2 May 2007
Under fire over "missing" the two leading 7/7 bombers, MI5 hits back ...
MI5 has apparently told ITV news that the number of "Qaeda-affiliated suspects" in Britain under their surveillance has increased by 25 percent, up to 2,000, in the last six months.
You can just see the gas chambers rising again ...
The US is bar the entry of Britons of Pakistani origin, on terrorism grounds.
3 May 07
A Church of England vicar, David Smith, has been jailed for five years for a 35-year string of sexual offences against children. The vicar had appeared on television following the death of his brother in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The case follows accusations last week that the Church of England covered up a similar matter against a choirmaster.
Further evidence that the Qaeda and paedophile campaigns have a common origin and are (once again being) run in tandem, as devices for building the Oil Reich and attacking its opponents.
4 May 07
Hundreds of thousands of votes haven't been registered by a new computerized system in the Scottish Parliament elections.
7 May 07
Paul Wolfowitz says he has resigned as chairman of the World Bank.
8 May 07
The US military says it is "deeply ashamed" by the killing of 19 civilians by US marines in Afghanistan in March. (BBC News 24, ticker)
9 May 07
CIA 'played role in killing of 50 Afghan villagers'
Tom Coghlan, Daily Telegraph (UK), 9 May 07
(CIA-backed raid 'killed Afghan villagers')
'Military specialists employed by the CIA were among a US force accused of killing more than 50 civilians during the hunt for a Taliban leader[, Mullah Akhtar,] in Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
'Afghan community leaders in Shindad district [in Herat province, north-west Afghanistan] on the Iranian border say US forces destroyed several villages during the operation last month.
'The American mission was conducted outside the Nato command structure and was therefore subject to different rules of engagement. It is understood that the special forces unit included men known as CIA paramilitaries, while support was provided by aircraft including the C130 Spectre gunship. [Which may be a "relative" of the unarmed C-130H giant transporters ...] ...'
13 May 07
Afghan Taleban [Taliban] commander killed
BBC News online
'The Taleban's top military commander in Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in fighting in the south.
'His body was shown to reporters in Kandahar, and Taleban sources confirmed the death, after initial denials.
'Nato said Dadullah died in a clash with Afghan and Western forces in Helmand province.
'Mullah Dadullah "will most certainly be replaced in time but the insurgency has received a serious blow" the Nato-led security assistance force (Isaf) said.
'Isaf and Afghan troops have been engaged in a major operation in Helmand province since early March.
'But the Taleban commander was killed in an operation by the separate US-led coalition supported by Isaf, news agency AFP said. [My emphasis.] ...'
Tending to confirm that the absurdly-named "Taliban commander" is part of the CIA-led petro-imperialist fantasy war. ....
14 May 07
In Iraq, 3,000 US troops are engaged in a "search for US soldiers kidnapped by al-Qaeda".
15 May 07
Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, has sought to distance Britain from the CIA by demurring from its policy of "renditions", or kidnappings of terrorist suspects.
17 May 07
Fighting continues between Hamas and al-Fatah in the Gaza Strip. Israel has launched air raids because of Hamas rocket attacks, and has sent a "small" ground force into northern Gaza.
Group of Senators Wants the CIA to Release Report on Sept. 11 Attacks
Associated Press, Fox News online, 17 May 07
'WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that would force the CIA to release an inspector general's report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
'The CIA spent more than 20 months weighing requests under the Freedom of Information Act for its internal investigation of the attacks but has yet to release any portion of it.
'The agency is the only federal office involved in counterterrorism operations that has not made at least a version of its internal 9/11 investigation public. ...
'"It's amazing the efforts the administration is going to [to] stonewall this," [Senator Ron] Wyden [Democrat, Oregon] said. "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11 ... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it."
'Completed in 2005, the inspector general's report examined the personal responsibility of individuals at the CIA before and after the attacks. Other agencies' reviews examined structural problems within their organizations.
'Wyden, who has read the classified report several times, wouldn't offer any details on its findings or the conversations he has had with CIA Director Michael Hayden, former CIA Director Porter Goss and former National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
'But he did say that protecting individuals from embarrassment [!!!] is not a legitimate reason for protecting the report's contents from public review. He also said the decision to classify the report had nothing to do with national security, but rather political security. ...
'The agency's actions prior to 9/11 have gotten renewed attention with the release of a memoir by former CIA director George Tenet. He has been criticized for not doing more to warn Bush about the al-Qaida threat.
'In interviews about his memoir, he has said instead he worked the bureaucracy beneath the president by asking then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others for action [my emphasis]. ...
'The AP has reported that [the inspector general's report,] the two-year review of what went wrong before the suicide hijackings harshly criticized a number of the agency's most senior officials.
'That includes Tenet, the former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt and former counterterrorism center [Counterterrorist Center, CTC] head Cofer Black, according to individuals familiar with the report, who spoke in 2005 on condition they not be identified [my emphases.].
'Yet the report also offered some praise for actions of Tenet and others.
'Pavitt is now principal with the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, and Black is vice chairman of Blackwater USA, an international security firm whose clients include the CIA and other U.S. agencies.'
18 May 07
In the UK, the House of Commons has passed a private members bill to exempt Parliament from the Freedom Of Information Act (2000).
Presumably legislation to exempt them from identity cards and gas chambers will follow. :->
Jeremy Scahill's new book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (stuff on Democracy Now website about)
'... Scahill writes, "Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the 'global war on terror', with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and 20,000 private contractors at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments." ...
'... March 31st, 2004. Four employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA are ambushed as they drive through the center of Fallujah. In images broadcast around the world, their burnt corpses are dragged through the streets . ... [The (CNN?) camera crew remain miraculously untouched by the mob as they record the attack.]'
Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA'S Counterterrorist Center, is Vice Chairman of Blackwater.
21 May 07
Eighty have died in two days of fighting in Lebanon, where the army is bombarding a Palestinian "refugee camp" outside Tripoli in the north of the country. The violence was started by a raid on the camp, following a bank robbery by militants.
Two hundred fighters of "Fatah al-Islam" are said to be resisting in the camp. Various conflicting claims (but these days, who cares?) that Syria is behind the violence or that the militants are Qaeda-related.
UK police are to deploy a tiny spy-in-the-sky flying camera.
In TV news reviews of tomorrow's UK papers ...
The ever-redoubtable Daily Telegraph claims that [Shia] Iran is supplying hundreds of ground-to-air missiles [in fact it says, "hundreds of weapons, including the missiles"] to the [Sunni] Taliban in Afghanistan, while the supposedly left-wing Guardian does its bit for petro-imperialism by claiming Iran is planning to orchestrate a summer of violence in Iraq to drive American troops out. See next entries.
22 May 07
Taliban 'use Iranian missiles on UK troops'
Thomas Harding, Telegraph (UK)
'British troops in Afghanistan are being targeted by surface-to-air missiles supplied by Iran, a senior Army source said yesterday.
'Officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are supplying hundreds of weapons, including the missiles, to Taliban insurgents, it is believed. Most worrying is the news that SA7 Strella anti-aircraft missiles [originally created by the Soviet Union in the early 1970s] have been supplied to the Taliban. ... It is not thought the Taliban are will trained in how to use the weapons most effectively. ...
'Other weapons being smuggled in include plastic explosives, anti-tank mines, AK47s, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.
'Arms have been discovered by American Special Forces teams [my emphasis] working alongside the Afghan National Army.
'"There is reporting that leads us to believe a number of agencies, that possibly [only possibly now?] include Iranian organisations, are significantly supporting the Taliban," a military intelligence source told The Daily Telegraph.
'His remarks are the most authoritative confirmation [sic] that British and other Nato forces face an increasingly sophisticated [which is more than can be said for petro-imperialist agitprop] threat from Iranian supplied arms. ...
'The weapons are believed to come directly from Iran or are smuggled in by dealers. Most are brought across the poorly-patrolled border into Monruz Province and taken on trucks or donkeys to the Sangin valley [in Helmand province] where they are used against British troops. ...
'The Shia-dominated Teheran regime and the Sunni extremist Taliban are far from natural allies. In fact, the Taliban's brand of religious zealotry holds that Shias are not genuine Muslims.
'But the arrival of western troops in Afghanistan may have altered Iran's calculations. [So what about the Taliban's? This has provided the Teheran regime and the Taliban with a common enemy. ...'
And the drivel descends further ...
Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iran
Simon Tisdall, The Guardian (UK), 22 May 07
'Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say. ...
'"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq ...," a senior US official in Baghdad said. ... The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top (of the Iranian government)."
'The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny [in Congress] in Washington and a US retreat. [Fat chance, Democrat "opposition has just approved the military budget with no withdrawal-timetable strings attached.] ...
'Iranian officials flatly deny US and British allegations of involvement in internal violence in Iraq or in attacks on coalition forces. ...'
As ever, this agitprop is a mirror of what the agents of petro-imperialism are up to themselves.
Note: Iran's Pasdaran are, unusually, spelt "Revolutionary Guard" — singular — in both the Telegraph and Guardian articles.
23 May 07
Tomorrow's UK Independent headlines the news that Google is to build the world's largest personal database.
How's that for Total Information Awareness.
24 May 07
Google's goal to organise your daily life
Ben Quinn, Daily Telegraph (UK)
'*
'Google has been asked by European Union privacy watchdogs to explain _____ personal search engine information for two years amid fears that the ____ could become an internet Big Brother.
'Richard Thomas, Britain's information commissioner, has teamed up with European colleagues to ask Google why so much data is stored and why it is kept for so long. ...
'Google is storing information including what search terms are used by individuals, the addressees of people's internet servers, detailed _____ contained in "cookies" and information "mined" by spyware programmes.
'Privacy watchdogs fear that the information can be used to identify individual__ ___ used to build detailed profiles of personal political opinions, religious beliefs ____ behaviour. ...'
BBC 2 This World programme on CIA "renditions", i.e. kidnappings for possible torture in other countries.
Iran is within three years of having the ability to produce an atomic bomb, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency the IAEA says.
Meanwhile, a US strike force, consisting of two aircraft carriers with 150 aircraft and an amphibious assault ship, has formed in the Persian Gulf. In the next few weeks it will carry out exercises which include amphibious landings.
... a deception previously used in the 1991 war against Iraq — they went across the Saudi-Iraq land border in this case. In the current case, Iran has long borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, already occupied by the petro-imperialists ...
'DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Ships packed with 17,000 sailors and Marines have moved into the Persian Gulf as the U.S. Navy stages another show of force off Iran's coast just days before U.S.-Iran talks in Baghdad.
'Two aircraft carriers with their strike groups, and an amphibious assault ship with its own strike group, make up the U.S. force. They begin conducting war games Wednesday [presumably 30 May 07] which will culminate in an amphibious landing exercise in Kuwait, just a few miles from Iran.
'The Navy held a two-carrier exercise in the region in March. [See March 2007 diary, under 27 March 07.]'
25 May 07
Mahdi Army leader Moqtadr al-Sadr has resurfaced in Iraq. Meanwhile a key lieutenant, Abu ____ aka ____, has been killed in Basra "while resisting arrest".
27 May 07
UK PM Tony Blair and Home Secretary Evil John Reid may try to rush through arbitrary "anti-terrorist" police stop-and-search powers before they leave office next month.
28 May 07
The US and Iran are holding talks in Baghdad on the violence in Iraq, as a bomb outside a Sunni mosque in the city kills 25.
Needless to say, the American objective in the talks is to further "incriminate" Iran in the violence, the better to invade the next oil target. If they ever dare ...
In the UK, a child has contracted the mild H7N2 form of avian flu. A few days ago, four people connected to a North Wales farm were diagnosed with the disease. The figure of possible direct or indirect contacts has jumped to 142. Contactees are being given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.
And of course, it's the lovely and talented H5N1 that's the one to watch; and whether it transmutes into a human-to-human form ...
This device has been on the table for some time as a pretext to declare a state of emergency to crack down on the civil resistance that will be engendered by the prospective invasion of Iran.
29 May 07
Five Britons were kidnapped in Baghdad outside the Green Zone. Four of them were guards from a Canadian private security company, Garda; they were guarding a fifth, who is an "adviser" at the Iraqi Finance Ministry, from where the men were kidnapped.
The forty kidnappers were "dressed as police", driving police vehicles and touting official documentation, which got them through checkpoints. The British emergency committee Cobra is meeting about the matter.
Eight US soldiers were killed north of Iraq, two in a helicopter "crash", six more in an ambush as they attempted to rescue them.
30 May 07
Some official has been sacked from the White House over "vote caging" by Tim Griffin in the 2004 US election — over one million voters were removed from the "electoral rolls".
BBC Newsnight has claimed some credit for this.
Seven members of armed forces, believed all Americans, were killed when a helicopter went down in Afghanistan. The Taliban claim to have shot it down.
ITV Teletext news online BBC News online