Security forces have raised concerns over the lack of coordination among the different security branches in relation to the ongoing war.
This comes amid heightened battles in various parts of the country.
Some security officers have said there is no coordination between the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI).
Parliamentarians have also expressed the same concerns.
"War strategy toward Taliban is a failed strategy," said Fawzia Kofi, an MP from Badakhshan.
But the Ministry of Defense (MoD) rejects these claims and said problems sometimes lie with the ground forces.
"All the plans which take place in the ministry are in full coordination and the Interior minister, NDS and even local organizations participate," MoD spokesman Dawlat Waziri said.
"In some areas where the level of coordination is less and the presence of ANA are less or does not exist at all, in those areas there might be problems," said MoI spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.
Meanwhile the Presidential Palace said that there had been such issues in the past but that these have now been resolved.
"Every day the coordination among civilian sectors and military sectors increases," a deputy presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said.
The concerns come amid fierce fighting in some areas, especially in Helmand which has been the scene of heavy offensives by the Taliban over the past few days.
Experts have however called for more assistance from foreign troops and for the international community to ramp up efforts to equip the national army.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] President Mohammad 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. .. has strongly condemned the execution of passengers by the Talibs after 185 of them were kidnapped in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Calling the execution of innocent civilians an act of treachery, President Ghani said the bandidos are committing such crimes, criticizing the Taliban leader for the lack of information regarding the religion of Islam and its principles despite claiming he is a religious scholar.
President Ghani further added that the bandidos deserve the harshest pumishments in accordance with the religion, law and traditions of the country, insisting that the perpetrators would not be able to escape and would be tried for their criminal act.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A Malian jihadist will go on trial in August, set to admit to an attack on the World Heritage site of Timbuktu which triggered a global outcry, the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... said Wednesday.
Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi's trial starting August 22 is likely to last a few days and the tribunal hopes "to complete the trial in a single week," The Hague-base court said in a statement.
Mahdi has made clear "his wish to plead guilty" to a single charge of jointly ordering or carrying out in 2012 the destruction of nine mausoleums and a section of Timbuktu's famous Sidi Yahia mosque which dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries, the ICC added.
It will be the first time that an accused has pleaded guilty before the ICC, which was set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes.
He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life shuttling between a jail cell and that courtroom, listening to legal wrangling that will never, ever end until he dies. Prison will be considerably less unpleasant, and in fairness, he did do it.
Correction at 10:40 a.m. ET: it seems trials can continue after death, as well.
It is also the first case before the tribunal to arise out of recent conflict in Mali and to involve an Islamic jihadist.
Mahdi, who is aged around 40, said he was "a Muslim who believes in justice," his defense lawyer Mohammed Aouini told a hearing last week.
"He wants to be truthful to himself and he wants to admit the acts that he has committed. And he wants to ask at the same time for pardon from the people of Timbuktu and the Malian people," Aouini said.
"He regrets all the actions that he has committed."
ICC prosecutors say Mahdi was a leader of Ansar Dine, a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali's northern desert together with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and a third local group in early 2012.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A French navy vessel equipped with deep-water listening devices has detected signals from one of the black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean, Sherlocks said Wednesday.
The flight recorders could contain crucial information to help solve the mystery of why the Airbus A320 plunged into the sea with 66 people on board en route from Gay Paree to Cairo on May 19.
But it is expected to be at least another week before the black boxes can be recovered from the seabed by an underwater robot.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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Since their arrival in Taiz a year ago, rebel militias have been transforming government health facilities in the city into military barracks. Their latest target was the centre for cancer patients in Taiz at a time when more than 643 people suffering from cancer in the town do not have proper access to medicine because the rebel militias have besieged all of the town’s ports and are not allowing the admittance of food supplies, medicine and medical aid.
Houthi militias and forces loyal to the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh bombarded positions of the army and the Popular Resistance on various fronts of fighting in the governorate of Taiz. Residential neighbourhoods, villages and rural areas of the province were shelled badly.
Zaid Al-Saalami, a journalist and political activist and a facilitator for the government delegation in Kuwait told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the continuation of military actions and the siege of Taiz by Houthi and Saleh militias indicates that these militias do not believe in peace and are not serious about it as a strategic option. Rather, they are using it as a cover to rearrange their ranks … and carry out more killings”.
[DAWN] The United States (US) military judge overseeing the trial of the accused criminal mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks should step down and the case should be scrapped because he effectively conspired with prosecutors to destroy evidence, defence lawyers said in a court filing.
The motion said Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, and prosecutors had tainted the case against Pakistain-born Khalid Sheikh Mohammad ...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo.... by keeping defence lawyers from learning that the evidence had been destroyed.
The motion was filed on May 10 and recently cleared for release. It raises a potential hurdle in the slow-moving capital case against Mohammad and four others charged in the hijacked airliner attacks of Sept 11, 2001, in which 3,000 people died.
Pohl, along with prosecutors, "manipulated secret proceedings and the use of secret orders to mislead the defence and unfairly deprive Mr Mohammad" of ways to keep the evidence from being destroyed, the motion said.
Commissions spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Henderson referred questions to the prosecutor's response, which is expected to be made public in a few days.
Pohl presided over a pretrial hearing on Tuesday in the case at the US Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The filing alleges that Pohl authorised prosecutors to destroy evidence six months after he agreed to a defence request that it be preserved.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"The Judge... An Army Colonel ...had tainted the case ..." > D *** NG IT, MADONNA, WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED!
[DAWN] Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif ..Pak chief of army staff, meaning he pulls the strings on the Nawaz Sharif puppet to make it dance and sing and not do much at all.... said on Wednesday US drone strikes are regrettable and must stop as they are a threat to the illusory sovereignty and security of the country.
Speaking informally to the media at a reception after attending President Mamnoon Hussain’s address to a joint session of Parliament, the chief added that the China-Pakistain Economic Corridor is a national project and must be completed at any cost.
"The security situation in 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... and 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... is improving," said the army chief.
The COAS further said border management with Afghanistan is also improving, and now the responsibility lies with Aghanistan as there are fewer checkposts on the other side.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/02/2016 21:06 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Sweet word, you are, sadly, inedible,
Nor even, incredibly, beddable,
A wonderful word,
Most regrettably heard
When the sentiment meant is, "forgettable."
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghan consulate in 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. city of Pakistain has reportedly been closed by Afghanistan in protest over the harassment by Pak security forces.
According to reports, the consulate was closed after consul general’s vehicle was searched at a check post in the Cantt area of the city.
It is believed that the consulate will remain closed for an indefinite amount of time.
In the meantime, the Pak security officials have said the vehicle was not following the specified protocol for official and diplomatic vehicles, hence it was stopped was a security check.
Pakistain’s Foreign Office front man Nafees Zakaria has said he is aware of the incident and that the ministry will issue an official statement after obtaining all the relevant information from the concerned quarters.
The harassment of the Afghan diplomat in Peshawar city by the Pak police and closure of the consulate comes as the relations 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 Islamabad witnessed ups and downs during the recent weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] UNITED NATIONS ‐ More than 2,000 people attended on Tuesday the first-ever conference at the UN General Assembly aimed at combating the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, the largest gathering to date focused on battling the attempt to pressure Israel over its perceived ill-treatment of the Paleostinians.
Danon said the impetus of the conference came after the UN Human Rights Council in March voted to create a "blacklist" of companies operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a motion that passed with 32 countries voting in favor, and none against.
Students, activists, dignitaries legal professionals and representatives of Jewish organizations took part in the "Building Bridges, Not Boycotts" day-long summit, a partnership between Israel’s Mission to the UN and a dozen pro-Israel organizations including the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America, StandWithUs, B’nai B’rith International, Hillel and CAMERA.
Among those who addressed the participants in the General Assembly were Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, Vice President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Jay Sekulow, Chief Legal Counsel of the American Center for Law, and Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the opening session via video.
Continued on Page 49
[An Nahar] The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Leb probing the 2005 liquidation of ex-PM Rafik Hariri announced Tuesday that the in absentia trial of five 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... operatives will continue "pending the receipt of further information from the government of Leb regarding the death of the Accused Mustafa Amine Badreddine."
In an oral decision issued Tuesday, the STL Trial Chamber said that "the Judges do not believe that sufficient evidence has yet been presented to convince them that the death of Mr. Badreddine has been proved."
The Trial Chamber also noted that "the Prosecution has outstanding requests for assistance sent to the government of Leb seeking further information relating to what happened to Mr. Badreddine and is awaiting responses."
The three judges who constitute the Trial Chamber made the decision by majority, with one dissenting opinion.
Hizbullah has announced that Badreddine was killed in Syria on May 11 when "artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... groups" targeted one of its positions near the Damascus international airport.
It did not name any specific group, and there has been no claim of responsibility.
Badreddine was on a U.S. terror sanctions blacklist, was a key suspect in Hariri's 2005 liquidation and was one of the "most wanted" by Israel.
Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... has announced that Badreddine "was one of the first to join the resistance in its beginnings" to fight the Israeli occupation after it was founded in 1982 with help from Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2016 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.
International Criminal Court
[An Nahar] A French navy vessel equipped with deep-water listening devices has detected signals from one of the black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean, 
...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo....
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghan consulate in 
[An Nahar] The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for 
