Pimp my shooter: The amazing bling guns that belong to Mexico's drug lords

Mexican soldiers have seized an arsenal of gold-plated and diamond-encrusted weapons believed to belong to the Valencia gang, allies of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel and, it seems, fans of hip-hip excess.

Showing just how flamboyant gang members spend much of their ill-gotten wealth, pictures show how most of the 31 'pimped' pistols found in a raid on a home in western Mexico had gold or silver-plated grips or were glittered with diamonds.

Three of the assault rifles are almost entirely gold-plated and there was even a silencer plated with gold. One particularly image-conscious gangster has made his pistol unique by adding rows of gaudy red and green jewels and a Ferrari logo.

Gangster bling: The weapons were plated with silver and gold, encrusted with diamonds, and one even emblazoned with a Ferrari logo

Identification documents were found at the home on the outskirts of the western city of Guadalajara in the name of Oscar Nava Valencia.

The Attorney General's Office said he is a leader of the Valencia gang who has worked with Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman.

On Mexico's southern Pacific coast, the Mexican navy announced that a Mexican fishing boat and its five-member crew had been captured while transporting nearly 5,300 pounds (2,400kg) of cocaine.

Silver heat: Even the ammunition magazines were covered with silver

Dazzling: The barrel of one weapon sparkles with the gleam of small diamonds

The 78ft boat was detained on April 27 in international waters, after local authorities received information from U.S. officials.

They found 105 bales of cocaine in hidden compartments in the boat's fuel tanks.

Some of the weapons, snatched from the notorious Valencia gang, were almost entirely golf and silver-plated

Large arsenal: Mexican soldiers who carried out the raid found more than 30 weapons that had been 'pimped' with silver, gold and diamonds

The boat is believed to have picked up the drugs in Colombia.

On Sunday, police said they captured a man believed to be the leader of the Zetas drug gang in the southern state of Chiapas.

Prosecutors in neighboring Tabasco state said suspect Pablo Martinez Rojas was detained near the border with Chiapas, along with four alleged accomplices.

They said the suspects carried out killings and kidnappings for the Zetas, a gang founded by army deserters.

Three assault rifles and pistols were found in the men's possession.

Handle with care: This gun is so bejewelled that even the trigger has diamonds set in it

Who are the Somali pirates?

So who are these modern-day buccaneers I keep hearing about?

HOW DID THEY START?

* When warlords toppled former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia collapsed into anarchy. That led to a wave of illegal fishing, plus dumping of toxic and industrial waste, in Somali waters by foreign fleets from Europe and Asia.

* Toward the end of the decade, local fishermen and militia formed groups with names like the "Somali Coastguards" and the "National Volunteer Coastguards," to drive away or apprehend the vessels from South Korea, Italy, Spain, Thailand and elsewhere.

* Seeing how easy it was to capture ships, those groups metamorphosed this decade into old-fashioned pirate gangs, becoming ever more sophisticated in methods and bold in range.

HOW DO THEY OPERATE?

* In the early days, pirates with a few guns used fishing boats to approach vessels, and then simply tried to scramble on board or throw up ropes.

* As they gained money from ransoms, plus experience, they bought speedboats, tracking devices and more powerful weapons. Typically these days, a "mother ship" first spots a target, and a couple of speedboats are then launched to approach the vessel on either side and board with hooks and ladders.

* Pirates sometimes fire shots over the bow to scare sailors. Often, boats will try defensive action like zigzagging in the sea or even spraying the pirates with water from high pressure hoses. Most vessels, however, are unarmed, in keeping with international maritime practice, so sailors normally surrender quickly once the pirates are on deck.

* Hostages say they are generally well treated, with the pirates viewing them as common men caught up in a wider game: the pursuit of million-dollar ransoms from owners. Some have described the pirates slaughtering and roasting goats on board to feed them, and passing round satellite phones to let them call loved ones back home.

HOW MANY ARE THERE?

* Although traditional elders disapprove and condemn them as "immoral," the number of pirates is growing, with hundreds now working in a network of gangs.

* Many poor and unemployed young Somalis see piracy as a dazzling alternative to their hard lives, given the quick money to be made. Somalis say they are lining up to go to sea.

* The gangs are based in villages and small towns along Somalia's long coast, in lairs like Eyl, Hobyo and Haradheere.

HOW MUCH MONEY ARE THEY MAKING?

* Ship owners have been paying increasingly high ransoms with regularity. Earlier this year, the pirates made more than $6 million from the negotiated release of the Saudi supertanker the Sirius Star and the Ukrainian vessel the MV Faina.

* Ransoms during 2008, when 42 vessels were captured, ranged from $500,000 to $2 million, experts say.

* The pirates reinvest some of their money in better equipment and boats. They also spend plenty of it on flashy living, taking new wives, building palatial villas and buying 4x4 vehicles. Some get involved in smuggling.

* Financiers and masterminds, who are generally older than the young pirates, take a large cut of ransoms.

* Local rulers also take a share to allow the pirates to operate unchecked out of their territories.

WHAT CAN THE WORLD DO?

* All analysts agree that the best way to suppress piracy off Somalia is to achieve stability onshore, where civil conflict has raged for the last 18 years.

* Fourteen attempts to restore central government have failed since 1991, and a 15th one is in its infancy. The United Nations and others are hopeful that the administration of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, set up earlier this year, is the best chance in recent times of bringing peace to Somalia.

* Ahmed is a moderate Islamist with widespread support inside and outside Somalia, but he faces an insurgency by pro-al Qaeda militant Islamists and his government really controls little but a few parts of the capital Mogadishu.

* At sea, more than a dozen countries have provided ships for a flotilla of naval patrols off Somalia since the end of 2008. That brought an initial dip in the number of attacks, especially in the Gulf of Aden, where the patrols were concentrated. But the ever more brazen pirates have simply moved their operations further out into the Indian Ocean.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

* Though world attention has been focused on Phillips the American and his rescue, Somali piracy causes enormous hardship and stress for the hundreds of hostages still caught up in it, mainly from the Third World. Released captives say they live in constant fear of being killed by the pirates or during a rescue attempt, and worry about wives and children far away. Some said pirates beat them, though in general their treatment is humane.

* Some shippers have decided to incur the extra cost and time of sending cargoes round South Africa instead of through the Gulf of Aden into the Suez Canal en route to Europe.

* Insurance premiums have risen for the whole industry.

* Somalia has suddenly come into President Barack Obama's foreign policy in-tray. Americans will shudder at the memory of a disastrous U.S. intervention in the early 1990s, including the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" battle when 18 U.S. servicemen were killed.

Somali pirates hijack Russian China-bound oil tanker

A Russian warship is rushing to assist an oil tanker bound for China which has been hijacked by Somali pirates.

Numerous pirate groups are holding more than 350 hostages

The Marshal Shaposhnikov was heading towards the Moscow University, which was attacked 900km (560 miles) off the Somali coast, officials said.

The 23 Russian crew on board are reported to have locked themselves in the ship's radar room.

Big prize

Shots were fired at the 96,000-tonne tanker from two speedboats in the dawn attack, the ship's owner said.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the oil tanker is a big prize for the pirates who, based on previous hijackings, are likely to release the cargo and crew only once a multi-million-dollar ransom has been paid.

While the international war ships have prevented some attacks in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, it is widely felt that the solution to ending piracy is on land, he says.

Over the weekend an Islamic insurgent group took control of one of the main pirate bases on the Somali coast.

The pirates had already fled and our correspondent says is not yet clear whether this was part of a wider effort by the insurgents to stamp out piracy.

For now the pirates have moved towards other bases along the coast and at sea the hijackings continue, he says.

Numerous groups of pirates are currently holding more than 350 hostages as well as about 20 ships at various bases around the country.

Who is the Taliban?

The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān, meaning "students"), also Taleban, is a Sunni Islamist political movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until it was overthrown in late 2001 during Operation Enduring Freedom. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgencymovement governing local Pashtun areas and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the NATO-ledInternational Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The movement is primarily made up of members belonging to ethnic Pashtun tribes, along with volunteers from nearby Islamic countries such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Arabs, Punjabis and others. It operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly around the Durand Line regions. U.S. officials say their headquarters is in or near Quetta, Pakistan, and that Pakistan andIran provide support, although both nations deny this.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, in hiding, leads the movement. Omar's original commanders were "a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrasah teachers,"while its rank-and-file was made up mostly of Afghan refugees who had studied at Islamic religious schools in Pakistan. The Taliban received valuable training, supplies and arms from the Pakistani government, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and many recruits from madrasas for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, primarily ones established by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam(JUI).

Although in control of Afghanistan's capital (Kabul) and most of the country for five years, the Taliban regime, which called itself the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It has regained some amount of political control and acceptance in Pakistan's border region, but recently lost one of its key leaders, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA missile strike. However Pakistan has launched an offensive to force the Taliban from its territory.

The Taliban enforced one of the "strictest interpretation[s] of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world", but occasionally modifies its code of conduct. In mid-2009, it established an ombudsman office in northern Kandahar, David Kilcullen describes as a "direct challenge" to the ISAF.

Pakistani-American Arrested For Times Square Bomb Linked To Taliban?

Shahzad Faisal, a Pakistani-American, was arrested at John F Kennedy airport, a few hours ago, in connection with the attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square New York. The suspect is believed to have been trying to leave the country when authorities swooped.

Faisal, a naturalised American who had immigrated from Pakistan, had recently returned from a trip to Pakistan to his home in Connecticut which will be of major concern in light of videos received recently.

On Sunday the Pakistani Taliban released a video on the Internet in terms of which they claimed responsibility for the car bomb attempt on Times Square, New York.

In a second video, which was released by the Taliban in early April, their leader promised an attack on major U.S. cities "in some days or a month." The video does not make specific reference to the New York attack but the U.S. group monitoring terrorist traffic believes that the video is credible.

In the first video the Pakistani militants confirm that Times Square was revenge for the death of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and the recent slaying of al-Qaida leaders Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, in Iraq.

Police and FBI agents said that they were looking for a second suspect, a man filmed on a tourist’s video camera running from the car shortly after it was parked in Times Square on Saturday.

They also want to identify a white man, aged in his forties, who was videotaped on surveillance cameras removing a shirt and putting it in a backpack.

The authorities will not have missed the fact that Faisal is from Pakistan the home of the Taliban who are threatening to wreak havoc on the U.S.

What is the war in Afghanistan all about?

The War in Afghanistan is an ongoing coalition conflict which began on October 7, 2001, as the US military's Operation Enduring Freedom(OEF) that was launched, along with the British military, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. The UK has, since 2002, led its own military operation, Operation Herrick, as part of the same war in Afghanistan. The character of the war evolved from a violent struggle against Al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters to a complex counterinsurgency effort.

The first phase of the war was the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom, to remove the safe haven to Al-Qaeda and its use of the Afghan territory as a base of operations for terrorist activities. In that first phase, U.S. and coalition forces, working with the Afghan opposition forces of the Northern Alliance, quickly ousted the Taliban regime. During the following Karzai administration, the character of the war shifted to an effort aimed at smothering insurgency, in which the insurgents preferred not to directly confront the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, but blended into the local population and mainly usedimprovised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide bombings.

The stated aim of the invasion was to find Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al-Qaeda members to be put on trial, to destroy the whole organization of Al-Qaeda, and to remove the Taliban regime which supported and gave safe harbor to Al-Qaeda. The Bush administration stated that, as policy, it would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbor them. The United Nations did not authorize the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The second operation is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established by the UN Security Council at the end of December 2001 to secure Kabul and the surrounding areas. NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003. By July 23, 2009, ISAF had around 64,500 troops from 42 countries, with NATO members providing the core of the force. The NATO commitment is particularly important to the United States because it gives international legitimacy to the war.[30] The United States has approximately 29,950 troops in ISAF.[31]

The US and UK led the aerial bombing, in support of ground forces supplied primarily by the Afghan Northern Alliance. In 2002, American, Britishand Canadian infantry were committed, along with special forces from several allied nations, including Australia. Later, NATO troops were added.

The initial attack removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have since regained some strength. Since 2006, Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production, and a fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul.

By the end of 2008, the Taliban had severed any remaining ties with al-Qaeda. According to senior U.S. military intelligence officials, there are perhaps fewer than 100 members of Al-Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan.[38] The Taliban can sustain itself indefinitely, according to a December 2009 briefing by the top U.S. intelligence officer in Afghanistan.[39]

On December 1, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he would escalate U.S. military involvement by deploying an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months. He also proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date. The following day, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, cautioned that the timeline was flexible and “is not an absolute” and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, when asked by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee if it is possible that no soldiers would be withdrawn in July 2011, responded, "The president, as commander in chief, always has the option to adjust his decisions."

On January 26, 2010, at the International Conference on Afghanistan in London which brought together some 70 countries and organizations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told world leaders that he intends to reach out to the top echelons of the Taliban within a few weeks with a peace initiative. Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders when he called on the group's leadership to take part in a "loya jirga"—or large assembly of elders—to initiate peace talks.

So in plain terms ie mine:

Taliban is a government organization in Afghanistan and Al- Qaeda is an terrorist organization to which they support therefore the US and other countries want to remove the Taliban thus the war in Afghanistan began!

I want to know about Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda (pronounced /ælˈkaɪdə/ al-KYE-də or /ælˈkeɪdə/ al-KAY-də; Arabic: القاعدة‎, al-qāʿidah, "the base"), alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida, is an Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless arm and a fundamentalist Sunni movement calling for global jihad.

Al-Qaeda has attacked civilian and military targets in various countries, most notably, the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001. The US government responded by launching the War on Terror.

Characteristic techniques include suicide attacks and simultaneous bombings of different targets. Activities ascribed to it may involve members of the movement, who have taken a pledge of loyalty to Osama bin Laden, or the much more numerous "al-Qaeda-linked" individuals who have undergone training in one of its camps in Afghanistan or Sudan, but not taken any pledge.

Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from the foreign influences in Muslim countries, and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate. Reported beliefs include that a Christian-Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam, which is largely embodied in the U.S.-Israel alliance, and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is religiously justified in jihad.