From AP via the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Skeet Street and Jeffrey Imm.
The United States on Thursday designated the Islamic Jihad Group, active in Central Asia, as a global terrorist group.State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the group coordinated bombing attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and the office of the Uzbek prosecutor general that killed at least two people and wounded nine last July.
He said the Islamic Jihad Group had broken away from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, already designated a terrorist group in 2000 and under UN sanctions.
By designating a group a terrorist organization, the United States can block travel by any of its members to the United States and seize any financial assets they may have in the country.
According to Central Asian terrorism experts, the Islamic Jihad Group is believed to have 350 to 400 members, about a quarter of whom have undergone terrorist training.
They weren't designated a terrorist group until now wtf?
Pegcity,
This group operates out Central Asia and is not to be confused with the Palestinian group.
When they get around to labeling CAIR then that will be news.
Where Is sen kyles report?
Advice to all the Georgetown brainiac clones at the State Department: there's like a formula, OK? Any organization with the word jihad in its name is by self-definition, a terrorist group. How many millions of taxpayers' dollars did it take to figure this one out? I'll bet there's a 50-slide powerpoint presentation making the rounds at State right now that supports the case for the designation of this Central Asian group as terrorists.
It's getting to the point where it would be simpler to name them all terrorist groups until THEY prove otherwise.
This took four years? This is the CIA running at warp speed.
No muslims. No mosques.
Havoc:
"This took four years? This is the CIA running at warp speed."
Me thinks Porter Goss has more "weeding out" to do at the CIA. Good grief!
No Muslims? No Mosques? How about No President Bush. No selling of arms. No forcing farmers in Iraq to buy their seed from Monsanto. No starving and destruction of ordinary beings using US weapons.
US Rewards War on Terror Allies With Arms: Study
"If a regime can use these arms to subdue their own population, this could come back to haunt us," Pena warned.
CAIRO, May 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Since the 9/11 attacks the Bush administration has been increasingly selling arms to states previously declared undemocratic or with bad human rights to secure their assistance in its so-called war on terror, an American think tank has revealed.
The World Policy Institute, a research group based at the New School University, said that since 9/11 two dozen countries have either become first-time recipients or have been sold weapons after long hiatus, the New York Times said Friday, May 27.
It said Washington is selling more weapons to countries that were once prohibited from receiving American-made goods because of their poor human rights records, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria, Nepal and Uzbekistan.
The study added that more than half of the top 25 recipients in 2003 were countries that the State Department has defined as undemocratic, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
American arms are also being increasingly sold to countries suffering internal conflicts such as Angola, Chad and Ethiopia.
The study found that the largest aid program, Foreign Military Financing, increased 68 percent from 2001 to 2003, to reach $6 billion, before trending back to a current $4.5 billion.
Worrisome
The increasing arms sales has triggered concerns from several American experts, said the daily.
"The equipment could end up fueling conflict, arming human rights abusers or falling into the hands of U.S. adversaries," said William Hartung, the study author.
Charles Pena, a military specialist at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that promote free-market policies, agreed. "If a regime can use these arms to subdue their own population, this could come back to haunt us," he said.
"We need to be more mindful of the long-term implications, especially in the Muslim world," noted the expert.
In its annual report, Amnesty International said human rights are in retreat worldwide because of the US war on terror which encouraged governments around the world to roll back the rule of law.
Pegcity,
"They weren't designated a terrorist group until now wtf?'
Because till now they were only "visible" in Gaza and the West Bank.
The favoured State Dept., viewpoint is that there are two types of terrorism, and that groups act independently of each other.
The Egyptians, apart from letting the arms smugglers through into Gaza from Sinai (the frontier some 7 or 8 miles long) permitted Hizbollah personnel through to liaise and train
Hamas and Jihad "operatives" and co-ordinate later actions used in Iraq.It's 4 years now of "blindness".
Your State Dept., in its PC diplomacy has cost many GI lives.
And now Bush has given Abbas $50 million to hide them in his security apparatus.
Two terms Tenet had at defining things in the Palestinian camp and the CIA still had nothing of value for American security.
They could not even take the terrorist stew that operated in Spain as a serious example for study. Now some Tchechens have been found apparently connected. Who would have believed that?
Skeet Street
"This group operates out Central Asia and is not to be confused with the Palestinian group."
And that is the mistake made. While they don't behave like those groups who gather at Davos they certainly do swap stories!