What matters to the Muslim world today? The death of an old man in a Pakistani compound? Or the stirrings of Arab revolutions against the wishes of Western forces far keener to maintain the status-quo of dictatorships? Robert Fisk, a journalist who has met Bin Laden on a number of occasions, said yesterday that Bin…
Showing all posts tagged al-Qaeda
The official, New York Times approved version of OBL’s death
Here it is: After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August. A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American…
Osama Bin Laden dead but “war on terror” ain’t going anywhere
Barack Obama has announced the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. So many questions, so few answers. Will his death really make a difference to the “war on terror”? Arguably not. Bin Laden has become a symbol, little more. Occupation of Muslim lands has only worsened since 9/11, so hatred of the…
Let’s not be surprised that al-Qaeda works with British intelligence
Oops: An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as…
American attempts to understand post 9/11 world muddled and criminal
The evidence, via Wikileaks, just keeps on coming: The documents also show that in the earliest years of the prison camps operation, the Pentagon permitted Chinese and Russian interrogators into the camps — information from those sessions are included in some captives’ assessments — something American defense lawyers working free-of-charge for the foreign prisoners have…
Wikileaks reveal how Hicks and Habib were abused in our name
The cases of two former Australian Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, have received fresh oxygen after the release of their files by Wikileaks today. I’ve extensively covered them both over the years (Habib and Hicks) and one thing stands out; the sheer dishonesty of Western defenders of the policy and the callous…
How America really feels about those chained in Guantanamo Bay
A place of torture, deprivation, lack of judicial oversight, a gulag and utterly deplorable. Welcome to the US empire: Al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if Osama Bin Laden is caught or assassinated, according to documents to be released by the WikiLeaks website, which contain details the interrogations of…
Insider’s view of Libya’s unlikely revolutionaries
UK Guardian journalist Chris McGreal – whom I know and respect from his fine reporting in Palestine and South Africa – writes about the latest revolution; Libya: Few revolutions have been more inspiring. After years of reporting uprisings and conflicts driven by ideology, factional interests or warlords soaked in blood — from El Salvador to…
Serbia 1999 vs Libya 2011
Leading Australian academic Scott Burchill has some thoughts about Libya: 1. Military intervention like this can make the humanitarian crisis worse, as it did in Serbia in 1999. Milosevich’s attacks on Kosovars only escalated after NATO’s bombing campaign begun. So even though the West controls the skies over Libya, expect ground attacks by Gaddafi loyalists…
What the West fears is true independence in the Arab world
The following article by Kate Ausburn appears in Green Left Weekly: Popular uprisings in the Arab world have challenged a political landscape dominated by undemocratic regimes and fronted by dictators, a panel of academics and journalists said at a Sydney University forum on February 15. Speakers discussed the regional and international ramifications of the uprisings…