British Military Current Events

[Yrys]

Terrorist releases prompt U-turn

Ministers have changed a controversial early release scheme after admitting two terrorism convicts were let out of jail early to ease prison overcrowding.
The justice ministry said people convicted under terrorism laws would no longer be eligible for early release.

Yassin Nassari left Wakefield Prison in February after being jailed last summer for three and a half years. The BBC understands the second man was Abdul Muneem
Patel, released from Glen Parva prison on 7 January this year. Nassari, 28, from Ealing in west London, was arrested in May 2006 at Luton Airport carrying what police
said were blueprints for a rocket in his luggage. He was convicted in July 2007 of having articles of use to terrorists.

Scotland Yard detectives had arrested him after he arrived on a flight from Amsterdam. They found a computer hard-drive in his luggage including documents about
martyrdom and weapons training. They also found a blueprint for a home-made Qassam rocket, used by Palestinian militants to target Israel. Experts told his trial
the blueprint was detailed enough to manufacture a rocket. Detectives also linked Nassari to extremist websites and chatrooms. Patel, of east London, was jailed for
six months at the Old Bailey in October 2007 after a jury found him guilty of having a terrorism-related explosives manual. The judge said there was no reasonable
excuse to have the manual - but added the teenager was not a "radicalised or politicised Islamist".

Eligible for release

Under the terms of the government's special early release scheme to ease overcrowding, prisoners are eligible to leave prison 18 days earlier than normally expected,
if they had been jailed for less than four years and not committed a serious violent offence. Earlier on Friday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice confirmed that
a Category A prisoner had been released from Wakefield prison on 11 February because he met the criteria for early release.

Nassari would have been eligible for release 17 days later, having served enough of his sentence to be considered for parole. But the ministry later announced that
Justice Secretary Jack Straw had now banned all prisoners convicted of terrorism offences from benefiting from the early release scheme. The spokesman denied
the previous policy was a mistake but confirmed that a second man convicted of a terrorism offence had been released under the scheme.

Web war waged from a bedroom

"The number of terrorism-related cases likely to fall within the current criteria is very small," said the spokesman. "However, in the light of these cases the justice
secretary has decided to change the criteria so that any prisoner convicted under terrorism legislation would not be eligible."

But Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "Jack Straw must now say when he knew about this, and why he has only just acted. Were these men released with
or without his knowledge? "The Government's perverse approach to security defies common sense. On the one hand, they are trying to pass a new law extending
the period for holding innocent people - convicted of nothing - on the other hand, they are releasing a terrorist we have managed to bring to Justice."

Separate Prison Service rules, issued in February, had already banned prisoners convicted of terrorism offences from being released early on an electronic tag. Nassari's
offence was one of those listed in the new rules. However, at the time it did not preclude him from being released under the special rules for over-crowding.

Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said that the scheme had not been properly thought through and had
already led to men who were convicted of domestic violence offences being set free early. "To learn that people associated with terrorism are also coming out is clearly
appalling but isn't a surprise," he said.

Link

 

[geo]

Hmmm.... does everyone feel safe yet?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Two killed: Land rover blown up by Taliban



http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/article982840.ece

 

[daftandbarmy]

Raincoats on, raincoats off...

Withdrawal of troops stopped


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article986788.ece

 

[geo]

well... the various militias have some deciding to do.  They settle down and behave for 1-2 years and the US/UK withdraw (leaving Iraqis to their own devices) OR they continue to lash out AND force the US/UK to remain.....

Decisions, decisions, decisions......

 

[daftandbarmy]

Crossing the dead zone for coffee - a historic moment for divided island

Greek and Turkish friends reunite as barricades go from Nicosia's Ledra Street

For Koula Hadjipieris and Hassan Chirakli the wall of hate came down at 10am yesterday. That's when Hadjipieris called her lifelong Turkish Cypriot friend and said: "I'm coming over." They were words that in Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe, Chirakli had hoped to hear all his adult life.

Ledra Street, the barricaded boulevard in the heart of the medieval-walled city that had symbolised the tensions and partition of the island for the best part of half a century, was no more. Finally, Chirakli and Hadjipieris could do what they had long wanted - cross it freely.

At 10:45, as clapping and cheering filled the air and balloons rose into the skies while television crews captured the moment, Hadjipieris, a Greek Cypriot, walked into the slither of land she had only ever known as the "dead zone", past crumbling mothballed buildings and rusty gunports and cheery UN soldiers, to meet her Turkish Cypriot countryman, Chirakli, at the other end.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/04/cyprus.turkey

 

[geo]

it's taken an awful long time to get to this point...... let,s hope no one spoils the party

 

[Yrys]

Travelbodge

BLUNDERING MoD bosses are spending £610,000 on putting up 80 Royal Marines in a TRAVELODGE.

They have booked all 45 rooms at the hotel — which has no security from terror threats.A bungle meant there was no room for the men at their base miles away.
And to add to the fiasco the £65-a-night Travelodge on the outskirts of Barnstaple, Devon, is now EMPTY. All the Marines are away on three weeks’ Easter leave
— and a Sun reporter walked in unchallenged.

Our revelation shows how low the shocking state of Forces accommodation has been allowed to sink. Top brass added an extra squadron to the Commando Logistics
Regiment for 3 Commando Brigade’s upcoming deployment to the southern Afghan badlands. It meant there was no space at the Royal Marines Base in Chivenor.

Meanwhile frontline troops are dying because of cost-cutting measures, with SAS Captain Dan Wright killed in a parachute accident after RAF chiefs could not afford £50
safety radios. A Royal Marines source said: “The blokes are livid at being dumped in a Travelodge while the rest of the unit is on base. “It’s a slap in the face to ask them
to camp like refugees when the Government is about to send them off to war. They also know it can only mean less money for kit on operations.”

The cash being spent on keeping the men there until October would have bought countless sets of body armour, night vision goggles and machine guns. All have been
in critically short supply in Iraq and Afghanistan at times.

The Travelodge sits opposite a KFC in a busy services on the North Devon LinkRoad. Chivenor is a 15-minute car journey away. A Sun man yesterday walked straight
into the hotel without any checks. A female receptionist said it was fully booked but that it was “a private matter”. On an interior door an A4 booklet had been pinned up
giving rota details for the squadron staying there. Personal objects could be seen at windows. All the rooms, most shared by two men, are en-suite and come with satellite TV.

Conservative defence spokesman Andrew Murrison said: “The MoD is staggering from crisis to crisis in its attempts to accommodate service personnel. “Somebody
needs to get a grip.” The MoD said it was vital the extra men trained with the rest of the regiment before deployment to Afghanistan and that putting them in the hotel
was “the cheapest viable solution”.

Link

 

[geo]

All of a sudden, I feel better about how the CF has been treating us

 

[daftandbarmy]

Reporting from the Afghan front 
BBC Scotland's Cameron Buttle went to Afghanistan with cameraman Alan Harcus to report on how Scots in 52 Brigade are coping with operations in Helmand Province.

In December, Cameron saw 52 Brigade take part in the operation to capture Musa Qal'eh.

The commanding officer of task force Helmand, Brigadier Andrew Mackay, told him to come back in three months to see the difference.


On his return, Cameron is filing a regular diary on their progress.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7326126.stm

 

[daftandbarmy]

Details on SAS raid in Iraq...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7337873.stm

 

[Yrys]

Intereting article ...

"The officer told me: "This target was surrounded by the Iraqi police, authority figures, a judge. My question to them was and has been for the past week: 'How come all the local civilians... know all these people came in and don't belong here but you as commanders of police don't go in there and check it out?'"  "

 

[FoverF]

"Then some other fire came from another house right next door so the aircraft [using] precision firing was able to isolate those two houses and just pummel them."

The aircraft fired 40mm cannon rounds at the two houses, finally dropping a bomb on one of them. It collapsed. The other house was set on fire.

I'm trying to think of a 40 mm aircraft mounted cannon on any coalition a/c in Iraq, and the only thing I can come up with is the AC-130. Which is not going to drop a bomb on anybody. There might be some chopper-mounted 40 mm, but again...

Anybody?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Same crack sniper rifle killed SEVEN British soldiers in Basra with American-made bullets
Seven British soldiers were shot in Basra last year by the same sniper rifle, the Ministry of Defence has revealed. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=558473&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

 

[geo]

.... and that's what snipers do!
Why is anyone surprised?

 

[AJFitzpatrick]

Human rights 'apply to UK troops'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7342324.stm

The landmark judgement came in a test case relating to the death of Scottish soldier Pte Jason Smith in Iraq.
Mr Justice Collins said sending soldiers into action without proper kit could breach human rights. Ministers are appealing against the ruling.
The court also ruled families of those killed in conflict should get legal aid and access to military documents.
The judgement came during a request for military inquest guidelines in the case of Pte Smith, 32, from Hawick, in the Scottish Borders, who died of heatstroke in Iraq in 2003.

 

[geo]

Good lord - the English courts are handing down judgements as bizzare as the Canadian courts have.
While I do not deny that the military has a responsibility to provide adequate equipment to the soldiers who are sent into harms way, combat conditions VS human rights of the soldiers are - should we say - at opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

[daftandbarmy]

As a great man once said "We are here to defend democracy, not practise it".

My guess is that the inability of the British government to provide an adequate, justifiable moral argument for participating in the Iraq campaign  - along with a well defined strategy - has led to an unprecedented level of politicization amongst the general population, and the soldiers and their families, leading to court challenges to redress grievances that would have been unthinkable 'back in the day'.

I mean, if you could have seen some of the junk we had to use in NI and elsewhere, you would have been amazed we didn't all die from exposure and blast injuries. 'Rainproofs' weren't even on general issue until 1985, and up til about then we still wore boots and puttees , and 100% polyester socks, which caused large numbers of foot related cold injuries in places like the Falklands War and elsewhere. Flak jackets were only worn in the cities in NI, like Belfast and Londonderry, and were pretty old and ratty up 'Vietnam Era' models up until about '86. Normal, unarmoured, military pattern vehicles were used in 'bandit country' where road travel was still possible (see Warrenpoint for the results - 18 dead). We did the job regardless and there wasn't much boo-hooing, largely (I think) because most people supported the campaigns we fought and the way we fought them. The soldiers griped, as always, but got on with it with no thought of ever cranking up a legal challenge. I dunno, maybe more court cases would have made a difference but I doubt it, probably because there was a higher level of confidence in the army leadership and political direction back then. (Good old Maggie!)

 

[The Bread Guy]

Historic Military Unit as Tourism Generator....

BLACK WATCH 'JOINS FORCES' TO ATTRACT ANCESTRAL TOURISTS
Forfar Dispatch, 14 Apr 08

The Black Watch has joined forces with Angus Council in a bid to attract people with connections to the regiment to come to the area and walk in the footsteps of their military ancestors.  The initiative, which is being financially supported by Angus Council under the auspices of the Angus & Dundee Ancestral Tourism Initiative, will see nine Angus-based Black Watch veterans trained up carry out regimental research for people whose ancestors fought in the regiment in the First World War ....

 

[daftandbarmy]

William flies multi-million pound chopper to Isle of Wight for pal's piss up, and picks up Harry on the way.... oh, this will end well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559770&in_page_id=1770