By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:07AM GMT 22 Nov 2008
Rauf has been on the run since escaping from a Pakistani jail nearly a year ago Photo: APRashid Rauf, 27, who grew up in Birmingham, was killed along with at least three other militants in the attack on the house of a local tribesman in the North Waziristan area. A US drone targeted the home in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan," a senior security official said. Rauf, who has been on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail nearly a year ago, was said to have played a key role in a liquid bomb plot targeting transatlantic airliners in 2006.
Rauf, a British national who used to live in Birmingham, escaped from Pakistani authorities after appearing before a judge in an Islamabad court in December last year. At the time, he could have faced extradition to Britain within weeks.
After the escape, Khalid Pervez, a city police official, said that Rauf managed to open his handcuffs and evade police guards taking him back to Adiala prison in the nearby city of Rawalpindi. After the escape, 12 policemen were questioned and two had been accused of assisting the escape or negligence. Despite a huge manhunt, he was never recaptured.
Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006 along with seven other suspects, after a tip-off from British intelligence, over alleged attempts to blow up 10 transatlantic jets.
News of the liquid bomb plot paralysed global air travel, prompting authorities to implement stringent security measures at airports around the world.
Police believe that the plan was for different passengers to carry peroxide-based liquid explosive in drinks containers and detonators disguised as electronic devices and combine them on board.
The arrests sparked a security alert and mass flight cancellations as well as restrictions on carry-on luggage.
A dual citizen of Britain and Pakistan, Rauf was married to a relative of Maulana Masood Azhar, the head and founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an Islamist militant group in Pakistan that has been linked to al-Qaeda. Azhar has lived in Bahawalpur, a city in eastern Pakistan where Rauf had also settled.
A senior Pakistani official called Rauf "an al-Qaeda operative with linkages in Afghanistan."
"Enjoy your raisins."
"Enjoy your raisins."Rauf is understood to have left Birmingham following the stabbing to death of his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, 54, near his home in Alum Rock in April 2002.
Say what you will about the outgoing President, he has the cajones to say "yes" to the drones.
ReplyDeleteThe next President is an attorney, an associate law school professor and a community organizer.
It remains to be seen whether he will say "yes" to the drones.
Get that fellow his fruit basket!
ReplyDeleteDrones or no drones, that is not the question, really.
Because we will never win the "Long War" with drones, nor clones.
The core to US defense for over fifty years, Mutual Assured Destruction.
Then after all that time, when the US homeland IS struck, there is no assurance of the destruction of those that sponsored and supported the attackers.
A failure to implement fifty years worth of defense posture and bloviating.
Drones provide no assurance of destruction. They are evidence of systematic US defense policy failure.
What I will say (again) is W gave away the country, and oversaw the slaughter of 40,000 US Citizens by way of his Open Invitation to Illegal Criminals from South of the border.
ReplyDeleteCajones Indeed!
Corruptees, is more like it.
...to those of us cursed with viewing reality as it is.
Whit: The next President is an attorney, an associate law school professor and a community organizer.It remains to be seen whether he will say "yes" to the drones.
ReplyDeleteIn Soviet Amerika, drones watch you.
Liddy's Plumbers a tiny team compared to the legions of Plumbers to be scanned by Big Bro Hussein's Faithful Cadres.
ReplyDeleteThe hell with joe the Plumber, give me Gina Gershom the Plumber.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteStones, not drones, are the issue.
ReplyDelete***********************************
Richardson is going to Commerce. Didn't trish fear him as SecState or Ambassador to Colombia? Heard on the news that he supported FTA with Columbia.
Hill as SecState. That's cause for real 'hope and change.' Can see her now, trying to make the whirled love us again.
Whit: Hill as SecState. That's cause for real 'hope and change.' Can see her now, trying to make the whirled love us again.
ReplyDeleteNow finally she can rack up experience points on her resume, aside from that dream she once had running on a tarmac under sniper fire in the Balkans.
Napolitan to Homeland Security - What??
ReplyDeleteWhit:
Richardson means my college drinking buddy will most likely be decamping for DC also.
...Bill's Left Hand Lawyer Man.
re: T's plumber.
ReplyDeleteMamma mia!
See? That's what I'm talking about whit!
ReplyDeleteBut it's Gina GershoN, with an N, my bad.
ReplyDeleteRichardson says he supports the FTA only with stronger labor and environmental enforcement provisions. Clinton doesn't support it given violence against trade unionists. Ditto Obama. Ditto Biden.
ReplyDeleteOnce Bush exits the scene, however, we will discover the extent to which opposition to the US-Colombia FTA was (a) a petty political payback from Congress to the WH (b) an election-focused sop to deep-pocketed unions and/or (c) a matter of liberal scruple.
I've unpacked this issue so many times before and (c) simply has no merit, but that's not to say that the incoming gang can't continue, along with Congress, to treat Colombia as a "special case" that allows them to extend their phony pieties.
Obama and Uribe apparently have a dialog going and while I can't bring myself to cautious optimism I can settle upon "concern." As in, I am "concerned" about the future of the Agreement given the public statements of all the principals.
But then, Gates is on our side. So we know we have that vote at the table.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any merit in (a), (b), or (c).
ReplyDeleteWill the incoming congress punish Colombia while ignoring or worse, making overtures to Cuba and Venezuela?
I can't wait to see who the Lincoln bedroom house guests will be.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic electors would get to choose the next President, that's how the Constitution sets it up.
ReplyDeleteThat's what would happen, but what I'm more interested in is, would the voters, especially those who bought into Obama's message, agree to this? Or would they seek to change the law via, I dunno, whatever means?
Would we see a huge uprising within the ranks of the Dems themselves? Would the repubs be rushing to defend Billary's new position, or would they try to play for another election? This kinda thing.
I have to admit, it looks like a riot of fun from where I am.
Gates is on your side, Trish, because he blew all his loyal opposition points on reining in the drive to bomb Iran. If he stays on as SecDef who knows whose side he'll be on.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see who will be Lincoln bedroom house guests.
ReplyDeleteRiot being the operative word, Wobbly.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see who the Lincoln bedroom house guests will be.
ReplyDeleteLenin Bedroom, you mean.
Look at T, pushing for a "full ride" to Reeducation Camp.
ReplyDelete"Merit," whit, as in "the more likely case."
ReplyDeleteIn re overtures to Venezuela, Chavez is probably his own worst enemy. (But then he always has been.) Every time he opens his mouth he just makes it clearer that to associate with him at the State level is to converse with a fat-faced, red-shirted thug sporting clown shoes - whose second-favorite hobby is threatening to PNG every black passport holder in Caracas.
Great News...
ReplyDeleteA dead piece of crap is now spread like the manure it was....
It's a shame it cost us so much to squash it...
I hope his family & friends grieve and have nightmares when a bird flies high above....
fly drones fly...
In re the missile strikes in Pakistan: I don't see that changing. Obama has made so much noise on Afghanistan and Paki safe haven that the present policy is only a compliment, so to speak, to his own policy statements seeking movement in South Asia.
ReplyDeleteAnd here again we have Gates, and Petraeus, and the incoming DCI and DNI to keep that afloat as well.
Chavez is probably his own worst enemy.
ReplyDeleteHe is, but we'll make allowances for that.
Becareful of what you wish for....
ReplyDeleteChina is expanding it's role in africa, central & south america...
As China gains in it's role in the world, as will it become more of a target for kidnappings and terrorism...
Already in Africa they are kidnapping Chinese...
lol
Whit:Look at T, pushing for a "full ride" to Reeducation Camp.
ReplyDeleteIf you can rope me you can ride me.
re: stones for drones.
ReplyDeleteRashid Rauf is suspected and accused of being a terrorist mastermind. He was not tried and sentenced in a court of law. His guilt was not proven (to the public or press, in any case) therefore, if this report of his death is true, this was a summary execution, a targeted assassination.
What will the whirled think about that? How will they reconcile that with their calls for Habeas for other suspected terrorists? Hmm? Read this GuardianUK article. "He was tortured! A victim."
Perhaps Pres-Elect Obama has been reading up on Lincoln for ways to reconcile law and war. I am not hopeful.
Teresita, I never watch videos that I have to sign in or sign up for, but now I see you must be the cause of the EB being banned in all the motels in America, for 'inappropriate content'.:)
ReplyDeleteThe BBC reports that Mr. Rauf was a god fearing family man with no bad habits.
ReplyDeleteMr Rauf was an enigma, but my gosh, how can you kill a man for guilt by association? Afterall, Pres-Elect Obama has already established that we're not to be judged by the company we keep.
ReplyDeleteI agree Wobbly it looks to be a longshot. On the other hand, those judges talk a lot, and it's kind of hard to feature Thomas putting it up for discussion if he had no support. Thomas, Alito, Scalia, Roberts, maybe they will be the saviors of Western Civilization. If they'd just have a hearing where some evidence had to be presented the whole problem might sort of resolve itself.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama were ousted? One thing I'm sure of, a rocket barrage from Gaza into Israel. When he won the vote, they celebrated that with a rocket barrage, so I can't see them doing anything less if he's ousted.
Other than that, general confusion, with some riots and burnt out buildings.
Biden as temporary President with a mighty one percent of the vote on his own...oh my.
Maybe the Republicans would sue for new general elections on some ground or other.
I don't have any idea what would happen. But I hope it happens.
Actually praying it will happen, as I was taught it's ok to pray for the best legitimate interests of your country, which are ideally in line with the best interests of the world at large.
Damn that Rauf looks like something out of a midnight graveyard. He'd never heard of this---
ReplyDeleteThe Right Thing
Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will--
The right thing happens to the happy man.
The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.
God bless the roots!--Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,
And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man.
--Theodore Roethke
Remember, whit, that it was Obama who said that if Pakistan does not act, we will. (McCrystal said it two years earlier and Bush followed through, but let's allow that Obama identified a political opportunity.) Well, now Obama inherits the best of both worlds, with US target packages moved and approved by...one group or another sitting over the fence. How nice is that? Especially given its value downrange in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm not sure in this particular instance what your pessimism might rest on. Unless it's more of a GP pessimism. That I can't help you with.
Did Obama's Rise Sink The Stock Market?
ReplyDeleteWhit: Pres-Elect Obama has already established that we're not to be judged by the company we keep.
ReplyDeleteUnless your name is Sarah Palin and you have "ties" to the "radicals" in the Alaska Independence Party.
Bobal: Teresita, I never watch videos that I have to sign in or sign up for, but now I see you must be the cause of the EB being banned in all the motels in America, for 'inappropriate content'.:)
ReplyDeleteIf I ever get added as a teammember again, I would carry on the great EB pinup tradition. As far as I'm concerned the only inappropriate content here would be pictures of bare-chested hunks.
I still don't understand why we are banned. WTF?
ReplyDeleteWe have firmly established the finest eye for behinds on the net, bare none.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine the stock market if Obama doesn't get inaugurated now.
ReplyDelete2164th: I cannot imagine the stock market if Obama doesn't get inaugurated now.
ReplyDeleteIf he does get inaugurated, America's credit rating will be downgraded from AAA. If he doesn't, we will be downgraded to junk.
Teresita said...
ReplyDeleteIf I ever get added as a teammember again, I would carry on the great EB pinup tradition.
Elephant Board of Directors
Bobal, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Desert Rat, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Doug, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Linearthinker
Mətušélaḥ, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Rufus, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Sam, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
Teresita, Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
What is "Occupation", Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver
wtf?
Rauf looks like he was a mouth breather. A nose is a terrible thing to waste.
ReplyDelete---------
T's caught in a time warp?