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Bangladesh police arrest 'top Qaeda militant'
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: WoT
Seattle man charged with murder, terrorism in New Jersey
[KomoNews] NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A Seattle man was indicted on murder and terrorism charges Thursday for allegedly shooting a New Jersey college student last year in a fit of rage over the U.S. government's role in the Middle East, which authorities said is the first time a terror charge has been brought in the state in connection with a murder case.

Ali Muhammad Brown, 30, fatally shot Brendan Tevlin while the 19-year-old was stopped at a traffic light in northern New Jersey, authorities said.

Brown also faces three aggravated murder charges in Seattle, where authorities said last year the killings were part of a crusade to punish the U.S. government for its foreign policies.

Authorities said in court documents filed in Seattle last year that Brown described himself to detectives after his New Jersey arrest as a strict Muslim who was angry with the U.S. government's role in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan because of the death of innocent civilians and children.

"The defendant was on a bloody crusade, executing four innocent men ... with the same murder weapon, over the course of approximately two months, and all under the common and single scheme of exacting 'vengeance' against the United States government for its foreign policies," prosecutors said.
Posted by: RJ45ACP || 07/03/2015 09:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Funny, I don't remember the White House issuing a statement. Perhaps I missed it.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/03/2015 14:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Perhaps it's just part of his culture, so it's OK.
Posted by: Rambler in Viginia || 07/03/2015 15:03 Comments || Top||

#3  How could this happen? Guns are illegal in NJ.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/03/2015 15:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Guess Who the 1st Legal Slave Owner in America Was?
h/t Jerry Pournelle
Most Americans think they know the history of slavery because it has been an abhorrent part of the American narrative taught in schools, portrayed in Hollywood, and mentioned frequently in the media.

But here is something you probably didn't know: The first recorded American slave owner was a black man.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 07:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I am sure he was a Democrat. :-)
Posted by: JFM || 07/03/2015 7:34 Comments || Top||

#2  About Obama asking reparations for slavery Here is my answr as an European whose ancestors never hemld slaves (just like many Americans whose ancestors came to Ameerica welle after 1865):

"Go f;ck yourself and ask them instead to your masters the Saudis"

Posted by: JFM || 07/03/2015 7:41 Comments || Top||

#3  And the "history" presented in "Roots" was an almost total fabrication.

African tribal members were, in most cases, property of their Chief and could be sold/traded without onlookers raising an eyebrow. Why chase Kunta Kinte through the jungle when a simple barter would have taken care of things very efficiently?

And don't get me started about how the slavers are usually represented as either American or British but the Dutch, who really dominated the trade, are strangely absent.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 11:13 Comments || Top||

#4  And how many slavers were actually Black?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 11:18 Comments || Top||

#5  A lot were Arab.
Posted by: phil_b || 07/03/2015 11:27 Comments || Top||

#6  And the "history" presented in "Roots" was an almost total fabrication.

Not to mention that at the end the guy returns to Africa and seems moved to tears after meeting a distant cousin: a Muslim, so we are left with the impression that they are the good guys. Someone just forgot about Muslim tribes raiding their neighbors in order to supply Middle East harems with "material".
Posted by: JFM || 07/03/2015 11:34 Comments || Top||

#7  More likely the guy he met was a descendant of those who sold Kunta-Kinte into slavery in the first place!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 12:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Here is an enlightening summary: http://www.ironbarkresources.com/slaves/whiteslaves05.htm
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 07/03/2015 20:50 Comments || Top||

#9  I lived in West Africa for two years from 2009 to 2011. The people in the north still hated the people in the south.

Know why?? The southern tribes were the the ones that sold the northern tribes to slavers on the coast 200 hundred years ago.

#3 below - Dutch ran the trade during the peak years 1650ish to early 1800s but the Mooselimbs had been taking people from West Africa for 600 years by then. Funny - never hear too much about the slaves moving east under moose limb control. Only west under gringo control.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy || 07/03/2015 21:46 Comments || Top||


Europe
Accepting refugees plays into Islamic State's hands
h/t Gates of Vienna
The accepting of migrants largely facilitates Islamic State's (IS) expansion to Europe, Czech President MiloĹĄ Zeman said in an interview with Parlamentni listy.cz server, adding that all UN Security Council standing members must be persuaded of the need to intervene against IS.

Zeman has long been pushing for a military action against IS. He has also supported the Facebook initiative We Do not Want Islam in the Czech Republic.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 06:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Is Saudi Arabia Leaving The U.S. Behind For Russia?
h/t Gates of Vienna
The news from the recent St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which took place from June 18 to 20, inspired a torrent of speculation on the future direction of energy prices.

But the real buzz at the conference was the unexpected but much publicized visit of the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, as an emissary of the King. The Prince, who is also his country's Defense Minister, carried the royal message of a direct invitation to President Putin to visit the King, which was immediately accepted and reciprocated, with the Prince accepting on behalf of his father.

It would be news enough that the unusually high level delegation from a long-time ally and protectorate of the U.S., like Saudi Arabia, was visiting a Russian sponsored economic conference, in a country sanctioned by the U.S.
Given the current US administration's crawling inside the MM ass reapprochment with Iran, this is hardly surprising
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 06:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nuke shopping and assessing how to link oil with Putie to leverage the new American policies ... Thanks Obama, another stable world economic pattern disrupted.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 07/03/2015 11:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Part of their plan, NoMoreBS. Putin & Obama have had no more than a couple of degrees of separation since Obama was a child.
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 13:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Jim Webb announces White House candidacy
h/t Instapundit
Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has officially entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, he announced on his website Thursday afternoon.

Webb, who spent one term in the Senate before retiring in 2013, called for a "fresh approach" to solving the nation's biggest problems and a leader who can stand up to the "shadow elites [of] our political process" in a statement.

He faces long odds of defeating favorite Hillary Clinton or usurping Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as her main foil, but has polled ahead of former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley in some recent polls.
Am I wrong, or is he the closest thing to normal person within the democratic party?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 05:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why?

No chance of beating her. No chance of moving her to the right even a tiny bit (the power players are boosting Sanders to do the opposite). No chance of affecting the platform or agenda.

No chance she'd choose him for VP. No chance he and his family won't be dusted up by Clinton Inc.

That he is doing this at all is proof he isn't presidential material, given all of the above.
Posted by: no mo uro || 07/03/2015 5:45 Comments || Top||

#2  It is hard to understand why Hillary, a liar, cheat, Alinskyite, unprosecuted criminal and incompetent has such high pollings. Can someone explain this to me?
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/03/2015 6:37 Comments || Top||

#3  John, the low information voters only know what they hear from the MSM. Since the MSM is in full Hillary protection mode, they know nothing about the scandals, Benghazi, etc. All they know is the pseudo populism from her speeches.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 07/03/2015 6:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Thanks to an unnamed Mod of Haze Gray persuasion, I see the name Webb then flash to three adolescent Labrador retrievers in a pirogue.

:(
Posted by: Shipman || 07/03/2015 7:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Think "cabinet positions", NoMo.
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/03/2015 13:23 Comments || Top||

#6  He has personal courage and is a good writer but to get the dem nomination you must be the best liar and he loses on that.
Posted by: irishrageboy || 07/03/2015 16:17 Comments || Top||

#7  He is the best thing democrats have.
Posted by: newc || 07/03/2015 18:17 Comments || Top||

#8  Focus on Iowa.

To win there your supporters have toern be really motivated since voting in the caucus is a 3 to 6 hour process. Bernie's radical supporters seem to have a lot of energy. The teacher's union voters will probably go mostly to Hillary. Other labor union voters are still in play and Webb might gets them.
Posted by: lord garth || 07/03/2015 18:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Confederate Flag Flop: Public Opinion Remains Unchanged From Where It Was 15 Years Ago
h/t Instapundit
The poll shows that 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol of racism, about the same as in 2000 when 59% said they viewed it as a symbol of pride. Opinions of the flag are sharply divided by race, and among whites, views are split by education.

Among African-Americans, 72% see the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism, just 25% of whites agree. In the South, the racial divide is even broader. While 75% of Southern whites describe the flag as a symbol of pride and 18% call it a symbol of racism, those figures are almost exactly reversed among Southern African-Americans, with just 11% seeing it as a sign of pride and 75% viewing it as a symbol of racism.

Among whites, there's a sharp divide by education, and those with more formal education are less apt to see the flag as a symbol of pride. Among whites with a college degree, 51% say it's a symbol of pride, 41% one of racism. Among those whites who do not have a college degree, 73% say it's a sign of Southern pride, 18% racism.
Instapundit's comment: ONCE AGAIN, REPUBLICANS PREEMPTIVELY SURRENDERED TO A MEDIA BULLDOZING OPERATION. My comment: Maybe time for all of you to rethink your adoration for Nikki Haley.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 05:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Confederate flag is better called the rebel flag; it's not about race but of not wanting to be told what to do by some distant government and its supporters. In fact, that was even the case in 1865.
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 8:22 Comments || Top||

#2  ...in other words, the FU flag.

[BTW, how about banning the 'Red' flag, responsible for about 100 million dead in the 20th Century while you're at it]
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/03/2015 9:21 Comments || Top||

#3 
Posted by: junkiron || 07/03/2015 10:27 Comments || Top||

#4  The Confederacy was indeed about slavery. We've had 150 years of revisionist history trying to tell us that the southern leaders were noble and just trying to fight off northern aggression and centralized government.

Nonsense.

The South was afraid of Abraham Lincoln for one reason: they knew he and the Republicans would do away with slavery. First in the new territories of the west, then in the border states, and finally in the deep South. Lincoln was beguiling but the other Republican leaders (Steward, Chase, etc) were not -- they were quite open about this. It was the whole reason the Republican Party had been formed.

Southern leaders couldn't push slavery but so hard -- most of the young men who were to fight for the south didn't own slaves and didn't care much one way or the other. But they could be induced to fight for home, and so that was the storyline that was adopted.

After the war ended the South really couldn't continue to cling to slavery nostalgia. But the other nostalgia? That was the history that was adopted.

I have no sympathy for the Confederate battle flag -- should have been done away with it in the southern states long, long ago.

Then again, I'm a Republican.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 13:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Care to cite references?
Posted by: Pappy || 07/03/2015 15:12 Comments || Top||

#6  you want to start here?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/03/2015 15:32 Comments || Top||

#7  That'll do for a start. Thanks P2K.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 18:15 Comments || Top||

#8  The Southern battle flag evolved into the southern 'F U' flag to the central government, and has now evolved into a more generalized redneck 'F U' flag to the overpowerful central government - kind of like the Gadsden flag. Yes, racists also drag it around, but I think they're a minority.
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 21:41 Comments || Top||

#9  I don't even own one but after last week, I'd be waving it wide and high at Daytona and the 4th, as a FUCK YOU. My family was a southern family with slaves... we haven't had any in quite a while I'm pretty damn sure, and members died on both sides of the Civil War
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 21:54 Comments || Top||

#10  The "Stars and Bars" was, at one time, a symbol of battle between honest men of vastly differing opinions. Now, it's more a "I'm not gonna' do it, try and make me." thingy, right?

Is there anyone alive today, aside a few who keep their prey chained in a basement, who has kept a slave? How many affirmative actions do we have to go back until one is found?

Enough already with the infinitely offended.

Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 22:47 Comments || Top||

#11  The Southern soldier by and large fought for his tribe be it Texan, Georgian, Alabaman et al.* Just as Germans and Japanese did for their tribe, and damn hard. Often with far better behavior in a civil war which by historical standards is generally brutal and unforgiving than the other two mentioned in general war. All three groups were exploited by their ruling class for their own ends and gains. The Southern leadership was trapped. Too many early success and then passing the mark of more deaths than all the previous war in American history, they could not come to terms, to include selling the slaves to the federal government, as it would be viewed as a betrayal of all the preceding sacrifice of the yeomanry for the wallet of that same class.

* as Shelby Foote alluded to in Ken Burn's series The Civil War, before 1860 it was the United STATES of America, after 1865 it was the UNITED States of America.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/03/2015 22:51 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
The United Nations and the fall
It's probably a mix of my age and the fact that not everyone in the media world has free access to social media -- that's "free" as in unmonitored -- but alongside Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections I also have emails and phone numbers written down in a notebook and stuffed into a folder of business cards that has grown fatter over the years.

It was here I looked for some names and contact details last week, and as I did so I realized how much the world has changed -- and not for the better.

I was trying to find the addresses of Egyptian journalists I used to be in touch with, along with a couple of Libyan journalists, a Tunisian writer and some Fatah-affiliated Palestinians based in Gaza.

One of the Egyptians barely escaped with his life after the fall of Hosni Mubarak and now lives in the US; the other -- the one who a few years ago told me: "The Sunni-Shi'a divide doesn't exist. It's being created by America to split the Muslim world" -- is also no longer reachable; my heart goes out to the Libyans, as their country disintegrates around them; ditto the Tunisian, who must now realize that the Jasmine Revolution was not as romantic as its named implied.

I was looking for them in the wake of a Black Friday followed by a bloody weekend and even worse week. On June 26 the world was shocked when a terrorist gunned down 39 beachgoers, many of them British tourists, at Tunisia's Sousse resort; the general public also did a double take when it learned that the attack on an American-owned gas company near Lyon in France included the decapitation of the terrorist's former boss, whose head was impaled on the factory fence.

It is a mark of Western arrogance that it paid less attention on the same day to the Sunni attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Kuwait during Friday Ramadan prayers. The Sunni- Shi'ite divide is not a figment of our imaginations; it is rocking the world as we know it. And giving the Shi'ite side of it easy access to nuclear arms as well as an economic boost is not going to solve the problem, whatever President Barack Obama and those negotiating with Iran on his behalf believe.

I searched, in vain, for the Cairo-based journalist, not only to get her updated take on the post-Arab Spring world but also for information on the wave of terror that has swept Egypt again, from the assassination of the attorney-general to the attacks by Islamic State that left some 70 Egyptian soldiers and policemen dead in Sinai on Wednesday.

Closer to home, terrorists claimed the life of 27-year-old Malachi Rosenfeld, who was gunned down in a car as he traveled home with three friends near Shvut Rahel, close to Shiloh in the Binyamin region, on Monday.

Israeli officials are wary of calling it a new intifada, but from President Reuven Rivlin down it is being acknowledged that there is a wave of attacks that is not the isolated efforts of "lone wolves." These deadly assaults seem to be well planned and they are being carried out against the backdrop of sickening incitement.

How is the world dealing with all this? Well, the United Nations Humans Rights Council, as usual, has been busy bashing Israel for "possible war crimes."

Well, UN represents the Will of Peoples of the World---and we all know how Peoples of the World feel about the Jews and their unfair advantages.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 04:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Netanyahu: ISIS activities are nothing compared to those of Iran's regime
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday stressed that the international community should not try to strengthen either Iran or Islamic State against the other.

"We have to weaken both of them and prevent attacks and armament of them both," the premier said at an event at the national cyber park in Beersheba. "I say to you, stand in opposition to these dark forces that suppress human rights and murder people and hang them in town squares."

In light of Wednesday's deadly attacks by Islamic State-linked militant in the Sinai Peninsula, the premier added that Israel now faces the threat of Islamic State affiliates on its northern and southern borders.

While listing the group formerly known as ISIS as one of the region's main threats, he said that the radical group's activities are "nothing compared to the capabilities being built by the Iranian regime."

Voice calling in the wilderness
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 04:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Commander shoots Palestinian dead after vehicle ambushed
In response to being pelted with stones, a brigade commander in the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division shot and killed a Palestinian on Friday morning, the IDF confirmed.

Palestinian rioters began throwing stones at Col. Israel Shomer's vehicle and in response, after firing warning shots he opened fire and killed one of them. The victim was identified as a seventeen-year-old named Muhammad al-Casba.
I expect a lot of barking: from Obama down to the lowest placed EU whore.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 04:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I expect a lot of barking: from Obama down to the lowest placed EU whore.

Oh yeah. Not a worry, just a bit of yipping--no bite.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/03/2015 6:32 Comments || Top||

#2  If Obama had a son, he would look (and act) just like Muhammad al-Casba.
Posted by: Rambler in Viginia || 07/03/2015 12:16 Comments || Top||

#3  no problemo
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 12:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Al-Casba should not rock.
Posted by: JHH || 07/03/2015 21:39 Comments || Top||

#5  As Joel Rosenberg said, don't throw rocks at guys with guns. Don't stand next to guys throwing rocks at guys with guns.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 07/03/2015 21:40 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Farkhunda's Family Demands Justice After Court Reverses Convictions
[Tolo News] Responding to reports that the 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....
Appeals Court has ruled to commute the death sentences handed down to four individuals convicted of brutally murdering Farkhunda earlier this year, members of Farkhunda's family have expressed their outrage, calling on leaders of the national unity government to step in and prevent any further injustice.

Sources close to case recently told TOLOnews on condition of anonymity that the Kabul Appeals Court has reversed the Primary Court's May death penalty sentence for four of the men observed in video footage as key perpetrators in the barbaric mob attack on Farkhunda. The four men have reportedly had their sentences reduced to 20 years imprisonment.

Meanwhile,
...back at the hanging, Butch continued with his last words, trying not to repeat himself too often......
the Appeals Court is said to have entirely acquitted Omran, the custodian of the Shrine where Farkhunda was killed, despite that he was originally sentenced to 16 years in prison. Omran was found guilty of instigating the mob attack on Farkhunda for make false accusations publicly that she had burned the Holy Koran.

In addition, eight another defendants, each sentenced to 16 years imprisonment for their role in the murder, were also acquitted by the Appeals Court.

"How could the court make such a decision?" Farkhund'as mother Hajira Malikzada asked on Thursday. "I am feeling pain in my heart, and I am poor," she added.

"We do not accept this verdict - this is not justice," Farkhunda's father Mohammad Nadir Malikzada said. "I demand justice from the president and the chief executive," he added.

President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
was very public with his outrage over the mob killing when it occurred three months ago. The incident was treated as a national tragedy, with the backdrop of the Afghan government's struggles to recast the country after years of state-backed brutality against women under the Taliban regime.

Joining Farkhunda's parents, some civil society groups have also called on the national unity government to review the ruling of the Appeals Court. "The court ruling has raised questions on promises made by the leaders of national untiy government, nor the people neither Farkhunda's family accept the court ruling, the president and chief executive must appoint a speicla court to review the case," MP Neelofar Ibrahimi said.

"The ruling has changed all hope into disappointment," civil society activist Humaira Qaderi said on Thursday. "This means that Afghanistan's legal and judicial institutions support criminals rather than implementing justice."
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria's Kurds warn Turkey not to intervene militarily
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Syria's main Kurdish party warned The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
on Wednesday that any military intervention would threaten international peace and said the country's main Kurdish militia is ready to face any "aggression."

Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Bugs Moroni was holding Slats from behind while his brother Greasy Thumb was pounding his face into paste ...
a Syrian rebel group released a video showing 18 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....
snuffies being shot in the backs of their heads.

The statement by the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, comes as Turkish media is abuzz with talk of a long-debated military intervention to push the Islamic State group back from the Turkish border -- a move that would also outflank any Kurdish attempt to create a state along Turkey's southern frontier.

Kurdish fighters backed by U.S.-led Arclight airstrikes have been on the offensive against the IS group in northern Syria for months, and now control a long stretch along the Syria-Turkey border. Turkey, which battled a decades-long Kurdish insurgency, has viewed the advance with growing concern and has warned it will not tolerate the establishment of a Kurdish state in Syria.

Two weeks ago, the People's Protection Units, or YPG, which is dominated by the PYD, captured the border town of Tal Abyad, denying the IS group a crucial nearby border crossing used to bring in supplies and imported muscle.

The capture of Tal Abyad cleared the way for the Kurds to connect their stronghold in Syria's northeast to the once badly isolated border town of Kobani -- where they famously resisted a months-long Islamic State siege -- and possibly extend it to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in Syria's northwest.

"Any military intervention in Rojava will have local, regional and international repercussions and will contribute to complicating the political situation in Syria and the Middle East and threaten international security and peace," the PYD statement warned. Rojava is a term that refers to Syria's predominantly Kurdish region.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Forget little green men -- aliens will look like humans, says Cambridge University evolution expert
[INDEPENDENT.CO.UK] They are often portrayed on screen as little green men with elongated limbs and saucer-like eyes.
Entirely too humanoid.
From E.T to the X-Files, aliens from outer space have captured our imagination for decades.
I used to read lots of science fiction when I was a kid. Andre Norton, among others, even had humans interbreeding with humanoid aliens. Even as a twelve-year-old I thought the idea was ridiculous. Poul Anderson even had one of his heroes seduce one. I thought that was actually yucky--convergent pheromones would be pretty unlikely.
Yet a new book from a leading evolutionary biologist argues that if they exist and we ever encountered them, they would look very similar to us.
I doubt it. We've got three or more evolutionary strains just on earth: vertebrate, insects, and arachnidae. I don't know where octopi and squids fall in that set so maybe it's four or more. And centipedes. That would make five. And clams and oysters and barnacles. Aliens might look more like ants or spiders or bumblebees or (going back a little further) trilobites.
Most successful kingdom of all time, evolution and planet: bacteria.
Professor Simon Conway Morris said extra-terrestrials that resemble human beings should have evolved on at least some of the many Earth-like planets that have been discovered by astronomers.
Some perhaps, given the size of just our galaxy. But would bilateral symmetry be the rule or the exception? Assuming the aliens had heads at all what's forcing them to have only two eyes? Spiders have eight eyes. Insects have only two eyes but they're compound. Why would they have noses? Insects don't. Why not something like gill slits or blowholes? Or osmosis? Insects and spiders have different mouth equivalents. Would they use language? If so, why, since rubbing their palps together could convey all sorts of data? How many sexes? Bees have males, non-breeding "females," and queens. Would they have DNA? Or some other equivalent that brilliant Cambridge University scholars haven't thought up yet? I could keep going but my tentacles are getting tired from all this typing.
In his new book published on 2 July, The Runes of Evolution, the University of Cambridge academic builds on the principle of convergent evolution -- that different species will independently evolve similar features, with the comparison of the camera eye of an octopus and a human eye a favourite example -- and argues it will not just took place on Earth.
I'm kind of at a loss for the intelligence data in that last sentence--likely there's a word or two missing or the writer lost track of tense. The panda's thumb is another favorite example of convergent evolution but lobsters have no thumbs. They do have elbows, I suppose, though trilobites didn't. But it's probably more intellectually satisfying than speculation on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and just as likely of proof.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  My favorite theory is that aliens came & went between 200,000 and 1,000,000 years ago after genetically modifying some hairy fellas they met in Africa. Due to budget cuts at Galactic Central, they haven't been back.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/03/2015 0:21 Comments || Top||

#2  But on the griping hand we got queens too, so who knows?
Posted by: Shipman || 07/03/2015 0:25 Comments || Top||

#3  If the species has elbows we can complain about how pointy they are on the females, which is all we achieve with earth females anyway.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 07/03/2015 0:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, they might have been gone 200k-1m EARTH years, but that's relativistic now isn't it. They could have said, "Let's pop out for a tea and be back in 20."
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/03/2015 0:43 Comments || Top||

#5  It is interesting to contemplate: What would the result look like, if ten consecutive generations of humans were born, raised, grew up, and then died - all in weightlessness? I'll wager that it would be a pretty strange looking result.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 07/03/2015 2:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Probably wouldn't be born, LR.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 5:02 Comments || Top||

#7  My theory is that early humans were to lazy to be of any use and they didn't taste all that great so they moved on.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/03/2015 6:28 Comments || Top||

#8  What to Expect From Aliens When We Make First Contact [LINK]


Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 12:16 Comments || Top||

#9  I thought they might be gaseous beings - like Joe Biden

Snark of the day.
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 13:01 Comments || Top||

#10  humans interbreeding with humanoid aliens

Captain James T. Kirk. He'd do anything
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 13:02 Comments || Top||

#11  How do you know that ant crawling across your floor is not an alien?
Posted by: Pancho Chaper8401 || 07/03/2015 13:26 Comments || Top||

#12  How do you know the ant isn't a government drone, spying on you?
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 13:37 Comments || Top||

#13  I bought we were an experiment conducted by Dolphins to get the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 13:50 Comments || Top||

#14  I thought...

(iPad autocorrect...)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 13:52 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Violence in Sinai
[DAWN] IT is a measure of Egypt's political instability that the completion of one year of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi
...successor to Hosni Mubarak as president-for-life of Egypt. That was after he removed Mohammad al-Morsi as president-for-life by popular demand in one of the April showers of the Arab Spring....
's government coincided on Wednesday with one of the biggest attacks by 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....
snuffies in the Sinai on the security forces, leading to over 100 deaths. The government declared that the area -- Sheikh Zuweid town -- was "100pc under control", but the force used by the security apparatus -- F-16 jets and Apache helicopters -- only highlighted the murderous Moslems' fighting prowess. Moreover, the government's '100pc' claim appeared dubious when the army declared it would continue the operation until the area had been cleared of "terrorist concentrations". Even though it was the Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate which had launched the attack, the government said among those killed were Moslem Brüderbund members, a claim the Brotherhood denied, saying those "murdered" had been doing relief work.

While Egypt had often witnessed terrorist attacks on foreign tourists and the Coptic minority, organised militancy is a new phenomenon and is obviously a reaction to the regime's unabashed persecution of the opposition, especially of the Moslem Brüderbund, whose government, headed by Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, was removed by the military, followed by bogus trials and the sentencing to death of a number of Brotherhood leaders, including Mr Morsi. In silencing the media and crushing the opposition, Mr Sisi's aim seems to be to give Egypt 'political stability'. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
the ferocious festivities in the Sinai and the murder of the chief prosecutor the other day underline the military-led regime's failure to give peace to the country. Obviously, Mr Sisi hasn't learnt any lessons from the fate of dictators like Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Muammar Qadaffy
...The late megalomaniac dictator of Libya, admired everywhere for his garish costumes, funny hats, harem of cutie bodyguards, and incoherent ravings. As far as is known, he is the only person who's ever declared jihad on Switzerland...
whose systems based on patronage and tyranny collapsed like a house of cards at the first whiff of the Arab spring. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
the dictators mentioned above did give stability -- no matter how superficial -- for decades, but Mr Sisi appears to be having difficulty in consolidating his hold even in the very beginning.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  The truth is, that if there was wide spread violence, there might be a problem for al-Sisi. the violence is limited to remote areas, mostly. He has he state under control and is awaiting a more favorable American administration. Please keep killing MB members. Toss them off the roof when short of lead. I believe Chicago is worse than the Sanai.
Posted by: jvalentour || 07/03/2015 0:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Third time ice-cream.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 4:39 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Military Posts Fall apart before Blows of Yemeni army
[ALMANAR.LB] In retaliation for the persistent Saudi-US aggression, the Yemeni army and the Popular Committees stormed the al-Hajl Saudi military post in Dhahran- Asir and destroyed a BMP tank and one military vehicle.
A BMP 1 is a Soviet-era armored personnel carrier. It's armed with a 73mm gun, but it's more lightly armored than a tank and I don't think the gun's stabilized--it has to stop to aim.
The armor vehicles destroyed appear to be MBTs, though I can't tell the type. The narration said the tanks destroyed were Abrams. Unlikely, but it is what it sez.
Moreover in the home front, the Yemeni forces advanced in Taez province west of the country and liberated several positions from the control of al-Qaeda operatives.

The Yemeni military media broadcast on Wednesday the following footage that documented seizing control over the Saudi Al-Shorfa military position, as the national army and Popular Committees stormed the Al-Sho'ba military post in Saudi Dhahran-Asir region:
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


India-Pakistan
Man injured by FWO official
[DAWN] LANDI KOTAL: A passenger was critically maimed when an employee of the Frontier Works Organisation opened fire on a cab after it did not stop despite signal on Wednesday.

Khasadar officials said that the FWO employee, Salim Younas, opened fire on the cab, as repair of the road near Landi Kotal bazaar was in progress. The firing resulted in the injury to a passenger, Gulistan Mohmand, sitting on the front seat. He was taken to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
at death's door.

Taxi drivers have condemned the incident and demanded the arrest of FWO employee who fled after the incident. The cab driver said that his vehicle was fired upon without any provocation.

The residents also lamented the rude behaviour of FWO officials and employees and alleged that the incident was the third of its type when FWO employees misbehaved and scuffled with the local residents or transporters on a petty issue. They said that an FWO road dumper had damaged five vehicles during the expansion of Torkham road a week ago, but the FWO officials refused to compensate the owners of the affected vehicles.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Artist Formerly Known as Prince Now Known as Prince Again Takes His Music Catalog Off Of All Streaming Services Including Spotify and Apple Music
[SHOWBIZ411] Does anyone listen to this pretentious ball of conceit's output?
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Prince, who?
Posted by: jvalentour || 07/03/2015 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Tim Cook is shaking with fear. No wait, he's laughing...
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 0:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Good, no one should ever listen to his music again.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 07/03/2015 1:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Prince's real name is Prince. That's what his mother named him at birth. It's not a made-up stage name like Jon Stewart. That's why it was so outrageous what Warner tried to do, claim ownership of his NAME.
Posted by: Thraling Hupoluns2819 || 07/03/2015 4:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Strange guy. Even stranger beliefs.

Good party music, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 07/03/2015 8:23 Comments || Top||

#6  This would be Big News in 1989...
Posted by: tu3031 || 07/03/2015 11:54 Comments || Top||

#7  Anyone who compares themselves to Jimi Hendrix should not be taken seriously, musically or otherwise.
Posted by: Raj || 07/03/2015 14:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Kevin Smith was contacted to make some kind of documentary film on Prince (when he was artist formally known as). The project didn't get to far but one part cracked me up. He worked with Prince's agent or helper or whatever and went shopping for Prince wardrobe in the Kids' department of a store because Prince was so tiny.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 07/03/2015 22:13 Comments || Top||

#9  Reader, formerly known as Interested, wonders why the world is still interested in Prince.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 22:52 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Over 13,000 licences cancelled, no weapon deposited so far in Badin
[DAWN] BADIN: Not a single weapon declared 'illegal' after cancellation of 13,251 licences on May 19 has so far been deposited with the authority concerned in Badin district, it emerged on Wednesday.

According to official sources, more than 40,000 licences were issued to residents of Badin district. Under a Supreme Court order, issued amid an increase in acts of terrorism and other criminal activities across the country over the years, a verification process was initiated in October 2013 and every licence-holder was required to get his licence revalidated through a computerised verification system.

The task was assigned to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), which established its window at the offices of deputy commissioners across the province.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran wages media onslaught against Saudis over Yemen war
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Cut off from 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...
and its allies there by a Saudi-led military campaign, Iran has intensified a media counter-offensive against Riyadh, accusing its regional rival of inflicting catastrophic suffering while presenting itself as a blameless peacemaker.

Iranian state media have given blanket coverage in Arabic, Farsi and English to the three-month-old war in Yemen, where Soddy Arabia
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


India-Pakistan
Rangers name 11 suspects in ambush FIR
[DAWN] SHIKARPUR: Sindh Rangers on Wednesday lodged an FIR at the Garhi Yasin cop shoppe nominating 11 suspects in the ambush that left two paramilitary troopers dead and another one maimed a day earlier.

Deputy Superintendent Rangers (DSR) at Shikarpur Manzoor Jat stated in the FIR (76/2015) that the DSR in charge at Shikarpur Abdul Jabbar and his colleague Mushtaq Ahmed sustained fatal wounds in the ambush carried out by armed suspects near Khahi Mahar village. Another Rangers man, Asmat Hayat, also received gunshot wounds, he said.

DSR Jat said that the suspects who had taken position on both sides of the bypass road waylaid the Rangers' mechanised convoy which was heading to the nearby forest area for an operation against gangs of criminals.

In a shootout that followed, one of the attackers was killed and another one maimed and nabbed
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
while a passer-by was also killed, he said. He named the suspects in the FIR as Afgan Marfani, Amaan Tunio, Nawaz Marfani, Ali Nawaz Marfani, Kiwal Marfani, Babal Tunio, Ghulam Murtaza Marfani, Hussain Bukhsh Marfani, Shahbaz Marfani, Sikandar Marfani and Sha'aban Marfani.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Europe
Italy, Albania Police Arrest ISIL Supporters
[ALMANAR.LB] Police incarcerated
Please don't kill me!
10 people suspected of supporting the so-called '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....
of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
group on Wednesday in an operation in Italia and Albania, Rooters news agency reported.

Four Italians, five Albanians and one Canadian were suspected of violating Italian anti-terrorism laws, including one that prohibits organizing trips to support foreign terrorist groups.

Searches and arrests were carried out in the northern cities of Milan and Bergamo and in the Tuscan city of Grosseto.

In a separate operation in Rome, police arrested two people from North Africa suspected of running an Lion of Islam website that incited readers to plan attacks in Italia and the Maghreb countries of North Africa.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
19 die as train carrying army men falls into canal near Gujranwala
[DAWN] At least 19 people, including four army officers, were killed when three bogies of a special train carrying army officials fell into a canal and one other was derailed as a railway bridge collapsed near Gujranwala on Thursday.

A statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said 14 dead bodies had been recovered from the site of the incident, while divers were searching the canal for five more dead bodies.

The dear departed include Pakistain Army Engineering Battalion Unit Commander Lt. Col Amir Jadoon, his wife and two kids, Lt. Col Rashid, Major Adil, Lieutenant Kashif, Constable Islam, Lance Naik Zafar and staffers Babar and Aslam.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Imran Khan's nephews released on bail
[DAWN] The two nephews of Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
(PTI) Chairman Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight...
, who were nabbed
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
on Wednesday from Lahore's Race Course area after they allegedly hurled abuses at a traffic warden who stopped them for violating traffic rules, were released on bail on Thursday.

Earlier, it was reported that only Azeem was Imran Khan's nephew and Abdullah was his friend. However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
it has now been confirmed that both are close relatives of Imran Khan.

The two were released on bail with a surety bond of Rs 50,000 each, as their lawyer claimed all sections are bailable offenses.

The lawyer further alleged that the accused were tortured while in police custody. A magistrate has ordered a medical examination to verify the claims.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Azeem was Imran Khan's nephew and Abdullah was his lover friend. However, it has now been confirmed that both are close relatives of Imran Khan.
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 13:33 Comments || Top||


Another polio case confirmed in Balochistan
[DAWN] Another child fell prey to the crippling polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
virus in the capital of 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...
on Thursday. The latest case was found in a 4-year-old child, who is the resident of Quetta's Pashtoonabad area.

With this new case, the number of polio cases rises to four in Balochistan during the year of 2015.

Refusal was the underlying reason behind the latest polio case in the city. The parents had refused to provide anti-polio drops to the affected child, Dr Syed Saifur Rehman the Coordinator Emergency Operations Balochistan told DawnNews.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Imam Khamenei Denounces Western Media Blackout on Yemen
[ALMANAR.LB] Fearless Leader of the Islamic Revolution
...Iran's doddering head theocrat...
in Iran, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei denounced Western media's silence on crimes committed in the Middle East, especially the brutal Saudi brutal aggression against Yemen.

Addressing a group of professors of Persian poetry and literature, cultural figures, Imam Khamenei lashed out at media outlets which are dominated by the US, Britannia.

His eminence said those media outlets stage a propaganda campaign "over an animal's life while they keep outrageously quiet towards these crimes... such as the bombardment of Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
these days as well as the past years' aggression on Gazoo and Leb."
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Terror Networks
ISIS looting Syrian, Iraqi sites on industrial scale: UNESCO
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] ISIS bully boyz are looting ancient sites across Iraq and Syria on an industrial scale and selling on treasures to middlemen to raise cash, Irina Bokova, the head of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO said Thursday.
It's the same sort of mindset as digging up Nathan Bedford Forrest and moving his remains to some potters' field somewhere, assuming they don't simply scatter the bones.
One fifth of Iraq's about 10,000 official world-renowned sites were under ISIS control and heavily looted, and it was unclear what was happening in "thousands more" areas, Bokova told a meeting of experts in London.

Some sites in Syria had been ransacked so badly they no longer had any value for historians and archaeologists, and UNESCO was also increasingly worried about Libya, she said.

ISIS' self-declared caliphate contains some of the richest archaeological treasures on earth in a region where ancient Assyrian empires built their capitals, Graeco-Roman civiliszation flourished, and Moslem and Christian sects co-existed for centuries.

The Lion of Islams, whose strict Salafi interpretation of Islam deems the veneration of tombs and non-Islamic vestiges to be idolatrous, have also posted videos of themselves destroying artifacts.

"The deliberate destruction, what we are seeing nowadays in Iraq and Syria, has reached unprecedented levels in contemporary history," Bokova told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.

"This deliberate destruction is not only continuing, it is happening on a systematic basis. The looting of archaeological sites and museums, in Iraq particularly, has reached an industrial scale of destruction."
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Africa North
Militants Kill Five Peacekeepers in Northern Mali
[ALMANAR.LB] Militants killed five United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
soldiers on Thursday in Mali's restive northern desert, sources from the organization's peacekeeping mission told AFP.

"Five peacekeepers from Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
were killed on Thursday between Timbuktu and Goundam, during an attack by terrorists," said a source in MINUSMA, the UN's force in the west African nation.UN peacekeepers in Mali

Another source within the mission said nine peacekeepers were maimed in the attack, which appeared to have been carried out by faceless myrmidons who were well-informed about the movements of the MINUSMA convoy.

There was no immediate information on the nature of the attack, although roadside kabooms and ambushes by faceless myrmidons armed with assault rifles are a commonplace hazard for domestic and international security forces in the region.

The UN says 35 peacekeepers have been killed in combat since MINUSMA's inception in 2013, not including Thursday's attack, making northern Mali the deadliest theatre on earth for its personnel.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


India-Pakistan
Police save Christian couple from 'blasphemy' mob near Lahore
[DAWN] Police saved a Christian couple from a mob who were attempting to lynch them for allegedly committing blasphemy, and later jugged
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
a holy man for inciting the violence, a senior officer said Thursday.

The incident, which took place in the village of Makki in Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....

on Tuesday, represents a rare successful intervention by authorities in a country where even unproven allegations of blasphemy can result in a bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.

Sohail Zafar Chattha, the district police chief, told AFP the illiterate Christian couple had obtained an old panaflex advertisement awning which contained the names and slogans of various colleges, which they were using as a mat to sleep on in their home.

Arabic inscriptions, allegedly from the Holy Koran, were found among the colleges' slogans, leading one local barber as well as two holy mans to accuse the couple of committing blasphemy.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Three 'terrorists' arrested
[DAWN] DERA GHAZI KHAN: Police claimed to have tossed in the slammer
Please don't kill me!
on Wednesday night three members of a banned outfit from a mosque in Railway Colony adjacent to the Circuit House.

District Police Officer Ghulam Mubashir Maikan said the three men arrested during a raid belonged to the Al-Farooq group, former allies of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain.

Police also seized ammunition from the suspects, including three hand grenades, two 30-bore pistols and 16 bullets. The arrested men were identified as Saiful Islam, Javed Iqbal and Ghulam Sarwar. Saif is said to be an expert in making bombs and a former student of the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
University.

Police say the Circuit House may have been the target of these "terrorists" as it often hosts state guests.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Terror Networks
US, allies target Islamic State with 28 air strikes in Syria, Iraq
[AlAhram] US-led coalition forces conducted 18 air strikes against 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....
in Iraq and 10 in Syria on Wednesday, the US military said.
The strikes in Iraq targeted eight cities including Falluja, Haditha, djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, Sinjar and Makhmur, destroying buildings, vehicles, weapons and tactical units, the task force in charge of the strikes said in a statement Thursday.

The task force said the Syria strikes included six near Hasaka, the northeastern city stormed last week by Islamic State fighters who drove out thousands of civilians. The Syrian army said it recaptured the residential area on Monday.

Other northern cities targeted in Syria included Kobane and Tal Abyad, the statement said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
Pakistan is a reform story like India's -- only better: economist
[DAWN] Really it is. Anybody could see that at a glance.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


PM orders plan to cope with calamities
[DAWN] That's why we have plans, isn't it? And you know what they say about best-laid plans.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Short Attention Span Theater-
'Wow, pulled back wrong throttle': Last words of doomed pilot of TransAsia plane as it went down in crash that killed 43 people
  • [DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] The TransAsia flight crashed upside down into a river in Taipei in February
  • There were 58 people on board the plane, which clipped a bridge and taxi
  • Report reveals crew had shut off working engine after the other lost power
  • The plane crash claimed the lives of 43 people - only 15 people survived
Back in the Lower Paleolithic I heard tell of a Chinese pilot who landed upside down in a fog.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happened to one of my instructors during an FAA checkride ("similated" engine failure induce by the FAA Inspector.). He, of course, "busted" the ride, and it happens more than you might think. No little light on the throttle to ID the "bad" engine, and the gauges can be misleading, esp. at lower power settings.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 10:45 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Bangladesh police arrest 'top Qaeda militant'
[DAWN] Bangladesh police said Thursday they had tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
12 suspected snuffies including the local head of Al Qaeda's branch in the region, foiling an attack planned for the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramazan.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) also seized explosives and other bomb-making materials during raids on Wednesday, July 2, on the bad boys' hideouts in the capital Dhaka, front man Major Maksudul Alam said.

"During the raids we arrested 12 snuffies including Maolana Mainul Islam who is the chief coordinator of AQIS in Bangladesh," RAB's Alam told AFP.

Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) had been planning an unspecified attack in the Moslem-majority nation after Eidul Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramazan, Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan, the most senior RAB front man, told news hounds.

"They've selected a madrassa in (the northern district of) Bogra for training," he said, adding that the group was financed by individuals from 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...
and United Arab Emirates.

AQIS has grabbed credit for the murder of several secular bloggers in Bangladesh this year, including the hacking to death of Bangladeshi-born US citizen Avijit Roy in Dhaka in February.

Last September, Al Qaeda released a video announcing the establishment of a branch on the Indian subcontinent, AQIS, saying it wanted to revive jihadist activity.

Bangladesh, home to the world's fourth largest Moslem population, has not been hit by a major bad boy attack since 2006.

Although the country has in recent years witnessed a rise in support for a hardline Islamist political group, experts say there is little appetite for religious extremism in the country. There are also no known cases of Bangladeshis joining 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.
...excepting, of course, the twelve written about in this very article.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [37 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Rebel forces withdraw from Shirokino -- Updated


For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.

Russian military analyst Boris Rozhin said today that rebel infantry have moved back into western sectors of Shirokino after a Ukrainian patrol was spotted there. So far, Donetsk officials have yet to confirm the return of rebel forces to Shirokino.

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Rebel forces holding the forward town of Shirokino have withdrawn their troops, "unilaterally demilitarizing" the town after nearly six months of fighting, according to Russian language news accounts.

A Ukrainian commander, identified as General Major Andrei Taran, told the 0629.com.ua news outlet Thursday that rebel troops have left the town, and have taken up positions in two towns immediately east of Shirokino, including Sahanka and Bezimyanoye.

For a week, discussions coming out of the working groups of the Minsk II agreement trying to hammer out a permanent settlement in this year old war included a proposal to demilitarize the resort town -- nearly completely destroyed by artillery fire and direct fire combat since at least last February -- by removing combatants.

Rebel forces and Ukrainian volunteer units including the Ukrainian "Azov" Regiment have been fighting over the town, with the Ukrainian side clinging to western sectors of the town. Both sides have accused the other of hitting targets using heavy artillery including tank gun fire, all of which is supposed to be withdrawn to a sufficient distance to stop artillery fire.

According to another news account in korrespondent.net, rebel forces left with town starting around midnight, July 2nd and ending at first light.

An observation post is to be set up and maintained by a Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Shirokino was the most forward outpost of the rebel forces in the Mariupol region, and had been, according to repeated rebel news announcement, subjected to Ukrainian artillery fire since last February. It was only a few weeks ago that elements of the "Azov" Regiment took control of the western sectors of the town.

Rebel forces have withdrawn to Sahanka, itself under heavy Ukrainian artillery fire for a week, now presumably because of rebel plans to establish a base there.

According to the spokesman for the Donetsk ministry of defense, Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin, Ukrainian forces have been using drones to adjust artillery fire into Sahanka. According to an official rebel report, Ukrainians have been using 120mm mortar fire at Sahanka and other locations in the Mariupol defense zone occupied by rebel forces.

Basurin also said that many residents have left Sahanka because of the destruction rendered by Ukrainian artillery fire, to include eight residences. A total of 300 are said to have left the town

According to Ukrainian media, rebel artillery have been firing into Mariupol starting at around 2030 hrs July 2nd using 152mm and 122mm tube artillery. According to data supplied by the Ukrainian ministry of defense, rebel artillery used also included 120mm mortars fire. Rebel have been using antitank guided missiles (ATGMs), with one hitting in the Leninskiy district of Mariupol. The report does not specify any damage or casualties by rebel fire, only that the artillery did not hit Ukrainian troops in Mariupol.

Ukrainian media have accused rebels of planning to use Shirokino as a springboard for an offensive aimed at capturing the port city of Mariupol. Two days ago US paid media, using data supplied by the Ukrainian volunteer "Dnepr-1" Battalion and the Ukrainian ministry of defense have said that a Russian forward operating base (FOB), has been set up for what appears to be a reinforced Russian rifle company. The plan, accuses Ukrainian media, is to use the base located just 12 kilometers from Volnovakha as a base for offensive operations aimed at enveloping Mariupol with a single pincer from Volnovakha to some point a few kilometers to the west of Mariupol.

Once that encirclement operation is successfully in hand, rebel forces in Shirokino were to push their way into the city.

Rebels abandoning a forward area such as Shirokino in the face of accusations that it would be used to attack Mariupol, would seem to fly in the face of such accusations, but for the rebels' penchant for displays, and their considerable ability to play up such moves.

According to data supplied by the Ukrainian ministry of defense, General Taran said: "The cynicism of the situation lies in the fact that before the next negotiations in Minsk militants defiantly decided to return to Ukrainians destroyed and deserted Shirokino positioning the solution as the observance of the Minsk Agreement."

The area around Mariupol, just before Minsk I in September had rebel forces in isolated groups holding positions to the northwest of the city. Mariupol had been used by the Ukrainian military as a marshaling point for their now failed operation in August, 2014 to envelope Donetsk city from the south. That operation led to the battles around Ilovaisk, arguably, one of the two great military disasters for the Ukrainian military.

How much the rebels holding those positions would have helped in subsequent operations is unknown.

Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraina by clicking here.
Posted by: badanov || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


-Land of the Free
TV Land Pulls 'Dukes of Hazzard' Episodes Amid Confederate Flag Uproar
[HOLLYWOODREPORTER] No great intellectual loss but a cultural loss to the former Land of the Free.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As effective an effort to counter racism as blaming internet videos for causing terrorist attacks.
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/03/2015 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Skidmark
What sort of idiot would do that?
/sarc
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/03/2015 2:13 Comments || Top||

#3  USA is a worldwide defender of freedom and democracy. But, IMO, something is missing.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 4:27 Comments || Top||

#4  What is missing is freedom and democracy. It has been replaced by the odious tyranny of PC.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/03/2015 6:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Adulthood, replaced by a population of children in adult bodies who have no comprehension of the real world outside their urban bubbles. It's all shadows on the wall.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/03/2015 9:27 Comments || Top||

#6  My guess is that the kerfuffle gave Viacom an opportunity to cut a nostalgic but only marginally-profitable offering.

Follow the $.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 10:57 Comments || Top||

#7  Luke and Bo were racist? What about Daisy?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 11:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Daisy was racy...
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 13:43 Comments || Top||

#9  I like Matt Welch's comment. Something along the lines of Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg being the bad guy which made the Duke boys rebels against the souther corrupt political machine.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 07/03/2015 22:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Yes, The Duke Boys stood for rebellion against a corrupt and stupid local Constabulary - nothing more, nothing less. Racist?! Puh-lease.

Tempest in a Tea(V)pot.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 22:36 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Bahrain Opposition Figure Nabbed after accusing Regime of Ignoring ISIL Threats
[ALMANAR.LB] Bahraini police tossed in the clink
You have the right to remain silent...
a senior opposition figure, Majeed Milad, because he accused the Al Khalifa regime of ignoring threats by 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...
group, ISIL (so-called 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....
in Iraq and Levant).

Milad was arrested on Wednesday, after interior ministry summoned him for questioning, media reported.

Shortly before his arrest, Milad, who is member in al-Wefaq's secretariat-general, said that the Al Khalifa regime had been ignoring threats by ISIL to target mosques in the country.

In a post on his Twitter account, Milad stressed that Bahraini Shias would not leave mosques empty because of ISIL threats.

Milad's tweets came after a string of recent attacks by ISIL targeted Shia worshipers in Kuwait, 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...
and 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...
in the past weeks.

Earlier on Tuesday, residents of Hamad city, which lies west of the capital Manama, disclosed a man disguised as a woman in al-Sayyeda Khadija Mosque.

The man first fled the Mosque, but was then arrested by the residents, Bahraini media reported.

Last Friday, at least 26 Kuwaiti worshippers were martyred and more than 200 otehrs were maimed as a Takfiri jacket wallah went kaboom! in al-Sadeq Mosque in the Kuwaiti capital. ISIL grabbed credit for the terrorist attack.

Al-Wefaq, prominent opposition group in Bahrain, denounced Milad's arrest as abusive and reckless, calling on the authorities to immediately release the opposition figure.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Iraq
Peshmerga fight off ISIS assault on Mosul Dam
[Rudaw] 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....
fighters launched an attack on Peshmerga positions at the djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
Dam on Wednesday, said a Peshmerga source involved in the fighting.

"ISIS launched the assault with two Humvees in two different prongs on Peshmerga on the Mosul Dam front. Peshmerga with the help of US-led coalition air strikes were able to defeat them and two ISIS fighters were incinerated inside their vehicles ," said Ayoub Nasradin, a Kurdish fighter with the 1st Special Brigade Peshmerga.

According to Nasradin, ISIS fighters also launched attacks on the Peshmerga in other areas of Mosul province. Another vehicle-led assault hit the frontlines in Badoosh and the military stockades in Barzan where also targeted.

Nasradin said a total of seven hard boyz were killed in the attacks.

An Arclight airstrike carried out by the US-led coalition also destroyed an ISIS armored vehicle in the area. Nasradin said there is no information how many hard boyz were inside, but none escaped.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Airstrikes destroy ISIS weapons depot in Shingal
[Rudaw] The US-led coalition took out several ISIS weapons depots northeast of Shingal town on Wednesday, Brigadier Izzadin Saado, told Rudaw on Wednesday.

"The coalition Arclight airstrikes have destroyed three ISIS weapons depots and more than 10 ISIS fighters have been hunted down," said Saado, commander of the 12th Peshmerga brigade.

Saado said the weapons caches had contained light and heavy weapons.

Shingal has been the scene of intense fighting between Kurdish forces and bandidos Lions of Islam since last year. The area's predominantly Kurdish Yezidi population suffered massacres, rapes and kidnappings when ISIS overran their ancestral land.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


The Grand Turk
Turkish Police Arrest Seven ISIL Suspects
[ALMANAR.LB] Turkish police have detained seven suspected members of the so-called '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....
of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
group in an operation in the Turkish provinces of Izmir, Isparta and Erzurum, police sources said Wednesday.

The Anti-Terrorism Branch of Izmir Police Department said that investigations into the suspects began after it received information that some alleged ISIL operatives, who took part in the fight across the border in Syria, had returned to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
.

Once the locations of the suspects were confirmed, an operation was launched simultaneously at 22 separate places in the western province of Izmir and southern province of Isparta, and in the eastern province of Erzurum, the police department added.

Police found two guns, a flag of ISIL and many organizational documents during the searches conducted in Izmir's Buca and Menemen districts.

The seven alleged ISIL members were handed over to the anti-terrorism branches in the respective provinces, police said.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Terror Networks
US drone strike kills Islamic State coordinator
[AlAhram] The Pentagon says a coalition Arclight airstrike in Syria has killed a senior 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 leader, who has been responsible for moving fighters and weapons from Libya to Syria.

A senior U.S. official says Tariq bin Tahar al-'Awni al-Harzi was killed by a U.S. drone strike. The official was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon front man, says al-Harzi was killed June 16 in Shaddadi in northern Syria. He says al-Harzi coordinated the use of suicide kaboom attacks in Iraq and his death will hurt the Islamic State bully boys' ability to move imported muscle in and out of the region.

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions on al-Harzi last September.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Europe
I.M.F. Agrees With Athens That Greece Needs Debt Relief
[NYTIMES] The International Monetary Fund, a big Greek creditor, conceded a point on Thursday that the Athens government has long been making: Without some reduction in the country's staggering debt load, Greece has little hope of a sustained economic recovery.

It was a significant acknowledgment, and an indication that if or when bailout negotiations resume, Greece might win some relief from its debt of 300 billion euros, or about $330 billion. It just might not be relief granted to the leftist government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The I.M.F. argued on Thursday that the five-month-old government bore the blame for having made Greece's economic situation so much worse that a new €50 billion relief program is now necessary.

The organization did not mention Mr. Tsipras or his party by name, but said the country's economy and finances had deteriorated sharply because of government policies since the end of last year. Mr. Tsipras took office in January.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I LOVE the accompanying picture.
Posted by: Jeremiah Gleash5005 || 07/03/2015 14:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Has Clinton Dispatched Oppo Researchers to UVM's Sanders Archive?
Does a duck quack?
[SEVENDAYSVT] Librarians at the University of Vermont's special collections say interest is spiking in the "Bernard Sanders papers" -- 30 boxes of meticulously organized material documenting Sanders' eight years as mayor of Burlington.

That should come as no surprise, given the independent senator's rapid rise in the polls in New Hampshire and Iowa, which hold the nation's first presidential nominating contests.

Media outlets, such as the Guardian, have drilled deep into the archives and unearthed tasty tidbits -- but they're not the only ones interested in getting to know the senator.

Last Thursday, two casually dressed twentysomethings were spotted combing through the Sanders files and decades-old Vermont newspapers. As they were on their way out the door at the end of the day, Seven Days asked what they were doing.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Who cares?
Posted by: jvalentour || 07/03/2015 0:13 Comments || Top||

#2  SOP, politics of personal destruction. Would else are you going to run on - who can out socialist the other?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/03/2015 7:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Drudge Report has an article of the forming of Bernie Sanders. His parents immigrated here without a penny to their name. Through hard work the made something. Apparently Bernie wasn't willing to work hard and came to believe the Government should give him everything. Sound familiar?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/03/2015 10:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Sounds like a job for Sandy Berger and his "Magic Pants"...
Posted by: tu3031 || 07/03/2015 11:43 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Taliban's Supply Commander in North West Arrested
[Tolo News] The Taliban's supply commander for four north west provinces in Afghanistan has been detained by Faryab police, officials said Thursday.

Faryab police media officer Sayed Massoud Yaqoubi confirmed the arrest and said that Mullah Mohammad Nabi was detained by Faryab police on Wednesday afternoon in Gurziwan district in Faryab province.

"Mullah Mohammad Nabi son of Abdul Malik of Ghor province who had responsibility of Taliban's supply chain in Faryab, Badghis, Sar-e-Pul and Ghor provinces in Afghanistan has been nabbed
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
," Yaqoubi said.

According to Yaqoubi, Nabi also managed the Taliban's security in Chaharsada district in Ghor.

Nabi was responsible for the murder of Chaharsada police chief and dozens of coppers and soldiers in Ghor, said Yaqoubi.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Taliban Seize Control of Six Check Points in Jalris District
[Tolo News] Wardak's deputy governor on Thursday said that Death Eaters have seized control of six police checkpoints in Jalris district in Wardak province.

He said the armed confrontation between security forces and the Death Eaters started last night at around 11:00 pm and that by late Thursday afternoon fighting continued.

According to him, five Afghan Local Police (ALP) officers have been killed and a number of vehicles seized.

Meanwhile,
...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Big Shirley was still trying to snatch Nunzio bald-headed. She was already halfway there...
a provincial official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, criticized the delay by government to send in reinforcement troops to the area. He warned the district itself is on the verge of collapse.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [8 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Africa North
Egypt media: advanced weapons used in Sinai attack
[Rudaw] A newspaper close to the Egyptian government says 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....
-linked bully boyz who attacked troops in the Sinai Peninsula used sophisticated weaponry, including Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles.

In a graphic on its front page Thursday, el-Watan daily says the attackers also used mortars, anti-aircraft guns and other guided missiles.

The attack, which included a wave of suicide kabooms and assaults on security installations by dozens of bad boys, was Sinai's deadliest fighting in decades.

Newspapers led their front pages with the attack, with many describing it as a "war." Graphic photographs released by the military showed the bodies of holy warriors killed in the fighting who were wearing combat fatigues.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria Boko Haram crisis: Militants 'kill 150'
[BBC] Nearly 150 people are reported to have been killed by suspected Boko Haram Islamist militants in attacks in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno state.
The corpse count has grown by 50 since yesterday's reportage.
Eyewitnesses say the gunmen stormed the village of Kukawa near Lake Chad on Wednesday evening, killing 97 people, including women and children.
They're favored targets under Islam.
On Tuesday, the militants shot dead 48 men after they had finished prayers in two villages near the town of Monguno, a resident told the BBC.
"Mosque" and "mass murder." They go together so well.
The women are said to have been spared.
They've probably got a use for them in mind. Waste not want not.
Monguno was recently recaptured from Boko Haram. At least 23 people died in the town last month after a confiscated Boko Haram bomb exploded during celebrations to mark the successful military operation against the Islamist group.
Bomb sex? That's a new one on me.
According to Amnesty International, at least 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its violent uprising to try to impose militant Islamist rule.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


India-Pakistan
IS-inspired suspected militants arrested in Peshawar
[DAWN] Police on Thursday incarcerated
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
three suspected turbans said to be inspired by the self-styled 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....
Acting on an intelligence tip-off, security forces raided a shop in the Shamshadu Bazaar area and arrested the three suspects.

According to police sources, laptops containing IS literature along with other documents were recovered from their possession. Also seized were documents against the Pakistain Army. No weapons or ammunition was seized in the raid.

Amongst those arrested were two Afghan nationals, Asmatullah and Abdur Rehman. The third suspect, Mohammad Ibrahim, belongs to Mohmand Agency
... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Police ambushed during operation
[DAWN] A strong contingent of police led by a DSP came under attack by a gang of dacoits during an operation to arrest its ringleader and members in the Phuladiyoon area on Wednesday. One policeman received gunshot wounds in what was described as the ambush.

An FIR was registered at the Phuladiyoon cop shoppe on behalf of the state against Noor Mohammed Marri, Mubarak Marri and Abo Marri.

It said that a contingent comprising personnel from the Phuladiyoon, Sindhri and Dilber Maher cop shoppes was ambushed during a hunt for the wanted suspects and their associates in Jumma Marri village, an area surrounded by thick woods. It said that one policeman, Deedar Abro, sustained bullet wounds in the ambush. The attack triggered a shootout but the gangsters managed to disappear in the forest, it added.

The Sindhri DSP, who led the police contingent, said that the operation was planned on a credible tip-off about the presence of the wanted outlaws in the area.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Two Pakistani soldiers hurt, Afghan guard killed in clash
[DAWN] Two soldiers were maimed when Afghan National Army fired at Pakistain Army's position in Angoor Adda area of South Wazoo Agency on Wednesday.

An Afghan border guard was killed in the exchange of fire.

The Inter-Services Public Relations said that a rocket-propelled grenade-7 and a few rounds of small arms were fired on the Angoor Adda gate from the Afghan side causing injuries to the soldiers. Pak troops responded and targeted positions from where fire was coming.

The border-crossing point was closed after the incident. Local people said that the exchange of fire continued for more than an hour.

It is learnt that the maimed soldiers belonged to Frontier Works Organisation which builds roads and other infrastructures in border areas.

Official sources said the government had planned to construct an entry gate, 'Bab-e-Waziristan', along the Afghan border. Afghan authorities have reservations over the plan and asked Pakistain to abandon it.

They said that FWO workers went to the site early in the morning to resume work but came under attack. One official said the federal government had decided to establish customs station at Angoor Adda.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Southeast Asia
Indonesia Plane Crash Caused by Engine Failure, Air Force Chief Says
[NYTIMES] An engine malfunction was the reason an Indonesian military aircraft crashed into an urban neighborhood, the chief of the air force said on Thursday, offering the first official explanation of the disaster two days ago.

Air Marshal Agus Supriatna told news hounds in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra Province, that one of the four propellers on the aircraft, an American-built C-130 Hercules transport, was not functioning, causing it to crash about two minutes after takeoff on Tuesday from Soewondo Air Force Base in the city. All 122 people on the plane were killed, as well as at least 21 people on the ground.

"The pilot had asked to return to base, and that was an indication there was something wrong with the plane," Marshal Agus said. "There was a malfunction. One of the propellers wasn't working; that's why the plane went down so fast."

A woman who witnessed the crash said she noticed that at least two of the C-130's four propellers were not turning when the aircraft smashed into a gated compound of shops with living spaces above them. The witness said that in the seconds before the crash she saw thick smoke coming from one of the plane's wings.
Two should have been adequate to keep it in the air from what I understand. If they were down to one then they were toast.
There has been speculation that the aircraft, which was transporting Indonesian military personnel and their dependents between military bases, may have been overloaded with passengers. It was bound for stops in the Riau Islands, the Natuna Islands and Indonesian Borneo when it took off on Tuesday.

The doomed aircraft missed striking a dense cluster of lower-class dwellings and shops by a few yards; instead it hit the compound, which has some open space as well as a number of popular traditional Indonesian massage parlors.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The same as the Taiwan air crash. Pilot lost one engine and turned off the wrong engine, resulting in two lost engines. In Taiwan this left them with zero engines, but here they've got two remaining so they should have been OK. Guess is that pilot dumb enough to turn off the wrong engine probably doesn't know how to trim the aircraft for flight with two engines out.
Posted by: Thraling Hupoluns2819 || 07/03/2015 2:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Flying with two engines out is often possible, though it would be easier if they were on opposite side (were they?)
Losing two on take-off of a loaded aircraft makes for a much harder task.
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 8:27 Comments || Top||

#3  If both dead engines were on the same side of the A/C, the lift and yaw issues, esp. at high power settings and low airspeed, could result in control problems as serious as a "rollover."
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 11:02 Comments || Top||

#4  And if you had a pitch control problem and a locked prop transmission, the result would have been engine failure and possibly enough asymmetric power to cause a stall.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 07/03/2015 12:21 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lack of funds forces UN to slash aid to Syrian refugees
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] The World Food Program (WFP) is to slash its aid to Syrian refugees due to a lack of funding, the UN agency announced on Wednesday.

This month the agency will halve the value of food vouchers given to refugees in Leb to $13.50 per person per month.

Furthermore, the WFP said in a statement that it fears having to suspend all assistance to Syrian refugees living outside camps in Jordan, leaving around 440,000 without food, unless it receives immediate funding by August.

"Just when we thought things couldn't get worse, we are forced yet again to make yet more cuts," said WFP regional director Muhannad Hadi said. "Refugees were already struggling to cope with what little we could provide."

The agency said it was currently 81 percent underfunded and needs $139 million to continue helping refugees in Jordan, Leb, Egypt, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
and Iraq until September.

It has already reduced its assistance to 1.6 million Syrian refugees due to a lack of resources.

"We are extremely concerned about the impact these cuts will have on refugees and the countries that host them," Hadi added. "Families are taking extreme measures to cope such as pulling their children out of school, skipping meals and getting into debt to survive. The long-term effects of this could be devastating."
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


At least 30 people killed south Syria as barrel bombing continues
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Syrian regime air forces extended its fierce aerial campaign on the southern province of Daraa, killing dozens of people, a move came to put down rebels' effort to take full control of the strategic region near Jordan.

On Wednesday, more than 30 people, including women and kiddies, killed in barrel kabooms on Saida, Tiba and Tafas towns near the Jordanian border, according to activists.

Activists said two people from Tafas were died of wounds sustained at the Jordanian border after being denied entry to Jordan's hospitals.

Activists via Zaman al-Wasl have pleaded to Jordanian authorities to open the borders for maimed Syrians.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights said Wednesday's corpse count reached 43 by Bashir al-Assad forces.

For months, the regime has waged an unrelenting aerial campaign against the opposition-held areas making particular use of crude so-called barrel bombs.

Rights groups criticize the weapons as indiscriminate and say they are more likely to cause civilian casualties.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Syrian Defense Minister Inspects Army Units in Hasaka
[ALMANAR.LB] Syrian Defense Minister Major General Fahd Jasem al-Freij visited on Wednesday the army units in Hasaka.

Accompanied by a number of the army senior officers, al-Freij, also deputy Commander-in-chief of the army, met the soldiers working in Hasaka and appreciated their courage and heroism showed while fighting holy warriors of 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...
group, ISIL (so-called 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....
in Iraq and Levant), eliminating them, official news agency, SANA, reported.

Gen. Freij was briefed by field commanders on the military operations, hailing unity between Hasaka people and the army soldiers who stand as one rank in defense of the Homeland, SANA added.

"The army's victories and achievements against terrorism are real embodiment of our people's choice in resistance and struggle," the Syrian agency quoted Gen. Freij as saying.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Africa North
Morocco breaks up militant cell linked to Islamic State
[Ynet] Morocco said on Thursday security forces had dismantled an Islamist holy warrior cell affiliated to 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, including members with knowledge in handling weapons and explosives.

North African governments are on high alert after last Friday's rampage by a gunman at a Tunisian beach resort in which 38 foreigners, mostly British holidaymakers, were killed. The attack was claimed by Islamic State.

The Moroccan group of nine members was active in cities inlcuding Meknes, Tetouan, Tangiers and Laayoune in Western Sahara, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
Zardari's cousin granted bail in ambulances misuse case
[DAWN] HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit, on Wednesday granted interim pre-arrest bail till July 14 to Ali Hassan Zardari, a cousin of former president Asif Ali Zardari, in a sum of Rs1 million in an ambulances misuse case.

The bench comprising Justice Abdul Rasool Memon and Justice Syed Saeeduddin Nasir directed the special prosecutor of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the deputy attorney-general (DAG) to produce whatever evidence they had against the petitioner on the next date of hearing.

The applicant has also been directed to cooperate with the NAB authorities in the investigation as and when summoned.

In his constitutional petition filed through Advocate Haq Nawaz Talpur, Ali Hassan Zardari has cited the NAB director general, Federal Investigation Agency, Anti-Corruption Establishment, Sindh IG, Shaheed Benazirabad SSP, Rangers director-general and others as respondents.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian rebels turn tables on ISIS fighters by releasing slick execution video of them shooting jihadis while dressed in orange jumpsuits
[DailyMail] A rebel group battling ISIS in Syria has turned the tables on its enemies by capturing and slaughtering dozens of Islamic State soldiers on camera.

Dressed in orange jumpsuits - attire usually worn by ISIS's victims - the Jaysh Al-Islam soldiers lead 13 shackled jihadis to their deaths.

Jaysh Al-Islam calls itself the 'Army of Islam' and reportedly commands as many as 25,000 loyal fighters following the merger of around 60 rebel factions inside Syria.

Islamic State's captured soldiers are forced to kneel as a commander announces: 'Allah did not make a disease without appointing a remedy to it.'
Heh.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Jordan might intervene in southern Syria
The civil war in Syria has reached such a tipping point for one of the most stable and US-friendly regimes in the Middle East. The Jordanian military is actively implementing plans to create a humanitarian buffer zone in the south of the country, Sam Jones, Roula Khalaf and Erika Solomon report for the Financial Times.

Jordan’s military envisions an operation that would set up a humanitarian corridor in the southern Syrian provinces of Deraa and Suwayda.
And then keeping those provinces once the fighting is over, as a reward for their "humanitarian" assistance...
The Assad regime is currently in nominal control of these provinces. But a coordinated rebel offensive, consisting in large part of fighters from the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, has sparked concern in Jordan that a full-scale Syrian withdrawal from the area could occur, provoking chaos along the border.

Jordan worries that jihadists could establish a permanent foothold along the country’s border with Syria, or sue the area for attacks on the country’s generally pro-US monarchy. As the FT reports, Jordanian leaders want to “avoid ‘another Idlib'” in the region, a reference to the March withdrawal of the Assad regime from the northern city in the face of a rebel and jihadist offensive. “Diplomats say Amman and its international allies are keen to avoid ‘another Idlib‘, referring to the Assad regime’s withdrawal from the city in March; jihadis soon took advantage of the retreat and established a strong presence there.”

The zone of control would likely include the Syrian city of Deraa, and would be manned by US and Jordan-supported moderate rebels along with more direct Jordanian military support.
But mostly more direct Jordanian military support...
Southern Syria comprises the entirety of Jordan’s northern border and any chaos could easily spill over the border. Deraa itself is within 45 miles of Amman, the Jordanian capital.

The Jordanian military in general, and its special forces in particular, is regarded as one of the more effective fighting forces in the region.
Tallest dwarves in the Arab circus...
Jordan maintains a close military relationship with the US, and Jordanian special forces have participated in operations in Afghanistan. The special forces have also proven adept at intelligence-gathering operations.

Jordan is a member of the US-led coalition against ISIS and has conducted airstrikes against the militant group in both Iraq and Syria. In the beginning of February, Jordan launched dozens of strikes in Syria following the execution of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasabe.

Jordan’s willingness to directly intervene within Syria reflects a growing regional unease with the already chaotic situation in the country, where as many as 320,000 have been killed over the course of a 4-year-old civil war. A number of Turkish newspaper sources have also reported that Ankara is seriously considering a ground operation that would establish a humanitarian buffer zone along the Turkish border in northern Syria.

The Turkish operation would be aimed at limiting Syrian Kurdish ability to declare an independent state while striking against ISIS and stopping the flow of Syrian refugees over the border.

Israel has also signalled that it could be willing to intervene in southern Syria in order to protect the Druze minority in the country if jihadists or the Assad regime ever threatened the survival of the religious minority group in areas near the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Government
Klingons have paid millions to a consulting firm to help with reorganization
[WAPO] The CIA has paid more than $10 million to a management consulting firm advising senior U.S. intelligence officials on a broad reorganization that agency Director John O. Brennan began earlier this year, current and former U.S. officials said.

The agency also is requiring some of its departments to surrender portions of their annual budgets in an effort to collect enough money to cover other costs associated with the restructuring, officials said.

The payments to the firm, McKinsey & Co., have been viewed with skepticism by some at CIA headquarters and on Capitol Hill at a time when the agency is confronting significant new security threats as well as pressure to trim costs.

Several current and former U.S. officials said they were surprised by the magnitude of the consulting contract, an arrangement that officials said Brennan did not mention to workers when he announced the reorganization or explain to lawmakers in briefings.

"What is the rationale?" said a U.S. official familiar with the contract. "When you're talking about millions and millions of dollars, there ought to be a reason why the money is being spent."
Be a shame to see all of those bright young minds with new clearances and poly's leave the project after contract expiration.
The sum paid to McKinsey represents a tiny fraction of a CIA budget that is believed to exceed $12 billion annually. But current and former U.S. officials said they could not recall a previous case in which the CIA had hired an outside consulting firm at such expense.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment on the contract or overall cost of the reorganization, but said the agency is "implementing this plan within our existing budget and without seeking additional funds from Congress."

A spokesman for McKinsey in Washington declined to comment.
None of our 'members' in our 105 global offices are authorized to discuss client affairs without client and corporate approval. Pardon the redundancy.
McKinsey, which specializes in advising companies on management issues and corporate restructurings, was hired to help carry out what CIA officials have described as one of the most ambitious reorganizations in the agency's history.

Interesting, what could McKinsey know about the intelligence community? Could this be what it's all about ?


Yet another Clinton Foundation link, who knew ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The CIA has a bigger problem.
The Central Intelligence Agency is once again mired in crisis. CIA Director John Brennan finds himself “deeply concerned.” The spy agency he runs suffers from an affliction that he says has “persisted despite repeated efforts by Agency leaders to address it.”

What is ailing this vital guardian of national security? The CIA’s upper echelon, Mr. Brennan said on Tuesday, does “not reflect the diversity of the Agency workforce or of the nation.”

Mr. Brennan was commenting on the “Director’s Diversity in Leadership Study,” an unclassified report released that day. The study comes to the “unequivocal conclusion,” he said in a statement, that there has been a major failure at the agency in the “crucial” area of diversity and inclusiveness. . . .

The report is unsparing. Senior positions at the “highest levels of the CIA” are “consistently occupied by white male career officers.” While minority officers make up 23.9% of the CIA workforce, the higher echelons of the CIA don’t come close to that number. For example, the Senior Intelligence Service, the crème de la crème of the spy agency’s personnel, manages only a 10.8% minority composition. Spies with disabilities and LGBT spies, according to the report, are no better represented in the CIA’s upper leadership, though women are generally faring well.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/03/2015 10:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Gays and Transvestites as spies?

Might work given some of the odd sexual appetites of some foreign operatives and diplomats.

I guess now that we are all throwing the closet out in the street and being gay is supposedly de-stigmatized, and that means blackmailing a high ranking official into cooperating has gone bye bye...NOT
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 07/03/2015 12:19 Comments || Top||

#3  ...It's been my experience that when a business becomes incapable of performing its core functions, the restructuring merry-go-round starts. Sometimes they can, with immense luck, land on the right combination of ideas and capabilities.

Most of the time they're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

And if we get hit this weekend, I hope and pray that when the CIA says, "We never saw this coming," someone has the courage to hold up that report about not-enough-GLBT-agents and say, "Yeah. We know."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/03/2015 18:03 Comments || Top||

#4  ...It's been my experience that when a business becomes incapable of performing its core functions, the restructuring merry-go-round starts. Sometimes they can, with immense luck, land on the right combination of ideas and capabilities.

Most of the time they're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

And if we get hit this weekend, I hope and pray that when the CIA says, "We never saw this coming," someone has the courage to hold up that report about not-enough-GLBT-agents and say, "Yeah. We know."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/03/2015 18:03 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
DC: Loud noise causes lockdown at Washington Navy Yard
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...Better safe than sorry, I suppose. One question though - many years ago, I visited the WNY to see the US Navy Museum (worth the effort), and there were armed MARINES there guarding the place.

Didn't see a one of 'em during the news coverage the other day. I've heard one reason they're no longer there is that they 'intimidated' the Local Residents. Seems Anacostia ain't the most delightful place in the world.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/03/2015 9:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Loud noises at a Naval Shipyard?

No wonder she called the police!

Still probably better safe than sorry.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 11:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Lots of important stuff going on the Navy Yard, but ship building ain't one of them.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 07/03/2015 12:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Intimidation of the local residents would seem to be a desirable status...
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/03/2015 13:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Good grief - the Marines were pulled from guarding naval installations almost forty years ago. Nothing to do with "intimidating locals" and everything to do with politics and budgets.

As an aside, the Federal Guv'mint has been dumping money into South D.C. (where the Navy Yard is) since oh, about 2008. Not that it's improved things much, but it's still better than Anacostia.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/03/2015 14:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Fainting goats comes to mind.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/03/2015 15:13 Comments || Top||


-Obits-
Nicholas Winton, rescuer of children during the Holocaust, dies at 106
Solid gold hero.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...I notice Mr. Winston does not appear on the rolls of The Righteous Among The Nations. He is truly deserving of that honor.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/03/2015 7:19 Comments || Top||

#2  A person must be nominated by someone rescued by him or her. Most people don't know that, and so don't act on it. Others are nominated, but refuse the honor, feeling that what they did was not special enough to be fussed over.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 12:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't worry- God knows. I suspect Mr. Winton has a great treasure indeed stored up.
Posted by: Nguard || 07/03/2015 15:10 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
N.Korea Builds Artillery Base on West Sea Island
North Korea has built five long-range 122-mm artillery positions on an uninhabited island just 4.5 km away from South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island.

A senior military officer on Wednesday said North Korea started to build the artillery positions in March on an island called Galdo. Surveillance also shows one command tower and three barracks on the island, he added.

The military here believes North Korean troops will move to Galdo between July and August. The North apparently built a port and mooring facilities on the island as well.

North Korea used the same 122-mm artillery batteries when it attacked Yeonpyeong Island back in November 2010.

A military officer said, "Galdo is just 500 m by 300 m in area and there is very little military value in stationing artillery pieces there." But they do pose a threat to Yeonpyeong Island, which fall within its range.

South Korean Marines and Navy patrol boats are stationed on Yeonpyeong Island to guard the Northern Limit Line, which separates the two Koreas on the West Sea.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
ANP local leader shot dead in Charsadda
[DAWN] A local leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), Dost Muhammad Khan, was gunned down by unknown assailants on Thursday in Utmanzai area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Charsadda district. According to police sources, two motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire at a local office of the ANP at Utmanzai bazaar area, as a result of which Dost Muhamad Khan alias Khan Baba was killed on the spot.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Egypt's warplanes strike back at militants in troubled Sinai
[WASHINGTONPOST] Egyptian warplanes launched new Arclight airstrikes and troops went house-to-house Thursday in the troubled Sinai Peninsula, a day after 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....
-linked murderous Moslems set off the area's bloodiest fighting in decades in an unprecedented, coordinated attack.

The combat, described as "war" by the media and officials, heightened tensions across Egypt as it marks Friday's second anniversary of the military's overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a move that fanned an insurgency in north Sinai that has grown stronger.

It also follows the dramatic liquidation this week of the country's chief prosecutor in a boom-mobileing in Cairo, prompting general-turned-politician President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to press for even harsher anti-terrorism laws targeting Islamic bad boys.

A special forces raid Wednesday on a Cairo apartment killed nine members of Morsi's outlawed Moslem Brüderbund, which responded by calling for a "rebellion."

Air raids at dawn Thursday killed 23 Lions of Islam just south of Rafah, a key Sinai border town near the Gazoo Strip, Sinai security officials said. They added that the army was searching for murderous Moslems in the town of Sheikh Zuweid, where a string of army checkpoints were attacked a day earlier.

Soldiers were demining roads in and around the area that had been booby trapped with mines and improvised bombs, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The army also raided a house in Rafah, killing six armed IS murderous Moslems wearing military uniforms, the officials said, adding that it had cleared the area around the Sheikh Zuweid cop shoppe of mines and IEDs.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel giving Egyptian army free hand in Sinai, official says
[IsraelTimes] Worry mounts over possible collapse of Multinational Force in restive peninsula following jihadist onslaught

Israel has been giving the Egyptian military a free hand to operate in northern Sinai against local jihadist groups, voluntarily ignoring an annex to the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords banning the presence of significant Egyptian forces in the area, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

According to the military annex of the Camp David accords, Egypt is allowed to maintain a civilian police force only in the eastern strip of the Sinai Peninsula, where the majority of local jihadists are currently located. Following Israel's disengagement from the Gazoo Strip in 2005, the Egyptian army was allowed to deploy a border patrol battalion along the border with Gazoo.

An official told The Times of Israel in 2014 that due to the challenges facing the Egyptian military in the northern Sinai, "In practice, the military annex is nonexistent."

With fighting between the Egyptian army and jihadists pledging allegiance to 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....
intensified this week following a coordinated attack against army positions in northern Sinai Wednesday, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Israel has maintained its policy of ignoring the peace treaty's military annex for the benefit of Egypt's war on terror.

Unlike the United States, which continues to place immense hurdles on the Egyptian army before authorizing the delivery of "a few crummy F-16s" -- the official quoted his disgruntled Egyptian counterparts as saying -- Israel has allowed the Egyptian army to do as it pleases in northern Sinai without hesitation, realizing the common interest in its fight on terror.

"It took one phone call from Cairo to Jerusalem to authorize whatever Egypt wants in Sinai, counter to the military annex," he said.

"Israel understands the challenge facing Egypt. We face the same challenge," he added. "We aren't worried that Egypt may attack Israel, nor are they worried that Israel will attack them... it is clear to the [Egyptian] leadership that not only is Israel not an enemy, it's an ally."

The security void left by the absence of significant military forces in Sinai has previously been filled by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), a peacekeeping force comprising soldiers from Fiji, Colombia and the United States.

But a recent mortar attack by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis
...Supporters of Jerusalem, the current pen name of al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula...
, a local jihadist group, against the MFO's northern base in al-Gora has left Western governments fearing for the collapse of a significant stabilizing force in the region, and Sinai's largest employer of local Bedouins.

"This is very worrying," the official said. "It's not that if the force folds Israel and Egypt will begin attacking each other, but the Bedouins will become even more motivated to join the battle."

Israel and Egypt are currently experiencing a renaissance in diplomatic relations, which are lagging only slightly behind the military coordination, the official said.

Last month Egypt announced the appointment of Hazem Khairat as its new ambassador to Israel, filling a void that lasted three years. Dore Gold, the foreign ministry's recently appointed director general, chose Egypt as the destination of his first overseas visit. Foreign ministry officials from both countries had not publicly met since 2011.

Yet nearly four years after an angry mob stormed and ransacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, a new building is still to be secured. The official said that both Israel and Egypt are interested in locating an appropriate building as soon as possible.

"Both the Israelis and the Egyptians want us to establish an embassy in order to reflect the true nature of relations," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I doubt Obumble expected them to work together. Most likely he isn't happy with it.
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/03/2015 0:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Gee jihadists concentrated in the area with only limited police, who would have thunk it?

Zero tried and failed to screw both Egypt and Israel. Never quite picked up on that "enemy of my enemy is my friend" cliche, did he?

Too bad he turned allies into enemies.
Posted by: AlanC || 07/03/2015 7:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Let Egypt open an embassy in Jerusalem. That'll bust O's chops
Posted by: Frank G || 07/03/2015 13:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Sisi is a Godsend
Posted by: newc || 07/03/2015 18:21 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Agents of change
[DAWN] BACK in the day when the revolutionary left was the most talked about political force in the world -- both inside and outside the corridors of power -- the most famous revolutionary of them all asserted that only 'professionals' could turn the established order on its head. It was Lenin that insisted on the need for a 'vanguard', a group of full-time political workers willing to sacrifice everything to make the revolution possible.

Today the idea of a vanguard of professional revolutionaries is generally considered passé. Yes holy warrior movements that have forsaken the political mainstream exist in many parts of the world, including in this country, but at the broader societal level the once romantic idea of revolution has been mostly criminalised in an environment when anything and everything can easily be reduced to 'terrorism'.

The exceptions -- mostly of the ridiculous variety -- actually confirm the rule. Take, for instance, Tahirul Qadri
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Huh?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 4:41 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia hunts for Libya-trained suspects after hotel attack
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Tunisian authorities have enjugged
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
12 people they suspect are linked to the Sousse beach hotel attack on foreign tourists, and are hunting for two men who trained in a Libyan jihadist camp with the Sousse attacker, an official said.

Thirty-eight foreigners, most British holidaymakers, were killed in Friday's attack before the gunman was shot by police. In March, two gunnies killed 21 people at the Tunis Bardo museum, before they were also shot.

"This is a group who were trained in Libya, and who had the same objective. Two attacked the Bardo and one attacked Sousse," Lazhar Akremi, minister for parliamentary relations, told news hounds late on Wednesday. "Police are hunting for two more."

The minister said a total of 12 people had already been arrested since Friday's attack, the worst such massacre in the North African country's modern history.

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....
murderous Moslems, controlling large parts of Iraq and Syria, have grabbed credit for the Tunisian attack. But authorities say the gunman was not on any police watchlist for jihadist fighters.

Four years after its "Arab Spring" uprising against Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia had emerged as a model for peaceful democratic change. But it is also struggling with the rise of ultra-conservative Islamist groups, some of them violent.

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight for Islamic State and other groups in Iraq, Syria and in Libya, where a conflict between two rival governments has allowed Islamist Lions of Islam to seek refuge and gain ground.

Tunisian authorities say the Sousse and Bardo museum attackers all received military training late last year in a jihadist camp over the border in lawless southern Libya.

Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Ansar al-Sharia


Afghanistan
Special Unit Formed to Counter Daesh in Afghanistan
[Tolo News] The Ministry of Interior (MoI) on Thursday announced the establishment of a joint unit aimed at heightening coordination among security institutions to more effectively combat Daesh affiliates in Afghanistan.

According to MoI officials, each of Afghanistan's security institutions maintains an equal share in the special unit formed to counter Daesh's rapid expansion in remote areas of the country.

"If there is fear of a major challenge emerging, then there is definitely a need to establish a special group to suppress it, and so the formation of the special unit is to counter Daesh," MoI front man Sediq Sediqqi said on Thursday.

Meanwhile,
...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio wondered: Where the hell was Chumbaloni? And where was his $600?...
the National Directorate of Security
...the Afghan national intel agency...
(NDS) has emphasized that the special unit is not just an operational unit, but will also undertake intelligence gathering and analysis activities as well.

Independent military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail believes the special unit would be better off operating under the auspices of the NDS. "If the special unit is consisting of police and army officers, then it will not be constructive, but if such issues are dealt with by the intelligence bodies, it would be more advantageous," he said Thursday.

Regardless of who is primarily behind the wheel of the unity, however, the announcement of its formation comes at a time when security analysts have warned of Daesh's intentions to intensify their presence in Afghanistan. Commentators have said the group, which is based in Iraq and Syria, has begun exploiting divisions within the Taliban's ranks in order to recruit and establish bases of support in Afghanistan.

"Daesh bandidos turbans operate in Badakhshan, Kunduz, Farah, Faryab, Pashtun-infested Logar and also in the eastern regions," military analyst Jawed Kohistan
...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns....
i told TOLOnews.

Lawmakers in Parliament have been some of the most vocal proponents of the government and the international community taking greater steps to curtail Daesh's growth in Afghanistan. The turban group has become infamous in small communities around the country - just as it has worldwide - for its brutal tactics in warfare and its macabre approach toward managing territories it captures.

"Daesh is a major threat to international peace and regional security, therefore, there is a need on an international level to fight them," MP Syed Ekram said.

According to sources at the NDS, a special intelligence unit has already been actively monitoring the activities of Daesh bandidos turbans in Afghanistan. Reportedly the killing of Mullah Abdul Rauf, a top Daesh commander formerly of the Taliban in Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
, was among the unit's first achievements.

Over the past three days, the special unit is said to have already placed in durance vile
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
six members of Daesh in Achin district of Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province and eliminated another 14 foreign bandidos turbans in Gomal district of Paktika
...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo...
province.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Britain
Cameron Urges BBC to Say 'ISIL'
[ALMANAR.LB] British 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 ...
criticized Monday the use of the term "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....
" by the BBC when referring to the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
' (ISIL) takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
group.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Cameron said he preferred the terms "so-called" or "ISIL".

"I wish the BBC would stop calling it 'Islamic State' because it is not an Islamic state," said Cameron in an interview, three days after the Tunisia beach attack that killed 30 British tourists.

"What it is is an appalling barbarous regime that is a perversion of the religion of Islam," said the British prime minister.

In his remarks, Cameron said "the fight against the barbaric terrorist organization is the struggle of our generation," stressing importance of fighting ISIL in every sense.

"We have to fight it with everything we can," said Cameron, adding that the strategy was to build local armies in fighting against the gang.

At least 30 Britons are believed to have been killed in the beach massacre in Tunisia as informed sources said the eventual figure could be even higher.
Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Home Front: Culture Wars
Anti-Police Flag Burners Have To Beat A Hasty Retreat In Face Of Patriots, Ask For Help From Police
Anti-police activists were set to burn the American flag at a New York City park Wednesday evening, but their plans seemingly changed when dozens of bikers and veterans came out to counter protest.

Flocking to Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park, individuals opposed to burning the U.S. flag waited for the "Disarm NYPD" group to arrive. While most urged for peace, several bikers threatened violence toward anyone who would burn the American flag.

"We're here to f*** up tiny liberal punks," a biker who refused to identify himself told TheBlaze.
Vid @ Link
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  About time for some push back. Hope there are not any fatalities. A bit of roughing up, OTOH would be most educational!
Posted by: Nguard || 07/03/2015 0:38 Comments || Top||

#2  And the little beta males wet themselves and cried for adult protection.
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/03/2015 0:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Should setup a law allowing ANYONE to burn your flag, but announce that it's also a sign you've burnt your passport and citizenship.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/03/2015 1:10 Comments || Top||

#4  I support the first amendment right of ass-clowns to burn the American flag - that scenario has already been interpreted by the courts as freedom of speech. I fully support freedom of speech. HOWEVER, freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of consequences from unwise speech. I enthusiastically support beating the living crap out of flag burners.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 07/03/2015 1:55 Comments || Top||

#5  There is a lot of benefits to being a, big mouth, left-winger in the modern west. Not that I'm advocating violence---perish the thought, but
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 4:34 Comments || Top||

#6  And the little beta males

Beta? You must be kidding. Omega males and i am not sure about the male part.
Posted by: JFM || 07/03/2015 7:46 Comments || Top||

#7  Beta males? I doubt most of them identify as 'male' (or 'female' either).
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/03/2015 10:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Lone Ranger: let's not do that. It's called "aggravated assault".

There are other ways to exact consequences that don't land one in prison.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 13:52 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US program to train Syrian rebels has fewer than 100 volunteers
Best two weeks of the Obama presidency, yessir...
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military's program to train and equip thousands of moderate Syrian rebels is faltering, with fewer than 100 volunteers, raising questions about whether the effort can produce enough capable fighters quickly enough to make a difference in the war against the Islamic State.

The stated U.S. goal is to train and equip 5,400 rebels per year, and military officials said last week that they still hope for 3,000 by year's end. Privately, they acknowledge the trend is moving in the wrong direction.

On June 26, 2014, the White House said it was asking Congress for $500 million for a three-year train-and-equip program.
About $100,000 per trainee...
The training, however, only got started in May after months of recruiting and vetting of volunteers. That program, together with a more advanced but also troubled parallel effort to rebuild the Iraqi army, is central to the U.S.-led effort to create ground forces capable of fighting Islamic State without involving U.S. ground combat troops. The Syria initiative is intended to enable moderate opposition forces to defend their own towns against Islamic State militants, not to form a national resistance army.

The main problem thus far has been finding enough Syrian recruits untainted by extremist affiliations or disqualified by physical or other flaws. Of approximately 6,000 volunteers, about 1,500 have passed muster and await movement to training camps in other countries. Citing security concerns, the Pentagon will not say exactly how many are in training.

Officials said that as of Friday, the number in training had dropped below 100 and that none has completed the program. Dozens who were initially accepted have been sent home during training or quit because of revelations about their background or other problems, according to two senior U.S. defense officials.
Revelations -- as in, they're murderous thugs who are every bit as bad as ISIS thugs...
"We have set the bar very high on vetting," said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
As we should. But did no one foresee the results?
Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, the Central Command special operations commander who is heading the program, wants volunteers with more than a will to fight.

"We are trying to recruit and identify people who ... can be counted on ... to fight, to have the right mindset and ideology," and at the same time be willing to make combating IS their first priority, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the House Armed Services Committee on June 17.

"It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria," Carter said.
In Syria? Really?
Many Syrian rebel volunteers prefer to use their training to fight the government of President Bashar Assad, the original target of their revolution. Although the Islamic State has been a brutal occupant of much of their country, the rebels see the extremists as fighting a parallel war.

Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, doubts the viability of the training program.

"It is simply difficult to acquire the number of Syrian rebels willing to participate in the training under current parameters," she said.

Abdul-Jabbar Abu Thabet, commander of Aleppo Swords Battalion, a moderate faction that is fighting both Assad's forces and the Islamic State, said he thinks the Americans are more interested in recruiting Syrian army defectors than moderate rebels. He said he would no longer give Americans the names of training candidates from his group, after having done so once and not receiving a U.S. response.
Did you try calling Huma?
"The Americans are saying they want to train rebels to fight against Daesh only," he said by telephone from northern Syria, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. "The fighting should be against Daesh, the (Assad) regime and everyone who is against the revolution."

The Pentagon announced in May that it had begun training 90 recruits in Jordan, but it has refused to give details. Defense officials, however, said last week that training also is underway in Turkey. Eventually it is to be expanded to bases in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Each trainee is receiving a U.S. stipend of between $250 and $400 a month, with the amount set by their skill level, performance and leadership role, said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Elissa Smith.
So $3,000 to $5,000 for a year's pay. That leaves another $90,000 per trainee for ... what, exactly...
The Pentagon also is wrestling with how to support those who complete the training and are sent back into Syria. Also, there are questions about how to avoid having their U.S.-supplied arms fall into the wrong hands inside Syria.
Same problem in Iraq...
"So these constraints that we put on ourselves, which are perfectly understandable, do progressively limit the number of inductees into the program," Carter told Congress. "And that's proving the thing that limits the growth of the program."
So maybe we should have left Syria to its own war...
Posted by: Steve White || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They had more, but the rest left after a lecture on the rights of the transsexuals?

Snark of the day.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/03/2015 4:19 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Ebola re-emerges in Liberia, declared disease-free on 9 May
[Reuters] Liberia confirmed a third Ebola case on Thursday, nearly two months after it was declared Ebola free, and officials said they were investigating whether the disease had spread through animals before resurfacing.

Dr Moses Massaquoi, case management team leader for Liberia's Ebola task force, said the three villagers who had tested positive for the disease "have a history of having had dog meat together."

The first new Liberian sufferer died on Sunday in Nedowein village, about 50 km (30 miles) from the capital Monrovia. Two others have since tested positive in the village.

Some locals said the deceased and others in the village had recently dug up and eaten a dead dog.

It has not been proved that dogs can carry the virus, although humans have been infected by eating monkey flesh in past outbreaks.

Liberia, worst hit by the West African Ebola outbreak last year, had been declared Ebola free on May 9.

None of the new victims is known to have traveled to Guinea or Sierra Leone, and Nedowein is far from Liberia's borders, leading to speculation that there could be hidden pockets of the virus or new means of transmission.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [8 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Iraq Christians Train to Recapture Homes from ISIL
[ALMANAR.LB] Several dozen Iraqi Christians are training to recapture their homes occupied by the so-called 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....
in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group.

A year ago, ISIL launched a fierce offensive in northern Iraq, capturing several areas and terrorized the citizens.

Thousands fled, but some wanted to fight back, and are now training at a military base near Baghdad airport.

They are now being trained on how to use their Kalashnikov assault rifles and on the basics of combat maneuvers.

"We heard that the Christians had an opportunity for jihad (holy war), and we all came and volunteered," said 17-year-old Chaldean Christian Frank Samir. "Our children are dying; our Christian families were displaced. How do we ourselves accept that people say the Christians are not fighting? On the contrary, we want to fight everywhere," he said.

"I did not hesitate to volunteer with my brothers to fight Daesh," said Fares Issa, 38, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL. "I will continue fighting (them) until the liberation of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
and their expulsion from all the areas of Iraq," said Issa.

"The main aim of forming our forces is the liberation of Mosul," said Rayan al-Kaldani, the secretary general of Ketaeb Babylon.

"We took part in the operations to liberate the city of Tikrit and other operations, including Baiji, in Salaheddin province," he said, referring to major battles north of Baghdad.

According to Kaldani, the Christians fight under the command of Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, one of the top commanders in the "Popular Mobilization" forces.

According to another Ketaeb Babylon commander, who declined to be named, there are "hundreds of Christian fighters located now in various areas of Salaheddin... in addition to others responsible for protecting churches in Baghdad province."

Recruitment of other volunteers to "fight the Daesh terrorist organization" is continuing, he said.

Posted by: Fred || 07/03/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State



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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2015-07-03
  Bangladesh police arrest 'top Qaeda militant'
Thu 2015-07-02
  Al Qaeda Pakistan chief killed in Lahore raid: Punjab home minister
Wed 2015-07-01
  Tunisia says resort gunman was trained in Libya
Tue 2015-06-30
  Mosul resistance group 'kills 23 Saudi fighters'
Mon 2015-06-29
  US air strikes target militants near border in east Afghanistan
Sun 2015-06-28
  Activists: ISIS fighters kill 200 civilians in Kobani
Sat 2015-06-27
  UN chief condemns 'appalling' attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait
Fri 2015-06-26
  Man decapitated in ISIS attack in France
Thu 2015-06-25
  Deadly IS car bomb in Kobani
Wed 2015-06-24
  39 Killed, Dozens Wounded in South Yemen Clashes
Tue 2015-06-23
  Taliban attack Afghan parliament, seize second district in north
Mon 2015-06-22
  Air strikes kill 15 in Yemen attacks: Houthi media
Sun 2015-06-21
  Witness: ISIS publicly executes 25 'spies' in Mosul
Sat 2015-06-20
  ISIS beheads three of its own amid fighting and regime raids in Syria
Fri 2015-06-19
  Al-Qaeda War against ISIS in East of Libya

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