[AnNahar] An Egyptian court on Monday rejected a plea for bail by tossed in the slammer Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... journalists, who denied links with the blacklisted Moslem Brüderbund in a trial that has sparked international condemnation.
The journalists, who have spent nearly 100 days in jail since their arrest, are charged with spreading false news and supporting the Islamist movement 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... "Please, get us out of jail, we are tired. We've been suffering in prison," Mohammed Fadel Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English, told the judges.
He and his seven co-defendants, dressed in white prison uniforms, were briefly allowed out of the caged dock to address the court, in what Fahmy's lawyer, Khaled Abu Bakr, described as "an unprecedented move in the history of Egypt's criminal courts".
The trial, in which 20 defendants stand accused, has sparked an international outcry and fueled fears of a media crackdown by the military-installed authorities.
Australian news hound Peter Greste also pleaded to be released on bail, telling the judges "we only desire at this point to continue to fight to clear our names outside prison".
"We would like to emphasize that we are more than willing to accept any conditions that you impose on us," he added.
Producer Baher Mohammed said he wanted to be with his wife during her pregnancy.
"My wife is pregnant and she visits me in jail with the children. It is exhausting," he told the judges.
"I want to be released on bail so I can be by her side."
At the end of the session Mohammed told Agence La Belle France Presse that "we are here representing freedom of expression".
"It's not only about us."
The judges ordered that two defendants who claimed they had been tortured be examined by "independent forensic doctors".
They then adjourned the trial to April 10 without granting bail to any of the accused.
Prosecutors insist the Al-Jazeera journalists colluded with the Brotherhood, now designated a "terrorist" group, and falsely sought to portray Egypt in a state of "civil war".
Fahmy said he cannot be considered as a terrorist or a Brotherhood member as he is a "liberal man" who drinks alcohol.
Greste also denied any links with the Brotherhood, saying he and fellow tossed in the slammer Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! journalists posed no threat to Egypt.
"The idea that I have a connection with the Moslem Brüderbund is frankly preposterous," Greste told the judges, adding he had arrived in Cairo just two weeks before his arrest.
Eight defendants are in jug, and the rest are either on the run or abroad.
Greste and Canadian-Egyptian Fahmy were tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! on December 29 in a Cairo hotel suite they used as a bureau after their offices were raided by police.
Before the proceedings began, Greste's brother Mike said the award-winning journalist was "strong... but 100 days in prison must have left its effect on him".
Defence lawyer Mokhles El-Salhy said his clients had been doing their "job professionally and objectively" when they were arrested.
"They were covering violent festivities between protesters and security forces, as were all other channels. They didn't make it up or fabricate it," he told AFP.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged the authorities to release the journalists and respect freedom of expression.
"The authorities must stop invoking the fight against terrorism in order to persecute dissident journalists," RSF's Lucie Morillon said.
The trial of the journalists from the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera network comes against the backdrop of strained ties between Cairo and Doha since the army ousted Morsi in July.
Qatar was a close ally of Morsi's government and the Brotherhood, and Egypt accuses the gas-rich Gulf state of backing the Islamist movement, including through Al-Jazeera.
The authorities banned the pan-Arab broadcaster's Egyptian channel after Morsi's removal.
Monday's hearing comes a day after Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim accused an Al-Jazeera editor of helping to leak classified intelligence documents, in a separate espionage trial involving Morsi.
The minister charged that Amin El-Serafi, secretary to Morsi, leaked the documents to Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal, who he said was Al-Jazeera's news editor and also a Brotherhood member.
Hilal allegedly facilitated a meeting between a Paleostinian go-between, a Qatari official and an operative with an unspecified intelligence agancy.
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[AnNahar] Yemen's president in an interview published Monday defended the U.S. use of drones against al-Qaeda in his country, despite criticism from rights groups and a parliamentary vote to ban them.
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi also again accused Iran of supporting southern secessionists and northern rebels as Yemen undergoes a difficult political transition.
Drone strikes "have greatly helped in limiting al-Qaeda activities, despite some mistakes which we are sorry about," Hadi told the pan-Arab Al-Hayat daily.
The United States has launched repeated drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets in Yemen as part of its "war on terror" and in support of the army's campaign against the jihadists.
The drone war, which has killed dozens of forces of Evil over the past year, has triggered criticism from human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. activists, who say many innocent civilians have also died.
The United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... said 16 non-combatants were killed and at least 10 maimed when two separate wedding processions were hit in December.
The victims had been mistakenly identified as members of al-Qaeda, the U.N. quoted local security officials as saying at the time.
Following the deaths, Yemen's parliament, which has limited powers when it comes to security policy, voted to ban drone strikes.
But Hadi insisted that using traditional warplanes against the bully boy network could cause "much bigger losses".
In the same interview, he told Shiite-dominated Iran to "keep its hands off Yemen" and to stop backing "gangs" in the country.
"Unfortunately, Iran still meddles in Yemen whether by supporting the separatist (Southern) Movement or some religious groups in the north," he said, referring to the northern Huthi Iranian catspaws who fought six wars with central government forces since 2004 before signing a truce in February 2010.
In recent months, the rebels have clashed sporadically with rustics and troops in an attempt to spread their control further towards the capital.
"We had asked our Iranian brothers to review their wrong policy towards Yemen, but our demands have so far been fruitless," said Hadi, adding that Sanaa is not seeking "escalation" with the Islamic republic.
Hadi has repeatedly accused Tehran of "trying to derail the political" process in Sunni-majority Yemen, where a year-long popular uprising led to the 2012 ouster of former strongman President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... after a Saudi-sponsored deal was sealed the previous November.
Both Iranian catspaws and southern independence activists, demanding a return to the independence they enjoyed before union with the north in 1990, have rejected plans for a six-region federation decided by a presidential committee in February.
The North Caucasus insurgent website Kavkazcenter has posted a statement in the name of rebels from the North Caucasus fighting in Syria pledging support for Aliaskhab Kebekov (aka Ali Abu-Mukhammad), who recently succeeded Doku Umarov as head of the North Caucasus Emirate, proclaimed by Umarov in 2007.
The statement is signed by Abdul-Khalim Ash-Shishani, a member of the Shariat Committee of, and a spokesman for, the Djeish Mukhadjirin va Ansar (Brigade of Migrants and Ansars ) group that is made up of foreign fighters, primarily from the North Caucasus.
Ash-Shishani expresses regret at Umarov's death, but says the news that Kebekov, the "elder brother and mentor of the [Caucasus] Emirate's Muslim youth," had been chosen to succeed him was "healing balsam to Muslims' bleeding hearts." In the name of his militants, Ash-Shishani swears allegiance to Kebekov for as long as he abides by the teachings of the Koran.
Ash-Shishani further affirms the preparedness of his men to return to the North Caucasus to fight under Kebekov's command. He exclaims, "Know, Oh Sheikh, that you have fighters on the territory of the North Caucasus and Sham [Syria], on the territory of other countries, and they are all ready to return home at the first opportunity and fight under your leadership."
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has publicly expressed concern about the possibility that Chechens currently fighting in Syria might return to wage jihad. He claimed that there are "thousands" of militants in Syria who post video footage on a daily basis declaring their readiness to move on to the North Caucasus once the fighting in Syria is over.
It was in Syria that Kebekov studied Islamic theology in the early 2000s under his own nephew, Murtuzali Magomedov. Russian journalist Orkhan Djemal writes that it was Magomedov's unresolved killing in 2009 that caused Kebekov to join the insurgency.
One of Kebekov's first public statements as Caucasus Emirate chief was addressed to rebels from the North Caucasus fighting in Syria. He recalled that he had warned them before their departure for Syria that "we do not want you to form a detachment named 'Imarat Kavkaz,'" but instead to join the foremost group fighting under the banner of monotheism, subordinate themselves to its commander, and not allow themselves to be drawn in to any dispute among the various anti-Assad forces.
Kebekov appeals for them to "not on any account take part" in the fighting between Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and Ash-Shams (ISIS) and more moderate groups. Djeish Mukhadjirin va Ansar commander Salakhuddin Shishani said that his men are neutral in that conflict, although they have provided medical care to wounded ISIS militants.
#1
Not sure iff Kadyrov is correct about the 000's number, but various third-party MilBloggers on the Net have claimed to see Chechens in individuals + groups serving or fighting in Syria + Iraq.
As per Putin + the Ukraine-Crimea Crisis, the crux is whether Putin + Crimea Tatars can effec settle their issues before Chechen + other foreign Jihadis decide to attack Russia en masse.
[AnNahar] The Paleostinian ambassador to Prague who died in a blast at his residence on New Year's Day was holding the explosive in his hand when it went off, a police spokeswoman told Agence La Belle France Presse on Monday.
"An experimental blast carried out by experts confirms this theory," Prague police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova said, denying earlier reports that the blast was caused by a booby-trapped safe.
Jamal al-Jamal, 56, died in hospital on January 1, only three months after taking up his post, following an kaboom that occurred soon after he opened a safe.
"The explosive was not placed on the door or inside the safe and was not there to protect the safe," Zoulova said, adding that the investigation was ongoing.
After the incident, Czech police found 12 firearms at the Paleostinian embassy in Prague, including submachine guns and sidearms that were not officially registered in the Czech Republic.
Local media said the weapons were produced in the former Czechoslovakia and supplied to the Paleostine Liberation Organization before communism fell in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
[Ynet] A bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... -area man accused of trying to travel to the Middle East to fight in Syria's civil war will remain in jug while his case moves through court.
The government says 22-year-old Mohammad Hamdan wanted to join Hezbollah, a Shiite Mohammedan group in Leb that is classified by the US as a terrorist organization. He is charged with violating a law that prohibits support for terrorist groups.
Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen said Monday that Hamdan won't be released on bond. Whalen pored over transcripts of secretly recorded conversations and says Hamdan is a "confused young man." He fears Hamdan may try to flee.
[DAWN] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... has congratulated the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... senior minister Sirajul Haq upon his election as chief of Jamaat-I-Islami and hoped that he will fulfill his new assignment to the best of his abilities.
In a statement issued by the PTI, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa media cell here on Sunday, he said that Mr Siraj was an honest, dedicated and clean person and his elevation to the top post would leave far-reaching impact on the national politics.
Mr Khan also congratulated the workers of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... for holding transparent party elections and electing their chief in a democratic way. Mr Haq's election will augur well for the party as well as for the people, maintained the PTI chief.
Mr Khan said that holding internal party elections was a step designed to instill spirit of democracy, and that the exercise will make the JI stronger.
PTI general secretary Shireen Mazari also felicitated the new JI chief and hoped that his election was a welcome development and was a democratic trend that would positively impact national political affairs.
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[DAWN] Secretary Defence Asif Yasin Malik on Monday said Pakistain would be receiving the United States' leftover military hardware after the completion of withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan later this year.
Malik said allied forces had not spoken of handing over equipment to Afghanistan, adding that Pakistain would be receiving the military hardware.
He further said that only after going through the equipment would Pakistain decide what it wants to keep from the remaining supplies.
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[DAWN] Speculations are rife that former president General (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... is likely to leave the country after a special aircraft of a Gulf country was spotted at the Noor Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi, DawnNews reported on late Monday night.
Meanwhile his lawyer Senator Farogh Nasim has filed a formal request with the Interior Ministry to allow him to travel abroad.
Earlier in a news conference held after the hearing of the treason case, Senator Nasim said that the special court has already clarified that Musharraf is not under the court's custody and he is free to move.
Rumours began circulating about the former dictator's departure the moment news of his illness last week and subsequent admission in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) came out on Sunday night.
Musharraf's condition deteriorated due to high stress after his elderly mother was admitted to a hospital in Sharjah last week.
Earlier on Monday, a special court constituted to try former military dictator for high treason indicted him but at the same time granted Musharraf exemption from appearing in the hearings.
The court said that accused could be ordered to appear in court whenever required and adjourned the hearing to April 15.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... the court added that removal of Musharraf's name from the exit control list was not its prerogative as it had not ordered for the inclusion of his name in the list.
The decision also meant that it was up to the government to allow or deny the request put forward by the former president to be allowed to travel abroad to meet his ailing mother.
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[AnNahar] The Israeli army has revamped a training program for army logistics cadets to prepare them for any future war in Leb or the Gazoo Strip and to avoid a repeat of failures in the 2006 conflict with 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... The Jerusalem Post said the two-week exercise placed around 180 cadets in simulated combat conditions, in a bid to avoid the same critical logistics failures experienced by the Israeli army in the July war of 2006 with Hizbullah.
Col. Eli Gilad, commander of the Logistics Training Center, located at the Ground Forces Training Center in southern Israel, said the program prepares cadets who carry out key wartime functions, such as refueling armored vehicles and ensuring a fresh supply of ammunition, to ensure that ground forces could continue to operate.
"One of the lessons of the Second Leb War is that there was insufficient training for logistics units," Gilad said.
"Our conclusion was to set up a training cycle, just like the one that exists in the Armored Corps. A regular, set period of training, to reach professional standards," he said.
"These officers are far more prepared for war than their predecessors after this," Gilad told the Post. "They need to be ready for any front, be it Syria, Gazoo, or Leb."
#2
We've had our own problems. Little things, like land navigation, proper weapons cleaning, rehearsal of road convoys movement and actions, basic infantry tactics*, etc.
*The Bulge, Tet, et al shows that clerks, mechanics, and cooks had better be prepared to be an infantryman or be dead.
#4
yes, the rate of consumption is much higher than that found in police action. A log system geared to pull (requisition - do you have the piece of paper?) of a police action rather than push (keep shoving the stuff forward till they scream) of offensive operations can leave a unit wanting in dire circumstances.
#7
Logistics from a peace time or police action time to war times has always been a rough transition.
I have read several pre-war estimates of material and ammo expenditures that put the planned rate as 6 times the peacetime rate. However once in combat they found the expenditure rate was at least 10 times the peace time use rate and sometimes much higher if there is heavy fighting for prolonged periods.
Yet somehow the planners and bean counters always forget to take it into account.
#8
They'll train to avoid the 2006 mistakes, and probably mostly succeed in doing so. Instead they'll invent brand-new mistakes to make, or re-discover long-forgotten ones. Can they - privates to generals - adapt to changes? If not, they're in trouble, because things never go as planned.
[Ynet] Proposal reportedly includes release of 420 additional prisoners chosen by Israel, and partial settlement freeze that doesn't include East Jerusalem, existing tenders.
The Palestinians have rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the crumbling peace talks beyond April 29, saying it was akin to "blackmail," an official in Ramallah told AFP on Monday.
A source close to the talks told Rooters that under the proposed arrangement to extend peace talks, Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy analyst caught spying for Israel in the 1980s, could be released by mid-April.
But the White House said it had no new information to offer on Pollard.
"He is a person who is convicted of espionage and is serving his sentence, and I don't have any update on his situation," White House front man Jay Carney told news hounds when asked whether Pollard's release was something that could be offered as an incentive to Israel.
According to a Paleostinian official who spoke with AFP, Israel presented Abbas with a draft agreement on Sunday to push forward with the talks. Abbas was to examine the proposal, he said.
Israel did not make good on its commitment to free 26 Paleostinian prisoners on March 29, a key plank in the original US-brokered terms to relaunch the grinding of the peace processor, citing lack of progress in talks, which Israel claims was a condition for the release.
Under the deal that relaunched the peace talks, Israel agreed to release 104 prisoners, held since before the 1993 Oslo peace accords, in exchange for the Paleostinians freezing all efforts to seek further international recognition.
So far, Israel has freed 78 of them in three batches, and the last group - which the Paleostinians insist includes 14 Arab Israelis incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! for nationalist attacks - was to have been released on March 29.
Israel, on Friday, informed the Paleostinians it would not free the, with the US State Department confirming it was working "intensively" to resolve the dispute.
The Paleostinians say they will not even consider extending the talks without the prisoners being freed, but Israel has refused to release them without a Paleostinian commitment to continue the talks, prompting a fresh crisis of confidence.
"The ball is now in Israel's court," Issa Qaraqaa, the Paleostinian prisoners' minister, told Voice of Paleostine radio, saying the leadership was expecting an answer from the Israeli government within 24 hours.
[Ynet] The Paleostinian leadership has decided Monday to relaunch its recognition campaign to UN agencies if it does not get assurances from US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... on the release of the last group of prisoners within 24 hours, a Paleostinian MP told AFP.
"If Kerry doesn't provide a clear answer on the release of the 30 prisoners, (the Paleostinian leadership) will initiate steps for accession to UN organizations," said the independent MP Mustafa Barghouthi, who participated in a meeting on Monday evening with PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial....
JERUSALEM - An Israeli spy serving a life sentence in the United States and groups of Palestinian prisoners could be freed under an emerging deal to salvage Middle East peace talks, sources close to the negotiations said on Monday.
The sources, who spoke as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prepared to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said under the proposed arrangement that Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst caught spying for Israel in the 1980s, could be released by mid-April.
They'd damned well better not. Pollard is a traitor, pure and simple, and he should rot to death in prison.
In addition, Israel would go ahead with a promised release of a fourth group of Palestinians, among the 104 it pledged to free in a deal that led to the renewal of peace talks last July. Another group of jailed Palestinians would also go free - and the peace talks would be extended beyond an April 29 deadline, the sources said.
Why on earth would you let out that band of murderers? They'll kill more Israelis and you'll have to jug them again.
At some point you confess that the "peace talks" aren't worth it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
First we get punked by Putin and now by the Israelis? Can't anybody here play this game?
#2
Yet another example of why Snowden will never return to the States and be prosecuted. Pollard and Snowden are not seen as traitors to the left. They are seen as political operatives and prisoners who were simply compromised.
#5
In general I agree with the comments on Pollard then I think that at least Pollard is working for our allies and not against the US as so many other traitors that got away with it and I soften my stance a bit.
#7
How bout somebody just saw off Pollards feet. Then Kerry can hand deliver one foot on his next trip to jumpstart negotiations and carry around the other to show off at the UN. Then when BiBi realizes Kerrys dead serious he can start sawing off the feet of the prisoners hes sposed to release. Then in a public display BiBi can order a drop of bundles of feet smackdab on Hamas HQ. Now, when the Euroweenies start to carp, demand an embargo on shoes to the PA. Whattya think too dramatic?
[AnNahar] The Israeli army planted on Monday a surveillance device along the technical fence to spy on Leb, the state-run National News Agency reported.
And that's just the one they found. Bwahahahaha!
The wireless device was installed near a post for the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Interim Force in Leb on the Adaisseh road as Israeli warplanes overflew the area, NNA said.
The post is manned by UNIFIL's Indonesian contingent.
Also Monday, Israeli helicopters overfLew the occupied Kfarshouba Hills and the Shabaa Farms area, the agency said.
In January, Israeli troops dismantled and removed two electronic devices from Adaisseh, which Lebanese authorities said were aimed at spying on Leb.
Israel's border with Leb has been largely quiet since the 2006 war with 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....
[AnNahar] State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr issued around two hundred arrest and search and investigation warrants against suspects who had breached security across Leb.
According to the state-run National News Agency reported on Monday, Saqr issued 200 arrest and search and investigation warrants last week against 200 criminals from the northern city of 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... , the city of Bekaa and Beirut.
They are charged with various crimes, including, involvement in gunbattles, theft, stealing cars and bombing them, the possession of arms and explosives, forging official documents, murder and attempted murder.
Leb has been rocked with violence linked to the Syrian war. It has been particularly on edge since the revolt against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... kicked off in 2011.
Leb has witnessed car and suicide kabooms, rocket attacks and shootouts between pro- and anti-Assad fighters in several cities and towns.
The country has also seen a rise in the wave of kidnappings. Abductors usually ask for ransom.
[An Nahar] Young Syrian rebel commander Mohammed limps from an injury suffered in "insane" army shelling of his native Qalamun region as he tells of his perilous evacuation across the border into Leb.
Mohammed, who gave only one name, is being treated in the small border town of Arsal, which has turned into a refuge for more than 100,000 Syrians fleeing the war in their country and a makeshift rehabilitation center for scores of maimed fighters.
Like most of Syria's rebels, Arsal's residents are Sunni Moslem and they are sympathetic to the three-year revolt against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... Arsal too has suffered violence, including Syrian air strikes, incidents pitting the Lebanese army against Syrian krazed killers, and on Saturday a boom-mobile that killed three soldiers.
For now, Mohammed's hopes of returning to his own town of Yabrud have been shattered, as the Syrian army and 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... consolidate their control over much of the Qalamun mountains.
During the last days of the battle for Yabrud, "there was insane shelling. Twelve men died around me, only one other man survived," said the 26-year-old.
"I was taken to Arsal for treatment because the field hospital in Yabrud was not equipped to help me."
The journey from Qalamun to Arsal, along a dangerous mountain road, was hell.
"They drove me here under cover of night for two hours, with the headlights off and a (Syrian air force) helicopter hovering above us," he said, adding that he was in "immense pain" all the way.
Rights groups say the air force shells the mountain routes taken by people fleeing Qalamun, killing rebels and civilians alike.
"Then, when I heard Yabrud had fallen, I cried for two days," he said, as he walked slowly clutching his black prayer beads, his dark eyes glowing as he pointed at a rocky hill separating Leb from Syria.
"Yabrud is my town, where I have always lived, where my family and friends lived," added Mohammed, a former marketplace vendor-turned-rebel in the uprising against Assad.
Because of their geographic proximity, Arsal has long-running trade and family links with Qalamun.
Arsal's population sympathizes with Syria's revolt, and the town has become a haven of sorts for refugees, including scores of maimed fighters in need of life-saving treatment.
Qassem al-Zein, a Syrian doctor who heads the medical effort for refugees, said Arsal was open to maimed people from the whole of Qalamun.
But the staff at two field clinics in a small border town simply cannot cope.
In one of the clinics, 23-year-old rebel Marwan shares a room with three other men, as Zein helps him gain strength in his injured, emaciated right leg, after he lost his left leg in army shelling.
The room is bare, with only a black coal heater to stave off the winter chill.
"God willing, you will learn to walk again with a prosthetic limb," Zein told Marwan.
- Lack of treatment deadly -
"Here we have 20 beds" for the maimed, said Zein, who once headed the national hospital in Syria's Qusayr, also a onetime rebel bastion that fell last year to Syrian army and Hizbullah control.
At the time, Zein helped evacuate "hundreds of maimed people" to Arsal.
The flow of maimed again shot up during this year's Qalamun fighting, "with up to 60 one day during the battle for Yabrud" earlier in March, he said.
Lacking a CT scan machine and other specialised equipment, "there is very little we can do for people with head or nerve injuries," Zein told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"In recent weeks, eight people have died because we could not transfer them in time" to other hospitals in Leb, Zein said.
Transferring any maimed from Arsal to other parts of Leb requires coordination with the authorities through the national Red Thingy and the International Committee of the Red Thingy.
While the Red Thingy has no facility in Arsal, its volunteers helped transfer around 10 people who had been maimed in Yabrud, ICRC spokesperson Samar al-Qadi said.
"Any war maimed has the right to get the treatment he or she needs," she told AFP.
But with the Syrian army and Hizbullah on the offensive in Qalamun, and with their weekend takeover of the border towns of Flita and Ras al-Maarra, evacuations to Arsal have become more difficult than ever.
Zein said 11 maimed people arrived on Saturday, though he feared many others were trapped in Qalamun.
"The routes out... are being bombed," he sighed.
Mohammed, the Yabrud rebel, agreed: "It will be very hard for maimed people to make that journey here now, if not impossible."
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[AnNahar] The cabinet on Monday postponed appointing Internal Security Forces acting chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous and acting Prosecutor General Samir Hammoud as full-term civil servants following a dispute that prompted the suspension of the meeting for around an hour.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... the council of ministers managed to approve several key resolutions after the session was resumed, including the renewal of the terms of the deputy central bank governors, accepting the $3 billion Saudi donation to the army
How much of the Middle East is the House of Saud keeping afloat nowadays?
and extending the contracts signed with Global Telecom Holding (formerly known as Orascom Telecom) and Zain (formerly known as MTC Group) -- the firms that run the state-owned mobile phone operators Touch and Alfa.
According to Information Minister Ramzi Jreij, discussions over the rest of appointments were postponed to a session that will be held on Wednesday.
As Monday's session got underway, the ministers of the March 8 forces ... the opposition to the Mar. 14th movement, consisting of Hizbullah and its allies, so-called in commemoration of their Mar. 8th, 2006 demonstration of strength in Beirut ... rejected approving the pending administrative appointments in a "partial" manner.
"President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... insisted that the security appointments must happen tonight in order to implement the approved security plan," LBCI TV reported.
But "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... and a number of March 8 ministers insisted that the appointments must be approved as one package and not separately," LBCI added.
And after media reports said the session was suspended due to a clash over the file of oil exploration, the TV network pointed out that the meeting was stopped before embarking on the topic.
"Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous is supposed to be appointed as full-term commander of the ISF," Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi said before the session, as Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq stressed that "the appointments will be approved today."
LBCI had reported before the resumption of the session that Health Minister Wael Abou Faour and Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan carried out contacts to "resolve the dispute and approve the appointments of Basbous and Hammoud tonight."
"The cabinet is a consensus cabinet and everything in it must be addressed through consensus, including appointments," Hajj Hassan, who represents Hizbullah in the government, said.
"We in Hizbullah are facilitating things and the issue is inclined to be resolved," he noted.
Abou Faour earlier announced that the cabinet would debate the issue of the oil exploration decrees, amid expected disputes over contracts and maritime oil exploration blocs.
[Jpost] Ahmed Shaheed is the Maldivian diplomat who was elected as the UN's special rapporteur on the state of human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... in the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
[Ynet] Syria's information minister has lashed out at Turkey, accusing Ankara of sending imported muscle across the border to fight Syrian government troops in Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... 's ancestral homeland in Latakia province.
Omran al-Zoubi says neighboring Turkey is facilitating the entry of "groups of foreigners, armed to their teeth" into Latakia, where fighting is raging between Syrian government forces and rebels trying to oust Assad.
[Ynet] The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported Monday that Syria has deployed antiaircraft missile batteries near the Turkish border in order to intercept any aircraft entering the Syrian airspace in a possible responce to the Turkish interception of the Syrian aircraft last week. The report was attributed to Syrian army and Hezbollah officials.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/01/2014 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.
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
The North Caucasus insurgent website 
Pervez 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
