[Iran Press TV] The Egyptian Interior Ministry has tossed in the slammer Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! a group of five people caught producing fake pictures of people suffering in Syria’s Aleppo.
On Tuesday, the ministry said that the five residents of Port Said, on the Suez Canal, were apprehended while a 12-year-old girl named Ragd was posing for 21-year-old Mustafa, who said that he "normally photographed weddings and ceremonies, but had an idea for something else."
"In a conversation with them, the suspects revealed that they had shot a series of scenes to be spread on social media, as actual pictures from Aleppo," said the ministry.
It added that the house in the pictures had been slated for demolition by the authorities and that the blood was actually red paint smeared on the girl, her fake bandages, and her toy.
This is not the first time hoax pictures have been used to shape public opinion on the situation in Aleppo, which until recently was divided between turbans and Syrian government forces.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Some 20-25% districts in Bangladesh are at risk of bully boy activities and the tendency is significant among students of village and rural level educational institutes where some 26% students have received offers to join bully boy activities, a new study has revealed.
Non-government organization Shopner Desh, who conducted a preliminary research on impact of militancy, has also found that 87% of the rural students who got offers think that bully boy activities are justified.
Among them, 89% female students and 86% boys of rural institution believe the bully boy propaganda.
On the other hand, 49% students from urban level educational institutes received direct proposals from turbans and over social media. Some 24% respondents (both male and female) said they believed what the Death Eater groups propagate.
The findings came up in a test survey on the impacts of militancy among students of two institutions with reported history of radical activities ‐ Bohorpur Degree College, Rajbari and North South University, Dhaka.
The paper was presented before media at Sagar-Runi auditorium of Dhaka Reporters Unity yesterday in presence of former national team cricketer Javed Omar Belim Golla, legendary rock star Shafin Ahmed and prominent actress Tazin Ahmed.
Launched in September last year by public figure and academic Bobby Hajjaj, Shopner Desh is dedicated to building a better nation through creating a more empowered and enlightened polity.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] The Polish truck driver whose vehicle was used in an attack on a Berlin Christmas market on Monday had arrived hours earlier in the German capital and spoken to his wife about 3 p.m., according to his cousin.
When she called again an hour later, there was no answer.
"The phone was just silent, silent. He should have picked up if he was on a break, particularly if his wife was calling," said the cousin, Ariel Zurawski, who was also the boss of the trucking company.
"At 3.45 p.m. you can see the movement on the GPS (Global Positioning System). The car moved forward and back. As if someone was learning to drive it," Zurawski told Polish public broadcaster TVP Info on Tuesday. "I knew something was wrong."
About 8 p.m. local time, the lorry slammed into a crowd of people thronging the wooden stalls of the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church at the heart of west Berlin.
Twelve people were killed and 48 injured. German authorities say the body of the Polish driver was found in the truck, but he was not at the controls. Police have placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! a Pak suspect but are not sure if he was the man who ploughed through the crowd.
Zurawski said he had identified his cousin Lukasz, whose last name has been withheld, from police photographs that showed him with a swollen, bloodied face.
"The police told me he had been not only stabbed but also shot," Zurawski said.
He said that after reaching his destination, Lukasz, 37, had parked and gone to get a kebab sandwich, planning to unload his cargo of 24 tonnes of steel parts the next morning.
Around noon, the two cousins spoke. Lukasz said he was hungry and that there were few Germans in the neighbourhood where he parked, mostly Moslems.
"We made a few jokes, we laughed," Zurawski said.
Lukasz, father of a teenaged boy, had been a truck driver for some 15 years, working for his cousin's company based in Sobiemysl near the Polish-German border.
After over a week on the road, he was eager to get home, Zurawski said.
Another colleague at the trucking firm, Lukasz Wasik, told TVP Info: "He was a good, quiet and honest man. He was hard-working and took care of the truck as if it was his own. He wouldn't just give up the car."
[DeutscheWelle] The so-called "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) on Tuesday said the driver of the truck that plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday evening was "targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition," according to the group's news agency Amaq.
Earlier, German prosecutors announced the release of a 23-year-old Pak detained in connection with the truck attack, citing a lack of evidence.
On Tuesday night, following the announcement that the suspect had been released, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told broadcaster ZDF that "it is true that one cannot rule out that the perpetrator is still on the lam." He also warned that it was too early to draw political conclusions from the incident.
Authorities had tossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! the asylum seeker on suspicion of driving the truck, which killed 12 and injured at least 48.
A police spokesperson reportedly told the paper: "We have the wrong man, and therefore a new situation. The true perpetrator is still armed, on the lam and can cause fresh damage."
Speaking to German news agency dpa following the presser, Kandt said Sherlocks were continuing to inspect the truck used in the attack, searching for fingerprints, blood and smudge marks. "I estimate that the current investigation will take somewhat longer," he said, adding that it could take a few days before new evidence comes to light.
'An act of terrorism'
Germany's two top prosecutors confirmed Tuesday that Sherlocks are indeed treating the incident as an act of terrorism. Prosecutor Peter Frank said that, given the target and nature of the attack, the incident pointed towards Islamist myrmidon motives.
Frank said the attack was reminiscent of July's terrorist attack in Nice, La Belle France, and of the "modus operandi" deployed by Islamist terror groups.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... echoing Berlin's police officials, Frank also acknowledged that the detained suspect "may not have been the perpetrator or belong to the group of perpetrators."
German 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... , who visited the scene of the attack on Tuesday afternoon, also referred to the incident as a "terrorist act." Speaking before the police made their admission about the detained suspect, Merkel acknowledged that the crime might have been committed by an asylum seeker.
Risk remains high
The head of Germany's Criminal Police Agency, Holger Munch, said he could not rule out if further suspects were still on the lam, and therefore warned of further attacks on the back of Monday's incident. In the aftermath of such an event, "there's always a heightened risk of significant further attacks," he said.
"We are naturally on high alert and are investigating in all directions," Munch added.
He also revealed that six of the 12 people killed have been identified as Germans. He could not, however, identify the nationalities of the other six.
New Year's celebrations to go ahead
Also speaking Tuesday, Berlin's State Interior Minister Andreas Geisel confirmed that the city's New Year's Eve celebrations will go ahead under an increased security presence. Every year, hundreds of thousands of revelers ring in the New Year in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
He said the city will review all of its security measures before the celebrations on December 31.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[AA.TR] The U.S. on Tuesday roundly dismissed claims it was in any way involved in the liquidation of Russia's envoy to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... "It's a ludicrous claim, absolutely false, there's no basis of truth in it whatsoever," State Department front man John Kirby told news hounds.
Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and utterly failed Secretary of State... conveyed the sentiment Tuesday during a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Kirby added.
"The secretary in his conversation with the foreign minister did raise his concerns about some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement/support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable liquidation yesterday because of the presence of Mr. [Fetullah] Gulen here in the United States," Kirby said.
[AA.TR] Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has said late Tuesday that it is a great disrespect and defamation for the Turkish police to be presented as the perpetrator of Russian envoy Karlov's liquidation.
"It is a terror attack, it is very clear. The connections behind this attack will also come to light," Bozdag said during a speech in the Turkish Parliament in the capital Ankara.
The minister said that the dark and dirty connections behind the murder cannot be hidden by using police uniform or title. "I am sure that the investigations will reveal all the ties of the attacker. Don't doubt that," Bozdag said.
[AA.TR] Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has told U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and utterly failed Secretary of State... on Tuesday that Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) was behind Russian envoy Karlov's liquidation.
According to Turkish diplomatic sources, Cavusoglu and Kerry had a phone conversation, during which the Turkish foreign minister informed his U.S. counterpart on Andrey Karlov's liquidation and the assailant Mevlut Mert Altintas.
Cavusoglu informed Kerry that terrorist group FETO was behind the liquidation of Russian envoy to Ankara, according to the sources.
The sources added that Kerry offered condolences to Cavusoglu and expressed sorrow about the incident.
Andrey Karlov died after being shot multiple times at an art exhibition in Ankara on Monday evening.
Karlov was delivering a speech when the assailant, 22-year-old policeman Altintas, opened fire on him.
[AA.TR] The liquidation of Moscow’s ambassador to Ankara, Andrey Karlov, was a "provocation" against "Turkish-Russian relations", President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of Istanbul's Eurasia Tunnel, Erdogan said The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... would not "let terror hitch us to its own agenda".
The Russian envoy was rubbed out on Monday evening as he attended the opening ceremony of an art gallery in capital Ankara.
Erdogan also said terror attacks will not harm the nation’s unity.
He also confirmed that a joint commission with Russia was set to start investigating the incident and those responsible.
[DAWN] A team of Russian Sherlocks arrived in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... on Tuesday to probe the liquidation of Moscow's ambassador in an Ankara art gallery, as both sides pledged the murder would not damage improving relations.
Veteran diplomat Andrei Karlov was shot nine times in the back by off-duty Turkish policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas at the opening of an exhibition of Russian photography on Monday.
The brazen killing stunned Ankara and Moscow, which have rowed repeatedly over the Syria conflict but in recent weeks have begun cooperating closely on the evacuations from war-wrecked Aleppo.
An unprecedented three-way meeting on Syria between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Iran went ahead in Moscow Tuesday despite the liquidation, with the diplomats backing a widening of a truce.
Six people have been detained over the Karlov liquidation, including the sister, mother, father and uncle of the 22-year-old Altintas, Turkish media said.
Adding to the jitters, with Turkey already on high alert after a string of deadly attacks, an individual also fired outside the US embassy in Ankara overnight.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/21/2016 10:23 Comments ||
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#5
From the fireplace:
Russians had something to do with Benghazi, post-election payback, dust up for Trump, "See, Trump would start a war with Russia!"
/tinfoil
The U.S. on Tuesday roundly dismissed claims it was in any way involved in the liquidation of Russia's envoy to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
Shit.
Still, I'm still in the local jihad campsite. And still, good shot and collective afterwards; would be a bit embarrassing, if that is the right word, to find out the assassin was US trained.
[AA.TR] The suspect in a string of bombings across New York and New Jersey earlier this year pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." Tuesday to five counts of attempted murder of coppers.
Amhad Khan Rahimi
...also spelt Ahmad Khan Rahmani and Ahmad Khan Rahami, which is a good thing, as the new version does not appear in the Rantburg archives. He was probably trained by the Taliban...
did not speak during the proceedings -- his first court appearance since he was taken into custody following a shootout with police.
He is accused of setting off of bombs in New Jersey and New York that injured more than 30 victims.
Rahimi has been held without bail since his Sept. 19 arrest.
He pulled a weapon on officers after he was found sleeping in the alcove of a bar, authorities say, prompting the exchange of gunfire that left him with seven bullet wounds. One officer was shot but his bulletproof vest stopped the bullet, and another was grazed by a bullet.
In addition to the five counts of attempted murder, Rahimi faces other weapons-related charges.
He has also pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to the bombing of a Manhattan neighborhood that injured 31 victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch on Tuesday said that Musharraf crossed all limits by making claims against former chief of army staff Gen (retd) Raheel Sharif ..Pak chief of army staff, meaning he pulls the strings on the Nawaz Sharif puppet to make it dance and sing and not do much at all.... Musharraf had claimed that ex-army chief Gen Raheel Sharif helped him leave the country by keeping the government from pressuring the courts.
"Musharraf should not have talked in such a blatant manner, even if Raheel had played a role in this issue. Musharaff should have realised the implications of this statement," said the minister while speaking in a Geo News talk show.
He added that the Supreme Court should now come forward and every individual concerned should submit their clarification in this regard before the apex court.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Words are not enough, action is needed, Yezidi survivor and activist Nadia Murad told the UN Security Council on Tuesday, one year after she gave emotional testimony to the body of the abuse she had suffered at the hands of ISIS.
"I don’t know what more it will take to move you," she told the council, bemoaning the slow progress being made to end the genocide of the Yezidi people and bring the perpetrators to justice.
"I don’t understand why the corpses of my murdered mother, and brothers, still lie in mass graves, unprotected and unexamined," she said. "I don’t understand how ISIS turbans can publish evidence of their crimes online, and not be jugged Please don't kill me! for them. I don’t know why, when ISIS has no friends on the Council, you still do not move forward."
Murad spoke at a special session of the council to discuss trafficking in persons in conflict situations. In September, she was appointed a UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.
Over 3,000 Yezidi women, children, and men remain in captivity, and more than 350,000 are displaced from their homes in the Kurdistan Region, she detailed to the council.
Members of her own family also remain under ISIS captivity. She told the council the story of her 13-year old nephew Malik who has been indoctrinated and trained as a child soldier after years of ISIS captivity. After a desperate search, her family found Malik and arranged for him to escape. But he refused, "saying that Yezidis are infidels who should convert and join ISIS."
"I am worried sick that he will soon be on the frontlines," said Murad.
Murad commended some progress that has been made to establish a mechanism to gather evidence of ISIS crimes, "But," she said, "time is running out. And words of support are not enough. Action is needed."
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Three men set up a fence and a ribbon of yellow and black scene of the crime tape around a site south of Iraq's djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , marking a mass grave of jihadists' victims.
It is one of dozens of such sites discovered in areas around Iraq that have been recaptured 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.... group, whose rule has been defined by extreme brutality.
Now Sherlocks face the enormous task of piecing together details of what happened to IS's many victims, and determining who they were.
"It really is a scene of the crime," Fawaz Abdulabbas, deputy head of the International Committee on Missing Persons in Iraq, said of the site near Hamam al-Alil discovered after Iraqi forces recaptured the town last month.
"Between 80 and 100 bodies are here, including those of women and kiddies," Abdulabbas said.
Among the bodies may be that of Imed Dhaer, a policeman who was kidnapped by IS group, leaving 10 children without their father and two wives without their husband, his brother Fuad said.
When Iraqi forces launched an offensive in mid-October to recapture Mosul, the last IS-held city in the country, the holy warriors "came to search for all members of the security forces", including 33-year-old Imed, his brother said.
The IS holy warriors "were locals; they knew the houses and professions of all those they took", Fuad said.
Since then, he has had no news of his brother, but residents of Hamam al-Alil said they heard shooting at the grave site, a former Iraqi firing range near the town.
"For three days, from 7:00 to 11:00 pm, they executed" the people they had seized and then "dumped the bodies before partially covering them with dirt mixed with garbage" in what they termed "burials of dishonour", said Dargham Kamil, an official from the Martyrs' Foundation.
The organization, which is under the authority of the Iraqi premier's office, has been working for over a month to trace how the killings unfolded, and has already collected many accounts from local residents.
Fuad can imagine what happened and now wants only one thing: to see the body of his brother, to know for sure.
"Only that can soothe our hearts," Fuad said.
But before that can happen, Iraqi and international teams will have to identify the remains, carrying out DNA tests once relatives have been found.
Additional investigation of the site is also needed "to see if there are any deeper layers, and therefore more bodies", said Dhia Karim, the Martyrs' Foundation official responsible for mass graves.
More bodies would add to hundreds already discovered in other mass graves left by IS jihadists, who overran swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad in 2014 but have since been pushed back by Iraqi forces.
Twenty-nine mass graves containing at least 1,600 bodies have been found in Sinjar, west of Mosul, since Iraqi Kurdish forces recaptured it last year, according to Mahma Khalil, the local official responsible for the area.
"A number of graves have not been discovered or searched yet," Abdulabbas said.
Amid the tumult of the IS assault, fighting with Iraqi forces, summary executions and other abuses carried out by the jihadists, it "is very difficult to establish" the number of people who are missing", said Karim.
Karim and his teams have been working to collect testimony from witnesses and relatives of missing persons around the country.
"We will have to gather all this in a single database; it is a very long-term job," Abdulabbas said.
After which the evidence will have to be put in files and presented to the judicial system, which is already overwhelmed with similar cases from past years of violence in Iraq.
The legal process is of utmost importance "for national reconciliation", Abdulabbas said.
"Many of the people in (IS) are people from here," he said, and their brutality "could lead to Dire Revenge or vendettas between families".
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[Iraq Sun] Before IS took over his village of Bashmana, there were neither military forces nor minority citizens of any kind in the tiny Sunni enclave, so the villagers had no reason to doubt the IS warnings. "But we told them, we would stay in our home or die," Mohammad said.
Some families retreated with the Death Eaters, but most remained as IS fled to another, more militarized village, he added.
"The first day we were liberated, the Iraqi Army brought biscuits and water to the children," Mohammad continued, describing the re-capture of his village by Iraqi forces nearly two months ago. "The next day the Hashd Shaabi came in with food and cooking oil."
Continued on Page 49
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[Iraq Sun] Since the initiation of the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... offensive in October, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said that over 104,424 people have been forced to flee the troubled Iraqi city.
The Mosul offensive, aimed at driving out 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.... Death Eater group (ISIS) from the city, has also left hundreds of thousands of people in distress.
People in the city are reportedly struggling to find the basic necessities of life, like food and safe drinking water.
Authorities fear that the battle that began seven weeks back, on October 17, 2016, might lead to an exodus that would overwhelm already crowded camps.
In an official statement, the IOM said, "17,404 families (104,424 individuals) currently displaced as a result of the on-going Mosul operations,"
The body said that about 103,212 of the displaced people were residents of the Nineveh province and about 32,640 people were left in the city now.
Iraq's deputy minister for migration and displacement, Jassim al-Attiyah has reportedly estimated that more than 150,000 have been displaced within the city. He further added that hundreds of thousands of others remain in their homes but still need aid.
Even though residents followed the advice of security forces and remained at home, after the government airdropped leaflets over the city telling civilians to stay put - authorities have said that several thousands of people are suffering because of service outage. Water supplies have been cut off and UN and government aid has been unable to reach all of those that are in need.
Further, the siege by security forces in ISIS controlled areas has sent food prices shooting through the roof, leading to shortage.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Iraq’s former Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari has lost an appeal at the country's federal court against his removal as minister by the parliament which he called unconstitutional.
The former minister lost his appeal 6 to 3 votes on Tuesday.
The Iraqi parliament withdrew confidence from Zebari in September.
"Unfortunately lost our appeal to Iraqi Federal Court 6 by 3 votes." Zebari reacted on his Twitter account. "Now I’m a private citizen after 13 years working for the new Iraq," he added.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has ordered his government to "find ways" to bring injured civilians from Aleppo, Syria, to Israeli hospitals. That could clear the way for hundreds of Syrians, a country still technically at war with Israel, to cross into the country at the express invitation of a prime minister normally known for his hard-line positions on Iran, the Paleostinians, and other issues, according to Vox.
"We see the tragedy of terrible suffering of civilians and I’ve asked the Foreign Ministry to seek ways to expand our medical assistance to the civilian casualties of the Syrian tragedy, specifically in Aleppo," Netanyahu said during a reception for foreign correspondents based in Israel.
"It’s being explored as we speak," he confirmed.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Aid organizations say an airtight blockade, ongoing violence, and a rapidly declining humanitarian situation are putting the lives of more than 6,000 Paleostinian refugees at risk in Syria's Yarmouk camp.
The UK-based Action Group for Paleostinians in Syria warned that Yarmouk's "humanitarian situation is going from bad to worse" in a statement published on Tuesday.
Yarmouk was once home to nearly 200,000 Paleostinian refugees and Syrians, and most of its former residents have been displaced to other parts of Syria or outside the country.
Stuck between a brutal blockade and armed festivities, a mere 6,250 civilians are believed to be in Yarmouk, according to UNRWA, the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... agency for Paleostinian refugees.
"Health facilities are limited and the humanitarian situation can change rapidly given levels of vulnerability," front man Chris Gunness told Al Jazeera.
Gunness added that UNRWA has been unable to access the refugees from the camp since its last aid convoy went in May 2016.
'Siege within a siege'
Syrian government forces and militias loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... have imposed a blockade on the camp since December 2012, restricting the flow of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to civilians.
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.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) invaded Yarmouk in March 2015.
ISIS controls of most of the camp's territory, while a handful of neighbourhoods are still held by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... (formerly al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front) and other fighters.
Wesam Sabaaneh, director of the Jafra Foundation, a humanitarian group that works in Syria's Paleostinian camps, said Yarmouk is often rocked by "sporadic festivities" between government forces and gangs, as well as festivities between ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
"The situation for civilians is very bad," Sabaaneh told Al Jazeera, describing life in the camp as "a siege within a siege" for the remaining residents.
"ISIS is imposing strict laws, such as requiring niqab [a full face veil], as well as taking over the schools. It has also carried out executions of civilians in the streets," he added.
"There are water shortages and no electricity, and it's getting worse now that winter is setting in. There's no clean water or medicine, so there's a lot of fear that illnesses will spread very fast in the camp," Sabaaneh said, explaining that medical care is available only in a few makeshift clinics.
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Israeli occupation army is preparing for a possible incursion by Hezbollah, with its efforts are focusing on improving its ground capabilities, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
In an article titled "Israeli Army Digging in Against Possible Hezbollah Incursion," the Israeli writer Amos Harel said that Israeli occupation forces have gradually changed their approach to Hezbollah in recent years.
"When the organization’s head, (Sayyed) Hassan Nasrallah, said he’d invade the Galilee in the next war, the IDF (IOF) chiefs realized he wasn’t making empty threats," Harel wrote in his article published on Saturday.
"Hezbollah intends to make a swift incursion into Israel in the hope of taking control of a town or military base for a short time. With the experience Hezbollah has gained in the Syrian civil war, it’s now regarded by the IDF (IOF) as an army in every respect, no longer a guerrilla organization."
The writer said that Hezbollah at this moment is not interested in a new war with the Zionist entity. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... the IOF "doesn’t think Hezbollah will suffice with a defensive stance in the next war."
"Along with massive rocket fire onto the Israeli home front ‐ all of which is now within Hezbollah’s rocket range ‐ the group might launch an attack or counterattack along the border."
Harel added that Hezbollah can deploy its Radwan special forces and focus its firepower on Israeli communities near the border, noting that alongside its short-range Katyusha rockets and mortar shells, the Lebanese resistance organization has acquired hundreds of Burkan rockets with heavy warheads (up to half a ton) that can travel several kilometers.
In this context, the Israeli writer reported that the Zionist authorities have been for two years improving the defense on the border against Hezbollah.
"The IDF (IOF) has dug obstacles while fortifying communities against fire by snipers, antitank guns, rocket launchers and mortars. And local civilian forces are being trained to defend the towns, kibbutzim and moshavim."
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12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Assad needs Hezbollah to be in Syria, next year and probably for a few more after that. By then the cumulative casualties may have taken more of a toll then Nasrallah can stomach. This is because they have to keep enough force in Lebanon to sufficiently intimidate the population there.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/21/2016 3:47 Comments ||
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[Al Ahram] The Syrian government and other parties on the ground have agreed to allow 20 observers to be sent to east Aleppo to monitor evacuations, the UN front man said Tuesday.
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... is however waiting for all sides to grant access for deliveries of humanitarian aid to Aleppo, where civilians have been living under siege since July.
The green light came a day after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on deploying the monitors to oversee the evacuation and report on the protection of civilians who remain in the besieged city.
"We have received authorization to send 20 international and national staff to Aleppo to play a critical role in the monitoring and response in Aleppo city," said UN front man Stephane Dujarric.
"Access to people in need to provide them with life-saving humanitarian assistance is also urgently needed," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani revealed on Tuesday that Iran has established joint military headquarters with Russia in Syria, without specifying its location.
Regarding the visit of the representative of the Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... to Tehran and his meeting with some Iranian officials, Shamkhani said: "We have initiated a joint work plan in cooperation with some countries in the region to fight terrorism. It is a field and diplomatic work; it needs counseling to overcome some of the obstacles."
According to ISNA, Shamkhani added: "the visit of Putin’s representative was in this framework. We have established a joint military headquarter with Russia in Syria with the help of the Syrian army and the resistance forces and we have provided counseling services too."
The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council talked about the military cooperation between his country, Russia and Iraq saying: "We are undertaking a joint military action in the axis formed by Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia to combat terrorism. What we saw recently regarding the use of Russian aircrafts within the Iranian air space falls in this context."
Regarding the meetings of Putin’s representative with Iranian officials, Shamkhani said: "The Russian President’s representative has made several proposals due to the new circumstances in the region. His proposals were both on the military and political levels for the joint action plan. He stressed that they are working hard to keep Syria a united country. "We talked about the proposals and we reached a work agreement in this framework", he added.
It is worth mentioning that Russia and Iran have played an influential role in defending the Assad regime, ever since the eruption of the Syrian revolution. The Iranian regime started to support the Assad regime on the intelligence level, and it sent its militias into Syria after the progress made by the opposition forces.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... despite all the provided Iranian support for the Syrian regime, the Syrian opposition was able to achieve massive victories in 2014, thus urging Russia to intervene and save the Assad regime from falling again.
The Russian-Iranian cooperation in Aleppo reached its peak when the Iranian militias and Russian aircrafts attacked the besieged areas controlled by the opposition in the east of the city. The brutality of the attack, the huge number of attackers and the massive corpse count of civilians, pushed the opposition to back off.
The Russian interference in Syria had started under the pretext of fighting terrorist groups, namely ISIS and Nusra. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... Russian aircrafts have mainly bombed moderate opposition sites, including the Western-backed groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Former Death Eaters from the city of al-Muadamia in the Damascus countryside acknowledged to Russian journalists that they made a mistake and vowed to help rebuild homes and other structures that have been destroyed as a result of this war.
Ahmed Alamshari, a local of al-Muadamia but a fighter for ISIS, explained the pressure the terrorist group put on the fighters which even resulted in him killing his own relatives.
"It’s hard for you to imagine what strong pressure the forces of Evil exerted on us. They had many foreign mercenaries among them who, as we grasped later, came to destroy our society. I support the government and defend my city. I am restoring the buildings along with other people," the ex-militant said.
"We regret our actions, which burdened people’s lives in this town," Alamshari went on to say.
Meanwhile a mother in the area went onto explain the difficulties the Death Eaters put on al-Muadamia.
"Our city was destroyed, so now we have moved into our relatives’ place," Om Husam, the mother of eight, said.
"We were very much afraid when military hostilities were underway. We hid in the basement during the entire shelling. Now it’s safe. Our children are playing in the street again. They are going to school," she elaborated.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... says only existing UN observers who are currently based in the country will have the permission to enter the embattled city of Aleppo to monitor the ongoing evacuation of local civilians and the rebels after a conjectural deal was reached late last week.
Bashar Jaafari told Rudaw his government will offer safe passage only to the existing UN monitors in Syria into the besieged city but "no other group except for them" will have access to Aleppo.
"We are talking about those observers who are already in that region... the deal is clear on that point. The monitors form the international and Syrian Red Thingy and the UN observers are already there. No one else, except for those who are there, will come from abroad," Jaafari said in response to a Rudaw question at a UN presser Monday.
"We are not talking about a new constituency coming from the outside replacing these people who are already there," he added.
Jaafari's latest statement runs counter to UN's earlier announcement about foreign observers' lack of access to southeastern parts of Aleppo where the rebels have been based.
Several UN diplomats told Rudaw Monday that no international monitoring group has been permitted to visit the southeastern pockets of the city despite persistent appeals.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] As the evacuation of thousands of people and fighters continued from the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo on Tuesday following a Russian-Turkish brokered deal, the rebel fighters in other areas struggle with tens of thousands of internally displaced people.
In a camp in Sarmada, west of Aleppo, a rebel fighter told news hounds defiantly but rather unrealistically that they have come here only for a short time, vowing to reclaim the ancient city from the Syrian regime, after they lost almost all parts of the city in recent weeks.
"Those families who have come to this place are here only for a short time," the fighter from the so-called Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) told Rudaw, "God willing we will control Aleppo. We will not leave Aleppo for Iran, Russia, or any other party."
The rebel fighter is apparently out of touch with the reality, not because their main backer, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , has agreed to the fall of Aleppo in a deal with Russia, but back in the camp, children are crying out of cold and hunger.
If they cannot feed people in areas they already control, getting back to Aleppo is not only a wishful thinking, it may also be a matter of time before this camp becomes the next target for an eventual regime offensive.
Others in their early teens who grew up in the civil war are repeating a chant that caused the war six years ago: The people want the fall of the regime.
The war has forced half the Syrian population from home, scattered around the country, or fled abroad.
For some who felt the civil war has no ending, swapped their tents for concrete homes, but even that is no guarantee against another possible displacement.
"It has been one year and half since I came to this camp," Mohammed, not his real name, told Rudaw, "I got only a tent at the beginning, now I have built a room and a kitchen for myself and my children, and now they [the rebels] have come telling me that I have to get out and head to another camp.
"It is cold. I do not have heater. I am sick, and I am hungry," an old woman tired of life in the camps said. She points out people like Mohammed are luckier because he has got a roof, for now.
"We do not have a tent, neither a roof, like everyone else. There is no school, how can you call this a life?" the old woman rhetorically asked, "If it were not for the aid we receive, we would have died from hunger."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"Tis but a flesh wound!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2016 8:29 Comments ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Colonel John Dorian front man for the international coalition stated on Tuesday, that 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.... developed a mobile application targeting children, and asking them to destroy western landmarks such as Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty, IraqiNews reported.
Dorian said in a press statement, "The Islamic State is willing to use children to carry out suicide kabooms: their apocalyptic vision is of damaging society everywhere they have gained control. What they are trying to do is create a generational problem with their poisonous ideology."
"They have even devised an app which is used to indoctrinate children. It is supposed to teach them Arabic. But the words they learn are related to violence and extremism such as tanks and grenades," he explained.
"The children are rewarded if they say they are prepared to carry out attacks on the West, the targets are places like the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower," Dorian further added.
The Islamic State is providing children in the territories it controls with apps to access violent jihadi websites, as it makes increasing use of child fighters (Cubs of the Caliphate section) in its battles in Iraq and Syria, the report continued.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2016 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.
[Iran Press TV] The Egyptian Interior Ministry has 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[ALMASDARNEWS] Colonel John Dorian 
