RULES OF THE TALIBAN, ROCKETS HIT ISRAEL, PALESTINIANS CAN SUE ISRAEL, SOMALIA GIVES ETHIOPIA ONE WEEK TO LEAVE- OR FACE FULL WAR, GULF CALLS FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL, JAPAN WANTS N. KOREA TO EXPLAIN KIDNAP PROGRAM
An extraordinary little document is making the rounds among the Taliban of Afghanistan. As first reported in NEWSWEEK by Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai on Dec. 3, the stapled pamphlet called simply “Layeha,” or “Rule Book,” is only nine pages long. But it speaks volumes about the Taliban: their strategy, their following, their potential virtues and their persistent vices, and the full text is well worth reading.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16169421/site/newsweek/ See the last post today for an amazing article on religion and politics merger!
President Hamid Karzai directly accused Pakistan's government today of supporting the Taliban insurgency in his country, hours after a suicide attacker exploded himself in an Afghan governor's compound, killing eight.
Taliban militants have increasingly targeted government officials. Since September, they have killed one provincial governor, narrowly missed another, and killed several district-level police, intelligence and administrative chiefs.
"The problem is not Taliban. We don't see it that way. The problem is with Pakistan," Karzai told foreign journalists during a trip to Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold." http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-afghanistan1212,0,5315569.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
Fiji's ousted prime minister said Tuesday the South Pacific country was sliding toward "the worst kind of dictatorship," and offered to hold talks with the military regime to find a way to restore democracy as quickly as possible. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-12-fiji-coup_x.htm
The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council Tuesday demanded the application of the UN charter’s Chapter Seven on Israel after its premier implied the Jewish state has nuclear weapons. “We call for application against Israel of Chapter VII, that is to say, the imposition of sanctions,” Secretary General Abderrahman al-Attiya said in Kuwait, on the sidelines of a conference on cooperation between the GCC and Nato.
Attiya called on the United States not to apply a policy of “double standards” and to “work for the application (against Israel) of the resolutions of international legitimacy and of Chapter VII.” Chapter VII deals with action the UN Security Council might take regarding threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.
As a first step, it says the council may call for member states to impose sanctions, including complete or partial interruption of economic relations and the severance of diplomatic relations. If those measures are deemed to have failed, military action can be called for. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sparked an uproar after an apparent slip of the tongue in which he for the first time listed Israel as a nuclear power.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=35389
Spanish police arrested 11 suspected Islamic radicals Tuesday in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Morocco's north coast, an Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN.
The operation struck at "international terrorism" and the 11 suspects are linked to a cell of the terrorist Salafist Group for Call and Combat, Spain's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The detainees are suspected of being in the initial phase of plotting a terrorist attack, CNN partner station CNN+ reported, citing Interior Ministry sources.
The suspects were involved in recruiting and indoctrination for Islamic terrorist activities to carry out attacks and had connections to terrorists in Britain and Morocco, the Interior Ministry statement said. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/12/spain.arrests/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia conveyed that message to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during Cheney's whirlwind visit to Riyadh, the officials said. During the visit, King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and pushed for Washington to encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, senior Bush administration officials said.
The Saudi warning reflects fears among America's Sunni Arab allies about Iran's rising influence in Iraq, coupled with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. King Abdullah II of Jordan has also expressed concern about rising Shiite influence, and about the prospect that the Shiite-dominated government would use Iraqi troops against the Sunni population.
A senior Bush administration official said Tuesday that part of the administration's review of Iraq policy involved the question of how to harness a coalition of moderate Iraqi Sunnis with centrist Shiites to back the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The Saudis have argued strenuously against an American pullout of Iraq, citing fears that Iraq's minority Sunni population would be massacred. Those fears, United States officials said, have become more pronounced as a growing chorus in Washington has advocated a draw-down of American troops in Iraq, coupled with diplomatic outreach to Iran, which is largely Shiite. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/13/africa/web.1213saudi.php
Palestinian militants had fired three rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday afternoon, violating a fragile ceasefire, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
Israeli sources said the rockets were fired from northern Gaza Strip which has been the scene of a large-scale Israeli offensive in November.
Today's home-made rocket attack was the fifth breach by the Palestinians of the ceasefire, they added.
There were no reports about casualties.
Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) claimed responsibility for the attacks which targeted Sderot city in Israel.
In a statement faxed to the press, the brigades said that the attack came in response to the ongoing Israeli violations of the ceasefire and the aggression against the Palestinian people.
The statement noted that Israeli troops had arrested a senior Islamic Jihad militant in the West Bank city of Tulkarem.
The ceasefire, took effect in the beginning of this month, has prevented Israel from expanding Gaza military operations. But Israel insists that the ceasefire was only applied to the Gaza Strip despite the Palestinians' request for an extension of calm to the West Bank.
Source: Xinhua http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200612/13/eng20061213_331789.html
The Israeli supreme court has overturned part of a 17-month-old blanket ban by the government on Palestinians seeking compensation for harm inflicted by the Israel Defence Forces.
The decision reopens the way for at least some law suits in the Israeli courts by Palestinians who suffer bereavement, injury or property damage at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza or the West Bank, by cancelling a section of an amendment approved by the Knesset in July 2005.
The ruling, one of the last to be written by the recently retired court chairman Aharon Barak, was broadly welcomed by the left, and human rights groups. Adalah, one of the rights groups which had petitioned the court, said that the ruling, while "based on technicalities", would open the way for some claims through civil courts.
But right-wing Knesset members queued up to denounce the ruling and hinted at attempts to reintroduce the legislation through the Knesset. Attorney Yossi Fuchs, a member of the right-wing "Land of Israel Legal Forum" said: "The ruling is a parting gift from Aharon Barak to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a gift that will buy Barak a respected status in the eyes of the international legal community at the expense of the security of Israel's citizens."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2070194.ece
Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has given neighboring Ethiopia a one-week deadline to withdraw its troops protecting the weak government or face major attacks.
The declaration appeared to push the country even closer to a full-scale conflict that many believe could engulf the Horn of Africa and drew a swift warning from the government at its seat in Baidoa.
"We are giving a deadline to the invading forces," said Yusuf Mohamed Siad, security chief for the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS).
"If Ethiopian forces inside our territory do not withdraw after a week, we will not hesitate to launch full-scale attacks on them," he told reporters at a news conference in the Islamist-held capital of Mogadishu.
"From today on, all Ethiopians must start leaving Somalia, if they do not they will be responsible for the bloodshed that will follow," Siad said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061212/wl_afp/somaliaunrestethiopia_061212162137
Key witnesses in the Alexander Litvinenko investigation are missing, with their families claiming that they fear for their lives.
The sudden disappearance of a number of leading figures linked to the affair will make it even harder for British detectives, whose inquiry has now spread across five countries. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-2501273,00.html
A key witness in the radiation death of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko claimed the poisoning took place earlier than is widely believed, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Andrei Lugovoi, a security agent-turned-businessman who met with Litvinenko at a London hotel on Nov. 1, the day Litvinenko suspected he was poisoned, said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid that he and Litvinenko were poisoned on Oct. 16.
"Who told you that the contamination took place on Nov. 1? It took place much earlier, on Oct. 16," Lugovoi was quoted as saying by the paper. Lugovoi is himself undergoing radiation checks in a Moscow clinic.
Litvinenko, 43, a former Russian agent and a Kremlin critic, died Nov. 23 of poisoning from polonium-210.
Lugovoi supported his claim by saying that he and Litvinenko visited a London-based security firm where traces of polonium were later found only in mid-October, but did not go there on Nov. 1, meaning that the contamination couldn't have taken place on that day.
http://dose.canada.com/news/story.html?id=1bae0593-c91e-428a-9f3d-ab63b69819b8
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference questioning the Holocaust came to an end Tuesday, but not before hearing former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke say that gas chambers were not used to kill Jews.
"The Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and cover up the crimes of Israel," Duke told a gathering of nearly 70 "researchers" in Tehran at Ahmadinejad's invitation.
"This conference has an incredible impact on Holocaust studies all over the world," said Duke, a former state representative in Louisiana who twice ran for president.
"The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder," Duke told The Associated Press.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236014,00.html
The United Nations' specialist on North Korean human rights is calling for Pyongyang to provide full details about the fate of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents. The appeal came as a Japanese official indicated that the number of abductees is far higher than the 17 officially recognized so far. VOA's Steve Herman reports from Tokyo.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted in 2002 that his agents had abducted 13 Japanese during the 1970's and '80s. The abductees were used to teach North Korean agents about Japanese language and culture.
Mr. Kim allowed five Japanese to return home, but said the other eight had died. Japan has so far identified 17 people as abductees, but activists maintain that the number is far higher - and the Japanese government might now be ready to agree. http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-12-13-voa12.cfm
The Islamic Courts Union has given Ethiopia a week to withdraw its troops from Somalia and says it will attack any that do not leave."Starting today, if the Ethiopians don't leave our land within seven days, we will attack them," Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad, the Islamic courts defence spokesman, said in Mogadishu on Tuesday.
He was referring to the alleged thousands of troops that diplomats and other witnesses say have crossed over the border to protect the government of Abdullahi Yusuf, the Somali president, in Baidoa. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/33C46686-5F0C-4662-94BE-9B174A7A6044.htm
Mad Prophets, Nazis, Bin Laden Rage in History of Religious War
By George Walden
Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Whatever drove Michael Burleigh to begin work years ago on his history of politics and religion, his timing was inspired. ``Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda'' offers us some historical and moral bearings as we flounder in the mire of Islamic terror.
The first part of this two-volume account, ``Earthly Powers,'' traced the clash of religion and politics from the Enlightenment to World War I. ``Sacred Causes'' brings the story up to the present.
Burleigh has held posts at Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cardiff University. An erudite writer, he seeds his account of religious and political entanglements with things not normally highlighted by more conventional academics.
Writing about Germany, for example, he discusses both established churches and the activities of semi-crazed prophets who were already contaminating German minds in the early 1920s. It wasn't just the country's currency that was being devalued, Burleigh suggests; it was its culture, too. The nihilism, pseudo- radicalism and sexual self-advertisement of many a creative artist helped pave the way for Hitler.
The most controversial aspect of Burleigh's latest book will be his defense of the Roman Catholic Church, and its record on the Holocaust especially. The author demonstrates in intricate detail how clerics did what they humanly could to stand up to a dictator who described Nazism as a Christian movement yet was ready to crush any priest who overstepped the line. He cites innumerable attempts to rescue Jews, including how Hungarian Catholic leaders issued them with certificates of conversion.
Soviet Onslaught
Burleigh concedes that Pope Pius XII could have been clearer and more forceful. Yet he argues that our moralizing age underestimates the stark dilemmas the church faced.
While Hitler played cat and mouse with clerics, Russian communists attacked religion with a savagery that German churches were largely spared. As well as murdering priests and believers who resisted the plundering of the Orthodox Church, atheist campaigners devised a particularly loathsome tactic: They disinterred and displayed the corpses of monks or nuns to prove they weren't immune to putrefaction.
Like Nazism, the Marxist-Leninist credo was a perversion of religion, and it's satisfying to learn that the embalmment of the bloodthirsty demigod Lenin was overseen by an ``Immortalization Commission.'' The credulous West was meanwhile debating a possible convergence between communism and Christianity.
`Sinister Cult'
Burleigh is comprehensive. In addition to Soviets and Germans, he explores Spain, France, Poland and Ireland. His honesty in describing the murkier interactions of politics and religion is so unusual that it can startle. Consider this caption on a photograph of Irish Republican Army women carrying a coffin:
``Ireland's matriarchal culture played a key role in keeping the sentimental flames of Republican nostalgia alive throughout the Troubles,'' it says. ``Funerals were one of the central features of this sinister cult.''
That, I would say, is a bald statement of fact, yet you won't hear many leftist academics agreeing. Their blood pressure will rise further when Burleigh gets to al-Qaeda and declines to join the anti-American chorus. Though Burleigh doesn't endorse President George W. Bush's entire response to 9/11, he warns Europeans against the notion that there's some easy, ``soft'' way of defeating terrorism or solving the problem of Iraq.
Cold Shower
Burleigh does more than catalog the horrifying things done both against religion and in its name. He makes you understand that the West today faces something without precedent. The current conflict isn't against pure evil; it's against pure irrationality, armed with weapons devised by Western scientific rationalism.
An extremist teacher of Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, described the drive to restore the Muslim caliphate this way: ``Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogue.'' Given the unlikelihood of dragging the world back to the 7th century, one can say al-Qaeda has no war aims but death.
A great cold shower of sense and intelligence on the central issue of our age, Burleigh's book will, I suspect, be misrepresented in all the usual quarters.
Published by HarperPress in the U.K., ``Sacred Causes'' (557 pages, 25 pounds) will be available from HarperCollins in the U.S. next year.
(George Walden is a critic for Bloomberg News and the author of ``Time to Emigrate?'' The opinions expressed are his own.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=anQml736l2qE&refer=muse