Ya'alon: Bin Laden's location known
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1115867641034
The IDF's chief of General Staff said in an interview published Wednesday that the location of al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden is known, and he is in hiding on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier.
"I don't think that they don't known where he is. There are operational difficulties in putting your hands on him, for all sorts of reasons. But it is not true that they don't know where he is located," Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon told Maariv.
Ya'alon, a former head of IDF Intelligence, said, "Ultimately, in order to get your hands on him you will need what we perfected and that is what we call 'targeted assassination.'"
Three killed as Afghan protests over Koran spread
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5779790&cKey=1115938219000
LOGAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Demonstrations spread in Afghanistan on Thursday over a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, and officials said three protesters were killed.
Several hundred students shouting "Death to America" held a peaceful protest in the capital, Kabul, but elsewhere demonstrations turned violent, a day after four people were killed and 70 wounded in riots in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Angry villagers in a district southwest of Jalalabad, some of them armed, tried to march to the city but were blocked by police, officials and witnesses said.
Protesters threw stones at police and gunfire broke out, and two protesters were killed, said district chief Muhammad Omar.
"The protesters were armed but they didn't fire at police," said villager Shair Ali.
Newsweek magazine said in a recent issue that investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had found interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet".
Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.
Saudi Arabia, Islam's birthplace, said it was following the issue with "deep indignation" and called for a swift probe of the allegations, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Muslims to resist calls for violence.
"We have heard from our Muslim friends around the world about their concerns on this matter. We understand and we share their concerns," Rice said.
"I am asking that all our friends around the world reject incitement to violence by those who would mischaracterise our intentions," she added.
Protests began in Jalalabad on Tuesday. The following day police fired on crowds after state offices were torched, shops looted, and U.N. buildings and diplomatic missions attacked.
Elsewhere on Thursday, protesters attacked police and government offices in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.
An ammunition store was torched and exploded, killing one protester, said an Interior Ministry spokesman.
Protesters in Logar province south of Kabul, blocked a main road and chanted "Death to Bush" and "Long live Islam".
Armed with clubs and stones, they damaged police vehicles, a government office, just opened by President Hamid Karzai last week, and an office of the CARE aid group, witnesses said.
Police on rooftops ducked behind walls to avoid stones, firing into the air to scatter the protesters, who regrouped and hurled stones again. Several police were hurt.
U.S. and other foreign troops have not been involved in policing the protests, leaving that to Afghan authorities.
"REPUGNANT DESECRATION"
The United States has sought to defuse the anger by expressing outrage at the report and promising an investigation.
"A desecration of religious texts and objects is repugnant to common values and anathema to the American people," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
The United States is holding more than 500 prisoners from its war on terrorism at the naval base on Cuba. Many of them were detained in Afghanistan after U.S.-led troops drove the Taliban from power in 2001.
Kabul students burned a U.S. flag and shouted slogans against Washington, Karzai and his U.S.-backed government. They demanded punishment for those they said desecrated the Koran.
Apart from Kabul, protests have flared in predominantly ethnic Pashtun areas. The Taliban drew most support from conservative Pashtun clans in the south and east. Pashtuns are Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
An Afghan analyst said Muslim outrage over the desecration report sparked the protests, not hatred of America.
"Afghan people don't have anti-American feeling but some Afghans might be angry with the behaviour of American troops," said Qasim Akhgar, a writer and human rights worker.
The United Nations said preparations for a September election would not be disrupted.
Reuters
Good find, thank you. Perhaps that's why they are sending an extra 800 police to the Northern Frontier (among other reasons).
That's an intriguing little story.