[ToloNews] The Afghan government in a letter to the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Security Council (UNSC) has raised the issue of "consistent violations of Afghanistan’s territory" by Pak forces and has called on the UN to initiate "necessary measures to address the matter at hand in an effective manner".
This is Afghanistan’s second letter to the United Nations in a week. The first time was about a planned meeting between Pakistain’s Prime Minister Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... and Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... ’s representatives in Islamabad. In the letter, the Afghan government said the meeting "undermines" the Afghan grinding of the peace processor and "violates Afghanistan’s national illusory sovereignty". Taliban called off the meet saying they are unable to travel due to UN and US travel restrictions on them.
"The nature of these violations mainly includes persistent shelling of Afghan territory, particularly in districts and villages of Kunar and Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. provinces; violation of Afghan air space by Pak military aircrafts, as well as construction of military posts, barbwire fence and barriers inside Afghanistan’s territory, most recently in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar," Nazifullah Salarzai, Deputy Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to United Nation, said in a letter to the UNSC on February 22.
Afghanistan said the cross-Durand Line violations date back to 2012 but have increased in frequency since 2017.
According to the letter, during 2012 to 2017 period, 28,849 artillery shells were fired into Afghanistan by Pakistain resulting in the death of at least 82 people and injuring 187 others.
Since 1st January 2018, the number of violations by Pakistain in Afghanistan stands at 161 which include firing 6,025 artillery shells into Afghan territory.
The Afghan government also exposed the policy of the new Pakistain government led by Imran Khan to UNSC.
"What we have seen is nothing but actions that translate to the continued violation of the action plan," Salarzai said in the letter, recalling the September 2018 visit of Pakistain’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi to Kabul during which Islamabad reiterated its commitment to implement the Afghanistan Pakistain action plan.
Afghanistan Pakistain Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS) was agreed by former Pakistain government under former Prime Minister of Pakistain, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and the Afghan government for peace between the two countries.
It also included a commitment to avoid territorial and aerial violations.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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[PULSE.NG] Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Saturday sacked his long-time ally Bakri Hassan Saleh as first vice president, a day after dissolving the government in the face of nationwide protests.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
BAKRI HASSAN SALIH (Saleh); Paratroop Lt. Colonel and friend of Al-Bashir prior to coup; later Colonel; RCC member; Replaced Ibrahim Niyal Adam as RCC Security Chief. Called director of the so-called Islamic Security, AKA Security of the Revolution operation (IS-SOR). Personally interrogated prisoners. In 1989 purged the remnant of formr President Numayri's Sudan Security Bureau (SSB), and in 1990 in charge of all security operations in Sudan, including detentions, trails and sentences. Involved in rooting out corruption in 1989. Fanatical Islamist. Torturer.
“It is important to bear in mind that terrorism is not an aim in and of itself but a means towards an end, such as changing the identity of Sinai for example. And though the terrorist organizations that exist at present have a single source, there is a division of labour between them. The attack in Sinai came a day after the failed kaboom in Giza Square. The motor was the same, even if the parts of the engine that perpetrated the attacks were different."
[AlAhram] Egypt experienced two terrorist attacks this week, one in Arish and the other ‐ a suicide kaboom ‐ in the Darb al-Ahmar district near al-Azhar. The attacks had many elements in common in terms of timing and targets as well as in the public outrage they generated.
On Tuesday, in Darb al-Ahmar, al-Hassan Abdallah, 37, went kaboom! when a security detail tried to arrest him after a four-day manhunt following an attempt to plant an IED near a police unit stationed by al-Istiqama Mosque in Giza Square. Explosive experts succeeded in defusing the device.
Abdallah was tracked to the Darb al-Ahmar district where he was seen on the cycle of violence he had used to flee Giza Square. When confronted by police he detonated an boom belt, killing three coppers and himself. The kaboom took place in a crowded quarter and maimed several passers-by.
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02/24/2019 00:14 ||
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[PULSE.NG] Police fired tear gas on Friday to block a protest march on the presidential palace, prompting demonstrators to respond with stone-throwing.
The Directorate General for National Security (DGSN) said Saturday it had detained 41 people over "public disorder, vandalism, damage to property, violence and assault".
Despite the arrests, protests around the country were largely tolerated by authorities, even in the capital, where demonstrations have been strictly banned since 2001.
The police did not give an estimate of the number of protesters, but a security official speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... told AFP some 20,000 people had demonstrated nationwide, around a quarter of them in Algiers.
The official said 38 of the arrests were in the capital, and that no security personnel had been maimed.
Some demonstrators in Algiers scaled the outside of a building and tore down a poster bearing the portrait of Bouteflika ... 10th president-for-life of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third or fourth term. Maybe it's the fifth.... , the country's 81-year-old president.
French-language daily El Watan said crowds also gathered in the city of Ouargla where "thousands of demonstrators chanted 'the people want the fall of the regime'," the slogan of the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#2
You could blame the voters, I guess, or you could blame the power players who decide who the voters get to vote for. It's pretty much the same here.
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02/24/2019 4:38 Comments ||
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[PULSE.NG] Princess Rima bint Bandar replaced Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of the powerful crown prince who was appointed vice defence minister in a flurry of late-night royal decrees announced on state media.
The reshuffle comes as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... seeks to quell an international outcry over Khashoggi's murder last October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which strained relations with its key ally Washington.
After initially denying they knew anything of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom finally acknowledged that Saudi agents killed him inside the consulate, but described it as a rogue operation.
Princess Rima faces hostile US politicians who have threatened to take tough action against Saudi Arabia over the brutal killing amid claims that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ...Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as of 2016.... -- the de-facto ruler who also serves as the defence minister -- was personally responsible.
The Saudi government has denied he had anything to do with the murder of Khashoggi, a royal insider-turned-critic who was a columnist with the Washington Post.
"The appointment of a new envoy signifies an attempt by Riyadh to try and re-set relations with Washington and draw a line under the Khashoggi affair, however unlikely that may be in practice, at least with Congress," Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute in the United States, told AFP.
Princess Rima, the daughter of a former long-time ambassador to the United States, has been a leading advocate of female empowerment in the kingdom, which has long faced criticism over its treatment of women.
The princess previously worked at the kingdom's General Sports Authority, where she led a campaign to increase women's participation in sports.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
The poison sting cockroaches Saudis are really, really scared?
[Aljazeera] Hungary has refused to provide food for four to seven days for asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected, prompting the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to intervene, a Budapest-based rights group told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
Andras Lederer, the information and advocacy officer at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), explained that parents from two Iraqi families were denied food while detained in Hungary's two transit zones in February.
HHC is a human rights organisation that is the only group in Hungary to provide high-level legal advice to refugees for free.
Most recently, two Iraqis were denied food for over four days, up to February 19, Lederer said. The family's asylum claim was rejected, but their deportation to Iraq has been suspended.
Earlier in February, two other Iraqis were denied food for six-and-a-half days, up to February 14.
Though the parents of the two families were not fed, Lederer said, the HHC was "very happy" their children received food, but it "shows that theoretically it's possible to provide food to these people".
The ECHR issued emergency orders, forcing Hungary to provide food to the Iraqis under Rule 39 (PDF), an interim measure which only applies "where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm".
The ruling will be in place as long as they are detained in Hungary's transit zones.
[DAWN] Police authorities on Saturday ordered an inquiry into the killing of a first-year female medical student Nimrah Baig, who was rubbed out during an exchange of fire between police and suspected robbers in North 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... yesterday.
The incident had happened when a police party had shot it out with a group of suspects, who were fleeing after committing robberies. One suspected robber was also killed during the Anda Mor 'encounter'.
The police claimed that the 20-year-old Nimrah Baig was killed from the firing of the robbers. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... a medical examination of the victim carried out at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) revealed that a bullet fired from a 'high-velocity weapon' caused her death.
Additional police surgeon of the JPMC, Dr Sheeraz Ali Khowaja, told Dawn that in his opinion the bullet was fired from a "high-speed velocity weapon or rifle firearm".
The dear departed girl's uncle, Zaki Ahmed, told Dawn that the "circumstances" suggested that it was police’s firing, which led to her death. He demanded an impartial inquiry into the matter.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The joint investigation team (JIT) of the Sahiwal incident has declared Khalil and his family innocent while the driver of the car Zeeshan an active member of a terror outfit.
Submitted to the chief minister on Friday, the report also unveiled other facts of the Sahiwal incident in which Khalil was rubbed out by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) along his wife Nabeela, daughter Areeba and driver of the car Zeshan on January 19 in Sahiwal.
Khalil’s minor son Umair and daughters Hadia Khalil and Muneeba Khalil were also injured in the incident.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa, during a visit to the Line of Control (LoC) on Friday, warned India against aggression, saying any misadventure would receive resolute response from his troops.
Gen Bajwa visited the LoC to review the state of preparedness and morale of the troops, a day after the National Security Committee authorised the armed forces to respond to any Indian aggression with full force. The top commander’s visit signalled the highest level of preparedness to the adversary.
War hysteria in India in the aftermath of last week’s attack on Indian security forces in occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama area has led to fears that India may undertake military action to deflect public attention from internal problems.
Speaking to the troops on the frontlines in Chirikot and Bagsar sectors, Gen Bajwa said: "Pakistain is a peace-loving country but we will not be intimidated or coerced. Any aggression or misadventure shall be paid back in same coin".
Meanwhile, ...back at the Alamo, Davy was wondering if Buck was okay. He suspected he wasn't... military front man Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, while addressing a presser at the Inter-Services Public Relations office, said in case India started aggression against Pakistain it would be surprised by the level of response it would get from the Pak armed forces.
In a message directed at Indian military planners, the front man said: "Be rest assured, should you initiate any aggression. First, you shall never be able to surprise us. We are ready. In response we shall for sure surprise you."
Talking of deployment at forward locations, Gen Ghafoor said Pak troops "shall have superior force ratio at decisive points". He cautioned the Indian army against underestimating Pak defence, saying: "Never think that we shall fall short of capacity. ... We have the ways and means for the end state."
He said Pak armed forces were "ready to respond to full spectrum threat" and in the event of Indian aggression, "shall dominate the escalation ladder".
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
These are two nuclear armed "countries".
What are the odds that if push comes to shove one of them lights it off?
[Rudaw] Kirkuk does not have a new joint operations room excluding the Kurdish Peshmerga ‐ merely a headquarters mobilizing armed forces operating in the disputed city, the Iraqi Defense Ministry clarified on Saturday.
"First of all, what has been set up is not a joint operations center but the headquarters of the Kirkuk’s Joint Operations Command," Brig. Yahya Rasool, commander of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, clarified to Rudaw.
Over the weekend, the head of the Kirkuk Joint Operations Command caused outrage among Kurdish officials when he said a joint operations center had been established in Kirkuk composed of different army units ‐ but excluding the Kurdish Peshmerga.
"The formation of a forward headquarters of Joint Operations Command in Kirkuk is for the purpose of unity in commands," Lt. Gen. Saad Harbiyah had told Rudaw.
Responding to this revelation, Kurdish officials called the move illegal and promised to appeal to Baghdad to reverse the plan and form a new force.
"There are a number of legal and constitutional errors in establishing this operation room in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... " Shakhawan Abdullah, a member of the Kirkuk Normalization Committee, told Rudaw. "For example, members of that force are aliens and not natives to the city."
Seeking to clarify his subordinate’s comments, Brig. Rasool said: "Concerning the Peshmerga, we have a coordinating committee for joint work. We are currently engaged in talks with the Peshmerga about some subjects."
"The first thing is to joint coordination center between us and the Peshmerga and mutual work at some places where there are Peshmerga front lines and ours to start campaigns to clear the areas where ISIS maintains a presence."
They have also begun field surveys to determine the best locations to establish joint bases for the Iraqi armed forces and the Peshmerga to begin operations against ISIS sleeper cells in the region, he said.
Talks are ongoing between the Peshmerga Ministry and the Iraqi Defense Ministry to delineate their lines, he added.
Noori Hama Ali, commander of the Peshmerga forces on the Pirde Front, an area where the Peshmerga and Iraqi army engaged in festivities after the events of October 16, 2017, told Rudaw that field surveys are still underway on multiple fronts between Erbil and Baghdad.
"We have started from Khanaqin all the way to the West Tigris. We are conducting the field surveys together. Once finished, the Peshmerga Ministry and the Iraqi Defense Ministry will sit and decide on the next stages," Ali explained.
He said the process is progressing "slowly" however due to ongoing mistrust.
"The kind of trust we want has not yet been rebuilt in order for our forces to mingle with theirs to fight against ISIS, the enemy of humanity, the people of Iraq and Kurdistan," he admitted.
Over the past month, Peshmerga and Iraqi forces have met three times.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] Based on a previous agreement with Erbil and Baghdad the former has handed over thousands of documents, blood samples and other evidence to the Baghdad Forensics Court, that will primarily focus on Yezidis who were kidnapped by ISIS.
"We have submitted our archives of blood tests and information about the missing persons [to the court]. They will enter the information [to a database] and take reports of DNA. Other stages are the digging up of the [mass] graves and taking out the remains [of the victims] as well as taking DNA samples from the remains," Hassam Abdulrazaq, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Evidence Gathering Office, told Rudaw on Friday.
The Iraqi federal and Kurdistan regional governments agreed in late January to submit all documents to Baghdad Forensics Court which will create a database for all evidence and compare them with ones found on the ground during inspecting the remains of victims, according to Ayman Mustafa, a judge at KRG’s Commission for Investigation and Gathering Evidence (CIGE).
So far 2,604 documents and 1,561 blood samples have been submitted to the court by KRG.
Six members of Yezidi Hazo Saado’s family have been missing for five years including her parents. Saado told Rudaw that her parents were probably killed. She visited CIGE in Duhok to provide a blood sample.
"We also do not know anything about the destiny of my big brother, his wife, one of my sisters who could not walk, and my nephew," Saado told Rudaw.
More than 6,000 Yezidis went missing when ISIS took control of Shingal in 2014, but only about half of them have been found so far.
Earlier this winter, flash floods swept away many remains at some mass graves in Shingal, making Yezidis fear that the remains of their relatives could get lost in addition to proof of the crimes.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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[MindanaoExaminer] The rapid rise of the mysterious new leader of Islamic State in the Philippines responsible for a spate of bombings and suicide kabooms on Australia’s doorstep.’
THE TOUTED new leader 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 in the southern Philippines is an ’elderly villager’ who rose up the ranks after dozens of high-ranking bandidosbully boyz were wiped out.
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/24/2019 04:16 ||
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#1
No one on the earth needs islamists. Not even islamists need islamists, and GOD HATES THEM.
[PhilStar] Murad Ebrahim's life as the Philippines' top Moslem rebel led him into fierce jungle combat and to meet with the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse... , but a very different challenge now awaits him: governing.
Murad has been tapped to lead the majority-Catholic nation's brand new territory in the restive south where Moslems have won new powers and an influx of cash in a push for peace.
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#4
The Israelis have had a nice long time to analyze their neighbor's air defense systems and wargame how to take them out. Were the operators Chinese nationals and how much input were they allowed in siting/operations/etc. one wonders...?
[IsraelTimes] They were living in holes in the ground, with only dry flatbread to eat at the end. Those injured in an intense military campaign had no access to medical care, and those who were sick had no medicine.
Yet, if it were not for the call from their leaders to leave, they would have stayed.
Such is the devotion of several hundred men, women and kiddies who were evacuated Friday from the last speck of land controlled by the Islamic State
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/24/2019 00:31 ||
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#1
So we kill you wherever you are? Sounds fair enough...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 9:57 Comments ||
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Selling the nation’s patrimony? How fortunate, then, that there is so many thousands of years of it.
[Ynet] With US penalties now back in place, Islamic Theocratic Republic looks to art market both as revenue stream and as way of advancing its ideological agenda while simultaneously legitimizing itself on world stage.
As Iran continues to bear the brunt of punishing economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the regime is exploring creative new ways to raise much-needed capital. Among the strategies: exporting art.
"The international sanctions against Iran exclude cultural products," Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi was quoted by Jordanian media as saying last week during a festival in Tehran. "We should take the export of art products seriously and use this opportunity."
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
When I was in Iran, you could buy using EFTPOS and VISA Persian carpets bypassing the sanctions as the EFTPOS machine was officially processed in Bahrain.
#3
Over the last few years there has been a large influx of Iranian tribal rugs of lesser quality from the nineteen thirties. It will take the sale of one hell of a lot of these to make even the slightest dent in the sanctions imposed.
[Rudaw] My son will grow up to become a jihadist," a woman cried proudly as she stepped off a bus ferrying people out 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’s last sliver of territory in eastern Syria.
Defiant and angry, she is one of 2,000 people evacuated Friday from the jihadists’ final scrap of territory in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
They refused to live by our rules, but now they expect our rules to protect them?
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.
Bouteflika
[PULSE.NG] Princess Rima bint Bandar replaced Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of the powerful crown prince who was appointed vice defence minister in a flurry of late-night royal decrees announced on state media.
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as of 2016....
[DAWN] Police authorities on Saturday ordered an inquiry into the killing of a first-year female medical student Nimrah Baig, who was 
[DAWN] Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa, during a visit to the Line of Control (LoC) on Friday, warned India against aggression, saying any misadventure would receive resolute response from his troops.
[MindanaoExaminer] The rapid rise of the mysterious new leader of Islamic State in the Philippines responsible for a spate of bombings and 
