Pakistan Claims Headway In Their War Against Pakistani Militants

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Pakistan Claims Victory In Militant Stronghold -- Yahoo News/AP

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's army claimed Monday to have routed Taliban militants in a stronghold near the Afghan border but turned up no sign of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

The government ordered a halt to the operation to allow some of the 300,000 families who fled airstrikes and combat in the Bajur region to return home for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

However, officials reported that troops fired on militants seen moving toward a security post late Monday, and that stray mortar shells killed at least two civilians.

U.S. officials recently stepped up calls for Pakistan to put more pressure on militants using bases in its remote tribal areas to mount crossborder attacks also on NATO and government troops in Afghanistan.

Read more ....

More News On Pakistan

Military halts offensive in Pakistan for Ramadan -- Yahoo News/AP
Pakistan Halts Terror Fight For Ramadan -- CBS
Pakistan stops its offensives for Ramadan -- The Guardian
Shaky Ramadan Cease-fire in Pakistan -- The Media Line
Pakistani Taliban: Attacks Will Continue During Ramadan -- Voice Of America
Pakistan "missed chance" to catch al Qaeda deputy -- Reuters
US hits al Qaeda safe house in North Waziristan -- Long War Journal
Second Missile Strike On al-Qaeda In Pakistan In Two Days -- Strata-Sphere
Missile strike kills six in Miranshah -- Daily Times
6 Killed, 8 Injured In Missile Attack In N. Waziristan -- Pakistan News
10 killed in shelling in Pakistan's tribal area -- China View
Pakistani tribesmen organize private armies to fight Taliban -- CHristian Science Monitor
U.S. seeking more aggressive stance from Pakistan on insurgents -- Stars And Stripes
Pakistan: Banks directed to freeze Taliban accounts -- AKI-Adnkronos

My Comment: Its hard to claim success when most of the people who live in the region support the other side.

Vice President Cheney Going To Georgia

Vice President Dick Cheney

Cheney's Georgia Trip Brings Message To Russia
-- Yahoo News/Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, one of Moscow's harshest critics, will go to Georgia and other former Soviet states this week to reinforce U.S. support for allies in Russia's backyard.

Cheney leaves on Tuesday for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, his first visit to those countries as vice president. He then ends his weeklong trip in Italy.

The aim, analysts said, is to build morale and offer reassurance of U.S. commitment to the region after Russia crushed Georgia's military and declared two of its rebel regions as independent states.

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My Comment: I am curious if Vice President Cheney will be bringing something more than just words of reassurance that everything will be OK. Both Georgia and Ukraine are now looking for more significant signs of U.S. support .... in the form of support for NATO membership, and ..... I am sure that it will be discussed but it will not be publicized ..... military aid.

Russia Calls For An Arms Embargo On Georgia

Russia Suspects U.S. Included Arms With
Georgian Aid -- Houston Chronicle

MOSCOW — Russia warned the West today against supporting Georgia's leadership and called for an arms embargo against the ex-Soviet republic nation until a different government is in place.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks are likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He made it clear Moscow wants Saakashvili out of power in Georgia.

"If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions," he said.

"For a start it would be right to impose an embargo on weapons to this regime, until different authorities turn Georgia a normal state," he said in an address at Russia's top foreign policy graduate school.

Read more ....

My Comment: On the eve of a European meeting on the Russian invasion of Georgia, this is not the thing to say to the West. Russia has no interest in a political reconciliation, and are in fact now looking for a regime change in Georgia.

Iraq Takes Over Anbar From US Forces -- News Updates

Iraq Takes Over Anbar From US Forces -- Yahoo News/AFP

RAMADI, Iraq (AFP) - Iraqi forces Monday took over control of Anbar, once the most explosive battlefield in Iraq, from the US military, symbolising the growing security gains in the war-torn country.

The ceremony to transfer Anbar to local forces took place at the provincial governate building in Ramadi, the provincial capital.

It marks the handover of the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces and the first Sunni province to be returned to the control of the Iraqi government.

"I would like to announce that the (Anbar) transfer from the US to Iraqi forces is done," said Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor at the handover ceremony.

Read more ....

More News On Anbar

US military returns control of Anbar to Iraqis -- Yahoo News/AP
US Returns Control of Anbar to Iraq -- Time Magazine
Iraqi troops take control of Anbar province -- CNN
U.S. military returns control of Anbar to Iraqis -- International Herald Tribune
Iraq: Troops on alert for security transfer in Anbar -- AKI-Adnkronos
US transfers Anbar province to Iraqis -- The Telegraph
US Military Hands Control of Anbar to Iraqi Forces -- Voice Of America
U.S. military returns control of Anbar to Iraqis -- MSNBC
Incremental Anbar Drawdown Expected -- ABC News

My Comment: Over 1,000 U.S. troops were killed and thousands wounded in pacifying this province. After so much bloodshed there is now peace. This is an American military success story.

Ingushetia -- A Volatile And Violent Russian Province

WNU Editor: The murder of an Ingushetia website owner this weekend has focused attention on this part of the Caucasus. Adjacent to Chechnya, Ingushetia has been undergoing a low level insurgency campaign. When the decision was made to invade Georgia, many of the soldiers used came from this region. The following is a collection of stories that report on the violence that is ungoing in this province.

Kremlin Critic Shot In Ingushetia -- BBC News

The owner of an internet site critical of the Russian authorities in the volatile region of Ingushetia has been shot dead in police custody.

Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the ingushetiya.ru site, was a vocal critic of the region's administration.

The Russian prosecutor's office said an investigation into the death had been launched, Russia media report.

A post on Yevloyev's site says he was detained by police after landing at the airport of the main town, Nazran.

The website owner was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

Reports quoting local police said Yevloyev had tried to seize a policeman's gun when he was being led to a vehicle. A shot was fired and Yevloyev was injured in the head.

Read more ....

More News On Ingushetia

Russian Activist Shot Dead By Police -- Washington Post
Russian Police Arrest, Kill Owner of News Web Site -- Wall Street Journal
Kremlin critic shot dead in southern Russia -- CNN
A Journalist in Russia Is Shot Dead After Arrest -- New York Times
FACTBOX-Suspicious deaths of reporters in Russia -- Reuters
Ingushetia Protests Expected As Slain Opposition Figure Buried -- Turkish Weekly
Two police officers killed in southern Russia -- RIA Novosti
Bombs kill at least 2 Russian soldiers in Chechnya -- Washington Post
Kremlin recognition risks "domino effect" at home -- Reuters

My Comment: Russian soldiers cannot stay there forever. If a people want independence .... they will ultimately have it.

How To Fund Your War Machine

A Palestinian tunnel digger, wearing a mask to conceal his identity, removes sand in a bucket from a tunnel underground in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, in this file photo taken late Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007.

Hamas Making $20 Million A Month From Gaza
Smuggling Tunnels -- Haaretz

Arab sources report that Hamas recently laid a pipeline for supplying the blockaded Gaza Strip with fuel from Egypt.

In a move that indicates that Hamas is trying to place the smuggling operation between Egyptian and Palestinian Rafah on an official footing, the pipeline was laid in one of several tunnels dug specifically for this purpose.

At a conference last week in Rafah to discuss the smuggling tunnels phenomenon, Hamas government officials made it clear that they mean to prevent any new tunnels from operating, and to increase oversight of some 200 tunnels already in use. Hamas wants to thwart use of the tunnels for drug smuggling, and the exploitation of child labor in digging the tunnels.

Read more ....

My Comment: The Egyptians are turning a blind eye to this activity. If they wanted to put the "screws" to Hamas .... the best way would be to cut off their lifeline.

No Ramadan Truce In Pakistan

Pakistani Taliban were ready yesterday to execute two Afghans for their alleged spying for US forces and helping orchestrate a suspected US missile strike that killed 14 people last month. (Anwarullah Associated Press)

Taliban In Pakistan Rejects Offer For Ramadan Truce -- Daily Star

Pakistani Taliban will continue attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, rejecting a government announcement it would halt military actions in the northwest, a Taliban spokesman said Sunday. Violence has surged in Pakistan in recent weeks with the military battling Al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked fighters in three different parts of the northwest.

The militants have responded with suicide and remotely detonated bomb attacks on the security forces and civilian targets.

Deteriorating security has coincided with a faltering economy and political upheaval as the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf on August 18 was followed a week later by a split in the ruling coalition.

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My Comment: The Taliban in Pakistan are very confident that they will be able to defeat the military. They do not want the Pakistani military to take a break.

The Elections Are Coming. Is al-Qaeda?

From The Dallas Morning News (Opinion):

Four years ago, while working as a senior adviser in NATO’s Brussels headquarters, I got an up-close look at the way al-Qaeda’s best minds see Western elections. On March 11, 2004, Spain was rocked by perhaps the bloodiest terrorist attack in Europe since World War II, as bombs ripped apart commuter trains in Madrid, leaving nearly 2,000 Spaniards dead or injured — three days before the country went to the polls.

The incumbent party was promptly hurled out of office, and in Brussels, my colleagues and I watched as the Spanish mission began receiving drastically different instructions from Madrid. Overnight, a U.S. ally that had been an enthusiastic cheerleader for President Bush’s Iraq policies became one of Mr. Bush’s sharpest critics in the NATO alliance. A grieving Spanish electorate roundly rejected the war in Iraq, which it concluded had hurt Spain’s security, not enhanced it.

As someone who worked on terrorism issues for decades at the CIA and elsewhere, I found the most striking thing about the Madrid bombings to be the sophistication of the jihadists’ grasp of electoral timing. The bombers seemed to have been encouraged by al-Qaeda’s terrorist infrastructure in Iraq, which scoped out Spanish vulnerability weeks before the election, analyzed the fault line in the NATO alliance and concluded that a bloody blow could drive hawkish Spain out of the Iraq war coalition. That al-Qaeda in Iraq analysis was distributed on jihadist Web sites in December 2003, and their cohorts in Madrid took careful note.

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My Comment: I am sure that there are many in Al Qaeda who would love to see a terrorist strike in the U.S. days before its election. They know that this would have a major impact on how the vote will go, just as it did in Spain.

Just as the case was in 2004, security is going to be very tight for the next two months.

Russia Is Drawing The Line in The Sand

Red Square

Russia Announces ‘Spheres Of Interest’ -- Financial Times

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday announced Moscow’s intention to preserve geographical spheres “of privileged interest” on or near its borders as part of a five point foreign policy statement in a television interview.

The announcement, in the wake of the recent conflict in Georgia, is likely to raise the political temperature in neighbouring states, especially those with significant Russian minorities, as they try to gauge Russia’s appetite for future conflicts in the region.

He said that Russia would defend “the life and dignity” of Russian citizens “no matter where they are located”. He was referring to Russia’s intervention in Georgia with the declared aim of defending Russian citizens in South Ossetia against Georgian forces.

Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would provide aid – including military help – to the enclaves of South Ossetian and Abkhazia.

Read more ....

My Comment: Cannot say that I am surprised. Their annexation of parts of Georgia and their threats against countries like the Ukraine and the Baltics is a clear public statement of what are their intentions.

This announcement is not going to go well in Europe and in the former Republics of the Soviet Union. No one wants to be controlled and manipulated by an outside power.

War News, Blogs, Opinions, And Wire Service Roundup -- September 1, 2008

The USS Enterprise and USS Dwight David Eisenhower

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