1 March 2007
Guantanamo detainee John Hicks has been charged with material support of terrorism, the US Defense Department said. Hicks, an Australian white Muslim convert, will be the first person to face a military tribunal.
2 March 07
Five Britons,seven French and 12 Ethiopians have disappeared, presumed kidnapped, on an "archaeological expedition" in northern Ethopia. The UK government says the Brits are all embassy staff or their relatives, and has put its emergency committee, the appropriately-named Cobra, into action. A team is being sent to Ethiopia.
Will this be this mayhap the "final Iranian provocation" used as pretext to invade? After all, it could be "in reprisal" for Iranian diplomatic staff seized by the US in Iraq.
In Channel 4's The Insider, ex-UK Home Secretary charles clarke makes a plug for biometric identity cards.
3 March 07
Saudi King Abdullah and Iran's President Ahmadinejad held a summit" in Beirut, Lebanon. It ended with agreement to "end" sectarian (Sunni/Shiite) conflict in the Middle East.
Back in Terhran, Ahmadinedjad warned against the "conspiracies" of Iran's enemies.
Ethiopia claims armed forces from Eritrea came across the border and kidnapped the group of Brits et al (see yesterday's entry) and took them to a military camp in Eritrea.
Eritrea denies the claim.
Meanwhile, a/the French group, who were a separate group, have turned up safe and unknowing.
4 March 07
The burnt-out, bullet-riddled vehicles of the Brit/Ethiopian group have been discovered, but no sign of the people.
Ethiopian accusations against Eritrea are apparently unofficial.
It may be that Ethiopia, having collaborated with US black forces to get rid of the Somalian Islamic-Courts regime (and "al-Qaeda"), is now trying to get rid of a second enemy, with the same help. ...
6 March 07
Cheney's former chief-of-staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury, re. the Valerie Plame exposure affair.
British troops have begun a "major offensive against the Taliban" in northern Helmand. There are now about 5,500 Brit troops in the area.
A British journalist has been kidnapped by the Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan. He is a hostage of Mullah Dadullah.
7 March 07
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has approved sending 2,200 military police to Baghdad to help with the "security crackdown". These are additional to the troops already being sent.
9 March 07
US Justice Department (Attorney General Gonzales) admits some ollegal FBi domestic espionage using "Patriot Act".
In camera hearings are held at Guantanamo to decide if alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other detainees are "enemy combatants", and hence can be tried by military tribunals.
Journalists are normally invited to such hearings, the BBC's correspondent Alan Brookes says, but not this time. The reason is to prevent public knowledge of the time the detainees previously spent in secret CIA jails, and the "interrogation methods" used on them during this time.
Shots showed "KSM" exercising in a wire-mesh compound, but on ly from the back — we couldn't see his face.
So the real reason may be — that KSM is "not available". Like al-Libi, he may have disppeared, or be dead.
Talks begin in Baghdad: US, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and for the sake of show, UN Security Counci reps and Iraq.
The last-named being the one oil target that — so far — they've already got.
11 March 07
Bush is sending 2,000 more combat troops to Baghdad.
The US rep at the Baghdad (US Iraq ambassador Zalmay Khalizad?) "peace talks" has shown his commitment by saying he has documentary proof that the Iranians are supplying munitions to Shiite militants in Iraq.
This is all the talks are for — making next-oil-traget Iran look like the spurner of US "reconciliation efforts". If they dare, US black ops will stage a major incidnet on these lines to blame on Iran.
The talks may turn out handy for incriminating Saudi Arabia too, with luck.
12 March 07
A video was shown at the trial of the Chapati Six (alleged would-be London Tube bombers) today, demonstrating the power of the explosives they, er, didn't use. A "huge" explosion and bell-shaped shock wave could be seen, the result of the detonation of six litres of "hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour".
I forget what the current "explanantion" for the "failure" of the "main charges" is; the wrong proportions or something.
Assuming the main purpose of the "argument" is not to get the public to go along with any crazy rubbish, 1984-style. Is this something the prosecution simply got saddled with, by the circumstances of picking up on some post-7/7 idiots?
13 March 07
Kidnapped Brits released. No word on the "eight" (before it was 12 or 13) Ethiopians with them.
14 March 07
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted his responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, according to a partial transcript of a hearing at Guantanamo released by the US military. He also admitted to involvement in a string of other terrorist plots (32), including the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, "Bojinka", shoe-bomber Richard Reid, the Bali night-club bombing, plots against Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben in Britain, plots to kill ex-Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the anthrax attacks were directed against leading Democratic senators, too), etc etc.
I haven't seen any evidence to suggest this man still exists, let alone for his complicity in this string of drivel. But perhaps if he worked for the CIA's Bin Laden unit ....
Somebody has agreed on a package of measures against Iran over it nuclear programme ...
16 March 07
The defence began its case in the Chapati Six trial today. Ibrahim denied that he had an "improvised explosive device" in his rucksack. He said he wanted to draw attention to the plight of Muslims. He denied he had received arms training in Sudan.
23 March 07
The British government has demanded the immediate release of 15 military personnel "detained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards". The party of Royal Navy sailors and Marines Commandos were patrolling in two inflatable boats in the sea just beyond the Shatt-al-Arab estuary. (The Shatt-al-Arab divides southern Iraq from Iran.) They boarded a vessel (a dhow) to check for contraband, and were then surrounded by Iranian military vessels.
That's the British version. The Iranians later said the boats strayed into their waters.
Petro-Nazis pounce again .... just as I thought we were beginning to enjoy a nice sunny spring. :)
... The lads' "parent" ship, HMS Cornwall, "could only look on" as six Revolutionary-Guards boats surrounded them as they returned from the dhow, and took them.
Six armed Pasdaran boats "invaded Iraqi territorial waters", and the Royal Navy could only look on?? Pull the other one, it's got oil-wells attached.
BBC correspondent Ian Pannell was the "only" mediaman in the area. He just happened to be with these self-same lads (and lass) on HMS Cornwall only yesterday.
This begins — heavens, what a surprise! — to look like a (yet another) staged incident to set the scene for invading the next oil target. US aircraft carriers are now in the area, and part of their mandate is to "protect" "coalition" personnel from "such attacks".
The British military in Iraq has been upping the anti-Iran campaign recently, now claiming that the Iranians are paying for attacks in Iraq.
The Iraqi deputy prime minister is in a US military hospital after an attack by a "suicide bomber".
The US Congress, ignoring a Presidential threat of veto, passed a budget which calls for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by August 2008.
Prosecuting lawyer at the Chapati Six trial remarked on the "coincidence" that the only other instance where bombs made of hydrogen peroxide and "an organic substance" (read chapatti flour, presumably) occurred was the 7/7 bombings two weeks before the Six's "attempt".
And I'm not surprised; they are rather difficult to set off. On these rare successful occasions, they tend to spray out blonde loaves of bread.
Right, I've got that the 7/7 bombs were made from the same absurd drivel as the 21/7 (Chapati Six) bombs. The Chapati Clan just grew bigger.
Meanwhile, three suspects "associated with the 7/7 bombers" have been arrested.
24 March 07
Today, the matter of Iran's nuclear programme goes before the UN / Security Council.
So yesterday's incident was apparently timed as an appetiser for this.
Iran: UK troops illegally entered waters
Ali Akbar Dareini, Assoc. Press writer, Houston Chronicle online, 24 March 07
'... Iran's semi-official news agency reported that the 15 Britons have been transferred to the capital Tehran "to explain their aggressive action." ...
'Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said Iran was carrying out a "further investigation ... of the blatant aggression."
'"Violating the sovereign boundaries of other states and illegal entry denote unusual goals in violation of international commitments ...", Hosseini said ...
'Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized.
'Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was "very clear" they were in Iraqi waters.
'"We've been on operations there for several years," Aandahl said. ...
'But the Iraqi military commander of the country's territorial waters cast doubt on the British claims.
'"We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control," Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra.
'"We don't know why they were there. And these British troops were besieged by unknown gunboats, I don't know from where," he said. ...'
Seized sailors 'taken to Tehran'
BBC News online, 24 March 07
'... [The Iranian news agency] Fars said the captured personnel would be asked to explain their "aggressive action".
'Satellite tracking systems on the British boats also proved they were inside Iranian waters, it added. ...
'[HMS] Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said they had been inspecting an Iraqi boat, in Iraqi waters, before clearing its skipper to continue with his business.
'When they returned to their two small boats, they were "promptly arrested"[!]. ...'
25 March 07
The UN Security Council has apparently passed stronger measures against Iran. I don't know if this includes "blank cheque" unspecified wording, of the kind already used as the legal figleaf to invade Iraq.
26 March 07
David Hicks, the "Australian Talib/Qaedista", is the first person to go before a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay.
27 March 07
Big US Naval Exercise in Persian Gulf
Associated Press
The biggest since the 2003 Iraq invasion.
'... A US Navy commander says the maneuvers were not organized in response to the capture of the British sailors ...'
Right. The incident was pre-planned to give the final excuse to invade the next oil target.
Blair Warns Iran of "Different Phase" ... If It Doesn't Free the 15 Sailors
The Scotsman online, 27 March 07
A bill is being prepared for the US Congress to condemn Iran for its action.
Five years and seven months after the Reichstag Fire came the annexation of Czecho-Slovakia's Sudetenland.
Five years and seven months after 9/11 comes the annexation of Iran's oil-bearing "Sudetenland". (The rest of the country may be later broken up and turned into satrapies and satellite states, like the rest of Czecho-Slovakia was.)
28 March 07
The UK Ministry of Defence has released coordinates which "show" that the sailors and marines were 1.7 nautical miles (nauts, knots) inside Iraqi territorial waters when they were taken.
The MoD also claimed that Iran released two sets of coordinates, changing their story. While the first set "placed them in Iraqi waters", the second put them well within Iranian waters. (The "second position" shown on an accompanying chart is labelled the "corrected position".)
The "dhow intercepted by the 15 sailors" (see above, under 23 March 07) has now become an "Indian ship". (BBC 1 News at 10pm)
30 March 07
The US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the Nimitz is to sail to the Persian Gulf on Monday, 2 April 07. (BBC 1 News, 10pm)
This carrier will join two others already there, the USS John C Stennis and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower. See February 2007 diary, under 17 Feb. 07.
Yeah yeah.
31 March 07
US President Bush has condemned the seizure of the 14 British sailors by Iran. He referred to the sailors as "hostages".
ITV Teletext news online BBC News online