Daily Report

Colombian military implicated in Bogotá blasts

Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 20:06

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe took over the country's airwaves Sept. 10 to defend the military against reports soldiers were behind a string of bombings in the capital, Bogota. In a live half-hour speech during prime-time on all the major networks, he also called for an investigation into how the press came by the reports. "It has still not been proved that there was any participation by the soldiers in the attacks," Uribe said.

On Sept. 8, the national daily El Tiempo reported that four soldiers worked with a demobilized FARC Lidia Alape Manrique, alias "Jessica," to organize bombings ahead of Uribe's Aug. 7 inauguration. Two of the implicated soldiers were officers: Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavidez and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero, both assigned to an elite counter-terrorism unit, the Army Military Intelligence Regional (Rime). The officers allegedly hoped to claim reward money from the government's informants program for discovering the bombs. One attack was alleged to be a car bomb that killed a civilian and injured 18 soldiers on July 31.

"Jessica," arrested in the bombings Sept. 8, allegedly said under interrogation that she had worked in the past with Major Hermida.

Colombia's capital was on high alert on the inauguration day as authorities tried to prevent a repeat of the scenes when Uribe first took office four years earlier, when guerillas launched mortar attacks on the city center.

Uribe's focused on the "illegal leak" which "has caused so much damage, must be investigated." He said he would not be making any changes to the armed forces brass.

The military has been the largest recipient of the more than $4 billion in aid the US has given Colombia since 2000. But this is but the latest in a series of recent have hurt the military's image.

A number of army units are under investigation for extra-judicial killings of civilians, and one is accused of taking money from drug traffickers to assassinate 10 Colombian anti-narcotics police agents and an informant. The incident was presented as a "friendly fire" tragedy, but evidence has revealed they were killed at point-blank range. Several soldiers, including a colonel, have been arrested in the case. (El Tiempo, Sept. 9; AP, BBC, Sept. 11)

See our last post on Colombia.

Terror convictions in Jordan

Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 18:00

A military court in Jordan Sept. 13 convicted 10 people in two cases involving conspiracies to kill "Americans training Iraqi police" at the Muwaqqar barracks outside Amman. The court said the defendants were found guilty of "conspiring to carry out terrorist acts and of illegal possession of automatic weapons," in two plots foiled last year.

Syria puts down attack on US embassy

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 03:25

If, as we recently speculated, the White House was hoping it could groom Islamists in Syria as proxies to destabilize the regime, this ought to provide a little cold water in the face. In fact, much to the consternation of the neocons, we could see Washington mending fences with Damascus, viewing the Assad dictatorship as the most expedient proxy to put down the Islamists. Official embrace of the "terrorist" lingo indicates Assad may want such as arrangement, lest he be on the receiving end of the Pentagon's smart bombs. From Canada's CTV, Sept. 12:

Arun Gandhi visits "Camp Democracy"

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 03:00

Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi and founder of the MK Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence, spent Sept. 11 with Camp Democracy, a small tent city established by anti-war activists on the National Mall in front of the US Capitol. Gandhi joined peace campers in a march that set out from the Washington Hebrew Congregation and stopped at the National Cathedral and the Islamic Center before culminating at the city's Gandhi memorial.

Christian fundamentalists remember September 11... 1683

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 02:05

There's a lot of this going around all of a sudden. Watergate figure and born-again evangelical Chuck Colson wrote for the Christian Post Aug. 18 (in a piece imaginitively entitled "The Clash of Civilizations"):

During the Cold War, there was a great clash of civilizations—communism vs. Western liberal democracy. And it threatened to destroy us in a nuclear holocaust. I was in the White House during those years. I can tell you, it was terrifying getting those daily briefings from the military. But the danger that we face from radical Islam today is even greater than the Cold War.

Conspiracists crash Ground Zero —again

Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 09/12/2006 - 23:29

Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice, Sept. 12:

Conspiracy Types Lecture Regular Folks at Ground Zero
The fifth anniversary of 9-11 brought more sorrow and anguish to New York, but also more questioning of the official narrative of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Israeli settlers bust into Hebron mosque and pray

Submitted by David Bloom on Tue, 09/12/2006 - 04:45

From Palestine News Network (PNN), Sept. 10:

Israeli settlers break into mosque and perform religious ceremonies under guard of Israeli soldiers
By Sa’ed Al Shouhki (Hebron)

Israeli settlers stormed the southern West Bank’s Halhoul Village Mosque at dawn Sunday.

Afghanistan: NATO occupation reaps terror, opium

Submitted by WW4 Report on Mon, 09/11/2006 - 21:43

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan army troops killed 92 Taliban fighters in the southern province of Kandahar, NATO said in statement Sept. 11. The statement said the figure was separate from the 94 insurgents reported as killed in the previous day, but left room for doubt about the accuracy of the casualty count. "Estimating enemy casualties is not a precise science," said Col. Chris Vernon of the UK, chief of staff for ISAF's Regional Command South. The new offensive, "Operation Medusa," was launched 10 days ago to drive Taliban guerillas from their stronghold the Panjwayi and Zhari districts of Kandahar province. At least 21 NATO troops are reported killed. (Times of India, Sept. 11)

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