1 February 2008
Two bombs exploded simultaneously in Baghdad animal markets, killing over 70 people. Iraqi officials said the devices were attached to two "mentally disabled" women (with Downs Syndrome), and set off by remote control. Brigadier ____ Ata al-Moussawi, speaking to the BBC, blamed al-Qaeda. (BBC Ceefax, p.107)
BBC 1's 6 O'Clock News called the women "suicide bombers".
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3 February 08
Muslim Labour MP Sadiq Khan was twice bugged by "terror police", in 1995 and 1996, when visiting terror-finance-suspect "Baba Ahmed" in prison. Ahmed is currently fighting extradition to the United States. (Sunday Times [UK])
4 February 08
The Thames Valley police officer responsible for the bugging, Mark Kearney, has told the BBC he was put under "significant pressure" to do it by the London Metropolitan Police.
5 February 08
Kearney says he now fears for his life. (ITV news at 10pm)
The CIA has admitted to waterboarding for the first time. It says the technique was only used on three leading "Qaeda" men, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), and hasn't been used for five years.
7 February 08
Britain is sending 1,300 Scottish troops to Afghanistan, says defence secretary Des Browne. He claims they are mainly replacements.
8 February 08
The Scotland Yard foresnic team in Pakistan has — surprise surprise! — "confirmed" the Musharraf government's version of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, namely that she was killed as a result of the "suicide" bombing.
Well, it was a bit like sending a team of Mussolini secret police to "investigate" the killing of an opposition leader in Iron-Guard Romania.
10 February 08
A bomb at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Balad kills at least 23 people, as US defense secretary Robert Gates (once briefly the CIA director) visits the country. Balad is a US fortified position near the Iranian border.
11 February 08
Six men are to be put on trial in a US military tribunal in connection with the 9/11 attacks. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nashiri, Muhammad Atef, and Ramzi Binalshibh.
A report from a British Channel 4 News reporter "embedded" with the Royal Marines, at the dam in northern Helmand which supplies two million southern Afghans with hydroelectric power.
"We get attacks like this most days"; "Actually this hasn't happened for some time", says a marine with a grin. "Most of the marines have never even seen a Taliban", says the reporter, Alex Thompson.
"The Sun says RAF Nimrod spy planes flying over Afghanistan have heard Taliban fighters speaking in Birmingham and Yorkshire accents. ..." (BBC Ceefax, 11 Feb. 08, p.148, reviews of British papers)
I wonder if any were flying over New York on 9/11. Might they have heard hijackers speaking in Langley accents?
13 February 08
One of Lebanese Hezbollah's top men, Imad Mughniyeh, has been assassinated by a car-bomb in Damascus. He has been accused of being implicated in the suicide truck-bomb killings of 242 US marines, and 76 French soldiers, in Beirut in 1983, many other attacks, on Israeli and other targets, as well as numerous kidnappings in Beirut.
Hezbollah said he died a martyr, and blamed Israel for the death. Israel denied involvement. A White House spokesman said he didn't know who did it.
British Channel 4 News interviewed — briefly, because of the LA traffic — Robert Baer, the ex-CIA man who hunted him for 15 years.
The US government has welcomed the assassination, and said the world will be a better place without Mughniyeh.
US President Bush has announced increased sanctions on Syrian officials "responsible for" trouble in Iraq. 17 February 08
Eighty people dead in a "suicide bombing" outside Kandahar, in what appears to be the deadliest attack since 2001. Some of the dead have bullet wounds.
18 February 08
'US ORDERS MASSIVE RECALL OF BEEF
'The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has ordered the recall of 143m lb (64.9m kg) of beef — the largest meat recall in the country's history.
'The recalled products come from a California meat plant, which officials say broke rules on cattle inspections.
'However, the department says the health hazard is minimal. Much of the meat was purchased for school lunch and other federal nutrition programmes.
'The plant is also being investigated over animal cruelty.'
(BBC Ceefax, p.112)
Coming hard-on-the-heels of a "faulty" US spy satellite which the Pentagon says has dangerous material and says it will try to shoot down — which the Russians say is cover for testing anti-satellite missiles, one may well wonder if the lame-duck petro-imperialists are launching into last-ditch bio-conspiracy.
19 February 08
Musharraf has conceded defeat in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Pakistan.
... Musharraf says he won't quit as president, but will serve out the remainder of his "five-year term", and work with other parties.
21 February 08
The Pentagon says it has now shot it "poisonous spy satellite". Waiting for evaluation.
22 February 08
The Financial Times "storms" about the "exposure" (as if anyone hadn't heard by now) of the use of the UK as a way-station in rendition flights of "terror suspects". The Guardian says that the UK's Indian-Ocean base Diego Garcia was twice used as a stopover (is that all?) for such flights in 2002.
(BBC Ceefax, p.148, reviews of UK papers)
Since 9/11, CIA rendition and "interrogation" has become a means of supporting and perpetuating the petro-imperialist myth of Al-Qaeda and its menace. Unsurprisingly, former CIA terror-chief Cofer Black is said to have been big in this department. ...
23 February 08
The UK government won't press ahead with a national — all-population — DNA database.
Right, what's the "consolation prize" to be promoted instead?
24 February 08
Pakistan Telecoms, because of some "unIslamic" stuff on YouTube, blocked the whole of the site for the entire world.
25 February 08
In the UK, Mohamed Hamid found guilty of training Muslim men for terrorist purposes. He trained them with sticks for guns in the New Forest. He styled himself "Osama bin London".