h/t Instapundit
...Voters did not elect Republicans as much as they elected for a change ‐ and want it to result in positive action, economic revival, a secure and strong America, and most of all greater accountability from Washington DC. Had they articulated among themselves a set of tests for proposed actions that reflected those principles, they might have avoided this debacle entirely. These seven tests, in descending priority order, will provide Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue insight into whether their actions reflect their understanding of that mandate:
1. Does it serve to bring accountability to the political establishment in Washington DC?
2. Does it add to the economic power of the US and create good jobs for Americans?
3.Does it address the most critical needs of the country ahead of the ideological agendas of the parties?
4.Does it enhance national security and the defense of Americans both at home and abroad?
5.Does it serve the rule of law equally applied to all?
6.Does it restore the proper balance of power between the executive and legislative branches?
7.Does it restore the proper balance of power between Washington DC and the states?
h/t Instapundit
Three terrorists have struck in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey, with a population of 3 to 4 million. They used a car bomb and Kalashnikovs. According to the authorities, two terrorists were shot, but a third terrorist was able to flee the scene. A manhunt is currently underway, according to Turkish media.
#1
In front of the court house? It could as easily be infuriated Gulenists as Kurds. Or the remnant of the ISIS cell tied to the pseudonymous Istanbul nightclub killer...
It seems it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to be the neo-Ottoman sultan now as it was a few weeks ago.
NEW DELHI: Beijing wants to communicate the message that if India increases the number of its long-range missiles, it will help "all-weather friend" Pakistan do the same, Chinese media said.
The context to this comment was India's final test firing of the Agni-IV+ inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Monday.
"If the UN Security Council has no objection over this (ICBMs), let it be. The range of Pakistan's nuclear missiles will also see an increase," the state-run Global Times said in an editorial, hinting that China will help Pakistan come on par with India.
News outfits in China are often used by the government to convey its opinions or to test the waters or to deliver rebukes it can't through diplomatic channels.
Global Times's editorial further batted for Pakistan saying it should be accorded the same nuclear privileges as India.
"If the Western countries accept India as a nuclear country and are indifferent to the nuclear race between India and Pakistan, China will not stand out and stick rigidly to those nuclear rules as necessary. At this time, Pakistan should have those privileges in nuclear development that India has," the editorial said.
On the one hand, the editorial said China isn't bothered by India's testing of missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, but on the other it did sound like Beijing was perturbed by Agni-IV, especially as it came close on the heels of the successful test-firing of Agni-V+ .
"...Chinese don't feel India's development has posed any big threat to it. And India wouldn't be considered as China's main rival in the long run," the editorial first says.
"But it (China) will not sit still if India goes too far...New Delhi understands that it does little good to itself if the Sino-Indian relations are ruined by any geopolitical tricks," the editorial says later.
Aside from these issues, the editorial alleged that India "has broken the UN's limits" on how many nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles it can produce.
"The US and some Western countries have also bent the rules on its nuclear plans. New Delhi is no longer satisfied with its nuclear capability and is seeking intercontinental ballistic missiles that can target anywhere in the world and then it can land on an equal footing with the UN Security Council's five permanent members," the editorial said.
On Monday, India successfully tested - for the final time - its long-range ballistic missile, Agni-IV, which can travel 4,000 kilometres. No long before that, it successfully test-fired Agni-V that has a range of more than 5,000 kilometres and can reach Europe and the northernmost parts of China
Posted by: John Frum ||
01/05/2017
08:34 ||
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#1
Can we say this is a part of Obumble's "Legacy"?
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/05/2017 11:40
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China may well have to play nice with Pakistain after that. Might not be that smart, given the Uighirs (sp?).
#3
@1 I doubt Obama had much to do with this. I think China views India as a potential threat both commercially and militarily and doesn't like that India and the U.S. are growing closer.
[Free Beacon] The FBI ran 27.5 million gun-related background checks in 2016--about 4.4 million more than any other year on record. The late actor Dennis Hopper with his favorite FN.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 2,771,159 background checks in December, bringing 2016’s total to 27,538,673, according to FBI records posted on Wednesday. That dwarfs the firearms check record of 23,141,970 set the previous year.
NICS firearms background checks are considered an accurate metric of gun sales.
The FBI processed twice as many firearms checks in 2016, the last full year of President Obama’s administration, than it did in 2008, the year Obama was elected. During President Obama’s eight-year tenure, the FBI has processed 157,233,157 firearms checks--61,249,149 more than the previous ten years.
Those figures have led some to label Obama "the greatest gun salesman in history." Gun rights activists have long argued that Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party’s advocacy for gun control measures has fueled gun sales.
#3
Several of the gun shops I frequent in Western PeeAye have a picture of the jug eared won on or near the cash register, with the phrase "Our Best Salesman" across the bottom. Always makes me laugh...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/05/2017 10:03
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#4
Nationally, applications for Concealed Carry permits have mirrored the increase in gun sales. Contrary to gun control advocates assertions this would indicate many of are first time owners.
#6
NoMoreBS, posting a long URL broke the Burg, so I attached it to some words as a hot link. Type some text, select it, click on the icon below the text box that looks like a world sitting on a bit of chain, paste the URL into it, and click OK.
[Free Beacon] A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to freeze some funding to the State Department until the U.S. embassy in Israel is formally moved to Jerusalem, according to new legislation.
The legislation comes as the Obama administration continues to face criticism over its behind-the-scenes effort to forward a United Nations resolution condemning Israel.
The Obama administration, like previous administrations, does not formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and has worked to stymie efforts to move the U.S. embassy there.
While Congress first approved legislation to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 1995, the new bill threatens to cut State Department funding until the relocation is complete.
The effort is being spearheaded by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and Dean Heller (R., Nev.), all of whom support efforts by the incoming Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem after years of debate.
"Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel," Cruz said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s vendetta against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this simple truth--let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate venue for the American embassy in Israel--is shocking in some circles."
"But it is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel," Cruz said.
[The Hill] President-elect Donald Trump is crafting plans to restructure at least two of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, according to a new report.
Trump is eyeing overhauls of the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized," an individual close to Trump’s transition operation said. "They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact."
Trump is targeting the CIA and the ODNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community over its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
The president-elect has vehemently denied that Russian hacking of Democratic organizations before Election Day aided his White House bid.
Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks has become bloated and politicized.
The CIA declined Wednesday to comment on Trump’s plans, which reportedly include cutting staffing at its Virginia headquarters and assigning more people to field posts.
The Journal added that advisers helping Trump draft the proposed alterations include retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Ky.).
#1
Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks has become bloated and politicized.
ODNI is a powerless entity, a sham, a Klingon insulator. Unless you hold the power of the purse, you control nothing. Flynn knows this and I am certain is seeking to abolish it.
#5
Oh, why I stopped in, this talk about encouraging the intelligence agencies to give false witness - so what happens if a move is made based on intelligence sources ends up bad? Talk about tying your shoes together before kicking yourself in the ass.
#10
There's a certain amount of "governmentese double-speak" that makes most of the government reports unintelligible. Trump should reorganize these intelligence agencies, otherwise he will have them nipping at his heels and biting his backside.
Donald Trump's spokesman on Thursday rejected media reports that said the Republican president-elect was planning to restructure the nation's intelligence agencies, calling the reports "100 percent false."
"There is no truth to this idea of restructuring the intelligence community infrastructure," Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in a conference call. "All transition activities are for information gathering purposes and all discussions are tentative.
Shaping expectations ahead of events, I think. The message looks like, "Do your jobs well and don't play games, or things will change unpleasantly for you."
#13
The CIA has been the bad guy in nearly every spy movie (upside of James Bond movies) for most of my lifetime. Pretty sad really when those movies are often made by Americans for American consumption.
Clearly there is a lack of trust in the CIA that audiences didn't call bullcrap long ago.
[Wash Times] Kentucky lawmakers are kicking off the legislative session by fast-tracking a trio of pro-life bills, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and a measure stripping Planned Parenthood of millions in taxpayer funding.
Senate Bill 5 was approved Wednesday by a Senate committee and could receive a floor vote as early as Friday. House Speaker Jeff Hoover said the five-month abortion ban -- considered the point at which the unborn can feel pain -- would receive overwhelming support from a Republican-controlled House.
"There is, at this point in time, two viable beings involved in this decision," Mr. Hoover said. "One had a choice early on to make a decision to conceive or not conceive. But once conception starts, another life is involved, and the Legislature has the ability to determine how that life may proceed."
Lawmakers say the bill will contain exceptions in the cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother. Abortionists who perform procedures after 20 weeks would be subject to fines and other penalties.
Kentucky is one of 25 states where Republicans have control of the governorship and both chambers of the legislature. Democrats had controlled the House in Kentucky for nearly a century before it flipped in the 2016 election cycle.
BLUF: [Wash Times] When Mr. Obama entered office, among his first acts were to give an interview with the Saudi-owned news outlet Al Arabiya championing his outreach to the mostly non-democratic Islamic world and to blast democratic Israel on “settlements.”
Partly, the reason for such inordinate criticism of Israel is sheer cowardice. If Israel had 100 million people and was geographically large, the world would not so readily play the bully.
Instead, the United Nations and Europe would likely leave it alone — just as they give a pass to human rights offenders such as Pakistan and Indonesia. If Israel were as big as Iran, and Iran as small as Israel, then the Obama administration would have not reached out to Iran, and would have left Israel alone.
Israel’s supposed Western friends sort out Israel’s enemies by their relative natural resources, geography and population — and conclude that supporting Israel is a bad deal in cost-benefit terms.
Partly, the criticism of Israel is explained by oil — an issue that is changing daily as both the United States and Israel cease to be oil importers.
Still, about 40 percent of the world’s oil is sold by Persian Gulf nations. Influential nations in Europe and China continue to count on oil imports from the Middle East — and make political adjustments accordingly.
Partly, anti-Israel rhetoric is due to herd politics. The Palestinians — illiberal and reactionary on cherished Western issues like gender equality, homosexuality, religious tolerance and diversity — have grafted their cause to the popular campus agendas of race/class/gender victimization.
Western nations in general do not worry much about assorted non-Western crimes such as genocides, mass cleansings or politically induced famines. Instead, they prefer sermons to other Westerners as a sort of virtue-signaling, without any worries over offending politically correct groups.
Partly, the piling on Israel is due to American leverage over Israel as a recipient of U.S. aid. As a benefactor, the Obama administration expects that Israel must match U.S. generosity with obeisance. Yet the U.S. rarely gives similar “how dare you” lectures to less liberal recipients of American aid, such as the Palestinians for their lack of free elections.
Partly, the cause of global hostility toward Israel is jealousy. If Israel were mired in Venezuela-like chaos, few nations would care. Instead, the image of a proud, successful, Westernized nation as an atoll in a sea of self-inflicted misery is grating to many. And the astounding success of Israel bothers so many failed states that the entire world takes notice.
But partly, the source of anti-Israelism is ancient anti-Semitism. If Israelis were Egyptians administering Gaza or Jordanians running the West Bank (as during the 1960s), no one would care. The world’s problem is that Israelis are Jews. Thus, Israel earns negative scrutiny that is never extended commensurately to others.
Mr. Obama and his diplomatic team should have known all this. Perhaps they do, but they simply do not care.
#5
VDH.
And sometimes, Mighty Casey strikes out. Unless his intent is to catch youngsters up to speed.
I remember my history teacher blaming Israel for Saddam's Scuds and saying we will probably die from Israel's nuke fallout.
But: If Israel were mired in Venezuela-like chaos, few nations would care.
Have to disagree. It is what is trying to be done with the divestment movement. I think there are enough people who would be ecstatic, even invasion militant, about Israel being economically decimated.
[Global News] Canadians living in Alberta and Ontario saw gas prices spike in the New Year due to carbon pricing.
But don’t expect the price hikes to stop there.
"I think 2017 is probably going to be more expensive than the past two to three years, and not just for gasoline but also for diesel," gasoline analyst Dan McTeague told Global News Tuesday.
The carbon taxes are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and slow climate change. Along with the carbon pricing, an OPEC agreement to cut global production of oil will also put pressure on prices at the pump.
#4
That is why you can see so many of our B.C. neighbors come to WA for a fill up; sometimes with multiple red jerry cans and/or aux fuel tanks installed........
cause WA gas don't cause no global warming.
Posted by: USN, Ret ||
01/05/2017 14:37
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#5
The citizens of Alberta voted into office the New Democratic Party (NDP) because the NDP promised more free goodies than anybody else. They are now paying for that choice and in my eyes it looks good on 'em. Maybe next time they'll choose differently . . . . but I doubt it.
[LI] Donald Trump has promised, both himself and through surrogates, to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
That move, long promised by American presidents but never implemented, would have particular importance in light of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which the Obama administration pushed behind the scenes and allowed to pass by abstaining.
That Resolution purports to declare illegal the Jewish presence even in place such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was captured by Jordan after Israel declared independence, and then ethnically cleansed of Jews. That ethnic cleansing of Jew along with ransacking and destruction of Jewish religious places, even cemeteries, was remedied when Israel recaptured the area in 1967 after Jordan attacked Israel in support of Egypt and Syria. Israel also recaptured the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism at which Jews are permitted to pray. The UN Resolution declares Israeli control over the Western Wall illegal as well.
While Resolution 2334 does not have force of law because it was not issued under UN Charter Chapter 7, it nonetheless has substantial political impact.
As Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker notes, John Kerry was not accurate when he claimed that this declaration as to these Jewish sites was consistent with prior administrations:
The administration can point to 25 UNSC resolutions, between 1971 and 1994, that included some reference to Jerusalem, 1967 or occupied territories. In virtually all cases, the reference was not in an operative paragraph but in the preamble; many of these resolutions were on distinct events (such as the shooting of Palestinian youth or expulsions of Palestinians) that had alarmed the international community. There also was no specific reference to "East Jerusalem."
The last time a resolution was approved by the Security Council with phrasing concerning Jerusalem and occupied territories in a key operative paragraph was in 1980 -- during the Jimmy Carter administration, when Obama was a college student....
Back in 1980, the Israelis and Palestinians were not even negotiating directly. Since then, the Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization set in place a process under which settlements were to be discussed and negotiated as part of final status negotiations. That’s a key reason no resolution was passed with even this language in the preamble between 1994 and now. The last time, in 1994, the United States sought a rare paragraph-by-paragraph vote on the resolution to make clear its opposition to the Jerusalem language.
Indeed, then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said the United States would oppose the assertion of Jerusalem as "occupied" in future resolutions because it was a matter for negotiations:
"We simply do not support the description of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as ’occupied Palestinian territory.’ In the view of my Government, this language could be taken to indicate sovereignty, a matter which both Israel and the PLO have agreed must be decided in negotiations on the final status of the territories. As agreed between them, those negotiations will begin not later than two years after the implementation of the Declaration of Principles."
#1
Since then, the Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization set in place a process under which settlements were to be discussed and negotiated as part of final status negotiations.
I suppose it would be impolite of me to point out that the 'Palestinians' abandoned the Oslo Accords long, long ago. THEY are the ones who refuse to stop the violence, THEY are the ones who broadcast childrens' shows encouraging kids to kill Jews.
THEY deserve whatever they get. And if moving the embassy means 'there will be violence', then we should tell them, "Then there shall be violence in return."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/05/2017 6:14
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#2
There will be violence if U.S. doesn't move Embassy to Jerusalem, too.
Now that was real science. Person came up with an idea and tested it. Put the tests, equipment, methodology and data out for everyone to see and try to duplicate.
Turns out the Chemist didn't quite get the physics right and his hypothesis was falsified.
Wouldn't it be nice to see that sort of integrity again?
h/t Instapundit
On the Wednesday network evening newscasts, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News failed to inform their viewers of an incredibly disturbing alleged beating in Chicago of a developmentally challenged white man by four African-American suspects that was streamed live on Facebook.
The torturing session saw the man (who previously had been reported missing) being bound with tape and bloodied from cuts to his scalp as the suspects laughed at him and shouted "fuck Trump" and "fuck white people."
I finally screamed enough that Mrs. Uluque switched to CBS but I'm not sure they're any better. Maybe they're a little less egregious but, still, it's what they don't say that worries me.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/05/2017 12:11
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#8
ABC is now reporting it but omitting references to the perp's race or the racial shouting. they also strongly imply that the victim is to blame for 'going with them willingly' despite he being mentally challenged.
I hear the chicago police are not calling it a hate crime but more like 'just kids being kids'.
I don't know which is more sickening - the act itself or the media and left covering it up.
#10
NPR was reporting the story just before 11:00 a.m. ET, including that the miscreants are black, the mentally disabled victim white, and it was streamed in Facebook. So once again the alternative media win. Apparently the miscreants were charged with hate crimes and battery.
#11
Throw the book at them. There are sufficient criminal laws in place to put these animals away for a long time without complicating things with PC-motivated "hate" crime charges. The authorities don't need to "hair up the butter" here. This crime(s) is symptomatic of a larger crime problem in Chicago which has cultural roots.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/05/2017 16:59
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#14
One of the perps has a criminal record that been posted on twitter. #BLMKidnapping #BLMTORTURE are hashtags being used, and BLM is pissed about that. Too bad BLM, you encouraged this crap
#16
I hear the chicago police are not calling it a hate crime but more like 'just kids being kids'
After a LOT of questioning by local news (and possible 'outside' coercion), the Chicago PD leadership finally came out this afternoon and acknowledged that it was a 'Hate Crime' (and they REALLY squirmed in saying that), but the words 'racial' and 'torturing the disabled' were only used as 'possible motives'.
Being f*cked up little sh*ts that need to be publicly stocked, pilloried and whipped in Daley Plaza was never mentioned.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/05/2017 22:34
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#17
JohnQC, I'd like to see hate crime charges to settle once and for all that blacks can be racist as well.
#18
"America's shameful disparity
In hatred and racial polarity:
Trump's millions of crackas
Run wild and attack us...
And where is the black Colin Flaherty?"
Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) International coalition air force airstrike southwest of Kirkuk killed 20 members of the self-proclaimed Islamic State extremist group, a source told Alsumaria News on Wednesday.
The source said, “The international coalition air force bombarded, at noon today, headquarters of the Islamic State in the areas of Taza and al-Rashad (35 km southwest of Kirkuk), killing 20 fighters of the group.”
“The air strike was conducted in coordination with Iraqi intelligence authorities,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
The Islamic State group is still controlling Hawija District and its nearby areas, while security forces are carrying out operations to liberate these areas.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/05/2017
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#1
Said it before: Somebody knew where the HQ was, and blew it up. HOW, the Bad Guys must be wondering, did they know?
Makin'em crazy, likely.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
01/05/2017 5:50
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#2
“The international coalition air force bombarded, at noon today, headquarters of the Islamic State in the areas of Taza and al-Rashad (35 km southwest of Kirkuk), killing 20 fighters of the group.”
Possibly awards luncheon invitations?
Next look for the promotion beer-call announcements.
[AnNahar] Austrian police are investigating an unprecedented number of sexual assaults carried out by a group of men on New Year's Eve in the western city of Innsbruck, an official said Wednesday.
Except it isn't unprecedented in the least. It happened in Cologne and elsewhere last New Year's Eve, and was so awful the authorities could not keep it out of the news, despite seriously strong efforts. Some of those cities were clever enough to prepare for it this year, because they value their womenfolk. The AFP journalist is a shithead.
Some 18 women reported having been groped by up to 10 individuals on Innsbruck's main square where around 25,000 gathered to ring in 2017, senior police official Ernst Kranebitter said.
And more of both women and "individuals" were no doubt involved without the women insisting on reporting it.
"We've not had anything like this happen here before," Kranebitter told AFP. "They were dancing around the victims and then suddenly grabbed their breast or stuck their hands between their legs. That's what made it hard for others to notice what was going on -- it all happened amid festivities."
They're playing an Egyptian game called taharrush, taharrush gamea in full, first described after the attacks in Cologne on New Years Eve 2016. It's become quite popular with migrantscolonistsrapefugees in Europe from across the Ummah.
The suspects have been described as being in their late teens, said Kranebitter.
Senior Police Official Kranebitter should be drawn and quartered, then have his intestines roasted over a slow fire in front of him for not anticipating this behaviour and acting to prevent it. May I suggest cannons established around the square loaded with grapeshot...or rock salt mixed in with dye packs, and all non-natives who turn up stained will be deposited immediately in the middle of the Sahara.
Amateur video footage of the incidents has so far failed to help Sherlocks identify the suspects because the image quality was too poor.
The assault came a year after hundreds of women were mugged and groped in a crowd of men of mainly Arab and north African appearance
...not just appearance, but reality...
in the German city of Cologne ...a lovely city in Germany. They invented perfume there... on December 31.
Police presence had been boosted across Austria, including in Innsbruck, for the end-of-year festivities in the wake of a terror attack in neighboring Germany in early December.
Turkey's Minister for EU Affairs Omer Celik said Wednesday there was no possibility of changing the country's anti-terrorism laws –as requested by the EU– as it would "endanger both Turkey’s and Europe’s security", Anadolu reported.
Changing counter-terrorism legislation is a key condition of a visa-free travel agreement between the European Union and Turkey.
"We reiterated [during the last Brussels visit] that we cannot meet EU’s demand for an amendment to the anti-terror laws. However, there is not any problem in fulfilling the other criteria", he told a joint news conference with U.K. Minister for Europe Alan Duncan in Ankara.
"To ask a country, which has been faced with many terrorist attacks to change its anti-terror law, is to put both the security of Turkey and Europe in jeopardy," Celik said, recalling last Sunday’s deadly attack on a night club in Istanbul which claimed the lives of 39 people on New Year’s Eve.
The minister said that due to Turkey’s geopolitical position, it was also a provider of Europe’s security.
"If the parties desire an agreement, the solution could be found. But if it [solution] is not desired, the process will be blocked."
Celik said that a meeting was planned soon in Turkey with EU officials including European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans.
He also said the EU accepted Turkey’s previous proposal to hold a bilateral summit and the EU officials were working on setting a date.
"A summit between the TR-EU is needed. Let's not talk about behind each other back, let’s talk to each other," he said.
Celik also criticized the “mixed” response given across the EU over the terrorist attacks in Turkey.
"Why is it that when Turkey is attacked by Daesh, the Turkish flag is put up on public buildings, but the same solidarity is not displayed when it is an attack by the PKK?," he asked.
Turkey and the EU signed a deal in March 2016 aiming to discourage irregular migration through the Aegean Sea by taking stricter measures against human traffickers and improving conditions for nearly 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. The deal also allows for the acceleration of Turkey’s EU membership bid and visa-free travel for Turkish nationals within the Schengen area, on the condition that Ankara meets 72 requirements set by the EU.
While Turkey has fulfilled most of the criteria, differences between Brussels and Ankara on anti-terror legislation have forestalled the visa liberalization deal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2017
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[DeutscheWelle] Authorities have detained a 26-year-old contact of Anis Amri, the man linked to the Berlin Christmas market attack. Media outlets have reported that the suspect is considered a Salafist capable of taking radical action.
A spokeswoman for the office of Germany's chief prosecutor on Wednesday said authorities have taken a second Tunisian suspect into custody following raids in Berlin on Tuesday.
A warrant has been issued by the Justice Ministry for the Tunisian suspect, who had been in contact with Anis Amri, the prime suspectin December's Christmas market attack, the night before it occurred.
"This contact person is a 26-year-old Tunisian. We are investigating him for possibly participating in the attack," spokeswoman Frauke Köhler told news hounds, adding that prosecutors suspected he may have known about Amri's plan.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... she added that there was insufficient evidence to charge the suspect.
In a separate statement, the federal prosecutor's office announced the man had been charged with committing social welfare fraud and would remain in jug.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... a number of German media outlets, including German daily "Suddeutsche Zeitung" and public broadcasters WDR and NDR, reported Wednesday that the suspect is considered a Salafist capable of carrying out radical actions, such as an attack.
Martin Steltner, front man for Berlin's state prosecutor, also told German broadcaster rbb on Wednesday that the suspect had previously been detained on suspicion of supplying explosives intended for a prospective attack in Dusseldorf.
The man was freed after Sherlocks found no evidence against him.
Links to Amri
The 26-year-old suspect allegedly had dinner with Amri at a restaurant the night before the attack, according to Köhler. The suspect allegedly met Amri in late 2015. "Suddeutsche Zeitung" reported that the two men traveled together from Italia to Germany that year.
The spokeswoman noted that electronic communication devices discovered during the raid had been seized, and that authorities are in the process of evaluating content found on them.
On Tuesday, German police raided a refugee shelter and flat in Berlin in connection with the Christmas market attack.
[DailyMail] CCTV footage has shown the Berlin Christmas Market terrorist Anis Amri travelling through Amsterdam and Brussels just days after the attack. Amri, who was rubbed out by Italian police in Milan on December 23, was seen walking through Nijmegen railway station in the Netherlands at around 11.30am on December 21. He was then seen travelling to Amsterdam train station at 1pm and in Brussels later that evening between 7pm and 9pm.
Earlier today, German authorities said they had locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! and detained a 26-year-old Tunisian man, called Bilel A. and are investigating whether he played a role in the attack.
Police on Tuesday evening searched the living quarters of the man after he was found to have had dinner with Amri a day before the crash, spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said.
In a separate statement, the Berlin state prosecutor's office said it had detained the 26-year-old Tunisian on Tuesday for suspected social benefit fraud in three German cities. A front man for the Berlin prosecutor's office said Bilel A. had used at least two aliases, Ahmad H. and Abu M., and also claimed to be Egyptian. He was believed to have arrived in Germany in 2014 or perhaps earlier.
[DailyMail] Terrorist Anis Amri, who killed 12 people when he drove a lorry into the heart of a Christmas market in Berlin, managed to smuggle his weapon across borders to Italia.
Italian police have confirmed the weapon Amri used in a shootout with police, during which he was rubbed out, was the same as that used to kill Polish driver Lukasz Urban.
Mr Urban was killed when the 24-year-old, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, hijacked his vehicle.
A statement from forensic police in Italia said: 'The weapon that killed the driver of the Berlin massacre truck is the same as the one Anis Amri used to wound a policeman in Milan.'
Officers are now investigating whether the gun was used in 'other criminal episodes, in Italia or elsewhere'.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/05/2017
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[IsraelTimes] Waheed Borsh convicted of diverting materials to build jetty, aiding Gazoo terror group; likely to be released next week under plea deal.
A Paleostinian UN worker accused by Israel of aiding the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terrorist group was sentenced to seven months’ jail on Wednesday, his lawyer said, in a plea deal that will see him released soon.
Waheed Borsh was convicted of "rendering services to an illegal organization without intention," his lawyer Lea Tsemel told AFP. With time already served, he is expected to be released on January 12.
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] Mexico's Luis Videgaray was named foreign minister on Wednesday, returning to the cabinet after losing his previous job in the wake of arranging Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... 's controversial visit to the country.
President Enrique Pena Nieto announced that Videgaray was replacing Claudia Ruiz Massieu, with the instruction to "accelerate dialogue" with the U.S. president-elect's team in order to establish "constructive relations."
[Ynet] Self-defense fighters Wednesday killed three girl jacket wallahs targeting a bustling market in northeastern Nigeria, civilian and military officials said. They blamed the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamic holy warrior group for the attempted bombing.
The civilian fighters who work alongside the army challenged the girls as they approached a village near Madagali town, local council chairman Yusuf Muhammad Gulak told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. The girls began running at the checkpoint and the fighters shot the girl in the lead, activating her explosives and killing her and a companion, he said. The third girl tried to flee and was bumped off, Gulak said.
Soldiers and civilian fighters have stopped many suicide bombers before they can reach heavily populated targets in recent months. But two women suicide bombers killed 57 people and maimed 177, including 120 children, last month at Madagali market, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the scene of Wednesday's shootings.
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The source said, “A mortar shell fell, today, on one of the houses in Radwaniyah area, in western Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding three others.”
“Security forces arrived in the area of incident and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital and the body to the forensic medicine department,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
The capital, Baghdad, in witnessing several attacks using booby-trapped vehicles and explosive vests, in addition to separate attacks against civilians and security members.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A police source revealed on Wednesday, that a civilian was killed and five others were wounded in the explosion of an improvised explosive device, in southern Baghdad, Alsumaria reported on Wednesday.
The source said, “An improvised explosive device, emplaced near stores in al-Khanasa area in Madain district, in southern Baghdad, exploded today, killing one civilian and wounded five others.”
“Security forces arrived in the area of incident and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital and the body to the forensic medicine department,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Earlier today, a civilian was killed and three others were wounded by a mortar shell that fell on a house in al-Radwaniyah area, in western Baghdad.
[AnNahar] The U.S.-led coalition said Wednesday it has doubled to about 450 the number of military advisors assisting Iraqi troops engaged in the fight to retake djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... from Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... fighters.
Are they fighting barefoot or in sneakers? Because President Obama solemnly promised there would be no American boots on the ground in Iraq or Syria.
"We have increased the number of advise and assist forces that are there with the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) command elements to help advise them as they move forward and to synchronize operations," coalition front man Colonel John Dorrian said in a video conference from Baghdad.
Dorrian said the reinforcements were part of a series of measures taken to "accelerate the advance of the Iraqi security forces."
While military advisors are behind the frontlines, they have already entered the city several times, he added.
American military forces are carrying out air and artillery strikes against IS in Iraq as part of a U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group, and have provided training, advice and other assistance to Baghdad's forces.
There are about 5,000 American military personnel in Iraq, according to the coalition, and U.S. special forces personnel have also fought IS on the ground.
Mohammad Radmanesh, deputy spokesman of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) on Tuesday said Operation Shafaq 2 is moving forward as planned – albeit slowly.
This comes as security forces battle insurgents in 18 provinces.
According to Radmanesh, clashes are ongoing between security forces and Taliban in parts of Helmand, Faryab, Baghlan, Kunduz, Badakhshan and many other provinces and that protecting civilians has slowed down the pace of operations.
“We launched operations to protect Afghan people and their homes,” he said.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said insurgents using civilians as human shields has dramatically slowed down operations.
“Changes happened in the insurgents movements as they leave the country to find more money. But our operations are ongoing and we have good achievements,” said Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the MoI.
Although MoD says everything is under control, the Helmand-Kandahar highway has been closed for three days as heavy clashes continue in Nad Ali and Sangin districts – an issue that has raised concerns over the management of the operation.
“Our operations are progressing and we have achieved good results,” said Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, commander of 215 Maiwand Military Corps.
In addition, more than 13 villages and two military bases are under serious threat in Baghlan-e-Markazi and security forces have been criticized for not launching a massive offensive against Taliban.
“We will launch an operation in the near future in Baghlan province,” said Ziauddin, commander of the First Battalion, Second Brigade of 209th Shaheen Military Corps.
[AnNahar] Morocco has become the latest Moslem-majority country to authorize Islamic banks, amid growing market demand for Sharia-compliant banking.
The Moroccan central bank announced this week it has approved five Islamic banks, fulfilling a long-standing promise of the Islamist party leading a coalition government since 2011.
Among them are leading national banks Attijariwafa, linked to the royal family, state-owned Banque Centrale Populaire and private BMCE Bank of Africa. All three hold increasing assets around French-speaking Africa.
The others are CIH Bank and Credit Agricole du Maroc.
Four of the five will be partnerships between Moroccan banks and Islamic financial institutions in the Gulf.
Morocco had long been reticent about Islamic finance, but now sees it as a growth prospect.
Sharia forbids interest, which is central to many banks' operations.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) A security source in Anbar Province revealed that security forces arrested a suicide bomber driving a booby-trapped vehicle, before attacking a checkpoint, west of Ramadi, Alsumaria News reported on Wednesday.
The source said, “A suicide bomber, driving a booby-trapped vehicle, attempted to attack a checkpoint in the 35 area, west of Ramadi.”
“Security forces from the 29th regiment of the army’s 7th brigade managed to arrest the suicide bomber before approaching the checkpoint,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
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[al-Manar] The Syrian warplanes targeted on Wednesday ISIL gatherings in the vicinity of the military airport and Mount Thorda in Deir Ezzor, killing scores of terrorists.
The Syrian army also launched numerous attacks on ISIL and Nusra Front takfiri militants in different areas in Homs countryside, claiming dozens of them and destroying a number of their vehicles.
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[AlAhram] Tunisian security forces have dismantled a 13-member "terrorist cell" that was funnelling young recruits to myrmidon groups, authorities said Wednesday, as part of a growing crackdown on holy warriors.
The suspects, aged between 22 and 43, were jugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on Tuesday in Hergla, a town north of the coastal resort city of Sousse, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Members of the cell held "secret meetings in a mosque" and admitted to recruiting and sending 12 youths to fight with Islamist myrmidon groups abroad, it said, linking it to the Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion, a group connected to al-Qaeda.
It was the seventh announcement in less than a week of arrests of alleged "terrorists" in Tunisia, which has detained more than 70 people in a widening crackdown on Islamist bandidosmurderous Moslems since December 25.
Authorities stepped up their efforts after Tunisian Anis Amri was identified as the primary suspect in last month's attack on a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people.
Amri was rubbed out by police in the Italian city of Milan four days after the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has been battling an Islamist myrmidon movement that has killed dozens of soldiers and coppers as well as civilians including 59 foreign tourists.
Some 3,000 Tunisians have joined the ranks of myrmidon groups fighting in neighbouring Libya, as well as in Syria and Iraq, according to officials. The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... puts the figure at 5,000.
Tunisia's government said last week that it had incarcerated Book 'im, Mahmoud! or closely monitored 800 bandidosmurderous Moslems who had returned from foreign battlefields.
Concern has been growing for the threat posed by returning myrmidons, with the national union for security forces last month urging the government to take "exceptional measures" against them.
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Algeria- Algerian Minister of Interior Noureddine Badawi threatened to “strike with an iron fist whoever tries to destabilize the country’s security.”
The Minister’s warnings came after protestors carried out serious acts of riot, burning and vandalism in many cities and streets as a reaction following the implementation of compelling economic and social measures based on a stringent austerity plan adopted by the government to cope with the drop in oil prices.
“Whoever dares to destabilize Algeria’s security better lookout because he will be faced by the Republic’s laws,” Badawi said in Guelma on Tuesday, noting the turbulence witnessed in some of the country’s cities starting from Monday.
The main reason behind these protests was obviously the 2017 Budget, which included charges and taxes and increased prices of major consumption products and materials such as electricity, gasoline and necessary food products.
In this regard Badawi said that the Finance Law did not affect the purchasing power of citizens.
As for the strike carried out by traders in these states after imposing new fees on their products, the Interior Minister explained that the “closure of shops was done by force and by using violent means. Therefore, the country, with all its agencies will save public and private properties.”
According to security reports, 100 young demonstrators were arrested and taken into police custody.
Some were arrested for robbery with legal proceedings currently being carried out against them.
Several shops were pillaged and buildings ransacked including the Condor showroom, the SNTA depot and the French bank BNP Paribas.
In the city center, young demonstrators burned a bus and a riot police truck.
The municipality’s headquarters was also targeted by angry demonstrators who ransacked and burned the premises and stones were thrown on several police stations in the evening.
The strike was launched on social networks to denounce tax increases in the Finance Bill which was officialized by President Abdulaziz Bouteflika last week.
Operation Shafaq 2 was launched in PD9 of Faizabad city, in Badakhshan on Tuesday, following repeated calls by residents over the past few months for a military offensive.
Security officials in the province said as a result of the operation, a number of villages have already been cleared of insurgents.
“We have launched an operation and it will continue through the winter until the region is cleared of insurgents,” said Mohammad Nabi Bayan chief of Badakhshan's Police Headquarters.
Badakhshan’s provincial council meanwhile said although insurgents had suffered causalities on Tuesday, a number of security forces were also killed and wounded. Council officials said the operation will also be carried out in Warduj and Yamgan districts. However, this will be a big challenge for security forces, the council said.
“In an ambush by insurgents, a number of security forces were killed and wounded,” said Abdul Bashir Samim, head of Badakhshan provincial council.
“Security forces should launch large-scale operations in Warduj and Yamgan districts where main bases of Taliban and foreign fighters are located,” said Abdullah Naji Nazari, member of the council.
The provincial police chief confirmed there had been casualties among security forces but said details would only be released once the two districts had been cleared of insurgents.
“It is quite natural that in war soldiers will be wounded and killed. A few soldiers were killed and wounded,” Bayan said.
At least three soldiers were killed in clashes with al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen in an operation launched by the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi, security sources said. At least 15 jihadists have been killed, they added.
They said at least 10 other soldiers were wounded when troops were ambushed east of the coastal city of Shuqra on Tuesday. Intense clashes were continuing on Wednesday.
The fighting began when troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition attacked an al-Qaida stronghold in the Marakasha Mountains in Abyan province, east of the southern city of Aden.
The area has long been a militant haven, attracting fighters in the 1990s returning from Afghanistan after fighting the Soviets. Al-Qaida later said in a statement circulated online that it had “ambushed” the troops and fought them off, the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said.
The incident highlighted the obstacles facing Hadi’s government as it struggles to wipe out al Qaeda while simultaneously trying to defeat Houthi fighters in a war that has lasted nearly two years and killed more than 10,000 people.
In August, the Yemeni army drove al Qaeda out of two strongholds in the same region in a campaign in which at least 40 militants were killed.
The United States, which sees Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula as a threat to its own security, said last month it had killed 28 militants in nine strikes in the Arab country since September.
The group has exploited the civil war between Hadi’s Saudi-backed government and the Houthis, aligned with Iran, to recruit followers and expand its influence across the country, especially in the south and east.
The impoverished country overlooks key shipping routes and shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter.
In other parts of Yemen, clashes were reported between Hadi supporters and fighters from the Houthi group and their allies in the southwestern city of Taiz, the northern province of Saada and in Shabwa in the southeast.
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Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she considered a national currency as a cornerstone of sovereignty, Sputnik reported.
France should return to the franc, while retaining a common European currency in the form of a basket of European currencies, Marine Le Pen, the leader of French far-right party National Front and a presidential candidate in the upcoming April election, said.
"[I want] a national currency with the euro, a common currency… I want a national currency, because it is a cornerstone of sovereignty," Le Pen told BFMTV on Tuesday.
The National Front leader said that this co-existence of national and common currencies had occurred already in the form of the European Currency Unit (ECU), the precursor to the euro, calculated as a weighted average of a number of European currencies.
Le Pen also said that France had to take control of its borders, as, at the moment, it could only protect them efficiently at times of grave danger as opposed to the complete, definitive control.
The presidential candidate also said that she would like to reform immigration laws to avoid the situation where a significant percentage of people whose asylum applications had been refused remain in France. According to Le Pen, France was receiving a large number of applications from the Albanians, which it should not even consider.
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#1
"[I want] a national currency with the euro, a common currency… I want a national currency, because it is a cornerstone of sovereignty," Le Pen told BFMTV on Tuesday.
TRANSLATION:
We're all sick and tired of the crap coming out of Brussels.
China appears to have resumed coal imports from North Korea recently after lifting a month-long suspension, VOA reported Wednesday.
Stocks must have run down some...
Three North Korean ships were seen anchored about 10 km from Qinhuangdao, China's leading coal trading port, from Sunday through Tuesday, VOA said quoting ship tracking website MarineTraffic. The Kumrung No. 5, Kumsan and Wonsan No. 2 are all coal bulk carriers.
Two other North Korean ships are berthed at the Chinese ports of Longkou and Penglai, according to the website, and another two wait in waters 2 km and 10 km from Longkou. The ports closest to these ships are all stacked with huge piles of black material that looks like coal, VOA added.
Last month, Beijing announced it was halting coal imports from the North until the end of the month in compliance with a new UN Security Council resolution. That left North Korean ships marooned in international waters.
The resolution stipulates that total exports of North Korean coal must not exceed US$400 million or 7.5 million tons per year, whichever is lower.
Under the new curbs, the North's annual coal exports estimated at some $1.1 billion will dwindle by about $700 million.
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#1
Cash, or payments in kind, immediately for any purchases or No Deal -- And what idiot* would trust NKOR money or promises?
(*Other than our State Department)
[MRC TV] Our nation’s snowflakes are being cared for by colleges and universities across the country. These schools ‐ no, HEROES ‐ are financially supporting cry-ins, hot chocolate, bubbles, kittens, puppies and ponies, crayons, and Play-Doh to comfort these wounded snowflakes. Some schools even canceled exams and classes to ensure that America’s youth are treated with extra care and understanding during these difficult times.
But clearly, state funding ‐ tax-payer dollars ‐ are simply not enough.
State budgets cannot be expected to bear this burden alone. It’s going to take a far more sustainable funding source to ensure special snowflakes have the emotional support they need. In response, we here at the Media Research Center have launched the Save the Snowflakes project to respond to this emergency and bring crucial attention to this devastating human crisis.
The media may not choose to expose this atrocity, but the Media Research Center, through our Save the Snowflakes initiative, is doing much more ‐ we’re taking action! We won’t rest until we save each and every special snowflake from the horrors of exposure to ... things they simply do not agree with.
This is only the beginning! Please make sure to check this site often for vital MRC updates of how our country is coddling the melting snowflakes of American youth!
I gotta tell you the entire generation will spend their lives in their parents basement. Can you imagine one of these infantile little asses trying to work in manufacturing or construction?
A normal conversation on a construction site would probably send one of these little darlings home in tears.
#4
In the old days (back when merit counted), colleges were suppose to 'weed out' those lacking in the ability to deal with reality. Then again, the curriculum was a lot smaller and fed dollars were a lot shorter (see-GI Bill) before the Academic-Technology Complex leeched on to the public treasury.
Probably in-part for the anti-paleo agit-prop on that dung-hill campus. Probably in-part their outrageous parodies become pre-cursers of leftist thought....life imitating The Cube. So much so they get the debunking treatment.
#8
OK guys what age do you have to be to earn the default approbation of "an entire generation in their parents basement"?
I've got two sons who will turn 31 & 35 next month. One is a self employed gig type worker doing lighting design and operation at clubs in Boston. Married and been self supporting for years. Wish his work was steadier but the entertainment industry ain't known for that. and he works long hours and late nights.
The other one started his own net working company based on his idea of "Social Made Simple".which is the name of his company. He's making it slowly, just starting to get a salary after 3 years but he's still going strong 2 years after that so he surely doesn't fit the snowflake model.
Yes that is some humble brag but the knock on all millennials drives me nuts since they're not all like that.
Oh yeah the Boston area has a lot of them.that fit that model, like some of my daughter-in-laws brothers but my kids haven't lived in the basement in many years (thank God).
At least seven people, including four policemen and two women, were injured in a blast near a police vehicle in Dera Ismail Khan on Wednesday.
According to police officials, the van was on routine patrolling when it was targeted.
The bomb which had been planted on the Bannu road within the jurisdiction of the Cantt Police Station went off with a loud bang, police said.
All the injured were shifted to a nearby hospital. Police reached the site and collected evidence after cordoning off the area.
The number of attacks in the country has fallen around 70 per cent, due to a combination of the military offensive against militant bases along the Afghan border and government initiatives to tackle militancy, but attacks on security and civilian targets continue to occur occasionally.
The still-unnamed killer is codenamed 'Abu Muhammed Horasani'; his ISIS handler is codenamed 'Teacher Yusuf'
The three families in the Konya ISIS cell were detained after they fled to Izmir: 27 men and women and 20 children. Eleven men and nine women were subsequently arrested
Konya cell members hail from Syria, Dagestan, Xinjian/East Turkestan
...homeland of most of the Uighurs...
and Kyrgyzstan
After the attack the killer took a taxi to a Uighur restaurant, where he was given money for the fare
F*cking pr*ck!
[al-Manar] A man armed with a kitchen knife stabbed 11 children at a kindergarten in southern China on Wednesday, seriously wounding three, state media reported, the latest such attack in recent years.
The man entered the school in the southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region mid-afternoon, claiming he was there to pick up his son, the official Xinhua news agency quoted local police as saying.
The attacker allegedly climbed a wall to enter the facility, broadcaster CCTV said on social media, adding that an investigation was underway.
Three children were seriously injured and have been sent to hospital for treatment according to Xinhua. The man is in police custody.
Knife attacks are not uncommon in China. In February, a knife-wielding assailant wounded 10 children in Haikou, in the southern island province of Hainan, before committing suicide.
In 2014 state media reported that a man stabbed three children and a teacher to death and wounded several others in a rampage at a primary school that refused to enroll his daughter. That followed a March 2013 incident in which a man killed two relatives and then slashed 11 people, including six children, outside a school in China’s commercial hub Shanghai.
The events have forced authorities to increase security around schools and led to calls for more research into the root causes of such acts.
Violent crime has been on the rise in China in recent decades as the nation’s economy has boomed and the gap between rich and poor has expanded rapidly.
That is to say, exactly that many deaths were recorded. How many more -- or less -- actually died may never be known, though we'll have a better idea once the ISIS archives are added.
[Ynet] The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... says violence claimed the lives of at least 6,878 civilian Iraqis last year.
The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, known as UNAMI, said in a statement late Monday that 12,388 other civilians were maimed in 2016. UNAMI added that the figurers didn't include casualties among civilians in Iraq's western Anbar province for the months of May, July, August and December.
The UN says its numbers "have to be considered as the absolute minimum" as it has not been able to verify casualties among civilians in conflict areas, and of those who bit the dust due to "secondary effects of violence ... due to exposure to the elements, lack of water, food, medicines and health care."
According to UNAMI figures, at least 7,515 non-combatants were killed in 2015.
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#2
Well, that's a lot better than the 600,000 killed every year/month/week while Boosh was in office and invading the peaceful Democratic Iraqi Republic. [moonbat off]
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/05/2017 13:57
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[AnNahar] Swiss prosecutors said Wednesday they had opened a probe into connections and contacts the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack may have had in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... "On the basis of information received from foreign authorities about the attack in Berlin on December 19,... (Switzerland's) Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has opened criminal proceedings against persons unknown," it said in a statement.
The OAG said it was probing suspected violations of laws prohibiting organizations such as the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and al-Qaeda, and banning the support of or participation in criminal organizations.
It said it was working closely on the case with Swiss federal police as well as with "foreign authorities," but provided no further details.
The Islamic State group has claimed the Berlin rampage, in which a hijacked truck was driven into a crowded Christmas market. The attack claimed 12 lives. Tunisian suspect Anis Amri was rubbed out four days later in Italia after firing at police there.
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Ten people were killed and more than 60 were injured as a result of bloody and violent incidents that took place in Nirtiti in Central Darfur state. The armed opposition and the government blamed each other for the incident in which innocent civilians were killed.
Press reports stated that armed forces carried out an attack on New Year’s Day in the town of Nirtiti which lies approximately 100 km east of Central Darfur state’s capital. Nine people were killed after a soldier was found dead in one of the town’s neighbourhoods. Government forces were accused of launching a huge attack on the town’s residents in which heavy and light weapons were used. However, Khartoum denied this version of events.
The Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur made a statement before official reports were released in which he accused “government militias” of committing the crime. However, the governor of the state Jaafar Abdul-Hakam said at a press conference yesterday that preliminary investigations carried out by local security authorities prove that a group affiliated to the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur were involved in what he called the “strife”.
The government website www.ashorooq.net quoted the governor of Central Darfur state Abdul-Hakam as saying that the attack occurred after it was reported that an army soldier was found dead in a woodland area on Friday. His corpse was moved to one of the city’s neighbourhoods and the next day, a doctor was beaten and robbed. Reports on the two incidents confirm that 6 armed individuals belonging to the Sudan Liberation Movement were involved in the attacks.
At least 58 militants including 10 loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were killed during the counter-terrorism operations, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed Tuesday.
According to an operational update by MoD, the militants were killed in the past 24 hours in various parts of the country during the counter-terrorism operations supported by the Afghan Air Force and artillery units of the Afghan army.
MoD further added that the operations were conducted in Nangarhar, Kapisa, Logar, Paktia, Paktika, Ghazni, Badakhshan, Balkh, and Helmand provinces.
According to the Ministry of Defense, at least 12 of the militants were killed in Ghormach district of Faryab, 20 were killed in Charkh district of Logar, 10 ISIS militants were killed in Deh Bala district of Nangarhar, and 2 ISIS commanders were killed in Shindand district of Herat.
The ministry also added that 4 militants were killed in Ghazni, 3 were killed in Uruzgan, 2 in Paktika, and 5 of them were killed in Farah province.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the reports so far.
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A suicide bomber was killed after his suicide attack vest went off prematurely in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan.
According to the local government officials, the incident took place in a mosque in Shahjoi district.
The district administrative Chief Wazir Mohammad Jawadi said only the suicide bomber was killed in the incident and no one else was hurt.
He said the suicide bomber was apparently spending the night in the mosque and was looking to target a gathering today when his explosives vest went off.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the incident so far.
Zabul is among the relatively volatile provinces in south of Afghanistan where the anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating in a number of its restive districts.
There are also reports that the loyalist of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group are attempting to expand foothold in some districts of Zabul.
Several tribal elders met with the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah last week to deliver their concerns regarding the issue as the Chief Executive vowed that a counter-terrorism operation will be launched in the near future.
#6
That, Bobby, or he learned the 72 virgins were all Catholic nuns and it wasn't his knuckles that were gonna get rapped with those steel edged rulers.
[AlArabiya] Forces allied to Libya’s eastern government carried out an air strike against a military transport aircraft in the central district of Jufra on Tuesday, wounding the head of the military council from the rival city of Misrata, officials said. The strike, and clashes that preceded it on Monday, raised fears of an escalation in Libya’s central desert region between the country’s two main military power bases.
Tension has been building in the area between the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar, and forces either from or linked to the western port city of Misrata, some aligned to the UN-backed government. The two sides were in opposing military alliances that fought for control of Tripoli in 2014, leaving Libya with two competing governments.
Also read: US military ends anti-ISIS operation in Libya’s Sirte
On Tuesday, the LNA said one of its fighter jets had struck a C-130 transport plane parked in Jufra that a senior LNA source said was delivering arms and ammunition to what it called terrorist groups based there. The LNA has carried out previous strikes nearby against forces including fighters that it says have been mobilizing to try to retake several LNA-held ports in the so-called “oil crescent” along the coast.
But an air force spokesman in Misrata, Mohamed Gnounou, said the C-130 was carrying a visiting delegation from Misrata, confirming that the head of the city’s military council, Ibrahim Baitulmal, had been wounded. One person was killed in the strike, and a third person wounded, he said. Gnounou said he was speaking on behalf of forces allied to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.
“We, the emergency operations room of air forces of the GNA consider this a criminal act. However, in the interests of Libyans, we will respond wisely,” he told Reuters. Political figures and military commanders from Misrata have broadly favored the GNA, whilst Haftar and his allies have refused to support it.
Raqqa – The Islamic State (ISIS) radical group on Wednesday arrested three of its own jihadists on corruption charges, local sources in Syria’s Raqqa reported.
Three members of the ISIS-led Department of Public Services, known as Diwan al-Khadamat, were arrested by the Islamic Police in Raqqa city.
The group claimed that the arrestees have been involved in stealing thousands of dollars from the Diwan al-Khadamat and haven’t performed their duties “as assigned to them by the Caliphate leadership”.
“Abu Hassan Kahreba, Abu Mahmoud and Abu Salem Awejan were taken into ISIS custody in Raqqa for stealing and refusing to follow the Caliphate’s rules,” media activist Khaled al-Omar told ARA News, citing an official from the ISIS-led Sharia Court.
The city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria is a de facto capital for the ISIS self-proclaimed Caliphate.
“ISIS is trying to show the people of Raqqa that anyone who violates the group’s rules will be punished, even if the perpetrator is one of their own jihadists,” al-Omar said.
This is not the first time that ISIS punishes its own members on corruption charges.
In March 2016, the group executed three of its own militants in Deir ez-Zor Governorate in eastern Syria on similar charges. A Tunisian and two Algerian members of the extremist group were publicly shot dead on charges of corruption in the city of al-Mayadeen in Deir ez-Zor.
“The dead bodies of the three jihadis were crucified near the al-Baloum square in central al-Mayadeen on Monday evening,” rights activist Anass Jabir told ARA News.
Jabir, who witnessed the execution, said that an ISIS Sharia official read a statement before the execution was carried out, accusing the three foreign jihadis of “robbery”.
“The Sharia Court convicted the three militants of corruption for receiving bribes from local people in al-Mayadeen,” the source said. “The ISIS-linked Sharia Court insisted that the bodies of the three militants will remain crucified for three days, in a bid to terrorize its members,” the source reported.
The three jihadis were members of the ISIS-led Islamic Police in al-Mayadeen city. The group found them guilty of exploiting their official position for personal interests.
Posted by: badanov ||
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A police official probing some targeted killing cases was shot dead and two others injured on Wednesday night when unidentified attackers opened fire at them on main Rashid Minhas Road in Gulistan-i-Jauhar area of Karachi, said Gulshan SP, Dr. Fahad Ahmed.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Shara-i-Faisal Ali Anwar Soomro said that alleged miscreants were chasing Sub-Inspector (SI) Iqbal Mehmood who was riding a bike along with his friend Waseem.
"As they disembarked from their motorbike to purchase some items from a vendor near Lal Flats, gunmen travelling in a car opened fire on them and fled," he said.
The deceased was posted at investigation section of PS Ferozabad. He received multiple bullet wounds and succumbed to his injuries during treatment.
“The police officer was investigating some targeted killing cases and this appears to be a targeted attack too,” said Gulshan SP Dr. Fahad Ahmed.
It appeared that the assailants’ target was the police officer, said police.
Mahmood's friend Waseem and a passerby teenager Hafeez Ullah sustained bullet wounds in the incident.
Investigators collected three spent bullet casings fired from a 9mm pistol from the crime scene.
Police ‘informer’ shot dead
A man helping the police against drug peddlers was shot dead in Korangi Industrial Area on Wednesday night.
Police informed that Rizwan Ahmed was gunned down allegedly by Shan alias Shani in Mehran Town.
The suspected killer has been arrested, said Korangi Industrial Area SHO Mohammed Nawaz Gondal.
The officer added that the victim was helping the police against the peddlers in the locality.
[AnNahar] Suspected Moslem rebels staged the Philippines' biggest jailbreak Wednesday when they stormed a dilapidated jail in the violence-plagued south of the country, freeing 158 inmates and killing a guard, authorities said.
The BIFF is one of several breakaway groups that are determined to continue fighting and have declared allegiance to the IS group.
The attack added to a long history of daring jailbreaks in the southern Philippines, home to a decades-old Moslem separatist insurgency as well as Death Eater gangs that have recently declared allegiance to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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Hasakah – Militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) launched on Wednesday an offensive on headquarters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah Governorate.
The attack, which took place near the city of Shaddadi in the southern countryside of Hasakah, came as an attempt by ISIS to regain positions that were taken by the Kurdish forces in February 2016.
ISIS militants hit YPG headquarters in al-Malha town in western Shaddadi with dozens of mortar shells, a Kurdish officer told ARA News.
Dozens of Kurdish fighters were either killed or injured in the offensive, amidst massive destruction in al-Malha caused by ISIS shelling.
“ISIS militants brought heavy reinforcements from Margada town to the southern suburbs of Shaddadi in preparation for further attacks on headquarters of the YPG and allied Syrian Democratic Forces,” local media activist Ismael al-Ahmed told ARA News.
Margada is the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Hasakah Governorate. It is located on the administrative border between Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor Governorates.
“Our forces are now fortifying Shaddadi city to repel Daesh’s attempt to hit our defences in southern Hasakah,” a spokesman for the YPG said, using another acronym for ISIS.
In mid February 2016, Kurdish YPG units and allied fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the liberation of Shaddadi city in Hasakah province from the Islamic State’s militants, after months of battles with the radical group.
ISIS militants had evacuated their headquarters in Shaddadi under heavy bombardment by the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the SDF. “More than 275 ISIS militants were killed and 33 ISIS vehicles were destroyed at the hands of the SDF fighters in the battle for Shaddadi,” the SDF spokesman Talal Silo had told ARA News at the time.
The progress came after the SDF units, supported by an air cover from the U.S.-led coalition, cut off the main supply route for the ISIS radical group in al-Hawl near Syria’s northeastern border with Iraq. However, since then ISIS has been trying to infiltrate into the area, launching mortar and car bomb attacks.
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[Ynet] Lawmaker Teuvo Hakkarainen from the nationalist Finns party was fined on Wednesday for a Facebook post calling for a Muslim-free Finland which a district court said amounted to agitation against an ethnic group. Hakkarainen, whose party is part of the country's coalition government, made the call in a comment on the truck attack in France last July that killed 86 people. Prosecutors said the Tunisian-born driver had radical Islamist views.
"All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims," the parliamentarian wrote in the comment. Central Finland's district court in Jyvaskyla imposed a 1,160 euro ($1,210) fine for Hakkarainen, who accepted the verdict. Local media quoted his assistant telling the court that the lawmaker was not aware of the legislation in question.
[DeutscheWelle] Experts believe the number of asylum-related court cases could triple in 2017. Many refugees going to court are Syrians who aren't in danger of being sent back. But they want to make sure their families are safe, too. In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, there were roughly 47,300 asylum cases in 2016, up from 21,300 the year before. In the first three quarters of 2016, Germany gave out 50,000 visas to individuals who wanted to join their non-German family members in Germany. In 2015, that was the number for the whole year.
German State Wants to Block Deportation of Migrants If They Are Victims of ‘Right Wing’ Crime
4 Jan 2017
A German federal state is considering forbidding the deportation of all migrants who happen to witness, or are victims of, “right wing” crimes when in Germany.
German Interior Minister Announces Federal Deportation Centre Proposal
4 Jan 2017
German Interior Minister Thomas De Maizière has announced intentions to create deportation centres near major airports to speed up the sluggish German deportation system.
Egyptian Migrant Who Sexually Assaulted 14-year-old Should Have Been Deported in 2011
4 Jan 2017
A 21-year-old Egyptian man has been arrested following accusations that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in an asylum home despite the fact that he was rejected for asylum since 2011 and authorities have been trying to deport him for five years.
French olive farmer, 37, who has become a folk hero for helping African migrants slip across the border from Italy faces five years in prison if found guilty at trial
04/01/17
A French farmer (pictured), who has become a folk hero for helping African migrants slip across the border from Italy and giving them shelter, went on trial today for aiding illegal arrivals.
Young migrant girls forced into prostitution and abortions in Benidorm after being submitted to 'voodoo rituals' by Nigerian traffickers
About those missing Chibok girls...
04/01/17
[DailyMail] Authorities have detained nine members of a Nigerian trafficking group that used illegal migration routes to smuggle young girls from their home countries in Africa to Spanish holiday resorts
Syrian teenager 'sent to Berlin by ISIS as a refugee before scoping out attack targets including Brandenburg Gate' goes on trial in Germany
04/01/17
The Syrian, identified only as Shaas al-Mohammad,
...identified in the German press as Shaas al-M...
19, allegedly fought with ISIS in his war-torn homeland for two years before arriving in Germany as a refugee in August 2015.
DUBAI: An Arab opposition group has claimed two pipeline bombings in Iran’s oil-rich south and threatened to launch more attacks in the coming year as the country tries to boost production following the nuclear deal with world powers.
Iranian Interior Ministry spokesman Salman Samani later denied the claim by the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, which said it bombed the pipelines early Tuesday morning in Khuzestan province.
The militants released an online video they said showed one of the pipelines exploding.
The Associated Press could not immediately verify the footage, though previous attacks have been attributed to the group.
The statement from the opposition said the bombings came in response to Iran’s Oil Ministry publishing a list of 29 international companies qualified to bid for projects following the atomic accord.
The group said 2017 will be “very different to previous years since the movement has prepared detailed and precise plans to carry out a number of high-quality important operations against the Iranian enemy state.”
Coordinated pipeline attacks could hinder Iran’s efforts to recoup cash lost under international sanctions. The country has boosted production to around 3.8 million barrels of oil a day since the deal.
Iran has faced low-level unrest from Kurds in its northwest, the Baluch in its east and Arabs in its south since the 1979 revolution. In recent months, however, such attacks have grown in scale. Iran in June announced breaking up what it called one of the “biggest terrorist plots” ever on Iranian soil by extremists.
Separately, the chief prosecutor of Tehran has revealed that there are as many as 70 spies serving sentences in the Iranian capital’s prisons, far more than what had been estimated.
The 70 convicts had “offered intelligence to enemies in various fields including atomic, military, political, social and cultural,” Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said, quoted by the Mizan Online news website.
Dolatabadi did not name the countries alleged to have recruited the spies.
Only a handful of cases of people charged with espionage had been made public in the country prior to his comments, which were published late Tuesday.
Among them are two Iranian-American dual nationals.
In October, business consultant Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer were sentenced to 10 years in prison for “espionage and collaboration with the American government.” The father, a former employee of the UN children’s fund UNICEF, was arrested when he returned to Iran to seek Siamak’s release, a few months after his arrest.
The United States has demanded the release of the Namazis and has also expressed concerns about reports of the “declining health” of Baquer Namazi.
Nezar Zaka, a Lebanese national, was found guilty of “numerous deep links to the US military intelligence community” and handed a 10-year sentence on the same day as the Namazis, along with three Iranians. They have been identified as Farhad Abd-Saleh, Kamran Ghaderi and Alireza Omidvar.
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#1
Oh, goody. Stout fellows, I wish them every success.
Beirut- “Hezbollah” launched a largescale attack on the Wadi Barada valley, northwest of Damascus, a military escalation that constitutes a dangerous threat to the ceasefire, some reports said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Tehran announced that the party’s forces would not withdraw from Syria as requested by Turkey in light of its truce deal signed with Russia.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said: “A field attack on the Wadi Barada is led by Hezbollah. Regime forces provide a coverage using barrel bombs and launching missiles. As for the role of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the area, it is limited to patronizing.”
The group said Wadi Barada is considered a primary water source in the area.
Opposition activist in Damascus suburb Diya’ al-Husseini told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday that the regime is mainly attacking the Ain al-Fijeh area, located on the northeastern entrance of Wadi Barada.
“Regime forces and Hezbollah fighters controlled three points at the outskirts of Ain al-Fijeh, but on Monday morning, rebels were able to recuperate these areas,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asserted that despite a ceasefire deal brokered in Syria between Russia and Turkey, “Hezbollah” would not leave the country.
Velayati told reporters at a press briefing following a meeting with Iraqi Vice President Nuri al-Maliki in Tehran on Tuesday: “The claim that Hezbollah would leave Syria after the ceasefire is mere propaganda by the enemy.”
Velayati also said that “those who attempt to hold a negotiation process without the consent of the Assad regime or people will not be allowed to join the talks [in Astana].”
Separately, Kurds set thee main conditions to negotiate with the regime.
Hadiya Yousef, a Syrian Kurdish official leading the establishment of the federal project told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday that the doors of negotiations held with Russia ahead of the direct talks with the Syrian regime are now open, adding that a meeting was recently held in the Hmeimim Air Base between representatives of the self-administration and Russian officials to prepare for direct talks with the Syrian regime, under Moscow’s supervision.
Yousef added that those talks are held separately from the ongoing preparations linked to the Astana talks. The Kurdish official set three basic conditions to negotiate with the regime. “The regime should accept the demographic changes happening in all Syrian areas, it should agree on issuing a constitution that guarantees the rights of all the components of the Syrian people, and it should also acknowledge the federal Kurdish experience as a model to solve the Syrian crisis,” she said.
ERBIL: Iraqi forces pressed gains against Daesh militants in eastern Mosul on Wednesday and have retaken two more districts, security sources said, with thousands more civilians fleeing the fighting.
An elite Interior Ministry unit had entered the Mithaq district and were clearing it on Wednesday, the sources said, while counterterrorism forces retook an industrial zone on Tuesday.
The militants are using the city terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making underground tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings.
“We were very afraid,” said one Mithaq resident.
“A Daesh anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes.”
Most of those fleeing are from the eastern districts but residents of the besieged west, still fully under the militants’ control, are increasingly attempting to escape, scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.
Counterterrorism units pushed into eastern Mosul in October but regular army troops tasked with advancing from the north and south made slower progress and the operation stalled.
After redeploying forces, Iraqi forces have been advancing on three fronts toward the Tigris river that bisects Mosul, in a second phase of the offensive.
Victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for Daesh’s self-styled caliphate but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort when they lose the city, with bomb attacks in Baghdad, and attacks on security forces in territory they have lost.
Displacement increased
The UN refugee agency has said 125,568 people have been displaced from Mosul, a city of about 1.5 million, and more than 13,000 of those have fled in the five days since the US-led coalition renewed an offensive that had stalled for weeks.
That represents an increase of nearly 50 percent in the number of people who fled every day from Mosul over the several weeks of relative calm that ended last weekend.
Twelve weeks into Iraq’s largest military campaign since the US-led invasion of 2003, security forces have retaken about a quarter of Mosul.
“Following the intensification of military operations in Mosul city on Dec. 29, the rate of displacement from Mosul has increased markedly, with over 9,000 people having fled the city in the space of four days,” said the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
OCHA also said about 14,000 of the 125,568 people confirmed to have been displaced in 11 weeks have already returned to their homes in recaptured areas.
After a lull in the offensive launched on Oct. 17 to retake what is now the Daesh group’s last major stronghold in the country, Iraqi forces started a fresh push last week, engaging in heavy fighting in eastern Mosul.
A senior commander from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service that has done most of the front-line fighting inside the city told AFP on Sunday that Iraqi forces now controlled more than 60 percent of Mosul’s eastern half.
AFP reporters saw streams of civilians fleeing the fighting on foot in recent days, carrying what belongings they could bring along in bags.
[al-Manar] An Iraqi attack helicopter crashed Wednesday south of the Mosul battlefield, killing all four crew members, security officials said.
“During an army aviation mission this morning, an aircraft crashed due to a technical failure,” the Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against the ISIL Takfiri group said in a statement.
An official in the JOC said the entire crew was killed in the crash.
“The crew of four — two pilots and two technicians — was killed,” a captain in Iraq’s army aviation told AFP.
“They were heading to Qayyarah on a routine mission,” he said, referring to an area that has been the main military hub south of Mosul since the launch on October 17 of an operation to retake the city from ISIL.
The helicopter was a Russian-made Mi-35 gunship, he said.
More than 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before Iraqi forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the city from ISIS, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
After quick initial advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi forces renewed their push from Mosul’s east towards the Tigris River on three fronts.
Elite interior ministry troops were clearing the Mithaq district on Wednesday, after entering it on Tuesday when counterterrorism forces also retook an industrial zone.
Federal police advanced in the Wahda district, the military said on Wednesday, in the 12th week of Iraq’s largest military campaign since the US-led invasion of 2003.
As they advanced, many more civilian casualties were also being recorded, the UN said.
Vastly outnumbered, the militants have embedded themselves among residents and are using the city terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings.
“We were very afraid,” one Mithaq resident said.
“A Daesh (ISIS) anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes.”
Security forces have retaken about a quarter of Mosul since October but, against expectations and despite severe shortages of food and water, most residents have stayed put until now.
More than 125,000 people have been displaced out of a population of roughly 1.5 million, but the numbers have increased by nearly 50 percent to 2,300 daily from 1,600 over the last few days, the UN refugee agency said.
The humanitarian situation was “dire”, with food stockpiles dwindling and the price of staples spiraling, boreholes drying up or turning brackish from over-use and camps and emergency sites to the south and east reaching maximum capacity, it said.
Most of the fleeing civilians are from the eastern districts but people from the besieged west, still under the militants’ control, are increasingly attempting to escape, scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.
An Iraqi victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for ISIS self-styled caliphate but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad and attacking security forces elsewhere.
Posted by: badanov ||
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[NationalReview] One reason for the emergence of outsider Donald Trump is the old outrage that elites seldom experience the consequences of their own ideologically driven agendas. Hypocrisy, when coupled with sanctimoniousness, grates people like few other human transgressions: Barack Obama opposing charter schools for the inner city as he puts his own children in Washington’s toniest prep schools, or Bay Area greens suing to stop contracted irrigation water from Sierra reservoirs, even as they count on the Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy project to deliver crystal-clear mountain water to their San Francisco taps. The American progressive elite relies on its influence, education, money, and cultural privilege to exempt itself from the bad schools, unassimilated immigrant communities, dangerous neighborhoods, crime waves, and general impoverishment that are so often the logical consequences of its own policies -- consequences for others, that is. Abstract idealism on behalf of the distant is a powerful psychological narcotic that allows caring progressives to dull the guilt they feel about their own privilege and riches. Much more at the link. A very good read.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
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#1
Can't read it. The website keeps replacing the article with some bs and I can't read it fast enough to figure out how to read the article. Likely only works with M$S Edge.
#2
Hanson is a really smart guy. However, Notional Review, Weakly Stabber and Dead State must be ground into dust if a worthwhile conservative renaissance is to occur. No more puffed up intellectual pooftery. More red meat.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/05/2017 3:55
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#3
Barack Obama opposing charter schools for the inner city as he puts his own children in Washington’s toniest prep schools.
Yes, the Sidwell Friends School. The hypocricy of Obama discussed on this blog many years ago. Unfortunately the discussion fell to the wayside as more onerous and damning transgressions soon took it's place.
#4
3dc, if you use Firefox, you can use the 'NoScript' addon to prevent javascript from running the reloading script. Also in Firefox, in the far ri8ght side of the address bar, there is a square icon with a dip in the bottom of it, click on it and Firefox will turn the page into a "reader view" page, that will remain static and give you forever and a couple days to read the article.
It's what I use and I had no problem reading the article.
#5
Perhaps someday VDH will direct his venom towards the California Public Utilities Commission. It's the vehicle for much of the corruption that fuels his rancor. CPUC is a prime example of how Progessivism is antithetical to individual liberties and and how it has always depended on statist cronyism to exist. Moreover, the commissions' record lays bare the Liberal "Social Justice" falicies.
Those of us on the coast who bought our houses many, many years ago are lucky. Many of us could not even dream of it today. I know people who bought more recently whose monthly property tax bill is more than my monthly mortgage payments. Dunno how they do it. That's Proposition 13 for you. The politicians, including Moonbeam, all opposed it back in 1978. Now they keep trying to repeal it. If they ever do I'll have to leave. Maybe they'd like that.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/05/2017 11:50
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#8
Clinging to his guns, his Bible and his family farm. OK. I get it. Still have to wonder if it gets to the point where a reasonable person decides it's no longer worth it. The taxes really are horrendous.
There has been some discussion lately about California seceding or being given back to Mexico. One idea I like a lot better is to divide California into several smaller states.
VDH would no longer be subject to the whims of the coastal elite. California's electoral college votes would no longer all go automatically to the Democrat candidate. Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris would no longer represent me in the Senate.
And if the folks in the Bay Area wanna bestow such generous benefits on illegal aliens they could do so without taxing from their more sensible neighbors.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/05/2017 13:46
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#9
how about Obama's two snowflakes taking their winter vacations skiing in Sun Valley 2 or 3 times a season, lift tickets are only $140.00 per day plus Uncle John "I was in Vietnam you know" has his palatial home there with his lovely wife Teresa
#10
Unfortunately, many of us in the land between the coasts end up paying a large chunk of the bill for the transgressions of progressives in the coastal areas. Our tax monies get collected by the feds and redistributed to these lefty areas. California was at one time truly the "Golden" state prior to 50-60 years ago when a larger part of the State was conservative and not so looney.
#11
how about Obama's two snowflakes taking their winter vacations skiing in Sun Valley
The Daily Mail claims Mr. and Mrs. Barack Obama each have $20 million contracts for their memoirs. If so, they can rent their own palatial there -- ownership has too many responsibilities. Besides, I suspect that scion of the Kennedy clan will be completely booked with neglected relations for a while, and sadly unable to host the Obamas on their desired dates. for which he'll be excessively sorry.
#13
Two more books by Democrats nobody will read; their publishing house is going to take a huge bath on this.
Yet Simon and Schuster gets threats and vitriol for greenlighting and paying a $250K advance to Milo Yiannopolis (A hilarious militant conservative gay) which is already on Amazon's bestseller list for pre-orders. Nice business model ya got there Obama-sucking Press
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2017 21:01
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The Americans are being held for ransom, but the rest suggest a certain level of dissatisfaction with the rule of the Mullahs.
[AnNahar] The chief prosecutor of Tehran has revealed that there are as many as 70 spies serving sentences in the Iranian capital's prisons, far more than what had been estimated.
The 70 convicts had "offered intelligence to enemies in various fields including atomic, military, political, social and cultural," Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said, quoted by the Mizan Online news website.
Dolatabadi did not name the countries alleged to have recruited the spies.
Only a handful of cases of people charged with espionage had been made public in the Islamic republic prior to his comments, which were published late Tuesday.
#1
Clock abuse be it physical or sexual will be reported to the proper aency clock phucking is illegal and aganist all moral and ethical standards plus you can get glass shards in your peepee!
Turkey has begun to question the use of the İncirlik air base by the anti-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) coalition forces, as the U.S. has failed to support Ankara’s offensive in the al-Bab region against the jihadist group, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Jan. 4.
“Our people ask, ‘why are they [coalition forces] using the İncirlik Airbase [if the coalition does not provide aerial support to the Euphrates Shield operation]. We allowed not only the U.S. but also other countries’ jets to use İncirlik to jointly fight [ISIL],” Çavuşoğlu told state-run Anadolu Agency.
“What purpose are you serving if you do not provide aerial support against DEASH in the most sensitive operation for us?” he added.
“The U.S. is a very important ally for us. We have cooperation in every field. But there is the reality of a confidence crisis in the relationship at the moment,” Çavuşoğlu said.
So we're to start carrying the Turks' water in Syria. Or else we lose the use of the air base. Someone is going to have to explain to me why that air base is so important to us that we don't tell the Turks to go pound sand.
He added that this crisis of trust had emerged for a number of reasons, particularly noting that the U.S. has not kept its promise regarding the retreat of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from Manbij to the east of the Euphrates River and had provided arms support to the Syrian Kurdish group.
“Giving arms to the YPG, the U.S. chose a terrorist organization over its ally,” he said, adding that those arms had later found their way into the hands of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey.
Always with the YPG...
Çavuşoğlu said a joint delegation with the U.S. was sent to Manbij to address the issue but the visit did not satisfy Ankara.
“We know that PYD/YPG forces are in Manbij, as our president stated yesterday [to U.S. President Barack Obama]. Obama said he agrees with us on the subject that these forces should return to the east of the Euphrates,” he said, adding that Washington has been in agreement with Turkey from the beginning but “had not kept its promises.”
Çavuşoğlu also alleged that the U.S. is dragging its heels on the extradition of Fetullah Gülen, thought to have masterminded Turkey’s failed July 15, 2016 military coup attempt. He said Gülen was still able to give orders to his followers in the “Fethullah Terror Organization (FETÖ)” through encrypted messages.
Recalling that FETÖ was added to the list of terrorist organizations to be fought against at the recent meetings of the Islamic Cooperation Organization and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Çavuşoğlu vowed that the Ankara would continue to pursue the issue domestically and abroad.
“The terrorist leader freely threatens Turkey, gives instructions, and sends messages from there. Unfortunately, we have not seen any support from the [Obama] administration about this. They tell us to give positive messages about anti-Americanism in Turkey, but I do not know what to say,” he said.
Addressing the incoming Donald Trump administration in the U.S., Çavuşoğlu voiced optimism that it would be more proactive on the FETÖ issue and said Turkey believed relations would be maintained “clearly and openly” with the new administration.
“We are always in contact with the U.S., regardless of who comes to power [as U.S. president]. We are allies, and we cooperate and have joint targets in many fields. We are NATO allies but both sides must do what is necessary for the alliance. We think and believe the new administration also has this understanding,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Fikri Işık also said on Jan. 4 that the lack of the U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition’s air support in Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation in Syria’s al-Bab “raises questions” about the mission of the İncirlik Air Base in the southern province of Adana.
“We hope that all coalition forces, primarily the U.S., give air and other support that Turkey needs in the Euphrates Shield operation and the necessary step will be taken soon,” Işık told journalists in Ankara.
“But it is thought-provoking that despite the fact we have been NATO allies for years, and that a coalition has been established to fight against ISIL, the coalition does not support the Euphrates Shield operation launched by the Free Syrian Army and supported by the Turkish Armed Forces. Al-Bab is a very critical location in the anti-ISIL fight,” he said.
The anti-ISIL coalition has used the strategic İncirlik base in its operations against ISIL in Syria since July 2015.
Currently manned and unmanned U.S. warplanes carry out strikes on ISIL from Turkey using the İncirlik base.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2017
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#1
Leave Turkey yesterday and transfer lots of weapons to the Kurds.
#2
"The U.S. is a very important ally for us. We have cooperation in every field. But there is the reality of a confidence crisis in the relationship at the moment,"
Irritating, isn't it? {Remembering back to the invasion of Iraq}
#5
Someone is going to have to explain to me why that air base is so important to us that we don't tell the Turks to go pound sand.
Cause the Admirals and Generals said if we closed Subic Bay and Clark Airfield the world would end. Sometimes the experts aren't. Change is hard on some people. Particularly those who refuse to understand that change is natural and the attempts to maintain the status quo are unnatural, and can be very expensive in the long run, far beyond their own immediate agendas.
#6
I seem to recall something about Donald Trump having experience with construction... so he'd know how to quickly and properly construct a landing field in Kurdistan, right?
#7
Someone is going to have to explain to me why that air base is so important to us...
Well, it's just a 5hr flight to Moscow, @1500 land miles. Ready naval resupply and egress to the Med and also a pretty good Cold War era ground station location for down links of low orbit surveillance nicely sandwiched longitudinally between Madrid and Diego Garcia. All in all, a pretty important historic strategic location for fighting the last war, as so many are.
#11
The Turkish govt is getting to the level of Pakistan, where we cannot function there without a buttload of baksheesh. Even that does not work, re: 4ID bruhaha. We are beyond the time that we should be safely out of there. President-elect Trump needs to get us out of there quietly as soon as he takes office.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2017 15:02
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#12
Leaving one nuke underground, to be removed with the last flight out, for insurance.
#13
They are not allies. They are a third world country with trappings of second world. I had to walk through that shithole in Oct 1973. So-called maneuvers after we weren't allowed into Israel, and had no funds (just hearsay, that) to fly us back home for about ten days. Got a really close look at Turkey, found it well named. NOT my fave country in the world. We would be wise to get out now before hostage taking starts.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
01/05/2017 15:33
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#14
It was a shithole years earlier. Amen to the nuke! Maybe leave a timer on it and fuggetaboutit!
A short video. But they are all wrong: decimate means to kill one out of every ten. What happened to the Democrats in terms of their elected politicians including state and local representation has been much, much worse. But they worked hard to achieve it, so there's that, at least.
#4
I think the word we're looking for is annihilate.
an·ni·hi·late
əˈnīəˌlāt/
verb
verb: annihilate; 3rd person present: annihilates; past tense: annihilated; past participle: annihilated; gerund or present participle: annihilating
destroy utterly; obliterate.
"a simple bomb of this type could annihilate them all"
synonyms: destroy, wipe out, obliterate, wipe off the face of the earth; More
eliminate, liquidate, defeat
"an ungodly tornado touched down, annihilating everything in its path"
antonyms: create
defeat utterly.
"the stronger force annihilated its opponent virtually without loss"
#7
Geez I really needed some good news this morning...
Kinda brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.
I once asked a lefty spouting the joys of Communism and asked him to name a successful communist society...he kinda went into frothing, spittle filled, twitching fit and left the party.
#16
I wouldn't worry about the Democrat Party. They were in disarray when Ronald Reagan got elected too. They have an amazing ability to bounce back which I think can be attributed mainly to the short memories of the electorate, MSM bias and Republican stupidity.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/05/2017 13:51
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#17
Pretty typical for both parties Abu.
It isn't like the Republicans have some earth shattering and mind blowing new things. They are just in power now because they ain't the demoncrats.
The left will get back into power because the Republicans will show themselves to be little better than anyone else.
#18
What gorb said. In the immortal words of that great philosopher, Han Solo:"Don't get cocky, kid!" Never underestimate the power of the Stupid Republican Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
#20
So, what's going to replace the Democratic party - unless you want to live in a one party system?
There is an effort to imitate the Tea Party awakening among the young Sanders supporters. If they roll with the current anti-globalist agenda, how about National Socialist?
Nah, the Democrat party will continue on, too much organizational foundation to just pull stakes and fold tent. What it will be in a year is an interesting question. If enough youth go Sandernista and enough minorities go 'hey Trump is alright after all' it will be a party of mostly aged hippies and soccer moms.
An Israeli soldier who shot dead a wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground posing no apparent threat was convicted of manslaughter on Wednesday after a trial that deeply divided the country.
The soldier, Elor Azaria, had been on trial in a military court since May, with right-wing politicians defending him despite top army brass harshly condemning his actions. Sentencing is expected at a later date. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Judge Colonel Maya Heller spent more than two and a half hours reading out the decision, sharply criticising the arguments of Azaria's lawyers. On behalf of the three-judge panel, Heller said there was no reason for Azaria to open fire since the Palestinian was posing no threat. She called Azaria's testimony "evolving and evasive".
Azaria's demeanour drastically changed as the judge read the verdict. Dressed in a green army uniform, he had entered the courtroom smiling, with family members and supporters applauding him. But he and his family later looked shaken as the judge spoke, with his mother and father huddling together. After the verdict, his mother yelled: "You should be ashamed of yourselves".
Azaria was 19 at the time of the killing in March 2016 in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. In a sign of the tensions surrounding the case, dozens of protesters scuffled with police on Wednesday as they gathered outside Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where the verdict was announced. They held a sign that read: "People of Israel do not abandon a soldier in the battlefield".
The shooting set off intense political debate, with radical prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu having earlier called Azaria's father to express his sympathy.
Others on the right have called for him to be pardoned in an extraordinary public rift between politicians and the country's military.
Before he became Israeli defence minister in May, Avigdor Lieberman was among those showing strong support for Azaria, including attending one of his court appearances.
An important difference between soldiers and terrorists is that the former are professionals who do not shoot helpless, wounded men who truly pose no immediate threat. We need to be certain as to the facts, but if the mook was truly not a threat, then Azaria should not have pulled the trigger.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2017
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#1
The brass learned nothing since Intifada I. Still sacrificing us to "International Opinion". Fucking bastards, this is not the end of this.
The link goes to a 'feels good' 'heroine' 'ordinary woman starts movement' story in the WAPO but the real news is below the lede.
The march Woman's March on Washington formerly million women march on Washington
Soon to be the few hundred women march...
has become a catch-all for a host of liberal causes, from immigrant rights to police killings of African-Americans. bet your botton dollar the pro Sharia and BDS folks will get there too
But at its heart is the demand for equal rights for women after an election that saw the defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee of a major party.
"We plan to make a bold and clear statement to this country on the national and local level that we will not be silent and we will not let anyone roll back the rights we have fought and struggled to get," said Tamika Mallory, a veteran organizer and gun-control advocate and protege of Valjar
who is now one of the march's main organizers.
A girlfriend of mine talked about going on that march. She retired last year as a division head at Mr. Wife's company, and has since busied herself consulting and doing good works, mostly along the lines of Girl Scouts and other efforts to help girls develop the skills to have successful technical careers like hers. She expressed puzzlement that the woman's march somehow ended up on the same day as the inauguration.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/05/2017
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#1
"Dammit! We OWED her a coronation, not weepy drunken defeat!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2017 7:21
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#2
As Allen King once said about the ERA:
"The only way women will get equal rights in the US is to give up a few"
Since most of us with wives know that our society is a matriarchy...
Just more Critical Theory Bull Shit from women's studies and ethnic studies.
#6
On the Newsweek Express cover they advertised the woman's march by placing the women in a formation shaped like the male symbol....The mockery was deep and satisfying.
[IsraelTimes] Rival Paleostinian factions will meet in Moscow on January 15, same day as planned Gay Paree peace confab, TASS news agency says.
Russia will host reconciliation talks in Moscow on January 15 between Fatah and Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, in an attempt to patch up the nearly decade-long rift between the rival Paleostinian factions, according to Russia’s semi-official TASS news agency.
Not that it will work, since Hamas will settle for nothing less than replacing Fatah as ruler of the both Palestinian territories, to which Fatah understandably objects. On the other hand, Fatah's ultimate goal is to return to the pre-2006 status, where it ruled both territories with an iron fist... But neither is likely to turn down the invitation, even if it means they must divert resources from the Paris thingy President Obama is so looking forward to.
The timing of the talks would be conspicuous, as they would be taking place on the same day as a planned Mideast peace conference in Gay Paree.
The fissure between Fatah and Hamas began after Hamas surprisingly won a plurality in the 2006 Paleostinian legislative elections. The two parties fell out when they were unable to reach a power-sharing agreement due in large part to Hamas’s refusal to renounce violence against Israel, with which Fatah was engaged in peace talks. The split came to a head with Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gazoo Strip from the Paleostinian Authority in 2007.
There have been numerous attempts to broker a truce between the two sides since their fallout, including an announcement of a unity government in 2014.
And a proper hudna it was, too, until Hamas's multi-pronged attack against Israel and the PA they had set for the next autumn was sprung early by a couple of bored operatives who couldn't pass up the opportunity for a juicy triple kidnap-murder.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... subsequent discussions on the establishment of such a government did not bear fruit and the two sides remain divided between their separate fiefdoms.
Russia has previously expressed its desire for intra-Paleostinian reconciliation. Speaking in June 2016 at a Gay Paree meeting on how to revive Israel-Paleostinian peace talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov described "the split among Paleostinians" as "another negative factor hampering the grinding of the peace processor," according to TASS.
"This issue should be resolved as the priority task so that the Paleostinians present a single and united delegation at the talks on the final [peace] status," he said at the time.
Bogdanov has also previously said that Russia does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, in contrast to the Israeli and US position on the terror group.
It is not clear what if any impact the reported reconciliation talks will have on the planned Gay Paree peace summit.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is open to resuming peace talks, he has previously refused to negotiate with the Paleostinians if Hamas is included in the discussions.
Israel blamed the 2014 Fatah-Hamas unity pact as having led to the collapse of the last round of peace talks, saying at the time that it would not negotiate with a terror group committed to its destruction.
The Paleostinians view the Gay Paree peace conference as an opportunity to set a framework for future negotiations with Israel and build on the recent United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Security Council resolution and US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and utterly failed Secretary of State... ’s speech condemning Israeli settlement construction as a major obstacle to peace.
Israel has refused to attend the January 15 gathering, with officials insisting that only bilateral negotiations will lead to a peace arrangement. The Paleostinians support the French initiative, which will see representatives of some two dozen countries convening in a bid to jump-start peace efforts.
#3
Why bother brokering such a reconciliation? You probably end up melding two Israel-hating groups into a larger united single focused group hating Israel.
#4
It won't last, JohnQC. The only thing they have in common is being called Palestinians. Different tribes, one set with relatives in Jordan and Syria, the other set with relatives in Egypt; one secular fascist, the other religious fascist; and of course, both want to rule over all of it.
[AlAhram] Egypt's Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday evening the arrest of three more people suspected of involvement in the Cairo church bombing in December that left 28 people dead and over 40 injured.
According to a ministry statement, the three suspects were plotting further terrorist attacks.
The ministry said that one of the suspects is connected to the Moslem Brüderbund, adding that the search is ongoing for more possible suspects.
Four suspects have been incarcerated ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... earlier in December, including one woman.
A jacket wallah, identified as 22-year-old Egyptian national Mahmoud Shafiq Mohammed Mostafa, set off explosives in the women’s section of the St. Peter and St. Paul Church in Cairo in December.
The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group has grabbed credit of the attack, whereas the Egyptian Ministry of Interior accused members of the banned Moslem Brüderbund organization residing in 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... of plotting the bombing.
[AnNahar] Assailants on a cycle of violence fatally shot an Egyptian policeman and maimed another when they opened fire on their vehicle south of Cairo, security sources said.
The attack took place on Tuesday night in Abshway, a town in the governorate of Faiyum, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) from the capital.
"Armed men riding a cycle of violence opened fire on the vehicle carrying Major Mahmud Abdel Alim, head of police detectives at Abshway, and a detective who accompanied him," one security source in the region told AFP.
The detective, Yehia Abdel Satar, died later after suffering two bullet wounds to his chest, said another source.
Major Abdel Alim was transferred to the police hospital in Cairo where he was at death's door.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the shooting.
[AnNahar] A General Security force on Tuesday placed in durance vile Please don't kill me! the runaway A. D. in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... 's al-Zahriyeh neighborhood on suspicion of belonging and communicating with the jihadist 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, LBCI television reported.
A large army unit meanwhile raided a depot in Tripoli's al-Qobbeh district where it seized a quantity of weapons from a parked pickup truck, LBCI said.
State-run National News Agency said an army force raided the rooftop of a house in al-Qobbeh, seizing an RPG-7 rocket launcher.
Earlier in the day, the army's Intelligence Directorate referred to the judiciary an 11-member terrorist cell that was recently arrested in Tripoli and had ties to runawayal-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front bully boy Shadi al-Mawlawi, the army said in a statement.
Mawlawi, who is believed to be hiding in the Ein el-Hellhole Paleostinian refugee camp, had ordered the cell to "send bomb-laden cars to Beirut's suburbs and assassinate civilians and incumbent and retired army officers," the army statement said.
"Based on the confessions of the members of the aforementioned cell, several locations were raided in the city of Tripoli and a large quantity of explosives, a suicide belt, remote detonation devices, weapons, ammunition and a pistol equipped with a silencer were seized," the statement added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/05/2017
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[al-Manar] Two Moroccan peacekeepers died after gunmen attacked their convoy in the Central African Republic’s remote southeast, the UN mission said Wednesday.
The attack Tuesday took place about 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the town of Obo, MINUSCA said, adding: “Two peacekeepers died and two others were injured…the attackers fled into the Bush.”
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.
[Free Beacon] The FBI ran 27.5 million gun-related background checks in 2016--about 4.4 million more than any other year on record.
[The Hill] President-elect Donald Trump is crafting plans to restructure at least two of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, according to a new report.
[Wash Times] Kentucky lawmakers are kicking off the legislative session by fast-tracking a trio of pro-life bills, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and a measure stripping Planned Parenthood of millions in taxpayer funding.
Who could have possibly suspected such an outcome ? 
[Global News] Canadians living in Alberta and Ontario saw gas prices spike in the New Year due to carbon pricing.
[LI] Donald Trump has promised, both himself and through surrogates, to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
[AnNahar] Austrian police are investigating an unprecedented number of sexual assaults carried out by a group of men on New Year's Eve in the western city of Innsbruck, an official said Wednesday.
[DeutscheWelle] Authorities have detained a 26-year-old contact of Anis Amri, the man linked to the Berlin Christmas market attack. Media outlets have reported that the suspect is considered a Salafist capable of taking radical action.
[al-Manar] The Syrian warplanes targeted on Wednesday ISIL gatherings in the vicinity of the military airport and Mount Thorda in Deir Ezzor, killing scores of terrorists.
Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she considered a national currency as a cornerstone of sovereignty, Sputnik reported.
[DailyMail] 
