Frank Freeman's Diary, February 2006

'President Bush has told the people of Iran that he respects them and respects their country.

'In his State of the Union speech, Mr Bush said he hoped that America would one day be a close ally of a free and democratic Iran.

'He said Iran was a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite, an elite which was isolating and repressing the Iranian people. [This half-truth disinformation ...] ...'

'President Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad on Wednesday [today] angrily rejected international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions hours after U.S. President George W. Bush vowed to prevent it making an atomic bomb.

'The United States won agreement this week from a reluctant China and Russia at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members to back taking the Iranian nuclear issue to the council, a step that could ultimately lead to sanctions. [See January 2006 diary, under 31 January 06.] ...

'Bush said the world must act together to prevent Iran joining the list of nuclear-armed nations.

A Zogby poll of 13,000 Americans says that 47% would support a US military strike on Iran, (?)74% would support joint airstrikes with Europe on Iranian nuclear facilities, and 36% would support an invasion of the country.

In the UK, The House of Lords has defeated by one vote a proposal to give police constables the power to decide whether internet content is terroristic, and to order internet providers to remove such pages. They will now have to apply to a judge for an order in such cases.
(British Channel 4 News, 1 February 06 at 7pm GMT)

A secret memo of a meeting between President Bush, PM Blair and others just before the Iraq invasion, shows Bush suggesting flying an American U2 spyplane painted in UN colours over Iraq, in the hope that Saddam Hussein would shoot it down, in order to furnish the final pretext to attack Iraq.

The information was quoted by the British lawyer Philippe Sands in the new edition of his book Lawless World.

Controversy is spreading after the reproduction by seven European newspapers of cartoons, originally published in the Danish paper Jyllands Posten last September (see January 2006 diary, under 26 January 06), depicting the face of the prophet Mohammed, one as a bomb with lit fuse.

Provocation politics, no doubt, in preparation for the Iran invasion. But who set this ball in motion? Is it a social thing, or something specifically engineered and/or timed by the Conspirators of Imperialist America?

'There is a "real and present danger" of new terrorist attacks on Britain including suicide bombings, the Government's anti-terror watchdog has warned.

'Lord Carlile said the public must expect more bombings similar to the July 7 bombings which claimed 52 lives. [Perhaps the good lord can provide exact times and places while he's about it ... :-)]

'The peer who was given full access to Home Office files — including intelligence material — in his role as the independent [!] reviewer of terrorism laws.'

Carlile, like the Blair government before the Iraq invasion, is evidently the oh-so-willing frontman for intelligence agitprop preparing the mass mentality for the next oil-target invasion.

That's all it is now, underneath the eggshell-thin facade. A bunch of petroleum-looting gangsters and their frontmen.

CIA boss Porter Goss says that Iran "probably does not yet have nuclear weapons", a gross piece of dissimulation implying that it possibly does already have some. He goes on to say that Iran already has a missile capacity capable of delivering such weapons (a refrain rehashed over this winter by MI6).

Goss, who had a breakfast meeting on 9/11 with General Ahmad, head of the Pakistani intelligence service the ISI, and who, by some accounts, had indirectly sent $100,000 to "lead hijacker" Mohamed Atta. (See "9/11 Breakfast Meeting on Capitol Hill ...")

A more "sober" CIA report says that Iran would not be able to develop nuclear weapons for ten years or so.

Porter Goss also spoke at the same Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, but about the NSA's domestic spy programme. ("US chief intelligence officer convinced Iran wants nuclear weapon", "The World Today", transcript, Australian Broadcasting Corporation online, 3 February 06)

The International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. Russia and China have agreed, provided the Council doesn't consider it until "at least" March.

Silly me. As I understood it, the IAEA itself wasn't going to refer Iran to the Security Council until after meeting in early March.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to call for diplomatic means to approach the Iran nuclear crisis, and .... will call Iran the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Don't be so modest, Rummy. The powers you are fronting for thoroughly deserve that crown.

Syrian crowds have burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. They were protesting about the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, originally printed in the Danish paper Jyllands Posten (see January 2006 diary, under 26 January 06), and recently reproduced in several other European newspapers (e.g. Die Welt (as "a blow for free speech"). There have (of course) been protests across the Muslim world.

Why now? Now that the propaganda campaign against Iran is getting underway in earnest? It is clearly of the pattern of petro-cabal provocation-politics against Muslims, the better to set them up as targets for petro-imperialism.

6 Feb. 06: In Iran, protesters threw "petrol bombs" at the Danish embassy in Tehran. Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) were said to be behind the "demonstration".

"Al-Qaeda" (who else?) is said to be behind the similar actions in Damascus and Beirut.

'NEW PROTESTS [in London] OVER CARTOONS

'Muslim protesters have gathered outside Denmark's embassy in London for more protests against cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

'A speaker told the rally, organised by controversial Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir [my emphasis], that they were demanding an end to the "vilification" of Muslims.

'The gathering was more restrained than yesterday when demonstrators called for more attacks like the July 7 bombings.'

(ITV Teletext, 4 February 06, p.304)

Is Hizb ut-Tahrir a spin-off of now-banned "radical" group al-Mujahiroun? Members of the latter group attacked .... anti-war MP George Galloway (at a meeting in his Bethnal Green constituency), claiming to believe that he was pro-war or some such bilge.

Former US federal prosecutor John Loftus later claimed that Mujahiroun had MI6 connections. While allowing that such a source may be disinformation, it seemed apparent at the time of the attack that the attackers were the (misguided) de-facto brownshirt-frontmen of the Sorcerers of Reich's Construction (i.e. MI5/6). ...

5 Feb. 06: The "opposition" Conservative party has called for action against demonstrators who call for terrorist attacks etc. The Tory shadow attorney-general has asked why police did not arrest such demonstrators.

...... or were the police acting on the "advice" of MI5?

A banner leading the Friday demonstration showed the name of the group Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma. This organization is a revamped vehicle for the leaders of the now-banned Mujahiroun. It was founded last November. (See "Al-Mujahiroun and its Spinoffs".)

6 Feb. 06: BBC Newsnight said tonight that 20 similar demonstrators met outside the BBC too. The film showed them displaying a "Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma" banner.

The programme said that the police took no action against similar provocative posters there either, and threatened passers-by who opposed the demonstrators. An organizers told Newsnight that the Metropolitan police had cleared "every single one" of their banners beforehand, though the Met said they couldn't confirm this.

Newsnight said that spinoffs of the banned Mujahiroun group were involved in organizing the demonstrations (though it didn't specify "Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma" in particular.

I think it highly probable that the police were acting under the direct orders of MI5 in this matter.

Four hundred passengers have now been picked up from an Egyptian ferry, with about 1,300 people on board, which sank 36 hours ago in the Red Sea. It was mainly carrying workers returning from Saudi Arabia. Apparently a car caught fire in the hold, and the captain tried to turn the ship in bad weather, causing it to sink.

Or will we learn that "(that Al Kayeeda faggot)" was responsible for planting a bomb? Can we make this the new 9/11 (conveniently on Egyptians), the final pretext to invade Iran?

'RAF heavy lift helicopters are set to be shipped out to Afghanistan as the UK continues its build up of military forces in the country.'

The Daily Express (that solid MI5/6 agitprop-front) claims that Princess Diana was assassinated by MI6 using a "laser gun"; and Lord (former London Met chief) Stevens, in charge of the "Diana death investigation", has his office broken into, with no signs of forced entry, and computers stolen.

MI5/6 would evidently prefer bullshit about "Diana assassinations" to be bandied about than the truth about its current black ops promoting the twin aims of oil empire and police state.

Three RAF Chinook heavy-lift helicopters have arrived in Afghanistan. They will "help build a base for the 5,000 British troops due to be in the country next summer". Iran, perhaps.

For comparison, there are only 8,900 British troops in Iraq. So it's a big move.

I haven't heard anything about the US forces they are replacing. Perhaps (as has already happened vis-a-vis Falluja in Iraq) the UK troops will be used as support for a US invasion of Iran.

'British troops were sent to reinforce a remote Afghan town after a Nato base came under attack from rioters protesting over the Mohammed cartoons.

'The 120-strong Quick Response Force was deployed to Maymana after protesters reportedly set fire to an armoured vehicle, a car and guard posts.

'The base is used by Norwegian and other Scandinavian troops. Three protesters were killed in fighting, police said.'

'... The UK troops were sent to the airfield at Meymaneh, in the north-west ...'

Maimana is near the northern border of Afghanistan, directly north of Helmand province in the south. These positions are westerly in the country, but not abutting Iran.

This suggests that rear positions are being prepared for the attack on Iran.

The Tories, in what is becoming a refrain, ask why Hamza wasn't prosecuted for so long. He was first considered for prosecution in 1999.

These are grounds for investigating the Sorcerers of Reich's Construction. But no doubt these "inadequacies" will be taken by the Right, in imitation of what has already happened in the USA, as the pretext for the further strengthening of their powers.

'TIMES[:] An unprecedented security crackdown is being mounted at Oxford University in the face of threats from animal rights extremists.'

The office of UK deputy prime minister Prescott reported that next year's local-council elections in England and Wales may be scrapped, pending local-government reorganization, according to the BBC.

Government spokesman Milliband later said, however, that he expected the elections to go ahead.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has accused "Iran and Syria" of "inflaming" the Mohammed-cartoon unrest "for their own purposes".

On Capitol Hill, the all-clear has been given after nerve agent was supposedly detected in the air of the Senate's Russell building. Two hundred people, including senators, were held at an underground car park, but subsequent tests were negative.

President Bush has "revealed" a "Qaeda plot" to fly an airplane into LA's tallest building — in 2002. Even Democrats have accused him of playing politics. (ABC World News Tonight, 9 February 06)

Yahoo gave the Chinese authorities information which led to the jailing of dissidents — one for ten years. All in the name of "opening up China". (Ibid.)

'YEMEN[:] US Navy ships are patrolling the coast as part of a coalition [!] trying to recapture 23 terrorists who escaped from an underground prison last week.' (ITV Teletext, 9 February 06, p.318)

In the UK, the police have established a national data register in accordance with the recommendations of the Bichard Report (into "failures" vis-a-vis the Soham murders).

The UK government has conceded that a separate act of parliament will be needed to make identity (ID) cards compulsory, after a defeat in the House of Lords.

A lawyer for the Bush administration has told British Channel 4 News that Guantanamo internees have no legal rights.

The lawyer previously provided Bush with the "legal justification" for the Iraq invasion.

An "ex" CIA man claimed the agency warned Bush before the Iraq invasion that they would not be able to impose democracy, that there would Sunni-Shia conflict, etc etc. The administration went into Iraq without any foresight, he says.

Just as long as they keep doing it, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc, providing popinjay front-protection for the Conspirators of Imperialist America.

Following bird-flu virus H5N1's emergence in (oil-rich) Nigeria, the UN's bird-flu expert, David Nabarro, warns that this increases the opportunity of the virus to mutate into a form that can pass from human to human, and cause a pandemic.

Apart from its function of enhancing the general background of worry in the West, and providing a potential pretext for states of emergency in Anglo-Saxon countries, the better to suppress opposition to the Iran invasion, bird flu seems to be developing a tendency to spring up next to oil-rich zones such as Iran (eastern Turkey and northern Iraq) and northern Nigeria. Which (in Iran's case at least) may provide a cover for military preparations for invasion — alongside other useful phenomena such as cartoon-riots, which in Afghanistan have provided a pretext for troop buildups in potential "rear" zones (see above, under 7 February 06).

Gordan Brown, Tony Blair's heir apparent, calls for the toughening of "anti-terror" measures.

'Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

'Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. ...

'"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months." ...

'The most likely strategy would would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. ...'

The recycling of this disinformation in the Telegraph tends to confirm the petro-cabal's Iran-invasion schemes. (This right-wing newspaper has long been a propaganda-front for the tricks of the "security" and "intelligence" services, e.g. with the documents "found" in the ruins of the Iraqi Information Ministry, supposedly incriminating anti-war MP George Galloway.)

The current stories — as was the case with Iraq — are cover for preparations for full-scale invasion — the only practical way of securing Iran's oil fields.

US Vice President Dick Cheney has accidentally shot and injured a man while on a quail hunt.

'Vital US infrastructure including power grids and banking systems have been put under simulated attack in a week-long security exercise called Cyber Storm.

'The war game [!] drew in 115 agencies[,] from the FBI and CIA to the Red Cross, the Department of Homeland Security said.

'IT companies and state and foreign governments also played a role in responding to the mock attacks.

'The exercise had given the US "an excellent opportunity to enhance our nation's cyber security," the US said.'

'The Government has survived a crunch Commons vote, overturning a series of defeats inflicted by the Lords on its plans to introduce identity cards.

'MPs backed ministers on automatically issuing ID cards to people when they renew their passports, but the Government's 64 majority shrank to 31.

'Despite a revolt, the amendment by the Lords to make the take-up of ID cards entirely voluntary was rejected.'

Iran invasion imminent, bird flu spreading across Europe. Germany and Austria have reported cases in wild swans.

Dick Cheney's 78-year-old lawyer friend has suffered "a minor heart attack" in hospital. A pellet from Cheney's gun is said to be lodged in his heart.

'The National Counterterrorism Center [NCTC] maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

'The list is kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) — created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency — contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

'U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies. "The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added. ...

'Small and independent shops may vanish from the UK's High Streets by as soon as 2015, politicians have warned.

'Corner shops are being squeezed out of the market by supermarkets and large rivals, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Small Shops said. ...'

And, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, the "Pakkies" that run these shops are in danger of dying out too.

In the UK, the Terror Bill goes back to the House of Lords after the government won the vote on it in the Commons.

'America has dramatically increased its funding for Iranian human rights groups and dissidents as Tehran was directly accused of developing nuclear weapons by France today. ...

'... the Bush Administration revealed some of its tactics to weaken the clerical regime in Iran, requesting $85 million to fund media efforts to win the hearts and minds [not to mention the oil] of ordinary Iranians and support dissidents in the country.

'Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, mentioned the plan in a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington [yesterday, Wednesday].

'The spending, made up of a $75 million grant to the National Endowment for Democracy and 410 million already appropriated by the State Department, marks a huge increase from last year. In 2004, the US Government spent just $3.5 million on similar efforts in Iran, in 2003, just $500,000. ...'

Which shows that their Care For Their Fellow Man is strictly subordinated to an ulterior timetable.

'... The UN report on conditions in the Cuba camp says the US should try all the inmates or free them "without further delay".

'Some aspects of the treatment of the 500-strong camp population amount to torture, the UN team alleges.

'The US has rejected most of the allegations, saying that the five investigators never actually visited Guantanamo Bay. ...

'One of the five investigators responsible for the report [was] UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak ...

'The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, ... has accused Tehran of being the central banker for terrorism around the world and working with Syria to destabilise the Middle East. [Machiavellian gangster techniques, #1: accuse your targets of the very crimes you are perpetrating against them. ... And this merchant banker has just requested $75 million to subvert the regime.]

'Dr Rice was testifying before the Senate Budget Committee in Washington. [This, I suspect, is what the petro-imperialist timetable (with its terror-climax every Feb.-March) is related to: the financial year. ...'

Bird flu has apparently spread to France, where (don't laugh!) a dead duck has been found, "probably infected with the H5N1 strain.

Just in time for the Iran invasion, with states of emergency and nationwide quarantines — in the British puppet, if not the American master — to suppress popular opposition to it.

Two US military helicopters have crashed off the coast of Djibouti (in the Horn of Africa), where the Americans have a base. A spokesman said it didn't appear to be the result of hostile fire. The crews were rescued.

Military helicopter crashes may indicate, as ever, increased US military activity. The area is off the bottom corner of the Arabian Peninsula, where the US Navy is said to be helping ... the search for 23 escaped Yemeni terrorist prisoners.

The US State Department (Condy Rice's patch) is allocating .... $5 million to "help pro-democracy groups" in Syria.

... contrasting with $85 million for the like projects in Iran (See above, under 16 Feb. 06.). As good an indicator as any of America's petro-imperialist priorities over pleasing its Israeli sidekick.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has threatened to cut off oil exports to the US if it doesn't stop subverting his country.

Guerrillas in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger-Delta region have launched a spate of kidnappings of foreigners.

According to an ICM poll conducted for the Sunday Telegraph, four in ten British Muslims are in favour of Shariah law in their parts of the country, and one in five expressed sympathy with the July 7 London "suicide bombers". However, over 90 percent appreciate their British nationality.

France has confirmed that the bird flu strain found in a dead duck is the H5N1 variety.

India and Iran have also reported cases of the virus. It was found in chickens in western India, and in wild swans in Iran.

'... German troops trained in chemical and biological warfare have been sent to Ruegen [in the Baltic Sea] to help disinfect people and vehicles leaving the island.

'... In Iran, tests on more than 100 dead swans found in the wetlands in the northern province of Gilan showed the presence of H5N1.'

... in a web rebroadcast of the "Osama" audiotape first broadcast by al-Jazeera on 19 January 06 (see January 2006 diary, under this date).

A car bomb in Baghdad kills 22 people as UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw pays a "surprise" visit to the country.

The days when spectacular attacks coincided with still-secret visits of leading US and UK figures are long gone.

Three British bankers are to be extradited to America on charges of fraud (committed in Britain), under a non-reciprocal treaty with America brought in to deal with terror suspects.

British Channel 4 News says it has learned from UK Air Traffic Control that three "CIA" aircraft, apparently used for "torture flights" ("extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects to third countries where they may be tortured) went through UK airports on 200 occasions in the last five years.

Ninety-eight "terrorist suspects" have died in US-run prisons outside the USA since 2002, Human Rights Watch has revealed. Thirty-four of the cases were "homicides", but in only twelve has anyone been brought to book.

In Iraq, a series of explosive charges has destroyed the golden dome of the Askari(ya) shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, one of the holiest Shia sites. Men dressed in police uniforms arrived at dawn and tied up the guards.

The Iraqi government has declared three days of national mourning, and warned of the danger of civil war. The prime minister conventionally declared the act the work of "al-Qaeda in Iraq".

The ultimate aim of this top-rank provocation may be to embroil Iran, the better to attack it. The "Qaeda in Iraq" phantom, led by the phantom Zarqawi, is (like its Big Brother) a convenient front for such machinations.

'... The [Iraqi] Interior Ministry said four men, one wearing a military uniform and three in black, entered the mosque early Wednesday and detonated two bombs, one of which collapsed the dome ...
'U.S. and Iraqi forces in Samarra surrounded the shrine and searched nearby houses. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, said Col. Bashar Abdullah, chief of police commandos. ...
("Large explosion heavily damages ...", Canada.com)

'... Iraq's national security adviser said ten people wearing police commando uniforms had been arrested in Samarra. Police said such a group had overpowered mosque guards and laid charges that brought down the ... dome ...'
(Amer al-Amery, "Civil war fears as shrine is bombed", The Scotsman, 23 February 06)

'... The attack in Samarra came at 7 a.m., when a group of a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms ["Insurgents dressed as police commandos" in an earlier version, "according to Google News] entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who were sleeping in a back room, said a spokesman for the provincial governor's office. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it, collapsing most of the dome ...
'... in a striking break from the past, the leader of Iraq's main Shiite political alliance said he thought Zalmay Khalizad, the American ambassador to Iraq, was partly to blame for the bombing of the shrine.
'The Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al Hakim, said he thought Mr. Khalizad's public comments on Monday [20 Feb. 06], in which he drew attention to apparent death squads operating within Iraq's Shiite-led Interior Ministry, were a provocation to the bombing. ...
'"This declaration gave a green light for these [sic] groups to do their operation, so he is responsible for a part of that," Mr. Hakim said of the ambassador, at a news conference called to condemn the shrine bombing.'
(Robert F Worth, "Blast Destroys Shrine in Iraq ...", New York Times, 22 February 06)

British Channel 4 News (22 Feb. 06, 7pm), continuing its reports on British troops in Afghanistan, reports that they have largely completed their move from the Mazar-e-Sharif region in the north to Helmand province in the south-west. (Are these the same, partly different, or largely different from the 3000/5000-odd freshers from the UK going to Helmand?)

Channel 4 News said the troops would be "fighting the opium trade" in Helmand, but the troop commander interviewed didn't convey the impression this was by any means the major part of the operation. A Hawker Harrier pilot, also interviewed, said that he and his fellows had defended with missiles US ground troops against attackers. So the Americans are still there, so far at any rate.

'The committee that sets federal immunization policy recommended yesterday that children 2 to 5 years old be vaccinated against influenza every year, expanding the "target population" for flu shots and inching toward the day when they will be recommended ["or we'll break your legs"?!] to everyone. ...'

... and they're inching toward their goal of injecting the US population at large with something-or-other. Perhaps a def facto jab against, say, 100%-lethal genetically-modified smallpox, which can then "safely" be unleashed on target countries.

At least 50 people have been killed in Iraq in "reprisal" attacks for the destruction of the Shi'ite Askari(ya) Shrine. Among them were "a prominent Arab reporter and her crew" (of two), who went to Samarra to cover the bombing.

'gunmen kidnapped and killed a correspondent for Al Arabiya television and two members of her crew in Iraq .... [T]he Dubai-based channel said [it] lost contact with correspondent Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi citizen, and her three-man team late on Wednesday [yesterday] after they had left the Iraqi city of Samarra [my emphasis].

Haj said that, during the ambush, one of the crewmen managed to escape from the kidnappers and inform police. ...'

My usenet posting "Iran: U.S. Israel destroyed Iraqi shrine" (the title is that of the Reuters report on Iranian president Ahmadinejad's speech; the posting, which comments also on journalist Bahjad's slaying, was made before I read the next item)

'... a member of the al-Arabiya TV team who escaped described how gunmen showed up as they stood in a crowd of Iraqis.

'A spokesman for al-Arabiya said Bahjat, an Iraqi citizen, was a Sunni Muslim. ...

'Al-Arabiya said it lost contact with its team at 1500 GMT, shortly after nightfall. ...

'The station had been showing the last report Bahjat filed — in fading light beside a road outside Samarra, close to where the team was kidnapped.

'They had been about to return to a base in the northern city of Kirkuk when two gunmen drove up in a pick-up truck, al-Arabiya correspondent Ahmed al-Saleh reported on the morning news programme.

'"The two gunmen started firing their machine-guns in the air, which caused the people to panic and run away," Saleh said.

'"One of them started shouting 'We want the anchorwoman' [my emphasis]. Atwar was in the news van and shouted to the crowd to help her.

'"The crew tried to speak to the gunmen, but they snatched them and took them [to] an unknown location." ...'

So that this clearly targeted kidnapping took place as Bahjat and her team were transmitting their report — presumably on the Askariya Shrine bombing.

British Channel 4 News, continuing its series on British troops in Afghanistan, says that the UK's military base now under construction in Helmand province will be the largest British base since World War 2. It covers two square miles, and will be ready "in June".

A deception for a US/UK invasion of Iran in March? At any rate, the base will be one fit to rule an empire. Except it will be Americans ruling.

In Iraq, two British soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb in al-Amarah, north of Basra.

'Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making th past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media. ...'

"Otis Willie" has posted a news item ("excerpt") on the usenet group sci.military.naval (which, in my reply, I have generously extended to four other groups).

The article may well indicate the build-up of Iran-invasion support forces (in spite of their ostensible targeting on Iraq) ...

'{EXCERPT} , By Petty Officer 2nd Class Shane Tuck, USN Special to American Forces Press Service

'ABOARD THE USS RONALD REAGAN, Feb. 24, 2006 - F/A -18E Hornets assigned to the "Eagles" of Strike Fighter Attack Squadron 115 on Feb. 22 became the first aircraft launched from the flight deck of USS Ronald Reagan to drop ordnance on enemy targets in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

'Reagan is the Navy's newest Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carrier and is currently on its maiden deployment. Commissioned in 2003, the San Diego-based aircraft carrier is part of a routine rotation [yeah, yeah yeah] of U.S. maritime forces in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations.

'"Our air wing is comprised of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is a key player in deterring aggression from the insurgency within Iraq," Rear Adm. Michael H. Miller, commander of Carrier Strike Group 7, said. ...

'An important part of the strike group's mission in the Arabian Gulf is to support troops on the ground while they work to provide training and support to Iraqi forces, Miller said. ...

'The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is supporting operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom [in Afghanistan, squeeze squeeze] as well as conducting maritime security operations in the Arabian Gulf [nice avoidance of Persian Gulf there!]. ...

'The Ronald Reagan Strike Group is made up of Carrier Air Wing 14, Destroyer Squadron 7, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Reagan, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain, the guided-missile destroyers USS McCampbell and USS Decatur, the fast combat support ship USS Rainer, and Explosives Ordnance Disposal Unit 11, Detachment 15.

'The squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 114 include the "Redcocks" of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, the "Fist of the Fleet" of Strike Fighter Squadron 25, the "Stingers" of Strike Fighter Squadron 113, the "Eagles" of Strike Fighter Squadron 115, the "Black Eagles" of Airborne Early Warning Squadron 113 [sic, the "Cougars" of Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 30, and the "Black Knights" of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 4.'

It's incumbent upon my my redoubtable comrade Col. Blitzenburger to come up with a press release on those dastardly insurgent and terrorist submarines our boys are heroically combating.