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- From: "Patient Zero 2.0.....Your longest reigning WWE Hardcore champion, plebians!!" <noonan24_7@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 08:22:11 GMT
"Patient Zero 2.0.....Your longest reigning WWE Hardcore champion,
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US report says al-Qaida gaining strength
By MATTHEW LEE - 12 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11
capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, leading to a major
spike in attacks last year in that country and neighboring Afghanistan,
the Bush administration said Wednesday.
Attacks in Pakistan more than doubled from 375 to 887 between 2006 and
2007, and the number of fatalities jumped by almost 300 percent from 335
to 1,335, the State Department said in its annual terrorism report.
In Afghanistan, the number of attacks rose 16 percent, to 1,127 incidents
last year, killing 1,966 people, 55 percent more than the 1,257 who died
in 2006, it said.
The report said attacks in Iraq dipped slightly between 2006 and 2007, but
they still accounted for 60 percent of worldwide terrorism fatalities,
including 17 of the 19 Americans who were killed in attacks last year. The
other two were killed in Afghanistan.
More than 22,000 people were killed by terrorists around the world in
2007, 8 percent more than in 2006, although the overall number of attacks
fell, the report says.
The report once again identifies Iran as the world's "most active" state
sponsor of terrorism for supporting Palestinian extremists and insurgents
in Afghanistan and Iraq, where it says elements of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps continued to give militants weapons, training
and funding.
"In this way, Iranian government forces have been responsible for attacks
on coalition forces," State Department counter terrorism coordinator Dell
Dailey told reporters. Iranian forces are also giving weapons and
financial aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan, he said.
About 13,600 noncombatants were killed in 2007 in Iraq, the report says,
adding the high number could be attributed to a 50 percent increase in the
number of suicide bombings. Suicide car bombings were up 40 percent and
suicide bombings outside of vehicles climbed 90 percent over 2006, it
says.
"The ability of these attackers to penetrate large concentrations of
people and then detonate their explosives may account for the increase in
lethality of bombings in 2007," the report says.
In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, al-Qaida and its affiliates remain
"the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners"
despite ongoing efforts to combat followers of Osama bin Laden and his top
deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to the report. It says Zawahiri has
emerged as the group's "strategic and operational planner."
"It has reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities
through the exploitation of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal
Areas, replacement of captured or killed operational lieutenants, and the
restoration of some central control by its top leadership, in particular
Ayman al-Zawahiri," it says.
Dailey, however, stressed that al-Qaida is still weaker overall than it
was before Sept. 11, 2001.
A primary reason for its resurgence was a cease-fire the Pakistani
government reached with tribal leaders last year, the report says. That
truce has since ended, but Pakistan's new government is now renegotiating
a similar agreement that some fear could have similar results and further
undermine efforts to battle al-Qaida.
The earlier cease-fire and instability in the region appear "to have
provided al-Qaida leadership greater mobility and ability to conduct
training and operational planning, particularly that targeting Western
Europe and the United States," the report says.
"Numerous senior al-Qaida operatives have been captured or killed, but
al-Qaida leaders continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger
operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan to affiliates
throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe," it says.
Of particular concern are al-Qaida sympathizers who attacked a U.N.
building in Algeria, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than
150 last year, the report says.
In Pakistan, the State Department recorded more than 45 suicide bombings
in 2007, up from a total of just 22 such incidents between 2002 and 2006.
Among those logged last year were the December attack that killed former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and an October attack on her homecoming
parade that killed more than 130 people, the worst suicide attack in
Pakistani history.
White House admits fault on 'Mission Accomplished' banner
By TERENCE HUNT - 10 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has
paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in
triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and
mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.
Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet
on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had
launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time. "The
battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11,
2001, and still goes on." The "Mission Accomplished" banner was
prominently displayed above him - a move the White House came to regret as
the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.
After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission
Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its
10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq. Bush,
in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the "Mission Accomplished"
message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a
spokesman later said the ship's crew asked for the sign and the White
House staff had it made by a private vendor.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more
specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this
ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said
Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific
on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up
again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the
fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the
fight to the enemy."
At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest
month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least
4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to
January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the
Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.
Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said that "while this war is
difficult, it is not endless."
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