IDD Roundup v.082305

Hey! China has isolated desert derelicts, too. Plus the 2006 Olympics in Shanghai. China cracksdown on terror.

China has set up a new police force in large cities, equipped with helicopters and armoured vehicles, to combat the threat of terrorism and the rising incidence of rioting and social unrest across the country.

The squads, to be stationed in 36 large cities, reflect the need for a more professional police force amid concerns that it is currently ill-equipped to manage such issues, scholars and analysts said on Thursday.

Speaking of China Xinhua.net is reporting that a bunch of IDD's were rounded up in a Afghan tribal area by the Pakistanis. The good news - they were acting on tips received from locals. And get this, not only did they find a sizeable weapons cache, they also found ladie's costumes and wigs. Kind of kinky, eh?

Aussie Treasurer tells Radical Muslim Clerics to get the heck out.

"If you don't like those values, then don't come here. Australia is not for you," Mr Costello said yesterday. "This is the way I look at it: Australia is a secular society, with parliamentary law, part of the Western tradition of individual rights."

The UK is getting it's act together and will issue a plan to boot radical muslim clerics that preach hate.

Jordan nabs boat bomb terror mastermind. Adios IDD!

A televised statement named Mohammed Hassan Abdullah al-Sihly, a Syrian, as prime suspect for the attacks. Three others accused of involvement in an Iraq-based terror group fled into Iraq on Friday, the statement said. One rocket narrowly missed a US warship in port, another hit a hospital and a third landed in Israel. According to the statement, Mr al-Sihly planned and carried out the attacks alongside two of his sons and an Iraqi man. They are thought to be the three men who escaped into Iraq on Friday, the day after the attacks, using forged identity documents and passports.

Bummer. Beirut Shopping Mall bombed.

Zalka, on the Mediterranean coast, is a mixed residential and commercial area on a main street that leads to Lebanon's Christian heartland. The area has several cafes _ including a Starbucks coffee shop _ and restaurants and other nightspots that were full of patrons.

Bad guys were nabbed:

Security forces were seen rounding up several suspects, including five men with their hands tied behind their backs. The were taken to a military vehicle.

Good.

Iraqis blame Saddam's family in Jordan for funding terror.

"It is regrettable to say that until now there are big numbers of elements, not only former regime elements, but supervisors of some terrorist groups who are now in Jordan," government spokesman Laith Kubba told reporters. Kubba accused Saddam's relatives in Jordan of using "huge amounts of money" to "support the efforts to revive Baath Party organizations", without specifying the names of the relatives. Saddam's two oldest daughters are now living in Amman, the capital of Jordan."

Meanwhile Saddam is blowing smoke...

The Scots are getting feisty.

"SCOTLAND'S most senior churchman says extremist Muslim clerics should leave the country, and has branded them "hypocrites" who treat their neighbours as "enemies".

Russian Muslims split over calling for Jihad. I say Bite me.

MOSCOW - The two top leaders of Russia's Muslims split Thursday over the question of whether to proclaim a jihad against the United States. Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin, the leader of an Islamic council claiming to represent all Russia, announced that the council's 29 Islamic departments had voted unanimously by fax to declare a holy war. The mufti announced the decision before an anti-war protest by some 2,000 students in Ufa, the largely Muslim capital of the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan. While declaring a holy war, he did not say in detail what the council was asking ordinary Muslims to do, beyond contributing money for Iraqi war relief and weapons purchases. At the same time, the chief mufti of Russia, Ravil Gainutdin, rejected any call for a holy war "even though the situation in Iraq is deteriorating." "We must be realists," he told the Interfax news service. "Jihad against the U.S. has been declared by Saddam Hussein. This is enough." .

US to train East African counter terror troops. Round 'em up, boys.

And in show business news: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes plan Arabian Nights Nuptials.

"Superstar Tom Cruise is planning to marry fiancee Katie Holmes in a multi-million dollar "Arabian Nights" style wedding in Mexico's Maroma resort. He wants a "event of the decade". According to British newspaper the Sunday Mirror, 43-year-old Cruise was inspired when he witnessed a $1 million wedding at the resort."