| 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 ...
Marines Kill Two Haitians in Gun Battles
By PETER PRENGAMAN and IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writers
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. Marines shot and killed at least two gunmen who opened fire near the private residence of Haiti's outgoing prime minister, Staff Sgt. Timothy Edwards told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
It was the third fatal shooting by U.S. Marines in three days. On Sunday, they killed an alleged gunman who opened fire on a demonstration, and on Monday they killed a driver speeding toward a checkpoint.
Edwards said the Marines were patrolling Tuesday evening near the private residence of outgoing Prime Minister Yvon Neptune when they came under "hostile fire." He said they then shot and killed at least two gunmen. No peacekeepers were wounded.
U.S. Southern Command spokesman Raul Duany said the gunmen were shooting from a rooftop near the prime minister's residence.
The U.S. Defense Department has defended the Marines' actions, saying they acted within their orders to fire when they felt threatened.
The shooting came as peacekeepers tried to begin disarming the general population, a potentially volatile move after weeks of bloodshed. There was little evidence of peacekeeper disarmament early Wednesday.
Many supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were angry over the decision Tuesday to name Gerard Latortue as the country's new prime minister. Latortue, who lives in Miami and has been critical of Aristide, was scheduled to arrive in Haiti later Wednesday.
"He doesn't understand the reality of the country," said Jacques Pierre, a 49-year-old Aristide supporter. "He doesn't understand our hunger."
Latortue, a former U.N. official and foreign minister, faces the difficult task of helping to restore peace in this troubled Caribbean nation following a monthlong insurgency that helped drive Aristide from power on Feb. 29.
"I can facilitate the national reconciliation," Latortue told The Miami Herald in an article published Wednesday. "It is the most important thing today in Haiti after all the divisions we had in Aristide.
"It is time for us to forget our differences and come together for the country in this bicentennial year."
Aristide fled after rebels seized control of half the country, sparking a frenzy of looting and violence. More than 400 people have died in the rebellion and reprisal killings.
In exile in Central African Republic, Aristide claimed he was forced out by the U.S. government and insisted that he was still the president of Haiti. The U.S. government has denied the claim.
On Wednesday, Aristide's lawyers said they were preparing cases accusing authorities in the United States and France of abducting him and forcing him into exile.
In the United States, "there are preparations for a kidnapping case against the American authorities," U.S. lawyer Brian Concannon said in Paris after meeting Aristide in Central African Republic. Concannon did not provide further details.
Another U.S. lawyer for Aristide, Ira Kurzban, has sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the circumstances of Aristide's departure.
Aristide has been staying in the presidential palace in Central African Republic since March 1. A delegation of South African officials arrived there Wednesday for talks with Aristide about his long-term asylum plans, Central African Republic officials said.
U.S. Col. Charles Gurganus told reporters in Port-au-Prince that a joint disarmament program with Haitian police would begin Wednesday. He called on Haitians to tell peacekeepers who has weapons and to turn in any arms, but he gave few details of how the program will work.
"The disarmament will be both active and reactive, but I'm not going to say any more about that," he said. Rebel groups and Aristide loyalists have threatened violence if weapons aren't taken away from their enemies.
Since the U.S.- and French-led peacekeepers arrived a week ago, there has been confusion over who is in charge of disarming groups. On Monday, Gurganus said disarming rebels was not part of the peacekeepers' mission, but he indicated that could change if police asked for help.
After five days of private meetings, the seven-member Council of Sages settled on Latortue, who also served as an international business consultant in Miami.
Latortue and interim President Boniface Alexandre will work toward organizing elections and building a new government for Haiti. Under Aristide, the prime minister's position was largely ceremonial. But Latortue's position will be that of a powerbroker and has the potential of carrying enough weight to smooth political divisions.
Council member Dr. Ariel Henry said Latortue was chosen because the council believed he was "an independent guy, a democrat." Councilor Anne-Marie Issa described him as someone "to pull everybody together."
Neptune stayed in his post even after Aristide fled the country, and Aristide opponents have demanded that he be replaced.
Also Tuesday, CIA Director George J. Tenet warned that in Haiti, "a humanitarian disaster or mass migration remains possible."
"A cycle of clashes and revenge killings could easily be set off, given the large number of angry, well-armed people on both sides," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) in Washington. "Improving security will require the difficult task of disarming armed groups and augmenting and retraining a national security force."
U.S. forces in Haiti, about 1,600 strong, have a limited set of circumstances during which they can use deadly force. They cannot stop looting, even of American companies, nor can they stop Haitian-on-Haitian violence, officials said.
Aristide was a popular slum priest, elected on promises to champion the poor who make up the vast majority of Haiti's 8 million people. But he has lost support, with Haitians saying he failed to improve their lives, condoned corruption and used police and armed supporters to attack political opponents.
___
Associated Press Writers Paisley Dodds and Michael Norton contributed to this story from Port-au-Prince and Kingston, Jamaica.
By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen posing as police at a makeshift checkpoint south of Baghdad killed two American civilians and their Iraqi translator — all employees of the U.S.-led coalition, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
In the northern town of Kirkuk, gunmen wounded three American soldiers near a stadium, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
The gunmen escaped after Monday's attack on soldiers from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, Army spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said. The wounded were airlifted to Baghdad for treatment, he said at the American base in the central city of Tikrit.
In another southern area, four Iraqi policemen died in a shootout with a local militia.
The deaths at the checkpoint came when the gunmen stopped the car Tuesday night outside Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad, Polish Col. Robert Strzelecki said. The attackers shot the passengers and then took the vehicle, he said.
Polish troops later intercepted the car, arrested five Iraqis in it and found the bodies inside, said Strzelecki, speaking from the Camp Babylon headquarters of the Polish-led multinational force in Iraq. In Baghdad, a coalition spokesman confirmed the deaths.
Authorities did not immediately release the victims' identities. The Polish News Agency reported that one of those killed worked for the coalition press office.
Checkpoints manned by Iraqis or coalition forces are common on Iraq's main roads, and this appeared to be the first time gunmen have posed as police at a roadblock.
Further south, Iraqi police tried Tuesday night to enter a building where a Shiite militia was holding two civilians in the city of Nasiriyah, a coalition spokesman said. In a shootout, four Iraqi policemen were killed and two wounded.
The standoff finally ended when Italian security forces stormed the building, rescued the civilians and arrested eight militia members, the spokesman said. One Italian Carabinieri officer was slightly injured.
The militia, known as Citizens' Security Group, acts as a security force for a number of Shiite political parties. Such militias, which in some towns try to enforce a brand of Islamic law, often have tense relations with the U.S.-trained Iraqi police force.
In the western town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, gunmen killed two police officers and critically wounded a third Wednesday while the police were having lunch in a restaurant, police said.
Meanwhile, Abul Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship that left a wheelchair-bound American tourist dead, died of natural causes while in American custody in Baghdad, U.S. officials in Iraq said Wednesday.
Abbas, who died Monday, was captured by U.S. forces in April, nearly two decades after being convicted in absentia by an Italian court and sentenced to life in prison for the hijacking.
A statement from the U.S.-led coalition did not elaborate on the cause of death. There was an attempt to revive the 56-year-old Abbas, it said.
Abbas' small Palestine Liberation Front commandeered the Italian cruise ship, demanded the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and threw an elderly Jewish American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, overboard after shooting him.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police arrested a prominent member in the northern Iraq-based militant group Ansar al-Islam, an Iraqi Kurd known as Ayoub al-Afghani, in Baghdad late Tuesday and handed him over to coalition forces, a Kurdish security official in Kirkuk said.
Also, the former head of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in the town of Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, surrendered to U.S. troops Tuesday, O'Brien said. He did not comment on whether the official, Waleed al-Ayeesh, was suspected of involvement in anti-U.S. violence.
In Baqouba, northwest of Baghdad, a bomb went off near the offices of Iraq's largest Shiite party, wounding two people, said party spokesman Haithem al-Husseini.
Al-Husseini, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, blamed the attack on former Saddam loyalists and terrorists "trying to spread chaos in the country."
The Baqouba bombing came a day after Shiite leaders criticized Iraq's interim constitution, clouding national unity ahead of the planned June 30 turnover of power by the coalition to Iraq.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the most influential cleric to Iraq's Shiite majority, initiated the latest episode of political wrangling. His objections to the interim charter prompted his supporters on the 25-seat Governing Council to refuse to sign the document Friday.
Citing a pressing need to safeguard national unity and push forward the political process, al-Sistani's supporters signed the constitution Monday, but made clear their reservations about parts of the document and their wish to change them.
On Tuesday, another grand ayatollah, Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi, warned of civil war or dismemberment of Iraq because of the charter's adoption of a federal government system. SCIRI's leader, Governing Council member Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, said the document encroached on the powers of a future parliament.
The final rule clarifies that foreign flag SOLAS vessel owners do not have to submit security plans to the Coast Guard for approval. Non-SOLAS foreign vessels will be required to have either Coast Guard-approved security plans, comply with an alternative security plan, or comply with measures specified in a bilateral or multilateral agreement. With a stringent and thorough boarding program, the Coast Guard will examine and enforce the vessel's compliance with international security regulations. Vessels not in compliance may be denied entry into U.S. ports.
The final rules amend cargo-screening requirements, mandating the checking of cargo for evidence of tampering, but no longer require the screening of cargo for dangerous substances The Department of Homeland Security will explore enhanced solutions, including the development of comprehensive cargo screening guidelines.
Security plans are required for all vessels, exemptions are as follows:
Passenger vessels that do not carry more than 150 passengers, regardless of how many are overnight passengers
With news that execs are given multimillion dollar bonuses in light of the layoffs, there is likely to be consumer backlash which won't do much to benefit Kraft sales. Those execs, while raising their own standard of living, are destroying the brand name, the people who worked for them, and the company itself. Shame on them.
Wed Mar 10, 7:03 AM ET
By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe authorities alleged that a cargo plane impounded in Harare on suspicion of carrying 64 mercenaries was hired by a South African mercenary organization and British special forces, state television reported.
The television said Tuesday that investigations in Zimbabwe showed the plane, impounded late Sunday at the main Harare international airport, was linked to a South African firm known as "Executive Outcomes" that in the past hired mostly former apartheid era South African soldiers for mercenary and security work across Africa.
The television quoted Zimbabwe Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi saying British SAS, or Special Air Service, forces were believed also to have been involved.
He did not elaborate.
No comment was immediately available from Britain or South Africa on those charges.
State television said the plane was carrying 20 South African nationals and groups of Angolans, Congolese, Namibians and one Zimbabwean carrying a South African passport.
The crew of the aging Boeing 727 claimed the plane was headed for the central African nations of the Congo and Burundi and was carrying mineral mining personnel.
Earlier, South Africa's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Jerry Ndou, was attempting to verify the status of those on board the plane, the South African Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
"Should the allegations that those South Africans on board are involved in mercenary activities prove true, this would amount to a serious breach of the Foreign Military Assistance Act, which expressly prohibits the involvement of South Africans in military activities outside South Africa without the due authorization of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee," Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said in a statement released late Monday.
The small west African state of Equatorial Guinea, where rich oil deposits were recently discovered, has said it is investigating reports foreign mercenaries were being recruited earlier this year to overthrow the government.
Zimbabwe state television on Monday broadcast footage of a white plane with a blue stripe containing satellite telephones, radios, backpacks, sleeping bags, hiking boots, an inflatable raft, bolt cutters and what appeared to be a can of Mace. No weapons were shown.
The plane and its passengers were taken to a nearby military airfield, the station said.
The plane's registration number, N4610, is assigned to Dodson Aviation Inc. of Ottawa, Kan., in the United States. However, company director Robert Dodson said it had sold the aircraft about a week ago.
IMHO Viacom can keep MTV and MTV2 because they are nothing more than rap stations. Viacom is holding DISH network hostage to cover the exorbitant amounts they pay their artists. Another clear cut case of corporate greed - a 40% increase demanded by Viacom is indeed wantonly injurious terrorism to our economy!
I wonder if Avian influenza is transmittable in eggs?
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants attacked a remote U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan with rockets and heavy machine-guns, sparking a battle that killed a bystander, the military said Wednesday. The main American base in the south also came under rocket assault.
At least a dozen guerrillas assailed the outpost at Nangalam, about 100 miles east of the capital Kabul, in Kunar province early on Tuesday morning.
The attackers shot about 20 rockets then opened fire on the base, which houses about 100 U.S. Marines and special forces, but inflicted no American casualties, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said.
U.S. forces responded with gunfire and called in an A-10 ground attack aircraft.
"We discovered blood moving into the hills, so it appeared that some of the enemy were wounded," Hilferty said.
Hilferty said an Afghan civilian wounded in the crossfire died in hospital in the provincial capital Asadabad.
Kunar Gov. Fazel Akbar said another man was injured and that investigators were trying to establish if he was a militant.
Kunar is the northernmost of a string of troubled Afghan provinces along the border with Pakistan where the 13,000-strong U.S.-led coalition is focusing its campaign against militants.
At the southern end of that arc, rockets were fired early Wednesday at the U.S. base at the airport near Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city.
Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government, said three rockets were fired into an empty area of the base grounds.
But Hilferty said there were two rockets and that they landed "several kilometers (miles)" from the airfield.
There were no reports of injuries.
Pashtun blamed remnants of the Taliban regime ousted by a U.S.-led assault in late 2001 for the attack.
Taliban militants are believed to have teamed up with remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and fighters loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to fight the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai.
At least 140 people have died in violence in Afghanistan so far this year, including aid workers and government employees as well as Afghan and international troops and militants.
Tuesday's assault was "relatively large-scale" for Kunar, Hilferty said. "The people of that area have liked us very much, but that appears to be an area where Hekmatyar forces are operating."
Kunar and the neighboring Chitral region of Pakistan form an area of deep forested valleys and snowcapped mountains where both Hekmatyar and bin Laden have at times been rumored to hold out.
U.S. commanders have vowed to capture the pair and also Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar this year, and are focusing their efforts along the rugged border regions.
___
Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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.