Posted on 09/11/2004 12:09:10 AM PDT by nwctwx
WHAT THE . . . I just choked on my coffee!
WOW? freeper brilliance . . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1237688/posts
Al Qaida-linked terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi is preparing to carry out a major terrorist attack in Europe or the United States, according to Iraqi intelligence sources. A report prepared by Iraqi intelligence agencies has uncovered new information about Zarqawi's Tawhid wa Jihad terrorist group, including the composition of his movement and his strategy and objectives.
Abu Musab al Zarqawi
The next 48 hours are critical. (9/9 to 9/11)
http://in.news.yahoo.com/040918/137/2g5ae.html
Saturday September 18, 7:40 PM
U.S. military plays down Afghan envoy's Tet warning
By David Brunnstrom
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military played down on Saturday a warning by Washington's ambassador to Afghanistan that militant groups may try to launch a "Tet offensive" in Afghan cities, including Kabul, ahead of elections next month.
The military has warned of stepped up attacks by the Taliban and its allies ahead of the Oct. 9 polls, and spokesman Major Scott Nelson said specific threats to disrupt the vote meant vigilance was critical on the part of the population.
But he ruled out a Tet offensive-style campaign, referring to the 1968 lunar New Year blitz by communist forces in the Vietnam war that stunned Washington and undermined U.S. and South Vietnamese morale.
"As a student of history, you have got to think about the Tet offensive and what really happened -- it totally caught the U.S. and its allies off guard. I wouldn't say that's going to happen during the elections here.
"All our intelligence is significantly improved from 40 years ago, so to put those two connections there, it's hard for me to grasp."
Speaking in Washington on Friday, U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he expected a particular challenge from militants along Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan to the south and east ahead of the presidential election.
But he said dramatic violence was also a possibility in the cities. "They may also try some spectacular attacks, a la perhaps a Tet offensive kind of thing. Go after, do some things in some of the towns, including Kabul," he said.
SURVIVED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
The threat posed by remnants of the Taliban regime that U.S.-backed forces ousted in 2001 and by allied Islamic militants was vividly demonstrated on Thursday when President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt in the town of Gardez.
Karzai, who faces 17 opponents in the presidential election, was on his first campaign trip outside the capital, when a rocket was fired at his U.S. military helicopter and exploded nearby as it prepared to land in the city.
It was the most significant attack yet on the election process and followed an surge in militant-related violence in the past year in which more than 1,000 people have died, including 12 election workers in the period from May to August alone.
Speaking at a news conference, Nelson said U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan had significant capabilities together with a growing new national army and police force and were working with tribal elders and provincial governors to develop a "very strong and successful security programme".
"There have been significant incidents, but we will do everything we can and we are doing everything we can in cooperation with the government of Afghanistan to defeat the attempts to disrupt the elections process," he said.
Nelson expressed concern about "indications" that some Islamic schools, or madrassahs, in neighbouring Pakistan were training students to make bombs for attacks in Afghanistan.
"There are certain madrassahs out there that are certainly doing these things," he said, but added that it was a matter that had to be dealt with by the Pakistani government.
Afghan and U.S. officials have long charged that militants have been able to find sanctuary in Pakistan from which to launch attacks on Afghan government forces and the currently 17,100 strong U.S.-led force pursuing Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20041007/300200000020041007192304E0.html
2004/10/07 19:28 KST
South Korea Seizes Three Chinese Fishing Boats in its EEZ
MOKPO, Oct. 7 (Yonhap) -- Three Chinese fishing boats were seized Thursday for violating South Korea's western territorial waters, local police said.
Mokpo Maritime Police Agency said it seized the three ships, including a 43-ton Chinese fishing vessel, and detained several sailors on board for illegally operating inside South Korea's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on Thursday afternoon.
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20041006/301100000020041006112021E7.html
2004/10/06 11:20 KST
More Chinese Fishing in South Korean Waters, Military Says
SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- A growing number of Chinese fishing boats are sneaking into South Korean waters near the border with North Korea, taking advantage of the military confrontation between the Koreas, a military agency said Wednesday in a document prepared for a parliamentary audit.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, an operational command of combat units, said the number of Chinese boats catching fish in South Korean territory has increased more than seven times during the past two years. About 3,000 boats were noticed in 2002 and last year, 23,000. As of the end of September this year, 11,000 cases were found.
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=9C69D1D2-576F-45FA-8E53AC3482A912C0&title=US%20Considers%20Increasing%20Military%20Presence%20in%20Asia%2DPacific%20Region%20%20%20
US Considers Increasing Military Presence in Asia-Pacific Region
Nick Simeone
Pentagon
06 Oct 2004, 17:57 UTC
The Pentagon is planning to add another submarine to two others already deployed to the Pacific island of Guam, and is considering stationing an aircraft carrier strike group there as well. The deployments would put the U.S. military in a position to respond more quickly to a crisis in Asia, including one on the Korean peninsula. A third nuclear powered submarine is set to arrive at the U.S. naval base on Guam in December. The island is already home to two other attack submarines able to seek and destroy enemy vessels and the Navy is reported to be considering basing three more there as well, each with a crew of about 150 sailors.
In addition, the Defense Department has long been looking into moving an aircraft carrier battle group to either Guam or Hawaii. Guam is strategically located about four hours flying time from the Asian mainland, significantly reducing the travel time needed to respond to a regional crisis. The enhanced U.S. military presence would be part of an on-going realignment of U.S. forces overseas, with the Pentagon shifting personnel and assets to regions where threat levels suggest they may be needed.
While no final decisions have been made, the top U.S. military commander for the Pacific region has told Congress tensions on the Korean peninsula and the China-Taiwan issue demand an improved force presence and increased agility. James Lilley served as American ambassador to South Korea during the 1980s. The threat posed by North Korea, he says, does not come from the country's military, but from the risk that Pyongyang will use or pass on nuclear weapons to other nations or terrorists."Their military can be handled," he said. "[It's] their weapons of mass destruction. They know if they ever use nuclear, biological, chemical weapons in South Korea or Asia, they will be obliterated. Even [President] Clinton said this."
But South Korea is still wary of doing anything that could be read as a sign of weakness by the north. On Wednesday, the United States and South Korea announced both countries had agreed to a much slower withdrawal of some 12,000 American troops from the Korean peninsula than initially planned, a redeployment that will be carried out in stages over the next four years."As you've seen in the paper this morning, the South Koreans are pleading with us not to cut back unilaterally too soon and we've adjusted this to their time schedule, phasing it out over the next four or five years," James Lilley said.North Korea is already reacting to news of the possible enhanced U.S. military deployments. The country's official news agency calls them a very dangerous option by the United States, one that amounts to placing military pressure on Pyongyang, and suggests Washington should consider the consequences.
Firefighters or arsonists?
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200410/200410070022.html
Updated Oct.7,2004 18:18 KST
10,000 Chinese Troops Dispatched to N. Korean Border
10,000 Chinese Peoples Liberation Army regulars were hastily deployed on Monday and Tuesday to the towns of Shahe, Kaishantun and Nanping of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, a district on the border with North Korea, a local source said. According to the source, between Monday and Tuesday, 10,000 Chinese troops entered the villages, which border on the North Korean towns of Musan and Hweryong, North Hamgyeong Province, aboard military trucks. The deployment was so sudden that there were not enough barracks available and soldiers are being quartered at farmhouses. The provincial government has ordered farming families in the area to cooperate in providing board and lodging to 5~6 soldiers per household. It's has yet to be made clear why there was a sudden large deployment of troops to the border region, but locals suppose it might be connected with the fact that the Sanhe-Kaishantun-Nanping region was the area in which the most North Korean defectors appeared. A Korean-Chinese said he heard from soldiers that they were sent to the region ahead of the winter season to prepare for the possibility of mass defections by armed North Korean soldiers. He added that the soldiers said the sudden deployment was because there were "more-than-clear" signs in North Korea of an impending mass defection. The price of 1kg of rice in North Korea has suddenly jumped to W1,700 (as of Tuesday), and with signs of mass starvation, the possibility that soldiers, too, may mass defect as they find it impossible to deal with hunger and malnutrition is gradually rising.
Speaking for all here at TM, I hope your feeling better soon.
Thanks for the link.
The chess game continues...
Sounds like Ahmad has the ACLU playbook.
Doesn't pass the smell test.
Keeeripes! And that's just Newark airport.
bookmark
It is nice to see other governments chime in with info:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041007/D85IKNB81.html
Oct 7, 9:59 AM (ET)
By TONY CZUCZKA
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's intelligence chief said Thursday he believes that Osama bin Laden is alive and continues to exert influence in his al-Qaida terror network.
"All indications are that he is alive," August Hanning, head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, said at a news conference.
German intelligence officials believe, as they have for some time, that bin Laden is living in the Afghan-Pakistani border area, Hanning said. He did not specify which side of the border.
"We continue to see traces of his activity. He tries to organize, to motivate" his followers, Hanning said. He did not elaborate.
The Saudi-born bin Laden's organization is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and a series of worldwide terror strikes since.
Hanning also warned that violence in Iraq risks plunging the country into the chaos of a disintegrating "failed state" resembling terrorist havens like pre-Sept. 11 Afghanistan. U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring bin Laden and al-Qaida.
A breakdown in Iraq would destabilize the Middle East, boost Islamic terrorism worldwide and might allow terrorists to put scientists involved in Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to work for them, the intelligence chief added.
Extending security across Iraq, with its diverse ethnic and religious groups, is "a tough task that will still claim many victims," he said.
"The outlook is dark if this task is not mastered," Hanning said in a speech at a terrorism conference. "In this case a trend like in Afghanistan or Lebanon in the past is a very likely scenario."
Stoked by radical Islamic views inspired by bin Laden, terrorist attacks and military action by U.S.-led troops are pushing Iraq toward "a crossroads" that could end with peaceful reconstruction - or chaos, he said.
Setting Iraq firmly on the path to security and democracy "is by no means ensured because the way there is still very rocky," Hanning said.
Hanning suggested that Western nations are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of young disaffected Arabs.
"I detect a still growing, generally anti-Western mood in the Muslim countries," he said.
Germany, along with France and Russia, was a leading opponent of the war in Iraq and has refused to send troops.
But Hanning said all countries now have a stake in the country's future because Islamic radicalism posed a global threat.
"That is why all of us have a common interest, whether we take part in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq or not," he said. "This country must be stabilized."
The extreme version of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?". This is getting really scary, Joe.
October 11th seems to be a ripe date for a symbolic attack.
First, it's the date (10/11)
AND
It's Columbus Day which represents the discovery of the New World
AND
The Catholic Church celebrates Columbus' discovery as the beginning of the evangelization of the Western Hemisphere to Christianity.
AND
We're three weeks from an election.
AND
The terrorists have a political angle now, with John Kerry fighting Bush with "you should have gone after Bin Laden."
With that line of fire coming from Kerry, Al Qaeda can prove his point with a massive attack before the election, and push the election to the Democrats...
Comments?
Car explodes on Weehawken street, killing one
10/7/2004, 11:29 a.m. ET
By STEVE STRUNSKY
The Associated Press
WEEHAWKEN, N.J. (AP) — A car exploded on a residential street Thursday morning, leaving one person dead, authorities said.
The blast appears to have been an accident, said state police spokesman Sgt. Kevin Rehmann.
"There may have been some type of compressed gas cylinder ... in the rear seat area," Rehmann said.
The victim was in the car and is believed to be a man who was a smoker and a pipefitter, but his identity was still being confirmed so his name was not immediately released, Rehmann said.
A neighbor said the man who owned the car worked for a chemical company.
The explosion occurred about 7 a.m., and blew out the door and windows at 76 Hackensack Plank Road and blackened the building's concrete facade. The vehicle was parked parallel to the curb.
Authorities have discounted initial suspicions that the blast was related to a domestic dispute, Rehmann said.
The state police sent members of its arson/bomb squad and K-9 units to the scene to assist Weehawken police and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office in the investigation, Rehmann said.
Also on the scene were agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who brought an explosives investigations truck.
In June 2003, a Newark welder was killed, apparently when his ignition or a cigarette sparked an explosion from a leaking acetylene tank in his car.
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/news-11/109715694720491.xml&storylist=
While 10/11 is indeed symbolic, I'm much more concerned about 10/12.
10/12 is actually the *real* Columbus Day
10/12 anniversary of USS Cole bombing
10/12 anniversary of Bali bombing
10/12 is a Tuesday
(Let's hope we're both wrong!)
Hmmmm, let's hear the name.
That's what I want to know too.
This update says possible domestic dispute:
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3790863/detail.html
Any way you cut it, it's hunting season for Al Qaeda.
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