Haqqani network

The Haqqani Network is an independent insurgent group originating in Afghanistan that is closely allied with the Taliban.[2] Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani along with his son Sirajuddin Haqqani lead the Haqqani network, which is based in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border areas. According to US military commanders it is "the most resilient enemy network"[3] and one of the biggest threats to NATO and United States forces in Afghanistan.[4] Some notable US officials have alleged that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) service has been enabling the network.[5] Rehman Malik, Pakistan's Interior Minister, refuted the allegations and said that Pakistan had no relations with the network and that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had "trained and produced" the Haqqani network and other mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.[6][7][8][9] Malik's statements were contradicted by the network's warnings against any US military incursions into North Waziristan and by the Pakistan Army's public acknowledgement of contacts with the Haqqanis.Maulvi Haqqani rose to prominence and was recognized as a senior military leader during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It has been alleged[by whom?] that he visited the White House during the presidency of Ronald Reagan[10]; however, recent development shows that the picture used as evidence is not of Haqqani and that he never even visited the US.[11] Like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Haqqani was more successful than other resistance leaders at forging relationships with outsiders prepared to sponsor resistance to the Soviets, including the CIA, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and wealthy Arab private donors from the Persian Gulf. In the late 1980's, Haqqani had the CIA's full support.[12] Foreign jihadists recognized the network as a distinct entity as early as 1994, but Haqqani was not affiliated with the Taliban until they captured Kabul and assumed de facto control of Afghanistan in 1996.[13][14] After the Taliban came to power, Haqqani accepted a cabinet level appointment as Minister of Tribal Affairs.[15] As Jalaluddin has grown older his son Sirajuddin has taken over the responsibility of military operations.[4] Journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad reported that President Hamid Karzai had invited the younger Haqqani to serve as Prime Minister in an attempt to bring "moderate" Taliban into the government. The militant refused.[15]
[edit] Leadership

    Jalaluddin Haqqani
    Sirajuddin Haqqani
    Badaruddin Haqqani - younger brother of Sirajuddin[16]
    Sangeen Zadran - According the US State Department, he is a senior lieutenant to Sirajuddin and the shadow governor for Paktika province in Afghanistan.[16][17][18]
    Nasiruddin Haqqani[16]
    Abdul Aziz Abbasin - According to the U.S. Treasury, he is "a key commander in the Haqqani Network" and serves as the "Taliban shadow governor of Orgun District, Paktika Province, Afghanistan.The Christian Science Monitor, citing unnamed US and Afghan sources, reported in June 2009 that the leadership is based in Miranshah, North Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border[2] The network is active in Afghanistan's southeastern areas of Paktia Province, Paktika Province, Khost Province, Wardak Province, Logar Province, and Ghazni Province.[2] In September 2011, Sirajuddin Haqqani told Reuters that the group feels "more secure in Afghanistan besides the Afghan people."[22]

Haqqani is reported to run his own training camps, to recruit his own foreign fighters, and to seek out financial and logistic support on his own, from his old contacts.[4] The New York Times reported in September 2011 that the Haqqanis have set up a "ministate" in Miranshah with courts, tax offices and madrassas, and that the network runs a series of front companies selling automobiles and real estate. They also receive funds from extortion and smuggling operations throughout eastern Afghanistan. In an interview a former Haqqani commander called the extortion "the most important source of funding for the Haqqanis."[23]

Estimates of the Haqqanis's numbers vary. A 2009 New York Times article indicates that they are thought to have about 4,000 to 12,000 Taliban under their command while a 2011 report from the Combating Terrorism Center places its strength roughly at 10,000-15,000.[24][14] During a September 2011 interview, Sirajuddin Haqqani said the figure of 10,000 fighters, as quoted in some media reports, "is actually less than the actual number."[22] Throughout its history the network's operations have been conducted by small, semi-autonomous units organized according to tribal and sub-tribal affiliations often at the direction of and with the logistical support of Haqqani commanders.[14]

The Haqqani network pioneered the use of suicide attacks in Afghanistan and tend to use mostly foreign bombers whereas the Taliban tend to rely on locals in attacks.[2] It makes money by extortion, kidnappings and other crime in eastern provinces of Afghanistan.[citation needed] According to a tribal elder in Paktia "Haqqani's people ask for money from contractors working on road construction. They are asking money or goods from shopkeepers, District elders and contractors are paying money to Afghan workers, but sometimes half of the money will go to Haqqani's people."[10] The network, according to the National Journal, supplies much of the potassium chlorate used in bombs employed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Also, the network's bombs use more sophisticated remote triggering devices than the pressure-plated activators used elsewhere in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani told MSNBC in April 2009 that his fighters had, "acquired the modern technology that we were lacking, and we have mastered new and innovative methods of making bombs and explosives."[25]
[edit] Attacks and alleged attacks

    January 14, 2008: 2008 Kabul Serena Hotel attack is thought[by whom?] to have been carried out by the network.[4]
    March, 2008: Kidnapping of British journalist Sean Langan was blamed on the network.[26]
    April 27, 2008: Assassination attempts on Hamid Karzai.[2][not in citation given]
    July 7, 2008: US intelligence blamed the network for 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul.[27]
    November 10, 2008: The Kidnapping of David Rohde was blamed on Sirajuddin Haqqani.[28]
    December 30, 2009: Camp Chapman attack is thought[by whom?] to have been carried out by the network.[29]
    May 18, 2010: May 2010 Kabul bombing was allegedly[by whom?] carried out by the network.[30]
    February 19, 2011: Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.[31][not in citation given]
    June 28, 2011: According to ISAF, elements of the Haqqani network provided "material support" in the 2011 attack on the Hotel Inter-Continental in Kabul.[32] The Taliban claimed responsibility.[33]
    The Pentagon blamed the network for the September 10, 2011 attack: A massive truck bomb explodes outside Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in Wardak province, Afghanistan, killing five Afghans, including four civilians, and wounding 77 U.S. soldiers, 14 Afghan civilians, and three policemen.[34]
    US Ambassador Ryan Crocker blamed the Haqqani network for a September 12, 2011 attack on the US Embassy and nearby NATO bases in Kabul. The attack lasted 19 hours and resulted in the deaths of four police officers and four civilians. 17 civilians and six NATO soldiers were injured. Three coalition soldiers were killed. Eleven insurgent attackers were killed.

Steve Jobs

Jobs was born in San Francisco[1] and was adopted by the family of Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) of Mountain View, California.[31] Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Jobs' biological parents—Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim immigrant to the U.S.,[32][33] who later became a political science professor at the University of Nevada and is presently a vice president of Boomtown Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada,[34] and Joanne Schieble (later Simpson), an American graduate student[35] of Swiss and German ancestry[36] who went on to become a speech language pathologist[37]—eventually married. The marriage produced Jobs' biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson; the two of them first met in 1986 as adults and enjoyed a close relationship since, with Jobs regularly visiting Simpson in Manhattan. From Simpson, Jobs learned more about their birth parents and he invited his biological mother Joanne to some events.[38][39] Jandali claims that he didn't want to put Jobs up for adoption but that Simpson's parents did not approve of her marrying a Syrian. Jandali's few attempts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful;[40] Jobs did not contact his biological father either.[41] Jandali gave an interview to The Sun in August 2011 when Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple; Jandali also mailed in his medical history after Jobs' pancreatic disorder was made public that year.[42][43]
Waist-high portrait of man in his fifties wearing a black turtle-neck shirt and blue jeans, gesturing in front of a blue curtain
Steve Jobs at the WWDC 07

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.[44] Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[45] he continued auditing classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.[46] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."[46]

In the fall of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.

Jobs then traveled to India to visit the Neem Karoli Baba[47] at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.[48][49] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".[50] He later said that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.[50]

Jobs returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest in or knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. According to Wozniak, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had given them only $700 (instead of the actual $5,000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.

Google 13's Birthday

History Of Pentagon

The United States Department of War was headquartered in the Munitions Building, a temporary structure erected during World War I along Constitution Avenue on the National Mall. The War Department, which was a civilian agency created to administer the U.S. Army, was spread out in additional temporary buildings on National Mall, as well as dozens of other buildings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In the late 1930s a new War Department Building was constructed at 21st and C Streets in Foggy Bottom but, upon completion, the new building did not solve the department's space problem and ended up being used by the Department of State.[6] When World War II broke out in Europe, the War Department rapidly expanded with anticipation of being drawn into the conflict. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson found the situation unacceptable, with the Munitions Building overcrowded and the department spread out.[7][8]

Stimson told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1941 that the War Department needed additional space. On July 17, 1941, a congressional hearing took place, organized by Virginia congressman Clifton Woodrum, regarding proposals for new War Department buildings. Woodrum pressed Brigadier General Eugene Reybold, who was representing the War Department at the hearing, for an "overall solution" to the department's "space problem" rather than building yet more temporary buildings. Reybold agreed to report back to the congressman within five days. The War Department called upon its construction chief, General Brehon Somervell, to come up with a plan.[9]
Main Navy Building (foreground) and the Munitions Building were temporary structures built during World War I on the National Mall. The Munitions Building served as the Department of War headquarters for several years before moving into the Pentagon.

Government officials agreed that the War Department building should be constructed across the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia. Requirements for the new building were that it be no more than four stories tall, and that it use a minimal amount of steel. The requirements meant that, instead of rising vertically, the building would be sprawling over a large area. Possible sites for the building included Arlington Farm, adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, and the obsolete Washington Hoover Airport site.[10]

The site originally chosen was Arlington Farms which had a roughly pentagonal shape, so the building was planned accordingly as an irregular pentagon.[11] Concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ended up selecting the Hoover Airport site instead.[12] The building retained its pentagonal layout because a major redesign at that stage would have been costly, and Roosevelt liked the design. Freed of the constraints of the asymmetric Arlington Farms site, it was modified into a regular pentagon.[13][14]
Southwest view of the Pentagon with the Potomac River and Washington Monument in background (1998).

On July 28 Congress authorized funding for a new Department of War building in Arlington, which would house the entire department under one roof,[15] and President Roosevelt officially approved of the Hoover Airport site on September 2.[16] While the project went through the approval process in late July 1941, Somervell selected the contractors, including John McShain, Inc. of Philadelphia, which had built Washington National Airport in Arlington, the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, along with Wise Contracting Company, Inc. and Doyle and Russell, both from Virginia.[17] In addition to the Hoover Airport site and other government-owned land, construction of the Pentagon required an additional 287 acres (1.16 km2), which were acquired at a cost of $2.2 million.[18] The Hell's Bottom neighborhood, a slum with numerous pawnshops, factories, approximately 150 homes, and other buildings around Columbia Pike, was also cleared to make way for the Pentagon.[19] Later 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land were transferred to Arlington National Cemetery and to Fort Myer, leaving 280 acres (1.1 km2) for the Pentagon.[18]
Northwest exposure of the Pentagon's construction underway, July 1, 1942

Contracts totaling $31,100,000 were finalized with McShain and the other contractors on September 11, and ground was broken for the Pentagon the same day.[20] Among the design requirements, Somervell required the structural design to accommodate floor loads of up to 150 pounds per square inch, which was done in case the building became a records storage facility at some time after the end of the current war.[16] A minimal amount of steel was used as it was in short supply during World War II. Instead, the Pentagon was built as a reinforced concrete structure, using 680,000 tons of sand dredged from the Potomac River, and a lagoon was created beneath the Pentagon's river entrance.[21] To minimize steel, concrete ramps were built rather than installing elevators.[22][23] Indiana limestone was used for the building's facade.[24]

Architectural and structural design work for the Pentagon proceeded simultaneously with construction, with initial drawings provided in early October 1941, and most of the design work completed by June 1, 1942. At times the construction work got ahead of the design, with different materials used than specified in the plans. Pressure to speed up design and construction intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, with Somervell demanding that 1,000,000 sq ft (9.3 ha) of space at the Pentagon be available for occupation by April 1, 1942.[25] David J. Witmer replaced Bergstrom as chief architect on April 11 after Bergstorm resigned due to charges, unrelated to the Pentagon project, of improper conduct while he was president of the American Institute of Architects.[26]

Construction of the Pentagon was done during segregation in the United States. This had structural consequences to the design of the building. Under the supervision of colonel Leslie R. Groves, the decision to have separate eating and lavatory accommodations for whites and blacks was made and carried out. The dining areas for blacks were put in the basement and on each floor there were double toilet facilities separated by gender and race. These measures of segregation were said to have been done in compliance with the state of Virginia’s racial laws. The Pentagon as a result has double the standard amount of toilet facilities that would be needed for a building of its size.[27][28]

President Roosevelt had made an order ending such racial discrimination in the U.S. military in June 1941. When the President visited the Pentagon before its dedication he questioned Groves regarding the number of washrooms and ordered him to remove the “Whites Only” signs. The Pentagon for a long time was the only building in Virginia where segregation was not allowed.[28]

The soil conditions of the Pentagon site, located on the Potomac River floodplain, presented challenges to engineers, as did the varying elevations across the site, which ranged from 10–40 ft (3.0–12 m) above sea level. Two retaining walls were built to compensate for the elevation variations, and cast-in-place (Franki) piles were used to deal with the soil conditions.[29] Construction of the Pentagon was completed in approximately 16 months at a total cost of $83 million. The building is 77 feet (23 m) tall, and each of the five sides of the building is 921 feet (281 m) long.[30]
[edit] Protests
Military police keep back Vietnam War protesters during their sit-in on October 21, 1969, at the mall entrance to the Pentagon

The Pentagon became a spot for protests against the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. A group of 2,500 women, organized by Women Strike for Peace, demonstrated outside of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's office at the Pentagon on February 15, 1967.[31] In May 1967, a group of 20 demonstrators held a sit-in outside the Joint Chiefs of Staff's office, which lasted four days before they were arrested.[32] In one of the better known incidents, on October 21, 1967, some 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department (the "March on the Pentagon"), where they were confronted by some 2,500 armed soldiers. During the protest, a famous picture was taken, where George Harris placed carnations into the soldiers' gun barrels.[33] On May 19, 1972, the American radicals known as the Weather Underground Organization successfully planted and detonated a bomb in a fourth-floor women's restroom in the Pentagon. They announced it was in retaliation for the Nixon administration's bombing attacks on Hanoi during the final stages of the Vietnam War.[34]

On March 17, 2007, 4,000 to 15,000 people (estimates vary significantly) protested against the Iraq War.[35] The protesters marched from the Lincoln Memorial, down Washington Boulevard to the Pentagon’s north parking lot.
[edit] Renovation
Main article: Pentagon Renovation Program

From 1998 to 2011, the Pentagon underwent a major renovation, known as the Pentagon Renovation Program. This program, completed in June, 2011, involved the complete gutting and reconstruction of the entire building in phases to bring the building up to modern standards, removing asbestos, improving security, providing greater efficiency for Pentagon tenants, and sealing of all office windows.[36]

As originally built, most Pentagon office space consisted of open bays which spanned an entire ring. These offices used cross-ventilation from operable windows instead of air conditioning for cooling. Gradually, bays were subdivided into private offices with many using window air conditioning units. With renovations now complete, the new space includes a return to open office bays, a new Universal Space Plan of standardized office furniture and partitions developed by Studios Architecture.[37]
[edit] September 11 attacks
Main articles: American Airlines Flight 77 and Pentagon Memorial
Pentagon Security Camera 1.ogv
Security camera footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon.[38]
9/11 anniversary illumination

On September 11, 2001, The Pentagon's 60th birthday, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed into the Western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 64 people on the airliner were killed as were 125 people who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse.[39] At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and several offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore the area hit, on the side of the Heliport Entrance facade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed.[40][41][42]

    It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches thick and 2,500 pounds each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out.[40]

Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project", and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by September 11, 2002.[43][44][45]

When the damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt, a small indoor memorial and chapel were included, located at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a memorial of 184 beams of light shone up from the center courtyard of the Pentagon, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, an American flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and the side of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After the attacks, plans were developed for an outdoor memorial, with construction underway in 2006. The Pentagon Memorial, which consists of a 2 acres (8,100 m2) park with 184 benches, according to the victims' ages, from 3 to 71, was opened to the public on September 11, 2008