[Libya Herald] Rebuilding Libya’s unified army is going to be a big challenge. It cannot be done in the short term, but that does not prevent work starting, former Libyan Chief of Staff Yusef Mangoush said Friday.
Rebuilding a national army is seen as a means of achieving security for Libya with its widespread dispersion of weapons. However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... its rebuilding has been one of the most contended issues in Libya over the last five years, Mangoush explained, speaking exclusively to Libya Herald on the margins of a conference organized by King’s College on Libyan security in London.
Continued on Page 49
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#1
The only thing better than a small effective army is (wait for it) a large effective army.
[Libya Herald] Abdul Raouf Kara, the head of the of RADA (Deterrence) forces, one of the main security groups backing the Presidency Council, is being targeted by the alliance of hardliners and murderous Moslems seeking to wrest control of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... Wissam Ben Hamid, the former leader of Benghazi’s Libya Shield ...a conglomerate of pro-Islamist militias deployed across Libya. It reports to the Libyan defense ministry and is organized like a real army unit. Its commander used to head a Benghazi brigade called Free Libya Martyrs... No. 1 brigade who fled the city last year and has since been spending time between Tripoli, Misrata and Jufra, yesterday accused Kara and Rada of being part of a "malicious clique".
In a video published by Benghazi Defence Brigades (Benghazi Saraya) which claims to be operating under the authority of grand mufti Sadek Al-Ghariani, Ben Humaid described Kara as a hypocrite who pretended to be on the side of the revolutionaries but in reality was no different to Khalifa Hafter.
Ben Hamid also attacked the Presidency Council, Hafter and the French, alleging a conspiracy between the latter two and declaring that the mujahdeen would never give up until they had expelled "the invaders" from the country. As for the Presidency, it was a council of traitors intent on dividing Libya.
Ben Hamid’s outburst came after the Presidency Council declared a three-day state of emergency in Tripoli amid fears that the murderous Moslems planned to take over government buildings after demonstrations in Martyrs’ Square. Streets leading to the square were closed but although there hundreds tuned up to protest against both the French and the Presidency, there were no attacks.
Speaking earlier this week on his Tanasah TV station, Ghariani ordered Kara to release all jihadists held by him at the prison at Mitiga airbase. Calling them "brothers", he said they were country’s real political saviours
Kara is reported to be holding a number of IS and Ansara Al-Sharia supporters.
Ben Hamid was accused last year of ordering the liquidation of Mahdi Al-Barghathi, at the time commander of Benghazi’s 20 Tank Brigade, now the Presidency Council’s defence minister.
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[Libya Observer] The military official in the Benghazi Shura Council, Wisam Ben Hamid, accused the Presidential Council of the UN-proposed government of treason, splitting the country and stealing its fortunes, saying it does not aim at bringing the Libyans into concord nor does it aim at prevailing justice and unifying all citizens.
In a recorded statement posted by the media arm of the Shura Council, Al-Saraya Center, on Friday, Ben Hamid called on people, who went on streets and public squares to denounce the French intervention, to continue doing so, praising their brave stance, adding that the French intervention unveils the true intentions of Dignity Operation, which he said "an attempt to bring back the former regime and plunder the people’s fortunes.
"We hail the stance taken by the Libyan religious scholars who rejected the French intervention and we also appreciate the courageous stance of southern and western revolutionaries who backed the scholars up." He explained, urging the revolutionaries to keep on pressing and to move from words to actions.
Ben Hamid reiterated his call on Cyrenaica residents, whom he called "Sons of Glorious Cyrenaica", to disown Dignity Operation and foreign intervention, confirming that Benghazi Shura Council will keep on putting the revolution back on the right track and defend Islam.
Last week, many people erupted into the streets in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , Misrata, Zawiya and Gharyan to denounce the French intervention, besides, Libya’s Fatwa House and Libya’s Scholars Association denounced as well the intervention after three French soldiers were announced killed in eastern Benghazi.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Tunisia’s parliament is holding a no-confidence vote that is expected to decide the fate of technocratic Prime Minister Habib Essid.
The odds are stacked against Essid, who has been criticized by both the four-party ruling coalition and Tunisia’s opposition. Essid himself appears resigned to a negative outcome. While defending his record, Essid told politicians on Saturday that he was "not attached to this job."
Essid’s authority has suffered amid continuing economic and social problems in the North African nation, the only country to successfully transition to a parliamentary democracy following the uprisings that rocked the Arab world in 2011.
Essid’s position has also been undermined by political maneuvering within Tunisia’s ruling party, Nida Tounis, and pressure from the country’s president, Beji Caid Essebsi.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Leader of Yemen's Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... Ansarullah movement Sayyed Abdel Malek al-Houthi has called for a "resolution based on justice" to the conflict in the country, saying the nation will not surrender to the demands by the Saudi-backed party to the peace talks.
On Thursday, the Saudi-backed delegation loyal to Yemen's resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, ended the UN-mediated peace negotiations with the Houthi delegation in Kuwait City.
"Our national delegation in Kuwait has presented all possible concessions and what they want from us is to surrender and this is impossible," Sayyed Houthi said in a televised statement on Friday.
"We are ready for a resolution based on justice but we will not surrender."
Ansarullah and its allies said both the Hadi loyalists and the regime in Riyadh lack the political will to promote a diplomatic process aimed at settling the conflict in Yemen.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Sayyed Houthi held the United States responsible for the deadly Saudi aggression against Yemen, describing Riyadh as a tool in the hands of Washington. He reiterated that the Yemeni nation is determinate to confront the campaign.
Sayyed Houthi also stated that the US has returned al-Qaeda to southern Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... after the snuffies were expelled by the Yemeni army and popular committees, adding that the snuffies fight alongside the Saudi forces.
Washington and its regional allies, especially Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , were angry when the Yemeni forces managed to purge several areas of al-Qaeda, he said.
Sayyed Houthi said the United States uses the pretext of fighting terrorism to interfere in the internal affairs of the regional countries.
He said the US seeks fragmentation of Yemen for its own benefit.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Saudi-led coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... has denied allegations by international human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and aid groups that it was blocking access to the war-ravaged country, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
In a statement issued on Friday, the coalition voiced deep regret over media reports quoting NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders and Amnesia Amnesty International, saying such reports only contribute to weakening the coalition’s "positive role" in the delivery of humanitarian aid and facilitating the distribution of relief supplies, including petroleum products, among Yemenis.
The statement said the coalition has not imposed any blockade on any Yemeni territory or has not started an economic boycott of any kind. "What it does is performing duties with regard to implementing the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... resolutions aimed at preventing smuggling of arms and ammunition," the statement said, pointing out that the coalition had given priority to health situation in Yemen while starting the Restoration of Hope campaign in Yemen. "It spared no efforts to improve the overall health condition in the country, the latest of which was the air drop of more than 40 tons of medical supplies to the city of Taiz and then transporting them to hospitals by making use of all available means, including animals."
The statement added that the coalition forces, in cooperation with the Djibouti-based UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM), exerted every effort to facilitate transportation of humanitarian aid as well as commercial goods and petroleum products to all sections of the Yemeni people without discrimination. A total of 4,079 permits have been issued to all entry points in this regard.
The coalition forces have issued permits to all ships engaged in relief and humanitarian missions without any delay or inspections at the Yemeni ports.
Regarding fat merchantmen, UNVIM, in cooperation with the coalition forces and the legitimate government, issues permits at all Yemeni ports without discrimination.
The number of permits issued so far reached 1,462 and these include Hodeidah port controlled by the militias.
The coalition emphasized that the humanitarian disaster in Yemen is not because of any blockade on the shipment of food, petroleum products or commercial goods, but is primarily because of rebel forces who occupy the state machinery and manipulate all ports entry, notably the Hodeidah port, which has become a haven for smugglers.
"The militias try to create a black market in Hodeidah port for petroleum products and relief and trade materials to finance their coup as well as for personal gains of its leaders. They used it for political bargaining by imposing a siege and pursuing a policy of systematic starvation in provinces and cities like Taiz," the statement said.
The coalition called on international bodies operating in Yemen to shoulder their responsibilities toward meeting urgent humanitarian needs of the Yemeni people, in addition to taking necessary measures to ensure that the aid reaches all areas of Yemen in a fair and equal proportion.
It also issued an urgent call to lift the blockade on areas besieged by the forces loyal to the coup leaders and called upon all organizations to verify the facts on the ground before making statements to the media.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemen’s government delegation has quit talks in Kuwait with Shiite Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... rebels despite resuming them earlier this month.
Officials with Yemen’s internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named they were considering proposals to reconvene the talks, which have failed to bridge the gap with the rebels, in Oman. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief news hounds otherwise.
Hadi’s government is backed by a US assisted Saudi-led military campaign against the Iranian catspaws. The war has killed some 9,000 people.
Hadi’s negotiators are demanding the implementation of a UN Security Council resolution which stipulates the withdrawal of militias from all cities. The Houthis want the Saudi-led offensives to stop first, and also a share of power in a transitional government.
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[Dhaka Tribune] At least five listed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s which remains obscure even today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually exploded. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Saudi Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt. (JMB) turbans, including the criminal mastermind of Gulshan terror attack which claimed 24 lives, is suspected to be hiding in India, reports the Times of India.
One of them is Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a native of Sylhet and a former expatriate in Canada who is believed to be the coordinator of 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) in the country, said the report published on Friday.
The other four are Junoon Sikdar, Najibullah Ansari, ATM Tajuddin and Bangladesh-born Japanese citizen Mohammad Saifulla Ojaki.
According to the Times of India, the quintet may have entered the Indian territory by crossing "the mostly non-existent border."
They are among the 68 individuals whose names were disclosed by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as missing persons a few days ago. The list contains individuals aging between 15 and 40 years who have been suspiciously missing since 2011.
According to sources, Tamim, who is also known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, left Canada in 2013 and could not traced after that. His interview appeared in the June 2016 issue of Dabiq ‐ the propaganda magazine published by IS.
Junoon, who is originally from Comilla and was a computer science student in a private university in Dhaka, was tossed in the clink Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! by police in 2009 under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
He was again arrested in 2013 for his alleged links with Ansarullah Bangla Team, the offshoot of the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. A known recruiter of the jihadi group, he was later released on bail and left for Malaysia.
Najibullah, a native of Chapainawabganj, went to Malaysia to study marine engineering. Last year, his father filed a general diary with Chittagong police after Nazibullah wrote to his brother that he had decided to join IS and move to Iraq.
Tajuddin, who was studying computer engineering at a US-based university, went missing in 2013. A general diary was filed with Lakshmipur Sadar cop shoppe earlier this month.
Ojaki, alias Sujit Debnath, a professor of business administration at Asia Pacific University, Japan, has been missing for a year. His father Janardan Debnath filed a general diary in this regard in Nabinagar.
The Times of India also reported that Assam police busted a JMB camp two months ago in Chirang district, which was used for training local youths.
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[TheSun] An ISIS jihadi recruited an undercover Sun news hound to carry out a lone wolf terrorist atrocity -- targeting Big Ben, London Bridge or a major shopping centre. Jihadi spent two months coaching our man on the orders of ISIS’s top recruiter.
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#1
two months coaching
There's something to be said for waiting and baiting for a bigger fish. My vote is for killing schools of small fish before they get big.
[DAWN] French authorities filed terror charges on Friday against two men, including Pak national Mohammad Usman, who are suspected to be members of the same hard boyIslamic 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 cell that massacred 130 people in Gay Paree last November, a judicial source said.
The 35-year-old Pak Mohammad Usman and 29-year-old Algerian Adel Haddadi were charged with "criminal conspiracy with terrorists", the source said of the men turned over earlier Friday by Austrian authorities.
Investigators believe they travelled to the Greek island of Leros on October 3 on the same boat full of refugees as two men who took part in the November 13 attacks.
Those two, thought to be Iraqis, blew themselves up outside the Stade de La Belle France stadium, one of a series of brazen assaults by around 10 people around the French capital.
But Haddadi and Usman were held up, detained by Greek authorities for 25 days because they had fake Syrian passports.
Once let go, they followed the main migrant trail and made it to Salzburg in western Austria at the end of November -- after the Gay Paree attacks.
Austrian police commandos then tossed in the clink Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! them in December at a migrant centre a few hours after French authorities informed them the men could be in the country.
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[NYPOST] The bloodthirsty jihadist who executed a Catholic priest in La Belle France "easily" passed a background check to become an airport baggage handler, according to a report.
Abdel Malik Petitjean, 19, worked full time at Chambéry Airport in the Savoie region, which is used by more than 250,000 passengers a year, until just three months ago, the Evening Standard reported. He began working at the airport as a porter in December after completing his studies at the Lycée Marlioz, a high school in his hometown of Aix-les-Bains.
"Petitjean had no trouble getting through a police investigation and psychological evaluation," a source told the paper.
"He was considered to be a hard-working, friendly young man who did not pose any danger to passengers or others using the airport. He got through the police investigation easily," the source said.
The ISIS wannabe, who left the airport in April, was spotted by Turkish intelligence officials on June 10 as he tried to reach Syria to join the terror group. He returned to La Belle France June 11 for reasons that remain unclear and was put on a terror watch list on June 29, authorities said.
They didn't pull his clearance then...
On July 22, four days before Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, 19, butchered Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, in a Normandy church, French anti-terror police released a photograph of an unidentified man believed to be planning a strike. The man turned out to be Petitjean, officials said.
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[RT] A militant splinter group on the French island of Corsica has warned 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, formerly ISIS/ISIS) that they will fight back if the terrorist group carries out an attack there, while urging Corsican Moslems to unite.
The FLNC October 22 group, a splinter from the main National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) separatist organization, said in statement sent to Corse Matin [Corsica Morning], a local newspaper, that any terrorist acts carried out on Corsican soil would prompt "a determined response without any qualms," while adding that the French government would be largely to blame if such an attack were to take place.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Bavaria’s premier, whose state bore the brunt of recent attacks in Germany, took aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... ’s open-door refugee policy on Saturday by rejecting her "we can do this" mantra.
The comments from Horst Seehofer, whose Christian Social Union is the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s conservatives, exacerbate the chancellor’s difficulty in standing by a policy that her critics have blamed for the attacks and which risks undermining her popularity before federal elections next year.
"’We can do this’ - I cannot, with the best will, adopt this phrase as my own," Seehofer told news hounds after a meeting of his party.
Five attacks in Germany since July 18 have left 15 people dead, including four assailants, and dozens injured. Two of the attackers had links to Islamist militancy, officials say. Germany is wrestling with how to respond.
Jens Spahn, deputy finance minister and a senior member of Merkel’s conservatives, said that integrating the refugees was a Herculean task but the government needed to put more pressure on those new arrivals unwilling to make an effort to fit in.
"A ban on the full body veil - that is the niqab and the burka - is overdue," he told daily Die Welt. "My impression is that we all underestimated a year ago what would come upon us with this big refugee and migration movement."
Over a million migrants colonists have entered Germany in the past year, many fleeing war in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
In an editorial, magazine Der Spiegel noted that the government of Helmut Schmidt, who served as chancellor from 1974 to 1982, toughened laws to combat the ultra-leftist Red Army Faction, which attacked the political and business elite, but added: "the turbans nonetheless carried on bombing."
The comments from Seehofer, who said following the latest attacks that "all our predictions have been proven right", came after Merkel on Thursday defiantly repeated "we can do this" and vowed not to bend her refugee policy.
"The problem is too big for that and the attempts at a solution thus far too unsatisfactory," said Seehofer. "Restrictions on immigration are a condition for security in this country."
Merkel on Thursday set out a nine-point plan to respond to the attacks, including an early warning system for the radicalization of refugees.
She faced criticism on social media after failing to react until the next day to the bloodiest of the attacks, in Munich, where an 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman killed nine people.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... on Friday told the EU and US to "mind your own business" after the West expressed alarm over the growing crackdown against suspected coup plotters, as a court placed 17 journalists under arrest.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has detained more than 18,000 people over the coup which Ankara blames on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, with the relentless crackdown sparking warnings from Brussels that its EU membership bid may be in danger.Erdogan
"Some people give us advice. They say they are worried. Mind your own business! Look at your own deeds," Erdogan said in a speech at his presidential palace.
"Not a single person has come to give condolences either from the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ... or from the West," said Erdogan.
"And then they say that 'Erdogan has got so angry'!" he fumed.
"Those countries or leaders who are not worried about Turkey's democracy, the lives of our people, its future -- while being so worried about the fate of the putschists -- cannot be our friends."
Erdogan vowed to take all steps "within the limits of the law" as Turkey seeks legal retribution for the perpetrators of the coup.
A Turkish official said 3,500 of those detained have now been released after questioning.
EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn said he needed to see "black-and-white facts about how these people are treated".
"And if there is even the slightest doubt that the (treatment) is improper, then the consequences will be inevitable," he told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Turkey has also targeted journalists accused of links to Gulen, causing further international alarm.
Twenty-one detained suspects Friday appeared in front of a judge in Istanbul to decide whether to remand them in jug.
After a hearing lasting to midnight, four were freed but 17 placed under arrest ahead of trial, charged with "membership of a terror group", the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Those held include the veteran journalist Nazli Ilicak as well as the former correspondent for the pro-Gulen Zaman daily Hanim Busra Erdal, it added.
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The sultan has spoken, but narrow still is his sway.
[AlAhram] Barely 12 hours after a failed coup in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Somalia's cabinet met in Mogadishu to consider a request from Ankara to shut down two schools and a hospital linked to Fethullah Gulen, the Moslemholy man Turkey blames for the attempted putsch.
Such is Turkey's sway in the Horn of Africa nation, where it has spearheaded international reconstruction efforts after decades of war and instability, it was not a difficult decision.
Continued on Page 49
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#1
Erdy is taking his gulen-free diet way too seriously.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Turkey has released more than 750 soldiers detained after an abortive coup, state media reported on Saturday, while President Tayyip Erdogan said he would drop lawsuits against people who had insulted him, in a one-time gesture of “unity”.
More than 60,000 people have been detained, removed or suspended over suspected links with the failed putsch, when a faction of the military commandeered tanks, helicopters and fighter jets and attempted to topple the government.
Turkey’s Western allies have condemned the coup, in which Erdogan has said 237 people were killed and more than 2,100 were wounded, but have been rattled by the scale of the resulting crackdown which has targeted supporters of Fethullah Gulen.
The US-based Muslim cleric, accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15-16 putsch, denies the charges and Erdogan’s critics say the president is using the purges to clamp down on dissent.
Erdogan, meanwhile, has said it was “shameful” that Western countries showed more interest in the fate of the plotters than in standing with a fellow NATO member and has upbraided Western leaders for not visiting after the putsch. US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, a top military official, is due to visit Turkey on Sunday.
State-run Anadolu Agency reported that 758 soldiers were released on the recommendation of prosecutors after giving testimony, and the move was agreed by a judge. Another 231 soldiers remain in custody, it said.
Turkey’s military, the second-largest in NATO, has been hard hit in the wake of the coup, with about 40 percent of all generals and admirals dismissed. On Thursday, 99 colonels were promoted to the rank of general or admiral, following the dishonorable discharge of nearly 1,700 military personnel.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU’s deal with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... on halting the flow of migrants colonists towards the bloc is at risk of breaking down, in comments published Friday.
"The risk is big. The success so far of the pact is fragile. President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan has already hinted several times that he wants to scrap it," Juncker told Austrian daily Kurier.
"(If that happens) then we can expect migrants colonists to start coming to Europe again," he told the paper in an interview to be published on Saturday.
The March accord between the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and Turkey succeeded in stemming the flow of migrants colonists but there are concerns that it could fall apart after a failed coup against Erdogan on July 15.
A subsequent purge in Turkey has seen thousands of arrests among the army, the police and judiciary, and hundreds have lost their jobs in every major Turkish ministry.
Three days after the attempt on the government, a group of Turkish officials assigned to monitor the migration deal on the Greek side returned home, and have yet to be replaced.
In a wide-ranging interview, Juncker also said he was "very concerned" about developments within the 28-nation EU, particularly with regard to Poland and Hungary.
"In Poland the government’s course of action has damaged the rule of law... I am watching with concern preparations for Hungary’s referendum on migration," Juncker was quoted as saying.
On Wednesday the European Commission handed Poland’s right-wing government a three-month deadline to reverse changes to its Constitutional Court or face sanctions for breaching EU norms on the rule of law and democracy.
The move by the EU’s executive arm is the second step in an unprecedented procedure which could eventually see Warsaw’s voting rights suspended in the Council of Ministers, the EU’s highest decision-making body.
Hungary meanwhile has refused to accept a single migrant under a mandatory EU quota plan to share them around the bloc, and will hold a referendum on the scheme on October 2.
Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week called migration "poison" for Europe and said that his country "does not need a single migrant."
"If referendums are going to be organized on every decision of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, then legal security is in danger," Juncker said.
"The Commission should really -- although we’re not that far yet -- launch a breach of treaty procedure against Hungary. Mr. Orban though would then claim that the Commission is taking the Hungarian people to court."
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"Hillary Clinton's campaign apparently has a love-hate relationship with the American flag.
While they seemingly couldn’t get enough of them in Philadelphia, they’re literally discarding them in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Jason Cato posted a photo from inside Clinton's Saturday rally in Pittsburgh that showed a pile of "confiscated" American flags in a heap on the floor."
#1
To the left, anything that rivals thier cult personality (Clinton, Obama), that image must be torn down. Just like in communist countries, nothing is equal to or above "Dear Leader".
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
07/31/2016 9:52 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] The cash-strapped group is hoping giveaway of Gazoo plots will help appease civil servants owed millions of dollars in salaries.
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has begun handing out plots of the land to 40,000 civil servants loyal to the group, to make up for millions of dollars in salaries it owes them for the past two years.
The land giveaway is the latest sign that Hamas is struggling financially after almost a decade of uncontested power in the coastal strip.
Since 2014, Hamas’s main problem has been a dire lack of cash amid Egypt’s clampdown on smuggling tunnels underneath Gazoo’s border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Before the tunnels closed, Hamas earned millions of dollars from taxes on smuggled consumer goods, including subsidized Egyptian fuel.
Later that same year, Hamas and its rival, the West Bank-based Paleostinian Authority, agreed to form a unity government for both Gazoo and the West Bank. PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... had lost Gazoo to a Hamas takeover in 2007, and this was an attempt to heal the split.
But the deal stalled, partly because Abbas refused to add the 40,000 employees hired by Hamas since 2007 to the payroll of his Paleostinian Authority. In time, Hamas resorted to paying its loyalists 40% of their salaries at 50 day intervals.
Since March, after Hamas collected additional taxes, these civil servants have been receiving 45% of their salaries on a monthly basis. The price of cigarettes went up 35% and an additional $30 in taxes was imposed on each ton of fruit entering Gazoo from Israel.
The land giveaway allows each group of four Hamas employees to share a 500-square-meter plot that they can either build on or sell. Even the sand collected on the land can be sold for about $100 a truckload.
About 13,000 civil servants have already signed up for certificates attesting to their ownership of the plots. Bulldozers are working to get three initial projects launched in August.
Most of the land once was part of Jewish settlements in southern Gazoo, near the towns of Rafah and Khan Younis. The settlements were demolished when Israel pulled settlers and soldiers from the coastal strip in 2005.
Earlier this week, earth-moving equipment dug into a high hill near Khan Younis, scooping out sand and loading it into trucks at the site designated for the Al-Isra 2 housing project.
Riham Khalil, one of the civil servants, said Hamas owes her NIS 64,000 (about $17,000) in back salaries. Last month, she and three of her colleagues were allocated a 500-square-meter plot in Al-Isra 2.
"We had to accept it on a ’bird in the hand’ basis because there was no cash," she said. "I wish I could find someone to buy the land and get the money."
Senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil said the land giveaway is a temporary fix, "not yet a strategic one" that would solve the group’s financial problems for good.
If Abbas had put Hamas employees on his payroll, he would have likely encountered major problems with donor governments, including the United States, suspicious of money ending up in the pockets of Hamas, which much of the West considers a terrorist group.
The Paleostinian Authority opposes the land-for-money program.
"No one has the authority to issue decisions to privatize government-owned land in the public interest, except for President Abbas," said PA front man Jamal Dajani.
He dismissed Hamas’s claims that Abbas has neglected Gazoo. The Paleostinian Authority still pays the monthly salaries of some 70,000 civil servants in Gazoo who are loyal to Abbas and left their posts after the Hamas takeover.
Hamas has been spending some of its new revenue to fund summer camps, where children are exposed to its myrmidon anti-Israeli ideology, or for large communal evening meals known as iftars during the Moslem holy month of Ramadan.
#3
According to Ynet, jvalentour, the next local elections -- which Hamas suddenly decided to participate in -- are scheduled for October. "National" elections are not scheduled.
#4
But the deal stalled, partly because Abbas refused to add the 40,000 employees hired by Hamas since 2007 to the payroll of his Paleostinian Authority. In time, Hamas resorted to paying its loyalists 40% of their salaries at 50 day intervals
wait til their pension bubble bursts
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/31/2016 12:33 Comments ||
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I bet a fat f*ucking check would go a long way towards establishing trust, failing that a nice numbered account somewhere. I swear these guys are worse than solar panel makers.
ALEPPO – Captain Islam Aloush, the official spokesman for the Syrian rebel faction of al-Islam Army, said Saturday that the decision of the Nusra Front to split from al-Qaeda “is not enough” for the group to get closer to the Syrian people.
“Our national revolution is to liberate people oppressed by the criminal sectarian regime in Syria. Therefore, any group’s link with any global organization would hinder achieving the goals of the Syrian people’s revolution,” Aloush said.
“Such links would make Syrians responsible for the faults and errors of these global organizations. However, this step from Jabhat al-Nusra is not enough to get closer to the Syrian people,” he said in a public statement.
The spokesman of Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) stressed the need to unite all Syrian rebel factions. “Unfortunately, many internal and external obstacles stand against this unification at all levels,” he added.
“I do not think that the disengagement of Jabhat al-Nusra from al-Qaeda will have an effect on the military ideology of the fighters of Fath al-Sham [new name for Nusra Front]. We will be waiting and watching the behavior of the new formation with its new name in order for us to pass a fair judgment,” Aloush concluded.
The leader of Syria’s Nusra Front Abu Muhammed al-Joulani announced on Thursday that they would break ties with al-Qaeda. “We declare the complete cancellation of all operations under the name of Jabhat Al Nusra [Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda], and the formation of a new group operating under the name “Jabhat Fath Al Sham,” noting that this new organization has no affiliation to any external entity,” Joulani said, while for the first time appearing with his face uncovered last Thursday.
The US-led coalition said they will continue to target the group, despite of the name-change.
AMUDE – A gunman was killed in the Kurdish city of Amude in northeastern Syria while trying to carry out a terror attack, local sources reported on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses and local activists told ARA News an attacker tried to place an explosive device in parked vehicle in central Amude, however it was exploded before being installed leading to the death of the militant, who is believed to have ties with the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS).
Nevertheless, an informed source within the Kurdish security forces [known as Asayish] said a person tried to blow up a vehicle with gasoline.
Reportedly, the attacker was part of an ISIS sleeping cell of five members in the areas of Amude and Dirbisiya, belonging to the Arab community, who were trying to plan attacks on the city of Amude, the centre of the local Kurdish administration.
Car explosion follows a failed attempt by ISIS militant to carry out a terror attack in the Kurdish Amude city northeast Syria. (activists)
Noteworthy, a massive blast rocked the city of Qamishli on the 27th of July leading to the death of at least 50 civilians, and more than 177 injuries. ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, saying it was “just the beginning”.
The recent attacks have resulted in a state of anxiety among the Syrian Kurds who fear more ISIS attacks. Video report at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
07/31/2016 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[8 views]
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said on Friday he was not optimistic about the future of Syria.
"I don’t know whether or not Syria can be put back together again," Brennan told the annual Aspen Security Forum. His comments were a rare public acknowledgement by a top US official that Syria may not survive a five-year civil war in its current state.
A maternity hospital supported by Save the Children was bombed Friday in an air raid in Idlib province of northwest Syria, causing casualties and heavy damage, the Britannia-based charity said.
"Save the Children supported maternity hospital in Idlib bombed, casualties reported - numbers unconfirmed," it tweeted.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that the hospital in the rebel-held town of Kafar Takharim was heavily damaged and left barely operational.
The monitoring group did not specify if the raid was carried out by Syrian regime aircraft or warplanes of its Russian allies.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2016 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.
[Libya Herald] Rebuilding Libya’s unified army is going to be a big challenge. It cannot be done in the short term, but that does not prevent work starting, former Libyan Chief of Staff Yusef Mangoush said Friday.
[Libya Herald] Abdul Raouf Kara, the head of the of RADA (Deterrence) forces, one of the main security groups backing the Presidency Council, is being targeted by the alliance of hardliners and 
