US ‘ready’ for non-Hamas contacts

The United States has decided that it will have contact with some of the new ministers in the Palestinian government which was sworn in on Saturday.

A US consular official in Jerusalem said the US would maintain contact with ministers it feels it can work with.

US officials deny this amounts to a shift in policy, saying they will still not deal with Hamas.

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has urged the international community to have nothing to do with the new government.

‘Ending isolation’

It seems the US has decided to subtly change its stance towards the Palestinian government.

That government now contains ministers from a number of parties and not just from the Islamist Hamas movement.

But by stating the US will deal with some ministers, Washington is bringing to an end the political isolation it helped to impose on the Palestinian government.

Other countries, most notably in Europe, have also signalled a similar change in stance.

Israel had hoped to be able to persuade the international community to maintain its boycott of the Palestinian government which Israel deems unacceptable.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the new government limits Israel’s ability to conduct talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

By Matthew Price
BBC News, Jerusalem

They “US” and the International community will only be happy if they hand pick the government for the palestinians.
comment by malvo.

US ‘ready’ for non-Hamas contacts

The United States has decided that it will have contact with some of the new ministers in the Palestinian government which was sworn in on Saturday.

A US consular official in Jerusalem said the US would maintain contact with ministers it feels it can work with.

US officials deny this amounts to a shift in policy, saying they will still not deal with Hamas.

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has urged the international community to have nothing to do with the new government.

‘Ending isolation’

It seems the US has decided to subtly change its stance towards the Palestinian government.

That government now contains ministers from a number of parties and not just from the Islamist Hamas movement.

But by stating the US will deal with some ministers, Washington is bringing to an end the political isolation it helped to impose on the Palestinian government.

Other countries, most notably in Europe, have also signalled a similar change in stance.

Israel had hoped to be able to persuade the international community to maintain its boycott of the Palestinian government which Israel deems unacceptable.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the new government limits Israel’s ability to conduct talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

By Matthew Price
BBC News, Jerusalem

They “US” and the International community will only be happy if they hand pick the government for the palestinians.
comment by malvo.

Al-Qaida No. 3 says he planned 9/11, other plots

WASHINGTON – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed cemented his position as al-Qaida’s most ambitious operational planner when he confessed in a U.S. military tribunal to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.

The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001 — which killed nearly 3,000 — to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a U.S. Marine.

Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterror authorities.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed’s confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his personal representative.

The Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of the closed-door proceedings on Wednesday night. Some material was omitted.

Mohammed, known as KSM among government officials, was last seen haggard after his capture in March 2003, when he was photographed in a dingy white T-shirt with an over-stretched neck. He disappeared for more than three years into a secret detention system run by the CIA.

‘Language of the war is victims’
In his first public statements since his capture, his radical ideology and self-confidence came through. He expressed regret for taking the lives of children and said Islam doesn’t give a “green light” to killing.

Mohammed made clear that al-Qaida wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid’s operation.

And he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a section of the statement that was excised from the public document, The Associated Press has learned. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the slaying, which was captured on video.

President Bush announced that Mohammed and 13 other alleged terror operatives had been moved from secret CIA prisons to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay last year. They are considered the 14 most significant captures since 9/11.

The military began the hearings last Friday to determine whether the 14 should be declared “enemy combatants” who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

If the 14 are declared enemy combatants, as expected, the military would then draft and file charges against them. The detainees would be tried under the new military commissions law signed by Bush in October.

Has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confession weakened al-Qaida’s thrist on future attacks ?
Comment by Malvo.