Free Republic

Part 1: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/high-price-losing-ukraine Part 2: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/high-price-losing-ukraine-part-2-%E2%80%94-military-threat-and-beyond

U.S. troops aren't the only ones sweating in Iraq's brutal summer. Al Qaida network leader Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi is getting nervous because of the increasing ease with which Iraqi and U.S. intelligence have been tracking and capturing his senior commanders. A coalition scored a major success scored in Mosul on July 27 when U.S. troops captured Al Qaida cell leader Amar Abu Bara, alias Amar Hussein Hassan. Hassan was deemed a leading aide of Zarqawi and headed the Al Qaida network in Mosul. Mosul is an important city for Zarqawi. It is a major destination of the flow of...

We live in an age in which few important conflicts can be described accurately and economically, which is to say, bluntly. Race and religion are obvious examples of domains in which condescension-masquerading-as-sensitivity must be employed. So too, the realities of world power. Ask any journalist, almost anywhere, and she will tell you that the world is a lamentably “unipolar” power construct, with hyperpower America lording it over the rest of the world’s nations, all of them consigned to second-class (or worse) membership in the community of man. Such an arrangement is deemed unnatural, exploitative, unduly hierarchical, and inherently unstable. By...

US Intelligence officals are worried by growing ties between the leftist government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Iran's Islamist regieme.Iran Foreign Minister Kamal Kharzi met recenly with Venezulean Foreign Minister Jesus Arnaldo Perez and 'discussed US threats,' officials said. The two ministers also declared their common interests in the Americans and the Middle East. Perez called Iran 'a strategic ally' and thanked Tehran for supporting the Chavez government.He also said 'Iran's resistance against foreign powers' is an example to Venezuela.

India and Iran sign $40b LNG deal* Delhi will import 7.5m tonnes LNG a year starting 2009 and running for 25 years NEW DELHI: India has signed a $40 billion deal with Iran to import liquefied natural gas and join in developing three Iranian oilfields. A joint statement said India would import 7.5 million tonnes a year (tpy) of LNG starting 2009 and running for 25 years. “Every last detail has been settled, price too,” said Indian Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar after talks with his Iranian counterpart, Bijan Zanganeh, on Friday. An Indian government official put the price tag...

Osama bin Laden might not have had the means to carry out a mass casualty attack on the United States on the eve of the elections, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. U.S. intelligence analysts believe this was the reason why bin Laden released a videotape to discuss al-Qaida and the American presidential elections. They said bin Laden, in his first video appearance in three years, wanted to bolster the morale of his followers who have been waiting for such a strike. Over the last two months, the CIA has lowered the prospect of a major al-Qaida attack. Intelligence...

A terrorist training camp at Salman Pak was shut down by military operations in Iraq, a White House report disclosed last week.It was the first time that the camp located 25 miles outside of Baghdad had been offically mentioned. A second camp used by the Al Qaeda affiliated group Ansar al Islam was shut down in Northern Iraq.'Many terrorist groups' used the Salman Pak camp for training, the report stated.U.S. Officials said that satellite photographs of the camp disclosed a commerical jetliner at the site, an indication that terrorists were using the camp to practice hijacking techniques.Iraqi military defectors disclosed...

nothing further right now, just the bulletin..

Al Qaeda planned to hijack a Saudi F-15E fighter jet and crash it into a major office tower in Israel, the Israeli chief of staff said yesterday. Israel officals said US Intelligence agencies relayed this information based on their interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects during the past 18 months.They said Al Qaeda was trying to recruit a Saudi Air Force pilot to fly his F-15 from Tabuk air base and carry out a suicide attack in Israel about 200 kilometers away.The Al Qaeda plot has been cited by Israel in its arguements to the United States for the immediate removal...

Iraqi security personnel have arrested 12 Iranian Intelligence agents in Iraq. The Iranians were preparing to conduct bombing attacks in Baghdad, the Arabic newspaper Al-Ahd al-Jadid, or 'The New Era,' reported.The Baghdad newspaper calls itself a 'democratic, liberal independent' newsweekly whose editor is Abd-al-Basit al-Naqqash.The director of security patrols in the Al-Sulihiyah district of Baghdad arrested the Iranians at the offices of the Al Mashriq Money Exchange Company, the newspaper reported.The Iranians were carrying counterfeit dollars and hotel bankcards. They also had visitor cards identifying them as with the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Vehicle Trading Company.While Al Qaeda terrorists and pro-Saddam Iraqis...

Burma receives advances from its silent suitors in Singapore By William Ashton (Jane's Intelligence Review. March 1,1998. ASIA: Vol 10, No3. Pg. 3298.)   While China may be the most obvious country trying to win over Burma's affections, Rangoon has, in fact, received significant advances from an altogether more subtle suitor, as William Ashton reports. EVER since the establishment of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) almost 10 years ago, there have been persistent claims that Burma's military government has been secretly supported by Singapore. Rumours of a close strategic relationship continue to circulate under the SLORC's successor,...

Tensions in the palaces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have become unbearable as each aide suspects each other of being an American agent.Saddam suspects everybody-even one of his sons-of plotting against him..

that is all in the headline index

A classified memorandum from NATO Secretary General George Robertson states that Iraqi military forces have moved missiles close to Kuwait. The memo said NATO intelligence indicated Iraq could use the missiles near Kuwait to conduct a preemptive attack in advance of U.S. military action. "Today's (NATO) intelligence reporting ... shows that Saddam has moved CBW-capable ballistic missiles close to the Kuwait border," Robertson stated in the memo, which was first reported by Belgian state television. The NATO secretary general asked in the memo why Iraq would move the missiles to a position where they can be attacked. "There can be...

United States Spots Iraq Moving Missiles SouthFor the first time, Iraq has moved missiles toward the Kuwaiti border.The United States fears the missile may be armed with nonconventional warheads.United States Spy Satellites detected an undetermined number of launchers and missiles transported from positions south of Baghdad toward the area of Basra, Western Intelligence sources said.Iraqi military forces are also moving troops and equipment into Northern Iraq in anticpation of military action.Nine large rocket systems were moved from one town and concealed in a storage depot in the town of Diyala, where a dam is located, the Kurdish Newspaper 'Irbil Brayati'...

Possibility Iraq Has Obtained North Korean Missiles Worries West Britain and the United States of America are concerned that Iraq has secretly purchased intermediate range missiles from the People's Republic of North Korea.If Saddam's regieme does have such missiles, it could change the threat from regional to international.Western Diplomatic sources said North Korea has intensified contacts with Iraq regarding military sales over the last 18 months._Full Text, Subscribers