CIA airstrike on al Qaeda terrorist
canucker @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:21 am
Al-Zawahiri not among 18 killed in airstrike
(CNN) -- Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the al Qaeda terrorist network -- was not killed in a CIA airstrike on a remote Pakistani village, according a Pakistani intelligence official.
Initially, U.S. sources said al-Zawahiri was the target of Friday's strike and may have been among the 18 killed.
The Pakistani intelligence official said it was not known whether al-Zawahiri was in the area.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said Saturday it had lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan over the attack on the village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.
"Pakistan will also take up this matter in the next meeting of Tripartite Commission," according to a statement. The group is made up of senior military and diplomatic representatives from coalition forces, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Associated Press quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying "our investigations conclude that they (the CIA) acted on a false information."
Reuters also quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying: "Al-Zawahri was not there at the time of the attack."
Both the Pentagon and the White House declined to comment on initial reports of the airstrike on Friday. (Watch how al-Zawahiri was targeted -- 5:39)
Friday morning's strike killed eight men, five women and five children, Pakistani intelligence sources told CNN. Three homes were targeted.
"We are conducting tests to identify the bodies," one intelligence official said.
The Foreign Office statement said a preliminary investigation shows "there was foreign presence in the area and that in all probability was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan.
"As a result of this act there has been loss of innocent civilian lives which we condemn. The investigations are still continuing."
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan's information minister, said that the U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker, is to be summoned and a strong protest will be made.
"While this act is highly condemnable, we have been for a long time been striving to rid all our tribal areas of foreign intruders who have been responsible for all the violence and misery in the region. This situation has to be brought to an end."
He added that it "is also the responsibility of the people in the areas to fully co-operate.'"
U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan have long been concerned about foreign fighters taking refuge in neighboring Pakistan.
The Foreign Office statement said Pakistan's armed forces "have undertaken large scale operation against the foreign militants and it remains our responsibility to protect our people and territory from outside intrusion."
Hundreds of residents took part Saturday in protesting the attack.
The strike came a week after the Arabic language news network Al-Jazeera aired a new videotape with a message from al-Zawahiri, in which he called on U.S. President George W. Bush to admit defeat in Iraq.
U.S. authorities believe al-Zawahiri, 54, a doctor from a prominent Egyptian family, helped mastermind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He has also been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The U.S. government has put up a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
While bin Laden himself hasn't been heard from since October 2004, last week's videotape was the fifth message from al-Zawahiri released over the past year, including several claiming responsibility for the July attacks on London's transit system.
Considered the intellectual and ideological driving force behind al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri has been associated with bin Laden since at least 1987, when they first met in Pakistan. He is also believed to act as bin Laden's personal physician.
In 1998, al-Zawahiri merged his own Islamic militant group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, into bin Laden's organization.
Three months after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. forces attacked al-Zawahiri's residence in Afghanistan, killing his wife and children.
In March 2004, Pakistani troops launched an assault on an area in Waziristan province where intelligence indicated al-Zawahiri was hiding, but he was not captured.
Last month, Pakistani officials confirmed the death of a top al Qaeda official, Abu Hamza Rabia, who was killed in an explosion December 1 north of the border town of Miram Shah.
But witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how he died. Villagers said he was killed in a missile strike, while Pakistan officials said he died while working with explosives.
Egyptian-born Rabia was described as al Qaeda's operations chief and No. 3 man.
canucker @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:26 am
$1:
Friday morning's strike killed eight men, five women and five children, Pakistani intelligence sources told CNN. Three homes were targeted.
Can't the CIA do better than this?
BeaverBill @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:27 am
Just a reminder, in case anyone forgot.
http://www.thepowerhour.com/articles/du_effects.htm
$1:
The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq, the radio-active trash from nuclear plants broke a 46 year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war, an omnicidal weapon has since then continued to be used more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth ( estimated at 4.5 billion years. )
The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are emerging in Southern Iraq. They are devastating. The increased quantities of radio-active material ( including non-depleted uranium), used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq 199. In Iraq 2003 they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991 and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning , that includes the Capital, New
Delhi, where the ruling elite lives. The reported coming of an AIDS epidemic last year in India , down wind, may have a relationship to DU bombing in Afghanistan. If we think cancer is a problem now wait until more DU is released in wars against terror and for regime change, on mistaken Intelligence reports.
More than 500 tons of DU munitions have been dispensed in Afghanistan. Professor Yagasaki calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper presented at the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg in October 2003 ( 5 months ago ). The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs ( Busby and Leuren Moret have calculated that 1900 tons of DU is equivalent to 60 TBq of Alfa and Beta particulate activity).
The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are emerging in Southern Iraq. They are devastating. The increased quantities of radio-active material ( including non-depleted uranium), used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq 199. In Iraq 2003 they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991 and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning , that includes the Capital, New
Delhi, where the ruling elite lives. The reported coming of an AIDS epidemic last year in India , down wind, may have a relationship to DU bombing in Afghanistan. If we think cancer is a problem now wait until more DU is released in wars against terror and for regime change, on mistaken Intelligence reports.
More than 500 tons of DU munitions have been dispensed in Afghanistan. Professor Yagasaki calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper presented at the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg in October 2003 ( 5 months ago ). The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs ( Busby and Leuren Moret have calculated that 1900 tons of DU is equivalent to 60 TBq of Alfa and Beta particulate activity).
figfarmer @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:30 am
how they can blow up whoever in hell they please and get away with it?
'eight men, five women and five children'
'his wife and children'
Now, who are the real terrorists?
hwacker @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:32 am
figfarmer figfarmer:
how they can blow up whoever in hell they please and get away with it?
'eight men, five women and five children'
'his wife and children'
Now, who are the real terrorists?
'eight men, five women and five children'
'his wife and children'
Now, who are the real terrorists?
The people who are protecting this ahole.
BeaverBill @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:36 am
....and another.
http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/20 ... 4254.shtml
$1:
Traveling around southern Iraq in the late 1990s to investigate the effects of U.N. economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, Jesuit Father Simon Harak stopped at a hospital in Basra. Meeting with him and his colleagues from the anti-sanction group Voices in the Wilderness, Dr. Jenan Hassan briefed them about the medical horrors she and other doctors were confronting as a result of the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons by the U.S. Army in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. There was a fivefold increase in cancer, especially leukemia, she said, and a five- to eightfold increase in children born with genetic defects.
Dr. Hassan showed the Voices group some of the newborns.
“We saw a baby with a head growing out of his head,” recalled Harak. “We saw babies with intestines growing outside their bodies.”.....
Dr. Hassan showed the Voices group some of the newborns.
“We saw a baby with a head growing out of his head,” recalled Harak. “We saw babies with intestines growing outside their bodies.”.....
$1:
....“Basra is on a river,” he noted. “A DU shell poisons the water in a river. It poisons the grasses and the grains. It sinks into the ground and poisons the water table. When it gets into the body, it does incredible damage. The combination of radioactivity and heavy metal toxicity is such that it affects the DNA in such a way that you get genetic alterations.”
Harak recalled being told by doctors in Basra that the deformed children they were delivering reminded them of the pictures they had seen of Chernobyl babies. When a baby is born in Basra, the doctors said, the first question the mother asks her obstetrician is: “Is it all right?”.....
Harak recalled being told by doctors in Basra that the deformed children they were delivering reminded them of the pictures they had seen of Chernobyl babies. When a baby is born in Basra, the doctors said, the first question the mother asks her obstetrician is: “Is it all right?”.....
canucker @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:51 am
Hmmm BeaverBill, what's your stance? 
All I want to know is why can't the CIA just kill their target instead of families around their target, and maybe not even their target at all?
Tricks @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:53 am
canucker canucker:
All I want to know is why can't the CIA just kill their target instead of families around their target, and maybe not even their target at all?
easier said then done
BeaverBill @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:02 am
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/RBonDUcanada.html
$1:
....I call this to your attention and I ask you to make this known. It's largely Canadian uranium that's being used! Canada has a policy that its uranium cannot be used in nuclear bombs. That policy does not extend to these DU weapons. So you really have to complain loudly about this!
Canada also sends its uranium down to Paducah, Kentucky to be enriched and it does not ask for the return of the waste. If that waste stays in the United States for 30 days by U.S. law it becomes U.S. uranium.
So Canadian uranium is basically providing the material for these weapons. And I really would ask you to make this an issue in the front-centre and stop it now as quickly as you can!
Canada also sends its uranium down to Paducah, Kentucky to be enriched and it does not ask for the return of the waste. If that waste stays in the United States for 30 days by U.S. law it becomes U.S. uranium.
So Canadian uranium is basically providing the material for these weapons. And I really would ask you to make this an issue in the front-centre and stop it now as quickly as you can!
figfarmer @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:48 am
There is no real target. They just blow off some ordinance and then make up an excuse that makes them look good. They can do the examples on this page, a wedding party, a baby food factory or a group of Canadian service men and it's all the same to them. They make a bang and let the spin doctors take care of it.
NorthCelt @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 12:00 pm
figfarmer's got it...some enemies are more valuable alive and active than dead, especially if war is your business. And if you want to keep the weapons business humming along nicely, 'generational' wars (the Idiot Boy Prince's very own description) are definitely good for the bottom line; also good for stifling civil liberties when they become 'inconvenient'.
sukhoi @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:40 pm
Absolutely pathetic. Who are we to enter in to a sovereign nation's air space, then decide to drop bombs and kill innocent people. This happpens so often its just disgusting. If we can't get a decent intelligence agency, then we sure as hell don't need to be doing airstrikes. The person who authorized this airstrike should be fired as well as the ones who gathered the intelligence. Shame on the CIA and anyone else associated with this.
DixieCallin @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:45 pm
Not a good thing no..we are at war and living near a border in a theater of conflict is not good for ones health..should they have moved..no thats thier home..We are Hunting Al Queada and Taliban, as well as Canadian Troopers..if it looks like a Terrorist, runs Like a Terrorist, or even stands still..it is still a Terrorist.. 
Wullu @ Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:18 pm
Ummmm BeaverBill what the hell does all that have to with some scumbag terrorist?
BeaverBill @ Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:51 am
Wullu Wullu:
Ummmm BeaverBill what the hell does all that have to with some scumbag terrorist?
I agree with the comment posted by Figfarmer. Who are the real terrorists?
DU weapons are used freely and generously. The gov'ts who employ these weapons continually deny that they are using tactics that those opposing forces have been accused of wanting to use against us in the first place. These wars on terror were started on the premises of WMD, chemical and biological and nuclear. DU evidence is being consistently ignored and has been right from the start. DU is nuclear warfare shrouded in lies.
Until you begin to question our support, our leaders support and the support of our future leaders for these gov'ts, that emplore heinous methods against, ignoring the enemy, but the population and their generations to come you might never quite comprehend the word terrorist.