#4
Thank you, gents. I can tell you he is pumped. They have been looking forward to the HOA mission like a 7 year old looks for Christmas. Like the article says, they were training pretty hard during work ups.
#5
Looks like the Chinese are getting ready for some live-fire Land/Sea/Air training : just the thing they will need if they wish to use their LPDs against Taiwan. Plus, one of Taiwan's main strengths against a Chinese fleet is the fast attack missile boats of the Taiwanese Navy. Practice against lighter, less well equipped boats will still count as training in that area.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Fierce fighting between Somali government forces and Islamist rebels over two days has left 31 people dead in the capital Mogadishu, a medical source said Friday.
"The fighting was the worst in recent months with heavy civilian casualties, our medical teams collected 31 civilian bodies while 93 others were injured," Ali Muse, head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, told AFP.
"Most of the victims died as heavy artillery hit their houses," he added.
Government troops backed by African Union peacekeepers on Thursday launched an offensive to recapture positions taken by the hardline Islamist rebels in clashes earlier this week.
Twenty-six civilians were killed during Thursday's fighting and five others on Friday in sporadic fire exchanges, Muse said.
Both the government and the militants claimed victory and said there were casualties on both sides, the number of which were not confirmed.
"The enemy of Allah lost in the battle they organized. We destroyed one of their tanks and killed the five people on board," claimed Sheikh Muktar Robow, a top official of the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militia.
Government security official Colonel Mohamed Sugule said: "We have pushed the insurgents back to their positions and our forces are now controlling most parts of Abdulaziz and Shibis districts. We killed many of their fighters."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Meanwhile, the newly-elected president of Somaliland, Ahmed Mohamud Silaanyo, vowed Friday to campaign "vigorously" for international recognition of his breakaway republic in the Horn of Africa.
"During my tenure as president I will vigorously fight for the recognition of Somaliland. The world must recognize our democracy," Silaanyo told AFP a day after the announcement of his election victory.
"The first part of recognition of our independence is acquired as our people recognize themselves as a free country. What we are seeking is recognition by the outside world," he said in an interview.
Silaanyo, a member of the dominant Issak clan, studied economics in Britain and served in the government of former Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre.
A former British colony tacked on to Somalia when the latter gained independence from Italy in 1960, Somaliland has remained reasonably stable, spared the clan warfare that has dogged Somalia thanks to the domination of the Issaks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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[Maghrebia] ANP troops may enter Mali to hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists who killed 11 Algerian border police (GGF) guards Wednesday in Tinzaouatine, Tout sur l'Algerie reported on Friday (July 2nd). "The Algerian army can cross the border and pursue any attacker anywhere on Malian territory -- if they are in Malian territory, let them come and seek them," an unidentified Bamako security official told Reuters. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for the deadly Sahara ambush.
Good luck and happy hunting! We look forward to reports of numerous dead bad guys, lots of them Number Threes.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Shiite rebels in northern Yemen attacked the home of a pro-government tribal leader, killing three people, the government and rebels said on Friday, the latest outbreak of violence despite a five-month truce.
Yemen's government agreed a truce in February with northern rebels to halt sporadic fighting that has occurred since 2005 that has displaced 350,000 people.
The ceasefire has largely held but instability still threatens the country neighbouring top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, which was briefly drawn into the war last year when rebels seized Saudi border areas.
In a statement on its website, Yemen's Interior Ministry said rebels assaulted the home of Ibn Aziz, a tribal leader in the northern district of Harf Sufyan. He had supported the government in the war.
Aziz was not killed, but three of his followers died in an explosion, the statement said, adding that security forces were trying to catch those responsible.
Ibn Aziz's tribe is a rival Shiite group of the same Zaidi sect to which the rebels, called Houthis after their leader's name, also belong. Armed clashes between the groups has intensified in the past two months.
The Houthis, who complain of religious and socioeconomic discrimination by the government, confirmed the attack.
"Ibn Aziz was behind several assassinations of our followers and has caused the death of a number of citizens. He is the one who started the fighting against us," a rebel spokesmen said.
Impoverished Yemen has faced international pressure to quell its domestic conflicts, including an increasingly violent secessionist movement in the south, and to combat a resurgent al Qaeda wing in the country.
Western powers and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will use instability in Yemen to strengthen its foothold for attacks in the region and beyond. The global militant group's Yemen-based regional arm claimed responsibility for the failed bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Heila al-Qusayyer is being called the First Lady of Al Qaeda. The middle class Saudi mother, now in police custody, allegedly ran a cell of 60 militants, and recruited young women to its ranks. She also raised money as the main fundraiser for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula she used Islamic charities as a front to take donations of cash and jewelry that then went to funding jihad, or holy war.
Saudi Arabias Interior Minister called the case an alarm bell, a sign that authorities need to rethink counter-terrorism strategy and monitor a whole new profile of jihadis: the middle-aged mother.
Analysts say it represents a significant change for Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.
Females have not been real Al Qaeda operatives in early training manuals it says what the role of women should really be and that was more functioning as nurses or supporter roles, said Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysts, a Dubai-based think tank.
A top drug gang enforcer said he ordered the killing of a U.S. consulate worker because she helped provide visas to a rival gang in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, federal police said Friday.
Jesus Ernesto Chavez (aka El Camello), whose arrest was announced on Friday, leads a band of hit men for a street gang tied to the Juarez cartel, said Ramon Pequeno, the head of anti-narcotics for the federal police.
Pequeno said Chavez ordered the March 13 attack that killed U.S. consulate employee Lesley Enriquez and her husband as they drove through the violent city toward a border crossing to the U.S. Pequeno said Chavez told police that Enriquez was targeted because she helped provide visas to a rival gang.
The suggestion that drug gangs may have won influence within the U.S. diplomatic mission runs counter to previous statements by U.S. Embassy officials that Enriquez was never in a position to provide visas and worked in a section that provides basic services to U.S. citizens in Mexico.
Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and U.S. State Department in Washington declined to comment Friday.
The attack on Enriquez, was within view of the Texas border, and a nearly simultaneous attack that killed the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate raised concerns that Americans and U.S. government personnel were being caught up in drug-related violence.
Enriquez was four months pregnant when she and husband Arthur H. Redelfs were killed by gunmen who opened fire on their vehicle after the couple left a children's birthday party. Their 7-month-old daughter was found wailing in the back seat.
Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate, also was killed by gunmen after leaving the same event in a separate vehicle.
Chavez told police that gunmen opened fire on Salcido because the two cars were the same color and the hit men did not know which one Enriquez was in, Pequeno said.
Investigators also have looked at whether Redelfs may have been targeted because of his work at an El Paso prison that holds several members of the Barrio Azteca, a gang that is believed to be responsible in the attacks.
In March, U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement officers swept through El Paso, picking up suspected members of the gang in an effort to find new leads in the killings.
A suspect detained in Mexico shortly after the shooting confessed to acting as a lookout as the Azteca gang supposedly hunted down Redelfs, but he was never charged and was released without explanation.
Officials also have speculated that both attacks could have been a case of mistaken identity.
Pequeno said Chavez belongs to Barrio Azteca, which works for the Juarez cartel on both sides of the border.
The Juarez cartel's turf war against the Sinaloa cartel has made Ciudad Juarez one of the deadliest cities in the world. More than 2,600 people were killed last year in the city of 1.3 million people across the border from El Paso, Texas.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A bomb blast has ripped through a group of Serb protesters in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in Kosovo, leaving at least one dead and 11 others injured.
The bomb exploded on Friday in the ethnically divided town some 35 km (20 miles) northwest of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, during a protest staged by Serbs against the planned launch of a Kosovo government office in the northern part of the town, the Associated Press reported.
Six women and five men were injured, and one was killed in the blast which went off after police prevented several hundred Serbs from entering the government office building.
The incident drew widespread condemnation from Serb officials with President Boris Tadic calling on the international community to "urgently react, protect law and order and stop provocations and threats to peace."
Serbs account for the majority of the population in northern section of Mitrovica in Kosovo, while the southern part is dominated by Albanians.
In February 2008, the parliament of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. Russia, Serbia and most of the UN member states have not recognized Kosovo's independence.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Clashes between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey intensified on Friday after Turkish planes bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
More than 10,000 soldiers, backed by helicopter gunships, clashed with the rebels near the Iraq border in Sirnak and Hakkari provinces, and troop reinforcements were sent in from regional military bases to help the offensive.
"Separatist terrorist organisation targets were hit by Turkish Armed Forces planes last night in northern Iraq, notably in the Qandil mountain and Hakurk region," the army said.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the main rebel group in Turkey, has bases in northern Iraq from where it attacks Turkish troops and military installations. More than 70 soldiers have been killed this year in PKK attacks, more deaths than the military suffered in the whole of last year.
"The targets were hit successfully," the army said in a statement posted on its website. The bombing followed clashes in predominantly Kurdish southeast Turkey on Thursday in which 17 soldiers and rebels died.
Roj Welat, a PKK spokesman, said the Turkish airstrikes lasted from 2000 GMT on Thursday to 1 am on Friday. "There are no human losses among our people, only property damage and dead livestock," Welat said.
Public anger at the government's inability to stop the rising violence in the southeast has forced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to ask Turkey's allies for support.
Intelligence sharing between Turkey and the United States has increased the effectiveness of sporadic air raids on the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.
Erdogan has tried to expand cultural rights for the Kurds, who make up some 15 to 20 percent of Turkey's population, but has been thwarted by opposition in parliament which has lost him support in nationalist circles. reuters
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
We should not be lifting a finger to help Erdogan.
He is a POS.
Law enforcers have busted the network of a terrorist group named 'Fidaieen', arrested its four members and recovered a list of expected targets in the provincial capital from their possession, sources told Daily Times. According to sources, the list recovered from terrorists also carried names of a few important personalities of the province and important installations.
The sources said that on a tip off, special teams of law enforcers under the supervision of intelligence personnel arrested four alleged terrorists who were suspected of having links with defunct terrorist groups. The sources said that law enforcers have also recovered 1000-litres of chemical, 90 hand grenades, 400 detonators, 26 walky-talky wireless sets and 24 uniforms of Elite Police Force (EPF) from their possession.
The sources said that during initial interrogation, it was established that this new group consisted of activists of different defunct militants organisations who not only had commando training, but also had experience of fighting in war zones.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#2
new group consisted of activists of different defunct militants organisations
This is the third article I've read in two days that refers to islamist terrorists as "activists". This article starts off with "terrorist group" and ends with "activists". New trend?
Police said they killed a top Maoist rebel leader in a shootout on Friday, but the insurgents accused authorities of killing him in custody.
Either way he's dead ...
The rebels have been fighting in several Indian states for decades, demanding land and jobs for agricultural labourers and the poor. Their attacks have grown bolder recently as the government renewed an offensive against them. On Monday, nearly 200 Maoist rebels ambushed paramilitary soldiers in Chhattisgarh state in a dense forest and shot and killed 27 of them.
As part of their campaign to drive back the rebels, police said they battled on Friday with the Maoists in the Jogapur forest area in the neighbouring southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Cherukuri Rajkumar, also known as Azad, was killed, said top police official Ps Pramod Kumar.
But in a telephone call to journalists on Friday, Gudsa Usendi, a spokesman for the Maoists, accused police of killing Azad in custody after capturing him a day earlier in the forest, nearly 200 miles (300 kilometers) north of Hyderabad. The rebels, who call themselves the Communist Party of India (Maoist), say the late Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong inspired them.
They have tapped into the rural poor's growing anger at being left out of the country's economic gains and are now present in 20 of India's 28 states. They have an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the rebels the country's greatest "internal security threat."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Unidentified gunmen killed a Shia scholar in Saryab area of Quetta district on Friday. Ali Muhammad, president of the Kashmirabad Imam Bargah, was walking in a street close Shah Jee chowk when the armed man opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. His body was moved to Government Sandman Hospital Quetta for autopsy. Later, officials handed over the body to Muhammad's family for burial. Officials said the killing could be an act of sectarian violence. Saryab police have registered a case and started investigations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Security forces have killed 15 Taliban during an operation in Khyber Agency, sources said on Friday.
According to the security sources, the operation was launched in Bara tehsil's Akakhel area, where five vehicles belonging to the Taliban were also destroyed.
A huge cache of arms and ammunition was also recovered by the troops, the sources added.
Separately, three Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were killed and two others injured when unidentified Taliban attacked them on the border between the provincial capital and the Khyber Agency, police said.
A Matani police station official told Daily Times that the Taliban attacked FC personnel around 1:30am in the Janay Khwar area, leaving three men dead and wounding two others.
The official said two officials, Rangeen Shah and Noorullah, went missing after the attack. The dead were identified as Muhammad Ameen and Haider Khan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Lahore police on Friday arrested 17 alleged terrorists, including the masterminds of the attack on Ahmadi worship places from various areas of the city, a private TV channel reported. The two masterminds were arrested on their return from North Waziristan's Datta Khel area, the channel reported. According to sources, police seized a huge amount of arms and ammunitions and at least 20,000 kilogrammes of explosives, 100 assault rifles and 18 suicide jackets from various areas of the city. Seven more alleged terrorists were arrested from Raiwind during a search operation. According to police sources, 20 suicide jackets, police uniforms, detonators, explosive material and automatic weapons were seized from the accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Friday denied any involvement in a triple suicide bombing on the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore that killed 42 people and wounded 175 others. "We are not responsible for these attacks, this is a conspiracy by foreign secret agencies, you know we do not attack public places," Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the TTP told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. "We condemn this brutal act. Our target is very clear and we only attack police, army and other security personnel," he added. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Lahore, a cultural hub considered a playground for the country's elite and home to many military and intelligence top brass.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
ION WMF > "EAST TURKESTAN ISLAMIC MOVEMENT" LEADERS, TERRORISTS HIDING IN THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN BRAZIL. HUNDREDS OF OUTLAW MEN.
* SAME > "CHINA GROUP" OF UIGHUR MILITANTS/SEPARATISTS STILL ENTRENCHED, ACTIVE IN SOUTH WAZIRISTAN REGION OF AFGHAN-PAKISTAN BORDER WITH AFGHAN TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a non-combat incident, the first U.S. fatalities during the month of July 2010, increasing to 41 the number of U.S. deaths this year.
The death has brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to 4,411. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed in June 2010, only two of them in military operations while the others were said to have died in non-combat incidents. Six American soldiers were killed in May, eight in April, seven in March, five in February and five in January.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
God bless the soldiers.
Posted by: American Delight ||
07/03/2010 21:59 Comments ||
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ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: Unidentified gunmen shot dead Sheikh Abdulalim al-Saadi, the imam and preacher of al-Salam Mosque in al-Ramadi city, according to an Iraqi police source on Friday.
Unknown gunmen opened fire from guns attached with silencers on Sheikh Saadi, the imam and preacher of al-Salam Mosque, in the area of al-Qattana, Ramadi, on Friday evening, killing him instantly, the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Sheikh Abdelalim is the brother of the Mufti of Iraq Sheikh Abdelmalek al-Saadi.
The police have gathered information about the vehicle of the gunmen and an operation was already launched in search of the perpetrators, he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Is the Mufti dead or did they shoot the Mufti's brother dead?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/03/2010 9:05 Comments ||
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#2
Unidentified gunmen shot dead Sheikh Abdulalim al-Saadi... Sheikh Abdelalim is the brother of the Mufti of Iraq Sheikh Abdelmalek al-Saadi.
[Al Arabiya Latest] President Barack Obama late on Thursday signed into law the toughest ever U.S. sanctions on Iran, which he said would strike at Tehran's capacity to finance its nuclear program and deepen its isolation.
The bill Obama signed targets exports of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran. It bans U.S. banks from doing business with foreign banks providing services to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
The administration hopes the new unilateral sanctions, combined with ones approved last month in the U.N. Security Council, will yield results even though previous regimens failed to halt Iran's activities that could lead to nuclear weapons development. The U.N. sanctions target the Revolutionary Guard, ballistic missiles and nuclear-related investments.
As lawmakers looked on, Obama called the new law the "toughest sanctions against Iran ever passed by the United States Congress." But he said he had not sought the outcome, contending it was chosen by an Iranian government which for years has defied U.N. resolutions and forged ahead with its nuclear programs while supporting terrorist groups and suppressing the Iranian people.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Well the "bankrollers" also known as the Saudis and I ran don't get along do they?
Posted by: chris ||
07/03/2010 10:22 Comments ||
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#2
Well the "bankrollers" also known as the Saudis and I ran don't get along do they?
Iran has never forgotten that it once was the power in the Gulf region.
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.
Police said they killed a top Maoist rebel leader in a shootout on Friday, but the insurgents accused authorities of killing him in custody.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a non-combat incident, the first U.S. fatalities during the month of July 2010, increasing to 41 the number of U.S. deaths this year.
ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: Unidentified gunmen shot dead Sheikh Abdulalim al-Saadi, the imam and preacher of al-Salam Mosque in al-Ramadi city, according to an Iraqi police source on Friday.
