April 29, 2004
It's very hard. There are situations for which I'd like to think I would stand strong, but if my kid's life was on the line, can I honestly say I know what I'd do? And since I'm not now nor have ever been in that situation, how can I honestly pass judgement on those who are?
I'm just going to link the articles from CNN, Yahoo and the BBC.
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Three days before their countries join the union, the finance ministers of Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia criticised Germany's decision to continue flouting the EU's stability pact, which is designed to protect the integrity of the euro.As Orwell noted, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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April 27, 2004
In the video, the apparent kidnappers vow to kill the hostages in five days unless the Italian people protest against their military presence in Iraq.As a cynical note, the demand implies that the anti-war demonstrations are staged events anyway, undertaken without underlying ideals or beliefs, and therefore it shouldn't be hard to hold another one.
One of the odder parts is that it puts the Italian anti-war movement on the spot rather than the Italian government. What is their game? What does this Green Brigade hope to achieve?
But I'm also wondering if a bit of Italian history might figure in to this: an Italian group of ultra-leftists back in the 60's and 70's was called the Red Brigade. They kidnapped Aldo Moro on March 16, 1978, and executed him on on May 9, 1978. (The Moro link makes some assertions about Moro's influence on Italian politics. I'm not familiar enough to agree or disagree, but it is interesting.)
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April 21, 2004
One car exploded in Az Zubayr and then, 30 minutes later as people gathered at the scene, a second suicide car bomb went off in the same location, police officer Hassan Kahlaf said. He said that the first bomber was dressed as a policeman.18 children on their way to school are among the dead.
The rage such atrocities arouses is too immense for words. May the bullets of our soldiers find and target the bastards that plan these murders.
20:49 Alaa has a pointed response to the coverage by the Arabiya reporter on the scene. Read it. (End update)
A Dane who disappeared in Iraq April 11 has been found dead.
No information has been released about the man's identity or nature of his death. Did he, like Fabrizio Quattrocchi, show too much courage for his captors?
Another Canadian has been taken hostage. From the Canadian Office of Foreign Affairs:
A spokesperson for the department said Rifat Mohammed Rifat (sic) has been missing since April 8. Ottawa confirmed on Tuesday he is Canadian and has been kidnapped.Thanks to Nik for sending me the link. Nik comments in the emailHe is alive, the spokesperson said, but Ottawa doesn't know who kidnapped him or where he's being held.
Rifat, 41, was last seen leaving work at a prison west of Baghdad, where he was working for a Saudi company doing repairs.
His brother, Ali Rifat, reported him missing.
It's not clear his captors know he is Canadian.
"It's not clear his captors know he is Canadian." But it's pretty DAMNED CLEAR they don't give a f***. (Lightly edited by me.)
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April 19, 2004
WASHINGTON — President Bush scolded Spain's new prime minister Monday for his swift withdrawal of troops from Iraq and told him to avoid actions that give "false comfort to terrorists or enemies of freedom in Iraq."(CNN coverage here.) If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the Bush administration too reads the hastiness of the withdrawal as accepting bin Laden's offer of a truce.
John at Ibernian Notes thinks that Spain is #2 on the shit list.
Paul has news of the desecration of the grave of Francisco Javier Torrenteras, the Spanish agent in the National Police's Special Operations Group who was killed in the house explosion while trying to apprehend suspects in the March 11 terrorist attack in Madrid.
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Prime Minister John Howard has attacked Spain's decision to withdraw its troops from Iraq and brushed aside suggestions Australian troops might be sent to fill the gap.Australia has been a true friend and staunch coalition partner.Mr Howard told reporters at Traralgon in eastern Victoria that Spain had made a mistake.
"Spain's decision will give heart to those people who are trying to delay the emergence of a free and democratic Iraq," he said.
"Every time a country appears to be retreating from a difficult situation encouragement is given to those people who have created the difficulty."peMr Howard poured cold water on suggestions Australians might replace Spanish troops.
"We have had no request to do so," he said.
[...]
"I am going to repeat the principle: we are not cutting and running, we are going to finish the job, we are going to do what Australians always do and that is to see things through."
Australia has 850 personnel in the Middle East with about 300 inside Iraq, providing security, air traffic control at Baghdad airport and training Iraqi military personnel.
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April 18, 2004
I don't know if he'll go all the way and withdraw from Afghanistan, though. Does bin Laden do compromise?
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April 14, 2004
I wonder if they include Andalusia as a Muslim base? Bin Laden certainly does.
By the way, the last line in Paul's post should have a drink warning.
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April 13, 2004
AN OTTAWA man being detained in Saudi Arabia has told his family Saudi authorities plan to keep him in custody until he can be interviewed by an RCMP investigator, CBC News reported last night. Mahboob Khawaja managed to call his son Qasim yesterday afternoon, CBC News reported from Ottawa.The CBC story is here.
Intial reports on Mahboob Khawaja's arrest from unnamed Saudi sources claimed that he had been arrested at the request of Canadian authorities. Last week, RCMP spokesman Staff Sgt. Paul Marsh said that the force had not been in touch with Saudi authorities over Mahboob or his son Mohammad Momin Khawaja, who was arrested in Canada March 29 in the same sweep that included the arrest of 8 men in Britain.
Apr. 14 The son, Mohammad Momin Khawaja was indited in a British court as a co-conspirator with the men and teenager arrested in Britain. (Yahoo! News - British teen in court on explosives charges linked to arrest of Ottawa man.)
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April 11, 2004
Spanish investigators believe that the man they called is a fundamentalist imam and a member of the al-Qa'eda network.Note that the two arrested men are not those who were telephoned from Madrid.The newspaper also reported that international arrest warrants were expected to be issued against several new suspects within days.
[...]
British links to two of the suspects have already been uncovered. Police raided an address in east London which is connected to two Moroccan men, Kohamed Oulad Akcha and his brother Rachid, who are suspected of being involved in the rail attacks.
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April 05, 2004
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According to the Times, Canadian Momin Khawaja played a "pivotal role" in the plot.
The sweep in the UK was called Operation Crevice, and its counterpart in Canada was called Project Awaken.
The operational instructions appeared to come from someone familiar to Americans, Iraqis and Spaniards:
The sender was apparently in the circle around Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be the mastermind of attacks in Baghdad and Karbala last month in Iraq that killed 280 people during a Muslim religious festival.The assertion that al-Zarqawi masterminded two major attacks on two different continents only last month followed by an assertion that senior level officials thought al Qaeda had been destroyed from the top is either simplistic in the extreme or bad editing.The link to Pakistan is also seen as significant because it disproves a view that al-Qaida's command structure had been broken up and scattered by the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and arrests made around the world in the last 2 1/2 years of the war on terror, The Sunday Times said.
"We all thought there were cells operating in isolation and had been told that the al-Qaida network had been destroyed from the top when suddenly we find a chain of command leading back to Pakistan," a senior Scotland Yard source is quoted as saying.
Have al Qaeda activities been disrupted? Yes. Are they still dangerous? Yes. Should we give up? No.
Is the terrorist counter-offensive finished? Maybe, or at least partially. The rapid deployment of an additional 650 British troops to Kosovo stopped further ethnic cleansing there, and the effectual disruption in Spain of further attacks (with a major assist from the French) in addition the arrests in the UK means that the line in Europe held.
(CNews links via Neale News.)
22:41: Via Jack's Newswatch, this report that Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the new leader of the terror network in Saudi Arabia, has issued a threat: one of al-QaedaÂ’s top officials has ordered the killing of Muslim leaders if they co-operate with intelligence services and the police to thwart terrorist attacks.
The ultimate goal of the Islamists is to force all Muslims to accept their version of Islam. We know this because they've said it repeatedly, and this latest pronouncement is part of their on-going attempts to terrorize other Muslims.
Apr. 6 - 01:50: From Winds of Change, Italy has detained 106 people, mostly Moroccan, on suspicions of having links with terrorists. Italy has been in a state of alert since the March 11 train bombings in Madrid.
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22:03: More here. A train that passed the area 18 minutes earlier hadn't seen the slabs, so the time frame during which the obstruction was assembled has been established.
No one has taken responsibility for the incident.
(Newsday link via Jack's Newswatch.)
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April 04, 2004
The Telegraph has learned that four corpses of leading rioters killed by the security forces have yet to be claimed by families, suggesting that they were from outside Kosovo.[...]
"This violence happened because, more than five years after the Nato intervention, power has still not been transferred to local institutions," he said. "This prevents proper economic development, and means we cannot improve security ourselves."
His uncompromising message goes against the grain: since the violence, many Western officials have been reassessing the prospects for Kosovan independence, fearing for the security of the estimated 10 per cent Serb minority. Meanwhile, Serbian calls for the division of Kosovo into ethnic cantons are being taken more seriously.
Mr Rugova is resolute, however. "We can build security for all communities if we have the power to do so," he said. He said that two of the provisional government's 10 ministers were Serbs, and the Serb grouping was the third largest in Kosovo's parliament. He was less keen to dwell on events on the ground, however, where many Serbs are living in fear for their lives in shrinking enclaves, many of which had seen their churches, schools and hospitals destroyed. Without Kosovan independence, he said, extremists would gain more power. The shadowy Albanian National Army was implicated by some in the violence.
"This group stands for the unification of all Albanian lands," he said. "If we see recognition of Kosovan independence, they will lose ground. If not, they will gain ground among the people."
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April 03, 2004
Abdul Qayum, the imam of the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets, said in his sermon that true adherents of Islam "could not conceive" of killing people unlawfully.That might be seen as defending terrorism as a tactic.But he warned the international community against confusing this with the "freedom movements by the oppressed people of Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya against the occupation forces".
Read the whole thing.
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A warning has been issued in the US to be on guard against potential bombing of transport systems there. (In American English, that means being alert to abandoned back-packs and such.)
20:01: 1 policeman killed, 11 injured when 3 terrorists blew themselves up as policement entered premises to search for suspects in Mar. 11 train bombings. Paul has more (and probably better) information from La Vanguardia.
23:55: Daily Telegraph report here. Jamal Ahmida, "The Chinaman," (perhaps earlier named as Jamal Ahmidan?) is believed to be have been killed by the bomb. The explosive device was attached to the door of the apartment.
Apr. 4 - 07:44 Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the Tunisian believed to be the organizer of the March 11 attack, was among the dead. Spanish officials believe the organization behind the attack was Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).
Apr. 5 - 17:03: John Ibbitson reports here and here that five suspects in the March 11 Madrid train bombing self-detonted. The identifies of four, three of whom had international warrants for their arrests, have been confirmed:
"The Tunisian", Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, ringleader;
Jamal Ahmidan, who rented the premises where the bombs were made;
Abdennabi Kounjaa, who procured the explosives;
Asri Rifaat Anouar, only identified as a Morrocan;
A fifth who has not been identified.
Five others suspected of being involved in the plot to bomb the trains are in jail: Zougam, Chaoui, Bekkali, Zbakh and Ghayoun.
Apr. 7 - 15:00: The number of terrorists who died in that house has risen to seven.
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April 02, 2004
Media reports have not been confirmed by officials. There may been a telephone call warning of the bomb, and a contractor hired to build new tracks may have found the bomb.
14 people are being held in connection with the Mar. 11 terror attack on Madrid trains. A Spanish judge released two Syrians without charges and a Moroccan was released but ordered to report daily by the judge.
There are international warrants for six others - one Tunisian and five Morrocans. Tunisian Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet is thought to be the leader. Morrocan Jamal Ahmidan rented the premises where the bomb was built and Mohamed Oulad Akcha, his brother Rachid Oulad Akcha, and Abdennabi Kounjaa procured the explosives and made the bombs. Said Berraj is believed to be the link to al Qaeda.
15:11: Paul has information from La Vanguardia account on some of the details, including the fact that the bomb was minus a detonator.
18:15: Iberian Notes reports that the timer wasn't set. Official consensus seems to be that whoever was planting the bomb was interrupted. He says: "La Vangua ran a story saying that they suspect there are 300 Moroccan Islamist Combatent Group affiliates in Spain, which means there are plenty more where Jamal Zougam and Abderraman Balkh came from."
18:30: Tim Blair's update is from Franco Alemán of Hispa Libertas who says that there was no telephone warning and it had been raining all night (which is why the dryness of the bomb was important.)
Apr. 3 - 08:58: AP confirms that the bomb material matches that used Mar. 11. This report says the bomb failed to detonate because it wasn't properly connected, and CNN is confirms that no initiator was found.
The Washingtn Times carries a report from AP which refers to a claim in the Spanish paper El Mundo reporting that the Spanish Embassy in Egypt received a letter from the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri threatening to attack again unless Spain withdraws troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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April 01, 2004
The people arrested were suspected members of a Turkish Marxist organization called the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).
38 suspects were arrested in Turkey, and another 16 were taken into custody in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and Italy.
15:27: The Australian news report is far more detailed, and credits the cooperation of security forces in the lead up to the Olympics and notes that such cooperation had already been increasing due to the war on terror. Also, one of those killed in DHKP-C attacks in Turkey was an Australian woman.
Apr. 2 - 18:04: 10 more arrests in Turkey bring the total to 63. (Yes, I know there's a discrepancy with the numbers, but the original CNN report still says 54; this may be due to the fact that a German man was arrested in Greece and charged with being linked to the group but his arrest wasn't part of the wider operation.)
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