[IsraelTimes] Official Iranian mouthpiece and others claim former IDF chief caught while aiding Islamic State. Er, no
Rumors that a high-ranking IDF officer had been captured while working alongside 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.... forces began circulating on the Internet last week, beginning on assorted websites dedicated almost solely to starting and perpetuating conspiracy theories and later being picked up by the Iranian government's official mouthpiece Fars news.
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Riyadh and Taiz, Asharq Al-Awsat—Arab coalition warplanes targeted a farm housing Houthi rebels in northern Yemen on Monday rather than a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, the spokesman told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Speaking via telephone, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said coalition jets launched a raid on a farm in Sa’ada in northern Yemen on Monday housing militants and military vehicles belonging to the Houthi movement, denying claims of targeting a hospital operated by the international relief organization.
Coalition jets have not targeted any civilians since the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis, codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, started in late March, Asiri said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Wednesday the destruction of a Doctors Without Borders- run hospital in the Houthi stronghold, an attack he blamed on the Saudi-led coalition.
“Air raids on Sa’ada province are continuous and the coalition only targets sites after identifying them on the ground according to accurate information,” Asiri said.
According to the spokesman, militants targeted by the coalition jets were preparing an attack on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen.
Only one week before the attack took place, the relief organization informed the coalition of its location inside the northern province and gave it the coordinates of the hospital, Asiri said, dismissing the accusation as “desperate.”
He said: “The strategy of the coalition forces since the start of Operation Decisive Storm has been not to target civilian residences and hospitals at all, concentrating instead on rebel positions, command and control centers and weapons depots.”
Asiri urged international organizations, including the UN, to visit Yemen in order to monitor the violations which, he said, although committed by the Houthi militias are attributed to the coalition.
Meanwhile, Saudi-led warplanes dropped weapons and ammunition to government loyalists battling Houthis in Taiz on Wednesday.
The airdrops landed in the southern Dhubab district after Houthis were driven from the southern area, military sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Houthis in Yemen for more than six months in a bid to restore the internationally recognized President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi whose government was toppled from power by the Iran-backed rebels in September of 2014.
#1
Are the Houthi signatories to the Geneva Conventions? Besides, when a hospital rents out space for a terrorist HQ it has kissed goodbye to the social contract shielding it from attack.
Sort of like Hezbullies storing missiles in school basements even though I suggest taking them out at night.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/31/2015 15:40 Comments ||
Top||
A senior Houthi leader said efforts to convene UN-backed peace talks for Yemen were failing and blamed the United States and Saudi Arabia for continued aggression.
The UN envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed said last week he was hoping to begin preparatory talks with the government and Houthis separately and expected formal talks between the sides "in the coming weeks".
"All understandings for a political solution leading to the cessation of aggression have failed," Houthi spokesman Saleh Al Samad wrote on Facebook.
"Statements put out by the media of the aggressor do nothing but deceive and mislead."
A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes on Houthi positions for seven months, seeking to restore the Yemeni government forced into exile last year after the Iran-allied rebels took over the capital of Sanaa.
The Houthis accuse the Saudi coalition of acting to further US ambitions to dominate the region.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh on Thursday that the bombing campaign may soon end, noting the acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 by the Houthis and affiliated militias.
The UN envoy wants the talks to focus on main elements of the resolution - withdrawing militias from key cities, releasing prisoners, returning heavy weapons seized from the army, improving the humanitarian situation and resuming dialogue.
Houthi leaders endorsed the plan in early October and agreed to join the UN-backed talks.
But Samad's statement called for the Houthis to intensify their bid for power.
"We should be patient and move with strength and courage in the face of aggression, to fortify our country against domination," he wrote.
"We must redouble our efforts and exert ourselves to the utmost, ensuring the sacrifices made by our people over the past months do not go to waste."
Previous UN-sponsored peace talks faltered in June after President AbdRabbu Mansour Hadi's government demanded the Houthis pull out of cities captured since last September as a precondition for a ceasefire.
The Saudi-led coalition has since made progress on the battlefield, taking control of the southern port city of Aden in July and claiming territory in Taiz in the past week.
But the Houthis retain control of much of Yemen, despite almost daily air bombardment. The fighting has killed some 5,600 people in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country.
#1
See also FREEREPUBLIC > [LWJ.com] "POPULAR MOBILIZATION COMMITTEE" [Iran-backed, Iraq-based Shiite] MILITIA THRRATENS TO STRIKE AND DESTROY SAUDI GOVT.
* TOPIX, BIGNEWSNETWORK > SAUDI ARABIA: INTERNAL MOVEMENT BY ROYALS TO REMOVE KING SALMAN FROM POWER MAY DESTROY SAUDI GOVERNMENT, leaving the Govt. + Country open to takeover or domination vee ISIS/ISIL includ AL-Nusra, + also Sunni KSA rival Shia Iran.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > ANY THREAT TO SAUDI ARABIA WILL EVOKE STRONG RESPONSE FROM PAKISTAN: [Pak] COAS [Gen. Raheel Sharif].
#3
War or diplomacy. The Houthis choose war. As general William Tecumseh Sherman said, "War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/31/2015 14:42 Comments ||
Top||
Residents of the Governorate of Taiz have managed to take 12.5 tonnes of flour into the governorate's capital after they broke the siege laid by the Houthi rebels and militia loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
In a show of solidarity, men, women and children from across the governorate crossed the mountains surrounding Taiz city on foot carrying bags of flour to the besieged city which is still facing a shortage of food, water and medicines as the rebel militia continued to shell residential areas.
The effort was part of the "Hand in Hand to Break the Siege Laid on Taiz" campaign, being conducted by the residents of Yemen's southwestern governorate using local resources and donations.
Meanwhile, the UN special envoy for Yemen said on Thursday he was confident that peace talks between the government and Shia rebels will "probably" be held in mid-November in Geneva.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, contacted in the Gulf by telephone, said his team was in contact with the Yemeni parties to discuss the modalities of the UN-brokered peace talks.
"I am very optimistic" that the talks will take place "between 10 and 15" November or "around November 15", he said.
"We are 90 per cent agreed that they will be in Geneva, but there is also a possibility of Muscat. It will probably be Geneva," said Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
He stressed that the two sides were being positive, "both the Houthis who have shown a lot of flexibility, as well as the government side. Today there is an optimism on which I would like to capitalise."
On statements from Riyadh that Saudi-led military operations in support of the Yemeni government are nearing an end, the UN envoy said: "I am convinced that they are sincere." Yemen has since March, when the coalition launched air strikes, been wracked by a conflict that has claimed nearly 5,000 lives, according to the UN.
A first attempt to hold peace talks in Geneva collapsed in June without the warring parties even sitting down in the same room.
Last month, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government backed away from talks that were to be held in Oman, insisting that the rebels first withdraw from captured territory in Yemen.
The Houthis overran Sanaa unopposed in September 2014 and went on to battle for control of several regions, aided by troops loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
JEDDAH: A former security man who is being tried along with 24 members of the Awamiya terrorist cell has been charged with treason for supporting anti-national elements and participating in rallies against the government.
The defendant has also been charged with attacking, with a machine gun, the Awamiya police station in 2011, enabling suspects to escape, besides hiding arms and ammunition for the other members of the cell, local media reported.
In the first week of Oct. 2011, a group of troublemakers, some of them astride motorcycles and carrying petrol bombs, indulged in rioting, disrupting security in Awamiya, Qatif province.
Fourteen people, including 11 security personnel, were injured in that incident.
The Specialized Criminal Court has resumed the trial against the 24 defendants, who have been charged with assaulting security men and citizens, damaging public and private property, looting shops and stealing money, possession of arms and ammunition and attempting to spread chaos and destabilize security.
According to the report in local media, one of the members of the cell (defendant number 13) has been charged with nearly 400 counts, following a total of 53 court sessions. New details have revealed that defendant number 16, the former security man who has been charged with treason, is the elder brother of one of the wanted men on the list of 23 wanted terrorists issued by the Ministry of Interior.
[IsraelTimes] Hundreds of fighters from Dagestan have joined jihadist ranks; local poverty and unemployment in Muslim region are partly to blame
The Russian province of 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... , a flashpoint for Islamic violence in the North Caucasus, is feeding hundreds of fighters to the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/31/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
International rights groups have accused him of using extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture to uproot the Islamist insurgency in the region.
[Ynet] North Korea is digging a new tunnel at its nuclear test site with an eye to conducting more tests of atomic devices in the future, a South Korean news report said on Friday, two days before the leaders of the South, Japan and China meet in Seoul.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter also makes a separate visit on Sunday to discuss response to the North's missile and nuclear threat with South Korean defense officials.
The site is on North Korea's east coast where three previous nuclear tests were conducted, and there's an active movement of workers and vehicles working on a new tunnel, Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed government source as saying.
[Ynet] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has killed around 2,000 Death Eaters in recent operations inside and outside its borders and the operations will continue, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
Given the speaker, it is my understanding that the true number may be an order of magnitude less, or 200.
"Now 2,000 faceless myrmidons have been killed inside and outside of the country," Erdogan said in comments broadcast by television station AHaber.
Turkey has carried out attacks on 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.... Death Eaters in Syria and also on Kurdish holy warrior positions at home and in northern Iraq.
...but almost entirely Kurds.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/31/2015 11:38 ||
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[Rudaw] Two Turkish news dailies known to oppose The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Friday published front-page headlines of a surprisingly pro-government nature, just days after the Turkish judiciary took over control of their operations.
The alleged change of political allegiance followed the Ankara Prosecutor's Office move on Tuesday to assign a caretaker panel to manage several newspapers and TV stations owned by Koza Ipek group, among these the Bugun and Millet newspapers. The seizure has been seen by some analysts as further blow to independent media ahead of elections next week.
Koza Ipek has been accused by the Turkish government of financing the US-based Turkish holy man Fethullah Gulen, who the AKP has accused of heading a "parallel state" aimed at bringing down the current government.
After the takeover, the once-critical dailies dedicated their Friday front-pages to the 92th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
"Turkey one heart" read Millet's headline with a photo from Thursday's celebrations featuring Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan, who is still seen by some as a main figure in the AKP although he is no longer officially a member.
Bugun had a similar nationalist headline and images.
[Rudaw] A record number of 220 people, mostly young men, have fled territories controlled by 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 (ISIS) in northern Iraq to the Kurdistan region during October.
The young men, who come from Sunni areas in Nineveh and Anbar provinces, say life has become increasingly difficult in ISIS-controlled territories, which new rules imposed virtually every day.
"Recently they said it was prohibited to smoke cigarettes in public and people could get lashes or their finger amputated if the violated the ban," an unidentified 19-year-old Sunni man told Rudaw TV Friday at a Peshmarga base near Erbil.
He had travelled with some 50 other people who had turned themselves over to a Peshmarga brigade nearby.
"We saw the Peshmarga positions near our village near djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and decided to seek refuge with them," the man said.
Many of the young men were from Mosul where ISIS has been in power since June last year.
The Iraqi government has not frozen salaries and pensions to civil servants in Mosul, fearing ISIS would gain larger influence among thousands of young men in the city.
Ismat Rajab, head of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) branch in Mosul, told Rudaw ISIS had ordered hospital personnel in the city to only treat maimedforces of Evil and send away regular patients.
Heavy festivities have recently taken place in the town of Baji, near Mosul. Most ISIS maimed have been transferred to Mosul hospital for treatment.
"They have told hospital managers that ordinary patients can be treated outside the hospitals in neighborhood clinics," Rajab said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/31/2015 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Shlomo Mor-Yosef says payments also to be frozen for injured assailants, spouses of those killed carrying out assaults
Consequences.
The head of Israel's National Insurance Institute, Shlomo Mor-Yosef, warned Saturday that the organization would suspend child benefits for the families of minors who carry out attacks on Israelis.
According to the Hebrew-language Walla website, Mor-Yosef told a cultural event in Beersheba that following a government decision, "families of children convicted of carrying out terror attacks will not be eligible for benefits for that child."
He added that "a terrorist who is maimed is ineligible for disability benefits [and] when a terrorist is killed, his wife will not be eligible to receive a widow's pension."
Many of the attacks carried out against Israeli civilians and security forces in recent weeks have been carried out by minors. On Saturday morning, a 17-year-old Paleostinian was rubbed out by a security guard at a West Bank crossing as he ran towards him brandishing a knife. The thwarted attack took place exactly a week after a 16-year-old from the same town was killed trying to carry out an identical stabbing at the same location near Jenin.
Israel has previously sought to discourage attacks by using punitive measures against the families of those who carry them out. This week, the Supreme Court slapped an injunction last week on a government order to demolish the family homes of several gunnies it says were involved in attacks over the past year. The state says it wants to be able to raze buildings within days of an attack as a punishment for terrorism, arguing that such a measure serves as a deterrent to others.
Channel 2 television reported last month that under new regulations, parents of minors caught throwing stones could be fined NIS 100,000 ($26,000). Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked was also seeking to impose fines on the parents of children under the age of 12 of NIS 10,000-20,000 ($2,500-$5,000), which would be returned if the children do not repeat the crime within a year.
Under current Israeli law, children below the age of 12 cannot be held accountable for crimes.
[Rudaw] Syria's armed opposition groups called Russia "an enemy of the people" and expressed distrust of Moscow's intention of aiding rebels fighting 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 (ISIS).
Comments by various Syrian opposition groups followed a declaration by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying this week that his country was "ready to help not only the Syrian army, but all opposition units confronting bully boyz on the ground in Syria."
"We do not trust them (Russians)," said Ahmed Joaiwir, a military leader of Liwa' Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... , one of the groups fighting ISIS. He said that was because Russia had first tried to fight the opposition to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... "But they failed, and our mujahideen were able to destroy them. They (Russia) got the opposite of what they aimed for. Now they want to work with those who Russia calls terrorists, but {ISIS} is a creation of Russian intelligence," he added.
Among the several influential armed Syrian opposition groups, some have united under the banner of the Supreme Military Council of Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... , while others act independently.
Abu Yusuf al-Adnani, a military leader of the al-Jabha al-Shamiya opposition, called Russia "an enemy of the Syrian people."
"We don't want Russia's help and they are not welcome," he declared. "Russia had not even recognized the Syrian opposition, but after its major loses Russia decided to recognize the Syrian opposition," al-Andnani said.
Russia's first Arclight airstrikes in Syria were on opposition groups opposed to Assad. The rebel groups accused Russia of targeting the opposition instead of ISIS.
According to Yassir al-Ta'I, head of public relations at the Free-fighters Movement of Levant, "Lavrov's statement is the best evidence of the mess the Russia has got itself into."
"Before, they used to say that there is no free army and no revolution, but now they offer to provide air cover for the revolutionaries against ISIS. We tell Mr. Lavrov: your interests are protected with the Syrian people and not al-Assad's regime," he said.
Abu Ammar, a military leader at the First Regiment gang, told Rudaw that "Russia is a terror state and aids bully boyz worldwide."
Russia officials have reported they have begun contacting the Syrian opposition.
Russian statements about working with the opposition are seen as a change in policy. Only two weeks before the start of Russian Arclight airstrikes in Syria, President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... named the Syrian army and Kurdish forces as the only forces "truly fighting ISIS."
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.
North Korea
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
