Obammer lame ducks at a presser. "We dids" count. "We're gonnas" don't. U.S president Barack Obama Thursday vowed to continue targeting Daesh outfits in Afghanistan. This comes as the group remains an emerging threat to Afghanistan and international security.
Referring to his recent decision of keeping the current level of U.S troops in Afghanistan, U.S leader said one of the reasons for keeping forces in the country was to eliminate Daesh militants.
"In Afghanistan one of the reasons that I decided partly to maintain our current force level so that we can keep eliminating ISIS (Daesh) presence there and we delivered another blow last month when we took out a top ISIL (Daesh) leader in Afghanistan Omar Khalifa," said Obama.
Washington has also made repeated calls to Pakistan to fight terrorists without differentiating between them – including that of the Haqqani terror network.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense (MoD) has hailed Washington for withholding a $300 million USD military assistance package to Pakistan. In addition it called on the international community to mount more pressure on Islamabad in order to get it to change its approach towards fighting terrorism.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that it would withhold $300 million in military assistance to Pakistan.
Analysts believe that the decision is apparently a huge blow to US-Pakistan ties and a sign of anger against Islamabad for not undertaking necessary actions against the militant groups – such as the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network that continue to fuel violence in Afghan cities.
Obama said that despite the fact Daesh is facing major setbacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and that it has lost major swaths of territory in these countries, the group still remains a serious threat to international security as it wants to destabilize the world.
Washington believes that among Daesh fighters battling the Afghan and U.S forces in Afghanistan many are Pakistani militants.
In addition, the U.S department of state has raised concerns over the existence of terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan.
"Pakistan has taken and is taking steps to counter terrorist violence and certainly focusing on those groups that threaten Pakistanis and Pakistani stability, they have the military shut down some of these safe havens, they have restored government control in parts of Pakistan that were used by terrorists as safe havens for years and these are important steps that contribute rather to security interest in the region and they have to come at a cost of Pakistani lives lost," US department of state spokesman said.
This comes after Afghan officials have repeatedly blasted Pakistan over what they call double standards in their war against terrorism, a claim that Pakistan has repeatedly denied.
"Majority of terrorists are equipped and funded inside the Pakistani soil and conduct operations in our country. World countries must mount intense pressure on Pakistan and impose sanctions on it," said Dawlat Waziri, spokesman to ministry of defense.
According to the defense ministry, the Afghan security forces are battling those militants who are equipped and funded by Pakistan as Pakistan continues to harbor their families and relatives.
Posted by: badanov ||
08/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
He VOWS. His intent is a VOW. Obama's Vow is a VOW.
I had no idea Operation Fast and Furious had extended this far...
As the Kenyan government plans to have a massive repatriation of Somali refugees from the Dadaab camps, reports have emerged of illegal weapons making their way into the country through illegal porous routes in Garissa County. This has heightened suspicion that some of the youth at the camps are facilitating the business of weapons influx.
Ah, youts these days...
According to North Eastern regional security Director Ambassador Mohammed Saleh, the government has done much to curb the illegal trade but the efforts are being hampered by a large number of refugee youths involved in the business.
Saleh pointed out that Hagadera as the most notorious region where the business is seemingly thriving with youths transacting in hushed tones. However, the director says a team of intelligence officers are on the ground collecting crucial information that will help the security agencies in fighting the vice that is apparently a threat to national security.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/06/2016 00:00 ||
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[UPI] The man named by 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.... as 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... 's new leader is the son of the latter group's founder, Mohammed Yusuf.
Abu Musab al-Barnawi was declared "governor" of the Nigerian organization in an Islamic State magazine. He is the son of Yusuf, who founded Boko Haram in 2002 and was killed by police in 2009, CNN reported Friday, citing an unidentified source.
Following a leadership split in the sect last month, which saw the rise of Boko Haram front man Abu Barnawi at the expense of longtime acknowledged leader Abubakar Shekau, Barnawi spoke in an interview of a change in direction. Christians, and not Moslems, will be Boko Haram's target, he said.
He told the magazine the plan is now to "blow up every church that we are able to reach" instead of sectarian violence against other Moslems.
"[Westerners] strongly seek to Christianize the society ... they exploit the condition of those who are displaced under the raging war, providing them with food and shelter and then Christianizing their children," Barnawi said in an interview translated by SITE Intelligence Group.
He added Boko Haram would strike back by "booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach and kill all those who we find from the citizens of the cross."
Barnawi has maintained a low profile within Boko Haram, a contrast to the fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... and hot-tempered Shekau, BBC News reported.
Shekau still maintains some power, with loyal soldiers and crucially, control of schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria's Chibok forest in 2014. The kidnapping of the girls brought global condemnation and attention to Boko Haram, and the abductees are seen as a powerful bargaining chip, CNN said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"bargaining chip"
Does Mooch, and #bringbackourgirls, have a spare pallette of cash laying around?
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
08/06/2016 17:16 Comments ||
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#2
That's how it works in tribal societies. And why everybody is related to every body else.
Aden-Southern Aden’s Security Director Brigadier General Shalal Shaya revealed that Yemeni security taskforces have identified all members of the sleeper terror cell which have staged a series of assassinations.
The terrorists had taken down a UAE officer working for the Emirati Red Crescent, senior southern Yemeni officials, traffic police and religious men.
Aden police spokesperson Abd Al-Rahman Al-Naqib said the identities were disclosed at a meeting held among security officials.
Naqib added that the security forces have been holding extensive meetings to target terrorism across all eight Yemeni governorates. Members involved in terror acts are being tracked down, in an effort to restore legitimacy and the rule of law in Yemen.
Spokesperson Naqib lauded the efforts of countries partaking in the Arab Coalition led for Yemen, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Naqib extoled the relentless exertions by the two, especially in backing Aden’s police force in dark times. He stated that the support received played a major role in restoring security in the governorate.
Moreover, security officers suspect that there is a nexus between the assassins and Houthis along with forces allied to Saleh, who were driven out of Aden by the Arab coalition fighting to restore the legitimate Yemeni government.
Special security forces officers have been deployed throughout the city. The group was formed after the liberation of Aden from Iran-backed Houthi occupation in July last year.
The city of Aden, the temporary base of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government, has seen a series of drive-by shootings and terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of many government officials and popular resistance fighters.
The recently discovered terror ring had admitted to staging the horrendous March attack against a retirement home in Aden.
Gunmen, on March 4, had stormed a retirement home in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, killing 16 people, including four Indian nuns, Yemeni security officials and witnesses said.
The killing spree began with two gunmen who first surrounded the home for the elderly in Aden while four others entered the building, the witnesses and officials said.
[DeutscheWelle] The city of Lille, in northern France, cancelled its Grande Braderie de Lille scheduled for early September. The city's mayor said the nature of the market made it impossible to ensure people's safety.
[AnNahar] Italian authorities said Friday they had broken up a people trafficking gang based near Naples headed by a Tunisian national they suspect of jihadist links. The alleged gang leader's suspected backing for radical Islamism was uncovered during an investigation into the group's provision of false job contracts from local textile factories to enable illegal immigrants from North Africa to obtain work permits, a statement from the ROS police special operations unit said.
Arrest warrants have been issued for eight suspects. They included the Tunisian, who was said to have become radicalised in the last year and to have praised the recent terror attacks on Paris on social media.
Recent weeks have seen a string of suspected Islamists expelled from the country on the order of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. Most of the orders, which are not subject to appeal within Italy, have been issued on the basis of the suspects having expressed support for radical Islamist ideas rather than any evidence of them actively planning to act on them.
[AnNahar] Special forces will be deployed in Amsterdam on Saturday when hundreds of thousands are expected to flock to the annual Gay Pride parade along its famous canals, police said.
The colorful climax of two weeks of celebrations in the Dutch capital comes amid heightened security in The Netherlands, and follows a series of attacks in European cities in recent months. Some 80 decorated boats are expected to float along Amsterdam's historic and picturesque canals watched by packed crowds from the banks.
This year the city is also hosting the EuroPride event and authorities warned there "will be substantially more police present than last year" during the regular annual Gay Pride celebrations.
No specific threat has been made against the city or the gay pride celebrations, authorities said, adding the first 10 days marked by over 300 events had gone well.
Navy officials announced early Sunday that Marines in the western Iraqi province of Anbar had found remains that have been positively identified as those of an American fighter pilot shot down in the opening hours of the first Persian Gulf war in 1991.
The Navy pilot, Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, was the only American missing in action from that war. Efforts to determine what happened to him after his F/A-18 Hornet was shot down by an Iraqi warplane on Jan. 17, 1991, had continued despite false rumors and scant information.
Conflicting reports from Iraq had, over the years, fueled speculation that the pilot, promoted to captain from lieutenant commander in the years he was missing, might have been taken into captivity either after parachuting from his jet or after a crash landing. But the evidence in Iraq suggests he did not survive and was buried by Bedouins shortly after he was shot down.
An official statement released early Sunday said that Marines in western Iraq had received information from local residents last month about the crash of an American jet and the burial of the pilot.
“One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried,” the statement said. “The Iraqi citizens led U.S. Marines to the site.”
A search of the area last week recovered remains that included bones and skeletal fragments, which were flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for scientific examination. Positive identification was made by visual and radiographical comparisons of Captain Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site.
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, in a statement. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”
Although the dental records confirmed the identity of the dead pilot, further DNA tests will be conducted to compare the remains with samples previously provided by family members, the statement said.
Cindy Laquidara, a spokeswoman for the Speicher family, told The Associated Press that relatives had learned on Saturday of the discovery. “The family’s proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request” to not abandon the search, she said. “We will be bringing him home.”
Ms. Laquidara said the family would say more after being briefed by Pentagon officials, but did not know when that would be.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government, a joint team from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency sifted through recovered documents, interrogated prisoners of war and searched possible crash sites to try to determine Captain Speicher’s fate.
Defense Department officials had been skeptical about reports that Captain Speicher was alive. Some of those reports were haunting, including one story that his initials or name had been found scratched into the wall of a cell in an Iraqi prison.
A crash site had been identified as early as 1993, when a group of Qataris that had been on a hunting trip in remote west-central Iraq handed over some materials they found that later were identified as coming from his jet.
In December 1995, the United States, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, was able to send a team to the crash site to investigate. They found no ejection seat and no signs of a body or bones.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/06/2016 10:25 ||
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#1
Bedouins just want to be left alone.
If you're polite, they'll invite you into their tent, serve you tea and cakes, and protect you to the death while in their residence.
If they find a body, they'll say prayers, bury it, and then move on.
There's sheep to buy and sell, plus items to be smuggled somewhere.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/06/2016 20:57 Comments ||
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#2
Everybody comes home. One way or another, everybody comes home.
And bless the Beduoins who did the right thing and the Iraqi citizens who led our guys to The Place.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/06/2016 21:32 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] U.N. member states have rejected a U.N. proposal to resettle 10 percent of the world's refugees annually as part of a new global effort to tackle the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
A document adopted late Tuesday failed to include the resettlement proposal from U.N. Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon that would have been the centerpiece of a U.N. summit on refugees in New York on September 19.
Human rights groups voiced disappointment, dismissing the document as a meaningless political declaration and warning that the September gathering of world leaders was shaping up as a missed opportunity.
Ban's adviser on the summit, Karen AbuZayd, said, however, that she was "very pleased by the agreement" and was looking forward to negotiations on a new global compact for migrants colonists to begin next year.
Under Ban's proposal, world leaders were to agree on a new "global compact on responsibility-sharing" to address the refugee crisis and launch talks on a second agreement on migration.
The final document makes no mention of the responsibility-sharing deal and proposes talks on migration beginning early next year, with a view to adopting that accord in 2018.
Ban put forward his proposals in May to address the crisis from some 65 million people fleeing wars and poverty, the largest displacement crisis since the Second World War.
Following weeks of negotiations, the proposed resettlement goal of 10 percent of world refugees was deleted from the document and replaced by a general pledge to take in more refugees.
"We intend to expand the number and range of legal pathways available for refugees to be admitted to, or resettled in, third countries," the document said.
With expectations for the U.N. summit now low, attention shifted to a separate gathering at the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... on September 20 that will be hosted by President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... At that summit, the United States will ask countries to come forward and announce the number of refugees they are willing to take in along with any other support they can offer.
Eight countries host more than half of the world's refugees: The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Pakistain, Leb, Iran, Æthiopia, Jordan, Kenya and Uganda.
U.N. member-states endorsed Ban's proposal for a global campaign against xenophobia.
"Demonizing refugees or migrants colonists offends profoundly against the values of dignity and equality for every human being to which we have committed ourselves," said the document.
#3
Resettle Palestinian arab in Saudi Arabia first. They been waiting in refugee vmcamps (acting as agemrievedcweapons) for decades ( since UN recognized a state in the region).
#4
Europe should recolonize Libya and send refugees there so they don't have to risk crossing the med and as a place to exile troublemaker Arabs illegally in the EU. Then, when the region is peaceful they can be given self rule.
[IsraelTimes] Despite PA efforts to suppress the group, October’s municipal vote could boost Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, in West Bank
In a Facebook post Tuesday, the Paleostinian Fatah group listed a number of its achievements. At the top: the killing of 11,000 Israelis.
The post was carried by Fatah’s official page. It was translated by the watchdog group Paleostinian Media Watch.
In its boast, Fatah also notes other achievements, such as losing 170,000 "deaders," being the first to carry out attacks in the First Intifada, which began in 1987, as well as in the second that launched in the fall of 2000. It also takes credit for leading the Paleostinian campaign against Israel in the UN.
Fatah, led by Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , is widely seen as the more moderate of the two main Paleostinian factions. Hamas, the Islamist terror group which rules Gazoo, is Fatah’s main competitor.
The current Fatah post is likely linked to the upcoming Paleostinian municipal elections, set for October 8, in which Fatah and Hamas are expected to contest seats in most Paleostinian municipalities. In many places in the West Bank, Hamas members will be running without openly identifying with the movement, which has been suppressed by PA forces in areas under its control.
Much of the Fatah Facebook page is currently devoted to criticizing Hamas.
According to PMW, this wasn’t the first time Fatah made such a boast. A similar message appeared on Fatah’s Facebook page in 2014.
If Hamas wins significant gains in the municipal election, it could signal its successful attainment of a firm foothold in the territory. Last week, analysts suggested that Hamas likely agreed to the municipal elections out of the belief that the aging and unpopular Abbas would be a weak opponent.
Fatah has tried to prevent Hamas gains by putting pressure on the group ahead of the vote. On Monday, a senior Hamas member decried the Paleostinian Authority’s ongoing arrests of its members in the West Bank, according to Israel Radio. He said the persecution of Hamas members showed that Abbas’s government was not conducting fair and democratic elections.
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.
U.S president Barack Obama Thursday vowed to continue targeting Daesh outfits in Afghanistan. This comes as the group remains an emerging threat to Afghanistan and international security.
Navy officials announced early Sunday that Marines in the western Iraqi province of Anbar had found remains that have been positively identified as those of an American fighter pilot shot down in the opening hours of the first Persian Gulf war in 1991.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
