Insurgents Attack Yemeni Government Security Headquarters in Aden |

Edward Yeranian | Cairo19 June 2010

Photo: AFP

Security forces set up a road block in the city of Aden, 19 June, 2010, after insurgents attacked a Yemeni intelligence headquarters in this southern port city

Insurgents, possibly belonging to al-Qaida, attacked the main Yemeni police intelligence headquarters in the Southern Yemeni capital of Aden Saturday, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least nine others. Eyewitnesses report that a number of prisoners were also set free during the bloody shootout.

Insurgents wearing military uniforms stormed the main gate of the Yemeni police intelligence compound in the city of Aden Saturday, causing numerous casualties and embarrassing the government.

Eyewitnesses say the attackers fired assault weapons, mortars and grenades at those guarding the building, as well as employees and civilians inside the compound. The bloody shootout lasted for over an hour and set fire to parts of the building.

Yemeni government TV said that the attackers freed a number of prisoners. Police in Aden set up roadblocks all across the old city after the insurgents withdrew.

Yemeni security forces have stepped up attacks against southern separatist rebels, as well as al-Qaida militants, during the past month, causing numerous casualties among their ranks, as well as among civilians, according to some sources.

Yemen Post newspaper editor-in-chief Hakim Almasmari says that facial features of the assailants reveal that they were southerners, but he argues it is still not clear if they were separatists or al-Qaida militants. Al-Qaida, he points out, announced Friday that it would retaliate for government attacks against it in eastern Yemen.

"Al-Qaida last night announced that they will attack because of [government raids on its militants] in Maarib over the past month. The government killed many in Maarib, and many of those who were killed were also civilians, even though seven al-Qaida [militants] were killed. So, al-Qaida [was] on the verge of retaliation," said Almasmari.

Southern tribesmen in Maarib also recently blew up a key oil pipeline after a government airstrike accidentally killed an official trying to mediate with al-Qaida militants in the region.

Al-Qaida militants have attacked Yemeni police headquarters in the capital Sana'a, several times, in recent years, freeing a number of prisoners. Hakim Almasmari, however, insists that Saturday's attack in Aden was by far the biggest and most embarrassing for the government.

"This is massive," he said. "This is much, much bigger than what happened last year [in Sana'a]. This attack is very, very massive and the death toll is very high. The government has even fired the two main political security officials in Aden. They were fired early in the morning [Saturday]. So, the government is surprised that they were able to enter the [southern] capital and also they're questioning other officials inside the public security to see if they aided the attackers."

Yemen has prompted increasing concerns among Western governments, as al-Qaida militants and southern separatists wage battle against the central government in Sana'a. Both threats follow a protracted rebellion by Zaidi shi'ite rebels in the northern Saada province, last year.

Yemen Says It Attacked Qaeda Gathering

By JACK HEALY and SCOTT SHANE

Yemeni fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided in part by the United States, struck what the Yemeni government said was a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives early Thursday morning, and officials suggested that a radical cleric tied to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings may have been among the 30 people killed.

A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said the air strike targeted a gathering of “scores” of Qaeda members from Yemen and other countries, including the network’s two top leaders in Yemen, in a remote corner of southern Yemen. The statement said the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was “presumed to be at the site.”

Image by Ahron de Leeuw via Flickr

It could take days for investigators to sift through the rubble to identify the dead, and intelligence officials in the United States could not immediately confirm whether Mr. Awlaki or any Qaeda members were among those killed.

The government of Yemen, which has long been a haven for terrorists, has been carrying out strikes that appear to be directed against Al Qaeda’s growing presence in the country.

The group, whose regional affiliate is known as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted frequent attacks against foreign embassies and Yemeni officials in the last two years, adding to the security threats in Yemen that include an armed rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. There is no indication that the various insurgents targeting Yemen’s government are cooperating, but the concurrent crises have weakened the state’s ability to react.

Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hideouts last week with what American officials described as “intelligence and firepower” supplied by the United States. The assaults marked Yemen’s widest offensive against jihadists in years. Government forces hit bases in Abyan, a lawless, mountainous area in the south, as well as in the cities of Arhab and Sana, the capital.

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The airstrikes on Thursday were aimed at a large group of Qaeda operatives who had gathered in the southern province of Shabwa to plan attacks against the Yemeni government in retaliation for the offensive last week, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.

Yemeni officials said they had made targets of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri, who were believed to be at the meeting with Mr. Awlaki. Mr. Shihri was held for five years in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and after his release in 2007 went through a Saudi rehabilitation program. But he joined Al Qaeda after his return to Yemen, marking a notable failure for the Saudi program, which American officials generally admire.

Although Mr. Awlaki, 38, has not been accused of planting bombs or carrying out terrorist attacks himself, his online sermons champion a radicalized vision of Islam, and he has been linked to numerous terrorism suspects, including Nidal Malik Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at the Fort Hood army base in November.

Major Hasan and the American-born cleric exchanged about 20 e-mail messages, and shortly after the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as a hero.

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In an interview posted on Wednesday on the Web site of Al Jazeera, Mr. Awlaki said Major Hasan had asked in his first e-mail message about what Islamic law dictated about “Muslim soldiers who serve in the American military and kill their colleagues.” Mr. Awlaki also praised the killings at Fort Hood, saying, “working in the American military to fight Muslims is a betrayal of Islam.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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BBC - Afghan strife makes UN relocate

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The UN says it will temporarily relocate 600 of its international foreign staff based in Afghanistan.

The personnel would return to work once security had been boosted at unsecured accommodation used by the UN, it said.

The transfer would not affect work such as aid delivery, as this was done by local Afghan staff, the UN added.

The move follows a dawn raid by the Taliban last week on a hostel in the capital, Kabul, which left five UN workers and three Afghans dead.

The attack on the private Bekhtar guesthouse in the Shar-i-Naw district last Wednesday was the deadliest on the UN in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

ANALYSIS
Andrew North, BBC News, Kabul It may be a temporary move by the UN, but it is a drastic one.

The UN insists emergency programmes, such as delivering food aid, will continue.

But relocating nearly half its international staff for up to four weeks, while security is upgraded, will inevitably disrupt some operations.

Some may feel it is over-reacting. Other humanitarian agencies are so far not following the UN lead.

But last week's attack has had a devastating impact on UN morale here, comparable to the 2003 suicide bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad.

Six years later, UN staff in Iraq still work under draconian security restrictions, severely limiting what they can do.

A key question will be how much new security procedures here will affect the ability of UN staff to continue working Afghanistan.

On Monday, also citing security concerns, the UN halted long-term development work in north-western Pakistan, a region bordering Afghanistan viewed as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.

In a Kabul news conference on Thursday, Kai Eide, the head of the UN's Afghan mission, said some of the staff - mostly "non-frontline" personnel - would be moved within the country, others outside.

"We are not talking about pulling out and we are not talking about evacuation," the Norwegian diplomat said.

The temporary relocation of staff was likely to take three to four weeks, the UN said.

The UN has up to 1,300 international staff - out of a workforce of about 5,600 - based in Afghanistan.

The personnel to be moved come from all UN agencies and different Afghan cities.

Mr Eide told the BBC later: "It's quite clear that the security situation for our staff has become much more complex over the last year."

“ This will have a huge impact on our operation here. It will take longer and it will be more difficult to achieve our goals. ”
UN worker

But he said the Taliban would not succeed in driving the UN out of Afghanistan, in the same way it was forced from Iraq six years ago after a suicide truck bombing on a UN compound killed a top envoy and more than 20 others.

"We will certainly continue our work, but we are taking the measures in order to do so and we are enhancing our security," said Mr Eide.

Meanwhile, British forces are continuing to hunt the Afghan policeman who shot dead five UK soldiers on Tuesday in Helmand.

They are investigating whether the gunman - who opened fire in a compound where the UK troops had been mentoring Afghan police - is linked to the Taliban.

In the guesthouse raid last week, UN employees tried to flee as three heavily armed Taliban militants hiding explosive vests under police uniforms attacked.

THE UN IN AFGHANISTAN

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) - set up in 2002 - is the umbrella body for all UN agencies

Role is to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan focusing on humanitarian and political issues

Most UN agencies have a major presence in Afghanistan

Major areas of activity include reconstruction, food distribution, political outreach and elections

UN employs about 5,600 staff across Afghanistan

UN also works in partnership with hundreds of governmental and non-governmental organisations

The three gunmen were shot dead.

The hostel - which had been used by the UN and other international organisations - was gutted by fire.

Foreign officials have warned that the Kabul government's reputation for corruption and the recent crisis surrounding the fraud-marred presidential election are fuelling the Taliban insurgency.

Security has continued to deteriorate, despite the presence of more than 100,000 Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), including about 68,000 Americans.

On Thursday Isaf said it was investigating reports that civilians had been killed in a rocket attack by Nato forces on insurgents allegedly planting a bomb in Lashkar Gar, Helmand province.

US President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from the US commander in Afghanistan for another 40,000 troops.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown last month announced 500 extra British soldiers would be sent.

Monster terror attack in Peshawar - The Nation

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At least 100 persons were killed and over 200 others received injuries as a result of a powerful car bomb explosion here at the Meena Bazaar, one of the most congested parts of the volatile city, on Wednesday afternoon.

Police sources and eyewitnesses informed that explosive-laden white Alto car was parked near a huge building at Meena Bazaar. The intensity of the blast can be judged from the fact that it damaged six buildings, around 30 to 40 shops and a mosque.

A large number of women and children are among the dead and the injured, as some nearby houses were also damaged in the blast. The wife, son and daughter of Provincial General Secretary of JUI-F, Jalil Jan, were also among the injured. It is feared that the death toll may increase, as some dead bodies are still trapped inside the damaged buildings.

The officials of police, Frontier Constabulary, secret agencies and bomb disposal squad rushed towards the site of the blast and cordoned off the area. Police also resorted to aerial firing to disperse the masses for avoiding casualties in any follow-up blast.

Emergency was imposed in all hospitals of the provincial capital and the injured and dead bodies were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex. Most of the dead bodies are badly mutilated as fire broke out after the blast. It was learnt that about 62 bodies lying at Lady Reading Hospital were beyond identification. The fire brigade staff succeeded in extinguishing fire after a struggle of half an hour.

Talking to journalists, AIG Bomb Disposal Squad, Shafqat Malik, said that around 150 kilograms explosive material was used in the explosion.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani have strongly condemned the blast and reiterated resolve that the government would not be deterred by such cowardly acts.

They said the government would not let the terrorists play with the lives and property of the people and would continue to wage a full-scale operation till their complete elimination. They separately asked the provincial authorities to submit them a report at the earliest and make all-out efforts to arrest the perpetrators.

NWFP (North West Frontier Province) Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti and Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani also strongly condemned the blast and ordered high-level inquiry of the incident. Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour visited the blast site. He said that terrorists had no religion and they were only bent upon to defame Islam.

Later, NWFP Information Minister Mian iftikhar Hussain visited Lady Reading Hospital and inquired about the injured. He strongly condemned the attack on innocent civilians and said that Jihad against terrorists would be continued till its logical end.

Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan while strongly condemning the blast said that hidden hands behind such incidents should be exposed, adding that government should ensure safety of lives and public property. He expressed his deep grief and sorrow over the loss of lives and prayed for early recovery of the injured.
Central leader of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Zafar Iqbal Jhagra and Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (S) Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao strongly condemned the incident and termed it an inhuman act.

Agencies add: The attack underscored the scale of the militant threat in Pakistan just hours after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad for three days of talks with political and military leaders.

Angry flames leapt out of burning wreckage and smoke billowed in the air as a building collapsed into dust and rubble. Police evacuated panicked residents from the smouldering wreckage and firemen hosed down the flames.

“It was a car bomb. Some people are still trapped in a building. We are trying to rescue them,” bomb disposal official Shafqat Malik told reporters.

“We have received 92 dead bodies, 213 people were injured, we are facing a shortage of blood,” a doctor in the Peshawar’s main Lady Reading Hospital told AFP as staff declared an emergency.

A hospital official outside the casualty wing made a public announcement, appealing on people to donate blood as doctors spoke of harrowing scenes.

“There are body parts. There are people. There are burnt people. There are dead bodies. There are wounded, I’m not in a position to count. But my estimate is that the death toll may rise,” said Doctor Muslim Khan.

“Several buildings and a mosque have been badly damaged while a fire has engulfed a building,” witness Aqueel-ur-Rehman told Reuters from the scene.

“I can see three bodies lying under the debris,” he said.
Rescue workers and government officials had warned that casualties were trapped under collapsed shops at the bomb blast site, where a large blaze, a toppled building and the narrow streets hampered the relief effort.

“I am counting the dead bodies, 86 are confirmed dead, the injured are more than 200, there are children and women among the dead,” Mohammad Gul, a police official at the hospital, told AFP.

The area was one of the most congested parts of Peshawar and full of women’s clothing shops and general market stalls popular in the city of 2.5 million.

“A building structure has collapsed... People are trapped in the fire and buildings. This is the most congested area of the city,” Sahibzada Mohammad Anees, a senior local administrative official, told a private TV channel.

Peshawar, a teeming metropolis, is a gateway to northwest tribal belt, where the military is pressing a major offensive against Taliban militants blamed for some of the worst of the recent carnage.

Militants’ Airport Attack Misses Somali President - NYTimes.com

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By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The nation’s most feared Islamist insurgent group, the Shabab, attacked the nation’s main airport with mortars here on Thursday as the president prepared to board a plane to Uganda, Somali officials said.

The president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, was unharmed, the officials said, but the attack was followed by an artillery strike on the nation’s biggest market that left at least 18 people dead, according to witnesses and ambulance workers.

Several members of Parliament called a news conference to denounce the artillery barrage, which they said had been fired by African Union peacekeepers, who are here to protect the weak transitional government but are finding themselves increasingly under fire from militants. The troops maintain a base at the airport.

Bootaan Isse Aalin, one of the Parliament members, said the shelling was “unlawful and inhuman.”

But Maj. Barigye Bahoko, a spokesman for the African Union troops in Somalia, denied that the peacekeepers had fired the artillery. “Anyone is free to comment on what is going on in Somalia and those parliamentarians never condemned the assassinations and shelling by Al Shabab,” he said. “I don’t know if they have something to do with Al Shabab.”

Anger at the peacekeepers has been rising, with civilians accusing them of indiscriminately shelling residential areas where insurgents live side-by-side with noncombatants — a charge the peacekeepers deny.

Many Somalis turned against the peacekeepers after an episode in February, when troops responded to a roadside bomb attack by firing wildly into a crowded street.

Somali officials say the peacekeepers killed 39 civilians; the troops say that the toll was much lower and that the victims were hit in cross-fire.

On Thursday, witnesses said that because there was no gun battle with militants at the time of the artillery attack, they suspected that most of the dead at the Bakara marketplace were civilians.

The mortar strike on the airport as Sheik Sharif’s plane was leaving, for a summit meeting on displaced people in Africa, raised renewed concerns about the Shabab’s intelligence capabilities. The government had tried to keep secret the timing of Sheik Sharif’s trip.

“Of course, as the government has sources within the Shabab, so do they,” said Abdulkadir Mohamed Osman, a presidential spokesman. “That does not mean that they are part of the government.”

Witnesses and the members of Parliament said the artillery attack on Thursday started soon after the mortar strike on the airport.

Aamina Hussein, 30, who was slightly wounded by shrapnel in the right leg in the Howlwadaag neighborhood, where the market is, said she saw five bodies lying on the ground as she was hit. “I am lucky I survived,” she said in an interview.

Sources from Lifeline Africa, an emergency volunteer ambulance organization, said that more than 20 bodies and 60 wounded people had been picked up in Howlwadaag and the nearby Hodan neighborhood.

Somalia’s transitional government is facing intense resistance from insurgent groups trying to overthrow it and impose Shariah, the strict Islamic legal code. Western leaders say that Sheik Sharif, a moderate Islamic cleric who came to power in January, has the best chance of any leader in years to bring stability to the war-torn nation.

Pakistani Police Had Warned Military About a Raid - NYTimes.com

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By JANE PERLEZ

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The mastermind of the militant assault on Saturday that shook the heart of the Pakistani military was behind two other major attacks in the last two years, and the police had specifically warned the military in July that such an audacious raid was being planned, police and intelligence officials said Sunday.

The revelation of prior warning was sure to intensify scrutiny of Pakistan’s ability to fight militants, after nine men wearing army uniforms breached the military headquarters complex in Rawalpindi and held dozens hostage for 20 hours until a commando raid ended the siege. In all, 16 people were killed, including eight of the attackers, the military said.

The surviving militant, who was captured early Sunday morning, was identified as Muhammad Aqeel, who officials said was a former soldier and the planner of this attack and others. Mr. Aqeel, who is also known as Dr. Usman because he had once worked with the Army Medical Corps before dropping out about four years ago, is believed to be a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

The army has been promising to fight back against the fierce Taliban insurgency holed up in the tribal region of South Waziristan amid pressure from the Obama administration, which is about to secure a major aid package that would give $1.5 billion a year to the government here.

The attack on the headquarters was a signal that the Taliban insurgency had penetrated deeply into Punjab Province, where the military headquarters are located, and was no longer confined to the wild tribal areas that serve as the operational center for the Pakistani Taliban.

The militant leader, Mr. Aqeel, led the commando operation against the Sri Lankan cricket team during its visit to Lahore earlier this year, according to a senior police officer in Punjab involved in the investigation into that assault. He was also behind the suicide bombing that killed the army surgeon general in 2008, military officials said.

In a warning to the authorities in July, the criminal investigation department of the police in Punjab said the militants who attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in March would make a similar kind of assault on military headquarters. The warning, contained in a letter to the leading intelligence agencies, predicted militants would dress in military uniforms and would try to take hostages at the headquarters.

The contents of the letter were published in the Oct. 5 editions of a leading newspaper, The News, and were confirmed Sunday by a senior official of the criminal investigation department.

The letter specifically said that militants belonging to the umbrella group of the Pakistani Taliban would join forces with two other groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad, to attack the military headquarters. The Pakistani Taliban took credit for the Saturday attack in a telephone call to the television network Geo.

The assault on the headquarters represented a severe breakdown in military security and intelligence for the army, which is regarded with the highest esteem among the Pakistani public and is widely considered as the one institution that can keep the fractured country together.

In London on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said the attack showed the severe threat that militants pose to stability in Pakistan. But they brushed aside a question about whether, given the increased militant activity, the Pakistani government could be trusted to keep its own nuclear weapons secure.

“In respect of the nuclear issue, there is no evidence that has been shown publicly or privately of any threat to the Pakistani nuclear facilities,” Mr. Miliband said at the news conference.

Mrs. Clinton reiterated that the Obama administration had “confidence in the Pakistani government.”

The attack on Saturday showed intimate knowledge of the layout of the military headquarters in Rawalpindi and was skillfully planned, said a retired Pakistani Army brigadier and special forces officer, Javed Hussain.

The attackers, apparently driving in one van, managed to drive easily through the first security post on the main road into the headquarters, Brigadier Hussain said. At a second security post soldiers opened fire, and four of the attackers were killed.

But four or five of the attackers survived the firefight at the second post and appeared to have made a beeline on foot for the military intelligence building, which is close to the main entrance, according to accounts from military officials.

The hostages, including soldiers and civilians, were held in two rooms in the one-story military intelligence directorate building inside the headquarters, according to several army officers, who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.

Among those killed in the attack was Brig. Anwar ul-Haq, the director of security for military intelligence. He was shot in the first hour of the siege by one of the gunmen who had penetrated his building, according to relatives of the brigadier who attended his funeral Sunday.

When Brigadier ul-Haq heard shooting, he interrupted a conference he was conducting and went into the corridor with an aide, according to the relatives’ accounts. When he saw a man in military uniform with his back turned to him, the brigadier told him to flee, but instead, the man turned around and shot the brigadier, the relatives said.

The hostage-takers held their captives in at least two groups, military officials said. In one room, 22 hostages were clustered with three assailants, one of whom wore a suicide bomb jacket. There were 12 hostages in another room, where another assailant wore a suicide jacket.

In their assault to free the hostages, special commandos successfully killed one would-be suicide bomber, but other militants in the room fired at two of the commandos, killing them, a military official said.

As commandos approached the second room, another suicide bomber blew himself up, bringing down the roof and causing injuries among the captives, the military official said.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Ismail Khan from Peshawar, and Waqar Gillani from Lahore.

Chain of Car Bombs Target Police, Government in Iraq's Anbar Province - washingtonpost.com

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Car Blasts Kill Dozens in Capital Of Anbar Province

By Uthman al-Mokhtar and Nada Bakri
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 12, 2009

RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 11 -- Three car bombings targeted a police station and a government headquarters in the provincial capital of Ramadi in western Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 25 people and underlining the precarious situation in Anbar province.

Violence in the province had fallen sharply in the past year after local tribal leaders, backed by U.S. forces, defeated a homegrown al-Qaeda group and other militants. But explosions and suicide attacks in recent weeks were reminiscent of 2003 and 2004, when the insurgency was gathering strength.

Although the blasts did not appear to be set off by suicide bombers, they were timed to detonate in quick succession to kill as many rescuers and police as possible.

"The security forces are negligent," said Raad Sabah, a leader of the U.S.-backed militia that fought the insurgency in Ramadi. "They are busy with politics and the elections and their own business deals."

Rumors spread through Ramadi and other parts of the province about who was behind the attacks. Some suggested government officials were involved, part of the fallout from months of negotiations over creating alliances for Iraq's parliamentary elections in January. Others said that al-Qaeda was exploiting the rift between politicians ahead of the polls and blamed security forces for negligence. At least six senior security officials are running in the upcoming elections.

The first bombing occurred in a parking lot near the police headquarters for Anbar province and the provincial council building, when a 1991 Opel vehicle rigged with explosives detonated at 12:30 p.m. It killed the parking lot's attendant and another civilian. As it went off, senior provincial council officials, tribal leaders and security chiefs were meeting in the provincial council building.

Nine minutes later, after police, medics and firefighters had gathered at the scene, a gray Daewoo parked 15 yards from the first car detonated, killing 21 others, including policemen and firefighters. At least 67 people were injured in both bombings. About an hour later, a third car exploded near the Ramadi hospital where the dead and wounded were being brought, killing two people.

"It was an organized attack," said Bassel Mohammad, a taxi driver who was 30 yards from the bombing site and whose brother was among the victims. "The city is falling apart, people are dying, al-Qaeda is regaining strength and our leaders are busy with politics and the elections."

Iraqi policemen, unable to control the bombing scene, fired shots in the air in an attempt to disperse people who had gathered to look for loved ones.

Brig. Gen. Khamis Dulaimi, head of the emergency unit in the province, called the attacks a major security breach and said an investigation would be held to determine how they were carried out and why the cars weren't searched at checkpoints.

A curfew was imposed on Ramadi, and security forces declared an emergency. Schools and universities sent students home soon after news of the bombings spread. Mosques broadcast appeals over loudspeakers for people to donate blood.

Bakri reported from Baghdad.

Pakistani Forces Free Hostages Taken by Islamist Militants - washingtonpost.com

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Militants Had Taken Part of Army Facility

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 12, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 11 -- Pakistani commandos stormed a building within the nation's army headquarters early Sunday, freeing 39 hostages and ending a 22-hour standoff with their armed Islamist captors that revealed deep vulnerabilities in Pakistan's defense systems.

Three hostages and three soldiers were killed during the predawn operation to liberate the hostages, an army spokesman said. In total, 20 people -- including nine militants and eight soldiers -- died in the siege, which began Saturday morning when a squad of fighters armed with guns and grenades brazenly attacked the army command center in Rawalpindi, which is adjacent to Islamabad, the capital.

The Saturday attack seemed designed to publicly humiliate Pakistan's armed forces, which have been planning an offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in the volatile tribal region of South Waziristan, analysts said. As the standoff developed, it cast doubt on the military's ability to fend off the extremists and raised questions about whether the fighters -- who wore soldiers' uniforms and drove a van with military plates -- had infiltrated the army.

But once the tense showdown ended, the military began winning praise. Security analysts commended the rescue operation, during which commandos fatally shot one militant before he could detonate his suicide vest.

"It has been very competently handled," said Mahmood Shah, a security analyst and retired army general. "They freed the hostages with a minimum loss."

An injured militant whom the army identified as the ringleader was captured, raising the possibility that Pakistani authorities might learn more about the insurgent cell that carried out the strike. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army spokesman, said that the insurgent is named Aqeel but is also known as Dr. Usman. Abbas said that Aqeel had masterminded an attack this year on Sri Lanka's cricket team in the eastern city of Lahore.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Sunday that the South Waziristan operation was "imminent" and said that Aqeel was a Taliban member with links to al-Qaeda, the news service Reuters reported.

The Pakistani Taliban's new chief has said the group would respond to the South Waziristan offensive with stepped-up attacks. The assault on the army headquarters came during the same week as a suicide bombing at a United Nations office in Islamabad and a blast that killed dozens at a market in Peshawar.

The U.S. Congress late last month approved a multibillion-dollar aid package for Pakistan, and Obama administration officials are pressing Pakistan's military to take on insurgents who operate within the nation's borders. The militants use the country as a base for planning attacks against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and against the Pakistani government. The possibility of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of extremists is one of the Obama administration's national security nightmares.

But in London on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her British counterpart said they believed Pakistan's nuclear weapons were secure, despite the growing threats of Islamist militancy.

"We have confidence in the Pakistani government and military's control over nuclear weapons," Clinton said after a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan in London and special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.

BBC, South Asia - Deadly attack on Pakistan army HQ

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Six soldiers and four gunmen have been killed in an attack on Pakistan's army HQ outside the capital Islamabad, the military says.

Troops battled the gunmen after they attacked the heavily armed complex in Rawalpindi in army uniforms. Earlier reports said eight soldiers died.

Officials said one of the dead soldiers was a brigadier, and that two gunmen remained at large.

The attack comes as the army prepares a major operation against the Taliban.

ANALYSIS

Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Islamabad The army's main headquarters lies within one of the most heavily secured areas in the country. To attack it in the middle of the day, leaving senior military officials trapped inside, shows a new level of audacity on the part of the militants.

Just a few weeks ago, the government here said it was winning its fight against the militants, and that the Taliban was in disarray. The events of this week will have many questioning those claims.

Speculation that the army will soon launch a ground offensive against the Taliban in the tribal areas of South Waziristan has only left many Pakistanis bracing themselves for more violence in the cities.

It also follows a series of bombings in north-western Pakistan. On Friday at least 50 died in a blast in Peshawar.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that in recent days Taliban positions in the tribal areas have been bombed by the air force, amid speculation that the army's offensive there is soon to be intensified.

There was a period of relative quiet in August after Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed, but the rate of militant attacks has increased since then, our correspondent adds.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but the Taliban has been threatening to carry out attacks unless operations against the militant group were stopped.

Police official Mohammed Jalil told AP news agency that gunmen drove up to the army compound in a white van just before midday local time (0600 GMT).

They took up positions, fired on the compound and threw hand grenades, security officials said.

RECENT MILITANT ATTACKS

24 Sept - Seven pro-government tribal elders killed by militants in town of Janikhel, north-western Pakistan

26 Sept - At least 16 people killed in two suicide car bombs, in Peshawar and Bannu

5 Oct - Suicide bomber attacks UN offices in Islamabad killing five

9 Oct - At least 50 killed in suspected suicide bombing in Peshawar

Roads to the area were sealed off and helicopters hovered over the compound.

The military reported that the attack had been repelled after a gunbattle lasting around 45 minutes.

"The situation is under control ... all the gunmen have been killed", Maj-Gen Athar Abbas told local TV.

However, military officials later said that two more militants were still at large, after reports of sporadic gunfire in and around the compound.

AP quoted an intelligence official as saying that the two managed to slip into the compound and troops were trying to capture or kill them.

Islamist militants have carried out a number of attacks against high-profile, high-security targets in recent years.

In March this year gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in the city of Lahore. Six policemen and a driver were killed and several of the team were injured.

In the same month, dozens of people were killed when a police training centre on the outskirts of the city was occupied by gunmen.

Myth, Meth and the Georgian Invasion

By Alexander Cockburn

This article appeared in the August 31, 2009 edition of The Nation.

August 12, 2009

A year ago, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili sent Georgian troops into South Ossetia on a murderous rampage, with civilian casualties put by Irina Gagloeva, the spokeswoman of South Ossetia, at 1,492. Much lower numbers have been offered by Western sources. Georgian soldiers butchered their victims with great brutality. Kirill Benediktov, in his online book on the invasion, reports that these soldiers were equipped--so subsequent searches of bodies and prisoners of war disclosed--not only with NATO-supplied food packages but with sachets of methamphetamine and combat stress pills based on MDMA, aka the active ingredient of Ecstasy. The meth amps up soldiers to kill without mercy, and the MDMA derivative frees them of subsequent debilitating flashbacks and recurring nightmares. Official use of methamphetamine and official testing of MDMA in the US armed forces have been discussed in news stories.

• Alexander Cockburn: Why is it easier to raise 3 million tweets for demonstrations in Iran than to twit about Obama's sellouts at home?

There was never any serious doubt that Saakashvili, with covert US encouragement and military training and kindred assistance, started the war. In June of this year, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel ran a piece, seemingly based on a reading of a draft report by Heidi Tagliavini, who heads the European Union's fact-finding commission on the Georgian war. Despite the subsequent stentorian denials of a much-embarrassed Tagliavini, Der Spiegel's editors stood by their story: "The facts assembled on Tagliavini's desk refute Saakashvili's claim that his country became the innocent victim of 'Russian aggression' that day."

Large numbers of Russian tanks were nowhere near the border of South Ossetia on August 7, 2008. According to Tagliavini's draft report, as cited by Der Spiegel, "The experts found no evidence to support claims by the Georgian president that a Russian column of 150 tanks had advanced into South Ossetia on the evening of August 7. According to the commission's findings, the Russian army didn't enter South Ossetia until Aug. 8. Saakashvili had already amassed 12,000 troops and 75 tanks on the border with South Ossetia on the morning of Aug. 7." To avoid causing any embarrassment to the United States and its allies on the anniversary, the EU report was withheld and will be published in September, shorn--so staffers confided to Der Spiegel--of unpleasing disclosures. Two British monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe corroborated Der Spiegel's and Russian accounts of Georgia having fired the first shots.

From the opening minutes of the five-day war, the BBC, CNN, Fox News and the other major networks bellowed in unison that this was a case of Russian aggression. Republican candidate John McCain, whose chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was also a paid adviser of Saakashvili, ladled out vintage cold war rhetoric and proclaimed, "Today we are all Georgians." Candidate Obama was not quite so abandoned, at least in his initial reactions, prompting some to think--erroneously--that this particular Democrat might be more rational and pacific in his foreign policy. Voices of sanity in Congress were, as usual, almost inaudible. Representative Dana Rohrabacher was a spirited exception. "The Russians were right; we're wrong," he said. "The Georgians started it; the Russians ended it."

Here we are, a year later, the windowpanes still rattling from Joe Biden's speech to the Georgian Parliament on July 23--whether assisted by a combat envelope of methamphetamine we do not know--proclaiming, "We, the United States, stand by you on your journey to a secure, free and democratic, and once again united, Georgia." In other words, the United States remains implacably opposed to South Ossetia's desire for independence and committed to Georgian claims: "Divided, Georgia will not complete its journey. United, Georgia can achieve the dreams of your forebears and, maybe more importantly, the hopes of your children." Thus did Biden express US policy in linking hands across the decades with Stalin, who forced unwilling South Ossetia and Abkhazia into an enlarged Georgia.

Biden also told the Georgian Parliament that the United States would continue to help Georgia "modernize" its military and that Washington "fully supports" Georgia's aspiration to join NATO and would help Tbilisi meet the alliance's standards. This elicited a furious reaction from Moscow, pledging sanctions against any power rearming Georgia. The most nauseating moment in Biden's sortie to Tbilisi, where he repeatedly stressed he was a spokesman for Obama, came when, on accounts in the New York Times and Washington Post, he brazenly lied to schoolchildren, claiming Russia had launched the invasion. Not two weeks later, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon repeated this lie in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We should note here that from Clinton-time forward, Georgia has been regarded by the United States as strategically vital in controlling the oil pipeline to Azerbaijan and Central Asia, bypassing Russia and Iran. Also, Georgia could play an enabling role if Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear complex. The flight path from Israel to Iran is diplomatically and geographically challenging. And Georgia is perfectly situated as the takeoff point for any such raid. Israel has been heavily involved in supplying and training Georgia's armed forces. A story in Der Spiegel remarked that "Georgia had increasingly made headlines as a gold mine for Israeli arms dealers and veterans from the military and the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency." President Saakashvili boasted that his defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, and also Temur Iakobashvili, the minister responsible for negotiations over South Ossetia, lived in Israel before moving to Georgia, adding, "Both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews."

In light of the foregoing, do you think McCain could have been worse, even as the war in Afghanistan escalates

About Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Cockburn has been The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist since 1984. He is the author or co-author of several books, including the best-selling collection of essays Corruptions of Empire (1987), and a contributor to many publications, from The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal to alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. With Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch, which have a substantial world audience.

Anti-gay Attacks on Rise in Iraq

Gay Iraqi men are being murdered in what appears to be a co-ordinated campaign involving militia forces, the group Human Rights Watch says.

It says hundreds of gay men have been targeted and killed in Iraq since 2004.

So-called honour killings also account for deaths where families punish their own kin in order to avoid public shame.

The report says members of the Mehdi Army militia group are spearheading the campaign, but police are also accused - even though homosexuality is legal.

Witnesses say vigilante groups break into homes and pick people up in the street, interrogating them to extract the names of other potential victims, before murdering them.

"Murder and torture are no way to enforce morality," said HRW researcher Rasha Moumneh, quoted in the report.

"These killings point to the continuing and lethal failure of Iraq's post-occupation authorities to establish the rule of law and protect their citizens."

In some cases, Human Rights Watch says it was told, Iraqi security forces had actually "colluded and joined in the killing".

Witch-hunt

Recently, posters appeared in Sadr City - a conservative, Shia area of Baghdad - calling on people to watch out for gay men and listing not only their names but also their addresses.

One gay man in Baghdad described the killing campaign as a witch-hunt.

“ These killings will continue, because it has simply become normal in Iraq to kill gay men ”
Unnamed gay Iraqi man

Nearly 90 gay men have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of January and many more are missing, local gay rights campaigners say.

The report, called They want us exterminated: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq, says horrifically mutilated bodies of gay men have been left on rubbish tips.

Sometimes their bodies are daubed with offensive terms such as "pervert", or "puppy" which is a hate word for gay men in Iraq.

The report contains detailed testimonies of a range of brutal treatment of gay Iraqi men.

"We've heard stories confirmed by doctors of men having their anuses glued and then being force-fed laxatives which leads to a very painful death," says Ms Moumneh told the BBC.

'Feminised men'

When questioned in the past, officials in Iraq have condemned the killings, but the BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad reports that gay men there say nothing has been done to protect them.

"These killings will continue, because it has simply become normal in Iraq to kill gay men," said a gay Iraqi man who did not want to be named.

Mehdi army spokesmen and clerics have condemned what they call the "feminisation" of Iraqi men and have urged the military to take action against them.

The report said many gay men have fled to other countries in the region, despite consensual homosexual activity being illegal there, because the risk of victimisation is reduced.

HRW says the threats and abuses have spread from Baghdad to Kirkuk, Najaf and Basra, although persecution remains concentrated in the capital.

Officials say part of the problem in dealing with the attacks is that victims' relatives seldom if ever provide information to the police.

"They consider talking about the subject worse than the crime itself. This is the nature of our society," ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8204853.stm

Published: 2009/08/17

New Report Documents 10 Years of Anti-Homeless Violence

Source: National Coalition for the Homeless

Today the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) released the 2008 numbers of hate crimes and violent attacks against people experiencing homelessness. The numbers are from a new report entitled Hate, Violence, And Death on Main Street USA, 2008.

Key findings include:

• The total number of attacks for 2008: 106.
• The number of fatal attacks is the second highest since 2001: 27 deaths.
• 73 percent of the attacks were committed by individuals who were ages 25 and younger.
• Florida ranked #1 for the fourth year in a row for most attacks, California was second.

“Those experiencing homelessness are often ignored or misunderstood by society. If these brutal attacks were committed against any other religious or minority group to the same degree, there would be a national outcry and call for governmental action,” said Michael Stoops, executive director of NCH. “We must respond to this dehumanization and protect homeless persons against hate crimes and violence.”

The 42 percent of homeless people who are unsheltered are the most vulnerable to these attacks. Because crimes committed against homeless persons often go unreported, the actual numbers of non-lethal attacks may be much higher. While the motive for an attack is often unclear, some of the attackers said they committed the crime out of “boredom,” or for a “thrill” or “fun.”

+ Full Report

Militants Launch Afghan Attacks

Taliban militants have attacked official buildings in eastern Afghanistan, firing rockets at a police headquarters and government offices.

Five Afghan police were reportedly killed and 26 others hurt as six gunmen fired grenades inside Pul-i-Alam.

Part of the city, capital of Logar province, was said to have been evacuated as military helicopters flew overhead and fired on the insurgents.

The attack comes 10 days before nationwide elections in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections and have stepped up attacks in recent weeks.

US and UK forces are currently engaged in a major offensive against Taliban militants in the south of the country.

High casualty levels among the international coalition and reports of escalating violence have raised concerns in Washington and London.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, described the Taliban as "a very aggressive enemy" in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

Explosive vests

Eyewitnesses in Pul-i-Alam said insurgents took up positions in an unfinished tower block and fired rockets into government compounds in the city, which is close to the capital, Kabul.

Two rockets were reported to have hit the headquarters of the city's chief of police, while four hit the governor's compound.

"The governor's building came under rocket attack from close range," local government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish told AFP news agency.

"The rockets hit the building and partially damaged the building. The governor was having lunch and no-one was killed or wounded," he added.

Mr Darwish said attackers inside the buildings had been surrounded by the security forces. There were also reports of coalition helicopters involved in the fight.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in Logar. He said that six fighters entered the buildings wearing explosive vests.

Taliban strategy

The attack in Logar was the latest in a series of similar co-ordinated attacks on provincial cities in recent months.

“ We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work ”
Gen Stanley McChrystal US commander in Afghanistan

In July five people were killed in a series of strikes in eastern Afghanistan. This came after simultaneous assaults on government buildings in the city of Khost, also in eastern Afghanistan.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that such attacks on provincial government compounds are designed to weaken the authority of the Afghan government.

The Taliban target provincial headquarters because they are not guarded as closely as institutions in Kabul, our correspondent says.

The significance of this attack is that it took place so close to the Afghan capital just days ahead of presidential elections.

Violence across the country has escalated in the run-up to presidential and provincial council polls on 20 August.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Gen McChrystal - who is to present a major strategic review of the conflict to the US Congress this month - admitted US and international forces were facing a tough period in Afghanistan.

"We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work," he said.

On Sunday US National Security Adviser James Jones defended the US approach in Afghanistan, telling TV interviewers the developing strategy in the country was new and a system to judge progress was still being put in place.

Attacks on Homeless Bring Push on Hate Crime Laws

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — With economic troubles pushing more people onto the streets in the last few years, law enforcement officials and researchers are seeing a surge in unprovoked attacks against the homeless, and a number of states are considering legislation to treat such assaults as hate crimes.

This October, Maryland will become the first state to expand its hate-crime law to add stiffer penalties for attacks on the homeless.

At least five other states are pondering similar steps, the District of Columbia approved such a measure this week, and a like bill was introduced last week in Congress.

A report due out this weekend from the National Coalition for the Homeless documents a rise in violence over the last decade, with at least 880 unprovoked attacks against the homeless at the hands of nonhomeless people, including 244 fatalities. An advance copy was provided to The New York Times.

Sometimes, researchers say, one homeless person attacks another in turf battles or other disputes. But more often, they say, the assailants are outsiders: men or in most cases teenage boys who punch, kick, shoot or set afire people living on the streets, frequently killing them, simply for the sport of it, their victims all but invisible to society.

“A lot of what we see are thrill offenders,” said Brian Levin, a criminologist who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Only Thursday, two homeless men in Hollywood were stabbed to death and a third was wounded in a three-hour spree of separate daylight attacks. The police arrested a 54-year-old local man who they said appeared to have made homeless people his random targets.

Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

Matt O’Brien, who advocates on behalf of the homeless, touring the flood channels. Flash floods may endanger those who stay there, he says, but at least they are safe from violence.

Researchers say a combustible mix of factors has added fuel to the problem. Rising unemployment and foreclosures continue to push people into the streets, with some estimates now putting the nationwide number of homeless above one million.

And in cities like Las Vegas, public crackdowns on encampments for the homeless and cutbacks in social services have frequently made street people more visible as targets for would-be assailants.

Further, in the last several years the Internet has seen a proliferation of “bum fight” videos, shot by young men and boys who are seen beating the homeless or who pay transients a few dollars to fight each other.

Indeed, the National Coalition for the Homeless, which works to change government policies and bring people off the streets, says in its new report that 58 percent of assailants implicated in attacks against the homeless in the last 10 years were teenagers.

Michael Stoops, the group’s executive director, said social prejudices were “dehumanizing” the homeless and condoning hostile treatment. He pointed to a blurb titled “Hunt the Homeless” in the current issue of Maxim, a popular men’s magazine. It spotlights a coming “hobo convention” in Iowa and says: “Kill one for fun. We’re 87 percent sure it’s legal.”

With victims wary of going to the police, statistics on the attacks are often incomplete. But surveys show much higher rates of assault, rape and other crimes of violence against the homeless than almost any other group, said Professor Levin, of California State, who worked on the new report.

Recognition of the problem is spurring legislative action.

“More and more, we’re hearing about homeless people being attacked for no other reason than that they’re homeless, and we’ve got to do something about it,” Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas, said in an interview.

Ms. Johnson introduced a measure in the House last week to make attacks on the homeless a federal hate crime and require the F.B.I. to collect data on it. (The Senate voted last month to expand federal hate crimes to include attacks on gay and transgender victims, another frequent target.)

And in addition to the measures already approved in Maryland and the District of Columbia, proposals to add penalties for attacks on the homeless are under consideration in California, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.

The push has lacked any organized support by major civil rights groups. In Florida, which leads the country in assaults on homeless people, groups like the Anti-Defamation League have opposed recognizing those attacks as a hate crime. Opponents argue that homelessness, unlike race or ethnicity, is not a permanent condition and that such a broadening of the law would have the effect of diluting it.

“I hear the same rhetoric all the time,” Ms. Johnson said. “They ask, ‘Why is their life more important than anyone else’s?’ ”

The coalition’s study, which relied on police and news reports but excluded crimes driven by factors like robbery, found 106 documented attacks against the homeless last year.

That was a doubling of levels seen six or seven years ago but a sharp drop from 2007, an apparent improvement that researchers are still trying to explain. The study found 27 fatalities last year, flat relative to the year before. Eight other victims were shot, nine raped and 54 beaten.

In Portland, Ore., twin brothers were charged with five unprovoked attacks against homeless people in a park. One of the victims was a man beaten with his own bike, another a woman pushed down a steep staircase.

In Cleveland, a man leaving a homeless shelter to visit his mother was “savagely beaten by a group of thugs,” the police said.

In Los Angeles, a homeless man who was a neighborhood fixture was doused in gasoline and set on fire.

In Boston, a homeless Army veteran was beaten to death as witnesses near Faneuil Hall reportedly looked on.

And in Jacksonville, N.C., a group of young men fatally stabbed a homeless man behind a shopping strip, cutting open his abdomen with a beer bottle.

In Las Vegas, home to a large population of the homeless, there were no reported killings of any of them last year, but many say hostilities have risen as the city moves to get them out of the parks and off the streets.

Some of the Las Vegas homeless resort to living in a maze of underground flood channels beneath the Strip. There they face flash floods, disease, black widows and dank, pitch-dark conditions, but some tunnel dwellers say life there is better than being harassed and threatened by assailants and the police.

“Out there, anything goes,” said Manny Lang, who has lived in the tunnels for months, recalling the stones and profanities with which a group of teenagers pelted him last winter when he slept above ground. “But in here, nothing’s going to happen to us.”

Their plight is a revealing commentary on the violence facing street people, said Matt O’Brien, a Las Vegas writer who runs an outreach group for the homeless.

“It’s hard to believe that tunnels that can fill a foot per minute with floodwater could be safer than aboveground Vegas,” Mr. O’Brien said, “but many homeless people think they are. No outsider is going to attack you down there in the dark.”