Careful with that feather -- you almost knocked me over!
Al Shabaab has vowed to continue the fight against the weak western-backed Federal government of Somalia in Mogadishu, as a new president set to take office next week.
Al Shabaab has on Sunday paraded 800 new fighters in the southern town of Jilib, where The Al Qaeda-linked militant group leaders have repeated their commitment to wage the war.
The militant commanders, speaking to hundreds of newly trained fighters and dozens of residents at a square in Jilib, said they will attack the new government’s installations.
Despite losing large ground, Al Shabaab has been waging war against Somali government and the African Union forces in the country for nearly a decade.
A new President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo is expected to be inaugurated next week, after his election last Wednesday by the MPs of Federal parliament in Mogadishu.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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New York- A United Nations organization issued a statement Saturday expressing the looming danger facing Yemeni civilians as coup militias purposefully target civilians in key port city Mokha in retaliation to an offensive to free the coastal area from insurgency hold.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented cases in which the civilians were prevented from leaving their homes to escape the bombing, as militia sniper launched fire on those who tried to flee the clashes.
A spokesman for the United Nations Office for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said in a press statement “civilians were trapped during the Mokha fighting, and there are real fears that the situation will repeat itself in Hodeida, where air strikes are already escalating”.
The new U.N. report revealed that Iran-aligned Houthi militants and loyalists backing the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh have evidently used civilians as human shields in Mokha west of Taiz – the report condemned these deeds.
In light of the continued fighting and moving the battles to the north of Hodeidah, the U.N. agency wary of a repeat of the targeting of civilians there, and warns of the aggravation of the continuing tragedy since more than two years.
Over 34 thousand civilians have been forcibly displaced by the intense fighting across coastal areas and Taiz enclaves, in the Yemeni Highlands, and adjacent areas such as Hodeidah, Yemen’s fourth largest city.
[NEWS.XINHUANET] It has been reported that Russia is considering sending Edward Snowden back to the United States as a "gift" to U.S. President 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... , but Snowden's lawyer here on Saturday denied those reports, calling them "speculations."
Anatoly Kucherena told Russia's state-owned news agency TASS that he doesn't see any reasons for Snowden's extradition.
"Those are certain speculations, which come from the so-called sources of the U.S. intelligence services," Kucherena said, adding Snowden has a residency permit in Russia and observes all Russian laws.
He made it clear that Russia is not trading people, saying "At no level -- be it economic or political -- the topic of Snowden could be a subject of trade."
The first report came from NBC News, which on Friday stated that U.S. intelligence sources have obtained information that says Russia may hand Snowden over in order to win favor with the new U.S. president.
Trump in the past has described Snowden as a "total traitor" and a "spy" who should be executed.
The U.S. whistleblower quickly responded to the NBC report by tweeting that the reported extradition plan vindicates his claim that he is not a spy for Russia because "no country trades away spies."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Four possibles:
1. Somebody in Langley decided to go rogue
2. Somebody at Foggy Bottom talked with somebody at Langley and decided it was 'newsworthy'.
3. Snowden's people broached it as a trial balloon.
4. Fake news.
Given the Russian response, the first two seem more likely. If so cleaning-house at both these places cannot come fast enough.
#2
I'm confused. Why would Putin want to curry favor with Trump when he already owns him? Having elected him, singlehandedly, I mean, from Moscow.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2017 12:48 Comments ||
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#3
I'm absolutely certain that Putin would consult Snowden's lawyer, and ask his permission.
What would happen is their government contact would take them out for dinner and drinks, and they'd wake up in Virginia with a hangover.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/13/2017 17:32 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
And what will be accomplished? We've had so many 'emergency UNSC meetings' on NK with absolutely nothing accomplished other than sternly written letters.
[NEWS.XINHUANET] The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday claimed it successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 and its top leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... guided the test firing, according to the state news agency KCNA.
The state media called Pukguksong-2 a "Korean style new type strategic weapon," which was developed on the instructions of top leader Kim Jong-un on the basis of the success made in the test-firing of the submarine-launched ballistic missile last August.
Kim received the report on the development of this surface-to-surface ballistic missile, set the date for the test launch and personally guided the preparations on the spot, it said.
The missile test proved the reliability and security of the surface launch system and starting feature of the high thrust solid fuel-power engine and reconfirmed the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile during its active flight and working feature of the engines and those of separation at the stages, the KCNA said.
The launch also verified the position control and guidance in the middle section and section of re-entry after the separation of the improved missile warhead, which can be tipped with a nuclear warhead, and the feature of evading interception, it added.
The state-run media noted that the test firing was conducted at a high angle considering security of the neighboring countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
medium- and long-range ballistic missile ???? wtf?
It's either long range or medium range. Unless this is just the short list.
#2
My guess is Trump is planning to make alliances with all of the countries surrounding North Korea (including China) and eventually pushing China to remove the little chubby dude lest trade deals vanish and currency manipulation start to be highlighted again.
#4
Trump's message is primarily directed at the Chinese. Everything he has said to the Japanese could have been done quietly, diplomatically. In fact, the Japanese prefer that approach. Once again, Trump exploits the media.
Senator Franken questions Trump's sanity, which should act as a validator of Trump's excellent leadership and geopolitical abilities.
#5
This is the BBC assuming that we want to save LA. Now would be perfect. A NK nuke could burn it down, and when the Oroville dam fails it would put out the fire.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/13/2017 20:34 Comments ||
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[WASHINGTONTIMES] 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.... combatant Khaled Sharrouf has become the first dual national to be stripped of his Australia citizenship under a 2015 anti-terrorism law, local media reported Saturday.
Australia authorities recently evoked the law for the first time ever, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton acknowledged Saturday, which gives the government the authority to strip the citizenship of dual nationals suspected of terrorism.
The government declined to name the individual affected, but the Australian newspaper identified the person as Sharrouf, the son of Lebanese immigrants colonists and an infamous member of the Islamic State terror group.
Sharrouf, 35, traveled to Syria in late 2013 prior to joining the Islamic State the following year, the newspaper reported. He gained notoriety in August 2014 after tweeting a photograph that showed his 7-year-old son holding the head of a slain Syrian soldier.
"That’s my boy!" he reportedly captioned the image.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
stripping citizenship is dangerous precedent
NOT GOOD
they should be more careful before handing it out
especially to muslims
temporary residency only , and people should be forced to sign Trump's vetting agreement
The new vetting would ban anyone who engages “in bigotry, honour killings, violence against women, or who persecute other religions, or who oppress members of one race, one gender, or sexual orientation,” according to a summary of the plan.
get new migrants to sign an agreement to this effect before giving them a provisional residency visa and make it legally binding that their visa can be revoked at any time if they break it.
#2
The new vetting would ban anyone who engages “in bigotry, honour killings, violence against women, or who persecute other religions, or who oppress members of one race, one gender, or sexual orientation,” according to a summary of the plan.
Thieving, polygamous pedophilic goat buggerers. In layman's terms, any muslim.
[Al Jazeera] A US congressional candidate has become the latest politician to label the country's largest Moslem rights group a "terrorist" organization.
Republican Josh Mandel, who is also Ohio treasurer, claimed on Wednesday that the Council on America-Islamic Relations (CAIR ...designated a terrorist group by the UAE... ) "is Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,".
Mandel posted an article on social media in reference to the Paleostinian faction that controls the Gazoo Strip.
America's largest Moslem rights organization, CAIR:
While many have accused CAIR of being a front for such disparate groups as Hezbollah and Hamas - gangs in the Middle East with vastly different ideologies - no firm proof has ever been produced to support these claims.
Nihad Awad, CAIR's executive director, said in 1994 that he supported Hamas' social programmes more than those of the Paleostinian Liberation Organisation during a talk on the situation in the occupied Paleostinian territories.
He rejected "radical" elements within the group.
Hamas took credit for its first suicide kaboom in April 1994, and wasn't labelled a "terrorist organization" by the US state department until 1997 .
The group has since discontinued suicide kabooms.
Awad disavowed Hamas in 2006. "My position and CAIR's position is extremely clear: We condemn suicide kabooms. We are mainstream American Moslems," he said.
The caption read: "If Council on American Islamic Relations is for it, it is probably bad for America. What a horrible organization."
A day later, he said on Twitter that CAIR also had ties to the Moslem Brüderbund.
His comments follow Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz's announcement of the "Moslem Brüderbund (MB) Terrorist Designation Act", which aims to label the Islamic political, religious and social movement, founded in Egypt in 1928 and active across the Moslem world, as a threat to national security.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
CAIR is hamas-linked, it was exposed in the terror funding trial documents.
Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood
Al-Jazeera is also Muslim Brotherhood, owned by sharia-pushing Qatar
[NEWS.XINHUANET] Chairman of The Pak Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said Saturday that no U.S. delegations, Congressmen or diplomats will be welcomed after the U.S. embassy in Islamabad delayed visas to two Pak senators.
Rabbani has further directed that no Senate delegation will visit the United States unless an explanation to the delay in issuance of visas is given by the U.S. government and the its embassy in Pakistain.
Deputy Chairman of the Pak Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri ...Central Secretary General of JUI-F, member of the Pak senate, formerly provincial minister of Balochistan. He has a master's degree in Islam and runs a madrassah... and Senator Salahuddin Tirmizi had been scheduled to travel to the United States as part of a delegation to attend inter-parliamentary hearings at the UN headquarters in New York on Feb. 13-14.
The visit has been cancelled due to the delay in issuance of visas to the Senators.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[InformationLiberation] Before she was allowed to deliver a message that "we're all the same," Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne was forced to sit in the back corner of a Mosque all by herself while the Muslim men prayed.
From the Toronto Sun:
While the men prayed, she sat patiently in the back corner of the mosque waiting to say the words many in the room were so thankful to hear.
"There should be no fear ever in worshipping your God, our God, in Ontario or in Canada," Premier Kathleen Wynne said to the worshippers who came for noon-hour prayers at the Muslim Association of Canada’s Masjid Mosque on Dundas St. W [on January 30th].
[...]"As-Salam-u-Alaikum (Peace be unto you). Thanks for welcoming me into your house, your home," said Wynne, who also visited the "sisters" section of the mosque on the second floor. But other than media and her staff, she was the only female in the room for the male prayer.
"Our government stands with you. We are not different. We are the same. We are all Canadians."
Wynne is Canada's first openly gay head of government in Canada and the first female Premier of Ontario.
The mosque she spoke at is run by an anti-gay Muslim preacher:
As quoted in the CIJ News in 2015 from a question and answer session on Onislam.net, Imam Wael Shehab said "homosexuality is a sinful act in Islam ... I’d cite the following fatwa of Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Fiqh Council of North America:
’We should consider them people who get themselves engaged in a sinful act. We should deal with them in the same way we deal with any people who are involved in alcoholics, gambling or adultery. We should have deep repugnance to their acts and we must remind and warn them."
If they persist he said "we should certainly avoid those people."
She didn't bring it up and ignored the issue entirely when the media questioned her on it.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/13/2017 09:55 ||
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Turkish troops will not remain in Syria once the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is defeated and they will leave the lands to their “true owners,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, while vowing to advance the ongoing Euphrates Shield operation to Raqqa after al-Bab.
“Just like Jarablus, al-Rai, Dabiq were cleaned [of ISIL] and the locals returned, al-Bab will be cleared and the people of al-Bab will resettle there,” Erdoğan told reporters in Istanbul on Feb. 12 before departing for an official trip to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Stressing that Turkey aims to establish a “terrorist-free zone” in the region, he said the Euphrates Shield operation aims to eventually head to Manbij and Raqqa after the al-Bab offensive.
“After removing Deash, the YPG [Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units] and the PYD [the Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party] from the region and getting Deash out of Raqqa, it will be too much of a luxury for us to say there. But it is currently too early to talk about such issues,” Erdoğan said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.
“There will be no stop after al-Bab. There might be a problem of communication there. The capital of Deash is not al-Bab, but Raqqa. The ultimate goal is to cleanse a 5,000-square-km area,” he added.
Turkish troops and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies has entered center of al-Bab town in northern Syria, Erdoğan noted, adding that fall of the jihadist group’s last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo is “a matter of time.”
“Al-Bab is now besieged from all fronts. Our forces have entered the city center at the moment. They have captured the most important point, the hospital hill. From now on the Deash forces are in the process of entirely leaving al-Bab. I think the rest is a matter of time,” he stated.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Of course not, they will just annex the land and it will become part of Turkey.
See we're not staying in Syria! It's now Turkey and we saved fuel too!
even if erdogan has imperialist ambitions, his military machine isn't up to it - partly because of his own successful purge of officers with Galenist connections or with anti Islamist sympathies or others who were just in the way and partly because he needs to keep lot of troops in Turkey to watch the Kurds and any anti Erdogan groups
Turkey has lost a half dozen tanks in Syria already and about a hundred troops so far.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/13/2017 15:47 Comments ||
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#7
(a) Does Erdogan knows this?
(b) I'm thinking Vlad tries to do to Recep what Adolph did to Yosif.
[UPI] Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... declared Sunday that the capture of al-Bab 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.... is is just a "matter of time" and clears the way for the takeover of Raqqa.
Erodgan told news hounds Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies entered the center of al-Bab and intend to clear a "safe zone" of 1,930 square miles. al-Bab is the last urban stronghold of Islamic State in Aleppo province and is 110 miles from Raqqa.
"After al-Bab is about to be over, the period following that will be Manbij and Raqqa," Erdogan told journalists before his departure from Istanbul on official visits to Bahrain, 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... and 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... "We shared our thoughts with the new U.S. administration and CIA and we will follow the developments in line with our stance," he added.
Erdogan and U.S. President 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... spoke Tuesday. The White House in a statement said the two leaders talked "about the close, long-standing relationship between the United States and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and their shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[NEWSWEEK] The Lebanese Hezbollah movement strongly supports the Syrian ceasefire agreed on in Kazakhstan and any truce that could lead to a political solution, its leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... said on Sunday.
Moscow and Ankara brokered a shaky ceasefire in December between the Syrian government and rebel groups opposed to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... . The agreement led to indirect talks last month in the Kazakh capital of Astana, where Russia, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and Iran agreed to monitor the fragile truce.
Several senior Hezbollah commanders and hundreds of fighters have died in Syria, where the Shi'ite Iranian-backed group is fighting in support of Assad.
"Hezbollah strongly supports, not just the Astana ceasefire, any ceasefire agreed upon in Syria," Nasrallah said, in order "to prevent bloodshed and pave the way for political solutions."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2017 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.
[UPI] Turkish President 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
