#2
Gary Johnson was just a businessman who entered the state's governor's race among the usual long time and uninspiring Trunk party hacks. He won the nomination. He then face the long established incumbent Governor King (D), beating him as well. He went on for two term. Left the state with a surplus which was immediately wiped out by his successor Bill Richardson (D). Since then he's taken a turn to the definite strange.
...Can Trump mislead much more than did Obama, who assured Americans that they would never lose their doctor or health plan but rather save money and have better care, and that pulling peacekeepers from Iraq would ensure a stable and self-reliant country? Obama, remember, also bragged abroad that he had all but closed Guantanamo within a year and would stop the Bush habit of piling up more debt? After Ben Rhodes and Jonathan Gruber, what exactly are the presidential standards on veracity that we must hold Trump to?
...Can Trump act any less constitutionally than has Obama? Will he scan existing law, and order his attorney general to enforce some statutes but ignore others? Will he boast that "I won" and thus has a pen and a phone to sign treaties with foreign countries without Senate ratification? Will Trump, in Obama fashion, threaten to cut off federal funds to cities that believe in biologically identified male/female restrooms, while encouraging other cities to defy federal immigration law? Sanctuary cities in California, but not in North Carolina? Are we back to 1860 and state nullification of federal law if and when the president wishes it?
...Trump certainly has wacky ideas. But will he promise to ensure that the coal industry goes out of business, or electric rates will skyrocket, or will his energy czar hope that our gas prices reach European levels? Does he plan to double the national debt in eight years or dismantle the existing health care system? Will Trump praise and subsidize a failing coal company as iconic of the country’s future in the manner that Obama coronated the soon-to-be-bankrupt Solyndra? Will he brag that setting and then ignoring red lines for Syria were among his greatest foreign policy moments?
...The point is not to whitewash Trump’s crudity and outlandishness, but to explain why it so far has not eliminated him as a candidate. Obama’s outright destruction of presidential protocols created candidate Trump. The media, which in Faustian fashion mortgaged its soul to empower Obama, has now lost all credibility as a legitimate critic and arbiter of the dangers of narcissism, half-educated pop knowledge, polarizing politics, and demonization of one’s critics.
Sadly, nearly every gross thing Trump says or does has had an antecedent in the Obama administration. "Hope and Change" begat "Make America Great," in a tit-for-tat way that Trump’s likely garish convention props will mimic Obama’s Styrofoam Greek columns. After Obama dismissed ISIS as jayvees by invoking Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, we should not be too outraged that Trump cited an endorsement from Mike Tyson.
#1
This reminds me of the "it's Bush's fault" crowd. It's not obama's fault and the press can just keep looking until they figure out what Main Street America is pissed about. The entire congress is a rats nest of corruption, insest, greed. We see it, like being naked in the street, they know we now see them in their true skin of greed and self serving corruption.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
05/09/2016 18:14
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[Right Wing] There’s nothing more amusing than seeing the Obama Media Lapdogs spin things to protect Dear Leader. Obama will be the first president to never see a year of 3% GDP growth. And guess whose fault it is? The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt tells blames us
The economy’s real drag: Us
American consumers aren’t what they used to be -- and that helps explain the plodding economic recovery. It gets no respect despite creating 14 million jobs and lasting almost seven years. The great gripe is that economic growth has been held to about 2 percent a year, well below historical standards. This sluggishness reflects a profound psychological transformation of American shoppers, who have dampened their consumption spending, affecting about two-thirds of the economy. To be blunt: We have sobered up.
[Huffpoo's World Post] What do you do after you brought your party’s control of government to a dramatic end? You become an international scold and blowhard, blaming the world’s problems on everyone else--who have no ability to solve any of them.
In fact, has-beens and once-weres often are brought in as decorations for international gatherings, meant to add gravitas to the proceedings. A few years back I shared an elevator with former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was speaking at Qatar’s Doha Forum. He said nothing of note either in private or public, but exuded the air of a man who still mattered.
It turns out he’s the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, which must be as superfluous a position as exists. People recognized the importance of schooling long before there was a UN. And there’s not much the global organization can do for a service that can only be delivered locally. Indeed, in poor countries schools tend to get worse the more the national government is involved. Inexpensive private schools often are the only hope for the most disadvantaged and marginalized people in the most impoverished and oppressed nations.
However, Brown unburdened himself in the Huffington Post, and the subject wasn’t education. Rather, he said we all are responsible for the depredations of Nigeria’s murderous Boko Haram. Really. "The World Should Be Ashamed of the Failure to #BringBackOurGirls," he titled his article.
It’s been more than two years since the group--which has attributes of both insurgency and terrorism--kidnapped 276 girls from the town of Chibok. Boko Haram is an Islamist-jihadist group; its name roughly means "Western education is forbidden." The militants kill moderate Muslims but typically target Christians, as in Chibok. They usually slaughter male students, but often capture girls for sex slaves, child wives, and suicide bombers. Despite promises from the Nigerian government, proffers of Western assistance, and a twitter campaign led by First Lady Michelle Obama, none of the girls have been rescued.
#2
Of course "the West" is responsible. If "the West" didn't feed and doctor them, their populations wouldn't exceed the carrying capacities of their natural habitats.
#3
I'm delighted you see it my way g(r)om. I'm shunning meds, but I would consider a guilt recovery group for seniors. I realize it's a private matter, but how are you managing to cope ?
#5
I, for one, am totally surprised and devastated that a hashtag war on an Islamist Militia by a bitter greedy racist grifter didn't succeed.
#Whodathunkit?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 9:25
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#6
The girls from the school in Chibok were far from the only girls stolen by Boko Haram to sell as wives and concubines, not to mention the boys taken to be made into fighters. The number rescued over the past few months must be heading into the multiple thousands by now.
[Daily Beast] TAMPA, Florida -- She worked on and off for five years identifying targets for the U.S. military's Central Command.
And then, when, some believe, she spoke up about cherry-picked intelligence in the ISIS war, she was drummed out of her job--allegedly for cursing twice in the span of the year.
Those were just some of the surreal allegations thrown around last week in a Tampa law office conference room turned into a quasi-courtroom.
Had the case not involved the third-highest ranking person at the Defense Intelligence Agency, a two-star general, a military judge, and hours of testimony--all at a cost of thousands of dollars--it would have been hard to take seriously. Even with those high-ranking officials, at times it was hard not to do a double-take about what was happening.
After all, if cursing were really a fireable offense in the military, every soldier, sailor, Marine, and Defense Department civilian would have to be sent home.
The case suggested that, at CENTCOM, there are two wars being waged: one against ISIS and a separate internal fight between whistleblowers and commanders. This all came to the fore during a rare public hearing last Wednesday before the government appeals board, brought by a subordinate of Gregory Ryckman, the top-ranking civilian at CENTCOM's Joint Intelligence office, known as the J2.
#1
Perhaps the Central Command Inspector General could use some outside assistance. Please make a few SES parking spots, desks. secure phones, and NIPR/SIPR laptops available sometime in the Jan-Feb time frame. Badges and access to the Mole Hole as well please. Nothing left to chance. Three to six months is all that should be necessary. Yes, weekly reporting to the CG, new DnI and Attorney General.
No Inter-Agency transfers or PCS's, retirements, or terminations of anyone above the rank or equivalent pay grade of 03 until this is fully concluded. Please everyone, just stick around for a bit if you would.
When the 'assistance team' is finished in Tampa, they'll be moving on to Washington D.C. and IRS headquarters. Following that, possibly Foggy Bottom and the VA. The list appears to be endless.
#2
Lousy reporting. One must go more than a dozen paragraphs down before discovering the 'who' that governs the proceeding:
"Stewart is appealing that decision to the United States Merit System Protection Board, a quasi-judicial agency in which federal employees suspended more than 14 days can appeal their cases."
As for the hearing itself, we can guess the outcome:
"The board is supposed to be independent, but the statistics suggest otherwise. It has found in favor of the Defense Department in 99.7 percent of cases put before it, according to the latest statistics."
Posted by: Albemarle Prince of the Chinese7177 ||
05/09/2016 9:23
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#3
"The board is supposed to be independent, but the statistics suggest otherwise."
Ever hear of the saying "live by the documentation, die by the documentation"?
[Daily Caller] Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri pushed for unity among the various terrorist groups operating in Syria Sunday in a video posted online, his first public address since January.
The video was an apparent attempt by the Osama bin Laden successor to counter the ongoing presence of Islamic State as the premier Sunni terrorist group, as well praise the rise of the Nusra front, an al-Qaida affiliate, which has seen massive gains in Syria filling the void left by ISIS as it continues to lose territory.
"We have to want the unity of the Mujahideen in Sham (Syria) so it will be liberated from the Russians and Western crusaders," said al-Zawahiri in his video address. "My brothers ... the matter of unity is a matter of life or death for you."
Al-Zawahiri condemns ISIS as "extremists," reinforcing al-Qaida’s well-known disdain for the rival group. Though ISIS originated from al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), the group splintered in 2013 to form its own independent terrorist organization. The two organizations share a similar radical Islamic ideology, however, they vehemently disagree on tactics and strategy.
#2
"But remember that only I can wear the Curly Toed Slippers™!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 12:10
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#3
No worries. With the world hunting ISIS but ignoring Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, unity will occur when there aren't enough ISIS memebers to maintaino a separate organization. And then we will all go back to hunting Al Qaeda"s various branches.
[Breitbart] Britain’s largest Islamic charity says it wants to "break down barriers" and portray Islam positively by launching a new advertising campaign which will slap the phrase "glory to Allah" on the side of London buses.
The new campaign by Islamic Relief is, ostensibly, targeted at raising donations for their Ramadan aid to Syria, but is attracting attention for the "hundreds" of buses which will be decorated with the phrase "Subhan’Allah", or ’Glory to Allah’.
Muslims reading the advert are told that to "gather the rewards of Ramadan", they must to donate to Islamic Relief, and organisation which had its accounts with banking giant HSBC closed due to "concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad".
Public transport has been chosen for the Islamic re-branding in London, Manchester, Leicester, Birmingham, and Bradford ‐ all UK locations with high and growing Muslim populations, reports the Sunday Times.
#2
I thought this might be the new Mayor's first official act.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/09/2016 7:27
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#3
At first glimpse one would think a bus marked in Arabic would be a safe transport.
Then I found "Subhan’Allah" is really a prelude to the Tasbhih of annihilation and ascension. I can only imagine this marketing scheme will incense the already unstable faithful.
#4
About fifteen years ago the UK Charity Commission investigated allegations made against charities in the UK. There were then some 185,000 registered charities in England and Wales, and analysts knew that at least a dozen were penetrated by terrorist organizations. The Commission report indicated that there was nothing to worry about. Since then, John Bull has stuck his head in the sand, or up his... Londonistan has finally become a reality.
Posted by: Albemarle Prince of the Chinese7177 ||
05/09/2016 15:31
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#5
Someone should follow up this 'Glory to Allah' with one with the exact same banner - but also featuring that picture of the Israeli bus. Glory to Allah indeed.
[Breitbart] New York City mayor Bill de Blasio says the federal government is not helping Puerto Rico with its debt delinquency because the U.S. territory is populated by "people of color."
The New York Post reports that de Blasio made this accusation while speaking at Al Sharpton’s activism org, the National Action Network.
"The backs of the United States government turned on them, while a health-care crisis grows, a humanitarian crisis grows, the Zika crisis grows," he said in a speech at the National Action Network in Harlem.
"By the way, brothers and sisters, do you think by any chance it could be because they’re people of color?"
Puerto Rico defaulted on a nine-figure debt payment this past Monday. According to Bloomberg, hedge funds hold $15 billion of the Caribbean island’s debts. De Blasio is putting pressure on Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to let the territory declare bankruptcy. As reported by Crain’s New York:
#1
"By the way, brothers and sisters, do you think by any chance it could be because they’re people of color?"
Nope. You've got the cart before the horse. IIRC when bailout talks were running for NTC back in the Seventies, the NY Post ran a front page with the (Ford) administration's position - Drop Dead. Is Mr de Blasio implying only some white people grasp fiscal responsibility?
#4
As Spc. Abraham 'Doc' Johnson said in Hamburger Hill, "I Am Not Your Brother..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2016 11:10
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#5
This is a good example of how bad ideas get implanted, then grow like cancer.
Affirmative action was sold as a way to right past wrongs. Once that idea took hold, we moved on to white privilege. Now whites can be asked to endure anything, and everyone else gets a free pass on everything. Not even slavery was so insidious.
#7
First rule of Advertising & PR: When you don't like what they're saying about you, change the subject. This is Billy Dee's clumsy attempt to throw off the hounds from his own scandals.
Posted by: regular joe ||
05/09/2016 12:19
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#8
Arithmetic be white.
I'm pretty sure it's Arabic.
Affirmative action was sold as a way to right past wrongs.
Ummm...I believe it was a strategic economic policy proposed by Johnson's Council of Economic Advisors to boost the income of the tax paying classes faster than generational population growth.
[Breitbart] Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos sat down with "America’s Toughest Sheriff" Joe Arpaio last week to discuss pink underwear, sanctuary cities, and the size of Donald Trump's heart
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona discussed the intersection of his career in law enforcement with his career in politics. Arpaio, who has introduced Donald Trump at several of his campaign rallies, is considered to be one of the Republican front-runner's closest allies.
Arpaio is perhaps most famous for his decision to force the inmates of Maricopa County to wear pink underwear, a change he implemented to combat an issue with prisoners stealing underwear upon their release. According to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website, Arpaio's decision to move to pink underwear drastically reduced theft and saved county taxpayers over $70,000 in the first year that the change was implemented.
Yiannopoulos pressed Arpaio about the immigration issues facing America and asked how his experience as the Sheriff of Maricopa County has influenced his perspective on the subject. He claimed that sanctuary cities "[cover] up violations of the law," and claimed that "it sets a bad example" for other types of criminal violations to be excused. He condemned Sen. Ted Cruz's plan to take away federal funding from sanctuary cities, and instead suggested cutting off foreign aid to the home countries of offending parties.
#3
Cruz's plan to take away federal funding from sanctuary cities
I firmly believe services offered by sanctuary cities should be funded through mandatory local donations rather than tax-seized capital.
[CNN] Donald Trump says Puerto Rico has "far far too much debt," and the U.S. government shouldn't bail out the island.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee calls himself the "king of debt." His long career has included four bankruptcy filings by his companies. But he says Puerto Rico has gone too far and there's only one way out: cut spending.
"I wouldn't bail them out," Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
Puerto Rico is in crisis mode. It has run up $70 billion in debt, a staggering amount for an island of under 3.5 million people.
As usual, the F-35 crowd hiding behind the "Apples vs. Oranges" crap.
J. Michael Gilmore, the U.S. Defense Department's top weapons-tester, confirmed on April 26 that the Pentagon will conduct a head-to-head test of a new F-35 stealth fighter and an old A-10 attack jet in the close-air-support mission.
Critics of the high-tech, budget-busting F-35 and fans of the tried-and-true A-10â--âa rugged, purpose-built ground-attack planeâ--âapplauded the announcement.
But at least one person is not pleased. Lt. Col. Joshua Wood, an F-35 pilot and the commander of the U.S. Air Force's 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevadaâ--âthe unit responsible for developing new tactics for the F-35, A-10 and other front-line Air Force fightersâ--âtold Combat Aircraft that the test will not be helpful.
"You run the risk of drawing unrealistic conclusions," Wood told reporter Steve Davies, who has done excellent work on the 422nd TES and F-35 tactics.
Wood stressed that it was not up to him to decide whether there would be a test. "Dr. Gilmore is the quality assurance check on the military's acquisition system," Wood said. "With that in mind, he wants that comparison" between the F-35 and the 1970s-vintage A-10.
Actually, Congress more than anyone else wants the comparison. Lawmakers have repeatedly blocked the Air Force from retiring its roughly 300 A-10s in order to free up a few billion dollars for F-35s.
Wood's problem with the F-35-versus-A-10 test, he told Davies, is that the two planesâ--âone, single-engine, fast and flimsy; the other twin-engine, slow and sturdyâ--âare too different for a direct comparison. "What I would say is that it's very important to compare apples to apples."
"When you try to have a comparative analysis of a single-mission platform like the A-10 against a platform like the F-35, which is fundamentally designed from the ground up to do something completely different," Wood added, "you run the risk of drawing unrealistic conclusions."
Citing War Is Boring's summer 2015 publication of a leaked test report describing a mock dogfight between an F-35 and a much older F-16â--âa trial in which the nimble F-16 performed much better than the more sluggish F-35 didâ--âWood continued:
"Take [basic fighter maneuvers], for example. You fly off a 'clean' F-16 against a 'clean' F-35â--âwho will win? That's a difficult question to answer. In some parameters, the F-16 is going to dominate. It's a day [visual flight rules] fighter that can turn inside its own butt."
By contrast, Wood said, "the F-35 was built with stealth to be able to go places that no one else can go and to be lethal without anyone seeing it. Those are two very different design points. So, what if I draw a conclusion that the F-35 can be [out-maneuvered] by the F-16â--âtherefore the F-16 is better? Hmmm. Well, let's throw in a couple enemy [surface-to-air missiles]. Then let's see how the F-16 by itself does."
"In other words," Wood concluded, "you can design tests if you have inside knowledge to showcase strengths and weaknesses and abuse them to your own bias if you wanted to do a disingenuous comparative analysis."
To be clear, Wood's squadronâ--âwhich works for Air Combat Commandâ--âwill not be the one conducting the F-35-against-A-10 trial. That job belongs to the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, which works for the overall Air Force.
But Wood offered what could turn out to be a preview of the test's resultâ--âthat both the F-35 and A-10 can do close air support. But they would do it differently, especially against a well-armed foe with radars and air-defense missiles.
The slow, non-stealthy A-10 flies very lowâ--âdown to 100 feetâ--âin order to avoid detection by enemy sensors. "A-10 guys don't like radar threats," Wood said. "We enjoy the tactics that they force, being down at 100 feet, but when you pop over that ridgeline and you're exposed, you are just sitting there trundling towards the target thinking, 'Don't find me. Don't find me. Don't find me. Okay, good. Bombs are off. Let's get the Hell out of here.'"
With its speed and stealthâ--âespecially compared to the A-10â--âthe F-35 can come in high. "I am able to locate and plot the threat relative to the target and can assess whether an attack is tactically feasible or not. If it is, I can take out the target without the threat knowing I'm there and egress without being targeted."
Likewise, while the A-10 carries more than a thousand rounds of ammunition for its powerful 30-millimeter cannon, the F-35 carries just 181 rounds for its own 25-millimeter gun. So the A-10 can shoot its gun in support of ground troops, but the F-35 might rely more on small, precise bombs.
That doesn't worry Wood. He cited statistics from Afghanistan that show that a wide range of aircraftâ--âincluding bombers that don't even have a gunâ--âhave flown close-air-support missions. "Day after day, we've executed CAS with zero rounds."
#1
...I feel sorry for LTCOL Wood. Right now, the few -35s in the USAF inventory are being tended 24/7 by handpicked LockMart/USAF crews and the results still ain't good (one test about a month ago under the most favorable conditions imaginable got ONE -35 out of six off the ground after a day of trying). If that can't be beat, then all the Hog has to do is show up.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/09/2016 5:25
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#2
How about allowing the end user/customer (Army) do the evaluation? Or better yet, just move the mission and resources directly to the end user.
When designing and conducting tests, intimate knowledge of the systems being tested allows the outcome to be pre-ordained. Ran many tests of computer systems in my career and it was easy to design them to give the desired answer.
The problem is deciding what, in an objective world, the correct answer is.
Here is the scenario for both planes:
Call goes out for CAS. Pilots jump in planes and depart to target area. Smoke has marked one target. Hit target. Loiter over area for more targets from the ground controller. Hit targets. As eyes above the ground be able to spot hostile movement and adjust fire and relay intel to ground forces. Fly home. Damage assessment and how close you came to the target with your weapons will be graded.
Pretty easy and something the A10 does every day. If the F-35 can take over, it should be able to accomplish the above fairly easily.
I bet it can't which is why the pilot mafia has their panties in a bunch.
#7
Darth, somehow I doubt that the AF is going risk one of their precious, oh so expensive F-35s flying down in the weeds just to help a few ground pounders.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/09/2016 10:53
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#8
Let's put the f16 and f15 through the same tests and judge them by how well they strafe...
#10
USAF preordained tests: Went to a Red Flag exercise with a bunch of intruders; 2 of them were painted an experimental desert mottled tan;
we sent both as a section and they jumped the Ascot boys. When they got back the 2 star running the show told our C.O. he couldn't fly those two birds together again. Overhead photos showed the tan birds invisible against the ground.
sad when a bomb truck can take out a F-15/16.
#11
Yer doing it wrong. Want to show off your shiny new plane? Fly it head-to-head against the A-10 in an air superiority exercise. That will show those warty Warthog lovers!
#13
The damn plane was pitched as a dual use aircraft to be used as a ground support aircraft. It was sold to replace the A10. Just like every fighter prior to it, the Air Force lied to get their new toy. They are good at this. I remember the F16 was sold as a ground support aircraft. Then the f18 and on and on. But then on delivery they are hard configured for aerial combat only. When called out the Air Force standard reply is that the aircraft is a ground support bird but it's not configured for it and it will take bundles of money to reconfigure. This stunt is getting old.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
05/09/2016 18:20
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#14
That's because people keep defining ground support as strafing form fifty feet when that's no longer a viable strategy against opponents with AA missiles.
#15
They lost six A10s in a three week period in Desert Storm before they were reassigned to areas without AA support. That was against the monkey model Soviet stuff from 1990.
#9
I haven't the patience or forgiveness I used to have for those who've established a pattern of choosing to be obnoxious, though this time it was not I that deleted the comment in question.
GUJRANWALA: The main accused involved in the murder of former PML-N MPA Rana Shamshad Khan was killed in an encounter with police here on Saturday.
City Police Officer Muhammad Waqas Nazir said that the former MPA along with his son and a friend had been murdered a few months back.
A special police team had been formed to arrest main suspect Tariq Patwari. On Saturday, police on a tip-off raided a house near Nafah Tower, but the accused opened fire. The police returned the fire, killing Patwari on the spot.
TWO GET LIFE-TERM: FIA’s special court judge Malik Nasrullah Awan awarded life-term imprisonment to two accused involved in a fake account case here on Saturday.
FIA deputy director Khalid Anees said that Kanwal Jeet Kaur had submitted an application against National Saving Center manager Mazhar Farooq, Zahid Iqbal, Muhammad Saleem and Azeem.
He said the FIA team investigated the matter and found all the four accused guilty of charges.
He said accused Mazhar Farooq was awarded 14-year jail-term with a fine of Rs50,000 and Zahid Iqbal 16-year imprisonment with a fine of Rs50,000 while accused Saleem and Azeem were awarded two-year each jail-term.
Video report at the link
Syrian rebels on Sunday fired rockets into a regime-held district of Aleppo, killing three civilians and wounding 15, a monitoring group said.
They were the first casualties since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday in the battleground northern city where regime forces control western districts and the rebels are entrenched in the east.
The ceasefire is due to expire at 2101 GMT on Monday.
It comes as world powers push for a wider cessation of hostilities between rebels and regime forces and a resumption of UN-brokered peace talks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a woman and a child were among the three civilians killed when the rebels rained rockets down on several districts of western Aleppo city.
Fighting in Aleppo flared up late last month, and more than 300 people have been killed in the violence.
Meanwhile, displaced families returned home and schools reopened in Aleppo on Saturday after the truce was extended for 72 hours in the city. Residents trickled back into eastern areas of Aleppo, encouraged by a halt in the deadly violence, an AFP reporter said.
“I decided to come home after relatives told me it was calm,” father-of-six Abu Mohammed said.
“We left because it was carnage here. The air strikes were incredible,” said the resident of the rebel-held Kalasseh district.
Schools in Aleppo’s east reopened on Saturday after staying closed for more than two weeks.
“There were many bombings so our parents got scared and stopped sending us to school,” one schoolboy told AFP.
A monitor reported rebel shelling of areas in western Aleppo but said there were no casualties.
Russia’s defense ministry said the truce had been extended “in order to prevent the situation from worsening” just minutes before an initial 48-hour truce was due to expire.
“The regime of silence in the province of Latakia and in the city of Aleppo has been extended from 00:01 (local time) on May 7 (2101 GMT Friday) for 72 hours,” a ministry statement said.
At least 28 militants were killed and 19 others were wounded in the latest air and ground operations of the Afghan National Security Forces, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said.
“In the last 24 hours, as a result of the joint clearance operations of the Afghan security and defense forces aimed to topple down the insurgents and protect the lives and property of people , 78 armed insurgents were killed, dozens were wounded and 6 arrested,” MoD said in a statement.
The statement further added that the operations were conducted in a number of the districts of Kunar, Nangarhar, Laghman, Paktia, Maidan Wardak, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Balkh, Herat, Jawzjan, Baghlan, Kunduz, Takhar and Helmand provinces.
The joint operations were supported by heavy artillery and Air forces, MoD said, adding that 45 insurgents were killed, 80 others wounded in Ghaziabad district of Kunar.
MoD also added that 10 others were killed in Chardara district of Kunduz, while 2 ISIS loyalists were killed in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
According to MoD, at least 3 others were killed in a separate operation in Keshk Kohna district of Herat and 5 others were killed in Paktia.
At least 5 more were killed in and 4 others were wounded during another operation conducted in Wardak province, MoD said, adding that 4 more were killed in Takhar and Zabul provinces and 4 others were wounded.
“Afghan National Army as National Defense Forces for the protection of peoples’ lives and properties and for defeating and eradicating terror groups, will fight the enemies vigorously and are ready to give sacrifices for bringing lasting peace and stability to people,” the statement said.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the reports so far.
At least 45 militants were killed and around 80 others were wounded in a failed Taliban coordinated attack in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan.
The Afghan National Army (ANA) 201st Silab Corps said the militants were killed during the gun battle with the Afghan forces in Ghaziabad district.
A statement by 201st Silab Corps said the coordinated attack by Taliban on several security posts in Ghaziabad was successfully repulsed by the Afghan forces.
Earlier, the local officials said at least 28 Taliban militants were killed and 30 others were wounded during the clash.
The officials further added that a member of the Afghan National Army lost his life and three others were wounded in the attack.
The Taliban group spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid earlier claimed that two Taliban militants were killed and five others were wounded during the gun battle with the Afghan forces.
Mujahid also claimed that eleven soldiers of the Afghan National Army were killed and several others were wounded during the clash.
Kunar is among the volatile provinces in eastern Afghanistan where anti-government armed militants are actively operating in its various districts.
The province is also home of various foreign insurgents as they are routinely crossing the Durand Line from the tribal regions of Pakistan to stage attacks.
"Multiple dead kops". You know what that means, kids. ISIS is on their way
There is confusion over claims that there have been a spate of organized assassinations of police and army officers in Tripoli over the last few days.
The media, and especially social media, have been full of claims and counter claims that there have been eight assassinations in the capital over four days. These social media claims have also included a list of people allegedly assassinated during a four-day period. The list includes the name of a female officer.
The head of Tripoli Security Directorate, Salah Alsumouy, however, has refuted the claims.
It has been pointed out that at least two of the names on the list circulating on social media are fake names, whilst other names on the list were assassinated at other times and outside the capital.
Residents in Tripoli have pointed out that the dead are usually accompanied by funeral and burial rites pretty promptly in a Muslim society – which have not been reported in the capital. They see these as politically motivated, trumped up allegations to discredit the capital’s security situation.
Alsumouy’s rebuttal of the assassinations, on the other hand, have been dismissed as an attempted cover-up. Critics and enemies of the Presidency Council (PC) and Government of National Accord (GNA) are pointing to the alleged assassinations and likening Tripoli to Benghazi in the pre Hafter period.
This is the period when there were assassinations in Benghazi of security personnel on an almost day basis. They are using the allegations to show the weakness and ineffectiveness of the PC/GNA in imposing security in Tripoli.
ISIS, Al Qaeda, Shiite inspired by Iran? Or possibly a Saudi citizen unhappy about suddenly having to actually work for a living amid rising prices.
A security spokesman of the Interior Ministry has stated that an attempt to carry out a terrorist act against a police station in Haddad in Bani Malik, Taif province has been aborted.
According to the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, security officers on duty at the police station monitored an attempt by two people to infiltrate into the car parking area of the police station at one o'clock in the morning yesterday, Saturday, May 7th, who, when they realised they were being monitored, started firing a machine gun, escaping after an exchange of gun-fire, in a vehicle that was waiting for them.
After crashing their vehicle, they fled on foot and took refuge in one of the mountainous residential areas in the village of Thaqeef where they were surrounded and the area was searched with the help of residents.
The security spokesman said that the exchange of fire resulted in the martyrdom of a soldier, Saeed Dahibish Al-Harthy, and the seizure of an explosive belt and nine pipe bombs which were dismantled by specialists. Field follow-up is on-going and any further details will be duly announced.
(IraqiNews.com) Dohuk – An informed source in Qandil region asserted on Sunday, that Turkish warplanes attacked a number of border sites in the province of Dohuk, while pointed out that the attack caused the destruction of forests and orchards.
The source said in a statement received by IraqNews.com, “The Turkish warplanes attacked, today, the areas of Ainza, Boolean and Khobian located in Qandil Mountains,” noting that, “The Turkish air raid lasted for about two hours.”
The source added, “The [aerial] bombardment caused the destruction of forests and orchards,” explaining that, “The strike had sparked panic among the local population.”
Turkish warplanes destroyed bunkers, gun emplacements, and ammunition depots belonging to the terrorist PKK organization in northern Iraq early Sunday, Anadolu agency reported. Military sources said that Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes against the PKK between 2.00 and 4.30 a.m. local time Sunday in the northern Iraqi regions of Qandil, Medina, Zap, and Gara.
Turkish F-16 and F-4 2020 warplanes safely returned to base after hitting exact positions held by the PKK in the region and destroying its bunkers and gun ammunition.
At least 15 Afghan nationals have reportedly been killed during a clash with the Syrian rebels near the Syrian city of Aleppo, it has been reported.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said has said the Afghans who were killed during the clash were among the Iranian-backed militia fighters.
The monitor said at least six from Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shi’ite movement and 15 Afghan Shi’ite fighters were killed during the clash.
Earlier, Tehran said thirteen Iranian soldiers were killed in a battle with Islamist militants over a village near the Syrian city of Aleppo.
This comes as earlier reports emerged that suggesting Iran has sent thousands of Shia Afghans to Syria to fight for support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
According to the estimates, the number of these fighters is between 10,000 to 12,000 who are mainly illegal immigrants.
The reports also added that Iran has promised citizenship to these fighters and improving the living conditions of their families besides each of these fighters are paid from $400 to $600 monthly wages.
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#1
Shia volunteers from Afghanistan have been fighting in Syria for several years now. Somewhere between 300 and 1000 have been killed.
Hezbollah has also been in Syria engaged heavily since 2012 and somewhere between 1000 and 3000 have been killed.
In addition, hundreds of Shia Iraqis, Palestinian, Iranian and even Pakistani volunteers have been killed fighting for Assad.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/09/2016 8:06
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I've been trying to piece the news reports together about the fight in Khan Tooman. Seems like 50+ Iranians, 6 Hez, and 15 Afgans were killed in an ambush recently. Sounds like IS pulled off the ambush. Not entirely sure.
#5
You'd think Afghans have enough opportunities to engage in combat without having to leave their own country.
A lot of them are from the western part of AFG; they are generally 'immigrants' or refugees in Iran. One can suspect that the offer to be a Basiij volunteer was a) more money than one earns stacking bricks or sitting in a refugee camp, or b) better than spending years in an Iranian prison.
[ARA News] DUHOK – Radical group of the Islamic State (ISIS) has imposed siege on over 2,000 families from two villages south of the city of Fallujah, most of them are women and children, arresting dozens of young people from the two villages, official sources in the Iraqi army said on Sunday.
ISIS is reportedly using civilians as human shields to prevent the progress of the Iraqi army forces to Fallujah.
“The Iraqi army is ready to liberate the two villages and lift the siege imposed by the terror group on the people,” the army said in a statement.
In this regard, the military command of the Iraqi army in Anbar province announced in an official statement that the Iraqi troops were able to destroy several headquarters for ISIS in the region, and dismantled 45 explosive devices in different parts of the province [Anbar].
The Iraqi jets also destroyed ten ISIS-led cars in an airstrike in the area of Amiriyat al-Fallujah in the Anbar province, killing at least 20 ISIS jihadis and injuring dozens more, according to Salim al-Jaberi, a military commander in the Iraqi army.
Speaking to ARA News, Iraqi activist Saif Zahra said: “It seems that the military operations in Anbar province, specifically in Fallujah, have reached the stage of direct clashes with ISIS terrorists, especially the latter would not leave the city easily after two years of control.”
“With the support of the US-led coalition forces, the Iraqi army forces started to intensify their military operations to undermine the group’s power and reduce the death toll among the stranded civilians in the city,” he argued.
Fallujah has been under ISIS control since early 2014 after the withdrawal of the Iraqi security forces. Residents of the city suffer house arrest imposed by ISIS extremists, according to local sources.
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[DAWN] The security forces in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! an Afghan Border Force (ABF) personnel from Pishin district of the province on Sunday, it has been learnt.
Security sources said that law enforcement personnel along with of officials of an intelligence agency conducted a raid in Pishin Bazar area and apprehended the ABF official.
Important documents and explosives were recovered from the possession of the Afghan forces personnel, sources added.
"The Afghan official was tasked to carry out subversive activities in Balochistan," the security personnel alleged.
The ’spy’ was assigned the task to carry out terrorist activities in Chaman, Pishin and Quetta on the directives of senior Afghan army official, they stated.
The ABF official was shifted to some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location for further interrogation.
This arrest comes few weeks after the arrest of two Afghan intelligence officials from Balochistan last month.
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A number of military experts believe President Ashraf Ghani's order to suppress militants is not being properly implemented.
They said that the president is "messing with people's minds" by giving the order but not implementing it on the battlefields.
"Unfortunately, what the president has announced is not put into practice. Currently security forces in Deh Rawud district are under siege and the president is playing with the public's minds," said Jawed Kohestani, a military expert.
It has been 13 days since the president has ordered the security forces to suppress militants, but any tangible change on the battlefields is not being seen.
Security forces in Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces are on the defensive, while in Baghlan province more forces are needed to eliminate militants.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) meanwhile assured the public of an increase in operations against insurgents.
"The fighting is very serious, a strong resolve has taken shape and we have a 15 percent rise in operations and we will launch a large-scale operation in 30 districts in the next six months," said Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the MoI.
A number of experts however are optimistic about the implementation of the order.
"I think that the president has defined a new prospective about the war and we will soon see the results on the battleground," said Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, former deputy minister of interior.
A number of security officials believe that war is the only solution for Afghanistan's dilemma.
"War is the only solution. They (militants) don't even care about their mothers and fathers," said Abdul Rahman Sarjang.
The experts believe that the president's order has heralded new hopes that militants will be eliminated. They stressed that if the order is not implemented, public trust in the president will dwindle.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] ISIS in Iraq has trapped around 2,000 families in two villages south of a city in the western province of Anbar, and is using them as human shields, local media reported the head of a police department as saying on Saturday.
"The terrorist organization ISIS has trapped around 2,000 families, most of the people are women, children and elderly in Albu Hawa and Hasi in the northern al-Amiriya district south of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... " Lieutenant Colonel Arif al-Janabi, the head of the police district, told the local Anbar News outlet.
ISIS also enjugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! dozens of young men from the two villages, Janabi added.
"ISIS is using people of the two villages as human shields and not allowing them to leave," Janabi added, describing "the security forces and tribal fighters" as being "ready to liberate these two villages and break the siege."
The city of Fallujah was seized by ISIS in January 2014. With an estimated population of 90,000, it is the Lion of Islam group’s stronghold in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
Last month, the Iraqi government approved aid to be delivered to people in Fallujah after a long siege.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Three Turkish soldiers were killed in a kaboom Sunday in the southeast of the country, where the military is waging an offensive against Kurdish rebels, a military official said.
Two of the soldiers were killed instantly when the device -- which the official said was planted by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters -- went kaboom! in the city of Nusaybin as troops were trying to defuse it.
Another soldier who was badly injured later died of his wounds in hospital, the source told AFP.
The military has been battling for months against Kurdish fighters in Nusaybin, and eight PKK Death Eaters were killed there on Saturday, according to a military statement.
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ANKARA : Turkish shelling killed 55 Daesh insurgents in northern Syria on Saturday evening, military sources said, in retaliation for weeks of rocket attacks on a Turkish border town.
Artillery fire hit the regions of Suran and Tal El Hisn north of Aleppo, as well as Baragidah and Kusakcik, taking out three rocket installations and three vehicles in addition to the killings of the militants, the sources said on Sunday.
Earlier on Saturday, US-led coalition air strikes in Syria killed 48 Daesh militants, according to a report from state-run Anadolu Agency.
The Turkish border town of Kilis, which lies just across the frontier from Daesh-controlled territory of Syria, has been regularly struck by rockets in recent weeks.
Kilis is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Aleppo, Syria’s embattled, biggest city and the biggest strategic prize in a more than five-year-old civil war.
The Turkish military usually responds with artillery barrages into northern Syria, but officials have said it is difficult to hit mobile Islamic State targets with howitzers. Turkish officials have said they need more help from Western allies in defending the border.
So far, about 20 people have been killed and almost 70 wounded in the rocket fire on Kilis, Anadolu said.
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(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Sunday the commander of Anbar Operations Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi announced, that 14 ISIS members had been killed and three booby-trapped vehicles were destructed south of Fallujah.
Mahalawi said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aviation backed by Anbar Operations managed to shell a gathering of ISIS members, as well as destructing three booby-trapped vehicles driven by suicide bombers near al-Salam intersection south of Fallujah.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Sunday, official journalists with the Ministry of Defense announced the destructing of ten vehicles belonging to the so-called ISIS and killing of 20 militants by an air strike in Amiriya Fallujah.
The journalists said in a brief statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Sukhoi aircraft destructed ten vehicles belonging to ISIS in an air strike conducted by the security forces in Amiriyah Fallujah area in Anbar Province.”
The statement added, “The air strike also resulted in the killing of 20 ISIS militants.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The commander of Anbar Operations Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi announced on Sunday, that the security forces destructed a headquarters belonging to the so-called ISIS and dismantled 45 improvised explosive devices in Anbar.
Mahalawi said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “A force from Anbar Operations managed to destruct a headquarters belonging to ISIS and a vehicle carrying a machine gun, while killed four ISIS members near al-Salam intersection south of Fallujah.”
Mahalawi added, “Another force from the army dismantled 45 improvised explosive devices and found equipment and communication kits in the Modern Village northwest of Ramadi.”
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London- Well-informed Iranian sources exposed a recent massacre taking down over 50 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members belonging to the Quds Force division. The Iranian soldiers were reportedly killed in Aleppo during the Khan Tooman battles over the last few days.
Quds Force headquarters in the northern Iranian province of Mazandarann issued a statement urging the people of Iran to keep unruffled, given that the statement made no clear mention of the assessed losses. According to the statement, the Quds Force members were killed by a “proxy war against Iran”.
On the other hand, media-exchanged information indicates the death-toll number to be in dozens. Iranian daily, Jaam-e Jam, also reported deaths taking place in Aleppo.
IRGC affiliated website, such as Verde news, listed over 80 members ranging between Iranian and Afghani forces dead. What’s more is that Lebanon-based Hezbollah members registered deaths alongside the IRGC in Aleppo.
Iranian sources point out that the IRGC website had accused Turkey for presenting logistic and intelligence support for the attack to take place.
Until this moment, no official statement was given by the Iranian national army, despite that the Iranian governmental Mehr News Agency had confirmed the presence of Special Forces, belonging to the 65th brigade in an “advisory” mission in Khan Tooman, Aleppo.
Screenshots of WhatsApp conversations with an IRGC militant –in Aleppo- explaining that 83 Iranian soldiers are besieged and held on spot “unable to move”, were flooding Iranian online media.
According to the screenshots, the Iranian soldier urged the strengthening of cannon fire as to aid their withdrawal. The soldier also expressed himself favoring death over being taken in by opponents.
Fars News Agency, another IRGC media outlet, published an IRGC official reporting the death of 34 IRGC officers either dead or severely injured in Khan Tooman.
Fars also denied all allegations of Iranian captives being taken in Khan Tooman, saying that the captives are three members belonging to Syrian Regime Forces, one of which is an Afghani militant.
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#1
"Elite" martyrs
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 7:31
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[FOX] Fox News has confirmed that the FBI has interviewed Huma Abedin, top aide to Hillary Clinton, as part of its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email and whether classified information was willfully transmitted on her unsecured network. The FBI may also have interviewed other current and former Clinton staffers. This suggests the case may be approaching a conclusion. Clinton, herself, could be interviewed very soon.
Abedin is a valued source of information because she apparently used an email on Clinton’s private system. She may have voiced concerns about whether the server was violating the law or, equally important, discussed how the law could be circumvented.
She and other staffers were surely questioned about the 2,200 classified communications contained on the server, including the 22 documents that were "top secret". How did they end up on the unauthorized system? Did the aides have clearance to read them? Didn’t they know they were classified? Were classified markings erased? Who decided to delete thousands of emails which were government property? Who ordered the server to be "wiped clean"? Depending on the answers to these crucial questions, the aides could find themselves in legal jeopardy. So could Hillary Clinton.
One way to get Hilarity is to get the underlings. Huma is supposed to be "like a daughter" to her. Good. Let's see how long she stands by her "daughter" after Huma is indicted.
#5
Many of the younger ones, like humma (OK, I know she is not that young) convinced themselves the game would go on forever. Some of them will decide they have too many years ahead of them to take a chance on prison or permanent banishment from the only job they know. Some will spill like a busted dam if the pressure gets to them.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2016 20:55
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[Jpost] Egypt's religious authority issued a fatwa stating that ripping out human organs from a live captive to transplant them in another body is prohibited, whether or not it endangers someone's life.
Dar al-Ifta, Egypt's official religious institution tasked with drafting edicts, issued a fatwa according to which human organ harvesting is "a violation of Sharia," the London-based daily Arab newspaper a-Sharq al-Awasat reported on Sunday.
According to the edict, issued on Saturday, ripping out human organs from a live captive to transplant them in another body is prohibited, whether or not it endangers someone's life.
While ISIS has long argued that Sharia permit harvesting organs of "apostate captives" to save Muslims' lives, even if doing so would lead to captives' death, an Egyptian holy man told a-Sharq al-Awasat: "It is only allowed to harvest organs from a dead body, since a live person is better than a dead one."
"Threatening to attack them with weapons, ISIS rips out parts of its hostages' bodies in order to use them for organ trafficking, and not in order to plant them in Muslims' bodies, as the organization claims."
The fatwa states that: "Harvesting someone's organs, whether he is a Muslim or not, amounts to his humiliation. Committing organ transplantation in a way that leads to the death of the body from which the organs were ripped contradicts the Sharia, even if the person killed deserves to die and even if the one who killed him is a righteous person."
"How could it be if the person killed was held as a hostage by ISIS, the Khawarij (deviants)?" Egyptian holy mans wonder.
A document issued by ISIS Religious Authority that was obtained by Rooters in December revealed the terrorist group endorsed the harvesting of organs from live prisoners in order to save the lives of Muslims.
According to ISIS, "the apostate's life and organs don’t have to be respected and may be taken with impunity."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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A woman was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Herat province in west of Afghanistan, local official said Sunday.
Provincial police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said the woman who was believed to be her 50s was shot dead in Herat city.
He said unknown gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on the women in the 4th police district of the city late on Saturday afternoon.
Ahmadi further added that the assailants managed to flee the area and a search operation is underway to detain the perpetrators.
The main motive behind the murder of the woman is not clear so far but the local officials have said at least 11 target killings have taken place in Herat in the past 2 months.
The Chief Prosecutor of the Appellate Court of Herat Samiuddin Raheen was also shot dead by unknown gunmen near his residence in Herat last week.
Meanwhile, the local residents are concerned regarding the growing criminal activities in the city, specifically the target killings and kidnappings.
According to a reports, an Iranian national was also kidnapped from the vicinity of Herat on Saturday.
Taliban recruiting drive
Unknown gunmen reportedly kidnapped at least 15 workers, including engineers and technical staff, from a cement factory and a coal extraction company in Baghlan province.
The executive director at Ghori Cement Factory, Sarwari, confirmed the incidents, which took place on Sunday morning. The other kidnapping occurred at Afghan Coal in Baghlan.
Officials from the two companies said that two armed men, known as Mirwais and Pacha, stormed the companies and took the employees by force.
Reports from the area say that the armed individuals also seized at least eleven vehicles belonging to the coal company along with military equipment belonging to the companies.
According to company officials, the armed men hoisted green flags over the company buildings after kidnapping the employees.
[AlAhram] Sadiq Khan was sworn in as London mayor Saturday after being elected the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital, as the Conservatives defended attempts to link him to extremism during the campaign.
The opposition Labour politician, the son of a Pak bus driver, broke from convention by taking his oath of office in a multi-faith ceremony at Southwark Cathedral.
"My name is Sadiq Khan and I'm the mayor of London," the 45-year-old said to cheers from supporters, who had earlier given him a standing ovation as he walked in.
He added: "I'm determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen, and to represent every single community, and every single part of our city, as mayor for all Londoners."
Experience shows that opening gambit leads to the exact opposite.
Khan won 57 percent of the vote in Thursday's mayoral election, securing 1.3 million votes to see off multimillionaire Conservative Zac Goldsmith and make history as the city's first Muslim mayor.
How many voted for him to demonstrate how open minded and unprejudiced they are?
In his victory speech in the early hours of Saturday morning, Khan had referenced the negative campaign against him by saying London had chosen "unity over division".
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... had led the attacks against Khan for sharing platforms with radical Muslims at public events, and Goldsmith said he was "radical and divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
There was criticism from across the political spectrum on Saturday at the tone of the Tory campaign, but Defence Secretary Michael Fallon insisted it was legitimate.
"Both candidates were asked questions about their backgrounds, their personalities, their judgment, the people they associate with," he told BBC radio. "That's the nature of our democracy and the rough-and-tumble of politics."
A list of those tut-tutting the telling of truths follows, of interest only in terms of the breadth of the critics, who include a Pakistani-Brit Tory and the sister of the Tory mayoral candidate in question, who once upon a time was married to Imran Khan, famed former Pakistani cricketeer and omnipresent failed politician.
Khan has broken the eight-year hold of the Conservatives on City Hall, succeeding the charismatic Boris Johnson in a prestigious post that has responsibility for transport, housing, policing and promoting economic development.
His success was a boost for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who has been battling a row over anti-Semitism and growing criticism from the moderate wing of his party since his election in September.
But Labour fared less well in other regional elections on Thursday.
Possibly voters were uncomfortable with the many censured by the party in recent weeks for antisemitism, but more likely it has to do with the EU and the "migrant" invasion.
The party was beaten into third place in Scotland, once a Labour stronghold, as the Conservatives became the official opposition to the Scottish National Party (SNP), which won a third term in office. Labour maintained control of the Welsh assembly and lost only a handful of local council seats in England. But critics warned it should have done better against a government that has lost support over welfare reforms and is deeply divided ahead of the referendum on Britannia's membership of the EU on June 23.
This Jerusalem Post editorial lists the new mayor's pro-Islamist indiscretions before segueing into hopeful pieties useful only as protective virtue signalling.
#2
Didnt they have Red Ken a communist before this? Paks are becoming a majority in some parts and it shows as much a bloc as are the black votes in the US.
[RFE/RL] Kosovo has charged two ethnic Albanians with terror offenses for allegedly joining an Islamic militant group in Syria.
On May 6, the prosecutor's office said the two left Pristina in November 2013 for Turkey before eventually ending up in the Syrian city of Azaz where they were trained and armed by the Al-Nusra Front militant group. They are believed to have taken part in fighting until they returned to Kosovo after three months later.
It is not clear if they have been arrested.
Lots of that going around these days. Trial, conviction, sentence, but no idea where the named individuals are, or if they are alive or dead. Still, it gets their names on lists, so they might be arrested if they come back and are recognized.
If found guilty, the pair could receive sentences of up to 10 years.
Officials say that some 70 Kosovo citizens are believed to be active in Syria and Iraq.
[Malay Mail] The kindergarten at the center of online fury over photographs showing plastic gun-toting kids in military fatigues has been on the police radar since last year.
Bukit Aman Special Branch director Datuk Seri Fuzi Harun said, "We have already been investigating the school from last year. If we find enough evidence that suggest such (militant) ideologies are being taught, we will move in on them," after the photographs shared by lawyer Siti Kassim were widely circulated on social media.
Fuzi said police were monitoring kindergartens across Malaysia to ensure they were not being used as training centers for child soldiers.
Checks revealed that several kindergarten teachers, one of whom works in the school implicated in the photographs, had uploaded the images onto Instagram. In her Facebook post, Siti, who is also an activist, alleged that the teachers were from a college in Terengganu, which she claimed was tied to Jemaah Islamiyah.
Apart from the picture of kids carrying toy guns, another photograph in the collection showed children dressed in full headscarves and holding the Palestinian flag.
In January, Fuzi had said that police managed to foil an attempt by Daesh to set up a child terrorist training center. He added that there were cases as far back as 2012, where parents brought their children to child terrorist training centers in Syria and Iraq.
A Russian military ship traversed Istanbul’s Bosphorus on May 8, with two tanks secured under camouflage on its deck.
The crane ship, with the bow number KIL-158, entered the strait from the Black Sea at around 8:30 a.m. under broad security measures. A Turkish Coast Guard ship, maritime police and a police helicopter escorted the ship throughout its one-hour passage.
Two tanks under camouflage were also seen on the ship’s deck, while some soldiers on board were seen observing the area. However, one expert said the military ship was “likely” carrying high speed patrol boats, rather than tanks.
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[BLOGS.WSJ] Sen. John McCain said he will back Donald Trump in the general election despite misgivings over his candidacy, sticking to his promise to back the Republican Party’s presidential nominee and urging other party leaders to get on board.
“You have to listen to people who have chosen the nominee of our Republican party,” Mr. McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think it would be foolish to ignore them.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican party leaders have said they’re unready or unwilling to back Mr. Trump over concerns about his principles or temperament.
But the Arizona Senator and 2008 presidential nominee said Republican leadership should pay attention to the blocs that have given rise to Mr. Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a longtime independent who is running in the Democratic primary.
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#1
my goodness. the private internal poll numbers must be interesting
#2
Be pretty hypocritical of him to do otherwise, given how he was crammed down GOPers throats by the establishment, when it was "his turn".
He's blowing senate race any way, may as well tie onto the boat anchor so he can blame his loss on Trump's landslide loss instead of himself. Unless Hillary gets indicted somehow.
#3
#1 my goodness. the private internal poll numbers must be interesting
Nyguard,
You can say that again. Friday McCain was in full rant about the damage Trump was going to do to him, and 72 hours later he says, "Nah, just kidding." Interesting times...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/09/2016 9:24
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#4
So all this time I've been assuming that Trump supporters were mistaking him for a blank slate and simply projecting their wish list onto someone who is in reality a lifelong liberal democrat.
Now I wonder if the real story is even more horrifying. Maybe the real Trump is exactly what these people want.
#5
It took me a while to recognize Trump's presentation strategy as a caricature of white, middle-class values, but they speak strongly. I'm just afraid that a vote for Trump will not be a vote against Hilarity.
#9
Look, my friends, if Trump gets through his first term and the economy is still in "recovery" and there has been no progress on the wall and terror attacks are still taking place in this country we must then reassess.
But at this point our choice is between Trump and Hildebeest. Before then we had a bunch of so-called conservatives who sounded a lot like Hildebeest. What do you want? Bush? Cruz? Reagan? Ain't gonna happen.
#10
"What do you want? Bush? Cruz? Reagan? Ain't gonna happen."
I really want Reagan, but that definitely ain't gonna happen, #9 EU. :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/09/2016 15:09
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#11
Undead Zombie Reagan would rock. Talk about striking fear in the hearts of your enemies! Also, it would give the media something else to mock him for.
[IsraelTimes] Jihadist group says attack by ’squad of soldiers of caliphate’ was retaliation for ’women imprisoned’ by Egypt
Eight coppers were rubbed out on Cairo’s southern outskirts in an attack claimed Sunday 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.... group, one of its deadliest in mainland Egypt.
The interior ministry said four assailants in a truck intercepted a van carrying the coppers in the district of Helwan, just south of Cairo, and sprayed them with automatic rifle fire. It said those killed in the shooting overnight included a lieutenant and seven lower ranking coppers who had been on patrol in plain clothing.
In a statement circulated on social media, IS said "a squad of the soldiers of the caliphate" opened fire on the police van and then made off with their weapons. It said the attack was carried out in retaliation for "women imprisoned" in Egyptian jails.
Jihadists have killed hundreds of coppers and soldiers in attacks, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula and also in and around Cairo, since the military toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
IS jihadists, who are based in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and the Paleostinian Gazoo Strip, have repeatedly tried to make inroads into the capital, where police have had more success in quelling them than in Sinai. They have claimed several attacks in Cairo, including the bombing of the Italian consulate in July 2015. More recently bully boyz have conducted hit-and-run attacks on coppers in Cairo and small-scale bombings. They often claim their attacks are in retaliation for a bloody police crackdown on Islamist supporters of Morsi, which has killed hundreds of protesters and imprisoned thousands.
They have also targeted foreigners.
The bombing came two months after IS bully boyz kidnapped a Croatian oil worker near Cairo and beheaded him. Police later tracked down the top IS operative in Cairo, who was linked to the Croat’s murder, and killed him in a shootout.
But efforts to crush the insurgency in Sinai have floundered despite a massive army campaign. In March, IS gunnies killed 15 coppers at a checkpoint near el-Arish, the historic provincial capital of North Sinai.
The Sunni holy warrior group declared a "caliphate" nearly two years ago in areas under its control in Iraq and Syria. The Sinai branch pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014, and since then its attacks have grown more sophisticated.
The military says it has killed more than 1,000 Lion of Islams, occasionally publishing pictures of their bodies. The statements are difficult to verify, with news hounds having little access to the north of the peninsula.
Hundreds of multi-national forces soldiers are based in Sinai to monitor a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, and Washington has indicated it would cut its troops over the jihadist threat. The Pentagon said last month it remained "fully committed" to the mission but wants to use drones to assume some of the riskier work.
[AlAhram] A military funeral was held in New Cairo’s police academy on Sunday afternoon for eight coppersbumped off by unknown assailants in the capital's southern district of Helwan.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, four individuals, who were waiting in a mini-van, opened fire on a police patrol resulting in the deaths of all eight officers, state news agency MENA reported. The slain coppers included seven low-ranking coppers and a junior police officer.
The assailants are still on the lam.
Sunday's deadly assault on the patrol was one of the largest attacks on security forces in the capital in months.
The south Cairo prosecution said in a statement it had examined the scene of the crime, questioned 10 eyewitnesses and impounded 120 bullet shells from the site.
(IraqiNews.com) Diyali – A security source in Diyali province said on Sunday, that two women had been injured in a mortar shell attack on the village of Granada south of Baqubah.
The source said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “This evening, four mortar shells fell near residential houses in the village of Granada (25 km south of Baqubah), resulting in the injury of two women,” adding that, “The injured were transferred to a nearby hospital to receive medial treatment, while a security force began to trace down the source of the shell fire.”
[LATINO.FOXNEWS] Venezuelan politician German Mavare, leader of the opposition UNT party, died Friday after being shot in the head, an liquidation that occurred in the western state of Lara, his organization said.
"The board of the UNT expresses its deepest sorrow for the slaying of colleague German Mavare. We demand justice and an end to violence," was the message posted on the Twitter account of the UNT party, headed by tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... ex-presidential candidate and former governor of Zulia state, Manuel Rosales.
The mayor of Iribarren in Lara state, Alfredo Ramos, said on his Twitter account minutes after the incident occurred before dawn Friday: "German Mavare, of the popular urbanization of Carucieña, a tireless fighter for social causes, has just been hit by a bullet in the head."
For his part, Luis Florido, an opposition politician of the Voluntad Popular party, said on Twitter: "German Mavare died. A red bullet ended his life. Politics today is high risk. We demand an investigation of the case #NoMoreViolence #Lara".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
Chavez remaining hard boys or their buddies the Cubans?
Not a peep in the US libtard Press or Obama administration, redundant terms I know.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel will not be deterred in its bid to destroy Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,’ tunnels after the worst flare-up of violence with Gazoo’s rulers in two years.
"Israel will continue to act as necessary to detect and prevent the threat of tunnels in the south," he told news hounds at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
"We are not seeking escalation, but will not be deterred from doing what it required to maintain security," he said.
The frontier was reported to be quiet on Sunday morning after four days of border duels - the heaviest exchanges of fire between the two sides since the 2014 Gazoo war that killed 2,251 Paleostinians and 73 Israelis.
Israeli warplanes hit two Hamas targets in Gazoo on Saturday in response to Paleostinian rocket fire, but neither the strikes nor the rockets caused casualties.
The exchanges have raised concerns for the future of an informal truce that has held since the 2014 conflict ended.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
"reconnaissance by artillery"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 15:06
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Syrian Army air force on Sunday destroyed a number of ISIS vehicles and hideouts, inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorist organization’s members in Deir-Ezzor and Homs provinces, SANA news agency reported.
The Air Force destroyed vehicles of ISIS terrorist organization equipped with machineguns in the areas of al- Kassarat and al-Mrei’ya in the eastern province of Deir-Ezzor, a military source told SANA.
Dozens of the bad boyz were potted in the army’s raids, according to the source.
In Homs, the Syrian army air force carried out intensive sorties against gatherings of ISISbully boyz in the countryside of Homs and Hama provinces.
The sorties were carried out to the east of Jazel oil field and to the north and west of al-Muhr gas field and to the west of al-Muhr station in the eastern countryside of Homs province, adding that scores of the ISIS vehicles were destroyed.
The same took place in Hama where the army air force destroyed a convoy of the ISIS vehicles in Maqla’a al-Wdaihi in the vicinity of Oqairibat village, 40 km to the east of Hama city.
In the same context, two of the terrorists’ vehicles and a workshop for manufacturing rocket and mortar shells were destroyed in operations carried out by the army and the armed forces against the Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... terrorism in Daraa southern province.
A unit of the army carried out a precise operation against dens of al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... terrorist organization and the gangs affiliated to it in the neighborhood of al-Abbasyia in Daraa al-Balad.
A workshop for manufacturing shells was destroyed in the operation and a number of bad boyz were potted including one of the field commanders of the so-called "Tawheed al-Janoub brigade", terrorist Ahmed Fou’ad al-Masalma.
In the northeastern countryside of the province, a unit of the army destroyed gatherings and two machinegun-equipped vehicles belonging to al-Nusra bully boyz in Toloul Khalif and Tal al-Sheikh Hussein.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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[ARA News] QAMISHLO – The Turkish army forces have been bombing the Kurdish city of Nusaybin southeastern Turkey for months, destroying hundreds of residential buildings in the city under heavy bombardment, Kurdish activists reported on Sunday.
Local activists confirmed that the Turkish army forces continue their offensive through shelling the city’s neighborhoods by tanks and heavy artillery, demolishing more than 355 houses in the Zein al-Abedin neighborhood of Nusaybin.
“Pillars of smoke are still rising from the neighborhoods as a result of the Turkish-led military operations,” a local sources told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Members of the campaign “No More Silence”, launched by a group of Kurdish activists in the Nusaybin’s twin city of Qamishlo [Qamishli] northeastern Syria, confirmed that Turkish army bulldozers have entered the Zein al-Abedin neighborhood in order to demolish more houses in the area.
“We are coordinating with reliable sources inside the war-torn city in order to document all violations against civilians’ rights in Nusaybin,” the Kurdish group said.
Dozens of residential buildings have been destroyed by shelling and completely demolished by bulldozers, according to Kurdish activists.
This comes as clashes continued between Turkish troops and the PKK-affiliated People’s Defense Forces (HPG) in the city of Nusaybin and other parts of the Kurdish region in Turkey’s southeast.
More than 100,000 displaced people have been documented in two months, while many others remain stranded in the war-torn towns and villages in the Kurdish region, local activists reported.
In the meantime, the Turkish authorities recently began building a concrete wall along the border in the areas between Ain Diwar and Derik in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah.
Local sources in the Kurdish city of Derik in northeastern Syria told ARA News that the Turkish army leadership has been deploying hundreds of gendarmerie and military vehicles at the borderline with the city of Derik, with orders to shoot on each vehicle or person close to the border.
“Also, a number of Turkish snipers have been seen near the Tigris River, which separates Turkey from Syria in the area of Ain Diwar northeastern Syria,” according to eyewitnesses.
Speaking to ARA News in Derik, media activist Hozan Amin said: “A Syrian Kurdish citizen was shot dead by a Turkish sniper near the border town of Ain Diwar last Tuesday.”
“The Turkish army forces open fire on anyone who passes the Roman bridge [3.5 km northeast of the town of Ain Diwar],” Amin said.
Turkey tightened border security measures after unrest hit the southeastern regions of the countryــwhere Kurds constitute a majority. Also, a series of explosions targeted sensitive security areas inside Turkey. Turkish forces have earlier entered the Syrian territory, breaking into the north-eastern regions, including Sermisakh and Dirna Aghe in Hasakah suburbs.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... on Sunday came up with a novel scheme to rein in the country’s high unemployment levels, saying that every company should take on one unemployed person.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s main private sector organization, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), has around one-and-a-half million members, Erdogan said in a speech to business leaders.
"If each member takes on one person... that would mean work for 1.5 million unemployed people" said Erdogan.
That's no more senseless than anything Bernie Sanders has said...
"Unfortunately, we cannot take our money to the grave. It remains here. In that case, let’s give work to those who don’t have any," he told a conference on health and work security in Istanbul.
Ask Hillary who is getting her fortune...
"What would a company lose?" he asked rhetorically.
"Will it collapse if it hires one person? No, on the contrary, it will benefit. It’s as simple as that, "he concluded, to measured applause from the assembled business leaders.
Regularly accused of populism, it is not the first time the business community the Turkish president’s interventionist approach on economic issues has worried the business community.
He has already made repeated calls on Turkey’s central bank to lower interest rates, at the risk of boosting inflation.
After a prosperous decade, the Turkish economy has dropped off since 2012, with economic growth slowing to four percent last year, a high public spending deficit and unemployment at over 10 percent.
The country has also been shaken by a series of bombings, attributed to Kurdish nationalists or the ISIS group, which have left its tourism sector in crisis.
Nonetheless Standard and Poor’s on Friday upgraded its outlook for Turkey’s credit rating, judging the prospects for the nation’s economy to be stable despite political instability that may dampen growth and reform plans.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
profitability is a word he seems to know nothing about like Bernie
#3
...FWIW, the Conventional Wisdom (TM) right now is that Prince's will actually says to destroy anything that might be in the vaults at Paisley Park - and there's way too many people who stand to make way too much money off of that, so you've got people trying to figure out how to get around it. And until they do, this is what you get.
It does sound strange that Prince didn't have a will - for all his eccentricities, he was a damned smart and level-headed businessman who was VERY successful in a tough, dog-eat-dog business. For him not to have taken this one elementary precaution just doesn't make sense.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/09/2016 5:08
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Twelve PKK terrorists have been killed in counter-terrorism operations in Turkey's southeast, the military said Sunday, Anadolu agency reported.
In a statement, the Turkish General Staff said eight terrorists were killed in Nusaybin, in the Mardin province, two in the neighboring Sirnak province, and two in the Tunceli province. The statement added that 11 terrorists were also captured in the Cukurca district of the southeastern Hakkari province.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/09/2016
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged rival faceless myrmidons in Syria to unite or risk death but again decried fellow Sunni Muslim faceless myrmidons ISIS as "extremists" in an audio recording posted online on Sunday.
As successor to the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... , Zawahri has the allegiance of al-Qaeda branches in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. But the group’s dominance is being challenged by ISIS, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq and followings in Libya and Yemen.
In Syria, al-Qaeda offshoot Nusra Front and ISIS are the two most powerful groups fighting government forces. Once a single group, they split in 2013, largely due to a power struggle among leaders.
"We have to want the unity of the Mujahideen in Sham (Syria) so it will be liberated from the Russians and Western crusaders. My brothers ... the matter of unity is a matter of life or death for you," Zawahri said.
The authenticity of the recording, the first since January, could not be immediately verified, but it had the hallmarks of previous Zawahri tapes. In January, the Egyptian former doctor called for Dire Revenge after 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... executed dozens of myrmidons.
He is believed to be hiding in a border area between Afghanistan and Pakistain.
On the recording, Zawahri lambasted a UN-backed political process to find a solution in Syria, and praised Nusra Front, which controls most of Idlib province.
Nusra is also part of an alliance of Islamist brigades known as Jaish al Fateh, which is leading battles against Syrian government forces and its Russian- and Iranian-backed allies in the southern Aleppo countryside.
In January, Nusra Front tried unsuccessfully to convince rival Islamist factions to merge into one unit, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... Zawahri also emphasized once again the ideological divide between al-Qaeda and ISIS, which is fighting a Western-led coalition and Russian forces while also clashing with Western-backed rebels and the Syrian army.
He described them as "holy warriors and renegades" whose followers would eventually disavow their beliefs and methods.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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Several Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack on a police check post in a western Kabul suburb on Sunday, storming the check point from several directions - leaving an Afghan National Police (ANA) officer dead and three others wounded.
The attack took place in Qala Haidar Khan area of the city near the Kampani Bridge.
However, Kabul police headquarters has not released details of the encounter, but eye witnesses at the scene told TOLOnews that a gun battle, with light and heavy weapons, lasted between the two sides over a period of 30 minutes.
The check point is located in Paghman district alongside the Kabul-Kandahar highway. The security forces did not allow media to take footage of the check post, but reporters in the area said the encounter caused some damage.
"I am surprised how a coordinated attack happened at the check post, one officer has been killed and three officers were wounded," a local resident Jaffar said.
"It was around 1:00 am, we were sleeping and heard the exchange of gun fire suddenly. We were afraid. Every kind of weapon was used in the encounter," another resident Mohammad Asif said.
Meanwhile, citizens have said that launching coordinated attacks in the capital would have negative repercussions in future.
"The attack was really horrific, people are afraid when attacks on this scale happen in the capital," a resident of Kabul Shah Wali said.
Residents have asked the government to step up efforts and improve security in the city.
[IN.REUTERS] Afghanistan hanged six prisoners convicted of terrorism offences, as part of a tougher new policy towards the Taliban promised by President Ashraf Ghani in retaliation for last month's suicide attack which killed at least 64 people in Kabul.
The death sentences, carried out at the Pule Charkhi prison on the outskirts of Kabul on Sunday, drew an immediate response from the Taliban which said the departments of state involved in the executions would be treated as "military targets" and threatened a wave of suicide attacks.
"To gain revenge on the enemy, we have thousands of fighters ready to sacrifice themselves," a statement from the movement's main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
With fiercer fighting expected in the coming weeks following the conclusion of the annual opium harvest, the decision to execute the prisoners further dims hopes of reviving the stalled peace process backed by foreign partners including the United States and China.
A statement from Ghani's office said the executions had been carried out after a fair and transparent legal process and in accordance with both the constitution and Islamic law.
"Considering repeated pleas from the families of victims of terrorist attacks, President Ghani signed off on death penalties for six who committed major crimes, crimes against civilians and public security," the statement said.
A separate statement from the National Directorate for Security, Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, gave the identities of the six condemned men and detailed the attacks for which they were convicted.
These ranged from a Taliban intelligence official in Kandahar convicted of helping to organize the 2011 murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani, former head of the High Peace Council to a member of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network who organised suicide bombings in Kabul.
There was no indication of any direct link between the crimes and the April 19 attack in Kabul, which killed at least 64 people and wounded 347 others.
Even before the executions, the Taliban had threatened "serious repercussions" if Ghani's threat to approve death sentences were carried out, saying judicial institutions and individuals connected with the decision would be considered legitimate military targets.
It also said that foreign nationals and Afghan soldiers held as prisoners by the Taliban would be in danger.
The Taliban, which controls more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since it was driven from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001, has pledged to step up its campaign against the Western-backed government in Kabul this year.
Last month, it launched its spring offensive with a concerted attack on Kunduz, the northern city its forces captured briefly last year, as well as the biggest single suicide attack in Kabul since 2011.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... took a shot at Donald Trump during his Friday commencement speech at Northeastern University, by saying no wall is big enough to keep dangerous forces of Evil out of the United States.
"Many of you were in elementary school when you learned the toughest lesson of all on 9/11," he said. "There are no walls big enough to stop people from anywhere, tens of thousands of miles away, who are determined to take their own lives while they target others."
"So I think that everything that we've lived and learn tells us that we will never come out on top if we accept advice from sound-bite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward," Kerry added. "And hiding behind walls at a time that technology has made that impossible to do and unwise to even attempt."
He says this as armed soldiers roll out razor wire along borders across Europe. Truly a classic John F. Kerry display of "understanding".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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Top|| File under:
#1
Does John's home still have a front door? How about a front gate to his estate?
#3
Its obvious that I hate Trump more than most anyone here, but even I know this is simply idiotic, and its one of the few things I do like about him, although he is off in lala land when it comes to funding it.
The taxpayer savings realized from the reduction of alien free-loaders to the medical system, care & feeding, housing, education system, law enforcement, and criminal justice system will pay for the wall in no time.
#5
Don't forget foreign aid to Mexico. IIRC, last time I looked it was $500 million a year. So if the wall costs $10 billion you build $500 million worth every year until it's done. But I thought Trump's remittances plan was pretty cool too.
When you look outward and see millions upon millions of Third World types trying to get into your country, you build a wall. If you want to keep looking outward you get a ladder so you can look over the wall.
I don't get it. I don't think Kerry is making any sense at all. But what is most disturbing is that a lot if not all of those graduates probably sat there listening to him without questioning any of it.
#9
OK. But I think the biggest question is who will govern this new borderless world and what kind of government will it be? Just thinking about it kinda makes me shudder.
#11
#9 OK. But I think the biggest question is who will govern this new borderless world and what kind of government will it be?
Please see the Book of Revelation in your Holy Bible. You are welcome.
[Ynet] Diplomats say upcoming Quartet report, expected to be endorsed by Washington, will focus on Jewish construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but also chastise Paleostinian leaders for failing to rein in violence.
The United States will endorse a tougher tone with Israel in an upcoming international report that takes the Jewish state to task over settlements, demolitions and property seizures on land the Paleostinians claim for a future state, diplomats told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
One wonders who authorized those diplomats to talk, however namelessly, with an AyPee reporter...
The US and its fellow Mideast mediators also will chastise Paleostinian leaders for failing to rein in anti-Israeli violence. But the diplomats involved in drafting the document said its primary focus will be a surge of construction in Jewish housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"Nice country ya got there. Be a shame if something happened and you had no friends to send more bullets..."
The US approval of the harsh language marks a subtle shift.
It's only subtle if you're the head of a a longshoremen's union pondering kneecaps, a.k.a. a community activist.
Washington has traditionally tempered statements by the so-called "Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... " of mediators with careful diplomatic language, but the diplomats said the US in this case will align itself closer to the positions of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Russia and the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... , who emphasize Israel's role in the Mideast impasse.
The report's release is sure to infuriate Israel,
...intentionally. Hence the pre-release leak.
where officials are already bracing for expected criticism. And on the other side, although the mediators will endorse some long-standing Paleostinian complaints, the Paleostinians are likely to complain the report does not go far enough.
Pro forma. They're getting the world leaning on Israel to surrender territory, which is all they care about.
Diplomats acknowledge the report, which could come out in late May or June, will be largely symbolic, requiring no action. It could be unveiled at the UN and possibly sent to the Security Council for an endorsement, according to the diplomats, who included three US officials.
Establishing the precedent for the next steps undertaken by various organizations, governments, etc, raising the temperature another few degrees of the water in which the frog still swims.
The Paleostinians recently put off their push for a new UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity, in part because of the coming report, the diplomats said. And with anti-Israel sentiment growing in Europe, La Belle France may delay a planned May 30 meeting of foreign ministers on the situation.
The French also are talking about hosting a Mideast peace conference this summer. US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... is expected to discuss the French initiative with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault while on a trip to Gay Paree next week.
At least 10 Taliban insurgents were killed during a clash in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan late on Saturday night, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said Sunday.
“10 armed Taliban were killed following an armed attack last night, after a group of armed Taliban attacked the Afghan National Police check post in Baba Ji region, 4th district of Lashkar Gah City capital of southern Helmand province,” a statement by MoI said.
The statement further added that 10 Taliban militants also sustained injuries during the gun battle with the Afghan forces.
According to MoI, a number of the Afghan National Police forces also suffered casualties during the attack.
“Unfortunately, during this attack, three Afghan National Police officers were martyred and four others were wounded,” the statement said.
The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.
Helmand is among the volatile provinces in southern Afghanistan where the anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating and frequently carry out insurgency activities.
Meanwhile, the Special Operation Forces of the Afghan National Army (ANA) conducted a night raid in southern Helmand province targeting a prison run by the Taliban insurgents on Friday.
According to Ministry of Defense, at least 60 people kept in the prison were released during the operation, leaving at least 2 militants dead and 3 others wounded.
As the Taliban's insurgency in Helmand gathers fresh momentum, military leadership still appears reluctant to implement an important order issued by President Ashraf Ghani two weeks back giving a free hand to security forces to fight militants from a harsher standpoint.
This comes amid a surge in violence and an increase in opium trade which is believed to finance the Taliban's war in the southern war-torn province.
Three days ago, the provincial governor Hayatollah Hayat pledged to implement the president's war order, but troops battling the insurgents said they are still awaiting the go ahead to take an offensive approach.
Two weeks ago, Ghani said during an address in parliament, that the military leadership must carry out large scale offensives against militants raging war in the fragile province. However, the plan has still not been implemented. The reasons are unclear but this is putting a burden on the shoulders of the overstretched Afghan forces, said critics.
Critics also believe the delay in implementing the order is enabling the Taliban to expand its attacks on embattled Afghan security forces who are fighting the Taliban on multiple fronts and in some key districts in the province. This in turn is threatening the security of the provincial capital, Lashkargah city.
"Taliban launch sporadic attacks and they also plan landmines and we are fighting against them," said Abdul Qayum, an army soldier.
Meanwhile, some Afghan veterans fighting the militants in the area have predicted that further delays in launching the operation would change the results on the ground as Taliban come with more attacks to gain territory.
"If we aren't given orders to attack, we remain on the defensive. The enemy is on the offensive and they continue to increase their attacks. If we receive the order of attack, they go on the defensive," said Mohammad Hussain, an army officer.
"Even if I have one drop of blood in my body, I will not let Taliban in this area. Now that we don't attack, we haven't received orders to fight, otherwise the Taliban cannot stand against security forces," said Zainuddin, another army officer.
The hard-pressed Afghan security forces have been fighting the Taliban in their stronghold for years, something that has sparked sharp criticism and claims of poor leadership of the war.
In addition to reinforcements already sent to Helmand over recent months, the troop buildup has not proved effective enough to diminish the scale of threats, something that has raised concerns in the province in recent weeks. People fear the province could fall to the insurgent group.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The details of six bandidosforces of Evil executed by the Afghan government have emerged which include a member of the Haqqani terrorist network as well as an al-Qaeda terrorist network affiliate.
The remaining four bandidosforces of Evil belonged to the Talibs group who were hanged to death earlier today.
One of the suspect has been identified as Khan Agha who was also well known as Abdul Rahman, according to a latest of the executed terrorists.
Rahman was an al-Qaeda affiliated and was involved in attack on deputy intelligence chief Abdullah Laghmani and another senior intelligence chief official who were assassinated in Laghman province.
The second terrorist appearing on the list has been identified as Hamidullah who was a Taliban group member and was involved in plotting an attack on former president and high peace council chief Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan... .
The third terrorist has been identified as Mohammad Ismail who was a member of the Haqqani terrorist network and was involved in an attack on Finest Super Market that led to the killing of a human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... commission along with several other civilians.
Hujatullah is the fourth terrorist appearing on the list who was a Taliban group member and was involved in an attack on a bus in Paghman district of Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... which left at least 9 civilians dead.
The fifth terrorist appearing on the list is identified as Mohammad Osman who was a Taliban group member and was involved in an kaboom that left 7 coppers dead.
Ikmal is the sixth terrorist who was a Taliban group member and was involved in an attack on Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan hospital in Kabul which left 4 security personnel dead and 22 others maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
Hopefully. in each case, there was plenty of pathetic whimpering just before the final "Urk!"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2016 20:49
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[THESUN.CO.UK] A HEROIC German shepherd has reportedly saved the lives of a group of SAS fighters facing off against ISIS in Iraq.
The Special Forces team were ambushed by a group of ISIS fighters when the Alsatian attacked two jihadis.
The furry fighter escaped the battle unhurt and has been hailed a hero by troops after saving the British team’s lives.
The brave pooch is thought to have been trained by the US Army.
The military operation took place last month on the Kurdish border. It is believed that the SAS soldiers were returning from a 10 day training programme for Peshmerga fighters. The pup was travelling with the group of British soldiers in a convoy of four vehicles.
The unsuspecting troops were caught unawares when they were trapped by a group of jihadis. The convoy was hit by a homemade bomb as around 50 ISIS fighters attacked. Leaving their vehicles to take cover, the SAS were split up between three areas.
When the British forces attempted to move out, jihadis attacked them from behind.
A US soldier travelling with the convoy let the heroic pup off the leash. The angry dog ran snarling towards the enemy fighters. The first jihadi was bitten on the neck and face. The dog slashed at the second fighter’s arm and leg.
The two ISIS fighters bravely ran away in terror after being savaged by the Alsatian.
A source told the Daily Star Sunday: "Military dogs sometimes accompany the SAS on operations. They are often used in strike operations and may well enter a building before any troops.
"The Alsatian was with the team in a training role but when the troops came under fire it was desperate to get involved.
"It could sense the tension and had an overpowering urge to protect it’s handler and the other troops.
"When the dog was unleashed it went after the greatest threat without consideration for its own safety ‐ this is what they are trained to do.
"A snarling Alsatian running at you is very frightening and probably not something the jihadis had encountered. The dog did its job and returned to its handler with its tail wagging."
US air support meant that the stranded SAS troops could get to safety.
It is thought that this is the first time that an attack dog has been used to directly save soldiers’ lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
So it was an Alsatian! Not A German!
(Don't mention the war)
Alsatians are/were German Shepherds renamed by the British to be palatable to the English ear during WW uno.
#4
I expect Obama to apologize for being so culturally insensitive as to use DOGS against Muslims. IIRC, dogs are considered to be unclean.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/09/2016 9:34
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#5
Makes me miss the dog I grew up with. Mostly shepherd, with some wolf a couple generations back. Gentle as could be, and smart as a whip -- she knew how to open a door by turning the door knob -- but threaten any of us...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/09/2016 11:06
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#6
So, NATO forces train attack dogs to attack people of color. I see.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – The Iraqi Interior Ministry announced on Sunday the arrest of 13 wanted individuals on various criminal charges in the province of Baghdad.
The ministry said in a brief statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The detachments of Baghdad Anti-Crime Directorate managed to detain 13 wanted individuals on criminal charges in the area of al-Mansour,” adding that, “The detainees were transferred to the competent authorities for the purpose of completion of legal procedures against them.”
#3
When you are morally gutless you are effectively rudderless so you go where ever the current steers you. Look at McCain, Huckabee, all the GOP talking heads and establishment types. Its no wonder the GOP never got anything done they didnt have anyone with the guts to do anything original against a life long liberal from Chicago and now they all fall in line for a born rich liberal lifelong democrat supporter from the north east.
at least the thinking elements of the former GOP now know who is truly spineless
[SANDIEGOUNIONTRIBUNE] Jose Arias Martinez is 83 and has lived in Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad neighborhood for 40 years. He remembers when a patch of American soil a few hundred yards from his house was the busiest and most famous spot on the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal crossings. The good old days...
Every day, hundreds of migrants who were heading north for work gathered at dusk and waited for darkness before moving through the brush and up the canyons, into San Diego and points beyond. So many people used it as a staging ground that a marketplace emerged: Vendors in tarp-covered stalls sold food, clothes, shoes — even shots of tequila, said to be good for courage because the journey was risky. Bandits were in the nearby hills. Border Patrol agents were on the canyon rims. I've seen a few shots of tequila make people stupid. I supposed that's sometimes been mistaken for brave.
Nobody waits at the dirt field any more. Ask Arias why and he nods at the rust-colored 10-foot-tall metal wall that sits a few paces from his front door. “It ended,” he said, “when they built the fence.” Nope, nope. That'd never work...
At first glance, what happened here may seem to some like it belongs in a Donald Trump campaign speech about the need for a border wall. Sure does combine cause and effect.
Hordes of people breaking the law, swarming into America under cover of night, overrunning the Border Patrol. Then a fence goes up, and it stops. Imagine that for about fifteen hundred miles.
But the border is not a soundbite, and the complete story is far more complicated. The wall has had dire consequences elsewhere. Ahah. The law of Cause and Side Effects.
It’s pushed migrants east, into the treacherous desert and mountains. By some estimates, more than 5,000 people have died trying to cross there, a doubling of the fatality rate. So extending the wall would stop them from killing themselves in the desert?
It’s separated families who might have stayed together across a more porous border, They don't check your ID on the U.S. side going into Messico, so what's stopping the happy reunification of such families?
turned what some characterized as a temporary, circulating labor supply in the U.S. into a more fixed population of underground residents. Those bridges between the two countries remain, with no ID check.
And it’s used tax dollars that might have gone to other things — health care, transportation, schools. Who paid for the wall? If it was the feds, it was well within their range of responsibility. If the wall was built by state or local government, then the argument's valid, though there's a counterargument that cutting the flow of illegal immigrants saves having to spend more money for health care, transportation or schools.
So whether you think what happened in this one small slice of the border is beneficial probably depends a lot on how you digest the complex, swirling, super-hot stew that is American immigration policy and practice. First you gotta get past the scorching, superheated prose...
This is a place that has always meant different things to different people. You might say walls mean different things, depending on which side of them you're on. They're supposed to.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#1
The author of this article epitomizes why Trump got traction. The elites have closed their mind to anything other than their point of view and are determined to spin and control the news in their favor. Some are useful tools like this author, others want the cheap disposable labor. Both have poisoned the US government to whre people are so angry they are willing to vote for a dunderhead who spouts off about this issue despite severe inadequacies of character and intelligence on many other things.
You brought this on yourselves libtards. When Trump loses, and you try to cram down this crap even more, these people are going to blow up like a volcano. You want a revolution, this is the way to go about it. Problem is, you libtards not the ones with the guns nor the balls to act. These angry people are. That should frighten you into truthfulness and facing facts, but I doubt it. Good luck following King George III into history.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemeni peace talks have been postponed indefinitely after representatives of 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 ... militias failed to attend a meeting on Sunday, sources told Al Arabiya News Channel.
This took place after the UN special envoy to 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... held talks Sunday with the country’s warring parties in a bid to break an impasse, a day after the government pulled out of direct negotiations.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held separate morning talks in Kuwait City with delegates, and plenary or committees’ meetings were planned in the afternoon, front man for the UN envoy Charbel Raji said.
Yemen’s government on Saturday pulled out of direct negotiations with the Houthis after there were no signs of any progress.
A source close to the government delegation said the talks had reached a delicate stage after "the rebels backtracked to the starting point."
"That has complicated the situation" the source told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The Houthis and their allies have demanded the formation of a consensus transitional government before forging ahead with other issues that require them to surrender arms and withdraw from territories they occupied in 2014.
They have also demanded the withdrawal of a small US force operating in the south of the country against Al-Qaeda Death Eaters.
On Thursday, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the foes had begun discussing major political and security issues in face-to-face negotiations aimed at bringing an end to 13 months of devastating war.
The working groups exchanged views on resolving political and security issues and the release of prisoners and detainees, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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[IsraelTimes] The Shin Bet security agency foiled 77 terror attacks since the beginning of 2016, including five suicide kabooms and 10 other bombings, seven kidnappings and 34 shooting attacks, according to figures released on Sunday.
Over 300 Jewish suspects have also been indicted on terror charges since 2013, the report said.
The report detailing the agency’s activities in the past five years came as outgoing director Yoram Cohen stepped down, and was replaced by Nadav Argaman.
In 2015, the security agency foiled some 239 attacks overall, among them 12 suicide kabooms, 19 kidnappings, 41 bombings and 120 shootings. In 2014, some 217 attacks were prevented by the security agency, up from 187 in 2013, 112 in 2012 and 88 in 2011.
During the past three years, 302 indictments have been filed against suspected Jewish terrorists, the report said. The number of indictments peaked in 2014 at 116. Some 82 indictments were lodged in 2015, and 70 in 2013.
Since January, 34 Jewish suspects have been indicted on terror charges. The tally includes indictments against the two main suspects in the Duma arson attack, in which three members of the Dawabsha family were killed in the West Bank in July 2015.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Syrian rebels on Sunday fired rockets into a regime-held district of Aleppo, killing three civilians and wounding 15, a monitoring group said.
They were the first casualties since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday in the battleground northern city where regime forces control western districts and the rebels are entrenched in the east.
The ceasefire is due to expire at 2101 GMT on Monday.
It comes as world powers push for a wider cessation of hostilities between rebels and regime forces and a resumption of UN-brokered peace talks.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a woman and a child were among the three civilians killed when the rebels rained rockets down on several districts of western Aleppo city.
Fighting in Aleppo flared up late last month, and more than 300 people have been killed in the violence.
Syria’s five-year war has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, a little lightbulb figuratively appeared over Bossy's head... displaced families returned home and schools reopened in Aleppo on Saturday after the truce was extended for 72 hours in the city.
Residents trickled back into eastern areas of Aleppo, encouraged by a halt in the deadly violence, an AFP news hound said.
"I decided to come home after relatives told me it was calm," father-of-six Abu Mohammed said.
"We left because it was carnage here. The air strikes were incredible," said the resident of the rebel-held Kalasseh district.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[ARMYTIMES] The Army’s latest headcount shows that nearly 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced, an action that plunges manning to its lowest level since before World War II.
During the past year the size of the active force has been reduced by 16,548 soldiers, the rough equivalent of three brigades.
Endstrength for March was 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer troopers than were on active duty when the Army halted the post-Cold War drawdown in 1999 with 479,424 soldiers, the smallest force since 1940, when the active component numbered 269,023 soldiers.
Barring unexpected delays, the Army is well-positioned to achieve, or exceed, its budgeted end-strength of 475,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2016.
Without congressional or Defense Department intervention, the drawdown will continue for two more years, with endstrength hitting 460,000 soldiers in 2017, and 450,000 in 2018.
The latest official demographics from the Defense Manpower Data Center shows that in addition to the 479,172 soldiers who were on active duty April 1, the Army’s reserve forces totaled 548,024 soldiers, for a total force of 1,027,196 soldiers.
The drawdown master plan calls for a Total Army of 980,000 soldiers on Sept. 30, 2018.
DMDC statistics show that 348,463 soldiers were in service with the Army National Guard on April 1, and 199,561 with the Army Reserve.
The active component total for the end of March includes 4,321 West Point cadets, which is 32 fewer than in February and 45 fewer than in January.
The number of women serving on active duty April 1 stood at 69,171, a total that includes 15,654 officers, 52,698 enlisted soldiers and 819 West Point cadets.
The female population of the Regular Army was reduced by 340 members in March.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016
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#3
...The headline is slightly misleading - still almost twice the number of soldiers as pre-WWII - but bad enough. Worse when you remember that the 'tooth-to-tail' ratio (shooters vice support) was 1:3 in 2008; it's gotta be at 1:4 or worse now...which means that out of that 450,000 we'll have in 2018, 112,500 or so will be real shooters.
It ain't enough.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/09/2016 5:43
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#4
Well it sure is a good thing we aren't involved in wars all over the globe and being the peacekeeper of the planet then!
(IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – The leader in al-Hashd al-Shaabi Jabbar al-Mamouri announced on Sunday, that gunmen in al-Sharqat killed the so-called ISIS allegiance officer, along with one of his companions, north of Salahuddin Province.
Mamouri said in a press statement received by IraqiNews.com, “An armed cell from Sharqat District north of Salahuddin carried out an operation in the district and managed to kill the so-called ISIS allegiance officer, Abu Hagar al-Maghrabi, along with one of his companions.”
Mamouri added, “A cooperation has emerged between al-Hashd al-Shaabi and armed cells from the people of Sharqat to target ISIS leaders and members.”
Posted by: badanov ||
05/09/2016
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(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Sunday the assistant of the Sadrist Movement leader Kadim al-Eissawi announced, that Saraya al-Salam will participate with 10 thousand fighters in the liberation operation of Mosul on condition of non-intervention of foreign forces.
Eissawi said in a statement during a press conference followed by IraqiNews.com, “We reject any cheers against Iran, however, we won’t accept any intervention from its side.”
Eissawi added, “Saraya al-Salam will participate with 10 thousand fighters in the liberation operations of Mosul on condition of non-intervention of foreign forces.”
ISIS executes 8 in Mosul Just another day in paradise
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – On Sunday, a local source in Nineveh Province revealed, that the so-called ISIS executed eight civilians on charges of spying in central Mosul.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “This evening, ISIS members executed eight civilians by firing squad in al-Ghazlani camp in central Mosul on charges of collaborating with the security forces, Peshmerga and Asayish in Kurdistan Region.”
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added, “ISIS members filmed the execution of the civilians after being sentenced to death by the so-called Sharia Court in Nineveh Province, and threw the bodies in a hole in western the city.”
Posted by: badanov ||
05/09/2016
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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.
All of this LGBT and moronic privy discourse takes the media attention away from the sale of baby body parts, but most here knew that already. 
[Huffpoo's World Post] What do you do after you brought your party’s control of government to a dramatic end? You become an international scold and blowhard, blaming the world’s problems on everyone else--who have no ability to solve any of them.
[CNN] Donald Trump says Puerto Rico has "far far too much debt," and the U.S. government shouldn't bail out the island.
David Cameron
[RFE/RL] Kosovo has charged two ethnic Albanians with terror offenses for allegedly joining an Islamic militant group in Syria.
[Malay Mail] The kindergarten at the center of online fury over photographs showing plastic gun-toting kids in military fatigues has been on the police radar since last year.
[BLOGS.WSJ] Sen. John McCain said he will back Donald Trump in the general election despite misgivings over his candidacy, sticking to his promise to back the Republican Party’s presidential nominee and urging other party leaders to get on board.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Secretary of State 
Quartet
