Mission & Justice

Antony Loewenstein; 29/11/08;

My Story: The Tale Of A Terrorist Who Wasn’t; By Mamdouh Habib; with Julia Collingwood; Scribe, 272 pp, $32.95
Before tortured Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was released in 2005, then prime minister John Howard said his government didn’t “have any apology to offer” and refused to consider compensation. Greens leader Bob - Brown described Habib’s treatment as “one of the most shameful episodes in Australian political history”. This book supports that state ment. Habib writes that his “belief in Islam has guided me all my life … I’ve tried to be as straight and honest as possible, and help people whenever I could - sometimes to my own detriment.” Habib’s support for the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Sheik), is disconcerting yet his life, not unlike that of David Hicks, is one of searching for meaning.

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Jason Koutsoukis; 29/11/08

The great riddle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that while most people can agree on the basic appearance of a workable peace agreement, no one can settle on a way to get there. As outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after a meeting with US President George Bush in Washington this week: “In principle there is nothing to prevent us from reaching an agreement on the core issues in the near future … you don’t need months to make a decision.” Yet decisions are not made. A year ago, almost to the day, Bush hosted Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the US naval base in Annapolis, Maryland, for yet another Middle East peace conference.

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Bruce Loudon; 29/11/08

Relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan were under severe strain last night as a terrorist from the co-ordinated attacks on Mumbai confessed he was Pakistani, saying the onslaught was carried out by the al-Qa’ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has links to Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the ISI. The confession — made under interrogation by Indian intelligence agencies - came as Indian forces ended the siege of the Oberoi hotel and a Jewish centre, leaving only a sole wounded gunman holding out in the Taj Mahal hotel. However Israeli diplomats said the bodies of five hostages had been recovered from the Jewish centre. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said last night elements in Pakistan were responsible for the attacks on the country’s financial capital, as two Pakistani merchant ships were apprehended off the coast of Gujarat state north of Mumbai.

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28/11/08

Indian commandos have ended the siege of a Jewish centre in Mumbai, storming the building and recovering the bodies of five hostages, while fighting continued at a luxury hotel elsewhere in the city. The siege at the Nariman House ended on Friday, the private NDTV news channel said, two days after attackers carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across India’s financial capital. Al Jazeera’s Matt McClure, reporting from outside the Nariman House in south Mumbai, said several gunmen have been killed in the assault by the security forces .”Now we are told they [security forces] are slowly moving room-to-room there to make sure there are no booby traps,” he said.

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28/11/08; (2 Items)

A suicide bomber has killed 12 people and injured 15 others in the town of Musaib, 80km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police have said. The attack took place in a Shia mosque during prayer time on Friday, a day after parliamentarians passed a controversial security pact with the US. The mosque was filled with around 300 worshippers when the bomber attacked, Kadhim al Shammari, a police officer, said. In July 2005 more than 70 people were killed in the same mosque when a suicide bomber detonated explosives loaded on a lorry. The mosque is mainly used by worshippers who follow Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader.

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28/11/08

Police in Kabul have accused foreign troops of firing at a civilian vehicle outside the Afghan capital, killing a young boy. About 100 people blocked the road near the place where the incident occurred on Friday, throwing rocks at the police while shouting anti-US slogans. “This morning a convoy of British troops were passing here and they had a misunderstanding with a civilian vehicle. The troops opened fire and killed one civilian and wounded three more,” Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, Kabul’s police chief, told Reuters news agency. But the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) disputed the claim that its troops had opened fire, saying the incident had been a traffic accident.

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John Lyons & Lex Hall; 28/11/08; (3 Items)

Queenslander David Coker, 23, was being hailed a hero last night after he dived on top of his girlfriend, Katie Anstee, 24, to protect her from the terrorists’ bullets. “He lay on top of her until the shooting stopped,” Coker’s father John, a federal magistrate, said. Until that point, David and Katie had simply been a young couple embarking on a dream holiday. They sat in a popular cafe eating dinner on the first night of their world trip - university was behind them and their three-month adventure was ahead. Suddenly, it was all shattered. Four or five men with machineguns stormed into Cafe Leopold, a landmark for tourists visiting Mumbai, and began opening fire. The attackers were “on a rampage”, said Queenslander Coker. “It just sort of opened up in the restaurant.”

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27/11/08

Iraq’s parliament has approved a security pact that allows US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years. The pact was approved by 144 members of the 198 who attended the session of the 275-member assembly, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the parliament speaker, said on Thursday. Under the deal, US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 and leave the entire country by January 1, 2012. The vote in favour of the pact was backed by the ruling coalition’s Shia and Kurdish blocs, as well as the largest Sunni Arab bloc which had demanded concessions for supporting the deal. The 18-page agreement takes effect when the UN mandate now governing the troops expires on December 31.

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Uri Blau; 27/12/08; (5 Items)

Brigadier General Avichai Mendelblit, Chief Military Advocate General, reacted to Haaretz’s report Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces have assassinated Palestinians in apparent defiance of High Court of Justice guidelines for such operations by saying the article - which will appear in full in Haaretz’s weekend supplement - was “annoying and misleading.” Human rights activists are considering filing a motion accusing the army of contempt of court following the report. Yoav Leff, spokesperson for the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, said he intends to contact the Attorney General and request that he looks into the report. In a conversation with Brigadier General Yair Naveh, who was the GOC Central Command at the time, he told Haaretz: “Never mind the court’s instruction, I don’t know when the court issued them.”

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Tomer Zarchin and Amos Harel; 26/11/08; (5 Items)

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the state would use force to evacauate settlers illegally inhabiting a house in the West Bank city of Hebron, if the squatters do not vacate the premises voluntarily. A High Court of Justice ruling issued last week gave the settlers three days to evacuate, but a loophole was found allowing them to remain for a full 30 days before any force could to be taken. Barak said the the High Court decision nevertheless stipulates that the house must be evacuated, if not voluntarily then by force. He said the police would attempt the first round of evacuation, and the Israel Defense Forces would be summoned in if reinforcement was needed.

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