[Al Ahram] A leading member of the well-known Islamist group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, Assem Abdel Maged, announces his resignation on Friday.
Abdel Maged sees that the restrictions and standards imposed on the members of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya has made it similar to any other party or group and have made the group incapable of facing the counter-revolution.
In exclusive statements to Ahram Arabic news site Abdel Maged reveals that he will start taking a bolder stance against who he calls "former regime remnants" and their attempts to regain leadership of Egypt's political scene and doesn't want Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya to be held responsible for his statements.
To answer the uproar against his call for peaceful protests not only in front of the High Court but also in front of the houses of some judges during a recent governmental move to purge the judiciary (who some believe are corrupt) he tells Ahram that he believes Islamists should be in constant revolution on the street and among the public.
Assem Abdel Maged was among those convicted in the liquidation of President Sadat in 1981. In the same year he led an gang following the Jihad Islamist group to attack and occupy the Assiut security directorate, killing no less than 97 coppers and civilians in one of the worst terrorism festivities in the Upper Egyptian city. He was injured and incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in that operation. In 1984 he was sentenced 25 years in jail.
In 1997, however, as a member of the Shura council of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, he took part in the initiative to stop violence between Islamist groups and security forces and to reject violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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When it comes to executing people Salafists are all for it.
[Al Ahram] The deputy head of the Salafist Al-Watan Party Yosri Hammad warned Saturday that Egypt's head of the Judges Club Ahmed El-Zend could face the death penalty over comments he made that were interpreted by some as an invitation for foreign intervention in the country.
"Is the law going to be applied on the one who invited Obama in a public speech to interfere in the internal issues of Egypt?" wondered Hammad, a rheumatologist, on his Facebook page, referring to statements made by El-Zend Monday.
El-Zend, who as a judge has legal immunity, criticised recent rallies organised by the Moslem Brüderbund and supporters demanding the purging of judiciary.
During a speech on Monday, the veteran judge said he would present a legal complaint to the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... (ICC) against the organisers of the anti-judiciary protests as a "crime against humanity."
El-Zend further called on the US to "take responsiblity and remove the burden experienced by the Egyptian people, especially its judges."
"I tell Obama, if you are not aware of what is happening in Egypt, this is a big crisis, and if you are aware, that is a bigger crisis," said El-Zend.
Hammad, who described El-Zend's comments as a "messing around with the country's security and judicial independence," cited Article 77 of Egypt's penal code that states that whoever deliberately commits an action that would harm the state's independence, unity or safety is liable for the death pentalty.
The Salafist leader went on to add that Article 77b also states that the death penalty is to be also applied to whoever spied for a foreign country or sought the foreign country to act in ways that would harm Egypt.
Al-Watan Party was among several several Islamist groups that partcipated in "purging of the judiciary" rallies, including the Salafist Front Al-Asala Party, Al-Raya Party, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's Building and Development Party, the Reform Party and the People's Party.
Notably, the Salafist El-Nour Party -- Egypt's second largest Islamist group after the Moslem Brüderbund -- refused to join the rallies.
Al-Watan was launched in January after El-Nour Party was rocked with the resignation of 150 of its members.
The conflict that caused the mass withdrawal was primarily between followers of Emad Abdel-Ghafour, former chairman, and followers of holy man Yasser El-Borhami, one of the founders of the Salafist Calling, a movement that spawned El-Nour Party in 2011.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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Front page WaPo 'teaser' summary:
U.S. officials fear that the new Mexican government's changes could lead to an unofficial truce with cartel leaders.
For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have put aside their tension-filled history on security matters to forge an unparalleled alliance against Mexico's drug cartels, one based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational planning.
But now, much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in jeopardy. Photo caption --
A soldier stands in a room full of barrels containing white and yellow powder after a seizure of a small ranch on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Mexico, in February 2012. According to the Mexican army, 15 tons of pure methamphetamine were seized at the ranch, an amount equivalent to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009. Nice graphic at link, showing the turf of the various cartels.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/28/2013 06:55 ||
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#1
Methinks our Mexican-area correspondent rather predicted this prior to the last Mexican election.
[Ynet] US officials say Russian authorities secretly recorded a conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother. Officials say a second call was recorded between the suspects' mother and a man under FBI investigation living in southern Russia.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case. They say the Russians shared this intelligence with the US in the past few days.
[Al Ahram] North Korea announced Saturday that an American tossed in the calaboose Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! for nearly six months is being tried in the Supreme Court on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that could draw the death penalty if he is convicted.
The case involving Kenneth Bae, who has been in North Korean custody since early November, further complicates already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington following weeks of heightened rhetoric and tensions.
The trial mirrors a similar situation in 2009, when the U.S. and North Korea were locked in a standoff over Pyongyang's decision to launch a long-range rocket and conduct an underground nuclear test. At the time, North Korea had custody of two American journalists, whose eventual release after being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor paved the way for diplomacy following months of tensions.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Let's go ahead and cave, it will save time and money.
#2
What kind of a clown would go to Nork for any reason? He's an American? Yeah? Half Korean, you say? Visiting his sick mother perhaps?
WHY are they charging him? Because we can be manipulated. Norks are that sort of people. He isn't guilty of anything except being really stupid. Stupid doesn't live to be old. Kiss him goodbye. What else ya' got?
What assets anyplace in the world do the Norks have. make me a list. What would hurt them and really annoy them if something happened to their asset? Do one this week and one next week. They may even try to ignore it. Keep doing it until they can't ignore it. What are they going to do: complain? Do they have an Embassy anywhere? Arrange an accident. Diplomats can make noises. Song and dance. Arrange another accident somewhere else. Dirty? We must have somebody on the payroll who knows where the Nork Ambassador's mother lives.
Buy someone, someone expendable. Buy another Nork. I hear that some will work for food.
#3
What kind of a clown would go to Nork for any reason? He's an American? Yeah? Half Korean, you say? Visiting his sick mother perhaps?
If you spent a few minutes researching instead of unsuccessfully composing purple prose, you might have found this:
Kenneth Bae (Pae Jun-ho), a 44-year-old ethnic Korean with US citizenship, was arrested last November as he accompanied five Europeans into the Rason Special Economic Zone, a pilot region on the border of China and Russia which is open to foreign companies... Mr Bae, who is believed to have lived in China, ran a travel agency called Nation Tours and had visited North Korea several times before without incident, according to Do Hee-youn, who heads the Citizens Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees, based in Seoul... The circumstances of Mr Bae's arrest are unclear, but Do Hee-youn told the New York Times that Mr Bae may have taken photographs of orphans begging for food in the markets of Rason.
All that in five minutes, instead of engaging in keyboard-onanism.
A Bulgarian expert has stated that the terrorist who killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver in a deadly attack last year was not a suicide bomber.
Bulgarian investigator Georgi Iliev has told Nova TV that the perpetrator of the attack would have left his backpack in the luggage compartment of the bus if the attack had been planned as a suicide bombing.
Iliev, who spoke after Fridays reenactment of the Burgas bus bombing, was positive that the deadly bomb was remotely detonated.
Europol experts were present at the first ever reenactment of a terror attack in Bulgaria, which was held on Friday under maximum security near the Trakiya highway, mid-way between the capital Sofia and the second largest city of Plovdiv.
On February 5, 2013, following a meeting of the Consultative Council for National Security at the President's Office, then-Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov made a statement, saying that the investigating authorities had gathered evidence pointing to a "reasonable assumption" about the involvement of Hezbollah's military wing in the Burgas bus bombing.
[Jpost] The suspect, Raed Jasser is revealed to be a Paleostinian man, who was pardoned after nearly being deported in 2004.
Canada must review its deportation policy in light of a pardon that was granted to a Paleostinian resident of the country once threatened with deportation and now accused in an alleged al-Qaeda plot to derail a passenger train, a government minister said on Friday.
Raed Jaser, one of two men charged in connection with the suspected plot, argued in a 2004 deportation hearing that Canada should not deport him because he was stateless and no country would take him in.
Canada had sought to deport him because he had convictions on several counts of fraud, immigration board documents show.
Jaser was later pardoned, and he then became a permanent resident in Canada, the equivalent to holding a US green card.
"The reality is that he was pardoned, and that repealed his criminal inadmissibility to Canada," Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told news hounds. "That raises for me an important policy question. Why should a pardon override criminal inadmissibility?"
"That's what I'm looking at with my officials - to see whether we can make a policy change. It seems to me, I don't care whether you get a pardon or not, if you commit a serious criminal offense in Canada, you should be kicked out - period," Kenney said.
Jaser, 35, of Toronto, and Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, a Tunisian studying for his doctorate near Montreal, face several charges, including conspiracy to work with a terrorist group.
US officials have said the suspects, who were locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in separate raids on Monday, were believed to have worked on a plan to blow up a trestle on the Canadian side of the border as a train between Toronto and New York passed over it.
Jaser, who denies the charges, is a Paleostinian who was born in the United Arab Emirates, but is not a UAE citizen.
He arrived in Canada with his family in 1993 as refugee claimants, but racked up five convictions for fraud and two for failing to comply with supervisory orders, according to the transcript of a 2004 immigration hearing.
Canada cited Jaser's criminal record when it tried to deport him in 2004. He was released after he argued he was stateless.
Kenney said he was reviewing the case with his officials to see what lessons could be learned and whether there were legislative gaps that needed to be filled.
He said the Conservative government had already tightened the system to make pardons harder to obtain.
See? It's our fault. You knew the progressives would figure out it...
But over the past four years, even as members of their extended family found their piece of the American dream, the Cambridge Tsarnaevs' experience in their new land curdled. Maybe they would've been luckier in Detroit?
Money grew scarce, and the family went on welfare. I recall a time when immigrants 1) were expected to be able to fend for themselves and 2) worked their hind ends off to make sure they could...
And just like today, the ones who couldn't hack it went home, though it isn't talked about much.
Zubeidat was accused of stealing from a department store. Anzor's business, never prosperous, faded. When the mother found solace in a deepening religiosity, the father, icy to such devotion and ill with cancer, went home to Dagestan, a place that was never really home to start with. Awwwwwwwww........... I feel bad for them already.
And the boys underwent transformations so dramatic that some friends could barely recognize them: Tamerlan in his early 20s embraced a harsh, separatist brand of Islam and in a couple of years went from wishing his neighbor a merry Christmas to angrily attacking a Muslim grocer for advertising a Thanksgiving charity food collection. All by himself, I bet. No outside influences, no mullah-madness. Nah! And no one said, "dang, that boy has become so weird I think I shall call the authorities." Of course, the authorities wouldn't have listened and the caller would have been accused of a 'hate crime'...
The change in Dzhokhar, now a college sophomore, became apparent only in the past few weeks, and even then seemed to be tacked on to his existing lifestyle rather than displacing it. Less than two weeks before the marathon, Dzhokhar, previously known to friends as a stoner always up for a beer and a blunt, told a college friend that he no longer cared about his classes, that religion and God were the only true things in life. Too bad he picked the former, rather than the latter. Front-page, above-the-fold, WaPo, by the way.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/28/2013 07:10 ||
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#1
and Speedbump spent all his time at home, not getting a job. Lazy and Islamic is no way to go through life, son
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/28/2013 10:17 Comments ||
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#2
Lazy OR Islamic is no way to go through life, either.
#5
Speedbump let his kaffir wife work 80 hour weeks to support him, just as the Prophet Mohammed's wife did. The fact that she misunderstood him to be a bum instead of a gentleman of leisure only shows that the faith of her conversion was not pure.
[BOSTONHERALD] A top-ranking Republican congressman said yesterday he expects the feds to make more arrests in their ever-widening probe of the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, which took a new frightening turn yesterday when officials revealed the accused terrorist brothers made "spontaneous" plans to launch an attack on Times Square.
"I hear a lot of definitive statements out there that it was just these two men and it's over, but I will tell you I hear these briefings every day, and I don't think this is over," said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Committee on Intelligence. "There are clearly more persons of interest, and they're not 100 percent sure if there aren't other explosives."
Rogers also blasted officials for Mirandizing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, saying he could have given more information about the potential attack on Times Square by him and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- and whether others were involved in the marathon attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] FBI has revealed that they now know the identity of the mystery man known as Misha
He is a recent Mohammedan convert who Tamerlan Tsarnaev was believed to have fallen under the influence of
He is accused of having steered the 26-year-old elder Boston bomber to a radical strain of Islam
'Somehow, he just took his brain,' said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, mother of the bomber's said it was 'nonsense' that Misha converted her son to terrorism
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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#2
'Somehow, he just took his brain,' said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence
Similar to Morgellons disease. Very ugly, painful, with no known cure. The onset, generally preceded by extensive Koranic readings, study, and seething.
#5
As per FREEREPUBLIC, the Feds think there was likely at least a third bomber, + possibly more, involved wid the Brothers Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Essentially, despite their religious fervor + Dzhokhar's desriptions the Brothers Tsnaraev aredeemed too inexperienced to have acted alone.
The CIA pushed to have one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers placed on a U.S. counterterrorism watch list more than a year before the attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Russian authorities contacted the CIA in the fall of 2011 and raised concerns that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed last week in a confrontation with police, was seen as an increasingly radical Islamist who could be planning to travel overseas.
The CIA request led the National Counterterrorism Center to add Tsarnaevs name to a database known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, that is used to feed information to other lists, including the FBIs main terrorist screening database.
The CIAs request came months after the FBI had closed a preliminary inquiry into Tsarnaev after getting a similar warning from Russian state security, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The disclosure of the CIAs involvement suggests that the U.S. government may have had more reason than it has previously acknowledged to scrutinize Tsarnaev in the months leading up to the bombing in Boston. It also raises questions why U.S. authorities didnt flag his return to the United States and investigate him further after a seven-month trip he took to Russia last year.
The CIA declined to comment on its role in the case. A U.S. intelligence official said the agency had nominated [Tsarnaev] for inclusion in the watchlisting system and had shared all of the information it had been given by Russia, including two possible dates of birth, his name and a possible variant.
The official said the information that Russia provided to the CIA was nearly identical to what it had shared with the FBI. U.S. officials said the warning to the CIA came from Russias FSB, a successor to the KGB, and that it was based on fears that Tsarnaev was an Islamist militant who might seek to carry out a terrorist attack in Russia.
Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, immigrated to the United States about a decade ago, but their family had ties to Chechnya, a region where Muslim separatists have been engaged in a bloody conflict with the Moscow government for decades. The younger Tsarnaev, who is recovering from gunshot injuries in a Boston hospital, was apprehended days after the marathon bombing and faces multiple terrorism-related charges.
The FSB appears to have turned over information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, including possible birth dates and the spelling of his name in Cyrillic letters, to CIA officials in Moscow in late September 2011.
The information was passed to CIA headquarters on Oct. 4 and relayed roughly two weeks later to the National Counterterrorism Center, an agency that serves as a clearinghouse for threat data and manages the TIDE database.
The Rooters news agency first disclosed that Tsarnaevs name was listed in the TIDE database. But the revelation of the CIAs role is likely to intensify questions about whether the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies missed chances to detect or disrupt the bomb plot.
#1
It also raises questions why U.S. authorities didn't flag his return to the United States and investigate him further after a seven-month trip he took to Russia last year.
No need to "investigate" or tip him off to their surveillance, they knew precisely what he was up to.
#4
Question. IIUC, TIDE is a list of ~540,000 "suspicious" people. Potential splodeydopes. I assume there is no realistic way to monitor them all. I also assume that a significant number of them really should be under surveillance 24/7, but determining which ones, exactly, is difficult. And of those, I would think that predicting the exact time, location, and means that Dude X will select to unleash carnage is nearly impossible.
If those assumptions are correct, why do we bother wasting finite, limited resources on an endeavor that has approximately the same chance of success as winning the lottery? Wouldn't it make more sense to just deport every non-US citizen in TIDE (95% of them, IIUC), or at least, if they leave the US, permanently bar their re-entry? And perhaps even refuse entry to citizens of jihad-friendly countries altogether?
What obligates 300 million Americans to risk their lives for the sake of 0.5 million individuals with a high propensity for mass murder? If it is ok for individuals to conduct our own "behavioral profiling" when we go on a date, what makes it wrong for us to do the same as a nation?
I know, I know, that's just crazy talk. Still. Why is this not the "national conversation" we're having? What is so taboo? So awful? Are we really acquiescing to the occasional mass slaughter so as not to be rude?
[Ynet] Al-Qaeda-linked group posts video showing some 20 children firing pistols, guns in training camp
An al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group posted a video online showing about 20 children learning to fire pistols and guns in the group's training camp.
Some of the children are so small the shock wave nearly knocks them over.
The video shows the children, some of them apparently only five-years-old, firing various weapons, including pistols, AK-47s and machine-guns, dressed in traditional Moslem attire.
The Turkistan Islamic Movement operates several training camps in Pakistain and has been responsible for a series of bombing in Pakistain and Afghanistan.
Since 1997, the group reportedly killed more than 150 people and injured more than 400 in terror attacks for the cause of liberating East Turkistan, an area under Chinese control officially known as Xinjiang.
The group's activities are mostly directed against Chinese nationals.
A report by the human-rights group Amnesty released two months ago stated that since January 2011, at least 19 countries have been using child-soldiers.
Among them are Mali, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, The Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , Sri Lanka, Somalia and Yemen.
[Dawn] The joint investigation team (JIT) probing the 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... murder case on Saturday reached the farmhouse residence of former military ruler Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... on the outskirts of Islamabad, DawnNews reported.
The team was being headed by Additional Director General Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Khalid Qureshi.
The team had also prepared a questionnaire keeping in view the evidence.
The questionnaire includes a query pertaining to not providing adequate security to Benazir despite having received 10 letters of request in that regard.
Earlier on Friday, an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi rejected Musharraf's plea for reconstitution of the JIT and handed him over on a four-day physical remand to FIA for interrogation in the case.
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun-and-kaboom outside Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh on December 27, 2007 while Musharraf was president. She was killed after addressing an election campaign rally in the city.
The ATC had indicted Musharraf in the case in February 2011, and in August the same year he was declared a proclaimed offender and his property was attached because of his absence.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... Saturday strongly condemned the continuing terrorist attacks against certain political parties, workers, leaders and electoral offices.In a statement, Khan extended his condolences to the workers and their families who have become victims of this unacceptable terror that has spread its tentacles across Pakistain, including the blast in 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... on Friday in which 11 people died and more than 40 others were maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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[India Express] The brutal attack on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, awarded death sentence for alleged involvement in terror attacks in Multan over two decades ago, couldn't have come at a worse time. Only two days ago, four retired Indian judges, who are members of the eight-member India-Pak Joint Judicial Committee (JJC), comprising retired Supreme Court and High Court judges of both countries, went to Pakistain. Among the prisoners that the JJC was planning to interact with was Singh.
The Pakistain Supreme Court had sentenced Singh to death for his alleged involvement in four bombings that killed 14 people in 1990. However, death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
with doubts persisting over his involvement, there is a demand, including by many Pak human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions....
activists, to pardon Singh.
The JJC members had met Singh on their last visit to Pakistain and had been apprised about the threat to his life from other inmates acting at the behest of prison authorities. They had also asked the Pakistain government to expedite the decision on his mercy petition. Sources told The Sunday Express that the JJC members will prepare a report about the attack on Singh and seek a report from the Pakistain government on the issue. The attack notwithstanding, they will continue with their scheduled visits to different jails to take stock of condition of other Indian inmates.
The decision to send the Indian jurists to Pakistain was taken after the mysterious death of Chamel Singh in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail, the same jail where Sarabjit Singh is also lodged.
Former Delhi HC Judge M A Khan, former Punjab and Haryana HC Judges Amarbir Singh Gill and Amarjeet Chaudhary and former Patna HC Judge Nagendra Rai are the Indian jurists in the JJC.
Among other things, the JJC, constituted in January 2007, is mandated to recommend steps for humane treatment and expeditious release of prisoners languishing in jails of the two countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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Soldiers are deserting a beleaguered Iraqi army as it struggles to keep its hold on the northern half of Iraq in the face of escalating hostility from Sunni Arabs and Kurds who dominate in the region.
Around the oil city of Kirkuk Kurdish troops have advanced south to take over military positions abandoned by the army, while in Baghdad senior Iraqi politicians say that for the first time there is talk of partitioning the country.
The current crisis was sparked on 23 April when the Iraqi army attacked a sit-in protest in the Sunni Arab town of Hawijah, killing at least 50 people and injuring 110. Outraged Sunni Arab protesters have since stepped up their demonstrations against the Shia-led government. Demonstrators are increasingly protected by armed men, some of whom are accused of dragging five military intelligence soldiers in civilian clothes from a car that came near a protest in Fallujah and killing them.
There are signs that the Iraqi army can no longer cope with a crisis in which it is confronting both Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Many soldiers prefer to desert the army rather than shoot at protesters said Najmaldin Karim, the Kurdish Governor of Kirkuk, where Hawijah is situated, in an interview with The Independent. Most deserters are Sunni, Mr Karim said, but he added that some are Shia who dont want to fight in strange places for something they dont believe in.
#4
Although, I think this is a direct byproduct of the empty suit's muddled and cowardly foreign policy, the idea of cutting Iraq into three pieces, one for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis, and one for the Shias makes sense. They hate each other's guts and will never work well together. The Kurds have been pretty much autonomous since the days of the Saddam no fly zone and we know how the Sunnis and the Shias get along so well.
I don't know how Turkey will feel about a free Kurdistan though, it might make their life worse with their Kurdish population and lead to a civil war over the Kurdish populated regions of Turkey. If that happens, don't bet against the Turkish Army, they are pretty good and pretty ruthless.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/28/2013 20:29 Comments ||
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Iraqi authorities announced Sunday that they had revoked the operating licenses of pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera and nine other satellite TV channels, alleging that they are promoting a sectarian agenda as the country grapples with a wave of violence.
The alternative explanation is that al-Jizz was doing on the scene reporting that was putting out a message different from what the government broadcasters were saying...
Al-Jazeera, based in the small, energy-rich Gulf nation of Qatar, had no immediate comment.
The channel has aggressively covered the "Arab Spring" uprisings across the region, and has broadcast extensively on the civil war in neighboring Syria. Qatar itself is a harsh critic of the Syrian regime and a leading backer of the rebels, and is accused by many supporters of Iraq's Shiite-led government of backing protests in Iraq too.
Iraq and other governments across the Middle East have temporarily shut down Al-Jazeera's offices in the past because they were disgruntled by its coverage.
The other nine channels whose licenses were suspended by Iraq's Communications and Media Commission are al-Sharqiya and al-Sharqiya News, which frequently criticize the government, and seven smaller local channels - Salahuddin, Fallujah, Taghyeer, Baghdad, Babiliya, Anwar 2 and al-Gharbiya.
Posted by: tipper ||
04/28/2013 08:11 ||
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[Ynet] Western diplomat in Beirut says US asked for Israeli restraint since no damage was caused and to help fight against Syrian President Assad's regime
A Western diplomat in Beirut told the Lebanese newspaper a-Nahar on Saturday that the US asked Israel to show restraint and not respond immediately to the drone which was shot down over the Haifa bay on Thursday.
According to the source, the main reason for the request is that the drone, shot down over the Haifa bay, caused no damage.
In addition, the diplomat said, bigwigs in the US government said that before Israel responds, those responsible for the drone and its target must be found.
The report also said that the US does not want international attention diverted from the accusations the US leveled against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... regarding the use of chemical weapons against opposition forces.
According to the diplomat, "The Israeli military command doesn't treat drones launched from Leb lightly, since their goal may be not only taking pictures, but also an liquidation of bigwigs, military or political."
Concurrently, Israeli officials are increasingly of the opinion that Hezbollah was not necessarily the party responsible, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranian force operates on Lebanese soil both for Assad's regime and for Hezbollah, and is responsible for developing the drone array in the terror group's arsenal.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the drone launch, and the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has yet made no connection between the incident and the Shiite group.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Concurrently, Israeli officials are increasingly of the opinion that Hezbollah was not necessarily the party responsible, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
#2
A Western diplomat in Beirut told the Lebanese newspaper a-Nahar on Saturday that the US asked Israel to show restraint and not respond immediately to the drone which was shot down over the Haifa bay on Thursday.
Always glad to oblige our nation-building friends.
#3
You must understand g(r)om, that we understand you were not going to take any action over the drone anyway. So, our meaningless urgings can be viewed as a powerful deterrent to Zionist aggression within your airspace. :-)
#6
Doesn't sound legit. The US either painted the target themselves and asked the juices to shoot it, or the juices told the US about it. Neither really sounds right somehow.
Drone in airspace. Shoot. No real hand-wringing required.
[Al Ahram] The head of Gazoo's Islamic affairs ministry says the prominent Mohammedan scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi ...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name.... will visit the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-ruled territory in May.
It's the first visit by the Qatar-based holy man who is widely-respected through the Mohammedan world, and underscores his support for the Islamic jihad boy group Hamas.
It also shows how Hamas has slowly been breaking its diplomatic isolation after years of blockade. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also expected to visit the Gazoo Strip in May. The emir of Gulf state Qatar visited last year.
Gazoo minister Ismail Ridwan didn't say how long al-Qaradawi would stay. Spokespeople for the holy man weren't immediately available.
The visit is also a boon to Hamas as they battle their Gazoo rivals, hardline conservative Mohammedans who see the jihad boy group as too moderate.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
This won't end well ...
al-Qaradawi is a piece of sh!t.
A modern day Josef Goebbels of the muslim world.
I strongly suspect, this summer, they will try another Intifada. Especially if this joker gives his blessing to the proceedings.
[AlMonitor] The Boston bombings have brought attention to the tumultuous Russian region of the North Caucasus, including Dagestan ...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca... and Chechnya, which was a front line for international jihadists in the mid-1990s and which has seen a series of fierce and ultimately futile battles for independence from Russia.
In recent weeks, North Caucasus-based fighters became increasingly visible online, as well as on the ground in Syria. Along with a growing number of imported muscle from the Arab world as well as Europe, they joined a legion of al-Qaeda offshoots and Syria-based movements to fight against the regime of Bashir al-Assad.
Last week, an gang of Chechen fighters was behind a kidnapping of two bishops in the Syrian province of Aleppo, according to their dioceses. Their driver was killed immediately, while Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim remain in captivity.
"We can say that they haven't been freed," a priest at Aleppo's Greek Orthodox archdiocese, Ghassan Ward, told AFP on Wednesday [April 24].
The Chechen jihadists have been active near the Turkish border, according to activist reports, and the newly launched Russian-language jihadist website documents their operations in Syria.
The group, which identifies itself as Jaish Muhajirin Wa Anshar or Army of Emigrants and Helpers, is not limited to Chechen fighters, although most of the fighters on the website identify themselves as Chechen and speak a mixture of Russian and Arabic.
In the latest post on April 24, the group claimed to have taken over Minnigh military airport, which has been the site of festivities between the Syrian government forces and imported muscle for months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The rights group's director, Rami Abdel Rahman, confirmed that foreign-sponsored Death Eaters entered the airport for the first time in months.
The group documents the use of Russian weapons fired on civilians in the ongoing standoff between the Syrian military and Syrian rebels. "Our goal is to establish Shariah law, God willing," one fighter says in a recruiting video. "We have 30 years of history in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq; our goals are the same."
According to Russian Foreign Ministry estimates, there are between 600 and 6,000 North Caucasus fighters inside Syria on the side of Syrian rebels. Analysts suggest the number of confirmed fighters on the ground is much smaller.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry estimates, there are between 600 and 6,000 North Caucasus fighters inside Syria on the side of Syrian rebels. Analysts suggest the number of confirmed fighters on the ground is much smaller.
And the total number of imported muscle in Syria from Africa, the Middle East, Pakistain and Europe has been increasing since the conflict began, even though they still represent a small percentage of total forces fighting against Bashir al-Assad's regime.
According to a recent study by the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICRS), up to 5,500 imported muscle have joined rebel forces in Syria, with Europeans counting for up to 590 individuals, or 7-11% of the total.
As with most imported muscle, these men stand out from Syrian opposition groups and even jihadist movements, and tend to have a hard-line Islamist approach compared with other imported muscle.
Chechnya's president, Ramzan Kadyrov, disavowed Chechens fighting in Syria as "fighting for money and not an idea," according to an interview with SkyNews Arabia TV earlier this month.
"They represent neither our people, nor our religion," Kadyrov said, promising to "personally hunt down" the fighters if they ever return to Chechnya.
For the Russian government, it did not take long to connect Boston's Chechen link with its position on Syria.
"What happened in Boston should finally force the Americans to conclude that there are no bad or good terrorists, there is no 'ours' and 'theirs' among terrorists," Vladimir Kotlyar, a Russian Foreign Ministry official, told business radio channel Kommersant FM.
The presence of international gunnies has been at the core of Russia's stance on Syria, which says that removal of Assad will plunge the country in chaos.
"Months before Western governments went public with their concerns that fighters aligned with al-Qaeda were active in Syria, the phenomenon was noted with alarm by Russian state officials and commentators -- including, among the latter, some who are ordinarily trenchant critics of their own government," according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Everything that is happening today is falling precisely where Russia wants it to fall," said Rami Jarrah, a Syrian activist and founder of ANA, an activist network of Syrian citizen journalists, of Russia's position on Syria.
In fact, the growing role of international fighters in Syria's rebellion against the government, which started as a peaceful movement, is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Syria's transformation into the center of gravity for international gunnies is becoming a reality," according to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
But the number and role of fighters from the North Caucasus should not be overstated. "There are countries with much bigger numbers [in Syria]," said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
And it is not the presence of imported muscle alone that is driving the war, as the underlying conflict and dim prospects for its resolution take their toll on the morale of citizens in that country.
"Syrians themselves are becoming more radicalized because of the situation they are in," Jarrah said. "Normal people are becoming more violent, more sectarian."
[REUTERS] President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... warned Syria on Friday that its use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer" for the United States but made clear he was in no rush to intervene in the civil war there on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary.
Speaking a day after the disclosure of U.S. intelligence that Syria had likely used chemical weapons against its own people, Obama talked tough while calling for patience as he sought to fend off pressure for a swift response against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
"Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law," Obama told news hounds at the White House as he began talks with Jordan's King Abdullah.
"That is going to be a game changer," he said. But Obama stopped short of declaring that Assad had crossed "a red line" and described the U.S. intelligence evaluations as "a preliminary assessment."
While some more hawkish politicians have called for a U.S. military response and for the arming of anti-Assad rebels, several leading congressional voices urged a calmer approach after Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... briefed them.
"This is not Libya," said Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... Bay Area, born into a family of politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... , the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, referring to the relative ease with which a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... bombing campaign helped overthrow Muammar Qadaffy ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can change an entire nation, usually for the worse... in 2011. "The Syrians have anti-aircraft capability that makes going in there much more challenging."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Moral cowards
They would not fight for anything. They have no true belief system and no true emotional anchor to any cause.
The entire lot of them are spiritually bankrupt.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/28/2013 18:22 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Bambi ain't gonna do a freakin' thing about this (other than whine), and everybody in the world knows it. >:-(
Wotta maroon.
Posted by: Barbara ||
04/28/2013 18:58 Comments ||
Top||
[Al Ahram] Russia's deputy foreign minister brings up the catastrophe of US intervention in Iraq in his warning that a recent US report of chemical weapons use in Syria not be the pretext for military action
"Don't y'all pull a Libya."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#2
The price you pay for Chechen terrorist cooperation and in this case, silence. It is not for nothing the Russian invites you to his table with a smile.
#3
Guantanamo is still steaming away, no change there. Obama's word is a politicians word. As to doing anything in Syria, he won't. He wouldn't, he's just that kind of guy.
Besides, Syria essentially is Moslems killing Moslems, and they do it hard and fast to ...each other. So what ( precisely ) are you worried about? That the region will be "de-stabilized" ? Yeah?
WHERE in the garbage can do you want to sniff first? American Interests dictate? Yeah? You can have a big plate of garbage OR you can have a big steaming plate of garbage. Which one is in your best Interests?
Your best interests are dead Moslems. Poke it with a stick, ask yourself what Russia REALLY wants. There isn't going to be anything good come out of the Middle East. A really big war is only a matter of time and someone has to win it. Because you can't prevent it. WHY should the US "intervene" in Syria? Allow the killing to continue. Obama won't fight, he's just not the man. Until we do have a leader who thinks about a total erasure of the problem...and it won't be "peaceful"...let the Moslems go on shooting one another. Good for them.
#4
TF, I think that Obama is "voting present" on Syria because he's an incompetent ass that wants to suck up to Putin. Remember it's "after the election" so he has more flexibility.
Regardless of his bufoonery and his underhanded, anti-american motives I am THRILLED to leave this crap alone. I just hope that the Euros don't stick their noses in it and the Israelis in effect seal the border and dodge the flying sh!t storm.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/28/2013 10:47 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I agree, if you thought Afghanistan was Viet Nam Redux, then Syria is Viet Nam on steroids.
It is far worse than Iraq, even with the Iranians stirring the pot in Iraq. I still think the Iraqis would stop killing each other if Iran was not there agitating and instigating.
Iran is in Syria up to their neck, you have every conceivable type of Islamic extremist in the country AND they ALL every last one of them down to the two year old on his mom's back, HATE the US. They've been raised on 60 years of anti-American blather and propaganda, so how do you think they will respond to direct intervention?
I was for going into Iraq. That made geopolitical sense, split Iran and Syria, vast supplies of oil, a central location in the ME, a secular tradition, and a highly educated middle class. Everything except the liberal press, the Democrats in congress and Russia pointed to success in Iraq. Just like every other war since WWII, Congress won, foreign policy is a mess, and Iraq is in the toilet.
It would be the same scenario in Syria. The libs can't help themselves, no matter what the reason or the cause, their moral cowardice and nihilism would not allow a complete victory or a complete political solution to the problem before they inserted themselves into the policy and leave fatal loose ends to fatally flaw the end game.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/28/2013 12:08 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Stay out of Syria. Let them kill each other
I endorse this cold, heartless statement of the obvious.
Also: Got your none lethal shit right here. And your lethal shit right over there, alternate days please.
[Al Ahram] Organisation of Islamic Cooperation says the kidnapping of 2 bishops contradicts 'the high status held for Christian clergymen in Islam'
"Unless they are, y'know, kaffir Christians. Then they are as sheep for shearing or slaughtering or something. It's in the Koran -- you can look it up."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
this has gotten almost no coverage by the mainstream media. wonder why.
[UPI] The British Foreign Office said it received intelligence Syrian government troops used chemical weapons.
"It is extremely serious. This is a war crime," Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... told the BBC in an interview broadcast Friday.
The White House Thursday said U.S. intelligence agencies believe "with varying degrees of confidence" Syria used the nerve agent sarin on a "small scale" but did not elaborate further. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... the United State said the information it has doesn't represent proof of chemical weapons use.
Britannia's Foreign Office said it, too, had "limited but persuasive information from various sources" of chemical weapons use in Syria, the BBC said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#2
How MUCH Gas would have to be USED to actually get a guy wearing a tie to do something about it? And he shaves every morning and pats on just a light cologne.
What are the symptoms of Nerve Gas....something with foaming at the mouth and evacuating of the bowels and the whole body rattling around like a slinky falling down the stairs? yeah?
And Moslems are using it on .....other Moslems. Maybe its just a rogue isolated event. Besides its the sort of thing happening to people we don't really know and never will. How many Moslems do you know? Have they invited you over yet?
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.
International Criminal Court
North Korea
[Ynet] Al-Qaeda-linked group posts video showing some 20 children firing pistols, guns in training camp
Pervez 
Iraqi authorities announced Sunday that they had revoked the operating licenses of pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera and nine other satellite TV channels, alleging that they are promoting a sectarian agenda as the country grapples with a wave of violence.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AlMonitor] The Boston bombings have brought attention to the tumultuous Russian region of the North Caucasus, including 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Nancy 
David Cameron
