A suicide bomber has killed at least 14 people in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province, including a senior local official. Haji Rasool Khan Mohseni was the head of the provincial council.
Authorities said that an attacker wearing military uniform detonated a suicide vest at the gate of the council's headquarters in Baghlan's capital Pul-e Khomri. At least five people were wounded in the attack.
Police say the bomber arrived on foot and targeted Mr Rasool. He had been a key anti-Taliban figure in the province. Mohammad Zahier Ghanizada, a member of parliament for Baghlan, said Mr Rasool had received multiple death threats.
[Naharnet] Taliban attacks killed at least ten Afghan police on Sunday, officials said, in the latest violence against the force which is due to take more security responsibility from NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... troops before their withdrawal next year.
In one of the incidents, Taliban fighters attacked a security check post in the Muqur district of Ghazni province in southern Afghanistan, killing six police, according to district governor.
"Six of our local police were martyred after hours of clash with Taliban when they attacked their post early today," he said.
He added a second attack on a local police check post in Muqur maimed four police.
The victims were members of the 18,000-strong Afghan Local Police, a village-level force formed in 2010 to provide security in areas where the better-trained national police and army are scarce.
Also on Sunday, four Afghan border police were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside kaboom in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province that borders neighboring Pakistain.
"Today at around 10:00 am, a border police pickup truck hit a roadside kaboom while on patrol in Mohamand Dara district of Nangarhar province," Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, Nangarhar provincial governor front man told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"As a result of the blast, four border police were killed." he said.
A Taliban front mangrabbed credit for both attacks saying at least two local officers were among the dead in Ghazni.
Afghan cops are increasingly on the front line against the krazed killers, and suffering heavier casualties, as NATO combat troops prepare to withdraw by the end of next year.
[Express] BRITISH Special Forces have captured the Taliban leader thought to be responsible for the roadside kaboom that killed three British soldiers last month.
The Death Eater leader, who has not been named for operational reasons, commanded seven groups of Taliban fighters and bombers across southern Afghanistan.
The dawn raid, carried out with Afghan forces, took place in the Marjah region near Nad-e-Ali, close to the British base in Lashkar Gah.
It is believed the Taliban leader, who sources confirmed had regularly travelled between Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... and Pakistain, had been hunted for a year after being linked to at least three other attacks.
Corporal William Savage, Fusilier Samuel Flint of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland and Private Robert Hetherington, of the 7th Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, died when their Mastiff vehicle struck a roadside kaboom in Helmand last month.
A front man for the International Security Assistance Force confirmed the Taliban leader had been involved in "all stages of operations, including procuring weapons and ammunition, planning attacks and executing those plans".
The successful operation came as British Special Forces from Task Force 42 -- consisting of the SAS, SBS, Special Forces Support Group and Special Reconnaissance Regiment -- increase their footprint in Helmand in an attempt to disrupt increasingly bold Taliban attacks.
Ten days ago faceless myrmidons fired rockets towards Camp Bastion from 20 miles away but no one was hurt.
A Special Forces team is trying to track them down.
Special Forces are increasingly relied upon to take the strain after regular troops cease offensive operations leading up to 2014's withdrawal.
British troops now hold just 12 bases in Helmand.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, said: "British Special Forces fill the vacuum in Helmand. They are doing sterling work."
[Naharnet] Clashes broke out between radical Islamists and police on Sunday after Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia ...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends... told its followers to gather "in large numbers" near Tunis for its annual congress, defying a government ban.
Hundreds of Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... erected barricades in the streets of Ettadhamen, a poor neighborhood 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Tunis, and hurled rocks at police who responded with tear gas, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.
The security forces used armored cars and bulldozers to destroy the barricades and gain access to Ettadhamen, which is considered a stronghold of the Salafist movement in conflict with the government.
The Islamists retreated to the neighboring district of Intilaka where festivities continued, with the police finally appearing to take control.
A protester was hit by gunfire and killed in the capital, a hospital official said.
Mounira Ben Ghazi, a senior supervisor at Mongi Slim hospital, named the dead man as Moez Dahmani, in comments made to Express-FM radio station.
Dahmani, who was born in 1986, died of gunshot wounds, Ben Ghazi said.
An interior ministry front man confirmed the death of a protester in comments broadcast on Hannibal TV but gave no further details.
Earlier the interior ministry said 11 coppers and three protesters were maimed in festivities in a Tunis suburb.
Later on Sunday, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh accused Ansar al-Sharia of being "involved in terrorism".
"Ansar al-Sharia is an illegal organization... it has ties to and is involved in terrorism," Larayedh told state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
One policeman was said to be at death's door. An officer at the scene earlier said there were five injuries among police ranks.
Ansar al-Sharia had planned to hold Sunday its annual congress in the central city of Kairouan, the country's religious capital, but the government banned the meeting and the Islamists decided to move it to Ettadhamen.
Salafists advocate an ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam, and Ansar al-Sharia does not recognize the authority of the state.
"We consider that our congress was held in Ettadhamen," Ansar al-Sharia official Sami Essid told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He was speaking after the hardline Islamist group called on its followers "to gather in large numbers" in the Tunis suburb, in a message posted on its Facebook page.
In Kairouan there were only brief festivities during which the security forces fired tear gas at stone-throwing Salafists who shouted insults at the police.
The Salafists had insisted all week they would hold their third annual congress despite the ban, and warned they would hold authorities responsible for any violence, raising fears of a bloody showdown.
AFP and Tunisian media reported the arrests of Salafist faceless myrmidons in Kairouan and other cities, with Ansar al-Sharia's front man Seifeddine Rais incarcerated Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! at dawn on Sunday, according to a police source.
A resident of Ettadhamen said hundreds of Ansar al-Sharia supporters poured into the district, a Salafist stronghold, some armed with sticks and knives and waving the black flag of their movement.
In the marketplace they chanted "we are going to Ettadhamen."
Tunisia has been rocked by attacks blamed on myrmidon Islamists since the uprising that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Ansar al-Sharia is considered the most radical of the bully boy groups that emerged after the 2011 revolution.
The government, led by moderate Islamist party Ennahda, has hardened its stance towards the bully boyz in recent months, announcing in early May that two groups the army is pursuing in the western region bordering Algeria are linked to al-Qaeda.
A top al-Qaeda chief urged Tunisia's Salafists to shun government provocation in order not to lose public support, the U.S.-based SITE monitoring service said on Sunday.
"Don't you ever be provoked by the regime and its barbarism to do rash acts that might spoil your blessed popular embrace," said Abu Yahya al-Shanqiti, a member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's sharia committee, was quoted as saying.
Confirming its decision to ban Sunday's meeting, the interior ministry said last week that it posed a threat to public order.
Ennahda has been strongly criticized since coming to power in late 2011 for being too lenient towards the Salafists and for failing to stop them carrying out attacks around the country, notably one on the U.S. embassy in September that left four Islamists dead.
Ansar al-Sharia's runaway leader, Saif Allah Bin Hussein, a former al-Qaeda fighter in Afghanistan, warned earlier this month that he would wage war against the government, accusing it of policies in breach of Islam.
[NaharNet] At least one person was killed and 22 others were maimed on Sunday in armed festivities between the rival Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, state-run National News Agency reported.
MTV said "the shooting started in Bab al-Tabbaneh over reports that 12 of Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi's supporters were killed while fighting alongside the Syrian opposition in Qusayr."
But later on Sunday al-Rafehi denied MTV's report.
The army deployed heavily in Syria Street, which separates the rival districts, and was shooting back at the sources of gunfire.
A statement issued by the Army Command said an officer and a soldier were maimed in the festivities and that army units were intensifying measures and deployment to restore normality in the city.
Earlier, NNA reported that the intensity of the Tripoli festivities had relatively abated.
The National News Agency said machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades were being used in the festivities which were concentrated on the Haret al-Muhajirin and al-Omari frontiers and the area surrounding al-Nassri Mosque.
NNA said Mohammed Youssef died of his injuries after he was critically maimed in Jabal Mohsen.
It said a policeman and 19 other civilians were maimed in the unrest.
The agency identified the maimed as Imad Khaled Fayyad, Bassam al-Kaaki, Abdul Wahhab al-Baqqar, Ali Awwad, Fadlallah al-Masri, Khadija Khaled, Samar Ghiyyeh, Tareq Qassem, Dunia Mahfoud, Liliane Mustafa Hussein, Taleb Habbabeh, Ali Mustafa, Khadija Saad Mohammed, Jomaa Yassine, Taleb Dib, Sara Qureitem, Bashar Rabah, Abdul Wahhab Salam and Nagham Dib.
LBCI television said al-Kaaki was maimed as five shells fell on the vegetable market in Bab al-Tabbaneh.
It also said an army officer and a soldier were reportedly maimed in the festivities.
NNA said a number of shells hit the vegetable market in Bab al-Tabbaneh and a shop went up in flames.
"The Tripoli-Akkar international highway is witnessing intermittent sniper activity at the Bab al-Tabbaneh point, which made it dangerous for motorists," NNA added.
It later reported that a passenger bus came under sniper gunfire on Bab al-Tabbaneh's highway, but noted that no one was hurt.
The agency said the violence broke out after a dispute between young men erupted into an exchange of gunfire and sniper activity.
Al-Jadeed television said sniper gunfire was targeting al-Zahriyeh neighborhood, which is adjacent to Bab al-Tabbaneh.
Rifaat Eid, secretary-general of the Arab Democratic Party, the main military and political force in Jabal Mohsen, told LBCI: "We won't respond to the sources of gunfire and we were expecting festivities due to the Qusayr battle."
But fighters from Bab al-Tabbaneh told LBCI they were defending themselves, accusing the Arab Democratic Party of starting the festivities "to deviate attention from the Qusayr battle."
LBCI said the army urged politicians to "ask the parties to practice restraint because it will not be lenient with any deployment of gunnies."
In March, at least five people were killed and 26 others were maimed, includung army troops, in festivities between the two rival neighborhoods.
The army stepped up its deployment in the city in the wake of the festivities.
The Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh borders the Alawite Jabal Mohsen area, and gunnies in the two areas regularly open fire on each other. Violence has regularly broken out between the two communities as the conflict in Syria -- pitting a Sunni-led opposition against the Alawite regime -- raises tensions.
[Naharnet] A key city in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... was on lockdown Sunday as the military enforced a 24-hour curfew and blocked supply routes in its sweeping campaign against Islamist bad boys.
The operation against Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... , the group that wants an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, is aimed at retaking territory seized by the snuffies and ridding the country of "terrorist activities," the military has said.
The offensive has included air strikes on Boko Haram strongholds in remote parts of northeastern Borno state, and has spread to the state capital Maiduguri, the bad boys' traditional home base -- which residents said Sunday was under a blockade.
The defense ministry in a mission update said 14 bully boyz and three soldiers had been killed in battles since Saturday and that Special forces troops were continuing "the advance and attack on identified terrorist camps".
"Patrols are also ongoing to secure towns and villages from infiltration, while curfews on identified flash points are being enforced," the ministry statement said.
Soldiers have sealed roads heading out of Maiduguri, blocking supply routes to remote towns where Boko Haram Islamists have seized power, residents said.
"There is a huge build-up of trucks loaded with essential commodities... along the Baga road on the way out of Maiduguri to the northern part of the state," said resident Ibrahim Yahaya.
"The drivers said they have been prevented by the military from going northward," he told Agence La Belle France Presse by email.
The phone network in Borno has all but collapsed since President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... on Tuesday declared a state of emergency there and in two neighboring states, Adamawa and Yobe.
The military on Saturday imposed a round-the-clock curfew in 12 Maiduguri neighborhoods considered Boko Haram bastions.
The curfew was being enforced on Sunday, with most roads deserted, an AFP journalist reported, while some living in areas not impacted by the curfew also stayed indoors.
"My area is not affected but I have to stay at home with my family," trader Ezekiel Adamu said.
He explained that he was afraid of coming across soldiers, who "seem to have more power with the state of emergency".
Supplies were also running short in the city, where Boko Haram was founded more than a decade ago by the radical holy man Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in detention in 2009.
The price of basic goods has soared with supply lorries prevented from entering the city.
"We've been eating without meat since Friday... but there is nothing I can do. This is the challenge of emergency rule," said resident David Olutayo.
Supply shortages and price hikes have also started to bite in the town of Gomboru Ngala, on the border with Cameroon, where some Borno residents have fled to escape the air raids.
"Trucks bringing in goods from Maiduguri have ceased since last week," said resident Grema Babagoni, adding that prices had soared as much as 25 percent.
"If the blockade continues for some time we may completely run out of supplies," he told AFP
Residents in Gomboru Ngala can be reached by phone as the service uses Cameroonian lines.
The town has seen an influx of people fleeing the nearby Marte district, one of the areas where Boko Haram chased out the government and removed Nigerian flags.
Marte has been among the areas targeted by air strikes, residents have told AFP.
A senior rescue official who requested anonymity told AFP that he had could not say what impact the offensive has had on civilians because his staff in Borno and Yobe have been unreachable.
"I have sent emails and texts but have not heard anything yet," the official said.
The operation could prove to be the largest ever against Boko Haram.
A brutal crackdown on the bully boyz in 2009, concentrated in Maiduguri, killed more than 800 people and forced the Islamists underground for a year.
Since re-emerging in 2010, they have carried out scores of attacks, including gun raids and suicide kabooms.
Many fear that like the 2009 crackdown, the current campaign may fail to crush the group.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and top oil producer, has been urged to tackle root causes of the conflict, including acute poverty and excessive government corruption which has helped radicalize many young Moslems in the north.
There is also a risk of high civilian casualties, with Nigeria's military having been accused of massive rights abuses in the past.
The conflict is estimated to have cost 3,600 lives since 2009, including killings by the security services.
Jonathan has said that negotiations remain possible amid the sweeping offensive, but the Islamists have so far shown no signs of wanting to talk.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/20/2013 00:00 ||
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[YemenPost] Police sources confirmed on Sunday that gunnies linked to al-Qaeda in the south-eastern province of Hadhramawt killed a Yemeni intelligence officer in a drive-by attack on Friday evening.
True to its infamous guerrilla tactic, the terror group once again managed to successfully carry out a Dire Revenge™ attack against Yemen counter-terror services in the province, asserting its ability to carry out attacks undetected.
Despite the government's best efforts, officers all across the country have fallen victims of al-Qaeda since 2011, a sign said security expert that al-Qaeda's potency to harm remains intact.
Colonel Abdullah al-Ribaki was bumped off in a residential neighborhood of Mukalla, the regional capital of Hadhramawt by two unknown gunnies on a cycle of violence.
Officials told the press that "al-Qaeda is behind the killing."
Al-Ribaki who was walking home when the attack took place was shot six times at point-blank range with a revolver fitted with a silencer.
The attack comes amid threats from Ansar al-Sharia ...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends... , an offshoot of al-Qaeda in the region, that its forces of Evil are moving to the offensive in the province to claim control, challenging the authority of the central government.
An estimated 80 intelligence officers have been killed by al-Qaeda since 2011.
As al-Qaeda forces of Evil are concentrating their attacks in the province of Hadhramawt, fears persist that the terror group will try to replicate its 2011 expansion move. As revolutionaries were calling for reforms in the capital, Sana'a, Islamic forces of Evil decided to use the power vacuum to their advantage by seizing large swathes of lands in the southern province of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... . Their occupation of Jaar and Zinjibar culminated by the proclamation of two Caliphates.
While the government managed after a bloody and lengthy military operation to drive out the terror forces of Evil from Abyan, it failed to destroyed their cells now believed to have spread nationwide.
[Naharnet] Several prisoners in Bahrain escaped Sunday from a prison van that was smashed into by two cars whose occupants helped them flee in an assault south of the capital Manama, an official said.
The unprecedented attack was carried out by "outlaws", the prison official said, indicating that the escapees were "involved in security issues" -- Shiites accused of violence during protests that have rocked the Gulf state.
One prisoner who escaped and an attacker were later tossed in the slammer Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! , the official said, without specifying how many detainees or attackers were still on the lam.
Bahrain has been shaken by protests by the Shiite majority against the regime of the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty since February 2011.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/20/2013 00:00 ||
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At least three people have reportedly been killed and more than 20 injured after two car bombs exploded in Dagestan's capital of Makhachkala.
"One car bomb was set off first but no one was hurt. The second explosion occurred about 15 minutes later when officers were at work," an official source told Interfax news agency.
The bombs went off outside the headquarters of the court bailiffs' service in the region's capital.
Initial reports, quoting Dagestan's top investigative agency, that set the death toll at eight have been later contradicted by other official sources saying only three people have been confirmed dead. The number remains disputed.
Russia's Dagestan Republic in the volatile Caucasus region is facing a decade long Islamic insurgency.
Earlier this month, three militant fighters were killed by police in woods about 60km (35 miles) south of Makhachkala. A few days earlier three people were killed in a separate incident, as a bomb went off outside a shopping centre in the city.
The issue of insurgency Dagetan rose up the news agenda in April when it emerged that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the region in 2012.
US detectives were trying to determine whether Tamerlan, 26, came into contact with notorious Islamist leader Gadzhimurad Dolgatov, aka "Robin Hood".
After returning to the US, Tamerlan posted several videos on his personal YouTube channel under a folder named "terrorism". One of these featured Dolgatov rallying against police co-operators.
'll kill you just like I'll kill them," Dolgatov is heard as saying. "If you side with the police you are helping Satan." Dolgatov was killed in a gun battle with Russian anti-terrorism police in December 2012.
In which the mad dog unwisely bites the hand that feeds it.
[Naharnet] Chinese authorities were Sunday investigating claims that unidentified North Koreans hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, kidnapping 16 sailors and demanding a ransom, local media and an official said.
Armed North Koreans on May 6 hijacked the boat and escorted it towards North Korea while it was sailing in waters around 70 kilometers (40 miles) from North Korea's western coast, reports and the boat's owner Yu Xuejun said.
"The crew were taken away by a North Korean patrol boat after an armed hijacking," Yu told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding that the kidnappers had contacted him to demand a ransom of 600,000 yuan ($98,000).
"We are currently investigating (the boat owner's claims)," a section chief for the state border detachment, which is responsible for border security, in northeastern port city of Dalian, surnamed Zhang, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The Southern Metropolis Daily said the Chinese embassy in North Korea told Yu it was "dealing with the matter."
Yu was not certain of the kidnappers' identity, but told AFP he suspected they were associated with North Korea's army.
Yu claimed to have been in contact with the 16 crew members as recently as Saturday, and said he believed they were in good health, but added that he was "worried that the North Koreans could abuse our sailors".
He had reported the incident to Chinese authorities, he said, but later posted details of the hijacking on the Internet out of frustration with an apparent lack of official action.
"It has almost been two weeks, but I haven't seen any results," he said.
The reported incident comes a year after the return of 29 fishermen also kidnapped by unidentified North Koreans who had demanded a 1.2 million yuan ransom.
The fishermen were returned without ransom after the foreign ministry said it had contacted North Korea in an effort to resolve the case, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Tensions between North Korea and China, seen as its sole major ally, have been high in recent months after North Korea carried out a nuclear test in February, a move Beijing said it "firmly opposed."
The Global Times newspaper last year quoted Dalian residents as saying that official North Korean coastguards had in the past captured fishing boats and stolen fuel and other items on board.
Calls to Dalian's city government, and the local maritime safety bureau went unanswered on Sunday.
#2
Sounds like Norks are hurting for stuff and are hijacking Chinese boats (targets of opportunity) to strip them of needed supplies and materials. And why not do some ransom action for cash in a cash strapped economy? There will be a tipping point for the Chinese; the question is what or how many hijacks will it take for action?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/20/2013 1:12 Comments ||
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#3
Sounds like Norks are hurting for stuff and are hijacking Chinese boats
The question is whether it's institutional, or there's a breakdown occurring.
#4
Desperate people do desperate things. The problem for the Chicoms is if they aren't careful, they get this mess squarely in their laps. Always a balancing act to keep your trailed pack of curs hungry and loud but not willing to bite you, since once the taste blood and the smell of meat, the pack mentality kicks in and you have to eliminate them. The Norks give Nazi Germany a run for the money in evil given how many have endured so much for so long, and no one can fix it except the SKors, at huge cost in blood and treasure, and the Chicoms won't let that happen. Human tragedy on an epic scale.
Its's wolves, not sheep, all the way down. Even in this small way, choices are made.
[Dawn] Indiana has cancelled subsidies for a planned $1.8 billion fertilizer plant in the state because of concerns that a Pak company involved in the project makes products used in improvised explosives that kill and injure US troops in Afghanistan.
Midwest Fertilizer Corp, which has sought to build the plant in southern Indiana, is 48 per cent owned by Fatima Group, which produces a calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Pakistain known to have been used in improvised explosives in Afghanistan.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Republican, had put a $1.3 billion incentive package for the fertilizer manufacturing plant on hold in January pending a review. He said Friday that the incentives would be withdrawn.
"My concern with this project has been our service members overseas who face the threat of improvised weapons made from fertilizer and other products," Donnelly said in a statement.
"Without assurances from our Defense Department that the materials which have been misused by the enemy in Afghanistan will be permanently removed from production by Fatima Group in Pakistain, I cannot in good conscience tell our soldiers and their families that this deal should move forward," he said.
Midwest Fertilizer said it would pursue other options to continue the project in the area.
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation made the offer to Midwest Fertilizer Corp in November 2012 under former Governor Mitch Daniels.
The Indiana Finance Authority had issued $1.3 billion of bonds in December and the funds have been held in escrow and will be used to repay the bond holders.
Fatima Group has reformulated the fertilizer to make it less explosive and the product is to be tested with the US government in June, Midwest Fertilizer said in a statement.
Fatima Group also has stopped selling the fertilizer in areas of Pakistain that border Afghanistan, Midwest Fertilizer said.
The border with Afghanistan is where Taliban and Al Qaeda gunnies have been battling US and allied forces since the shortly after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Midwest said the project would bring 2,500 construction jobs and 309 permanent jobs to the region.
US Senator Joe Donnelly, an Indiana Democrat, said the state's first responsibility was to the safety and security of troops.
"My concern with this project has been our service members overseas who face the threat of improvised weapons made from fertilizer and other products," Donnelly said in a statement.
John Taylor, who heads the Posey County Economic Development Partnership, where the plant would be located, said he had not given up hope for the project.
"The decision the governor made today does nothing to make it safer for our service people anywhere in the world," he said.
#2
Shia got in power and chose to 'get even' rather than build unity. Many/most Sunni had reconciled with their out-of-power status, but between their more militant side and the government being a**holes they've been pushed into a position where true civil war is the likely outcome. That won't end well for anyone. (Sounds a little like what's happening here, doesn't it?)
[Ynet] Al-Arabiya TV reported that 20 bodies of Hezbollah fighters have been moved from the scene of battles in the Syrian town of Qusair to a hospital in Beirut. In addition, 62 maimed were taken to hospitals across Leb.
On Sunday, Syrian army soldiers aided by Hezbollah combatants launched an assault on the rebel-held town near the Lebanese border.
They just keep killing each other off, those who need to exercise their faith by killing.
#1
I hope they fight each other for another 20 yes. if they keep killing each at this pace. Hell empty Guantanamo and drop them off in Syria.
Posted by: chris ||
05/20/2013 3:39 Comments ||
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#2
Humanitarian aid in the form of medical supplies are absolutely essential. Get these people returned to duty, and back into the fight as quickly as possible.
#6
Spengler on minority-ruled regimes in the Middle East:
There is a reason that Syria has labored under brutal minority regimes for half a century, since the Ba'ath Party coup of 1963 led by the Christian Michel Aflaq, followed by the Alawite Assad dynasty's assumption of power in 1971. The colonial cartographers who drew the modern map of the Middle East after World War I understood something that America's political mainstream does not: states composed of the tribal remnants of pre-modern society can be stable only if the ethnic and sectarian melange is ruled by a minority. Syria's Alawites ruled over a Sunni majority with Christian support, while Iraq's Sunnis ruled over a Shi'ite majority, also with Christian support.
Tyrannical as a minority regime might be, it is constrained by the fact that it is a minority. The minority cannot exterminate the majority, so it must find some sort of compromise arrangement. A majority government, though, can (and frequently will) exterminate an ethnic or religious minority. That is why the Sunni majority in Syria long tolerated the Alawite minority regime while the Iraqi Shi'ite majority tolerated a minority Sunni regime.
Syria's Alawites will fight to the death because a Sunni victory would mean the end of their sect, and Iran will provide unlimited numbers of weapons and fighters. Iraq's Sunnis, divided from their Syrian cousins by the thin pencils of colonial cartographers, will not stand by and allow Syria to turn into an Iranian protectorate, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar support the Sunni rebels with weapons and personnel. What we have seen so far are the preliminary skirmishes. The real horrors of war are yet to come.
[Ynet] Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.
Sunday's report says Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, were hanged.
[Naharnet] A cautious calm prevailed in the Paleostinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hellhole on Sunday after a man was killed and two others were maimed in festivities between rival krazed killers.
The gunbattles erupted between Fatah and Bilal Badr brigade that is linked to Fatah al-Islam A Syrian-incubated al-Qaeda work-alike that they think can be turned off if no longer needed to keep the Lebanon pot stirred. in al-Sefsaf area after midnight and lasted till dawn Sunday.
The National News Agency identified the dead man as Mouawiya Mazloum.
It said the popular committees met at the camp, which lies near the southern city of Sidon, to contain the incident.
The reason of the festivities remained unclear.
Later Sunday, the camp's residents organized a march to protest the gunbattles.
Ein el-Hellhole, the largest Paleostinian camp in the country, is home to about 50,000 refugees and is known to harbor Death Eaters and runaways.
By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the country's 12 refugee camps, leaving security inside to the Paleostinians themselves.
[NaharNet] Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters on Sunday entered Qusayr, a strategic rebel stronghold linking Damascus to the coast, a day after Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... insisted he would not quit.
The advance came as Assad's opponents warned his regime's "barbaric and destructive" assault on Qusayr could torpedo U.S.-Russian attempts to organize a conference on ending two years of bloodshed in the country.
The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... called an emergency meeting for Thursday, ahead of the conference, as the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) demanded it meet and "stop the massacre in Qusayr".
Forces loyal to Assad launched Sunday's offensive by heavily bombarding Qusayr with artillery and warplanes early in the morning.
Hours later, a military source told Agence La Belle France Presse that government forces entered the center of the town, with troops raising the Syrian flag over the recaptured municipality building.
"The Syrian army controls Qusayr's main square in the center of the city, and the surrounding buildings, including the municipality building," said the source.
State television said: "Our valiant troops have restored security and stability to the Qusayr municipality building and surrounding buildings and are continuing to hunt down snuffies in the town."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime troops began carrying out air strikes backed by artillery fire against the town early on Sunday, before the group operation started.
"The assault on Qusayr has started. There is fierce fighting between rebels and the army around the entrances to the town," Observator director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Troops were entering from the south, and fighters from Leb's Hizbullah were "playing a central role," he added.
"If the army manages to take control of Qusayr, the whole province of Homs will fall," he said.
The group said the army carried out additional air strikes on Sunday afternoon, and that at least 40 people were killed throughout the day, including 21 rebel fighters.
The regime has made recapturing Qusayr and the surrounding district of Homs province a key objective, and fierce fighting has raged in the vicinity for months.
In recent weeks, government troops backed by Hizbullah and members of the National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, have taken a string of villages and reportedly surrounded Qusayr on three sides.
The fighting has spilled over into Leb, and on Sunday the country's National News Agency said eight rockets fired from Syria landed in Lebanese territory, without causing any damage or injuries.
Responding to news of the assault on the city, the SNC, a key component of the main opposition National Coalition, denounced the "barbaric and destructive bombing" of Qusayr.
It accused the regime of working with Hizbullah to "invade the town and wipe it and its residents off the map," and called for "an urgent meeting of the vaporous Arab League to stop the massacre in Qusayr".
"We say to the countries that are working for a political solution in Syria that allowing this invasion to go ahead in silence... will render any conference and any peace effort meaningless."
The United States and Russia are working to organize a peace conference next month, in a bid to find a political solution to the conflict.
Washington has backed the uprising against Assad, while Moscow is one of his staunchest allies.
But the embattled Syrian leader said in a weekend interview with an Argentine newspaper that he will not resign before the end of his mandate in 2014.
"To resign is to flee," he was quoted as saying by the Clarin newspaper when asked if he would consider stepping down.
The Syrian military was also advancing on other fronts, taking control of the rebel-held village of Halfaya in Hama province, the Observatory said.
State television reported the army "killed numerous snuffies from al-Nusra Front in Halfaya" and destroyed weaponry.
In Damascus, a military source said troops were advancing in Barzeh district on the northern outskirts of the city.
The Observatory estimates at least 94,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising began in March 2011.
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05/20/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
QUSAYR repor has been taken by Assad's Boyz, but is now suffering counter-attack/siege of unknown duration by Syrian Rebels reinforced by Lebanese Sunnis???
[NaharNet] Several rockets landed in and around Leb's northeastern town of Hermel from Syria as Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters launched an assault on the rebel-held central town of Qusayr.
The state-run National News Agency said around eight Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... hit different areas of Hermel.
According to Voice of Leb radio (93.3), several rockets landed in a residential neighborhood, causing limited material damage.
Qusayr is home to about 20,000 residents and has been besieged for weeks by Syrian government troops.
Opposition activists said Hizbullah members launched on Sunday the assault on the town along with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's troops in the area.
Qusayr is strategically important because it is close to the Lebanese border and it links Damascus with the coast, where regime loyalists are concentrated. This includes Alawites to which the Assad family belongs.
Later on Sunday, a source close to Hizbullah said four Hizbullah fighters from the Bekaa region were killed overnight in the town of Qusayr, shortly before Syrian forces began the long-expected assault.
Meanwhile, ...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had escaped from his bonds and overwhelmed his guard using the bludgeon the faithful Filomena had smuggled to him in the loaf of bread... Radio Voice of Leb (100.5) said Hizbullah transported 10 bodies and more than 17 maimed fighters from Syria into Leb on Sunday evening.
MTV said Hizbullah announced the death of its member Hatem Hussein who hails from the town of Srifa in Tyre District and was killed in Qusayr.
Citing reports, the TV network said a Hizbullah official called Fadi al-Jazzar was killed in Qusayr's battles and contact was lost with a group that was under his command.
It later quoted its correspondent as saying that Hizbullah members Hasan Faisal Shukur, Abbas Mohammed Othman, Mohammed Fouad Rabah, Mohammed Qassem Abdul Sater, Hajj Ahmed Wael Raad and Hajj Ridwan al-Attar were killed in Qusayr's battles.
Earlier, MTV said a group belonging to the jihadist al-Nusra Front surrendered to a Hizbullah group after its leaders fled to the Syrian town of al-Dabaa near Qusayr.
The Syrian opposition condemned "attempts to invade" the town, which it said could render U.S.-Russian attempts to organize a peace conference "meaningless."
The Syrian National Council, a key component of the opposition, denounced the "barbaric and destructive bombing" of Qusayr.
It accused the regime of working with Hizbullah to "invade the town and wipe it and its residents off the map."
"We say to the countries that are working for a political solution in Syria that allowing this invasion to go ahead in silence... will render any conference and any peace effort meaningless," the group said in a statement.
The United States and Russia are working to organize a peace conference next month, in a bid to find a political solution to the conflict.
The statement accused "forces from outside Syria of committing genocide and war crimes."
The U.N. Security Council should "carry out its duty in preventing members of an bad boy terrorist group like Hizbullah and forces that back terrorism like Iran from violating the border of our country and invading the homes of the (Syrian) people," it said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/20/2013 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.
Goodluck Jonathan
North Korea
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
