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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]
MOSCOW - An explosion tore through the upper floors of a Moscow apartment building before dawn Sunday, Russia news agencies reported. Authorities said it may have been caused by a gas leak.
The blast hit about 4 a.m., destroying several apartments in the buildings and causing an unknown number of casualties, the reports said.
The explosion struck a 12-story building on Chertanovsky Street, a thoroughfare on the southern edge of the city.
The cause of the blast was not immediately determined, although authorities said initial indications were that it was caused by gas.
Natural gas explosions in Russia's often-shabby apartment buildings are not uncommon, but fears about terrorism are running high in the wake of a series of explosions that authorities blame on Chechen separatist rebels, including a bombing last month on the Moscow subway that killed 41 people.
Some 300 people died in apartment explosions in September 1999 that officials blamed on the rebels.
...34 "But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may *be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
---JESUS from Luke 21
Sounds like it's happening right now doesn't it?
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip - Palestinian gunmen and suicide car bombers staged an elaborate attack against a major Israeli checkpoint on Saturday, in what militant groups called revenge for recent airstrikes targeting their members.
Four assailants and two Palestinian policemen were killed, but no Israeli soldiers were hurt.
The attackers used vehicles that looked nearly identical to Israeli army jeeps, complete with military markings, black-and-white army license plates and flashing lights on the roof. It was the latest surge of violence ahead of a proposed Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Militants said Saturday they were stepping up attacks to show they were forcing Israel out of Gaza. Israel was expected to intensify military strikes ahead of a withdrawal to avoid the impression of surrender. Seven Palestinians have been killed in targeted Israeli air strikes in Gaza City in the past week.
The attack began at about 10 a.m. when a Palestinian taxi sped into the Erez crossing zone between Gaza and Israel and exploded just outside a heavily fortified army checkpoint.
Moments later, two more attackers in a jeep with Israeli military markings pulled up. One of the men jumped out and opened fire with an assault rifle. Troops fired back, killing the pair.
A second vehicle disguised as an army jeep blew up outside the crossing zone, apparently after Palestinian policemen guarding the Gaza side blocked its path. Two Palestinian policemen were killed.
The military said they were hit by the spray of shrapnel as the third car exploded, but Palestinian hospital officials said the two had gunshot wounds. Nineteen people, including police officers and taxi drivers, were wounded, two of them critically.
The three main Palestinian militant groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades — said they were behind the attack, calling it a joint "self-sacrifice operation."
The attacks followed promises of revenge for recent the air strikes.
Body parts were strewn around the wreckage of two vehicles from the attack. One of the jeep's engines sat in the road, and a dog lay dead in a thick pool of blood.
"The sound of the explosion was huge and powerful, followed by intense machine gun fire from the Israeli army outpost," taxi driver Ali al-Basyouni, 38, said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) has said he would withdraw from much of the Gaza Strip if peace talks with the Palestinians remain frozen in coming months. Sharon says the "disengagement" is meant to reduce friction with the Palestinians during an interim period, until talks on a final peace deal can resume.
The Palestinians suspect Sharon is trying to avoid negotiations during which he presumably would have to give up more land than in a unilateral withdrawal. They fear Israeli-imposed boundaries could become permanent.
Israel will hold off on a withdrawal from Gaza until after the November presidential election in the United States, security officials said this week.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the air force would keep sending helicopters and warplanes to launch airstrikes against militants at every chance.
At Saturday's funeral for the two Palestinian policemen killed earlier in the day, a member of Al Aqsa told a crowd that militants would continue attacks until Sharon pulls soldiers out of Gaza.
"He (Sharon) is not leaving Gaza because he is feels like it; he is being forced to leave Gaza," the man said.
Hanni al-Masri, a reporter at the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, said the Palestinian militants want any withdrawal to look like they pushed the Israelis out.
The Erez crossing has been attacked several times during more than three years of fighting. Past attacks have temporarily shut down the crossing zone's large industrial park, where 6,000 Palestinians work in factories.
Also Saturday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian policeman in a West Bank refugee camp.
Israeli forces on a routine patrol in the Tulkarem refugee camp opened fire after the man aimed an assault rifle at them during a clash between soldiers and dozens of stone-throwing youths, an army spokeswoman said.
Israel bars Palestinian security forces in the West Bank from carrying weapons and has told Palestinian commanders that any officers spotted on the streets with weapons could be considered hostile combatants, the spokeswoman said.
Sat Mar 6, 3:05 PM ET
CRAWFORD, Texas - A cargo ship left Libya on Saturday carrying the last of the equipment that Moammar Gadhafi's government had used for its nuclear weapons program, a White House spokesman said.
The ship steamed for the United States laden with 500 tons of material containing "all known remaining equipment" associated with Libya's nuclear program, which it agreed last year to abandon.
The equipment included "all centrifuge parts and all equipment from its former uranium conversion facility," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters covering President Bush's long weekend at his Texas ranch.
The shipment also contained all of Libya's longer-range missiles, including five Scud-Cs, McCormack said.
In addition, "All Libya's known chemical munitions have been destroyed," he said, and stocks of mustard gas were removed from vulnerable warehouses and stored in a single, secure facility.
Last week, Libya made the first concrete move to eliminate its stockpiles when it destroyed 3,300 bombs specifically intended to carry chemical payloads.
U.S. experts plan to open discussions with Libyan weapons scientists beginning Sunday about retraining them for peaceful projects, McCormack said.
In December, Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs.
The country is trying to end its international isolation and restore relations with the United States.
Sat Mar 6, 5:45 PM ET
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. special-operations snipers killed nine suspected Taliban militants in the Afghan mountains bordering Pakistan, the military said Saturday, marking one of American forces' deadliest engagement in months.
The military would not say if the clash marked the start of a promised spring offensive to capture Osama bin Laden, though a spokesman said the fighting began when as many as 40 suspected Taliban tried to flank the position held by the Americans and their Afghan army allies.
Over the past two weeks, U.S. commanders have pledged what they call a hammer-and-anvil approach for the spring thaw into summer, with the crucial support of Pakistan troops on their own side of the Afghan frontier.
Under that plan, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region where terror suspects are thought to be hiding becomes the anvil against which terror suspects would be hammered, the military said.
With bin Laden and other top al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives the subject of redoubled U.S. attention, the world's news crews have launched a spring offensive of their own. U.S. news organizations are rapidly boosting staff in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
But after touting the planned offensive, the U.S. military now appears bent on tamping down expectations.
"I don't have any other information about Osama bin Laden," military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said at a news conference Saturday at the U.S. base in Kabul.
Hilferty addressed reporters before a budding almond tree, its white blooms testifying to the warming air in the Kabul valley, and the melting snow in the Afghanistan-Pakistan mountains where bin Laden may be hiding.
"If I knew where he was, I would go get him," he said. In January, Hilferty had said he was "sure" the United States and its allies would catch bin Laden by the end of the year.
Pakistan's interior minister echoed that sentiment in a television interview broadcast Saturday, saying it is only a matter of time before bin Laden and his followers are captured.
"There is an operation going on," Faisal Saleh Hayyat told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite channel. "Osama bin Laden or some of his followers will probably be captured within days or weeks if these operations continue. Also, perhaps it will take more time until they are captured."
Hilferty on Saturday did not specifically answer a question about whether the latest operations were the start of the promised spring offensive, reminding reporters that there had been patrols throughout the winter as well.
The Friday operation in which the Taliban fighters were killed involved a roughly 10-man U.S. special operations group, Hilferty said. It occurred near Orgun, 20 miles from the Pakistan border. None of the U.S. soldiers nor their Afghan allies were injured or killed.
On Thursday, American forces detained 14 suspected Taliban north of Khost, another Afghan town near the Pakistan border, Hilferty said.
He denied one recent report that U.S. forces were hunting bin Laden in Tora Bora, the same cave complex pounded by U.S. forces throughout December 2001 in the belief the al-Qaida leader was hiding there.
No American forces under U.S. Central Command were carrying out any extraordinary operations there, Hilferty said.
Mayor Haji Abdullah, whose Pachir Wa Agam district abuts Tora Bora, told The Associated Press he had seen no American military vehicles nor aircraft in recent days. Local residents agreed.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a vital U.S. ally in the war against terror, on Feb. 24 launched what was only Pakistan's fourth sweep in tribal-held lands bordering Afghanistan — traditionally off-limits to the country's military.
Simultaneously, Pakistan's government was arresting tribal leaders for failing to turn over terror suspects — employing a British-colonial era practice.
American tactics inside Afghanistan are changing as well. U.S. commanders are deploying smaller troop units, sent out with a mission to become better acquainted in Afghan communities.
Hilferty said Saturday the tactic already was yielding better intelligence.
So far, however, there have been no big breaks — or at least none that have been announced.
If you research bio-weapons, you will be surprised to see how many of the symptoms for the various bio-agents are similar: respiratory distress, fever, chills, headache, backache, muscle pain, shortness of breath, hacking cough, chest pain, swollen glands. Your life could hinge of how quicky you sought medical treatment, if treatment for that agent was available. Scary stuff if you think you only have the flu or a nasty virus (which indeed it would be).
Malaysian Islamic Leader Promises Heaven
Sat Mar 6, 7:28 PM ET
By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Lighting a torch under one of Malaysia's most volatile issues, the spiritual leader of the fundamentalist Islamic opposition said people who vote for it in upcoming elections will go to heaven and implied government supporters are destined for hell.
Nik Aziz Nik Mat, a 72-year-old cleric held in high esteem by millions of ethnic Malay Muslims, was quoted in a newspaper report Saturday, days after election officials warned candidates not to bring religion into the campaign at the risk of disqualification.
Religion and ethnicity are multicultural Malaysia's most sensitive issues, and contributed to race riots 30 years ago that still resonate in today's society. Political parties remain largely divided along ethnic lines, though both the opposition and the government are in multi-ethnic coalitions.
"It is stated in the Quran that those who rally behind Islam are also those who want to live under divine laws laid down by Allah," Nik Aziz was quoted as saying in The Star newspaper. "And naturally, they will go to heaven for choosing an Islamic party, while those who support un-Islamic parties will logically go to hell."
Anuar Bukhary, Nik Aziz's press secretary, told The Associated Press the quotes were accurate.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's secular government claims the fundamentalists use Islam for political gain and foment extremism, while the opposition charges that UMNO is immoral and not Islamic enough.
Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who retired in October after 22 years in power but has vowed to help Abdullah win the election, responded to the claim by taunting his old foe.
"I want to ask Nik Aziz, when is he going to heaven to see if those who voted for the party made it there?" Mahathir, 78, was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama.
"If it is true, then rogues and rapists will surely go to heaven if they join the party and vote for it," Mahathir said.
Abdullah has called elections for March 21. Days before the announcement this week, the head of the Election Commission, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, warned that laws state that candidates who promise favors from God could lose their parliamentary seats.
However, the opposition and government have fought political debates on the issue before, and no punitive action has been taken.
Both Nik Aziz's Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party and Abdullah's United Malays National Organization compete for votes from ethnic Malay Muslims, who are about 60 percent of the country's 25 million population.
Malaysia is one of the Islamic world's most progressive and dynamic countries, with the Muslim majority living peacefully alongside large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities who are mostly Buddhists, Christians and Hindus.
In recent years, the fundamentalists have gained influence in the conservative Muslim-dominated rural areas in Malaysia's north and east. They control two of Malaysia's 13 states and aim to claim more after this election.
But national power is almost certainly out of reach, with Abdullah's 14-party coalition holding a huge Parliamentary majority.
The Islamic party wants to make Malaysia an Islamic state and advocates a Taliban-style criminal code, including execution by stoning — policies that push non-Muslims and liberal Muslims into supporting the government.
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