That "malignancy" wasn't there before March 2003. As a matter of fact, world-wide malignancy increased after our invasion of Iraq. The war on terrorism have accomplished the opposite of what it was supposed to because of the incompetence of this administration. The only malignancy is sitting in the white house. Oh, excuse me; he's on vacation.
[1996 fatwah excerpts]
Our youths believe in paradise after death. They believe that taking part in fighting will not bring their day nearer; and staying behind will not postpone their day either.
These youths believe in what has been told by Allah and His messenger (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) about the greatness of the reward for the Mujahideen and Martyrs; Allah, the most exalted said: {and -so far- those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish. He will guide them and improve their condition. and cause them to enter the garden -paradise- which He has made known to them}. (Muhammad; 47:4-6). Allah the Exalted also said: {and do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay -they are- alive, but you do not perceive} (Bagarah; 2:154).
[1998 fatwah excerpt]
I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped.
The attacks on September 11 kill almost 3,000 in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
The night of 9/11, the President broadcast to the nation that we will not distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them.
The al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, was formed in northern Iraq in December 2001 and included some of those fleeing the US, October 20, 2001, invasion of Afghanistan . At the beginning of the US March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq, the al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border.
When the US invaded Iraq, it attacked the al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, training camps in northern Iraq, and this organization's leaders retreated to neighboring countries. When the war in the north settled down, the militants returned to Iraq to fight against the occupying American forces.
No Muslim should risk his life as he may inadvertently be killed if he associates with the Crusaders, whom we have no choice but to kill.
… eight reasons for global jihad. These include the restoration of Islamic sovereignty to all lands where Muslims were once ascendant, including Spain, "Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Sicily, Ethiopia, Russian Turkistan and Chinese Turkistan. . . Even parts of France reaching 90 kilometers outside Paris."
Reuters soundman killed in Baghdad, police blame US
Sun Aug 28, 2005
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Reuters Television soundman was shot dead in Baghdad on Sunday and a cameraman with him was wounded and then detained by U.S. soldiers.
Iraqi police said they had been shot by U.S. forces. A U.S. military spokesman said the incident was being investigated.
Waleed Khaled, 35, was hit by a shot to the face and at least four to the chest as he drove to check a report from police sources of an incident involving police and gunmen in the Hay al-Adil district, in the west of the city.
"A team from Reuters news agency was on assignment to cover the killing of two policemen in Hay al-Adil; U.S. forces opened fire on the team from Reuters and killed Waleed Khaled, who was shot in the head, and wounded Haider Kadhem," an Interior Ministry official quoted the police incident report as saying.
"I heard shooting, looked up and saw an American sniper on the roof of the shopping centre," cameraman Kadhem, who was wounded in the back, told colleagues who arrived at the scene.
The only known eyewitness, he was later detained by U.S. troops and was still in custody six hours later despite Reuters' requests that he be freed to receive medical attention. His precise whereabouts were not clear.
Two Iraqi colleagues who arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting were also briefly detained, then released.
"They treated us like dogs. They made us, ... including Khaled who was wounded and asking for water, sit in the sun on the road," Reuters Television soundman Mohammed Idriss said.
Asked to comment on the incident, U.S. spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan said it was being investigated.
A U.S. statement said: "Task Force Baghdad units responded to a terrorist attack on an Iraqi Police convoy around 11:20 a.m. (0720 GMT) August 28 in central Baghdad, which killed and wounded several Iraqi Police.
"One civilian was killed and another was wounded by small- arms fire during the attack ... After discovering an abandoned car with explosives material, weapons and a cell phone, units began searching the area for the terror suspects who were believed to have fled on foot."
REUTERS DEEPLY SADDENED
Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger said: "This tragic incident must immediately be investigated thoroughly and impartially.
"A brave journalist has lost his life and another has been wounded and detained when their only actions were as professionals reporting the facts and images of the war. We are deeply saddened at this loss."
Iraqis complain of frequent killings of civilians by U.S. forces, most of which go unreported and uninvestigated. American commanders say their troops are trained to be vigilant against suicide bombers and to avoid firing on civilians.
Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy, who arrived at the scene about an hour after the shooting, said the soundman's body was still in the driver's seat, the face covered by a cloth.
Entry and exit wounds could be seen on the face indicating shots from the victim's right. There were several bullet holes in the windscreen and at least four wounds in the chest.
His U.S. military and Reuters press cards, clipped to his shirt, were caked in blood. In one, there were two bullet holes.
To the right of the scene, a U.S. soldier, apparently a sniper, was posted on the roof of a shopping centre.
A British security adviser working for Reuters said it seemed likely that high-velocity rounds had been fired at the car from roughly the direction of that building.
The car, an ordinary, white four-door passenger vehicle, was heading down an offramp, about 200 metres from a main road.
U.S. armoured vehicles blocked off the scene. After a brief inspection of the car, they allowed Reuters staff and the dead man's family to have it towed away. One soldier said there were no suspicious items in the car. Colleagues and relatives were handed a military body bag to remove the corpse.
A U.S. officer said: "They drove into fighting."
As Waleed's tearful relatives inspected the body at the scene, a U.S. soldier said: "Don't bother. It's not worth it."
A few other soldiers joked among themselves just a few feet (metres) from the body.
Waleed was a jovial character loved by colleagues with whom he had worked for two years. He leaves a 7-year-old daughter and his wife, who is four months pregnant.
Two Reuters cameramen have been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003. A third was shot dead by a sniper in Ramadi last November in circumstances for which Reuters is still seeking an explanation from U.S. forces.
Reuters' cameraman in the city of Ramadi, Ali al-Mashhadani, was arrested by U.S. forces three weeks ago and is being held without charge in Abu Ghraib prison. U.S. military officials say he will face a judicial hearing as soon as Monday but have still given no access to the journalist or said what he is accused of.
GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
08.24.2005
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The Crisis in U.S.-Pakistani Relations
By George Friedman and Kamran Bokhari
Though the governments of the United States and Pakistan appear to be in sync with one another on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and militant Islamists, a crisis of relations is brewing just beneath the surface. Despite expressions of unity in the war against al Qaeda, cooperation at the operational and tactical levels is nearly nonexistent -- and calculated interference by Pakistani intelligence and security elements is hindering U.S. operations in the country.
This situation is further complicated by ongoing rivalries between government agencies, poor communications and general lack of cooperation by U.S. intelligence and security agencies. All of which leaves counterterrorism operations in Pakistan -- or, more precisely, U.S. efforts to capture or kill bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders -- stagnant.
At the broad political level, Washington and Islamabad are presenting a relatively unified front in the battle. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who must balance his domestic political concerns against U.S. pressure, continues to walk a fine line -- between cooperation with Washington (or with opposition forces within Pakistan), and capitulation.
On the surface, Musharraf and U.S. President George W. Bush are in a state of cautious compromise -- with Washington continuing to express confidence in Musharraf's government and offering increased military assistance to Pakistan. For its part, Islamabad has been paying lip service to counterterrorism cooperation with the United States, while still professing its ability to carry out sweeps and all other anti-jihadist operations on its own. The Musharraf government's attitude has been that it is doing all it can to get rid of terrorist sanctuaries, but it will not allow foreign forces to conduct operations on Pakistani soil. As Musharraf told U.S. media earlier this year, "We are capable of" capturing bin Laden, and "if we get intelligence, we will do it ourselves."
Islamabad recognizes that U.S. forces will operate in Pakistani territory -- with or without government permission -- and thus has struck a compromise so that U.S. operations will be kept as low-key as possible by both sides. The Pakistanis have acknowledged the involvement of foreign forces in the counterterrorism offensive but claim joint efforts are limited to intelligence-sharing and logistics cooperation. In this way, Islamabad seeks to defuse both U.S. pressure to act -- and domestic pressure to avoid acting.
But despite the political niceties, two key issues continue to impede efforts to dismantle al Qaeda's structure in Pakistan. The first is the professional rivalry between the CIA, Department of Defense and FBI, as well as other security and intelligence agencies, which continues to dog the post-Sept. 11 efforts to streamline intelligence-sharing. The second is the dismal performance by the Pakistani security and intelligence organizations.
It is true that a number of key al Qaeda operatives and leaders have been arrested by Pakistani authorities since their exodus from Afghanistan in late 2001. In March 2002, Abu Zubaydah, a senior al Qaeda member, was captured in Faisalabad. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a deputy leader of the task force that coordinated the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured in Karachi in September 2002. And in March 2003, another task force leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was picked up in Rawalpindi. Other prominent captures include those of communications expert Naeem Noor Khan, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (linked to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa), and Abu Farj al-Libi, believed to be the head of al Qaeda operations in Pakistan.
Nevertheless, the progress made against the core leadership of al Qaeda remains an open question. First, how is it that al Qaeda's mostly Arab leadership is able to evade detection in a country with very few Arabs? More important, how can a foreign non-state actor evade detection -- when he is known to be in a certain region, with massive global search-and-destroy operations hunting him -- unless he is granted succor or protection from some members of the local security and intelligence organizations closest to the front?
While those at the topmost levels of U.S. authority have been praising the Musharraf government as a crucial ally in the war against al Qaeda, certain U.S. officials lately have been making a public issue of Islamabad's non-cooperation. Among these is CIA Director Porter Goss, who insinuated a few months ago that bin Laden is known to be in Pakistan and said outright that in order for him to be captured, certain "weak links" -- i.e., Pakistan -- must be strengthened.
Goss's comments are clearly echoed by U.S. intelligence and defense officials now active in Pakistan and working with Islamabad. There is an ingrained distrust of U.S. and other foreign services within Pakistan's intelligence community -- stemming from nationalistic instincts, a desire to hide links between intelligence services and jihadists and their supporters, and sympathies on multiple levels with the jihadists.
One very senior Pakistani intelligence source engaged in a frank discussion about this atmosphere of distrust -- which is pervasive throughout the country's security organizations, even though most of Pakistan's law enforcement personnel are not personally Islamists. Some simply don't like the idea of U.S. pressure against their government, while others dislike being told how to do their jobs. Still others see the United States as arrogantly pursuing its own interests at Pakistan's expense. We are told there is a great deal of resentment -- from the highest echelons down through the rank-and-file -- over what the Pakistanis perceive as Washington's failure to recognize the efforts, sacrifices, and cooperation they are providing.
And, not insignificantly, there are some who perceive that the jihadists Washington is now pursuing were created by the United States' proxy war in 1980s Afghanistan -- and who believe that the U.S. government, having abandoned Afghanistan after meeting its objectives there, will abandon Pakistan in similar fashion.
Resistance to U.S. influence, therefore, has been both passive and active, with intelligence operatives telling local police and village chiefs directly not to cooperate with U.S. operations on the ground. Sources in Pakistan tell us that the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence agencies debrief all private Pakistani citizens who come into contact with U.S. government, media and think tanks -- both before and after the interface -- in attempts to restrict contact between the two countries to official channels. Additionally, certain high-level leaders of Pakistani militant Islamist movements have been declared off-limits as targets for security forces, thus leaving key segments of the international militant network unmolested. The United States is providing large amounts of supplies, money and training for Pakistani forces, but with few results.
Clearly, cooperation from the country's intelligence and security apparatus -- a major cog in the machine built to hunt down al Qaeda in Pakistan -- is not happening. There are four reasons for this:
1. The insistence by top leadership that U.S. forces cannot operate any more prominently on Pakistani soil than they already are. Though there are many reasons behind this, as mentioned earlier, they boil down for some key government officials to mere survival: Islamist militants have made several attempts on Musharraf's life and others within the regime, at al Qaeda's behest. Nationalist sentiments and political opposition to Musharraf's government are considerations as well.
2. Calculated moves by influential figures at the middle and lower levels of Pakistan's intelligence and security apparatus to thwart offensives against the militants. Some of this reflects countermoves by Islamabad against American attempts to push the limits of tacit security agreements with the Pakistanis. However, it is also a sign that the Musharraf regime does not have tight control over its own intelligence and security services -- and of this, Islamabad is keenly and nervously aware.
3. The Pakistani military's desire to hide its past links with the militants and its current ties to certain Islamist groups -- which it views as assets of the state to be used in pursuit of Islamabad's geopolitical goals. For Islamabad, the jihadists have long been both an internal threat to military/civilian rule and a useful form of leverage in its geopolitical maneuvers -- for example, gaining strategic depth with regard to Afghanistan and waging its proxy war against India in Kashmir. Pakistan is not willing to surrender this leverage lightly -- and, because the lines between those "useful" militant groups and al Qaeda members can be blurry, many on Islamabad's preservation list fall into both categories.
4. Recognition within Islamabad that Pakistan's importance as a U.S. ally likely will dissolve if bin Laden is captured or killed. Washington has been attempting to strengthen its ties with India and is even attempting tentative negotiations with Iran, with the eventual goal of warmer relations. Should these efforts bear fruit, the Musharraf regime's geopolitical importance to the United States will diminish -- leaving Islamabad as a potential member of the "outposts of tyranny" rather than a close anti-terrorism ally.
Given these factors -- coupled with the potential for ineptitude and rivalries among the Pakistani and U.S. security and intelligence agencies -- there is a crisis that has brought the search for al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to a virtual halt. This situation cannot last indefinitely -- the breaking point will come either with a misstep by Musharraf that destroys the political balance he has tried to maintain within Pakistan, or a decision by Washington that delay, obfuscation and overt obstructionism will no longer be tolerated. If Islamabad doesn't act -- and it is questionable whether another pre-packaged capture of a mid-level al Qaeda operative by Pakistani forces will satisfy the Bush administration -- Washington will be left with little choice but to move on its own.
Islamabad's response to the pressure is predicated on one unanswered question: Is Musharraf lying to the United States, or is he being lied to by his own people? In other words, is he in control of the obstructionism, or is he a victim of it? We believe the reality is somewhere in the middle. Nevertheless, the outlook is troubling.
Send questions or comments on this article to [email protected].
I might not know of all places on the net, does anyone know a place where there are just liberals or at least a place free of far rights. I think I am just tired of debating and just want to talk around people who think along the same lines as I do.
Quote:Reuters soundman killed in Baghdad, police blame US ...
other pleasures.
Iraqi State Company to Repair Oil Wells
Sunday August 28, 2005
By ANTONIO CASTANEDA
Associated Press Writer
BASRA, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi state-owned company has been given the job of repairing oil wells that sit on large, lucrative oil reserves in the country's south - a decision likely to mean additional months of pumping delays for an industry already suffering from sabotage and lost revenues.
The decision by U.S. reconstruction officials came after American and other Western companies - including giant oil-field services firm KBR Oil - balked at doing the work without strong legal protections, or indemnifications, guaranteeing they would not be blamed if things went wrong.
Iraqi authorities had promised such protections, according to American officials, but concerns about the Iraqi government's stability prompted Western companies to unsuccessfully demand the same guarantees from Washington.
``Nobody is probably going to take on that type of liability - at least no U.S. company,'' said Don Lassus, an official with WorleyParsons, an energy services firm that declined the work.
U.S. officials announced the decision to use the Iraqi Southern Oil Co. after several inquiries by The Associated Press. American officials now are training employees and buying them equipment, according to Friday's statement by the Project and Contracting Office, a U.S. reconstruction agency. The contract is for $37 million.
The training likely will cause delays, whereas a Western firm already would have the needed expertise.
That means the reassigned project could take months longer at a time when delays already come at a high price. With the price of oil topping $60 a barrel, the Iraqi government is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue from the dilapidated wells.
The wells deteriorated during Saddam Hussein's rule, when international sanctions barred leading Western companies from working with the Iraqi government. Oil production in the south could increase by as much as 500,000 barrels a day once the project is complete, according to the U.S. reconstruction agency. The number of wells to be repaired has not been disclosed.
The contract to repair wells was originally awarded to KBR Oil, a subsidiary of Halliburton. But the agreement was canceled when the oil giant and other companies insisted on financial protections upfront, in case wells were damaged during the drilling process.
``The feeling is that with conditions being relatively unstable, nobody feels comfortable with the notion that they'd be indemnified by the Iraqi Southern Oil Co.,'' Lassus said.
KBR said it required guarantees from the U.S. government because its contract was with American authorities, who are funding the project, and not with Iraqi authorities.
``KBR does not have a contractual relationship with the government of Iraq. Our (contract) is with the U.S. government, and it is therefore our position that all negotiations ... be struck directly with our client and not a third-party entity,'' said KBR spokeswoman Melissa Norcross.
The project was just one part of a larger KBR contract with U.S. agencies.
Repairing the aging and damaged wells is crucial because Iraq's economy now relies on oil exports from the south, a relatively peaceful part of the country. More than 80 percent of exported oil flows from the area, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Sabotage attacks have crippled the flow from northern areas such as around Kirkuk.
In July, the Iraqi oil ministry said about 300 acts of sabotage had cost the country about $11.35 billion since petroleum exports resumed after the U.S.-led invasion two years ago.
In July, Army Corps officials estimated that an extra 1 million barrels of oil could be pumped from the south about nine to 12 months after contracts were signed to develop local infrastructure such as pipelines and a nearby port.
However, some analysts say such a large increase is too optimistic, even with the facility upgrades.
``A million sounds pretty high,'' said Jamal Qureshi, an Iraq oil analyst for Washington-based consultancy PFC Energy. ``I have a hard time seeing that from just existing fields and rehabilitation.''
Iraqi officials repeatedly have expressed their willingness to bring in international companies to develop oil fields.
``In order to reach our future plans, we must depend on international and Arab companies and the Iraqi private sector to develop fields,'' Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum told the AP on Aug. 13.
Legal concerns from the oil industry are natural in volatile areas, Qureshi said, particularly with large development projects that take years to complete.
``You don't know the legal framework that you are working under,'' Qureshi said. ``You won't have that until you have a stable government.''
If we assume the sniper was a US soldier deliberately targeting Reuters and not mistaking the Reuter's vehicle for a malignancy vehicle, then that soldier should be quickly courtmartialed and executed.
ican711nm wrote:If we assume the sniper was a US soldier deliberately targeting Reuters and not mistaking the Reuter's vehicle for a malignancy vehicle, then that soldier should be quickly courtmartialed and executed.
Let us not bother with anything like due process, just find the SOB guilty with a drum head court and shoot his ass right now ! ! !
I'm glad you occupy no responsible position in government.
In other words, he is saying if the sniper deliberately targeted Reuters, he it guilty. The court martial will bear that out, or not.
