Link: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1960415,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

By killing three U.S. soldiers in a bomb attack in a remote corner of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, Feb. 3, the Taliban scored a political jackpot. With anti-American sentiment cresting in Pakistani public opinion, the presence of the three American trainers in a convoy passing through Koto village when it was struck by a roadside bomb has set off a flurry of questions and even wild conspiracy theories about the U.S. presence in the country.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/201024102050255189.html

Many in Pakistan believe Siddiqui is innocent and thousands have protested against the verdict. Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of a Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan. Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/afpk-f03.shtml

CIA drone missiles attacks claimed the lives of 123 civilians last month alone in Pakistan, while on the other side of the border, US Special Forces have launched an assassination campaign against alleged leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.

Link: http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/02/03/3-us-soldiers-die-in-blast-near-pakistan-school/

A roadside bomb killed 3 U.S. soldiers and flattened a girls' school in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday in an attack that drew attention to a little-publicized American military training mission in the al-Qaida and Taliban heartland. They were the first known U.S. military fatalities in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border, and a major victory for militants who have been hit hard by a surge of U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/02-7

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Criticism is mounting over Washington's refusal to say anything about missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan's northwest, prompting even supporters to argue the U.S. needs to be more open to counter militant allegations that only innocent civilians are dying.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022151350906994.html

North Waziristan is home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. Missiles fired by suspected US drones have killed at least 17 people and wounded 15 others in Pakistan, residents and security officials say. Officials said the missiles rained down on the Degan area in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border, on Tuesday.

Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0202/Obama-ups-Pakistan-drone-strikes-in-assassination-campaign

The use of drones to assassinate Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan has soared under President Barack Obama. Several US unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, fired a volley of missiles at houses in a village in Pakistan's northwest on Tuesday and killed roughly 16 alleged Taliban militants, news agencies reported. Information on civilian casualties, if any, was not immediately available.

Link: http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/01/23/saudi-bodies-of-20-soldiers-found-on-yemen-border/

Saudi Arabia's assistant defense minister said Saturday that the bodies of 20 of the 26 soldiers reported missing were found on the border, raising the toll for the fight against Yemen's Shiite rebels to 133.

Link: http://rebelreports.com/post/346763455/defense-secretary-robert-gates-confirms-blackwater-in

In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116467&sectionid=3510203

Protestors said Obama's use of drones during the first six months of his presidency has surpassed that of the Bush. American anti-war peace activists have rallied against the increasing use of unmanned drones by CIA around the world — especially in Pakistan. Peace activists and anti-war advocates staged a protest rally on Sunday in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j16.shtml

All the signs point to Yemen being the next target in the US-led “war on terrorism”. The Obama administration seized on the failed attempt by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set off a bomb on a US-bound flight on Christmas Day to dispatch the CIA and military trainers to the impoverished country. Pressure is being exerted on Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to intensify military operations against the organisation known as Al Qaeda in South Arabia.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116221&sectionid=351020401

US drones targeted Pakistan's North Waziristan in the northwest on Friday, killing at least five people, reports said.

At least 15 people have been killed in the latest American drone attack in the volatile region of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick01112010.html

Protestors are walking confidently down a street a street in the southern Yemeni port of Aden when there is a rattle of gunfire as the security services shoot into the crowd and people run panic-stricken seeking cover. A man in a check shirt is left lying face down in the dust in the empty street, a stream of blood flowing from a bullet wound in his head.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24356.htm

Al-Balawi had apparently been recruited by Jordanian intelligence before the CIA Khost base attack. The suicide bomber who killed eight people at a US base in Afghanistan said he was carrying out the attack in response to the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader killed by a US drone. In a video released to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Hammam Khalil al-Balawi is shown shooting a gun as he describes how the attack would target US and Jordanian intelligence agents.

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-Pakistan-bickering-get-ugly-as-ISI-fingers-American-diplomats/articleshow/5425688.cms

US-Pakistan bickering gets ugly as ISI fingers American diplomats: The US ambassador to Pakistan publicly complained about harassment of American diplomatic personnel by Pakistani authorities and obliquely hinted that Islamabad risked losing US aid and projects if they continued to deny visas to US officials and space for the US mission to fulfill its multi-billion assistance program. Two US diplomats arrested in Gwadar

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/yemen-a-closer-look-at-the-%e2%80%9cnew-frontier%e2%80%9d/

Remember, the Al Qaeda that was in a very few countries — and most specifically in Afghanistan in September of 2001 — is now an Al Qaeda that is in about 58, 59 — who knows precisely, but we sort of peg it around 60 countries. It is a global network, which it wasn’t. If recent experience is anything to go by, the mere mention of any ‘Al Qaeda threat’ is enough to signal the swift exit of rational thought and/or due regard to definition in Washington. The superior military outfit in history whose sheer …

Link: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/70299

"Afghan and Pakistani civilians deaths have climbed correspondingly. They will rise even more in 2010 as the war, in its tenth calendar year, is broadened further and intensified in earnest."

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49908

Wracked by intense violence in 2009, Pakistan has seen an unprecedented displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, which persists to this day. The internally displaced people (IDP) from South Waziristan Agency (SWA) may not be able to return home until March, said Brig. Omar Mahmood Khan, chief of staff of the Special Support Group (SSG), which was set up in May 2009 by the government to assist the people displaced by the fighting in Swat and Bajaur in the Malakand division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and later in the SWA.

Link: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/70311

"When the Pakistan army and American drones kill innocent civilians, it is unrealistic to expect that people will not react. Each killing escalates resentment and stokes the urge to exact revenge, a long-established tradition in that part of the world. Victims have long memories; they do not easily forget their dead no matter how many rhetorical phrases are hurled at them. If for 3,000 American deaths on 9/11, the US can attack two countries and murder more than 1.5 million people, why is it so difficult to understand that other people will feel equally hurt and seek revenge?"

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/cia1-j07.shtml

In an apparent campaign of revenge, at least 20 people have died in drone missile attacks in Pakistan since the December 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives and a Jordanian intelligence agent.

Link: http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/israel-is-definitely-behind-the-chaos-in-egypt/

It is too coincidental that Israeli leaders have been in constant contact with Egyptians over the past few days. It’s just too hard to believe that all these contacts and talks had to do with the release of Shalit. There is an entire nation being held hostage by the zionists versus one soldier being held by the Palestinians. Let us remember that. The old saying, “misery loves company’ comes to mind….. why should Israel take sole responsibility for the problems encountered by the Viva Palestina Convoy? Israel has more ‘friends’ that apparently are more willing to cooperate with them than meets the eye.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/yeme-j05.shtml

Tensions mounted Monday in advance of a widely expected expansion of US military operations inside Yemen, with the US, British, French and other embassies either closing down entirely or sharply curtailing operations.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m61831&hd=&size=1&l=e

US drone missile attacks have claimed the lives of over 700 Pakistani civilians since Barack Obama took office a year ago, according to figures released this week by officials in Islamabad. The escalation of Washington’s AfPak war, now in full swing, will mean the slaughter of thousands more men, women and children in 2010.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/04/egypts-shameful-ban

IN THE last week of 2009, 1,360 activists from 43 countries converged on Cairo for the Gaza Freedom March. We intended to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, controlled by Egypt, for a display of mass international solidarity with the Palestinian people on the one-year anniversary of Israel's punishing attack that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands more.

Link: http://666survival.com/news-views/2010/01/obama-blames-al-qaeda-for-christmas-false-flag-sets-stage-for-yemen-attack.html

On Sat­ur­day, Oba­ma said the Christ­mas day non-​at­tack over De­troit was the work of al-​Qae­da in the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, the lat­est in­car­na­tion of the peren­ni­al boo­gie­man used by gov­ern­ment to fright­en peo­ple in­to ac­cept­ing for­eign in­va­sions and oc­cu­pa­tions and an ev­er-​grow­ing po­lice state grid at home. “We know that [Umar Farouk Ab­dul­mu­tal­lab] trav­eled to Yemen, a coun­try grap­pling with crush­ing pover­ty and dead­ly in­sur­gen­cies. It ap­pears that he joined an af­fil­i­ate of al Qae­da, and that this group - Al Qae­da in the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la - trained him, equipped him with those ex­plo­sives and di­rect­ed him to at­tack that plane head­ed for Amer­i­ca,” Oba­ma said in his ad­dress to the na­tion.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uCPx1ed-R4

According to reports, troops were looking for high value targets among both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The one that became widely known in September 2008 was condemned as a provocation by the Pakistani government. Ethnic groups from Pakistans Belugistan province where most of the raids occurred blame the government in Islamabad for allowing these things to happen, said RT LIVE investigative journalist Webster Tarpley. He pointed out that President Obamas West point speech of December 2 is a thinly veiled declaration of war against Pakistan in the sense that it announces the intent of the US to promote the dismemberment, the partition of Pakistan along ethnic lines and in order to do that you have to create trouble on the ground. VoltaireNet: Obama Declares War on Pakistan.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115021&sectionid=351020202

"The UN has not been willing [yet] to give what's needed to exert significant pressure on Israel to lift the blockade that under any circumstances is unlawful," Richard Falk told Press TV on Thursday. "The only thing that could be more effective would be a move toward economic sanctions that would include military assistance" to Israel, the UN diplomat underlined. The UN independent expert on Palestinian rights has also criticized the international community for its failure to end the Israeli blockade against the Gaza Strip.

Link: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139054.html

Some 1,000 people, among them all of Israel's Arab MKs and community leaders, gathered Thursday at the Israeli side of the Gaza border to express solidarity with the residents of Gaza, one year after Israel's offensive there. MK Taleb A-Sana relayed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's message to the Israeli side via a mobile phone. During the rally, Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka directed harsh criticism at Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who he said enjoys "classical music and killing children in Gaza."

Link: http://www.legitgov.org/price_obusha_afpak_war_031009.html

Just as the CLG has asserted from the get-go. Wait until Blackwater gets hold of one of Pakistan's nukes, detonates it, blames 'al-Qaeda' and plunges the US into WWIII. I am thinking the lucrative contract for Xe to 'clean up' in the aftermath of the nuclear explosion has already been drafted. Blackwater needs to be eliminated before they become as big as Goldman Sachs and Citi - 'too big' to destroy.

Link: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364551818&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

There's a question we Israelis won't ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won't anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the privacy of their own minds. However, I think it's time we start asking it, privately and in public. If we don't, I think there's going to be Operation Cast Lead II, then Operation Cast Lead III, and each one is going to be worse than the last, and the consequences for Palestinians and Israelis are going to be unimaginable. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: If anybody treated us like we're treating the people in Gaza, what would we do?

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/29/mordechai-vanunu-under-house-arrest

Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison after he revealed Israel's secret nuclear programme, has been placed under house arrest pending criminal charges for allegedly breaching the terms of his 2004 release, which includes a ban on contacts with "foreigners". TPV: Israeli nukes: police arrest whistleblower Vanunu.

Link: http://rawstory.com/2009/12/protesters-stop-iran-hanging/

Stunning footage has emerged of protesters in the Iranian city of Sirjan rescuing two men from being hanged by the regime. The video, uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, shows a brutal clash between Iranian authorities and protesters that was largely overlooked until Gateway Pundit found video footage of it. "When you see footage such as this, with anti-regime Iranian protesters losing any concern about their own safety, it's hard to imagine the current leadership hanging on," writes Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider.

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BS14K20091229

Israeli police on Tuesday arrested nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu for violating "a ban on speaking to foreigners", a police statement said. Vanunu was jailed as a traitor [Vanunu is a hero] in 1986 and served an 18-year sentence after discussing his work as a technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor with a British newspaper, an interview that led experts to conclude the facility had produced fissile material for as many as 200 atomic warheads. WaPo: Israeli police arrest nuclear whistleblower Vanunu. BBC: Israeli police have arrested Mordechai Vanunu, a technician who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear programme. AWIP: What Americans Need to Know about Mordechai Vanunu. His lawyer said he was detained over a romance with a Norwegian woman rather than for revealing nuclear secrets. "Vanunu was arrested (for) a relationship between a man and a woman, with a Norwegian citizen," attorney Avigdor Feldman told reporters. "He is not being accused of giving any secrets. She is not interested in nuclear business -- she's interested in Mordechai Vanunu (and he) is probably interested in her," Feldman said. A Jerusalem court ordered Vanunu, who was taken into police custody on Monday, put under house arrest for three days pending an indictment, police said. The Israelis murder women and children on a regular basis, arresting a man for his romantic involvement is not surprising.

Link: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091221/GLOBALBRIEFING/912219995/1009/FOREIGN?template=globalbriefing

Following a military operation in Yemen targeting suspected al Qa'eda militants, a local official said on Sunday that 49 civilians, among them 23 children and 17 women, were killed in air strikes which he said were carried out "indiscriminately," Agence France Presse reported. Earlier it had been reported by ABC News that on orders from the US President Barack Obama, the US military had launched cruise missiles in the attacks. "According to local sources, about 3,000 people in Dhal'e province and hundreds in Lahj and Abyan provinces condemned the military operation. Angry protesters shouted anti-government slogans and demanded an investigation into the attack."

Link: http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/94414/israel-threatens-another-large-scale-gaza-war-.html

Israeli planes have been dropping thousands of leaflets across Gaza, warning Palestinians against cooperating with the resistance fighters based in the coastal sliver. The leaflets also threaten Gazans with a new attack just ahead of the first anniversary of Israel's 22-day onslaught against the Palestinian territory. Gaza, 2008: Marco Villa: An Attack By An Israeli Drone.

Link: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138414.html

Once upon a time there was a black woman; her name was Rosa Parks. There were racially discriminating laws in the United States, but she continued to sit on the bus even when she was told to vacate her seat for a white person. She was arrested, which set off a process whose end saw the abolishment of racial segregation on American buses. How is it possible that one little black woman, a dressmaker by profession, could change history simply because she remained sitting? Her protest was stronger than any demonstration, op-ed piece or Knesset vote. She opted for the natural choice; that is why she was triumphant.

Link: http://ow.ly/Qxap

Hedy Epstein, the 85 year old Holocaust survivor and peace activist, announced that she will begin a hunger strike today as a response to the Egyptian government’s refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom March participants into Gaza. Ms. Epstein was part of a delegation with participants from 43 countries that were to join Palestinians in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza towards the Erez border with Israel calling for the end of the illegal siege. Egypt is preventing the marchers from leaving Cairo, forcing them to search for alternative ways to make their voices heard.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9mkRiGbgZg

Montage documenting the genocide commited by Isreal in "Operation Cast Lead". Desert Peace: GAZA ~~ RELIVING THE HORRORS OF THE WAR DAILY

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2009/12/27/northwest-bomb-plot-oddities

Write a book critical of the CIA -- you cannot fly. Carry explosives (allegedly from Yemen) on board when the US is trolling for an excuse to invade and occupy Yemen for its oil -- yes you can! The US needs false flags to provide cover for illegal invasions and occupations. The 9/11 terrorist attacks (aka inside job, six ways to Sunday) worked well for the US government; the security-industrial complex made billions and US corporaterrorists were able to negotiate the wholesale theft of Iraq's oil. NWO Report: Confirmed? "Sharp dressed man" aided Northwest flight "Christmas Bomber" Umar Mutallab onto plane without passport. Who was involved, why don't we know about this other suspect?