tagged w/ Militants
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Amid the graves of Somalia's children
CNN...
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Burying a child: A mother's unending grief
Sanjay Gupta MD
By Sanjay Gupta, M.D., Chief Medical Correspondent
August 11, 2011 11:25 a.m. EDT
Fight to save Somali kids
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Gupta's visit with Somalian refugees brings disturbing memories
He recalls the grieving mother of a boyhood friend who died
Thousands of Somalian parents have buried their children this summer
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Editor's note: Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes you deep inside the misery of the largest refugee camp in the world, "SGMD," Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET
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Dadaab, Kenya (CNN) --
When I was in the third grade, a classmate of mine died of leukemia. None of us knew he was sick, only that his mother hadn't let him attend school in a while.
More than 30 years later, I still remember the awful day my mom told me my friend had passed away. I made a card for his mother, and walked to their house to deliver it. She was too overcome to take any visitors, but thanked me and took the card. I can recall her broken up face when she shut the door.
Over time we lost touch, but during the holidays a couple of years ago, I stopped by her home to pay a visit. She recognized me right away, smiled and invited me in for a cup of coffee. And then, while hanging my jacket, she began to tremble and cry.
So many years later, the sorrow was just under the surface. The experience left an indelible impression on me, one that I better understood after becoming a parent myself. It violates a natural order of life to bury your own child, and I am not sure the grief ever goes away.
That's the position 30,000 Somali parents found themselves in this summer. And, 600,000 more children may be buried before the end of the year. In just about any other place on Earth, those numbers would scream out from international headlines, but not here in East Africa.
Inside the Dadaab Refugee Camp, a mass burial site sits within walking distance of the close cluster of tents. Amin Hassan took me to see the tiny burial site of her 1-month old daughter, Addison.
It was nearly lost among all the other shallow, hastily dug graves. Small sticks mark these raised plots of dirt with nothing else except bits of colored plastic trash stuck in the ground and blowing in the wind.
There are no nameplates, no flowers and no reminders of their lives. People here just vanish.
"She was perfectly healthy when she arrived," Amin told me.
They had left Somalia in search of food and water, and felt relief when they finally reached the camp. It may have been contaminated water that caused little Addison's intractable diarrhea and vomiting or an overwhelming infection.
Pertussis or whooping cough is something they see quite often here. "And measles," one of the doctors told me.
Many of these infections are wildly contagious, especially among the hundreds of thousands of un-vaccinated kids in these camps.
As I stood and spoke to Hassan, with all those tiny burial sites around us, I couldn't help but think of my friend and his mother. I thought of that unnatural order of parents burying their children.
I thought about Hassan's lifelong grief.
Amin Hassan dug the grave for her daughter by herself.
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.Amid the graves of Somalia's children
CNN...
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Burying a child: A... more
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Insurgents attacked five security checkpoints in a northwestern Pakistan region on the Afghan border on Friday killing 11 soldiers and leading to clashes in which 24 militants died, officials said.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/reuters/National/70529Insurgents attacked five security checkpoints in a northwestern Pakistan region on the... more
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Yemen's al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula is offering chilling magazine tips to would-be militants on how to kill Americans.
link: http://www.10news.com/news/25359728/detail.htmlYemen's al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula is offering chilling magazine tips to... more
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A Florida pastor may have called off his plan to burn Qurans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But David Grisham, the leader of a militant evangelical group in Amarillo, tells the local CBS affiliate(http://www.newschannel10.com/global/story.asp?s=13135412) that he plans to publicly burn the Muslim holy book on Saturday. Grisham is the leader of Repent Amarillo, which gained attention in January when it launched a boycott of Houston after the city elected on openly gay mayor, Annise Parker:
> According to Grisham, he has questioned why he should go through with his plan,
> but in the end, he feels it is right.
> “Terrorism was seeded by the ideas in the Quran. It’s the Quran that has put our troops
> in danger. Burning one isn’t going to put our troops in danger. It’s the ideas contained
> in that book that put them in danger,” said Grisham.
Grisham is a security guard at a NUCLEAR-BOMB facility called Pantex, according to media reports. Repent Amarillo goes by the moniker “Army of God” and refers to itself as the “special forces of spiritual warfare.” The group has also gained attention for a campaign to shut down a local swingers club, as well as a “warfare map” posted on its website identifying its enemies in Amarillo.A Florida pastor may have called off his plan to burn Qurans on the anniversary of the... more
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KABUL, Afghanistan -U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.
The raids before dawn Saturday appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban's southern birthplace of Kandahar.
Also Saturday, three more American service members were killed — two in a bombing in the south and the third in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. command said. That brought to 38 the number of U.S. troops killed this month — well below last month's figure of 66.
The militant assault in the border province of Khost began about 4 a.m. when dozens of insurgents stormed Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, according to NATO and Afghan police.
Two attackers managed to breach the wire protecting Salerno but were killed before they could advance far onto the base, NATO said. Twenty-one attackers were killed — 15 at Salerno and six at Chapman — and five were captured, it said.
Three more insurgents, including a commander, were killed in an airstrike as they fled the area, NATO said.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in the fighting. Four U.S. troops were wounded, NATO officials said.
And on Wednesday, an Afghan police driver with family links to the Taliban killed three Spaniards — two police trainers and their interpreter — at a training center in the northern province of BadghisKABUL, Afghanistan -U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American... more
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Qari Hussain is the Taliban leader who is known for running suicide camps that train children. "Our movement has gained more strength after the martyrdom of Baitullah Mehsud," he said. "We are united." Militants had transformed a government-run school near the village of Spinkai in South Waziristan into what one officer described as a “nursery for preparing suicide bombers”. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/377-bombing-masterQari Hussain is the Taliban leader who is known for running suicide camps that train... more
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Last Thursday, I was going to tell you about how the neighborhood around Vanguard’s Hollywood production office is the unofficial transgender street hustler capital of Los Angeles County, but instead I wrote about the narco war in Mexico, and its possible spill over into the US—or not. But the next afternoon, just to show you that I wasn’t exaggerating about the street hustlers, I came back to the Vanguard office from an offsite meeting and my colleagues Benita Sills and Lauren Cerre informed me that, while I was away, an SUV had pulled into my parking spot so that a street hustler could perform an sexual act on a customer.
And this allows me to repeat that, in Vanguard, we like to think one part of our mission is to give you a heads up as to what might be coming in the future. We’re not fortune tellers, but if we can point to stuff that’s out there that you might otherwise not hear much about, when something does happen, it’s not such a shock because, ideally, it’s more understandable.
So instead of writing about street hustlers today, I’ll encourage you to watch a story that Adam Yamaguchi, Tracey Chang, and I shot three years ago this month in Pakistan.
We shot this story during a trip across Pakistan, in which we drove through the Khyber Pass in the militant-infested Tribal Areas along the country’s western border with Afghanistan—the place where all the fighting has been going on this past week in the Pakistani Army’s offensive against militants. Now, the instability has spread, and foreigners can’t even get up the Khyber Pass, even with a Pakistani soldier in their car, as we had.
But while we gave you a heads up on that situation, that’s not what I want to point out. While we were on our trip, a bomb went off a few hundred yards from us and killed seven people in the city of Peshawar, a few miles outside the Tribal Areas. Three years ago, such a bombing in Peshawar was rare. Now bombings have become common, not just in areas near the Tribal Areas, but across Pakistan. And that’s what I wanted to point out.
If you notice, the story I’ve put up, "Pakistani India Envy," wasn’t shot in or near the dangerous Tribal Areas, but all the way across Pakistan, in the bustling city of Lahore, in the Punjab, near Pakistan’s border with India. If you don’t watch the piece, the point is that there are militants like the ones hiding in the Tribal Areas (backed by the tribal people there), but there are also militants throughout Pakistan because the government used to back those who were deemed useful in Pakistan’s decades-long struggle against its much larger and stronger neighbor, India. But now that the militants in the Tribal Areas want to terrorize the rest of Pakistan, they’re able to turn to these other militant networks, which were only supposed to fight against India, on Indian soil.
Which means that now they’re a problem for Pakistan. It’s somewhat similar to the lesson that the US learned with its first involvement with Afghanistan, in the 1980s. At the time it gave hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry to some members of the anti-Soviet resistance in Pakistan, which included a broad collection of groups and individuals, some of which later founded militant organizations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The lesson seems to be that militants pose the danger of staying militant, even when the assignment you gave them has ended. And, if that analysis proves to be correct, we told you so three years ago.Last Thursday, I was going to tell you about how the neighborhood around... more
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THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store. It'll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.
His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers, one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans.
There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey "unconstitutional" orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt.... more
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Reporting from New Delhi and Peshawar, Pakistan – At least 75 civilians were killed and dozens were wounded Friday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at an outdoor volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, police said. The attack apparently was aimed at members of an anti-Taliban “peace committee” that has been challenging the influence of insurgents, officials and town elders said.
More on this Terrorist attack... VIDEO...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/pakistan-sports-event-homicide-bombing-kills-at-least-75/Reporting from New Delhi and Peshawar, Pakistan – At least 75 civilians were... more
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At least 30 suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed by an air strike in a remote mountainous area of Yemen, security officials say.
An unnamed official told reporters the strike took place as dozens of militants gathered in Shabwa province, east of the capital, Sanaa.
Two senior al-Qaeda commanders in the Arabian peninsula could be among the dead, he said.
Al-Qaeda has carried out frequent attacks in Yemen in recent months.
The Saudi government has recently expressed its concern about the resurgence of the movement in the region.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8429370.stmAt least 30 suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed by an air strike in a remote... more
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Ceremonies are being held in Mumbai to mark the first anniversary of a series of devastating attacks on the Indian city by militants.Ceremonies are being held in Mumbai to mark the first anniversary of a series of... more
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You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition didn't stop liquor use; the drug laws can't stop drug use. Making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun ownership.
The primary victim of these misguided efforts is the honest citizen whose civil rights are trampled as frustrated legislators and police tighten the screws.
Banning guns will make guns more expensive and give organized crime a great opportunity to make profits in a new black market for weapons. Street violence will increase in new turf wars. Criminals will not give up their guns. But, many law abiding citizens will, leaving them defenseless against armed bandits.
Rather than banning guns, the politicians and the police should encourage gun ownership, as well as education and training programs. A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion. America's founders knew that. It is still true today.You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition... more
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ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Militant attacks killed six Pakistani security forces Monday, officials said, a day after the Taliban chief warned of terrorist strikes across the country if the army did not stop a major offensive against insurgents along the Afghan border.
The army moved into South Waziristan tribal region nine days ago vowing to crush the Pakistani Taliban, a militant network it says is behind 80 percent of the suicide bombings in Pakistan. Washington backs the operation because militants in the northwest region are believed to shelter al-Qaida leaders and attack Western troops in Afghanistan.
Heavily armed militants assaulted security officials in Toraware village overnight, killing two and wounding four in a three-hour shootout in the area some 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of South Waziristan, police officer Mir Chaman Khan said. Some 10 militants were believed to have been killed.
In Bajur, a tribal region further north, Taliban fighters attacked a checkpoint at Matthak village, killing four security officials. Seven militants died in the clash, said Syed Ghulam Rasool, a local government official. The militants also attacked security check posts at Khar, the main town in Bajur, and Siddiqabad, an adjoining village, wounding at least three security personnel.
Militant attacks in Pakistan have surged this month, killing more than 200 people, as the Taliban have tried to avert the army offensive in South Waziristan. The military announced Saturday its first major achievement in the offensive - the capture of Kotkai, Mehsud's hometown. The army said the town had hosted a training camp for suicide bombers.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud remained defiant Sunday. He said in a telephone call to an Associated Press reporter the militants had not suffered "any significant losses" in Waziristan. Mehsud, speaking from an undisclosed location, threatened to turn Pakistan into "another Afghanistan or Iraq" unless the assault stopped.
The army says troops have captured two key fronts between Kotkai and the key militant base of Sararogha. An army statement said troops secured at least one other important front and fought 16 hours to capture a significant mountaintop.
The militants have fled Kotkai and are sporadically attacking troops with rockets from high ground, the military said.
Independent verification of such reports is nearly impossible because the military has blocked access to South Waziristan. The tribal regions as a whole are difficult to access and largely off-limits to foreign journalists.
The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan to take on an estimated 12,000 militants, including up to 1,500 foreign fighters, among them Uzbeks and Arabs. The U.N. says some 155,000 civilians have fled.
In other violence Sunday, a minister for education was assassinated by gunmen in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, police official Shahid Nizam said. A nationalist group, the Baluchistan United Liberation Front, claimed responsibility in calls to local media outlets.
The region has been the scene of a low-level insurgency for years to press demands for a greater share of oil and gas revenue in the province.
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Mahsud reported from Dera Ismail Khan. Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Islamabad, Habib Khan in Khar and Hussain Afzal in Parachinar contributed to this report.ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Militant attacks killed six Pakistani security forces Monday,... more
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- At least four gunmen were holding 10 to 15 people hostage inside army headquarters in Rawalpindi Saturday after an attack left at least 10 people dead, a top military spokesman said.
Army Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN that the hostages include civilians and military personnel.
He said there have been sporadic shootings between the gunmen and authorities over the past three or four hours.
The gunmen, wearing camouflage clothing and riding in a minivan, earlier opened fire Saturday at the headquarters checkpoint, south of Islamabad, Abbas said.
Ten people were killed in the raging gunbattle including four gunmen and six army guards, he added.
Another military official said the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the incident.
...More...ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- At least four gunmen were holding 10 to 15 people hostage... more
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The United States has long suspected that much of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India.ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The United States has long suspected that much of the... more
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Officials see a growing number of anti-government militia groups growing across the US. They feel that this situation is being exacerbated by fears stoked by the health care debate, the poor economy and a liberal presidency.Officials see a growing number of anti-government militia groups growing across the... more
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PHOTO: A mountain gorilla is having a snare removed. Illegal logging/deforestation has created access for illegal hunting and illegal wildlife-trade. The snares are used to catch "bushmeat" (anything that ends up in the trap).
Large numbers of endangered animals have been killed by armed groups at Africa's oldest national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the start of the year, park officials and environmental groups said Tuesday.
Chimpanzees, elephants, antelopes, birds and hippos have been slaughtered after Virunga National Park became the scene of intense fighting.
The park, on the frontier with Uganda, was made a world heritage site by the UN's cultural body UNESCO, and is home to endangered species such as the mountain gorilla.
"Four chimpanzees were killed last week in the central zone and 11 elephants since the start of the year," park director Emmanuel de Merode told AFP.
He added "a large number of game animals", including antelopes, had also been slaughtered.
Bantu Lukamba, from local environmental NGO Innovation, said: "At least 31 animals, including 11 migratory birds and three hippos were killed over 21 days."
They died between May 25 and June 16, he said.
Armed groups have overrun the park since violence flared up last year.
It became the theatre of intense fighting, mainly between government forces or their proxies and rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People.
"It is impossible to get control the situation in the park, given the huge number of armed men who exploit its resources," Merode said.
The park is also home to Lake Edward, which in 1980 was the world's most important hippopotamus sanctuary with 27,000 of the animals.
There are now less than 300, according to Merode.
Created in 1925, Virunga National Park is the oldest in Africa.PHOTO: A mountain gorilla is having a snare removed. Illegal logging/deforestation has... more
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The Pakistani military says dozens of students abducted by militants in the north-west of the country have been freed by troops. Several buses carrying students were reported missing in an area near the Afghan border on Monday.The Pakistani military says dozens of students abducted by militants in the north-west... more
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The Gaza Strip
“Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key.”
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, John Dugard
Gaza: The Facts
Total Population - 1,500,202
Population Density - 4117 per sq km
Fertility Rate - 5.19 children/woman
Total Refugees - 1,059,584
Refugees as % of Population - 70%
Unemployment - 45.5%
Average Age - 17.2 years - some estimates have put the median age at 15.3.
Life Expectancy - 73.16 years
% dependant on foreign aid - 86%
Gaza: Retrospective of events
1948 Arab-Israeli War - Gaza Strip’s boundaries were defined by the 1949 Armistice and placed under Egyptian rule to be held in trust for a future Palestinian state.
1956 Suez-Sinai War - The Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel. A year later they withdrew their troops and a UN Emergency Force was placed in the Gaza Strip.
1967 War - Israel recaptured the Gaza Strip on June 5th. In November of the same year, UN Security Council called for the ‘withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’.
1970 - The first settlement, Kfar Darom, was built in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli settlement movement continued to expand as did confrontations between settlers and Palestinians.
1987 - The first Palestinian Intifada and Hamas, an Islamic Resistance Movement, begin in Gaza. The Intifada comes to an end with the signing of the Oslo Accord and establishment of the PA in 1993.
2000 - The Camp David Summit renewed hopes for peace until Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque sparks the Second Intifada in September.
2005 –Ariel Sharon ‘disengages’ from the Gaza Strip in September – unilaterally and without consultation or coordination with the the Palestinian Authority. Though the settlers are gone, Israel maintains effective contol of the Strip.
2006 – Hamas wins the January Parliamentary Election by a landslide. Israel and the international community place sanctions on Palestine and withhold VAT. Tensions grow within Palestine between factions.
2007 -Violent clashes erupt between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza, resulting in Hamas securing control of the Strip. Egypt responds by sealing off the border.
2008 - On January 17th Israel sealed off the borders to Gaza following a rise in rocket attacks. They retain full control over the amount of medical supplies, food and fuel imported to the Gaza Strip by land or sea. In June 19th, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire. As this goes to print, they are fighting again (Nov).The Gaza Strip
“Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the... more
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