A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
A masked gunman opened fire during a midnight victory rally for Quebec's new premier, killing one person and wounding another. The new premier, Pauline Marois of the separatist Parti Quebecois, was whisked off the stage by guards while giving her speech and uninjured.
It was not clear if the gunman was trying to shoot Marois, whose party favors separation for the French-speaking province from Canada. Police identified the gunman only as a 62-year-old man, and were still questioning him Wednesday morning.
Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said the gunman opened fire in the back of the hall while Marois was giving her victory speech to hundreds of supporters at the Metropolis auditorium. She had just declared her firm conviction that Quebec needs to be a sovereign country before she was pulled off the stage.
"What's going on?" Marois told her security detail as they grabbed her arms and took her off the stage during the celebration of her party's victory in Tuesday's provincial election.
The gunman then fled outside where he set a small fire before he was captured, police said.
As police dragged the man to a cruiser, he shouted in French: "The English are waking up!" CNN affiliate CBC reported. The suspect appeared to be wearing a bathrobe or housecoat.
Marois' party, Parti Quebecois, wants the French-speaking province to secede from Canada and become its own country. Marois, who will become the province's first female premier, and her party defeated the incumbent Liberal party.
Montreal police Commander Ian Lafreniere confirmed Marois was the target of the gunman, a 62-year-old man whose identity has not yet been released by authorities.
According to Lafreniere, the assailant had two guns with him during the attack at the Metropolis concert venue.
Marois and her party have long been associated with a movement for Quebec to declare its independence from Canada. Also, Marois' party has received threatening phone calls.
This is a developing story. CNN is reporting that according to US officials, the FBI and DEA have disrupted a plot by elements of the Iranian government to kill a Saudi envoy to U.S. on American soil.
This would necessarily complicate relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but I have to question the kind of motivations that Iran would try such an attack, let alone an attack of that kind on US soil. It would be the kind of action that would push the US to take a stronger stance against Iran, including still stronger sanctions and other actions.
The criminal complaint, unsealed in federal court in New York City, identified the two alleged plotters as Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri.
Holder said Arbabsiar, who was arrested on Sept. 29 in New York, was working for the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Shakuri, who is based in Iran, remains at large, Holder said.
Both are originally from Iran and Arbabsiar is a naturalized U.S. citizen, the complaint said.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador is Adel Al-Jubeir, who has served in that post since 2007.
The indictment is the result of a sting operation conducted by the FBI, sources tell NBC News.
The case started when one of the suspects, who lived in Texas, made contact with an undercover DEA informant and asked for assistance from the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico to assassinate the ambassador, the sources said.
ABC News reported that Arbabsiar was the one who made contact. A source said he reportedly claimed he was being "directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government," including a cousin who was "a member of the Iranian army but did not wear a uniform."
Arbabsiar allegedly wired $50,000 to the informant as a down payment on a $1.5 million assassination fee.
UPDATE:
A copy of the Justice Department amended complaint can be found here. They are charged with the following:
conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives); and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism transcending national boundaries. Arbabsiar is further charged with an additional count of foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.
One of the longstanding problems with the opposition groups in Syria is that Bashar al Assad's regime has been able to continue suppressing the opposition and world leaders have been unable to find someone within the opposition to back.
The unification of Syria's largely leaderless opposition movement is almost certain to improve coordination with the international community, whose backing could add crucial momentum to the seven-month uprising. Until now, Western leaders have been unable or unwilling to provide the kind of support that could help the opposition overthrow Mr. Assad, the Washington Post reports.
Western diplomats have frequently identified the lack of a unified opposition movement as one of the Syrian uprising’s biggest obstacles. Without a coherent opposition or any clear sense of who or what would replace Assad, world powers and many ordinary Syrians have been reluctant to throw their weight behind efforts to unseat him, fearful of a power vacuum in the strategically located nation.
The council includes the Local Coordination Committees, which has organized most of the protests across the country; the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood; and Kurdish groups; among others, the Associated Press reports. Almost half the members are from inside the country, according to the Washington Post, overcoming a key concern that the council would rely to heavily on exiles.
This means that the Syrian opposition will be able to demonstrate to world leaders that they are a viable alternative to Assad and his despotic regime.
Assad's regime continues its brutal crackdown against the opposition and a recent spate of assassinations has raised the spectre of civil war and one has to consider Assad's willingness to use assassination as a tool of foreign policy. I wouldn't put it past his regime to murder individuals, even those loyal to his regime, in order for him to remain in power by dividing and conquering opposition groups and relying on sectarian divisions to maintain his hold on power:
The latest series of assassinations in Syria, including the recent murder of the son of the grand mufti, reveals a muddled and complex picture of the state of the uprising in the country. The killings could lead Syria spiraling down the path of a bloody civil war, with sectarian vendettas likely to characterize the next chapter of the revolution. If, however, it turns out that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is behind the targeted murders, these acts will likely backfire and unite religious sects against the regime. The flashpoint city of Homs was last week the scene of several targeted assassinations.
On Sept. 25, a surgeon at Homs’ general hospital, Hassan Eid, was shot dead as he got into his car. Aws Abdel Karim Khalil, a nuclear engineering specialist and charge d’affaires at al-Baath University, was gunned down as his wife drove him to work. Mohammad Ali Aqil, deputy dean of the architecture faculty, and Nael Dakhil, director of the military petrochemical school, were also killed last week, both the Syrian official news agency and activists reported. Khalil and Eid are said to belong to the Alawite sect of Islam, to which Assad is also affiliated, while Aqil was a Shiite Muslim and Dakhil a Christian.
It is possible that armed dissidents were targeting suspected regime informants and collaborators. But it is equally possible that the regime was carrying out targeted killings against leading members of minority Shiite, Alawite and Christian sects to create tensions between them and the majority Sunni Muslims. If the revolution develops into a sectarian war, the regime will likely present itself as an independent party seeking to unite a divided nation and thus emerge as victorious in the mayhem.
Assad already relies heavily on the Alawite minority to remain in power, but he needs others to be cowed into backing him to maintain his grip on power. Fueling fears by Christians of a Sunni Islamist takeover would play into Assad's hands.
The fact is that Assad will use all means of violence at his disposal to remain in power. He will cynically murder those loyal to his regime to stoke those fears of sectarian warfare, even though all but a few loyalists have suffered for decades under his brutal regime.
Aboud Al-Zomor, a military intelligence officer and one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (and a forerunner to al Qaeda) who was tried and convicted for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, was released without fanfare in the wake of Hosni Mubarak being forced from power.
He's quite unrepentant about the assassination - that the peace deal with Israel was proof that Sadat needed to be removed from power at any cost. Or at least the straw that broke the camel's back. He and his fellow EIJ terrorists wanted to usher in an Islamic state and saw Sadat as a roadblock; and yet Zomor also doesn't find Sadat to be nearly as bad as Mubarak, who was far more corrupt in his power.
When Zomor was imprisoned, Ayman al Zawahiri took over. You might have heard of Zawahiri.
The UN Tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has named names. Not surprisingly, two of the four were senior members of Hizbullah. The Guardian notes that all four were members of Hizbullah.
The Islamic terror group, with ties to both Damascus and Tehran, denounced the tribunal once again as a pawn of the US and Israel.
The four men named are: Mustafa Badreddine, Salim al-Ayyash, Hassan Issa and Asad Sabra.
Badreddine is Hezbollah's chief operations officer, according to the Daily Star, an English-language newspaper based in Beirut. He replaced his former cousin and brother-in-law Imad Mugniyeh in that position after Mugniyeh was assassinated in Syria in 2008, the newspaper reported.
The indictment alleges Badreddine masterminded and supervised the plot to kill Hariri, while Ayyash led the cell that actually carried out the operation, the Star wrote.
Expect Syria and Iran to make a stink over the handing down of the indictment and how this is part of some plot by the US and Israel - all while ignoring that Syria has long used Hizbullah to pursue its interests in Lebanese politics.
Syria considers Lebanon to be its personal playground and within its sphere of influence; it was not above using force and intimidation to get its way. Likewise, Hizbullah has no problems using violence to pursue its own agenda and is now in a position of power because it still remains armed to the teeth despite the UN SCR 1701 that requires all militias operating in Lebanon to be disarmed.
Jared Lee Loughner, who attempted to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a Tucson, Arizona political rally, but succeeded in murdering a federal judge and five others while injuring several others, was found to be not competent to stand trial:
Mental health experts have concluded that Jared Loughner - the man accused of fatally shooting six people in January and gravely wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords - is not competent to stand trial, CBS News reported Wednesday.
Loughner, 22, faces a competency hearing Wednesday before U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns in Tucson. Burns must rule on whether Loughner is capable of understanding the charges against him and assisting in his defense.
CBS said it spoke with Justice Department sources who said Loughner "will almost certainly be declared mentally unfit for trial." The issue of Loughner's competence to stand trial is separate, as a legal matter, from any effort he and his defense attorneys may make to argue that he was insane at the time of the Jan. 8 shooting in a Safeway supermarket parking lot.
In court filings last week, prosecutors and defense attorneys said they did not plan to dispute the findings of a Bureau of Prisons psychologist and an independent psychiatrist who examined Loughner, who has been in custody since the shooting. The court papers suggested that the mental health experts agreed with each other about Loughner's mental state, but the documents did not specify their conclusion.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined Thursday to comment on Loughner's competence.
As the report notes, the competence to stand trial is separate from any defense team arguments that he was insane at the time of the January 8 shooting. It has to do with whether Loughner is capable of understanding the charges against him and assisting in his defense.
Loughner faces 49 felony counts in connection with the January shooting spree, which wounded Giffords (D-AZ), and killed U.S. District Court Judge John Roll, Giffords aide Gabriel Zimmerman and four others.
At least 19 people were killed in the latest crackdown against Bashar al-Assad's opponents. While the regime continues holding on to power despite widespread protests there is some indication that Assad is gaining the upper hand. I'm not buying into that - the fact that the protests are spreading beyond the original locations and that Assad has been forced into bringing out the armored divisions all across the country suggests that his regime is fighting for its very existence here.
The protesters keep taking to the streets despite the mortal peril they're putting themselves in. The number of people being detained keeps rising, as does the death toll.
For its part, the Russians are continuing to prop up the Assad regime by warning against military action by the West to stop Assad's bloody crackdown. That follows a similar call from the Chinese earlier in the week.
At the same time, there's movement on the UN probe in to the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and that Syrian officials have been fingered:
According to Lebanese press reports, prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has obtained new information indicating the involvement of Syrian senior officials in the 2005 assassination. The material was included in the amended indictment draft which was filed last week.
The report indicated that the information was provided by Syrian expats in Hague who claimed they witnessed the event.
Meanwhile, the as-Safir newspaper quoted a French source who said the UN prosecutor discussed cooperation with French security authorities with Paris officials. According to the report, the prosecutor promised to track down the Syrian organizers of the Hariri assassination.
Twenty-two other people were killed in the 2005 attack which ignited a protest wave which led to Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.
At the time, Syria was marked as the prime suspect for the hit as Hariri was known as fiercely critical of its involvement in Lebanon. Later, fingers were pointed at a Syrian ally – Hezbollah.
This is yet another complication for the Assad regime, which has long backed not only Hizbullah and meddling in Lebanon, but Hamas as well. Assad's problems are multiplying the pressure on his regime but he's resorted to the only solution his regime (and that of his father has known) - violently cracking down against all those opposed to his regime.
The blasphemy law imposes a death sentence for anyone who insults Prophet Muhammad or the religion of Islam, but its opponents note that the law has been used to settle personal scores and persecute members of the minority faiths.
Gilani was among those paying their respects at the funeral, but President Zardari did not attend, and the ruling party has refused to reform the blasphemy law.
Bhatti and Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer both criticized the blasphemy laws after a Christian woman was sentenced to death under them last year. On Jan. 4, Taseer was shot dead by one of his bodyguards, who said he was angry about the governor's stance on the laws.
But the ruling party abandoned Bhatti and Taseer on the subject, a sign of how scared they are of upsetting powerful Islamist groups. Gilani has repeatedly insisted the government would not change the laws.
President Asif Ali Zardari did not attend the funeral mass or the burial service in Khushpur, though he rarely makes public appearances out of fear for his life. Also notably missing were top leaders of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which is considered somewhat sympathetic to Islamists.
There are reports that Gilani offered to step down because of the assassination because someone had to take responsibility for the security lapses.
What's needed is that Pakistan's top leadership repudiate the blasphemy laws and reform the law. Instead, they're cowed by the threats of violence against those who express any views that are antithetical to the Islamic extremists.
Gunmen killed Pakistan's minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, Wednesday, in the second attack this year on a high-profile figure who has opposed the country's blasphemy law.
Witnesses say the attackers fled the scene in their car without hurting Bhatti’s driver, who then rushed him to the nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. City Police Chief Wajid Durrani spoke to reporters outside the hospital.
The police officer said the attackers intercepted Bhatti’s official car shortly after he left his residence for work and shot him several times at close range.
The slain minister belonged to the ruling party of President Asif Ali Zardari and was the only Christian member of the federal cabinet.
Bhatti had been threatened by Muslim extremists for speaking out against Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law.
Pakistan's government is cowering behind the threat, and many government officials have stayed away from the earlier funeral. Zardari and his fellow officials don't want to be seen as being too close to the slain opponents to the anti-blasphemy laws lest they become assassination targets as well.
The movement to repeal the anti-blasphemy laws has come under increasing pressure and the assassinations are likely to thwart the move to repeal the 30-year old laws. Zardari and the reform agenda aren't likely to advance, and I'd say that the effort to repeal the anti-blasphemy law is all but dead due to the extremists cowing the government and those who would seek the changes.
The Saudis have been trying to mediate the difficult political situation in Lebanon following Hizbullah's withdrawal from the government. They've given up on the mediation efforts and the hope is that Qatar and Turkey will pick up where the Saudis left off.
Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's minister of foreign affairs, said Wednesday that his country had abandoned mediation talks to resolve Lebanon's political crisis that caused the government's collapse last week.
Al-Faisal made the comments in an interview with state-run Saudi TV in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt where he was attending an Arab economic summit to discuss economic challenges facing Arab nations. He also described the political situation in Lebanon as "dangerous."
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Assad have been personally involved in an attempt to resolve Lebanon's political crisis, the Saudi foreign minister said.
But when no agreement was near the Saudi king "lifted his hands and kept away from the negotiations," al-Faisal said.
Meanwhile, Qatari and Turkish foreign ministers arrived in Lebanon Tuesday in an apparent attempt to pick up where Saudi and Syrian efforts left off.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani met with President Michel Suleiman, and caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri among other leading political figures, state-run Lebanese news agency (NNA) reported Tuesday.
Hizbullah staged a quiet show of force Tuesday that rattled nerves, hours before senior Qatari and Turkish officials began talks in Beirut in an attempt to contain political tension over a U.N.-backed tribunal probing the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik Hariri.
Hizbullah’s actions came hours before Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Bin Jaber al-Thani and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu began a series of talks with Lebanon’s political leaders aimed at preventing a slide toward sectarian strife.
As The Daily Star went to press early Wednesday, Sheikh Hamad and Davutoglu were in talks with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. The two officials will spend the night in the capital to hold further talks with other political leaders Wednesday.
Hizbullah is the reason that the Lebanese government is in the position it is in, and its terror outfit is likely among those behind the assassination of Hariri, but should that become official the terror group would lose support from the Lebanese people as the group has long claimed to be a resistance group to Israel (even though Israel has not occupied Lebanon since 2005 and Hizbullah caused a devastating war after its terrorists invaded Israel and killed several soldiers and kidnapped two others (Regev and Goldwasser), leading to a brief, but devastating war for large parts of Southern Lebanon where Hizbullah openly operates in defiance of UNIFIL and SCR 1701).
The indictments have been filed, but their contents wont be made public for several leaks despite leaks hinting at the possibility that Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran were involved in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. The draft indictment will now be reviewed by pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen.
The pretrial judge will decide whether the case presented by the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, is strong enough to go to trial. The court said that if he chooses to issue formal indictments, he will then make the names public. Officials close to the investigation said this process will likely take six to eight weeks.
"The Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon can confirm that the prosecutor of the tribunal has submitted an indictment," the court said.
The court also said the investigation into the murder of Mr. Hariri, and other linked cases, is continuing and that other suspects could be indicted.
"The indictment marks the beginning of the judicial phase of the tribunal's work," the court said. "The prosecutor and his team will continue to vigorously pursue his mandate with respect to both continued investigative activity and the prosecution of this case."
In Beirut, talks over the formation of a new government were postponed Monday as a regional emergency meeting was under way in Damascus to resolve Lebanon's crisis. Last week, Hezbollah, the Shiite political and militant group, and its political allies toppled the government headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Rafik's son, due to its support for the international tribunal.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said talks with the parliament to nominate a new prime minister will take place next Monday and Tuesday.
The international court investigating Mr. Hariri's murder has exacerbated tensions inside Lebanon, as the tribunal is expected to indict between two and five Hezbollah members, according to officials briefed on the case.
Hizbullah has threatened violence if the indictments come down against its members. Hizbullah's top thug Nasrallah says that they would not acccept the results of the indictment and continue to claim that the US and Israel were behind the assassination and that the ongoing political crisis in Lebanon is the result of US and Israeli actions.
It goes without saying that Nasrallah and Hizbullah wont support current Prime Minister Saad Hariri's attempts to reconstitute the government after Hizbullah and its allies withdrew from the government.
U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly, who met Sunday with Zahle M.P. Nicholas Fattouch, reiterated her country’s support for the divisive U.N.-backed court probing the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Connelly was quoted as calling the tribunal “the Lebanese people’s best hope for putting its tragic and bloody history of political violence behind it.”
The tribunal is expected to name Hizbullah members in an indictment to be issued Monday and antipathy surrounding the court – as well as the issue of “false witnesses” – last week prompted the resignation of 10 March 8 ministers and independent M.P. Adnan Sayyed Hussein, toppling Hariri’s national unity government.
Fattouch, who successfully headed March 14’s Zahle list for 2009’s parliamentary polls before splitting from the bloc, is considered a key target to vote with March 8 following imminent consultations to find a new prime minister.
“Until now, we are communicating to reach a final decision which strengthens the unity that Zahle and the Bekaa have always enjoyed,” Fattouch said after meeting Connelly. “The most important thing [discussed] during our meeting was the major challenge, which is not how to form a new government, but how to re-establish the Lebanese nation.
“How do we take steps to build political platforms to reach national unity in an environment of active constitutional institutions which can only save the Lebanese?” Fattouch said.
An unidentified European diplomat told A.F.P. Friday France had requested the formation of an emergency “contact group,” consisting of representatives from Syria, Saudi Arabia, France, the U.S., Qatar, Turkey “and possibly other countries with a stake in Lebanon,” in order to confront the country’s worst political crisis since May 2008.
Considering that the Saudis and Egyptians are backing the Hariri government, it is not a surprise that Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah are in opposition; one theory as to why the assassination was carried out was that Hizbullah and Iran were opposed to Rafik Hariri getting closer to the Saudis. In other words, this is another front in the longstanding Sunni-Shi'ite conflict that has manifested itself in recent years as Iran (and its proxies and allies) versus the Sunni majority Saudis (and Egyptians).
The terror group Hizbullah attempts to defend the indefensible actions it has taken in the past week. The terror group, which is a proxy army for Iran and Syria, is expected to be implicated in the assassination of Rafik Hariri by a United Nations investigation report to be issued tomorrow along with Syria's President Bashar Assad and Iranian officials.
The crisis is the climax of long-simmering tensions over the U.N. tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The court is expected to indict members of Hezbollah, which could re-ignite hostilities between Lebanon's rival Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Rafik Hariri was a Sunni.
Hezbollah is Lebanon's most powerful military force, with an arsenal that far outweighs that of the national army.
Saad Hariri had refused Hezbollah's demands to cease cooperation with the court, prompting Wednesday's walkout.
Nasrallah's speech was seen as important sign of his movement's mindset at a time when many fear the country's political tension could descend into civil strife. His demeanor was calm and he emphasized that Hezbollah will work for change through democratic means.
The U.S. has denounced Hezbollah's walkout as a transparent effort to subvert justice.
"The tribunal is an independent, international judicial process whose work is not subject to political influence, either from inside Lebanon or from outside," U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly said Sunday after meeting with Hariri. "The efforts by the Hezbollah-led coalition to collapse the Lebanese government only demonstrate their own fear and determination to undermine Lebanon's sovereignty and independence."
The Times report notes that Hizbullah's military capability exceeds that of the Lebanese military but doesn't note that the terror group should have been disarmed by the UN and the same Lebanese military as part of UN SCR 1701.
The terror group continues operating with impunity and it is increasingly throwing its weight around Lebanon to the detriment of the Lebanese people. It brought down Prime Minister Saad Hariri's (Rafik's son's) government when it saw the writing on the wall with the impending UN report implicating top Hizbullah, Syrian, and Iranian officials. Since it, and its terror masters in Damascus and Tehran, couldn't tolerate such revelations, it has attempted to subvert the process by bringing down the government amid claims that the report is the work of the US and Israel.
Sources familiar with the investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005 told Newsmax that the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon will accuse Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei of giving the order to murder the former Lebanese prime minister, according to the Lebanese website Naharnet.
The sources told Newsmax, an American news website, that the tribunal will lay out evidence showing that the murder was committed by Iran's Quds force and Hezbollah.
The order to murder Hariri was transmitted to Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's top commander at the time, by Quds force chief Qassem Suleymani, sources familiar with the investigation told Newsmax.
The sources said Mughniyeh and his brother-in-law, Mustapha Badr al-Dine, put together the hit team that carried out the attack. "The Iranians considered Hariri to be an agent of Saudi Arabia, and felt that killing him would pave the way for a Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon," one of the sources said.
According to the sources, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the head of Syrian intelligence, also played key roles in the assassination plot.
A few days ago Hezbollah toppled the government of Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former prime minister. Saad Hariri returned to Lebanon Friday after visiting the US and France.
The report is scheduled to be released Monday. It's little wonder that Hizbullah was trying to divert attention from its culpability by bringing down the government and Iran's latest claims that they shot down US UAVs and that they've made advances on their nuclear enrichment program. Hizbullah has pitched itself as a resistance group dedicated to stopping Israel's involvement in Lebanon, but this shows through the lie, and reinforces the reality that Hizbullah is nothing more than a proxy army for Damascus and Tehran.
Hizbullah has threatened further violence if anyone attempts to take those involved in the assassination into custody.
The report also indicates that Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran carried out the assassination because they considered Rafik to be too close to Saudi Arabia.
Lebanese leader Amin Gemayel notes that Hizbullah's threats and actions are designed to maximize their power by any means necessary and that the Lebanese people are seeing through their machinations.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is making tremendous progress in recovering from the gunshot wound sustained when Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate the Congresswoman at an event in a Tucson supermarket.
Doctors have been reducing the sedatives being given and while swelling remains a concern, they are seeing hopeful signs for a positive outcome.
Yesterday, President Obama, in the midst of his speech about the civil discourse and the need for unity, announced that Rep. Giffords had opened her eyes for the first time since surgery.
The Arizona congresswoman has been sitting up, dangling her legs on the edge of the hospital bed and moving her limbs in response to commands. That's after she spontaneously opened her eyes during visits with her colleagues Wednesday night. She is able to lift both of her legs on command and is yawning and starting to rub her eyes, doctors said.
"She's becoming more aware of her surroundings," trauma chief Dr. Peter Rhee said during a news conference at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., Thursday.
The next milestone will be removing her breathing tube, and perhaps have her sit in a chair on Friday, said Rhee, who has treated soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Doctors want to make sure Giffords doesn't regress and are watching for pneumonia and blood clots.
One of the keys to her survival and seemingly miraculous recovery to date is the prompt medical attention, including by her intern, Daniel Hernandez, whose actions helped save her life.
Lebanon's political situation remains exceedingly fragile as Hizbullah has pulled out of the government and has forced the Lebanese President to bring about talks for a new Prime Minister. Those talks are scheduled to begin on Monday.
Hizbullah didn't like the fact that Prime Minister Saad Hariri was backing efforts to investigate the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri. His assassination has been tied back to Hizbullah and its terror masters in Syria and Iran and Hizbullah is doing all it can to avoid responsibility and culpability.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his party will "calculate our steps" after withdrawing from the Lebanese government, at a meeting of party leaders on earlier on Thursday, Al-Jazeera reported.
Nasrallah explained that his party left the government because the "expected result of the international tribunal for the former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri is aimed at the resistance."
Suleiman asked Hariri, as well as other members of his party, to remain in their positions in a transitional government, Lebanese news sources reported on Thursday.
Hizbullah told Suleiman that it will not allow Hariri to continue as prime minister, according to a Thursday report by Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar.
"He is not fit to have this responsibility, as experience has proven," a Hizbullah source told Al-Akhbar.
Another Hizbullah source told Lebanese daily A-Safir that Hariri will not be prime minister anymore "because he is part of the problem, not the solution."
Thus, it has resorted to bringing down the Hariri government.
Iran is playing its role in all this as well. It's claiming that the fall of the Hariri government is the fault of the Israelis and the US government, which makes no sense unless you think that getting to the bottom of Rafik's assassination and bringing those responsible for his assassination to justice is somehow blame-worthy.
Hizbullah isn't a resistance group. It's a terrorist group that continues operating in contravention of UN SCR 1701, which requires that all militias operating in Lebanon be disarmed. Hizbullah continues to maintain a significant military force, particularly in Southern Lebanon and UNIFIL attempts at disarmament have been limited at best. Hizbullah may at one time have been a resistance group when Israel had invaded Lebanon to deal with the PLO in 1981-2 and thereafter, but Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon since 2005. Hizbullah is not resisting Israel's occupation of Lebanon - it's resisting Israel's existence and uses its position in Lebanon to maintain a destabilizing element on Israel's northern border.
The US is working through France to try and keep Syria on the sidelines and to avoid any violent outbreaks in the coming days and weeks. France has long had a relationship with the Levant and still has good relations in Lebanon and Syria dating back to France's colonial days.
Ten ministers from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and its political allies announced their resignation on Wednesday and called on President Michel Suleiman to form a new government.
Eleven ministerial resignations would be enough to bring down the government of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. There was no immediate news on whether another minister, Adnan Sayyed Hussein, who Hezbollah supporters also expect to resign, was stepping down.
Lebanon would be better off if they fulfilled the requirements under UN SCR 1701, which required the Lebanese and UNIFIL to disarm all militias operating in Lebanon, including Hizbullah, but they have repeatedly failed to do so because Hizbullah is well entrenched and heavily armed - moreso than either Lebanon or UNIFIL would care to admit.
Southern Lebanon is essentially Hizbullahland and this may be a step in furtherance of resuming attacks against Israel and/or destabilizing the government of Prime Minister Hariri so that they can increase their reach further.
This is yet another sad day for the Lebanese who are trying to rebuild after decades of sectarian violence, the Israeli invasion to stop the PLO, and Hizbullah's disastrous war.
The announcement took place as Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was in the United States where he has been meeting with various US and United Nations officials.
US President Barack Obama was set to meet Wednesday with the Lebanese prime minister to discuss political tensions in his country stemming from the Hariri investigation, the White House said Tuesday.
The Hizbullah ministers had said they were planning to resign in the afternoon unless Western-backed Hariri — the son of the slain leader — agreed to their demand to convene an urgent Cabinet meeting over the tribunal crisis, Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalifeh said on Hizbullah 's Al-Manar TV.
Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Hariri said that he would "seek all means to reach solutions that can guarantee stability, calm and maintain national unity," Lebanon's Daily Star reported.
Hizbullah members are expected to be indicted by the Hariri tribunal, which will hand over its findings within "hours or days," according to a Wednesday report in Lebanese newspaper An Nahar.
Hizbullah has denounced the tribunal as an "Israeli project" and urged Hariri to reject any findings by the court, which has not yet announced any indictments.
In the wake of the attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that left six dead and 13 injured, several members of Congress have proposed banning extended clips such as the one apparently used by Jared Loughner in the attack.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced a measure in the Senate while New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is expected to introduce a similar measure in the House.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he would introduce the measure to re-establish a prohibition that lapsed in 2004 on clips that feed more than 10 rounds at a time.
"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly. These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market," Lautenberg said in a written statement announcing his plans. He said he would file the bill when the Senate returns to session later this month.
Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, is planning to introduce legislation that would make it illegal to bring a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official, according to a person familiar with the congressman's intentions.
King is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. The proposed law follows the Saturday shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and a federal judge that left six dead, including the judge, and 14 wounded.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's most outspoken gun-control advocates, is backing King's measure and is expected to put the weight of his pro-gun-control organization behind it.
Such measures wont prevent criminal acts such as the Giffords attack, but provide additional criminal sanctions for those who break the law. I think enforcement of the proposed measure would be extremely problematic.
It would seem to trump concealed carry among those who are lawfully within their rights to otherwise carry weapons and raises a question as to how the law could be enforced in the residential areas around members. Would this mean that a representative living in an urban area has a zone of 1,000 feet around them where possessing weapons is potentially illegal?
The measure may end up being limited to members participating in public events or at their offices or the 1,000 foot zone is reduced to something more manageable - 500 or 250 feet.
UPDATE:
The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, defined large capacity ammunition feeding devices but did not establish an outright ban.
DEFINITION OF LARGE CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING
DEVICE.—Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, as amended
by section 110102(b), is amended by adding at the end the following
new paragraph:
‘‘(31) The term ‘large capacity ammunition feeding device’—
‘‘(A) means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar
device manufactured after the date of enactment of the Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that has
a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted
to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition; but
‘‘(B) does not include an attached tubular device designed
to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire
ammunition.’’
The prohibition was written such that it was unlawful to transfer or possess those items except if they were otherwise lawfully possessed on or before the enactment date (1994) and there were certain additional exemptions from the requirement. This wasn't an outright ban but did limit the transfer and production of new extended ammo feeding devices such as extended clips. Reenacting the 1994 legislation would not ban the extended clip and would not have prevented the attacks. Had a ban been in place, it could have reduced the number of people injured and/or killed.
In the midst of Jared Lee Loughner's murderous rampage through Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's meet and greet with constituents at a Tuscon supermarket that left six people dead and 13 people injured, including Rep. Giffords, there were people who stepped up and became heroes.
These people ought to be recognized for their bravery and heroic actions for they saved lives.
Moments later, he was at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' side. Less than a week after the 20-year-old intern started working for the congresswoman, he was using his bare hands to stop blood gushing from where a bullet had entered her head.
Hernandez, who trained as a certified nursing assistant, said he lifted Giffords' head to make it easier for her to breathe, then applied pressure to her wound.
"She was alert and conscious, but she wasn't able to speak, so the way she was communicating was by grabbing my hand and squeezing," Hernandez said.
Employees from the nearby Safeway supermarket brought out clean smocks from the meat department to cover Giffords' wound until paramedics arrived, he said.
"My main thing was just to keep her as alert as possible and just keep trying to interact with her... The entire time I was with the congresswoman, she was still responding," Hernandez said. "She was obviously in a lot of pain, so I let her know to squeeze my hand as hard as she needed to."
She "was my first and only priority," Hernandez added later in a CNN interview. I was "trying to take care of her emotional needs" and "keep her calm."
Hernandez's calm and methodical actions saved Giffords' life by providing prompt medical attention and tending to Giffords. So too were the unnamed supermarket workers who found needed items to help Hernandez get the bleeding under control and provide easier access for her to breathe.
The other heroes in this traumatic event included spunky 61 year old woman, Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away another magazine from Loughner as he was attempting to reload after two men who are so far unnamed wrestled Loughner to the ground.
"He shot the woman that was next to me, and I was just waiting for the next bullet," Maisch said.
Then Maisch saw the gunman was on the ground near her. "Two gentlemen had knocked him to the ground, and somebody yelled 'Get the gun,'" Maisch said. "So I knelt up - he was on his right side - I knelt up and reached over him. I couldn't reach the gun, but as he was doing that he also pulled another magazine out of his left pocket, which he dropped on the pavement, and I was able to get it before he did.
"At the same time, another gentleman had picked up the gun. So he was secured."
She said she could not get a good look at the gunman's face. "He had a stocking cap on, and the way he was pushed on the ground, I could only see a little bit of the left side of his face, 'cause he had the stocking cap almost up to his eyes, both at the side, and above his eyebrows," she said.
Had he been able to reload, the crowd would have been in jeopardy of being hit by another 30 rounds. After arriving on scene, law enforcement found more than 90 rounds of ammo in Loughner's pockets.
Currently, Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition although doctors are cautiously optimistic. She's in a medically induced coma that allows doctors to control swelling and they revive her from time to time to check her responses, which have so far been positive.
Six people were killed, including a federal court justice, a nine year old girl, and four others at a political event sponsored by Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a Safeway supermarket in Tuscon. The Congresswoman has survived a gunshot wound to the head. Federal Judge John Roll was among the six killed along with nine year old Christina Green was born on 9/11 and was featured in a book about babies born on 9/11. The others murdered by Loughner are:
* Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, was recently engaged to be married, was Giffords' director of community outreach. He graduated from Rincon High School in 1998 where he was active in student government. A vigil was held tonight by his friends who described him as "caring," "motivated," "a free spirit," and "a man who understood how to live life"
* Dorwin Stoddard, 76, was a church volunteer. When the shooting started, Dorwin tried to protect his wife by laying on top of her when the shooting started. She was wounded in the attack.
* Dorthy Morris, 76
* Phyllis Scheck, 79
Loughner, 22, who is in law enforcement custody, lives near the scene of the shooting, which killed six people and injured at least a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said there's reason to believe Loughner has "a mental issue" and described him as "unhinged."
"As we understand it, there have been law enforcement contacts with the individual where he made threats to kill," Dupnik said during a press conference Saturday evening. But he wouldn't say who those threats were aimed at.
Police are also seeking a second, older man who may have had a role in the shooting.
The evidence and reports about Mr. Loughner’s unusual conduct suggest an increasing alienation from society, confusion, anger as well as foreboding that his life could soon come to an end. Still, there appear to be no explicit threats of violence that explain why, as police allege, Mr. Loughner, 22, would go to a Safeway supermarket north of Tucson on Saturday morning and begin shooting at a popular Democratic congresswoman and more than a dozen other people, killing 6 and wounding 19.
Police officials on Saturday said that Mr. Loughner had a criminal record of some kind, but they did not provide any details. They also hinted that he might have had the help of a second person, adding that they were searching for another man.
Don Coorough, 58, who sat two desks in front of Mr. Loughner in a poetry class last semester, described him as a “troubled young man” and “emotionally underdeveloped.” After another student read a poem about getting an abortion, Mr. Loughner compared the young woman to a “terrorist for killing the baby.”
“No one in that class would even sit next to him,” Mr. Coorough said. Another fellow student said that he found Mr. Loughner’s behavior so eccentric — including inappropriate remarks and unusual outbursts — that he wondered if he might be on hallucinogens. Mr. Loughner grew up in Tucson and was an unremarkable student at Mountain View High School, classmates said.
Grant Wiens, 22, who graduated in 2006 from Mountain View High School, a year ahead of Mr. Loughner, described him as “a kind of rare bird, very shy.”
“He didn’t seem very popular, but he kind of did his own thing,” Mr. Wiens said.
Mr. Wiens said that something Mr. Loughner said during a discussion about religion had stuck in his mind: “Whatever happens, happens,” Mr. Wiens recalled the suspect saying. “Might as well enjoy life now.”
Another former high school classmate said that Mr. Loughner may have met Representative Giffords, who was shot in the head outside the Safeway supermarket, several years ago.
“As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy,” the former classmate, Caitie Parker, wrote in a series of Twitter feeds Saturday. “I haven’t seen him since ’07 though. He became very reclusive.”
Expect that Loughner will be given a psychological evaluation and that his lawyers (when he is either assigned or obtains one) will likely make an insanity case rather than face the death penalty. Clearly, the charges that would likely flow from such criminal acts include the state and federal charges of murder in the 1st and 2d degree, and the attack on Rep. Giffords falls under 18 USC 351.
UPDATE:
Was Loughner motivated by anti Semitism? Anything remains a possibility at this point as Giffords was Jewish and investigators think that Loughner may have been involved in a group called American Renaissance, which is anti-government, anti-immigration, anti -ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), and anti-Semitic. However, that article claims that Giffords was the first Jewish female to be elected to such high position, but that doesn't quite make sense. Giffords is hardly the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress (so I'm not sure how that article's assertion was made or the context). After all, we've had Jewish congresswomen before, and Sen. Feinstein of CA is Jewish (and one of the senior members of the caucus at that). It could make sense in the context of being the first female Jewish member of Congress from Arizona. The SPLC file on American Renaissance highlights the group's typical anti Semitic and racist diatribes.
UPDATE:
Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition as Loughner has begun to be charged in the murderous rampage. First up are a series of federal charges:
Jared Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to killing a federal employee.
Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender in Arizona, says the 22-year-old suspect doesn't yet have a lawyer, but that her office is working to get a lawyer appointed for Loughner.
Expect the state counts to roll in with murder and attempted murder in the coming days. Loughner would face the death penalty on the federal charges alone, but his mental health is all but likely to come into play here and may see him incarcerated in a mental health facility.
UPDATE:
A copy of the federal criminal complaint can be found here. It outlines the premeditated efforts by Loughner to assassinate Rep. Giffords.
UPDATE:
Federal Judge John M. Roll was killed in Arizona attack, NBC News reports along with a staffer of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was among those seriously injured after being shot in the head at close range. At least 12 people were shot.
President Barack Obama called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy," and said that some had died and the congresswoman had been gravely injured, Reuters reported.
"And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded," Obama said in a statement.
C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for Giffords, said the congresswoman was in surgery as of 1 p.m. local time and that an unspecified number of Giffords staff members were involved in the shooting. Karamargin said he had no other information on the conditions of the injured or on the circumstances of the shooting.
Gabrielle Giffords
Congressional officials said an aide to the Democrat was killed, and unknown number of others were injured, including staffers to the lawmaker.
'Sad day'
Little was known about the shooter in the chaos after the rampage; one official said the attack was carried out with an automatic weapon. The officials who described the events did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not permitted to comment publicly.
Another law enforcement official told NBC News that the suspect was born in 1988, but did not have more details at the time.
A bystander apparently tackled the assailant as he tried to run away. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Office, at least 18 shots were fired from some kind of pistol with an extended magazine. Video tapes are being pulled from nearby businesses. Details about the shooting are still developing.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those involved and now 6
Giffords, who was re-elected in November, has focused on immigration reform, military issues, stem cell research and alternative energy while serving in Congress. She is married to U.S. astronaut Mark Kelly.
She served on the House Armed Services, Science and Technology committees.
Before going to Washington, Giffords served in the Arizona Legislature from 2000 to 2005 and ran her family's tire and automotive business.
Jared Laughner is the accused gunman and MSNBC is reporting that at least six people were killed.
UPDATE:
Media reports are indicating that this is not the first run-in that Laughner has had with law enforcement.
The University of Arizona Medical Center is holding a briefing. 10 patients were received. One died at the hospital. Five are in critical condition with five currently undergoing operations. Neurosurgeons have completed surgery on the Congresswoman and have a good prognosis.
The deceased victim from the hospital was a young child.
Also, this may be Laughner's YouTube channel, and his videos are quite disturbing and present some insight into what he was thinking.
UPDATE:
Culling through Loughner's background reveals someone who appears to have planned this attack and was looking to carry out attacks against the existing political order. He also appears to have a video channel "Classitup10"
My name is Jared Lee Loughner!
Hometown:Tucson
Country:United States
Schools:I attended school: Thornydale elementary,Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View Highschool, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College.
Interests:My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college!
Movies:(*My idiom: I could coin the moment!*)
Music:Pass me the strings!
Books:I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.
The shooting took place just about 10:00AM local time at a Safeway Shopping Center in Tuscon.
To get to the point, this was an attack on democracy itself. It affects how members will interact with their constituents and how constituents can join with their representatives.
UPDATE:
Reading through Laughner's materials, it's striking that not only is he expressing his interests in the past tense, but that he was calling for a change in the political currency of the country. While some people might think that Laughner was insane for espousing extreme political thought, and I fully expect his eventual lawyers to make that claim to avoid the death penalty for his attempted assassination of the Congresswoman, the murder of the federal judge, the young child, and anyone else who may have died or was injured in connection with this attack, that doesn't make him a murderous bastard with an expectation that he would not survive his plan (his writings were given in the past tense).
He clearly wanted a change in currency - not the tangible currency - but the currency of the existing political order. He was apparently looking to overthrow the government and existing polity. That puts him way out on the fringe politically, but that doesn't make him insane.
UPDATE:
President Obama speaks about the shooting:
Sen. John McCain has also responded about the shooting: "Whoever did this; whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law."
Giffords has drawn the ire of the right in the last year, especially from politicians like Sarah Palin over her support of the health care bill. It's still not clear if the gunman had the health care debate in mind or was focused on his own unique set of political beliefs as witnessed in the Internet videos.Law enforcement officials said members of Congress reported 42 cases of threats or violence in the first three months of 2010, nearly three times the 15 cases reported during the same period a year earlier. Nearly all dealt with the health care bill, and Giffords was among the targets.
Giffords' Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House voted to approve the health care law in March, with someone either kicking or shooting out a glass door and window. In an interview after the vandalism, Giffords referred to the animosity against her by conservatives. Palin listed Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the midterm elections because of the lawmakers' support for the health care law.
"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.
In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of Giffords and the other victims.
The shooting occurred at a shopping center called La Toscana Village as Giffords met with voters outside a Safeway grocery store.
Alex Villec, 19, a volunteer for the event, told the Arizona Daily Star that the gunman asked to speak to Giffords, but Villec told him to go to the back of the line. The gunman did that, and minutes later he walked toward her.
"He was intent," Villec said. "He was intent when he came back - a pretty stone-cold glance and glare."
"I didn't see his gun, but it was clear who he was going for," he added. "He was going for the congresswoman."
Villec said the shooter walked past tables and toward Giffords, then raised his hand. Villec said he heard gunshots before ducking behind a pillar.
"It was bedlam," he said. "People were getting down on the ground. They were screaming. I just did what I could to keep myself protected."
Villec said he did not see two men tackle the gunman but afterward spoke with one of the men who was next in line to greet Giffords.
Law enforcement officials and reporters from around the country quickly descended on Tucson, the second biggest city in the state and home to the University of Arizona. The scene has been converted into a command post with about a dozen or so emergency vehicles and agents in FBI jackets milling about the location.
I'd be interested to see who were the targets of those incidents and the disposition as to whether anyone was arrested.
UPDATE:
The New York Times is reporting that a second suspect is being sought. I'm going to surmise that the second suspect may be somehow related to how Loughner arrived at the supermarket - a driver or someone who provided him with the weapons/ammo, etc. Suspect may not have been a shooter, but he or she enabled Loughner to arrive at the supermarket and go on his murderous rampage.
