China Confidential
Foreign Reporting and Analysis Since April 2005
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Setbacks for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
Some serious setbacks for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Abu Saeed Masri, who oversaw Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan, is reported to have been killed in fighting in Pakistan's tribal lands near the Afghan border. Masri, also known as Mustafa Abu Yazid, was believed to have been a close associate of Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, and to have played a prominent role in the organization's overall structure.
And ABC News reported yesterday on the capture of an alleged Al Qaeda spy in Afghanistan--a 36-year-old, radicalized MIT graduate--whom intelligence experts are calling the terrorist Mata Hari. The broadcast network said Aafia Siddique had a list of targets in New York and chemical and biological weapons information in her possession.
Click here to read the article.
Security Crackdown in Xinjiang
China has responded to three more killings in the country's far western province of Xinjiang with a major security crackdown.
Chinese officials say militant Uighur Muslims are trying to sabotage the Olympics. The officials accuse separatist groups of launching a series of attacks that have killed more than 30 people in just over a week.
In Kashgar, yesterday's fatal stabbing of three security personnel has led to a major crackdown by police.
Cars entering and leaving the city are being pulled over and searched while drivers have to pass an identification check to buy motor fuel.Barack Obama or Barry Soetoro? Mystery Deepens
Dateline USA....
The blogosphere is abuzz with plausible rumors about Barack Hussein Obama's birth certificate--namely, that the actual certificate (not the forged certificate that was released to the media) says Barry Soetoro, and that he is a dual US-Indonesian citizen who may have used his Indonesian passport to travel to Pakistan in 1981.Mexican Military Regularly Invades US Territory
"Black Jack" Pershing must be rolling in his grave.
The US is committing national suicide, allowing a corrupt foreign military to invade US territory at will.
Incredibly, a US Border Patrol agent was recently held at gunpoint by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona. The soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.
Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.
US law enforcement authorities have for years said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.
The invaders are never held accountable.How Did it Come to This?
The war in Georgia--how did it come to this?
It is hard not to see the current crisis as the culmination of US foreign policy errors. The US treated the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity--not to partner with post-Communist Russia but to weaken, isolate, and humiliate its former ideological rival and Cold War adversary. The US foolishly--some would say recklessly--encouraged Georgia to believe that it could join and thus be protected by NATO, a Cold War relic.
And Georgia stupidly stimulated a showdown with Russia.
Moscow is basically paying Washington back for nearly two decades of adventures in the Balkans and the Caucasus, and signaling the US and the European Union that they need to back off from criticizing--and antagonizing--a resurgent, energy-rich superpower.
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Foreign Confidential....
Dateline USA....
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