Wednesday, January 27, 2010
china confidential
Obama Administration Debating Outreach to Taliban
The Obama administration, as reported here, is reportedly considering reconciliation with the Taliban--"the men who sheltered Osama bin Laden and who still have close ties to Al Qaeda."
Al Qaeda, the Taliban's ally, is the only Islamist group the administration is not seeking to engage--for now. At the rate things are going, it is only a matter of time before the appeasers of radical Islam and their adoring, mainstream media backers, will discover supposedly reconcilable elements of Al Qaeda.Tuesday, January 26, 2010
"Fast and Strange Turn" By Doomed Ethiopian Jetliner Recalls Suicide Crash of EgyptAir 490
A report--read it here--that the pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet that plummeted into the Mediterranean Sea Monday shortly after taking off from Beirut airport in thunderstorms and lightning made a "very fast and strange turn" is fueling speculation that terrorism may have caused the crash, which is believed to have killed all 90 people on board the Boeing 737-800.
The pilot flew in the opposite direction from that recommended by the control tower, which asked him to correct his path before Flight ET409, bound for Addis Ababa, disappeared from the radar.
The pilot's name has not been released. But the turn he took recalls the destruction of EgyptAir 490, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 1999, about 60 miles south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, in international waters, killing all of the 217 people on board.
Egyptian investigators concluded that the aircraft crashed as a result of mechanical failure. But U.S. investigators concluded the Boeing 767 was deliberately crashed in an apparent suicide by the 59-year-old co-pilot, Gamil al-Batouti, who had been left in control of the plane when the pilot left the cockpit. The co-pilot's last recorded words were, "Tawfik ala Allah"--Arabic for "I put my faith in God."
Ethiopian Airlines has the best safety record among Africa's notoriously unsafe carriers. But Ethiopia was deeply involved in supporting the government of Somalia, a failed state, against Islamist insurgents and terrorists associated with Al Qaeda.North and South Korea Exchange Artillery Fire
North and South Korea have again exchanged artillery fire near a disputed maritime border. Click here for the story.
The incident supports the prediction by China Confidential that the North aims to raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula to pressure the United States into scrapping sanctions on the North and divert attention from its nuclear-arming ally, Iran.
As China Confidential reported earlier today, the North could test-fire missiles in an attempt at upstaging President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech.Muslim Clerics Justify and Glorify Suicide Bombings
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
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