Afghan forces reportedly captured two key Taliban leaders as they were driving in Farah province June 4. The two, Mullah Abdul Rahim - a deputy for a key Taliban commander said to be close to the militia’s fugitive leader, Mullah Omar - and regional Taliban commander Haji Sultan, were immediately handed over to US authorities. Other Taliban fighters were reported killed or captured in fighting in Zabul province that day. (Pakistan Daily Times, June 6) But violence appears undiminished.

Ana Uzelac of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting's Tribunal Update, which monitors the war crimes trials at The Hague, offers this account (reprinted by the Bosnian Institute News) of the implications of the Srebrenica massacre video which has emerged. If these odious "Scorpions" were really under the control of the Serbian Interior Ministry, defenses of Milosevic as out of the Bosnian loop start to look pretty specious. Writes Uzelac:

Our comrade Ivo Skoric of BalkansNet.org sends in the following disturbing missive on a growing Serbian neo-Nazi element, at least in cyber-space. This seems historically incongruous, given the usual pro-Russia posture of Serb nationalists (juxtaposed to the pro-German posture of their Croatian nationalist enemies), and the experience of WWII, in which Serbia was occupied (while Croatia was granted "independence" under a Nazi satellite regime). The Chetniks, who contemporary Serb extremists take their tip from, were nationalist guerillas who took up arms to fight the German occupation in 1941 (although there would be instances of Chetnik-Nazi collaboration against the mutual enemy of the communist Partisans). But the Russian neo-fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who avidly rooted for the neo-Chetniks in the new Balkan wars of the 1990's, has apparently forgiven Operation Barbarossa sufficiently to be willing to make common cause with German neo-Nazis, and even the vulgar American Nazi-nostalgist David Duke (as the Southern Poverty Law Center reports).

The B-92 referred to in the second paragraph is Serbia's opposition radio station, which was repeatedly ordered closed by the Milosevic regime.

Writes Ivo:

The following item ran in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on June 6:

Participants at an anti-Zionist conference in Kiev called for the deportation of Jews from Ukraine.
The call came from one of the participants in the June 3 meeting in the Ukrainian capital. David Duke, a U.S. white supremacist, presided over the one-day conference, titled "Zionism as the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization." A number of Ukrainian politicians and public figures took part in the conference, including Levko Lukyanenko, a member of Parliament from the bloc headed by Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.

A new outbreak of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka's restive east is hindering tsunami relief efforts, a group of nearly 100 aid agencies said June 3. Shootings and grenade attacks have become commonplace in the east in recent months, blamed largely on feuding between the Tamil Tiger guerillas and a breakaway faction which refuses to accept a 2002 ceasefire. "We, the humanitarian community of Sri Lanka, have noted...the steady escalation of violence in the east," the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies said in a statement, backed by 98 agencies including Save the Children, Caritas and CARE. "It is detrimental to the speed and effectiveness of the relief operation, hinders access to affected communities and hampers reconstruction efforts."

The June 2 car bomb explosion in the Christian Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafieh that killed prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir comes as an international team is investigating the February assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. Anti-Syrian leaders were quick to make a link between the two killings. Syria denied involvement, but Hariri's son and political heir, Saad Hariri, said the same people were behind both assassinations. "And God knows what's coming," he added. (AP, June 4)

The explosion also comes amid Lebanese parliamentary elections that the opposition hopes to win, ending control of the legislature by pro-Syrian politicians. Saad Hariri has won the first round, but numerous obstacles remain before Bush can chalk Lebanon up as another victory for "freedom on the march"--most notably, what to do about the Syria-backed Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, which doubles as a political party and a powerful armed militia (and is on the State Department's list of "terrorist organizations"). Our correspondent in Beirut, Bilal El-Amine, sends these observations on the current juncture:

Turf wars among imprisoned drug gang leaders are responsible for a wave of violence in northern Mexico, the country's new attorney general Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said May 27. Ironically, Mexico's success in putting drug lords behind bars has prompted a bloody scramble for control of the international trade, with some leaders issuing commands from their prison cells. "Some of the leaders of the big, known cartels are operating behind bars, and that in large part creates the climate of conflict," he said.

The latest wave of killings has rocked Sinaloa state on Mexico's north Pacific coast, home to the cartel of drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from prison in 2001. "They are struggling to control cities like Culiacan using executions," Cabeza told reporters, referring to Sinaloa's capital. "We have the cartels that we all know. But these are breaking apart, forming subgroups."

As we have noted, all US soldiers accused of killings in Iraq have thus far been acquitted. This particularly grisly case will really put Pentagon justice to the test. But we again note that, in any case, higher-ranking officers--who the accused GIs say "had sanctioned their actions"--are getting off the hook...