[Libya Herald] There is no plan to attack 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... , Tarhouna Municipal Council said today, vowing that the town would "not contribute to the spilling of a single drop of blood in Tripoli".
The council was responding to online reports that its Kani Brigade intended to push towards Tripoli via the old international airport at Gasr Ben Gashir.
This militia has earnt a violent reputation. Late last month, as part of a tit-for-tat vendetta, its members murdered ten people and destroyed houses in the villages of Rgaiat and Suq al-Khamis Emsihel on the road to Tripoli.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... the council protested that it continued to back the building of state institutions, the rule of law and national reconciliation. It added: "Libyans are living in a difficult political, economic, social and psychological situation. Our faith in God’s power and greatness remains strong despite our suffering".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[RFE/RL] Eight children and four women -- originating from Kazakhstan and Russia -- who had been left behind in areas liberated from Islamic State rebels have been flown out of Iraq and Syria and have arrived in Russia. A plane carrying the women and children arrived in the Chechen capital Grozny on September 1.
Interfax news agency later reported from Grozny airport that Russia's children's ombudswoman Anna Kuznetsova and top Chechen officials had met the plane carrying the evacuees.
It was the largest group to be flown from Iraq to Chechnya, and the first to include adults. Last month, seven children were flown back on a similar flight. Iraqi officials have said that many foreign fighters who mounted a final stand in Mosul came from Russia, particularly Chechnya, and other former Soviet countries.
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has promised to bring back all the Chechen children in Iraq, saying that "the parents of almost all of them are dead." Kadyrov said on Instagram that the latest flight included a woman from Chechnya with three children.
Kuznetsova has gathered a list of more than 350 children who were reportedly taken by their parents from Russia to Iraq and Syria. State-controlled television reported in August that the Russian authorities were trying to return 48 such minors from Mosul.
Posted by: ryuge ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... said Sunday that she would ask the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... to call off membership talks with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , amid escalating tensions between Berlin and Ankara.
"I don’t see them ever joining and I had never believed that it would happen," she said during a televised debate with Martin Schulz, her Social Democratic rival in elections later this month.
She added that she would speak with her EU counterparts to see if "we can end these membership talks".
Merkel’s tough stance came after Turkey locked away You have the right to remain silent... two more German citizens this past week "for political reasons", infuriating Berlin.
The arrests brought the number of German political prisoners in Ottoman Turkish custody to 12, at a time when ties between the two NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... allies were already at an all-time low.
The plunge in relations began after Berlin sharply criticized Ankara over the crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup attempt.
The arrest of several German nationals, including the Ottoman Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yucel, the Istanbul correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper, further frayed ties.
Yucel has now spent 200 days in jug ahead of a trial on terror charges.
German journalist Mesale Tolu has been held on similar charges since May, while human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... activist Peter Steudtner was arrested in a July raid.
After Steudtner’s arrest, Germany vowed stinging measures impacting tourism and investment in Turkey and a full "overhaul" of their troubled relations.
Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... , for his part, has also sparked outrage after charging that Germany is sheltering plotters of last year’s coup, as well as Kurdish Lions of Islam and terrorists, and demanded their extradition.
Erdogan added to the tensions this month when he urged ethnic Turks in Germany to vote against Merkel’s conservatives and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats, in September 24 elections.
The escalating tensions have split the Ottoman Turkish community in Europe’s top economy, the largest diaspora abroad, which is a legacy of Germany’s "guest worker" program of the 1960s and 70s.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Me too. Does my vote count?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/04/2017 15:49 Comments ||
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#2
Incirlik should be a ghost town
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/04/2017 17:07 Comments ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
H.R. McMaster is the enemy within, who is quietly working to fill the Trump White House with Obama Pentagon staff members. Not only that, he is giving them senior National Security Council roles. Who are they?
You probably have never heard of them. They are Ylli and Ylber Bajraktari, Albanian-Kosovan brothers, who were high-ranking officials in the Obama administration. What positions did they hold?
As an Obama recruit, Ylber was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of Defense Carter. He played a pivotal role in developing the Obama administration’s foreign policy on Iran and Iraq. He also worked on the administration’s highly controversial nuclear deal with the Tehran regime. Are you shocked yet?
Ylli was special assistant to the Obama Pentagon’s deputy secretary, Robert Work. Now this is the chilling part of this story...his job was to dutifully insure that the top Obama officials’ visions were completed. If this does not alarm you, it should. Why are so many powerful foreign entities being brought in to fill high-level positions in our government? Ask yourself that question.
[AlMasdar] The Iraqi paramilitary, Harakat Al-Nujaba, issued a statement on Saturday that thanked the Lebanese Hezbollah movement for their contribution to fighting terrorism.
“The Lebanese Hezbollah advisers and commanders were beside the Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF or Hashd Shaabi] from the starting operation against Daesh…” the movement’s secretary general, Akram Kaabi said, as quoted by Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
“Many Lebanese Hezbollah advisers were martyred in the fight against terrorism in Iraq,” Kaabi concluded.
This statement by Harakat Al-Nujaba comes just days after Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider Al-‘Abadi, slammed Hezbollah for transferring Islamic State (ISIL) terrorists from the Lebanese border to eastern Syria.
[IsraelTimes] PLFP terror group mourns death of 'fallen fighter Raed al-Salihi,' who was shot by soldiers during an arrest raid in August
Either we missed the arrest or the gentleman's name and affiliation were unknown when the arrest was reported, because this is the only report we have of arrests in Deheishe in August.
A Paleostinian official said Sunday that a 21-year-old Paleostinian man, Raed al-Salihi, has died of wounds he incurred during an arrest by Israeli soldiers in August.
According to Issa Qaraqe, head of the Paleostinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, Salihi, who was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine terror group, was placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in his home in the Deheishe refugee camp near Bethlehem on August 9.
During his arrest, Salihi was reportedly shot and critically maimed by IDF soldiers. Qaraqe said in a statement that Salihi was shot five times at close range.
He was being treated at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
A spokesperson for the hospital confirmed Salihi’s death.
The IDF said it was looking into the incident and was not immediately able to comment.
An image of Salihi holding a PFLP flag was shared widely on Paleostinian media.
The PFLP’s armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, said it "mourned" the death of the "heroic fallen fighter Raed al-Salihi," in a statement published on its website.
[Al Jazeera] Sri Lanka's president has vowed to protect a former army chief accused of crimes in the bloody final phase of the country's civil war.
"I state very clearly that I will not allow anyone in the world to touch Jagath Jayasuriya or any other military chief or any war hero in this country," President Maithripala Sirisena said on Sunday, addressing a convention of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
Sirisena's statement came a week after rights groups filed criminal lawsuits in South America against Jayasuriya, who until last week served as the country's envoy to Brazil, Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... , Chile, Colombia, Peru and Suriname.
The lawsuits are based on Jayasuriya's role as a commander in the final phase of Sri Lanka's civil war in 2009.
They allege he oversaw military units that attacked hospitals and killed, disappeared and tortured thousands of people.
The suits had been filed in Brazil and Colombia and more were to come in Argentina, Chile and Peru. Suriname had refused to accept the petition.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
who until last week served as the country's envoy to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Suriname.
How is this new? They've been singing this song since the beginning of the democracy movement.
[An Nahar] Bashir al-Assad "cannot be the solution" for Syria after six years of conflict, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday, returning to a position questioned in July by President Emmanuel Macron.
"We cannot build peace with Assad," Le Drian said on French radio RTL.
"He cannot be the solution," Le Drian said.
"The solution is to establish... a timeline for political transition that can lead to a new constitution and elections, and this transition cannot happen with Bashir al-Assad."
Macron said in July that the removal of the Syrian president was not a "prerequisite" for peace in the wartorn country, and that he did not see a "legitimate successor" to the leader who has been in power since 2000.
Gay Paree had been a key supporter of the opposition to Assad's rule since the start of the conflict in 2011 which has since killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions.
But Macron said that the fight against 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) group was a priority for La Belle France, which has endured a string of terror attacks that have killed more than 230 people since 2015, some planned in Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#2
I don't see Macron as the solution for France but that's just me.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/04/2017 11:07 Comments ||
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#3
After watching Mubarak, Kadafie, Saddam Hussein... Assad had no choice but to fight to hold onto power. If the French do not want Assad involved with Syria he will need treated like the others mentioned.
[An Nahar] The official results of DNA tests conducted to determine whether nine bodies found near the eastern border belong to Lebanese troops kidnapped and killed by 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 will be released on Tuesday, the soldiers’ families said.
"The tests took some time due to scientific and medical reasons," the relatives told al-Hayat newspaper in remarks published Sunday.
A ministerial source meanwhile told the daily that by Saturday, "the bodies of seven out of nine soldiers had been identified."
Eight bodies had been recovered last Sunday while the body of a ninth soldier was located on Tuesday as part of a Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... -led deal with IS. The jihadist group offered the information about the troops’ burial site in return for being allowed to withdraw to eastern Syria.
Hussein Youssef, the father of slain soldier Mohammed, demanded "accountability for every person who took part in the kidnap operation and for anyone who decided not to liberate our sons the moment they were captured or shortly afterwards."
Youssef also demanded "the execution of the detainee Omar Miqati, who filmed the crimes of the execution of the martyr soldiers Ali al-Sayyed and Abbas Medlej."
Miqati has been described as a senior IS official.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim on Sunday called for a drastic solution for the security situation in the restive Paleostinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hellhole.
"It should be addressed once and for all, because it represents a security gap in the Lebanese and Paleostinian entities," Ibrahim told Radio Voice of Leb (93.3) when asked about the Ein el-Hellhole security file.
Commenting on the removal of 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.... bandidosturbans from the Lebanese-Syrian border following separate but simultaneous operations by the Lebanese army and Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... on both sides of the frontier, Ibrahim said: "Militarily, IS’ threat has become something of the past."
"But this does not negate the possibility of a security breach inside Leb," Ibrahim added, while noting that "this has become more unlikely and can easily be exposed."
The restive camp had witnessed a week of deadly festivities last month between the secular Fatah Movement and small Islamist groups led by the bandidosturbans Bilal Badr and Bilal al-Orqoub.
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army does not enter Paleostinian refugee camps in Leb, leaving the Paleostinian factions themselves to handle security.
Ein el-Hellhole -- the most densely populated Paleostinian camp in Leb -- is home to some 61,000 Paleostinians, including 6,000 who have fled the war in neighboring Syria.
Several armed factions including krazed killer groups have a foothold in the camp which has been plagued for years by intermittent festivities.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
And we know exactly what he means by "once and for all".
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Iranian judiciary on Sunday upheld 10-year jail terms for an American, two US-Iranian dual nationals and a Lebanese permanent resident of the United States for "collaborating" with Washington.
In a ruling that comes at a time of rising tensions following 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... ’s arrival in the White House in January, the Tehran prosecutor’s office said the four men’s appeals had been rejected.
Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born American, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for "collaborating with foreign governments", said Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, quoted by the mizanonline website close to the judiciary.
He said the same sentence was upheld against two dual nationals for "collaborating with a foreign government", and Lebanese national Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident, for working with the American government.
The dual nationals, businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Mohammad Bagher Namazi, were convicted in October 2016 along with Zakka and three others on charges of "spying" for Washington.
"Fabricated" charges
The State Department in July called on Iran to immediately release US citizens and other foreigners detained on "fabricated" national security charges, as Iran announced that Xiyue, a Princeton University researcher, had been handed a 10-year sentence for "infiltration" and espionage.
"We call for the immediate release of all US citizens unjustly detained in Iran so they can return to their families," a State Department official said.
"The Iranian regime continues to detain US citizens and other foreigners on fabricated national security-related charges," the official said.
"The safety and security of US citizens remains a top priority. All US citizens, especially dual nationals considering travel to Iran, should carefully read our latest travel warning."
Trump warned of "new and serious consequences" unless US nationals held in the Islamic republic were released, triggering criticism from Tehran of the detention of Iranian citizens in the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Iran has tested its home-grown air defense system, designed to match the Russian S-300, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' air defense has said.
"In parallel with the deployment of the S-300, work on Bavar-373 system is underway," Farzad Esmaili told state broadcaster IRIB late Saturday.
"The system is made completely in Iran and some of its parts are different from the S-300. All of its sub-systems have been completed and its missile tests have been conducted."
Bavar (which means "belief") is Tehran's first long-range missile defense system, and is set to be operational by March 2018, he added.
In 2010, Iran began manufacturing Bavar-373 after the purchase of the S-300 from Russia was suspended due to international sanctions.
Russia resumed the sale following the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers which lifted sanctions, and Iran's S-300 defense system became operational in March.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/04/2017 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.
[RFE/RL] Eight children and four women -- originating from Kazakhstan and Russia -- who had been left behind in areas liberated from Islamic State rebels have been flown out of Iraq and Syria and have arrived in Russia. A plane carrying the women and children arrived in the Chechen capital Grozny on September 1.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] German Chancellor 
[An Nahar] General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim on Sunday called for a drastic solution for the security situation in the restive Paleostinian refugee camp of 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Iranian judiciary on Sunday upheld 10-year jail terms for an American, two US-Iranian dual nationals and a Lebanese permanent resident of the United States for "collaborating" with Washington.
