#6
#1 & #2 of your 'suggestions' are fair possibilities, swksvolFF.
There should be other assets somewhere in the region that would obviate your #3, although I don't know what readiness level they'd be at. Certainly in the time it took the B-2s to come almost halfway around the world, something could be in place.
#4 is curiously interesting.
I'd still would have liked to see a squadron of BUFFs take out the whole district. That would indeed be overkill, but jeez it would be interesting to watch.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/19/2017 21:26
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DV, if they flew a loop between Aviano and Moron with Sirte and Syria as waypoints everyone could watch the ADF C&C light up across the Med. Bombload could be the secondary mission.
DAVOS, Switzerland -- Alibaba founder Jack Ma thinks America went wrong over the past 30 years by focusing too much on war and Wall Street. Speaking at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, Ma was asked about globalisation and the reaction to it represented by the election of Donald Trump as US president.
He responded that back when Thomas Friedman published "The World Is Flat" in 2005, globalisation looked like "a perfect strategy" for the US: "We just want the technology, and the IP, and the brand, and we'll leave the other jobs" to other countries like Mexico and China, he said.
"American international companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalisation," Ma said.
#2
No the companies and the executives made millions but the ordinary Americans got left behind. Hence Trump's victory. Ma Also glides the massive welfare spending and the corruption of American learning with the false social justice positions.
Finally, won't mention that China has benefitted immensely from globalisation as well
#4
Earlier this year, Washington Post economics reporter Jim Tankersley wrote,"The 2000 vote effectively unleashed a flood of outsourcing to China, which in turn exported trillions of dollars of cheap goods back to the United States ... It was the strongest force in an overall manufacturing decline that cost 5 million jobs. Those workers were typically men whose education stopped after high school, a group that has seen its wages fall by 15 percent after adjusting for inflation."
h/t Instapundit
Wisconsin's biennial budget picture got $714 million brighter Wednesday, with a projected deficit turning into a small surplus, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Fiscal bureau director Bob Lang reported tax revenues are expected to be $455 million higher than what the Department of Administration projected in November. Also, spending in the current fiscal year that ends June 30 is expected to be $226 million lower -- largely due to lower-than-expected Medicaid enrollment -- and other revenues are expected to be $33 million higher.
That turns what was thought to be a $693 million deficit for the upcoming budget into a $21 million surplus, including all departmental budget requests.
h/t Instapundit
Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned.
The changes they propose are dramatic.
The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/19/2017 13:15
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#2
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
OMG... the liberals will scream bloody murder over this.
#4
According to the British charity group Oxfam, in 2016 the eight richest men in the world controlled as much capitol as the poorer half of humanity combined. Six of the eight are Americans (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Michael Bloomberg) and all are liberal, even Progressive. Each can easily afford to take on the projects supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Ditto Planned Parenthood. And they'd probably run them more efficiently, too, since they wouldn't have to accept the personnel and government rules along with the projects.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... 's (ISIS) large-scale offensive in Deir Ezzor may have brought them success near the military airport, but the overall attack has proven incredibly costly for the terrorist group.
Over the course of 4 days, the Islamic State reportedly suffered more than 200 dead and several hundred maimed, a Syrian Arab Army official told al-Masdar News on Wednesday.
In addition to high loss of life, the Islamic State has also lost a large number of armored vehicles and military hardware while storming the outskirts of the bustling provincial capital and airport.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung... the official confirmed that the Syrian Arab Army lost a total of 76 soldiers during the 4 day long Deir Ezzor battle, with the majority of the casualties accumulating on Sunday and Monday.
The Deir Ezzor battle resumed this morning, when the Syrian Arab Army launched another powerful assault to recover the territory they lost to the Islamic State over the last 4 days.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
11:12 ||
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#1
The Muslim: "If I take this compass?"
"I'll sit, self-important and pompous,
As drones buzz around me.
It's funny you found me,
Because I was hunting the wumpus."
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been steadily advancing inside the Wadi Barada area of rural Damascus today, capturing several sites from the jihadist rebels of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... (formerly al-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) inside 'Ayn al-Fijah.
Syrian Army soldiers from the 42nd Brigade of the 4th Mechanized Division, alongside Elite Republican Guard units, managed to seize a number of jihadist trenches in 'Ayn al-Fijah, paving the way for their swift advance through this integral village.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Army is now within distance of the strategic water well that feeds into the Syrian capital.
Once this water well is secured, government technicians can begin the restoration of the water supply to Damascus, ending the 4 week long crisis that is plaguing more than 5 million people.
In addition to this advance, the Syrian Arab Army killed one of the top officers from the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... during their military operations on Wednesday.
Colonel Hammoud Douka, a Syrian Arab Army defector, was killed while fighting alongside Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in 'Ayn al-Fijah, Syrian opposition activists reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
11:11 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) launched a counter-offensive in the western countryside of Palmyra on Tuesday, targeting the areas the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) recently liberated near the Jihar Crossroad.
ISIS began the attack by storming the Syrian Arab Army's defenses near the Jihar Crossroad; this resulted in a fierce battle that would last for three hours on Tuesday.
Despite the intensity of the Islamic State attack, the terrorist group was unable to recover any ground near the Jihar Crossroad; instead, they lost two armored vehicles and more than 20 combatants.
As a result of this failed Islamic State attack, the Syrian Arab Army launched a counter-assault to advance their front-lines around the Jihar Crossroad and T-4 Pumping Station.
So far, the Syrian Arab Army has managed to capture some ground near the T-4 Pumping Station this morning; however, nothing substantial.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
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from AlJaz inside is a link to PressTV which has video of the collapse
The 17-storey building dated from the early 1960s and had a shopping centre and clothing workshops inside [AFP]
At least 20 later 30
firefighters have died after a major commercial building in Iran's capital, Tehran, collapsed following a huge fire, according to the city's mayor.
The confirmation of the death toll by Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf came after conflicting casualty reports earlier on Thursday, with some state media outlets initially reporting dozens of deaths but later backtracking.
Firefighters battled the blaze for several hours before the building, just north of the capital's sprawling bazaar, fell. Police tried to keep out shopkeepers and others wanting to rush back in to collect their valuables.
The building came down in a matter of seconds, shown live on state television, which had begun an interview with a journalist at the scene. A thick plume of brown smoke rose over the site after the collapse.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/19/2017
11:03 ||
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#1
So possibly not another case of insh'Allan construction collapse, but casualties due to people running into a burning building to rescue stuff, then the fire didn't melt the steel and the CIA-placed explosives were detonated.
#2
probably not construction error as the building has stood for 50 years
but over the years there were numerous changes to the electrical wiring, ventilation, etc.;
also, apparently, flammable material was stored all over the place with minimal or no sprinklers or smoke detectors
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/19/2017 12:09
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#3
Used to work construction and it was always amazing what had been done to old buildings.
One of the biggies was running modern plumbing in a turn of the century building by boring pipe sized holes through anything in the way. Imagine how the main carrying beams still worked with a hole 2/3 the width of the beam was cut through it.
Had to abandon a couple of projects cause the damn place would have come down around our ears if someone sneezed.
#8
As a former volunteer firefighter, it breaks my heart to read of the firefighters' deaths. I hate to hear of that anyplace. It's a hard and dangerous job. My deepest sympathies to their families.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/19/2017 23:28
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Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/19/2017 13:04
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#3
I was at the Dayton Hamvention about 10 years ago & was nearly killed by a massive man (?500 lb) who tumbled off his electric scooter when he tipped it over at high speed while making it do a 2-wheel turn into a food court at Hara Arena. Watching him fall toward me was like watching an avalanche of flesh.
[Mail] A man who killed two young girls and their parents by slashing their throats and setting their home ablaze during a violent New Year's Day home invasion in Virginia more than 11 years ago has been executed.
Death row inmate Ricky Gray, 39, was pronounced dead at 9.42pm on Wednesday following a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.
#2
He murdered a whole family, including two small children, so of course, his idiot lawyers are still whining (he may have "felt pain from the drugs").
It took far too long, but he's finally where he belongs - burning in HELL.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/19/2017 23:33
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[Huffpoo] Sixty percent of Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing in his final days in office, according to new polls from CNN/ORC and The Washington Post/ABC News, his highest numbers in those polls since June 2009.
Those numbers are slightly higher than polls released earlier in the week. Gallup reported a 57 percent approval rating, and both Monmouth University and NBC News/Wall Street Journal reported 56 percent approval. Rasmussen gives Obama the highest approval rating of this week’s polls, showing the president at 62 percent approval. The lowest is a YouGov/Economist survey that puts him at 52 percent.
Obama’s approval rating has been increasing since early in 2016, but the climb picked up speed after the November election. According to the HuffPost Pollster aggregate, about 56 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, up from 50 percent in the summer of 2016 and about 53 percent on Election Day. Well, if you can't believe pollsters from CNN/ORC and The Washington Post/ABC News, who can you believe.
The trouble with the import tax and export credit system now under consideration by House Republicans is simple: it redistributes rewards and penalties arbitrarily. There are industries that are naturally dependent on imports, for example, retailers and oil refiners. President-elect Trump criticized the House plan as "too complicated," and he's right.
The House is to encourage domestic production by refusing to allow corporations to treat imported items as an expense for tax purposes. But oil refiners import most of their raw material and add a limited amount of value by refining it. The cost of inputs is the majority of the final cost of refined products. If refiners can't expense their input costs, the results would be "devastating," according to a study by the Koch brothers.
...The Republican plan is something like chemotherapy: stress the whole body to kill a few cancer cells. It might help, or it might do more harm than good. But there's an economic equivalent of the new cancer therapies that isolate and attack the pathological cells without sickening the whole organism.
We need a corporate tax cut. And US industries need protection against predatory practices. To quote from the World Trade Organization's website: "A country can use the WTO’s dispute settlement procedure to seek the withdrawal of the subsidy or the removal of its adverse effects. Or the country can launch its own investigation and ultimately charge extra duty (known as "countervailing duty") on subsidized imports that are found to be hurting domestic producers."
China subsidizes industries outrageously--by offering cheap credit to state-owned companies from state-owned banks, and allowing state-owned companies to run at a loss while they crush the competition with low prices. That's how entire industries that began with American innovations turned into Chinese monopolies.
...How do you deal with a organized mercantilism on this scale? I doubt the House Republicans' plan will address it. The answer is to fight fire with fire. When China (or other exporters) subsidize exports to the US, impose tariffs preemptively. We have the right to do so under the World Trade Organization rules. There's no reason to go through long and weary diplomatic dances. Identify the problem, impose a tariff, and let the other side go howling to the World Trade Organization.
How do we know that Chinese companies are using subsidies to undercut US prices? Look at their books. Many if not most state-owned companies are unprofitable and are borrowing money to paper over losses. Most of their data is publicly available, because the state-owned companies went to the public market to obtain capital and have to publish income statements and balance sheets.
It would take a bit of work, but a lot less than one might think--it's the sort of exercise that equity analysts do every day. Targeted tariffs are much better than an across-the-board tariff (which President-elect Trump has suggested on occasion), and they are defensible under WTO rules.
Instead of a Procrustean bed that would penalize US industries that happen to depend on imports due to the nature of their business, the aggressive use of anti-subsidy and anti-dumping tariffs would correct problems before US industries withered and died--as the solar panel industry did in the late 2000s. Tax incentives aren't enough. The Chinese will keep dumping. An adjustment of the Chinese exchange rate with the dollar isn't enough (Chinese producers will just cut their prices in dollars). Better to go right after the offending products and impose a fair price with tariffs.
As Dr. Henry Kressel and I argued in a Nov. 21 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, there's a more extreme and efficacious measure that should be applied to the whole array of defense procurement: demand domestic content for any electronic component that is used in a weapons system or by the national security functions of the US government. That would cost a bit more, but it would be worth it on national security grounds. No computer is safe, as the president-elect said, except for a computer built in the US in a controlled facility. It would have the side benefit of forcing US producers to shift the whole production cycle and supply chain for many high-tech items back to the US.
#1
The trouble with the import tax and export credit system now under consideration by House Republicans is simple: it redistributes rewards and penalties arbitrarily.
Err! so what? As long as it's a level playing field within an industry, it doesn't matter. Any and all taxes arbitrarily penalize.
The House is to encourage domestic production by refusing to allow corporations to treat imported items as an expense for tax purposes.
This is a mistake, which I am sure will be rectified. The imported item cost+tariff should be an expense.
Effectively, a GST/VAT at the border, which strikes me as a good solution. And what happens in the EU's so called Single Market.
#2
For emphasis: demand domestic content for any electronic component that is used in a weapons system or by the national security functions of the US government.
#3
demand domestic content for any electronic component that is used in a weapons system or by the national security functions of the US government.
Sounds like a no brainer to me.
But I think these policies should also take into account that with China and some of these other countries we are pitting American workers against foreign workers whose basic human rights are routinely denied. China in particular has been given a pass in this regard. OTOH, American labor unions price their members out of the global labor market. Further, minimum wage laws prohibit workers at the bottom rungs of the ladder from competing against their overseas counterparts. We have people who are homeless and/or dependent on welfare because the value of their labor is less than the minimum wage. Wouldn't we all be better off if they had to settle for what they're worth?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/19/2017 12:03
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#4
...it would help if 'those in power' didn't flood the low skill market with unlimited labor (uncontrolled immigration), thus dropping the value of such labor.
#5
...it would help if 'those in power' didn't flood the low skill market with unlimited labor (uncontrolled immigration), thus dropping the value of such labor.
What are you suggesting, smashing the democratic incubator ?
#8
Would that not be a good hint that you are incorrect?
No.
I was specifically referring to imports being taxed at the prevailing VAT rate at point of entry, such that they are on an equal tax basis to domestically produced items.
The Washington Post tells the interesting story of Trump secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson and Hugo Chavez. "Rex Tillerson hadn't been CEO of ExxonMobil very long when the late president Hugo Chavez made foreign oil companies in Venezuela an offer they couldn't refuse. Give the government a bigger cut, or else."
Most of the companies took the deal. Tillerson refused.
Chavez responded in 2007 by nationalizing ExxonMobil's considerable assets in the country, which the company valued at $10 billion. The losses were a big blow to Tillerson, who reportedly took the seizure as a personal affront.
Only Tillerson didn't get mad, at least in public. He got even.
Threatened with a weaponized state Tillerson ceded Chavez the physical ExxonMobil assets and took his company to neighboring Guyana. There it developed one of the largest oil finds in the world. Now Guyana is sitting pretty while Venezuela is in abject misery.
#5
I seem to recall they took all the operating manuals with them when they left...
In 1958, French overseas territories were given a choice. If they approved the new French constitution, they had some options:
1) Continue their then-current status.
2) Move toward full integration with metropolitan France.
3) Become an autonomous republic in the new French Community.
If they rejected the new constitution, they would become independent. De Gaulle emphasized that the independent country would not get French economic and financial aid, or technical and administrative support.
Guinea rejected the new constitution. The French pulled out and pretty much took everything 'French', down to the telephone system.
[Free Beacon] Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) at her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that "there’s nothing in life that’s truly free" when the Vermont senator asked if she would support his efforts to make public college education free for all students.
Sanders first read a portion of DeVos’ prepared statement, which said: "Students should make informed choices about what kind of education they want to pursue post-high school, and have access to high-quality options."
"Some of us believe we should make public colleges and universities tuition-free, so that every young person in this country, regardless of income, does have that option. That’s not the case today," Sanders said. "Will you work with me and others to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, through federal and state efforts?"
"Senator, I think that’s a really interesting idea, and it’s really great to consider and think about," DeVos responded. "But I think we also have to consider the fact that there’s nothing in life that’s truly free."
DeVos, a billionaire conservative activist who supports funding charter schools to diversify education options, is a controversial choice to head the Education Department for liberal senators like Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Patty Murray (Wash.), and Sanders.
One sunny day in January, 2017, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama. "The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here. "The old man said, "Okay," and walked away.
The following day the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama. "The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here. "The man thanked him and again just walked away. The third day the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Obama. I’ve told you already that Mr. Obama is no longer the President and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?
"The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it." The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir!"
[Instapundit] ACCORDING TO THE PRESS CONSENSUS, TRUMP IS AN IMPULSIVE GOOFBALL, but he came up with "Make America Great Again" after observing Romney’s defeat in 2012:
It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Office again.
But on the 26th floor of a golden Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.
And in typical fashion, the first thing he thought about was how to brand it.
One after another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Great." That one did not have the right ring. Then, "Make America Great." But that sounded like a slight to the country.
And then, it hit him: "Make America Great Again."
"I said, ’That is so good.’ I wrote it down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, ’See if you can have this registered and trademarked.’ "
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Again" for "political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues and fundraising in the field of politics." He enclosed a $325 registration fee.
His was a vision that ran against the conventional wisdom of the time -- in fact, it was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To save itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Great Again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.
It sounded like a death wish.
But Trump had seen something different in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.
This doesn’t sound like the behavior of an impulsive goofball.
#3
DJT's current strategy, laudatory comments, etc, in reference to Obama should continue. Seasoned with occasional 'faint praise' from his advisers of course.
...At an increasing pace, politics in the West, especially in America, is the surest way to wealth, a 180-out from the West's history. As I explained almost two years ago in, "America is adopting the Middle East model, and it's not Islam," in the Middle East "wealth came from political power because there was no means to create wealth of significance apart of political power."
...Heretofore, the means to create wealth was dispersed. As the result, political power was dispersed along with it. Wealth gains political power, but political power was not needed just to create wealth.
How bad has political thievery become? James Bessen of Boston University Law School says it is so deep that political lobbying is now the second-largest influence on profits for America's large companies.
Government gets bigger and more powerful, which lures companies into viewing Washington as a profit center, which then leads to more policies that expand the size and power of the federal government, which leads to further opportunities for rent-seeking behavior. Lather, rinse, repeat.
...Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, the American Left is not socialist at all; it is fascist, which began in and never departed from Leftism. (Mussolini had been an active member of the Communist International before resigning to start the Fascisti party.) The Republicans are fascist, too, just not as much. But give them 15-20 years and they'll catch up.
#1
Republicans are in the main conservatives who hate the descent to fascism that Mr. Sensing decries as much as he does.
That they have the strength and fortitude to defeat it is not at all clear, but they will try.
When the government is corrupt all players need to lobby and bribe, and only the big ones can succeed in doing so, independent of their party.
Similarly, when terrorists run the government everyone must pretend to support them in order to survive, no matter what their inclinations are.
h/t Instapundit
The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. So the old saw goes, referring to the bravery and discipline of the aristocratic officers the British Army, learned while playing rugby against Harrow.
The Battle of Watergate was won in the network and newspaper editorial offices. There, "an effete corps of impudent snobs," as Bill Safire brilliantly put it, launched a media putsch that panicked a nation into the delusion that a microscopic dabble in an insanely pointless burglary required the execution of the most effective statesman in U.S. history, Richard Nixon.
A handful of contemptuous nabobs of negativism basically seized control of the leading organs of the press and launched an attack that led to genocide in Cambodia among other disasters.
This was, as the genius Edith Efron put it, "news from nowhere," a tale of sound and fury signifying the left’s capture of the media as The Bard might say.
Now they’re trying the same thing on Trump. To break him down by endless attacks on him as a racist and a bully and a dope.
In a way it’s pitiful. John Lewis, d. Ga. Still nursing a head wound from 1966 or ’67. Saying Trump is not a legitimate President because the Russians uncovered that the DNC sabotaged Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Crazy. So Trump fires back that Lewis is a loser. That’s schoolyard nothings except for the following.
The almighty New York Times calls Trump a racist for defending himself against a smear. A black reporter at the Times writes an angry article about Trump as racist... not one fact in it. But no one cares. That’s the news. That leads. No one cares.
The NYT does not call the tune any longer. Voters get their news from a jillion sources on the Internet. The Times is a voice and a big voice. But there are a billion other voices now. And about half of the nation just does not believe Big Media any longer. They don’t buy the vicious lie that white people are all racists. They know that the Black Caucus and Black Lives Matter are real racists. They know Joe Sixpack isn’t and anyway, they don’t care.
They’re sick of being pushed around. They elected a tough guy who won’t be pushed around. He’s a shtarker and he cannot be broken in spirit by the thugs and bullies of the media.
The left will beat and beat and huff and puff. But it’s a different world now. Again... The people who elected Trump don’t remotely believe he’s a racist and they’re sick of hearing it anyway.
This Trump guy. He’s not a sensitive soul like Nixon. He knows how pitifully jealous the media people are. He owes them nothing. He sneers at them. He’s moving them out of the White House. It’s brilliant. He’s making real the truth of now. The media are not good guys by and large. They’re jealous snobs. They are not running the show any longer. One tweet from Trump blows their 5,000 word stories to bits. This battle over Trump’s legitimacy is done. In Trump’s mind and in his legions’ minds, he’s legitimate and the media isn’t. He knows how the world works. It really is a reality TV show now. He’s some dope.
h/t Instapundit
President-elect Donald Trump replaces President Faily McWorsethancarter Friday, but we’re not going to be able to Netflix and chill in the fight for freedom. The left and its establishment allies are desperate to regain the power they see slipping away, and we need to understand that the only way to stop them is to beat them to a pulp and leave them whimpering in the fetal position, crying out for their genderfluid mommies.
The left’s strategy is simple ‐ deny normal Americans normalcy. After all, that’s what we really want, a return to normal.
...Then came 9/11 followed by 15-plus years of botched wars and economic decline, along with an unprecedented cultural offensive against normal Americans. Once the only place you heard that average Americans were racist sexist homophobic everythingist everythingphobic was on college campuses; now, with the active assistance of Obama and his collaborators, it’s everywhere ‐ in our entertainment, in the media, in our faces.
And we’re sick of it.
...Normalcy. It’s what we want, and liberals want to deny it to us in order to doom Donald Trump and reopen their path back into power.
So how will they do it? Constant resistance at every turn. They will ignore norms and rules ‐ remember, norms and rules are only supposed to constrain us. They will lie, cheat, and engage in any conduct that they believe will help their hateful cause. No mercy! No tolerance! - treat them the way they treat us when they've the upper hand.
#4
Now, do we want a president directing his people away from private companies that engage in policies he dislikes? In theory, no. But now that you libs have changed the rules, hell yes!
First off, the libs haven't changed the rules. The left has always promoted Croney socialism. That in no way lends credence to Croney capitalism. Second, his people...WTF? And lastly, if the author hasn't noticed the reactionary left's antics have, and continues to, decimate it's political party. Now's not the time to give them a foil.
Temperate language has traditionally been considered a social virtue, but new research suggests people who refrain from swearing are often the most devious and dishonest. TW, we've gotta talk . . . .
Yes, gorb dear. About the documented distressingly high level of dishonesty in social science research, to begin with.
That was distressingly polite and refreshingly honest, snicker...
Those fond of effing and blinding, by contrast, are likely to be the most honest in any given group, according to academics at the University of Cambridge. Therefore, given Raj's creative ability with indelicate words, I would guess he's probably one of the most honest among us.
I suspect Raj does not use his indelicate vocabulary when speaking with clients, and quite possibly also with his colleagues. This discrimination is a mark of intelligence as is as a varied vocabulary.
Published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the study describes how a cohort of 276 participants were asked to list their favourite swear words in order to gauge how fond they were of turning the air blue.
They were then given a survey asking them to agree or disagree with statements such as "I never lie" and "all my habits are good" to assess their propensity for dishonesty.
All the dishonest ones admitted to it? How novel.
The researchers found that the most honest in the group were also the biggest swearers. Probably because they have low tolerance for BS, because it pi$$es them off, and they react accordingly.
That would be those who self-report as most honest. Remember what I said about the problem with social science research?
Dr David Stillwell, one of the study's authors, said the correlation may stem from the constraints imposed by social convention.
"If you’re trying to follow the social norms rather than saying what you think, you are saying what people want to here," he said.
Hear. Layers of editors and fact checkers strike again.
"In that respect you are not being very honest.
"We did not look at extreme dishonesty such as fraud, so from that experiment it’s an open question as to whether there would be a link."
However, he said the findings corroborate research in the US which links states with a high level of swearing to low levels of honest-related crime.
Oboy. That one wants an entire essay of its own.
States such as New Jersey, where a lot of people use bad language, were found to rank highly on the State Integrity Index, whereas Utah and other places where bad language is a relative rarity saw higher levels of fraud similar offences. I don't believe I've ever heard 0bean use an off-color word. Just sayin'.
Whereas Hillary! does.
"At least people who swear are telling you what they really think," said Dr Stillwell.
"Although if people said what they think all the time, would that really be a good thing?" So TW must serve a function here. Perhaps as a diplomat? ;-)
Probably not, dear gorb.
The researchers also examined the Facebook postings of 75,000 people, where a similar correlation was observed.
People who regularly posted short, simple messages were the least likely to swear. Huh? No room for swear words there.
Dr Sillwell said simple statements are already known to be associated with dishonesty, because liars find it hard to make up complicated sentences. A$$hole!
However, more nuanced language, evidenced by words such as "but" and "however", as well as use of pronouns which associate the speaker with his or her statement, are commonly agreed to indicate honesty. Heh heh! He said 'but'!
In the Facebook analysis, people who spoke in this style were also more likely to swear.
#1
"States such as New Jersey, where a lot of people use bad language, were found to rank highly on the State Integrity Index, whereas Utah and other places where bad language is a relative rarity saw higher levels of fraud similar offences."
New Jersey don't have no corruption???? WTF, we INVENTED corruption!!!!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
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Fraud in Utah is more common because Mormons tend to be more trusting and therefore more easily conned. Doesn't mean Utah residents are more dishonest or devious.
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#5
You know I adore you, gorb. But this is an area I know something about (scientific research in general, psych experiments more specifically) and you did address me by name. Names are magic -- everyone knows that.
#7
:-). Which is the real one, g(r)omgoru: my English name (which carries the shadow of the grandmother I was named for; she had names in three languages, all different than the English one I was given -- we share a nickname), my Hebrew name, the name my Spanish teacher gave me, any of the various nicknames and endearments different people address me with, or my Rantburg nym?
#11
I find it difficult to make complicated sentences because I had a public school education, of which, my parents had choices, but, since they grew up in the mountains of Kentucky, felt, if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me.
Yesterday at about 12:00 a visiting USA couple, both in their sixties, was hijacked between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage.
They stopped next to the road to take photographs when they were overpowered by two unknown males and forced to drive to a bushy area near Motherwell Township.
They were robbed of personal belongings and left tied in the bushes.
A local farmer noticed the abandoned vehicle and alerted police. SAPS Air Support was summoned and the couple was found with slight injuries. Several leads are being followed.
The Provincial Commissioner of the Eastern Cape applauded the swift response of all involved in the search for the couple and applauded the farmer for his alertness and reporting his suspicions to the SAPS.
[Inquirer] AS EXPECTED, the European Parliament's legal affairs committee voted in favour of extending rights to robots, granting them what the committee called "electronic personhood", by 17 votes to two, with two abstentions.
The robot 'bill of rights' is intended to cover such issues as liability, such as when automated or robotic systems are involved in accidents or go postal, as well as ethical issues, such as should it be legal to beat your robot? Related article from TECHSPOT
[SUN] A newly released cache of CIA documents reveals UFO sightings and psychic experiments from the "Stargate programme", which has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists.
The project was the codename for a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1978 at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). It aimed to investigate the potential for psychic phenomena to be used by the military and intelligence services.
The Stargate programme inspired the 2009 film The Men Who Stare At Goats starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor.
Some of the files surround the weird investigation and reveal how Geller was probed during a week-long series of tests. Link to Uri Geller web site.
[Guardian] Drivers in Paris must display an anti-pollution sticker in their vehicles or face fines in the latest attempt by the French authorities to improve air quality.
The sticker scheme, which became mandatory on Monday, includes cars, lorries, motorcycles and scooters, and bans some vehicles from the city during weekdays.
It follows numerous spikes in pollution in which smog has descended over the French capital, forcing traffic reduction measures and the introduction of free public transport on the worst days.
The six different coloured Crit’Air (air criteria) stickers indicate the age and cleanliness of a vehicle. Certain vehicles ‐ including petrol and diesel cars registered before 1996; vans registered before 1997; pre-2000 scooters and motorbikes; and lorries, trucks and buses from before 2001 ‐ are banned from the city between 8am and 8pm.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is officially asking the public for help heading off a looming threat to information security: quantum computers, which could potentially break the encryption codes used to protect privacy in digital systems. NIST is requesting methods and strategies from the world’s cryptographers, with the deadline less than a year away.
The Call for Proposals for Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization (link is external), announced today in the Federal Register, is NIST’s first formal step toward countering the danger that quantum computers pose to the security of digital information. Though practical quantum computers have yet to be built, their design—which would draw upon very different scientific concepts than conventional computers—would enable them to break some of the cryptographic algorithms commonly used to protect electronic messages.
With the public’s participation, NIST intends to spend the next few years gathering, testing and ultimately recommending new algorithms that would be less susceptible to a quantum computer’s attack.
First up is the gathering stage. Cryptographers can send proposed algorithms to NIST by Nov. 30, 2017. Full details are available at nist.gov/pqcrypto, but according to NIST mathematician Dustin Moody, their main concern should be with new algorithms for public key cryptography (link is external), a commonly used method of protecting information that uses electronic keys to unlock secrets.
Widely used public key cryptographic systems, which protect electronic banking data and many other kinds of information, use pairs of very large numbers to serve as the keys for decrypting the message. These numbers can be hidden by multiplying them together to produce even larger numbers that a conventional computer cannot easily factor. However, a quantum computer would be able to find the initial two numbers quickly, breaking the encryption.
“We’re looking to replace three NIST cryptographic standards and guidelines that would be the most vulnerable to quantum computers,” Moody said, referring to FIPS 186-4, NIST SP 800-56A and NIST SP 800-56B. “They deal with encryption, key establishment and digital signatures, all of which use forms of public key cryptography.”
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has made an unannounced trip to Syria and Lebanon, traveling to the region two months after she sat down with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy.
The Hawaii congresswoman has frequently challenged President Barack Obama on national security issues. In the meeting with Trump, she warned him about escalating the civil war in Syria by establishing a no-fly zone to protect civilians from bombing. She has said she believes that creating such a safe zone off limits to military aircraft could bring the U.S. into direct conflict with Russia and result in nuclear war.
Spokeswoman Emily Latimer said Wednesday that Gabbard, who is a major in the Army National Guard, "has long been committed to peace and ending counterproductive, interventionist wars."
Latimer wouldn’t say if Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"As a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, and as an individual committed to doing all she can to promote and work for peace, she felt it was important to meet with a number of individuals and groups including religious leaders, humanitarian workers, refugees and government and community leaders," Latimer said in a statement.
She said she wouldn’t provide any additional details on the trip until Gabbard returns.
#7
Except with Trump, a military background seems to be plus, not a Zero.
I think there is a play on words in there, somewhere.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/19/2017 13:22
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#8
Red resumés: Background in marching
Through styrofoam columns and arching;
In whitewash and hiding;
In ghostwritten writing;
In collars that needed no starching.
[Daily Caller] An official for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California mocked elderly white people at a city council meeting last week, telling them they had "five years left."
Rialto, California, held a regularly scheduled city council meeting last Tuesday after a city councilman apologized for planning an event to discuss the possibility of Rialto becoming a "sanctuary city."
Luis Nolasco, a community engagement and policy advocate for the ACLU of Southern California, stood up to speak at the city council meeting and attacked many of the white people present, saying they are not actual residents of Rialto.
It may have just been coincidence, or perhaps something more symbolic, but whatever it was, Joe Biden saw the lights go out on him as he mentioned US “leadership” during his last major speech as vice president, in Davos, Switzerland.
"We are going to retain our position of leadership," Biden was telling the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, when the lights on stage began to dim.
Rendered a dark silhouette, and seemingly unimpressed, the outgoing vice president carried on talking about the West's ideas and visions of the world. "If we don't fight for our values, no one else will," he said from the darkness.
An Iraqi Islamist holy warrior was one of the jacket wallahs who went kaboom! outside the Stade de La Belle France during the November 2015 attacks on Gay Paree, a French intelligence source said Wednesday.
Until now, only one of the three bombers who detonated their explosives outside the stadium during a La Belle France-Germany friendly had been identified: Bilal Hadfi, a 20-year-old Frenchie living in Belgium.
La Belle France's DGSE intelligence agency now believes that one of Hadfi's accomplices, who was carrying a fake Syrian passport, was Ammar Ramadan Mansour Mohamad al-Sabaawi from the Iraqi city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... He and the third attacker, whose identity is still unknown, are believed to have slipped into Europe with a group of refugees who landed on the Greek island of Leros on October 3, 2015.
One person was killed in the Stade de La Belle France attack which marked the start of a series of coordinated strikes around Gay Paree on the evening of November 13, 2015, that 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.... (IS) group.
In all 130 people were killed that night as a group of gunnies went on the rampage, spraying bars and restaurants with bullets and killing 90 people attending a rock concert at the Bataclan theatre.
In a memo from February 2016 that was declassified in December, DGSE agents said IS paid the Iraqi's family the equivalent of $5,000 (around 4,670 euros) in Iraqi dinars in compensation for his death.
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[Daily Excelsior] Security forces today tossed in the calaboose Book 'im, Mahmoud! a Lion of Islam of Hizbul Mujahideen from Tral area of South Kashmire’s Pulwama district and recovered a pistol and its ammunition from his possession.
Police and Army in a joint operation arrested Arzoo Bashir of Mandoora Tral in Pulwama today. Sources said that the security forces conducted an operation in Tral area during which they arrested the HM Lion of Islam who was active in the area. One pistol and 15 rounds of ammunition were recovered from his possession.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which compromises mostly of the Kurdish YPG, have captured three ISIS child soldiers in a town in Raqqa's western countrysides.
According to an SDF front man in the video, the children will be investigated before they are returned to their families to resume a normal life as it was before the ISIS invasion.
In the video, the SDF soldiers call out to the children to strip their upper clothing to ensure they are not carrying boom jackets, in which the children respond they have nothing, as all weapons were inside the house.
They then emphasize that they are brothers with the SDF.
As ISIS has mostly been retracting in the Aleppo, Raqqa and Nineveh countrysides, they have increasingly been relying on child soldiers to stregnthen their fighting forces.
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#1
Using children as soldiers is a last ditch choice. You know you are losing when all you have left to fight with are the kids.
It is "last legs" policy.
You just say screw the pooch I admit I HAVE no future when you throw in your kids.
Islam is hardly marching on, next stop the grave.
Buh-byee.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least loyalists of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were killed in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province of Afghanistan.
According to the local security officials, the loyalists of the terror group suffered the casualties after their attack was repulsed.
The officials further added that ISIS loyalists launched the attack on some check posts located in Haska Mina district late on Tuesday night.
According to the officials, at least four loyalists of the terror group were also maimed during the festivities.
No further details were given regarding the possible casualties of the security forces.
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Launching a seething attack on the red-green parties in Malmo, Magnus Olsson said it was time to call in the military to end the surge in violent crimes that have been sweeping the city.
Painting a bleak picture of Sweden’s third largest city, the opposition politician blasted Malmo has lost enough of its citizens to shootouts, grenade attacks and murders. Speaking to Expressen, Mr Olsson also said there was a great lack of police officers in Sweden, which means officers could benefit from the armed forces’ resources.
He said: “There is a great lack of police officers in Sweden and Malmö. For this reason, it is perhaps time to let the military and police to stand together to reestablish order in the country.
#2
And then the day that comedians can finally come down on the right side of that *ideology*.
The willingness to make fun of *backwards-ass* behavior, and bring others along with the realization of just how out of step that behavior is, is a big part of relegating it to the ash-bin of history.
#3
it was time to call in the military to end the surge in violent crimes that have been sweeping the city
OK, great. Suppose you have a soldier every ten feet. Are you going to keep the soldiers there until they are overrun by Muslims, or are you going to send the Muslims packing back to Germany where they will be loved?
#5
Far rarer in Sweden than elves
Are Swedes who look out for themselves,
So pity poor Olsson
Who'll poll like Al Jolson
No matter how stoutly he delves.
[DAWN] Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... asked the Afghan leadership to stop blaming Islamabad for the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and advised them to instead review their "fragmented" approach to peace talks with the Taliban on the resilient insurgency, reported VoA on Wednesday.
In an interview to the US-based media outlet, Sartaj Aziz said that a "lack of political consensus and prevailing ambiguity in Afghanistan about whether to treat Taliban gunnies as Lions of Islam or stakeholders" in national politics had blocked the internationally-backed efforts to start peace talks between the warring sides.
"Their approach to talks with the Taliban is very, very fragmented," he said. "We want the [Afghan] government of national unity to succeed, to establish its writ, we want them to send a clear signal to the Taliban and other groups that the whole world wants them [insurgents] to talk [to Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... ] and solve the problem because nobody wants fighting in Afghanistan to continue."
A clarity in the Afghan approach coupled with Pakistain’s resolve to prevent the use of its soil against Afghanistan and international pressure may send "right signals" to the Taliban and they may come to the table for peace talks, the report quoted Aziz as saying.
"I think they will come under greater pressure and so, if serious negotiations begin in 2017, that will be our best hope for peace in Afghanistan," Aziz told VoA.
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least 31 gunnies belonging to the notorious Haqqani terrorist network have been tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! in Southeastern Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS), said the murderous Moslems apprehended by the intelligence operatives, were operating in two different groups led by the terrorist network.
NDS further added that the murderous Moslems were arrested during the two separate military operations.
According to NDS, the murderous Moslems were involved in various terrorist activities in Khost province.
The National Directorate of Security also added that the intelligence operatives confiscated 2 cycle of violences, 50 magnetic bombs, 6 hand grenades, 18 RPG rockets, 36 boxes of heavy machine gun, 5 boxes of AK-47 rifle ammunition, 80 AK-47 rifle magazines, and 3 vehicles used by the murderous Moslems without having registration plate numbers.
Haqqani network was formed in the late 1970s by Jalaluddin Haqqani ...founder and still titular head of the Haqqani Network. Jalaluddin is old and tough and very crafty, one of the few Pashtun warlords who was worth spit... . The group is allied with al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban and cooperates with other terrorist organizations in the region.
The network is accused of staging numerous cross-border attacks from their base in North Wazoo, including the 19-hour siege at the US Embassy in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... in September 2011.
It is considered the most lethal turban group targeting the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... -led coalition security forces and Afghan personnel in Afghanistan.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) Hezbollah's Iraqi branch...
have managed on Wednesday to liberate two areas in Nineveh Plain, IraqiNews reported.
The media office of the PMU said in a press statement that "Forces from al-Hashd al-Shaabi’s 8th brigade liberated, today, the areas of Upper Glokhan and al-Baraem neighborhood in Nineveh Plain."
"The security forces also detonated three boom-mobiles, as well as killing six members of ISIS who attacked the al-Hadr intersection, south of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... ," the statement added.
Yesterday, the PMU also managed to shoot down a drone belonging to ISIS, west of Mosul, according to IraqiNews.
Nineveh (Islamic State) Iraqi military intelligence services said Wednesday they seized Islamic State offices in eastern Mosul as operations proceed to clear that part of the city from militants.
A statement by the service said the offices were used by IS Russian and Tajik fighters, and were found to contain “an integral communication system”.
The facility also contained documents promoting Islamic State ideology both in Arabic and Russian.
The statement added that agents, searching another facility in Hadba and al-Kindi areas, also ran into mannequins which militants would clad with military uniforms as a decoys for advancing security forces.
Last October, Iraqi forces, backed by US-led advisers and fighter jets, as well as popular militias, launched operations to retake the city which fell to Islamic State militants in 2014. Iraqi generals said recently they became in control over 90 percent of the city’s eastern section and hope to move later to recapture the IS-held west.
The recapture of Mosul, IS’s last urban stronghold in Iraq, would represent the most remarkable victory over the extremist group in Iraq and deal the strongest blow to its influence in the region. Mosul was previously designated as the capital of the group’s self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A commander at Iraqi joint forces’ battles against Islamic State militants in eastern Mosul denied Wednesday reports that the east of the city was completely liberated.
News websites had circulated a statement by the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Forces, which spearheaded the battles against the extremist group in Mosul since October, saying the eastern side of Mosul was officially liberated, and that 3300 militants were killed since the launch of operations.
It was later clarified that the force only became in control over districts assigned to it, as explained by Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, who leads the Joint Operations Command battles in Nineveh.
However, the government forces are still a few districts away from announcing the full recapture of that region.
A JOC spokesperson, Brigadieer General Yahia Rasoul, was quoted Tuesday as saying that only four districts remained to declare eastern Mosul as Islamic State-free.
The recapture of eastern Mosul would represent a significant impetus for forces which hope to move to the IS-dominated western region of Mosul.
Yarallah said in a statement the forces recaptured the Athariya (archaeological) zone, Tel Nerkal and al-Qadiya in the northeast.
Also in the northeast, Anadolu Agency, quoting a senior commander in the counter-terrorism troops, Fallah al-Abbassi, said 10 civilians were killed, including women and children, and 13 others were wounded when IS militants shelled districts recently recaptured by security forces.
Conflict in Mosul forced at least 178.000 people to flee to refugee camps, and the United Nations had voiced fears that battles could force at least one million out of homes.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday, that Iraqi Air Force destroyed an explosives laboratory and a fuel station belonging to the Islamic State in eastern Mosul.
The ministry said in a press statement, “F16 and L159 fighter jets of the Iraqi Air Force conducted several air strikes, based on information obtained from the General Directorate of Intelligence and Security, against the Islamic State in eastern Mosul.”
“The air strikes destructed an explosives laboratory, caches of weapons and a fuel station belonging to the Islamic State in the areas of al-Rashidiyah, al-Amel neighborhood and al-Qobba in eastern Mosul,” the statement added.
Nineveh Province is witnessing extensive military operations since October 2016, to retake the city of Mosul that was captured by the Islamic State in June 2014.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] An Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) Death Eater who killed 39 people while wounding 65 others in a nightclub in Istanbul’s Ortaköy district on Jan. 1 took the orders to stage the attack from an ISIS emir in Syria’s Raqqa, according to Turkish authorities.
Abdulkadir Masharipov, the 34-year-old ISIS Death Eater who was apprehended by Turkish police late on Jan. 16 after two weeks on the run, said he initially went to Istanbul’s Taksim Square to stage an attack, but "there were too many precautions," so he chose the Reina nightclub to attack.
Continued on Page 49
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The organizer of the photography exhibition where Russian Ambassador to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... Andrey Karlov was assassinated has been detained along with an Ankara police officer, almost a month after the killing.
The exhibition organizer, identified only by the initials T.Ö., and the police officer, whose identity was not disclosed, were detained on Jan. 17 after the former’s statements alleging that the gunman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, may have visited the arts center three days before the attack.
In his statement right after the shooting, T.Ö. had also said they thought Altintas was an official bodyguard before the killing took place.
Altintas was rubbed out by police at the scene while he was delivering a speech after shooting Karlov.
The police officer, meanwhile, is suspected of protecting Altintas at the police department where he used to work.
Ambassador Karlov was rubbed out on Dec. 19, 2016 by Altintas, who entered the gallery with his police ID and was standing behind the victim at the time of the liquidation.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The U.S. military said on Jan. 17 that it had carried out air strikes in Syria against Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) targets of interest to both Washington and Ankara near the town of al-Bab, following Turkish criticism of insufficient U.S. support for its ground offensive.
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based front man for the U.S.-led military coalition battling ISIS, counted four strikes in recent days against the jihadists’ targets that he said were in both countries’ "mutual interest."
"We saw a window of opportunity where it was in our mutual interest to get those targets destroyed," Rooters quoted Dorrian as saying, adding that the targets were identified by working with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... They included an armored personnel carrier and ISIS tactical units, he said.
"This is something we expect to continue doing. We strike [ISIS] targets anywhere in Syria or Iraq that they can be found," Dorrian told news hounds at the Pentagon.
Dorrian added the targets were "mutually developed" by the United States and Turkey. But the extent of U.S. support for Turkey’s actions on the ground around al-Bab remained unclear as part of the ongoing Euphrates Shield operation.
Turkey has been angered by U.S. policy in Syria, particularly Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and fighters from its military wing, the People’s Protection Unit (YPG), which it sees as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighting within Turkey. Both Washington and Ankara classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Turkey has also accused Washington of failing to do enough to support its push to take al-Bab from ISIS even as the country provides the U.S.-led coalition with access to the Incirlik Air Base to stage operations in Syria.
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Egypt's High State Security prosecution referred on Wednesday 304 people to military prosecution for membership in the Islamist Death Eater group Hasm,
...The newest armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They've been getting feisty in the Cairo area since early October, 2016. Hasm apparently means "decisiveness" in Arabic ...
which has grabbed credit for a number of deadly attacks on security forces and liquidations of public figures over the past six months.
According to a statement by the High State Security prosecution, 144 people have been tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! and are currently detained pending investigations, including leading Moslem Brüderbund member Mohammed Ali Beshr.
The prosecution said the case is "one of the largest" to be referred recently to military prosecution.
The prosecution added that the defendants are responsible for a number of attacks against security forces and public figures, including the attempt to assassinate former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa and the liquidation of high ranking army officer Adel Ragaei.
The prosecution also said that Hasm, along with Death Eater group Lewaa al-Thawra, was formed by leading figures in the banned Moslem Brüderbund in an "attempt to revive its Death Eater wing."
The prosecution also said that the security forces raided 41 Death Eater hideouts.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) One civilian was killed and 3 were wounded on Wednesday when an explosive device went off in southern Baghdad, a security source said.
The explosive device had been placed near commercial shops in Arab Jabour, south of the capital, Jordan news agency Petra reported, quoting Alaa al-Tamimi, a spokesperson of the interior ministry.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing yet, but Islamic State militants have said they were responsible for several bloody explosions that hit the capital in recent weeks, bringing the governorate municipal and security officials under critics’ fire.
Violence surged in Iraq with the emergence of Islamic State militants who took over large areas of the country in 2014. Baghdad has been witnessing almost daily bombings targeting civilians and security personnel.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) says violence in the country had left 19000 casualties in nine months of 2016.
Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure by government forces on that front and to divert attention from group losses.
While losing Mosul could be the severest blow to the group’s existence in Iraq, some observers believe attacks outside the province prove that the extremist group can still pose a security threat.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A police source revealed that five persons were either killed or wounded in a bomb blast near a popular market, southeast of Baghdad, Alsumaria News reported on Wednesday.
The source said, “An improvised explosive device exploded, this evening, near a popular market in Madain District, southeast of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding four others.”
“Security forces cordoned off the area of incident and barred approaching it,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
“Ambulances rushed to the area and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital and the body to the forensic medicine department,” the source explained.
Earlier today, three persons were wounded in the explosion of an improvised explosive device near shops in Arab Jabour area, south of Baghdad.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Istanbul prosecutors on Jan. 18 demanded up to 10 years in prison for 28 suspects, including popular Turkish singer Atilla Tas, over alleged links to what they call the "Fethullah Terror Organization (FETÖ)."
The suspects, 25 of whom are under arrest, face prison terms of up to 10 years on charges of being members of an armed organization.
Tas, who first rose to prominence in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... as a singer, was writing columns for the daily Meydan newspaper, which was shut down as part of the probe into the Gulen network after the July 2016 coup attempt. He became more popular on social media with his active role in the summer 2013 anti-government Gezi Park protests.
The indictment stated that dozens of Tas’s tweets posted on Twitter from 2011 to 2016 were examined as part of the probe.
Another suspect in the same probe, Said Sefa, faces an aggravated life sentence and up to 15 years in jail on charges of "being in the leadership position of a terror organization" and of "attempting to abolish the Turkish government."
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will name former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as his nominee for secretary of agriculture on Thursday, a senior transition official said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Perdue, 70, served on Trump's agricultural advisory committee during his presidential campaign. His nomination, which must be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, will complete Trump's proposed Cabinet just two days before he is sworn in as president on Friday.
During his time as governor, Perdue's key agricultural issues included water management and making changes to the tax code that were beneficial to farmers, said Jeffrey Harvey, legislative director for the Georgia Farm Bureau.
Perdue, a Republican, was elected to two terms as governor, serving from 2003 to 2011. Before that, he served in the state Senate representing a rural swath of the state about 100 miles (160 km) south of Atlanta.
After finishing his second term as governor, Perdue founded Perdue Partners, a global trading firm that consults and provides services for companies looking to export products.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Former US president George H W Bush has been hospitalized yet again in Houston, local media reported yesterday.
The 92-year-old, who has seen his share of recent health incidents, had fallen ill but was in stable, pH balanced condition and "doing fine," his chief of staff Jean Becker told the Houston Chronicle.
The former president was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital and is expected to return home in several days, although the reason for his hospitalization was not provided, according to local CBS affiliate KHOU.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
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#1
...Pulled honor guard for him once, many many years ago. Seemed like a decent fella, and I hope he's well soon.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/19/2017 5:08
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#2
He wrote a lovely letter of apology to incoming President Trump explaining that he'll have to miss the inauguration. Mrs. Bush was also hospitalized, in her case for exhaustion, I believe.
#3
Barbara Bush has a 'respiratory' infection according to something I read last night. At her age, plus her husbands issues that I'm sure are weighing on her, hospitalization is called for (unless the ACA rules for elderly patients are invoked).
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/19/2017 11:38
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According to a Times of Israel brief, Mrs. Bush has bronchitis, but is responding well to antibiotics. The former president remains stable, his pneumonia not having worsened.
[ALMASDARNEWS] Moscow welcomes the Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... group’s readiness to join talks with Syria’s government, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday commenting on media reports saying that Mohammed Alloush, one of the group’s leaders, may head the Syrian armed opposition delegation at the Astana talks.
"As far as the participants list and the armed opposition delegation head go, I would like to emphasize once again that apart from the Syrian government, those armed opposition groups, that signed the December 29 agreements, have been invited to take part in the Astana talks," the Russian foreign minister stressed. "We have a list of them, and as I assume, they will form their delegation based on this list."
According to Lavrov, it is not obligatory that all groups send their members "but the delegation will represent all those who signed the December 29 agreements."
"Jaish al-Islam participates in the agreements reached on December 29. Whatever attitude some countries may adopt towards this group, it has not been blacklisted by the UN Security Council as a terror group," Lavrov pointed out. "Along with other armed opposition groups, Jaish al-Islam has also expressed readiness to sign the agreements on establishing a ceasefire and holding talks with the Syrian government, so we welcome this approach."
"Those not affiliated with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... and Jabhat al-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 .. ... (terror groups outlawed in Russia) are eligible to join the December 29 agreements, and we urge them to do it," the Russian top diplomat concluded.
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[Libya Observer] A crew of the Afriqiyah Airways was beaten by a number of gunnies, who are suspected to be part of the National Mobile Force, on Tuesday as they were passing through a checkpoint for the gang in Hay al-ANdalus, 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... An Afriqiya Airways pilot, Captain Abdelkarim al-Namsi, confirmed that he had been assaulted violently on his way back home coming from Mitiga airport after he was aboard a flight from Tunisian to Tripoli.
"I was stopped by the National Mobile Force at Hay al-Andalus and I was beaten, sworn at, humiliated, and robbed without any reason but that I was coming from Mitiga airport." The pilot wrote on his Facebook page.
Some of the gangs of the National Mobile Force blocked certain main roads in Hay al-Andalus this week over the arrest of one of their big shots, Adel Sifao (AKA al-Shita), by the Special Deterrent Force when it stormed into Gergaresh area last Saturday.
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[Libya Observer] The Public Services Company for Cleaning Works in Sirte continues to clean the areas of the western main road of the city before the expected arrival of the displaced people to their houses.
Al-Bunyan al-Marsoos has given the go-ahead for the IDPs to return to their houses in Sirte.
The Chairman of the company, Bashir al-Ahrash, said the cleaning campaign will move through 700 Buildings Neighborhood, 101 Neighborhood, al-Zaafaran area, al-Gharibat farms road, al-Daeri road, and the western city main road.
"We cleaned those areas from garbage and we also removed the sand barriers that have been piled up on Sirte streets for over a year." He added.
Al-Ahrash indicated that the company’s workers, in conjunction with the Sirte security operations room, have also cleaned a number of schools, mosques and parks in the areas, besides planting new ornamental trees to receive the returning Sirte residents.
Most of the displaced families from Sirte suburbs have come back to their houses, but the IDPs from the city-center of Sirte have not due to the considerable destruction that was done to the areas’ neighborhoods, not to mention the war remnants that are still being removed by the specialized units, according to sources from Sirte operations room.
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[RUDAW.NET] The myth of ISIS has been "blown up" and the Kurds have played an "indispensable" role in combatting them, said a senior White House staffer reflecting on the objective of President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... to degrade and destroy the holy warrior group.
Twenty-eight months ago, Obama addressed the US nation on his strategy to counter ISIS, also known as ISIS. "Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIS through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy."
He outlined four prongs to this strategy: systematic Arclight airstrikes, increased support to forces on the ground, increased counter-terrorism efforts to cut ISIS’ funding and counter its message, and provide humanitarian assistance to the displaced.
At a press briefing on Tuesday with Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications at the White House, Rudaw’s Namo Abdulla asked him to assess achievements made against ISIS in the last days of Obama’s presidency.
Describing ISIS’ appeal as a group "on the move," establishing a Caliphate, Rhodes said, "I think that myth has been blown up. There is no longer this triumphalism."
It is clear, he continued, "that ultimately they are going to lose the territory they hold and they’re gonna be what they are, which is a terrorist organization and not a state."
Rhodes detailed that ISIS has been degraded in many ways. They have lost nearly half of the territory they once controlled in Iraq and Syria, "and that includes major population centres."
The number of imported muscle seeking to join the group has declined significantly. "And that’s the clearest indicator that you have that the allure is not what it was a few years ago."
ISIS has also taken a big hit financially, inhibiting their efforts to establish governance.
In the fight against ISIS, Kurds have been an invaluable partner. Kurdish forces were the first to push back against ISIS in Iraq and it was through their coordination with Iraqi forces, Sunni tribes, and local militias that has allowed the whole anti-ISIS campaign in the country to see the success it has, Rhodes said.
"In the darkest days when we first intervened and we were seeking to organise a mix of security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq really began the first push back against ISIS to hold that line when we intervened to save the Yazidis in Sinjar to obviously protect Erbil and to start to push back."
He commended the coordination between Kurdish and Iraqi forces, noting that this effective coordination was partly possible because Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi replaced former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "who had soured relations completely with the Sunni community and significantly with the Kurdish community inside Iraq."
Routing ISIS in Kobane was also only possible because of the Kurdish forces, Rhodes added, who are working well with Arab forces in northern Syria and taking care to balance all the ethnic groups in the region.
The effectiveness of the forces in northern Syria against ISIS is partly because Kurds have "worked across lines of sects and communities in ways that have allowed their campaign to move forward," he said.
Going forward, Rhodes believes the main fight against ISIS will be taken out of the Middle East as forces of Evil leave Iraq and Syria and seek to carry out attacks in Europe and around the world.
"That becomes a more traditional intelligence and law enforcement challenge and that necessitates continued efforts to work more with Moslem majority countries around the world to push back against the ideology of ISIS," said Rhodes.
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#1
He outlined four prongs to this strategy: (1)systematic Arclight airstrikes, (2)increased support to forces on the ground, (3)increased counter-terrorism efforts to cut ISIS’ funding and counter its message, (4)and provide humanitarian assistance to the displaced.
If this were basketball:
1) shoot for 3 points
2) double-team the zone
3) strategic fouls
4) play the bench
#2
"Kobani does not define the strategy for the coalition in respect to Daesh,"
John Kerry, 2014
IIRC, ISJV was running the table and Kobani was very much in doubt. There was no public US support for the Kurds until: the Yazidis fled to Kurdistan instead of Iraq or were enslaved and raped, brutal ISJV propaganda was released, that gal gave a grand speech in the Iraqi parliament, and the Kurds won Kobani.
[NBCBayArea] Jewish community centers around the country were again targeted with bomb threats Wednesday morning, a week after a spate of similar threats against many centers. Centers in Miami, Newton, Massachusetts, Scotch Plains, New Jersey, California's Bay Area, and Portland, Maine, were targeted. Two centers in Connecticut, one at the JCC of Greater New Haven in Woodbridge and another at The Mandell JCC West Hartford, also reported receiving bomb threats.
Marla Cohen, communications manager for the New-York based, JCC Association of North America said that 28 centers in 17 states have been threatened in total on Wednesday. Last week, there were 16 JCCs threatened in nine states. She said some of the threats came in as robo dialers and some were actual people. Last week, the FBI was called in, she said.
A JCC building in Marin County, California, was also evacuated as a precaution after a threat.
"We don’t know what’s going on. There are a lot of unknowns," said Jeremy Russell, of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco. "We are very concerned about the existence of these calls and the literal threat they are imposing on the community. We will be responding appropriately."
There were no injuries or actual explosives reported found following the earlier bomb threats.
"I think this is the world we now live in," said Molly Jo Rosen, who works at Kol Shofar synagogue in Tiburon, California. "There will be threats to religious organizations and we'll see it skewed toward certain religions more than others."
Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Networks — an affiliate of the Jewish federations of North America, which advises Jewish groups and institutions on security — said there were bomb threats called in Wednesday to Jewish community centers, schools and other institutions in Miami; Edison, New Jersey; Cincinnati; Alabama; and on the West Coast.
News reports also cited threats in Albany, New York; Nashville; suburban Boston and Detroit; West Hartford, Connecticut; and the Orlando area.
Additional threats were being reported early Wednesday afternoon.
In many cases Wednesday the callers were live, Goldenberg said, as opposed to the previous round of threats, when calls were recorded.
[IsraelTimes] Federal authorities said Wednesday that they are launching an official probe into a wave of bomb threats to US Jewish institutions across the country in recent weeks, the latest of which came earlier Wednesday when at least 32 Jewish centers in 16 states received threats.
The FBI said the bureau and the Justice Department’s civil-rights division are investigating “possible civil rights violations in connection with threats.” The statement from the agency’s Washington headquarters didn’t characterize the threats.
“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough, and impartial manner,” the bureau said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2017
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#1
Couldn't be the RoP; must be the KKK again, like 100 years ago. Or maybe not - Robert Byrd died, I think.
#3
When Moslems come waving their sabers,
What hinders them most in their labors?
Community caring
And interfaith sharing
Or gun-toting patrons and neighbors?
#5
“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough, and impartial manner”
Y'know, this official statement could've come from any law enforcement agency, in any Western country. The "possible civil rights violations" is a particularly... American... touch, though, eh?
[ALMASDARNEWS] 14 members of the Federal Police were either killed or maimed and a further five others kidnapped by ISIS in an attack on their headquarters in Albu Eissa, a security source in Salahuddin Province told al-Sumaria News on Wednesday.
"ISIS launched an attack, at dawn today, on the Federal Police headquarters in Albu Eissa area, northeast of al-Daluiyah, killing six elements of the Federal Police and wounding eight others," the source revealed
"ISIS members also kidnapped five other members of the Federal Police, before fleeing to an unknown destination," the source added.
Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) An official source in Salahuddin Province revealed that four members of al-Hashd al-Ashaeri were killed and nine others were wounded, while three members of the Islamic State were killed in an attack lunched by the group on Jalam al-Daur area, Alsumaria News reported on Wednesday.
The source said, “Members of the Islamic State launched an attack, at dawn today, on Jalam al-Daur area, east of Tikrit, resulting in the killing of four members of al-Hashd al-Ashaeri and three IS militants.”
“The attack was one of three attacks that were launched on Ajil oil field, west of Mutaibaijah and east of al-Daur,” the source explained.
“The attack was foiled after the arrival of reinforcements of the Federal Police and Army Aviation,” the source further added.
The Islamic State group also launched another violent attack on a security checkpoint in the area of Hamrin, east of Salahuddin Province.
Nine security members, mostly of Diyala Police, were killed in the attack, while security forces arrived in the area of incident to start extensive search operations.
Noteworthy, security forces from Diyala province are controlling several areas in Salahuddin, especially the eastern areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[AlManar] The Syrian army controlled on Wednesday Tamama valley and Abu Salem crossing in Wadi Barada area in Damascus countryside, tightening the noose on the terrorists and separated the town from its barrens.
The Syrian army also supported by Syrian Air Force, carried out extensive strikes targeting ISIL gatherings in the surrounding of Deir Ezzor city and in its countryside, according to SANA.
The garrison of Air Force Academy thwarted ISIL attack on the axes of al-Mahdom-Deir Hafir in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, killing tens of ISIL terrorists and destroying 10 of their vehicles, SANA added.
Posted by: badanov ||
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[AMERICANTHINKER] The reaction of the Utopian Progressive Left is so extreme, excessive, intolerant, and often cruel because this election is not about the fall of the Democratic candidate for president. Rather, it is about the collapse of an ideology at least 50 years in the making.
Imagine coming of age in a world in which the prevailing institutions of culture and government speak a similar political and ideological language ("the narrative") that is singular, slanted, biased, rigid, self-deceiving, and pervasive. If the Utopian Progressive Left narrative is trumpeted in the media by fellow traveler "journalists" and in the halls of early education and the universities by teachers and professors; trotted out in film, music, and the general popular entertainment culture by most "artists"; and supported and espoused in the rhetoric of politicians at the highest levels and in the policies of the government (until now) itself, the imprint of this pervasive worldview becomes impossible to avoid. It became for many the default viewpoint and one not to be challenged. For decades, this has been extraordinarily effective with millions and millions of converts and true believers.
How could the response from the followers of this self-congratulatory and insular viewpoint to the destroyer of it be anything other than the disturbing reaction that we now see? For those who live in the world of Progressive Utopian globalism, a world of self-delusion, false narratives, and fantasies, these are the darkest of times, rife with existential angst.
One of the first seemingly introspective responses from the leadership of the Democratic Party after the election was that Democrats had failed to "own the narrative" and were unsuccessful in communicating their "vision." This suggests a failure of marketing rather than a flawed message. But the key point is missed: if the narrative is a message of a failed political ideology, the narrative and the ideology must fall. This is how our system is supposed to self-correct.
Ours is not a direct democracy. The president is not elected by a direct vote of the people. The Electoral College stands between the people and the president because most of the Founders feared the masses and wanted an institution in place as a balance against their numbers. Our "checks and balances" system includes this check against the people themselves. Essentially, it is the first and final check to protect us ‐ from ourselves.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
In 1990 they lost in Russia. Now comes their time in America.
East Libyan government claims "The Presidency Council have allowed the grandsons of Benito Mussolini to return to Libya on board warships to defile Libya's soil."
[Libya Observer] Khalifa Haftar ... served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... 's self-styled military command is rejecting a planned humanitarian aid to east Libyan areas from the Italian government.
Head of the media office of the command, Khalifa al-Obaidi, told Afrigatennews, a 24-hour Dignity Operation mouthpiece website funded by the UAE, that the military command refuses any Italian aid unless Italia pulls its troops out of Libya.
Al-Obaidi was reacting to the recent declaration of Italian minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Angelino Alfano, to send humanitarian aid to the areas under the control of Dignity Operation in eastern Libya.
"The only possible response to Russia's actions in Libya is taking an even stronger leadership role in there," Angelino Alfano, was quoted as saying on the sidelines of Middle East peace conference in Gay Paree on Sunday.
Alfano didn't give a specific date for the aid delivery.
Last week, the eastern government of Abdullah al-Thanni accused Italia of sending soldiers and ammunition to Libya's waters off the western shores.
It also regarded the reopening of Italian embassy 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... as a new Italian occupation, claiming in a diplomatic note to all Libyan embassies abroad that "some members of the Presidency Council have allowed the grandsons of Benito Mussolini ...former dictator of Italia. He perfected the idea of the corporate state and was all the vogue in intellectual circles until he lined up with Adolf in the Second World War. He wanted Italians to be figli de la lupa, and like the sons of wolves they turned on him when they finally got the chance. He ended his days dangling by his heels in a public square next to his mistress... to return to Libya on board warships to defile Libya's soil."
The interim government of Abdullah al-Thanni is controlled by Khalifa Haftar's self-styled military command. al-Thanni visited the command in Rajma town on Monday to brief Khalifa Haftar on the latest decisions and steps taken by his cabinet and to get instructions on how to deal with a number of political issues.
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[DAWN] TOBA TEK SINGH: A youth’s bid to implicate a man in a false terrorism case for having an affair with his sister, resulted in a security alert in the district, particularly at Pirmahal, where all markets, public and private schools were closed and security of an Imambargah ...since Pakistain is very religiously correct, Shia Moslems can't call their houses of worship 'mosques,' which are reserved for Sunnis. It's not clear if imambargahs are used for explosives storage like mosques are... tightened, creating panic in the area on Tuesday.
The routine life in the town was disrupted when heavy contingents of police arrived in the markets around 10am and got the shops closed.
In a parallel development, all public and private schools of Pirmahal were also asked by police to close down their campuses, where students were taking classes, for "security reasons".
This created panic among the people, especially the parents and schoolchildren.
The central Imambargah at Pirmahal was also cordoned off by police, while, security was tightened around the religious seminaries and other Imambargahs in the district.
Soon a search operation was launched by police in various areas of the town, where the ongoing polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccination drive was also suspended, along with other parts of the district.
Emergency was announced in Pirmahal Tehsil Headquarters Hospital. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... the drop-scene of the episode came by afternoon with arrest of two men and a woman at Chak 685/26 GB.
According to police sources, Farman Ali of Chak 685/26 GB had an affair with ’S’ of the same village. Farman had got issued a mobile phone SIM in his name and gifted it to ’S’ so that they could chat with each other.
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... Ihsan, brother of ’S’ got wind of the affair and caught his sister chatting on phone with Farman.
Ihsan, decided to punish Farman for having an affair with his sister. He made a call to a friend of Farman using the SIM he had recovered from his sister.
Impersonating Farman, Ihsan said he was going to blow up a school and an Imambargah in a terrorist attack.
The police sources said somehow an intelligence agency detected the call and issued a security alert for the district, particularly Pirmahal.
Finally, the police traced the three people (the girl, her brother Ihsan and Farman) involved in the incident and took them into custody.
By the evening normality returned to Pirmahal where the markets had opened again.
A front man for the district police said that after the issue got resolved, shopkeepers were allowed to open their shops again.
He claimed that only Ihsan was in police custody for creating panic and a case would be registered against him.
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[Asharq Al-Awsat] Riyadh- At the time when news said former commander of al-Anad Air Base defected from putschists and arrived along with a group of soldiers to Ma’rib Province, the national army revealed Tuesday it has controlled more than 15 rockets and many medium and heavy weapons after Houthi and Saleh rebels fled Nahm front, east of Sanaa.
“There are intensive talks with sheikhs and elders in tribes surrounding Sanaa as they expressed their willingness to join the legitimate forces and support operations carried out by national resistance army,” according to what a senior military official in Yemeni army.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the coming 24 hours could be crucial, especially in Nahm front.
For his part, Chief of Moral Guidance in the Yemeni army Major General Mohsen Khasroof confirmed that 90 percent of Houthi captives are children aging between 11 and 13.
Khasroof said that in the past two days a number of areas in Nahm front fell under the control of the army, including a strategic hill.
He added that the national army was able to defeat Houthis there and take over a great number of weapons and equipment.
The Major General noted that dozens were killed from Houthi militias before they fled in panic.
He revealed that intensive calls are being taken with tribes surrounding Sana’a to coordinate with them.
He pointed out that the victory is very close as tribes surrounding Sana’a have started joining the legitimacy forces to support them in defeating Houthis.
More:
Aden- Yemeni Army units on Tuesday successfully retook control over rebel-held locations, confiscating arms and ammunition from coup militants. Unguided Iran-made ‘Zelzal’, Arabic for earthquake, rockets were retrieved from insurgency militias in Sana’a’s eastern Nihim district.
“National army forces, backed by popular resistance units, continue fighting the liberation battle in eastern Sana’a— militia artillery is being seized along advances,” pro-government Popular Resistance spokesman Abdullah Alshandqi told Asharq Al-Awsat in a statement.
“A number of ‘Zelzal’ artillery rockets ,a missile Launchpad, M2 Machine Guns, a BMP-3 tank, three ammunition warehouses, 10 RPG-7 anti-tank propeller were found and seized,” said Alshandaqi.
The spokesman added that a track loader, ready to plough out routes was also taken from militia hold.
“All found artillery was left behind by Houthis militia when fleeing the fight against National Army forces backed by the Arab Coalition airpower,» Alshandqi added. He stressed that pro-government forces have made sweeping advances “in light of the utter collapse among militia ranks.”
Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shi’ite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.
On the other hand, a Houthi top figure was assassinated by masked gunmen in Sana’a. The killed coup official is claimed to have been responsible for counseling and education, Abdullah Alwazir.
”Abdullah Alwazir, who owns a Shi’ite publication, was killed along with four of his attaches– the incident is reminiscent of assassinations staged against Houthi leaders some two years ago,” witnesses said.
“Even then, the Houthi movement, coup leaders and insurgents, who control the capital Sana’a gave no details or clarifications on the circumstances surrounding the assassinations,” they added.
Sources close to the matter told Asharq Al-Awsat that the insurgency-held Sana’a has been overrun by assassinations that seem to be the squaring of internal disputes. More so, citizens held in insurgency areas complain that major corruption has been reeking over putschist leaderships.
#1
Sources close to the matter told Asharq Al-Awsat that the insurgency-held Sana’a has been overrun by assassinations that seem to be the squaring of internal disputes
#4
Besoeker, a warning. that image you posted is a possible malware! The file name is way too long, so long that it's possible that a virus may be embedded in the image name.
The image itself is also suspicious as it seems to be made up of several smaller parts, fused into one large image. Try getting image information on different part of the image and you'll see what I meant. Hat tip to SCFI. Our Rantburg U. IT department QC section is very small. We very much appreciate your pointing out these anomalies.
Frontier Corps carried out a search operation in Balochistan’s Pishin district against a Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) hideout and recovered a sizeable quantity of arms and ammunition, claimed a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
The statement also claimed that the arms and ammunition were buried at the hideout, located in Pishin’s Kahan area.
The cache seized included seven anti-tank mines, 50 mortar rounds, 36 recoilless rifle rounds, 4000 anti-aircraft rounds and five grenades.
Balochistan has been experiencing incidents of violence and targeted killings for over a decade. The largest province of the country by area, is home to a insurgency by ethnic Baloch separatists.
Al Qaeda-linked and sectarian militants also operate in the region. The province shares borders with Afghanistan and Iran.
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[DAWN] The focus of the Panamagate hearing on Wednesday returned to a piece of agricultural land which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... allegedly bought in the name of his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, in 2011. The court also inquired after large sums of money that were gifted by the premier's son Hussain Nawaz to his father.
"We want to know the source of the amount, where such a big amount is coming from," Justice Ijazul Hassan posed a question to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan as a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa resumed hearing the case.
The judge was referring to an amount of Rs510 million that, he said, Hussain Nawaz, gifted to his father over a period of four years.
According to Justice Ijazul Hassan, the move signalled that a significant amount of money had been circulating.
Makdhoom Khan told the court that an amount of Rs210m was sent by Hussain Nawaz in 2012 and another Rs129.8m was gifted by him in the same year.
"It could be that this is black money. The son (Hussain Nawaz) sent the amount to the father (Nawaz Sharif) and the father bought the land in his daughter's (Maryam Nawaz's) name." Justice Khosa observed.
The judge was referring to agricultural land spread over 5.38 acres in Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south... district, which is worth Rs243m. The land was declared under Maryam Nawaz's name by the prime minister in his 2011-12 income tax returns.
"This property was not benami, was it?" asked Justice Gulzar Ahmed, referring to the agricultural land.
"Why did Hussain Nawaz only give gifts to his father?" Justice Ijazul Hassan asked.
Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed reiterated the bench's desire to see the records of transactions. "We are not speaking in Persian," he said. "Present the records," he told the PM's counsel.
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[Bangla Daily Star] In a bid to establish dominance in local politics and business, Nur Hossain, a local Awami League leader, planned to kill his archrival Nazrul Islam, panel mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation.
Nur hired Rab men to carry out the plot, as he had "good relations" with some members of the elite force in Narayanganj.
From an informant in Nur's gang, Nazrul's father-in-law Shahidul Islam came to know about the plot some 15 days before the seven-murder incident.
Continued on Page 49
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[Bangla Daily Star] At least 33 people were killed and dozens injured on Wednesday when a jacket wallah detonated a vehicle packed with explosives near a military camp in Mali's northern city of Gao, witnesses and a United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... peacekeeping source said.
A Rootersnews hound who arrived at the camp soon after the blast, which occurred at about 9 am (0900 GMT), said he saw dozens of bodies lying on the ground alongside the maimed.
Ambulances rushed to the scene as helicopters circled overhead.
"It's terrible," Gao resident Kader Touré said. "The attack happened while they were having an assembly. I've just left the hospital where there were bodies ripped to pieces and bodies piled up."
The army put the provisional toll at 25 but a source in the UN MINUSMA peacekeeping force said at least 33 were killed.
The camp was home to government soldiers and members of various rival gangs which jointly patrol Mali's restive desert north in line with a UN-brokered peace accord.
A French-led military intervention in 2013 drove back Islamist Lion of Islams, including al Qaeda-linked groups, which had seized northern Mali a year earlier.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... Islamist Death Eaters still operate in the region and insecurity is aggravated by tensions between local rebel groups and pro-government militias.
French interior minister Bruno Le Roux described the blast as a "major and highly symbolic attack" in an area visited only days ago by French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist....
[Ynet] Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a statement on Wednesday that a suicide kaboom that killed dozens in northern Mali was punishment for groups there cooperating with La Belle France, according to a translation released by the SITE Intelligence Group.
The statement confirmed that the attack had been carried out by al Mourabitoun, an ally of al Qaeda's North African affiliate, and gave the bomber's name as Abdul Hadi al-Fulani. Malian state media had earlier said there were five bombers.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Turkish police have been conducting operations against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in the northwestern province of Bursa and the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, a day after Reina attacker Abdulkadir Masharipov was apprehended in an operation in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district.
Police in Bursa have apprehended 27 ISIS suspects along with 29 children due to their alleged links to the terror attack on Istanbul’s Reina nightclub on New Year’s Eve that killed 39 people, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 18.
Counter-terrorism police had previously revealed that one suspect, who lived together with Masharipov, in the Central Anatolian province of Konya, came to the province following the attack.
Police units later followed the suspect and other connected people, conducting simultaneous operations on seven different addresses in the province’s Nilufer and Göksu districts with the participation of special forces.
During the operation, police apprehended a total of 27 suspects, including 15 women, of Tajik, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Uighur origin, along with 29 children at six residences.
Police also seized 40 passports, 38 fake identities and 15 packed mobile phones during searches at another address that was empty.
According to police, the empty house was used by two organizers identified as Tajik citizens M.S. and N.S. The latter was apprehended in the western province of Izmir while M.S. is still on the run.
The two suspects reportedly rented houses for ISIS members in Istanbul, Bursa and Izmir provinces by introducing themselves as dentists, doctors or businessmen.
M.S. reportedly settled foreigners who illegally entered the country to join the jihadist group in Istanbul before taking them to residences rented in Bursa and Izmir with N.S.
The suspects who were settled at such residences reportedly knew the duo according to different names and professions.
Elsewhere, an ISIS courier was caught near the Turkish-Syrian border on Jan. 18. Abud Mahho, who illegally entered The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... through the Akcakale district of the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, was caught in an operation near the border, Dogan News Agency reported.
Anti-terror police have conducted an operation at a house near the border where they apprehended the courier.
Mahho, who was carrying weapons and ammunition for the jihadist organization, pointed to a spot near the border where ammunition buried underground in bags were found, as well as material used in making boom jackets were seized.
Police have determined that the seized materials carried similar features with the materials ISIS used in previous attacks in Turkey.
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Idlib – Air Forces of the US-led coalition struck Syria’s northwestern Idlib Governorate on Wednesday, targeting leaders of the al-Qaeda splinter group of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
A coalition airstrike hit a Fateh al-Sham convoy in Idlib, targeting one of the group’s prominent leaders.
Abu Ibrahim al-Tunsi, a Tunisian jihadist and leading member of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, was killed along with four other militants in the airstrike, local sources told ARA News.
“The air raid hit al-Tunsi’s convoy in the Aqrabat district in Idlib,” a local media activist said. “The jihadi leader and four of his guards were killed in the operation.”
This is not the first time for the US-led coalition to target leading members of the jihadist group.
On January 1, a coalition airstrike led to the death of Abu Omar al-Turkistani, a military commander in Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. “The US-led coalition hit al-Turkistani’s convoy in the vicinity of Sarmada town in Idlib Governorate, near the Turkish border,” local media activist Saeed al-Hamwi told ARA News at the time.
On January 12, another airstrike by the US-led coalition killed Abu Ali al-Tunsi, a security official within the Fateh al-Sham group.
Other prominent members of the group that have been killed by similar strikes last year included Abu Afghan al-Masri, an Egyptian, Abu Faraj al-Masri, also an Egyptian, and Abu Omar Saraqeb, a Syrian jihadist.
Jahbat Fateh al-Sham was previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra or al-Nusra Front. In July 2016, the extremist group announced that it had split from al-Qaeda and was rebranding. However, the US State Department said that group’s militants remained a fair target for US warplanes in Syria despite Nusra’s decision to cut ties with al-Qaeda and change its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
On November 12, the United States amended the designation of Jabhat al-Nusra as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, listing Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) as a terrorist alias. Security analysts told ARA News that the United States has expanded its anti-JFS campaign ever since.
[RUDAW.NET] The commander of the elite Iraqi Counter-Terrorism forces (ICTS) declared victory in eastern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... on Wednesday afternoon.
"We are celebrating the victory and liberation today," announced Lt. Gen Talib al-Shaqati in a presser in Bartella, "the liberation of the left bank of Mosul with its districts and people."
A few minutes later, the Iraqi Joint Command released a statement saying that a few areas in eastern Mosul are still not liberated.
"The entire left coast has not been liberated yet," Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah, the commander of the "We are Coming Nineveh" operations, said. "Regarding the ICTS, they have accomplished their mission as part of the eastern front on the left bank of the city of Mosul, and the advance to the remaining areas is still continuing."
The ICTS commander expressed optimism for life to return to normal in Mosul.
"I think normal life will be back in the next few days. Life was normal today in those areas. We call it the clean liberation," Shaqati said. "Clean liberation indeed because the fighters have high fighting skills, resources and precise intelligence of the terrorist networks. So they target only the forces of Evil and in their targeted positions."
"I think the liberation of the right coast will be easier than the left coast," he added, noting that ISIS has thrown all it had at the Iraqi forces. The proof to that, he claimed, is the defeat of ISIS in a short time in the inner districts in eastern Mosul which have been the focus of the military operation since December 29.
He added that he is speaking on behalf of the ICTS and that "the majority of areas" on the left coast, which he described as "important" have been liberated. He acknowledged that in the north of city there are some areas where ISIS still has a presence.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie sadly admitted that he was a better peeping Tom than he was a comedian... Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also declared on Wednesday that an ultimate liberation of the east of Mosul is approaching as a few areas, including Ghabat neighborhood, [Saddam Hussein's ] palaces and a few more areas are yet to be liberated in the northeast of Mosul.
Rudaw understands that the two districts of Arabiyah and Rashidiyah, north of the city, are also still under ISIS control. Fighting is taking place nearby where Iraqi forces have announced the liberation of Qaziyah 2.
Shaqati also said that the ICTS have liberated Nineveh Athariyah, while the Joint Command also announced the liberation of Tal Narkal, northeastern of the city.
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[DAWN] LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday stayed execution of a man convicted by a military court on charges of abetting an attack on the office of Inter-Services Intelligence ...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir... (ISI) in Multan.
A division bench headed by Justice Muhammad Tariq Abbasi passed the order on a petition moved by Abdul Qayyum of Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... sentenced to death by a Lahore military court under Pakistain Army (Amendment) Act 2015 on Jan 4 last year.
Representing the petitioner, Advocate Anas Ghazi argued that requisites of justice were not met by the military court convicting his client. He said the petitioner was not given opportunity of a fair trial and was condemned unheard.
The lawyer pointed out that an anti-terrorism court of Multan had already tried and convicted culprits of the 2009 attack on the ISI office and the petitioner was not among them. He asked the bench to stay the execution of the petitioner till a final decision of the petition since his mercy petition had been rejected by the army chief.
Through a written reply filed before the bench, Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... home department stated that a jail appeal of Abdul Qayyum had been dismissed by Judge Advocate General’s Department on March 22, 2016. It said the provisions of Army Act were the law made by parliament and that if any such provision tends to affect fundamental rights that provision did not become void as newly added proviso to Article 175 of the Constitution had already been declared being not ultra vires by the Supreme Court.
The home department stated that a division bench of the LHC (Bahawalpur seat) had dismissed an identical petition on the same matter. Therefore, it said, the instant petition should be dismissed.
After hearing the arguments, the bench suspended operation of the death penalty and stayed Qayyum’s execution till next hearing on Jan 25. The bench also sought a reply from the attorney general on the matter. Qayyum is detained at a high security jail in Sahiwal.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
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#2
I wonder when the networks will realize that pissing off half of their viewing audience isn't good for business. I fully realize they aren't there yet--if they were they would have made it absolutely clear that no bullshit would be tolerated during the halftime performance.
[IsraelTimes] Jews, Arabs rally over destruction of Bedouin homes and shooting of local man accused of killing policeman in car attack.
Hundreds of people erupted into the streets in Tel Aviv and other locations across Israel on Wednesday to protest the government-ordered demolition of several Bedouin homes and what they saw as excessive police force leading to the deadly car-ramming incident. On Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Qalansawe hundreds of protesters gathered to demonstrate against "the bloodshed and the destruction of homes in the Negev."
The protests were peaceful by all accounts, but came after a day of intense festivities and spiking tensions over home demolitions and an alleged car-ramming, in which a resident of Umm al-Hiran ran his car into policeman Erez Levi, killing him.
The demolitions of illegal homes in a Bedouin village were disrupted when a car driven by Yaqoub Mousa Abu al-Qia’an, a local schoolteacher, slammed into police.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, police chief Roni Alsheich and other bigwigs insisted that the incident was a terror attack. "He was killed in a vehicular terror attack," Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. And the deputy commander of the police southern district, Peretz Amar, said the incident was "a deliberate attack. This is clear. This is a fact. There is no other explanation, and anyone who tries to offer an alternative explanation wasn’t here at the time and doesn’t understand." Amar said there were two lines of officers either side of the road, and "no possible means to claim in this situation that he didn’t see them... He hit them. He killed."
But local residents said al-Qiyan, 47, a father of 12, was trying to leave town and only lost control of his vehicle after police shot at him. His brother, Ahmad al-Qiyan, said he was "murdered in cold blood," and Amnesia Amnesty International called for a probe into the reports of excessive force by police.
"The police are light on the trigger when it comes to Arab citizens," the Arab advocacy group Adalah said in a statement that accused the police of a "culture of lying."
At least 200 people gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, while more than 300 protested in downtown Tel Aviv. Protesters carried signs demanding an inquiry into the Abu al-Qua’an’s death an end to home demolitions and an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
An Arab advocacy group called for a nationwide general strike in the Arab sector on Thursday.
Arab businesses and municipalities will close across the country, but children will go to school for three hours to learn about the demolitions, Joint (Arab) List MK Aida Touma-Sliman said. She said Arab Israelis were planning a larger protest in Jerusalem next week, with large convoys from Arab cities and towns from across Israel convening in front of the Knesset Monday morning.
There has been a string of demolitions of Arab homes in northern and central Israel, most recently in the town of Qalansawe in central Israel. After 11 illegal structures were demolished last week, the Joint List branded the demolitions "an unprecedented crime and a declaration of war against the residents of Qalansawe and the Arab public."
[IsraelTimes] Most of the 240,000 Bedouin of the Negev want to be part of the state, but support for extremism is growing, as are ties with nearby Palestinian areas.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Documents seized by security forces from former Islamic State facilities in Mosul have shown that several militants nominated for joining the extremist group’s police service were disqualified for several reasons that ranged from sexual harassment history to mental deficiencies.
The documents, which were circulated by social networks users, and the authenticity of which could not be verified, carry disqualified members photos, group’s main logo and the so-called “Islamic Police”’s seal.
The reasons for the disqualification of the members, which are shown in a handwriting, ranged from frequenting brothels, drinking alcoholics, having a sexual harassment history and exhibiting signs of mental normality.
A document attributed to Islamic State’s police service, disqualifying a member for frequenting brothels and drinking alcoholics.
The Islamic State emerged in Iraq and Syria in 2014, conquering several cities in both countries and proclaiming the establishment of a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”. Since then, the group reportedly imposed extreme religious rules on citizens subject to its rules, deployed vigilantes to ensure the rules were abided by and carried out executions and harsh punishments against violators.
Islamic State has reportedly been crumbling over the past few weeks as Iraqi security forces advanced closer towards the liberation of Mosul, the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq. Reports have been rampant about divisions and an atmosphere of mistrust among members.
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- Dominic Puopolo, 51, is being held without bail on charges of threatening harm against a public servant
- Hillary Clinton was especially close to Puopolo's sister Sonia and mother, also named Sonia
- Puopolo once gave $20,000 to the Democratic National Committee, DailyMail.com has learned
- His mother was among 92 people on American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001, when it crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower
- Puopolo posted a video on his Twitter account that said, 'This is the 16th of January 2017, I will be at the review/inauguration and I will kill President Trump'
He was arrested a short time later at a Miami Beach Subway restaurant and admitted to officers he had posted the threatening video.
[Hurriyet Daily News] In addition to the increase in trust in the presidency, the approval rating for President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... saw an increase compared to last year’s survey. In 2015, 43.6 percent of respondents found him successful, up to 48 percent this year.
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!... 52.7 percent of respondents said they think The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... should be governed as a parliamentary democracy and 32.5 percent favored the presidential system. Ten percent said they believed Turkey should be governed as a presidential system in which the president remains the head of a political party. Over the years the number of people who favor the presidential system has seen a rise, up from 12.6 percent in 2014 to 22.1 percent in 2015 and 32.5 percent in the latest report.
Some 34.7 percent said they would vote "yes" to constitutional changes to turn Turkey into a presidential system in a likely referendum, while 39.7 percent said they would vote "no," with 19.6 percent remaining undecided.
Officials from Kadir Has University noted that the poll was conducted before recent parliamentary debates on the constitutional change and long before any prospective referendum campaign.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
How to get your approval rating up:
"Do you think Yippy is doing a great job?"
"Well, I don't know about 'great'.."
"Arrest him! He's clearly a Gulenist and part of the coup"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/19/2017 8:53
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#2
Polling by Clinton Consulting/ABC News/Washington Post
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/19/2017 13:09
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#3
Most popular circling the drain man, evah!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/19/2017 16:48
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The military has lost its decades-long status as The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s most trusted institution following the failed coup of July 15, according to a recent poll.
While the military topped the list as the most trusted institution in the country with 62.4 percent in the same poll conducted by Kadir Has University last year, the figure fell to 47.4 percent this year. This placed it in second position, below the presidency which rose from 46.9 percent to 49.4 percent.
In all the Research of Social and Political Trends in Turkey survey conducted since 2000, the military has up to this year always topped the list of trusted institutions.
The presidency was this year among the few institutions in Turkey that have seen an increase in trust.
The poll, conducted in the first half of December 2016 in 26 provinces and made public yesterday, revealed that many institutions have suffered a loss of public confidence. In addition to the military, universities are also big losers, with 24.7 percent saying they trust universities, down from last year’s 49.8 percent. NGOs saw a similar decrease, with 26.2 percent saying they trust NGOs, down from last year’s 42.3 percent.
Only 1.5 percent of those polled said they were a member of an NGO.
Trust in political parties also sharply decreased, from 33.9 percent to 21.8 percent, while parliament saw an increase of 3 percent from 43 percent to 49 percent. The media came at the bottom of the list of trusted institutions, with only 15.1 percent saying they trusted the media, down from 27.8 percent last year.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] On Wednesday morning, 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.... launched another powerful attack in the Deir Ezzor Governorate, targeting the Syrian Arab Army's (SAA) defenses at the Panorama area and Harabish District of the quiet provincial capital.
Under heavy bombardment by the Russian Air Force, the Islamic State attempted to seize more territory north of the Deir Ezzor Military Airport in order to completely besiege this installation.
Despite sending several waves of combatants towards the Syrian Arab Army's defenses, the Islamic State was unable to make any important gains near the Panorama Roundabout or Harabish District thus far.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Army in Deir Ezzor has managed to push back all Islamic State murderous Moslems in the Harabish District, but they are still under heavy assault in the Panorama area.
The Syrian Arab Army attempted to reverse the Islamic State's gains north of the military airport yesterday; however, they were ultimately repelled after a long battle at night.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad said on Wednesday that Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and 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... can only participate in the Syrian war peace talks once they stop backing the snuffies fighting against government forces.
"Once Qatar and Saudi Arabia halt their support for terrorism we will discuss the matter of their participation in the talks," Meqdad was quoted as saying by the Leb-based TV station al-Mayadeen.
Syria peace talks between Russia, Iran and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... will be hosted in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana next week.
The emission of Qatar and Saudi Arabia followed on from the non-involvement of the United States in these lot of negotiations.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is rapidly advancing in the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus, capturing several farms from the Salafist tough guys of Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... near the strategic town of Hazrama.
Following the recent capture of Hawsh Zarqiyah, the Syrian Arab Army has advanced west of Hazrama, seizing several farms near the town of Hawsh Salahiyah after a fierce battle with Jaish al-Islam and Faylaq al-Rahman.
As a result of this advance near Hawsh Salahiyah, the Syrian Arab Army's 105th Brigade of the Elite Republican Guard has surrounded Hazrama from three sides, leaving only the southern flank open for the Isamist rebels to retreat.
According to a military source in the East Ghouta, the Salafist tough guys have begun moving their main forces from Nashabiyah and Hazrama to Hawsh al-Salhiyah and Autaya, leaving only a few units to delay the Syrian Arab Army's advance at these towns.
The source added that its only a matter of time before the Syrian Arab Army enters Nashabiyah and captures Hazrama.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
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Top|| File under: Jaish al-Islam (MB)
[ALMASDARNEWS] On Wednesday, Russia’s Aerospace Force and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s Air Force are conducting the first joint air operation against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terror group (outlawed in Russia) on the outskirts of the al-Bab town in the Aleppo province, Head of the Main Operations Department of Russia’s General Staff Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoi told news hounds.
"The air operation, agreed on with the Syrian government, involves nine warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Force, including four Sukhoi Su-24M, four Sukhoi Su-25 aircraft and one Sukhoi Su-34 bomber, as well as four F-16 and four F-4 fighters of the Turkey’s Air Force. A total of 36 targets are planned to be hit," he said.
According to Rudskoi, all the targets have been previously fixed by the two countries’ General Staff and their air force units command. "In the past two days, a reconnaissance mission involving unmanned aircraft and cosmic reconnaissance equipment was carried out in order to help fix the targets," Rudskoi elaborated.
"The joint Arclight airstrikes against the ISIS facilities, delivered by Russia and Turkey, have already proven highly effective," he noted.
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01/19/2017
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[ALMASDARNEWS] Any country, including the United States, that "honestly seeks to facilitate the peaceful settlement of the Syrian conflict, is eligible to take part in the Astana meeting," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad said on Wednesday in an interview with the Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen.
Only earlier, Meqdad had said that 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... and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... were not welcome to participate, and Iran stating that it did not want the United States in attendance.
He made clear that Damascus had no objections to the presence of US representatives at the Astana talks scheduled to be held January 23-25, however, Meqdad stressed that Washington "will have to prove its sincerity about settling the Syrian crisis," TASS reported.
According to the Syrian deputy minister, the US "should exert pressure on The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to make it close its border with Syria," as well as influence Saudi Arabia and Qatar to prevent "them from financing myrmidon groups and supplying weapons to them."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2017
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[DAWN] LAHORE: The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... police potted four suspected gunnies during an ’encounter’ in Sheikhupura on Tuesday night.
According to a front man for the CTD, police received information that three gunnies belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... , along with their accomplices, were planning to attack staff and offices of an intelligence agency in Lahore. They were travelling on four cycle of violences from Farooqabad to Sheikhupura and thence to Lahore.
When the CTD team tried to stop the suspects at the Sheikhupura crossing, they fled to a cattle market on the bypass and started firing on the chasing police team from there. An exchange of fire took place in which four suspects were killed, while three others managed to escape, the CTD front man claimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
[DAWN] Chief Justice of Pakistain (CJP) Saqib Nisar remarked on Wednesday that there was no doubt that a criminal act had been committed in the Taiba case.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by the CJP was hearing a suo moto case regarding the 10-year-old's alleged torture.
The child had allegedly been employed as a maid and abused by the now deposed Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife.
CJP Nisar directed the police to submit a challan ... list of charges ... in order for the trial to began.
The police submitted its investigation report for the case, but additionally sought a week's time to complete investigations and submit a final medico-legal report, saying they were still waiting for the results of a DNA test.
During proceedings, the CJP asked how crimes such as child abuse could be stopped in the future and whether Taiba's case could be considered bonded-labour.
Human rights lawyer Tariq Mehmood informed the court that there had been no progress on a bill concerning children's rights after it was presented in the Senate.
Under present law, anyone found guilty of employing a child is fined Rs200 and the child's parents Rs50, said Mahmood, who is a retired justice.
CJP Nisar also questioned the grounds on which Khan's wife, Maheen Zafar, was granted bail. Her lawyer Sardar Aslam responded that the offence her client has been accused of is bailable.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... -led Resolute Support (RS) mission in Afghanistan dismissed the claims by the Taliban group as baseless for shooting down a US Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), drone.
The mission in an online statement posted via its Twitter account said the drone crashed due to technical failure.
"More false TB claims. An unarmed U.S. UAV that crashed Monday in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. suffered engine failure.. It was not shot down," the Twitter post reads.
Taliban posted a picture of a surveillance drone earlier on Tuesday and claimed that it was shot down by the group’s fighters.
The latest claim by the Taliban comes as the group often claims responsibility for the attacks aimed at the Afghan officials, security forces, and the NATO-led mission.
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Top|| File under: Taliban
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Ministry of Defense of Afghanistan (MoD) confirmed 6 loyalists of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist were killed along with 28 other bandidosgunnies during the clearance operations.
According to a statement by MoD, the operations were conducted in the past 24 by the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).
The statement further added that 29 bandidosgunnies were also maimed during the operations which were conducted with the support of the air force and artillery units.
The operations were conducted in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. , Kapisa, Uruzgan, Kandahar, Farah, Kunduz, Baghlan, and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... provinces.
At least 15 of the bandidosgunnies were killed in the vicinity of Tarinkot city in southern Uruzgan province and 10 others were maimed.
At least 6 ISIS loyalists were killed in Deh Bala area of Nangarhar and 4 others were maimed, MoD said, adding that 4 others were maimed.
According to MoD, at least 5 bandidosgunnies were killed and 8 others were maimed during a separate operation in Maiwand district of Kandahar.
At least 5 Taliban gunnies were killed and 7 others were maimed during an operation in Bala Bolok district of Farah province and 3 more were killed in Baghlan province, MoD added.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Thirty Islamic State militants were killed on Wednesday when Iraqi fighter jets pounded a location where they held a leadership meeting east of Anbar, a senior local militia commander said.
Nazem al-Jugheifi, an intelligence official at Al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units), said the deaths included senior leaders of the extremist group who were leading a security meeting in central Rawa. He said the dead commanders belonged to the group’s branch in the Syrian Boukamal region.
Jugheifi said the meeting tackled the group’s status in the province’s western regions.
Iraqi forces launched last week operations to retake those areas, most notably tee towns of Annah and Rawa.
Security sources in Anbar said earlier this week that the operations, backed by tribal militias, had halted until security troops consummate the liberation of Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold in Iraq that has been witnessing a more significant operation since October.
IS militants have, according to aid groups and security officials, maintained civilian hostages in western Anbar to use them as human shields since security offensives began.
The brief offensive on Anbar has managed to retake some villages surrounding IS strongholds at the western areas, according to commanders on the field.
Posted by: badanov ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[DAWN] DONALD Trump says he wants to be unpredictable. But with the inauguration nearly with us, there is one group that can be certain that having Mr Trump in the White House will make a big difference to their lives -- the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
A few weeks ago, Trump tweeted that there should be no further releases from Guantanamo. "These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield," he said. He has even vowed to "load up" the facility "with some bad dudes" once he is in the White House.
For his part, President B.O. has been trying to move some prisoners out before his term of office ends. Four Yemenis were released in the first week of January. There are now 55 inmates remaining.
Continued on Page 49
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
I'm surprised Obama hasn't handed Gitmo back to the Cubans.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 243 members of the military in 54 provinces across the country, in an investigation related to the July 15 coup attempt, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 18.
Suspects were being sought on suspicion of using Bylock, an encrypted smartphone messaging app that the government says was used by the network of Fethullah Gulen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , the U.S.-based preacher accused of orchestrating the attempted coup.
Following the decision, Istanbul Police Department’s Counter Terrorism units launched operations across 54 provinces and detained some of the suspects, said the sources.
In an earlier decision, the public prosecutor’s office also issued arrest warrants for 575 military personnel on the same allegations. Just over 350 of these suspects were detained by police.
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
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.
[Mail] A man who killed two young girls and their parents by slashing their throats and setting their home ablaze during a violent New Year's Day home invasion in Virginia more than 11 years ago has been executed. 
[Huffpoo] Sixty percent of Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing in his final days in office, according to new polls from CNN/ORC and The Washington Post/ABC News, his highest numbers in those polls since June 2009.
[Free Beacon] Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) at her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that "there’s nothing in life that’s truly free" when the Vermont senator asked if she would support his efforts to make public college education free for all students.
Temperate language has traditionally been considered a social virtue, but new research suggests people who refrain from swearing are often the most devious and dishonest. 
[Inquirer] AS EXPECTED, the European Parliament's legal affairs committee voted in favour of extending rights to robots, granting them what the committee called "electronic personhood", by 17 votes to two, with two abstentions.
[SUN] A newly released cache of CIA documents reveals UFO sightings and psychic experiments from the "Stargate programme", which has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists.
[Guardian] Drivers in Paris must display an anti-pollution sticker in their vehicles or face fines in the latest attempt by the French authorities to improve air quality.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has made an unannounced trip to Syria and Lebanon, traveling to the region two months after she sat down with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy.
[Daily Caller] An official for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California mocked elderly white people at a city council meeting last week, telling them they had "five years left."
...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in 
[Hurriyet Daily News] An 
[Hurriyet Daily News] The organizer of the photography exhibition where Russian Ambassador to 
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
[Bangla Daily Star] In a bid to establish dominance in local politics and business, Nur Hossain, a local Awami League leader, planned to kill his archrival Nazrul Islam, panel mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation.
[IsraelTimes] Jews, Arabs rally over destruction of Bedouin homes and shooting of local man accused of killing policeman in car attack.
[Hurriyet Daily News] In addition to the increase in trust in the presidency, the approval rating for President 
[DAWN] DONALD Trump says he wants to be unpredictable. But with the inauguration nearly with us, there is one group that can be certain that having Mr Trump in the White House will make a big difference to their lives -- the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 243 members of the military in 54 provinces across the country, in an investigation related to the July 15 coup attempt, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 18. 
