EUNAVFOR’s Operation Atalanta, the European Union’s anti-piracy naval mission in the High Risk Area off the coast of Somalia, is using drones to monitor the nation’s coastline and search for pirate activity.
The Spanish Navy vessel ESPS Galicia has deployed a Boeing ScanEagle remotely piloted aircraft to provide long-endurance aerial surveillance during coastal patrols.
The drone is nicknamed by the EU navies as the "Juncker"...
The ScanEagle can be launched and recovered from a small footprint, and it can stay aloft for up to 18 hours; it provides imaging capability both day and night, and serves as a relatively low-cost complement to the over-the-horizon surveillance capabilities of the Galicia’s two Sea King SH-3D helicopters.
To date, the Galicia’sScanEagle system has racked up over 500 hours of flight time in service of Operation Atalanta. Among its other missions, the drone went aloft to provide constant monitoring of the hijacked tanker Aris 13.
The ScanEagle is also in service with the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Navy, and it was deployed off Somalia during the famous Maersk Alabama hijacking.
The drone is small enough to launch from an 80-foot SEAL operations boat, yet large enough to carry a small radar, an infrared camera or a ViDAR optical detection system. The latest model can operate at a distance of up to 60 miles from its command and control base.
Despite the ScanEagle’s proven capabilities, the UK Royal Navy will stop using the system this year due to budget constraints, part of a series of deep cuts to the service’s front-line weapons systems, units and platforms.
Pirate activity off Somalia has returned since NATO ended its long-running Ocean Shield patrol mission in November. Abdihakim Abdullahi Omar, the vice president of the Somali region of Puntland, recently told reporters that NATO’s failure to address illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping was partly to blame for the recent resurgence in maritime crime. ”
We requested NATO warships to tackle the illegal fishing, but they replied it was not their mandate,” he said. “We told them that if they cannot take measures against the illegal fishing vessels who come under their cover and those who pour wastes into our waters, then their presence is a burden rather than a benefit.”
However, Joshua Tallis, a research analyst for CNA Corporation, recently told the Sri Lanka Guardian that fishing has not traditionally been a major part of the Somali economy, and that most pirates are not former fishermen. “That does not excuse the devastation of toxic dumping and IUU fishing, only its ability to causally explain piracy,” he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Despite the ScanEagle’s proven capabilities, the UK Royal Navy will stop using the system this year due to budget constraints, part of a series of deep cuts to the service’s front-line weapons systems, units and platforms.
W.T.F? Can't even pay for drone ops?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2017 11:50 Comments ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Since March 16, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit has conducted four anti-militancy drives ‐ Operations Assault 16, Twilight, Hit Back and Maximus ‐ in Chittagong, Sylhet and Moulvibazar.
Operation Assualt 16 at Chayaneer in Sitakunda, Chittagong and the two krazed killers, Jashim and Arjina, who were tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! from Shadhon Kutir also in Sitakunda, provided CTTC with information about Atia Mahal in Shibbari, Sylhet. They also learned about a bomb-maker who was supplying the various krazed killer dens with explosives.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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[DW] Berlin is revising its guidelines for Turkish asylum seekers given President Erdogan's "systematic persecution of alleged members of the Gulen movement." More and more Turks are seeking refuge in Germany.
A total of 262 asylum requests from Turkish citizens who have worked as diplomats or soldiers are currently being reviewed by Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), "Der Spiegel" reported on Saturday.
According to the news magazine, the BAMF had not yet made a decision on any of the cases.
Based on an assessment from the German foreign ministry, the BAMF is currently reworking its guidelines for The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , "Der Spiegel" reported. Because of this, the ratio of granted asylum requests from Turkey in Germany could soon rise.
The foreign ministry found that there are "clear indicators that there is a systematic persecution of alleged members of the Gulen movement" and that Ankara has made "excessive" terrorism accusations.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/02/2017 00:42 ||
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...dear Hinda, a mother of six, was the group's poetess. Her Ode to Al Shabaab was read into the court record, there to sit for all eternity...
46, of Kent, Washington, had previously been convicted of providing support to a terrorist organization.
The ladies, emirs of the international Group of Fifteen, were arrested in July, 2014.
On Friday, Jama was sentenced to 12 years and Dhirane to 11 years.
Prosecutors had said the women used the chat room to round up small contributions on behalf of al-Shabab.
The women did not deny their sympathies for al-Shabab. But their defense lawyers argued that the money they raised went to people who were not clearly defined members of al-Shabab.
All the money went to the Widows Ammunition Fund...
The defense also raised First Amendment issues, saying their advocacy for al-Shabab should not be fodder for a criminal conviction.
Yes, it should. One of these years we will get serious, and pass that into law.
This article starring:
Hinda Osman Dhirane
Muna Osman Jama
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa said on Friday the countries making efforts to isolate Pakistain should realise how the country was valued and honoured by its friends in the international community. "Really. Honest, it is!"
Gen Bajwa was talking to foreign military contingents taking part in the second Pakistain Army Team Spirit (Pats) competitions, being organised near Mangla, according to a statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations.
Terrorism, he said, was adversely affecting the entire world and required a collective response.
Pakistain was a peace-loving country and it had contributed towards peace and stability in the region and beyond, the statement quoted him as saying.
He also highlighted the importance of physical fitness and underlined the need for team work, which would be exhibited during the weeklong PATS events, starting on Saturday (today).
Gen Bajwa visited the National Counter Terrorism Centre, Pabbi, and met members of the participating teams.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
the country was valued and honoured
On a large scale map, Pakistan looks like a storm sewer culvert draining China into the Arabian Sea.
[DAWN] President Mamnoon Hussain gave on Friday his approval to the revival of military courts for another two years with effect from Jan 7, more than two months after a tug of war between the government and opposition parties over the way of their functioning.
The government says the revival was imperative keeping in view the recent spate of terrorism in the country.
The president’s front man said: "President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday gave his formal assent to the Pakistain Army Act 2017 and the 23rd Constitutional Amendment Bill."
Both pieces of legislation are aimed at granting legal cover to the military courts for trying civilians charged with terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Jamaat-e-Islaami (JI) has called for protests at 50 locations across Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... today, a day after yesterday's riots paralysed major arteries in the city.
Confirming the planned protests, JI's social media head Kashif Hafeez told Dawn.com their renewed protests against K-Electric began right after Asr prayers today.
Areas where the party plans to hold protests include Malir Zone, Shah Faisal, Gulshan Zone (near Disco Bakery), Jauhar Zone (near Samama Shopping Mall), Lea Market, Garden Area, Fresco Chowk, Defence Moar, Baloch Colony, Kala Pul, Karimabad, UP Moar, Liaquatabad, Daewoo Chowrangi, Malir Press club, Katti Pahari, and Sher Shah Chowrangi.
The call for mass protests comes after yesterday's events which saw a a protest erupt into a standoff between the police and JI workers when the Karachi chapter Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman was tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! by the police.
JI workers then proceeded to block Shara-e-Faisal and other major thoroughfares causing hardship to commuters and skirmished with law enforcing authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[Iraq News] The independence referendum in Kurdistan Region will be held this year and the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... (UN) and the US will have a supporting role in the move, said Muhammed Haji Mahmud, Secretary General of Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party.
Mahmud told BasNews on Saturday that Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani is insisting on organizing an independence referendum in 2017, a move supported by all Kurdish factions.
The Kurds won’t be supported by the mountains alone this time, the US and UN will also support the imminent process, said the Kurdish political leader.
He further said that during his latest visit to Europe, Barzani made it clear to all the world leaders he met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that Kurds seek to determine their future and declare statehood.
Mahmud added that the UN has partially agreed to oversee the referendum.
Barzani said, during a meeting with the UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday, that Kurdistan Region will soon hold a referendum on independence to show the will of the people to the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
If the UN is involved they will fuck it up somehow
Posted by: chris ||
04/02/2017 10:00 Comments ||
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The Iraqi parliament on Saturday voted against a decision to raise the flag of northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on public buildings and institutions in Kirkuk city, Anadolu reported.
In a session attended by 186 members of the 328-seat parliament, the MPs voted in favor of flying only the Iraqi flag on Kirkuk's buildings. Kurdish lawmakers have walked out of the session before the vote, MP Hasan Turan told Anadolu Agency.
Last week, 26 Kurdish members of Kirkuk’s provincial assembly voted in favor of raising the KRG flag alongside Iraq’s national flag outside the city’s public buildings and institutions.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin have criticized the move as a "mistake".
During the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have seized Kirkuk, prompting an influx of Kurds into the city.
Baghdad says Kirkuk is administratively dependent on Iraq’s central government, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party demands Kirkuk’s incorporation into the Kurdish Region.
The city’s Turkmen residents, however, oppose this idea, saying Kirkuk should enjoy a “special status”.
Kirkuk’s population is mainly composed of Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish inhabitants.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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Ay-Pee
A joint U.S.-Israeli missile interceptor meant to counter the type of medium-range missiles possessed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants became operational Sunday, completing Israel's multi-layer defense system amid tensions on its frontiers with Syria and Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the unveiling ceremony for the David's Sling system that defending the home front is of the "utmost importance." He went on to warn "whoever tries to strike us will be hit, those that threaten our existence put themselves in existential danger."
David Sling's marks the completion of Israel's multi-tier system that includes the Arrow, designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles in the stratosphere with an eye on Iran, and Iron Dome, which defends against short-range rockets from the Gaza Strip.
David's Sling was developed by Israeli defense firm Rafael with American defense giant Raytheon.
The system became operational Sunday amid heightened tensions along Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria.
In a rare clash along the Syrian border last month Israel shot down an anti-aircraft missile fired at its planes as they were carrying out an airstrike on a suspected Hezbollah weapons convoy from Syria to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2017 12:42 ||
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[An Nahar] After openly accusing Israel of assassinating a key military commander near his Gazoo home, experts agree that Paleostinian murderous Moslem group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, will want to retaliate. The question is when and where?
Israeli and Paleostinian experts both said Hamas would seek to avenge the killing of Mazen Faqha, 38, but from a distance.
So that the revengers don't get themselves gob-smacked by the evil Joooozs...
A commander in Hamas's armed wing, Faqha was shot four times near his home on March 24 in what appears to have been a meticulously planned liquidation.
Hamas said the shooting, which was allegedly carried out with silencers, with the body found several hours later, bore the hallmark of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Or the Ruritanians...
Other possibilities exist -- an inside job by Hamas rivals or Islamist hard boyz -- but Israel is the obvious suspect.
It accused Faqha of being the brain behind several deadly suicide kabooms during the second intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s.
The Jewish state has remained silent but several Hamas figures have been assassinated by Israel in the past, including founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Ptui...
By killing him in Hamas-run Gazoo, where no Israelis are allowed to enter, Israel would be sending a clear message it can reach its enemy anywhere.
Hamas's potential responses are restricted by its wariness to spark a full confrontation from Gazoo, with the impoverished enclave still not recovered from three wars since 2008.
The Islamist group could seek to strike inside Israel itself or in the West Bank, occupied by the Israel and separated geographically from Gazoo by Israeli territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Shot four times in the head. Cleaning his gun or VERY determined suicide
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2017 10:15 Comments ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] The leader of a Rohingya Moslem insurgency against Myanmar’s security forces said on Friday his group would keep fighting "even if a million die" unless the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, took action to protect the religious minority.
Attacks on Myanmar border guard posts in October last year by a previously unknown hard boy group ignited the biggest crisis of Suu Kyi’s year in power, with more than 75,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh in the ensuing army crackdown.
In his first independently conducted media interview, Ata Ullah, who has been identified by analysts and local people as the group’s leader, denied links to foreign Islamists and said it was focused on the rights of the Rohingya, who say they face persecution at the hands of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Syria's Paleostinian refugee population has fallen by one-fifth since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 and many of those who stay in Syria have been displaced, the U.N.'s Paleostinian relief agency said Friday.
UNRWA Director Pierre Krahenbuhl said there are 440,000 refugees in Syria, compared to 560,000 in the country before the war.
Many of those still in Syria have been displaced by Syria's six-year civil war. For them, it is the second time they or their families have been forced out of their homes, after being displaced from Paleostinian lands by Israeli forces last century.
"Displacement is a very difficult experience, to lose another home, to lose another place of residence," said Krahenbuhl, who was wrapping up a five day tour of UNRWA operations in Syria.
Several Paleostinian camps in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's largest city, have been destroyed during the conflict that has killed more than 400,000 people, displaced half the country's population and sent more than 5 million as refugees, mostly to neighboring countries.
Elsewhere in Syria, opposition activists reported festivities between government forces and murderous Moslems groups in different regions including the central province of Hama, the northwestern province of Idlib and the suburbs of Damascus, according to opposition activists and state media. The activists reported Arclight airstrikes on rebel-held parts of Idlib and Hama.
Physicians for Human Rights reported Friday that at least two medical facilities in Hama have come under attack over the past week. It said the facilities, a hospital in the village of Latamneh and a medical point in Kafar Naboudeh, together serve tens of thousands of people in the province that witnessed intense violence over the past two weeks after murderous Moslems launched a wide offensive against government-controlled villages.
The group said the attacks on the two medical facilities violate international law, in that they are either intentional attacks on medical facilities or indiscriminate attacks on civilian-populated areas.
"Hospitals have become scenes of total devastation and destruction throughout this conflict," said PHR's lead Syria researcher Elise Baker. "What we're seeing in Hama governorate is an extension of a gruesome pattern of attacks against medical facilities and personnel across the country."
"As we've seen throughout the conflict, as fighting intensifies and the need for medical care grows, hospitals and other medical facilities come under increasing attack," she said.
On March 25, the Latamneh surgical hospital -- a facility built into a cave to protect it from Arclight airstrikes -- was hit by multiple barrel bombs, PHR said. While the attack only caused minor structural damage to the facility, multiple sources inside the hospital testified that at least one of the bombs, which landed inside the hospital, contained a chemical agent, it said.
The hospital's coordinator told PHR that the attack and chemical exposure led to the death of one of the hospital's doctors, Dr. Ahmed Darwish.
Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, said the hospital in Latamneh was supported by the group. It added that a bomb dropped by a helicopter hit the entrance of the building, adding that information collected by the hospital's medical staff suggests that chemical weapons were used.
It said patients and staff reported suffering severe respiratory symptoms and burning of mucous membranes immediately after the impact, symptoms consistent with a chemicals attack. It said that in addition to Dr. Darwish, another person was killed.
"The loss of Dr Darwish leaves just two orthopedic surgeons for a population of around 120,000," said Massimiliano Rebaudengo, MSF's head of mission in northern Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
another reason is that several thousand Paleos have died fighting either for Assad or against him or in intra-Paleo conflict
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/02/2017 0:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
We can give Syria a couple of million - no problem.
Turkey has “successfully accomplished” its months-old military operation into northern Syria, but troops will not be withdrawn soon from the regions under Ankara’s control as it seeks ensure life returns to normal in the area, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said.
“Residential areas need to be established there. The U.S. says the same thing. Second, local forces that will be deployed to provide protection here need to be trained and equipped. We will evaluate reducing the number of troops or withdrawing entirely only after local forces are fully able to control this area,” Çavuşoğlu told Ankara bureau chiefs aboard a flight to Brussels late on March 30.
Çavuşoğlu and U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson also discussed during the latter’s visit to Ankara on March 30 the establishment of what Tillerson called “interim stabilization zones” inside Syria for Syrians to be able to return their country. Çavuşoğlu said they proposed working together and encouraging European countries to participate in the project.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/02/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
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.
EUNAVFOR’s Operation Atalanta, the European Union’s anti-piracy naval mission in the High Risk Area off the coast of Somalia, is using drones to monitor the nation’s coastline and search for pirate activity.
[DAWN] Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa said on Friday the countries making efforts to isolate Pakistain should realise how the country was valued and honoured by its friends in the international community.
[DAWN] President Mamnoon Hussain gave on Friday his approval to the revival of military courts for another two years with effect from Jan 7, more than two months after a tug of war between the government and opposition parties over the way of their functioning.
[DAWN] Jamaat-e-Islaami (JI) has called for protests at 50 locations across 
