[VOA News] Talibs on Saturday attacked the headquarters of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, the latest in a series of attacks across the capital. The assault, in which five turbans were killed, took place shortly before a presser was to begin on the April 5 vote.
The sound of shooting echoed once again in the streets of Kabul on Saturday. This time, Talibs climbed onto a roof to shoot rockets into the heavily-protected compound of the Independent Election Commission.
Election officials ran for refuge in special safe rooms in the building, built to withstand such attacks.
The Taliban quickly took responsibility for the assault, the latest in a series of attacks across the city that has left more than two dozen dead, including three children, in the last 10 days.
Interior Ministry front man Sediq Seddiqui said the turbans were holed up in a building near the IEC complex and were surrounded by elite police forces.
"There's a house, an empty house, a private house, which was taken by some four terrorists, and they have been surrounded by the police. We are still waiting for the standoff to be over. They entered that house to launch attacks on the IEC office," he said.
As Seddiqui was speaking, the Death Eater group was posting live updates of its version of the shootout over Twitter. By mid-afternoon the group claimed the "martyrdom attack" was ongoing and all the fighters were still alive.
Kabul police chief Mohammad Zahir said by late afternoon most of the fighting was over, and there were no casualties among IEC personnel or security forces. Zahir confirmed reports the attackers had gained entry to the house dressed in burqas, the traditional covering used by women in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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BARAWE, Somalia -- Somalia's Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab group executed three men for spying for Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency in Barawe coastal town of southern Somalia on Friday afternoon, Garowe Online reports.
The alleged spies who have been identified as-Mohamed Deeq Hassan Ali, 28, Mohamud Farah Sabriye Shure, 47 and Abdinajib Shire Barre- were executed by firing squad at a public spot in the presence of self-appointed Al Shabaab judges and Barawe residents. Ahead of the execution act, Al Shabaab judge said, the three men have been working with Federal Government of Somalia for several months and transferred Al Shabaab plans and activities to Mogadishu-based intelligence agency.
"Undoubtedly, we will firmly deal with the intruders who are charged with spying and we will hone to sever the cancer within the Muslims," Abu Abdalla, Al Shabaab's representative to Lower Shabelle region told onlookers at the scene of the execution.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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MOMBASA, Kenya â A Kenyan official says police have killed two terrorists men suspected of being terrorists who fatally shot six people in a church.
Mombasa County police chief Robert Kitur said Friday the terrorists gunmen were killed by officers after a gunfight in the Likoni area of the coastal city of Mombasa. Three terrorists gunmen opened fire inside the Joyland Church in Likoni on Sunday, killing two people on the spot while four others died in hospital from bullet wounds.
Kenya has experienced dozens of small attacks, many on churches, after al-Qaida-linked Somali terrorists militants known as Shaboobs al-Shabab vowed to avenge Kenya sending troops to Somalia in October 2011 to fight the terrorists militants.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced to death two supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... convicted of throwing youths off an apartment block roof, judicial sources said.
One youth thrown from the building in Alexandria was killed. The court submitted its verdict for approval to the mufti, the government's official interpreter of Islamic law, the sources said.
The latest death sentences come despite international outrage at Egypt handing down the death penalty to 529 Islamists on Monday after just two hearings. That verdict can be appealed, and the mufti has upheld death sentences in the past.
The men sentenced to death on Saturday were among 63 people on trial over deadly violence in Alexandria's Sidi Gaber neighborhood on July 5 last year, two days after the army overthrew Morsi.
The trial was adjourned until May 19 when the verdicts for the other defendants are expected to be announced.
The violence in Alexandria broke out as supporters and opponents of Morsi erupted into the streets of Egypt's second city, the first to demand his reinstatement and the others to celebrate the end of his one-year rule.
Amateur video posted on social networks at the time showed men throwing two youths off the roof of the building. It showed four young men cowering on the rooftop who are followed by several older men, one of them bearded and holding a jihadist flag. The men are seen throwing stones at the youths and later one is thrown from the roof.
The video goes on to show club-wielding men beating the body of the youth. Another man is later thrown from the roof but is only injured.
Egyptian authorities later said only one youth was killed in the attack and that one man had been tossed in the clink Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in connection with his death.
Also on Saturday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said faceless myrmidons have killed 496 people since the military ousted Morsi, mostly soldiers and coppers.
Also on Saturday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said faceless myrmidons have killed 496 people since the military ousted Morsi, mostly soldiers and coppers.
Attacks have surged since the army removed Morsi last July 3 and the military-installed authorities launched a deadly crackdown on his supporters.
A foreign ministry "factsheet" sent to media said 252 police and 187 military personnel were killed in "terrorist" attacks, along with 57 civilians. Most of the attacks were in the northern Sinai Peninsula and targeted coppers and soldiers.
The army has poured troops into the mountainous and underdeveloped region bordering the Paleostinian Gazoo Strip and Israel, to combat growing militancy.
But faceless myrmidons have also launched brazen attacks farther afield. In mid-March, gunnies killed six soldiers at a checkpoint in Cairo.
Al-Qaeda-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) has claimed most of the deadliest attacks, including a boom-mobileing at a police headquarters in Cairo, shooting down a military helicopter and the suicide kaboom of a tourist bus in the Sinai.
The Sinai-based group said the attacks were in retaliation for the crackdown on Morsi supporters. More than 1,400 people have been killed in the crackdown, according to rights group Amnesia Amnesty International. Thousands have been incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!.
Four people including an Egyptian woman journalist were killed in Cairo on Friday as police clashed with Islamists protesting against ex-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisiâs presidency bid, a security official said.
Mayada Ashraf, who worked for the privately owned Al Dustour newspaper, was shot in the head while covering clashes in the northern neighbourhood of Ein Shams, the official said, adding that three more people were killed in the same violence and 10 wounded.
Four people were also wounded in clashes in the northern province of Damietta, health ministry official Khaled Al Khatib said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Raymond Ibraham reports one of the dead is a Coptic woman murdered because of her faith, the protests against General al Sisi taking the form of attacking a Coptic church.
[VOA News] An Egyptian court has sentenced two supporters of former president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... to death in connection with violence that followed his ouster last year.
Both men were on trial for throwing two people off the roof of a building in the coastal city of Alexandria last July, during mass protests demanding Morsi's reinstatement.
Amateur video footage of the two young people being thrown off the building was widely broadcast.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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A total of four men were shot to death in an exchange of gunfire involving the Mexican security forces Friday night, according to Mexican news reports.
According to a news account posted on the online edition of El Debate news daily, three of the four men who were killed were identified as Juan Francisco Espinoza Lopez, Sergio Enrique Ceniceros Angulo and Jonathan Atadeo Lagunes.
According to various news reports, a Mexican Naval Infantry road patrol intercepted a convoy in ejido Sinaloa de Navolato in Culican municipality, one vehicle of which was a Humvee with the victims, and exchanged gunfire with the occupants and others in the convoy.
According to a separate news account in Milenio news daily, the confrontation took place in two areas in the ejido and involved hand grenades as well as small arms fire. Some elements of the convoy had dismounted, and so marines continued their pursuits into corn field, all the while firing their weapons.
Three marines were wounded in the exchange including one hit by grenade shrapnel.
The Milenio report noted that the commander of the Mexican 9th Military Zone, General Miguel Hurtado Ochoa visited the scene in the aftermath, but no explanation was made as to why such a senior commander would be in the field.
News reports suggested that the fourth victim was a former Navolato municipal police commander, identified as German Ceniceros Ibarra, AKA Jaguar, who went missing back in 2008.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
[DAWN] Six mortar shells fired from Afghanistan fell into North Wazoo's Ghulam Khan Tehsil area on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
According to security sources, six mortar shells fired from the Afghan region bordering North Waziristan fell into Ghulam Khan Tehsil.
No casualties or loss of life was reported due to the targeted area being uninhabited.
North Waziristan is of one of Pakistain's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Pakistain and Afghanistan regularly trade allegations of cross-border shelling from both sides of the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
North Waziristan has always been trouble but the Pak army dont do nothing about it=Collusion.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/30/2014 8:04 Comments ||
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#2
For too much of the Pak Army is a work program for young men to keep those who'd otherwise be a problem in the local gangs consolidated to be a problem for the whole country. It's about posing, not about fighting real threats to national security.
[DAWN] An armed myrmidon attack at Pasni Radar-Post in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's volatile Mekran belt near Pakistain's port city of Gwadar left one personnel dead, a bigwig said on Saturday.
The Death Eaters fled away the site but only after destroying some technical equipment and planting a bomb at the air traffic control post.
The official in the province's home and tribal affairs department, who requested anonymity owing to sensitivity of the matter, told Dawn.com that eight armed Death Eaters stormed inside the Pasni Radar-Post and killed a personnel deployed there.
"The Death Eaters made eight personnel hostage after the attack," he said, adding that one of them was killed after resistance.
The Pasni Radar-post, located 131 kilometer east from Pakistain's port city of Gwadar, controls air traffic from Western and Gulf countries towards South Asia and Central Asian States.
"The assailants planted a bomb after the attack," the official said and informed that the bomb disposal squad was called in to defuse the bomb.
He said the Death Eaters damaged some technical equipments installed at the Radar-Post after the attack.
"Militants sped away in their vehicles after the attack," he said.
Pasni is considered to be one of the sensitive areas of Balochistan. Militants in the area have been targeting security forces, vital national installations and pro-government personalities for last more than seven years.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... the official suspected that the Baloch rebels operating in the area were behind the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] A minor girl was killed and 15 others injured Saturday in a powerful kaboom on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province, police said.
Imran Qureshi, the Superintendent of Police, said faceless myrmidons targeted the vehicle of Frontier Corps (FC) through an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on Quetta's Sariab road area. He said the faceless myrmidons had planted an IED in a rickshaw parked on the roadside.
"There was a powerful blast when a FC vehicle was passing by in the area," Qureshi stated.
The injured included three FC personnel, women and kiddies. He added that a minor girl succumbed to her injuries on her way to a hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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A total of 17 people were killed and 23 others wounded on Saturday in separate attacks across Iraq, including the volatile province of Anbar, police said, Xinhua reported.
Four soldiers were killed and two members of a government- backed Sahwa paramilitary group wounded when gunmen using mortars and machineguns attacked their base in Albu Delma, just northwest of the provincial capital city Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad. The Sahwa militia, also known as the Awakening Council or the Sons of Iraq, consists of armed groups, including some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups, who turned their rifles against the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
In a separate incident, anti-government gunmen attacked an army patrol in al-Houze district in central Ramadi, leaving three soldiers killed after they destroyed their vehicle.
Elsewhere, a fierce clash erupted between a commando force and gunmen, believed to be linked to al-Qaida militant group, in the town of al-Garma, just east of the militant-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killing seven gunmen.
Meanwhile, five civilians were wounded when several mortar rounds landed in the town of al-Saqlawiyah, just north of Fallujah. The mortar rounds were believed to be fired from military bases outside the town.
Separately, a policeman was critically wounded when a sticky bomb attached to his car was detonated in the town of Baghdadi near the city of Heet, some 160 km west of Baghdad.
Six civilians and two members of Sahwa paramilitary group were wounded by a roadside bomb explosion at a checkpoint manned by the Sahwa members in Abu Ghraib area, some 25 km west of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, four people were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at an intersection in Adhamiyah district in the northern part of the capital, while two civilians were wounded in a blast of a sticky bomb attached to their car in eastern Baghdad.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, two civilians were shot dead and another wounded in two attacks by gunmen near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.
An armed man was killed in a clash with a security force near the town of Udheim, some 50 km north of Baquba.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Israeli police used force on Saturday to break up a Paleostinian protest march in occupied east Jerusalem, injuring several people including two journalists, news photographers said.
Several demonstrators and four journalists -- among them a photographer from Agence La Belle France-Presse and another from Rooters -- were slightly injured by projectiles fired by police during the incident, near the walled Old City's Damascus Gate.
The AFP photographer, who was hit on the head, was treated in a local hospital and discharged.
The demonstration, by a few dozen activists...
The demonstration, by a few dozen activists, was to mark the eve of Land Day when Arab Israelis and Paleostinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gazoo hold protest rallies.
It commemorates the day in 1976 when six Arab Israeli protesters were killed by Israeli security forces during mass protests against plans to confiscate Arab land in the northern Galilee region.
"The demonstrators began to throw stones at police on the scene," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP, adding that officers responded with unspecified "riot dispersal means".
She said six people were tossed in the calaboose I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! for public disorder offences but said she had no report of any casualties.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents the international news media in Israel, has repeatedly complained to Israeli authorities over a string of violent incidents involving security forces and journalists.
#1
The crowd of "press" was probably larger than that of the "rioters". I would bet the riot couldn't start until the press and their camera's showed up.
A police chief from Maguindanao province in Mindanao was killed in an ambush, just one day after the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a historic and comprehensive agreement.
Senior Superintendent Rodelio Jocson, the provincial police chief, said Inspector Tongian Namla died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds in the ambush staged by still unidentified killers in the town of Datu Sinsuat late on Friday afternoon.
Namla was aboard a motorcycle when the still unidentified gunmen who were riding a truck with no licence plate opened fire. Jocson said his men were still investigating the motive but he noted that in February, a police investigator from the same town was also killed while returning home.
Thai immigration police at a border pass in Songkhla province are on the lookout for a suspected Iranian assassin on the run after killing a businessman from Dubai. Thai authorities received a request from Dubai to locate suspect Rahmat Asadi who entered Thailand on Wednesday. Police suspect he may try to escape to Malaysia in order to return to Iran.
Asadi is thought to be an expert killer and allegedly has ties to terrorist groups. Border checkpoints in the three southernmost provinces have been given his picture.
[AnNahar] A woman and a child were killed at an army checkpoint in the northeastern border town of Arsal late on Saturday, after the vehicle they were in did not comply to the troops' orders and stop.
"A pickup truck's driver did not abide by orders and stop at a checkpoint, and thus, the troops fired gunshots at it," the state-run National News Agency said.
"The incident resulted in the death of a woman and a child, and it also maimed a man in the leg," the NNA reported.
"The victims' bodies, as well as the injured man, were transferred to al-Rahma hospital in Arsal," the same source added.
This incident comes few hours after several troops were martyred and maimed in a suicide kaboom that targeted an army checkpoint in the Wadi Ata region in Arsal.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Wonder if some Italian (or Spanish or Belgian) judge will convene an investigation into this?
#2
Early in the Iraq invasion, John Keegan--brit mil hist--remarked on the propensity of Iraqi drivers to drive into the middle of firefights, run checkpoints despite substantial warnings, etc.
Recall one report about a US convoy stalled in traffic. Out of the traffic mess comes an Iraqi taxi, accelerating toward the convoy. Some heavy MG rounds in the engine stop him. WTF??? He didn't blow up, the traffic mess was unpredictable so he couldn't have been planning it....
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
03/30/2014 15:08 Comments ||
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#3
It's all the evil Juices' fault!
Wait, what .... ?
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/30/2014 21:03 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] State security forces in the Bekaa tossed in the slammer Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on Saturday a gang for smuggling Syrians into Leb, reported the National News Agency.
It said that the three-member gang was smuggling Syrians into Leb through the Rashaya region.
The state security forces also arrested six Syrians for not having any legal papers as the gang was trying to illegally enter them into Leb.
The smuggling of people and weapons has grown in the Bekaa since the eruption of the conflict in Syria in March 2011.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Army Intelligence incarcerated Please don't kill me! on Saturday three people for robbing Syrian families in the town of Kaftoun in the northern district of al-Koura, reported the National News Agency.
It said that two Lebanese and a Syrian were arrested for the armed robbery of a farm inhabited by Syrian families in Kaftoun.
They made away with around 1,500 dollars from the theft they committed late Friday night.
The suspects, who also assaulted the families during the robbery, were residing in the town of Darbechtar in al-Koura.
[AnNahar] The Bekaa town of Arsal witnessed on Saturday a surge in Syrian refugees fleeing the region of al-Qalamoun following the fall of the Syrian villages of Flita and Ras al-Maarra in the hands of regime forces, reported the National News Agency.
Around 700 refugees arrived in the town up until noon on Saturday amid the heavy deployment of the Lebanese army in the area.
The numbers of refugees seeking safety is expected to rise during the day, added NNA.
The army sought to inspect the identifications cards of the refugees and prevent the infiltration of gunnies into Leb from Syria through the outskirts of Arsal.
The flood of refugees was accompanied by Syrian fighter jets' shelling of the outskirts of the town in the al-Ajram region.
Syrian troops made fresh gains in the strategic Qalamun region near the Lebanese border on Saturday, seizing the Ras al-Maarra and Flita from rebels, a military source told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The military source said the latest advance "is a new step towards closing off the border with Leb."
Also in the border town, a force formed of the army's airborne regiment and of Internal Security Forces raided a house and garages belonging to runaway Sami al-Atrash.
The force seized 6 stolen vehicles or car pieces, which are being inspected by the army troops, the NNA said.
The name of Sami al-Atrash had been mentioned for the first time in media reports claiming that he collaborated with Sameh Breidi in preparing the first boom-mobile that went kaboom! in the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed, a Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... stronghold.
The mountainous Arsal border area has long been a smuggling haven, with multiple routes into Syria that have been used since the conflict began in March 2011 to transport weapons and fighters.
[AnNahar] Three troops were martyred and four others were maimed on Saturday evening in the border town of Arsal when a jacket wallah driving a booby-trapped car went kaboom! at an army checkpoint in region.
"A suicide bomber driving a booby-trapped car went kaboom! at an army checkpoint in the Wati Ata region in Arsal," the military institution said in a communique.
"The kaboom killed three army deaders and maimed four others that were positioned at the targeted checkpoint," the statement added.
The car used in the kaboom was a black Kia, according to the statement.
The state-run National News Agency identified the deaders as soldier A. A., and conscripts M. H. and H. H.
"And among the four maimed troops were T.M. and sergeant A. Sh.," NNA added.
It was later revealed that soldier A. Y., who was gravely maimed in the kaboom, is in a critical condition and he was transferred to a hospital in Baalbek for treatment.
Military helicopter took off from the Riyaq Air Base in Beqaa and headed to Arsal to help rescue teams in reaching the site of the kaboom and in transferring the maimed and the deaders' bodies, according to the same source.
The NNA explained that the blast took place in the plains of Arsal, near the eastern mountain belt on the border with Syria.
MTV detailed on the incident: "A four-wheel drive rushed towards the army checkpoint, and blew up near the soldiers' position."
"Normally, seven to 12 troops are positioned at the targeted checkpoint," it added.
Al-Jadeed television assured moments after the blast that the contact was lost with the soldiers serving at the targeted checkpoint in Arsal.
The "Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade" claimed later on Saturday the suicide kaboom, considering it a retaliation to the killing of runaway Sami al-Atrash.
"As long as Sunnis are targeted in Leb, be sure that we will respond to any attack," the Brigade said on its account on the social media website Twitter.
The name of Sami al-Atrash was mentioned for the first time in media reports claiming that he collaborated with Sameh Breidi in preparing the first boom-mobile that went kaboom! in the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed, a Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... stronghold.
Later in the evening, State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr tasked the army police to conduct all the initial investigation in Saturday's blast.
He called for gathering all necessary proofs and information to reveal and identify the attackers, noting that the site of kaboom will be inspected later.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam said the kaboom was a "hateful criminal act," but assured that it will not affect the "decisive political decision to fight all forms of terrorism."
"As the army and security forces were preparing to start implementing a security plan adopted by the cabinet, troops were attacked in a hateful and terrorist crime in the Arsal plains," Salam said in a released statement.
"This is another episode in the cycle of violence targeting stability in Leb, the prestige of the state and its institutions," he added.
"The army will remain a symbol of sacrifice and it has the complete political support to do its job in protecting the security of the country and its citizens. This will only make us more insistent on fighting terrorism, resisting to any acts that threaten security, and implementing the law in all regions in Leb."
Salam contacted army chief General Jean Qahwaji to be briefed on the latest developments following Saturday's kaboom.
Hizbullah also condemned the Arsal kaboom, saying it is a crime targeting the country and all Lebanese people.
Syrian government forces captured two villages near the border with Lebanon on Saturday after clashes with opposition fighters, cutting a major supply route for weapons and fighters into Syria, state TV said.
The report said the villages of Flita and Ras Maara fell into the hands of government forces early in the day. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed troops were inside the two villages and advancing, although it had no immediate word on whether they fell to government forces.
The Observatory said government forces are backed by members of Lebanonâs Hezbollah group, which openly started taking part in Syriaâs war last year against opposition forces.
The villages were the latest targets of a government offensive in the rugged Qalamoun border region after troops captured the town of Yabroud earlier this month. Tens of thousands of Syrians fled into Lebanon since the Qalamoun offensive began in November.
Flita, which is about 7km from the border with Lebanon, had been a major crossing point for rebels coming from across the border into Syria to fight President Bashar Assadâs forces. Syriaâs rebels draw supply, recruits and support from Sunni communities in Lebanon.
Qalamoun holds strategic value for the government since it is crossed by the main north-south highway that links the capital to government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast.
The TV said the villages fell after government forces âwiped out the last remnants of armed terrorist groups and destroyed its weapons and tools they used in their crimes.â The Syrian government refers to rebels as âterrorists.â
An activist based near Damascus who goes by the name of Abu Yazan Al Shami who is in touch with colleagues near Yabroud confirmed that government forces have captured parts of the two villages but are still facing resistance from rebels inside.
âFierce and difficult battles are taking place. It is a rugged area and both the regime and the rebels have gathered lots of fighters for this battle,â said Al Shami via Skype. He added that the main battle expected to follow Flita and Ras Maara will be the rebel-held town of Rankous in order for the government âto completely cut supplies from Lebanon into Qalamoun.â
In the coastal province of Latakia, the Observatory reported that government warplanes struck areas that are witnessing clashes between rebels and troops. It said the fighting and the air raids are concentrating around the rebel-held areas of Kassab and Nabaain.
Syrian troops have been trying for days to push back opposition fighters who over the past week made rare territorial gains in Assadâs ancestral heartland.
Government troops have been battling for days with the rebels from several groups, including the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, that launched the offensive in the province last week. They seized a number of towns, a border crossing with Turkey and â for the first time in the 3-year-old conflict â a tiny stretch of coast giving the rebels an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2014 00:00 ||
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[VOA News] Lebanese security officials say a suicide boom-mobile has went kaboom! at an army checkpoint in eastern Leb near the Syrian border, killing at least one soldier and wounding others.
Saturday's attack took place in the border town of Arsal, which has seen a spillover from the Syrian conflict.
The region is home to thousands of Syrian refugees, as well as Syrian rebels and their allies, who have fled a Syrian army offensive aimed at securing towns and villages along the Lebanese border.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2014 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.
[VOA News] Talibs on Saturday attacked the headquarters of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, the latest in a series of attacks across the capital. The assault, in which five 
BARAWE, Somalia -- Somalia's Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab group executed three men for spying for Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency in Barawe coastal town of southern Somalia on Friday afternoon, Garowe Online reports.
MOMBASA, Kenya â A Kenyan official says police have killed two 
[AnNahar] An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced to death two supporters of deposed president 
Wazoo
A police chief from Maguindanao province in Mindanao was killed in an ambush, just one day after the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a historic and comprehensive agreement.
Thai immigration police at a border pass in Songkhla province are on the lookout for a suspected Iranian assassin on the run after killing a businessman from Dubai. Thai authorities received a request from Dubai to locate suspect Rahmat Asadi who entered Thailand on Wednesday. Police suspect he may try to escape to Malaysia in order to return to Iran.
