Archived news and commentary: August 9 - 15, 2004

2004/09/27 - 2004/10/03
2004/09/20 - 2004/09/26
2004/09/13 - 2004/09/19
2004/09/06 - 2004/09/12
2004/08/30 - 2004/09/05
2004/08/23 - 2004/08/29
2004/08/16 - 2004/08/22
2004/08/09 - 2004/08/15
2004/08/02 - 2004/08/08
2004/07/26 - 2004/08/01
2004/07/19 - 2004/07/25
2004/07/12 - 2004/07/18
2004/07/05 - 2004/07/11
2004/06/28 - 2004/07/04

Sunday, August 15, 2004

News and commentary:

"Holy Terror: Religion isn't the solution - it's the problem" (Sam Harris, Los Angeles Times, 2004/08/15)
"Religious faith is always, and everywhere, exonerated. It is now taboo in every corner of our culture to criticize a person's religious beliefs. Consequently, we are unable to even name, much less oppose, one of the most pervasive causes of human conflict. And the fact that there are very real and consequential differences between the major religious traditions is simply never discussed.
Anyone who thinks that terrestrial concerns are the principal source of Muslim violence must explain why there are no Palestinian Christian suicide bombers. They too suffer the daily indignity of the Israeli occupation. Where, for that matter, are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against the Chinese? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam versus those of Buddhism and Christianity. ...
It is time we recognize that religious beliefs have consequences. As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that you are a member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to these infidels — and flying a plane into a building is only a matter of being asked to do it. ...
Perhaps it is time for us to realize, at the dawn of this perilous century, that we are paying too high a price to maintain the iconography of our ignorance." (See also a review of "End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" by Sam Harris: "A fear of the faithful who mean exactly what they believe" (Daniel Blue, SFGate.com, 2004/08/15))

"Arafat 'heaped cash' on cronies" (Justin Sparks and Tom Walker, The Sunday Times/HonestReporting, 2004/08/15)
"The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has enriched a privileged inner circle of cronies and salted away billions of dollars in secret bank accounts, according to his former treasurer.
Jaweed Al-Ghussein, 74, described last week how, during his 12 years as chairman of the Palestine National Fund, the financial arm of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, he gave Arafat a monthly cheque for $10.25m — amounting to $123m (£67m) every year.
He was told the money was being spent on the Palestinian movement’s paramilitaries and on families who had lost “martyrs” in the struggle. ...
Al-Ghussein believes investigations should be carried out into many contracts he claims were awarded by the Palestinian Authority without a conventional tendering process.
“The money often serves no purpose for the people, while lining the pockets of cronies,” he said. He identified alleged rackets overseen by Arafat’s friends, including the distribution of cigarettes and the awarding of television licences.
“Before Oslo these people had no money. Now look at them,” Al-Ghussein said. 'It is clear where their money comes from.'"

"'I heard the terrifying click of the trigger in my first mock execution'" (James Brandon, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/08/15)
Brandon "relives his abduction in Basra, attempted escape and hours of terror":
"I was blindfolded by a sheet soaked in my own blood and could see nothing. "Who are you? What are you?" the Arabic voices snarled in broken English. "Are you CIA? Are you an Israeli spy?" The voices, many of them, seemed to boom from all around the room.
All I could feel was the cold steel of the muzzle of one of my abductors' pistols being pressed to my temple. Then came a chilling silence . . . broken only, seconds later, by the terrifying metallic click of the trigger being pulled.
It was the first of a series of mock executions. In all, four men took turns to put their guns to my head and pull the trigger. The first time, I didn't know the weapon wasn't loaded. It felt surreal . . . like a bad film." (See also: "Kidnapped British journalist released in southern Iraq" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/13))

"Janjaweed vow to fight any intervention by 'infidels'" (Philip Sherwell, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/08/15)
"Arab militiamen who have brought terror to western Sudan are being trained at secret camps to launch a campaign of guerrilla warfare if British troops or other foreign "infidels" are deployed on a peacekeeping operation.
The military instruction from Sudanese army officers is part of Khartoum's clandestine efforts to integrate the Janjaweed militia into paramilitary security forces in Darfur. ...
The existence of the Janjaweed training camps in remote corners of Darfur was confirmed to The Telegraph by a prominent politician from his own contacts within the regime. Jaffer Monro is an MP for the ruling National Congress in the one-party state, but he took the risk of breaking ranks with the government to condemn events in his home province.
"The Janjaweed are being given proper military training ready for a further escalation in the conflict," said Mr Monro, a member of the parliament's human rights committee, who comes from the Fur tribe. 'They are being trained by the government authorities in case foreign troops are sent here.'"

Added in archive:
"The Terrorism to Come" (Walter Laqueur, Policy Review, from the August 2004 issue)

Saturday, August 14, 2004

News and commentary:

"An artist symbolizing ancient Greece..."
(Jerry Lampen, Reuters, 2004/08/13)
"An artist symbolizing ancient Greece performs during the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games August 13, 2004."

"Censoring the Olympics" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/08/14)
"The Greek organizers of this summer's Olympics, which began in Athens yesterday, claim that more women athletes are competing than ever before. Women are also playing a high-profile role in making the whole enterprise, the biggest of its kind in Greek history, run as smoothly as possible. Seen from the Muslim world, however, the Athens game will look like a male-dominated spectacle in which women play an incidental part.
According to officials in Athens, the number of Muslim women participating in this year's game is the lowest since 1960. Several Muslim countries have sent no women athletes at all; others, such as Iran, are taking part with only one, in full hijab. And state-owned TV networks in many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have received instructions to limit coverage of events featuring women athletes at Athens to a minimum.
A circular from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in Tehran asks TV editors to make sure that women's games are not televised live: "Images of women engaged in contests [sic] must be carefully vetted," says the letter, leaked in Tehran. "Editors must take care to prevent viewers from being confronted [sic] with uncovered parts of the female anatomy in contests."
Women athletes in Athens are unlikely to wear the Islamic hijab or full-length manteaux that cover their legs to the ankle and their arms to the wrist. The ministry's order thus could mean a blanket ban on images of female athletics."

"Inside the Zarqawi Network" (Jonathan Schanzer, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/08/16 issue)
"A memo acquired by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy from Iraqi intelligence sources, however, provides a first glimpse into the configuration of Zarqawi's Iraqi network, which may be more dangerous than previously imagined. The memo, "Structure of Tawhid and Jihad Islamic Group," details several days of recent interrogations of one of Zarqawi's captured lieutenants. ...
Interestingly, Baziyani's interrogation reveals that Tawhid and Jihad maintains a strong military presence (150 fighters)
in the town of al-Qaim, which is close to the Syrian border, just west of the Euphrates River. One Pentagon official believes that the number of fighters Baziyani put in al-Qaim is likely inflated, but says that the importance of the town cannot be overstated. Al-Qaim, to the bewilderment of U.S. officials, was where the Iraqi army put up some of its fiercest resistance during the 2003 Iraq war. A senior administration official calls Qaim "critical" and "the key to understanding how Syria is involved" in the insurgency. ...
There are other foreign links. Baziyani explained to his interrogators that the Zarqawi network received a great deal of assistance from Iran. One Tawhid and Jihad militant, Othman, was reportedly responsible for transferring former Ansar al Islam fighters and other jihadis back and forth from Iran to Baghdad once the U.S. occupation was underway. In other words, Iran has been involved in supplying fighters to tangle with U.S. soldiers. This should come as no surprise, given the 9/11 Commission's recent report that Iran was a transit state for 9/11 plotters."

Friday, August 13, 2004

News and commentary:

"Kidnapped British journalist released in southern Iraq" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/13)
A kidnapped British journalist was released in Iraq less than 24 hours after he was abducted at gunpoint from a hotel, after aides of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr apparently came to his rescue.
Freelance Sunday Telegraph reporter James Brandon, 23, was paraded at Sadr's offices in the southern city of Basra, where representatives of the militia leader said he had been freed, before they handed him over to Iraqi police. ...
The Baghdad bureau of London-based news agency Reuters had earlier obtained a video showing the journalist shirtless with a white bandage around his head.
"US forces must pull out of Najaf in 24 hours or we will kill the Briton," warned a hooded man on the tape, according to Reuters."

"Islamic Web Site Has Pictures of Beheading" (Maggie Michael, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/13)
"An Islamic Web site posted still pictures Friday that purportedly show Iraqi militants beheading an Egyptian man they claim was spying for the U.S. military. ...
The latest images show three masked men standing in front of a banner carrying the name and golden-sun logo of Tawhid and Jihad, the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that has claimed responsibility for beheading other hostages in Iraq, including American Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.
The pictures show a man, with a mustache and wearing an Arabic robe, sitting in front of the three masked men with his hands tied behind his back. Captions on the pictures of the hostage say: "From the Arab Republic of Egypt. Mohammed Fawzi Abdaal Mutwalli. I was working as a spy with the Americans in Iraq."
A statement that appeared on the Web site alongside the pictures said: "This is the story of the Egyptian traitor spy."
"This criminal confessed that he was taking electronic devices from the Americans to throw them into the Mujahedeen's (holy warriors') locations so the Americans could identify the targets and raid them with planes and missiles," it said.
The sequential pictures then show the man lying on the ground. A militant decapitates him with a knife and places his severed head on his back."

"Thousands descend on Najaf, British journalist abducted" (Todd Pitman, AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/13)
"Thousands of Iraqis descended on Najaf after Moqtada Sadr urged his Shiite militia to fight on, while US and Iraqi forces closed in on his stronghold and a British journalist was abducted in the south.
Around 2,000 demonstrators marched under the blazing sun from Najaf's twin city of Kufa after Friday prayers, straight through the US and Iraqi lines to the revered Imam Ali mausoleum. ...
In Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman urged thousands more to march the 160 kilometres (100 miles) to Najaf, as another 1,000 began a similar walk from the holy city of Karbala. ...
Mass protests were also held in Tallafar in the north and Kut al-Hayy in the south to denounce the caretaker government, while in Basra another Sadr aide pressed Iraqi police and national guardsmen to join the Mehdi Army.
In the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah, 1,500 people called for holy war."

"Cleric Seeks Truce to End Najaf Fighting" (Todd Pitman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/13)
"NAJAF, Iraq - Aides to Muqtada al-Sadr negotiated with Iraqi officials Friday over a truce to end nine days of fighting in this holy city, saying the radical Shiite cleric was prepared to disarm his followers in exchange for a list of demands including U.S. withdrawal from Najaf and an amnesty for all his fighters.
The talks came as U.S. forces suspended a major offensive against militants in Najaf and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia appeared to stop most attacks in the city. ...
Despite the talks, al-Sadr lashed out at the United States, which he said was intent on "occupying the whole world." The fiery sermon was read on his behalf during Friday prayers at the Kufa Mosque near Najaf.
"The presence of occupation in Iraq has made our country an unbearable hell," he said, calling on Iraqis to rebel, 'because I will not allow another Saddam-like government again.'"

"Terrorist Overreach" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/08/13)
"Al Qaeda and its affiliates are losing. They'll do their utmost to strike the United States before our elections. But even if they succeed, the effect will be the opposite of what they hope. And it won't change the fact that the terrorist beast is badly wounded. ...
Counter to the made-on-campus nonsense that we can't succeed against terror, it's the terrorists who can't win. They can do horrific damage, creating scenes of slaughter among the innocent. But when it comes to employing such mega-violence, the terrorists are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. ...
Terrorists always overreach. They create fantasy worlds in which they convince themselves that a grand and gruesome gesture will bring world-changing results. Yet, the more powerful the blow they deliver, the more likely they are to unify their enemies. ...
The terrorists have been their own worst enemies, always over-reaching in time to prevent the world from forgetting that the threat is real and immediate. Their madness will be their undoing."

"The attitude problem" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/08/13)
"The average Belgian may feel quite strongly about human-rights abuses in China. But the chances that his attitude will translate into some kind of meaningful policy are effectively zero.
The result is what one might call attitude inflation, which in turn arises from the de-linking of attitude from policy. That is, if you don't actually have to do something about your attitudes you're likelier to have more of them, and they are bound to be both more extravagant and more unrealistic. People who are in no position to end world hunger and bring about peace in the Middle East can endlessly carry on about ending world hunger and bringing peace to the Middle East. Doing so means only that they're declaring themselves the sorts of folk who deplore hunger and war. ...
Problems, however, arise when policy and attitude are contradictory. It's one thing to "care" about Darfur and do nothing about it because you can't. It's another thing to have, as France does, a no-holds-barred policy toward Islamic radicals in your midst, while condemning another country — say, Israel — for taking a similar approach in much more dire circumstances.
This smacks of hypocrisy. Indeed, it would be hypocrisy, if it could be said that France actually had a policy toward Israel — a lever with which it could realistically and meaningfully affect events here. But France has no such lever, and the EU doesn't either. What it has is attitude masquerading as policy. Thus the votes at the UN, the menace of a Belgian court, the hortatory threats of sanction in the European Parliament. The attitude is as hostile as the threat is hollow."

"The price of friendship" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/08/13)
Chalabi IV: "Events from the past week indicate the US has lost its way in the war on terrorism. On August 8, warrants for the arrest of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew, Salem Chalabi, who is overseeing the preparation of a war crimes tribunal against Saddam Hussein, were issued by a US-appointed Iraqi magistrate. ...
Chalabi's colleagues view him as the most effective coalition-builder in Iraq and one of the main forces capable of transforming Iraq into a pluralistic, law-abiding, secular, pro-American democracy. Yet, in return for its decision to abandon Chalabi and derail his investigation of the oil-for-food scandal, the US received the short-term payoff of UN Security Council approval of the handover of sovereignty this past June. ...
We see here that in order to appease institutions like the UN as well as the French, and the now overtly hostile Turks, the US has sidelined and indeed harmed its best friends. ...
The situation is all the more distressing when we take into consideration the fact that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is even worse than the terribly confused Bush administration. Following the issuance of the spurious arrest warrants, Kerry called for an investigation into how the US ever had a relationship with Ahmed Chalabi to begin with. Last week, James Rubin, one of Kerry's senior foreign policy advisers, told Newsweek that a Kerry administration would seek to engage Iran and "call its bluff" by offering the fanatical theocracy nuclear fuel in exchange for a pledge not to develop nuclear weapons." (See also: "The Chalabi Fiasco Continued" (The Wall Street Journal, 2004/08/11))

"Radical Iraqi Cleric Reportedly Injured in Fighting in Najaf" (AP/The New York Times, 2004/08/13)
"Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was hit by shrapnel in his chest and a leg Friday as he met with members of his militia during clashes between U.S. and Iraqi forces in Najaf, his aides said. A spokesman described his condition as stable.
Al-Sadr has led an uprising against coalition troops for more than a week in the holy city, vowing to fight "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
Aide Haider al-Tousi said al-Sadr was hit by shrapnel in the chest and twice in a leg as he met with members of his Mahdi Army militia near the Imam Ali shrine on Friday morning.
"He was moved to an unknown destination, we don't know his whereabouts right now," he said."

Note: Sorry for the downtime, which was due to boring technical problems. Anyway, Watch is up and crawling again and I'll update it retrospectively as usual. Any tips on articles (and photos) published between August 3 - 12 are very much appreciated. Send tips with links to: watch-at-windsofchange.net.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

News and commentary:

"A Balanced View" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/08/12)
A true classic in the annals of anti-Americanism: "Noted madman Richard Neville writes:

Truly, America is the most bloodthirsty nation on the face of post Stalin earth. It’s military, it’s government, its corporate carpetbaggers are sinking into such a swamp of deceit, denial and depravity that fair minded people the world over, including its own better informed citizens, can but recoil in horror. It’s as if the heart of darkness has become an American franchise, a Satan’s Starbucks, specialising in torture, invasions, illegal incarcerations, aerial bombardment (wedding parties a specialty) and war crimes.
Side dishes include cluster bombs, Geneva Convention busting, mini nukes and – in the words of disillusioned marines - "shooting anything that moves", often women and children. Military outlets ring the globe and will shortly span the stars. Its movie & media industry is, for the most part, a relentless engine of propaganda.

(Via Tex, who reminds readers: "Richard isn't just some conspirazoid headcase on the web. This idiot is actually a well-known and respected media commentator." All true, despite his problem with "it's".)" (See also: "Breaking my promise" (Richard Neville, richardneville.com, 2004/08/09))

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

News and commentary:

"American CIA agent beheaded in Iraq: Islamist website" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/11)
"An Islamist website showed a videotape which it said was of a US national and CIA agent being beheaded by members of a Islamic militant group in Iraq.
In the poor-quality video, whose authenticity could not be verified, a young Western-looking man is seated on a chair surrounded by five hooded gunmen, one of whom uses a long knife to cut through the man's neck and then brandishes the head.
The same site (http://ansarnet.t35.com/dabh-cia.htm) shows a dozen photographs of the operation to kill the "CIA agent".
During the four-minute video, an identity card is shown with the purported American's photograph and the mention "visitor".
But the gunmen's words are unintelligible, apart from their cry of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) when the head is cut off."

"'Arabs couldn't have killed him, only Israelis'" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2004/08/11)
Blast II: "Zakiyah Abu Sneineh, whose 60-year-old husband, Salah, died in the blast, refused to acknowledge that he was killed by Palestinians. "Arabs couldn't have killed him, only Israelis," the woman said, sobbing in the emergency room of a Ramallah hospital. ...
A Palestinian man hurt in the attack said it was too early to judge the terrorists. "I don't want to blame them," said Rateb Abu Fkhaideh, 47, who had a leg injury.
His comments angered several visitors in the emergency room. "Why are you defending them (the terrorists)?" 35-year-old Nader Omar asked Abu Fkhaideh. "They are wrong. We should raise our voice against them. These guys don't use their minds." Two others nodded in agreement."

"Car bomb kills two near Jerusalem" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/11)
Blast I: "A bomb has exploded in a car between two Israeli army checkpoints outside Jerusalem, killing two Palestinians and wounding 16 people, in what Israel Radio said was a suicide attack.
The blast, which broke a lull in such bombings, occurred after border police declared a security alert and began combing the area between the Qalandiya and A-Ram checkpoints on a main road between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Medics said seven Israelis and nine Palestinians were wounded in Wednesday's explosion.
Israel Radio said a Palestinian in a car being checked by Israeli policemen was believed to have detonated a bomb either hidden on his person or rigged to the vehicle."

"The Chalabi Fiasco Continued" (The Wall Street Journal, 2004/08/11)
Chalabi III: "It's hard to see how the weekend arrest warrants for Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi advance the rule of law and the cause of justice in Iraq. ...The only obvious winners here are the Baathists. One of Saddam's lawyers reacted to the news by calling it "a miracle from God to help Saddam Hussein." ...
Sometime early this year the decision was taken at the highest levels of the Administration to stabilize Iraq by reaching out to disaffected members of Saddam's Baath Party and to call on the United Nations for help. The Journal has been able to confirm that a document was drafted in the National Security Council outlining strategies to marginalize Mr. Chalabi, who was sure to be critical of U.S. plans, and who was then the most powerful member of the Governing Council.
One particular concern vis-a-vis the U.N. strategy was that Mr. Chalabi was starting to expose the massive corruption that had characterized the Oil for Food program. Just prior the May raid, Mr. Bremer shut down the KPMG investigation that Mr. Chalabi had initiated, and hired accountants Ernst & Young instead, for no apparent reason other than delay." (See also: "Chalabi, Nephew Deny Murder Charges" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/09))

"Hand over nuclear weapons and know-how, Iran tells Britain" (Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/08/11)
When Europeans aren't shocked by reality, they are stunned by it: "The "EU-3" were trying to convince Iranian officials to honour an earlier deal to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment programme, which is ostensibly designed to make fuel for nuclear power stations but could also be used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs.
Iranian officials refused point-blank to comply, saying they had every right under international law to pursue "peaceful" nuclear technology.
They then stunned the Europeans by presenting a letter setting out their own demands.
Iran said the EU-3 should support Iran's quest for "advanced (nuclear) technology, including those with dual use" - a reference to equipment that has both civilian and military applications.
The Europeans should "remove impediments" preventing Iran from having such technology, and stick to these commitments even if faced with "legal (or) political . . . limitations", an allusion to American pressure or even future international sanctions against Iran.
More astonishingly, Iran said the EU-3 should agree to meet Iran's requirements for conventional weapons and even "provide security assurances" against a nuclear attack on Iran.
This is a reference to Israel's nuclear arsenal, believed to include some 200 warheads and long-range missiles to deliver them."

"Bin Laden hints major assassination" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2004/08/11)
"U.S. intelligence officials say a high-profile political assassination, triggered by the public release of a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda terrorist attack, The Washington Times has learned.
The assassination plan is among new details of al Qaeda plots disclosed by U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing could be carried out against a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad.
The officials mentioned Saudi Arabia and Yemen, two nations that are working with the United States in the battle against al Qaeda, as likely locales for the opening assassination.
The planning for the attacks to follow involves "multiple targets in multiple venues" across the United States, one official said.
The new details of al Qaeda's plans were found on a laptop computer belonging to arrested al Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan of Pakistan.
"We're talking about planning at the screwdriver level," one official said. 'It is very detailed'"

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

News and commentary:

"Islam: Religion or political ideology?" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2004/08/10)
"The philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed that Judaism was not a religion, but a mere body of laws. Secular Jews would agree with him. Some secularized Muslims say the same about Islam, for example Ali Sina of www.faithfreedom.org. Sina writes: "Islam is not a religion. Considering Islam a religion is a foolish mistake that could cost millions of lives. Islam is a political movement set to conquer the world. It is the Borg of the non-fictional world. Islam has one goal and one goal alone: to assimilate or to destroy." ...
For most of the world's Muslims the United States is a menace, not a promise, threatening to dissolve the ties that bind child to parent, wife to husband, tribesman to chief, subject to ruler. Traditional society will not go mutely to its doom and join the Great Extinction of the Peoples, blotting out ancient cultures and destroying the memory of today's generation. It will not permit the hundreds of millions of Muslims on the threshold of adulthood to pass into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and lose the memory of their ancestors. On the contrary: it will turn the tables upon the corrupt metropolis, and in turn launch a war of conquest against it. ...
Ali Sina is wrong: Islamic expansionism arises from religious motives, that is, a holy rage against the encroachment of death upon traditional society. In the form of Islam, the West confronts a challenge quite different from communism."

"Leak Allowed al-Qaida Suspects to Escape" (Munir Ahmad, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/10)
Leak II: "The disclosure to reporters of the arrest of an al-Qaida computer expert allowed several wanted suspects from Osama bin Laden's terror network to escape, government and security officials said Tuesday.
Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old Pakistani computer engineer, was nabbed in a July 13 raid in the eastern city of Lahore. He then led Pakistani authorities to a key al-Qaida figure and cooperated secretly by sending e-mails to terrorists so investigators could trace their locations.
His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details.
Two senior Pakistani officials said the reports in "Western media" enabled other al-Qaida suspects to get away.
"Let me say that this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some al-Qaida suspects ran away," one of the officials said on condition of anonymity." (See also: "Unmasking of Qaeda Mole a U.S. Security Blunder - Experts" (Peter Graff, Reuters, 2004/08/07))

"Sudan massacres are not genocide, says EU" (Rory Carroll, The Guardian, 2004/08/10)
"The EU said yesterday there was widespread violence in the Darfur region of Sudan but the killings were not genocidal, a potentially crucial distinction which underlined its reluctance to intervene.
"We are not in the situation of genocide there," Pieter Feith, an adviser to the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Brussels after returning from a fact-finding visit to Sudan.
"But it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow killing and village burning of a fairly large scale. There are considerable doubts as to the willingness of Sudan's government to assume its duty to protect its civilian population against attacks."
He said in the absence of willingness to send a significant military force, the EU and others had little choice but to cooperate with Khartoum." (See also: "Attacks in Sudan's Darfur region are genocide: US Congress" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/23))

Monday, August 9, 2004

News and commentary:

"Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz" (Jenny Hazan, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/08/09)
The ugliest headline I've seen in quite a while: "Tamar Schuri, a member of the group of Israeli and Jewish students who were attacked while visiting the death camps in Auschwitz earlier this week said that during and after the attack no one came to help the victims, not even the guides employed by the camp, Army Radio reported Wednesday.
"The main accusations were that the place does not only belong to Jews, and that we use it as a publicity tool for pro-Israeli propoganda,," Schori said. "There was a guide with us that worked there, and she just backed off. We didn't have anyone to turn to," she added.
While on a tour of the museum at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on Sunday, a group of around 50 Jewish university students from Israel, the U.S. and Poland were verbally attacked by a three-member gang of French male tourists.
Evidently incited by the presence of an Israeli flag wrapped around the shoulders Schuri, the first assailant ran at the group while its members were being guided through a model gas chamber and crematoria and began swearing and hurling anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli insults.
"He told us to go back to Israel and said that we were stupid and should be ashamed to walk around with an Israeli flag," testifies Maya Ober, a 21-year-old Polish student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and member of the Polish Union of Jewish Students (PUSZ), which organized the 16-day summer learning program along with the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS).
After the initial altercation, a second assailant grabbed Ober by the arm. "One of the guys held me by the arm and wouldn't let go," says Ober, who lost several members of her family at Auschwitz. 'I was afraid. I couldn't move and I didn't know what he was going to do.'"

"Militants Behead Man in Video on Internet" (Maamoun Yousseff, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/09)
"Four masked, black-clad men who said they belong to a group that has claimed responsibility for kidnappings and killings in Iraq (news - web sites) beheaded a man identified only as a Bulgarian in a video posted on the Internet Monday. ...
In the new video, a bearded, blindfolded man sits before the masked men and a black banner with the words Tawhid and Jihad in white Arabic script. The hostage is wearing the orange jumpsuit that has become an iconic element in such videos, meant to evoke those worn by Iraqi prisoners subjected to abuse while in U.S. custody in Iraq.
A man is heard saying, "Here we are returning again to cut off the neck of the other hostage."
The brief video ends with bloody images of a body in an orange jumpsuit being beheaded with a knife as his assailants repeatedly shout "God is great!" The victim does not appear to struggle, indicating he may have been dead or drugged before the beheading, or that his arms were somehow restrained. In the last scene, one of the men in black brandishes the severed head before the camera."

"Chalabi, Nephew Deny Murder Charges" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/09)
Chalabi II: "Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew vigorously denied counterfeiting and murder charges Monday, saying Iraqi warrants for their arrest were part of a political conspiracy trumped up by Saddam Hussein loyalists. ...
A former member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, Ahmad Chalabi once enjoyed strong U.S. ties. But he had a falling out with the Americans and was left out of Iraq's interim government. Salem Chalabi heads the special tribunal in charge of trying Saddam.
Salem Chalabi said the murder charge would play into the hands of former Baathist officials facing charges in front of his tribunal.
"They can easily make allegations that this whole process is fraud because the director of the tribunal has all these charges against him. Initially I suspected that these charges were trumped up by Baathists," he told The Associated Press by telephone from London.
In Jordan on Monday, one of Saddam's lawyers called the arrest warrant naming Salem Chalabi "a victory" for Saddam." (See also: "Iraq Seeks Arrest of Prominent Politicians" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/08))

"'Tube flood plan' to kill thousands" (Sarah Getty, The Evening Standard, 2004/08/09)
"A terror plot to detonate a bomb inside a Tube tunnel beneath the Thames has been uncovered by MI5 chiefs, it was reported yesterday.
The explosion would pierce the bed of the river, leaving tens of thousands of rush- hour commuters to be drowned or trampled underfoot in the panic as people tried to flee.
Blueprints for an attack on the Underground and maps of the tunnels were reported to have been discovered at an al- Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, a Sunday newspaper reported. It is the latest in a series of terror scares.
Last week, reports suggested Heathrow airport was a target of Islamic fundamentalists."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

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› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
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