Thursday 23 February

PALESTINIAN FIGHTERS TRACKED DOWN, TRAPPED AND KILLED

FIVE PALESTINIANS KILLED AS ISRAELI MILITARY OPERATION CONTINUES

ISRAELI FORCES SHOOT MEDICAL WORKERS

The Israeli military operation “Northern Glory” continued on Thursday when Balata was reinvaded at 1:30am.

Five local Palestinians were killed and many more injured during the day.

19 year old Ibrahim Saadi was shot dead while throwing a stone at the Israeli armored jeeps in the Odakhiya neighbourhood. Israeli newspaper ‘Ha’aretz’ reported that Ibrahim was throwing a firebomb – this is not true.

20 year old Naim Abu Sharif was shot dead by a sniper while standing on the roof of his house.
balatacamp.net

“The children seem to be the most openly enthused. They are getting a chance at a future the likes of which would never have been possible under the oppressive regime…”
April 22, 2003, Marine Corps News, Story by Staff Sgt. Bryan P. Reed
marchforjustice.com

…”Next to the SEX PISTOLS rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain,” the statement read. “Your museum. Urine in wine. Were (sic) not coming. Were (sic) not your monkey and so what?”

The statement slammed Hall of Fame voters as “music industry people,” and excoriated the high price of attending the exclusive event — $25,000 for a table, “or $15,000 to squeak up in the gallery.”

It concluded, “Your (sic) not paying attention. Outside the shit-stem is a real SEX PISTOL.”
hollywoodreporter

God Save the Queen!

By Christian Science Monitor
02/24/06 “CSM” — — NEW YORK As the economy has steadily grown over the past four years, so too has the number of Americans going hungry.

America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest charitable food distribution network, is now providing help to more than 25 million people, an 8 percent increase over 2001, the last time the organization did a major survey of its more than 200 food banks in all 50 states.

That increase in the number of people who are hungry or “food insecure” – Washington bureaucratese for “not sure where their next meal will come from” – is reflected in data collected by the US Department of Agriculture as well. In 2005, it found more than 38 million Americans lived in “hungry or food insecure” households, an increase of 5 million since 2000.

“Even though individuals may have a job, they still are having a hard time making ends meet,” says Maura Daly, a spokeswoman for Second Harvest, which is based in Chicago. “We find many people have to make choices between food and other basic necessities like paying for utilities and heat.”
informationclearinghouse.info

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) – Haitian president-elect Rene Preval said on Wednesday that exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his former mentor, was entitled under Haiti’s constitution to return to the Caribbean country.

But Preval, who has been told directly by Washington that it opposes the deposed president’s return, said the decision should be made by Aristide himself.

The future of Aristide, a hero to the poor ousted by an armed revolt two years ago who now says he wants to go home as soon as he can, is a critical issue for Preval as he attempts to stabilize his violent nation.

Washington, which backed the departure of the firebrand former Roman Catholic priest from Haiti in February 2004, repeated its opposition to his return on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters in Washington: “It is probably not a good idea, it does not serve a useful purpose.”
news.yahoo.com

The United States of America is seriously considering the establishment of a military base in Ghana for the sole purpose of protecting its access to West African oil reports the Insight newspaper

Marine General James L. Jones, Head of the US European Command, who made the disclosure said the Pentagon was seeking to acquire access to two kinds of bases in Senegal, Ghana, Mali and Kenya and other African Countries.

The new US strategy based on the conclusions of May 2001 report of the President’s National Energy Policy Development group chaired by Vice President Richard Cheney and known as the Cheney report.

The report simply says that African Countries provided 14 per cent of total US oil imports but by 2015, West Africa alone will supply25 per cent of America’s imported oil.

An article published in review of African Political Economy (No98: 573-584) says “ of particular significance is the fact that many West African streams are lighter, higher valued crude oils that are tailored made for the US East Coast market and are able to offer an alternative to Middle eastern supplies.”

“ In its efforts to promote greater diversity in oil supplies, the Bush Administration is focusing its attention on six African countries, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Chad and Equatorial Guinea.”
ghanaweb.com

ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Christian youths burnt the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 138 people across the country in five days.

Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with cutlasses, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where at least 85 people have died.

“We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson,” said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them.

Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security services overnight, residents said.

Uncertainty over the political future is aggravating regional, ethnic and religious rivalries in Africa’s most populous nation. Militants in the oil-producing south have waged a three-month campaign of attacks and kidnappings against the oil industry, which has cut exports and driven up world prices.

There was no fighting in Onitsha on Thursday morning but Emeka Umeh, of human rights group the Civil Liberties Organisation, called it “the peace of the graveyard”.

Some corpses were still lying on the streets and hundreds of Muslim men, women and children fled the city crammed into open-top trucks for fear of more killings. Thousands more were hiding in army barracks and police stations.

Umeh said most of the 85 bodies his group counted were Hausa, but some Ibo were killed too. The Hausa are the main ethnic group in northern Nigeria and most are Muslim, while the Ibo are dominant in the southeast and almost all are Christian.

Nigeria’s 140 million people are divided about equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, but sizeable religious minorities live in both regions.

Elections are due in 2007 and many Nigerians believe President Olusegun Obasanjo will try to stay on after eight years in power. The prospect angers those who feel the time has come for their ethnic or regional group to get the top job.

Also at stake in 2007 are the positions of many of the 36 powerful state governors. In some states, rivalries for those jobs are further raising tensions.
reuters.co.uk

It is a measure of the degree of violence that seven American soldiers were killed by bombs on Wednesday in the separate struggle between the resistance and the US occupation. Although the presence of 130,000 American troops is justified by saying that they are preventing a civil war, it is not clear what they can do to prevent it happening.

Two days of bloodshed

WEDNESDAY 22 FEBRUARY

Dawn attack destroys the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam. No one is injured but violent protests soon break out.

* More than 50 Sunni mosques attacked in Baghdad alone.

* In Basra, protesters set fire to Sunni shrine containing the remains of one of Mohamed’s companions. Sunni cleric is shot dead in the afternoon.

* 11pm: Eleven prisoners taken from a jail in Basra by unidentified gunmen and shot in the head.

THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY

9am: Bodies of three al-Arabiya journalists sent to cover the Samarra bombing found dumped.

* 10am: 47 people dragged from their cars and shot while returning from a protest against the Samarra bombing north of Baghdad.

* Iraqi President Jalal Talabani summons political leaders to a meeting but the biggest Sunni faction, the Iraqi Accordance Front, refuses to attend.

* Numerous bodies, many with their hands tied, found in east Baghdad and Basra. Most victims are Sunnis.

* As night falls, more than 130 people are believed to have been killed.

The reaction worldwide

“They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice. These passive activities are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President

“This bombing is intended to create civil strife… [it was] an evil act. I appreciate very much the leaders from all aspects of Iraqi society that have stood up and urged for there to be calm. The destruction of a holy site is a political act intending to create strife.”
President George Bush

“There is not yet information about what caused this terrorist outrage, but [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida have been linked as it has the hallmarks of their nihilism.”
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary

“I tell the Americans, the Zionists and the criminals who committed the crime in Samarra that all your aims will fail. I tell them that this nation will not be torn apart… It will not fall for the tricks of the occupiers.”
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s Hizbollah chief

“We want a clear condemnation from the government which didn’t do enough to curb those angry mobs. There was even co-operation with the government in attacking the Sunni mosques.”
Salman al-Jumaili, Sunni politician in Iraq
independent.co.uk

JERUSALEM, Feb. 23 — Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian gunmen and two civilians in heavy fighting Thursday in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian hospital officials and the Israeli military said. Two Israeli soldiers and 22 Palestinians were wounded in the gun battles, which unfolded in stages throughout the day.

The clashes were some of the most intense since Israel and a dozen armed Palestinian groups agreed a year ago to abide by a cease-fire. They reflect intensifying Israeli military operations in the West Bank in recent days, particularly in the volatile north.

The fighting Thursday occurred in the Balata refugee camp on the city’s edge, witnesses and Israeli military officials said. The military has been operating for several days in the camp, a stronghold of the most potent Palestinian armed groups.

“We had a lot of alerts about terror attacks against civilians and soldiers that were coming from Nablus,” an Israeli military official said, adding that four explosive belts had been seized at a military checkpoint outside the city in recent days. “That basically caused us to decide that we had to operate more in the area.”
washingtonpost.com

Analysis: IDF operation comes as Fatah returns to terror in Nablus
The IDF’s Northern Glory operation in Nablus was born of the Palestinian parliamentary elections. But it didn’t take place as described by Hamas leaders, who view it as Israeli provocation aimed at embarrassing the PA government-designate. There are different reasons.

The declaration of calm in the territories in January 2005 involved two senior partners: Hamas, which forced members to abstain from terror attacks, and the Palestinian Authority, which bought off the heads of Fatah gangs with salaries and perks that removed them from the terror cycle. But since the elections, senior PA security personnel have lost the incentive to act, and left the arena open to Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus. Fed by Iranian money, Jihad headquarters are transferring greater sums into the territories to operate as many cells
as possible in order to carry out attacks against Israel.

Local Fatah leaders, some of whom have lost routine financial support from the security forces, are returning to terror given the incentive from Damascus. This is particularly true in Nablus, which had been dominated by Fatah military organizations over the past two years.
In the month since the PA elections, the IDF has seized four explosive belts that Fatah and Jihad members were trying to smuggle into Israel. In addition, a Jihad terrorist blew himself up in a restaurant at Tel Aviv’s old bus station. The IDF has begun to fear that the West Bank’s two terror hubs, Jenin and Tul Karm, are acquiring a third sister – Nablus.

Operation commander Yuval Bazak told Haaretz that the IDF came to the conclusion that defensive moves are no longer enough. “Like in tennis, when your opponent gets more aggressive, ground strokes aren’t enough any more.”

Israeli security officials assess that 2006 is the “target year” set by the global al-Qaeda network to carry out a mega-attack in the country, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

According to the report, Israeli intelligence authorities detected two years ago the shift in priorities of al Qaeda towards Israel, which has been “upgraded” to the rank of a major target. Recently, al Qaeda chief in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared his intentions to carry out an attack in Israel.

The report added Syria has been identified as a transfer point for al Qaeda members planning to carry out attacks in Jordan and Israel. It should be mentioned that on Wednesday Israeli Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinski said that “global Jihad forces” maintain regular bases in Lebanon and Jordan.
albawaba.com