| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 03/13/2004 7:51:57 AM PST by Admin Moderator, reason:
Thread 4: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1096779/posts |
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 ...
When I heard that report it's like...why on earth don't they ever elaborate on details?! Could have been a load of smoke detectors for all they tell us...
By MAR ROMAN, Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain - Ten terrorist bombs blasted three Madrid train stations at the height of the morning rush hour Thursday, killing more than 170 people and wounding at least 600 before this weekend's general elections. Officials blamed Basque separatists for the worst terror attack in Spanish history.
"This is a massacre," government spokesman Eduardo Zaplana said.
A total of 10 bombs exploded, killing 173 people and injured more than 600, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said. Police found and detonated three others.
Before the Thursday bombings, the Basque separatist group ETA had been blamed for more than 800 deaths in its decades-old campaign to carve an independent Basque homeland from territory straddling northern Spain and southwest France.
"ETA had been looking for a massacre in Spain," Acebes said after an emergency cabinet meeting, citing recent thwarted attacks. "Unfortunately, today it achieved its goal."
He said security services knew ETA was responsible because the group tried a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a station that was not hit Thursday. He also noted the Feb. 29 police interception of a Madrid-bound van packed with more than 1,100 pounds of explosives. Authorities blamed ETA.
"Therefore, it is absolutely clear and evident that the terrorist organization ETA was looking to commit a major attack," Acebes said. "The only thing that varies is the train station that was targeted."
A top Basque politician, Arnold Otegi, denied the separatists were behind the blasts and blamed "Arab resistance." Many al-Qaida-linked terrorists were captured in Spain or were believed to have operated from there.
Thursday's bombs exploded about 7:30 a.m. on trains or at platforms on the commuter line running to the Atocha station, a bustling transportation hub in the capital. At least two of the bombs went off in trains that were in the Atocha station.
Otegi told Radio Popular in San Sebastian that ETA always phones in warnings before it attacks. Acebes said there was no warning before Thursday's attack.
"The modus operandi, the high number of victims and the way it was carried out make me think, and I have a hypothesis in mind, that yes it may have been an operative cell from the Arab resistance," Otegi said, noting that Spain's government backed the Iraq war.
Until now, the highest death toll in ETA-linked attacks was 21 killed in a supermarket blast in Barcelona in 1987.
People streamed away from the Atocha station in tears Thursday as rescue workers carried bodies covered in sheets of gold fabric. The wounded, faces bloodied, sat on curbs and used mobile phones to tell loved ones they were alive. Hospitals appealed for blood donations. Buses were pressed into service as ambulances.
Rescue workers were overwhelmed, said Enrique Sanchez, an ambulance driver who went to Santa Eugenia station, about six miles southeast of Atocha station.
"There was one carriage totally blown apart. People were scattered all over the platforms. I saw legs and arms. I won't forget this ever. I've seen horror," Sanchez said.
Shards of twisted metal were scattered by rails in the Atocha station at the spot where an explosion severed a train in two.
"I saw many things explode in the air ... it was horrible," said Juani Fernandez, 50, a civil servant who was on the platform waiting to go to work.
"People started to scream and run, some bumping into each other and as we ran there was another explosion. I saw people with blood pouring from them, people on the ground," Fernandez said.
"Those responsible for this tragedy will be arrested and they will pay very dearly for it," Acebes said at Atocha station.
The attacks traumatized Spain on the eve of Sunday's general election.
The campaign was largely dominated by separatist tensions in regions like the Basque country, with both the ruling conservative Popular Party and the opposition Socialists ruling out talks with ETA.
The government convened anti-ETA rallies nationwide for Friday evening and announced three days of mourning.
"What a horror," said the Basque regional president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, who insisted ETA does not represent the Basque people. "When ETA attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces," he said in the Basque capital Vitoria.
"This is one of those days that you don't want to live through," said opposition Socialist party spokesman Jesus Caldera. "ETA must be defeated," referring to the group as "those terrorists, those animals."
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the attacks terrorist atrocities and a "disgusting assault on the very principle of European democracy."
Straw said that Britain stood "shoulder to shoulder" with Spain and was ready to send any kind of material help needed.
Elsewhere, European Parliament President Pat Cox said the bomb attacks amounted to "a declaration of war on democracy."
"No more bombs, no more dead," Cox said in Spanish before a hushed legislature in Strasbourg, France. "It is an outrageous, unjustified and unjustifiable attack on the Spanish people and Spanish democracy."
Spanish officials had said ETA was against the ropes following the arrest last year of more than 150 members or collaborators in Spain and France, including the leaders of ETA's commando network. Last year, ETA killed three people, compared with 23 in 2000 and 15 in 2001.
Then maybe it wasn't Basque separatists.(?)Who else does it sound like?
By CELESTE KATZ and MICHELE McPHEE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A Queens man has created a Web site divulging home addresses and other personal details of police officers - even putting up photos of undercover detectives. The NYPD's Intelligence Division is reviewing the Web site to see if harassment charges are warranted against its creator, Alan Munn, 53, of Jackson Heights.
One NYPD undercover noted that "all someone needs is the name of one of us, especially while we are on trial, and they can get everything about us.
"These guys are providing a service to the criminal world, to the criminal element," the undercover said. "We put our families at risk enough without guys like this making it more dangerous by revealing our identities."
In some cases, Munn reveals when and where cops regularly work out, play football or jog. He indicates when other cops get off work.
He even lists the names of some of the cops' children.
In 1999, Munn, who could not be reached for comment, was found guilty of harassment when he used the Internet to threaten an NYPD lieutenant, whose name is being withheld by the Daily News.
Munn asked Internet users to "please kill [the officer], all other NYPD cops and all of their adult relatives and friends."
But because Munn is not making overt threats against the police officers, said Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman, the cops' hands may be tied.
"We are exploring the possibility that anyone engaging in this kind of behavior can be charged with stalking, harassment and reckless endangerment," Browne said.
Constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams said the Web site poses a problem that is "not so much a legal issue as a moral and an ethical one."
"As a general legal proposition, people are generally allowed to reveal what they know, and to simply rely on the fact that you're allowed to provide truthful information," he said. "But there are some circumstances in which revealing the information is troubling."
City Council Minority Leader James Oddo said the Web site should be shut down, saying "absolutely nothing good could come from such a Web site.
"Is he supplying the angry, the demented, the deranged, [with] the means to act on whatever troubles them?" Oddo said. "Folks logging on to this site wouldn't do so with the intention of selling us girl scout cookies."
Originally published on March 10, 2004
Although I don't know whether it can be transmitted in eggs, I do know it can be transmitted on eggs -- on the shells that is. From what I understand, however, the eggs from most commercial egg farms are run through a sterilization process which supposedly kills all the bad stuff one can pick up at a poultry farm.
While you're at it look up where Dick Cheney has his hacienda...
A big one. It's the equivalent of 20MT...
All of them? Cliton was president for a good fraction...
Hmmmmmm...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.