As the United Nations wrapped up its 68th General Assembly last week, a major piece of news nearly slipped under the radar: Designs for the UN Consolidation Tower, a 36-story building that will flank the headquarters like an eager little brother, housing almost 3000 employees. But besides offering much-needed emergency overflow space, this new building could end up making the UN more secure as a whole. Where does the UN get it cash-ola for graft and corruption, again? The U.S.? It'll certainly made career kleptocrats more secure... Designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, who will collaborate with local firm FXFowle on the project, the building is still in very early design development -- a vague grey tower that looks to mimic the basic proportions of the original UN. Sited directly south of the original complex (and connected to it through an underground tunnel), the building will sit on land currently occupied by the Robert Moses Playground. It's scheduled for completion in 2018 -- a tight time frame, for a tower in Manhattan that will house some of the more security-sensitive spaces in the city. Has the NSA arranged for bugging every room?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/07/2013
08:21 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I was hoping the U.N. would re-locate to somewhere outside the U.S.
#4
We had the opportunity to convince the UN to move when they were trying to get additional buildings but we didn't have the nerve.
We should offer Brazil, India and Japan our full support in getting them seats on the Security Council if they'd pony up land or cash to relocate the UN. They can pony up the offer and then we let the other Security Council Members be the bad cop for fear their vote will be dilluted.
A BEER-SWILLING feral pig that made headlines for stealing six packs from tourists in Western Australia has met a tragic end.
Main Roads in the region confirmed on Monday the wild pig had been found dead after being hit by a truck near Port Hedland. The pig, dubbed "Swino" by locals, had been hunted for weeks after raiding campsites at the De Grey River rest area in the South Hedland region last month.
"We had hoped he could become our mascot, so it is a sad end for him," Fionna Findley of Main Roads said. I'm not sure why Main Roads would want a beer swilling pig as a mascot.
"It is a very common occurrence for feral animals to get hit and killed by vehicles, but we are all a bit upset." Indeed it is. I once hit 4 kangaroos in the space of 20 minutes.
The pig was said to have drunk as many as 18 cans of beer in one session, before sticking his snout in bin bags to find late-night snacks left by tourists. Witnesses even reported seeing the porcine predator picking a fight with a cow.
Officers had been trying to locate the animal, who had kept his snout clean since his booze-up a month ago. I'm off into the Bush with some friends from England in a few weeks time and have been thinking about the hazards to warn them of. Probably the main one is Goannas (a type of Monitor Lizard up to 2 meters long), which while not aggressive to people, sometimes mistake them for a tree, and try to climb up them, with unfortunate consequences.
#7
It was early last December, as near as I remember
I was walking down the street in tipsy pride
No one was I disturbing, as I lay down by the curbing
And a pig came up and lay down by my side
As I lay there in the gutter, thinking thoughts I cannot utter
A lady passing by was heard to say
"You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away
One evening in October, when I was far from sober
To keep my feet from wandering I tried,
My poor legs were all a-flutter, so I lay down in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
We sang,"Never mind the weather just as long as we're together"
Till a lady passing by was heard to say,
"You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
Yes the pig got up and slowly walked away.
Slowly walked away, slowly walked away
Yes the pig got up and then smiled and winked at me
As he slowly walked away.
On cattle shows I've centered, in one a pig I entered
And one day I sat down with him in his sty
Famous people came to visit, when a sweet voice said, "What is it?"
She said "What a lofely fella", poked the pig with her umbrella
Then she looked at me a while and whispered, "Say
Yeah Ay tank dis iss hees brudder"---at my side I felt a shudder
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/07/2013 20:31
Comments ||
Top||
VISAKHAPATNAM: Bodies of two defence personnel were found under suspicious circumstances on the railway tracks falling under Pendurty railway station (PRS) limits of East Coast Railways (ECoR) here on Sunday morning.
On being informed by railway trackmen, Government Railway Police (GRP) at Visakhapatnam railway station immediately reached the spot. Following enquiries, one of the deceased was identified as KK Josh, 34, chief engine room artificer (CERA) at Shipbuilding Centre, a unit of ministry of defence at the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) premises here. The other was identified as Abhish Shivam, 33, a chief engineer working at INS Arihant, India's first nuclear-powered submarine.
While Josh, a resident of Kakani Nagar near the airport, was a native of Kozhikode, Shivam belonged to Ernakulam district in Kerala and was living at the Navy quarters at Dolphins Hills. Both of them were posted in the city three years ago.
The GRP team along with a dog squad and fingerprint team scouted the area around the tracks and collected clues. While GRP cops maintained that a case was registered and awaiting the postmortem report from King George Hospital, relatives of the deceased and the leaders of Kerala Kala Samiti (KKS) alleged that the deaths appeared to be under suspicious circumstances and demanded that the police immediately launch a high-scale probe into the incident. Always the suspicion of Pak involvement.
As if we need another Harvard Law School product...
[BostonHerald] She's reportedly waiting until 2014 before she starts thinking about 2016, but Hillary Clinton, according to one national poll, is your frontrunner for the White House -- by a wide margin.
And Elizabeth Warren is your fastest rising star.
The former secretary of state and first lady dominated last week's new Quinnipiac University survey, which showed her gobbling up 61 percent of support and beating any Republican challenger -- be it New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul or Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz -- by anywhere from 13 to 23 points.
But no one in the past five months has made a bigger jump as a potential presidential contender than Warren, according to pollsters. At 7 percent, she ranked third among Democrats, behind Clinton, of course -- way behind -- and Vice President Joe Biden, who sat at 11 percent. We are truly fucked...
Horse race handicapping, when most of the candidates haven't yet stepped up to the gate. One does hope the Democratic bench will be deeper than this lot.
#6
The Wookie is not a black Hillary. It's not like she's spent the last 5 years deeply involved, building a network, and buffing up her credentials. She's in it strictly for the money, fame, and perks. I'd wager she has an even stronger aversion to work and responsibilities than her spouse.
#7
The Wookie will expect it to be 'given' to her as her rights as a 'woman of color'. She is an affirmative action baby. She hasn't 'earned' anything in her life.
[Dawn] Three security personnel have been killed and eight others injured as a security forces convey was attacked in Bakakhel area near FR Bannu on Sunday morning.
The security vehicle was targeted nar Mirzal Checkpost and the blast destroyed the vehicle killing one solider on the spot and injured ten others, Two security personnel later died on way to hospital.
The official sources has confirmed that three soldiers have died and the eight others injured in the attack early morning.
The injured were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital Bannu.
The Ansarul Mujahideen myrmidon group of Taliban has grabbed credit for the attack.
Spokesman for the Ansarul Mujahideen myrmidon group Abu Baseer speaking from some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location told that their fighters have targetted the convoy.
"As long as drone attacks are carried out in Pakistain, they would continue their attacks and targetting of security forces and the administrative machinery of the Pak government," he remarked.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
[Bangla Daily Star] The International Crimes Tribunal-1 yesterday asked BNP chairperson's adviser Khandaker Mahbub Hossain to explain by October 21 why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against him for his recent comments on war crimes trial.
The three-member tribunal led by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, however, exempted Mahbub, vice-chairman of Bangladesh Bar Council, from personal appearance before it , "considering his status", and fixed October 21 for further order in this regard.
On October 1, the tribunal awarded death penalty to BNP politician Salauddin Quader Chowdhury for committing crimes against humanity and genocide during the Liberation War in 1971.
Following the verdict, Mahbub said that if voted to power, his party would try those involved in the trial.
On Thursday, the prosecution filed a petition with the tribunal, saying that the comments were tantamount to contempt of court and sought legal action in this regard.
It also submitted to the court copies of four dailies of October 2 -- the Prothom Alo, Janakantha, Bangladesh Pratidin and Kaler Kantho -- which published the remarks of Mahbub, also a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association
The petition also said the Prothom Alo quoted Mahbub as saying, "If the nationalist force comes to power, they will try those who are war criminals in the real sense. Those who were tried out of vengeance and the cases which were prepared on the basis of fairytale must go. And those who were involved in the farcical trial, Inshallah [if Allah wishes], they will also be tried on the soil of Bangladesh."
The court, in its order yesterday, said by issuing some "baseless" and "scandalous" statements, Mahbub challenged the power and jurisdiction of the court and its judges.
As a senior lawyer of the highest court, Mahbub "deliberately threatened" the persons involved in the trial, including judges, and "clearly threatened" independence of the judiciary, the tribunal added.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[An Nahar] Bank of Cyprus and six former executives were fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday for failing to inform shareholders over the risk of its Greek bond purchases.
The island's largest lender was fined 160,000 euros ($218,000) for non-disclosure on its high-risk junk-rated Greek bond buys to the tune of 2.4 billion euros in 2010. This compared to the bank's equity capital of 2.5 billion at the time.
Boy howdy, that'll teach 'em...
The SEC said the bank had a duty to inform investors to ensure transparency while non-disclosure "deprives the investor public of information which they have a right to know."
It said that the bank's management had given the impression that it had off-loaded toxic Greek bonds when in fact it had invested heavily in them.
Ex-CEO Andreas Eliades and former executive director Yiannis Kypri received fines of 140,000 euros and 120,000 euros, respectively, for being "negligent" in their duty to protect shareholders.
That's walking around money for both of them...
Four ex-members of the bank's asset liability committee were fined 10,000 euros each.
...and that's lunch...
Cypriot banks lost a total of 4.5 billion euros in the Greek bond haircut, which forced the cash-strapped government to seek EU financial aid as it could not financially rescue them.
In March, Cyprus agreed a 10 billion euro ($13.3 billion) rescue package negotiated with the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to bail out its troubled economy and oversized banking system.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Bet they were under order to buy them to prop up the euro-disaster.
[An Nahar] Gunmen on Sunday kidnapped a Sierra Leone citizen who works for the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Children's Fund (UNICEF), diplomatic sources told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The man was seized at gunpoint from a U.N. vehicle in northern Sanaa, the sources said, adding that his Yemeni the driver was not kidnapped.
Earlier on Sunday Germany's ambassador to Yemen escaped a kidnapping attempt in Sanaa during which her bodyguard was killed, another diplomatic source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
#1
UNICEF...the people who print those cute-sie Calendars drawn by kids in crayon? Like I have a LOT of interest in some UN personnel pushing calendars in Goombah Yemen, the heart of Quat and Kanjars. And he is from Sierra Leone, yeah? Hard to get into his problems even when I do know where Sierra Leone is which is more than most people can do.
Kidnapped for WHAT? ransom? Like what is a calendat pusher in goombah worth? Or was it just to put a burr under the UN's tail? The question IS:Is it inscrutably profitable to jack the UN for some dink from africa ?
"think of the children"
And being an AMBASSADOR from Deutchland in Yeman? That must be prestigious as all hell. Never take a job where you need a Bodyguard ( good advice ) and actually being a bodyguard...well...even for the money where is this one going to spend his? 'Nuff said. Spell Stupid.
#2
Being kidnapped for ransom is practically a tourist activity in Yemen, and a regular source of income for the locals, Spereting Tingle4064, one reason I was glad Mr. Wife did not accept that assignment.
Oh, and some Rantburgers are actually professional bodyguards in places like Yemen and Libya and Iraq. They might disagree with your characterization. Verb sap, and all that.
[An Nahar] Kenyan police said Sunday they were offering a reward for information about a car reportedly used in the attack on a Nairobi mall last month.
Police believe the car contained explosives and are offering a reward of 500,000 shillings ($5,827, 4,300 euros).
"The car had explosives and weapons and we want the owners," said anti-terrorism police chief Boniface Mwaniki. The vehicle is registered as belonging to a Kenyan and a Somali, said Mwaniki.
Kenyan officials have said that between four and six men carried out the attack and that they killed five assailants in a shootout though security camera footage released after the attack shows only four attackers.
Police have named four of the attackers as Abu Baraal Al Sudani, Khatab Ali Khane and one man known simply as Umayr -- all Somalis, plus a Kenyan of Somali origin, Omar Nabhan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Kenya
At least 38 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police in Egypt on Sunday, as thousands of the military's supporters marked the anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Loyalists of deposed president Mohammed Mursi, overthrown in a July military coup, tried to converge on a central Cairo square for the anniversary celebrations, when police confronted them.
At least 32 people were killed in Cairo, and six south of the capital, and 209 people were wounded, senior health ministry official Khaled Al Khatib told reporters. An interior ministry official told AFP no policemen were killed in the clashes.
In central Cairo, police fired shots and teargas to disperse stone-throwing protesters. AFP correspondents saw several suspected demonstrators being arrested and beaten.
Three months after Mursi's overthrow, followed by a harsh crackdown on his Moslem Brüderbund movement, the Islamists had planned to galvanise their protest movement in a symbolic attempt to reach Tahrir Square. But on Sunday, security forces guarded entrances to the square, frisking people arriving for the anniversary celebrations.
Wonder if they barry-caded the war memorials in Cairo...
Sunday's death toll was the highest in clashes between protesters and police since several days of violence starting on August 14 killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Islamists. An interior ministry statement said police arrested 423 protesters in Cairo, accusing them of vandalism and "firing live rounds and birdshot".
In Delga, an Islamist bastion south of Cairo, one person was killed when Islamists clashed with civilian opponents and police, a health ministry official and witnesses said.
Away from the main squares, Cairo's streets were largely deserted on Sunday, a public holiday to commemorate the October War, known as the Yom Kippur War in Israel. The conflict, remembered proudly by the Egyptian army because it caught Israel by surprise, led to the recovery of the Sinai Peninsula in a 1979 peace treaty.
They generally don't talk about how that war ended...
The interior ministry had warned it would "firmly confront" any violence or attempts to disturb Sunday's celebrations, state news agency MENA reported.
"They will try to show that the present army is not the army of all Egyptians, but only of those who backed the coup," Hassan Nafaa, political science professor at Cairo University, told AFP. "But this message will not go down well."
The Anti-Coup Alliance group has repeatedly called for protests against Mursi's overthrow. But its ability to mobilise large numbers has waned as security forces have arrested some 2,000 Islamists, including Mursi himself and several Brotherhood leaders.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
Two suicide bombers detonated explosives-rigged vehicles at a police station and a nearby primary school in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing 15 people including children, a local official said. The blasts in the Turkmen village of Qabat, near the Syrian border, also wounded 44 people, Abdulal Abbas said. The dead were five police and 10 children, Abbas said, adding that the bombing at the school collapsed the roof of the building.
The blasts came a day after violence including an attack on pilgrims in Baghdad and a suicide bombing at a cafe north of the capital killed at least 73 people.
Two journalists from the Sharqiya television channel were also gunned down in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday.
Violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed an anti-government protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes in which dozens of people were killed. The authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of anti-Al Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues have yet to be addressed.
And while security forces have carried out wide-ranging operations against militants for more than two months, they have yet to succeed in curbing the wave of attacks plaguing Iraq.
The latest violence takes this months death toll to more than 150, and more than 4,850 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.
In addition to major security problems, the government has failed to provide adequate basic services such as electricity and clean water, and corruption is widespread.
Political squabbling has paralysed the government, while parliament has passed almost no major legislation in years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
[Bangkok Post] An informant who tipped off authorities to the location of suspected terrorists insurgents, leading to the death of four of them in Narathiwat province on Saturday, was killed on Sunday.
Mohammad Rita-uden Tarasi was ambushed while riding his motorcycle to job in Rueso district. He was shot twice with an AK assault rifle. Rueso police chief Pol Col Anothai Jindamanee said Mohammad had been the informant on Saturday and he believed the man was shot by followers of the slain terrorists separatists.
Authorities are hunting for two more suspects who fled the deadly raid in Rueso district. The pair are believed to be platoon commanders in the Runda Kumpalan Kecil (RKK) terrorist separatist movement.
Both escaped as a team of about fifty police and soldiers raided a house on Saturday afternoon. The raid sparked a gun battle in which two police and four terrorists separatists were killed and an officer was wounded.
Among the four slain terrorists separatists are Abdul Roheng Da-eso, a.k.a. "Black Pele", another RKK platoon commander. Abdul Roheng and the two escaped suspects served Usman Dengsamae, chief of RKK's 3rd Company, who was also killed in the raid.
Saturday's raid targeted terrorists separatists believed to be behind an attack on a bomb squad on Sept 27. After the raid, police found a video clip in the mobile phone of one of the separatists. It showed the suspects before the Sept 27 attack in which three officers were wounded and a civilian was killed. The clip had been posted on YouTube website and Abdul Roheng was identified in the clip.
Abdul Roheng is thought to have gunned down two border patrol police officers at a market in Raman district on Dec 12, 2008. He is further accused of killing three people and injuring three others when he shot at a house, of killing five police in a bombing, and of gunning down four other police officers.
Meanwhile, a paramilitary ranger was gunned down on his way to work in a rubber plantation on Sunday, and three soldiers were injured when a roadside bomb was detonated when their truck rode over it.
[An Nahar] Young men from the Bekaa town of Brital on Sunday kidnapped six Syrians east of the city of Baalbek, in retaliation to the last week abduction of a Brital resident.
"Unknown individuals kidnapped near Baalbek six Syrians who hail from the Syrian town of Durra," state-run National News Agency reported.
"This comes in retaliation to the kidnap of Brital resident Yasser Ismail, who was kidnapped last week in the town's outskirts," it added.
Earlier on Sunday, LBCI television said "members of the Sawsaq family kidnapped six Syrians between Brital and Hawrtaala in retaliation to the kidnap of a man from the Ismail family in Arsal's outskirts two days ago."
Citing reports, LBCI said the abductee was transferred to Syrian territory after his abduction.
Later on Sunday, NNA said Syrian national Mahmoud Ismail and his son were released in the evening, after they were kidnapped by gunnies Saturday near the town of Sirein al-Tahta "in retaliation to the abduction of Lebanese national Yasser Ali Ismail."
It noted that Yasser was nabbed from the barren mountains of the Eastern Mountain Belt in Brital before being taken to Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under:
China said on Sunday that it was open to a visit by Taiwans top cross-strait official as it called for a political settlement to prevent their differences being handed down from generation to generation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Vincent Siew, Taiwans former vice president, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Indonesia. They shook hands and smiled for the cameras.
Xi emphasised that both sides should keep pushing for a political settlement to their longstanding division, and that they should see themselves as one family, Chinas Xinhua news agency said. The Chinese communist supremo said we cannot hand those problems down from generation to generation, it reported.
Siew, the special envoy to APEC of Taiwans business-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, told reporters that he and Xi discussed mainly economic and trade issues during their 30-minute meeting.
Ma, while pushing through a startling transformation in the business climate across the Taiwan Strait, has been more resistant to opening up a political front to the rapprochement.
But Taiwan played up the symbolic import of a separate encounter in Bali between Wang Yuqi, its top official on mainland affairs, and his Beijing counterpart, Zhang Zhijun. The meeting was the first such political encounter between the heads of the respective cross-strait bodies, the islands government said.
Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council described the meeting as the good start of a normalised official interaction between the two sides, stressing that Zhang had referred to Wang by the Taiwan officials formal title of chairman.
It showed that the two sides respect each other and have adopted a more pragmatical attitude, the Council said in a statement.
According to Xinhua, Chinas Zhang said that he welcomed Wang to visit the mainland at a proper time. It did not go into further detail.
President Ma himself was not at APEC. Taiwans leaders are barred from the groupings summits due to objections from China, which claims sovereignty over the island, and are represented instead by senior economic advisers or business leaders such as Siew.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
IMO Beijing is just acting or playing PR "nicey-nicey" - its getting ready to initiate milaction at the right time.
It cannot keep unilaterally claiming that it is par wid world #1 Superpower US in Asia-Pacific, but yet there are no PLA Milbases anywhere in East Asia andor PACOAS, i.e. outside of mainland China per se. CHINA MUST GIVE UP, OR ATTACK!
[REUTERS] International experts began overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal on Sunday, said an official from the mission that has averted a U.S. strike but could rob Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... of his most feared weapon.
The process is being conducted amid a civil war in which 120,000 people have been killed, fragmenting Syria along sectarian and ethnic lines and drawing in Iran and Hezbollah on the side of Assad and his Alawite minority and Arab Sunni powers on the side of the mostly Sunni Musselmen rebels.
The official, a member of a joint team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague and the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... , said Syrian forces used cutting torches and angle grinders to begin "destroying munitions such as missile warheads and aerial bombs and disabling mobile and static mixing and filling units".
"Let it be clear that it is the Syrians who do the actual destroying while we monitor, observe, verify and report," he said.
Witnesses said the experts, who arrived on Tuesday, left their Damascus hotel in the early hours of Sunday to begin their work in some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
IOW no need for the Bammer to remove Assad, espec now wid Al-Qaeda + aligned pushing out the domestic Syrian Reb opposition to Assad.
The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have agreed to set up buffer zones in certain parts of Mindanao to protect civilians from attacks and harassment by saboteurs of peace and the peace process.
Aside from protecting civilians, the MILF said the buffer zones were meant to promote and protect the primacy of the peace process. In addition, it aimed to contain the malicious movements, offences and activities of the saboteurs of peace and the peace process, according to the MILF on its website.
In its statement the MILF pointed out that some groups have been blatantly and maliciously challenging the security forces in the region and the peace process as a whole. Though it did not identify the groups but it was obviously referring to the breakaway Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which recently launched a series of attacks particularly in North Cotabato province that killed at least 10 people and displaced thousands of villagers.
#1
Pakistani + Indonesian hardline clerics, groups are criticizing the MILF, + calling for local boyz to travel to Mindanao to wage jihad agz Manila + establish an Islamic state.
[Dawn] Outlawed organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) is planning huge attacks within the next 24 hours in the picturesque provincial capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... (KP). The attacks will be majorly aimed at law enforcement agencies.
According to well-placed sources, the TTP has planned attacks on the Frontier Constabulary (FC) and police checkposts throughout the northwestern city of 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.
Security measures have been strengthened around the city, along with at important security check posts.
According to security officials, reports have been received that a jacket wallah has entered Nowshera district. Security measures have thus gone on high alert, and security officers are now searching for the suspect.
Earlier, an attack by forces of Evil on a security convoy took place in Bannu district, killing three soldiers and injuring eight others. The Ansarul Mujahideen bad boy group of Taliban has grabbed credit for the attack, stating that such attacks will continue until drone strikes are stopped.
Peshawar has been the recipient of deadly blasts for the past two weeks, the most recent of which were the twin blasts in Qissa Khawani market which claimed 41 lives and maimed more than 100 others. However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the TTP denied all responsibility of the attacks and condemned the blasts, claiming that it had no enmity with the masses.
KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak also directed the law enforcement agencies to take all necessary steps to ensure foolproof security in the provincial metropolis after the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[An Nahar] The Paleostinians must "recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people" in order to achieve real peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
"The Paleostinians must abandon their refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to their national state," he said in a speech at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
That's that, then. Oh well.
Such recognition was "a condition for reaching an agreement at the end of negotiations, but not for launching them", he said.
Peace talks between Israelis and Paleostinians were relaunched in July under the auspices of the United States after nearly three years of impasse.
The direct talks, which are being held in Israel and the West Bank under a U.S.-imposed media blackout, have been set to last nine months, and have so far yielded no concrete results.
"The root of the conflict is the Jewish state," Netanyahu said, refuting the argument that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and settlement there were the cause of the decades-old confrontation with the Paleostinians.
"Are you finally ready to recognize the Jewish state, the national state of the Jewish people?" he asked, directly addressing Paleostinian leaders, deploring that their response so far to that question has been "no".
"So long as the Paleostinians do not recognize this right, there will be no true peace," the premier warned his audience at the Bar Ilan auditorium.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
After all...you can't have a "Two State Solution" without two states.
#2
TOPIX, WORLD NEWS Artics claim the GDP of the Paleo economy could rise as much as 60% iff Israel would only lift its trade restrictions, which Israel is unlikely to do as long as the PA + Paleos keep chanting "Death to Israel" + routinely call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
[An Nahar] Gunmen rubbed out the German ambassador's bodyguard in Sanaa on Sunday, sources said.
Gunmen in a vehicle shot up the bodyguard as he was leaving a store in the southern Hada district, where foreign embassies are located, a security official and witnesses said.
An earlier report said the ambassador herself had been the target of a failed kidnap attempt.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... a Yemeni foreign ministry front man told Agence La Belle France Presse that Ambassador Carola Mueller-Holtkemper "is currently outside the country."
But "apparently there was an attempt to kidnap her bodyguard and he was rubbed out when he resisted."
In Berlin, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said only that the government was "making intensive efforts to clear up the facts."
Medics in Sanaa said the corpse of the bodyguard was taken to the Saudi-German hospital in the capital.
Security forces sealed off the area after the shooting.
Foreigners are frequently attacked or kidnapped in Yemen, home to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which is viewed by the United States as the network's deadliest franchise.
President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi on Sunday urged security forces to "boost alert levels to restore security and stability" in the face of "terrorist threats", the Saba state news agency reported.
On Wednesday, the pan-Arab Al-Hayat daily quoted Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi as saying that ransoms paid to AQAP kidnappers have helped strengthen the network.
"Unfortunately, the ransoms that were paid to release hostages seized by the network have provided it with the money needed to renew its activity," he said.
AQAP snuffies are still holding Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... 's deputy consul in Aden, Abdullah al-Khalidi, whom they seized in March 2012.
In addition to a ransom, they are demanding the release of female al-Qaeda-linked prisoners held in Saudi Arabia in return for his release.
The faceless myrmidons are also holding Nour-Ahmad Nikbakht, identified by Tehran as an administrative staff member of the Iranian embassy in Yemen, kidnapped on July 21.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[Ynet] Fighting around the country erupts as supporters, opponents of deposed President Morsi take to streets during holiday marking anniversary of war with Israel; at least 44 dead; more than 200 injured
Clashes erupted across much of Egypt between security forces and supporters of the ousted president on Sunday, leaving 44 killed, as rival crowds of supporters of the military and backers of the Islamist Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... poured into streets around the country to mark a major holiday.
State news agency MENA quoted the health ministry as saying that more than 246 people were maimed in the festivities.
The festivities took place on the day 40 years ago when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal at the start of the nation's last war with Israel. The day has since been declared a national holiday. The military-backed government had wanted the anniversary celebration to be a tribute to the armed forces, whose chief ousted the Islamist Mohammed Morsi in a popularly supported coup on July 3.
But demonstrations across Cairo and much of the country by Morsi's supporters marred the festivities. They and security forces fought pitched street battles for hours in several Cairo locations that now look like combat zones, with small fires burning, black smoke rising and the sound of gunshots piercing the air thick with tear gas.
In some cases, the pro-Morsi demonstrators were set upon by supporters of the military. Authorities said they had jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! 335 Morsi supporters nationwide.
The festivities were the last chapter in the turmoil roiling the country since the ouster in February 2011 of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... and are certain to set back efforts by the government to revive the economy, especially the vital tourism sector, and bring order to the streets of Cairo, where crime and lawlessness have been rife.
The scene of the fighting contrasted sharply with a carnival-like mood in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, where thousands of supporters of the military waved Egyptian flags, blew whistles and touted posters of army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi. Adding to the festivities, a military band in green jackets and off white pants played, and men spun in whirling dervish-style dances.
Thousands of Morsi backers meanwhile held marches around the city, shouting slogans against al-Sissi as some headed toward Tahrir in hopes of forcing their way into the sprawling plaza.
At central locations including a southern entrance to the square, police had gun sex and lobbed tear gas to push back several pro-Morsi marches as they approached. Some of the dead however suffered gunshot wounds to the head and chest and the pro-Morsi demonstrators were also lobbing Molotov cocktails and firing birdshots at the police.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named photographer saw nine bodies lying on the floor of a clinic in the Dokki area, where heavy festivities took place. Most had gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
Soldiers barricaded entrances to Tahrir with barbed wire and armored personnel vehicles. Metal detectors were installed at the entrances and demonstrators pouring into the square were searched by troops.
"The people have one demand: Remove al-Sissi and the president," Islamist protesters chanted, referring to the interim president installed after Morsi's fall.
Violence was also reported in southern Egypt, where one Morsi supporter was killed in the town of Dalga. Police opened fire on a march by Islamists after some of the protesters fired birdshot at the police, according to the provincial security chief, Osama Metwali.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
and men spun in whirling dervish-style dances.
Guess its just dancing on cars that's illegal.
[An Nahar] Somalia said Sunday it was "not a secret" it is working with foreign governments to fight terror and described the country's al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab bully boyz as a threat to the world.
Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon was commenting after U.S. commandos launched a raid against Shabaab bully boyz in Somalia, in tandem with a strike against a wanted al-Qaeda leader in Libya.
"Our cooperation with international partners on fighting against the terrorism is not a secret," Farah Shirdon said. "Understand me, that fighting is not a secret. And our interest is to get a peaceful Somalia and free from terrorism and problems."
U.S. forces launched a pre-dawn raid against an unidentified Shabaab leader's home in the southern Somali port of Barawe on Saturday, but failed to capture him.
It was unclear whether he had been killed, but a U.S. official said several-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... members had been slain.
The operation was the most significant U.S. assault in Somalia since commandos killed key al-Qaeda operative Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in the same area four years ago.
It followed an attack by Shabaab gunnies last month on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that left 67 people dead during a bloody four-day siege.
"Al-Shabaab is a threat to us and neighboring countries," Farah Shirdon said. "Al-Shabaab is recognized as a terror group by world countries. Therefore, al-Shabaab is a problem for Somalia, its neighbors and the world."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Russia's government to pay $1.6 million to 13 Chechens, 18 of whose relatives were killed in an artillery bombardment of a Chechen village in February 2000. In its ruling, the ECHR said villagers in Aslanbek-Sheripovo had received assurances from the Russian Army that there would be no strikes on the village as long as no armed fighters were present there.
The ECHR said the case represents the first time that Russia's government had acknowledged a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which addresses the use of lethal force. The ruling can be appealed.
[Dawn] MILITANCY poses a serious threat to the security and stability of Pakistain. While the government and various state institutions are trying to respond in their own way and according to their own capacity, persistent ideological, political and operational ambiguities about the nature and level of militancy not only compound the problem but also add to its intensity.
One critical aspect of this threat, which is largely ignored by the Pak state and society, is the myrmidons' media that is thriving right under the nose of the law enforcement agencies in Pakistain. A wide range of radical and myrmidons' publications are easily available at news stalls across the country. The Death Eaters also use other means of communications, especially the internet, FM radios, CDs and DVDs to reach a wider audience.
These communication tools might be more effective in some areas than the print media given the poor literacy rate and other contributing factors. However,
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[13 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
Libya said it had demanded an explanation from Washington on Sunday for the "kidnap" of a citizen in an unauthorised commando raid on its territory that netted a top Al Qaeda suspect.
"The Libyan government has been following the reports of the kidnap of one of the Libyan citizens wanted by the authorities in the United States," a government statement said. "As soon as it heard the reports, the Libyan government contacted the US authorities to demand an explanation."
The government underlined its "desire to see Libyan citizens tried in their own country, whatever the accusations levelled against them."
It recalled that Libya and the United States were bound by a "strategic partnership," that dealt with security and defence matters in particular.
"The government hopes that this strategic partnership will not be damaged by this incident," it said.
Translation: the Libyans really don't care that we nabbed Abu Anas, they'd just prefer that we did it more quietly...
US special forces seized Abu Anas Al Liby in a commando raid in broad daylight on Saturday, sealing a 15-year manhunt for the top Al Qaeda suspect. A source close to Liby told AFP he was snatched by armed men in Tripoli.
That's a smart way to do it: make it look like he was grabbed by a rival group of Islamicist crazies...
Liby, who was on the FBI's most wanted list with a $5 million reward, was indicted in US federal court in New York for allegedly playing a key role in deadly 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"As the result of a US counterterrorism operation, Abu Anas Al Liby is currently lawfully detained by the US military in a secure location outside of Libya," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement.
Ice Station Zebra sounds appropriate...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The real question is: Are they gonna take him to Gitmo?
[An Nahar] A Sudanese judge on Sunday threw out charges against 19 people who were among hundreds rounded up after deadly protests sparked by fuel price hikes, a lawyer said.
The judge said he found "no evidence against them", one of their lawyers, Mutasim al-Haj, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
They were among 35 people who appeared in Khartoum's Haj Yusef district to face charges of vandalism and causing a disturbance.
Trials are to continue for the other 16 with defense testimony on Monday, Haj said.
One police pickup truck was the only noticeable security presence outside the colonnaded, glass-fronted court building which lies opposite mud-brick homes on an unpaved road of red dirt in the impoverished district.
The 35 first appeared in court last Thursday, when Haj told AFP that none of the accused was tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! during the alleged vandalism or demonstrations.
They faced up to seven years in prison if found guilty, he said.
Sudan's government says it has tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! about 700 "criminals" after the late-September protests.
The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies, a human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... watchdog, said on Saturday that more than 800 people have been arrested throughout the country by police and the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS).
Prisoners included political activists, opposition party members and human rights defenders, the watchdog said, adding the exact number of detentions is unknown.
"The majority of detainees are in NISS custody and have not been charged with any criminal offense," the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies said.
Security forces were believed to have killed more than 200 protesters, many of whom were shot in the head or chest, said another watchdog, Amnesia Amnesty International.
Among the casualties was a 14-year-old boy, rights groups say.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
Iran and Egypt have agreed to launch flights between the two countries, the Mehr News Agency quoted Iranian Civil Organisation head Hamidreza Pahlavani as saying.
Makes it easier to ship weapons to Hamas...
During a meeting with head of Egypt's Interest Section in Tehran, Khaled Amareh, during the 38th ICAO assembly session, the two sides agreed to establish flight routes.
Direct air travel between Iran and Egypt came to a halt after the two countries severed bilateral relations following Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Tehran and Cairo have now moved to improve ties following the ousting of the Western-backed regime of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. In March, Tehran and Cairo signed a memorandum of understanding to promote tourism between the two countries.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#7
What sacrifices are you making, Geldof? Or are you expecting the rest of us to shoulder all the burden? Because if we can doom the environment, than I can think of no surer way to do so than to use saving it as an excuse to lord it over everyone else.
[Ynet] IDF and police forces operated in recent hours on the Egyptian border, in the vicinity of Eilat, in order to foil a drug smuggling attempt from Sinai to Israel. There were no injuries reported.
Seems like it was a hate crime. They killed him. Who kills somebody because he likes him?
[KOMONEWS] A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier was stabbed to death in a parking lot at the 12500 block of Pacific Highway Southwest around 2:30 a.m., officials say.
20-year-old Tevin Geike was walking with two other white soldiers along Pacific Highway SW when a group of black men drove by and shouted a racial comment toward the soldiers, the Lakewood Police Department said.
"One of the soldiers yelled back something about the suspects treating combat soldiers with disrespect," Lt. Chris Lawler said.
The car turned around and the men confronted the soldiers, according to reports. As the verbal confrontation ensued, the driver of the vehicle realized the men were actually combat veterans and called his friends off. While the men headed back to their vehicle, one of the suspects appeared to have bumped into Geike, witnesses say.
The soldiers saw Geike fall to the ground as the car sped away. He was bleeding profusely from stab wounds and died at the scene.
"We came down here, and he was already dead in my brother's arms," said Glenn Zimmerman, a friend of Geike.
Friends say there was a party at the Biltmore Motel that evening, and Geike was gathering with family and friends after being discharged from the military. Zimmerman said Geike's contract was up, and he was celebrating serving his country.
"I don't understand how someone can do this - that man, he almost gave his life for people to enjoy the freedoms they have and he was just stabbed for no (expletive) reason," he continued.
The initial remark that started the encounter seemed derogatory in nature, said Lakewood police Lt. Chris Lawler. He said it was too early to say that race was the motivating factor, but Sherlocks were exploring whether the killing should be classified as a hate crime.
"We are certainly considering it, for sure," Lawler said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Had it been white on black we'd have a hate crime and Sharpton and J. Jackson would be there on it. Black on white--not a hate crime; not a PC issue. I don't get it either.
Clerics from four British mosques, including one in West Yorkshire, are under investigation after being caught on camera agreeing to conduct secret marriage ceremonies involving girls as young as 14. They include a senior Muslim leader who has worked with West Yorkshire Police as an advisor on community cohesion.
An ITV investigation has been told by experts that children as young as 10 are being forced into marriage in the UK. Undercover reporters from the network posed as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old girl who they wished to marry to an older man. The pair approached 56 mosques across the UK and 18 said they would be willing to perform a nikah, or Islamic marriage.
Shams-Ul Huda Khan Misbahi, who preaches at a mosque in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, agreed to marry the 14-year-old, despite having previously publicy denounced forced marriages. The mosque said it has launched a 'thorough investigation" and that it does not endorse forced or underage marriage.
'Betray the US and join "the real Disneyland" of African jihad'
Teenage boys in America's biggest Somali community are being urged to betray the United States and join "the real Disneyland" of African jihad, in a recruitment drive by al-Shabaab.
Kenyan officials said some of the two-dozen young men who left Minnesota to join the al-Qaeda affiliate in Africa may have taken part in the Nairobi massacre.
The FBI is urgently investigating whether any gunmen came from areas such as "Little Mogadishu", the centre of the Midwestern state's 32,000-strong Somali-American population.
"It is our number one priority here in Minnesota," Special Agent Kyle Loven told The Daily Telegraph. "We consider it to be a very serious threat."
Recruiters from al-Shabaab are targeting disaffected young men in the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St Paul, which are blighted by gangs and high youth unemployment. A 40-minute video released online earlier this year, titled Minnesota's Martyrs: The Path to Paradise, promised would-be recruits a glamorous new life.
It followed three young Minnesotans Dahir Gure, Muhammad Al Amriki and Mohamud Hassan from their ordinary lives to Somali training camps. "If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here," Gure told viewers at one stage. "This is the real Disneyland".
Friends say Hassan was previously an unremarkable engineering student who spent much of his time caring for his 90-year-old grandmother.
"They are being radicalised, and that's something we are attempting to thwart with the support of the greater Somali community, who are absolutely appalled," said Mr Loven.
Abdirizak Bihi, a director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Centre, has worked to assist these efforts since losing his nephew, Burhan Hassan, to the recruiters. "We would never have guessed that our kids had been brainwashed and recruited," he said.
Eight Minnesota men have been jailed in recent years as part of Operation Rhino, the FBI's inquiry into the so-called "jihadist pipeline" to Somalia.
Earlier this year Omer Abdi Mohamed, a 28-year-old teacher from Minneapolis, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for recruiting local men for al-Shabaab. Two of his recruits were sentenced to three years, after escaping from the Somali training camp after only a week and claiming they did not know what they had signed up for.
Most older Somali residents of Minnesota received asylum after fleeing their war-torn country in the Nineties. "The tragic irony here is some of their children and grandchildren have left the relative safety of the US to engage in the very thing their grandparents and parents were able to escape," said Mr Loven.
Hate to say it but next time we should consider settling immigrants .. in Mauritania...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The FBI is urgently investigating whether any gunmen came from areas such as "Little Mogadishu", the centre of the Midwestern state's 32,000-strong Somali-American population.
The laziest by sure. Still think the brit born pakis are the most trouble re jihad. The Brit Born Somalians love selling drugs/being in gangs to be bothered with religion.
Posted by: Paul D ||
10/07/2013 8:41
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Recruiters from al-Shabaab are targeting disaffected young men in the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St Paul, which are blighted by gangs and high youth unemployment.
Some immigrants work hard and prosper. Others go on welfare and become gang bangers. You'd think a smart government would be a bit more selective when it comes to issuing visas.
#5
I have a friend who teaches English at a tech school in Minneapolis devoted to turning out nurses aides. He says the Somali students absolutely refuse to learn English. They do not
see the need to learn anything from the Kaffir.
He wants to fail them but the Administration wants them to pass (and practice medicine).
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/07/2013 12:57
Comments ||
Top||
#6
next time we should consider settling immigrants .. in Mauritania...
I hear the Moon is nice this time of year. Who knows, after being used as a prison colony for a couple centuries, maybe it could become as useful and productive as Australia.
#7
"the greater Somali community, who are absolutely appalled,"
What a crock...99% of them are overjoyed at the "success" of the Kanya massacre...face it, lying is the core part of their so-called "religion" actually a mafia of thieves, of pedophiles, of rapists and of genocidal assassins...like their disgusting pervert of a so-called "prophet"...
Posted by: Herb Gloluger9960 ||
10/07/2013 16:54
Comments ||
Top||
#8
The Somalians are takers not givers. They are parasites of the highest order.
Posted by: Paul D ||
10/07/2013 17:51
Comments ||
Top||
#9
They do not
see the need to learn anything from the Kaffir.
They learn to use EBT cards, don't they? Or is that considered jizya?
Pretty sure the bloody combatants in Chechnya would like nothing better than to turn his ass into mulch...
Hollywood star Steven Seagal said he hopes to become a part of Chechnya in the future and that leader of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov would always be his friend.
Speaking at the at a gala concert for the 195th anniversary of the republic's capital of Grozny, Seagal thanked Kadyrov for inviting his family to the event, which coincided with the Chechen leader's 37th birthday. Seagal also called Kadyrov the great leader of the republic and praised his father Ahmad, who became the leader of Chechnya in 2003 but was assassinated in a terrorist attack in May 2004.
This wasn't Seagal's first visit to Chechnya this year. In May, he met with Kadyrov at his residence in Grozny and Kadyrov later said that Seagal was "almost a Chechen" national.
Pompous festivities dedicated to the anniversary of Grozny and Kadyrov's birthday on October 5 are often attended by foreign celebrities. Last year the celebrations were attended by French actor Gerard Depardieu and in 2011 by Hollywood stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Hilary Swank.
[An Nahar] Israel's state attorney's office on Sunday charged alleged Iranian spy Ali Mansouri with aiding an enemy during wartime and with espionage.
Mansouri, 58, was tossed in the clink Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! on September 11 carrying photographs of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.
News of his arrest was made public last week, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for the United States, determined to expose what he called "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe Iran.
According to the indictment filed at the Petah Tikva district court, Iran-born Mansouri, who holds a Belgian passport and is multilingual, was recruited by Iran's elite Republican Guard in 2012 "for an espionage mission aimed at harming Israel's security", and visited the country three times.
He was to pretend to be "an innocent businessman and establish a company in Israel", the charge sheet said, which would serve as infrastructure for espionage by another Iranian man who would arrive later.
Using the alias Alex Mans, Mansouri is accused of entering Israel using his Belgian passport in July 2012, before later briefing his handlers in Iran on his progress and security at Ben Gurion airport.
In January 2013 Mansouri again entered Israel, and took photographs of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and an unnamed security installation before another debriefing in Iran.
Mansouri arrived again on September 6 for meetings to open a factory and, according to the indictment, "serve Iranian intelligence in the future."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that a pair of raids conducted in Africa by American special forces signaled the ongoing determination of the United States to bring terrorists to justice and sent the message that "members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations literally can run but they can't hide."
In the Somalia raid, the strike on Al Shabaab was carried out in the early hours before morning prayers in the seaside town of Barawe.
A resident said by telephone that heavy gunfire woke up residents before dawn prayers. The raid was carried out by US Navy SEALs, who came ashore and killed at least one individual at a villa.
The target of the operation was Abdikadir 'Ikrima' Mohammed, a Kenyan of Somali origin that is a foreign fighter commander for al-Shabaab in Somalia, Fox News confirms.
According to Fox News sources, a shootout ensued when SEALs entered the Somali villa, with the SEALs subsequently unable to bring the body of one of the militants killed back with them. A senior U.S. official told Fox News that no U.S. personnel were injured in the operation, but one militant was killed. The team ran into fiercer resistance than expected and the unit's leader decided to abort the mission and the Americans swam away, U.S officials told The Associated Press.
Little confirmed the raid earlier Saturday, saying: "I can confirm that yesterday, October 4, U.S. military personnel were involved in a counter terrorism operation against a known Al Shabaab terrorist. We are not prepared to provide additional detail at this time."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[16 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The team ran into fiercer resistance than expected...and the Americans swam ran away
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/07/2013 6:22
Comments ||
Top||
#3
The Somalis handed our hats to us, again?
When you're told to have zero casualties it sort of implies its a meaningless mission. Risk aversion overrides objectives. Like the last time, I doubt there was adequate fire support provided the ground elements.
#5
The team ran into fiercer resistance than expected and the unit's leader decided to abort the mission and the Americans swam away
Very interesting. Arm chairing here but, plan 'B' was to un-ass and swim back to the insertion platform? Pre-mission drone, SAT, HUMINT surveillance? I seem to recall a similar assault 'gone bad' at Patia Airport in Panama. Problem in Panama, going it Rambo, failing to cross-walk intelligence.
Likely done, except maybe lacking a bit on the HUMINT. As with anything else, things change. Like a Shaboob unit stopping in for the night, or terrs embedded in the community, or a HUMINT double-cross, or inadequate foreign-source intel.
At least destroy the compound using air assets...how about an arclight?
You have to have air assets in place. It was a snatch mission. There were helos, but I doubt they were armed for taking out structures.
#8
I suppose if you've got a guy, you can stretch out the number of times you remind people you got him. OBL's old news, now. If we had weekly updates on the intel or trial, it would be different.
That said, kill the bastards. The likely replacements will know. That's the important thing.
Cruise missiles make too big a splash? Reaper drone or stealth a/c with a 500lb bomb. Or a chopper or drone with half a dozen Hellfires. You can really do a number if you keep unloading Hellfires, without spreading the fun around. Eventually you get the guy.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
10/07/2013 14:41
Comments ||
Top||
#9
That said, kill the bastards. The likely replacements will know. That's the important thing.
1. You have to have the assets in place and a target.
2. In order to get to point 1 you have to have targeting data
3. In order to get point 2 you need accurate intel.
4. In order get point 3, you need to remember that this is Somalia. Somalia ain't Pakistan. Somalis don't stay bought and I can pretty much guarantee there's little or no US HUMINT assets on station.
5. A final reminder: This ain't no Tom Clancy novel. And Tom Clancy is dead.
#10
Pappy, your points are all valid given the assumption that collateral damage is unacceptable: For operations in a country we are not at war with (Somalia may fit that description, at least technically), collateral damage probably should be unacceptable.
[Dawn] Police sources on Sunday said local leader of the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) Daad Ali Bugti was seriously maimed from firing by unknown men on the National Highway near Khuzdar district.
He was travelling in a passenger bus which was headed from Quetta to 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...
Bugti was immediately rushed to the Civil Hospital Khuzdar for medical treatment, where he later succumbed to his wounds.
In another incident, Levies forces on Sunday recovered five bodies from the Mand area near the Pakistain-Iran border. All the bodies bear close shot wounds.
The Levies forces were led to the area by the tehsildar of Mand area.
According to a Levies spokesperson, it is possible that the bodies belong to people who illegally trying to enter Iran. It is common knowledge that many people try to illegally enter Europe via Iran through the Mand area.
Khuzdar district is considered to be one of the troubled districts of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province. Bombings and assassinations have claimed scores of lives in the district.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
From September 26th but worthy of notice here at the Burg. Hat tip Josh Stanton at One Free Korea.
A COMMON illusion held by dictators is that they need only to shut the borders, turn off the Internet and control television for no one to notice the horrors they commit inside the country. The work of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has demonstrated how wrong they are. The commission has shined a light on one of the worlds human rights sinkholes, North Korea, without ever setting foot there.
Michael Kirby, the retired Australian jurist who heads the commission, delivered an interim report last week that manages to shock on a topic that has already shocked for some time. The commissions witnesses provided evidence of systematic and widespread human rights violations, including torture, sexual violence, deliberate starvation, arbitrary detention and more.
We heard from ordinary people who faced torture and imprisonment for doing nothing more than watching foreign soap operas or holding a religious belief, Mr. Kirby said. He described a woman prisoner who witnessed another prisoner forced to drown her own baby in a bucket and a young man, imprisoned from birth and living on rodents, grass and lizards, who witnessed the execution of his mother and brother.
The commission was established on May 7 and is to deliver a final report in March. Mr. Kirbys interim report serves not only to benchmark the panels findings so far but also to underscore the regimes state of denial.
Mr. Kirby quite properly invited North Korea to respond to the testimony of witnesses who described grim lives in political prison camps, international abductions, torture and starvation. Truth is always a defense against accusations of slander, Mr. Kirby stated. An ounce of evidence is worth far more than many pounds of baseless attacks.
North Korea said it totally and categorically rejects the commissions work, and the official news agency denounced testimony before the panel as slander put forward by human scum. But it provided no facts.
North Korea wont suddenly throw open its doors and invite more inspection of this dark underside of the world. But the commission has laid down an important record of testimony and human experience. Mr. Kirby said the panel would now focus on identifying those responsible, including officials and state institutions guilty of gross human rights violations. But he pointed out that the commission is only a mechanism for discovering the truth. When its work is done, the world will have to decide what to do about it.
Likely nothing. That's the usual response to atrocity and genocide. Champ might go to North Korea and bow to Pudgy. But the report is horrifying.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
[Dawn] Drones are unmanned aircrafts. They are called unmanned because they are actually manned by women. So one can say drones are women-manned aircrafts. This is done to insult the conservative sensibilities of our brothers in the tribal areas where, of course, there are no women.
The first drone attack to take place in Pakistain was actually in 1024AD. It was fired by a Rajput stooge of the Jews on the army of Mahmud Ghaznavi who was liberating the Somnath temple from idols. He took away some gold as well which he duly distributed among the poor in what today is Dubai.
The first Pak to be hit by a drone was actually an innocent camel in North Wazoo. This made him very angry and as a result, he began to behave like a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Drones were invented by the famous Jewish scientist, Albert Einstein when his equation, E=mc2, was successfully challenged and debunked by the famous Musselmen physicist, Oreo Maqbool Biscuit in his equally famous book, 'War and Peace', co-written with nuclear scientist, alchemist and judo expert, Zaid Hamid in 1941.
When asked how a drone attack was possible in 1024AD, Oreo said it was a case of time travel. This, he said, was achieved when the reptilian Elders of Zion discovered a wormhole near Jerusalem that distorted the space-time continuum in the region and made the camels of that area very angry and krazed killer. Thus, the invention of drones. He insists that he be given a Nobel Prize for this discovery.
Ever since 1024AD, drones have killed over three billion Paks. It is strange how not a single non-Musselmen Pak has ever been killed by a drone. So, to balance things out, the angry camels began to kill Christians. It was only fair.
Compared to the 3bn Pak Musselmens killed by the drones, only 14 Paks have been killed in suicide kabooms by the angry camels. Such attacks are not at all common in Pakistain. In fact, the first ever suicide attack in the country took place only last Sunday and that too only because Pakistain is a country full of sinners and bad Musselmens.
It is wrong to say that the Pakistain military is allowing the Americans to use drones in the country. The truth is that it is actually against the drones that the army is fighting and not against the so-called krazed killers, who are simply innocent herdsmen. The truth is that it is the civilian government which is allowing the Americans to use drones -- especially former President Zardari who is believed to own a number of drone factories in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
On the other hand some liberal fascists are planning to set up drone factories on the moon on a large area that they illegally occupied by evicting poverty-stricken Uzbek and Chechen liberation fighters who wanted to liberate the moon from the tyranny of the descendants of Jewish astronaut, Neil Armstrong, who by the way, had converted to Islam.
But he turned out to be a bad Musselmen, unlike Michael Jackson who turned out to be a good one, before he died in a drone attack. In Dubai.
The Government of Pakistain does not allow its greatest scientist -- in fact, the world's greatest scientist -- Dr. A.Q. Skywalker, to develop the drone technology so Pakistain can make its own drones and kill innocent shepherds itself. In fact, the so-called faceless myrmidons are on record saying that they would rather be struck by a Pak drone than by an American one. Very patriotic people, they are.
The Pak drones will make sure that no innocent Pak (i.e. Musselmen, of course) is killed. Only bad faceless myrmidons would be targeted which, till last count, were just two and they too were willing to repent after the inevitable success of the peace talks. Reports suggest that they had become bad faceless myrmidons because they'd been listening to John Lennon's song, 'Give Peace a Chance' backwards.
If one listens to that song backwards one could clearly hear a cleverly masked message that says: 'Garrble, garrble, woonok wonk bing donk.' Very evil.
According to famous intellectual, revolutionary and very angry old man, Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... , only one out of a million people living in Waziristan is a bad krazed killer. That is a fact. And the blast that you just heard was actually caused by a gas cylinder kaboom.
It is not true that Americans use drones to attack those faceless myrmidons that are out of our reach. This is an American lie. And that gas cylinder kaboom you just heard is actually innocent civilians being struck by a drone missile.
It is a sad fact that some Paks use more time protesting about trivial issues such as the misuse of the blasphemy law, rape cases and the 14 people who were killed in the only suicide attack that has ever taken place in this country, instead of protesting against the drones that have killed billions of Paks.
But then, such misguided people are all alcoholics, drug addicts and believers of free sex, so one cannot expect them to speak out against the drones. They will all burn in hell.
The Americans are bribing the Chinese to make toy drones so they can be exported to Pakistain and given to Musselmen children to play with. We should retaliate by asking the Chinese to make toy models of Imran Khan and 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... that say 'stop drones, stop drones, stop drones' every time a gas cylinder kaboom kill civilians and soldiers.
Orders should also be placed for the making of revolutionary looking dolls (male, of course) whose features are a cross between Che Guevara, OBL and Lady Gaga. Comrade Tariq Ali can be used to market these dolls.
But Pakistain should make manned drones i.e. un-womaned drones manned by hunks, called hunk-manned drones.
Trained pilots should not be necessary for such drones. One's ghairat, patriotism and control over his daily flatulence cycle should be enough. We suggest handsome, ingenious and muscular hunks like Sangsar Abbasi to be given the honour of using these hunk-manned drones against the sissy women-manned American drones.
Last but not the least, the drones are also said to be the main cause of last year's devastating floods in Pakistain and this year's horrifying earthquake in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
There is ample evidence to prove this. Some brilliant scholars at the Punjab University are close to proving the long-term effects of drone attacks. Apart from floods and earthquakes (in Musselmen countries), the effects also include the spread of homosexuality, energy shortage, corruption, dengue fever, hair-loss and worst of all, Turkish soaps on local TV channels.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[16 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[An Nahar] The number of Tunisian sluts women traveling to Syria to wage "sex jihad" by comforting Islamists fighting the regime is very low, a senior interior ministry official told Agence France Presse on Sunday. "Oh, yasss. Hardly any at all, really."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, seemed to play down previous government statements that suggested "sex jihad" was more widespread. "We all know Moslem wimmin ain't that loose by nature. If they were, we'd have to put sacks over them and not let them leave the house except in company of a male relative, and... and... never mind."
"At most about 15 Tunisian women went to Syria, most to care for fighters or to do social work," the official said. "And to study Arabic."
But some of them were forced to have sexual relations with Islamist fighters once they were in the country, the official said. "So it was just a little over a dozen, and they were forced, so it's really no big deal..."
"Four of them came back from Syria, and one is pregnant," he added. "The pregnant woman said that she was caring for fighters and had to have sexual relations with them." "It's an Islamic thing. You wouldn't understand."
The official said, however, that women from Chechnya, Egypt, Iraq, France and Germany had traveled to Syria for "sex jihad." "But not from here. Our wimmin are better'n those brazen hussies. Most of 'em are, anyway."
"They were targeted for indoctrination over the internet and by foreign sheikhs," he added, referring to information obtained from Tunisian women returning from Syria. "'The internet made me do it!'"
Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou told the National Constituent Assembly in September that Tunisian loose wimmin women had gone to Syria where "they have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants. ... what used to be called "pulling a big train."
"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou said at the time. "Once they're knocked up they're of no earthly use to anyone."
Ben Jeddou did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters. ... nor what he thinks about having the spawn added to the gene pool.
Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war. "Gotta keep the boyz content, y'know. If they keep it inside they'll explode. Well, they do anyway, but you know..." Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy was furiously chewing her cud and thinking... the head of the relief association for Tunisians abroad, Badis Koubakji, said "dozens of Tunisian women have come back" from Syria after carrying out the jihad al-nikah there and that "hundreds" were still there. "They're just humpin' like little Islamic rabbits!"
Koubakji said there was a camp for the women in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Kinda like the Japanese used to run in Korea, or the Nazis ran in Poland.
"It's a complete network and the interior ministry is not being transparent on this issue," he said on Sunday. No!... Re-e-e-e-e-ally?
He said that these young women aged between 17 and 30 would not talk about their experiences because their families wanted to "preserve their honor." Despite the profusion of baby bumps...
NGOs in Tunisia have urged the government to do more to tackle networks recruiting young girls to travel to Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
every gun needs a holster
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/07/2013 11:37
Comments ||
Top||
[An Nahar] The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church called Sunday for an end to the persecution of Christians, especially in the Middle East.
"Have we not been persecuted these days, our Christians in Syria, Egypt... and the Middle East, just for spreading God's words?" asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
"They cherish everyone while being persecuted by everyone... They live in faith while being persecuted as villains," he said, marking the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan -- a document that introduced tolerance for Christianity in the Roman empire.
Thousands of people, along with the leaders of seven Orthodox churches, high-ranking clergy and Serbian state officials, attended the ceremony.
The edict, adopted in 313, was agreed between Constantine I, the emperor of the western part of the Roman empire, and his rival Licinius, ruler of the eastern part, proclaiming to treat Christians with benevolence.
The ceremony was held in Nis, 240 kilometers (145 miles) south of Belgrade, where Constantine I was born in 272.
Most of Serbia's population of 7.2 million are Orthodox Christians. Since the fall of communism in the early 1990s, the Orthodox Church has increased its influence in the Balkan country.
Representatives of the Catholic Church and the Islamic community, as well as other religious confessions, were in attendance.
Although the two main Christian churches have made attempts towards overcoming centuries-old divisions, Roman Catholic Pope Francis did not attend.
Patriarch Bartholomew and Russian Patriarch Kiril, Theopholis of Jerusalem and their counterparts from Serbia, the Czech Republic, Albania, Cyprus and Poland, held a joint liturgy to mark the end of nine months of observations.
They called for the unity of Orthodox churches and closer ties with other churches and religious communities.
"The spirit of religious tolerance should prevail everywhere," Irinej said.
If that were a possibility, your people wouldn't be living as dhimmis under Muslim rule.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[Dawn] Two rusticswere maimed when they stepped on landmines in Bushehra area of upper Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... on Saturday, local officials said.
They said that local residents rushed to the site after the kaboom and took the injured to hospital. They were identified as Irfan and Sulaiman, residents of Bushehra.
Later, due to their critical condition they were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital 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. Meanwhile, ...back at the game, the Babe was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it hit him... the political administration incarcerated Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! two rustics in the same area after the incident under the collective responsibility clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulation, said the officials.
In Mohmand Agency ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... , a man and his wife were maimed when unidentified attackers lobbed two hand grenades at their house in Ambar tehsil on the night between Friday and Saturday.
Political tehsildar Ambar Hazrat Khan told Dawn that some myrmidons threw two hand grenades at the house of Qabil Khan in Shatimeena area. As a result, Qabil Khan and his wife were maimed. They were shifted to hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[An Nahar] A wanted suspect was killed on Sunday during a shootout with an Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau patrol in Beirut.
LBCI television said that the shootout broke out between the patrol and two suspects wants on charges of theft.
The incident took place near ABC mall in the Ashrafiyeh area in Beirut.
LBCI identified the victim as Mustapha al-Yahfoufi.
The other suspect, who was not identified, also has a record of firing at ISF patrols.
Voice of Leb radio (93.3) later said that Yahfoufi was killed in a chase that ensued in Ashrafiyeh near the residence of caretaker Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
[An Nahar] Pakistain's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... on Sunday confirmed he will retire next month at the end of his second tenure, ending rumors he would seek to keep a key military role.
Kayani, who oversaw Pakistain's first democratic transfer of power, will retire on November 29 in a move likely to be seen as pushing forward the country's development as a democracy.
"It is time for others to carry forward the mission of making Pakistain a truly democratic, prosperous and peaceful country that embodies the finest dreams our founding fathers had envisaged for us," he said in a statement.
Kayani was appointed Chief of the Army Staff in 2007 and was given an additional three-year term in 2010.
The Mighty Pak Army chief is considered the most powerful man in the country, commanding a force of around 600,000 and guiding policy in defense as well as in foreign and home affairs.
The country has suffered three coups and been ruled for more than half of its 66-year history by the military.
But Kayani is generally seen as a supporter of democracy, who helped the country complete its first democratic transition of power earlier this year and has also led the military in the so-called war on terror.
He played a key role in convincing former dictator General Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... to resign in 2008 and pushing then president Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate sacked judges in 2009.
"I share the general opinion that institutions and traditions are stronger than individuals and must take precedence," he said in his statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Shouldn't that be "Mighty" instead of "Powerful"?
[Dawn] Rangers on Saturday claimed to have arrested more than 25 suspects including two activists of a political party in Azizabad and said to be involved in politically motivated killings.
A spokesman for the Rangers said that raids were carried out in more than half a dozen city areas in the early hours of the day that also led to the recovery of illicit weapons.
"Pakistan Rangers, Sindh conducted an intelligence-driven joint targeted raid in the Azizabad area last night and arrested two notorious targeted killers affiliated with a political group," said the Rangers spokesman.
He did not name the political party.
"The arrested targeted killers have disclosed to have carried out numerous politically motivated killings."
During the raid in Azizabad, the spokesperson said, five sub-machine guns, four rifles, shotguns, 12 pistols, hand grenades, bullet-proof jackets and large quantity of mixed ammunition were also recovered.
The paramilitary soldiers also carried out raids in Khori Garden, Shershah, New Karachi, Hussainabad, Hyderi, Dawood Regency, Gadap, Micasa Centre, Machhar Colony, Baldia Town, Malir, Khokhrapar and Liaquatabad.
"Snap-checking was also carried out in the Kala Board, Jodia Bazaar and Burnes Road areas," he said. "During the actions 27 hardened criminals, including Lyari gang warfare elements, targeted killers affiliated with political groups involved in heinous crimes have been arrested."
Meanwhile, the city police also claimed to have arrested an alleged hit man associated with a political party, who they said killed a prayer leader in Korangi.
SSP-South Munir Sheikh said the suspect, Rafiq Rajput alias Rangarh, was arrested by the Mahmoodabad police. He was allegedly involved in the killing of Qari Muhammad Ameen near Korangi Crossing a few months back.
"He was associated with a group called the Imran Shikra group which is tasked with killing different people by a political party," he told a press conference. "The suspect has disclosed to have killed at least six people on political grounds. The police have also seized two TT pistols from his possession."
He said the police also arrested four suspected bandits in two different areas after brief encounters.
The suspected bandits -- Arif, Zahid and Javed -- were arrested by the Boat Basin police, while another robbery suspect, Muhammad Hussain alias Furqan, was arrested by the Clifton police.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
Guess what's not gonna be remembered two hundred years from now...
[An Nahar] Best-selling British author Alexander McCall Smith is to pen a new version of Jane Austen's classic novel "Emma" with a 21st century twist, his publisher announced on Friday.
McCall Smith, who has sold over 20 million copies of his "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, said being commissioned to re-write Austen's 1815 original was "like being asked to eat a box of delicious chocolates".
"Not only is 'Emma' one of the finest novels in the English language, but it is possibly Jane Austen's most thought-provoking and interesting book," the 65-year-old said.
"Writing a contemporary version of Emma is both a privilege and a real challenge."
The book will see McCall Smith swap the setting of his detective novels -- Botswana's capital Gaborone -- for modern-day England.
Publisher HarperCollins said the new version of "Emma" would be released late next year.
Kate Elton, head of fiction at HarperCollins, said the publisher was "thrilled" to have signed up McCall Smith.
"The novels of Austen and McCall Smith share some essential qualities which make them enduringly popular with readers -- gently poking fun at their characters' 'follies and inconsistencies' as Austen would have it, and a sense that people can learn from this so that goodness wins out in the end.
"It promises to be an amazing pairing."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
There was the 20th Century movie version, Clueless. There should be a werewolf version now, after the zombie version of Pride and Prejudice.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/07/2013 9:00
Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Not only is 'Emma' one of the finest novels in the English language, but it is possibly Jane Austen's most thought-provoking and interesting book," the 65-year-old said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/07/2013 20:14
Comments ||
Top||
#11
There are dozens of Jane Austen fanfics out there already, published by respectable houses. Some even have a "contemporary twist". Somebody assumes JA fans will spend money on anything with her name attached.
Whatever the perceived shortcomings of Ted Cruz and his hardy band of stalwarts, they've performed a remarkable public service by highlighting the fate that awaits all who rub wrongly the translucently thin skin of King Barack the Petulant.
A skinless president in a sandpaper world...
The Spartans may have had their shields, Native Americans their tomahawks and arrows, the Samurai may have wielded his sword with all the deadly grace of a tiger in mid-attack, but pound for pound, nothing comes close to the audacious stupidity of "Barrycades" and people in pointy little Smokey the Bear hats, poised to protect America's monuments from law-abiding citizens.
Welcome to liberal utopia, where barriers are not erected against terrorists or illegal aliens on our nation's borders, but rather against citizens, and where wheelchair-bound veterans enroute to honor their comrades face tighter security than terrorists enroute to murder a US Ambassador. This is where up is down, wrong is right, illegality is celebrated as progress, and where Constitutionalism is derided as racist. No longer relegated to the fever swamps of academic fancy, utopia has acquired real estate and made known its demands.
"Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual..." the First Lady warned us, and she wasn't just whistling Alinsky either. Under King Barack's Reign of Error, your life is no longer your own, for you are now commanded to enter into private contracts by virtue of your simple existence on the planet. Why? Because our Sovereign and his fellow travelers are compassionate, of course. Their hearts bleed for you,...almost as much as your pocketbook will bleed for them.
#1
Your life is no longer your own, for you are now commanded to enter into private contracts by virtue of your simple existence on the planet, and living in the USA.
[Dawn] WITH the country's politicianship failing to provide clarity on who the TTP is and what it represents, perhaps it is a good thing that the TTP speaks for itself so frequently. Because each time a TTP leader speaks, he underlines exactly why the state cannot afford to compromise with militancy and terrorism. Shahidullah Shahid -- the latest in a line of TTP spokespersons who seem to have extraordinary freedom to ring up and talk to whoever they want, whenever they want -- has told the BBC that 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 bombing was in accordance with the Sharia. Quite how this is possible or what is the logic behind this claim remains a mystery, and perhaps mercifully so. Pakistain has had more than enough of demagogues using the media soapbox to spread their twisted, hate-filled ideas.
The TTP believes that violence against ordinary civilians, innocent men, women and kiddies, is not only acceptable, but religiously ordained. Where, exactly, does that leave the possibility of compromise with the TTP?
What Shahidullah Shahid's claim does under-line though is a central fact: the TTP believes that violence against ordinary civilians, innocent men, women and kiddies, is not only acceptable, but religiously ordained. Where, exactly, does that leave the possibility of compromise with the TTP? To the proponents of dialogue, how are so-called misguided souls to be brought back to the path of responsible citizenship if their beliefs are fundamentally rooted in violence and a twisted version of religion? In their desperation to negotiate with myrmidons, the politicianship has ended up obscuring the ugly and unacceptable nature of militancy and terrorism here. Unwise as dialogue may have been as the preferred option at this stage, the politicianship has compoun-ded the error by downplaying before the public the threat that the TTP poses and its true face. If a bombing like the one at the Peshawar church can be justified by a TTP leader, why should the country allow such men to continue to spread their poison under the garb of peace talks and a deal? The politicianship has demonstrated clarity -- on talks -- without any real understanding till now. It's time some understanding of the real facts was shown.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Bangla Daily Star] Police in Madagascar made seven more arrests yesterday over the lynching by a raging mob of two Europeans and a local man accused of killing and mutilating a young boy.
Authorities on the idyllic Indian Ocean island have now placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! 26 people in all after the bloody events on the resort island of Nosy Be on Thursday.
The situation appeared calm on Sunday, with members of the security forces patrolling the streets while local residents attended church and tourists strolled in town or headed to the beach.
Thursday's rampage was sparked by the gruesome death of an eight-year-old local boy, whose body was found on the popular Ambatoloaka beach a week after he went missing.
An official at the local gendarmerie said seven people had been arrested early Sunday in Ambatoloaka and the suburb of Dar-es-Salam where the boy lived.
Vincent Laza, a neighbourhood leader on the island, told AFP that the boy's body was wet when it was found, suggesting he may have drowned, and that his genitals were missing and his intestines were exposed.
Reports circulated that the boy had been kidnapped, causing a mob to storm the gendarme station -- convinced that one of the boy's killers was being held there.
Officers opened fire and two people were killed.
Amid rumours that foreigners were involved, a mob of hundreds got their hands on a Frenchie and a Franco-Italian on Thursday and torched them on Ambatoloaka.
Pictures and video images taken by residents captured the moment when one of the bodies was burned in front of about 100 people, including a man who was both armed and wearing a uniform.
Afterwards a pile of ash, wood, a torso and a pair of charred legs were the only recognisable signs of the orgy of violence.
The boy's uncle was later also killed and burned.
With its white sandy beaches and turquoise waters, Nosy Be is Madagascar's main tourist magnet, but it also has a seedy underbelly and is known for sex tourism.
Mob justice is common on the vast island nation off the southeastern African coast, which authorities struggle to police effectively.
One resident of Nosy Be claimed the crowd had made sure the Europeans were guilty.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
One resident of Nosy Be claimed the crowd had made sure the Europeans were guilty
"They denied it. Now who would deny it? The guilty ones, that's who."
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/07/2013 11:46
Comments ||
Top||
Fourteen people have been killed in clashes between Christians and Muslims in an isolated town in eastern Central African Republic that began last week, sources said on Sunday. The impoverished nation has descended into chaos since northern Seleka militants seized the capital, Bangui, and ousted President Francois Bozize in March.
In Bangassou, around 750 km east of the capital Bangui, residents said Seleka fighters had backed the town's Muslims during the battles, which lead to the deaths of four people on Saturday.
Bangassou's Catholic Bishop Juan José Aguirre said, "All four of those killed were from the Christian community. We're overwhelmed, inundated by thousands of men, women, and children seeking refuge from the fighting at the diocese."
Clashes first broke out on Tuesday after Christians organized a march to protest abuses by Seleka's predominantly Muslim fighters based in the town. Bangassou police official Edouard Mbiga said, "Muslim community members, backed by Seleka, brought out weapons and blocked the march. The situation deteriorated and there were 10 deaths on both sides. It all a started from that."
Michel Djotodia, who swept to power as the head of the Seleka uprising, was officially sworn in as the country's president in August. His attempts to rein in his ex-militant supporters, including firing the head of the army and formally dissolving Seleka, have not curbed the violence, leading to calls, especially from former colonial power France, for an intervention force.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, "It's an appalling situation ... There are abuses every day - thefts, rapes, murders. We have troops there. The Africans also have troops. And we are working with the United Nations, African Union and regional organisations to find a solution for peace."
Ummm... We seen dis movie...
[BREITBART] Some Greek lawmakers say they want Germany, Greece's main banker, to pay reparations for Greeks killed during World War II.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' government has created an 80-page report on reparations it believes it is owed by Germany, which includes a huge, never-repaid loan Greece was forced to give Germany under Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1945, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Although the government has not given an official total owed, the figure most often discussed is $220 billion, which is about half of Greece's total debt.
How convenient, both the amount and the timing...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
[An Nahar] At least eight people were killed on Sunday by mortar fire that hit a Christian neighborhood in central Damascus, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
"Three mortar shells fired by gunnies landed... in the Qassaa district, killing eight civilians and wounding 24 others," SANA said.
Another three people were maimed when a fourth mortar slammed into the Holy Cross church in the neighborhood, it added.
The Greek Orthodox church is one of the largest in Syria. It was unclear how badly it was damaged in the attack.
Syrian rebels have set up a series of rear bases on the outskirts of the capital, from which they regularly target central Damascus with rocket and mortar fire.
Last month, a mortar round slammed into the Iraqi consulate in Damascus, killing a woman.
Syrian troops have for months been fighting in Damascus neighborhoods in a bid to dislodge the rebel bases there.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
This is such superior Journalism. WHO fired the mortars...it doesn't say. Not a lot of concern for the dead but some concern for the damage to the Church. Like it matters. Was there any military REASON for targeting a Christian community and specifically a Church...or is it just another demonstration of Islamic Values in the "religion of Peace"?
So the article didn't really tell us anything actually. Dead Syrians, presumably Christian...but who really knows. Not exactly in depth coverage. Reminds me of my mother saying eat your peas there are children starving in China. And my brother whispering under his breath, "name two.".
#3
The people who used Lebanon as the human shield for their anti-Joo Soviet Rocket Park are shocked, SHOCKED to find that christians are being targeted and have found new meaning to their lives as Defenders Of The Faith.
[An Nahar] Germany on Sunday handed over command of its northern Kunduz camp to Afghan cops, a milestone in the drawdown from a more than decade-long military deployment.
About 100,000 German troops have served in Afghanistan since 2002, and 54 have died there -- 35 of them in combat -- in Germany's deadliest post-World War II deployment.
Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Kunduz, via the German headquarters at Mazar-e-Sharif, on an unannounced visit for the handover ceremony Sunday.
"We hope and expect that the Afghan defense forces will ensure security in and around Kunduz and, if need be, restore it," said de Maiziere. "It is a great responsibility which we are handing over to the Afghan cops."
International forces are due to end major combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, although Germany and others have pledged to continue a training and support mission beyond then.
Around 4,000 German soldiers are now in northern Afghanistan as part of ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, including about 900 still in Kunduz.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
[Bangla Daily Star] A jacket wallah has attacked a primary school in northern Iraq, killing at least 12 children and their headteacher, police and medics say.
Another 90 people were maimed in the attack near Tal Afar, some 420km north-west of the Iraqi capital Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , the town's mayor sai
At least 12 people were killed as another suicide bomber hit pilgrims heading to a Shia shrine in Storied Baghdad.d.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
#1
Brave Lion of Islam
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/07/2013 11:32
Comments ||
Top||
[An Nahar] Greece is determined to rid its police force of any links with Golden Dawn, the minister for public order said Sunday, after the arrest of officers with ties to the neo-Nazi party.
Nikos Dendias said there should be "a total catharsis so that there is nothing suspicious that could cast a shadow on the majority of coppers, who are honest," in an interview with Greek daily Kathimerini.
Dendias admitted that there were "corrupt officers who had collaborated with Golden Dawn", which he labeled "a criminal organization."
Four coppers have been locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! over their links to the far-right party, whose leader was indicted this week along with five others for taking part in a criminal organization following the murder of an anti-fascist musician last month.
Among the officers arrested are a former police chief of the Agios Panteleimon neighborhood of central Athens -- the scene of multiple attacks by neo-Nazis on immigrants in recent years -- on charges of abuse of power and arms trafficking, and an officer at the Piraeus port near the capital charged with belonging to a criminal organization.
The arrests are part of efforts by the Greek authorities to dismantle the Golden Dawn following the murder of hip-hop artist Pavlos Fyssas by a self-confessed neo-Nazi.
The killing sparked protests, forcing officials to take action against a group long accused of attacking immigrants, charges that it denies.
"We are talking about a party that, aside from its sickening ideology, behaves like a mob," Dendias said.
Golden Dawn, which only entered parliament in 2012, struck a chord with Greeks angry at having to struggle under the weight of heavy austerity measures and high unemployment in a sixth year of recession for the debt-wracked nation.
But the party's popularity has fallen since the murder of Fyssas. A poll published in the weekly Proto Thema on Sunday put the party's popularity rating at 6.7 percent, down from 10 percent in June.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But not police links to international-socialists?
The Pentagon confirmed Saturday night that U.S. special forces had captured alive Abu Anas al Libi in Tripoli, Libya. Libi, also known as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The operation was carried out by the Delta Force, a U.S. official told Fox News on Sunday.
"On October 5, the Department of Defense, acting under military authorities, conducted an operation to apprehend longtime Al Qaeda member Abu Anas al Libi in Libya," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a statement. "He is currently lawfully detained under the law of war in a secure location outside of Libia. Abu Anas al Libi has been indicted in the Southern District of New York in connection with his alleged role in Al Qaeda's conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and to conduct attacks against U.S. interests worldwide, which included Al Qaeda plots to attack U.S. forces stationed in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia, as well as the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya."
Multiple senior U.S. officials told Fox News that Libi is being held on a ship at sea.
"Libi could be held at sea for a matter of weeks before he is turned over to law enforcement authorities," one senior U.S. official told Fox News.
Sources told Fox News that Libi will be read his rights by an elite FBI unit that was sent out for that purpose. US officials say that the Justice Department plans to prosecute him in a U.S. court.
Rights? Rights? What rights? He murdered Americans abroad. Squeeze him dry like a tube of toothpaste. Then either jug him at Gitmo or toss him overboard...
Al Libi is on the FBI's most-wanted list with a $5 million bounty on his head. He was indicted by a federal court in the Southern District of New York, for his alleged role in the bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998, that killed more than 220 people.
He is believed to have spent time in Sudan where Usama bin Laden was based in the early 1990s. After bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan, al Libi turned up in Britain in 1995 where he was granted political asylum in Britain under unclear circumstances and lived in Manchester. He apparently fled Britain in 2000 when his name was added to the FBI's most wanted list.
Al-Libi was believed to be a computer specialist with Al Qaeda. He studied electronic and nuclear engineering, graduating from Tripoli University, and was an anti-Qaddafi activist.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I hope his 'rights' come with cinder blocks tied to his ankles while he's used for shark bait.
#2
As I said yesterday, I really doubt that he will be convicted in a civilian court. And even if he pulls a Nidal Hassan, declaring himself a soldier for Allah, and claiming he did it in defense of Muslim lives, he won't get the death penalty he deserves.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/07/2013 1:06
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Interesting timing. Champ cancels his trip to the Pacific and JSOC snatch operations are activated. Rose Garden briefing from fearless, Champ Rambo in 5, 4, 3, 2......
* "AT SEA" = INTERNATIONAL/UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION = read, NO BROAD OR SPECIFIC JURISDICTION = IOW, the US Team, + only the US Team, can horribly torture him in righteous indignation iff he refuses to squawk or
cooperate, then throw his corpse overboard in cleanup.
The US can tie him to a line + drag him for miles, or else drop off the side or rear of the ship right next to the ship's propellers/screws.
WHOLE BUNCH OF NASTY BLOODY THINGYS THEY CAN DO WHILE AT SEA.
No one to hear Al-Libi scream except the Fishies.
* WORLD NEWS > [Washington Times] MIRANDA RIGHTS WAIVED [by US] FOR SEIZED SUSPECTED AL-QAEDA OPERATIVE ABU ANAS AL-LIBI.
OTOH ...
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > [Siasat Daily] WIFE OF AL -LIBI CLAIMS HUSBAND LEFT AL-QAEDA.
[Ynet] Netanyahu already apologized for Marmara incident, but Turkey is in no rush to forgive or forget. 'Israel apologized too late,' Turkish President Abdullah Gul tells Yedioth Ahronoth. Senior Turkish advisor: As long as Erdogan is in power, things will not change
Turkey presented Israel with three demands in order to end the impasse and to restore diplomatic relations between the countries. The first demand, an apology for the deaths of Turkish civilians on the Marmara, was met last March.
The second demand, payment of restitution to the families of the nine killed -- is still under disagreement. According to one estimation, Israel is supposed to pay the families between $5 and $6 million. In return, legal proceedings taking place in Istanbul courts against IDF officers are to be dropped, and an amendment is to be passed prohibiting Turkish citizens from suing Israeli soldiers and officers in the future.
A senior diplomatic advisor in Ankara told Yedioth that even though Israel agreed to pay, an agreement still has not been reached regarding how the payment will be implemented: whether it will be "assistance to families" (as Israel prefers), or "restitution for the deaths of nine Turkish civilians" (as Turkey demands).
"The amount of the money is not the problem," said Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, three months ago. "Israel must accept the fact that it is paying this money as a result of the faulty action it took."
The government of Erdogan also insists on another condition for the normalization of relations: the removal of the Israeli blockade on Gazoo.
Due to the differences of opinion between the two countries, the negotiations are at a dead-end.
On Friday, the Turkish president refused to describe what might bring about a breaking of the stalemate between the two countries. "Even with the differences of opinion, what is important is that meetings are happening, and the sides continue working," Gul said. "The meetings are happening discretely, far from the eye. You could say that certain progress has been made, and I hope these talks will lead to results."
But the Turkish diplomatic advisor estimated that a breakthrough was not to be expected in the near future. "As long as Erdogan is the prime minister of Turkey, there will not be a change for the positive in relations with Israel. Erdogan has lots of complaints against you already from the period of Olmert. When will a reversal in relations come? Maybe only after the presidential elections in 2014, and the elections for parliament in 2015, which will decide who will serve as the next prime minister of Turkey."
Gul spoke with Yedioth Ahronoth after he gave the opening speech at the Istanbul Forum, an annual convention held by the Turkish center for strategic communications. The forum hosts politicians, researchers and journalists, bringing them together for a series of discussions regarding international issues which touch on Turkey and the Middle East.
[An Nahar] As a U.N. mission to destroy Syria's chemical weapons got underway Sunday, Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... admitted in an interview with Germany's Spiegel news magazine that his government had made "mistakes" in the country's brutal conflict.
But he again denied that his forces used chemical weapons in an August 21 attack that led to threats of a U.S. strike and eventually the U.N. resolution requiring Syria to turn over its arsenal.
A team of disarmament experts from the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague arrived in Damascus on Tuesday and began their mission on Sunday.
In the interview published Sunday by Spiegel, Assad said his government was being "very transparent" with the U.N.-OPCW team.
"The experts can go to every site. They are going to get all the data from us, they will verify them, and then they can make a judgment about our credibility," he said.
He also dismissed assertions by U.S. President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... that Syrian forces carried out a chemical attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburbs in August.
"We have not used chemical weapons. This is wrong," Assad told Spiegel.
"And so is the picture you're drawing of me, of someone who kills his own people... Obama presents not a single piece of evidence, not a shred of evidence. He has nothing to offer but lies."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Probably more 'transparent' than DoJ, IRS, ATF, or the WH. It's all relative.
[An Nahar] Libyans took part in the U.S. raid in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... that captured senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi, his son said Sunday.
"Those who kidnapped my father are Libyans. They looked like Libyans and spoke in the Libyan dialect," Abdullah al-Raghi told news hounds.
Abdullah said the gunnies who seized his father were armed with pistols with silencers and that some of them wore masks.
"The whole thing was recorded by a surveillance camera," said Abdullah, speaking from the family home in Nofleine, just five kilometers (three miles) south of Tripoli's city center.
"We gave the tape to friends so that they can try to investigate."
Abdullah said he does not trust the Libyan government, which he believes is implicated in his father's disappearance.
Libyan authorities insist they were unaware of the special forces operation that captured Libi, an al-Qaeda operative indicted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa.
Libi was seized on the streets of Tripoli and whisked out of the country early on Saturday.
A source close to Libi said he was "kidnapped" while returning from dawn prayers.
As he tried to park his car outside his home three vehicles surrounded it and masked men jumped out, shattering the driver's side window and pulling Libi out with "extreme rapidity," the source said.
The Pentagon later confirmed his capture in a "U.S. counterterrorism operation," which capped a decade-long manhunt for one of the last remaining high-level operatives from the core terror network established by the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... in the 1990s.
The Pentagon provided few details about how Libi was seized and by whom, saying only that he was being "lawfully placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! under the law of war in a secure location" outside Libya.
On Sunday, Tripoli said it had demanded an explanation from Washington over the "kidnap" of one of its citizens.
Libi's brother, Nabih al-Raghi, meanwhile said his sibling was the victim of "an act of piracy" carried out by foreign forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
shoulda taken the family tree out by the roots
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/07/2013 11:38
Comments ||
Top||
CARLISLE:
"People who have failed at real life move to Carlisle to hide themselves away in shame. It is so far north that every time the map is redrawn we try and sneak it into Scotland, but the bastards are too sharp for that and keep amending the lines. Even though it's in Cumbria, it's nowhere near the pretty bits with all the lakes."
CAMBRIDGE:
"Cambridge is a rotten and diseased coagulation of reeking, uneducated, inbred libertines with more money than brain cells -- and that's just the University. Here, gout is the ultimate status symbol. The race to gout is a furiously competitive one and there are only so many bottles of oak-aged port you can drink in one sitting, so foie gras actually comes-on tap in Cambridge. You get three taps in the kitchen: hot water, cold water, and liquidised goose livers harvested from birds force-fed corn until their internal organs implode."
LIVERPOOL:
"It would be easy to attack Liverpudlians for being violent misogynistic thieves, feral savages without culture or even basic human decency. This is categorically not true. It is their children that are just plain f****** evil. You remember those tiny weeny dinosaurs from Jurassic Park that hunt in big packs and eat the old guy with a white beard at the end? Yeah. Like that."
THE CITY OF LONDON:
"Five minutes walk away from the third world Borough of Hackney. In the City of London pudgy posh boys with quirky ties and horse teeth, fresh from the private school system, with no children, no social responsibility and each gifted with a sense of entitlement the size of Yorkshire (where many of them own land), earn thousands of pounds a minute for playing what is essentially a glorified game of dice."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I visited the UK in 1994, I thought the same thing. In the City of London pudgy posh boys with quirky ties and horse teeth, fresh from the private school system
[Xinhua] At least 35 people were killed and 163 others maimed in a wave of violent attacks across Iraq on Sunday, police said. AQI has renamed themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. If it's Islamic it's violent, so it doesn't matter where they call home...
At least seven people were killed and 13 others maimed Sunday evening when two boom-mobiles went off near a Shiite mosque in New Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... area in eastern Storied Baghdad, a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Earlier in the day, a jacket wallah blew up his explosive vest among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Seliekh district in the northern part of Storied Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 25.
The attacks came as thousands of Shiite pilgrims walked from other Storied Baghdad districts in processions to commemorate the death of Imam Mohammed al-Jawad, the ninth of the 12 most revered Shiite Imams, whose tomb is located in the center of the old part of the holy Shiite Kadhimiya district.
In northern Iraq, up to 15 people were killed and some 122 others maimed Sunday morning when two suicide boom-mobiles went off at a village near the city of Tal Afar in the province of Nineveh, Abdul- Aal al-Abbasi, an official in the city's local government told Xinhua.
"The reports said that a total of five coppers, school principal and nine school children were killed and 122 people were maimed in the two suicide boom-mobiles near a school and a cop shoppe in the village of Qabat," Abbasi said.
Most of the maimed were school children and many of them are at death's door, Abbasi added.
One of the blasts occurred when a suicide bomber blew up a truck loaded with explosives near a primary school in a predominantly Shiite Turkoman village outside the city of Tal Afar, about 430 km north of the Iraqi capital of Storied Baghdad, Abbasi said.
The kaboom damaged part of the school building. The Iraqi security forces and rescue teams rushed to the scenes to remove the debris of building in search for victims, Abbasi added.
Another boom-mobile went off near a cop shoppe in the same area, Abbasi said without giving further details.
Also on Sunday, a boom-mobilewent kaboom! near a patrol of Iraq's Kurdish Asayish security forces in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... some 250 km north of Storied Baghdad, killing one soldier and injuring three people, a local police source told Xinhua.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
[An Nahar] Iran has nabbed Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! four people suspected of attempting to sabotage one of its nuclear plants, Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday.
"Some time ago, we uncovered sabotage activities by several people at a nuclear plant," Salehi said in comments carried by the Mehr news agency.
"We let them continue their activities so that we could gather more intelligence.
"We arrested them at the appropriate moment and their interrogation is ongoing."
Not sure we can believe any of this. I sure hope the CIA would be more careful...
Salehi did not specify which of Iran's nuclear plants was targeted.
In August last year, saboteurs blew up power lines supplying Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant at Fardo outside the central city of Qom.
In 2010, a U.S. cyber-attack, reportedly carried out in collaboration with Israel, hit Iran's nuclear facilities. The Stuxnet virus was tailored specifically to target uranium enrichment facilities.
"There are still viruses out there but we have taken the necessary measures," Salehi said.
"Since we uncovered the Stuxnet virus, we have reinforced our protection systems and a special unit has been set up."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#2
That woman has shoe polish all over her in that one photo...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/07/2013 8:00
Comments ||
Top||
#3
They say the Caucasian is in decline but what is happening is more mixing of races over the years. I attend family reunions and see the changes there. Light skinned and actually very attractive. The times they are changing as the song goes.
Seoul and Washington have agreed to put off talks about the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul until next year.
The handover, originally slated for 2012, is now scheduled for December 2015, but Seoul wants another delay for fear of a security vacuum if Combined Forces Command is dismantled. Until they make a decision, the two countries will carry out a comprehensive review of the South Korean military's capability to respond to the nuclear threat from North Korea.
Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel reached the compromise at the 45th Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting here on Wednesday. They also agreed to launch this month a joint working group headed by assistant ministers to study the issue. The group will review necessary conditions and the timing of the transfer.
A senior Defense Ministry official said the compromise opens "the possibility of re-delaying" the handover.
In last year's joint statement, the two countries specified the date for the transfer, but this year they did not.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Perhaps the real reason is that SKor wants to talk with a grown up and not Champ or one of his minions.....
#2
If the budget/economy tanks, most likely there won't be any talks, just an exit. I doubt any of the countries currently on the military welfare rolls are planning to pick up the whole tab of keeping the Americans around.
#3
Good Political "Dialecticism" = combo of factors, not just one or two = ...
> China slamming Japan for its agreement to base US UAVS, X-Band ABM-BMD Radars, F-35's, Ospreys, + Cyberwar assets on its soil.
> Pending arrival of new US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy.
> NOKOR's anticipated upcoming Nuke test + reports it has dev a small Tacnuke warhead.
> FYI the US + SOKOR have reinterated their agreement to preemptively attack NOKOR's
milfors iff the latter shows clear signs of deploying de facto Nuke-WMD weapons in war.
The US knows that any China-involved mil conflict in East Asia will focus on PLA attempts to dominate iff not takeover the OKINAWA-TAIWAN-NORTHERN PHIL TRIANGLE, i.e. "Mahanist" China's equivalent of "Hawaii/Pearl Harbor" + other Pacific Islands into WESTPAC + FAR EASTERN PACIFIC to achieve greater international status.
[CA.NEWS.YAHOO] Opposition leader Henrique Capriles accused Venezuela's "incompetent" President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday of bankrupting the nation in an increasingly radical blame-game over the OPEC member's economic distortions.
Since late socialist leader Hugo Chavez died
...horribly...
of cancer
...making a great many people very happy indeed...
in February, the economy has joined crime as Venezuelans' top concerns. Prices are soaring at an annualized 45 percent, a black market for dollars is booming, and basic goods from flour to toilet-paper are often scarce.
A self-declared "son" of Chavez, the 50-year-old Maduro says local opponents, backed by the United States and cheered by compliant foreign media, are deliberately "sabotaging" the economy in an attempt to bring down his government.
"There's a criminal war against the Venezuelan people. They want to lead us to chaos, division and confusion," he again said at the weekend, accusing three just-expelled U.S. diplomats of lending cash, logistics and planning to the cause against him.
Capriles, who narrowly lost an April vote to Maduro and has refused to recognize him, said the president's tolerance of corruption among his team, adherence to a failed socialist model, and personal incapacity, were to blame.
Though said by one fellow opposition leader this week to be facing imminent arrest by the government, Capriles, 40, held nothing back in a blistering Sunday column.
"I warn you, Nicolas," he said, using the informal Spanish "tu" not the "usted" a president would usually be addressed by.
"We're not going to let the country go off a cliff due to your incompetence and the corrupt ones you protect ... You cannot hide the fact you have bankrupted one of the richest nations in the region, and during an oil bonanza."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2013
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It seems that socialist utopias all go this way--utter failure. Why our dear leader (aka Champ) doesn't see and understand this is baffling.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, who will collaborate with local firm FXFowle on the project, the building is still in very early design development -- a vague grey tower that looks to mimic the basic proportions of the original UN. Sited directly south of the original complex (and connected to it through an underground tunnel), the building will sit on land currently occupied by the Robert Moses Playground. It's scheduled for completion in 2018 -- a tight time frame, for a tower in Manhattan that will house some of the more security-sensitive spaces in the city.
[An Nahar] Bank of Cyprus and six former executives were fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday for failing to inform shareholders over the risk of its Greek bond purchases.
At least 38 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police in Egypt on Sunday, as thousands of the military's supporters marked the anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Libya said it had demanded an explanation from Washington on Sunday for the "kidnap" of a citizen in an unauthorised commando raid on its territory that netted a top Al Qaeda suspect.
[DAILYSTAR.CO.UK] The musician-turned-activist reckons the world will end in 2030 - leading to the extinction of humankind.
[Ynet] IDF and police forces operated in recent hours on the Egyptian border, in the vicinity of Eilat, in order to foil a drug smuggling attempt from Sinai to Israel. There were no injuries reported.
Clerics from four British mosques, including one in West Yorkshire, are under investigation after being caught on camera agreeing to conduct secret marriage ceremonies involving girls as young as 14. They include a senior Muslim leader who has worked with West Yorkshire Police as an advisor on community cohesion.
[An Nahar] Israel's state attorney's office on Sunday charged alleged Iranian spy Ali Mansouri with aiding an enemy during wartime and with espionage.
[Dawn] Police sources on Sunday said local leader of the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) Daad Ali Bugti was seriously 
Wazoo
Nawaz Sharif
[An Nahar] The number of Tunisian 
[An Nahar] The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church called Sunday for an end to the persecution of Christians, especially in the Middle East.
Kurram Agency
Mohmand Agency
Pervez 
than 25 suspects including two activists of a political party in Azizabad and said to be involved in politically motivated killings.
[An Nahar] Germany on Sunday handed over command of its northern Kunduz camp to 
[Bangla Daily Star] A 
The Pentagon confirmed Saturday night that U.S. special forces had captured alive Abu Anas al Libi in Tripoli, Libya. Libi, also known as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The operation was carried out by the Delta Force, a U.S. official told Fox News on Sunday.
[Ynet] Netanyahu already apologized for Marmara incident, but Turkey is in no rush to forgive or forget. 'Israel apologized too late,' Turkish President Abdullah Gul tells Yedioth Ahronoth. Senior Turkish advisor: As long as Erdogan is in power, things will not change
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] Libyans took part in the U.S. raid in 
[CA.NEWS.YAHOO] Opposition leader Henrique Capriles accused Venezuela's "incompetent" President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday of bankrupting the nation in an increasingly radical blame-game over the OPEC member's economic distortions.
