Posted on 07/02/2007 7:27:40 AM PDT by Bahbah
Thread 5
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. DOD
Our enemies include all the Muslims who dream of knocking Western Civilization off its perch atop humanity’s dung heap. Islam is fractured into any number of sects, tribes and ethnic groups, but the dream of destroying us cuts across all the fault lines. Islamic terrorists are merely the tip of a very large spear.
J. Peter Mulhern, the American Thinker, September 18
The determination behind that fight is real, the hatred is real, and the excuses for doing this are very real in the minds of those who have decided to walk that path. We can respond in two ways: Try to ignore or negotiate with people who do not want to negotiate in good faith, because what they want is our destruction, or to stand up against the darkness of those who see all of us, our way of life, our culture and our aspirations as something worth eliminating.
Either: "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Or: "With vigilance, determination, courage, we will defeat the enemies of freedom, and we will leave behind a more peaceful world for our children and our grandchildren." GW Bush.
Here's where I will post news and info about the Long War. Let me know if you're interested.
I'll post links to previous Threads below.
I have started rebuilding them. Is there a way to unsubscribe from the RSS thing? (Don't mean to turn this into a computer tutorial.)
Just delete the RSS bookmark and it gone.
That was easy :)
Thats ok, I'm a web master for a few other web sites - its what I do :)
Confirmation and further details
U.S. official: Missiles fired at Somalia terror target
cnn.com ^ | March 3, 2008 | Barbara Starr, CNN
Posted on 03/03/2008 6:57:26 AM CST by RDTF
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States on Monday used precision missiles to strike a “known terrorist target” in southern Somalia, a U.S. military official said.
The strike near Dhoobley, which is close to the Kenyan border, was aimed at a “facility where there were known terrorists” affiliated with East African al Qaeda operations, according to the official.
News agency reports from the region are saying civilians were killed in the attack, but the official said the United States still is collecting post-strike information and is not yet able to confirm any details about casualties.
The U.S. military official described Monday’s strike as “very deliberate” and said forces tried to use caution to avoid hitting civilians.
“We woke up with a loud and big bang and when we came out we found our neighbor’s house completely obliterated as if no house existed here,” a resident of the town, Fatuma Abdullahi, told The Associated Press. “We are taking shelter under trees. Three planes were flying over our heads.”
Clan elder Ahmed Nur Dalab told AP that said a senior Islamic official, Hassan Turki, was in town Sunday to mediate between his fighters and a militia loyal to the government. Turki’s forces took over Dhoobley last week, AP reported.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979498/posts
Ah, those loveable Yoots in Paris....
Police fired on in Paris suburb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7274804.stm ^
Posted on 03/03/2008 7:00:50 AM CST by traumer
Four police officers were wounded when masked youths fired shotguns at them in a southern suburb of Paris on Sunday, the French interior minister has said.
Michele Alliot-Marie said about 30 people ambushed the officers after they were called to Grigny when a local bakery was vandalised.
Three officers were treated at the scene after being hit by lead shots. A fourth was admitted to hospital.
About 60 police were injured when riots broke out in other suburbs in November.
In 2005, the government declared a state of national emergency after three weeks of rioting erupted at housing estates in more than 30 towns and cities.
‘Exemplary sentences’
In a statement, Ms Alliot-Marie said police were called to an estate in Grigny on Sunday afternoon after several people vandalised a local bakery.
When the officers arrived, they were confronted by “about 30 people whose faces were masked and several of whom were armed,” she added.
The armed youths fired cartridges containing lead shot and nails at the police, while others threw stones and Molotov cocktails, setting a car alight.
Calm was restored an hour-and-a-half later after police reinforcements were sent to the neighbourhood and the youths dispersed.
Ms Alliot-Marie called for “all means to be used to identify, apprehend, and bring to justice the authors of these criminal acts” and for them to face “exemplary sentences”.
Last month, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a three-year proposal to deploy 4,000 more police and roll out a half-billion euro aid lifeline to the poor, mainly ethnic-minority suburbs across France wracked by riots in recent years.
He also unveiled plans to help 100,000 people find work and declared “war without mercy” on drug dealers, warning that unless such neighbourhoods were revived, the “very idea of the nation is at stake”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979499/posts
The American “Aid Package” is really working out well....
Hamas gunmen using American-made arms seized from the Fatah-controlled PA security forces in June
IMAR ^ | 3-3-08
Posted on 03/03/2008 7:02:25 AM CST by SJackson
‘Hamas using US weapons against IDF’
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 3, 2008
www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1204473062672&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
According to Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip, most of the gunmen who have been fighting the IDF over the past few days are members of Hamas’s armed wing, Izaddin Kassam.
“At least 2,000 Hamas gunmen have been deployed in the northern Gaza Strip to take part in the fighting,” the sources told The Jerusalem Post. The sources estimated that Izaddin Kassam has at least 15,000 members divided into four brigades in the Gaza Strip.
They added that the Hamas gunmen were using many American-made arms seized from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority security forces in June.
Hamas says it captured thousands of M-16 and Kalashnikov rifles, and large supplies of ammunition during its weeklong conquest of Gaza. Hamas is also believed to have acquired weapons capable of penetrating armor and stockpiles of rocket-propelled grenades.
A senior Hamas official said Sunday that his movement had smuggled hundreds of rockets and mortars and tons of explosives into the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the past few months.
The Hamas-dominated police force in the Gaza Strip, which has around 15,000 members, has not been involved in the fighting, although the IDF has targeted some of its bases.
Hamas has been careful not to send the police force to the battlefield so as to avoid a total breakdown of its official institutions. The policemen are needed by Hamas to maintain law and order and to thwart any attempt by rival groups such as Fatah from taking advantage of the security deterioration to topple the Hamas government.
Other groups that are involved in the fighting include Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and some splinter factions belonging to Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
These three groups, which according to Palestinian sources are operating in coordination with Hamas, have also been behind many of the rocket attacks on Israel in the past few days. Altogether, the three groups have fewer than 1,500 gunmen in Gaza.
But Hamas has sought to play down the role of the other armed groups in the fighting in the hope that it will score points on the “Palestinian street” as the major force that fought “courageously” against Israel. Hamas is hoping that once the fighting is over, it will be able to declare “victory, as Hizbullah did after the war in 2006.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979501/posts
Of course....
U.S. calls for end to continued violence, return to peace talks
Haaretz ^ | 3-2-08 | Shlomo Shamir
Posted on 03/03/2008 7:03:17 AM CST by SJackson
U.S. calls for end to continued violence, return to peace talks
By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies
Last update - 22:03 02/03/2008 www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=959837
The United States called on Sunday for an end to clashes between Israel and the Palestinians and a resumption of peace negotiations after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended talks with Israel.
“The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has no plans to call off a meeting this week with Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Earlier, Abbas spoke to Rice and urged her to pressure Israel to stop the violence.
“[Rice’s] plans remain intact,” department spokesman Rob McInturff said, adding: “We’re encouraging Israel to exercise caution to avoid the loss of innocent life.”
(Excerpt) Read more at imra.org.il ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979502/posts
You just have to admire the quality of the work.
This is from yesterday but I don’t think it was posted here.
“Major offensive against militants ‘planned’
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, March 2: Pakistan is planning a major military offensive against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in the tribal areas, diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn.
The sources said that the decision to go after the militants followed a recent increase in terrorist attacks in the country. The terrorists were unusually silent during and immediately after the national elections but have carried out several major attacks recently, killing more than 100 people in three days.
The sources said that while the United States will provide technical support for this offensive, there will be no direct US participation.
Reports in the US media on Sunday said that Washington is sending 100 military trainers to Pakistan who may also participate in operations against the militants.
Pakistan will also continue its efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict with tribal supporters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents, the sources said, adding that the military offensive will not terminate the peace talks.
The sources claimed that US intelligence experts also have confirmed Pakistan’s assessment that Baitullah Mehsud and his group are responsible for most of the attacks inside Pakistan. They said that since December, when Mehsud assumed command of a militant umbrella group called Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, he has become active on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border.
In an unusual interview to Washington Post last month, CIA chief Michael Hayden blamed Mehsud for assassinating former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and warned that a new “nexus between Al Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups” is seeking to destabilise Pakistan.
“It is clear that their intention is to continue to try to do harm to the Pakistani state as it currently exists,” he added.
US officials in Washington say that the United States is helping Pakistan deal with this threat and recently sent a four-member intelligence team to the country to help enhance their intelligence gathering capabilities.
The proposed military offensive, according to diplomatic and US sources, aims at curbing Mehsud’s growing influence in the tribal zone, particular in Waziristan.
Pentagon officials, while talking to various US media outlets, said that US intelligence experts are helping Pakistan locate Mehsud who, they said, needs to be “hammered down.”
Diplomatic sources said that since Mehsud and his militants hide among local tribes, it has been difficult to pinpoint him. The fear of collateral damage -— civilian casualties -– also prevents US and Pakistani troops from targeting Mehsud.
The Pakistan Army last conducted an operation against Mehsud in early January. But the action ended after a few days amid talk of an unofficial truce.”
Link: http://www.dawn.com/2008/03/03/top10.htm
From the article: Washington is sending 100 military trainers to Pakistan who may also participate in operations against the militants.
100 trainers, eh!
Getting closer to the flare-up....
Serbia ‘retakes’ Kosovo rail line
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7274826.stm ^
Posted on 03/03/2008 7:48:51 AM CST by jhpigott
Serbia has retaken control of a stretch of railway line in northern Kosovo, a senior Serb official has said. Branislav Ristivojevic, who heads Serbia’s state-run railway company, said Belgrade had restored control over the 50km (30-mile) Lesak-Zvecan line.
Earlier, Serb rail workers stopped a train on the line, saying they would not work for Kosovo’s rail firms.
Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs refuse to recognise Kosovo’s declaration of independence last month.
Last week, some 150 Kosovo Serb police officers were suspended for refusing to take orders from the ethnic Albanian authorities in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina.
Serb police officers protested in the Gracanica enclave
All are based in the same area of the south-east and they are asking to be put under the direct command of the local United Nations mission (Unmik).
The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) said talks were under way with Serb officers working in other parts of the south.
Serb KPS officers in the northern Serb stronghold around Mitrovica already only take orders from Unmik.
Some 700 ethnic Serbs serve in the 7,000-strong KPS, created by Unmik after it took control of Kosovo at the end of the 1998-99 war.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979535/posts
BTTT
Took a half hour to find this thread.
I’ll have to talk Grandma into letting me sit at the computer a little more on weekends...as in turn the bloody thing on at all.
(Actually, she had it tied up with her email and swapping recipes while I was working on the HoneyDoos.)
” Took a half hour to find this thread. “
Here’s the Secret Handshake —
In the “Search” block on a FR Forum Page, enter Keyword “stinktank”
This thread is the only one that’ll show up.....
Hope this helps.....
Spent some time back in my yoooot working around the Skonkworks, so that fits right in.
Thanks.
LOL. I did not know that.
” LOL. I did not know that. “
I just found it a few days ago when “News From The Long War” stopped showing up in “Title” Search...
I believe that it’s the legacy of He Who No Longer May Be Named (AKA He of Many but Not Unlimited Characters)..... ;~)
By the bye, Bahbah —
Since things are heating up so that armed conflict in several of our “areas of interest” has advanced to the status if “IMMINENT”
and
Since this iteration of ‘The ‘Ol Homethread’ is starting to get a bit long in the tooth....
Maybe it might be time to start thinking of “rollover”....
(Or not — it’s up to you....)
I was having exactly the same thought. How about if I flip it over at noon today...just so it looks like we have some sort of actual plan :)
cool :)
” I was having exactly the same thought. How about if I flip it over at noon today...just so it looks like we have some sort of actual plan :) “
Works for me —
I’ll be at (ugh) work at the time, so please make sure I’m still on the Ping List, so I can find ya — kay??
(Also make sure ya preserve the Secret Handshake keyword in Version 6....) ;~)
Works for me as well.
“Refresh” has become a bit of a burden for the bandwidth-deprived, I’m sure.
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