BBC Crew Tortured in Libya: The Transcript

This morning as I followed the story of the BBC crew detained and tortured in Libya there seemed to be a discrepancy in the description of the mock executions they suffered. In the video clips shown on the morning news programs, Feras Killani and Goktay Koraltan talked about being hooded and hearing guns cocked behind their backs. In the print version on the BBC site, Chris Cobb-Smith says that in his case the gun was fired. Not sure why Cobb-Smith was not shown on the video I saw, but the full transcript, which I was e-mailed by the BBC, and which I do not readily find on its site, is worth reading:


BBC Arabic staff attacked in Libya

Three members of the BBC Arabic team in Tripoli were detained and beaten while reporting on the situation in Libya. They were arrested on Monday (07 March) and taken to various barracks where they suffered repeated assaults, were masked and handcuffed, and were subject to a mock execution.

Below is a transcript of an interview with the three BBC staff members, conducted by Jeremy Bowen (BBC Middle East Editor).

Liliane Landor (Controller Languages BBC Global News) said, "The BBC strongly condemns this abusive treatment of our journalists and calls on the Libyan government to ensure all media are able to report freely and are protected from persecution.

"The safety of our staff is our primary concern especially when they are working in such difficult circumstances and it is essential that journalists working for the BBC, or any media organisation, are allowed to report on the situation in Libya without fear of attack.

"Despite these attacks, the BBC will continue to cover the evolving story in Libya for our audiences both inside and outside the country."
Transcript

Members of BBC team:

Feras Killani (Palestinian refugee: Syrian passport)

Goktay Koraltan (Turkish)

Chris Cobb-Smith (British)

They were arrested at a checkpoint at around 1530 on Monday 7 March. The checkpoint was at Al Zahra 6 miles south of Zawiyah. They were with a local driver who was also taken. They had no press centre minder with them.

They were held at the checkpoint for about 45 minutes. At the first checkpoint the BBC IDs were inspected so it was clear they were journalists.

Feras: "They took everything, cameras, mobiles, asked for any memory cards and the bad thing was they asked ‘who’s gun is this in the car."

Did they show you a gun? Did the driver have one? "No, there was no gun in the car."

Chris: "they weren’t too bad to us."

The team was taken next to a barracks on the main highway, known locally as the kilometre 27 centre. They were interrogated by an officer who asked if they had permission to be out reporting.

Chris: "We’d passed the barracks before, it had a distinctive black and white tank outside it."

Feras: "I think it was the main headquarters outside the city. It was a huge barracks."

Gok: "we stayed in a room for a while there was nice captain he gave us Turkish coffee and cigarettes."

F: "they wanted to know how journalists worked, how Sky worked when they were in Zawiya. I told them in general how we work. He had some information but wanted details."


F: "we were there about another 30 minutes and then a bad guy arrived, he had three stars on this shoulder, a captain."

G: "He looked pissed off, he was a tall guy, aggressive as he came into the room."

C: "It was almost like good cop, bad cop. The good one left and then the other one stormed in."

F: "he asked a few questions in a very bad way, in Arabic. He was aggressive. I tried to explain we had only been in Zawiya a week before with the authorities. He said something bad about Palestinians, a lot of bad things and he asked his team what they thought about Palestinians and they said the same things. He thought they had helped the Palestinians a lot, but Hamas has given a very bad reaction to Qaddafi. Lots of bad language. When I tried to respond he took me out to the car park behind the guard room. Then he started hitting me without saying anything. First with his fist, then boots, then knees. Then he found a plastic pipe on the ground and beat me with that. Then one of the soldiers gave him a long stick. I’m standing trying to protect myself, I’m trying to tell him we’re working, I’m a Palestinian, I have a good impression of the country. He knew who we were [i.e. journalists] and what we were doing."

"I think there was something personal against me, they knew me and the sort of coverage I had been doing, especially from Tajoura the Friday before. I think they monitored the BBC and had an idea, not just the reports but also DTLs.[interviews from the studio with a correspondent in the field] They don’t like us or Arabiya or Jazeera."

"He told me to return to the room and not to tell the other guys anything."

At this point Chris managed to get a call out – he hadn’t been searched and had a phone – calling for help,

C: "We knew we were in trouble then. I said this is not good."

F: "the captain came in again after 5 minutes, and asked if I spoke to the other guys. They had asked me if I was all right and I said ok. One of the guards said yes he said one word. So he took me out into the yard again."

"He asked the other guards to come and started to hit and kick me. I was speaking with him saying I only said yes and I explained we were nervous. At this point he sent me back to room after he cuffed me with plastic cuffs behind my back."

G: "we were shocked when we saw him."

C: "Obviously the whole situation was deteriorating. In English he said to me one question and you die. He asked me if I had worked with National Geographic. Obviously they were doing their homework."

Feras was taken outside the room where they were being questioned, and was beaten by a captain and others.

F: "they hit me with a stick, they used their army boots on me, and their knees."

"It made it worse that I was a Palestinian… and they said you’re all spies. Sometimes they said I was a journalist who was covering stories in a bad way.

"They put us in a car and the captain, the one who beat me, told the guard ‘if they say one word kill them.’"

"He said to Chris, one question and you die. He said if I say one word in English, he’d kill me"

The car had a driver, and a guard. He kept his gun levelled on them throughout the journey.

G: he was pointing the gun at us, one of each of us in turn, an AK 47.

They drove back towards Tripoli, past the Rixos hotel.

G: I felt horrible passing the hotel. The soldier had his finger on the trigger and I was worrying it would go off when we went over a bump.

C: "It made it even worse, an extra stab in your morale seeing the hotel appear and disappear but it was good because we knew exactly where we were."

It looked as if they were going to be driven into a military compound.


C: "I thought it was a good sign we were going to a legitimate barracks, it was compound with an eagle on the gate, but we went straight past the front gate down a back street. The building was down the side, attached to the barracks and not behind the perimeter wall. It was a dirty scruffy little compound about 100 metres square. It was still light when we got there."

G: "there was a big iron gate. It looked like a film set, like an execution place. They took us out of the car and the middle of the compound there was a cage, they put three of us in the cage and the last thing I saw before the door shut they hit Feras with an AK 47. We started hearing him groaning. They turned up the radio, all Qaddafi songs."

C: "They were wearing uniforms with no badges of rank. Some of then had their faces covered."

F: "they were kicking and punching me, 4 or 5 men. I went down on to my knees. They attacked me as soon as I got out of the car. They knocked me down to the ground with their guns, AK-47s. I was down on my knees and I heard them cocking their guns. I thought they were going to shoot me. It was a fake execution. Then they took me into the room."

It seemed to be something like a guard room. Plain concrete with a heavy door, looked like a cell though they wondered if the guards slept there.

F: "They took me inside and left me alone for a few minutes and then they started. It was three by four, iron door, like a cell. After 15 minutes they were hitting me and kicking me very hard, the worst since I arrived, they put cuffs on my legs. They put three layers over my face, something like a surgical hat, the thing a nurse would wear but over my face."

"I was on the floor on my side, hands and feet cuffed, lying half on a mattress, and they were beating me."

"Before they covered my face up a big black guy, a very strong guy pulled my head back by my hair and hit me on the face."

"They were saying I’m a spy working for British intelligence, they asked me about the $400 and £60 and some dinars I was carrying. They asked if I was given the money from the intelligence department I worked for."

"I can’t remember how long it went for."

G: "it was about half an hour we could hear it…I think it was Feras maybe it was another inmate. Driver was constantly praying. We could hear screams I thought it was Feras."

At this point Chris was able to ring the BBC team in the Rixos hotel again. In the call he said the Libyan were torturing Feras.

C: "I waited until I calculated the guard had walked off and chanced it. The driver was going spare, he knew that if we were caught with a phone at that stage, let alone actually using it, it would make things even worse, if that was possible."

F: "After they finished beating me they taped the mask on my head with gaffer tape.. Then another guy came in and I heard him ask the other guards why have you covered his face, he’s a journalist, he can’t breath, he told them to uncover my face. I was like that struggling to breathe for 7 or 8 minutes. I was in a very bad position my face was on the floor. They pulled the mask back."

G: "the black guy came into our cage and they put masks on us. Gaffer taped them on and handcuffed us. They took the driver out and then me. They said in Arabic go I thought they would shoot us from behind, I was saying in Turkish that I’m a friend. I thought they would shoot us, I could hear guns loading. I was scared to death I thought it was the execution moment."

C: "I could see out from the mask, I wasn’t convinced we were going to be shot. I wasn’t being pushed around as if they were about to shoot me. They helped me get out of the cage. It was a bit of a drop and they helped me down, it still wasn’t pleasant. I could breathe. I think they did this [masked them] so we couldn’t see the surroundings when they led us to the cell."

The driver was taken elsewhere. In the room/cell they rejoined Feras

G: "his face was pale, and twice the size. His hands covered in blood

F: "a good guy had cut the cuffs off. They were so tight he cut me slightly. They put other cuffs on less tight."

G: "he was lying on the floor, cuffed."

C: "It was another down, we were hooded and cuffed and we saw Feras bent double, lying on the floor, face swollen, obviously in pain."

G: "I was really scared, panicked; Chris was trying to say to me it was going to be OK. I thought they were going to kill us and blame Al Qaeda or the rebels."

F: "I was taken back out to the cage and the others were left in the room."

C: "It was probably the guardroom, where the guards usually rested, there was a metal door but it wasn’t locked and bolted the whole time. We were from about half eight or nine until 3 in the morning."

There was no food, or water or access to lavatories. Only at the beginning after having been there an hour or so had we been allowed out in the yard to urinate. Throughout the night they could hear the screams of people being tortured. Goktay said he saw women who had injuries, he presumed inflicted by their interrogators.

A young man from Zawiya was brought in to the room/cell where Chris and Goktay were held.

C : "He was terrified. He prayed all night. He peed himself. They threw the mattress out. He kept making throat slitting gestures as if he knew he’d die, but he made it clear those gestures applied to us too. The guards kept coming in, screaming at him, terrorising him. They wouldn’t let us stand up. If we did they’d scream at us too. The guards were also making throat slitting gestures to all of us."

C: "We were pretty much left alone but not allowed to stand up and stretch. they got angry if we tried. They didn’t mind us talking."

C: "I sat on a filthy mattress with my back against the wall but facing the door so I could anything that happened outside when it opened and through a crack when it was closed. I didn’t sleep a wink, just watched the seconds tick by and trying to remain upbeat, trying to read something optimistic into every little incident. Gok & I shared the few cigarretes we had sparingly through the night, and then smoked the butts of the floor. It was cold but I didn’t want to use the filthy blankets, or have them see me huddled & pathetic, though Gok told me later I sometimes was shaking".

Feras was in the yard in the metal cell, described as something like a prison van but without wheels. One guard believed Feras when he said he was a journalist, and cut off his plastic handcuffs. He spent the night doing what he could for the other prisoners, who were all handcuffed. Some of them told him they had been arrested because their phone calls had been intercepted – including ones to the foreign media. At first there were four others already in the cage, two Egyptians who said they had lost their papers and two Libyans. Later they were joined by others.

F: "I spent the night in a cell. There were 10 to 12 men from Zawiya. Some were in a bad situation, with broken ribs."

Four of the other captives brought in after Feras were masked, with ankles and wrists cuffed. They were from Zawiya.

"The four from Zawiya tried not to tell me anything but later one of the guards told me they were fighters from Zawiya."

"All the guys were handcuffed and asking me to help them. There was water, one of them had 2 or 3 Marlboro so the good guard gave me a light. I helped them with water, helped them to pee."

"I was looking out of the cage. Cars were coming and going. I saw them bring in a guy and 3 girls, prisoners, too."

"Two of them told me they had broken ribs. The four who were masked, I helped them breathe by lifting their masks, saw they had been badly beaten."

"The four who were masked said they had been three days without food and with arms and legs cuffed. They said where they were now was like heaven compared to where they had been. They said they had been tortured for three days, and were from Zawiya. the four all knew each other. They didn’t want to talk much. None of them said they were involved in fighting but the guard told me. Their hands were swollen and so were their faces."

"In the cage they were talking about what might happen next. They were speaking of their situation. Two of them asked me to burn their cuffs with a cigarette I refused. One of them said he had bad pains in his stomach, I called the guard who said shut up and let him die, don’t ask again."

The others were reunited with Feras and with their taxi driver when they were moved to another building at about 0300. They were crammed into a pick up with a steel box on the back with other detainees.

C: "we were crammed in worse than sardines. The others were so badly beaten, and it was so full, that every time you moved someone screamed. They had mashed faces, broken ribs. We were handcuffed, really tightly, behind our backs."

G: "We were put into a vehicle, a pick up with an iron box on the back. Almost twenty of us. It was 3.30 in the morning, I saw the clock on the car."

C: "there was a jumble of arms and legs and bodies. They were beating one man who couldn’t get in because it was too full, so we pushed up to make space for him. There was a community feeling in there. People were trying to help each other. Some people without handcuffs heaved me up to help me sit."

F: "our driver told me we were driving towards the airport."

They were driven to a building that was much cleaner and seemed better organised. They believe it was the headquarters of the foreign intelligence service.

C: "It was smarter than the other places, better organised, less chaotic… It was good we hadn’t been driven out of Tripoli into the countryside."

F: "I saw one of the guys who arrested me at Tajoura last Friday. He said Feras you again and punched me on the side of my head."

G: "There was a big operation going on. Lots of people. I could hear screams coming from the second floor. I could see people being taking to other parts of the building hooded and handcuffed."

C: "I could hear howls and yelps of pain [coming from the building]. There was a lot of coming and going."

Outside the building they were lined up facing the wall, and told to bend their heads and not look up. One of them screamed at Chris when he did look up. A man moved down the line with a small sub-machine gun equipped with a silencer.


Chris: "As you walk up the steps there was a big entrance and I was last in line. There were four of us including the driver. We were lined up against the wall facing it. I stepped aside to face a gap so they wouldn’t be able to smash my face into the wall. A man with a small sub machine gun was putting it to the nape of everyone’s neck in turn. He pointed the barrel at each of us. When he got to me at the end of the line, he pulled the trigger twice. The shots went past my ear… "


"They all laughed as though it was very funny. There was a whole group of them in plain clothes."


"After the shooting incident one man who spoke very good English, almost Oxford English came to ask who we were, home towns and so on. Big fat chap. He was very pleasant, ordered them to cut off our handcuffs. When he had filled in the paper work, it was suddenly all over. They took us to their rest room. It was a charm offensive, packets of cigarettes, tea, coffee, offers of food."


F: "One man said to me, sorry it was a mistake by the military. But he said you were wrong first because you went out without permission."

They sat there for another seven hours until they were returned to the Rixos hotel and released.

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thought you might find it interesting:

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE71O0SM20110225

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Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

Dam Is Step to Stabilize Pakistan Terror 'Epicenter'

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Engineer Liu Zhangteng says he feels "very comfortable" when he walks to work at his construction site in the mountains of northwest Pakistan. It takes the presence of 1,500 local soldiers to sustain his tranquility.

Liu's employer, China's Sinohydro Corp., is completing the biggest building project in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border, where the army is fighting Taliban militants. The U.S.-funded Gomal Zam dam is a key part of Pakistan's effort to undermine the appeal of Islamic guerrillas in Waziristan, whose northern region U.S. military chief Admiral Mike Mullen calls the world's "epicenter of terrorism."

The dam's troops are among tens of thousands keeping control in South Waziristan and other areas that the army seized back from Taliban rule last year. Pakistan's army commander, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is likely to underscore that insecurity as he fends off U.S. pressure for a new offensive during talks to conclude tomorrow in Washington, said political analyst Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani lieutenant general.

Pakistan's government has failed to establish firm civilian authority or genuine popular support in the areas it recaptured, say Masood and Ashraf Ali, executive director of the FATA Research Center in Islamabad. Its army has stayed close to the main roads and failed to engage Taliban who have re-infiltrated South Waziristan, according to a White House report to Congress quoted early this month by the New York Times and other U.S. news organizations.

'Aggressive Action'

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The dam is to generate electricity and irrigate farmland for residents whose support the government needs for its fight against militants. A more peaceful south may free Pakistani troops for an offensive in North Waziristan sought by the U.S.

Construction began in 2002 and was delayed for three years after Taliban fighters kidnapped two Chinese engineers from the project in 2004. One died in a Pakistan army rescue operation.

The dam is 92 percent built, its project director, Colonel Muhammad Zaheer of the army's Frontier Works Organization said in an interview at the construction site.

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Its completion, plus the army's construction of 220 kilometers (137 miles) of roads, will represent "the first time the government has actually implemented any of its many promises to bring development to South Waziristan," said the FATA center's Ali.

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The center studies Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the border zone with Afghanistan that includes Waziristan and serves as a base for Taliban, al-Qaeda and allied Islamic militants.

While the army occupation has brought some calm to South Waziristan, it's not clear whether the government can win popular support and undercut militancy, Ali said. After years in which the Taliban have killed 800 traditional tribal leaders in the FATA region, the government has been trying to establish an anti-Taliban leadership among the local Pashtun tribes, he said.

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Taliban Attacks

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The army's presence in South Waziristan has reduced Taliban attacks across the border into Afghanistan's Paktika province, its governor, Mohibullah Samim, said in an Oct. 11 phone interview.

On Oct. 16 last year, the army moved into South Waziristan to clear about 10,000 Taliban guerrillas based in the homeland of the Mehsud tribe. While other Pakistan-based Taliban mainly fight U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the Mehsud faction had led a domestic insurgency, hitting Pakistani government targets.

U.S. Funds

More than 200,000 Mehsud civilians -- most of the area's population -- fled before the fighting started and have spent the past year as refugees in nearby districts. While the army and government promise security and development help to those who go home, villages remain sparsely inhabited as civilians have resisted government appeals to return, tribal elders say.

The U.S. government agreed in July to pay $108 million for the dam. It will generate 17.4 megawatts of electricity starting next April, much of it for communities in and near South Waziristan, the Frontier Works Organization's Zaheer said. Pakistan's power production this year has fallen 5,000 megawatts or more short of demand, the nation's Water and Power Development Authority has said.

The government's inability to stabilize recaptured areas such as South Waziristan and Swat, northwest of Islamabad, has left the army "literally pinned down," delaying the possibility of any assault on North Waziristan, which now is the main base for the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militants, Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an Oct. 16 interview on Bloomberg Television.

An assault on North Waziristan "could easily backfire" and "push militants back into the south," Masood said in a phone interview from Islamabad.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Austin at billaustin@bloomberg.net

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Recent writing and commentary on the terror threat in Europe and the United States

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Newsweek International Cover: The Threat in Europe, 11 October 2010
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Video, France24 Debate: Terror in Europe, 5 October 2010
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Le Monde.fr: Cinq ans après, le journal danois qui a publié les caricatures de Mahomet est toujours menacé d'attentat

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LE MONDE pour Le Monde.fr Olivier Truc | 29.09.10 | 10:53

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A story from AP Mobile:

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-europe-11477652

BBC News - Drone attacks 'linked' to suspected Europe terror plot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-south-asia-11481733

Terrorisme : douze arrestations dans les mouvances islamistes (depuis leParisien.fr sur iPhone)

Deux coups de filet dans la mouvance islamiste se sont soldés mardi matin par l'arrestation de douze personnes. Les interpellations sont intervenues pour des affaires distinctes dans la région de... http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/terrorisme-douze-arrestations-dans-les-mouvances-islamistes-05-10-2010-1096577.php

Risque d'attentats : Paris recommande la vigilance en Grande-Bretagne (depuis leParisien.fr sur iPhone)

Forte tension en Europe après les mises en garde des Etats-Unis et du Japon à leurs ressortissants sur les risques d'attentats dans cette région du globe. La France n'est pas en reste. Secouée ces... http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/risque-d-attentats-paris-recommande-la-vigilance-en-grande-bretagne-05-10-2010-1096834.php

Le Monde.fr: La vidéo d'un homme brûlant un Coran indigne la communauté musulmane

La vidéo d'un homme brûlant un Coran indigne la communauté musulmane

Dans ce film publié sur Internet, l'homme découpe une page du livre saint musulman puis l'enflamme, avant de l'éteindre en urinant.

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 04.10.10 | 20:37

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AP MOBILE: US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

A story from AP Mobile:

US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

Fausses alertes à la bombe à Paris : le suspect passe aux aveux (depuis leParisien.fr sur iPhone)

Les deux dernières fausses alertes à la bombe à la gare Saint-Lazare, c'était bien lui. L'homme de 53 ans, interpellé tôt lundi dans un foyer Sonacotra, à Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), par la section... http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/fausses-alertes-a-la-bombe-a-paris-le-suspect-passe-aux-aveux-04-10-2010-1094856.

Strasbourg : le maire PS excédé par les actes racistes (depuis leParisien.fr sur iPhone)

Le maire de Strasbourg a lancé lundi un appel après la multiplication d'actes racistes depuis le début de l'année dans l'agglomération. Roland Ries (PS), pointant du doigt les partis d'extrême... http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/strasbourg-le-maire-ps-excede-par-les-actes-racistes-04-10-2010-1095312.php

BBC News - Stuxnet worm 'targeted high-value Iranian assets'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/technology-11388018

MSN Video: ‘I’ll make sure we get the job done,’ says Obama

Check out this great MSN Video: ‘I’ll make sure we get the job done,’ says Obama

"Don't Be A Sucker" - The War Department on Bigotry in 1947, When People Remembered Why They Fought Fascism

Spencer Tracy On Healthcare

The Spy Who Loved ... Herself. Anna Chapman Cheesecake Video

Al-Jazeera in English: Marwan Bishara's "Empire" on "The United State Between Two Wars"

The best part of this program hosted by Marwan Bishara was the documentary at the beginning about the war in and around Marja, Afghanistan.

The Panel:

Colonel Richard Kemp
Former British commander in Afghanistan

Christopher Dickey
Middle East editor, Newsweek

Alain Gresh
Editor, Le Monde Diplomatique

Seumas Milne
Associate editor, The Guardian

Before the Storm: Daisy Khan's Newsweek Video from 2007

 In July 2007, Newsweek published a cover story -- a special report, in fact -- on "Islam in America." As part of that project, Lisa Miller interviewed Daisy Khan, who, working with her husband Imam Faisal Rauf, is now at the center of the controversy about a new Muslim cultural center to be built a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. Khan was also interviewed in a Newsweek video, which I've posted below. It's even more interesting to look at now than it was then.

Obama and the Ground Zero Mosque: His Full Speech

Suicide, Cynicism and Gender: Further Reading

The respective roles of men and women in suicide bombings is one I've written about frequently. These are just a few of the articles and essays since 2005 that touch on the question:


Al Qaeda’s Pandora
Osama bin Laden's 17-year-old daughter is trying to get out of Iran. Her story could expose ties between the mullahs and her father's terror networks. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/04/al-qaeda-s-pandora.html

Divorce, Jihadi Style
What role do women play in Al Qaeda? A few are suicide bombers; others may encourage their men to become one. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/12/divorce-jihadi-style.html

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. http://www.newsweek.com/2009/09/28/the-new-tnt.html

The Suicide Solution
Mohammad Sidique Khan's voice-from-the-grave video got me thinking the other day. Most Americans were focused on the disaster in New Orleans, that city betrayed by the cupidity of shortsighted politicians, flooded with pestilence, plagued by chaos. Al-Jazeera's broadcast on Thursday of the Yorkshire-accented musings of this Muslim fanatic who blew himself up in the London Underground two months ago in the attack that killed 52 innocents, seemed weirdly irrelevant given the scope of the national tragedy that now faces the United States http://www.newsweek.com/2005/09/05/the-suicide-solution.html

Women of Al Qaeda
Jihad used to have a gender: male. The men who dominated the movement exploited traditional attitudes about sex and the sexes to build their ranks. They still do that, but with a difference: even Al Qaeda is using female killers now, and goading the men. http://www.newsweek.com/2005/12/11/women-of-al-qaeda.html

Also note the foreword I wrote to Barbara Victor's "Army of Roses" in 2004:
http://www.amazon.com/Army-Roses-Palestinian-Suicide-Bombers/dp/1841199370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281185781&sr=8-1#reader_1841199370

Suicide and Cynicism Cerca 1985

Professor Tatyana Dronzina, a professor of political science at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria, is teaching a course that looks at suicide terrorism and in her reading she saw references to this 1985 article. I'm glad she sent me a note about it. The reporting I did on this article -- which emphasizes the importance of anti-occupation thinking and also the ability of intelligence services to manipulate would be bombers -- has shaped my views of suicide terrorism ever since. Unfortunately it is not available on line, so, until it is I am posting the article here for the benefit of the professor and her students:

Young Lebanese Seek New Martyrdom Suicide Bombers Emerge as Martyrs

By Christopher Dickey, Washington Post Foreign Service

AMMAN, Jordan, May 11, 1985



A 17-year-old girl from west Beirut found a new kind of martyrdom in the Arab world last month when she videotaped her final words and drove off in a bomb-laden Peugeot. On a road above Jezzin, Lebanon, she blew herself up along with at least two Israeli soldiers.

Since then Sana Mhaydali's farewell has been broadcast throughout the region. Photographs and sketches of her smiling face grace the covers of Middle Eastern magazines. There was a two-page color spread in the popular French weekly Paris Match. "La Kamikaze," read the headline.

But Mhaydali is only the best known in a new generation of high-profile Lebanese suicides whose deaths are meant to dramatize a new sense of nationalism and to win prestige for their parties in Lebanon's internal politics as well as freedom from Israeli occupation.

A young man killed 13 Israeli soldiers and himself in March in Lebanon and another from the Bekaa Valley killed two more Israelis in a suicide attack April 20. On Thursday a 21-year-old woman carried a suitcase full of explosives to an Israeli checkpoint, killing herself, an officer of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army militia and his wife when it detonated.

All these bombers also recorded their thoughts and made posthumous television appearances.

"It's a new approach to the media," a prominent Lebanese politician said drily, "and it has its effect on our people throughout the world."

Unlike earlier suicide bombers, these Lebanese died not in the name of God or Islamic "Holy War," but of country. All were members of secular parties in the secular Lebanese National Democratic Front. The woman on Thursday was a Communist.

Their deaths, according to Lebanese politicians closely allied to Syria, are part of an effort to wrest the banner of successful opposition to Israel and the United States away from the fanatically religious Hezbollah, or Party of God, and other groups believed operating behind the shadowy cover of "Islamic Jihad." Such groups claimed responsibility for attacks in Lebanon on U.S. diplomats, U.S. Marines and French forces and for many kidnapings as well as attacks on Israelis.

"We are trying to prove there is an alternative to Jihad," said a prominent Lebanese politician with knowledge of the bombing campaign who asked not to be cited by name.

The example of a successful anti-Israeli resistance based on patriotism rather than extremist Shiite Moslem fundamentalism, moreover, has broader appeal to Palestinians on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where there is no Shiite tradition of martyrdom, but where there are decades of nationalistic grievances.

Several shop windows on Saladin Street in East Jerusalem in Israel recently displayed posters of Sana Mhaydali in her red beret as she appeared on television.

The Israelis have taken note of the attempts to secularize the suicide bombers. They say they are confident that such attacks will not spread to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, where they believe the Palestinian population does not have the political will, the arms or the supply lines necessary for such attacks.

But, countering the television campaign, the Israelis have permitted one reporter to interview Mohammed Mahoud Burro, a 16-year-old Lebanese youth in the custody of Israeli intelligence. He reportedly was captured before he could blow himself up. Burro, undermining the heroic rhetoric of the television martyrs, told the reporter he was coerced into his mission by what may have been Syrian-allied intelligence operatives in order to free his father from debts incurred by traffic accidents.

"The Israelis want to minimize this phenomenon," said pro-Syrian Lebanese politician Inaam Raad. "But this doesn't make sense -- as if they, the Israelis, were our cherished brothers and we had to be terrorized into fighting them."

Raad was vague, however, about how the young suicides are in fact recruited, indoctrinated and trained. "We don't know them. They just appear when they make the operations," he said.

The gray-haired elder statesman of Lebanon's Syrian Social Nationalists, Raad has been given new prestige as a spokesman for the secular Lebanese resistance to the Israelis since the teen-age Mhaydali appeared in her video beneath the banner of his party.

"Members of our party have been participating in the resistance since the summer of 1982," said Raad. "But what you call suicide or sacrifice operations seemed before only to be people with religious motivations. Now people die for nationalistic reasons."

"Who are the leaders of the Lebanese resistance? The martyrs," Raad said. Whatever moves them to act, their image of youth, bravery and dedication has given them prestige among Arabs that many politicians now seem anxious to share.

When Assem Kansouh, the leader of the Lebanese Baath Party, went to the Syrian capital of Damascus recently for an emergency conference among feuding Moslems, he carried a collection of letters sealed with smears of blood showing that members of his party, too, say they want to die for their country.

The politics of the recent suicides, according to a number of Lebanese Moslem leaders, are closely tied to efforts by Syria to develop a secular government in Lebanon as a way of ending a decade of civil war and rebuilding in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion.

Diplomats in Syria suggest that despite the development of close ties between Syria and Iran during the past few years, Damascus is far from comfortable with the growth of Iranian-style Islamic fundamentalism in the region. A threat to the authority of Syrian President Hafez Assad by the fundamentalist Moslem Brotherhood in 1982, they note, was suppressed at the cost of thousands of lives.

Chances of success in building a secular government in Lebanon appear slim, in the view of western diplomats in Syria. But if the prestige and power of Islamic fundamentalists there grows too great, building on their reputation as the vanguard of the fight against the Israelis, then any hope of a secular, Syrian-dominated peace for Lebanon's bitterly sectarian society is likely to evaporate, they said.

The recent attacks in Lebanon have been carried out by parties in the National Democratic Front, which includes Raad's party, Kansouh's, the Communists and others.

The woman who carried the bomb Thursday, Wafa Nour Eddine, left a videotaped will suggesting a sort of political atonement in her act: "I saw many people around me from my country make mistakes, so I thought that the only way for me is to erase those mistakes through fighting the Israeli enemy."

But most of the videotaped farewells have been aimed at the most basic emotions of Arab families throughout the region. Mhaydali, with the fresh face of a high school senior, seemed to fill the bill better than anyone, judging from the exposure she has received.

"I am a future martyr. I do what I've decided to do with my soul at peace," said Mhaydali, adding: "I do my duty for the love of my people and my country."

"The Bride of the South," Mhaydali is now called in much of the Arab press. At her funeral her family from west Beirut wore white. Candy was distributed as if at a wedding. In Damascus, according to Raad, a secondary school and a street are to be named for her, and a commemorative stamp is to be issued.

When Malek Wabbeh from the Bekaa Valley, 19, killed himself April 20, he said he was looking forward to joining Mhaydali and the other martyrs. "The Eagle of the Bekaa," he was called in the Syrian and Lebanese press, and "the Bridegroom of the South."

Mhaydali, who appeared to be reading from cue cards, also thanked Syrian President Assad for helping her country resist.

Whatever the precise motives of the suicide bombers, Raad and others believe there is little question of the campaign's effectiveness.

The Israelis "would not have left Lebanon if they had not been resisted," Raad said. "I think this resistance has broken their computer. It was the unknown variable in the calculations of the occupier."

END 
(c) The Washington Post

Muslims, Siena and the Palio

Once again the xenophobic Northern League is ignoring the history of the northern Italians it claims to represent. In this case, it is helping to drum up controversy about the "rag" or banner claimed by the winner of the Palio at Siena this year. It was designed by a Lebanese-Italian Muslim artist, Alì Hassoun, showing a turban-wearing medieval knight beneath an image of the Virgin and includes a reference to "Maryam," the 19th Surah of the Qur'an.

Alas, the New York Times version of the story does not add much to the historical background.

So, just to set the record straight, the occasion of the Palio marked the 750th anniversary of the1260 Battle of Montaperti, which the Ghibellines of Siena won against the Guelphs of Florence because Manfred of Hohenstaufen, King of Sicily, sent German mercenary heavy cavalry to Siena's aid.

In the wonderfully contorted politics of the era, Manfred was opposed to the Pope and was supported by the Saracens -- that is, by  Muslim Arabs. Manfred's father, Frederick II, had waged the Sixth Crusade without the support of the papacy and had won back Jerusalem through diplomacy, only to be reviled for failing to shed enough blood.

Without the Arabs' critical support for Manfred, he would never have been in a position to send Siena the troops it desperately needed. The city would have been sacked by Florence. The Palio would never have been celebrated at all.

Counterterror Redux: How the NYPD Takes On Homegrown Terror

NYPD Unseen from Lee Wang on Vimeo.

A collection of columns and articles about NYPD counterterror strategies and homegrown terrorism:


http://www.newsweek.com/2006/11/13/terrorist-hold-em.html


http://www.newsweek.com/2007/03/07/the-wages-of-fear.html


http://www.newsweek.com/2007/07/29/internet-imams-inside-the-cyber-jihad.html


http://www.newsweek.com/2007/08/14/the-making-of-a-homegrown-terrorist.html

http://christopherdickey.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/01/09/of-cops-and-candidates.html


http://www.newsweek.com/2008/07/18/putting-al-qaeda-on-the-couch.html 

http://picasaweb.google.com/christopherdickey/NYPDSlideshow#slideshow/5179408226739925874


http://www.newsweek.com/2009/01/30/the-spymaster-of-new-york.html

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/20/18-wheel-surprise.html


http://www.newsweek.com/2009/09/28/the-new-tnt.html

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/17/deadhead-jihad.html

http://christopherdickey.blogspot.com/2010/05/shahzad-rube-goldberg-of-terrorism.html

Audio: WNYC The Brian Lehrer Show: Running the Blockade, 3 June 2010

Diplomatic tensions continue to rise over Israel's raid on the flotilla of ships seeking to bypass the blockade of Gaza.  New York Times Istanbul bureau chief Sabrina Tavernise and Christopher Dickey, Middle East regional editor for Newsweek and author of Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force - The NYPD, report on the aftermath.

Excellent Little Cartoon about Israel and the Gaza Flotilla Fiasco

Al-Jazeera in English: Onscene on Gaza Ships

Time to Turn to Jeb?

By Robert Parry
May 29, 2010

In watching TV news accounts of the recent American disasters – a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a fatal mine explosion in West Virginia, continuing economic fallout from Wall Street excesses, worsening fears about the impact of the massive U.S. debt – I was struck by the absence of one name: George W. Bush.

It was as if the mainstream journalists were following an unwritten rule: that is, whatever the relevance, the former President was not to be mentioned as a culprit in these catastrophes.

Even when there were references to how the problems had been getting worse for 10 years at the Mineral Management Services, the federal agency which has been rubber-stamping plans for deepwater oil rigs, it was as if no one was willing to do the math and calculate who was in charge during most of that time.

Similarly, when the nation’s $1.2 trillion budget deficit was discussed as a grave threat to the economy, it was never mentioned how the nation got to this point, how the Congressional Budget Office had been projecting $850 billion annual surpluses when Bush took over in 2001.

Back then, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was fretting about the technical complexities for the Fed to set interest rates if the U.S. government paid off its entire debt. Well, that was one “problem” that Bush solved.

The simple truth is that Bush’s policies, implemented by Republican-dominated Congresses in the first half of the last decade, set the stage for all the recent catastrophes – debt caused by massive tax cuts for the wealthy and wars paid for by credit card, hostility toward government regulation of industry (and especially the coal and oil industries), blind faith in the “magic of the market” to set things right.

Yet, the major U.S. news media behaves as if this context must be blacked-out. Bush-43 must get a pass and the blame must be dumped on President Barack Obama for having “failed” to fix these problems in the past 16 months...(more)

Video: Trailer for film on Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch woman who joined the FARC

War Inquiry Met Second-Tier Bush Officials

By Mark Hosenball, Newsweek

The British official inquiry team examining the origins and conduct of the Iraq War met with some relatively senior former officials of the George W. Bush administration on a weeklong visit to the U.S. earlier in May. But neither Bush, Dick Cheney, nor any other very senior Bush-era policymaker, military, or intelligence official appears to have been willing to speak to the inquiry team, which is led by Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant.
In an official statement issued on Friday, the inquiry committee said that it had held a series of "private discussions" between May 17 and May 21 with "people from the current and former administrations," as well as the current ambassadors. Although the committee has held public hearings in London in which most of the top U.K. officials involved in war-relateddecisions—including former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and many of their top advisers—gave testimony in public, the inquiry commission said that while the Americans they met had agreed to have their names released to the public, because the meetings "were not formal evidence sessions, records of the conversations are not being published." (See the complete list of former Bush administration officials who spoke to the inquiry whose names were released today, but whose contributions are not spelled out in any detail, here.)... (more)

How Immigrants Actually Reduce Crime - Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/27/reading-ranting-and-arithmetic.html

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Police chiefs voice concerns to AG about Ariz. law http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15895/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=1ypo6kqH

Sent from my iPhone

Gay Days in Morocco

Elton John performance in Morocco raises outcry http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=eDlyMmIq

Sent from my iPhone

Spy v Espion: NYT on Blair resignation and France

May 21, 2010
Dispute Over France a Factor in Intelligence Rift

By MARK MAZZETTI


WASHINGTON — An already strained relationship between the White House and the departing spymaster Dennis C. Blair erupted earlier this year over Mr. Blair’s efforts to cement close intelligence ties to France and broker a pledge between the nations not to spy on each other, American government officials said Friday.

The White House scuttled the plan, officials said, but not before President Nicolas Sarkozy of France had come to believe that a deal was in place. Officials said that Mr. Sarkozy was angered about the miscommunication, and that the episode had hurt ties between the United States and France at a time when the two nations are trying to present a united front to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.

Officials said the dust-up was not the proximate cause of President Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Blair, who announced his resignation on Thursday, from the job as director of national intelligence, but was a contributing factor in the mutual distrust between the White House and members of Mr. Blair’s staff. The episode also illuminates the extent to which communications between the president’s aides and Mr. Blair had deteriorated during a period of particular alarm about terrorist threats to the United States. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/politics/22intel.html

BBC News - Chile charges Pakistani man over US embassy alert

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/americas/8684987.stm

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Show Me Your Papers! Or, Hey, Don't.

Passport please — but license will do

The law says U.S. citizens have to have a passport or other approved document to cross the border, and most comply, but Customs agents let them slide if they don't.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/passport_please__but_drivers_license_will_do_93833059.html

This makes an interesting companion piece to my column on Thursday:


Shadowland: Immigration and IDs: A Modest Proposal, 13 May 2010
All Americans—whether brown, white, or black—should be required to carry a passport showing they are red, white, and blue. http://www.newsweek.com/id/237950

Shahzad: The Rube Goldberg of Terrorism

 
This little video of Rube Goldberg made in 1940 digresses into a seriously silly demonstration of the power of gasoline. It's a plug for the petroleum business -- but it also suggests a critical failing of the Time Square bomb, of which gasoline cans were a part: liquid gasoline burns, as the video says, "like a candle." It's vaporized and compressed gasoline that explodes.



Faisal Shahzad may have returned from Pakistan to Connecticut on a mission of mayhem earlier this year, but the more we know about the way he planned and executed the attempted bombing of Times Square, the more hapless and incompetent he appears.

Test Runs

As we read in the U.S. attorney’s complaint against Shahzad, he bought the Pathfinder for $1,300 cash in the parking lot of a supermarket out in Connecticut on Saturday, April 24. According to one of my best law enforcement sources, who does not want to be identified more specifically than that, there was no paperwork and there were no records of the transaction in the hands of the seller. Shahzad might have gotten away for quite a while without being traced as the buyer if he had not made the fatal mistake of calling the seller back to check the last time the car had had its oil changed. But more about that later.

On Wednesday, April 28, according to my source, Shahzad drives the rusty Pathfinder into Manhattan to recon the route he would take later and the traffic situation around Times Square. He then drives back out to Connecticut.

On the evening of Friday, April 30, Shahzad drives his Isuzu Trooper, registered to him, into the city and parks it just a few blocks from Times Square, on West 38th between 8th and 9th Avenues. His plan was to use it as his getaway car the following night. He locked it up tight, then went to Grand Central and took the train back out to Connecticut.

The Night of the Would-be Bombing

On Saturday, May 1, Shahzad drove the Pathfinder to Manhattan and headed up the FDR Drive, turned off on 49th, drove a block or so and stopped. As it happens, he was near the United Nations, which is probably not the smartest place to pull over, not least because he was on candid camera. He checked the cargo in the back of the Pathfinder, and may have set the timer going. He then drove to 2nd Ave. and turned left, went four blocks and turned right onto 45th. He took that straight across town, crossed Broadway and pulled over, leaving the emergency lights flashing and the keys in the ignition, as if he were just running an errand. He had tinted the windows after he bought the car and he may have hoped that anyone passing by would think there was still someone inside it. Of course, the tinting also hid the cobbled-together bomb from public view.

In fact, Shahzad headed straight for his Isuzu on 38th Street. (He may have gone through Shubert Alley between 45th and 44th, but the cops say he was not the man caught on CCTV who stripped off a black shirt to reveal a red one and seemed to be looking furtively behind him. ) Then, a surprise. As my source put it, “When he gets to 38th Street, I don’t know what he says to himself, but probably it was ‘Oh, shit!’ He realizes that he left the keys to the Isuzu on the ring of keys that he left in the Pathfinder.” So the “getaway car”  remains parked just where it was and, once again, takes a train back to Connecticut. He may also have been wondering by that point why he hadn’t heard an explosion.

On Sunday, apparently still secure in the idea he’d covered his tracks, Shahzad came back into town to pick up his Trooper. It is not clear to me whether he had a second set of keys – he may have called AAA or a similar group to help him. Anyway, a minor point. He got into the car, got it going and drove back out of town.

By then, however, the NYPD and FBI were exploring the wealth of evidence Shahzad had left behind in the unexploded Pathfinder. After several hours in which the bomb squad took apart the device, apparently modeled on plans by Rube Goldberg, the Pathfinder was loaded onto a flatbed truck and carted out the NYPD forensic lab in Queens.

What my guy calls “the Eureka moment” came when a detective who specializes in “auto crime” was called in to try to I.D. the vehicle. The dashboard VIN, or vehicle identification number, had been removed, but the detective crawled underneath and identified one on the bottom of the engine block. Because of his experience with stolen cars and chop shops, he was able to say right away that the engine belonged to the car (a 1993 model – the engine might have been changed), and once that I.D. was made, law enforcement computers kicked into high gear.

The Follow-Up

The VIN quickly led to the registered owner in Connecticut, who told police he’d asked his daughter to handle the sale, and she’d put it on Craigslist. She had been the person who met with Shahzad in the parking lot to make the cash transaction. She said she didn’t really know his name and she didn’t think she had any contacts for him.

But because Shahzad had called her a few days later to ask about the last oil change, the cops found his number in her mobile. Even though he’d used a prepaid throwaway phone, they reportedly pulled up the records of the numbers called from the throwaway and linked one to Shahzad. All this would have been on Sunday, so essentially within the first 24 hours. “We closed in on him,” said the source.

Now, there’s been some confusion in the press about when or whether the case was moved somehow from the NYPD to the FBI-run Joint Terrorism Task Force. My guy says this is misleading, that the FBI and JTTF were involved all along, from the first briefings on the scene on Saturday night.

As the focus of the investigation and surveillance of Shahzad moved to Connecticut, the NYPD was not directly involved and my source said he did not have much to add to accounts that the Feds may have lost track of him for a while.

The latest Newsweek story on the case, based on reporting by Mark Hosenball, myself and Ron Moreau and Sami Yousufzai in Pakistan, gives this account of what happened:

By Monday, Shahzad was under surveillance by the feds at his Bridgeport apartment. But maybe a little too much surveillance. FBI agents no longer wear regulation white shirts and snap-brim hats as they did in J. Edgar Hoover's day, but Shahzad's neighborhood was soon crawling with burly men in SUVs. Equally noticeable, reporters—tipped off by law-enforcement sources to expect a big bust—began showing up in the area. Something may have spooked Shahzad, because he apparently slipped out the back and—undetected despite all the surveillance—got into his car and drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

According to my source, the Feds had the number of the cell phone Shahzad still used after ditching his throwaway, and they were monitoring it on Monday as he headed for JFK, which may be one reason Attorney General Eric Holder claimed he wasn’t worried about losing him. It is also worth noting that the longer they could monitor that phone, if indeed they were doing so, the more likely they could trace Shahzad’s connections. Conceivably, they wanted to see who he would call when he thought he was safe on board the plane – but that’s just guesswork, and it may be far too kind to the Feds, who just screwed up. A last-minute check of the flight manifest by the Customs and Border Protection guys at JFK turned up Shahzad. They stopped the plane and made the collar.

Shahzad did not seem surprised. “Are you the NYPD or the FBI?” he asked. Actually, it was the CPB.

NYTimes: Al Qaeda’s Nuclear Plant

From The New York Times:

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: Al Qaeda's Nuclear Plant

Did an American nuclear-plant maintenance worker arrested in Yemen
give Al Qaeda vital information?

http://nyti.ms/cDvkxY

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CNN Video: Attorney General Eric Holder on Arrest in Times Square Bomb Case

New York (CNN) -- A U.S. citizen has been arrested in the Times Square bombing probe, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced early Tuesday.

Faisal Shahzad was arrested at JFK airport in New York as he prepared to board a flight to Dubai, Holder said.

"It is clear the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans," Holder said. "We will not rest until we bring everyone responsible to justice."... http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

WNYC Brian Lehrer Show: See Something, Say Something

Reports indicate that a street vendor was the first to act in this weekend's thwarted Times Square bomb attempt.  Karen Greenberg, Executive Director of The Center on Law and Security at NYU Law School, andChristopher Dickey--blogger, Newsweek's Middle East Regional Editor, and author of Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force--The NYPD--look at the balance between professional security and the “see-something-say-something” approach.

CNN Video: Bloomberg and Kelly on Times Square Bomb

How do you protect New Yorkers from this kind of attack?

If you look at the last chapter of Securing the City, which you can browse on Amazon, I go into considerable detail about the measures taken at Times Square on New Year's Eve. They give an idea of the extreme means used when the risk is highest. But at normal times you have to depend on the vigilance of the public, the quick response of cops on the scene, and on aggressive, proactive intelligence work that tries to stop this kind of thing long before it gets to the stage of fireworks popping in the backs of cars. Two examples would be the Herald Square case in '04 and the Zazi case last year. 

We are all helped by the fact that most terrorists are idiots and they're inept. But unless you have multiple layers of defense you really are vulnerable. Fortunately that is what the NYPD, working with the Feds (and occasionally in spite of them) set out to achieve - and so far, it has to be said, the cops have been pretty effective.

Most analysis of this incident so far focuses on some threat related to Al Qaeda. The design of the bomb -- and the incompetence of the bomb maker(s) -- are reminiscent of attempted attacks in London and Glasgow in 2007. Those were inspired by Osama bin Laden's war of terror, but none of the people involved ever trained with AQ or took orders from its leadership. 


We should not discount the possibility that this attempted mass murder was the work of an individual or small group with no Muslim ties and no sympathy for AQ whatsoever. Anarchists out to mark May 1, right-wing crazies looking to send some demented message of their own against taxes (like Joe Stack, who flew his little plane into some Texas IRS offices), or someone who hated "Lion King" ticket holders, or had a vendetta against the Bank of America ... Never underestimate the range of people who look to make their point by making mayhem in New York City. The potential list of perpetrators is long and will remain so until more evidence has been analyzed.


-- C.D.