[Libya Herald] Three Azerbaijani nationals first captured by holy warriors after they scuttled their small coastal tanker off Sirte 18 months ago and then held by Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... (BM), have finally been released and flown home.
It is not known why the Ottoman Turkish-flagged Kalkanlar 1 was sunk on 27 February 2016. It has been claimed it was involved in smuggling diesel fuel. The three-man crew were captured by 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).
At some point after their detention, they were able to phone their families to say merely that they had sunk their vessel, the Azerbaijan Press Agency said today. Thereafter they appear to have remained in a prison until it was overrun by BM forces last year in their drive to wrest control of Sirte from IS.
It would seem that BM then continued to hold the men on suspicion that they were IS members. Though Libya has an embassy in the Azeri capital Baku, Azerbaijan has no envoys in Libya. Thus Ottoman Turkish diplomats were reportedly involved in long negotiations to secure the crew’s release and visited them while they were detained.
On Thursday, the men, named as Namiq Salmanov, Movlud Rashidbayli and Farid Aliyev, were released and today they were flown to Istanbul on their way to Baku. The Azeri government has thanked local Libyan diplomats, the Ottoman Turkish embassy in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... and the Presidency Council (PC) for their help in freeing the crew.
The last recorded position of the 35-metre Kalkanlar 1, according to MarineTraffic.com was in November 2015 when it was in the western Ottoman Turkish port of Aliaga.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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h/t Instapundit
It’s 10 years since I found myself in the middle of the Glasgow Airport terror attack. It was 30 June 2007. I was at the airport, picking up my brother, sister-in-law and niece from holiday. As I walked through the terminal, I noticed people being ushered out the way I’d come in. I wasn’t sure what was going on ‐ there was no panic ‐ but I thought that if something had happened, I wasn’t leaving without my family.
I carried on walking in the opposite direction to everyone else. By the time I got to the doors at the other end, I was on my own. I walked outside, and that’s when I saw a burning jeep crashed into the building. There was a guy lying next to it engulfed in flames, a couple of police officers, and parts of the road were on fire, too.
At first, I thought it had been an accident. A police officer used a fire extinguisher on the burning guy, then they turned away. I thought he was dead, and maybe they did, too. It was when he got up that I realised he was an attacker. It was eerie ‐ he didn’t even groan as he stood; it was as if being on fire hadn’t affected him. I learned later he was on morphine.
He tried to get to the jeep’s boot ‐ apparently, it was full of petrol bombs. The police were trying to stop him, but he kept kicking at their legs. As they fought, they moved towards me. One of the officers used pepper spray, and my eyes were streaming. The next time I opened them, this lunatic was coming in my direction.
When you’re involved in something like that, it’s hard to remember afterwards exactly how it went. You just act on instinct. My partner, Gillian, had recently passed away, after battling cancer. I had watched her fight like hell to survive, and these characters were trying to take people’s lives as if they meant nothing. It enraged me, as did having pepper spray in my eyes, to be honest. So I went for him.
As soon as I hit him, I knew that he was going down. I don’t mean to sound blasé. He’d been doing these commando-style moves to fight off the police, and he seemed well trained, but I grew up in Glasgow: it seemed natural to me that a wee forearm smash would sort it out
...I got a couple of awards, including the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. I met the prime minister, Gordon Brown, too. He said, "Thanks for everything." I said, "Nae problem."
Probably the biggest buzz came a few months later. I saw a horse called Secret Hero. I was looking at the name, thinking I’d seen it before, and I remembered that’s what the Daily Record had called me in a headline. I stuck £125 on it, it won and I took home £500. It felt like a nice ending.
#1
How fast can we send this guy a US passport? Or let's go further and create a US citizenship class called "Combat Meritorious". (Yeah, that would include most of the Jewish population of Israel, but I'm good with that.)
Posted by: Matt ||
09/03/2017 14:17 Comments ||
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[DW] 2016 was record year for asylum applications
When hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived in the autumn of 2015 they didn't all apply for asylum at once. Because there was already a long backlog with the immigration authorities, many waited until 2016.
That meant that last year smashed the record for asylum requests - 745,545 applications were lodged during the course of the year. 2015 was the second highest number of applications in German history, with 476,649 being made. In the first six months of 2017 the numbers have fallen off sharply to 128,903.
#1
The immigration authorities often have faced accusations of inefficiency during the refugee influx. Angela Merkel
actually sacked the head of BAMF in 2015 and brought in US consultancy firm McKinsey to try and streamline the process.
[Hurriyet Daily News] German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sept. 1 sharply criticised Turkey's detention of two further German citizens, saying Berlin should react decisively and perhaps rethink its relations with Ankara.
Under the circumstances, Merkel said she did not think it was appropriate to carry out further discussions with Ankara about its participation in a European Union customs union.
"We must react decisively," Merkel told a business event in the southern city of Nuremberg. Given the latest events, she said it was "perhaps necessary to rethink" relations with Ankara.
A government spokeswoman told reporters earlier on Sept. 1 that two German citizens had been detained in Turkey for what Berlin believes are "political" reasons.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] A high-circulation German magazine has reported that authorities in Berlin have turned down a request by Ankara for imposing financial restrictions on those believed to have played a role in last year's coup attempt in Turkey.
Der Spiegel said on Saturday, without naming its sources, that in June the German Foreign Ministry officially refused to freeze the assets of members of the network of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric who is accused by the government in Ankara of masterminding the abortive coup of July 15, 2016.
Turkey had submitted the request and a list of 80 names in April, demanding that Berlin exclude them from Germany’s financial system.
German authorities, however, responded by saying that there were no legal grounds for financial watchdog BaFin to crack down on the Gulen movement and its supporters, said Der Spiegel.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry has yet to comment on the report, which also claimed that extradition requests sent from Turkey to Germany had increased his year. It said 56 such requests had been submitted this year, already exceeding the total number in 2016.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is “not alone against the government’s understanding that polarizes society and constrains citizens in an ‘us vs. them’ dilemma,” CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said.
“We saw in the ‘Justice March’ and the ‘Justice Congress’ that millions of us can meet under the umbrella of the concept of justice, which is the essence of all sacred religions,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in a message marking Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice).
He visited jailed CHP deputy Enis Berberoğlu in prison in Istanbul on Sept. 1, the first day of Eid al-Adha.
“If the judiciary makes decisions by order from certain authorities, there is no justice in that country and no one can have security of life or property,” Kılıçdaroğlu told reporters during the prison visit.
The CHP leader said the arrest of MPs is a “democratic shame” and his party “could not accept it.”
He said Berberoğlu’s spirits remain high and he is engaging in a “struggle for democracy,” noting that by jailing an elected lawmaker the “national will” was put in prison.
The CHP will carry on the struggle to bring about “real justice, law and rights” to Turkey, Kılıçdaroğlu vowed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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Canada Bans ‘Anti-Sharia’ Gay Pride Float Because ‘Islamophobia’
31 August
[Breitbart] The western Canadian city of Vancouver has banned an “anti-Sharia” float at this year’s pride parade saying that the sentiment expressed by the Middle Eastern men behind it is “Islamophobic”.
[Breitbart] Nine hundred and ten refugees were resettled in the United States during the month of August, the lowest monthly total since October 2002, when only 421 refugees were resettled.
[Iraq News] Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani has vowed to “strongly” react to any attempt to take over Kirkuk province for which it engages in a sovereignty dispute with the Iraqi central government.
“Kirkuk is Kurdish….any force that thinks of taking Kirkuk by force will be faced by the whole people of Kurdistan. We will defend it until the last one of us,” a number of Iraqi news websites quoted him saying in press statements.
“Kirkuk is not only Kurdish, it is for Kurds, Arabs and Christians…we shall make it a model of coexistence,” Barzani stated.
Barzani’s statements came a few hours after remarks by a senior Shia militia leader who threatened to consider Kurdistan an “enemy” if it includes Kirkuk in its September 25th referendum on independence from Iraq.
Qais al-Khazaali, commander of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, a component of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said Kurdistan’s inclusion of Kirkuk as a voting district during the anticipated vote is “a serious matter that needs an official, decisive response”.
Addressing Barzani, Khazaali said that if the referendum leads to secession from Iraq, Iraqis will consider territories under Kurdish control as “occupied lands”.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Turkey underlined the importance of bringing Tal Afar under the control of local people and the Iraqi army, not Shia militias, following the liberation of the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“We welcome the successful completion of the military operation started on Aug. 20, 2017 for the liberation of Tal Afar, populated densely by our Turkmen brothers and sisters in Iraq throughout history and which has been under the occupation of Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIL] since June 2014,” said a statement from the Foreign Ministry on Aug. 31.
The ministry emphasized that Turkey, which had opened its gates to tens of thousands of people from Tal Afar fleeing from ISIL, will now stand with them in the post-ISIL period as well.
In the upcoming period, the people responsible for the cruel acts by ISIL must be brought to justice and sentenced with legitimate punishment, said the statement.
The ministry stressed security should be maintained by legitimate Iraqi security forces and the people of Tal Afar instead of “militia groups acting according to their own agenda.”
Negative circumstances that have led to the emergence of radical groups such as ISIL, should be avoided, the ministry added.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Dozens of demonstrators from all walks of life have scuffled with police in Indonesia during a protest rally in solidarity with Myanmar’s prosecuted Rohingya Muslims and against its government’s clampdown on the desperate minority.
Protesters marched on the Myanmar Embassy in the capital Jakarta on Saturday and finally convened in front of the diplomatic mission, shouting slogans in support of Rohingya Muslims.
They also chanted, “Save Muslim Rohingya” and “Expel the Ambassador of Myanmar” and shouted slogans against the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's state counselor, strongly calling on the Southeast Asian country to put an end to violence against the minority.
Angry demonstrators, most of them from the Community of Professional Care for Rohingya, also stepped on posters of Suu Kyi, which was labeled, “The Inhuman Lady,” before setting them on fire.
Scuffles broke out when police stopped protesters from getting closer to the embassy. The blockade, however, did not end in a riot.
“What the Myanmar government has done is beyond the limits of humanity,” said coordinator Irfan Gani, adding, “We urge the government to recall the Indonesian ambassador to Myanmar, which is a form of our resistance showing that Indonesia does not approve of human rights violations.”
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Outgoing army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the Iraq-based commander of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has made it clear that Washington will continue to cooperate with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) inside the Kurdish-Syrian Arab alliance Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in its bid to sweep jihadists from the Middle Euphrates River Valley during the final stand.
Speaking at his final teleconference call from Baghdad to a group of journalists in Washington, Townsend said the final stand of ISIL would be in the Middle Euphrates River Valley from Syria’s Deir al-Zor province down to Iraq’s Rawa, spanning over 250 kilometers and SDF will be a part of the operation, answering a question over the course of future prospects in the region.
“And you mentioned a Kurd force, but the Syrian Democratic Forces comprise of about 50,000 fighters, half of whom are Arabs. And what I’ve watched with this force is that they, first of all, solicit volunteers and recruits from the area to be liberated and they form the leading elements of the force from those people.
So I think that they will—they will do this much in the same way they are doing it in Raqqa. They will recruit people from the Deir ez-Zor province in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, and they will be part of the campaign. And I am reasonably confident, based on past history that they will find a force—they will make a force that is acceptable to the people down there.” Townsend said, citing their previous experience in Manbij, Tabqa and currently in Raqqa.
“You have to remember that the Syrian Democratic Forces are not the Iraqi Security Forces. They do not have tanks, helicopters or fighter jets. They are really an irregular light infantry force with a comparative handful of light armored vehicles and heavy weapons, who, with coalition assistance, are fighting well above the weight class. They have been and remain the most effective counter-ISIS fighting force in Syria,” he said, stressing Washington was also having a conversation with Moscow to de-conflict the region.
Townsend also added that the situation in Manbij was quiet for around 10 days after Turkey took “appropriate measures” to prevent further clashes between the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters and coalition soldiers.
“So we actually have not had these clashes that you are referring to now in probably—I think, about 10 days or so. And what we were seeing about two weeks ago were some of the Free Syrian Army opposition—Syrian opposition fighters in the area controlled by the Turkish military, were firing upon the Manbij area there, where there are some U.S. forces—coalition forces there. We identified this to our Turkish allies—our NATO allies, Turkey, and they have, I think, taken the appropriate measures to get that under control,” Townsend said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] New defense minister says Tehran wants to give missiles and technology to its allies in the region 'to prevent war and conflict'
Iran’s new defense minister said Saturday the priority was to boost the country’s missile program and export weapons to shore up neighboring allies.
“In combat fields, especially in missiles, we have a specific plan to boost Iran’s missile power,” said General Amir Hatami, who was appointed defense minister earlier this month, in a speech carried by the ISNA news agency.
“God willing, the combat capabilities of Iran’s ballistic and cruise missiles will increase in this term,” he added.
Hatami also said Iran would look to export weapons “to prevent war and conflict.”
“Wherever a country becomes weak, others become encouraged to raid it… Wherever necessary, we will export weapons to increase the security of the region and countries, to prevent wars,” he said, without naming the countries.
Iran is a key supporter of Syria and the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. Both threaten Israel with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.
Hatami is the first defense minister to be selected from the regular army, rather than the elite Revolutionary Guards, in more than two decades.
Analysts say this reflects an increasing convergence between the two military arms as Iran increases its involvement in regional conflicts such as Syria and Iraq, which have been the Guard’s exclusive purview since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Israel has in recent years repeatedly hit convoys believed to be transferring advanced rockets and missiles, being transferred from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah.
Jerusalem has also warned against Iranian efforts to set up missile production facilities in Lebanon, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman telling United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a meeting in Israel earlier this week that Iran is “working to set up factories to manufacture accurate weapons within Lebanon itself.”
Liberman did not explicitly threaten to attack the Iranian missile factories in Lebanon, but he said that “the Lebanese government and the citizens of southern Lebanon should know” that Israel will be forceful in future conflicts.
The presence of at least two Iranian missile manufacturing facilities was revealed by Israel earlier this summer. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Guterres that Iran was also involved in the construction of another missile base in Syria.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri denied Israeli assertions that Iran has established weapons factories in Lebanon for the Hezbollah terror group, saying the allegations were part of a “disinformation campaign” by Israel.
“The Israelis know very well that there are no missile factories in Lebanon. They are used to running these disinformation campaigns,” Hariri told the French daily Le Monde in an interview published Friday.
The US has also imposed fresh sanctions on Iran due to its continued missile program.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/03/2017 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.
...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, 
