10 posts tagged “al-qaeda”
In the first such strikes since the inauguration of President Barack Obama, suspected U.S. missile barrages today killed at least 18 people in the lawless tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.
The two raids suggested that the new U.S. administration intends to press ahead with attacks against Islamic militants in the rural areas, even though the campaign has been politically costly to Pakistan's Western-leaning civilian government. President Obama indicated during the campaign for the White House that he would continue to carry out strikes against "high-value" Al Qaeda and Taliban targets on Pakistani soil, particularly if the Pakistani military were unable or unwilling to act. That declaration ruffled some feathers in Pakistan, where the U.S. raids are extremely unpopular.
Although Pakistani leaders have repeatedly lodged formal diplomatic objections to the American airstrikes, the government is widely believed to have given tacit permission to U.S. forces to carry out such raids -- as long as they do not involve sending ground forces into Pakistani territory.
Pakistani news reports cited security officials as saying that at least five of those killed in today's strikes in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies -- long known as a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- were militants. Dozens of such raids have been carried out in the last six months by the Bush administration, killing several important Al Qaeda-linked figures. But scores of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, also died, according to local officials.
The first of today's attacks took place in the North Waziristan village of Zharki, with missiles striking at least two structures, according to security officials. A short time later, a separate strike was reported in South Waziristan. The American military in Afghanistan refused any comment on the raids, but U.S. forces are known to operate unmanned Predator drones from bases on the Afghan side of the border, together with newer Reaper aircraft...
Not many details are available. The United States denies the story.
U.S. Denies Incursion into Pakistan
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters that crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Monday. The U.S. denied the report.
The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.
"There was no such incursion, there was no such event," said Col. Gary L. Keck, Defense Department spokesman.
The reported incursion late Sunday will likely add to tensions between Islamabad and Washington...
Dazed Iraqi teen suicide bomber says she didn't want to die
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
Monday, August 25, 2008
BAQOUBA, Iraq — The 15-year-old girl had the chubby cheeks of a child who hadn't lost her baby fat when she was arrested Sunday by an alert policeman. Around her chest was a vest packed with explosives. The policeman chained her to the bars of a window, stripped off her dress, found the vest and deactivated the bomb. Had he not intervened, Rania would have been this year's 31st suicide bomber in Iraq.
A day later, Rania seemed in a daze as she spoke about the people who put her up to it: the relatives who forced her to don the vest and apparently drugged her, her husband, whom police accuse of being a member of the group al Qaida in Iraq, and her mother, who seemed to play a central role in turning Rania into a human bomb but whom she looked to as a rescuer...
Today in Iraq
Tuesday 26 August 2008
By Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers
This is not a comprehensive list.
Baghdad
A roadside bomb targeted a Sahwa patrol, the U.S. backed militia, in al-Mowasalat neighbourhood, western Baghdad at 10 a.m. Tuesday injuring two Sahwa members.
A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Ghadeer neighbourhood at noon injuring two policemen and two civilians.
A suicide car bomb targeted a recruiting centre in the town of Jalowlaa, 70 km to the northeast of Baquba at 10.30 a.m. Tuesday killing 27 recruits, wounding 45.
Salahuddin
A car bomb parked near the entrance of the health department in Tikrit exploded at 7.30 a.m. killing two guards and two civilians, injuring thirteen civilians.
Nineveh
Gunmen open fire at a policeman near his home in Bab Legesh, central Mosul. The policeman was injured. A police force cordoned the neighbourhood, found the gunmen and engaged them, killing one gunman, injuring another.
2 Fort Campbell Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan
Aug 19, 2008 03:44 PM
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- Two Fort Campbell soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
The Army said Tuesday that 29-year-old 1st Lt. Donald C. Carwile of Oxford, Miss., and 21-year-old Pfc. Paul E. Conlon Jr. of Somerville, Mass., died on Aug. 15...
Both soldiers were assigned to 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell...
[this blows]
Pentagon extends tour of Marines in Afghanistan
By Lolita C. Baldor – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.
Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday that the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October...
Taliban flourishng, Pentagon reports
Attacks in Afghanistan grow in number, complexity, report says
By David Wood | Sun reporter
June 28, 2008
WASHINGTON - After nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban-led insurgency is flourishing, the Defense Department indicated in a gloomy new report yesterday, saying the insurgents are likely to accelerate their attacks and expand into new regions in northern and western regions of the country.
The Pentagon's assessment came as U.S. casualties in Afghanistan rose to 23 in June, the second-deadliest month for American forces since the U.S. invaded weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Attacks using improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, rose 35 percent last year, reaching 2,616 attacks, according to the report, which provided no other measures of violence or data from previous years.
The report echoed previous grim assessments by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and others, including retired four-star Marine Gen. James Jones, about the lack of progress in the U.S.-led war and Afghanistan's deep-rooted problems of violence, extremism, corruption and narcotics...
Full Story Here: Taliban flourishng, Pentagon reports
Keep in mind that right now it looks like the price of oil will be between $130.00 $133.00 and $135.00 per barrel today. Just 30 days ago, when this testimony was given, oil was $124.00 per barrel.
Real Time Price of Oil Click Here
Rising Oil Prices, Declining National Security
May 22, 2008
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, about ten years ago, Osama bin Laden stated that his target price for oil is $144 a barrel and that the American people, who allegedly robbed the Muslim people of their oil, owe each Muslim man, woman, and child $30,000 in back payments. At the time, $144 a barrel seemed farfetched to most. Today, bin Laden is a mere $20 a barrel short of his target and there is little doubt it will be attained. I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century. It is therefore imperative that the U.S. Congress do its utmost to forestall such a setback.
Deeply embroiled in a struggle against radical Islam, nuclear proliferation, and totalitarianism, the U.S. faces a crude reality: While its relations with the Muslim world are at an all-time low, more than 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and over a third of production are concentrated in Muslim countries. The very same Shi‘a and Sunni theocratic and dictatorial regimes that most strongly resist America’s efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East are the ones that, because of the market’s tightness, currently drive the world oil economy. While the U.S. economy bleeds, oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—sympathetic to, and directly supportive, of radical Islam—are on the receiving end of staggering windfalls. In 2006, the United States spent about $260 billion on foreign crude oil and refined petroleum products. This year, with oil hovering over $125 a barrel, the figure could surpass $500 billion, the equivalent of our defense budget. At today's prices, foreign oil producers are extracting a tax of more than $1,600 a year from every American man, woman and child.
While we in the U.S., which enjoys a per capita income of over $40,000 a year, are feeling the sharp pinch of high oil prices, we should all consider the impact of these prices on the world’s poor. People throughout the world who live on $2 a day are suffering far more than we can imagine as their economies hemorrhage. This has profound implications for global security, driving regional unrest, increasing poverty, and nipping in the bud progress towards democracy. Countries that are still carrying debts from the 1970’s oil shocks, are being now looted by OPEC price fixing. In fact, we are witnessing a tremendous transfer of wealth from the world’s poorest to the world’s producers of oil.
OPEC, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, is deliberately keeping oil supply tight to prop up prices. Not only is Saudi production lower today than it was two years ago, despite the increase in demand, but the cartel has effectively deleted 2.4mbd from the global oil market in what amounts to an accounting scam. In 2007, OPEC expanded its member roster to include Ecuador and Angola – together the two had accounted for nearly 2.4mbd of non-OPEC oil. Yet, total OPEC production remained constant, allowing existing members to reduce production. This translates into a net reduction in non-OPEC supply with no equivalent increase in OPEC supply. This is equivalent to the production of Norway disappearing off the market . Further, while non-OPEC production has doubled over the last thirty years, as the graph below shows, OPEC production today is virtually identical to its production thirty years ago, even as the global economy has grown and with it demand for oil.
The flow of petrodollars from consuming economies to the coffers of producers not only casts a large shadow over America’s prospects of winning the war on terrorism but it also limits U.S. diplomatic maneuverability on central issues like human rights and nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the most powerful statement of the impact on America’s ability to accomplish its foreign policy goals came from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who in April 2006 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We do have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more, as Secretary of State, than the way that the politics of energy is . . . “warping” diplomacy around the world. It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways for the international system, states that would otherwise have very little power.”
One of these states is Iran. With 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves and the world’s second largest natural gas reserve, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems unfazed by the prospects of international sanctions against his country as a result of its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. At high oil prices, leaders of human-rights violating countries like Azerbaijan, Chad, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, too, can persecute their people with impunity. Another setback to democracy was delivered last May when Kazakhstan’s leader Nursultan Nazarbayev declared himself president for life. The control over a large part of the world’s oil and gas market allows Russia to bully its European neighbors, to play “hard to get” on Iran, and to undermine democracy in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia. Should Russia and other major gas producers like Iran go forth with plans to create an OPEC like natural gas cartel, we can expect further consolidation of power among the energy producers. Oil also lubricates the so-called Bolivarian revolution led by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who is using Venezuela’s oil wealth to buy political influence in the Western Hemisphere and to consolidate an anti-U.S. bloc in the region.
U.S. diplomacy is further complicated by the indefatigable thirst for energy of emerging countries like China and India, which are becoming increasingly dependent on the very same countries the United States is trying to rein in. The growing appetite of developing Asian powers not only plays into the hands of the aforementioned rogue producing nations, but also feeds what could become a global competition for control of energy resources. Rogue nations like Iran and Sudan can now buy themselves the support of a third of humanity – not to mention the protection of Chinese veto power on the U.N. Security Council – by signing energy deals with China and India. India now at stands at a crossroads. As its electricity demand grows it faces three options. It can tie itself to Iran, the holder of the world’s second largest natural gas reserve, via the proposed 1600 mile long Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. Last month, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad visited India and Pakistan in an effort to seal the deal on this project. The implications of such a pipeline should be very clear: decades long dependence of one billion Indians on Iran. Alternatively, India can continue to develop its coal reserves and expand coal power generation. This is a sound approach from an energy security perspective; however, India has been coming under global pressure – including that of the U.S. government - to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. India’s third option is to expand nuclear power development, in collaboration with the U.S. At this point, foot dragging in Delhi is delaying ratification of a nuclear agreement with the U.S. It appears that the Iranian option may hold sway. As the largest democracy in the world, India is a vital ally to the United States. Congress should explore all options – including encouraging India and Pakistan to pursue an alternative pipeline route from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan – to ensure that India does not tie its economic future to Iran.
Stripping oil of its strategic value
The unique strategic importance of oil to the modern economy—beyond that of any other commodity today—stems from the fact that the global economy’s very enabler, the transportation sector, is utterly dependent on it, with 220 million cars and trucks in the United States alone (today, contrary to popular belief, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, and conversely only about 2 percent of U.S. oil demand is due to electricity generation.) With 97 percent of U.S. transportation energy based on petroleum, oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy. America is poor in oil relative to its need. It consumes one of every four gallons in the world but has barely 3 percent of the world’s proven reserves of conventional oil. The United States now imports over 60 percent of its oil, more than twice the ratio of imports before the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo.
Neither efforts to expand petroleum supply nor those to crimp petroleum demand will be enough to reduce America’s strategic vulnerability anytime soon. When the British Navy made the shift from coal to oil, then Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill famously remarked, “safety and certainty in oil lies in variety and variety alone.” To diminish the strategic importance of oil to the international system it is now critical to expand the Churchillian doctrine beyond geographical variety to a variety of fuels and feedstocks.
Oil’s strategic value derives from its virtual monopoly on transportation fuel. This monopoly, which gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production, must be broken. Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them. Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines. Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes. We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not “salt independent”. But to most of us there is no “salt dependence” problem at all — because canning, electricity and refrigeration decisively ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance. We can and must do the same thing to oil.
17 X 17
Today’s vehicles have an average lifespan of 17 years and, for the most part, can run only on petroleum. Every year 17 million new cars roll onto America’s roads. For a cost of less than $100 extra as compared to a gasoline-only vehicle, automakers can make virtually any car a flex fuel vehicle, capable of running on any combination of gasoline and a variety of alcohols such as ethanol and methanol, made from a variety of feedstocks, from agricultural material, to waste, to coal. (Alcohol does not just mean ethanol, and ethanol does not just mean corn.) Flex fuel vehicles provide a platform on which fuels can compete and let consumers and the market choose the winning fuels and feedstocks based on economics. In Brazil, where ethanol is widely used, the share of flex fuel vehicles in new car sales rose from 4 percent to 67 percent in just three years, and this year stands at about 90 percent. These cars are manufactured by the same automakers that sell to the U.S. market and entail no size, power, or safety compromise by consumers. The proliferation of flex fuel vehicles in Brazil has driven fuel competition at the pump to the point where the Brazilian oil industry has had to keep gasoline prices sufficiently low to compete with ethanol in order not to lose more market share, so low that it actually just received a government subsidy to do so. Competition in Brazil is working so well that a big Brazilian sugar and ethanol firm just bought out the distribution assets of Exxon in Brazil.
Expanding U.S. fuel choice to include biofuels imported from developing countries has significant geopolitical benefits at a time when U.S. global standing is eroding. Sugar, from which ethanol can be cheaply and efficiently produced, is now grown in one hundred countries, many of which are poor and on the receiving end of U.S. development aid. Encouraging these countries to increase their output and become fuel suppliers, opening our fuel market to them by removing the protectionist 54 cent a gallon ethanol tariff, could have far-reaching implications for their economic development. By creating economic interdependence with biomass-producing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere, the United States can strengthen its position in the developing world and provide significant help in reducing poverty.
At this point, the fallacy that increased use of biofuels in general, and corn ethanol in particular, is driving world hunger must be addressed. The primary drivers of price increases for food commodities spanning the spectrum from fish to rice (neither of which are used to make fuel) and beyond are the massive increases in oil prices -- raising the cost of distribution, labor, packaging and so forth; commodity speculation driven by a weak dollar and increased calorie demand from hundreds of millions of people in China and India who have risen out of poverty and bare subsistence. Further, despite corn ethanol production, the U.S. corn food and feed product has increased 34 percent over the last five years, and U.S. food exports overall have increased 23 percent on the year. America is clearly doing its share to feed the world.
The International Energy Agency has reiterated that biofuels are key to keeping the lid on an overheated transportation fuel market. According to Merrill Lynch, without the increase in biofuels production, oil prices would have been 15 percent higher, which at current oil prices translates into a savings of over $80 billion a year to the U.S. economy. The much derided biofuels program which has facilitated this $80 billion saving, costs the taxpayer $4 billion a year. By any reasonable standard it is a far better deal to send money to America’s farmers than to various petro-dictators.
Since we hardly generate any electricity from oil, using electricity as a transportation fuel enables the full spectrum of electricity sources to compete with petroleum. Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) can reach oil economy levels of 100 miles per gallon of gasoline without compromising the size, safety, or power of a vehicle. The key is changing our thinking from miles per gallon to miles per gallon of oil-based fuel – it is not the total energy consumption of the vehicle which is the problem, it is the portion of that energy that comes from petroleum. If a PHEV is also a flexible-fuel vehicle powered by 85 percent alcohol and 15 percent gasoline, oil economy could reach over 500 miles per gallon of gasoline. Ideally, plug-in hybrids would be charged at night in home or apartment garages, when electric utilities have significant reserve capacity. The Department of Energy estimates that over 70 percent of the U.S. vehicle market could shift to plug-in hybrids without needing to install additional baseload electricity-generating capacity.
Thinking Out of the Barrel
A nationwide deployment of flex-fuel cars, flex fuel plug-in hybrids, and alternative fuels could take place within two decades. But such a transformation will not occur by itself. In a perfect world government would not need to intervene in the energy market, but in a time of war, the United States is taking an unacceptable risk by leaving the problem to be solved by the invisible hand. This is especially true since the energy market is anything but free. It is manipulated by a cartel, heavily rigged in favor of the status quo, and, as the case of the ethanol tariff shows, riddled with protectionism.
Every year that passes without Congressional action to ensure that new cars sold in America are flex fuel vehicles is another year in which 17 million gasoline-only cars start their 17-year life on U.S. roads, further binding us to foreign oil. On the grounds of national security and in the interest of stemming the hemorrhaging of our economy, Congress should take swift action to require that new vehicles sold in the United States are flexible fuel vehicles. Such an Open Fuel Standard would level the playing field and promote free competition among diverse energy suppliers. Choosing not to embrace an Open Fuel Standard, is choosing to preserve oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector, and with it OPEC’s growing stranglehold over the global economy.
Anne Korin is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) and editor of Energy Security. She is also chair of the Set America Free Coalition, an alliance of national security, environmental, labor and religious groups promoting ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Korin focuses on energy supply vulnerabilities, OPEC, Africa, maritime terrorism, energy security, energy strategies and technological innovation. She appears in the media frequently and has written articles for Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, The National Review, Commentary Magazine, and the Journal of International Security Affairs. Ms. Korin has advised myriad high tech companies, and has worked on a wide variety of projects for corporations including Exxon International (Esso,) KPMG, and Goldman Sachs. She appears frequently on Capitol Hill and her advice is sought by members of Congress. Her education includes engineering degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and work towards a doctorate at Stanford University.
Car bomb kills more than 50 people in Baghdad
By Qassim Abdul-Zahra – 52 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — A car bomb tore through a market area in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people and wounding dozens, officials said, the deadliest such attack in more than three months.
The attack occurred just before 6 p.m. as the market in the northwestern Hurriyah neighborhood was packed with shoppers preparing for their evening meals.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, which is known to use car bombs and suicide attacks...
...The casualty toll spiked to at least 51 people killed and 75 people wounded after rescue crews extinguished the blaze and found the bodies of dozens of victims who had been trapped inside or buried in the rubble, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information...
...The blast shattered the relative calm in the capital amid stepped up security measures. American commanders have consistently said they have al-Qaida in Iraq on the run but warned that the insurgents retain the ability to stage high-profile attacks...
...Tuesday's attack was the deadliest car bombing since March 6, when a twin bombing killed 68 people in a crowded shopping district in the central Baghdad district of Karradah.
Things are getting worse in the forgotten war. Read this also: Afghanistan
Pakistani tribes reach for guns after U.S. attack
By Khalid Nisar
Fri Jun 13, 8:52 AM ET
GHALANAI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fiercely independent tribesmen, angered by a U.S. air strike that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers this week, vowed to raise a militia to help Pakistan's army defend the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan, a staunch ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, denounced Tuesday's attack on a border post in the Mohmand tribal region as "unprovoked and cowardly" and said it could undermine the cooperation in the battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Elders from ethnic Pashtun tribes in Mohmand, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, issued a statement late on Thursday condemning the attack as "naked aggression" and said they were ready to raise a "lashkar," or army.
"It's the duty of the government to protect and defend the frontiers and we are ready to raise a lashkar to help our army in their cause," the elders said.
"We are ready to fight for our homeland as we fought in Kashmir in 1948," they said, referring to the first war between Pakistan and India, a year after their partition.
Chanting slogans of "Down with America" and "Down with Bush," about 250 activists of an Islamic group paraded on the roads of Ghalanai, Mohmand's main town, to protest against the attack.
"We should wage jihad (Muslim holy war) to teach a lesson to America for this aggression," imam of the main mosque of Ghalanai, Abdul Khaliq, told the crowd...
Guantanamo Inmates May Seek Release, High Court Says (Update3)
By Greg Stohr
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Guantanamo Bay inmates have constitutional rights and may seek release in federal court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a rebuke to the Bush administration and Congress on their handling of accused terrorists.
The justices, voting 5-4, said a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped Guantanamo prisoners of the right to file so-called habeas corpus petitions. The majority, pointing to the six years that some detainees have spent in captivity, said a system of limited judicial review set up by Congress didn't adequately protect inmate rights.
``The costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. ``The detainees in these cases are entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.''
The ruling bolsters the legal rights of the 270 inmates at Guantanamo's Camp Delta, set up in 2002 to detain accused al- Qaeda fighters captured after the Sept. 11 attacks. More broadly, the decision may mean a more powerful wartime role for the judiciary.
The decision may further delay the criminal trials of dozens of inmates. A lawyer for Salim Hamdan, a former driver to al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said he will seek dismissal of war- crimes charges against him.
Joining Kennedy's opinion were Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented...
