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Area: WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion        Politix   
Tuareg Rebels, Islamists, Clash in Northern Mali
Today's Headlines
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Page 6: Politix
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
NATO: 4 international troops killed in Afghanistan
NATO forces in Afghanistan say four international service members have been killed in an insurgent attack in the country's east.

The military coalition says the attack happened on Saturday. It did not provide further details.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an email, saying that a suicide bomber attacked the troops in Kapisa province.

The majority of troops in Kapisa province are French, but there are also other nations with forces there, including the United States.
UKPA reports the boomer was wearing a burka.
Posted by: tipper || 06/09/2012 05:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Update
Four French soldiers killed by burka-wearing bomber
Posted by: tipper || 06/09/2012 12:55 Comments || Top||

#2  France speeds up Afghan pull out
French President Francois Hollande said France would pay a "national homage" to the men killed in a Taliban suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan yesterday and that the five other wounded would be repatriated rapidly.

The withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan was one of Mr Hollande's presidential electoral promises. It "will begin in the month of July, will be carried out and be completed at the end of 2012," he said.
Posted by: tipper || 06/09/2012 13:19 Comments || Top||


Taliban, criminals escape from jail in Afghanistan
[Dawn] More than a dozen prisoners, including criminals and members of the Taliban, have beat feet from a jail in northern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Abdul Jabar Haqbeen, the governor of Sar-e-Pul province, said a bomb exploded on the outside of one of the prison walls on Thursday night, and the prisoners escaped through the rubble.

He said guards opened fire, killing three prisoners.
They're not gonna escape again.
Many were recaptured but authorities are still looking for 14 prisoners who managed to escape.

A member of the provincial council, Abdul Ghani, said inmates made the bomb inside the compound and blew up a prison tower.
This sort of thing never happened back when Dostum stored the bastards in shipping containers.
He said he feared the jail break would mean deteriorating security in the province.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Africa Horn
AMISOM vows to capture Balad town from Al shabab
(Sh. M. Network)-The command of African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), declared their next military plan against the remained Al shabab controlled regions in southern Somalia.

Speaking at a presser at Buula-Low area, 5 Km west of Afgoye town, General Ugadi Kiki, the commander of AMISOM operations in locations between Mogadishu and Afgoye district in Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia, said that Somali and AU soldiers are preparing an offensive against Bal-ad town, 30 Kilometers north of Mogadishu.

"After securing Afgoye corridor, crowded with internally displaced people, we are just setting up another major attack against the faceless myrmidons remained in Lower Shabelle region- that is our next step of our 'free Shabelle operation'," said the commander.

The Afgoye corridor, northwest of Mogadishu is believed to hold 400,000 internally displaced people, the largest such concentration in the world, with some access to aid during Al shabab rule in the past.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Somali, Ethiopian troops battle Al shabab in Garbaharay town
(Sh. M. Network)-Fierce fighting between Somali soldiers backed by Æthiopian troops and Al shabab fighters took place on Friday in villages near Garbaharay town, killing four combatants, witnesses and officials said.

Local residents told Shabelle Media that the battle erupted when the coalition forces [Somali and Æthiopian], attacked at about 10:15 am local time on several military bases controlled by Al shabab beturbanned goons on the outskirts of Garbaharey town.

Lieutenant colonel Aden Ahmed Hirse, the front man of Somali government troops in Gedo, confirmed to Shabelle Media that at least four Al shabab fighters were killed in the fighting and many other injured.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Africa North
Mali junta withdraws from TV building
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The remnants of Mali's junta have completed a pullout from the headquarters of the state broadcaster in Bamako, a symbol of their claim to power since a March coup.

Roadblocks and checks around the radio-television building were removed and two tanks guarding the entrance pulled back, an AFP correspondent reported Friday.

A journalist working at the state broadcaster's headquarters said the last armoured vehicles had left by late Thursday and added that only a few soldiers remained inside the compound.

A group of renegade soldiers led by Captain Amadou Sanogo took control of the compound on March 21, a key step in the coup that ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure the next day.

Sanogo and his junta officially handed power back to a civilian administration on May 20 but did not fully return to their barracks and remained involved in the country's political life.

Regional powers met UN and African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
leaders in Abidjan Thursday and urged the former junta to immediately dissolve.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Tuareg Rebels, Islamists, Clash in Northern Mali
[An Nahar] Rebel Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) clashed with Islamist fighters from the Ansar Dine groups overnight in northern Mali, witnesses said Friday. "Fighters of the MNLA and those of Ansar Dine clashed overnight Thursday to Friday on the outskirts of Kidal," an official from the rebel-held town told Agence La Belle France Presse by phone.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Dine


Africa Subsaharan
Bomb Kills Man in Northern Nigerian City
[An Nahar] A bomb killed one person early Friday in the northern city of Maiduguri where Islamist sect 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...
has carried out series of deadly attacks, the army and residents said.

The improvised bomb (IED), concealed in a bag kept under a public shed, went kaboom! around 6:00 am (0500 GMT) in the Gidan Dambe district of the volatile city, they said.

The army said victim was a suspected Boko Haram member trying to plant an bomb. Residents however said they thought he was a drug addict who had been trying to find out what was in the bag.

"There was an kaboom in an area of Maiduguri this morning and our men immediately deployed to the area," Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, commander of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the city, told Agance La Belle France Press.

"They found a man we believe to be a member of Boko Haram, dismembered by the kaboom".

"Preliminary investigation has shown that he was killed when he was trying to plant the device," he stated.

A resident said: "a resident known to be a drug addict, named Dalwa, went into the shed and tried to open the bag to see what was inside it. The device went kaboom! and killed him on the spot. His body was blown into pieces."
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Suicide blast kills two at police HQ in Nigerian city
[An Nahar] A suicide kaboom at the police headquarters in Nigeria's restive city of Maiduguri Friday killed at least two coppers and maimed six other people, authorities and witnesses said.

It was the latest violence to hit the tense northeastern city that has been at the center of Islamist group 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 insurgency, which has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.

"A jacket wallah tried to force his way into the police headquarters... However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
he rammed the car into sand-filled drums outside headquarters and his car went kaboom!," a police source said.

"We have some casualties, but we're trying to sort out the extent of fatalities and the injured."

A witness reported seeing the bodies of two coppers.

Another witness said he saw five maimed coppers and what appeared to be an injured pregnant woman being taken away to hospital.

A hospital source confirmed that the bodies of two coppers had been brought in as well as the six maimed mentioned by the witness.

"At the moment, we have two bodies of coppers brought to the hospital from the suicide kaboom at the police headquarters," the nurse said on condition of anonymity.

"Six people, comprising five coppers and a pregnant woman, were brought with injuries from the kaboom."

The state police commissioner confirmed the kaboom, but declined to provide further details, saying he was at the hospital where maimed had been taken.

The bloody attack was the latest to hit Maiduguri, the city where Boko Haram's mosque and headquarters were located until they were destroyed in a 2009 military assault.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Arabia
Clashes, air strikes in south Yemen, 13 killed
Yemeni troops battled Islamist militants in overnight clashes and air strikes that continued into Saturday, local officials and residents said, as part of a a U.S.-backed drive to retake territory held by insurgents.

The Yemeni army is trying to recapture towns in the southern province of Abyan that were seized by al Qaeda-linked militants last year during a popular uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who formally stepped down in February.

The month-old offensive has cut off supplies of food and medicine and forced thousands to flee their homes, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday.
Posted by: tipper || 06/09/2012 12:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Thousands turn out to protest in Bahrain
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the capital of Bahrain on Friday. In a bid to disperse the crowds, police resorted to tear gas and flash grenades. The protesters are displeased with yet another arrest of prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, The Voice of Russia reported.

In early May he was arrested on charges of organizing an unauthorized rally. He was released on bail, but in early June they detained him again for his outspokenness in the social networks.

Rajab advocates equal rights for all ethnic and religious denominations.
Until the Shi'a win and take over, that is...
The authorities in the Kingdom of Bahrain are Sunnis. However, only a quarter of the population are followers of this branch of Islam, while a majority are Shiite Muslims.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How come nobody discusses an intervention in Bahrain?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 06/09/2012 1:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Because they are not killed like the Syrians do it.
Posted by: Omose Angeaque7353 || 06/09/2012 2:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Home of the FLEET dude.
Can't stir up the locals without losing docking rights.
Posted by: Zebulon Ghibelline9010 || 06/09/2012 10:59 Comments || Top||

#4  g(r)om: It's a no-Bahrainer.
Posted by: Canuckistan sniper || 06/09/2012 12:57 Comments || Top||

#5  CS - go to your room!

:-)
Posted by: Frank G || 06/09/2012 13:36 Comments || Top||


Dozens of Somalis arrive in Yemen to back al-Qaeda
[Yemen Observer] Some 50 Somalis arrived in the al-Qaeda stronghold district of Ja'ar to back the gunnies against military troops surrounding the area.

A military colonel in Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
capital, Zinjubar, said on anonymity condition, that the Somalis came by boat to Ja'ar district, which is now surrounded by military reinforcements in order to recapture the area.

Linked al-Qaeda gunnies are battling the government's troops in three different fronts including Zinjubar, the capital of the province, which fell to the thugs' hand last year amid the security vacuum.

The military source said that a couple of military brigades have been around Zinjubar since last month in order to retake the area. "But they could not make any progress fearing that they could be shot by al-Qaeda. They are using a hit-and-run tactic and guerrilla war. The same thing is happening in the neighboring Ja'ar district," The source said.

The United States is baking the government troops in the offensive against al-Qaeda, setting up a drone campaign that has already killed a number of gunnies including leading al-Qaeda members.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia

#1  Sounds like a target rich environment.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/09/2012 0:25 Comments || Top||


Violent clashes erupt between tribes and Al-Qaeda
Violent festivities broke out Thursday between Al-Qaeda bully boyz and rustics of the Popular Resistance Committees in Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
governorate amid fears of Al-Qaeda's control on a small town, Ba-Tais, local sources said. The sources said that the bully boyz raided Ba-Tais, about 10 kilometers in the north of Jaar, a main stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Abyan. The sources said that the bully boyz are about to take control on the town, reiterating that the rustics have not enough military equipment in comparison with Al-qaeda bully boyz who captured some parts of the town. They said that five fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees that were formed in various areas of Abyan to back the Yemeni army and three Al-Qaeda bully boyz were killed and three others of the committees were maimed. Yemen's air fighters launched strikes on positions of Al-Qaeda in Ba-Tais, but it was not known whether there were casualties or not, the sources added. Al-Qaeda bully boyz still take control on several towns in Abyan, particularly Zinjibar, Jaar and Shaqra, and they have large quantities of arms they had took over during their festivities with the army.

The Yemeni army has been carrying out an offensive against Al-Qaeda strongholds in some towns of Abyan since May 12. It aimed at reclaiming Zinjibar and other localities in Abyan lost to Al-Qaeda during the past year.

Meanwhile,
...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients of increasing volatility...
the First Armored Division led by Ali Mohsin Al-Ahmar who supported the Yemeni revolution against the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
dispatched a battalion today, Thursday, to fight al-Qaeda. Local sources said that the Popular Resistance Committees foiled on Thursday a suicide kaboom of Al-Qaeda as an Al-Qaeda operative attempted to pass a checkpoint in Lawdar while he was carrying explosives on his car.

Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Europe
Debka: Islamist Stabs Two Policemen In Brussels Metro
It's Debka, so a second, confirmatory source on the story would be helpful.
A confessed Islamist stabbed two coppers Friday at an underground station in a Brussels neighborhood.

The two victims, a man and a woman did not sustain life-threatening wounds.

The attacker was quickly subdued and was found to be carrying documents connected to Shariah4Belgium, an beturbanned goon Mohammedan group active in Belgium. He confessed to wanting to attack the police because of Belgium's attitude towards Mohammedans. Brussels recently outlawed the niqab for women in public.
 
This article starring:
Shariah4Belgium
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/09/2012 10:15 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Absolutely NOT taking bets on whose fault the Belgian media says this incident is...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 06/09/2012 13:31 Comments || Top||


Brothers linked with Somali militants arrested for Danish terror plot
(Sh.M.Network)- Two brothers have been tossed in the slammer
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in Denmark on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) confirmed that the men, who are thought to have links with a Somali myrmidon Islamic group, were tossed in the slammer
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
on Monday, May 28.

According to PET, the arrests of the 18 and 23-year-old have "prevented a specific act of terrorism", as the men allegedly discussed the target, method and weapons for an attack. It also says one of the suspects attended an al-Shabaab
... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban...
training camp in Somalia.

One of the brothers was tossed in the slammer
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in Aarhus, while the other was intercepted as he returned to Denmark throughCopenhagenAirport. Both have lived in Aarhus for 16 years, according to reports.

"A specific act of terrorism has been averted, and as such the perceived threat level against Denmark is not affected, although it remains high," PET said in a statement, adding that the men will appear in court the following week.

Denmarkhas been the target of several Islamists attacks since Jyllands-Posten newspaper published controversial cartoons of the holy Moslem Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Europe


India-Pakistan
Blast kills 19 in Peshawar
[Dawn] A kaboom destroyed a bus on Friday, killing 19 people, including seven women and a child, on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, police said.

More than 40 others were maimed in the attack on a bus rented by the government to take staff home after work in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
It was the deadliest attack in months on Peshawar, which has long been a flashpoint for a local Taliban insurgency targeting government officials, security forces and ordinary civilians.

The city runs into the semi-autonomous tribal belt that US officials consider a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and snuffies fighting both in Pakistain and across the border in Afghanistan.

The kaboom went off in the Daudzai area, killing government employees and other private passengers riding the same bus, officials said.

"The bomb was planted under the bus," provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told news hounds.

"We still can't say how many government employees and private passengers were killed, but there were heavy human losses," he added.

Police official Tahir Ayub told AFP 19 people were killed and more than 40 maimed. Another police official, Shafiullah Khan, said seven women and a girl, aged seven, were among the dead.

The kaboom destroyed the back end of the bus. Bloodied pieces of human flesh littered the seats, along with blood-stained clothes on the road lined with juniper trees, an AFP news hound said.

Muhammad Ullah, 48, a police official on the bus, said there was a deafening blast.

"The kaboom triggered massive smoke inside the bus but even then we could feel soft and bloody pieces of human flesh hitting our bodies," Ullah told AFP while being treated for head and shoulder injuries.

Arsalan, a junior clerk in the provincial auditor general's office, said he remembered asking the driver to stop at a mosque on the road for main Friday prayers then the kaboom took place.

"I don't remember what happened next because I fainted and came round in a hospital bed," the 28-year-old, also with head and neck injuries, told AFP.

The attack came one day after a remote-controlled bomb killed at least 15 people outside a madrassa in Pakistain's southwestern city of Quetta.

The country of 180 million sits on the frontline of the US-led war on al Qaeda and since July 2007 has been gripped by a local Taliban-led insurgency, concentrated largely in the northwest.

In the last five years, attacks blamed on beturbanned goon bombers have killed more than 5,000 people according to an AFP tally.

Pakistain's relations with the United States are in disarray and for the last six months, since US air strikes killed 24 Pak soldiers along the border, it has imposed a blockade on NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization....
supplies crossing overland into Afghanistan.

On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
warned Pakistain that the United States was running out of patience over Islamabad's refusal to do more to eliminate safe havens for snuffies who attack US troops fighting a 10-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Panetta made the strong remarks after talks with Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak on the latest leg of an Asian tour that took him to Pakistain's arch-rival India, but not Islamabad in a sign of dire US-Pakistain relations.

He singled out the Haqqani network, a Taliban and al Qaeda-linked faction that has bases in Pakistain's tribal district of North Wazoo and which has been blamed for some of the deadliest attacks of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Southeast Asia
Two killed, five injured in gun attack in southern Thailand
Two villagers were killed and five were injured in a shooting in a house in Narathiwat province Wednesday night.

Suchart Chaisuwan, a security guard at Sungai Padi secondary school, and Jarunee Sukpin were killed when six gunmen on three motorcycles fired AK-47's at the group sitting outside a house of Paiboon Kaewharn. Five people, including Mr Paiboon and three defense voluteers were injured in the incident.

A defense volunteer shot back at the gunmen, who fled the scene, but it is unknown if any of the attackers were hit.

Bomb injures soldier in Yala province

A soldier in a teacher security team was seriously injured by a bomb in Yala province on Thursday afternoon. Police said the home-made bomb was planted in a shelter on Highway 410. It was remotely detonated when the soldiers from Yala Task Force 13 went into the shelter to escape the rain.

Cpl Vitvas Niamrod, 28, was seriously wounded and admitted to the hospital.
Posted by: ryuge || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Western Powers to Press for Syria Sanctions at U.N.
[An Nahar] Britannia, La Belle France and the United States will quickly draw up a U.N. Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Syria over the worsening conflict, diplomats said Friday.

"We will move fast to press for a resolution," a U.N. diplomat told AFP.

"There will be action in the coming days to get a vote on a resolution which includes measures under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter -- which would mean sanctions," the diplomat added in comments confirmed by other Security Council envoys.

The three Western permanent members of the Council want a new campaign for sanctions after U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
said Thursday that the international community must warn Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
of "clear consequences" if he does not carry out an international peace plan.

Russia, Syria's main international ally, and China have twice used their veto powers as permanent members to block resolutions which had just hinted at sanctions against Assad.

But Annan's call for substantial new pressure on Assad and two recent massacres in Syria have heightened international demands for the Security Council to act against the Syrian leader.

The resolution will be drawn up alongside international lobbying for action at the Group of 20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19 and other key meetings.

Britannia and Germany, a temporary member of the council, made clear calls for sanctions at Thursday's briefings on Syria by Annan and U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  I say quarantine Syria's ports.
Nothing in-or-out other than Russian vessels, who will then be the subjects of intense scrutiny, every trip. Let the Russians put their money where their mouth is.
..also if we get a clear shot by drone on Syria's leadership, then do so!
My prayers go out to the brave Syrian people.
Posted by: Mikey Hunt || 06/09/2012 21:28 Comments || Top||


U.N. Observers Reach Syria Massacre Village
[An Nahar] United Nations
...Parkinson's Law on an international scale...
observers on Friday reached the Syrian village of Al-Kubeir where dozens of residents were massacred two days ago, activists told Agance La Belle France Press.

The monitors on Thursday were fired at by gunnies and forced to turn back as they tried to reach the village located in a farming region in the central province of Hama.

"The observers first headed to the village of Maarzaf where the victims were buried and then to Al-Kubeir to survey the damage from army shelling," activist Abdel Karim al-Hamwi said.

He said soldiers at a checkpoint in Maarzaf ordered residents not to speak to the observers or face reprisals.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 55 people, including women and kiddies, were massacred in Al-Kubeir on Wednesday by pro-regime Islamic fascisti known as shabiha.

The government has denied involvement while the international community has denounced the killings with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon warning that Syria stood on the brink of full blown civil war.

Paul Danahar, a BBC correspondent travelling on Friday with the U.N. convoy, reported seeing gutted buildings in Al-Kubeir and no sign of life.

"The largest of the two houses on a hilltop in Al-Kubeir has been gutted by fire. The stench of burnt flesh is still strong," he wrote in a message on Twitter.

He quoted activists as saying that government forces had removed the bodies of the victims on Thursday while the observers were being hindered from reaching the village.

Danahar said Al-Kubeir consists of just a few single-storey flat-roofed buildings set in the middle of corn fields.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


20 Dead as Blast Hits Damascus and Protesters Take to Streets
[An Nahar] Rebels and regime troops clashed in a district of the Syrian capital as scores of protests were held across the strife-torn country and more than 20 people killed on Friday, monitors said.

Clashes broke out in Kfar Sousa, a Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
district where anti-regime sentiment is strong, while kabooms rocked the Mazzeh and Al-Qadam neighborhoods, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Protesters, meanwhile, erupted into the streets in flashpoints across the country, including Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
, where regime forces used live rounds and tear gas, the NGO added.

Anti-regime activists had called for fresh protests under the slogan "Revolutionaries and traders, hand in hand until victory," aiming to draw in the middle classes in Syria's two largest cities to join the uprising.

"Damascus and Aleppo play a central role in the revolt now," anti-regime activist Deeb Dimashqi (not his real name) told AFP via Skype.

People emerged from mosques to demonstrate in Kfar Zita, in Hama province of central Syria, chanting: "We don't want peaceful (revolt). We have bullets and Kalashnikovs!"

"Meetings, decisions, sanctions...initiatives, and still the Syrian people is being slaughtered," read a hand-written poster held up by a Kfar Zita protester, according to amateur video posted on YouTube by activists.

Amid the protests, violence continued across the country.

The rebel district of Khaldiyeh, in the restive city of Homs, underwent "the most violent shelling it has seen since the revolt began" in March 2011, said the Observatory, "at a rate of five shells a minute."

According to video uploaded on YouTube by anti-regime activists, thick clouds of smoke rose above residential buildings and mosques in Khaldiyeh, where loud blasts were heard as the district, much of it deserted, was violently shelled.

The opposition Syrian National Council in a statement called on U.N. military observers to set up a base in the city, "which suffers daily shelling and killings by regime snipers."

The Observatory said a man was killed in the province of Homs when unidentified gunnies opened fire on a small convoy of vehicles.

An kaboom in front of a cop shoppe in the northwestern city of Idlib killed five people, including two more members of the security forces, said the Britannia-based monitoring group.

"It was a powerful kaboom that destroyed the facade of the building," said the watchdog, which also reported that a civilian was rubbed out at Kfar Nabel in the same province.

A deadly blast also rocked a Damascus suburb, killing two security forces members, said the Observatory.

An AFP photographer said the blast in the capital's Qudssaya neighborhood tore a car to shreds and damaged a military bus -- the reported target -- as well as some nearby residential buildings.

Four others were killed in the suburbs of Damascus, one of whom was rubbed out by a sniper in the town of Douma, the watchdog said.

In the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising, the head of a rebel "brigade" was killed at Basr al-Sham and a sniper rubbed out a civilian in Mahajja, said the Observatory.

In Latakia on the Mediterranean, two rebel fighters were killed in festivities in Al-Hafa, a mountainous area where "regime troops have lost dozens of soldiers over the past 72 hours," the Observatory said.

In Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria, three non-combatants were killed in shelling at dawn, while two regime troops were killed in festivities.
Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria



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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2012-06-09
  Tuareg Rebels, Islamists, Clash in Northern Mali
Fri 2012-06-08
  UN monitors shot at trying to get to Syria massacre
Thu 2012-06-07
  47 Die in Hama Countryside 'Massacre' as Clashes Rock Damascus
Wed 2012-06-06
  Armed groups kill 15 Syrian soldiers in Latakia
Tue 2012-06-05
  U.S. Official: Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Killed In Drone Strike
Mon 2012-06-04
  US drone strike kills 10 in NW Pakistan
Sun 2012-06-03
  At least 12 dead in Nigerian church bombing
Sat 2012-06-02
  US drone strike kills three militants in Pakistan: officials
Fri 2012-06-01
  SCAF says it is going to end Egypt's state of emergency after 31 years
Thu 2012-05-31
  Somalia forces capture key al-Shabab town of Afmadow
Wed 2012-05-30
  19 Killed in Syria Violence
Tue 2012-05-29
  Western Nations Expel Syrian Diplomats
Mon 2012-05-28
  MNLA, Ansar al-Din declare Islamic state
Sun 2012-05-27
  Al-Shabaab vows Dire Revenge™ after fall of Afgoye
Sat 2012-05-26
  25 children among 90 dead in Syrian government 'massacre'

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