[Tolo News] A number of Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of Parliament) members claimed Wednesday that most of the land plots allocated for teachers have been usurped by powerful individuals.
The politicians raised the issue during Wednesday's session where the Minister of Education Asadullah Hanif Balkhi told the MPs that about 80,000 land plots had been distributed to teachers -- who recently went on strike in protest against poor salaries and failure to get the promised land.
According to the MPs, most of the plots earmarked for teachers had either been seized by the powerful individuals or were located on inaccessible hillsides.
Continued on Page 49
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[AA.TR] India will host the third India-Africa summit in its capital, New Delhi, in October - and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. has an invite.
"Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir has been invited," an African diplomatic source told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.
The source said he expected the recent turmoil surrounding al-Bashir's South Africa visit to dissuade him from traversing outside his own country.
The Sudanese president closely escaped being tossed in the slammer ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... and being turned over to the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... while attending an African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... summit in Johannesburg.
Despite this, the source said there were many reasons why al-Bashir would attend the summit, which will take place between Oct. 26 and 30.
"The host country has already formally invited the leaders of all 54 states in Africa," the source said, adding: "African leaders have already demonstrated solidarity against the court -- a court that seems to have lost its credibility in Africa."
The source added: "India has no incentive to arrest Al-Bashir since it is not a member of the ICC and therefore not legally obliged to do so."
"South African law was outpaced by a collective political decision by African leaders," the source said referring to the African Union summit turmoil. "The leaders must have lobbied against the arrest Al-Bashir."
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[Dhaka Tribune] Militant outfits, especially the recently discovered IS-inspired Junud at-Tawheed Wal Khilafah, are now trying to recruit rich patrons to fund their own activities, detectives have found.
Militants scoured through the internet to analyse online activities of potential new recruits -- who included residents of posh neighbourhoods as well as university students and IT experts.
The police made the findings while interrogating recently detained bully boys. The Detective Branch have so far tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! three members of Junud at-Tawheed, all of whom were well-educated and came from affluent families.
Faiyaz Ishmam, the latest Junud member to be held, is the son of a retired defence officer; the two others -- Galib and Munasir -- lived in the capital's affluent DOHS neighbourhood.
Targeting rich university students was part of the bully boys' strategy of evading suspicion from law enforcers as well as ensuring a stable source of funding, said Md Shahjahan, additional deputy commissioner of DB.
"We have got some names from interrogating the arrestees and are now trying to locate them," he added.
According to detectives, bully boy outfits were facing a fund crunch because of beefed up monitoring in bank transactions, which had resulted in foreign sources or local sympathisers to turn away from clandestine financial contributions.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, said Lions of Islam were now trying to adopt new techniques to cover the costs of running their activities.
In a desperate attempt to ensure funds, Lions of Islam were now also planning bank robberies; but those attempts were also being foiled by law enforcers.
The alternative of recruiting rich patrons was a more popular choice, as it allowed Lions of Islam to get both funds and manpower.
In this regard, Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DB police, said a number of bully boy outfits were now trying to regroup and resume their activities by targeting educated men and women from affluent families.
IS recruiter provides leads
Detectives recently got potential leads in the search for bully boys, when detained IS recruiter Aminul Islam Begh, 50, disclosed information during questioning.
Aminul, who was the local coordinator of bully boy outfit JMB, was held in the capital on May 24. He had graduated from a Malaysian university and worked as the IT chief at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola.
During his questioning under police custody, Aminul said during his work as a recruiter for Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , he was able to recruit more than 20 people who agreed to fly abroad and join the IS cause. All of those recruits were either students or job holders, Aminul told the police.
The police have learned the identities of many of those recruits and were now working on verifying the claims. The suspected recruits included teachers at colleges and private universities, several software engineers, and a marine engineer.
Aminul said all of these recruits had consented to fly to the Middle East at their own expense and join the so-called jihad.
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[AnNahar] The parliament of ex-Soviet Tajikistan passed a law Wednesday annulling the citizenship of nationals fighting abroad with Lion of Islam organizations including the radical Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group active in Iraq and Syria.
"People will automatically be stripped of their citizenship of the republic of Tajikistan if they fight in the ranks of terrorist groups and organizations abroad," Zarif Alizoda, the central Asian country's human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. ombudsman said in parliament.
MPs voted unanimously in favor of the bill.
The impoverished republic says more than 400 Tajiks have joined the brutal IS insurgency in Iraq and Syria, including a high profile defector that once headed the special forces unit of the interior ministry.
Many nationals are recruited to fight for the group in Russia, where over a million work as migrant laborers, Tajik security services say.
In May, Colonel Gulmurod Halimov, a former commander of the interior ministry's special forces unit, shocked the country by announcing in a twelve-minute video clip appearing on YouTube that he had defected to IS as a result of perceived anti-Islamic policies in the tightly-controlled state.
He appeared again in a second online clip this month, threatening to decapitate his brother for publicly asking him to return to his homeland and face punishment.
This week, photos surfaced on social media that appeared to show Halimov being treated for injuries.
Tajik security services did not comment on the photos.
Tajikistan, which is the most remittance-dependent country in the world according to the World Bank, declared IS a terrorist organization immediately after Halimov announced his defection.
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[AnNahar] Islamist gunnies in four regions of Russia's Caucasus have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, according to a recording which was welcomed by IS after being posted online.
The voice recording posted on YouTube Sunday said gunnies in Russia's 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... , Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria regions had all swore fealty to His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... , head of the feared jihadist group.
"Obeying the order of Allah... we are declaring our allegiance to Caliph Ibrahim ben Awwad ben Ibrahim al Badri al-Qoureishi al Husseini for obedience and subordination," the recording in both Arabic and Russian says, referring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
"We testify that all mujahedeen of the Caucasus... are united in this decision and there are no disagreements among us on this issue," the male voice says, listing the four Russian regions.
A front man for Islamic State group, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, on Tuesday welcomed the news in a recording of his own.
"We congratulate the soldiers of Islamic State in the Caucasus... we congratulate them for making allegiance to the Caliph. He accepts your allegiance and names Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Qadari as (governor) of the Caucasus."
Russian officials maintain that thousands of Russians, many of them from the Caucasus, have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State group.
On Wednesday, the deputy secretary of Russia's security council put the figure at "up to 2,000".
Some jihadists from the region have already issued videos supporting al-Baghdadi.
Their return, usually through The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... where they "pretend to be tourists who lost their documents" will "pose a problem," he was reported as saying by Interfax.
Photos on jihadist websites identified al-Qadari as Rustam Aselderov, a former "amir" for the 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... region in the Caucasus Emirate holy warrior group who was ousted after pledging allegiance to Baghdadi in December, becoming the first major leader to do so in the Caucasus.
He is a "young man who represents what the insurgency is today" who has no serious religious education and is oriented towards jihad, said Varvara Parkhomenko, a consultant for the International Crisis Group (ICG) and an expert on the North Caucasus.
Parkhomenko said the pledge is the latest event in the evolution of the Caucasus insurgency from a nationalist regional force to part of a global phenomenon where few members participated in the wars for Chechen independence over the last two decades.
"When the insurgency was local, they had to take into account that they act on their own territory, brutal attacks were not supported by the population," she said. "Now if they get tied up to foreign structures, such methods may become relevant."
"This is a very serious process and a challenge for Russia," she said.
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[AA.TR] The U.S. Embassy in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has denied media reports alleging that the U.S. forces are deliberately targeting civilians in Arclight airstrikes in Syria.
In a series of tweets on its official Twitter account Wednesday in English and Turkish languages, the embassy tweeted: "Media reports alleging U.S. arbitrary or deliberate Arclight airstrikes targeting civilians are absolutely false.
"Our Arclight airstrikes have targeted Daesh, in support of multiple Syrian groups fighting Daesh, including PYD. We have a very strict process for evaluating Daesh targets and must confirm their presence before any Arclight airstrike.
"We reject any efforts to permanently change the demography of the region and want all refugees to be able to return home safely," the embassy added.
Pentagon's data on U.S.-led coalition Arclight airstrikes in Syria shows that of nearly 1,800 strikes, at least 1,200 have supported Kurdish fighters connected to their self-declared "cantons" in northern Syria.
According to data from the U.S. Central Command in the last 10 months, the alliance has conducted a total of 4,624 Arclight airstrikes against Daesh targets -- 2,850 inside Iraq while 1,774 in Syria. The U.S. has conducted 3,596 of the strikes with 1,930 in Iraq and 1,666 in Syria.
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[DAWN] The Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... (MQM) has received funding from Indian authorities, claims a startling report published by the BBC on Wednesday.
According to the report which quotes an unnamed "authoritative Pak source", officials in MQM have told UK authorities that they received Indian government funds.
The report further states that UK authorities investigating MQM for alleged money laundering also found a list of weapons in an MQM property.
MQM Coordination Committee Member Wasay Jalil in response to the report posted a short statement to Twitter, rejecting BBC's allegations.
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[Ynet] Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... fighters appear to be shoring up their defenses around their Syrian stronghold Raqqa city after losing ground to Kurdish-led forces this week, a front man for the Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday.
A Kurdish-led advance deep into the heart of Islamic State territory is reversing the momentum of the bad boys, who seized major towns in both Syria and Iraq last month.
Kurds and their Syrian rebel allies came within 50 km (30 miles) of Raqqa city, Islamic State's de facto capital, from which it rules over a self-declared caliphate across large areas of Syria and Iraq.
On Wednesday YPG front man Redur Xelil said in an online message the Kurds had received information that Islamic State had "begun digging trenches in the vicinity of Raqqa to improve their defenses" following the Kurdish advances.
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[AA.TR] Pentagon data on U.S.-led coalition Arclight airstrikes in Syria shows that of nearly 1,800 strikes, at least 1,200 have supported Kurdish rebels connect the self-declared "cantons" in northern Syria. Everybody else bitched and moaned about their sovereignty or accepting help from The Great Satan. The Kurds, not being Arabs, simply said "Sure. How do you work that air-ground integration again?"
According to data from the U.S. Central Command in the last 10 months, the alliance has conducted a total of 4,624 Arclight airstrikes against Daesh targets -- 2,850 inside Iraq while 1,774 in Syria. The U.S. has conducted 3,596 of the strikes with 1,930 in Iraq and 1,666 in Syria.
The remaining 1,028 Arclight airstrikes have been conducted by coalition partners Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, La Belle France, Jordan, Netherlands, UK, 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... and United Arab Emirates.
Coalition forces have coordinated Arclight airstrikes inside Iraq with the Iraqi government, but in Syria there is no single force contributing to intelligence sharing for Daesh targets which raises the question about how the coalition is conducting Arclight airstrikes inside the country.
Unlike in Iraq, anti-Daesh forces in Syria are diverse with different agendas that caused the U.S. to drag its foot on conducting Arclight airstrikes there.
The strikes on Daesh targets in Syria began in September, one month after similar action in Iraq, following weeks of debate in the U.S.
The debate about Arclight airstrikes in Syria has heated up as the Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD's military wing -- People Protection Units, known as YPG -- recently captured the northern Syrian city of Tell Abyad and allegedly forced local Arabs and Turkmens from their lands while uprooting Daesh from the last piece of Syrian land bordering The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... .
PYD is considered by Turkey as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) that has fought against Turkey for decades.
By capturing Tell Abyad, Kurdish forces connected the two pieces of land they have controlled in northern Syria along the Turkish border, which Kurdish rebels call Jazirah and Kobani "cantons".
Last year, Kurdish rebels declared three areas in northern Syria as Kurdish "cantons". They call the area around al-Afrin city in the northwest corner "Afrin Canton"; the area around the city of Ayn al-Arab, a few hundred miles east of al-Afrin as "Kobani Canton" and the area covering the cities of Tal Hamees, al-Hasakeh, al-Qamisli and Ra'sal Ayn as "Jazirah Canton".
It's no secret that the success of YPG in connecting the forces in these two areas is due in part to the intense coalition Arclight airstrikes. But Syrian opposition groups that are also fighting Daesh and Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... 's regime, claim that Kurdish rebel groups have exploited the Arclight airstrikes for political motivations in northern Syria.
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[ARA] Officials from Iran, Iraq and Syria will hold a meeting next week to discuss the coordination of efforts by the three countries in the fight against holy warriors of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS/ISIS) in the region, said Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign relations adviser in the Iranian government.
After meeting the Syrian Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar, Velayati told news hounds in Tehran that the Iranian government is making efforts to increase coordination with Syria and Iraq to eliminate IS group.
Velayati reaffirmed the "important role" of the Syrian-Iranian-Iraqi alliance to deter the Islamic State's expansion, pointing out that high-ranking security and military officials will participate in the meeting next week "in order to unify the efforts against terrorism in the region".
In the meantime, the Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani said that the meeting of the three countries "will witness the signing of a protocol on the joint fight against terrorist organizations."
Noteworthy, this meeting comes in the midst of the Syrian regime's remarkable decline on ground in its war against the opposition factions on the one hand, and the Islamic State on the other.
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[Iran Press TV] Leb's resistance movement Hezbollah has lashed out at the ISIL Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... group for its gruesome murders and heinous acts of terror.
Hezbollah released a statement on Wednesday, condemning the crimes the Takfiri group keeps committing in Iraq as well as the group's monstrous methods of execution.
The statement said that the resistance movement maintains that killing ordinary people with such brutal methods intensifies the atrociousness of the crimes, especially in the holy Moslem fasting month of Ramadan.
Hezbollah also blamed the international community for remaining tight-lipped against the crimes perpetrated by the terrorist group.
"Hezbollah also denounces the absolute silence about these crimes by some Ulama, intellectuals, mass media and the international institutes," the statement read, adding that this "suspicious silence" emboldens "the criminal gangs to persist on their brutality."
On Tuesday, the ISIL Takfiri group released a graphic video titled "But if You Return, We Shall Return", purportedly showing the execution of 15 prisoners accused of espionage in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
International Criminal Court
[Dhaka Tribune] Militant outfits, especially the recently discovered IS-inspired Junud at-Tawheed Wal Khilafah, are now trying to recruit rich patrons to fund their own activities, detectives have found.
Detectives recently got potential leads in the search for
[DAWN] The 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Iran Press TV] 
