Month: November 2007

Another Al Qaeda Muslim Mass Grave Uncovered

zawahiri-dajjal.jpgAnother mass grave of Muslims murdered by Al Qaeda has been uncovered in Iraq, this one containing dozens of bodies. The former graves were reported here. This story from AP/Yahoo:

Remains of possibly dozens of people believed slain in sectarian violence were unearthed Saturday from a mass grave in a former Al-Qaida stronghold in southern Baghdad — the third such find in Iraq this month.

Also Saturday, an Iraqi television station reported one of its reporters had been kidnapped — the latest in a grim series of attacks that has made Iraq among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.

The badly decomposed remains were found in Baghdad’s mostly Sunni Dora neighborhood by Sunnis who have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, police said. They were discovered in an area overlooking the main highway leading to Shiite shrine cities in the south.

Sunni extremists would often waylay travelers along that road, kidnapping and killing Shiites.

The remains were placed in black plastic bags and transferred to a Shiite mosque in Dora, according to a police officer at the mosque. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

Children of Lightning

It’s not oft that I drag things out of the archives, but this is an important theme – critical not only to the future of our nation, but also our world. It bears repeating every now and again, and remember in those town hall meetings to ask candidates what their energy policy is. Don’t let them get away with buzz-words like “energy independence” or “alternative fuels research” either. That’s not enough, the stops have to be pulled out and the nation needs to go full-bore towards implementing all energy sources and improvements.

Without further ado I present:

Children of Lightning or Children of Terror?

Mankind is ingenious at tapping the energy bounty provided by nature. From the first fire, to windmills, to water wheels, to today’s electric generating plants we have progressed from superstitious awe and deification of nature to harnessing it to our every need.

Today however we have several movements that question and deny the need for more energy, and we have dangerous tyrants who oppose our advance at every opportunity. These forces all sprang from the romantic era, two driven by an idealized view of nature, and one from a religio-racist view and they all ally when it’s convenient.

There are really only three roadblocks to a great future for us and future generations:

The first consists of nihilistic neo-romantics who would prefer that the rest of humanity didn’t exist at all. Earth-firsters, Greenpeace, Greens, the radical environmentalists, the zero-population groups, all have the same wellspring: that idealized, romantic view of nature and the noble savage.

The other two roadblocks are the groups of Marxist and Islamo-fascist states who hold most of the world’s petrochemical energy resources and their peoples in thrall.

These movements, environmental, Marxist, and tyrannical racism, would prefer that mankind did not advance at all. They look upon you and me as part of a plague of humanity on this planet for either racist, geo-political, or environmental reasons, and they look on America’s dream of a better future for all as the only real opposition to their power and dreams.

Continue reading “Children of Lightning”

Islamist Plot to Kidnap Ghandi Interupted

zawahiri-dajjal.jpgIndian Police agencies continue to do a fine job of stopping terrorism; today they arrested three members of Jaish e Muhammed, an Al Qaeda allied organisation, who were planning to kidnap the son of Congress Party Chief Sonia Ghandi.

Rahul Ghandi was saved by the action, and the three men and their weapons were taken into custody. Story at BBC:

The men belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed group and were planning to kidnap a “very important political person”, the police said.

Local reports suggested the target could have been Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi.

Police said the arrested men were all Pakistanis.

The chief of Uttar Pradesh police Vikram Singh said the three men were arrested on the outskirts of the state capital, Lucknow.

He said the men were travelling from Delhi in a car.

Mr Singh said militants planned to kidnap a “very important person” in exchange for 42 militants lodged in various Indian prisons.

Ammunition, rifles, grenades and explosives were seized from the men, he said.

More at Stratfor and from Zee News:

Lucknow, Nov 16: In a major development, the UP Police and Special Task Force (STF) arrested three terrorists linked with the Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit here on Friday. The arrests followed a fierce encounter, which also led to the recovery of a huge cache of arms and explosives.

Addressing a press conference, the UP DGP Vikram Singh said that the Police had received crucial intelligence inputs about terrorists having recently entered Lucknow City to execute their nefarious designs. The terrorists planned to target VVIPs to create pressure on the government to release 42 militants in Indian jails. The idea was abduct well-known personalities including Rahul Gandhi and seek release of their associates as ransom. They also wanted the international community to intervene so as to highlight the matter.  

Pakistan Update: History Made, History lost

Meanwhile Dawn is reporting that the “miltants” are gaining strength in Swat, bolstered by 500 — 800 “foreign Militants” and driven by the “MMA’s constant appeasement of Maulana Fazlullah.” I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is now getting interesting.

Rather than commiserate for an hour on a lead in, tonight I will just launch into the news.

Today the Pakistani National Assembly dissolved, it was historic in that this is the first time a National Assembly in Pakistan has served its full five year term. The assembly was replaced by a Musharraf-appointed caretaker government. The other parties fell out of the negotiations to set up the caretaker government over the PCO order that established emergency rule.

Musharraf continues to promise that he will resign as Chief of Army Staff and remove the uniform (Wardi) as soon as the newly sworn in justices of the Musharraf Supreme Court clear him legally as duly-elected President of Pakistan. Today is also the day that Musharraf is officially supposed to resign, and if the Constitution were in effect, his holding of both offices past midnight Islamabad time would be unconstitutional.

Foreign pressure is mounting against him, and against this backdrop he’s sent the real army as opposed to Frontier Corps to Swat to quell the rising insurrection there. This after “Radio Maulana”, or Mullah Fazlullah has taken over six provinces with the FC troops melting and surrendering their arms to him as quick as he advanced.

Not much reporting is coming from behind the Taliban advance, so it’s unknown if the “Eagle Force” campaign against crime with Sharia justice is resulting in more beheadings and amputations. The Mullah did eliminate his key FM radio rival, proving who the “boss-jock of Swat” is for the moment. The area is purely tribal/medieval now, traveling there would be like going upriver to meet Kurtz.

The Army has started an offensive, here’s the report on that:

MINGORA: Around 33 militants, two soldiers and five civilians were killed as army helicopters continued targeting Taliban positions in various areas of Swat for the third consecutive day on Wednesday.

Separately, eight military personnel were injured as unidentified miscreants targeted their convoy with a remote-controlled bomb in Batkhela.

Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP that 17 militants were killed when gunship helicopters attacked their vehicle, while the remaining 16 were killed in separate clashes. Six loyalists of rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah were eliminated as they tried to free four colleagues that had been arrested by security forces near Saidu Sharif Airport, Arshad said, adding that two soldiers died in the clash. The military spokesman said that another four militants were killed in Hazara village. “We will make sure that the militants are completely wiped off before we end the operation,” he vowed.

Troops also arrested four militants carrying radio sets and grenades, Arshad said, reported AFP.

Meanwhile Dawn is reporting that the “miltants” are gaining strength in Swat, bolstered by 500 — 800 “foreign Militants” and driven by the “MMA’s constant appeasement of Maulana Fazlullah.” I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is now getting interesting. In other worries, the NATO forces in Afghanistan are working contingency plans in case key supply routes get cut during the fighting in Pakistan, and they also said that they thought that Pakistan’s nukes “were secure”.
 

Bhutto is now openly calling for President Musharraf to step down from both offices, this from house arrest. The house arrest is in light of the planned protest “long march” which under the PCO is illegal — and in light of intel indicating that suicide bombers would once more try to make another Bhutto a martyr.

She has also closed ranks with Imran Khan, the popular cricket-player turned Politico of PTI, which has ties to the student branches of Jamaat Islamayeh. He’s been organizing student protests against the PCO, but was arrested.. freed… arrested… freed depending on whose rumor you follow.

There are pictures of him being tossed in a van by JI-Talaba, but … some blog commenters say they are his friends. more to come on this I am sure. (Imran also demonstrated against Bush, in the Quran desecration marches, and with Islamists of the MMA often in the past.) There’s been bubbling dissension between many student groups and JI bubbling undersurface for months now, and I hope that inter-group rioting does not start on the campus’.

Meanwhile Bhutto’s niece has launched another polemic screed against her with the media, something she is known for doing (the last one I was quite against – basically she blamed Bhutto for the deaths caused by suicide bombers who attacked her motorcade — the same twisted  warped logic that continually excuses the real problem and the real extremists in Pakistan.)

There’s also been sporadic rioting in Karachi, and reports of PPP gangs firing on Police.

Meanwhile the police have arrested between 5,000 and 13,000 PPP leaders depending on whose reports you believe. Not much is being heard from PML-N, which is strange.

 Against this backdrop Parliamentary elections are sheduled for Monday.

More on the protests at Metroblogging Islamabad; Lawhawk has coverage of what Bhutto’s niece said.

 This report is comprised of news compiled from Daily Times Pakistan, Pakistan Observer, Dawn, and Frontier Post.

Patch Now!

It’s Black Tuesday — the day when Microsoft releases it’s monthly security updates. Please go to Microsoft Update if you use Microsft and get patched now. There’s a pernicious virus exploit already out there in the wild for the Skype / IE7 problem.

Summary of patches from The Internet Storm center at SANS:
Overview of the November 2007 Microsoft patches and their status.

# Affected Contra Indications Known Exploits Microsoft rating ISC rating(*)
clients servers
MS07-061 An input validation failure allows remote code execution. Replaces MS06-045
Windows shell – exposed via IE7, skype, acrobat, …

CVE-2007-3896 KB 943460
Well known problem, exploit in the wild Critical PATCH NOW

Important
MS07-062 Lack of entropy in pseudo random number generation results in weak transaction IDs and therefore in DNS spoofing vulnerabilities. DNS spoofing can lead to man-in-the-middle attacks and more.
Replaces MS07-029
Windows

CVE-2007-3898 KB 941672 No publicly known exploits Important Important(**) Critical(**)

Pakistan Update: The Falcon Flies in Wider Gyre

UPDATE: Benazir Bhutto once more under house arrest to top the long march motorcade. Story at Reuters

UPDATE: The rhetoric has stiffened, with PML-N and Jamiaat e Islami threatening boycott of the Parliamentary elections. This is a standard tactic of dissident conservative minorities & Islamist minorities in Islamic countries (note similar moves in the past by Hezbollah in Lebanon, MMA in Pakistan previously, and the extreme parties in Iraq during their elections.) Sorry, but elections are elections – if you choose to boycott, then you do not invalidate them. 

Previously: 

I’ve been struggling for two hours to come up with a lead for tonight’s update, but the picture in Pakistan has become so confused that a simple retelling of events without context would just add confusion. So I’ve been seeking a lead in — none so far fit, but the closest is an apocalyptic poem.

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity. – Yeats

Is Musharraf doing the right thing? Time will be the judge.

On the one hand he has political opponents trying to form mass populist rallies while on the other he has Islamist fanatics who want to bomb those rallies. Allow more freedom, or protect the innocent and earnest? A martyred Bhutto sparks the civil war that would tear the soul from Pakistan and make rubble of the dreams of all factions, even those who revel in chaos, for this chaos would crush even them.

In the frontiers Islamist tyranny creeps forward engulfing regions, and foreigners have declared war and insurrection against the government. On the other hand government has become a soft tyranny: stopping rallies, muzzling press, and suspending rights. Dire situations call for dire measures, but is the threat from the frontiers great enough to warrant it?

I suspect that the threat is greater than those in the urban areas think, for the Frontier Corps army will not stand against that foe, even though the Islamists would have no qualms at taking their heads, muslim brother or not. Add to that all the forces that have exited Iraq to Pakistan, the wolves across the borders to the north and to the west, and I would call it dire.

Many are characterizing this as the new Great Game, but really it’s the regional game – it’s Pakistan’s neighbors, tribal nationalist groups, and sects that lend the instability, not the ex-colonial powers anymore.

That said on to the news.

Musharraf has stated that he will hold parliamentary elections in early January, and that he will remove the uniform once the Supreme court clears him for position as President. That sounds reasonable if it happens, and is a good sign. The press although “muzzled” still reports on Musharraf in unkind manner, and factually, however when they become too deeply critical then the clamps come down. So there are three BBC corespondents exiting the country, and some stations have been cautioned.

In the background Bhutto has stated that Chief Justice Iftikhar is the only true justice of the court, which is passing strange, and she has reached out to PML-N to join her. She plans a long march to Islamabad, 300 miles of motorcade, and Musharraf has stated that he will stop that. BB is displaying a great deal of courage, standing forthright even though she is a target, and that you must admire — assembly, speech, and association should all be free and never suffer intimidation, either from the government or from the Islamists who would tear the country to splinters.

The army is caught in the middle — but this needs to be said – the people of Pakistan are their backbone regardless of faction. If they can’t face the Islamists it is because the people are not giving them the support and the moral authority they need to do so. Regardless of the fools who are leading I think Pakistan must support the troops direct if they are to have a future.

Muslim Brotherhood Propagandist Loses Head, Ten to Hang

The story of Mohammed Taha comes to a close as the Islamists responsible for his beheading were sentenced to death by hanging. Mohammed was a propagandist for the Muslim Brotherhood, he wrote Islamist screeds to further their aims. The problem with MB Islamism however is that anyone can assume the mantle of Amr, anyone can declare someone Takfir, apostate, etc. From ABC News:

Ten men from the Darfur region of Sudan have been sentenced to death for the murder and beheading of a controversial Islamist newspaper editor.

Mohamed Taha was kidnapped from his home last year by armed men.

His decapitated body was found the next morning lying on a street in the south of the capital Khartoum.

The crime came as a huge shock in Sudan.

Many believed it echoed images of the brutal killings by Al Qaeda militants in Iraq.

Mr Taha, an Islamist himself, had angered some by reprinting an article questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammed.

More at BBC 

So the extremists war with themselves, and that is the problem with Political Islam – it becomes a dog-eat-dog fight over who will be Emir or Caliph, who is more holy, and who is Takfir. It attracts the worst sorts in the Islamic world, not the best.

So you have it that Al Qaeda and allies have killed ten times the number of Muslims that the US has, even though we are at war in two Muslim countries. Think on the evil that must drive that – and the cowardice of the Islamists. 

They have no hope for a future, and really never did.