A Muslim teen who claimed a trio of drunks had taunted her as a "terrorist" on a Manhattan subway train has admitted she made the story up, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
The woman, Yasmin Seweid, 18, is being charged with filing a false report, according to a high-ranking police source.
Seweid had claimed the hateful drunks shouted "Trump! Trump!" and called her a "terrorist" as they tried to steal her headscarf.
"Go back to your country!" she said they shouted during the alleged Dec. 1 attack.
But inconsistencies in her account surfaced once cops tried to confirm her story by pulling surveillance video.
Investigators did find footage that showed her in some of the places where she said she was, said the source. But they weren't entirely consistent with her story.
Hate-crime investigators then called in the Baruch College student to work on another sketch of her "attackers" Wednesday and confronted her with the inconsistencies, another source said.
That's when she cracked, admitting that she had been out drinking with friends and made up the attack story to distract her angry father, sources said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/14/2016
17:59 ||
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#1
I won't believe any of these stories till they are fact checked by the 'burg.
BLUF: [WAPO] Flynn has previously acknowledged that he was investigated while serving as the U.S. military intelligence chief in Afghanistan for sharing secrets with British and Australian allies there. But he has dismissed the case as insignificant and has given few details.
An Army Regulation (AR) 15-6 investigation was conducted and no adverse action was recommended. If I recall correctly Great Britain and Australia are 'Five Eyes' classification members. Just a wild guess, but it sounds like Flynn or one of his staff, might have told someone (USN Specialist) to get off their arse and that prompted the claim and subsequent 15-6.
#1
Not to worry, the POTUS will find some way to get into the news again.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/14/2016 7:28
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#2
Media will continue to fawn over him and his family. Every decision Trump or his administration makes media will seek audience with O for his opinion on what should have been done. Not to worry. Media has lost its audience a long time ago.
#3
Barry doesn't stand a chance. Whenever the Donald wants to own the news cycle, all he need do is meet with a pop star or hint that a white business executive is being considered for a role in his admin.
#4
One good thing about Dubya was that, with the exception of his brother's unfortunate run in this year's Republican primary, after 2008 he went back to Crawford, laid low and kept his mouth shut. Here's hoping Obumble can do the same.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2016 11:38
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#5
.....he went back to Crawford, laid low and kept his mouth shut. Here's hoping Obumble can do the same.
Why would you wish anything such as that on Crawford Abu ?
[WAPO] When Donald Trump occupies the White House in January, he will be a lot closer to the senior leaders at Boeing running the Air Force One program he has threatened to cancel. The company announced Tuesday that about a dozen of its senior defense leaders are moving from St. Louis to Boeing’s Washington-area headquarters.
The company has been discussing moving its defense unit to the Washington area for months, and it is not related to Trump’s recent vow, officials said. Rather it is "all driven by being closer to the customer," Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said.
Earlier this year, Boeing appointed Leanne Caret to take over its Defense, Space and Security unit, a $30 billion business with 50,000 employees across the globe. Caret "puts a premium on personal engagement with senior leaders of the Pentagon, NASA and the Hill," Blecher said. "And so this has been under consideration for some number of months."
Many of the nation’s largest defense contractors -- including the likes of Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics -- are already in the Washington area. Northrop Grumman was one of the most recent to join, moving to Falls Church, Va., from Los Angeles in 2011. Federal contractor SAIC relocated its headquarters in San Diego to McLean, Va., two years earlier.
In all, about a dozen Boeing senior executives will make the move from St. Louis to Washington in January, and eventually about 50 staff members would join them. The company’s Washington operation center has its headquarters in a new, gleaming building in Crystal City, near the Pentagon.
The company’s corporate headquarters is in Chicago, but it has run its defense business out of St. Louis, where it builds the F/A-18 Super Hornet, ever since it merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997.
#1
Cyrstal City is it? Well, the real estate costs, lower taxes, excellent schools, crime free metro, less than an hour away from Iranian Interest Section located (Embassy of Pakistan), and easy motoring are certainly huge draws.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/14/2016 8:35
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Disclaimer-I am a Boeing employee in defense. This move was in the works for a long time. Leanne Caret is a pretty dynamic leader that understand St Louis is not where Boeing needs to be. St Louis used to be the home for Army aviation. That changed years ago and Boeing is one of the last to pull chocs and move.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/14/2016 9:41
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#6
Well Pan, if you're TDY to Crystal City and enjoy Greek cuisine, try Athena Pallac on 22nd Street. Ask for Geo or Khya.
#13
Decentralize the government? Move Interior to Denver. Ag to Chicago. Treasury to NYC. Energy to Houston. Transportation to Memphis. NSA to Salt Lake City. State to St Louis, put the UN in East St Louis. What would go in San Fran, Atlanta, Boston, Miami, Dallas, Seattle
[Canadian Free Press] I’m not entirely sure that Keith Olbermann had much of a mind to lose but, whatever he did have, I think we can safely say it’s gone now. The election of Donald Trump has reduced the former television personality to a bitter, sputtering, rage-machine who appears determined to become the left-wing Alex Jones. He shakes, screams, and spits his way through conspiracy theories that - if he wasn’t some sort of once-upon-a-time celebrity - he’d probably be scratching into the walls of his cell using only his fingernails.
Previously, Keith offered to lead America’s anti-Trump resistance forces. Now, he’s decided that we’re at war with Russia. Or, more acurately, we’ve "lost a war with Russia without a battle." It seems that we are "no longer a sovereign nation, no longer a Democracy, we are no longer a free people." We’re nothing but victims of a "so-far bloodless coup" against the United States and its rightful President, Hillary Clinton.
His rant, which he still appears to be filming in a closet in front of two large sheets of construction paper, appears below.
If you’ve been enjoying the left’s post-election meltdown, you’re going to love this. It’s completely worthless as political commentary but, as unintentional comedy goes, it’s absolutely top notch.
#7
Holy hell, that is hilarious. As a cherry topping the has-been yelling at a wall, his target audience, if they know what the Pearl Harbor reference means, thinks the USA deserved it. More, please.
By the way, safety pins are for diapers.
Oh, and how is Mr. Beck? He seemed quite certain of his poll interpretations.
[Canadian Free Press] We know that the media picked sides in the presidential contest. Now we are seeing more evidence of how the CIA picked sides, to the point of engaging in what is an obvious effort to bring down the Trump presidency even before it begins.
You couldn’t fault Donald J. Trump for concluding that the CIA is out to get him even before he starts his presidency. Former CIA officials Michael Morell, Michael Hayden and Philip Mudd have all denounced him. Plus, former CIA operations officer Evan McMullin ran against him as an independent presidential candidate.
Obama’s director of the CIA is John Brennan, who recently disclosed that he voted for the Communist Party (CPUSA) ticket when he was in college. He was hired by the CIA anyway and quickly rose through the ranks, even though the CPUSA was funded by Moscow and known to provide cover for Soviet espionage activities.
#1
Now we must work with these generals and successful business people. They know nothing about regime change, gun running, deceit, dishonesty, betrayal, or pay-for-play.
Sessions, Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, Perry, Zinke, and Mike Flynn... they're just not our kind of people.
[Wash Times] The Senate Judiciary Committee is recommending criminal charges against Planned Parenthood for allegedly trafficking in fetal body parts from abortions for profit.
In a letter sent to the FBI and the Department of Justice on Tuesday, committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, referred four of Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliates, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and three of the abortion provider’s business partners for potential prosecution.
"I don’t take lightly making a criminal referral," Mr. Grassley said in a press release. "But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it. And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against criminalizing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the outcome is likely to continue."
Although the Obama administration is unlikely to follow through on the recommendation, the referral will provide the Trump administration with a foundation to levy criminal charges against Planned Parenthood.
The referral follows an undercover video investigation into Planned Parenthood and its business partners published last year by the Center for Medical Progress. Those videos featured top Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of human remains from abortions. Planned Parenthood said any fees associated with the trade covered only reimbursement costs.
#3
Senate can do but two things - recommend, with the expectation of the current DoJ ignoring the recommendation, or cutting off funds to the DoJ until they follow the recommendation, with the expectation that DoJ functions would be cut off first on things people care about, until people screamed at the evil Senate & House.
[Free Beacon] A federal appeals court on Tuesday issued an opinion saying that Virginia’s voter identification law is constitutional and does not violate the Voting Rights Act.
In the unanimous opinion issued by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court affirmed that Virginia’s voter identification law "does not sweep away all election rules that result in a disparity in the convenience of voting." Under Virginia’s elections laws, "every registered voter in Virginia has the full ability to vote when Election Day arrives," the court continued.
The lawsuit against Virginia’s voter identification law was filed in early 2015 and was dismissed in May. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the law by alleging that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and disproportionally hurt minority voters.
The challenge was initially brought forth as part of a multi-state legal effort challenging state voter ID laws implemented by Republican-controlled legislatures leading up to the 2016 elections. It was bankrolled by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros.
#1
Mr. Soros has been very generous this election cycle in terms of pouring money into the economy. President Trump will get the credit for the result of all that pump priming, which seems only fair -- it was because of him that Mr. Soros fruitlessly wrote those checks.
[The Hill] The CEO of IBM announced on the eve of a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump that the company plans to hire 25,000 "new collar" employees.
In a USA Today op-ed, CEO Ginni Rometty announced that the new jobs will come over the span of four years, including 6,000 in 2017.
"We are hiring because the nature of work is evolving ‐ and that is also why so many of these jobs remain hard to fill," wrote Rometty. "As industries from manufacturing to agriculture are reshaped by data science and cloud computing, jobs are being created that demand new skills ‐ which in turn requires new approaches to education, training and recruiting."
Rometty is one of a handful of tech executives who will be meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower on Wednesday. She wrote that the company is also planning to spend $1 billion on training and developing IBM employees in the U.S.
[GP] Judge Napolitano doubled down today on Varney and Co. that the US intelligence community leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Napolitano told Stewart Varney the US intelligence community leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks -- NOT the Russians. Napolitano says he has a source inside the intelligence community.
The CIA and FBI examined the exact same data that was produced for them by the NSA. The CIA analysts said the Russians are behind this. The FBI analysts said there is no evidence that the Russians are behind this. We do know this was leaking. This was not hacking. Leaking is the unauthorized exposure of something to a person to whom it wasn’t intended. Hacking is th altering of an operational system… You can’t affect the outcome of the election if you hack Clinton and the DNC. You can affect the outcome of an election if you affect those who register the voters or count the voters.
There is NO EVIDENCE that this was done by the Russians. But there is evidence for this. Who was harmed by Mrs. Clinton’s extremely careless use of state secrets? Whose agents’ lives were jeopardized by her failure to keep these state secrets? The American intelligence community. It is more likely than not that members of the American intelligence community leaked this to Julian Assange than that the Russians did… The suggestion comes from members of the intelligence community.
[GP] Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s Michigan recount unintentionally exposed major voter fraud in Detroit.
Election officials in Michigan found that 37% of precincts in Detroit tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Hillary Clinton won Wayne County over Donald Trump 67% to 30%. State officials are planning to examine about 20 Detroit precincts where ballot discrepancies occurred.
Detroit News reported:
Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News.
Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday.
The Detroit precincts are among those that couldn’t be counted during a statewide presidential recount that began last week and ended Friday following a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court.
Democrat Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly prevailed in Detroit and Wayne County. But Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.
Overall, state records show 10.6 percent of the precincts in the 22 counties that began the retabulation process couldn’t be recounted because of state law that bars recounts for unbalanced precincts or ones with broken seals. The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldn’t recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.
"There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal," said Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers.
State officials are planning to examine about 20 Detroit precincts where ballot boxes opened during the recount had fewer ballots than poll workers had recorded on Election Day.
#14
Don't you know - that was because of the 75,000 votes that never got counted there, and kept Hillary from winning. I read that someplace on the web so I know it's true.
#15
#1 They are going to blame this on Putin as well?
National People's Radio is shopping the story that this is simply the result of tired poll workers making mistakes after working long hours or improperly stacking boxes and damaging the seals. While once may be an accident, 60% of the time is a tad suspicious. Feel free to choose between corruption and incompetence as an explanation.
Michigan uses paper ballots that are marked with a felt-tip pen and run by hand thru an optical scanning machine. At the end of the day, ballots are counted and sealed in boxes. If the seal is broken or the tally doesn't match the actual number of ballots, that box cannot be recounted.
Like the man said, what matters is who gets to count the votes.
#17
If the seal is broken or the tally doesn't match the actual number of ballots, that box cannot be recounted. Ballots handed out to voters are not necessarily ballots cast by voters, but that is the way the rules are in Michigan. OTOH, when more votes are counted than registered voters exist in a precinct, that is definitely fishy.
[Ynet] A military court sentenced 141 supporters of the Moslem Brüderbund to up to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for ransacking public facilities and rioting, the defendants' lawyers told Rooters.
The Assiut military court sentenced 96 of them to 15 years in absentia. Forty-two of those in detention were sentenced to seven years in prison and three of those detained to five years. The 45 detained were each also fined 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,100), said lawyers Khaled al-Koumy and Mohammed Samir.
The case dealt with events in August 2013 in the city of Malawi in the Province of Minya which were among a wave of unrest after the army removed elected Islamist president Mohammed Mursi from power, following mass protests against his rule.
Suspects in security and terrorism-related cases are often sent to the military courts in Egypt. The general prosecution referred the defendants to a military tribunal in March last year.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/14/2016
01:10 ||
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[Ynet] Dutch prosecutors say a 40-year-old man suspected of involvement in a terror organization in Syria or Iraq was arrested recently at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after earlier being detained in Turkey.
The National Prosecutor's Office says in a statement that the suspect was taken into custody on Saturday and appeared before an investigating judge on Tuesday.
The man, whose identity was not released, is thought to have been in territory controlled by the extremist Islamic State group in Syria or Iraq since October 2015. He was detained last month when he crossed from Islamic State-controlled territory into Turkey.
[Ynet] Germany will on Wednesday carry out its first group deportation of Afghans whose asylum applications have been rejected, in line with an agreement with Kabul, the news magazine Der Spiegel said on Tuesday, citing government sources.
More than a million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere have arrived in Germany this year and last, prompting concerns about security and integration and boosting support for anti-immigrant groups such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
In 2016, Afghans are the second biggest group of asylum seekers in Germany after Syrians, according to data from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF).
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry did not confirm the exact date but said there would be a repatriation flight to Afghanistan by the end of the year, although details would not be announced in advance to avoid jeopardising it.
[Ynet] Finnish prosecutors are demanding life sentences for Iraqi twin brothers charged with Islamic State-related killings of at least 11 unarmed soldiers in their home country.
The Pirkanmaa District Court said Tuesday the alleged killings were part of atrocities committed by IS militants at a military base outside Tikrit in June 2014 when some 1,700 Iraqi army soldiers were slain.
The 23-year-old brothers, who have not been identified, arrived in Finland in September 2015 and were arrested three months later.
Finnish prosecutors have based the case on eyewitness accounts, IS video footage of the massacre and information from an Iraqi investigative commission.
[DeutscheWelle] A new report published on Tuesday sounded alarm bells across Germany over allegations that Greek police knew that the man suspected of killing a medical student in the city of Freiburg had a violent past. According to the magazine "Stern," a man thought to be the suspect known as "Hussein K." was convicted of attacking a female student on the island of Corfu in 2013.
The magazine wrote that Hussein was sentenced to ten years in prison. If it is the same man, how he regained his freedom remains unclear. Stern claimed that he told authorities at the time he was 17, the same age reported by authorities in Germany three years later.
According to Freiburg-based newspaper "Badische Zeitung," local police are investigating this report. They cautioned, however, that they will need to work with Greek authorities and that such a task could take some time. Police spokeswoman Laura Riske told the paper that they had already compared the suspect's DNA to a Europe-wide database and had not found any matches.
Riske added that in the two weeks he has been in detention, the suspect has not given the police an official statement.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/14/2016
01:10 ||
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[Ynet] Four suspected members of al Qaeda's Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... branch, including a local commander, were killed on Tuesday by a dronezap on their vehicle east of the capital Sanaa, local officials said.
It was the latest in a series of strikes by pilotless planes, believed to be operated by the United States, in war-torn Yemen.
The officials said the vehicle was travelling on a main road between the Marib governorate and al-Jawf when it was attacked.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The jihadist rebels have accepted a reconciliation agreement that would surrender the key town of Kanakir near the Golan Heights-Damascus border to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in exchange for amnesty.
According to a military source in Damascus, more than 1,500 murderous Moslems from the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) and Harakat Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... turned themselves into the Syrian Arab Army, as part of the reconciliation and peace agreement in Kanakir.
The agreement will allow civilians to return to their normal lives and use the Syrian government highways and institutions; they will also be transferred to a site of their choosing if they request it to the Syrian Arab Army.
For the Syrian Arab Army, the surrender of Kanakir gives them access to the West Ghouta-Golan Heights border, which will be crucial in the coming weeks when they begin their offensive near Hader.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
00:21 ||
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[Ynet] A female terrorist attempted to carry out a vehicular attack at the Qalandiya checkpoint
...apparently it's next to a Palestinian "refugee camp" of the same name, which would explain its popularity as an attack point...
on Tuesday afternoon, but was stopped before she could harm anyone.
The woman, an east Jerusalem resident in her 30s, sped towards the security forces stationed at the checkpoint, prompting them to begin the arrest procedure by firing into the air.
This caused the woman to stop the car, exit it wielding a knife, and call out "Allahu Akbar."
Security forces overpowered her and tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! her. She was unharmed.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least 16 murderous Moslems were killed in an Arclight airstrike conducted in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Tuesday.
The Arclight airstrike was carried out in the restive Greshk district of Helmand province, MoD added.
The ant-government armed Death Eater groups have not commented regarding the report so far.
This comes as at least 14 murderous Moslems were killed and 11 others were seriously maimed in an Arclight airstrike conducted close to Lashkargah city, the thriving provincial capital of southern Helmand province.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Monday that the Arclight airstrike was conducted in the past 24 hours but did not elaborate further.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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#1
For more than a half-century Helmand has survived as one of the world's great rat-holes:
(From Wiki) "The Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) based in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, originally named the Helmand Valley Authority (HVA) until its expansion in 1965, was established on December 4, 1952 as an agency of the Afghan Government. The agency was modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States...
Over the decades hundreds of millions of USAID dollars have been spent on Helmand, and there is little or nothing to show for it. Thus, Helmand reminds us that there are failed regions in failed states not worth saving.
#2
Ref #1. Used to be some tough Marines at a fire base overlooking the Kajaki dam and power station. Nothing good ever happens in Helmand. A very sad place indeed.
#3
I must say, if the Pashtuns were to make an iron-clad agreement that they'd never, ever allow foreigners into their lands so as to set up a base that could be used against us and ours, I'd be perfectly happy to leave them alone and bring home our troops and our dollars.
Problem is: I know they'd lie.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2016 10:16
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Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Twelve Islamic State militants were killed on Tuesday as US-led fighter jets bombed their locations in Anbar’s western town of Rawa, a military official said.
The ISIS haven was targeted after reconnaissance missions, commander of the army’s al-Jazeera Operations, Qassem al-Mohammadi, was quoted as saying by Alghad Press.
The towns of Annah and Rawa are ISIS’s last major strongholds in Anbar, and Iraqi air forces, backed by international coalition jets, have been targeting the group’s location at those areas where they used to launch attacks on security and civilians.
Iraqi security and tribal forces are still preparing for a major operation to liberate Anbar’s towns which the extremist group occupied along with other areas of the country in 2014.
ISIS is currently fighting oto defend its last major stronghold in Iraq, Mosul, where Iraqi security forces and US fighter jets have been in a wide-scale campaign since October to retake the city.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Anbar Police Command announced on Tuesday finding a large cache of weapons and explosive devices, inside one of the houses in al-Jaghifi area, in central Fallujah.
The Command said in a press statement, “Security information allowed the police forces to discover a large cache of weapons and explosive materials and devices, inside one of the houses in al-Jaghifi neighborhood, in central Fallujah.”
“The ISIS members prepared a number of secret caches of weapons and hideouts in different areas of Fallujah, in order to be used against security forces after the liberation of Fallujah,” the statement explained.
“Security forces are working continuously to discover the rest of ISIS hideouts that were prepared by the terrorist sleeper cells in Fallujah,” the statement further added.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/14/2016
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[AlArabiya] Airstrikes killed 85 civilians including dozens of children in Oqayrabat village in the central province of Hama, on Monday according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The warplanes either belong to the Syrian regime or Russia.
Oqayrabat lies northwest of Palmyra, the city that was recaptured by ISIS during the weekend.
In addition to the deaths, more than 20 civilians experienced suffocation as a result of the explosive barrels dropped on the village of Hanuteh in the town of Uqayribat, where a woman and two children were killed, while many others were wounded.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/14/2016
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The jihadist rebels of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... , alongside Jaish al-Mujahiddeen, launched a new offensive in the western sector of Aleppo on Tuesday, targeting the Syrian Arab Army's defenses at the al-Zahra Association Quarter.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and their allies began the assault by storming the western sector of the al-Zahra Quarter, resulting in a fierce battle with the Syrian Arab Army and Liwaa al-Quds ...the Jerusalem Brigade is a Paleostinian-Syrian pro-Government group that operates in Aleppo, formed in 2013. The group is composed of predominately Sunni Paleostinians from the al-Nayrab district as well as the former refugee camp Handarat. It is believed to be the largest Assadist auxilliary force operating in storied Aleppo... (Paleostinian paramilitary) that lasted for several hours on Tuesday.
Unable to infiltrate the Syrian Army's defenses, the jihadist rebels were forced to withdraw west of the Great Aleppo Mosque in order to avoid Arclight airstrikes and intense shelling from the government.
According to a military source in Aleppo, the jihadist offensive resulted in the loss of more than 20 combatants, including several members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
As a result of this jihadist assault on Tuesday, the Syrian Armed Forces launched a swift counter-offensive this morning to capture the remaining sites in al-Zahra that are under Jabhat Fateh al-Sham's control.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A commander of the loyalists 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.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group was killed in an Arclight airstrike conducted by the US forces in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province of Afghanistan.
According to the local security officials, the Arclight airstrike was carried out in the restive Achin district, leaving the ISIS commander dead along with three other Death Eaters.
The officials further added that the dronezap was carried out in Abdul Khel district.
This comes as the local officials said Monday that seven loyalists of the terror group was killed in a similar Arclight airstrike in Haska Mina district.
Earlier, a commander of the terror group who was actively recruiting for the terror group was killed during an operation in Khogyani district last week.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
Nothing gets by STAVKA, except a few thousand rifleman...
[AAWSAT] The Kremlin refused to consider the fall of Palmyra to ISIS once again as “a loss to Russia” and vowed that his country is working to expel it from the city. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday that the “city of Palmyra is a Syrian city before everything” and stressed that “Russia is not the one losing Palmyra”. This appears to be a reference to the Syrian regime’s forces being responsible for the defeat and an attempt to hold international parties responsible for what happened. The Russian MoD kicked this up to one of the boss's favorites. Their ears are prolly still ringing from the gigantic "F*ck you" Shoigu issued, when he told them, "We'll always have Aleppo."
In statements that he made yesterday, Dmitry Peskov said that the fall of Palmyra is a “blow to the reputation of all civilized humankind and those who are sitting without doing anything. He also described the possible loss of Palmyra as “a blow to the entire civilised humankind rather than to Russia”, and said that it will harm the “entire civilised world that is incapable of cooperating and is doing nothing to address international terrorism that is represented by ISIS”. According to the Kremlin’s vision that Peskov explained, “the pressure on the terrorists and their expulsion from Mosul in Iraq has helped them to form a large group of forces that has moved to launch an attack on Syrian territory”.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that ISIS exploited the fact that the international coalition led by the United States has suspended military operations near Raqqa to attack Palmyra. The Russian Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence Igor Konashenkov said that “Seizing on the suspension of active military action near Raqqa till spring by the US and international coalition, Islamic State devoted considerable forces to storm Palmyra.”
Posted by: badanov ||
12/14/2016
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#1
Civilization, as we have been told, is a thin veneer. When our leaders became so civilized that barbarians could not be annihilated on sight without a lot of dithering, pearl-clutching, hand-wringing and faction-mongering, the entire "civilization" enterprise became an open question.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/14/2016 15:34
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Aden, Ma’rib-Yemeni security forces seized a commercial truck carrying spy drones on its way to the Houthi rebels, according to a Yemeni military official.
The truck was caught in the province of Ma’rib, which is largely under the influence of the Yemeni government, with Houthi presence remaining in pockets of the province.
Before it was caught, the truck was on its way to the Houthi held capital city of Yemen, Sana’a.
The drones were reportedly hidden beneath the truck that was carrying car parts and electricity motors, according to Colonel Nasser al-Tariq.
The rebels “use drones to spy on national army positions and opposition forces on the battlefield,” he said.
The latest development comes just a week after a report released by a UK-based independent research group suggested an arms pipeline running from Iran, through Somalia and Yemen, is arming Houthi rebels.
Conflict Armament Research (CAR) suggested in the newly-released report that a significant number of Iranian arms are being transferred to Yemen using dhows.
Moreover, Yemeni military forces in Ma’rib announced on Monday that they found a network of mines and improvised explosive devices in the form of stones planted by Houthi and Saleh militias in areas that connect Ma’rib with al-Bayda’ east Yemen.
Moreover, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that security forces in Ma’rib have busted a terrorist cell composed of four people trying to plant explosives in the center where soldiers receive their salaries.
Sources did not give further information about the cell members or the investigation process.
In the south of the country, Yemeni police forces defused on Monday an explosive-laden car that was found parked in a residential neighborhood in Aden province.
Residents of the neighborhood of Mu’alla reported to security agencies in Aden that they found a booby-trapped car, according to a senior official.
Police bomb disposal technicians arrived at the scene and defused the explosives after moving the booby-trapped vehicle to a safe place.
The incident comes two days after a suicide bomber of the Yemen-based affiliate of the ISIS group struck an army base near Aden’s international airport, leaving 50 pro-government soldiers dead and more than 40 others injured.
The ISIS suicide bomber disguised with military uniform blew himself up as hundreds of soldiers gathered to receive their delayed monthly salaries, according to local sources.
The southern port city of Aden is the headquarters of Yemen’s internationally-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his government.
SANAA: Nearly 2.2 million Yemeni children are acutely malnourished, victims of the near-collapse of the health care system during two years of escalating conflict, UN children’s fund UNICEF said on Tuesday.
At least 462,000 are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, as food supplies have been disrupted by the devastating war, the agency said.
Saada province, under the Houthis, has the world’s highest stunting rate among children with eight out of 10 children affected in some areas, it added.
“Malnutrition in Yemen is at an all-time high and increasing,” said UNICEF’s acting country representative, Meritxell Relano. “The state of health of children in the Middle East’s poorest country has never been as catastrophic as it is today.”
At least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition and preventable diseases such as diarrhea and respiratory infections.
“Diseases such as cholera and measles have spread and, with few health facilities functional, such outbreaks are taking a heavy toll on children,” Relano said.
In 2016, UNICEF supported the treatment of 215,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and provided more than four million children under the age of five with vitamin supplements.
But relief operations remain hindered by funding shortfalls and limited access to battleground areas.
“We call on parties to the conflict to give us unhindered access to children in need across the country so we are able to deliver nutrition supplies, treat malnourished children and support Yemen’s health services,” Relano said.
Meanwhile, a colossal pile of waste outside Sanaa is leeching toxic waste into its diminishing water supply.
Vast stinking pools created in part by untreated medical waste accumulate at the pile’s base, threatening to contaminate the water supply for the parched city which experts have long predicted will be the first capital to use up all its water.
“The main problem we’re now facing is in the management of waste in Yemen that is posing a real danger to the general health of residents,” said Professor Mohammed Al-Qahali, head of the science and technology department at Sanaa University.
Al-Qahali warned that the pools of contaminated waste contained “hazardous chemicals that could cause a variety of diseases including cancers, birth defects, immunological disorders and many other diseases.”
[ARA News] Homs – Militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Tuesday made new gains in their fight with the Syrian Army forces in the central governorate of Homs.
ISIS fighters captured the main road between al-Qaryatain town and Homs city, which used to be a key supply route for the Syrian regime’s army forces.
The radical group seized control of the supply-line after capturing military checkpoints that were previously held by the Syrian regime’s troops.
“Subsequent to clashes with the Syrian Army forces, ISIS fighters took over four checkpoints in the vicinity of al-Qaryatain, which enabled the group to block the army’s supply route,” local media activist Amro al-Hussein told ARA News.
“The route was a main supply line for the Syrian Army in Homs Governorate. The army forces have been relying on this route to send military reinforcements from al-Qaryatain town to the T4 Airbase and further into Homs city,” al-Hussein reported.
This comes just one day after the Islamic State militants assaulted the T4 Military Airport, breaching its defenses with mortar batteries and heavy machine guns. Located in the Homs’ eastern countryside, the T4 Airport is a critical security installation, providing regime forces with close air support.
Earlier on Sunday, the hardline group recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra in Homs Governorate. Activists and military sources confirmed the rout, reporting that the army had been forced to withdraw under fire.
“The army withdrew after the clashes reached the city center and it became impossible for them to push ISIS back,” media activist Abas al-Omar reported.
Russia had supported the Syrian Army in Palmyra, with airstrikes and logistical support but their efforts were apparently insufficient to save the city.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/14/2016
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[Daily Excelsior] The BSF last night foiled an infiltration attempt by a group of four to five murderous Moslems in Ramgarh sector of Samba district and apprehended a former Pakistain army personnel while other murderous Moslems retreated to Pakistain.
Official sources said alert jawans of the BSF noticed movement of four to five murderous Moslems inside Pakistain territory close to the International Border in Ramgarh sector last night and became alert. They fired para illuminating bombs to lit up the area.
Finding the BSF jawans alert, the turbans, who were trying to infiltrate into the Indian territory under the cover of dense fog and thick sarkanda growth, retreated to Pakistain. The BSF later apprehended a intruder as he kept on moving towards the Indian territory even after firing of warning shots towards him. The intruder escaped unhurt and was captured.
He has been identified as Mohammad Baksh son of Feroz Din R/o village Gandiyal in Parsroor area of Sialkot district of Pakistain. He had served in Pakistain army and is now a pensioner.
From his possession, BSF recovered two currency notes in 500 denomination, two identity cards, one small knife and a paper with "CMA Lahore Cantt" written on it with pen.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A senior commander of the Afghan Border Police forces was killed in an kaboom in eastern Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... Local officials confirmed the commander of the 3rd brigade of border police forces was killed late on Monday night in Dangam district.
Provincial police chief Juma Gul Hemat said a magnetic bomb planted in the vehicle of Gen. Wali Jan exploded by the bad boys.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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[AnNahar] Turkish media say counterterrorism police have continued to detain members of a pro-Kurdish political party in the wake of deadly suicide kabooms.
State-run Anadolu Agency is reporting that two politicians of the Peoples' Democratic Party have been taken into custody in Ankara, the capital.
The report said they were taken into custody within the scope of two separate terror-related investigations in the southeastern cities of Batman and Diyarbakir.
[Ynet] Turkish authorities have detained 568 people over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) myrmidon group in the last two days, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.
235 of them were detained on Monday.
The operations, which followed the twin bombing in Istanbul on Saturday that killed 44 people outside a soccer stadium, were launched in 28 provinces across The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... from the northwest to the southeast, the ministry said in a statement
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/14/2016
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[AlAhram] Egypt's interior ministry said that security forces have located a private vehicle carrying weapons and explosives in Giza's Faisal district which initial investigations show was used to transfer the bomb used in Friday's attack on a security checkpoint in Giza that killed six coppers, al-Ahram Arabic website reported on Tuesday.
Security forces defused an bomb found in the car, which turned out to be stolen.
The ministry said that two suitcases were found in the vehicle. In the first, security forces found a pistol, automatic rifle and ammunition, while in the second they found material used to manufacture explosives as well as a container for transporting bombs.
Security forces are intensifying their search to arrest the Death Eaters responsible for Friday's attack, in which six coppers were killed and three others were maimed.
A little-known Egyptian Lion of Islam group which calls itself "Hasm" grabbed credit for Friday's kaboom. The group has claimed a number of other attacks on police checkpoints in recent months.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/14/2016
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North Korean commandos have practiced attacking South Korea's presidential compound and abducting key officials as leader Pudgy Kim Jong-un watched, official media reported Sunday. Given the state media's practice of reporting events a day late, the attack drill probably took place on Saturday, a day after the National Assembly voted in favor of impeaching President Park Geun-hye.
The Rodong Sinmun daily featured 27 photos of special forces soldiers infiltrating Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential office engulfed in flames and Fat Boy Kim Jong-un smiling. The drill appears to have been held at a firing range on the outskirts of Pyongyang, where the South Korean military said in April North Korea has built a mock-up of Cheong Wa Dae.
North Korean media also pictured photos of major South Korean government officials hanging on the walls at the firing range. After the exercise, the corpulent Kim posed for photos with the elite troops.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2016
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#1
Kimmie is big enough to start burning bunker oil.
Snark of the day.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/14/2016 0:07
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#2
Keep practicing. It will be the only chance you have after Pudgy eats all your rations.
[DAWN] SIALKOT: An 11-year-old boy was allegedly tortured to death by a security guard during shower of currency notes at a marriage hall here on Tuesday at Garha village, Daska tehsil.
Reports said some guests started showering currency notes at the arrival of a wedding party. Muhammad Danish tried to secure some cash when security guard Safdar got infuriated and he clubbed him.
The child suffered injuries to his head and died on way to Daska Civil Hospital. The body was shifted for an appointment with Dr. Quincy.
Bambaanwala police have placed in durance vile You have the right to remain silent... Safdar, a resident of Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south... , and started the paperwork but haven't done much else against him.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The jihadist rebels of Jaish al-Fateh ...Army of Conquest coalition includes Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, Fath al-Sham, Ihyaa al-Jihad Brigade, Mujhedi Nawa, Asoud al-Tahid Brigade, Ansar al-Haqa Brigade and the Islamic brigade of al-Omarein, of which three are affialiated with al-Qaeda. It is or has been supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey... and Halab Fatah have officially agreed to a ceasefire deal that would allow for their Lions of Islam and local residents to leave the beseigd neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo.
Initially, a similar deal was put in place that would allow for the evacuation of civilians; however, several Lions of Islam reneged on this agreement and forced residents to remain in the besieged areas.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has not yet entered any of the remaining besieged neighborhoods, despite claims by Syrian opposition activists that government forces entered Kalaseh and Bustan al-Qasr.
A Syrian military source told al-Masdar moments ago that they will not enter any of the jihadist controlled neighborhoods until they are permitted by the observing groups and opposition.
The Syrian Armed Forces have suspended operations in eastern Aleppo indefinitely, as they shift their focus to more pressing fronts in eastern Homs and southern Aleppo.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[al-Manar] Turkish General Staff stated Tuesday that military aircraft destroyed 28 targets of the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) terrorist group in northern Syria as part of the Euphrates Shield operation over the past 24 hours.
“As a result of airstrikes conducted by our Air Force in the al-Bab, Bzagah regions 28 ISIL targets were destroyed including 6 shelters, 3 headquarters, 3 checkpoints, 2 military vehicles, 2 depots, 3 garages and artillery posts,” the statement obtained by RIA Novosti said.
It added that a total of 157 strikes had been carried out against ISIL positions.
On August 24, the Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield against militants of the ISIL terrorist group.
Turkish forces with assistance from Syrian opposition fighters occupied the city of Jarabulus in northern Syria and are currently conducting its offensive on the ISIL-held city of al-Bab.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan stated that the aim of the operation is to clear the region of terrorists and making it into a safety zone for refugees.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/14/2016
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[Dhaka Tribune] Students at Oxford University have been urged to use gender neutral pronouns like "ze" instead of "he" or "she" when referring to each other, in an attempt not to offend transgender students. Youse have to be kidding mi!
The move, outlined in a student union leaflet, is intended to reduce discrimination and the use of incorrect pronouns, reports the Independent. Howzit discrimination to call somebody "he" or "she?" Doesn't it discriminate against heterosexuals to refer to them as "xe" or "shplx" or "snunt" or whatever some amateur philologist from the wimmin's studies department decides is correct?
Deliberately using the wrong pronoun for a transgender person is an offence under the university’s behaviour code. If you got testicles you're an obvious "he" or "him," and if you don't you're either a "she" or guarding them in a harem.
Students said they hoped the gender neutral pronouns would be used in lectures and seminars, as well as socially. Yes. Use them in the linguistics department. Use them in the Spanish, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Russian and German courses. What's the German word for "xe?" (I'm sure somebody's trying to think one up in the Gender Studies department at Heidelberg.
LGBT activist Peter Tatchell welcomed the move. "This issue isn’t about being PC. Um... It's the epitome of PC.
It’s about respecting people’s right to define themselves as neither male nor female," he told The Times. If they're neither male nor female then they're properly "it" in English.
Gender neutral pronouns such as "xe" and "ze" have already been brought into common use at the University of Tennessee, US. Haven't they been laughed out of Memphis already?
This summer the Boarding Schools’ Association issued guidance for teachers to address transgender pupils as "zie" to avoid offence, the Independent adds. I guess "it" isn't appropriate if you're masquerading as another gender. And if you're addressing them "you" should do nicely, since you can use it with your dog.
Cambridge is moving in the same direction, according to The Times report. Sucking just as deeply, are they?
Sophie Buck, the student’s union welfare officer, said it would help people who do not identify as male or female. Offend ye not the "its."
"Events start with a speaker introducing themselves using a gender neutral pronoun. It’s part of a drive to make the union intersectional," she said. I know the meaning of the word "intersection." I had to look up the meaning of "intersectional" in Wikipedia:
a term first coined in 1989 by American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, disability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age, nationality and other sectarian axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels.
Based on that definition, I'd say its antonym has for the past 27 years been "sensible." It didn't have one before that.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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#1
Obscure, intersectional, fictive,
These nutjobs were strictly descriptive,
But having once sipped of
This heady ascriptive
Prescription, they found it addictive.
#2
The University of Tennessee does not use those made up words. The Trustees did away with the department that pushed this. Oh, the University of Tennessee is in Knoxville.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/14/2016 8:02
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#3
If they keep it up, and have a good veterinarian program (kid's goal at the moment), they stay on the list.
Seriously, I am concerned I will have to put my kids through college before they go to college.
What is the problem here, are people bored? Life is not challenging enough?
#6
These universities should be required to issue something like a prospectus for each major. The information would focus on the students' prospects in the job market after they graduate, what are their chances of finding a job related to their field of study and, upon finding such a job, what are they likely to get paid for it. The information in the prospectus would also show an estimation of how long it would take to repay the student debt at the projected rate of pay. I'm guessing that once the students and their parents start gaining access to this information enrollment will drop precipitously.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2016 12:05
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#7
Ain't gonna happen, Abu. Somebody has to pay for the bloated administrative staff. Gotta protect their phony-balony jobs.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/14/2016 12:57
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#8
My hope, DB, is that many of those jobs would go away. It might be kinda tough for some of those people to earn an honest living but in the long run it might be good for them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2016 13:22
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Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? It ain't over now. This is Islamic Whack-a-Mole, so it ain't over 'til ISIS sez it's over.
[ArabNews] In its 7,000 years of existence, Aleppo has been fought over by Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. The modern battle for the ancient Syrian city, however, may yet be as significant for the future of the Middle East as those fought by the kingdoms and empires of the past.
The four-year battle for Aleppo now seems to be reaching its final stages. More than any other place, the city — one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world — has been the epicenter of the Syria conflict.
In time, Syria may be seen to define the early 21st century the way the Spanish Civil War did the 1930s, a perfect storm of all the worst trends in global politics and conflict. If it is, then Aleppo will be its Guernica, the Spanish town carpet bombed by Nazi aircraft in 1937 in a savage precursor to the horrors of the coming WW II.
As long as it held out, Aleppo made a mockery of President Bashar Assad’s ambition to once again be seen as ruler of everywhere important in Syria. Even now with Russian support, the Syrian government’s attempts to seize it back have been largely unsuccessful. And in diverting its forces to the most recent Aleppo assault, Damascus left Palmyra too lightly defended and vulnerable to Daesh, which recaptured the ancient city on Sunday.
Aleppo might always have been doomed. The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, however, appears to have settled the matter. Had Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton prevailed, those fighting to protect the last handful of opposition enclaves in the city might finally have seen Washington drawn into the fight, if only through enforcing a no-fly zone against Syrian and Russian aircraft.
That might have been dangerous for the rest of the world. But it would have offered at least a limited salvation for those still fighting in Aleppo.
Trump has signaled that he intends to take a very different approach, pledging to work with Moscow and prioritize the fight against Daesh. European nations still want some kind of political transition deal to remove the Syrian leader, something Washington now seems much less likely to support.
The battle is not quite over. The failure of Assad’s forces to take the sprawling city suggests they lack the combat power to do so. Russian and Syrian bombing may kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians, but the attacks will not in themselves bring victory to Damascus.
The end of the siege will be in some ways a humanitarian blessing, whoever might win.The darker side of the fighting’s end, however, is already also becoming clear, with reports of perhaps hundreds of fighting age men “disappeared” or killed after surrender.
If the Assad regime regains control over the rebel city, it will likely use brutal measures to reduce any prospect of further insurrection, especially if it feels neither the United States nor other major powers will take any action.
Any harsh response by Assad shouldn’t be surprising. What has and will happen in Aleppo is little different to that in thousands of other sieges throughout history. But as it appears to be ending, it’s worth examining why it took so long to reach this point.
The West’s half-hearted approach to Syria’s civil war — giving support to opposition forces, but never enough to beat the government or its Russian allies — has been an unmitigated failure.
Perhaps the United States, the United Kingdom and others should share the guilt for the horror that has come with it. The Syria conflict has always had many moving pieces. Even now, formulating policy is complicated by the myriad rival interests — Kurds, Arabs, Alawites, the competing concerns of half a dozen nations.
In the process, the wider political landscape of the Middle East has been redrawn. In the early days of the uprising, the Assad government was heavily reliant on Iran as its main ally, the opposition on rival Arab states. In the last two years, however, Russia has been calling the shots.
If Aleppo is to fall shortly, then much of the credit — if that is the right word — must go to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has established a potential new role for itself, a source of military power for autocratic regimes the West might rather see gone. What we don’t know is whether that will be a sign of things to come.
In some ways, that was inevitable. After the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the feeling in Washington and Europe was that there was little to gain and much to lose. With the migrant crisis, Europe in particular found itself paying a much higher price for the bloodshed in Syria than it ever anticipated, but that in itself did not appear to justify any intervention.
If the battle of Aleppo is seen as some kind of regional historic turning point, historians may well be arguing over it for generations. As it draws to a close, however, only one thing is truly apparent — that a city that started the century as a relatively cosmopolitan metropolis and destination for Western tourists has been reduced to rubble.
And that all the fighting and international handwringing may ultimately have made little difference to who actually runs Syria.
•Peter Apps is Reuters global affairs columnist. The opinions expressed here are his own.
#3
That might have been dangerous for the rest of the world. But it would have offered at least a limited salvation for those still fighting in Aleppo.
Doesn't enter his "brain" that he's part of the rest of the world?
#5
European nations still want some kind of political transition deal to remove the Syrian leader, something Washington now seems much less likely to support.
The European Elites want a foreign intervention in Syria that is effective, humane, and cheap. Pick one. If they do not want to get their own hands dirty they should be silent.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Sexual abuse and pro-gunnies activities surround the controversial case of the first vice president General Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... with the his rival and former deputy chief of Hezb-e-Junbish Millie led by the vice president.
Ahmad Ishchi is considered a political rival of Gen. Dostum who has claimed that the vice president detained him and forced him to strip naked besides he was beaten by the bodyguards of Gen. Dostum.
Mr. Ishchi has also claimed that the vice president even filmed the sexual abuse committed on him as well as his bodyguards.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the office of the first vice president, in a statement rejected the allegations as baseless and accused Mr. Ischchi of pro-gunnies activities.
The statement further added that Mr. Ishchi was detained by the security institutions over his alleged role in supporting gunnies and the recent insurgency and instability in Jawzjan province.
In the meantime, the Office of the President, ARG Palace, said all allegations of abuse of abuse against
Mr. Ishchi will be fully investigated, a statement which was welcomed by the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
"The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) welcomes the Afghan Government’s commitment to investigate the alleged human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations committed against the politician, Mr. Ahmad Ishchi," a statement by the UN mission in Afghanistan said.
The statement further added "Mr. Ishchi reports he was illegally detained and severely maltreated by security officials acting under the authority of the First Vice President, Abdul Rashid Dostum."
"UNAMA is concerned about these allegations, stresses the importance of due process and accountability, and remains committed to working with the Government and people of Afghanistan in their efforts to strengthen respect for human rights and the rule of law," the UN mission added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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#1
Fortunate he didn't get dropped in the Buzkashi circle.
You give a goatherd an AK and a rifle company, and he's gonna take prizes.
[AlArabiya] A prominent Houthi leader has launched a scathing attack on its leaders even informing militia commander Abdul Malik al-Houthi that he would be the first to come out and call for his departure.
Leader and academic at the University of Sanaa, Abdul-Salam al-Kibsi, stunned his fellow Houthis when he turned his back on the militia. In his recent Facebook post he said: “A great intellectual like me, known at the level of the Arab world, will be the first to say to Abdul Malik al-Houthi, get out.”
He also criticized the minister of education in the militia government, Yahya Badr Eddin al-Houthi, who is the brother of the rebel leader. He mocked him, saying: “Does Yahya even know to hold the office of education? Are we going to replace the ruin of ISIS with the corruption of Ansar Allah, dammit!”
In another statement, he noted: “I will write to future generations to not be fooled by slogans, and to be with the truthful, I think Ansar Allah lied and broke promises. We were one of them and they were one of us but they demolished the thinkers and scholars and became ignorant. They used us but God is powerful.”
Al-Kibsi is not an exception when it comes to criticism of the militia. Abdul Wahab Qutran recently attacked the rebels after being known as a supporter for a long time. He appeared on almost every program and news bulletins on the Houthi-owned Channel Al Masira. His social media pages are now swamped with attacks against the Houthis. They expose their malpractices and the corruption of their leaders.
Qutran recently lashed out at the militia and said: “They want to rule the present and the future with the mindset and the methods of the past when reason suggests that we must devote our resources to fit today and tomorrow’s reality, socially, economically and politically.”
The corrupt practices
Well-known Houthi leader, Mohammed Makaleh, who was a board member of the so-called Supreme Revolutionary Committee, has continued provoking the group despite the threats he said he recently received from Abdul Karim al-Houthi (uncle of the rebel leader) for exposing corrupt practices and revealing that Abdul Karim al-Huthi is the one ruling Sanaa.
In his latest comments on the situation Makaleh wrote: “hidden power only satisfies opportunists and thieves. Honest men don’t derive power to find a job or a position. They would rather beg than turn into tricksters. Many of those you see in the front of the political scene are nothing but hypocrites.”
He also commented on the harassment that he is facing by the group. “Shame on you for punishing those who stood by your side during the reign of the former regime, only to find themselves witch hunted for writing and criticizing your government,” he said.
Repudiating crimes
Former leader Ali Bukhaiti was the first to repudiate the crimes committed by militias. He took a stand against its leaders. Bukhaiti was a member of the political council of the Houthis and the official spokesman in the national dialogue conference.
However, after the rebels invaded Sanaa and committed unprecedented crimes and violations, challenging the legitimacy of the government, he announced his resignation from all his posts and his membership in the movement. He left the country to take the militias on and expose their crimes and corruption.
Commenting on the celebrations held by the militia yesterday on the occasion of Prophet Mohammad’s birth, Bukhaiti wrote: “All the expenses financed by the Houthis celebrating the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is ill-gotten. The equipment is looted from Suhail TV channel and others, mandatory donations, royalties, in-kind materials taken from merchants under intimidation. If they refused to donate, they would accuse them of being an ISIS supporter.”
[DAWN] GWADAR: At least eight workers of the National Party (NP) were maimed on Tuesday in a hand-grenade attack in Turbat town.
Police said some men hurled a grenade at the NP office in Turbat town during a party meeting. The grenade went kaboom! in the office, leaving eight party workers injured, two of them seriously.
"Eight workers of the National Party were maimed in the grenade attack," Commissioner of the Makran Division Bashir Ahmed Bangulzai told Dawn, adding that the injured were immediately shifted to the district hospital. Two workers who received serious injuries were shifted to Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... for treatment.
"A local grenade was used in the attack," a police brass hat said, adding that the attackers beat feet from the scene on a cycle of violence after hurling the grenade.
A "local grenade" -- is that made in the same factory as a shutter gun?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2016
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#1
Not "local," my friends, please. Artisanal.
Less deadly, but spicy and seasonal.
Made right here in Gwadar
With almost clean water,
And priced right for Mahmoud... uh... reasonable!
[DAWN] The mob attack on a worship place of the Ahmadi community in Chakwal on Monday was downplayed by the electronic media due to a self-restraint as well as apprehensions of strict monitoring by the regulator.
The only coverage of the incident by the electronic media was through the display of tickers.
Though the mob grew and became violent, occupying the Ahmadi place of worship, most of the channels claimed that they sensed the sensitivity of the matter and observed self-restraint.
"The electronic media is becoming mature enough to shift from popular journalism to responsible journalism," said Iftikhar Sheerazi, the Islamabad’s bureau chief at DawnNews. "Primarily, it is our duty, not Pemra’s, to judge the sensitivity of the news."
This is not the first time that all the TV channels irrespective of their policies or operational styles exercised restraint from covering a sensitive issue.
"Last time, a similar responsible attitude was witnessed after violence broke out in Rawalpindi during the Ashura procession in 2013," said Aun Sahi, Islamabad’s bureau chief at Channel 24.
He said any news coverage that could trigger a spiral effect should be placed at the low priority.
Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... a bigwig of another new channel requesting anonymity said religious sentiments were a serious issue and airing anything sensitive on Rabiul Awwal 12 (Monday) could have been catastrophic.
"There were rallies and other activities on the streets. The main procession in Rawalpindi passed through an Ahmadi community centre on Murree Road. Simple news about the Chakwal incident could have triggered random riots across the country," said the official.
However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... some channels displayed tickers stating there was a clash between two groups in the Chakwal area.
"First we filed tickers about skirmishes between the participants of 12 Rabiul Awwal procession and the followers of the Ahmadi community from their centre," said the official. "But the head office directed us that the tickers should not be specific or sensational."
This created suspicion that Pemra might have asked the head offices of news channels to censor the news of the attack.
However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... Pemra front man Mohammad Tahir denied that the authority had directed any channel to exercise restraint over the coverage of the Chakwal incident.
"Though it was a public holiday and the Pemra office was closed, our monitoring continued. Like emergency plans in all the sectors, we have SOPs and if any channel overplayed or sensationalised any incident or news, we do intervene," he added.
A bigwig of Pemra told Dawn that one or two channels did play strong tickers but they were called immediately and the focus remained on the Eid Milad processions and activities.
Shakeel Anjum, the president of the National Press Club, said the restraint by the electronic media was a positive sign.
But he cautioned that such practice should not be adopted as a tradition to censor news.
"Any news is restricted if it is feared that its widespread coverage can create a law and order situation."
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... he said in routine news about mob attacks on any place of worship or public installation should not be restricted.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The devil you say! Being beaten over the head day in, day out for eight solid years about something the general population did not do, didn't help matters any?
Spent the last eight years balkanizing the country by race, and forgot that the single largest racial group is ... white Scots-Irish. Few of whom were happy about what has been done...
[Breitbart] Monday on Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show," President Barack Obama was asked by host Trevor Noah how he navigated the line between speaking his mind and sharing "true opinions" on race while in the meantime not alienating people.
Obama acknowledged the difficulty but added the caveat the country still hasn’t overcome its legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, colonialism and salvery.
Partial transcript as follows:
You know, my general theory is that, if I was clear in my own mind about who I was, comfortable in my own skin and had clarity about the way in which race continues to be this powerful factor in so many elements of our lives. But, that it is not the only factor in so many aspects of our lives, that we have, by no means overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and colonialism and racism, but that the progress we’ve made has been real and extraordinary -- if I’m communicating my genuine belief that those who are not subject to racism can sometimes have blind spots or lack of appreciation of what it feels to be on the receiving end of that, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not open to learning and caring about equality and justice and that I can win them over because there is goodness in the majority of people.
Another way of saying this is there has not been a time in my public life or my presidency where I feel as if I have had to bite my tongue. There have been times in my public life where I’ve said, "How do I say this diplomatically? How do I say this, as you indicated, in a way that it’s received?"
So there have been very few instances where I’ve said, "Well, that was racist, you are racist." There have been times where I’ve said, "You know, you might not have taken into account the ongoing legacy of racism in why we have so many black men incarcerated. And since I know that you believe in the Constitution and believe in justice and believe in liberty, how about if we try this?"
The legacy will only be overcome when the U.S. follows the model of the democratic utopia of Zimbabwe and all whites surrender their privilege and migrate elsewhere.
[Dhaka Tribune] 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.. has underscored the need for identifying the sources of terror financing and causes of militancy and terrorism to effectively root out these menaces from human civilisation.
"We never allow anybody to generate any evil act like using Bangladesh land as was seen in previous regimes. We’ll continue to remain as a nation of peace guided by pluralism, secularism and the spirit of Liberation War," she said.
The prime minister was addressing the graduation ceremony of the National Defence Course and Armed Forces War Course 2016 at Sheikh Hasina Complex of Mirpur Cantonment in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Sheikh Hasina reiterated her government’s stance that there would be no place for terrorism and militancy on Bangladesh soil. "We’re firm in this regard," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[AnNahar] A coalition dronezap in Syria killed three Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group leaders involved in plotting foreign attacks, including two men who helped facilitate last year's attacks in Gay Paree, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
"The three were working together to plot and facilitate attacks against Western targets at the time of the strike," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.
They were killed in a December 4 Arclight airstrike in Raqa, an IS group stronghold in Syria.
Two of those killed -- Salah-Eddine Gourmat and Sammy Djedou -- were involved in facilitating the November 13, 2015 Gay Paree attacks, in which 130 people died, Cook said.
Gourmat was a French national and Djedou, Belgian.
Both of them were "close associates" of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, an IS front man and external operations leader who was killed in a coalition Arclight airstrike in August.
The third person killed was Walid Hamman, a Frenchie who Cook said was a suicide-attack planner convicted in absentia in Belgium for a terror plot disrupted in 2015.
They were riding together in a vehicle at the time of the dronezap, Pentagon front man Navy Captain Jeff Davis said.
All three belonged to a network led by Boubaker al-Hakim, a Tunisian killed in an Arclight airstrike last month, officials said.
During last year's IS-claimed attacks in Gay Paree, jacket wallahs and gunnies launched a coordinated assault across the French capital, including at the Bataclan, a concert hall where three attackers killed 90 people during a rock gig.
Gourmat had worked on external attacks in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and was involved in the "financial facilitation" of the Gay Paree attacks, Davis said.
Djedou took part in plotting Europe attacks, Davis added without giving details about his role in the Gay Paree attacks.
Djedou was a close associate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud who led the deadly November 13 attacks in Gay Paree before police gunned him down during a raid days later, according to Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
Djedou had left Belgium in 2012 for Syria, where he eventually rose up the Islamic State ranks and helped plan the Gay Paree attacks as well as the attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people in March, RTBF added.
Hamman was a "longtime French terrorist" who helped the IS group seize djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , among other operations, Davis said.
A French court sentenced an absent Gourmat, then 24, to four years in prison in March 2014 on charges including trying to conduct jihad in Syria.
He had been incarcerated Please don't kill me! with two other men in May 2012 at an airport near Saint-Etienne in central La Belle France carrying a revolver, night-vision goggles, camouflage clothing and tactical vests.
They had been trying to fly to Gaziantep in southeast The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... .Gourmat and another of the arrested men claimed they were going on a humanitarian trip.
Gourmat, who was not kept in jug ahead of his trial, later fled La Belle France.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi army soldier and 18 militants were killed on Tuesday when Iraqi army forces fought off an attack by Islamic State combatants north of Mosul, a statement said.
The attack targeted army locations on Baawiza, and assailants used light guns and a booby-trapped car driven by a suicide fighter, according to Brigadier General Nizar Idris from the 16th division .
“Iraqi forces, backed directly by international coalition air forces, managed to thwart the attack,” said Idris. He said one soldier and 18 militants were killed in the attack, while three armored vehicles belonging to the group were killed.
Iraqi government forces, backed by tribal militias and US-led air forces, have been leading a military campaign to retake Mosul from ISIS since October. Iraqi government forces have liberated almost 50 of the eastern side of the city, military officials say. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Monday during a visit to Mosul’s Hammam al-Alil that two thirds of Nineveh have been retaken from ISIS. Government forces are eyeing the eastern shore of the Tigris River, which cuts through Mosul, so as to consummate the liberation of the eastern region.
ISIS remains in control of several areas of the western section, which is adjacent to its strongholds in Syria, but Al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces are reporting daily advances towards liberating ISIS locations in that region.
Also on Tuesday, Al-Hashd al-Shaabi troops said they had liberated the village of Ashwah, brought down some of Islamic State militants’ defenses and killed a number of the extremist group’s members near Tal Afar, west of Mosul.
ISIS, meanwhile, claimed several attacks on al-Hashd during the same day.
Al-Hashd media service said it carried out successful offensives on ISIS in ِAshwah village, southwest of the strategic ISIS stronghold of Tal Afar. It said two booby-trapped cars were destroyed before attacking the troops which moved 200 meters away from the village’s center.
ISIS Amaq news agency said, meanwhile, that militants carried out suicide attacks against al-Hashd in Ashwah and Tal Askaa, and targeted a bulldozer run by the militia in al-Sharaea village.
The agency made no mention of fatalities among al-Hashd.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) There are only six districts left to announce full Iraqi security control over the eastern section of Mosul, the army’s Counter Terrorism Service said Tuesday, noting that 50 ISIS militants were killed in operations over the past few days.
CTS commander Abdul Wahab al-Saedi said in statements that his forces had so far recaptured 32 districts from ISIS since operations to retake the city launched in October, adding that troops were advancing in three other neighborhoods. “Our forces have managed to liberate significant and critical parts of the eastern shore of Mosul, and there are only six districts left before announcing the eastern section fully free from ISIS.”
CTS troops are now less than two kilometers from the eastern shore of the Tigris River, Saedi unveiled, adding that US-led air forces continue to bomb the extremist group’s remaining locations in the east.
“Operation ‘We Are Coming, Nineveh’ will soon see the opening of new fronts as part of new strategies prepared by the Joint Operations Command. They will paralyze ISIS’s most vital weapon in Mosul: civilians held as human shields,” Saedi stated
Sami al-Aridy, another senior CTS commander, said in statements that 50 ISIS militants were killed during operations that led to the recapture of eastern Mosul’s district of al-Falah two days ago.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A police officer at Nineveh Police revealed on Tuesday, that a double car bomb explosion in eastern Mosul, left dozens of casualties.
Major Iyad Ziad said in a press statement, “The ISIS terrorists attacked security forces in al-Zohour area, in eastern Mosul, using two booby-trapped vehicles.”
“The explosion of the two booby-trapped vehicles resulted in the killing and wounding of dozens of civilians, as well as 7 of security forces,” Ziad added.
Meanwhile, media officials with the Ministry of defense quoted Commander of the Counter-Terrorism forces, Abdel Wahab al-Saedi, as saying that less than 2 kilometers are separating between security forces and the bridges of Mosul.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) We Are Coming, Nineveh Operations Command announced on Tuesday, that the Counter-Terrorism forces freed two neighborhoods, in the eastern side of Mosul, from the ISIS control.
Commander of Operations, Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Yarallah, said in a press statement, “Forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) liberated the neighborhoods of al-Falah al-Oula and al-Falah al-Thaneya, in the eastern side of Mosul, as well as raising Iraqi flag over their buildings.”
“Security forces also inflicted heavy human and material losses on the enemy,” Yaralla added.
Joint security forces, backed by Army Aviation and international coalition, continue liberating the city of Mosul from the ISIS control, after Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced launching the battle to liberate Mosul in October 2016.
(Reuters) Iraqi Shi’ite forces fighting Islamic State west of Mosul aim to clear a large strip of land on the border with Syria to prevent the militants melting into the remote desert region and using it as a base for counter attacks, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
The Popular Mobilisation fighters – mainly Shi’ite, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups who form part of a wider Iraqi force waging the eight-week Mosul campaign – have deployed west of the city to cut the route to Islamic State-held territory in Syria.
They have taken an air base south of the town of Tal Afar, about 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul, and linked up with Kurdish peshmerga fighters to seal off the town’s western flank.
Jafaar Hussaini said the Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the Shi’ite armed groups, would advance further west to clear the border region where he said the militants had hidden many weapons stores for future use.
“The key objective is to … make sure that the terrorists lose the ability to regroup and launch counter attacks against advancing forces,” said Hussaini, speaking by telephone from a desert area near Tal Afar.
Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the two main Shi’ite groups fighting west of Mosul. A spokesman for the Badr militia, the other group, said it was targeting villages around Tal Afar to “surround Daesh (Islamic State) and tighten the noose around them”.
While the army advance in east Mosul, where soldiers have been constrained by street-by-street fighting and a built-up urban battlefield, Hussaini said progress in the western region was slow because the Popular Mobilisation forces had to clear dozens of villages scattered over a wide area.
The forces are still 60 km from the frontier with Syria, he said. “We are targeting full control of the desert areas along the Syrian border”.
Defeating Islamic State in Mosul, the largest city under its control in Syria or Iraq, would deal a heavy blow to its self-styled caliphate covering parts of both countries, and could see it return to more covert militant operations.
Clearing the remote border region, which has long been a stronghold of the ultra-hardline Sunni militants, would make it more difficult for them to continue operating in northern Iraq.
FOOD AND FUEL SHORTAGES
Since the Popular Mobilisation forces closed off Mosul from Syria, residents in Islamic State-held districts of the city say fresh food has become scarce and prices have soared.
Fuel prices have also risen, leading aid groups to warn of increasing winter hardship for the 1 million residents.
“The city has never seen these prices,” a resident from the west side of the city, which is still completely under Islamic State control, told Reuters by telephone.
“For a barrel of heating fuel the price has reached a million dinars ($850) – it used to be sold for 150,000 dinars,” he said, adding that food prices had risen four or five fold, despite efforts by the militants to punish traders they accuse of hiking prices purely for profit.
One trader said that no fresh fruit or vegetables other than potatoes and onions had reached the city in the past week. “Residents are worried how they can get bread. If the siege continues at this level many people will die from lack of food,” he said.
In the east of the city, where Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Services have made slow progress in a grueling fight, some civilians fled the front lines and sought sanctuary in areas now under army control.
“We are very happy even though we have left behind us everything we own. The house, the car and our possessions,” said one resident of Muthanna district, who escaped with his family to stay with a relative in the nearby Zahra neighborhood.
“What’s important is that we escaped death and hell”.
He said many people in Muthanna had been killed.
“An explosive-rigged car blew up in front of one of the houses, which collapsed on top of the residents. There was a family of seven inside, including three children,” he said. “We worked for two days to dig out the bodies”.
[ARA News] Erbil – The US-coalition estimates that there are still 3,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters inside Mosul.
“3,000 to 5,000 is probably still accurate. At the start of the campaign, we estimated somewhere between at the low end 3,500, at the high end, about 6,000. By our calculations we think we have killed or badly wounded over 2,000. So if you do the math, that’s still 3,000-5,000,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend, who leads the coalition forces against ISIS on the ground, told a press conference in the city of Qayyarah.
Furthermore, the coalition general denied that there is a stalemate in Mosul.
“I don’t think it suggests anything about a stalemate. This is a major urban area. Any army on the planet, to include the United States Army, would be challenged by this fight. And the Iraqi army has come back from near defeat two years ago, and now they’re attacking this major city, 400 kilometers from Baghdad,” he added.
Mosul is the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq. The group took over the city in June 2014, and immediately afterward announced its self-proclaimed Caliphate.
On October 17, the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga launched a major operation to liberate Mosul city and its surroundings. According to military sources, more than 2,200 ISIS militants have been killed in the operation so far.
In the meantime, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who visited Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region this week, said that the security forces haven taken losses in Mosul.
The UN Iraq Mission said that at least 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed since the launch of the anti-ISIS Mosul operation on 17 October in all of Iraq.
“The Iraqi Security Forces have been and are fighting hard. As a consequence of that, they have taken losses and they are our comrades-in-arms over the years. So our hearts go out to them, to their families,” Secretary Carter said. “And at the same time we are constantly helping them to reset their forces after they carry out an operation. That’s one of the roles we play here. We’re in an enabling role. We do equipping, logistics, sustainment.”
“We help them with their own medical system so that they can treat their casualties, with mobility as well as all of the awesome military power of the United States, air power, artillery, and so forth, so that they can have battlefield success with minimal losses,” he added. “But there still are significant losses because it’s a hard fight,” he concluded.
Moreover, the coalition says that they have killed prominent ISIS jihadist leaders. “A significant part of their leadership has been killed. And the rest of it, knowing that they’re being hunted, are therefore forced to behave like hunted men. And that by itself also adds a benefit in the sense that their freedom to communicate, their freedom to move, their freedom to instill confidence in their forces is also reduced as we wipe out some of them, because the rest of them have to lie lower,” US Defence Secretary Carter said.
“I’ll just add that so as the secretary said, we’re continually striking his command and control and key leaders daily. And we see that in our intelligence reporting that it’s affecting his life,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend. “And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi probably wishes he had more direct command and control over his formation than he does right now. He’s trying to find ways to regain effectiveness. So we have to constantly stay after this every day of the fight to eventually win. And we will win,” he stated.
Supported by the US-led coalition, the Iraqi forces have so far captured some 28 neighborhoods in the war-torn city since the launch of Mosul operation, forcing the Islamic State back towards the downtown core.
Informed sources inside Mosul told ARA News that the Iraqi forces currently control approximately 50% of Mosul city, beside tightening the siege on the ISIS-held downtown districts.
[AlArabiya] ISIS blew up the Khosr river bridge east of Mosul in an attempt to halt the progress of Iraqi forces coming in from the recently liberated Al-Falah neighborhood as they head towards ISIS-held Hay AlSukkar.
Iraqi forces, however, reported the stopping of battles in Eastern Mosul – announcing the completing of the first phase of taking back the city.
Saturday, Iraq’s joint operations command that counter-terrorism forces regained control of 31 neighborhoods on the left coast of the city of Mosul.
They continue to advance in three other neighborhoods after inflicting heavy losses on ISIS during recent battles.
The joint operations’ command also said that their forces are less than two kilometers away from Mosul’s bridges, adding that the coalition’s air force continues to destroy ISIS gatherings in east Mosul.
Posted by: badanov ||
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At least 81 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey facing charges related to their work -- the highest number in any one country at any one time, according to the CPJ. Dozens more journalists are imprisoned in Turkey but the CPJ was unable to confirm a direct link to their work.
China, which had the most journalists in jail in 2015 and 2014, dropped to second spot. There were 38 behind bars in 2016.
China has been named the world's worst jailer of journalists 18 times since 1990.
Egypt, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are third, fourth and fifth worst jailers of journalists, according to the report. [of course in some places they kill journalists rather than jail them]
Posted by: lord garth ||
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#1
I'm only being a little facetious after seeing the "journalists" in this country by saying...
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants executed an Iraqi journalist in central Mosul on Saturday, a press freedoms organization said Monday.
ISIS executed Hashem Fares, a photojournalist for al-Haqiqa, a local newspaper, and a former reporter for al-Diyar, a local TV, said the Iraqi Observatory for Press Freedoms , an Iraqi Journalists Syndicate body.
The reason for the execution is still unknown, the organization said, but ISIS has had a bloody history of executions of journalists, foreign workers and civilians since it took over several regions in Iraq in 2014, and most of the time accused the victims of either treason or collaboration with security.
Iraq is ranked among the world’s most dangerous work environments for journalists, with 420 workers in the profession killed since the ouster of late Saddam Hussein in 2003, according to data from the observatory and the syndicate.
Reporters Without Borders had counted 110 journalists deaths in 2015, with Iraq and Syria accounting for the biggest number of victims.
ISIS abducts 30 in Ninevah ISIS recruiting drive begins
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State (ISIS) militants have reportedly kidnapped 30 civilians southwest of Nineveh, a local source told Alsumaria News on Tuesday.
The civilians were kidnapped from an area between al-Baaj and the Syrian borders and were taken to an unknown destination, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The extremist group accused the kidnapped civilians of “abandoning the land of the Caliphate” and smuggling civilians out of ISIS-controlled areas, common accusations the group posed against civilians held by the group.
ISIS has also reportedly been holding civilians in Nineveh to use them as human shields against Iraqi troops and popular militias fighting to liberate the city from the militants, and has said, on several occasions, to force civilians to leave homes at areas it loses to Iraqi forces and drive them to other regions under its control.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi police caught on Tuesday 10 Islamic State affiliates at a refugee camp east of Mosul, a police commander stated.
“Nineveh’s local police forces detained 10 ISIS members who escorted their families during migration to al-Khazir refugee camp east of Mosul,” Birg. Gen. Watheq al-Hamadani, Nineveh police chief, was quoted as saying by DPA news agency.
The arrests occurred after the forces scrutinized the names of persons on the wanted list and arrested ten “whose hands were stained with blood with the group,” as Hamadani put it. They were driven to Nineveh’s police headquarter for interrogation.
Despite fierce resistance, Islamic State militants have reportedly been losing ground and equipment in Mosul, their last stronghold in Iraq, since Iraqi government forces and US-led air forces launched a major campaign to recapture the city in October. Many militants and their families reportedly fled the city to Syria or other regions in Iraq still under the group’s control.
The battles forced at least 103.000 people to leave homes in Mosul to refugee camps in Nineveh and other provinces, according to recent data from the migration ministry. Concerns persist over the fate of hundreds of thousands others stranded in the battlefields, with Iraqi commanders saying that the existence of civilians there slows down the progress of operations and dictating extra cautiousness.
There are at least 3 million internally dispalced people inside Iraq, according to UN data.
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[Investors.com] President Obama has staked a great part of his legacy on the idea that he skillfully engineered a great recovery from the financial crisis. The Obama-friendly media routinely parrot the idea. But in fact, as a shocking new study from the nonpartisan U.S. Council on Competitiveness and the Gallup organization suggests, the so-called recovery doesn't exist. Those of us that live in reality could attest to that.
As recently as Oct. 11, less than a month before the election, the online publication The Hill ran this headline: "Obama's economic legacy ensures Democrats decades of success." No kidding. But it's a bit unfair to single them out: Others have run with similar themes. The point is, it's not true. Never stopped the MSM from printing it
The reason Obama's chosen successor, Hillary Clinton, didn't win a third straight presidential term for the Democrats was that they actually seemed to believe their own propaganda, while Middle America didn't. For most Americans, the much-hoped-for recovery has been nonexistent. That's why they voted in droves for Donald Trump in normally Democratic strongholds.
The new study, "No Recovery ‐ An Analysis of Long-Term Productivity Decline," provides strong clues as to why that is.
"Conventional wisdom ‐ as reported in many major newspapers and media ‐ tells us the U.S. economy is 'recovering,' " wrote Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton in a surprisingly blunt foreword to the study. "Well-meaning economists, academics and government officials use the term 'recovery' when discussing the economy, implying that growth is getting stronger. The study finds there is no recovery. Since 2007, U.S. GDP per capita has been 1%."
It's even worse when looking at a trend line. From a range of about 2.6% to as high as nearly 3.5% a year during the late 1960s, per capita GDP has steadily declined over time. This year, the report shows, per capita GDP will be a pathetic 0.5%. Per capita GDP is important, since it's a common measure of living standards around the world. When it's not growing, neither is your standard of living. Costs are still going up like crazy. You ever wonder why only one earner could afford a house and a family in the 50s and 60s and two earners can't afford the same lifestyle today? There is your answer.
Put another way, at the late 1960s growth rate it took about 24 years for the average American to double his or her standard of living; at the 2016 growth rate, it would take 144 years.
Or, put yet another way, "If 1% growth continued for the next 35 years, per capita GDP would increase from $56,000 in 2015 to just $79,000 in 2050. With 1.7% growth, GDP per capita goes up to $101,000 by 2050, and with 2.4% growth it enlarges to $129,000," the report notes. The difference between 1% growth and 2.4% growth is enormous.
In an executive summary, the report's authors note the economy's problems didn't start with President Obama, but they didn't end with him, either, as the media and White House frequently suggest. The study makes a devastating case that something has gone very wrong with the U.S. economy in the past 20 years or so. See unfair trade agreements and NAFTA.
"For decades, the nation's income, measured as GDP, has barely grown overall; on a per capita basis median household income peaked in 1999; the subjective general health status of Americans has declined, even adjusting for the aging population; disability rates are higher; learning has stagnated; fewer new businesses are being launched; more workers are involuntarily stuck in part-time jobs or out of the labor force entirely; and the income ranks of grown children are no less tied to the income ranks of their parents," the report said, listing a litany of woes that now bedevil the economy.
The main reason for the slowdown is a decline in productivity growth, which is in danger of "stalling completely," says the report. That, in turn, is in large part a result of just three sectors in which inflation has been high but quality increases have been low: health care, housing and education. As recently as 1980, the report notes, just 25% of all GDP was spent in those three sectors; today, it's 36% of GDP, and rising. Without the inflation since 1980, per capita GDP growth would have been a robust 3.9% ‐ not 1.7%.
Poor K-12 education, soaring costs for college without an increase in educational quality, "slight gains" in Americans' overall health, declining labor-force participation by adults, and high housing costs have been afflicting the U.S. economy for years, damaging the dreams of many who seek to climb the economic ladder of success.
That's the bad news.
The good news is, it can be fixed. But it will take radically different policies and the political will to buck the special interests, lobbyists and crony capitalists that stand in the way.
As such, whether you like him or not, President-elect Donald Trump is beholden to no one but the voters for his unlikely victory in November. He may be ideally suited for the difficult, but necessary, job of reforming the economy to restore its once-extraordinary growth. Let's hope so. If not, the next presidential campaign is just 36 months away. Cutting a lot of the regulatory costs (by getting rid of a lot of regulations) would help quite a bit.
#2
If you get a government paycheck or are on welfare, or if you are in a "private" business the demand for which has been greatly increased by the crush of regulations added in the past ten years, or work for the financial services, IT, entertainment, or education industries and your industry has bribed the Democrats for indulgences from those same regulations, the "recovery" was great.
For the rest of us, not so much.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/14/2016 6:16
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#3
People in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin knew it was a myth.
[DAWN] Panic and fear on Tuesday persisted in Dulmial village, about 35km from Chakwal city, after a mob attacked a place of worship of the Ahmadi community a day earlier.
The enraged crowd occupied the worship place and set on fire religious books, fans, carpets and other items. They also offered prayers at the worship place.
An Ahmadi man, identified as Malik Khalid Javed, 65, who was present at the worship place, was struck down in his prime after having suffered a cardiac arrest, while a man -- identified as Naeem Shafique, 27, and not belonging to the minority community -- was hit by a bullet during the attack and killed. Another non-Ahmadi man, who received bullet injury, is said to be in a stable condition in the District Headquarters Hospital, Chakwal.
The situation remained tense throughout the day on Monday until army and Rangers personnel were called in. They took control of the worship place and sealed it.
Police escorted the body of Malik Javed to Chenab Nagar where he was buried.
Naeem Shafique was laid to rest in his native village of Tatral Kahoon, about 4km from Dulmial. His death was "celebrated" on social media and he was declared a "martyr".
Provincial minister Malik Tanveer Aslam, MNA Tahir Iqbal, MPA Zulfiqar Ali Khan, the regional police officer and the Rawalpindi division commissioner also reached the village.
Police started the paperwork but haven't done much else against 40 known and scores of unknown miscreants under sections 302, 324, 148, 149 of the Pakistain Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
According to sources, about 10 people were locked away ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... .
About 500 members of the Ahmadi community live in Dulmial village. The dominant tribe in the village is of Malik caste. The villagers built a mosque in 1860.
During the early 20 century some members of the Malik tribe converted to the Ahmadi faith. In 1927, a minaret of the mosque was constructed. When the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... government declared Ahmadis non-Moslems, the issue of ownership of the mosque cropped up. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... the atmosphere in the village remained peaceful.
In 1997, a case about the ownership of the worship place was filed.
"The case was dismissed by the Lahore High Court," Assistant Commissioner of Choa Saidan Shah Ashar Iqbal told Dawn.
"We did not follow the case deliberately as we knew that the court would order the Ahmadis to demolish the minaret and tomb of the mosque. In such an expected verdict we would never have been able to take possession of the mosque," Faiz Ahmed Faizi, vice-chairman of the Dulmial Union Council, said when Dawn approached him for his version.
There are six shops attached to the mosque.
Sources told Dawn that a villager settled in Canada recently came to the village and mobilised the villagers to take control of the mosque. About 580 Moslems of the village filed an application with the district coordination officer a couple of weeks ago, asking the DCO to get the mosque vacated from the Ahmadis. "We request you to help us in vacating the mosque, otherwise we would be forced to take an extreme measure," they warned in their application.
On Dec 5, the Ahmadis also filed an application drawing the DCO’s attention to the simmering tension in the village. It stated that on Dec 2 some holy mans from outside the village had addressed the Friday congregation and mobilised the villagers to occupy the worship place by force.
"You are kindly requested to take adequate security measures to protect the life and property and worship places of the Ahmadi community," Malik Zahid Hameed, local president of Jamaat-e-Ahmediya, and the organization’s chief security officer retired Col Mohammad Farooq Malik pleaded in the application.
A hate campaign against the marginalised community was also ignited on social media after 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... ordered naming the physics centre at the Quaid-e-Azam University after Nobel laureate Professor Dr Abdus Salam.
"After receiving applications from both the sides we discussed the issue at a meeting and adequate measures were taken to resolve the issue amicably," DCO Mehmood Javed Bhatti told Dawn. He said Moslem members assured the district administration that they would not change the route of the Rabiul Awwal procession. "Despite their assurance we deployed additional police force in the village. We were sure that the organisers would stick to their word but to our surprise they backtracked on their promise and changed the route of the procession," he regretted.
The DCO said coppers were deployed outside the houses of Ahmadis while Rangers remained alert in the village.
"An overwhelming number of miscreants came from adjoining villages," an Ahmadi resident claimed.
"The district administration could have taken steps to avoid this tragic situation, but it failed. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... police did a great job by rescuing our 40 members who were trapped in the worship place," Salimuddin, spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Ahmediya, said.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the attitude to Jews in Azerbaijan as he made a press statement following his meeting with President Ilham Aliyev during his one day visit to Baku.
“Israel is a Jewish state. Azerbaijan is a Muslim state, it has a predominately Muslim population. Here you have an example of Muslims and Jews working together to secure a better future for both of us. It is an example that shines against a background of intolerance and lack of acceptance and mutual respect in our time.”
He said respect shown to Jews in Azerbaijan over the years fostered the very strong bond of sympathy and admiration for Azerbaijan.
“The world sees so much intolerance, so much darkness. And here is an example of what relations can be and should be between Muslims and Jews everywhere,” Benjamin Netanyahu said.
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12/14/2016
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#1
He should think carefully. I knew some Russian survivors of the mob attacks on non-muslims right after Azerbaijan got it's freedom from the USSR. The phrase "damaged goods" doesn't even begin to cover the trauma of your family dying horrible riotous deaths.
Did they get the idea from all the threats to electoral college voters in the U.S.?
Al shabaab militants have executed two electoral delegates near the coastal city of Harardheere in Mudug region in central Somalia, the latest in string of attacks against elders voted for the new MPs.
Radio Shabelle’s correspondent in central Somalia said the two elders were killed by Al shabaab as they returned from Adado city, the interim capital of Galmudug state where they took part lower house polls.
One of the slain electoral delegates was identified as Hassan Mohamed Nur, according to our reporter. The execution of the elders occurred at areas located in the outskirts of Harardhere.
Al shabaab did not comment on the murder of the men, but their death has sent a wave of shock among the local residents who are in panic of the killing of the electoral delegates.
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[IsraelTimes] Terror group in Egypt claims IDF bombed their positions; former Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", member who joined Islamic State reportedly killed.
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.... terrorist group accused Israel of conducting multiple Arclight airstrikes against it in the northern Sinai peninsula, in a statement issued on its al-Amaq news agency Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, incoming rocket alert sirens sounded in southern Israel, as a result of a missile launched in Sinai. However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... the projectile did not clear the border and landed within Egyptian territory.
According to the IS news agency, Israel carried out three strikes over the course of three days in the area of Sheikh Zuweid in the northern peninsula. The Israel Defense Forces would not respond to the allegation.
In addition, Abdullah Kishta, a former senior member of Hamas who joined the Islamic State, was killed in Sinai, according to IS-affiliated media. But the circumstances of Kashta’s death were not immediately clear.
For the past two years, Kishta had reportedly worked as a bridge between the Islamic State and Hamas in the Gazoo Strip, assisting in smuggling fighters in and out of the coastal enclave.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai called Kishta out by name as a link between the two terrorist groups last year, saying the IDF had "proof" of the direct connection.
In July, a former Israeli bigwig told Bloomberg news that Israel had carried out dronezaps against hard boyz operating in the Sinai Peninsula in recent years. The Arclight airstrikes were conducted with Egypt’s knowledge and blessing, according to the ex-official, who spoke to the US-based news site on condition of anonymity.
While it has become a well-known secret that Jerusalem and Cairo cooperate closely on security measures in the Sinai and Gazoo, many of the details of that relationship have been kept a closely guarded secret.
Israel has allowed Egypt to move heavy weapons like tanks, artillery and attack helicopters into the Sinai to fight myrmidons, overlooking provisions in the landmark 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.
The two sides also are considered to have close intelligence ties.
The two countries have entered something of a golden age in their relationship since Sissi assumed the country’s leadership in 2013.
"This is one of the best times we’ve ever had" in terms of cooperation between governments, Israeli ambassador to Cairo Haim Koren said earlier this year. "There’s good cooperation between the armies, we have understandings about the Sinai Peninsula, and basically, we see (eye-to-eye) on development of the region."
Hashem Abdel Aileh Kishtah was an expert in anti-tank weapons and is believed to have been responsible for increase in use of Kornet missiles by ISIS against Egyptian tanks.
Kishtah was originally from the city of Rafah in the southern Gazoo strip, and was high-ranking official in the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", Izzadin al-Qassam military brigade.
A Der Speigel report stated that Kishtah is a central figure in increasing ISIS's fighting capabilities in Sinai, particularly over the last two years.
[AlAhram] Spanish police have placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... a former member of an illegal Spanish paramilitary group who now is suspected of spreading Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group propaganda and planning a suicide kaboom, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.
The man has expressed support online for Islamic State's attacks in European countries over the past year and was preparing to carry out a suicide attack on some form of public transport, it said in a statement.
He served a prison sentence for the murder of a French railway worker in 1984 when he was a member of the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups, or GAL, according to the statement.
The GAL were illegal death squads set up by Spanish officials during the 1980s to fight a covert war against the Basque separatist group ETA ETA or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (English: Basque Homeland and Freedom) is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization that has been around since 1959. It demands independence from Spain and France for the Greater Basque Country. The group is proscribed as a terrorist organization by most civilized countries. More than 700 members of the organization are incarcerated in prisons in Spain, La Belle France, and other countries, though members do seem to find ready hospitality in Venezuela. They killed 28 people from 1983 to 1987. After their existence came to light, the then interior minister was convicted of kidnapping and other bigwigs found guilty of murder.
The arrested man, who had travelled to Afghanistan, Syria and Paleostine, was detained by the Spanish police's elite counter-terrorism unit in the town of Segovia, close to the capital Madrid, the ministry said.
"His high level of radicalisation has led him to try to obtain the means to commit a terrorist attack, being willing to carry out an indiscriminate suicide attack against means of transport," it said, without specifying any target.
The man was born in the Basque town of Irun near the French border. Spanish police arrested another man suspected of Islamic State links in Irun last month.
Spanish police have arrested 173 suspected Islamist Lions of Islam since the security alert level was raised to one notch below the highest in 2015 following terrorist attacks in Gay Paree.
Yes, but how many have been tried, convicted, and jailed? Except for a few celebrity cases -- yesterday's funders of the man in the hat, who was involved in the Belgian train station, for instance -- we aren't seeing many trials or sentences here at Rantburg.
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[Daily Excelsior] The infiltration of bandidosholy warriors into Jammu and Kashmire has gone up this year despite Army being on high alert along the Line of Control (LoC) and bandidosholy warriors are making desperate attempts to sneak in as they suffered record number of casualties this year.
According to Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) figures, 116 turbans, mostly belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LeT), have infiltrated into Kashmire this year till November while last year the number was 35 for the whole year.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... sources said that it is a conservative estimate and the figure could be more than the official one. Sources said that some of the recently infiltrated groups are yet to come under security forces radar and others are still in the forests along the LoC.
The infiltration attempts are still going as turban launch pads are active despite first snowfall along the LoC. Sources said turban training camps are active in PoK with 19 of them most active including those at Skardu, Kel, Karko, Dullu, Titwal, Chakoti, Kotli, Dehri, Barhal Mirpur and Chaprai. In these training camps, the bandidosholy warriors are receiving rigorous training besides map reading, GPS use, weight, weapon and tactical training.
Sources said that as a record number of bandidosholy warriors have been killed this year and bandidosholy warriors are desperate to infiltrate in more numbers to fill the void. They said that over 200 bandidosholy warriors are still waiting at launch pads for infiltration before the heavy snowfall closes the mountain passes.
According to official figures, 147 bandidosholy warriors have been killed this year so far while last year the figure for the whole year was 97. The killed include 40 of this year’s infiltrated turbans.
As per the official figure, this year 71 security force personnel were killed along the LoC, International Border and hinterland, in Pak troops firing and during shootouts with turbans.
The figures suggested that 76 locals joined militancy this year and 16 of them were killed and surrendered leaving 60 still active. Majority of them joined after July 8 following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
Army has intensified its vigil along the LoC and already two Brigades of Army have been sent to LoC in North Kashmire to take on the infiltrated bandidosholy warriors and one more brigade of Army has been sent to South Kashmire after increased militancy in the area.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The last Syrian Air Force base in east Homs is now in grave danger as the so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and al-Sham" (ISIS) launch their largest attack yet.
ISIS began their assault by seizing several sites north of the T-4 Airbase, including the airport's hangars and Russian military base that was built several months before the terrorist offensive in east Homs.
While reinforcements have arrived in eastern Homs, it is not likely that they will have much of an affect on the battle due to the Islamic State's superior numbers and geographical advantage.
According to a military source at the T-4 Military Airport, the situation is currently very tense, with the Islamic State repeatedly storming sites after being repelled a number of times prior.
Losing the T-4 Military Airport would not only be a public relations disaster for the Syrian Arab Army, but it would also delay any potential counter-offensive they were planning near Palmyra.
The other issue they face is the potential loss of Quraytayn, which is located south of the T-4 Airport and directly east of the Qalamoun Mountains.
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[AlAhram] Egypt's prosecution ordered on Tuesday a 15-day detention for four people tossed in the slammer I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! on charges of involvement in a terrorist attack on a Coptic church in Cairo on Sunday, which left 24 dead and 49 injured.
Accusations against the defendants include belonging to the bad boy Islamist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis
...currently ISIS in the Sinai, previously Al Qaeda in the Sinai, and before that, no doubt, something else...
and receiving instructions from foreign groups to "destroy the country."
That implies the group got orders from Raqqa to spread the pain.
Egypt's interior ministry released a statement Tuesday morning saying it identified the terrorist cell involved in the Sunday bombing and jugged Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! four of its members including one woman.
An Nahar adds that the bomber was identified by DNA tests, and names names:
One of the four, identified by the interior ministry as Rami Mohammed Abdel Hameed Abdel Ghani, is suspected of hiding the explosives and the bomber, and of preparing him for the attack.
The interior ministry named the suspected ringleader as Mohab Mostafa el-Sayed Qassem, also known as "The Doctor".
It charged he had traveled to Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... in 2015 to meet runaway leaders of the outlawed Moslem Brüderbund, the party of president Mohammed Morsi, who was ousted by Sisi in 2013.
The Brotherhood has condemned the bombing and denied any involvement.
[AlAhram] The IS group has claimed responsibilty for the bombing at the St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, last Sunday.
A statement issued on SITE intelligence group on Tuesday said it was a suicide operation claiming it have killed and maimed 80 "crusaders". The statement also read that the attack was carried out by Abu Abdallah El-Masri who detonated a suicide belt.
The Interior ministry said they had tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... more suspects after the first four, and that they are still searching for others.
[AlAhram] Local media outlets said on Monday that Mahmoud Shafiq Mohammed Mostafa, who was accused of carrying out a deadly suicide kaboom on Sunday in a church attached to St. Mark's Coptic cathedral, was apprehended in March 2014 for possession of firearms, and has since been on the lam.
On Monday after the state funeral at the, al-Watan newspaper said it had published in March 2014 a news report of two men apprehended in Fayoum governorate, one of whom was the man the president identified as the bomber.
Al-Watan's 15 March 2014 report said the two men were locked away I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! for participating in a march that attacked members of the anti-Moslem Brüderbund Tamarod movement in Fayoum governorate earlier that day. The report said authorities found the two men with firearms in their possession.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy had come up with a new idea, one that didn't involve kerosene... al-Masry al-Youm news website quoted on Monday security sources who said Mostafa has been residing in Sinai for the past two years. The sources told al-Masry al-Youm Mostafa had joined the Sinai-based Islamist bad boy group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has been carrying deadly attacks on security forces in parts of North Sinai in the last three years.
Al-Ahram Arabic news website published an image of a reported government document, revealing that Mostafa was born in Sonoras village in Fayoum governorate on 10 October 1994. The document stated that Mostafa bad boy code name is "Abu Degana El-Kinany."
According to Al Youm al-Sabea news website, Mostafa's mother told the website her son last called her last week and said he would not be returning home since he was wanted by the authorities.
"He didn’t tell me any details about his life; all I know is that he was arrested once and released on bail," Mostafa's mother said. She confirmed to al-Youm al-Sabea Mostafa graduated from the Faculty of Science at Fayoum University.
It doesn't sound like useful information, but nonetheless, they have CCTV video, which shows they do care.
[Ynet] The Egyptian government has released footage showing the suicide kaboom that tore through a Cairo church during Sunday Mass, including images of the alleged attacker.
The video is a recording of CCTV footage and shows the street across from the chapel adjacent to St. Mark's Cathedral, seat of Egypt's ancient Coptic Orthodox Church. It shows a dark figure crossing the street and walking through the gates of the church. Moments later, the blast sends clouds of dust and debris through the church windows.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A police source revealed, that unidentified gunmen attacked a house, in eastern Baghdad, using machine guns and hand grenades, without leaving any casualties, Alsumaria reported on Tuesday.
The source said, “At early hour this morning, unidentified armed men attacked a house in Tareq neighborhood in al-Sadr city, in eastern Baghdad, using machine guns and two hand grenades.”
“The attack inflicted significant damage to the house front, and didn’t cause any human casualties,” the source told Alsumaria on condition of anonymity.
“Security forces rushed to the area of incident and opened an investigation to reveal the identity of the attackers,” the source further added.
The capital, Baghdad, is witnessing violent acts and bomb attacks, as well as separate attacks against civilians and security forces.
[Al Arabiya] Syrian regime forces and sectarian militias carried out on Monday nearly two hundred executions in Aleppo, which included women and children, according to eyewitnesses from within the city, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.
A firing squad from Bashar al-Assad’s forces and militiamen also executed medical staff.
According to activists on the ground, Hezbollah militia carried out most of the mass executions in the war-torn city.
Sources confirmed to Al Arabiya that militias loyal to the regime had also burned nine children and four women.
Meanwhile, the White Helmets in Aleppo reported more than 90 bodies under the rubble that had not been recovered.
Civilian Evacuation
The legal adviser of the Free Syrian Army, Osama Abu Zayd, appealed to the international community to help provide assistance for the evacuation of civilians and guarantee their freedom and safety, stressing that the FSA was willing to exit if there were international guarantees for them.
Zayd stressed that the Syrian regime forces are forcing those fleeing from Aleppo to fight on their side.
UN ‘alarmed’
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is alarmed by reports of atrocities against “a large number” of civilians, including women and children, in recent hours in the Syrian city of Aleppo, his spokesman said Monday.
“While stressing that the United Nations is not able to independently verify these reports, the secretary-general is conveying his grave concern to the relevant parties,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Ban has asked his envoy Staffan de Mistura to follow up.
“The United Nations underlines the obligation of all parties on the ground to protect civilians and abide by international humanitarian and human rights law,” Dujarric said.
“This is particularly the responsibility of the Syrian government and its allies,” notably Russia and Iran, he added.
Assad Aleppo take over
Syria’s army and its allies have taken full control of all Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.
On Monday rebel defenses collapsed, leading to a broad army advance across more than half of the remaining insurgent pocket in Aleppo and a retreat of opposition fighters to a few districts on the west bank of the city’s river.
Recapturing the entire rebel pocket of Aleppo will constitute the biggest battlefield victory yet for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military coalition of Russia’s air force, Iran and Shiite militias.
For rebels, it will mark a sobering loss and leave them without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities. They still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.
Soddy condemn Syrian government Aleppo progrom The upside for the Syrian government is they think they have a good chance of winning the elections in Aleppo
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Saudi Arabia’s top religious body on Tuesday condemned what it said were “criminal massacres” by the Syrian regime against civilians in Aleppo and called on the Islamic world to help save fellow Muslims.
State news agency SPA said the secretariat appealed to the Muslim world “to rise in support of its causes and stand with all its energy for its rights”. Qatar earlier called for an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss the situation in Aleppo, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported.
The appeal came after the United Nations said it had reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters had summarily shot dead 82 civilians in recaptured Aleppo districts, and a military source said the last rebel pocket could fall “at any moment”.
“The criminal Syrian regime has committed the ugliest crimes in a way unknown in modern history, where the bodies of the dead fill the streets and under the rubble of destroyed buildings,” the secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars said in a statement carried by SPA.
“The savage bombardment harvests lives everywhere, including in hospitals and houses of worship, while the international community is helpless or ineffective to take any decision to deter this criminal machine,” it added.
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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.
A Muslim teen who claimed a trio of drunks had taunted her as a "terrorist" on a Manhattan subway train has admitted she made the story up, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
[WAPO] When Donald Trump occupies the White House in January, he will be a lot closer to the senior leaders at Boeing running the Air Force One program he has threatened to cancel. The company announced Tuesday that about a dozen of its senior defense leaders are moving from St. Louis to Boeing’s Washington-area headquarters.
[Canadian Free Press] I’m not entirely sure that Keith Olbermann had much of a mind to lose but, whatever he did have, I think we can safely say it’s gone now. The election of Donald Trump has reduced the former television personality to a bitter, sputtering, rage-machine who appears determined to become the left-wing Alex Jones. He shakes, screams, and spits his way through conspiracy theories that - if he wasn’t some sort of once-upon-a-time celebrity - he’d probably be scratching into the walls of his cell using only his fingernails.
[The Hill] The CEO of IBM announced on the eve of a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump that the company plans to hire 25,000 "new collar" employees.
[GP] Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s Michigan recount unintentionally exposed major voter fraud in Detroit.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least 16 
Ref #1. Used to be some tough Marines at a fire base overlooking the Kajaki dam and power station. Nothing good ever happens in Helmand. A very sad place indeed. 
[AlArabiya] Airstrikes killed 85 civilians including dozens of children in Oqayrabat village in the central province of Hama, on Monday according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A commander of the loyalists of 
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A senior commander of the Afghan Border Police forces was killed in an 
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
[Dhaka Tribune] Students at Oxford University have been urged to use gender neutral pronouns like "ze" instead of "he" or "she" when referring to each other, in an attempt not to offend transgender students.
...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier...
[DAWN] The mob attack on a worship place of the Ahmadi community in Chakwal on Monday was downplayed by the electronic media due to a self-restraint as well as apprehensions of strict monitoring by the regulator.
...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 
[Investors.com] President Obama has staked a great part of his legacy on the idea that he skillfully engineered a great recovery from the financial crisis. The Obama-friendly media routinely parrot the idea. But in fact, as a shocking new study from the nonpartisan U.S. Council on Competitiveness and the Gallup organization suggests, the so-called recovery doesn't exist.
Basque separatist group ETA
