The caravan moves on
The exhumation and apparent mutilation of the corpse of Islamist leader Jamal Makhzoum has been condemned as an “heinous” war crime by the Libyan Nation Commission for Human Rights (LNCHR).
In a widely-shared social media video, the clearly-decomposing body of Makhzoum is shown strapped to the front of a car, kicked and then paraded by Libyan National Army (LNA) fighters. In an act of celebration they also shoot their guns in the air.
The LNA is accused of committing a war crime by the LNCHR, who described the incident as a “despicable and heinous crime incompatible with human values.”
Article 15 of the first 1949 Geneva Convention states parties to conflict when dealing with dead bodies must “prevent their being despoiled.” The LNCHR argued it was a “flagrant violation of the rules of law and international humanitarian law.”
To be sure, the Geneva Conventions are only binding on those nations that have signed off on them, and no one else. No one else encompasses quite a few extant nations and all sub-national groups, though it is a lovely standard to aspire to when your opponents are equally civilized.
It's also a useful distraction when you're getting your ass kicked...
In other photographs, dead militants can be seen thrown on top of each other, sprawled across the ground. LNA fighters also pose with the bodies and take ‘selfies.’
The Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council (BRSC) announced this week that Makhzoum, their former leader, had been killed in Ganfouda.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said yesterday they had found a mass grave of Islamist militants, including Ansar Al-Sharia commanders and the corpse of Makhzoum. Mismari said the Red Crescent was going to be recovering the other bodies.
Many social media users have said how disgusting the footage is. Some compare the behaviour of the soldiers to that of the so-called Islamist State. Images of hanged and mutilated corpses from the Qaddafi era have also been shared.
There has in addition been condemnation of the silence thus far of international diplomats.
The LNCHR called on the Benghazi attorney-general and the House of Representatives to open an investigation immediately.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Justice and Construction Party deplored the incident and in its turn called on human rights organisations to investigate.
No doubt. But that's because they aren't holding the winning hand there.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/20/2017 00:00 ||
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The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, will meet Donald Trump in Washington next month, Egypt’s leading state-owned newspaper said on Sunday. Al-Ahram said in a front-page report the two leaders will meet during the first week of April, in what will be Sisi’s first visit to Washington since taking office in 2014.
Sisi and Trump have already shown a bond when they met in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Cairo and Washington are expected to forge closer ties under Trump following years of tension over the Obama administration’s emphasis on human rights and Cairo’s correct perception that it supported the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt and the US have been close allies for most of the nearly 40 years since Cairo signed a peace treaty with Israel, with Egypt becoming the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel, with some $1.3bn annually in military aid.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/20/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm not sure why but I think these two might hit it off; that might be a good thing.
Counterterrorism officials suspect that “Neo JMB” militants have built their hideouts in Cox's Bazar, Bandarban and Rangamati districts apart from Chittagong.
“The militants have set up dens in those areas as it would help their safe movement through the sea. A plan to recruit Rohingyas could be another reason,” an official of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the DMP told The Daily Star yesterday.
The official said he came to know this after quizzing Ahmed Azwad Imtiaz Talukder alias Omi, a “Neo JMB” leader in decision-making position of the outfit. Omi along with another suspected militant Mahmud Hasan was arrested on March 7 after they attacked policemen at a checkpoint in Comilla.
The capital has become very unsafe for the militants as many of their members were arrested and killed in pre-emptive operations by law enforcers, he added.
Another CTTC official, who also interrogated Omi, said the suspected militant told them that there are three dens of the terror group in Chittagong.
Chittagong police say two of the four militants killed during the operation “Assault-16” at a house named Chhayaneer in Sitakunda upazila's Premtala area on Thursday were cousins who had been missing since leaving their houses in the capital's Mirpur, reports our staff correspondent from the district.
Officials suspect that the other two -- a man and a woman -- are sister and brother-in-law of suspected militant Jasim alias Jahirul Islam, who was arrested with his wife Arjina from another militant den, in Amirabad area of the same upazila, on Wednesday. When the couple were shown photos of the two cousins, they said the duo looked like the youths who went out of the Amirabad house with a laptop just before police came on Wednesday, said a CTTC official.
Asked why his sister Jobaida and brother-in-law Kamal attempted to “blow themselves up”, Jasim told the official that they have instruction that if law enforcers raid their home, “they will have to turn it into a graveyard”.
Meanwhile, the family, which caught Jasim and his wife on Wednesday with the help of friends and contacted police, has raised security concern. Police said if the family members ask for security, they will arrange it.
The Daily Star earlier had learnt that the two cousins had been missing since they left unannounced their Purbo Monipur houses in Mirpur on August 9 last year. Talking to this newspaper at that time, the family members and relatives feared the two might have been brainwashed into taking the path of militancy.
Ahmed Rafid al Hasan, 20, and Aiad Hasan, 21, grew up in the same neighbourhood and were very close, another cousin said. Rafid lived on the fourth-floor apartment of a six-storey building and Aiad in another flat about 200 yards away.
Rafid, son of Taufiq Hasan and Nilufar Yasmin, and Aiad, son of late Ali Hasan and Munmun Ahmed, completed A-level from reputed English medium schools in the capital. Both are well-off families.
Yesterday, during a media briefing at the district police headquarters, Chittagong SP Noor E Alam Mina said, “We have got primary identities of the [four] militants. But we cannot confirm it before DNA tests and other examinations.”
The SP assumed that the militant woman killed in the operation was the mother of the child who was found dead at Chhayaneer.
During Thursday's raid, when the SWAT members were on the roof of the Chhayaneer house, three militants moved towards them using the staircase with grenades in their hands. A fourth militant, a woman wearing a “suicide vest”, was right behind the three.
The SWAT members from behind their shields opened fire. Shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the three suspects tried to hurl the grenades at the SWAT personnel but those exploded near them and tore their bodies apart. The explosions also left two SWAT personnel injured.
The woman died after being shot. She fell to the ground before she could blow herself up.
The bodies were sent to Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) for autopsy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/20/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Md Asaduzzamman Mian on Saturday said the attacks targeting members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in city's Ashkona and Khilgaon are isolated incidents.
"We have nothing to be panicked over these isolated attacks on RAB. The members of law enforcement agencies are alert to save lives of the people," he told a function at Sultana Kamal Mohila Complex in the city.
The RAB certainly doesn't appear to be panicked...
Asaduzzaman said, "Law and order situation is good compared to that in any time in the past. Members of law enforcement agencies are successfully working to check the ill activities of terrorists."
He said homegrown militants have been carrying out terrorist activities in the country but they could not spread due to zero tolerance policy of the government against militancy.
Referring to government's stern actions against militancy and terrorism, the DMP Commissioner said a vested quarter is misinterpreting religion to fish in troubled water.
Ruling out the presence of Islamic State (IS) in the country, he firmly said there was no evidence and existence of this militant outfit in the country.
Just a bunch of neo-JMB boys who have pledged themselves to IS...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/20/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Cycle of Violence vs. Midnight 'Crossfire' ... Popcorn, Please! and with extra butter.
[AnNahar] French Sherlocks were on Sunday trying to establish whether the man rubbed out after holding up a soldier at Orly airport in Gay Paree had planned the attack or acted on impulse.
Saturday's assault by 39-year-old Ziyed Ben Belgacem caused a major security scare, leading to the temporary closure of the capital's second-busiest airport and the cancellation of dozens of flights.
By Sunday morning the situation had nearly returned to normal.
Ben Belgacem, who was born in La Belle France to Tunisian parents, said he wanted to "die for Allah" and that others too would die after grabbing a female soldier, putting a gun to her head and seizing her rifle.
The attack comes with La Belle France still on high alert following a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives in two years.
Security is one of the key issues in La Belle France's two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7.
Ben Belgacem's father insisted the assailant -- who had spent time in prison for drugs and armed robbery and been investigated for links to radical Islam -- was "not a terrorist" and was acting under the influence of drink and drugs.
The father was released from custody late Saturday after being questioned.
Investigators were continuing to quiz Ben Belgacem's brother and cousin for clues as to whether the gunman had planned a terror attack or whether the airport attack was the unhinged epilogue to a shooting spree.
- 'Drink and cannabis to blame' -
"My son was not a terrorist. He never prayed and he drank," his father, whose first name was not given, told Europe 1 radio, blaming "drink and cannabis" for his son's actions.
An autopsy was to to be carried out on Ben Belgacem's body Sunday to determine if alcohol or drugs were a factor.
Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins said he appeared to have become caught up in a "sort of headlong flight that became more and more destructive."
The shooting took place on the second day of a visit to Gay Paree by Britannia's Prince William and his wife Kate, which was unaffected.
Ben Belgacem's standoff with the security forces began at around 6.30 am (0530 GMT) in the gritty northern Gay Paree suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse, where he lived.
After spending the night in a bar, he was pulled over by police for speeding. Ben Belgacem drew a gun and fired at the police, slightly injuring one officer.
- 'I've screwed up' -
His father told Europe 1 his son phoned him shortly after the confrontation "in a state of extreme agitation".
"He said to me: 'Daddy, please forgive me. I've screwed up with a police officer'."
Ben Belgacem then drove to Orly airport, stopping off first in a bar where he had been drinking hours earlier and firing more shots and then stealing another car.
On the departures floor of the airport, he grabbed a soldier patrolling with two colleagues under the Sentinelle anti-terror operation that has mobilized thousands of troops since January 2015.
Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins said Ben Belgacem threatened the three, ordering them to surrender.
"I'm here to die for Allah. In any case, people are going to die," Molins quoted him as saying.
He tried to use the soldier as a human shield but her colleagues managed to shoot him as they scuffled.
Ben Belgacem was carrying a petrol can in a backpack as well as a copy of the Koran, Molins said. He was investigated in 2015 over his suspected links to Islamist bandidossnuffies but his name did not feature on the list of those thought to pose a high risk.
A small amount of cocaine and a machete were found during a search of his home on Saturday.
A front man for the Gay Paree airport authority said Sunday that the backlog of travelers stranded by the chaos had been cleared and that passengers were experiencing only "slight delays."
Soldiers guarding key sites have been targeted in four attacks in the past two years that have caused only minor injuries.
In mid-February, a machete-wielding Egyptian man attacked a soldier outside Gay Paree's Louvre museum, injuring him slightly, before being shot and maimed.
French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... said Saturday his government was "determined to fight relentlessly against terrorism, defend the security of our compatriots and ensure the protection of our country."
Ben Belgacem did not appear in a French government database of people considered potential threats to national security. But prosecutors said he had already crossed authorities' radar for suspected Islamic extremism.
His house was among scores searched in November 2015 in the immediate aftermath of suicide bomb-and-gun attacks that killed 130 people in Gay Paree. Those searches targeted people with suspected radical leanings.
#1
Ben Belgacem, who was born in La Belle France to Tunisian parents, said he wanted to "die for Allah" and that others too would die after grabbing a female soldier, putting a gun to her head and seizing her rifle
What Oh what could his motive be, Monsieur Matlock?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/20/2017 9:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I'm here to die for Allah. In any case, people are going to die," Molins quoted him as saying.
He tried to use the soldier as a human shield but her colleagues managed to shoot him as they scuffled.
Ben Belgacem was carrying a petrol can in a backpack as well as a copy of the Koran, Molins said
What could his motive be?!?
#3
"A fair commissaire in my heyday..."
He snoozed. Sunset Beach in the May gray.
His mobile. Lapointe.
"I know what you want."
"Another damned motiveless melee."
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has condemned Germany for permitting alleged outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) supporters to march in the city of Frankfurt.
We're no fans of the PKK, but suppressing a rally creates more problems than it solves...
The ministry said it was “thought-provoking” that Germany, which recognizes the PKK as a terrorist group, allowed alleged sympathizers of the group to use PKK symbols and jailed head Abdullah Öcalan’s posters during the march.
Germany has free-speech protections for those who march in a parade. Perhaps the Turkish ministry is unfamiliar with the concept...
“We condemn this insincere attitude,” the ministry said, adding that Germany’s envoy in Ankara had been informed about the discomfort regarding the issue.
German officials permitted the march on March 18 in Frankfurt to celebrate the spring holiday of Newroz, but Turkish authorities declared those marching were supporters of the PKK. The incident came just days after Turkish ministers and politicians were prevented from addressing Turkish voters in the country.
Around 9,000 people marched in the central German city of Frankfurt with banned PKK posters and flags. Marchers also carried banned posters and flags and shouted slogans against Turkey, even though the Interior Ministry on March 2 updated its list of prohibited PKK symbols to include the image of Öcalan.
In contrast, Salih Muslim, the head of Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), also criticized Germany for banning Kurdish symbols during an address at the gathering.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s presidential spokesman, İbrahim Kalın, “strongly” condemned German authorities for allowing the Newroz march in the city of Frankfurt. Kalın said it was “not possible for German authorities to claim that Turkey’s elected representatives’ meeting with their citizens is dangerous as they treat terrorists as legitimate actors.”
“It is clear support for terrorism,” Kalın said. “Those, who try to explain this hostile attitude with freedom of expression and assembly should act seriously.”
In light of the march in Frankfurt, the presidential spokesperson said some European countries were “trying to interfere in the referendum that will take place on April 16 in Turkey and were favoring a ‘no’ vote.”
“We once again remind European countries that Europe will not decide in April 16; the Turkish nation will,” he added.
[Ynet] There is a possibility that Turkish ministers could plan another rally in Germany ahead of an April 16 referendum on changing the constitution, President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said on Sunday, a move that could further heighten tension with Berlin.
Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin made the comment in an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk. Kalin said that "Turkophobia" was on the rise in Europe, as Ankara points out the West's mistakes, adding that Turkey remains a country friendly to international investors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/20/2017 00:00 ||
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel's latest air strikes into Syria targeted weapons bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah, and that it will continue to carry out such raids. Netanyahu’s statement came after Israeli warplanes struck several targets within Syria, and Syria fired missiles back in retaliation.
"When we identify attempts to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah and we have intelligence and it is operationally feasible, we act to prevent it," he said in footage aired on Israel's major television networks.
"That's how it was yesterday and that's how we shall continue to act," Netanyahu added.
Israeli aerial defence systems intercepted one of the Syrian missiles, the Israeli army said, without elaborating. It would not say whether any other missiles struck Israeli-held territory, but said the safety of civilians and aircraft was "not compromised".
Israel is widely believed to have carried out several airstrikes in recent years on advanced weapons systems in Syria – including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and Iranian-made missiles – as well as Hezbollah positions.
It rarely comments on such operations and the military statement detailing the raid and comments confirming the operation by the prime minister were highly unusual.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/20/2017 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.
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, will meet Donald Trump in Washington next month, Egypt’s leading state-owned newspaper said on Sunday. Al-Ahram said in a front-page report the two leaders will meet during the first week of April, in what will be Sisi’s first visit to Washington since taking office in 2014.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Md Asaduzzamman Mian on Saturday said the attacks targeting members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in city's Ashkona and Khilgaon are isolated incidents. 
