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Peshawar Bus Bombing Kills 17 Govt Employees
Today's Headlines
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India-Pakistan
Peshawar Bus Bombing Kills 17 Govt Employees
At least 17 people have been killed in a bus bombing near the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials say.

The vehicle was carrying government employees back home in the Gulbela area, some 15km north-east of the city. Police say that the bomb was planted specifically to kill government employees.

Initial reports say the bomb was planted in the back of the bus. The head of Peshawar's bomb disposal unit said that between 10kg and 15kg (22lb to 33lb) of explosives were used in the device.

At least 20 people were killed and nearly 40 were injured when another bus carrying government workers was bombed in the same area in June 2012.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 18:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [25 views] Top|| File under:


Science & Technology
40 best shots of military tech in action
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/27/2013 14:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:


Government
White House to announce $300M in aid to Detroit
[FREEP] Nearly $300 million in aid for bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
-- from federal and state coffers, private businesses and charitable foundations -- will be announced Friday as B.O. regime officials visit the city to discuss what can be done to help eradicate blight, improve transportation, encourage new business and make residents safer.
All y'gotta do is wait long enough. They'll always kick in.
The funding will include $150 million in blight eradication and community redevelopment, including $65 million in Community Development Block Grant funding -- which had already been awarded over two years but could not be accessed by the city. An additional $25 million could help hire as many as 150 firefighters in the city.

Some $24 million in federal resources that had been tied up will go to repairing buses and installing security cameras, part of an overall $140-million investment in transit systems. And several charitable groups -- the Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation and Knight Foundation -- will put millions into spurring entrepreneurship and creating jobs.

Gene Sperling, the head of President Barack Obama
My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it...
's National Economic Council and an Ann Arbor native, briefed news hounds on some the plans Thursday evening, saying Friday's meeting at Wayne State University is "the first of many efforts that the administration will engage in with the city of Detroit."
None of which will work, since the same kleptocrats, moochers and grifters are still in charge just as they have been the last umpteenth years...
Many details were still to come out Friday.

"We've found significant resources that we believe can be unlocked and expedited and leveraged to have significant impact on the economy of Detroit," Sperling said.

Gov. Rick Snyder, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and emergency manager Kevyn Orr -- who on Detroit's behalf filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in history in July -- will be part of the talks with Sperling, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder
... aka Mister Fast and Furious...
.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 09:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Champ could use that money to light his blunts and it would do just about as much good.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/27/2013 11:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Champ could use that money to light his blunts and it would do just about as much good.

You miss the point: it'll do a lot of good to his pals bank accounts.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2013 11:46 Comments || Top||

#3  White House to announce $300M in patronage and corruption aid to Detroit

You nailed it g(r)om.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2013 12:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Sometimes the money is newly printed when needed. The money ultimately is stolen from the taxpayer. "O" operates like a Mogadishu bandit chief. In other words, like the Chicago pol he is--free with other peoples money.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 12:15 Comments || Top||

#5  White House to announce $300 M in aid to Detroit

Oh no, we're too broke, there's a sequester(Says Obama)there's no money even to have White House Tours.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 13:25 Comments || Top||

#6  This is not redistribution of wealth. This is the intentional destruction of wealth.
Posted by: Jaising Creque9323 || 09/27/2013 15:19 Comments || Top||

#7  So this should solve everything, right? Right?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/27/2013 15:22 Comments || Top||

#8  I've always been against foreign aid.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 15:35 Comments || Top||

#9  "We've found significant resources that we believe can be unlocked and expedited and leveraged to have significant impact on the 2014 elections economy of Detroit," Sperling [really] said.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 16:56 Comments || Top||

#10  Why, wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago the Prez (PBUH) said Detroit would get absolutely no help from DC? Must have been another of those impenetrable red lines.....
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/27/2013 21:50 Comments || Top||

#11  What will this last for? one week?
Posted by: newc || 09/27/2013 22:37 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
What Those Animals Did To Their Unbeliever Hostages At The Kenya Mall
[StandardKenya]
Go to page 2 for the gory details, which are not suitable for a family site.

John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog has more, courtesy of the Daily Mail. Same warning as above. You may want to have some valerian tea or valium handy if you are sensitive or excitable.
The Daily Mail link is here. It's very graphic and disturbing. AoS at 1600 CT.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2013 08:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  Thin veneer of civilization and all that. This is why leftists hate guns. Admitting that many, if not most, people are barely human, if at all totally punctures their balloon...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 8:52 Comments || Top||

#2  With her gun, she shot at a gas cylinder at the venue of the East FM-organised cooking competition for children resulting in a small fire. She also shot at several microwaves.

Her real hate is reserved for defenseless kitchen appliances.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:17 Comments || Top||

#3  isn't it time to extinct the Al-Shaboobs? Merciless medieval punishment to them, their suppliers, their funders, their camp followers, and their religious leaders.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2013 9:39 Comments || Top||

#4  I concur Frank. Perhaps a Gerald Bull - 'Project Babylon' solution ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank G. you are absolutely correct. When the chain leads back to "moderate muslims" who own 7-11s in the Midwest, and to the politicians they donate money to, the screeching would become deafening...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 9:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Sadly, reporting from the Atlanta area, it's not just the 'Midwestern' 7-11's, or the US politicians to whom they wire money :-(
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:54 Comments || Top||

#7  We should return kind for kind.
Posted by: S.A.M. New Delhi Field Office || 09/27/2013 10:13 Comments || Top||

#8  Yeah, "stakeholders" should run both ways. McShame, Brennan, even the Bushes should pay with hard time behind bars for selling the "rop" bullshit...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:23 Comments || Top||

#9  This is the US Gov't agency that tracks where money goes. Believe me when I tell you they know the end-user.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 10:31 Comments || Top||

#10  So, Besoeker, if they know where the money goes and the path it takes to get there, then one must conclude that they are more concerned about what happens if they interrupt the path than allowing it to operate. What COULD that concern be?
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 11:16 Comments || Top||

#11  So, Besoeker, if they know where the money goes and the path it takes to get there, then one must conclude that they are more concerned about what happens if they interrupt the path than allowing it to operate. What COULD that concern be?

Upsetting our allies Saudi,Kuwait,UAE comes to mind because the funds come from private businessmen in the Gulf region who would Love Islam to rule the Planet.
Posted by: Slolugum McGurque6422 || 09/27/2013 11:43 Comments || Top||

#12  Nothing to see here. This administration thinks Ted Cruz and lumber liquidators are the enemy.
Posted by: airandee || 09/27/2013 12:08 Comments || Top||

#13  Tom Kratmann has written an excellent fiction book called "Caliphate" that is a guide to what to do to put a stop to this. In some ways, it's a hard read, but like Leon Uris' book "The Haj" it's a well-defined learning experience. Both men know Islam for what it is.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/27/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||

#14  Didn't realize there was anyone yet alive that was familiar with the writings of Leon Uris.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#15  Yes, Beasoker, some of us Old Farts have read Leon Uris. Sadly, I don't know of any younger people who have.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 09/27/2013 13:03 Comments || Top||

#16  M.M. Kaye's work was also a favorite of mine. While fictional, some great insights and history.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 13:07 Comments || Top||

#17  "They had pistols stuck in their pockets and HUGE GUNS",(I hear liberals whining)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 13:21 Comments || Top||

#18  I was just able to 'buy' the Kratman book as a Kindle for free. I don't know if that's due to my Amazon Prime membership or what.
Posted by: KBK || 09/27/2013 13:41 Comments || Top||

#19  Read 'The Haj' a while back. Will have to do so again, I think...
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 16:53 Comments || Top||

#20  Just impartially following the teachings outlined in the Holy
Crayon.

Nothing personal.

Heck, one of the animals involved was insecure enough to remind that little kid that he wasn't a monster, despite what it might look like to the uneducated eye.
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 18:10 Comments || Top||

#21  In the Olden Days, we hunted down monsters and killed them. Paging Mr. Beowulf to the white courtesy phone...
Posted by: SteveS || 09/27/2013 21:12 Comments || Top||


Sudan: at least 29 killed
[Al Ahram] At least 29 people have been killed in three days of rioting in Sudan sparked by a government decision to scrap subsidies on fuel, medical officials said on Thursday.

"We have received the bodies of 21 people" since the protests began on Monday, a hospital source in Khartoum's twin city Omdurman told AFP, adding that all were "civilians".

Another eight people were killed in other regions, witnesses and families said.Sudan dropped almost completely off the Internet on Wednesday as riots over the lifting of fuel subsidies entered their third day and protesters battled security forces in the capital.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Jihadists set fire to statues, crosses in Syria church
[Al Ahram] Jihadist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda set fire to statues and crosses inside churches in northern Syria on Thursday and destroyed a cross atop the clock tower of one of them, a human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
watchdog said.

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) entered the Greek Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in the northern city of Raqa and torched the religious furnishings inside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They did the same at the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs, also destroying a cross atop its clock tower and replacing it with the ISIL flag, the Observatory said.

Most of Raqa, located on the banks of the Euphrates River and capital of the province of the same name, fell to rebels in March. Where it dominates in the city, ISIL imposes a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on the populace.

The London-based Observatory denounced these attacks as "against the freedom of religion, which is an assault on the Syrian revolution."
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under: al-Nusra

#1  Qatar Kuwait and Saudi would be proud of their proxies.
Posted by: Paul D || 09/27/2013 6:30 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia ruling party, opposition lock horns
[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisia's ruling Islamist party and the opposition have yet to come to terms on a strategy for ending the country's weeks-long political impasse.

Ennahda on Monday (September 23rd) said it welcomed the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT)'s initiative as a basis for dialogue.

"Ennahda doesn't have a problem with the government members tendering their resignation, but has a problem with the actual procedures for resignation which can only start once the democratic process has been put in place," party official Rafik Abdessalem said.

"The solution for Tunisia's current political crisis lies in approving the constitution, preserving the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), and forming a new government once the constitution is drafted and a date is set for the next election," he added.

For his part, Ennahda official Ajmi Lourimi expressed his surprise over the "opposition's demand for the government's resignation".

But Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) Secretary-General Houcine Abbassi on Tuesday confirmed that his group would continue to mobilise activists and citizens to rescue the country".

Ennahda spoke about accepting the dialogue initiative, he said, while the "UGTT is talking about a clear roadmap".

The roadmap presented by UGTT instead stipulates, "The government must comprise independent technocrats with full powers."

Abbassi noted the UGTT considered that to be a rejection of the roadmap rather than an acceptance thereof as promoted by Ennahda in the media.

Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales...
Ennahda Vice President Abdelhamid Jelassi called on the quartet that sponsors territory dialogue to act neutrally and speed up the launch of talks. "It makes no sense for the dialogue sponsors to threaten to take to the street against Ennahda," he said.

"The obstruction of ANC's work and pressures on state budget are the result of unjust demands and strikes," Jelassi added, noting that, "the ruling troika, and especially Ennahda, is ready to handle its responsibilities but refuses to bear the brunt for everything negative in the country."

In her turn, Wided Bou Chammeoui, chairperson of the Employers' Organisation, one of the main sponsors of national dialogue, said, "The economic situation in Tunisia is very bad, and all parties must agree on serving Tunisia's interests."

"Nobody can talk about investments in this uncertain economic situation," she added.

Away from politicians' conflicts, Tunisians are apprehensive about the future after political talks stalled.

"On the one hand, we have a failed government clinging on to power despite the catastrophes we're now facing, such as rising cost of living or the threat of terrorism; and on the other hand, we have the opposition that threatens escalatory steps and protests," Mouna Ichi, an employee, told Magharebia. "If this happens, it will be a catastrophe for Tunisia if festivities take place in the streets."

In his turn, student Mouedh Bethebet told Magharebia, "The government should stop procrastinating. The troika parties must shoulder the responsibility for their failure in running the country and take swift steps to fix what can be fixed before it's too late."
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Africa Horn
Interpol issues arrest notice for 'white widow'
[Washington Post] British news outlets are seemingly in a frenzy over a woman known as the "white widow."

Interpol on Thursday issued an international arrest notice for Samantha Lewthwaite, 29, a Brit who was married to one of the jacket wallahs in the July 7, 2005, attack on London's transit system. The news fueled speculation here about Lewthwaite's possible connection to the four-day assault at an upscale mall in Nairobi, which left scores of people dead.

There is no evidence linking Lewthwaite to the attack, which ended this week. The Interpol warrant said she is "wanted by Kenya on charges of being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony dating back to December 2011." But since Kenya's foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, suggested Monday that a British woman who had "done this many times before" was involved in the mall assault, the news media here have been discussing the possibility of Lewthwaite's involvement.

The Mirror Online described her as "the world's most wanted woman." The Guardian noted the "intense speculation" about her possible role in the Kenya attack. "Interpol Joins Hunt for 'White Widow,' " Sky News said.

Interpol said that its red notice was issued at the request of Kenya and that the British runaway is thought to use the alias "Natalie Webb," the name that Kenyan authorities found on a forged South African passport carrying a picture that they said bears a striking resemblance to Lewthwaite.

The daughter of a British soldier, Lewthwaite grew up in Aylesbury, a small town northwest of London. She reportedly turned to Islam in her teens after the breakup of her parents' marriage and later met a man named Germaine Lindsay in an Internet chat room. They married in 2002.

She first came to the public eye after the 2005 attack for being Lindsay's wife. Soon the tabloids of old Fleet Street had dubbed her the "white widow."

Lewthwaite publicly condemned the actions of her husband, whose homemade bomb killed 26 civilians on a crowded train near King's Cross station in central London.

"He met a group who changed his life. He became a man I didn't recognize," Lewthwaite said at the time. She was pregnant when Lindsay died.

She hit the headlines again when her name was linked to a raid in December 2011 on a house in Mombasa, Kenya, used by a terrorist cell.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda

#1  So she was radicalized by a man she didn't recognize anymore?

When do we get the hand-wringing about how it is society's fault?
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2013 7:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I heard she was dead, here.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 8:05 Comments || Top||

#3  That was the report I had received, though to be fair it came in the early hours of the aftermath.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Youth dies in Morocco clan clashes
[MAGHAREBIA] A 20-year-old Moroccan man died during clashes over water holes in Assa Zag, Aufait Maroc reported on Wednesday (September 25th). Security forces on Tuesday intervened to settle a clan dispute over water access in the region. The Moroccan Human Rights Association claims that rubber bullets and tear gas were used in the operation.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [7 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Taliban be allowed to open office for talks: Imran
[Dawn] PTI Chairman Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight...
urged the government on Wednesday to allow Taliban to open an office for the peace dialogue to be held in accordance of a decision of the recently held all-party conference.

"If the government is serious about pursuing the dialogue process with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain it should allow them to have their own office like the one opened by the Afghan Taliban in Qatar," Imran Khan told news hounds outside the Lady Reading Hospital in 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.
"If the Americans can allow the opening of office in Qatar to facilitate talks with the Afghan Taliban, why can't we do in our own country," he said.

Mr Khan visited the hospital for the second time since Sunday's twin suicide kabooms on the All Saints Church and met the injured in different wards.

He said he was surprised that while there were prospects of talks with the Taliban, acts of terrorism were continuing. How is it possible to negotiate, he asked, when terror strikes continued unabated.

He said that although the APC had decided to go for negotiations instead of using force, so far no mechanism had been put in place for the dialogue. The government should demonstrate some seriousness and declare a ceasefire to pave the way for result-oriented talks and to establish peace in the country.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Khatami urges release of all Iranian political prisoners
[Al Ahram] Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has called for the release of all political prisoners in Iran, notably opposition chiefs Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

"We're happy with the (judiciary's) announced pardon of 80 prisoners but we ask: 'Why this number?'" the reformist daily Etemad quoted Khatami as saying.

"Let's say it's all of them, apart from those who have committed crimes," he added.

Last week, the authorities freed around 15 reformists, journalists and lawyers, notably prominent rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

They have also announced pardons for 80 others rounded up in connection with anti-government protests claiming massive fraud in the 2009 re-election of president Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of others are still behind bars, though legal authorities have not said how many.

"Everyone must make an effort to end the house arrests... This is in everybody's interest," said Khatami, referring to Mousavi and Karroubi, who have been kept incommunicado since February 2011.

Both men were candidates in the 2009 presidential election and spearheaded the protests its outcome.

On Wednesday, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said more prisoners would be released within a month, without giving a number.

Newly elected President Hassan Rowhani, who has the backing of reformists and moderates in the Islamic republic, has pledged to work for political and cultural liberalisation.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Khatami and Wally Jumblatt remind me of each other. Not the worst sorts. Survivors in Hell. Their souls are not their own. But they make the best of it. Whatever the Hell "it" is.

They both look like they could use a beer. Or three.
Posted by: Dopey Sinatra || 09/27/2013 17:20 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Suspected truck thief shot, killed
MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. – A suspected truck thief was shot and killed in Maple Valley Tuesday morning after deputies say he was shot by the truck’s owner, a United States Marine.

It happened just after midnight in the 23600 block of 219th Place SE. King County sheriff’s deputies say a man and a woman arrived at the scene in another vehicle that was stolen from Kent. The pair was allegedly trying to steal or prowl a pickup truck when the owner came out from a family gathering and confronted them.

Kristen Hague says the gathering was at her house and the truck belongs to her nephew, Keenan, a 24-year-old Marine. Hague says they spotted the would-be thieves and he confronted them.
Do not mess with a Marine. It's very unhealthy.
“All I heard were gunshots, then I came outside and the man and woman were trying to drive away but the car wouldn’t go,” Hague gets emotional talking about what happened next. She says the male passenger stood up with a weapon.

“Keenan yelled ‘gun’, and he pushed me to the ground to protect me," said Hague. She says that’s when shots were exchanged. “He did it to protect me. He loves his aunt.”

Hague performed CPR on the suspected thief and put pressure on his bullet wounds, but he did not survive.
She did more than many people would have done...
The owner is being questioned by King County investigators.
Investigators are also buying him a beer...
The surviving suspect was taken into custody. She has a felony warrant for burglary.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  She did more than many people would have done...

I wanted to save him officer, but my CPR certification expired last month.
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 3:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Kings County is Seattle, isn't it? Marine could be in a lot of trouble in that liberal hotbed.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 4:56 Comments || Top||


Government
Export-Import Bank Awards Millions to Spanish Green Energy Company
[FREEBEACON] The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) steered another taxpayer-backed loan toward a green energy firm that shares an advisory board member with the bank.

The Ex-Im Bank recently authorized a pair of loans totaling $33.6 million to Abengoa--a Spain-based energy company--that will fund the export of American-made products for use in solar projects in Spain and South Africa.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D.)
...one of the dirtier kleptocratic politicians, and that's saying something...
sits on the Abengoa International Advisory Board and is currently listed on the Ex-Im bank's website as a member of the 2013 advisory committee that helps guide bank policy.

The Ex-Im Bank did not immediately respond to request for comment on Richardson's involvement in the loan.

The Ex-Im Bank said its financing will support approximately 200 U.S. jobs.

"Ex-Im Bank's consistent support of renewable-energy projects demonstrates our commitment to supporting high-skilled jobs in an important homegrown industry and improving the environment," said Ex-Im Bank chairman and president Fred P. Hochberg in a statement. "In addition to contributing to cleaner sources of energy and supporting U.S. jobs, these two transactions will support President Obama's goal of doubling access to power in sub-Saharan Africa."
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The tower brings 35 new jobs to the thriving Pofadder community.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Note the convenient D.C. office:

United States
Washington, DC +1 (202) 857-7812
1909 K Street, NW, Suite 840, Washington, DC 20006

Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 6:01 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Rajshahi University Shibir secy, 7 others held
[Bangla Daily Star] Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) personnel locked away
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
the general secretary of Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
's Rajshahi University unit and its seven activists early Thursday on charges of violence and attacking police.

They also recovered 13 hand-made bombs and a firearm loaded with eight bullets, reports our RU correspondent quoting Col Anwar Latif Khan, commander of Rab-5.

A team of Rab conducted a raid at Shibir-operated Contest Coaching Centre at Malopara in the city around 5:30am and arrested the eight Jamaat men including general secretary Saifuddn Yeahia, the commander said.

Searching the coaching centre, the law enforcers found the bombs and the firearm, he said.

Identities of other arrestees could not be known immediately.

The Shibir men were arrested on suspicion of their involvement with the recent violence in Rajshahi city and attacks on cops, he added.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Africa Horn
61 are still missing after end of siege
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Some 61 people said to have been among those at the Westgate shopping mall when faceless myrmidons struck five days ago, are still unaccounted for.

According to the latest Kenya Red Thingy data, six of those reported missing have been found and re-united with their families.

Nine bodies have also been positively identified by relatives.

"The search for the missing people is still on... A number of people have come forward to look for their kin," a Red Thingy official who only identified himself as Mr Anwar told the Nation Thursday.

Red Thingy is carrying out the tracing services to locate and re-unite missing persons with their families at Uhuru Park.

According to the brief, the organization says their main challenge is how to tackle the increased public anxiety on account of missing persons that has been brought about by inadequate information.

The faceless myrmidons descended on the shopping mall last Saturday, killing a total of 67 people and injuring at least 240 others drawn from various nationalities, by the end of the four-day siege.

The mall was among the favourite outing joints for expatriates in the city.

Six security officers and five faceless myrmidons also died in the attack. Eleven people suspected to have been involved with the well-planned and executed assault are in jug.

The government has embarked on its next phase, which according to Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku, will involve forensic processes of identifying the dead through their fingerprints and DNA.

Ballistics tests will also be undertaken to determine the nature of weapons and ammunition used in the siege.

Mr Lenku on Wednesday said teams from the US, Israel, Britannia, Germany, Canada and Interpol had joined police for investigations.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Was Rhonda in Poughkeepsie?
Posted by: badanov || 09/27/2013 0:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Birthday Gam Shot

Zita Görög [Hungarian][Filmography](age 34)



Stretch Design


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/27/2013 0:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Speaking of Tallulah . . . .
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 3:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey! How come every article has been viewed at least 180 times? Buncha Burgers up all night reading and re-reading?
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2013 7:36 Comments || Top||

#5  ...it's the bot from the NSA. Hi Robby.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2013 9:46 Comments || Top||

#6  This Hungarian lady is what? 9-feet tall?
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 09/27/2013 12:00 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Al-Shabab leader's ambitions appear to be as complex as his personality
[Washington Post] Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, known as Godane, is bookish, eloquent in both Arabic and Somali, recites poetry and is known to quote from obscure academic journals, analysts say. Yet he trained and fought in Afghanistan for the jihadist cause and has ruthlessly killed most of his rivals to seize control of al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, a Somali militia linked to al-Qaeda that has asserted responsibility for the mall attack.
The vicious aesthete-intellectual. Wasn't Lenin one of those?
Al-Shabaab has said the attack, which began Saturday, was Dire Revenge™ for Kenya sending troops into Somalia. But the carnage had just as much to do with the struggles inside the militia and Godane's desire to make al-Shabaab -- and himself -- stronger and more relevant in the global jihad against the United States and its allies, according to analysts.

Late Wednesday, in an audio posted on a Web site linked to al-Shabaab, Godane warned Kenyans of more attacks if the government refuses to withdraw its forces.

"There is no way that you, the Kenyan public, could possibly endure a prolonged war in Somalia and you cannot also withstand a war of attrition inside your own country," he said, according to an al-Shabaab Twitter feed in English. "So make your choice today and withdraw all your forces . . . [or] be prepared for an abundance of blood that will be spilt in your country, economic downfall and displacement."

The four-day siege of the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall was Godane's first major cross-border assault since he eliminated key al-Shabaab leaders in the summer and solidified his grip over the militia. His ambitions appear to be as complex as his personality.

"Godane is clearly positioning himself as the next Anwar al-Awlaki
... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list...
-- on top of his game as the head of a local al-Qaeda affiliate, and with international ambitions," said Abdi Aynte, director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, a Mogadishu-based think tank. He was referring to the Yemeni American preacher who was a key figure in al-Qaeda's Yemen branch and was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike.

Since 2011, al-Shabaab has lost much territory in Somalia, pushed out of key cities by Western-backed African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
forces and weakened by infighting and loss of funding. An ideological and directional split among the militia's leaders has pit nationalists, who want the group to remain focused on ousting Somalia's government, against transnationalists such as Godane, who have pushed the militia to pursue a wider jihadist agenda, regionally and beyond.

After a brutal struggle, Godane emerged victorious. He transformed the militia into a more streamlined, unified and radicalized terrorist force, said J. Peter Pham, head of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. In some ways, the mall attack was an announcement to radical Musselmens and the West that a new al-Shabaab had arrived -- with Godane in control.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  See also WORLD NEWS > [CNN.com] RUTHLESS LEADER OUT TO EXTEND REACH OF AL-SHABAAB, EYES WEST.

and

* SAME > [Guardian.UK] AL-SHABAAB WILL EMERGE STRONGER AFTER NAIROBI MALL ATTACK, WARNS ANALYST.

* SAME > [Deutche Welle] MALL ATTACK UNDERLIES STRENGTH OF AL-SHABAAB'S RADICALS.

The above as helped or complemented indirectly by

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > "ISLAM", "MUSLIM" CENSORED FROM [approxi 90% plus-minus] US NEWSPAPER REPORTS ON KENYA, PAKISTAN ATTACKS | FOX NEWS.

More evidencias as to how Legal Sharia could become established in the US vee the ACLU + LeftMedias - ITS N-O-T - I REPEAT N-O-T -"SHARIA/ISLAMIC LAW", ITS MERELY A FAITH BASED "SPECIAL COURT"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/27/2013 0:20 Comments || Top||


British national arrested over Westgate mall attack
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A British national has been tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
in Nairobi over the bloody attack on Westgate shopping mall by armed Islamists, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said on Wednesday.

"We can confirm the detention of a Brit in Nairobi and we are making contact to offer standard consular assistance," she told AFP, without saying if the suspect was a man or a woman.

British newspapers have speculated that Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of one of the men who bombed the London transport system in 2005, was among the attackers who besieged the Westgate mall in the Kenyan capital.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told US television on Monday that a British woman was among the attackers, although this contradicted earlier statements from Kenyan officials who said they were all male.

Lewthwaite, a 29-year-old Mohammedan convert known as the "White Widow", has been on the run in East Africa for the last couple of years and is wanted by Kenyan police for alleged involvement in a separate terror plot.

President Uhuru Kenyatta announced an end to the 80-hour bloodbath in Nairobi late Tuesday, with the loss of 61 civilians and six members of the security forces. He said five attackers were killed and 11 suspects tossed in the calaboose
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


Caribbean-Latin America
Cristina Kirchner rails against Britain at the UN over the Falklands
[BLOGS.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] Never one to miss an opportunity to make a fool of herself on the world stage, Argentina's president Cristina Kirchner has railed against Britannia yet again over the Falklands. According to a report by MercoPress, the South Atlantic News Agency, Kirchner defended her own country's development of nuclear energy in a speech this week at the UN General Assembly, while accusing Britannia of "militarising" the South Atlantic with nuclear submarines:

"We do not go around condemning the use of nuclear energy with military ends, and at the same time send out nuclear submarines," Cristina Fernandez fired during her speech.

"This happens to us Argentines, where the United Kingdom have militarised the South Atlantic and sends nuclear submarines" to an area that is clearly Argentine and Latin American sphere of influence.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In the recent Falkland Islands referendum, 99.8 percent of the Islanders voted to remain a British Overseas Territory.

We recently re-learned that tyrants see statistical summaries related to the will of the little people quite differently.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:37 Comments || Top||

#2  "...clearly Argentine and Latin American sphere of influence."

French Guyana is an integral part and important strategic asset of the French Republic and the EU. Located of the South American continent it borders Brazil and Suriname.

The Maldives Falklands are islands in the South Atlantic, located about 500km off the Patagonian coast.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 09/27/2013 5:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Seems an appropriate post for the "Not this $hit again" picture.

Not surprising that, as the Argentine economy, starts circling the drain they would try the old distraction ploy.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/27/2013 7:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Seems an appropriate post for the "Not this $hit again" picture.

Uh, yeah. It's a bit surprising that she is still yammering about the Falklands. It's getting tedious and even she must understand that she cannot have those islands.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/27/2013 11:27 Comments || Top||

#5  still yammering about the Falklands.

As AlanC notes, it is not about the Falklands, it's about the Argie economy. La squirrela!
Posted by: SteveS || 09/27/2013 12:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Schauen Squirrel!! (in the language of my ancestors ;^)


Maybe we need a library of "Look Squirrel" translations.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/27/2013 12:50 Comments || Top||

#7  "We do not go around condemning the use of nuclear energy with military ends, and at the same time send out nuclear submarines"

Submarines, being mobile, aren't a permanent fixture in the South Atlantic (tho perhaps they should be.)

Maybe we need a library of "Look Squirrel" translations.

Probably a squirrel graphic as well.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 13:59 Comments || Top||

#8  Submarines, being mobile, aren't a permanent fixture in the South Atlantic (tho perhaps they should be.)

Hummm I dunno, you gonna bet your Mayo on that? A carrier group without a home is a sad thing.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/27/2013 16:02 Comments || Top||

#9  Lest we fergit, Argentine control of the Falklands = Argentine influence over BRAZIL, in both the Mercusor Bloc + BRIC, etc. = BRAZIL-ARGENTINE CONFEDERATION IFF NOT "UNION" FOR GREAT POWER OR SUPERPOWER STATUS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/27/2013 20:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Poll shows popularity problems for Manchin, Holgorsen
[WVMETRONEWS] U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is taking a hit in the polls, and so is West Virginia football coach Dana Holgorsen.

New numbers released this week from Public Policy Polling showed West Virginia voters gave Manchin a 46-percent approval rating, while 44 percent disapproved.

The last time PPP questioned voters about Manchin in 2011, his approval rating stood at 61 percent.

Pollsters with PPP said Machin may be suffering from the Obama effect. In only one other state is President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
more unpopular than he is in West Virginia right now. Voters surveyed said they support impeaching the president by a 49 percent to 37 percent margin.

Obama's favorability rating in the Mountain State sits at 28 percent.

Manchin's numbers are higher, but they're not that different from U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) who is not seeking re-election next year. Only 45 percent of those questioned approved of Rockefeller's job performance, while 46 percent disapproved.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Obama's favorability rating in the Mountain State sits at 28 percent.

Coal miners have a rather long-standing habit of working, eating, shopping, etc.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:21 Comments || Top||

#2  And on election day, reliably voting dumbocrap, no matter how much that is agains their best interests...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 6:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Manchin was a popular governor. Dems ran him for the Senate seat which they otherwise would have lost. Now that Manchin has to toe the party line as one of its mindless minions in Harry Reid's zombie Senate he can no longer dupe his constituents.

Conventional wisdom is that any incumbant under 50% is in trouble. WV has been reliably Democrat for generations. Would be nice to see WV make the same transformation that other southern states have made away from the dippy Dems.
Posted by: Jaising Creque9323 || 09/27/2013 9:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Won't. Happen.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:30 Comments || Top||

#5  The old saw is: a smart West Virginian is one who has the good sense to not procreate and to die in the first serious car accident he is in...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Why do ants shun picnics in West Virginia? Pride...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Why is Halloween West Virginia's favorite holiday? Pumpkin...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Obama and the donks have slammed the coal industry in W. Va. with their green agenda.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 12:18 Comments || Top||

#9  Georgia has hard working amigos. Virginia has West Virginians. :-(
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria committed to chemical weapons deal: Assad
[Al Ahram] Assad confirms that the Syrian regime intends to abide by its agreement to relinquish its chemical weapons arsenal to UN inspectors, against threats of US intervention
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Africa North
Libya's southern Fezzan region declares autonomy
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Libya's south-western region of Fezzan declared itself on Thursday an autonomous federal province, Al Arabiya correspondent reported.

Nouri Mohammad al-Qouizi was named as the president of the province, according to Libyan media reports. Local tribal leaders said military chief would later be appointed to protect the region's borders and its natural resources.

The tribal leaders also said they took the decision because of the "weak performance of the General National Congress and the lack of response to the demands of the Libyan people in Fezzan."

The move came a month after Cyrenai, in eastern Libya, took a similar step declaring itself also an autonomous federal province.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Bangladesh
Jamaat-Shibir men vandalise vehicles, blast bombs in capital
[Bangla Daily Star] The activists of Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
brought out a brisk procession in Badda area of the capital and vandalised several vehicles there Thursday.

During the nearly 10-minute demonstration that was staged as part of the organization's countrywide demonstration demanding release of its leaders and activists, the Jamaat-Shibir men also went kaboom! three cocktails, witnesses said.

Around 30-40 activists suddenly brought out the procession at Merul Badda around 9:45am and resorted to the vandalism and kaboom, they added.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Africa North
Minister halts investigation of teachers for refusing pro-army anthem
[Al Ahram] Egypt's Minister of Education Mahmoud Abul Nasr has halted an investigation of 5 teachers for refusing to play a pro-military anthem at a primary school in the Nile Delta governorate of Gharbiya.

Fatma Khedr, the Egyptian deputy minister of education in the governorate of Gharbiya, had referred these teachers for investigation earlier on Thursday after they allegedly refused to play the pro-army anthem "Teslam al-Ayadi" during the morning line up at a primary school in Mahala.
Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported that a verbal exchange broke out between students and the 5 teachers who refused to play the anthem, which prompted a protest by students' parents. It was the parents' anger that drove the Gharbiya ministry official -- according to Al-Ahram -- to refer the teachers for investigation.

After learning of the incident, according Al-Ahram Arabic, Abul Nasr contacted Khedr and ordered her to halt the investigation immediately. Abul Nasr said he was appalled by the incident, and that he had ordered schools to include only the national anthem in their morning line-ups.

The controversial anthem was released shortly after the military removed former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi from power on 3 July following mass protests against him, and it is laden with nationalistic lyrics glorifying the Egyptian military.

Quickly becoming a symbol of support for the army's intervention against Moslem Brüderbund-led government, the anthem is met with antipathy by supporters of the former president who view his ousting as a military coup against a legitimate leader.

The anthem was also subject to considerable ridicule for its ultra-nationalistic tone and brazenly positive portrayal of the Egyptian army - which came under severe criticism during their transitional rule following the 2011 revolution.

While most political groups opposing the Moslem Brüderbund were supportive of Morsi's overthrow, some remained sceptical of the army. Others turned against the army in response to the violent dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins in August that resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries.

According to news reports during the past week, the anthem has caused a number of scuffles in schools in several governorates.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
The enemy within
[Dawn] FEW incidents of terrorism have caused such large-scale outpouring of grief, anger and shame as the massacre in the 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.
church last Sunday. But will this outrage awaken the Pak people to the urgency of dealing with the cancerous growth in their body politic of which the attack on the old church was only a symptom?

As has often happened in such situations, various parties are busy denying responsibility for mass murder in the church. The Taliban say they are not involved and they do not believe in killing innocent people.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Seems like that last paragraph might be universally - not just the whole world, but the whole universe - applicable.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2013 7:34 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Twin blasts in Yemeni capital wound 20
[Al Ahram] Two roadside kabooms went kaboom! one after the other on a busy road in the Yemeni capital on Thursday wounding 20 people, the interior ministry said.

The twin blasts were on Al-Rabat Street where the bombs had been hidden among piles of garbage.

No casualties were reported in the first kaboom, a ministry front man said, quoted by Saba state news agency. But as pedestrians gathered in the area a second device went kaboom!, wounding 20 people, the official said.

Another official told AFP earlier that 12 people were maimed in the blast, four of them seriously.

Cars were damaged in the blast, and windows were also shattered, he said. Security forces then cordoned off and searched the area.

Also on Wednesday, a jacket wallah killed an army intelligence officer in Ataq, the capital of Shabwa province in the south.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Africa Horn
Blame game over Westgate attack
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rivalry among security agencies and lack of clear command lines badly affected the response to the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall, the Nation has established.

Jurisdictional differences appear to have extended to blame games among security agencies, as Kenya recovers from its worst terror attack since the 1998 bombing of the Embassy of the United States of America in Nairobi.

Various units of the Kenya Police and the Kenya Defence Forces played key roles in the rescue operation after a band of forces of Evil linked to Somalia-based Al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
attacked the shopping mall on Saturday and killed dozens before holding an unknown number hostage inside the up-market complex.

Inquiries by the Nation indicate that a coordinated rescue mission was badly delayed because of disputes between the Kenya Police and KDF officers commanding their units on the ground.

A reconstruction of the rescue mission indicates that a team from the Recce General Service Unit of the Kenya Police early in the rescue operation made its way into the mall and secured most of it, pinning down the forces of Evil at one end around Nakumatt Supermarket and Barclays Bank.

Rooftop parking

However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
the team pulled out after its commander was fatally shot in 'friendly fire' following the arrival of a KDF unit.

Also pulling out at the same time was a small group of coppers from various units and armed civilians, who were the first to enter the mall from the rooftop parking and the front entrance and led hundreds of shoppers to safety.

The pullout left a vacuum that apparently allowed the forces of Evil to regroup and move through the mall slaughtering many captives.

It also allowed the forces of Evil to deploy heavy-calibre machine guns that they had not used in the earlier shootout.

It took prolonged consultations that also involved State House before President Kenyatta publicly announced that Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo was in charge.

However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
it was also decided that KDF Special Forces would be the ones to conduct the actual assault on the terrorists, while the GSU and other police units ringed the mall.

The soldiers and their commanders on the ground only answered to KDF chief General Julius Karangi rather than to the police boss, which also complicated the operation.
The teams also appeared to have had different aims. One officer involved said that some units had a priority to locate and rescue a specific group of VIPs.

Barely an hour after the attack, the GSU squad had taken control of almost 70 per cent of the building after moving in to reinforce the small group of coppers, who were the first to enter the building.

The KDF Special Forces came in later to spearhead the operation, with the GSU forming the second inner cordon in the mall behind the army units from the 20 Para Battalion and Maroon Commandos.

The rivalry is understood to have extended to communication on how the public would be informed of the progress of the operation.

As Parliament promised to demand answers from all units involved, it also emerged on Wednesday that the police had been given advance intelligence on the planned terrorist attack, but failed to act.

The Parliamentary Defence Committee Thursday summoned all security chiefs -- including National Intelligence Service boss Michael Gichangi--to appear before it next week. The sessions are expected to be dominated by buck-passing.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  Just like the Navy Yard shooting - the rescue operation starts with a turf war.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2013 7:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Meanwhile, intelligence officers are pursuing leads indicating that a terrorist who is already serving a 59-year jail term was in contact from behind prison walls with the group that planned and carried out the Westgate attack.

EXECUTE HIM.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 8:15 Comments || Top||

#3  As Parliament promised to demand answers from all units involved, it also emerged on Wednesday that the police had been given advance intelligence on the planned terrorist attack, but failed to act.

Discounting a possible LEGAT mall shopping trip, this might explain the near immediate arrival of American FBI personnel. The report of armed British SAS men at the mall.....more than a bit curious as well. Perhaps someone was running a sale.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:32 Comments || Top||

#4  I anxiously await the [possible discovery] that an alarmed store owner reported to Kenyan police that he had found an AK-47 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition stuffed in a mall maintenance locker some two weeks ago.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Rivalry among security agencies and lack of clear command lines

Does "what difference does it make" ring a bell?

The report of armed British SAS men at the mall.....

Latest revision to that is one individual, a "retired Royal Marine". Take it for what it's worth.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 13:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Rivalry among security agencies and lack of clear command lines

Also led to the relief of Mafeking.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 13:03 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Nork Coast Guard Fires at Russian Fishing Vessel
The North Korean coast guard has opened fire on a Russian cargo ship in the Sea of Japan without issuing the necessary warning. None of the people onboard the Russian fishing schooner was injured and the Russian vessel was undamaged, said the press service of the Federal Fisheries Agency in Russia.
Interesting that the Norks can get away with this but Champ wouldn't dare try...
"The Russian fishing schooner Altai en route from the port Zarubino with live crab cargo onboard to the South Korean port of Donghae came under fire from automatic firearms and pistol flare lights at 18:30 Moscow time (14:30 GMT) on 20 September from a warship of the Korean People's Democratic Republic (DPRK)," said a statement.

After resorting to firing, armed North Korean personnel dressed in military uniform boarded the Russian ship to inspect the cargo, it has been reported. The men questioned the vessel's captain for several minutes.

The fishing company said: "Altai was searched through and the captain was questioned about the port of destination, cargo and the line-up of crew. Armed people left the Russian vessel at 18:50 Moscow time (14:50 GMT), the ship was permitted to sail to the destination port."

The statement added: "The North Korean warship did not get in radio contact."

The company's spokesperson told the state-run RIA Novosti that the North Korean coast guard's action was a gross violation of international law on maritime traffic.
Let's see what Vlad does about this -- maybe nothing since he must (as we do) recognize that the Norks are barking mad...
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  WTF?
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 3:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Russians ship live crabs on two-masted sailing ships?
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 4:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh Nork, you've fucked up now.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 6:32 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Sudan denies president called off UN trip
[Al Ahram] Sudan's foreign ministry denied Thursday that President Omar Al-Bashir, who faces an international arrest warrant, has called off a trip to New York to address the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
General Assembly.

"The foreign ministry denies reports from news agencies citing a UN front man that the president of the republic has decided not to attend the UN General Assembly," state news agency SUNA reported.

It urged the US government "to respect its obligations and issue visas to President Omar Al-Bashir and the delegation accompanying him to New York."

The US embassy in Khartoum has delayed granting the visas, the foreign ministry said.

With violent protests sweeping Sudan over oil price rises, a UN front man in New York said Wednesday that Foreign Minister Ali Karti would address the world body on Friday in place of Bashir.

The International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
has urged the United States to arrest Bashir who is wanted by the court in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Sudan's Darfur conflict.

Under international accords, the United States would not be entitled to refuse Bashir a visa, but the Sudanese leader could be jugged
Please don't kill me!
on arrival in New York.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


China-Japan-Koreas
US: N. Korea should take 'real, practical' steps towards denuclearization
WASHINGTON -- The Barack Obama administration's nonproliferation guru emphasized Thursday that North Korea should take "some real, practical" measures towards denuclearization for the resumption of dialogue.

Rose Gottemoeller, nominee to be undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, voiced the need to keep putting pressure on Pyongyang in cooperation with Beijing.

"The North Koreans have to take some real steps to prove that they are indeed ready to begin the process of denuclearization," she said in a Senate confirmation hearing. "We have to see some practical steps. And I think that it is important to continue to press them on that."

Gottemoeller has served as acting undersecretary for arms control and international security since February 2012, leading the Obama government's global nonproliferation drive. She described addressing the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran as one of the Obama administration's top priorities.

"The diplomatic full-court press from the State Department has contributed to the unprecedented international consensus on maintaining sanctions and other pressure on both states. We must continue to push," she said.

She noted China's attitude in recent months with regard to the North Korea issue.

"I will say that in recent months we've seen an uptick in the cooperation with China on dealing with dual-use items and dealing with trade in such items. And so they are improving as a partner. And I think that that is a very, very positive step," she said.

Gottemoeller was referring to Beijing's publication earlier this week of a long list of equipment and chemical substances to be banned from export to North Korea amid concerns that those could be used for nuclear weapons programs.

In New York, Secretary of State John Kerry also hailed Beijing's action as he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Barack Obama administration's nonproliferation guru emphasized Thursday that North Korea should take "some real, practical" measures towards denuclearization for the resumption of dialogue.

Hey Obama, hold your breath and wait.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 8:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Sorry, but I'm not convinced - IMO as "post-US", "Mahanist" China attempts to acquire strategic access through the "First Island Chain" into the far/deep Pacific, IT IS IN BOTH THE US + ROK'S INTEREST TO DEV + SUPPORT A NUCLEAR, INCLUD NUCLEAR-ARMED NORTH KOREA.

A NUCLEAR NOTH KOREA = LEADS TO A NUCLEAR SOUTH KOREA = LEADS TO A NUCLEAR REUNIFIED KOREA CAPABLE OF UNILATERAL, NON-US DEPENDENT STRATEGIC OR GEOPOL DETERRENCE.

"NO NUKES" = INTER-KOREAN "STATUS QUO" as known.

A nuke-armed North Korea may be the only way to achieve true or effective POST-COLD WAR/USSR, GERMANY-STYLE INTER-KOREAN REUNIFICATION. Unless something major changes wid Beijing, IMO its either the above, or else both the US + ROK, ETC. FOREVER ABANDON NORTH KOREA TO PERPETUAL + INCREASINGLY EXPANDING/PROGRESSIVE CHINESE DOMINATION IFF NOT DE FACTO CHINESE ANNEXATION.

Sorry iff the truth sucks.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/27/2013 20:55 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Militants kill nine in Kashmir, says Indian police
[Dawn] Militants stormed a cop shoppe and an Indian army base in Kashmire on Thursday, killing at least nine in an attack the state's chief minister said was aimed at derailing peace talks between India and Pakistain.

"This attack in Jammu is aimed at derailing the dialogue process," said Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the Indian administered Kashmire.

The group of gunnies who attacked a cop shoppe and army camp in India administered Kashmire on Thursday had crossed the border from Pakistain the previous day, the state's chief minister said.

Omar Abdullah told news hounds that the raid appeared designed to upset plans for a meeting in New York this week between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
"Given the history, timing and location, the aim is to derail the proposed meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pak counterpart," Abdullah said. "There are forces that are inimical to peace and want to derail any grinding of the peace processor."

The myrmidons, all wearing army fatigues, lobbed grenades and shot up the Hiranagar cop shoppe near the border with Pakistain, police said.

Around the same time attackers struck at an army base in the nearby Samba district in the southern-most part of the the Indian-administered state where a fierce gunbattle with soldiers took place and Indian tanks were deployed.

The attacks are set to overshadow a meeting by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pak counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this weekend, the first top-level dialogue in three years.

Manmohan Singh condemned "the heinous terrorist attack" in a statement but said that that it "will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue".
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba


Government
Trouble at the core of U.S. foreign policy
The Post's View...
[Washington Post] ... Just eight months later, the idealism is gone. In what may be the most morally crimped speech by a president in modern times, Mr. Obama explicitly ruled out the promotion of liberty as a core interest of the United States. Instead, he told the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, America's core interests consist of resisting aggression against allies; protecting the free flow of energy; dismantling terrorist networks "that threaten our people" and stopping the development and use of weapons of mass destruction...

As a practical matter, if a president signals that democracy is not a core interest, if it ranks fifth or lower on his list of priorities, it won't be promoted at all. Mr. Obama made that clear in his discussion of Egypt's military government, which, since overthrowing a democratically elected government, has slaughtered hundreds and stifled freedom of the press and association. Mr. Obama noted that "we have not proceeded with the delivery of certain military systems," but he reassured the generals that the United States will continue working with them on "core interests like the Camp David accords and counterterrorism." The president insisted that "we will not stop asserting principles that are consistent with our ideals." But if the generals know that those principles don't count among U.S. "core interests," why would they pay any attention to Mr. Obama's "assertions"?

Mr. Obama may believe that minimizing values in foreign relations is tough-minded and realistic. In fact, it can only diminish U.S. influence, including in matters that he defines as core. "It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls," Mr. Obama wrote as a presidential candidate in 2007. "We can be this America again."

He was right. We could be that America again -- but not by cherishing oil over liberty.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He dis-proved democracy himself which defaults you BACK to a Republican form of Government.

Reset button is there.
Posted by: newc || 09/27/2013 0:30 Comments || Top||

#2  To be fair, there can't be too many liberty lovers who cry themselves to sleep over the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama did what he could to help them, and failed.

It's actually quite pleasant to hear a socialist not claiming to be promoting liberty - rare honesty.
Posted by: Bulldog || 09/27/2013 2:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Trouble at the core of U.S. foreign policy

Wouldn't this imply we had a foreign policy to begin with?
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 3:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Vlad seldom mentions democracy or liberty either. As committed socialists, he and the Champ are not as far apart on core values as some might believe.

As an unrelated aside, I've enjoyed watching him reach a near mouth foaming, Unaffordable Healthcare hysteria during his endless college stump speeches.

I'd be remiss without a hat tip to Senator Cruz for his excellent, 21 hour safari through Rhino land. We were able to see a number of them wallowing about, with more to come as cloture voting begins.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 4:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Champ is simply a man ahead of the times. The American people are not yet prepared for a US Foreign Policy of open Islamic support, appeasement, and sharia law. These things take time. [sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Just because MB won an election doesn't mean they were out to promote democracy. Could we please get real about that?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/27/2013 11:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Tell that to the State Department and the White House, Binky.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 14:02 Comments || Top||

#8  The "ship of state" is listing badly.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 17:16 Comments || Top||


Africa North
New 'anti-military', 'anti-Brotherhood' front chooses spokespersons
[Al Ahram] 'Revolution Path Front' names eight spokespersons to represent alternative group combating both 'military oppression' and 'Muslim Brotherhood sectarianism'
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Communist front groups?
Posted by: tipover || 09/27/2013 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Moonbats.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2013 4:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Dead Man Walking Party. It sounds cooler in Arabic.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 09/27/2013 9:50 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Deal reached on U.N. resolution to destroy Syria's chemical weapons
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The five permanent members of the deeply divided U.N. Security Council reached agreement Thursday on a resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, British and U.S. diplomats said, and the full council was set to discuss it Thursday night.

The agreement represents a major breakthrough in addressing the 2 1/2-year conflict, which has killed more than 100,000 people.

Divisions among the permanent members have paralyzed council action on Syria since the conflict began.

U.N. diplomats said this resolution would be the first legally binding one on Syria in the conflict if adopted, which now appears virtually certain.

Britannia's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, tweeted that Britannia, La Belle France, the U.S., Russia and China had agreed on a "binding and enforceable draft ... resolution."

He said Britannia would introduce the text to the 10 other council members Thursday night.

The U.S. and Russia had been at odds on how to enforce the resolution, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power confirmed that the last hurdles to agreement had been overcome.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Saudi FM demands enhanced military support for Syrian opposition
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called on Thursday for enhanced military support to the Syrian opposition to change the balance of power on the ground.

Prince al-Faisal said hesitation to support the Syrian armed opposition would serve the extremists in Syria and would make it more difficult to achieve a speedy solution to the crisis.

He warned of the Syrian regime's tactic to buy time, calling for the planned Geneva II conference to be specified in a U.N. Security Council Chapter VI resolution.

The Saudi foreign minister also demanded increased humanitarian assistance to the Syrian refugees.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Prince al-Faisal said hesitation to support the Syrian armed opposition would serve the extremists in Syria

Said the representative from the multi-cultural paradise of Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Dopey Sinatra || 09/27/2013 17:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "Saudi FM demands enhanced military support for Syrian opposition"

You've got all the money (a lot of it ours) - so you pay for that support.

Put up or shut up.
Posted by: Barbara || 09/27/2013 18:24 Comments || Top||


UN chemical weapons experts leave Damascus hotel
[Al Ahram] A team of UN chemical weapons experts, in Syria to investigate alleged use of the banned arms, left their Damascus hotel on Thursday afternoon, an AFP correspondent said.

It was unclear where the team, which left in a three-car convoy, was headed.
Dinner?
The experts arrived in Syria on Wednesday on their second mission to the country, where they will examine some 14 alleged incidents involving the use of chemical weapons.

On their earlier mission, the team investigated an August 21 attack in the outskirts of Damascus that reportedly killed hundreds of people.

Its report, submitted to the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
, confirmed that sarin was used, but did not apportion blame for the attack.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Room service is horrible?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2013 4:45 Comments || Top||

#2  In 1994, UN inspection teams staying at the Baghdad Sheridan and Palestine Hotels were limited to half rolls of toilet tissue. Hotel maintenance personnel would cut the normal 4 inch wide rolls in half with a hacksaw.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:04 Comments || Top||

#3  My guess is the bar at the hotel ran out of their favorite booze and they had to make the equivalent of a liquor store run...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/27/2013 7:51 Comments || Top||

#4  My guess is the bar at the hotel ran out of their favorite booze and they had to make the equivalent of a liquor store run...

Sounds like the diplomatic community's famed "Riyadh Run".
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 13:51 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudis tweet anger at religious police following car chase death
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The death of a young Saudi during a car chase by the country's inquisitors religious police has stirred uproar on the social media, especially after it became known that the involved members of the Saudi inquisitors religious police expeditiously departed at a goodly pace of the accident.

The news of the crash went viral when a witness first uploaded a video of the car chase, which took place Tuesday in the capital Riyadh, on his twitter account with the hashtag "The commission killed two men on national day."

Reactions appeared to be tense but divided between those who supported the religious authority, commonly known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and those opposed it.

The authority is also referred to in Arabic simply as "the Haia" meaning "the committee."

A Twitter user named @talal tweeted: "The inquisitors religious police had killed people in al-Madina, and killed in Tabuk, and Baljurashi and today they killed in Al-Riyadh and on National Day. The Haia are blood thirsty."

Another user @Nejer wrote: "The Haia's situation is similar to many government entities in Saudi; they all need restructuring and fixing."

On the opposite side, @I_7rh wrote: "We certainly love the Haia because they apply the Islamic law forbidding evil doers. Therefore we hold those who do wrong to the Haia accountable even if they're its own members."

@GhaidaAbdulaziz posted a comment saying "There's no sound evidence, and I feel that it's a hoax so I urge you all to stop destroying the Haia's image."

Members of the inquisitors religious police reportedly chased a vehicle with two men inside causing it to overturn. One of them was reportedly killed.

The two police members reportedly expeditiously departed at a goodly pace but were later nabbed
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
and are being investigated.

Assistant front man for the Haia Mohammad al-Sheraimi said investigations are under way and all those responsible for the accident and the subsequent death of the Saudi will be held accountable, the Saudi Gazette reported.

An eyewitness, Mohammad al-Sahabi, said the Haia vehicle deliberately bumped into the small car from behind.

The vehicle swerved off the road, fell off a bridge, and overturned, while the Haia pursuers fled from the scene, al-Sahabi said.

He said the driver's head was completely crushed and he appeared to have died on impact.

"We know we have wrongdoers and a victim, now all we need is to implement the Islamic ruling," said twitter user Turki Ghabiwi.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Vehicular Homicide, pure and simple...Sharia Law not withstanding.
Posted by: Au Auric || 09/27/2013 1:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Noooobody expects the Saudi Inquisition!
Posted by: OldSpook || 09/27/2013 9:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Smashing report! I support the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia).
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:24 Comments || Top||

#4  heh I like it OS.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/27/2013 15:56 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Three killed in Kenya attacks near Somali border
[Al Ahram] Gunmen stormed a Kenyan police compound in a town on the border with Somalia and sprayed bullets into officers' homes Thursday, killing two before setting more than 10 vehicles on fire, police said.

The attack was claimed by Al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, five days after operatives from the Somali group stormed a mall in Nairobi and held a four-day siege that left at least 67 dead in the worst attack on Kenya in 15 years.

"They were very brutal, they were out to kill because they were shooting directly into the houses," a police officer based in the region said of the attack in the town of Mandera. "Two coppers were killed" and at least three maimed.

"We are pursuing them, there is a security operation that is going on after that attack that has left a lot of destruction," the area's police chief Charlton Mureithi said.

He said the attackers struck in the middle of the night when the coppers were asleep.

In a separate incident on Tuesday night, attackers also killed one person and maimed four when they hurled a grenade at a market in the town of Wajir, further south, a local police officer said.

"Mujahideen forces last night raided a Kenyan police base in Mandera town..., killing 2 and injuring 3 others," Al-Shabaab said on Twitter.

"The Mujahideen burnt down police vehicles before leaving and made away with weapons and ammunition as Ghaneema (Arabic for loot or booty)," the message said.

Such attacks against the police and other targets are frequent along Kenya's mostly non-existent border with Somalia, a region rife with banditry where unrest is routinely blamed on -- and claimed by -- Al-Shabaab.

Kenya's Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said Wednesday that security at Kenya's borders had been heightened after the mall bloodbath.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


China-Japan-Koreas
N.Korea Could Conduct More Nuke Tests
North Korea is likely to conduct one or more nuclear test to miniaturize warheads that could be attached to missiles, a Chinese expert warns.

Li Bin, a professor of Tsinghua University,
...located in Beijing...
told a conference hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul on Wednesday, "North Korea conducted its first nuclear test with a relatively small nuclear weapon but failed to achieve a normal explosive yield. It must have made the weapons bigger to increase their explosive yield in its second and third nuclear tests."

"The North will therefore probably conduct at least one more nuclear test to miniaturize the weapon."

The North has claimed that it succeeded in making nuclear weapons smaller and lighter with its third nuclear test, but Li said that is implausible.

"The North doesn't have the technology to fit a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile," he added.

Chu Shulong, another professor from Tsinghua University, said six-party nuclear disarmament talks do not make any sense unless the North takes action to abandon its nuclear and missile programs first.

"There is a likelihood that the North will carry out another provocation similar to the one it launched early this year," Chu added. He urged South Korea, the U.S., China, and Russia to work out a military response if that happens.
If I read that correctly, a Chinese professor at a prestigious university in Beijing is advising us to have a military response if the Norks test another nuke. I wonder who gave him that idea?
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You better NOT, United States of America.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 8:12 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Bomb blasts in markets across Baghdad kill 23 people
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Bombs left inside busy markets in mainly Sunni Musselmen districts of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
killed at least 23 people on Thursday, police said, in statements carried by Rooters.

Four bombs in Saba al-Bur north of the capital killed 15 people, while another in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dura in south Storied Baghdad killed eight, the officials said.

Militants in Iraq often bomb areas where crowds of people gather, and have targeted markets, football fields, cafes mosques, weddings and funerals this year, reported Agence La Belle France-Presse.

Also on Thursday, a magnetic "sticky bomb" on a car killed a policeman and maimed two civilians in the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul, reported AFP.

A similar device killed an employee of a local television station and maimed a second in Baquba, north of Storied Baghdad.

With the latest violence, almost 700 people have been killed this month and over 4,500 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq


India-Pakistan
Pakistan blocks 'un-Islamic' gay website
[Al Ahram] Pakistan's Internet watchdog has blocked the deeply conservative Muslim country's first website aimed at gay people, saying it was "against Islam".

The queerpk.com site, set up to help members of Pakistan's homosexual and transgender community socialise and share experiences, was shut down on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority said they had halted access to the site after complaints from Internet users.

"We blocked the website under the law because its content was against Islam and norms of Pakistani society," said spokesman Kamran Ali.

Homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan.

Queerpk.com's moderator, who asked not to be named, said he would not challenge the ban in the courts for fear of a "negative reaction".

"We wanted to provide a platform for people who are being abandoned by society because of their sexual likes," he told AFP.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Algeria mulls jihadist website ban
[MAGHAREBIA] Algeria may soon impose a ban on jihadist forums and terrorist organization websites.

A recent report from the Electronic Security Centre within the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS) obtained by Tout sur l'Algerie urges authorities to do more to tackle online extremism.

"Terrorist organizations are using advanced technologies to plan and execute terrorist operations such as the attack carried out last January on the Tiguentourine gas plant at In Amenas in the wilaya of Illizi, chiefly using the internet to communicate," TSA quoted the document as saying on September 21st.

The study, which has been sent to the Algerian government, stressed that "terrorist groups around the world and in Algeria use the internet to provide content about their activities to the various media outlets."

That same document noted that terrorist groups are using the internet on a daily basis to organise and co-ordinate operations around the world, saying, "Jihadist websites appear and disappear, and then quickly reappear in other forms, under new names."

"The media often disseminate the statements and videos published online by terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is a threat to national security," the report stated.

The government paper explained that "terrorist organizations have managed to recruit new members thanks to the internet."

According to Salim Hamadouche, an expert on security matters, "the internet is the groups' other weapon: a means of contact between them, and a great help in spreading propaganda."

Furthermore, he said, these groups include IT professionals.

Algeria has taken the threat seriously for years, starting with the introduction of a new law in 2009 with special provisions to deal with offences involving the use of information and communication technologies.

According to statistics released by the Director General of National Security, Major-General Abdelghani Hamel, 22 brigades have been mobilised and equipped to fight cybercrime in Algeria. He said virtual crime has changed a great deal, and so have the methods used to deal with it.

"Today we have cyber-coppers, who are highly trained and equipped with the most sophisticated resources, to deal with this scourge and hunt down those behind it," he said.

Preventive measures include a ban on under-18s using internet cafés. "Terrorist propaganda is chiefly targeted at that age group. Adolescents often end up as the victims of jihadist websites and forums," explained Aymen Mendjel, a journalist who specialises in security issues.

To help implement this decision, the commander of the National Gendarmerie has set up eight brigades specialising in the protection of minors, particularly at internet cafés. The brigades are spread across eight wilayas: Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Annaba, Blida, Tiaret, Médéa and Chlef.

They visit internet cafés with the aim of preventing children from accessing the internet and punish owners who go against the regulations. The brigades have been working in the field since 2011.

The call to ban jihadist websites has received a favourable response from young Algerians and their parents.

"These sites glorify death, exclusion and fanaticism," said Mohamed Kosir, a father of two. "This is a real danger to our children. I'd be very relieved if they managed to ban them."

Karim Saber, in his twenties, said that "lots of young people visit these sites, out of curiosity at first, but over time some of them become [convinced] by the messages they contain, often without their parents knowing."

"It's almost impossible to control their offspring's behaviour once they've left the house, so the best thing would be to ban these sites," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Africa Horn
Sudan's Arab Spring? Public anger rises against Bashir, again
[Al Ahram] Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir entered a new societal confrontation this week after the government suspended subsidies on petroleum products, as if problems with neighbouring Juba and Darfur and the International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC) arrest warrant against Al-Bashir were not enough to shake the regime's stability.

Tyres were burned, and anti-government slogans were chanted as hundreds of demonstrators took the streets of Sudan to express rejection to a decision influencing their day-to-day lives.

Those scenes cannot be regarded as unique for the people of Sudan, for a wave of wide-range demonstrations against price hikes and austerity measures adopted by government hit Khartoum in 2012.

The government succeeded in containing, through security channels, and arresting hundreds of protesters. Student-led protests also emerged in 1994 against the same cause.

This time, analysts left room for anger to rise, or probably for the regime to collapse, against Al-Bashir who seized power in 1989 after staging a military coup.

Don't play on economy strings

The consequences of the government move appeared unaffordable, more than the decision itself. Oil prices reached 20.8 Sudanese pounds ($4.71) a gallon from 12.5 ($2.83), while diesel became worth 13.9 pounds ($3.15) instead of 8.5 pounds ($1.93).

On Tuesday, a day after the decision, furious protesters stormed the ruling National Congress Party headquarters in the city of Omdurman. "I saw the building's three floors on fire as people fled," a witness told AFP, saying many were carrying looted furniture. However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
there were no reports of human casualties.

Hundreds of protesters took the streets of cities of Omdurman, Khartoum, Nyala, and Wad Madani.

Protesters shouted "Freedom, Freedom!" and "The people want the fall of the regime!" Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had been cornered by the banditti...
police forces fired teargas and buckshot and beat them with clubs to disperse the protests, according to eyewitnesses.

Moez Ali, a Sudanese political commentator and blogger, spoke to Ahram Online on the economic prospective of the ongoing crisis. "As it has done for so many years, the government has mismanaged state funds and that's why it's facing a deficit."

Ali believed that the government is dealing with a huge budget deficit and hence feels that lifting fuel subsidies will "plug the hole in the budget." He stated that the last government budget was mostly allocated to defence and security purposes (80 percent), while education and health care received 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

The military budget is used to fund the government's attempts to squash the rebellions in the Blue Nile State, South Kordofan State and Darfur, and is also used to feed the governments notorious National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) that ensures its grip on power, Ali argued.

"Unsurprisingly, the government never planned for a Sudan without oil
... but that's okay. They've still got Islam.
and made desperate last minute desperate attempts at a gold industry in the northern part of the country, which is now starting to cause tribal conflicts. It's all about running out of options," the Sudanese blogger concluded.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Security chiefs hard-pressed to explain how powerful explosives entered Kenya
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The country's security agencies are on the spot over embarrassing security lapses that led to the deadly terrorist attack that killed 67 people, including civilians, security forces and at least five terrorists.

Also likely to come under serious scrutiny are the all-too obvious contradicting statements issued by senior government officials suggesting a deliberate campaign of misinformation or bungling by the government in a bid to down-play the magnitude of the terror attack.

Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  I mean, explosives are against the law! How could they get them? Hey! Didn't they also have illegal guns?
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2013 6:14 Comments || Top||

#2  The one major (and perhaps too obvious) path I can think of is through Mombasa.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 13:02 Comments || Top||


Allied forces seize new town from Shaboobs
MOGADISHU -- Somali government forces aided by African peacekeepers (AMISOM) seized control of a new town in Middle Shabelle region on Wednesday, as a police spokesman reported of killings in Mogadishu, Garowe Online reports.

The allied forces seized control of Biyo Adde town, of Middle Shabelle region, after minor skirmishes with Al Shabaab terrorists militants who have controlled the town in recent years. Local reports said 3 terrorists militants were struck dead killed during the fight.

Remnants of the terrorist militant group Al Shabaab fled ran away retreated from the area as allied forces equipped with technicals armed trucks poured into Biyo Adde town, locals reported. Al Shabaab terrorists militants still control rural areas in south-central Somalia, but Somali-AMISOM forces have seized control over provincial capitals since 2011.

Last week, Somali-AMISOM forces seized control of Mahaday town, near the provincial capital Jowhar, 90km north of Mogadishu, followed by the seizure of Biyo Adde town.

Meanwhile in Mogadishu, police spokesman Col. Mohamed Madale reported that “2 persons were killed by Al Shabaab terrorists” in Yaaqshiid and Wadajir districts of Mogadishu, and the terrorists killers escaped the scene. Col. Madale claimed that government forces “prevented planned attacks by Al Shabaab” but did not elaborate during his press conference.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Britain
Islamic fanatics behind Kenya massacre in massive UK terror plot
[EXPRESS.CO.UK] Members of the Al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
terror group also set their sights on ­London suburbs such as Golders Green and Stamford Hill.

They listed targets in a training manual which contained a blueprint for this week's gun and bomb rampage at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.

Al-Shabaab's "international operations" document was recovered after one of its most feared warlords was bumped off in Somalia.

It said: "Our objectives are to strike London with low-cost operations that would cause a heavy blow among the hierarchy."

One British-based security expert said yesterday that an Al Qaeda-backed attack on a UK shopping centre was a distinct possibility.

The revelations came amid forensic inquiries into the terror attack in Nairobi which left at least 67 dead.

Scotland Yard detectives were among foreign Sherlocks combing through the debris for DNA and ballistics evidence.

At least 18 foreigners -- including six Britons -- were said to be among the dead. Five gunnies were also shot and another 11 placed in durance vile
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
Unconfirmed reports suggested that when all the bodies have been recovered, the corpse count could rise by another 60, with the British tally climbing as high as 10.

The Al-Shabaab document was found on the body of Al Qaeda commander Fazul Abdullah Mohammed who was bumped off in Mogadishu, Somalia, two years ago.

Written after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, where gunnies killed 164 people in the Indian city, it appears to describe the tactics used in Nairobi.

The two-page paper details plans to hit Eton -- whose former pupils include Princes William and Harry and 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 ...
-- during an open day.

Referring to the Ritz in Piccadilly, the document says: "The plan is to hit the hotel when it's fully booked to ensure maximum casualties.

"Key players from all around the world stay in these hotels.

"We plan to book in advance and take plenty of petrol with the brother and then set the 1st, 2nd, 3rd floor on fire...while we block the stairs so no one can run down.

"The martyrdom seeker would then make his way to the exits and start killing anyone fleeing the area."
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  * IIRC DRUDGEREPORT > AL-SHABAAB/SHEBAB MAY [one day] ATTACK THE UNITED STATES.

Post-2015 or not, terrstrikes agz OWG NAU, etc. Amerika should still qualify widin the meaning of Al-Shabaab's "international operations".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/27/2013 0:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Kenya was the rehearsal. I suspect they'll strike the UK prior to boxing day. I hope the Poms are ready.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Golders Green and Stamford Hill are Jewish areas.
Posted by: Paul D || 09/27/2013 6:33 Comments || Top||

#4  With the continuing effort to rid the Middle East, Kenya and potentially the UK of the Christian footprint, I am certain we'll soon hear someone site Islamic Apartheid.
[sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 9:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Sung in a low, reverent monotone, whilst sword polishing:

Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris
Quia non est alius
Qui pugnet pro nobis
Nisi tu Deus noster.

1. Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis.

Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris
Quia non est alius
Qui pugnet pro nobis
Nisi tu Deus noster.

2. Propter fratres meos et proximos meos loquebar pacem de te:

Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris
Quia non est alius
Qui pugnet pro nobis
Nisi tu Deus noster.

3. Propter domum Domini Dei nostri quaesivi bona tibi.

Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris
Quia non est alius
Qui pugnet pro nobis
Nisi tu Deus noster.

4. Rogate quae ad pacem sunt Jerusalem:et abundantia diligentibus te.

Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris
Quia non est alius
Qui pugnet pro nobis
Nisi tu Deus noster.

5. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 10:08 Comments || Top||

#6  or for the latin impaired,

“Give peace, O Lord, in the days of our
Because there is no other
Those who fight for us
Unless you, our God.

1. Let peace be in thy power, and abundance in thy towers.

Give peace, O Lord, in the days of our
Because there is no other
Those who fight for us
Unless you, our God.

2. For my brethren and our neighbors I spoke my peace on thee,

Give peace, O Lord, in the days of our
Because there is no other
Those who fight for us
Unless you, our God.

3. For the sake of good house of the Lord our God I sought thee.

Give peace, O Lord, in the days of our
Because there is no other
Those who fight for us
Unless you, our God.

4. Pray ye which are for the peace of Jerusalem: and the abundance of that love him.

Give peace, O Lord, in the days of our
Because there is no other
Those who fight for us
Unless you, our God.

5. Glory to the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen”
Posted by: linker || 09/27/2013 11:21 Comments || Top||

#7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0d4qM7gCH8
Chant of the Templars - I had to look it up.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 11:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Chant of the Templars

It really is an old war, isn't it? You'd think we would have caught on by now.
Posted by: SteveS || 09/27/2013 14:44 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
EU raises security level for Somalia team after Kenya attack
BRUSSELS -- The European Union has increased security precautions for its military advisers in Somalia after the deadly attack by Somali Islamists on a Kenyan shopping mall, it said on Thursday.
No, really?
The EU has 120 military experts, split between the Somali capital Mogadishu and Uganda, training and advising Somali security forces battling the al Shabaab group which claimed responsibility for the Nairobi attack.

The EU's top military officer, French General Patrick de Rousiers, said it was routine to raise the alert level. "Of course we do this. Everybody does this, every embassy does this. Everyone is concerned," he told a news conference.

The EU has had no word of any planned attack on its team and no EU member state had asked to pull its staff out of Somalia, de Rousiers said, but he noted that al Shabaab struck the main U.N. compound in Mogadishu in June when 22 people were killed.

The EU has 52 personnel deployed at Mogadishu international airport where they advise Somali authorities.

Training of Somali soldiers has taken place mainly in Uganda, where the EU has 68 experts, but it plans to move the entire operation to Mogadishu by early next year.

The team, drawn from 12 EU countries, expects to have trained some 3,600 Somali soldiers by the end of this year.
Trained them to do what? Sorry to ask but it'd be nice to see the "Federal government" of Somalia, whatever that is, and the "Army of Somalia", whatever that is, step up in some way.
De Rousiers also said the EU would discuss later this year whether to extend its anti-piracy mission off Somalia beyond the December 2014 date previously agreed. De Rousiers said the EU counter-piracy mission was likely to be extended, possibly with some changes to take account of a switch by some Somali pirates into other crimes such as drug-trafficking. But he said the EU could consider more radical changes, such as moving its naval forces elsewhere.

"Do we go for drug-trafficking in the Antilles (Caribbean), do we go for support for what is already ongoing in the Gulf of Guinea? The success story in the fight against piracy needs us to have a discussion on what next," he said.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russian courts order Greenpeace activists held over Arctic oil protest
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anybody on that ship was aiding and abetting piracy. Give them 15 years and they can work off their sentences in a logging camp in Siberia, next to the North Korean workers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/27/2013 1:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Take these Greenpeace activists. Please . . . .
Posted by: gorb || 09/27/2013 3:10 Comments || Top||

#3  "The Russian authorities are trying to scare people who stand up to the oil industry in the Arctic, but this blatant intimidation will not succeed,"

Sounds like they DID succeed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 6:37 Comments || Top||

#4  I guess confronting American or Japanese interests has lost its fund drive appeal.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2013 8:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Idiots should have known better than to take on mother Russia. They are used to intimidating pussies in the West. Putin will teach them some lessons about real life.
Posted by: Jaising Creque9323 || 09/27/2013 10:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Try them as pirates and hang 'em.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/27/2013 11:10 Comments || Top||

#7  I like the idea of the logging camp; it gets the Greenpeacers back in touch with nature!
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2013 13:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Salt mining is another worthy venue.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 15:36 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia orders investigation of photo of youth trampling Koran
[Al Ahram] Tunisia's Islamist-led government said Thursday it had ordered a probe and contacted Interpol after a young Tunisian living abroad posted a photo of himself on the Internet trampling on the Koran.

The interior ministry said a preliminary inquiry found that the photo, published on social networking sites, was taken "by a young Tunisian under 20 years old living in a European country."

"Coordination with the public prosecutor was immediately established, a judicial inquiry on the subject opened and Interpol informed so that the necessary measures are taken," it added.

The ministry did not identify the young man or say what European country he might be living in, nor did it say what Tunisia had asked of Interpol.

Tunisia has no laws criminalising blasphemy or sacrilege as such, but the judiciary has previously resorted to charges such as disturbing public order to prosecute people accused of attacking Islamic values.
... in this case, literally on another continent. How are they going to enforce any conviction of the unknown, unnamed non-breaker of his host nation's laws?
Jabeur Mejri, a bully boy young atheist, was sentenced in March 2012 to seven and a half years in jail for "publishing works likely to disturb public order" and "offending public decency," after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

His co-defendant Ghazi Beji, who received the same sentence in absentia, had fled to La Belle France, where he was granted asylum.

And in September last year, a US-made film mocking Islam that was published on the Internet triggered a wave of violent protests, with hundreds of angry Islamists storming the US embassy in Tunis, in an attack that left four of the assailants dead.

Critics of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party Ennahda, which heads the coalition government, have repeatedly accused it of seeking to Islamise society, failing to rein in bully boyz and using religion to stifle freedom of expression.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


China-Japan-Koreas
N.Korea Hoping for Talks with Ex-U.S. Officials
North Korean officials are reportedly trying to meet with former U.S. officials this week. Yonhap News cited sources in Washington as saying the North's chief nuclear negotiator Ri Yong-ho is in Berlin to attend a seminar alongside a number of U.S. experts on the Korean peninsula.

Attendees from the U.S. include Washington's ex-nuclear negotiator Stephen Bosworth and former State Department official Joel Wit.

Diplomatic sources said the seminar is being private and no incumbent U.S. officials will attend, but there is a chance that the ex-U.S. officials may decide to meet Ri.
Nothing good will come of this. Bosworth and Wit are known squishes when it comes to the Norks.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We(America) Don't use the same system that you do, when you're out, nobody listens to you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/27/2013 8:10 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Somalis in Minnesota are still signing up for terrorist group Al Shabab
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Leaders of the nation's largest Somali community say some of their young men are still being enticed to join the terror group that has grabbed credit for the deadly mall attack in Kenya, despite a concentrated effort to shut off what authorities call a 'deadly pipeline' of men and money.

Six years have passed since Somali-American fighters began leaving Minnesota to become part of al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
. Now the Somali community is dismayed over reports that a few of its own might have been involved in the violence at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

'One thing I know is the fear is growing,' said Abdirizak Bihi, whose nephew was among at least six men from Minnesota who have died in Somalia. More are presumed dead.

Since 2007, at least 22 young men have left Minnesota to join al-Shabaab, including two who did so last summer. Unconfirmed reports that two more left earlier this month have deepened concerns.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said Tuesday that initial reports had suggested a British woman and two or three American citizens may have been involved in the attack. But neither Kenyan authorities nor the Minneapolis FBI office had any confirmation.

Minnesota's Somali community, concentrated in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, includes people who fled the long civil war in their east African homeland and children born in the U.S. Many are now American citizens.

The movement of Somalis who've come to be known as 'travelers' remains 'a priority investigation for the Minneapolis office,' FBI Special Agent Kyle Loven said.

At least 18 men and three women have been charged in the ongoing Minnesota investigation. Some went to Somalia while others were accused of aiding the effort mainly by raising money.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  A practice that should be encouraged. And monitored. If they're going to blow up shopping malls, I'd rather it be in Kenya than Minnesota. Just be sure that when they leave the US they don't come back, at least not alive.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 4:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Where else can a Islamo-terrorist comfortably laager whilst enjoying free food, housing, education, meds, and a tellie.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Once identified as involved in out of country terrorism, just round up the miscreant's extended family and re-deposit in Somalia. You'll be amazed how quickly behavior changes in the 'community'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2013 8:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Procopius2k
I couldn't agree more. Deport the extended families, retro-actively, now.
Posted by: Rob06 || 09/27/2013 15:55 Comments || Top||

#5  As Sharia law becomes established throughout CONUS, these recruits will no longer have to leave their home states to wage jihad, as LEGAL SHARIA [faith-based "special court(s)"] = LEGAL JIHAD.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/27/2013 20:36 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Christians now suffering mass martyrdom, says Archbishop of Canterbury
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] The Most Rev Justin Welby said that there had been more than 80 Christian "deaders" in the last few days alone.
He can't bring himself to utter the words "Christianity is under attack by Salafists." We should just assume Diocletian's back.
He was speaking about the bombing of All Saints Anglican church in 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.
, Pakistain, in which 85 were killed and more than 200 injured.

But he said that Christians were also being singled out for violence in a string of other countries.

Christian communities which have existed "in many cases since the days of Saint Paul" are now under threat in countries such as Syria and Egypt, he said.

Last month around 100 Christian sites were attacked amid the turmoil in Egypt, with 42 churches burnt to the ground. Ancient Christian communities in Syria have also been singled out for violence.

But speaking during an interview on BBC Radio 4, Archbishop Welby, who leads almost 80 million Anglicans around the world, said it was the duty of Christians to pray for their killers.

He said that in many cases apparently religious conflicts are actually bound up with other social and historical grievances but that this could not explain several recent attacks on Christian.

"The appearance is often deceptive but I think Christians have been attacked in some cases simply because of their faith," he said.

"I think it is true to say -- and also in Peshawar -- that we have seen more than 80 deaders in the last few days.

"They have been attacked because they were testifying to their faith in Jesus Christ by going to church.

"That is outside any acceptable expression in any circumstances for any reason of religious difference."

He said the Church had been raising its fears for Christians abroad with the Foreign Secretary William Hague and called on other Governments to act to protect them

But he added: "As Christians one of the things is that we pray for justice and particularly the issues around the anger that comes from his kind of killing.

"But we are also called as Jesus did at the cross to pray for those who are doing us harm."

He also emphasized that the Moslem religious leaders in Britannia and overseas had been as appalled at the attacks on Christians as he was.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You think?
Posted by: newc || 09/27/2013 0:46 Comments || Top||

#2  The Most Reverend Welby is a bit late coming to that realization.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 12:05 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Bomb kills Algerian brothers
[MAGHAREBIA] A roadside bomb blast killed two brothers and injured their friend in Algeria's Tebessa region, El Watan reported on Wednesday (September 25th). The improvised device was reportedly hidden on a trail. It detonated Tuesday as the victims were hunting in their remote Negrine village.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  An IED on a hunting trail in a remote village? Sounds a little odd even by Algerian standards.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2013 4:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Might have been set for Algerian patrols.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/27/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
SC orders Sindh govt to clear Karachi of weapons, no go areas
[Dawn] The Supreme Court of Pakistain Thursday ordered the provincial government in Sindh to clear the capital, 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...
of illicit arms, ammunition and "no go areas."

The larger bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has directed the authorities concerned to initiate the process for surrendering of illicit weapons within 15 days for ensuring peace in the port city.

The court, in its interim order passed in Karachi law and order implementation case, ordered the application of rule of law as well as the enforcement of the fundamental rights of the citizens under Article 9 of the Constitution.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sindh, and Director General Rangers (Sindh) were directed to submit reports on the next date of hearing that "the entire city has been cleared and there is no 'no go area' there anymore."

The Supreme Court, showing satisfaction with Sindh government over promulgating a law on the subject, urged the other provincial governments to attend to the issue as well at the earliest.

"It may be pointed out that in countries like Pakistain where such situation exists, the executive authorities have to take drastic steps with a view to control and maintain law and order situation in order to protect the life of the citizens."

"In the instant case without depoliticising the police, positive result apparently seems to be an uphill task; however, to ensure peace in Karachi, certain steps will have to be taken."

The Supreme Court declared presence of 2.5 million aliens in Karachi more alarming than assassination and similar violent activities.

"Presence of such persons is not only a factor for increase in crime, but at the same time without proper registration, they are a burden on the national economy and many other administrative problems."

The government should take immediate action against them in accordance with law, namely the Foreigners Act, ordered the apex court bench.

The court also ordered NADRA and police to initiate cleansing operation by identifying fake National Identity Card (NIC) holders in the city.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Home Front: Politix
Who else does Ted Cruz's triumph help?
[NYPOST] In the last hour, even as he said he grew "weary" as his time arguing against ObamaCare was coming to a close, he found himself in a debate with the able and smart Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin
...Senator-for-Life from Illinois and Democratic Party Whip. In April 2006, Time magazine identified Durbin as one of America's 10 Best Senators, so what's that tell you? He was the first United States Senator to support the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois....
on the Congress's generous health-care plan.

Durbin complained that Cruz wanted to deny health care to the uninsured; did he not, Durbin asked, enjoy the benefits of the generous congressional health-care package himself?

Cruz said he wouldn't answer Durbin until Durbin first replied to three questions Cruz had posed. Durbin, with an "a-ha" gesture, responded by saying it was clear Cruz was simply refusing to answer his embarrassing question.

He'd walked into Cruz's trap. For then Cruz said, no, Senator, I'm eligible for the congressional plan -- but I'm not enrolled in it.

Durbin thought he had Cruz cornered by bringing up his reliance on the absurdly generous health package for Congress. But since Cruz doesn't rely on it, Durbin humiliated himself in what was supposed to be his gotcha moment.

Despite his marathon of speaking and standing and arguing, after nearly a day on his feet, Cruz -- there is no other term for it -- squashed Durbin like a bug.

All in all, the Cruz performance was great political theater, and Cruz was astoundingly impressive both in demeanor and in the cogency and saliency of his arguments against ObamaCare. If there'd been any question before Tuesday about what a formidable presence he's going to be in Washington and in the Republican party going forward, it has been laid to rest.
Posted by: Fred || 09/27/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under:

#1  there is no other term for it -- squashed Durbin like a bug.

But unfortunately, only figuratively speaking.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 5:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I always love it when Rush calls him "senator turban."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2013 10:28 Comments || Top||


#4  or in text RINOS:
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Chiesa (R-NJ)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Graham (R-SC)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kirk (R-IL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Wicker (R-MS)
Posted by: 3dc || 09/27/2013 14:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Chambliss and Isakson...spit, SOB's. My apologies to fellow confederates and free men everywhere.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 15:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Fok'n lovely! Now the despicable Champ, Reid, and the other communists can announce they've clearly got bipartisan support.... and they do !

Posted by: Besoeker || 09/27/2013 15:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Cruz, Paul, Christie came out in that order in a poll taken after the Senate vote (on funding Obamacare) of potential Presidential candidates. The poll was with done with Republican primary voters. The Rinos who voted with Reid may get payback at election time. They may not know the pulse of their constituents.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 17:33 Comments || Top||

#8  Senators up for re-election in 2014

1. Alabama - Jeff Sessions (R)
2. Alaska - Mark Begich (D)
3. Arkansas - Mark Pryor (D)
4. Colorado - Mark Udall (D)
5. Delaware - Chris Coons (D)
6. Georgia - Saxby Chambliss (R)
7. Hawaii - Brian Schatz (D)
8. Idaho - Jim Risch (R)
9. Illinois - Richard Durbin (D)
10. Iowa - Tom Harkin (D)
11. Kansas - Pat Roberts (R)
12. Kentucky - Mitch McConnell (R)
13. Louisiana - Mary Landrieu (D)
14. Maine - Susan Collins (R)
15. Massachusetts - John Kerry (D)
16. Michigan - Carl Levin (D)
17. Minnesota - Al Franken (D)
18. Mississippi - Thad Cochran (R)
19. Montana - Max Baucus (D)
20. Nebraska - Mike Johanns (R)
21. New Hampshire - Jeanne Shaheen (D)
22. New Jersey - Frank Lautenberg (D)
23. New Mexico - Tom Udall (D)
24. North Carolina - Kay Hagan (D)
25. Oklahoma - Jim Inhofe (R)
26. Oregon - Jeff Merkley (D)
27. Rhode Island - Jack Reed (D)
28. South Carolina - Lindsey Graham (R)
29. South Carolina (special to replace Jim DeMint) - Tim Scott (R)
30. South Dakota - Tim Johnson (D
31. Tennessee - Lamar Alexander (R)
32. Texas - John Cornyn (R)
33. Virginia - Mark Warner (D
34. West Virginia - OPEN SEAT (Jay Rockefeller retiring)
35. Wyoming - Mike Enzi (R)
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2013 18:00 Comments || Top||

#9  Saxby Chambliss is retiring.

Sam Nunn's daughter is running on the D side, it's scrap on the R side. I just they don't damage each other to much
Posted by: Beavis || 09/27/2013 18:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Don't list Murkowski as a Repucblican. She is an Independant who caucuses with the Republicans whenever Reid doesn't need her vote.
Posted by: Woodrow Guelph8541 || 09/27/2013 19:22 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
18[untagged]
10al-Shabaab
7Arab Spring
4Govt of Pakistan
4Govt of Syria
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2al-Qaeda in North Africa
2Jamaat-e-Islami
1Lashkar e-Taiba
1al-Nusra
1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Sudan
1Islamic State of Iraq

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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2013-09-27
  Peshawar Bus Bombing Kills 17 Govt Employees
Thu 2013-09-26
  Syria rebels reject opposition coalition, call for Islamic leadership
Wed 2013-09-25
  AQIM replaces dead emirs
Tue 2013-09-24
  Nairobi attack: Kenya's President Kenyatta says siege over
Mon 2013-09-23
  Egyptian court bans Moslem Brüderbund activity, confiscates assets
Sun 2013-09-22
  Death toll in Pakistan church bombing rises to at least 40
Sat 2013-09-21
  Hundreds of Syria rebels pledge loyalty to Qaeda groups
Fri 2013-09-20
  87 Killed in Islamist Rampage in Northeast Nigeria Town
Thu 2013-09-19
  Nigerian Army Claims Raid on Boko Haram Kills 150 Islamists
Wed 2013-09-18
  Iraq Attacks Kill 34, Including 26 in 7 Baghdad Blasts
Tue 2013-09-17
  Security forces retake control of Islamist stronghold in Upper Egypt, 45 arrested
Mon 2013-09-16
  FLASH - BREAKING NEWS - Gunman opens fire at Navy Yard in Washington
Sun 2013-09-15
  Qaida Confirms Drone Death of Yemen Leader
Sat 2013-09-14
  US and Russia strike agreement on Syria
Fri 2013-09-13
  US Consulate in Herat hit by car boom

Better than the average link...



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