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I think its time to find another war as there is no way I'm ending
up in an Iraq prison for defending myself and my principle. ED.
Private contractors working for the U.S. government
in Iraq will lose their immunity from Iraqi law under a new pact
with Baghdad, senior American officials said on Thursday.
The contractors, who provide everything from personal security to
meals for U.S. forces and officials in Iraq, were told they should
expect to lose their immunity starting January 1, the State and
Defence department officials said.
The agreement, which has yet to be approved by Iraq's parliament,
allows U.S. forces to stay in Iraq three more years. A vote is expected
next week on the pact, which replaces a United Nations mandate that
expires at the end of this year.
Iraqis were outraged after guards with U.S.-based Blackwater Worldwide
killed 17 people in Baghdad last year with escorting a convoy. Since
then, the Baghdad government has demanded that private American
security companies and other contractors be made subject to Iraqi justice.
It has not yet been publicly resolved how and where the Blackwater
guards will be tried and senior officials said they did not know
whether the new pact would apply retroactively.
U.S. officials have said that under the deal, U.S. military personnel
would retain immunity from Iraqi law except in cases of serious
crimes committed off base.
But the pact explicitly says U.S. Defence Department contractors
will lose immunity, said the senior U.S. officials, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. They said contractors for the State Department
and other agencies are expected to be treated the same way.
Representatives of about 172 companies with operations in Iraq have
been briefed on the change.
The companies were read a statement that said: "In the future,
contractors and grantees can expect to be fully subject to Iraqi
criminal and civil law and to the procedures of the Iraqi judicial system."
None of the U.S. contractors has threatened to quit, the senior
Pentagon official said. "I suspect there is a wait and see
attitude, to see how this plays out."
About half the 163,000 Pentagon contractors in Iraq were Iraqi nationals,
only 17 percent are Americans, and the rest are citizens of third countries.
Many had been doing business with Iraqi commercial companies as
well as the U.S. government and were already subject to Iraqi law.
Making government contractors subject to Iraqi law is consistent
with the way the United States operates in other countries, the
State Department official said.
The United States would seek an understanding with the Iraqi government
that personal security contractors should be allowed to use "appropriate
defensive force," he added.
There are about 5,500 State Department contractors in Iraq, and
4,800 for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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Heads
of American and Pakistani security colluded in plot to kill Rashid
Rauf
By Kim Sengupta and Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Monday, 24 November 2008
AFP
Rashid
Rauf is escorted into custody by Pakistani police. He escaped in 2007
but was killed by a US missile on Saturday
A secret meeting on board an American aircraft carrier between the
US General David Petraeus and the head of the Pakistani military laid
the foundation for the killing of Britain's most wanted terrorist.
The Independent learnt that talks held on board the USS Abraham Lincoln
in the Persian Gulf three months ago led to General Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani pledging to provide information on "high-value" targets
such as Rashid Rauf, who died in a missile strike inside Pakistan
on Saturday.
Senior UK security sources insisted that the lethal attack in North
Waziristan on the 27-year-old Birmingham-born Rauf – accused
of being involved in the plot to plant liquid bombs aboard transatlantic
airliners – was "a unilateral American action" without
any British involvement.
The disclaimer came after two senior MPs called on the British government
to say whether or not it had been made aware in advance of the attack
plan. Andrew Dismore, Labour chairman of the Parliamentary Committee
on Human Rights, said: "We can investigate whether British security
services had involvement in providing intelligence concerning British
nationals in Pakistan." The former shadow security minister Patrick
Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, said: "This raises the question
of how much co-operation the British intelligence agencies provided
in ... the execution of a British subject."
However, American officials stated that the intelligence on the whereabouts
of Rauf and a Saudi Islamist, Abu Zubair al-Masri, was provided by
Pakistani authorities. The agreement on sharing intelligence came
during the meeting on the aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea in the
last week of August, US sources said.*****
General Kayani, who had taken over from General Pervez Musharraf as
the head of the Pakistani military, was brought to the ship by American
helicopters. He was told about grave American disquiet over the help
being given to the Taliban by elements of the Pakistani military and
intelligence service, the ISI. According to US officials an agreement
was reached at the conclusion of the "heated" meeting with
General Kayani, in which the Pakistanis promised to supply high-quality
intelligence.
Rauf was initially wanted for questioning by police in England over
the murder of his uncle in Birmingham. He fled to Pakistan but was
arrested in August 2006 by the Pakistani police for his alleged involvement
in the airliner plot. But in December 2007 he escaped.
Rauf's parents, who live in the Ward End area of Birmingham, have
not received confirmation of his death, a friend of the family confirmed.
The man, a shopkeeper who asked not to be named, said: "They
don't know anything about this ... They have got no information and
it's obviously not nice for them." A man who later emerged from
the Rauf home, in a blue tracksuit and full beard, told reporters:
"I am angry. For your own safety, all I can say to you is goodbye."
The Foreign Office could not confirm Rauf's killing. But Sherry Rehman,
the Pakistani information minister, stated: "Sources have confirmed
that Rashid Rauf and Masri were targets and have been killed."
Other Pakistani officials said that the bodies of the two men, along
with five others killed, would be collected for DNA tests. However,
Rauf's Pakistani lawyer, Hashmat Ali Habib, said that Taliban fighters
appeared to have removed the bodies. "We are still not sure,
it's all suspicious."
*******Plausible
deniability gratefully provided her Majesties Government by your American
cousins.......... |
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The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated how critically important
snipers are to a fight marked by urban canyons and high-mountain caves.
Problem is, those highly-trained sharpshooters are in short supply,
and the need for accurate, long-range fire has outpaced the services'
ability to field one-shot killers.
So both the Army and Marine Corps began a program to seed infantry
squads with so-called "designated marksmen" -- call them
"snipers-lite."
The growing need to equip these new marksmen with accurized rifles
prompted the Army to reconsider the role of the venerable M-14 rifle
for the war on terror. Back in Desert Storm, armorers from the 10th
Special Forces group took M-14s equipped with a match barrels and
fitted a gas piston on them for optimal performance, re-designating
it the M-25. They replaced the stock with a McMillan M1A fiberglass
one, developed a scope mount and added a Bausch & Lomb 10x40mm
fixed-power optic or a Leupold Mark 4.
The revamped M-14 provides the Army squad designated marksman with
on-command direct fire support for his squad, a fire team or his platoon.
The heavier-caliber sharpshooters provide cover when machine guns
displace, counter-sniper fire in urban areas, and they help in overtaking
valuable real estate.
Infrared targeting lasers such as the AN/PEQ-2 and PAQ-4C make the
DM's job more like 24-hour shift work. Now that suppressors for the
M-14-series of rifles are available, the night-vision capabilities
coupled with sound mitigation makes the Soldier's ability to own the
night even more secure.
Taking the M-14 modifications a step further, Crane Division of the
Naval Surface Warfare Center teamed up with Sage International to
create an M-14/M1A package that is dubbed the "Enhanced Battle
Rifle."
Using the M-14 barrel, receiver and trigger groups, the EBR chassis
adds a retractable stock, a cheek piece that's adjustable for height
and a floated Picatinny quad-rail fore-end made of high-strength aluminum.
The EBR also adds a pistol grip for additional control and ergonomic
sling points.
But the new rifle is heavier than the M-16 or M-4 which weighs nearly
seven pounds, with each 30-round magazine adding another pound. The
basic M-14, however, weighs nearly 10 pounds with an addition of almost
two pounds for every 20 rounds of 7.62 the EBR fires.
A soldier's wisdom varies from one to another but many don't care
about the weight. The confidence in the effective range and terminal
ballistics of the M-14's 7.62mm round brings the argument back to
the Vietnam-era rifle.
The EBR feels a little heavy at the fore end, but this helps the rifle
address criticism that it is uncontrollable when firing on full-auto.
The additional weight -- and the fact that the stock is in line and
parallel with the barrel -- helps reduce muzzle climb.
The EBR chassis comes with a Picatinny rail that replaces the stripper-clip
guide, helping Soldiers mount high-powered scopes that can extend
the rifle's range. Unique to the EBR is an extended rail just forward
of the receiver. For the followers of the Jeff Cooper doctrine on
scout rifles, red dot optics work well in making this rifle an effective
close quarter battle scout rifle. Regardless of scope height, the
shooter can obtain proper cheek weld by adjusting the EBR's stock.
As the Army and Marines Corps continue to develop a semi-auto designated
marksman rifle, many within the tactical community feel that the resurrection
of the M-14 is just a stopgap. But praise from troops using the M-14's
variants and moves made by the Navy suggest otherwise. In 2004, the
Navy signed a contract to upgrade nearly 3,000 of their M-14s with
the Sage EBR chassis.
What will remain, in any case, is the designated marksman. The smallest
infantry unit includes a team leader, two riflemen and a gunner. One
of these riflemen will be expected to fill the role of the designated
marksman, using optics to distinguish combatants from non-combatants
and minimizing collateral risk with precision fire in urban areas.
The book on small unit tactics has evolved to defeat a new kind of
enemy, and the old standby Springfield Armory M-14 has evolved right
along with it. |
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MI5 have warned Britain’s cash-strapped National Health Services
that dozens of ambulances–along with old police cars and fire
engines past their sell-by date–are being snapped up by al-Qaeda
operatives in the United Kingdom to mount suicide bomb attacks.
So serious is the problem that counter-terrorism officials at the
Home Office have written to eBay, the Internet auctioneer, asking
them to stop selling emergency,service,vehicles,equipment and uniforms.
But eBay has insisted it can only halt the sales if a new law is passed
by Parliament. That could take many months to enact.
The use of ambulances is of particular concern to Britain’s terrorist
chiefs. They say the tactic has already been used in Iraq with devastating
effects.
A report by Lord Carlisle–the government terrorist czar who last
month warned about the possibility of private planes being used for
an attack on London–has been issued to all of Britain’s
48 police forces warning of the danger of selling-off emergency service
vehicles.
Lord Carlisle, who works closely with the Terrorism Analysis Centre
in London set up since the 9/11 attacks, said ambulances were the
ideal weapon of choice for terrorists.
“It is almost rare that police will stop such vehicles on suspicious
grounds. An ambulance rigged with high explosives could drive into
any ultra-sensitive target like a nuclear power station or even Whitehall”,
said a senior MI5 source.
The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that the risk
could be “highly significant” if the law is not tightened.
Every year dozens of police cars, ambulances and even fire engines
are sold on eBay for as little as £1,500 ($2,230).
Many are still in working order. Those that need repair can be easily
fixed to pass as genuine emergency service vehicles.
“An ambulance could carry half a ton of explosives. A rigged
police car could carry half that amount. So could a fire engine”,
states the MI5 report.
MI5 counter-terrorism officers say such attacks have been successfully
carried out in Iraq and Israel.
The report reveals that an al-Qaeda attack in Baghdad last February
involved a stolen ambulance, which was driven by a suicide bomber
into an Iraqi police station.
The report states: “Terrorists have been using ambulances to
transport bombs in Israel since at least 2002. The Israelis have told
us that Hamas are using ambulances to ferry men and rocket launchers
around Gaza”.
A national security committee has been set up in London with MI5 and
police chiefs drawing up plans to deal with the threat. Chairman of
the committee, Steve Watts, said: “There is a need of urgent
legislation becoming available to the police which adequately addresses
the threat of pseudo-emergency service vehicles being used by terrorists”.
Lord Carlisle has suggested all service vehicles to be sold must be
clearly decommissioned so they cannot be used to imitate emergency
services.
Manufacturers of all such vehicles are being asked to urgently inspect
vehicles taken out of service to see how this can be done. |
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Secret
enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton
are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked
Government intelligence report.
By
Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent
The document, which was drawn up by the intelligence branch of the
Ministry of Defence, MI5 and Special Branch, states that "some
thousands" of extremists are active in the UK. They are predominantly
UK-born and aged between 18 and 30, and many are believed to have
been trained in overseas terrorist camps.
Under the heading "International Terrorism", the report,
which is marked "restricted" states: "For the foreseeable
future the UK will continue to be a high-priority target for international
terrorists aligned with al-Qaeda. It will face a threat from British
nationals, including Muslim converts, and UK-based foreign terrorists,
as well as terrorists planning attacks from abroad."
The report states that the threat from the Islamist extremist community
in the UK is "diverse and widely distributed" but adds that
the numbers of terrorist in Britain is "difficult to judge".
The document does state, however, that the Joint Terrorism Analysis
Centre, which is based in MI5's headquarters at Thames House in London,
estimates that there are "some thousands of extremists in the
UK committed to supporting Jihadi activities, either in the UK or
abroad".
A year ago Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, said in a
speech that his organisation had identified that there were at least
2,000 individuals who posed a threat to national security and public
safety.
Since 2001, over 1,200 terrorist suspect have been arrested, over
140 have been charged and more than 45 have been convicted of terrorism
offences, according to Home Office figures. It is also estimated that
there are some 200 terrorist networks functioning in Britain today
who are involved in at least 30 plots.
But this latest security assessment appears to suggest that the number
of individuals who now pose a threat to the UK is even higher.
The report continues: "The majority of extremists are British
nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also
extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and
a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are
male, typically in the 18-30 age range.
"The main extremist concentrations are in London, Birmingham,
with significant extremist networks in the South East, notably Luton.
Extremist networks are principally engaged in spreading their extremist
message, training, fund raising and procuring non-lethal military
equipment to support the Jihads in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq,
and sending recruits to the conflicts.
"UK-based extremists, either under the direction of al-Qaeda,
or inspired by al-Qaeda's ideology of global Jihad, have also engaged
in attack planning in the UK."
Although the document specifically names London, Birmingham and south
east England as areas of extremist activity, MI5 believe that the
threat posed by Islamist extremists comes from across the UK. In an
attempt to deal with the growing number of terrorists, MI5 now has
nine regional offices and has almost doubled its staff numbers from
1,800 in 2001 to 3,500 today.
There are around 1.5 million Muslims in Britain, a million of whom
live in London. There are 150,000 Muslims in Birmingham and a further
27,000 in Luton. There are also an estimated 10,000 Afro-Caribbean
Muslims or white converts.
Some of the terrorists involved in the plot to bring down airliners
using liquid bombs came from London, where a bomb factory had been
established.
Birmingham, one of the centres of Islamic radicalisation in Britain,
was where a plot was formed to kidnap and behead a British soldier.
The plot was lead by Parviz Khan, an unemployed charity worker who
formed a terrorist cell in the city. The extremists planned to video
the execution and release the film on the internet.
Luton has a growing Muslim population and has been a hot-bed of radical
activity. The extremist group al-Muhajiroun has also been very active
in the town. The 7/7 bombers assembled in Luton, before travelling
to London to carry out their attacks.
The document also reveals that many of the terror networks operating
in the UK include extremists who have been trained in terrorist camps
overseas and have "some ability to construct improvised explosive
devices, incorporating home-made explosives".
It adds: "The availability of training/guidance and the necessary
components to build improvised explosive devices (IED), allied with
extremists' known targeting preferences, mean that IED attacks against
crowded places, intended to cause mass casualties, are the most likely
form of attack in the UK."
It is also made clear in the report that al-Qaeda cells are planning
further attacks in UK with the so-called Government Security Zone
(GSZ), an area which covers the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, Buckingham
and St James' Palaces, as a possible target. The threat level in the
GSZ is described in the report as "severe".
Security officials are convinced that UK-based al-Qaeda cells will
attempt to carry out another "spectacular" inside the UK
with major transport termini, such as airports and train stations,
being the most likely targets.
Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, said al-Qaeda now had support
in large parts of the country, especially around Luton which was the
spot where the 7/7 terrorists assembled before travelling to London
to mount the Tube bombings.
He added: "We know that subversion and support for al-Qaeda is
taking place in campuses and prisons all over the UK. The fact that
we have not been attacked for over two years should not be taken by
anyone as evidence that the threat has gone away, in fact it is just
the contrary."! |
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