[ALMANAR.LB] The national parties and large segments of the locals highly appreciated the "historical speech" of Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah which he delivered on Tuesday, highly appreciating Hezbollah stances in support to the Arab country against the Saudi aggression. That's Houthis Yemen, natch. In case you were confused.
Several statements in this context were delivered and the social media websites witnessed a major popular event to thank Sayyed Nasrallah who reiterated his positions of condeming the Saudi aggression against Yemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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A woman suspected of beheading a child in her care before brandishing the severed head outside a Moscow metro station has said she acted to avenge Muslims killed in the Kremlin's campaign of air strikes in Syria. Never forget that "Islam is one"
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/03/2016 12:19 Comments ||
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#5
I'd like them on the record next time someone calls Islam a religion of peace. I'd like them recorded talking about it in Arabic as well because I suspect they laugh a bit the suck bastards.
[UPI] Prosectors in Russia believe a nanny accused of decapitating a 4-year-old girl was encouraged to kill the child by instigators still on the lam.
Gyulchekhra Bobokulova, 38, a mother of three from Uzbekistan, was locked away Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on Monday after she was caught on video apparently carrying the severed head of Nastya, a 4-year-old girl who was in her care. Officials said she suffers from mental health problems.
In court Tuesday, she said "Allah ordered" her to kill the girl.
When asked if she accepted her guilt, Bobokulova replied, "yes."
Police Sherlocks told Moscow's Presnensky district court they have not found anyone else involved in the case, but said they believed Bobokulova was "incited" to commit the alleged crimes by instigators yet to be detained.
"Suspected accomplices, specifically the instigators, are currently on the lam," an investigator told the court. Bobokulova was held without bail and will remain in jug until at least April 29.
Nastya was under Bobokulova's care for 18 months. No motive has been established, but Russian media quoted police sources as saying Bobokulova allegedly mentally deteriorated after she discovered her partner had a second family.
In recent days, Moscow residents have laid flowers and children's toys outside the Oktyabrskoye Polye metro station where Bobokulova was arrested and outside of the child's home.
Temper tantrum that will get people killed en masse?
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his country's nuclear weapons made ready for use at a moment's notice, the official state news agency reported Friday.
Kim also said his country will ready its military so it is prepared to carry out pre-emptive attacks, calling the current situation very precarious, according to KCNA.
On Thursday, North Korea fired six short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast, South Korean officials said, just hours after the U.N. Security Council approved the toughest sanctions on the North in two decades for its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2016 18:56 ||
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#1
That's alright - America's golfer-in-chief has got everything under control. That Nobel peace prize is worth more than any missile shield, or interceptor capability. Rest easy - we are protected by wise and steady hands.
#2
They were not ready to launch given the go codes before?
Yawn.
I just hope that the missile defense guys know how to freeze a (working) baseline.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
03/03/2016 19:20 Comments ||
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#3
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from North Korea against any ally of the United States as an attack of North Korea AND China on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon North Korea AND China.
THAT should get China's attention
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/03/2016 19:22 Comments ||
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#4
China better reign in their little mad dog before all hell breaks out in the neighborhood. I do not care if Pudgy is bat-sh*t crazy and making empty threats for effect. When you threaten nuclear weapons use, people take you seriously and plan accordingly. It is signing your death warrant.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/03/2016 19:36 Comments ||
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#6
Come on Obama and the Democratic party even the elites in the Republican party - Kim is providing you the perfect diversion from bad press. Just bomb him back to the stone age.
[ALMANAR.LB] Oil prices fell Wednesday as traders awaited the release of US crude inventory data, which are expected to show a further rise in stockpiles.
At around 1100 GMT, the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in April slid 74 cents to stand at $33.66 a barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for May shed 36 cents to $36.45 a barrel compared with Monday's close.
Crude futures had risen Tuesday on fresh Russian calls for a production freeze to reduce the global supply glut.
"US crude oil inventories increasing is almost becoming a norm. Inventories are already at a historic high" and markets are taking a nonchalant stance towards a continued inch upwards, said Daniel Ang, analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
"US production, on the other hand, is slightly more interesting as it is finally starting to show corrections. We highly expect to see US oil production drop a lot more now that prices are in the $30 region, which could result in the easing of global oil supply," he added in a note.
A Bloomberg News survey ahead of Wednesday's Energy Information Administration (EIA) report showed that US crude stockpiles probably increased 3.4 million barrels from an 86-year high last week.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Call me when there are rumors of cannibalism in Iran
#4
Iran probably needs $100/bbl oil to break even given their proclivity for spending on everything but basics and heavily subsidizing local petrol for the rubes.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/03/2016 12:18 Comments ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] 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) terrorist group appears to have been looking for nuclear materials in Belgium to build radioactive ‘dirty bomb’, the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington reports.
A small video camera stashed in a row of bushes silently recorded the comings and goings of the family of a Brussels-area man with an important scientific pedigree last year, producing a detailed chronology of the family’s movements. At one point, two men came under cover of darkness to retrieve the camera, before driving away with their headlamps off, a separate surveillance camera in the area revealed later.
The Belgian police discovered the secret film on Nov. 30 while searching the Auvelais home of a man with ties to the Islamic State terror group. But they became far more alarmed when they figured out that its star was a senior researcher at a Belgian nuclear center that produces a significant portion of the world’s supply of radioisotopes.
That realization quickly got the attention of the world’s counterterrorism experts.
A diagnostic tool used by hospitals and factories around the globe, radioisotopes are also capable of causing radiation poisoning and sickness, making them a potential target for Lions of Islam seeking to build a so-called "dirty" bomb that could contaminate the downtown area of a major city, sowing panic and causing billions of dollars in financial losses.
Belgian authorities have since speculated that the group was trying to figure out a way to collect such materials from the nuclear center, perhaps by kidnapping the man or one of his family members as the first step in building a bomb.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[TODAYSZAMAN] A front man for German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... said on Wednesday that EU states should not leave Greece alone to deal with an influx of migrants colonists and refugees, but also urged Athens to do its part by protecting its border effectively.
"Greece should not be left alone in the situation in which it finds itself," Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference.
"At the same time, Greece must ... protect its borders effectively and also push ahead with the construction of functioning hotspots and sufficient accommodation capacities," he added.
Elsewhere, Macedonia intermittently opened its border with Greece to a tiny trickle of Syrian and Iraqi refugees Wednesday, leaving about 10,000 more people camped on the Greek side, with more arriving daily.
The border bottleneck has left at least 25,000 people stranded in Greece, the first European country that migrants colonists reach in smuggling boats from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... . As the prosperous but divided continent flails in search of a workable solution, individual countries led by Austria have imposed immigration caps that have caused a domino effect down the Balkan immigration corridor, which has been traversed by a million people over the past year.
Greek police say Macedonian police opened the Idomeni crossing at midnight Tuesday and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, each time for two hours. They admitted a total of 170 people from Syria and Iraq -- the only nationalities allowed to continue north.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
The EU can always consult The Donald (tm) about the ins and outs of wall building. Is there a wall building for dummies?
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
03/03/2016 7:34 Comments ||
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#2
The Greeks did not cause this problem. They should sue Merkel and Obama for damages.
[TODAYSZAMAN] Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtas has said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... joined ranks with potential coup supporters and carried out a coup against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and Parliament in order to prevent anyone from toppling him from power.
"We are living through a coup period right now. We have already had a coup; it's happened. It was after July 7. And now, we have a coup government leading The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ," Demirtas said during an exclusive interview with Haberdar online news portal that was made available on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"There could have been a coup against Erdogan; instead, what he did was to join forces with coup supporters and carry out his own coup against the government. All of which is why the government has been completely bypassed at this stage. Not even a police officer will listen to [Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu," he said.
Since the June 7 general election of last year, in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Erdogan's former party, failed to win enough seats to rule as a single party, Turkey has been hit with violence due to festivities between the Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) following the end of a settlement process between the government and the PKK last July.
Demirtas said that when Erdogan restarted the war with the PKK, he knew that the government was not in control of all the instruments of the state and that it controlled neither the police, the military nor the bureaucracy.
"When the war that he himself had provoked broke out, Erdogan saw that the government actually couldn't fight against the PKK effectively. ... I think Erdogan needed to make a choice. He saw that he was going to lose. ... The war that he provoked after June 7 caused a level of social outrage he hadn't predicted as we headed toward the Nov. 1 [2015 snap election]. He had to make a choice. In order to get the state institutions that weren't tied to him, like the military and the police, to fight for him, he had to strike compromises with them. This is why he had private meetings with the Ergenekon people, the supporters of [ultra-nationalist Workers' Party (IP) leader Dogu] Perincek, the former BBP [Grand Unity Party] people and so on," Demirtas said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[TODAYSZAMAN] Residents returned to the flashpoint town of Cizre, in southeastern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Wednesday to find many of their homes destroyed and at least one body still lying inside a destroyed house.
A first wave of arrivals reached the town at the break of dawn, their vehicles loaded with personal belongings and, in many cases, children, after authorities partially lifted a 24-hour curfew that had been imposed to facilitate security operations against Kurdish Death Eaters.
Police carefully inspected their documents as well as the contents of their cars and bags as they trickled into the town near the banks of the Tigris river.
The level of damage in some neighborhoods evoked the early days of military conflict in neighboring Syria with buildings gutted by shelling or partially collapsed. Shell casings littered the streets of the Sur neighborhood where residents made a grisly discovery - the corpse of an unidentifiable male.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[TODAYSZAMAN] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has hit only radical terrorist 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.... in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions in Syria since the start of a cease-fire last weekend, the Turkish Foreign Ministry front man said on Wednesday, rejecting Russian claims of transporting weapons-loaded trucks into Syria.
Foreign Ministry front man Tanju Bilgic said at a briefing with news hounds in Ankara that Russian claims of weapons being sent to Syria hidden in aid convoys from Turkey are not to be taken seriously and were designed to cover Russian war crimes.
He also said Russian and the government forces have been carrying out bombardments since the truce began.
Moscow's Defense Ministry has said that four journalists were lightly injured along the Syria-Turkey border as a result of heavy artillery fire on Tuesday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported that journalists from China, Canada, Bulgaria and Russia were maimed in the village of Kinsibba, which was being shelled from the town of Bidama and elsewhere along Syria's border with Turkey. Kinsibba is under the control of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... forces.
The ministry described the conditions of the maimed journalists as fair, according to the news agency. Shortly before, Syria's state news agency said several members of a group of foreign journalists were maimed by mortars fired from the Turkish side of the border and that the area targeted had recently been seized from rebel forces.
Turkey has been shelling the north of Syria near Azaz for the last few weeks, targeting the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), saying that it is a national security measure and Ankara will not let the terrorist PYD, which is an affiliate of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) cross the west of Euphrates River.
Russian Foreign Ministry front man Mikhail Bogdanov said Russia will raise recent Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in Geneva during a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[Daily Excelsior] India today suggested that action against terror by Pakistain was a greater priority for it than resumption of a bilateral dialogue in the aftermath of the Pathankot attack, which led to postponement of the Foreign Secretary-level talks.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said there are "obstacles" in improving ties between the two countries and noted that Pakistain needs to change its attitude towards a number of issues of which terrorism is "central".
"In the aftermath of a terror attack, if you ask me what do you give priority to, a terrorist attack or a diplomatic dialogue, I think the answer should be obvious," he said.
The Foreign Secretary was replying to a question during an interactive session at the Raisina Dialogue -- a conclave on geoeconomics and geopolitics -- on whether FS-level talks were linked to action by Islamabad against perpetrators of the Pathankot attack, based on information given to it by India.
The comments by Jaishankar came as a five-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) from Pakistain is likely to visit India this month to probe the Pathankot terror assault. India had said Masood Azhar, head of Pakistain-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, criminal masterminded the attack and sought action against him and other perpetrators.
Jaishankar said the two countries were in touch with each other following the attack, primarily at the level of National Security Advisers, and to a certain extent between him and his Pak counterpart. He said "parallel processes" are at works.
On improving connectivity between India and Pakistain, he said, "It takes two hands to clap" and that India would like to have same kind of ties with Islamabad like it has with other neighbours.
"Most people in this country want to treat Pakistain as a normal neighbour. So, we would like to do with Pakistain what we do with everybody else. But the fact is that there are obstacles and we know what the obstacles are," he said, emphasising on the need to remove them.
Talking about overall Indo-Pak ties, he said India was for a "much more modern relationship" with Islamabad but for that to happen the neighbouring country needed a change in attitude towards a number of issues of which terrorism is a "central" one.
To a question whether India and Pakistain can remain isolated, Jaishankar said they should not and that New Delhi has been making sincere efforts to improve its ties with Islamabad.
"I cannot think of any Prime Minister of India who did not strive for better relations with Pakistain. There may be differences in nuances, pace and packaging," he said.
Last month, Pakistain had lodged an FIR in the Pathankot terror attack case which was seen by India as a "step forward" in bringing the perpetrators of the strike to justice.
The FIR was filed against "unknown persons" though India had named Masood Azhar as the criminal mastermind of the strike.
India had submitted evidence to show that the six perpetrators who attacked the air base came from across the border, and demanded action against the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed led by Azhar.
Yesterday, Pakistain Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... ’s Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... said the SIT may visit India in the next few days and hoped that the Foreign Secretary-level talks will be scheduled very soon.
Pakistain had last week set up a five-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the terror attack.
Earlier, a six-member SIT was set up by the Government for conducting an initial probe into the January 2 attack based on the leads given by India.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Many prominent religious personalities attended the funeral prayer of Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of former Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... governor Salmaan Taseer, at Liaquat Bagh on Tuesday.
Mumtaz Qadri was hanged early on Monday morning after his clemency appeal was rejected by President Mamnoon Hussain.
"The government protected snuffies and delayed their cases for several years despite the fact they killed hundreds of people but it executed Qadri in haste," said Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi, a former federal minister for religious affairs in ex-prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ... ’s cabinet, while talking to Dawn.
Mr Kazmi, who arrived in the city to attend the funeral prayers, said Mumtaz Qadri killed the former governor out of his love for the holy prophet (peace be upon him). He said the huge gathering at the funeral was enough to prove that people considered Mumtaz Qadri as a martyr.
Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman added: "The presence of such a large number of people in the funeral is a referendum against the government. The government killed Mumtaz Qadri and people rejected the government’s act. I have never seen such a big gathering in any political or religious function," he said.
Police and the capital administration remained on their toes throughout the day on Tuesday to ensure that the funeral procession of Mumtaz Qadri passed Islamabad to Athaal village in Bhara Kahu without any hindrance. All arrangements were put in place to meet any untoward incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Adviser for Foreign Affairs Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... has said that a Pak team will visit India "in the next few days" to investigate the Jan 2 terrorist attack on an airbase in Pathankot.
An official transcript released on Tuesday also quoted him as saying that the foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries could be rescheduled soon after the visit.
After a meeting with US 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... on Monday, Mr Aziz said it was unfortunate that the Pathankot attack disrupted the resumption of secretary-level talks between India and Pakistain.
He pointed out that since the attack, Pakistain had taken a number of "important steps" for resumption of these talks.
"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... called the Indian Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) immediately after the attack and assured him of Pakistain’s support in the investigation. National security advisers are maintaining frequent contacts," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... (Fazl) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... says that although the religious parties are not in a position to form the government, they can definitely derail it.
"Rana Sanaullah says that the people do not cast their vote for religious parties but I want to make it clear to Sanaullah that though we are not in a position to form the government, we are able to derail the government whenever we want," he said while talking to the media here on Tuesday.
Fazl said the government should introduce legislation under which a person who committed blasphemy against the Holy Prophet be punished automatically and people might not have to take law in their hands. He said a meeting of religious elements would be called soon over the issues of the protection of religious seminaries and Women Protection Act to devise future line of action.
The JUI-F chief said the Women Protection Act passed by the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Assembly was against the constitution, law and Islamic teachings.
"We reject all such laws and will continue to play our role to protect the Sharia as such laws usually are introduced to fulfill the foreign agenda," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The chairman of Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani, said that some clauses of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... (KP) Domestic Violence Bill are in contradiction with Shariah and the country's Constitution.
Talking to media in the federal capital on Wednesday, Sherani said that CII is holding discussion over the bill and some clauses of it are under consideration for being in contradiction with the law of the land and also Shariah.
Sherani said that the CII's formation and authority is protected under the Constitution and if any assembly, whether provincial or national, moves to dissolve the council then that act will be considered against the Constitution of Pakistain.
"Tell me whether that assembly should be lauded or dissolved for acting against the Constitution," Sherani asked the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Trying to lure him into the murderous MoslemIslamic 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) group, the would-be recruiter told Pak journalist Hasan Abdullah, "Brother, you could be such an asset to the Ummah"-- the Islamic community. Abdullah replied that he was enjoying life and had no plans to join the murderous Moslems.
"The enjoyment of this life is short-lived. You should work for the Akhira" -- the afterlife, the recruiter pressed.
IS had its eye on Abdullah not because he adheres to any murderous Moslem ideology but because, as a journalist, the group believed he could be a boon to its propaganda machine, Abdullah told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, recounting his meeting with the recruiter.
His encounter was a sign of how the IS is looking for sophisticated skills as it builds its foothold in new territory: Pakistain.
The 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... police’s top counter terrorism official, Raja Umer Khitab, warns that IS has great potential to grow in Pakistain.
IS first announced its presence in the country with a bloody attack in May in Karachi in which gunnies boarded a bus, ordered them to bow their heads, then opened fire, killing 45. The gunnies left behind a tattered piece of paper proclaiming, "Beware ... We have entered the battlefield for retribution and the implementation of Shariah."
The number of IS loyalists in Pakistain is not known. Government officials only recently admitted that they have a presence and insist loyalists here have no known operational links to the IS leadership in Iraq and Syria.
Still, in one of the first warnings by an official about IS, intelligence chief Aftab Sultan told a Senate committee earlier this month that hundreds of Paks have gone to fight in Syria, and some are now coming home to Pakistain to recruit.
One way IS holy warriors are trying to recruit and build is through women. One academy for women in Karachi’s Baloch Colony neighborhood recruited women by playing IS videos in the classrooms, Khitab told the AP. The 20 female students then reached out to middle-class and wealthy Karachi women, urging them to donate their religious tithes to the IS cause of establishing a caliphate.
Several women were detained, including the wife of a suspected IS operative, and were released after questioning, Khitab said.
IS recruiters have been stalking university campuses. For example, the suspected criminal mastermind in the bus attack, Saad Aziz, was a graduate of the US-funded Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.
A professor at the Institute, Huma Baqai, said there are radicalised professors teaching in some of the country’s top universities. They "are using the classrooms to mold (students’) minds," she said. "There is no scrutiny in what happens in the classroom."
An intelligence official told the AP that security officials have interrogated several university professors suspected of supporting IS and trying to recruit students.
"Finding people who are willing to strap on a boom jacket and blow themselves up is easy. There are hundreds, thousands," said Abdullah, the journalist. But the educated are a bigger prize. He said he knows two other journalists whom IS tried to enlist. Abdullah said IS probably sought him because he was known from his work writing on extremism in the region and has met many holy warriors personally.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] For years, Pakistain has denied that the Afghan Taliban enjoys a safe haven on its soil or that Islamabad could do anything to end their violent campaign in Afghanistan that has seen tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and international troops killed since 2002.
But in an unusually candid admission, Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... , Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, says that Islamabad has considerable influence over the Taliban because its leaders live in the country.
"We have some influence over them because their leadership is in Pakistain and they get some medical facilities. Their families are here," he said. "We can use those levers to pressurize them to say, 'Come to the table'. But we can't negotiate on behalf of the Afghan government because we cannot offer them what the Afghan government can offer them."
Aziz made the comments at Washington's Council on Foreign Relations think tank on March 1. He added that Islamabad pressured Afghan Taliban leaders to participate in the first-ever direct talks with the Afghan government on July 7, 2015.
"We have to use these levers and [have] restricted their movements, restricted their access to hospitals and other facilities, and threatened them that 'If you don't come forward and talk, we will at least expel you'," he said of the tough message Islamabad sent to Taliban leaders, most of whom are believed to be operating out of Quetta, the capital of southwestern 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... Province.
"[We told the Taliban leaders that] we have hosted [them] enough for 35 years, and we can't do it anymore because the whole world is blaming us just by [their] presence here," he said.
Pakistain, Afghanistan, the United States, and China last week agreed on a road map to end the Afghan war through negotiations between Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... and the Taliban.
Taliban representatives are expected to join Afghan officials in the first round of peace talks in Pakistain during the next few weeks.
Aziz, however, took pains to convince Washington's audience that Islamabad has abandoned its support for the Islamist holy warrior groups.
"After our government came into power in 2013, there has been a significant change in our policy. We are now moving against all murderous Moslems without discrimination," he said.
Speaking alongside US State Secretary 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... on February 29, Aziz said Pakistain now has little interest in fomenting violence in neighboring Afghanistan.
"Who would like to set one's own neighbor on fire with the hope of saving one's backyard?" he asked.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – The Italian government announced on Wednesday, that it decided to send 130 soldiers, in addition to eight helicopters for combat and logistics purposes to help Iraq in its war against terrorism, while pointed out that the helicopters will be deployed in the province of Erbil. The Italian government also revealed its intention to deploy an infantry force to protect the Italian team that will work on the maintenance of Mosul Dam.
The Italian Minister of Defense Roberta Pinotti said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The Italian government will send four Mongoose (A- 129) helicopters and four other NH90 planes to Iraq in the coming few days,” indicating that, “The aircraft will be deployed the soonest in northern Erbil for combat, search and rescue purposes.”
Pinotti added, “The Italian military aid includes sending 130 soldiers to Iraq as part of its ongoing efforts to assist Iraq in its war against ISIS, as well as deploying an infantry force to protect the Italian contractors working to repair Mosul Dam in the province of Nineveh.”
Posted by: badanov ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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[ALMANAR.LB] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Tuesday for the closure of Syria's border with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to cut off outside supplies to "terrorists", including through humanitarian convoys.
"Of course, neither in ceasefire agreements, nor in the process of political settlement is there a place for bandidosturbans and hard boys," Lavrov told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"A very special task is to cut the terrorists' supply from the outside. For this purpose it is important to close the Syrian-Turkish border, since across this border those gangs receive arms, including with humanitarian convoys," Lavrov said.
He insisted that a "landslide defeat of the ISIL group... al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... and those of their kind is a necessary precondition for securing the rights of long-suffering peoples of Syria" and the rest of the region.
His comments came after aid workers on Monday made the first delivery of desperately-needed assistance since the start of Syria's fragile ceasefire four days ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2016 00:00 ||
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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.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in 
funeral prayer of Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of former
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
