[CNN] Washington - The White House has apologized to the British government after alleging that a UK intelligence agency spied on President Donald Trump at the behest of former President Barack Obama.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster spoke with his British counterpart on Thursday about press secretary Sean Spicer's comment from the White House podium about a Fox News report that said British intelligence helped wiretap Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, a White House official said Friday.
The official described the conversation as "cordial" where McMaster described Spicer's comment as "unintentional." McMaster also told his counterpart that "their concerns were understood and heard and it would be relayed to the White House."
The official said there were "at least two calls" from British officials on Thursday and that the British ambassador to the United States called Spicer to discuss the comment. "Sean was pointing to the breadth of reporting, not endorsing any specific story," the official said.
A senior administration official told CNN that Spicer and McMaster offered what amounted to an apology to the British government. Earlier Friday, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said senior UK officials had protested to the Trump administration after the claims were repeated by Spicer.
"We've made clear to the US administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored. We've received assurances that these allegations won't be repeated," May's spokesman said.
#1
Given how many reports there were from the hearers in Israel and elsewhere that their intelligence counterparts had told them to be very careful around Mr. Trump and his team becaus they were proved to be tools of Putin, one must ask where did the Americans get their evidence? Either there was none, in which case they lied to everyone and should be ounshed for that, or they acquired it somehow, and revealed it to everyone except Congress and their boss President Trump, and should be punished for that.
[Reader Supported News] The New York Times said this week that President Trump’s insistence that former president Barack Obama tapped his phone and that the CIA and FBI are leaking information to embarrass him and his administration is evidence that Trump believes there is a "deep state" within the U.S. government working against his presidency. The tone of the article is mocking, and the Times dutifully interviews the likes of former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden and a handful of think tank nobodies who served in the Obama and Bush White Houses. Indeed the Times also says that the term "deep state" is used frequently by Breitbart, the alt-right "news" site run by presidential counselor Steve Bannon, and by other right-wing media sites.
But is it so hard to believe that there are elements of the government that don’t like the fact that Trump is rocking their boat or not allowing them primacy in policymaking, a status they enjoyed under both Obama and Bush? As Intercept columnist Glenn Greenwald noted, disliking and distrusting Trump and disliking and distrusting the CIA are not mutually exclusive. It’s not a zero-sum game. Same with the FBI. It’s possible to have a scenario with no good guy.
First, what is a "deep state?" It is generally defined, according to the Times, as "a shadowy network of agency or military officials who secretly conspire to influence government policy. It is more often used to describe countries like Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan, where authoritarian elements band together to undercut democratically-elected leaders." I think that description is a gross generalization. And I think the CIA, NSA, and FBI are far more sophisticated than to be so obvious as to invite comparisons to Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan.
One of the things that most observers don’t understand is that the CIA will do anything ‐ anything ‐ to survive. All CIA officers are taught to lie. They lie all the time, about everything, to everybody. And they justify it by trying to convince themselves that they are doing it in the national interest, for national security. From my very first day in the CIA, it was drilled into me, as it is into every other employee, that "the primary mission is to protect the Agency." That was the mantra. Couple that with the CIA’s ability to intercept and take over virtually any communications device, and you have a Frankenstein monster. Is it really hard to believe that such an organization would resist a president who challenged it? Is it hard to believe that it would do so surreptitiously? I don’t think so.....
About the author: John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
The ISIS suicide bomber drove his car packed with explosives at an Iraqi patrol
One of the Iraqi troops blocked the road with his lightly-protected Humvee
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he approached the Iraqi
ISIS is completely surrounded in Mosul by Iraqi and allied rebel groups
An Iraqi soldier saved his comrades lives by diverting a suicide bomber's desperate attack in Mosul by blocking the road with his Humvee.
The attack was filmed by an ISIS drone and later uploaded onto the internet. Hmm. It seems ISIS reporters are doing a better job than our MSM.
In the shocking footage, the car bomb can be seen approaching from the top of the screen and was heading towards a group of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Unit forces involved in the battle to retake the city.
The suicide bomber's vehicle explodes as it reaches the Humvee. It is not known if either driver survived but commentators online have described the Iraqi soldiers actions as 'the ultimate sacrifice'.
ISIS terrorists have been surrounded in a small enclave in the northern Iraqi city and are hiding among the remaining civilian population, deploying snipers and suicide car bombs in a desperate bid to hold on.
US soldiers have deployed artillery pieces on the outskirts of the city to provide close support for Iraqi forces battling street by street to retake the city.
Fighting is expected to get tougher as Iraqi troops push further into the more densely populated areas in the western half of the city, including the old city.
ISIS used car bombs in their counter-attack on Tuesday night around the Nineveh governorate building, Major General Ali Kadhem al-Lami of the Federal Police's Fifth Division said: 'Today we're clearing the area which was liberated.'
Military officials had said that Rapid Response troops, an elite interior ministry division, recaptured the provincial government headquarters on Tuesday. They also took the central bank branch and a museum where ISIS had filmed themselves destroying priceless statues in 2015.
Lami said: 'The museum is completely empty of all artifacts. They were stolen, possibly smuggled.'
Lami said most of the fighters that had fought around the governorate building were local, but some were foreigners.
He said: ''An order was issued for foreign fighters with families to withdraw with them. Those who do not have a family should stay and fight, whether foreign or local.'
The few families remaining in the nearby Dawasa district said the ISIS had set some of their homes on fire as security forces advanced and that the militants had fought among themselves.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi military said the army and Shi'ite paramilitary forces had taken full control of the last major road leading west out of Mosul towards the town of Tal Afar, state TV reported.
The 9th Armoured Division and two Shi'ite fighting groups had 'isolated the right bank (western side of Mosul) from Tal Afar', it said.
The road links Mosul to Tal Afar, another ISIS stronghold 40 miles) to the west, and then to the Syrian border.
Shi'ite militias taking part in the Mosul campaign began to close in on Tal Afar late last year, after the offensive was launched. They linked up then with Kurdish fighters to encircle the jihadists.
A 100,000-strong force of Iraqi military units, Shi'ite forces and Kurdish fighters, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, has fought since October in the Mosul campaign.
The jihadist group has lost most of the cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015. In Syria, it still holds Raqqa city as its stronghold, as well as most of Deir al-Zor province.
But it is losing ground to an array of separate enemies, including U.S.-backed forces and the Russian-backed Syrian army. It has carried out bombings in Iraqi and Syrian cities as its caliphate has shrunk.
The bombings in Hajjaj village, north of Tikrit, late on Wednesday were not immediately claimed, but are similar to attacks carried out in recent months by ISIS.
In November deadly and apparently diversionary bomb attacks by the group hit Tikrit and Samarra, both north of Baghdad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraq would continue hitting ISIS targets in Syria and in neighbouring countries if they give their approval.
The Iraqi air force has struck ISIS targets over the border in Syria.
Abadi on Feb. 24 announced the first Iraqi air strike on Syrian territory, targeting Islamic State positions in retaliation for bomb attacks in Baghdad.
Posted by: gorb ||
03/17/2017
09:46 ||
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#1
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
[USA Today] WASHINGTON -- President Trump's proposed budget takes a cleaver to domestic programs, with many agencies taking percentage spending cuts in the double digits.
But for dozens of smaller agencies and programs, the cut is 100%.
Community development block grants. The Weatherization Assistance Program. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The National Endowment for the Arts. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All would be axed if Congress adopts Trump's budget.
Also proposed for elimination are lesser-known bureaucracies like the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program, the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program and the Inter-American Foundation.
Many of those programs have constituencies in states and cities across the country -- and their champions in Congress. "The president's beholden to nobody but the people who elected him, and yes, I understand that every lawmaker over there has pet projects," said Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney. "That's the nature of the beast."
[IsraelTimes] Amid referendum campaign to expand his powers, Turkish leader finds himself in worsening relations with Germany and Holland.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/17/2017
09:33 ||
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[Townhall] The Senate Intelligence Committee said that they have found zero evidence to suggest Trump Tower was wiretapped. President Trump has made the allegation that the Obama White House ordered the action, which sent Congress scrambling for answers and evidence.
Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016," said Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark Warner (D-VA), who serve ad the chairman and ranking member respectively of the senate Intelligence Committee.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said there is no physical evidence of a wiretap, but added that the tower could have been under surveillance (via Washington Examiner):
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., pushed back against his Senate counterparts' categorical conclusion that Trump Tower was never under surveillance during the campaign or presidential transition.
Nunes stood by his Wednesday assertion that there was no "physical" wiretap on then-candidate and President-elect Trump. But beyond that, he said, is unknowable.
There was no physical wiretap on Trump but "you can't rule out surveillance because we know for a fact that they picked up incidental collection on General Flynn--now we don't know if that was it," Nunes told reporters on Thursday.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz that Trump is probably right to think that Trump Tower was under surveillance, but added that the president was wrong to accuse Obama of being behind the action.
[Townhall] There is more judicial tyranny to warn you about. The latest - Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii - he blocked President Trump's temporary immigration ban.
The president called Judge Watson's decision unprecedented judicial overreach.
Critics say it's a ban on Muslims. But that's not true. It's a ban on refugees from countries infested with jihadists. What in the name of Don Ho is wrong with these people? Judge Watson's decision puts all of us in grave danger.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says around three hundred of the FBI's active domestic terror investigations involve people who came here as refugees. That's a lot of potential jihadists. How many more Americans must die in the name of political correctness? So I say send all the refugees to Honolulu. Every last one of them.
Let them put on a grass skirt, toss back a Mai-Tai and sing Tiny Bubbles on Waikiki Beach. Just keep them out of the Lower 48.
In the who give's a rat's patootie news. The first 15-20 comments are not flattering. So the question arises, Who really liked Obama?
Barack Obama arrived in French Polynesia where he will spend a month at a luxury resort frequented by Hollywood stars, according to local TV channel Tahiti Nui TV.
The former US president landed on the tourist island Tahiti without his family before going to Marlon Brando's privately owned retreat Tetiaroa atoll, which the Oscar-winning actor bought in the 1960s. Obama has checked into the eco-friendly Brando resort, whose villas boast their own plunge pools and cost between 2,000 euros ($2,150) and 12,300 euros per night.
No political meetings have been announced during Obama's stay and it is not clear what he plans to do during the sojourn or whether his family will join him.
But the former leader of the free world and his wife Michelle have signed a bumper book deal with Penguin Random House estimated to be worth as much as $60 million.
French Polynesia, a French territory in the South Pacific, is made of more than 100 islands and is best known for the French nuclear tests carried out there up to the mid-1990s.
She and Mootch apparently aren't with him on this 'vacation'. Probably were annoyed at his incessant ranting that he's still important somehow, so shipped him off to the other side of the world so they can actually get stuff done.
He's always just been the puppet, and there's nothing worse than a self-aware one wanting attention.
Kind of like a talkative 'Chucky' doll.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/17/2017 17:16
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#6
Finally. Obama leaves Washington.
British General Cornwallis and his defeated redcoats surrendered Charleston with more honor and humility to George Washington. If Congress is truly patriotic, and if the wiretapping accusations prove damning, the Democrat party leader of Deep State should at least be placed on lifetime probation.
#2
"How rocky the road is to Dublin!
This absence of progress is troublin'.
The Jews (may they perish!)
And filthy black Irish
Myself must be stealthily hobblin'."
[GP] In one of the first reactions from Ankara to the Dutch election result, Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned that Europe was heading towards the abyss and that ’holy wars’ would soon begin on the continent ‐ this coming despite the fact that nationalist Geert Wilders, a vocal critic of Islam, was pushed into second place by the center right Prime Minister, Mark Rutte.
Holy wars™ have been fought by the Turks since well before Constantinople fell...
Cavusoglu, who has been addressing Turkish crowds across Europe ahead of a constitutional referendum in Turkey next month, was refused permission to land in Holland for a campaign rally on Saturday, sparking a heated diplomatic row and street protests which dominated the final days of the Dutch election campaign.
The dramatic war of words, which saw Ankara accuse the Dutch government of ’fascism’ and of being a ’Nazi remnant’, has grown in recent days to include other Western European nations which have restricted Turkish political rallies on their soil, most notably Austria and Germany, but also Denmark and Switzerland.
Recent months have seen mass demonstrations and rallies, with seas of red ’star and crescent’ flags greeting Turkish ministers campaigning in Europe on behalf of their government’s referendum proposal. The sheer size of some rallies has caused unease, highlighting the scale of Europe’s burgeoning foreign populations and offering a glimpse of the continent’s demographic future.
Of the millions of Turks living in Europe, some five million ‐ many of them dual citizens ‐ are eligible to vote in the referendum, set for April 16th, which seeks to significantly increase the powers of authoritarian Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
#2
Of the millions of Turks living in Europe, some five million – many of them dual citizens – are eligible to vote in the referendum, set for April 16th, which seeks to significantly increase the powers of authoritarian Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Europhiles must have a yen for collective suicide. File under Jonestown.
How will we know when the holy war begins? It seems a bit one-sided at the present. Does that mean that Euros will pick up arms?
[Wash Times] Turkey, once a dependable ally of the West, is on the verge of becoming an authoritarian dictatorship.
As the NATO alliance ponders how to protect its citizens from an avalanche of refugees, humanitarian catastrophe, and terrorists on its eastern door, Turkish voters ponder the referendum of referendums.
The question before them is whether to vote on April 16 to give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authority to rule by decree, lifetime immunity from prosecution and extra-judicial powers that totalitarian dictators all say they can’t live without.
Although the controversial, radical political Islamist president has been ruling by state of emergency since an aborted coup last July, he insists he needs a revised Constitution. By his lights, only radical constitutional amendments will enable him to vanquish fanatical extremists of diverse types, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamic State. Oh yes, and the new constitution supposedly will pave Turkey’s path to the "great nation" status it held during the Ottoman times.
But since the president’s referendum drive is trailing in the polls, Mr. Erdogan has been making a full-court press to rally a "yes" vote among the Turkish diaspora. He sent his top cabinet ministers in the last two weeks to stump for the referendum among the 2-million strong Turkish vote base in Germany and the Netherlands. To his disappointment, first Germany and then the Netherlands denied permissions to his Justice and Development Party (AKP) ministers to energize the base at his campaign rallies.
Mr. Erdogan marshaled national pride and personal pique to counter-attack. He openly called the politicians in those countries "remnants of Nazis," while orchestrating large, angry demonstrations on the steps of Dutch and German embassies and stopping the Dutch ambassador’s return to Ankara. AKP supporters in Rotterdam took to the streets in violent clashes with police.
[Right Scoop] Sharyl Attkisson was on with Fox and Friends this morning discussing the different ways president can surveil someone in the wake of Trump’s accusation that Obama had him surveilled.
First she tells her story about Obama surveilling her, but then says something at the end of the interview that caught my attention:
"Here’s a really strange, weird thing that a source firsthand has told me. Presidents can issue directives that make legal or allow people to do things that are otherwise illegal ‐ almost anything."
"That means we would never know about it because the directive, I’m told, comes with a cover story, indemnity for those involved and the permission for them to lie about it if they’re ever caught."
Wow. If this is true, then what’s the point of a FISA court? It sounds like the President can just have someone surveilled and no one would ever know because everyone involved has permission to lie about it.
#1
"Here’s a really strange, weird thing that a source firsthand has told me. Presidents can issue directives that make legal or allow people to do things that are otherwise illegal ‐ almost anything."
[LI] Payback is a . . . Rand Paul. After John McCain, speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, accused Paul of "working for Vladimir Putin," Paul had a crushing comeback on today’s Morning Joe.
Said Paul of McCain, "he makes a really, really strong case for term limits. I think maybe he’s past his prime. I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged."
McCain’s nose was put out of joint when Paul had left the Senate floor after objecting to McCain’s call for Montenegro to be admitted to NATO. Whatever you think of it Paul’s objection, it was based on principle: a desire to have the US avoid additional military entanglements and obligations. The notion that the senator from Kentucky is a secret Kremlin agent is absurd.
[AnNahar] Inside an armoured vehicle in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a colonel scans live footage from a drone flying above the Iraqi city, hunting targets for a new weapon deployed against jihadists.
The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group has used small commercial drones to drop explosives on advancing Iraqi forces since they launched the offensive to retake Iraq's second city in October.
As the battle now focuses on recapturing west Mosul, Colonel Hussein Muayad's federal police forces have adopted the tactic, equipping their own remote-controlled surveillance drones with 40 mm grenades that are usually fired from grenade launchers.
"Residents would stare at the sky" during the Mosul fighting, fearing IS drones, says Muayad, wearing a black jacket over his federal police uniform. "Now it's the enemy whose eyes never leave the sky."
The moustachioed police officer in his 40s is clearly proud of the new military tactic.
"They used to hit us once. But we can hit them up to four times with a single drone," he says.
Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat of the federal police -- who are taking part in the battle alongside a special forces unit -- says the "new military tactic" has been very effective.
"Dozens of snuffies have been killed and maimed. Jihadist movements have been paralysed," Jawdat says.
Muayad sits surrounded by four television screens, a black drone at his feet. A dozen oblong bombs tipped by the small, rounded grenades are nearby, pin near one end and a netted skirt taken from a badminton shuttlecock on the other.
"That's so it keeps its balance as it falls," Muayad says.
Chain-smoking cigarettes, the colonel watches the live footage of a weaponised drone as it slowly buzzes over the devastated streets of west Mosul.
The device slows to a hover above a white car near the front line.
"A vehicle providing logistic support, used to transport fighters or food," Muayad explains.
But there is no strike on the car, due to the presence nearby of a device designed to jam drone commands that Iraqi forces set up to protect themselves from IS attacks.
- 'Precise strikes' -
The colonel shows AFP footage of previous attacks. The munitions fall in slow motion on a group of fighters gathered in front of a mosque. More explosives are dropped on a car, small clouds of grey smoke erupting on the screen.
"West Mosul is very populated. The roads are very narrow," Muayad says. "The point with these drones is to have very precise strikes to target the terrorists, not the residents."
"Day and night, there are always 12 drones in the air, ready to strike," Muayad says.
But he refuses to say exactly how many drones -- which can each carry up to four grenades -- the police operate.
The devices have been equipped with an extra battery to prolong their flight time and can now cover a distance of eight kilometres (five miles) up from less than five kilometres (three miles) before.
Inside a ravaged courtyard in a neighbourhood recently recaptured from the jihadists, Captain Baraa Mohammed Jassem from the Rapid Response Division silently observes a surveillance drone about to take off.
He too says his elite interior ministry force has "perfected" drones available commercially so they can drop explosives on the enemy.
"We took the... idea from the ISIS terrorist organization," he says, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
IS has carried out drone attacks throughout the Mosul operation, with the first record of a deadly attack coming a few days before drive was launched in October, killing two Iraqi Kurdish fighters and wounding two French special forces soldiers.
Over the past months, the jihadist group has posted footage online filmed by the cameras of its own remote-controlled drones of bombs being dropped on armoured vehicles and four-wheel-drive convoys.
Jassem says the new technique has been useful to Iraqi forces, particularly when they retook important public buildings earlier this month.
"With a night drone, we found and carried out a strike on a group of eight jihadists, hitting them directly," he says.
[AnNahar] Four suspected snuffies were killed in Bangladesh early Thursday after police stormed a house where they said members of an Islamist group blamed for a series of deadly attacks were hiding out.
Police raided the building in the southern port city of Chittagong late Wednesday, sparking a 15-hour stand-off with bully boyz armed with guns and grenades during which around 20 civilians were trapped inside.
On Thursday, national police chief A.K.M Shahidul Hoque declared the operation over and said four members of the homegrown murderous Moslem group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) had died.
At least two of them were killed in a suicide kaboom, said Sanwar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the police counter-terrorism unit.
"They came out in the stairs and carried out a big kaboom. Parts of their bodies were spread to 25-30 yards (metres)," Hossain said.
Another 20 people who were trapped inside the building overnight after police cordoned off the place were taken out safely, police officials have said.
Two copperswere maimed in the operation.
"The snuffies threw at least 10 grenades at our officers. They were staying in one of the ground floor flats in the building," additional superintendent of police Mosiuddowla Reza told AFP. "They also shot up us with pistols."
Elite counter-terrorism police reinforcements were sent to the area from the capital after midnight to storm the compound, he said.
Bangladesh has suffered a spate of deadly attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities in recent years. The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and Al Qaeda have claimed many of these attacks, but the government and police reject that and say homegrown groups are responsible. They have blamed the JMB for the attacks, including a siege at a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people including 18 foreign hostages were killed.
Security forces launched a crackdown on snuffies following the siege, arresting scores of suspected snuffies and killing several top leaders of homegrown myrmidon cells.
This month they have carried out a series of raids as part of a major security crackdown in the Chittagong region after detaining two snuffies with grenades earlier this month on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
On Wednesday police also raided a second suspected hideout in the area where they incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! two people who they said were JMB members. One tried to blow herself up before she was taken into custody, Reza told AFP.
"We arrested them as the wife was holding her three-month-old child in one hand and tried to explode the boom jacket with the other," he said. "Our bomb disposal unit later defused the vest."
[AnNahar] Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists have raided a town in restive northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... , looting food supplies and burning homes after overwhelming troops, residents told AFP on Thursday.
The attack late on Wednesday happened in Magumeri, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
It came after a lull in raids on major towns in the remote region following sweeping military offensives which Nigeria has claimed has severely weakened the jihadists to the point of defeat.
Scores of Boko Haram fighters arrived in Magumeri at about 6:30 pm (1730 GMT) in vans, cycle of violences and on foot, firing heavy weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, forcing residents to flee.
"They (Boko Haram) broke into shops and homes and took away every food item they came across," said local resident Kulo Sheriff, who fled the town then returned on Thursday morning.
"They set fire to homes and shops as they looted them before heading into the bush hours later."
Before looting, the fighters attacked a military base and a cop shoppe where there was a shoot-out, according to a civilian militia member assisting troops with security.
Militants overpowered the security personnel who withdrew, allowing them to loot and burn down the base and the cop shoppe, he added.
- 'Famine-like conditions' -
Nigeria's military, however, claimed to have repelled the attack and "neutralised quite a number of the attackers", recovering three vehicles and a "large quantity of arms and ammunition".
Independent verification was not possible given access restrictions for news hounds to travel outside Maiduguri without military permission.
Either way, the raid indicated that Boko Haram still has the capacity to attack major towns, despite claims it is in disarray since troops flushed them out of their Sambisa Forest stronghold.
The number of raids has decreased since the camps were routed last December, although there have been sustained attempts at suicide kabooms in Maiduguri.
A civilian militia member in the city maintained Boko Haram have been weakened and their attacks were designed to re-stock dwindling food supplies, as supply lines have been cut off.
"Boko Haram are starving in the bush, they live on very little food," said Babakura Kolo. "They are pushed more by hunger to carry out raids than desire to fight."
Last month Boko Haram fighters went door-to-door seizing food aid distributed days earlier in Gajiram, some 100 kilometres by road from Magumeri, after a battle with police and soldiers.
Boko Haram's insurgency has triggered a major humanitarian crisis in northeastern Nigeria, where 7.1 million people are "severely food insecure", according to the UN. Aid agencies say parts of Borno state are suffering from "famine-like conditions".
Poor governance and climate change have also been powerful contributors to the crisis in the region.
[AnNahar] Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... is passing through a financial crisis and is calling on its supporters for financial contributions after Iran shrank down financial aid it provides for the party, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported on Thursday.
Billboards have spread in the southern suburbs of Beirut calling upon citizens for financial donations for the benefit of Hizbullah under the banner of "training a mujahid", said the daily.
The step was interpreted by informed political circles as a "reflection of the suffocating financial crisis experienced by the party because of the reduction of Iranian financial aid and its involvement in regional conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain, in addition to the results of US and international sanctions imposed on it recently.
The crisis has led Hizbullah to launch "this aid campaign to get contributions from wealthy Shiites, supporters, politicians, businessmen and merchants in various Lebanese regions," according to the daily.
from Al Arabiya - bet you won't hear any of this on network news or from WAPO or the NYT
Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince has hailed United States President Donald Trump as a "true friend of Muslims" and says he does not believe Trump's controversial immigration ban targets Islam specifically.
A spokesperson from bin Salman's delegation to the United States said he expressed his "satisfaction with the positive attitude and clarifications he heard from President Trump about his stance on Islam".
"President Trump has an unprecedented and serious intention to work with the Muslim world and to achieve its interests and Prince Mohammed considers his Excellency as a true friend of Muslims," Bloomberg quoted the senior adviser to Prince Mohammed as saying.
According to reports, the meeting between the Saudi deputy crown prince and Trump appeared to signal a meeting of the minds on many issues, in a marked difference from Riyadh's often fraught relationship with the Obama administration, especially in the wake of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, the White House has announced that the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United States President Donald Trump have discussed potential economic projects worth $200 bln.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2017
00:00 ||
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#3
Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince has hailed United States President Donald Trump as a "true friend of Muslims" and says he does not believe Trump's controversial immigration ban targets Islam specifically.
Crown Prince, please direct your comments to U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson (Hawaii), U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang (Maryland) and the 9th Circus (cough, cough political hacks).
#4
A Saudi attacked us on 9/11, the recently declassified portion of the 9/11 report provided evidence that some of Osama's soldiers here in the US were financially supported by Prince Bandar and his wife. The only reason this portion of the report remained classified was political - Bush protecting the Saudis...to what end? Many, many ISIS soldiers are Saudi along with their funding stream. Trump should consider them the enemies that they are.
#5
turns out both the WAPO and NYT had something on this but with their own spin
their version is that the Saudis snookered Trump into a bad deal (but we don't know what the deal was).
Now,with respect to the Saudis.
1. TN is correct about the pre 9-11 situation, but it is almost certain that Prince Bandar did not know about the terror attacks being planned.
2. Also TN is correct that many Saudi citizens have provided funds to ISIS - some voluntarily, others via extortion or other similar means
3. The Saudis have changed a bit since 9-11. They became afraid of Al Q first and later they became fearful of the Moslem brotherhood and ISIS, and of course, as Iran has built up its missile capability and began funding Shiite insurgencies, they have become more afraid of Iran.
thus my opinion is that while the Saudi govt is made up of corrupt, islamic supremacist autocrats, there are areas where we have common interests.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2017 10:34
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#6
A sensible approach, lord garth.
The Saudis find themselves with no choices, it seems to me. Their coffers will soon be bare; once they sell off the assets acquired during the OPEC years, that will be the end of their powr and influence. Their pet jihadis are are retreating on many fronts or fighting among themselves. Russia is aligned with the Iran axis, and is in the process of seducing Turkey and Egypt, while China, per Spengler, has started reducing Saudi oil purchases in favour of supply from Iran.
All the Saudis have is America (and hopefully Israel when the time comes, but that can't be too openly acknowledged). So whatever they think privately, in public they will only admit to be charmed and delighted by the current president, while privately hoping he is less disastrous to their long term survival than his predecessor.
#7
The Saudis find themselves with no choices, it seems to me. Their coffers will soon be bare; once they sell off the assets acquired during the OPEC years, that will be the end of their powr and influence. Their pet jihadis are are retreating on many fronts or fighting among themselves. Russia is aligned with the Iran axis, and is in the process of seducing Turkey and Egypt, while China, per Spengler, has started reducing Saudi oil purchases in favour of supply from Iran.
"We'll pluck that black rock from its socket,
Send same to the Sun on a rocket
Along with King Jabba,
Then knock down the Kaaba.
What's next, madam clerk, on the docket?"
[IsraelTimes] Zahar’s comments come after recent reports that the group plans to amend charter to endorse a state of Paleostine along pre-1967 lines.
A bigwig in the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group called for removing Jews from the entirety of historic Paleostine.
According to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Mahmoud al-Zahar told Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV last week that "removing the Jews from the land they occupied in 1948 is an immutable principle because it appears in the Book of Allah."
He said Allah, in the Koran, states, "And drive them out from wherever they have driven you out" and that this means removing the Jews from the 1948 borders.
Zahar went on to advise, "Never use the term 1967 (borders)."
"We have liberated Gazoo, part of Paleostine, but I am not prepared to accept just Gazoo," he said.
"Our position is: Paleostine in its entirety, and not a grain of soil less," added Zahar, a former Hamas foreign minister. "Allah did not define the 1967 borders or the 1948 borders. We will fight them wherever we can -- on the ground, underground, and if we have airplanes, we will fight them from the skies."
The speech came in the wake of recent reports that Hamas is planning to endorse a state of Paleostine along the 1967 borders -- a move that would be a major shift from the group’s long-held policy of reclaiming all of the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea -- though it won’t recognize Israel’s legitimacy.
The new policy will be announced in amendments to Hamas’s charter that is to be published in April, after the group’s political bureau completes its internal elections, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on March 7.
The new policy is being crafted in order to engage regional and international partners, such as Egypt, the report said.
While Hamas leaders in the past have at times expressed to English-language news outlets they would accept a Paleostinian state along the pre-1967 lines, the group’s official spokespeople and media frequently continue to promise to liberate what is the entire State of Israel.
Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall translates the full verse:
And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2017 12:05
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Armed groups in Tripoli have signed a ceasefire deal ending a four-day battle for control of the Libyan capital, the unity government said Thursday.
The city has been paralyzed amid exchanges of rocket and artillery fire between pro-unity government forces and rival militias including groups allied with former prime minister Khalifa Ghweil.
Thursday’s deal cements the UN-backed Government of National Accord’s control over large parts of the capital.
It provides for an “immediate ceasefire” and calls for armed groups that do not recognize the GNA to leave Tripoli within 30 days.
It also demands the release of people arrested since Monday, the GNA’s defense ministry said.
Clashes on Wednesday night rocked the capital’s southern Salaheddine district, where several rival militias occupy barracks.
But the city and its surroundings were quiet on Thursday morning following the overnight deal, signed by the GNA, local mayors and powerful militias from Tripoli and Misrata.
Militias have been key power brokers in a country plagued by violence and lawlessness since the NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
The battle, triggered Monday night after the killing of a bank guard, saw pro-GNA forces expand their clout in the capital.
They took several districts from rival militias including groups allied with Ghweil, who was forced out of power when the GNA arrived in Tripoli.
The GNA operation appeared to be well-prepared and coordinated. Thursday’s deal charges GNA forces with securing areas controlled by rival groups.
Observers said it was in line with an inter-Libyan political deal backed by the UN and signed in December 2015.
That agreement, which gave rise to the GNA, called for armed groups to leave Tripoli and other Libyan towns.
The capital remains home to dozens of militias. Since taking office, the unity government has secured the backing of several, but many parts of Tripoli remain out of its control.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) One civilian was killed and four others were wounded when an explosive device exploded in in a district in northern Baghdad, according to security sources.
The device was placed on the side of a road near a marketplace in Saba al-Bour region, north of the capital, security sources were quoted saying.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Islamic State militants have said
they had been responsible for several bloody explosions and attacks that hit the capital in the past months, leaving casualties among civilians and security troops.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) says violence in the country left nearly 392 dead and 613 injured, excluding security members, during February. Baghdad was the second most affected province with 120 deaths and 300 injuries, according to the organization’s monthly casualty count.
Some 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. They are concerned that the group could, however, shift to a guerilla-style war and lone wolf attacks after the recapture of Mosul.
Pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker have released the ship without conditions, an official says.
Security official Ahmed Mohamed said the pirates have left the ship, which is now heading to Bossaso port, the region’s commercial hub. He says the release occurred after negotiations by local elders and local officials with the pirates, who seized the tanker on Monday.
Did the check clear or did the Puntie navy let slip the dogs of war?
Naval forces and the pirates clashed earlier Thursday.
The hijacking of the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13 was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012.
The Aris 13 on Monday reported being approached by two skiffs, John Steed with the organization Oceans Beyond Piracy said. The ship had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, he said. Eight Sri Lankan crew members were reported aboard.
An official in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland said more than two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalia’s northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.
The ship was anchored off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder.
‘The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship,’ he said by phone.
An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident said that no ransom demand had been made.
Just days after capturing an oil tanker near Somalia, a group of Somali pirates handed over the ship and the hostages without receiving a ransom. The pirates said they had captured the vessel to protest illegal fishing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2017
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#1
Not violent kids.
But be warned, All Pirates may DIE.
Do not peruse this event. Family got it under control. It's a Lego block here.
(BasNews) Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) over the last two days has moved around 70 guerrillas from Raniya city, north of Sulaymaniyah province, to Kirkuk province.
A confidential source told BasNews that PKK has deployed about 70 guerrillas to Kirkuk over the past two days. The source noted that a number of those guerrillas may have been sent to Makhmour, southeast of Erbil where PKK has established a military camp.
The source revealed that the commander of the PKK force which has been sent to Kirkuk is Aveen Zilan who is from Turkey’s Kurdistan.
The PKK guerrillas have been transported by two vehicles belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) forces, the source said.
BasNews previously reported that hundreds of PKK fighters, with PUK’s support, have been deployed in different locations in Kirkuk despite the 20 military outposts the guerrillas have set up on Mount Qarachkh near Makhmour refugee camp which PKK has turned into a military camp.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/17/2017
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#1
This is a perfect example of the predicament law enforcement has today because of the left. Discouraging people from using firearms to defend them selves from physical assault.
If a person can get on top of another person and straddle them at the chest level, with knees in the armpits to immobilize the arms, the victim cannot reach the belt area, let alone move to deflect blows to the head. That position is a checkmate position in wrestling.
Police have deadly weapons that are now accessible only to the person assaulting the officer in that position.
Police officers, to protect themselves and the public from an assailant from access to those weapons on his belt must be able to use deadly force against the assailant if the assailant begins an unarmed at the moment, physical assault in hopes of overpowering the officer and getting access to those weapons.
#2
Poor Edward Strother - killed in his prime while turning his life around
*snort*
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/17/2017 1:25
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#3
I wonder if he had his skittles and Mt. Dew in his backpack...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/17/2017 6:40
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#4
Edward Strother made a string of bad choices. Make a good choice today; drink a pint and celebrate Happy St. Patrick's Day. Sláinte na bhfear agus go maire na mná go deo!
"Health to the men and may the women live forever."
#8
#6 ....and the reason you/we didn't read of it back then was because it was a black man shooting another black man? Doesn't fit the narrative for political gotcha?
[ARA News] A suspected Russian airstrike on Thursday hit a crowded mosque in Aleppo suburb, in northwestern Syria.
At least 44 civilians were reported dead and dozens more were wounded in the airstrike.
“The Russian Air Force committed a massacre in northern Aleppo by targeting a mosque full of civilians during evening prayers. 44 people are confirmed dead,” local media activist Salim Halwani told ARA News.
In the meantime, a medial source in Aleppo reported that more than 90 civilians were injured in the same airstrike.
“Some of them are in critical condition. The death toll may rise in the next few hours,” he told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety concerns.
A number of Kunduz residents have claimed that three civilians were killed and seven others wounded in a night raid by Afghan security forces in Chardara district this week.
According to the residents the night raid was conducted in Yatim village on Wednesday night.
“My uncle, his wife and his son were killed. Only his daughter survived. She is wounded. Their house was destroyed and nothing was left behind,” said Abdul Hadi, a resident of Chardara.
“My sister and I were wounded and we were taken to hospital,” another resident, Ahmad said.
Meanwhile, the head of Kunduz Zonal Hospital, Naeem Mangal, said seven people were admitted to the facility for treatment.
“The wounded taken to hospital totaled seven. One of them was treated and returned home but six others, including four women, are in a critical condition,” he said.
However, Pamir 20 Division’s Brigadier General, Sayed Qorban Musawi, said the night raid was carried out in Yatim and Charmgari villages of the district where a number of insurgents were killed and wounded.
“The special night raid was carried out by the Army’s Special Unit in Charmgari and Yatim villages of Chardara on Wednesday night and six insurgents were killed, four wounded and six others were arrested. A big explosive-making center belonging to insurgents was destroyed in the operation,” he said.
Reports indicate that this is not the first time that civilians have been killed or wounded in the Kunduz conflict.
Local officials have said the main reason behind civilian casualties is that the Taliban militants are hiding in civilian houses during the operations.
At least 30 Taliban insurgents were killed in an operation in southern Kandahar province on Wednesday, the 205 Atal Military Corps said in a statement.
In addition, 10 other insurgents were injured.
The operation was launched in Nesh district of the province to clear the area of insurgents, according to the statement.
There were no casualties among civilians or military forces, the statement added.
The Taliban has not yet commented on the operation.
Damam- Saudi interior ministry announced that security officer Fahid Qaeid al Rowaili was shot dead after a police shootout near a Qatif’s central hospital, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
Rowaili’s body was moved to the eastern province’s Jawf region, his birthplace.
The security patrol came under fire at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday when it tried to stop a suspicious car near the Qatif Central Hospital, the Interior Ministry said in a statement circulated by Saudi Press Agency.
Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, Interior Ministry spokesman, said the incident took place after a police patrol suspected a vehicle carrying two men and asked the driver to pull over. Instead of complying with security forces, the driver initiated a shootout, killing one officer.
Police stopped the vehicle but the suspects managed escaping “while shooting randomly”. They made their getaway after stealing the car of a doctor, the ministry added. Security agencies are searching for the culprits.
Investigations revealed that the terrorists’ vehicle, a Toyota Prado model, was reported stolen in Dammam on April 4 last year. Upon searching the car, police found Molotov cocktails ready for use, Turki said, adding that the culprits had swapped the license plate with one from another car.
“The incident confirms the extent of the criminal behavior and the deviant ideologies of terrorists, who have no regard for innocent lives, patients visiting the hospital or passers-by,” Turki said.
He added that the car intercepted by police belonged to wanted terrorist Mustafa Ali Abdullah Al-Madad, who was killed by police on Saturday when he opened fire on authorities in Awamiya.
The ministry previously announced the names of wanted terrorists who had targeted civilians, security men and public institutions in Qatif. The list included Mohammed Al-Ammar and Ali Al-Hamad, both Saudis
DUBAI: The Emirati armed forces said Thursday that one of its soldiers was killed while on duty with the Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen for the past two years.
The armed forces identified the soldier as Zakariya Suleiman Al-Zaabi in a statement carried by state news agency WAM, but it did not provide details of the circumstances of his death.
Some 85 Emirati soldiers have been killed since the coalition launched its intervention in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in March 2015.
[IsraelTimes] Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi, also known as Khalti and Halati, was an accomplice in the 2001 Sbarro suicide kaboom; State Department wants to try her over death of 2 Americans in the blast. Jordanian law forbids the extradition of its nationals.
France is talking about eventually lifting the national state of emergency that has been in force since the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.
Is the emergency over?
French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said during a speech on March 15 that the country had “created the conditions that make it possible to exit the state of emergency, without weakening ourselves or remaining helpless in the face of the threat of terrorism,” The Associated Press reported.
Urvoas did not give a date or time frame for ending the emergency.
Parliament has extended the state of emergency several times, the last time for a 6-month period to cover the spring presidential and legislative elections. The extension ends July 15.
Critics say the exceptional legislation has harmed individual freedoms.
The Nov. 13, 2015 attacks, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), left 130 dead.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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from the Provincial Electricity Authority while they were recording power usage in Pattani province on Thursday morning. The two were checking meters in Tambon Muangtia in Mae Land district. The attackers also stole the pair's motorcycle.
Police said the attackers drove behind the workers and opened fire at them. Hassanai Chaiphan died at the scene while Rungratana Plainoo died at a district hospital.
The murders are thought to be linked to the insurgency in the far South.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Pro-Iraqi government paramilitary groups said Thursday they killed two Islamic State members in a foiled attack in western Mosul.
Al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) said through its media they killed two Islamic State attackers in western Mosul’s region of Tal Zalat, and destroyed their vehicle.
PMUs, an alliance of Shia militias which won recognition as a national armed force in November, have been actively taking part in operations against Islamic State extremists in western Mosul and other Iraqi provinces. They had made remarkable accomplishments over the past months, retaking Tal Afar airport and most recently taking part in the liberation of Badush region.
Al-Hashd has also claimed to have isolated Tal Afar, an outstanding IS bastion, from both Mosul and the group’s strongholds in Syria.
Iraqi commanders said recently they became in control over 60 percent of western Mosul since operations to recapture that area launched in February. The government said late January its forces fully retook the eastern side of the city. Forces are currently working to expel IS militants from central Mosul.
Military commanders had predicted to retake western Mosul within six months of operations.
Battles in the eastern side of the city have so far displaced more than 100.000 civilians.
Weather halts Iraqi forces in Mosul Gawd love the infantry
Ninveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi forces are halting ground advances against Islamic State in western Mosul again over inclement weather conditions, according to a senior Interior Ministry commander.
Maj. Gen. Thamer Ismail, commander of the Rapid Response forces,l was quoted as saying in a press statement Thursday that security operations for Thursday were going to rely merely on drone strikes, rockets and artillery bombardments without ground offensives due to “bad weather conditions and rains,”
Ismail said his forces were 600 meters away from the Grand Nuri Mosque in central Mosul, the spot from where IS supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a sermon declaring the establishment of an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq in 2014.
He added that ground offensives would continue once the weather improves.
Iraqi commanders said recently they became in control over 60 percent of western Mosul since operations to recapture that area launched in February. The government said late January its forces fully retook the eastern side of the city.
On Wednesday, the troops regained control over the third of Mosul’s five bridges which connect both sides of the city, and said earlier they recaptured 90 percent of the Old City, a densely-structured district which Iraqi commanders view as essential for victory over IS.
Iraqi forces capture hospital in western Mosul Google Map at the link
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi Federal Police command said Thursday its forces had recaptured a public hospital in western Mosul from Islamic State militants, hours after other commanders reported a halt in advances.
Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat said in statements that the Forces recaptured the Nineveh civil hospital in central Mosul, adding that Iraqi fighter jets also bombed several locations held by the extremist group in al-Hadbaa region.
Jawdat’s announcement came shortly after some security commanders said ground advances inside central Mosul’s strategic Old City district were halting due to bad weather.
Iraqi commanders said recently they became in control over 60 percent of western Mosul since operations to recapture that area launched in February. The government said late January its forces fully retook the eastern side of the city.
On Wednesday, the troops regained control over the third of Mosul’s five bridges which connect both sides of the city, and said earlier they recaptured 90 percent of the Old City, a densely-structured district which Iraqi commanders view as essential for victory over IS.
Maj. Gen. Thamer Ismail, commander of the Rapid Response forces, was quoted as saying in a press statement that security operations for Thursday were going to rely merely on drone strikes, rockets and artillery bombardments without ground offensives due to “bad weather conditions and rains”.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army officer, Colonel Thamer Jaber, announced on Thursday, that security forces repulsed an attack launched by the Islamic State group, while killed 10 of the group’s militants near al-Kazak camp, northwest of Mosul.
Jabber said in a press statement, “Security forces that protect Badush city managed to repulse an attack launched by the Islamic State on the city, while also killed 10 militants, including suicide bombers, northwest of Mosul.”
“The Islamic State militants, including suicide bombers, also tried to sneak into the city of Badush, to retake it from security forces,” Jabber added.
Jabber also pointed out that some of the militants fled toward Tal Afar District, and explained that army forces reinforced their presence in the city, to prevent any further attacks.
Meanwhile, Colonel Jabber revealed that clashes broke out between the Islamic State militants and security forces near al-Kazak camp, leaving 8 IS casualties, while security forces destroyed vehicles belonging to the terrorist group and shelled their gatherings in the area.
(Reuters) Iraqi government forces besieged Islamic State militants around Mosul’s Old City on Thursday, edging closer to the historic mosque from where the group’s leader declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.
The militants, holed up in houses and darting through alleyways, resisted with sniper fire, suicide attacks and car bombs.
Though heavy rain hampered the advance, Federal Police and rapid response unit troops reached points about 500 m (yards) from the centuries-old al-Nuri Mosque by Thursday morning.
The black jihadist flag was clearly visible draped from its famous leaning minaret.
The government forces have made significant gains in recent days in a battle that started in October, seizing a main bridge over the Tigris river and closing in on the mosque.
“We are holding positions we took yesterday. There is a lot of resistance in that area with snipers and car bombs,” Federal Police Major General Haider Dhirgham told Reuters.
The capture of al-Nuri Mosque would be a huge symbolic victory as well as a concrete gain.
“It’s important for them, it’s where they declared their state,” Dhirgham said, speaking at a police forward base as refugees trudged through the muddy streets and wrecked houses.
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi chose the mosque as his backdrop for announcing the caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in July 2014.
Since then, Mosul has been the hardline group’s main urban stronghold in Iraq but it has steadily lost ground since the offensive began. Iraqi leaders say the battle is reaching its final stages.
Several more areas of western Mosul had been recaptured, including the hospital, during Wednesday and Thursday morning but officers said progress was slowed by car bombs and booby-traps in houses and alleyways, as well as the bad weather.
Islamic State hit back with sporadic attacks on government positions, including mortar fire. Suicide bombers had driven explosive-rigged cars at troops, Dhirgham said.
Government forces responded with mortars and helicopter gunships strafed militant positions from above.
Police said they had killed nine militants who tried to counter-attack one of their positions with rocket-propelled grenades.
“Federal Police drones bomb dozens of fixed and mobile Daesh targets in the perimeters of the Grand Mosque,” a later police statement said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State. More at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
03/17/2017
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First reported in a 3/16/2017 Burg comment by 'Jan' in the 'Zero flies to French Polynesia to relax' post.
[Washington Feed] President Trump’s revised travel ban was put on hold Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii just hours before it was set to take effect after hearing arguments that the executive order discriminates on the basis of nationality.
#4
Time for some "Not Anybody's President Anymore" signs with obumble's picture on them at every pro-Trump rally. Also need said signs to be on hand to wreck all live teevee news reports in the streets everywhere.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/17/2017 5:49
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#5
Time for Trump to go full Andrew Jackson - or fold. He's not going to win a war with Mandarinate by playing within the system long ago subverted by the Mandarinate.
p.s. Obama was a nothing - just a convenient figurehead for the Mandarins.
#6
Obama was a nothing - just a convenient figurehead for the Mandarins
Absolutely true, G. Still, smashing the natives' totems is a powerful signal.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/17/2017 6:13
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#7
Vet the people already here from the countries which are covered by the travel ban and send them all to this judge's neighborhood for temporary re-location in Hawaii.
Chelsea Clinton will release a children's picture book this May that was inspired by Senator Elizabeth Warren's refusal to be silenced
'She Persisted' is a collection of 13 stories about remarkable American woman including Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Sally Ride, and Oprah Winfrey
The title comes from the rally cry many women and liberals adopted after Mitch McConnell ordered Warren to stop speaking on the Senate floor in February
Warren then used the attention to shed light on the scathing leader Coretta Scott King wrote criticizing then-Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions
Now Chelsea is cashing in, with a rep for publisher Penguin Young Readers not commenting on an inquiry into whether proceeds would go to charity
Chelsea's most recent release was tome on global health which came out in January and is 122,000 on the Amazon bestsellers list as of March 16
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/17/2017 1:26
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#2
Coretta Scott King
Free master class, young Negro reader:
Ms. King ain't a thing. Supercede her.
Pick up a libretto,
Get out of the ghetto,
Secede from mass choir and sing lieder!
#5
Hillary Clinton did not make the cut in her daughter's book
The perennial, persistent, annoying, presumptive, flawed, crooked candidate was not available for comment. She was cloistered away while considering a run for NYC mayor to replace "Big Bird."
Fighting between Puntland anti-pirate forces and armed pirates on Thursday broke out in Alula district in Bari region of northern Somalia. District Commissioner of Alula Ali Shire Mohamud Osman confirmed to the media that the confrontation happened.
Puntland authorities said earlier that they will send forces to the oil tanker kidnapped by pirates at the coast under its administration.
Local media reported there were casualties on the part of the Puntland forces, but could not identify the number.
It remains early to comment on the situation and the captives of the ship, but pirates threatened that they will defend themselves from everyone who attempts to force them.
Not clear that this relates to the seized ship.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Commander of the army’s 7th brigade, Major General Numan Abd al-Zawei, announced on Thursday, that security troops destroyed a camp and an explosives factory belonging to the Islamic State group, west of Anbar.
Zawei said in a press statement that Iraqi Army Aviation bombarded a camp, an explosives factory and four strongholds belonging to the Islamic state in al-Madham area, southwest of Anah City (210 km west of Anbar).
“The aerial bombardment completely destroyed the camp, explosives factory and strongholds, as well as killing a number of IS terrorists,” Zawei added.
Noteworthy, Iraqi Army Aviation and international coalition continue conducting air strikes on strongholds and headquarters belonging to the Islamic State in the city of Anah, in preparation to drive out the terrorist group.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Head of Hīt District Council Mohamed al-Mohammadi announced on Thursday, that a booby-trapped vehicle exploded in the center of the district, without causing any casualties.
Mohammadi said in a press statement, “This evening, a booby-trapped vehicle, parked near a garage in central Hīt exploded, without causing any human losses.”
Noteworthy, the incident is the second of its kind in the district, after being liberated from the Islamic State group, early last year, where another booby-trapped vehicle exploded in al-Cournish Street, north of Hīt.
Posted by: badanov ||
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Diplomacy has failed and it’s time to “take a different approach” to North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said here Thursday, as the North Korean Embassy in China warned that American military threats were bringing the region to the brink of nuclear war.
Tillerson’s comment — that 20 years of diplomacy have been unable to persuade the regime in Pyongyang to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons — will fuel fears in the region that military options might be on the table to deter North Korea. That could prove devastating for Seoul, where more than 20 million people in the South Korean capital region live within range of North Korean artillery.
Blackmail of the worst sort, and it's worked for the past fifty plus years.
And in a sign of mounting tensions, the North Korean Embassy held an extraordinary news conference in Beijing to issue its warning of nuclear war while vowing to continue with its own nuclear testing program as a legitimate form of self-defense.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Oh hell. Do it the fun way. Repurpose the asteroid redirect mission of NASA in 2 ways.
1) Don't bring a small piece of the asteroid back rather put an old Project Nerva nuclear engine on a very large chunk of it and
2) Redirect the chunk to impact NKor.
[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says Paleostinian National Fund, ultimately controlled by Abbas, pays bully boyz and their families ’tens of millions of shekels’ every month.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman declared the Paleostinian National Fund to be a terrorist organization on Thursday, accusing the Paleostinian Authority-linked organization of providing "massive support" to bully boyz and funneling "tens of millions of shekels" each month to Paleostinian security prisoners and their families.
"The fund has a crucial role in the financial support for Paleostinian terrorist operatives imprisoned in Israel, and it is used as the most significant route for transferring money," Liberman said in a statement.
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Facing a bread shortage that is spawning massive lines and souring the national mood, the Venezuelan government is responding this week by detaining bakers and seizing establishments.
In a press release, the National Superintendent for the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights said it had charged four people and temporarily seized two bakeries as the socialist administration accused bakers of being part of a broad “economic war” aimed at destabilizing the country. In a statement, the government said the bakers had been selling underweight bread and were using price-regulated flour to illegally make specialty items, like sweet rolls and croissants.
Because sweet rolls aren't permitted in a socialist paradise...
The government said bakeries are only allowed to produce French bread and white loaves, or pan canilla, with government-imported flour. However, in a tweet on Thursday, price control czar William Contreras said only 90 percent of baked goods had to be price-controlled products.
Two bakeries were also seized for 90 days for breaking a number of rules, including selling overpriced bread at a market price.
Juan Crespo, the president of the Industrial Flour Union called Sintra-Harina, which represents 9,000 bakeries nationwide, said the government’s heavy hand isn’t going to solve the problem.
“The government isn’t importing enough wheat,” he said. “If you don’t have wheat, you don’t have flour, and if you don’t have flour, you don’t have bread.”
You're making too much sense and will be arrested shortly...
He said the country needs four, 30-ton boats of wheat every month to cover basic demand.
The notion that bread could become an issue in Venezuela is one more indictment of an economic system gone bust. The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves but it has to import just about everything else. Facing a cash crunch, the government has dramatically cut back imports, sparking shortages, massive lines and fueling triple-digit inflation.
Earlier this week, President Nicolás Maduro launched “Plan 700” against what he called a “bread war,” ordering officials to do spot checks of bakeries nationwide. In the plan, the government said it would not allow people to stand in line for bread but it’s unclear how it might enforce the order.
“The government is doing everything in its power to end the bread lines,” Crespo said, “but they’re looking at the whole thing backwards.”
Crespo said he’d been in touch with several union members in Caracas and that most said they’d passed the inspection by simply opening their pantries.
“The bakeries are showing the authorities that they have no bread inventory,” he said. “The government has to see the reality.”
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#1
the National Superintendent for the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights
Now there's a job title to warm the cockles of a proggie (aka Democrats, Leftitards, Totalitarian) heart.
You can just hear Bernie Bros and Hill Shills proclaiming it as the savior of the proletariat.
[AlAhram]. A heavily armed pupil injured his head teacher and two other people during a shooting at a French high school on Thursday, rattling nerves in a country repeatedly the target of Islamist turban attacks, police and officials said.
Sudden Jihad Syndrome? Psychopath? He's on the young side for schizophrenia... No doubt all will be revealed.
The 17-year-old pupil was tossed in the slammer I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! afterwards in possession of a rifle, two handguns and two grenades after the attack at the Tocqueville high school in the sleepy hillside town of Grasse in southern La Belle France, police told AFP.
The head of the regional government, Christian Estrosi, told AFP that the shooting was "not at all" being seen as a terror attack at this stage.
The head of the regional government, Christian Estrosi, told AFP that the shooting was "not at all" being seen as a terror attack at this stage, adding that the principal and two other pupils were lightly injured.
There was conflicting information about whether a second suspect was on the run, with police initially saying they were looking for an accomplice. Another police source said the shooter acted alone.
La Belle France is still in a state of emergency after a series of Islamist turban attacks including the massacre in Gay Paree in November 2015, 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, and a truck attack in Nice, just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Grasse, in July last year.
The shooting comes about 40 days before a two-stage presidential election in April and May in which security is one of the main issues on voters' minds.
The shooting comes about 40 days before a two-stage presidential election in April and May in which security is one of the main issues on voters' minds.
The motive for the attack was still unknown.
Estrosi told La Belle France Info radio that the head teacher had been shot but apparently was not seriously injured.
"According to initial information that I have, we're not talking about an injury that could have life-threatening consequences," he said.
All schools in Grasse were locked down after the late-morning shooting, which led panicked students to flee the school and hide, local authorities said.
The French government has bolstered security outside schools following a series of Islamist turban attacks since January 2015 that have claimed hundreds of lives.
More than 3,000 reservists were called up to help keep watch outside the country's 64,000 primary and secondary schools for the return to the school year in September.
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve cut short a trip to the northern Somme area because of the Grasse shooting, as well as a letter kaboom at the offices of the International Monetary Fund in Gay Paree on Thursday.
US-style school shootings are almost unheard-of in La Belle France, a country with low levels of gun violence.
The last major attack in a school was in 2012, when an Islamic Death Eater from Toulouse ...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France... , Mohammed Merah, rubbed out three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the city before being killed by police.
Local prosecutor Fabienne Atzori ruled out a terror motive and said the shooting appeared to have been motivated by the gunman's "bad relationships" with classmates.
The teenager was described by Vallaud-Belkacem as "unstable and fascinated by guns" and was carrying a rifle, two handguns and grenades when he was detained by police shortly after the lunchtime attack.
He offered no resistance to his arrest, the prosecutor said.
The suspect, who has not been named publicly as a minor, had shared pictures and videos on social media of infamous U.S. school shootings, including the 1999 Columbine massacre.
Police and local authorities said the headmaster was specifically targeted in the attack on Alexis de Tocqueville high school.
A 17-year-old student armed with a shotgun, two handguns and two grenades (one dummy grenade, one training grenade) was tossed in the clink I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! after the shooting, police told journalists. Interior ministry front man Pierre-Henry Brandet said eight people had been injured.
"I heard a loud bang then two more sounds," a 16-year-old student only identified as Benjamin told regional daily "Nice Matin." "I turned and saw someone in the yard firing with a pump-action shotgun. He shot through the windows of the classroom which looks onto the yard. When I saw that, I ran."
French newspaper "Le Figaro" reported the student shot the headmaster in the arm with a shotgun, injuring two others. It reported security forces later defused an bomb at the school.
Another student identified as Thomas told "Nice Matin" the headmaster remained calm, despite being shot, attempting to reason with the attacker. He said students' bags were normally checked at the entrance, postulating whether he smuggled the weapons in over a back fence.
#4
Those "five hundred Spaniards" somehow managed to recruit a native army of ca. 100,000 other-than-Aztec men, who may well have objected to their politically assigned future as the main course on Aztec dinner tables. Funny how that worked out.
#5
This "brutal, two-year 'hazing'" was NOTHING compared to what the Spartiate elite had to endure to become -- the 'elite' of Sparta'. It just took one major military loss that the 'elite' could not recover from, and that was the end of Sparta, for all intents and purposes.
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.
[GP] In one of the first reactions from Ankara to the Dutch election result, Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned that Europe was heading towards the abyss and that ’holy wars’ would soon begin on the continent ‐ this coming despite the fact that nationalist Geert Wilders, a vocal critic of Islam, was pushed into second place by the center right Prime Minister, Mark Rutte.
[Right Scoop] Sharyl Attkisson was on with Fox and Friends this morning discussing the different ways president can surveil someone in the wake of Trump’s accusation that Obama had him surveilled.
[LI] Payback is a . . . Rand Paul. After John McCain, speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, accused Paul of "working for Vladimir Putin," Paul had a crushing comeback on today’s Morning Joe.
I recommend 'Troll Spray.' 
[AnNahar] 
Pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker have released the ship without conditions, an official says.
France is talking about eventually lifting the national state of emergency that has been in force since the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.
Attackers gunned down two workers
Fighting between Puntland anti-pirate forces and armed pirates on Thursday broke out in Alula district in Bari region of northern Somalia. District Commissioner of Alula Ali Shire Mohamud Osman confirmed to the media that the confrontation happened.
[DailyMail] 
