[AnNahar] Commandos armed with RPG-7 rocket launchers aim at a tank hundreds of metres away, fresh recruits to Afghanistan's most skilled fighting force -- an elite group whose growing strength, US generals say, worries the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... These new members of Afghanistan's Special Operations Command (SOC) will soon be on the frontline of the war that US 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... has vowed "to win" by putting more American boots on the ground indefinitely.
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[DAWN] 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... said on Tuesday that a new $7.4 billion port would help to "break the shackles" of a three-month-old boycott of the gas-rich emirate by Arab states led by 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... The Hamad Port, which began operating in December, is a major hub for imports to Qatar, hit by a land and air embargo by some of its most powerful neighbours.
"This is a gateway to break the shackles imposed on Qatar," Qatari Transport Minister Jassim bin Saif al-Sulaiti said in a speech during an inauguration ceremony for the port held Tuesday. "Nothing can stop us and our ambition," he added.
In a relatively rare public appearance since the onset of the crisis, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani attended the inauguration but did not speak.
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09/06/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
so now a naval embargo....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/06/2017 10:29 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemen's ousted president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... said the country's Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militias feared a "coup" but that there were no longer any tensions with them, despite strains in the past fortnight.
"There is no crisis and conflict at the moment," the 75-year-old strongman said late Monday in an interview on al-Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... al-Yom television, which his party controls.
On August 24, hundreds of thousands put on a show of force for Saleh at a rally marking the 35th anniversary of his Arab nationalist General People's Congress (GPC) party.
"There were fears and suspicions that the rally would be a coup" against the Iran-backed Huthis, and "this is what their leaders told us," said the former president.
Saleh said Houthi leaders told him there had been "an operation" against them and a GPC plot to "take control of state institutions".
In response, Saleh said he had sent two letters to Abdel Malek al-Houthi, head of the militia group, to reassure him.
"I asked him not to believe the suspicions, and he reacted positively," he added.
Cracks emerged in the alliance between Saleh and Houthis after the two publicly accused each other of treason and back-stabbing.
In an unprecedented outbreak of violence between the allies on August 26, a colonel loyal to Saleh and two militias were killed.
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09/06/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
"Trust me"
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09/06/2017 10:32 Comments ||
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[DW] Huseen K. has testified before the court, as his trial for murdering a student begins. He arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker despite having been previosuly tossed in the calaboose You have the right to remain silent... in Greece for almost killing a woman.
has admitted that he lied about his age when he arrived in Germany as a migrant in 2015, as his trial over the murder of student Maria L. opened in Freiburg on Tuesday.
Huseen K., to use his name as written in the German court papers, is suspected of raping and killing the 19-year-old medical student in Freiburg in October last year.
He told the court that he was 18 when he arrived in Germany, and not 16 as he initially claimed. He said he lied about his age because "when you're a minor, the situation in Germany is much better for you."
Huseen K. also disclosed other details of his identity that had until Tuesday remained unclear. The young migrant was born and raised in Afghanistan, but moved to Iran at age 13. After "problems with the police," he then fled to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , before moving on to Greece and finally Germany.
He told the court that his life in Germany had been marked by alcohol and drug abuse.
The young migrant is alleged to have drowned Maria L. by laying her unconscious body in the Dreisam river. He was arrested in December last year after DNA evidence and video footage near the scene linked him to the crime.
He is currently being tried as youth, although the court could move to convict him as an adult. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... adults between the age of 18 and 21 can still be tried as minors.
Germany's migrant policy under the microscope
The case sparked nationwide debate over Germany's migration policy. Huseen K. arrived in Germany during the height of the migrant crisis in the autumn of 2015, a year before he is alleged to have killed the young student. Arriving without documents, he was allowed to register as an unaccompanied minor.
However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... following his arrest in December in connection with the murder, it emerged that Huseen K. had previously been convicted in Greece for almost killing a woman by pushing her off a cliff. Despite being sentenced to 10 years, he was released after just over a year in order to make space in Greece's crowded prisons.
After he was released, he reportedly went underground and joined the wave of newly-arrived migrants colonists from the Middle East to sneak out of Greece and travel to Germany.
The revelations triggered a fresh wave of anger at 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... 's decision to effectively tolerate the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015. Around 10 supporters for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party protested outside of the court room. Police said they had been made aware of the group's plans to protest beforehand, and that it did not turn violent.
Parts of trial to be conducted in private
At the beginning of trial opened Tuesday, the defendant's lawyer, Sebastian Glathe, told the judge that his client had "recently decided to address the allegations," albeit in a private testimony, away from the public. The move came as a surprise, as Huseen K. had refused to give any sort of statement during his 10 months in jug.
Despite protests from the prosecution and the victims' parents, the judge agreed that any statement Huseen K. made concerning his sexual history would be private.
Prosecutors have also been barred from asking the defendant on the incident in Greece.
An asylum seeker accused of raping and murdering an EU official's daughter attacked her to satisfy his 'sexual urges' before leaving her unconscious in a river to drown, a court heard.
Hussein claims to be Afghani but the court heard that there is evidence he is Iraqi. And his claim to be 17 at the time of the offence is disputed with a specialist saying he is at least 22.
According to Bild newspaper, during a morning session of hearings in which press and public were excluded he claimed to be 19.
Medical student Maria Ladenburger's father is a senior legal adviser to the European Commission in Brussels.
[IsraelTimes] Initially suspected of being Islamist mole within spy agency, Roque M. now only faces charges of attempting to share state secrets
A German intelligence agent on Tuesday said he pretended to be a jihadist planning an attack in online chatrooms because he was bored, as he went on trial for attempted treason.
The 52-year-old suspect, named as Roque M., made headlines when he was nabbed Book 'im, Mahmoud! last November in what initially appeared to be a case of an Islamist mole at work in Germany’s domestic spy agency.
We had the story here. An interesting gentleman, who had a number of ingenious methods for coping with boredom.
But he was freed in July after prosecutors dropped most of the charges, finding no evidence of an attack plot or ties to Islamist groups.
"I never met with any Islamists. I would never do that. The whole thing was like a game," the suspect said at the start of his trial in the western city of Dusseldorf, according to DPA news agency.
A former banker and father of four, Roque M. told the court that he monitored the Islamist scene as part of his job for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), a role he described as "a lot of fun."
But he grew bored at the weekends when he was at home watching his disabled son, and immersed himself in the online world of Islamists, feigning to be one himself.
It was "an escape from reality," DPA quoted him as saying in court.
He even went so far as to arrange a meeting with a suspected Islamist at a gym, although Roque M. insisted he never had any intention of going.
In one of his online chats, he offered to help alleged Islamists gain access to his employer’s office in Cologne ...a lovely city in Germany. They invented perfume there... "An attack on the headquarters would be in line with Allah’s will," he wrote, according to the indictment.
He was caught after he offered to share classified information about operations with someone who turned out to be a colleague working undercover.
The case initially sparked outrage, with Germany’s domestic spy agency fending off calls for a complete security overhaul for allowing an "Islamist" to infiltrate its team who had passed multiple screenings.
But as no evidence emerged of an actual Islamist plot, prosecutors left Roque M. facing the sole charge of attempting to share state secrets.
His trial is scheduled to run for five days.
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09/06/2017 00:00 ||
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There was also suggestion that the father of four, who was born in Spain and raised in Germany, had a personality disorder. A senior official at the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), where Roque. M. worked, told the Washington post that he may have been mentally ill, and perhaps even had multiple personalities.
which suggests the gentleman, suffering from a tad too many generations of close-cousin marriage, may be Moroccan. This would explain the French-looking name, the ability to read Arabic, and the four children.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Sept. 5 that three Ottoman Turkish men’s right to a fair trial had been violated in 2003 and 2004, as the police unlawfully coerced them into confessing that they were "members of an illegal organization."
The court said the Ottoman Turkish police had accordingly violated Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the cases of Bayram Koc, Ayhan Bozkaya and Mehmet Ali Turk, born in 1980, 1975 and 1972 respectively.
The three men complained to the ECHR about not having had access to a lawyer while being questioned by the police in 2003 and 2004, on suspicions, in particular, of membership in an illegal organization.
They all confessed, in the absence of a lawyer, to being members of an illegal organization and in the cases of Bozkaya and Turk, to having committed violent offenses in connection with their membership in these organizations.
During court hearings they later retracted parts of their confessions. All three applicants were convicted‐Koc, of membership in an armed organization, and both Bozkaya and Turk for the offense of, in particular, seeking to remove part of the national territory from the Ottoman Turkish state’s control‐and were given prison sentences. Their convictions were eventually upheld by the Court of Cassation in 2010, 2009 and 2006, respectively.
The three men later complained to the ECHR that their right to a fair trial was violated because their convictions were based on confessions obtained through unlawful coercion tactics in the absence of a lawyer.
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[DAWN] The group that attacked Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... -Pakistain (MQM-P) leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan on Eid was also involved in recent attacks on police in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , according to a blurb issued by the Rangers on Tuesday.
The group which claimed the attack, the Ansar-ul-Shariah Pakistain (ASP), also carried out attacks on police personnel in Karachi's SITE, Bahadurabad, Azizabad, Northern Bypass and Gulistan-e-Jauhar areas, in which at least 7 coppers had been killed, read the handout issued after a high-level meeting at Rangers Headquarters.
All these incidents and the attack on the Sindh Assembly opposition leader on Eidul Azha were carried out by the same group, the handout said, adding that forensic testing of the weapons used in the attack had revealed a match with arms used in the previous attacks.
The meeting to review progress in the Izhar attack case was chaired by Director General (DG) Rangers Muhammad Saeed, and included Inspector General Sindh A.D. Khawaja and others.
Participants of the meeting were informed that Abdul Karim Sarosh Siddiqui, a former Karachi University student, was the central leader of the ASP and had allegedly been involved in attacks on police and Izhar.
One of Izhar's suspected attackers was identified as Hassan bin Nazeer, a former student at NED and Sir Syed University, who had been working as a data lab technician at Daud University. Nazeer died on the way to the hospital after being caught and beaten by bystanders immediately after the attack on Izhar.
Others had expeditiously departed at a goodly pace, the meeting was informed, and efforts to capture all assailants were being made.
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[DAWN] Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Nafees Zakaria on Tuesday said that Pakistain is "seriously concerned" about the threat posed by terrorism and extremism in the South Asian region. Zakaria was speaking in reference to the BRICS' leaders summit document which named krazed killer groups allegedly based in Pakistain as a regional security concern. I'm not sure if this is "tu quoque" or scapegoating, but I know it's fallacious.
"Many terrorist groups based in the region ‐ including in Afghanistan ‐ such as the [banned] Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain and its associates like Jamaatul Ahrar ...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough... (JuA) have been responsible for extreme acts of violence against Pak people," Zakaria said.
"We are deeply concerned at the presence of [banned] groups, like ISIS, East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, in the ungoverned spaces in Afghanistan as they pose a threat to peace and security in the region."
Zakaria further said that Pakistain is concerned about the rise of bully boy ideologies and intolerance in the region, which have been "encouraging social stratification and systematic targeting of minorities".
Earlier on Tuesday, Defence Minister Khurram Dastagir refuted the BRICS nations' claim about the presence of krazed killer groups allegedly based in Pakistain.
While talking to the media after the Defence Cabinet Committee meeting, Dastagir said, "We have already said that there are no terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistain."
"Terrorist safe havens are found in Afghanistan; Pakistain does not fear any external aggression as its Army, Navy and Air Force are keeping a strict eye on the situation," he added.
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09/06/2017 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Israel has suspended granting work visas for new foreign charity workers arriving in the country, humanitarians say, in a move that could impede aid to Paleostinians.
Dozens of aid workers from major international NGOs have been unable to get work visas or faced delays in recent months, the humanitarians say.
Israel says the matter is procedural, but has not found a permanent solution to the issue in more than a year.
Continued on Page 49
[Ynet] For the first time since 2009, Arab family removed from Sheikh Jarrah home after long legal dispute; 'The owners allowed the Arab tenants to live on the property for five years without rent, but the tenants caused financial damages to the owners, so the eviction was inevitable,' says Arieh King, director of the Israel Land Fund that helped acquire the building.
Law enforcement authorities evicted an Arab family from its home in east Jerusalem early Tuesday after the property was purchased by Jews.
This is the first eviction of an Arab family from its home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since 2009.
Continued on Page 49
[Dhaka Tribune] Myanmar newspapers have only sporadically referred to the forced displacement of the Rohingya. On the occasions they do, they are usually from international news agencies like Reuters or AFP
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[AlMasdar] According to pro-opposition media, it appears that some forty (40) plus hard boy groups operating across Syria will merge to form a unified national army.
The commander-in-chief of this assortment of various Gulf-backed mercenary groups in Syria will be a zero-income heart surgeon by the name of Jawad Abo Hatab who runs the officially (self-declared) bankrupt Syrian Interim Government.
Dr. Hatab is both the president and defense minister for the so-called Syrian Interim Government. In his role as the defense minister, he is to now form a committee that selects a chief of staff for the new national opposition army.
Jawad Abo Hatab complained before opposition media about one month ago that the Syrian Interim Government had no money to pay its staff and that all those who worked with the anti-Damascus polity were considered volunteers.
Below is a statement, released on pro-rebel media, regarding the merging of forty different hard boy factions into a ’national army’ against the Assad government.
Images of two pages of Arabic writing with a terribly official looking eagle crest can be seen at the link. Possibly of interest to those who can read modern Arabic.
[Iran Press TV] Residents of Dayr al-Zawr erupted into the streets to celebrate their freedom on Tuesday, after the Syrian army advanced on the Brigade 137 base front on the western outskirts of the city, effectively breaching the siege that ISIS had laid since January 2015.
"We feel joy. We have been waiting for our heroic army for three years during a sick siege that we lived alongside our people in Deir al-Zor. Our confidence in our army, wide leadership and nation enabled us to know that this moment was inevitable because the people of Dayr al-Zawr are steadfast, they can bear anything for victory and we are confident that our people will be victorious. God willing, our people will come back and we can rebuild our country again after all Syrian lands are liberated," said a resident of the city.
Following the announcement, 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... offered his congratulations to Russian and Syrian armies over their large-scale victory against the terrorists.
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09/06/2017 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.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemen's ousted president 
[DW] Huseen K. has testified before the court, as his trial for murdering a student begins. He arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker despite having been previosuly 
...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...
