'War On Terror' War Leads To Shocking Increase Of Terrorism

14,000 Terror Attacks In 2006

49% Of All Terror Attacks Occurred In Iraq And Afghanistan

When President Bush first started talking about going to war against terrorists, and terrorist groups, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington DC and New York City, the term used was 'War Against Terror'.

The 'War Against Terror' was in common usage by the US State Department, the Pentagon and the White House until late 2002, when it was quietly changed to the 'War On Terror'. The change from 'against' to 'on' is an important distinction, particularly in light of an utterly horrific new report from the US State Department that reveals there were more than 14,000 terror attacks and acts of terrorism in 2006.

A war 'against' terror instead of 'on' terror would then be harder to justify when the following details from the State Department report are considered :

(the report will) show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006....almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community's National Counterterrorism Center, the report says there were 14,338 terrorist attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005.

Forty-five percent of the attacks were in Iraq.

Worldwide, there were about 5,800 terrorist attacks that resulted in at least one fatality, also up from 2005.

The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants and don't include strikes against U.S. troops.

President Bush and his aides routinely call Iraq the "central front" in Bush's war on terrorism and likely will say that the preponderance of attacks there and in Afghanistan prove their point.

But critics say the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have worsened the terrorist threat.

The contention by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that al-Qaida terrorists were in Iraq and allied with the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the invasion has been disproved ...

Among the major strikes were bombings in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Dahab on April 24, which killed 23 people and injured more than 60, and aboard trains in Mumbai, India, that left more than 200 dead and in excess of 700 wounded on July 11.

That the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have dramatically increased the incidents of terrorism are firmly, repeatedly and consistently denied by virtually every official connected with the White House or Pentagon, despite the fact that every major intelligence agency in the world says this is an undeniable fact.

White House and Pentagon officials continue to insist that Saddam Hussein was involved with Al Qaeda before the American occupation of Iraq began because it is the only way they can seriously deny that Al Qaeda terrorists were not in Iraq before invasion and occupation began.

A 'War on Terror' can be credibly waged even during unprecedented waves of terror attacks, and the statistics spun a dozen different ways to say that war is being waged, in part, successfully.

But to say that you are waging a 'War Against Terror', when there are more terror attacks than ever before, is to declare failure by admission.

Few understood why, or even noticed, the 'War Against Terror' was officially renamed the 'War On Terror' back in 2002.

It is dramatically clear now why this renaming process was undertaken, and indicates that the Pentagon and White House were fully aware of intelligence and military-related projections before the Iraq invasion began that such unpopular, supposedly pre-emptive action would lead to greatly increased incidents of terrorism across the world.

Saudis Claim To Have Broken 172 Man Strong Terror Rings, Oil Prices Rise 2%

US Captures 'Al Qaeda', and 'July 7 Attack Leader' In Iraq

If true, the Americans and the Saudis can claim two huge successes today in fighting the 'War on Terror', striking hard at core Al Qaeda jihadists.

The Saudis are claiming they have broken up seven terror rings, detaining 172 suspects, and seizing hundreds of weapons, boxes of explosives and more than $5 million in cash.

But Saudi officials didn't tell local media that there were terrorist plots to fly airliners into oil refineries, as were the headlines in the Western media. Some UK media claim that a Saudi official statement confirmed there were plots to fly hijacked airliners into oil installations, but such claims didn't reach most Gulf and Arab media.

Such claims were mostly made by 'terror experts' interviewed on CNN and Fox News. Nor did the arrests take place on the same day, or even in the same week. The Saudis haven't revealed over what period of time the raids and arrests were made, only that the arrests took place "at various and successive times".

Not only have the Saudis scored extremely positive worldwide media coverage for the breaking up of the terror rings and the arrests, that they chose to announce the arrests all at once, while unveiling the arms, explosives and cash caches all but guaranteed the news would impact where it counts the most : on the price of the Saudis main export, oil.

As news of the terror arrests hit the headlines, the price of a barrel of oil quickly rose by more than 2%. For the Saudis this meant a net gain of hundreds of millions of dollars, at a time when oil prices were slowly falling.

From Gulf Daily News :

The detainees were planning to carry out suicide attacks against "public figures, oil facilities, refineries ... and military zones", the Interior Ministry said yesterday.

"They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks," spokesman Brigadier Mansour Al Turki said.

Brig Al Turki would said the arrests occurred "at various and successive times".

The militants were detained in separate waves, he said, with one group of arrested confessing and subsequently leading security officials to the next group, as well as weapons' caches.

The ministry did not say the militants would fly aircraft into oil refineries, as 9/11 hijackers flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington, but it said some detainees had been "sent to other countries to study flying in preparation for using them to carry out terrorist attacks inside the kingdom".

The militants also planned to storm prisons to free the inmates.

British and American authorities, meanwhile, appear to be confused and surprised by the scale of the arrests and the plots uncovered :

The unprecedented scale of the arrests seemed to undermine official Saudi claims that jihadi terrorism had been all but eradicated by effective intelligence and security, a powerful publicity campaign and inducements to terrorists to repent. Some believed the announcement was intended to signal that vigilant security forces were safeguarding the world's largest oil producer and exporter.

The Saudi state TV channel al-Akhbariya broadcast footage of weapons discovered buried in the desert. These included AK-47 and other rifles, plastic explosives, magazines, and handguns wrapped in plastic sheeting. It showed investigators smashing tiled floors with hammers to uncover pipes containing weapons. In one scene, an official upends a pipe and bullets and packets of explosives spill out.

Prince Nayef, the powerful Saudi interior minister, signalled last week that an important security announcement was imminent. But western diplomats said yesterday they were puzzled by some of the details that had been released.

The large number suggested that some of those arrested were likely to have been neighbours, acquaintances and contacts of a much smaller number of militants. It also seemed likely the seven cells had been rounded up separately but announced simultaneously to make a greater public impact.

According to official figures, about 144 foreigners and Saudis, including security personnel, and 120 militants have died in attacks and clashes with police since May 2003, when al-Qaida suicide bombers hit western housing compounds in Riyadh.

Meanwhile, the Americans are pumping the arrest of one Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, once a general in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. They claim he was detained as he tried to cross into Iraq from Iran. It's not a new arrest. He was detained by the CIA last year and was transferred a few days ago to Guantanamo Bay.

What's new is what the Americans are claiming al-Iraqi is responsible for :

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.

Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.

Sources said last night that few figures had been more important at the centre of the revived al-Qaeda. Abd al-Hadi is credited with forming its alliance with the insurgency in Iraq.

US officials said he was associated with leaders of other extremist groups allied with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the Taleban.

A far more interesting report comes from journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad :

Abd al-Hadi Al-Iraqi was initially the treasurer of Al-Qaeda and was based in South Waziristan and North Waziristan. Hadi used to supply money to Al-Qaeda operatives for international operations. In 2003, on the instructions of network number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri, he was part of an operational plan to kill General Pervez Musharraf but his role was mainly supplying money to the operatives involved in the plot.

Well-placed sources in Al-Qaeda had told this correspondent many months ago about the migration of Abd al-Hadi Al-Iraqi from Afghanistan to Iraq. Therefore it seems difficult that he would be arrested recently while crossing into the border of Iraq, as his presence in Iraq has already been confirmed.

Abd-al-Hadi compiled a detailed account in a book which reflects al-Qaeda's tactical ideas and deals with chemical weapons and explosives and their application, such as planting them on bridges and at strategic installations to get optimum results. In the circle of al-Qaeda the book is referred to as Encyclopedia of Jehad.

It is intended to equip international operations with clear tactical ideas on how upcoming battles should be fought. The encyclopedia is available in jihadi circles in book form as well as on compact disc. It was written in Arabic and translated into Pashto, Urdu and English.

Abd al Hadi moved out of Waziristan after some major divergences emerged between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban over tactical issues, in particular the Pakistan Taliban’s non-aggression pact with the Pakistan authorites.

Claim : Captured Jihadist United Al Qaeda And Iraqi Insurgents

Why The 'Honeymoon' Is Over For Bush And The Saudis - Once So Close, Now So Distant

Number Of Worldwide Terror Attacks In 2006 Rose 29% To 14,000 - 49% Of Those Connected To Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan

Somalia : Car Bombs Rack Capital, 300 Die In Seven Days Of Fighting

War Spreads Between Ethiopia, Eritrea And Somalia

Four months after US-backed Ethiopian troops, aided by American gunships and CIA-ground operations, drove the Council of Islamic Courts from power in Mogadishu, the capital and surrounding villages are sinking into an abyss of horrific violence. Some 300 Somalis have died in fighting and car bomb attacks in the past seven days, with more than 700 wounded. Thousands of civilians are now fleeing the capital every day, leaving the streets to insurgents and Somali government troops, and small clusters of Ethiopian soldiers.

But the battle for control of Mogadishu, and greater Somali, is now threatening to consume Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea, after an estimated 200 fighters stormed a Chinese-owned oil refinery in Ethiopia, near the Eritrea border, and killed more than 70 workers, including at least eight Chinese nationals.

China is making big moves in African nations as it tries to secure energy supplies, primarily oil, to fuel its growth in the coming decades. The oil refinery attacked was one that the Chinese government was most proud of, and which it had widely promoted, as a key example of how they were working with African nations for the benefit of Africans and China.

US intelligence and military sources are telling the American media the huge attack was staged by Somali Islamists, possibly tied to Al Qaeda, but the Ethiopian government is now blaming Eritrea, who firmly denies involvement.

The attack occurred in the disputed eastern Ethiopian territory of Ogaden. Ethnic Somalis have been running a low-level insurgency in the region for decades, claiming the territory as part of Somalia.

The 'Ogaden National Liberation Front' has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and said that any development in the region that directly benefits Ethiopians will "not be tolerated."

Ethiopia links the group to the Eritrean government, who it claims has waged a series of terrorist attacks against Ethiopia. With a land mass almost as large as Britain, the Ogaden territory is valuable border lands. Ethnic Somalis have long demanded the creation of an independent state for the four million inhabitants.

Eritrea and Ethiopia battled through a long border war that ceased in 2000. Both governments accuse each other of backing rivals in the Somali fighting.

The Financial Times reports :

Abderaman Mahdi, a spokesman for the rebels, said the deaths followed a battle between their fighters and Ethiopian soldiers protecting the exploration site. Any civilians killed – including the Chinese – were in the crossfire, he said. He added that the ONLF had taken five Chinese workers alive, and would be in touch with the International Red Cross to return them.

“It is very unfortunate. But we don’t allow anybody to drill on our land without our permission. The Ethiopians do not control the Ogaden and we have warned the Chinese that we will not allow them to drill there. They want our wealth without our consent,” he said by phone.

Chinese companies are working in other conflict-prone zones of the continent including southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria

This report from the New York Times breaks down some of the illusions about the true scope of the Islamist "insurgency" in Somalia.

The pro-'War on Terror' spin is that Somalia is riven with hundreds of thousands of militant Muslims, prepared to fight solely for the glory of Allah. But the reality is vastly different.

The Islamists are finding new recruits among black-market trading Somalis who don't want to submit to new tax programs introduced by the US-backed government, and don't want to change their old ways of doing business on the street.

With their livelihood, such as it is, threatened by vast changes to the social and financial structure of Mogadishu, thousands of young men are looking to the deposed Islamic courts as a way of keeping their rudimentary businesses alive :

Beyond clan rivalry and Islamic fervor, an entirely different motive is helping fuel the chaos in Somalia: profit.

A whole class of opportunists — from squatter landlords to teenage gunmen for hire to vendors of out-of-date baby formula — have been feeding off the anarchy in Somalia for so long that they refuse to let go.

They do not pay taxes, their businesses are totally unregulated, and they have skills that are not necessarily geared toward a peaceful society.

In the past few weeks, some Western security officials say, these profiteers have been teaming up with clan fighters and radical Islamists to bring down Somalia’s transitional government, which is the country’s 14th attempt at organizing a central authority and ending the free-for-all of the past 16 years.

They are attacking government troops, smuggling in arms and using their business savvy to raise money for the insurgency. And they are surprisingly open about it.

Omar Hussein Ahmed, an olive oil exporter in Mogadishu, the capital, said he and a group of fellow traders recently bought missiles to shoot at government soldiers.

“Taxes are annoying,” he explained.

“Even if we turned Mogadishu into Houston, there would still be people resisting us,” said Abdirizak Adam Hassan, chief of staff for Somalia’s transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. “I’m talking about the guys bringing in expired medicine, selling arms, harboring terrorists. They don’t have a clan name. They’re a congregation of people whose best interests are served by no government.”

In the past month, the resistance has intensified and more than 1,000 people have been killed or wounded as the country has sunk into its deepest crisis since the famine days of the early 1990s.

Most of the victims are civilians...

Not all opportunists had the same agenda. Many in the business community became fed up with paying protection fees to the warlords and their countless middle-men.

Business leaders then backed a grass-roots Islamist movement that drove the warlords out of Mogadishu last summer and brought peace to the city for the first time in 15 years.

The Islamists seemed to be the perfect solution for the businessmen. They delivered stability, which was good for most business, but they did not confiscate property or levy heavy taxes. They called themselves an administration, not a government.

“Our best days were under them,” said Abdi Ali Jama, who owns an electrical supply shop in Mogadishu.

But then a radical wing took over, and the Islamists declared war on Ethiopia, which commands one of the mightiest armies in Africa. The Ethiopians, with covert American help, crushed the Islamist army in December and bolstered the authority of Somalia’s transitional government in the capital.

On Wednesday, Ethiopian officers reportedly met for peace talks with leaders from the Hawiye clan, Mogadishu's largest. A clan spokesman told Shabelle.net that "rival groups will concentrate on ceasing the gun fight in the capital and and announce a ceasefire agreement."

Neither side appears to believe right now that such a ceasefire will end the fighting, and the UN is now trying to tamp down growing threats of further hostilities and payback over the massacre at the Ethiopian oil refinery.

The UN estimates more than 320,000 Somalis have fled their homeland since February.

Somali Forces Pounded By Ethiopian Tanks

Seven Days Of Fighting In Somalia Leaves 300 Dead

US Wants African Peacekeepers To Replace Their Ethiopian Proxy Army In Somalia

Bush-Pushed "Liberation" Of Somalia Kills The Poor

Ethiopia Claims Eritrea Behind Attack On Chinese-Owned Oil Refinery, US Media Blames Somalis

Thousands Flee Mogadishu, Humanitarian Crisis Looms

UN Warns Somalia Facing Its Worst Ever Crisis

January, 2007 : Third Day Of US Air Strikes Kills Dozens Of Somalis - Fears Rise That Insurgency Will Explode And Violence Will Return To Mogadishu

Afghanistan : Taliban Unleash Wave Of Suicide Bombers Against Police

Dozens Of Police Killed, Wounded In Recent Days

24 Taliban Killed In Battle


UPDATE : In southern Afghanistan, NATO coalition forces fought a battle against the Taliban for more than seven hours. More than 24 Taliban fighters were dead when it was over.

From CNN :

According to the coalition, the battle began when four Taliban members fired rounds at troops patrolling the northeast corner of Helmand province's Sangin district.

"After maneuvering to gain contact with the enemy force, U.S. Special Forces requested coalition air support to engage the Taliban fighters as they were attempting to establish ambush positions," the coalition said.

No civilian casualties occurred, the coalition said.

The following day, the U.S.-led coalition launched air strikes on a munitions compound in the northeastern section of the Sangin district after Taliban insurgents fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at Afghan and coalition forces conducting a security patrol.

In Afghanistan's western Herat province, three Taliban insurgents were killed and three more were wounded by Afghan and coalition forces during an attempted ambush on their patrol Wednesday.

The coalition command in Afghanistan said the patrol was fired upon by Taliban insurgents donning Afghan national police uniforms at a makeshift checkpoint in the Shindand district.

In the past two days Afghan and coalition forces have confiscated more than 100 fake police uniforms and more than a dozen forged identification documents in Herat province, which is located near the Iranian border, according to the coalition command.

Previously....

From the smh.com.au :

The Taliban, fighting to oust foreign troops from Afghanistan, have launched a wave of suicide attacks in the south and east, but attacks in the north are rare.

Taliban commander Hayatullah Khan claimed responsibility and said more bombers were ready to strike. "They are present in all Afghan cities and waiting for orders," he said.

Suicide attacks in Afghanistan, almost unheard of three years ago, surged last year to nearly 140, from about 20 in 2005. There have been numerous attacks this year.

A new report claims the Taliban have commited numerous war crimes through attacks on Afghan civilians. Some 670 civilians were killed in such attacks during 2006. The highest yearly toll for civilian deaths under attack by the Taliban since the group were deposed in late 2001.

From The Globe And Mail :

Insurgents committed war crimes by attacking ordinary Afghans and killing 669 civilians in 2006, the heaviest toll since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, according to a report released Monday.

Tallying records from non-governmental organizations and the media, Human Rights Watch counted 189 bombings in 2006 that killed 492 civilians. Another 177 civilians were killed in other attacks including ambushes and executions.

“The insurgents are increasingly committing war crimes, often by directly targeting civilians,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at the New York-based rights group. Even when targeting security forces, “they generally kill many, many more civilians than they do military personnel.”

Human Rights Watch noted that anti-government forces were not the only ones responsible for civilian deaths, and that at least 230 civilians were killed during coalition and NATO operations last year.

Exact casualty figures from previous years are not available, but the increase in insurgent attacks last year indicate that “2006 was the deadliest year for civilians in Afghanistan since 2001,” the report said.

Suicide bombings, once rare in Afghanistan, occurred on a regular basis in 2006. Two suicide attacks were reported in 2003, six in 2004, and 21 in 2005. Last year, the number of suicide attacks shot up to at least 136, killing 272 civilians and wounding 531, the 116-page report said.

Eighty of those suicide attacks were on military targets, but they killed nearly five times more civilians than security forces — 181 civilians compared to 37 Afghan or international security forces.

“The Taliban are starting to look like some of the insurgent groups in Iraq,” said Michael Shaikh, who conducted research for the report. “These guys are more about fighting the global jihad. ... It's a much more dangerous Taliban.”

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for more than two-thirds of recorded bomb attacks, mostly in the most volatile south and southeast.

Hezb-i Islami, a faction of which follows renegade former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, appears to be involved in attacks in the east and north, the report said.

The report cited 190 attacks on teachers, school officials, students and schools, up from 91 such attacks in 2005.

This report from the Associated Press details just how much troubling NATO forces are having in tracking down and then confronting Taliban fighters. They show the exact same kind of ability to elude NATO forces as the mujahadeen showed when it was the Russians chasing them down in the 1980s :

Troops with powerful rifle scopes scanned mountain ridges for elusive, black-clad Taliban infiltrators. Afghan soldiers, hit by a roadside bomb, pressed on into the valley. U.S. Special Forces swept through the sinister alleys of its main settlement.

The strike, carried out by about 200 American and Afghan government forces, was supposed to sever a major insurgent infiltration and supply route from neighboring Pakistan to Islamic fighters deep in Afghanistan.

But the attack didn't work - an object lesson in why 47,000 U.S. and NATO forces are struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban movement.

Field officers say eradicating fighters who cross the porous 1,470-mile border is like trying to drain a swamp when one cannot shut off the streams feeding it. Pakistan's failure to dam those streams has deepened the five-year-old conflict, they say.

"Stopping the infiltration is not the only way we are going to win this war, but it's a very key factor," said Capt. Samuel Edwards, who led U.S. Army troops in a recent drive into the Davudzay mountain bowl in the southeastern province of Zabul.

The Zabul routes are just a fragment of a vast cross-border network, reminiscent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail of jungle tracks and secret roads that carried Vietnamese communist troops and equipment to battle.

NATO "will never control the border without greater control of the border areas by Pakistan and greater coordination and cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan," Gen. John Craddock, the current NATO commander, said recently in Washington.

Taliban fighters and al-Qaida militants converged on the frontier after U.S.-led forces drove them from Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistan is now under greater pressure to act - particularly after the U.S. military last fall reported a threefold increase in cross-border attacks into eastern Afghanistan.

Pakistan maintains that the insurgency is primarily an Afghan problem, fueled by domestic frustration over poverty and dissatisfaction with the Afghan government. It says it has deployed 80,000 soldiers to stop Taliban supporters crossing from Pakistan to fight - far more troops than marshaled by Afghanistan, the U.S. and NATO on the other side.

"I can give the Pakistanis a list of the Taliban that are coming into my province," Zabul Governor Dalbar Ayman said angrily in an interview. "The world found their address in Pakistan, so why couldn't the Pakistanis have arrested them years ago? The ISI knows every village, every district, every individual."

Pakistan strongly denies these charges. But nonetheless, Taliban fighters are coming through.

FIght In Afghanistan Will Only Get Tougher

From Toronto Sun :

The death last Sunday of six Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan reminds us of Santayana's famous maxim that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.

The invasion of Afghanistan was marketed to Americans as an "anti-terrorist" mission and an effort to implant democracy. It was sold to Canadians as a noble campaign of "nation-building, reconstruction, and defending women's rights." All nice-sounding, but mostly untrue.

What we are really seeing is a war by Western powers seeking to dominate the strategic oil corridor of Afghanistan, directed against the Pashtun people who comprise half that nation's population. Another 15 million live just across the border in Pakistan. What we call the "Taliban" is actually a loose alliance of Pashtun tribes and clans, joined by nationalist forces and former mujahedin from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle.

Last year, a leading authority on Afghanistan, the Brussels-based Senlis Council, found the Taliban and its allies control or influence half of the nation -- roughly equivalent to Pashtun tribal territory. Its study flatly contradicted rosy reports of military success and "nation-building" from Washington and NATO HQ.

This week, the same think tank issued a shocking new survey based on 17,000 interviews. "Afghanis in southern Afghanistan are increasingly prepared to admit their support for Taliban, and belief that the government and international community will not be able to defeat the Taliban is widespread." Senlis' study concurs with my own findings in South Asia that Pakistan and India have independently concluded NATO will eventually be defeated in Afghanistan and withdraw. The U.S., however, may stay on and reinforce its 30,000 troops there because it cannot admit a second defeat after the Iraq debacle.

The U.S. and NATO are not fighting "terrorists" in Afghanistan and they are certainly not winning hearts and minds. They are fighting the world's largest tribal people. The longer the Westerners stay and bomb villages, the more resistance will grow. Such is the inevitable pattern of every guerrilla war I have ever covered.

Western troops stuck in this nasty, $2-billion daily guerrilla conflict will become increasingly brutalized, demoralized and violent. This is precisely what happened to Afghanistan's second to latest invader, the Soviet Union.

Afghanistan's figurehead Hamid Karzai regime controls only the capitol. The rest of the country is under the Taliban, or warlords who run the surging narcotics trade that has made NATO the main defender of the world's leading narco state.

If 160,000 Soviet troops and 240,000 Afghan Communist soldiers could not defeat the Pashtuns in ten years, how can 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops do better?

The Taliban claimed earlier this year that they had "thousands" of suicide bombers ready to attack NATO troops and Afghanistan police and security forces.

Clearly, the unleashing of these suicide bombers has begun :

A suicide bombing killed at least nine policemen and injured scores of others in Kunduz province of northern Afghanistan on Monday, a health worker and an official said.

Nine dead bodies and 32 injured policemen were brought to the hospital, he said, adding four injured were in critical condition.

The blast occurred when a suicide bomber belting explosives on his body attacked a mass of policemen, who were gathering on an open land to receive training for an upcoming ceremony, Safar said.

Ayub Salangi, police chief of Kunduz province, blamed the enemy of Afghanistan, a phrase used to refer to the Taliban, for the attack.

"We could not immediately identify the attacker, as only his feet were left at the explosion site," he told Xinhua.

The Taliban claimed 2,000 suicide bombers would launch a bloody spring offensive against foreign troops and other targets in this country this year.

Over the past two months, suicide bombings targeting government and foreign interests have happened in Afghanistan nearly on a daily base.

A total of 12 soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have been killed in combat in this volatile country since April 8.

Due to rising Taliban-linked insurgency, over 900 persons, mostly Taliban militants, have been killed in Afghanistan this year

April 12 : Bomb Attacks Kill Three Militants, 2 Police In Central Afghanistan

April 14 : Six Police Killed In Attacks In Southern Afghanistan

April 15 : Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills Eight Police In Eastern Afghanistan

April 17 : Nine Police Killed In Kunduz Province By Suicide Bomber


Taliban, Pakistani Troops Clash Over Border Fence After It Was Torn Down

War Is Hell, Afghanistan Is Worse

US State Department Gives NATO Forces Until End Of 2008 To Gain Victory Over Taliban

Iraq : The Bombs And The Blood

April 18 : 302 Iraqis Die In Bloodiest Day Of Iraq War


US General said Iraqis Must "Learn To Live With" Car Bombings

So is the US "troop surge" to secure Baghdad working? It hasn't even really begun. To deploy the full "surge" of some 20,000 new troops, which may climb to more than 40,000, will take many more months. It is too early to declare it a success or failure. But in reality, it will never be either.

Iraq is beset by chaos, from new outbreaks of violence down south, through the living hell that is Baghdad, where nearly a thousand people a week are now dying, to the far north, where Iraqi Kurds are teasing the borders of Turkey, and facing the bullets of the Turkish military who may or may not already have crossed the border into Iraq to deal with the Kurdish independence fighters.

That there is some solid, locked-in, six month plan by the US or the Iraqi government to calm the chaos is a fiction. They are rewriting all the plans each week that violence grows, and both entities in Iraq are grasping at surviving the wholesale slaughter.

Despite the influx of fresh US and Iraqi troops into Baghdad, the bombers are still getting through, and the dead are so many, and the violence so frequent, and sudden, corpses are lying in the streets once more.

The purpose of the "troop surge" success or failure debate is strictly for Western media audiences, to distract them from the depopulation of a nation, the destruction of ancient tribes and the assassination of an entire, well-educated middle class, who were the best chance of Iraq rising to become the truly great Middle East nation it deserves to be now that Saddam Hussein is gone.

The US strategy in Iraq seems to now be little more than attempting to wait out the Iraqi insurgency. How long can they possibly keep on bombing and killing each other before they tire of the violence? Or before all those willing to sacrifice their lives, and the lives of innocent Iraqis, are dead? A year? Ten years?

As usual, the UK Independent's veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn supplies the best analysis of what is happening in, and to, Iraq :

Yesterday (April 18) will go down as a day of infamy for Iraqis who are repeatedly told by the US that their security is improving. Almost 200 people were killed on one of the bloodiest days of the four-year-old war, when car bombs ripped through four neighbourhoods across Baghdad, exposing the failure of the two-month-old US security plan.

In the aftermath of the blasts, American and Iraqi soldiers who rushed to the scene of the explosions were pelted with stones by angry crowds shouting: "Where is the security plan? We are not protected by this plan."

Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose into the sky over the Iraqi capital after four bombs tore through crowded markets and streets leaving the ground covered in charred bodies and severed limbs. "I saw dozens of dead bodies," said a witness in Sadriyah, a mixed Shia-Kurdish neighbourhood in west Baghdad where 140 people died and 150 were injured. " Some people were burned alive inside minibuses. Nobody could reach them after the explosion. There were pieces of flesh all over the place. Women were screaming and shouting for their loved ones who died."

The escalation in devastating bomb attacks by Sunni insurgents against Shia civilians is discrediting the US security plan, implemented by a "surge" in American troop numbers. Launched on 14 February it was intended to give the Iraqi government greater control over the streets of Baghdad. The Mehdi Army Shia militia, blamed for operating death squads against Sunni civilians, had adopted a lower profile and avoided military confrontation with the US but that is unlikely to continue in the wake of these devastating bomb attacks. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is seen as being unable to defend his own people.

The worst attack was on Sadriyah meat and vegetable market in the centre of Baghdad. It had already been the target of one of Baghdad's worst atrocities when a suicide bomber blew up a Mercedes truck on 3 February, killing 137 people.

There is no doubt that the bombs were directed at killing as many Shia civilians as possible. About half an hour before the Sadriyah blast, a suicide bomber had rammed a police checkpoint at the entrance to the great Shia bastion in Sadr City in east Baghdad. It is also the stronghold of the Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The explosion killed 35 people and wounded 75, police say. Black smoke rose from blazing vehicles as people scrambled over the twisted wreckage of cars to try to rescue the wounded.

"The problem is that the Shia stopped killing so many Sunni but the Sunni are killing more Shia than ever," said an Iraqi official before the attacks yesterday. He added: "If this goes on, the Shia will exact revenge. Sectarian massacres will dwarf anything we have seen before."

The bombings came hours after Mr Maliki said that Iraqi security forces would take full control of the whole country by the end of the year. But last night, amid a torrent of public criticism, the Prime Minister ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel in charge of security around the Sadriyah market.

The 17-million strong Shia community, the majority of the Iraqi population, is increasingly hostile to the US presence while the five million Sunni generally support anti- American armed resistance. Only the Kurds fully back the US.

The success of the US security plan in Baghdad depended less on an additional five American brigades than in fostering a belief by Iraqis that it was providing them with security.

2007: A year of attacks despite the 'surge'

* 16 JANUARY

Car bomb and suicide bomber at Mustansiriya University, central Baghdad, kill at least 70, mainly students.

* 22 JANUARY

Double car bomb at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, central Baghdad, kills 88.

* 1 FEBRUARY

Two suicide bombers strike at a market in Shia town of Hilla, killing 61.

* 3 FEBRUARY

Truck bomb kills 135 and wounds 305 at a market in Sadriya quarter of central Baghdad, the same market that was bombed yesterday.

* 12 FEBRUARY

Multiple car bombs explode in Shorja market, Baghdad, killing at least 71. At least nine others killed at Bab al-Sharji.

* 6 MARCH

Two suicide bombers strike in Hilla, killing 105 pilgrims. Insurgents attack Shia pilgrims in 12 other incidents. In all, a total of 137 pilgrims die.

* 27 MARCH

Two truck bombs explode in Tal Afar, near Syrian border, and Mosul; 152 dead.

A comprehensive summary of the string of attacks and assassinations of April 18 is supplied by the AntiWar.com site, whose tally comes to 302 Iraqis killed or found dead, and more than 300 wounded. We publish this summary in full as to present a more comprehensive picture of just how much violence occurs in Iraq on a given day, this one being April 18 :

A series of coordinated bomb attacks shook Baghdad hours after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that security would be in Iraqi hands by the end of the year. Overall, at least 312 people were killed and 302 wounded throughout Iraq. One American soldier died yesterday of non-battle related injuries.

In Baghdad, one truck bomb killed 140 people and wounded 150 more in the mostly Shi’ite Sadriya neighborhood. A second bomb killed 41 and wounded 76 in Sadr City. In Karrada, the third bomb killed 11 and wounded 13 more. Two were killed and eight wounded in a checkpoint bombing in Saidiya. And, a bomb in a mini-bus in Risafi killed four and wounded six people.

Also in the capital, gunmen killed a police major who also worked a security detail for the Speaker of Parliament. Four policemen were killed and six civilians wounded during an attack by gunmen in central Baghdad. Mortars in Amil wounded three civilians. And, 15 dumped bodies were recovered.

Another 25 decomposed bodies were retrieved from a school in Ramadi. Yesterday, 17 bodies had been discovered.

A suicide bomber injured seven people southwest of Mosul at al-Ghayah. Two brothers were killed and a policeman was wounded in a gunbattle in central Mosul. Mortars rained on a security checkpoing where they injured eight people. Two people were killed, three wounded in a roadside bomb attack. An explosive device killed senior Iraqi army officer and wounded three soldiers. Also, eight bodies were found in Mosul.

A suicide bomber killed two policemen and wounded four people, including two civilians, near Mahmudiya.

A policeman and a soldier were wounded during multiple checkpoint attacks in Tal Afar.

In a drive-by shooting in Kirkuk, a judge and his wife and son were wounded. Four bodies, one beheaded, were found in separate locations.

The son of the Interior Minister and his two bodyguards were killed in Baiji.

Gunmen killed soldier and kidnapped two civilians in Khalis.

Two farmers died of injuries they received in a U.S. attack in Al Bo Asi Al Abagiyah village.

Three bodies were found in separate locations near Baquba.

Five civilians were injured in Khanaqeen.

The bodies of three kidnapped workers were found in Hawija.

The Basra homes of three Fadhila party members were attacked by bombs, but no casualties were reported.

Mortars landed on the U.S. base in Haditha, but no casualties were reported. A U.S. vehicle was damaged in a blast in Fallujah.

Three people were injured on Tuesday when a roadside bomb struck an ambulance near Mukayshifah.

During U.S. military raids in Taji, one suspect was killed and eight others were detained. Near Garma, five suspects were killed and 18 arrested. The Iraq army killed six suspects and captured 126 others during operations throughout the country. Three gunmen were killed in Muqdadiya. Combined U.S.-Iraqi forces killed 23 gunmen during security operations in Diyala.

Iraqi Government Announces It Intends To Take Control Of Security By End Of 2007

Iraqis "Must Learn To Live" With Drive-By Assassinations, Car Bombings, Executions, Says US General

Maliki Tells US To Halt Building Three Metre High "Separation Barrier" Through The Middle Of Sunni-Shia Baghdad Neighbourhood, After Sunni & Shia Neighbours Join Together In Protest

Gunmen Slaughter 23 Followers Of Ancient Pre-Islamic Religion In Northern Iraq

New Geo Survey Reveals Iraq May Hold Twice As Much Oil As Previously Thought - An Extra 100 Billion Barrels - Production Costs Of $2 Per Barrel

US Abandons Plan To "Stand Down As Iraqi Army Stands Up" - Troop Training Plans Fade

15,000 Iraqis Have "Disappeared" During Four Years Of War

Seymour Hersh On Bush Co. The Delayed War On Iran And The Gutless Modern Media

Interesting interview with legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in Rolling Stone.

Seymour Hersh has been a thorn in Dick Cheney's paw for more than 30 years. The story reveals that Cheney wrote a list of options in 1975 for how to deal with Hersh's publication of 'The Pentagon Papers' in the New York Times for then White House chief-of-staff Donald Rumsfeld. Option number three was "Search warrant : to go after Hersh papers in his (apartment)".

How little times have changed.

Here's some of the key quotes from the Rolling Stone interview :

"If there's a Kissinger person today, it's Cheney....Kissinger always had some back-channel agenda. But in the case of Bush and this war, what you see is what you get. We buy much of our fuel from the Middle East, and yet we're at war with the Middle East. It doesn't make sense."

"Bush is a true radical. He believes very avidly in executive power. And he also believes that he's doing the right thing. I think he's a revolutionary, a Trotsky. He's a believer in permanent revolution. So therefore he's very dangerous, because he's an unguided missile, he's a rocket with no ability to be educated. You can't change what he wants to do. He can't deviate from his policy, and that's frightening when somebody has as much power as he does, and is as much a radical as he is, and is as committed to democracy -- whatever that means -- as he is in the Mideast. I really do believe that's what drives him. That doesn't mean he's not interested in oil. But I really think he thinks democracy is the answer."

Hersh denies that he ever said the US was about to go war on Iran, only that large-scale military planning for the attacks had been done....

"Planning is planning, of course. But in the last couple of weeks, it has become nonstop. They're in a position right now where the president could wake up and scratch his....nose, and say, "Let's go." And they'd go. That's new. We've made it closer. We've got carrier groups there. It's not about going in on the ground. Although if we went in we'd have to send Marines into the coastal areas of Iran to knock out their Silkworm missile sites....you'd have to take out a very sophisticated radar system, and a guidance system for their missiles. You'd have to knock out the ability of the Iranians to get our ships....I think Bush wants to resolve the Iranian crisis. It may not be a crisis, but he wants to resolve it.

"One of the things this administration has shown us is how fragile democracy is. All of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress -- they have failed. The courts . . . the jury's not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn't. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the most glaring.

On the media's inability to bust the Bush administration's chops over Iraq War lies and deceptions....

It's very discouraging. I've had conversations with senior people at my old newspaper, the Times, who know that there are serious problems there. It's not that they shouldn't run the stories that they run. They run stories that represent the government's view, because there are people at the Times who have access to senior people in the government. They see the national security adviser, they see Condoleezza Rice, and they have to reflect their view. That's their job. What doesn't get reported is the other side. What I always loved about the Times when I worked there is that I could write what the kiddies down the line said. But that doesn't happen now. You're not getting broad, macro coverage from the White House that represents anything like opposition. And there is opposition -- the press just doesn't know how to deal with it.

"...how hard is it to hide things from the press? They don't care that much about the straight press. What these guys have figured out is that as long as they have Fox and talk radio, they're OK in the public opinion. They control that hard. It kept the ball in Iraq in the air for a couple of years longer than it should have, and it cost Kerry the presidency. But now it's over -- Iraq's done. A lot of the conservatives who promoted the war are now very much against it. Some of the columnists in this town who were beating the drums for that war really owe an apology. It's a sad time for the American press.

How to fix the problems with media in the age of Bush Co?

You'd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You'd actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn't think you could control. And they're not going to do that.

When Clinton went to war...

"You have to give Bill Clinton his due: When he bombed Kosovo in 1999, he became the first president since World War II to bomb white people."

Here's a selection of Hersh's feature stories from the New Yorker on the past two years. All make for fascinating, troubling and insightful reading :

Hersh On 'The Iran Plans' : Will President Bush Go To War To Stop Iran From Getting The Bomb?

New Yorker Story By Hersh On 'The Coming Wars

Hersh : How The 'War On Terror' Is Helping The Terrorists Win The War

New Yorker : The US Military's Big Problems With Bush & The NeoCons Plans For Iran

India, Pakistan Defy United States Over Iran Gas Pipeline

The more I read stories like this, the clearer it becomes that the rapidly growing economic centres of the world - China, Russia, India - are leaving the United States behind, as they push forward in setting the scene for how most of the world's key energy supplies - natural gas and oil - will be transported across the globe in the coming decades.

China, India, Iran, Russia, no longer appear to wilt before US economic and trade threats, or promises of denial of key energy technologies or arms sales, if they don't comply with the wishes of the fading superpower.

A remarkable story from 'The Australian' details how India and Pakistan are only days away from settling terms on a 2600km long natural gas pipeline that will stretch from Iran, through Pakistan territory, all the way to India.

Pakistan will access some of the gas, and will be paid by India for 'hosting' the pipeline. This deal, long in the making, pleases China and Russia. They view the rise of India as a future superpower as a major positive, and they see few negatives in growing ties between Iran and Pakistan. The only long face in the international is that of the United States'.

At the same time, Pakistan is pushing back against growing criticism from the United States and Australia that it isn't doing enough to stop Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan territory, or its border regions.

Pakistan's President Musharraf has already threatened to quit the international 'War on Terror' if the pressure doesn't ease. And Musharraf has made it vividly clear to the United States that Pakistan will play no part whatsoever in any attacks launched against Iran, nor will he allow any flyovers of Pakistan territory by US bombers.

The United States is now trying to claim that doing a deal with Iran over the pipeline will help it in its alleged ambitions to gain nuclear weapons. It's a pathetic, and stupid, claim to lay on India and Pakistan, who are clearly wanting the pipeline so as to wean themselves off their own imported oil addictions, as US President Bush continually warns Americans they must do as well.

Should the US try to air its claim that the pipeline will help Iran with its nuclear ambitions in the United Nations Security Council, many will have a hard time trying not to laugh out loud.

Iran is doing deals for its natural gas and oil worth hundreds of billions of dollars (over the next two decades) with China, Russia, India and Pakistan. Pakistan is about to begin construction on a port and another pipeline that will give China a gateway to Gulf oil. Included in all these deals will be the weapons systems and arms sales needed to secure the sea transit lanes to deliver oil to China, for example, and to keep safe key energy pipelines, like the one that will stretch from Iran to India.

But where is the United States in all this action? Standing on the sidelines, trying to order the new power players around and shouting for attention. It's a sad fact of the changing international order that mega-states like China, Russia and India appear to be less interested in listening to what the United States has to say.

From 'The Australian' :

Dispute between Washington and its two major South Asian allies is intensifying as India and Pakistan dig in their heels over building a highly strategic, $10 billion gas pipeline stretching 2600km from Iran.

Despite pressure from the US, which has linked the pipeline to Iran's nuclear ambitions, New Delhi and Islamabad are thumbing their noses at Washington. Together, they are about to put the finishing touches to their deal with Tehran, with potentially far-reaching political and security implications.

Many South Asian analysts see this as a telling comment on Washington's failure to line up enthusiasm outside the industrialised and developed world for its attempts to isolate Iran.

Though India has voted against Iran's nuclear plans in global meetings, South Asian nations have generally paid little heed to calls for the country's isolation.

Tehran won a significant victory at this month's eight-nation South Asia Association for Regional Co-operation summit in New Delhi when, despite strenuous US lobbying, it was recommended for observer status within the organisation as a forerunner to full membership in the future.

Indian and Pakistani officials have been meeting to finalise the Iran-Pakistan-Indian pipeline (IPI) deal, with final approval expected within weeks and construction to start almost immediately.

This is despite the US dropping all pretence at politeness in its efforts to dissuade India from building the pipeline, with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, on a visit to New Delhi, insisting that the plans amount to New Delhi helping Iran's nuclear program.

"We believe that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and anything that will support that endeavour (such as the IPI) is something that we oppose," Mr Bodman said.

He reminded the Indian Government of its need for US co-operation in developing a civilian nuclear energy industry. Yet within days Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Shaukat Aziz, had pledged to "sincerely and seriously pursue the project to its successful completion".

Officials in energy-starved India, which produces only half of the natural gas it needs to serve its population of more than 1.3 billion, and whose requirements will double over the next 15 years, are adamant they will go ahead with the IPI project.

This story is important, and included on this blog, because it clearly sets the scene for growing tensions in the new international order, and possible military, or covert, action by the United States in the future to stop the pipeline from becoming a reality.

Go Here To Read The Full Story

China Secures A Gateway To Gulf Oil, Via Pakistan


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More Blogs By Darryl Mason

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Sudan And Chad Move Closer To All Out War

"Apocalyptic" Scenes Of Mass Graves, Destruction, As 400 Slaughtered In Raids

As the Middle East rumbles with further war and conflict, Africa is seething with bloodshed and terror, both state and non-state. Libya, China, France and the United States are now taking a greater interest in the various conflicts that have raged there for years, all but unnoticed by most in the West, outside of the occasional appalling body count on page 12 of a city daily :

U.N. officials have warned of the possibility of increasing violence in the region where Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic meet.

Fighting in Sudan's western Darfur region has left as many as 450,000 dead from violence and disease.

Sudanese leaders are accused of unleashing the pro-government Arab militia, the Janjaweed, which is blamed for widespread attacks and rapes against ethnic Africans.

On Monday, the Sudanese military said 17 of its soldiers were killed repelling a Chadian army raid on a Sudanese border town in western Darfur.

Sudan and Chad grow closer to all out war. They accuse each other of sending militia forces into each other's territories, or backing rebel forces, and of allowing and/or encouraging massacres and destruction of villages close to their shared border.

The United Nations is still rallying to get a larger commitment to peacekeeping forces from the United States and the EU, but enthusiasm is low for deploying forces into a conflict where the body count is guaranteed to be high.

From the Washington Post :

Sudanese Janjaweed militiamen killed as many as 400 people in the volatile eastern border region near Sudan, leaving an "apocalyptic" scene of mass graves and destruction, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

The attacks took place March 31 in the border villages of Tiero and Marena, about 550 miles from Chad's capital, N'Djamena. Chadian officials initially said that 65 people had died but that the toll was certain to rise.

"Estimates of the number of dead have increased substantially and now range between 200 and 400," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said. "Because most of the dead were buried where their bodies were found -- often in common graves owing to their numbers -- we may never know their exact number."

The attackers encircled the villages and opened fire, pursued fleeing villagers, robbed women and shot the men, UNHCR said. Many who survived the initial attack died later from exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing.

U.N. officials have warned of the possibility of increasing violence in the region where Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic meet.

Fighting in Sudan's western Darfur region has left as many as 450,000 dead from violence and disease.

Sudanese leaders are accused of unleashing the pro-government Arab militia, the Janjaweed, which is blamed for widespread attacks and rapes against ethnic Africans.

On Monday, the Sudanese military said 17 of its soldiers were killed repelling a Chadian army raid on a Sudanese border town in western Darfur.

Now Libya's Muammar Gaddafi is getting involved more involved, in trying to keep out more UN forces, and cooling tensions between Chad and Sudan :

...Gaddafi is steering Chad’s opposition to a UN military peacekeeping force in its violence-torn east, where civilians are being killed in droves as a proposed UN deployment stalls, analysts say.

They say Gaddafi, a critic of Western democracy and self-styled champion of African nationalism, has stepped up pressure on his southern neighbour, Chadian President Idriss Deby, to resist a planned UN military force for eastern Chad.

The country’s desolate east, caught up in violence that combines marauding armed raiders, domestic insurgency and ethnic conflict, has become a mirror of the neighbouring Sudanese region of Darfur, itself torn by war since 2003.

“Libya’s primary objective is to ensure an international military force does not deploy,” said Colin Thomas-Jensen, Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.

The stalling over the Chad UN force now mirrors the situation in Sudan’s Darfur, where the Sudanese government has long been resisting international pressure for UN peacekeepers to bolster a struggling African Union military contingent.

The Libyan leader, who likes to wear a small outline map of Africa on his suits, has taken the lead in trying to broker peace between feuding neighbours Chad and Sudan, whose forces clashed on the border this week.

Egypt Is Friendly With Both Sudan And Chad, Now Worried About Growing Clashes, Tensions

Tensions Rise On Border Between Chad And Sudan

Chad, Sudan Trade Accusations After Border Clashes

Iraqi Parliament Hit By Suicide Bomber

Attack Deep Inside One Of The World's Most High Security Zones


Key bridge across the Tigris River reportedly destroyed by a truck bomb.

Some thin details are beginning to emerge about how a suicide bomber managed to penetrate more than eight layers of heavy security to blow himself up in a canteen frequented by MPs and media, inside the Iraqi Parliament. At least eight people are dead, including three politicans, with dozens wounded.

In what must be the biggest security breach in the four year history of 'The Green Zone', the bomber, reportedly a Sunni bodyguard for an MP, was helped in his attack by the failure of a key electronic security screeing system, at a pedestrian entrance to 'The Green Zone'. An entrance close to the Parliament itself, according to Associated Press reports:

The blast came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

After the parliament blast, security guards sealed the building and no one - including politicians – was allowed to enter or leave.

Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack.

The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a possible withdrawal of American support.

One of the dead politicians was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.

Another legislator killed was Taha al-Liheibi, of the Sunni Accordance Front that holds 44 seats in parliament, according to Mohammed Abu Bakr, who heads the legislature’s media department.

Abu Bakr said he saw a suicide bomber’s body amid a ghastly scene at the restaurant.

“I saw two legs in the middle of the cafeteria and none of those killed or wounded lost their legs – which means they must be the legs of the suicide attacker,” he said.

Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution – apparently concerned that an attack might take place.

But a security scanner that checks pedestrians at the entrance to the Green Zone near the parliament building was not working on Thursday, Abu Bakr said. People were searched only by hand and had to pass through metal detectors, he said.

The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of US and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.

The US military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the heavily fortified region that also houses the US Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. A militant rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor.

A few days earlier, a rocket landed within 100 yards of a building where UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was hurt.

The UK Independent's Iraq correspondent, Patrick Cockburn, wrote about the Parliament attack (some excerpts) :

Nowhere is safe. Insurgents struck in the heart of the Green Zone yesterday, one of the most heavily defended places in Baghdad. The symbolism - and the bloody message - was clear with this attack on the home to the US-imposed democracy.

The Green Zone bombing was not only an assault on democracy. It was intended to undermine President George Bush's troop "surge", which is denounced as a sham by so many Iraqis.

But even Iraqis hardened to violence were shocked by the bloody scene in parliament. "I saw a ball of fire and heard a huge, loud explosion," said one witness. "There were pieces of flesh floating in the air."

The success of a suicide bomber in penetrating one of the most tightly guarded buildings in the world could only have happened if he had help from other security men. The Iraqi parliament is well inside the heavily fortified Green Zone and is protected by eight layers of security, including at least three checks for explosives.

The suicide bombing is one of the most dramatic demonstrations of the extent to which the Sunni insurgents have infiltrated the government's own security apparatus. Other recent examples include the serious wounding of the deputy prime minister Salam al-Zubaie on 23 March by a bomber who got near him with the connivance of his own bodyguards.

The 275-member Iraqi parliament meets on the first floor of a cavernous building, originally built by Saddam Hussein to hold meetings of Islamic nations. Immediately outside the assembly hall is a restaurant. It was there, beside the cash register, that the bomber blew himself up.

The sensitivity of the US and the Iraqi government to the breach in security was apparent because all television cameras and video tapes showing the immediate aftermath of the blast were confiscated and handed to US authorities.

The only footage to be shown was by al-Hurra channel, shot seconds after the attack, it showed a dusty hallway with people screaming for help. One man is shown slumped in the dust.

The Green Zone itself is four miles square in the centre of Baghdad. It is heavily defended but some 5,000 Iraqis live inside it. It is defended by a mixture of soldiers, private security personel and bodyguards of uncertain loyalty.

Although President Bush has been seeking to blame Iran for supporting the insurgency in Iraq there is little evidence for that. The great majority of attacks on US forces are by Sunni guerrillas in Sunni districts. There have been battles with Shia militia but these have been intermittent. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army, the largest Shia militia, has stood down his men and told them to avoid a confrontation with US forces.

Cockburn supplies more details on 'The Green Zone' :

The Green Zone is a forbidden city, a concrete fortress in the heart of Baghdad housing the Iraqi government, the US embassy, the British embassy and the Iraqi parliament. It is defended by concrete blast walls and well-fortified checkpoints.

Some four miles square, the zone began as the palace and office complex that was the centre of government for Saddam Hussein until his overthrow in April 2003. Over four years, it has become a hated symbol for people in Baghdad of the isolation of the Iraqi and American authorities from the terrors of real life in the city.

From a distance, the first signs of the Green Zone are the cranes rising above the enormous new US embassy. They are impossible to miss because they are the only new cranes in Baghdad.

A closer view of the Green Zone reveals that it is entirely surrounded by grey concrete blast walls to stop suicide bombers or other attackers. These walls run along the right-bank of the Tigris river and then run inland, blocking main roads and slicing through neighbourhoods.

Parliament Bombing : How Could It Happen? Intense, But Uneven Security

Baghdad : Mapping The Violence

Brits Get Their Revenge For Basra Ambush : At Least 20 Shiite Gunmen Slaughtered In The Streets - No Such Thing As A "No Go Zone" For Brits In Basra, Claims Commander

"The Iraqi Resistance Only Exists To End The Occupation"

Under Seige In Mosul : "If You Go Out In The Street By Yourself, You'll Be Dead In 15 Minutes"

Refugees Speak After Escaping From The Living Hell That Is Iraq 2007

South Of Iraq Now Set To Erupt - Police Commander Claims 500,000 Marched Against American Occupation

Attacks Hit Iraqi Parliament, Key Baghdad Bridge Only Hours Apart

Russia Tells The World American Dominance Is Over



Russia under Vladimir Putin continues to position itself in the top tiers of the 'New World Order', as the United States' influence and standing in global affairs diminishes off the back of the tragic failures of the Iraq War, and the international view that its internal troubles are fast growing out of control. The US-initiated 'War on Terror' has failed to curb terror attacks, and it is beyond a fact that it has led to an upsurge in support for Islamic extremism and anti-Americanism across the planet.

Russia counts China and Iran as close, and powerful, allies in the restructuring of the global order, and a new Cold War looms over missile defence, as the United States pushes for an expansion of NATO that will bring in more countries closer to Russia's borders under the missile defence umbrella.

China and Russia, and Iran to a lesser degree, are re-arming on a phenomenal scale, and the United States is attempting to hammer their international credibility through harassing and negative human rights reports, while badgering India and smaller nations to be wary of Russia and China's future plans.

But India, and most recently Japan, are closing ranks with China, in particular, and forming massive multi-billion dollar trade deals with Russia and Iran.

Analysts said the Iraq War was risky on a global scale for the United States, long before the war began, because if they failed to win a total victory, allowing greater expansion of US-backed democracy across the Middle East, and instead got bogged down fighting a protracted guerrilla war, it would deplete American military and Treasury resources, allowing China and Russia to make their move. Clearly, this is now exactly what Russia, and China, are doing.

For now, at least, Russia it would appear is taking the lead in challenging the United States' recruitment of Eastern Europe allies, and their subsequent re-arming, and agitating against the US-led destabilising of the Iranian regime.

From the UK Guardian :

The news that an arms race may be underway once more between Washington and Moscow has brought back some unpleasant memories, but it is also a pointer to a more complicated future.

The Kremlin's threat to counter US missile defence installations in eastern Europe is a sign that Russia will no longer acquiesce in a Pax Americana.

What seemed in the west like a post cold-war honeymoon in the nineties is remembered more as a rape by Moscow's new leaders. In their eyes Russia was taken advantage of at a moment of economic weakness by Washington, London and a band of unscrupulous Russian oligarchs. A new Russian foreign policy, published by the government in recent days makes it clear that Moscow believes the era of American hegemony is now over.

"The myth about the unipolar world fell apart once and for all in Iraq," the review says. "A strong, more self-confident Russia has become an integral part of positive changes in the world."

The policy document is an elaboration of an anti-American polemic delivered two months ago by Vladimir Putin to a roomful of shocked western diplomats in Munich. "The Munich speech may be an event ... we look back to and say: that's when everything changed, but we should have seen it coming," said Cliff Kupchan, a former US state department official now at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Around the world, Putin's Russia has been serving notice for some time it is prepared to challenge US leadership of the international community. It is beginning to push back hard against missile defence and Nato's eastward expansion. It has resisted tough sanctions against Iran, and so far refused to go along with a UN-brokered plan to hand Kosovo autonomy. Moscow is also signalling it wants to be treated as a serious player in the Middle East, meeting Hamas officials at a time they are being ostracised by the US and western Europe.

Washington may be in the throes of intellectual ferment over the Bush doctrine, of defeating extremism by exporting democracy, but the Putin doctrine is by contrast, an exercise in pragmatism. It stresses the importance of national sovereignty and the primacy of the UN in resolving disputes. The common theme is Moscow's demand for its views to be taken into account.

Soaring oil and gas prices have transformed the environment. Russia is no longer a debtor nation. A new self-assuredness was on show when the Russians hosted the G8 meeting at St Petersburg in 2006. "Suddenly, they had all the right suits, watches and the right cars," said a western official who was there.

Along with all the trappings of western affluence came a new determination that Russia would not be absorbed by the west. The Yeltsin government toyed with the idea of joining the European Union, but that idea is now dead. In an article to mark the EU's 50th anniversary, Mr Putin stated openly that Russia has "no intention of either joining the EU or establishing any form of institutional association with it".

Moscow's relationship with Europe is now defined by its role as the continent's oil and gas supplier. Its tactics have been those of a giant corporation seeking to maximise its market power.

Bush Officially Backs NATO Membership For Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia - Military Developments Funds Authorised

Russia Prepares Military Response To US Plans For Missile Shield Bases In Eastern Europe

Russia Claims US Plans To Interfere In Upcoming Elections - Sees Such Interference As A Threat To Internal Affairs And Sovereignty

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Warns Europe To Stop US Missile Shield - "It Is Unacceptable...To Use The Continent As Their Own Strategic Territory

International Natural Gas Cartel - The 'Gas Opec' - Takes Shape Under Russia's Direction, Drawing In Iran, Algiers, Libya, Egypt, Venezuela, Qatar And Indonesia

Terror Attacks Hit Capital Of Algeria

30 Dead, Hundreds Injured, Toll Rising

Terror On '11'


At least two three massive car bombs have exploded in Algiers, killing more than 30 people and injuring more than 200.

An anonymous caller to Al Jazeera reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, and within two hours, wire news services were repeating claims that the attacks were the responsibility of the newly formed African branch of Al Qaeda :

One of the blasts, believed to be a suicide bombing, ripped part of the facade off the prime minister's headquarters in the centre of Algiers. A second bomb hit Bab Ezzouar on its eastern outskirts, the official APS news agency said.

The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the bombings, Al Jazeera television reported.

The claim could not be immediately verified but the group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has taken responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces and foreigners in Algeria since January.

On March 3, Islamic extremists killed one Russian and three Algerians in a bomb attack on a bus carrying workers employed by a Russian company.

On March 22, the US State Department issued a specific travel warning for Algiers :

The Department of State urges U.S. citizens who travel to Algeria to evaluate carefully the risk posed to their personal safety. Sustained small-scale terrorist attacks including bombings, false roadblocks, kidnappings, ambushes, and assassinations occur regularly.

On April 8, 9 Soldiers, 6 Islamists were killed during an ambush :

Some political observers have said Islamic militants could be looking to step up violence against government forces in an effort to disrupt Algeria's legislative elections on May 17.

Algeria has been fighting an insurgency that broke out in 1992 after the army canceled legislative elections, which an Islamic party appeared set to win.

Since then, violence related to the insurgency has left an estimated 200,000 dead — civilians, soldiers and Islamic fighters — according to the government in the North African country. Large-scale violence died down in the late 1990s, but skirmishes have continued in recent months particularly in the east and center of the country.

The previous known attack by insurgents against military forces took place Tuesday, when three soldiers were killed by alleged Islamic militants in the Biskra region southeast of Algiers.

The attacks may appear to have come out of the blue, but they signify a deadly revenge against the Algerian government, after it quietly launched "a sustained military campaign" against the Islamist group in late March, in a concerted effort to cut off an Al Qaeda-linked resurgence of terrorism :

...under the cover of a nearly complete media blackout, the Algerian military began what appears to be a sustained military campaign against the organization. According to the Algerian press, the campaign is taking place in the Kabylie region near the town of Amizour to the east of Algiers...

As of April 2, the National People's Army was continuing its offensive against the group and entering its 10th day of combined military operations involving artillery and helicopter gunships as well as Algerian Special Forces. The strength of the military operations is likely designed to reassert the government's authority, particularly after the group successfully conducted attacks in suburbs of the capital previously believed secure...

Striking at the heart of the Algerian government will be viewed by Al Qaeda as a major achievement, and a shocking example to the government of how the terrorists can get inside heavy security cordons which have been up around key government offices for at least three weeks.

The attacks were clearly aimed at killing the Algerian prime minister, who survived.


In a remarkable coincidence, the News24 site published the following AFP story only a few hours before the first attack :

The US state department renewed on Tuesday its "Worldwide Caution" alerting US citizens to the continuing threat of "terrorist actions and violence" against Americans and US interests overseas.

Current information "suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organisations continue to plan terrorist attacks against US interests in multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East," it said.

"These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics to include assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings and bombings."

It also referred to "bomb attacks targeting buses carrying foreign workers in March 2007 and December 2006 in Algeria" to illustrate "how terrorists exploit vulnerabilities associated with soft targets".

The terror attacks came less than 24 hours after Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister announced the gas rich country was joining with Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Qatar to look into the formation of a 'gas Opec'. Algeria is the second largest exporter of natural gas in the world :

The group...sought to assuage mounting fears among gas consumers that the creation of a gas cartel was imminent, but it confirmed that the group’s intention was to strengthen cooperation.

“In the long term we are moving towards a gas Opec,”, Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Energy and Mines Minister, said. “It will take a long time.”

The 11th day of the month is proving to be an extremely popular day for high profile, high death toll, terror attacks by Islamists, and insurgents claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda.

September 11, 2001 : Terror attacks on New York City and Washington DC.

April 11, 2002 : Terror attack in Tunisia.

October 11, 2002 : Terror attacks in Bali.

March 11, 2003 : Terror attack on a funeral in Mosul, Iraq

March 11, 2004 : Terror attacks on trains in Madrid.

April 11, 2006 : Terror attack in Karachi, Pakistan

May 11, 2006 : Terror attack in Quetta, Pakistan

July 11, 2006 : Terror attacks on trains in Mumbai, India

April 11, 2007 : Terror attacks in Algiers.


Opinion : Algeria Could Provide Springboard For European Terror

Reuters : Key Facts On Algerian Islamist Terror Group

April 10 - Algerian Government Tries To Head Off Al Qaeda Resurgence

Breaking Up Baghdad

Robert Fisk On The American Plan To "Seal Off Vast Sections" Of The Iraqi Capital


More than 100,000 Iraqis marched against the US-led occupation on the fourth anniversary of the Fall of Baghdad

One of the most widely read, and controversial, Iraq stories of the day is Robert Fisk's piece in the UK Independent on what he claims is an American plan to "divide Baghdad into sealed sections" :

Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.

The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.

The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops.

...the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.

The initial emphasis of the new American plan will be placed on securing Baghdad market places and predominantly Shia Muslim areas. Arrests of men of military age will be substantial. The ID card project is based upon a system adopted in the city of Tal Afar by General Petraeus's men - and specifically by Colonel H R McMaster, of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment - in early 2005, when an eight-foot "berm" was built around the town to prevent the movement of gunmen and weapons. General Petraeus regarded the campaign as a success although Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, has since fallen back into insurgent control.

...the new project will involve joint American and Iraqi "support bases" in nine of the 30 districts to be "gated" off. From these bases - in fortified buildings - US-Iraqi forces will supposedly clear militias from civilian streets which will then be walled off and the occupants issued with ID cards. Only the occupants will be allowed into these "gated communities" and there will be continuous patrolling by US-Iraqi forces. There are likely to be pass systems, "visitor" registration and restrictions on movement outside the "gated communities". Civilians may find themselves inside a "controlled population" prison.

A former US officer in Vietnam who has a deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans is sceptical of the possible results. "The first loyalty of any Sunni who is in the Iraqi army is to the insurgency," he said.

"Any Shia's first loyalty is to the head of his political party and its militia. Any Kurd in the Iraqi army, his first loyalty is to either Barzani or Talabani. There is no independent Iraqi army. These people really have no choice. They are trying to save their families from starvation and reprisal. At one time they may have believed in a unified Iraq. At one time they may have been secular. But the violence and brutality that started with the American invasion has burnt those liberal ideas out of people ... Every American who is embedded in an Iraqi unit is in constant mortal danger."

Below are excerpts from the key document that Fisk uses as the basis for his article :

FM 3-24 comprises 220 pages of counter-insurgency planning, combat training techniques and historical analysis. The document was drawn up by Lt-Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Baghdad, and Lt-Gen James Amos of the US Marine Corps, and was the nucleus for the new US campaign against the Iraqi insurgency. These are some of its recommendations and conclusions:

* In the eyes of some, a government that cannot protect its people forfeits the right to rule. In [parts] of Iraq and Afghanistan... militias established themselves as extragovernmental arbiters of the populace's physical security - in some cases, after first undermining that security...

* In the al-Qa'ida narrative... Osama bin Laden depicts himself as a man purified in the mountains of Afghanistan who is inspiring followers and punishing infidels. In the collective imagination of Bin Laden and his followers, they are agents of Islamic history who will reverse the decline of the umma (Muslim community) and bring about its triumph over Western imperialism.

* As the Host Nation government increases its legitimacy, the populace begins to assist it more actively. Eventually, the people marginalise insurgents to the point that [their] claim to legitimacy is destroyed. However, victory is gained not when this is achieved, but when the victory is permanently maintained by and with the people's active support...

* Any human rights abuses committed by US forces quickly become known throughout the local populace. Illegitimate actions undermine counterinsurgency efforts... Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal and unprofessional.

* If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace and contact maintained.

* FM 3-24 quotes Lawrence of Arabia as saying: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."

* FM 3-24 points to Napoleon's failure to control occupied Spain as the result of not providing a "stable environment" for the population. His struggle, the document says, lasted nearly six years and required four times the force of 80,000 Napoleon originally designated.

* Do not try to crack the hardest nut first. Do not go straight for the main insurgent stronghold. Instead, start from secure areas and work gradually outwards... Go with, not against, the grain of the local populace.

* Be cautious about allowing soldiers and marines to fraternise with local children. Homesick troops want to drop their guard with kids. But insurgents are watching. They notice any friendships between troops and children. They may either harm the children as punishment or use them as agents.

Senior Iraqi Government Official Gives Detailed Account Of How US Invasion Destroyed His Country - How To Completely Mismanagement An Occupation

One Day In Iraq, Tuesday, April 10 : 4 American Troops, 76 Iraqis Killed; British & American Troops In Heavy Street Battles With Insurgents And Militias, Dozens Of Civilians Killed, Wounded

Baghdad Battered By Heavy Bombing, Mortar Fire, Street Fighting

Baghdad Women Forced To Return To Wearing Head Scarves

Iraq's Wounded : On Their Own, More Than 36,000 Iraqis Wounded In Acts Of Violence In 2006

Al-Sadr Calls For Iraqi Army & Police To Join His Militias To Fight American Military Forces

Former Commander Of Iraq's Republican Guard Claims US Used Phosphorous And Neutron Bombs To Win The Battle For Baghdad's Airport Four Years Ago

Washington Post & Rueters Manipulated Quotes From US Military Spokesman Revealing That Roadside Bombs Are Made In Iraq, Not Iran

Pope Can't See "Anything Positive In Iraq

Calls It A "Continual Slaughter"

Happy Easter England, From Iran And Iraq


Pope Benedict XVI delivered a pointed denouncement of the United States failure to contain the violence in Iraq, in some of the strongest words delivered by a pope against US misadventures in war in decades :

"Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability. In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees."

The Pope used his Easter address to talk about the growing spread of war and violence and depravity across the planet :

"How many wounds, how much suffering there is in the world..."

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the..."terrorism and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation of human rights and the exploitation of persons."

The Pope referred to the "...catastrophic, and sad to say, underestimated humanitarian situation" in Darfur, the growing war in Somalia, the brutality engulfing the Congo, the "crisis" in Zimbabwe. He said a negotiated solution needed to found to end the increasingly bloody battles in Sri Lanka and said he prayed for reconciliation in East Timor as the world's newest nation goes to the polls this weekend.

Few seem more surprised than the British prime minister himself when the Iranian president announced on Thursday that he was going to set free, without charge or trial, the 15 British sailors and marines who strayed into disputed Iranian waters, after collecting intelligence in the Persian Gulf the week before.

Iraq delivered the UK an Easter surprise as well : 4 dead UK troops, killed by a roadside bomb in Basra, followed by horrific scenes of Iraqis literally dancing in the street next to massive crater, picking through the wreckage for souvenirs. Two of the dead were only 19 years old, two were women.

From 'Your New Reality' :

British prime minister, Tony Blair, stepped out of No. 10 Downing Street to face the television cameras. He looked extremely uncomfortable, tired and depressed. His eyes continually dropped to the ground, his shoulders hunched, and he was clearly ashamed of what he had to say.

It was time to spin all the dramatic news of the day from Iran and Iraq, and it was time to spin it hard. He had no choice but to attempt to redirect the fury Britons were feeling over the horrific scenes of Iraqis openly celebrating the deaths of the four British soldiers back on the Iranians.

But it was clear from watching Tony Blair that the fight, and fire, has gone from him now. He didn't want to foul the deaths of these men with hollow propaganda, but he did it anyway.

Blair did not directly blame the Iranian government, who had just released, unharmed, and in good spirits, 15 British marines and sailors who were caught in disputed Iran-Iraq territorial waters. To do so would have caused a storm in the United Nations.

But the intent of Blair's words were crystal-clear - he could not allow Iraqis to be blamed by the British public for this furious slaughter. It was Blair's job to make sure they blamed Iran. Or at the very least, wonder if those 'friendly' Iranians who had not hurt those they captured, had coldly ordered the attack in Basra.

Millions Fly Flags In Iraq After Moqtada Al-Sadr Calls For Show Of National Unity, Pride, To Drive Out "Occupiers"

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IraqSlogger : The Week In Review

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Iraq Veteran Describes The Bureaucratic Abuse Of The Wounded At United States' Premier Military Hospital

Britain To Stay In Iraq For Five More Years

US Troops Fight Major Street Battles Against Militias In Iraq's South - "We Will Die Defending Ourselves"

Al-Sadr Calls America "Arch-Enemy" - Calls For Attacks On US Troops


Captured Brits Were Spying On Iran, According To UK Navy Captain

One Day In Iraq : 4 British Servicemen Killed In Ambush, 4 American Servicemen Killed In Bombings, BlackHawk Down - Ninth Helicopter Taken Down By Insurgency This Year

Tony Blair Attempts To Link Iran To Deadly Ambush Attack On British Troops

Iran News Agency : Release Of Britons Shows "Iran Is Prepared To Give Up Its Rights To Help Solve International Issues"

Iran's 'Showman' Kept Everybody In The Dark

Russian Military Expert Claims "Only Days" Until US Launches 12 Hours Of Air Strikes On Iran

The Day The World Became A Stage For Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Two 19 Year Olds Among The Four Killed In Basra - Local Officials Claim 'Shaped Shell' Explosive Never Seen In Basra Area Before

UK Sailors Were Threatened With Seven Years Jail - The Mind Games And The Propaganda

They're Back : The Return of Al Qaeda

Jihadists Take On American Military In Iraq And Return Home Trained For International Terrorism

Pakistan Looms As The Home Of 'Nuclear Al Qaeda'


Al Qaeda, such as it was, had been pretty well neutralized as a viable fighting force by the end of 2001.

The Australian, British and American SAS in Aghanistan, and hundreds of deep-cover agents in Pakistan, saw to that. The Brits, Americans, French and Germans had shut down most of Al Qaeda's international financing and money transfers and holding banks.

By the start of 2002, Al Qaeda had lost most of its training camps in Afghanistan and the border regions with Pakistan; it could no longer transfer money around the world with virtual impunity, and it had lost thousands of its fighters in fighting, with tens of thousands more who had once pledged allegiance changing their minds about the 'international struggle'.

Al Qaeda shocked the Muslim world with 9/11's huge civilian casualties and disgusted jihadists who wanted to only focus on military targets. They became their own worst enemy, and most of the world backed the US-led invasion to wipe out Al Qaeda in Iraq. This began with special forces operations launched only days after 9/11.

The Afghanistan War mopped up the remains. It would have taken a few more years, but deep-cover agents would have effectively picked off the remaining power centres of Al Qaeda, from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia.

The reason Bush said he didn't care where Osama was, or if he was alive, was because that was what his intelligence agencies were telling him in 2002 : Osama was irrelevant and he had destroyed his own cause. Bin Laden was finished.

But then came the Iraq War.

We know the story. Once the bombs started falling and the women and children were shown blown to pieces, and the rich cultural heritage of Mesopotamia was allowed to be publicly vandalised and degraded by looters (including international looters and antique traders), what remained of Al Qaeda had all the visual propaganda they needed to build back up their forces and support bases and ramp up the rhetoric.

Al Qaeda tried to tell the Muslim world that America wanted to destroy them through the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the vast majority of Muslims knew they were full of crap. Because they were.

But Iraq allowed Al Qaeda to claim they were right about 'The Great Evil'. America and its allies were at war with Islam.

The Iraq War transformed what was once a fringe terror group of well-financed and well-trained operatives who had scored some major hits (African embassies, The USS Cole, WTCs) into a decades long threat to international order. And it all happened off the back of the Iraq War.

Considering all that, it is easy then to believe that some in the Bush inner circle wanted Iraq to create an enemy worthy of half a trillion a year in defence spending.

After all, getting US defence spending back up to Cold War levels again was outlined clearly and precisely in a number of the NeoCon-centric Project For A New American Century policy statements in the late 1990s. That the NeoCons wanted to cause chaos in the Middle East as a means to increase American defence spending is neither a secret, nor a conspiracy.

Overthrowing Iraq was key to the NeoCon Grand Plan to reshape the world and pump up defence spending to incomprehensible levels.

It worked.

They got the war they wanted, and that gave the NeoCons the enemy they needed.

And now, Al Qaeda is growing, and some claim they are stronger and more dangerous than ever before. In report after report, Pakistan is now being mentioned as a relatively secure and popular base of operations for Al Qaeda Mk 2.

But Pakistan is a nation armed with nuclear weapons, and it is already well on the way to being destablised, and eventually over-run, by the forces of what may soon become known as 'Nuclear Al Qaeda.'

From the New York Times :

As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has emerged under Osama Bin Laden to cement control over the network’s operations, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leading to surprise and dismay within United States intelligence agencies about the group’s ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.

It has been known that American officials were focusing on a band of Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan’s remote mountains, but a clearer picture is emerging about those who are running the camps and thought to be involved in plotting attacks.

American, European and Pakistani authorities have for months been piecing together a picture of the new leadership, based in part on evidence-gathering during terrorism investigations in the past two years. Particularly important have been interrogations of suspects and material evidence connected to a plot British and American investigators said they averted last summer to destroy multiple commercial airliners after takeoff from London.

Intelligence officials also have learned new information about Al Qaeda’s structure through intercepted communications between operatives in Pakistan’s tribal areas, although officials said the group has a complex network of human couriers to evade electronic eavesdropping.

Many American officials have said in recent years that the roles of Mr. bin Laden and his lieutenants in Pakistan’s remote mountains have diminished with the growing prominence of the organization’s branch in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and with the emergence of regional terrorism networks and so-called home-grown cells.

That view, in part, led the C.I.A. in late 2005 to disband Alec Station, the unit that for a decade was devoted to hunting Mr. bin Laden and his closest advisers, and to reassign analysts within the agency’s Counterterrorist Center to focus on Al Qaeda’s expanding reach.

Officials say they believe that, in contrast with the somewhat hierarchical structure of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, the group’s leadership is now more diffuse, with several planning hubs working autonomously and not reliant on constant contact with Mr. bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, his deputy.

“The jihadis returning from Iraq are far more capable than the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets ever were....They have been fighting the best military in the world, with the best technology and tactics.”

Jason Burke is a leading world expert on Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism. His views and insights are always worthwhile, and invaluable, in forming a clearer picture of what Al Qaeda is today, and the level of threat they constitute to the West.

Jason Burke writing in the UK Observer (excerpts) :

The continuing evolution of the phenomenon of 'al-Qaeda' continues to surprise - and deeply worry - those charged with keeping us safe.

· Britain is universally considered to be the nation 'most threatened by a major terrorist strike' outside the Middle East or southwest Asia because of its strong support for American foreign policies, relative accessibility compared to the US and strong historic connections to Pakistan which allows in hundreds of thousands of British subjects to travel virtually unmonitored every year. Though only a tiny minority are involved in militancy, the ease of access to the country for Urdu-speaking Britons is a huge advantage to those bent on violence.

· Al-Qaeda has re-established its 'nerve centre' in the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. The country is now considered the 'centre of gravity' of al-Qaeda by security services and the 'critical battlefield' in the years to come.

· Contrary to the British government's public claim, every source spoken to by The Observer, official or otherwise, in Britain and elsewhere believes the Iraq war has exacerbated the threat to the UK specifically and to the West generally. 'It is a huge part of the problem,' one senior British government counter-terrorism specialist said. However, contrary to exaggerated reports, the number of Westerners who have gone to Iraq to fight is said to be 'a handful'.

· Major co-ordinated attacks on the critical infrastructure of Western nations, such as the Channel Tunnel or passenger jets, are 'within the capability and ambition' of militants close to the al-Qaeda leadership and acting independently and are being actively planned.

· All sources consulted believe Osama bin Laden to be alive. However, his death would 'make little operational difference', analysts say, possibly damaging 'the organisation' but not 'the movement'.

· All thought the struggle against Islamic terrorism was growing and would last 'many decades'.

Western government analysts now usually split al-Qaeda into three elements. The first is a 'hard core' of well-known leaders such as bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his Egyptian-born associate, in Afghanistan. Security officials believe key decisions and operations take place on a new 'middle management' level dedicated to training volunteers who make their way to Pakistan and to co-ordinating both propaganda and bomb attacks around the world.

'Al-Qaeda as an operational, technically capable network, with chains of command leading back to Pakistan from many places, is very much alive and well and continuing to plot,' said one security source. 'This is very, very surprising given the damage they have suffered but they are a very resilient organisation.'

The second element is the 'network of networks', defined as the series of groups affiliated to the al-Qaeda hard core in Iraq, elsewhere in the Middle East and, increasingly, in some North African countries. These 'franchises' have links to individuals inside Western European countries, particularly the Algerian-based Groupe Salafiste de Predication et le Combat, and are seen as a potentially major threat. Analysts see a 'clear convergence, practically and ideologically, among militant groups globally' with greater co-ordination between them.

'The national barriers are falling by the wayside,' said one Pakistani official. 'Once a group was just dedicated to jihad in Kashmir or Afghanistan. Now it has a far broader agenda and engagement.' With Kashmiri groups historically having a significant presence in the UK, this growing unity is of great significance for British domestic security.

Significantly, the Taliban in Afghanistan is not considered to be closely linked to the al-Qaeda hard core, though there is reported to be ad hoc co-ordination between the various groups comprising the insurgency, including some transfer of technical and tactical know-how and cash. One civilian source in Kabul described links between Afghan and Iraqi militants as 'sketchy'.

The third element of 'al-Qaeda Mk2', say security officials, is ideology. This has mobilised thousands of young Muslims from a wide variety of backgrounds around the world in the last five years. Analysts now say their radicalisation is occurring far faster, aided by the internet. 'We are talking about a group of guys deciding to do something in West Yorkshire, Paris, Casablanca or Montreal', said one Western intelligence official. 'It's still amateur.'

But it can be horribly effective. According to France's Chaboud, the largest source of danger 'is the home-grown extremist'. Belgian officials point to a recently arrested teenager who had 'gone from no engagement at all to full commitment to a suicide attack' in the space of a few weeks 'alone with a computer in his bedroom'.

British officials talk of suspects so young that '11 September is virtually a childhood memory' being radicalised by 'slick, effective' propaganda and contacts with older people. 'Teenagers' bedrooms are difficult to penetrate,' said one UK official.

Group thinking plays a major role.

It is not the poorest people who are drawn to militancy either. The standard profile is male, mid-twenties, often with a degree and with parents who have migrated, often from southwest Asia or north Africa to the West. There are also an increasing number of converts.

'For a few years it looked like the core of al-Qaeda had been destroyed as a genuine physical presence by the war of 2001 and all that remained were its ideas, powerful though they were,' said one senior Western European security source. 'Yet we have seen the core element returning as a major force. They can provide the critical legitimacy and direction that volunteers need.'

It is the continually evolving interaction between the three main elements - the hard core, the network of networks and the ideology - that make it so resilient.

Jason Burke also supplies a comprehensive, essential list of key Al Qaeda figures at large, who've been killed and who are now in prison.

At large:

Osama bin Laden
Accused of masterminding the 11 September atrocities, he has been indicted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa and the attacks in 2000 on the guided missile destroyer USS Cole. Last confirmed sighting in Afghanistan, 2001.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Egyptian al-Zawahiri is seen as the strategic thinker of al-Qaeda. He was a key figure in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged with al-Qaeda.

Saif Al-Adel
A former Egyptian army officer, was Bin Laden's security chief and ran al-Qaeda's training programmes.

Abu Mohammed Al-Masri
The 45-year-old Egyptian ran the training camps in Afghanistan.

Believed dead:

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi
A Jordanian, he rose to notoriety as head of militant Islamic groups in Iraq. Killed in a US airstrike on an Iraqi safe house in June 2006.

Mohammed Atef
Al-Qaeda's military commander, died in an airstrike near Kabul in 2001.

In prison:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Captured in Pakistan in 2003, he is to be tried at Guantanamo, accused of being an architect of the 11 September attacks. Born in Pakistan, Mohammed joined al-Qaeda in the mid-1990s.

Ramzi Binalshibh
Also to be tried as a key plotter of 11 September . The former bank clerk from Yemen was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002.

Abu Zubaydah
A Saudi of Palestinian origin, he ran the logistics for bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Implicated in the USS Cole attack. Captured in Pakistan, he is to stand trial.

Ali Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi
Said to be al-Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia. Suspected of masterminding the 2003 Riyadh bombings. Surrendered to Saudi authorities shortly afterwards.

The Christian Science Monitor has a comprehensive round-up of Al Qaeda attacks, and its most significant losses and gains during 2006. A few of the most important on the list :

Afghanistan

Terrorism experts say that militant jihadists shifted focus to the original Al Qaeda base to utilize experience and tactics gained in Iraq - as reflected in the increase in suicide bombings from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006, according to US estimates. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are widely believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Indonesia

Hundreds of members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a major terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda, were arrested, while more radical members split from the group in early 2006 to form Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad. The biggest blow to counterterrorism efforts was the release of Abu Bakar Bashir from jail in June 2006 after he spent 26 months in prison. The radical Islamic cleric, who is said to lead JI, was cleared of conspiracy charges in December for his role in the 2002 Bali hotel bombings. "Indonesian counterterrorism law is gravely weak," says Mr. Gunaratna. "Abu Bakar Bashir is the leader of the most dangerous group in Southeast Asia. His group has killed more than 250 people."

Iraq

The most violent offshoot of bin Laden's global organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, seemed to suffer a major blow in 2006 with the killing of former chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June.

But the loss of his leadership may have actually strengthened the group, says Gunaratna.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is small but vicious...It was linked to the February bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra - the impact of which ratcheted up sectarian killings in 2006.

Pakistan

In September 2006, President Pervez Musharraf arranged his most recent peace deal with pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border. Mr. Musharraf's peace-brokering, critics warn, has allowed the Taliban to move freely between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Philippines

The Philippine military killed two top members of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Abu Sayyaf. Military officials say that the killing of the group's leader, Khadaffy Janjalani, in September 2006, and his deputy Abu Sulaiman, who was killed in January 2007, have rendered the group ineffective. Still, US-trained Philippine soldiers continue to regularly engage Abu Sayyaf militants.

Saudi Arabia

In February, Saudi Arabia thwarted a bombing on an oil-processing plant. Raids and gun battles throughout the country netted more than 100 suspected Al Qaeda militants, but US officials have said that the kingdom could do more to curb terrorism, including stopping the flow of militants and funds across its borders.

USA

North America saw no Al Qaeda attacks. American security forces working around the world have seen "an awful lot of victories," says Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The CIA has carte blanche to track terrorists around the world," he says.

Border Region Between Afghanistan And Pakistan Now Thoroughly 'Talibanised' - Musharraf Did Deal With Pro-Taliban Tribal Leaders, And Bush Gave Him The Okay To Do So

World News In Brief


Iran is now effectively surrounded by US bases and troop deployments totalling more than 300,000 military personnel.

IRAQ : Four British soldiers and their translator were killed yesterday in Basra, when their vehicle was destroyed by a massive roadside bomb. Five American soldiers were killed in bombings and attacks in Baghdad. At least 41 Iraqis were executed, found dead or killed in fighting. More than 40 Iraqis were mass-kidnapped in the past two days.

President Bush clearly acknowledged yesterday, for the first time, that most Americans had "grown weary of this war". 57% of Americans want the majority of US troops out of Iraq by September, 2008.

WAZIRISTAN : More than 60 people have been killed in heavy fighting between Pakistani soldiers and foreign militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south, close to the Afghan border. Southern tribes began fighting the foreigners on March 19. More than 50 of the dead from yesterday's fighting are believed to be Uzbeks. Last Monday, a council of tribal elders declared war on the foreign fighters hiding out in the region.

The Pakistan government said the death toll was proof that it was actively, and successfully, fighting the 'War on Terror', after months of international pressure to stop Islamists and militants crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan, via the Waziristan region.

RUSSIA : President Vladimir Putin is ramping up the rhetoric against the United States' plans to position bases for its 'missile defence shield' close to Russian borders. Poland and the Czech Republic are said to have informally agreed to allow the US to base some of its missiles within their borders.

Russia has warned the US again about the "consequences" of attacking Iran, and is growing nervous about increased US military activity close to Iranian border.

CHAD : 65 people were reported to have been killed, and more than 8000 driven from their homes in East Chad, after attacks by Sudanese Junjawid fighters. Chad military forces killed 25 of the attackers after the raids. The attacks are reported as "the latest spillover" from the war in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting between Sudanese military and government-backed militias and local rebels.

IRAQ : US Senator John McCain, and presidential hopeful, along with other Republican lawmakers, made a much publicised visit to a Baghdad marketplace to show that it was safe to "walk the streets" in the war zone, and this was a sign that the security crackdown was working.
McCain was accompanied by 100 Iraqi and American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two gunships. Yesterday, 21 workers at the same market visited by McCain were abducted and executed.

The market stall owners, background extras to McCain's incredibly irresponsible publicity stunt, were furious that the senator went home and made claims about how "safe and secure" the Baghdad markets were, and how pleased stall owners were by the "increasing security". But stall owners in the market did not tell McCain this. They told the senator their situation was "bad" and "everybody complained (to McCain)". Now some of the very same stall market stall owners McCain visited are likely to be amongst the dead.

IRAN : The United States is actively backing and supporting terrorist attacks inside Iran, conducted by an Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani tribal militant group. 'Jundullah' has claimed responsibility for killing dozens of Iranians, and executing military personnel on video. The group is said to be funded by the US via Iranian exiles.

The capture and detention of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran caused near panic on world oil markets, seeing prices rise to six month records. One estimate claims that Iran has made more than $US80 million off the rise in oil prices. Iran exports more than 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. 25% of the world's oil passes through the Persian Gulf.

SOMALIA : More than 400 people were killed in four days of fighting between the Islamist insurgency and the combined military forces of the Ethiopian and Somali governments, most of the dead were civilians. Another 600 people were wounded.

ETHIOPIA : Human Rights Watch claim that the US, via the CIA and FBI, is involved in running rendition programs and secret prisons in Ethiopia, where Somalis fleeing the fighting are being held. Another report claims that hundreds 'terrorist suspects' from 19 countries, including women and children, are being held in Ethiopian prisons and are denied access to lawyers.

ISRAEL : Intelligence sources are claiming that thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters are now undergoing military training in Iran, Yemen and Syria.

An influential Israeli military intelligence major claims that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are preparing for war against the United States; war-drumming propaganda dismissed by most of the world's media.

KASHMIR : The nuclear-armed nations of Pakistan and India are getting closer to a formal deal over the future of Kashmir. Pakistan's President Musharraf has all but given up on Pakistan's territorial claim to India Kashmir, allowing the deal to move forward. India and Pakistan are expected to share responsibility for the governing of all of the disputed territory, which has been a rallying propaganda tool for Islamists for decades.

SYRIA : Syria and Turkey are working together to round up key leaders of the Syrian Kurdistan independence group PKK.

American Democrat Nancy Pelosi visited the Syrian president yesterday, much to the annoyance of the Bush White House, and announced that Syria was ready to negotiate peace with Israel, and talks between Syria and Israel should begin soon.

PALESTINE : The Arab summit in Riyadh two weeks ago finished with an offer of 'land for peace' to Israel. The Saudis were blunt after leading the talks and Arab nation negotiations and said Israel had to accept the offer or face further violence. Israel welcomed most of the plan, but now wants to invite Arab leaders to Israel for further talks. The Palestinian foreign minister said Israel is now stalling, and wants to negotiate peace offering nothing in return.

The capture and detention of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran caused near panic on world oil markets, seeing prices rise to six month records. One estimate claims that Iran has made more than $US80 million off the rise in oil prices. Iran exports more than 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. 25% of the world's oil passes through the Persian Gulf.

INDONESIA : A joint mission by Indonesian and Australian anti-terror forces has uncovered a massive stash of explosives held by suspected terrorists. Indonesia and Australia are claiming they have disrupted a terrorist bombing plot that would have killed hundreds. The volume of explosives seized was said to be (via an Australian radio news report) four times the amount used in the Bali bombings of 2002, that killed more than 200 people.

THAILAND : 14 Muslim worshippers were wounded after a bomb was thrown into a mosque in the south of the country. More than 2000 people have been killed in three years of Islamist insurgency in the country's far south districts. The government is now considering recruiting women into its military to help fight the insurgency.

SRI LANKA : Fighting last night saw the Sri Lankan military kill 23 'rebels' and seizing four Tamil Tiger bases, according to claims made by the government.

The government also claims it has effectively destroyed the Tamil Tigers "sea base" during bombing raids. The 'Sea Tigers' have waged a damaging series of "spectacular" boat-based suicide attacks against the Sri Lankan Navy.

Recently a bus at a military checkpoint was bombed by Tamil Tigers, killing 16. This followed the Tamil Tigers first air strike against a Sri Lankan air force base.

Tamil Tigers have been fighting government forces for more than 24 years, trying to get an independent homeland. Some 65,000 people were killed during the insurgency before a cease fire was negotiated in 2002. More than 4000 have died since fighting reignited in late 2005.

AFGHANISTAN : The United States now has more than 40,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and one unit is feelig a unique kind of dejavu. They spent years playing the role of Afghan insurgents and Taliban in war games, now they are fighting the people they once pretended to be. Pakistan is claiming that attacks In bad news for the United States and NATO, old friends and former foes of President Hamid Karzai have announced they are uniting to form a new political party to "improve democracy in our society", and look likely to successfully undermine Karzai's power and influence.

Pakistan is claiming that harsh measures it took to contain militant raids and attacks launched from inside its borders into Afghanistan have been a major success - "no reports of any cross border movement."

Iran Frees British Sailors And Marines

Ahmadinejad Hammers Tony Blair For Sending A Mother To War

Syria Claims It Helped Resolve Standoff Between Iran And Britain



15 British military personnel detained for almost two weeks in Iran, after being captured by the Iranian coast guard in disputed waters in the Persian Gulf, have been released by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian president said the act of pardoning the British sailors and giving them their freedom was a "gift" to their families, and the UK, for Easter.

Ahmadinejad made the announcement during a two hour speech in Tehran, during which he decorated the Iranian coast guard crews who captured the Brits. He claimed even though the Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines had violated "Iranian territorial waters", he was prepared to forgive them and let them go back to their families.

All 15 Britons are expected to arrive home tonight, after being moved to the British Embassy compound in the Iranian capital :

"This pardon is a gift to the British people," the President said, observing that it falls between the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad last weekend and the celebration of Easter.

"On the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet and for the occasion of the passing of Christ, I say the Islamic Republic government and the Iranian people — with all powers and legal right to put the soldiers on trial — forgave those 15."

The Iranian president said he was asking PM Tony Blair not to judge the sailors and marines for their televised "confessions", where they said they had violated Iranian waters, while checking out ships suspected of smuggling cars into Iraq.

"(Do not) judge the military personnel for the truths that they said," he said, referring to the televised "confessions".

The President says the British Government has promised not to repeat the incident which saw the sailors' captured.

"The British Government, in a letter, has vowed not to repeat such incidents. But this release is not linked to this letter. It is due to Islamic goodwill,"

The Iranian president used the speech to blast British Prime Minister Tony Blair for allowing women, and in particular a mother of young children, to go to the front lines of the Iraq War.

"Why is the most difficult task, patrolling in the sea, given to a woman? How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don’t they respect family values in the West?

Faye Turney is the young mother the Iranian president referred to, and the Iranian news agency, Fars, claims she burst into tears when she heard the president's words.

Turney became the most public face of the crisis back in the UK, and while the unfolding drama, and diplomatic stand-off continued, receiving wall to wall coverage in the British media, it did not incite mass anger or outrage.

Britons, for the most part, did not appear concerned that the sailors and marines would face execution, as some right-wing American media propagandized would happen while furiously beating the drums for war on Iran.

The Iranian president used the dramatic announcement to press his case that Iran does not want war with the West, but peace :

"We are really distraught that British youths join the army to earn a living and then, thousands of miles away, they get arrested. We don't want this to happen," he added.

"We invite everyone to worship one God with compassion, humanity, where there is loyalty and justice so that people will love one another."

Negotiations between Britain and Iranian diplomats were said to have been intense, with Iran demanding Britain officially apologise for "violating" Iranian territory, and the British disputing that claim while trying to tamp down any talk of threats of retaliatory action, outside of complaining to the United Nations Security Council about the incident.

When Ahmadinejad met the British sailors and marines, shortly before setting them free, he joked to them : "So you came on a mandatory vacation..."

To the absolute shock, and no doubt fury, of American NeoCons, one of the captured marines, Captain Chris Air, was seen on Iranian television happily greeting the Iranian president, saying :

"We're very grateful for your forgiveness. On behalf of the group I'd like to thank yourself and the Iranian people."

Syria, meanwhile, claims it played a key role in settling the dispute between Iran and Britain :

"Syrian efforts and the Iranian willingness culminated with the release of the British sailors," said Information Minister Mohsen Bilal.

He said Syria had been asked "to help positively in the issue..."

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters that "Syria exercised a sort of quiet diplomacy to solve this problem and encourage dialogue" between Britain and Iran.

The Washington Times, the Bush Dynasty's "favourite newspaper" claims that an Iranian diplomat detained in Iraq was freed as part of the negotiations to have the British sailors released :

Diplomat Jalal Sharafi arrived in Tehran yesterday, hours after he was freed by his captors in Iraq, officials said. He was seized Feb. 4 by uniformed gunmen in Karradah, a Shi'ite-controlled district of Baghdad.

Iran said the diplomat had been abducted by an Iraqi military unit commanded by U.S. forces -- a charge repeated by several Iraqi Shi'ite lawmakers. U.S. authorities denied any role in his disappearance.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said the Iraqi government had exerted pressure on those holding Mr. Sharafi to release him -- but he would not identify the diplomat's captors.

Extraordinary Scenes As Iran Frees British Sailors

British Families Respond "To The Best News Imaginable"

Iranian President : "Blair Chose The Path Of Media Hype"

In Quotes : Reaction Of British Families And Politicians

Timeline Of Events In The Detained British Military Personnel Crisis

US Says Iran Must Change Behaviour, Not Washington

Oil Plunges After Announcement That Britons Will Be Freed

The Botched US Raid That Led To The British Hostage Crisis

Arab Media Claims US Will Attack Iran By End Of April, Bush Justification Speech Now Being "Prepared"

The Talibanisation Of Pakistan

Bin Laden's "Walking Dead" Cross Into Afghanistan As Suicide Bombings Quadruple

The Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan are finding no shortage of new recruits in Pakistan, as jihadists gear up, and bomb up, for what are expected to be increasingly deadly clashes with NATO forces in the coming months.

While Pakistan's President Musharraf appears to remain a 'favourite' of the United States and the UK, there was a swirl of rumours last month that he, the leader of a military coup, was going to fall victim to another military coup, off the back of some extremely public protests by white collar professionals, mostly lawyers and doctors, in open defiance his dictatorship.

For now, Musharraf appears to have crushed any such dissident plans to overthrow him. But the pressure grows on Musharraf to do something about the steadily increasing number of jihadi militants crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and infiltrating the neighbouring nation of Waziristan, where a small-scale tribal war has erupted.

Musharraf did a deal last year with supposedly non-Taliban aligned tribal leaders near Pakistan's border that was supposed to see a decrease in manpower support for the Taliban. The Taliban and Al Qaeda simply went recruiting in Pakistan instead.

The Pakistan military are sometimes openly aligned with the Taliban, and Afghanistan's President Karzai now accuses Musharraf of allowing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to train and recruit inside Pakistan's borders.

The much-hyped 'Spring Offensive' in Afghanistan appears to be drawing near, at least in propaganda terms. The Taliban now claims it has deployed thousands of suicide bombers to all of Afghanistan's cities, where they will wait for the right foreign targets to show themselves before attacking. Such claims are dismissed by the Afghan government as the stuff of fantasies, but NATO forces are clearly gearing up for some major confrontations.

The Australian government is about to announce a new deployment of SAS, which will double Australia's troop commitment to the war. Such SAS forces are highly regarded by both NATO country armies and the Taliban itself. They respect Australian SAS because they've killed so many Taliban fighters during 2001, 2004 and 2006.

Germany, meanwhile, is sending over new fighter jets, and the United States is still pressuring EU nations not already committed to deploy military forces into Afghanistan if they want to see the 'War on Terror' ever get a recognisable victory.

Meanwhile, dozens of Taliban fighters are being killed each week, on average, while NATO forces lose three or four troops to gun fights and suicide bombings, the incidence of which has increased four-fold in the last twelve months from the year before.

The death toll on all sides, however, is expected to increase dramatically in the coming months, previewed by the defence ministers of NATO countries with forces already deployed hitting the local media hard and talking of sacrifice in order to prepare their constituents for what is expected to be a brutal increase in fighting, and dying.

The Washington Times has a curious, disturbing story on new Al Qaeda fighters, known as Bin Laden's "walking dead". They are suicide bombers, trained in Pakistan madrassas, who then literally walk into Afghanistan loaded with explosives. When they've completed their missions, they leave behind only "two feet and a lot of flesh" :

Orphaned by war and schooled in anti-American religious madrassas, the bombers often smile for a final video testament in Pakistan before walking or riding to their deaths in Afghanistan. As new explosives technology and tactics from the war in Iraq arrive in this remote corner of South Asia, suicide bombing attacks in the past 12 months have more than quadrupled from fewer than half a dozen in the previous year.

At least some of the bombers cross the border with a blessing from Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's bespectacled ideological lieutenant, said Lutfullah Mashal, a senior intelligence official with Afghanistan's National Security Council.

Afghan and U.S. officials say the bombers are trained in Waziristan, a tribal-administered border region of Pakistan. Several weeks of reporting along the rugged border suggests that al Qaeda and its affiliates are regrouping with charitable funds from Gulf Arab states, assistance from rogue elements of Pakistan's intelligence services and profits from the heroin trade.

Pakistan, which sanctioned U.S. bombing raids on suspected al Qaeda hide-outs last year, has all but retreated from its effort to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda in border areas, say Western diplomats.

Suicide bombing was unheard of during the long war against Soviet forces in the 1980s, when locals prided themselves on their skill in shooting down Soviet helicopters, rows of which still line the edge of the airport here.

As elsewhere in the Islamic world, al Qaeda is usually a facilitator of terrorism, rarely the direct instigator. Bin Laden's operatives exploit anti-American sentiment within home-grown Islamist groups and dispatch young men over the mountains toward martyrdom.

Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in nearby Pakistani community of Miram Shah, mimicking similar martyrdom celebrations in the West Bank and parts of the Arab world, throw lavish parties for the families of the suicide bombers...

Time Magazine has an excellent, in depth look at the 'Talibanisation' of Pakistan 's border frontiers leading into Afghanistan. This is easily one of the most important investigative stories they've run in the entire history of the 'War on Terror', but in a blinding sign of just how little importance the US mainstream media places on the Afghanistan war, Time use the 'Talibanisation' story as its international edition cover story, but buried this historical feature behind a celebrity fluff piece cover story for its American edition.

Time Magazine's 'Talibanisation' (excerpts follow) :

...the tribal region of Pakistan, a rugged no-man's-land that forms the country's border with Afghanistan (is) rapidly becoming home base for a new generation of potential terrorists.

Fueled by zealotry and hardened by war, young religious extremists have overrun scores of towns and villages in the border areas, with the intention of imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on a population unable to fight back.

Like the Taliban in the late 1990s in Afghanistan, the jihadists are believed to be providing leaders of al-Qaeda with the protection they need to regroup and train new operatives. U.S. intelligence officials think that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may have found refuge in these environs. And though 49,000 U.S. and NATO troops are stationed just across the border in Afghanistan, they aren't authorized to operate on the Pakistani side.

Remote, tribal and deeply conservative, the border region is less a part of either country than a world unto itself, a lawless frontier so beyond the control of the West and its allies that it has earned a name of its own: Talibanistan.

Since Sept. 11, the strategic hinge in the U.S.'s campaign against al-Qaeda has been Pakistan, handmaiden to the Taliban movement that turned Afghanistan into a sanctuary for bin Laden and his lieutenants. While members of Pakistan's intelligence services have long been suspected of being in league with the Taliban, the Bush Administration has consistently praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation in rooting out and apprehending members of bin Laden's network. But the Talibanization of the borderlands--and their role in arming and financing insurgents in Afghanistan--has renewed doubts about whether Musharraf still possesses the will to face down the jihadists.

Because Musharraf also heads Pakistan's army, it's unlikely that he will be forced from office. But a loss of support from his moderate base could deepen his dependence on fundamentalist parties, which are staunch supporters of the Taliban. If the protests against Musharraf continue, he will be even less inclined to crack down on the militants holding sway in Talibanistan--grim news for the U.S. and its allies and good news for their foes throughout the region. Says a senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan: "The bottom line is that the Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the [Pakistani] army is not going to come after them."

In fact, the territory at the heart of Talibanistan--a heavily forested band of mountains that is officially called North and South Waziristan--has never fully submitted to the rule of any country.

After 9/11, Islamabad initially left the tribal areas alone. But when it became obvious that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants were crossing the border to escape U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan sent in the first of what eventually became 80,000 troops. They had some success: the Pakistani army captured terrorist leaders and destroyed training camps. But the harder the military pressed, the more locals resented its presence, especially when civilians were killed in botched raids against terrorists.

As part of peace accords signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military agreed to take down roadblocks, stop patrols and return to their barracks. In exchange, local militants promised not to attack troops and to end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The accords came in part because the Pakistani army was simply unable to tame the region. Over the past two years, it has lost more than 700 troops there. The change in tactics, says Gul, was an admission that the Pakistani military had "lost the game."

The army isn't the only one paying the price now. Since Pakistani forces scaled back operations in the border region, the insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified. Cross-border raids and suicide bombings aimed at U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have tripled, according to the senior U.S. military official. He concedes that "the Pakistanis are in a very difficult position. You could put 50,000 men on that border, and you wouldn't be able to seal it."

The troop drawback has allowed Pakistani militants allied with the Taliban to impose their will on the border areas. They have established Shari'a courts and executed "criminals" on the basis of Islamic law. Even Pakistani-army convoys are sometimes escorted by Taliban militants to ensure safe passage...

The emergence of Talibanistan may directly threaten the West too. Locals say the region has become one big terrorist-recruitment camp, where people as young as 17 are trained as suicide bombers.

"Here, teenagers are greeted with the prayers 'May Allah bless you to become a suicide bomber,'" says Obaidullah Wazir, 35, a young tribesman in Miranshah. National Intelligence Director John McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that "al-Qaeda is forging stronger operational connections that radiate outward from their camps in Pakistan to affiliated groups and networks throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe."

....the Bush Administration is beginning to recognize that to stabilize Afghanistan and prevent the rebirth of al-Qaeda, it has to contain the growth of Talibanistan.

Bin Laden's "Walking Dead" Quadruple Rate Of Suicide Bombings In Afghanistan Over Past Twelve Months

Taliban Claim They Have Deployed "Thousands Of Suicide Bombers" To Cities To Attack Foreigners

12 Taliban, 3 Nomads Killed in Clashes With Afghan/Coalition Forces In Helmand

Suicide Bomber Rams Army Convoy, Kills Five Children

Waziristan : 10 Killed, Scores Injured in Fighting, Tribal Leaders Call For All Foreigners To Be Expelled From Region

Taliban Execute Three NATO-Linked Informants - Body Hangs In Town's Main Street

Australian Special Forces, Fully Rested, Prepare For Return To Afghanistan

Pakistan Says It Wants And Needs A Stable Afghanistan - 3 Million Afghan Refugees In Pakistan

Moqtada Al-Sadr Incendiary Message To Iraqis

"Great Evil, America, Wants To Eliminate Islam From The World"


Sunnis dig through a truckload of corpses searching for friends and relatives, after attacks in Mosul.

On March 25, influential Iraq Shia cleric, and American nightmare, Moqtada Al-Sadr delivered a statement during prayers in Najaf. The comprehensive and indispensable Iraqslogger obtained a copy of the statement and got it translated.

Al-Sadr has called for mass demonstrations on April 9, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, urging both Shia and Sunni Iraqis to march against the American Occupation of their lands. There are many, many nervous people in the American military in Iraq, and the Iraqi government, likewise, is not pleased by the plans for what is expected to be the largest rally in Iraq since the war began.

Here's the words of al-Sadr, which have been reproduced in dozens of Iraqi newspapers, reaching millions of people.

Iraqslogger notes that translators remarks appear in parentheses.

Moqtada al-Sadr :

"Four years have passed since the occupation of our beloved country on the part of the great evil, America, and its followers who have assigned to themselves the elimination of Islam and of peace from the world, in order that they may live in peace.

"And the words of the great evil, Bush, continue to ring in the ears of the oppressed when he says “America has become more secure,” unaware of the blood that was shed in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Palestine, and Lebanon, and many other places. Yet, how I wish peace for the people of peace! As the Most High has said (in the Qur'an), “Grant the unbelievers a short respite.”

"Four years have passed and Iraq is still languishing under the yoke of oppression and tyranny. So where are their claims of spreading freedom, from the prison of Abu Ghraib and the rest of the Iraqi prisons, as the prisons are still full of women and men? Is this (imprisonment) due to the misdeeds (of the prisoners)? Is this due to courts that are just? Bombs and explosions continue to resound in the skies and land of Iraq, shedding the blood of the innocent and the honorable, yet leaving the occupier and its partisans in our holy land. Yet how I wish that these humiliations be a call for resistance!

"Four years, and still many struggle for jobs, but these have not and will not save them from the retribution of an awful day (i.e. God’s judgment, a Qur’anic reference), but rather from the suffering of this world and its tribulations, and from the pressures of the occupier that continues to interfere with the political, military, security, social, and religious affairs of Iraq.

"Four years, and Iraq continues without water, without electricity, without fuel, and without security, without tranquility, and is rather in the abyss of strife, which may not strike the ones who oppress (a Qur’anic reference) but rather, as they say, “it wears down the grass and the ground.”

"Years of wasting away have passed in Iraq because of this oppressive occupation, which claims to be removing the specter of ruin and instead brings the specter of “fictitious democracy” and “globalization,” (and because of the occupation that claims) to move away from secret mass graves, (and) to move to openness, and (claims) to remove banned weapons, and (instead) comes with the most murderous and ugly of weapons: terrorism; and terrorism only follows terrorism!

"Years have passed, and rather than hanging in the homes of Iraqis, the picture of Bush remains trampled so that the armies of oppression do not trample the land of Iraq, and do not preside over the Iraqis. And rather than empty the terrorist Saddamist Iraqi prisons, they have built (more) prisons, and have filled Iraq with prisons; this mother cries over her son, and another cries over his situation, as unemployment has filled Iraq, and ruin increases, rather than development.

"But the occupier has not been content with this. he has (also) estranged Iraq from the Islamic and Arab world, and all the (Arab and Muslim) countries still do not care about Iraq as it heads for destruction, as though it were not an Arab or Muslim country in need of defense by whatever they were able to do.

"And how could this be except by the occupation, as it has been able to sow sectarian and ethnic strife between the Arabs and others, and between the Muslims and others; yet how I wish they all would remain brothers!

"But the awakening of the Arab peoples and of their consciousness and conscience calls them, saying: This humiliation is unacceptable to us, and, just as their prophet’s grandson (Husayn) said, this separation is unacceptable to us. Thus we call out to our Muslim Arab bothers in all places to give assistance to Iraq. By their voice and their demonstrations for the sake of Iraq, Iraq will be their protective armor and their great pillar; then the presence of the occupation in Iraq would be the presence (of the occupation) in their own countries and land, and absolutely no one would accept this.

"So, you people of Islam and of peace in all places, call out for assistance to the people, whose blood has flowed, and whose freedom and beliefs of living in the care of Islam and of peace, and freedom, and harmony, have been rent asunder. For here is the fourth anniversary that passes upon us of the greatest sadness and sorrow, leaving behind thousands of killed and injured of your Iraqi brothers and sisters, adults and children. And raise your voices in support of (the Iraqi people) and the resistance from the south of Iraq to its north, from its west to its east, so that Iraq might remain united, independent, stable, secure, and completely soverign, free from the interference of the occupier and others and a refuge from treason and unbelief.

"You oppressed people of Iraq, I hear your captive cry to the world, (saying) that you have rejected the occupation, and the destruction, and the terrorism, for you love Islam, and peace, and freedom. In order that the honor of beloved Iraq and its people remain high, and that you cut out the tongues of lying and deceit that want to take possession of Iraq and its people, come out to a united demonstration on the ninth of April of this year in Najaf, accepting the call of freedom and peace.

"And may you raise the Iraqi flag above your houses, buildings, and public residences, to show the sovereignty of Iraq and its independence, refusing the presence of American flags, and other (flags) from the countries of the occupation in our beloved Iraq, until they depart from our land.

"Finally, I renew my demand for the departure of the occupier from our land, even if the instigator of terrorism -- the American Congress -- decides to stay in our beloved country, because this is not their right, but rather the matter belongs to Iraq and its people. It is not anyone’s right to renew the period (of the occupation), nor to demand that it stay, for the departure of the occupier is the stability of Iraq, and the victory of peace and of Islam, and the abandonment of terrorism and of the unbelievers."

Iraq War Correspondent Shred's US Presidential Hopeful's Claim It Is Safe To Walk The Streets Of Baghdad

500 Iraqis Killed In Seven Days, Seven American Troops Killed In 48 Hours

A Close Look At The Fascinating Relationship Between Al-Sadr And Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani

IraqSlogger's Iraq Week In Review - March 26 To March 30

Tal Afar Bombing : The Single Deadliest Attack In The Iraq War To Date : 152 Dead, Hundreds Wounded, Truck Carried 4000kg Of Explosives

Kissinger : Military Victory In Iraq Is Not Possible - "One Needs To Be Prepared To Negotiate With Adversaries"

Sala Al Bor : The Iraqi Town That Lost 90% Of Its Population

Parents Of The Dead, The Veterans Back Home Again, Struggle To Deal With The Reality Of The Iraq War

Somalia : Mortars Rain Down On Mogadishu

Hundreds Killed And Wounded, Thousands Flee Their Homes

Ethiopian Troops Flee Bases As Helicopter Is Brought Down

A wave of brutal fighting between the Islamist insurgency and the combined forces of the Somali and Ethiopian governments has erupted in Mogadishu and is breaking out across Somalia.

Mortars and rockets have been raining down on the capital, thousands of civilians are fleeing their homes and hundreds have been killed and wounded in four vicious days of fighting.

The United States, via its special forces operations and CIA operatives, backed Ethiopia's push late last year to drive out the Islamic Courts council from Mogadishu. Somalis had clearly been enjoying too much peace and stability since the insidiously corrupt US-backed Somali government had been overthrown by the Islamic Courts in mid-2006.

Military analysts and a number of world leaders warned the US and Ethiopia that their actions would see a revival of the Islamic insurgency in Somalia, which could threaten the stability of Ethiopia's borders, as well as causing more untold misery for the civilians of Mogadishu.

Those warnings have all come true. Mogadishu is slipping back into a living hell of fighting and savagery, and the Islamic insurgency is resisting Ethiopia's attacks with the backing of most Somalis.

Bad news for Ethiopia and the US. The countless battles of Baghdad have proved it is all but impossible to wipe out an insurgency when it has the backing and support of a majority of the locals. Unless a truce or peace deal is worked out between the Islamic Courts and the Somali and Ethiopian governments, the conflict is expected to grow and threaten the stability of the greater region.

From Reuters :

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the clashes were the worst seen in Mogadishu for more than 15 years.

"We are now being shelled heavily," said one resident of the Tawfiq neighbourhood. "The mortars are being fired from south Mogadishu. People are very scared."

On Thursday Ethiopian troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships began the assault to crush remnants of a hardline Islamist movement and clan militia fighting alongside them.

But civilians have been the main victims. Hospitals have been overwhelmed, even though most of the wounded have been unable to seek any kind of help because of the continuing battles. Doctors were trapped in their homes.

Ethiopia says its military has killed more than 200 "armed remnants" of a group fighting for the Union of Islamic Courts, ousted from the city over the new year.

As the fighting intensified, insurgents shot down an Ethiopian gunship with a missile. Mobs dragged some dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets. Thousands of people have fled the city.

From the London Times :

An outraged Somali working for the United Nations accused the Ethiopians, who have used tanks and helicopter gunships to pound rebel positions, of committing “war crimes”.

“They are firing heavy artillery into residential areas . . . innocent people who have nothing to do with these insurgents, let alone Islamists, are being slaughtered. Where are all those human rights groups who go on about Mugabe now; this is ethnic cleansing dressed up as a war on terror,” he told The Times.

Estimates of the number of people killed vary widely. Some now put the death toll as high as 150, but with most of the Indian Ocean port city a “no-go” area it is impossible to verify. Hospitals across the city are overflowing with wounded. Residents say that they represent only a fraction of the casualties.

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