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Top Pakistani extremist killed in 'shoot-out' with police
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
15:47 4 21:16 3dc [6] 
11:32 4 21:52 DarthVader [3]
11:10 6 23:44 jvalentour [4] 
08:52 2 13:32 AlanC [2]
02:08 5 12:30 Abu Uluque [3]
01:54 8 20:50 Shipman [3]
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Teenage Terrorist Files Complaint Against Cop Who Shot Her
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 15:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  he didn't shoot enough
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 17:52 Comments || Top||

#2  That's not funny, that's sick.








No, wait, hell yes that is funny.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Everyone is so damn tetchy these days. It's getting so you can't wave a scissors around in a threatening manner without some knucklehead putting a couple of rounds in you.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 20:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Pop ups on that page are annoying. Avoid it.
Posted by: 3dc || 11/27/2015 21:16 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Turkish protesters egg the Dutch consulate by mistake, thinking it was Russian...
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 11:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mistakes happen. The French embassy got bombed during the US raid on Qadaffi (due to exhaustion from having to fly around the Frogs) and the Chinese embassy got bombed during the Balkans campaign (might've been the China Cultural Radio broadcasts being mistaken for intel data feeds to the Serbs...)
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 12:01 Comments || Top||

#2  I vaguely recall a report from the 1990s where the USA bombed a Yugo factory under the assumption it produced munitions. That mistake was probably a public service.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/27/2015 16:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Guy goes into an auto parts store:
"I'd like a gas cap for a Yugo"
"Hokay, seems like a fair trade"

bah-dum-dum *rimshot*. I'll be here all week, try the veal and tip your waitress
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 17:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Boy they had egg on their faces....
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/27/2015 21:52 Comments || Top||


Italy seizes 847 shotguns on the way from Turkey to Belgium
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 11:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Turkey, huh?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/27/2015 11:40 Comments || Top||

#2  A shipment probably going to citizens wishing to defend themselves against terrorists. SEIZE them!
Posted by: Dino Dingle7763 || 11/27/2015 12:01 Comments || Top||

#3  From the article:

UPDATE: It's been reported this is a legal shipment that was missing paperwork. Bad timing!
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 12:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Guess I'm going to have to make my own from now on....
Posted by: Grealet Stalin3886 || 11/27/2015 16:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Stuff falls of a truck, paperwork blows away. Whadda ya gonna do?
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 16:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Turkey is well known to make many sporting guns. Shotguns are legal in EU, so Rantburgers get off you high horse.
Posted by: jvalentour || 11/27/2015 23:44 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Domestic Violence Call too late to save a Spider
Officers in Sydney went to the address after numerous calls were made claiming a woman could be heard screaming hysterically and a man yelling "I'm going to kill you, you're dead. Die! Die!"

Police: We had a report of a domestic and a women screaming, where is she?

Male: I don't know what you're talking about, I live alone.

Police: Come on mate, people clearly heard you yelling you were going to kill her and furniture getting thrown around the unit.

Police: Come on mate, what have you done to her?

Male: It was a spider.

Police: Sorry??

Male: It was a spider, a really big one!!
I looked for a tarantula photo, to no avail.
Police: What about the woman screaming?

Male: Yeah sorry that was me, I really, really hate spiders.
Or Indiana Jones, with all the spiders on his back.
The police report concluded: "After a very long pause, some laughter and a quick look in the unit to make sure there was no injured party (apart from the spider) we left."
Posted by: Bobby || 11/27/2015 08:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't blame him a bit. Considering that Sydney is the home range of the Funnel Web and Red Backed spiders as well as few other beasties.

I'd scream like a Sheila too matey! S'truth!
Posted by: Elmosing Choluns4713 || 11/27/2015 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  ditto EC, spent 3 months down under and if there's a deadly crawling, swimming, slithering or flying beastie they've got the biggest and baddest.

And, oh yeah, Platypuses are poisonous too!!!!
Posted by: AlanC || 11/27/2015 13:32 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russian Private Military Companies As Licensed Tool of Terror
[Inform Napalm] Inform Napalm international volunteer community presents an interesting review article written by Vyacheslav Gusarov, an information security expert of 'Information Resistance' group. We have created the infographics to visualize the data of the article.

The well-known military and political events started in Yugoslavia in the early '90s. And in the summer of 1992 the first Russian 'volunteers' went all by themselves into a new hot spot after the war in Transnistria. By someone's considerations, the local Slavs allegedly had to be defended.

Then the widely known Igor Strelkov-Girkin appeared among the group of 'patriots'.

Somehow, the Russian media (with tears in their eyes) presented this fact as the archetype of the 'Russian patriotism'.

However, you should wonder: how could it be possible in post-Soviet Russia to leave the country with combat equipment, and even take part in the hostilities?

The Russian writer Mikhail Polikarpov assures that several hundreds of 'Russian volunteers' continuously operated in Bosnia in 1992-1995, using the tactics of reconnaissance and sabotage groups. The fighters of 'Rubikon' security company from St. Petersburg formed the basis of that detachment.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 02:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is completely different from, say, Blackwater, et al.
Posted by: ed in texas || 11/27/2015 8:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Being ordered to be a volunteer has a long history in Russia...
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 10:15 Comments || Top||

#3  I would venture a guess that a poorly reported and poorly understood Moslem insurgency is at work in the Ukraine and that is why the Russians are on it.

To make an omelet or in this case Moslem expansion, you either bust a few heads or scramble a few eggs.

I am growing more and more p.o.ed about how we were so completely mislead about Chechnya by the media.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 11/27/2015 11:47 Comments || Top||

#4  The people who run Information Napalm are soldiers in the Ukrainian Army, part of the Maidan movement, and have long been providing their view of Russians, whether their information can be proven or not.

Not saying they're right or they're wrong. They just don't like Russians much, like most of Rantburg's readership.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 11:59 Comments || Top||

#5  I think I take a more pragmatic view of Russia. It's kind of like a bear. Keep a gun trained on him to keep him from getting too aggressive. Then leave him alone, stay away from him and you're not likely to have too much trouble. Poking him with a stick is not smart. And if he sees countries like Serbia and Syria as cubs, it's best not to mess with them either.

As for Putin, I recognize that he is a ruthless dictator with murderous instincts. But somehow he doesn't scare me anywhere near as much as Baraq Obama.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/27/2015 12:30 Comments || Top||


Europe
Swiss Region Imposes $9,800 Fines On Burqas, Aims At '€˜Islamist Fundamentalists'
[Daily Caller] Officials in the Swiss county of Ticino voted Monday to make the Muslim burqa illegal in public spaces, with fines of up to $9,800 for violations.

The local government wanted the law to also include other forms of headwear that cover the face, including masks worn by demonstrators and soccer hooligans, but the parliament voted to only ban the burqas and niqabs (face veil). This means covering your face in public is legal, as long as you don't do it with a burqa or niqab.

Giorgio Ghiringhelli, who drew up the proposal, said the result will send a message to "Islamist fundamentalists" in the country.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 01:54 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good for you Ticino! There's always some Scuzlims out there that will try to "Teach you a lesson," so get ready for that.
Posted by: Fairbanks || 11/27/2015 2:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Damn that's a creepy picture.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 2:57 Comments || Top||

#3  The burqa is not called for, rather the covering of the hair (as was followed by certain flavors of early to contemporary Christian sects).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 7:56 Comments || Top||

#4  they have a country, it is democratic

the people voted. no burqa for you

too bad so sad. I am glad

Vive la France also for upholding their secular law - no burqas in the public service or hijabs either. Secular government means if you work for the government you will not be advertising your religion

great and good on them
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 10:56 Comments || Top||

#5  backbones are springing up all over europe
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 10:56 Comments || Top||

#6  anon1, hope it spreads and doesn't fade away in a month.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/27/2015 13:28 Comments || Top||

#7  "Guerrillas are fish that swim in a sea of people"
Attrib. Mao Zedong-

Poison the sea, the fish go belly up.

I love how the jihadis poison their own operating environment!
Posted by: Nguard || 11/27/2015 13:42 Comments || Top||

#8  "Show the fish the toilet things clarify"

/ Curtis "the big fish" Lemay

Not really but hell, meh would gave said it.

/right wing truthy
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:50 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Palestinian killed, 5 hurt in West Bank clashes with IDF
[IsraelTimes] Incident at refugee camp near Hebron brings Paleostinian corpse count to three in 24 hours

Paleostinian man was killed and five others were maimed in a series of festivities with IDF forces in the West Bank on Thursday afternoon, according to Israeli and Paleostinian reports.

Khaled Jawabra, 20, was killed in a confrontation near the al-Aroub refugee camp, north of Hebron. He was the third Paleostinian killed in festivities with security forces on Thursday, according to the Paleostinians. Among that number is a man who tried to attack soldiers with a knife.

Near Hebron, five Paleostinians were maimed in festivities with a joint force of IDF soldiers and Border Police. According to the Paleostinian news agency Ma'an, the Israeli security forces were using live fire.

The Israel Police said in a statement that the Paleostinians threw rocks and a Molotov cocktail at the troops. The military did not report any casualties or damage, nor did it not confirm that soldiers fired on the protesting Paleostinians.

Earlier Thursday, a Paleostinian man tried to stab security forces at an army checkpoint outside the northern West Bank settlement of Tapuah, security officials said. The attacker was shot and killed during the attack, police said. No Israelis were maimed.

Overnight Wednesday, a 21-year-old Paleostinian was killed in festivities that erupted when IDF troops raided the village of Katana, searching for ammunition and arresting suspected terrorists. Paleostinians hurled Molotov cocktails and stones at the troops, the army said.

Yehya Taha was shot in the head by Israeli troops and died later, according to Paleostinian Health Ministry front man Mohammed Awawdeh.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 01:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yehya Taha was shot in the head by Israeli troops and died later

"Natural causes. Heart failure"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 10:21 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Russia says 'destroyed' Syria rebels in area where jet brought down
[AlAhram] Russia on Thursday said its forces had wiped out Syrian rebel groups operating in the area where one of its jets was brought down, unleashing a huge bombardment after rescuing a pilot.
The Turkmen were toast, then crumbs.
"As soon as our pilot was safe, Russian bombers and artillery of the Syrian government forces carried out massive strikes in the indicated area for an extended period," military official Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies, adding that "the bully boyz operating in that area and other mysterious groups were destroyed."
"A fine dust was subsequently discovered spread in a thin layer across several square miles of landscape.When tested, it was discovered to have a highly organic chemical composition."
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope they took BDA pics for Yippy
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 7:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Also sends a message to the Turk's puppets that big daddy won't be able to help you when the time comes. The Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions (or connections).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 8:02 Comments || Top||

#3  This will go down very badly with the the Turkish Mustafa in the street.
Posted by: phil_b || 11/27/2015 10:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Looking like Secretariat thar you commie bastard.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 13:27 Comments || Top||

#5  This calls for a press of the delicious button.

http://www.deliciousbutton.com/
Posted by: Mike N. || 11/27/2015 18:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Come home Mike we need you
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:04 Comments || Top||

#7  I doubt they were as efficient as they say they are.
Posted by: jvalentour || 11/27/2015 23:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
The Champ's Intel Scandal
[The Weekly Std] Barack Obama says he wants the truth. On November 21, the New York Times reported allegations that military intelligence officials provided the president with skewed assessments that minimized the threat from ISIS and overstated the success of U.S. efforts against the group. The Times story was an update of reporting from the Daily Beast earlier this fall.

"More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda's branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials," the Beast reported in September.

These analysts say their superiors regularly massaged pessimistic assessments to make them more upbeat before sending them up the chain of command. The analysts registered their grievances with the inspector general at the Pentagon, who is investigating their claims.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As with everything he does, this hurts all of US.
Posted by: newc || 11/27/2015 0:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Champ is simply 'running the clock out' and leaving the mess and failure for a follow-on administration.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 1:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Barack Obama says he wants the truth.

Hahahahahahahahahaha. He's a socialist/progressive/Marxist. You've got to be kidding? Right? /rhet question.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 7:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Intel assessments are read by more people than the President. They get supplied to Congress, planning and operational DOD units, etc.

I suspect the intel massaging is due to the same reasoning as controlling the bin Ladin documents - it's likely a combination of post-911 inter-IC turf wars and, more important, that the release of intel would be severely damaging - both domestic and internationally - were it to see the light of day.

The cynically interesting part is that it's taken toward the near-end of Mr. Obama's regime for the press to start 'noticing' something is wrong.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 10:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Daily Intel assessments provided the Prez at his morning briefing are also read at DofState. If the DofDefense assessments were dumbed down it is likely that State knew it and was partner to it.
Posted by: Spomong Bourbon8696 || 11/27/2015 10:39 Comments || Top||

#6  If the DofDefense assessments were dumbed down it is likely that State knew it and was partner to it.

It is more likely that any dumbing down was done by the National Security Council staff. Susan Rice has been in charge there since June, 2013; and Obama made Chuck Hagel (DOD) subordinate to her. All DOD reports to the President probably went through her before reaching Obama.

Al
Posted by: frozen al || 11/27/2015 11:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Look for the ValJar connection mentoring Rice. More interesting is the UBL raid docs and what may be in them about AQ and Iran support. If you want a nuke deal that benefits Iran and creates them as the regional hegemon you cannot let those docs out. Since ValJar is Iran's creature they have been suppressed against all common sense for the value they contain.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 11/27/2015 11:48 Comments || Top||

#8  If the DofDefense assessments were dumbed down it is likely that State knew it and was partner to it.

Possible, but not probable.

More probable would be "57 flavors" of intel assessments; one for 'public' consumption and one or more versions for various advisory bodies/NSC/inner circle.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 11:55 Comments || Top||

#9  One thing I don't understand. If ValJar/Baraq are all in for Iran, why are they so deadly serious about ousting Assad?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/27/2015 13:48 Comments || Top||

#10  If ValJar/Baraq are all in for Iran, why are they so deadly serious about ousting Assad?

you mean "Red Line" and sh*t? That "deadly serious"? How many strikes directly on Assad have we taken?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 13:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Frhozenat: The morning briefing book cannot be changed in the White House. It is delivered by the various agencies early in the AM. If Obama doesn't want to read it, which seems to be the case, then of course intel can be massaged by people like VJ.
Posted by: Spomong Bourbon8696 || 11/27/2015 14:10 Comments || Top||

#12  One thing I don't understand. If ValJar/Baraq are all in for Iran, why are they so deadly serious about ousting Assad?

Balancing act. The Iranians (who the Obama regime wants to normalize relations with) are backing Assad, are also supporting Ergodan and the Muslim Brotherhood AKP.

The Sunni Arabs, who want Assad gone and aren't too keen on the White House playing footsie with the Iranians, need to be placated lest they go over to the Russians.

The Russians, who are backing Assad, also have the Euros (who also want Assad gone) worked up over Ukraine and general muscle-flexing, while working a diplomatic charm offensive of sorts on particular European countries.

The Obama regime, for its part, wants to disengage from the Middle East (hence trying to set up both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranians as political counterweights to the Sauds and other Arabs) and from Europe in order to pivot to Asia. However it cannot easily do so, due to domestic political considerations that might seriously impinge on its post-presidential political plans.

That's just the basic stuff.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 14:12 Comments || Top||

#13  Pappy you are wrong. The daily briefing offers the Prez the best assessment possible of current events. It provides bulletized info, and some in-depth though truncated analysis. It has been vetted by the various agents and is supposed to be the best analysis possible at the moment. If the White House wants to use or reject analysis, it will. If there are disputes between principals , that is why the NSC -- under the leadership of someone honest with real foreign policy credentials, and not someone like VJ -- was created.
Posted by: Spomong Bourbon8696 || 11/27/2015 14:17 Comments || Top||

#14  The daily briefing offers the Prez the best assessment possible of current events. It provides bulletized info, and some in-depth though truncated analysis. It has been vetted by the various agents and is supposed to be the best analysis possible at the moment.

If the reports are correct, he's not reading the daily briefing. The best report in the world isn't any good if it doesn't get read. But I'll bet you knew that.

If the White House wants to use or reject analysis, it will. If there are disputes between principals , that is why the NSC -- under the leadership of someone honest with real foreign policy credentials, and not someone like VJ -- was created.

The word I'm getting is that the NSC a) hasn't met all that much formally, with most of it being confined to an inner circle and b) what NSC members that are working, are overstretched. I'd be happy to be wrong, but I don't think I am in this case.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 14:27 Comments || Top||

#15  One thing I don't understand. If ValJar/Baraq are all in for Iran, why are they so deadly serious about ousting Assad?


Who said they were serious? They provide just enough opposition that Russia and Iran _have_ to be in Syria, just where they want to be.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/27/2015 14:59 Comments || Top||

#16  That's just the basic stuff.

I have a Theorem:
For any two parties A and B, who at war in Syria, there is a third party C, whom A and B are united against in another context or theater.

Also, #13 needs a /sarc tag.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 15:16 Comments || Top||

#17  Also, #13 needs a /sarc tag.

No, he's right. The issues are:

a) It might be read by the President, and it might be accurate. But,

b) Products from the same intel sources are disseminated elsewhere.

c) The daily briefing may be accurate, but tainted intel may be reserved for dissemination purposes.

To put it in English: It probably wasn't the Oval Office that CENTCOM was trying to mislead.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 21:25 Comments || Top||

#18  The most likely + most dangerous potential for a US-involved major mil conflict lies ala CHINA in EAST ASIA-PACIFIC [WestPac], espec in support or defense of US Regional Allies, IMO not or notsomuch agz Russia + Putin.

As per #2, again whatever the Bammer as a dedicated, covert, Anti-US US OWG Globalist POTUS does NOT achieve by Jan 2017, any follow-on similar Anti-US US OWG Globalist POTUS Successor(s) will do.

THE BAMMER'S ANTI-US GLOBALIST SUCCESSOR(S) ADMINS MAY PROVE DE FACTO WORSE THAN HIS OWN, GIVEN THE HISTORICAL PENCHANT FOR AGENDAS OR CONSPIRACIES TO BE ACCOMPISHED IN PHASES, I.E. OVER SEVERAL OR MANY POTUS ADMINS.

IT IS DESIGNED OR INTENTIONED THAT WAY.

As a "Safe", now "Unitarian" US Politician, the Bammer may had put the US on the path of UNILATERAL OR STRATEGIC [Self] GEOPOL OR MILPOL RETREAT AS A SUPERPOWER - IT IS THE BAMMER'S GLOBALIST SUCCESSOR(S) THAT WILL FINISH WHAT WAS STARTED.

ORDINARY OR MAINSTREAM AMERIKA IS UNLIKELY TO BE TOLD, NOR TO COMPREHEND OR REALIZE, WHAT WAS DONE UNTIL MANY YEARS OR DECADES AFTER IT IS SO.

IOW, Mainstream America = Amerika is NOT going to know vee the Globies andor "Safe Politics" just "how much" or "how far", ...@etc. the US as a "Weak//Declining" Sole-Superpower-soon-to-Be-Just-One-of-Many-OWG-Co-Superpowers will be giving up in the name of US-LED/CREATED ANTI-US OWG-NWO + GLOBALISM.

BY + FOR THE SAME.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 22:39 Comments || Top||

#19  FYI tensions between CHINA + US Ally JAPAN are escalating.

While China continues its reclamation activities un-abated in the SCS, even as POTUS Obama sends USN Warships on patrol in same, China is now upping the ante + becom active in the East China Sea + ala Taiwan.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > JAPAN NAVY COMING TO SPRATLYS ALONG WID US.

RELATED TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > JAPAN READY TO PATROL IN SOUTH CHINA SEA: OFFICIALS [Japan DM].

* LUCIANNE > JAPAN DEPLOYING TROOPS TO EAST CHINA SEA [Ishigaki] AS CHINA TENSIONS ESCALATE.

* SAME > CHINA ON "HIGH ALERT" FOR JAPAN INTERVENTION IN SOUTH CHINA SEA | THE DIPLOMAT.

-------------

As for the Bammer + ISIS ...

* LUCIANNE > [Telegraph.UK] BARACK OBAMA'S PLAN TO DEFEAT THE ISIL DENOUNCED BY US INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS.

The Syrian refugees are belabeled by the Bammer Admin as the "New Pilgrims/Americans", after all, as per FREEREPUBLIC???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 23:04 Comments || Top||


Europe
Surge in French Police, Army Sign-ups after Paris Attacks
Good that the French spirit is not dead, as has been claimed. Train all who can handle it, to have an unorganized militia known and available during future excitements.
[AnNahar] La Belle France's emergency services and military have seen a surge of interest from young people keen to join up after watching the Gay Paree attacks unfold on television.

"During the attacks I saw all these emergency workers helping people voluntarily. I just felt powerless sitting in front of the TV and I said to myself that I wanted to help people as well," music student Simon Chaudemanche told AFP.

The police, fire brigade and armed forces have all reported a jump in young people asking about careers -- or like Chaudemanche, wanting to volunteer for a few months.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Aux armes !


Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes the frogs know. Thisn be their time, history will praise them, dawg willing, the English will write the history.

You are remember the phrase " a fire bell in the night" ? We are closing in on that moment at speeds that ?I would have laughed at 20 years ago.

Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:39 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
5 die in airstrikes near Raqqa
ARA News

ALEPPO – At least five children have been killed in an airstrike believed to be conducted by the international coalition’s forces on a school in the northeastern Syrian city of Raqqa, the major stronghold of the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS), activists reported on Thursday.

Speaking to ARA News in Raqqa, civil rights activist Anas Raqqawi reported that “nine civilians were killed, including five children, and 13 others were hardly injured in an airstrike on the Hetin primary school” in the ISIS de facto capital Raqqa.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a monitoring group documenting ISIS violations in Raqqa, released images showing large pieces of metal shrapnel from rockets.

“The area surrounding Hetin school was used by ISIS as a public square for punishments where the ISIS-linked Sharia Court punishes opponents,” Raqqawi said.

On Thursday, the group chopped off a man’s hand after being accused of robbery. On the same day, a woman was stoned to death in front of Hetin School for committing the “sin of adultery”, according to a statement by the Sharia Court.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  At least five children have been killed in an airstrike believed to be conducted by the international coalition’s forces on a "school"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  An 'Arc Light' is what is called for. Their tunnels and bunkers would be like tissue paper.
Sadly, it won't happen with this administration.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 11/27/2015 11:12 Comments || Top||

#3  drink up!
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 11:18 Comments || Top||

#4  According to Al Ahram:

The school, like others in Raqqa, has been taken over by ISIS.

In other words, it was being used to train up Lion Cubs in the skills of jihad, not the gentler arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 11:48 Comments || Top||

#5  But what about the bunnies and kitties!!
Posted by: AlanC || 11/27/2015 13:19 Comments || Top||

#6  I'd use the short-range attack Pickups for this mission. Ta hell with the expense sez I! You every seen a fully decked out F-150 dropped from 35,000 fetes with an indicated initial airspeed of 330 knots? You haven't? Why, back in the day, according to my cousin Steven, it was a common sight in the 'nam, course, but it was a long time ago, things were different then, pickups were made with American steel, you didn't mind the rattles because you knew your Union brothers had excellent, high paying low skilled jobs. One yours for the asking if you got home safely. The C-130(FO) was used for the dangerous mission, mostly to close the shipping channel on Haiaphong Harbour. Low and slow the C-130 would come in out of the dawn, lower the rear gate and roll out the F-150s, usually they were strippers with 3 on the tree, but on occasion a "Cleaveland" was dropped on a HVT (like 5 water buffalo). There are roumors that something called a "Ranchero" was used in the nascent SEAD mission. I dunno, it was a long time ago, things were different then.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 14:00 Comments || Top||

#7  "The children were busy in their peaceful classes (IEDs & decapitation techniques) when the bombs began to fall."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/27/2015 14:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Damn! Putin is blowing up Hiluxes again.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/27/2015 14:38 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
18 killed in Boko Haram attack in southeast Nigeria
[AlAhram] Eighteen people were killed and 100 homes torched in an attack in the dead of night by Nigeria's 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...
fighters on a village near southeastern Bosso, local authorities told AFP on Thursday.

"The toll is 18 dead, 11 hurt, almost 100 homes burned down" in the village of Wogom late Wednesday, the mayor of Bosso, Bako Mamadou, told AFP.

A humanitarian worker said the Islamists came from Nigeria and crossed the Komadougou Yobe river, the border between Niger and Nigeria.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Arabia
Yemeni govt ready for peace negotiations, sez PM
Khalid Bahah, Vice-President and Prime Minister of Yemen, has said his government was ready for a peace negotiations provided Houthi rebels and ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh are serious and sincere about implementing the UN Security Council resolutions, especially the resolution No 2216.

Bahah made these remarks while holding talks with US ambassador to Yemen, Matthew H.Tueller, at a meeting in Riyadh. According to the Yemeni official news agency SABA, Bahah underscored the keenness of the government to stop the war. The meeting also discussed the status of the current operations to recapture the city of Taiz.

SABA quoted the US ambassador as saying that his country was committed to supporting the legitimate Yemeni government.

Yemeni president's advisor Yaseen Makawi met the US ambassador and discussed with him the bilateral relations and latest developments in the light of the victories achieved by the national armed forces and the popular resistance against Houthi rebels. Makway underlined the importance of the role of the US in making UN resolutions binding on Houthi and Saleh militias.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Venezuela opposition politician killed
A regional opposition leader in Venezuela has been shot dead at a campaign rally less than two weeks before parliamentary elections.

The Democratic Action party says Luis Manuel Diaz was killed by a man who approached the stage after a public meeting in central Guarico state. Opposition leaders blamed militias supporting the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

President Nicolas Maduro denied this and said an inquiry had been launched.

"The interior ministry has strong indications that it was a clash between rival criminal gangs," said Mr Maduro.

Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, addressed opposition supporters alongside Mr Diaz shortly before the shooting.

The Democratic Action party leader, Henry Ramos Allup, nitially tweeted that Mr Diaz had been killed by gunmen who shot from a passing car. He later rectified and said the shots came from a gunmen who came close to the stage after the rally.

Mr Maduro responded to Mr Ramos Allup's comments by telling him to produce evidence to back up his accusations.

"We must not jump into conclusions," said the president. "And let us not accept any type of provocation!" he urged his supporters during a rally.

The head of Venezuela's Electoral Commission, Luis Emilio Rondon, has also expressed concern over recent incidents of violence. He called for a thorough investigation "to identify the perpetrators and tackle impunity".

Opposition politicians say their candidates have been attacked on numerous occasions in the past weeks. Miguel Pizarro, an opposition politician running for re-election in Caracas, said he was confronted by armed men who shot into the air in the neighbourhood of Petare on Sunday. Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles said he was attacked by a group of masked men in the town of Yare earlier this month. The government has denied any involvement in any of the attacks and accused the opposition of trying to provoke PSUV supporters.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "The interior ministry has strong indications that it was a clash between rival criminal gangs,"

So the party in power admits its a criminal gang.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 7:52 Comments || Top||


Europe
Berlin police arrest 2 terror suspects, raid mosque
[IsraelTimes] Berlin police say they are raiding a mosque after the arrest of two people suspected of belonging to an Islamist Death Eater group.

Police spokeswoman Patricia Braemer says the two suspects were tossed in the clink
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
before the raid of the mosque Thursday in the city's western neighborhood of Charlottenburg. She did not give any further details on the suspects or the raid because the search was still ongoing.

In September, Berlin police raided eight buildings after a months-long investigation into suspected Islamist Death Eaters involved in violent activities. Police said at the time there was no evidence that suspects had been involved in planning attacks in Germany.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Soddis: military option in Syria still viable
Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir said on Thursday that a military option in Syria was still viable and support for the opposition fighting to oust President Bashar Al Assad would continue. Speaking at a news conference with visiting Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, Jubeir also said Riyadh was in contact with various Syrian opposition groups about a potential meeting in the kingdom to unify their position ahead of upcoming peace talks in Vienna. Jubeir did not give a date for any meeting.

"The military option is still viable and the support to the Syrian opposition is still continuing," Jubeir told the news conference.

"If it (the conference) happens, its aim will be to unify the Syrian opposition and help them to come out with one vision so that it can play an active role in the talks to reach a peaceful solution that leads to the removal of Bashar Al Assad," he added.

International talks were held in Vienna earlier this month in which Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - laid out a plan including formal talks between the government and opposition by January 1.

Division in Syrian opposition ranks is often cited as one of many obstacles facing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Jubeir said it would not deal with any groups designated on any terrorism lists.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Morocco breaks up 'ISIS-linked terrorist cell'
[AlAhram] Moroccan security forces have broken up a "terrorist cell" linked to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) group and jugged
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
its three members, including a woman, the interior ministry said Thursday.

The cell, operating in the cities of Fez, Casablanca and Ouled Taima, followed "instructions from the terrorist group and was planning... attacks in the kingdom," a statement said.

This is the third time Morocco has announced the arrest of people affiliated with ISIS since the group carried out a bombing and shooting spree in Gay Paree on November 13 that left 130 people dead.

Moroccan intelligence helped put French Sherlocks on the trail of the Belgian jihadist suspected of orchestrating the attacks.

A Moroccan tip-off, along with other information, helped police track Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- a Belgian of Moroccan descent -- to an apartment block in a northern Gay Paree suburb, where he was killed in a raid last week.

Belgium has asked Morocco to share any intelligence it has to help track a key suspect in connection with the Gay Paree attacks.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
2 al Nusra fighters die near Aleppo
URFA – At least two militants of the al-Qaeda-linked group of Nusra Front were killed Thursday in clashes with Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the Kurdish-populated neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo, northern Syria, military sources reported.

The Media Centre of the YPG released Thursday a statement, of which ARA News received a copy, saying: “Al-Nusra terrorists have been randomly targeting the neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud with mortar shells since November 24.”

“The YPG and female fighters of the YPJ responded to the terror attacks with painful blows, killing at least two terrorists from the Nusra Front and destroying two armored vehicles in Shukef and Kastillo areas,” the statement added.

“The Kurdish units have cut-off the supply lines of the Nusra Front in response to their recent attacks on civilians in the Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud.”

“The clashes between the Kurdish forces and Nusra terrorists continued until Thursday midnight,” the YPG leadership said.

Last Tuesday, an informed source from the YPG told ARA News that militants from al-Nusra Front tried to progress towards the Kurdish neighborhood and shelled the area with dozens of mortar shells and ‘hell cannon’.

The YPG’s leadership pointed out that the shelling resulted in civilian casualties and material damage to the residential buildings.

Al-Nusra gunmen imposed blockade on the neighborhood after they cut off the Shukef and Kastillo highways in Aleppo.

Two weeks ago, al-Nusra had announced the start of the second phase of the battle for Aleppo. It aims at taking over areas held by the regime’s army and Kurdish forces.

Over the last two months, Syrian regime forces were able to regain several key towns in the southern countryside of Aleppo, including al-Widehi and Ibtin, but rebel fighters have succeeded to stop their advance and recaptured some points they have lost recently.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: al-Nusra


Africa Horn
The Threat from ‘Minnesota Men’
If you get your news from the headlines, you can be excused for thinking that “Minnesota men” pose a special risk of taking up the terrorist jihad at home and abroad. As the Wall Street Journal reported this past April, for example, “U.S. charges six Minnesota men with trying to join ISIS.”

The “Minnesota men” featured in such headlines are almost invariably drawn from Minnesota’s swelling population of Somali Muslim immigrants. The state—mostly the metropolitan Twin Cities area—is home to 35,000 such immigrants, the largest Somali population in North America.

Starting in the 1990s, the State Department directed thousands of refugees from Somalia’s civil war to Minnesota. As Kelly Riddell pointed out in the Washington Times this past February, in Minnesota these refugees “can take advantage of some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs.”

Riddell quoted Professor Ahmed Samatar of Macalester College in St. Paul: “Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state.” After a dip in 2008, the inflow of Somalis has continued unabated and augmented by Somalis from other states. If it takes a village, Minnesota has what it takes.

Unfortunately, according to a September report of the House Homeland Security Committee task force on combating terrorist and foreign fighter travel, Minnesota also leads the country in contributing foreign fighters to ISIS. Reviewing the public cases of more than 250 Americans who had traveled to join ISIS, the task force found that 26 percent of them came from Minnesota. When it comes to exports to ISIS, we’re number one.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  “can take advantage of some of America’s most taxpayer-onerous welfare and charity programs.”
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/27/2015 5:55 Comments || Top||

#2  People making FDRs internment program looking more rational everyday. Seasoned with big helpings of WTF allowing these miscreants to actually return to the community after doing time in the ME.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 7:50 Comments || Top||

#3  "Mohamed, Muhamad, and-- dirka!
We-- I wish to visit Amerka!"
"He finds it oppressive
To be where the rest live.
Fair welcome, three men in a burka!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/27/2015 13:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Lots of ISIS guys named Ole and Sven
Posted by: Richard AUbrey || 11/27/2015 14:45 Comments || Top||

#5  I live in Minnesota. I stay as far away from the Twin Cities as possible. Primarily for it's lack of parking, but also for it's high terrorist and sympathizer density.

Thanks to weak leadership and virtue signalling being the numbers one and two factor in election success here, this will get worse before it gets better.
Posted by: Mike N. || 11/27/2015 14:54 Comments || Top||

#6  I take it MN is NOT KEVIN-COSTNER'S "FIELD OF DREAMS" ANYMORE???

The movie's great community fight scene on the soundness of converting arable farmland into a private baseball park seems "quaint" in the 21st century.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 19:58 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Bahrain jails reporter on terrorism charges
Sayed Ahmed Al Mousawi was accused of giving mobile phone SIM cards to demonstrators and taking photographs of anti-government protests, RSF reported.
Bahrain this week jailed a freelance photographer for 10 years and stripped him of his nationality after convicting him of terrorism, the media rights group Reporters sans Frontiers said on Tuesday.

Sayed Ahmed Al Mousawi was accused of giving mobile phone SIM cards to demonstrators and taking photographs of anti-government protests, RSF reported.

A report on Bahrain News Agency late on Monday quoted Prosecution Advocate General Ahmed Al Hammadi as saying the High Court had sentenced three defendants to 15 years in prison and three to 10 years for setting up and joining a terrorist cell.

None of those sentenced were named and it was not clear if Mousawi was among them.

It quoted him as saying they had trained to make explosives, conducted illegal rallies, possessed petrol bombs, committed forgery for the purpose of terrorism and attempted murder in 2013 and 2014.

In a separate case reviewed by the same court, a judge sentenced 16 defendants to 15 years in prison and three others to 10 years, BNA quoted Hammadi as saying.

On November 16, Bahrain jailed 12 people and revoked their citizenship for carrying out bomb attacks on police in 2013 and 2014, it said.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Baloch separatists release video of Allah Nazar claiming he's alive
ISLAMABAD: Baloch separatists released a video on Thursday purporting to show that their leader Allah Nazar, who the government believed it had killed in a raid in August, was alive and leading the insurgency.

The violent campaign in Balochistan poses a threat to China's planned $46 billion Pakistani economic corridor (CPEC), which culminates in the province's Gwadar port.

The date of the video released by the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) could not be independently verified, but BLF spokesman Miran Baloch said it was shot in Balochistan in November.

Nazar who appeared in the video was seated next to an automatic rifle and wearing an ammunition belt.

Two independent sources who have had contact with Nazar, who has been in hiding for years, confirmed it was him in the video, although they did not know when it was filmed.

The BLF is one of several separatist groups that have been fighting against government forces in mineral-rich Balochistan province for almost a decade.

"We have not seen the video so we cannot comment on it," said Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti.

In September, Bugti said the government believed Nazar had been killed in a military operation in Awaran district in August.

Nazar, a doctor from the provincial capital of Quetta, is the most prominent Baloch separatist leader still fighting in the country. Others remain in exile, including Brahmdagh Bugti, who in August said he was ready to negotiate with the government.

Balochistan is the poorest and least developed province in the country, and separatists have been demanding an end to what they say is the exploitation of its gas and mineral resources by other parts of Pakistan.

Separatist militants have carried out frequent kidnappings and bombings against government and security targets, including gas pipelines and other infrastructure. Meanwhile, human rights groups allege the state has carried out a campaign of kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial killings of suspected separatists.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Russian agency: S-400 missiles already deployed in Syria
[Ynet] Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency is reporting that Russia has already deployed long-range air defense missiles at its base in Syria.

Moscow announced the move on Wednesday, saying the missiles would help destroy any target that may threaten its warplanes there following the downing of a Russian military jet by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
RIA Novosti on Thursday quoted its own news hound on the ground saying as S-400 missiles have been delivered.

The S-400s are based in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, just 50 kilometers (30 miles) away from the border with Turkey and are capable of striking targets within a 400-kilometer (250-mile) range with deadly precision.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Besides the MOSKVA battlecruiser, 150,000 Russian Soldats, circa 12 new SU-24, -30 Escort + Strike-Fighters, 25 Strategic or Heavy Bombers to allegedly be permanently based in Syria, + ADMIRAL GORSHKOV in the Caspian Sea.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 22:14 Comments || Top||


Syrian regulars recapture strategic point in Latakia
QAMISHLI – Backed by a Russian air cover, Syrian army forces regained Thursday a strategic hill in Jebel al-Turkman (Mount Turkmen) in Lattakia, western Syria, after being engaged in fierce battles with the armed opposition factions in the area, local activists reported.

Speaking to ARA News in Latakia, media activist Mohammed Muwafaq said the government forces were able to recapture the key hill of al-Zahiya from opposition fighters who operate in the Syrian coastal region.

“Rebels pose a threat to the Russian military presence in the coastal region. This is why the pro-regime forces strive to regain it entirely with the support of Russian warplanes,” Muwafaq reported.

The source pointed out that the Syrian army made a “significant progress” towards the coastal areas held by the rebels, after intensifying their military operations in Latakia.

“Russia uses sophisticated missiles and internationally banned bombs against local rebels in a bid to reduce their advance towards the Mediterranean Sea,” he stressed.

“It (Russia) does this mainly to prevent any possible attacks on its interests in the coastal region,” Muwafaq said.

Russia has built strategic bases in the coastal region of Syria. It recently brought more sophisticated anti-plane missiles to these bases, according to Syrian military officials.

Russian politicians reiterate they do not back Assad, but rather they defend their interests in Syria’s coastal region.

“Turkey has mixed the cards in the region after downing the Russian plane,” a Syrian official told ARA News on the condition of anonymity, pointing out “Turkey is currently trying to support the armed Turkmen factions in Latakia’s mountainous area, which raises concerns of the Syrian regime and Russia.”

“Fighting will definitely escalate in the coming days in the region.”

Rebel groups in Jebel al-Turkman area in the countryside of Latakia have been engaged in fierce battles with the regime forces and allied militias for weeks.

Subsequent to a series of intense fighting with al-Nusra and other rebel factions, the Syrian army forces and allies imposed full control over the al-Zahiya hill. Rebels were forced to retreat northeast towards the Jebel al-Akrad (Kurds mountain), which borders Jebel al-Turkman.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Afghanistan
9 Talibunnies die in Takhar province
At least nine Taliban militants including three senior commanders of the group have been killed during clashes with the Afghan security forces in northeastern Takhar province of Afghanistan.

According to the local government officials, the Taliban militants were killed in Khwaja Bahauddin district during the gun battle which started few days earlier.

Provincial governor spokesman Sanatullah Temor confirmed that three commanders of the Taliban militants were killed and the group’s shadow district governor was injured during the clashes.

Meanwhile, a police official in Takhar said the Afghan security forces have started clearing operations to recapture parts of Darqad district which fell to Taliban control earlier.

He said at least four members of the Afghan national police sustained injuries during the operations.

The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.
Takhar is among the relatively peaceful provinces in northeastern Afghanistan however the anti-government armed militants have recently increased their insurgency activities in parts it during the recent months.

Takhar is surrounded by two relatively volatile provinces, Badakhshan in the east and Kunduz in the west where Taliban militants are actively operating and frequently carry out insurgency activities in their various districts.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


4 ISIS terrorists arrested from capital Kabul
At least four militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group have been arrested from Paghman district of Kabul. The Afghan Intelligence – National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the suspects were arrested during a special military operation conducted by intelligence operatives.

A statement by NDS said the detained militants have been identified as Nisar Ahmad, Nabullah, Obaidullah and Syed Sohail who were recruited by ISIS commander Rafiullah.

The statement further added that Rafiullah is leading a group of 20 militants in Achin district of eastern Nangarhar province.

NDS also added that the group was looking to assassinate police commander Sher Agha by detonating an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted under a culvert in Zarashkh area of Paghman.

The detained militants have confessed that they were affiliated with the ISIS terrorist group, NDS said.

This is the first time the Afghan security forces have arrested militants affiliated with the ISIS terrorist group from capital Kabul.

The militants are arrested amid concerns that the terror group is expanding its activities in various parts of the country by establishing foothold in remote parts of the volatile provinces including the eastern Nangarhar.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
PA security forces said to foil ‘over a hundred’ attacks
Credit where due. The PA understands that things would be much worse if Israel took over terror prevention.
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian officials warn that measures proposed by IDF are insufficient to stop violence without diplomatic progress

The Paleostinian Authority has thwarted dozens of planned stabbing attacks on Israelis by young Paleostinian men and women over the last few month, sources from both sides told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

The Paleostinian sources claimed more than 100 attacks have been foiled by the PA security apparatus since October 1. If true, the claim means that the number of attacks on Israelis, of which there have been fewer than 100 to date, would have been more than doubled.

The attacks foiled were at different stages of preparation; in many cases, youths or teenagers were caught after posting on social media that they were preparing to carry out attacks against Jews and were willing to die in the process, the sources said. The Paleostinian security agencies tracked the would-be attackers through the internet and then either jugged
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
them or detained them, while asking their families to be on the alert for any attack attempts.

Paleostinian security forces or Israeli intelligence have a limited or sometimes nonexistent window in which to intercept such attacks, as the youths usually set out just moments after writing a message of this nature. In one incident in Hebron, a Paleostinian teen finished writing a farewell message to his friends on his Facebook page and immediately left the internet café from which he was posting, walked several hundred meters to a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs and tried to stab IDF soldiers there.

Paleostinian agencies are also continuing their routine activities, including the confiscation of illegally held weapons and their transfer to Israel, as well as arresting Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
activists, the Israeli and Paleostinian sources said. The Hamas website said Thursday that Paleostinian intelligence and preventative security forces had arrested four Paleostinians due to their "political affiliation" -- a euphemism for membership in these groups.

On Wednesday, a senior IDF officer said the army had recommended that the government supply PA security forces with more weapons and even armored vehicles to bolster them in their fight against terrorism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified shortly afterwards that he was not planning to act on the recommendation.

Senior Paleostinian Authority officials told The Times of Israel that the PA security forces' ability to act was diminishing, and warned that unless there were some progress on the diplomatic front, the time would come when the PA would be unable to intercept attacks. The officials said that the list of steps proposed by the IDF was insufficient, and that a significant diplomatic push was necessary to stop the escalation in violence.

Netanyahu has repeatedly blamed the PA, including its President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
, for inciting the current upsurge in Paleostinian terror attacks on Israelis, by falsely claiming that Israel is planning to change the status quo regarding access to the contested Temple Mount.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Paper Recounts Rescue of Downed Russian Pilot
[AnNahar] Syrian special forces launched an operation "behind enemy lines" to rescue the surviving crew member of a Russian warplane downed by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, Syria's Al-Watan newspaper reported on Thursday.

"Eleven members of an elite unit of the air force intelligence service and a (Russian-language) translator, led by an officer, infiltrated 3.5 kilometers (two miles) behind enemy lines in the Al-Atira region on Tuesday and recovered the airman," the pro-government newspaper said.

Al-Atira is an area of Latakia province, around 12 kilometers (eight miles) from the border with Turkey.

Syrian forces launched the operation after Turkey downed the Russian jet on Tuesday morning, forcing the two-man crew to eject over rebel-held territory. According to Al-Watan, the team set out in late morning from the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia, where Russian forces are concentrated.

The plane's pilot had already been killed by rebel fire as he parachuted down but a Russian drone spotted navigator Konstantin Murakhtin in hiding on the ground. The "Russian drone communicated to Syrian special forces the navigator's location, as well as where the terrorist groups were," Al-Watan said, referring to the rebels.

"He was spotted thanks to his GPS. It was a race against time because the hard boyz were also looking for him."

The paper said the rescue team clashed with rebels during the 12-hour operation, but were able to recover Murakhtin, who was injured in the leg.

Speaking to Russian state media on Wednesday, the navigator gave no details of his rescue, which the Russian military said involved its own special forces working alongside Syrian troops.

Russia has not released the name of the slain pilot, although President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
has said he will posthumously be given Russia's highest award for valor, the Hero of Russia medal.

His body is believed to still be in the hands of rebel forces in Latakia province.

Murakhtin is also to be decorated along with soldiers involved in the rescue operation, including one Moscow has said was killed when his Mi-8 helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing after being hit by gunfire.
The Times of Israel adds:
An Iranian news agency claims that General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations wing, is behind the rescue of the Russian pilot downed in Syria.

Soleimani was reported lightly injured earlier this week near Aleppo.

After the pilot was downed by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
on Tuesday, "credible information was obtained that a number of special Turkish units had been sent to the scene to take the Russian pilot captive to blackmail Russia later," the semi-official Fars News Agency reports, based on a report in the Persian-language version of the Russian Sputnik news agency that quotes an unnamed Syrian officer.
Unwise if true, interesting if false. I wonder which it is?
"While the Russians were planning for another operation to free the pilot immediately, General Soleimani contacted them and proposed them that a special task force unit be formed of Hezbollah's special forces and Syrian commandos who have been trained by Iran and are fully familiar with the geographical situation of the region to be tasked with the ground operations and Russia provide them with air cover and satellite intelligence."

The alleged operation to rescue the Russian pilot was carried out by eight Hezbollah fighters and 18 Syrian commandos and covered by Russian satellites and air force. The team "saved the pilot after infiltrating 6 kilometers behind the enemy lines, killing the holy warriors operating in there and destroying their hi-tech equipment," it says.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Um, smells like down on the farm Friday.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:30 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Top Pakistani extremist killed in 'shoot-out' with police
[AlAhram] A top member of a Pak Sunni bad boy group that has been behind numerous bloody attacks on minority Shiite Muslims has been killed in a shoot-out with police, officials said on Thursday.

Haroon Bhatti, a senior member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
(LeJ), was incarcerated
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
with the help of Interpol last month in Dubai and brought to Pakistain.

"Bhatti was being interrogated and during the course of interrogation, the police raided a compound of snuffies Wednesday night" in the eastern city of Lahore, senior local police official Omar Virk told AFP.

He said the Lions of Islam opened fire on the police from the compound.

Bhatti, who had identified the compound for police, had accompanied them on the raid, he said, adding that the bad boy and three other Lions of Islam were killed inside the compound "in the exchange of fire".

So-called "encounter" killings like Thursday's incident have long aroused suspicion among rights activists in Pakistain, who accuse the authorities of using them as a means of disposing of troublesome Lions of Islam and criminals without going through the courts.

Pakistain's legal system is notoriously slow and relies heavily on witness testimony rather than scene of the crime evidence.

Cases against Lions of Islam affiliated with groups like LeJ often collapse because there is little protection from intimidation for judges or witnesses.

LeJ has grabbed credit for some of the most brazen attacks on Shiites in Pakistain's recent history, including a January 2013 bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta that killed over a hundred members of the Shiite Hazara minority group.

In February 2013, LeJ grabbed credit for another attack in the same neighbourhood that killed around 80 members from the Hazara community.

Authorities had also been accused of quietly tolerating LeJ until July, when the organization's leadership was wiped out in a battle with police in the eastern city of Lahore.

The group remains active, according to experts.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US soldiers arrive in Syria to train Kurds
[AlAhram] US soldiers are in Kobane, the town in northern Syria nearly destroyed in fierce fighting with 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....
(ISIS) group, to train Kurdish forces to battle the jihadists, Kurdish sources said Thursday.

Mustapha Abdi, an activist in the town on the Turkish border, told AFP the American instructors had arrived "in recent hours" in what is the first official deployment of US ground troops in Syria.

A source with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) said the Americans would help plan offensives against two Syrian cities held by ISIS -- Jarablus and the jihadists' Syrian "capital", Raqa.

At the same time, they would have a role in coordinating with the Kurds and their Arab and Syriac Christian allies on the ground air strikes on ISIS by the US-led coalition, the YPG source said.

Abdi said that the troops who had arrived were a "first group of instructors" who would train the Kurds.

There was no immediate information on how many of them had arrived or to what branch, or branches, of the military they belong.

The news comes after Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama
We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us...
's special envoy to the coalition, said Sunday that US forces would be arriving on the ground "very soon".

At the end of October, Obama authorised the deployment of 50 special operations troops to Syria, and McGurk said their job would be to "organise" local forces.

A key objective will be to "isolate" Raqa, he said.

The alliance of local fighters has already retaken more than 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) from ISIS and killed around 300 ISIS fighters, McGurk said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  Trainers implies weapons for the Kurds.

That's going to piss the Turk.
Posted by: phil_b || 11/27/2015 11:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Trainers implies weapons for the Kurds.

Not necessarily, or if so, necessarily US-supplied.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 11:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Germany has been wonderful about supplying the Kurds with weapons and training, and is talking about increasing both.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 12:27 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghan president sacks security officials over fall of Kunduz
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday dismissed national security agency officials who he said had neglected their duty to defend the northern city of Kunduz, which Taleban militants briefly captured in September.
Enforcing accountability or blocking blame?
The Taleban's seizure of the city was a major setback for the government, and prompted Washington to prolong the 14-year-old US military engagement in Afghanistan.

Government forces wrested back control of the city after days of fighting in which a US air strike destroyed a hospital run by the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid group, killing 30 people.

"There was a lack of unified command, and even though there were many Afghan troops in Kunduz, we failed," Ghani said in a speech in Kunduz, an important trade gateway to Central Asia.

Ghani said the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the intelligence agency, had not been successful. The agency's provincial chief was among those dismissed, Ghani's office said.

"I have issued an order to dismiss all NDS personnel who neglected their duties," he said to cheers from the crowd. He did not specify how many officials would be removed, but said some would be prosecuted under the military code and some dismissed.
But it'll be someone, yewbetcha...
Afghan investigators, led by a former NDS chief, had earlier blamed leadership failings for the Taleban's capture of Kunduz. The investigative team did not single out military or government officials for blame, but proposed reforming the National Security Council, a body headed by the president that oversees national security.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Iraq
ISIS mutilates 70 of its own in Ninevah
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A source in Nineveh province said on Thursday, that the ISIS has cut off the ears of 70 of its elements in Nineveh, because of cowardice and leaving the fighting fronts.
As soon as they wanted to leave they became not-their people.
The source said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “The so-called ISIS legitimate judge issued, today, a decision to cut the ears of 70 ISIS elements in Nineveh, because of fleeing from the battlefield and leaving the front lines,” noting that, “most of the punished elements were local residents who joined the organization during the current year.
Joined, got the benefits, now that the bombers are overhead they want to leave? Lucky they didn't lose a hand or worse as thieves and traitors.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  Only oe ear? Then bullfighter's job was only fair
Posted by: JFM || 11/27/2015 11:05 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
AKP vows ‘meaningful support’ for Syrian Turkmens will continue
Commence the special pleading!
[Hurriyet] A senior member of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has underlined the government's determination to supply "meaningful and qualitative" support to the Turkmens in Syria that will ensure their "material and moral security."

"Everybody should know that Turkey's support for the Turkmens is meaningful and qualitative," Ömer Celik, a spokesperson for the AKP, told news hounds late on Nov. 25.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Won't Putin's planes be taking care of all future Turkmen supply convoys?
Posted by: 3dc || 11/27/2015 12:28 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Transporter of Bourj Barajneh Bombers Killed in Syria
[AnNahar] The man who transported the Bourj al-Barajneh jacket wallahs to Leb was killed in an ambush by the Syrian army and Hizbullah
...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
fighters in Syria, reports said.

"The transporter of the suicide bombers was killed in an operation carried out by the Syrian security apparatus and Hizbullah inside Syria's territory," al-Manar TV confirmed.

Media reports said the assailant is known as Abdul Salam Abdul Razzaq al-Hindawi.

LBCI said that Hindawi was ambushed in an area that falls under the power of 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 in Reef Homs.

He is one of the main figures who coordinate and transport suicide bombers from the Syrian al-Raqqa to Leb, it added.

On November 12, two suicide kabooms rocked a busy shopping street in Beirut's southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, killing 43 people and wounding over 239 others.

The bad boy Islamic State group claimed the attack.

Security measures were intensified afterward and police were able to dismantle terror cells and arrest several Islamic State members involved in planning, executing, transporting the explosives and suicide bombers to Leb.

On Wednesday, State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged 26 people with belonging to the IS bad boy group among them are 13 detainees who are linked to the bombing.

The suspects are charged with receiving orders from IS "prince" Abou al-Walid al-Souri and with planning to carry out terrorist attacks and bombings in various Lebanese regions.

In addition, they were charged with transporting kaboom, explosive vests, weapons, and ammunition and hiding them in various apartments in Beirut and the North and transporting suicide bombers and recruiting members for the IS.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Germany 'to Send Tornado Reconnaissance Jets' to Fight IS in Syria
[AnNahar] Germany plans to send Tornado reconnaissance jets to support the fight against 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 in Syria, the defense front man of Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
's conservatives said Thursday.

A day after Merkel pledged in Gay Paree to "soon" decide how to help battle the IS group in Syria, she met cabinet ministers in charge of security ahead of afternoon meetings of the major parties' parliamentary groups.

"Germany will play a more active role than before," said the defense policy front man of her conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Henning Otte, in a statement.

While the government had not yet issued a statement, Otte said Germany would go beyond its current arms supplies and training to Iraqi Kurdish forces combating the IS.

"We are not only strengthening the training mission in northern Iraq, but will step up our commitment in the fight against IS terror, among other things with RECCE reconnaissance Tornados," he said.

The parliamentary groups of Merkel's conservatives as well as of her coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats, were to meet from 1600 GMT to discuss how to support La Belle France in the battle against IS.

Post-war Germany has been traditionally reluctant to send troops abroad, although it has joined U.N.-mandated missions in the Balkans and elsewhere, and the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
coalition in Afghanistan.

Germany has not taken part in air strikes against the IS in Syria and Iraq flown by U.S. and French aircraft.

Otte said that "the IS can only be defeated militarily, therefore no idea must be ruled out as we engage in the fight against Islamist terrorism".

"Islamist terrorism is a threat to Germany and to world peace. Together with La Belle France and all other countries that oppose Islamist terror, we will provide everything necessary to the battle."

He added that all requests by the alliance against IS and by La Belle France "must be examined with an open mind".

Germany sent fighter aircraft for reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  The UK is repor giving full military support to NATO ally Turkey in the aftermath of the Russian jet shootdown.

Lest we fergit, thats ALLEGED PRO-ISIS = ISIS-SUPPORTING, FUNDING, ARMING TURKEY.

Bomber Harris versus Hermann Goering redux???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 22:18 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Brit PM Cameron sez Kurds are their forces
(IraqiNews.com) Erbil – British Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Thursday, that the ISIS has become a threat to the world, stressing that the Peshmerga is his ground forces in Iraq.

Cameron said in a speech before the British Parliament, followed up by Iraqinews.com, “The Peshmerga are our ground forces in Iraq,” stressing “the need to support the Kurdish forces in the war against ISIS”.

Cameron added, “ISIS become a threat to the entire world, and all of us should face it,” pointing out to “the need to dry ISIS financial resources.”
So their boots on the ground are worn on someone else's feet? Golly. Still, providing the Kurds with money, training, and materiel has proven very cost-effective thus far.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Federal minister escapes attack on life in Bannu
BANNU: Federal Minister Akram Khan Durrani narrowly escaped an attack on his life after an improvised explosive device hit his convoy in Bannu on Thursday, killing two policemen.

The Station House Officer (SHO) of Bakakhel police station said that Akram Khan Durrani, a JUI-F stalwart and the federal minister for Housing and Works, was on his way to Bannu after holding a political rally in Bakakhel area when his convoy came under attack. “Five more people were injured in the blast but the minister remained unhurt,” confirmed the SHO.

Security forces reached the blast site soon after the attack and cordoned off the area, while the injured were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital in Bannu.

Police said the killed were identified as Ehsan s/o Ghulam Daud and Arif s/o Ejaz. The injured were identified as Abid Khan, driver of an ambulance, Shireen Khan, tubewell operator, and Abdul Rauf dispenser.

This was the first such attack on Durrani. However, party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has been previously targeted thrice in suicide attacks.

Last year, the JUI-F chief survived a suicide attack on his convoy in Quetta but an activist of his party was killed and 22 others wounded.

Back in October, a similar IED blast killed a tribal leader Syed Ali in Nullah Tochi area of the district. Syed Ali and his son were passing by the area in a vehicle when a remote-controlled IED detonated.

President Mamnoon Hussain strongly condemned attack on the convoy of Durrani.

In a statement, the president said a decisive action was being taken to overcome the unrest despite cowardly attacks by the terrorists. He prayed for forgiveness of those martyred in the attack and courage for the bereaved families to bear the loss with fortitude.

He also directed the authorities concerned to provide best possible medical facilities for treatment of the injured persons.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also strongly condemned the attack. The prime minister, who is in Malta to represent Pakistan at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, also expressed sorrow over the death of two men in the attack.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria: The world's most contested airspace
[Ynet] Fourteen air forces operate in the congested airspace above Syria, a factor which has given rise to regional challenges, and may possibly lead to more festivities and border violations.
Lots of videos at the link.
The downing of a Russian Su-24 fighter bomber by Turkish Air Force F-16's adjacent to the Turkish Syrian border on Tuesday provided yet another example of the increasing complexity which has emerged as a result of the sheer number of combat aircraft operating above the failing state.

The growing presence of foreign combat aircraft in Syrian airspace has created serious complications for regional air forces, which previously only had to contend with a bruised but not beaten Syrian Air Force.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
TTP commander Sajna killed in drone strike
KARACHI: Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Khan Saeed, also known as Sajna, was reported killed in a United States (US) drone strike in Afghanistan, according to a New York Times report.

At least 12 other militants were killed and 20 had been wounded in the drone strike, the NYT quoted a Pakistani intelligence official as saying. The strike occurred in the Damma region in Khost Province, near Shahadianu Patala, a Pakistani town in North Waziristan, the intelligence officials said.

The report said the death of Sajna was confirmed by another Pakistani intelligence official on the condition of anonymity.

Local elders claimed the drone strikes took place during a meeting called to resolve differences between various factions of the Taliban.

The claims, however, have not yet been independently verified. Tracking of drone strikes in Afghanistan is patchy since many of them take place in remote regions. There has also been no comment on the matter as yet from American officials, who do not typically comment publicly on drone strikes.

The death has not yet been denied so far by the Mehsud faction of the TTP which Sajna heads. Sajna had publicly rejected the TTP’s central leader Mullah Fazlullah in 2014, saying his own faction would continue fighting by itself, the NYT reported.

A Peshawar-based military official told the NYT that Sajna was a leading figure of the TTP and that both Pakistani and American security forces were after him for a long time.

If the commander’s death is confirmed, “it would certainly be a big blow to the Taliban, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” said a Pakistani Taliban commander who gave an interview by phone on the condition that his name not be used.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
IDF confiscates 8 Palestinian buses in Nablus
One of those 10% efforts that gives 90% results. Read on, dear Reader.
[IsraelTimes] Army says vehicles were being used to transfer demonstrators to festivities with troops at West Bank checkpoints

Israeli forces confiscated eight Paleostinian public transportation buses early Thursday morning in the West Bank city of Nablus, Israel Radio reported.

The army reportedly told Paleostinians the buses were taken because they were being used to transport demonstrators to festivities at checkpoints with Israeli troops.

The buses, reported to belong to the Al-Tamimi company, were mainly used on the Nablus-Ramallah route as well as for routes within Nablus, the Paleostinian news agency Ma'an reported.

Ma'an said that the buses had been taken to an IDF base south of Nablus, where they would be held "until further notice."

Also Thursday, a Paleostinian man was killed by IDF fire during festivities with Israeli troops near the West Bank village of Qatana, north of Jerusalem, Paleostinian officials said. Paleostinians say Yahya Yasri Taha was the hundredth Paleostinian killed by Israel in the recent escalation of violence, which began at the beginning of October.

That figure includes Paleostinian gunnies shot by Israeli security forces as they carried out or tried to carry out attacks. More than 20 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed by Paleostinian assailants since October 1.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "In Nablus, they've messed up our busing
To hobble our rush to the fussing,
So now, to the squabbles
We're pounding the cobbles
And gobbling, "No fair repercussing!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/27/2015 18:51 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Houthis blocking humanitarian aid to Taiz

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien accused Houthi rebels of blocking and diverting humanitarian aid deliveries to Taiz where some 200,000 people are living under siege.

"Houthis are blocking supply routes and continue to obstruct the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid and supplies into Taiz city," said O'Brien, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

Trucks carrying aid are blocked at checkpoints and "only very limited assistance has been allowed in," he added in a statement.

O'Brien said it was 'unacceptable' that some of the aid destined for the city's needy was being diverted away from those people.

Some 200,000 people are in need of drinking water, food, medical treatment and other life-saving assistance in Taiz, a 'deeply concerned' O'Brien said.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


The Grand Turk
17 second response suggests the Turks were waiting to shoot down a Russian aircraft
Analysis by the Grauniad.
Even if Turkey is right that a Russian fighter jet strayed into its airspace, the plane was within Ankara’s borders for just 17 seconds before being attacked – and was making no hostile moves against the Turks.

Airspace incursions, granted usually in less politically tense contexts, happen all the time, and generally you’d expect warning shots to be fired and then attempts to force the intruder to leave or to land. That the Turks shot down the jet and did so within 17 seconds – with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself – suggests very strongly they were waiting for a Russian plane to come into or close enough to Turkish airspace with the aim of delivering a rather pyrotechnic message.

Moscow may have been foolish to let its planes stray so close to the border – doubly so if its rules of engagement allowed pilots to dip into Turkish airspace when it was operationally useful (as is likely). But Turkey’s response went way beyond the usual practice.

Yet no one wants this conflict to escalate, and both Ankara and Moscow are working to that end. Presumably Erdogan feels satisfied the point has been made, and presumably Moscow, while no doubt harboring its grudges, is aware it has a great deal of lost diplomatic ground to make up and wants to be able to strike a deal with the west over Syria and Ukraine.

Nato is aware that Turkey is an ally, but is not piling in to increase the tension; Russia knows that while it may have a certain moral authority in this incident, but if it turns to military pressure then Nato must back its maverick ally.

There are striking similarities between Erdogan’s Turkey and Putin’s Russia, not least their ability and propensity to move conflicts into the covert arena. While Russia’s intervention in Syria may have cynical intent, the Turks are acting in support of their national interests in Syria with equal ruthlessness.

Ankara is often guilty of neglecting attacks on Isis and hitting the Kurds (who are in so many ways the most effective force against the jihadists) instead, smuggling weapons in the guise of humanitarian convoys (something we saw the Russians doing in Ukraine), and being willing to support groups which are often jihadist in their own terms. Turkish military intelligence organisation (MIT) is every bit as cynically opportunist as the Russian military spy agency (GRU), and Erdogan every bit as erratic, brutal and ambitious as Putin.

While the overt clashes may be headed off by the usual machinery of diplomacy, both countries – with large, extensive, secretive and brutal intelligence apparatuses and a history of working with both gangsters and terrorists – may well instead simply transfer these tensions to the covert arena.

In Syria itself, the Russians are likely to put greater emphasis on attacking those groups under Ankara’s patronage. A strike on a Turkish aid convoy may be the first manifestation of this. Meanwhile, the Turks will presumably arm and encourage those groups most able to give the Russians a bloody nose.

In this way, what wasn’t really a proxy war before is likely to become one.

Meanwhile, Moscow may put greater emphasis on countering Turkey’s efforts to establish regional influence (Azerbaijan is an obvious place of contention) and could support problematic non-state actors inside Turkey, from Kurds to criminals (at least, those criminals not already tied to the Turkish state).

This is a conflict that Ankara triggered and while it is being managed it is not going to go away. Nor is it just going to become another chapter in the histories of Russo-Ottoman rivalry. Expect to see this play out in snide, deniable, but nonetheless bitter actions for months to come.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself

Whom the Gods wish to destroy...
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/27/2015 4:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President

As it's ZH I decided not to post as an article.

Turkey = ISIS.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/27/2015 5:53 Comments || Top||

#3  The biggest difference between Russia and Turkey is that Russia has spent the last thirty years dealing with Moslem extremists in various parts of the former Soviet Union and harbors no illusions about what they are.

The Turks on the other hand are rapidly becoming Moslem extremists and suppliers of men, weapons, and money to ISIS.

I hate it when some one tries to sort of suggest a moral equivalency between two sides of a conflict. In this case, there is none.

Posted by: Bill Clinton || 11/27/2015 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  This article ignores what had been going on beforehand. Turkey had been warning Russia for some time about sending bombers too close to the border.

Whenever war occurs in a neighboring country, neutrals get concerned (with good reason) that their citizens will be bombed by accident. It is standard procedure to have CAPs flying along the border to make bombers don't stray into neutral airspace. Russia had penetrated Turkish airspace before, so Turkey was waiting for them.

In addition, Turkey, NATO and Obama had all been trying to get Russia to coordinate its airstrike with the coalition or divide Syrian airspace into sectors for air control. Russia had ignored these requests.

This could have been avoided with a little coordination by Russia.

Al
Posted by: frozen al || 11/27/2015 11:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Let me rephrase my comments by redacting "extremists" from my previous post. There is nothing extreme (in their eyes) about their behavior and it should not be in ours. That is the way they are, much as the scorpion and the frog.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 11/27/2015 11:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Al,

The fallacy in your post is that Turkey is NOT neutral in this conflict. They are active participants and up to their eyeballs in support of the groups the Russians are bombing.

Nothing coincidental or poorly coordinated about it. If Russia had given Turkey flight plan info, the Turks would have used it for firing solutions to pot a Russian plane or three.

Erdogan tried to deliver a message shooting down the Sukhoi, but he really doesn't understand Putin. OR the consequences of poking the bear.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 11/27/2015 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Turkey = ISIS.

All you have to do is follow the oil tanker trucks. It's kinda funny how the MSM don't ask about it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/27/2015 12:34 Comments || Top||

#8  Even the Assad rump state buys oil from ISIS, because the price is so much lower. That argument was part of the support for the claim that Assad supported ISIS in the early, so as to have a bugabear to present to those trying to overthrow him.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 12:43 Comments || Top||

#9 
He bent Hussein's ears in the Garden
(He'd flown on a carpet to bargain):
"Please tell Rootenputin
To stop all that shootin'...
And am I too late for a pardon?"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/27/2015 12:55 Comments || Top||

#10  It gets deeper:

A Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot after Turkey downed Russian jet on Tuesday appeared to be Turkish ultranationalist and a son of former mayor in one of Turkish provinces. He also turned out to be the member of The Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, members of which have carried out scores of political murders since 1970s.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/27/2015 13:52 Comments || Top||

#11  A Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot

Methinks somebody just bought himself a ticket.

For those of you who follow soccer and the Geneva Conventions:
Article 42 - Occupants of aircraft

1. No person parachuting from an aircraft in distress shall be made the object of attack during his descent.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 15:09 Comments || Top||

#12  Steve, ISIS's excuse is probably that they didn't sign the Geneva Conventions.

Of course, that would mean they aren't really entitled to the Geneva Convention's protections...
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 11/27/2015 16:18 Comments || Top||

#13  I'm sure Spetznaz who'll caught up to this particular wolf, will be more than happy to discuss legal ramifications with him, Rambler.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/27/2015 16:26 Comments || Top||

#14  10 alleged Turkish warnings in 17 seconds - on CNN it took an average of 5-6 seconds just to read or listen to one.

NO WONDER RUSSIAN TOP EGG GENERALS + NATIONALIST ZHIRINOSKY DON'T BELIEVE IT!

Ole' ZHIRI is demanding that Vlad take some sort of major milaction agz Turkey.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 20:03 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Did Russia Just Bomb A Turkish Convoy In Northern Syria?
Posted by: newc || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Update#3: I agree with this Business Insider analysis .... Russia is already exacting its revenge on Turkey for downing a Russian warplane (Natasha Bertrand, Business Insider). The one thing that I would add is Russian support for Kurdish groups .... do not be surprised in the next few weeks/months we hear reports of Kurdish forces having money, new and better weapons, good communications equipment, and excellent intelligence.

Something to monitor in the days ahead.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 1:31 Comments || Top||

#2  good. Go Kurds!
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 2:32 Comments || Top||

#3  The traditional allies of the Kurds has been the Russians
Posted by: BernardZ || 11/27/2015 4:33 Comments || Top||

#4  The traditional allies of the Kurds has been the Russians


The things I don't know! Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union, BernardZ?
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 4:46 Comments || Top||

#5  And deh Joooooooooos (discreetly)
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 7:04 Comments || Top||

#6  In the past, PKK has received support from the Soviet Union, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Greece.

http://archive.adl.org/terrorism/symbols/pkk_1.html
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/27/2015 8:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Russia has decided to no longer import a series of goods from Turkey and import them from Israel. Go Russia!!!
Posted by: JFM || 11/27/2015 11:09 Comments || Top||

#8  With gas and the best desal technology in the world, Israel can produce as much summer veg as Russia wants to buy.
Posted by: phil_b || 11/27/2015 11:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Thank you, Zhang Fei. So true, Shipman dear.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 12:39 Comments || Top||

#10  Russia has decided to no longer import a series of goods from Turkey and import them from Israel.

Are these the same goods EUros want to label?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/27/2015 14:00 Comments || Top||

#11  I would expect the Bosporus to be closed to Russian shipping in the next few days. While it might hurt Russian commercial shipping, I doubt it will do much for Russian military forces, which can come from Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, and the Kona Peninsula ports. If Turkey does manage to stop Russian imports, we might see more shipping through other European nations, bypassing Turkey and the Black Sea completely.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/27/2015 14:34 Comments || Top||

#12  OP, I thought there was a treaty that guarantees Russia free transit of the Bosporous. It includes warships. If Turkey closes it, it would probably be a causus belli.

Does NATO Article 5 apply if Turkey starts it and Russia retaliates?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 11/27/2015 15:33 Comments || Top||

#13  I believe the Treaty of Whatever gives Turkey the right to close the straits in time of war or whenever they feel like it. (I'm paraphrasing)

If the Turks do close the Bosporus, I'd call that a bold move for a one-eyed Ottoman. It would stay closed right up until the Russians need to move something thru it. Remember that business in the Crim? That was over the mere intimation the Russians might lose access.

Does NATO Article 5 apply if Turkey starts it and Russia retaliates?

"You have reached the NATO Article 5 Hotline. Expected wait times are 1 hour and 45 minutes. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line."

Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 15:46 Comments || Top||

#14  "Pulse ' 1' para Inglés... Basın '2' İspanyolca için . Basın '3' Fransızca için . Basın '4' Vietnamca için ...
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/27/2015 17:32 Comments || Top||

#15  Bosporus only important to re supply Latakia in a smolder war. In the big shit the Black Sea Fleet is DOA and not much of a factor. The Turkd
S suck dead bunnies, but I would expect them to hold most of Anatolia proper and perhaps more along the Syrian and Bulgar border zones.

The Russ have never let their lines of communication run thru the Bosforus.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:28 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
MQM leaders surrender, offer arrest after local body polls
KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar claimed that MQM is a victim of state terrorism for the past two years, adding that the party cannot continue its political activities if law enforcement agencies continue to raid its offices in Karachi.

Sattar was speaking to party workers and supporters during a protest rally, which turned into a sit-in at Numaish Chowrangi after police barred the protesters from moving towards the Red Zone.

The MQM lawmaker announced that he along with other MQM leaders and party workers will voluntarily present themselves before security agencies for arrest but after local body polls — which are scheduled for December 5.

"4,000 MQM workers were arrested while 5,000 raids were conducted on our offices," claimed Farooq Sattar.

The senior MQM leader claimed that some forces are trying to portray that MQM follows the politics of violence and crime, adding that “MQM is a political party and will talk about politics wherever and whenever it gets a chance.

"Today, you witnessed a million march, on December 5 (election day) there will be a billion march," said Sattar.

Later the sit-in ended after MQM leader Amir Khan ordered the party supporters and workers to disperse peacefully.

Earlier in the day, police stopped the MQM rally at Numaish Chowrangi, barring it from entering the Red Zone. The MQM had taken out the rally to protest against alleged illegal arrest of its workers.

The protest rally started from Liaquatabad and was scheduled to culminate at the Rangers Headquarters located near Sindh Assembly, but police stopped the participants ─ led by MQM's senior leadership ─ near Numaish Chowrangi.

The police forces deployed were under orders to stop the rally at Quaid-i-Azam's mausoleum. MQM leaders also stopped the party workers and supporters from moving forward, DawnNews reported.

Security forces had earlier sealed the sensitive area around the Rangers Headquarters, which is in close proximity to the Governor House, CM House and other important state buildings.

The police stated that it will not allow the rally to enter the Red Zone in Karachi's Saddar area.

High-ranking police officials, including DIG-South and Sindh IG Ghulam Haider Jamali told media personnel that they will not allow protesters to enter the sensitive area and would employ water canons to disperse the crowd if need be, DawnNews reported.

Authorities had also placed barriers along the routes leading to the Red Zone, in order to stop the rally from proceeding. Roads around the area witnessed heavy traffic congestion due to the blockades.

MQM's leadership, on the other hand, said it will end the protest rally where stopped and will respect the law.

The party claims 22 of its workers were busy with the election campaign for the upcoming LG polls when they were arrested by the law enforcement agencies. The party alleged it was an attempt to curtail the activities of the most favoured contender in Karachi days before polling day.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


'Dead' Baloch rebel leader says he's alive
"I thought you were dead."
"I got better."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [6 views] Top|| File under: Baloch Liberation Army

#1  If the gov database says you're dead - good luck getting it changed.
Posted by: 3dc || 11/27/2015 12:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Send us an ear to prove it.
Posted by: Grunter || 11/27/2015 20:40 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian regime forces intensify shelling of Turkmen regions
[Hurriyet] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
's forces have intensified the shelling of Kizildag, a strategic point in northwestern Syria controlled by Turkmen forces, daily Hurriyet has reported.

Regime forces had made significant progress around Turkmen Mountain and its environs during festivities over the last 12 days before eventually facing Turkmen resistance just in front of the Turkish border.

However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
al-Assad's forces, who retreated to the Kessab hillsides, continued their uninterrupted shelling of Kizildag on Turkmen Mountain on Nov. 25.

Intensive attacks in Jabal al-Akrad, a neighborhood of Turkmen villages, were also ongoing, according to local sources.

Emrah Celik, a 27-year-old district organization member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in northwestern Tekirdag province who joined the Turkmen forces voluntarily, said the 2nd Coastal Division has been fighting against regime forces for the last seven months.

"We are defending Turkmen Mountain and our region against powerful countries, al-Assad, who has the backing of Russia and Iran, 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....
of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] and the Democratic Union Party [PYD], despite all impossibilities under harsh conditions. The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
has always been accompanying us. We are staying up all night in tents and at positions. Despite all the tough conditions, Turkmen Mountain will not fall and, God willing, Turkmens will be victorious. We are also handing out aid to the locals. Our priority is the peace and comfort of our people," said Celik.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Europe
Brussels threat level reduced
The Belgian authorities have reduced the threat level in Brussels from its highest level of four to three.

The city was locked down for nearly a week, with schools, universities, and the metro system closed and soldiers deployed on the streets.

The escalation to level four came after suspects in the Islamic State attacks in Paris were linked to the city. At least one suspected Paris gunman - Salah Abdeslam - remains at large. He lived in Brussels for several years. His brother Brahim, who died detonating a suicide vest in Paris, was also a city resident.

"We can confirm that the Threat Analysis Coordination Agency re-evaluated the threat level from four to level three," a spokesman for the crisis centre said.

The reduction to level three lowers the perceived threat from "serious and imminent" to "possible and likely", bringing Brussels in line with the rest of the country. The lowering of the threat level came as a surprise, since the government had said that it would probably keep the highest threat level in the capital through the weekend.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


The Grand Turk
US journalist killed in Turkey for exposing Turkey using WFP trucks to give weapons to ISIS
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This US journalist plus the two locked up yesterday, are not the only ones

this British journo killed in mysterious circumstances at Turkish airport last month.

the kicker? she spoke arabic and was researching

international development support to female media professionals in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2013 and she had been carrying out field work in Irbil, Iraq, since July.

That means there was a good chance she found out about Turkey using WFP trucks being used to ferry weapons to ISIS and was coming back to the ANU in Australia where she might tell everyone about it.

So, like the US journalist Serena Shim, she was executed. This time made to look like *suicide* which her colleagues do not believe.
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Regretfully, anytime I see a movement suggesting 'regime change' somewhere in the world [Syria, Libya, or elsewhere], I default to a single, three letter agency as either advocate or on some occasions, the contradictory agent of the suggested change. Seldom does there appear to be a neutral setting.

I would offer the ill-fated Kurdish effort to establish a sovereign nation in their homeland as a proof of my theory of default. The Obama regime shares company with both Turkey and Iran in opposition to the Kurdish sovereignty effort.

As far as this video goes, a template for a potential WFP fraud is clearly evidenced in the old UN 'Food for Peace' programme of the mid-1990's, headquartered in the Baghdad Canal Hotel. Other more recent frauds might well include large outlays [$500 million for example] for the training of 5 'Islamic moderate' host nation anti-ISIS fighers.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/27/2015 1:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh my god $500 million to train 5 people???
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 2:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Yes, but they are very "well" trained.
Posted by: Steven || 11/27/2015 4:28 Comments || Top||

#5  http://time.com/4102375/syria-rebels-training-program-pentagon-cost-2-million/
Posted by: Betty Hitler2611 || 11/27/2015 5:56 Comments || Top||

#6  Besoeker, can you elaborate on your comment re WFP and Iraq? Was it related to the oil for food program?
Posted by: Spomong Bourbon8696 || 11/27/2015 10:23 Comments || Top||

#7  another bit of Turkey info i just found

Turkey last year had 49 people taken hostage by ISIS - and they were freed with no fuss. They were embassy staffers.

Turkey is TOTALLY the ally of ISIS

everyone else they capture gets crucified, beheaded, shot, burned to death, drowned in a cage, sold into sex slavery or any other of 100 nasty medieval dispatches.
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 11:05 Comments || Top||

#8  I always found it rather peculiar that the Turkish ambassador to Libya was one of the last people to meet our Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/27/2015 13:40 Comments || Top||

#9  Remember, though, this journalist worked for Press TV, the mouthpiece for Iran, and hardly the most trusted name in news reporting.
Posted by: JC || 11/27/2015 18:54 Comments || Top||


Europe
Brussels Mosque Evacuated over Suspicious 'White Powder' Later Determined to be Flour
Are the peasants revolting?
[AnNahar] The Great Mosque of Brussels was evacuated and 11 people decontaminated Thursday after the discovery of a suspicious package containing white powder as the EU capital remained on highest possible terror alert.

"A parcel was found at the entrance to the mosque and found to contain white powder. We are taking all preventative measures in case it is anthrax but it is a precautionary measure," said fire services spokeswomen Anne Wibin, who was at the scene.

The mosque, the city's biggest, is located just a few blocks from the major EU institutions and many embassies and was cordoned off by police and firemen, some of them in white hazard materials suits.

The alert came with Brussels on maximum security levels in the wake of the Gay Paree attacks on November 13, with two Belgium-linked suspects still on the run.

Wibin said eleven people, including two police offers, were decontaminated as a precautionary measure.

"A package was found with several envelopes one of which contained a powder, evidently suspect in the circumstances," she said.

"The powder has been partially tested and it has been found to be not radioactive," she said, adding that no possibility was being ruled out. "People in direct contact were isolated and decontaminated and also those who were in indirect contact."

"There is absolutely no danger to anyone," she added.

Earlier this week several mosques in the Molenbeek neighborhood, seen as a hotbed of jihadist activity inspired by IS, received threatening letters from a group calling itself "Christian state".

The Great Mosque, given as gift to Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
by Belgium, sits on a corner of Cinquantenaire Park where many of the thousands of EU staff take a lunchtime break and families bring their children to play. It is no more than 200 meters (yards) from the top EU institutions -- the European Council and the European Commission -- plus other offices and many embassies.

Troops and armed police have been out in force in Brussels since Saturday, with the authorities due to review the top level four security alert on Monday.
Terror easily goes both ways:
Brussels mosque powder scare turns out to be false alarm

Firecrews and decontamination teams attended a major mosque in Brussels close to the European Union headquarters on Thursday to investigate a suspect powder that police later said turned out to be flour.

Reuters journalists saw about a dozen emergency vehicles, including police, outside the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium, a large Saudi-established institution including a mosque situated 200 metres (yards) from the European Commission. A spokeswoman for the fire service said it had taken a call from the mosque from a person saying they believed that they had found anthrax powder, prompting the deployment of specialist crews. A police spokesman later said the substance was flour.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Was it gluten-free?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/27/2015 0:38 Comments || Top||

#2  What you bet it was ?Halal?
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 2:58 Comments || Top||

#3  One autumn in musulmane Brussels,
Mohammed was flexing his muscles,
But Mannekin Pee
Pissed upon him par ris
As police pups pounced upon his apostles.

Then I woke up... and it was alllll a dream.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/27/2015 4:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Huh. I expected them to have no idea what soap powder was, but flour?
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/27/2015 19:31 Comments || Top||

#5  "Smedley! Does this taste like anthrax to you?"
Posted by: SteveS || 11/27/2015 19:56 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Two journalists nabbed in Turkey for story on weapons-loaded intelligence trucks bound for Syria
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  if this was the only one i would not be smelling a rat.

but this comes after the Turkish intel execution of US reporter Serena Shim (posted link already) and of British journalist and researcher Jackie Sutton last month.

The thing they all had in common - knowing too much about Turkish involvement funding ISIS
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 1:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Putin called it all out.Acting on it right now.
Posted by: newc || 11/27/2015 1:51 Comments || Top||

#3  can we pleease kick turkey out of nato

cannot have an islamist in there white-anting it accessing all the plans and secrets, kick erdogan out of nato!!
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 2:15 Comments || Top||

#4  First - NEO
Second - unass every uniform military personnel.
Then give them the "Dear John" letter.
No need for hostages.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/27/2015 7:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Fuckers had a clear window to intervene early in the conflict and win fame, glory and an extra serving of meatballs. It would have been a winning move, but nooooo.

Also don't believe to much of the BS about the Turks in Korea, that was Madison Avenue, now the the Glostermen that was for real, think Zulu with automatic weapons.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 13:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Wouldn't the three-letter company evoked by mumblings of "regime change" be also behind these assassinations and arrests in Turkey? Because, if Turkey is aiding anti-Assad ISIS and Turkish Syrians, and that company is training anti-Assad forces, however successfully, Turk intel and that company are coordinating, meaning, to the death of exposers, as best they can. No? In a sense, US national sovereignty and security depend on the incompetence, stupidity and treachery of that company, one would think. With luck, POTUS Cruz will cure that hemorrhagic fever: http://theological-geography.net/?p=23143 Someone must and will.
Posted by: TopRev || 11/27/2015 17:42 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Arabia imposes sanctions on at least 12 Hezbollah figures
I don't know if this is meaningful or merely posturing.
[AlAhram] Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
imposed sanctions on at least 12 senior Hezbollah figures accused of responsibility for carrying out operations for the group, which it had designated a terrorist organization in March of last year, state media reported on Thursday.

"These names were designated today and sanctions imposed on them under the terrorism crimes and financing regime," the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The statement said the Interior Ministry had also imposed sanctioned on entities that were "investment arms" for what it described as Hezbollah's sinister activities outside its Leb homeland.

The statement said the sanctions were based on a royal decree which targeted snuffies and those who helped them, and which included the freezing of assets of any of the designated names and banned Saudi citizens from carrying out any transactions with them.

The statement listed at least 12 people, some with aliases, including one identified as Mustafa Badreddine. A man by the same name has been accused by a U.N. tribunal in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and is being tried in absentia. It was not immediately clear however, if the Saudi designation referred to the same Badreddine.

In May, Saudi Arabia designated two bigwigs of the Lebanese Hezbollah group as terrorists, accusing them of involvement in spreading "chaos and instability".
An Nahar names names:
The Hizbullah
...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
members and companies included in the statement are Ali Moussa Daqdouq al-Moussawi, Mohammed Kawtharani, Mohammed Youssef Mansour, Adham Tabaja and his company and tourism establishment and its affiliates, Qassem Hojeij, Hussein Ali Faour and his car maintenance center, Mustafa Badreddine, Ibrahim Aqil, Fouad Shukr, Abdul Nour Shaalan, Mohammed Najib Karim, and Mohammed Salman Fawwaz.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Africa North
Mali detains two suspects linked to hotel siege
[IsraelTimes] Malian special forces arrest two suspects Thursday over a siege at a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako that left 20 people dead, security sources say.

"Two suspects linked to the attack last week at the Radisson hotel have just been jugged
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
and they are being interrogated," one of the sources tells AFP.

The identity of the suspects and their alleged role in Friday's jihadist attack on the 190-room Radisson Blu hotel is not immediately known.

Another security source says a telephone had led to the capture of the two, but gives no further details.

Armed men held 170 guests and staff in a siege that lasted about nine hours last Friday before Malian and international forces stormed the hotel.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Europe
Norway Posts Ads in Afghan Papers to Dissuade Migrants
What percentage of Afghans can read?
[AnNahar] Norway has begun publishing adverts in Afghanistan's newspapers to dissuade Afghans from seeking asylum in the Scandinavian country, the Norwegian government said on Thursday.

"The goal is to persuade people to not sell all their belongings and put their lives in the hands of human traffickers, because they risk being sent back to the country from which they came," Joran Kallmyr, a state secretary at the justice ministry, told AFP.

The adverts, entitled "Stricter asylum regulations in Norway" and published in English and the Afghan Dari language on the front page of two Afghan newspapers, explained that people coming from areas of Afghanistan designated as safe or who hold a residency permit in another country will be expelled, by force if necessary.

Norway has recently seen a rise in the number of asylum requests from Afghans, even outnumbering those from Syrians in the past three weeks, with 2,212 applications from Afghans and 2,138 from Syrians.

Some of the Afghans arriving in Norway have previously stayed legally in Russia, and Oslo has decided to send those people back to Russia, or, if that isn't possible, to Kabul
...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either....
Fearing a reputation as an open country, Norway launched a Facebook campaign in early November informing potential asylum seekers about how difficult it is to get residency in the Scandinavian country.

The adverts published since Monday in the Afghan press come on the heels of a Danish government initiative earlier this year, which bought ad space in Lebanese newspapers aimed at dissuading Syrian refugees from coming.

Norwegian authorities on Thursday also temporarily beefed up random border controls and introduced systematic identity checks on ferries arriving from Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

After neighboring Sweden on Tuesday announced a drastic tightening of its previously very generous asylum regulations, Oslo now fears that many migrants will head to Norway instead.

Since the beginning of 2015, some 30,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Norway, a country of 5.2 million people which is a member of the border-free Schengen zone but not the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Zardari's close aide charged with terror financing in Pak-land
A top Pakistan People's Party leader and a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari has been charged with terror financing and corruption, officials said. Asim Hussain, a former minister and the Chairman of the provincial Higher Education Commission, was arrested on August 26 from his office by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and paramilitary rangers in several cases of corruption and terror financing.

NAB officials said on Wednesday confirmed that the Joint Investigation Team had finally filed a FIR against Hussain in which he is charged with terror financing and supporting terrorists and target killers. It comes just a day before the end of a 90-day physical remand of Hussain in Rangers custody on charges of terror financing.

The interior ministry has also put his name on the Exit Control List (ECL) on the request of NAB, which is part of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) formed to investigate Hussain's alleged corruption and his role in terror financing.

NAB is currently investigating three corruption cases against Hussain, who is said to be a close confidante of Zardari, the co-chairperson of the PPP.

Soon after Hussain's arrest, Zardari and other top PPP leaders from Sindh flew to Dubai and have remained there since.
They're acting just like Perv did, and for similar reasons...
Another official said the name of former Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon, who is also in Dubai, had also been put on the ECL.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Bangladesh Police Kill Shiite Shrine Blast Chief Suspect
[AnNahar] Bangladesh police shot and killed a top bad boy who was the main suspect behind deadly kabooms at a Shiite shrine during late-night raids, officers said Thursday.

Five faceless myrmidons from banned local Islamist outfit Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were also tossed in the clink
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
during the raids carried out by police in Dhaka late Wednesday.

Police accused the slain bad boy, a JMB commander who went by multiple aliases including "Albany", of hurling grenades into the capital's main Shiite shrine which was packed with worshippers last month, killing two and injuring dozens.

The raids came as tensions ran high in Bangladesh following a spate of assassination'>assassinations and fears of mounting Islamist violence in the conservative country of 160 million.

"Albany was injured in an encounter with police on Wednesday night. Later he was brought to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where a duty doctor declared him dead," Dhaka police front man Monirul Islam said at a briefing.

"Albany threw five grenades at the crowd at Hossaini Dalan (Shiite shrine)," Islam added, without using a formal name for the bad boy.

"He was also the main suspect in the murder of a police officer at Ashulia (outside Dhaka) and he slaughtered Khizir Khan, a Sufi leader, early this month."

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....
(IS) group grabbed credit for the October 24 shrine blasts and a series of other attacks including the killing of two foreigners weeks earlier.

But the government has said IS has no presence in Bangladesh and instead accused homegrown bad boy groups, including JMB, and the Islamist-allied political opposition of trying to destabilize the country.

Police suspect JMB has been trying to regroup in recent years after its then leaders were executed in 2007 over a series of blasts.

The shrine attack further heightened the fears of minorities living in the mainly Muslim but officially secular state.

While the blasts were believed to be the first attack on Shiites in Bangladesh, banned Islamist bad boy groups have killed more than a dozen Sufi Muslims and attacked Hindus and Christians in the last two years.

The killing of four atheist bloggers and a publisher this year has also undermined government efforts to play down the threat posed by hardliners, experts said.

The country has been plagued by unrest in the last three years, and experts have warned that a long-running political crisis has radicalized opponents of the government.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh


Africa North
Ghariani accuses Rada members of being bandits
Sheikh Sadik Ghariani has accused the members of the Rada (“deterrence”) forces who yesterday morning arrested the head of the religious endowments ministry’s Tripoli office, Mohamed Atkitek, of being bandits and criminals.

In his Al-Tanasah TV station, Ghariani, still viewed by the authorities in Tripoli as Libya’s grand mufti, demanded Rada’s leaders release him, describing those who arrested him as “working against God’s wishes”.

While praising Rada operations against drug dealers, Ghariani said that the organisation, led by Abdul Raouf Kara, had to rid itself of those of its members who were criminals.

For its part Rada yesterday claimed that Atkitek was not arrested, that he was “invited” in for questioning, that he came and then left.

However, it appears he is still being held and, according to source, faces changes of conspiring to send young people to fight with IS the Islamic State (IS) organisation in Sirte.

Rada has also now published two videos suggesting the Tripoli Awkaf office is, at best, being mismanaged and, at worst, actively colluding with IS.

The first shows the confession an Egyptian allegedly arrested at Mitiga airport coming back from Ghana. The 48-year-old man, who is said to work at a factory in Sorman, says he was sent to Ghana by Atkitek’s deputy on a paid two-week mission to the west African country to try and convert people to Islam. However, he also admits that he has had no training as an Islamic scholar and had not studied the Sharia.

In the second video, a youth who said he was 14 years old but born in 2002, (which would make him 13 at most) claimed that a preacher at a mosque in Tripoli’s Omar Mukhtar street had been giving classes about jihad and the need to go to Sirte and join IS, claiming that all governments were kufar (infidels).

According to the youth, those attending were aged 18 to 23.

In early June, when IS was still in control of Derna, Ghariani famously insisted that they were not extremists and were popular with locals – a claim that was equally famously disproved less than a week later when IS was expelled from the town by the local mujahideen.
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In early June, when IS was still in control of Derna, Ghariani famously insisted that they were not extremists and were popular with locals – a claim that was equally famously disproved less than a week later when IS was expelled from the town by the local mujahideen.

Humm, reads like a fine Urdu nuggets article
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 20:46 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi militia shoots drone down in Anbar
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Albonmr tribal leader in Anbar province, Naim al-Gaood, announced on Thursday, that the fighters of his clan had managed to bring down a drone belonging to ISIS in Barwana area west of Ramadi.

Gaood said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “The Albonmr fighters were able to monitor and shoot down an ISIS drone in Barwana area in Haditha District (160 km west of Ramadi).”

Gaood added that “The plane was containing a camera,” indicating that “the drone was trying to record the whereabouts of tribal fighters and security forces to carry out terrorist and criminal operations.”
Posted by: badanov || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Europe
Migrants Try to Break through Greece-Macedonia Border
[AnNahar] Over 200 migrants on Thursday tried to break through barbed wire fences to cross from Greece into Macedonia, which imposed new border restrictions last week, throwing stones at police, AFP news hounds said.

At least five of the migrants managed to get across in the assault as the crowd shouted "Open the border" to the Macedonia police ranged in front of them.

All five were returned to the Greek side by Macedonian police.

"We can't wait any longer, last night we slept under the rain," Heritier Shabani, a 31-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
who was among the more than 200 trying to get through, told AFP.

"I want to go where I will be welcome," he said, adding that he left his homeland some two months ago, and landed on the Greek island of Samos around ten days ago.

Since last week, Macedonia, which lies on the main migrant route to northern Europe, has restricted passage to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back.

Some 800 people are stuck on the border, mostly Iranians, Moroccans, Bangladeshis and Paks in addition to sub-Saharan Africans.

They have spent days at Idomeni sleeping on the ground, with humanitarian organizations struggling to provide basic sanitation and shelter.

The government this week said it was encouraging people with no chance of getting across the border to turn back, and would provide transportation, but Shabani said this was not the case.

"The Greeks aren't telling us anything," he said. "There are no buses, or not enough buses".

Some 850,000 people have entered the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
this year, more than half of them landing in Greece, and the bloc has struggled to formulate a strategy to deal with the crisis.

The security backlash has intensified after at least two of the bombers in the November 13 attacks in Gay Paree were confirmed to have come through Greece, posing as refugees.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "I want to go where I will be welcome,"

the barbed wire barrier wasn't a clue?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/27/2015 9:30 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Turkey moves 20 tanks to Syrian border, 18 jets on patrol - Russia sends warship
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  it is escalating

Turkey is killing and locking up reporters who know about their arming ISIS

and their agents in other countries (turkish spies in australia too) are pumping facebook with anti-russian pro-turkish propaganda

eg - that Russia was trying to bomb refugee camps. Or *how many times does turkey have to warn russia in our airspace*

much as i hate putin i can smell the stench of turkey supporting ISIS now it is in my nostrils
Posted by: anon1 || 11/27/2015 1:08 Comments || Top||

#2  How long can an M-60 last in a modern battlefield?
Posted by: 3dc || 11/27/2015 12:33 Comments || Top||

#3  You know, I was sure Recep will (eventually) start a war with Israel. Instead, he's started a war with Russia.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/27/2015 17:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Recip is going to get pink misted if he keeps this up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/27/2015 17:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Don't dare say that Turkey is chicken!
He's itching to hand out a licking,
In pointy-toed shoes
He's just dying to use...
"Somebody is getting a kick-- aieeeeeee!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/27/2015 18:22 Comments || Top||

#6  IIRC from before Thanksgiving, Putin was sending an upgraded or improved KIEV-class Battlecruiser -the RNS MOSKVA - to stand watch off Syria.

AFAIK the Cold War-era KIEVS are deemed the real platforms, core, or symbols of the Russian Navy's warfighting ability, NOT its Strategic or Tactical Nuke Submarines given the two latters' myriad probs both at sea andor in port.

NOt to argue, however, that Russia's Subs aren't potent or dangerous.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/27/2015 19:53 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
UN: No assurance all of Iran's nuclear program is peaceful
[Ynet] Iran is reducing its nuclear activities under a deal with six world powers, but ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told the IAEA's 35-nation board on Thursday he cannot guarantee that everything it is doing is peaceful.

Amano said he is "not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," and thus cannot conclude that "all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."

His comments reflect IAEA constraints on monitoring Iran. But Amano said Tehran will soon enact an agreement giving his agency greater inspection powers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Iraq
Clean up after the reconquest of Shingal: mass graves and bridge building
More mass graves found in Shingal
Of course there were.
[Rudaw] The corpse count from the Shingal Massacre, in which 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....
slaughtered thousands of Yezidis, continues to rise as more mass graves are found around the ravaged city.
Video report at link.

KRG repairs roads, bridges in ravaged Shingal
Why we want to keep the war over there, example #568,990,371.
[Rudaw] Duhok's Directorate of Roads and Traffic Services have begun rebuilding roads and bridges in Shingal destroyed during 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....
's year-and-a-half reign of terror there.
Video of bridge construction at the link.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/27/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  A C-Span viaduck if I am not mistaken. Perhaps there is expertise in the house.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/27/2015 3:02 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
35[untagged]
10Islamic State
3Govt of Syria
2Taliban
1Boko Haram
1Govt of Iran
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
1Lashkar e-Jhangvi
1TTP
1al-Nusra
1al-Qaeda in North Africa
1Baloch Liberation Army

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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2015-11-27
  Top Pakistani extremist killed in 'shoot-out' with police
Thu 2015-11-26
  Drone strike kills Taliban shadow district governor in Nangarhar
Wed 2015-11-25
  One Russian pilot killed, other returned to Russia airbase in Syria
Tue 2015-11-24
  Tensions rise after Turkey shoots down Russian jet, says it will take the issue to the UN, NATO
Mon 2015-11-23
  Chinese police use a flamethrower on 'Muslim terror suspects'
Sun 2015-11-22
  Abu Sayyaf leader killed in Tawi-Tawi clash
Sat 2015-11-21
  Mali hotel attack: 27 dead with no more hostages
Fri 2015-11-20
  Gunmen take 170 hostages in Radisson Blu hotel in Mali capital
Thu 2015-11-19
  Video - Russia destroyed 500 fuel trucks of Islamic State in Syria
Wed 2015-11-18
  Soddy cops seize 500+ pounds of hashish
Tue 2015-11-17
  Kurds repel attack near Mosul, 60 ISIS Bad Guys die
Mon 2015-11-16
  ISIS executes 73 of its own militants for evacuating headquarters
Sun 2015-11-15
  France hits Raqqa - Water and Power cut off
Sat 2015-11-14
  Hollande declares state of emergency
Fri 2015-11-13
  US ‘99% sure’ it killed Islamic State executioner ‘Jihadi John’

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