[AP] NORRISTOWN, Pa. ‐ The Latest on Bill Cosby's sexual assault retrial (all times local): 1:50 p.m.
Bill Cosby has been convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.
A jury outside Philadelphia convicted the "Cosby Show" star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Thursday. The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury deadlocked on the charges.
Cosby was charged with violating Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. His lawyer called Constand a "con artist" who leveled false accusations against Cosby so she could sue him.
Cosby could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the counts.
Dozens of women have come forward in recent years to say he drugged and assaulted them. Five of the other accusers testified against him at the retrial.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission. Constand has done so.
#5
Alan, I was thinking more like this:
N: Wumpa, Wumpa. Wumpa.
G: "NOAH!"
N: Who is that? Wumpa, Wumpa, Wumpa.
G: "It's the Lord, Noah. And Noah more freedom for you."
[Reuters] The U.S. Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state on Thursday, putting the former CIA director in a pivotal role to handle U.S. foreign policy challenges such as North Korea and Iran.
Pompeo, a former Army officer who was a Republican congressman, is regarded as a Trump loyalist with hawkish world views.
He is already deeply involved in diplomacy. Trump sent Pompeo to North Korea three weeks ago to meet with the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ahead of a summit with the U.S. president to address Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Senators voted 57-42 in favour of Pompeo, who had faced stiff resistance from Democrats worried about his reputation for hawkishness and past harsh statements about homosexuality and Islam.
Pompeo will be forced quickly to address a wide array of other international challenges, including long conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese expansionism in Asia and Russian assertiveness.
[The Cipher Brief] Just weeks after the attacks of 9/11, a flatbed truck was parked unceremoniously in the tree-lined fire lane next to the CIA’s New Headquarters Building, surrounded by furious activity.
The team was packing gear on shipping pallets for a mission of uncertain duration: bandages, trauma packs and children’s kites. The ballistic body amour was on back order ‐ added to the growing list that would have to be air-dropped to wherever the team ended up.
In the melee, a white-bearded paramilitary officer collected "other paper work"‐ a euphemism for final letters to loved ones.
Military members of the team were unaccustomed to the improvisational nature of agency planning. Bare bones staffing, just enough provisions to get by, and constantly shifting priorities ‐ like the World War-II era "Glorious Amateurs" of the Office of Special Services or OSS. Special operators and CIA officers were deploying together again, as they’d once fought side-by-side in the fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants OSS, with a new shared mission: stop the next al-Qaida attack on the homeland. We were at war.
More than a decade and a half later, we are still a nation at war. If anything, the threats have multiplied.
That’s why we need a seasoned and experienced field officer like Gina Haspel at the helm of the CIA, who served through those fraught times. We need the insights and leadership of a senior officer who took on some of the hardest collection missions to keep our nation safe to lead the organization into the future.
Her upcoming senate confirmation hearing is an opportunity to define how we as a nation collect intelligence and how we respond to threats to our country in an era of perpetual conflict.
The agency is designed to work in the murky grey world of perpetual ambiguity. The primary goal of agency operations (paramilitary, technical and human) is to obtain intelligence of value to the U.S. decision-makers. The more valuable the intelligence, the more risk to the collection and the collector.
Among the many paradoxes of intelligence collection is the notion of plausible deniability. The ability to deny that an operation is conducted on behalf of the government is a fundamental tenet of espionage, one designed to protect reputational and political risk, and thwart and misdirect possible retaliation by our enemies. The reality that a clandestine intelligence operation can be disavowed and denied by the very government it is a part of is a foundational component of "diplomacy by other means."
This paradox is difficult for a spy organization in a free an open society, and is particularly vexing for lawmakers outside the oversight committees to grasp and distill for their constituents in the era of sound bites and tweets. Plausible deniability codifies the popular ethos that intelligence operations are rogue, unapproved and out of control. Continues.
#1
Because the Dems do not care what kind of damage they do to our intelligence services, I worry about what kind of drilling they will do into Ms. Haspel's career for the sake of political capital and embarrassment of DJT.
There are lots of things we have done over the years that have and should remained out of the public record because of potential diplomatic fallout.
[National Review] The more Mueller searches for hypothetical lawbreaking, the more he ignores the actual lawbreakers. The country is about to witness an investigatory train wreck.
In one direction, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation train is looking for any conceivable thing that President Donald Trump’s campaign team might have done wrong in 2016.
The oncoming train is slower but also larger. It involves congressional investigations, Department of Justice referrals, and inspector general’s reports ‐ mostly focused on improper or illegal FBI and DOJ behavior during the 2016 election.
Why are the two now about to collide?
By charging former national-security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, Mueller emphasized that even the appearance of false testimony is felonious behavior.
If that is so, then the DOJ will probably have to charge former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe with perjury or related offenses. A report from the Office of the Inspector General indicates that McCabe lied at least four times to federal investigators.
Former FBI director James Comey may also have lied to Congress when he testified that he had not written his report on the Hillary Clinton email scandal before interviewing Clinton. Former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan lied under oath to Congress on matters related to surveillance.
h/t Instapundit
...China ‐ without firing a shot, committing troops to active military intervention in the Middle East’s myriad proxy conflicts, and doing little more in international diplomacy than raising their hands against the occasional contentious resolution at the United Nations Security Council ‐ became the world’s largest investor in the Arab Middle East two years ago, with commitments of almost $30 billion and a close to 32 percent share of all foreign direct investment. Beijing seeks to integrate the Middle East’s largest economies into its One Belt One Road development initiative while avoiding imperial overstretch, recognizing the crucial role of economic development, human capital, and strategic investment to future global power.
In line with its cynically independent foreign policy ‐ which seeks little to no input from secondary powers about its interests ‐ China has methodically reaped the rewards of America’s mistakes.
The U.S. spent anywhere from $1.7 to $2.2 trillion, and suffered almost 4,500 dead and over 32,000 wounded, to remove Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime from power in Iraq, run a provisional government, fight a Shia and Sunni insurgency, and try to impose western institutions and norms on a country simmering with tribal and sectarian conflicts.
China stood to the side, pocketed the American expenditures and elimination of the sanctions imposed prior to the 2003 invasion, and emerged as Iraq’s biggest import partner. For context, petroleum products account for anywhere between 93 and 99 percent of Iraq’s exports. China has committed billions to Iraqi infrastructure development and reconstruction, pledged to build an oil refinery near the Gulf port of Fao, and in recent years poured over $2 billion and hundreds of workers annually to develop Iraqi oil deposits.
These dynamics led former U.S. Defense Department official Michael Makovsky to note, "The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their [oil] supply."
...Across the border in Iran ‐ empowered by America’s removal of an obstacle to its regional influence in the form of Saddam Hussein, and a close partner of the Iraqi government that the U.S. spent years building and propping up ‐ it is the same story.
...As the U.S. operates a disjointed regional paradigm and spends considerably in search of elusive gains ‐ limiting who it can do business with and sometimes attaching conditions removed from the Middle East’s realities ‐ the Chinese begin and end their regional policy with what is in China’s narrow national interest. This has allowed them to deal with everyone without making political commitments, assurances, or promises. As American policy unwittingly upends the Middle East’s balance of power, China adjusts to the situation, recalibrates, and fills the vacuum to generate geopolitical and/or economic returns.
#1
This guy's observations are so trivial they're a waste of time, in composition as well as in perusal by whatever audience unfortunate enough to read it to its conclusion. It's a given that friendlies, neutrals and hostiles not actually fighting will all benefit from US actions that help stabilize a given region. Removing Saddam from the equation meant no more Kuwait-style invasions and no nukes for Iraq. For a while.
It's the nature of these wars. People are innumerate about wartime expenditures. $2.2 trillion sounds like a lot of money. But it's under 15% of an $19T economy. By the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 (for US forces), the US had spent roughly the same %, relative to US GDP at the time. And lost about 60K men.
Note that there was a lot that was unstated*, but Muslim countries got the (9/11-related) message anyway. Screw with US and you will pay the price. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day, when you're teetering on the edge of a cliff, we'll give you a nudge.
* Bush said "Islam is a religion of peace" because we needed the help of local Muslim allies and collaborators. But he sure did tighten scrutiny of Muslim crazies domestically.
[CNN] The mayor of Flint, Michigan, reacted to a federal lawsuit which claims donors were directed away from a charity for victims of the city's water crisis and toward a fund sharing a name with her campaign fund Wednesday, calling the allegations "outrageously false." Guess her political party!
In the suit filed Monday, fired administrator Natasha Henderson claims that in February 2016, Flint's current mayor, Karen Weaver, directed a former city employee and a city volunteer to stop directing potential donors to a charity called Safe Water/Safe Homes. That charity was run by the Community Foundation of Greater Flint and had been approved by the city for water-crisis donations.
Instead, the lawsuit claims city employee Maxine Murray was directed by Weaver to begin directing donations to "Karenabout Flint." According to the lawsuit, Murray came to Henderson "in tears" and in fear of "going to jail."
Weaver deferred response to the allegations to her legal counsel, but not without making a comment. Graft and illegal political money in a PARTY UNNAMED run city!?!? Impossible!
"It saddens me that someone would attempt to taint me as Mayor of a city that is dealing with a major public health crisis, which has affected every man, woman and child in Flint," she said. "I will continue to work hard to serve the people of Flint, seek support for our residents, and secure the necessary resources from generous donors from around our great nation to help the city and citizens I have been elected to serve."
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of "Karenabout Flint," and it does not appear in any state tax registries. "Karen About Flint" was Weaver's campaign slogan when she ran for mayor in 2015, and her Twitter handle is @karenaboutflint.
Murray could not be reached for comment.
The suit claims that the switch was made without the approval of Flint's city council or of the receivership transition advisory board, which was set up to help the city transition from being under state financial control.
The city declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Flint has been navigating its way through a devastating water crisis for the past two years. Hazardous levels of lead were found in residents' tap water after the city switched its water source from the Great Lakes to the Flint River.
Weaver defeated a fellow sitting Democratic mayor in November by running on a platform of fighting for Flint residents who believed officials hadn't done enough to protect them during the ongoing water crisis. Part of this plan was replacing several city employees. Only now, halfway through the article and past the pictures that cut it in two at the bottom do they talk about political party. The rest is gushing over how all the demoncrats love her and Flint loves her. Of course they do. She pays them for it with other people's money.
Just another day for a criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party
#3
They mostly blamed the crisis on the Governor, then stole the donations. Wow. In different times this Mayor would be tarred and feathered and possibly worse.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2018 11:22
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#5
Lawsuits oftentimes produce healthy (out of court) cash settlements which are eventually paid for by taxpaying constituents. Bringing indictments which could result in sending homie pols to prison. Not so good in the hood.
Classic 'Do you know who I am?' video at the link, 8 min. long.
[Powerline] - I suspect many of our readers have heard about the viral story this week of Caren Turner, a Democratic hack in New Jersey (will I offend our New Jersey readers if I say this is redundant?) who served as the ethics commissioner for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who attempted to go full "do-you-know-who-I-am?" on two dutiful Tenafly police officers. But if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.
[Task & Purpose] Do you remember when the defense industry could actually build airplanes? Not just build airplanes, but mass produce them in large numbers?
Of course you don’t.
Over time, military aircraft have become so complicated and defense industry has become so impervious to outside forces that you probably weren’t born when the United States could actually build tough, reliable and relatively low cost airplanes.
Look no further than the B-52, also known as the "BUFF" for "Big, Ugly, Fat F*cker." Boeing built more than 700 of the bombes between 1952 and 1962 and the Air Force expects to keep flying the BUFF until the 2050s. That means that a bomber first built during the Truman administration will still be putting warheads on foreheads about the time the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reach their halfway mark.
In comparison, the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit, which first flew in the 1980s, are both expected to be retired in the early 2030s ‐ more than a decade earlier than planned, according to Air Force Magazine. NASA’s Space Shuttle retired in 2011 after 30 years of service. The SR-71 Blackbird bowed out in 1990 after flying for 24 years.
[Washington Examiner] Ronny Jackson, President Trump's controversial pick to lead the Department of Veterans affairs, is withdrawing from the nomination, according to press reports.
Jackson’s confirmation hearings were delayed indefinitely after allegations emerged against him for workplace misconduct. The longtime White House physician has been accused of handing out prescription pain medications and working drunk on the job. I suspect our veterans have just lost a very good man.
#1
So unsubstantiated accusations win the day and a string of 'top block' USN FITREPS signed by multiple presidential senior raters (both Republican and Dem) mean nothing.
I am now beginning to wonder how much longer Donald Trump will put up with this kak before he finally says... 'that's it, I gave it my best shot. Take this job and shove it.'
#5
I just heard Trump on TV with words to the effect that a certain Democrat senator from Montana who is up for reelection this year might be confronted with this issue in November.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/26/2018 10:35
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#6
Why would any sane person want to 'put up with this kak'?
[FoxNews] Democratic campaign organizations have paid or pledged to pay more than $2 million for key parts of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign infrastructure -- including her email list and campaign software -- as the party ramps up a costly campaign to win back both houses of Congress this November, The Intercept reported Wednesday.
According to the report, the Democratic National Committee will pay Clinton's PAC Onward Together $1.65 million for access to her campaign resources, including voter data. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $700,000 to rent the email list.
In contrast, then-President Barack Obama gifted his email list worth nearly $2 million to the DNC as an in-kind contribution in 2015, the report added.
Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile told The Intercept she had negotiated quarterly payments to the Clinton campaign in exchange for access to the list. She said the last payment initially was scheduled for February of this year. However, DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa told the website that Brazile's successor, Tom Perez, restructured the payment schedule and redirected the money to Onward Together.
According to OpenSecrets.org and Federal Election Commission records, the DNC has made four payments to Onward Together between January and March of this year, totaling $705,000. Hinojosa told The Intercept the remaining money would be paid out by October.
[WSJ] Culture of excessive risk is faulted in ill-fated mission against Islamists in West Africa.
The investigation stemmed from an Oct. 3, 2017, mission in which about a dozen U.S. soldiers and special-operations force members, along with roughly 30 Nigerien soldiers, set out on what began as a planned meeting with local officials. But by the next day, the troops instead were assigned to another part of the country to search the suspected abandoned house of an associate of Adnan abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, an affiliate of the extremist movement.
They later returned to a village near Tongo Tongo, and after conducting their meeting with local officials, were ambushed by roughly 50 attackers, a two-hour attack that killed two Green Berets, two soldiers assigned to assist special-operations forces and five Nigerien soldiers.
Behind the paywall, but sometimes these can be read when the title is searched using the Google app.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
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#1
See - chain of command.
At least there appears to be at least a shred of integrity left someplace in the government.
#4
Always have a good AAR (After Action Review) even if everything goes right. Lessons can always be learned.
My question is where was the QRF (Quick Reaction Force)when shit went tits up? There should always be a group of guys kitted up and ready to respond if another unit gets hit. Even on SF missions.
#7
o why not post the link instead of making us search ourselves?
The link is always attached to the headline, Herb. So clicking on the headline will take you to the article at the Wall Street Journal website. That will give you the first two paragraphs or so of the article,and the opoortunity to buy a subscription if you are not already a subscriber. I don’t know how to link to an app, I’m afraid; I just know that when I leave my browser and drop the headline into it, I am given a link to the full article.
[Investors Bus Daily] Deep State: Were the Justice Department and FBI corrupted by their efforts to protect Hillary Clinton and her future chances at the presidency? Recent revelations suggest the answer is an unqualified yes, and now those who cooperated may soon feel the law's sting for doing so.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may be the worst off. In addition to possible charges for lying under oath for denying that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal (in large part dfto answer swirling rumors in the journalistic community), it's alleged that he ordered FBI agents working on the Clinton Foundation investigation to stand down.
Now, evidence suggests he told the FBI's Washington field office to also "stand down" from its investigation of Clinton's private-email server. That investigation followed a New York Times piece that appeared in 2015, detailing Hillary Clinton's possible illegal use of an unsecured, home-brew email server for her official business as secretary of state. It appears to be a clear violation of the law.
"Multiple former FBI officials, along with a Congressional official, say that while there may have been internal squabbling over the FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation at the time, there was allegedly another 'stand-down' order by McCabe regarding the opening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of her private email for official government business," wrote independent journalist Sarah Carter.
That's two stand-down orders, if you're counting, that McCabe made. That he would intervene twice on behalf of Clinton suggests not an abundance of caution but that he had political qualms rather than merely procedural ones.
It's a troubling question of political interference that that could deeply taint the FBI for years to come, and make doing its job all the much harder, particularly if it's viewed as a politically-biased agency by a major part of the country.
But former FBI chief James Comey isn't far behind McCabe.
Comey opposed the idea of a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton's egregious misuse of her email system ‐ which, intelligence experts say, likely exposed U.S. classified material to both the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies ‐ despite substantial evidence of a crime.
Why? Because, he wrote, the main reason for appointing a special counsel would have been because there were serious questions about then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch's ability to be unbiased ‐ especially after the unplanned, unrecorded and highly curious half-hour meeting she had with Bill Clinton while sitting in a jet plane at the Phoenix airport.
#1
If these assholes aren't going to get prosecuted (and they won't be), could someone at a bare minimum fire them and strip them of their pensions? I don't think that's a huge favor to ask.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- If you've done the college experience then you know finals can be rough!
But Nemo Miller, an art student at the University of Utah is trying to cushion the final's week blow by creating an escape for students who might be feeling the finals week pressure.
It's called the "Cry Closet!"
The art project went viral after someone posted a picture of it on Twitter which ended up getting hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets.
But you can't just go in there willy nilly! There are rules they have to follow.
For example, you gotta knock before barging in (you don't want to interrupt someone mid-cry), one person at a time for only ten minutes, and use #cryclosetuofu if posting on social media. And don't forget to wipe things down when you are done.
#2
...Dear God, what is happening to these people when they get out in the real world and face other people who aren't going to be anywhere near as understanding of their pain?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/26/2018 5:49
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#3
Future HR inmates
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2018 7:13
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#4
Funny - I used to get backed & shitfaced with my fraternity brothers as one way to deal with stress.
As Jimmy Dugan would say - 'There's no crying in academia!' God damn, grow the fuck up, you bunch of fucking babies.
#8
C'mon, you guys. It's a joke. Right? Right? Oh, you mean they're serious?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/26/2018 11:10
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#9
Granted I'm an old boomer, but damn.
Anyone I knew or knew of in school would have died of embarrassment if caught seriously thinking about, no less doing, any such thing. And that includes all the stoners.
#10
Dear God, what is happening to these people when they get out in the real world and face other people who aren't going to be anywhere near as understanding of their pain?
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ‐ A new Indiana law that requires medical providers who treat women for complications arising from abortions to report detailed patient information to the state "imposes unique and burdensome obligations" that are unconstitutional, Planned Parenthood said in lawsuit filed Monday that seeks to block two of the law’s provisions.
The federal suit ‐ the latest of several filed in recent years challenging abortion restrictions passed by Indiana lawmakers ‐ contends that the reporting rules and a separate provision requiring annual inspections of abortion clinics are both unconstitutional because they target only abortions and abortion providers and not other procedures or clinics.
The complaint asks a federal judge to block those provisions, which are set to take effect July 1.
"Once again Indiana politicians are barging into the exam room with irrational demands and intrusive requirements," said Jane Henegar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which filed the suit on behalf of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky
The suit contends that the abortion complications reporting requirement creates "vague and uncertain standards" that are written so broadly "as to be meaningless."
Many of the purported abortion complications the law lists "are both extremely rare for abortions and are more likely to occur after other medical procedures," according to the suit. One condition the law lists ‐ blood clots ‐ is a typical and short-lived side effect of having an abortion, it argues.
This could never happen here. Of course.
China is rolling out a high-tech plan to give all of its 1.4 billion citizens a personal score, based on how they behave.
But there are consequences if a score gets too low, and for some that’s cause for concern, CBS2’s Ben Tracy reported Tuesday.
When Liu Hu recently tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on the list of untrustworthy people. Liu is a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere.
"I can’t buy property. My child can’t go to a private school," he said. "You feel you’re being controlled by the list all the time."
And the list is now getting longer as every Chinese citizen is being assigned a social credit score ‐ a fluctuating rating based on a range of behaviors. It’s believed that community service and buying Chinese-made products can raise your score. Fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it.
China’s growing network of surveillance cameras makes all of this possible.
"It can recognize more than 4,000 vehicles," Xu Li said.
Li is the CEO of Sensetime, one of China’s most successful artificial intelligence companies. It has created smart cameras for the government that can help catch criminals, but also track average citizens.
"We can tell whether it is an adult, a child, male or female," Li said.
Ken Dewoskin has studied China’s economic and political culture for more than three decades. He says how the new scoring system truly works is kept secret and could be easily abused by the government.
Tracy: "How far into people’s daily mundane activities does this go?"
Dewoskin: "Well, I think that the government and the people running the plan would like it to go as deeply as possible to determine how to allocate benefits and also how to impact and shape their behavior."
The fear, of course, it that the government may use this social credit scoring system to punish people that it deems not sufficiently loyal to the communist party, Tracy reported. And trying to clear your name or fight your score is nearly impossible, because there’s no due process. And nobody will ever think of using this system to blackmail people to do God-knows-what.
#1
Well, we know Google works with the Chinese government. Guess what they'll share with agencies, activities, and organizations in the US. Given they use their various divisions to shut down conservative news and videos, you can guess what's in store.
#1
The onerous De Klerk and his attempted back peddling of betrayal. There are many, but here is one example of why this situation as posted above, is... as it is:
#3
2018 Apartheid def. (in the Republic of South Africa) = a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing and occasionally murdering the nonwhite white population.
[AlMasdar] Mahdi al-Mashat, former director of the Houthis leader office, was sworn in as president of the Supreme Political Council in Sana’a on Wednesday, replacing former Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... political leader Saleh al-Samad who was killed in Saudi-led Arclight airstrike last Thursday in Hodeidah.
Mahdi al-Mashat took the oath, promising to "fully respect the interests and freedoms of people and to preserve the unity of the nation and its independence and territorial integrity."
The Saudi-led bombing campaign continues in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... with US backing. The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... estimated that more than 10,000 have been killed and more than three million people have been displaced since beginning of the war in March 2015.
[Ynet] Despite Kremlin's claims it has nothing to do with its citizens fighting in Syria, Rooters journalists saw on three different occasions Russian civilians returning from Damascus heading straight to a military base in Molkino.
The Kremlin says it has nothing to do with Russian civilians fighting in Syria but on three recent occasions groups of men flying in from Damascus headed straight to a Defense Ministry base in Molkino, Rootersnews hounds witnessed.
Molkino in southwestern Russia is where the Russian 10th Special Forces Brigade is based, according to information on the Kremlin website.
Continued on Page 49
[Breitbart] Although the far-left CNN buried its big news under 15 paragraphs of excuse-making for the latest anti-gay scribblings that surfaced on MSNBC anchor Joy Reid’s old blog, what more does anyone need to know than the following: "The Library of Congress ... contains the disputed posts and lists them as having been archived on January 12, 2006."
But-but-but I was told the Wayback machine was hacked in an attempt to frame Anti-Trump Resistance Leader Joy Reid as a homophobe?
But-but-but I was told the screencaps had been altered as a means to frame Anti-Trump Resistance Leader Joy Reid as a homophobe?
Well, now we know (and CNN’s attempt to bury the news is the best proof it is true) that the posts in question from Joy Reid’s now-shuttered blog, The Reid Report, were archived all the way back in January of 2006. Which is another way of saying that Reid’s claim she was hacked makes absolutely no sense.
Why in the world would anyone want to frame Joy Reid as a homophobe in 2006?
#9
Well, a black, ex-muslim woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is an outcast to the left, so do the math...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/26/2018 10:48
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#10
If Joy is not a Muslim she should consider converting retro-actively because whatever nasty thing she said about gays is okay coming from a Muslim. She can lie low for a couple of weeks, write her book, and then on the book tour talk about how she was persecuted for her religious beliefs.
#11
Weeeelll… Lessee. You can choose to be gay (or claim to be) you can choose to be muzz (or claim to be). Rachel Dolezal crapped out at claiming to be black. Sean King seems to be getting a, uh, pass. So you need (or maybe not) a genetic component and then two unprovable declarations and you could be John Brennan, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/26/2018 11:03
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#12
She can lie low for a couple of weeks
And then push a blindfolded gay off a fourth story wall on Morning Joe to consolidate her creds.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/26/2018 11:09
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#13
She can always run for Congress from a safe 'Minority Majority' district. Look at Alcee Hastings, for example.
[Ynet] A Ottoman Turkish court has convicted journalists and other staff members from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper on terror charges.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... 's official Anadolu news agency said Wednesday that 14 employees were found guilty of "aiding a terror group without being a member," with sentences ranging from 2 to 7 years.
The newspaper said those convicted include the editor-in-chief, leading columnists and a prominent investigative journalist, and that it was an attempt "to silence Cumhuriyet."
The court convicted Akin Atalay, the board chairman, but ruled to release him. Eleven others were released earlier in the trial.
They were accused of "sponsoring terror organizations," including Kurdish holy warriors, a far-left group and the network of U.S.-based holy manFethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , whom the government blames for a failed coup in July 2016. Gulen denies involvement.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/26/2018
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Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi security forces arrested on Wednesday seven Islamic State militants in the city of Mosul, a senior commander was quoted saying.
Spokesperson of the Security Media Center, Yahia Rasoul, said seven Islamic State militants were arrested in Mithaq and Hamasa districts in eastern Mosul.
“One of them used to sell women slaves during Islamic State’s dark reign, while the other is accused of executing police personnel and dumping them in Khasfa”, Rasoul said, referring to an infamous sinkhole IN Mosul in which IS militants had used to bury their victims.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Four Islamic State members were killed in an attack near Syrian borders, while five militant leaders were arrested as they attempted infiltrating into Mosul, Iraqi sources were quoted saying on Wednesday.
In remarks to Anadolu Agency, Lt. Gen. Sabhan Matar, of the army, said security troops managed to repel an IS attack, west of Tal Sufuk region, near borders between Iraq and Syria, which left four members killed.
In Mosul, Lt. Gen. Abbas al-Bayati, of the police, said troops of the Nineveh Operations Command, set up an ambush southeast of Mosul.
Speaking to Anadolu, Bayati said troops checked a vehicle carrying five leaders who were intending to sneak into the city through Jedeidat al-Mufti district. Their ID cards were found to be fake.
During investigations, they were revealed to be IS leaders. “They were trying to enter Mosul after they they fled it toward the city to plan for operations ahead of the parliamentary elections, slated for May 12.
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[Ynet] Ahmed Abu Hussein, 24, who worked for Gazoo's al-Shaab radio station, was injured while covering the festivities on the border on April 13, succumbing to his wounds nearly two weeks later.
A Paleostinian journalist, shot by IDF snipers while covering a violent protest along the Gazoo-Israel border nearly two weeks ago, died of his wounds on Wednesday, Paleostinian health officials said.
Ahmed Abu Hussein, 24, worked for Gazoo's al-Shaab ("Voice of People"), a radio station linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US and the EU. He also worked as a photographer for another local news agency.
Photos and video from the scene show that he was in a group of bystanders far from the border and wearing a blue protective vest marked "Press" and a helmet marked "TV" when he was shot on April 13.
He was the second journalist killed by Israeli gunfire since the weekly Friday protests, for a right of return of Paleostinians refugees and their descendants to homes in what is now Israel, began on March 30.
He was shot in the stomach while covering protests near Jabalia in northern Gazoo, the health ministry in Gazoo said.
He was moved from Gazoo to a hospital in the West Bank and then transferred to the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, where he died.
His death raised to 38 the number of Paleostinians killed in the protests near the border.
An IDF spokeswoman had no immediate comment on Abu Hussein's death.
Yaser Murtaja, 30, a cameraman for Paleostinian Ain Media, was shot on April 6 and died the next day. After his death, the IDF said it does not intentionally target journalists and that it would look into the circumstances of the shooting.
His brother Diaa told AFP they were preparing to transfer the body to Gazoo for burial. His funeral will be held on Thursday.
[SCMP] The collapse after five nuclear blasts may be why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared on Friday that he would freeze the hermit state's nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site, one researcher said.
The last five of Pyongyang's six nuclear tests have all been carried out under Mount Mantap at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea's northwest.
One group of researchers found that the most recent blast tore open a hole in the mountain, which then collapsed upon itself. A second group concluded that the breakdown created a "chimney" that could allow radioactive fallout from the blast zone below to rise into the air.
A research team led by Wen Lianxing, a geologist with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, concluded that the collapse occurred following the detonation last autumn of North Korea's most powerful thermal nuclear warhead in a tunnel about 700 metres (2,296 feet) below the mountain's peak.
The test turned the mountain into fragile fragments, the researchers found
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2018
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#2
...This makes sense. At least in theory, the Norks could test in downtown Pyongyang if they wanted, but it costs big bucks - really big bucks - to prepare a site. Excavation of that magnitude, even in a command economy, ain't cheap. The instrumentation is even more expensive, and a good chunk of that has to be replaced every time you hit that little red button.
At the end of the day, they might have just finally run out of available funds and gear. The Norks know the bombs work - they get a yield from a device, even if it's not one they can put on a warhead or aircraft yet. Add to that they fact that in DJT they finally have a US leader who is not going to simply roll over and let himself be blackmailed, and this might, at the end of the day, be simply a matter of Kimmie making a virtue out of necessity.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/26/2018 6:02
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OR, perhaps, the Chinese putting their foot down with the risk of radioactive leaks. Mountain collapse's, a lot of dust in the air, right next to the border...
Wouldn't surprise me if the slave-gangs were throwing everything, including themselves, into the mountain to seal it up.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/26/2018 7:57
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Diyala (Iraqinews.com) ‐ Iraqi security forces foiled on Wednesday an attack by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) holy warriors on a security roadblock in Diyala, a provincial council was quoted as saying.
Alghad Press quoted Walhan al-Karawy, a member of Diyala’ Jalawla municipal council, as saying that Iraqi troops managed last night to thwart an attack by IS holy warriors against a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalawla, in northeastern Diyala . The attack left no casualties.
According to Karawy, the IS attack was successfully repelled by the troops and a manhunt was launched in search of the attackers.
The province has seen months of fighting between Iraqi troops and IS holy warriors especially in the Jalawla and Saadiyah areas in the province’s north and areas near the town of Muqdadiyah.
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04/26/2018
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[Sara A. Carter] Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is now facing possible criminal charges for lying under oath about leaks he made to The Wall Street Journal in 2016, in an effort to salvage his reputation and give his account to journalists who were questioning whether he gave a "stand-down" order to FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation.
Multiple former FBI officials, along with a Congressional official, say that while there may have been internal squabbling over the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation at the time, there was allegedly another "stand-down" order by McCabe regarding the opening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of her private email for official government business.
McCabe’s stand-down order regarding Clinton’s private email use happened after The New York Times first reported Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules in March 2015 and before the official investigation was requested by the Justice Department toward the end of July 2015.
Kirkuk (Iraqinews.com) ‐ Pro-government troops of al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) denied on Wednesday media reports about armed festivities with forces of Evil of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) group in Hawija district, in southwestern Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... yesterday.
In a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Baghdad Today, the troops described reports circulated in mass media about the above-mentioned incident as "completely wrong."
The statement made it clear that an explosive charge left over by Islamic State forces of Evil went off in Hawija district last night, leaving a fighter of al-Hashd al-Shaabi dead and two others injured, including a policeman.
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04/26/2018
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] A Lebanese soldier has beaten a Syrian refugee to death in Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, activists said Wednesday.
The soldier, identified as Abudlatif Zaitouni, has hit Mohammed Abdul Jawad Wais, 46, with a baton on his head, continuing a series of crimes committed against Syrian refugees, which have been fueled with discrimination and hatred.
Wais is a father of 8 children. He fled the border town of Qusayr, which is currently under the control Hezbollah militia. He was working as a driver in a Lebanese nursing school in the town of al-Sweiri.
Activist Abu Muaz al-Homsi said the victim lost his life after thee days in the intensive care.
The crime took place in public when Wais had stopped his mini-bus to deliver one of the children to his home in the traffic hour. The soldier stepped out of his car and start shouting at the driver. When he knew that he is Syrian, he returned to his car and brought a baton where he hit the refugee man several times on his head, according to al-Homsi.
According to activists, Syrian refugees in Leb remain subject to frequent "racist" acts, including raids on their homes and deportation.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday condemned the expulsion of hundreds of Syrian refugees from their temporary residences in Leb.
"At least 13 municipalities in Leb have forcibly evicted at least 3,664 Syrian refugees from their homes and expelled them from the municipalities, apparently because of their nationality or religion," HRW said in a Friday report, Anadolu agency reported.
"Another 42,000 refugees remain at risk of eviction," the report added.
"Municipalities have no legitimate justification for forcibly evicting Syrian refugees if it amounts to nationality-based or religious discrimination," Bill Frelick, HRW’s director for refugee rights and the author of the report, said.
According to the report, HRW interviewed 57 Syrian refugees affected by the recent evictions, as well as municipal officials and legal experts.
"In some cases, Syrians said the [Lebanese] authorities used violence to evict them," the report stated.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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#1
But wait! Aren't all of those involved adherents of the religion of peace?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2018 15:54
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[AAWSAT] Kuwait announced on Wednesday that it was expelling the Philippine ambassador, giving him a week to leave the country. The decision was taken over the actions of the Philippine embassy in Kuwait, which were deemed a violation of the local laws.
Announcement of the diplomatic expulsion comes despite an apology to Kuwait on Tuesday by Philippine foreign secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, after videos emerged of embassy staff helping Filipinos flee from employers.
"I apologize to my counterpart and we apologize to the Kuwaiti government, the Kuwaiti people and the leaders of Kuwait if they were offended by some actions taken by the Philippine embassy in Kuwait," Cayetano told news hounds in Manila.
Kuwait was furious about the videos, saying they amount to a violation of its illusory sovereignty.
Cayetano said that he had presented a clarification to the Kuwaiti ambassador in Manila. The Kuwaiti official voiced his understanding of the issue. The Philippine official will send a similar clarification to Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khalid al-Sabah.
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[DAWN] A teenage girl from district Umerkot in Sindh has reportedly 'disappeared' after allegedly being taken into police custody and handed over to a landlord, the girl's family claims.
According to police, a week ago on April 18, SHO Khushbakht of Umerkot women cop shoppe, reportedly raided the girl's house in Hashim Palli village and placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! five persons including three women over charges of involvement in child marriage.
Among those taken into custody was the 13-year-old girl ‐ who was found wearing a bridal dress ‐ to verify the case. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... the girl's family says she has since gone missing without a trace since then.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Jack stuck the cigar in his mouth, stepped onto the gantry, and asked Got a light, Mac?
Von Schtinken stopped short, lowering the dagger and trying to control his features.
If you light that thing, Herr Armschtröng, he pointed out, his voice tense, we all die!... Sindh Inspector General (IG) has taken notice of the incident, and a committee has been formed to recover the girl and uncover the truth. The committee comprises of DIG Mazhar Sheikh, SIP Khalil Kunbhar, and Lady SHO Khushbakht.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Jack stuck the cigar in his mouth, stepped onto the gantry, and asked Got a light, Mac?
Von Schtinken stopped short, lowering the dagger and trying to control his features.
If you light that thing, Herr Armschtröng, he pointed out, his voice tense, we all die!... the girl's parents have levelled allegations against police, saying that the girl was taken away under the false pretence of raiding a child marriage. They allege that police took her away at the instigation of local influentials having malicious intent.
The missing girl's family has accused police of handing over the girl to influential landlords Faiz Muhammad Palli, and Saifullah Palli, who, according to them, often abduct newly-wedded girls in connivance with the police.
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04/26/2018
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[DAWN] A Copenhagen court on Wednesday found Danish inventor Peter Madsen guilty of the premeditated murder and sexual assault of Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his homemade submarine last year, handing him a life sentence.
Madsen, 47, had admitted chopping up the 30-year-old's body and throwing her remains overboard in waters off Copenhagen on the night of August 10, 2017, but claimed her death was accidental.
"He committed a cynical, planned murder, of a particularly brutal nature," judge Anette Burko said as she read out the verdict, adding that Madsen "dismembered the body in order to hide the evidence of murder."
A life sentence in Denmark averages around 16 years.
Wearing a black T-shirt and blazer, Madsen stood in the courtroom to hear the ruling. As it was read out, he sat down next to his lawyer, visibly affected and dejected.
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04/26/2018
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[DAWN] Police on Wednesday exhumed the body of an Italian national of Pak origin over claims she had been murdered by relatives in a so-called 'honour' killing, in a case that has made headlines across Italia.
Police in Gujrat launched an investigation earlier this week into the death of 26-year-old Sana Cheema after allegations she had been murdered went viral online.
"After the news of her death spread on social media, police found the family and started an investigation," said police officer Waqar Gujjar.
Cheema's father, brother and uncle are currently being held in jug for questioning but have not been charged, added Gujrat police officer Mudassar Sajjad.
"Now it depends on the post-mortem report. If it determines the cause of death is due to murder, only then will police charge the suspects," said Sajjad.
According to family members, Cheema died earlier this month after succumbing to an unspecified illness, said police officer Syed Mobarak.
Police said Cheema's father Ghulam Mustafa brought her back to Pakistain to get married. This ultimately led to a confrontation with a nearby family who spurned the offer of a match, according to the woman's family.
Because of the rejection Cheema refused to eat, fell ill and died, relatives told police.
Reports in Italian newspapers alleged Cheema was killed because she wanted to marry a man in Italia against her family's wishes. The reports further alleged that Cheema’s parents had been forcing her to marry someone in the family in the days leading up to her death.
A spokesperson for the Gujrat police had earlier told Dawn that Kunjah police visited Mangowal town, where Cheema had been staying with her family, and collected some information about her death which strengthened their suspicions about the version offered by the woman’s family.
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[DAWN] An Indian guru with millions of followers was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for raping a teenage devotee on the pretext of ridding her of evil spirits, his lawyer said.
Asaram Bapu, one of India's most charismatic and controversial "godmen", was given the maximum sentence at a closed jailhouse hearing in Rajasthan state, where hundreds of police were on high alert for a backlash from his disciples.
"Asaram has been sentenced for life until death," Rajendra Singh, a lawyer for the defence team, told AFP outside the court in the western city of Jodhpur.
The white-bearded guru, 77, who urges followers to live a pious life free of sexual desires, has always denied raping the then 16-year-old in 2013 during a spiritual retreat at his ashram in Jodhpur.
His lawyer said they would appeal the sentence.
Asaram is just the latest high-profile guru locked away Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! for sex crimes, and his conviction comes as India reverberates with anger over a series of child rapes in recent weeks.
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[DAWN] An Indian soldier, a counterinsurgency police official and a suspected Lion of Islam were killed in a shootout on Tuesday in India-held Kashmire, police said, triggering anti-India protests and festivities.
The fighting began early on Tuesday when turbans attacked raiding government forces with gunfire in a forest in the southern Tral area, police said. In the initial battle, a policeman and a soldier were killed.
Authorities rushed reinforcements of police and soldiers and cordoned off the area, sparking fierce exchange of gunfire in which a Lion of Islam was killed, police said.
As news of the fighting spread, anti-India protests and festivities erupted in Tral town. Scores of youths, mainly students, hit roads while chanting slogans in favour of turbans and demanding an end of Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
They threw stones at patrol parties of police and paramilitary soldiers, who fired tear gas to quell the protests.
In recent years, Kashmiris, mainly youths, have displayed open solidarity with turbans and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street festivities during military operations.
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04/26/2018
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[KhaamaPress] A local leader of the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... group identified as Mujahid was killed in an Arclight airstrike conducted by the US forces in southeastern Paktia province of Afghanistan.
The 203rd Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military in the Southeast said the airstrike was carried out in the vicinity of Aryub Zazai district in Tank area.
The source further added that Mujahid son of Sur Gul was a local leader of the Taliban group in Paktia province.
In the meantime, the Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military said at least two holy warriors were killed during a clash in Andar district of Ghazni.
According to Thunder Corps, the clash broke out in the vicinity of Arzoo Post area of the district between the security personnel of the first brigade the the Taliban holy warriors.
At least two holy warriors were also maimed during the clash, the Thunder Corps said, adding that two Ak-47 rifles and a cycle of violence were also destoyed during the clash.
The anti-government armed bad boy groups including Talibs have not commented regarding the report so far.
[AlMasdar] The Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... forces launched a massive offensive inside 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... ’s Jizan region, yesterday, targeting several areas under the control of the Saudi-led Coalition.
Houthi troops began the offensive by storming the al-Jalah area in the Jizan, scoring a new advance after a fierce battle with the Saudi-led Coalition.
According to the official media wing of the Houthi forces, their units managed to destroy at least seven Saudi armored vehicles with their ATGMs, while also killing and wounding more than 20 Coalition fighters.
[Inquirer] Ten-year-old “Tony” has recently gone back to school, in a madrassa where he can continue learning Arabic — and be a child again. Only four years ago, he lugged around an M4 assault rifle and was attacking and evading government troops an Abu Sayyaf militant.
The boy was no ordinary fighter and was deemed one of the sharpest among the 30 young combatants under the command of Motong Indama, a younger cousin of Abu Sayyaf leader Furudji Indama.
Tony recalled, "The training took about a year.I was taught how to handle a gun. The [Abu Sayyaf members] were so happy with me that they called me the Tipo-Tipo sniper."
Tipo-Tipo is the town in Basilan that his group had tried to overrun in 2016, setting off battles that dragged on for three months.
When Motong surrendered in July 2016, Tony was one of the 11 among his men who followed. The boy now lives with his uncles under the close supervision of Sumisip town officials.
In an interview, Tony said his mother died after being “shot by a soldier” while she was bathing in a river. His father and three elder siblings were later killed in “another military operation.”
The orphan was only 6 when his brothers took him along to join the Abu Sayyaf, then led by Motong and subleader Radsmil Jannatul.
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04/26/2018
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Anbar (Iraqinews.com) – An Iraqi court has sentenced four Islamic State (IS) militants to death over carrying out terrorist attacks against military outposts in Iraq.
The Anbar Criminal Court found the four IS militants guilty of standing behind assaults on security and military posts in Fallujah and Ramadi districts in Anbar, the media service of the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Alghad Press.
Today’s ruling is not final and can be challenged, according to the statement.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered to form rapid intervention squads in the western province of Anbar as confrontations with militants seem to recur over the recent period.
IkhNews website quoted Qatari al-Obaidi, a senior commander of the tribal mobilization forces in Anbar, saying Wednesday that Abadi, the supreme commander of the armed forces, made directives to form four rapid intervention regiments of the force to assist in security work alongside government troops.
According to Obaidi, the regiments will consist of 600 fighters each, will receive training by government forces and will be supplied with modern arms and combat vehicles. He noted that “the new squads will answer to the prime minister and subordinate security officials, and will be tasked with preserving security against Islamic State militants”.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Three policemen were injured in a blast caused by a landmine, west of Anbar, a security source from the province said on Wednesday.
“A landmine from the remnants of Islamic State war went off while a security patrol was passing in Akashat region in Qaim town, on the borders with Syria, west of Anbar. Three personnel were wounded,” the source told BasNews.
“Security troops headed to the accident spot and combed the area fearing presence of more war remnants,” the source added.
“The regions of Qaim, al-Karabla, Ebeidi and Akashat still have many war remnants, that were not handled due to difficulty to locating them at the agricultural and desert regions or near residential areas.
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04/26/2018
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[AlMasdar] Minutes ago, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), alongside several Palestinian paramilitary fighters, entered another subdistrict in southern Damascus, following an intense battle with the Islamic State (ISIS).
Led by their Republican Guard, the Syrian Arab Army and their Palestinian allies reportedly entered the Al-Midaniyah Subdistrict of southern Damascus after they broke-through the Islamic State’s first line of defense near Al-Qadam’s Al-Asali neighborhood.
Intense clashes are now ongoing in northern Al-Midaniyah, as the Syrian Arab Army attempts to seize the entire southern quarter of the Al-Qadam District.
Meanwhile, east of Al-Qadam, the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Division is attempting to advance in southeastern Hajar Al-Aswad amid heavy resistance from the Islamic State.
Thus far, the Syrian Army has managed to liberate some buildings in southeast Hajar Al-Aswad; however, the terrorist forces in the area have inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing troops.
[AlMasdar] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their Palestinian allies have scored advances along several axes in southern Damascus, today, despite facing heavy resistance from the Islamic State (ISIL).
Led by their Republican Guard, the Syrian Arab Army continued their advance in the Al-Ma’edhiyah Subdistrict, seizing more buildings that were under the control of the Islamic State near the Al-Asali axis.
The Syrian Army is now advancing towards the Islamic State’s southern Damascus headquarters that is located in Hajar Al-Aswad.
Meanwhile in Al-Tadamon, the Syrian Army and their Palestinian allies liberated more ground in the Al-Baradi and Al-Baradat neighborhoods, giving control of more than 50 percent of this southern Damascus district.
[AlMasdar] The Syrian Army, backed by paramilitary forces and Palestinian fighters, continues to break through ISIS defense lines in the southern districts of Damascus in bid to reclaim the last insurgent enclave.
The government forces are deploying heavy fire-power to storm the heavily-fortified neighborhoods. Troops initiated the ground invasion after shelling the area with artillery, missiles and airstrikes.
Footage posted online shows part of the clashes taking place in al-Hajar al-Aswad and Yarmouk Camp where the Syrian Army unleashes the highly-destructive Golan 1000 ground-to-ground missiles.
[AnNahar] Syrian regime air strikes have killed six civilians in southern Damascus where government forces are fighting the Islamic State group, a war monitor said Wednesday. The six, including two men and their wives, were killed in the strikes on the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk late Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Regime strikes and rocket fire Wednesday morning targeted the neighbouring districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Qadam, the Britain-based monitor said.
The latest civilian deaths bring to 18 the total of non-fighters killed in regime bombardment on the capital's southern neighbourhoods since Thursday last week.
Yarmuk, which is now IS's last urban redoubt in Syria or Iraq, was once Syria's biggest Palestinian refugee camp, home to around 160,000 people. But the United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA says most of the 6,000 refugees still living in the camp last week have since fled.
At least 52 pro-regime fighters have been killed in fighting to expel IS from the capital's southern suburbs since April 19, the Observatory says. Syrian officials do not usually disclose losses within army ranks.
The monitor has said at least 35 jihadist fighters were also killed during the same period.
There are an estimated 1,000 IS fighters left inside Yarmuk and the adjacent districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Qadam.
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04/26/2018
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[FoxNews] The Charlotte Observer reports 40-year-old Jennifer Ann Jasmaine says in the lawsuit that chaplains at the all-male Lanesboro Correctional Institution have violated her constitutional rights by restricting when, where and how she can practice Wicca, the religion based on ancient pagan beliefs.
Jasmaine also says Lanesboro refused to provide her with the foods Wiccans are supposed to eat.
[AAWSAT] The Public Prosecution in Bahrain presented on Tuesday new damning evidence against Bahraini suspects held for their involvement in the Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... spy case.
A hearing at the High Criminal Court meanwhile said that it will announce a verdict in the case on June 21.
The prosecution accuses each of Ali Salman, Hassan Ali Jomaa Sultan and Ali Mahdi al-Aswad with spying for Doha.
The High Criminal Court had continued its proceedings on Tuesday, looking into charges that the defendants had "collaborated with a foreign country to commit hostile acts against Bahrain." They sought to "undermine its political and economic status and its national interests for the purpose of toppling the ruling regime."
The charges also include "passing defense secrets to and accepting money from a foreign country in exchange for providing it with military secrets and information about the internal situation in Bahrain and spreading rumors abroad to weaken the financial confidence in the Kingdom and undermine its standing," reported the Bahrain news agency (BNA).
The general prosecutor said that the court held an open session on Tuesday according to the law. The first defendant and his lawyer were present, while the second and third suspects were absent.
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04/26/2018
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[Dhaka Tribune] The Taliban ...Arabic for students... announced the start of their annual spring offensive on Wednesday, dismissing an offer for peace talks by President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. but pledging to focus on US forces in Afghanistan.
The announcement of the Al Khandaq campaign, named after the so-called Battle of the Trench, fought by the Prophet Mohammad (Pbuh) to defend the city of Medina in the early days of Islam, marks the symbolic start of the fighting season.
But heavy fighting has been going on in different parts of the country and hundreds of people have been killed and maimed in a series of high profile attacks in Kabul since the beginning of the year, despite Ghani’s offer in February for peace talks "without preconditions."
The Taliban, in their statement on Wednesday, dismissed the peace overtures as a "conspiracy."
"Their main effort is to deviate public opinion from the illegitimate foreign occupation of the country, as the Americans have no serious or sincere intentions of bringing the war to an end," the Taliban said.
The bad boys, fighting to restore their version of strict Islamic law to Afghanistan, said the campaign was a response to a more aggressive US military strategy adopted last year, which aims to force the forces of Evil into peace talks.
"Its primary target will be the American invaders and their intelligence agents. Their internal supporters will be dealt with as a secondary target," the Taliban said.
Thousands more US troops have been sent to Afghanistan to help train the army, and commanders have been given greater authority to carry out air strikes against the forces of Evil in a major reversal of the previous policy of phased withdrawal of American forces.
As in previous years, the Taliban pledged to protect the lives of civilians, and made no mention of incidents such as an attack it claimed in Kabul in January in which an explosives-packed ambulance blew up, killing about 100 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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#9
Beseoker, they already have the Osprey, so exploring the gunship lite option, and I repeat myself, "...seems a worthwhile idea."
The more important thing is that maybe, just maybe, the USMC is recovering from the Transformationalist mania that they descended into in the 90's. Their Revolutionary systems such as the Osprey, the F-35, and the EFV have all been troubled -- if not disastrous flops. So a dose of Evolutionary programs is a pleasant surprise.
#10
#8 Hornetizing comes to tilt-rotorland.....Posted by: USN, Ret.
Yesss... Retiring the A-6 and F-14 so we could go "one airframe to rule the heavens" F/A-18 seems to prove again that "multi-role does not necessarily mean multi-capable."
[Rooters] Hundreds of Central American migrants colonists from a caravan that crossed Mexico reunited in Tijuana on Wednesday and planned to cross the border together this weekend in defiance of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... to repel them.
The timing of the migrants colonists arrival could compromise a flurry of talks this week to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump has repeatedly threatened to scrap if Mexico does not crack down on the flow of Central Americans through its territory.
Busloads of migrants colonists began arriving on Tuesday at a shelter that was a five minute-walk from the border and within sight of a U.S. flag waving under an overpass connecting the two countries.
Moslem colonists Migrants said they fled their homes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because of death threats from local gangs, the murder of family members or political persecution.
Moving from town to town, the migrant caravan became a stumbling block for U.S.-Mexico relations after Trump unleashed a series of tweets in early April, telling Mexican authorities to stop them.
Local migrant aid groups said it was the biggest single group they had seen arrive together as they scrambled to find places in ten shelters.
Volunteers from U.S.-based advocacy group Pueblos Sin Fronteras, which organized the caravan, addressed the migrants colonists to discuss a plan to cross together the main pedestrian bridge into the United States on Sunday.
Tensions flared after a Mexican immigration official suggested they go in smaller groups to the border station.
Some 2,300 miles across the United States in Washington, D.C., Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray met with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to discuss Central American migration, the Mexican ministry said in a statement.
Ministers from Mexico, Canada and United States also met in the U.S. capital as they rushed to seal a quick deal on updating NAFTA.
It was unclear if concerns about immigration could affect the talks. On Monday, Trump threatened to make immigration controls a condition in the NAFTA talks and demanded that Mexico stop people from crossing its territory to enter the United States.
#10
How nice, our very own version of The Camp of Saints. Will the fed gov have the stones to do anything about it? Despite the talk, I'm gonna bet no.
#13
Perhaps the fabled UA 571-C Automated Sentry Gun
might be in order.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/26/2018 15:59
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#14
#1 - Ding, Ding, Ding!
If no trade vehicles, pedestrians, or (MORE IMPORTANTLY) cash transfers/remittances, were to go away for a couple days...Mexico might start to find a way to stop this shit
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2018 20:42
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#15
Maybe they are just heading to Tijuana for the fabled donkey show. Posted by rjschwarz
A bit late. I attended the last performance in 1972.
Very odd that Iraqi Shiite irregulars would care about unrelated Shiite fighters in faraway Yemen, even if they are both essentially on the Iran government payroll.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraq’s Shia-dominated Popular Mobilization Forces mourned on Wednesday the death of a big shot of the Yemeni Ansarullah (Houthi) movement.
In a statement by the PMF’s media, deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes mourned the death of Saleh al-Sammad, chairman of the Supreme Political Council, a body governing Houthi-held areas of Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... that also comprises members from the General People’s Congress, the formerly ruling party.
Sammad was killed along with six other companions in Hudaida province in an air raid by the Saudi-led Arab alliance fighting Houthis last Thursday. His death was officially declared on Monday.
In the statement, Mohandes counted Sammad’s death as a loss " for the whole nation in the face of the arrogance and plots by Saudis and their allies and in face of Wahhabism and terrorism," a reference to the mainstream Islamic discipline in Sunni-ruled 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... Mohandes said Sammad’s liquidation "will not weaken the will of the Yemeni people" in face of what he labelled as "the Saudi aggression".
[TheHornNews] Showing off her gold commissioner’s badge and bragging about her political influence during a profanity-laced tirade at two police officers, a hotshot Democratic lobbyist with deep political connections bit off more than she could chew.
That behavior may work in the Washington, D.C. swamp ‐ but it won’t work with beat cops.
Video of Caren Turner’s reaction to her daughter’s routine traffic stop over Easter weekend went viral on Tuesday ‐ and it’s a distrubing glimpse into the contempt Democrats have for our police. Turner, who was formally a chairwoman of Hillary Clinton’s election finance committee, was swiftly fired from her position at the New York / New Jersey Port Authority after public outcry over her behavior.
In the video, Turner belittled the officers and demanded they tell her why her car was being pulled over and being impounded. She attempted to intimidate the two Tenafly officers with her political connections. She complained that their stop had "ruined" her holiday weekend and that she would be calling the police commissioner personally.
The officers didn’t flinch ‐ and after the video was released following media requests, Turner was forced to resign as head of the Government and Ethics committee and Port Authority’s Operations committee.
Turner is a top Democratic lobbyist that is shuttled between Washington, D.C. and her home in Tenafly, New Jersey, one of the wealthiest areas of the country. She was appointed to the high ranking Port Authority job after Democratic pressure on former Gov. Chris Christie to put more women in top positions.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
04/26/2018
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#1
The officers didn’t flinch
Knowing it was all on dash cam, they loved every minute of it.
#2
Showing off her gold commissioner’s badge and bragging about her political influence during a profanity-laced tirade at two police officers, a hotshot Democratic lobbyist with deep political connections bit off more than she could chew.
Golly, that usually works. I must be outside the swamp.
#5
Are you sure that's not a Hillary clone? Cause aside from the height, that looks like a Hillary clone.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/26/2018 8:00
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#6
The People Who Want To Run Your Life™
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/26/2018 9:29
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#7
Yep. The mask comes off and you can see them for the narcissistic tyrants they are. They want to run your health care, take your money and keep you powerless and dependent on them and you will love them for it!
[IsraelTimes] Wanted men likely still in the country, say cops, who admit they have yet to identify the assassins in hit blamed on Mossad
Malaysian police on Wednesday released a photograph of one of two suspects in the killing of a Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, rocket and drone expert, saying they have yet to identify the pair, who may still be in the country.
Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh, 35, was killed on Saturday in the country’s capital as he walked to a mosque for dawn prayers, according to Malaysian authorities. His family and the Hamas terror group have blamed the hit on Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Israel has denied the claim.
The photograph showed a light-skinned man with dark wavy hair, eyeglasses, and a goatee.
"We believe the suspects are still in the country," said National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun during a presser at the Royal Malaysia Police headquarters.
Earlier in the week, Malaysian police issued facial composites of two suspects in the shooting and described the men as around 1.80 meters tall, well-built, with fair complexions, saying that they were believed to be of Middle Eastern or Western descent.
Harun said police did not yet know the nationalities of the suspects, or from where they arrived in Malaysia.
"We have yet to identify them, but we suspect that they used a fake identity either when entering the country or when they were here," he said said and noted they were believed to have entered the country some time in January.
Harun said the killing was "professionally done" but declined to comment on the suggestion that it was carried out by Israeli agents.
[DAWN] The Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. High Court (PHC) on Wednesday, wrapping up a petition submitted by the father of an Army Public School (APS) attack victim, ordered that former Jamaatul Ahrar ...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough... (JuA) and Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain (TTP) front manEhsanullah Ehsan ...formerly the front man for the Pak Taliban, then the lips and tongue of the Jamaatul Ahrar splinter group in Mohmand Agency... remain imprisoned while he is undergoing trial.
In the petition, the victim's father had asked the court to ensure that Ehsan is not pardoned as he had grabbed credit for the 2014 attack on Peshawar's APS in which at least 144 people, mostly children, were killed.
Ehsan, a TTP spokesperson until 2014, joined the splinter group JuA following a split in the TTP. The army in April 2017 announced his surrender to security forces and released a 'confession video' of Ehsan in which he claimed that terrorist organizations were being "used" by India and Afghanistan.
Fazal Khan, the father of another APS victim, had petitioned the PHC in 2017 against Ehsan's release as he believed the government intended to give clemency to the ex-militant who is reportedly in the custody of security agencies. Subsequently, the PHC in December last year barred the government from releasing Ehsan.
A two-judge bench comprising justices Qaisar Rashid and Ikramullah Khan today stated that if Ehsan had taken responsibility for the TTP-claimed APS attack, "the parents of the victims ─ and not the state ─ hold the right to pardon him".
During the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Musaratullah Khan assured the court that the government does not plan to release Ehsan anyway as he is already undergoing an inquiry.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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[DAWN] The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday overturned the acquittal of Axact chief executive officer Shoaib Sheikh and other officials of the company in the fake degrees case by a sessions court.
A two-member bench of the court comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb announced the verdict on an appeal of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against the acquittal.
Ordering a retrial of the case, the IHC ordered the sessions judge Islamabad (West) to decide the matter after hearing all the arguments afresh.
See: The spectacular crash of Shoaib Sheikh's digital empire
However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... the court extended some relief to the accused by leaving open the option for them to submit new surety bonds to secure bail and avoid arrest.
During a hearing of the appeal last month, a law officer of the federal government had requested the IHC to order retrial of the Axact CEO and other officials of his IT company because they had been acquitted by a district and sessions judge after receiving a bribe.
Deputy Attorney General Raja Khalid Mehmood Khan had said that despite admission of additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) Pervaizul Qadir Memon that he had taken a bribe for issuing a favourable verdict, the judgement was still intact.
Besides Axact, Sheikh also owns Bol TV network.
ADSJ Memon had acquitted Sheikh and others in the fake degrees case on October 31, 2016. Later the judge was sacked on February 15, 2018 due to his admission of receiving Rs5 million bribe for acquitting the accused.
Axact first came into the limelight in 2015 when a New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... report titled "Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pak Company Axact Reaps Millions" outlined how the "secretive Pak software company" had allegedly earned millions of dollars from scams involving fake degrees, non-existent online universities and manipulation of customers.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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[KhaamaPress] An kaboom took place in the second police district of the city earlier this evening after a magnetic improvised bombexploded near the police forces.
A front man for Kabul police commandment Hashmat Stanikzai confirmed the incident and said the blast take place in the second police district of the city.
He said a magnetic bomb exploded close to Abdul Rahman mosque and as a result one policeman was maimed.
The site of the kaboom is located in the heart of the city considered as the key downtown part and is home to several government compounds as well as the route to the main Kabul bazaar.
[AlAhram] Egypt’s military and police forces have killed 30 Islamist "takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... s" and jugged You have the right to remain silent... 173 suspects in a week-long offensive to crush holy warriors in central and northern Sinai, a military spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Three army officers were killed and an officer and a solider were maimed in festivities with snuffies during raids over the past week, Colonel Tamer El-Refai said in the 20th communique on Operation Sinai 2018, which was published on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian armed forces.
The raids come under the framework of Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018, a counter-terrorism campaign which involves the army, navy, air force and police.
The operation was launched in February to target "terrorist and criminal elements and organizations" in north and central Sinai, parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert.
Over the past week, the Egyptian army killed Naser Abu Zakul, emir of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's Egyptian affiliate Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, as well as four "extremely dangerous" elements, and eight "takfiris" in northern and central Sinai.
Another 173 suspects have been arrested, El-Refai said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the game, the Babe headed for second base. He almost made it. Then Sheila slapped him.... in the North Sinai capital city of Arish, police potted another 17 "takfiris," he added.
The air force, which has been conducting Arclight airstrikes in northern and central Sinai since the operation started, destroyed three hideouts used by snuffies near Egypt's northeastern border and destroyed 10 vehicles loaded with weapons near the western border.
Security forces also destroyed 437 hideouts and caches in several parts of the country while military engineers discovered and destroyed 74 bombs planted to target forces at various sites, El-Refai said.
They also uncovered and destroyed 38 farms used to grow illegal narcotics in central and northern Sinai and near the western border, the statement said.
[IsraelTimes] After call for German Jews to stop wearing kippahs in cities, Aviv Zonabend, Jewish member of Toulouse ...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France... council, says the advice should be followed throughout Europe
A Jewish deputy mayor of the French city of Toulouse said Wednesday that all European Jews should stop wearing yarmulkes in public, claiming that "the future of the Jewish people in Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... is hopeless" after a series of high-profile attacks on Jews.
Asked during an interview about a statement issued Tuesday by a prominent Jewish community leader in Germany advising people against wearing Jewish skullcaps in big cities, Aviv Zonabend said: "Only in Germany? I think we need to remove the kippahs in all of Europe."
"My son wears a kippah, but I prefer that he wear a hat on top," he said. While he himself isn’t religious and therefore doesn’t wear one, he does wear a pendant bearing a Star of David but usually hides it under his shirt.
Zonabend, the only Jewish member of the Toulouse city council, revealed during a Hebrew-language interview with Israel’s Army Radio that his office received an envelope with white powder several weeks ago, adding that "we still don’t know what the substance is."
"The situation in Toulouse is quite difficult," Zonabend lamented. He said there are "very many, too many" Arabs in the city, making up 11-12 percent of its population.
On the other hand, there are "very few" Jews, he said, adding that about 600 families have left Toulouse and immigrated to Israel in the last five years.
"Anti-Semitism in Europe, in La Belle France, in Toulouse is no longer just by the far-right, but from political Islam," Zonabend said, saying Moslems in La Belle France had "violently" opposed a public letter condemning anti-Semitism.
The open letter published Sunday in the Gay Pareeien newspaper blamed "Islamist radicalization" for what it said was "quiet ethnic purging" in the Gay Paree region, with abuse forcing Jewish families to move out. It called for certain passages of the Koran to be removed on the grounds of rising anti-Semitism.
Zonabend said many Moslems in the municipality were having "difficulty" accepting his outspoken Zionism. When he travels to Tel Aviv, a "sister city" of Toulouse, to promote joint projects, "it disturbs them. They say ’why don’t you also go to Ramallah or Paleostine to do the same?'"
But Zonabend also accused Israel of making it hard on French immigrants colonists by not recognizing professional diplomas acquired in La Belle France and requiring them to take additional courses in Israel, saying this practice amounted to the country "not accepting" the French aliyah.
#1
"The situation in Toulouse is quite difficult," Zonabend lamented. He said there are "very many, too many" Arabs in the city, making up 11-12 percent of its population.
#1
Probably no big deal. Embassies are supposed to deal with passports, and they're probably delivered to them in the mail before they give them to US citizens who need them.
One thing bugs me:
Ms Mitchell dialled 999 and claims a police call handler told her to place the 20 passports in the bin, before their supervisor backtracked on the advice.
Do they really have folks with room-temperature IQs handling police calls?
Well, actually, two things bug me about this statement. The English apparently spell "dialed" funny.
#4
Best story about the UK was that a bunch of people were calling 911 in emergencies because they'd watched to many US tv programs. I believe they needed a citizen awareness campaign.
Should have just had 911 forward folks to 999, why fight it and risk confusing people.
[Ynet] Jerusalem and Washington worried cargo planes are transporting weapons from Tehran to Damascus which could be used against Israel amid Iranian threats of retaliation for T-4 base attack.
Israel and the United States suspect a series of cargo flights from Iran to Syria may be transporting weapons to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... and Iranian forces in his country, CNN reported on Wednesday.
Jerusalem and Washington are worried the cargo planes could be carrying arms that would be aimed at Israel.
Among the flights that caught the attention of US intelligence were two flights by Syrian Air Force IL-76 cargo jets and at least one of an Iranian cargo jet, according to CNN.
A YK-ATD plane has been making regular flights between the two countries in the wake of the Western strike. A look at its flight routes shows the plane took off last week from Damascus to Tehran, a two hour flight. Six hours later, the plane was back in the air returning to Syria, but this time to an airport in Aleppo, north of Homs. After several hours on the ground, the plane took off again to a Syrian air force base in Damascus. This unusual flight route was repeated at least three times over the past week, and it is believed the plane was transporting military equipment from the Revolutionary Guards to Assad's forces.
Another Syrian cargo plane, a YK-ATB, has also been making regular flights over the past week between Aleppo and Damascus.
While arms transfers between Iran and Syria are not unusual, American intelligence has been monitoring these flights in light of Iranian threats to retaliate for an attack on the T-4 airbase in Syria, which has been attributed to Israel.
Seven Iranian military personnel involved in the Revolutionary Guards' drones program were killed in the strike, which led to an escalating exchange of threats between Iran and Israel.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the target of the strike was an advanced Iranian air-defense system that was recently installed at the base.
An intelligence official speaking to the Journal said Trump administration "is working with Israel to blunt Tehran’s expanding influence in the Middle East."
Russia’s daily Kommersant newspaper, citing unnamed military sources, reported on Monday that Russia might start supplying the anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria in the near future.
Kommersant said that experts believed that Israel would react negatively to any decision to supply the missiles and might bomb the area where they would be deployed.
A Russian diplomat told Rooters on Monday that Israel has asked Moscow not to supply the Syrian military with the advanced S-300 missile systems.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned on Tuesday that if Syria uses Russian-made air defense missiles against Israel, the IDF will strike back.
"What's important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won't be used against us," Lieberman told Ynet in an interview. "If they're used against us, we'll act against them."
[AAWSAT] The Arab coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... said on Wednesday that slain Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... commander Saleh al-Sammad was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemenis and posed a threat to 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... Coalition front man Colonel Turki al-Malki said that he was also behind the firing of ballistic missiles from Yemen.
"He was responsible for threatening Saudi Arabia and marine navigation," he told a presser in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
He warned that "any dangerous escalation from the Houthis will only accelerate their demise."
Furthermore, Malki said that the Iran-backed Houthis have so far fired 125 ballistic missiles towards Saudi Arabia. The rockets have all failed in reaching their targets after being intercepted by the Kingdom’s air defenses.
"The Houthi militias have arbitrarily fired missiles at Saudi Arabia," he stressed.
Sammad was killed last week in a coalition air strike in Yemen’s Hodeidah region.
He was head of the so-called Houthi political council and the second most wanted figure on a list released by the Arab coalition.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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[AAWSAT] Chemical weapons inspectors collected on Wednesday more samples from the Syrian town of Douma, three weeks after a regime chemical attack in the area that left at least 40 people dead.
Making a second visit to the area, they collected samples from a new location hit by a gas attack on April 7.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said all the evidence collected in Douma will be brought back to its labs on the outskirts of The Hague.
"They will be split and dispatched for analysis by the OPCW designated labs," the body said.
An earlier visit took place on Saturday after the inspectors were delayed for days from getting to the town, just east of Damascus, over security reasons. The delay prompted accusations that Russia and Syria may have tampered with evidence at the site.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2018
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#4
The peculiar Spanish requirement (also in Mexico) that civilian owned firearms can't use military issue rounds has helped keep my fetish caliber .38 Super alive. As for a butcher with a confiscated snubby revolver, I'ma heading for the parking lot...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/26/2018 10:21
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#5
Out here when someone dressed like that takes off his glasses, it translates to "Now what is thisbull-shit."
[MedPageToday] Something most of us know intuitively, that mentally fragile people tend to get worse after taking cannabis, amphetamines &/or opoids. Study comes from Denmark, which collects such statistics very carefully. Of interest are the "HR"s - "Hazard Ratios"
Hjorthoj and colleagues also examined amphetamine and opioid misuse, which had stronger associations with conversion than did cannabis use:
Cannabis: HR 1.30 (95% CI 1.01-1.68)
Amphetamine use disorders: HR 1.90 (95% CI 1.14-3.17)
Opioid use disorders: HR 2.74 (95% CI 1.38-5.45)
#5
Part of the problem is that the drug-using corner of the internet is full of claims that pot is absolutely harmless, and that all scientific reports to the contrary are the lies of fun-hating Puritans.
The other part of the problem is that exactly those mentally fragile individuals most at risk are blind to the fact that they mentally abnormal. My girlfriend’s schizophrenic son, the one who murdered his grandmother at the orders of St. Michael because she was a zombie, insisted that he was perfectly sane and not in need of treatment until after he had been forcibly medicated for months while in jail awaiting trial. He reports that some of the residents on the prison psych ward still will stop taking their meds, because even in prison —in Pennsylvania at least — they cannot be forced to take their daily pills until they have yet again become psychotic.
#8
That would be the truth, yes. You can buy really powerful pot at a recreational dispensary. OTOH you can buy really potent booze at a liquor store. Neither is very good for a psychotic to consume.
#9
This is my problem as a libertarian. Freedom versus someone is gonna overdo it and we have to deal the fallout (medical expenses or really damaging votes).
US Coast Guard offloads 13 tons of illicit drugs seized in the Pacific Ocean
Operations were conducted off shores of Mexico, Central and South America, part of a ‘Western Hemisphere Strategy’implemented in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean
The Canadian Navy helped the Coast Guard in some of the seizures
The drugs have a combined street value of nearly $1billion
#6
1 billion, 1 trillion, doesn't matter because they can't confiscate it and sell it at action to get that money. They'll probably use the numbers to justify increasing their budget.
[Ynet] A British-Iranian academic was detained in Iran by the country's Revolutionary Guards in mid-April, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran reported on Wednesday.
Abbas Edalat, a professor of computer science and mathematics at Imperial College in London, had travelled to Iran from his home in London at an unknown date for academic purposes, according to CHRI.
At least three other British-Iranian dual citizens are known to be held in the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
[IsraelTimes] Marcio Franca says visiting Lebanese delegation was not vetted properly, and that he was not familiar with Sheikh Bilal Mohsen Wehbe
The governor of Brazil’s Sao Paulo state apologized to the Jewish community for welcoming a Moslem clergyman accused of having ties with Hezbollah.
Gov. Marcio Franca welcomed Sheikh Bilal Mohsen Wehbe as part of a Lebanese delegation visiting the state government headquarters on April 17. On Saturday, Veja magazine’s online edition revealed that the meeting took place and that the sheikh "is the main representative of the terrorist group Hezbollah in South America."
A day later, the Sao Paulo Jewish Federation released a statement condemning the meeting.
"Unfortunately, Gov. Marcio Franca and his team ignored the organization’s links to smuggling and drug trafficking in the Triple Frontier region between Brazil, Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... and Paraguay, as well as its radical stance calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, and gave legitimacy to a group recognized as terrorist by countless democratic countries," the statement said, referring to Hezbollah.
Franca apologized to Jewish officials that he welcomed on Monday, including the president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, the country’s umbrella Jewish organization. During the meeting organized by Congressman Floriano Pesaro, who is Jewish, the governor said he was not familiar with the names in the Lebanese delegation and admitted that "the check may have been flawed."
"Lebanese-born and naturalized Brazilian Wehbe took on this role after Mohsen Rabbani was forced to flee from Argentina accused of having been the architect of the AMIA attack," Veja wrote.
The federation criticized the fact that "the highest authority of our state" welcomed the sheikh, who appears on a US government watchlist of terrorists.
[Ynet] Analysis: If thousands of Gazooks leap to their feet undauntedly from the new tent line and start running towards the fence, the corpse count from Israeli fire will grow to hundreds. Those who cross the fence will run amok into Israel to evade the fire. And that’s the exact outcome Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", is hoping for.
They call it "The March of Return." We refer to the military activity on the Gazoo border fence as "the gatekeepers." These are two sides of the same coin. They march, we guard. They initiate, and Israel responds.
In the past week, Israeli officials have been trying to create the impression that "the gatekeepers" have overpowered the "March of Return." Fewer people are flocking to the the fence protests; Hamas has failed. That’s a dangerous delusion.
Continued on Page 49
[AAWSAT] Human rights groups raised the alarm Wednesday the "abusive" policy adopted by Greece to continue containing asylum-seekers on its islands.
Greek authorities are trying to legislate curbs on migrants colonists’ movements to try to cancel out a court ruling on April 18 that individuals landing on Greek islands should no longer be held there.
Lawmakers started discussing the legalization on April 24.
"Containing asylum seekers on the Greek islands in substandard and appalling conditions that violate their rights and Greece’s international obligations cannot be justified for migration control purposes," 21 human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesia Amnesty International, said.
"Greece’s abusive containment policy was put in place in March 2016, with the support of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and its member states."
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“Awfully nice Europe you’ve got over there — sure would be a shame if we couldn’t afford to keep this new lot of refugees bottled up here.”
[AnNahar] Nearly 30,000 Afghans have arrived in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... in the last three months, the Ottoman Turkish government said Wednesday, after Amnesia Amnesty International criticized the authorities "ruthless" decision to send more than 7,000 back to Afghanistan.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 29,899 Afghans had crossed into Turkey since January compared to 45,259 people in the whole of 2017, state news agency Anadolu reported.
"In recent months, we are facing a new refugee wave, especially from Afghanistan," Soylu said, adding that 1,328 people smugglers had been caught by April.
Ottoman Turkish authorities have sent back 7,100 migrants colonists to Afghanistan since early April, rights group Amnesty said on Tuesday, as it denounced the "ruthless deportation drive."
"Thousands more are in detention, being treated more like criminals than people fleeing conflict and persecution," Anna Shea, Amnesty researcher on refugee and migrants colonists rights, said in a statement.
Moslem colonists Migrants from Afghanistan and other countries affected by conflict and poverty often use Turkey as a transit country in the hope of reaching Europe.
According to Amnesty, there are 145,000 Afghans in Turkey.
The country is also home to more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, as well as more than 300,000 Iraqi refugees, who have fled conflicts in their respective countries.
75,284 migrants colonists have so far reached Turkey in 2018 compared with 172,745 last year, Soylu said in a speech in the southern city of Adana.
[AlMasdar] The Russian Aerospace Forces launched several Arclight airstrikes over the southern countryside of Idlib, today, targeting a number of towns controlled by the jihadist rebels.
According to a military source in nearby Latakia, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched more than 30 airstrikes over southern Idlib, hitting jihadist targets in the towns of Zakat, al-Sakhar, al-’Arbeen, Kafr Nubl, Habit, and Kafr Sajnah.
The targeted areas were primarily gathering points for the jihadist rebels that are reportedly preparing to launch a large-scale offensive against the Syrian government forces in southern Idlib and northern Hama.
[AlMasdar] For the first time in seven years, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is in full control of the Qalamoun Mountains.
With the last rebel forces leaving the eastern slopes of the Qalamoun Mountains, the Syrian military was able to secure the this entire rugged region near the Syrian capital.
The eastern Qalamoun region had long been under the control of the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) and Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... before they finally agreed to concede it to the Syrian military earlier this month.
Since clearing the Qalamoun Mountains, the Syrian military has shifted their attention to the last krazed killer bastion in southern Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a final convoy of 60 buses had arrived in the northern province of Aleppo.
The buses carrying hundreds of fighters and civilians made it to the northeast of the province, which is controlled by pro-The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... rebels, the Britannia-based monitor said.
[AAWSAT] Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned on Tuesday that his country may strike the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems in Syria if they are used against Israeli jets.
"What’s important is that defense systems being supplied by Russia to Syria aren’t used against us," Liberman said.
"One thing needs to be clear: If someone shoots at our planes, we will destroy them. It doesn’t matter if it’s an S-300 or an S-700," he added.
The defense minister noted that Russia already has its own S-300 air defense system in Syria, along with the more advanced S-400 system, and that "hasn’t limited our operations."
Lieberman said that the S-300 are already being operated on Syrian soil, though they are only being used by the Russians and not being employed against Israel.
He added that Israel will not allow an Iranian foothold in Syria, saying that this is the principle guiding Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
[National Review] The more Mueller searches for hypothetical lawbreaking, the more he ignores the actual lawbreakers. The country is about to witness an investigatory train wreck.
[CNN] The mayor of Flint, Michigan, reacted to a federal lawsuit which claims donors were directed away from a charity for victims of the city's water crisis and toward a fund sharing a name with her campaign fund Wednesday, calling the allegations "outrageously false."
[Task & Purpose] Do you remember when the defense industry could actually build airplanes? Not just build airplanes, but mass produce them in large numbers?
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ‐ A new Indiana law that requires medical providers who treat women for complications arising from abortions to report detailed patient information to the state "imposes unique and burdensome obligations" that are unconstitutional, Planned Parenthood said in lawsuit filed Monday that seeks to block two of the law’s provisions.
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
[Breitbart] Although the far-left CNN buried its big news under 15 paragraphs of excuse-making for the latest anti-gay scribblings that surfaced on MSNBC anchor Joy Reid’s old blog, what more does anyone need to know than the following: "The Library of Congress ... contains the disputed posts and lists them as having been archived on January 12, 2006."
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
[Ynet] Ahmed Abu Hussein, 24, who worked for 
[SCMP] The collapse after five nuclear blasts may be why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared on Friday that he would freeze the hermit state's nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site, one researcher said. 
Kirkuk (Iraqinews.com) ‐ Pro-government troops of al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) denied on Wednesday media reports about armed 
[DAWN] Police on Wednesday exhumed the body of an Italian national of Pak origin over claims she had been murdered by relatives in a so-called 'honour' killing, in a case that has made headlines across .jpg)
[DAWN] An Indian soldier, a counterinsurgency police official and a suspected
[Inquirer] Ten-year-old “Tony” has recently gone back to school, in a madrassa where he can continue learning Arabic — and be a child again. Only four years ago, he lugged around an M4 assault rifle and was attacking and evading government troops an Abu Sayyaf militant.
[FoxNews] The Charlotte Observer reports 40-year-old Jennifer Ann Jasmaine says in the lawsuit that chaplains at the all-male Lanesboro Correctional Institution have violated her constitutional rights by restricting when, where and how she can practice Wicca, the religion based on ancient pagan beliefs.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
[
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
...formerly the front man for the Pak Taliban, then the lips and tongue of the Jamaatul Ahrar splinter group in Mohmand Agency...
[DAWN] The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday overturned the acquittal of Axact chief executive officer Shoaib Sheikh and other officials of the company in the fake degrees case by a sessions court.
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Ynet] A British-Iranian academic was detained in Iran by the country's Revolutionary Guards in mid-April, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran reported on Wednesday.
[Ynet] Analysis: If thousands of Gazooks leap to their feet undauntedly from the new tent line and start running towards the fence, the 
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
