Could be a jihadi, could just be a local Muslim who felt like it -- Al Ahram isn't telling.
[AlAhram] Egypt's prosecutor-general has referred on Tuesday to Cairo criminal court a man charged with killing a Coptic priest and injuring another in Cairo last week, state news agency MENA reported.
The prosecution charged forty-year-old Ahmed El-Sonbaty with premeditated murder in the killing of Arc Priest Samaan Shehataa, who hailed from Beni Suef Governorate in Upper Egypt, in El-Salam City east pf Cairo last Thursday.
Another priest was injured in the attack.
The interior ministry has not commented on a possible motive behind the attack.
Evidence against the defendant includes a confession, witness statements, and forensic evidence, according to MENA.
[An Nahar] Bahrain's interior minister accused Iran of harbouring 160 Bahrainis convicted of terrorism and stripped of their citizenship, in an interview published Wednesday.
All 160 "runaways" had been stripped of citizenship in "terrorism cases" targeting Bahraini police and security forces, Sheikh Rashed al-Khalifa told the Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat.
He accused Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards of having trained the group, who were convicted of attacks that killed 25 security personnel and maimed 3,000 others, according to Asharq al-Awsat.
Bahrain, a Shiite-majority kingdom ruled by a Sunni dynasty, has seen sporadic violence since the repression in 2011 of a protest movement demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.
Authorities have since tightened their grip on dissent, jailing hundreds of protesters and stripping a string of high-profile activists and holy mans of citizenship.
Bahrain has drawn harsh criticism for its treatment of demonstrators but maintains it does not discriminate against the country's Shiites.
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10/19/2017 00:00 ||
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[AlAhram] Ottoman Turkish authorities released the wife and daughter of a U.S. consulate worker, after the pair were detained amid a diplomatic row between the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... allies, the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Monday.
Authorities summoned the worker last week for questioning over his relatives' alleged links to last year's failed coup attempt, days after the arrest of another consulate employee triggered a mutual suspension of visa services.
Anadolu said the wife and daughter were barred from leaving the country and had to report to the nearest cop shoppe once a week as part of the terms of their release.
Their relative, identified only as N.M.C., has still not himself reported for questioning, Anadolu said, having been summoned after the wife and daughter were detained in the Black Sea city of Amasya.
Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has accused U.S. officials of sheltering him in their consulate in Istanbul.
The man's wife and daughter were detained over alleged links to the network of U.S.-based holy manFethullah Gulen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , Anadolu said, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the abortive putsch.
Last Sunday, the U.S. mission in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and the Ottoman Turkish mission in Washington cut back visa services after another U.S. consulate employee, Metin Topuz, was placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! . Washington said charges linking him to Gulen were baseless.
The prosecutor's office had said earlier that testimony from Topuz pointed to the wife and daughter being high-ranking members of Gulen's network. Gulen has denied any role in the failed coup.
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[DAWN] Joshua Boyle, the Canadian man who was rescued with his family last week by Pak troops, said on Tuesday that his wife had to be rushed to the hospital and remains there.
Boyle told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named in an email that his wife, Caitlan Coleman, was admitted on Monday. His email did not specify why she was taken to the hospital.
"My wife has been through hell, and she has to be my first priority right now," Boyle wrote.
Boyle, his American wife and their three children were rescued on Wednesday, five years after the couple was kidnapped in Afghanistan on a backpacking trip. The children were born in captivity.
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10/19/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Too bad she wasn't your first priority when you decided to drag her off to East Bum****istan
[NYTIMES] The Quebec provincial legislature on Wednesday barred people who are wearing face coverings from receiving public services or working in government jobs, a move that opponents criticized as unfairly targeting Moslems.
The law will prohibit public workers like teachers from covering their faces at work, and will effectively bar Moslem women who wear face veils from using public transit, although it will be possible to apply for exemptions.
The law has been described by proponents as a way to ensure state religious neutrality. Quebec’s minister of justice, Stéphanie Vallée, who sponsored the bill, has said that the legislation will foster social cohesion. But Canadian Moslem groups have long complained that the law, which languished for years before passing 66 to 51 on Wednesday, will penalize Moslems, particularly in a province where few women wear face coverings.
"This is an unnecessary law with a made-up solution to an invented problem," said Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Moslems.
"We don’t have hordes of women in niqabs trying to access or work in public services," he said, referring to a type of head scarf that covers much of the face. "Rather than helping to facilitate inclusion, as its proponents claim, it excludes citizens in the public sphere and reinforces the marginalization and stigmatization of Canadian Moslems."
Exactly how the new law will be enforced remains unclear. In the days before the legislation was passed, bus drivers in Quebec voiced concerns about having to personally prevent people from riding busses, and had asked for guidance, which they have not yet received.
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#1
The admonition is against showing their hair, not their face, much as Catholic nuns or Mennonite and conservative Amish women.
[IsraelTimes] 28-year-old David Wright could face life imprisonment over plan to kill blogger Pamela Geller
A man who authorities say fell under the influence of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group was convicted Wednesday of plotting to behead a conservative American blogger for organizing a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest.
Continued on Page 49
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[Ynet] Pakistain's military said Wednesday that new fencing and guard posts along the border with Afghanistan would help prevent bully boy attacks in both countries, but the stepped-up fortifications have angered Kabul, which does not recognize the frontier as an international border.
Maj. Gen. Nauman Zakaria, the commander for the South Wazoo tribal region, told news hounds during a visit to the border that after the fencing is complete, no "terrorist" will be able to use Afghan or Pak soil to launch cross-border attacks. Pakistain began construction of the fencing in June.
Standing at a post overlooking Afghan villages across the border, Zakaria said troops and paramilitary forces had defeated faceless myrmidons by launching several operations in the troubled region, which was a longtime stronghold for al-Qaeda and the Taliban ...Arabic for students... , as well as criminal gangs.
[DAWN] The federal government has directed the provinces to launch action against proscribed (banned) religious outfits and those kept under observations by seizing their offices, weapons and properties.
The Ministry of Interior also instructed all the provincial chief secretaries and the chief commissioner of the capital territory Islamabad to submit reports on the organizations’ financial activities.
According to sources, the orders were issued to the chief secretaries of the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmire to restrain members of all such organizations from continuing their activities.
The decision was taken after the recent statement of Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif in which he stressed the need for "putting our own house in order."
This was followed by Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s statement in the Senate on Thursday that it was the responsibility of the provincial governments to keep an eye on and take action against banned outfits, including those resurfacing under new names.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... Pakistain grabbed credit for the attack, but the claim has not been independently verified by Dawn.com.
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[DAWN] US Vice President Mike Pence telephoned Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Wednesday evening and praised the country’s armed forces for the swift response and safe recovery of the US national Caitlin Coleman, her husband Joshua Boyle and their three children.
Speaking on behalf of the US government, Pence reaffirmed the importance of bilateral relations and said that the US would like to further build this relationship for peace and prosperity of the region, DawnNews reported.
Last week, Pakistain's security forces, with the support of US intelligence, freed an American woman, her Canadian husband and their three children from terrorists’ captivity.
The foreigners were recovered from Nawe Kali, a remote area about 15 kilometres southwest of Kohat town, following a joint operation by security forces and intelligence agencies, officials had said.
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[DAWN] Pakistain People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto claimed that conspiracies were being hatched against democracy, he was addressing a rally in Hyderabad on Wednesday to mark to the 10th anniversary of Karsaz blasts.
He went on to accuse the PML-N of upholding a corrupt system that exploits the poor and declared that PPP's struggle is against that unfair system.
In a 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... speech, the PPP chief said that his party has been facing challenges against dictators since its inception. Bilawal said that PPP's founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto along with his supporters, that included students and labourers, had struggled against General Ayub Khan and later against General Zia ul Haq ...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988... "After the death of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Zia thought the PPP was no more. But how could the daughter abandon her people when her father had not?"
Recalling Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... 's return to Pakistain on October 18, 2007, Bilawal said that the carnage on Karsaz Road that night was a significant example of PPP's sacrifices. He claimed that Musharraf could not stop a "sea of people" from coming out on the streets to welcome Benazir.
After Benazir's death, Bilawal claimed that former president Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari ... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ... had "battled" those who were against democracy and strengthened the system. Yet, conspiracies against democracy had not ended, Bilawal lamented.
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[DW] Germany said on Wednesday it will halt its training mission in northern Iraq as it seeks unity in a country that has seen tensions soar between the government and the Kurds in the past few days.
Germany has been a major partner of the Kurdish peshmerga forces and has supported its war efforts against 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.... " (IS) since September 2014.
It has supplied 2,000 assault rifle and machine guns, as well as other weapons valued at around 90 million euros. Some 130 German soldiers are stationed in Erbil to train the Kurdish fighters.
"We had agreed last Friday with the foreign office to pause the training so no wrong signal would be sent," German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told news hounds on Wednesday.
A government front man on Wednesday said the suspension of the training was temporary and any decision on resuming it will be subject to daily examination of the situation in Iraq, which faces the possibility of a new civil war.
[IsraelTimes] Applicable to Strip's southern half, expansion will allow boats to ply waters up to 9 nautical miles off coast instead of 6
Israeli officials have announced they will temporarily expand the fishing area for Paleostinians off a sector of the blockaded Gazoo Strip.
From Wednesday, fishermen in southern Gazoo will be able to travel up to nine nautical miles out to sea in search of hauls, up from six previously, an Israeli statement said Sunday.
The six-week expansion will "improve the economy in the Gazoo Strip," said the statement from the Israeli Defense Ministry unit COGAT.
Fishing limits off the northern part of Gazoo will remain unchanged at six miles.
Similar measures were introduced in May.
The size of the fishing zone has varied over the years, having been set at 20 nautical miles by the Oslo Accords of the 1990s before being reduced by Israeli authorities.
Nizar Ayesh, head of the Paleostinian fishing union, told AFP it has not yet been informed of the latest decision. He said he hoped the recent reconciliation between Paleostinian factions would pressure Israel to further loosen its restrictions.
Around 4,000 fishermen work in Gazoo, more than half of whom live below the poverty line.
[IsraelTimes] Worried over fighters returning home to wreak terror, Gay Paree adopts a take-no-prisoners approach, killing 'high value targets'
La Belle France’s attitude to the killing of its citizens in Syria fighting for 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.... group has rarely been as frankly stated as it was in the lead up to the fall of Raqqa.
Continued on Page 49
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[AlAhram] Iranian police have seized 100,000 fake visas for Iraq and made six arrests ahead of the huge annual Shia pilgrimage of Arbaeen in November, newspapers reported Monday.
"Police forces have dismantled a band of six persons and seized 100,000 fake visas for Arbaeen" which this year falls on November 9, Tehran's police chief Hossein Rahimi said.
The head of Iran's organising committee for the pilgrimage to Karbala, south of Baghdad, Hossein Zolfaghari, said 500,000 official visas have so far been issued, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
's website reported.
Iran's participation in Arbaeen has spiked massively in recent years, with some two to three million Iranians among the 17 to 20 million participants last year.
Iranian police officials have repeatedly warned that pilgrims without a visa will not be allowed to enter Iraq this year, advising them to avoid fake visas.
Arbaeen marks the 40th day after the martyrdom of the Shia Imam Hossein in the seventh century.
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[An Nahar] 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.... group has lost its Syrian stronghold Raqa, but the fate of hundreds of its imported muscle who had been expected to battle to the death remains a mystery.
Captured by IS in 2014, the city became a "terror capital," where the jihadists carried out some of their most gruesome abuses and also planned devastating foreign attacks, like the Gay Paree massacres of 2015 and August's Barcelona attack.
Continued on Page 49
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#1
Look for any local armed forces members suddenly driving a Ferrari.
[An Nahar] A viral photo shows her celebrating the capture of Raqa, but Rojda Felat is more than a poster girl: she commanded thousands of fighters who clinched a defining victory against jihadists.
Her jet black hair plaited and sometimes covered by a black-and-white keffiyeh, the Kurdish woman cuts an unmistakeable figure on Syria's northern battlefields.
Pictures of her fixing the Syrian Democratic Forces' yellow flag on an infamous traffic circle where 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.... group used to carry out public executions were beamed around the world Tuesday.
The Syrian Kurdish rebel group she belongs to, the Marxist-inspired People's Protection Units (YPG), forms the backbone of the SDF, which battled for over four months to capture Raqa.
The YPG prides itself on its promotion of gender equality and includes many women among its commanders.
As a top commander in its female branch -- the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) -- she rose through the ranks and found herself commanding one of the biggest operations ever against IS.
"Comrade Rojda is one of the main YPJ commanders," said YPJ spokeswoman Nesrin Abdullah, a founding member of the all-female unit, who fought alongside Felat in Raqa and elsewhere.
"Her character is shaped by her determination to fight for women's freedom," Abdullah told AFP in a phone interview.
"During this campaign she had a real impact: she raised the victory flag in ISIS's capital," she said, using an Arab acronym for IS.
Felat, who according to fellow SDF officers is 37 years old, assumed overall command of the first phase of the Raqa operation.
Command of later phases was then shared with others, including another YPJ female officer.
The jihadists, who ruled over large parts of Syria and Iraq for more than three years, "carried out the worst atrocities against women, they made them slaves and machines meant to satisfy their every desire," Abdullah said.
One of the worst crimes perpetrated by the ultra-violent jihadist group was the genocide against the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq which saw IS kidnap and enslave thousands of women and girls.
In various interviews Felat, who is from the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, has spoken of the importance of promoting women in war.
She cites a diverse range of heroes, including early 20th century German philosopher and activist Rosa Luxemburg, but also Napoleon and Kurdish fighter Saladin.
"Whether as fighters or commanders, the Women's Protection Units always embody a spirit of camaraderie, a group spirit, there is always an awareness of our responsibility," said Jihad Sheikh Ahmed, spokeswoman for the SDF's Raqa operation.
"All the commanders, particularly Rojda, embody this."
On Tuesday, Felat grinned broadly, her weapon hanging from her shoulder, as she waved a massive SDF flag at al-Naim roundabout.
"It's a historical moment and we know it will change many things," she said, in a video posted by the YPG.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[IsraelTimes] 28-year-old David Wright could face life imprisonment over plan to kill blogger Pamela Geller
Wazoo
[DAWN] Pakistain People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto claimed that conspiracies were being hatched against democracy, he was addressing a rally in Hyderabad on Wednesday to mark to the 10th anniversary of Karsaz blasts.
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
Asif Ali 
