As military operations continue in parts of southern Helmand province - particularly in Khanshin district - the ministries of Interior and Defense said Tuesday the district has not fallen to the enemy and that they made a tactical retreat but now they are once again fighting militants.
"No, no, certainly not!"
"We made a tactical retreat once but the area is again under our control," said the deputy spokesman for Interior Ministry, Najibullah Danish.
Meanwhile, Defense Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said Khanshin has not fallen to militants, but added that there is fighting between security forces and the Taliban in parts of the district.
"There was pressure on Khanshin [district]. We confirm that the enemy had attacked the district but our troops are there in Khanshin and the district has not fallen [to militants]," Waziri added.
The Helmand Provincial Council however claimed that the majority of the district is controlled by the Taliban.
"The security forces went one kilometer far from Qalat [district] and were stationed in Garmser [district], but Khanshin district is completely under the enemy's control," said Baryalai Nazari, a member of Helmand Provincial Council.
He said they are concerned about the security situation in parts of Helmand and that government should pay attention to this matter.
The conflict in Khanshin district started on Monday after dozens of Taliban fighters attacked the district compound.
Ghazni MPs on Tuesday warned that a number of districts are under severe threat and called for additional security forces to be deployed to the province.
They said Khogyani, Qarabagh, Gelan, Moqor, Abband, Andar and Gero districts are the most at risk.
"Among 13 districts of Ghazni, eight districts are facing serious threats and people in those areas cannot walk freely," said Ghazni MP Khuda Dad Arfani.
Meanwhile the Interior Ministry has confirmed the high threat level in the districts.
The ministry's deputy spokesman Najibullah Danish said that officials are assessing the situation.
"A few districts are facing threats and the ministry is investigating the forces' requirements and if needed more forces will be deployed to the province," Danish said.
The Afghan Defense Ministry (MOD) has meanwhile assured the people of Ghazni that their province will not collapse.
"We assure the people of Ghazni the province will not collapse. Every night the forces conduct several operations," said Dawlat Waziri the ministry's spokesman.
This comes amid growing concern over the increase in activity by insurgents. Reports emerged recently that residents fear insurgents are trying to establish bases in the province.
The British government has denied it is preparing to supply 1,000 troops to help protect the Government of National Accord and support an international training mission for the Libyan army.
Speculation that this was on the cards has been around for several weeks. Members of the British parliament’s defence committee visiting Tunis last week said that they had received confirmation locally. They said it was expected that British defence secretary Michael Fallon would agree the deployment with EU colleagues in Brussels this week. Their chairman Crispin Blunt demanded that the House of Commons be told about the plan before any deal was agreed.
However, a government spokesman today denied that there were any such plans. He said that the members of defence committee had been wrong on a number of counts.
“There are no plans to extend airstrikes [from Iraq and Syria] to Libya” said the spokesman, “nor are there plans to send British troops to provide security on the ground in Libya. It is therefore also wrong to suggest the defence secretary will agree any contribution this week”.
[AnNahar] The Supreme Federal Court of Abu Dhabi has adjourned to April 18 a hearing in the case of seven suspects, including three Lebanese, accused of providing classified information to 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... At a hearing held on Monday, the public prosecution told the court that the first defendant, a public official, handed one of the suspects classified information about the UAE armed forces' procurement contracts, as well as a list of names and ranks of state security officers.
The court heard that another accused, an Egyptian geologist working for a petroleum company, handed over information to the other suspects about oil production in Abu Dhabi.
She divulged names of the oil fields and provided a map that shows where these fields are located, the prosecution said.
It told the court that one of the accused obtained top secrets on the UAE's defense sector and passed it on to Iran. He allegedly took photos of the premises of the interior and foreign ministries, a military camp and state security facilities.
Another member of the network who is on trial is charged with taking photos of foreign embassies in the UAE and airports at Abu Dhabi and Dubai and handing them over to Hizbullah.
All the defendants denied the charges against them on Monday.
Authorities have enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and have introduced the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and Lion of Islam groups.
The UAE stepped up security measures since the wave of Arab Spring protests that swept the region in 2011.
On March 2, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes the UAE, considered Hizbullah a terrorist organization.
And this lot went to trial only two weeks later. Someone is taking the threat seriously.
[AnNahar] Some 1,500 migrants colonists who managed to cross into Macedonia, despite the border being closed to them for a week, have been sent back to Greece by Macedonian troops, officials said Tuesday.
The desperate group of men, women and kiddies had set off from an overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek side on Monday and waded thigh-deep through a river to get into Macedonia, where they were stopped by troops.
"Yesterday we had a large group of illegal migrants colonists who tried and managed to cross the border unlawfully near the village of Moin," Toni Janevski, a Macedonian army front man, told AFP.
"Without any incident or use of force, they were blocked and in the early morning hours they were returned to Greece."
Back on the Greek side, however, AFP news hounds said they had seen at least two men who appeared to have been beaten, while a Greek government source said the migrants colonists were sent back by "non-legal" crossings.
A group of around 80 journalists and activists who were detained by Macedonian police after traveling with the group were also released and allowed to return to Greece.
The migrants colonists were trying to escape a camp in Idomeni, where 14,000 or so people have been stuck in increasing squalor following a string of border closures on the European migrant route.
An AFP video journalist who was with them said the Macedonian army had allowed the migrants colonists to get as far as the village square in Moin, where they were herded together. They were all told to sit on the ground and the media were taken away first, the journalist said. A Syrian refugee told AFP that they were then divided into groups of 100.
"They put us on army trucks, took us to a location some 10 minutes from Idomeni where the fence is broken, and sent us back through there," he said.
The Macedonian police said 1,500 had managed to cross into Macedonia before being returned, and another 600 were prevented from entering.
The returns appeared to surprise the Greek authorities, who had said earlier Tuesday that some 700 refugees and migrants colonists remained stranded in Macedonia, indicating that they were ready to discuss their readmission if Macedonia asked.
"There wasn't in any case an official request for readmission from Skopje, and no return through official crossing points," said the Greek government source.
"Nearly all the refugees have come back through an unguarded location," added a local Greek police source.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meanwhile denounced the "criminal" attitude of people who appeared to have orchestrated the migrants colonists' attempt to cross into Macedonia, and called on them to take note of the closure of the Balkan route. He said there had been in Idomeni "an unacceptable situation, with strangers, perhaps pretending to be volunteers" who had encouraged migrants colonists to go to Macedonia "at risk to their lives".
Greek authorities said the migrants colonists had read leaflets in Arabic which described the route across the river and warned they risked being sent back to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... if they stayed in Greece, the ANA news agency reported.
[BBC] Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has given a Nazi salute upon his return to court to accuse the government of violating his human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... by holding him in isolation.
The mass murderer killed 77 people in 2011 when he bombed central Oslo and shot many of the people at a youth camp on the island of Utoya.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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Maybe the Norwegians should rent him out to a supermax facility in the U.S.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/16/2016 1:39 Comments ||
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So, all you Bernie supporters, all you GOPe dimwits and liberal pundits, yeah, I'm talking about you, Glenn Beck, this is what a real Nazi looks like. These are the things a real Nazi does. Notice the shaved head and the rigid posture? Doesn't look like Trump to me at all.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s state-run Anadolu Agency says a court in Istanbul has charged three academics with making terrorist propaganda and ordered them incarcerated Please don't kill me! pending the outcome of a trial.
Their arrests late on Tuesday came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... said Turkey should "redefine" terrorism and faceless myrmidons so that legal action can be expanded against anyone supporting terrorism - including politicians, academics and journalists.
The three Istanbul-based academics were among a group of more than 1,000 scholars who in January signed a declaration denouncing military operations against Kurdish rebels. The declaration angered Erdogan and led to legal proceedings against some.
The three were detained for questioning earlier on Tuesday for holding a news conference last week during which they stood by the declaration.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
The spread of true fascism continues apace.
This is the true window on the future when the statists gain power. This is what the Beltway party looks like in its natural habitat.
"A conservative watchdog group asked a federal judge on Tuesday for permission to depose eight current and former State Department officials about Hillary Clinton’s emails and says it may eventually need to interview the former secretary of state herself.
Judicial Watch filed a plan for a "narrowly tailored discovery" as part of its lawsuit against the State Department for failing to turn over records it requested in 2013.
The group is asking U.S. District Court judge Emmet Sullivan for permission to depose key State Department official who likely have detailed knowledge about Clinton’s off-the-books email system, which involved the use of a home-brew server.
And "based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary," Judicial Watch wrote in its court filing."
North Carolina prosecutors have announced they plan to seek the death penalty for an alleged Islamic State sympathizer accused of killing his neighbor.
A court indicted Justin Sullivan, 19, in February for the death of his neighbor, 74-year-old John Bailey Clark in December 2014. Authorities arrested Sullivan in June 2015 on charges of "attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, receipt of a silencer with intent to commit a felony, and possession of an unregistered silencer."
Sullivan's father turned him in.
He reportedly also planned to kill "1,000 Americans" at clubs or concerts and allegedly spoke with an undercover FBI agent about these attacks, offering to pay the agent to kill his father. Last meal request: Moon Pie and an RC.
Denied. We have standards...
See Mr. Sullivan's archive here. He had lots of plans.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[WashingtonTimes] A group of hackers loyal to the Islamic State terrorist group have reportedly posted a "kill list" with the names and personal details of 36 policemen in Minnesota.
The list, published by the "Caliphate Cyber Army" on the encrypted mobile app Telegram, includes full names, home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of all the policemen, according to Vocative. The cops reportedly live in cities across Minnesota, but the majority are located in and around the Twin Cities.
Minnesota has a large population of Somali immigrants, with the Cedar Riverside community in Minneapolis housing the largest Somali community in the country. Since 2007, two dozen men from the Cedar Riverside community have left to join extremist groups.
A congressional report from last November said one in four Americans who has attempted to join the Islamic State group is from Minnesota.
This is not the first time a hacking group has released personal details of U.S. law enforcement or military personnel. Why Minnesota? Do they hate lakes? Or (maybe) just chumming for Somali immigrants?
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Lots of local Somali lads can't afford to join the jihad in the ME. Local work so to speak. On line Distance Learning to Distance Jihad.
[DAWN] An all-parties conference convened by 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... and attended by powerful religious groups asked the government on Tuesday to retract an "un-Islamic" law that gives unprecedented protection to female victims of violence.
The Women's Protection Act, passed by Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Assembly last month, gives legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence.
It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line, women's shelters and district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders.
Domestic abuse, economic discrimination and acid attacks made Pakistain the world's third most dangerous country in the world for women, a 2011 Thomson Rooters Foundation expert poll showed.
But since the law's passage, many conservative holy mans and religious leaders have denounced it as being in conflict with the Holy Koran, and the Constitution.
On Tuesday, representatives of more than 35 religious parties and groups came together for a conference called by the Jamaat-e-Islami and condemned the women's protection law as un-Islamic.
"The controversial law to protect women was promulgated to accomplish the West's agenda to destroy the family system in Pakistain," read the joint declaration issued at the end of the concrescence.
"This act ... is redundant and would add to the miseries of women."
The passage of the new law was welcomed by rights groups but spirits have since dampened as conservative voices have increasingly called for its retraction.
On Monday, JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... had promised him at a meeting that he would address the reservations of religious parties.
"Nawaz Sharif heard our reservations against the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016. He promised to amend the law so that it doesn't contravene the teachings of the Holy Koran," Fazl told journalists at his residence.
Earlier this month, the Council of Islamic Ideology, a religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, declared the Women's Protection Act un-Islamic.
A prominent lawyer has also filed a petition in the top sharia court asking it to strike down the law.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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Israeli officials are consulting with Moscow over its unexpected decision to return home the bulk of Russian troops in Syria, possibly complicating a mechanism to coordinate military action agreed upon by the two countries last fall, officials from both governments said on Tuesday.
Russia’s military intervention in Syria last year on behalf of its embattled Alawite president, Bashar Assad, originally concerned Jerusalem, which routinely conducts covert raids into Syrian territory in order to disrupt shipments of Iranian arms and missiles to Lebanese Hezbollah. But in October, Russia and Israel agreed on methods of communicating that would allow Israel’s defense operations to continue.
Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Alexey Drobinin, said the two governments have an "ongoing dialogue" on both the military and diplomatic levels, specifically regarding Syria operations. Those channels of communication will remain open, he said. And, if---Heaven forbid---Hitlery Hillary becomes POTUS...
[IsraelTimes] Iran has retrieved thousands of pages of information from devices used by US Navy sailors who were briefly detained in January, the country’s state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reports.
The report quotes Gen. Ali Razmjou, a naval commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, as saying that information filling about 13,000 pages was retrieved from laptops, GPS devices and maps.
He says the move falls within Iran’s rights under international regulations, and that the information recovered could be used in "various fields." Iranian authorities returned all the devices taken from the Americans even though it had the right to confiscate them, he says.
The Guard plans to publish a book on the incident based on international reactions and coverage of the event, Razmjou adds.
The US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which is responsible for American naval forces in the Gulf, says it was aware of the report but had no immediate comment.
The sailors, nine men and one woman, were detained for less than a day in January after they drifted into Iranian waters off Farsi Island, an outpost in the middle of the Persian Gulf that has been used as a base for Revolutionary Guard speedboats since the 1980s.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/16/2016 01:30 ||
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From the Guardian, decent map showing the various zones of control by the government and rebel/terrorist forces.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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So let's split it up like Slow Joe proposed for Iraq - Pencilneck/Iran gets the west, the Kurds/Turkey get the north, and the Caliphate Crazies get the middle.
Or, maybe just let them keep fighting, and we just watch. More popcorn!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/16/2016 11:18 Comments ||
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Russian airstrikes in Syria have killed about 2,000 civilians in six months of attacks on markets, hospitals, schools and homes, rights groups and observers say, warning that plans for a military drawdown may not mean an end to the deaths.
Moscow has insisted it carried out only surgical strikes on “terrorists”, but victims and fighters say bombers strayed well behind frontlines in areas far from strongholds of Islamic State or al-Qaida fighters.
Jets appear to have intentionally bombed civilian areas, in a campaign to spread fear and clear areas where government ground troops were planning to advance. Coalition airstrikes led by the US have also killed civilians, but have stricter rules of engagement.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Tehran's recent ballistic missile tests did not violate a UN resolution and were not illegal, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tuesday after being questioned on the issue by Australia.
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council met Monday at the request of the United States to discuss the missile tests that have raised the prospect of new sanctions.
But Zarif said that under Resolution 2231, adopted a few days after Iran struck a landmark nuclear deal with world powers last year, Tehran was within its rights to carry out the tests.
He said the wording of the resolution did not use obligatory terms so "Iran is not obliged by 2231".
Secondly, it covered only missiles "designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads", he told news hounds in Canberra.
"Since we do not have nuclear warheads and we have undertaken not to develop them, and the international community has put in place the best mechanisms money can buy in order to make sure that we do not develop nuclear weapons... we do not design any missiles to carry things we do not have," Zarif said.
"So these missiles do not fall within the purview of 2231 and they are not illegal."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] Omar al-Shishani, a top commander 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.... (ISIS) with a $5 million US bounty on his head, has died of injuries sustained in coalition Arclight airstrikes in northern Syria, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday.
"We believe he subsequently died of his injuries," Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon front man, told AFP news agency.
Last week a US official announced that Shishani, who was referred to as ISIS’ "war minister" was believed dead in a US air strike in the Syrian town of Shaddadi.
Shishani’s real name was Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili and he was also known as "Omar the Chechen."
He was a top commander who was posted by ISIS to Kobani during a months-long siege of the Kurdish city in northern Syria that was liberated last January by rebel groups that included the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Shishani, a Georgian national, was among the most wanted ISIS leaders.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/16/2016 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.
[DAWN] An all-parties conference convened by 
It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line, women's shelters and district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders.
