Archive for September 28th, 2008
Syrian Mukhabarat Perhaps Responsible for Car-Bomb Attack
A car bomb, most likely a truck, exploded today in Syria on the highway leading to the Airport killing more than 17 and wounding many others. In the hours following the blast a media blitz came out of Damascus and Tehran accusing mainly (and automatically) Israel, but also hinting at “forces inside Lebanon in collaboration with regional powers -that would be the Saudis- aiming at harming Syrian national security.” Commentators backing the Syrian version, including on al Jazeera, hinted at Sunni militants as suspects as well. Interestingly a Syrian group in exile said it was an accident and the truck was prepared for an operation in the region, most likely in Iraq. But experts in Syrian intelligence support to Terror operations said it is less likely that a truck destined to Iraq -or even Lebanon- would be prepared as far as Damascus. It would be too far and too risky.
Counterterrorism Blog: Syrian Mukhabarat Perhaps Responsible for Today’s Car-Bomb Attack.
Eight Gate has an interesting post about precedent attacks. Some of them have been widely known, others have not:
But there have been a number of lesser profile attacks as well. In December 2005, security forces attacked a “takfiri cell” – a group that unilaterally declares other Muslims apostates. Members of such groups have been known to inflict their punishment by, among other things, strapping on explosive belts and walking into western hotels in the region.
(…)In May 2005, the Syrian authorities announced that it had broken up a “terrorist cell” in the Damascus neighborhood of Daf al-Shawq. As Syrian TV showed footage of the cell’s arms depot, the state announced that the cell was but part of a larger organization, the Munazama Jund al-Sham l’wahda wa jihad (The Soldiers of Damascus Organization for Unity and Jihad).
(…) In April 2004, Syrian authorities foiled an attack on an abandoned UN building in Mezzeh, a modern district of Damascus. According to Hamidi’s report, three of the four assailants had gone to Iraq to fight US forces in the days before Saddam’s fall. Many observers (including myself) and diplomats doubted the authenticity of the attacks (…).
Read it all, it’s worth your time.
The question in the end is: who did these attacks and why, what were the reasons behind them.
US House approves nuclear pact with India
The House voted overwhelmingly Saturday to approve a landmark pact that would allow the U.S. to provide nuclear materials to India.
The deal still faces obstacles in the Senate, making prospects uncertain for passage before President Bush leaves office in January. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a supporter, promised a Senate vote on the accord in the week ahead, possibly Monday.
Hoping to raise pressure on that chamber, Bush quickly issued a statement praising House passage and prodding the Senate to do the same thing.
“I urge the Senate to quickly take up and pass this important piece of legislation before their October adjournment,” the president said. “Signing this bipartisan bill will help strengthen our partnership with India.”
(…) India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, addressing the Indian community in New Yorkwhere he was attending the U.N. General Assembly, said “the journey President Bush and I embarked upon is nearing fruition.”
“India will be liberated from the constraints of technology denial of 34 years. It will add an important strategic pillar to our bilateral partnership. We will widen our clean energy options,” he said Saturday.
House approves nuclear pact with India – Yahoo! News.
An strategic pact considering that India is China’s neighbour…
Chavez says crisis-hit U.S. needs new constitution
Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday it was the capitalist system that had caused the financial crisis in the United States and the country should come up with a new constitution.
Speaking to reporters in Lisbon on the last leg of a tour that included visits to China and Russia, he said: “I think the United States should start a constituent process to create a constituent assembly, a new truly democratic model.”
A constituent assembly is a body elected to draft and sometimes adopt a new constitution.
“It was capitalism that caused the ruin” in the United States, said Chavez, who is one of Washington’s fiercest critics, calling the financial crunch “the worst financial crisis in history”.
Chavez says crisis-hit U.S. needs new constitution
| Markets
| Markets News
| Reuters
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Well, I’m sure US citizens don’t want Chávez to write a new constitution for them…
Chávez has also backed Sarkozy’s call for financial summit:
The Venezuelan president expressed his wish that the summit proposed by Sarkozy “not be confined to the Group of Eight (G8)”, which includes the seven richest countries in the world and Russia.
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What was doing an Iranian State’s cargo ship on Somali waters?
A tense standoff is underway in northeastern Somalia between pirates, Somali authorities, and Iran over a suspicious merchant vessel and its mysterious cargo. Hijacked late last month in the Gulf of Aden, the MV Iran Deyanat remains moored offshore in Somali waters and inaccessible for inspection. Its declared cargo consists of minerals and industrial products, however, Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist insurgents.
(…) The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates – 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. “Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died,” Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.
(…) The exact nature of the cargo remains a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. “We cannot inspect the cargo yet,” Osman said, “but we are sure that it is weapons.”
“Puntland requested the pirates two weeks ago to hand over this Iranian ship, saying that it is carrying weapons to Eritrea,” Puntland Fisheries Minister Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf told Reuters. “I have seen food and other odd items on the ship but I do not know what is hidden underneath.”
Mystery surrounds hijacked Iranian ship – The Long War Journal.
For once, it has been the Somali pirates the ones who have been struck with “severe shock”.
Anyway, I am shocked (as ever…) because this story is nowhere in the media… Looks like it hasn’t happened… at all.
Related news:
- Pirates “want $35m for Ukranian tank ship”. The ship was transporting tanks for Kenya. Russia has sent a warship to fight pirates. More information about this in Danger Room: “No one knows, definitively, where the shipment of T-72 tanks was supposed to go. Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency says it was bound for Kenya, which received 77 of the Ukrainian tanks last year. Andrew Mwangura, of the Mombasa, Kenya-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, seems less sure. He tells Reuters, “In the past, military equipment has come through Mombasa on its way to south Sudan, but we have not seen any south Sudanese officials at the port waiting. And anyway, there is an arms embargo for Sudan.” T-72 tanks have also been shipped to the Iraqi army, with American assistance.”
- Somalia: 160,000 people have left Mogadishu in 2008 as refugees.
IBA considers both Ukranian and Iranian are the same ship. I just don’t think so. The Ukranian has said what its load of cargo was since the first time. The Iranian crew didn’t tell what it actually contained (it was truly vague, “minerals and industrial products“): we only know the effects it caused on the people who went near it (“pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair“). And certainly those effects are not those of a simple “tank and weaponry”. Some people had died out of what they inhaled or touched there.
Last news are that Ukrainian ship is been taken into an Islamist-controlled area:
The Ukrainian cargo ship, whose shipment includes weaponry and tanks, kidnapped by Somali pirates last Thursday, was headed yesterday towards the town of Harardere, a zone controlled by Islamists, according to high-ranking official of the Puntland’s region.
“The pirates are headed towards the harbour of Hobyo and towards Haradhere. Apparently, they want to unload some light weapons there from the cargo ship“, Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade, the Presidency’s Councillor of Puntland’s autonomous government, told by phone from Mogadishu.
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