From the ABC

France, US [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1747260.htm|unable to confirm] bin Laden death report
France and the United States say they cannot confirm a report that Osama bin Laden has died and France has launched a probe into how a secret document containing the claim was leaked.

read more at the ABC....
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Gus: will it made a differnce on the price of fish? I don't think so... It might make a difference on the price of bullets, though...

From Al Jazeera

Talabani backs long-term US presence

Monday 25 September 2006, 20:17 Makka Time, 17:17 GMT

Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, has asked for a [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/19FB4F8E-9CE4-4DEE-9F80-701CF52D74E9.htm|long-term] US military presence in Iraq, saying his country needs two permanent US air bases to deter what he calls foreign interference.
"I think we will be in need of American forces for a long time - even two military bases to prevent foreign interference," Talabani told The Washington Post in an interview published on Monday.
"I don't ask to have 100,000 American soldiers - 10,000 soldiers and two air bases would be enough."
The president indicated that the bases would be most welcome in Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq that has practised de facto self-government since the 1991 Gulf War.
But he suggested that the Sunni Arab segment of the Iraqi population would also welcome a long-term US military presence in Iraq.
"In some places Sunnis want the Americans to stay," he argued. "Sunnis think the main danger is coming from Iran now."

Spreading violence
The comments come as top US military commanders admitted that the US would not be able to reduce its 147,000-strong contingent in Iraq in the coming months because of spreading sectarian violence and the possibility of the country slipping into civil war.
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Gus: Not so strangely, I have been waiting this announcement for a while. Before and at the beginning of the stupid war — waged by the Yanks in Iraq — the US administration has "claimed" it'll go in remove Saddam and move out within two years or so, showered with flowers of peace... then the cock-up became until "we" shall prevail, due to an "unexpected" insurgency... and now the puppet from the US, the leader of the pseudo-government in Iraq is uttering these words to the effect so that the US will be required to stay for a very long time... and I suppose unless our (Johnnee) government stops "being like a conga-line of suck-holes" to mangle quote our now ocker-wielding-vernacular former leader of the Labor party, our troops are going to be stuck in Iraq for another 25 years — until they get kicked out by something unexpected or the petrol runs out...
The good Iraqi president may not know that (but I suspect he does and is preparing the ground for public opinion, so to speak) but the US administration is way ahead of him and already four permanent US military bases are being built including the largest "Embassy" (read CIA, regular troops, adminsitrative military, etc) in the world. The minimum the US administration would be working with in Iraq will be around 40,000 troops no less. Since even before the illegal invasion, Gus has claimed that the US always intented to stay in Iraq for at least 25 years, despite all the contrary noises the administration was making at the time. Three years after "mishun" accomplished, the situation is still unstable, nothing has been resolved, more terrorists have been created in reaction to this useless war, the US is a greater bully than ever, Afghani and Iraqi hospitals are struggling for funds worse than before, the rate of murders in Iraq is ten times that of the US which in its own terms is not pretty for the Land of Lincoln...

Who knows I may be wrong... I hope so...

From the New York Times

British Troops in Iraq Kill Senior Qaeda Figure

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: September 25, 2006
BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 — [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/world/middleeast/25cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1159243200&en=dc2bf682f8c098ff&ei=5094&partner=homepage|A senior Al Qaeda operative] who engineered a brazen escape from a high security American prison in Afghanistan last year was killed in a predawn raid by British soldiers in a quiet, wealthy neighborhood in southern Iraq on Monday, officials said.
Two companies of about 250 soldiers wearing night goggles and carrying night-vision rifles stormed a house in the neighborhood of al-Tuninnah in Basra, intending to capture the operative. The spokesman for the British military in Iraq, Maj. Charles Burbridge, I identified the operative as Omar al-Faruq. But they were fired upon as they entered and shot back, killing Mr. Faruq.
Major Burbridge said Mr. Faruq was “a terrorist of considerable significance” who had been hiding in Basra, but he declined to say whether this was the same man who escaped from the American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, last July. Mr. Faruq’s identity was confirmed by an American official in Washington and by an official in Basra, who was not authorized to speak on the subject.
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not forgetting, from [http://www.prisonplanet.com/omar_al_faruq_recruited_by_the_cia.htm|Tempo]

Former BAKIN Chief A.C. Manulang:
Omar Al-Faruq Recruited by The CIA
19 Sep 2002 20:19:19 WIB
TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Former State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) chief A.C. Manulang has said that Kuwaiti citizen Omar Al-Faruq, a terrorist suspect who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, on June 5, 2002 and handed over to the US three days later, is a CIA-recruited agent.
Al Faruq was assigned to infiltrate Islamic radical groups and recruit local agents within these groups.
“When Al Faruq finished his assignments, the CIA created a scenario that he had been arrested,” Manulang told Tempo News Room in Jakarta on Thursday afternoon (19/9).
Manulang made this analysis based on the pattern used by Al Faruq, that of having Kuwait citizenship but holding a Pakistani passport, entering Indonesia as a refugee and marrying an Indonesian woman.
This kind of operation is aimed at starting conflicts in Indonesia and creating the image that Indonesia is a land of terrorists.
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Gus: His job was done... Or the CIA forgot to tell the Pommy troops, unless he knew too much? or may be he was about to turn coat...