Association - said the proposal includes six exceptions to
protecting confidential sources, and includes no protection for
unpublished, non-confidential information, such as reporters' notes,
tape recordings, photographs and video outtakes.
O'Brien, who represents The Salt Lake Tribune , said unpublished,
non-confidential material accounts for most of the information sought
by police, prosecutors and civil attorneys.
The rule would allow those entities to issue subpoenas "to rummage
through reporters' notes" without a showing of "need, materiality or
the inability to obtain the information elsewhere," he said.
Lund challenged that claim, saying that the disclosure of
unpublished, non-confidential material simply puts reporters on the
same footing as others who testify. "That's the area where the news
organizations are not different from any other business," he said.
For example, Lund said, his law firm can only claim a privilege to
information that falls within the lawyer-client privilege.
The proposed rule also does not provide protection for journalists
to safeguard the identities of government whistle-blowers in cases
where the leak itself is alleged to be a crime, Hunt said.
"Think NSA [National Security Agency] domestic spying program,
Pentagon Papers case and Watergate," said Hunt, who represents the
Deseret Morning News .
O'Brien noted: "The First Amendment gives the press a special role
in our democratic form of government. The framers of the Constitution
wanted reporters to be able to go out and gather the news without
being constantly hounded by subpoenas."
Hunt predicted there will be "stiff opposition" to the proposed
rule.
The media attorneys support an alternative rule that is consistent
with the balancing test used for two decades by Utah courts and which
is similar to the approach taken in most states that have protections
for reporters. Under that criteria, courts balance the various
competing interests and rights of judicial parties when deciding
whether to compel testimony.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff also favors the alternative
rule and said he hopes to rally support among county prosecutors.
Shurtleff believes some sources prefer talking about crime to
reporters rather than the police, which still allows police to collect
evidence, even if they don't know the original source.
"The bottom line is, we in law enforcement recognize a need for
confidential sources," Shurtleff said. "If there is no privilege
[protection] to go to a reporter, they may not report at all."
The rule proposed by the advisory panel includes these exceptions
in which a reporter would have to divulge a confidential source:
* Information that enables or aids anyone to commit a crime;
* A clear and imminent threat of harm to any person or place if
the information is withheld;
* Information falling within every citizen's duty to report - such
as abuse of children or elder adults - to police or child welfare
authorities;
* A reporter's direct observations of the commission of a crime,
or physical evidence of a crime possessed by a reporter;
The alternative rule to the advisory committee's proposal was
posted by Provo attorney M. Dayle Jeffs, who was one of five committee
members who voted against the more restrictive rule. Twelve committee
members voted for the proposed rule, Jeffs said
Both the proposed and alternative rules will be forwarded to the
Utah Supreme Court.
The alternative rule grants reporters the privilege to refuse to
disclose sources and news information unless a court determines by a
preponderance of the evidence that:
* The entity or person seeking the information has made reasonable
efforts to obtain the information from sources other than the reporter;
* The information is relevant to an issue of substantial
importance and goes to the heart of the matter;
* The interests in compelling disclosure of the information
outweigh the interests in protecting the free flow of information to
the public.
"We're hoping the committee will revisit the issue and adopt the
alternative rule," Hunt said.
shunt@sltrib.com

5,109 posted on 02/25/2007 8:04:27 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2007/02/015415print.html

February 25, 2007
Muslim insurgency stokes fear in southern Thailand

From the International Herald Tribune:

PATTANI, Thailand: Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years, with almost daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings.

It is a conflict the government admits it is losing. A harsh crackdown and martial law in recent years seem only to have fueled the insurgency, generating fear and anger and undermining moderate Muslim voices.

A new policy of conciliation pursued by Thailand's junta since it took power in a coup five months ago has been met by increased violence, including a barrage of 28 coordinated bombings in the south that killed or injured about 60 people a week ago.

"The momentum of violence is now beyond the control of government policy," said Srisompob Jitpiromsri, a political scientist at Prince of Songkhla University here.

[...]

"Buddhist monks have been hacked to death, clubbed to death, bombed and burned to death," said Sunai Phasuk, a political analyst with the Human Rights Watch monitoring group. "This has never happened before. This is a new aspect of violence in the south."

Some remote areas in the south have become, in effect, no-go zones for the police or military, according to Francesca Lawe-Davies, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Exactly the sort of thing happening in the major metropolitan centers of Western Europe.

"It appears in the last year or so that insurgent groups are actually starting to control territory in a more conventional sense," she said.

Some Buddhist and Muslim villages have begun sealing themselves off from one another. People say that old friendships and patterns of cooperation are being undermined by mistrust.

In a report published last month, Zachary Abuza, the author of "Militant Islam in Southeast Asia," said that entire Buddhist communities have fled in a "de facto ethnic cleansing."

"The social fabric of the south has been irreparably damaged," he said.

[...]

"In the local communities in the red zones, it already is a war situation," Srisompob said. "It is different now from last year, from the last two years."

About 1.3 million ethnic-Malay Muslims form a majority in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, accounting for a tiny percentage of Thailand's overwhelmingly Buddhist population of 65 million.

The Muslims have complained of discrimination and attempts at forced assimilation since Thailand annexed the former Sultanate of Pattani a century ago. Armed insurgencies have risen and subsided over the past four decades, but the government may now be facing its most dangerous challenge.

"What is new about the current conflict is the level and degree of violence, the Islamist agenda of the insurgents, and their unprecedented degree of cooperation and coordination," Abuza said.

"The level of violence in Thailand's south has never been higher," he said. "Nor has it been more brutal."

He said there had been more than 24 beheadings in the past three years and as many as 60 attempted beheadings.

Human Rights Watch counted more than 6,000 violent incidents over the past three years. It said that more than 60 teachers and 10 students had been killed and 110 schools — the most visible signs of central government authority in many places — had been set ablaze.

The insurgency is all the more difficult to combat because it does not show its face. Unlike similar movements around the world, this one has not set out its demands or published a manifesto. It is a collection of violent groups without an identifiable central leadership.

"We are fighting a ghost," said Chidchanok Rahimmula, a lecturer in security at Prince of Songkhla University.

The new policy of conciliation was put in place by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, a Muslim, who took power after Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister in a coup in September.

Surayud apologized for the harsh policies his predecessor implemented during his six years in office, promised to investigate abuses and restructured the military command for the south.

People in rural areas say that soldiers and police officers have become less aggressive and are attempting to reach out by attending local fairs and holding dialogues.

Last week, Surayud conceded that none of this was working. "We can't see the results in three to four months because the painful feelings of southern people in the past four to five years run deep," he said. "This is not easy to cure."

Indeed, the insurgency has responded by stepping up its violence, in an apparent effort to block any peace process. There has been no serious reply to Surayud's offer of negotiations.

People who live here, both in the villages and urban areas, say they have never been so frightened.

Posted at February 25, 2007 11:21 AM

5,110 posted on 02/25/2007 8:11:25 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2007/02/015414print.html

February 25, 2007
Lawsuit over Roxbury mosque dismissed

An update on this story. "Lawsuit over mosque site is dismissed," by Stephen Kurkjian for the Boston Globe:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit that contended the Boston Redevelopment Authority's sale of a parcel of land in Roxbury for a price significantly below its appraised value to the Islamic Society of Boston violated the constitutional separation between religious groups and the state.

Judge Sandra L. Hamlin ruled that James C. Policastro of Mission Hill did not have legal standing to challenge the sale because he did not file his lawsuit within 30 days of the sale, which the Legislature set as the BRA's deadline for appealing the agency's decisions. Policastro filed his suit on Sept. 28, 2004, more than 16 months after the BRA sold the parcel. The sale price for the parcel was $175,000, and the society spent another $43,820 to improve the land. It had been appraised at more than $400,000.

The Islamic Society planned to build the largest mosque in New England on the site, along with a school and a cultural center, but completion of the project has been delayed by funding problems and controversy over extremist remarks by two former officials of the society.

In her decision, Hamlin rejected Policastro's contention that he was not bound by the BRA's deadline but instead should be afforded the court's customary three-year period to bring the suit because he was contesting the agency's decision on constitutional grounds.

Hamlin, however, said she was basing her ruling on a 1988 Supreme Judicial Court decision that held that taxpayers were limited to the 30-day period to appeal decisions of redevelopment agencies.

In an interview yesterday, Policastro said that because he was not paying for the lawsuit himself, the decision whether to appeal would be up to his lawyer, Samuel Perkins of Boston. Perkins said yesterday that he would appeal. Policastro and Perkins both declined to say who was paying for the lawsuit.

Perkins said Policastro remains determined to find out why the BRA was so intent on selling the 45,000-square-foot parcel, located in Roxbury Crossing, to the Islamic Society. A related suit filed by the David Project, a nonprofit Jewish advocacy group, to force the BRA to release all documents related to the sale, remains open.

"The city isn't getting full payment for the land, and there are a lot of things that we need to be aware of that we are not," Policastro said yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Boston praised Hamlin's decision in a statement.

"We are very pleased that the court put an end to the legal campaign against the Islamic Society of Boston, which is part of a greater effort by those seeking to oppose area Muslims from building a place of worship," said Jessica Masse, the society's inter faith coordinator. "Part of Mr. Policastro's suit demanded that the ISB return the land and the mosque be torn down. Now this threat is gone. It is full steam ahead now -- we will see our mosque built to completion."

Albert L. Farrah Jr., a lawyer for the Islamic Society, said Hamlin's decision was a proper one that would discourage legal objections to redevelopment projects long after contractors had broken ground on the jobs.

About $12 million has been spent on the project so far, and Massie said yesterday that the Islamic Society hoped to raise another $2 million to complete construction of the mosque and part of the school in time to open by the beginning of the Ramadan season in September.

With a great deal of funding coming from the usual suspects, the Saudis.
Posted at February 25, 2007 08:46 AM

5,111 posted on 02/25/2007 8:13:25 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2007/02/015404print.html

February 24, 2007
ACLU: US Can't Bar Terrorism Supporters

From AP:

A civil rights group asked a judge Friday to find it unconstitutional for the federal government to exclude a prominent Muslim scholar or anyone else from the United States on the grounds that they may have endorsed or espoused terrorism.

Another blow for civil liberties in America: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorism."

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the papers attacking the policy in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The group included in its submissions a written declaration in which the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, said he has always "opposed terrorism not only through my words but also through my actions."

The ACLU said schools and organizations who want to invite Ramadan and others into the United States are concerned about what is known as the ideological exclusion provision.

It said an entry in the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual says that the provision is directed at those who have voiced "irresponsible expressions of opinion."

The group said the provision violates the First Amendment and has resulted since 2001 in the exclusion from the United States of numerous foreign scholars, human rights activists and writers, barred "not for legitimate security reasons but rather because the government disfavors their politics."

The ACLU said some foreign scholars and writers are now reluctant to accept invitations to the United States because they will be subjected to ideological scrutiny and possibly denied entry.

And might have their feelings hurt, one hastens to add.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for government lawyers, said she had no comment Friday.

You could have managed better than that, Rebekah.

Before his visa was revoked in 2004, Ramadan had spoken at Harvard University, Stanford University and elsewhere. He said he continues to decline numerous invitations to appear in the United States, including a request by The American Academy of Religion to speak next November at its annual meeting.

Posted at February 24, 2007 10:02 PM

5,112 posted on 02/25/2007 8:16:38 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2007/02/015392print.html

February 24, 2007
Missouri Muslim accused in arms case is indicted

"We're going to war." Who is "we," Mousa? What kind of "war"? It may be that gang warfare was indeed all Mousa Abuelawi had in mind, but mines? Did he expect the gangs to lay landmines in St. Charles, Missouri?

An update on this story. "St. Charles man accused in arms case is indicted," by Robert Patrick in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with thanks to Cindy:

ST. LOUIS — A St. Charles man accused of buying automatic weapons and a Claymore mine and bargaining for grenades was indicted this week on four federal machine gun charges.

Mousa M. Abuelawi, 22, of Franjoe Court, was originally arrested Dec. 29 and charged with three counts of illegal possession or distribution of a machine gun and conspiracy to violate machine gun statutes....

Abuelawi was indicted Thursday and accused of receiving, transferring and possessing a machine gun, according to federal court documents made public Friday.

An affidavit filed with the court by FBI Special Agent Stephen M. Smith laid out the alleged weapons purchases this way:

During November and December, Abuelawi bought two M-16s, a Heckler & Koch MP-5 fully automatic submachine gun and a Claymore mine from a government informer, not knowing they had been rigged not to work.

He also negotiated to buy a box of 30 grenades and said he wanted any guns the informer could get, "big or small." The grenades were never delivered.

The men met several times in the 5700 block of West Florissant Avenue, where Abuelawi worked. One of Abuelawi's co-workers, Thaed Abde Sumad, met with the men once, according to the indictment, and "stated he wants to buy as many explosives as possible because, 'we're going to war.'" In an interview earlier this month, Sumad said he didn't remember the comment and suggested it may have been a joke.

Sumad said the purchases were intended as a money-making venture supplying St. Louis street gangs in a turf war. Sumad said he had no role in handling the weapons and was not involved in the negotiations. Sumad said he has been interviewed by FBI agents.

Posted at February 24, 2007 06:57 AM

5,113 posted on 02/25/2007 8:18:53 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2007/02/015385print.html

February 23, 2007
Imam Musa's Myspace page is back

The Washington, DC imam whose Myspace page Daniel Pipes and I are alleged to have hacked is back. It's here. (Thanks to Marked Manner.)

A few highlights:

While incarcerated, Imam Musa accepted traditional, orthodox Islam before his release. For many years after his release, the Imam continued his studies of Islam and was a keen observer of the political and social events taking place in the Muslim world. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, in a move that was rare for Sunni Muslims, Imam Musa publicly expressed his support for the Islamic Republic and its leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Since the early 1980s, he made several visits to Iran as a representative of Muslims in the United States and a supporter of the Islamic revival. He made connections with a wide array of Muslim leaders during the decade--both Sunni and Shia--and stressed that unity was a primary objective for the Islamic movement's success. After searching for leadership for several years without success, he took it upon himself to create an organization--the As-Sabiqun--that was capable of supporting the unique needs of Muslims living in the US while simultaneously incorporating an international outlook and agenda. His methodology draws heavily on the writings of Malcolm X, Maulana Mawdudi, Sheikh Uthman dan Fodio, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Kalim Siddiqui, and Imam Khomeini. New members of the group are encouraged to individually familiarize themselves with the works of these Islamic thinkers in addition to attending daily classes and lectures on classical Islamic studies, (Qur’an, Hadith, fiqh, Seerah, etc.). Special emphasis is placed on personal development and growth based on the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), as well as incorporating tightly knit family units within the overall community structure. The movement has spread across the US and is extremely popular among college students and African-American youth. Imam Musa has been regularly invited to speak at college campuses and Islamic events around the world. Critics have suggested that he promotes anti-Semitism in his speeches, which he claims are directed at Zionist supporters of Israel and not at Jewish people in general. During a rally in July 1999 Imam Musa displayed a cashier's check made out to "Hamas, Palestine," to protest the 1996 U.S. law which declared Hamas a terrorist organization. On July 7, 2000, Imam Musa suffered harassment at the hands of the police when he was assaulted, threatened with a gun and then arrested while stopping the policemen from brutally beating a motorist. Imam Musa was charged with "assaulting the police." He spent two nights in jail before appearing before a judge on July 10. In court, the police reduced the charge against him to a misdemeanor. On October 31, 2001, Imam Musa, along with Imam Muhammad al-'Asi and others, appeared at the National Press Club and, in a program which was televised by C-SPAN, disputed the official story of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, implying that the U.S. government was involved based on its historical pattern of creating wars to benefit pre-conceived agendas. The re-airing of this program was cancelled due to complaints by the Anti-Defamation League.

Posted at February 23, 2007 05:14 PM

5,114 posted on 02/25/2007 8:20:58 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Fuel tanker bomb kills 40 in western Iraq

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-02-25T082858Z_01_BAN530506_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-IRAQ-20070225.XML

Fuel tanker bomb kills 40 in western Iraq
Sun Feb 25, 2007 10:29 AM GMT143

By Claudia Parsons and Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A fuel tanker rigged with explosives killed 40
people when it blew up near a Sunni mosque in western Iraq on Saturday,
a day after the mosque's imam had criticised al Qaeda militants, police
and residents said.

The bomb exploded in a market in the town of Habaniya in the restive
province of Anbar, where U.S. forces are battling Sunni Arab insurgent
groups, including al Qaeda.

Local police said they believed the mosque was the target, adding that
the market had been destroyed and 64 people wounded. Women and children
were among the dead, they said.

In Baghdad, more than 20 loud explosions in quick succession rocked a
southern district of the capital after night fell.

The U.S. military said the cause of the blasts were "indirect fire".
Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraqi forces in the capital,
said the blasts were the result of military operations by Iraqi and
U.S.
forces conducting a major security crackdown in Baghdad.

Residents said the imam of the mosque in Habaniya had criticised Sunni
al Qaeda during Friday prayers.

Some Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar are leading a campaign to fight al
Qaeda, which is deeply entrenched in the province. But the attack
signals an escalation of the power struggle in an area where U.S. troop
reinforcements are soon to be deployed.

U.S. President George W. Bush is sending 21,500 extra troops to Iraq to
help with the crackdown in Baghdad, aimed at stemming sectarian
bloodshed pushing Iraq towards all-out civil war.

Most are heading for the capital, but 4,000 will be sent to Anbar, the
most dangerous province in Iraq for American forces.

Attacks on mosques are a common feature in Iraq as militant groups seek
to stir up sectarian tensions.

Habaniya lies 85 km (50 miles) west of the Baghdad. U.S. forces imposed
a curfew in the area after the blast.

On Monday, two suicide bombers in nearby Ramadi killed 11 people when
they targeted the house of Sattar al-Buzayi, who has led the anti-al
Qaeda drive, which is backed by the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad
and the U.S. military.

Insurgents earlier stormed an Iraqi police checkpoint near Baghdad
airport, killing eight policemen in a bold challenge to the security
crackdown in the capital.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki expressed optimism about the 10-day-old
security plan, saying U.S. and Iraqi forces had killed around 400
suspected militants since it started.

"BRAZEN ATTACK"

But the attack on the police checkpoint in an area not far from the
main
U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad underlined the hurdles faced by
Iraqi security forces who are often out- gunned by increasingly
sophisticated insurgents.

"It was a brazen attack," said U.S. military spokesman Captain Curtis
Kellogg. "It was definitely coordinated. We expect this type of thing
to
continue. They will try to test the Iraqi and U.S. security forces."

The U.S. military said eight to 10 gunmen attacked the checkpoint in
two
vehicles. Militants in the first car got out firing assault rifles and
throwing grenades at the policemen.

The second vehicle was forced into a ditch where it was cordoned off on
suspicion it could be a suicide car bomb.

Two militants were killed in the fire fight. One was wearing a suicide
vest, Kellogg said.

Maliki visited the Baghdad operation's command centre on Saturday and
urged security forces not to be swayed by sectarian loyalties.

He told reporters 426 suspected militants had been detained in the
crackdown "and around that number have been killed" since it was
launched in mid-February. The campaign is regarded as the last chance
to
prevent all-out civil war.

The Shi'ite prime minister is under pressure from Washington to root
out
Shi'ite militias with as much determination as he has used against
Sunni
Arab insurgents.

5,115 posted on 02/25/2007 8:24:16 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

CIA files: Japanese war leaders spied in Cold War

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/24/japan.spies.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest
CIA files: Japanese war leaders spied in Cold War
POSTED: 11:29 p.m. EST, February 24, 2007

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese
militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres
of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March.

And then he became a U.S. spy.

Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives
and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever
how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by
U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War.

The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's
view.

The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in
tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks
in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority's
intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists
and war criminals, historians say.

In addition to Tsuji, who escaped Allied prosecution and was elected
to parliament in the 1950s, conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded
operations included mob boss and war profiteer Yoshio Kodama, and
Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the
wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948.

The CIA also cast a harsh eye on its counterparts -- and institutional
rivals -- at G-2, the occupation's intelligence arm, providing
evidence for the first time that the Japanese operatives often bilked
gullible American patrons, passing on useless intelligence and using
their U.S. ties to boost smuggling operations and further their
efforts to resurrect a militarist Japan.

The assessments in the files are far from uniform. They show evidence
that other U.S. agencies, such as the Air Force, were also looking
into using some of the same people as spies, and that the CIA itself
had contacts with former Japanese war criminals. Some CIA reports gave
passing grades to the G-2 contacts' intelligence potential.

But on balance, the reports were negative, and historians say there is
scant documentary evidence from occupation authorities to contradict
the CIA assessment.

The files, hundreds of pages of which were obtained last month by the
AP, depict operations that were deeply flawed by agents' lack of
expertise, rivalries and shifting alliances between competing groups,
and Japanese operatives' overriding interest in right-wing activities
and money rather than U.S. security aims.

"Frequently they resorted to padding or outright fabrication of
information for the purposes of prestige or profit," a 1951 CIA
assessment said of the agents. "The postwar era in Japan ... produced
a phenomenal increase in the number of these worthless information
brokers, intelligence informants and agents."

The contacts in Japan mirror similar efforts in postwar Germany by the
Americans to glean intelligence on the Soviet Union from ex-Nazis. But
historians say a major contrast is the ineffectiveness of the Japanese
operations.

The main aims were to spy on Communists inside Japan, place agents in
Soviet and North Korean territory, and use Japanese mercenaries to
bolster Taiwanese defenses against the triumphant Communist forces in
mainland China.

continued...........

5,116 posted on 02/25/2007 8:27:46 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Americas Kitchen Recalls "Wellsley Farms" Green Bean Casserole

Thanks to Mark Taylor, and Milford421 for this report:

Americas Kitchen Recalls "Wellsley Farms" Green Bean Casserole
Because of Possible Health Risk
Contact:
John Geoghagan
770-754-0707
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Alpharetta, GA -- February 22, 2007 --
Americas Kitchen of Alpharetta, GA, is recalling its 32-ounce
packages of "Wellsley Farms" Green Bean Casserole sold from
September 1, 2006 through February 22, 2007 because they have the
potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an
organism which can cause illness, mild, moderate or even severe.
Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms
such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal
pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause more serious illness
in young children, frail or elderly people and may even cause
miscarriages or stillbirths. No illnesses have been reported to date
in connection with this product.
The recalled "Wellsley Farms" Green Bean Casserole was distributed
nationwide in BJ's Wholesale Club retail stores. The product comes
in a 32-ounce, clear plastic package marked with SKU # 19866.
The potential for contamination was noted after routine testing
revealed the presence of Listeria monocytogenes in a 32-ounce
package of "Wellsley Farms" Green Bean Casserole.
The production of the product has been suspended while the problem
is being investigated.
Consumers who have purchased 32-ounce packages of "Wellsley Farms"
Green Bean Casserole marked SKU # 19866 are urged to return them to
the place of purchase for a full refund.
Consumers with questions may contact the company at 1-770-754-0707
ext.1235.

http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/americaskitchen02_07.html

5,117 posted on 02/25/2007 8:31:13 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

To: All; milford421

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5375744,00.html

City attorney on leave over stolen computer

By Rocky Mountain News
February 24, 2007
Denver city attorney Larry Manzanares was put on paid "investigatory" leave Friday after a stolen computer was found in his home, Denver's 7 reported.

Mayor John Hickenlooper put Manzanares on leave after being contacted by Denver's 7.

"We are extremely concerned about the serious issues raised by this situation and the fact that we were not made aware of the investigation until today," Hickenlooper said.

Manzanares told Denver's 7 reporter Tony Kovaleski he had bought the Gateway computer from a man in a parking lot one block south of the City and County Building last month.

continued.............

5,118 posted on 02/25/2007 8:42:21 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

Thanks to Milford421 for this report:

Camp Dodge reports ‘serious’ security breach- Iowa

http://www.timesrepublican.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=7046
2/25/07
Camp Dodge reports `serious' security breach

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DES MOINES — A serious security breach that left an armory at Camp
Dodge unlocked overnight with about 700 combat weapons inside is
being investigated, Iowa Army National Guard officials said .

None of the weapons were missing from the Johnston military base,
but investigators said that the incident is considered serious
enough to be reported to the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va.

``We are conducting an internal investigation about our procedures
and we are also doing a review of our alarm system,'' said Brig.
Gen. Mark Zirkelbach, the Iowa National Guard's deputy adjutant.

He said the Guard knows a break-in didn't occur because a soldier
who was responsible for locking the arms room vault has admitted he
left the room unsecured.

Iowa Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood Jr. said that he had
never heard of such a serious security breach happening at Camp
Dodge.

``This is extraordinarily rare...This is not something that you ever
want to have happen a second time,'' Hapgood said.

Zirkelbach said some of the weapons in the unlocked building had
been used by an Iowa unit that had just returned home from a
deployment.

5,119 posted on 02/25/2007 8:51:53 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

20 suicide bombers in D. I. Khan, says DPO

http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/25/nat10.htm

20 suicide bombers in D. I. Khan, says DPO

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Feb 24: The district police officer has said suicide
bombers may target district courts because 20 suicide bombers,
including
eight women, have entered Dera Ismail Khan.

A special meeting in this respect was held here on Saturday which was
attended by

DPO Abdul Rasheed Khan, additional session judge Sajjad Anwar Khan,
District Bar Association president Hashmat Nawaz Khan and investigation
circle in-charge Imtiaz Khan.

The district police officer told the meeting that the suicide bombers
might strike within 15 to 20 days and stressed the need for preventive
measures.

Highlighting security measures, he said motorcycles; cycles and any
type
of vehicles would not be allowed to enter the premises of the district
courts. People will be checked before entering the courts.

He appealed to people, the courts administration and lawyers to
cooperate with police.â€”Online

5,120 posted on 02/25/2007 8:54:10 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny ("When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber" - Sir Winston Churchill)

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