[DAILYTRUST.NG] There is tension in Maiduguri over the detention of about 772 suspected Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... terrorists, their wives and children in the Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered. This is in addition to others, who are confined in a yet to be ascertained centre for de-radicalisation, as well as several other women said to be wives of Boko Haram Death Eaters, all in Maiduguri.
Information on the presence of faceless myrmidons in the prison was first made public last Monday, when Justice Alkali Gana Wakkil led other stakeholders on a visit to the only functional prison in the state. He was told by the officer in charge of the prison that there were 772 repentant Boko Haram Death Eaters.
The Deputy Comptroller of Prisons (DCP), Lumson Apollos Kaye, told the judge that there were a total of 1,288 prisoners awaiting trial, as well as 772 suspected Boko Haram Death Eaters, who were taken to the prison by the military for rehabilitation, following their claim that they had repented. It was also learnt that the suspected bandidosfaceless myrmidons were there with their wives and children.
Although Kaye conducted the judge round the prison, he did not, however, show him where the suspected male faceless myrmidons were kept. But at the female wing of the prison, some well fed women numbering about 10, along with well dressed children said to be family members of the detained Death Eaters, were seen in one of the rooms looking very relaxed. He referred to the wives of the Boko Haram suspects as "our special guests.’’
The prison boss also told the judge that there were eight internally displaced persons (IDPs) on awaiting trial list, over different allegations. One of them was said to have been locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! over the allegation that he was buying soup and meat for his fellow displaced persons, raising questions on where he got the money from.
DCP Kaye said he was running the prison without any financial support from the government, adding that the state High Court assists him to fuel his three official vehicles. He also said he sourced for money among his officers to buy soap and detergents for prison inmates.
"My lord, when the soldiers brought these repentant Boko Haram faceless myrmidons to us, they smelled badly. In fact, everywhere in this compound smelled. We had to tax ourselves and bought detergents for them to wash up. Government is not giving me anything to run this place," he told the judge.
A military source who did not want to be mentioned because he has no right to talk to the press, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the suspected faceless myrmidons were not in prison for rehabilitation. According to him, government may be preparing to prosecute them.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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The United Arab Emirates has warned its citizens to avoid wearing traditional garments when traveling abroad after an Emirati man was handcuffed in Ohio over terrorism fears.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet late Saturday that Emiratis should avoid wearing the garments for their safety. A separate ministry statement urged women to abide by bans on face veils in parts of Europe.
Local media reported Sunday that Emirati national Ahmed al-Menhali was detained at gunpoint last week while wearing a traditional white kandura, or ankle-length robe, and headscarf in Avon, Ohio after a hotel clerk raised suspicions he could have links to the Islamic State group.
[Dhaka Tribune] Awami League-led 14-party alliance has claimed that the terrorists, who attacked the Holey Artisan Bakery at Dhaka’s diplomatic zone on Friday night, were trained activists of Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami ... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition.... .
The ruling alliance made the allegation at a presser held at political office of Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. at Dhanmondi in Dhaka.
Senior leaders of the alliance made the statement after a meeting yesterday afternoon.
"The six killers, who have been killed during shootout with law enforcement agencies are Bangladeshi. One of them was a student of a Jamaat-Islami financed university. So it is crystal clear that who have inspired and financed the attackers. All of them were Jamaat-Shibir activists," said Health Minister Mohammad Nasim, who also spokesperson of the 14-party.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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Judging from the published fotos, I'd have to disagree with the statement that they're not ISIS.
[Dhaka Tribune] Starting Saturday night, Facebook users in Bangladesh have begun matching the five photos released by 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.... 's news agency Amaq of the forces of Evil involved in the Gulshan attack with the identities of at least three Bangladeshi men.
While the Dhaka Tribune has not been able to verify the information social media has turned up about them, the picture that is emerging is that all of them came from affluent families in Dhaka and studied at top schools or universities.
Mysteriously, their Facebook profiles, which were earlier publicly visible, disappeared early yesterday.
Police HQ released a set of photos of the forces of Evil killed in the drive on Saturday along with their alleged names. But social media users who claim to be friends and sometimes even family of the pictured men have disputed their identification by the authorities.
The resulting crowdsourcing of identification efforts has begun to produce a growing body of corroborated accounts of who the forces of Evil were.
Very little has emerged which explains what turned the sheltered middle-class 20-somethings into depraved murderers.
But three of them share one peculiar quality: they were all believed to be missing between three and six months before they apparently reappeared at the site of the terror attack last Friday.
A flurry of speculation on social media has put forward the theory that the missing men may have been in Syria or Iraq where their radicalisation was deepened and their terror tactics honed.
With daily flights to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ‐ the traditional stepping stone to IS's caliphate of terror ‐ this seems plausible. This has not been confirmed.
Three of the men in the IS propaganda pictures have been positively identified by their peers on social media ‐ and they do not match the police's claims.
Here are the claims being made on social media:
Nibras Islam
Missing since January 2016
Name on police photo: Badhon
Education:
Turkish Hope School
North South University
Monash University Malaysia
One acquaintance told the Dhaka Tribune that Nibras was a social person and a good football player. This source had played a match with Nibras at the Turkish Hope School grounds late last year.
One Facebook user said he knew him when he was a child and that his grandparents were neighbours in Chittagong. They were a very well educated family, the user said.
Rohan Imtiaz
Missing since February 2016
No police photo
Education:
Scholastica School, Batch 2014
He was a resident of Lalmatia. His father Imtiaz Khan Babul is the youth and sports secretary of the Awami League's Dhaka Metropolitan unit.
Asked about Imtiaz Khan, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said while the attackers were all Bangladeshis and their families were all from here, "they themselves are not terrorists."
"He was a good boy. He said his prayers regularly, he was very well-behaved," Nuru Mia, caretaker of the building where Rohan lived, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Meer Saameh Mubasser
Missing since February 29, 2016
Name on police photo: Don
Education:
'O' Level candidate at Sunnydale School
The general diary filed by his family at Gulshan cop shoppe said that on the afternoon of his disappearance, Sameeh got down from the car while on his way to a coaching centre, complaining that the traffic was too bad. He was not seen again until the attack.
A source at the cop shoppe said CCTV footage captured him on a rickshaw at Banani Road 11 sometime after he got out of the car.
Identities less certain
IS operative #4
Name on police photo: Ripon
Some Facebook users have identified this photo as belonging to one Andaleeb Ahmed, a student at Monash University Malaysia.
The Facebook profile they point to has been unavailable since early yesterday. But this claim is more tenuous because the photos circulated on social media do not seem to match the police or IS photos.
IS operative #5
Name on police photo: Bikash
Some users on Facebook have identified this man as Tasin Rownak, but no one has been able to provide matching photos.
On Saturday Inspector General Shahidul Haque told the media at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that the Gulshan attackers were all listed forces of Evil and that the police had conducted several drives to arrest them.
Yesterday, at a briefing at United Hospital the IG said the boys had not gone missing.
"They left home, they mingled with forces of Evil and they joined their ranks," Haque said.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Primary investigation suggests that some members of banned Death Eater outfits Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarullah Bangla Team carried out the Gulshan terror attack jointly on Friday following in-depth reconnaissance at the restaurant.
Some of them directly took part in several other operations ‐ including the kaboom on a temple and the murder of a converted freedom fighter in northern Bangladesh ‐ conducted recently in the name of international terrorist group 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.... The law enforcers are yet to disclose details of the six attackers killed during the Operation Thunderbolt on Saturday morning, nearly 10 hours after the hostage situation ensued. The police only gave the names of five of them. Another suspect named Sourav is undergoing treatment in police custody.
Continued on Page 49
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Seven holy warriors who killed 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka were local Bangladeshis and authorities had tried before to arrest five of them, police said, as Sherlocks probed for possible links with international Islamist Death Eater groups.
The gunnies stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing 20 hostages, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The turbans who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi bad boy outfit and not followers of ISIS, a senior minister said Sunday.
"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Minister of Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.
"They have no connections with ISIS."
All they have to do is pledge allegiance, and they're in as the local franchise. It's not like the old days, when a cadre had to be sent to the home office for vetting and training and secret passwords; now it's all making a bomb in the kitchen of your mother, as described in the last issue but one of the online magazine.
ISIS has grabbed credit for the killing of the hostages and two coppers during an 11-hour siege that ended on Saturday but the government has consistently denied that international Lion of Islam groups are operating in Bangladesh.
Police have released the names and photos of six of the attackers who were shot at the end of the siege. A seventh was locked away Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.
Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.
"They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa," the minister said.
Asked why they would have become Islamist bad boys, Khan said: "It has become a fashion."
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[Jpost] It is unclear why Germany is harboring Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, members. The EU classifies Hamas’s entire organization as a terrorist entity.
The report also estimated the number of Islamic extremists could be as high as 10,000 in the Federal Republic. Radical Islamists likely have infiltrated the flow of refugees entering Germany, the report noted.
Some 300 Hamas members and supporters ‐ as well as 950 Hezbollah activists and members ‐ are operating in Germany, the country’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual federal report, the same numbers as were listed in its 2013 and 2014 reports.
The Jerusalem Post’s examination of the 317-page intelligence report, which was released on Tuesday, revealed the Islamic Death Eaters were on the radar screen of the country’s intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Continued on Page 49
[SouthAfricaToday] Seventeen supporters of the Islamic State extremist group entered Europe as refugees, Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung reported Saturday citing German intelligence.
Most of them are either dead or in custody, the report said, adding that two of them were part of the group of terrorists who attacked Paris in November.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, was quoted as saying there was “reliable evidence” that the 17 were working on behalf of Islamic State.
He said that while Islamic State did not need to use known refugee routes it was “a show of power” on part of the terrorist group.
Last month, three Syrians were arrested in three different German states on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Dusseldorf on behalf of Islamic State.
The authorities said that the three had been posing as refugees and living in asylum seekers’ homes.
The alleged plot foresaw two militants blowing themselves up with explosive vests in the western German city’s historic centre and the remaining men killing as many people as possible with firearms.
In recent months, police have conducted a series of raids targeting Islamists sent to Germany on behalf of Islamic State.
Thus far, there has been no major terrorist attack on German soil.
Let us hope there never is one, though the odds are not good.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s promise of sanctuary brought some 1.1 million migrants to Germany in 2015, with most from conflict zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
More like 1.5 million, though even that is a guess based on those who registered with the authorities, and those were the homelands they claimed, though in many cases it was obviously not true.
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07/04/2016 00:57 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Syrian refugees living in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has signaled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.
"I want to announce some good news," media quoted Erdogan as saying late Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border.
"We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality."
The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.
He did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.
"We regard you as our brothers and sisters -- you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land," Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis.
"Turkey is also your homeland."
Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as "guests."
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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Three more people were detained early Sunday as a part of investigation into Tuesday’s deadly Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack, Turkish security sources said, Anadolu reported.
The total number of people detained over the terror attack rose to 27, an unnamed security sources said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
27? That's going to require a lot of mustache wax to be delivered to a Turkish prison...
Tuesday night’s attack saw three terrorists open fire in the international terminal of Ataturk International Airport before detonating explosives, killing 44 people and injuring more than 200.
Meanwhile, 13 suspects, including three foreigners, were referred to Istanbul’s Bakirkoy Court House on Sunday.
The suspects, who are in police custody, were charged with belonging to a terror group, homicide and endangering the unity of the state, Dogan reported, without providing the foreigners’ nationalities.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is slipping away, the UN special coordinator for Middle East peace warned on Sunday, after both sides shrugged off criticism by international mediators.
A report released on Friday by the so-called Quartet - United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - called on Israel to stop its policy of building settlements and "restricting" Palestinian development.
Israeli policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution," it said. It also urged the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, take steps to end incitement to violence against Israelis, condemn "all acts of terrorism" and do more to combat them.
"The Quartet report sounds an alarm bell that we are on a dangerous slope towards a one-state reality that is incompatible with the national aspirations of both peoples," wrote Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, in a commentary emailed to journalists on Sunday. Everything is slipping away: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon. Even the Brits are slipping away from your clutches. Hell, even the Americans (the Americans!) may elect a president who cares about USA and not "the World"!
[RUDAW.NET] The Iraqi parliament’s Integrity Commission has asked the central government to issue the arrest of 2165 individuals in the country whom the commission officially charged on Friday for embezzlement and bribery at the end of an investigation that lasted over six months.
The majority of the wanted defendants are state employees with at least 6 ministers among them along with dozens of top ranking managers within government institutions.
"These are cases that we have investigated in the first half of this year after they were reported to us by private and government sources," said Hasan Yassiri, head of the commission explaining that over 13,000 cases had come to their attention with over 2,000 of them leading to an arrest warrant.
"It is a huge number by every account even for the Iraqi government," Yassiri told news hounds after announcing the commission’s results.
Iraq has repeatedly topped the list of the least transparent nations in the past decade where widespread corruption has made it almost impossible for the government to run the country.
According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reported by Transparency International, Iraq was the least transparent country in 2007 of the total of 178 nations enlisted in the index, followed by Afghanistan and Somalia.
Iraq has gradually fallen in the list, but it was still in the top 15 most corrupt nations in 2015, according to the index.
With over $700 billion of revenues from oil exports since 2003, Iraq is considered a wealthy nation not only in the region but also according to world standards. Nonetheless, the country is still suffering from lack of basic services such as electricity and healthcare.
Earlier this year, supporters of Shiite holy man Moqtada Al-Sadr took to streets in Baghdad and threatened to take matters in their hands if "corrupted officials" were not punished.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) is looking to build alliances with national, regional, and international allies in the face of threats from the Iranian government in Tehran.
"PDKI [KDPI] has embarked on an international campaign to find allies in the Middle East and beyond to counter the threats from the Islamist regime in Iran," reads a statement from the organization published on Saturday, responding a senior Iranian military official who vowed to "crush" KDPI threats in the Kurdistan Region.
The KDPI, whose headquarters are based in the Kurdistan Region, and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have clashed several times in Kurdish areas of northern Iran since mid-June. On June 26, Iran took the fight internationally, firing shells across the border into the Kurdistan Region on the pretext that KDPI bases were located in the area.
A senior Iranian military commander vowed to crush the KDPI, regardless of what borders were in the way. "I warn the officials of northern Iraq, adhere to their commitments as the Islamic Theocratic Republic will crush threats regardless of geographical considerations," said Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, second-in-command of Iran’s revolutionary guards, speaking at Friday prayers in Tehran University, according to the Tehran Times.
The Kurdish government has warned the KDPI, and all Iranian and Turkish opposition groups, against using Kurdistan Region territories for launching attacks on its neighbors and insisted that they must respect Erbil’s international relations with these countries.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Plans to liberate djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... from 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.... have hit another problem as sensitive operation information was leaked and political entities in Baghdad bicker over involvement of forces.
An investigation has been called for after members of Iraq’s parliament apparently leaked sensitive plans for the operation to retake Mosul from the Islamic State.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi informed a meeting of journalists on Wednesday, "The plan to liberate Mosul has changed because some Iraqi MPs revealed the plan to media, which will cause risks for the Iraqi forces."
But, he vowed, "The liberation of Mosul will happen this year."
Member of Parliament Haitham al-Jubouri issued a statement calling for an investigation into the leak. He asked the prime minister to publish a list of those MPs involved and called for an "urgent investigation of the case."
Jubouri also urged an investigation into the military officials who passed information on the plans to liberate Mosul to the politicians, saying "this is not their job."
In his meeting with journalists, Abadi also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... s about The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... possibly playing a role in the battle for Mosul. "We have real concerns about Turkish ambitions in Mosul. Any Turkish interference or extension of its presence in Mosul will lead to a huge war next to the war on ISIS," he warned.
Not everyone shares the prime minister’s concerns. "It’s impossible for Turkey to have ambitions in Mosul or plans to occupy Iraq," said Wahda al-Khamis, advisor to the parliamentary speaker, speaking to Akhbaar on 30 June. "The Iraqi state has its own illusory sovereignty and Turkey too."
"It’s impossible that Turkey, like dark ISIS, is going to occupy Iraqi territories," al-Khamis continued. "We, as Iraqis, are pleased to receive any international support in the fight against ISIS. The big conspiracy that Iraq faces now is putting up obstacles to the liberation of cities from ISIS."
These comments come at a time when Turkey is trying to improve relations with Baghdad.
"Ankara is trying to normalize relations with Iraq and Egypt," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told TRT channel on Tuesday. "We are working in one direction with all Iraqi parties, without differentiating between them. And we stand against sectarian politics."
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Socialist International (SI), the worldwide organization of 153 progressive political parties, officially supports the Kurdish "call for self-determination" and praises the crucial role Peshmerga forces play "in fighting terrorism."
Such a thing still exists in these modern times? I had no idea.
"The Kurdish aspiration for peace, dialogue and democratic solutions with Iraq, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Syria and Iran are well received and supported by SI, which supports their calls for self-determination," according to a draft declaration issued on the Kurdish region by the SI on Saturday.
It added that they welcome "the right to self-determination through mutual understanding for a new formula between the KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] and the Iraqi government."
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Erbil security forces jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! the assailant who detonated two hand grenades in front of Rudaw’s headquarters and, in footage released by the Asayesh [security forces], the perpetrator confessed to his act, which maimed two employees of Rudaw and three private security guards on June 25.
Surveillance camera footage shows the assailant as he placed two grenades under the left back tire of a Rudaw live coverage vehicle and left the scene. The grenades went kaboom! 13 minutes later.
Asayesh arrested the perpetrator, Rebwar Wriya Salih, three days later, the security forces confirmed in a statement.
Salih confessed and said he was given the grenades from two men along with instructions of what to do. They told Salih they wanted to cause chaos in the capital of the Kurdistan Region through an act of terror against a major media corporation like Rudaw.
The two who orchestrated the attack are Saadi Mustafa Abdulrahman and Jwamer Osman Abdulla, said Salih. They also taught him how to handle and set the grenades in training conducted outside of the city.
Salih said that Saadi Mustafa Abdulrahman and Jwamer Osman Abdulla are members of the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG, Komal Party). He joined the party in 2008 and met Abdulrahman and Abdulla through the party.
The KIG issued a statement denying their party was involved in the attack and has rejected the accusations made by Salih.
The attack took place at 12:05 am on June 25, at the headquarters of Rudaw Media Network on Runaki Street in Erbil.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A convoy carrying Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi who had come to tour the site of the deadly bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.
A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 91 people and injuring at least 200. ISIS grabbed credit for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide kaboom.
Video footage uploaded to social media showed the angry crowd, with people calling Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.
Eyewitness said the crowd pelted Abadi’s car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.
Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival.
Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shiite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques.
Rooters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around.
The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed from their injuries.
Until the government launched its Fallujah operation, the prime minister had faced growing social unrest and anti-government protests sparked, in part, by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad’s highly-fortified Green Zone - which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions - was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.
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07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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Legislation to require increased transparency for organizations that are mostly funded by foreign governments would damage Israel’s reputation as a democracy, leaders of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group in the Bundestag wrote ahead of Monday’s expected final vote on the NGO transparency bill. Is it just me, or are these grandchildren of Nazis people have a very strange definition of democracy?
Under the Justice Ministry bill in question, any nonprofit organization that receives more than half of its funding from a foreign political entity would have to indicate as much in any publication or letter to elected officials or civil servants.
In addition, a list of the NGOs falling under the bill’s purview, as well as the countries from which they received donations, would have to be posted on the Non-Profit Registrar’s website.
Remember when we used to say Israel ought to confiscate Palestinian land and build on it each time the Palestinians acted up? Apparently Bibi reads Rantburg.
[IsraelTimes] In wake of terror attacks, Netanyahu says West Bank’s Jewish communities must be strengthened; construction for 600 homes in Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa also approved
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman approved on Sunday construction plans for some 800 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the surrounding area, as well as hundreds of new homes for an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
According to the plan, 560 new units will be built in Ma’ale Adumim, a West Bank settlement right outside the capital, 140 homes were approved for the Jewish East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot and 100 for the Har Homa neighborhood, in southeastern Jerusalem.
Netanyahu and Liberman also authorized construction for 600 new homes in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa, a move criticized by the minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Zeev Elkin (Likud).
The announcement came a day after Netanyahu and Liberman approved the construction of 42 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, where 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was stabbed to death by a Paleostinian terrorist in her bedroom on Thursday morning in the settlement.
The new homes were a part of a series of measures announced by the Israeli government in response to the terror attack in Kiryat Arba, and another attack near Hebron Friday where a family car came under gunfire while driving along Route 60. Miki Mark, a yeshiva head from the settlement of Otniel was killed and his wife seriously injured. Two of their children who were with them in the car were also maimed.
In the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said his government was advancing a series of measures in response to the attacks, including a "special effort to strengthen the communities [in the West Bank]."
"We will submit a special plan for Kiryat Arba at the next cabinet meeting, and my directive to ministers which is to combine measures in all ministries to help communities in Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said.
In response to the attacks since Thursday, the IDF stepped up its troop presence in the West Bank, sending two battalions to help secure settlements and the main roads used by Israelis.
Israel also imposed closures on Hebron and the Paleostinian village of Bani Naim, the hometown of Ariel’s killer. The work permits of the town’s residents were canceled in response to the attack.
The construction announcements come after a Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... report Thursday demanded that Israel take urgent steps to halt the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, citing it as one of three "negative trends" that must be quickly reversed to keep the hope of an Israeli-Paleostinian peace deal alive.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Africa this week, where Israel has found much-needed partners in the battle against Islamic hard boyz and allies in countering the rising Paleostinian influence at the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Netanyahu will also visit the site where his brother was killed in a 1976 military raid on a hijacked airliner in Uganda, a seminal event that helped cement his hardline ideology.
Israel is hoping that the visit - the first by an Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades - will usher in a new era in which it provides African states with security and agricultural assistance in return for support in international forums.
Israel has a long history of involvement in Africa, sending experts in agriculture and development, as well as military advisers and mercenaries, over the years.
Netanyahu’s visit caps a budding rapprochement in recent years initiated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who, as foreign minister a few years ago, toured the continent on two occasions after no Israeli foreign minister had visited in two decades.
In turn, dozens of African dignitaries have visited Israel in recent years, including Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Dore Gold, a senior Israeli diplomat, traveled to South Africa in March, hoping to mend ties with a country that is strongly supportive of the Paleostinian quest for statehood.
"Israel is coming back to Africa; Africa is coming back to Israel. It’s happening in a big way," Netanyahu told African ambassadors at the launch February of the Israeli parliament's caucus for Israel-Africa relations.
Netanyahu said last month he will seek government approval for a $13 million plan to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.
Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s, but those relations crumbled in the 1970s, when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel. African states were also opposed to Israel's close ties to South Africa’s apartheid government.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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A Turkish aid ship carrying 11,000 tons of supplies for the Gaza Strip arrived at Israel’s Ashdod port on July 3. Turkish diplomats and Israeli Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Oren Rozenblat were present at the port as the Panama-flagged Lady Leyla docked.
The ship carried around 10,000 toys and 10,000 packages of food and aid for children in Gaza. It also carried five tons of flour and 2,000 tons of rice aid from the Turkish Grain Board, as well as sugar aid from the Turkish Red Crescent.
The ship set sail on June 30 following a reconciliation deal reached between Turkey and Israel on June 27, after six years of strained relations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/04/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Headline says it all.
Beyond that just a condensed manifest, of course I like a fine condensed manifest.
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.
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
Quartet
