[Wash Times] Hillary Clinton’s sit-down with the FBI snapped the political world to attention over the sleepy July Fourth holiday weekend, with Democrats saying charges are outside "the realm of possibility" and Republicans signaling the same, yet only because they think the Justice Department will not hurt President Obama’s handpicked successor.
Mrs. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, submitted to an interview with the FBI on Saturday as the Obama administration was nearing completion of its investigation into her exclusive use of a secret email server while she was secretary of state.
The Clinton campaign confirmed the "voluntary" interview, which took place at FBI headquarters in Washington and lasted more than three hours.
"It was something I had offered to do since last August. I’ve been eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion," Mrs. Clinton told MSNBC after her sit-down with authorities.
Her campaign said she doesn’t plan to comment further "out of respect for the investigative process."
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, cited unidentified sources and professed to have inside knowledge of the investigation’s outcome: no charges.
He appeared to be angling for a political boost no matter what the FBI recommends. If Mrs. Clinton is indicted, she might be nudged out of the race. If she isn’t, he can cry malfeasance.
"Like I said, the system is totally rigged!" he said on Twitter.
#1
Trump senior adviser Paul Manafort has undoubtedly advised him not to count on a Hildebeest indictment. With all that we have seen over the past 12 months, I would consider this very prudent guidance.
BLUF: [NYT] In the late 1970s, the F.C.C. put into place a minority ownership policy that used credits and deferrals on capital gains taxes to help make minority businesses more competitive in the bidding process and promote the sale of existing stations to minorities.
The policy, while not without critics, was largely considered a success among advocates of minority ownership. But in 1995, after a Supreme Court ruling that established new standards for race-based government policies, the F.C.C. began to disassemble the program. A year later, Congress ended the tax-deferral policy that had helped drive sales to minorities. It also did away with most restrictions on the number of radio stations a single company could own. The market for Chinese chamber pots continues to slip as well.
The resulting wave of consolidation in the broadcast industry has made it more difficult for black entrepreneurs to enter the industry, said Alfred C. Liggins III, the president and chief executive of Radio One, which while publicly traded is the country’s largest black-controlled multimedia company.
"That means that the likelihood that minority owners are going to own a TV station in New York or Los Angeles gets lower and lower," said Mr. Liggins, whose mother founded the company with a single radio station in 1980.
For Johnson Publishing, which also owns the Fashion Fair cosmetics line, pressures on the business proved too difficult to overcome. In the last several years, it sold its historic building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, brought on JPMorgan Chase as a minority investor and reduced its staff.
"We did not feel that we had adequate capital and resources," said Cheryl Mayberry McKissack, who was chief operating officer of Johnson Publishing and is now chief executive of Ebony Media Operations.
Yet as stories like Johnson Publishing’s have become more common across the industry, those who see their companies as following in its footsteps say the notion of black ownership continues to resonate.
Mr. Williams, who referred to Ebony as "a staple" of his upbringing, said that young African-Americans regularly expressed awe that he, a black man, really owned television stations.
"It does change the dynamic," he said, "of what they believe they can become."
TAKEAWAY: Without government subsidy and intervention, free-market forces eventually prevail.
Legislation to require increased transparency for organizations that are mostly funded by foreign governments would damage Israel’s reputation as a democracy, leaders of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group in the Bundestag wrote ahead of Monday’s expected final vote on the NGO transparency bill. Is it just me, or are these grandchildren of Nazis people have a very strange definition of democracy?
Under the Justice Ministry bill in question, any nonprofit organization that receives more than half of its funding from a foreign political entity would have to indicate as much in any publication or letter to elected officials or civil servants.
In addition, a list of the NGOs falling under the bill’s purview, as well as the countries from which they received donations, would have to be posted on the Non-Profit Registrar’s website.
A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is slipping away, the UN special coordinator for Middle East peace warned on Sunday, after both sides shrugged off criticism by international mediators.
A report released on Friday by the so-called Quartet - United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - called on Israel to stop its policy of building settlements and "restricting" Palestinian development.
Israeli policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution," it said. It also urged the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, take steps to end incitement to violence against Israelis, condemn "all acts of terrorism" and do more to combat them.
"The Quartet report sounds an alarm bell that we are on a dangerous slope towards a one-state reality that is incompatible with the national aspirations of both peoples," wrote Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, in a commentary emailed to journalists on Sunday. Everything is slipping away: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon. Even the Brits are slipping away from your clutches. Hell, even the Americans (the Americans!) may elect a president who cares about USA and not "the World"!
[Jpost] It is unclear why Germany is harboring Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, members. The EU classifies Hamas’s entire organization as a terrorist entity.
The report also estimated the number of Islamic extremists could be as high as 10,000 in the Federal Republic. Radical Islamists likely have infiltrated the flow of refugees entering Germany, the report noted.
Some 300 Hamas members and supporters ‐ as well as 950 Hezbollah activists and members ‐ are operating in Germany, the country’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual federal report, the same numbers as were listed in its 2013 and 2014 reports.
The Jerusalem Post’s examination of the 317-page intelligence report, which was released on Tuesday, revealed the Islamic Death Eaters were on the radar screen of the country’s intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
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[SouthAfricaToday] Seventeen supporters of the Islamic State extremist group entered Europe as refugees, Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung reported Saturday citing German intelligence.
Most of them are either dead or in custody, the report said, adding that two of them were part of the group of terrorists who attacked Paris in November.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, was quoted as saying there was “reliable evidence” that the 17 were working on behalf of Islamic State.
He said that while Islamic State did not need to use known refugee routes it was “a show of power” on part of the terrorist group.
Last month, three Syrians were arrested in three different German states on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Dusseldorf on behalf of Islamic State.
The authorities said that the three had been posing as refugees and living in asylum seekers’ homes.
The alleged plot foresaw two militants blowing themselves up with explosive vests in the western German city’s historic centre and the remaining men killing as many people as possible with firearms.
In recent months, police have conducted a series of raids targeting Islamists sent to Germany on behalf of Islamic State.
Thus far, there has been no major terrorist attack on German soil.
Let us hope there never is one, though the odds are not good.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s promise of sanctuary brought some 1.1 million migrants to Germany in 2015, with most from conflict zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
More like 1.5 million, though even that is a guess based on those who registered with the authorities, and those were the homelands they claimed, though in many cases it was obviously not true.
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[SouthAfricaToday] A suicide bomber carried out an attack early Monday near a U.S. diplomatic site in the western Saudi city of Jiddah, according to the Interior Ministry.
The ministry said in a statement the attacker detonated his suicide vest when security guards approached him near the parking lot of a hospital. The attacker died and two security men were wounded with minor injuries, according to the statement published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. Some cars in the parking lot were damaged.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said in the statement the attacker caught the attention of the security guards, who noticed he was acting suspiciously at an intersection located on the corner of the heavily fortified U.S. consulate in Jiddah, located by the Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital. Most of the consulate’s staff had reportedly moved offices to a new location.
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia confirmed in a statement for U.S. citizens that there were no casualties or injuries among consular staff. The embassy said it remains in contact with Saudi authorities as they investigate the attack.
The Interior Ministry did not specify if the attacker was intending to target the U.S. diplomatic compound, saying an investigation was underway to determine his identity.
A 2004 al-Qaida-linked militant attack on the U.S. consulate in Jiddah killed five locally hired consular employees and four gunmen. The three-hour battle on the compound came amid a wave of al-Qaida attacks targeting Westerners and Saudi security posts.
More recently, Saudi Arabia has been a target of Islamic State group attacks that have killed dozens of people. The extremist group views the Western-allied Saudi monarchy and government as heretics. Saudi Arabia is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the IS group in Iraq and Syria.
In June, the Interior Ministry reported 26 terror attacks had taken place in the kingdom in the last two years. Local affiliates of the IS group have targeted minority Shiites and security officials.
The attack comes just days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in which observant Muslims fast daily from dawn to dusk.
The U.S. Embassy regularly issues advisory messages for U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia. In a message issued Sunday and another one issued after the attack Monday, the embassy urged Americans to “remain aware of their surroundings, and take extra precautions when travelling throughout the country.” It also advised citizens to “carefully consider the risks of traveling to Saudi Arabia.”
Remember when we used to say Israel ought to confiscate Palestinian land and build on it each time the Palestinians acted up? Apparently Bibi reads Rantburg.
[IsraelTimes] In wake of terror attacks, Netanyahu says West Bank’s Jewish communities must be strengthened; construction for 600 homes in Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa also approved
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman approved on Sunday construction plans for some 800 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the surrounding area, as well as hundreds of new homes for an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
According to the plan, 560 new units will be built in Ma’ale Adumim, a West Bank settlement right outside the capital, 140 homes were approved for the Jewish East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot and 100 for the Har Homa neighborhood, in southeastern Jerusalem.
Netanyahu and Liberman also authorized construction for 600 new homes in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa, a move criticized by the minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Zeev Elkin (Likud).
The announcement came a day after Netanyahu and Liberman approved the construction of 42 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, where 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was stabbed to death by a Paleostinian terrorist in her bedroom on Thursday morning in the settlement.
The new homes were a part of a series of measures announced by the Israeli government in response to the terror attack in Kiryat Arba, and another attack near Hebron Friday where a family car came under gunfire while driving along Route 60. Miki Mark, a yeshiva head from the settlement of Otniel was killed and his wife seriously injured. Two of their children who were with them in the car were also maimed.
In the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said his government was advancing a series of measures in response to the attacks, including a "special effort to strengthen the communities [in the West Bank]."
"We will submit a special plan for Kiryat Arba at the next cabinet meeting, and my directive to ministers which is to combine measures in all ministries to help communities in Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said.
In response to the attacks since Thursday, the IDF stepped up its troop presence in the West Bank, sending two battalions to help secure settlements and the main roads used by Israelis.
Israel also imposed closures on Hebron and the Paleostinian village of Bani Naim, the hometown of Ariel’s killer. The work permits of the town’s residents were canceled in response to the attack.
The construction announcements come after a Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... report Thursday demanded that Israel take urgent steps to halt the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, citing it as one of three "negative trends" that must be quickly reversed to keep the hope of an Israeli-Paleostinian peace deal alive.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Africa this week, where Israel has found much-needed partners in the battle against Islamic hard boyz and allies in countering the rising Paleostinian influence at the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Netanyahu will also visit the site where his brother was killed in a 1976 military raid on a hijacked airliner in Uganda, a seminal event that helped cement his hardline ideology.
Israel is hoping that the visit - the first by an Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades - will usher in a new era in which it provides African states with security and agricultural assistance in return for support in international forums.
Israel has a long history of involvement in Africa, sending experts in agriculture and development, as well as military advisers and mercenaries, over the years.
Netanyahu’s visit caps a budding rapprochement in recent years initiated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who, as foreign minister a few years ago, toured the continent on two occasions after no Israeli foreign minister had visited in two decades.
In turn, dozens of African dignitaries have visited Israel in recent years, including Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Dore Gold, a senior Israeli diplomat, traveled to South Africa in March, hoping to mend ties with a country that is strongly supportive of the Paleostinian quest for statehood.
"Israel is coming back to Africa; Africa is coming back to Israel. It’s happening in a big way," Netanyahu told African ambassadors at the launch February of the Israeli parliament's caucus for Israel-Africa relations.
Netanyahu said last month he will seek government approval for a $13 million plan to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.
Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s, but those relations crumbled in the 1970s, when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel. African states were also opposed to Israel's close ties to South Africa’s apartheid government.
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[RUDAW.NET] The Syrian regime has carried out Arclight airstrikes on civilian targets in the residential neighbourhood of Jayrud, northeast of Damascus, killing at least 30 one day after a Syrian plane crashed in the area and the pilot was killed by fighters from the Nusra Front.
Targets of the air raids included a medical centre and a school, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and rebel sources. Thirty civilians and two medics were killed. The Observatory said that many more residents were maimed in the strikes, which rebels believe were in retaliation for the killing of a Syrian pilot the day before.
"The strikes against civilians are in retaliation against the execution of the pilot by Nusra Front," a member of the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... ’s Shahid Ahmad Abdo brigade, Said Seif al-Qalamoni, told Rooters.
A Syrian warplane crashed in the rebel-held area northeast of Damascus on Friday. State media says the plane went down because of a technical fault but the rebel group Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... claimed to have shot it down.
The pilot ejected and was captured. He was killed by a fighter with the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front while being held at a joint command centre.
After images of the dear departed pilot were shared on social media, the Syrian army warned of a strong response to the killing.
Jayrud had largely been spared bombing in the Syrian civil war, now in its sixth year, after striking a truce with the Syrian army. It became a haven for thousands of civilians fleeing the fighting in nearby areas and is densely populated.
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The United Arab Emirates has warned its citizens to avoid wearing traditional garments when traveling abroad after an Emirati man was handcuffed in Ohio over terrorism fears.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet late Saturday that Emiratis should avoid wearing the garments for their safety. A separate ministry statement urged women to abide by bans on face veils in parts of Europe.
Local media reported Sunday that Emirati national Ahmed al-Menhali was detained at gunpoint last week while wearing a traditional white kandura, or ankle-length robe, and headscarf in Avon, Ohio after a hotel clerk raised suspicions he could have links to the Islamic State group.
[AZCentral] Eighteen-year-old was arrested in Tucson, accused of plotting against government buildings in Maricopa and Pima counties.
No doubt the sturdy, upright lad gave no inkling of his plans to anyone except his dozens of on-line friends. His parents were just happy he'd given up girls, drugs, and the demon alcohol to join them at Friday services at the local mosque.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Arizona Attorney General's Office have tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! an 18-year-old Tucson man they say conspired to carry out acts of terrorism against government buildings in Maricopa and Pima counties.
Mahin Khan was arrested in Tucson following an investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to the FBI. He was booked into Maricopa County jail on suspicion of conspiring to commit terrorism.
Attorney General's Office spokeswoman Mia Garcia and FBI officials said Khan's alleged plans did not involve the Fourth of July or any related festivities.
"The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is working closely with federal authorities to keep Arizonans safe. We are not aware of any threats Khan made that involve the Fourth of July holiday weekend," Garcia said.
Garcia said there are no additional suspects and no current threat to the public involving Khan's plans.
Khan has had his initial court appearance but court records have been sealed and no additional details were immediately available.
A man who said he was Khan's father, contacted at his home in Tucson, declined to comment.
Records show Khan lived with his family in a gated community near River Road and Camino Boscaje Escondido in north Tucson close to the Catlina Foothills. Additional family members could not be reached for comment.
Neighbors who lived near the Khan family at a prior residence described the family as quiet, but declined to be interviewed.
A Turkish aid ship carrying 11,000 tons of supplies for the Gaza Strip arrived at Israel’s Ashdod port on July 3. Turkish diplomats and Israeli Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Oren Rozenblat were present at the port as the Panama-flagged Lady Leyla docked.
The ship carried around 10,000 toys and 10,000 packages of food and aid for children in Gaza. It also carried five tons of flour and 2,000 tons of rice aid from the Turkish Grain Board, as well as sugar aid from the Turkish Red Crescent.
The ship set sail on June 30 following a reconciliation deal reached between Turkey and Israel on June 27, after six years of strained relations.
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#1
Headline says it all.
Beyond that just a condensed manifest, of course I like a fine condensed manifest.
Two security officers died in a car bomb explosion shortly after midnight last night in Benghazi’s Fuwayhat district, and which is believed to have been set off by members of the so-called Islamic State (IS/Daesh). However, the man believed to be the terrorists’ target, Counter Crime Agency commander Hamada Ramli, escaped with relatively minor injuries. He was wounded in his left arm and leg.
The explosion happened as his car was driving down Pepsi Street, busy at the time with late night Ramadan shoppers, promenaders and coffee shop devotees. As it passed a parked vehicle, the latter blew up in what was evidently a remote controlled explosion.
The two officers travelling with Ramli died instantly. Reports that five others were wounded in the attack have been denied by a local resident who told the Libya Herald, however, that two other vehicles had been destroyed in the blast.
Ramli has had a high profile, appearing on TV on several occasions to explain what was being done to crush IS in Benghazi. “Daesh hates him,” said one security official.
He has sent out a message from hospital stating that he suffered only minor wounds and is otherwise fine.
Responding to the attack, the interior minister of Abdullah Al-Thinni’s interim government called top security officials to a meeting in Benghazi to review the city’s safety needs.
UN Special Envoy Martin Kobler has condemned the incident.
Posted by: badanov ||
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(IraqiNews.com) Diyala – Diyala Police Command announced on Sunday that two wanted individuals were arrested and a cache of gear was seized during raids and field operations at different areas of the province.
Diyala Police chief, Jasim al-Sa’adi, in a brief statement issued to the media, said, “Police personnel today detained two individuals, wanted for several criminal charges, during two raids carried out in the vicinity of Mandeli (90 km east of Baqubah) and the outskirts of al-Maqdadiya (35 km northeast of Baqubah),” adding, “The forces further were successful in seizing a hoard containing six mortar shells and a cannon, in addition to quantities of gears at Jawad al-Bash (25 km south of Baqubah).”
(IraqiNews.com) Diyala – A source in Diyala informed on Sunday that unidentified militants killed a civilian in central al-Maqdadiya northeast of Baqubah.
Revealing more about it the source said, “This morning unidentified militants opened fire against a civilian at al-Aseri in central al-Maqdadiya- 35 km northeast of Baqubah- resulting in his immediate death. Security forces cordoned off the incident area and instituted an investigation into the incident for finding the perpetrators involved in the incident.”
[RUDAW.NET] The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) is looking to build alliances with national, regional, and international allies in the face of threats from the Iranian government in Tehran.
"PDKI [KDPI] has embarked on an international campaign to find allies in the Middle East and beyond to counter the threats from the Islamist regime in Iran," reads a statement from the organization published on Saturday, responding a senior Iranian military official who vowed to "crush" KDPI threats in the Kurdistan Region.
The KDPI, whose headquarters are based in the Kurdistan Region, and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have clashed several times in Kurdish areas of northern Iran since mid-June. On June 26, Iran took the fight internationally, firing shells across the border into the Kurdistan Region on the pretext that KDPI bases were located in the area.
A senior Iranian military commander vowed to crush the KDPI, regardless of what borders were in the way. "I warn the officials of northern Iraq, adhere to their commitments as the Islamic Theocratic Republic will crush threats regardless of geographical considerations," said Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, second-in-command of Iran’s revolutionary guards, speaking at Friday prayers in Tehran University, according to the Tehran Times.
The Kurdish government has warned the KDPI, and all Iranian and Turkish opposition groups, against using Kurdistan Region territories for launching attacks on its neighbors and insisted that they must respect Erbil’s international relations with these countries.
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The former head of drug crimes in the Ukrainian National Police was attacked Saturday night in Kherson, according to a news account in korrespodent.net.
Ilya Kiva, who was campaigning in Kherson for a seat in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, was not in his car when it was attacked, and was unharmed.
The gunman fire about 20 rounds into Kiva's car, then detonated a hand grenade.
Kiva was dismissed as head of the Interior Ministry's National Police drug department, along with a department ombudsman, last May. According to a separate korrespondent.net account, he was to head the department of veterans in the interior ministry's Anti Terrorist Operation, but was to be "recertified" for a law enforcement post.
Kiva's troubles began in April when a blogger published photographs which showed Kiva open carrying a firearm while boarding a train in Kiev.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues.
Over 60 Taliban insurgents were killed or wounded in a series of airstrikes in Arghistan district located in northeastern Badakhshan province.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 50 militants were killed and 12 others were seriously wounded in the raids.
MoD further added that 12 militants were killed and 2 others were wounded in a separate airstrike carried out in Aband district of southeastern Ghazni province.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far.
Both Badakhshan and Ghazni provinces are among the relatively volatile provinces where anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating in a number of its remote districts.
The increased raids by the Afghan forces comes as the Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the group announced its spring offensive earlier in April.
The Taliban militants have since then staged numerous coordinated and suicide attacks across the country including capital Kabul as the group’s insurgency has entered to its 15th year.
In the meantime, the Afghan forces launched a counter terrorism operation in response to the annual spring offensive of the Taliban with the security officials claiming that the major attacks as part of Taliban spring offensive have been repulsed and the group has sustained major losses.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A doctor headed for morning prayers at a Houston mosque was reportedly ambushed by three masked men who shot and maimed him on Sunday, a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque.
The victim of the Texas incident, identified as Dr. Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist, was undergoing surgery and was expected to survive, according to KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.
The doctor had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT). His three attackers fled on foot, KTRK reported.
The victim was able to toss his cell phone to someone at the entrance to the mosque on Bintliff Drive and DeMoss Drive , in southwest Houston, and ask them to call 911, the TV station said.
Houston police did not immediately respond to a request for information.
The shooting took place a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque that had been attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.
The victim in that case was punched in the head and face outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center just after 4 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said.
Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was incarcerated Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! in the attack and was charged with felony battery, the sheriff's office said.
No racially motivated comments were made to the suspect during the incident, said the sheriff's office, which added the case is under investigation.
The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... (CAIR ...designated a terrorist group by the UAE... ), however, said the attacker uttered racially offensive comments including "You Muslims need to get back to your country" before assaulting the victim.
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[RUDAW.NET] Erbil security forces jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! the assailant who detonated two hand grenades in front of Rudaw’s headquarters and, in footage released by the Asayesh [security forces], the perpetrator confessed to his act, which maimed two employees of Rudaw and three private security guards on June 25.
Surveillance camera footage shows the assailant as he placed two grenades under the left back tire of a Rudaw live coverage vehicle and left the scene. The grenades went kaboom! 13 minutes later.
Asayesh arrested the perpetrator, Rebwar Wriya Salih, three days later, the security forces confirmed in a statement.
Salih confessed and said he was given the grenades from two men along with instructions of what to do. They told Salih they wanted to cause chaos in the capital of the Kurdistan Region through an act of terror against a major media corporation like Rudaw.
The two who orchestrated the attack are Saadi Mustafa Abdulrahman and Jwamer Osman Abdulla, said Salih. They also taught him how to handle and set the grenades in training conducted outside of the city.
Salih said that Saadi Mustafa Abdulrahman and Jwamer Osman Abdulla are members of the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG, Komal Party). He joined the party in 2008 and met Abdulrahman and Abdulla through the party.
The KIG issued a statement denying their party was involved in the attack and has rejected the accusations made by Salih.
The attack took place at 12:05 am on June 25, at the headquarters of Rudaw Media Network on Runaki Street in Erbil.
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[RUDAW.NET] The Iraqi parliament’s Integrity Commission has asked the central government to issue the arrest of 2165 individuals in the country whom the commission officially charged on Friday for embezzlement and bribery at the end of an investigation that lasted over six months.
The majority of the wanted defendants are state employees with at least 6 ministers among them along with dozens of top ranking managers within government institutions.
"These are cases that we have investigated in the first half of this year after they were reported to us by private and government sources," said Hasan Yassiri, head of the commission explaining that over 13,000 cases had come to their attention with over 2,000 of them leading to an arrest warrant.
"It is a huge number by every account even for the Iraqi government," Yassiri told news hounds after announcing the commission’s results.
Iraq has repeatedly topped the list of the least transparent nations in the past decade where widespread corruption has made it almost impossible for the government to run the country.
According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reported by Transparency International, Iraq was the least transparent country in 2007 of the total of 178 nations enlisted in the index, followed by Afghanistan and Somalia.
Iraq has gradually fallen in the list, but it was still in the top 15 most corrupt nations in 2015, according to the index.
With over $700 billion of revenues from oil exports since 2003, Iraq is considered a wealthy nation not only in the region but also according to world standards. Nonetheless, the country is still suffering from lack of basic services such as electricity and healthcare.
Earlier this year, supporters of Shiite holy man Moqtada Al-Sadr took to streets in Baghdad and threatened to take matters in their hands if "corrupted officials" were not punished.
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[Dhaka Tribune] Primary investigation suggests that some members of banned Death Eater outfits Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarullah Bangla Team carried out the Gulshan terror attack jointly on Friday following in-depth reconnaissance at the restaurant.
Some of them directly took part in several other operations ‐ including the kaboom on a temple and the murder of a converted freedom fighter in northern Bangladesh ‐ conducted recently in the name of international terrorist group 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.... The law enforcers are yet to disclose details of the six attackers killed during the Operation Thunderbolt on Saturday morning, nearly 10 hours after the hostage situation ensued. The police only gave the names of five of them. Another suspect named Sourav is undergoing treatment in police custody.
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Top|| File under: Ansarullah Bangla Team
A bomb making factory of the Taliban group was busted during an operation in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, the Afghan intelligence said Sunday.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the factory was discovered in Robat village located in Chemtal district.
According to a statement by NDS, two experts working in the factory to manufacture Improvised Explosive Device (IED) were also detained during the operation.
The statement further added that the two suspects have been identified as Mehrabuddin son of Noor Mohammad and Mohammad Ewaz Akbari son of Abdul Salam.
NDS also added that the intelligence operatives seized 12 kgs of TNT explosives, 6 Nokia mobile phone sets, some explosives, 2 hand grenades, 20 explosives capsules, 1 remote control, and other types of equipment used to manufacture IEDs.
According to NDS, the Taliban militants were looking to use the weapons and explosives to plan and coordinate attacks during the Eid days in Balkh province.
NDS said the Taliban militants were looking to target the mosques during the Eid days as hundreds of people would gather for Eid prayers.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the report so far.
[RUDAW.NET] As we are getting closer to the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... operation there is a continued traffic of international, regional and local delegations to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region. Erbil has become a hub for meetings and discussions on the future of Mosul. This is telling us that Erbil is a neutral and reliable actor in the saga of Mosul and its possible liberation. Although Mosul is an Iraqi city because of its biased position Baghdad does not seem to be the preferred choice of planning.
In a meeting hosted by the Erbil-based Middle East Research Institute (MERI) last month representatives of the US, UK, EU, UN, KRG and Mosul provincial council discussed and exchanged views on the final operation and what the future Mosul should be like. All participants agreed that such gatherings were crucial especially on the issue of the future administration of Mosul.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Seven holy warriors who killed 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka were local Bangladeshis and authorities had tried before to arrest five of them, police said, as Sherlocks probed for possible links with international Islamist Death Eater groups.
The gunnies stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing 20 hostages, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American.
The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have recaptured a number of the security posts in Jalrez district of central Wardak province.
According to the local security officials, the security posts were captured during two days of ongoing operations which were lunched following a coordinated Taliban attack.
Provincial governor’s spokesman Abdul Rahman Mangal said the security posts were captured by the Taliban militants two days ago and an operation was launched to clear the area from the militants’ presence.
He said at least security personnel sustained injuries during the operations and around 15 Taliban insurgents were killed or wounded.
The Taliban militants launched the coordinated attack on security posts in Jalrez district late on Friday night and managed to capture several security posts.
The local officials had earlier warned that the district would fall to Taliban control if additional forces were not deployed to repulse the Taliban attack.
Taliban militants are actively operating in a number of the remote districts of Wardak province and often carry out insurgency activities.
The militants are also occasionally targeting the security forces and passenger buses and vehicles on the highway connecting Kabul with the southern and southeastern provinces.
Syrian government forces were locked in fierce battles with rebels north of Aleppo yesterday in a bid to cut the last opposition route out of the city, a monitor said. Fresh clashes broke out overnight in Mallah, a section of farmland on the northern edge of the divided city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been attempting to seize Mallah for more than two years as it runs adjacent to the Castello Road -- the last route rebels can use to access districts they control in the city.
“Regime forces were able to advance in the area, but the Castello Road is still open,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
“If they seize control of all of Mallah, they will be able to besiege the opposition neighborhoods of Aleppo city,” he added.
Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government, quoted a field commander yesterday morning saying the army had fully overrun Mallah but had not yet cut off the Castello Road.
“The army has two kilometers left to cut the militants’ only lifeline from the eastern neighborhoods to the outside world via the Castello Road,” the paper wrote.
Fighting has rocked Mallah since a government assault on the area began in late June, followed by a jihadist-led counterattack. The situation has remained fluid, with each side advancing briefly before being rolled back.
Dozens of fighters on both sides of the frontline -- including from the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda -- have been killed there over the past week, the Observatory said.
Aleppo province is crisscrossed with supply routes for nearly all of Syria’s warring parties -- rebels, jihadists, the regime, and Kurdish forces. The city itself -- the country’s pre-war commercial capital -- has been divided since mid-2012 into rebel-held and regime-held areas.
Syria’s government has pledged to retake the whole city despite efforts by Washington and regime ally Moscow to stem the violence there.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – On Sunday, a security source in Nineveh Province informed about the commencement of military operations to liberate the remaining villages in the vicinity of Qayyarah south of Mosul.
According to information shared by the source, it was mentioned, “Military troops of the 71st and 72nd regiments of the army’s 15th brigade began operations to liberate the remaining areas in al-Haj Ali village in the vicinity of Qayyarah from the ISIS control.”
The source added, “The military operations going on in order to liberate al-Karamah and al-Awsaja villages,” adding, “The presence of families and IEDs in these villages are hindering the advance of the security forces.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A source from Nineveh Operations Command announced on Sunday that the joint security forces managed to liberate a village in the vicinity of Qayyarah south of Mosul. In the liberation operations, twelve (12) ISIS members were also killed, it stressed upon.
According to information shared by the source, it was stated, “Military troops of the 71st regiment of army’s 15 brigade and Nineveh Operations Commando regiment backed by the 37th brigade managed to liberate al-Karamah village in the vicinity of Qayyarah vicinity south of Mosul.”
The source added, “The liberation operations resulted in the killing of 12 ISIS members and detonations of 20 improvised explosive devices.”
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Dhaka Tribune] Awami League-led 14-party alliance has claimed that the terrorists, who attacked the Holey Artisan Bakery at Dhaka’s diplomatic zone on Friday night, were trained activists of Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami ... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition.... .
The ruling alliance made the allegation at a presser held at political office of Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. at Dhanmondi in Dhaka.
Senior leaders of the alliance made the statement after a meeting yesterday afternoon.
"The six killers, who have been killed during shootout with law enforcement agencies are Bangladeshi. One of them was a student of a Jamaat-Islami financed university. So it is crystal clear that who have inspired and financed the attackers. All of them were Jamaat-Shibir activists," said Health Minister Mohammad Nasim, who also spokesperson of the 14-party.
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The turbans who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi bad boy outfit and not followers of ISIS, a senior minister said Sunday.
"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Minister of Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.
"They have no connections with ISIS."
All they have to do is pledge allegiance, and they're in as the local franchise. It's not like the old days, when a cadre had to be sent to the home office for vetting and training and secret passwords; now it's all making a bomb in the kitchen of your mother, as described in the last issue but one of the online magazine.
ISIS has grabbed credit for the killing of the hostages and two coppers during an 11-hour siege that ended on Saturday but the government has consistently denied that international Lion of Islam groups are operating in Bangladesh.
Police have released the names and photos of six of the attackers who were shot at the end of the siege. A seventh was locked away Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.
Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.
"They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa," the minister said.
Asked why they would have become Islamist bad boys, Khan said: "It has become a fashion."
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group have executed at least three men in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
The terror group claimed that the men were arrested during an operation by the fighters of the group and they belong to Taliban group.
The group initially released the pictures of the men in social media and later issued more pictures which purportedly shows the execution of the men.
The three men are shown in orange jump suits as they are forced to kneel in the ground while a child is executing them with a pistol.
The group also released several other pictures which purportedly shows coordinated attacks on several outposts of the Taliban group in Nangarhar province.
This comes as the loyalists of the terror group released several pictures which purportedly showed the execution of at least three individuals allegedly for having links with the Taliban group.
In the meantime, the loyalists of the terror group launched a major attack on police check posts in Kot district late last month.
The latest major attack by ISIS loyalists in Kot district comes as the terror group received major blows during the recent months as a result of the Afghan and US forces routine operations.
The US forces stepped up airstrikes against the ISIS loyalists earlier this year after they were granted more authorities by President Barack Obama.
The increased raids against ISIS loyalists followed amid concerns that they are attempting to expand foothold in the country besides attempting to consolidate operations with the terror group in Iraq and Syria.
In the three years since Edward Snowden landed in Moscow, his relationship with his hosts has been a source of much speculation and controversy. The American IT contractor, who worked for the CIA and NSA until he fled Hawaii with more than a million purloined secret files, has not left Russia since he arrived at Sheremetyevo airport on 23 June 2013, on a flight from Hong Kong. On the run from prosecution in the USA, Snowden received asylum from Vladimir Putin. Although Snowden recently indicated he would like a pardon from President Barack Obama before he leaves office in January, there’s no indication that will happen. The White House only a month ago explained that it considers Snowden to be a criminal, so any pardon seems like a fantasy.
Then there is the messy question of Snowden’s ties with the Kremlin. To anybody acquainted with the world of espionage, particularly when it involves Russians, Snowden is a defector and his collaboration with Moscow’s security agencies is a sure thing – as I explained recently. Experts on the Kremlin’s powerful intelligence apparatus, what Russians call the “special services,” have no doubt that collaboration is a matter of simple quid pro quo. Any Western intelligence official who receives sanctuary in Russia will share what he knows with his hosts: there is no choice in the matter.
Snowden and his representatives have insisted that he is no collaborator. The official story is that Snowden arrived in Moscow with none of the classified documents he stole from NSA, and he refused to share secrets with Russian intelligence. According to Wikileaks, which told Snowden to flee to Moscow, the defector was approached by Russian spies after his arrival in their country, but refused to spill secrets. Since Wikileaks itself is now more or less openly a front for the Kremlin, with its head Julian Assange mouthing pro-Putin propaganda with increasing frequency, there’s no reason to take its claims about Snowden seriously – particularly given Assange’s admitted role in getting the American to Moscow in the first place.
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[RUDAW.NET] 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.... claimed on Sunday to have made advances against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) both northwest and south of Manbij, retaking nine villages. The SDF confirmed that they are clashing with the ISIS bandidosLions of Islam but maintain that they remain in control of the area.
Social media accounts linked to the gunnies also named two jacket wallahs who targeted Kurdish forces in the area, claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties.
Shervan Derwish, official spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed on Facebook that the forces of the Manbij Military Council (MMC) have clashed throughout the day with ISIS bandidosLions of Islam on three fronts in the Manbij area. But the bandidosLions of Islam have fled the area, he stated, with MMC forces pursuing them.
Syrian Democratic Forces are leading an operation to liberate Manbij from Islamic State under the umbrella of the locally formed Manbij Military Council. The SDF are a multi-ethnic force dominated by the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG).
Derwish also said that the MMC has the bodies of at least 40 deceased bully boys, and the number of casualties is expected to rise. He did not report any casualties on the MMC side.
Derwish added that the situation is now under the control of the Manbij Military Council.
The SDF are backed by US-led coalition forces who carried out six Arclight airstrikes in the Manbij area on Saturday, destroying two ISIS fighting positions and an ISIS vehicle.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A convoy carrying Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi who had come to tour the site of the deadly bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.
A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 91 people and injuring at least 200. ISIS grabbed credit for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide kaboom.
Video footage uploaded to social media showed the angry crowd, with people calling Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.
Eyewitness said the crowd pelted Abadi’s car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.
Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival.
Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shiite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques.
Rooters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around.
The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed from their injuries.
Until the government launched its Fallujah operation, the prime minister had faced growing social unrest and anti-government protests sparked, in part, by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad’s highly-fortified Green Zone - which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions - was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Syrian refugees living in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has signaled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.
"I want to announce some good news," media quoted Erdogan as saying late Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border.
"We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality."
The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.
He did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.
"We regard you as our brothers and sisters -- you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land," Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis.
"Turkey is also your homeland."
Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as "guests."
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US-backed rebels on Sunday accused Al-Qaeda-linked fighters of storming their headquarters in northwestern Syria and kidnapping their commander and dozens of other combatants.
In an online statement, Jaish al-Tahrir (Liberation Army) said its commander, Mohammad al-Ghabi, was kidnapped from his father’s home in the town of Kafranbel by Al-Nusra Front jihadists on Saturday evening.
It said Al-Nusra fighters also "kidnapped more than 40 members of Jaish al-Tahrir" and stole weapons from other bases and checkpoints set up in northwestern Syria.
"We call on Al-Nusra Front to immediately release our commander and all the others who were kidnapped," the statement said, urging other Islamist groups to put pressure on the jihadists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the incident and said the US had supported Jaish al-Tahrir with weapons and even salaries in the past.
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Top|| File under: al-Nusra
[CARE2] The rescue took place in the northeastern part of the country in four remote villages. 10 holy warriors and one civilian were allegedly killed during the operation.
This isn’t the first time the Nigerian Army has rescued a large number of kidnapped civilians this year, and it could signal a weakening of the myrmidon group. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... the situation remains complex. Those close to high level leaders within the government remain under scrutiny.
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... has operated a deadly campaign in Nigeria since 2009, and in that time, the group has killed roughly 20,000 civilians and displaced over 2.5 million from their land.
Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , and according to those who have been rescued, life under the myrmidon group is brutal.
Binta Abdullahi, who was rescued over a year ago, told ABC News that kidnapped women are threatened with forced marriage or slavery:
They asked us to marry Boko Haram members but we told them there was no way we could get married because we were already married to our husbands. They said since we would not marry them they would sell us as slaves at the right time.
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
Three more people were detained early Sunday as a part of investigation into Tuesday’s deadly Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack, Turkish security sources said, Anadolu reported.
The total number of people detained over the terror attack rose to 27, an unnamed security sources said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
27? That's going to require a lot of mustache wax to be delivered to a Turkish prison...
Tuesday night’s attack saw three terrorists open fire in the international terminal of Ataturk International Airport before detonating explosives, killing 44 people and injuring more than 200.
Meanwhile, 13 suspects, including three foreigners, were referred to Istanbul’s Bakirkoy Court House on Sunday.
The suspects, who are in police custody, were charged with belonging to a terror group, homicide and endangering the unity of the state, Dogan reported, without providing the foreigners’ nationalities.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[DAILYTRUST.NG] There is tension in Maiduguri over the detention of about 772 suspected 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... terrorists, their wives and children in the Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered. This is in addition to others, who are confined in a yet to be ascertained centre for de-radicalisation, as well as several other women said to be wives of Boko Haram Death Eaters, all in Maiduguri.
Information on the presence of faceless myrmidons in the prison was first made public last Monday, when Justice Alkali Gana Wakkil led other stakeholders on a visit to the only functional prison in the state. He was told by the officer in charge of the prison that there were 772 repentant Boko Haram Death Eaters.
The Deputy Comptroller of Prisons (DCP), Lumson Apollos Kaye, told the judge that there were a total of 1,288 prisoners awaiting trial, as well as 772 suspected Boko Haram Death Eaters, who were taken to the prison by the military for rehabilitation, following their claim that they had repented. It was also learnt that the suspected bandidosfaceless myrmidons were there with their wives and children.
Although Kaye conducted the judge round the prison, he did not, however, show him where the suspected male faceless myrmidons were kept. But at the female wing of the prison, some well fed women numbering about 10, along with well dressed children said to be family members of the detained Death Eaters, were seen in one of the rooms looking very relaxed. He referred to the wives of the Boko Haram suspects as "our special guests.’’
The prison boss also told the judge that there were eight internally displaced persons (IDPs) on awaiting trial list, over different allegations. One of them was said to have been locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! over the allegation that he was buying soup and meat for his fellow displaced persons, raising questions on where he got the money from.
DCP Kaye said he was running the prison without any financial support from the government, adding that the state High Court assists him to fuel his three official vehicles. He also said he sourced for money among his officers to buy soap and detergents for prison inmates.
"My lord, when the soldiers brought these repentant Boko Haram faceless myrmidons to us, they smelled badly. In fact, everywhere in this compound smelled. We had to tax ourselves and bought detergents for them to wash up. Government is not giving me anything to run this place," he told the judge.
A military source who did not want to be mentioned because he has no right to talk to the press, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the suspected faceless myrmidons were not in prison for rehabilitation. According to him, government may be preparing to prosecute them.
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A security source in Kirkuk said on Sunday that ISIS executed fifteen (15) persons, including eight of its own members, on charges of cooperation with the security forces and deserting the battlefield southwest of the province.
According to information shared by the source, “ISIS executed seven civilians from Hawija in front of a civilian gathering in central Hawija-55 km southwest of Kirkuk,” further adding, “The execution was based on the decision of the legitimate court.”
The information also added, “Moreover, ISIS also executed eight of its own members charging them of showing cowardice and deserting the battle fronts.”
[ARA News] DUHOK – The radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) on Sunday executed seven of its own militants on charges of treason, local sources in Iraq’s northwestern Mosul city reported.
The seven militants were accused of escaping the battlefront in the Sharqat district south of Mosul, where heavy fighting continued between ISIS and the Iraqi army.
“The Sharia Court accused them of high treason. They were subsequently executed in central Mosul amid the attendance of dozens of ISIS members as well as residents from the city,” media activist Munzir Hussein told ARA News in Mosul.
“A Sharia official read a statement before the execution was conducted, saying those who flee the jihad fronts are enemies of Allah and unbelievers, and that they deserve death,” the source reported.
Dissidence
In early May, ISIS has executed eight of its own militants on charges of attempting dissidence in the city of Manbij in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.
Local activists confirmed that ISIS has executed its own militants for trying to desert the group’s ranks and flee to Turkey.
Speaking to ARA News in Manbij, media activist Nasser Taljbini said that ISIS militants who observe Syria-Turkey borderline near their areas of control have arrested several members of the group while trying to escape and cross the border into Turkey.
“The arrestees, including jihadis from several Arab nationalities, were executed by firing squad on Tuesday near the Ittihad University building west of Manbij,” the source reported.
Taljbini pointed out that a masked member from the Sharia Court in Manbij explained the reason behind executing the militants, saying “these are traitors for the Caliphate”.
In February, ISIS-linked border guards were able to capture an ISIS militant, a Tunisian national, along with his Chechen wife, in the city of Jarablus northern Syria, while trying to flee the group’s ranks to Turkey, according to local sources.
“ISIS border guards were able to capture the Tunisian militant and his wife near the Turkish border in the western suburbs of Jarablus before crossing border into Turkey,” media activist J.S., based in Jarablus, told ARA News, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The source pointed out the arrestees were taken to the ISIS’s Sharia Court in Jarablus for interrogation.
Several reports confirmed that many ISIS militants have deserted the group’s ranks recently, especially in the areas under its control in Jarablus, Manbij, and al-Bab in Aleppo suburbs near the Turkish border.
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[RUDAW.NET] Socialist International (SI), the worldwide organization of 153 progressive political parties, officially supports the Kurdish "call for self-determination" and praises the crucial role Peshmerga forces play "in fighting terrorism."
Such a thing still exists in these modern times? I had no idea.
"The Kurdish aspiration for peace, dialogue and democratic solutions with Iraq, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Syria and Iran are well received and supported by SI, which supports their calls for self-determination," according to a draft declaration issued on the Kurdish region by the SI on Saturday.
It added that they welcome "the right to self-determination through mutual understanding for a new formula between the KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] and the Iraqi government."
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(IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – A source in Salahuddin province said on Sunday that the security forces gained control over three villages west of Makhmour.
According to information shared by the source, it was stated, “Forces of the 91st and 37th brigades as well as the Iraqi army’s 15th Division liberated the villages of al-Karama, al-Asriya and al-Mahal, west of Makhmour, from ISIS,” asserting that, “29 ISIS elements had been killed during the operation.”
“The engineering forces are currently cleansing the area of explosives,” the information added.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Born in the ashes of the smoldering South after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan died and was reborn before losing the fight against civil rights in the 1960s. Membership dwindled, a unified group fractured, and one-time members went to prison for a string of murderous attacks against blacks. Many assumed the group was dead, a white-robed ghost of hate and violence.
Yet today, the KKK is still alive and dreams of restoring itself to what it once was: an invisible white supremacist empire spreading its tentacles throughout society. As it marks 150 years of existence, the Klan is trying to reshape itself for a new era.
Klan members still gather by the dozens under starry Southern skies to set fire to crosses in the dead of night, and KKK leaflets have shown up in suburban neighborhoods from the Deep South to the Northeast in recent months.
Perhaps most unwelcome to opponents, some independent Klan organizations say they are merging with larger groups to build strength.
In a series of interviews with The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, Klan leaders said they feel that US politics are going their way, as a nationalist, us-against-them mentality deepens across the nation. Stopping or limiting immigration - a desire of the Klan dating back to the 1920s - is more of a cause than ever.
And leaders say membership has gone up at the twilight of President Barack Obama teachable moment... ’s second term in office.
Joining the Klan is as easy as filling out an online form - provided you’re white and Christian. Members can visit an online store to buy one of the Klan’s trademark white cotton robes for $145, though many splurge on the $165 satin version.
While the Klan has terrorized minorities during much of the last century, its leaders now present a public front that is more virulent than violent.
Leaders from several different Klan groups all said they have rules against violence aside from self-defense, and even opponents agree the KKK has toned itself down after a string of members went to prison years after the fact for deadly arson attacks, beatings, bombings and shootings.
"While today’s Klan has still been involved in atrocities, there is no way it is as violent as the Klan of the ’60s’," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that tracks activity by groups it considers bad boy.
The SPLC and the KKK are both totalitarian groups, just in different directions. They deserve each other...
"That does not mean it is some benign group that does not engage in political violence," he added.
Klan leaders told the AP that most of today’s groups remain small and operate independently, kept apart by disagreements over such issues as whether to associate with neo-Nazis, hold public rallies or wear the KKK’s trademark robes in colors other than white.
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#1
I'm waiting for an offshoot of the KKK that wears rainbow colored robes.
#5
Except there is very little difference between the New Black Panthers, BLM, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the KKK.
They all serve the same masters, the Democratic National Committee. They all want the same thing - division and racial strive. And they are all based on the same thing: Deep abiding hatred of 'others'...
Reports reaching us from Shalanbod town in lower Shabeele region indicate that suspected Al-shabaab fighters attacked government forces base in the town. Locals officials told the Radio Shabelle that the militants raided a local SNA base on Sunday, leading to a fierce gun battle that lasted for hours.
They said, the Somali federal government forces however have managed to successfully repulse the attackers who are thought to be Al Shabaab members. At the same time, the authorities have congratulated the government forces for keeping the Al Shabaab militants at bay during the counter-fire.
There was no immediate report of the casualties from both sides.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The White House on Sunday condemned bombings in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and maimed 200, saying the attack only strengthened the United States’ resolve to confront ISIS myrmidons.
"We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," the White House statement said, using an acronym for the self-declared ISIS.
A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in Baghdad’s central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. In a second attack, a roadside device went kaboom! around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shiite district, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.
The bombings demonstrated the murderous Moslems’ ability to mount significant attacks despite major battlefield losses, including the city of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... which was declared "fully liberated" from ISIS just over a week ago.
In the deadliest attack, a boom-mobile hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, killing 86 people and wounding 170, according to police and hospital officials. It struck as families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan.
ISIS grabbed credit for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The statement could not be independently verified.
At dawn Sunday, fire fighters were still working to extinguish the blazes and bodies were still being recovered from charred buildings. Many of the dead were children, according to News Agency that Dare Not be Namednews hounds at the scene.
Ambulances could be heard rushing to the site for hours after the blast. An eyewitness said the kaboom caused fires at nearby clothing and cellphone shops.
Hours after the bombing, Iraq's prime minister visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.
In the second attack, an improvised bomb went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 16. No group grabbed credit for the attack.
The casualty figures were confirmed by police and hospital officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.
The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah "fully liberated" from ISIS. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against ISIS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.
Despite the government's battlefield victories, ISIS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.
Before the launch of the operation to retake Fallujah, Iraq's prime minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone - which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions - was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.
ISIS still controls Iraq's second largest city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.
At the height of the murderous Moslem group's power in 2014, ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the forces of Evil are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.
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These are two different ISIS leaders than were reported killed by coalition jets yesterday.
[RUDAW.NET] Two of 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 (ISIS) top local leaders in the town of Gayara, southern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , were killed on Saturday in Arclight airstrikes carried out by warplanes from the US-led coalition, a Kurdish official told Rudaw.
"Today the coalition warplanes killed Mahdi Luizi, the ISIS Gayara Wali [governor], and Hamadi Khafaji, in charge of ISIS mortars," Ismat Rajab, a Kurdish official from Mosul, now in exile, told Rudaw.
The Iraqi army launched military operations to retake Gayara and Shargat, two strategic towns in southern Mosul, on June 18.
Gayara is a large town on the Tigris River, 80 kilometres south of Mosul.
By capturing Gayara and neighbouring Shargat, the Iraqi army will edge closer to Mosul, ISIS’ main stronghold in Iraq.
In the meantime, Baghdad announced another offensive against ISIS in Anbar province's far eastern town of Khalidiya Jazira, which has long been held by the krazed killer group.
"Following the control of Halabisa, Albu Alawan, and Albu Aifan, the Iraqi security forces in coordination with tribal fighters, Iraqi and coalition fighter jets, the Khalidiya Jazira operation was launched in eastern Ramadi," said Raji Issawi, deputy head of the security committee of Anbar Provincial Council.
Issawi added that "ISIS [ISIS] snuffies are fiercely defending. But the security forces are advancing according to military plans."
He suggested that the town will "soon be liberated."
Like Gayara, ISIS took over Khalidiya Jazira in mid-2014. It is considered an important stronghold of the murderous Moslems in eastern Ramadi. Located in the desert between Samarra and Ramadi, it is an ideological heartland for Islamic holy warriors, having been a stronghold of al Qaeda before the rise of Islamic State.
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The head of central region Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG), Ibrahim Jadhran, has threatened reprisals against the Libyan National Army (LNA).
In a short but strident video published yesterday on the Facebook page of PFG media spokesman Ali Al-Hassi, Jadhran is seen in front of a number of armed vehicles making the threat but also attempting to justify the decision to pull the PFG out of Ajdabiya and the surrounding area. He claimed that, following the LNA’s airstrike on one of the PFG camps outside the town a fortnight ago, the forces had withdrawn for the sake of town.
Hassi had earlier made a similar statement about pulling out for to ensure the safety of Ajdabiya residents.
Forces linked to LNA forces now appear to be in control of most security locations in and around Ajdabiya. While it is not clear where the llcal PFG have gone, one resident who had been involved with Jadhran told the Libya Herald that they were not far away.
[DAWN] DECIPHERING the foreign policy and national security statements of the PML-N government is becoming an increasingly odd affair. There is the known, but unacknowledged, gap between the priorities and preferences of the political government and the military leadership.
There is also the pressure that the civilian foreign policy advisers of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... appear to be under from the military to publicly articulate and defend policies that are crafted in GHQ.
But vastly experienced civilians, like foreign affairs adviser Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... , appear to be adding to the confusion rather than trying to find a consistent and defendable line on vital issues.
Consider Mr Aziz’s latest pronouncement: citing fears about so-called blowback from turban groups, the foreign affairs adviser appeared to defend the state’s lack of action against sanctuaries of the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban on Pak soil.
While Mr Aziz made familiar reference to the state’s decision that action against turban groups should follow some kind of sequence, he appeared to suggest that decisions have yet to be made regarding "how far" and on "what scale" the state will eventually act against some groups.
Has Mr Aziz backtracked on the state’s explicit commitment that there will no longer be a policy of differentiating between so-called good and bad Taliban?
That would be an alarming and astonishing reversal made all the worse by the casual -- almost careless -- manner in which the remarks were given. Perhaps Mr Aziz was hoping to pre-empt pressure from a delegation of US senators visiting Pakistain.
But the foreign adviser’s remarks to a wire agency require immediate and emphatic clarification -- does the state of Pakistain adhere to a policy of not differentiating between so-called good and bad Taliban?
And, if so, what is the strategy to progressively act against all turban groups that have found sanctuary on or are operating from Pak soil?
Surely, the remarks of a bigwig such as Mr Aziz cannot simply be dismissed as a misstatement or a bungled attempt at explaining existing policy.
The existing policy -- reinforced time and again since the start of Operation Zarb-e-Azb ..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)... and enshrined in the National Action Plan -- is to treat all turban groups as a problem that must be solved by eventual elimination.
That policy clarity matters, even if operational and strategic choices so far do not immediately reflect that.
To reiterate, the security of Pakistain and the region lies in an unambiguous policy against militancy and terrorism in all their manifestations by all countries.
Pakistain’s pledge to try and deliver the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table should not be allowed to become a reason to differentiate between turban groups over the long term.
What threatens the stability of Afghanistan inevitably threatens the stability of Pakistain -- the security establishment and politicianship here cannot lapse into old, damaging habits of denial and obfuscation.
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A senior Taliban leader was killed in an airstrike in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan along with at least 15 other militants.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the airstrike was carried out by the Afghan Air Force in Hesarak district.
MoD further added that Mawlavi Mumtaz Mia Khel the group’s shadow governor for Kabul was killed along with his 15 fighters in the raid.
Another senior Taliban commander identified as Mullah Tor was also among those killed and a vehicle belonging to the group was confiscated by the Afghan forces.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban militants have not commented regarding the report so far.
Nangarhar is among the relatively volatile provinces in eastern Afghanistan where anti-government armed militants are actively operating in a number of its districts and often carry out insurgency activities.
The airstrike in Hesarak comes as the Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack on several security out posts in this district few days earlier.
The officials had warned that the district is the brink of collapse if additional forces are not deployed to repulse the Taliban attack.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli troops locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! eight Paleostinians, including the sister of a terrorist who murdered a teenage girl in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, in overnight sweeps in the West Bank, the army said Sunday morning.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the sister who was arrested Sunday was the same one who praised her brother’s actions, but the IDF said the arrest came "as part of dealing with incitement and encouragement of attackers to engage in terrorist attacks."
The official Paleostinian Authority news agency WAFA said Tarayrah was 22 years old. Muhammad Tararyah’s father was also arrested by Israeli troops, shortly after the attack.
Police arrested six people in the Hebron area and two more in the Paleostinian town of Beit Fajjar, near Bethlehem.
The roundups came as the army was bolstering its activity in the West Bank following a surge in attacks over the past several days, including a deadly drive-by shooting near Hebron on Friday.
[IsraelTimes] Nine East Jerusalem residents were tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! Sunday for taking part in violent demonstrations on the Temple Mount, bringing the total number of recent arrests in connection with the holy site up to 58, police said.
Law enforcement anticipated additional arrests as coppers worked to identify those who have thrown rocks and otherwise taken part in riots in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The month-long holiday of Ramadan has seen an uptick in violence and unrest in the West Bank and Israel. The Temple Mount in particular, which was the site of multiple riots and violent incidents last September, had been relatively calm until the recent outbreak of rock throwing and festivities between worshipers and police.
On Friday night, a number of Arab men hurled stones at Israeli security forces stationed at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. Police quickly responded with riot dispersal measures, and there were no injuries or damage reported.
"The police have no intention of ignoring the latest disturbances that have happened on the Temple Mount and in the Old City area. We will continue to operate with all the tools at our disposal to locate, arrest and bring to justice the rioters," Jerusalem Police Chief Yoram Halevi said in a statement on Sunday.
On Friday, Halevi instructed more than 3,000 police and Border Police officers to deploy throughout the capital ahead of the nighttime prayers.
[IsraelTimes] A Paleostinian armed with a knife is nabbed I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! by Israeli forces after he crosses the border from the Gazoo Strip.
He is handed over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning, Channel 2 reports.
Security officials and tribesmen say that at least three suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed in a drone strike in southern Yemen.
The officials said the militants were hit while traveling in an SUV in the province of Shabwa. Tribesmen put the death toll among the militants to six and said the vehicle turned into charred, twisted metal. They said they believe a US drone is behind the attack. It was not immediately possible to verify their account.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.
The attack came at a time the White House revealed for the first time that as many as 116 civilians were killed by drone and other US strikes in different countries including Yemen since 2009 when President Barack Obama took office.
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[RUDAW.NET] Three more villages were retaken from 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) and at least 29 gunnies were killed on the Makhmour front by the Iraqi army, as part of the ongoing offensive against the group in Shargat and Gayara, in southern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... "The villages of Mehele, Hasriya, and Karma were liberated [from ISIS]," Emin Sheikhani, a Kurdish official within the Iraqi army, told Rudaw.
Sheikhani added that ISIS suffered huge casualties among its ranks upon their retreat as 29 gunnies were bumped off.
The pre-dawn assault, which was launched at 4 am, is still ongoing, he added.
The assault is part of the massive Mosul offensive and warplanes from the US-led coalition in coordination with Iraqi artillery units have actively been doing their part.
Clashes have now stretched to Gayara bridge as the Iraqi army is advancing with heavy weapons. Sheikhani suggested that Gayara bridge will soon be liberated.
In other military developments against ISIS, two of the group’s top local leaders in Gayara were killed on Saturday in Arclight airstrikes carried out by warplanes from the US-led coalition, a Kurdish official told Rudaw.
"Today the coalition warplanes killed Mahdi Luizi, the ISIS Gayara Wali [governor], and Hamadi Khafaji, in charge of ISIS mortars," Ismat Rajab, a Kurdish official from Mosul, now in exile, told Rudaw.
The Iraqi army launched military operations to retake Gayara and Shargat, two strategic towns in southern Mosul, on June 18.
Gayara is a large town on the Tigris River, 80 kilometres south of Mosul.
By capturing Gayara and neighbouring Shargat, the Iraqi army will edge closer to Mosul, ISIS’ main stronghold in Iraq.
In the meantime, Baghdad announced another offensive against ISIS in Anbar province's far eastern town of Khalidiya Jazira, which has long been held by the bad boy group.
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[DAWN] A slaughter of foreign hostages has put Bangladesh firmly on the frontline of the global war on terror despite government efforts to portray a campaign of attacks as the work of domestic opponents, according to analysts.
Several dozen people have been killed by bully boyz in Bangladesh in the last two years, the victims including mainly local atheist bloggers, Hindus, gay activists and liberal academics.
But while those attacks generated few column inches beyond Bangladesh,
...we've been following events, but Rantburg is a very small market...
We're not small, we're selective...
this weekend's hostage siege in a Dhaka cafe led news bulletins around the world, attracting the kind of attention its perpetrators had long been craving.
Analysts said the choice of venue, target, timing and method of killing were all designed to maximise publicity for bully boyz who were well aware of the outrage that greeted recent massacres in Orlando and Gay Paree.
Eighteen of the 20 civilians who were killed in the Holey Artisan Bakery were foreigners. Nearly all were hacked to death with machetes, even though the hostage-takers had plenty of firearms.
The attack was even more shocking as it came on the final weekend of Ramazan, with survivors describing how the hostage-takers made clear their targets were non-Moslems, separating locals from the foreigners.
Around 90 per cent of Bangladesh's 160 million people are Moslems but the state is officially secular.
"By hacking people to death... they wanted to show the world that they can go to any extent for jihad," said K G Suresh, a senior fellow at New Delhi's Vivekananda International Foundation think-tank.
"Once they attack a restaurant popular with foreigners on a Friday night their message is clear who they want to go after. By sparing Moslems, they wanted to send out the message that they are only against Westerners."
According to the monitoring group SITE, the bully boyIslamic 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.... organization grabbed credit for the attack which it said had targeted "citizens of crusader states".
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#1
We're not small, we're selective...
Way off topic, but you know, Groucho would have been a hell of a MOD
Judging from the published fotos, I'd have to disagree with the statement that they're not ISIS.
[Dhaka Tribune] Starting Saturday night, Facebook users in Bangladesh have begun matching the five photos released by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... 's news agency Amaq of the forces of Evil involved in the Gulshan attack with the identities of at least three Bangladeshi men.
While the Dhaka Tribune has not been able to verify the information social media has turned up about them, the picture that is emerging is that all of them came from affluent families in Dhaka and studied at top schools or universities.
Mysteriously, their Facebook profiles, which were earlier publicly visible, disappeared early yesterday.
Police HQ released a set of photos of the forces of Evil killed in the drive on Saturday along with their alleged names. But social media users who claim to be friends and sometimes even family of the pictured men have disputed their identification by the authorities.
The resulting crowdsourcing of identification efforts has begun to produce a growing body of corroborated accounts of who the forces of Evil were.
Very little has emerged which explains what turned the sheltered middle-class 20-somethings into depraved murderers.
But three of them share one peculiar quality: they were all believed to be missing between three and six months before they apparently reappeared at the site of the terror attack last Friday.
A flurry of speculation on social media has put forward the theory that the missing men may have been in Syria or Iraq where their radicalisation was deepened and their terror tactics honed.
With daily flights to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ‐ the traditional stepping stone to IS's caliphate of terror ‐ this seems plausible. This has not been confirmed.
Three of the men in the IS propaganda pictures have been positively identified by their peers on social media ‐ and they do not match the police's claims.
Here are the claims being made on social media:
Nibras Islam
Missing since January 2016
Name on police photo: Badhon
Education:
Turkish Hope School
North South University
Monash University Malaysia
One acquaintance told the Dhaka Tribune that Nibras was a social person and a good football player. This source had played a match with Nibras at the Turkish Hope School grounds late last year.
One Facebook user said he knew him when he was a child and that his grandparents were neighbours in Chittagong. They were a very well educated family, the user said.
Rohan Imtiaz
Missing since February 2016
No police photo
Education:
Scholastica School, Batch 2014
He was a resident of Lalmatia. His father Imtiaz Khan Babul is the youth and sports secretary of the Awami League's Dhaka Metropolitan unit.
Asked about Imtiaz Khan, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said while the attackers were all Bangladeshis and their families were all from here, "they themselves are not terrorists."
"He was a good boy. He said his prayers regularly, he was very well-behaved," Nuru Mia, caretaker of the building where Rohan lived, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Meer Saameh Mubasser
Missing since February 29, 2016
Name on police photo: Don
Education:
'O' Level candidate at Sunnydale School
The general diary filed by his family at Gulshan cop shoppe said that on the afternoon of his disappearance, Sameeh got down from the car while on his way to a coaching centre, complaining that the traffic was too bad. He was not seen again until the attack.
A source at the cop shoppe said CCTV footage captured him on a rickshaw at Banani Road 11 sometime after he got out of the car.
Identities less certain
IS operative #4
Name on police photo: Ripon
Some Facebook users have identified this photo as belonging to one Andaleeb Ahmed, a student at Monash University Malaysia.
The Facebook profile they point to has been unavailable since early yesterday. But this claim is more tenuous because the photos circulated on social media do not seem to match the police or IS photos.
IS operative #5
Name on police photo: Bikash
Some users on Facebook have identified this man as Tasin Rownak, but no one has been able to provide matching photos.
On Saturday Inspector General Shahidul Haque told the media at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that the Gulshan attackers were all listed forces of Evil and that the police had conducted several drives to arrest them.
Yesterday, at a briefing at United Hospital the IG said the boys had not gone missing.
"They left home, they mingled with forces of Evil and they joined their ranks," Haque said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/04/2016
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Dhaka Tribune] A shibir leader was killed in a shootout with police at north Kastsagra village in Sadar upazila in the early hours of yesterday.
The dear departed was identified as Ibnul Islam Parvez, 29, son of Jahangir Hossain of Bonanipara area of the town.
OC of Sadar Police Hafizur Rahman said a team of police launched a drive there at about 3 am. Spider senses tingling at the proximity of law enforcers, some murderous Moslems opened fire on them, prompting the police personnel to retaliate that triggered a shootout.
At one stage, Parvez was caught in the line of fire and was struck down in his prime while the others managed to flee the scene. ... as though they had never been...
Two coppers were also injured in the shootout.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/04/2016
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[AINA.ORG] 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.... bully boyz on Saturday pushed back U.S.-backed forces trying to advance into their stronghold of Manbij for the first time since a major offensive to capture the city and cut off the Death Eaters' main strategic access route to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , a monitoring group and Kurdish sources said.
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), comprised of Kurdish and Arab fighters and backed by the air power of a U.S.-led coalition to fight Islamic State and aided by U.S. Special Forces, have been involved in the month-long Manbij operation aimed to seal off their last stretch of Syrian-Turkish frontier.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the bully boyz had evicted SDF troops from a main district south of the city which has been the scene of heavy fighting after jacket wallahs blew up an car bomb.
The bully boyz also recaptured a village northwest of the city.
An SDF front man, however, denied reports they had pulled back from positions inside the city and said the campaign to uproot the bully boyz would continue until they "liberated Manbij."
"I stress that we have not retreated any step and all our positions are under our control," Sharfan Darwish, front man for the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council, said in a statement.
The US-backed forces have been bogged down in fighting in the northern and southern outskirts of the city after rapid advances that began with the capture of dozens of villages around the city until they surrounded it from all sides.
Progress in storming the city has been slow with the bully boyz using snipers, planting mines and preventing civilians from leaving, hampering U.S. airpower's ability to bomb the city without causing large casualties, Kurdish sources said.
Fighting was mainly focused near a major grain silo complex south of the city that had been hit by U.S.-led coalition jets.
Manbij's loss would be a big blow to the bully boyz as it is of strategic importance, serving as a conduit for transit of foreign jihadists and provisions coming from the Turkish border.
Brett McGurk, U.S. President Barack Obama Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though.... 's special envoy in the fight against Islamic State, said on Tuesday once the operation in northern Syria is completed, it would create the conditions to move on the Death Eater group's de facto capital of Raqqa. U.S. officials have anticipated a tough battle ahead.
The Manbij operation marks the most ambitious advance by a group allied to Washington in Syria since the United States launched its military campaign against Islamic State two years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/04/2016
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At a press conference Sunday, officials said they believe an explosion in Central Park near Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street was caused by an 'experiment' of fireworks or a homemade device. There is no evidence suggesting that the explosion was terror-related. Except that the victim stepped on a rock and it exploded, just like a land mine.
The victim who was severely injured has been identified as 18-year-old Connor Golden from Fairfax, Virginia. Golden was walking with two friends when he stepped on something and it blew up, according to witnesses.
Police said witnesses told them the man had just stepped onto a rock when an explosion occurred. People in the area said the explosion was heard blocks away.
Our Eyewitness News cameras were rolling from two blocks away, and captured the sound of the explosion as it happened:
Police are still trying to determine who the device belonged to. The victim and his friends were cleared, and officers said they were innocent victims. The device had been left in Central Park for approximately one day.
"We were climbing down the rocks, Connor was 6 feet behind me and all of sudden I felt the explosion on my back," said one of Golden's friends, Thomas Hinds. "The explosion sounded like a gunshot next to my ears. I turned around and saw his foot which wasn't completely blown off but was severely mutilated. My other friend Matthew was behind Connor and all he saw was massive amount of dirt go flying up in the air."
The NYPD bomb squad is still on the scene investigating.
Connor Golden, 18, of Fairfax, Va., had just climbed down off a rock near E. 60th St. and Fifth Ave. about 10:52 a.m. when he stepped on the “shock-sensitive” explosive, Lt. Mark Torre, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Bomb Squad, said. It was inside a black plastic bag when it exploded, a high-ranking police source said.
A disintegrated matchbook was found nearby, leading investigators to believe that someone tried to set it off sometime on Friday, but left it behind when it didn’t work, the high-ranking police source said.
“The explosion could have been an experiment with fireworks or homemade explosives,” O’Connell said. “We believe this could have been put here as some sort of experiment.”
The high-ranking police official said some of the components were similar to “snappers,” which erupt with a loud sound when they are thrown to the ground.
“There were no timers or trips or wires or even shrapnel,” the source said. “It was not set up with any sophistication. If he was going to harm people, he wouldn’t have put it far off the path. They also would have put some nails or ball bearings in it.”
There is forensic evidence that indicates that it was not meant to go off by somebody stepping on it. It may have not gone off at an earlier time and then it was just left there,” Torre said.
“This is somebody who had knowledge of chemistry, but you don’t have to do anything more than be good with computers to get enough knowledge of chemistry to be able to create some of this type of material, readily available material unfortunately,” he said without elaborating on what types of material were in the bomb.
[RUDAW.NET] Plans to liberate djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... from 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.... have hit another problem as sensitive operation information was leaked and political entities in Baghdad bicker over involvement of forces.
An investigation has been called for after members of Iraq’s parliament apparently leaked sensitive plans for the operation to retake Mosul from the Islamic State.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi informed a meeting of journalists on Wednesday, "The plan to liberate Mosul has changed because some Iraqi MPs revealed the plan to media, which will cause risks for the Iraqi forces."
But, he vowed, "The liberation of Mosul will happen this year."
Member of Parliament Haitham al-Jubouri issued a statement calling for an investigation into the leak. He asked the prime minister to publish a list of those MPs involved and called for an "urgent investigation of the case."
Jubouri also urged an investigation into the military officials who passed information on the plans to liberate Mosul to the politicians, saying "this is not their job."
In his meeting with journalists, Abadi also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... s about The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... possibly playing a role in the battle for Mosul. "We have real concerns about Turkish ambitions in Mosul. Any Turkish interference or extension of its presence in Mosul will lead to a huge war next to the war on ISIS," he warned.
Not everyone shares the prime minister’s concerns. "It’s impossible for Turkey to have ambitions in Mosul or plans to occupy Iraq," said Wahda al-Khamis, advisor to the parliamentary speaker, speaking to Akhbaar on 30 June. "The Iraqi state has its own illusory sovereignty and Turkey too."
"It’s impossible that Turkey, like dark ISIS, is going to occupy Iraqi territories," al-Khamis continued. "We, as Iraqis, are pleased to receive any international support in the fight against ISIS. The big conspiracy that Iraq faces now is putting up obstacles to the liberation of cities from ISIS."
These comments come at a time when Turkey is trying to improve relations with Baghdad.
"Ankara is trying to normalize relations with Iraq and Egypt," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told TRT channel on Tuesday. "We are working in one direction with all Iraqi parties, without differentiating between them. And we stand against sectarian politics."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/04/2016
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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.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Wash Times] Hillary Clinton’s sit-down with the FBI snapped the political world to attention over the sleepy July Fourth holiday weekend, with Democrats saying charges are outside "the realm of possibility" and Republicans signaling the same, yet only because they think the Justice Department will not hurt President Obama’s handpicked successor.
Quartet
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
In the three years since Edward Snowden landed in Moscow, his relationship with his hosts has been a source of much speculation and controversy. The American IT contractor, who worked for the CIA and NSA until he fled Hawaii with more than a million purloined secret files, has not left Russia since he arrived at Sheremetyevo airport on 23 June 2013, on a flight from Hong Kong. On the run from prosecution in the USA, Snowden received asylum from Vladimir Putin. Although Snowden recently indicated he would like a pardon from President Barack Obama before he leaves office in January, there’s no indication that will happen. The White House only a month ago explained that it considers Snowden to be a criminal, so any pardon seems like a fantasy.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A security source in Kirkuk said on Sunday that ISIS executed fifteen (15) persons, including eight of its own members, on charges of cooperation with the security forces and deserting the battlefield southwest of the province.
[RUDAW.NET] Two of 
There is also the pressure that the civilian foreign policy advisers of Prime Minister 
