Monday Morning More Madness

Is is possible that Zawahiri and bin Laden could both be dead? The Jawa Report thinks that Zawahiri could very well be either seriously injured or possibly dead. Today there is speculation that bin Laden is dead.

If one is to read into behavioral changes among Saudi Arabian jihadi fighters returning from Pakistan and Afghanistan, bin Laden could indeed be dead.

Consider the following: Saudi Arabian security services have arrested several former fighters returning from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi Arabia over the past few months. While these arrests may not indicate much, it is the manner in which those fighters trickled back home that is revealing. ...

The state of disarray displayed by the returning jihadis goes counter to al-Qaida's established modus operandi. Reports filtering to the West always seemed to indicate that volunteers who joined the jihad were traditionally taken care of. They were housed, fed and paid a minimum monthly stipend. If indeed bin Laden has died from medical complications as rumored, it would explain the disarray observed among his jihadi fighters as reported by Saudi intelligence. (source, via this site)

On the highly anticipated bi-partisan Iraq report: "The Baker report is what every American policy-maker, Republican or Democrat, is lusting after, as if it contained the Ten Commandments on what to do in Iraq. ... the report contains not a silver bullet but a poisonous one: a suggestion to engage Iran and Iraq in talks, ending a long boycott of the two terrorist states."

Israel's Ehud Olmert meets with President George W. Bush today while "Arab foreign ministers gathered in Cairo vowed Sunday to ignore the aid freeze imposed on the Palestinian Authority and start stepping up payments. "We are determined to find means of getting aid directly to the Palestinian people," Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Ben Jassem Ben Jabr Al Thani told reporters."

In an announcement yesterday, "Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigades and Others Declare War on America "

Four Palestinian Authority terrorist groups, including that of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization, called on Muslims worldwide to attack America “with no mercy.”

In a joint statement issued on Sunday, the four groups announced that the United States will be a target for them to the same extent Israel is. They warned that they will attack American targets because of “American support for Israeli crimes and acts of massacre, such as the one in Beit Hanoun.”

In the joint communique, the terrorists call on "all free people of the world, and all the mujahadeen [jihadists] to hit the US with no mercy." ...

In addition to the Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the call to attack the U.S. was issued by the Popular Resistance Committee's Salah A-Din (Saladin) Brigades, the ad-hoc Abu Rish Brigades and the Tawheed Brigades. The last-mentioned group may be affiliated with the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. source

United States officials are downplaying al-Qaeda threats on passenger jets this weekend, but everyone is on high alert:

NEW DELHI: Barely four days after a letter was discovered at Tiruchirapalli airport warning of al-Qaeda’s plans to attack airports in the south, the US intelligence agency FBI has alerted the airports here to guard against al-Qaeda’s designs to unleash terror on outbound international flights.

Confirming this, a top official of the CISF, which looks after security at all major airports along with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), said the FBI alert had been taken note of and surveillance stepped up at the airports, particularly those handling international flights. ...

The FBI alert is said to have been prompted by an email apparently received by the US agencies from an Indian server. The email is reported to have threatened terror attacks at airports, targeting international flights in particular. source

Al Qaeda May Be Plotting Holiday Attacks -- *yawn* More threats, more videos, more tapes, blah blah blah.

A Chinese submarine shadowed a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean "last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected" . China has submarines? Submarines that can sneak up on American aircraft carriers? What's wrong with that picture? Also on China:

Indonesian troops found detonators and 63 tons of explosive powder on a Chinese ship anchored off Batam island after it broke down in the Malacca Strait, a local police chief said.

“We are trying to find out if these explosives were legal and what they were intended for,” said Brig. Gen. Sutarman, head of the Riau Islands police, adding that documents found on the ship indicated it was bound for Yemen. source

All this going on in our world today ... and the liberals are going to be in control. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Others posting:
U.S. Admiral Backing Red China? at Perri Nelson's Website
Interesting times. . . at Hillbilly White Trash
The New Senate, Read 'em and weep..., at 123Beta
Bloggermouth, The Hunley

The navel blockade was strangling the south. Warfare at the time was on the threshold of technology, repeating rifles, machine guns and submarine was on the drawing board. (read it all here)

Comments

[RoadKnight]

Just an FYI about that Chinese boat, from Bublehead at The Stupid Shall Be Punished (http://tinyurl.com/scpfx):

"[T]he Song-class diesel boat was spotted on the surface about five miles from the Kitty Hawk. So, either the Chinese were trying desperately to let us know that they could get that close to us, or this is another of a series of attempts by the Chinese to send their submarines farther afield where they just can't seem to stay undetected and/or submerged. Since they have nothing to gain by taunting us like that, I vote for the second option.

For some background: the Chinese were probably interested in checking out preparations for the Annualex 18G exercises taking place south of Kyushu. The media will probably try to make a big deal out of the presence of Asheville and Seawolf in the exercise, and claim that even our vaunted nuclear attack subs couldn't stop the Chinese sub from approaching the carrier. Even if that is true, it's more likely that the subs would have been some distance off, tasked with preparing for the exercise. To re-iterate: any decent diesel boat could approach this close to a carrier during peacetime. This doesn't mean they could do it during periods of heightened tensions. The Chinese Song-class sub is a tiny little 2,250 ton boat that is the first indigenously-designed Chinese boat; it's probably about two generations behind Western or Russian diesel boats."

HatTip: Michelle Malkin (http://michellemalkin.com/)