BAGHDAD — An Iraqi soldier sprayed gunfire at American troops guarding one of their commanders as he visited an Iraqi military base on Tuesday and killed two of them, the first U.S. servicemen to die since President Barack Obama declared an official end to combat operations in the country last week.

Even after the U.S. dramatically reduced the number of troops and rebranded its mission in Iraq, the attack was a reminder that Americans still have to defend themselves in a dangerous country where Iraqi forces only have a tenuous hold on security. Nine Americans were wounded in Tuesday’s shooting.

The attack also showed that even within the walls of U.S. and Iraqi military bases, American soldiers can still be drawn into fighting.

The American commander was meeting with Iraqi military personnel at the base near the city of Tuz Khormato, about 130 miles north of Baghdad.

The assailant opened fire after an argument and was killed in the shootout that followed, said the city’s police chief, Col. Hussein Rashid. He did not provide details on the nature of the argument.

“This is a tragic and cowardly act and is certainly not reflective of the Iraqi security forces,” said Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, the American commander in charge of U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

The U.S. military is investigating, and the soldiers’ names were being withheld until their families were notified.

The deaths raise to at least 4,418 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The American military has reduced its footprint in Iraq from a one-time high of 170,000 troops to just under 50,000 troops as of Aug. 31.

The remaining troops are tasked with training the Iraqi security forces, providing security for some State Department missions and assisting the Iraqi forces in hunting down insurgent groups.

But U.S. troops are still able to defend themselves and their bases and still come under attack.

On Sunday, American troops in eastern Baghdad helped Iraqi forces repel an assault on an Iraqi military headquarters in what was the first exchange of gunfire involving Americans since the August deadline.

In a statement posted on a militant website, the Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility for the hour-long assault Sunday on the headquarters of the Iraqi Army’s 11th Division. It was the second assault on the complex in less than a month and showed the challenges Iraqi security forces are facing after the U.S. change of mission

The Egyptian Newspaper Al Youm Al Sabeh reports: In a communication to the Attorney General of Egypt, Dr. Yasser Najib Abdel Mabboud, has accused Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and a candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections, of receiving funds exceeding $7 million (US) from Iran’s leadership as support for ‘political reform in Egypt’.

Abdul Mabboud , a candidate of the National Party and who like El Baradei is also running for the Egyptian Presidential election, was informed of the Iranian leadership’s willingness to support ElBaradei financially via an Arab businessman living in Europe. The check in the amount of $ 7 million is said to be meant to cover the financial costs of the election campaign and the activities of the Front for Change.

According to the Egyptian newspapder, a meeting between the Arab businessmen who is said to be close to El Baradei and who has only identified by the initials A. E. and Iranian official took place in a hotel in Bucharest, the capital Romania. After weeks of covert contact, the Iranian regime’s envoy apparently met with the businessman to complete a business deal. Reportedly the Iranian envoy told the businessman to convey to ElBaradei that he has Iran’s complete support. – Planet Iran

(H/T Weasel Zippers)

After Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to task for participating in peace talks with Israel, Abbas had a message for Iran: Butt out.

The Palestinian president went even further in a statement released by his spokesman, essentially calling Ahmadinejad an illegitimate leader who oppresses his own people.

“He who does not represent the Iranian people, who forged elections and who suppresses the Iranian people and stole the authority, is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of Palestine,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Saturday.

Iran supports Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. Abbas is part of the rival Palestinian faction Fatah, which controls the West Bank and has been more open to peace talks — and openly dismissive of Iran.

Abbas was in Washington last week to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, kicking off a U.S.-backed effort to jumpstart peace talks. They will meet for a second round of talks in Egypt on Sept. 14 and 15 and thereafter about every two weeks while lower-level negotiations continue on ironing out specifics of compromises that both sides will have to make.

Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-election as president last year sparked unrest in the country and then a crackdown, dismissed the peace talks, said Friday, “The fate of Palestine will be decided in Palestine and through resistance and not in Washington.”

Iran’s suspected nuclear ambitions have surfaced as a new motivating factor for a Mideast resolution. There have been growing Israeli warnings that the nation might take military steps to blunt Iran’s nuclear program, and even some of Israel’s Arab neighbors have shown concerns.

The Obama administration believes that a successful Mideast peace deal would limit Iran’s ability to use Mideast tensions to justify its behavior.

“I think that time is not on the side of either Israeli or Palestinian aspirations for security, peace and a state,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday. Iranian-sponsored “rejectionist ideology” and a “commitment to violence” by those opposed to peace make reaching an agreement quickly all the more necessary, she said.

“The United States,” Clinton added, “wants to weigh in on the side of leaders and people who see this as maybe the last chance for a very long time to resolve this.” – FOX News

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Iran is paying Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they kill in Afghanistan, according to a report in a British newspaper.

The Sunday Times described how a man it said was a “Taliban treasurer” had gone to collect $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul, a reward it said was for an attack in July which killed several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle.

The treasurer left with the cash hidden in a sack of flour, the newspaper said, and then gave it to Taliban fighters in the province of Wardak. In the past six months, the treasurer claimed to have collected more than $77,000 from the company.

The Sunday Times said its investigation had found that at least five Kabul-based Iranian companies were secretly passing funds to the Taliban.

The newspaper’s correspondent, Miles Amoore, said he met and interviewed the treasurer, who he said had been an illiterate farmer who was taught to read and write, plus basic accountancy, by the Taliban last winter.

“We don’t care who we get money from,” the treasurer was quoted as saying. He described the relationship with Iran as a “marriage of convenience.” Iran is a predominantly Shiite country, while the Taliban is dominated by Sunni Muslims.

‘For jihad’

“Iran will never stop funding us because Americans are dangerous for them as well. I think the hatred is the same from both us and Iran. The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad,” the treasurer told Amoore.

In addition to the $1,000 bounty on U.S. troops, the unnamed man said Iran paid $6,000 for the destruction of a U.S. military vehicle.

“I have to sign off on all the receipts and I have to add up how much each fighter deserves after each operation. I also have to communicate in the Iranian language,” the treasurer told the newspaper.

The report came as the Taliban threatened Sunday to derail elections this month and warned Afghans to boycott the vote in their first explicit threat against the poll.

The Sept. 18 parliamentary election is seen as a litmus test of stability in Afghanistan before U.S. President Barack Obama conducts a war strategy review in December that will examine the pace and scale of U.S. troop withdrawals from July 2011.

Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.

“This (election) is a foreign process for the sake of further occupation of Afghanistan and we are asking the Afghan nation to boycott it,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

“We are against it and will try with the best of our ability to block it. Our first targets will be the foreign forces and next the Afghan ones. So we are asking people to not take part,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Security is a major concern ahead of the vote, with four candidates killed already in recent weeks, according to the United Nations and government officials.

Another candidate was wounded, and 10 of his campaign workers killed, in an air strike in northern Takhar province on Friday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is investigating the incident but maintains it killed a senior member of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the air strike. – MSNBC

Soldiers Killed, 32 Wounded, in Car-Bomb Attack on Russian Base
September 5, 2010
FoxNews.com

At this point in history, any territory that has a name that ends in STAN is screwed up. What up with that? AfaghaniSTAN, PakiSTAN, et al.

A suicide car-bomber killed three soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a military base in Russia’s violence-plagued republic of Dagestan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack took place about 1 a.m. (2100 GMT Saturday) at the base in the city of Buinaksk, said Vyacheslav Gasanov, a spokesman for the republic’s Interior Ministry.

The driver of the explosives-laden small Zhiguli automobile smashed through a gate of the base and headed for an area where soldiers are quartered in tents, Gasanov said.

But soldiers opened fire on him before he reached the center of the base. Gasanov said, the driver rammed the car into a military truck where it exploded.

After the blast, a roadside bomb hit a car taking investigators to the scene, but there were no injuries reported in that explosion.

Dagestan’s president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, visited the scene of the attack and the wounded soldiers in the hospitals where they’re being treated.

“Today’s terrorist attack indicates that militants in the republic still have the power to conduct such treacherous attacks,” Magomedov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Despite “several successful” operations against the militants in the region, the country’s security services have to step up their efforts to fully stamp out the militants, he said.

Dagestan is gripped by near-daily violence between police and soldiers and insurgents believed to be inspired by separatists in neighboring Chechnya.

The attack came almost exactly 11 years after a car bomb outside an apartment building in Buinaksk housing the families of military officers killed 64 people.

The Sept. 4, 1999 attack was the first of four apartment bombings in Russia over a two-week period that killed a total of more than 290 people and that Russian officials cited as justification for launching the second war against Chechen rebels.

All the 1999 bombings were blamed on Chechen insurgents, who had recently launched an incursion into Dagestan to try to establish an Islamic state. But suspicions persist that the bombings were orchestrated by Russian officials to justify the beginning of that war. Former Federal Security Service agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was fatally poisoned with a radioactive substance in exile in Britain in 2006, co-authored a book making those allegations.

There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday’s bombings.

In Kabardino-Balkariya, another republic of the Caucasus region that includes Dagestan, a policeman was shot to death Sunday by a man whom he’d stopped for a document check, said a spokesman for the republic’s Interior Ministry, Alexander Korotkov.

With drug labs and supply routes under growing pressure, the insurgents have less than half the cash they had a year ago, said Major General Richard Mills, who leads coalition troops in Helmand province, the key poppy-growing region for the Taliban.

“We have intelligence that indicates to us he has a financial crisis on his hands, he has a cash flow problem,” Maj Gen Mills said of the Taliban.

Since a mostly American force pushed back the Taliban in the Marjah area of Helmand in February and targeted the militants’ opium “treasury,” the insurgents had less money to resupply fighters, buy explosives and attract new recruits, he said Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province.

“We believe that the local insurgency here within the province has less than one half of what they had last year in operating funds,” said Maj Gen Mills, citing “sensitive intelligence” reports.

His comments came as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, said a Nato airstrike killed campaign workers seeking votes in this month’s parliamentary elections. Nato had claimed the strike killed about a dozen insurgents.

A blight on the poppy harvest this year, along with efforts by local Afghan authorities to offer farmers alternative crops, had also helped undermine the Taliban’s opium profits, the general said.

He said coalition and local forces were making steady progress in Marjah and across Helmand province, and that the Afghan army and police soon could be ready to take over security duties in some districts.

“I do believe in the coming months ahead there will be areas in which we can turn over a significant portion of the security to them for their execution,” Mills said.

He cited the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, and Nawa and Garmshir as towns where Afghan forces could gradually take on more responsibility from foreign troops.

The allied strategy in the war hinges on building up Afghan army and police units so that they can take over from foreign troops, with President Barack Obama promising to begin pulling out some US forces by July 2011.

Violence has spiked in southern and eastern Afghanistan with US and coalition troops suffering record casualties over the summer.

A total of 326 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war in 2010, compared with 317 for all of 2009, according to statistics.

The number of international troops killed in Afghanistan so far in 2010 stands at 493, not far off the 2009 total of 521.

The commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has said coalition troops have seized the initiative against the Islamist insurgents. – Telegraph UK

An American Muslim organization is asking the U.S. Army to deny a Muslim soldier’s request for conscientious objector status, accusing him of treason and urging the military to punish him to the full extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Pfc. Naser Abdo, a 20-year-old infantryman who joined the Army one year ago, filed for conscientious objector status in June, saying his faith and the military don’t mix. “As a Muslim, we stand against injustice, we stand against discrimination, and I feel it’s my duty as an individual to do this,” Abdo told FoxNews.com.

The Army has deferred his scheduled deployment to Afghanistan.

But the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) says Abdo’s claim is “patently false.”

“Muslims serve with distinction throughout the United States Military and AIFD sees Abdo’s traitorous public assertions as a slap in the face to all American Muslims especially those Muslims who fight in our armed forces for the liberty and freedom guaranteed by the American Constitution,” the group said in a statement it issued on Friday.

Said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of AIFD: “Abdo’s actions are an affront to every American Muslim who has proudly donned a U.S. military uniform. His assertions are not built on Islamic teachings but on a feeble adherence to the global political ideology of Islamism that threatens our security and radicalizes our Muslim youth.”

Abdo said that in addition to conflicting with his religion beliefs, his military duties were also consuming every part of his day and interfering with his religious duties. “I knew that if I went to Afghanistan and, God forbid, something were to happen, that my faith was so weak that I wouldn’t be admitted into heaven,” he said.

But AIFD on Friday called Abdo’s claim a cowardly attempt to use his faith to make a political statement and said it belies the religious experience of the vast majority of Muslim-American troops who have found the time to perform their spiritual rituals.

“The Military has made the application for CO status extremely clear so that soldiers, sailors and marines can not abuse the system and run from their military responsibility,” said Jasser, a former lieutenant commander in the United States Navy.

Fort Campbell spokeswoman Kelly DeWitt said Abdo’s deployment had been deferred, but according to Army regulations he may be deployed to Afghanistan at any time like other members of his unit.

“The Army recognizes that even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical or religious beliefs may change over time,” an Army statement read. “The Army and Fort Campbell has procedures in place for soldiers who declare themselves to be conscientious objectors and who apply for conscientious objector status.”

AIFD says it hopes the military denies Abdo’s claim and punishes him to the full extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The group is also asking other American Muslim organizations to speak out and make it clear that no loyal American Muslim should ever seek CO status.

Abdo’s attorney, James Branum, says if Abdo’s claim is denied, he can re-file with new evidence, seek to take the matter to a federal civilian court, refuse to deploy or drop the matter altogether. He acknowledged that Abdo could go to jail if he refuses to obey orders to deploy.

“We’re trying to avoid that kind of showdown,” Branum told FoxNews.com. “At this moment, Abdo is in a place where he’s not going to violate his conscience.” – FOX News

PREVIOUS: Moronic Islamic Army Pfc. Should Have Thought Twice Before Enlisting; Send Him Over To The Dirt

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, a newspaper said on Friday.

Wilders’ Freedom Party scored the biggest gains in June 9 polls and is currently negotiating to form a new minority government with the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Polls show Wilders would win a new election if one were called now.

Wilders demanded to know why he had learnt about the threat from the newspaper and not from Dutch authorities who are guarding him after a film and remarks he made angered Muslims around the world.

De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, led its front page on Friday with a story on the speech by Feiz Muhammad.

The Sydney-born Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks.

The paper posted an English-language audio clip in which he refers to Wilders as “this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland” and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading.

De Telegraaf did not say when the speech was given but said it and the Dutch secret service both had copies. According to his website, Muhammad is based in Malaysia.

Wilders told Reuters it was “really terrible news” and that he was taking it seriously.

“I will ask for clarification from the Dutch minister of interior/justice why the secret service and anti-terrorism unit NCTb have not informed me before and what the consequences will be for me,” he said in an email.

A spokesman for the Dutch secret service referred inquiries on the threat to the NCTb. A spokeswoman for the NCTb was not available to comment.

Wilders is currently on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

The Freedom Party leader made a film in 2008 which accused the Koran of inciting violence and mixed images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Islamic holy book.

Wilders was also charged because of outspoken remarks in the media, such as an opinion piece in a Dutch daily in which he compared Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”

Of late he has been in the news for plans to speak out against a planned mosque in New York City on September 11, the ninth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But his views have also made him extremely popular with a segment of the country uneasy about the Netherlands’ commitment to multiculturalism.

(CNSNews.com) – Behind the polite talk at Thursday’s re-launch of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at the State Department was a deep gulf on what Israel calls a make-or-break issue – Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Addressing Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas directly in English, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu identified what he called “two pillars of peace that I think will enable us to resolve all the outstanding issues … legitimacy and security.”

“Just as you expect us to be ready to recognize a Palestinian state as the nation-state of the Palestinian people, we expect you to be prepared to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, adding that the more than one million non-Jews living in Israel enjoy full civil rights.

“I think this mutual recognition between us is indispensable to clarifying to our two people – our two peoples – that the conflict between us is over.”

Abbas’ response, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned the floor over to him minutes later, was that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had already recognized Israel – in September 1993, when his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had signed “a document of mutual recognition.”

“And in this document, we give enough to show that our intentions are good, our intentions with respect to recognizing the state of Israel,” he added, speaking in Arabic through a translator.

Left unsaid was the fact that neither in 1993 nor since then has the PLO agreed to recognize Israel specifically as a Jewish state.

On the contrary, Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected this Israeli requirement.

“Palestinians reject the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” PLO Executive Committee member Wassel Abu Yousef told reporters in Ramallah less than a fortnight ago, after Netanyahu told his cabinet that “recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people” was a necessary component of a peaceful settlement to the conflict.

At a landmark convention in Bethlehem last year, Abbas’ Fatah faction of the PLO adopted a platform rejecting recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

It linked the stance to the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees who left present-day Israel in 1948 and their descendants, now 4.7 million in number, according to the U.N. (Israel’s total population is 7.5 million, 1.5 million of whom are Arabs.)

Asked at a press briefing Thursday about the Jewish state dispute, U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell acknowledged that differences between the sides were “many,” “deep” and “serious” and that both sides would need to be willing to make “difficult concessions.”

But he said he believed Netanyahu and Abbas were “committed to doing what it takes to achieve the right result.”

PLO positions

As the talks began in Washington Thursday, back in the region the PLO released a statement through its news agency Wafa outlining its vision for a peace agreement.

On the issues which repeatedly have proven to be stumbling blocks over the years since the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, the PLO stance was clear:

– There could be no viable Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital, it said, claiming that the city had been the Palestinians’ political, administrative, cultural and religious center “for centuries.”

– The borders of a Palestinian state must be those that were in place before the 1967 Six Day War, it said – Gaza, all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians would have to have control over airspace and territorial waters “with no residual Israeli presence or control,” and there would also have to be a “territorial link” between the West Bank and Gaza.

– Israeli settlements in the West Bank “pose the single greatest threat to a viable two-state solution, and hence, to a just and lasting peace.”

– All Palestinian refugees must have “the right to return to their homes,” and to choose how to exercise that right, the PLO document said.

Neither those stances, nor Israel’s rejection of them, have changed substantively over the years since 1993.

What has changed is that Abbas goes into the talks with much weaker support among Palestinians than his predecessor, a reality underlined by a protest rally in Ramallah on Wednesday and a terrorist press conference in Gaza City on Thursday.

At the rally, leaders of the Palestinian National Initiative, a left-leaning movement, said Abbas was going into the talks without the support of confidence of the Palestinian people

The Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that hundreds of protestors chanted slogans including, in reference to Abbas, “President of Palestine, we are not with you.”

Among other things, Abbas’ legitimacy is frequently called into question by Palestinian critics who note his presidential term formally ended in January 2009.

At the time he argued that Palestinian law called for presidential and legislative elections to be held simultaneously, so he was entitled to extend his tenure until legislative polls, due in January 2010. But those elections were postponed because of the ongoing rift between Fatah and Hamas.

Hamas has controlled Gaza since seizing control in mid-2007, leaving Abbas’ authority limited to the West Bank.

‘Resistance’ to continue

In Gaza Thursday, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told a press conference Abbas does not represent the Palestinian people and has no mandate to negotiate on their behalf.

He also said “resistance” operations will continue in the West Bank.

A man identified as Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ “military wing,” said 13 armed groups have now agreed to cooperate in carrying out more effective attacks against “the Zionist enemy.”

Hamas has claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks in the disputed territory in recent days – the killing of four Israelis in a shooting near Hebron on Tuesday and the wounding of another two Israelis in a similar incident near Ramallah on Wednesday.

Another terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad, praised the attacks on Thursday and called for more. The group’s leader, Khaled Al-Batsh, said in Gaza the negotiations with Israel must stop, Ma’an reported.

Abbas’ security forces reportedly rounded up hundreds of Islamists in the West Bank after the deadly Hebron shooting. Hamas issued a statement calling the arrests “a national crime.”

The next set of Netanyahu-Abbas talks has been scheduled for Sept. 14-15, “in the region” – reportedly Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – and Clinton and Mitchell are due to take part.

Mitchell said Thursday the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have also agreed to meet every two weeks over the coming months, with U.S. representatives attending at least some of those meetings.

Denver (AP) – A chaplain killed in Afghanistan this week was the first Army clergyman killed in action since the Vietnam War, the military said Thursday.

Capt. Dale Goetz of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colo., was among five soldiers killed by an improvised bomb on Monday.

Before Goetz, the last Army chaplain to die in action was Phillip Nichols, who was killed by a concealed enemy explosive in Vietnam in October of 1970, said Chaplain Carleton Birch, a spokesman for the Army chief of chaplains.

The Air Force said none of its chaplains were killed later than 1970. A spokesman for the Navy Chaplain Corps, which also provides clergy to the Marines, didn’t immediately return a phone call.

Goetz, 43, listed his hometown as White, S.D. He once served there as pastor of First Baptist Church, the Argus-Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D., reported. Goetz, his wife and their three sons recently joined High Country Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, where Fort Carson is located, the newspaper reported.

A church spokeswoman referred questions to the Army on Thursday, and Army officials declined to comment, citing the family’s wishes.

Officials said Goetz had hitched a ride on a resupply convoy when he was killed.

Birch said chaplains are considered noncombatants and don’t carry weapons, but they are accompanied by a chaplain’s assistant, a soldier who is armed.

A chaplain’s assistant, Staff Sgt. Christopher Stout of Worthville, Ky., was killed in Afghanistan in July, Birch said.

Chaplains don’t go on combat patrols but do go onto battlefields to conduct services and counsel soldiers, Birch said.

“Many of those places where they travel are very dangerous,” he said.

Army chaplains go through their own training, which includes combat survival skills, Birch said. They don’t go through the same training that enlisted personnel or officers do.

Birch said commanders in Afghanistan would decide whether chaplains’ procedures will be reviewed or revised after Goetz’s death.

“Traveling in a war zone is very risky business …. Chaplains will continue to go where soldiers are on the battlefield to minister to their soldiers,” Birch said.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Two Yemeni men arrested on arrival from the United States on suspicion they may have been conducting a dry run for an airline terror attack were released without charge Wednesday after investigations turned up no evidence to link them to a terror plot, Dutch prosecutors said.

The national prosecutor’s office said in a statement on its website that because of the lack of evidence “there is no reason to hold the men any longer.”

Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi and Hezam al-Murisi were arrested by airport police Monday in Amsterdam on a United Airlines flight from Chicago following a request from U.S. law enforcement officials.

The whereabouts of the two men following their release was not immediately known. Their lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Prosecutors said an initial test by U.S. authorities on an item of luggage belonging to one of the men “showed the possible presence of a trace of explosives.” However “more accurate” later tests did not reveal any signs of explosive material, the they said.

“Investigations in the U.S. and the Netherlands have shown that there is no longer any indication of any possible involvement of the men in any crime,” the prosecution statement said.

The arrests came just days before the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. U.S. officials have also been concerned about Americans traveling to Yemen to join Al Qaeda.

Al-Soofi’s Dutch lawyer Wouter Hendrickx told The Associated Press before news of the release broke that al-Soofi insists he is innocent.

“He says ‘I have no connections to terrorist activities whatsoever,”‘ Hendrickx said.

Hendrickx said al-Soofi was on his way to Yemen to visit his family when he was detained.

In a statement, the Yemeni Embassy said some media coverage of the arrests highlighted “an unfortunate, yet ongoing misunderstanding of Yemen and its citizens.”

“It is important to emphasize that Yemen is a victim of terrorism as well, with Al Qaeda operatives having killed over fifty Yemenis in the past three months,” spokesman Mohammed Albasha said.

Al-Soofi and al-Murisi missed flights to Washington Dulles International Airport from Chicago, and United Airlines then booked them on the same flight to Amsterdam, a U.S. government official said. The men were sitting near each other on the flight, but not together.

Al-Soofi also raised suspicions in the United States on Sunday because he was carrying $7,000 in cash. An inspection of his checked luggage uncovered a cell phone taped to a small bottle, multiple cell phones and watches taped together, and a knife and box cutter, according to a U.S. official who had been briefed on the investigation.

None of the checked items violated U.S. security rules, so authorities allowed al-Soofi to fly. But his bags later were transferred to another flight and were not on the flight to Amsterdam, Dutch prosecutors said.

Al-Soofi and al-Murisi changed their travel plans at the last minute and took a direct flight to Amsterdam, raising suspicion among U.S. officials.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department confirmed that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies found no links to terrorism, but said “we will continue to pursue any and all leads in this matter.”

“This incident illustrates how airport security protocols, law enforcement cooperation, and prompt international information sharing allows us to respond quickly to potential threats,” it said in a statement.

A senior Swedish prosecutor is reopening a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – the latest twist to a case in which prosecutors of different ranks have overruled each other.

The case was dropped by a Stockholm prosecutor last week who said there was nothing suggesting Assange had raped a Swedish woman who reported him to police.

The woman’s lawyer appealed the decision and Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny on Wednesday decided to reopen the case.

Ny also said that another complaint against Assange should be investigated on suspicion of “sexual coercion and sexual molestation.”

That overruled a previous decision to only investigate the case as “molestation,” which is not a sex offense under Swedish law.

Leif Silbersky, a lawyer for Mr Assange, said was questioned by police in Stockholm for about an hour late Monday and was formally informed of the suspicions against him.

Mr Silbersky his client denies the allegations and is hopeful the prosecutor will drop the case.

Police started investigating Mr Assange earlier this month after two Swedish women accused him of rape and molestation, but the prosecutor later closed the rape investigation.

Molestation is not a sex crime under Swedish law, but covers offenses such as reckless conduct or inappropriate physical contact. It can result in fines or up to one year in prison. – Telegraph UK

Tony Blair: I did not understand Islam at time of 9/11 attacks.
The September 11 attacks represented the declaration of war by a new type of enemy, Tony Blair says.
telegraph.co.uk
August 31, 2010

The second plane hits the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

He claims that he quickly realised the implications of the suicide bombers crashing aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, having heard the news while preparing to deliver a speech to the TUC in Brighton.

Mr Blair says he understood the new war was ideological, but admits that at the time he did not fully understand the history of Islam. He admits he underestimated the “hold of this extremism”.

But he insists he followed his instinct and convictions, and would not have changed his decisions on Iraq or Afghanistan even if he had known the length of the campaign.

“To try to escape conflict would have been a grave mistake, political cowardice.”

Mr Blair also discloses that he once came close to authorising the shooting down of a commercial flight heading to London, after it lost radio contact.

But after the deadline passed he decided to hold fire, and once the pilot re-established contact he had to sit down and thank the heavens.

Palestinian kills 4 Israelis on eve of peace talks
by Mark Lavie (AP) The Drudge Report
August 31, 2010

a href=”http://www.chandlerswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Car-driven-by-four-Israelis-murdered-by-degenerate-Hamas-Islamic-terrorists.jpg”>Israeli policemen gather at a site of a shooting attack near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arbah, Tuesday, …

JERUSALEM – Palestinian gunmen opened fire Tuesday on an Israeli car in the West Bank and killed four passengers on the eve of a new round of Mideast peace talks in Washington. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

One of the victims was pregnant, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Israel’s national rescue service said the victims were two men and two women, and Israeli media said everyone in the car was killed.

Video broadcast live on Israel TV late Tuesday showed a white Subaru station wagon standing at an angle at the side of a road, its windows shot out and its doors dotted with bullet holes. The car was flanked by army and police vehicles and dozens of soldiers.

The attackers fled and Israeli forces set up roadblocks and carried out searches to try to catch them.

About 3,000 people joined a rally in Gaza to celebrate the attack. Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida was among them and told The Associated Press: “The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron.”

Upon arriving in Washington for this week’s talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and said “terror will not determine Israel’s borders or the future of the settlements.” Borders and the fate of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future state are key issues in the negotiations.

President Barack Obama hopes to forge a peace agreement within one year.

Tampa, Florida — An incident aboard a United Airlines flight to Tampa resulted in nine foreign-born people being removed from the airplane and left several passengers shaken. In fact, several thought the incident was serious enough that they asked to be booked on another flight.

At least 15 passengers who arrived in Tampa Monday on a United flight were supposed to be here Sunday night. However, the incident involving the nine men changed everything.

John Luke, who was on the flight, says the nine men were seated throughout the airplane. Luke says he was told the men were of Pakistani descent and one man made a comment that apparently was “inappropriate” and made a flight attendant feel uncomfortable.

United Airlines spokesperson Megan McCarthy says at that point, the gate agent had a conversation with the men and they were asked to depart. But that’s not how Luke and other passengers saw it.

Luke says the fact that the men knew each other caused concern and police came on with their hands on their guns. Then, according to Luke, the police started escorting the men off the plane.

Despite all of the security measures the TSA and the airlines have taken since 9/11, Luke says after seeing federal agents get on the airplane with guns and take the men off, he and several other passengers decided not to take any chances.

Luke says he was just using common sense and it made him feel more comfortable taking another flight.

United Airlines says it eventually became comfortable the men did not pose a threat and they were rebooked on another United flight.

While the “better safe than sorry” action is getting praise from passengers, it also is a reminder of the fact that things are still a little edgy when getting on a plane in this post 9/11 world.

Saddest thing is the only people who will believe and accept this bullshit reasoning are at the top of command in the DOJ and the DHS.

ABC News – A Detroit family says their cousin is one of the two men questioned by the FBI on Monday after they were found with a knife, a box cutter and a cell phone taped to a Pepto Bismol bottle in their luggage.

Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi was questioned in Birmingham, Alabama boarding a plane en route to Chicago. In Chicago, Soofi was scheduled to fly from there to Washington, D.C., and then to Amsterdam — but raised red flags among security when he requested a direct flight to Amsterdam.

One of al Soofi’s cousins, who did not give his name, told WXYZ that Soofi had recently moved from Monroe, Mich., to Alabama.

“He’s a great guy,” the man said at his Southwest Detroit home, adding that it wasn’t unusual for al Soofi to tape things together when he travels. “It’s a misunderstanding. He doesn’t know how to speak English, type in a computer or use e-mails or whatever.”

“Our blood’s mixed with this country, and we never, ever thought to do something bad to this country,” the man told WXYZ.

Another cousin, Omar Sufi, also told the New York Times that it was usual for al Soofi to travel with items taped together.

The New York Times, August 30: Omar Sufi of Detroit, who said he was a cousin of the passenger who boarded in Alabama, said his relative’s actions did not sound unusual. He said that his cousin had most likely been trying to take medication and phones back to his family, and that it was common to bind together items meant for the same recipient. “This is our culture,” he said. He described his cousin as “a nice guy” who worked as a cashier in Alabama and spoke little English.

The other man questioned was Hezam al Murisi, who also requested a direct flight to Amsterdam from Chicago.

In Amsterdam, security has increased at the city’s main airport since failed terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded a flight there scheduled to land at Detroit Metro Airport.

Two men taken off a Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight in the Netherlands have been charged by Dutch police with “preparation of a terrorist attack,” U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.

U.S. officials said the two appeared to be travelling with what were termed “mock bombs” in their luggage. “This was almost certainly a dry run, a test,” said one senior law enforcement official.

A spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor, Ernst Koelman, confirmed the two men were arrested this morning and said “the investigation is ongoing.” He said the arrests were made “at the request of American authorities.”

The two were allowed to board the flight at O’Hare airport last night despite security concerns surrounding one of them, the officials said.

The men were identified as Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, of Detroit, MI, and Hezem al Murisi, the officials said. A neighbor of al Soofi told ABC News he is from Yemen.

Airport security screeners in Birmingham, Alabama first stopped al Soofi and referred him to additional screening because of what officials said was his “bulky clothing.”

In addition, officials said, al Soofi was found to be carrying $7,000 in cash and a check of his luggage found a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter and three large knives. Officials said there was no indication of explosives and he and his luggage were cleared for the flight from Birmingham to Chicago O’Hare.

Once in Chicago, officials say they learned al Soofi checked his luggage on a flight to Washington’s Dulles airport for connections on flights to Dubai and then Yemen, even though he did not board the flight himself.

Instead, officials say, al Soofi was joined by the second man, Al Murisi, and boarded the United flight from Chicago to Amsterdam.

When Customs and Border officials learned al Soofi was not on the flight from Dulles to Dubai, the plane was ordered to return to the gate so his luggage could be removed. Officials said additional screening found no evidence of explosives.

The two men were detained by Dutch authorities when the United flight landed in Amsterdam, according to the officials. – ABC News Exclusive

As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.

The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion.

The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

In 2007 and 2008, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

“Relative to the size of the economy, this year’s deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years; 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeded only by last year’s deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP,” CBO wrote.

The CBO figures show that the most expensive year of the Iraq war was in 2008, the year when the surge proposed by Gen. David Petraeus and approved by President Bush was in full swing and the turning point in the war. The total cost of Iraq operations in 2008 was $140 billion. In 2007, the cost of Iraq operations was $124 billion.

According to an analysis by the American Thinker’s Randall Hoven, the cost of the Iraq war from 2003-2008 — when Bush was in office — was $20 billion less than the cost of education spending and less than a quarter of the cost of Medicare spending during that same period. – FOX News

The last U.S. combat forces exit Iraq this week. The argument over Iraq is still nowhere near finished.

The costs of the Iraq war are evident to all. Now consider an alternative universe, with different choices –and weigh those costs.

As president, George Bush assessed his options in 2002, oil prices averaged less than $23 a barrel. These low prices had squeezed Iraq’s income and therefore Saddam Hussein’s power.

But war or no war, the price of oil would zoom upward in the 2000s. China had more than 90 times as many cars on the road in 2010 as in 1990. Chinese oil imports grew 7.5% a year, Indian oil imports only slightly less fast. Soaring oil demand from China and India pushed prices higher and higher: averaging $28 a barrel in 2003, $38 in 2004, $50 in 2005, $64 in 2007 and $91 in 2008. A surviving Saddam would have been a wealthy Saddam.

Not only wealthy, but empowered. The international sanctions regime had collapsed in the late 1990s, freeing Saddam to import more or less what he wished, potentially including the instrumentalities of war.

As we now know, Saddam Hussein had not in fact succeeded in reconstituting his nuclear program as of 2003. But Saddam did try twice before to gain a nuclear weapon: He had a program in the 1970s that was wrecked by Israeli airstrike in 1981, and then a second program in the 1980s that was discovered by UN arms inspectors after the First Gulf War.

It seems incredible that a Saddam still in power in the 2000s, unconstrained by sanctions and enriched by Chinese and Indian oil money, would not have tried a third time. Even if Saddam had not sought to build a nuclear bomb, an additional $100 billion or so in annual oil revenues would still have paid for a lot of mischief in the Middle East.

Would Saddam have competed with Iran to fund Hamas? Would he have made common cause with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to support anti-government insurgents in Colombia? Would Iraq have offered haven to al-Qaeda terrorists escaping Afghanistan?

A Saddam-ruled Iraq would not have been a quiet or comfortable place. And when the regime finally did end, it would have ended violently. When the U.S.-led coalition overthrew Saddam, violence erupted between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, leading to an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths. Does anybody imagine that things would have gone better if the regime had ended instead with a Saddam assassination or heart attack?

Blame the Americans, if you like, for not having a better plan ready to contain the violence. But it was not the United States that caused the violence, much less the United States that committed the violence.

Now Iraq is finding its way to stability. For all the country’s many problems, it has an elected government and an effective post-Saddam security force. Would this have happened in the absence of international forces? Or would Iraq have looked like Lebanon between 1975 and 1991, a cauldron of sectarian violence for a generation, with casualties of many multiples of 100,000? Again: We cannot know, but the ugly scenarios are the most plausible.

With hindsight, everybody would fight the Iraq war differently. That is always true for any war. But it should also be true that with hindsight, some war critics should rethink their criticism. The outcome the critics wanted — a long-term stable future for Iraq without the cost and trauma of international intervention — was as much a fantasy as hopes for a swift and easy transition to democracy.

Iraq was on its way to an explosion in 2002. The U.S.-led intervention brought that explosion forward in time, and exposed Americans and allies to the shrapnel wounds. But the intervention may also have accelerated Iraq’s post-Saddam stabilization — opening the way to internal reconciliation and Iraq’s return to the community of nations.

Critics of the Iraq war often compare it to Vietnam. I wonder if the better comparison is not Korea: a war that once looked like a pointless stalemate, but that gained a strategic rationale as South Korea grew into a wealthy democracy. I remember a conversation I had with an American officer when I visited Iraq in 2005.

“What do you hope to achieve here?” I asked. “I mean, you personally?”

He answered: “Someday I’d like to bring my kids to visit a successful Iraq and tell them, ‘I made this possible.’” It’s early yet for this officer to begin planning his return trip. But comparing Iraq today to Iraq then — that trip has come a lot closer. – Frum Forum

KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults before dawn Saturday on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.

The raids appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban’s southern birthplace of Kandahar.

Also Saturday, three more American service members were killed — two in a bombing in the south and the third in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. command said. That brought to 38 the number of U.S. troops killed this month — well below last month’s figure of 66.

The militant assault in the border province of Khost began about 4 a.m. when dozens of insurgents stormed Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, according to NATO and Afghan police.

Two attackers managed to breach the wire protecting Salerno but were killed before they could advance far onto the base, NATO said. Twenty-one attackers were killed — 15 at Salerno and six at Chapman — and five were captured, it said.

Three more insurgents, including a commander, were killed in an airstrike as they fled the area, NATO said.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in the fighting. Four U.S. troops were wounded, NATO officials said.

U.S. and Afghan officials blamed the attack on the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida. Camp Chapman was the scene of the Dec. 30 suicide attack that killed the seven CIA employees.

Afghan police said about 50 insurgents took part in the twin assaults. After being driven away from the bases, the insurgents approached the nearby offices of the governor and provincial police headquarters but were also scattered, said Khost provincial police Chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai.

“Given the size of the enemy’s force, this could have been a major catastrophe for Khost. Luckily we prevented it,” he said.

Small-arms fire continued through the morning, while NATO helicopters patrolled overhead. The dead were wearing U.S. Army uniforms, which can be easily purchased in shops in Kabul and other cities, possibly pilfered from military warehouses.

The twin attacks appeared to be part of a growing pattern of insurgent assaults far from the southern battlefields of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, which have been the main focus of the U.S. military campaign. Last December, President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, most to the Kandahar area where the Islamist movement was organized in the mid-1990s.

On Saturday, a candidate running for a seat in parliament from Herat province in northwestern Afghanistan was shot and killed on his way to a mosque, said Lal Mohammad Omarzai, deputy governor of Shindand district. He said two men on a motorbike opened fire on Abdul Manan, a candidate in the September balloting. He later died of his wounds.

Late Friday, insurgents stormed a police checkpoint in Takhar province near the northern border with Tajikistan. The Interior Ministry said nine insurgents were killed and 12 wounded with no losses on the government side. The day before, Taliban fighters killed eight Afghan policemen in a raid on a checkpoint outside the northern city of Kunduz.

And on Wednesday, an Afghan police driver with family links to the Taliban killed three Spaniards — two police trainers and their interpreter — at a training center in the northern province of Badghis.

A joint NATO-Afghan investigative team found the shooter, whose brother-in-law is a Taliban commander, had been arrested and disarmed a year ago for links to insurgents but was reinstated after two local elders vouched for him, NATO said in a statement Saturday.

Although the Afghan capital is relatively secure, incidents apparently directed at female students have raised concern about Taliban intimidation within the city.

The Health Ministry said 48 pupils and teachers at the Zabihullah Esmati High School were rushed to hospitals Saturday after falling ill with breathing problems and nausea. All but nine were treated and released after blood samples were taken to try to determine the cause.

On Wednesday, dozens of students and teachers at another Kabul girls’ school became sick when an unknown gas spread through classrooms, education officials said. The cause of that incident has not been determined, but officials fear the apparent poisonings could be part of an insurgent campaign to frighten girls from attending school.

Also Saturday, the government criticized U.S. media reports that alleged numerous Afghan officials had received payments from the CIA. A presidential office statement did not address or deny any specific allegations, but called the reports an insult to the government and an attempt to defame people within it.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the CIA had been paying Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for Afghanistan’s National Security Council, who was arrested last month as part of an investigation into corruption. The Washington Post reported the next day the agency was making payments to a large number of officials in President Hamid Karzai’s administration.

“Afghanistan believes that making such allegations will not strengthen the alliance against terrorism and will not strengthen an Afghanistan based on the law and rules, but will have negative effects in those areas,” the statement by Karzai’s office said, without commenting on the substance of the reports.

“We strongly condemn such irresponsible allegations which just create doubt and defame responsible people of this country,” it said.

Meanwhile, NATO issued a statement saying coalition helicopter pilots were not responsible for the deaths of three Afghan policemen killed Aug. 20 in what had been considered a friendly fire incident in Jowzjan province’s Darzab district.

It said the helicopters showed up hours after fighting began and it was possible the three had been killed earlier.

All Afghan forces had also been ordered to remain inside compounds at the time the two helicopters fired a missile and 80 30-millimeter rounds at an insurgent firing position, NATO said.