Israel holds Khaled Mashal, the leader of Hamas' Syrian branch, responsible for the abduction of two Israeli soldiers and wants Syria to expel Palestinian leaders from the country.

Israel threatened to kill Hamas militants based in Damascus.

Al-Jazeera television said Public Security Minister Avi Dichter claimed they knew the locations of HAMAS and Islamic Jihad leaders in Syria and will not hesitate to kill them.

Palestinian militants armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades battled Israeli helicopters and tanks Thursday in the bloodiest day since
Israel invaded Gaza over a soldier's capture. At least 20 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier died.

"We are doing the utmost effort ... to avoid civilian casualties," said another military official, Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan. "Really, there is no other way of operating against terrorists who are operating inside their own civilian populations."

Israeli troops have entered Lebanon to search for two soldiers captured by Hezbollah fighters during a cross-border raid.

Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, the Israeli Army Chief of Staff, warned the Lebanese government that Israel would attack its infrastructure and "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years" if the soldiers were not returned, Israeli TV reported.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, described the Hezbollah raid as an "act of war" by Lebanon and promised a "very painful and far-reaching response".

The Israeli military carried out air attacks, and used tanks and gunboats in retaliatory strikes. 

Israel has information that Hizbullah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Regev did not disclose the source of his information.

London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat says Israel gave Syria 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity, bring about release of kidnapped IDF troops. ‘Israel will not end military activity until new situation created that will prevent Syria, Iran from using terror organizations to threaten its security,’ newspaper quotes Pentagon official as saying
Roee Nahmias



The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.”

The report said “a senior Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international community fail in the efforts to convince
Syria to pressure Hizbullah into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may attack targets in the country.”

Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran’s supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff’s remarks on Islam.

Protests broke out in South Asia and Indonesia, with angry Muslims saying Benedict’s statement of regret a day earlier did not go far enough. In southern Iraq, demonstrators carrying black flags burned an effigy of the pope.

Islamic leaders around the world issued more condemnations of the pope’s comments, but some moderates in the Middle East appeared to be trying to put a damper on the outrage, fearing it could spiral into attacks on Christians in the region.

The pontiff said on Sunday he was “deeply sorry” Muslims had been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and holy war. But he stopped short of retracting a speech seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

Benedict said the remarks came from a text that didn’t reflect his own opinion, but he did not retract what he said or say he was sorry he uttered what proved to be explosive words.

Working to defuse situation
The Vatican on Monday sought to defuse the anger, ordering papal representatives around the world to meet with leaders of Muslim countries to explain the pope’s point of view and full context of his speech.

Roman Catholic leaders stepped forward to defend the pontiff. At an Italian bishops conference, Cardinal Camillo Ruini underlined the bishops’ “total closeness and solidarity to the pope” and said they deplored interpretations of the pope’s comments “which attribute to the Holy Father ... errors that he has not committed and aim at attacking his person and his ministry.”

Few in the Islamic world were satisfied by Benedict’s statement of regret.

“The pope’s words have caused a deep wound in the hearts of Muslims that won’t heal for a long time, and then only after a clear apology to Muslims,” Egypt’s religious affairs minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, wrote in a column in the government daily Al-Ahram on Monday.

An influential Egyptian cleric, Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, called for protests after weekly prayers on Friday but maintained they should be peaceful.

Extremists said the pope’s comments proved that the West was in a war against Islam.

Statement from al-Qaida
Al-Qaida in Iraq and its allies issued a statement addressing the pope as “a cross-worshipper” and warning, “You and the West are doomed, as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere.

“You infidels and despots, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism, when God’s rule is established governing all people and nations,” said the statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups in Iraq.



Another Iraqi extremist group, Ansar al-Sunna, challenged “sleeping Muslims” to prove their manhood by doing something other than “issuing statements or holding demonstrations.”

“If the stupid pig is prancing with his blasphemies in his house,” the group said in a Web statement, referring to the pope, “then let him wait for the day coming soon when the armies of the religion of right knock on the walls of Rome.”

In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the comments to call for protests against the United States. He argued that while the pope may have been deceived into making his remarks, the words give the West an “excuse for suppressing Muslims” by depicting them as terrorists.

“Those who benefit from the pope’s comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests,” he said, referring to the United States.


Recalls cartoon furor
The anger recalled the outrage earlier this year over cartoons depicting the prophet published by a Danish paper. The caricatures, which Muslims saw as insulting Muhammad, set off large, violent protests across the Islamic world.

So far, protests over the pope’s comments have been smaller. However, there has been some violence: Attackers hurled firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, and a nun was shot to death in Somalia.

Some 200 Khamenei loyalists in the Syrian capital, Damascus, held a protest Monday at an Islamic shrine, dismissing the pope’s apology. “The pope’s sorrow was equivocal,” read one banner.


Dozens protested outside the Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and schools and shops in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir shut their doors in protest.

“His comments really hurt Muslims all over the world,” Umar Nawawi of the radical Islamic Defenders’ Front said in Jakarta. “We should remind him not to say such things which can only fuel a holy war.”

Malaysia says apology not enough


Islamic countries also asked the U.N. Human Rights Council to examine the question of religious tolerance. Malaysia’s foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, said Benedict’s apology was “inadequate to calm the anger.”

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood said the anger should not be allowed to hurt ties with the Middle East’s Christian minorities. But worries among Christians in the region are high.

Guards have been posted around some churches, and the head of Egypt’s Orthodox Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III, disassociated himself from Benedict’s statements.

The Dominican mission in Cairo also criticized Benedict’s words, saying he chose a text for his speech that “revived the polemics of the past.”

“These comments, seen by many Muslims as hurtful, risk encouraging extremists on all sides,” it said in a statement, “and put in danger all the advances in dialogue made in recent decades.”

U.S. Muslim group counsels need to ‘move on’
In the United States, however, the leader of the largest U.S. Islamnic advocacy organization called for understanding the pope's error, if not accepting it, and the need to move on.

“The pope has now stated that the quote he used does not reflect his opinions about Islam and Muslims, and we have to take his word for it,” said Ibrahim Hooper, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Islamic civil liberies and advocacy organization.

“We want to move on from here and make sure relations aren’t further damaged between Catholics and Muslims worldwide. For many years under the previous pope, relations between Catholics and Muslims were quite strong. We would hate to see anything harm that relationship,” Hooper told MSNBC.com.

The Associated Press and MSNBC.com contributed to this report.

Late on the evening of October 10, 2006, Iraqi resistance groups lobbed mortar and rocket rounds into the immense ‘Forward Base Falcon,’ the largest American military base in Iraq, located 13 km south of the Green Zone in Baghdad. In addition to accurate mortar fire, Grad and Katyusha rockets were also used.

Falcon base was designed to house a large contingent of American troops, mostly drawn from the 4th Infantry Division, stationed at Fr. Bliss, Texas. At the time of the attack, there were approximately 3000 men inside the camp, which also was filled with ammunition supplies, fuel, tanks and vehicles.

When the flames had been brought under control on the morning of the 11th  of October, primarily because the entire camp had been gutted, nine large American military transports with prominent Red Cross markings were observed by members of the foreign media taking off, laded with the dead and the wounded.



Over 300 American troops, including U.S. Army and Marines, CIA agents and U.S. translators were casualties and there also were 165 seriously injured requiring major medical attention and 39 suffering lesser injuries  122 members of the Iraqi armed forces were killed and 90 seriously injured members of same, were also evacuated to the U.S. military hospital at al-Habbaniyah located some 70km west of Baghdad.

Satellite pictures and aerial photographs from neutral sources showed that Camp Falcon suffered major structural damage and almost all the U.S. military’s supply of small arms ammunition, artillery and rocket rounds, tons of fuel, six Apache helicopters, an uncounted but large number of soft-skinned vehicles such as Humvees and supply trucks were damaged or totally destroyed. Foreign press observers noted “an endless parade” of military vehicle recovery units dragging burnt-out heavy tanks and armored personnel carriers to another base outside Baghdad.

Many of the walls and towers of the camp were damaged or leveled as were many of  the barracks, maintenance depots, and there was considerable damage to the huge mess halls that could hold 3000 soldiers, the huge recreation center with its basketball courts and indoor swimming pools and all the administration buildings

Peretz: Israel didn't fire at German ship

Defense Minister Amir Peretz denies report that two IAF jets fired shots towards German vessel off shores of Lebanon. Peretz speaks with his German counterpart, guarantees him Israel will not attack country's ships

Efrat Weiss
Latest Update:      10.25.06, 20:05

Defense Minister Amir Peretz stated Wednesday that that reports that IAF jets had fired shots at a German ship were completely untrue. According to a report, which was initially confirmed by the Defense Ministry in Berlin, two Israeli warplanes and a German navy vessel have clashed off the Lebanese coast.

Germany daily Der Tagesspiegel quoted a junior German Defense Ministry official as telling a parliamentary committee that two Israeli F-16 fighters flew low over the German ship and fired two shots.

The official did not say when the incident happened or what had caused it, the paper said.

"I can confirm that there was an incident," a ministry spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. An investigation was underway and he therefore was unable to provide further information, he added.

However, shortly after the report was published Peretz spoke with the German defense secretary, Franz Josef Jung, and stressed before him that Israel was not involved in any shooting towards a German vessel, and that there was no intention to carry out such attacks in the future.

Peretz also emphasized the need to enhance cooperation directly vis-à-vis UNIFIL. The two ministers agreed to meet again next week.

The IDF has also stated that contrary to reports, the IAF did not strike any German ship.

Military sources explained that the report was released by the news agencies after Israeli warplanes identified a German ship and a German helicopter off the shores of Rosh Hanikra, and were sent in their direction. The jets were ordered to return shortly after, and while still in Israeli airspace. No shooting towards the vessel had occurred.

Germany assumed command of a United Nations naval force off the coast of Lebanon 10 days ago and has sent a force of eight ships and 1,000 service personnel to join the international peace operation in the region.

The naval force is charged with preventing weapons smuggling and helping maintain a ceasefire between Israel and radical Lebanese-based Islamic group Hizbullah.

Safavi also told state TV that the Iranian exercises would be used to test fire ballistic missiles.

"Missiles Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 with cluster warheads and a range of over 1,000km will be shot as well as hundreds of rockets and other missiles such as Fateh and Zolfaghar," he said

Message found; teacher quits
'Destroy America' embedded in puzzle
Published: Nov 21, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Nov 21, 2006 02:33 AM


Marti Maguire, Staff Writer
A message embedded in a Spanish assignment that included the words "destroy America" has led a teacher to resign and sparked concerns among parents at a Johnston County high school.

Students said former Smithfield-Selma High Spanish teacher Khalid Chahhou gave them an extra-credit "word search" Thursday that required them to translate vocabulary words and find them in a grid of letters.

They started seeing other words such as "destroy" and "terrorist" and eventually put together a few sentences that decry violence against Palestinians and appear to condemn the United States for its involvement in the conflict.

Students alerted the school administration, which confronted Chahhou. Chahhou resigned from the district late Thursday. When reached by phone Monday, he confirmed this account but refused to comment further on the incident.

"I don't want to talk about this dark page in my life any more," Chahhou said.

Sophomore Chris McDaniels said the word search caught his attention because it was handwritten; they were usually typed.

"I think some of the people in the class were kind of afraid, because how the world is today, you never know with people," McDaniels said. "Even if you've known them for a while, they could turn out to be someone completely different."

Shakil Ahmed, president of the Islamic Association of Cary, said Chahhou told him he had made the puzzle when he was upset after seeing news reports of deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli troops.

"He must have gone through an outburst of emotions at that time," said Ahmed.

Ahmed said the act was out of character for the mild-mannered Chahhou, who has taught Arabic and religious studies to children at the mosque of about 200 members since he moved to the area five months ago.

"He's the most softest-spoken, most gentle, kindest person I've come across," said Ahmed, adding that Chahhou was embarrassed by his actions.

But Carla McDaniels, Chris' mother, was one of several parents who wondered how someone with what they see as extremist tendencies ended up teaching at a public school, where he could impose his views on children.

"With him resigning, who's to say he's not going to go to another school district to do the same thing?" Carla McDaniels asked.

She also said she wants to see Chahhou face criminal charges. The school district notified authorities of the incident, but no charges were filed.

A native of Morrocco, Chahhou moved to North Carolina from New York. Ahmed said that Chahhou was working on a doctorate in Spanish in addition to his teaching job.

Johnston officials wouldn't comment on their hiring practices. But Steve Scroggs, who oversees hiring for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district, said that districts can't discriminate against teachers for their political or religious affiliations.

"You simply can't ask someone's political ideology during an interview, any more than you can ask them their religion, or any more than you can ask them other personal information," Scroggs said.

WHAT THE STUDENTS FOUND

Here is the paragraph that students found in a word search created by their Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma High School:

"Sharon killed a lot of innocent people in Palestine. Hamas is not a terrorist group. They have the right to defend their country. This is something that forms part of our freedom and dignity. Allah help destroy this body of evil that is making human life so miserable. Destroy America, a country where evil is sponsored."

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Ethiopian jets bombed Somalia's two main airports Monday while ground troops captured three villages and a strategic border town, lending Somalia's internationally backed government crucial military aid in its struggle against a powerful Islamic militia. Russian-made jets swept low over the capital at midmorning, dropping two bombs on Mogadishu International Airport, part of a major escalation in the week-old fighting. The leader of the Islamic militia, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, flew into the airport shortly after the attack; it was not clear if he was an intended target.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Islamic fighters retreated Tuesday as Somali government and Ethiopian troops advanced on three fronts in a decisive turn in the battle for control of this Horn of Africa nation.

Somalia's Islamist militia are reported to have withdrawn from frontlines after a sustained assault by government forces backed by Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopian jets fired at Islamist positions for a third day on Tuesday.

The Union of Islamic Courts described its pullout as a change of tactics in what it vowed would be a long war.

NBC: Saddam to be hanged by Sunday

Ex-dictator’s execution expected to be carried out by start of Eid holiday


NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death for his role in 148 killings in 1982, will have his sentence carried out by Sunday, NBC News reported Thursday. According to a U.S. military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins that Sunday.

Earlier Thursday, Saddam’s chief lawyer implored world leaders to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted leader to Iraqi authorities for execution, saying the former dictator should enjoy protection from his enemies as a "prisoner of war."

US north Iraqi raid angers Iran
Iraq map
US forces have stormed a building in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized six people said to be Iranians, prompting a diplomatic incident.

Iranian and Iraqi officials said the building was an Iranian consulate and the detainees its employees.

The US military said it was still investigating, but that the building did not have diplomatic status.

The troops raided the building at about 0300 (0001GMT), taking away computers and papers, according to local media.

AFP news agency quoted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman as saying he did not know the nationality of the six but said they were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces".

"I can confirm for you through our forces there that this is not a consulate or a government building," he said.

However, Tehran said the attack violated all international conventions. It has summoned ambassadors from Switzerland, representing US interests, and Iraq.

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry described the raid as an attempt to sabotage Tehran's relations with Iraq. One Iranian MP said it showed America's cruelty and meanness.

The raid comes amid high Iran-US tension.

In a major speech on Wednesday, President George W Bush said the US would take a tough stance towards Iran and Syria, whom he accused of destabilising Iraq.

The US also accuses Iran of seeking nuclear arms. Iran denies both charges.

Tehran counters that US military involvement in the Middle East endangers the whole region.

Pressure

A local TV station said Kurdish security forces had taken over the building after the Americans had left.

Irbil lies in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled north, about 350km (220 miles) from the capital Baghdad. Reports say the Iranian consulate there was set up last year under an agreement with the Kurdish regional government to facilitate cross-border visits.

Woman injured in Samarra bombing
Dozens of casualties resulted from a truck bombing in Samarra

One Iranian news agency with a correspondent in Irbil says five US helicopters were used to land troops on the roof of the Iranian consulate.

It reports that a number of vehicles cordoned off the streets around the building, while US soldiers warned the occupants in three different languages that they should surrender or be killed.

In December, US troops detained a number of Iranians in Iraq, including two with diplomatic immunity who were later released.

Thursday's raid came as US President George W Bush unveiled his new strategy in Iraq, which included increasing troop numbers and a commitment to stop Iranian support for "our enemies in Iraq".

BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the raid could signal a ratcheting-up of pressure on the Iranians, in line with the rhetorical thrust of his speech.

Meanwhile in the Iraqi capital, the five off-duty policemen were killed in an ambush in the western al-Khadra neighbourhood, hospital officials said

Security sources said another man was killed wounded in an attack on a money changer in downtown Baghdad.

In the restive Anbar province, the US military said that one of its troops was killed on Tuesday by a roadside bombing.

Other violence was reported in Mosul, where gunmen killed a professor driving home from work, and Samarra where a suicide truck bomber attacked the mayor's house, killing three people and wounding 33, including the mayor.

“We haven’t seen any al-Qaeda members killed but what we can confirm is that a lot of innocent civilians have been killed by the American warplanes,” he told AFP. “They hit civilian sites and forests where nomads keep animals.”

Dirir Moalim Hussein, a herder, said his wife and two other members of his family were killed as they tried to flee the attacks on their village of Bulo Haji between Dhobley and Afmadow.

“We are really scared,” he said. “We heard bombing and heavy explosions over our village, it was dark and no one could see well. I ran with two children, I don’t know in what direction, but three of my family were killed, including my wife.”

“I have nothing right now,” Hussein said. “I have lost everything, they have bombed my cows and goats, we don’t know what crime we committed and we have been punished for no reason,” Hussein said.

The US has confirmed hitting at least one suspected al-Qaeda position in southern Somalia on Monday but declined to comment on reports of airborne attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday reported by locals.

AP: Iran gets army gear in Pentagon sale

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 16, 7:57 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries — including
Iran and China — who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
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In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country
President Bush branded part of an "axis of evil."

In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a
Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.

The surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.

"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."

Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.

In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

That incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls.

"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the
Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."

A Defense Department official, Fred Baillie, said his agency followed procedures.

"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution. "Customs is supposed to check all exports to make sure that all the appropriate certifications and licenses had been granted."

The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office — the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service — where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.

"It stands to reason Iran will be even more aggressive in seeking F-14 parts," said Stephen Bogni, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arms export investigations. Iran can only produce about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.

Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized or "de-milled" — rendered useless for military purposes — or, if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.

"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.

The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no
Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.

The Pentagon's public surplus sales took in $57 million in fiscal 2005. The agency also moves extra supplies around within the government and gives surplus military gear such as weapons, armored personnel carriers and aircraft to state and local law enforcement.

Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors. They say the sales are closely watched by friends and foes of the United States.

Among cases in which U.S. military technology made its way from surplus auctions to brokers for Iran, China and others:

_Items seized in December 2000 at a Bakersfield, Calif., warehouse that belonged to Multicore, described by U.S. prosecutors as a front company for Iran. Among the weaponry it acquired were fighter jet and missile components, including F-14 parts from Pentagon surplus sales, customs agents said. The surplus purchases were returned after two Multicore officers were sentenced to prison for weapons export violations. London-based Multicore is now out of business, but customs continues to investigate whether U.S. companies sold military equipment to it illegally.

In 2005, customs agents came upon the same surplus F-14 parts with the evidence labels still attached while investigating a different company suspected of serving as an Iranian front. They seized the items again. They declined to provide details because the investigation is ongoing.

_Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted last year in California in the illegal export of weapons components to the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Belgium in 2004 and 2005 and sentenced to just over 12 years in prison. Customs investigators say the items included Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran that he bought from a U.S. company that acquired them from a Pentagon surplus sale, and that those parts made it to Iran via Malaysia. Durrani is appealing his conviction.

An accomplice, former Naval intelligence officer George Budenz, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July to a year in prison. Durrani's prison term is his second; he was convicted in 1987 of illegally exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran.

_State Metal Industries, a Camden, N.J., company convicted in June of violating export laws over a shipment of AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts it bought from Pentagon surplus in 2003 and sold to an entity partly owned by the Chinese government. The company pleaded guilty to an export violation, was fined $250,000 and placed on probation for three years. Customs and Border Protection inspectors seized the parts — nearly 200 pieces of the guidance system for the Sparrow missile system — while inspecting cargo at a New Jersey port.

"Our mistake was selling it for export," said William Robertson, State Metal's attorney. He said the company knew the material was going to China but didn't know the Chinese government partially owned the buyer.

_In October, Ronald Wiseman, a longtime Pentagon surplus employee in the Middle East, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing surplus military Humvees and selling them to a customer in Saudi Arabia from 1999 to 2002. An accomplice, fellow surplus employee Gayden Woodson, will be sentenced this month.

The Humvees were equipped for combat zones and some weren't recovered, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ingersoll said.

_A California company, All Ports, shipped hundreds of containers of U.S. military technology to China between 1994 and 1999, much of it acquired in Pentagon surplus sales, court documents show. Customs agents discovered the sales in May 1999 when All Ports tried to ship to China components for guided missiles, bombs, the B-1 bomber and underwater mines. The company and its owners were convicted in 2000; an appeals court upheld the conviction in 2002.

Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn., called the cases "a huge breakdown, an absolute, huge breakdown."

"The military should not sell or give away any sensitive military equipment. If we no longer need it, it needs to be destroyed — totally destroyed," said Shays, until this month the chairman of a House panel on national security. "The
Department of Defense should not be supplying sensitive military equipment to our adversaries, our enemies, terrorists."

It's no secret to defense experts that valuable technology can be found amid surplus scrap.

On a visit to a Defense Department surplus site about five years ago, defense consultant Randall Sweeney literally stumbled upon some items that clearly shouldn't have been up for sale.

"I was walking through a pile of supposedly de-milled electrical items and found a heat-seeking missile warhead intact," Sweeney said, declining to identify the surplus location for security reasons. "I carried it over and showed them. I said, 'This shouldn't be in here.'"

Sweeney, president of Defense and Aerospace International in West Palm Beach, Fla., sees human error as a big problem. Surplus items are numbered, and an error of a single digit can make sensitive technology improperly available and knowledgeable buyers could easily spot a valuable item, he said. "I'm not the only sophisticated eye in the world," he said.

Baillie said the Pentagon is working to tighten security. Steps include setting up property centers to better identify surplus parts and employing people skilled at spotting sensitive items. If there is uncertainty about whether an item is safe, he said, it is destroyed.

Of the 76,000 parts for the F-14, 60 percent are "general hardware" such as nuts and bolts and can be sold to the public without restriction, Baillie said. About 10,000 are unique to Tomcats and will be destroyed, he said.

An additional 23,000 parts are valuable for military and commercial use and are being studied to see whether it's safe to sell them, Baillie said.

Asked why the Pentagon would sell any F-14 parts, given their value to Iran, Baillie said: "Our first priority truly is national security, and we take that very seriously. However, we have to balance that with our other requirement to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money."

Kutz, the government investigator, said surplus F-14 parts shouldn't be sold. He believes Iran already has Tomcat parts from Pentagon surplus sales: "The key now is, going forward, to shut that down and not let it happen again."

Reporter Claims Israeli Nuke Strike On Iran Averted By U.S. Fighters
Sources say F16 suicide mission armed with 20-kiloton bomb recalled by Israelis under threat of U.S. Sidewinder missile shootdown

Prison Planet | January 19, 2007
Paul Joseph Watson

As escalation towards a war with Iran reaches fever pitch, an online journalist today breaks the astounding news that Israeli fighter jets have already attempted to bomb tactical locations in Iran with nuclear weapons nearly twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, only to be turned back by U.S. warplanes over Iraq.

William Thomas, familiar to many for his work in ascertaining the true nature of chemtrails, cites two sources with U.S. and other military contacts who told him that on two recent occasions Israeli fighter bombers armed with both conventional and nuclear weapons were turned back by U.S. planes under threat of missile interception.

The latest incident occurred on January 7th, claims Thomas, in which jets trespassed beyond the authorized zone over Iraq "Before being recalled by Israeli authorities." Sources told Thomas that the attack squadron "Comprised three IAF F-16s. Each carried conventional munitions—as well as a single 20-kiloton nuclear bomb."

Thomas goes into great depth about the circumstances behind the attempted raid in a near 5,000 word article posted on his website .

According to Thomas' source, Israeli warplanes "Are routinely “topped off” by American aerial refueling tankers, but only on condition that the Israeli jets fly a “racetrack” holding pattern—and do not continue “downtown” toward Iran."

The target of the January 7 raid was purported to be Iran's 3rd Tactical Air Base at Hamadan, where Revolutionary Guard troops and substantial weapons deposits are stationed. The source even suggested that the attack was designed to be a one way kamikaze mission whereby, "Volunteer pilots are prepared to fly their nuclear bombs “into their targets” if necessary."

The news dovetails yesterday's scare, briefly provoked by a rumor that an Iranian missile had struck a U.S. naval vessel in the Gulf. "The bond market briefly pared losses on talk of possible military engagement between the United States and Iran, but turned back down after the Defense Department said the incident did not occur," reported Reuters .

This followed reports on Wednesday that Iran had shot down a U.S. drone near its border.

It also comes after Iranian officials condemned a U.S. raid on a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, during which five Iranian diplomats were kidnapped. Many saw the raid, which was directly authorized by the White House, as an outright attempt on behalf of the U.S. to provoke a heavy handed Iranian response that would boost the Neo-Con's justification for war.

Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul recently expressed his fear during a speech on the House floor that the Bush administration could contrive a staged Gulf of Tonkin style incident to garner domestic and international support for an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Over the last two weeks events have accelerated a seemingly inevitable path to conflict. American aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines are multiplying in the Persian Gulf and Bush recently appointed Adm. William Fallon, a Navy veteran, to oversee the ground war in Iraq, a contradiction many fear betrays preparation for an attack on Iran's uranium enrichment facilities which could take place as soon as next month according to several analysts.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is attempting to rush though legislation that would bar President Bush from authorizing an attack on Iran without House approval but it all seems to be too little too late. Bush's entire Presidency has characterized itself as a unitary dictatorship and his administration has proven itself time and time again perfectly willing to completely ignore the will of Congress and the people in pursuing its preset agenda. In addition, Bush could avoid having to go to Congress by simply providing tacit support for an Israeli strike portrayed as a lone action, as happened this past summer in Lebanon.

The most interesting aspect of such an attack if it does take place will undoubtedly be the response of Russia. Having taken measures to protect their investment in the growth of Iranian nuclear facilities by providing state of the art missile defense systems, the Russians have received severe condemnation from both the U.S. and Israel.

The Turkish Weekly quoted a senior Israeli official in Jerusalem who took a bold swipe at Russia by stating, "We hope they understand that this is a threat that could come back to them as well."

Austrian sniper rifles sold to Iran found in Iraq: report
Agence France-Presse | Feb 13, 2007

US troops have found more than a hundred Austrian-made sniper rifles, which were sold to Iran, in a Baghdad raid on insurgents, The Daily Telegraph has reported citing unnamed defence sources.

The .50 calibre weapons, which are capable of penetrating body armour, were part of a shipment of 800 rifles exported by Austrian arms manufacturer Steyr-Mannlicher to Iran last year, the newspaper said.

"Although we did make our worries known the sale unfortunately went ahead, and now the potential that these weapons could fall into the wrong hands appears to have happened," a spokesman for the British foreign ministry was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.

Britain and the United States had condemned the sale when it originally happened because of their fears that the weapons, which the National Iranian Police Organisation said it was buying to use against drug smugglers, would find their way to insurgents in Iraq.

The report comes days after top US defense officials said that sophisticated Iranian-built bombs smuggled into Iraq have killed at least 170 US and allied soldiers since June 2004 and wounded 620 more.

According to The Daily Telegraph, within 45 days of the HS50 Steyr-Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, a US soldier in an armoured vehicle was killed by an Iraqi insurgent using one of the weapons.

US troops had found in the past six months small numbers of the rifles, which each cost 10,000 pounds (15,000 euros, 19,500 dollars), but a raid in Baghdad over the last 24 hours has increased that total to more than a hundred

Second US carrier arrives off Iran

From correspondents in Manama

February 20, 2007 08:12pm


A SECOND US aircraft carrier arrived in Middle Eastern waters today as promised by US President George W Bush amid an escalating crisis with nearby Iran over its nuclear program.

The USS John C Stennis and its accompanying strike group joined the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in the Sea of Oman but has not yet entered Gulf waters, the US Fifth Fleet said from its base in Manama.

The Stennis "entered the US 5th Fleet area of operations ... to conduct maritime security operations in regional waters, as well as to provide support for ground forces operating in Afghanistan and Iraq", said a US statement.

Mr Bush on January 10 unveiled his new strategy for Iraq which included deploying a second aircraft carrier group and a Patriot anti-missile defence system "to reassure our friends and allies".

Washington accuses arch-foe Tehran of stoking the insurgency in Iraq and of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb, charges denied by the Islamic republic.

Days after Mr Bush's announcement, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the Stennis's redeployment was a signal to Iran, which, he said, has a "very negative" attitude.

Iran has also been carrying out military exercises in the region, including test-firing missiles and building drones that military commanders boasted could hit the US navy.

The White House has repeatedly insisted it has no plans to strike Iran, and downplayed the significance of reinforcing the US military presence in the Gulf region.

www.breakingnews.ie/World/?jp=CWSNSNGBGBSN

At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colourful kites, officials said today.

The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops yesterday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival, said Ruqia Bano, spokeswoman for emergency service in the city of Lahore.

The festival is regularly marred by casualties caused by sharp kite strings or celebratory gunshots fired into the air.

Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival’s string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.

Authorities temporarily lifted a ban on kite flying that was imposed last year following a string of deaths at the festival.

Lahore Mayor Mian Amier Mahmood said that the two-day permission to fly kites ended yesterday and the ban has been re-imposed.

Police arrested more than 700 people for using sharpened kite strings or firing guns and seized 282 illegally held weapons during this year’s festival, said Aftab Cheema, a senior Lahore police officer.

Authorities temporarily lifted a ban on kite flying that was imposed last year following a

string

of deaths at the festival.

Iranians outraged by `300' movie By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer
Tue Mar 13, 4:29 PM ET



TEHRAN, Iran - The hit American movie "300" has angered Iranians who say the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes animosity against Iran.

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"Hollywood declares war on Iranians," blared a headline in Tuesday's edition of the independent Ayende-No newspaper.

The movie, which raked in $70 million in its opening weekend, is based on a comic-book fantasy version of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days.

Even some American reviewers noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran story line — and the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.

In Iran, the movie hasn't opened and probably never will, given the government's restrictions on Western films, though one paper said bootleg DVDs were already available.

Still, it touched a sensitive nerve. Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the United States tries to "humiliate" Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran.

The movie comes at a time of increased tensions between the United States and Iran over the Persian nation's nuclear program and the Iraq war.

But aside from politics, the film was seen as an attack on Persian history, a source of pride for Iranians across the political spectrum, including critics of the current Islamic regime.

State-run television has run several commentaries the past two days calling the film insulting and has brought on Iranian film directors to point out its historical inaccuracies.

"The film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people," Ayende-No said in its article Tuesday.

"It is a new effort to slander the Iranian people and civilization before world public opinion at a time of increasing American threats against Iran," it said.

Iran's biggest circulation newspaper, Hamshahri, said "300" is "serving the policy of the U.S. leadership" and predicted it will "prompt a wave of protest in the world. ... Iranians living in the U.S. and Europe will not be indifferent about this obvious insult."

Dear Iran,

We hated you before this movie came out, so don't get your panties in a bunch.

Regards,
The Geek Crew