[Libya Observer] The commander of the so-called Libyan Army Khalifa Haftar is scheduled to arrive in Egypt ‘s Cairo Saturday to discuss possible Egyptian airstrikes on Derna and other cities like Ajdabiya, The New Arab reported Egyptian sources as saying.
The New Arab added that a meeting between Haftar and his accompanying delegation and the Head of the Egyptian committee on Libyan affairs as well as Chief of Staff Ahmad Hijazy will take place Saturday and several issues will be reviewed.
As Egyptian fingers were pointed lately at the claim that the individuals who conducted the last attack in Wahat in Egypt came through the border with Libya, the sources added that cooperation on border security with Haftar’s forces will also be discussed, in addition to the results of Al-Sisi and French President’s talks on the Libyan crisis, the UK-based newspaper added.
It indicated that a relative alteration in Egyptian vision for the solution of Libya’s crisis has surfaced as Cairo will be pushing forth the military solution led by Haftar regardless of the ongoing UN action plan implementation that had already started in Tunisia talks last month.
This push of Egypt sees eye to eye with Haftar‘s efforts to seize Libya including the capital’s control, which belongs until now to the UN-brokered government led by Fayez Al-Sirraj, the newspaper reports.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:30 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has named a new armed forces chief of staff, the presidency said in a brief statement on Saturday.
He appointed former defense ministry secretary general Mohammed Farid Hegazy to the post, it said, without giving a reason for the change.
His predecessor Mahmoud Hegazy, who had held the post since March 2014, was named a presidential adviser.
Linked to Sisi through the marriage of their respective children, Mahmoud Hegazy recently returned from Washington where military chiefs had gathered to discuss fighting "terrorism".
Mohammed Farid Hegazy’s appointment is a major change in the military establishment.
Sisi came to power after the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, for whom he had served as defense minister.
The country’s armed forces have since faced an Islamist insurgency including by ISIS, with hundreds of coppers and soldiers killed.
The insurgency is concentrated on North Sinai province, although ISIS has also extended its presence to southern Egypt and the Nile Delta, north of the capital.
[IsraelTimes] Military chief, top security official and several generals sacked, in apparent reaction to ambush outside Cairo last week that killed at least 16.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi replaced his armed forces chief of staff, while the Interior Ministry, in charge of police, dismissed the head of national security, a handful of generals, and a dozen big shots responsible for the area where the deadly shootout occurred.
The move was not unexpected after officials publicly evoked potential intelligence failures, lack of coordination, or incompetence as playing a factor in the losses, the latest installment of Egypt’s ongoing war against Islamic holy warriors, including 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.
Last Friday’s attack took place in the al-Wahat al-Bahriya area in Giza province, about 135 kilometers (84 miles) southwest of Cairo ‐ a gateway into Egypt’s vast Western Desert which leads to lawless Libya. Authorities consider the area an infiltration path for smugglers and holy warriors, and have blamed some past attacks on forces of Evil moving through.
The ambush’s brazenness and location raised the specter of the simmering insurgency creeping closer to the capital, which has been largely secure and far from what has long been its main front ‐ a northeastern corner of the Sinai Peninsula.
Security troops have announced major operations in the Western Desert and areas near Cairo in recent days, and foreign companies and embassies have long warned expats against travel to such places, even those as seemingly tame as the Fayoum Oasis.
Just a day ago, security forces killed 13 snuffies in another shootout in the western desert, during a raid on an alleged holy warrior hideout in the New Valley province which shares part of the mostly non-existent border with Libya.
The attack a week ago that seemingly prompted the leadership shakeup appeared to be a carefully planned ambush that trapped many counter terrorism officers as well, with police ranks of those killed reaching up to brigadier-generals.
The troops had been acting on intelligence and moving against a holy warrior hideout backed by armored personnel carriers when they drew fire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to officials who reported the incident anonymously because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists.
They added that the force likely ran out of ammunition and that the snuffies captured several coppers and later killed them.
While the official corpse count announced by the Interior Ministry was 16 at the end of the day, with 15 snuffies killed or maimed, officials who spoke with the News Agency that Dare Not be Named earlier had cited over 50 coppers killed in the attack. That would make it one of the worst on Egyptian police in years, although the differing numbers could not be reconciled.
No one grabbed credit for the attack, although the IS local affiliate is spearheading an insurgency in Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gazoo Strip, and the group has been active recently in neighboring Libya, home to a wide array of holy warriors.
The last time Egypt’s security forces suffered such a heavy loss of life was in July 2015 when IS forces of Evil carried out a series of coordinated attacks, including suicide kabooms, against army and police positions in Sinai, killing at least 50.
However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... the army then said only 17 soldiers were killed along with over 100 holy warriors.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An association made up of mothers of kidnapped prisoners in Yemen’s Ibb governorate have appealed for the quick intervention to save the lives of their children and release those arbitrarily kidnapped and imprisoned by 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 and forces loyal to ousted former president Saleh.
On Saturday, the association condemned the continuous kidnapping and prolonged detention of dozens of patients in the coup prisons.
The association stressed that the abductees got infected with chronic and serious diseases, which require releasing them quickly to receive the necessary treatment in hospitals to save their lives.
A statement issued by the mothers’ protest said that the prolonged imprisonment has caused them both physical and psychological harm.
The Yemeni mothers have also appealed to UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... , UN envoy, the conscience of humanity and human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... organizations to intervene quickly to rescue the kidnapped and forcibly disappeared, and to work for their unconditional release.
The statement said that the coup is responsible for the life and safety of all those kidnapped and forcibly disappeared.
The group of mothers have held frequent protests in the areas controlled by the coup for three years since militia takeover and are demand that coup poltters for the release of their children. Thousands of people have been tossed in the clink Please don't kill me! , forcibly disappeared and brutally tortured in Houthi prisons.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Bangladesh is planning to introduce voluntary sterilisation in its overcrowded Rohingya camps, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space, after efforts to encourage birth control failed.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.
The latest arrivals have joined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled in earlier waves from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where the stateless Moslem minority has endured decades of persecution.
Most live in desperate conditions with limited access to food, sanitation or health facilities and local officials fear a lack of family planning could stretch resources even further.
Pintu Kanti Bhattacharjee, who heads the family planning service in the district of Cox’s Bazar where the camps are based, said there was little awareness of birth control among the Rohingya.
"The whole community has been deliberately left behind," he told AFP, citing a lack of education in Myanmar, where the Rohingya are viewed as illegal immigrants colonists and denied access to many services.
Bhattacharjee said large families were the norm in the camps, where some parents had up to 19 children and many Rohingya men have more than one wife.
District family planning authorities have launched a drive to provide contraception, but say they have so far managed to distribute just 549 packets of condoms among the refugees, who are reluctant to use them.
They have asked the government to approve a plan to launch vasectomies for Rohingya men and tubectomies for women, Bhattacharjee told AFP.
But they are likely to face an uphill struggle.
Many of the refugees told AFP they believed a large family would help them survive in the camps, where access to food and water remains a daily battle and children are often sent out to fetch and carry supplies.
Others had been told contraception was against the tenets of Islam.
Farhana Sultana, a family planning volunteer who works with Rohingya refugees in the camps, said many of the women she spoke to believed birth control was a sin.
"In Rakhine they did not go to family planning clinics, fearing the Myanmar authorities would give medicine that harms them or their children," Sultana said.
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10/29/2017 00:00 ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The former chief of the military intelligence of Pakistain, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Asad Durrani has claimed that the United States wants military in Afghanistan from Pakistain.
In an interview with the Russia Today, US wants Pakistain to establish and maintain a military presence in Afghanistan but will not pay for the cost of such an expedition.
Durrani went on to claim that there has been no change in the new US policy, apparently guestuirng that Washington was supposed to prioritize peace and stability in the country and region rather than opting military presence.
"Essentially the policy remains the same and that is you have to dig in Afghanistan, stay there, keep the bases, keep the military presence. That is more important than either peace there or settlement there," he added.
He aso ruled out that Pakistain is dependent to America as he was gesturing towards the recent US decisions to reduce military help to Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:29 ||
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#1
Well, you conniving bastard, you don't have the money to do because you've spent so much money supporting the Taliban and other groups that have metastasized against you...
You are the personification of evil in the region, your games and schemes are destroying your country and all around it in the name of what?
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Islamabad once again revealed its opposition against the sale of modern unmanned aerial vehicles or drones by the United States to India.
A front man for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistain Nafees Zakaria told news hounds on Friday that the balance of power in the region would be disrupted because of the deal.
Zakaria further added that providing sensitive military technology to India was akin to incitement of its ’misadventures’.
"Global powers should be aware of their international responsibilities before making such agreements," he added.
According to Zakaria, the international agreements, regulations and treaties should be considered before providing India any such technology.
According to reports, India is expected to receive the US-made unmanned aerial vehicles from the United States under an agreement reached between 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... and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The agreement worth around $2 billion was concluded between the leaders of the two countries in the month of June this year.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the sale and supply of the unmanned aerial vehicles to India will be only possible once the agreement has been approved by the US congress.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:27 ||
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#1
But what are we supposed to do with all these ex State department employees?
Oh, different drones. Sorry.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/29/2017 14:35 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, has said it is determined to continue with the Paleostinian reconciliation process at any cost, and confirmed that it is confident of its ability to resolve all outstanding issues of disagreements in light of the presence of new leaders of the movement who were not part of the division, as well as the role of Egypt in the convergence of views.
Hossam Badran, the official handling the issue of reconciliation within Hamas, told al-Hayat newspaper that: "Even if unilaterally, Hamas is determined to end the division."
Badran told the newspaper that Hamas is ready to provide all the necessary tools for the success of the reconciliation. New leaders who were not part of the division are currently working on this file.
The statements of the Hamas leaders all confirmed their desire to move forward in the reconciliation.
Despite the declarations and assurances of the continuation of the reconciliation, the implementation of this initiative on the ground is still facing many difficulties; two government bodies in Gazoo have been rejected by their presidents and were deprived of their posts.
Reports also predict that obstacles to the reconciliation deal may cause the initiative to take a lot of time than previously expected.
The file of security and staff in this sector, which account to 17 thousand, is one of the many challenges facing this reconciliation.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, security chief Tawfiq Abu Naim left hospital Saturday after being maimed in a boom-mobileing and pledged that an agreement aimed at ending a decade-long rift with rivals Fatah would remain on track.
The Friday kaboom that moderately maimed Abu Naim was branded by the Hamas interior ministry as "a failed liquidation attempt."
Hamas chief Ismail Haniya signaled Israel was to blame, but no one has grabbed credit.
Abu Naim said in a statement on Saturday that "the objectives of those who committed this despicable act will not be achieved."
"We are determined to leave the split behind and realize the important national unity at all costs," he said.
Abu Naim said a November 1 deadline for Hamas to hand over border crossings to the Paleostinian Authority would be adhered to.
Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... 's Fatah movement signed a reconciliation accord on October 12 with Islamist movement Hamas, which has run the Gazoo Strip for 10 years.
Under the deal, the Fatah-dominated Paleostinian Authority is to resume control of Gazoo -- which Hamas seized in a near civil war with Fatah in 2007 -- by December 1.
The fate of the Hamas security forces after it transfers power to the PA in the territory is one of the most delicate issues facing the reconciliation process.
Abbas wants the handover to be comprehensive and include all security institutions, but the Hamas leader in Gazoo, Yahya Sinwar, has said "no one" can force his group to disarm.
Israel and the United States have meanwhile said that Hamas must disarm as part of any unity government.
They have also said it must recognize Israel.
The Abbas-led Paleostine Liberation Organization has recognized Israel, but Hamas has not.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
The Friday kaboom that moderately maimed Abu Naim was branded by the Hamas interior ministry as "a failed liquidation attempt traditional Paleo Welcome Wagon."
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/29/2017 10:39 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Dozens of Paleostinians managed to cross into Israel through the passages, which were built to serve as drainage pipes
The IDF sealed off 10 tunnels under the security barrier in the West Bank near the city of Hebron, after dozens of Paleostinians reportedly managed to illegally cross into Israeli territory through the passages over the past few weeks.
Each of the tunnels, which were built to serve as drain pipes, was about 1.5 meters (five feet) in diameter and about 20 meters (65 feet) in length, allowing for people to easily cross through them, Israel Radio reported on Friday.
Last week, at least 100 Paleostinians who crossed into Israeli territory via the massive drainage pipes carried out a series of agricultural thefts near Moshav Shekaf, in the Lachish region, stealing dozens of tons of tomatoes and grapes, according to the radio report.
Seventy Paleostinians who were suspected of taking part in the theft were eventually tracked down and caught by the IDF and taken in for questioning.
A former German soccer player and biologist, Robert Jaspert, has been hired as the new head coach of the Hezbollah-backed Lebanese football team Al-Ahed.
The Rheinische Post reported on Saturday that Jaspert, who worked for Al-Ahed ten years ago, is back this time as the team's top coach. The RP wrote that "Al-Ahed is supported by Hezbollah."
The US, Canada, Israel, the Arab League and the Netherlands classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The EU and Germany designated Hezbollah's so-called military wing a terrorist entity.
It is unclear if direct Hezbollah funds are to pay for Jaspert's salary.
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] An association made up of mothers of kidnapped prisoners in Yemen’s Ibb governorate have appealed for the quick intervention to save the lives of their children and release those arbitrarily 
