New Year's Eve.

This is coolbert:

Miscellany.

1. Saddam has gone to meet his maker and is now buried alongside [??] his sons. Saddam appears to have comported himself well on the gallows. NO hood, answering those that jeered him. Is being buried in accordance with Islamic ritual, his body being returned to the place of his birth for burial.

2. "Police do not believe foreign groups or militants from the Muslim south are to blame, says the BBC's Jonathan Head."

[Bangkok, Thailand, hit by six coordinated bomb blasts that killed two!!]

So say the news reports. NOT believed to be the work of militants from the Muslim south. Well, that was my first impression. IT WAS the work of Muslim terrorists from the south [Kra]. A widening of the insurgency that will have dire consequences for all of Thailand. Thailand is heavily dependent upon tourism. If the tourist trade is severely cut back from bombings of a terrorist nature, emanating from the Kra area and al Qaeda type fundamentalists, it will be big trouble.

3. Kenya has re-enforced security along its border in an effort to prevent Islamic militiamen from crossing over.

[The Somali Islamic fundamentalists are making a last stand and also fleeing the approaching Ethiopian forces.]

Yes! Kenya does have a common and porous border with Somalia. Like I have said, these borders are wide open and not recognized in all cases by the warring factions as being legitimate. Do not forget a possible naval interdiction either. By the U.S. Navy?? To prevent "fundamentalist fighters" from escaping by dhow to places further south or to Yemen and such. That coastline from Somalia down to Mozambique is of course known as the "Swahili Coast", very strong in Islamic culture. The ummah, which dominate in that area, can provide hiding spots for the Islamicists of Somalia, now defeated, to reconstitute themselves for action at a further time.

coolbert.