An M1A1 Abrams tank provides security for Marines from Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, during a recent operation in Iraq. (Mike Escobar, Agence-France Presse)
Posted on 08/01/2005 4:20:35 PM PDT by Gucho
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
By Al Jacinto
SECURITY forces stormed an Abu Sayyaf hideout and wounded and captured a wanted militant leader, tagged as behind the series of bombings in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday, Aug. 1.
Officials said troops captured Amilhamja Ajijul alias "Alex Alvarez" after a brief firefight late Sunday in the village of Recodo, west of the city. "His capture is a big blow to the Abu Sayyaf. We will not allow terror to reign," the commander of the Army's 1st Infantry Division Major General Gabriel Habacon said.
Ajijul was tagged as among those who staged the spate of bombings in Zamboanga City on October 2002 that left 11 killed, including a visiting US soldier, and wounded scores of civilians, he said.
Habacon said the military pieced together intelligence information about Ajijul and until he was tracked down in his hideout in Zamboanga City. "The war on terror continues and security forces are still pursuing other Abu Sayyaf members," he said.
Other reports said troops seized a fragmentation grenade in Ajijul's hideout. The military said Ajijul is a sub-leader of the Abu Sayyaf's urban terrorist group, blamed for the bombings of several shopping malls and a Catholic shrine in Zamboanga City in 2002.
He was also linked to the kidnapping of a US citizen Jefrrey Craig Schilling in 2000 and dozens of mostly students and teachers in Basilan island.
Security officials on Sunday linked the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda terror network to two bombings in the southern Philippines that left four people wounded.
"We have reasons to believe the Abu Sayyaf is behind these attacks. There is an ongoing operation against the terror group and the blasts could be diversionary," the commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division Maj. Gen. Agustin Dema-ala said.
Police and military said four people were wounded in separate explosions Saturday in the southern Philippines. A 14-year-old student of Notre Dame school was wounded when a home-made bomb exploded in Cotabato City before noon time. It said the bomb was planted near the administrative building of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
A second bomb explosion, which occurred four hours later in Koronadal City, left three civilians wounded. The bomb, placed in a cardboard box, exploded on a motorcycle taxi parked in front of the city's main market, the military said.
Police in Cotabato said it recovered parts of a shattered cellular phone, raising suspicion that it was used to trigger the explosion. "They're using cell phones as initiators to set off explosive devices. This could be part of a bigger plot to sow terror. We are in heightened alert now," said Police Inspector Joey Ampong.
Security forces were pursuing a faction of the Abu Sayyaf in Maguindanao province and troops had already killed six of them since last month.
Abu Sayyaf terrorists tied to al-Qaeda network had also previously used cell phones to detonate bombs in Zamboanga City. Instead of the phone ringing, it sends the power to an explosive charge and detonated it. In the Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people, Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists triggered a bomb in a mini-bus outside the Sari Club with a cell-phone detonator. A car bomb detonated by mobile phone killed 12 people at Jakarta's Marriott hotel in August 2003.
Washington listed the Abu Sayyaf as a foreign terrorist organization after Manila implicated five of the group's known leaders to the killing of Californian Guillermo Sobero in June 2001 and Kansas missionary Martin Burnham in 2002. They were kidnapped in Dos Palmas resort in the central Philippine province of Palawan in May 2001.
The United States has offered up to five million dollars (P280 million) and Manila put up a one hundred million pesos bounty for the capture of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and other senior militant leaders. The group was also behind the kidnapping of 21 mostly Asian and European holiday-goers from the Malaysian island resort of Sipadan in April 2000. Many of the hostages later were freed after Libyan and Malaysian negotiators paid an estimated $11 million ransom.
8/1/2005 - 8:41:19 PM
A large explosion ripped through the front of the house of the attorney general in Gaza City tonight, damaging the building but causing no injuries.
The front wall outside the house collapsed and the gate was mangled and charred.
It was not clear if Gaza Attorney General Hussein Abu Assi was home at the time of the blast.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.
Gaza has been wracked with lawlessness in recent months.
Palestinian security, which had been largely decimated during the more-than four years of fighting with Israel, have clashed with militants and groups of armed men during attempts to enforce order.
Aug 1, 2005
Egyptian police have shot dead one of the prime suspects in the July 23 Sharm el-Sheikh bombings which killed at least 64 people, the Interior Ministry have said.
Mohamed Fulayfel was killed in an exchange of fire with police near Gebel Ataqa, a hill 11 miles west of the town of Suez.
His wife was also killed in the fire fight and their four-year-old daughter was injured.
An Interior Ministry statement said that security forces approached a group hiding in quarries in near Gebel Ataqa after being given a tip-off.
As they approached the area, gunmen opened fire at them.
"The police forces immediately dealt with the source of fire and it became clear that Mohamed Ahmed Saleh Fulayfel had been killed. He was in the company of his wife, who was wounded and taken to hospital for treatment," it said.
Fulayfel's wife died on the way to hospital, the security sources said.
Fulayfel was also on trial in absentia for bombings at three Red Sea resorts in October 2004. One bomb, at the Hilton hotel in the town of Taba, killed 34 people.
His brother Suleiman was killed in the Hilton hotel blast, along with a Palestinian man who police said was the mastermind of the operation. Police said they died because the timing device did not work properly.
The Shard-el-Sheikh bomb killed 64.
Aug 2, 2005
SRINAGAR: A militant in Held Kashmir shot dead five horses carrying supplies for troops in the first recorded attack of its kind, police said on Monday.
The militants have never been known to target horses used by the army since the insurgency against New Delhi’s rule erupted in 1989, police said in a statement.
The horses were ferrying food rations and clothing to an army camp when they were killed late Sunday. The attack took place in Arigam village.
“A solo militant killed five horses from point-blank range and beat up two locals who were leading the horses,” army spokesman Vijay Batra said. (afp)
I am not convinced these guys have all the facts.
CAIR was founded in 1994 in the USA.
Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.
The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth"
Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR
(Council of American Islamic Relations),
San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
Great stuff, Gucho!
Thanks for the ping, Sara ~ Bump!
Bump - Thanks for your comments and input.
Deadly Attacks In Irag As Seven Marines Are Killed
Firefighters pour water on a U.S. military convoy Humvee that was hit by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad on Tuesday.
August 2, 2005
(BAGHDAD) - KOMO Staff & News Services The U.S. military said Tuesday that six Marines were killed in action in western Iraq, pushing the death toll for Americans since the start of the war past 1,800.
The Marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division, died Monday in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.
A seventh Marine was killed Monday by a car bomb in Hit, 50 miles southeast of Haditha in the volatile Euphrates River valley.
Insurgents posted handbills in Haditha, claiming to have killed 10 U.S. troops, seizing some of their weapons.
At least 1,801 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,382 died as a result of hostile action. The figures include five military civilians.
In other violence, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded Tuesday at the entrance to a tunnel in central Baghdad, and at least 29 civilians were wounded, officials said.
The blast hit as the convoy was about to enter the tunnel in Bab Shargi, near Tahrir Square, said police Capt. Abdul-Hussein Munsif. Two Humvees appeared to have been damaged, he said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces placed a security cordon around the area. The U.S. military had no immediate information on casualties.
An emergency services official said on customary condition of anonymity that 29 wounded civilians were taken to two hospitals.
The bomb left a 3-foot-wide crater in the ground. Charred parts from the armored Humvee littered the site and seven civilian cars were also badly damaged.
U.S. troops took away some items from the damaged armored vehicle, including a helmet and two flak jackets.
In Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, an explosion about 5 a.m. Tuesday damaged a pipeline used for shipping fuel from the Beiji refinery to a power station in the Baghdad area, police said. Insurgents have frequently targeted the line to interrupt electricity in the Baghdad area - already critically low as demand rises in the summer.
The U.S. military said a reporter for the Army Times newspaper embedded with American troops was injured in a suicide car bombing Monday evening in western Iraq near the Syrian border.
U.S. military spokesman Capt. Duane Limpert had no details on the extent of injuries to the reporter, and he added that troops reported only minor injuries.
As the Aug. 15 deadline neared for finishing Iraq's new constitution, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called for it to protect women's rights, saying it was an important element for the country's success.
After meeting with representatives from some Iraqi women's groups, Khalilzad said they agreed that the equality of women "is a fundamental requirement for Iraq's progress."
The ambassador said that the U.S. government is expecting a constitution that would ensure full rights to all Iraqis, regardless of their sex, ethnicity or gender.
"My focus is to help get a constitution that does this. Of course, the Iraqis will decide but we will help in any way that we can," he said.
Khalilzad said his government would encourage Iraqi politicians to exclude any constitutional articles that discriminate or limit opportunities for any Iraqi citizens.
On Monday, women activists urged parliament to limit the role of Islam in the new constitution and follow international treaties on the rights of women and children.
With efforts exerted by religious parties to give Islam a central role in the Iraqi law, fears are growing that women would lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.
Most worrying for women's groups has been the section on civil rights in the draft constitution, which some feel would significantly roll back women's rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime.
Under Sharia law, women would inherit only half of what men receive. In issues of marriage and divorce, women would be at a significant disadvantage since only men would have the legal power to initiate divorces.
Khalilzad also called for more involvement by Arab Sunnis in the political process, stressing the necessity of national agreement on the future of Iraq as a way to divide and defeat the insurgency.
"In order to defeat the insurgency, one needs to reach a national compact, because if all Iraqis, including those who in western and central parts of the country see themselves as part of this new Iraq ... they will be separated from the insurgency," he said.
He accused insurgents of attempting to ignite a sectarian civil war in Iraq, adding that the solution to the insurgency problem should not be limited to military means.
"The military solution has to be integrated into a broad strategy that has a political element leading it, and of course, there are other elements."
Wednesday 03 August 2005
Baghdad - At least 23 people were killed in rebel attacks across Iraq yesterday as members of parliament discussed issues delaying the completion of the war-torn country's new constitution.
A powerful blast shook central Baghdad when a suicide car bomber blew himself up close to a US military convoy, killing four people and wounding 23 others, including four women, medics said.
One US humvee was set ablaze and 14 other vehicles were damaged by the blast, which occurred at around 1pm (4pm Thai time), it was reported.
Six marines have also been killed in fighting in western Iraq, the US military said yesterday. The troops were killed near Haditha, about 200km northwest of Baghdad, on Monday.
It was not immediately clear if they were killed in a single attack or if they died in a series of clashes.
August 02, 2005
Public claims of inevitable attacks create mainly fear - The Monitor's View
"It's not a matter of if, but when." This fatalistic phrase, used to describe an unquestioned inevitability to another Al Qaeda-related attack, is being parroted around the world as if it were rock-solid truth.
Vice President Dick Cheney used it back in May 2002, when US intelligence officials pointed to the potential for new attacks in the US. Police in London said it after - and before - the July 7 transit bombs. "The clock is ticking," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in a speech last week. Now police chiefs in Seattle and Los Angeles are mouthing similar lines. And during last year's campaigns, many politicians resorted to this kind of be-very-afraid rhetoric.
Spreading mood of fatalism
So it's not surprising that the public at large is repeating it. One wire reporter, scoping out the public mood in Rome the day after the London bombing, described an atmosphere of fatalism. "The thing is, it's not a matter of if, but when and where, there will be an attack on Italy," Nicolo, a Milanese lawyer on a business trip to Rome, told the journalist.
Any number of reasons can lead people to voice resignation to the killing of innocent people. At its most crass, such claims to certainty make good political cover if an attack does occur. At their most benign, these dire predictions speak to a fear that law enforcement, the military, and elected leaders cannot completely protect open societies from terrorists.
But repeating the "not if, but when" mantra can also simply empower terrorists. It spreads the very fear they want, and risks creating a defeatist atmosphere and an erosion of diligence in defending a nation.
Churchill's warning
Winston Churchill, in his "never give in" speech of Oct. 29, 1941, warned against this kind of thinking in matters "great or small."
With the victory in the ferocious Battle of Britain behind him, yet the US still not in the war to help him, Churchill rightly reminded citizens that "you cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are..."
Now is when citizens and their leaders need to remind themselves that terrorism is not inevitable, that it can be defeated. And, in fact, it has been overcome before - for instance, in Europe, the Red Brigades have lost their grip, the Baader Meinhof Gang are relics of the past, and the Irish Republican Army appears finally to be disarming itself.
People can be encouraged by the speed and thoroughness of the British investigation into the recent transit attacks, as well as by new stirrings in the Muslim community to denounce violence more forcefully, as in last week's fatwa (religious ruling) by groups of North American Muslim scholars calling on Muslims not to offer any support to terrorists.
What people need to be told is the reasonable risk of attack and to know what their leaders are doing to mitigate that risk. They also must learn what they themselves can do to minimize that risk.
"We must fight the urge to clamp down in fear and bring our society to a standstill," Mr. Chertoff added in his recent speech. "Our antiterrorism efforts must be based on assessments of risk, not reaction to attacks. In the face of terror, there will always be a temptation to panic, to react, but we must be steady, unwavering - dedicated to the task at hand."
Liberated, not numbed by fear
What the public doesn't need are vague, meaningless phrases that do nothing but encourage more fear. Terrorism is a topic for open debate and regular reconsideration by the public. The terrorists' tactics are constantly changing, and so the public must be encouraged to be flexibly responsive, and not just numbed, to any new kinds of threats.
Defending a society against terrorist acts requires the work of all levels of government, backed by a fearless and informed citizenry. It is a fight for liberty, that is, a campaign to be liberated from the very fear that terrorists try to instill.
For nearly half a century, the Western world fearlessly stood against the Soviet Union and communism - and watched that "evil empire" crumble in 1991 into its own emptiness. Now both the West and most Muslims are standing up against an ideology that thrives only if others join in its fear-mongering.
Why do Al Qaeda's bidding?
Good stuff ~ Bump!
Kuwait accused of stealing Iraqi oil and land
8/2/2005 - 5:22:31 PM
Following a series of incidents along the Kuwaiti border, Iraqi legislators today accused Kuwait of stealing their oil as well as chipping away some of their national territory.
The allegations were similar to those used by Saddam Hussein to justify his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. This time, both sides want to resolve the dispute peacefully.
The latest comments were made a day before an Iraqi delegation was scheduled to head to Kuwait to discuss the situation.
“There have been violations such as digging horizontal oil wells to pump Iraq oil,” legislator Jawad al-Maliki, chairman of the parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, told the National Assembly today. “There have also been violations by taking Iraqi territories as deep as one kilometre (0.6 miles).”
“We believe that we have overcome the past and that we opened a new page of positive relations. These relations have to be respected by Kuwait,” said al-Maliki, a member of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s Dawa Party.
On Saturday, a Kuwaiti official said a number of Iraqi homes and farms have slightly “encroached” into Kuwait at the border area of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq.
Some farms that belonged to Iraqis were razed when the United Nations redrew the border in 1993, two years after a US-led international coalition fought the Gulf War that ended a seven-month Iraqi occupation of this country. The Iraqi owners were compensated.
Legislator Hassan al-Sunneid said a four-member delegation, comprising three legislators and deputy foreign minister, Mohammed Haji Hmoud, will head to Kuwait Wednesday and to try to find a solution.
“There has been a border problem with Kuwait since the Iraqi state was established,” legislator Mansour al-Basri said. “We hope that these border problems will be solved according to historical and geographical basis.”
He accused Kuwaitis of even taking the deep water side of the Umm Qasr port where giant ships dock.
Hundreds of Irais demonstrated at the frontier last week to stop Kuwait from building a metal barrier between the two countries. Shots were fired across the border into Kuwait, but no one was injured and Kuwaiti border guards did not return fire.
Kuwait insists the pipeline barrier, meant to stop vehicles from illegally crossing through the desert, is on its side of the frontier. The UN demarcation also gave Kuwait 11 oil wells and an old naval base that used to be in Iraq.
Relations between Iraq and Kuwait resumed after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam and border points were reopened.
When Saddam was still in power, Kuwait built a defensive trench along the 130-mile border to stop border infiltration from both sides. UN peacekeepers patrolled the frontier until just before the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.eecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=187017840&p=y87xy87yz&n=187018718
thank you be strong!!!!!!!!!
Be Strong ~ Bump!
Bump
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