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Locked on 09/01/2006 9:06:58 PM PDT by Lead Moderator, reason:
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Posted on 08/01/2006 9:51:52 PM PDT by nwctwx
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Also, how do you explain the similar case in Ohio where they found passenger and flight lists in the car. I'm sure that was innocent too. Our hands are so tied with PC that we're never going to get anywhere.
I don't get it, FFNJ.
In this article, 2 men are charged with lying (about why they bought the phones) - so what did they say?
Our agencies really need to start thinking a couple of steps ahead of these guys on all fronts.
Another Suspect Arrested in London Mid-Air Terror Plot
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
....."A suspect has been arrested in connection with the investigation and is in custody in the Thames Valley area," a police spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity to comply with department rules.....
....London's Metropolitan police said the suspect was detained around noon in the Thames Valley area just west of London but offered no more details, including the person's gender or identity.....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208457,00.html
Truck Hits Jetliner on L.A. Taxiway
LOS ANGELES Aug 15, 2006 (AP)— A cargo truck struck a Qantas Airways jet as it taxied to a Los Angeles airport terminal, damaging the plane's engine but causing no injuries, officials said.
The Boeing 747 was carrying more than 300 people from Australia and had just landed when it was hit by the truck Monday.....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2315809
Al Qaeda in Drag
Al Qaeda's newest tactic to elude American forces appears to be dressing in drag.
A key al Qaeda operative who was dressed as a woman was killed in eastern Afghanistan, according to the U.S. military.
It was the third time in just three weeks that al Qaeda operatives wearing women's clothing have been captured or killed by coalition forces, Coalition spokesman Colonel Tom Collins told ABC News.(snip)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/al_qaeda_in_dra.html
Vel - If you want a good laugh, here's a follow up to the story you broke here yesterday (Afghani swimmer):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1684126/posts
Godzilla Observations
This is the final for this series. If things start to go down hill again, I'll be back on. Surprisingly, the cease fire is actually holding. This points to the fact that the military wing of Hezbollah has become a semi-professional force with a command and control structure capable of keeping control. Unless IDF gets aggressive about stopping Hezbollah reinforcements, removing stored munitions, etc, I now expect things to be relatively calm.
Some think that Hamas will be able to duplicate Hezbollah’s success. First off, the don’t have the discipline seen in Hezbollah. Secondly, they don’t have the abundant munitions and sophisticated training necessary to operate those items. Thirdly, they don’t have a good bunker system established. And finally, they are still at odds with the PA over who actually leads.
Iran continues to beat its chest at how successful they were for their part in training and equipping Hezbollah. Grudgingly they have a right to be, they forced Israel to fight the war on their terms and held their own.
Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is now facing scrutiny regarding not only his ability to lead the IDF, but his integrity regarding finances. He will eventually have to step down or he will be forced out.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also facing fire for his (mis)handling of the war. Reservists coming out of Lebanon are furious over how they were jerked around and the overall organizational support (to say the least). However, the political sharks are smelling blood, and once things are stabilized to the north, Olmert will likely get hammered hard and forced out. As one put it “Olmert is Israel’s John Kerry”.
Israel’s inability to shut down Hezbollah has emboldened Syria’s Assad to look to military means to regain the Golan Heights. Thus the inability to deal with one crisis has allowed it to grow. However, I don’t expect Syria to do anything just yet as his army is no where near capable of starting anything because of outdated and broken equipment and the tactics for a conventional offensive campaign are significantly different than those successfully employed by Hezbollah. The only way Syria would be successful would be an attack following a MAJOR WMD strategic strike against Israel, where they could take advantage of the disorder and chaos created. The fact that Syria has remove their landmines is a clear indicator that they have an offensive in mind, and August 22 is not too far off.
I really do appreciate your updates. Thanks.
Possibly a follow-up to the earlier Montpelier, Indiana story:
"Hartford City police question men for potential terrorist activities"
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060815/NEWS06/60815005
Observation: This afternoon at about 4:00 pm I received a NJ Transit email alert that service was suspended in both directions between Penn Station and Secaucus due to "police activity". Secaucus is the last stop before you enter the tunnel into Penn Station. For some reason, they weren't letting trains in or out of the tunnel. Anyway, when I left work at 5:30 pm there were 4 heavily armed swat cops and bomb sniffing dogs outside my building. This is the first time I have ever seen them here. There is a major subway station right downstairs. What I personally took away from both of these incidents is that the city is on a high transit alert. Everyone commuting or traveling tomorrow keep a heads up and stay safe.
I heard this on the news here on the west coast they reported here of them finding some type of device on the tracks or something to that effect.
Northeast Corridor Train Service Back To Normal
Fallen Drum Of Hydraulic Oil Cause Of Earlier Shutdown
(AP) NEW YORK Police activity along the Northeast Corridor closed down the busy commuter rail line outside New York City for more than an hour as the evening rush hour geared up Tuesday.
NJ Transit was in the process of restoring service, Dan Stessel, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit, said shortly before 5 p.m.
"The police are off the tracks," he said.
By about 6 p.m., Stessel was saying that service was back to normal.
In a statement, Amtrak said service was restored at 4:35 p.m. after an investigation determined that a drum of hydraulic oil had fallen off a work train on nearby tracks on the New Jersey side.
Stessel said some delays were expected for NJ Transit passengers in the early part of Tuesday's rush hour. He advised passengers to check NJ Transit's Web site for more detailed information.
Amtrak temporarily suspended service at about 3:40 p.m. due to a discovery of a leak of what was then an unknown substance near tracks on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River Tunnel, Amtrak officials said in a statement.
Stessel said police were on the tracks just east of Secaucus.
Thanks - I haven't heard anything or seen any reports yet.
Thanks for the update Jill. Story starting to hit the wires now.
New Jersey Transit Service Disrupted By Police Activity
NEWARK, N.J. -- Police activity along the Northeast Corridor closed down the busy commuter rail line outside New York City for more than an hour as the evening rush hour geared up Tuesday.
http://www.wnbc.com/traffic/9683828/detail.html
Geopolitical Diary: Implications of a Shaky Cease-Fire
The fighting in Lebanon over the past 34 days has set off a chain of unprecedented events. Hezbollah declared a "strategic, historic victory" against Israel on Monday, and rightfully so; the invincibility of Israel's military might has come into question. The importance of this reality cannot be overestimated.
Hezbollah has gotten exactly what it was aiming for. As we have stated throughout the conflict, an imminent cease-fire allows Hezbollah to emerge effectively victorious. It hardwires the perception throughout the region that a nonstate militant actor has defeated Israel (by fighting it to a draw) in a conventional war. Regardless of what Israel states it accomplished on the ground in Lebanon, Hezbollah has sustained itself as a viable fighting force.
The battle of perception is what Hezbollah's patron, Iran, values most. Iran has used its influence in Iraq, in concert with its nuclear gambit, to reclaim its position as the regional hegemon. Activating Hezbollah in Lebanon and exposing Israel's weakness -- when no Arab state dared to confront the Jewish state militarily -- has only reinforced Iran's ability to reconfigure the balance of power in the Middle East in favor of the Shia.
While Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are celebrating, the Arab regimes surrounding Israel are beginning to reconsider the Israeli military deterrent. Meanwhile, a tenuous cease-fire is hanging over Lebanon, with enough caveats in place to make the entire agreement fall apart. If the cease-fire does actually fall through -- which is extremely likely -- it will probably not be due to a conscious decision by one side or the other to breach it. Rather, it will be the inevitability of events that will lead to its collapse.
The cease-fire is fraught with Catch-22's: Israel will not withdraw until the Lebanese army deploys to the south, the Lebanese army won't deploy to the south until Hezbollah disarms on its own, and Hezbollah says it will not disarm, period. At the same time, Israel and Hezbollah have each reserved the right to resume hostilities if they feel threatened.
Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a very telling speech Monday, in which he essentially told the Lebanese army to think twice before attempting to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River. Nasrallah welcomed the return of National Dialogue talks with the leaders of Lebanon's major factions, shedding light on Hezbollah's intention to use its political prowess to gridlock the government once again and postpone the issue of disarmament. Iran is not about to give up its most prized militant asset in the region, and Hezbollah is feeling confident enough to deflect any attempts to disarm it.
But Hezbollah has its own share of worries. The Lebanese army will not go into southern Lebanon unless ordered to deploy there alongside U.N. peacekeeping forces. If Hezbollah is confronted with a forceful attempt by the Lebanese army to disarm its fighters, it will face the dilemma of whether to open fire on its countrymen -- something Hezbollah wants to avoid at all costs. With much of the country already in ruins, and with frustration brewing among Lebanese over the conflict provoked by Hezbollah, going to war against the Lebanese armed forces will only undermine Hezbollah's position as a resistance movement working on behalf of Lebanon against Israeli aggression. At the same time, the Lebanese army refuses to get embroiled in a situation in which it will be forced to open fire on Hezbollah fighters, especially as the group's success against Israel is being celebrated by a significant number of Lebanese civilians. The dilemma on both sides bodes ill for the permanence of the cease-fire.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has to answer to a country and military that is largely outraged by the results of the fighting. For Israel, this shaky cease-fire is not the end -- it has maintained the preponderance of its force and can revisit the issue of breaking Hezbollah's back once again to reaffirm its military prowess in the region. Whether Olmert will still be in charge if and when that revisit occurs, however, is an entirely different question.
The world's focus right now is on the cease-fire deal in the Middle East. We think that's the incorrect focus. The real focus should be on an earthquake that has shaken the region: Hezbollah's forces, even if they are defeated by Israel in southern Lebanon, will have shown themselves capable of mounting an effective resistance for an extended period of time. The Israelis have not been able to deal them a single, sharp blow and fragment them.
A single assumption has shaped Arab-Israeli relations since 1948: that Israel could decide, if it wished, to resort to war and impose its will on Arab armies. That assumption shaped all political considerations in the region. If Israel is no longer capable of doing that, it follows that a range of political assumptions also are untrue. Consider Jordan: Since 1970, Israel has been the guarantor of Jordanian national security. Consider Egypt: Since Camp David, Egypt has refused to engage Israel militarily. Both of these political certainties have been based on a military certainty -- and if that dissolves, so does everything else.
Hezbollah has been fighting a simple, conventional war. It has relied on fortifications, pre-positioned supplies and motivated troops. Israel has sought to defeat Hezbollah without incurring extensive casualties. The first strategy was the air campaign. The second strategy was a complex warfighting/diplomacy strategy designed to achieve Israel's ends without having to systematically destroy Hezbollah. The end result of this strategy -- if it is carried out to its logical conclusion -- is that Hezbollah will have fought and survived, and that in fighting, it will have shaped Israeli political decisions. In other words, we will have moved from a world in which Israel's military force trumps all other considerations to a world in which Israeli military power is circumscribed by Arab power.
It seems clear that Israel could have crushed Hezbollah if it was willing to spend the lives. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's view seems to have been the rational one -- that the rockets Hezbollah has been firing at Israel were creating fewer casualties by far than a war would. On that cost-benefit analysis, Olmert not only was correct, but followed the reasoning of Ariel Sharon. Sharon's strategy focused on building barriers between Israel and Arabs in order to avoid the costs and casualties involved in counter-insurgency operations. Olmert has extended that logic to southern Lebanon, seeking a low-cost solution to the Hezbollah threat.
In so doing, Olmert, intentionally or not, has shifted the basic architecture of Israel's strategic policy. He has avoided an extravagant cost in lives, but in so doing, has undermined the military certainty that was the foundation of Israeli national security. Hezbollah was able to start a war and has survived it defensively. In due course, an Arab force will be able to start an offensive war and win it. There is no inherent reason that an Arab army cannot defeat an Israeli army. Whether there is a cease-fire or not, the psychological foundation of Israeli power has been breached.
Meanwhile, a furious battle continues within Israel. On one side, Olmert is arguing that a diplomatic solution achieves Israel's ends without costing Israeli lives. On the other side, the military and the Likud party are arguing that Olmert has defined the end too narrowly. If a low-cost solution to the current crisis means a newly self-confident Hezbollah swelling with fresh recruits, then the price will merely have been put off to another day.
At this point, the battle shifts from Lebanon to the corridors of power in Israel. The test is whether Olmert has the political power in the country to let the war end here. Part of the question is what the military will do on the ground in Lebanon.
There is the example of Ariel Sharon fighting after a cease-fire regarding forces in Lebanon was announced. The IDF is upset enough to do that here, and the terms of the cease-fire deal leave enough room to drive a tank through. But there is also going to be an attack on Olmert's government if there is a cease-fire. It isn't clear whether he can survive with this outcome on the ground.
Therefore, either the war will continue now -- with or without a cease-fire agreement -- or, there will be a cease-fire, a political crisis in Israel and then, at some point, another day of reckoning. In our view, Israel is not going to let this battle end here. As for Hezbollah, however it comes out, it has achieved more than it could have hoped: It redefined the military balance, at least for the moment.
It makes A LOT of sense!!! Michigan (right outside Detroit),has one of the largest (if not the largest) Muslim communities in the United States.
Not to categorize that community as being extremists, they have had their share of terrorist related arrests.
What is also interesting to note is that it is estimated that 70% of the US population lives within 500 miles of Detroit, and the US Capital, Commodities Market, and Wall Street, as well as several other important US landmarks, critical to the US infrastructure are located approximately 600 miles or less from Detroit.
Interesting area for such a large Islamic community to call "home".
good to see you here. :)
Does anyone feel that tomorrow will be a very dangerous day for a possible Islamist coordinated strike? I think that airlanes were only a tip of the iceberg...Does anyone have any intelligence or insight into tomorrow as a possible attack date?
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