Tom Cruise Finally Meets His Match

Straight from Fox News: “On Monday, the German Defense Ministry stepped up to the plate and tried to stop Tom Cruise from playing World War II hero Col. Claus von Stauffenberg.

The ministry said it would prohibit Cruise from filming his Nazi movie, “Valkyrie,” at historic government sites. Cruise, they said, represents Scientology, a group that the German authorities do not recognize as a religion. They consider it a cult.

Last week, Cruise was in Berlin meeting with local Scientology associates as he prepared to film “Valkyrie” with director Bryan Singer. People magazine said he was seeing “business associates,” but German publications reported the real story.

German Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer told Reuters that the filmmakers “will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult.”"

Vista Games Cracked to Run on XP

Straight from Slashdot: “Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit.

“The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. ‘Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,’ said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release.”

Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.”

Boy: Taliban Recruited Me to Bomb Troops

The religion of peace is at it again…

Straight from Breitbart: “FORWARD OPERATING BASE THUNDER, Afghanistan The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders. The account from Juma Gul, a dirt-caked child who collects scrap metal for money, left American soldiers dumbfounded that a youngster could be sent on such a mission. Afghan troops crowded around the boy to call him a hero.

Though the Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when U.S. and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties, both Afghan tribal elders and U.S. military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account.

Juma said that sometime last month Taliban fighters forced him to wear a vest they said would spray out flowers when he touched a button. He said they told him that when he saw American soldiers, “throw your body at them.”

The militants cornered Juma in a Taliban-controlled district in southern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. Their target was an impoverished youngster being raised by an older sister—but also one who proved too street-smart for their plan.

“When they first put the vest on my body I didn’t know what to think, but then I felt the bomb,” Juma told The Associated Press as he ate lamb and rice after being introduced to the elders at this joint U.S.- Afghan base in Ghazni. “After I figured out it was a bomb, I went to the Afghan soldiers for help.”

While Juma’s story could not be independently verified, local government leaders backed his account and the U.S. and NATO military missions said they believed his story.”

Digg Comments

Fark Headline – A moment of silence, please. The last Iwo Jima flag raiser has passed away. Your watch is over, sir. And thank you.

Charles Lindberg

Straight from Yahoo News: “RICHFIELD, Minn. – Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, has died. He was 86.

Lindberg died Sunday at Fairview Southdale hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, said John Pose, director of the Morris Nilsen Funeral Home in Richfield, which is handling Lindberg’s funeral.

Lindberg spent decades explaining that it was his patrol, not the one captured in the famous Associated Press photograph by Joe Rosenthal, that raised the first flag as U.S. forces fought to take the Japanese island.

In the late morning of Feb. 23, 1945, Lindberg fired his flame-thrower into enemy pillboxes at the base of Mount Suribachi and then joined five other Marines fighting their way to the top. He was awarded the Silver Star for bravery.

“Two of our men found this big, long pipe there,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003. “We tied the flag to it, took it to the highest spot we could find and we raised it.

“Down below, the troops started to cheer, the ship’s whistles went off, it was just something that you would never forget,” he said. “It didn’t last too long, because the enemy started coming out of the caves.”

The moment was captured by Sgt. Lou Lowery, a photographer from the Marine Corps’ Leatherneck magazine. It was the first time a foreign flag flew on Japanese soil, according to the book “Flags of Our Fathers,” by James Bradley with Ron Powers. Bradley’s father, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, was one of the men in the famous photo of the second flag-raising.

“We thought it would be a slaughterhouse up on Suribachi,” Lindberg said in the book. “I still don’t understand why we were not attacked.”

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen killed in the five-week battle for the island.

By Lindberg’s account, his commander ordered the first flag replaced and safeguarded because he worried someone would take it as a souvenir. Lindberg was back in combat when six men raised the second, larger flag about four hours later.

Charles Lindberg

Rosenthal’s photo of the second flag-raising became one of the most enduring images of the war and the model for the U.S. Marine Corps memorial in Washington.

Rosenthal, who died last year, always denied accusations that he staged the photo, and he never claimed it depicted the first raising of a flag over the island.

Lindberg was shot through the arm on March 1 and evacuated.

There remained lingering disputes over the identity of at least one man in the first flag-raising. A California veteran of Iwo Jima, Raymond Jacobs, has said he believes he is the man with a radio on his back who had usually been identified as Pfc. Gene Marshall, a radio operator with the 5th Marine Division who died in 1987. The other men involved in the raising all have died.

Last year’s film “Flags of Our Fathers,” based on the book, features a character named Lindberg played by Alessandro Mastrobuono, according to the Internet Movie Database.

After his discharge in January 1946, Lindberg — no relation to Charles Lindbergh the aviator — went home to Grand Forks, N.D. He moved to Richfield in 1951 and became an electrician.

No one, he said, believed him when he said he raised the first flag at Iwo Jima. “I was called a liar,” he said. In 1954, Lindberg was invited to Washington for the dedication of the Marine memorial. It carried the names of the second group of flag-raisers, but not the first.

He spent his final years trying to raise awareness of the first flag-raising, speaking to veterans groups and at schools. He sold autographed copies of Lowery’s photos through catalogs.

A back room in his neat house was filled with souvenirs of the battle, including a huge mural based on one of Lowery’s photos. Prints of the photos were kept handy for visitors, and Lindberg’s Silver Star and Purple Heart were in little boxes on a side table.

Iwo Jima Flag Raising

The Minnesota Legislature passed a resolution in Lindberg’s honor in 1995. His face appears on a huge mural in Long Prairie of the battle for Iwo Jima, and his likeness is etched into the black granite walls of Soldiers Field in Rochester.”

Fark Comments

Naturally, I’ve selected several of the choice comments from the Fark thread:

“What is with the hushed respectful tone for this guy? I am sure he was a dick back in 1940whatever when he served, just like all my high school classmates who joined the military are dicks now.” – elpepe55

“You’re a dick now, and you never served.” – iKill

“Yes, this man is a hero because he burned to death the horrible enemy whose cloth on a stick has different bits of color than our cloth on a stick.” – elpepe55

“elpepe, they were yellow dogs, the scum of the earth if you read your history. and they would have gladly cut off yor head and shoved it up your pacifist ass, given the chance.” – billybobtoo

“And they had slanty eyes!! Good thing we nuked the bastards.” – elpepe55

“To all you people belittling this guys death, let me say this:

Without those marines, and without those army soldiers, as well as those brave navy personel, you people would not have the right to post what you are saying here on Fark.com. You would be tracked down and jailed under the order of the Third Reich, or under Japanese tolitarianism.

First Flag Raising On Iwo Jima

So before being a jagoff, think of what all those soldiers died for. They died to protect your freedom which it seems alot of you don’t deserve, but being that it is your Right, all we can ask is that you atleast feign respect for what they did for you..” – God

“Jesus Christ, Do my ears decieve me or do I hear a bunch of Communist twinkle toe mother Farkers bad mouthing the brave men who gave their lives for the privilege of voicing the horse shiat that i’m reading. You maggots don’t deserve to walk in the shadow of those heroes. You have the right to disagree, but you have absolutely no common sense, patriotism or class if you insult the fine men and women who gave their lives for the cause of freedom!” – RabidCanary

“This thread has become a liberal out-house, parked right on top of this fine man’s memory. So f*cking typical.” – Mighty_Dog

“You’re right — but it doesn’t really affect my point, which is: it’s ridiculous to glorify this man or any other “war hero” whose primary heroic contribution has been to kill and maim people who are different from us.” – elpepe55

“Well, if by “different” you mean thinking it’s their divine right to kill 10 million Chinese and occupy Korea, Malaysia, Burma, Siam, Philippines, etc., then I guess yes, sometimes it is acceptable to kill people who are “different”, and why I consider those who fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima to be heroes, and heroes to 100′s of millions of people all throughout the Pacific.” – ItHurtsWhenIDoThis

“You still need to break from the American-centric viewpoint. We are slaughtering innocent Iraqi civilians right now much like the Japanese murdered the Chinese in the 30s, yet I think it’s a safe assumption that you do not think current U.S. troops are anything less than heroes themselves, do you?” – elpepe55

Mount Suribachi

“(v) Pacifism. The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransfered.” – George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

TorrentSpy Basically Gives Up, Implements Content Filtering System

Straight from Gizmodo: “It was only a matter of time. After being ordered to essentially spy on its users for the MPAA, the virtual shuttering of TorrentSpy was, to appropriately quote Agent Smith, “inevitable.” True, for now it’s only removing copyrighted content using a automated filtering system called FileRights, but we all know that copyrighted material is its bread and butter, like many, if not most, torrent sites.”

Warez ringleader gets over four years in prison

Straight from Ars Technica: “The head of underground piracy group “DrinkOrDie” was sentenced to 51 months in jail in the US last week on one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. 44-year-old Hew Griffiths pleaded guilty in a US federal court earlier this year to the charges and was extradited to the US from his home in Australia at that time. “From his home in Australia, Griffiths became one of the most notorious leaders of the underground Internet piracy community by orchestrating the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in copyrighted material,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher in a statement.

DrinkOrDie—founded in Russia in 1993—is estimated to have been responsible for copying and distributing more than $50 million of copyrighted content like movies, music, and software, based on the retail value of the copies distributed by the group. The group was dismantled in 2001 after being subject to 70 raids in the US, UK, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Australia.”

EFF and CDT: Torrentspy decision could spell end of Internet privacy

Straight from Ars Technica: “Could one judge’s decision in a copyright case broadly rewrite US laws governing legal discovery? The EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology are both warning that a recent legal decision could eliminate privacy on the Internet and impose massive record-keeping burdens on any company that uses computers. Two weeks ago, a judge ruled that BitTorrent tracker Torrentspy was required to enable server logs and turn the information over to the MPAA as part of the discovery process (the MPAA is suing Torrentspy for contributing to copyright infringement). That ruling was based on the theory that the information in question is already stored in RAM and therefore already exists; Torrentspy would not actually need to log any new data, just record what was already passing through its servers. The legal implications of this argument are staggering, and two technology groups have just pointed them out to the court in a new amicus brief.

In the filing, the EFF and CDT say that the judge’s decision “would mark a radical expansion of the scope of federal electronic discovery obligations… Virtually every business in the United States relies on digital technologies for all kinds of communications. And virtually every function carried out by those technologies depends on and results in the temporary creation of RAM data that is not ordinarily retained.” If the ruling stands, companies might be forced to archive any potentially-useful information that appears in a PC’s RAM or face the prospect of penalties if they are sued and cannot produce the data.

Beyond creating a massive new data retention requirement (imagine how this could affect an organization with 20,000 workstations and a host of servers), the ruling could threaten online privacy. Many organizations purposely do not retain information such as the IP addresses of visitors, even though this information is available to them and passes through RAM. If the current order stands, not logging this information could become legally hazardous if such groups are ever involved in lawsuits.

The controversy centers on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34, which talks about producing “electronically stored” information. The EFF and CDT argue that “as a factual matter, because information held only in RAM is not stored, but rather exists only temporarily until overwritten, RAM data does not fall within the scope of Rule 34.” That is, RAM was never intended to count as “stored” information under the rule.

The EFF’s Fred von Lohmann attempts to illustrate how absurd the new requirement could be by making a comparison to the analog world. “A court would never think to force a company to record telephone calls, transcribe employee conversations, or log other ephemeral information,” he said in a statement. “There is no reason why the rules should be different simply because a company uses digital technologies.”

The EFF and CDT are fighting to have the judge’s discovery ruling in the case overturned.”

The International Space Station Expands Again

(click for high res)

Straight from the Astronomy Picture of the Day: “Explanation: The developing International Space Station (ISS) has changed its appearance again. During the past week, the Space Shuttle Atlantis visited the ISS and added pieces of the Integrated Truss Structure that mirrored those added in September 2006, including a second impressively long array of solar panels. The entire array of expansive solar panels are visible at the edges of the above image taken by the Shuttle Atlantis Crew after leaving the ISS to return to Earth. The world’s foremost space outpost can be seen developing over the past several years by comparing the above image to past images. Also visible above are many different types of modules, a robotic arm, another impressive set of solar panels, and a supply ship. Construction began on the ISS in 1998.”

Japan Changes Name of Island of Iwo Jima

Straight from Fox News: “TOKYO — Japan has changed the name of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima to the original name of Iwo To given by locals, who have become disenchanted with the popularization of its modern-day moniker by such movies as Clint Eastwood’s recently released “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

The new name in Japanese looks and means the same as Iwo Jima — or Sulfur Island — but sounds different, the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute said.

The institute announced the name change on Monday after discussing the issue with Japan’s coast guard. An official map with the new name will be released Sept. 1.”

Fark Headline – Iranian naval forces tried to capture an Australian navy boarding team just before the British incident. What the Aussies did is… different

Straight from the Sydney Morning Herald: “The Australian Defence Force says up to five Iranian gunboats tried to capture Australian sailors in the Persian Gulf in December 2004.

A defence spokesman told reporters the four-hour confrontation occurred after Australian navy personnel boarded a grounded cargo ship in the gulf.

Commodore Steve Gilmore said the incident began when Australian soldiers were leaving the cargo vessel, which was located near the Iraq-Iran maritime border.

He said an Iranian Revolutionary Guard gunboat moved close by and its armed personnel made “very overt gestures”.

The boarding party commander ordered the Australians to reboard the cargo ship.

“He got his boarding party back on to the ship and established a very credible and appropriate defensive position,” Commodore Gilmore told reporters in Canberra.

The BBC reported earlier today that Iranian naval forces tried to capture the boarding team, but were repelled in the face of machine guns and “highly colourful language”.”

Fark Comments

A third US carrier, the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise Strike Group is speeding towards the Persian Gulf

Straight from the Debka File: “According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the US naval build-up off the shores of Iran marks rising military tensions in the region, accentuated by last week’s Hamas victory which has endowed Iran with a military foothold on Israel’s southwestern border.

The USS Enterprise CVN 65-Big E Strike Group, the US Navy’s largest air carrier, will join the USS Stennis and the USS Nimitz carriers, building up the largest sea, air, marine concentration the United States has ever deployed opposite Iran. This goes towards making good on the assurances of four carriers US Vice President Dick Cheney offered the Gulf and Middle East nations during his May tour of the region.

The “Big E” leads a strike group consisting of the guided-missile destroyers USS Arleigh Burke DDG 51, USS Stout DDG 55, Forrest Sherman DDG 98 and USS James E. Williams DDG 95, as well as the guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg CG 64, the SS Philadelphia SSN 690 nuclear submarine and the USNS Supply T-AOE 6>

On its decks are the Carrier Air Wing CVW 1, whose pilots fought combat missions in the Gulf and Arabian Sea during 2006. The Air Wing is made up of F/Q-18 Super Hornet strike craft, the Sidewinders Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-86, the 251st Marine Fighter Attack Squadron MFA, and the Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ 137.

The 32nd Sea Control Squadron VS consists of S-3B Vikings. The Airborne Early Warning Squadron VAQ 3 flies E-2C Hawkeye craft. The Fleet Logistics Support Squadron VRC is based on C-2A Greyhounds.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Washington is considering deploying the fourth US carrier for the region in the Red Sea opposite Saudi Arabian western coast to secure the three US carriers in the Gulf from the rear as well as the Gulf of Aqaba and Suez Canal.”

Lou Pearlman, Backstreet Boy’s founder, arrested in Indonesia

Straight from Tampa Bay’s 10: “Lou Pearlman owned a number of companies now bankrupt. A lawsuit filed in New York in March and a similar one filed in Florida claims he defrauded investors of more than $315 million by selling a bogus saving account plan and using their money to cover his losses in his other businesses. Many investors were from the Bay Area. Attorney James Lowy, a victim of Pearlman’s alleged money scheme himself, is fighting for 250 clients trying to recoup millions of dollars.

Pearlman is being taken from Indonesia by U.S authorities to face a judge in Guam on one felony count of bank fraud. Pearlman isn’t the only big name being mentioned in connection with this case. The suit names Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum saying both received thousands in campaign contributions from Pearlman and his companies. It alleges Crist used a private jet from Pearlman’s fleet and his skybox at sporting events.”

Moscow Releases Nuclear Fuel for Iran’s Bushehr Reactor

Straight from the Debka File: “Russian president Vladimir Putin put teeth in his threats and his cynically helpful alternative suggestions regarding the deployment of US missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 304 disclosed on June 8 that the week before the G8 opened in Germany, Moscow released the long-withheld nuclear fuel for Iran’s atomic reactor in Bushehr. It was delivered 24 hours before Israel launched its new military imaging satellite Ofeq-7, bringing forward the Iranian threat to Israel, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources. One immediate result has been the stiffening of Tehran’s negative posture, sparking what nuclear watchdog director Mohammed ElBaradei called Monday, June 11, a confrontation that needs to be urgently defused.

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported, special nuclear containers were loaded on a train in the yard of the manufacturers JSC Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant on June 2-3. They contained two types of nuclear fuel, WER-440 and WER-1000.

The special train then headed out of Novosibirsk to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, 2,000 km away. There, the containers awaited loading aboard a Russian ship destined for Bandar Anzili, the Iranian military port on the Caspian shore. According to our Iranian sources, a fleet of Iranian trucks was waiting at the other end outside Bandar Anzili port to transport the nuclear fuel and drive it slowly and carefully to Bushehr, a distance of 850km, arriving June 10 or 11.”

I Am Legend

30 Days of Night

Asus stuns Computex with £100 laptop

Straight from PCPro: “Asus chairman Jonney Shih sprang a surprise during Intel’s Computex keynote today with the announcement of a $189 laptop. The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. We saw the notebook boot in 15 seconds from its solid-state hard disk. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag. Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the ‘lowest cost and easiest PC to use’. As the crowds rushed the stage, we sneaked off to the Asus stand to take a closer look.

The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The desktop looked fairly similar to Windows and we saw Firefox running on one 3ePC. A spokesperson from Asus told us that the notebook would come with “an office suite that’s compatible with MS Office”, though he refused to confirm or deny whether that meant OpenOffice.

He claimed the 3ePC would be available in all areas of the world, not only developing nations.

The low price comes from some interesting design choices, primarily the flash-based hard disk. A disk of today’s standard capacity would cost more than notebook itself as we saw with the 32GB Samsung disk, but Asus uses a 2GB disk. We were not allowed to touch the 3ePC so couldn’t tell how much of this is left after the bespoke OS is installed.

The CPU also remains a mystery, though Shih said the version on show did have 512MB of RAM. Another version will be available for $299, but nobody could tell us what the difference between the two models is.”

Digg Comments

Solar shield could be quick fix for global warming

Straight from New Scientist: “A solar shield that reflects some of the Sun’s radiation back into space would cool the climate within a decade and could be a quick-fix solution to climate change, researchers say.Because of their rapid effect, however, they should be deployed only as a last resort when “dangerous” climate change is imminent, they warn.

Solar shields are not a new idea – such “geoengineering” schemes to artificially cool the Earth’s climate are receiving growing interest, and include proposals to inject reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, deploying space-based solar reflectors and large-scale cloud seeding.

The shields are inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions that blast sulphate particles into the stratosphere. There, the particles reflect part of the Sun’s radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the atmosphere, and so dampening the greenhouse effect.”

Digg Comments

After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad

Straight from Slashdot: “Sys-Con has a look at some advantages of using Ubuntu over Windows. ‘My recent switch to a single-boot Ubuntu setup on my Thinkpad T60 simply floors me on a regular basis. Most recently it’s had to do with the experience of maintaining the software. Fresh from a very long Windows 2000 experience and a four-month Windows XP experience along with a long-time Linux sys admin role puts me in a great position to assess Ubuntu. Three prior attempts over the years at using Linux as my daily desktop OS had me primed for failure. Well, Ubuntu takes Linux where I’ve long hoped it would go — easy to use, reliable, dependable, great applications too but more on that later. It has some elegance to it — bet you never heard that about a Linux desktop before.’”

Fierce battles rage Thursday between the Turkish army and Kurdish PKK rebels on both sides of Turkish-Iraqi border. A Turkish Black Hawk shot down over Iraq

Straight from the Debka File: “Heavy casualties are reported on both sides. Turkish tanks have also been hit. The PKK Kurdish Workers Party turns out to have been ready for the major Turkish operation, well-armed with anti-tank and shoulder-borne missiles for shooting down Turkish warplanes and helicopters. Despite Ankara’s blackout on the scale of operation against the Kurdish rebels on both sides of the border and the scope of the Turkish incursion of Iraq, DEBKAfile’s military sources report the situation as of Thursday, June 7:

PKK bands, who stole earlier into southeastern Turkey from Iraq and locally, are hitting Turkish concentrations behind the lines and impeding their thrust into Iraqi Kurdistan to destroy rebel hideouts. The Turkish army is therefore fighting on two fronts: in the southeastern Turkish Gabar, Cudi and Bakok mountains and River Cehennem, as well as in northern Iraq.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reported Wednesday that the several thousand troops which entered N. Iraq were only the first wave of the Turkish invasion, with more to come. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US ambassador to Ankara had met with the Turkish General Staff, which confirmed that the initial reports of the invasion were not accurate. Later reports spoke of a “cross-border” raid.

Our military sources estimate that some 15,000 rebel Kurdish Workers Party, PKK, are holed up in Iraqi Kurdistan. To destroy their bases would require many more than the few thousand Turkish troops and longer than a cross-border raid admitted by Ankara – especially if the incursion sparked Iraqi Kurdish resistance as has been threatened.

An expert on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, Soner Cagaptay, is quoted by the New York Sun as estimating there are now 250,000 soldiers massed at the Qandil mountain range on the border with northern Iraq, including heavy artillery and tanks. An Iraqi official cited 100,000. DEBKAfile’s military experts estimate 80-90,000.

The Turkish news agency Cehan reported Wednesday that three F-16 Falcon fighter bombers had carried out bombing raids on positions of the PKK in northern Iraq. Artillery deployed at the border with Iraq had fired at “pinpointed targets.”

On June 2, DEBKAfile reported US troops had withdrawn from northern Iraq and passed responsibility for the region’s security to the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga. This followed an urgent message Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, sent to Ankara by a personal emissary, Safin Dizai, warning that Turkish tanks would not be allowed to cross into northern Iraq. The Kurdish peshmerga would repel them. “The people of Kurdistan,“ said the messenger, “would not stand by as spectators if Turkish tanks and panzers entered Kirkuk.”

Monday, Kurdish PKK rebels killed at least 8 soldiers, wounding 6, in a suicide attack on an E. Turkish checkpoint at Tunceli.

After the attack, Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gulf defended his country’s right to drive into neighboring Iraq to destroy rebel bases.”

Another Middle East war erupts Wednesday as 50,000 Turkish troops invade N. Iraq to strike rebel Kurdish PKK bases

Straight from the Debka File: “The official Turkish news agency Cihan reports the force, backed by armored vehicles and combat aircraft, is targeting rebel strongholds in 11 provinces in southeastern Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan Wednesday, June 6.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this is only the first wave of Turkish invaders, with more to come. A Turkish force of 90,000 troops has been massed at the sourthern town of Sirank opposite the meeting point of the Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian borders, drawing a warning to Ankara from US defense secretary Robert Gates to stay out of Iraq.

June 2, DEBKAfile reported that the US had removed troops from northern Iraq and passed responsibility for the region’s security to the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga.

Two days ago, Kurdish PKK rebels killed at least 8 soldiers, wounding 6, in a suicide attack on an E. Turkish checkpoint at Tunceli.

After the attack, Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gulf defended his country’s right to drive into neighboring Iraq to destroy rebel bases.

Up to 3,500 separatists are believed based in northern Iraq poised for hit-and-run terrorist attacks in Turkey. The Turkish news agency reports three F-16 Falcon fighter bombers have carried out bombing raids on positions of the PKK Kurdistan Workers Party in northern Iraq. Artillery deployed at the border with Iraq has fired at pinpointed targets.”

DEBKAfile’s Iraq sources reported last week that Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, had sent a personal emissary, Safin Dizai, to Ankara with an urgent warning. Turkish tanks would not be allowed to cross into northern Iraq, he said. The Kurdish peshmerga would repel them. “The people of Kurdistan,“ said the messenger, “would not stand by as spectators if Turkish tanks and panzers entered Kirkuk.””