[DAWN] The leader of the Afghan Taliban called on followers on Friday to end divisions and rally behind him in the battle against the 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.... government.
In a message distributed to media, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor claimed the Taliban were winning the war and were "in a better state than at any other time".
The Taliban were toppled in the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan. The insurgency has escalated since the end in 2014 of the US-NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... combat mission left inexperienced Afghan forces to battle the gunnies largely on their own. As the Taliban launched their annual warm-weather offensive last year, the government responded with large-scale military operations. Ferocious battles have raged in the krazed killers’ southern heartland of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province and elsewhere.
Separately, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. had been hoping to revive a stalled grinding of the peace processor with face-to-face talks earlier this month with Taliban representatives. The Taliban issued a statement last week saying they would not participate.
Referring to Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate, Mansoor said that all efforts must be made to reunite the Taliban, split since last summer when they admitted that their founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years.
Mansoor, previously Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... ’s deputy, took over amid much controversy and rifts soon emerged, leading to infighting that damaged the united Taliban front they had cultivated for so long.
Referring to the "brothers who grew upset over the past year or remained at a distance from the Islamic Emirate," Mansoor said everything should be done to "placate, assuage and integrate them back into the united fold".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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Aden- A Yemeni military commander said that operations executed by the National Army of Yemen, which is supported by the Popular Resistance and the Saudi-led Arabian coalition, are ongoing. Operations will not seize until all Yemeni governorates under militia dominance are freed, the commander stated.
Pro-legitimacy campaigns are still running and have not been affected by the truce established at the Yemeni-Saudi borders.
Major General Amin Al Waeli, commander of the 6th Military district of the National Army, spoke of his concerns around Houthi treachery and betrayal to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
His alarms were set off by Houthi future actions whether on borders or inside of Yemen.
As for the border truce, Maj. Gen. Al Waeli stated that Yemenis welcome any truce sparing the bloodshed of Yemenis and Muslims. Yet, Houthis are notorious for not keeping their end of any deal, Al Waeli added.
He believes that the Houthis commitment to the border truce is only for the sake of intensify their attacks elsewhere inside Yemen.
The 6th district General revealed that Houthis, over the past few days, have staged a series of attacks, in al-Jawf governorate, in an attempt to recapture the governorates capital.
“They have failed,” Al-Waeli said.
He also told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthis attacking Saudi Arabian land has been a long requested Iranian demand. The insurgents have performed all their operations to please Iran.
“I have information on Iran admonishing Yemenis who visited Tehran for not providing a leeway for Iran to gain foothold in the Saada Governorate,” al Waeli said.
The information I acquired “I heard from one of the tribal leaders, who had returned from Iran during 1994. Iranians had expressed their discontent to the leader for not gaining foothold. They mentioned having established a proxy group in Yemen, and were only seeking the route through Saada to be facilitated in order for them to reach Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia,” he added.
Al Waeli said that Houthis have devoted themselves to the border truce for now; however, they will not stop waging wars against the Sunni people of Yemen, given that their Shi’ite absolute approach has already been anchored in Saada.
The duality in Houthi approach is annexed to their deceiving nature. Misguiding tactics used by the insurgents can be proven by noticing that they maintain peace on the borders, yet carry on with the bloodshed inside Yemen.
Available information indicates that Houthis are gathering their masses to transfer them to the battlefront in Taiz. Over the past few days, a part of Taiz was liberated by the pro-legitimacy forces.
The military official emphasized the grave losses suffered by Houthi militias in all battlefields. He also confirmed that a convoy had arrived near Taiz on March 18th carrying tens of dead bodies. With corpses everywhere, some field commanders were enraged when Houthi leaders ordered dispatching more fighters.
“Disputes were triggered among Houthis, because of the large death toll, after the convoy arrived,” Al Waeli said.
“Houthis, despite the death toll and those injured on the battlefront, had their leaderships pushing them towards their own death. Leaderships disregard the large human losses registered. The ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh had allowed thousands of Houthis, for many years, to be trained in Iran, till they were radicalized with vindictive dogma,” he added.
Saudi Arabia and its allies could be “commissioning international war crimes” by killing thousands of civilians in hospitals, markets, schools and even at weddings in Yemen, the United Nations has warned.
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that 24 children were among 106 civilians who died in air strikes on a crowded village market on Tuesday.
“The carnage caused by two airstrikes on the Al Khamees market was one of the deadliest incidents since the start of the conflict a year ago,” he added.
“The people of Yemen have suffered enough. A very poor country is having its limited infrastructure decimated, and people are struggling desperately to survive.”
UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed arrived Saturday in Yemen capital to try to restart peace talks between the Houthi Ansarullah movement and members of the former Yemeni regime.
The Mauritanian diplomat met Ali Hajar, a foreign affairs representative of Ansarullah revolutionaries, Sanaa airport director Khaled al-Shayef told AFP.
It came a day after the UN envoy held talks in Riyadh with fugitive president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, UN special envoy to Yemen
Yemen's Saba news agency said Ould Cheikh Ahmed met Hadi to relaunch "efforts to reestablish peace in Yemen".
"All doors are open to reach peace based on (UN) Security Council resolutions," Hadi was quoted as saying.
Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.
The UN said Friday that Saudi-led raids are responsible for the vast majority of the estimated 3,200 civilian deaths in the Yemen war.
This week coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP that the alliance was at "the end of the major combat phase", raising hopes of a possible relaunch of peace talks.
Previous UN-sponsored negotiations between Ansarullah and the exiled government officials failed to reach a breakthrough, and the most recent round ended in acrimony in December.
The World Health Organization says fighting in Yemen has killed more than 6,200 people over the past year and the United Nations has warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
[BBC] Gay Paree attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has admitted he wanted to blow himself up but then changed his mind, a French prosecutor says.
Abdeslam has been charged with terrorism offences in Belgium a day after he was seized in a dramatic raid.
Abdeslam will fight extradition to La Belle France but has been co-operating with police, his lawyer says.
The Gay Paree attacks in November left 130 people dead and dozens injured.
The so-called 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) group said it was behind the bombings and shootings.
Abdeslam is charged with participation in terrorist murder and the activities of a terrorist group, Belgium's federal prosecutor's office says.
Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference: "Salah Abdeslam today during questioning by [Belgian] Sherlocks affirmed that, and I quote, 'he wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de La Belle France and that he had backed down'."
Abdeslam's assertions should be treated with caution, he added.
The 26-year-old French national, born in Belgium, is in jug following his arrest in Brussels on Friday after four months on the run.
Investigators hope Abdeslam, who was shot in the leg during his arrest, will reveal more information about the IS network behind the Gay Paree attacks, its financing and plans.
They believe he helped with logistics, including renting rooms and driving jacket wallahs to the Stade de La Belle France.
Abdeslam is believed to have fled shortly after the attacks, returning to the Molenbeek district of Brussels.
Three other suspects were also picked up during Friday's police raid in Brussels that finally nabbed Abdeslam after his four-month runaway run following the Nov. 13 attacks that left 130 people dead in Gay Paree. The prosecutor's office also charged one of them with "participation in the activities of a terrorist organization and the hiding of criminals."
Two others who had been implicated in sheltering Abdeslam were released Saturday by police, even though one of them was charged with hiding criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] The suspected jacket wallah from today’s attack in Istanbul was reportedly nabbed ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... twice before by Turkish authorities for alleged 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.... and was on a terror watch list.
Turkish officials tell Rooters that the bomber likely tried to detonate the explosives in a more crowded location. Unnamed officials told an Israeli news hound that Israelis were unlikely to have been the intended target.
"The attacker detonated the bomb before reaching the targeted point because they were scared of the police," the official said, declining to be named because the investigation is ongoing.
Savas Yildiz reportedly flew to Syria in May of last year, following suspected involvement in a string of attacks in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , and returned to the country in October.
Turkish security put out a dragnet for Yildiz in October, believing he and three other IS operatives entered Turkey from Syria in order to carry out terror attacks, the Turkish Daily Sabah paper reported at the time.
Turkish authorities identified him by a body part found at the scene, a local news hound said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Although the year’s third nationwide polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... campaign concluded with 97 per cent reported coverage, parents of 46,967 children refused to get their children vaccinated. About 130,632 children were reported with zero routine doses during the campaign.
Severe rain and snowfall also affected the campaign in some areas where new dates for vaccinating children will be announced soon.
In its meeting on Oct 5-6 last year in Britannia, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for polio had declared Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. valley and Fata as "conveyer belt" of polio transmission, noting that this was possibly the last reservoir of wild poliovirus left in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, better paralysis than being turned into a joooooooo.
ERBIL – Extremists of the Islamic State group (ISIS) have vowed to “pursue and kill” members of the Kaka’i religious group in northern Iraq, considering them “infidels who must be eliminated”, local sources reported.
The Kaka’i Kurds are one of several multi-ethnic groups who are part of the Yarsan or Ahl el-Haqq (people of truth), a religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in western Iran. Some Yarsanis in Iraq are called the Kaka’is.
The majority of the Kaka’is live in northern Mosul and other areas in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where they face eminent threat of annihilation, similar to the Yezidi Kurds, at the hands of jihadi groups.
“ISIS militants have circulated statements and messages in the areas where the Kaka’is reside, threatening to kill them if hey did’t convert to Islam,” a local right’s activist told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Speaking to ARA News in Erbil, Kaka’i media activist Zaradasht al-Kaki said their community is taking ISIS threats “very seriously”, pointing out that “the Kaka’is had earlier suffered several massacres at the hands of jihadis in Iraq”.
“We appeal to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to protect the Kaka’is from these barbaric groups,” he said, warning of massacres smiliar to those suffered by the Yezidi Kurds.
The Yarsan adherents, estimated with 500,000 to 1,000,000, are primarily found in western Iran and eastern Iraq, they are mostly from the ethnic Goran Kurds, but include other smaller groups of Persian, Lori, Azeri and Arab adherents. The Yarsanis are also found in some rural communities in Turkey’s southeast where Kurds constitute a majority.
“We are a peaceful minority like the Yezidis, Christians, and other religious groups. Daesh calls us ‘apostates’ and must convert to Islam. We cannot live with these barbaric groups, who killed hundreds of Yezidis and displaced thousands more,” member of the Kaka’i community Dilo Cetin told ARA News, using an acronym for ISIS.
In August 2014, ISIS extremists had taken control of the Yezidi Shingal district in northern Iraq, causing a mass displacement of nearly 400,000 people. Tens of thousands of Yezidi Kurds remained trapped in Mount Sinjar, suffering mass killings, kidnappings and rape at the hands of ISIS militants. Also, more than 3000 Yezidi girls have been taken by the radical group as sex slaves.
The Kurdish Peshmerga troops regained control of the Yezidi Shingal region in November of 2015, after fierce battles against ISIS. The Kurdish forces have recently discovered more than five mass graves in the Yezidi region, where hundreds of Yezidi civilians have been summarily executed and buried by ISIS jihadis.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... has urged Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... to settle for the election of Marada leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president in light of the unlikelihood of their candidate MP Michel Aoun ...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... to reach the post, al-Akhbar daily reported on Saturday.
"Berri held contacts with Hizbullah a few days ago and has explained his point view on the need to expedite the election of Franjieh before the Saudi-Iranian dialogue kicks off in order to help a candidate of the March 8 forces ... the opposition to the Mar. 14th movement, consisting of Hizbullah and its allies, so-called in commemoration of their Mar. 8th, 2006 demonstration of strength in Beirut ... to win the post" sources close to the Speaker said on condition of anonymity.
"Berri has urged Hizbullah not to waste the opportunity at the time being since it is impossible for the Change and Reform bloc chief Aoun to win the seat," they added.
But the sources confirmed that Hizbullah is adamant to continue supporting Aoun as their sole candidate.
Leb has been without a president since the term of president Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... ended in May 2014.
Conflicts among the rival March 8 and March 14 camps thwarted all attempts aiming at electing a successor.
In addition to Aoun and Franjieh, MP Henri Helou is a nominee of the Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... Franjieh was nominated by the al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... movement chief Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. late last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] Iran's Revolutionary Guard likely to cause outrage in US with plans to build a statue of 10 American Marines captured in January as a "tourist attraction"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe we could start a collection for a memorial to the USS Vincennes.
I couldn't remember the name, so to save you a search, it's the US Navy ship that shot down an Iranian passenger jet, while it was under attack by eight Iranian gun boats, 14 APR 1988.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/20/2016 13:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I still don't believe we haven't 'sploded up the Pueblo
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/20/2016 16:39 Comments ||
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#3
Knowing we can 'splode up anything on dawg's green earth inside of 25 minutes is a comfort tho Frank.
[AnNahar] British journalist John Cantlie, who is being held prisoner 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, appeared in a new video released Saturday supposedly filmed in the jihadists' Iraqi stronghold of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... In the latest installment in a series of propaganda videos released by IS, Cantlie speaks to the camera in the style of a news report.
It is unclear when it was shot, but Cantlie last appeared in an IS video in early 2015.
In Saturday's video, a gaunt-looking Cantlie says he is in Mosul, IS' main city in northern Iraq.
Dressed in black and squinting in the sunshine, he is seen standing in front of a metal shack he describes as a media kiosk that distributes IS pamphlets, which was destroyed in an air strike by a U.S.-led coalition.
Speaking in English with Arabic subtitles, as in previous clips of the same style, Cantlie criticizes and derides the U.S.-led campaign launched in 2014 against IS.
He was kidnapped along with journalist James Foley in November 2012 in Syria while covering the war there.
Foley then became the first of several hostages to be slain by the jihadists.
Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders has condemned IS for its "cowardly" use of a hostage in a forced role to push the jihadists' propaganda.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[TOWNHALL] Earlier this week Palestinian-American Mohamad Jamal Khweis turned himself into Kurdish forces in Iraq after leaving his home in Virginia to join the Islamic State. Kweis says he joined ISIS after falling in love with a woman affiliated with the organization.
After witnessing the atrocities carried out by ISIS, Khweis says he made a mistake and wants to come home to America.
I'm sure prison awaits should he choose to come back. He'll probably be happier in Kurdistan, or maybe Hamastan. One thing we don't need is him. Stupid bastard.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2016 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.
Michel Aoun
Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
