Ethiopian security forces have arrested four members of al-Shabaab. According to the National Security and Intelligence Agency, the terrorists militants were arrested on Friday in the town of Moyale near the border with Somalia.
The suspects are accused of plotting terrorist attacks in Ethiopias Somali region for al-Shabaab. An Ethiopian police source said that the suspects were planning to attack and kidnap foreign aid workers from a camp for Somali refugees.
[An Nahar] Tripoli's embassy in Cairo said Saturday it was suspending work indefinitely, five days after demonstrators attacked the mission and burned the Libyan flag to protest the death of an Egyptian Copt in Libya.
A statement by the embassy said consular activity would be suspended but gave no reason for the decision which will affect Egyptians seeking to travel to neighboring Libya for work.
But an embassy official, who declined to be named, told Agence France Presse that the decision was taken after clashes last week between Copts and embassy guards and that the mission will remain close "until the crisis is settled."
The clashes followed the March 11 announcement by a Cairo-based human rights lawyer of the death from torture of an Egyptian Coptic Christian held in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi.
On March 1, a Libyan security official said some 50 Egyptian Copts were arrested on illegal immigration charges, although they were suspected of proselytizing in Benghazi.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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Did the gentlemen originally plan to end up in the Gaza Strip? Because if so, I don't understand why the Egyptians bothered.
It's what they intended to do, and who they intended to see, while sightseeing in Cairo...
Egyptian authorities deported seven Palestinians to the Gaza Strip after they were detained for security reasons upon their arrival to Cairo airport, the state news agency said Saturday. It was the latest development suggesting growing tensions between Egypt and Gaza's Hamas rulers.
The group was arrested in the same week that a state-owned Egyptian magazine published a report accusing Hamas of orchestrating one of the bloodiest attacks against the Egyptian army in decades -- the killing 16 of soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula in August 2012. Hamas officials deny involvement in the August attack and say the seven Palestinians were wrongfully held.
"Lies! All lies!"
No, no -- merely a different understanding of the meaning of truth.
Ah, 'truthiness'...
The men were detained Tuesday after flying in from Syria, the MENA agency reported, because they did not have exit stamps. They were released three days later after investigations showed no illegal activity.
Syrian authorities do not stamp passports issued by the Palestinian Authority, which has a measure of limited self-rule over Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, they stamp papers that Palestinians hold as proof of entry and exits instead.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
damn Zionist Entity, keeping them down
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/17/2013 11:08 Comments ||
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Five terrorists militants have been killed in a special operation on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia, said Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Special forces of the Russian interior ministry and Federal Security Service blocked a group of 15 gunmen in the mountains. Five of them were killed in an attempt to break through the police cordon, firing machine guns and grenade launchers, according to the committee.
The committee said, "They were killed by return fire. The bodies are being identified."
Three people were killed when a Russian military helicopter crashed during a landing attempt in bad weather in Chechnya on Saturday, investigators said. The Mi-8 helicopter was based in nearby Stavropol and crashed as it was attempting to land at Khankala military airfield in the North Caucasus region.
"As a result, three members of the crew died on the spot, one was hospitalised with a head wound, broken leg, and multiple bruises. The helicopter is almost entirely destroyed," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Russian agencies also quoted a security source as saying that the landing had apparently failed because of adverse weather conditions.
They'd be easier to handle if we turned the heat to 'parboil'...
Tensions between detainees and the military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have spiked in recent weeks, with a hunger strike at one of the camps reflecting growing despair that the Obama administration has abandoned efforts to repatriate prisoners cleared for release, according to defense lawyers and other people with access to information about detention operations.
A majority of the 166 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay are housed in Camp 6, a facility that until recently held men the military deemed compliant. But the camp, where cell doors are left open so detainees can live communally, has been at the center of a series of escalating protests since January.
The lawyers and human rights advocates said there is a mass hunger strike at Camp 6 that is threatening the health and life of a number of detainees. In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, they said they have received alarming reports that men have lost over 20 and 30 pounds and that at least two dozen men have lost consciousness due to low blood glucose levels.
A military official said 14 detainees are on hunger strikes and six of them are being force fed. Others have been refusing meals but eating non-perishable food stashed in their cells, officials said.
We're required to offer them food. We're not required to force feed them.
In a statement, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said claims of a mass hunger strike . . . are simply untrue.
The International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross, the only outside organization allowed unrestricted visits to the camps, said it visited Guantanamo from Feb. 18 to 23 and is aware of the tensions at the detention facility.
The ICRC routinely follows the situation of detainees on hunger strikes and continues to do so today, the group said in a statement. The ICRC believes past and current tensions at Guantanamo to be the direct result of the uncertainty faced by detainees.
Officials at the ICRC would not comment on information obtained by The Washington Post that a Red Thingy Cross employee was splashed with a mixture of feces and urine during the February visit. Durand said guards have been splashed with bodily fluids.
This is supposed to make us feel sorry for the inmates...
The immediate trigger for the protests was a series of searches in Camp 6 in which detainees alleged that their Korans were desecrated by guards who looked through them.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said that no member of the guard force ever touches a Koran and that any examination of Korans would be conducted by cultural advisers at Guantanamo, most of whom are Muslim. He also noted that detainees have in the past used their Korans to hide contraband.
Prisoners need to understand that we're not required to handle their holy books in any special way. If they've got contraband we're going to find it.
Of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo, the administration has said, more than 80 are cleared for release if they can be returned to their home country or resettled in a third country. But Congress has imposed a series of restrictions on transfers out of Guantanamo, which have ground to a halt.
In January, the administration closed the State Department office charged with negotiating the transfer of detainees and accelerating the closure of the facility.
Part of this is the general, absolute loss of hope, people having forgotten about Guantanamo and the administration having no plan for closure, said Pardiss Kebriaei, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents a number of detainees.
The CCR is a Soros-funded, neo-communist group. If Pardiss is whinging about 'absolute loss of hope' then I'm pleased with how it's going there...
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03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2013 8:48 Comments ||
Top||
#5
#4 LG, roll the clock back a very few years to when the market for Ivy League law school graduates was tight and the evil Boosh was president. Big Law Firm wants to hire an editor of the Hahvahd Law Review because that's basically their business model, and is willing to pay mega-bucks for the kid. The kid wants the mega-bucks but is conflicted about becoming a corporate tool. So he insists that in addition to the mega-bucks Big Law Firm agree to let him stick it to Boosh by representing innocent terrorists. Big Law Firm says yeah, kid whatever, just be sure to put in your 3,000 billable hours. Big Law Firm gets the "talent", kid gets the $175,000 a year starting salary and keeps his conscience clean by filing endless paperwork on behalf of poor, poor Mahmoud. It's a win-win, unless you count the people Mahmoud murdered.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/17/2013 11:43 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Our lads at GITMO may be something of a problem for the current regime. A select few have been released and have returned to their old careers in the Stans. Many of these chaps have been been tracked down and drone zapped. Purely conjecture, but it could be those remaining at GITMO may have told the Klingons to go fok off and keep the Pepsi, and fish and chips coming.
Wat to do with non-cooperative, double-agent flunk outs ?
KARACHI - Armed with extra powers to crush militants the paramilitary Rangers on Saturday unearthed a bomb-making 'factory'
...the local mosque?...
and arrested at least 13 suspects during a targeted raid and search operation in the Surjani Town area on the outskirts of Karachi.
Somebody forgot to pass a sealed envelope with cash to the right Pak pol?
Later the Rangers sealed off the locally-assembled bomb-making facility. The operation was described by the officials as a huge success against the militants who have turned Karachi into a dangerous city. They also claimed that sniffer dogs played a key role in locating the arms and bombs.
The security officials declined to reveal the identity of the alleged suspects but according to the media the men belong to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) hailing from upcountry but operating in Karachi for the past several months to create law and order situation.
According to local security personnel, the Rangers recovered as much as 25 kg of explosives and a huge cache of arms and ammunition from the suspects. Five locally-made explosive devices embedded in cricket balls
Blasphemy!!
were also recovered from the factory.
Earlier, the police claimed to have arrested the prime suspect in the Abbas Town blasts along with his two accomplices. The suspects were allegedly linked to the TTP.
Police and Rangers have been carrying out several search operations in volatile areas across the city in an effort to apprehend those responsible for the rising violence in the Karachi after being given special powers to flush out criminals from the city.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Police on Friday released to the media photographs of seven accused wanted in the Joseph Colony attack.
"Round up the usual suspects, Sergeant Siddique."
According to a press release, the Badami Bagh police had declared the seven main accused in a case lodged against attackers for burning the houses of Christians.
The accused were identified as Bao Sajjad Husain, Haji Shabbir Ali, Mian Saleem, Tariq Mahmood, Usman Butt, and two unidentified men.
Judicial remand
An anti-terrorism court on Friday sent 13 accused to jail on judicial remand for Joseph Colony arson.
The court acquitted one accused on the police report.
The Badami Bagh police investigation officer produced the accused before the court under strict security arrangements and stated that the interrogation had been completed and no physical custody of the accused was required. He said the court could send the accused to jail on judicial remand.
The officer also told the court that one of the accused, Mian Saleem, was found innocent in the preliminary investigation. He said the police arrested Saleem due to name similarity with the nominated accused, however, verification of the identity documents proved him innocent.
The court acquitted Saleem and sent 13 to jail on judicial remand. They are: Riaz Gujjar, Amjad, Usman, Latif, Afzal, Imran, Khalil, Nadeem, Imran Ahmad, Muhammad Nazir, Imran Baig, Sheikh Abad and Rashid Ahmad.
50 houses complete
Fifty houses in Joseph Colony have been repaired while work on 64 others is going on.
A city district administration official said 50 families had been shifted to their rehabilitated houses. The houses were built by the Lahore Development Authority with the Communications and Works Department.
Up to 280 families, including 661 children, living in 114 houses at Joseph Colony were displaced when a mob burnt their houses for the alleged blasphemy by a resident of the locality on March 9.
The official said he expected the completion of the remaining houses in three to four days.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Sindh Rangers carried out a targeted operation in Karachi's Taiser Town area and detained several suspected individuals, DawnNews reported on Saturday.
The operation lasted for several hours during which all entry and exit routes in the area were closed to traffic. During the operation, Rangers personnel took several suspects into custody.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Esquimeau village Jack was learning how to rub noses with Nootka's wife...... violence in Karachi continued and two people were killed in different parts of the city late on Friday.
One person was gunned down near the Karachi zoo in the city's Garden area and another was killed in Baldia Town's Saeedabad area.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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Police have arrested a suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorist militant accused in the 2001 attack on rubber plantation workers in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines.
Police identified the suspect as Jailani Basirul, who was nabbed in downtown Zamboanga. A police report said Basirul was among those who killed about a dozen workers in Tairan rubber plantation in Lamitan City.
Basirul has several arrest warrants and is now being interrogated by authorities. It was not clear whether the man was plotting an attack or hiding in Zamboanga.
A government informant gunned down in Yala province on Saturday morning. The attack occurred about 7 a.m.
According to neighbors, Marorsi Ror-ying, 37, was working in his rubber plantation when they heard the sound of two gunshots. They rushed to the scene and found his body.
Police believe the slaying was the work of separatist terrorists militants because Marorsi had been an informant for a security unit in the province.
[An Nahar] Syrian regime forces pounded parts of Damascus during the night, sending residents fleeing from the northern Barzeh district, as fighting also raged in the northern city of Aleppo, a watchdog said Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime shelling continued on Saturday and also affected the Palestinian Yarmuk refugee camp along with the Jubar, Barzeh and Qaboon neighborhoods of Damascus.
The shelling was particularly fierce in Barzeh, the watchdog said, adding that snipers were deployed in the district as residents were reported fleeing the area.
The Observatory said fighting also raged in the northern city of Aleppo, with at least 12 rebels reported killed amid clashes with regime troops near the international airport.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission -- an activist network on the ground in Syria -- reported regime troop reinforcements being deployed in Daraya, a suburb south of the capital.
It reported "five tanks and three trucks accompanied by several cars and buses carrying soldiers from the Mazzeh military airport" heading towards the area, where government forces have for months been trying to establish control.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline's mayonnaise had erupted in flames again... in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Observatory reported heavy fighting in the Huweika district and a car bomb blast near a building housing regime forces. There were no immediate details on casualties in the explosion.
The Observatory says rebel forces control approximately 30 percent of the strategic town, which is located near oil fields and close to the Iraqi border.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Syrian regime forces pounded the rebel-held town of Binesh near the Turkish border killing a woman and five children, and also rained shells on parts of Damascus on Saturday, a watchdog said.
Activists said the six people killed in Binesh were a woman and her five children, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights could not immediately confirm they were from the same family.
In March 2012, dozens of residents fled Binesh, in the northwestern province of Idlib, when shells slammed into the town as regime troops advanced in a bid to expel rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime.
The Observatory said shells hit Binesh on Saturday, killing the woman and the children, as clashes broke out around the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan which rebels captured in October 2012.
At least 55 people were killed nationwide in Syria on Saturday, including 22 civilians, said the Observatory, which collects information from a network of representatives and medics on the ground.
On Friday, the day when the conflict entered its third year, at least 216 people were killed in violence across the country -- one of the highest figures for several weeks, the Observatory said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The Syrian army has brought reinforcements to military bases on the border with Lebanon, the Turkish state-run Anadolu agency reported on Saturday and the Lebanese army assured that it has backed its forces in the region.
"Syrian military reinforcements have reached army bases overlooking Lebanese northern villages," Anadolu said.
LBCI television added: "Syria's army has set up two detonators in regions near a Lebanese general security center in (the border town of) al-Abboudiyeh".
Witnesses have told Anadolu that more soldiers have been deployed in the region.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do... the Lebanese army denied later on Saturday media reports saying that it has evacuated its bases in the Bekaa region.
"The army continues to do its job of safeguarding stability and security, in addition to protecting the people on the border," the Army Command stated, confirming that it has lately brought reinforcements to its units.
On Friday, several Lebanese citizens were wounded when Syrian "anti-aircraft" guns targeted several towns in the border region of Akkar.
LBCI television said "shells fired from Syria fell on Lebanese border towns".
The escalation comes two days after Syria warned that its forces would fire into Lebanon if "terrorist gangs" continued to infiltrate its territory.
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03/17/2013 00:00 ||
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BEIRUT One of the highest-ranking military officers yet to abandon Syrian President Bashar Assad defected to neighboring Jordan and said in an interview aired Saturday that morale among those still inside the regime had collapsed.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ezz al-Din Khalouf announced his defection from Assads regime in a video aired Saturday on the Al-Arabiya satellite channel. It showed him sitting next to his son, Capt. Ezz al-Din Khalouf, who defected with him. The elder Khalouf said that many of those with Assads regime have lost faith in it, yet continue to do their jobs, allowing Assad to demonstrate broad support.
Its not an issue of belief or practicing ones role, he said. Its for appearances sake, for the regime to present an image to the international community that it pulls together all parts of Syrian society under this regime.
He also said fighters from the Lebanese military group Hezbollah were fighting in Syria in more than one place, but did not give further details.
The Syrian government did not immediately comment on the defection. It portrays the uprising as a foreign-backed conspiracy to weaken Syria being carried out by terrorists on the ground.
Seif al-Hourani, an activist from one of the rebel groups that helped get Khalouf and his family out of the country, said via Skype that Khaloufs son made contact with rebels about six months ago and leaked them information before he asked for help getting the family out of Syria. That process took almost a week because of violence in the southern province of Daraa, the easiest place to shuttle Khalouf across the border, al-Hourani said.
Six days ago, rebels smuggled Khalouf, his wife, and three of their children out of Damascus to the southern province of Sweida. Two days later, they moved them to Daraa. They waited there until late Friday when it was safe enough to drive them to the border and hand them to Jordanian authorities, al-Hourani said.
Like many rebels, al-Hourani spoke on condition he be identified only by that nickname by which he is widely known among his comrades because he feared retaliation on his family.
Khalouf was chief of staff of the army branch that deals with supplies and fuel.
While rebels lauded his defection as a blow to the regime, it was unlikely to have a significant effect on Assads ability to wage war.
Widespread defections among conscripts and low-level soldiers have sapped the Syrian armys infantry, but high-level defections have been rare, and Assads air force and heavy munitions allow the government to pound rebel areas, even if it cannot take them back.
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03/17/2013 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.
Five 
KARACHI - Armed with extra powers to crush militants the paramilitary Rangers on Saturday unearthed a bomb-making 'factory' 
[Dawn] Police on Friday released to the media photographs of seven accused wanted in the Joseph Colony attack.
[Dawn] Sindh Rangers carried out a targeted operation in Karachi's Taiser Town area and detained several suspected individuals, DawnNews reported on Saturday.
A government informant gunned down in Yala province on Saturday morning. The attack occurred about 7 a.m.
[An Nahar] Syrian regime forces pounded parts of Damascus during the night, sending residents fleeing from the northern Barzeh district, as fighting also raged in the northern city of Aleppo, a watchdog said Saturday.
[An Nahar] Syrian regime forces pounded the rebel-held town of Binesh near the Turkish border killing a woman and five children, and also rained shells on parts of Damascus on Saturday, a watchdog said.
BEIRUT One of the highest-ranking military officers yet to abandon Syrian President Bashar Assad defected to neighboring Jordan and said in an interview aired Saturday that morale among those still inside the regime had collapsed.
