Terror and Judgment

In the small victories department, the AP is reporting that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian born muslim terrorist affiliated with al Qaeda has been arrested by Pakistani security forces.  Ghailani was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Tanzania and is on the FBI's most wanted list. 

Ghailani was unimaginatively nicknamed Ahmed the Tanzanian, a fact which makes one wonder about the tradecraft of al Qaeda members. 

Unfortunately, Iraq suffered a major attack yesterday killing at least 70 civilians and causing the two-week postponement of a national conference to pick an interim legislature. This passage is very telling:

Under a law promulgated by the outgoing U.S. occupation authority, the conference was to have been held by the end of July.  Fouad Masoum (head of Iraqi Security forces) said Thursday that the United Nations had asked for a delay to persuade resistant factions to attend, and the organizers agreed. The United Nations had previously called for a longer delay; Masoum said Tuesday he had turned them down, saying the conference had to be held by the end of July as "a matter of credibility."

Since the United Nations cut and ran from Iraq already, I don't see how taking their advice on this is a good plan. 



- posted by Base10 @ 6:28 PM