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Libya's ex-envoy to France dies in custody
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 4: Opinion
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot

Brandy Ledford aka Fiber Op Girl in "Demolition Man (1993)" aka Mimi Chandler in "Fast Track (TV Series 1997)" aka Vicky in "Rat Race (2001)" aka Wendy Barnet in "Zebra Lounge (TV 2001)" aka Dawn Masterton in "Baywatch (TV Series 2000)" aka Ultimate Woman in "We All Fall Down (2000)" aka Alex Monroe in "The Invisible Man (TV Series 2000–2002)" aka Renee in "Ice Men (2004)" aka Doyle in "Andromeda (TV Series 2005)" aka Jisel, Penthouse Magazine's 1992 Pet of the Year aka Born Again Christian (age 43)



Someone with a set of guns who can handle a rifle.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/04/2012 0:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Bow wow ....
Posted by: gorb || 02/04/2012 0:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Three points there gorb.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/04/2012 1:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Whoa! Where's her protection from the bowstring. That could cause a sting.
Although she does make me quiver.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 02/04/2012 17:37 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
37 die in South Sudan shootout
[Iran Press TV] Thirty-seven people have been killed in South Sudan during a shootout at a peace meeting held to resolve disputes about stolen cattle, officials say.

Local officials from the state of Unity and neighboring Lakes and Warrap states and the United Nations
...Parkinson's Law on an international scale...
met on Friday for peace talks in the remote town of Mayendit in Unity state in an effort to reduce interethnic tension.

"These guys just started shooting everywhere," said Unity State Information Minister Gideon Gatpan Thoar.

"The fight just started there and no one knew the cause," said Lakes State Governor Chol Tong Mayay.

He added that people were just shooting at each other, without knowing whose police and army they were.

A number of non-combatants were killed in the incident, but most of the victims were coppers.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  shootout at a peace meeting

Any place else, that would be irony.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/04/2012 11:58 Comments || Top||


US drone crashes in Somalia
[Iran Press TV] A non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone has crashed into a refugee camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu, Press TV reports.
Did it crash or did we aim it?
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Better than a piloted plane.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/04/2012 18:14 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Libya's ex-envoy to France dies in custody
Libya's ex-ambassador to France, Omar Brebesh, has died in the custody of a militia from possible torture, less than 24 hours after he was detained by the armed group, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. HRW said a Tripoli-based militia from the town of Zintan detained Brebesh on January 19 and that a preliminary autopsy found the cause of death included "multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs."

"Photos of Brebesh's body, seen by Human Rights Watch, show welts, cuts and the apparent removal of toenails, indicating that he was tortured prior to death," the rights watchdog said in a statement.

It said a report by the judicial police in Tripoli also found that Brebesh had died from torture and that an unnamed suspect had confessed to killing him.

Brebesh, 62, served in the Libyan embassy to France from 2004 to 2008, first as cultural attache and then as acting ambassador for the last nine months of his term, the rights group said. He continued to work with the Libyan foreign ministry under Kadhafi's regime during last year's uprising and as a lawyer in the ministry under the post-Kadhafi transitional government.

HRW said that an official at the Libyan foreign ministry told the group that he saw Brebesh at work 10 days before his death, and he appeared to be in good health.

The New York-based watchdog said that according to Brebesh's son Ziad the former ambassador had himself voluntarily submitted to an investigation by the Al-Shuhada Ashura militia in Tripoli. On January 20 his family heard his body had appeared at a hospital in Zintan, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of the capital.

"I saw his face. There was blood on his nose and mouth. But I didn't see the rest of his body or his face from the other side," HRW quoted Brebesh's other son Mohammed as saying. "There was a bump on his forehead. After that, I kissed him and that was it. Later, when we saw the other side of his face at the hospital in Tripoli, it looked like his jaw was broken, like his face was not in the right place."

Militias made up of former rebels who fought Moamer Kadhafi's forces have been facing growing criticism from rights groups for allegedly torturing prisoners, most of whom are loyalists of the slain dictator.

"The torture and killing of detainees is sadly an ongoing activity by some Libyan militias," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. "These abusive militias will keep torturing people until they are held to account. Libya's leaders should show the political will to prosecute people who commit serious crimes, regardless of their role in the uprising."

Her comments come a week after Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders reported "widespread torture" in prisons under the control of militias and of some officially recognised military. The two groups said such cases were observed in the prisons of Tripoli, Misrata and smaller towns such as Ghariyan. Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in Misrata over these allegations.

On Thursday, Libyan Justice Minister Ali Hamida Ashur said the authorities would investigate all cases of "torture" in prisons and bring to justice those involved in it. HRW said that a Zintan-based prosecutor has opened an investigation into Brebesh's death.

"The Libyan government should send a message that it will not tolerate torture and vigilante justice," Whitson said. "The rule of law, and punishment for crimes, apply to all Libyans, including those who fought against Moamer Kadhafi."

Libya currently has about 8,500 detainees in about 60 facilities, majority of which are run by militias, rights group say.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/04/2012 10:32 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shoulda stayed in France....
Posted by: Barbara || 02/04/2012 12:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe it's the Russians turn to bomb them flat in the name of saving civilians, since our bombing them flat isn't turning out so well.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/04/2012 12:19 Comments || Top||


New clashes as anger with Egypt military boils over
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Egyptian protesters clashed with police for a second straight day on Friday as anger against the ruling military boiled over amid fury at the deaths of 74 people in football-related violence.

Marchers descended on parliament from mosques across Cairo to demand that the generals cede power immediately after a night of demonstrations in major cities across Egypt left at least two people dead.

In a sign of the growing threat the political turmoil poses to Egypt's economy, two female American tourists and their Egyptian tour guide were kidnapped on the road from the historic St Catherine's monastery in the Sinai peninsula, security officials said.

In the capital, riot police outside the interior ministry building fired tear gas at demonstrators, who hurled rocks back, after a night of confrontations left hundreds injured, an AFP correspondent reported.

The ministry said the injury toll since Thursday had reached 1,482 while one pro-democracy group, the Coalition of Maspero Youth, said one of its members had lost an eye during the festivities.

A soldier injured outside the ministry building on Thursday died in hospital on Friday, the state MENA news agency reported.

Masked protesters cut through barbed wire and lit fires on Mansur Street which leads to the ministry, as rocks flew overhead in all directions, the AFP correspondent said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  As Barry Rubin of The Rubin Report has pointed out, non-Islamist demonstrators are trying to get the military to hand over power to the Islamists immediately. We know what Islamists are like. Unfortunately, it's becoming pretty obvious that some Egyptian non-Islamists are seriously warped.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/04/2012 9:51 Comments || Top||

#2  As long as they're fighting each other, they're not much of a threat to Israel. To that end, I hope the Egyptians, Syrians, etc., spend the next 10 years in civil war. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara || 02/04/2012 10:05 Comments || Top||

#3  When will the State Dept. put out tourist warnings for Egypt?

Since tourism is one of very few sources of revenue that would put a real crimp in things.
I still expect to see the Egyptian antiquities destroyed by the fanatics in the same way as the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/04/2012 14:49 Comments || Top||


US tourists, guide freed after brief Egypt abduction
[Dawn] Two American women and their Egyptian tour guide, who were captured by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula on Friday, were released unharmed after several hours, security officials said.

The three arrived back at their hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where they were met by South Sinai's governor and security chief, officials said.

Tourism Minister Munir Fakhry Abdelnur said he had spoken to the three who said they were "in good health" and that they "had not been mistreated".

Abdelnur told the official MENA news agency that he has invited the two tourists to dinner on Saturday to apologise over what happened.

Masked gunnies had held up the tourists' bus at Wadi al-Soal in southern Sinai as it left the historic monastery of St. Catherine en route to Sharm el-Sheikh.

They stole watches, mobile telephones and money before snatching the three and taking off.

Authorities had spent several hours negotiating with kidnappers Salem Atwa and Salem Abu Khoshb, who were demanding the release of Khoshb's two sons, in jail on drugs charges, a security official said.

State television said a military aircraft was deployed over South Sinai, as a search operation quickly got underway after the kidnapping.

The abductions came just days after Bedouins in North Sinai briefly seized 25 Chinese workers employed by a military-owned cement factory, to demand the release of Islamist relatives jugged over bombings in the peninsula's Red Sea resorts between 2004 and 2006.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
Boko Haram refutes spokeman's arrest claim
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A member of Islamist group Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie...
has confirmed one of the group's high-ranking members was locked away, but refuted reports that the jugged person was its front man.

In a phone conference with journalists in the northeastern city of Maiduguri late Thursday, the man said Boko Haram's head of "public enlightenment" Abu Dardaa was locked away and not front man Abul Qaqa.

The man speaking on the phone claimed to be Abul Qaqa himself, but his voice sounded different from previous such conferences in which the purported front man has grabbed credit for scores of deadly attacks.

There has also long been speculation over whether those going by the aliases Abul Qaqa and Abu Dardaa are the same person.

"We want to react on what security agents said regarding the arrest of one of our members," the man said.

"The person that was locked away was Abu Dardaa and not Abul Qaqa. I am Abul Qaqa ... Abu Dardaa is the head of the 'Lajina', the department of public enlightenment, and not the front man."

A senior secret police official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said it appeared the person who issued the comments was indeed connected to Boko Haram, but he dismissed the statements as propaganda.

"It is no surprise they are making this ridiculous claim," the source said. "Abul Qaqa is part of the 11-member Shura council, the sect's decision-making body, and his arrest is a serious setback to the sect."

Security sources said Wednesday that a suspect believed to be the person who goes by the alias Abul Qaqa had been locked away. Authorities have not officially confirmed his detention or his identity.

The man claiming to speak on behalf of Boko Haram alleged that Dardaa was locked away when he was sent to the northern city of Kaduna for negotiations with government officials.

"The arrest of Abu Dardaa is an outright deception and betrayal by the Nigerian Government and security agents," he said.

With authorities unable to stop attacks blamed on Boko Haram, there have been growing calls for dialogue to bring an end to the violence.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram

#1  It was his non-evil twin brother.
Posted by: Shimble Guelph5793 || 02/04/2012 11:01 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
17 Shibir men held in Chittagong
[Bangla Daily Star] Seventeen activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
were jugged in New Mansurabad area of Chittagong yesterday evening on suspicion of hatching anti-state plot, police said.

The jugged, Shamsuddin Ahmed, 22, Nasimul Arefin, 18, Sazzad Hossain, 21, Maharul Islam, 21, Shahidul Islam, 21, Muhin Uddin, 21, Akram Hossain, 20, Nurul Alam, 20, Fakhruddin Ahmed, 21, Manik Hossain, 19, KM Mawla, 22, Syedul Islam, 20, Faruk Hossain, 20, Kamrul Islam, 26, Md. Hasan, 18, Ishtiak Hossain, 20 and Nizam Uddin, 21, are members of the pro-Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
student organization.

Syed Faruk, a sub-inspector of Pahartali Police Station, said acting on a tip-off, they raided a house of Mahabubul Alam around 6:00pm and found the activists holding a "secret meeting".

Law enforcers suspect the meeting was called to plan subversive activities against the state, he said.

Police seized a large number of books on Islamic revolution, some of which are written by Ghulam Azam, training modules for self-protection and battle, and also anti-government leaflets and banners.

The detainees were being quizzed, the SI said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Britain
Syrian ex-pats storm the London embassy in protest over the 300 killings in Syria
FIVE people were arrested after gaining entry into the Syrian embassy in London during a protest.

The five were among some 150 demonstrators who had rallied outside the embassy at about 2.00am local time (1.30pm AEST) in protest against the reported killing of more than 200 people in the Syrian city of Homs.

"We came to the embassy because there were 300 people killed in Syria today, this is why we're here," Syrian MBA student Anass Toma told the BBC.

"People are angry. I'm worried about the situation back home. I've been in London two years but I'm Syrian, from Aleppo," he said, referring to Syria's largest city, 350km north of the capital Damascus.

"We don't know what message the Syrian regime is giving out with this massacre today... we don't really understand what they're doing. But we must stop the bloodshed in Syria," Toma said.

While the BBC said "a number of people" had been detained, the UK Press Association and news agency AFP put the number arrested at five.

According to the Press Association, the embassy's windows were smashed as the demonstration got underway.

A Scotland Yard spokesman told AFP that "appropriate policing" was in place at the building.
Posted by: tipper || 02/04/2012 02:47 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:


Down Under
Homegrown jihad in Australia
Long, detailed article, well worth reading
Twenty-one violent jihadis have been convicted and jailed over the past six years in a series of court cases which put a new home-grown brand of Australian terrorism on display after operations Pendennis and Neath, the two biggest joint ASIO-police investigations ever. These culminated in December with 13½-year prison sentences for the Neath targets, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, Saney Edow Aweys and Nayev El Sayed, over their Holsworthy plan. Part of their motivation was fury over the jailing of the 18 men netted by Pendennis.
And to help them while away the long, slow years they can ponder what a brilliantly effective idea that was.
The 21 men and their accomplices forever changed the country, not with bombs or heavy artillery destroying a symbolic site as they had planned. Instead, they have revolutionized counter-terrorism in Australia.
This article starring:
Nayev El Sayed
Saney Edow Aweys
Wissam Mahmoud Fattal
Posted by: ryuge || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Violence is better than sex, Benbrika deemed when Abdullah Merhi, a Melbourne cell member asked for advice about the carnal temptations he felt when watching salacious videos on his brother's computer.

I like stories with a happy ending. Just think, he can have all the sex and violence he wants in prison. Win-win.

Posted by: tipper || 02/04/2012 2:12 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Four killed in Peshawar car boom
[Dawn] At least four people were killed and several injured as a large kaboom hit Beautiful Downtown Peshawar on Friday, DawnNews reported.

Several people were trapped underneath the rubble of a building destroyed by the heavy kaboom, which jolted the neighbourhood located on the Peshawar Ring Road.

The car kaboom outside the residence of the tribal elder Aastana Gul in the Pishtakhara suburb of Peshawar damaged one house and a private office in the street, police said

Peshawar's bomb disposal expert Hukam Khan said up to 40 kilograms of explosives were packed in a car and detonated remotely.

Bashir Bilour, senior minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
also said that at least 30 to 40 kilograms of kaboom had been used. Several pieces of a missile were also found at the location, added Bilour.

One of the injured had been freed from the debris and shifted to the hospital, while rescue workers and police personnel were busy helping recover the rest of the maimed.

Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, blamed a homegrown turban group Lashkar-e-Islam led by the warlord Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
and based in the lawless tribal district of Khyber for the killings.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Seven Pakistani soldiers killed in Taliban attack
[Dawn] Seven Pak soldiers were killed and three others maimed in a Taliban attack on their check post in the country's northwestern tribal belt, security officials said on Friday.

The overnight attack on Shidano Dand post in the Kurram Agency
...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
triggered festivities in which 18 hard boyz were also killed, a senior military official said.

"Armed hard boyz stormed the post around midnight and killed seven soldiers," said the official, who did not want to be named, adding that the troops retaliated killing 18 thugs.
Possibly, the two incidents are even related.
Other security officials also confirmed the attack.
"Yeah -- they didn't lie at all!"
Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan in a telephone call to AFP grabbed credit for the raid, saying 12 Frontier Corps soldiers were killed and four others captured by thugs.

"We carried out this attack to avenge the killing of our commander Taj Gul in Khyber agency," Ehsan said, without giving details when he was killed and his significance to the group.

"We have killed 12 FC soldiers and captured four others alive," he said, adding that hard boyz also seized a large cache of weapons.

Independent confirmation of corpse counts is very difficult in the tribal area, a Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold barred to journalists and aid workers.

The post is located between Kurram and North Wazoo tribal region on the Afghan border, a zone considered a stronghold of Pak Taliban and Al Qaeda linked thugs.

The region has experienced a spike in festivities in recent weeks.

On Tuesday dozens of heavily armed Talibs attacked a Pak military post in the area, sparking festivities that killed eight soldiers and maimed another 15, the military said.

Helicopter gunships were mobilised when the fighting broke out and officials said 35 hard boyz were killed.

Last July, Pakistain launched an offensive to oust religious hard boyz from Kurram, mirroring operations that it has carried out -- with limited success -- across much of the rest of the tribal belt, only for hard boyz to regroup and return.

Pakistain's semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan is rife with a homegrown insurgency, Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked thugs.

On Monday, President Barack Obama
In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed...
confirmed for the first time that US drones target Taliban and Al Qaeda hard boyz in Pakistain's tribal badlands, a program that has escalated under his administration.

Pakistain, whose relationship with the United States deteriorated in 2011 over the raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden
... who abandoned all hope when he entered there...
and air strikes that killed 24 Pak soldiers, says more than 3,000 troops have died fighting the thugs.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Police arrest 25 suspects in Lakki Marwat
[Pak Daily Times] LAKKI MARWAT: Police on Friday tossed in the clink 25 suspects during a search operation in an Afghan refugees' camp in Gandi Chowk area. Police, on a tip-off about presence of myrmidons in the camp, cordoned off the area and started a door-to-door search operation, after which the camp was sealed. In the backdrop of the terror attack on a police van in Shahbazkhel, which claimed three lives, security forces have been searching the area to apprehend the culprits.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Iraq
Turkish Jets Hit Kurdish Rebel Bases in North Iraq
[An Nahar] Turkey's military jets on Friday hit Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq where members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are holed up, the army said.

"Three targets belonging to the separatist terrorist organization in the Zap region ... were effectively hit by Turkish air force planes," the General Staff said in a statement posted on its website.

Fighting between Turkish forces and PKK rebels has escalated in recent months.

In October, Turkey launched a major air and land offensive against the rebels in the southeast of the country and in neighboring northern Iraq after 24 of its troops were killed in a night-time ambush by rebels.

The PKK took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives. It is labeled a terrorist outfit by Ankara and much of the international community.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dale Brown develops this theme in his novel 'Rogue Forces.'
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/04/2012 7:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd stay out of the Zap region
Posted by: Frank G || 02/04/2012 9:45 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan Charges ex-MP with Anti-Regime Incitement
[An Nahar] Jordanian military prosecutors on Friday charged an outspoken former MP with incitement against the regime and calling for a revolt, a judicial official said.

"State security court prosecutors charged Ahmed Abbadi with inciting the public to oppose the regime and urging a revolt during a protest for military retirees last month," the official told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"Three retired officers have filed an official complaint against Abbadi, after he publicly said the revolt starts with the retirees."

Abbadi, a controversial MP who served in parliament from 1989 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2001, faces 15 years in prison if convicted.

He has said on a YouTube video that Jordan "will turn into a republic in two years," and that "the country should be freed from the Hashemite monarchy because it is ruling against the people's will."

In 2007, he was sentenced to two years in jail for allegedly posting on the Internet a letter he wrote to U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid
... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ...
, branding the regime of King Abdullah II as "corrupt" and making allegations of human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
abuse.

Jordanians have been protesting since January last year, demanding sweeping reforms and an end to corruption.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Southeast Asia
Philippine troops battle Muslim rebels
Philippine troops battled Islamic extremists on a remote southern island on Friday where a day earlier three of the region's senior terror suspects were killed in a US-backed air strike.

When soldiers who approached the bombed area on the outskirts of a small village on Jolo island after the raid, they faced dogged resistance from surviving terrorists militants. The troops had moved into the scene of the strike in an effort to retrieve the bodies of the three top terrorists militants who were killed, as well as to take on the survivors of Thursday’s aerial assault.
Posted by: ryuge || 02/04/2012 04:58 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Tehran Bans Nationals from Road Travel to Syria
[An Nahar] Iran banned its citizens on Friday from travelling to Syria by road following the abduction of nearly 30 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally, state media reported.

"Due to the terrorist acts against Iranian pilgrims who are taking road trips to the holy sites in Syria, from Friday and until further notice road trips to this destination are forbidden," the head of Iran's passport and immigration police, Mahmoud Sadeqi, told the official IRNA news agency.

Sadeqi appealed to nationals to travel to Syria, a major pilgrimage destination for Iran's Shiite majority, only by plane.

Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped last Wednesday in the central Syrian city of Hama, IRNA reported. Another 11 were reported kidnapped on January 26.

A group of seven Iranian engineers were kidnapped near the central city of Homs in late December, bringing the total to 29, according to IRNA.

Last week, the rebel Free Syrian Army claimed to have captured five Iranian military officers in Homs, and urged Tehran to withdraw any other troops it may have in Syria. It was not clear whether the five referred to were among the seven kidnapped engineers or were a separate group.

Tehran has called on Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
"to use all means... to release" the captive Iranians.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims travel to Syria each year to visit Sayyeda Zeinab, a revered Shiite shrine just south of Damascus.

Syria is also Iran's principal ally in the Middle East. The United States and La Belle France accuse Iran of supplying Syria with arms to put down a rebellion that has seen more than 6,000 people killed since last March, according to human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
groups.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  losing too many IRGC and Basij in burkas?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/04/2012 17:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I wouldn't let Stephen Strasburg visit Syria either. We need him.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/04/2012 18:25 Comments || Top||


Russia Says 'Cannot Support' Latest U.N. Syria Draft
[An Nahar] Russia's deputy foreign minister said Friday that Moscow could not support the latest U.N. Security Council draft resolution on Syria in its current form, the Interfax news agency reported.

"Some of our concerns and the concerns of those who think the same as us have been taken into consideration but all the same this is not enough for us to be able to support it in this form," deputy minister Gennady Gatilov said.

"We still have a whole number of concerns over the content of this text and we will be ready to continue consultations on the draft resolution," Gatilov said.

"We are ready to continue work on modifying it, taking into consideration and based on our principled positions."

He spoke after a senior U.S. State Department official said that Washington was "cautiously optimistic" about winning Russia's support for the draft.

The latest draft does not explicitly call on Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, though it "fully supports" an Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
plan to facilitate a democratic transition.

The latest attempt at consensus emerged amid an impasse in the U.N. Security Council, with Russia leading the opposition to a tougher draft resolution authored by Western powers and the vaporous Arab League.

The new draft "fully supports" the January 22 Arab League request that Assad transfer power to a deputy and a government of national unity within two months but does not call on him to step down, according to a copy obtained by Agence La Belle France Presse.

Instead, it calls for a "Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system ... including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition under the League of Arab States' auspices, in accordance with the timetable set out by the League of Arab States."

Like previous versions, the draft "condemns all violence, irrespective of where it comes from."
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Rebels Say Syrian Army near Collapse
[An Nahar] The Syrian army is slowly disintegrating as troop morale plummets and more soldiers defect to join rebels fighting a regime crackdown against dissent, a front man for the Free Syrian Army said Friday.

"The regular army is in a pitiful state and getting close to collapsing," said Major Maher Nuaimi, who is based with the FSA in Turkey, in a telephone interview with Agence La Belle France Presse.

"Even though the army has huge military capabilities, soldiers no longer have the will to fight or are ready to do so."

Nuaimi said there was also growing discontent among officers and the rank and file against army commanders, who are largely drawn from Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's
Supressor of the Damascenes...
Alawite community, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.

Most of the conscripts in the military are from Syria's majority Sunni Moslem community.

A growing number have been defecting and joining the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as the 11-month government crackdown on a popular revolt continues.

An estimated 6,000 people have died in the bloodshed, according to rights groups.

"In the last 24 hours many defections have taken place in all of the provinces where there is unrest," Nuaimi said. "Some involve one soldier and others a whole group."

Nuaimi said several soldiers defected on Friday in the southern province of Daraa where nine regime troops were killed in festivities with the FSA.

He said in many instances dissident soldiers have literally had to fight their way out, braving checkpoints by security forces to escape.

Nuaimi added that young men over the age of 18 were also no longer reporting for their compulsory military service.

"This is a sign of defeat for the army," he said.

Although heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Free Syrian Army has increasingly launched bold attacks against regime forces and managed to seize control of some neighborhoods of the central flashpoint town of Homs.

The FSA claims to have some 40,000 members, including defectors and sympathizers.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  The rebels have a huge advantage in that all they have to do is yell to the Syrian forces, "Hey! We are Sunni, you are Sunni. Why are you working for a heathen Shiite?"

In past this sort of thing has been devastatingly effective against draftee standing armies in comparable situations.

Another big plus is that pencilneck himself comes across as a weakling, with brutal underlings.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/04/2012 8:33 Comments || Top||

#2  It's heartening that Baghdad Bob Major Maher Nuaimi has found gainful employment with the Free Syrian Army. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia has the following on the Syrian military:
The majority of the soldiers in the Syrian armed forces are Alawites, like President Bashar al-Assad. Alawites make up 12 percent of the Syrian population but are estimated to make up 70 percent of the career soldiers in the Syrian army.[8][9] Of the 200,000 or so career soldiers in the Syrian army, 140,000 are Alawites.[10] A similar imbalance is seen in the officer corps where some 80 percent of the officers are Alawites. The military’s most elite divisions, the Republican Guard and the 4th Mechanized Division, which are commanded by Bashar's brother, are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syria’s 300,000 conscripts and air force pilots are, however, Sunni.[8][11] Because of the Alawite composition of the Syrian armed forces, its interests are closely aligned with those of President Bashar al-Assad and the Assad family.
If true, that would explain how the Hama massacre was carried out without too many hiccups. The Ottoman empire, which carried out similar punitive massacres against rebellious non-Turkish populations, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, was a small minority within its territorial boundaries. The key to its longevity, at over 6 centuries, was that the core of its military was always composed of ethnic Turks. The Assads appear to have heeded the lessons of history, and kept the Syrian military mostly Alawite.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/04/2012 9:23 Comments || Top||

#3  The usual response of a tyrant in such cases is to use foreign soldiers. Any reports of Iranian/Lebanese troops engaging the population?

If Pencil Neck is serious threatened, I would expect him to bring Hezbollah forces in, dress them in Syrian uniforms, and have them in the street doing his dirty work much like Qaddafi used other African nationals for that sort of job.

Posted by: crosspatch || 02/04/2012 11:53 Comments || Top||

#4  No direct reports. If one uses 'street intel', then there are Iranian and Palestinian elements involved, with the latter as indirect fire assets (snipers) and the former as a combination of technical advisers, discipline enforcement and special forces.

I wouldn't discount Russian military assets being used in technical support. To go out way on a limb, the Bekaa Valley is likely a favorite 'vacationing' spot.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/04/2012 12:10 Comments || Top||


39 Dead as Syria Protesters Defy Crackdown to Mark '82 Massacre
[An Nahar] Protesters flooded towns and cities across Syria defying a brutal government crackdown on Friday to commemorate the notorious 1982 massacre in the city of Hama that killed tens of thousands.

At least 36 people were reported killed on Friday, including 11 soldiers and three army deserters, activists and a rights group said.

Security forces killed seven people in the flashpoint northwestern province of Idlib, three in the central protest hub of Hama, 10 in the Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
suburbs of Darayya and Rankous, five in the northern province of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
, two in the central opposition bastion Homs and one in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the uprising, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

In Hama's central neighborhood of Junub al-Malaab, security forces met the demonstrators with hot lead, killing at least one and wounding three more, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It reported two more killed by security force fire in Darayya in Damascus province and said at least another five people were killed -- among them two children -- across the country.

The Britannia-based group said the 11 soldiers were killed in festivities in the southern Daraa province and the central Homs province with fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), made up of defectors and sympathizers.

Another soldier was also killed earlier in the village of Jasem, also in Daraa province.

Protesters emerged from Friday prayers in the port of Latakia where security forces opened fire to disperse them, the Observatory said, reporting a similar demonstration in Yabrod in Damascus province.

Under the slogan "Hama, forgive us," regime opponents had urged protesters to wear black and march in honor of the estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people who died in the massacre ordered by Hafez, father of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...

Demonstrators turned out in their thousands in Hama itself, Idlib in the north, Daraa in the south and in Damascus province.

"Hafez is dead, Hama is not! Bashar will die and Syria will not!" read placards brandished by protesters in the al-Qadam district of Damascus, according to an Internet video posted by beturbanned goons.

"Collective punishment won't work this time!" read another.

Rallies were also staged on Thursday in memory of the Hama victims as Western and Arab countries sought to reach agreement on a draft U.N. resolution to pressure Syria to end its almost 11-month crackdown on dissent.

The latest text being considered by U.N. Security Council members does not explicitly call on Assad to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, but "fully supports" an Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
plan to facilitate a democratic transition.

Washington is "cautiously optimistic" Russia will support the draft resolution, a senior State Department official ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as The Woman to Call at 3 a.m. and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Everett ...
speaking by phone to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"This is the kind of resolution the entire council should support and the secretary and Ambassador Susan Rice are working the phones, working the halls to get a strong vote in the coming hours and days," said the official.

Diplomats said on Thursday that the new draft took into account concerns by Moscow, a staunch ally of Damascus.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the U.N. wrangling was harming the Syrian people.

"All those still hesitating must recognize that their hesitation is no longer tolerable for the people who are suffering from this violence and repression," he said in a clear swipe at Russia.

"The international community must negotiate. It must find common language."

Relations in the Security Council between Russia and the West were badly strained over a resolution last year that authorized the use of force to protect civilians during Libya's uprising.

The violence in Syria has killed at least 6,000 people since it erupted in March, rights groups estimate.

The ruthless crackdown and the mounting corpse count have not deterred protesters, however. Demonstrations are held almost daily, and in recent weeks have reached the doorstep of Damascus itself.

Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
said in a report released on Friday that children as young as 13 are a particular target in the "rampant" use of torture by government forces battling opposition protests.

While the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
says hundreds of children have been killed in the crackdown, HRW highlighted cases of children shot in their homes or on the street, or grabbed from schools.

It documented 12 cases of children being tortured in detention centers and said many more may have suffered similar treatment.

"In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults," said Lois Whitman, children's rights director at the New York-based organization.

"Children, some as young as 13, reported to Human Rights Watch that officers kept them in solitary confinement, severely beat and electrocuted them, burned them with cigarettes, and left them to dangle from metal handcuffs for hours at a time, centimeters above the floor," said the report.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria



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