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JB Stone
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 Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Arafat to be buried at Ramallah: leaders
Syndey Morning Herald.com australia ^ | November 10, 2004 | Associated Press
Palestinian leaders said they would bury Yasser Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters and turn it into a shrine, dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial and defusing potential conflict with Israel.
Egypt offered to hold a memorial service for Arafat at the Arab League in Cairo ahead of a Ramallah burial. Palestinian officials said they were considering the idea.
Israel's Cabinet was to meet on Thursday to discuss funeral arrangements. Israel initially insisted on a Gaza burial, but Israeli security officials said the government apparently would not object to having Arafat buried in the West Bank.
The choice of the Ramallah headquarters, known as the Muqata, would defuse confrontation with Israel. Palestinian officials initially said they would insist on a Jerusalem burial, an option Israel has ruled out from the start.
Both sides claim Jerusalem as their capital, and Israel fears burying Arafat - leader of the Palestinian movement for four decades - in Jerusalem would strengthen Palestinian claims to the holy city.
Palestinians consider the Muqata as a symbol to their resistance against Israeli occupation. Arafat was confined to the compound by Israel for nearly three years. During that time, Israeli troops repeatedly raided and damaged his headquarters.
Turning the compound into a museum could make it a pilgrimage destination for Palestinians as well as a tourist attraction for foreigners. Most Palestinians would have access to it in Ramallah, and it would be close to Jerusalem for visiting foreigners.
The Ramallah burial site was chosen after a meeting of top Palestinian officials in the Muqata. The burial site would be considered temporary, until Arafat could be reburied in Jerusalem, Palestinian officials said.
In announcing Arafat's deteriorating condition in Paris, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said confinement to the dank Muqata, where Arafat lived in a room with a tiny window, may have contributed to his health problems.
As the 75-year-old Arafat's health deteriorated, countries were discussing how to pay their respects to a man who was both revered as the father of the Palestinian nation and reviled as a terrorist.
The United States and Europe plan to refrain from sending heads of state to a funeral should Arafat die, opting instead to dispatch lower level officials, diplomats told The Associated Press.
The United States, which has sidelined Arafat in recent years, is examining several options - from sending US Secretary of State Colin Powell to asking former US presidents, such as Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter to attend a funeral, a senior US official said while speaking on condition of anonymity.
A British official speaking on condition of anonymity said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw may attend, though that was not final.
The European Union countries were coordinating their approach, with diplomats saying that representation at the funeral would probably be at the ministerial level.
A Cairo funeral would make it easier for most Arab leaders to pay their respects. Arab leaders would be wary of entering Israeli-controlled territory, such as the West Bank. Most countries don't have relations with the Jewish state.
Israeli security and government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said earlier that Ramallah was not an option. Israel fears a funeral in Ramallah could present a security risk because of its close proximity to Jerusalem and due to the many army-manned roadblocks surrounding the town. |
Palestinian leaders said they would bury Yasser Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters and turn it into a shrine, dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial and defusing potential conflict with Israel.
LOOKS LIKE THE ISRAELIS WON THIS ROUND...!!!
NOW, IF THE MURDEROUS BASTARD WOULD JUST DIE...... |
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:58 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Arafat Dead
HAARETZ ^
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/499629.html
Last Update: 10/11/2004 02:25 PA plans Muqata burial for Arafat
By Arnon Regular and Ronni Singer, Haaretz Correspondents
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath put an end Tuesday to nearly two weeks of speculation by declaring Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's life in a Paris hospital was "now in the hands of God and his doctors."
A late-night report by Itim quoted senior Palestinian sources as saying that PLO Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas - the most senior Palestinian politician after Arafat - would announce in Ramallah Wednesday morning that Arafat had died.
According to the report, Arafat was already dead as of Tuesday night, but the Palestinian leadership would make the official announcement only after Abbas returned to Ramallah from Paris, via Amman, overnight.
Arafat's bureau director, Tayeb Abdul Rahim, indicated in Ramallah Tuesday night that the Palestinian leadership had decided to turn the Muqata into a mausoleum for Arafat, making it his final resting place until circumstances allow him to be buried in Jerusalem.
Israel's security cabinet will meet Wednesday morning to discuss funeral arrangements. Sources said that Israel will not oppose a burial in Ramallah if the PA asks for it, although Israel would prefer that Arafat be buried in the Gaza Strip.
Israel informed international leaders that the Palestinians do not have sufficient forces in the West Bank to provide security for the funeral, but that political considerations overrode security considerations. According to political and defense sources, Israel cannot prevent the Palestinians from burying their leader in Palestinian areas, and will only oppose burial in Jerusalem and Abu Dis.
The cabinet will also discuss the issue of foreign leaders expected for Arafat's funeral, especially from the Arab world. The ministers will decide whether Israel should insist that any foreign dignitary arriving at the funeral will come through a land border and go through Israel security, or a special air corridor will be open for Arab leaders to arrive by helicopter from Jordan or Egypt.
Egypt, meanwhile, is offering to host a funeral service for Arafat in Cairo, a Palestinian official said Tuesday night. An envoy arrived in Ramallah late Tuesday night with the proposal, said Ahmed Subah, the deputy information minister. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered to hold the service for Arafat at the Arab League in Cairo, ahead of burial in Ramallah, said Subah.
At his Paris news conference, Sha'ath made clear that the doctors are unable to pinpoint the reasons for Arafat's low platelet count, which require constant blood transfusions. According to Sha'ath, tests show that Arafat's heart, lungs and brain are functioning. But doctors at the French hospital said his coma deepened overnight.
A long day of speculation and rumors climaxed in the simultaneous, coordinated news conferences in Paris and Ramallah. During the day, which began with the report of the deepening coma, there were also reports that Arafat had died, later refuted by Sha'ath.
In Paris, PLO Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas, PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia', Sha'ath, and Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Rouhi Fathi were allowed into the hospital, where Arafat's wife, Suha, greeted them warmly, said Sha'ath, only 24 hours after accusing them of conspiring to "bury alive" her husband.
Sha'ath later explained that she had been under enormous pressure, and her 4 A.M. outburst on Monday was based on a misunderstanding.
Doctors at the hospital spent two hours with the four Palestinian officials, informing them that tests had ruled out cancer or poisoning as the reason for Arafat's decline. Then the four picked Qureia to enter Arafat's room for a first-hand look at the Palestinian leader, on what they all conceded was his deathbed.
Sha'ath rejected talk of "euthanasia" saying it was contrary to the Islamic faith, and that in any case Arafat was not in any pain that needed to be alleviated. He said that Arafat had not been in a coma for years or even months, which might have required alleviating the family's suffering.
While refusing to comment on the prognosis directly, Sha'ath gave the impression that Arafat had only a few more hours to live. However he refused to discuss funeral arrangements for the rais, saying that Arafat's life was in God's hands, and it was inappropriate to talk about funeral arrangements while Arafat was still alive.
Without saying so directly, Sha'ath ruled out any recovery for the Palestinian leader. Asked about "the day after," Sha'ath spoke about the Palestinian Basic Law explicitly calling for the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council to take up the acting role of chairman and then holding elections within 60 days.
In Ramallah, however, Rahim, flanked by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, said that "all the necessary arrangements" would be made at the Muqata, which was immediately understood to mean that the funeral would be held in the compound where Arafat had been under siege by Israel since December 2001.
Presumably, the large empty field used as a helicopter pad to lift Arafat out of Ramallah and fly him to Amman - where a flying hospital flew him to France last week could serve the large gathering of mourners expected, including many foreign statesmen.
According to Western diplomatic sources in Jerusalem, messages have been passed through diplomatic channels between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, with Israel saying it would not apply security restrictions on foreign statesmen coming to the funeral.
Israel still prefers Gaza as a better locale for the funeral, particularly since the Arafat family owns a cemetery plot there, and security would be easier to control for the Palestinians.
But the Palestinians have apparently given up trying to obtain a grave plot for Arafat on either the Temple Mount or in Abu Dis, and are now focused exclusively on Ramallah and the symbolism of a Muqata funeral.
Among the foreigners anticipated for an Arafat funeral are Libya's Moammar Gaddafi and many other Arab leaders. However reports that the funeral is slated for Ramallah have some worried about security.
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Palestinians Discuss Leadership Change as Arafat's Coma Deepens
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Palestinian leaders are discussing leadership changes after Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat slipped into a deeper coma in a hospital in France.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia will convene a gathering of leaders from Palestinian groups today when he returns to the West Bank after seeing Arafat yesterday, Tayeb Abdul Rahim, said late yesterday in Ramallah.
Arafat, 75, has ``a brain hemorrhage,'' Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said yesterday in Ramallah. He ruled out any talk of shutting off Arafat's life-support machines. The Palestinian leader's prognosis is ``doubtful,'' French General Christian Estripeau said at the Percy military hospital in Clamart, south of Paris.
Qureia and Palestine Liberation Organization Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have been touted as possible successors to Arafat. Under Palestinian Authority law, the Palestinian Legislative Council's speaker, Rawhi Fattouh, takes over as interim president in the event of Arafat's death or permanent incapacitation. Elections must be held within 60 days.
The central committee of Fatah, Arafat's faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, met yesterday to discuss what happens after Arafat dies, said committee member Abbas Zaki.
The meeting to be headed by Qureia, also known as Abu Ala, will include officials from the PLO, Fatah and other groups such as Hamas to make ``proper'' decisions, Abdul Rahim said.
Ramallah Burial
Plans are being made to bury Arafat temporarily at his Muqata headquarters in Ramallah, Abdul Rahim said.
``If God's will prevails, then all the arrangements will be made here in Muqata, because it is considered a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness,'' he said.
Arafat was confined to the Muqata compound by the Israeli army for almost three years until he was flown to France Oct. 29 as his condition deteriorated.
Arafat's interment in the Muqata would be ``temporary'' until he can be buried in Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian leader's wishes, Zaki said.
Israeli leaders have said they won't allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem on the site known as the Temple Mount to Jews and Christians and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. They have suggested he be interred at a family cemetery in Gaza.
Israel won't object to Arafat's burial in Ramallah, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported on its Web site, citing unidentified Israeli officials.
Arafat's ``brain, his heart, his lungs still function. He is very much alive,'' Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, who accompanied Qureia to France, said late yesterday in Paris. French doctors ruled out cancer or poisoning, and Arafat's poor health seems to be due to his age and hard life, Shaath said.
Public Disagreement
Only Qureia actually saw Arafat, following a request by Arafat's wife, Suha, Shaath said. Palestinian leaders had been in public disagreement over access to the ailing president with Suha Arafat, who had told al-Jazeera television that they wanted to ``bury Arafat alive.''
Shaath said Arafat's survival will depend a great deal on his body's resistance.
``We Muslims do not accept euthanasia,'' Shaath said. ``People talk as if his life is plugged in and plugged out, and this is utterly ridiculous.''
The Palestinian government is functioning, Shaath said. ``I don't want to explore with you anything about his potential death and burial and all of that,'' he told journalists in Paris. ``You don't talk about somebody's burial when he is very much alive.''
To contact the reporters on this story:
David Rosenberg in Jerusalem at Drosenberg1@Bloomberg.net; Paul Tighe in Sydney at
8626 or ptighe@bloomberg.net
| Quote: | Arafat clings to life as condition worsens
11/9/2004, 7:07 p.m. ET
By JOHN LEICESTER
The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — A deeply comatose Yasser Arafat clung to life Tuesday after suffering another downturn, his major organs still functioning but his survival dependent "on the will of God," the Palestinian foreign minister said.
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Palestinian leaders made preparations for Arafat's eventual death. They said they would bury Arafat at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank and turn the site into a shrine.
But the 75-year-old leader, whose condition has steadily worsened since he was flown to a military hospital outside Paris on Oct. 29, would not be removed from life support, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said.
"His brain, his heart and his lungs are still functioning and he is alive," Shaath said after he and other Palestinian officials met with Arafat's doctors, his wife and French President Jacques Chirac.
"He will live or die depending on his body's ability to resist and on the will of God," Shaath said.
Shaath's remarks at a news conference underlined that the Palestinian leadership was now in control of information about Arafat after days of confusing and often conflicting reports about his undisclosed illness. Palestinian officials had been denied access by Arafat's wife, Suha, who used France's strict privacy laws that give authority to the family.
Shaath also tried to dispel concerns about the possibility for chaos in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the event of Arafat's death and said the leadership transition would be smooth.
"What I would say is that on the political level, our government is functioning," he said.
On a visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was ready to engage with the emerging Palestinian leadership to make progress toward establishing a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
Shaath was part of a senior Palestinian delegation led by Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 man behind Arafat in the Palestine Liberation Organization. The group left for Jordan late Tuesday after a 24-hour visit to the French capital.
A top Islamic cleric, Taissir Dayut Tamimi, was rushing to Arafat's bedside. Shaath called Tamimi, who was expected in Paris on Wednesday, "a very close friend" of Arafat and said that "we think having a religious person beside him in these difficult moments is relevant."
He dismissed speculation that Tamimi, head of the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, could advise on removing Arafat from life support. "No mufti in the world has the right to do that," Shaath said.
The Palestinian deputy Parliament speaker, Hassan Khreishe, told The Associated Press that leaders decided Arafat should be buried at his West Bank headquarters, known as the Muqata. Arafat was cooped up in his battered offices by Israel's army for nearly three years, and the site has become a symbol to Palestinians of their resistance to Israeli occupation.
"We formed a committee to handle Arafat's burial in the event of his death, and the burial will be in the Muqata," Khreishe said.
The decision was likely to head off a fight with Israel's government over a grave site for Arafat. Palestinian officials had wanted to bury their leader in Jerusalem, which they claim as the capital of their envisioned state, but Israel refused.
A top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Asaf Shariv, said the government would consider Ramallah as a burial site.
Palestinian officials said Egypt's government offered late Tuesday to hold a memorial service for Arafat in Cairo before a Ramallah burial and they said the proposal was being considered.
A Palestinian official stressed that a Ramallah grave would only be considered temporary, with the ultimate goal remaining burial in Jerusalem. The official said the decision to create a burial shrine at the Muqata was made by Qureia and Abbas, the caretaker leaders during Arafat's illness.
Qureia has assumed some emergency financial and administrative powers and Abbas has presided at meetings of the PLO's executive committee. But neither has much grass-roots support among Palestinians or important militant groups, and it isn't clear whether one of them or someone else might emerge as a replacement for Arafat, who did not groom a successor.
The Palestinian charter calls for the speaker of the parliament to become interim president for a maximum of 60 days after Arafat's death, to allow an election.
Shaath, in the first detailed description of Arafat's treatment, said the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner was receiving breathing assistance from a respirator and getting nutrition intravenously.
"These instruments are there, of course. He's also attached to monitoring equipment," Shaath said. "So he has lots of equipment there but, as I said, nobody has ever thought of shutting them off."
A top Palestinian official, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, said Arafat suffered a brain hemorrhage Monday night, but Shaath said he could not confirm that and said scans showed Arafat's "brain remains sound." Such bleeding often causes brain damage.
Edward Abington, the former U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, said Arafat was near death. "It's only a matter of hours," Abington told AP in a telephone interview from Ramallah.
The French medical team treating Arafat publicly acknowledged for the first time that he was in a coma, saying he had been comatose for a week.
"President Yasser Arafat's health worsened in the night," said Gen. Christian Estripeau, a spokesman for Percy Military Training Hospital. "His coma, which led to his admission to the intensive care unit, became deeper this morning."
Estripeau declined to offer a prognosis but said the deterioration in Arafat's condition marked "a significant stage."
A coma is a profound state of unconsciousness. Patients are unable to move or respond to their environment. There are several levels of coma and patients may, or may not, progress through them. The responsiveness of the brain lessens as the coma deepens and when it becomes more profound, normal body reflexes are lost and patients no longer respond, even to pain.
The chances of recovery depend on the severity of the underlying cause.
Shaath said that a dramatic disagreement with Arafat's wife, who had accused the visiting Palestinians of trying to topple their longtime leader, had been smoothed over and that she embraced delegation members during their two-hour visit to the hospital.
"She is the wife of a great man, our leader, and is the mother of his only daughter," Shaath said. "She will always be respected and protected by the Palestinian people."
•__
Associated Press correspondents Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, and Lara Sukhtian in Paris contributed to this story.
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:09 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 
FOX News - F-18 bomb sets off numerous secondary IED explosions along Fallujah streets
Fox News | Nov 9, 2004 | BwanaNdege
Posted on 11/09/2004 3:28:21 PM PST by BwanaNdege
Brent Hume on Fox News just showed an awesome video clip from Fallujah. FA-18 delivered laser guided bomb that set off numerous secondary explosions. The target was a suspected Improvised Explosive Device, and appeared to be linked to multiple IEDs along at least one street and possibly along an adjacent street.
CLICK HERE:
http://www.asjewelers.com/FRstuff/10/F_18vid.wmv
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The Enemy Starts to Collapse
Enemy resistance in Fallujah is starting to collapse, with US forces deep inside the city and fighters pulling back to their ultimate stronghold in the Jolan district. There is no more room to retreat with the Euphrates to the west and American forces on every side.
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Troops have been advancing towards the center, fighting insurgents armed with rifles and mortars street by street. Early on Tuesday the US-led troops reached a key objective early -- a mosque in the north part of Falluja. ... The BBC's Paul Wood, embedded with US soldiers - and whose reporting is subject to military restrictions - says US-led forces reached their first major objective early on Tuesday, when they surrounded al-Hidra mosque in the northern parts of Falluja. The US military said the building was being used as an arms depot and a meeting point for the leaders of the insurgency. Our correspondent says Iraqi forces fighting alongside US marines will storm it.
Earlier, a US tank commander said guerrillas were putting up a strong fight in the north-western Jolan district. "These people are hardcore," Capt Robert Bodisch told Reuters news agency. "A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) at my tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there."
"I can see heavy street-fighting from my house in the center of the city -- US soldiers are here, moving from house to house", according to BBC reporter Fadil Badrani."
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A smattering of trained Iraqi forces accompanied the marines in their assault on the city, while more were poised on the outskirts, preparing to enter in an offensive codenamed Phantom Fury. Helicopter gunships swooped overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the muzzles of insurgent rocket launchers jutted out, while the rebels fought back with anti-aircraft fire. White and red flashes lit the sky in a relentless barrage of artillery shells and aerial bombing that thundered throughout the night.
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Mortars are what the enemy has for reserves, the only part of their firepower that remains mobile on the Fallujah battlefield because its high-angle fire allows it to shoot over obstacles in built up areas. Enemy forces have also been known to volley RPGs upward into neighboring streets. But their fire is largely blind. They have no comms and direction centers to mass fires or shift them as the battle progresses. The BBC press account indicates that heavy armor has actually penetrated deep inside the city (with an armor company commander joking about the disabling of his vehicle) with infantry progressing over and through the walls of houses on either side (probably what the BBC reporter is describing as 'moving from house to house').
Today's news will tell whether American commanders have decided to keep up the tempo and profit from enemy confusion or slow down and reduce the remainder by fire. One of the factors will be the condition of the Iraqi troops fighting alongside Americans. As suggested in the article above, Iraqi troops are employed to clean out areas like mosques that have been bypassed by US forces. This is dangerous and exhausting work. The limited number of trained Iraqi troops may enforce a limit on tempo. As the enemy fragments it will become a battle of small unit holdouts in dozens of locations. Each enemy position is doomed but they will take time to clean out.
Readers will remember that Fallujah is only a part of the wider campaign in the Sunni triangle. Chester has pointed out that the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, identified as fighting at Fallujah, was detached from Ramadi. The enemy is now trying to relieve pressure on Fallujah with demonstration attacks in Ramadi, where they may have sensed the departure of the battalion. This has taken the form of a repulsed car bomb attack on checkpoints controlling access to the city and low level skirmishing. This report from the AP describes how two enemy vehicles were destroyed as they bore down on a checkpoint.
In a portentous development, the Marines have apparently withdrawn their observation posts inside Ramadi. Middle East Online reports:
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Rebel fighters massed in the centre of the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi Tuesday after US military snipers withdrew from their positions following 24 hours of clashes, an AFP correspondent said. The US military could not immediately be contacted for comment.
US snipers left a hotel from where they were able to control most of Ramadi's main roads, but the military remained in its headquarters in the governor's office nearby, the correspondent said. Other US soldiers left the city for their bases in the east and west of the city.
As the snipers departed, large crowds of armed insurgents, their faces hidden by scarves, began dancing in the street and shooting in to the air, yelling "Allah Akbar" (God is great). Banners proclaiming solidarity with insurgents in Fallujah, where US-led forces launched a massive offensive to retake the city on Monday, were hung in the streets. "The residents of Ramadi condemn the attack against Fallujah and we appeal to the inhabitants of Ramadi to wage jihad against the American occupants who want to eradicate Islam," said one man who did not want to be named.
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An earlier generation of historians would call the withdrawal of snipers "bringing in the pickets" and concentrating the fist. The feeble enemy response suggests a real weakness. The car bomb attack and public demonstration of "fighters" who are apparently unable to hinder the comings and goings of snipers will be portrayed as a great jihadi victory but is pathetic in reality. They are being measured for a pine box and the best they can do is caper in the streets. In a few days 3rd Battalion will be back in Ramadi, together with powerful units currently busy in Fallujah and the dance tempo will change to a funeral march unless the enemy lays down his arms. Wellington once observed that "nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." Nothing about it is nice; but better them than us.
Update
An Agence France Press report describes the terrible closed loop of networked firepower. For the first time in a major battle, guided artillery is being used quantity. In addition to the now familiar JDAMs, or GPS guided bombs, there are now GPS guided shells. Space based positioning satellites, laser range finding, robotics and networked computing are now as much a part of infantry combat as the boot heel.
| Quote: | More than 500 rounds of 155-millimetre Howitzer cannon shells have been fired on the besieged Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad since a US-Iraqi offensive to take control of the city started on Monday evening, said Sergeant Michael Hamby. Using a global positioning system, each shell is precision aimed and fired at insurgent spots, while unmanned reconnaisance aircraft check whether the target was hit and feed back the information, Hamby told AFP.
"We probably had 20-to-30 air strikes in the Jolan and probably two-to-three times that in artillery missions," he said. Attack helicopters swooped overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the muzzle of insurgent rocket heads jutted out.
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Though the enemy is to be frank, very brave, news reports them falling back everywhere. The Washington Post says:
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Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, predicted "several more days of tough urban fighting." He said insurgents were "fighting hard, but not to the death. They are falling back," adding that the U.S. advance was progressing "ahead of schedule."
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The enemy withdrawals have sometimes been explained by suggesting that the enemy is suckering in US forces into a trap. But this is impossible. Their backs are to the river and the Marines are across that. Every retrograde movement compresses the enemy into a smaller area and forces them to leave behind prepared positions painstakingly stockpiled with food, batteries and ammo. Running backward with wounded, they can't carry much ammunition and won't find any unless a prepared position is already available. And how does anyone stand fast in the face of the otherworldly violence of the American onslaught?
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Small bands of gunmen -- fewer than 20 -- were engaging U.S. troops, then falling back in the face of overwhelming fire from American tanks, 20mm cannons and heavy machine guns, said Time magazine reporter Michael Ware, embedded with troops. Ware reported that there appeared to be no civilians in the area he was in. On one thoroughfare in the city, U.S. troops traded fire with gunmen holed up in a row of houses about 100 yards away. An American gunner on an armored vehicle let loose with his machine gun, grinding the upper part of a small building to rubble.
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From wetchard's Belmont Club
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/
This is a description of platoon-sized enemy units attempting to hold back the Martians. The bravado of Al Jazeera has this completely wrong. If classical history were still widely taught, these scenes would be instantly recognizable as a rout, that terrible disintegration of ranks as the foe closes in before and behind. Describing the rout of the Roman Legions by Hannibal at Cannae, Livy wrote:
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It was a terrible slaughter. ... On a narrow area 48,000 corpses lay in heaps. ... Hannibal once more released non-Roman prisoners. ... Roman knight's gold rings were collected in baskets and later poured out onto the floor of the Carthaginian senate. One of the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paulus (and one of the preceding year's) were killed, as well as both quaestors of the consuls, 29 out of 48 military tribunes and 80 other senators.
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There can be no joy in war: it is always repulsive in actual detail, but if we are not left with the facts, then the world is deprived even of the doleful experience of the battlefield. The jihadi dream was a fraud. September 11 opened the door, not to Paradise but the portal to Hell and the jihadi nightmare will continue for as long as they are nourished on illusion and false encouragement. We are not their permanent enemies; that foe is within their breast. |
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msindependent
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 891
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| Sky News in the UK is reporting him dead. |
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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ARAFAT 'DEAD' & ALIVE
By URI DAN and ANDY GELLER
November 10, 2004 -- Yasser Arafat slipped deeper into a coma yesterday, but the Palestinian foreign minister insisted he is "still alive" and his brain, heart and lungs are working.
The official, Nabil Shaath, issued a strong denial after five senior Palestinian sources said the 75-year-old Arafat had suffered a stroke and died.
A top Islamic cleric was rushing to Arafat's bedside in a Paris military hospital and Palestinian leaders made plans to bury Arafat at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.
In another day of confusion, the Palestinian sources said Arafat died during the night after suffering a stroke.
"He is dead," one of the sources said.
"He died after bleeding in the brain began last night. His bodyguards started hugging and kissing and telling each other to be strong."
Edward Abington, the former U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, also said Arafat was near death. "It's only a matter of hours," he said.
But a hospital spokesman said that while Arafat had slipped deeper into a coma overnight, he was still alive.
And Shaath, part of a three-member delegation that visited the hospital, said, "His brain, his heart and his lungs are still functioning and he is alive."
The foreign minister said Arafat was on a respirator and was being fed intravenously, but insisted that removing him from life support has never been considered.
"These instruments are there, of course. He's also attached to monitoring equipment. So he has lots of equipment there, but as I said, nobody has ever thought of shutting them off," he said.
"He will live or die depending on his body's ability to resist and the will of God."
Cleric Taissir Dayut Tamimi, head of the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was rushing to Arafat's bedside and was expected in Paris today.
Shaath called Tamimi "a very close friend" of the Palestinian leader and dismissed speculation that the cleric could advise on removing him from life support.
"No mufti in the world has the right to do that," Shaath said.
Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, decided that Arafat will be buried in Ramallah, said Deputy Parliament Speaker Hassan Khreishe.
"We formed a committee to handle Arafat's burial in the event of his death, and the burial will be in the Muqata," Khreishe said, referring the Ramallah headquarters by its Arabic name.
Top Israeli officials will meet today to decide.
Palestinian officials said they were considering an Egyptian offer to hold a memorial service for Arafat in Cairo prior to a Ramallah burial.
In addition to Shaath, the other members of the Palestinian delegation were Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Mahmud Abbas, the No. 2 in the PLO. Arafat's wife, Suha, allowed only Qureia to see her husband. With Post Wire Services
"He died after bleeding in the brain began last night. His bodyguards started hugging and kissing and telling each other to be strong."
STILL GOT 'QUESTIONS' ON WHICH "MYSTERY ILLNESS" KILLED HIM...???
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:56 am Post subject: |
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Palestinian official says Arafat dead
Associated Press
Nov. 10, 2004 09:10 PM
PARIS - Yasser Arafat, who triumphantly forced his people's plight into the world spotlight but failed to achieve his lifelong quest for Palestinian statehood, died Thursday at age 75.
He was to the end a man of many mysteries and paradoxes - terrorist, statesman, autocrat and peacemaker.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat confirmed to The Associated Press that Arafat had died. The Palestinian leader spent his final days in a coma at a French military hospital outside Paris.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top Arafat aide, confirmed that Arafat died at 4:30 am Paris time. He spoke to reporters at Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Arafat's last days were as murky and dramatic as his life. Flown to France on Oct. 29 after nearly three years of being penned in his West Bank headquarters by Israeli tanks, he initially improved but then sharply deteriorated as rumors swirled about his illness.
Top Palestinian officials flew in to check on their leader while Arafat's 41-year-old wife, Suha, publicly accused them of trying to usurp his powers. Ordinary Palestinians prayed for his well being, but expressed deep frustration over his failure to improve their lives.
Arafat's failure to groom a successor complicated his passing, raising the danger of factional conflict among Palestinians.
A visual constant in his checkered keffiyeh headdress, Arafat kept the Palestinians' cause at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But he fell short of creating a Palestinian state, and, along with other secular Arab leaders of his generation, he saw his influence weakened by the rise of radical Islam in recent years.
Revered by his own people, Arafat was reviled by others. He was accused of secretly fomenting attacks on Israelis while proclaiming brotherhood and claiming to have put terrorism aside. Many Israelis felt the paunchy 5-foot, 2-inch (1.57 meters) Palestinian's real goal remained the destruction of the Jewish state.
Arafat became one of the world's most familiar faces after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 1974, when he entered the chamber wearing a holster and carrying a sprig. "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun," he said. "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."
Two decades later, he shook hand at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a peace deal that formally recognized Israel's right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of treaty violations, and a new round of violence that erupted in the fall of 2000 has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinian.
The Israeli and U.S. governments said Arafat deserved much of the blame for the derailing of the peace process. Even many of his own people began whispering against Arafat, expressing disgruntlement over corruption, lawlessness and a bad economy in the Palestinian areas.
A resilient survivor of war with Israel, assassination attempts and even a plane crash, Arafat was born Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa on Aug. 4, 1929, the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian merchant killed in the 1948 war over Israel's creation. There is disagreement whether he was born in Gaza or in Cairo, Egypt.
Educated as an engineer in Egypt, Arafat served in the Egyptian army and then started a contracting firm in Kuwait. It was there that he founded the Fatah movement, which became the core of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
After the Arabs' humbling defeat by Israel in the six-day war of 1967, the PLO thrust itself on the world's front pages by sending its gunmen out to hijack airplanes, machine gun airports and seize Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
"As long as the world saw Palestinians as no more than refugees standing in line for U.N. rations, it was not likely to respect them. Now that the Palestinians carry rifles the situation has changed," Arafat explained.
SURE, THEY SAY HE'S DEAD....I DON'T TRUST THEM....!!!
| Quote: | Size, location of Arafat assets a mystery
Associated Press
JERUSALEM — In his four decades as Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat has run a financial empire that reputedly included far-flung PLO investments in airlines, banana plantations and high-tech companies, and money hidden in bank accounts around the globe.
Jaweed al-Ghussein, a former PLO finance minister, told The Associated Press the Palestinian Liberation Organization was worth $3 billion to $5 billion US when he quit in 1996.
No one will say how much it's worth now -- some estimates say as little as a few million. But as 75-year-old Arafat fights for life in a hospital near Paris, some Palestinians fear that what is left will disappear or be pocketed by Arafat cronies.
"It's the money of the Palestinian people,'' said Palestinian legislator Hassan Khreishe, adding that he would urge a parliamentary investigation.
That could prove difficult.
Arafat has long resisted proper accounting for the funds, which include Arab payments to the PLO in the 1970s and 1980s, and western aid to his self-rule government, the Palestinian Authority, after interim peace deals with Israel in the 1990s.
Arafat lived frugally, but needed large sums to maintain loyalties. He would register investments and bank accounts in the names of loyalists, both to buy their support and protect the holdings from scrutiny and seizure, said al-Ghussein.
Only Arafat had the full picture, he said, and it's not clear whether he left a will or financial records.
Mohammed Rashid, Arafat's financial adviser, denied his boss was rich.
"Arafat has no personal property in any part in the world,'' he told Al-Arabiya television on Sunday. "He doesn't even have a tent, a house, an orchard or any account that we can call personal in the name of Yasser Arafat.''
However, Forbes magazine ranked him No. 6 on its 2003 list of the richest "kings, queens and despots,'' estimating he was worth at least $300 million US. Shalom Harari, a former top Israeli intelligence official, said Arafat may have stashed away up to $700 million.
Two names frequently come up in connection with Arafat's money -- Rashid and Arafat's wife, Suha.
In the past 10 years, Rashid has handled hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian Authority revenue Arafat diverted from the treasury. However, a reformist finance minister, Salam Fayyad, said the money that was invested has since been restored to public control.
Suha Arafat, Arafat's wife of 13 years and mother of his daughter, lives in Paris and has received monthly payments of $100,000 US from the Palestinian coffers, according to a senior official in Arafat's office.
This year, French prosecutors launched a money-laundering probe into transfers of $11.4 million US into her accounts. She has refused to talk to reporters about Palestinian finances.
Al-Ghussein, speaking by telephone from London, said the big money from the Arab world started flowing in 1979. For a decade, the PLO received about $200 million a year, $85 million of it from Saudi Arabia, he said.
Al-Ghussein, who headed the Palestinian National Fund, the PLO treasury, said during that period he would hand Arafat a check for $10.25 million every month from the PLO budget, ostensibly for payments to PLO fighters and families of those killed in battle. He said Arafat refused to account for his spending, citing national security.
Much of the Arab money dried up after Arafat infuriated his patrons in 1990 by siding with Saddam Hussein during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. But Saddam gave Arafat $150 million in three payments, Al-Ghussein said.
The PLO investments are said to have ranged from an airline in the Maldives to a Greek shipping company, banana plantations, a diamond mine in Africa and real estate throughout the Arab world.
The holdings were registered in the names of dozens of Arafat loyalists, according to a retired PLO financier in Gaza and to a Palestinian economist in the West Bank who began following the money trail at the request of some Fatah officials this year. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
A senior Palestinian Authority official with detailed knowledge of financial transactions said much of the money has been lost. Some of the companies went bankrupt. In other cases, Arafat cronies absconded with the cash. Some frontmen for PLO investments died, and the holdings passed to their families.
A new source of income opened for Arafat after he established limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza.
The international community, protective of the fledgling peace effort with Israel, donated more than $6.5 billion to the Palestinian Authority from 1994 to 2003, in the beginning with few questions asked.
Last year the International Monetary Fund reported $900 million in Palestinian Authority income never reached the treasury during the first six years of self-rule. The money, including Israeli tax rebates and revenue from monopolies on cigarettes, fuel and cement, instead went into a Tel Aviv account controlled by Arafat.
Harari, the former intelligence official, said the Israeli prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, was offended by the arrangement but was told by his advisers that Arafat needed a slush fund to suppress opposition to peace deals with Israel.
International aid officials declined to discuss PLO finances, saying they were only concerned with the Palestinian Authority's bookkeeping. Karim Nashashibi, the IMF representative in the Palestinian areas, said the $900 million has been restored to the treasury under Fayyad, who has won international praise for his work.
In the last three years, Fayyad sharply curtailed Arafat's spending powers, cutting the budget for the president's office from $100 million in 2002 to $43 million this year. |
QUICK...CALL GUINNESS....!!!!
THE PALESTINIANS ARE ABOUT TO CREATE THE LARGEST URINAL THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN....!!!!
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | The "father of terror" is dead. Officially. Finally.
Israel Insider ^ | 11.11.04
The "father of terror" is dead. Officially. Finally.
November 11, 2004
Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian engineer who assumed the role of "freedom fighter" and invented the "Palestinian people" by introducing airplane hijacking and suicide bombing into the world and then deceived, extorted, and killed his way to international fame and fortune, bilking his society of billions of dollars, is, after a week of high tragicomic farce, finally and formally deemed dead.
Israelis, with few exceptions, considered him a liar, a charlatan, and a mass murderer. Many felt fooled over the years by the perception that Arafat, despite his pretensions to a "peace of the brave," clung throughout his life to the goal of the eradication of Israel, whether by a pan-Arab military blow or in phases of gradual attrition. He is judged responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, most of them Israeli but also many foreign nationals, including American diplomats.
Arafat introduced terrorism into the modern consciousness, initially through high profile airplane hijacking and later by introducing the concept of suicide bomb as a means of martyrdom, techniques which have since been adopted by the Arab world and beyond.
Arafat is also blamed in Israel for having debased the value of making peace with Arabs in the region. The disillusionment of moderate Israelis in the "peace process" and the possibility of co-existence, was largely the result of public pronouncements and commitments by Arafat never matched with facts on the ground.
The failure to stop pursuing terrorism, combined with a legacy of extortion and racketeering on a massive scale, made him and his immediate circle fabulously wealthy from funds contributed by foreign governments for the welfare of Palestinian society which itself grew disillusioned by his corruption. The fiasco surrounding his last days, the in-fighting between his wife and the Palestinian leadership, revealed the degree to which the driving forces in Arafat's life were driven by the selfish pursuit of power that only masses of ill-gotten money could buy.
In the end, the man who packed a pistol onto the UN podium and received a Nobel Peace Prize wearing his quasi-military uniform, died alone and unfulfilled, abandoned but by those who sought to exploit and extend his death throes to preserve their own self-appointed positions and to extract what remaining booty they could. The corruption that characterized his life finally found expression in his mental and physical dissolution. Abu Amar, the father of modern terrorism, was at last left pitifully alone to face the terror that awaits an evil man in death.
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:00 am Post subject: |
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