The Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG) on Sunday raised concerns that over 30 percent of all districts in the country are under serious threat by insurgent groups.
The IDLG said that of the 384 districts in the country - including 15 newly created and non-permanent districts – 116 are under threat.
They said at least 10 of these districts are out of government's control.
According to the IDLG, the districts under Taliban control are as follows: Disho, Baghran, Musa Qala and Nawzad in Helmand as well as Khak Afghan district in Zabul, Neka in Paktika, Nawa in Ghazni, Warduj and Yamgan in Badakhshan and Kohistanat district in Sar-e-Pul.
"We do not have the record of services in 10 districts... I can say that governance is not practiced in these districts," said IDLG spokesman Munira Yusufzada.
In addition to the 116 districts facing serious threats, 91 other districts are facing "medium" security threats.
Meanwhile, of Kunduz's nine districts, six, Dasht-e-Archi, Qala-e-Zal, Chahardara, Gortepa, Aqtash and Kulbad districts, are reportedly largely controlled by the Taliban.
"Nearly 98 percent of six of the nine districts in Kunduz are under control of the Taliban – including their government offices," said Nazari Turkman, an MP from Kunduz.
"Lack of plans by government gives a big hand to the Taliban and other insurgent groups [to destabilize the country]," said university lecturer Baz Mohammad Anwari.
Government is however taking action on a number of fronts and according to reports, ground forces in a number of areas are now being backed by air support from both the Afghan Air Force and foreign troops.
"They [militants] have suffered casualties in Khanashin district in Helmand and they have also suffered heavy losses in Qoshtepa district in Jawzjan," said defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri.
But despite the IDLG's claims that 10 districts are controlled by the Taliban, recent findings by the Long War Journal reveal that 20 districts are in fact under the Taliban's control and that in 35 other districts, only the centers are controlled by government while other parts are under the control of the Taliban.
Tunisia’s parliament passed a vote of no confidence in prime minister Habib Essid on Saturday, effectively disbanding the government of the US-trained agricultural economist. The no-confidence motion was passed by 118 votes, easily crossing the country’s 109-vote threshold after a debate that stretched late into the night. Out of the 191 MPs present for the vote, only three supported Essid and others abstained.
Although the result was expected as Essid had faced criticism from across Tunisia’s political spectrum, the vote was a mark of the instability which has bedevilled the north African country since it kicked off a wave of pro-democracy rebellions across the Arab world in 2011.
Parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur told MPs Tunisia was “living through a difficult situation that demands sacrifices from all” and added that “we must now look to the future to return hope to all Tunisians”.
Unlike fellow Arab countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Libya whose revolts have degenerated into coups or anarchic civil conflicts, Tunisia has maintained its parliamentary democracy in the face of jihadi attacks, inflation and stubbornly high unemployment rates.
But the difficulties have steadily sapped the authority of Essid, whose position has also been undermined by political maneuvering within Tunisia’s secular Nida Tounis party and pressure from the country’s president, Beji Caid Essebsi, who called for a new national unity government last month.
Essid said he would do his best to make sure the transition to the new government was a tranquil one. Despite fierce criticism of his government during an extraordinary parliamentary session, he said the debate “consecrated Tunisia’s nascent democracy”.
“Despite the serious problems our country faces, we have no fear for Tunisia which has the resources to face up to the challenges,” he said, before being given a standing ovation by those who had ousted him.
Constitutional law expert Nawfel Saied said the no confidence vote, although unprecedented in the country’s short history with democracy, was a positive point. Similar mechanisms exist in other parliamentary democracies, he said. He suggested the move could result in a more prominent role for the more religiously oriented Ennahda party, which currently has the largest number of seats in parliament following defections and splits within Nida Tounis.
Essebsi now has a month to pick a new prime minister, who in turn has a month to appoint a cabinet which has to be presented to parliament.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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[BUSINESSINSIDER] Niger has extended a state of emergency in the southeastern region of Diffa for three months after a series of attacks by 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... , the government said late on Friday.
Attacks by Boko Haram since late May have emptied the towns of Bosso and Yebi near the Nigeria border in the Lake Chad region. Some 69,000 have fled, according to a report on Friday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"Despite the various extensions of the state of emergency in the region of Diffa and bloody setbacks inflicted on it, the Boko Haram sect still continues to have a destructive capacity as evidenced by the recent attacks in Bosso," the government said in a statement.
Boko Haram took the town of Bosso near the Nigerian border in early June, in an attack that killed 30 soldiers from Niger and two. It was the deadliest assault in Niger by Boko Haram since April 2015. Since then, Chad has sent troops to help Niger wage a counterattack.
The state of emergency, which the government hopes will allow it to beef up its presence in the region with troops and added security measures, will now run to Oct. 25. It is the latest in a series of such declarations in the Diffa region since February last year.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] A Dhaka Court has ordered for DNA test of the nine bully boyz killed in a shootout with law-enforcers in Kallyanpur in the capital on July 26.
Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Mazharul Islam passed the order on Sunday after Police Inspector Md Jahangir Alam of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit filed three petitions seeking the permission.The police inspector filed the three petitions--one for DNA test, one for collecting profiles of the bully boyz and another for testing of urine, stool, hair and clothes of the hard boys.
Allowing the three petitions, the court ordered for DNA test and to arrange test of urine, stool, hair and clothes of the hard boys.
According to the case, an operation called ’Storm 26’ was carried out in the 6-storey building, locally known as Jahaz Bari in Kallyanpur area around 5:45am on July 26. A total of nine suspected bully boyz were killed in the operation.
After the incident, police filed a case with Mirpur cop shoppe under the anti-terrorism act.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
DNA will tell if they're inbred bastard cousins from the same clan. The drug test will tell if they were high. Anybody really think the Dhaka law-enforcers can do any correlation analysis? Maybe they're just building a baseline, or are fans of 'CSI'.
[Dhaka Tribune] Refuting the claims by police, a faction of banned murderous Moslem group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) said their members were not involved in the recent terror attacks in Gulshan and Sholakia that killed at least 25 people, including 17 foreign nationals.
The murderous Moslem group made the claim on Sunday as they sent two memory cards to the Bangla Tribune office describing the attacks. The outfit has also changed its logo.
The law enforcers have been blaming the JMB ‐ formed in 1998 and banned in 2005 ‐ for the July 1 attack on a Gulshan restaurant and the July 7 attack on the police near Sholakia Eid congregation in Kishoreganj.
But international murderous Moslem group 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.... claimed responsibilities for the Gulshan attack, but no one took credit for the attack in Kishoreganj. Since September last year, IS claims their members have carried out 25 attacks that killed 44 people.
In the memory cards, the JMB faction, led by runaway death-row convict Salauddin alias Salehin alias Sajeeb, also gave a statement claiming responsibilities for all the attacks they had carried out during 2002-2016.
Chief of the DMP’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes unit Monirul Islam said that they would scrutinise the statement. "We have much information about the activities of this new group," he said.
The Dhaka Tribune on July 10 published two reports based on the statement where the group admitted ‐ for the first time ‐ their involvement in over 1,100 attacks, mostly targeting NGOs, secularists, non-Moslems, Pirs and shrines, and courts and law enforcers.
The statement was first published in a Facebook page on June 27 and later found in a jihadi discussion platform named "Dawahilallah."
On the other hand, al-Qaeda affiliate Ansarullah Bangla Team or Ansar Al Islam took credit for 13 attacks since 2013 that killed 11 secularists and injured at least five others.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] An anonymous letter sent by post to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday contains death threats to nine prominent personalities including a Supreme Court Justice.
The letter was postmarked Mohammadpur Sub-Post Office, but did not show when it was sent.
The letter, written in Bangla, does not contain the name of any organization or a sender. On top of the letter are the proclamations "Naraye Takbir" and "Allahu Akbar."
The letter also reads: "Your death sentence is final. Execution will be carried out any time."
Then a list of nine prominent personalities are listed: International Crimes Tribunal judge Justice Nizamul Haque, tribunal prosecutors Dr Tureen Afroz and Advocate Rana Dasgupta, pro-war crimes trial activists Dr Imran Sarker and Kamal Pasha Chowdhury, Azadur Rahman Chandan, Shagor Lohani, Islami Oikya Jote ... a political party in Bangladesh. In the 2001 elections the party won 2 out of 300 elected members in an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It has a focus on building an islamic state, and has used the madrassas to gain support... faction Chairman Misbahur Rahman Chowdhury and Sholakia Imam Maulana Farid Uddin Masud.
Police were notified of the letter. Deputy Commissioner (media) Masudur Rahman of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said law enforcement agencies were taking necessary steps in this matter.
When contacted, Maulana Masuud, who initiated the recent fatwa against terrorism, said he did not receive any such letter with a threat.
But he offered prayers for those who had sent the letter, saying: "May Allah guide them."
Advocate Rana Dasgupta, the secretary general of the Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council of Bangladesh, said he did not receive any new death threat, but "such death threats have been sent many times before in my name. I previously filed general diary, but did not see any initiative from police."
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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[EXPRESS.CO.UK] The Charity Commission has released reports on two separate organizations that claimed to be raising cash to help victims of the war in Syria, and Kurdish Moslems in Birmingham, but were in fact funding and promoting terrorists.
In one case, charities set up by Adeel Ul-Haq, 21, of Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, raised money through social media that was used to buy a high-powered laser pointer, night-vision goggles and a secret waterproof money pouch.
Ul-Haq was enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! for 12 months in February after a separate police investigation found he funded terrorism by sending money to an ISIS fighter in Syria.
Ul-Haq used Twitter to appeal for cash "to help people in war-torn Syria crisis, but instead sent it to the ISIS fighter.
He was enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! for a further five years for helping another person travel to Syria.
The Charity Commission report said the regulator was unable to account for much of £12,500 raised by Ul-Haq, but at least some of it went into another unnamed person’s bank account.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
In Islam charitable giving requires a Muslim to give two perdent of his income annually. When that is done, the subject can wash his hands of the charity business. He or she has done a duty, and what happens after that is of no concern.
#2
Just like "honor", "charity" has a very different meaning in Islam. It mostly, means supporting Jihad. Which, mostly, doesn't mean "personal struggle for self improvement". Never mind what Condoleezza the semi-illiterate told George the brainless.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] A hardline Moslem preacher suspected of radicalising three British jihadis told teenage disciples that it is ’permissible’ under Islam to have sex slaves.
Ali Hammuda, an Imam at a Cardiff mosque where three young jihadis from the city worshipped before travelling to Syria to join 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.... , also told the group of boys as young as 13 that the ’day of judgment is close’ ‐ a key part of IS’s warped propaganda.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
You damn straight it's close, and you ain't gonna like it.
[REUTERS] 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.... called on its group members to carry out jihad in Russia in a nine-minute YouTube video on Sunday.
"Listen Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes ... Oh Brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them," a masked man driving a car in the desert yelled while wagging his finger in the last couple of minutes of the video.
The video with subtitles showed footage of gunnies attacking armored vehicles and tents and collecting arms in the desert. "Breaking into a barrack of the Rejectionist military on the international road south Akashat," read one subtitle.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the video but the link to the footage was published on a Telegram messaging account used by the myrmidon group.
It was not immediately clear why Russia would be a target, but Russia and the U.S. are talking about boosting military and intelligence cooperation against Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria.
Islamic State has called on its supporters to take action with any available weapons targeting countries it has been fighting.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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A general who was in charge of managing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's overseas slush funds is said to be in China after escaping from his country, and is seeking political asylum with two other North Koreans in a country other than South Korea. A source said that the three were separated from a diplomat from Pyongyang, who is seeking his own defection to another country.
A source in China, who works in collaboration with Seoul government officials, on Thursday revealed the recent defection of the general, a diplomat and two others. The source said that the North Korean military officer was in charge of managing Kim Jong-un’s slush funds in Southeast Asia.
The general was in China on a business trip when he was joined by the three other North Koreans on July 12th. The diplomat is known to have parted ways with the group and is seeking political asylum in a country other than South Korea, while the other three are staying in China, making their own plans to defect to another country.
No sense going home when your companions have defected...
The latest escape marks the first known case of a North Korean general's defection from the reclusive regime. Last year, a North Korean colonel defected to the South.
The source said the four didn't choose to defect to South Korea partly because of a petition by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed last month for habeas corpus relief of 12 North Korean restaurant workers in China who defected to Seoul in April.
The source said that the four North Koreans decided to leave their country due to their dissatisfaction with the Kim Jong-un regime and pessimistic views about the future of the country.
Right now we can only hope that the general is being debriefed by CIA and Treasury agents. All the information he carries in his head, laptop and cell phone are being copied. All account numbers, amounts, and bank information will be very useful to cross-check what we already know.
What people might not get is that new compliance rules implemented by the Treasury Department and EU bank regulators, as a result of the new sanctions, make it very difficult for a bank to do business with anyone who does business with North Korea and stay open. Simply demonstrate that Pudgy or one of his minions has an account at a bank, and that bank risks closure. They'll cooperate. But first we need to know which accounts, and for that this new defection is just excellent news.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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North Korean leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un has squandered the equivalent of W110 billion in South Korean money on test-firing 31 ballistic missiles over the five years since he took power (US$1=W1,136).
They were 16 Scud missiles with a range of 300-1,000 km, six Rodong with a range of 1,300 km, six Hwasong-10 with a range of 3,500 km, and three submarine-launched missiles, the Defense Ministry here said Wednesday. That is nearly double the 16 ballistic missiles his father Kim Jong-il fired in his entire 18 years at the helm.
Scud and Rodong missiles cost W1-2 billion each if measured by their export prices for Middle Eastern countries. The regime has fired a total of 22 such missiles, meaning their total cost is W22-44 billion.
Each Hwasong-10, formerly known as Musudan, is estimated at W3-6 billion, three times as much as the Scud missile, which means the regime has wasted W18-36 billion firing six.
The SLBMs the regime is developing cost an estimated W5-10 billion each.
With that money the regime could have purchased enough grain to feed the entire population for a month or two.
But that's not what is important to His Enormity...
The regime has about 1,000 mid- and short-range ballistic missiles, military authorities here speculate.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
If the flow of danegeld resumes it will be a wise investment.
[EXPRESS.CO.UK] Adel Kermiche and Abdelmalik Petitjean will not be given a Moslem burial by locals who say they do not want to "taint" Islam.
Both men who entered the Normandy church acted in accordance as they slit 84-year old priest Fr Jacques Hamel's throat on the altar while he was conducting morning mass.
Now furious locals are turning their backs on the men.
Mohammed Karabila, imam of one of the town's mosques, told Le Gay Pareeien: "We're not going to taint Islam with this person.
"We won't participate in preparing the body or the burial."
And two of the nuns who were held hostage have now spoken for the first time of the terror attack and revealed the men were smiling as they committed the murder.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Tens of thousands of supporters of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are to hold a rally in the German city of Cologne, as tensions over Turkey’s failed coup put authorities on edge.
He might be more popular than Merkel in Germany right now...
The political strife in Turkey has found expression in Germany, which is home to the biggest Turkish diaspora. Up to 30,000 people are expected to answer a call to take to the streets on Sunday, issued by pro-Erdoğan group the Union of European-Turkish Democrats, police said. The North Rhine-Westphalia state, where Cologne is located, is home to about one-third of Germany’s 3-million-strong Turkish community.
At the same time, several smaller counter-demonstrations are to take place, including one billed “Stop Erdoğan” and another called by far-right activists, raising fears the demonstrators could clash. Security services in Germany sought to head off any potential violence between the different camps, with about 2,700 officers – including several Turkish speakers – deployed to keep the peace.
Cologne’s police chief, Jürgen Mathies, said: “One thing I want to make clear is that we will intervene against any kind of violence quickly, decisively and forcefully.”
Erdoğan enjoys a large support base among the diaspora in Germany, home to about 1.5 million people with Turkish nationality who can vote in Turkish elections. His Justice and Development party (AKP) garnered 60% of the vote in Germany in last November’s election, a bigger share than in Turkey.
So the Turkish community in Germany is either 1.5 million or 3 million...
Turkish children too young to vote? Deutsche Welle reports on the rally, and a bit about the counter-rallies. Some key points:
o Estimate of 20,000 participants; many brought in, busses from as far away as England
o Crowd knew Turkish anthem, but not German anthem
o Anger that Erdogan was not permitted to give televised speech
o Chants of "Allahu Akbar" and "Yallah Islam"
o Turkish flags handed out to participants, but there were also lots of Erdogan and AKP signs
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Lemme help...
It goes like this, a one an da two anda
[Ynet] Supporters of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen living in the Netherlands fear for their safety after dozens of death threats in the wake of a failed coup attempt, a spokeswoman for the community said on Friday. Dutch police declined to comment.
[RUDAW.NET] "The real coup is that which Erdogan is currently conducting," said Riza Altun, head of foreign relations for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), in an interview with Al-Monitor published on Friday.
Altun reiterated the PKK’s stance that neither the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... nor a military-led coup government would be good for the Kurdish cause. "Even if we assumed that the coup attempt succeeded, the ensuing regime would not have been democratic, but anti-Kurdish. None of them is better than the other: neither Erdogan nor the army."
[CNN] Fethullah Gulen, the reclusive holy man accused by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... of hatching a military coup attempt, concedes that his supporters could have been involved in the putsch but again denied any direct connection.
"There might have been some sympathetic people [to Gulen] among them," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview.
But Gulen has repeatedly denied government claims he has directed sympathizers to destabilize the Erdogan regime.
"Some people staged a scenario, then someone who is seemingly a fan, has led some people into this," he said. "It looks more like a Hollywood movie than a military coup. It seems something like a staged scenario. It is understood from what is seen that they prepared the ground to realize what they have already planned."
A separate story embedded within an Incirlik story from Sunday.
Turkey will shut down its military academies and put the armed forces under the command of the defence minister, President Tayyip Erdogan said in a move designed to bring the military under tighter government control after a failed coup.
The changes come after more than 1700 military personnel were dishonourably discharged for their role in the abortive July 15-16 putsch. Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death on the night of the coup, told Reuters in an interview last week that the military, NATO’s second-biggest, needed “fresh blood”.
Both the general staff and the intelligence agency now report to the prime minister’s office. Putting them under the president’s overall direction would be in line with Erdogan’s push for a new constitution centred on a strong executive presidency.
[AnNahar] Turkey's government on Sunday dismissed nearly 1,400 military personnel, including a top aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest round of a sweeping purge following a failed coup.
The announcement in the official gazette came as Erdogan sought to tighten his grip over the country.
Erdogan's aide-de-camp Ali Yazici, who was arrested five days after the July 15 putsch, was among the 1,389 dismissed by a new decree in the official gazette. Chief-of-staff Hulusi Akar's aide-de-camp Levent Turkkan and Defense Minister Fikri Isik's executive assistant Tevfik Gok were also discharged.
The new decree also confirmed his announcement that a new national military university would be established within the defense ministry. Military hospitals are to come under the control of the health ministry.
Anadolu meanwhile said Turkey's deputy prime ministers and the ministers for justice, interior and foreign affairs have all become members of the Supreme Military Council, which determines the armed forces' agenda.
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08/01/2016 00:39 ||
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Turkish media are in a state of shock this weekend after the government arrested 17 journalists in recent days on terror charges and issued arrest warrants for dozens more, in what a press freedom group has warned is a “sweeping purge” of the sector.
Hillary wouldn't have to do this in our country: the media already is under her thumb, and they like it there...
Turkey had already ordered the closure of more than 100 papers, broadcasters and publishing houses as part of a crackdown after the failed 15 July coup attempt, before sending police to round up reporters, columnists, a novelist and social commentators.
The impact of those arrests was documented by US-based journalist and government critic Mahir Zeynalov, who was expelled from Turkey for his work two years ago and who took to Twitter to commemorate the work and reputations of the journalists arrested.
“Everybody was highlighting numbers and statistics, but nobody really explained who these people are,” he told the Observer. Some are personal friends, others celebrated within the profession and several are nationally famous.
So he posted photos of each journalist, many at the moment of their arrest, each with a brief but powerful biography. The pen sketches are affectionate, sometimes teasing, but most end with a one-word reminder of the price they have paid for their work. “Arrested.”
“Nuriye Akman. Give her a cup of coffee and she would ask the most amazing questions. Interview nerd. Arrested,” reads one, a heartfelt appeal not just to those who care about journalists but to anyone who struggles to get started in the morning without their caffeine.
Others include a “rare Islamist sociologist”, a journalist who made his name investigating the country’s first coup, a satirist who went to jail “with head held high” and a journalist tortured in government jails in the 1980s.
Taken together, they are a powerful indictment of an attack on an entire profession. Initially 21 were detained but four have been released.
The oldest who has now been charged with “membership of a terror group”, according to Anadolu news agency, is a 72-year-old veteran critic of the government, publisher and former parliamentarian, Nazli Ilicak.
“These journalists were diverse – young, old, conservative, left-wing, novelist, economist, military geek. This represented the wide variety of journalists being put in jail and proved that the broad spectrum of Turkish society is being silenced,” Zeynalov said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has warned of a “sweeping purge” of the media in Turkey.
“Instead of channelling the overwhelming support it has received from across the political spectrum to unite the nation, the government is exploiting a failed coup to silence the critical press when Turkey most needs pluralistic media,” said Nina Ognianova, regional co-ordinator for the group.
One of those who was freed, commentator Bulent Mumay, warned that the government was repeating past mistakes. Turkey has a chequered history on press freedom and was the world’s top jailer of journalists in 2012 and 2013. But the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has shrugged off international criticism of his post-coup crackdown, which has included a purge of the military, civil service, judiciary and education sector, the arrest of more than 18,000 people, telling the west to “mind its own business”.
Zeynalov – who is from Azerbaijan, lived and worked in Turkey for many years and has a Turkish wife – has long been a thorn in the side of Turkish authorities and two years ago they expelled him for “posting tweets against high-level state officials”.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Follow-up on a story noted in the comments Sunday.
Turkish authorities restored access to and from a key air base used in operations against Islamic State militants, local media reported on Sunday, one day before the U.S. top military official is scheduled to visit the country.
Incirlik air base in southern Turkey reopened following a meeting with security officials. Police used armored cars to block the gates earlier Sunday following intelligence that raised suspicion another coup was being plotted following the failed July 15 putsch, Ihlas News Agency reported, without saying where it got the information. The ban lasted four hours, the agency said.
Turkey has suspended or removed more than 60,000 people from jobs in the military, security services, judiciary and media since the failed coup. James Clapper, director of U.S. national intelligence, said on Thursday that the purge has affected “many of our interlocutors.” General Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Turkey’s “frictions” have already impacted some operations against Islamic State.
The remarks have further strained ties between NATO’s two largest armed forces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames the attempted coup on his U.S.-based political rival, Fethullah Gulen. While Erdogan has stopped short of directly accusing the Obama administration of fomenting the coup attempt, officials and news outlets are blaming the U.S. with increasing intensity.
U.S. officials have denied any role in the failed putsch. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is set to visit Turkey on Monday, Erdogan said over the weekend.
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08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek fears Turkey is entering a period where top officials could be at risk of assassination. Gökçek, mayor for over 22 years and one of the senior figures in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), also told AFP in an interview the United States must extradite U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey to remove any suspicion that Washington was involved in the failed July 15 coup attempt.
Gökçek said Gülen’s role in Turkey went back to the premierships of Bülent Ecevit in the 1970s and admitted the AKP had mistakenly formed an alliance with his similarly Islamic-leaning supporters when it first came to power in 2002.
“But their biggest aim was to use us and to get their own people inside the army,” he said.
Gökçek, one of the most outspoken senior figures in the AKP who regularly updates 3.4 million followers on Twitter with his views, said there would no longer be a risk of coups in Turkey but rather of assassinations.
“Politicians will be at risk of assassinations... of course I have increased my security,” he said.
One or two minor pols might be "assassinated" despite better security. There would of course be an "unfortunate" crackdown in response. It's right out of the thugs playbook...
The mayor was quick to take to Twitter on the night of the coup attempt, describing it as a Gülen-backed coup minutes after the first reports emerged and then calling all supporters out into the streets.
He claims to have been number six on a hit list - topped by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - to be killed by Gülen followers after the power grab.
Turkey blames Gülen, who resides in Pennsylvania, for masterminding the coup attempt, saying he assiduously built up a “parallel state” with followers in all institutions.
With some officials now even alleging that Washington could have had a hand in the putsch, Ankara wants the United States to send back Gülen to face trial in the country he left in 1999.
“For America to prove it is not behind the coup, there is only one thing to do, deliver (him) to Turkey,” Gökçek told AFP.
He claimed that the U.S. had already given “signals” it was involved in the coup after a top American general expressed concern that many of Washington’s former Turkish military interlocutors were now in jail.
“How will it be known whether America is or is not involved in this business? If they deliver [Gülen] there is no problem. But if they don’t the United States will not escape from the dock.”
Gökçek, who had previously suggested Gülen was hypnotizing people and used genies to control them, expressed bewilderment that Washington had tolerated the cleric’s presence and allowed his foundations to open up schools in the U.S.
“For America to tolerate this, it seems there are connections to FETÖ,” he said, referring to what is called the Fethullah Terror Organization.
Gökçek also said he was “absolutely in favor” of the death penalty for the coup plotters and brushed off warnings from the European Union that reinstating capital punishment could end Turkey’s decades-long bid to join the bloc.
If Turkey is told it can’t enter the EU, “well I swear to God, we don’t care. Let us not enter,” said Gökçek, adding that he had been a champion of EU integration in the past. “When we were close, you were far away. Europe is not the only place in the world... We will find others.”
He said if parliament passed a law reversing the 2004 death penalty abolition, it should then be put to a referendum.
“The world can then see if the people want it or not.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
Battlefield success against ISIS may produce more terrorism for the West, FBI Director James Comey warned this week.
Speaking to a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University Wednesday, Comey predicted that eventually crushing ISIS in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq will likely result in dispersing terrorists elsewhere.
"At some point there is going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we've never seen before," Comey said. "Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to die on the battlefield."
The FBI director's warning that the collapse of the caliphate will mean increased attacks in Western Europe and the United States mirrors a consensus among intelligence officials.
Comey compared it to the formation of al Qaeda, which drew from fighters who had been hardened and radicalized fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s.
"This is an order of magnitude greater than anything we've seen before" Comey said. "A lot of terrorists fled out of Afghanistan... this is 10 times that or more.
"We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and in Paris (attacks earlier this year)."
And just not in the West. There have recently been stepped up ISIS attacks worldwide, including in countries near its home base territory that has been shrinking due to military losses in Iraq and Syria.
In the last several weeks, there have been mass casualty killings at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the Istanbul airport in Turkey, a café in Bangladesh, a market in Baghdad, the Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France; a protest in Afghanistan and on Tuesday, the murder of an elderly priest in Normandy, France, all carried out by ISIS fighters or in the name of ISIS.
CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen blames a more complex regional breakdown for sowing the attacks.
He notes that the fracturing of authority in Iraq, Syria and Yemen has produced a massive migration of Muslims from those regions to Europe, which prompted reactionary political parties there to rail against them.
In France they live in largely segregated communities where youth unemployment can run as high as 45%.
"Many French Muslims live in grim banlieues, the suburbs of large French cities (similar to housing projects in the United States), where they find themselves largely divorced from mainstream French society," Bergen writes. "All these feed into ISIS' narrative that Muslims are under attack by the West and also by the Shia as well as by any Muslim who doesn't share their extremist ideology."
CIA Director John Brennan recently told Congress it was still critical to take away ISIS' safe haven territory because it gave the group a base for training operatives and raising revenue.
At the end of May, ISIS' chief spokesman and ideologue, Abu Mohammed al Adnani, tried to reframe how ISIS defines victory. In an audio message, he said defeat would not result from losing control of cities but from "losing the will and the desire to fight."
One Western counterterrorism official predicted "a metastasis of terror as it becomes increasingly difficult for ISIL (another acronym for ISIS) to hold on to core territories."
#4
Comey predicted that eventually crushing ISIS in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq will likely result in dispersing terrorists elsewhere.
Using Comey's flawed strategy, Allied forces would have stopped at the Rhine. Berlin would still be under Axis control.
#5
Not surprising, considering that the elites value stability over all else. They would have preferred the IS caliphate to 'mature', so that it could've been tied down with treaties and trade deals and the like. Too bad the IS didn't play along.
#8
The main fallacy here is that ISIS is the problem. It's just a brand like AQ, and new brands will pop up when ISIS is defeated.
The problem is unreformed Sunni Islam. Wars were fought for hundreds of years over the Christian Reformation. Unfortunately, the Sunni Reformation could well be fought with nuclear weapons.
#10
Is he agreeing with Trump that perhaps we should stop immigration from these countries?
Seriously, strong horse weak horse. Prove we are the strong horse and most of the Jihadi will calm down again. Keep showing we are the weak horse and their numbers grow.
[FoxNews] The revelation appears to contradict testimony Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave lawmakers in 2013, when he said there was no time to get forces to the scene in Libya, where four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
[RUDAW.NET] In a parliamentary session on Saturday, the Iraqi Parliament officially passed a bill banning the Baath party from any political activity across the country.
"Banning the Baath party is a great success for the nation and families of deaders in Iraq because this party committed the most vicious crimes," against civilians when it was in power, said Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in a congratulatory message to the people of Iraq.
Abadi continued, "The crimes of this party continue alongside forces of Evil and their acts have resulted in a large number of victims."
An Iraqi MP said that banning the party is the least that can be done to the party of Saddam Hussein when considering the crimes committed against the people of Iraq under Baath rule.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
[RUDAW.NET] Former Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi says the looming operation to recapture the ISIS-held city will most likely start in mid-September and could continue well into November before faceless myrmidons are fully driven out of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... Speaking to Rudaw TV on Saturday, Nujaifi said the entire province will be recaptured before the end of this year.
"My prediction is based on the preparation of the armed forces led by the international coalition," Nujaifi said. "I predict that the city will be fully liberated this fall," he added.
The former governor who has been put in charge of the Sunni militia known as the Hashd al-Watani with some 10.000 recruits said Mosul had been besieged by both the Iraqi and Peshmerga forces. To avoid "the total destruction of the city," Nujaifi urged the residents of Mosul to "cooperate with liberating forces."
"We are ill-prepared to receive the new flow of refugees, that is why I urge the residents of Mosul not to leave their homes when the city is being liberated and instead take part in the operation," he said without giving further detail about the offensive.
Hashd al-Watani was initially established to recruit Sunni fighters who were willing to take part in a possible assault on ISIS in the Sunni heartland of Mosul. Until recently, the group was funded by Iraq’s predominantly Shiite government in a bid to avert sectarian tensions in a region with mostly underprivileged Sunni populations who have often had hostile attitudes towards government policies in Baghdad.
Baghdad, however, removed Mosul’s then exiled governor Nujaifi, a Sunni, accusing him of mismanaging the Sunni militia and turning it into his own army.
Iraqi government also froze payments to the group in August 2015. Sunni military representatives told Rudaw in December last year that Ankara had been paying the salaries of the troops since.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Sunni Arabs in Kirkuk have asked Baghdad to double the number of Sunni militia in the Hashd al-Watani for the Hawija assault.
The Sunni Arabs are divided into two groups. One group want the Peshmerga to participate in the Hawija offensive. The other group oppose Peshmerga participation.
"Neither our Shiite brothers nor our Kurdish brothers allowed us to take up arms and protect our regions," Saadon Afandi, Head of the Iraqi Arab Republicans Bloc told Rudaw. "We need more fighters as well as Peshmerga support for Hawija offensive and its security, because it was just Peshmerga that protected Kirkuk."
Hawija Hashd al-Watanni has some 750 members.Baghdad has pledged to recruit 500 more militiamen. Sunni Arabs who want go to Hawija alongside the Iraqi army want more fighters.
"We will have a meeting with Haider al-Abadi in next two or three days to decide the final number of fighters of the Hawija Hashd al-Watani," said Iraqi MP Khaled Mufraji.
"We want just Iraqi army and Hashd to participate in the offensive," Mufraji added. "This force [Hashd al-Watani] benefits the Iraqi Central Government."
Kirkuk Provincial Council suspects the force and believes there might be other plans behind it.
"We have seen Shiite and Sunni militias before. They are not legal military forces, so we don’t want them in this region,"Muhammad Kamal, Member of Kirkuk Security Committee told Rudaw.
"Peshmerga protects Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... and police and security forces protect inside the city," Kamad said.
The Kurdish Peshmerga see the Hawija offensive as a significant operation to keep ISIS threats away from Kirkuk .
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
h/t Instapundit
In this video of a weekly demonstration near Modiin Illit, shot yesterday, you see a Palestinian father urging his young son toward a group of IDF soldiers, yelling at them to shoot him, as explained here. What greater honor for a four-year-old boy than to be on the evening news as a "martyr"? The soldiers don’t take the bait; I interpret their reaction as one of disbelief. One of them shakes hands with the boy. The father yells at his son to throw rocks at the soldiers, but he can’t throw hard enough to do any damage. Happened to me in intifada I. Except it was an older sister, not a father. That was the day I stopped being a Libertarian.
[Gulf Today] Singapore said on Friday it has detained an Australia-based Singaporean who allegedly glorified Daesh. Zulfikar Mohamad Shariff is being held under the Internal Security Act for being a threat to national security, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement.
"Zulfikar has made use of social media to propagate and spread his radical messages," the statement said in announcing his arrest this month.
Zulfikar's posts led to the radicalization of two other Singaporeans, a businessman and a security guard, the ministry said.
Zulfikar moved to Australia with his family in 2002. It is not clear why he returned to Singapore.
Zulfikar had also been supportive of terror groups like Al-Qaeda and its Southeast Asian affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah, according to the ministry. In Australia, he joined the Hizbut Tahrir while keeping in contact with radical imams and making "numerous Facebook postings glorifying and promoting the Daesh group," it added.
He set up a Facebook page called Al-Makhazin Singapore which he used as a platform to "agitate on Muslim issues" with a "real agenda" to replace Singapore's government with a Daesh state.
Following recent terror strikes worldwide, Singapore's leaders have renewed warnings that an attack on the country, is not a matter of if but when.
Posted by: ryuge ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
It's news when: Singapore said on Friday it has detained and snuffed an Australia-based Singaporean
[YNETNEWS] A growing number of Shiite Muslims ink themselves with religious and political symbols; among the more popular tattoos is '313,' the number of commanders Shiites believe will accompany their last imam, Mahdi, and Imam Ali, a cousin to the Prophet Muhammad.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
Humm... 313 eh?, the sum of the digits is roughly 7, which by the Koran is a Lucky Number. The noted screech at Monte Carlo is Allah Akabar bitch come up Seven or DIE infidel dice.
It is the way. Peace be among you and your camels.
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.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] A hardline 
North Korean leader 
[CNN] Fethullah Gulen, the reclusive 
[FoxNews] The revelation appears to contradict testimony Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave lawmakers in 2013, when he said there was no time to get forces to the scene in Libya, where four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
[Gulf Today] Singapore said on Friday it has detained an Australia-based Singaporean who allegedly glorified Daesh. Zulfikar Mohamad Shariff is being held under the Internal Security Act for being a threat to national security, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement.
