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Posted on 12/01/2006 8:36:14 PM PST by nwctwx
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PRISTINA, Serbia - Two officials of Kosovo's governing coalition have been arrested after police found a minibus packed with heavy weapons and ammunition. A police source said the haul included a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft gun and more than 100 rocket-propelled grenades.
Local media reports said the find, made late on Wednesday in the Drenica region of central Kosovo, was the largest in Kosovo since the 1998-99 war and the deployment of NATO peacekeepers.
Three men were arrested, including a senior adviser to the Kosovo labor minister and a member of the governing Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), which emerged from the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army.
Excerpted
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061221/wl_nm/serbia_kosovo_weapons_dc_1
Declaration of war threatens stability of Horn of Africa
December 22, 2006
The leader of Somalia’s Islamist militia said yesterday that his country was now at war with neighbouring Ethiopia, dashing hopes of an early resolution to the conflict that threatens to engulf the volatile Horn of Africa.
As fighting raged for the third day between the militias and forces loyal to an Ethiopian-backed rump government, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys called on all Somalis to defend the country from external threats.
“All Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia,” he said in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, before embarking on the haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
Excerpted
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2514894,00.html
Description: MACDILL AFB, FLA. – United States and Special Operations Forces and conventional Marine units have provided training to the Yemeni Central Security Force Counter Terrorism Unit (CSF-CTU) as part of the persistent Foreign Internal Defense (FID) program.
FID is one of the primary tenets of special operations and enables partner nation’s military forces to gain knowledge and capabilities while receiving training and guidance from U.S. and coalition partners. The U.S. Coast Guard has also been involved in the training, building the Yemen Coast Guard and providing them the means to enhance their ability to secure its territorial waters.
Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) has provided a near continuous presence to ensure all resources had complimentary effects. Through the use of conventional force training and Joint Combined Exercise Training (JCET) events that focused on special operations, the Yemen forces have been able to make a significant impact to the Global War on Terror.
Most recently, the CSF-CTU executed two raids that resulted in either death or capture of significant operatives within the al-Qaeda organizations. They Yemen forces also seized weapons and weapon making materials during the raid.
The successful integration of US and conventional special operations forces serves as a model for capacity building in the CENTCOM AOR. The CSF-CTU’s transformation is the most successful example of capacity building outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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J&K cops bust madrassa doubling up as LeT cell
21 Dec, 2006
SOPORE: In a startling discovery, police in north Kashmir have stumbled on a full-fledged recruitment cell of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in a 'madrassa'in Sopore.
The Dar-ul-Shamas-ul-Uloom has been in existence for the last six years, police said and claimed that it was in fact a clandestine recruiting centre for the Lashkar.
Founded just six years ago by Moulvi Abdul Ahad Rather alias Bitta Molvi, Dar-ul-Shamas-ul-Uloom, at Tarzoo in Sopore, has 300-odd students in the age group of 7-30 years, preparing to become Imams, but apparently, it was nothing more than a Lashkar recruitment centre, police stated.
Said SP Sopore Mir Imtiaz,"With the arrest of four LeT operatives from Dar-ul-Shamas-ul-Uloom, ostensibly an Islamic Darasgah, we have discovered that Pakistani ultras have started outsourcing terrorist actions to 'talibs'(students) in madrassas."
The four arrested — Latief Ahmed Bhat (21), Mohammad Yasin Mir (22), Shamasuddin Rather (30) and Mohammed Waseem Bhat (19) — were 'talibs'in the madrassa and two of them have even stayed at Bharuch in Gujarat, in a madrassa for two years, apparently for memorising the holy Koran, police said.
The Moulvi was picked up by Army after Latief's father complained that his son had been missing. Latief claimed he was deputed for arms training in Kupawara forests by the Moulvi.
Though booked for harbouring and running terror school, the Moulvi was released on court orders this month, the SP said.
Talking to TOI, Latief admitted he was sent for 15 days arms training to Kupwara forests and that it was the Moulvi who handed him over to two LeT men for training.
He said he was trained to handle only pistol in Kupwara forests for 15 days and an LeT commander indoctrinated him to take up arms for jihad.
"The first task accomplished by me, was to set a beauty parlour on fire in Sopore. I was given one litre of petrol and another terrorist accompanied me with a pistol. I set the parlour on fire while the other kept the owner in captivity till I destroyed the parlour,"Latief said.
When contacted, Jammu and Kashmir police chief Gopal Sharma said, action under law would be initiated against the particular madrassa.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Iranian government financed a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia and must pay $254 million to the victims' families, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek their compensation from assets that have been seized from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran.
Excerpted
Talk in Saudi Arabia turns to 'Iranian threat'
December 21, 2006
RIYADH: At a late-night reading earlier this week, a self-styled poet held up his hand for silence and began a riff on the events in neighboring Iraq, in the old style of Bedouin storytellers.
"Saddam Hussein was a real leader who deserved our support," he began, making up the lines as he went. "He kept Iraq stable and peaceful," he added, "And most of all he fought back the Iranians."
Across the kingdom, in both official and casual conversation, once quiet concern over the chaos in Iraq and Iran's growing regional influence has burst into the open. Saudi newspapers now openly decry Iran's growing power. Religious leaders have begun talking about a "Persian onslaught" that threatens the existence of Islam itself. In the salons of Riyadh, the "Iranian threat" is raised almost as openly and as frequently as the stock market.
"Iran has become more dangerous than Israel itself," said Sheik Musa bin Abdulaziz, editor of Al Salafi magazine, a self-described moderate in the Salafi fundamentalist Muslim movement that seeks to return Islam to its roots. "The Iranian revolution has come to renew the Persian presence in the region. This is the real clash of civilizations."
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/21/news/saudi.php
This is interesting.
Thank you very much Oorang.
Fancy a holiday with a difference? Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed warlord who became prime minister of Chechnya last year, has declared the lawless province open for tourism. Twelve years of intermittent but brutal war may have all but devastated it, flattening its capital, Grozny, and destroying what little tourist infrastructure there was. But that failed to deter Mr Kadyrov yesterday from revealing his dream of welcoming Western tourists to a region synonymous with kidnapping.
Until the hotels were rebuilt, his government said, tourists wanting to holiday in Chechnya could always camp. Mr Kadyrov's drive to "create interest for tourist visits", drew a lukewarm response from the British travel industry, with leading tour operators saying it was unlikely that Chechnya would be included in their 2007 or even 2008 brochures. Although the Russian government, which has twice invaded the province to quell uprisings, insists the war is over, a small band of rebels in the southern mountains begs to differ.
Gun battles are common and kidnappings, though less frequent of late, still occur with alarming regularity. The Foreign Office warns against all travel to Chechnya, saying that Westerners are particularly vulnerable to abduction. Three Britons were seized and executed in Dec 1998. More recently, Mr Kadyrov's army of irregulars have taken to sticking the severed heads of enemies on stakes in at least one village.
Chechnya is also not famed for its natural attractions but Salman Dalakov, the deputy tourism minister, insisted that Chechnya had many sights: "It is like Switzerland, only without the roads."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/20/wchech20.xml
LAHORE: At a time when the Taliban movement is making its strongest push in years to regain influence and territory in Afghanistan, Quetta has become an increasingly brazen hub of activity by the Islamist militia, the LA Times reported on Thursday.
Quetta serves as a place of rest and refuge for Taliban fighters between battles, a funneling point for cash and armaments, a fertile recruiting ground and a sometime meeting point for the group’s fugitive leaders, the report quoted aid workers, local officials, diplomats and others as saying.
“Everybody is here,” MNA Mahmood Khan Achakzai said while describing the routine comings and goings of senior Taliban commanders in Quetta. Quetta is a microcosm for these tensions. Local Pakistani authorities insist that they keep a tight lid on Taliban activity — a claim derided by many residents of this city of about 1.5 million people, and one backed by little demonstrable evidence.
Residents described nerve-racking random encounters with Taliban convoys bristling with weaponry and hearing volleys of automatic-weapons fire echoing from within some walled-off madrassas. Taliban recruitment videos sell briskly in stalls tucked between the gun emporiums and carpet shops of Quetta’s raucous main market, the report said.
“For the Taliban, this is considered to be a safe haven,” Syed Ali Shah, a journalist who writes for the Balochistan Times, told the LA Times. “They come here, they regroup and retrain.” At a local madrassa, black-turbaned young men gathered around a makeshift fountain on a recent day, performing their ablutions before noon prayers. One, then two, then half a dozen of them aimed steely glares at outsiders lingering near the rusty green gate of the mud-brick compound. The report said that the Taliban presence in Quetta is helped by the insular and secretive nature of Pashtun tribal society, the virtually unsecured border with Afghanistan and the city’s large population of Afghan refugees, with whom the militia’s members can readily blend.
The city also has close historic, ethnic and cultural ties to the Taliban’s birthplace, the Afghan city of Kandahar, a bone-jarring five hours away by road. Many Pashtun clans have roots on both sides of the border. Afghan provinces close to Balochistan have been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting this year between Taliban and Western and allied forces.
Today in Quetta, it’s almost as if the Taliban never went away, said the report. Some Taliban-affiliated madrassas operate almost in the shadow of police and military installations. On the main road that runs from the border town of Chaman to Quetta, there is only one police checkpoint. On a recent day, two police officers sat in a lean-to, drinking tea and barely glancing up at passing cars.
The Quetta police say they have rounded up hundreds of suspected Taliban militants in the last year, and report frequent raids on madrassas suspected of militant ties. “All the time we are harassing them,” said Quetta DIG Salman Syed Mohammed. But one Western aid official, speaking on condition of anonymity with the LA Times, described such roundups as a “catch-and-release” programme, with most of the detainees seen on the streets again within a matter of days.
The LA Times report said that militants deported to Afghanistan can make their way back to Pakistan at will, either travelling by motorbike on unmarked border trails or joining the crush of up to 6,000 people, mainly Afghans, who cross the border daily at Chaman. By mingling with refugees, wounded fighters are able to seek treatment in several Quetta hospitals. The International Committee of the Red Cross helps arrange medical care in Quetta for injured civilians, and says that inevitably some fighters slip in among them. “According to international law, once a wounded combatant has put down his weapon, it becomes a humanitarian case,” said Paul Fruh, who heads the Red Cross office in Quetta.
Although most local people are afraid to talk about sightings of senior Taliban figures, commanders are said to have unimpeded access to the city, even highly recognisable ones. “Dadullah roams these streets, and they know it,” said MNA Achakzai, referring to Mullah Dadullah, a one-legged Taliban commander with a reputation for egregious brutality. The report said that Pakistan’s security branches demonstrate far more efficiency in keeping track of Western outsiders, including foreign journalists, whose movements in and around Quetta are closely monitored. New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall was questioned this week by Pakistani security agents who forced their way into her Quetta hotel room and at one point struck her in the face, she said. Gall’s notes and laptop were seized but later returned. The US Embassy in Islamabad said it was looking into the incident.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006/12/22/story_22-12-2006_pg7_10
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=FRANCE
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=PAKISTAN
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http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20061222-Bin-Laden.html
HUNT FOR BIN LADEN
"'We had him in our line of fire'"
Posted 23 hours and 11 minutes ago
"French special forces in Afghanistan twice had Osama bin Laden in their sights, but were ordered to let him go, members of the force told FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Pakistan."
By Eric de Lavarene, FRANCE 24 correspondent
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "[Editor’s note: These allegations, made in a documentary filmed by Eric de Lavarène, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Pakistan, have been denied by the French Defence Ministry. The allegations are “a pure invention”, the ministry’s spokesperson, Jean-François Bureau, told AFP. According to the ministry, the special forces troops had only enough information to hypothesise about bin Laden’s location, and the allegations “do not correspond at all to the reality on the ground.” A spokesperson for the US Defense Department told FRANCE 24 it is “ridiculous” to believe that the US army was not trying to capture Osama Bin Laden.]"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=TURKEY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=HEZBOLLAH
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=HIZBALLAH
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=HIZBULLAH
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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23750_Hizballah_Spreading_to_Turkey&only
Friday, December 22, 2006
"Hizballah Spreading to Turkey"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757555/posts
6 Area Children With Flu On Life Support (Birmingham, Ala)
Birmingham News ^ | 12-22-2006 | Lisa Osburn
Posted on 12/22/2006 5:44:08 PM PST by blam
"6 area children with flu on life support
Number, severity of early cases alarm officials"
Friday, December 22, 2006
LISA OSBURN
News staff writer
WESTLAKE, Ohio -- One of the men accused of holding up a patient at a Westlake dentist's office is the head of a mosque on Reid Avenue in Lorain.
Imam Abdul Bari, 40, was arrested Wednesday morning, along with 26-year-old Bobby Joe Baker, of Michigan. Police say the two men robbed a woman and her son at knifepoint and then took off with $25.
Police said the two were apprehended in Elyria following a chase. Bari and Baker remain at the Westlake City Jail.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/10592426/detail.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=iran
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757523/posts
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2548
PolicyWatch #1179
"Iran’s Doctrine of Asymmetric Naval Warfare"
By Fariborz Haghshenass
December 21, 2006
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nyt
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=newyorktimes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=russia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757601/posts
"Blackmail fear after Russia doubles the price of its gas"
The Daily Mail ^ | December 23, 2006 | Staff
Posted on 12/22/2006 7:59:48 PM PST by MadIvan
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Fears that Russia is using energy supplies as a political weapon increased last night after Moscow forced Georgia to accept a doubling of gas prices."
I received an email regarding "Hunt for Bin Laden."
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1747324/posts?page=1128#1128 )
For you lurkers out there, see the article snippet in the post above.
and...
I agree with this statement:
"A spokesperson for the US Defense Department told FRANCE 24 it is “ridiculous” to believe that the US army was not trying to capture Osama Bin Laden."
Hope that clears it up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757619/posts
"Friend of U.N. Official Pleads Guilty in NYC Bribery Case"
AP via Yahoo ^ | December 21, 2006 | Larry Neumeister
Posted on 12/22/2006 8:45:12 PM PST by CutePuppy
NEW YORK (AP) -
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757621/posts
Rocket Attacks and Israeli Restraint Continue
Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews ^ | 12/22/6 | Hillel Fendel and Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Posted on 12/22/2006 8:53:06 PM PST by SmithL
Prime Minister Olmert's restraint continues in the face of Kassam rockets slamming into Israel. He and Palestinian Authority chairman Abbas are talking about meeting.
Two rockets slammed into Sderot Thursday, one of them striking a community center and another hitting an empty bus. Three people were injured by shrapnel or otherwise, and heavy damage was sustained. Another rocket frighteningly awakened city residents early Friday morning.
A separate attack on Thursday hit the port city of Ashkelon. The city is home to strategic oil and gas pipelines and a large electric power plant.
Some 45 Kassam rockets have been launched from Gaza against Israel since the November 26 truce went into effect, according to remarks made by Prime Minister Olmert Thursday afternoon.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Tzachi HaNegbi (Kadima) told Voice of Israel government radio Friday morning that counter-terrorist actions by Israel are inevitable.
HaNegbi supported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's policy of restraint on the assumption that it will give Israel a diplomatic advantage. He said the world will give Israel more "diplomatic credit" Israel for having held its end of the Gaza ceasefire obligation despite the incessant attacks against her.
The Prime Minister has withstood pressure from government ministers who have said "enough is enough" and that the time has come to strike back. Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor), a former senior IDF officer and ex-Defense Minister, said that "time has run out" for Abbas. Defense Minister Peretz, a resident of Sderot whose bodyguard lost his legs last month in a Kassam rocket attack, also asserted that the policy of restraint should be re-examined.
Opposition leader ex-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on the Prime Minister Thursday night to "free the IDF's hands" and resume counter-terrorist operations. "It is not the nation that is tired," Netanyahu said. "Olmert is tired. There is only one thing worse than a nation that has lost faith in its leaders, and that is leaders who have lost faith in their nation. I call on the Prime Minister to put an end to this restraint. It’s absurd that we are tying our own hands on this matter."
Speaking to a Likud gathering, Netanyahu asserted, "A leader needs to be an active authority, not a passive one [of] restraint and inaction."
Minister Rafi Eitan of the Pensioners Party predicted that Israel's restraint will end "sooner or later," and when it does, "it must be done in a way that will be interpreted by the world as an unavoidable option."
The security mini-cabinet will convene on Sunday to discuss the continued policy of restraint.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Olmert and Abbas say they are anxious to meet with each other before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the region in January.
"If it's possible to make [Abbas] happy and make me happy, then I can't see a reason not to [meet], and hope that it will happen very soon," Olmert said Thursday.
The PA news agency, Ma'an, reported that a meeting would be held this Monday, but Olmert's office has denied it and Abbas has not confirmed it.
http://newswithviews.com/Roth/laurie41.htm
"HAVE A NUCLEAR CHRISTMAS"
By Dr. Laurie Roth Ph.D.
December 22, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
COMMENTARY SNIPPET: "We had better realize SOON that Ahmadinejad is evil and will fulfill is threats including sharing nuclear technology with his neighbors and many terrorist groups and with our lack of border security, they can just sneak little suitcase nukes right over the border, while we continue to arrest and mock our border patrol agents for trying to stop them! We couldn't possibly give the border patrol REAL power to stop illegal, mystery people coming across our borders. Can you imagine if they used an evil gun to actually shoot at a terrorist trying to smuggle nukes or dirty bombs in? How messy and mean! It's less messy to many to allow Kansas, D.C. and New York to blow up. Who cares about millions of body parts flung everywhere. We just have to be sensitive to the needs of the terrorists.
It is time as a country to get on a real war footing if we want to stay alive. Our President and congress needs to snap out of it and REALLY secure the borders. If we need military on the borders to do it then pull some from all the calm places around the world we have them sitting like in Japan, Europe etc……Isn't it in our face right now to secure our borders as opposed to having troops all over? Secondly, our President needs to actually declare WAR so he really can use other acts to search facilities and certain Mosques without threat of endless legal and media assaults….frankly, the patriot act IS NOT enough to follow, link and capture all the thugs that are all over. Thirdly, we need to get into a war attitude as people and get prepared to sacrifice, save, help each other, watch our neighborhoods, put back some food and water, knowing if things escalate and this war now has Iran in the headlights, gas prices will shoot dramatically up.
To survive, we must be prepared emotionally, spiritually, financially and with a fighting spirit to win…..not to feel the enemy's pain, understand their suffering and how we brought it to them, and to endlessly talk with them!"
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=taliban
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=taleban
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=osmani&btnG=Search+News
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Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757659/posts
U.S. airstrike kills top Taliban leader
Associated Press ^ | December 23, 2006
Posted on 12/23/2006 2:21:03 AM PST by HAL9000
KABUL, Afghanistan - A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Saturday.
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was killed Tuesday by a U.S. airstrike while traveling by vehicle in a deserted area in the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said.
Osmani was the Taliban's chief military commander in southern Afghanistan and played a "central role in facilitating terrorist operations" including roadside bombs, suicide attacks and kidnappings, the U.S. said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=HAMAS
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014517.php
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53474
"Hamas threatens
attacks on U.S.
Terrorist warns 'Middle East
is full of American targets'"
Posted: December 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "TEL AVIV – Members of Hamas are debating whether to carry out attacks against the United States and may hit American targets if the U.S. continues to support Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' call for new elections, Hamas leaders told WND in a series of interviews.
"There is no doubt that Abu Mazen (Abbas) was encouraged to decide early elections after receiving American promises to support him politically and military," Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, the group's declared "resistance" department, told WND."
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