Breaking, so it could be nothing
Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported that several central streets in the Belgian capital had been closed off Sunday evening following a police operation in the area of Rue du Midi, a major commercial road.
Local media also reported that the police had told residents to stay indoors and to keep away from the windows.
One report said that soldiers had entered the Radisson Blu hotel in the city center and that guests have been instructed to stay inside their rooms.
Meanwhile pictures showed that public transit buses were being used as roadblocks on some streets in the area.
The Belgian police asked people via their official Twitter account to maintain "radio silence" regarding the locations of ongoing security operations in Brussels.
The Guardian newspaper additionally reported that authorities are searching for at least two terrorists, one of whom is thought to have been involved in the terror
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/22/2015
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#1
Shhhh. Don't tell Champ. You might disturb him in his happy place.
Russia's Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Sunday that 10 militants who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State had been killed in a special operation in a southern Russian republic, Russian news agencies reported.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru ||
11/22/2015
11:19 ||
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#1
Fox News says 11 deaders now
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/22/2015 12:13
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"Fox News says 11 deaders now"
It's a start . . . .
Posted by: Barbara ||
11/22/2015 18:45
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[Breitbart] Barack Obama and his administration do not care about Jews.
It doesn't matter whether the Jews are European or Israeli or American. Jews can be conveniently excised from the category "Westerner," Obama has found -- and he's been eagerly putting that newfound knowledge to use.
The latest victim of the Obama administration's egregious Jew-hatred is 18-year-old American citizen Ezra Schwartz. Schwartz, from Sharon, Massachusetts, was visiting Israel; while there, he was delivering care packages to Israeli troops when his car (pictured) got caught in a traffic jam. That's when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with an automatic weapon before ramming another car with his own. Schwartz was killed.
The Obama State Department has yet to issue a statement specifically on Schwartz's death. Instead, they issued their general statement essentially condemning both sides. "We condemn these terrorist attacks against innocent civilians in the strongest possible terms," said State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez. "As we've made clear, we remain deeply concerned about the situation, and continue to urge all sides to take affirmative steps to restore calm and prevent actions that would further escalate tensions."
The Obama administration's unwillingness to mention Schwartz's citizenship follows hard on the heels of the Obama administration's complete silence on the terrorist murder of dual Israeli-American citizen Richard Lakin, a peace activist from Newton, Massachusetts. He was shot in the head, stabbed in the face, and then stabbed in the head by two Muslims aboard a bus. He died in late October.
h/t Gates of Vienna
US Vice President Joe Biden called on the US citizens Saturday to not turn away from the Syrian refugees and to "not play right into the terrorists' hands" by dividing the community.
I join this call: whatever you do, don't turn your back to them!
#6
John, which Saudi Arabia won't do BECAUSE OF FEARS OF TERRORISM!
So tell me again, Slow Joe, why we should take them in.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 11:01
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AlanC -- those orphans grow up to blow up. No refugees, period. Remember the Tsarnaeves and the Somalis.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/22/2015 11:41
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Rob, 0 would suit me okay but I do think the Christians are probably fine and if we get them at 12 down we should be able to keep them from going that bad.
h/t Instapundit
Parts of the UK have seen a flurry of snow as Britain prepares for a "bitterly cold" weekend.
Snow started to fall as far south as Eastbourne, East Sussex, with downland at Beachy Head seeing a light dusting on Saturday morning. Parts of Kent, including Tunbridge Wells, and Essex have also seen snowfall.
Snowy showers were also reported in parts of Scotland, Wales, northern England and the Midlands as the Met Office confirmed that a band of rain, sleet and snow had worked its way south across many parts of the UK.
A Met Office spokesman said the snow has not settled in most areas and will turn back to rain as the day develops. I thought snow was thing of the past due to AGW?
#4
Now I understand just why the English found the Americas such a fie place, the weather is the same.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/22/2015 20:53
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Well, the did call the first digs New England.
BTW, meanwhile, back home 11.2 inches of snow fell at O’Hare Airport, the second largest November total after an 1895 storm that dumped 12 inches on Chicago. - Chicago Area Digs Out From Record Storm
Britain's Labor Party has voted to cut ties with a well-known security firm which has extensive business ties with Israel, media outlets in the United Kingdom reported over the weekend.
The party's national executive committee approved a resolution boycotting G4S, a Crawley-based multinational corporation that employs over 620,000 workers in over 120 countries. An invitation to ISIS?
A stabbing attempt was thwarted near the Hawara checkpoint, south of Nablus in the West Bank, Sunday morning, by a civilian who drove into a suspect who he observed trying to stab an Israeli. There is no dangerous weapons...
#2
Because being Muslim means you don't kill other Muslims. So they become unauthentic Muslims, not real, apostate, etc. 'They' are probably the real fundamentalists, but 'they' can't be in the mind the minds of the apologists. It's called displacement. "In Freudian psychology, displacement (German: Verschiebung, "shift, move") is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable."
#5
If they yell "Allan's Snackbar" when they are killing people, they are Islamic. Islam needs a reformation movement that cleans out the radical element or fundamentalists. I have not seen this happening; in fact the Sauds have funded the radical movement and it has morphed into what we are dealing with today. The world needs to take action.
#8
"But THEY do" > Yuuup, moreso per the future US born, US-raised, Ex-USDOD Elite + Convert to Islam ISLAMIC MAHDI/MESSIAH/HIDDEN IMAM aka MUSLIM/ISLAMIC NUCLEAR NAPOLEON.
2030 - 2050, as well-consistent or widin a former US Fed Director's assessment that IHO the war or fight agz ISIS/ISIL/Daesh could last "30 Years".
OWG CO-SUPERPOWER IRAN GOING NUKULAAR = IRAN'S SUNNI RIVALS [KSA, Turkey, Egypt], BESIDES ISIS-THREATENED, ALEADY NUKE-ARMED MUSLIM PAKISTAN, WILL WANT NUKES [+ OWG Co-Superpower status?] = ALSO GO NUKULAAR = DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, THE ISIS/ISIL + OTHER BY 2030 WILL ALSO VERY LIKELY POSSESS MIL NUCTECHS [Nukes-WMDS].
Lest we fergit, the above is EXCLUSIVE of 1990's POTUS Clinton-era Pert, MSM-Net allegations that IRAN + OTHER MUSLIM NATIONS PROCURED [Tac-only?]NUKES ON THE BLACK MARKET AFTER THE
COLLAPSE OF THE USSR.
[1960's-1970's = 2014 "EDGE OF TOMORROW" > TOM CRUISE'S COWARD-WID-A-HEART-OF-GOLD USMC CHARACTER = "THE INVASION WILL FAIL [Counter-Invasion agz Islamist-controlled/dominated Europe] - EVERY [Anti-Caliphate] SOLDIER THAT LANDS ON THAT BEACH TOMORROW WILL DIE"!]
THE US-ALLIES WON IN 1944 [Normandy], BUT MAY NOT IN 2044.
They wanted SECULAR OWG MARXIST-COMIE-SOCIALIST GLOBALIST US-WORLD ORDER, BUT GOT THEO-SOCIALIST OWG US-WORLD CALIPHATE ISLAMIST-JIAHDIST ORDER INSTEAD.
[DailyCaller] The map includes 83 -- or nearly 4 percent -- of the 2,106 mosques in the United States as of 2010. Yes, a little dated, but can give some indication.
The map can be zoomed. Once "tight" enough, a dot may be clicked on to see Mosque details.
#2
It seems the Catholic Church is strangly silent.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/22/2015 11:26
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@#2: See THIS and go to the "Operating Revenues..." on statement page 4 (browser page 6). Note the $ received from "Government Contracts and Grants..." (you and me) - an impressive number. The entry also references "note 3" which can be found on statement page 13-14 (browser pages 15-16).
Interesting reading for the curious, and I'm sure a gateway not exclusive to Catholic charities.
Small, but emotional gesture, big potential. Putin is anything but a fool. Mr. 0bama, however, may consider sending the French a photo of him with a puppy in the fashion of an Ortolan.
#3
I would say that not only is Putin more astute but I believe his advisors are top notch and give Ole Vlad some really good advice.
What the Russians are doing right now really plays well in Peoria.
Anyone notice how some of the things Vlad is saying sort of channel ole George after 9/11?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/22/2015 9:14
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Mr. 0bama, however, may consider sending the French a photo of him with a puppy in the fashion of an Ortolan
Maybe Obama could show the puppy properly prepared, medium rare.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 11:04
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#5
I had suggested Romney had he won to send Putin a quality horse in show of respect. I would say the same to Trump if I could get his attention. I believe things would be very much different between our two nations. The bust of Churchill returned to the white house as soon as possible also.
Flooding the country with illegals O is hoping for unrest in conjunction with black lives matter dribble to invoke martial law would be his ultimate goal. Like the Clinton's he cares more about his power than this country.
[AlAhram] Among the many mysteries hanging over the Gay Paree attacks, few are more puzzling than the fate and role of jihadist Salah Abdeslam, subject of an international manhunt since the carnage.
He and his brother Brahim played a key logistical role in the wave of terror which left 130 people dead and hundreds injured, renting cars and hotel rooms where the jihadists could hole up.
Brahim, like another five of the assailants, went kaboom! after the bloodshed. A seventh was shot by police.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/22/2015
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12 militants from Daesh group have been killed and five wounded in a clash with security forces in Achin District of eastern Nangarhar province.
Spokesman for Nangarhar police says security forces were conducting operation in Mazdaki Sar area when Daesh insurgents attacked them on Friday. Colonel Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal adds that in retaliatory action of security forces 12 militants were killed and five others wounded. Militants left three dead bodies behind in the area.
Security forces seized a motorcycle, Kalashnikov and Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) from the assailants.
In a separate raid security forces detained a Daesh militant in Jalalabad city, provincial capital of Nangarhar, yesterday. Mawla Gul alias Khalid had taken part in destructive activities for Daesh in Kot District of Nangarhar.
This comes a day after 12 Daesh insurgents were killed in a clash with security forces in Abdul Khel area of Achin District.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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[AlAhram] Close to 100 migrants tried to storm the border fence from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla Saturday in a scramble that left one man seriously injured, authorities said.
Moroccan security forces managed to stop some of the migrants from reaching the fence that seals off Melilla -- one of only two land borders between Africa and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... -- but around 30 people still reached it and clambered onto the railings, they said.
Two of these managed to get across into the Spanish territory, while one man was maimed when he fell from the metres-high fence near the Barrio Chino crossing, authorities in Melilla added in a statement.
The man was taken to hospital in Melilla with severe head injuries -- along with three others who were slightly hurt as they too fell from the fence.
Other migrants were still clinging onto the railings in high winds, prompting firemen to lay out mattresses and other material at the base of the fence in an attempt to break any fall.
Authorities said the area around Barrio Chino is favoured by migrants and refugees trying to make it into Spain, as the "cluster of homes there allows them to crouch and hide, making it harder for security forces to intercept them."
Melilla and Ceuta, another Spanish enclave nearly 400 kilometres (250 miles) away, have for some years been a flashpoint for African migrants trying to enter Spain, with authorities stepping up security by strengthening border barriers.
So far this year, according to Melilla authorities, there have been a dozen attempts to cross the border fence there, with more than 100 managing to enter the Spanish enclave.
But authorities said this pales in comparison with 2014, when more than 2,000 migrants and refugees managed to enter Melilla.
Anonymous, the loose collective of online activists, said Saturday it has uncovered information about Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group attacks in Gay Paree as well as at locations in the U.S., Indonesia, Italia and Leb, all apparently set for Sunday. OpGay PareeIntel, a group within Anonymous, released a statement saying it had collected information about imminent attacks by the turban group -- aka Daesh [Islamic State], ISIL and ISIS -- in the French capital a little more than a week after a series of coordinated attacks there left 130 dead and hundreds injured.
Anonymous also said the Islamic State group is planning an assault at the WWE Survivor Series event scheduled to take place in the Philips Arena in Atlanta Sunday at 7.30 p.m. EST, as well as attacks at multiple events in Gay Paree.
The collective published the list of potential targets alongside a statement: "The goal is to make sure the whole world, or at least the people going to these events, know that there have been threats and that there is possibility of an attack to happen. Another goal is to make sure Daesh [Islamic State] knows that the world knows and cancels the attacks, which will disorientate them for a while."
UPDATE 4:45 p.m. EST: Anonymous later posted a tweet saying that it did not know where rumors of the planned attacks originated.
So maybe something will happen, or perhaps Anonymous got overexcited.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/22/2015
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#1
welcome to the world of trying to stop islamist fascists from randomly murdering civilians.
you do not know what *chatter* is real
what is blowing off steam
what is *talking sh*t*
and what is discussing the plot of a book that somebody is writing
so it all seems like there are hundreds of attacks
except there arent
and the one person who goes apeshit with a couple of bruvvers and an ak-47 was smart enough not to say it on twitter
so there you go
you cannot fight islamist fascism with spying, it does not work
you have to fight the ideological war
Ban sharia
deport those who support sharia
accept the refugees but force them to sign a legal document rejecting sharia or they are out
provisional visas only - if you commit violent or sex crime, or are caught promoting sharia or participating in sharia courts then you are on the next plane back to your own country
The Indian-supplied Mi-25 gunship helicopters will kick-off operations with the Afghan Air Force within the next two months, it has been reported. The delivery of the Russian-made gunships comes amid crucial need of close air support to the Afghan national security forces who are fighting the Taliban militants on their own during the past one year, since the NATO-led coalition forces concluded their military operation in December last year.
According to the local reports, citing deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan, Hekmat Karzai, the gunship helicopters will soon be flying in the skies of Afghanistan targeting the Taliban. Four Russian-made Mi-25 attack helicopters, with the Indian Air Force, will be delivered within the next two months, sources tell NDTV.
Following his meeting with the Indian officials, Karzai said “We have had the most casualties. We see daily violence in about 20 provinces, so, it is important to have that covered.”
Karzai further added Two and a half years ago, we had about 150,000 coalition forces. To support them, we had over 200,000 military contractors.” He was referring to the coalition drawdown and the vacuum created with the need for helicopter gunships.
He also added “We now have to develop our own capabilities. This is why we are reaching out to our friends and allies.”
The delivery of the gunships to Afghan Air Force is considered as major shift in policy followed from the UPA government’s tenure who were willing not willing to provide Kabul any lethal weapons or equipment. India has been training around 1,000 Afghan army and other security officers and men a year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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and a "F-U" to the ISI
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/22/2015 9:26
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...The sound of heads exploding in Islamabad...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/22/2015 11:23
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Interior Ministry announced on Thursday, that 16 ISIS members have been killed in various military operations.
Federal police captain Raed Shakir Jawdat said in a press statement issued by the Ministry of Interior received by IraqiNews.com, “The 5th division of the federal police managed to kill five ISIS members and destroy their vehicle west of the island of Samarra.”
Jawdat added, “A force of the 3rd division killed eight terrorists in Mikshafiya Operations,” noting that, “The police forces also killed three members of the ISIS, after the destruction of their hideout in Husaybah al-Sharqiya.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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The Interpol announces on Thursday the presence of 25,000 foreign “fighters” among the ranks of the ISIS organization coming from 50 countries, while pointed out to determining the identity of more than five thousand members, urging the members of Interpol to do more security cooperation to combat the threat of terrorism.
The Director of the Interpol, Jurgen Stoke, said during a conference held in Seville, Spain today on the war against terrorism: “There are about 25,000 foreign fighters among the ranks of extremist groups in Syria and Iraq,” noting that, “Interpol was able to determine the identity of 5800 foreign fighters that had engaged in the ranks of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. ”
Jurgen called the members of the Interpol to “do more cooperation and coordination among them in the field of the fight against terrorism and intelligence.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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KARACHI: Pitched battles between two groups involved in drug peddling turned the city’s Old Golimar area resulted in the death of five people while one person was injured.
Rangers have launched an operation in the area Pak Colony area of Old Golimar. During the door-to-door search operation more than 50 people have been rounded up while drug dens have been demolished.
According to reports, following the clash between the two groups, two people died on the spot while four were shifted to the hospital where three succumbed to their injuries.
The deceased have been identified as Waseem ,Mairaj, Mohd Shahid, Anwar Hussain and Mohd Fahim.
During the ensuing operation launched by Police and Rangers, the police set alight the area used by drug addicts while the drug dens have been demolished.
[SunStar] A Philippine soldier captured by New People's Army militants in a raid in Gingoog City last July, was released on Friday in a remote village in Misamis Oriental after 133 days in captivity.
A frail Adonis Jess Lupiba was formally turned over by a rebel custodian unit backed by some 200 insurgents to a group composed of third party negotiators and Misamis Oriental Governor Yevgeny "Bambi" Emano, chair of the local crisis committee.
On Saturday, Lupiba was given a hero's welcome and was promoted to the next rank as Army Corporal for his heroism during the July raid. Recalling the circumstances of his capture, Lupiba said he holed himself up inside a police outpost during the raid and refrained from firing his weapon for fear of hitting civilians.
Lupiba said it had taken them a week of walking before reaching the village where he was later released. He said he was shuttled between four militant camps to keep him away from Philippine troops.
Lupiba said he was kept in handcuffs attached to a chain during the length of his captivity. He said he had almost given up on being released but said prayers kept his hopes up during the rough periods.
Lupiba said he spent six hours a day, five days a week listening to lectures about the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.
NPA spokesman Ka Allan Juanito said Lupiba was set to be released some two months ago if not for military operations.
It can be very uncomfortable to be a minority in a solidly Muslim society.
An enraged mob set a Ahmadi place of worship on fire in Punjab's Jhelum district on Saturday, following Friday night's arson attack on a factory. The place of worship was located in the Kala Gujran area of Jhelum, which was under guard of local police forces.
The mob managed to break through the police cordon which was established to safeguard the Ahmadi places of worship, following Friday night's unrest. Police had to resort to baton charging and tear gassing the protesters in order to bring the situation under control, but were unable to do so. The mob resorted to pelting stones at the police personnel.
The incidents were a result of rumours circulated earlier in Jhelum district which levelled blasphemy allegations on the owner and workers of the factory.
As tensions rose, a contingent of the Pakistan Army was called in to assist the local police forces. After the arrival of the army contingent, the situation calmed down, with the mob chanting slogans in favour of the army.
Earlier, an enraged mob set a factory on fire in Jhelum district late on Friday after rumours circulated in the area and announcements were made from mosques levelling blasphemy allegations on the factory owner and workers. No casualties were reported from the arson attack.
Hundreds of people surrounded the chipboard factory in Jhelum and set the facility ablaze after reports surfaced that one employee had allegedly desecrated the Holy Quran.
According to police, another employee at the factory had reported that Tahir was overseeing the burning in the facility's boiler and intervened to stop the act. Four other men who were previously arrested on suspicion of blasphemy were reportedly released by the police, DawnNews reported.
Police fired rubber bullets and fired tear gas shells at the mob, members of which resorted to aerial firing. Three men were reportedly injured in this unrest. However, there were few policemen on the scene who thereby failed to control the situation. District Police Officer (DPO) Mujhaid Akbar Khan reached the location and tried talking to members of the mob but that did not yield any results.
Subsequently, armed forces’ personnel were called in and GT Road was opened for traffic some six hours after the disturbance.
A spokesman for the local Ahmadi community said three of their members were arrested in the wake of the fire.
[Gulf Today] Philippine commandos killed an Abu Sayyaf leader linked to the kidnapping of Malaysian nationals from Sabah in a clash on the island province of Tawi-Tawi. The clash happened on Friday in a remote village in the town of Sitangkai while elite Navy commandos were conducting operations against the Abu Sayyaf.
Navy Captain Roy Vincent Trinidad identified the Abu Sayyaf leader killed as a certain Said allegedly involved in the kidnap-for-ransom of Malaysian nationals from Sabah including the beheaded Then. Trinidad said Said and his comrades were also involved in the kidnapping of 21 tourists in Sipadan, Sabah in 2001, who were brought to Sulu in Mindanao before being released in batches after payment of huge ransoms.
In a related development, President Benigno Aquino apologized for the beheading of a Malaysian citizen as he ordered the military to step up its ongoing operations against the Abu Sayyaf and arrest the murderers. Aquino issued the apology in Kuala Lumpur to attend the annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations where the war on terror was one of the major topics on its agenda.
Meanwhile, police announced the arrest of another Abu Sayyaf leader, identified as a Mhadie Umangkat Sahirin wanted on charges of murder and frustrated muder. Sahirin was nabbed on Friday while walking in a village in Zamboanga City where he fled following the filing before the regional courts separate charges of carnapping and bombings.
Posted by: ryuge ||
11/22/2015
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[Ynet] Paleostinian woman walking towards checkpoint ignored security forces' instructions to stop and was incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... ; search of her possession uncovered large kitchen knife she allegedly planned to use in attack.
Border Police and police troops foiled a stabbing attack at a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Saturday afternoon.
The troops noticed a Paleostinian woman who was acting suspiciously and instructed her to stop, but she ignored them and continued advancing towards them.
The troops managed to stop the woman and arrest her. When they searched her, they found a large kitchen knife in her possession that she was allegedly going to use in a stabbing attack against the troops.
The 27-year-old woman from Yatta, near Hebron, was taken for questioning.
Russia has bombed the Daesh group in the heaviest strikes in eastern Syria since the war began, as Moscow's military manoeuvres in the Mediterranean forced Lebanon to reroute flights.
Russian and Syrian warplanes carried out at least 70 strikes in eastern Deir Ezzor province on Friday, killing at least 36 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based group said the raids hit several cities and towns in the province, as well as three oilfields, and were the heaviest bombardment of the region since the conflict began in March 2011.
Most of Deir Ezzor province, including large parts of its capital, is held by Daesh. The regime still holds the military airport and several smaller areas.
According to the Observatory, Russia's strikes have killed more than 1,300 people since they began, a third of them civilians. The group says 381 Daesh fighters have been killed in the strikes, along with 547 rebels from other groups including Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front. It said 403 civilians had been killed, including 97 children.
On Saturday, flights in and out of Lebanon were being forced to take longer routes, with some airlines cancelling services, after Moscow requested flights avoid a portion of airspace over the Mediterranean, a Lebanese minister said.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Zeaiter said Moscow requested "that planes leaving Beirut airport towards the west avoid overflying an area in Mediterranean territorial waters because of manoeuvres on Saturday, Sunday and Monday."
There was no confirmation from Moscow of the request, but a Lebanese airport official later said that departing flights would be directed to first fly south over Sidon and Sarafand to "keep them away from the perimeter of the manoeuvres."
Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines acknowledged the rerouting in a statement, saying its flights would be mostly on time but "some flights to the Gulf and the Middle East region might take (a) longer time due to a slight change in airways."
Kuwait Airways said it was suspending its Beirut flights "as a precautionary measure" but most other flights were arriving and leaving normally.
Turkey's Dogan news agency said two Turkish Airlines services to Beirut on Friday night were cancelled for "security reasons" due to the Russian request, but its Saturday flights were operating regularly.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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Four forces compete in the Venezuelan parliament vote of December 6: government, opposition, independents and abstention. The triumph of the opposition or the government in the upcoming Venezuelan parliament vote will depend on the influence of independents and abstention.
In principle, though, independents and abstention rather harm the opposition. Why? Because they basically come from the higher social classes, where the opposition is most voted. There, the opposition-government ratio is more or less 70%-30%. However, they represent only 30% of the registry of voters. The remaining 70% is in the lower classes. There, pro-government voters prevail. Once the National Assembly is established, independents, after taking votes out from the Unified Democratic Panel (MUD), will become part of the opposition group. By December 6, the noted trend is that independents and abstention will remain at 30%-40%.
Evil polarization, after more than 16 years, clearly shows exhaustion and despair. Just have a look at this number: more than 90% of Venezuelans demand dialogue. They want peace, and they think they cannot achieve it because of the conduct of hardcore government followers and dissenters. They back cohabitation. They regard agreements and talks as progress, social calm and economic improvement. They feel that this could lead to consensus able to improve economy, increase production and dismount fanaticism, intransigent ideology and hatred among Venezuelans. Do political stockholders realize it? It does not seem so, as polarization is the object and subject of their strategy.
Meanwhile, a giant mass of voters takes sides with either the government or the opposition. Political polarization has been merciless, to such an extent that each party makes its existence conditional upon inexistence of the other party. Hence, they act and yell in terms of extermination. Either them or us! In the roadmap of both sides polarization is the strategy.
An eventual tight result, let's say, 84 deputies on the one hand and 83 deputies on the other hand, could fuel violence the very December 6. The situation could reach a deadlock. And they would be forced to agree on some important public affairs to prevent the State and the government from coming to a halt. As for me, on December 6 nobody will get a landslide victory or a crushing defeat. May God have mercy on us!
ISLAMABAD: Lal Masjid ...literally the Red Mosque, located in Islamabad and frequented by all sorts of high govt officials. The proprietors, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, unleashed their Islamic storm troopers on the city, shutting down whorehouses and beating people up who weren't devout enough. The Musharraf govt put an end to the nonsense by besieging the place. Abdul Aziz Ghazi was nabbed while he was trying to escape dressed up like a girl. BBC reported that the corpse count at 173, but other claims, usually hysterical, say there were up to 1000 titzup. Among their number was Abdul Rashid Ghazi. Everyone then said tut-tut and what a nice guy he had been... 's firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... Maulana Abdul Aziz
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Pappy ||
11/22/2015
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New shocking images have emerged which purportedly shows the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group destroying raised graves.
The ISIS loyalists operating under the brand of ‘Wilayat Khurasan’ which covers swaths of Afghanistan and Pakistan, are apparently commiting the latest fanatic acts in a bid to match the atrocities committed by the terror group in Iraq and Syria.
The group which is reportedly led by the former Pakistani Taliban commander Hafiz Saeed Khan.
This comes as the terror group earlier this year released photographs of its militants destroying Christian graves with sledgehammers and carving out crosses in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
The images were posted on social media, including the Shomoukh Al-Islam jihadi forum, under the title Leveling Graves And Erasing Pagan Symbols. Three pictures also emerged out of a montage from Syria in August this year which purportedly shows graves being smashed along with other images such as the discovery of smuggled cigarettes hidden inside a spare tire.
Only the most ornate gravestones in the graveyard appear to be targeted, with the pictures showing they are destroyed using a sledgehammer. The caption states that the men are “removing the manifestation of polytheism.”
The latest distressing pictures are released shortly after a shocking documentary was released last week which purportedly shows the loyalists of the terror group are expanding their activities in Afghanistan by establishing jihadi schools where children as young as 3-year-old are being trained on how to carry out terrorist activities.
It is estimated that 3,500 militants loyal to the terror group are operating in Afghanistan which includes militants both from Afghanistan and other countries.
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#2
If terrorism is about theater and marketing as well as blowing people up, shutting down a major western city has got to count as a big success. Great advert for the brand!
#3
Exactly SteveS. AND it saves a lot of wear and tear on your troops as well as conserving resources.
As soon as the hoaxes cease to be effective you do one for real and get triple the effect. Remember it is easier to train the animals (aka elites) with a non-regular reinforcement.
So the Belgian prosecutor, Eric Van Der Sypt, has updated us on tonight's developments. The key points:
⢠There were 19 raids in the Brussels area and three in Charleroi
⢠16 people were arrested. Their identities will not be released
⢠Brussels police shot at a car that approached a roadblock during operation in the Molenbeek area
⢠The car escaped but police later found it with a wounded individual inside. He was arrested
⢠Salah Abdelslam, suspected Paris gunman, was not among those arrested
⢠No weapons or explosives were found
⢠The operation continues
Events no doubt will continue in the near future. Schools will be closed in Brussels tomorrow, and Mr. Abdelslam is said to be heading toward Germany in a BMW.
The former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh who was leading a delegation to investigate the fall of Kunduz city said Saturday that over 2,000 documents related to the fall of Kunduz were reviewed besides interviewing several people including government officials and ordinary citizens.
Saleh further added that the main question in their investigation was “Whether Kunduz city fell due to a conspiracy or a failure or whether both factors were involved?”
He said the delegation did not find any evidences regarding the involvement of any conspiracy in the fall of the city.
According to Saleh, the delegation concentrated on three main subjects, including strategic leadership, condition of institutions structure and condition of access to facilities.
Saleh said one of the main strategic errors of the government ahead of fall of the city was ignorance of the fall of other districts of Kunduz province including Dasht-e-Archi and Chahar Dara. He also added that the Taliban militants continued to weaken the Afghan Local Police by taking control of Aqtash and Khanabad district.
According to Saleh, the Taliban militants entered to Kunduz city after weakening the Afghan Local Police and in the meantime starting war in the other parts of the north including Badakhshan, forcing the Afghan National Army troops to disperse.
He said there was a vacuum in the leadership as the Taliban launched coordinated attack on Kunduz city on 28th September and called US air support as the turning point in Kunduz war as the Taliban militants were close to take control of the airport.
Saleh said the delegation has exposed vacuums available in the operational method of the National Security Council led by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in their report, calling it a main factor which led to the fall of Kunduz city. He also added that all the institutions and government officials who are to be blamed for the fall of the city, mainly due to negligence have bee exposed in their report.
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#1
Another one of those 'never fail to fail' things?
The dead bodies of 22 Pakistani militants who were killed in Afghanistan have been returned to Pakistani. According to Azadi Radio’s affiliate Mashal Radio, the dead bodies were buried in their ancestral grave yard in Lower Dir area of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province on Friday.
Perhaps their mothers missed them but no one else did...
A local official Alam Zib has told Mashal Radio that the killed insurgents belonged to al-Badar Mujahideen and Jamat-ud-Dawah armed groups.
Meanwhile, residents of Timergarah have posted pictures showing coffins wrapped in the flag of al-Badar Mujahideen group, with a note that they were killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan, the news agency reports.
Closed coffins then...
An Afghan official has told Mashal Radio on condition of anonymity that the 22 were killed three days before in security operation of Afghan forces in Khost province.
The media citing reports further states that al-Badar Mujahideen has participated in clashes in Kashmir and under the umbrella of Hizb-i-Islami of Hekmatyar in Afghanistan. This comes as Afghan government has been asking Pakistan to stop training terrorists and sending them to Afghanistan for its “undeclared war” but Pakistan turns them as allegations.
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#1
They should be ground up and returned in SPAM cans.
The Geneva-based Advisory Centre for Rights and Freedoms (ACRF) on Friday has submitted two reports to the UN Human Rights Council detailing war crimes committed by the Houthis and fighters loyal to deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The reports, which dealt with war crimes during months of May and June, said the militias kept shelling Tawahi port and Al Buraiqa oil refinery in which 78 people were either killed or drowned and 79 others were wounded. The victims included children and women.
The Houthis, according to the rights body, have been shelling the port and the oil refinery with Katyusha rockets and mortars. They also rained shells on boats carrying displaced people killing several of them.
The ACRF labelled the attacks as crimes against humanity since they were committed as part of a deliberate plan targeting a group of displaced citizens and other civilians. The crimes perpetrated by Houthis and their allies meet clause No (A) of article No 7 of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The actions are also inconsistent with the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilian persons in time of war.
Now the Houthis are in trouble: they'll have European lawyers after them...
ACRF chief Abdulrahman Al Meseibly said: "The centre has requested the UN Council for Human Rights to refer the crimes to the International Criminal Court in order to bring the culprits to the justice."
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Somali Govt troops and their allied African Union troops have repelled an Al shabaab attack after heavily armed militants attacked their convoy near Wajid town, south of Bakol region.
The confrontation broke out Saturday morning when the militants with Al shabaab waylaid the allied troops while conducting a security patrol in the villages nearby Wajid town, reports said.
Reports from Wajid indicate that both warring sides have suffered casualties during the armed clash.
Despite losing large ground, Somali-based militants are in control of swathes of territories in south and central regions of the horn of Africa as SNA and AMISOM making gains in the battle against Al shabaab.
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[AnNahar] As the hunt for jihadists widens after last week's Gay Paree attacks, authorities in Greece warn it was virtually impossible to pick out dangerous bandidosbandidos murderous Moslems among arriving migrants, without prior intelligence.
"If they are not already registered in the database, it's nearly impossible," says Dimitris Amountzias, police captain in charge of Moria, Greece's main registration camp on the island of Lesbos.
At the camp, dozens of migrants and refugees queue to give their fingerprints, have a photo taken and be quizzed by agents from European border agency Frontex.
Continued on Page 49
[AlAhram] A suicide kaboom by suspected members of Nigerian Islamist hard boyz group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... killed at least 10 people over the border in the Far North region of Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... on Saturday, security sources said.
Boko Haram has mounted numerous attacks in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria this year and is turning the border region near Lake Chad into a war zone, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... refugee agency said last month.
"The initial figures speak of 10 dead including the jacket wallahs and around a dozen maimed," said a senior Cameroonian army commander of the attack on the village of Nigue, a suburb of Fotokol town.
Boko Haram has waged a six-year campaign for an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria. Neighbouring countries joined an offensive against the group this year and the conflict spilled across their borders, displacing tens of thousands of people.
Boko Haram used Cameroon's impoverished Far North to stockpile supplies and recruits until the government cracked down last year.
Cameroon is also in an 8,700-strong regional force led by Nigeria against the Death Eaters, expected to be operational by the end of the year. The United States is sending military supplies and troops to the central African country to aid the fight.
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[Hurriyet] A court in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's eastern province of Van has sentenced a politician from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) to a prison sentence of six years and three months on the charges of "being a member of the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] terrorist organization."
The verdict came late Nov. 20 from Van's Second High Penal Court in a case where six suspects stood trial on charges of "being a member of the PKK terrorist organization and its affiliate KCK [Kurdistan Communities Union]."
Four of the suspects, including the HDP's Van deputy Lezgin Botan and former HDP Van deputy Selami Özyasar, were sentenced to six years and three months while two others were acquitted.
All four suspects were detained back in June 25, 2011 in Van during an operation by anti-terror squads.
The arrests were part of a nationwide dragnet on suspected Kurdish separatists and bandidosbandidos Death Eaters and led to the arrests of bigwigs, journalists and lawyers.
[IsraelTimes] Arab media reports one hurt in the incident; in separate event, soldiers shoot man crossing security fence without a permit
IDF troops shot up a group of Paleostinian youth throwing rocks at cars on Route 60 near Silwad in the West Bank on Saturday night, the army said.
After receiving reports of teenagers pelting passing cars with stones, the soldiers arrived to force them away. "The soldiers called for them to disperse, firing warning shots in the air," an IDF spokeswoman said.
When the youth ignored the soldiers warning shots, and continued throwing rocks at the passing vehicles, the troops fired at the rock throwers, who then expeditiously departed at a goodly pace.
The army said it did not know whether any of the teenagers were hit, but Paleostinian media reported that one was lightly injured.
Earlier Saturday, a Paleostinian man was shot in the leg after he allegedly attempted to attack a security guard at the Oranit checkpoint in the West Bank.
The man apparently began attacking the guard after he was caught trying to cross a security fence without a permit, the Walla news site reported. The man's condition was not immediately known.
Earlier Saturday, four people were stabbed in a terror attack in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, Israel Police reported.
QUETTA - Iranian border guards fired four mortar shells into Pakistani territory in Chedgi area of Balochistan on Saturday. A senior official of Balochistan government confirmed that Iranian border guards violated the Pakistani frontiers. However, no loss of life was reported in the attack, he said.
Areas like Panjgur, Mand, Washuk and Chagai on several instances have constantly witnessed mortar shelling by Iranian security forces. Border guards fired eight mortar shells in the same area on October 17. Similarly, a few months ago, mortar shelling from the border killed two people inside the territory. Pakistan has raised the issue with the Iranian government but Tehran categorically stated that it would target ‘terrorists’ trying to enter in Iran’s territory or want to disturb peace between the two countries.
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[IsraelTimes] After 5-hour manhunt, police capture suspect hiding in yard of private residence; 2 other Paleostinians also locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! on suspicion of aiding terrorist
The suspected terrorist who stabbed four people, including a 13-year-old girl, in an attack in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat on Saturday evening, was caught by police after a five-hour manhunt.
The attacker was said to be a Paleostinian teenager from Yatir, in the Hebron area, who was working in Israel illegally. Police said he was caught hiding in the yard outside a private residence in the city with the weapon in his possession. He was said to have been injured when hit by a car while fleeing.
The suspect was arrested and transferred to the Shin Bet (Israel's Security Agency) for interrogation, police said. Two other illegal Paleostinian workers were also arrested on suspicion of helping the terrorist carry out the assault, police said.
During the search, police said they had arrested 10 Paleostinians who were in Israel illegally, most of them at building sites in the city.
Earlier, alarmed residents of the city were told to stay indoors as police searched for the attacker. The Kiryat Gat municipality had announced that schools in the city would stay shut on Sunday as long as the suspect was on the lam. It later clarified that schools would now open.
The man is suspected of knifing four people, wounding them moderately, in a stabbing rampage that started outside a soccer stadium. The 13-year-old was stabbed in the stomach and chest, and two women, aged 56 and 44, sustained wounds to the upper body, Magen David Adom reported. A 51-year-old man was lightly hurt after he was attacked as he was walking out of a nearby synagogue following Saturday night prayer services, Israel Radio reported.
A Bedouin man in his 40s -- mistakenly thought to be the attacker -- was also lightly injured after being beaten by a mob. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.
MDA paramedics treated the four stabbing victims before taking them to the nearby Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon for further treatment.
Last month, a Paleostinian man stabbed an Israel Defense Forces soldier and grabbed his gun in Kiryat Gat. He then fled to a fourth-floor apartment, where he was shot and killed by police. The soldier was lightly injured in the attack, with wounds to his head, apparently inflicted with a pair of scissors.
[AnNahar] Investigators in Mali were on Saturday hunting at least three people suspected of links to the jihadist siege at a luxury hotel in the capital that left at least 19 people dead.
The government has declared a state of emergency after the bloody nine-hour hostage-taking at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako on Friday, exactly a week after the Gay Paree massacre.
A security cordon remained in place around the Radisson and security was also boosted around public buildings and banks and other hotels.
The Al-Murabitoun group, an al-Qaeda affiliate led by notorious one-eyed Algerian krazed killer Mokhtar Belmokhtar, nicknamed the "Uncatchable" or "Mr Marlboro", claimed the attack.
Gunmen went on the rampage through the hotel from the early morning, shooting in the corridors and taking 170 guests and staff hostage, many of them foreigners.
The assault, which ended when Malian and international troops stormed the hotel, left 19 people dead as well as two attackers, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said.
The victims included several Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians, an American and a Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... ese.
A Malian military source had said earlier there were at least 27 dead, while at least "three Lions of Islam had been killed or blown themselves up."
Authorities are now "actively pursuing" at least three people over the attack in the former French colony, one security source told AFP.
In an audio recording broadcast by Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... television, Belmokhtar's group grabbed credit, saying it had worked with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Belmokhtar, one of the world's most desperados, was indeed "likely" the brains behind the assault.
The jihadist is also accused of spearheading an attack on an Algerian gas plant in 2013 in which around 40 hostages were killed, most of them Westerners.
La Belle France has more than 1,000 troops in its former colony, a key battleground of the Barkhane counter-terror mission spanning five countries in Africa's restive Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... .
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Canada voted, and now they get to enjoy the consequences.
[AlAhram] Canada plans to fly in 900 Syrian refugees a day as of next month, according to media reports, as the defense minister said showing compassion for these people sends a message to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... murderous Moslems.
Canadian officials said details of a plan to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by year's end would be announced Tuesday.
The Canadian media reports come amid fears that IS jihadists could slip into the country posing as refugees, in the wake of last week's attacks in Gay Paree that killed at least 130 people.
Citing a leaked document, local media said the government was planning to fly in 900 Syrian refugees daily from Jordan to Montreal and Toronto, starting December 1. From there, they would be transported to two military bases in Ontario and Quebec, where they would be temporarily housed, according to the reports. They pegged the cost of the ongoing operation at Can$1.2 billion over six years.
The cost and other details will be revealed on Tuesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum told news hounds in Ottawa.
Health Minister Jane Philpott, however, said the leaked information was "outdated and not expected to be accurate."
At a security forum in the Atlantic port city of Halifax, Defense Minister Jarjit Sajjan said by welcoming Syrian refugees, Ottawa was also striking at IS.
"This crisis is not just about a humanitarian project," he said in his opening remarks to military commanders and defense ministers from around the world.
"This also sends a great message to ISIS that you might create this environment for us, but we will not let you take advantage of this," he said, using an alternate acronym for the IS group. "By doing our part for this, we are actually hitting ISIS in a different way as well."
Um, okay, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. ISIS might thank you by helping to get a few of their agents into your country.
Sajjan also sought to allay security concerns raised since the Gay Paree attacks, saying Canada is looking to bring over the most vulnerable and families with skills that could ultimately benefit Canada, and that they pose no threat to national security.
"They're not fleeing poverty; they're fleeing war," he said. "People who are settling are going to be contributing to our economy."
That's the traditional view for immigration into both Canada and the U.S. If it's true, great. But remember, almost three-fourths of the 'refugees' are military-aged young men. Are they fleeing or are they shock-troops?
..or because they're lower on the primate order for enjoying raping, looting and pillaging back home. Got to find newer territory with less competition.
[Rudaw] A Kurdish military official says that a Shiite militia which locked in a deadly clash with the Peshmerga this week south of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... has thousands of new recruits, including nearly 2,000 Kurds.
The Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militia has recruited and armed nearly 5,000 fighters, including around 1,800 Shiite Kurds, in recent months, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... He said they had been recruited in Khanaqeen, south of Tuz Khurmatu, where the festivities took place
"They have an entire brigade for the Kurdish recruits in Khanaqeen, fully armed and funded," he told Rudaw. "Even the commander of the brigade is a Shiite Kurd."
The town of Khurmatu, approximately 80 kilometers south of Kirkuk, has witnessed two weeks of tensions between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Shiite militia known as Hashd al-Shabi.
Some 21 people were killed or maimed when Peshmarga troops clashed with the Shiite militia in Khurmatu earlier this week.
A disputed city claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, the Iraqi constitution says that Khurmatu's fate should be decided in a referendum, which has been indefinitely postponed since the deadline of 2007.
After an offensive south of Kirkuk city by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group (ISIS) earlier this year, Kurdish and Iraqi-backed Shiite forces entered Khurmatu, jointly patrolling the area.
Last week's festivities were the latest in a series of critical stand-offs between Shiites and Kurds, who both see the city and the wider area as their own.
Kurdish security forces told Rudaw they had detained 35 members of the Hashd, largely in retaliation to the Shiite militia arresting 48 local Kurds. Though most of the detainees on both sides are now free, still dozens remain in jails.
Khurmatu Mayor Shalal Abdu told Rudaw Wednesday he was hopeful of an agreement because there were ongoing negotiations between the two sides.
But Kurdish security forces are not as optimistic and say a lack of trust on both sides is to blame.
The US House of Representatives, defying a veto threat by President Barack Obama, overwhelmingly passed Republican-backed legislation on Thursday to suspend Obama's program to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year and then intensify the process of screening them.
The measure, quickly drafted this week following the Islamic State attacks in Paris on Friday that killed 129 people, was approved on a vote of 289-137, with 47 of Obama's 188 fellow Democrats breaking with the White House to support it. It would require that high-level officials - the FBI director, the director of national intelligence and homeland security secretary - verify that each Syrian refugee poses no security risk.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill would pause the program the White House announced in September to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. He said it was important to act quickly "when our national security is at stake."
After the House vote, Obama's attorney general, Loretta Lynch, called such screening both impractical and impossible.
The vote result came despite a last-ditch appeal for Democratic votes from Jeh Johnson, Obama's secretary of homeland security, and Denis McDonough, his chief of staff. It followed a testy exchange at a House hearing between lawmakers and Anne Richard, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. Republicans responded with incredulity to her assertion there was only a "very, very small" threat of any of the Syrian refugees being a "terrorist".
Some Republicans have said some refugees could be militants bent on attacking the United States, noting reports that at least one Paris attacker may have slipped into Europe among migrants registered in Greece.
The bill, which would create the strictest-ever US screening of refugees from a war-torn nation, passed with the two-thirds majority the House would need to override a presidential veto. It now goes to the Senate, also controlled by Republicans, where its prospects remained uncertain. If it passes in the Senate, each chamber would have to muster a two-thirds majority to override any Obama veto.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said there was "no way" the House bill would pass in the Senate. Some Democrats touted a different approach, promising legislation in the Senate to tighten a visa waiver program that intelligence experts say can be exploited by Islamic State militants or others planning US attacks.
The White House had said Obama would veto the House bill because it would introduce "unnecessary and impractical requirements" that would hamper efforts to help some of the world's most vulnerable people without providing meaningful additional security for Americans.
[Hurriyet] Turkish police have detained a Belgian man of Moroccan origin on suspicion that he scouted out the target sites for Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in attacks that killed 132 people in Gay Paree on Nov. 10.
The suspect, and two others detained for possible links to him, were locked away Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! by a court on Nov. 21, Dogan News Agency reported.
Ahmet Dahmani, 26, was detained at a luxury hotel in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalyai according to Dogan.
Two other men, 29-year-old Ahmet Tahir and 23-year-old MMohammed Verd -both Syrian citizens- were also detained on a nearby highway on suspicion that they had been sent by ISIL in Syria to ensure Dahmani's safe passage across the border and were planning to meet him. The suspects had fake passports in their possession, the police said.
Counter-terrorism police first became aware of Dahmani when he arrived on a flight to Antalya and tracked him to the hotel in the Manavgat district of the city.
"We believe that Dahmani was in contact with the gunnies who perpetrated the Gay Paree attacks. The investigation continues," a Turkish government official told Rooters.
The security forces detained him because they believed he was an ISIL myrmidon preparing to illegally cross the Turkish-Syrian border, the official said.
The Belgian authorities had not warned The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... about Dahmani and he was therefore not among the more than 26,000 names on a list of people, maintained by the Turkish authorities but largely based on foreign intelligence, banned from entering Turkey.
"Had the Belgian authorities alerted us in due time, Dahmani could have been apprehended at the airport," the official said.
Turkey estimates that no more than 1,300 of its nationals are among the many thousands of imported muscle to have joined the ranks of ISIL in Syria, less than from some Western European countries.
But the group, which holds territory adjacent to the Turkish border in Syria, is trying to recruit more.
In a Turkish-language video released by ISIL's media arm AlHayat on Nov. 21, the group called on Turkish Muslims to move to the lands under its control, assuring them it is not dangerous there and that life is "normal and prosperous," Rooters reported.
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[AnNahar] Syrian rebels backed by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and the United States have seized two villages from Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) jihadists close to the Turkish border after fierce fighting, Turkish official media said on Sunday.
The state-run Anatolia news agency said that ethnic Turkmen fighters had captured the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province from IS forces.
The ground offensive by the Turkmen fighters, strong allies of Turkey in its push to oust Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... , was backed from the air by U.S. and Turkish fighter jets, it added.
Six Turkish F-16s, four U.S. F-15s, an American AC-130 and three drones were involved, the report said, without specifying if any targets were hit.
Some 70 IS jihadists were killed in the fighting, it added.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the villages had been captured from IS but said the campaign had been waged by rebel and Islamist factions and not just Turkmen fighters.
Turkish officials have in the last days said a major joint air operation against IS with the United States was planned, with Turkmen forces fighting on the ground.
They said the aim is to clear of jihadists a 98 kilometre (61 mile) stretch of Syria's northern border with Turkey still controlled by IS.
The special U.S. envoy for the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk, had on Friday also indicated that the operation was imminent.
"Now we're going to start pushing them (IS) back," he said in Washington.
Turkish media reports described the operation as the first step in Ankara's plan for creating a so-called safe zone in northern Syria that could eventually house some of the 2.2 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey.
But American officials have expressed scepticism over the idea, with President Barack Obama If you like your coverage you can keep it... saying at the G20 summit in Turkey on Monday that a true safe zone needed ground operations.
"How would it work? Would it become a magnet for further terrorist attacks? And how many personnel would be required, and how would it end? There's a whole set of questions that have to be answered there," he said.
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[AlAhram] The number of new migrant arrivals in Sweden has dropped by a third since it reinstated border controls earlier this month, the country's migration agency said Saturday.
"The number of (new) asylum seekers has decreased from 1,500 a day to some 900 since border controls were reintroduced" on November 12, the Swedish Migration Agency said in a statement.
Worsening weather conditions may have also contributed to the decline, it added.
Short-staffed authorities still face a backlog of applications submitted before the controls were reintroduced, the agency said.
The restrictions are likely to be extended to December 11, the interior ministry has said.
Long a preferred destination for people fleeing war and poverty, Sweden like several other EU countries reinstated border controls in a bid to gain control over the unprecedented influx.
The attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, reportedly carried out by al-Qaida affiliate al-Mourabitoun, has compounded interest in terrorism in the region, in part because it comes in the wake of the attack in Paris. Whether there is a connection between the two is an important question, given the presence of French nationals in the hotel, as well as the ongoing military involvement of France in Mali’s fight against terrorism.
While many have concentrated on whether the hotel attack was the work of Islamic State – it was not – the more concrete worry should be what this attack demonstrates while the French regional anti-terror operation continues.
The presence of jihadi groups in Mali prompted the French to intervene in January 2013, when the mostly al-Qaida affiliated militants were making their way towards Bamako. Following the intervention, the militant groups withdrew and “set up shop” in other countries in the region, particularly in Libya, which has remained a crucial destabilising factor. Thus, although the operation was deemed a success for having caused the militants to flee, this in fact caused a regionalisation of the threat by prompting them to operate from other areas. As a result, last year the French launched Operation Barkhane, with the aim of insulating the chaos in Libya.
In this context, the significant expansion of militant activity beyond the core theatre of operation in the north of Mali, which included an attack against the Byblos Hotel in Sevare, as well as smaller-scale incidents along the Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Mauritanian borders, underscores continued attempts by militant groups to challenge the French, UN and local counter-terrorism efforts. So Friday’s attack in Bamako is not surprising, given that the capital has remained a high-ranking target for these groups, which have demonstrated their ability to successfully carry out attacks there. That said, although this resurgence and expansion of militant activity proves that counter-terrorist actions have not been sufficient, it does not necessarily mean that the ongoing efforts are for naught, or that Operation Barkhane is a failure.
The French have tasked themselves and their African counterparts with a very complicated operation. Many factors hinder their efforts, including vast desert areas that are hard to monitor, the ongoing destabilisation caused by Libya, as well as the porous nature of borders in the region that enable the smuggling operations that finance militant activities. The need for the international community to increase its involvement in Mali is underlined by the continued ability of militant groups to reach Bamako. The situation in Mali is highly volatile and likely to remain so.
More significantly, this undertaking has made France an important target for militant groups, with its involvement in other campaigns across the world serving to do the same. As a result, the connection between the Paris attacks and the siege at the Bamako Radisson Blu is best understood through a global lens. France being targeted in Mali is most certainly also a result of its historical presence in the country and the region, although the active international role it has taken in the global counter-terror efforts has made it an enemy of militant groups.
In a global effort where international players are akin to chess pieces in a worldwide competition between rival terrorist networks, the question remains as to whether the growing number of attacks against France will deter it from being as active as it has been thus far. One thing is certain, however: the Bamako attack demonstrates that al-Qaida remains alert and active in the Sahel.
Bat-el Ohayon is president of AfriQue Consulting Group, a geopolitical and risk mitigation company
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/22/2015
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#1
no. Jihadi long term goal in mali is to establish the global caliphate under sharia
the same as every islamist fascist around the world
incorrect analysis leads to incorrect target selection
#3
As per WAFF, and regardless of whether France "backs off" or not, looks like Darth Vlad = Russia is threatening to intervene + bomb Any + All Hard Boyz in Mali as Russia does in Syria-Iraq???
Meanwhile, NOT to be outdone by RUSSIA ...
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > THREE CHINESE AMONG 20 DEAD [in new Mali terror attack] | [SCMP] THREE CHINESE AMONG 20 DEAD IN MALI: TROOPS RAID WHILE LUXURY MALI HOTEL WHERE ISLAMIST GUNMEN REMAIN.
* SAME, LONDON EXPRESS.UK > TIME TO ACT: CHINA [to?]LAUNCHES WAR ON ISIS AFTER TERRORISTS "EXECUTE CHINESE HOSTAGE" [Fan Jinghu].
Finally FTLG.
versus
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > FRANCE + RUSSIA GOT IN THE WAY OF ATTEMPT BY BEIJING TO PAY HOSTAGE RANSOM | [SCMP] CHINA PLAN TO RESCUE ISLAMIC STATE HOSTAGE JINGHU "FOILED BY RUSSIAN AND FRENCH AIRSTRIKES".
[IsraelTimes] Facility will no longer be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium, as part of atomic agreement reached in July
The P5+1 world powers are set to help Iran redesign its Arak heavy-water reactor so that it can no longer produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The redesign is part of the nuclear deal signed with Tehran earlier this year by which Iran agreed to rein in its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The agreement for the redesign was signed separately this month by the foreign ministers of Iran, the US, the UK, La Belle France, Russia, China, Germany, and EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, according to Rooters citing Iranian state media.
According to the document, China "will participate in the redesign and the construction of the modernized reactor," while the US "will provide technical support and review of the modernized reactor design," Rooters reported, whereas La Belle France, the UK and Germany will "participate in design review and Russia will provide consultative services."
"The primary design of the Arak reactor will take one year. Then the (P5+1) working group has three months to approve it," the front man for Iran's atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, was quoted as telling state broadcaster IRIB.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last month that the work for the redesign could begin only once allegations on past military dimensions of the country's nuclear program had been settled. Iran denies that it sought to build nuclear weapons.
The ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to announce its conclusions on the past military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program by December 15, according to Rooters.
#1
The "redesign" should include filling it with cement
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/22/2015 9:35
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#2
There are times I think that if Obama had his way, he would give the Iranians a few working samples of nuclear weapons. Or maybe he could just bomb Tel Aviv himself.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 11:07
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#3
Who knows what's in those super-secret side deals Rambler. I'm fairly certain Obeano wouldn't have a problem with nuking Tel Aviv.
Two Bangladesh opposition leaders have been executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistain.
Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were hanged in Dhaka's central jail. They were convicted of genocide and rape - charges they denied.
Chowdhury has been an influential politician - he was elected MP six times. Mujahid was a top leader of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said they were hanged after President Abdul Hamid rejected appeals for clemency by the two men. However, family members have dismissed reports that the men had made any such appeals, which would have also required admissions of guilt.
"My father said he did not seek any mercy," Chowdhury's son, Humam Qauder Chowdhury, told AFP news agency, after meeting his father for the last time hours before his execution. "He has always said he's innocent."
The Supreme Court upheld their sentences earlier this month.
Chowdhury was the most big shot of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party to be sentenced for crimes against humanity. Two years ago, a special war crimes tribunal found him guilty of nine out of 23 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds. The prosecution said that his father's residence in Chittagong was turned into a torture cell during the war.
Mujahid was the secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... . He was sentenced to death in July 2013. He was accused of responsibility for the killings of a number of pro-independence Bangladeshi leaders and intellectuals. The tribunal found him guilty of five charges, including abduction and murder.
Bangladesh's government says the war crimes trials are necessary to bring murderers to justice. But the opposition says they have been used to persecute them and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups have said the tribunal does not meet international standards.
[Hurriyet] Turkish military jets have struck the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq and the country’s southeast, the military said in a written statement on Nov. 21.
The statement said 23 PKK targets, including shelters and supply points, in Zap, Avaşin-Baysan, Hakurk and KAndilareas in northern Iraq, were hit on Nov. 20 night by 12 F-16 jets and 10 F-4 2020s.
The air strikes were carried out between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., the army said.
It also said it hit PKK locations in Şırnak province in Turkey's southeast, including shelters and gun points.
[Rudaw] Turkish warplanes bombed on Saturday the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Qandil,
... the Qandil mountains are in Iraqi Kurdistan on the border with Iran...
on the outskirts of the Kurdistan region.
"At 1 am, eight Turkish warplanes were seen in the sky and later they bombed the Sidakan sub-district and villages of Enzi, Prdashal and Zargali the second after August attacks," said a Rudaw news hound from the scene. No casualties were reported.
In early August, Turkish fighter jets launched attacks against the PKK in the village of Zargali on the outskirts of Qandil Mountain, killing 10 civilians and two PKK guerrillas and injuring 11 others.
Since July 24, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has continued attacks against the PKK, in and outside Turkey, including the Kurdistan region's Qandil mountain.Turkey is starting a new offensive with "new strategies" against the PKK, including raids on the group in northern Iraq and Turkey's Kurdish southeast, Turkish media have reported.
Thus far the new strategies look exactly like the old strategies to my untrained eye...
Turkey's army has urged intelligence agencies and police to arrest those who support PKK in Kurdish areas. At a security meeting this month, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that weeks-long assaults on the PKK would continue during the winter.
The Turkish government and the PKK continued fighting after the ending of a supposed ceasefire.
[Ynet] Al Khalil radio station raided overnight and shuttered for six months after airing songs encouraging terror attacks against Israel; this is the second Hebron-area station to be shut down in current wave of violence.
[IsraelTimes] Thousands of Revolutionary Guards fighters storm a replica of wrong Jerusalem site in war games in Qom
Thousands of paramilitary forces from Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards on Friday held war games simulating the capture of the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli control, the Iranian media reported.
The reports said the forces stormed and liberated a replica of the mosque. They said that 120 brigades of Basij, the paramilitary unit of the Guards, occupied hypothetical enemy positions during Friday's exercise in the holy city of Qom in central Iran.
The mosque is situated on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the most holy place to Jews as the site of the Biblical temples, and the third-holiest to Muslims. The Paleostinians claim that Israel intends to change the decades-long status quo at the site, where non-Muslims can visit but not pray. Israel has repeatedly and vehemently denied the accusation, and accused Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... of incitement for making such comments.
The symbolic operations were backed up by Guards helicopters, drones and Tucano planes that bombed hypothetical enemy positions before ground troops captured the replica of the mosque set up at the top of a mountain.
In a common mistake, the Guards set up a replica of the gold-topped Dome of the Rock instead of the nearby mosque. Official photos showed one of the troops going to the top of the dome and waving an Iranian flag and a red-colored flag, a symbol of martyrdom.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guards' aerospace division, said his force deployed Shahed-129, or Witness-129, drones during the war games. The drone, unveiled in 2013, has a range of 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles), a 24-hour nonstop flight capability and can carry eight bombs or missiles.
Even so, the exercise appeared to be largely for show. Iranian commanders have not said how they would be able to deploy large numbers of forces against Israel, located 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away, or overcome the powerful and technologically advanced Israel Defense Forces.
Israel and Jordan agreed last month to install cameras on the Mount to monitor activities by Jewish and Muslim visitors to the holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, in a bid to calm tensions that have helped drive the recent escalation in Paleostinian attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The 37-acre (15-hectare) compound in Jerusalem's Old City is a frequent flash point and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict. It is the holiest site in Judaism, and was the home to the two biblical Jewish Temples. Muslims believe the site -- the third holiest in Islam -- is where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Iran, Israel's archenemy, frequently expresses solidarity with the Paleostinians and holds an annual "al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day" each year on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan.
#1
...It's at least technically possible for them to smuggle enough people and weapons in to make a run at the place - but then they'd be much like a dog who finally catches a car: what the hell will they do with it?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/22/2015 12:46
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#2
Well, they did have the red flag of martyrdom ...
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 16:42
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[AlAhram] The United States and its allies targeted ISIS with 20 air strikes in Iraq and 22 in Syria on Friday, the U.S. military said.
Six of the strikes in Iraq hit three Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group tactical units, a command and control facility and fighting positions near Ramadi, the military said.
The attacks in Syria included 13 strikes near Mar'a, hitting Islamic State tactical units, headquarters, and three Islamic State buildings. it added.
One arttack near Abu Kamal, Syria struck an ISIS oil collection point, the statement issued on Saturday said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/22/2015
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[4 views]
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#4
So let's see - 42 sorties time the 75% return without firing rate gives about 10 sorties.
BFD.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 16:43
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#5
JAG: "when we fly bombing runs over them, they drop their weapons. That makes them civilians!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/22/2015 17:20
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#6
Frank, and if they keep firing their weapons at you, they're probably just at a wedding and so are firing into the air in celebration. So they're civilians. Return to base.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/22/2015 17:50
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[AlAhram] Two men were kept from boarding a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia this week because they were speaking Arabic, one of several incidents reflecting public paranoia since the Paris attacks. Maher Khalil and Anas Ayyad were told by a gate agent at Midway Airport on Thursday that they wouldn't be allowed on the plane because a fellow passenger had overheard them speaking Arabic -- and was afraid to fly with them.
The two friends reportedly of Palestinian origin and in their late 20s, were eventually allowed on the Southwest flight, but only after being questioned by airport security and police, who Khalil told the local NBC television affiliate he had called himself. Once on board, Khalil said some passengers made him open a white box he was carrying -- filled, it turns out, with sweets.
"So I shared my baklava with them," he was quoted as saying.
Southwest Airlines told AFP in a statement the flight "departed a few minutes behind schedule" after airline employees "completed conversations with customers who approached us during the boarding process," without providing more details.
Similar incidents have reportedly taken place on other US domestic flights in the wake of last week's attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people, which were claimed by Islamic State extremists.
The terrorist group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq, has also threatened attacks in the US, including releasing a propaganda video singling out New York.
On Wednesday, six men identified by fellow passengers as being of Middle Eastern descent were removed from a Southwest flight bound for Houston at Chicago's Midway after they asked to switch seats, causing a commotion, the local ABC affiliate reported.
"Our crews were unable to resolve the situation without delaying the flight so we rebooked the customers on a later flight that same day," Southwest said in a statement.
The following day, a Spirit Airlines flight en route to Minneapolis returned to Fort Lauderdale after a young passenger "heard what she believed to be a conversation during which the subject made a remark about blowing up the plane," according to a police report quoted by the Sun Sentinel newspaper.
Once back on the ground, Yaniv Abotbul, a US citizen born and raised in Israel, was interrogated for five hours, his lawyer Mark Eiglarsh told a news conference. Abotbul was let go, with the police report quoted by the Sun Sentinel saying "intensive interviews revealed no actual threat was made to the flight and the incident appears to be a miscommunication from a juvenile witness".
His lawyer has demanded an apology both from the airline and authorities involved. Spirit Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
The same carrier was implicated in another incident, in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday. A woman and three men described by fellow passengers as being of Middle Eastern descent were escorted off a plane headed to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after a witness reported suspicious activity to the crew, the Baltimore Sun reported, citing police. In the end, police determined that one of the passengers had simply been watching a news report on a smartphone, according to the newspaper.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the individuals were racially profiled.
"These passengers were inconvenienced and forced to endure humiliating treatment and invasive questioning for no apparent substantial reason other than because their perceived ethnicity caused alarm in a fellow passenger," a spokeswoman told the newspaper.
Precisely. When we lived abroad, the trailing daughters and I spoke in the local language when outside the house, lest the locals be concerned that we were talking about them. This is even more of a concern when one's co-religionists are actively trying to kill large numbers of the locals.
#1
"Islamophobe flyer outfoxes
Two meek Arab boys bearing boxes!"
He'll feel like a heel
But the peril was real
If they'd shared baklava from their sockses.
[American Thinker] I spoke with two Germans, several weeks before the Paris Islamist attacks, on religion, ideology, and the future of Europe. I predicted to them that Germany will be consumed by Islam due to the hordes now invading. Both Germans were serenely, unperturbedly dismissive.
He is a captain of industry, middle-aged, brilliant. The world is his oyster, and he is in great command of industrial and financial trade. Married with children, he lives in London and guffaws at the idea of Islamist takeover on the mainland. She is a neuroscience graduate student, fully persuaded that religion is completely irrelevant and that these ripples of medievalism will surely die out as the Muslims settle down to the prosperity of economy.
Evidence, for both of my German friends, need not interfere with the exaltation complexes that blind them. The question is why.
Europe is convinced -- utterly -- of the superiority of its civilization. Europe today has no questions. It "knows" there's no God. It knows that socialism in a secular liberal democracy is supreme. It knows that atheistic science is the only science allowed to be done. It knows that wanton sex isn't just a right, but an entertainment industry orthogonal to morality. It knows that abortion is a shrug of the shoulders and that the bearing of children in marriage is a most improbable occurrence -- but when the Leonids return, it might be considered in an academic paper. The continent "knows" that religion is a thing of the past. And it knows that the march towards dissolution of personal sovereignty, national sovereignty, is an inevitable fact of evolution, evolution being the unquestionable god of all things.
And all that evidence-free fundamentalist secular-liberal certainty is becoming Europe's complete undoing.
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.
[Breitbart] Barack Obama and his administration do not care about Jews.
[Gulf Today] Philippine commandos killed an Abu Sayyaf leader linked to the kidnapping of Malaysian nationals from Sabah in a clash on the island province of Tawi-Tawi. The clash happened on Friday in a remote village in the town of Sitangkai while elite Navy commandos were conducting operations against the Abu Sayyaf.
In a related development, President Benigno Aquino apologized for the beheading of a Malaysian citizen as he ordered the military to step up its ongoing operations against the Abu Sayyaf and arrest the murderers. Aquino issued the apology in Kuala Lumpur to attend the annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations where the war on terror was one of the major topics on its agenda.
ISLAMABAD: 
The dead bodies of 22 Pakistani militants who were killed in Afghanistan have been returned to Pakistani. According to Azadi Radio’s affiliate Mashal Radio, the dead bodies were buried in their ancestral grave yard in Lower Dir area of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province on Friday.
Only three of these contain poison that will kill you. How many will you eat ? 
QUETTA - Iranian border guards fired four mortar shells into Pakistani territory in Chedgi area of Balochistan on Saturday. A senior official of Balochistan government confirmed that Iranian border guards violated the Pakistani frontiers. However, no loss of life was reported in the attack, he said.
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AlAhram] The number of new migrant arrivals in Sweden has dropped by a third since it reinstated border controls earlier this month, the country's migration agency said Saturday.
Two Bangladesh opposition leaders have been executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistain.
[IsraelTimes] Thousands of Revolutionary Guards fighters storm a replica of wrong Jerusalem site in war games in Qom
