[DAWN] An Iraq-based bully boy group named the Ansar al-Islam has released a video of its new training camp, which is named after the Lal Masjid's Abdul Rasheed Ghazi. They have also apparently named a subdivision of their group after the Lal Masjid's controversial holy man. Rasheed Ghazi was killed in 2007 when an operation was conducted against the armed snuffies holed up inside the Lal Masjid in Islamabad. He was the brother of Abdul Aziz, the khateeb of the Lal Masjid.
The video starts, routinely enough, with a slickly edited training montage showing fighters of the Ansar al-Islam engaged in various exercises and posing for the camera, their faces covered by keffiyehs and pieces of cloth. Then, in a departure from the norm, the video segues into a tribute to Abdul Rasheed. In the beginning, what seems to be a 'message' from the late Abdul Rasheed Ghazi is read out, addressed to the "men of the ummah". While the voice-over is in Arabic, in one speech the speaker seems to be switching between Arabic and another language, most likely Kurdish.
In another part of the video, snuffies appear to be clad in traditional shalwar-like pants commonly worn by Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. This is in keeping with what is known about the Ansar al-Islam, a hardline bully boy group that operates in the Kurdish-dominated north of Iraq and aims at setting up a radical Islamist state. It was formerly called Ansar al-Sunnah and its membership is believed to be mostly Kurdish. The video then shows visuals of the Lal Masjid itself, along with the Jamia Hafsa and also visuals of troop deployment prior to the operation itself. The voice-over, which showers praise on the Lal Masjid bully boys, also condemns the government of Pakistain and the army for conducting the operation.
There is also a quote, attributed to the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse... , which refers to Ghazi as a hero. The Ansar al-Islam had previously released pictures from this camp, but this is the first known video of the actual camp.
The bully boys, who appear very well-trained, are shown practising hand-to-hand fighting, drilling hostage-taking scenarios and also demonstrating how to disarm opponents. The terrain seems to be that of a flat, rocky desert, and it is difficult to tell exactly where it may have been shot. At one point in the video the heavily armed snuffies are shown holding a banner with the organization's name: Jamaat Ansar al-Islam's Mu'askar al-Sheikh Rasheed Ghazi. This loosely translates as: Ansar al-Islam's Sheikh Rasheed Ghazi force.
Even more interesting is that the video ends with an Urdu jihadi anthem, interspersed with Arabic lines. While foreign bully boys, mostly of Arabic and Uzbek origin, have been known to operate in Pakistain, this is possibly the first time that a group has actually named itself after a Pak bully boyholy man. There is also anecdotal evidence suggesting that some Pak-origin snuffies may be fighting in Syria. Some reports suggests that Ansar al Islam has also sent fighters to Syria, where they operate under the name of Ansar al-Sham.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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[An Nahar] Branded by Kenyan authorities as an epicentre for the indoctrination and recruitment of Islamic krazed killers, the Musa mosque in Mombasa has become a primary target of the country's escalating war on terror.
But this war is also causing controversy, amid allegations of state-sponsored liquidations, heavy-handed raids and fears that these tactics could be helping and not hindering radical Islam.
In August 2012, the mosque's radical Imam, Aboud Rogo Mohammed, was bumped off, and in October last year his successor, Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail, met the same fate on a road near the steamy port city, again sparking riots.
For their followers, the two men -- long accused of supporting Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab rebels -- were simply murdered by Kenyan authorities, an opinion that appears to be largely shared by many independent observers, despite government denials.
Last month the mosque was yet again the scene of another deadly incident, when armed police launched a massive raid on the mosque to put an end to what officials said was a "jihadist convention" and Shabaab recruitment exercise taking place inside its white and green walls.
Well over 100 people were locked away ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in the raid, with dozens then charged with being members of Shabaab, which is fighting Kenyan forces in southern Somalia and which grabbed credit for last year's carnage at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
Several people were killed in the raid, and at least one of those arrested has since been reported missing.
- 'Spate of executions' -
"The invasion of Musa mosque was illegal. Nothing illegal was happening in that mosque. There was no recruitment," Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, one of the mosque's leaders, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Ahmed is known more commonly by his nickname "Makaburi", or "grave" in Swahili.
"The mosque was filled with undercover coppers, anyway nobody will go and recruit people in an open mosque, where anybody can walk in. Nobody will go and teach people how to use guns in an open mosque, it doesn't make sense," he insisted.
"It was not a jihadi convention. It was a convention dealing with issues concerning jihad, putting things right on issues about jihad, all the issues discussed there about jihad are in the Koran, in the Sunna, and they are not illegal to talk about, in a mosque or anywhere else in Kenya."
Makaburi denies any links with Shabaab, although he was placed on a 2012 UN sanctions list naming him as a "leading controller and recruiter of young Kenyan Moslems for violent krazed killer activity in Somalia".
However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... he does support "the implementation of Sharia Law anywhere in the world", does not hide his admiration for Al-Qaeda founder and late leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... , and accuses Christian-majority Kenya's "un-Islamic" leaders of "extrajudicial killings" that target those who preach "true Islam".
But support for the Musa mosque among Mombasa's Moslem community is not total, according to Sheikh Ngao M. Ngao Juma, the chairman of the Kenya Moslems National Advisory Council, or Kemnac.
"These holy mans are doing business. It's business, human trafficking, slavery. They're trying to brainwash the youths using Koranic verses," he said.
"The jihad they are teaching is contrary to the meaning of jihad in the Koran. The meaning of jihad is distorted."
- 'Lost legitimacy' -
But he said the heavy-handed crackdown could backfire.
"Our advice to the government is that you shall not use guns, the use of a gun shall not solve that problem. You cannot fight an ideology with the gun. You can win this war only through discussion, awareness," he said.
"The youth need guidance and counselling but those preachers are criminals, they must be arrested and prosecuted."
According to Hassan Omar Hassan, an opposition senator from the area and former rights activist, radical Islam is a real threat for Mombasa and Kenya as a whole -- but he says the current strategy of singling out the Musa mosque is not working.
"The vilification of it by the government has literally turned it into a shrine of radicalization. It started as a very innocent kind of a problem with a radical preacher, but has escalated into a spate of executions," he said.
"The government has literally put the entire Moslem community in this country against itself. It has lost a lot of legitimacy."
He said the Kenyan government "refuses to dig deeper than the surface" and look at the roots of radical Islam, including "unemployment, undereducation, issues of representation in government, basic rights, citizenship rights."
"For a long time we have legitimized police violence on people on account of national security," he said.
"Anything extra-constitutional or extra-legal will continue to feed into the narrative about government oppression and the humiliation of the particularly Moslem or coastal communities."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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#1
An inventive Islamic Mombasan
Once created a praying contraption.
He was hospitalized
When it radicalized
And turned into a pious assassin!
[DAWN] Pakistain's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Thursday announced the government was setting up a state committee to hold direct talks with the Taliban next week in a bid to accelerate the grinding of the peace processor.
Dialogue aimed at ending the Pak Taliban's seven-year insurgency, which has claimed thousands of lives, resumed on Wednesday following a two-week suspension after the gunnies killed 23 kidnapped soldiers.
The military retaliated with a series of air strikes that it said killed more than 100 bully boys, and the Taliban last weekend announced a month-long ceasefire.
But negotiations have so far been conducted through teams of go-betweens, which some observers say has hampered their effectiveness.
Thursday's announcement came hours after mediators representing the government and Taliban forces of Evil called for higher-level talks between the two sides following a breakfast meeting hosted by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
"It has been decided to accelerate the grinding of the peace processor, thus a negotiating committee (will) be formed which would be an official committee," Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told politicians in the National Assembly.
"The committee would have representatives from federal government and the provincial Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... government," Khan said, adding the government wanted to start direct talks with the Taliban within the next week.
"The prime minister will take parliamentary leaders into confidence after the start of direct talks," Khan added, saying existing avenues of communication would remain functional for liaison purposes.
Earlier in the day, the government's chief negotiator, Irfan Siddiqui, said the initial phase of peace talks had been completed and he had proposed direct talks with the Taliban.
"We have asked the prime minister to replace this committee with an effective forum," he said after Thursday's meeting with Sharif.
'Sensitive issues and demands'
"We believe that in the next phase, sensitive issues and demands will come up and we need to have a mechanism for direct contacts," Rahimullah Yusufzai, another government negotiator, told AFP
"We have proposed that those who have authority to make decisions should be part of this committee. There should be representatives from the government and the military in the committee."
On the Taliban side, chief negotiator Maulana Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... said his team was "satisfied with the round of talks this morning with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif."
"It was decided in the meeting that now the time has come to strengthen the committees and empower them more," he added.
Haq said his team might have to return to the Taliban's base in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistain in a day or two to report back to their leadership.
Observers have criticised the dialogue process for being a step removed from the real decision-makers, but analyst Imtiaz Gul said face-to-face contacts risked giving respectability to a banned bully boy outfit.
"It is a legitimate demand to have direct TTP representation in talks. However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... if that happens and the government representatives are sitting across the table, this could amount to lending legitimacy to an organization which the government has proscribed as a terrorist outfit," he told AFP.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain is the umbrella movement for the bully boys.
A statement issued by Sharif's office earlier said he was committed to peace.
"As prime minister it is my constitutional, religious, national, moral and human duty to stop the continuation of fire and blood and give peace to the country and citizens," it said.
The peace talks, which began in February, were a key campaign pledge for Sharif before he was elected to office for a third time last year.
But many analysts are sceptical about their chances for success, given the Taliban's demands for nationwide Sharia law and a withdrawal of troops from the lawless tribal zones.
Many regional deals between the military and the Taliban have failed in the past.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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#1
Surely the Pak army could wipe out the Taliban if they wanted to?
North WAziristan would be a start or have they got too many assets there?
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/07/2014 6:21
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[An Nahar] Canada's broadcasting regulator wants to see more locally-made porn on Canadian television, judging by a notice on its website that accuses three channels of failing to meet licensing requirements.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said three Toronto-based adult channels have failed to provide a minimum of 35 percent Canadian content.
The rules require a portion of programming to be at least partly written, produced or presented by persons in Canada, in order to bolster the local industry and showcase Canadian content.
A hearing has been scheduled for April 28 to decide whether the broadcasting licenses of AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips and Maleflixxx should be renewed.
The permits are set to expire at the end of August.
CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao told Agence La Belle France Presse they will be asked to justify a renewal of the licenses, adding that "the CRTC has tried several times to bring the company into compliance."
The networks' parent company Channel Zero did not immediately responded to requests for comment.
But others have not been shy to speak out.
The daily National Post satirically lamented the Canadian porn industry's "reluctance to tackle distinctively Canadian issues."
And the tabloid Toronto Sun hailed the CRTC's call for more "naughty Newfoundlanders and Manitoba MILFs."
But the Globe and Mail disagreed, saying: "Unlike sitcoms or dramas, which are potentially filled with meaning that contributes to a social conversation, porn is a generic product whose national origins are as unimportant as those of... a vibrator."
But the newspaper conceded that "a porn shoot hires lighting technicians and camera operators just like any other TV production and, hey, jobs are jobs."
The CRTC also chided the channels for not providing enough closed-captioning and for not alerting the regulator of a change in ownership.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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#1
And they also need to SPEAK French
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/07/2014 0:15
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#2
They should look into rerunning animal husbandry videos produced by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(That would be Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada for our froggy friends). Who says the p0rn has to be humans?
[An Nahar] Iraqi authorities forced a Storied Baghdad-bound Middle East Airlines plane to turn around Thursday 20 minutes after leaving Beirut because the transport minister's son had missed the flight, MEA said.
The Airlines said the flight took off after repeatedly paging two passengers, who failed to turn up.
"The passengers did not respond to the calls and the plane took off after being delayed by several minutes," said the statement, carried by the state-run National News Agency.
"About 20 minutes after take-off, Middle East Airlines was informed by its Storied Baghdad office that the plane would be prevented from landing by local civil aviation officials if a passenger was not on board."
The missing passenger was identified as Mahdi al-Ameri, son of Iraqi Transport Minister Hadi al-Ameri, and the plane turned back to Beirut.
MEA said it was in touch with Iraqi authorities about the incident, which it said had caused financial losses and disrupted its flight schedule.
In Storied Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded that heads roll over the incident, while the transport ministry denied any wrongdoing.
Maliki ordered that "all those responsible for preventing the plane coming from Beirut from landing in Storied Baghdad" be "dismissed and held responsible," front man Ali Mussawi told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Transport ministry front man Karim Nuri said it was "completely untrue" that the flight was turned back on behalf of Ameri's son.
He insisted that MEA had been previously informed that the plane would not be able to land due to runway maintenance at the Storied Baghdad airport, which is why it was turned back.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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#1
"Do you know who I AM?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/07/2014 7:34
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[Haartz] A Ukrainian wounded on the streets of Kiev in clashes between protesters and police arrived for treatment in Israel on Wednesday and six more expected were to arrive Thursday, according to a report by Walla news website.
Surgeons at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot will attempt in the next couple of days to reconstruct the crushed and shrapnel-ridden hand of 20-year-old Alexander S., the first Ukrainian to arrive in Israel after riots and demonstrations that brought down the country's president.
Orthopedic specialist Dr. Alexander Kaban said a team of surgeons will try to repair the bone and restore the soft tissue in the Ukrainian's hand and arm, according to Walla.
He will able to receive the specialized treatment - better than what would be available in Ukraine - due to efforts by Dr. Valeria Bivitzchik,, who flew to Kiev as a volunteer for the International Red Cross. When she returned to Israel for her regular physician's job at Kaplan Babichek petitioned to bring over Alexander for treatment and the hospital agreed.
Six Ukrainians wounded in the bloody confrontations in Kiev last month were expected at Ben Gurion International Airport on Thursday, and more patients will arrive in the near future, Walla reported.
An Al-Shabaab spokesman died on Wednesday, nearly two months after he was injured in an air strike by Kenya Defence Forces in Somalia.
May we please see the severed head?
Military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir confirmed the death on his official twitter account saying: "Al Shabaab spokesman Ali Dhere (alias Ali Mohamed Raghe) finally succumbs to last courtesy call injuries! Focus on Al Shabaab leadership targeting continues."
However, another post on twitter came out later by a man claiming he had spoken to Ali Dhere.
"He's not dead yet!"
The post replied to Maj Chirchir's message saying: "The guy you saying is dead just called me! He didn't sound dead to me."
It further quoted the Al-Shabaab spokesman to have said: "He (Maj Chirchir) is doing what he always did, lying to his people. I'm well. Very well."
Ali Dhere sustained the injuries after the air strike at Birta Dheere area in Somalia on January 10. The air strike targeted Al-Shabaab overall leader Muktar Abdirahman Godane, but he escaped by a whisker because he left the area a few minutes before Kenya Air Force F-5 jets launched the attack.
Ah the F-5, always a minute late...
Before the strike, Godane was presiding over a meeting of top Al-Shabaab commanders who had gathered to witness the handing over of leadership to a regional chief who was being installed that day.
Military sources said more than 30 senior Al-Shabaab commanders were killed that day including a Kenyan from Garissa identified as Gamadhere, who was responsible for many grenade attacks that have been carried out in Kenya. Six commanders of different nationalities also died in the strike.
Ali Dheere was the public face of the terrorist group and was last seen in an interview broadcast last month, demanding withdrawal of KDF troops from Somalia and threatening more attacks in Kenya, saying the Westgate massacre was carried out to send a message.
During the interview with Al-Jazeera TV network, he also claimed that Al-Shabaab would regain control of towns that had been liberated by KDF. He also named Britain as a key enemy for supporting the KDF and urged "young British Muslims" to join the war in Somalia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/07/2014
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#1
Alas, just a henna'd piece of dead meat now.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/07/2014 6:50
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We have heard from Rabdhure in the Bakool region of Somalia that heavily armed Ethiopian troops have recuperated the village after yesterday there was a big fight between fighters from Al-Shabaab and the Ethiopian forces backed by the Somali National Army.
During this battle, 10 fighters from Al-Shabaab were killed and one of their vehicles burned making it possible for the Ethiopian troops to capture Rabdhure town.
According to anonymous witnesses, they told Radio Shabelle that the fight started on the eastern area of Rabdhure called Calamada. Rabdhure was vacated from citizens after the fight erupted between Al-Shabaab and the Ethiopian troops backed by government forces.
The news says that in the battle, the Deputy Chief of Police for the Bay force, Marshow Kurtun and the Chief of Military Vehicles (Ooyaaye) for Bay died. 4 other soldiers died including military and police and 2 were injured.
This battle came after a fierce confrontation between the Military Forces at a checkpoint occupied by Police where they proceeded the checkpoint with their vehicles.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[An Nahar] Negotiators have lost contact with a group of nuns kidnapped from a Syrian town last year after their captors moved them, a source told AFP on Thursday.
The 13 nuns and three maids were kidnapped from the famed Christian hamlet of Maalula last year and transported to the nearby town of Yabrud, a rebel stronghold the army is fighting to recapture.
"I was in regular contact with them, but since yesterday we've lost contact," a source involved in negotiations said.
"It is very likely that they have been transferred to the region between Yabrud and the Lebanese border" nearby, the source said.
"Contacts are underway to try to ensure their safety."
The source said the kidnappers were from a group belonging to the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front led by a man called Abu Malek al-Kuwaiti.
She said they had presented negotiators with a list of demands including the release of all women held in government prisons and the withdrawal of regime forces from Christian religious sites.
The kidnappers also asked for the provision of food to residents of rebel-held areas in the region and "military demands to do with the battle of Yabrud," the source.
"Things that are difficult to achieve," the source added.
The nuns, from both Syria and Leb, were kidnapped from a convent in Maalula in December, as regime and rebel forces battled for control in the surrounding Qalamun region.
They were moved to Yabrud, a rebel stronghold that has become the last opposition holdout in the Qalamun region and now at the center of fierce regime campaign.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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The United Nations Security Council today unanimously agreed to extend a partial weapons ban on Somalia for eight months amid reports that Al-Shabaab and other armed groups are able to divert arms and ammunition intended for Government forces.
"A partial weapons ban? What kind of ban is that?"
"Only the weapons they can't afford."
All Member States are required to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of weapons and military equipment to designated individuals and entities, which includes Al-Shabaab, the Council wrote in the resolution.
The text, which extends the ban through 25 October, cites reports by the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) that arms have been diverted and expresses serious concern that the requirements for a suspension of the embargo have not been fully met.
The text also cites the 15 Members condemning flows of weapons and ammunition supplies to and through Somalia in violation of the arms embargo on Somalia, as well as the destabilizing accumulation and misuse of such weapons, as a serious threat to peace and stability in the region.
In March 2013, the partially lifted the weapons ban for one year to boost the Governments capacity to protect areas recovered from the militant group Al-Shabaab and defend against fresh attempts by such groups to destabilize the country.
It decided that the arms embargo, originally imposed in 1992, would not apply to arms or equipment sold or supplied solely for the development of the Governments security forces, but it kept its restrictions in place on heavy weapons, such as surface-to-air missiles.
It also required the Government to notify the Councils sanctions committee at least five days in advance of any such deliveries and provide details of the transactions. Alternately, Member States delivering assistance may make the notification after informing the Government of its intentions in that regard.
Under requirements set forth in todays text, all transactions are required to include details of the manufacturer and supplier of the arms and ammunition, a description of the arms and ammunition including the type, calibre and quantity, proposed date and place of delivery, and all relevant information concerning their storage.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/07/2014
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[An Nahar] Egypt said on Thursday it stopped a delegation of women activists from reaching the Gazoo Strip as it feared for their safety while travelling through the restive Sinai Peninsula.
Very thoughtful of them. Remember what happened to St. Pancake?
About 100 women from Europe and the United States intended to go to the Paleostinian enclave through Egypt's Rafah border crossing to celebrate International Women's Day on Saturday.
But the Egyptian authorities stopped them at Cairo airport, and have already deported Northern Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and American anti-war activist Medea Benjamin who wanted to join the delegation.
On Thursday, the authorities had prevented about 45 activists, mostly from La Belle France, from entering the country, an organizer of the delegation told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Prior to travelling, the group had asked to pass through the Rafah crossing in northern Sinai, but the authorities urged them to abandon the trip, foreign ministry front man Badr Abdelatty said.
The group was told "the timing was not appropriate... given the current extraordinary security conditions in northern Sinai and the difficulty of ensuring the security of the activist group until they reached the Rafah crossing," he said.
Since the military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... in July, gunnies have stepped up attacks on security forces, killing scores of coppers and soldiers, mainly in northern Sinai.
Posted by: Fred ||
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WASHINGTON, March 6 (Yonhap) -- After a long partisan struggle, President Barack Obama secured Senate confirmation Thursday on his pick for a top State Department post on arms control and nonproliferation.
The Senate voted 58-42 to confirm Rose Gottemoeller to become undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. The confirmation put an end to nearly a year-long dispute over the nomination and it is expected to give a fresh boost to Obama's global nonproliferation drive.
Gottemoeller was nominated to the high-profile post in May.
Having served as assistant secretary for arms control, verification, and compliance, she already played a major role in the Obama government's efforts to reduce weapons of mass destruction around the world. She is known for her work on denuclearizing Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union.
I'm sure the Ukrainians are feeling real good about that right now...
As successor to Ellen Tauscher, Gottemoeller will lead the interagency policy process on nonproliferation and manage global U.S. security policy, including the North Korean nuclear and long-range missile issue.
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"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the newly independent Ukraine had on its territory what was the third largest strategic nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. It was larger than those of Britain, France, and China combined. On June 1, 1996 Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation when it sent the last of its 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantling." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine)
For doing that they received a 'promise' that they're territorial integrity would be respected.
If they still had those nukes, how keen do you think Russia would be to invade Crimea?
Do you think Iran is ignorant of this history and reality?
Do you think they don't now fully realize (like they ever didn't - lol) that the only way NOT to be invaded is to possess nukes?
Two individuals were shot to death and another was wounded in three separate shooting incidents in southern Chihuahua state municipalities.
According to a news account which appeared in El Monitor de Parral news daily, Marco Antonio Sanchez Zavala was shot to death at the Cantina Foreing Bar on Avenida Ortiz Mena at around 1740 hrs Wednesday evening in Parral.
According to the report, a number of armed suspects entered the bar after dismounting from at least one sedan, then started firing. Sanchez Zavala was originally from Ciudad Juarez, where he had been working in a factory only two weeks before.
Meanwhile in Carichi municipality, an American national was found shot to death in her vehicle was parked near a medical clinic Tuesday afternoon.
According to a news report which appeared in El Diario de Chihuahua news daily, Kathelyn Nicole Lambert Koegler, 20, was shot in the chest and left to die in her Jeep Cherokee. Lambert Koegler had been resident of Carichi municipality since childhood.
On Wednesday night a man in his 20s was shot and wounded in Parral, according to a news report which appeared in the online edition of El Sol de Parral news daily.
Jesus Anselmo Bustillos Bustillos, 25, was wounded by a number of armed suspects who were aboard a black sedan at around 2040 hrs. The incident took place at the victim's residence on Calle Maria Herrera Quiñones in PRI colony. At least three shots were fired at the victim.
An anonymous writer for El Monitor de Parral wrote that a shouting match occurred between elements of the Chihuahua state police and elements of the Mexican Army who were on the scene. The shouting was about ministerial agents at the scene contaminating the crime scene, an accusation advanced by the military site commander.
The shouting ended as prosecutors arrived on the scene to conduct their investigation.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and Borderlandbeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
[An Nahar] The United States is restricting the movement of Syria's U.N. ambassador, limiting him to a 25-mile radius around New York City, the State Department said Wednesday.
Officials gave no explanation for the move against Bashar Jaafari but US relations have deteriorated sharply with Damascus since Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... led a crackdown against a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.
"We have delivered a diplomatic note to the permanent representative of the Syrian mission to the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... in New York informing him that he is restricted to a 25-mile (40 kilometer) travel radius," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The note was delivered at the end of February, she told news hounds.
Some other countries' U.N. envoys face similar restrictions, she said. Envoys from Iran and North Korea are among them.
"So this is not something that is out of the realm of what we've done before," Psaki said.
The Coalition for a Democratic Syria, an association of Syrian-American groups, welcomed the announcement, accusing the diplomat of trying to fuel sectarian divisions among Syrians in his public appearances in the United States.
"This development has been a long-standing objective that the Syrian-American community has been trying to achieve for the past five months," said Chad Brand, a front man for the coalition.
For the past six months, Jaafari "has been conducting a series of propaganda tours across the United States to mislead Americans and sow sectarian discord among Syrian-Americans," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[An Nahar] The Syrian opposition rejected a proposal by former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford for the rebels to negotiate with Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... and other factions fighting alongside Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... 's troops as part of a political solution to the civil war.
In remarks published Thursday, the front man of the Syrian National Coalition, Louay Safi, said: "We only negotiate with the Syrians and we won't accept the participation of foreign militias that kill the Syrian people in the political solution."
The opposition won't surrender to the status-quo after three years of struggle, he said.
Ford, who stepped down on Friday, has recently said that the negotiations to resolve the civil war should include gangs, including Hizbullah, which has sent its fighters to Syria in support of Assad.
Ford left the Syrian capital in 2011, when the popular uprising against Assad turned into a bloody civil war.
The United States has closed its embassy in Damascus but has not cut off diplomatic ties with Syria, despite repeated condemnation of the Assad regime.
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03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[An Nahar] Kosovo's government proposed on Thursday creating a 5,000-strong army to "protect illusory sovereignty" of the ethnic Albanian territory, six years after it seceded from Serbia.
The army would double the size of the current civil emergency Kosovo security force (KPS), said a statement issued after a cabinet session.
Since the end of 1998-1999 war between independent-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Belgrade forces under the command of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... has been in charge of maintaining peace and security in Kosovo.
The lightly-armed KPS, created with NATO assistance in 2009, is tasked with dealing with emergency response and protection of public and civil order.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... this proposal, which would require a change to Kosovo's constitution, would push the KPS into new areas of operation.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the "armed forces of Kosovo will protect the illusory sovereignty, territorial integrity, citizens, property and interests" of Kosovo, a statement said.
The future army will also have 3,000 reservists, with a yearly budget of 65 million euros ($89.5 million).
The forces are expected to be fully operational after 2019, it added.
In Belgrade, Serbia's Minister in charge of Kosovo Aleksandar Vulin said his government would demand an emergency U.N. security Council session to discuss Pristina's move.
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03/07/2014
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Top|| File under:
[REUTERS] Crimea's parliament voted on Thursday to join Russia, and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum in 10 days, in a dramatic escalation of the crisis over the Ukrainian region that drew a sharp riposte from U.S. President Barack Obama. I am the change that you seek...
Obama ordered sanctions on those responsible for Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, including bans on travel to the United States and freezing of their U.S. assets.
He echoed European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... leaders and the pro-Western government in Ukraine in declaring that the proposed referendum would violate international law.
Obama also held a one-hour call on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... , their second phone conversation in the past six days, and urged him to accept the terms of a potential diplomatic solution to the crisis.
The sudden acceleration of moves to bring Crimea, which has an ethnic Russian majority and has effectively been seized by Russian forces, formally under Moscow's rule came as EU leaders held an emergency summit, groping for ways to pressure Russia to back down and accept mediation.
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03/07/2014
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Top|| File under:
#1
[PEACHES-N-HERB "REUNITED" 1970'S SONG here].
Winner = Putin.
* See also RELATED WORLD NEWS > [Stars-n-Stripes] OBAMA SAYS CRIMEAN SECESSION WOULD VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW [ + Ukrainian Constitution].
and
* SAME > [Khaleej Times] CRIMEA SAYS PART OF RUSSIA, UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE "OCCUPIERS".
#4
Russia says it will retaliate if sanctions are put in place? Wait, we're the ones retaliating.
Posted by: Jan ||
03/07/2014 10:06
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#5
Obama's inactions, despite being warned in 2009 that this might happen, has basically stuck him, and the US, in a spot where all we can do is agree to what Putin is doing. Obama had no contingency plans in place, and was completely oblivious to the signs that this was going to be a problem that were evident months ago. That is, evident to anyone that was paying attention - as opposed to screwing up healthcare, using the IRS to target your domestic enemies list, and playing golf and more golf, sending your dogfaced wife on multiple vacations., etc.
Obama is the most corrupt, inept and dangerously incompetent fool we have had in office. And yet the press continues to bury anything that puts him in a bad light, so the low information voters out there go blindly forth, voting for him and his ilk.
Thanks to Obama, our nation has become nothing more than powerless fools with no ability to act militarily or diplomatically, in many areas that will have international repercussions for us and for the world.
#9
Thanks to Obama, our nation has become nothing more than powerless fools with no ability to act militarily or diplomatically, in many areas that will have international repercussions for us and for the world.
#10
Obama also held a one-hour call on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin
I guess getting the instructions on how to keep up the appearance of opposing Russia while he blocks drilling, shuts down coal plants and blocks the ability to buy oil or gas from non-crazy people in Canada.
* TOPIX > TYMONSHENKO WARNS OF GUERILLA WAR [agz Russia + Crimean Govt] OVER CRIMEA.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA TO RUSSIA: YOU'RE PUTTING US IN A TIGHT SPOT - YAHOO NEWS.
Again, either "post-US", "Mahanist", Globalist-desired "OWG Co-Superpower", etc. Rising China acts like its perceived Manifest Destiny requires, or it does not.
* Also from TOPIX > [Sacramento Bee] MICHAEL GERSON: OBAMA HAS A FOREIGN POLICY, BUT ITS WRONG.
The Bammer apparently believes that Fairies-n-Chocolate, etc. will fill the void as Amer unilaterally voluntarily, but oh so PCorrectly-Deniably, GEOPOL RETREATS.
#16
As per CNN, the good news for Russia is that Putin may had actually had hair when he allegedly met POTUS Reagan [shook hands?] back in 1988.
lol.
More ... ...
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > CRIMEA IGNORES UKRAINAIN PRESIDENT'S ORDER TO STOP SECESSION VOTE | RIA NOVOSTI.
* GUARDIAN.UK > CRIMEAN NOW PART OF RUSSIA, LOCAL PARLIAMENT DECLARES.
RELATED TOPIX, GROONG > CRIMEA GOVT: ONLY "LEGAL" FOREIGN TROOPS ON CRIMEAN SOIL ARE RUSSIAN.
* TOPIX > PUTIN'S GREAT GAME AGZ WEST [US-NATO/EU],SURGING MUSLIM POWERS IN CRIMEA.
RELATED SAME, WORLD NEWS = ... ...
> RUSSIA FEARS RISE OF ISLAMISM IN WEST, NOT UKRAINE INDEPENDENCE.
> UKRAINE/CRIMEA CRISIS A COVER FOR LARGER RUSSIAN FEAR?
> RUSSIA TODAY > TURKEY SCRAMBLES JETS AGAIN AFTER RUSSIAN SURVEILLIANCE PLANE TRACKED NEAR EAST COAST.
Ostensibly agz TURKEY = US-NATO/EU ALLY, but IMO more to TURKEY = "NEO-OTTOMAN" TURKEY CURREN SUFFERING UNDER INTENSE RADICAL ISLAMIST DOMESIC PRESSURE???
Lest we fergit, the above is aka OWG Caliphate-happy, Soon-to-be-Nukulaar Islam/Islamism.
* SAME > UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT INTRODUCES BILL TO JOIN NATO.
* SAME > CHINA [steadily] LOSING GEOPOLITICAL CREDIBILITY DURING UKRAINE CRISIS.
* GROONG > EXPERTS: UKRAINE IS A STATE, BUT IS NOT YET A NATION, UKRAINE CAN NEVER PROSPER WIDOUT RUSSIA.
* Also from GROONG ...
> THE CLASH IN CRIMEA IS THE FRUIT OF WESTERN EXPANSIONISM.
> UKRAINE HAS REVEALED THE NEW WORLD OF WESTERN IMPOTENCE. Ditto "incompetence"???
> TURKEY GAVE [Security = MilPol?] GUARANTEES TO CRIMEAN TATARS - TATAR LEADER.
> TURKEY STRENGTHENED BY POWER-PLAY IN CRIMEA.
> EXPERT: RUSSIA'S MILITARY POSITION IN BALCK SEA REGION NOT STRONG VIS-A-VIS-TURKEY.
versus
* TOPIX > SEVEN REASONS WHY THE US WILL NEVER GO TO WAR OVER UKRAINE.
* SAME > IS THE US SEEKING A REPLACEMENT FOR TURKEY?
[NY Times] The violence in the Central African Republic jolted the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Security Council into rare accord on Thursday, with La Belle France announcing that it would soon propose a resolution to establish a large and robust United Nations peacekeeping force and the United States expressing full-throated support.
United Nations officials have repeatedly warned of ethnic cleansing in the Central African Republic. On Thursday, they described to the Security Council a country where Mohammedans had fled their homes in response to rampaging Christian militias, where millions were living in chronic hunger and where state institutions had collapsed.
Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... this week recommended a force of nearly 12,000 soldiers and coppers to be deployed immediately to protect civilians, and eventually, civilian specialists to rebuild state institutions, from city halls to courts.
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Top|| File under: Seleka
[NY Times] Niger on Thursday extradited Saadi el-Qadaffy, the third son of Col. Muammar el-Qadaffy, back to Libya, where he is accused of participating in the corruption and abuses of his father's more than 40-year rule.
Libya has sought Mr. Qadaffy and other runaway members of his family since rebels toppled his father's government in 2011. But Libya's transitional government has shown little progress in building a credible or independent judiciary that might handle such high-profile cases, to say nothing of the problems it has found in creating a professional army, police force or prison system.
Niger's justice minister, Marou Amadou, said his country had accepted Mr. Qadaffy and members of his entourage "on the basis of certain conditions."
"They were enjoined to stay quiet and do nothing to destabilize Libya," he said. "And unfortunately, the Libyans gave us lots of information that they were not staying quiet. We couldn't keep harboring people who were taking actions that destabilized Libya."
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[An Nahar] Two mortar shells were found Thursday in the southern town of al-Majadel and a Syrian man was locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! in connection with the incident.
"An (Internal Security Forces) Intelligence Bureau patrol found two functional 60 mm mortar shells in an agricultural field in the town of al-Majadel, southeast of the city of Tyre," state-run National News Agency reported.
The patrol removed the mortars from the site and delivered them to the Jwayya cop shoppe, NNA said.
"It also arrested Syrian national Mohammed Sawad, who lives in a house near the location where the two shells were discovered," the agency added.
In August 2013, several rockets and shells left over from the 2006 war with Israel were found in the al-Nsar-Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain area east of Tyre.
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Top|| File under: al-Nusra
[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisia could soon offer financial rewards to citizens who help authorities capture terrorists.
"We will adopt this method at some point, as it has been adopted in some countries of the world," interior ministry front man Mohammed Ali Aroui told Shems FM on February 25th.
Aroui warned of "the grave risks that may result from the return to Tunisia of people who were trained to fight in Syria", describing them as "ticking bombs".
Yet even before the mention of rewards, concerned citizens were already becoming more vigilant.
According to Mourad el-Abed, a 33-year-old from Kasserine, local residents have "become aware of the importance of reporting to the police when they notice unusual movements with regard to terrorists".
Eleven people were recently incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! in Jendouba and Kasserine for allegedly providing support to terrorists.
"The region, especially Jebel Chaambi, has been affected by terrorism. This is what made us more conscious of actually participating in the effort to eliminate terrorists," el-Abed said.
Citizens have a key role to play in eliminating violent extremism, agreed Faten Arfaoui, 41.
"There is no doubt that offering financial rewards for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of dangerous terrorist elements will encourage many citizens where terrorism is entrenched, especially in poor areas," the Tunis resident told Magharebia..
"There is also the role of the media in educating citizens to help in the fight against terrorism at no charge because the security of the country is the security of the citizen himself," he added.
Tunisians can contribute to the fight against terrorism by detecting and reporting suspicious activities, Al-Majd party chief Abdelwaheb el-Heni said.
Establishing security in Tunisia requires "the adoption of a comprehensive strategy involving everyone, from citizens to the state apparatus", he said.
"The citizen is the main component who informs the state about every move and every suspicious element," el-Heni said.
"A central strategic security agency in charge of counter-terrorism should be launched to collect and analyse information," the politician added. "The absence of this entity is the main loophole in the fight against terrorism."
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[An Nahar] An Egyptian court ban on Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, activities could push the increasingly isolated Paleostinian Islamist movement into another battle with Israel, analysts say.
The latest move marked a further deterioration in ties between Egypt and Hamas, which has close links to the Moslem Brüderbund of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... and is now the target of a sweeping crackdown by the military-installed government.
Since Morsi's overthrow, the Egyptian authorities have destroyed hundreds of tunnels along the border with the Hamas-ruled Gazoo Strip which had been used to bring in fuel and construction materials, as well as weapons and ammunition.
The loss of the tunnels has deepened the economic crisis in Gazoo, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2006, and a senior Hamas official warned the court's move could prompt a new confrontation with Israel.
"The situation between Egypt and Hamas has reached the point of no return," said Mukhaimar Abu Saada, political science professor at Gazoo's Al-Azhar University.
"For Hamas, the choices are extremely limited: reconciliation with (Western-backed Paleostinian) President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , or open confrontation with Israel to embarrass Egypt and win the sympathy of the Arab world," he said.
"The latter option would be costly and risky."
On Tuesday, the Egyptian court banned Hamas from operating in the country and moved to seize its assets after accusing it of colluding with the Moslem Brüderbund to carry out attacks.
Gazooks celebrated in the streets when Morsi became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June 2012, a year and a half after Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... was toppled by an Arab Spring uprising.
But last year, the Egyptian army overthrew Morsi following massive protests against his divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... rule and has since designated the Moslem Brüderbund a terrorist organization.
The destruction of the border tunnels is costing Gazoo $230 million (170 million euros) a month, Hamas says. Government workers say they have not been paid in four months.
Bassem Naim, an adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, told AFP the court ruling was "shocking", and said he hoped it would not translate into "restrictions on people's movement".
Egypt has severely restricted access through the border town of Rafah -- Gazoo's only gate to the world that is not controlled by Israel -- ostensibly for security reasons.
Ezzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official close to the movement's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal, said the ruling "will open the door to new (Israeli) aggression and war against Gazoo".
A fragile Egypt-mediated ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that ended a bloody eight-day conflict in November 2012 has brought more than a year of relative calm, with Hamas policing its borders to prevent rocket fire by rogue krazed killers.
Gazoo-based political analyst Hani Habib downplayed the court ruling as "a formality which will have little additional impact," saying border restrictions are nothing new and that Hamas has no offices or major assets in Egypt.
But Adnan Abu Amr, a politics professor at Gazoo's Ummah University, said: "A final, definitive break between Egypt and Hamas would mean increased pressure on Gazoo, meaning that it could blow up in Egypt or Israel's faces."
Political analyst Naji Sharab said the best option for Hamas would be to reconcile with Abbas's Fatah party, its Paleostinian rival based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
But that would require Hamas to moderate its core belief that Israel must be destroyed and accept U.S.-brokered peace negotiations -- which it has staunchly refused to do.
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03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
I wish Hamas would---especially now when hysteric Progressive Humanity is distracted with Ukrainian crisis.
#2
the conflict between hamas and fatah does have an ideological component but its also personal and tribal; hundreds or even thousands of fatah operatives have been killed or tortured by hamas and visa versa
simply put, hamas and fatah hate each other
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/07/2014 8:44
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"It is for the first time that all air defense units from the district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have gathered in one place, said the districts spokesman, Col. Oleg Kochetkov."
[An Nahar] The West warned Libya on Thursday that political instability is hampering international efforts to provide assistance to the deeply-divided country.
Italia's new Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini told Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan ... served as a diplomat for Libya during the 1970s, serving in India under Ambassador Mohammed Magariaf. Both men defected in 1980 and went on to form the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. Zeidan spent nearly three decades in exile in Geneva after the defection. During the revolution Zeidan served as the National Transitional Council's Europe envoy, and is credited as having played a key role in persuading French President Nicolas Sarkozy to support the anti-Qadaffy forces... and a large delegation of foreign ministers in Rome that "international partners are ready to help Libya", but the "uncontrolled circulation of arms" in the country was creating difficulties.
The talks, attended by U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... , were held to weigh assistance for the transitional authorities in Libya.
A U.S. intelligence assessment in February warned that a power vacuum in Libya, where the government is struggling to counter well-armed militias, was fueling krazed killer groups across the region and posed an "acute" terror threat.
Security forces are regularly attacked, especially in the east.
Observers fear rival ex-rebel groups, heavily armed with weapons looted from the arsenals of former dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... , could yet push Libya into civil war.
In February, La Belle France ruled out Western military action against Islamist fighters in southern Libya, a region that the U.S. has identified as a new haven for al-Qaeda-linked bad boys.
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03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
A NATO airstrike on Thursday morning killed at least five Afghan soldiers and injured at least eight others in a tragic incident of friendly fire that is likely to further inflame the battered Washington-Kabul relations.
The strike, which hit an Afghan National Army outpost in the countrys volatile Logar Province, located about 50 miles from Kabul, came from a drone, according to The New York Times. It was most likely the result of poor coordination between the people on the ground and the operators of the drone, the Logar provincial spokesman told the newspaper. A Logar provincial spokesman described the outpost as the the front line against Taliban, the Washington Post reported.
The development is a fresh blow to the fragile and increasingly fractious relationship between Washington and Kabul. The US has struggled to reach a security deal with outgoing Afghan president Hamid Karzai for continued US presence in the country after the international troops are pulled out in late 2014. NATO airstrikes and Afghan ability to prosecute them for civilian deaths are the key sticking point, and todays events stand certain to widen the rift further.
The US-led Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that it has launched an investigation to determine the circumstances that led to this unfortunate incident . We value the strong relationship with our Afghan partners, and we will determine what actions will be taken to ensure incidents like this do not happen again.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/07/2014 6:01
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Top||
#2
Heck, remember the first days of the operation into Afghanistan and the friendly fire air support that hit our own forces. That one featured the presence of jihad johnny sitting around. Sometimes **^$%^ happens.
#5
SteveS - There's been numerous cases of complex attacks initiated with G v B attacks. Also numerous G v B attacks w/multiple Orcs attacking at once. IMHO - not far fetched that we got wind of it and decided to ..how you say.. decrease their chances for success.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/07/2014 9:49
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#6
..the drone was called in by someone. guess I'd start there..
[An Nahar] Saudi state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
has for the first time broadcast the "confessions" of a jihadist who returned from Syria, as the Mohammedan kingdom distances itself from Islamist forces of Evil in that country's conflict.
Sulaiman al-Subaie, 25, who grew popular in his homeland for his posts on video-sharing app Keek, reportedly joined the most radical group fighting in Syria, 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... (ISIL), last August.
"The situation in Syria is not as portrayed in the media," Subaie said in a rare interview aired on Saudi television late Wednesday.
"What is amazing is that Saudis are killing fellow Saudis in the fighting between ISIL and Al-Nusra Front," the Al-Qaeda franchise in Syria.
ISIL, disavowed by Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... , has been accused by rebels battling Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's troops of seeking to consolidate power rather than fight the regime, and even of serving the regime's interests.
Fierce festivities between ISIL and opposition fighters broke out in early January, after accusations that the radical group was abusing both civilians and rival rebel forces.
The fighting has left hundreds dead and created openings for regime advances in some areas.
Subaie said in his "confessions" that the death of his brother, a jihadist, as well as "pictures of dead Syrian children" had prompted him to join the war.
"I went to Qatar, from where I traveled to Turkey" before being led into Syria with the help of a smuggler.
He wanted to join Al-Nusra Front but "upon my arrival, I was told that I have now become a member of ISIL," he said.
Subaie decided to quit the group after realizing that his Twitter account, followed by thousands in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , was being used to broadcast "messages inciting" violence against rulers and holy mans in Saudi Arabia.
He fled back to Turkey and returned to the kingdom, where he is being held.
There are no official figures on the numbers of Saudis who have joined jihadist ranks in Syria, but they are estimated at several hundred.
The Sunni-majority conservative kingdom has been a key backer of the three-year revolt against Assad's regime, which is dominated by the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam.
But King Abdullah last month decreed jail terms of up to 20 years for citizens who travel to fight abroad, as the country struggles to deter young Saudis from becoming jihadists.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
#1
He will be a hero in Saudi as he already has thousands of followers on Twitter.
Dont lots of kids in Saudi grow up yearning for jihad?
This is what they are taught in school or mosques from a young age.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/07/2014 6:09
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#2
"What is amazing is that Saudis are killing fellow Saudis in the fighting between ISIL and Al-Nusra Front," the Al-Qaeda franchise in Syria.
[An Nahar] Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... has expressed his "solidarity" with Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... 's position on the crisis in Ukraine, state media reported on Thursday.
In a telegram, Assad "expressed... Syria's solidarity with Putin's efforts to restore security and stability to Ukraine in the face of attempted coups against legitimacy and democracy in favor of radical terrorists", state news agency SANA said.
Assad praised Putin for "wise politicianship and commitment to international legitimacy based on the law that governs ties between nations and peoples".
He said Syria was committed to "President Putin's rational, peace-loving approach that seeks to establish a global system supporting stability and fighting extremism and terrorism".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
An expected drive to purge Islamist rebels from southern Somalia risks pushing them north into an area at the tip of the Horn of Africa better known for its coastal pirates than al Shabaab insurgents.
Semi-autonomous Puntland state, where one-third of Somalia's population lives, needs help from the African peacekeeping force AMISOM to secure its border with southern provinces, its regional president Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said on Wednesday.
How about a fence?
A new push to rout al Shabaab militants from urban redoubts in southern Somalia has been expected since Ethiopian troops joined AMISOM earlier this year, but it has not yet come.
"It is obvious that some (al Shabaab) will seek refuge in the very difficult terrain in Puntland, particularly the Galgala mountains," Ali told Reuters by telephone. He was referring to a small range of mountains where some fighters are operating.
Reeling from militant attacks on its doorstep, the central government in Mogadishu wants the al Qaeda-linked insurgents expelled from their southern strongholds this year as it struggles to shake off the tag of a failed state.
Ali's concerns underscore a worry that the offensive may destabilize Puntland, a relatively settled region that al Shabaab rebels slowly began infiltrating after they were flushed out of Mogadishu in mid-2011. Puntland blamed al Shabaab for a rare car bomb attack in December in the port town of Bosasso which killed seven people.
Although al Shabaab numbers have hitherto been limited, Puntland authorities and Western diplomats have voiced concern the Islamists might seek to strengthen ties with al Qaeda cells across the narrow Gulf of Aden in Yemen.
Ali bemoaned the lack of military aid for his administration to build up his security forces and the sparse information from Mogadishu about its campaign against al Shabaab.
Blame the 'partial arms embargo'. If you guys were a real government you'd be exempt...
"We have had no communication about this operation. We have a common enemy, al Shabaab, of course we should be consulted," the United States-educated leader said.
Ali said the unequal distribution of aid between Mogadishu and the regions was not limited to military funds and federal government revenues and foreign aid, of which Somalia is among the world's biggest recipients, must also be more fairly shared.
Ali needs to wet his beak...
That echoed complaints by Ali's predecessor Abdirahman Mohamud Farole, who in August cut ties with Mogadishu in protest and accused the central government of undermining plans to create a federal system.
Mogadishu has promised to share power and resources in the country seen as one of the last frontiers in the hunt for oil and gas in east Africa. But distrust of central government still threatens fragile security gains.
Ali said he was open to talks on how to divide power between the center and the regions, a thorny issue the current provisional constitution failed to address.
"Federalism is now the law of the land. The question is to what extent powers are devolved."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Al Ahram] Nigeria has shut five government colleges in the country's restive northeast in the wake of a deadly series of attacks targeting schools.
A ministry of education statement issued late Wednesday said the affected schools were "located within the high security risk areas of the northeast geo-political zone".
Students of the schools in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, which are worst hit by the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... insurgency, would be absorbed in other government colleges, it added.
Last week, 43 students were shot and hacked to death when suspected Boko Haram gunnies stormed Federal Government College in Buni Yadi, Yobe state.
An undisclosed number of female students was kidnapped during the overnight attack while the whole school was burnt down.
The traumatised students have refused to stay in their schools and colleges since the attack, which was the latest against schoolchildren by the krazed killers.
Boko Haram, which translates roughly from Hausa as "Western education is sin", rejects a so-called Western curriculum and has burnt hundreds of schools in its four-and-a-half year fight to create an Islamic state in the Moslem-majority north.
Yobe state authorities said last October that Boko Haram attacks had razed 209 schools, causing damage worth an estimated $15.6 million (11.4 million euros).
The attacks have raised fears about the effect on education in a region that already lags behind the rest of Nigeria in social and economic development.
Nigeria has since May launched a military offensive to flush out the turbans from the region, but attacks have continued, particularly in remote, border areas.
The country's top police officer, Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, said on Tuesday that security agencies were "doing everything humanly possible" to prevent future school attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
#1
We need a clean up operation like the French did in Mali.
Who is funding Boko Haram?Saudi,Qatar,Iran?
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/07/2014 6:04
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#2
Note the recent use of US Reaper drones in northeastern Mali by French forces. One wonders why the Govt of Nigeria has not requested US assistance which would include the use of drones?
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/07/2014 12:33
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#5
There are a number of sources:
1. Boko Haram itself. Partly by 'taxes' on civilians, also funds obtained through internet fraud, and kidnapping for ransom in Cameroon.
2. Funds are also obtained through donations from the Nigerian diaspora and a number of Islamic 'charities' in Europe. Intel indicates the majority of funding is coming from sources in Europe.
3. External-to-Nigeria sources. Boko Haram maintains camps within Cameroon; from there they engage in the aforementioned kidnapping for ransom. Other activities include weapons trafficking, human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, et cetera, in cooperation with al Qaeda groups to the north, mainly AQIM. Boko Haram then receives both a cut from the trafficking, plus additional funds.
Boko Haram has claimed they've met with Al Qaeda financiers in Saudi Arabia, though this is unproven. More likely they've aligned themselves with AQIM, as it has more 'credibility'. There is money from traditional al Qaeda funding sources in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but it is unlikely funds are sent directly to Boko Haram, being routed through AQUIM instead.
Rumors are that Boko Haram is also trafficking in stolen petroleum, possibly with cooperation of the Delta militants, but that is not proven.
4. Nigerian politicians, mainly from the majority Islamic-NE region of Nigeria.
5. Chad, which has been at odds with most of its neighbors and sponsors other Islamic groups besides Boko Haram.
[UK.REUTERS] Syria will miss a major deadline next week in the programme to destroy its chemical weapons production facilities, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Thursday.
Syria declared 12 production facilities to the OPCW and has until March 15 to destroy them under a deal agreed with the United States and Russia. Damascus has already missed several deadlines laid out in the agreement.
"That will definitely be missed," said an official involved in discussions with Syria, referring to the March 15 deadline.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said there were seven "hardened" aircraft hangars and five underground facilities. "None of them have been destroyed at the moment," the official said.
[An Nahar] Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... had recently established a small military airport in the Bekaa city of Baalbek and is operating Iranian-made drones, the Saudi al-Watan daily reported on Thursday.
According to the daily, Hizbullah also created high-security secret tunnels and depots, that were dug under Iranian supervision.
The Iranian drones were identified as Mirsad-1 and Mirsad-2.
A Lebanese observer Georges Shahin said in comments published in the Saudi newspaper that the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran had provided its staunch ally Hizbullah with 14 Iranian-made drones.
"It's not unlikely for Hizbullah to set a new airport," Shahin said.
In January, senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Hizbullah has dramatically improved its missile capabilities and can now pinpoint targets anywhere in Israel.
Hajizadeh didn't say how Hizbullah's missile capability had improved, but The Wall Street Journal has reported that the group has been moving parts of advanced guided-missile systems to Leb from bases where it had stored them inside Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... has said commitment is required to overcome challenges like terrorism and energy crisis which are hampering the economic growth.
"It's hard to decide whether to improve security situation or to overcome energy crisis," said the prime minister at the inaugural ceremony of the 10th Pakistain Auto Show at Expo Centre here on Thursday. The three-day show has been organised by Pakistain Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM).
The prime minister promised fast track solutions to the issues confronting the auto industry.
"Provision of equal opportunities and a conducive environment for businesses is government's duty because if trade and industry thrive, the whole country prospers," said the prime minister while asking accompanying Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir to discuss with the stakeholders issues like trade with India, imposition of GST on locally manufactured tractors, import of used cars etc.
"No correspondence, minister Sahib. Please sit with the industry people, listen to their grievances, redress the same on the spot if possible ...." said Sharif.
The government would extend all-out cooperation to the auto industry's endeavour to develop made in Pakistain or national car, said the prime minister while advising the organisers to further improve the standards of the event on the pattern of Geneva auto show and other such international exhibits.
Nawaz Sharif said seven years projects worth $32.69bn had been finalised in collaboration with China which would attract an annual foreign investment of $4bn.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#3
If they had secured the border 10 years ago a lot of the heat in the amnesty issue wouldn't be there.
As is we know because of their 'all for show' and deliver nothing programs, they can't be trusted till its up and running (which will never happen in our life times).
[An Nahar] Sudan has no connection with a ship intercepted in the Red Sea allegedly carrying rockets from Iran to Gazoo, Khartoum's foreign ministry said on Thursday.
"We have nothing to do with this," foreign ministry front man Abubakr Al-Siddiq told AFP, adding that the vessel was in international waters.
Israel intercepted the "Klos-C" in the Red Sea between Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... and Sudan on Wednesday, claiming that Syrian-made weapons aboard had been shipped overland to Iran then onward by sea.
According to Israel, the M302 missiles were to have been offloaded at Port Sudan and then taken overland towards Gazoo via Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Right overland through Egypt. North to Cairo, thence to Alexandria, make a right, follow the coast and there you are. All without being detected, of course...
Khartoum's links with Iran came under scrutiny after Sudan accused Israel of being behind an October, 2012 strike against the Yarmouk military factory in the Sudanese capital, which led to speculation that Iranian weapons were stored or manufactured there.
Israel refused all comment on Sudan's accusation about the factory blast.
After all, actions do speak louder...
But officials in the Jewish state had expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about arms smuggling through Sudan and have long accused Khartoum of serving as a base of support for bully boyz from the Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement that rules the Gazoo Strip.
Iranian warships have periodically docked in Port Sudan, most recently in September, for what Sudan called "routine" visits.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
How boring. The first twenty or so times there was some decreasing shock value, but that was long ago and in another country.
No doubt someone will explain at some considerable length in Salon to us mere peasants how a bared breast in Times Square solves the problem in the Ukraine...
[An Nahar] Five topless activists from the Femen feminist group protested in New York's Times Square on Thursday to denounce Russia's incursion into Ukraine, asking for tougher U.S. and EU action against Moscow.
The women, whose bare chests were painted blue and yellow -- the color of Ukraine's flag -- hoisted a placard slamming Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... 's "occupation" of Crimea and another urging, "U.S.-EU, stop talking start acting".
Inna Shevchenko, a Femen leader, told news hounds the protest was "in support of the Ukrainian people, in support of the Ukrainian revolution against Putin, against Russian occupation."
Shevchenko tore up a Russian flag as part of the protest.
The activists called on the United States and European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... to impose sanctions "much more serious than just restrictions of visas" and freezing of assets of officials.
The United States on Thursday slapped visa bans on Russians and Ukrainians it blames for destabilizing Ukraine, setting the stage for more sanctions to come.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under:
#1
how a bared breast in Times Square solves the problem in the Ukraine...
Butterflies and Hurricanes, Fred.
#6
They did it in Soviet Russa and got arrested, wonder if that had anything to do with their choice of location. (Yes I'm against the fremen, I can see all the bare boobs I want on my wife, unwrinkled too)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/07/2014 19:05
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#7
Amputate THEIR BOOBS, THAT'LL STOP THEM.
Permanently.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/07/2014 19:14
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#8
..was considering organizing one of these at work a while back. One of the other guys pointed out that, unfortunately, most of the ladies are 50+, so the result would have resembled a mud flaps trade show both in visual and aural senses. Project abandoned..
[Al Ahram] President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has halted salary payments to scores of coppers loyal to a rival Paleostinian politician, deepening disarray within their U.S.-backed Fatah faction, officials said on Thursday.
They said Abbas's move appeared aimed at weakening Mohammed Dahlan, a former Gazoo Strip strongman who lives in Dubai but is widely expected to return to the Paleostinian territories to challenge the president and Fatah chairman.
That could spell a bitter and uncertain confrontation given Fatah's statutory limbo since Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, once its partner in the Paleostinian government, turned into a foe in 2007 and seized control of Gazoo during a brief civil war.
Fatah, which now holds sway only in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is due to hold a leadership election this year but that has yet to be scheduled. The schism with Hamas makes new national ballots nearly impossible, extending the term of Abbas, who was elected president in 2005.
Fatah official Sufian Abu Zayda said salaries had been suspended for 98 coppers who had worked under Dahlan in Gazoo before the Hamas takeover. Some of them have since moved to Egypt and the West Bank.
"We knew a month ago about the intention to suspend the salaries. By the time banks closed yesterday it was clear that nearly 100 people, 100 families, had lost their income," Abu Zayda told Rooters.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
Mohammed "Herb Tarlick" Dahlan
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/07/2014 22:25
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#1
To keep it brief they should instead say what the US press does know about Russia, the Ukraine and Crimea. That should take maybe a sentence or two at most.
#2
MSM coverage of Ukraine has been and continues to be pathetic, almost deliberately misinforming the US.
FTA:
On one CNN segment, Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham opined. The exchange of ideas could be described as dueling idiots ultimately arriving at the same conclusion. Senator Graham was calling for sanctions and boycotts to punish the Russians. Neither statesman seemed to be aware that Russia produces and exports about the same amount of crude oil as Saudi Arabia and withdrawing that amount of oil from the world markets would surely boost gasoline prices to an untenable level.
I disagree with the author here: petro prices are NOW at an untenable level, have been there for several years, and are strangling the US economy. But that's just me.
#4
Western Media knows you just need a brave calvary charge through canon to win against the Russians at Crimea. Thus Obama in his wisdom is reducing our military to pre-ww1 level if he'd only be left alone long enough.
#5
Deliberately misinforming the public? Yeah the dominant leftist media in the US has been doing that for years, first in their crusade against Bush, and now as a propaganda organ for Obama.
I call it map-informing, the delivery of bad information in place of accurate information in order to ensure a political objective. You know, its the same thing Isvetiya, Tass and Pravda used to do for the Soviet Union. The US no longer has a free press - it has one that has willingly blindered itself and locked itself into slaves chains.
Until we somehow hold the press accountable for this fundamental dishonesty at thiercore, and rip apart the current establishments and people that promote such things, we will be in danger of becoming a dictatorship. That is why one of or first duties agains enemies foreign and domestic should be to go after editors and reporters who are doing such immense damage. Go after them hard, make the consequences of their decisions an up-close and personal thing. Bring it into their homes, put the consequences into their lives and their families. Rip them open and force them into the public.
Its too important to ignore anymore. And it will lead to violence if not addressed strongly now.
#7
I suggest that most of the 'untenable' price of gasoline is the expression of currency devaluation. Gov't claims inflation is negligible, despite the creation of roughly a trillion dollars a year in new debt (equivalent to roughly 8% inflation)- the system is rigged to ignore fuel prices in the calculation and thus motivate the concentration of actual inflation into just that category, where it can be blamed on the evil oil companies everyone hates anyway instead of the government.
#8
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - unless you dump your excess population on the United States and employ the useful idiots to allow it for over two decades.
#9
Until we somehow hold the press accountable for this fundamental dishonesty at thiercore, and rip apart the current establishments and people that promote such things, we will be in danger of becoming a dictatorship.
It seems to me that the fact that the mainstream press -- both newspapers and television news -- has been hemorrhaging both readers/viewers and red ink pretty much the entire 21st century thus far suggests that the press is being held to account. That the ultra-liberal reporters have been steadily forced to find other employment while volunteer bloggers and the new professional press of Breitbart, PJ Media, etc are gaining eyeballs and profits suggests that at least the high information types have found honesty.
All the liberal press can do is become ever more liverish in the hope of holding on to their remaining, equally liberal customers. Let us look forward to the day -- in the not too distant future -- when the New York Times is sold for the value of real estate owned... or a dollar,
#10
...both newspapers and television news -- has been hemorrhaging both readers/viewers and red ink pretty much the entire 21st century thus far suggests that the press is being held to account
However, they're shielded by corporate structures that shift profits in one division to cover the losses in the newsprint/broadcast enterprises (ably assisted in the latter with forced cable/satellite bundling). The 'freedom of the press' is much more about the technology relative of the time (ie printing press) of distributing information rather than the social institution that controls/suppresses/manipulates/fabricates information.
[An Nahar] As many as 12 fighters from the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group have been killed in a counter-terrorism operation by French forces in Mali who used drones to track down the Jihadists, La Belle France's defense minister said Thursday.
The offensive took place Tuesday night in northeastern Mali, Jean-Yves Drian said.
Separately, a U.N. source confirmed that "a very large French operation" in the area had taken place.
The AQIM fighters were spotted by French forces operating the U.S.-made Reaper drones, Drian said, confirming a report which had appeared in the daily Le Figaro.
"These are the drones which the French army now has in place which allows us to identify these groups," said Drian.
Ministerial sources said the those killed belonged to the AQIM group, operating in a mountainous region of northeastern Mali.
According to the same source, use of the drones -- as well as Mirage 2000 fighter jets and military helicopters -- underlined the increasingly sophisticated weaponry now being employed by the French military.
The Reaper drones are based in Niamey, the capital of Niger, which borders Mali to the south. No ground forces were used in the operation, said Drian.
The minister added that, despite the success of the latest operation, French forces in the region would remain vigilant.
A source from MINUSMA, the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... peacekeeping mission in Mali, told Agence La Belle France Presse that the French assault "has led to the neutralization of a dozen terrorists".
The U.N. promised further details of the operation later.
A Malian army source informed AFP that "Islamists, notably from Libya, have reorganized themselves on the ground".
"They set up two bases in the north-east that the French from (Operation) Serval... destroyed on Tuesday night. At least 11 bad boyz were potted," said the same source.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
[Al Ahram] At least 15 people were killed and 12 others maimed in a boom-mobile blast in the central Syrian city of Homs on Thursday, an NGO said.
"At least 15 people were killed and 12 others injured in the Armenian district, which is home to mostly Christians and Alawites," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... comes from the Alawite community, a religious minority that stems from Shiite Islam.
Syria's state news agency SANA reported a "terrorist attack" on the main street of the district, "which caused deaths, injuries and damage."
The neighbourhood, in the east of Homs, is under government control.
Homs, once dubbed the "capital" of Syria's revolution for its prominent, well-attended anti-government protests, has been the scene of fierce fighting between the regime and rebels.
Part of its Old City under rebel control has been subjected to a tight government siege that has left several thousand civilians trapped.
In recent weeks, UN and Red Islamic Thingy teams were able to evacuate some civilians and distribute food and medicine to those remaining in the besieged neighbourhoods, but the operations have halted.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Al Ahram] Turkey's constitutional court ruled Thursday that the legal rights of a former army chief jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! over an alleged coup plot had been violated, a decision that paves the way for his release.
The country's top court argued that a local tribunal had not "effectively examined" a release request by Ilker Basbug before rejecting it in January, a statement said.
It also ruled that the local court had unduly banned Basbug -- convicted in a mass trial last year -- from appealing the decision, violating his legal rights.
The constitutional court referred the case back to a local court, which could release him, private NTV television said.
The ruling comes after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet... said in January he was not opposed to the idea of retrials.
Basbug was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 along with hundreds of military officers who were given long jail terms for their role in the so-called "Ergenekon" conspiracy, an alleged plot to overthrow the government.
The military, which sees itself as the guarantor of Turkey's secular principles, has carried out three coups -- in 1960, 1971 and 1980, -- and pressured an Islamist government to step down in 1997.
Erdogan, himself an Islamist, has spent the best part of his 11 years in power trying to curb the military's influence.
But he has recently sought to get the army back on his side as he fights for political survival in a bitter feud with his ally-turned-opponent Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of criminal masterminding a graft scandal to topple him.
So hard to run a war, whether external or internal, when all your remaining officers only know how to sing "Islam, Islam uber alles".
In a conciliatory gesture toward the army that further increases the chances of retrials for the hundreds of convicted officers, parliament in February abolished the specially appointed courts that tried them.
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Top|| File under:
[JP] At any given time, Israels defense establishment is monitoring Iranian arms-smuggling and terror-financing networks, a security source revealed on Thursday.
This comment came a day after the Israel Navy intercepted an Iranian attempt to smuggle powerful rockets to the Gaza Strip on a commercial ship off the coast of Sudan.
Currently, IDF Military Intelligence is managing investigations no less significant than the Iranian attempt to bring Syrian-made M-302 rockets to Gaza, the source said, describing the covert investigations as part of a far wider war between wars.
Not a week passes by without Israel blocking or thwarting an Iranian attempt to transmit arms to terrorist entities threatening Israeli national security. All of Israels intelligence agencies are involved in this effort, the source said, including Military Intelligences various units, the Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). Excellent! Keep up the great work.
[DAWN] QUETTA: Environmentalists here on Thursday warned that scarcity of water as a result of depleting water table, would in future force citizens of Quetta to migrate to other parts of the country. Where Islam goes, deserts follow.
Environmental experts, policy makers, growers and members of civil society met in Quetta to discuss ways to find a solution to the problem of scarcity of water.
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) organized a one day seminar to discuss the growing problem in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, which is Pakistan's most resource-rich province but also least developed.
The speakers feared that scarcity of water would force citizens to migrate if delay and check dams were not constructed on an emergency basis around Quetta.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under:
#1
Let me guess, they'll discover their Palestinian roots?
[Al Ahram] Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday rejected as "lies" an Israeli claim that it intercepted a ship carrying advanced rockets sent by Tehran to the Gazoo Strip.
"An Iranian ship carrying arms for Gazoo. Captured just in time for annual (pro-Israel lobby) AIPAC anti Iran campaign. Amazing Coincidence! Or same failed lies," Zarif wrote on Twitter, referring to a pro-Israel lobby group.
Israel intercepted the "Klos-C" in the Red Sea on Wednesday, saying Syrian-made weapons aboard had been shipped overland to Iran and then onward by sea, intended for Paleostinian bully boyz in Gazoo.
The annual policy conference of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was held Tuesday in Washington, and was addressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a meeting with the US President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... , Netanyahu said Iran was the most urgent threat for Israel.
"The claim of sending a ship carrying Iranian weapons to Gazoo is not true," Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.
"This claim is merely based on the repetitive and unfounded lies of the Zionist media" aimed at derailing negotiations between world powers and Iran over its contested nuclear programme, he said.
In November, Tehran struck an interim deal with the six powers under which it agreed to scale back uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.
Obama threatened the congress in January to veto any new sanctions against Iran, since they would endanger the nuclear talks.
Iranian media said the allegation of the "imaginary ship" was a mutually hatched plot by the United States and Israel to put pressure on Tehran and its allies.
"It paves the way for intensifying pressure and Congress ratifying new sanctions against Iran as well as intensifying political and military measures against Syria," analyst Reza Seraj told Fars news agency.
"By linking Syria to Russia, they want to use the issue as leverage to gain political milage in Ukraine."
Iran has been a key regional supporter to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... as he has battled an armed uprising that erupted in March 2011.
Tehran is also a strategic allay of Russia which is at loggerheads with the West for sending its troops to Ukraine's flashpoint Crimea region.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Again, it looks like all sides agree publicly that such a thing would be evil.
[An Nahar] A police officer and a civilian died Thursday during festivities in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, bringing to 20 the toll from a month of anti-government demonstrations in the divided country.
The member of the National Guard succumbed in hospital to a gun shot wound to the chest while a man on a cycle of violence also died, State Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz told local television.
Authorities said the incident happened when a group of men on motorbikes tried to break through a barricade in the east of Caracas, where improvised blockades have multiplied in recent days.
Witnesses said the shots came from a crowd of protesters. But the president of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello blamed "snipers" positioned on top of a building.
Street protests erupted in Venezuela on February 4 and have continued every day since in the biggest challenge yet to President Nicolas Maduro's nearly year-old, socialist-inspired government.
Public anger over rampant crime, shortages of basic goods and arrests of protesters have fueled the unrest, which Maduro charges is part of a U.S.-backed plot by "fascists" to destabilize his regime.
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Top|| File under: Commies
[An Nahar] A dozen bombings in central Iraq and two shootings in the north killed 22 people Thursday, officials and doctors said, as the country suffers its worst violence in years.
Iraq has been hit by a year-long surge in bloodshed that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven by widespread discontent among its Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighboring Syria.
On Thursday evening, four boom-mobiles went kaboom! in Storied Baghdad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 47, officials said.
The bombings targeted a cafe, a market, a main street and an area of car dealerships.
Militants frequently attack places where crowds gather, such as cafes, markets, football fields and mosques, in an effort to maximize casualties.
The Storied Baghdad blasts followed a boom-mobileing near a checkpoint north of the capital that killed two people and maimed 15, and four others in areas south of Storied Baghdad that killed two people and maimed eight.
North of the capital, a bomb went kaboom! in a cafe in a town near Baquba, killing four people and wounding seven, while two more blasts in the city itself killed one and maimed three.
And two shootings in the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... killed two coppers.
The violence came after 10 bombings and three shootings in and around Storied Baghdad killed at least 21 people Wednesday.
Storied Baghdad is one of the most frequently-targeted cities in the country and is hit by near-daily bombings and shootings.
The government also faces a more than two-month crisis in Anbar province, west of Storied Baghdad, where it has lost the city of Fallujah as well as shifting parts of quiet provincial capital Ramadi to anti-government krazed killers.
It is the first time anti-government forces have exercised such open control in major cities since the peak of the deadly violence that followed the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
More than 370,000 people may have been displaced by the violence in Anbar during the latest crisis, according to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... .
Violence in Iraq has killed more than 1,800 people since January 1, according to Agence La Belle France Presse figures based on security and medical sources.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
Tamaulipas state police and Mexican Policia Federal have been reportedly involved a a number of armed confrontations with criminal groups in south-central Tamaulipas state, according to official government reports.
According to a news release posted on the Tamaulipas state website, the fighting has been going on at a location between Jimenez and Padilla municipalities. The report said that Mexican security forces were fired on by armed suspects, and apparently security forces returned fire.
No one from either side was reported hurt in the encounters.
Possibly unrelated is the report from the same website that two unidentified assistants of the municipal president of Abasolo were injured in an auto accident a few hours later about 20 kilometers away,
According to the news release the vehicle's tires had been punctured or were blown out, causing the crash. Both victims were said to be at a hospital in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital of Tamaulipas.
The latest two incidents comes on the heels of the announcement of a new self defense group in southern Tamaulipas, colloquially known as autodefensas.
According to a news report which appeared in the leftist Proceso news weekly, the new group had distributed a leaflet detailing their existence earlier in the week.
The group, dubbed the Brigada Alberto Carreta Torres, was formed to counter the criminal activities of Los Zetas drug cartel in the area.
According to a separate report which appeared in El Universal news daily on February 11th, several autodefensas have formed in Tamaulipas, and were operating in Hidalgo, Tula and Ocampo municipalities. The Proceso article, dated two days ago, said that the newest group was operating in Ciudad Victoria. The article also hinted that the new groups were operating checkpoints in the city.
The Brigada Alberto Carreta Torres group has claimed a number of executions of Los Zetas criminal operatives. The autodefensas of Michocan, unlike the Brigada Alberto Carreta Torres, had not, to this writer's understanding, targeted one criminal group over another as they began their own security operations.
The Brigada Alberto Carreta Torres sounds like the Matazetas groups from Veracruz and Jalisco states three years ago, which were groups funded and operated by local drug gangs to gain public sympathy for their goals, even as they rounded up and brutally murdered innocents. The Matazetas were later found to be funded by the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The absence of a reference to the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels in the announcement of the existence of the group, both of which are in alliance would seem to indicate they were in fact funded and operated by one and/or the other group.
The Proceso article also said that another group, autodefensa Columna Pedro J Mendez, was operating in Hidalgo municipality and had claimed the lives of a number of Los Zetas.
In the El Universal article a Tamaulipas state deputy, Francisco Elizondo Salazar, lamented that since elements of the Policia Federal had been redeployed to Michoacan, "insecurity permeated the streets" of the state.
Two days later, at least some Policia Federal units returned to the state to begin new operations.
Deputy Francisco Salazar also repeated a warning that travel in Tamaulipas at night should be discouraged.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and Borderlandbeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
[An Nahar] Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... urged Niger to explain its decision to extradite a son of late Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffy ... who had more funny outfits than Louis XIV... on Thursday.
"We don't like him. He's icky and he smells funny."
"The authorities in Niger should explain why they were convinced that Saadi Qadaffy would not be mistreated and would get a fair trial," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director.
The New York-based group also pointed to the responsibilities of the Libyan authorities.
"Libya has the responsibility to see that Saadi Qadaffy gets his full due process rights. They should protect him from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; allow him visits from legal counsel, his family and medical personnel; and bring him promptly before a judge," it said.
Qadaffy, who is accused of murder and repression during the 2011 uprising that ended his father's rule, is in the custody of the judiciary's police, the Libyan government said.
Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... had repeatedly called for Saadi's extradition from Niger, which granted him asylum in 2011 on "humanitarian" grounds saying it had insufficient guarantees he would have a fair trial.
Tripoli charged he was sowing sedition from exile.
Niger said Thursday it handed over Qadaffy because it no longer felt he would face the risk of extrajudicial killing, and because it wanted to improve ties with Tripoli.
Marou Amadou, the justice minister and government front man, said the political situation had "changed" in Libya.
He added that Niger had tried to find another country to take Qadaffy, but "we didn't find any candidate."
But a group of NGOs in Niger condemned the extradition, warning that "the life of Saadi Qadaffy is under threat in Libya, which is a non-state with no security."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2014
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] Branded by Kenyan authorities as an epicentre for the indoctrination and recruitment of Islamic
Nawaz Sharif
[An Nahar] Canada's broadcasting regulator wants to see more locally-made porn on Canadian television, judging by a notice on its website that accuses three channels of failing to meet licensing requirements.
An Al-Shabaab spokesman died on Wednesday, nearly two months after he was injured in an air strike by Kenya Defence Forces in Somalia.
We have heard from Rabdhure in the Bakool region of Somalia that heavily armed Ethiopian troops have recuperated the village after yesterday there was a big fight between fighters from Al-Shabaab and the Ethiopian forces backed by the Somali National Army.
But the Egyptian authorities stopped them at Cairo airport, and have already deported Northern Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and American anti-war activist Medea Benjamin who wanted to join the delegation.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
North Korea
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[NY Times] Niger on Thursday extradited Saadi el-Qadaffy, the third son of Col. Muammar el-Qadaffy, back to Libya, where he is accused of participating in the corruption and abuses of his father's more than 40-year rule.
[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisia could soon offer financial rewards to citizens who help authorities capture terrorists.
Zawahiri
[An Nahar] Syria's 
An expected drive to purge Islamist rebels from southern Somalia risks pushing them north into an area at the tip of the Horn of Africa better known for its coastal pirates than al Shabaab insurgents.
[Al Ahram] Nigeria has shut five government colleges in the country's restive northeast in the wake of a deadly series of attacks targeting schools. 
[Al Ahram] President 
The AQIM fighters were spotted by French forces operating the U.S.-made Reaper drones, Drian said, confirming a report which had appeared in the daily Le Figaro.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Al Ahram] Turkey's constitutional court ruled Thursday that the legal rights of a former army chief 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
