A car bomb attack at the Temple of the Moon in Yemen has killed six Spanish Tourists and Two Yemenis. A picture of the historic temple can be seen here at Al Bab.
Judging from technique and target my analysis would say that this is likely Al Qaeda or another Qutbist-aligned group. Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama Bin Laden. Continue reading
Over a year ago, in April 2006 I marveled at the longevity of the two Martian rovers, and wondered if they would make it through the Martian winter. They are both still alive and still working, although Spirit has a nickname of “lame spirit” from the dragging right front wheel. Here’s what Stuart Atkinson said earlier in the month:
I’m proud of them and all they’ve achieved, those plucky, apparently immortal machines. They arrived on Mars all those years ago so bright and so shiny, their clean metalwork flashing in the Martian sun as they emerged like aluminum butterflies from their cocoons. Now they’re weary and worn, and each day they wake seems like a miracle. Oppy is still in pretty good shape as she works her way around the serrated rim of Victoria Crater, but on the other side of Mars my poor gal Spirit is suffering. Smothered in Sun-dimming, circuit-clogging dust and dragging a frozen wheel behind her as she hauls herself around Homeplate, she’s on borrowed time and she knows it.
In a new mission for Opportunity, it will descend into Victoria crater to investigate the shiny ring about the crater, and scientists hope the examination of the strata of the crater wall will give us many more clues about the mantle of planet Mars. Once in however, opportunity could become trapped, a case of opportunity lost.
The great news keeps pouring in tonight: from Pakistan we hear of the capture of Safeer Ahmed, alias Muhammad Azeem, alias Umair in Lahore. JeM is AQ and Taliban aligned, and Safeer is (was) skilled at making IED’s and EFP’s.
This commander under orders from the Qods force (Jerusalam force,) in Iran was captured in Iraq. This commander has confessed to participation in the Karbala incident.
Video Below from CNN:
There is a lot of new detail this morning at Fox news.
Please stop by Paleo-Lithics for a retrospective of gas riot videos from Iran. I also recommend that you page back through a few posts, the blog’s author is one of the most creative people you will ever see using photoshop.
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There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
— Sara Teasdale
Since the news has been a bit of gloom lately — just a reminder that whether the war takes ten years or twenty, some day it will be done.
Lal Masjid is issuing threats after Musharraf’s speech (see yesterday’s update,) and it appears that yet another kidnapping was foiled by police. The self-appointed “Ummahzons” are still rattling their canes, but ineffectively. Previous articles on the crow-hatchery here.
Fox news is reporting two new arrests by Scotland Yard in Chesire County in Northern England.
Two stories from Britain tell of a Jeep Cherokee on fire that tried to ram through security barriers at Glasgow airport. First story from from BBC news:
Eyewitnesses have described a Jeep Cherokee being driven at speed towards the building with flames coming out from underneath.
They have also described seeing two Asian men, one of whom was on fire, who had been in the car.
The airport has been evacuated and all flights suspended following the incident at 1515 BST.
One eyewitness said: “I heard the sound of a car’s wheels spinning and smoke coming out.
Reports are confused and limited at this time, probably in an effort to keep panic down. The Telegraph witnesses interviewed say it was a Land Rover, not a Cherokee.
