[BI-Rooters] A Taliban spokesman denied on Sunday accusations by a Canadian man that one of his children had been murdered and his wife raped while they were being held captive by militants who kidnapped them in Afghanistan in 2012.
Joshua Boyle and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, were held by the Haqqani network, a semi-independent wing of the Afghan Taliban, before being rescued by Pakistani troops in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border, last week.
Boyle told reporters soon after he, his wife and their three children returned to Canada on Friday that their captors had murdered a fourth child and raped his wife.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid rejected that as propaganda by the Western governments that helped rescue the family. Mujahid said the couple was intentionally never separated in order to protect their safety. He also denied that their child had been murdered, but acknowledged that one child became sick and died.
The U.S. government calls the Haqqani network "the most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group" in Afghanistan. Its operational chief, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was named deputy to the Taliban's newly appointed leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in 2015, cementing the ties between the groups.
[REUTERS] More than 200 people were killed by twin kabooms that struck busy junctions in the heart of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, officials said on Sunday, marking the deadliest attacks since an Islamist insurgency began in 2007.
President Mohammed Abdullahi Farmaajo declared three days of national mourning and called for donations of blood and funds to victims of Saturday’s attack. At least 100 others were maimed.
"Today’s horrific attack proves our enemy would stop nothing to cause our people pain and suffering. Let’s unite against terror," he tweeted.
Police said a truck bomb went kaboom! outside a hotel in the K5 intersection that is lined with government offices, restaurants and kiosks, flattening several buildings and setting dozens of vehicles on fire.
Two hours later, another blast struck the capital’s Medina district.
"We have confirmed 200 civilians died in yesterday’s blast. We understand the corpse count is higher than that. Many people are still missing their relatives," Abdifatah Omar Halane, the front man for Mogadishu’s mayor, told Rooters.
A front man for Aamin Ambulance service said it knew of more than 250 people maimed during the bombings on Saturday.
"Some people who searched for their relatives just found unrecognizable body parts," its director Abdikadir Abdirahman told Rooters.
"In our 10 year experience as the first responder in #Mogadishu, we haven’t seen anything like this," tweeted the ambulance service, which is reliant on private donations and the only free ambulance service in the city.
"We’re mourning the loss of 5 Somali Red Islamic Thingy volunteers, also killed in this attack," tweeted the International Committee of the Red Thingy.
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10/16/2017 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Egypt announced it would not be reopening the Rafah Border Crossing Monday through Thursday as it planned, following the IS attack in northern that which claimed the lives of 6 Egyptian soldiers.
Earlier Sunday, Egypt announced Rafah will be reopened in both directions following the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",-Fatah reconciliation deal.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saudi King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Cutodian of the Two Holy Mosquesand Lord of Most of the Arabians.... telephoned 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... Saturday evening, in which he affirmed the Kingdom’s support and welcome the firm strategy announced by Trump towards Iran and its aggressive activities and support for terrorism in the region and the world.
The king praised the leadership role of the new US administration, which recognizes the magnitude of these challenges and threats, stressing the need for concerted efforts and firm positions on terrorism and extremism against its top sponsor, Iran.
Trump expressed his appreciation for the initiative of King Salman and his support, and stressed the keenness of the US to work with its allies to achieve security and world peace.
The two sides also discussed relations between the two countries and ways of developing them, as well as issues of mutual concern.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2017 00:00 ||
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[AlAhram] French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that any undocumented foreigner who commits a crime will be deported, two weeks after a Tunisian man stabbed two women to death in southern Marseille.
"We will take the most severe measures, we will do what we must do," Macron said in a televised interview.
What, immediately the miscreants are picked up, without even a proper trial? Or does he mean to add to the already overburdened police and courts, who can't keep up with the cases they're already ignoring because there are so many of them? Still, the sentiment shows he understands the meaning of Austria's election results, so different than his own a mere few months ago.
[YAHOO] Austria's political "whizz-kid" Sebastian Kurz was on course Sunday to become Europe's youngest leader, potentially in coalition with the far-right after its best result in almost 20 years.
Kurz's conservative People's Party (OeVP) won 31.7 percent of the vote, followed by Chancellor Christian Kern's Social Democrats (SPOe) on 26.9 percent, projections that were broadly in line with preliminary results showed.
Close behind was the nationalist Freedom Party (FPOe) on 26.0 percent, twice that of their allies the Alternative for Germany (AfD) last month and close to its all-time record of 26.8 percent in 1999 under then-leader Joerg Haider.
Kurz, 31, nicknamed "wunderwuzzi" ("whizz-kid"), took over the OeVP in May and managed to attract supporters in droves by depicting himself as a breath of fresh air, talking tough on immigration and vowing to slash taxes and red tape.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2017 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] A Syrian government statement demanding Ottoman Turkish troops' withdrawal from the northwest city of Idlib is made to feed the domestic public opinion and should not be taken seriously, a senior MP with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's ruling party has told Al Jazeera.
Damascus on Saturday urged "immediate and unconditional withdrawal" of Ottoman Turkish troops that have been deployed to Idlib to back the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) fighters, who are implementing a "de-escalation zone" deal agreed by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran in September.
A Foreign Ministry statement carried on state media said the entry of Ottoman Turkish forces in Idlib "was a violation of international law and was not tied with the understandings that were reached between the guarantor states in the Astana process," referring to Russia, Turkey and Iran.
The Syrian statement was made "to save the government's face" in the eyes of the public there, Kani Torun, a senior MP and the deputy chair of the Ottoman Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee, said.
"At the end of the day, foreign troops have entered the Syrian land and this has to be explained to the Syrian public in one way or another."
Russia, Turkey and Iran have agreed in the Kazakh capital of Astana in September to set up de-escalation zones for six months in various parts of the country.
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10/16/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
How long before the Turks join with the Iranians and Iraqis to wipe out the Kurds?
[Ynet] Paleostinians who collaborated with Israel before being detained, tortured by PA sue to receive restitution for damages; after receiving verdict in their favor, plaintiffs contact Execution Office to seize PA funds held by finance minister in order to receive money.
Israel's Execution Office presented the Ministry of Finance with a foreclosure order on NIS 500,000 in Paleostinian Authority (PA) funds, to be received as court-mandated reparations for collaborators with Israel who were caught and tortured by the PA's security forces.
The Execution Office is tasked with ensuring a debtor who received a favorable judgment receives their due recompense, and to that end is entitled to seize property or funds owned by the defendant.
The affair began several months ago, when the Jerusalem District Court ordered the PA to pay half a million shekels in restitution to 50 collaborators with Israel who were captured and tortured during their interrogation.
The plaintiffs, who never received the money they were owed, decided to contact Israel's Execution Office to stop Israel's regular transfer of funds to the PA. Execution consented to the request made by attorney Aryeh Arbos, who represents some of the plaintiffs, and provided the foreclosure order, a move considered highly irregular.
The damages derived from a verdict the Jerusalem District Court decided on four months ago, in which the PA was said to be responsible for the illegal detention, torture and even murder of collaborators with Israel starting in the 90s.
The verdict went on to describe the brutal methods of torture exacted upon the collaborators by the PA, adding that in some cases the PA even went so far as to kidnap collaborators from Israel after they had escaped and return them to areas under its control for further torture.
In many of the cases, the torture and detentions did not cease until IDF forces intervened to free the collaborators during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
After banding together, the aggrieved collaborators petitioned the High Court of Justice, and were eventually award half a million shekels in restitution.
"We're pleased with the foreclosure order for NIS 500,000 in Paleostinian Authority funds held by Israel," said the law office of Rom-Arbos-Kedem-Tzur, representing the claimants.
"It's the government's sworn duty to honor a court of law's verdicts and, moreover, the State of Israel's deep commitment to assist those who have paid with their well-being‐and sometimes with their lives‐in order to save its sons and daughters from terrorism, death and bereavement," the law office's statement concluded.
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.
