Posted on 09/15/2006 3:52:52 PM PDT by Gucho
Bomb blast kills three near Kabul
Agencies
Kabul: A bomb blast killed three people and injured another in Afghanistan’s Kabul province on Saturday, police said.
Police official Ali Shah Paktiawal said the bomb went off on the main road in Musayi district, Kabul province.
The remote-controlled device exploded killing three Afghan nationals and injuring another.
Regional Police Chief Mohammad Daud Nadim said that the men work for a local private security company that provides services to local and international non-governmental organisations.
He said they were armed at the time of the attack.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Afghanistan/10067924.html
Published: 09/17/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)
New offensive against Taliban
Reuters
Kabul: About 7,000 US and Afghan government forces launched an offensive against the Taliban in central and eastern Afghan provinces yesterday, as a blast near Kabul killed three Afghan aid workers.
Operation Mountain Fury is the third offensive launched in recent weeks against a resurgent Taliban who have unleased the worst phase of Afghan violence since they were ousted in 2001.
"Mountain Fury is just one part of a series of coordinated operations placing continuous pressure on Taliban extremists across multiple regions of the country," the US military said in a statement. About 10,000 Nato and Afghan troops have in recent weeks mounted a big offensive in the southern province of Kandahar, killing hundreds of militants in the Taliban heartland. Troops from a separate US-led force have been battling insurgents in the eastern province of Kunar, on the Pakistani border, in a third offensive.
Operation Mountain Fury was aimed at defeating the Taliban in the provinces of Paktika, Khost, and Paktiya, all in the east on the Pakistani border, as well as in neighbouring Ghazni and Logar provinces, the US military said. The offensive involved 3,000 US-led troops and 4,000 Afghans. The level of violence this year has surprised the government and its Western allies and raised concern about the prospects for a country that had been seen as a success in the war on terrorism.
Kabul blast
A blast hit a car on a road just to the south of Kabul, killing three Afghan aid workers and wounding one, police said. A mine blew up the aid workers' car, said senior Kabul police official Alishah Paktiawal. He did not know which aid group they were from. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Afghanistan/10067990.html
Published: 09/17/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)
Blair asked to go before May
By Anne McElvoy, Evening Standard
London: The row over Tony Blair's exit from Downing Street reignited yesterday after Europe Minister Geoff Hoon called on him to quit before next May.
In an exclusive interview with Evening Standard, Hoon warned that Labour risked huge losses in local elections if the Prime Minister stayed on too long.
Last week a Labour revolt forced Blair to state that he would quit some time next year, with many expecting him to go after the elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and English councils on May 3.
But Hoon made clear today that that did not go far enough, as he became the first minister attending Cabinet to go public with fears about the Prime Minister's departure.
"Having set the outer limits of how long he is staying, that still leaves questions in the context of the elections in May," he said. "A lot of people will be asking if it makes sense to him to carry on through those elections."
Hoon, a Blairite who has called repeatedly for Gordon Brown to be the next Labour leader, added there would be a dangerous "air gap" for Labour if the premier stayed on into next year. A delay could sap party morale, he said.
His remarks, only one week after former home secretary Charles Clarke launched a withering attack on the Chancellor's leadership ambitions, shattered the fragile truce within Labour over the timing of Blair's resignation.
They also scuppered Downing Street's hopes of restoring calm in the run-up to Labour's party meeting in Manchester shortly. Blair is expected to announce in the spring that he will quit in May, but many close to the Chancellor would prefer him to go sooner.
Anti-American rhetoric dominates NAM summit
Agencies
Havana: Cuba took over leadership of the Nonaligned Movement on Friday, but with Fidel Castro too sick to promise an appearance, his younger brother and his good friend Hugo Chavez were left to mete out the anti-American invective.
Presiding over the meeting of more than 50 presidents and prime ministers, acting President Raul Castro said the world today is shaped by irrational American desires for world dominance.
"To be radical is not to be insane, it's to go to our roots. Let's go to our roots, let's be truly radical," Venezuelan president Chavez told diplomats and leaders from two-thirds of the world's countries. He concluded by chanting "Patria o Muerte!" - "Fatherland or Death!" - a favoured Castro rallying cry.
The 118-nation group gave Raul Castro a round of applause,and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi expressed satisfaction that the movement "will once again be in Cuba's very capable hands."
Among the prominent leaders speaking at the two-day summit was Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insisted Tehran's controversial atomic program had strictly peaceful objectives, and claimed the United States was the real nuclear threat.
"Why should people live under the nuclear threat of the United States?" he asked at the summit of the 118-member NAM.
"What is the UN Security Council waiting for to react to those threats?"
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for "moderation, harmony and reason."Singh also urged NAM leaders to make a priority of countering terrorism.
"If NAM is to be relevant in today's circumstances, it cannot afford to equivocate on the subject of terrorism," he said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the group that the world has changed dramatically since Cuba last hosted the movement in Havana 27 years ago, and that developing nations have new responsibilities to promote democracy, protect human rights and develop civil societies.
"The collective mission of this movement is more relevant than ever," Annan said.
The Nonaligned Movement was formed during the Cold War to establish a neutral third path in a world divided by the United States and the Soviet Union. It now counts 118 members with the addition of Haiti and St. Kitts this week.
With next week's UN General Assembly session in New York looming, Chavez and Ahmadinejad called on Nonaligned nations to support Venezuela's security council bid and provide more balance at the UN.
Both said the veto powerof the United States has made the council a toothless promoter of US policy.
"The US is turning the security council into a base for imposing its politics," Ahmadinejad complained, according to the official translation of his speech in Farsi.
The summit was due to conclude on Saturday with the adoption of a draft statement fine-tuned during four days of preparatory meetings.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Cuba/10067920.html
US denies plan for giant trench around Baghdad
(Reuters)
16 September 2006
BAGHDAD - The US military denied reports on Saturday that Iraq plans to dig a giant ring of trenches around the city of Baghdad.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry announced earlier this week that it plans to set up 28 checkpoints that would allow controlled access to the city, while closing off other roads as part of a security crackdown.
The New York Times quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman on Saturday as saying the Iraqis would also dig a giant trench around the city of seven million people.
“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf told the newspaper. He said the trench would run across farmland and other open areas.
But Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said the description sounded like an exaggeration of a plan that mostly would rely on existing terrain features to ensure that traffic moved through the 28 checkpoints.
“No doubt there will be some trenches involved in this, but to say there is going to be a moat around the city is a bit of a stretch,” Johnson said.
“They’ve called it a trench around Baghdad. Really what this is, is there’s a series of obstacles that the Iraqi government are planning, and we’re working with them, to ensure movement through checkpoints, to keep terrorists and extremists and criminals from using those (other) routes,” Johnson said.
“So it’s not a trench. It will be a series using the natural terrain that already exists such as canals, and some obstacles.”
Baghdad is 60 miles in circumference and surrounded mostly by farmland. But the land is already crisscrossed by irrigation canals and mostly impassible for cars driving off roads.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=focusoniraq&xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/September/focusoniraq_September99.xml
Hurry back Gucho, you will be missed.
What is a while :-))
Hurry Back Gucho! In the meantime ... I'll fight the FR-Withdrawals!!
Okay... it is time for you to return!
FREEPMAIL
It's been a long "while". Miss you.
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