[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Data from one of the black boxes of a crashed EgyptAir plane showed smoke alarms had sounded on board, while soot was found on the wreckage, an Egyptian-led investigative committee said Wednesday.
The black box had been retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean after the Airbus A320 with 66 people on board plunged into the sea on May 19 while heading to Cairo from Paris.
It had recorded the flight’s data from its departure until it “stopped at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,250 meters),” the committee said in a statement.
“Recorded data is showing a consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory smoke and avionics smoke,” it said, two days after the damaged recorder was repaired in France.
Investigators had previously announced that the plane’s automated Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) sent signals indicating smoke alarms on board the plane before it went down.
“Parts of the front section of the aircraft showed signs of high temperature damage and soot,” the committee statement added.
The repair work of the cockpit voice recorder, the second black box, had also begun.
The plane was carrying 40 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one passenger each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 02:43 ||
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[DailyBeast] Three months after attacking Brussels airport, Death Eaters have shown in the attack on Istanbul’s international airport an alarming ability to stay one move ahead of the defenses put in place to stop them--an agility in planning that could present a new and serious threat to airports in the U.S.
Most experts agree that the Istanbul atrocity has the hallmarks of ISIS. Even then, the sophistication of how the attack was carried out has surprised them.
It was carried out in a way that suggests the kind of advance intelligence, careful study of a target, and cool execution that would normally be practised by Western special forces.
There were three phases. It began with an attack in a car park adjacent to the international arrivals terminal. The purpose was to draw security staff away from the terminal.
The attackers obviously knew that security at the terminal itself had recently been hardened, as a response to the Brussels attack, where the bombers had exploited the fact that, as in many airports, there was no security threshold before the check-in desks.
In Istanbul anyone entering the arrivals terminal faced screening and checks at the doors. The car park diversion achieved its aim of drawing police and security staff from the building’s first line of defense--and left vulnerable scores of people at the taxi and drop-off area waiting to go through security.
This was where the second attack was carried out, causing most of the casualties: 41 dead, more than 200 injured. The blast effect of this attack breached the doors and security cordon, allowing a third attacker to get inside the building. As seen in a chilling video from a security camera this attacker, wearing a suicide belt, was tackled by a guard who forced him to the floor. From the video it seems that the guard died while trying to prevent the attacker from detonating the suicide belt--an act of supreme bravery.
Even though the Turks moved the security perimeter outward to reinforce what is called landside defenses (as opposed to airside, where the gates and airplanes are), the body advising European airports, Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, was amazingly complacent after the Brussels attack.
They said, "The possible adoption of additional security measures such as checks on persons and goods entering airport landside spaces could be disruptive and actually create new security vulnerabilities." They added that it would amount to "moving the target" rather than securing it. They also said--revealing their deepest concern--that such changes would cost money.
In Europe (excepting Germany) the airport authorities have to fund their own security. In the U.S., of course, the Transport Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for all airport security as part of Homeland Security.
And it is here, in the U.S., where there must be renewed concerns about the vulnerability of the arrivals and departure areas of airports. Although there are invisible protections like closely monitored surveillance cameras and some random visible protections like armed security guards and sniffer dogs, the first line of defense remains beyond the check-in counters, not ahead of them.
Airside security at U.S. airports has also been found wanting. For years there have been worrying breaches including a notorious case where guns were smuggled from Atlanta to New York by a criminal ring and where the screening of personnel with access to baggage and airplanes has been found to be lax.
And hardening the perimeter on the landside raises the question of how far outward it can go. If attackers are to be intercepted successfully before reaching the terminal buildings that means new checkpoints and screening on access roads that would, in turn, create the kind of bottlenecks that make tempting targets.
It may always be true that once Death Eaters get to an airport it is already too late to stop an attack, even if it can be disrupted. The most effective last line of defense is intelligence that identifies and thwarts an attack before it can be executed.
Commercial aviation remains the most effective target for ISIS. This year it seems that their attention has turned more and more to attacking airports as an easier option than airplanes. This produces huge short-term results in publicity and terror and serious long-term economic damage to tourism and to freedom of movement. Istanbul shows that whatever the defeats of ISIS on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria it remains devoted to finding soft targets in the West wherever they are detected.
#2
The most effective targets for terrorists are basically any large assembly of individuals. Airports are only one of many such possible targets. As airports get more difficult to attack, terrorists can simply shift to easier targets.
#4
In China the gangs have on more than one occasion killed dozens of people in subway cars or trains using knives. Couple of attackers using knives create lots of panic and confusion without gunfire. In a subway or train car there is nowhere to go and a knife is easy to hide (and may not even be metal). I suspect that sort of thing is in our future.
That and attacking the grouping of folks trying to get through security at airports, sporting events or concerts. Playing defense is stupid, but so is our Administration.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... on Saturday retracted his allegation that Israeli rabbis had called for the poisoning of Paleostinian water, a remark that had drawn strong condemnation from Israel’s prime minister.
"After it became evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on poisoning Paleostinian wells, reported by various media outlets, are baseless, President Abbas has affirmed that he didn’t intend to harm Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world," part of a statement by Abbas’s office said.
The Western-backed Paleostinian leader made the remarks in a speech to the European parliament in Brussels on Thursday, as he condemned Israeli actions against Paleostinians amid stalled peace talks, which collapsed in 2014.
Abbas’s speech received a standing ovation from European politicians, but his allegation about the water poisoning drew strong condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who termed it a "blood libel."
For Jews, allegations of water poisoning strike a bitter chord. In the 14th century, as plague swept across Europe, false accusations that Jews were responsible for the disease by deliberately poisoning wells, led to massacres of Jewish communities.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 02:27 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In the heart of Solo city, not far from the Islamic boarding school founded by the radical holy man who inspired the 2002 Bali bombings, the staff of an unremarkable-looking restaurant prepare for another day serving the humble staples of the Indonesian diet to hungry locals.
The manager, a slightly built man with quick lively gestures, darts about the narrow kitchen, dropping ingredients into sizzling hot pans to make the bistik and other fare that customers including the local police crave. With a wife and two children to support, he also runs a car hire business and a laundry service on the side.
One of the millions of small-time business owners that keep the world’s most populous Moslem nation ticking, 40-year-old Mahmudi Haryono is also a poster boy for the transformation of a bomb maker and Death Eater into a productive member of society.
To be sure, his extensive Death Eater history doesn’t inspire easy trust. It includes being a combatant with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines for three years, where he honed bomb making skills, and fighting in sectarian conflicts between Moslems and Christians in Indonesia. He was nabbed Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! less than a year after the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people and convicted of hiding materials used to make the bombs.
"The fact is that I trained in the Philippines as a Jihadi fighter to defend Moslems and I did jihad only when Moslems were oppressed in conflict regions. It was part of my past," Haryono said in an interview. "Today, my priority in life is taking care of my family and business and preaching a path to help reform radical inmates."
A private foundation has worked intensively with Haryono since his release from prison in 2009, and holds him up as an example of how hardened holy warriors can be reformed. The need for such success stories is great in Indonesia, where several hundred men imprisoned for terrorism offenses have been paroled in the past several years, including 97 last years alone.
Since 2002, Indonesian authorities, with US and Australian help, have vastly improved their intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations. The imprisonment of nearly 800 holy warriors and the killing of more than 100 in raids have weakened the groups under the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network responsible for the Bali tragedy and dozens of other plots and attacks.
But efforts to de-radicalize holy warriors in prison have been less successful, partly because ISIS inspires them to hold to extremism. Two perpetrators of the ISIS-inspired Jan. 14 suicide kaboom in the Indonesian capital had been released from prison shortly before the attack.
"We have to admit the de-radicalization programs by the non-state groups, and the government, are not enough," said Taufik Andrie, executive director of Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian, an institute that helps paroled holy warriors and established the restaurant where Haryono works and now owns a stake in.
Andrie estimates that 40 percent of the more than 400 holy warriors released as of December last year returned to their radical networks.
He said some of those people may want a normal life, but few Indonesians want to employ them, or even have them living in their neighborhoods. Back in their radical circles, they would be welcomed as heroes.
"When they are released, they are on their own. For them, society is a second prison because of the stigmatization," Andrie said.
In the Solo neighborhood of Ngruki, former Death Eater Joko Purwanto, who uses the alias Handzollah, said he has slowly gained acceptance from the devout Moslem community that shunned him when he was released from prison two years ago.
The village of narrow lanes and tightly packed houses is dotted with shops selling hijabs and famously is home to the fundamentalist Al Mukmin Islamic boarding school founded by Abu Bakar Bashir ... Leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council and proprietor of the al-Mukmin madrassah in Ngruki. The spriritual head of Jemaah Islamiya, which he denies exists. Bashir was jugged and then released in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, which he blamed on a conspiracy among the U.S., Israel, and Australia ... , the aging spiritual leader of the Bali bombers, who is now languishing in prison for his role in funding a Death Eater training camp in Aceh.
Handzollah, a former student at Al Mukmin, fought alongside Haryono and was arrested in a 2010 raid on Bashir’s training camp. After his release, he said, neighbors ignored his greetings, and at the mosque a worshipper called him a terrorist who should be ostracized.
"I responded by doing good," the 41-year-old said. "I didn’t avoid them. Instead I tried to approach mainstream society.
"Gradually, they realized that I’ve changed."
Nowadays, Handzollah is popular as a preacher and often travels. Numerous children from two wives are supported by one wife’s business making snack foods for restaurants and shops.
He now says violent holy warriors is not justifiable within Indonesia because Moslems aren’t under attack. In common with other parolees, he denounces ISIS for killing Moslems who reject its extreme interpretation of Islam.
"What I did in the past was a mistake. Many tenets of Islam were violated to do jihad, by doing bombing attacks in peaceful places like hotels, markets or other public areas that killed innocent people," he said.
Prized for his skill in repairing weapons, Handzollah said ISIS supporters have attempted to recruit him since he left prison. He said he has persuaded at least 10 young men not to travel to Syria to join the ISIS group.
Like Haryono and other former Jemaah Islamiyah holy warriors interviewed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, he still believes Indonesia should be governed by Islamic Shariah law, not a secular government, but says that goal should be achieved through peaceful methods.
Yet Handzollah does not unequivocally rule out a return to militancy.
"Of course the ideology of jihad remains inside me, because it’s part of Islam," he said. "I believe in Shariah law and an Islamic state, so, if someone is able to convince me with certain arguments - but this is very unlikely to me now - it may make me go back" to violence.
For those who support de-radicalization efforts, Handzollah represents a form of success but also underlines a dilemma for the government: Will doing more to support released holy warriors join mainstream society help prevent future attacks, or provide the cover for holy warriors to rebuild and plot?
Brig. Gen. Hamidin, director of prevention at Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency, said there are limits to what the government can do. It can’t provide former bully boyz small-business loans, for example, since that could create a perception there’s a financial incentive for terrorism, he said. Instead, it plans to mentor released holy warriors and help them get national ID cards, which are needed to apply for jobs, opening bank accounts and conducting other essential tasks.
Hamidin, who uses one name, says the government already has had some success. Government figures show that less than 10 percent of released holy warriors have been re-arrested or killed in anti-terrorism operations. He concedes, however, that the number who returned to radicalism is much higher.
The recidivism figure doesn’t include those who joined ISIS in Syria, for instance. It’s not illegal for Indonesians to join conflicts abroad, though Parliament is considering a revamped law.
Andrie, from the institute, said it has been successful with most of the 30 men it has been involved with in the past five years. It finds ways to draw individuals into their communities and focuses on persuading them to repudiate violence, rather than trying to try change core beliefs such as support for a caliphate.
The group has learned on the job, including from its mistakes.
In one case, a paroled Death Eater was provided with $500 to start a T-shirt business. Soon the group discovered the venture had failed, partly because the business didn’t engage the man with regular people.
As for the T-shirts? They were emblazoned with either the face of the late Osama bin Laden ... who used to be alive but now he's not... or an AK-47 and given away within the man’s radical circle.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 02:16 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In a speech broadcast on Friday, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese Lion of Islam group Hezbollah scoffed at the recent US sanctions stating that these sanctions will not impact his group whatsoever due to the fact that Hezbollah receives full financial and arms support from the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran.
He pointed out that "We do not have any business projects or investments via banks..." Nasrallah added that "We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran," and he emphasized that his group "will not be affected" by any fresh sanctions.
Speaking in a speech to mark 40 days after the death of a high level Hezbollah commander Mustafah Bedreddine in the Syrian capital Damascus, Nasrallah stated that: "As long as Iran has money, we have money... Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it..."
First public confirmation
It has been long known to political observers that the Islamic Theocratic Republic played a key role in giving birth to the Lebanese Shiite Lion of Islam group in 1982. For over three decades, Iran’s financial, military, intelligence, logistical, and advisory assistances to Hezbollah have been well known. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite force, the Quds force, transformed Hezbollah to be one of Iran’s most important and powerful regional and international proxies.
Nevertheless, what highlights the significance of Nasrallah’s speech is the fact that this is the first time in which he is announcing and publicly confirming that his group is receiving full monetary and arms support from the Iranian government.
The United States has long listed Hezbollah as a global terrorist group (since 1995) and accused it in several attacks such as the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, that killed 241 US marines, the April 1983 US embassy bombing, and the 1984 US embassy annex bombing.
On Dec. 18, 2015, the US president signed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act. The US Congress voted to impose fresh sanctions on Hezbollah by targeting those banks that are "knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or transactions for" Hezbollah and those financial institutions that "knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or transactions of a person identified on the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked persons."
Nasrallah pointed out in his recent speech: "We totally reject this [United States] law until the Day of Judgment ... Even if the law is applied, we as a party and an organizational and jihadist movement, will not be hurt or affected," He added: "We have no money in Lebanese banks, neither in the past nor now ... We don't transfer our money through the Lebanese banking system."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 02:14 ||
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#1
Even the muzzies have turned on Obama. They are crossing his narative at every step. He must feel betrayed, like a rube, and a useful idiot. If it was not so tragic it could be comical.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
06/30/2016 14:55 Comments ||
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#2
"Look up, America. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow — into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us."
#3
Hezbollah actually does have internal fundraising - they extort money from businesses, they sell drugs, they sell used firearms and so on.
this speech was, no doubt, required by the mullahs and must have been a bit humiliating for Nasrallah
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/30/2016 16:06 Comments ||
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#4
He must feel betrayed, like a rube, and a useful idiot.
Sorry 49Pan, in order for him to feel that he would have to have self awareness, humility and see his errors; since he is incapable of any of that he will only feel anger that he has to share the planet with his inferiors.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Abu Bakar Bashir
