02.27.06 Islamic media is in error

February 26 – This is Ibrahim Xeliki's editorial from Northern Iraq, Kurdistan. The Kurds occupy the southeastern portion of Turkey, northwestern section of Iran and northern section of Iraq. The entire area is referred to as "Kurdistan" by Kurds, and Northern Iraq is referred to as "Southern Kurdistan." The Kurds are rebels in Turkey. The author is understandably against the Turks. While he complains against Turkey and its first president, Ataturk, who westernized Turkey, giving Turkey even a western alphabet to replace the Arabic. Ataturk is somewhat controversial in Turkey, revered by many, and I was warned during my sojourn in Turkey in 1985 to never get into a discussion about Ataturk, who is considered the father of their country. During a dinner where ten to fifteen Turks were seated at my table the discussion did come up. Moments later tempers flared and I thought someone might be killed, so I quickly excused myself and left. Months later on a flight from Israel to Paris I was seated next to a young Kurd who introduced himself as a man without a country. This was my introduction to the Kurds and their plight. He was flying under a German visa and explained why he was not able to get a passport.

Xeliki makes several points that are significant. That the "Islamic media are in error" refers to Islamic biases that scapegoat the US. Xeliki's bias is towards the US and in the conclusion of his article sees the "freedom" introduced by the US as restoring Islam as it was in1600 A.D. This is his article, well worth reading:

I browsed Islamic media in Turkey for the last few days (Yeniasya, Zaman, Yenisafak, Vakit, etc.). Without an exception, each places the blame directly on the US for the bombing of the Shiite shrine. They bluntly declare this as a US stratagem to stir up sectarian war. Thus, they unequivocally sympathize with terrorists in Iraq. Unfortunately, these disingenuous headlines cost our poor Muslim population a lot. They do not provide any solution to current problems in Islamic societies. On the other hand, They increase ignorance and preserve the status quo: they are number one and number two enemies of Islam. I will not go into detail criticizing each of these newspapers. Nonetheless, I will focus on one of them as an example of how the Muslim population is misled by the local media. I will dissect the headlines in Yeniasya, "Isgalcinin Oyununa Gelmeyin."

The translation means, "Be aware of Occupier's plot." This is a newspaper which is supposed to operate on the principle of Bediuzzaman who was the biggest scholar of the past century. Bediuzzaman in his famous Damascus Sermon in the early twentieth century diagnosed six dire sicknesses that arrested Muslim and kept Islamic world in the Middle Ages while Europeans flew towards the future on progress. The sicknesses are these:

1) That despair and hopelessness found a life in us.
2) The death of truthfulness in political life.
3) Love of enmity.
4) Not knowing the bonds that bind the believers to one another.
5) Despotism, which spreads like various contagious diseases.
6) Self interest.

In addition to killing thousands of Muslims in Iraq, these terrorists did nothing but worsened these sicknesses. It is not the US who committed genocide in Halapca against Kurds. It is not the US who massacred thousands of Shiites in the south. Surely, it is not the US who blew off the dome of an important shrine. For a Muslim newspaper in the name of Islam to feel sympathy with these terrorists is inexplicable. Every Muslim should condemn this heinous crime and should turn against these butchers. I came to believe that the despotic regimes are behind this misinformation to maintain the status quo. If not, why on the earth would a newspaper like Yeniasya would go against all principles and teachings of Bediuzzaman to misinform Muslims?

Anybody with a little common sense will quickly notice that these six diseases are more prevalent today in Islamic countries than 95 years ago when Bediuzzaman gave the Damascus Sermon. Particularly, the despotism that stifles Islamic development is in every Islamic country. A person that is not a bigot, racist and without a darkened heart, will realize that the US intervention in Iraq is the turning point for the region. It is sending a strong message to neighboring countries that freedom is a must for their citizens if these countries want to survive. The dictator-military regime in Turkey surely will not like this signal. Surely, despotic Egyptian, Saudis, Iranian and Syrian regimes will not welcome it at all. Let's shed a little light on one of these countries, Turkey.

The majority of Turkey is Muslim. However, it is the most despotic regime against Islam on the face of the earth. It is the only country in the world that banned Islamic dress. It is the only country that you have to officially worship its dictator, Ataturk along with God, Allah. As such, it is not fathomable for an Islamic newspaper to support despotic regimes and the machinery behind it. One would think that a Muslim-supported newspaper will do anything helping to get rid off this deadly sickness, despotism. One would think that they would be grateful to US intervention and help them in anyway to succeed in Iraq with the hope that the freedom in Iraq might spread some seeds across borders. Anything short of this is an insult to Islamic intellect and helps to propagate this deadly sickness of despotism.

Is Yeniasya doing this because they are acting with the Islamic principle of helping the oppressed and fighting the oppressor? Not by any means! There are 25 million Kurds in Turkey that are being oppressed, for 95 years. Again, Turkey is the only country that bans the language of 25 million people, Kurdish. I have never seen in Yeniasya the following headlines: "25 Million Kurdish brothers / sisters should be able to educate their kids in their own language." I f one would survey the countries of the world one would find out that Turkey is the only country that has such a ban on a native language. Unless Muslim media inform the mass truthfully, the destruction of many countries is imminent not because of the US or Westerners; it is because of despotism. Once this is established, we could say that what so-called Islamic media circulating about the US is a big lie to maintain the status quo. This is an opportunity for Muslims to realize that the media in their countries are the machinery of the despotic regimes as well.

Similar or harsher things can be said about other newspapers. If Iraq becomes a failure, it is because people in the region made it fail. Not because the US had bad administrative planning or intentions. If that happens, we will see that Islam will be arrested at the dungeon of despotic regimes for a long time. If it succeeds, it will spread the seed of freedom to every single Muslim country. Islam will then flourish as it did 1400 years ago. As a bonus, we will have a friend, the United States of America. [kurdistanobserver.com]

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02.27.06 Three Qaeda jailbreakers surrender in Yemen

DUBAI, UAE (AFP) February 27 – Three of 23 suspected Al Qaeda militants who escaped from a prison in Yemen have surrendered and contacts are underway with others to persuade them to follow suit, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in remarks published on Sunday. The February escape from a Sanaa jail, which included the masterminds of a deadly bomb strike on a US destroyer in Yemen in 2000, was a major embarrassment for the authorities and angered its ally the United States. "There are contacts with the escapees, and some of them surrendered to security authorities," Saleh told the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. "So far three [have turned themselves in], and there are contacts with the remainder, who are inside [the country] ... They have not left Yemen," he said. [More>>metimes.com]

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02.27.06 Afghans say solid evidence Taleban in Pakistan

KABUL (Reuters) February 27 – Afghanistan has solid evidence about militant training camps in Pakistan and the presence there of fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a senior Afghan security official said on Monday. President Hamid Karzai visited neighboring Pakistan this month and urged it to take action against the Taleban, Al Qaeda and other militants who he said launched attacks from sanctuaries there. During the visit, his delegation handed over confessions of 13 Pakistani terrorists arrested in Afghanistan and details of Taleban leaders in Pakistan, including phone numbers, locations and descriptions, the Afghan security official said. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

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02.27.06 Iraq official: Top Zarqawi aide captured

BAGHDAD (AP) February 27 – Interior Ministry forces captured a top aide to al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi during a raid in western Iraq, a security official said Monday. The official, a member of the ministry's counterinsurgency Wolf Brigade, identified the key al-Qaida figure as Abu al-Farouq, who was previously unknown. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The officer said al-Farouq and five other al-Qaida operatives were captured based on a tip from residents near al-Bakr, about 30 miles west of the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi. "Abou al-Farouq, a Syrian, was in charge of planning and financing militant groups operating in Ramadi while the other five are responsible of attacking Iraqi and coalition forces," the officer told The Associated Press. [More>>ap.org]

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02.27.06 Historic genocide trial of Serbian nation begins

February 27 – Serbia became the first country to be tried for genocide today, as lawyers for Bosnia argued that the state of Serbia and Montenegro attempted to annihilate Bosnia's non-Serbs during the war of 1992 to 1995.In the first case of its kind, and 13 years after the first papers were filed in the middle of the fighting, Sakib Softic, a lawyer for Bosnia, told the UN-run International Court of Justice in The Hague that Belgrade was responsible for orchestrating the deaths of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. "The armed violence which hit our country like a man-made tsunami in 1992... destroyed the character of Bosnia and Herzegovina and certainly destroyed a substantial part of its non-Serb population," he said. [More>>timesonline.co.uk]

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02.27.06 Authorities arrest 10 suspects for Golden Tomb shrine attack

February 27 – Authorities have arrested 10 suspects believed to have carried out the bombing of the Golden Tomb Mosque last Wednesday that sparked the deaths of well over 200 in sectarian violence in the following days, according to the Iraq's national security adviser. In a televised interview with CNN's "Late Edition," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Sunday that "We have arrested 10 people – four from the guards of the Golden Tomb shrine." [More>>dailystar.com.lb ; See related story from Iran's official news agency, mehrnews.ir, "Who was behind the Samarra blasts?" : TEHRAN, February 27 – Last Wednesday¹s terrorist bombings of the holy shrines of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, Imam Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan Askari (AS), in Samara, Iraq, was a very serious incident which increased the possibility of a civil war breaking out. In addition, Shia Muslims all over the world are now accusing the U.S.-led occupying forces of complicity in the act. The United States is suspect because it occupied Iraq on the pretext of establishing democracy in the country, but U.S. officials now realize that the democratic process has not turned out as they had planned and not benefited U.S. interests. Thus, the U.S. has changed its approach and is now trying to create sectarian and ethnic strife in Iraq...]

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02.27.06 Mortar attack kills 15 in Baghdad

February 27 – At least 15 people are reported to have been killed and dozens more injured in a mortar attack on a southern Baghdad neighborhood. According to one report, the mortars fell on two predominantly Shia neighborhoods in southern Baghdad at around 5.30pm (1430 GMT). The attack comes as a wave of violence sweeps Iraq following last Wednesday's bombing of the al-Askari shrine in the city of Samarra, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites.

Earlier on Sunday, a bomb killed five people at a bus station in the town of Hilla south of Baghdad, while in Basra, a bomb in the washroom of a Shia mosque caused minor injuries, police said. The bomb in Basra went off shortly after a rally in another part of the city by visiting Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Hilla bomb destroyed a minibus as it drove out of a bus garage. [More>>aljazeera.net]

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02.27.06 Exclusive: Terrorist training camps in Iran

LONDON, February 27 – Iran Focus has obtained a list of 20 terrorist camps and centres run by Iran¹s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The names and details of the training centres were provided by a defector from the IRGC, who has recently left Iran and now lives in hiding in a neighboring country. Iran Focus agreed to keep his identity secret for obvious security reasons. The former IRGC officer said the camps and the training centres were under the control of the IRGC¹s elite Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards.

"The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps," the officer said. The Imam Ali Garrison has been a long-time training ground for foreign terrorist operatives. Presently, some 50 Islamists from neighboring Arab countries are receiving training there in five groups of 10, the officer said. [More>>iranfocus.com]

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02.27.06 Saudi forces kill 5 suspected militants, arrest a sixth in raids

DUBAI (AP) February 27 – Saudi security forces early Monday shot dead five suspected terrorists and arrested a sixth in raids in Riyadh conducted in pursuit of those responsible for the weekend attack on the huge oil processing complex in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry said. "We think all the men involved had something to do with the Abqaiq attempt," Lt. Gen. Mansour Al Turki, chief spokesman for the ministry, said referring to Friday¹s attempt by suicide bombers to detonate car bombs inside the world¹s biggest oil stabilization plant. Al Turki said that in two simultaneous operations, security forces raided two houses in eastern Riyadh – one in the Yarmouk district – that had been under surveillance. Five suspects were shot dead in the Yarmouk house, and a sixth man was detained in the second house. The security forces suffered no casualties, Al Turki said. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

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02.27.06 Two-thirds of Katrina donations exhausted

February 27 – Six months after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast, charities have disbursed more than $2 billion of the record sums they raised for the storm's victims, leaving less than $1 billion for the monumental task of helping hundreds of thousands of storm victims rebuild their lives, according to a survey by The Washington Post. Two-thirds of the $3.27 billion raised by private nonprofit organizations and tracked by The Post went to help evacuees and other Katrina victims with immediate needs – cash, food and temporary shelter, medical care, tarps for damaged homes and school supplies for displaced children. [More>>washingtonpost.com]

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02.27.06 Huge march planned for eve of Katrina evictions

February 27 – David Swanson of afterdowningstreet.org reports: A march had been planned for February 28, the eve of the scheduled March 1 evictions of Hurricane Katrina victims. FEMA moved the evictions to March 15, so activists have moved the march to March 14. A press conference on Capitol Hill will be followed by a march through Washington, D.C., past FEMA, past the Department of Homeland Security, and to the White House, where a permit has been obtained to rally in Lafayette Square Park until midnight. If Bush does not meet the marchers' demands, however, many plan not to leave. [katrinamarch.org]

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02.27.06 Bosnia confirms first bird flu case; bird flu also in Pakistan

February 28 – Bosnia's veterinary office said today tests at the European Union reference laboratory had confirmed its first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in two wild swans. [More>>theaustralian.news.com.au ; See other bird flu stories, theaustralian.news.com.au, Pakistan confirms bird flu strain." and msnbc.msn.com, "Bird flu confirmed in second African country.']

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02.26.06 Total War: Inside the new Al-Qaeda

February 26 – This article by Abdel Bari Atwan is an extract from his book, "The Secret History of Al-Qaida," published by Saqi Books and available from The Sunday times Books First. It was published February 26 in timesonline.co.uk of which this is a synopsis: Last week¹s desecration of a Shi¹ite shrine moved Iraq towards civil war. Abdel Bari Atwan, who has had unique access to Osama Bin Laden, explains why Al-Qaeda wants to divide Islam

Osama Bin Laden, who had been sitting cross-legged on a carpet, placed his Kalashnikov rifle on the ground and got up. He came towards me with a warm smile that turned into barely repressed laughter as he took in the way I was dressed. I had been kitted out in baggy trousers, a long shirt and a turban for my clandestine journey to his hideout in southern Afghanistan. The turban in particular made me feel self-conscious, as I had never worn such a thing in my life. I spent three days with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, the only western-based journalist to spend such a significant amount of time with him, before or since. I talked at length to him, slept next to him in his cave and shared his modest food.

Listening to him during that visit 10 years ago I realized he was no ordinary figure, but it didn¹t occur to me for one moment that this polite, soft-spoken, smiling and apparently gentle person would become the world¹s most dangerous man, terrorizing western capitals, inflicting hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of damage on the United States, threatening its economic stability and embroiling it in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq....We spoke about his wealth, and while he avoided saying exactly how much he was worth he acknowledged he still managed an extensive investment portfolio through a complex network of secret contacts. But this wealth, he said, was for the umma (the global Islamic community).

"It is the duty of the umma as a whole to commit its wealth to the struggle," he said. "The umma is connected like an electric current." (Surprising imagery for a man who would wish to take us back 1,500 years.) I discovered that, in contrast with the primitive accommodation, the base was well equipped with computers and up-to-the-minute communications equipment. Bin Laden had access to the internet, which was not then ubiquitous as it is now, and said: "These days the world is becoming like a small village." This modernity was quite at odds with the austerity recommended by the more extreme forms of Islamic fundamentalism and in particular that of his hosts, the Taliban. One of his aides laughed and said the base was ³a republic within a republic."

...Bin Laden also explained his long-term anti-American strategy. He told me he knew he would never be able to defeat America on its own soil using conventional weapons. He had another plan, one that would take years to reach fruition. "We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land," he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora. "If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand."

We are witnessing part of that plan now, in the battlefields of Iraq, which has become a breeding ground for the most ruthless and militant Al-Qaeda fighters we have seen. In the process we are discovering the new face of Al-Qaeda, as a movement involved in bloody sectarian strife against fellow Muslims...Iraq is in many ways a better base for Al-Qaeda than Afghanistan. It provides an Arabic-speaking environment and culture. Geographically it is the heart of the region. In Islamic terms it is as important as Saudi Arabia and Palestine.

...Last Wednesday¹s bombing of the Shi¹ite golden mosque at Samarra was in all probability the work of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Shi¹ite majority have most to gain from maintaining stability, but by bombing their most sacred shrine Zarqawi has finally unleashed the threat of civil war. Previous attacks had failed to provoke the retaliatory Shi¹ite violence that has claimed more than 130 — mostly Sunni — lives since the mosque attack.

Zarqawi¹s rationale is threefold.

First, civil war will prevent the Sunni minority from joining the current political process. He has denounced democracy as heretical on the grounds that it makes man obedient to man instead of Allah...

...In enclaves in the Kurdish north, close to the Turkish and Iranian borders and beyond Saddam Hussein¹s jurisdiction, several Sunni organizations opposed to Saddam¹s secular regime had set up base. Jordanian contacts in one of these, Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), smoothed the way for Zarqawi to establish his own camp. Ansar al-Islam is an important footnote to the invasion of Iraq. Much has been made of a possible connection between it and Al-Qaeda in the course of US intelligence efforts to link Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden.

I met its leader, Mullah Krekar, in Oslo last year and he vigorously denied Al-Qaeda had helped it in any way. He said he had personally asked Bin Laden for financial help and had been turned down. (It must be added that many sources dispute this was their last meeting.) Zarqawi has maintained connections in Europe for many years, and these are nurtured by Suri, who is believed to control several Al-Qaeda groups in the West. Both men are suspected of involvement in the attacks on Madrid and London claimed by "Al-Qaeda in Europe."

The new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders is in place – with Zarqawi and the Suri among them – and the organisation has become even more hardline as a result. The new ruthlessness about relentless violence directed at a wide range of targets in Iraq is clearly designed to shock and terrorize their enemies. But Iraq has now become a platform from which to launch international operations.

Al-Qaeda is not only attempting to destabilize the western world, but the whole of the stagnated Middle East. [Full story>>timesonline.co.uk]

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02.26.06 Bin Laden is welcome in Pakistan

LAHORE, February 26 – When President Bush lands in Islamabad later this week, it may be the closest he ever comes to being in the same neighborhood as Osama bin Laden. His nemesis is probably only a few hours drive away in Pakistan's Pashtun belt, now considered to be al Qaeda Central and one of the world's most dangerous regions.

During the past 12 months or so, CIA and Pentagon officials have quietly modified the line they employed for three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – that bin Laden was hiding out "in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border." Now the same officials say with some confidence that he is "not based in Afghanistan." Whatever ambiguity there was in the past is gone: Bin Laden is in Pakistan. What's left is the question: What are the United States and its ally, Pakistan, doing about it?

Not enough, according to high-ranking Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials I've spoken to here. Indeed, the disastrous policies of the United States and Pakistan, starting with the aftermath of the war in 2001, have only hastened the radicalization of northwest Pakistan and made it more hospitable to bin Laden and his Taliban allies. The region has become a haven for bin Laden and a base for Taliban raids across the border back into Afghanistan which they had fled.

Not that you'd be able to tell any of that from what Bush administration officials have been saying. [More>>washingtonpost.com]

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02.26.06 Iraq violence flares despite appeal

February 26 – A bomb has killed five people at a bus station south of Baghdad in the latest incident of violence that has pitched Iraq towards civil war. A bomb in the washroom of a Shia mosque in the city of Basra caused minor injuries, police said on Sunday. It went off shortly after a rally in another part of the city by visiting young Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Hilla bomb destroyed a minibus as it drove out of a bus garage. Hilla is a mainly Shia town surrounded by Sunni villages, and the attack came two days short of the anniversary of the bloodiest single al-Qaida bombing, which killed 125 people there a year ago. Another bomb killed two US soldiers overnight in Baghdad. Hours earlier, after a round of calls to Iraqi leaders by US President George Bush, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made a midnight televised appeal, flanked by Sunni and Kurdish politicians, to Iraqis not to turn on each other after Wednesday's bomb at a Shia shrine. [More>>aljazeera.net]

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02.26.06 Taliban, Al Qaeda prisoners in Afghan jail riot

KABUL (AFP) February 26 – About 1,300 prisoners, many of them from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, seized control of a block at Afghanistan's main jail on Sunday after a riot in which more than 20 inmates were hurt, officials said. The riot at the Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of the capital erupted late on Saturday when prisoners clashed with guards and then set alight mattresses and beds, deputy justice minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai said.

Several prison blocks were destroyed in the fire and windows and doors were smashed, said human rights official Nader Nadeery. Prison guards opened fire to stop the unrest spreading throughout the huge complex, Hashimzai said. "According to the prison guards, four to five people have been wounded but according to the rioters, they say they have 20 people who are wounded," he said. A prison guard was also slightly wounded. Nadeery, from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission helping to negotiate with the prisoners, said he had been told there were 31 casualties which could include fatalities. The prisoners were refusing to hand over the injured for treatment, Hashimzai said. [More>>metimes.com ; See also bbc.co.uk, "Troops surround Afghan riot jail." and nytimes.com, "A growing Afghan prison rivals bleak Guantánamo."]

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02.26.06 Oil-hungry Asia stays friendly with Iran

TOKYO, February 26 – With the tone rising by the day between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear drive, Asia is staying cool, preserving warm ties with the Islamic republic whose oil it desperately needs. Asia feels little direct threat from Iran's populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as his quest for nuclear technology and bellicose diatribes against Israel earn him pariah status in the United States and Europe.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, after difficult talks in Brussels in mid-February, headed on a tour of more friendly Asia. He is due in Japan Monday after visits to Indonesia and Thailand. "Our country, which maintains friendly relations with Iran, will see to it that Iran, which wields influence in the field of energy, will not be isolated in the international community," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said ahead of the trip.

Japan, usually a steadfast US ally, has defied Washington by maintaining its lucrative commercial relationship with Iran ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution overthrew the pro-Western shah. Japan in 2004 inked a two billion-dollar contract to develop Azadegan in southwestern Iran, considered one of the biggest untapped oil reserves in the world. [jang.com.pk ; See also crisscross.com]

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02.26.06 Russia, Iran agree to set up enrichment venture – vice president

BUSHER (RIA Novosti) February 26 – Russia and Iran have agreed to set up a joint uranium enrichment venture in Russia, the Iranian vice president said Sunday. "We held talks with the Russian side on Russia's proposal yesterday and today. The talks saw good progress. Both sides are pleased with the talks," Gholamreza Agazadeh said after a meeting with Russia's nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko. "Therefore, we decided to continue the talks in Moscow soon," he added.

Kiriyenko said work to create the joint venture was underway. "I think there remain no organizational, technical or financial problems on the joint venture establishment," he said. However, Kiriyenko said, Russia's proposal was only part of a complex of security issues' resolution. [More>>rian.ru]

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02.26.06 Hamas denies suggesting it may recognize Israel

GAZA (Reuters) February 26 – Hamas¹ Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday denied he had suggested the Palestinian Islamist group might one day recognise Israel, saying there was only a possibility of achieving a long-term truce. Hamas chose Haniyeh, a 43-year-old Gazan viewed by many Palestinians as a pragmatist, as the new Prime Minister after its election victory on Jan. 25. The Islamist Movement hopes to form a Palestinian government within two weeks.

The Washington Post newspaper, on its Web site, quoted Haniyeh as saying in an interview, "If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognise them." [More>>khaleejtimes.com ; See also Jerusalem Post, "Haniyeh says he wants truce, not peace with Israel." and aljazeera.net, February 26, "Hamas lists Israel recognition terms" : The Palestinian prime minister-designate says Hamas is ready to recognize Israel if it gives the Palestinian people their full rights and a state in lands occupied since 1967, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hamas chose Ismail Haniya, a 43-year-old Gazan viewed by many Palestinians as a pragmatist, as the new prime minister after sweeping elections on 25 January. The group hopes to complete forming a Palestinian government within two weeks.

"If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognize them," Haniya told the Washington Post in an interview posted on its website on Saturday. Haniya did not say what form the recognition would take.]

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02.26.06 Switzerland reports first bird flu

GENEVA, February 27 – Switzerland has confirmed its first avian flu case, but further tests are needed to determine if it is the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, the Swiss Federal Veterinary Office said. "We have a first case of bird flu. It's H5. The virus type has to be confirmed in the (European Union) reference lab," spokeswoman Cathy Maret said, declining to say what type of bird has been infected or where the case was found. Local news agency ATS, quoting a Swiss government official, said positive results were found in the Geneva area and in Stein-am-Rhein in the northeast of the country. One of the birds infected was a wild duck, ATS said. [More>>theaustralian.news.com.au See related story, chinadaily.com.cn, "Official: Massive bird flu outbreak possible."]

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02.25.06 Iraq minister makes civil war warning

February 25 – Iraq's defence minister says a civil war will never end if it erupts as violence escalates across Iraq since the destruction of a Shia shrine on Wednesday. Speaking at a joint news conference on Saturday afternoon, Saadun al-Dulaimi also said Iraq would not hesitate to dispatch tanks to the streets to end violence and impose security. "We are ready to fill the streets with armoured vehicles," he told a news conference televised live to the nation on state television. The minister also denied any involvement by what he called Interior Ministry commandoes in the attack that targeted Harith al-Dari, leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars. He also appealed to the media not to exaggerate the bloodshed. He said the death toll over the past few days was no higher than 119 and the number of mosques attacked was 21 to 22, not the hundreds previously reported. [More>>aljazeera.net]

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02.25.06 Korea confirms first human cases of bird flu – more bird flu cases France, India & China

February 25 – The government yesterday confirmed the first human infections of bird flu in Korea, but there is no risk of further cases, officials said. Nevertheless, the discovery has highlighted the need to tighten measures to contain the highly contagious disease, experts say. The Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention said four workers, who were engaged in the culling of chickens after an outbreak of avian flu in Korea in late 2003, tested positive to the antibody of a form of the disease. However, the KCDCP stressed that the four cannot be considered patients of avian flu under World Health Organization guidelines because they have not developed symptoms.

...The government said it sent blood samples of the workers to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention last November and was informed of the results on Feb. 23. In its first outbreak of H5N1 between December 2003 and March 2004, the Korean government destroyed 5.3 million birds. [Full story>>koreaherald.co.kr ; See related stories, chinadaily.com.cn, "China reports 2 more human cases of bird flu" ; khaleejtimes.com, "India confirms another 3 dead birds with H5N1 virus" and bbc.co.uk, "Fance confirms bird flu strain" : France has confirmed the deadly bird flu virus H5N1 has been found on a turkey farm in the east of the country. It is the first time a European Union farm has been infected. France has already had cases in two wild ducks. About 80% of more than 11,000 birds at the farm have died in the past week, and the rest have been culled. Despite assurances that cooked poultry is safe, sales in France have fallen by 30%, and Japan has announced an import ban with immediate effect.]

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02.25.06 Iraq holy city bombing fans sectarian flames

KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) February 25 – Sectarian tensions, already at a peak, were further inflamed Saturday in Iraq when bombers blew up a car in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least five and wounding 25. The fresh attack came after more than 140 people were killed nationwide in a surge of sectarian blood-letting triggered by the bombing Wednesday of one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Samarra, north of Baghdad. In another attempt to inflame the situation, bombers Saturday blew up a well-known Shiite tomb in Taz Khurmatu, in northern Iraq, police said. The Karbala bombing targeted a busy shopping street in the west of the city, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, as a police patrol passed by. [More>>khaleejtimes.com ; See also nytimes.com, February 25, 11:43am ET, "New round of attacks kills at least 30 after a day of calm."]

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02.25.06 Analysis: Somali warlords unite against extremists

WASHINGTON (UPI) February 24 – Jason Motlagh provides a deeper view into the world of warlords and pirates operating on the Horn of Africa. Dismissed by the international community as a failed state prone to Islamist extremism, Somalia's warlords have joined forces to stamp out Al Qaeda-linked groups trying to gain a foothold in the lawless East African nation. A group of powerful warlords who control the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have set aside long-standing rivalries to form a new political bloc. Their aim is to rout hardline Islamists that administer a network of courts supported by armed militias.

The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPTC), led by militia leader Abdi Nure Siyad, christened its formation on February 18 by reportedly touching off a wave of violence that killed at least 22 people – most from stray bullets – and displaced hundreds of families, according to the BBC. Siyad denied being the instigator and said that he was attacked by power-hungry Islamic court militias.

...The US military has just begun a seven-year, $500 million initiative to secure ungoverned swaths of North and West Africa, but has steered clear of the Horn of Africa since a backfired 1993 UN humanitarian mission in Somalia that claimed the lives of 18 US troops and ended in a full withdrawal. The ongoing clan-based civil war there has also allowed arms smuggling and piracy to flourish. Ships carrying emergency UN food deliveries have been among the 25 vessels hijacked since last March. [Full story>>metimes.com]

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