[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The leader ship council of the Taliban group, Quetta Shura ...Mullah Omar's command center, located in Quetta, that the Pak govt hasn't been able to find since its establishment in November, 2001. Honest... , is still based in Quetta city of Pakistain, the provincial governor of southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province said.
Hayatulllah Hayat rejected reports as baseless regarding the transfer of Quetta Shura to Helmand province.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Hayat said the movement of the leaders of the group between Helmand and Quetta cannot be rejected but their leadership council is still based in Quetta city.
Hayat further added that the top leaders of the group are still based in Quetta and 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. cities although movement of the group’s shadow governors and other leader cannot be rejected to provinces from the Pak cities.
This comes as the group’s front man Zabiullah Mujahid earlier told News Agency that Dare Not be Named that the members of the Quetta Shura had shifted to Helmand provinces some months ago.
A senior Taliban capo, Asad Afghan, also told to News Agency that Dare Not be Named the move would consolidate the turbans’ military gains and help lay the ground for a dominant position if and when peace talks resume.
"We are in the last stages of war and are moving forward," said Afghan, who is closely involved in formulating the turbans’ war strategy.
"We are the real government in Afghanistan," he said. The move across the border would give the movement "more focus" at a time it needs to be "quick, clear and more secure about our decisions."
This comes as the Afghan officials earlier said the group is looking to shift its leadership council in Helmand province by intensifying attacks on key districts of the province.
However, a woman is only as old as she admits... Hayat said the group’s attempts to shift the Quetta Shura to Helmand have failed despite they launched numerous attacks to seize key areas of the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] India completed the delivery of the final Mi-24 gunship to the Afghan Air Force (AAF) as part of New Delhi’s ongoing reconstruction effort with the delivery of the 4 gunships marking the first lethal weaponry supply to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) said the last of the 4 Mi-24 gunships was delivered to the Afghan Air Force on Saturday.
AAF further added that a number of the Indian Air Force personnel also arrived in 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.... to complete the delivery of the final gunship to the Afghan forces.
This comes as diplomatic sources said late in August that "The fourth helicopter is yet to be transferred. It needs spares before it can be made fully operational and the spares have to come from Russia."
The sources further added that efforts were on to fix the issue. "There was an issue with the spares. It is being sorted out. It should be delivered very soon," a senior defence official said without specifying a timeframe.
Afghanistan received three of the four Mi-25 gunship helicopters from India late in the month of December last year and days before the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kabul.
The decision for the delivery of Mi-25 gunship helicopters was concluded during the recent visit of Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar to New Delhi.
India has remained one of the key donors for the reconstruction of Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... will continue to arm Syrian rebels even if Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ends US backing for the multinational effort, Doha’s foreign minister said in an interview, signaling its determination to pursue a policy the US President-elect may abandon.
But Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said the wealthy Gulf state would not "go solo" and supply shoulder-fired missiles to the rebels to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes.
While the rebels needed more military support, any move to supply "Manpad" anti-aircraft weapons to them would have to be decided collectively by the rebels’ backers, the minister, a member of Qatar’s royal family, told Rooters late on Saturday.
Qatar is a top backer of rebels fighting Assad, working alongside Western nations in a military aid program overseen by the US Central Intelligence Agency that provides moderate groups with arms and training.
Qatar was determined to carry on, Sheikh Mohammed said, sipping tea in his spacious office on the ministry’s top floor overlooking the Gulf.
"This support is going to continue, we are not going to stop it. It doesn’t mean that if Aleppo falls we will give up on the demands of the Syrian people," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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Notice how the MSM is show-casing Mr. Diaz-Canel: a "reformer" who wears jeans and loves the Beatles. Just an average joe, a technocrat, nothing to worry about. You have to step back a moment and ask, "how did this mild-mannered man become Raul's number two?" to understand that Miguel is very likely in the same mold as Raul -- a thug and nasty boy.
The one constant in Cuba in the last six decades has been a Castro holding the reins of power. But with Friday’s death of Fidel and the fact his younger brother Raul is 85, attention is turning to the next generation of Cuban leaders.
Miguel Diaz-Canel, 55, currently serves as Raul Castro’s vice president and is his apparent successor. He has been working his way up the hierarchy for 30 years, first in provincial positions and then as minister of higher education. When he was 43, he became a member of the Politburo, the youngest ever. Most of the other members fought in the 1959 revolution.
An electrical engineer by trade and a Beatles fan, Diaz-Canel is a social media devotee, often posting pictures of himself and the younger Castro brother.
America’s Quarterly said in a profile last year Diaz-Canel generally keeps a low profile. He was born after the revolution and is a member of the reform wing of the party, more an experienced manager than ideologue. Unlike the Castros, he dresses in jeans and sports jackets, eschewing military fatigues.
He is described as witty and relaxed in private, but not a rousing speaker or charismatic leader in public. In his provincial stints, Diaz-Canel often would pop into local bars to take the temperature of the community.
In appointing Diaz-Canel, Raul Castro declared, “Comrade Diaz-Canel is not an upstart nor improvised.” He stopped short, however, of declaring Diaz-Canel his successor. When he assumed power from his brother in 2013, Raul Castro said he would serve only five years but left open whether he also will resign his positions as head of the Cuban military and the Communist Party.
The question is whether Diaz-Canel will be able to maintain the same kind of control as the Castro brothers, who forged strong relationships with the military, which controls nearly all of the island’s money and economy.
Cuban dissident and human rights activist Antonio Rodiles thinks not. He told the Latin Post Diaz-Canel will be little more than a figurehead for the military, a placeholder until younger members of the Castro family, like Raul Castro’s son Alejandro are ready to seize power.
"When Raul Castro is the president, then yes, the president runs Cuba," Jaime Suchliki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, told the Miami Herald. "When Raul Castro is not president, that will be a very different matter. Díaz-Canel has no tanks and no troops."
Col. Alejandro Castro Espin, 51, is in Cuba’s Interior Ministry security forces and one of his father’s closest aides as a member of a commission on defense and national security. Also in the wings is Col. Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, his son-in-law.
The Herald said signs of generational change are emerging all over the island.
"They are showing on the Mesa Redonda TV show documentaries glorifying the lives of old military generals, humanizing the lives of members of the elite,” Cuban dissident Ailer González told the Herald. It seems a sort of goodbye, in order to promote younger people willing to continue defending the regime."
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Dang, when I looked at the picture at the link I thought the smarmy looking jackass in the middle was Diaz-Canal. Then I read further and found the smarmy looking jackass is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sitting between Diaz-Canal and Raul with a shit eating grin on his face. So we had Baraq and now Canada has Justin.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/28/2016 11:00 Comments ||
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#2
...and loves the Beatles.
That trick won't work with me - Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe loves the Beatles and he's a Grade A asshole.
#3
I would agree that the successor to Raul will eventually be a from the Castro family (or an in law of that family). There is a lot of stolen wealth that has to be protected.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/28/2016 12:10 Comments ||
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#5
A blast from the past, only musty,
A trope that was Russian, and rusty:
"The Beatles! And denim!"
"Oh, groovy! Let's friend him!"
"I'm nothing like Castro. Just trust me."
#6
Hey, its an opening. We are sending off a individual just suited for El Presidente. Has the resume, rules by the pen and phone. Has no need for opposition parties. Will fit right in with the existing political philosophy. What an opportunity and auspicious timing!
#2
as article notes, it was election defeats in local contests that changed her mind, not the increase in crime
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/28/2016 6:06 Comments ||
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#3
Can she find them? Who will be counting the departees? Where will they go? Who will pay for their tickets? Will they be back in six months, and how would you know that?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/28/2016 7:25 Comments ||
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[DAWN] SUKKUR: Leaders of religious parties, including the proscribed ones, of all schools of thought have rejected in unison the Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill, 2015, recently passed by the Sindh Assembly that put curbs on conversion of children below 18 years of age.
This kind of law had no precedent even in the US, Israel and India, they claimed.
In Sukkur, Owais Noorani, general secretary of Jamaat Ulema-e-Pakistain (JUP), said at a gathering at Madressah Ghousia here on Sunday that the religious scholars would start a campaign against the controversial law from Dec 6.
He said the members of the assembly, some of whom were direct heirs of saints and Sufis and custodians of shrines while some traced their origin to the great personalities of early Islam, should feel ashamed of themselves for making such a law.
Mr Noorani said that late Abdullah Shah, former chief minister of Sindh, must be turning in his grave at the feat accomplished by his illustrious son, Syed Murad Ali Shah. Not a single bill proposed by the Council of Islamic Ideology had been made into law whereas this bill which was supported by NGOs and secular forces had been passed within no time, he said.
He urged all religious organizations to hold peaceful protests throughout the country in order to preempt similar attempts by other assemblies to pass such laws.
HYDERABAD: The head of Sindh chapter of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... (JuD) Faisal Nadeem announced on Sunday holding an all-party conference (PAC) of Sindh today (Monday) in Hyderabad to evolve a strategy against the controversial bill.
He said at a gathering of party activists at Markaz Abdul Rehman Bin Auf on the Autobahn road that all religious and political parties would attend the APC where the religious scholars and prominent political figures of the province would unanimously raise voice against the law.
He said that Pakistain Peoples Party was passing such laws to appease somebody or someone. Such law was never passed even by any foreign country, including the US, Israel and India, or any other provincial assembly of this country, he said.
He said the APC would prove to be a starting point of a movement against the bill. The protests were aimed at preventing such attempts in future as well, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] ISLAMABAD: The occupation of Junagarh by India violated Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties and the state should be merged with Pakistain.
They really think this will work? How quaint.
This was stated by the nawab of Junagarh, Muhammad Jahangir Khanji, on Sunday during a meeting with 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... Governor Muhammad Khan Achakzai. Sultan Muhammad Ali, founder of the Moslem Institute, was also present on the occasion.
Junagarh was a princely state of pre-partition India and at the time of partition over 550 states were given the choice to join either Pakistain or India. The nawab of Junagarh decided to join Pakistain.
But because the state was surrounded by Indian land, with the only outlet to the Arabian Sea, India occupied it and the nawab had to move to 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... "The Junagarh state possesses the law of accession with Pakistain [which] meets all the criteria of accession under the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties," said Nawab Khanji.
"To prove that the Junagarh state is a part of Pakistain, this accession document is important [because it is] strong and lawful evidence. The instrument of accession is an international agreement, concluded between states, in written form, governed by international law, in a single instrument," he said.
The issue of Junagarh would remain alive legally as long as the instrument of accession was intact, the nawab said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"Nawab" - rhymes with "Doorknob"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/28/2016 10:38 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Shin Bet says Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement funded activists who protested Jewish, Christian visits to Jerusalem holy.
The Nazareth District Court on Sunday indicted four senior members of a recently outlawed Islamic activist group for provoking tensions at the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said Sunday.
Israel on Sunday said it will expand its fleet of next-generation F-35 fighter jets in a move that officials believe will help maintain the country's qualitative military edge over its Mideast neighbors for years to come, AP reported.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that his Security Cabinet has approved the purchase of 17 additional F-35s. In all, it said, the acquisition will bring the number of planes the air force will get to 50.
Who's paying? Uncle Sugar?
The F-35 is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program, with an estimated cost of nearly $400 billion. Israel is among a small number of allies slated to receive the plane, with the first F-35 expected to arrive in about three weeks.
A senior Israeli air force official described the arrival of the F-35 as a game-changing development that will give Israel a "strong and effective tool" in dealing with challenges across the region. He said its ability to "integrate" various-cutting edge systems would preserve Israel's ability to act freely in hostile airspace. He cited its long range capability, its ability to provide pilots with critical data in real time and a stealth system that can evade or delay detection by the world's most sophisticated radar systems.
The official said Israel would begin training with the new planes immediately, but that it would take "more than a few months" for the first planes to be operational.
He did not specify what missions Israel might make with the planes, but said the F-35s are expected to meet all of Israel's needs. In recent years, Israel has reportedly carried out long-range airstrikes as far away as Sudan, and is believed to have struck Hezbollah-bound weapons shipments in neighboring Syria.
Israel has also hinted in the past at making plans to strike Iran, some 1,000 kilometers away, if the Islamic Republic presses forward with a nuclear program it considers suspect. Both Syria and Iran possess sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft systems. He said these systems will still present a challenge, but the F-35 will be "very helpful" against them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Who's paying? Uncle Sugar?
Why should Israel pay corporate warfare for Lockheed Martin? You know how much work & money IAI & Rafael are going to invest in each plane to make it useful? Basically, USA is outsourcing R&D on a plane that you have failed to make work.
the arrival of the F-35 as a game-changing development that will give Israel a "strong and effective tool" in dealing with challenges across the region
As long as we can equip them with our own electronics.
In signs of Iran's expansionist tendencies, the country's chief of staff of the armed forces has said that Tehran is interested in setting up naval bases in both Syria and Yemen. The Saturday report by semi-official Tasnim news agency quotes Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying: "Maybe, at some point we will need bases on the shores of Yemen and Syria."
"Having naval bases in remote distances is not less than nuclear power. It is ten times more important and creates deterrence," he said.
Gen Bagheri added that setting up naval platforms off the shores of those countries requires "infrastructures there first".
Iran is currently under fire from Gulf countries for helping rebels in Yemen and the Syrian government in their fights against the Daesh extremist group.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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[Telegraph] Intelligence of attack plots across Europe is being uncovered as 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 caliphate is beaten back, the top British officer in the military coalition fighting the gunnies has disclosed.
A trove of information has already been found and the capture of the Iraqi city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... is expected to deliver more on the plans, finances and members of Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil).
Maj Gen Rupert Jones warned there were "no quick answers" in the fight to liberate Iraq’s second city, which has now entered its second month.
The volume of intelligence being found is so large the coalition has set up a lab in the Gulf to plunder Death Eaters’ laptops, phones and drives for their secrets and then pass them to intelligence agencies.
He also appeared to challenge Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s campaign trail suggestions that the coalition was not aggressive enough against the bad boy movement also known as ISIS.
Maj Gen Jones, who is second in command of the US-led coalition, spoke as the Telegraph visited more than 250 British troops recently sent to Al Asad Air Base in Western Iraq where they are training Iraqi troops to fight the Death Eaters.
The volume of intelligence being found is so large the coalition has set up a lab in the Gulf to plunder Death Eaters’ laptops, phones and drives for their secrets and then pass them to intelligence agencies.
The capture of the Syrian town of Manbij, which acted as a gateway for jihadists travelling into The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and on to Europe, was an intelligence breakthrough, he said. But he warned the Lions of Islam would still be able to direct plots while they remained in their capital, Raqqa.
Maj Gen Jones said: "Manbij was hugely important for external operations. A huge amount of intelligence gathered in Manbij related to threats in Europe and elsewhere. What we are now in the process of doing is starting the isolation of Raqqa.
"For as long as Raqqa is sitting there, they can orchestrate external operations. So the sooner it’s liberated or the sooner ISIS are liberated from there, the better."
He went on: "The reason we are all here is because ISIS has demonstrated it poses a threat to our way of life. It’s demonstrated very effectively what it can do in Europe and elsewhere."
Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy... continues in Mosul where Iraqi security forces began an assault to drive out Isil nearly six weeks ago.
Maj Gen Jones said: "I am absolutely certain that an extraordinary amount of intelligence will come out of Mosul. We have ramped up as a coalition our ability to gather and process all that intelligence, because it will be a labyrinth of intelligence and we need to get that into the hands of intelligence agencies."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/28/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Crucial info down the "intelligence" rathole from whence it will never again see the light of day.
#6
Maj Gen Rupert Jones warned there were "no quick answers" in the fight to liberate Iraq’s second city, which has now entered its second month.
He also appeared to challenge Donald Trump’s campaign trail suggestions that the coalition was not aggressive enough against the bad boy movement also known as ISIS.
That's your opinion. If the US military had been unleashed as it should have long ago, this would have all been a speck in our rearview mirror instead of a log in our eye.
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.
I suppose nearly anything is possible. .jpg)
[DAWN] ISLAMABAD: The occupation of Junagarh by India violated Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties and the state should be merged with Pakistain.
Israel on Sunday said it will expand its fleet of next-generation F-35 fighter jets in a move that officials believe will help maintain the country's qualitative military edge over its Mideast neighbors for years to come, AP reported.
