Pakistani Taliban Vows White House Assault

Pakistani national flags placed over the coffins of police killed in Monday’s attack. (Emilio Morenatti / AP)

March 31, 2009

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would “amaze” the world.

Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday’s attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.

“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.

Mehsud has never been directly linked to any attacks outside Pakistan, but attacks blamed on his network of fighters have widened in scope and ambition in recent years. The threat comes days after President Barack Obama warned that al-Qaida is actively planning attacks on the United States from secret havens in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s former government and the CIA named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers.

In his latest comments, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets in an interview with local Dewa Radio, a copy of which was obtained by the AP. …

Political turmoil

Mehsud also claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed four soldiers Monday in Bannu district and a suicide attack targeting a police station in Islamabad last week that killed one officer. …

A senior police investigator in the Lahore case, Zulfikar Hameed, said some of the men arrested in Monday’s attack corroborated Mehsud’s claim. …

The gunmen who attacked the police academy killed seven police and two civilians, holding security forces at bay for about eight hours before being overpowered by Pakistani commandos. Some of the attackers wore police uniforms, and they took hostages and tossed grenades during the assault. …

The Pakistani Taliban has links with al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban militants who have launched attacks against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from a base in the border region between the two countries. …

Caught on TV

Monday’s highly coordinated attack highlighted that militants in the country pose a threat far outside the border region. It prompted Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s top civilian security official, to say that militant groups were “destabilizing the country.”

After gunmen stormed the academy, masses of security forces surrounded the compound, exchanging fire in televised scenes reminiscent of the militant siege in the Indian city of Mumbai in November and the attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team. …

4/1/09 Update

U.S. looks at Pakistani Taliban threat on Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters, Apr. 1) – U.S. officials are studying whether a Pakistani Taliban leader blamed for the assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto poses a credible threat to the United States, a top U.S. military official said on Wednesday. …

Suspected U.S. missile strike kills 12

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP, Apr. 1) – A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles Wednesday at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 12 people and wounding several others, officials said. …

Bombs rip through Afghan government office

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP, Apr. 1) – Three Taliban suicide bombers disguised in army uniforms stormed a government office in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday after a fourth detonated a car bomb, officials said. At least 17 people — including the four assailants — died. … The coordinated assault in Kandahar underscored a new tactic by Afghan militants to launch multidirectional attacks against government offices. It mirrored a February attack in Kabul, where militants assaulted three government buildings simultaneously, killing 20.

——

British Troops Begin Iraq Pullout

British and U.S. soldiers attend the handover ceremony of a British military base at Basra airport to U.S. forces on Tuesday. (Photo credit: Haider Al-assadee / EPA)

March 31, 2009

BAGHDAD – Britain turned over coalition command of the oil-rich south to the United States on Tuesday in the first step toward withdrawing virtually all British troops by July.

The pomp-filled ceremony marked the beginning of the end of an often-troubled British mission. The Iraqis have accused the British of merely standing by while Shiite militias wielded control of the country’s second-largest city of Basra for years.

However, U.S. and Iraqi commanders had nothing but praise Tuesday for Britain’s role as the second-largest contributor of troops since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. …

The British troops will be withdrawn in phases, with combat operations to finish at the end of May and all but about 400 troops withdrawn by the end of July. …

The Iraq war has been extremely unpopular in Britain, and the issue shadowed the final years of Tony Blair’s premiership.

At the height of combat operations in March and April 2003, Britain had 46,000 troops in Iraq. The British military has suffered 179 deaths since the war started. …

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Residents grieve over the body of a relative near a U.S. soldier standing guard outside a morgue in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, on March 30, 2009. A bomb attached to a bicycle killed three laborers and wounded eight others in Iraq’s volatile northern province of Diyala on Monday, police said. (Photo credit: Reuters / Helmiy al-Azawi)

Following are security developments in Iraq on Tuesday, March 31, as reported by Reuters.

BAGHDAD – A Sunni Arab official who looks after mosques was killed by a bomb planted under his car in northern Baghdad’s Adhamiya district, police said.

MOSUL – Attackers wounded three civilians when they hurled a hand grenade at a U.S. military patrol in central Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Seven people were killed, including four police officers, and 40 others wounded when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck into the compound of a police station in Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA – A sticky bomb attached to a car wounded three police officers in the city of Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A mortar round wounded three people in the Zaafaraniya district of southeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A mortar round wounded two people in eastern Baghdad, police said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Pentagon War Spending Hits $685.7 Billion

March 30, 2009 

WASHINGTON – Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to fight terrorism elsewhere has reached $685.7 billion since 2001, a U.S. government watchdog agency said on Monday.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said the Iraq war accounted for $533.5 billion in Defense Department spending obligations through last December, while spending on operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Philippines totaled $124.1 billion.

The remaining $28.1 billion was for operations to defend the U.S. mainland, the GAO said in a letter to Congress dated March 30.

The spending total equals about 85 percent of the $808 billion that Congress has appropriated for military operations in the global war on terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the GAO said.

The $122.3 billion difference reflects multiyear contracts for procurement, military construction, research, development and other programs, the watchdog agency said. …

Congress has appropriated $65.9 billion for 2009 so far and the Obama administration is seeking another $75.5 billion, suggesting $141.4 billion in total appropriations for the year, down from 2008. …

——

Conflict in Iraq video 

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

GAO: Iraq pullout ‘massive and expensive’ (NBC Nightly News, March 25) — A report by the Government Accountability Office says the U.S. pullout from Iraq will be a massive and expensive effort. NBC’s Steve Wende on the cost of packing people and equipment. (02:01)

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Monday, March 30, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAQUBA – A bomb attached to a bicycle killed three laborers and wounded eight others in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – A roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded two others, including a major, when it struck their patrol in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen in a moving car shot dead a civilian in western Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – A bomb targeting a police patrol killed one policeman and wounded four others in western Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen shot dead a senior official in the Mosul branch of Displacement and Migration Office and seriously wounded his aide as they left their office in northern Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD – A bomb attached to the car of an intelligence officer in the interior ministry killed him and another passenger and wounded eight passers-by on Sunday in Adhamiya district, northern Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen in a car shot dead Abdullah Al-Sebaawi, a local leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, on Sunday in the city of Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Gunfight Erupts as Iraqi Sunni Leader Arrested

Members of the Sahwa militia surrender to Iraqi troops in Baghdad’s Fadel district on Sunday, March 29, 2009. (Ali Yussef / AFP – Getty Images)

March 28, 2009  

BAGHDAD – Authorities arrested the local leader of a Sunni group that had broken with al-Qaida, sparking a gunfight Saturday in central Baghdad that killed four people and wounded 10, Iraqi officials said.

Adil al-Mashhadani, the head of an Awakening Council group, was detained Saturday along with an aide after a warrant was issued for his arrest, Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said.

The shooting started after Iraqi army and police units served the warrant in Fadhil, a Sunni enclave on the east bank of the Tigris River that was run by al-Qaida until U.S. and Iraqi soldiers regained control in 2007. …

How the Shiite-led government deals with the Sunni security volunteers, known variously as Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq, is widely seen as a test of its ability to win the loyalty of disaffected Sunnis — an essential step in forging a lasting peace in Iraq.

Reduction in violence

Fadhil resident Hazim Hussein said about a dozen vehicles loaded with police special commandos entered the neighborhood about 2:30 p.m. and headed toward al-Mashhadani’s home.

About a half hour later, as word of the arrest spread through the neighborhood, heavy gunfire broke out, sending residents fleeing the streets, Hussein said. Police reinforcements rushed to the area and shooting tapered off after about two hours, he said. …

The rise of the Awakening Councils is widely seen as a major contribution to the sharp reduction in violence following the U.S. troop surge of 2007.

Volunteer fighters, many of them ex-insurgents, man checkpoints, provide intelligence to Iraqi and U.S. forces and take part in joint security patrols.

But many Shiite politicians view the councils with deep suspicion, believing they switched sides for money and could turn their weapons against the majority Shiite community again someday.

On Saturday … leaders of several Awakening Council groups complained that the government has not paid them in months, with some threatening to quit a movement.

“We have not received our salaries in two months,” said Ahmed Suleiman al-Jubouri, a leader of a group that mans checkpoints in south Baghdad. “We will wait until the end of April, and if the government does not pay us our salaries, then we will abandon our work.”

Similar complaints were also raised by Sons of Iraq groups in Azamiyah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in north Baghdad, and in Diyala province near the capital.

“The fighters in Diyala haven’t been getting paid since three months ago,” said Khalid Khudhair al-Lehaibi, leader of the volunteers in the province. “We appeal the government to pay our salaries, and if they won’t, we will organize demonstrations and sit-ins in the province.” …

U.S. officials say the process has been slowed because the drop in world oil prices has cut deeply into the government’s revenues, prompting a freeze on army and police recruiting. …

——

UPDATE

Iraqi Troops Quell Baghdad Uprising

March 29, 2009

BAGHDAD – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces swept through a central Baghdad slum Sunday, disarming Sunnis from a government-allied paramilitary group to quell a two-day uprising launched to protest the arrest of their leader.

At least four people were killed and 21 wounded in the two days of fighting between government troops and the Awakening Council in Fadhil, a ramshackle warren of narrow, fetid streets on the east side of the Tigris River where al-Qaida once held sway.

The confrontation in Fadhil could be explosive if it leads to a split between the Shiite-led government and the Awakening Councils, made up of Sunnis who abandoned al-Qaida and joined forces with the Americans to fight the insurgents.

Distrust runs deep between the Shiite-led government and the Awakening Councils, which the U.S. calls Sons of Iraq, because many of them are ex-insurgents. There have been fears that some fighters may return to the insurgency if they feel threatened by the government.

Could undermine withdrawal plans

That could undermine U.S. plans to remove all combat troops from Baghdad and other cities by the end of June and end the U.S. combat role in Iraq by September 2010.

Members of the Fadhil council said Sunday they decided to give up the fight and hand over their weapons to spare the neighborhood, whose bullet-pocked buildings bore witness to intense combat there two years ago.

Most of the top council members fled the neighborhood as Iraqi troops searched house-to-house, according to residents who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety.

Nevertheless, a few fighters were still holding out. An Iraqi patrol, accompanied by an Associated Press photo and video team, came under heavy fire, sending them ducking for cover as bullets sheared off bits of mortar from the buildings lining the narrow alleyway.

Members of the councils maintain that they are being unfairly singled out and targeted by the Shiite-dominated security forces because they are Sunnis. But none of the past arrests drew the kind of explosive reaction that followed Saturday’s detention of Adel al-Mashhadani.

“In our view, all these arrests and assassinations … is part of Iran’s plan to dominate Iraq,” said Shogaa al-Aazami, commander of an Awakening Council in west Baghdad. “We think the arrests and the assassinations will continue.”

Clashes broke out Saturday

Clashes broke out Saturday when Iraqi troops seized al-Mashhadani, accusing him of terrorist activity and leading an armed group loyal to Saddam Hussein’s ousted party.

Awakening Council fighters, who a few days earlier had been manning security checkpoints, opened fire on Iraqi troops, setting off gunbattles that persisted into Sunday. U.S. soldiers rushed to support the Iraqis, and U.S. helicopters patrolled above the neighborhood, once notorious as the place where a U.S. contractor’s helicopter was shot down in January 2007.

“Why does al-Mashhadani become a terrorist when before they used to consider him a hero,” said a member of the Fadhil council, who gave his name only as Abu Abdullah. “We are not going to submit to any terms from the Americans or the Iraqi authorities since we are afraid that they will stab us in the back as they did to our leader.” …

Iraqi officials sought to dampen fears that the move was part of a plan to disband the Awakening Councils. A government adviser to the councils, Thamir al-Tamimi, told Al-Sharqiyah television that the crisis needed to be contained to avoid “pulling the Awakenings into confrontation with government forces.” …

Five Iraqi soldiers missing

Five Iraqi soldiers were missing after Saturday’s fighting and were presumed captured by Awakening Council fighters, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release the information. …

Roadside bomb blast

Also Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded near a security patrol in the southern city of Basra, killing one security guard and three civilians and wounded nine others, police said. Eight Iraqi policemen also were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayeb Taha said.

Analysis: Weekend uprising shows Iraqi tensions

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Sunday, March 29, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

QAIYARA – A car bomb in a market wounded 17 people in Qaiyara, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

BASRA – A roadside bomb killed five people and wounded nine when it targeted a patrol of oil installation police south of the city of Basra, 260 miles south of Baghdad, police said. The dead included one of the police officers.

KIRKUK – A roadside bomb wounded eight policemen when it exploded near their patrol in central Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA – A roadside bomb wounded police major Mohammed Jar, head of an emergency response unit, and six policemen when it targeted their patrol near the city of Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad, police said.

Following are security developments in Iraq on Saturday, March 28, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAGHDAD – Three people were killed in hours of clashes between Iraqi security forces and Sunni Arab neighborhood guards in Baghdad, and the guards captured five soldiers, medical and security sources said. At least 15 people were wounded in the clashes.

MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol wounded an officer in eastern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen wounded an off-duty policeman when they shot him in the streets of eastern Mosul, police said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

This post is guest hosted temporarily for St. Cloud Times blog poster Chad C.

Pay Attention to the people who predicted the crisis… not the ones who created it, and are now telling us they’ll fix it.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Touting Her Currency Conspiracy, Bachmann Insists: ‘This Is Not Michele Bachmann Being a Kook’

Rep. Michele Bachmann

By Ali Frick
Think Progress 
March 27, 2009

Earlier this week, right-wing fanatic Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) started peddling false conspiracy theories that the world was moving toward a unified global currency — and that the U.S. might join in as early as next week’s G-20 conference.

The myth was started when China’s central bank governor suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Though the suggestion has nothing to do with a unified global currency, Fox News’ Major Garrett decided to ask President Obama whether he supported the fictional prospect of such a move. (Obama, for the record, does not.)

Today on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Bachmann declared that the U.S. will soon be moving to “give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency.” Such action, she warned, would mean the U.S. as a country would be “no more”:

BACHMANN: As you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many nations have lined up now and have called for an international global currency, a One World currency and they want to get off of the dollar as the reserve currency.

BECK: Most people don’t understand, Michele, what that means.

BACHMANN: What that means is all of the countries in the world would have a single currency. We would give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency. … If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom. And then we are no more, as an exceptional nation, as we always have been. So this is imperative.

Bachmann claimed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he was “open” to the One World currency. (In reality, he only said he was open to changes in the IMF special drawing rights, and reaffirmed his commitmentto the dollar.) Beck warned that speaking out about the global currency gets one labeled a “kook,” but Bachmann brushed off such concerns, saying she’s been called that “throughout [her] political career”:

BACHMANN: Well, Glenn, I have experienced that throughout my political career, being labeled a kook. It just happened again in a big story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. But all we have to do is point to the treasury secretary on tape, on camera. This is not Michele Bachmann being a kook. This is our treasury secretary on tape and on camera.

Listen to it:

Updates:

• Bachmann has introduced legislation to prevent the hypothetical adaptation of a fictional global currency.
• “The falsehoods here are coming so fast and loosethat it’s hard to know where to start,” Matthew Yglesias writes, beginning a thorough debunk of the conspiracy theory: Keep in mind that these aren’t just two weirdos hiding out in a cabin somewhere. Beck has a show on a major cable news network and Bachmann has a seat in Congress.

Read comments

——   

THE FALLOUT

MSNBC “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann 

Commentary by Bill Prendergast on the Dump Bachmann Blog

If you only watch one Countdown segment on Bachmann, I recommend that it be this one.

Olbermann’s guest Jonathan Alter is an MSNBC analyst and Newsweek editor. He notes that she has “got a little problem with reality,” which is an understatement. But the real reason the discussion here is worth watching is because of what it points out about Bachmann’s latest rhetoric: it’s not about elections any more, it’s not about proceeding to change the government via constitutional or traditional political procedures.

It’s about revolution. Here is a US Congressional representative referring to extra-legal, non-constitutional methods to change the government and remove “Marxist” elected officials from power. …

That’s a very un-American way for an elected official to present a call for change. Elected officials are supposed to support the system of elections that brought them to power — not to call on Americans to ignore those results and “rise up.”

As the speakers point out in the clip: if you’re unhappy with the government, your option as a citizen is to work within the law and under the Constitution to change the government via the electoral process. Bachmann isn’t talking about doing that, she’s encouraging conservatives to doing something revolutionary now, without the consent of the governed.

I think Alter is wrong when he says that Bachmann doesn’t represent the GOP — for the simple reason that they haven’t chosen to rein her in or distance themselves from this apocalyptic rhetoric. I think the current GOP strategy is to let her go out on this limb and see if it works to rally their old base. If the calls for revolution play well and re-vitalize the old base, they won’t distance themselves from her. If her calls for revolution lead to violence or assassination attempts, they will.

My criticism of Olbermann and Alter’s remarks is that they both insist that Bachmann nearly lost her last election (in the wake of calling for an investigation of anti-Americans in government.) She did nearly lose; so what? How is that near-loss “progress” (as Alter claims) when an extremist is returned to office despite the efforts of people in all fifty states to remove that extremist from office?

Olbermann probably doesn’t know that this “extra-legal” stuff is not new to Bachmann. Back when she was in the Minnesota State Senate, she led rallies attended by thousands to oppose gay marriage. At that time she was on local radio urging the demonstrators to invade the offices of her elected colleagues and physically confront them. At one of the rallies she also urged the huge audience to enter the capitol to challenge their elected officials. We expect that kind of urging from radicals outside the government who don’t believe in American democracy and representative government — but this was a case where an elected member of the government was urging a mob to intimidate elected officials into compliance with her will.

That’s not something you do if you believe in elected government, democracy, or American freedom. That was an attempt to use a mob to coerce her elected colleagues in government. It demonstrated that Bachmann has no respect for constitutions or elections or the will of lawfully elected legislators — when things aren’t going her way.

Encouraging audiences to think that American elected officials are secret “Marxists” is not something new for Bachmann, either. Bachmann has in the past made similar charges against fellow Republicans, including Minnesota governor and potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, when she charged that his pet plan for the state’s economy was being formulated in accordance with the Marxist principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

And incredible as it may seem, when Bachmann entered the Minnesota State Senate as a Republican she charged that President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress were overseeing federal education laws designed to prepare America’s children for future servitude in a one-world, Soviet-style economy.

This stuff goes deep into Bachmann’s psyche. People who think that Bachmann is “just speaking metaphorically” with this extreme rhetoric are not familiar with her history or her long-term political strategy and thinking. She’s fishing for extremist action here — again. If things go bad (e.g., an assassination inspired by Bachmann’s call for “immediate action” and charges of un-Americanism and Marxism in government), she’ll back off and say she meant it all “metaphorically.”

But if conservatives and extremists rally to her without killing or hurting people, she’ll accept their support and keep talking about “armed and dangerous” [and] “rising up” so they’ll stay motivated, enraged, and frightened of their own elected government.

She’s demonstrating again that her support for American representative democracy is limited to when elections go the way she wants them to. She doesn’t want to wait for elections; she’s asking for “immediate” action. A very undesirable person to have in any government of free people.

But thank God that national media have actually started to pay attention to the wild-eyed calls for action and obscene charges that she’s been leveling on talk radio ever since she entered politics.

Commentary by Bill Prendergast on the Dump Bachmann Blog

I’m a little worried when I see a journalist like Matt Taibbi simply giggle about something Bachmann said, and dismiss it as the ravings of someone that might have been “huffing glue.”

I mean, in one way it’s good. On this blog we’ve been telling people for years that she’s a nut, even as local newspapers and the professional media continued to take her seriously, as if she were a rational responsible person worth listening to. We were gathering and reporting the significant evidence to the contrary — the evidence out of Bachmann’s own mouth, that indicate she was an extremist living off the map of honesty and reality and integrity.

At first no one paid much attention to us or believed us, and the local media continued to cover for her — reporting on B’s foster children and celebrity appearances with Jewel, publishing puff pieces that never mentioned her crazy political base and views.

We published that “evidence she’s nuts” stuff, but we weren’t vindicated for years — not until after the national press and media got one look at her and instantly recognized her for what she was: a nut, an extremist nut, a liar, and a bigot.

The clip here bugs me because people like Taibbi make the same mistake that many liberals here made when Michele started her political career: they think that because this person is saying something nuts, they can be dismissed/laughed off or laughed out of existence.

I can tell them from personal experience that that’s not so. Bachmann is currently representing (in the US Congress) many liberals who discounted her at the outset. They had contempt for her, pointing out the fact that she is much nuttier than the average Minnesota Republican — and to this day, nut that she is — she is in Washington, representing all those people who laughed at her ravings.

I don’t know what’s so funny about that; if you’re familiar with the deterioration of the economy in her district — it’s not very funny at all.

“The Young Turks” with Cenk Uygur

Cenk Uygur discusses Bachmann’s call to arms that she wants people in Minnesota “armed and dangerous” on the energy tax issue, that “having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,” and that the people ”are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.” 

Money quote: “To the good people of Minnesota…. This is an elected representative of the people of that district. You’ve got to be embarrassed, man. It’s your job in 2010 to pull her. This is an absolute debacle over here; she’s a train wreck — you’ve got to get her out of there. Get another Republican; do whatever you’re gonna if it’s a heavily Republican district, but you can’t have this woman embarrassing you in Congress every day.” 

——

UPDATES

Stephanie Zvan of the Quiche Moraine blog performs an exceptional excision of the lowlights of Bachmann’s first five months since reelection with surgical precision — and the extracts read more like a rap sheet than a resume.

The Civilianism blog, in an article titled “Something is Wrong with Michele Bachmann,” calls Bachmann “the lead conspiracy theorist in the U.S. Congress.” Bachmann is characterized as always having been flaky but becoming “completely irresponsible” of late and possibly having “some type of medical problem.” Bachmann’s call for the people of Minnesota to become “armed and dangerous” in opposing cap-and-trade policies and her “One-World currency” conspiracy theory are said to be “ridiculous and dishonest and deliberately misleading.” The writer concludes, “Bachmann is either incredibly dishonest or incredibly stupid. I don’t think she is stupid, which means she is being purposely dishonest and extraordinarily partisan, for no apparent reason. … What seems to be happening with Bachmann is that she takes standard Republican talking points … and embellishes them, exaggerates them, and adds her own crazy spin. The problem lately is that she is a growing embarrassment for the people of her state …”

Andrew Leonard, writing at Salon.com, notes: “Just because Michele Bachmann is crazy doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a right to be worried about the U.S. dollar.” … Unfortunately, Bachmann has the causation a bit bass-ackwards. The dollar will only be replaced if it turns out to be fundamentally unsound. That is, if the United States continues to mismanage its economy, the dollar will no longer be a safe place for other countries to invest their savings in, and they will look for another alternatives. …

——

CONSPIRACY SIDEBAR

Some think moon landing was faked

  ::  Read Comments (2)

Obama Unveils Afghanistan Plan

MSNBC

March 27, 2009

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday ordered 4,000 more military troops into Afghanistan, vowing to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” the terrorist al-Qaida network in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. …

Obama called the situation in the region “increasingly perilous” more than seven years after the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan.

“If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged,” Obama said, “that country will again be a base for terrorists.”

He announced the troop deployment, as well as plans to send hundreds of additional civilians to Afghanistan, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top intelligence and national security figures at his side. The announcement followed a policy review Obama launched not long after taking office. …

There are clear risks and costs to Obama’s strategy.

Violence is rising. The war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths rise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shifted their focus to a new front with the West. Obama’s plan will also cost many more billions of dollars.

And the president’s plan includes no timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

‘Disrupt, dismantle and defeat’

Obama bluntly warned that the al-Qaida terrorists who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were actively planning further attacks on the United States from safe havens in Pakistan. And he said the Afghanistan government is in peril of falling to the Islamic militants of the Taliban once again.

“So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,” the president said.

“That is the goal that must be achieved,” Obama added. “That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.” …

President: World safety at stake

Obama called the mountainous border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan “the most dangerous place in the world.”

“This is not simply an American problem — far from it,” Obama said. “It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan.” …

That strategy fits with Obama’s operating premise — that the U.S. failed mightily in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks by focusing on Iraq instead of Afghanistan. …

The U.S. will launch an intensive and expanded diplomatic effort to gain international cooperation, including reaching out to Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and even Iran.

The 4,000 military trainers that Obama is sending to Afghanistan will come from 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. …

——

IRAQ UPDATE

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq 

As of Friday, March 27, 2009, at least 4,262 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. …

The latest identifications reported by the military:

• Army Staff Sgt. Raphael A. Futrell, 26, Anderson, S.C., died March 25 in Baghdad from non-combat related injuries; assigned to the 13th Military Police Detachment, 728th Military Police Battalion, 8th Military Police Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, Fort Shafter, Hawaii.
• Sgt. Jose R. Escobedo Jr., 32, Albuquerque, N.M., died March 20 in Baghdad of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident the night before at Forward Operating Base Kalsu in Iskandariyah, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment in Schweinfurt, Germany. The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

Remember Their Sacrifice

Related links

Iraq Casualties

Afghanistan Casualties

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Friday, March 27, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

JALAWLA – Gunmen shot dead Sunni tribal leader Abdul-Kareem Juma and seriously wounded his son as they were leaving a mosque after finishing their night prayers in Jalawla, 70 miles northeast of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen wounded a liquor store owner and his son when they hurled a hand-grenade into his shop in central Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said.

SAMARRA – A bomb planted near a high-voltage tower wounded four electricity ministry personnel on Thursday in Samarra, 62 miles north of Baghdad, a statement from the ministry said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

For Troops in Iraq, Shower Still May Be Fatal

Pfc. Justin Shults shows some of the burn wounds he received after being electrocuted in a shower facility in Iraq, in this photo taken in January in San Antonio, Texas. Shults suffered third-degree burns on 13 percent of his body. He is suing contractor KBR Inc. for faulty wiring of the facility. (Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News via AP)

March 26, 2009

WASHINGTON – The military is racing to inspect more than 90,000 U.S.-run facilities across Iraq to reduce a deadly threat troops face far off the battlefield: electrocution or shock while showering or using appliances.

About one-third of the inspections so far have turned up major electrical problems, according to interviews and an internal military document obtained by The Associated Press. Half of the problems they found have since been fixed but about 65,000 facilities still need to be inspected, which could take the rest of this year. Senior Pentagon officials were on Capitol Hill this week for briefings on the findings.

The work assigned to Task Force SAFE, which oversees the inspections and repairs, is aimed at preventing deaths like that of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pittsburgh. He died in January 2008, one of at least three soldiers killed while showering since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

‘It’s Russian roulette’

Scores more soldiers suffered shocks between September 2006 and July 2008, according to a database maintained by KBR Inc., the Houston-based contractor that oversees maintenance at most U.S. facilities in Iraq.

“We got a ton of buildings we know probably aren’t safe and we just don’t have them done yet,” said Jim Childs, an electrician the task force hired to help with the inspections. “It’s Russian roulette. I cringe every time I hear of a shock.”

Ron Vance, who served as a sergeant in the California Army National Guard, remembers being knocked out cold in a shower building in 2004 in Taji, Iraq. He said he screamed and fell while showering, suffering burns on his back and shoulders. Another soldier who tried to pry him from the shower head also was injured. Vance, 57, of Fresno, Calif., said he’s still too traumatized to shower without his wife nearby. …

Last year, 94 troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan or other Central Command countries sought medical treatment for electric shock, according to Defense Department health data. KBR’s database lists 231 electric shock incidents in the more than 89,000 facilities the company runs in Iraq, according to military records. …

KBR is the target of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Maseth’s family. They claim the company knew there were electrical problems in the building where he died, but didn’t fix them. His mother testified last year on Capitol Hill. … Army investigators have since reclassified Maseth’s death as negligent homicide caused by KBR and two of its supervisors. …

KBR and another contractor, Arkel International, are the targets of a second lawsuit, filed by the family of another soldier electrocuted in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Christopher Lee Everett, 23, of Huntsville, Texas. Everett, a member of the Texas Army National Guard, was killed in September 2005 when the power washer he was using to clean a vehicle short-circuited. …

Related reports

Electric sacrifice in Iraq (Feb. 8, 2009)

Shoddy contracting kills troops (Nov. 25, 2008) 

4/8/09 Update

Team warns of ‘catastrophic’ wiring in Iraq

WASHINGTON (AP, April 8, 2009 ) – A military team sent to evaluate electrical problems at U.S. facilities in Iraq determined there was a high risk that flawed wiring could cause further “catastrophic results” — namely, the electrocutions of U.S. soldiers. …

9/8/09 Update

U.S. contractor electrocuted in shower in Iraq

Sept. 8, 2009

WASHINGTON – A State Department contractor apparently has been electrocuted while showering in Baghdad even as U.S. authorities in Iraq try to remedy wiring problems that have led to the deaths of American troops there.

The contractor, Adam Hermanson, 25, died Sept. 1, his wife, Janine, said Tuesday. She added that a military medical examiner told her that preliminary findings indicate her husband died from low voltage electrocution.

At least three troops have been electrocuted in the shower since the start of the Iraq War, while others have been electrocuted under other circumstances such as while operating a power washer. Inspections and repairs are under way at 90,000 U.S.-maintained structures there.

Hermanson grew up in San Diego and Las Vegas. He joined the military at age 17, and did three tours in Iraq with the Air Force before leaving at the rank of staff sergeant. He returned to Iraq as an employee of private contractor Triple Canopy, based in Herndon, Va. …

Besides three Iraq tours, Adam Hermanson served in Uzbekistan with the Air Force. His mother, Patricia Hermanson, 53, of Las Vegas, said everyone in her family was struggling to understand how he could survive four war tours, then die suddenly in a seemingly safe place.

“We all know that Adam was as strong as a tank,” his mother said. “He was in good health.”

In July, the Defense Department’s inspector general said that of the 18 electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq, eight involved possible equipment faults or malfunctioning that caused or contributed to the electrocutions. The accidental touching of live wires was blamed in about half the deaths.

——

Car Bomb Kills 20 in Baghdad

Policemen inspect the wreckage of a vehicle used in a car bomb attack in Baghdad on Thursday, March 18. The bomb in a crowded shopping district in north Baghdad killed at least 20 people and wounded 35 others, police say. (Photo credit: Mohammed Ameen / Reuters)

March 26, 2009 

BAGHDAD – A car bomb exploded near a crowded market in a mainly Shiite area in Baghdad on Thursday, killing as many as 20 people, Iraqi officials said, in the fifth major attack in Iraq this month.

The blast came a day after the U.S. military said overall attacks nationwide have fallen to levels of the early months of the war, which began with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

The car was parked near a bus terminal surrounded by shops in the eastern Shaab district when it blew up shortly after noon on Thursday, the officials said.

Iraqi police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information, said the 20 killed included four children and four women. The officials said 35 people also were wounded. …

Shaab is a former Shiite militia stronghold that has seen a sharp drop in violence since anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr declared a cease-fire amid a crackdown by the U.S. and Iraqi militaries.

But Baghdad and surrounding areas have seen a spike in bombings, raising concern that Sunni insurgents may be regrouping as the U.S. begins to hand over security responsibility to the Iraqis ahead of a planned American troop withdrawal by the end of 2011.

Thursday’s attack came three days after a suicide bomber struck a Kurdish funeral in the northern town of Jalula, killing 27 people. Another bombing on Monday killed eight people in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad.

Two separate suicide bombings targeting tribal leaders and Iraqi security forces earlier this month in Baghdad and in Abu Ghraib killed a total of 63 people.

A car bomb also tore through a livestock market in the Shiite city of Hillah on March 5, killing 13 people. …

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Thursday, March 26, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAGHDAD – A blast killed two people and wounded four in northern Baghdad’s Shaab district, police said. They did not know the cause of the blast and said the death toll may rise.

BAGHDAD – A bomb attached to the car of Qais Safaa, secretary to the justice minister, seriously wounded him on Wednesday in Haifa Street, central Baghdad, police said. Another passenger and two passers-by were also wounded in the blast.

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb wounded five civilians on Wednesday when it exploded near a U.S. military patrol in the Qahira district of northern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb wounded four civilians on Wednesday when it went off near a U.S. military patrol in Baghdad’s northern Adhamiya district, police said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

It’s Fear That Keeps Baghdad’s Peace

Iraqi kids sit outside their home in the Hurriyah neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 18. Eighteen months after the tide turned in Baghdad, only a small number of Iraqis who were displaced by the sectarian violence of 2006 and 2007 are coming back to their homes. (Photo credit: Dusan Vranic / AP)

March 25, 2009

BAGHDAD – The streets are calmer now. The fighting between Shiites and Sunnis has largely ceased. But this is not a sign of normalcy in the Iraqi capital. It’s fear that keeps the peace.

Only an estimated 16 percent of the mainly Sunni families forced by Shiite militiamen and death squads to flee their homes have dared to return.

It takes two sides to have a fight, and there’s really only one side left in Baghdad after violence and fear turned parts of neighborhoods into ghost towns. …

The findings — based on statistics obtained by The Associated Press from U.S. and Iraqi officials as well as AP interviews in key Baghdad neighborhoods in recent weeks — are acknowledged by U.S. military commanders on the ground. And they point to a troubling prospect.

Baghdad much calmer

Baghdad has been much calmer since the massacres reached their peak in late 2006 and the first half of 2007. … In the capital, however, the calm has been achieved in part because the city is now ethnically divided. Shiites predominate. Sunnis have largely fled.

The situation is somewhat similar to Bosnia after the war of the 1990s — years of calm but no lasting political reconciliation after its populations divided into different regions and governments.

“Baghdad has been turned from a mixed city, about half of its population Shiite and the other half Sunni in 2003, into a Shiite city where the Sunni population may be as little as 10 to 15 percent,” said Juan Cole, a prominent U.S. expert on Iraq.

No accurate census has been taken since the bloodletting. But Cole’s estimates, backed up by AP observations and U.S. statistics, hold troubling implications for the future should Sunnis come back in greater numbers. …

“Security is still fragile,” Abdul-Razzaq said. “I was forced to flee once, and it can happen again. Next time they may kill me.”

Ethnic divides remain

Most startlingly, the ethnic divides remain even though the Iraqi and U.S. militaries have driven Shiite militiamen and death squads off the streets. …

“The potential for renewed sectarian violence is definitely there,” said Capt. Nathan Williams, the U.S. military commander at Hurriyah, a northern Baghdad district that saw the worst sectarian bloodletting. “We believe if it restarts in Hurriyah, it will spread to the rest of the city.”

Even more remote is the hope of restoring Baghdad’s traditional character as a city where people can live together — though not always in harmony — regardless of faith or ethnicity.

Among the statistics obtained by the AP:

• Only an estimated 50,000 of 300,000 displaced families — or 16 percent — have returned to their Baghdad homes, according to the U.S. military. Most are believed to be Sunnis.
• In Hurriyah, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 families, most of them Sunnis, fled in 2006 and 2007. Of those, only 648 families — or 16 to 22 percent — have come back since September. …

Part of city emptied by violence

The violence has virtually emptied parts of the city, particularly on the mainly Sunni western side of the Tigris river. In Amiriyah, for example, 100 of the 252 Shiite families that fled are back. Roughly the same number of Shiite families, 250, fled Khadra, another western Baghdad area; only 70 have returned.

Baghdad’s sectarian violence began as early as 2003 but picked up dramatically after suspected Sunni militants blew up a revered Shiite shrine north of the city in 2006. At its peak, dozens of bodies, some decapitated or with execution-style gun wounds, turned up at outlying areas of the city or in the Tigris each day.

Shiite militiamen who led the attacks against the Sunnis are largely thought to have won the sectarian conflict in the capital. The Sunnis, who are generally better off economically than the Shiites, largely fled to Jordan or Syria. …

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

MOSUL – Three boys were killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military patrol in northern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

BAASHIQA – Police said they found the body of a man shot dead in the town of Baashiqa, 20 miles east of Mosul. 

MOSUL – Gunmen killed a policeman on Tuesday in central Mosul, police said.

KIRKUK – Gunmen shot dead a civilian on Tuesday in central Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police said. 

  ::  Read Comments (0)

On Saturday afternoon, March 21, 2009 Michele Bachmann said on WWTC 1280 AM radio that she wants people in Minnesota “armed and dangerous” on the issue of an energy tax, “because we need to fight back” and “having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.” Eric Ostermeier reported Bachmann’s remarks on “Smart Politics,” the blog of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, where it was picked up by other media outlets, as reported below. 

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) at the Sartell SummerFest Parade, Saturday, June 14, 2008, promising $2 gas with a “Drill Here, Drill Now” strategy of increasing the oil supply. (Photo credit: St. Cloud Times)

——

Michele Bachmann on DC: “I’m a Foreign Correspondent on Enemy Lines”

Posted by Eric Ostermeier 
March 22, 2009 11:04 PM
Smart Politics

During a Saturday afternoon interview on WWTC 1280 AM with The Northern Alliance’s John Hinderaker and Brian Ward, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann discussed her staunch opposition to several Democratic-led efforts on Capitol Hill this session – such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the recently passed HR 1586 tax on bonuses for TARP recipients, and President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan to reduce greenhouse gases.

Bachmann then began to talk about her role as Representative at the nation’s Capitol. Explaining the resources available at her U.S. House website which enable her to communicate what is happening in D.C. to the public, such as her Bachmann Bulletin, Bachmann Blog, and links to her Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages, the Congresswoman said, “I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.” …

[I]t was no accident for Representative Bachmann to conjure up images of war and battlelines in reference to Washington Democrats (instead of referring to them with the customary “loyal opposition” tag). For this was not the first time Bachmann referred to herself as a “foreign correspondent” nor her political opponents in D.C. as “enemies.”

During a January 14, 2009 interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, Representative Bachmann explained how she is one of only a handful of members of Congress who are “keepers of the flame” – fighting to prevent the federal government from taking freedom (and money) from the American people:

“I would say there are probably 30 keepers of the flame over here. …The main thing we can do right now is be foreign correspondents reporting to you from enemy lines.”

On the issue of Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade energy tax on Saturday’s radio show, Representative Bachmann expanded on the war metaphor:

“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.” …

——

Related report

Michele Bachmann: I Want People “Armed and Dangerous” over Obama Tax Plan

Rachel Weiner 
The Huffington Post
March 23, 2009

Controversial Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said this weekend that she wants residents of her state “armed and dangerous” over President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce global warming “because we need to fight back.”

Asked about the White House-backed cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, Bachmann told WWTC 1280 AM, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”

Bachmann also told her constituents she was “a foreign correspondent on enemy lines,” sending Minnesotans warnings through her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. “I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.”

The comments have been picked up by local blogs Smart Politics and Dump Bachmann.

Bachmann has encouraged resistance against President Obama before, saying that the Republican party needs “to do everything we can to thwart [the Democrats] at every turn to make sure that they aren’t able to, for all time, secure a power base that for all time can never be defeated.”

Listen:

——

The Fallout

On March 23, the Common Sense blog, linking to U.S. laws on treason, sedition, and subversive activities suggested that Rep. Bachmann’s incendiary rhetoric could “incite enough crazies that they may pose a serious threat” to the President of the United States and that the Secret Service might take a penetrating look at the congresswoman from Minnesota.

Also on March 23, Glenn Thrush, in a post titled “Bachmann urges ‘armed’ revolt over climate plan, reported in Politico that “Rep. Michele Bachmann, the firebrand Minnesota conservative Republican, may have gone a bit over the rhetorical line last weekend when attacking the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade proposal.”

As might be expected Bachmann’s remarks prompted outrage on Internet sites.

“Anna,” posting at Dump Bachmann on March 23 at 7:35 p.m., wrote:

“Other famous terrorist leaders have been known to call their terrorist cells to action through just such code speak and public broadcasts.

“A member of our own Congress is making treasonous speeches … this usually happens in banana republics, not the United States. We have a Democratic process, and she’s effectively calling for an overthrow and dictatorship.

“We have elected representation … these are not ‘the enemies’; they are the people we have chosen (including her) to represent us, elected by a democratic process.”

“OldLeatherneck,” posting on the same site on March 23 at 7:36 p.m., added:

“It is time for progressives to do more than just contact their local elected officials and complain. It is time to initiate formal complaints with the DOJ and FBI, as well as let the Republicans know what we feel about a representative of their party inciting violence and armed insurrection.”

The poster then goes on to provides contact information for the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party of Minnesota, and the Republican National Committee.

  ::  Read Comments (8)

Schools for Extremists Thrive in Pakistan

Pakistani religious students memorize the Quran, in Darul-Uloom Madina religious school in Bahawalpur, in southern Punjab, Pakistan on Friday. The school is run by al-Qaida linked terror network Jaish-e-Mohammed, which authorities say sends fighters to Afghanistan. (Photo credit: Khalid Tanveer / AP)

March 23, 2009

BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan – The compound bore no sign. Residents referred to it simply as the school for “jihadi fighters,” speaking in awe of the expensive horses stabled within its high walls — and the extremists who rode them bareback in the dusty fields around it.

In classrooms nearby, teachers drilled boys as young as 8 in an uncompromising brand of Islam that called for holy war against enemies of the faith. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Dar-ul-uloom Madina school, they rocked back and forth as they recited sections of the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

Both facilities are run by an al-Qaida-linked terror network, Jaish-e-Mohammed, in the heart of Pakistan, hundreds of miles from the Afghan border that is the global focus of the fight against terrorism. Their existence raises questions about the government’s pledge to crack down on terror groups accused of high-profile attacks in Pakistan and India, and ties to global terror plots.

Authorities say militant groups in Punjab are increasingly sending out fighters to Afghanistan and the border region, adding teeth to an insurgency spreading across Pakistan that has stirred fears about the country’s stability and the safety of its nuclear weapons. …

Pakistan has seen a string of attacks, including the ambush this month of Sri Lankan cricket players in the Punjab capital, Lahore, and a truce with extremists in Swat less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad, that have heightened alarm in Washington and other Western capitals that the country is slipping into chaos.

Jaish militants openly operate two imposing boarding schools in Bahawalpur, a dusty town of 500,000 people. Food, lodging and tuition are free for their 500 students, paid for by donations from sympathizers across the country.

A top police officer said the schools and other hard-line establishments in the area were used to recruit teens and young men for jihadi activities in Pakistan’s northwest or in Afghanistan. …

Last year, the governor of Pakistan’s border region warned that insurgent commanders and suicide bombers were increasingly coming from Punjab. Afghan police officers also say Punjabi fighters are becoming common there.

“Pakistani citizens, and especially Punjabis, are the Taliban trainers in the area for bomb-making,” said Asadullah Sherzad, police chief in Afghanistan’s insurgency-wracked Helmand province, adding there are around 100 Punjabis at any one time in that area of Afghanistan. …

Jaish is believed to have been formed in 2000 by hard-line cleric Masood Azhar after he was freed from an Indian prison in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight that landed in Taliban-controlled southern Afghanistan the same year. …

Jaish members and leaders are also suspected in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002, and in a bombing the same year in the city that killed 11 French engineers.

Jaish and other groups still recruit in villages in southern Punjab, according to the ex-Jaish member and another former militant who fought in Afghanistan.

The Usman-o-Ali school “requires each student to attend some sort of jihad training or practice each year,” the ex-Jaish operative said, adding that the hot months of June and July were the prime recruiting period.

——

Suicide Bomber Kills 23 at Iraqi Funeral 

March 23, 2009

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber struck a tent filled Monday with Kurdish funeral mourners, unleashing a huge fireball that killed at least 23 people in a northern town where Kurds and Arabs are competing for power. …

The provincial security office said 23 people were killed and 34 wounded in the suicide attack in the town of Jalula some 80 miles northeast of Baghdad. …

Karim Khudadat, whose father was being mourned, said he was receiving visitors when the bomber struck. …

Elsewhere, eight people were killed and 10 wounded in a bombing near a bus stop west of Baghdad, and a policeman died and eight people were wounded in a suicide blast at a market in the northern town of Tal Afar.

A series of high-profile bombings this month has raised concern that insurgents may be regrouping as the U.S. begins to scale down combat operations and hand over security responsibility to the Iraqis ahead of a planned American troop withdrawal by the end of 2011.

Rising tensions

The attack in Jalula was noteworthy because it points to rising tensions in the north between Kurds and Arabs over control of a swath of territory that the Kurds want to incorporate into their self-ruled region.

U.S. officials believe Kurdish-Arab tension is among the major flashpoint issues threatening Iraqi stability now that the threat posed by Sunni and Shiite insurgents has been diminished.

Last August a suicide bomber killed 25 people, mostly police volunteers, in Jalula, a predominantly Arab town where the Iraqi army forced out Kurdish fighters of the self-ruled Kurdish government last year after a standoff that U.S. officials feared would lead to armed conflict. …

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has complained that the 2005 constitution gives too much power to regional authorities, including the Kurds. Kurdish politicians have accused al-Maliki of wanting to expand his power at their expense.

Those differences could complicate efforts to resolve any of the issues involving the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s population.

Update: Iraq suicide bomber kills 25, wounds 45

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Monday, March 23, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

JALAWLA – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Kurdish funeral, killing 25 people and wounding 45 in Jalawla, 70 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A bomb at a bus terminal killed nine people and wounded 23 on Monday in Abu Ghraib, western Baghdad, police said.

TAL AFAR – A suicide bomber killed an off-duty policeman and wounded five civilians in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up near a police patrol, seriously wounding four policemen including a lieutenant colonel, in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two civilians, police said.

BAGHDAD – A bomb attached to a car wounded four people, including an official from the immigration and displacement ministry and a Danish national woman who was with him in his vehicle, police said two other policemen were wounded.

Following are security developments in Iraq on Sunday, March 22, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAQUBA – U.S. forces said they killed an armed man they said approached them with “hostile intent” in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb wounded four civilians on Saturday in eastern Baghdad’s Zayouna district, police said.

MOSUL – Police killed two militants in clashes on Saturday in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Police said they found the body of an Iraqi soldier on Saturday in southern Mosul.

Following are security developments in Iraq on Saturday, March 21, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

MOSUL – Iraqi police said they found the body of an ex-army officer dumped in central Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD – Two successive roadside bombs wounded three people including a policeman in central Baghdad on Friday, police said.

  ::  Read Comments (0)