Terrorist Attack _______________ Information Only

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,3877...

Top 395. Nov 14, 2001 6:03 PM

» Lawhawk - That's great news Rande!

That's great news Rande!

The Bush Administration also announced today that they were going to bifurcate the INS into two divisions. One would tend to the policing functions, while the other would deal with the processing of applications.

-- posted by Lawhawk

Top 396. Nov 14, 2001 6:40 PM

» BPyles - OBL's nuclear secrets found

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001, London Times
Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found
FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN KABUL
Times reporter finds blueprint for 'Nagasaki bomb'
Singed files left by fleeing terrorists
OSAMA BIN LADEN’S al-Qaeda network held detailed plans
for nuclear devices and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul
headquarters.

The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily
abandoned safe house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city.
Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give
detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons. There
are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses
plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and
ultimately a thermonuclear reaction.

Both President Bush and British ministers are convinced that bin
Laden has access to nuclear material and Mr Bush said earlier this
month that al-Qaeda was “seeking chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons”.

The discovery of the detailed bomb-making instructions, along
with studies into chemical and nuclear devices, confirms the
West’s worst fears and raises the spectre of plans for an attack
that would far exceed the September 11 atrocities in scale and
gravity.

Nuclear experts say the design suggests that bin Laden may be
working on a fission device, similar to Fat Man, the bomb
dropped on Nagasaki. However, they emphasised that it was
extremely difficult to build a viable warhead.

While the terrorists may not yet have the capability to build such
weapons, their hopes of doing so are clear. One set of notes,
written on headed notepaper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar
and dated April 26, 1998, says: “Naturally the explosive liquid has
a very high mechanical energy which is translated into destructive
force. But it can be tamed, controlled and can be used as a useful
propulsive fuel if certain methods are applied to it. A supersonic
moving missile has a shock wave. That shock wave can be used to
contain an external combustion behind the missile . . .”

The document was one of many found in two of four al-Qaeda
houses which had been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even
reportedly by bin Laden himself. The houses — two in the Karta
Parwan district and the others further to the east — were
abandoned on Monday as Taleban units and their allies fled the
city.

Attempts had been made to burn the evidence, but many
documents still remained. They included studies into the
development of a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing
chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion missiles,
preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, as
well as a multitude of instructions for making smaller bombs.

There were also studies into Western special forces’ hostage
rescue techniques, phone numbers for industrial chemical and
synthetic producers, flight manuals, aerodynamic research, and
advanced physics and chemistry manuals.

The houses were identified by local people. Looters had
concentrated on more appetising objects, ignoring foreign language
documents that were of no use to them.

Bin Laden sees it as his “religious duty” to obtain a nuclear bomb.
In an interview with a Pakistani journalist last week, he threatened:
“If America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us then we
may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons as deterrent.”

Intelligence agencies already have indirect evidence from
defectors, middlemen and scientists of bin Laden’s obsession with
obtaining or producing a nuclear device.

Al-Qaeda agents are known to have spent more than £1 million
trying to obtain enough fissile material to make a “dirty bomb” that,
if detonated with TNT in a populous area, could kill thousands and
contaminate it for decades.

Intelligence sources told The Times last month that bin Laden and
al-Qaeda had acquired nuclear materials illegally from Pakistan.
And at least ten Pakistani nuclear scientists have been contacted
by agents for the Taleban and al-Qaeda in the past two years,
according to reports.

Fears that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is
believed to lie behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony
Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide
assaults in America if he could.The Prime Minister’s spokesman
said: “Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on September
11 if he could have done. This underlines again why he has to be
stopped. ”

-- posted by BPyles

Top 397. Nov 14, 2001 9:04 PM

» JenL_2 - Re: Foreign aid workers freed

In response to message posted by Rande:

Was driving home this evening when heard this GoodNews on the radio. Hallelujah Indeed!!! It's still not clear if they were rescued by the Northern Alliance or U.S. Special Forces, released by the Taliban, or if Gadhafi's son had negotiated with the Taliban for their release.....but here's more from 11/14 MSNBC.com:

Foreign aid workers freed

Officials says 8 foreigners
are in Pakistan after rescue

NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES

Eight Western aid workers are free and in Pakistan after being held captive in Afghanistan for three months by the Taliban for preaching Christianity. The detainees, including two Americans, were turned over to a non-governmental organization in Afghanistan and were picked up by U.S. military helicopters in a field near Ghazni, about 50 miles southwest of the capitol Kabul.

OFFICIALS SAID the workers, who appeared to be in good physical condition, were to be taken to a Pakistani military base and then reunited with family in Islamabad.

It was not entirely clear how the aid workers were freed: whether the Taliban released them, they escaped or they were freed by U.S. forces.

Two senior administration officials said the Taliban had agreed to turn over the aid workers through the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was going to get them in the hands of U.S. troops. But before the exchange could occur, the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance overran Ghazni, prompting the Taliban and the workers’ guards to flee. Another U.S. official told NBC News the CIA also had been working on the ground to help free the workers.

President Bush said the Red Cross and other “people on the ground facilitated” U.S. troops’ ability to rescue the aid workers, but wouldn’t say whether the people were U.S.-backed anti-Taliban groups or others.

“This effort involved many people and several entities,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a statement. “U.S. forces performed the extraction well, and the American people can be proud of them.”

Bush, who had rejected several attempts by the Taliban to use the aid workers as bargaining chips, said from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, he was thankful the aid workers are safe. He said he had been very worried about them, in particular concerned that they may have been moved into a building that was the target of U.S. bombs.

TRIAL DELAYED

Taliban Supreme Court judges had indefinitely postponed the trial of the aid workers, saying they feared anger at the United States over the airstrikes could hamper their ability to rule fairly in the case.

The foreign detainees, who were arrested in early August, have been identified as Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, and Germans Georg Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf. They work for the Christian aid organization Shelter Now, which is based in Germany.

Several people gathered Wednesday afternoon in front of a TV set at Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, where both American detainees are parishioners.

When news aired that the workers had been released, senior pastor Jimmy Seibert thrust his arms into the air and shouted, “Thank you, Lord.”

“It is more exciting than we could have imagined,” he said. “The great thing I learned is that prayer works ... that if we persevere, ask God for what’s on his heart, we can trust him to see us through.”

‘HOPE FOR US EVERY DAY’

In Nashville, Tenn., Curry’s stepmother, Sue Fuller, said she was elated at her stepdaughter’s release.

“I’m so excited that we’re going to see her soon and that she’s safe,” Fuller said. “I just think you know she trusted that God would take care of her and get her out of there safely, and it’s happened.”

Earlier John Mercer, father of American detainee Heather Mercer, said withdrawing Taliban forces had taken the aid workers to Kandahar after their retreat from Kabul. He said the aid workers seemed to have been taken in haste from a detention center in Kabul, forced to leave personal belongings behind.

While in captivity, Curry and Mercer wrote letters to their family thanking them and others for their support and prayers, according to a copy of the notes delivered by a friend to NBC affiliate WRC-TV in Washington.

“I hope that in light of all the world’s changing events, that your lives are carrying on with some level of normalcy,” Mercer wrote. “I have seen more clearly in my time here what an exciting hour this world is in; but equally or more so what a dangerous hour. This helps to keep me sober and thankful. Right now I’m writing in the middle of the night, under a blanket with a flashlight. The lights across the city are shut down every evening to prepare for the aerial and fireworks show. No light is allowed. Besides its often hard to sleep in anticipation of the evening’s events, so writing becomes my great joy. I want to thank you with all my heart for every way you’ve stood with me. Really your remembrances are hope for us every day.”

GADHAFI’S SON PRESSED FOR RELEASE

Meantime, Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, chairman of the Gadhafi Foundation for Charitable Organizations, said his organization had been in touch with the Taliban for about two months in efforts to win freedom for the eight detainees.

In a statement to The Associated Press made through Libya’s consulate in Vienna, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said his effort was bearing fruit “because of the good standing the foundation enjoys in this area.” His foundation claims no connection to the Libyan government.

Gadhafi said his foundation had made contact with the Taliban and his foundation was working “to try to visit these people in order to convey letters and messages from them to their families ... As far as I know, they are all in good health.”

Libya has not given the Taliban diplomatic recognition, but Gadhafi told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel daily last week that “our humanitarian help for the Afghan people has improved our relations with the Taliban.” He did not elaborate on what kind of aid Libya or his foundation had been providing.

Libya is anxious to improve its standing with the West. Last year, it was involved in freeing all but one of 21 Western tourists and Asian workers kidnapped by rebels in the Philippines.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Jim Miklaszewski and Tammy Kupperman, MSNBC.com’s Jonathan Dube, as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

.....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

Foreign aid workers go free

Top 398. Nov 15, 2001 6:44 AM

» JenL_2 - Re: Foreign aid workers freed

an update on the Foreign Aid Workers Rescue from 11/15 MSNBC.com:

NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES

Eight Western aid workers are free and in Pakistan after being held captive in Afghanistan for three months by the Taliban for preaching Christianity. The detainees, including two Americans, were rescued by opposition troops from a prison in Ghazni, about 50 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.

“IT WAS LIKE A MIRACLE,” German detainee Georg Taubmann told reporters on arrival at his country’s embassy in Islamabad.

As the Taliban was fleeing Kabul early Tuesday morning, the eight thought they were about to be freed, he said. But instead, the Taliban threw them into a vehicle and took them south as the troops retreated.

But shortly after they were placed in a jail cell in Ghazni, they heard bombing by U.S. warplanes. An hour later, an uprising against the Taliban began, and soon afterward, Northern Alliance troops broke into the prison.

“They just opened the doors, and we were actually afraid the Taliban were coming and taking us to Kandahar,” he said. “We were really scared.”

But to their relief, Taubmann and the others were treated as heroes when they emerged on the streets of Ghazni. “We walked into the city, and the people came out of the houses, and they hugged us, and they greeted us. They were all clapping,” he said. “They didn’t know there were foreigners in the prison.... I think it was one of the biggest days of my life.”

A local military commander in the Afghan province of Ghazni contacted a Red Cross official in Afghanistan on Tuesday night to say he had rescued the workers from the Taliban, according to an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Islamabad.

The commander asked the Red Cross to facilitate the transfer of the aid workers to safety.

On Wednesday, three U.S. special operations helicopters landed in a field near Ghazni in the middle of the chill Afghan night to pick up the aid workers, the Pentagon said.

The two Americans, two Australians and four Germans — all working for the Germany-based Christian aid organization Shelter Now International — arrived safely in Pakistan Thursday. They appeared to be in good physical condition and were taken to a Pakistani military base and then reunited with family in Islamabad.

Sixteen Afghan employees of Shelter Now International, who were detained along with the foreigners, were freed when the Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul on Tuesday, said U.N. officials in Islamabad.

Two senior administration officials said that before the Taliban fled Ghazni, it had agreed to turn over the aid workers through the Red Cross, which would get them to U.S. troops. But before the exchange could occur, the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance overran Ghazni, prompting the Taliban and the workers’ guards to flee. A U.S. official told NBC News that the CIA also had been working on the ground to help free the workers.

President Bush hailed the dramatic turn of events.

“I’m thankful they’re safe, and I’m pleased with our military for conducting this operation,” Bush said at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Bush had rejected several attempts by the Taliban to use the aid workers as bargaining chips. He said he had been very worried about them, in particular concerned that they might have been moved into a building that was the target of U.S. bombs.

TRIAL DELAYED

Their rescue came after five weeks of U.S. military airstrikes against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida forces. The workers had been awaiting trial after being detained by the Islamic hard-line Taliban for allegedly spreading Christianity.

Taliban Supreme Court judges had indefinitely postponed the trial of the aid workers, saying they feared anger at the United States over the airstrikes could hamper their ability to rule fairly in the case.

The foreign detainees, who were arrested in early August, have been identified as Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, and Germans Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf......

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Jim Miklaszewski and Tammy Kupperman; The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

There's also a video on the rescue of the aid workers at the link....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/newsfind...

Top 399. Nov 15, 2001 9:06 AM

» Rande - Tentative deal on aviation security bill

Tentative deal on aviation security bill

By Rex Nutting (CBSM)

An impasse over the aviation security bill has been broken, two lawmakers said Thursday. Details of the agreement between Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, have not been disclosed. "I think we have an agreement," Young told reporters after a closed door meeting among negotiators from both parties and houses of Congress. A final deal would come "some time today," Hollings said. The Senate approved a bill a month ago that would put airport passenger and baggage screeners on the federal payroll, while the House bill would give the president flexibility to decide if the screeners should be federal law enforcement officers or continue to work for private firms. The bill would also bolster cockpit security and increase the number of federal marshals on flights, among other provisions.

-- posted by Rande

The al-Barakaat raid: License money-transfer companies

Top 400. Nov 15, 2001 5:21 PM

» JenL_2 - Re: Terrorists' money

In response to message posted by JenL_2:

More from 11/14 SeattleTimes.com:

By Anita Ramasastry
Special to The Times

Seattle may now be implicated in the terrorists' web. The headlines over the past week have focused on the raid of various wire-transfer businesses in cities around the nation. Seattle was among the cities targeted.

The federal government has identified a financial network known as "al-Barakaat" with a presence in more than 40 countries. It is described as a network that financed the movement of arms, provided secure communications and transmitted intelligence among cells in the al-Qaida network. According to reports from law enforcement, the principle function of al-Barakaat was to raise funds for al-Qaida.

And what does this have to do with Seattle? One of the branches of al-Barakaat is right here at home. Although the owners of the Barakat Wire Transfer here may not have known it, part of the fees charged for wire transfers may have been "skimmed" and diverted for use by terrorist organizations.

The recent headlines about al-Barakaat and possible terrorist money-laundering operations have highlighted two major issues. First, the absence in Washington of any laws that would license and regulate money-transfer companies such as al-Barakaat makes it easier for such illegal activity to take place. Seattle does not want to be a haven for money laundering.

Second, money transmitters like al-Barakaat provide a vital link between immigrants and their home country. The headlines highlight the important role of such companies in providing financial services to Somalian immigrants in Seattle.

The solution to the money-laundering problem? License these companies at the state level. This will allow businesses to provide a necessary service but will allow regulators to screen out illegal businesses and to act quickly in the event of a problem......

Owner of market moves to reopen

By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter

The owner of a Rainier Valley market shut down by the U.S. Treasury Department in a raid last week on a money exchange has taken the first step to recover his seized property and, he hopes, re-open his store.

Abdelinesir Ali insists government agents made a mistake when they closed the Maka Mini-Mart because the Barakat Money Exchange leased space inside.

"I think they didn't know," Ali said yesterday, sitting in the office of the neighboring Oowlo Travel Agency. "I'm very confused."

The money exchange, a so-called "hawala," was used by hundreds in Seattle's Somali community to transfer money to their relatives in Africa. Last Wednesday, the Bush administration named Barakat's parent company, Al Barakaat, a "specially designated global terrorist" and shut the operation down, saying it was being used to funnel money to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida terrorist network.

U.S. Customs agents, acting at the behest of the Office of Foreign Asset Control — which enforces U.S. trade sanctions — last Wednesday closed the Maka market and seized everything from its shelves. U.S. Treasury officials confirmed that perishable goods, including halal meats, specially handled to comply with Islamic customs, were thrown out.

However, other items, including refrigerators, delicatessen equipment such as meat slicers and coffee makers, are being stored and could be returned to Ali if he can prove he has no connection with the Barakat exchange or terrorism. A Treasury official confirmed Ali took the first step toward that by writing a letter to the Office of Foreign Asset Control yesterday.

"I can prove I have nothing to do with this," said Ali, who said he rented a small corner of his store to Hassan Farrah, the registered owner of the Barakat Money Exchange. "His business has a different license, different accounts. Even different phone number."

Outrage followed the closure of the small, whitewashed grocery store on Rainier Avenue South, and the operation that allowed many in Seattle's Somali community to wire money to their relatives.

Robert Nichols, a spokesman at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., said seizures by the Office of Foreign Asset Control are not unusual — but last week's raids on the five hawalas in four states were atypical, in that "usually, this is all done electronically involving bank accounts and the like."

The government regularly seizes houses, cars and cash from suspected criminals. "What differs here is that the agents were acting on order of the president, who determined that these businesses were funding global terrorism" in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nichols said.

"I think they didn't know it was two businesses," Ali said yesterday, "I was caught up."

.....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

http://www.afghanradio.com/news/2001/nov...

Top 401. Nov 15, 2001 10:00 PM

» Steven_Russell - ISI abducted Christina Lamb

This is her own story, the British journalist who was investigating the much-feared Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) links to funnelling weaponry to the Taliban.

She was brutally abducted by ISI in the middle of the night, and then detained for 12 hours under horrendous conditions, and deported from Pakistan, because of widely reported claims that she had tried to purchase airline tickets in the name of Osama bin Laden.

Excerps follow, it's very long:

'My door was forced open and I was grabbed'

Sunday Telegraph (Filed: 11/11/2001)

Christina Lamb was in Quetta investigating a story that agents of the ISI - Pakistan's feared intelligence agency - were sending arms to the Taliban when a group of men and two women burst into her room in the dead of night. It was the ISI: this is the story of what happened next...

All we could speculate was that we were being deported on the basis of a scurrilous lie printed in Pakistan newspapers that we had bought an airline ticket for Osama bin Laden in an attempt to prove that he was in Pakistan.

In fact what we had done was go to a travel agent in the Serena Hotel the day after the bombing started on October 8, and buy tickets for ourselves. There was tremendous anti-Western feeling in Quetta that day, with banks and cinemas being set on fire and fatwas issued in the mosques to "kill all Americans and Britishers".

When we asked about flights out, we were told angrily: "There are no flights because you in the West are destroying Afghanistan." We should have gone elsewhere at that point but we were all locked in the hotel by the Baluchistan police so had no alternative.

When the travel agent, Mr Baig, eventually stopped ranting about the Jews being behind the attack on the World Trade Centre and gave us our tickets, our names were completely wrong, issued under Miss Sarina and Mr Jostin with no surnames.

We asked him to change them, saying we would not be allowed on the flight, particularly with all the security in the wake of the events of September 11. He laughed. "In Pakistan, everyone travels under false names all the time," he insisted over and over again.

We should have left then. Instead we said: "If that's true, give us a ticket in the name of O B Laden," picking the name on everyone's lips. Had the incident happened a month earlier we would probably have said Mickey Mouse or George Bush.

Mr Baig did not blink. Instead he wrote down the booking and we left thinking nothing more of it. Later when he called Justin's room asking to see Mr O B Laden's passport, Justin told him it was a joke to make a point that you can't just book a flight in any name.

Mr Baig must have called the newspapers, for two weeks later a story appeared in a Pakistani paper under the headline "Christina Lamb conspires to malign Pakistan" claiming that we had actually bought a ticket and that we had only gone to Quetta and "hired rooms at the Serena" to carry out this so-called "plot" then left "smelling the danger".

---------------------------------

THE hammering on the door started at 2.30 on Friday morning. I awoke with a jolt and stumbled out of bed clad only in a T-shirt. Before I could get to the door, the hammering started again, heavier this time.

Through the spyhole I could see a group of men, none of whom I recognised. I phoned my colleague, the Telegraph photographer Justin Sutcliffe who was staying in a room in the next corridor of the Serena hotel in Quetta. As I was talking the men at the door shouted: "Open up!"

I grabbed a pair of trousers but before I could put them on, the door had been opened and the chain forced off. Five men and two women bundled into the room, seized my mobile phone and ordered me to collect my stuff.

In England, I would be horrified by five unknown men in my bedroom while scantily clad, but in Islamic Pakistan it was unthinkable. "At least let me put my clothes on," I begged.

"Shut up and come with us," said one of the men pushing me towards the door while his colleagues began throwing my belongings into my suitcase.

They were not in uniform but had the typical slicked-back hair and gold-rimmed sunglasses of the ISI, Pakistan's notorious military intelligence agency which grew fat - and out of control - acting as the funnel for CIA money and aid to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s then went on to support the Taliban until an abrupt reversal in policy last month.

My demands to know who these people were and on what orders they were acting went unheeded. When I refused to budge, however, they showed me an order in a cardboard file. A fax from the Ministry of Interior signed by Shah Rukh Nusrat, the deputy secretary to the government of Pakistan, it stated that both I and Justin Sutcliffe had been "acting in a manner prejudicial to the external affairs and national security of Pakistan" and that it was "necessary" we be "externed from Pakistan". There was no explanation and when I demanded to know what it meant, the women grabbed at me.

I was still in my nightwear but they let me go into the bathroom to put on a shirt, accompanied by the two policewomen. As I lifted my T-shirt the younger of the two, whose name I later learnt was Shahbhar, began touching my body. I shouted at her to get away and tried to grab the bathroom phone, which she yanked off the wall and pushed me out.

In the next corridor Justin was undergoing a similar ordeal.

For five weeks in Pakistan after the World Trade Centre attack, then again arriving back last week after a break with our families, we had been investigating reports of the ISI still sending arms to the Taliban. Much of our time had been spent shaking off the police guards who accompany journalists everywhere in Quetta, and talking to Afghan commanders who blame the ISI above anyone for all their country's woes.

Our police convoy drew up at a small one-storey building near the railway station.

Long arguments followed as they refused our request then refused to leave the room so that we could sleep. The two policewomen kept sitting on the bed and when we finally got them off around 5am they sat in front of the fire, blocking the heat, and chattered incessantly. We lay on the dingy mattress - only next morning would we see how filthy the mattress and pillows were - and scratched at flea bites. There was no hope of sleep and when light came we again asked for a drink but to no avail.

There was one piece of good news however. Justin whispered to me that he had managed to keep the spare mobile phone he uses for filing photographs so we took turns to go into the foul-smelling bathroom, whispering messages to people as we crouched over the hole in the ground in case one of our guards came in.

We could hear the words "Taliban", "Afghanistan" and "jihad" booming from Friday prayers at a nearby mosque.

I tried to go outside for some air but found that in addition to all the guards in our room we were locked in with a guard on the door.

A car drew up outside and one of the guards came in. "Divisional Superintendent railways, Quetta Division, here to see you," he announced importantly.

A short middle-aged man in a blue suit came in, looking embarrassed and said "welcome to Railway Resthouse" which was how we discovered where we were.

It was becoming more and more unreal. But at least he ordered us Cokes and samosas - our first drink in 12 hours.

we discovered we were now going to Islamabad, on the flight we had already been booked on.

At the airport, instead of heading for the terminal we pulled up on some wasteland by a sign marked Bomb Disposal Unit. I counted 13 guards surrounding our car. Mr Ahmed pointed to a desolate spot. "That's where one of my men committed suicide last week," he said. The airport manager who had driven up alongside, his bored wife sat in the car obviously annoyed at interrupting their holiday, shook his head. "They are just trying to cover up," he told us. "It was a murder."

When we asked Mr Ahmed how the man had committed suicide he said: "With 12 rounds of an MP3 in the chest." Seeing our disbelief he said: "The thing is, it is too hard to convict anyone so better to say suicide." This is policing Pakistan-style, and we were in their hands.

We tried to cheer ourselves up by comparing the Taliban's and the Pakistanis' treatment of prisoners. At least the Taliban had allowed the foreign journalists they imprisoned to sleep and wash, and even to fax their families.

Mr Sardar informed us that we were to be marched on to the morning flight to London. Despite all his entreaties no one had told him what we were supposed to have done and no one had agreed to come and explain our treatment to us.

-- posted by Steven_Russell

Top 402. Nov 16, 2001 11:49 AM

» BPyles - ad for terrorists

Wonder if this means they are having difficulty getting martyrs to strap explosives to their bodies for their suicide runs?

Friday, November 16, 2001 Kislev 1, 5762
Israel Time: 09:22 (GMT+2), Ga'aretz,

Israel orders Al Quds to stop carrying ads from Jihad, Hamas

By Daniel Sobelman

Israel has warned the Palestinian daily Al Quds that if it does not discontinue Islamic Jihad and Hamas advertisements, authorities will shut down the newspaper.

The newspaper's editors told Ha'aretz the warning was made on Wednesday. The newspaper has been carrying the advertisements, which are cleared by the military censor, for years, according to the editors.

The newspaper, which is published in Jerusalem, is the Palestinian community's largest and most influential newspaper.

The editors said that most of the material published in the paper, including
articles and even crossword puzzles, are cleared by the censor before being run. They said the Jerusalem District Police gave the warning, the first one in several years, by telephone.

"We're a newspaper like all other newspapers in Israel," said one senior editor. "And when we carry an advertisement it's for commercial reasons." The ads, say the editors, are usually either announcements of conferences and rallies or greetings.

The police, however, believe otherwise. Jerusalem police spokesman Kobi Zarihan said last night that the decision to warn the newspaper came after a Hamas ad this week praised shaheeds (martyrs) and called for the public to follow in their footsteps.

"We told Al Quds not to run any more ads by terror organizations," he said.

-- posted by BPyles

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/artic...

Top 403. Nov 17, 2001 8:08 PM

» Steven_Russell - Tamil Tigers kill candidate in Sri Lanka

Tom Clancy wrote a bit about the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka in his 1994 book, "Debt of Honor."

It might soon be time to study up on this group.

Oppn candidate shot dead in Lanka

COLOMBO: A main opposition candidate in next month's parliamentary elections was shot dead by suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas in eastern Sri Lanka, police said. Politician Thambirajah Jayakumar was gunned down in the district of Batticaloa, police said.

Jayakumar of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) is the first candidate for the December 5 elections to be murdered.
( AFP )

-- posted by Steven_Russell