By subduing dissidents and eliminating rivals, Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour is rapidly consolidating his authority over the fractious Afghan insurgent movement as it prepares for "decisive" battles in its upcoming spring offensive.
Mansour was declared Taleban leader last summer after the announcement of long-term chief Mullah Omar's death, but many top commanders refused to pledge their loyalty alleging that he rigged the hastily organised selection process.
Despite the infighting, the group saw a new resurgence under the firebrand supremo last year with striking military victories. Analysts predict that this year's offensive, expected to start this month, will be on a bigger scale.
"Let's prepare for decisive strikes against the enemy purely for the sake of Allah with strong determination and high spirits," Mansour told his followers in a recent message posted on the Taleban website.
Ahead of the offensive, Mansour has been rooting out the last vestiges of opposition to his leadership, buying the support of rebellious commanders, quashing renegade groups and luring dissidents with leadership positions, militant sources say.
The Taleban recently announced that two of the most influential dissenters - Mullah Abdul Manan, a brother of Mullah Omar and the deceased leader's son, Mullah Mohammed Yaqoub - will be given posts in Quetta Shura, the Taleban's leadership council.
Last week another vocal critic, Mullah Qayum Zakir, pledged his loyalty to Mansour.
It is not clear if they changed their mind willingly or came under duress from the Pakistani military establishment, which is said to have close ties with Mansour.
Mullah Dadullah, a prominent dissident commander, was killed last year in a gunfight with Mansour loyalists. And Mullah Rassoul, who formed a Taleban breakaway faction, has reportedly been detained by the Pakistani military.
"It's quite clear that Mullah Mansour is putting his power consolidation strategy into overdrive," Michael Kugelman, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based think tank the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said.
"Mansour understands that the time is ripe to do all he can to eliminate what is arguably the Taleban's greatest weakness - its internal power struggles."
New Taleban military gains in recent months have helped cement Mansour's authority by burnishing his credentials as a commander.
His resurgent group has opened new battlefronts across Afghanistan with local forces struggling to beat back the expanding insurgency.
They briefly captured the strategic northern city of Kunduz in September in their most spectacular victory in 14 years and southern opium-rich Helmand province is almost entirely under insurgent control.
"Mansour is preparing for a major military push, more spectacular victories against the government this year," Mullah Qasem, a retired Taleban commander in Helmand, said.
A senior Quetta Shura source said that Mansour is mobilising fighters for major offensives in up to six provinces.
Oops. Next time.
A failure to adequately plan for the aid and governing of Libya after the U.S.-led NATO attacks in 2011 "probably" was his biggest error in office, President Barack Obama said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." What about the total ignorance which is your normal operating state? Does that fit in anywhere?
Asked by host Chris Wallace about the "worst mistake" of his soon-to-end White House years, Obama listed the aftermath of the ouster and death of Moammar Qaddafi, even as he defended the intervention. How did he manage to just pick one? What about the agreement with Iran? Obamacare? Dissing Poland? The Apology Tour? Jeebus, where do I begin? Not supporting the rebellion in Iran? The border disaster?
"Probably failing to plan for the day after," Obama said in the session, which was taped at the University of Chicago on April 7. He added that intervening in Libya "was the right thing to do." Maybe. If only you had one of them 'day-after' plans.
The Libya operation and its chaotic aftermath has been resurrected in the 2016 presidential campaign. That's in part because of the increasing presence of the Islamic State there, and U.S. airstrikes to disrupt its operation.
Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, as Obama's secretary of state, strongly supported the intervention. In a 2011 interview with CBS News when still secretary, Clinton said of Qaddafi, "We came. We saw. He died." So did a lot of other good people. And while he was no good man, Qadaffy wasn't as bad as he was made out to be.
At a March 7 town hall meeting, Clinton said what has happened since then "is deeply regrettable. There have been forces coming from the outside, internal squabbles that have led to the instability that has given terrorist groups, including ISIS, a foothold in some parts of Libya." Yeah. That's why we couldn't foresee the obvious.
"I think it's fair to say, however, if there had not been" an intervention "we would be looking at something much more resembling Syria now, than what we faced in Libya," she said in March. Bull$hit. Your ignorant policy of having your cake and eating it too in Syria effed up things beyond all recognition.
Army General David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters last week that the Islamic State presence in Libya has doubled since 2015 to as many as 6,000 fighters. I understand we kill about 50/day. It won't be long before they're all demoralized and dead, right?
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Yahoo News in January that he thought Clinton's "influence was pivotal in persuading the president to broaden the goal in Libya beyond just saving the people in Benghazi" from Qaddafi's forces and "essentially focusing more on regime change. The president told me that it was one of the closest decisions he'd ever made, sort of 51-49, and I'm not sure that he would've made that decision if Secretary Clinton hadn't supported it." Saving which people in Benghazi? The embassy staff, or the terrorists?
The Congressional Research Service this month wrote that Libya's "political transition has been disrupted by armed non-state groups and threatened by the indecision and infighting of interim leaders" after the armed uprising toppled Qaddafi's regime. You mean the toppling that happened right after 0bean called it one of his big success stories?
"Interim authorities" have "proved unable to form a stable government, address pressing security issues, reshape the country's public finances, or create a viable framework for post-conflict justice and reconciliation," according to CRS, the public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress. Maybe you shouldn't have left Inshallah in charge?
A United Nations-sponsored unity government led by Fayez Serraj assumed office last month and has won support from politicians and militias, offering hope that Libya may begin to emerge from the turmoil that has uprooted nearly half a million people since Qaddafi fell in 2011 after more than four decades in power.
Obama told Fox News that his best day in office was the one on which his signature health care plan was passed, and his worst was "the day we traveled up to Newtown," after the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Only because the former didn't interfere with your tee time, I'm sure.
#4
So if intervening in Libya was the "right thing to do" that means the next right thing to do would be to occupy that country indefinitely; dealing with al Qaeda, ISIS, Qaddafi loyalists, and all the other various and assorted nut jobs who inhabit that part of the world. Good thinking, Baraq. Now forget about it and go play another round of golf.
#5
"Probably failing to plan for the day after," Obama said. He added that intervening in Libya "was the right thing to do."
I vaguely recall a couple of folks skewering G. W. Bush for poor planning of the Iraq adventure, not too long after everyone in the whole world endorsed the idea.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2016 14:26 Comments ||
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[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A Labour councillor has been suspended after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were found on her Twitter account.
Aysegul Gurbuz, 20, is the latest name drawn into a row threatening to divide the party following claims of harassment of Jewish students at Oxford University.
Gurbuz represents the High Town ward in Luton after being elected in May 2015. She also sits on a panel supervising Bedfordshire Police.
But messages on her Twitter account, now deleted, suggest strong support for Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like... who is referred to as "my man Hitler" and the "greatest man in history".
Another tweet hoped that Iran would use a "nuclear weapon" to "wipe Israel off the map".
Other tweets expressed "disgust" that "Jews are so powerful", and one even stated "Ed Miliband is Jewish. He will never become prime minister of Britannia." Adherent of the Master Religion deeply admires the Master Race and its proponents.
This young politician is fully in tune with her party:
[CNN] A top intelligence officer with the North Korean military has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean officials. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun and Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said that the defector was a senior colonel with the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau.
Speaking in separate press conferences, the ministry spokesmen confirmed that reports on the defection by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency were accurate, but they could give no further details.
North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau is the agency responsible for handling clandestine operations, including espionage against foreign countries and cyber-warfare operations.
Last week, 13 North Koreans who had been working at a Pyongyang-owned restaurant in an unnamed Asian country defected to South Korea. They said they had defected after "feeling pressure from North Korean authorities" to send foreign currency back to their homeland.
[CBSNEWS] Days after the deadly Brussels attacks, which killed 32 people at the city's airport and a metro station, right-wing demonstrators appeared at a memorial to denounce the country's Muslim community. A week later, police had to intervene when similar right-wing protesters squared off against anti-racism demonstrators. The confrontations underscore an important, though perhaps uncomfortable, question: to what extent does Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... contribute to the atmosphere of isolation that breeds violent radicals?
The more important question, and one that CBS News, the experts, and the nomenklatura will refuse to address, is: to what extent have their own preconceptions and ideologies contribute to the atmosphere of distrust and hatred? Some questions, you see, aren't allowed to be asked, let alone answered...
"When you have no life objectives, no long-term objectives, you try to find your quest for self elsewhere," explains Tewfik Sahih, a lifelong resident of Schaerbeek, Brussels, the neighborhood in which the bombs used in the Gay Paree and Brussels attacks were made. "Many people feel discriminated [against] here. Some citizens here don't feel part of the national community."
There is no 'national community' of Belgium. There's a Walloon community, a Flemish community, a small German community, and an Islamic community. None of these communities really get along, which is why you barely have a government, let alone a country.
Further, the Islamic community doesn't consider itself to be 'Belgian', and moreso doesn't want to be. They don't want to be Belgian, they want Belgium to be Islamic.
Experts
...and what would we do without experts...
tell CBSN that many of Belgium's disenfranchised Muslims feel more loyalty to their nuclear communities than their country.
Like I was just saying. Their Islamic community offers them what is most important to them -- social structure, belonging, belief and future.
It's like asking "What's wrong with Kansas" without realizing that the people of Kansas are asking, "what's wrong with you?" This article is a clear demonstration of the cluelessness of the 'experts'.
So, even if they don't necessarily agree with how certain members of their neighborhood or mosque choose to lash out, they might not be inclined to report those people to the authorities either.
"The mafia protects itself. Hooligans with soccer clubs don't betray themselves as well. It's very much a group mentality where you don't betray," explains Michael Privot, director of the European Network Against Racism. "The Muslim community feels really under siege. They are victims themselves of hate crimes.
There have been precious few 'hate crimes' against the community. The recent colonists were welcomed with open arms, social workers, aid, housing, and political cover. The large abundance of 'hate crimes' are the ones committed against European women, though it's impolite to call them 'hate' crimes.
So, if you want to really help them make the change from within ... you have to give them breathing space ... open space for them to build a future."
The colonists will take your breathing space, and then they'll take your country. It's sorta how it works with colonialism...
As it currently stands, most Moroccan and Turkish immigrants colonists live in what is known as the "poor croissant" of Brussels. And the conditions in those neighborhoods offer little hope for social or economic success.
"In Molenbeek, one young person of Moroccan background out of two is unemployed. One family of Moroccan origin [out of two] is below the poverty line. You see, it's dire," says Privot. "Schools are ghettoized. ... You have a whole generation of youngsters, aged 15 to 25, that have no skills because they didn't receive proper support. Not from parents and not from the state. Those young guys are living in Brussels, which is one of the most competitive cities [in the world], but without skills to find a job in their own city."
The reason is simple and yet incomprehensible to the EU nomenklatura: the students and their parents realize that the schools would turn them into infidels. That is something that the immigrants, whether just off the raft or 2nd generation, will never accept. Therefore they won't accept the schools.
The actions of the few then spawn a vicious cycle for the many, according to Privot.
Yes, it's the rejection by the 90% that make it so difficult for the other 10%...
The societal factors that contributed to the radicalization of the Brussels and Gay Paree attackers are heightened by the fact that they executed attacks. Discrimination against Muslims in neighborhoods like Molenbeek and Schaerbeek worsens. It becomes even harder for members of those struggling communities to find jobs. And perhaps worst of all, it excludes them even further from the Belgian mainstream.
The large proportion of recent refugees from Syria have the equivalent of a 5th grade EU education. If you were going to help them 'find jobs' you'd first have to put them back into primary school, the very infidel schools that they'd reject. You can't do German-style technical training because the refugees don't have the background and educational accomplishments to take advantage of that. You might pull it off it they were 10, or 100, but with 1,000,000 (and more arriving) the cohesiveness of the community prevents them from accepting the Faustian bargain you offer them -- that to "get ahead" in the Belgian "community" they have to lose themselves.
"There is an increase in polarization within the majority community, and a sense of exasperation towards Muslims," Privot said in the aftermath of the March 22 attacks on a Brussels airport and metro station.
Because the people in flyover Belgium, be they Flems, Loonies or Krauts, have figured out that the colonists don't want to be like them.
"This is really in the mainstream. It's the man and woman on the street who decides to take justice in their hands and insult someone. ... A few months back, people would not resort to insults. Now, people do resort to racists slurs. You really see and feel the tensions within the society. So, this is one more nail in the coffin of social cohesion."
The speaker hasn't quite figured it out: first that racism is a stain on human nature and that it's something that a community will do, given half a chance; and second, that the 'Belgian' community, like the rest of the EU community, has been sorely goaded, not just by the colonists, but by the nomenklatura. The ordinary people are beset on two sides: by Islamists who want to take their country from them, and by leaders who don't believe in the country in the first place.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
It's all the fault of the Juden (and Putin: who's probably a secret Jew---he's too smart for Russian)
#2
...The Instapundit has a running joke that addresses this quite well. It's a mock headline that says, "MUSLIM LEADERS WARN OF BACKLASH FROM TOMORROW'S BOMBING."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2016 5:02 Comments ||
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#3
Islamophobia is "racism". It's self-defense and common sense
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2016 9:24 Comments ||
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#4
isn't
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2016 9:24 Comments ||
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How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Faith: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
#8
Gotta credit Trump -- he delivered the dagger to the MSM, and nobody has to even pretend that this drivel has any influence.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/11/2016 14:19 Comments ||
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#9
Progressives have long pushed the idea that nations are just land with nothing special about them worth fighting for, only stuff that everyone should be embarrassed about.
Most none-Elites took this as the nonsense it is.
Muslims took them at their word.
#10
"Islamophobia" (a term invented by the Muslim Brotherhood) is a propaganda device used to silence criticism of Islamist theocratic fascism and to deflect blame from the motivating ideology of terrorists to the victim society.
It enables society to blame the victim instead of the attackers.
that way nothing is done to limit the spread of Islamist theocratic fascism.
It is actually more dangerous to our societies than the actual violence.
It is used to lobby for legal exceptionalism for Islam eg - blasphemy laws by stealth (no making fun of Mohammad or even drawing a cartoon, eg) or elevating Islam to the status of race so that anti-discrimination laws can be used to silence opponents of sharia by dragging them through the courts.
[REUTERS] The hard boy cell behind bombings in Brussels had been plotting to hit La Belle France again after carrying out the Gay Paree attacks in November, but was forced to strike closer to home as police closed in, Belgian prosecutors said on Sunday.
Investigations into 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.... attacks in Gay Paree, which killed 130 people, showed that many of the perpetrators lived in Belgium, including surviving suspects who managed to evade police for more than four months.
Prime suspect Salah Abdeslam was placed in durance vile Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on March 18 in the Belgian capital. Four days later, jacket wallahs killed 32 people in Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train.
"Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in La Belle France again," Belgium's federal prosecutor said in a statement.
"Surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels."
Belgian intelligence and security forces had been criticised abroad for not doing more to dismantle the hard boy cell, because of its links to the Gay Paree attacks.
As of Friday, all publicly identified suspects were either in detention or dead, but Belgium remains on its second highest threat level, and Prime Minister Charles Michel said his government would remain alert.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
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[ARA News] ERBIL – There has been an increasing competition between Syrian rebels, the regime and the Kurds over retaking control of the ISIS-held border strip near Turkey in northern Aleppo.
Speaking to ARA News, Aydin Selcen, the former Turkish consul general in Iraqi Kurdistan, said that while the priority for the US is to seal the 98 kilometers Syria-Turkey border stretch, for Turkey the main priority is to prevent the Kurds from connecting Kurdish cities of Kobane and Afrin. Nevertheless, the US will support Kurdish demands.
“For US the priority is to seal that 98km Turkish border stretch with Islamic State, no matter who does it with the possible exception of Nusra,” he said. “For Turkey the priority is to stop PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurds to connect Kobane and Afrin cantons, no matter what it takes,” he said.
“[Turkey] encouraging and enabling radical Islamists including the Islamic State and Nusra to attack YPG [Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units], pounding YPG positions from inside the border with howitzers, infiltrating, equipping and training FSA elements to take control of that border stretch,” Selcen said during an exclusive interview with ARA News.
According to the former Turkish diplomat it is most likely that the United States will listen to Turkish demands.
“The US must and will accommodate Ankara’s wishes to be able to assert influence on Syria from the north while entertaining communication with and offering some sort of support to PYD and YPG as they are the single successful element till today against ISIS,” he added.
“The 98 km wide, 45km deep Manbij Pocket (“Shahba”), it seems to me, will look three layered in the future: with the Turkish border from Azaz/Marea to Jarablus under Ankara affiliated FSA elements, a PKK affiliated PYD/YPG or SDF and the Manbij Council corridor underneath to connect the two cantons from Tel Rifat to Manbij to Tishrin Dam and last north of Aleppo the regime in Al Bab,” he said.
On Friday, one US coalition airstrike destroyed an ISIS rocket rail, seven ISIS rockets, and an ISIS mortar system near Manbij. The Islamic State news agency Amaq said on Sunday, that U.S. aircraft carried out 20 airstrikes in support of the Turkish-backed opposition south of the Turkish border, near the village of Baraghidah.
“Yet, one may speculate that Ankara would encourage radical Islamists to attack YPG in areas north of Aleppo like Sheikh Maqsoud, might even turn a blind eye to Nusra’s attempt to create an (ISIS style) “emirate” in Idlib. Within that context I took note of Ahrar’s downing a Syrian Arab Army jet with MANPADS and the chemical attack on Kurds in Sheik Maqsoud with grave concern,” Selcen said.
Ranj Talabany, a senior Kurdish intelligence officer, told ARA News that it is very important that the Kurdish forces in Syria retake Manbij. “It is very important, because it’s the last major ISIS city in the north. Jarabulus is important also, but not as big as Manbij. Manbij is a major connection point [for ISIS].”
Idris Nassan, a former senior Kurdish official in Kobane, said it is clear the liberation of Manbij depends on who will take al-Bab city.
“It is clear that the campaign to liberate Manbij and Western Euphrates will wait until the military operations in the al-Bab countryside are over, I think the campaign will kick off as soon as the opposition forces’ operations stop there,” Nassan told ARA News.
“The Map of Western the Euphrates in my view is going to be like this: SDF [Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces] will liberate Manbij and probably Jarablus. But the fate of Jarablus is not clear due to the Turkish opposition. As for al-Bab, despite the big possibility that the Syrian regime may take over it, the opposition has its share in the possibility of taking control of it and they haven’t made their decision yet. But there are signs that SDF will be allowed to liberate it’s countryside and open a corridor to Afrin,” he added.
So far, the situation is not clear yet due to negotiations set up by the Algerians between the Syrian government and Turkey that came on the request of Ankara over the federal region set up by the Kurds in northern Syria in mid March.
“There are discussions between the regime and Turkey mediated by the Algerians. It seems so far, that the regime has more chance to control al-Bab than the Syrian opposition,” Nassan added.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016 00:00 ||
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[Guardian] A future president Trump or Cruz could be defied by his own intelligence chief, after CIA director John Brennan said on Sunday he would not allow members of his agency to carry out torture techniques such as waterboarding.
"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I’ve heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan told NBC News.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the leading two Republican candidates in a field of three, have suggested they would use waterboarding and other controversial "enhanced interrogation techniques" against terror suspects.
Cruz has said he does not consider waterboarding to be torture, and would "use whatever enhanced interrogation methods we could to keep this country safe".
In the aftermath of the Brussels bombings last month, Trump told NBC: "If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from people."
#7
Puppet master Brennan is angered not by comments about water boarding, this is of little concern to him. His angst has surfaced as a result of the recent anti-regime media interviews by former directors and high ranking intelligence professionals.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/11/2016 9:28 Comments ||
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#10
Water boarding does not work as a tactic to educe intel from a detainee. It is, however, an effective straw man cleverly designed to shift focus away from the elephant in the room. We need folks to please open their eyes and see the elephant...which is the idiotic Obama policy that does not let us capture, hold and interrogate terrorists. Detainees equal intel. Intel that leads to additional targets. A detainee equals not only intel, but forces decentralization of bad guy ops, and changes or cancellation of future bad guy ops. All good stuff. An EKIA, as referred to by Boeseker, tells no tales and equals little, if any, opportunity to target more bad guys.
#14
Much easier to find and administer a bucket of water and a towel than approved psychotropic chemicals. The multi-nuanced responses from the interrogation are easier to correlate as well.
#17
Snopes says that Brennan's conversion to Islam while in Saudi Arabia is Unproven. and springs from one former CIA agent. However, he's certainly said and done a few odd things over the years that would lead one in that direction.
#18
...Something about this was bothering me, and it took a while to figure out, especially after I remembered an article about EPA chief Gina McCarthy yelling that the EPA will 'fight tooth and nail' against a President Trump or President Cruz.
You almost wonder after putting that together if these two are implying that they will not step down if Trump or Cruz win.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2016 17:24 Comments ||
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#19
I remembered an article about EPA chief Gina McCarthy yelling that the EPA will 'fight tooth and nail' against a President Trump or President Cruz.
Solution - cut their salaries to $1 - see how long they stick around.
#23
That's pretty much what he ought to say. And if there were a real ticking nuke situation that demanded torture, he should not try to justify it, but lie like a rug. Saying you'd be willing to torture is a really bad road to start down.
We've seen this sort of slippery slope before: Spying on citizens is only for national security, except when it is for drug enforcement, or ...
Posted by: james ||
04/11/2016 20:59 Comments ||
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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.
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A Labour councillor has been suspended after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were found on her Twitter account.
[CNN] A top intelligence officer with the North Korean military has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean officials. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun and Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said that the defector was a senior colonel with the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau.
[CBSNEWS] Days after the deadly Brussels attacks, which killed 32 people at the city's airport and a metro station, right-wing demonstrators appeared at a memorial to denounce the country's Muslim community. A week later, police had to intervene when similar right-wing protesters squared off against anti-racism demonstrators. The confrontations underscore an important, though perhaps uncomfortable, question: to what extent does 
[REUTERS] The
[Guardian] A future president Trump or Cruz could be defied by his own intelligence chief, after CIA director John Brennan said on Sunday he would not allow members of his agency to carry out torture techniques such as waterboarding.
