[Wash Times] Al Qaeda is operating a "shadow army" inside Afghanistan to conceal its numbers and the scope of its operations, while the Taliban is on the verge of major resurgence as U.S. military forces prepare to depart, former senior Pentagon officials and leading counterterrorism analysts told Congress on Tuesday. This will place any so-called "U.S. residual force" at great risk I can assure you.
#1
"These analyses then claim that because al Qaeda is now more decentralized, has many regional franchises, and depends more on individuals than on centrally directed operations, it is less of a threat."
We need to encourage more internecine warfare between the franchises....
Which means the local warlord, corrupt official (I'm repeating myself), non-Pashtun population, can engage in some real hurt as well right back to interlopers like AQ. Sic a dog on a dog. Screw nation building, just keep them busy wacking each other.
[Tolo News] The primary court in southern Kandahar province on Sunday reviewed the murder case of three individuals who were killed in Arghandab district by six coppers and a National Directorate Security (NDS) staff two years back, according to official reports.
"We evaluated the case and decided to sentence four of the coppers to the death penalty," Chief of the primary court Mohammad Halim Salim said.
During the hearing process, families of the victims blamed the coppers for taking the lives of their loved ones.
"These men two years back murdered three men after looting their money," Ahmad Gul, family member of the victims, said.
The court sentenced the other two coppers to two years of jail, while the NDS individual was not found guilty and freed.
Families of the victims expressed satisfaction over the verdict and called on the legal and judicial courts of the country to act upon the principles of justice. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... the accused refused the court verdict and asked for an appeal.
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[MAGHAREBIA] More than a thousand Moroccan jihadists have travelled to Syria since 2011, including 900 just in 2013.
Those figures were announced on May 14th by Hicham Baali, a representative of the Directorate-General for National Security (DGSN), during a television programme broadcast on 2M.
The number of Moroccan fighters in Syria could be much higher if expatriates are counted, according to Romain Caillet, a French researcher and advisor on Islamist issues. He underlined that the phenomenon affects not just Morocco, but several other countries.
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#1
Remember when Jihadists from ten ( count them ) countries came from all over the Moslem world to fight in Iraq ? And where are they now? grease spots in the sand.
PBUH. Jihad! Jihad! Yeah, get some.
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
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#2
It's not the deaders one has to worry about, Hemingway.
Keep that in mind the next time you're swimming in your underpants.
[AnNahar] Libya's electoral commission announced Tuesday that polls will take place on June 25 to elect a new parliament to replace the contested General National Congress, Lana state news agency said. ... and if you can't believe the state news agency who can you believe? Successive governments have complained that the GNC's claim to executive power as well as legislative authority has tied their hands in bringing to heel former rebel militias blamed for growing unrest in the North African country since the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed long-time strongman Muammar Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later... The announcement came a day after the government urged the GNC to go into recess after a planned parliamentary meeting Tuesday to debate the budget and a motion of confidence in Prime Minister Ahmed Miitig.
The government said this could help spare Libya from descending into civil war after renegade general Khalifa Haftar, whom authorities branded an "outlaw," launched a campaign Friday to rid the country of jihadists.
Gunmen from the ex-rebel Zintan brigade, who say they back Haftar, attacked the parliament building in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... on Sunday.
The interim parliament, dominated by Islamists, sparked widespread public outrage earlier this year when it extended its own mandate until December.
[AnNahar] Nigeria asked the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on 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... , the armed Islamist group that claimed the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls, and list it as a terrorist group, diplomats said Tuesday.
How embarrassing for former Secretary of State Clinton, who had refused to do such a thing not so long ago. And what a contrast to her former boss's Nobel Peace Prize for his lovely potential.
They said Nigeria lodged the request with a Security Council committee that deals with sanctions against al-Qaeda-linked groups.
The decision to add Boko Haram to the black list will go into effect on Thursday if no objections are raised by any of the council's 15 members.
The sanctions imposed by the committee typically involve freezing of assets, an arms embargo and travel bans.
Boko Haram has grabbed credit for the kidnapping in mid-April of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria.
Their attacks have left thousands dead since 2009.
The imposition of U.N. sanctions on the group was recommended Saturday at a conference in Gay Paree that brought together the presidents of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroun, Niger and Benin as well as representatives of the United States, Britannia and La Belle France.
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[AnNahar] Gulf neighbors the United Arab Emirates and 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... on Tuesday announced a joint committee to confront "regional challenges," in a statement published on official Emirati news agency WAM.
The move came as Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi.
Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have cracked down on Islamists accused of links to groups such as the Moslem Brüderbund and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front fighting in Syria.
Riyadh has designated both groups "terrorist" organizations.
The newly formed "supreme committee" will be overseen by the Saudi and UAE foreign ministers, WAM said.
It will "implement the strategic vision of the leaderships of both countries to increase security and stability to face regional challenges," WAM reported.
Tensions have been running high between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on one side, and Qatar on the other. All belong to the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
In an unprecedented escalation in March, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain pulled their ambassadors from Qatar after accusing it of meddling in their internal affairs, a charge Doha dismissed.
Qatar is accused of supporting the Moslem Brüderbund, to which Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile.
They fear its brand of grass-roots activism and political Islam could undermine their own authority.
Bow to the regional strong horse, at least long enough to stick a knife in its back.
[AnNahar] Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah will travel to Iran on May 31 amid a recent thaw in Tehran's relations with Gulf states, the Iranian foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Relations between Iran and the Gulf states have been frosty for years, with disagreements over the unrest in Bahrain and the conflict in Syria, before Hassan Rouhani was elected president of the Islamic republic last June.
"The visit (of the Emir), which is upon the invitation of President Hassan Rouhani, will open a new chapter in relations of both countries," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told news hounds at a news briefing.
Afkham said "several agreements were expected to be signed", without giving details.
In December last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif started a tour of Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar. But it ended without Zarif traveling to Iran's main rival, 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... Afkham said a visit to Saudi Arabia was on Zarif's agenda.
"We have received the verbal invitation and measures are being taken to organize this trip," she said.
"Iran and Saudi Arabia are two important countries in the region and their interaction is influential in the regional scope," she added.
Last week, Riyadh's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said he had invited his Iranian counterpart to visit the kingdom.
Tehran welcomed the plan and stressed the need to boost relations after years of strained ties.
The two countries have been at odds over Syria's civil war and the fallout from unrest in Bahrain.
In the Syrian conflict, majority Shiite Mohammedan Iran has backed the government of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... while Sunni Saudi Arabia has been a leading supporter of rebel forces.
Rouhani said after his election win last June he wanted to reach out to Gulf Arab governments as part of efforts to end his country's international isolation.
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"Senate Democrats led by Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) pulled from the foreign relations committee's agenda Monday evening a major piece of pro-Israel legislation known as the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act, which would have bolstered defense and intelligence ties between the two nations.
Menendez called off the vote in order to prevent Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) from introducing an amendment that would grant Congress a final say on any deal the Obama administration strikes with Iran regarding its contested nuclear program, according to congressional aides."
Bus ads linking "Islamic Jew-hatred" with Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like... are out on the streets of Washington, and the US capital's transit authority says it is legally powerless to ban them.
The elongated broadsides on 20 Metro buses feature a photo of the Nazi German dictator in conversation with "his staunch ally" Haj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem during World War II.
"Islamic Jew-hatred: It's in the Koran. Two-thirds of all US aid goes to Islamic countries. Stop racism. End all aid to Islamic countries," the ad states, over a fine-print disclaimer from the Metro Transit Authority.
The ads, which are to run until mid-June, were placed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which aims to "raise awareness of the depredations of Islamic supremacism", according to its website.
It hopes the campaign will raise $20,000 by Friday via an online crowd-funding campaign that, as of Tuesday, had yielded about $7,500.
"We're not able to refuse ads on the basis of content," a spokeswoman for Metro told AFP, citing a 2012 court case that allowed another AFDI bus ad on the grounds that it was free speech.
On its website, AFDI co-founder Pamela Geller called the campaign a direct response to like-sized Washington bus ads placed in April by American Moslems for Paleostine which read: "Stop US aid to Israel's occupation."
As Moslem leader in then British-ruled Paleostine, Husseini sought Hitler's support for an Arab and Moslem homeland that would be free of Jews.
Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... (CAIR) front man Ibrahim Hooper said that such "inflammatory" ads were clearly intended "to promote hatred of Islam and Moslems".
He told AFP that CAIR is developing on its own bus ads "to promote mutual understanding as a response to Geller's hate ad". In the meantime, he added, it's giving away free Korans.
#1
Pamela Geller is doing God's work. The terrorists and their sympathizers don't like it when the shoe is on the other foot and people actually fight back.
#9
RJ remembers Ach! Mein Koph! Which was the long-time tag line of Bayer Aspirin, usually used humorously for instance when a Landser is under fire from US 155 howitzers, he would approach the camera and Speedy AlkaSeltzer would hand him a Bayer Aspirin. Then smiles all around.
[DAWN] The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Tuesday disowned the decisions announced by its three members regarding cancellation of licences of three television channels owned by the Geo TV network. Geo's critical of the Mighty Pak Army. Therefore it needed shut down. Most of the pols in Pakistain played dog-pile-on-the-rabbit.
In a press statement issued here, the media regulatory body referred to the media talks held by three private members -- Israr Abbassi, Mian Shams and Fareeha Iftikhar -- in front of Pamra headquarters earlier today. The members of the committee had announced the suspension and also ordered that Geo TV offices be sealed down. Even though Geo needed shut down to unbunch the national panties, there seems to be some dim realization that Pakistain's free press is demonstrably not free. Appearances aren't being kept up and they can't think up something to explain it all away or blame it on India.
A spokesman for the regulatory body had also said in a statement that the meeting called today had no legal validity "since it was not called officially in spirit of Rule 3(4) of Pemra Rules 2009." "So, really, they're shut down, but not officially shut down."
According to the Pemra rules listed on its website, a meeting of the regulatory body can be convened on the request of at least one half of its total membership.
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#1
According to the Time of India,
"The decision was taken at a meeting here to review complaints filed against Geo network for showing allegedly blasphemous morning show on its entertainment channel and allegations by its news channel that the country's spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence, had orchestrated the attack on journalist Hamid Mir in Karachi. Which ISI, the inner or the outer?
The committee members told the media the decision was taken unanimously. But two-third of the committee's members did not participate in the meeting.
Only private members attended the meeting while government representatives did not show up."
"He [Pemra member Israr Abbasi] added a final decision whether to cancel the licenses will be taken on May 28. Abbasi alleged Geo owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman had called Pemra members and was trying to influence their decision by offering bribes as well as making threats."
[DAWN] The announcement that a Pakistain Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) committee had suspended the licences of three television channels owned by the Geo TV network drew a strong reaction on local media and online. How do you say "gross violation of freedom of the press" in Urdu?
From terming the media a "Pharaoh" acting out of line, to outright condemnation of the suspension of Geo News, Geo Tez and Geo Entertainment, politicians, senior journalists and civil society members spoke out on the decision. A cacophony of competing wind. And the press isn't the pharaoh. You have either a government controlled press or a free pres. It's kind of binary that way.
Speaking on a private TV channel, former information minister Javed Jabbar questioned whether PEMRA's move to revoke Geo's licenses was legal, given that due process was not followed.
Senior journalist and Executive Editor, The Express Tribune Muhammad Ziauddin termed the suspension questionable and raised questions about PEMRA's role as a regulatory body.
Speaking on DawnNews, senior journalist Nasim Zehra also criticized the PEMRA committee's decision, blaming journalists, media owners and the regulatory body for the current crisis.
Also speaking on Dawn News, senior journalist Mazhar Abbas said it was apparent no one seemed to care about the fear and insecurity this decision will spread among media workers. He said the decision was taken wrongfully, ignoring the technicalities needed for suspension of Pakistain's largest news channel.
Speaking to a TV channel, PTI spokesperson Shireen Mazari said no one wanted to see Geo News off air, but if the decision for suspension was taken lawfully, it should be upheld.
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[DAWN] The Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...the political wing of the Pak Taliban... -- Fazl (JUI-F) on Tuesday alleged that there is an "Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) within the ISI" which is involved in kidnapping and killings of innocent people across Pakistain.
Commenting on a motion in the Senate regarding ongoing political situation in the country, JUI-F Senator Hafiz Hamdullah said the ISI was behind the incidents of missing persons and mass graves in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... .
Former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... had said that there were some people within the ISI ranks who were not under the control of its chief while former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry also said in his verdicts that the ISI was involved in the cases of missing persons, the JUI-F senator said.
"It was not decide since the independence (of Pakistain) that who will rule the country ... either it will be the Parliament or those institutions whose employees get pays from the taxes of the nation," he said.
Hamdullah said it was an alarming situation that the violators of Constitution were being considered as faithful and those who introduced the Constitution of 1973 were being considered as traitor in the country.
He also criticised the leadership of 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) which was protesting against the alleged rigging in the May 11 elections.
"Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... is dangling between the Parliament and the establishment," he added.
The JUI-F senator said that the survival of Pakistain was only in prevalence of justice and supremacy of Parliament, adding that the JUI-F will only support democracy in the country.
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[DAWN] Recently, all the private schools of Panjgur received a letter from a previously unheard Death Eater group called Tanzeem-ul-Islami-ul-Furqan.
The letter, addressed to the owners and administrators of all private schools, accuses them of corrupting the minds of maidens of tender years by exposing them to a 'western education'.
It goes on to state that 'all private schools must immediately disallow girls from seeking an education regardless of them being at a co-education or an all-girls facility.'
It also includes a message for van and taxi drivers in the area, 'warning them of dire consequences if they continue to transport girls to schools'.
The note goes onto warn parents as well. It asks them to keep their daughters away from English language centers and schools.
Not surprisingly, their threat warns that 'the mujahedeen of Al-Furqan are ready to brace martyrdom to stop the spread of vulgar, western, education in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... '.
The letter ends with a list featuring names of all prominent owners of private schools in Panjgur.
To assert their writ and spread fear, the group carried an attack on a school immediately after sending out the letters.
Schools in Panjgur remained closed for several days. Soon after their reopening, unidentified gunnies set a school van, transporting female students and teachers, on fire on 14 May 2014.
Although there were no major casualties, the gunnies, belonging to this newly claimed Death Eater group, ensured the owner of the private school received their message loud and clear.
The owner in this instance was driving the van at the time of the attack. According to eye witnesses, to spread fear and panic, the gunnies fired multiple gunshots in the air - just meters away from a nearby stationed Frontiers Corps (FC) convoy that simply chose to ignore the proceedings.
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[Ynet] The UN nuclear watchdog sought in talks with Iran on Tuesday to advance a long-stalled investigation into Tehran's atomic activities, but it was not immediately clear whether any headway was made.
That's because none was.
A spokeswoman for the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the two sides met in Tehran, but said the IAEA was not planning to issue a statement about the talks on Tuesday, leaving open the possibility one might be made later.
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#1
The main thing is to keep the Juices quiet until the bomb is ready.
[AnNahar] Russia would veto a draft United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council calling for Syria to be hauled before the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... , deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov said Tuesday.
"The draft resolution that is currently submitted to the Security Council for us is unacceptable and we will not support it. If it is put to a vote, we will veto it," Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.
Gatilov called the resolution drafted by La Belle France and expected to be put to the vote on Thursday "intentionally politicized."
Russia was already widely expected to veto the measure along with China as they have vetoed three previous Western resolutions since the start of the Syrian crisis three years ago.
Gatilov said that Russia opposes Syria going before the International Criminal Court "since we consider that this is counterproductive in the current situation."
He said that he believed the real aim behind the draft resolution was to gain permission for the use of force in Syria under Chapter Seven of the U.N. charter.
"The main plan is to get a Security Council resolution passed on Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter as a basis for future use of force in Damascus," Gatilov said.
Russia is a long-term ally of Syria and has backed the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... throughout the conflict.
#1
"since we consider that this is counterproductive in the current situation."
Syria owes Vlad a whole lot of money and he won't collect if anything happens to Assad. Russia tends to be Syria's "Lawyer".
And the French have peacekeepers in Syria. No? It must have been something I ate. Maybe the French are keeping the peace in Lebanon. But then the French eat snails and frogs too.
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
05/21/2014 7:16 Comments ||
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#2
Actually, the French kept things in Lebanon fairly stable when they ran it, Hemingway. Probably something you ate. Look in your beard.
[AnNahar] Amnesia Amnesty International urged Morocco Tuesday to drop the charges against a journalist accused of aiding "terrorism," as the latest hearing in a controversial case was adjourned for a fifth time.
"The Moroccan authorities must end their charade of a trial against Ali Anouzla and drop all terrorism charges against him," the rights group's regional director Philip Luther said.
"Using anti-terrorism legislation as a pretext to punish journalists for their reporting is dealing a serious blow to freedom of expression in Morocco," he added.
Anouzla was incarcerated Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! last September after publishing an article on his website Lakome about an inflammatory video attributed to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb which called for jihad in Morocco and lashed out at King Mohammed VI.
He stands accused of defending and inciting terrorism and risks up to 20 years in prison, with the authorities saying he was giving the jihadists a platform, charges flatly denied by the experienced journalist.
He had been due in court on Tuesday, but the investigating judge postponed the hearing for the fifth time, Anouzla told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The secretary of the judge called my lawyer to tell him that he is traveling, and when he returns he will set a new date to continue the investigation," said the journalist, who was freed on bail in October.
The case has drawn widespread condemnation, not just from rights groups, and undermined the Moroccan authorities' pledge to increase press freedom.
Both the French and Arabic versions of Anouzla's popular website were shut down after his arrest.
The Washington Post, in an editorial published on Monday, called the charges against the journalist "absurd," saying they were "intended only to intimidate him and to silence the media."
"Mr. Anouzla, who has a long record of journalism challenging the authorities, called the video 'propaganda' in his report -- and rightly saw it as legitimate material for reporting on," the U.S. daily commented.
"By attempting to criminalize Mr. Anouzla's activity, the monarchy is demonstrating its own insecurity."
Amnesty also called for the immediate and unconditional release of another Moroccan journalist, Moustapha Hasnaoui, incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! for three years under the country's anti-terrorism law, who is currently on hunger strike.
[AnNahar] A senior Paleostinian official on Tuesday accused Israel of the "deliberate execution" of two Paleostinian teens rubbed out by border coppers in a clash in the West Bank last week.
But an Israeli army front man told AFP that video footage purporting to show the two being killed without provocation on Thursday had been doctored.
The usual blahblah follows. Link to the Paliwood video at the link.
[Ynet] Syria is starting to relinquish the remaining stockpile of materials from its chemical weapons arsenal after months of delay it blamed on security concerns, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
"It is starting to be moved as we speak," Pentagon front man Rear Admiral John Kirby told news hounds.
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#1
I'll have greater certainty when the headline reads:
Syria Starts Moving Remaining Chemical Weapons, Pentagon IDF Says
[Ynet] In speech that distances Rouhani from conservative holy mans, Iran President says country should 'see (the Internet) as an opportunity. We must recognise our citizens' right to connect to the World Wide Web'.
Iran should embrace the Internet rather than see it as a threat, President Hassan Rouhani has said, in remarks that challenge hardliners who have stepped up measures to censor the Web.
Rouhani, a comparative moderate elected last year, said trying to win the battle for public influence by restricting the Internet was like bringing a wooden sword to a shootout.
The weekend speech distances Rouhani from rival conservative holy mans, some close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who promote censorship as a tool for protecting the 1979 Islamic revolution which brought the Shi'ite Mohammedan clergy to power.
It was also his most forceful signal yet of a break with the social media policy of predecessor Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad, who rounded up bloggers and tightened online controls in an eight-year term, especially after protesters used social media to organise mass street demonstrations in 2009.
"We ought to see (the Internet) as an opportunity. We must recognise our citizens' right to connect to the World Wide Web," said Rouhani according to the official IRNA news agency.
"Why are we so shaky? Why have we cowered in a corner, grabbing onto a shield and a wooden sword, lest we take a bullet in this culture war?" he said in his weekend speech.
"Even if there is an onslaught, which there is, the way to face it is via modern means, not passive and cowardly methods."
Iran has long had a contradictory attitude towards the Internet. Access to sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube is blocked for most Iranians, but Khamenei himself joined Twitter and Facebook in 2009 and is now a prolific user of both.
These days the Supreme Leader often sends out more than a dozen tweets a day in English, Farsi and Arabic. His latest informed his 53,900 followers that "Despite industrial progress in the #West, negligence & humiliation of #family & its values will cause West to collapse in the long run."
On his Facebook page, where he has 82,000 "likes", Khamenei offers spiritual guidance, telling those seeking a spouse to accept compromise: "a perfect flawless wife or a perfect flawless husband cannot be found anywhere in the world."
Yet Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, secretary of a state committee tasked with monitoring and filtering sites, last year called Facebook a U.S. espionage project.
Iran's leadership cracked down hard against Internet users in 2009 following Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 re-election that year, when a violent crackdown on street protests led to the worst unrest in the Islamic Theocratic Republic's history.
Many bloggers were incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! and at least one person was sentenced to death for running a website seen by the authorities as subversive.
Internet use high
Iran's Internet users face slow, patchy connections as well as heavy filtering. Still, they can evade controls by using virtual private networks which provide encrypted links that allow a computer to behave as if it is based in another country, giving them access to blocked sites.
In his speech, Rouhani compared the effort to restrict access to the Internet to an earlier, failed attempt Curses! Foiled again! to combat the spread of satellite television.
"First, our entire obsession was video - how to keep it out of our youth's access and protect our faith and identity. Then satellite dishes shot up on roofs," Rouhani said. "Today, the Internet and smart phones have become the foremost woe."
Rouhani said Iran could not develop without embracing the digital world and criticised the idea that students should just take notes from books rather than go online.
"Are our PhD students still expected to use library archives like in the old days to take notes for research?"
Internet censorship has eased somewhat under Rouhani's new government, Iranians say, but he lacks the power to open it up completely.
At the apex of Iran's power structure, caution abounds. Decisions on key strategic matters fall under the authority of Khamenei, who set up an internet oversight agency, the Supreme Council of Virtual Space, two years ago.
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[Iran Press TV] Iran has dismissed as "totally baseless" recent accusations leveled in a US newspaper about the Islamic Theocratic Republic's recruitment of Afghan refugees for war in Syria.
"This claim by the American newspaper is completely baseless and has been made with the purpose of tarnishing Iran's image in Afghanistan and depicting a totally inhumane picture [of Iran] to citizens of this friendly and neighboring country," Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said on Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal claimed in a report on May 15 that Iran has been recruiting thousands of Afghan refugees to fight in Syria, offering USD 500 a month and Iran's citizenship to help Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... against foreign-backed turbans.
"As published in news outlets, Afghan officials have not confirmed such a claim," Afkham added.
She urged the paper to apologize to the Afghan people for insulting them, adding that the failure of warmongers in Syria has made them spread lies and provoke the Afghan people.
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#1
Speaking of newspaper stories:
The Pentagon is reviewing a program that allows qualified noncitizens to enlist in the military, and officials say theyll consider expanding it to cover some who now live in the United States illegally...
[AnNahar] Tartus has itself largely escaped the conflict in Syria, but posters of its sons killed fighting for the regime elsewhere in the country line the western city's main road.
A wall in the central bus station is a tapestry of pictures of the dead, most of them young, posing in fatigues with Kalashnikovs.
There are also photographs of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... and his father and predecessor Hafez al-Assad, as well as the Syrian flag and sometimes images of Jesus Christ.
One shows a young man posing like Rambo, a cartridge belt around his bare torso as he cradles a machinegun.
Many shops in the city of 90,000 display large posters proclaiming the "Glory of the Unknown Soldier." In Martyrs Square, banners list those who fell battling "terrorism," the regime term for Assad's opponents.
More than 162,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict began in March 2011 with a harsh government crackdown on anti-Assad protests.
While coastal Tartus has remained relatively insulated from actual fighting, its residents have swelled the ranks of the army and pro-regime militia, the National Defense Force.
"Tartus has been called the capital of deaders because it's the province with the highest proportional number of casualties in the army and the NDF -- 4,200 killed, 2,000 maimed and 2,000 missing," Tartus governor Nizar Moussa said.
"There isn't a district, a village that doesn't have its share of victims," he told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based monitor tracking the war's casualties, puts the number even higher, saying around half of the 60,000 regime fighters killed come from Tartus.
They have died in festivities countrywide.
"Tartus' borders are limited not by those of the province, but of Syria as a whole," said Ahmed Khaddur Abu Hadi after burying his brother Hassan, 40, an NDF fighter.
He was killed in Kasab near the border with Turkey.
"People from Tartus are fighting in Latakia and Aleppo provinces or in Qalamun (near Damascus). They go everywhere and fall as deaders in defense of the nation," he added, his sister-in-law weeping beside him.
Moussa says that more than a dozen ambulances go daily to Latakia's Bassel Assad airport, named after the president's older brother who died in a 1994 car crash, to collect the bodies.
Observatory director Abdel Rahman calls Syria's coastal area, where most residents share Assad's Alawite faith, "the human reservoir for the regime."
"They have taken advantage of the confessional discourse of certain Islamist groups who talk about fighting the Nusayris (a derogatory term for Alawites) to promote Alawite recruitment," he said.
"They fight to the end, convinced that it's either Bashar or the end of the Alawites."
In Tartus cemetery, Syrian flags flutter above dozens of graves, many bearing photos of the dear departed. Some are marked only with numbers because the victims are unidentified.
The governor says residents sign up to fight for economic and ideological reasons.
"The region is poor. There's not much agricultural land, no factories, and few service sector jobs, so many people join the army," he said.
But, he added: "We mustn't forget that this is the only province where illiteracy has been eradicated.
"People who know how to read and write have understood the scale of the conspiracy against their country and want to stop it."
In September 2013, the government created a "deaders' affairs" office in each province to help relatives of those killed.
"Every day around 100 widows and orphans come to me and I try to help them with what the state has allocated," said Mona Ibrahim who heads the Tartus bureau.
Her own husband was killed in 2011 in Baba Amr in Homs.
Fabrice Balanche, a French geographer who specializes in Syria, says Tartus is 80 percent Alawite, 10 percent Sunni, nine percent Christian and one percent Ismaili.
Of the Alawites, 90 percent are employed by the state, in the bureaucracy or the army.
"When the crisis began, the (pro-regime) 'shabiha' militias were created and then the National Defense Force to support the army," Balanche said.
"Then the reservists were called up. All the men between 20 and 40 in Alawite areas are serving under the flag," he added.
"They respond to the call because defending the regime means defending their community."
"They have taken advantage ofpointed out the confessional discourse ofkillings of Alawites bycertain Islamistall rebel groups whowhether or not they talk about fighting the Nusayris (a derogatory term for Alawites) to promote Alawite recruitment," he said.
"They fight to the end, convincedbecause of the reality of massacres of Alawites that it's either Bashar or the end of the Alawites."
Ultimately, non-Sunni Arabs in Syria fight for the same reasons the Russians fought the Germans - the choice was between resistance and certain death.
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.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[DAWN] The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Tuesday disowned the decisions announced by its three members regarding cancellation of licences of three television channels owned by the Geo TV network.
International Criminal Court
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
