[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Amid growing optimism regarding the revival of stalled Afghan peace talks with the mediation of Pakistain, former US diplomats have said it would be unlikely for the Pak military to close down the Taliban and Haqqani network operations and imprison Afghan myrmidon leaders willing to pursue violence.
"Pak military has never been willing to take the very steps most likely to advance the process, which are to close down Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network operations in Pakistain and imprison any of their leaders not actively negotiating peace with the government in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... ," Zalmay Khalilzad, a former American ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) Sunday warned certain Taliban factions against refusing to accept the grinding of the peace processor, adding that government will consider severe military action against those that continue to destabilize the country.
The remarks come a day ahead of a key meeting between representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistain, U.S and China in Islamabad to map out the peace framework with the holy warrior group.
Last July, Pakistain hosted the first round of formal talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban; however the talks then stalled following the reported death of the group's longtime leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
On the eve of the Islamabad meeting, the Afghan officials vowed to take extensive military action against the Taliban factions that reject peace and promote war.
"If Pakistain realizes that it has the capacity of gathering all factions around the peace table, is it a good thing. If it does not have the capacity, we request Pakistain to prove its honesty and target the hideouts of those who deny peace," an Afghan senator said.
Referring to Pakistain's role in the Afghan peace dialogue with the Taliban, some Afghan senators on Sunday persuaded Islamabad to support Afghanistan in its attempts to broker groundbreaking talks with the hardline movement.
Concerns grew over the recent weeks that the talks would be more complicated in the wake of the split that emerged amongst the Taliban group following the death of their former leader Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... Meanwhile, ...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo drew a bead on his old enemy and squeezed the trigger... the High Peace Council (HPC) said that the issue of the Taliban factions will also be taken into consideration during the talks.
"The quadrilateral meeting will also discuss the topic that which groups and who will participate in the coming two or three meetings," HPC member Maulavi Nuristani said.
A number of military experts meanwhile said the Afghan government should mount pressure on Islamabad to take action against those Taliban that still continue to denounce the grinding of the peace processor, calling on Islamabad to target their hideouts which they believe operate inside Pakistain's soil.
"If the government peace delegation succeeded to mount pressure on Pakistain to take actions against hideouts of such groups, I think this will be effective for strengthening peace in Afghanistan," university professor Sakhi Mohammadi said.
Sources close to the Presidential Palace have confirmed that two Taliban factions are likely to attend the peace talks in future.
The Afghan government has called on Pakistain to prove its sincerity toward the peace talks by March this year.
Sources have said that those Taliban factions that reject the grinding of the peace processor should be declared as Lions of Islam by the four nations attending the Islamabad talks.
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01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Military action is used first to force an opponent to the table. Threatening it later is weak. Trump has a point about folks being incompetent.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/11/2016 8:35 Comments ||
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[DAWN] An Afghan official says Pakistain will present a list of Taliban willing to negotiate with Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... at a meeting this week aimed at reviving the Afghan grinding of the peace processor.
Afghanistan, Pakistain, China and the United States will meet in Islamabad on Monday to discuss a road map for peace talks. The meeting will not include the Taliban.
Javid Faisal, deputy front man for Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... , said Sunday that Pakistain's list will include Taliban who do and do not want talks with Kabul on ending the 15-year war.
Faisal says Pakistain has agreed to cut off financial support to Taliban fighters based in Pak cities. He says murderous Moslems based in Pakistain would not be allowed to resettle in Afghanistan.
He says the agreement would also include "bilateral cooperation on eliminating terrorism".
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01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] Meeting for the first time in more than three years, Egypt's new parliament on Sunday elected a constitutional expert as its speaker, a key position as President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi looks to push through more than 200 laws issued by executive decree while the assembly was suspended.
Ali Abdelaal, a French-educated lawyer who helped draft the constitution and election law, is a member of the "Support Egypt" coalition, an alliance of over 400 MPs loyal to Sisi.
As speaker, Abdelaal is now first in the line of succession in case of the death or permanent incapacity of the president, until new elections are held.
He quickly moved to impose his authority over the traditionally chaotic and unruly body.
"I know the constitution by heart. I wrote this constitution, nobody holds it up to me," he barked at a politician who spoke out of turn to insist parliament was constitutionally obliged to elect deputy speakers in its first session after Abdelaal moved to adjourn it.
Egypt's last parliament was elected in 2011-12 in the country's first free vote since a popular January 2011 uprising that ended autocrat Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... 's 30-year rule.
The parliament was dominated by Islamists and a court dissolved it in mid-2012 after ruling that the election laws at the time were unconstitutional.
A year later, Mubarak's elected successor, Mohammed Mursi of the Moslem Brüderbund, was himself tossed by the military led by Sisi after mass protests against his rule in June 2013.
"I express my sincere thanks and appreciation toward the leader of the way, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi," Abdelaal said upon assuming office.
"I will always be a defender of democracy and the principles of the Jan. 25 and June. 30 revolutions. I will also be a protector of the people's army and defender of its unity."
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A German intelligence memo shows the threat from the kingdom's headstrong defence minister.
At the end of last year the BND, the German intelligence agency, published a remarkable one-and-a-half-page memo saying that Saudi Arabia had adopted "an impulsive policy of intervention". It portrayed Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman, who is suffering from dementia -- as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.
Spy agencies do not normally hand out such politically explosive documents to the press criticising the leadership of a close and powerful ally such as Saudi Arabia. It is a measure of the concern in the BND that the memo should have been so openly and widely distributed. The agency was swiftly slapped down by the German foreign ministry after official Saudi protests, but the BND's warning was a sign of growing fears that Saudi Arabia has become an unpredictable wild card. One former minister from the Middle East, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: "In the past the Saudis generally tried to keep their options open and were cautions, even when they were trying to get rid of some government they did not like."
The BND report made surprisingly little impact outside Germany at the time. This may have been because its publication on 2 December came three weeks after the Paris massacre on 13 November, when governments and media across the world were still absorbed by the threat posed by Islamic State (IS) and how it could best be combatted. In Britain there was the debate on the RAF joining the air war against IS in Syria, and soon after in the US there were the killings by a pro-IS couple in San Bernardino, California.
It was the execution of the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others -- mostly Sunni jihadis or dissenters -- on 2 January that, for almost the first time, alerted governments to the extent to which Saudi Arabia had become a threat to the status quo. It appears to be deliberately provoking Iran in a bid to take leadership of the Sunni and Arab worlds while at the same time Prince Mohammed bin Salman is buttressing his domestic power by appealing to Sunni sectarian nationalism. What is not in doubt is that Saudi policy has been transformed since King Salman came to the throne last January after the death of King Abdullah.
The BND lists the areas in which Saudi Arabia is adopting a more aggressive and warlike policy. In Syria, in early 2015, it supported the creation of The Army of Conquest, primarily made up of the al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front and the ideologically similar Ahrar al-Sham, which won a series of victories against the Syrian Army in Idlib province. In Yemen, it began an air war directed against the Houthi movement and the Yemeni army, which shows no sign of ending. Among those who gain are al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which the US has been fruitlessly trying to weaken for years by drone strikes.
None of these foreign adventures initiated by Prince Mohammed have been successful or are likely to be so, but they have won support for him at home. The BND warned that the concentration of so much power in his hands "harbours a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of succession in his father's lifetime, he may overreach".
The overreaching gets worse by the day. At every stage in the confrontation with Iran over the past week Riyadh has raised the stakes. The attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad might not have been expected but the Saudis did not have to break off diplomatic relations. Then there was the air strike that the Iranians allege damaged their embassy in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen.
None of this was too surprising: Saudi-Iranian relations have been at a particularly low ebb since 400 Iranian pilgrims died in a mass stampede in Mecca last year.
But even in the past few days, there are signs of the Saudi leadership deliberately increasing the political temperature by putting four Iranians on trial, one for espionage and three for terrorism. The four had been in prison in Saudi Arabia since 2013 or 2014 so there was no reason to try them now, other than as an extra pinprick against Iran.
Saudi Arabia has been engaging in something of a counter attack to reassure the world that it is not going to go to war with Iran. Prince Mohammed said in an interview with The Economist: "A war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the beginning of a major catastrophe in the region, and it will reflect very strongly on the rest of the world. For sure, we will not allow any such thing."
The interview was presumably meant to be reassuring to the outside world, but instead it gives an impression of naivety and arrogance. There is also a sense that Prince Mohammed is an inexperienced gambler who is likely to double his stake when his bets fail. This is the very opposite of past Saudi rulers, who had always preferred, so to speak, to bet on all the horses.
A main reason for Saudi Arabia acting unilaterally is its disappointment that the US reached an agreement with Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme. Again this looks naive: close alliance with the US is the prime reason why the Saudi monarchy has survived nationalist and socialist challengers since the 1930s. Aside from the Saudis' money and close alliance with the US, leaders in the Middle East have always doubted that the Saudi state has much operational capacity. This is true of all the big oil producers, whatever their ideological make-up. Experience shows that vast oil wealth encourages autocracy, whether it is in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya or Kuwait, but it also produces states that are weaker than they look, with incapable administrations and dysfunctional armies. "Disappointment" with the US? Could Perfidious Albion have a son?
This is the second area in which Prince Mohammed's interview suggests nothing but trouble for the Saudi royal family. He suggests austerity and market reforms in the Kingdom, but in the context of Middle East autocracies and particularly oil states this breaches an unspoken social contract with the general population. People may not have political liberty, but they get a share in oil revenues through government jobs and subsidised fuel, food, housing and other benefits. Greater privatisation and supposed reliance on the market, with no accountability or fair legal system, means a licence to plunder by those with political power.
This was one of the reasons for the uprising in 2011 against Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. So-called reforms that erode an unwieldy but effective patronage machine end up by benefiting only the elite.
Oil states are almost impossible to reform and it is usually unwise to try. Such states should also avoid war if they want to stay in business, because people may not rise up against their rulers but they are certainly not prepared to die for them.
#1
Expect the Prince's authority + credibility to greatly increase in the NT.
Salman recognizes that the "status quo" will be the death knell for the KSA as the Saudi position in the Muslim World + International Community, Orgs is being directly or indirectly challenged, to includ by poten by major Sunni Nations presently allied or standng wid the KSA agz rival Shia Iran. THE KSA MUST EXPAND TO MEET ITS THREATS + THAT MEANS THE MONARCHY MUST CHANGE.
THE KSA = USA = FACING RISING PARALLEL INTERNAL THREATS FROM BOTH MILITANT SECULAR MARXIST-COMMIE + ANTI-SECULAR RADICAL ISLAMIST-JIHADI GROUPS - iff-n-when the Monarchy falls, its NOT clear which faction or ideology will be left standing.
#2
This is the same Independent article so favourably described by Hezb'allah's Al Manar news site here. It was not clear from that how very much special pleading and double standards journalist Patrick Cockburn had engaged in. But then, Seymour Hersh has described him as the "best western journalist at work in Iraq today." And we all know how to judge any journalistic appreciation from Mr. Hersh.
They'll get right on it, I'm sure
The Yemeni political powers on Saturday pleaded to the United Nations to take action to break a deadly siege on rebel-besieged Taiz City by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia and forces loyal to now-ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in order to save four million civilians from starving to death. Funny, the 'coalition' doesn't ask the UN to intervene when they're on top...
In a joint letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Yemeni political parties reiterated their call for implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 2216 and immediate intervention to break the siege as part of international conventions. They noted that the rebels seize UN humanitarian aid shipments sent to besieged areas. "Free food!"
In a statement issued on December 23, 2015, the members of the Security Council welcomed the commitment of Yemeni parties to peace talks to ensure safe, rapid and unhindered access for humanitarian aid delivery to all affected governorates, including in particular Taiz City.
The letter of the Yemeni parties noted that Taiz, to date, continues to be bombarded by the Houthi-Saleh militias with all types of weapons.
On December 30, 2015, the rebels shelled Al Thawra General Hospital, the last operational hospital in Taiz, an act the Yemeni politicians described as ‘an unprecedented criminal and brutal violation of human values’. No, not exactly 'unprecedented', not even in the Middle East...
In the meantime, more civilians are dying of starvation and lack of medical supplies in Taiz as a direct result of the siege and the rebel bombardment, the Yemeni parties said in their letter to Ban Ki-moon
#1
It's funny but when I read these articles about Yemen I'm never quite sure who is who. Rather than calling them rebel and gov't forces I'd like them to get called, oh, Iranian backed vs. Saudi backed.
Reminds me of the old story about two Auzzie sailors exiting a pub. Stumbling out the door in the late hours into a heavy London fog, they spot a fellow serviceman entering. Oblivious to his rank and heavily bemedaled uniform, they inquire, "Say there bloke, can you tell us where we are?" The serviceman replies... "Do you know who I am?"
One sailor turns to the other "we don't know where we are, and he doesn't know who he is."
IBoth “Jukes” and “Kallikaks” are pseudonyms for families whose genetics were studied at the end of the 19th century. The Jukes illustrated the inheritance of criminality and the Kallikaks of feeble-mindedness (“feeble-minded” was the catch-all phrase used in those days for various forms of mental retardation and learning disabilities).l
while appropriate I doubt you could tell them apart. Just one more distinction without a difference.
[ALMANAR.LB] The British newspaper, Independent, posted on Sunday, January 10, an article in which it blasted the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman, describing him as naive and arrogant.
The paper quoted a memo, published by the German intelligence agency, as portraying bin Salman -- the powerful 29-year-old favorite son of the ageing King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Cutodian of the Two Holy Mosquesand Lord of Most of the Arabians.... , who is suffering from dementia -- as a political gambler who is destabilizing the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and Syria.
"Spy agencies do not normally hand out such politically explosive documents to the press criticizing the leadership of a close and powerful ally such as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... . It is a measure of the concern in the BND that the memo should have been so openly and widely distributed. The agency was swiftly slapped down by the German foreign ministry after official Saudi protests, but the BND's warning was a sign of growing fears that Saudi Arabia has become an unpredictable wild card."
The BND lists the areas in which Saudi Arabia is adopting a more aggressive and warlike policy, as in Syria and Yemen.
None of these foreign adventures initiated by Prince Mohammad have been successful or are likely to be so, but they have won support for him at home, the Independent concluded.
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01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] The government has started working on the mosque management committees in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country as it thinks the committee members and the imams can play a key role in uprooting militancy by educating the devotees about the radicalisation.
An intelligence agency has recently been tasked to look into the mosque committees alongside inspiring the Islamic scholars to raise their voices against religious extremism. Islamic Foundation is assisting the agency with necessary information, sources said.
The intelligence officials, divided in different zones, started gathering information on the committees two weeks ago, particularly to identify the radical preachers and those linked to 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... within the bodies.
According to a 2008 survey of the Islamic Foundation, there were 5,776 mosques in Dhaka alone whereas the total number of mosques across the country was 2,50,399.
The government thinks that the mosques can play a vital role in preventing the rise of militancy in the country. So before working with the mosque committees, the government wants to make sure that those bodies are free from members of Jamaat and radical groups.
Sources said that the intelligence agency is also taking help from the pro-Awami League members in the mosque committees.
The agency wants to complete preparing a list of the committees members by one and a half months, following which a high-power team will scrutinise their programmes and look into the activities of the suspected persons. They will focus on the persons facing criminal cases and having links to any radical group or Jamaat.
The government will launch its mosque-based initiatives including asking the authorities to reshuffle the committees after getting suggestions from the special team, sources said.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal refused to comment on the matter saying that it was an internal affair of the intelligence agency.
Sources in the Islamic Foundation said that the intelligence officials were taking help from the organization in gathering information about the members of the mosque committees. The foundation runs mosque-based child and mass education programme.
When contacted, Islamic Foundation Chairman Shamim Mohammad Afzal said they were working on spreading the invitation of Islam to the doorsteps of the Muslims.
"It is not our job to gather information on someone. We are now trying to implement a plan regarding sermons before the Jumma prayers at district and upazila levels," he said.
Sources said that Islamic Foundation recently directed all mosques to deliver sermons in Arabic as they appear in the Qur'an and the Hadiths.
Shamim said: "We want to bring the people to the righteous path, like what the Prophet (PTUI!) did. For this, the Friday sermons must be given in Arabic, and there must be words on secular spirit."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Simple. Follow the money.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/11/2016 8:22 Comments ||
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#2
The government thinks that the mosques can play a vital role in preventing the rise of militancy in the country.
So do bullets, and they are cheaper.
Long piece in a Swedish mag about events at a charity musical ball in Stockholm last summer. The attacks, by "foreign asylum seekers or refugees", against the local women at the concerts were numerous, persistent and would meet anyone's definition of sexual assault.
The editors at Dagens Nyheters dismissed the news as right-wing fabrication and only now with the Cologne assaults in the news is this coming out.
We'll be hearing about more of these in the days to come.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2016 07:47 ||
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#1
The Internet is the best thing that ever happened to the news business. It's simply awful for the newsroom crowd, but great for all the rest of us.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/11/2016 8:17 Comments ||
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#2
The elitists would offer that the asylum seekers cannot be blamed as they are simply products of their past environments. Urban crime in the U.S. follows exactly the same flawed logic and denial of basic evil.
The disproof or counter-argument is likely found in Bernie Madoff, who, if the logic follows, must be released from prison at once.
#8
EU there has been on both fronts. PLUS the media shows their true colors.
When the Moslems attack it is alleged this and alleged that, when the citizens respond they are unalloyed right wing thugs with nary an alleged in sight.
[AnNahar] The news site Spiegel Online reported that the man had already been classed by German police as a possible suspect after he posed at the refugee center with an IS flag, but he disappeared in December. Nadal Hasan, Richard Reed, and the Tsarnaevs were "known" as well. Being a known terrorist, or terrorist sympathizer does not appear to hold much consequence.
The head of North Rhine-Westphalia's criminal police service, Uwe Jacob said the suspect had traveled to Germany in 2013 for the first time from La Belle France, where he had lived illegally previously for five years.
"We are not sure who he really was," said Jacob, adding that the man had already been imprisoned on several occasions for offenses relating to illegal arms possession, drug trafficking and assault.
He had gone under seven different identities and given at least three nationalities on separate occasions - Syrian, Moroccan or Georgian, Jacob said, according to national news agency DPA.
"We are not sure who he really was," said Jacob, adding that the man had already been imprisoned on several occasions for offenses relating to illegal arms possession, drug trafficking and assault.
Welt am Sonntag said the man had drawn a symbol of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... organization on the shelter's wall and had filed for asylum using the name Walid Salihi.
But French Sherlocks said Friday the suspect appeared to have been identified by his family and was said to be a Tunisian named Tarek Belgacem.
Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins had said the man was carrying a mobile phone with a German SIM card, with French media reporting that it contained several messages in Arabic, some of which were sent from Germany.
[CNN] Thousands gathered for a moving memorial service in Gay Paree on Sunday, as a city and a nation paused to remember the scores of lives lost in a spate of terror attacks last year.
French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... presided over a somber ceremony to honor the 17 victims of the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... office and a Jewish supermarket last January, as well as the 130 victims of the coordinated massacre in November.
There was heavy security around the Place de la Republique on Sunday as Hollande and the mayor of Gay Paree, Anne Hidalgo, laid a wreath and unveiled a commemorative plaque near a newly planted oak tree. The Place de la Republique, a vast square in eastern Gay Paree, has become an informal memorial and a rallying point for free speech and democratic values after the attacks. Candles, flowers and pictures of the victims lined the base of the Marianne statue, a symbol of the French republic.
The French army choir performed, and rock legend Johnny Hallyday sang "Un Dimanche de Janvier" ("A Sunday in January") -- a song referring to the march on January 11 last year, in which more than 1 million people joined world leaders to march in solidarity.
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01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] Attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting on asylum seekers, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... and her open door migrant policy.
The attacks, mostly targeting women and ranging from theft to sexual molestation, have prompted a highly-charged debate in Germany about its welcoming stance for refugees and migrants, more than one million of whom arrived last year.
The sudden nature of the violent attacks and the fact that they stretched from Hamburg to Frankfurt prompted Germany's justice minister Heiko Maas to speculate in a newspaper that they had been planned or coordinated.
The debate on migration will be further fueled by the acknowledgement by the authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia that a man rubbed out as he tried to enter a Gay Pareecop shoppe last week was an asylum seeker with seven identities who lived in Germany.
In Cologne, police said on Sunday that 516 criminal complaints had been filed by individuals or groups in relation to assaults on New Year's Eve, while police in Hamburg said 133 similar charges had been lodged with the north German city.
Frankfurt also registered complaints, although far fewer.
The investigation in Cologne is focused largely on asylum seekers or illegal migrants from north Africa, police said. They nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! one 19-year-old Moroccan man on Saturday evening.
In Cologne, where a 100-strong force of officers continued their investigations, around 40 percent of the complaints included sexual offences, including two rapes.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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MACEDONIA is building a 10ft-high razor-wire fence along its border with Greece with EU help to try to stop hundreds of thousands of migrants travelling through the Balkans into Europe.
News of the move came as authorities in the German city of Cologne said the majority of people suspected of carrying out mass sex attacks on New Year’s Eve were illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. Police said 379 offences had been committed, 150 of them sexual assaults.
Up to 516 now, still at 40% sexual assaults.
Armed border guards from six of the European Union’s eastern members are helping Macedonia, a non-EU member, to shore up its frontier against Greece, a member not just of the EU but also of its borderless Schengen zone.
The fence, due to be completed within the next few weeks, is modeled on one completed recently in Hungary.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
The headline implies a fence from Greece to Latvia. The story says different...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/11/2016 9:22 Comments ||
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Europe has barely even seen the start of the migrant influx, Germany’s Development Minister has warned.
Gerd Müller said only 10 per cent of Syrian and Iraqi migrants have reached Europe so far and “eight to ten million are still on the way”, with even more to come from Africa.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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Apparently what EUR thought was a massive "Human Wave" wasn't T-H-E WAVE OR ONLY ONE???
[WSJ] The Arab League on Sunday backed Saudi Arabia in its continuing diplomatic spat with Iran, triggered by the kingdom’s execution of a dissident Shiite cleric, condemning Tehran for failing to protect Saudi diplomatic sites in the Persian country.
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01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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More than 16 months after Iraqi and Kurdish forces reclaimed Mosul Dam from Islamic State fighters, the structure faces a new threat: the danger that it may collapse because of insufficient maintenance, overwhelming major communities downstream with floodwaters.
In the worst-case scenario, according to State Department officials, an estimated 500,000 people could be killed while more than a million could be rendered homeless if the dam, Iraq's largest, were to collapse in the spring, when the Tigris is swollen by rain and melting snow. The casualty toll and damage would be much less if Iraqi citizens received adequate warning, if the dam collapsed only partially or if it were breached in the summer or fall, when the water level is lower. Pray for global warming.
President Obama underscored the need to make emergency repairs in a call Wednesday with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in which the two also discussed recent advances by Iraqi security forces against the Islamic State in Ramadi, in western Iraq, the White House said. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated the urgent need to maintain the dam during a meeting with Mr. Abadi in Baghdad on Thursday, according to a senior Defense Department official.
Worried that repairs might not come in time, American officials have urged the Iraqi government to begin warning its citizens, including those who live under the control of the Islamic State in Mosul, about precautions to take and where to flee if the dam starts to fail. Just warn the citizens. Don't tell the IS sub-humans.
A State Department official who is part of an interagency team assembled last year to focus on the problem cautioned that spring brings heightened risk. The official said the administration's assessment was that absent energetic efforts to repair the dam, it would collapse -- although he did not predict when.
At the heart of the problem is a major engineering challenge: reinforcing a massive dam built during the Saddam Hussein era on a weak foundation of gypsum, chalky limestone and clay.
But the problem is political, as well. The growing risks described by American officials come as Mr. Abadi contends with budget shortages, the ongoing conflict with Islamic State fighters and challenges to his authority from hard-line Shiite politicians prone to see American proposals as a conspiracy to expand Western influence in Iraq. Fine. Warn them and stand back. Watch the ensuing hilarity.
An Italian company, the Trevi Group, has been negotiating with the Iraqi government to make emergency repairs to the dam, at an estimated cost of more than $380 million, according to Iraqi officials.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy said in December that he would deploy 450 Italian troops at the dam to safeguard company workers if they began operations there. But negotiations, including on security arrangements, have yet to be completed.
Lukman Faily, Iraq's ambassador to the United States, said on Sunday that the Iraqi government understood the risk to the dam and would meet with the Italian company this week to continue the negotiations.
As for security for any Italian engineers sent to make repairs, the ambassador said on Sunday that "the dam is protected by Iraqi sissies forces, but we have no objection in the provision of additional security expertise from Italy or other coalition nations."
But reflecting Iraq's fractured politics, Mohsin al-Shammari, the head of Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources and a political supporter of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said last month that Iraq did not need any "foreign support" in guarding the dam. Who needs foreign support when InShallah will do?
"There is no need for Italian forces to protect the dam," Mahdi Rasheed, an adviser to Mr. Shammari, said Sunday in a telephone interview.
Mosul Dam, which was completed in 1984 by a German and Italian consortium and is 30 miles upstream from the city of Mosul, has long been a maintenance nightmare. Before fighters from the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, swept across northern Iraq in 2014, approximately 600 Iraqis worked at the dam. Then they suddenly didn't.
Because the water was eating away at the gypsum base under the dam, Iraqi teams drilled holes in that foundation and filled them with a cement grout mixture. That work was carried out three times a day, six days a week.
The Islamic State controlled the dam for a little more than a week in August 2014, but its fighters did not damage the structure. After it was retaken later that month, however, many of the Iraqi workers never returned and the Iraqi government did not resume regular maintenance. The Iraqis also lost their usual source of grouting material, which was produced by a factory in Mosul, now under the control of the Islamic State. And I'm guessing Iraq doesn't need them, either.
As worries about the dam mounted, the Obama administration formed an interagency team and installed 92 instruments to measure, among other things, the pressure on the dam and the sediment in the water nearby -- one way of assessing the rate at which the gypsum base was disintegrating.
The Obama administration ruled out undertaking the costly repair project itself, and the Pentagon has been reluctant to set up a base near the dam to protect the repair efforts.
So the Obama administration has sought to help the Iraqis defray some of the cost by urging the World Bank to agree that $200 million of a $1.2 billion loan for Iraq would be for Mosul Dam repairs. International companies were informed by American officials that they would need to negotiate directly with the Iraqis and make their own security arrangements.
The period of greatest risk is from the end of February to mid-May, when the Tigris is at its highest and the pressure on the dam is the greatest. Maybe the pressure can be mitigated by turning up the speakers on the mosques and ululating all the time.
The worst-case scenario is a total collapse in the spring for which no public education campaign has been carried out on where citizens should flee or what precautions they should take. Maybe they can start an extensive awareness campaign. They can call it "Run uphill now or die."
State Department officials said the danger would be the greatest in Mosul, where rushing water would be funneled in a powerful current along the Tigris through the center of the city. Residents might have as little as two hours' notice that the dam to the north had given way, and the wall of water could be as high as 80 feet. More like 30 minutes I'm guessing. Unless the water takes a wrong turn somewhere.
The water would continue along the Tigris, which runs by Tikrit and Samarra down to Baghdad, potentially knocking out bridges along the way, according to the administration's analysis. As the water traveled south, debris, pesticides and corpses would become part of the flow, threatening the country's supply of clean water and its irrigation system.
The Iraqi capital would have several days' notice before the water reached there. But some areas in Baghdad near the Tigris, including the American Embassy compound and prominent Iraqi government buildings, could be flooded with water as high as 13 feet.
Educating Mosul's residents about the danger is complicated. Residents could avoid the main rush of water by heeding warnings to move to the outskirts. But the Islamic State, which controls the city, might see such warnings as a gambit to clear the way for an offensive backed by the United States and order citizens to stay.
"Right now, there is no alert system in place," said the State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations with the Iraqis.
Mr. Faily, the Iraqi ambassador, asserted that the Iraqi government was determined to have the dam fixed but was ready for all eventualities. "We have an emergency plan in the event of collapse," he said. Yeah. Wait for the water to go down, bury all the bodies in the way, deny the majority of the casualties, loot everything, and carry on.
#1
Even as I type the go units of the FLA are on the move, it looks like they may be joining the Boll Wevil Popular Front for the Spoliation of Cotton, other humint downplays the rotten cotton angle and tugs on the Heart Strings of the Western Press. They are only lookin' for a home, gotta find a home.
#2
Let the damn dam go. Allan wills it. You can't fix stupid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/11/2016 18:17 Comments ||
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#3
An Italian company, the Trevi Group, has been negotiating with the Iraqi government to make emergency repairs to the dam
Does that mean we can resurrect an oldie but a goodie saying from the automotive world: " Flood It Again, Tony?"
[AnNahar] Iraqi forces evacuated 635 civilians from Ramadi Sunday as they continued to clear the city two weeks after declaring victory against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, security officials said.
Federal forces retook the strategic government compound in the center of the capital of Anbar province late last month but they have yet to assert full control over the city.
"Forces from the counter-terrorism service and the Anbar police evacuated 635 civilians," said Major General Sami Kadhem al-Aredhi, a commander of elite troops in Ramadi.
He told AFP they had been trapped in areas where IS fighters are still present in Sichariyah and Sufiya, on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi.
They were taken to a camp in Habbaniyah, east of Ramadi, to join hundreds of other families displaced from Ramadi by the fighting.
Aredhi said his forces and the Anbar police also detained 12 suspected IS members who tried to slip out of Ramadi by blending in with evacuated civilians.
"The suspects were moved to a facility to be investigated as we attempt to identify all the people of Ramadi who got involved with those gangs (IS)," Anbar police chief Hadi Irzayij said.
One of the areas of Ramadi which Iraqi forces most recently cleared is the sprawling southeastern neighborhoods of Malaab.
"Bomb disposal teams there have already defused more than 250 IEDs (improvised bombs," a bomb specialist in the police said.
Dozens more were defused or remote-detonated in the Albu Faraj district in northern Ramadi, a colonel in Anbar operations command said.
IS fighters had planted thousands of roadside kabooms and booby traps across the city, slowing the advance of ground forces vastly outnumbering them and supported by air strikes from the Iraqi air forces and U.S.-led coalition.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Now bull doze the whole place and sow it with salt.
Lockheed Martin reports it has begun the process of joining four major components of the structure an F-35 Lightning II aircraft for Israel.
The plane is the first being built for Israel and is expected to roll out of Lockheed's assembly hall in June.
"Today [Sunday] marks a new beginning for tactical aviation for Israel," said Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin F-35 program manager. "Lockheed Martin is proud of our long and storied relationship with Israel's armed forces. The F-35A Adir strengthens our solid relationship with the IAF and ensures that the Israeli aerospace industry will remain strong for decades to come."
Adir is the Israeli Air Force name for the 33 F-35s it is acquiring through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program. The Israeli F-35s will be the A variant, the conventional takeoff and landing model.
A number of Israeli companies provide components and systems to Lockheed for F-35 aircraft. Israel Aerospace Industries produces wings, Elbit Systems Ltd. works on the Generation III helmet-mounted display system and the F-35 center fuselage composite components.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/11/2016 16:17 Comments ||
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#3
...Donks are getting desperate for campaign kickbacks donations. Then there's always putting the state of assembly up for grabs this coming November by shutting down work. There's already enough of the other 'customers' who've gotten jittery over paying for the money pit.
A UN aid convoy for the besieged Syrian village Madaya which was due to arrive on Sunday has been delayed to Monday by last minute complications.
The World Food Program (WFP) planned to deliver shipments of food and medicine to the area, where 40,000 people have been trapped for six months, on Sunday, after the government agreed Thursday to allow in aid. The convoy however was delayed and is now due to arrive Monday.
The reason behind the delay remains unknown.
Madaya, a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border, received humanitarian aid in October before falling under siege, according to the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The city has been surrounded since early July by pro-government forces including Lebanon’s Shi’a Hezbollah, allies of the Syrian government.
Dozens of images and videos have circulated on social media over the past weeks, depicting citizens of Madaya appearing to be severely malnourished and suffering from famine.
Amnesty International issued a report Friday describing the situation in Madaya, collating first-hand accounts of life in the besieged city. The report highlighted the importance of allowing humanitarian access to all civilians and the need to lift the siege on civilian populations across the country.
“We eat once every two days to make sure that whatever we buy doesn’t run out. […] In Madaya, you see walking skeletons. The children are always crying,” Mohammad, a resident of Madaya, told Amnesty International.
A ceasefire agreement in September 2015 was expected to guarantee the unimpeded access to aid and the evacuation of injured civilians; however, the agreement was not implemented on the ground.
“Syrians are suffering and dying across the country because starvation is being used as a weapon of war by both the Syrian government and armed groups,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
The organisation has reported that many residents of Madaya have been starving to death, reporting that they eat leaves from the trees due to the decrease in food supply and the increase in prices.
International medical group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported that 23 patients in the group’s health centre have died of starvation since 1 December.
Of the 23 people who have died, six were under one year of age, and five were over 60 years old.
According to MSF, approximately 20,000 residents of the town are facing life-threatening conditions due to the acute deprivation in basic needs.
The UN estimates that up to 4.6 million persons in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including around 400,000 people in 15 besieged cities who have no access to life-saving aid.
The Iranian Navy is going to stage a war game in less than ten days, Deputy Commander Qolamreza Khadem Bigham said. Pointing to threats the country faces, he said the drill will be staged to the north of the Indian Ocean, Tasnim news agency reported January 10.
Pointing to speculations that Bab el-Mandeb is going to be closed, the commander said international regulations do not allow any country to close shipping ways even during wars.
He concluded by adding that Iran’s Fleet 38 is taking off to the Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb in a few days.
There have been speculations that Djibouti is going to block the way on Iranian commercial ships after it severed ties with Iran. The African country did so after Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in a political skirmish.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
So IOW, "BAB EL-MANDEB" to Iran = SCS + East Chiha Sea [Okinawa-Taiwan Straits] to China???
OWG CO-Superpower Iran will NOT be blocked off by the Saudis-Allies, just as OWG Co-Superpower China be NOT be blocked off by the PH, Vietnam, + Japan, just as Vlad = OWG Co-Superpower Russia will NOT be blocked off by Turkey, Ukraine, or Co-Superpower Iran.
* FYI AP > PAKISTAN SAYS WILL [strongly] RESPOND TO TO ANY [territorial] THREAT TO SAUDI ARABIA.
ALEPPO – The extremist group of Islamic State (ISIS) urged its followers in the West to pretend to be Christians before carrying out terrorist attacks.
The group released a new 58-page terror pamphlet titled “Safety and Security Guidelines for Lone Wolf Mujahideen”, instructing its adherents on how to “bring victory to Islam”.
“We present you this modest work for lone wolf Mujahideen and small cells of brothers who want to bring victory to this religion. This is originally a series of lecture in 30 parts by Aby Abdallah al-Adam (rahimahullah) about safety & security in Jihadi work. It was initially meant for Mujahideen groups (organizations) and not lone wolves, but we have tried to adapt it and pick what’s important and leave what’s not relevant for an individual Mujahid and small groups,” the pamphlet’s intro reads.
“No doubt that today, at the era of the lone wolves, brothers in the West need to know some important things about safety in order to ensure success in their operations. We have also adapted some parts, taking into account the latest technological advances, for example in the field of encryption and safety of documents. This series was released by al-Fajr Media Centre a few years ago, in Arabic. We thought a lot of non-Arabic speaking brothers would find it interesting and may apply it in their blessed operations. We ask Allah to accept our work and we ask you in advance to excuse us for any typo or errors. All good in this work is from Allah, and the mistakes are from us alone.”
The Islamic State provides in its new release suggestions for Western terrorists, including shaving beards, forgoing religious clothing and wearing crucifix necklaces.
“It is permissible in such cases for you to wear a necklace showing a Christian cross,” the radical group advises its followers in the West. “As you know, Christians (or even atheist Westerners with Christian background) wear crosses on their necklaces. But don’t wear a cross necklace if you have a Muslim name on your passport, as that may look strange.”
The terror group is reportedly trying to step up its attacks in the West, especially in countries that participate in the ongoing airstrikes against its positions in Syria and Iraq.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
The future US-born, US-raised, ex-USDOD Killer Elite ISLAMIC MAHDI/MESSIAH/IMAM/NUCLEAR NAPOLEON IS A CONVERT TO ISLAM.
A SO-CALLED "TRUE BELIEVER", LIKE HIS HERO OSAMA BIN LADEN AND DESPITE NOT BEING BORN OR RAISED MUSLIM AFTER BIRTH - HE'S NOT A FAKER OR POSER.
#2
"don’t wear a cross necklace if you have a Muslim name on your passport, as that may look strange" - no stranger than attending services presided over by Rev. Jeremiah Wright with a Muslim name like Barack or Hussein.
#3
Which is great for the west who turns a blind eye to anyone looking remotely jihadish for fear of being branded an Islamophobe but would readily call in a complaint against a clean shaven Christian acting funny.
[Dhaka Tribune] Sophie Kasiki stared at the photograph of a young English-speaking boy in a camouflage uniform and black bandana covered in Arabic calling for unbelievers to be killed in the latest Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... propaganda.
Her eyes welled and she swallowed hard. "That could have been my son," she said, her firm voice wavering. "That's hard for me to say and makes me want to cry. I would have killed us both rather than let him become a killer, rather than let him fall into the claws of those monsters."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[1 views]
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#1
It's always difficult to travel with a toddler.
Especially when you're a complete idiot.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
01/11/2016 11:58 Comments ||
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#2
Child endangerment should warrant an eventual trip to hell.
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.
[Tolo News] Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) Sunday warned certain Taliban factions against refusing to accept the 
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
[REUTERS] Attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting on asylum seekers, putting pressure on Chancellor 
Lockheed Martin reports it has begun the process of joining four major components of the structure an F-35 Lightning II aircraft for Israel.
