[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the regional intelligence agencies and terrorist groups are imposing on the Afghan nation and have a critical role in the ongoing violence in the country.
A statement by MoD said the snuffies are deployed to Afghanistan with full financial and military support under the name of holy war.
MoD in its statement further added that Chechens, Punjabis, Arabs, Uzbeks, Uyghur and other foreign snuffies are actively participating in the war in Afghanistan and are continuously killing innocent Afghan civilians.
The statement also added that incidents like Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. attack and various other terrorist attacks shows that the hard boy groups are the enemies of Islam and Afghanistan as they have no mercy on children, women and elders.
The ministry strongly condemned the suicide kaboom in Nangarhar province and said the leadership of the ministry offers their condolences to the families of the victims and promised that the Afghan forces will remain firm in defending the country and maintain peace and stability.
No further details were given on claims regarding the regional intelligence agencies and terror groups role in the Afghan war.
However, death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... the Afghan officials have long been criticizing Pakistain for harboring the Afghan hard boy groups as they receive full support from Pakistain’s military intelligence, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Pashtuns carrying Pakistani passports are merely locals living in the other side of an artificial line.
[Ynet] The Afghan Taliban have announced the start of their warm-weather fighting season, an annual declaration marking the launch of a violent summer.
In an email to media organizations Tuesday, the turbans said the so-called "spring offensive" had begun at 5am
The campaign, expected this year to be long and bloody, is called "Operation Omari" in honor of Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who died three years ago, the announcement says.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The acting Minister of Defense Masoom Stanikzai has said he will resign if the control of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province falls to Talibs.
The remarks by Stanikzai comes as the Taliban group has intensified offensive in this province during the past several months in a bid to capture the province.
According to the earlier reports, the Taliban group is eying to turn the province in its strategic leadership base and the Taliban leaders are even keen to shift the group’s council to Helmand.
However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... Stanikzai said the province will not fall to Taliban control. "It will not fall. If it falls, there is no doubt I will resign, but it will not fall," he told CNN.
Stanikzai further added "It is not a rosy picture in Helmand. It’s a difficult fight and there are many fighters coming from across the (Pakistain) border, there is no doubt about that."
He blamed the Taliban’s recent advances on Pak assistance, an oft-repeated charge by Afghan officials.
"Why are we ignoring this fact? Go to Quetta, go to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. . What the hell are those (militant) bases doing there? How are they moving there? How are they communicating there?" he added.
This comes as the Taliban group announced their summer offensive today and vowed to continue fight as the group’s armed insurgency enters to its 15th year.
The Afghan security officials had earlier predicted that the group will continue to pursue violence with the full support of Pakistain’s ISI despite efforts by the Afghan government and its partners to encourage the group to participate in peace talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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[SHANGHAIDAILY] Maiduguri, the capital city of Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno and the birthplace of Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... , is enjoying relative peace, the Borno state governor said.
Kashim Shettima on Tuesday said Maiduguri, termed by him as Boko Haram's "headquarters", has become a "relatively safe haven" in the whole of the state.
Maiduguri has in the past suffered several deadly attacks blamed on Boko Haram. Multiple suicide kabooms in January and March this year in areas near Maiduguri killed at least 91 people.
It is expected that by the end of this year, most internally displaced persons in other parts of the state could return to their homes in Maiduguri, Shettima said.
The governor said ten months ago that "one could not travel for 10 km without encountering murderous Moslems (Boko Haram bully boys)" in Borno state.
"But now Boko Haram has been so decimated," he said on Tuesday but added it did not mean Boko Haram had been annihilated in the restive state.
Boko Haram was founded in Maiduguri in 2002. It launched its campaign of violence in 2009 and has since killed more than 10,000 people mostly in northeastern Nigeria.
The Nigerian army has in the past year retaken large areas previously under Boko Haram control and freed hundreds of its hostages.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Bangladeshi police said on Tuesday they suspect a domestic Islamist turban group of being behind the brutal murder of a secular activist in Dhaka, days after a branch of Al-Qaeda grabbed credit.
Nazimuddin Samad, a law student who criticized Islamism in Facebook posts, was killed last week near his university in the capital by attackers carrying machetes, the latest in a string of deadly assaults on secular activists.
Ansar al-Islam, a Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), said on Friday it was behind the 26-year-old's murder, according to the US monitoring group SITE.
But Dhaka Metropolitan Police officers said they believe it was the work of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a homegrown turban outfit that has been blamed in similar cases.
"We suspect Ansarullah Bangla Team has carried out the murder," Maruf Hossain Sorder, a front man for the force, told AFP.
"There were some similarities between the latest murder and the previous killings of bloggers," he added.
Bangladesh authorities have consistently denied that international Islamist networks such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS are active in the country.
"Al-Qaeda or ISIS do not exist in Bangladesh," Sorder said.
Samad was the seventh secular activist -- the sixth in the past 15 months -- to have been murdered by suspected Islamist Lions of Islam over their writings.
Police have previously locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! several suspected members of ABT in connection with at least three of these murders.
Eight ABT members, including a top holy man said to have founded the group, were convicted late last year for the murder of atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in February 2013.
The murders have sparked outrage at home and abroad, with international groups demanding that the secular government protect freedom of speech in the Muslim-majority country.
Hundreds of secular activists last week held a days-long protest in Dhaka and Samad's home-town of Sylhet to demand action over his death.
AQIS previously grabbed credit for the murder of an American atheist blogger who was hacked to death on the streets of Dhaka in February 2015.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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A woman who tipped off French place about the hiding place of the mastermind of the Paris attacks has spoken out for the first time and says it is 'important that the world knows I am a Muslim myself'
The woman, who is hiding from other real Muslims now living under police protection, said she accompanied Hasna Aitboulahcen, the cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, to the latter's hiding place in a wooded area near Aubervilliers.
When she realised Abaaoud was planning a second terror attack, she tried to get Aitboulahcen drunk so she couldn't help him to carry it out. She then told police of his plans. Aren't Muslims supposed to avoid alcohol? Maybe martyrs are exempt?
The woman told The Washington Post that she was a surrogate mother to Aitboulahcen and felt guilty over her death.
"It's important that the world knows that I am Muslim myself," she said.
"It's important to me that people know what Abaaoud and the others did is not what Islam is teaching." she said from her safehouse.
Aitboulahcen stayed with the woman for three years but went through periods of drug and alcohol abuse and would disappear for weeks at a time.
Her behaviour apparently changed when she began to message someone in Syria - believed to be Abaaoud - and soon she had started wearing a niqab and talking about a potential marriage.
It is believed that she was unaware of Abaaoud's involvement in the Paris attacks until they met in the woods.
Abaaoud told Aitboulahcen to find accommodation for him and his associate and to buy them smart suits and shoes, which it is thought that he intended to use as a disguise for a second attack on Paris's business district.
Abaooud later called Aitboulahcen to say that he would kill her if she spoke to anyone about their meeting. It was then that the woman tried to get Aitboulahcen drunk. The next day she called emergency intelligence and explained everything that was said.
Later that week, French police raided the St Denis flat Aitboulahcen rented for Abaaoud. He was killed when Chakib Akrouh's suicide vest detonated, causing the ceiling to cave in and crush him to death.
#1
It's encouraging to know some Muslims will step up. It's valuable for all of us to know some Muslims will step up.
It's also valuable for the terrs to think nobody will rat them out, so that they'll be careless on op sec.
And it would be a detriment if this woman, being known, were killed.
Not sure whether naming her was a net good.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/13/2016 7:56 Comments ||
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German counter-intelligence believes that at least 29 former soldiers from the country have left to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. An internal report also revealed that 65 active soldiers are being investigated for alleged jihadist sympathies.
How many of the 29 are named 'Hans' or 'Dieter'?
The report was undertaken by the German military counter intelligence service (MAD), which was seen by the DPA news agency. The documents show that at least 29 former German soldiers have fled to the Middle East to join Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Social Democratic Party (SPD) MP Hans-Peter Bartels, who is responsible for oversight of the army, said on Tuesday that "Islamism isn't the main problem of the Bundeswehr (German Army), however, he did mention that "it represents a real danger that we have to take seriously."
As many as 22 soldiers have been identified within the Germany Army of being Islamists since 2007, with 17 being sacked. The remaining five had reached the end of their service without killing anyone when the investigation had been concluded.
According to DPA, MAD has investigated a total of 320 suspected cases of Islamism since 2007.
Alarmed by the revelations, the German Defense Ministry now wants MAD to take greater steps to ensure that jihadists are not infiltrating the German Army. This will include every prospective soldier being investigated for links to anti-Constitutional movements. However, this would need the law to be changed.
At present, only those joining sensitive areas of the military have had to undergo background checks, while ordinary soldiers have not had to go through any vetting process.
"Just like other fighting forces, the Bundeswehr can be attractive for Islamists who want to acquire weapons training," Bartels said. "But to my knowledge there is so far no systematic push by Islamist organizations to infiltrate the army."
German domestic intelligence has also warned that there is a threat of future attacks in German cities from newly arrived migrants, amid fears that newly-arrived migrants are being radicalized.
"We see the security situation as very serious, though we have no immediate intelligence on planned attacks in Germany," the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, told Die Welt newspaper in a comprehensive interview released on Sunday. His office acts as Germany’s main counter-intelligence and homeland security agency reporting to the Interior Ministry.
"IS is willing to carry out attacks on Germany and German interests," he said, adding that in IS propaganda German cities are placed next to Paris, London and Brussels ‐ all previous targets of large terror attacks.
The homeland security chief said airports and railway stations, as well as large-scale public events such as open air fests, were the most likely targets for potential attacks. In addition, Maassen stressed that "we’ve seen many times that those [German nationals] who returned from Syria had links to planning attacks in Germany."
A recent study conducted by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and published on April 1 says that between 720 and 760 Germans are believed to have traveled to join IS.
#1
in the US, Islamists would be fairly easy to identify by the end of basic training
the problem is whether the military would have the stomach to discharge them
we already have the case of Maj Nidal Hasan who murdered a dozen in 2009 and PFC Naser Abdo who plotted to do a similar atrocity but was arrested before he could pull it off
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/13/2016 9:15 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Austria sparked consternation in Rome on Tuesday with preliminary construction work at the Brenner pass in the Alps to prepare for a possible new influx of migrants colonists coming north from Italia.
A police front man in Tyrol state told Agence La Belle France Presse that work started Tuesday on concrete foundations for a planned control area in a layby off the northbound motorway at the border.
"What is however not being built are additional border management elements, in other words a fence. There is no timeframe for when that will happen," Stefan Eder said.
Vienna is concerned that following the closure earlier this year of the Balkan trail from Greece towards Austria, a new route across the sea from Libya to Italia and then northwards will open up.
Austria's government, which wants to slash numbers claiming asylum in the country this year to 37,500 from last year's 90,000, says it is planning additional measures at several border crossings from June 1.
Brenner is one of the main transport corridors between northern and southern Europe, with some 5,550 lorries passing through on a daily basis, and also has considerable symbolic importance.
"The construction of a barrier is a grave error which violates European rules," Sandro Gozzi, Italia's state secretary for European affairs and one of several senior Italian figures to have spoken out in recent days, said late Monday.
Arno Kompatscher, governor of the autonomous Italian province of South Tyrol, told the Repubblica daily that the Brenner is "a symbol of European unification, of social and economic well-being".
Germany, which took in one million migrants colonists last year, has also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... . Deputy foreign minister Michael Roth last week warned against EU members taking "individual national measures".
Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, on a visit to Rome last Friday, said she would "do everything" to avoid having to close the Brenner pass.
"But steps must be taken. Amongst other things the Italian government has to ensure that all migrants colonists are registered in hotspots and housed nearby," Mikl-Leitner said.
[IsraelTimes] Computer files reveal Islamic State directed Gay Paree-Brussels snuffies changed tack as police net closed in.
The Islamist gunnies who carried out terror attacks in Gay Paree and Brussels had originally planned to target the European soccer championships due to take place across La Belle France this summer, according to a French newspaper.
The opening match and final are to be held at the French capital’s Stade de La Belle France, one of three targets hit during the Gay Paree attacks in November, along with a concert hall and nearby nightspots.
The cell changed direction after the arrest last month of Salah Abdeslam, suspected as a key figure in the Gay Paree attacks, during which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured, Liberation reported Sunday.
Abdeslam is suspected of playing at least a logistical role in the Gay Paree attacks but escaped and fled back to Brussels, eluding a vast police dragnet for four months.
Liberation said the claims about targeting Euro 2016, due to held from June 10-July 10, were made by Mohammad Abrini during interrogation by Belgian Sherlocks.
Abrini, incarcerated Book 'im, Mahmoud! on Friday, had already been indicted over the Gay Paree attacks and has been charged with "terrorist murders" in connection with last month’s carnage in Brussels, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said on Sunday.
Suspected of having left a bag of explosives at Brussels airport, Abrini reportedly confessed to being "the man in the hat" caught on an airport video. Three jacket wallahs went kaboom! themselves at the airport and metro station, killing 32.
The group’s objective was to strike La Belle France again, the Belgian federal prosecutor revealed, but the speed of the police investigation prompted them to "decide hastily" to hit Brussels.
A source in the French police told the newspaper, "It’s not a scoop to learn that snuffies want to strike during the Euro." Security forces were constantly developing attack scenarios and determining how to respond, said the source. "If Abrini’s statements are correct, it just confirms that Belgium is an operational rear base to watch even more intensely," the source said. "Networks and jihadi cells have been meeting there and regrouping constantly over the past ten years."
Having discovered Abrini’s address from the taxi driver who ferried him to Brussels airport, along with the suicide bombers Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Mohammed Najim Laachraoui, police found not only a huge cache of explosives, Liberation reported, but a computer belonging to the El Bakraoui brothers in a nearby trash can that was evidently intended to be picked up by an accomplice.
The computer revealed the contents of a discussion apparently between El Bakraoui and an as-yet unidentified individual in Syria. "It’s a real brainstorming session," an anti-terrorist source told Liberation. "They openly plan operations, discuss when they should hit, where, if all the commandos will need to die together..."
The material provided clear evidence, the source continued, "that this cell continued to maintain links with Syria, to be advised and directed by the Caliphate [Islamic State]," and that was in spite of the death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- said to have played a key role in Gay Paree and considered by many to be the head of the group.
Another file on the computer mentioned possible attacks in La Defense, a business district in Gay Paree, and against the radical Catholic group Civitas, the source added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Here's the complete Euro 2016 schedule. Marseilles being the worst fucking Islamist armpit there is in France, I'm going with an attack there, late group stage match (June 21, Ukraine v. Poland) or the quarterfinal match (June 30) for maximum effect. Honorable mention goes to any matches in Toulouse.
Just because they've managed to ID one cell planning an attack does not mean other cells aren't considering the same thing.
[Wash Times] Ahead of President Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia next week, the White House sidestepped questions Tuesday about whether the president supports declassifying 28 pages omitted from a joint commission’s report on the 9/11 terrorist attacks that reportedly implicate the Saudis.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Obama "certainly has confidence" that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper will consider the documents for release as part of an ongoing declassification review. But he wouldn't say whether the president has read the secret pages, or whether Mr. Obama believes they should be made public. We'll be arriving Clapper Station in 3 minutes. Clapper Station just ahead. This is where truth gets off.
The president's spokesman said Mr. Obama is hopeful that the question will be resolved before he leaves office. He then added, "there is Classified, then there is Classified."
The 28 pages are believed to detail links between Saudi Arabian officials and the 9/11 hijackers -- 15 of 19 of whom were Saudi citizens. A CIA watchdog report last year found no evidence that the Saudi government "knowingly and willingly" supported al Qaeda's attack.
But many lawmakers who have read the 28 pages say they point to heavy Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Members of Congress are permitted to read the documents, alone, but aren’t allowed to copy them.
"I think it is implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn't speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many of whom didn't have a high school education -- could’ve carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States," Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat, told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Reps. Walter Jones, North Carolina Republican, and Rep. Stephen Lynch, Massachusetts Democrat, are trying to have the documents declassified. If we could only find someone willing to email the documents to Secretary Clinton.
The president's visit to Saudi Arabia on April 21 will be focused on U.S. cooperation with the kingdom and other Gulf states in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Implementation of the administration's nuclear deal with Iran, which has angered the Saudis, is also likely to be on the agenda. The Saudi Money Trail
#2
AP reported last month that Filipino authorities alerted the FBI as early as 1995 that several Middle Eastern pilots were training at American flight schools and at least one had proposed hijacking a commercial jet and crashing it into federal buildings.
Link
#3
If San Diego FBI agent Steven Butler had known what the CIA knew about possible terror attacks, he may have had the best chance to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, investigators told ABCNEWS.
Special Agent Butler suffered a "punitive reassignment." He no longer works for the Bureau.
#4
What we do know is that the 28 pages are not damaging to the United States or they would have been released prior to the deal with Iran, the surrender to Cuba, passing of obamacare...
[AlAhram] 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... America was set to sign off Tuesday after a costly and failed effort to break into the US cable news market.
The channel launched in 2013 by the global media group based in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... won praise for its news coverage, but fell far short of viewership and advertising goals.
The shutdown, announced in January, was set to be complete with the airing of a three-hour special Tuesday evening showcasing the channel's coverage since the launch.
"We have been privileged to cover stories of people who epitomize the strength and resilience of the human spirit. Individuals who have fought for good, who have tackled adversity, whose stories and voices deserve coverage," the group said in a statement.
"There are so many more people across America whose stories remain untold. Those stories need to be heard."
Al-Jazeera, which operates one of the largest global news operations and is controlled by Qatar's royal family, paid some $500 million to launch the US channel known as AJAM.
The outlet, which competed against CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel, did not release viewership data but some reports said its audience was only around 30,000 for the key prime-time hours.
In mid-2013, the channel went live after hiring some 850 staff and opening 12 bureaus across the United States and a state-of-the art studio in New York.
It faced a series of problems in addition to low viewership: lawsuits alleged an unhospitable work environment and the channel faced criticism for its report linking NFL star Peyton Manning to a banned growth hormone.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... AJAM was recognized for its reporting, including winning Emmy and Peabody awards.
Some analysts said the launch came at a time when viewers were moving away from traditional cable news to Internet-based news from organizations like Vice Media, BuzzFeed and Huffington Post.
Al Jazeera said in a statement it intends to expand its digital services to "broaden its multi-platform presence into the US later this year."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/13/2016 8:12 Comments ||
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#6
Al J Arabic probably loses a few tens of millions a year and their other ventures are also probably net money losers also. The Al J's attempt to establish a channel in the USA probably cost the Qatar Govt (who owns the company) more than all their other ventures combined.
Of course the Qatari govt has money to burn and the station has enormous influence in the Arab world, in the arab speaking populations of Europe and it has also become a major influence of non arab journalism in Europe. Much of the anti semitism, anti USA, etc. attitudes of the Euro journalists (or 'journalists') comes from association with the Al J folk.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/13/2016 11:22 Comments ||
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#7
It actually wasn't a bad news station. Interesting that their spin on Mideast news items was so different from AJ-Arabic.
#9
As a media type, I thought Al Jizz America was rather good old school journalism (as opposed to so much political advocacy and infotainment that the MSM is today), at least when I dealt with them.
But because of their reputation elsewhere, you couldn't take them seriously and would not cooperate with them, even when the subject matter was legit.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/13/2016 14:41 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] U2 lead singer Bono joined diplomats and aid experts on Tuesday to appeal for US Senate support for a “Marshall Plan” to provide aid to the Middle East much like the massive relief the United States provided for Europe after World War Two. Ohfergawdsake.
“Aid in 2016 is not charity; it is national security,” the rock star, who is also an active anti-poverty campaigner, testified to the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid. The Muddle East? The place they keep all that oil?
“It could be the best bulwark we have against violent extremism,” Bono said. And we should listen to a musician precisely why?
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham ... the endangered South Carolina RINO... , the chairman of the Senate panel, and a few other lawmakers, have called for a multibillion-dollar aid program to address the crisis in the Middle East and the need for aid for millions of refugees fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and other countries. Does the idea of "running out of money" never occur to these pinbrains?
They argued that defeating ISIS and other militant groups, and preventing the rise of new ones, will require humanitarian aid and economic development, including trade and loan programs. Somebody can worry about that after the expenditure of a lot of high explosives.
“I’m a pretty hawkish fellow, but I learned a long time ago... that you are not going to win this war by killing terrorists,” Graham said. Peshmergas are doing pretty well at it.
“We have a moment now that we haven't had in decades” in terms of political attention to the issue, said Kelly Clements, the Deputy High Commissioner from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the top subcommittee Democrat, said he would work with Graham on a plan. ... since like clings to like...
The hearing took place days before the Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to release a new spending plan including cuts in international aid. Congress has also been unable to agree on a relief package to fight the Zika virus currently threatening parts of Latin America.
Graham will have a difficult time winning over his fellow Republicans, who tend to be skeptical about international organizations like the United Nations and generally want tight controls on spending.
For example, Republican Senator Steven Daines said he was concerned about being effective for the American taxpayer. Another Republican, John Boozman, discussed a role for partnerships with private companies.
Bono, who co-founded the ONE international aid organization, has lobbied in Washington and other world capitals for a variety of causes including debt relief, alleviating world poverty and fighting AIDS.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
How much of Bono's money did he offer to pony up?
#4
To fully implement a traditional 'Marshall Plan' in the ME, we would have to bomb the crap out of it first.
Having Faith in Their future would be racist like Koreans, Germans, or Japanese.
Expecting less is Racist so pull out right naway and let them do whatever they want.
#5
...George Catlett Marshall was one of the hardest cases to ever serve this nation, and we were blessed to have him. It says volumes about his intelligence, generosity, and decency that the term 'Marshall Plan' has become a synonym for a plan to rescue entire regions of the world.
SteveS speaks wisdom, though - we'd have turned the place into a damned parking lot long before we ever spoke of rebuilding it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/13/2016 5:26 Comments ||
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#6
AND we'd have to have several hundred thousands of troops in place administering the whole thing.
[DAWN] Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, speaking at the Peace and Prosperity seminar on Tuesday, said Indian intelligence agency RAW is actively involved in destabilising Pakistan. “Hostile intelligence agencies are averse to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC),” said the chief of army staff.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Under Erdan’s initiative, every former IDF combat soldier would be automatically eligible for an arms license
A pack, not a herd...
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan reportedly announced Tuesday a bid to further relax conditions for gun license eligibility so that all former IDF combat soldiers will be entitled to carry a firearm.
Erdan announced his intention to relax gun permit restrictions at the Israel Security Conference, held in Yad Binyamin in central Israel, Ynet reported.
According to Erdan, former combat soldiers should naturally be entitled to bear arms as civilians due to the dangers surrounding day-to-day life in Israel.
"It makes no sense to take away the firearms of those who serve in reserve units their whole life," he was quoted as saying at the convention. "The intention is that they will carry a firearm [outside the army as well]."
The initiative reflects Erdan’s policy on easing gun permit restrictions.
In October 2015, after Israeli police submitted its professional opinion, he expanded gun permit eligibility so that graduates of elite combat units, as well as all IDF officers above the rank of 2nd lieutenant and non-commissioned officers from the rank of first sergeant and up can obtain a permit, even if they hold those ranks in the reserves. Parallel ranks in the police and other security services may do the same.
Erdan also ordered gun permits be granted to graduates of certain elite units in the security services, as well as certain government security courses, including those that train the security details of ministers and government institutions.
If Erdan’s current initiative to grant permits to all combat soldiers -- even those who didn’t serve in elite units -- is approved, the number of civilians who will be eligible for gun permits will rise to hundreds of thousands, the report said.
Erdan spoke at the convention of a need to balance between gun control policy and the possibility of fast response in event of a terror attack.
"I decided to switch to a balancing policy. It’s a matter of public interest: When a trained and armed individual is at the scene of a terror attack, we can see the difference. [Easing restrictions on gun permits] saves human lives."
Erdan’s initiative would have to be approved by the Finance Ministry to accommodate the budget and staffing requirements it will incur.
Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich also commented on the matter in the convention, underlining the complexity inherent to the easing of gun control.
"When we debated the question of whether or not easing restrictions on gun permits will bolster security, we also had to question if doing so will be an asset or a burden to Israeli society," Alsheich told the crowd.
"Guns can potentially be stolen, and Israeli police are in a constant struggle against this issue. On the other hand, [gun permits] make a difference in terror attacks. It’s not an easy decision to make."
Iran's Foreign Ministry dismisses the reports that Iran has received S-300 missiles from Russia.
They're holding out for the S-500's...
The ministry's spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said the media quotes from him a day earlier were "imprecise" in making claims to that effect, ISNA news agency reported Apr. 12.
On Monday, Ansari told a press conference that the first phase of a series of agreements between Tehran and Moscow to deliver the missiles had been accomplished. Iranian media, however, quoted him as saying the country had received the first consignment of the missiles.
Iran signed a deal for the purchase of the missiles from Russia in 2007. Moscow has been refraining from delivering the arms so far, although Iran has already paid for them.
Suckers...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
"We renamed them to,..um,..er.., S-301.
Yeah, that's the ticket!"
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/13/2016 9:04 Comments ||
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ERBIL – Leadership of the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) has ordered its own Kurdish militants to either carry out suicide attacks against opponents or slaughter the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters captured by the group during confrontations in northern Iraq, Kurdish official sources reported on Tuesday.
The terror group aims at showing the Kurdish insurgents, while killing their peers from the Peshmerga forces, to send a strong message to the Kurds to comply with ISIS orders and help the group facilitate plotting attacks inside the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, according to Kurdish analysts.
Head of Relations and religious coexistence in the Ministry of Awqaf in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Mariwan Naqshbandi, said Tuesday: “The jihadi leaders have recently put two options before the group’s Kurdish members. They [Kurdish militants] must choose, either to carry out suicide operations against the Peshmerga forces in Iraq and Kurdish forces in Syria or slaughter the Peshmerga captives at the hands of ISIS.”
The source pointed out that the terror group demanded its own Kurdish militants to film slaughtering the hostagesــ apparently to send a message to the Kurdish people.
“This decision has led many of the militant Kurds to escape the group’s ranks and head to one the European countries in a bid to preserve their lives,” the Kurdish official reported, pointing out that the group’s behavior confirms its loss of confidence in its Kurdish members.
Naqshbandi told ARA News that nearly 50 Kurdish militants remained in the ranks of the hardline group, as many others have been executed on charges of ‘high treason’.
Speaking to ARA News, Kurdish writer Newzat Ibrahim said that ISIS clings to this move [ordering Kurdish members to either kill Kurdish hostages or carry out suicide operations] because it lost trust of its own Kurdish gunmen during the last few months.
“Although it has received painful blows in the last period by the US-led coalition forces and allied Kurdish Peshmerga forces, ISIS struggles to preserve its territory of control in both Syria and Iraq,” he argued.
Since the anti-ISIS military campaign began, around 300 Kurdish militants, who had already joined the ranks of the terror group, were killed by the Peshmerga forces and the US-led coalition airstrikes.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/13/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
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.
German counter-intelligence believes that at least 29 former soldiers from the country have left to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. An internal report also revealed that 65 active soldiers are being investigated for alleged jihadist sympathies. 
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
The outlet, which competed against CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel, did not release viewership data but some reports said its audience was only around 30,000 for the key prime-time hours.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] U2 lead singer Bono joined diplomats and aid experts on Tuesday to appeal for US Senate support for a “Marshall Plan” to provide aid to the Middle East much like the massive relief the United States provided for Europe after World War Two.
Lindsey Graham
Iran's Foreign Ministry dismisses the reports that Iran has received S-300 missiles from Russia.
