[DAWN] Afghanistan on Sunday accused "foreign intelligence services" of being behind an attack targeting presidential front-runner Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... that killed 12 people, in a veiled reference to Pakistain.
Abdullah survived the liquidation attempt on Friday when two blasts, including a suicide kaboom, hit his campaign motorcade in Kabul ahead of next weekend's hotly contested run-off election.
"Initial investigations indicate foreign intelligence services were involved in this incident through Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... in an organised manner, and the turbans were aiming to disrupt the election in Afghanistan, "Afghanistan's National Security Council, which is chaired by President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... , said in a statement.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a Pakistain-based myrmidon group.
Pakistain was the main supporter of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and Afghan officials have long voiced suspicions about connections between the hardline movement and Islamabad's powerful intelligence services.
Sunday's accusation comes after Afghanistan said last week that it was pulling out of security talks in Islamabad in anger at cross-border attacks blamed on the Mighty Pak Army, which it said were designed to disrupt the second round of its presidential election.
The NSC "condemned" increasing numbers of "rocket attacks (by the) Pak military against the country", which it said were aimed at disrupting the run-off ballot due to be held on June 14.
The attempt to assassinate Abdullah triggered strong international condemnation, including from the United States and the UN Security Council.
Afghanistan is in the middle of elections to choose a successor to Karzai, who has ruled since the fall of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.
Abdullah fell short of the 50 per cent threshold needed for an outright victory in the April first round and will face former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani in the run-off.
The NSC statement said Friday's attack on Abdullah was "the worst incident during election campaign".
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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MOGADISHU -- Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab group has denied it maintains links with Ethiopian ONLF rebels following reports of coordinated insurgency against Ethiopian-AMISOM peacekeepers in southern Somalia, Garowe Online reports.
Speaking with Somali media, Al Shabaab operations spokesman Abdiazis Abu Muscab said the purported relations between Al Shabaab and the faction operating in Eastern Ethiopia, ONLF are nonexistent.
"Im-possible! Harumph!" he said.
"The reports indicating that there is a tie between ONLF and Al Shabaab are clear fabrications which were spread by those who don't shy away from false news. It is known that ONLF is outlawed near us and can't arrive in areas under our control, for that reason Al Shabaab can't maintain links with [ONLF]," Abu Mucab noted.
Radio, cell phone,the internet, and local lads running over a message for a small fee all being impossible in that part of the world, you see.
He added that Al Shabaab is fighting for the religion while ONLF fights for independence and political agendas.
Which is completely different in Islamic teaching and belief...
The ONLF lads just happen to be of the Muslim persuasion?
Indeed they are, the Ogaden National Liberation Front...
The Governor of Bakool region of southwestern Somalia Mohamed Abdi Tool previously disclosed that Al Shabaab and ONLF coordinate attacks on Ethiopian-AMISOM forces and Somali troops in Somalia's border with neighboring Ethiopia.
A spokesman for Ogaden rebels has strongly contested remarks by Tool, saying they operate inside Ethiopia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] A group of Moroccan Berbers launched an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and to strengthening cultural ties with Israel.
The Moroccan Observatory for the Fight against Anti-Semitism, founded last week, is headed by Berber minority rights activist Omar Louzi, according to a report Thursday on the online edition of the Ya Biladi daily.
Perhaps one minority has realized that it is in its best interests to stand for the rights of other minorities...
They've noticed that Israel is a strong horse. And perhaps they got over the pleasures of Sunni fanaticism when it didn't keep them from being thrown out of Spain during the Reconquista. The Kurds like Israel, too.
"We are here to stop the anti-Semitic attacks in mosques and elsewhere against Jews and their culture," the news site PanoraPost.com on Thursday quoted Louzi as saying about his association, which he cofounded with two other Berbers. Media reports did not name the other co-founders.
Louzi is planning to organize trips to Israel for Moroccans to "meet the Moroccan Jews and visit their holy places, especially in Jerusalem," Ya Biladi reported.
The initiative comes amid a debate in Morocco about the country's relatively friendly relations with Israel. Last year five political parties, including the Islamist ruling party, jointly sponsored two bills to make it illegal to trade with Israeli entities. At least one bill proposes to make it illegal for Israelis to enter Morocco.
Among the supporters of the bills is the Moroccan Observatory against Normalization with Israel, an association launched last year. It seeks to challenge the policy of relative openness to Israel advanced by Moroccan King Mohammed VI.
The formation of Louzi's group follows the cancellation last month of a planned visit by three Berber activists to Israel. The three -- Omar Ouchann, Boubker Ouchann Inghir and Mounir Kejji -- were scheduled to attend a conference organized by Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, but they cancelled amid allegations in Moroccan media that they are Israeli spies.
Kejji said the reports were a form of "intimidation" and, in an interview for the news site Red Marruecos, added that he and Omar Ouchann had to cancel "for family reasons." Inghir, who is a university lecturer, had to cancel because he did not receive the approval of the Moroccan education ministry, Kejji said.
Last month, a youth soccer team from Marrakech pulled out of an international tournament for 11-to-13-year-olds in western La Belle France because the team might have had to face an Israeli team, the news site afriquinfos.com reported. The decision did not come from Kawkab Athletic Club Marrakech but from the Moroccan soccer federation, the website reported.
QATAR â- On a weekend night you can't escape the roar of race car engines along the coastal roads here in the Qatari capital. It must be a bit of a culture shock for the five Taliban detainees sprung from Guantanamo Bay last week in exchange for the freedom of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
There has been an outcry from critics of the prisoner swap, who worry that these men with blood on their hands are getting off far too easily. Qatar's citizens are the richest in the world, per capita, but only a minority of residents here are actually citizens and the Taliban five are not among them. We do know their families are coming here to live with the former prisoners in some sort of residential compound.
So it's a Marriott Residence Inn...
Sources here say they are likely to live in "5 star villas" along with more than a few of their compatriots who are already living in the Qatari capital at the expense of this gas-rich Emirate.
Qataris have a different relationship with the Taliban than does the U.S. Afghanistan is not their war. These men and their families are fellow Muslims. And Qatar sees the latest prisoner swap as a humanitarian gesture. That is pretty much all Doha is saying.
And as allies, of course, in the long-term fight against the infidels...
The terms of the former Guantanamo prisoners' existence here have not been publicly spelled out either. One source says they won't even be using the phone while here.
But the DoubleTree has in-room free wi-fi...
They are officially banned from fundraising and political organizing. It is not clear how much that can be monitored. Washington has said it is leaving the monitoring up to Doha. But some here say it is hard to believe the Americans won't be watching them, too.
Unless Champ orders the CIA not to do that. Which he might...
At least one of the former captives, according to a relative, plans to return to the battlefield after his year of loose house arrest in Qatar is up. Former regional governor and military commander Noorullah Noori is also wanted by the U.N. for war crimes in connection with the massacre of Afghan shi'ites.
Most of the "Taliban dream team," as one former Afghan official put it, either had very close ties with Taliban leader in exile Mullah Omar or with Al Qaeda. That said, some have suggested they are "grey beards", well past their prime and a little out of touch.
One Afghan journalist I have spoken to says actually their value has gone up rather than down, as the timing of their release is very sensitive, with the U.S. troop withdrawal coming up. He said it makes the Afghan people question the commitment to their security, but adds that Afghans do understand American concerns about getting a soldier home.
Qatar's track record for keeping track of militants in its custody has not been stellar. Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed slipped through here in 1996 when Washington thought Doha was keeping tabs on him, and another Gitmo prisoner transferred here a few years ago, Jarallah al-Marri, was supposed to be confined to Qatar but managed to turn up in London, where he was arrested. This time, U.S. officials say they are confident that the Taliban five will be kept in this country for the term of the deal and as such, their threat will be mitigated.
You have Champ's promise...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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This time, U.S. officials say they are confident that the Taliban five will be kept in this country for the term of the deal and as such, their threat will be mitigated.
[An Nahar] Interpol head Ronald K. Noble, on his first visit to Yemen, met President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi on Sunday and appealed for international aid for Sanaa to combat terrorism and maritime piracy.
"The crimes which Yemen tackles on a daily basis, such as terrorism and maritime piracy have a global dimension and it is essential that they are provided the assistance they need, whether it is advanced technology or basics such as generators to keep their cop shoppes open," he said.
"The international community must continue to support Yemen in its efforts to prevent and turn back crime in all its forms," Noble said in an Interpol statement.
He proposed aid to Yemeni police such as "biometric support in order for prisoners to be properly documented, enabling basic data such as photos and fingerprints, as well as more sophisticated iris scans, to be gathered."
His visit came a week after 60 migrants from Æthiopia and Somalia along with two Yemeni crew members drowned when their boat sank off the coast of Yemen.
Noble praised Sanaa's efforts to combat maritime piracy, noting that more than 120 Somali pirates had been prosecuted in Yemeni courts.
But he also pointed out that the convicted criminal mastermind of a 2000 kaboom on the USS Cole, an American destroyer, that killed 17 U.S. seamen in the southern port of Aden was still on the lam after having beat feet from a Yemeni prison.
Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
He is now on an Interpol Red Notice, or international wanted persons alert, issued at the request of U.S. authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Five leading Afghan Death Eaters freed from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a U.S. soldier have pledged to honor an agreement between the Taliban and Qatar, which is hosting them.
The men, officials in the Taliban regime driven from power by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, were released on May 31 and flown to Qatar in exchange for U.S. army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
Their release provoked criticism from some U.S. politicians, who said they could pose a threat to Americans abroad, and anger from Afghans opposed to the Taliban.
But in a statement posted on their Pashto-language website on Friday, the men said they would remain faithful to an agreement with Qatar, which mediated their release.
"We want to reassure all sides that we are still holding to the agreement which was reached between the Islamic Emirate (the Taliban) and the government of Qatar on our release," they said, urging the release of fellow Talibs held in Guantanamo.
The freed prisoners are Mohammad Fazl, Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Abdul Haq Wasiq.
Little has been revealed about the deal, but Qatar has said it will impose a one-year travel ban on the men.
U.S. President Barack Obama Dreams of My Sainted Father... is facing intense scrutiny over the deal to secure Bergdahl's release after five years.
He said Qatar had set up a process to monitor the prisoners and the U.S. would also be "keeping eyes on them."
But Obama admitted it was possible some of them could return to activity "detrimental" to the United States.
Being on guard for new terrorists nets an old one.
[AnNahar] Spanish police on Sunday tossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! a member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA ETA or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (English: Basque Homeland and Freedom) is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization that has been around since 1959. It demands independence from Spain and France for the Greater Basque Country. The group is proscribed as a terrorist organization by most civilized countries. More than 700 members of the organization are incarcerated in prisons in Spain, La Belle France, and other countries, though members do seem to find ready hospitality in Venezuela. suspected of belonging to a unit that killed several coppers in the 1980s, the interior ministry said.
Police detained Maria Jesus Elorza Zubizarreta, 66, at Madrid's Adolfo-Suarez Barajas airport under a European arrest warrant issued by La Belle France in 2006, the ministry said in a statement.
Zubizarreta, also known by her alias "Karakate", was a member of ETA's Donosti unit "which was responsible for the murder of several coppers in the 1980s" in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, it added.
She fled to La Belle France in the 1980s, allegedly joining ETA's underground structures there.
"In the mid-1990s she participated in making homemade explosives for terrorist organization under the orders of the head of its logistical apparatus, Julian Achurra Egurrola, alias 'Pototo'," the statement said.
ETA, which announced an end to violence in 2011, is blamed for the shooting and bombing deaths of 829 people in a four-decade campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern La Belle France.
It is classed as a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... Earlier this year, the group said it would put its arsenal of weapons "out of operational use", in a historic first step towards disarmament.
NYT piece about Bergdahl's time at Landstuhl Hospital. Details and background might be useful.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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While medical officials are pressing him for details about his time in captivity to help begin repairing his medical and psychological wounds, these specialists have not yet focused on the critical questions about why he left his outpost and how he was captured by insurgents, the officials said and there is no predetermined schedule for doing so.
#2
Physically, he could be put on a plane to the U.S. tomorrow, but there are still a couple of mental criteria to address: the family unification piece and the media exposure piece, said one American official who has been briefed on the sergeants condition.
#5
He is dealing with Stockholm and the Army does not want him released until his head is straight. Imagine him getting off a plain and proclaiming the US as terrorists and his love for Jihad. Its not politics, the Army is doing the right thing here.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/09/2014 12:12 Comments ||
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#6
Emerge? haven't heard that one used as a synonym for "fabricated" in some time.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/09/2014 19:33 Comments ||
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#13
Sympathetic Spin Guarantee
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/09/2014 20:19 Comments ||
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#14
I still think Bergdahl should be courtmartialed. Yes, Obama can/will pardon him if he is convicted. However, it should be determined whether or not he was a deserter or worse.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/09/2014 22:35 Comments ||
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#15
They have to do the 15-6 first. Then a court marshal board will convene. We have had over a dozen walk off, all discharged, general, other than honorable I believe. He will lead a long life as "That guy" the deserter we traded terrorists for. A life of shame.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/09/2014 23:53 Comments ||
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Via Weasel Zippers The UK Daily Mail. Doing the work American media outlets won't do.
Russian spies 'tricked' US whistleblower Edward Snowden into asking Moscow for asylum by posing as diplomats after spending six years targeting him, a former major in the KGB has claimed.
Boris Karpichkov, who fled Russia after 15 years serving with the KGB said Snowden had been identified as a potential defector as far back as 2007.
When he was 23? What made him so special?
Snowden, 30, arrived in Moscow after he was revealed as responsible for leaking more than 1.7 million highly classified US documents.
#2
Because the Russians are thorough. They target everybody. They aren't bashful about fishing, and will trade a nibble between two or three recruiters to gain perspective. If they find out you've got anything resembling access, they start a folder, and begin planning whether they can 'play'. They've worked out a hierarchy of preferred targets (clerks and fixit types high on the list), with the emphasis on "know your source".
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/09/2014 7:32 Comments ||
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#3
Boris Karpichkov, who fled Russia after 15 years serving with the KGB said Snowden had been identified as a potential defector as far back as 2007.
Karp defects to the UK in the late 1990's, but still has a handle on individual SVR source recruitment in 2007? Thanks Boris, enjoy your beans on toast. We'll be in touch.
Hat tip to Besoeker. Our anonymous intelligence official claims the Haqqani Network, basically a tribal mafia, would not have traded their captive for four of the ideological jihadis of the Quetta Shura, aka the Afghan Taliban, plus a mere one of their own if a considerable sum of money -- $5 million is mentioned -- were not paid. The non-anonymous Michael Rubin, formerly on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's staff, agrees. More, of course, at the link.
#2
Bakhena ghwaarum [excuse me], in my native northern California, the fruit of the apple tree which we refer to as apples, does not fall too far from the tree....unless of course the tree is planted on a hillside, or caught by a passing monkey. It is now time for my Ramakrishna meditations.
Salaam.
#3
Maybe they mean he was tortured before he went walkabout? Or since he was released? Certainly not by the kindly Taliban - Religion of Peace and all that.
#4
Not much of an article. A rehash of the NYT story, followed by paragraphs of the Secretary of State defending the decision and dismissing the threats.
Threats (proven or not) against the family, however, are unwarranted and condemnable. Surely one realizes that, even in Georgia. Or Colorado. Or Idaho...
#5
I agree completely. Threats are not the answer. Anyway, I'm anxiously await the HW Rose Garden reunion. Perhaps Jane Fonda, Kerry, Rice, Omar Abdel-Rahman [The Blind Sheik], and the Harlem Globe Trotters will be there as well.
#6
And if he wasn't before, he WILL BE til he gets the approved story straight. Gotta be working from the same page as the friendly talking heads.
Facts are a social construct, don't believe me, ask George Orwell.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/09/2014 14:11 Comments ||
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#7
You can bet the narrative and script are being well rehearsed. Bergdahl will be lapping the Kool Aid like a pro. He'll have a hammer hanging over his arse quite similar to the one hanging over General Petraeus.
[DAWN] The Taleemul Koran madressah, which first made headlines last year during Muharram, is in the news again.
The ancient seminary, located in the heart of Raja Bazaar, has invited the ire of local traders by trying to raise an illegal minaret, stalling the reconstruction of the market complex.
The madressah, a nearby mosque and nearly 130 shops in Madina Market were torched during the violence that erupted on Ashura last year. In the wake of the riots, the Punjab government initiated a project in March to reconstruct the damaged property at a cost of about Rs340 million.
But the construction work on a particular portion of the market complex has halted due to differences between the traders and the seminary's administration over the construction of minaret and stairs in the backyard of the complex, as this affects the height of the shops on the ground floor and violates the approved building plan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The 15-day deadline given by the government to North Wazoo-based tribes to expel forces of Evil from their area has sent shockwaves through the volatile region and forced people to leave their hearth and home for safety.
Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... , the headquarters of the tribal agency, presented a deserted look on Saturday. Most shopkeepers either kept their shutters down or were busy shifting valuable items to their homes.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Finally, the elders of Utmanzai tribe of North Waziristan Agency have been tasked to take the bull by the horns within 15 days. The helpless non-combatant residents have to eliminate hardcore foreign fighters from the area.
A mission which could not be fully accomplished by over one division army, thousands of paramilitary troops of the Frontier Corps and big spy network in over eight years has now been handed over to civilians to take on these well-trained fighters. Even US drones could not deter these foreign and local militants.
In other words, the state passed the buck to the people of Utmanzai tribe who have badly suffered physically, mentally, socially and economically because of the eight years long volatile situation in the area.
Continued on Page 49
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06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Pope Francis on Sunday hosts an unprecedented peace prayer meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... in a symbolic gesture to foster dialogue but unlikely to have any immediate effect.
Tensions are running high between the two sides following the formation of a new Paleostinian unity government backed by the Islamist group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and the announcement of Israeli plans for building 3,200 new settler homes.
The Vatican is realistic about the effects of the ceremony.
"Nobody is fooling themselves that peace will break out in the Holy Land," said Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Franciscan Order in the Middle East who is organizing the historic event in the Vatican Gardens.
"But this time to stop and breathe has been absent for some time," he said, after Francis made the offer to Peres and Abbas on a visit to the Middle East last month.
"The pope wants to look beyond, upwards," Pizzaballa said, adding: "Not everything is decided by politics."
Francis himself has been realistic about the prospects of his initiative, saying it would be "crazy" to expect any Vatican mediation in the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict but adding that just praying together might help in some way.
In a tweet from the pope's @pontifex account on Saturday, Francis said: "Prayer is all-powerful. Let us use it to bring peace to the Middle East and peace to the world."
The Vatican has defined the meeting as an "invocation for peace" but has stressed it will not be an "inter-religious prayer", which would pose problems for the Christian, Jewish and Mohammedan communities taking part.
Peres is set to arrive at 1615 GMT followed shortly later by Abbas, with Francis welcoming them outside St Martha's Residence where he lives in the Vatican.
They will then go together to the Vatican Gardens, where the prayers will be recited in chronological order of the world's three main monotheistic religions, starting with Judaism, followed by Christianity and then Islam.
The prayers from each of the three delegations will focus on three themes: "creation", "invocation for forgiveness" and "invocation for peace", the Vatican said.
They will be read out in Arabic, English, Hebrew and Italian and will be accompanied by musical interludes.
Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Mohammedan professor Omar Abboud, two friends of Francis's from Buenos Aires who went with him on his trip to the Middle East will also attend.
Following the prayers, the pope and the two presidents will make their invocation for peace and the three will then plant an olive tree in a symbolic call for peace.
The Vatican called the event "a pause from politics".
Every detail about Sunday's meeting has been sensitive -- the explanation for the delay in publishing the composition of the delegations taking part.
Friday was excluded since it is a Mohammedan holy day and Saturday for the same reason for the Jewish community, while Sunday is Pentecost for Catholics -- a day of celebration of the Holy Spirit considered appropriate.
The choice of the Vatican Gardens is also significant since it is considered the most neutral territory within the Vatican City, with none of the Christian iconography that might be seen as offensive to the other two faiths.
The unprecedented summit at the Vatican on Sunday, joining Israeli President Shimon Peres and Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... in prayers for peace, was initially supposed to take place in Jerusalem during Pope Francis' May visit to the Holy Land, The Times of Israel has learned.
"That was the first spot," said Henrique Cymerman, a Portuguese-born multilingual veteran Israeli journalist with close ties to the pope.
Cymerman said that Peres was immediately open to meeting anywhere but that Abbas was less eager, ostensibly concerned he would be humiliated while passing through checkpoints from Ramallah into Israel.
Pope Francis, whom he described as a great friend of the Jewish people, urged Cymerman to set up the prayer summit during his visit in May and said he could extend his trip as necessary.
Cymerman said the next venue offered to Abbas was Jericho, but that, too, was rejected. Next he attempted to set up the prayer on Mount Nebo, the hill in Jordan from which Moses was allowed to gaze into the promised land. This may have worked, he said, but Peres could not acquiesce because the pope's visit to Jordan took place on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
Finally, after marathon talks, Cymerman said, the Vatican, Israel, and the Paleostinian Authority tentatively agreed on a prayer for peace in Rome, and Pope Francis, with Abbas's agreement in hand, quickly made the invitation public, sealing the deal.
[AnNahar] Three days of major jihadist attacks around Iraq, including on a university, have left dozens dead in a stark display of turban strength and the country's enormous security challenges.
Militants assaulted the city of Samarra, battled security forces in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , took hundreds of hostages at Anbar University in Ramadi and carried out numerous other attacks in Storied Baghdad and elsewhere.
Powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... has been blamed for most of the latest attacks, and is believed to be responsible for much of the violence in the country.
"Evidently, ISIL is in a very strong position," said John Drake, a London-based security analyst at AKE Group. "It is able to stand its ground in open fighting with the national security forces, which is major."
It also failed utterly to derail the recent elections, and it hasn't prompted the kind of security backlash that would gain them sympathy...
And with even the United States having struggled to curb violence in the country, it will be even more challenging for Iraqi security forces, which have significant shortcomings in training and discipline.
"Militancy in the center of the country was a major headache for the strongest military force in the world, so it's no wonder that the Iraqi security forces are encountering such difficulties," Drake said. "They are facing a massive challenge."
Adversity is a great teacher...
Kirk Sowell, the Amman-based publisher of the Inside Iraqi Politics newsletter, said the violence clearly shows that hard boyz are "very strong".
But the question is why "they have maintained this strength... why are the Iraqi security forces not more capable of dealing with this?"
One issue is widespread arrest campaigns by security forces that Sowell said sweep up many people who are likely innocent, terming it a "completely ineffective security policy".
He also said the high rate of turnover among senior officers is problematic, noting that there have been five different top commanders in restive Anbar province in roughly two years.
"They keep recycling these generals... but there's no change in tactics, there's no evidence that they're learning," he said.
Some of the officers should be coming to the U.S. to staff colleges...
The latest large-scale attacks began Thursday morning, when hard boyz traveling in dozens of vehicles, some mounted with anti-aircraft guns, attacked the city of Samarra, north of Storied Baghdad, and occupied multiple areas. They were only displaced after heavy house-to-house fighting and helicopter strikes, during which officials said 12 police and dozens of hard boyz were killed.
The following day, heavy fighting broke out between security forces and hard boyz in multiple areas of the northern city of Mosul, one of the most dangerous areas of the country.
The festivities and shelling, combined with other attacks in the surrounding Nineveh province, killed more than 100 people over two days.
And on Saturday, hard boyz infiltrated Anbar University in Ramadi, west of Storied Baghdad, killed its guards and took hundreds of students and staff hostage.
The attack prompted an assault by security forces that eventually freed the hostages but also led to an hours-long battle with turbans.
While hard boyz have attacked government buildings and taken hostages before, universities are not their usual target.
"The targeting of young civilians in violence is more emotive than attacks on the security forces," Drake said when asked about the university attack.
And later on Saturday, seven bombs destroyed different areas of the Iraqi capital, killing at least 25 people.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/09/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
So the Baathists who fled Iraq for Syria after the fall of Saddam have now fled back to Iraq since Syria has become such a mess?
[IsraelTimes] US security group FireEye said that the Molerats, an extension of the Gazoo Hacker Team, use e-mail, document attachments and malicious website links to remotely install malware, which they can then use to steal data or compromise operations. The same hacker crew caused the Israel Police to shut down their network for a week in 2012 and has expanded the scope of its operations, targeting governments, banks and media companies in the US and several European countries with the same brand of RAT (remote access tool) they successfully used against Israeli targets.
FireEye said it noticed a sharp increase in Molerat activity worldwide in recent months.
One of the tricks used to get web surfers to download the malware is a "phishing" message, in which users get a link to an online document, or are sent a convincing-looking encrypted or encoded file. The malware is installed when users click on the link or open the file. In addition, said FireEye, the hackers used forged Microsoft ...producers of Windows, Office, and the late Microsoft Bob, contributed $852,167 to the 2008 Obama campaign... security certificates, the security pages that show up when users reach a questionable web page. When users see these pages, they get the impression that the site is safe and are more likely to click on permissions to view the page. Unknown to them, clicking on those permissions allows the hackers to download and install the malware.
FireEye said the hacker group was able to avoid attention because it uses tools that are generally associated with Chinese hackers. The Molerats have been using a tool called Poison Ivy (PIVY) against mostly Israeli and Paleostinian targets since 2011. In a PIVY attack, hackers set up a server to download the malware and upload information, remotely installing code on a target machine and using a Windows GUI client to control the victim's computer. In addition, they used xTreme RAT, the tool they deployed against the Israel Police and other institutions in Israel and the Paleostinian Authority.
Even though PIVY is a favorite of Chinese hackers, FireEye determined that Middle Eastern hacker groups use it as well. "Previous research has linked these campaigns to Molerats," FireEye said, "but with so much public attention focused on APT threat actors based in China, it's easy to lose track of targeted attacks carried out by other threat actor groups based elsewhere." One of the hallmarks of the attacks is "a habitual use of lures or decoy documents, in either English or Arabic language, with content focusing on active conflicts in the Middle East."
According to FireEye, the hackers have targeted, among others, government departments in Israel, Turkey, Slovenia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Latvia, the US and the UK, the Office of the Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... Representative (the EU-US group facilitating Middle East negotiations), the BBC, a US financial institution, and several EU government organizations.
In October 2012, Israel Police took all its computers off-line for a week after they found a suspicious file circulating on its computers. According to Roni Bachar, head of Israeli security for Avnet, the purpose of that attack was most likely to collect data. "The attack was not sophisticated or complicated in any way" and neither was the virus, he said. "But it was very similar to other data mining attacks that we at Avnet have dealt with in recent years."
The easiest and best way to avoid getting caught in these kinds of stings, according to Sergey Novikov, one of the top virus experts in Kaspersky Labs, is to install anti-virus software and not click on messages or links that seem suspicious.
Security-aware behavior should be taught to all, including professionals in the workplace and kids. Embarking on a major educational program to ensure that everyone is aware of the dangers in the cyber-world, and the dangers if they fail to protect themselves, could help reduce the effectiveness of RAT and other attacks significantly. "We should be teaching this to kids, even from the earliest grades," Novikov said. "Just like people are taught that they need to wash their hands to prevent disease, they should also be taught how to maintain a cyber-defense as they engage with the Internet, for society's sake and their own."
[IsraelTimes] Australia's decision to stop referring to East Jerusalem as "occupied" territory and to adopt additional similar steps that will likely please Israel and anger the Paleostinians came as a retaliatory measure against Paleostinian officials who in recent months repeatedly and ferociously attacked Canberra's Middle East policies in public, The Times of Israel has learned.
"The Australian government is irritated by how the Paleostinians have chosen to pursue their disagreements with us in public," a senior Australian source told The Times of Israel Thursday. "This is the kind of behavior you'd expect from the leaders of a student union but not from a government-in-waiting."
On Wednesday, Australia's Attorney General George Brandis offered an explanation of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's position that using the word "occupied" is judgmental and does not contribute to dialogue about the contested area.
Continued on Page 49
#1
So, the Palestinians have decided to try to bully Australia.
The Aussies are already at daggers drawn with their muslim neighbors about immigration. The Palis have nothing to offer or threaten with.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/09/2014 7:43 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Actions have consequences. Will they never learn?
[Ynet] Shops were shuttered in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday in solidarity with nearly 300 Paleostinian prisoners on hunger strike against Israeli detention without trial.
Black-and-white flags bearing slogans such as "Freedom for Prisoners" and "Chains must be broken" flew in the streets of Ramallah, the Paleostinian commercial capital. In Hebron, also in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, dozens of Paleostinian protesters marched in the streets in support of the hunger strikers.
Dozens? Utterly pathetic. Clearly the PA block captains aren't demanding attendance.
The hunger strike was begun on April 24 by a group of 120 prisoners held under what Israel terms "administrative detention" - or incarceration without trial of Paleostinians suspected of security offences.
[Ynet] During a recent visit to Egypt for the swearing in of newly elected President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... sat for an interview with Sada al - Balad, saying that the unity government recently formed with Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, will adhere to all the terms already agreed to by the PA.
Abbas included that reconciliation between Hamas and the PA will not by viable in the long run without the presence of the Presidential Guard along the border between Gazoo and Egypt.
"If the PA doesn't take part of the responsibility for management of border crossing, there won't be reconciliation," said Abbas. He called Gazook smuggling tunnels, "illegal" and promised that with the Presidential Guard at Gazoo's borders, everything will enter and exit the territory through border guards.
In order to maintain political power, cut off the opposition's opportunities for graft and corruption.
And turn over all the opportunities for graft and corruption to HIS bodyguards. Maybe Abbas isn't so ineffectual when it comes to looking after the boodle...
President of Egypt Abdul-Fattah El-Sisi, even before taking the oath of office Sunday June 8, became the first regime head to strike out at the Paleostinian unity government installed in Ramallah on June 24, by intensifying the siege on its Gazoo partner, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,. His steps threaten to stir up strife between the two newly reconciled Paleostinian partners over who calls the shots in the Gazoo Strip, debkafile's Middle East sources report.
El-Sisi acted expeditiously to refute the claims by Paleostinian Authority sources in Ramallah and Hamas officials in Gazoo City that he would open the Rafah crossing from Gazoo to Egyptian Sinai as soon as the new Paleostinian government was in place, as a gesture of support.
The answer they received from from Cairo to their request was that the border terminals would remain open only if PA security forces from Ramallah assumed control of the borders and officiated at the crossings.
But Hamas has no intention of handing this strategic resource over to the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and his Fatah. A standoff has therefore developed between the two partners, souring the amity they have strived to display. Any PA bid to take over control of the Gazoo crossings would be forcibly resisted by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, a clash that could spell the end of their reconciliation and power-sharing deal.
Not only has Cairo kept the Rafah crossing shut, it has beefed up military oversight on its borders with Gazoo to prevent incursions at any point. A law has been drafted moreover by the Egyptian authorities setting out long prison sentences for anyone attempting to "prepare, dig or use" a tunnel connecting Egypt to a foreign "entity" or nation (i.e. Hamas or the Paleostinian government) for the passage of goods or persons.
By these actions, Egypt has begun tightening its blockade of the Gazoo Strip.
Friday, June 6, Israel's President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu phoned the incoming Egyptian president to congratulate him on winning the national election. Both Israeli and Egyptian officials declined to comment on the supposition that Cairo's steps for sealing the Gazoo borders and taken inside the enclave had been coordinated with Israel.
Our sources add that El-Sisi's clampdown on Hamas ties in with the heavy Egyptian military deployment on its western border with Libya, and his determination to put a stop to the flow of smuggled weapons to the Sinai Peninsula and Gazoo Strip into the hands of Islamist terrorists.
Cairo recently received an intelligence tip-off that a number of Moslem BrĂźderbund leaders on the run had set up base in the Gazoo Strip to engineer terrorist attacks on the Egyptian army, especially in Cairo and the Suez coastal cities.
Cairo is meting out harsh treatment not only to Hamas, but also to the pro-Iranian Paleostinian Jihad Islami. Egyptian military intelligence made it clear to these turbans that, since their military wing now rivals Hamas's militia, the Ezz a-Din Al-Qassam, its leader Mohammed Al-Hindi, a personal enemy of El-Sisi, must go.
If not, Cairo will bar its members' travel between Egypt and the Gazoo Strip, thereby cutting them off from their ties to Iran and the Arab world. This week, Jhad Islami knuckled under and replaced Al-Hindi with a new Gazoo leader, Nafez Assam.
the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... will try, when he visits Cairo next Tuesday to attend El-Sisi's inauguration as president, to obtain clear answers about his intentions. If Egypt mainains its current restrictions on the Gazoo Strip and Hamas into the future, the Paleostinians will be unable to hold the elections for president and parliament that are scheduled for Jan. 2, 2015 in the two territories. This will place the survival of the power-sharing government in Ramallah in grave doubt.
US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg has inspected American troops stationed in the town of Jolo in the southern Philippine province of Sulu, but his visit was came under fire after he did not bother to meet with local government officials. Goldberg and embassy officials visited Jolo on June 2 and went straight to the Philippine Marine Brigade headquarters where US troops put up a small camp under the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines.
Some sources said that local officials, who learned about Goldberg's visit, had even prepared and were ready to brief the former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research in case he wanted to discuss peace and development efforts in the province. But no one from Goldberg's group nor the US Embassy informed the officials that the ambassador would not be meeting with them for still unknown reasons. Some officials said they felt insulted and likened the American ambassador to a cat. One official said, "You know, cats just go inside your house and leave whenever they want. Animals do not have courtesy."
Many Muslims oppose the presence of US troops in Sulu because of the massacre of hundreds in what is known now as the "Bud Dajo Massacre" which happened over a century ago, but the memory of the American campaign is still fresh in the minds of many local Muslims.
Some 600 US troops have been stationed in the region since 2001 after three American nationals - Kansas missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, and California man Guillermo Sobero - were kidnapped from a posh resort by the Abu Sayyaf. Sobero was beheaded by militants connected to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya, while Martin was killed during a US-led rescue operation.
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.
[DAWN] Afghanistan on Sunday accused "foreign intelligence services" of being behind an attack targeting presidential front-runner 
Somali pirates
Basque separatist group ETA
Wazoo
[IsraelTimes] US security group FireEye said that the Molerats, an extension of the 
Quartet
[IsraelTimes] Australia's decision to stop referring to East Jerusalem as "occupied" territory and to adopt additional similar steps that will likely please Israel and anger the Paleostinians came as a retaliatory measure against Paleostinian officials who in recent months repeatedly and ferociously attacked Canberra's Middle East policies in public, The Times of Israel has learned.
[Ynet] Shops were shuttered in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday in solidarity with nearly 300 Paleostinian prisoners on hunger strike against Israeli detention without trial.
[Ynet] During a recent visit to Egypt for the swearing in of newly elected President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Paleostinian Authority President 
