[Stars and Stripes] CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - When Capt. Derek Herrera was called to stand in the place of honor Friday at his retirement ceremony, he pressed buttons on what appeared to be a wristwatch as a fellow Marine came to his aid.
After another push of a button and three short beeps, Herrera rose, legs shaking, and walked deliberately toward his commander. With each step, the exoskeleton he wore emitted a robotic whirring noise, as though it were Iron Man striding through the cordoned off parking lot in digital camouflage.
Herrera was paralyzed from the chest down in June 2012, when he was shot in the spine while leading a team of special operations Marines on a patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan. But Herrera, a 2006 graduate of the Naval Academy and the type of Marine who always ran to the sound of the gun, did not let the devastating injury end his career, said Lt. Col. John Lynch, commander of 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion.
"I’m not one that normally gets emotional, but I’ve got to tell you, your drive, determination and dedication ... it’s got me moved today," he said. "If a human being with your injury can walk again without the exoskeleton, it’s going to be you."
Herrera retired from the Marine Corps on Friday afternoon, in a ceremony in which he also received a Bronze Star with V for combat valor and a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.
#4
I'm delighted he got the V device as well as the exoskeleton. The Green Beret Foundation is assisting a couple of wounded warriors whom I am told are having difficulty gaining approval for the exoskeleton. News of Capt. Herrera being issued this equipment may assist those cases.
Members of the public said on Sunday that they are concerned about what they called a surge in insecurity along the highways in the country and that people using them are often affected by insurgent activity.
Many have said that threats increase on a daily basis.
Hekmatullah, a resident of Jalalabad said: "Sometimes the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway is faced with security problems and it is closed."
"We were on the way to Nangarhar [province] when we were attacked and the highway was shut," said Mohammad Noor, a resident of Achin district in Nangarhar.
According to TOLOnews' Tamim Hamid, who visited different pick up points in Kabul for people traveling to provinces, drivers and passengers on route to Logar, Paktia and Khost also spoke of insecurity and harassment of passengers on the highway.
"Sometimes people are stopped by robbers and sometimes by Taliban," said Sediq, a resident of Paktia.
"Security on the highway is not good," said Wase, a resident of Logar.
Insecurity and conflict in northern and north-eastern provinces has also affected the security of highways more than in the past, Hamid reported.
"Kabul-Kunduz Highway is insecure. People are concerned about it," said Malik Mahmoud, a resident of Kunduz.
"We see reports on media about insecurity in northern parts of the country. The situation on the highway is not good," said Shafiq, another resident of Kunduz.
Talking on the issue, the deputy spokesman of Interior Ministry Najib Danish said: "The highway situation is better than last year, but it is not satisfactory. Parts of Number 1 (Afghanistan's ring road) and parts of highways in northern provinces are still faced with some problems."
#2
A lot like driving across south TX and suddenly seeing a poorly-clothed dark-skinned black-haired demographic group trudging across the highway carrying water jugs but no stranded vehicle in sight. You really want to stop and offer aid, but don't dare.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The leader of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... will visit Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... likely in next couple of weeks following the signing of a draft peace agreement with the Afghan government.
According to reports, several Hezb-e-Islami party leaders have started visiting Kabul in a bid to welcome the party’s leader.
"The former prime minister of Afghanistan of seven mujahideen coalition outfits is likely to engage in intensive dialogue with his friends in Taliban ranks and also inviting Pak authorities to join a joint effort to pave the way for foreign troops exit from Afghanistan when complete peace returns to the war-torn country," a source quoted in a report by The News said.
The source further added "A team of journalists who reported the long armed struggle of Afghan nation against Soviet army’s invasion of the country for more than ten years may also visit Kabul as soon Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan chief sets foot in the capital."
According to the paper, diplomatic sources in Islamabad are optimistic about returning of Taliban to negotiation table after Gulbaddin Hekmatyar’s joining mainstream politics by shunning arms struggle.
The draf peace agreement between Hezb-e-Islami and the Afghan government was signed during a ceremony attended by high level government officials on Thursday.
The agreement is expected to be signed by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. and Hekmatyar in the near future.
The signing of the agreement came as Afghanistan High Peace Council and Hezb-e-Islami delegation participated in a series of negotations that lasted almost six months.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Morocco’s governing Islamist party opened its campaign for the kingdom’s parliamentary election on Sunday, playing down tensions with the royal establishment.
The Oct. 7 ballot will be the second since the 2011 Arab Spring-like protests that prompted King Mohammed to introduce a new constitution to diffuse unrest and give the elected cabinet more powers.
While rulers in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt were felled by the 2011 protests, King Mohammed succeeded in stifling the protest movement by devolving some of his absolute power, spending heavily and tightening security, though the palace still holds ultimate authority.
The Islamist Justice and Development party (PJD) is looking to strengthen its position, though it is not openly challenging a royal establishment that is distrustful and ill at ease sharing power with Islamists.
Victory signs
"These are the signs of victory," Prime Minister and PJD leader Abdelilah Benkirane told thousands packed into a sports stadium in Rabat, where party supporters chanted against corruption, one of PJD’s main policies.
"In 2011 the PJD said no, we won’t risk our monarchy ... now all that instability has disappeared thanks to the reforms."
The elections will select politicians for the country’s 395-seat House of Representatives. The prime minister will be selected by the king from the party that wins most seats, with PJD favourite to remain the dominant party.
Whoever wins, however, will then face weeks of wrangling to form a coalition with political partners to comply with election law that does not allow one party to take full control.
Political rival
PJD’s main rival, the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), promises to fight Islamism and cancel what it says are unpopular reforms carried out by the PJD’s coalition, mainly the pension system reform.
In an effort to calm recent tensions between the PJD and some in the royal establishment, Benkirane said that his party’s five-year relationship with the monarchy has been one of cooperation rather than confrontation.
The PJD and its junior ally have accused the establishment of favouring their main rival PAM, the founder of which is now a palace adviser.
The palace says the king maintains the same distance from all political parties.
Rabat’s mayor and PJD member Mohammed Sadiki said: "We have been working wisely and calmly and we will get the job done, without conflicts and without battling."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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h/t Instapundit
Way back in June of 2014, oil was trading above $110 per barrel and producers were sitting pretty. Now, some 27 months later, those same producers have been put through the wringer and been forced to endure prices that dipped as low as $27 per barrel at the start of this year before recently settling in the $40-50 range. A global oversupply precipitated this price collapse, and its persistence has been as much of a boon for buyers as it has been a headache for sellers. Now, as Bloomberg reports, that glut appears to have tripled over the course of the past month:
#3
Something fishy about gas prices in California.
Is it time to switch over to the winter blend, Sock Puppet of Doom? California has persnickety requirements, as I recall, requiring freeing up equipment from making whatever the rest of the country uses.
The Country Caller takes a look at the second quarter of Shell
Published By: Myrna Salomon on July 28, 2016 09:21 am EST
Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (NYSE:RDS.A) released its Q2 financial results for the fiscal year 2016 before the market opened on Thursday. As expected, Shell’s financials became a victim of slide in crude oil prices as the company experienced a plunge in its year-over-year (YoY) earnings.
#7
If oil prices returned to where they were three years ago gasoline prices would be higher, and all other prices as well. There's no slack in the system.
#8
The late great Daniel Drew could dig it. He wants Erie up, Erie goes up, he wants Erie down, down, Erie goes, Erie to be quiet, Erie flutters like a butterfly.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Yemen's president hit out at Iran during his address to the United Nations on Friday, accusing Tehran of blocking peace moves through its support for Houthi rebels who continue to hold the capital.
"We shall extract Yemen from the claws of Iran. We shall raise the Yemeni flag over every foot of our precious soil," President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi told the UN General Assembly.
Hadi also urged foreign governments and financial institutions to back his government's decision to move the central bank from Sanaa to the southern city Aden. After the Houthis began diverting funds from Yemen's foreign reserves, Hadi sacked the central bank governor and announced at the weekend that the bank would relocate to Aden.
The latest round of UN-led talks ended last month between the government and the Houthis without a breakthrough and a ceasefire that had been in place since April was broken.
The president accused Iran of fueling extremism in the region as his country is home to Al-Qaeda's deadliest franchise and to an increasingly active branch of the Islamic State group.
"We tell the whole world in very clear terms that extremism and sectarian terrorism sponsored by Iran in the region has created and will create a terrorism that will be counter to that," Hadi said.
Yemen's prime minister and seven ministers returned to Aden on Thursday, setting up the government which had been in exile since October.
Posted by: Pappy ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraq’s government does not recognize the recently formed political council made up of Houthis and supporters of ousted Yemeni president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , according to Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Al-Jaafari met with his Yemeni counterpart Abdul Malik al-Mekhlafi in New York on Saturday. Al Mekhlafi confirmed that al-Jaafari has denied Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... claims that Baghdad backed the controversial council.
Al Jaafari also affirmed his country’s stance refusing to "meddle in other states’ internal affairs."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... has acknowledged the state's culpability in abandoning Algerians who fought alongside French colonial forces in Algeria's war for independence - and were then massacred as traitors after the French retreat in 1962.
Tens of thousands of the fighters, known as harkis, were killed after the French withdrawal, and those made it to La Belle France were placed in camps. Their descendants have long sought official recognition that the harkis were unjustly treated.
Speaking Sunday in the Invalides monument that houses Napoleon's tomb, Hollande said, "I recognize the responsibility of French governments in abandoning the harkis, the massacres of those remaining in Algeria and the inhuman conditions for those transferred to La Belle France."
"La Belle France betrayed its promise, turned its back on families," he said, making the first official recognition of the state's role in abandoning the harkis.
The harki contingent included some 200,000 forces who had fought against fellow Algerians in a war seen as one of the darkest chapters in La Belle France's modern history.
Only in 1999, under then-President Jacques Chirac, did La Belle France officially admit that the eight-year combat that ended 132 years of French rule in Algeria was a war. The true number of Algerians who died in the war and its aftermath is unknown, as many were never identified. The wounds of the country's colonial past remain deep on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea.
In 2002, Chirac inaugurated a memorial near the Eiffel Tower to those who died fighting on the side of La Belle France, including harkis. Chirac also began what is now an annual ceremony for the harkis every September.
Other prominent politicians at Sunday's ceremony included Hollande's potential rivals for next year's election, conservative former President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd President of the French Republic. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... and far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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[EXPRESS.CO.UK] ANTI-MIGRANT anger continues to boil over as the French Government pushes ahead with plans to force thousands of migrants colonists onto cities all across the country without consulting them at all
More than 1,000 protesters marched through the city close to Gay Paree to protest the decision to build migrant camps in three neighbouring towns.
The new centre means hundreds of migrants colonists will be housed just minutes from the luxurious Palace of Versailles, the former home of French royalty which attracts millions of tourists every year.
Protesters voiced their anger during the Saturday march after the plans were approved without their say.
The migrant centres will be open in Louveciennes, Rocquencourt and Yvelines - less than a twenty minute drive to the French Palace.
Opposition groups fear that the camps "could become worse than Calais".
Up to 400 migrants colonists will be housed in each centre, as protesters complained that they were "setting up Calais in our own towns".
Demonstrations against the Government's decision follows President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... 's vow to tear down the Calais Jungle camp to replace it with "mini-Jungles" across the country.
Banners on the march read ’migrant camp = irresponsible state’ while others shouted out "resistance" and "we are the people".
The mayor of Louveciennes, Pierre-Francois Viard, where one migrant centre will be opened in early November, said that the state's project can gone ahead "without any consultation".
He railed against the plans which he said "will cause problems".
The mayor then called for continued "protests against the confirmed centres of migrants colonists in Louveciennes, Rocquencourt and now we are told in Yvelines".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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How will President Obama, the smartest man in the room, square this particular circle, dear Reader?
[AnNahar] President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has said The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... could join a U.S.-led operation in Syria to retake the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's stronghold of Raqa only if Kurdish fighters are not involved, a newspaper reported Sunday.
U.S. support for Kurdish forces in Syria is a sore point for Ankara, which considers such fighters to be "terrorists" linked to the Kurdish rebels waging a bloody insurgency across the border in southeast Turkey.
Washington, however, sees the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia as the best forces fighting IS jihadists on the ground in Syria.
Erdogan said that if the U.S. conducted its Raqa operation with Syrian Kurdish forces, Turkey would "not have any place" in the offensive.
"If they do not insert the PYD and YPG into this business, then certainly, we can get (involved) with the U.S. in this fight," he told news hounds on the plane back from this week's U.N. General Assembly in New York, quoted in the Hurriyet daily.
Adding that it would be a "shame" if the U.S. and Turkey could not counter the 10,000 IS jihadists on the ground in Syria, he called for a "national army" of Syrian rebels to take the region's security into their own hands, saying there were 65,000 such fighters.
...all fighting at least as much between themselves as against their most dangerous enemy. If that answer had served, outside intervention would not now be needed, O great and beloved Sultan Recep I. And if your remaining loyal troops, with their shiny new promotions, were able to conquer on their own, outside intervention would also not be needed. 'Tis a quandary.
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09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"Kurds are icky. Are you a Gullenist?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/26/2016 9:06 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] With online sermons, slain al-Qaeda propagandist continues to inspire homegrown jihadists from beyond the grave.
She noted her center’s study of the first 101 Islamic State group cases in federal courts, updated through June, showed more than 25 percent of the cases’ court records contained references to al-Awlaki’s influence.
Five years after Anwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... was killed by an American drone strike, he keeps inspiring acts of terror.
Continued on Page 49
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09/26/2016 00:19 ||
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#1
Islam is Un-Constitutional. Sharia law is the law of Islam, not US Constitutional law.
PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat on Monday condemned Republican White House contender Donald Trump for saying if he is elected, the US will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital.
IMO, Palestinians understand "international law" the way BLM understand "civil rights".
[IsraelTimes] A senior military official says a massive underground barrier being built along the Gaza border to defend against Hamas tunnels should be completed in a matter of months.
The Southern Command official says the structure will include a wall deep below the ground as well as flooding parts of the roughly 60-kilometer (40-mile) border.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing regulations, says the goal is to turn Hamas’s underground network into a “death trap.”
During the 2014 war, Hamas fighters managed on several occasions to make their way into Israel through a tunnel network.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Israeli prosecutor called Sunday for a 12-year jail term to be handed down to a Paleostinian minor for stabbing an Israeli child in October 2015, his lawyer said.
Ahmed Manasra, a 14-year-old Paleostinian, was convicted in May this year of the attempted murder of two Israelis in a knife attack last October.
He was 13 when he carried out the attack with his 15-year-old cousin Hassan Manasra. The two stabbed and seriously maimed a 20-year-old and a 12-year-old boy in the Jewish settlement neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev in annexed east Jerusalem.
Hassan Manasra was rubbed out by security forces, while Ahmed Manasra was hit by a car as they fled.
Apology
Manasra's lawyer Lea Tzemel told journalists after a hearing behind closed doors that her client had apologized "to the child he stabbed, who was present in court".
Golly.
After his conviction in May, she said Manasra "said he just wanted to scare Jews so they'd stop killing Paleostinians".
Then you should have just waved the knife around instead of using it on people.
"The prosecution is demanding a 12-year prison sentence," she said on Sunday.
Just like the grown-ups get?
"We have requested a procedure of reintegration, given that he is a minor and minors have more rights when it comes to reintegration into society," Tzemel added.
Quite right. After ten years they'll start getting him used to being an uneducated, unskilled man in the West Bank, because he threw away the right to live under Israeli rule.
Manasra, an east Jerusalem resident, was the youngest Paleostinian to be convicted by an Israeli civilian court in the current round of violence.
Early last month, Israeli politicians approved jailing children as young as 12 convicted of "terrorist offences" following repeated attacks by young Paleostinians.
Violence since last October has killed 230 Paleostinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... n and a Sudanese, according to an AFP count.
Israel says most of the Paleostinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were rubbed out during protests or killed in Israeli air strikes on Gazoo. The court is to sentence Manasra on November 7.
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09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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[PNA] Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the military on Thursday to take complete control and stop paramilitary groups from operating amid ongoing peace talks with different insurgent groups in the country. Duterte said the presence of the civilian armed groups could undermine continuing peace initiatives.
Paramilitary groups were organized in the past to help government in its campaign against communist insurgents in rural areas. President Duterte particularly mentioned the Magahat-Bagani Force operating in Surigao del Sur and another group in Arakan, North Cotabato.
In his speech before scores of policemen here, Duterte stressed that he is pushing for an "inclusive government", not a coalition government with the leftist groups. He said he could come up with a peace deal with the communists as long as they do not insist on having posts in the nation's police and military.
The Duterte administration is currently holding talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), headed by Jose Maria Sison.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] 33 terrorist groups in Syria, including Noureddine al-Zinki movement and the so-called ’Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... ’ announced their rejection to the Russia-sponsored talks. In a joint statement, the takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... groups said that current talks are futile and meaningless.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2016 00:00 ||
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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.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
