3 December 2007
The CIA apparently abandons the sinking petro-imperialist ship ...
The US intelligence community says it is no longer sure that Iran has a nuclear-bomb programme. The country may have dropped such a programme in 2003, the latest National Intelligence Estimate says.
4 December 07
"Top UK anti-terror chief" London Met Police Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman has resigned. Criticism over Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. Hayward made large number of calls to female member of "Independent" Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) (which "investigated" the shooting). Also complaints about money ...
10 December 07
Conrad Black gets 6½ years for ripping off — was it 3, 6, or 100 or more dollars/pounds from Hollinger shareholders.
Asked by John Snow on Channel 4 News if Black was a fall guy for others, the interviewee replied that, on the contrary, Kissinger, Richard Perle, et al (Hollinger directors) were the fall guys and Black was the "architect" (though he had a co-conspirator).
A retired CIA agent has told ABC News that a top al-Qaeda suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was subjected to waterboarding. The agent regarded this as justified, and said Zubaydah broke within "seconds".
12 December 07
BBC Newsnight raised doubts about the authenticity of evidence in a high-profile report on hate literature supposedly obtained at British mosques.
A receipt for samples of the material was shown to have been written on top of another receipt, supposedly for material obtained from a different location. Another "receipt" had the American spelling "center"; etc.
Double car-bombing in Algiers leaves dozens dead, many of them UN personnel. "Al-Qaeda" suspected.
A military man prominent in the fight against Islamism is assassinated in Lebanon.
15 December 07
Iraq's oil production level is up to that before the 2003 invasion.
16 December 07
British "handed control" of its last occupied province, Basra, to Iraqi government today.
"Al-Qaeda no.2 Zawahiri says" the handover is a victory for the militias.
19 December 07
Ho ho ho ...
"Al-Qaeda to give 'open interview"
BBC News online
'Al-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, has invited individuals, organisations and journalists to submit questions for an open interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri.
'Advertisements posted on Jihadist websites said questions sent to them over the next month would be passed to al-Qaeda's deputy leader for his reply.
'It said the questions would be sent "without alteration, whether it comes from someone who agrees or disagrees".
'The offer also came at the end of an interview by Zawahiri posted on Sunday [16 Dec. 07].
'In the video, also produced by al Sahab, Zawahiri said the US-led coalition in Iraq was "defeated and looking for a way out" and said the decision of UK forces to "flee" Basra showed insurgents were gaining strength. ...
'IntelCenter, an organisation which monitors Jihadist websites, said the invitation was the first to have been issued by a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader. ...'
24 December 07
'"WORSENING CRISIS" IN GAZA STRIP
'The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is "getting worse by the day," International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander has warned.
'He said inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave are now struggling to find medical supplies, fuel and clean water.
'But Mr Alexander also said 2008 held "grounds for cautious optimism" in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. ...'
(BBC Ceefax, p.119)
German prosecutors are investigating 12,000 people in a child-pornography downloading "network" — "the biggest in the country's history".
The investigation "also points to suspects in 70 other countries". "An internet provider in Berlin is said to have helped by alerting the inquiry to a huge amount of traffic."
(Ibid, p.121)
25 December 07
Afghanistan has expelled two diplomatic officials, one British and the other Irish, for "activities incompatible with their diplomatic status". They had been talking to various people in Helmand Province, apparently including the Taliban.
26 December 07
'URGENT TALKS ON AFGHAN EXPULSIONS
'Diplomatic efforts are continuing in Afghanistan to try to prevent the expulsion from the country of two senior foreign officials. [Later reports say they have been unsuccessful.]
'The men, based in Kabul, are accused of posing a threat to national security.
'One is a high-ranking UN employee, Briton Mervyn Patterson, the other acting head of the EU mission in Afghanistan, Irishman Michael Semple.
'The expulsion order follows claims that the men had held talks with the Taleban in Helmand province in the south.'
(BBC Ceefax, p.109)
Also reports today that MI6 has been talking with the Taliban (ITV News); and that money has been paid to the Taliban.
'TELEGRAPH[:] MI6 agents entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite [UK PM] Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists.' (ITV Teletext, 26 Dec. 07, p.321, reviews of UK papers)
The Telegraph was the source of the MI6 story (I didn't — at 27 Dec. 07 — find an online copy of the original article) ...
MI6 agents held talks with Taliban: report
Agence France Presse (as hosted by Google, 26 Dec. 07)
'LONDON (AFP) — British intelligence agents held secret talks with Taliban leaders on several occasions this year, the Daily Telegraph newspaper said Wednesday [26 Dec. 07].
'Officers from MI6 met senior insurgents in the middle of the year, the paper said, quoting an unidentified intelligence source. ...
'"The SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) officers were understood to have sought peace [!] directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia," the intelligence source told the Daily Telegraph.
'The meetings — of which there were up to six — took place in houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley in southern Afghanistan, the paper said.
'British military provided a security cordon [who from?] and the meetings took place in the presence of Afghan officials, it added.
'"These meetings were with up to a dozen Taliban or with Taliban who had only recently laid down their arms," it source said. "The impression was that these were important motivating figures inside the Taliban." ...
'In response to the Daily Telegraph's report, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in London would only say: "We do not comment on intelligence matters."'
27 December 07
'Taliban talks' diplomats to leave Afghanistan
Thomas Harding and Tom Coghlan, Telegraph (UK), 27 Dec. 07
'... The diplomatic row blew up after the Telegraph revealed that agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists.
'Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas" [councils], with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.
'An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban. [My emphasis.]" ...
'MI6's meetings with the Taliban took place up to half a dozen times at houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley, to the north-east of Helmand's main town.
'The compounds were surrounded by a force of British infantry providing a security cordon. [From whom?]
'To maintain the stance that President Hamid Karzai's government was leading the negotiations the clandestine meetings took place in the presence of Afghan officials.
'"These meetings were with up to a dozen Taliban or with Taliban who had only recently laid sown their arms," an intelligence source said. "The impression was that these were important motivating figures inside the Taliban." ...'
27 Dec. 07 at 5pm GMT:- Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi. She was shot in the head and neck (or neck and chest) by a "suicide bomber" who then "detonated a bomb".
Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the military, which runs Pakistan. She was standing in elections due on 8 Jan. 08, which may now be "postponed".
This morning she had met Afghan puppet-leader Hamid Karzai. It seems a Black-Christmas complex of events ...
Pakistani dictator CIA satrap Musharraf expressed his condolences, etc. Petro-imperialist puppets George Bush and Gordon Brown added theirs, condemning "terrorists". Joining in the squalor of this crudely-transparent facade ...
'IRAN[:] Russia is preparing to equip Iran with a powerful new air defence system which would increase its ability to repel an attack, Tehran has said.' (ITV Teletext, 27 Dec. 07, p.320)
Pointing the way, perhaps, to World War 3.
28 December 07
The agencies and muppets of petro-imperialism spew the last of their garbage ...
Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the Bhutto assassination, the FBI says. Ayman al-Zawahiri is alleged to have planned the attack by "the suicide bomber". (ITV Teletext, p.304/1)
'... Pakistan's interior ministry has said it has evidence that al-Qaeda and the Taleban are behind the assassination.' (BBC Ceefax, 28 Dec. 07, p.104)
Considering the spate of Bond films on TV this Christmas, it might have added Spectre as well.
A Pakistani interior ministry spokesman has now spewed that "the three bullets" fired at Bhutto missed her, and that she was killed as a indirect result of the explosion, hitting (the lever of) her vehicle's sun roof when ducking it. Or by shrapnel, according to another version.
29 December 07
The "Qaeda" chief named by the Pakistani government denies he did it, and Pakistan People's Party (Bhutto's party, PPP) disbelieves the drivel too.
Our own Western "opposition" could take a line from them.
An audiotape from "Osama bin Laden", in which the CIA avatar calls on Iraqis not to support the tribal councils "fighting al-Qaeda".
30 December 07
The UK's Mail On Sunday claims that Benazir Bhutto sent emails to David Miliband (who has officially accepted the Musharraf's government's claims on her assassination), saying that three allies of the dictator (is there a doctrine that the king can do no evil?) were planning to kill her.