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Friday, October 30, 2009
Banana Republics Redux
Nicaragua protesters chase off US ambassador http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=MRBOhJck
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
BBC News | Angola arms traffickers convicted
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/europe/8328314.stm?
A fascinating saga with some interesting links to the States. Watch
this space..
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Reuters - Obama, Sarkozy discussed Iran situation: Elysee
A Post-Script to "Sarkozy's Obama Complex":
Obama, Sarkozy discussed Iran situation: Elysee
Saturday, Oct 24, 2009 4:33PM UTC
PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy discussed Iran's nuclear program over the phone on Saturday, Sarkozy's office said in a statement.
"The two heads of state noted that they share exactly the same views..." the statement said.
Western powers are scrutinizing Iran's atomic work amid concerns that Iran might be trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says all its atomic work is peaceful.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
Parliament speaker: West trying to cheat Iran
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=2zXRVS8q
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=2zXRVS8q
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Friday, October 16, 2009
(BN) Pakistani Jihadists Adopt Commando Tactics to Gain Psychological Advantage
Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.
Pakistani Jihadists' Tactics Seek Psychological Edge
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's Taliban and its allies are turning to commando raids on police and soldiers, on top of suicide bombings, as a tactic to convince Pakistanis the government can't contain them.
Guerrillas firing assault rifles and throwing hand grenades stormed three police complexes yesterday in Lahore, the country's second-largest city, and militants exploded two bombs in northwestern Pakistan. Six major operations in a week have killed more than 130 troops, police officers and civilians.
"There seems to be a new strategy by terrorists in recent attacks," said Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital. Attacking and taking hostages is meant "to get maximum TV coverage and make their demands."
At least 26 people were killed in yesterday's attacks on a federal police headquarters and two police training centers in Lahore, plus in bombings of a police station in the town of Kohat and a government building in Peshawar.
While suicide bombings have killed three-quarters of those who died in the past week, most of the Pakistani media's focus has been on the commando assaults yesterday and the 22-hour siege involving Taliban-affiliated attackers this past weekend at Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
After years of relying on bomb attacks within Pakistan, jihadist groups have made at least four commando-style assaults this year, two in the past week.
Mumbai Raid
The raids echo last November's three-day attack on Mumbai, India's business capital, when 10 gunmen killed 166 people at a railway station, restaurant and two luxury hotels. India blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group and halted peace talks with its nuclear-armed neighbor.
The more complex attacks in Pakistan show the groups "are trying to demonstrate their prowess and appear larger than life," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence-consulting firm.
Jihadists did use commando assaults in Lahore in March, against a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team and at a police academy that was attacked again yesterday. The tactic has been revived in an effort to fight back after the army drove the Taliban out of the Swat Valley in July and a missile strike killed their top commander, Baitullah Mehsud, in August, Bokhari said by telephone from Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.
The week-long spate of attacks is in part an effort to demoralize Pakistan's security forces as the army has deployed what it says are 28,000 troops around the stronghold of Mehsud's Taliban faction, in the mountainous region of Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
Attacking the Army
The government said this week it has given the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, authority to begin an offensive against Mehsud's fighters, and warplanes have been pounding their positions in the area.
The jihadists boosted the perception of their power through public shock over their Oct. 10 assault on the seat of the army, Pakistan's most powerful institution, said Mehdi Hassan, the dean of the School of Media and Communications at Lahore's Beaconhouse National University.
The commando attacks are "part of a well-planned psychological war campaign" and have helped create "a national atmosphere of crisis," said Hassan. The groups are creating uncertainty in the country of 180 million, partly because of more than two dozen TV news channels that sprang up under the army-led regime of former President Pervez Musharraf, he said in a telephone interview.
The channels "compete intensely for any breaking news" and "any sense of crisis," said Owais Ali, secretary general of the Pakistan Press Foundation, which trains journalists. "It's like the first three days of coverage of 9/11 in America, only imagine it going on for seven years," he said in a telephone interview from Karachi.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in New Delhi at jrupert3@bloomberg.net .
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Pakistani Jihadists' Tactics Seek Psychological Edge
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's Taliban and its allies are turning to commando raids on police and soldiers, on top of suicide bombings, as a tactic to convince Pakistanis the government can't contain them.
Guerrillas firing assault rifles and throwing hand grenades stormed three police complexes yesterday in Lahore, the country's second-largest city, and militants exploded two bombs in northwestern Pakistan. Six major operations in a week have killed more than 130 troops, police officers and civilians.
"There seems to be a new strategy by terrorists in recent attacks," said Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital. Attacking and taking hostages is meant "to get maximum TV coverage and make their demands."
At least 26 people were killed in yesterday's attacks on a federal police headquarters and two police training centers in Lahore, plus in bombings of a police station in the town of Kohat and a government building in Peshawar.
While suicide bombings have killed three-quarters of those who died in the past week, most of the Pakistani media's focus has been on the commando assaults yesterday and the 22-hour siege involving Taliban-affiliated attackers this past weekend at Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
After years of relying on bomb attacks within Pakistan, jihadist groups have made at least four commando-style assaults this year, two in the past week.
Mumbai Raid
The raids echo last November's three-day attack on Mumbai, India's business capital, when 10 gunmen killed 166 people at a railway station, restaurant and two luxury hotels. India blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group and halted peace talks with its nuclear-armed neighbor.
The more complex attacks in Pakistan show the groups "are trying to demonstrate their prowess and appear larger than life," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence-consulting firm.
Jihadists did use commando assaults in Lahore in March, against a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team and at a police academy that was attacked again yesterday. The tactic has been revived in an effort to fight back after the army drove the Taliban out of the Swat Valley in July and a missile strike killed their top commander, Baitullah Mehsud, in August, Bokhari said by telephone from Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.
The week-long spate of attacks is in part an effort to demoralize Pakistan's security forces as the army has deployed what it says are 28,000 troops around the stronghold of Mehsud's Taliban faction, in the mountainous region of Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
Attacking the Army
The government said this week it has given the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, authority to begin an offensive against Mehsud's fighters, and warplanes have been pounding their positions in the area.
The jihadists boosted the perception of their power through public shock over their Oct. 10 assault on the seat of the army, Pakistan's most powerful institution, said Mehdi Hassan, the dean of the School of Media and Communications at Lahore's Beaconhouse National University.
The commando attacks are "part of a well-planned psychological war campaign" and have helped create "a national atmosphere of crisis," said Hassan. The groups are creating uncertainty in the country of 180 million, partly because of more than two dozen TV news channels that sprang up under the army-led regime of former President Pervez Musharraf, he said in a telephone interview.
The channels "compete intensely for any breaking news" and "any sense of crisis," said Owais Ali, secretary general of the Pakistan Press Foundation, which trains journalists. "It's like the first three days of coverage of 9/11 in America, only imagine it going on for seven years," he said in a telephone interview from Karachi.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in New Delhi at jrupert3@bloomberg.net .
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Italy denies paying off Taliban in Afghanistan http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15860/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=DVigwbMs
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Friday, October 02, 2009
The French Discover Sarkozy's Obama Complex
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Thursday, October 01, 2009
Shadowland on the "Butt Bomber"
The New TNT
New studies of suicide bombers say that most have three important qualities in common: testosterone, a narrative fantasy, and a desire to make theater.
September 29, 2009
Al Qaeda has made a horrifying—if bizarre—advance in terrorist tradecraft. As recently reported by my friend Frank Gardner, security correspondent for the BBC, the suicide bomber who tried unsuccessfully to blow up Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism chief in August actually had the explosives inside his body. It's possible the bomb—which was made from materials that wouldn't set off metal detectors—was swallowed or stitched into him in some fashion, but according to one usually authoritative Saudi official, the explosives had been inserted in the terrorist's rectum.
WARNING: Very Graphic Video Aftermath When Suicide Bomber Tried to Kill Mohammed bin Nayef
I am posting this because the sequence that begins 8:45 minutes into the report shows the results of the attempt to kill a Saudi official, Mohammed bin Nayef. with an "internal bomb," and may be useful to people seriously interested in the effects of such explosives. But it shows the body of the would-be assassin in graphic detail, so be warned.
FBI chief sees no imminent threat from Zazi case
Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:31pm EDT
Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:31pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said there was no imminent threat related to the case of an Afghan-born man charged with plotting a bombing attack in the United States.
Najibullah Zazi, indicted by a grand jury on a charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday and was ordered held in prison without bail.
"We do not believe there is an imminent threat," Mueller said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. The investigation was continuing, he said.
Prosecutors allege Zazi took a bomb-making course at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, had bomb-making notes on his laptop computer, and acquired bomb-making materials similar to those used in the 2005 London attacks, buying acetone and hydrogen peroxide at beauty supply stores....(more)
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