[WAPO] Ford will invest $1.2 billion to build or modernize three facilities in Michigan where it plans to assemble trucks and SUVs, and to store consumer data, a reflection of the trends that are fundamentally reshaping the auto industry’s business model and manufacturing operations in the U.S.
President Trump preempted the "big announcement" with an early morning tweet in which he touted, "Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!" Trump has pointed to a series of investments in domestic manufacturing that automakers have recently announced as a sign his administration is delivering on its economic promise to bring jobs back to the United States. Ford, Fiat-Chrysler and General Motors, among other companies, got early mentions in his joint address to Congress last month for investing and hiring in the U.S.
But such massive investment decisions take longer to plan and execute than Trump has been in office. The investments Ford announced Tuesday, for example, are part of a 2015 contract between the automaker and United Auto Workers in which the company agreed to invest $9 billion and create or retain 8,500 jobs through 2019.
Joseph Hinrichs, Ford’s president for the Americas, said in an interview that the company reached out to Trump shortly before 8 a.m. this morning about the announcement, so it is unclear what prompted the president’s 140-character missive at 6:36 a.m. The Detroit News reported the investments Monday night in a story citing anonymous sources.
[UPI] - The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is studying the use of a body-worn weapons mount for soldiers to carry and fire their weapons.
The prototype mount is made of composite materials, weighs less than four pounds and is attached to a soldier's protective vest.
"We're looking at a new way for the soldier to interface with the weapon," Zac Wingard, a mechanical engineer for the lab's Weapons and Materials Research Directorate, told the Army News Service. "It is not a product; it is simply a way to study how far we can push the ballistic performance of future weapons without increasing soldier burden."
Some soldiers are weighed down by combat loads that weigh more than 110 pounds, Wingard said. Those heavy loads may worsen as high energy weapons, which could be larger with heavier ammunition, are developed for future warfare.
The laboratory is conducting a pilot program with a few soldiers using an M4 carbine on a firing range at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. As part of the pilot, soldiers wear electromyography sensors on their arms and upper body to measure muscle activity to determine if there's a change in fatigue when shooting with the device.
#5
Life imitates SciFi? The Colonial Marines M56 Smartgun HMG from Aliens(1986), at least in the fanzine writeup they considered firing from the prone position, even if it required firing while laying on your back, was a life enhancing option.
h/t Instapundit
President Donald Trump will direct the federal government on Tuesday to begin dismantling his predecessor’s most significant climate change policies, with a sweeping directive telling agencies to stop trying to reduce the carbon pollution of electric utilities, oil and gas drillers and coal miners.
The executive order Trump will sign represents his biggest blow yet to former President Barack Obama’s climate legacy. But it does not go as far as some conservatives would like to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, nor will it begin to separate the U.S. from a landmark international climate accord -- two areas of intense disagreement within the administration. As long as practical results are the same.
[Fortune Magazine Excerpt] Trump, so far, has given no public hint of a position on the dispute. Lindsay Walters of the White House press office told me the President would not be available to discuss the case or his approach to defense contracts. In February, Trump included a $54 billion increase for the Pentagon, a 10% hike, in his budget proposal.
Normally that would not be a good sign that a Commander-in-Chief is interested in being budget conscious. On the other hand, he has tweeted repeatedly about the cost of the F-35 and Air Force One and had his ostentatious meetings with the CEOs of the two companies producing them (Lockheed Martin and Boeing). What's more, he has promised that with a premier dealmaker at the helm, the government is going to be much smarter when it comes to writing checks.
Whether Trump is serious and, if so, whether the Iron Triangle can ultimately beat him back remains to be seen. But with a judge having ruled in Palantir's favor, and with its boosters being so close to Trump, the Palantir-Army fight seems to be the most likely instance where Trump will keep that promise. He or Defense Secretary Mattis simply have to tell the Army not to appeal a losing case and to do what the Court of Claims ordered. In other words: Give Palantir a fair chance.
The more important question is, What happens after that? Will Palantir's victory become, as Philippone says he hopes, the case that finally forces the government to buy superior products from private-sector technology companies rather than pay Beltway contractors to make products from scratch that rarely meet projected costs or work as planned?
History suggests the odds are steep. In 2010, J. Ronald Fox, a Harvard Business School professor who has spent much of his career studying Pentagon procurement, wrote a book about taming the Pentagon's checkbook. "Since 1959, seventeen Defense Secretaries have made commitments to bring about effective and efficient management of the defense acquisition process," Fox concluded. "Indeed, each has taken specific steps to identify problems and initiate improvements. But each has left office before reform implementation has become institutionalized." alantir may prevail in this instance, but it will take a lot more than one defeat to break up the Iron Triangle.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., caused a scene at a Manhattan restaurant when he began yelling at a wealthy and well-connected Donald Trump supporter that the POTUS is "a liar." Hmm, so is Chuckey.
Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, lost his cool on Sunday night at Upper East Side restaurant Sette Mezzo, according to witnesses.
He was dining with friends when he encountered Joseph A. Califano Jr. -- the former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare under President Jimmy Carter and domestic policy adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson -- and his wife, Hilary, who were having a quiet dinner. Trump derangement syndrome is worse than Bush derangement syndrome.
Onlookers said Schumer was incensed that Hilary -- the daughter of William S. Paley, the founder and chairman of CBS -- had voted for Trump, even though her husband, Joseph, is a well-known Democrat. You are a Democrat! Don't you know you can't vote for just anyone? You have no choice!.
One witness said of the restaurant rant, "They are a highly respected couple, and Schumer made a scene, yelling, "She voted for Trump" The Califanos left the restaurant, but Schumer followed them outside." On the sidewalk, Schumer carried on with his fantastical filibuster: " How could you vote for Trump? He's a liar" He kept repeating, "He's a liar "
Hilary confirmed the confrontation, telling Page Six, "Sen. Schumer was really rude . . . He's our senator, and I don't really like him. Yes, I voted for Trump. Schumer joined us outside and he told me Trump was a liar. I should have told him that Hillary Clinton was a liar, but I was so surprised I didn't say anything."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/28/2017
09:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Can we have a court look at this evidence and declare him unfit and remove him from office?
#2
Ambrose Bierce and the Devil's Dictionary comes to mind as I read this:
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. Bierce was cynical about politicians.
#3
More Bierce. SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors. and all too very rarely, high crimes and treason, and bribery.
#4
Can we have a court look at this evidence and declare him unfit and remove him from office?
That might be the best way to deal with it but I'm afraid I would have resorted to a good old fashioned punch in the nose.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2017 11:48
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Following someone outside a restaurant in Georgia as they are attempting to extricate themselves from an unpleasant altercation, could easily be seen as life threatening to one's self and loved ones. A fit of kinetic unpleasantness could easily result. In fact, I suspect you could count on it.
#7
A liberal aquaintence says since she is a Trump supporter and this was on Fox news it's all fake. I pointed out it's also in the Daily Caller, a UK agency and in the New York Post. Still fake news. She voted for Trump therefore she's lying.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/28/2017 14:26
Comments ||
Top||
#8
East Coast looking a little limp wrist these days - whereas CA just hits back.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/28/2017 16:29
Comments ||
Top||
[The Last Refuge] Representative Elise M. Stefanik is a young, freshman republican congresswoman from the Albany New York area. And using a probative questioning timeline, she single-handily pulled the mask from FBI Director James Comey, yet no-one seemed to notice.
Obviously Ms. Stefanik has not been in the swamp long enough to lose her common sense.
In the segment of the questioning below Rep. Stefanik begins by asking director Comey what are the typical protocols, broad standards and procedures for notifying the Director of National Intelligence, the White House and senior congressional leadership (aka the intelligence Gang of Eight), when the FBI has opened a counter-intelligence investigation.
The parseltongue response from Comey is a generalized reply (with uncomfortable body language) that notification of counter-intel investigations are discussed with the White House, and other pertinent officials, on a calendar basis, ie. "quarterly".
With the statement that such counter-intel notifications happen "generally quarterly", and against the backdrop that Comey stated in July of 2016 a counter-intel investigation began, Stefanik asks:
..."when did you notify the White House, the DNI and congressional leadership"?
BOOM! Watch an extremely uncomfortable Director James Comey outright LIE... by claiming there was no active DNI -which is entirely false- James Clapper was Obama’s DNI.
#2
Shut down CIA. Re-affirm that FBI is domestic only with severe legal sanctions for any who don't get it. No fruit salad uniform types involved in any domestic intelligence anything.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/28/2017 8:30
Comments ||
Top||
#3
the brutally obvious question(s), then lead to the follow-up: If the only criminal activity is the sourcing of the leak, and the two people giving testimony are potential suspects in that criminal activity, then: A) How can we trust their testimony, and B) Why are we even having this hearing”? (with two people who are suspects in an ongoing investigation)…
[Last Refuge] Freedom Watch notifies congress of a "Deep State" intelligence community whistle blower, Dennis Montgomery, with hundreds of millions of documents showing CIA and FBI and Intelligence Committees were spying on, and conducting surveillance on, American citizens for political purposes.
Mr. Montgomery is trying to use a legal "whistle-blower" process and not follow the same approach as Edward Snowden.
#1
"Deep State." I read this to mean akin to East Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union. In other words, despotic tyrannical regimes. It's the "legacy chaff" left behind.
[Guardian] For decades the NFL wanted nothing to do with Las Vegas. As the city boomed in the Nevada desert and other professional team sports at least dabbled with the idea of a Las Vegas franchise, the world’s most lucrative league stayed away. Even talking about Las Vegas meant opening the door to gambling and the NFL wasn’t going down that alley.
But now that Nevada has $750m of public money to offer the Oakland Raiders for a gleaming new stadium, the NFL is embracing Sin City. Even championing it. When the league’s owners approved the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas on Monday, their 31-1 vote was a formality. The NFL had already signaled their full acceptance of America’s gambling mecca. Old family gaming competition comes to an end. One takes the casinos, the other the stadium. Taxpayers front the bill and everyone is happy.
Everyone still watching, you mean? I assume the new stadium is enclosed and air conditioned.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2017 11:30
Comments ||
Top||
#7
Big sports franchise owners no longer have any loyalty to their fans. It is only a matter of time until the fans return the favor (looking at last years ratings that might already have started).
When micro-concussions start making headlines again few will stand up for the NFL owners and a lot of folks will side with players that were exploited and lied to because benefit of doubt dies with loyalty.
#11
Have you been to a Raiders home game recently? Oakland is a dump, the fans are gangbangers and playacting freaks for the most part, and the revenue base has to be shrinking year after year for any hope of new facilities. I'm no fan but getting out of the bay area and the 49's shadow can't be a bad economic choice. Maybe Spanos and the chargers can move upstate and leave the soccer stadium?
#12
Stephen Ross - Miami Dolphins was the no vote.
Heard that Oakland makes less than 1/2 of what the Cowboys make on stadium related revenue hence the need for a new stadium. When the original LV deal fell through Oakland tripled the rent they were charging the Raiders.
It's a typical scenario of greed and corruption all the way around.
#13
Remember when the NFL commish was supposed to protect fans' interests and integrity of the League above the greedy interests of individual owners? No more. Goodell has green-lighted to two team moves in a single year.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/28/2017 16:04
Comments ||
Top||
#14
So, do the Raiders now have to pick Kaepernick as their first rounder? Michael Sam coming back from the CFL?
[BBC] Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died aged 87, his foundation says. It says Mr Kathrada passed away peacefully in a Johannesburg hospital "after a short period of illness, following surgery to the brain".
Along with Nelson Mandela, Mr Kathrada was among eight African National Congress activists sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. They were convicted of trying to topple the white minority government. Terrorism, sedition, murder...that sort of thing.
Apartheid was a legalised system of discrimination against non-white people introduced in South Africa in 1948.
#1
it’s that it doesn’t seem like he knows that he’s a failure. Perhaps some signage would remind him to wipe that smug, smarmy grin off his face, and inspire him to achieve something other than nothing.
Ouch, that would hurt if Ryan were in touch. I used to think Boehner was just a House doorstop. Ryan seems to be following in that tradition.
I even heard Trump say the other day, "if we just had 60 votes" in the Senate. Ryan and Mitchell need to get out there and represent (fight for) the people who elected them, rather than entrenched Washington establishment. They need to get a backbone.
#2
Quite the tortured metaphor the author spins here. POTUS campaigned on a vision for an O-care replacement that would "take care of everyone" including those with pre-existing conditions. Oh, and of course it would be Great. On the other hand there was already a sizable block of house members as well as a handful of senators that were on record promising full repeal or go home. Foisting blame exclusively on Speaker Ryan is quite simple. Then again so is the author.
#3
Ryan was actually a VP candidate. What the heck happened there? If he is so politically niave why would Romney (who was outside the beltway) have picked him at all?
#4
Romney outside the beltway? He may not physically reside within the geographical boundaries of the Beltway but my impression has always been that he certainly is there is spirit.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2017 12:15
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Speaker Ryan did not actually want the job when John Boehner retired during the last session, He only took it with the promise that his fellow Republicans would work together. Unfortunately, promises made in the last session do not seem to be binding on either the older hands or the new guys.
[Breitbart] A group of criminal aliens showed up to a Tarrant County, Texas, work release program and were surprised they were getting arrested instead of getting a job. When they arrived at the county facility, immigration officers took the allegedly undocumented criminal immigrants into custody.
Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vans arrived at the Tarrant County probation office Sunday morning; witnesses told KGNS NBC8. The immigration officers took custody of a group of illegal aliens who came to the facility to participate in a work release program run by the county.
#1
Heck no, they weren't undocumented! They each had files full of their arrests, trials, convictions, sentences, prison behaviours, and paroles -- so don't y'all say they had no documents!!
[IsraelTimes] German intelligence believes Iran’s al-Quds Force is gearing up for possible conflict with the US and Israel.
A Pak man was convicted in Germany Monday of spying for Iran to search out potential attack targets for the Revolutionary Guards.
The defendant, 31-year-old Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison "for working for a foreign intelligence service," a spokeswoman for Berlin’s superior court said.
The court found he spied "against Germany and another NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... member," La Belle France, for the al-Quds Force, the foreign operations wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards.
Syed-Naqfi compiled dossiers on possible attack targets -- a German politician who is the former head of a German-Israeli organization, and a French-Israeli economics professor.
Investigators found detailed dossiers on the men and their daily routines, with hundreds of photos and video clips.
The court heard they detailed the targets’ homes and work places, various access routes to them, as well as information on security guards, surveillance cameras and nearby cop shoppes.
A representative of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, which handles counterespionage, said it was alerted to the defendant by a "reliable" source.
The service suspected the al-Quds Force was preparing for a possible future conflict with the United States and Israel, when it would hit targets in Europe in a form of "asymmetrical warfare."
The Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... -born Syed-Naqfi came to Germany as a student in 2012 and most recently lived in the western city of Bremen.
The defendant travelled to Iran at least twice, in October 2015 and February 2016, and received at least 2,052 euros ($2,237) for his intelligence activities.
He was tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in July 2016, but declined to testify during the trial -- "out of fear," according to his lawyer.
#1
The service suspected the al-Quds Force was preparing for a possible future conflict with the United States and Israel, when it would hit targets in Europe in a form of "asymmetrical warfare."
Unlike recent civilian attacks, how?
Be interesting to backlink the casualities. Could be some of the 'random' assaults are targeted.
[AlAhram] As polling stations opened Monday in Germany, acrimony has been rising among the Turks here whose votes are crucial in the tight race over whether to expand the powers of Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... The 1.4 million eligible Turkish voters in Germany represent about half the total number of expatriates who can cast ballots, and the fight for their support has been fierce.
So far the headlines have focused on tensions between the two leaders. Erdogan, who has been trying to woo the Turks in Germany with rallies and rhetoric, has accused German officials of acting like Nazis for blocking his supporters from holding rallies ahead of the referendum. The move infuriated many in Germany, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/28/2017
02:11 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[AnNahar] Hungary said Monday it was ready to begin detaining asylum-seekers in camps on its southern border with Serbia after passing a law this month that has drawn criticism from rights groups and the U.N.
Hungary's parliament approved on March 7 the systematic detention of all asylum-seekers in camps on the border composed of converted shipping containers.
The move was part of policies by hardline anti-immigration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a strong admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... From Tuesday, asylum-seekers entering Hungary as well as those currently in the country will be confined in camps at the its southern borders while their applications are processed.
"The border protection agencies are fully prepared for the entry into force of the reinforced legal border closure on March 28," said a statement by the interior ministry.
"The police, the defense forces and the Immigration and Asylum Office have made the necessary preparations for the implementation of the required measure," said the statement.
The ministry said the purpose of the restrictions is to "prevent migrants colonists with an unclear status from moving freely around the territory of the country and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , and to thereby reduce the security risk of migration."
According to the government 324 shipping container homes have been installed at two separate locations called "transit zones" built into a fence that Hungary erected along the 175-kilometer-(110-mile)-long border in 2015.
EU member Hungary previously systematically detained all asylum applicants but suspended the practice in 2013 under pressure from Brussels, the U.N. refugee agency and the European Court of Human Rights.
Rights groups like Amnesia Amnesty International have condemned the new rules for failing to meet Hungary's international obligations to asylum-seekers.
The UNHCR also said that systematic detention will "have a terrible physical and psychological impact on women, children and men who have already greatly suffered."
According to refugee rights group the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) some 400 asylum-seekers are currently housed in the country's internal camp network, and now face relocation to the border camps.
A second "smart fence" complete with night cameras, heat and movement sensors, and multilingual megaphones warning against crossing the barrier is also under construction, with completion scheduled by May.
#1
The only European country with the distinction to take up arms against the Soviet Union and resist invasion by Islamism. Oddly, the smallest country in Europe in 1956.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
03/28/2017 8:43
Comments ||
Top||
#2
A second "smart fence" complete with night cameras, heat and movement sensors, and multilingual megaphones warning against crossing the barrier
Does the US Secret Service know such things exist? Time for a little subcontracting, maybe.
#4
"smart fence" complete with night cameras, heat and movement sensors
SteveS - not only does the Secret Service know of such things, they are using them at the White House, except when they are removed or turned off for some reason.
AlAhram] 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 threatened Iran for its role in the region's conflicts, in a rare Farsi-language propaganda video released on Monday.
The 36-minute video, entitled "The Farsi Land: from Yesterday till Today", was issued through IS's social media channels from Diyala province in neighbouring Iraq.
A masked man directs his message to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"O, Khamenei, you cursed person who controls the so-called Islamic Iranian regime, rest assured that soon we will destroy your house like this," he says, pointing to ruins behind him.
Several captured soldiers are decapitated in the video, one of whom is wearing a "Ya Hossein" badge, indicating that he is a Shia fighter.
Shia-majority Iran has been a key backer of the Syrian and Iraqi governments as they seek to root out IS and other Sunni rebels, sending thousands of fighters and military advisers.
IS and other hard boyz consider Shia to be apostates, and the video accuses Iranians of persecuting Sunnis over the centuries and into modern times.
"We will conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Moslem nation as it was before," says another man in the video.
The video also chastises Iran for its tolerance towards Jews.
"Iran raised its slogans against the US and Israel to deceive the Sunnis while Iranian Jews live safely in Iran under its protection, and it has provided them with temples and churches as seen in Tehran and Isfahan," the narrator says.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/28/2017
01:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
issued through IS's social media channels from Diyala province in neighbouring Iraq.
Not sufficient detail for targeting, I suppose. Although a general power outage would slow them down.
[Breitbart] President Trump’s attempts to drain the swamp are being undermined by one of his key administrators.
Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is more interested in building his political career than he is taking on the Green Blob, insiders report.
Pruitt is also said to be behind attempts to remove at least one of the key phrases from the president’s long-awaited Executive Order on the environment.
It concerns a proposal to repeal the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on CO2 (the disastrous, unscientific, job-killing ruling introduced during the Obama Administration, which rebranded the harmless trace gas Carbon Dioxide as a dangerous substance).
If Pruitt is successful and this clause is removed from the Executive Order it will represent a major setback for President Trump’s war with the Climate Industrial Complex. It may also put into jeopardy the promises Trump made on the campaign trail to scrap "any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest."
#3
Every law Congress writes should be limited to one sheet of paper.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/28/2017 8:32
Comments ||
Top||
#4
It concerns a proposal to repeal the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on CO2 (the disastrous, unscientific, job-killing ruling introduced during the Obama Administration, which rebranded the harmless trace gas Carbon Dioxide as a dangerous substance).
Leave it in, get rid of Pruitt. You've got to win the narrative in this war to start changing things around. The best narrative is the truthful narrative.
#7
It concerns a proposal to repeal the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on CO2 (the disastrous, unscientific, job-killing ruling introduced during the Obama Administration, which rebranded the harmless trace gas Carbon Dioxide as a dangerous substance). which all animals exhale constantly.....
[Breitbart] Riots have broken out in Paris with cars burned and property damaged after a man said to be of Chinese extraction was shot by police in his home.
Cars were set alight in Paris’ 19th district Monday evening after 56-year-old Shaoyo Liu died following a police raid after a domestic disturbance call. Mr Liu was reportedly armed with a pair of scissors, causing police to open fire and kill him, Le Figaro reports.
A crowd of between 150 and 200 people took to the streets to protest the police’s actions, most of them from Paris’ Chinese community. Journalist Rémy Buisine was able to shoot footage of police clashing with the protesters earlier this evening and posted the video on his Twitter account.
[LI] The head of America’s "largest privately held" coal firm has expressed optimism for his industry under President Donald Trump after a meeting held last month.
Murray Energy’s CEO and founder Robert Murray spoke with The Guardian on Monday. He believes that Trump will stick to his campaign promises for the coal industry by reducing regulations and overturning a few of President Barack Obama’s plans related to climate change.
It’s hard to deny his thoughts as coal communities in Virginia have seen a drastic positive change since Trump became president.
#2
#1 Skidmark. the water is then stored in the lower reservoir until it can be pumped back up to the top reservoir using cheaper, off-peak power or another renewable energy source.
Intriguing. There will be some energy losses in pumping water from the lower reservoirs to higher reservoirs. This is where renewable fuels come in. Got to obey those Laws of Thermo.
[Ynet] According to an Israeli intelligence report, 3,000 members of the Uyghur Moslem minority joined al-Qaeda and ISIS in the war in Syria. China fears their return, which led them to cozy up to Assad to ensure their elimination.
A report by the Israeli Foreign Ministry found that thousands of Chinese Moslems are fighting in the ranks of jihadi organizations in Syria. China is very concerned about their return and their influence on the security of its citizens and its worldwide interests, which is why they have recently increased their involvement in Syria, and have pushed to strengthen their ties with the Assad regime.
Traditionally, China attributed little importance to Syria, but current circumstances are changing the situation. The report of one of Israel's three intelligence assessment bodies, along with Military Intelligence and the Mossad, stated, "The arrival of tens of thousands of Chinese citizens fighting and living in the country raises the need for monitoring them. China is interested in as much data that can be collected on them, and it is our understanding that they would prefer to liquidate them on Syrian soil, in order to prevent their return to their region."
Continued on Page 49
[FOX] Three would-be robbers were shot and killed Monday when an Oklahoma homeowner's son opened fire on them with an AR-15, authorities said.
Wagoner County sheriff's deputies were called to the home in Broken Arrow, southeast of Tulsa at around 12:30 p.m. local time. When they arrived, they found the three dead suspects and two uninjured residents.
Sheriff's spokesman Deputy Nick Mahoney said the suspects enetered the home through a glass back door with the intent to burglarize it. It was not immediately clear why they picked that home. They were just lucky.
Mahoney said the suspects encountered the homeowner's 19-year-old son, who opened fire after an exchange of words. Two of the suspects died in the home's kitchen while a third was found in the driveway.
It was not immediately clear whether the suspects were armed, but Mahoney said the preliminary investigation indicated the shootings were in self-defense. The homeowner's son volunteered to give a statement at the sheriff's office.
This is very, very unusual for us [in Wagoner County]," Mahoney told the Tulsa World. "It's not something we're used to." Would you like more coffee and another piece of cake ? Click for more at OKCFox.com
#2
Nice upscale community, underground utilities, newish 3-4 bdrm house, fresh sealed asphalt street,...19 year old son living at home with an AR handy, 3 dead suspects with whom words were exchanged and an unknown witness.
I would immediately assume a collection attempt on an unpaid drug debt was the motive.
#3
My 89 year-old Grandmother shot a man who was on her screened front porch through the front door as he was trying to break in. Fortunately for him he survived. This was in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. She wasn't charged with anything.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/28/2017 7:20
Comments ||
Top||
#4
I would immediately assume a collection attempt on an unpaid drug debt was the motive.
If so - poor TTPs by the bad guys. Why not wait until he goes out to buy more drugs and thump him? I suspect these turds were just run of the mill ferals looking for an easy score of cash, phones, jewelry. They forgot about rule 223.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/28/2017 7:44
Comments ||
Top||
Perps were wearing masks, dressed in black and wearing gloves. Not your usual daytime 'debt collection' attire. Usually you would want the 'indebted' to know who was requesting payment.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/28/2017 9:59
Comments ||
Top||
#7
'Tactics, Techniques & Procedures'
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/28/2017 10:00
Comments ||
Top||
#8
The homeowner's son volunteered to give a statement at the Sheriff's office.
#9
#3 Fortunately for him he survived. This was in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. She wasn't charged with anything. There is a Public Citizen of the Year Award. It requires that you "Make a significant contribution to an area or population and to show courage."
#11
An OK resident who is familiar with the area posted that the neighborhood had experienced a rash of break-in's lately. It's a bit early, but I will go out on a limb and predict a tapering.
[National Review] In light of how controversial the matter has become, it’s unfortunate to find so much uninformed commentary, especially in cable-TV land, about foreign intelligence collection and its so-called minimization protocols -- particularly, the guidelines about revealing, or "unmasking," the identities of Americans whose communications are "incidentally" intercepted.
The question arises because of reporting -- most recently, the coverage of disclosures last week by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes -- that the communications of figures associated with the Trump campaign were intercepted "incidentally" by U.S. intelligence agencies because they had some interaction with people connected in some way to foreign powers, principally Russia.
The Trump associates subjected to such intelligence-agency monitoring certainly include former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who was intercepted when speaking with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. In addition, the intercepted individuals probably include at least three others: Paul Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign until being ousted in July (when reports surfaced of payments to him by the former government of Ukraine -- a Putin puppet regime); and two others, Roger Stone and Carter Page, who had informal connections to the campaign (but longstanding ties of varying degree to Trump and Manafort).
Nunes’s disclosures further suggest that the communications of others associated with Trump’s campaign (perhaps even Trump himself) were also intercepted. During the press conference, a reporter asked, Nunes, "Was the president [i.e., Trump] included in that incidental collection -- his communication?" Nunes responded, "Yes." Based on the little that has been reported, the interception and handling of these communications seems more disturbing because, according to Nunes, they have nothing to do with any known government intelligence investigations of Russia. Unless there is some legitimate connection to foreign activities, the specter of political spying hovers.
The reported intelligence collection efforts raise four separate questions that are too often conflated in the commentary:
#1
There is a lot to wade through in the article. The bottom line:
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.
The question might ought to be, "Do we need a FISA Court?" A court that is secretive and not open to the protections of public scrutiny.
[DAWN] The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) police claimed on Sunday to have killed two robbers allegedly involved in the killing of five coppers.
CIA SP Tariq Mastoi said they received information about the presence of two robbers in a house in Ali Colony Factory Area. He said he constituted a team to arrest the suspected robbers.
He said the police team reached the spot, cordoned off the area and asked the robbers to surrender to which they fired on the personnel.
The SP said after a 15-minute shootout, police entered the house and found two suspected robbers Aamir Shehzad alias Aamri and Ramzan alias Jaani dead.
Mr Mastoi said the suspects were involved in killing five coppers, including Kahna in-charge investigation SI Khalid Virk, Shadbagh SHO Tajamul Butt and Constable Rehmat Ali.
He said the suspects were involved in a number of robbery cases.
He said Aamir was also allegedly involved in killing two 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.... Highway and Patrol police personnel in Kasur.
Police recovered weapons from the house and later shifted the bodies to morgue for investigation.
Some three months ago, he said, SI Khalid Virk and his team conducted a raid at the hideout of Aamir in Kot Aligarh near Kasur. The suspects allegedly killed SI Khalid Virk and managed their escape.
Last year, he said, SI Tajamal Butt and his two friends were travelling by a private car when the two robbers stopped them in Defence’s F-Block. The suspects opened fire on resistance, killing Butt on the spot.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A 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 center was set on fire apparently by the anti-government armed holy warriors 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 government officials, the incident took place late on Sunday night in the vicinity of Chardi area of Bati Kot district.
Provincial governor’s front man Ataullah Khogyani confirmed the incident and said several vaccination equipment and medicines were also destroyed after the center caught fire.
Khogyani further added it is not yet not clear who was involved behind the incident but no casualties have been reported.
Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal condemned the incident and instructed the relevant security institutions to take immediate steps to apprehend the perpetrators.
He also instructed the provincial public health directorate to arrange further medicines for the implementation of vaccination in the district.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Pretty direct way to end a generational war. Just make the next generation cripples, hobbling handicapped, diminished denizens, physically challenged and unlikely to survive to adulthood.
Electricity production at the Ruwais power station near Nalut in the Jebel Nafusa has been dramatically reduced after protestors turned off the gas supply this morning. It has led to fears of major power cuts in the Tripoli and elsewhere in the wast of Libya.
Valves on the pipeline from Eni’s Wafa field were turned off near the station by members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard claiming that they were owed money. They also demanded the authorities improve a range of local service, including healthcare, infrastructure, education and the supply of cooking gas cylinders, before they would reopen the valves.
GECOL, the national electricity company, has said that 500 megawatts of power had been lost to the national grid as a result and that Ruwais would have to close altogether if the gas supply were not reconnected.
Back in late 2013, the capital suffered major blackouts after power generation at the 900-MW, six-turbine station was hit when the gas supply was cut off to the station for a month by Amazigh and Tebu protestors.
Two of the turbines at Ruwais can operate on oil, and during the 2013 blockade one of them did so for a while, but it took 50 trucks a day to feed it with 60,000 tonnes of diesel. This produced 125 MW, compared to 150 MW when running on gas.
The pipleine now switched off feeds not only the station but also supplies gas via Zawia undersea to Italy.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
There, see that will sure reduce the critical internet traffic.
[ARA News] The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday temporarily halted the operation to take the Tabqa Dam in Raqqa Governorate in order to inspect damages after ISIS propaganda suggested the dam could collapse.
However, after investigation it was concluded the dam was not damaged.
On 26 March, Amaq, the ISIS propaganda arm, claimed that the Tabqa Dam could collapse due to heavy bombing by the US-led coalition. As a result, the SDF temporarily halted the operation.
“For saving Tabqa Dam and taking the necessary procedures for that, and at the request of dam manager, we decided to cease the operations in Tabqa Dam for 4 hours since 01:00 pm till 05:00 pm by the date of March 27, 2017 for the engineers’ team could enter the dam and undertake their works,” the command of the SDF-led Euphrates Wrath operation room said.
SDF spokeswoman and commander Jihan Sheikh Ehmed for the Euphrates Wrath operation said in a statement that after an engineering team entered the dam it was concluded that the dam was not damaged and there was no threat of collapse that could threaten the civilian population in Raqqa.
A YPG official on Sunday said the claims that the dam was damaged was just propaganda by the regime and ISIS to slow down the operation and that the SDF will eventually liberate the strategic dam.
Moreover, the SDF said the dam was not targeted by any coalition air strikes.
The US-led coalition on Monday confirmed that the dam was not damaged.
“The Coalition is taking every precaution to ensure the integrity of Tabqa Dam. To our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged,” the official Twitter account of the International Coalition for Operation Inherent Resolve said.
A US Government official told ARA News in an exclusive statement that it was most likely an ISIS propaganda to slow down the operation.
“Unfortunately I’m not sure I’m in a position to say whether the Amaq claims about Tabqa Dam are true or not. What I could say, unofficially, is that to date we have seen ISIS falsely report civilian casualties resulting from Coalition airstrikes in Syria. I imagine such consciously inaccurate reports likely intend to slow and jeopardize the C-ISIS campaign,” the official said.
“As for Tabqa Dam, it is strategically significant given that it is a major piece of power infrastructure. Tabqa and the surrounding areas are also ISIS strongholds and could act as a) defenses for Raqqa City or b) as egress routes in the event that ISIS loses Raqqa City,” the US official told ARA News.
“Denying ISIS Tabqa removes a potential defense of Raqqa and provides the opportunity to degrade ISIS manpower ahead of the battle for Raqqa City,” the official concluded.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Western-backed Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) continued their large-scale advance near the Iraqi border-crossing on Monday, seizing large parts of al-Sweida’s eastern countryside from the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) forces.
Free Syrian Army units operating in al-Sweida’s Badiyah area launched another powerful assault this weekend, striking the remaining areas under ISIS’ control.
According to the Free Syrian Army’s official media wing, their forces seized the al-Badiyah area of al-Sweida on Sunday, giving them control of more territory inside the province.
On Monday, the Free Syrian Army units managed to reach the Syrian Arab Army’s front-lines in eastern al-Sweida for the first time since the Islamic State took control of this area in late 2014.
With the massive Kurdish offensive in al-Raqqa, the Islamic State has put their field operations in southern Syria on hold until they are able to stabilize their positions in the northern part of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Well, at least the writer was smart enough to say "western backed" instead of "pro-western".
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS) Chief, Masoom Stanikzai has said the government will soon reveal the faces involved in the deadly attack on Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan military hospital 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.... Briefing the politicians regarding the deteriorating security situation in the country, particularly in Kabul city, Stanikzai said the government is committed to disclose the truth the Afghan people.
He said the investigations are underway and those involved in the attack will be recognized in the near future.
According to Stanikzai, the government is expecting to conclude the investigations soon and results are expected to be announced in coming one or two weeks.
In other parts of his briefing, Stanikzai said the country is facing menace o terror from at least twenty groups.
He also added that the Afghan intelligence has conducted at least 317 special military operations in the past two months and in the most critical parts of the country.
Stanikzai said the Afghan intelligence managed to foil the majority of the terrorist attack plots but the Lions of Islam managed to carry out about one or two attacks out of every 20 attack plots successfully.
At least 50 people were killed and around 30 others were maimed in the attack on Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital earlier this month, according to the officials investigating the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraqi forces launched a renewed attack against Lions of Islam in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... ’s Old City on Monday, a senior commander said.
The United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... has warned that 400,000 people are "trapped" in the central Mosul area under siege-like conditions, as Iraqi forces battle ISIS for the city’s west.
"Federal Police and Rapid Response Division units began to advance today on the southwestern axis of the Old City," Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police, said in a statement.
Jawdat said that one of their targets is Faruq Street, which runs near the al-Nuri mosque.
ISIS Chief His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... made his only known public appearance at the mosque after ISIS seized Mosul in 2014, calling on Moslems to obey him.
Iraqi forces have been operating in the area of the Old City for several weeks, but they have faced tough resistance and progress in the area has been slow.
ISIS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces have since retaken much of the territory they lost.
Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second city, in October, retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely-populated west.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) Three members of the Islamic State security detachment, located east of Shirqat town, Salahuddin, were killed and injured as an attack was launched by unknown persons, a local source in the province said on Monday.
“One member of a security detachment for IS in Shirqat, north of Salahuddin province, was killed, while two others were wounded as unknown people launched an attack targeting their vehicle on the agricultural road on the outskirts of the town,” the source told Alsumaria News.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source described the attack as ‘the first of its kind’ that targets “one of the most important security detachments” of IS, which “imposed strict measures after the attack and started raiding some areas.”
The eastern coast of Shirqat, which lies on the west bank of the Tigris river in Salaheddin province, is still under the IS control, after liberating the western coast few months ago.
In September, Iraqi army said its forces recaptured the town, located around 80km south of Mosul, after being surrounded for months by Iraqi troops and the pro-government Shi’ite militias.
The Iraqi government is expected to launch more offensives against IS pockets in other Iraqi provinces once it is finished with expelling the militant group from Mosul, where a major campaign has entered a sixth month to retake the city.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Two civilians were wounded Monday when a bomb blast hit a district in southwestern Baghdad, according to police sources.
The explosive device was planted on the side of a road near a popular market in Radwaniya, the sources were quoted saying.
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. It excludes death toll among security members after Iraqi authorities had asked to get such information exclusively from security commands.
While several blasts are not followed by a claim of responsibility, Islamic State militants said they had been behind some bloody explosions and attacks that hit the capital in the past months, leaving casualties among civilians and security troops.
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 guerrilla-style war and lone wolf attacks after the recapture of Mosul. Google Map at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] 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... ’s Major General Ahmed Hassan Mohammad Assiri has said his country supports America's tough stance against ISIS, terror and Iran. He made the remarks in an article first published in Fox News.
[Ynet] Fadel Tzaber Knaneh was in contact with his brother, who fought with ISIS in Syria and was killed, and with another Israeli Arab, who convinced him to transfer NIS 5,000 to him in Iraq.
Fadel Tzaber Knaneh, a 25-year-old Israeli Arab from Yafa an-Naseriyye, was indicted on Monday for having had contact with ISIS fighters and transferring money to one of them.
A Shin Bet investigation found that Knaneh, an ideological supporter of ISIS, was in contact with his brother, Muhammad Knaneh, who left for Syria in 2014 to fight with ISIS and was killed in combat.
In 2016, another Israeli national, Muhammad Keilani, who is currently fighting with ISIS in either Syria or Iraq, contacted Knaneh to notify him about his brother's death.
In March 2017, after telling Knaneh that he was injured in battle, Keilani asked Knaneh for money. Keilani transferred NIS 5,000 ($1,300) to the ISIS fighter in Iraq with the help of a moneychanger in Jenin and even called Keilani to make sure he received the money.
Knaneh was placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! on March 2, 2017, in a joint operation of the Shin Bet and Israel Police.
The Shin Bet said in a statement on Monday: "The Shin Bet views with utmost gravity contacts between Israeli citizens and terrorist elements, which constitute a serious threat to the security of the State of Israel and the peace of its citizens. Transferring funds to forces of Evil abroad abets the perpetration of attacks; therefore, the Shin Bet will continue to use all means at its disposal to counter this threat and deal with those involved to the fullest extent of the law."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Ynet] Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", decided on Monday to ease its self-imposed blockade on Gazoo, allowing three ministers in the Paleostinian unity government, families of security prisoners, and patients in need of medical treatment in Israel to leave the strip.
The Hamas Interior Ministry said, however, that men aged 15-45 are still barred from leaving.
[IsraelTimes] The head of the Paleostinian Authority’s intelligence agency said that the PA will work to thwart any Dire Revenge attacks by Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, operatives in the West Bank against Israeli targets, in the wake of to the recent liquidation of one of the terror group’s leaders.
"We will not allow the West Bank to serve as a base for any type of response," Channel 10 quoted Majed Faraj as saying in an interview with the German daily Der Spiegel.
Faraj also said that the Paleostinian intelligence services are working with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency to ensure Hamas is unable to retaliate for the killing of Hamas military official Mazen Faqha, in accordance with security agreements between the PA and Israel.
"No one is authorized to violate these agreements, no matter what," he said.
[AlAhram] The Egyptian military has said it foiled a murderous Moslem plan to establish a patrol to inspect cars in North Sinai’s Rafah.
In an official statement released on Sunday, army spokesperson Tamer El-Refai gave some details of the operation apparently carried out by the armed forces’ second field army which led to the killing of eight murderous Moslems. The statement did not say when the operation took place.
In the past weeks, 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.... murderous Moslem group affiliates in Egypt have released images of what looked like security roadside checkpoints in several areas in North Sinai that was manned by turbans not police.
The forces placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! 22 suspects suspected of executing terrorist operations in the areas of Rafah and Arish in North Sinai, the statement read.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A Taliban holy warrior who has joined grinding of the peace processor 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 has confessed that they have butchered innocent civilians.
A group of eighteen Taliban snuffies have joined peace renouncing violence in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
The provincial government in a statement said the group led by commander Bakhtu Khan joined the grinding of the peace processor due to the efforts of the Afghan intelligence.
The statement further added that the Lions of Islam also handed over some weapons as they pledged to return to a normal life and renounce insurgency.
The group was previously operating in Bati Kot and Ghani Khel districts with one of the Lions of Islam Raz Mohammad saying they were encouraged to start insurgency against the government from certain circles in Pakistain who were providing them with all of types weapons they needed.
What a delicate way to indicate the ISI. I am all admiration.
He confessed that he was involved in the execution of civilians by butchering them besides conducting other insurgency activities, including attacks on military convoys, for which he says he feels regretted.
Mohammad also added that they had received instructions to destroy the Darunta dam and tunnel which forced them to renounce violence, admitting that the insurgency they were waging was not a holy war or Jihad.
Nowhere does he say he was ordered to cut peoples' heads off, suggesting that was an additional refinement of his/their own.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
they had received instructions to destroy the Darunta dam and tunnel
Qamishli (IraqiNews.com) Al-Hashd al-Shaabi foiled on Monday an attack by the Islamic Group against the Syrian city of Qamishli, which is predominantly inhabited by Kurds, southwest of Tal Afar.
According to the military spokesperson, al-Hashd al-Shaabi “confronted the biggest attack by IS against Qamishli, west of Mosul.” The troops “set more than six booby trapped motorbikes on fire, killing those on board.”
The spokesperson added that IS was attempting to escape toward Baaj.
Qamishli is considered a pivotal point between Tal Afar and Sinjar, as well as being one of the strategic towns that used to be a source of IS attacks against al-Hashd al-Shaabi west of Tal Afar.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
"Stereotypes" are usually based on experience. As Alan Quatermain once said It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing. If sixty five Moslems try to kill you, you're surprised if the sixty sixth doesn't. This is not fear. It is good sense.
[DAWN] According to the consensus narrative, immigrants -- specifically Moslem ones -- are flooding the West and carrying out (or condoning) terrorist attacks because they hate Judeo-Christian values, democracy and Western freedoms. This was the narrative assigned to Khalid Masood until he was revealed to be Adrian Elms, a 52-year-old born in Kent with a history of violent crime, and a late-life conversion to Islam,
...if he converted at around age 40, here in the West that is early middle age, not late in life. We consider late life to be the far side of 70 -- or according to my mother, some years beyond 100...
indicating that longstanding mental and social issues rather than exposure to the faith may have driven his actions on March 22.
Elms’ profile is typical of many attackers in the West, who tend to be natives of the country in which they act, often live within an hour’s distance of the attack location, and have a history of petty or serious criminal activity. But who needs facts when there’s a more compelling narrative that can be peddled for cynical political purposes? As Nesrine Malik put it in The Guardian, "an infrastructure of hate promotion has been established and incorporated within the mainstream". This is exemplified by Nigel Farage’s immigrant-bashing hours after the Westminster attack, and Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... Jr’s attempts to criticise London mayor Sadiq Khan after this attack for sensible comments he made last year about terrorist incidents being a part of life in major cities. These narratives have enabled political coups ranging from Brexit to Trump to Le Pen.
As attacks in western cities increase, people will cling more desperately to the established narrative, no matter how often it is disproved. This is because it is too terrifying to contemplate a world in which everyday objects like knives and cars can be weaponised by anyone who bears a grudge, has a mental illness, had a difficult or abusive childhood, or struggles with addiction.
Public debate about violent extremism in the West has long made the mistake of treating radicalisation as a product of demography rather than biography. The assumption is that radicalised individuals must fit a particular type: Moslem, male, young, immigrant, unemployed, internet savvy. But we have repeatedly seen that these stereotypes don’t hold true, and that it remains unclear what causes someone to become radicalised and take the step of committing an
extremist act. In most cases, perpetrators have histories like Masood’s, rooted in personal experiences, traumas and failures, that are harder to generalise, typify and predict. More importantly, individual experience is harder to convert into sweeping policies or regulations (travel bans, surveillance, visa vetting) than stereotype.
Since the launch of Raddul Fasaad, the security forces in Pakistain have increasingly resorted to demography, arresting Afghans and Pakhtuns, and stirring ethnic resentment. It is true that generalisations about the types of people who join violent krazed killer organizations may work better in a context like ours where murderous Moslem groups are prevalent, operate openly, run social welfare programmes, and have at some point benefited from state patronage. When we resort to generalisations, we are not blurring the boundaries between demography and biography; rather, we are denying the roots of violent extremism, which is largely the consequence of strategic policies gone awry, and not an organic process.
In either case, the failure to acknowledge the drivers of krazed killer violence in a particular context means that publics and politicians rely on ill-conceived narratives that ultimately cause more societal damage, rather than address the underlying issues that could help stem radicalisation. Irrespective of where terrorism takes place, it should not be exploited for short-term political gain -- we owe at least that much to its victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
#1
longstanding mental and social issues rather than exposure to the faith may have driven triggered his actions
#6
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it might be a hippo but it's probably a duck! The 80% assessment is a good model for avoiding major mistakes, and over time, the missed opportunities average out. Islam is as much political and military strategy as religion, and its overt advocacy of violence and deceit make it a dangerous thing to trust. Sorry to the innocent Muslims that get short changed, but sometimes you just draw the short straw!
#8
Methinks the Pak Islamists and their Gubbamint/ISI/Mil supporters are getting a bit nervous about the change in attitude among Westerners. No longer willing to give the blind eye?
Calling them out is a start. Isolation and eradication may have to be the end. And in the end, really what would the world lose? An infection previously politically denied
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2017 19:45
Comments ||
Top||
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Federal Police and Rapid Response troops are advancing toward the south of central Mosul’s Old City, said Federal Police commander Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat on Monday.
In a statement, Jawdat said “Federal Police troops are continuing their advance toward the southwest axis of central Mosul’s Old City.
The troops, according to Jawdat, headed toward its targets at Qadib al-Ban and Al-Farouq districts in central Mosul.
Mosul is the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq. Eastern Mosul was recaptured from IS in January. The forces recently regained control over strategic areas in the western region after a US-backed offensive was launched in October. A new offensive started in February to retake the west. The government troops have recently pushed deeper into the Old City, a densely-populated and -structured area which military officials view as central to the desired victory over IS militants.
Battles in the west are believed to be much more difficult due to the density of residential areas and the high number of civilians who the commanders believe are used as human shields by IS members.
IS lost control on most of the cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015. Google Map at the link
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Twenty-seven Islamic State members were killed Monday in airstrikes and gunfights with security forces in western Mosul, while a new mass grave was found.
BasNews quoted Maj. Ammar Qassem, from the Iraqi army, saying that clashes broke out between Iraqi forces and IS members near the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. He said the fights left dead 17 militants of multiple Arab and foreign nationalities.
He added that the troops ran into a mass grave of former police agents executed by IS members. The victims belong to residents of Baaj and Tal Afar, according to ID cards found with the relics.
Also on Monday, the Joint Operations Command said fighter jets from the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 senior IS leaders when they pounded group offices in western Mosul. Basnews quoted Col. Khodeir Saleh saying the strike targeted IS vigilantism and treasury bureaus in western Mosul, but did not mention the exact location of the strikes.
According to Saleh, the militants set fire to 12 medical storehouses and a blood bank near the Nineveh health department in retaliation for the strikes.
Iraqi government forces launched an offensive in February to retake western Mosul from Islamic State militants, having recaptured the eastern side of the city in January.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Forty-three more civilians were killed Monday in airstrikes targeting Islamic State locations in western Mosul, continuing a bloody week for Iraqis stranded in battlefields.
Anadolu Agency quoted an officer within the Rapid Response Forces, a special interior ministry force, saying the strikes were carried out by jets from the U.S.-led coalition at two separate areas, adding that those killed included women and children.
No comment was made by the Iraqi command or the international coalition yet.
According to the brigadier general, a first strike killed 23 civilians, as well as the targeted militants, in Bab Sinjar in central Mosul. Another strike at Tawafa region killed 20 members of one family.
The coalition has been under fire over the past week due to accusations that its fighter jets caused more than 200 civilian deaths in strikes targeting IS militants in western Mosul al-Resala and Mosul al-Jadida districts. U.S. commanders said they were going to investigate deaths that occurred at areas of their troops’ operations.
The Iraqi command had said it found no evidence of airstrikes at the areas where deaths had been reported, accusing IS militants of fabricating the reports to tarnish the security campaign against the group since October 2016.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi security forces started to deploy snipers on rooftops of buildings in western Mosul, in order to hunt down the Islamic State members, who are using civilians as human shields.
Spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Colonel Yahia Rasoul, said in a press statement that the Islamic State militants started to use civilians in western Mosul as human shields, and we are trying to shoot them by deploying snipers.
The army forces are advancing carefully to keep civilians safe, Rasoul explained. We are relying on light and medium weight weapons and tools, including sniping, to target the Islamic State members away from civilians, he further added.
Rasoul also accused the terrorist group of killing civilians, using booby-trapped containers, where its members gather civilians and force them to stay at specific houses, then detonate the nearby containers.
Furthermore, Rasoul pointed out that the Islamic State is using this method to delude the public that Iraqi forces are targeting innocent civilians.
Meanwhile, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that nearly 400 thousand Iraqis are still besieged in western Mosul.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Libya Observer] The front man of the air emergency operations room, Mohammed Gunono, said the statement of the US Africa Command commander Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, who stated that IS turbans are trying to regroup its forces in southern Sirte and that they are not fully eradicated, are relatively true as the air emergency operations room as well as Libyan air force are still working around the clock to get their jobs done.
He also said that after liberating Sirte they were tasked with fighting off the remnants of the terror groups that are still on the run, adding that they covered the central region from western Sirte to eastern al-Khums city and from Sirte coast to al-Jufra southward.
"We have been doing reconnaissance on demand in those areas and we assure that the remaining turbans are still on the lam." Gunono added.
He also said that the reconnaissance flights are done in coordination with Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... that is appointed to secure Sirte and with the residents that report to the room about any dubious moves around them.
"IS Lions of Islam are moving around secretly and are altering their strategies upon the statements we make on the media that is why we avoid appearing on any media platform." Gunono indicated, pointing out that the desert nature of the area helped IS remnants a lot as they are using the open air, where no residents come, to move around at night and before sunrise.
"It is a highly technical and critical operation to be done." Gunono said, referring to depicting the movement of IS diehards on the run, adding that all residents must be aware and ready to assist the security personnel in all areas, where IS Lions of Islam could be active.
He concluded that IS Lions of Islam won't have a foothold in Libya again and it is a fact, especially that Bunyan Marsous operation was a roaring success that uprooted the terror group's biggest bastion outside Syria and Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[15 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Yeah, it was a "secret movement" but you could still smell it.
Posted by: Steven ||
03/28/2017 23:50
Comments ||
Top||
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A member of the Islamic State’s police service was injured, while his wife was killed as a bomb exploded under their vehicle in Tal Afar town, a strategic IS stronghold in northwestern Mosul, a local source in Nineveh province said on Monday.
Speaking to Alsumaria News, the source said “the Islamic Police official of IS in Tal Afar was critically wounded, while his wife was killed as a bomb planted under his vehicle exploded in the southern suburb of the town.
“The operations that target IS leaders are mainly motivated by competition among leaders on positions and profits due to the weakening centralism of the group in the wake of Mosul liberation,” the source, who preferred anonymity, said.
On Sunday, a source declared the killing of IS explosive expert in Tal Afar, along with four of his assistants, while attempting to booby-trap a residential building there.
Pro-government militias, al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) forces launch fierce battles to liberate Tal Afar from IS. The Shi’ite militias began to close in on Tal Afar late last year, after the offensive was launched, before linking up with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to surround the IS fighters.
Iraqi troops supported by airstrikes from army and the US-led coalition resume military operations to free western Mosul.
Mosul is the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq. Eastern Mosul and about half of the west were recaptured from IS in January, after a US-backed offensive was launched in October. A new offensive started in February to retake the west. The government troops have recently pushed deeper into the Old City, a densely-populated and -structured area which military officials view as central to the desired victory over IS militants.
Battles in the west are believed to be much more difficult due to the density of residential areas and the high number of civilians who the commanders believe are used as human shields by IS members.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) A security source informed that members of the Islamic State group assassinated a mosque’s imam in an area held by Iraqi forces, in western Mosul, Shafaaq News reported on Monday.
The source said that Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil, preacher and imam of Derson Mosque, was assassinated by members of the Islamic State terrorist group, while he was distributing humanitarian aid in the liberated area of al-Okaidat, in western Mosul.
The source did not give any further information about the incident.
Earlier this month, Iraqi security forces recaptured the districts of Nabi Sheth and Okaidat, in western Mosul, after fierce battles with the Islamic State militants.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) The Islamic State group has sentenced a youth to death by stoning in the city of Mosul, on charges of homosexuality.
The terrorist group published photos on affiliated websites showing a number of IS Diwan al-Hisbah (accountability) members, while reading out death sentence according to Sharia, in the presence of a crowd of people, before carrying out the execution based on “the limits of Allah and Islam”.
The photos revealed that the Islamic State militants started to throw the youth with stones, who was blindfolded, after throwing him from a building’s rooftop, but the exact time and location of the execution were not identified.
The incident is not the first of its kind in Mosul, where the terrorist group claims to implement the limits of God and Islam.
Earlier this year, Islamic State militants sentenced a man to death by throwing him from a high rooftop in Mosul, after accusing him of being homosexual, while used the same method to execute four people, including two of its own members, on charges of homosexuality and sodomy in Dor al-Toub area in central Mosul.
Diyala (IraqiNews.com) ِA human rights group in Diyala has declared locating a mass grave that contains remains of victims killed by the Islamic State northeast of the province based on one of the IS fighters confessions.
The grave will be opened upon getting the necessary approvals, the group added.
“Peshmerga forces recently detained an IS fighter who confessed during interrogations that a mass grave that includes victims existed in Saadiya, 60 KM northeast of Baquba,” Taleb al-Khazrangy, head of Diyala Organization for Human Rights, told AlSumaria News on Monday.
“Peshmerga forces have accurately located the grave, which will be opened over the coming few weeks after obtaining the required approvals,” he added. “The victims in the grave where executed by IS during its control on Saadiya after June 2014.”
“The information indicate that more than 100 civilians are missing in Saadiya, most of them were held by the group in Saadiya. We have been coordinating with security troops to identify them,” Khazrangy added.
Several mass graves containing the relics of civilians and security members have been discovered since Iraqi forces launched offensives on IS strongholds in October 2016. IS has posted videos of heinous executions it carried out with civilians for either fleeing areas under its control or acting as informants for security forces.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Libya Observer] The UN-proposed government's Presidential Council (PC) has issued a new order that divides the authorities and specialties of the Oil and Gas Ministry between the Prime Ministry and the National Oil Corporation (NOC).
According to the order, the PC will be the supervisor of investments into the oil resources in Libya as well as of developing it and proposing the necessary legislations in this regard, not to mention approving the projects and plans that aim at boosting the oil production in the country.
The PC will also be responsible for contracting as well as issuing investment licenses and issuing or canceling contracts to extract oil, let alone pricing crude oil and gas.
The NOC will take up, in addition to its specializations, the executive plans in the field of oil industry and projects in oil and gas sectors, besides supervising the execution stages after the plans had been approved. In addition, it will bes tasked with using state-of-the-art methods to better invest in Libya's oil fortune.
"The NOC will monitor the production and exportation processes, name Libya's representatives to attend meetings and conferences in the Arab world and all over the world, after consulting the Prime Minister. It will also suggest giving or taking away investment licenses, and specifying the daily oil and gas production in the country." The order reads.
The order strips Mustafa Sanallah of the authorities of the Minister of Oil, which he has been practicing since the deputy minister Omar al-Shakmak resigned in 2014.
Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, the congregants were being herded into the paddy wagon... when Fayez al-Sirraj was appointed a PM for the UN-proposed government, he did not appoint a minister for the oil and gas ministry.
The order of the PC will practically undermine the authorities the NOC has in the oil sector and will be a big blow to the efforts the Tobruk-based House of Representatives is exerting to control the Libyan oil production, especially after the the declaration of separation between 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... -based NOC and the parallel NOC in east Libya and after 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... had put his grip on the entire oil crescent region.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Daily Caller] Democratic super-lobbyist Tony Podesta grossed more than $500,000 to represent a Chinese company criminally convicted in March of sending illegal shipments of telecom equipment to Iran, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.
The seriousness of the illegal sales to Iran were so extreme and continued for so long -- from 2010 to last year -- the Department of Justice (DOJ) imposed a record $1.19 billion fine on the ZTE Telecommunications company, making it the largest penalty ever imposed in a U.S. sanctions case.
The Chinese firm hired the Podesta Group, one of Washington’s biggest and best-connected lobbying companies in the nation’s capital, in January 2016. ZTE retained Podesta’s personal help as negotiations intensified for a final resolution with DOJ during the final year of President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House.
The Shenzhen-based company pleaded guilty on March 7 to violating a 22-year-old ban on shipments to Iran, including "conspiring by illegally shipping ... U.S.-origin items to Iran, obstructing justice and making a material false statement," according to the DOJ.
#2
Did Podesta get "MikeFlynned or PaulManaforted" by the echo-chamber media and the Demonrat Party? I haven't heard much about Podesta and his proclivities from the MSM.
To have Freedom of the Press, you have to have a free press.
Spokesman of the Russian reconciliation center stated that all aerial devices of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria are either at base airfields or carrying out their tasks commenting allegations that militants downed a Russian helicopter in Syria’s Latakia.
Allegations that militants downed a Russian helicopter in Syria’s Latakia are not true, the Russian reconciliation center said Monday.
“All aerial devices of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria are either at base airfields or carrying out their tasks. The messages on terrorist-controlled media outlets regarding an allegedly downed Russian helicopter are not true,” a spokesman of the center told reporters.
#1
Yawn, so it's a Russian helicopter run by somebody else. Or a US or Indian or Chinese helicopter. Or it wasn't a helicopter but a truck, from Chechnya.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A 35-year old man has admitted that he kidnapped and raped a 20-month old baby girl by laying her down and opening her diaper, in a crime that has left many Egyptians in shock this week.
The girl’s life was saved after suffering severe damages to her private genital parts and huge blood loss as a result from the attack, local media reported.
The rapist confessed to his crime saying that he kidnapped the girl after seeing her on the home’s balcony shortly after Friday prayers. He admitted taking her into an empty room, then removed her diaper before "raping her with his fingers," leaving the victim in a pool of her own blood.
The victim’s mother filed a complained against the rapist, saying that, "until now, she cannot believe what has happened to her daughter."
"My daughter can’t utter the words mama and papa yet, and all of this has happened to her. My heart is burning and there’s nothing I can do for her," the mother said.
"Execution is not even enough," said the victim’s grandfather. "I don’t know how a 35-year-old person can do this to a child who is a year and 8 months old, who cannot even speak yet and still wears diapers."
Egypt's prosecution have ordered a four-day detention for the rapist pending further investigation into the case.
A psychiatrist commenting on the incident said the confessions of the rapist reveal that he suffers a mental disorder.
The incident, which occurred in a village at Egypt’s al-Daqahliyah Governorate, shocked Egyptian society, with social media users demanding nothing less than an execution for the rapist.
It was reported that an unknown assailant attempted to set the rapist’s home ablaze, but firefighters managed to put the fire out.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
the confessions of the rapist reveal that he suffers a mental disorder
Sure, he's a rapist!
No mention of point of origin.
#4
gorb, doesn't Sharia require four MALE witnesses to testify in cases of rape? No witnesses, no rape.
Of course, even if this creep gets off in court, his life is likely to be short.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/28/2017 11:34
Comments ||
Top||
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Ministry of Defense’s War Media Cell announced on Monday, that the Army Aviation warplanes carried out air strikes, based on intelligence information, on the Islamic State’s headquarters in areas west of the city of Mosul.
The cell said that the Army Aviation bombarded a gathering of the Islamic State members, who were coming from Syria and Husaiba, in Balij area, south of Tal Afar, killing nearly 50 terrorists and destroying 10 vehicles.
The air strikes also destroyed a cache of rockets and explosive, as well as killing 8 IS terrorists in al-Qayrawan area, south of Tal Afar, the statement added.
Furthermore, the Army Aviation warplanes destructed a hideout belonging to the IS in Balij area, killing 12 militants inside it, the statement further explained.
The statement also revealed that a hideout of the Islamic State was destroyed and a number of militants were killed in al-Mahlabiya area in Mosul.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
The Libyan National Army (LNA) has appointed Brigadier Jamal Zahawi to the new post of commander of the Jufra operations room.
The LNA is claiming that the Jufra airbase and its Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) fighters are completely surrounded.
A source has told the Libya Herald that the LNA wants to avoid the casualties of an all-out attack and is content to starve into submission the BDB militia militia on the airbase.
The LNA has also today announced the appointment of Brigadier Mabrouk Al-Warfali as the commander of the Sirte operations room.
Meanwhile in downtown Benghazi, the pressure on the militants in Sabri was increased overnight when what the LNA said was a supply boat was intercepted and sunk a mile offshore. The boat is said to have exploded when hit by gunfire. At the same time Alwasat reported that three other boats in which militants were trying to flee the besieged quarter were stopped and a number of the occupants arrested. Unusually for such encounters, no images have been published on social media.
The Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council (BRSC) today put out pictures of what it said were its fighters inside Sabri. Apparently well-equipped and defiantly shooting back at LNA forces surrounding them, the BRSC insisted its forces were ready to fight off any attack.
The LNA has said that the militants have been reinforcing their barricades with land mines. One reason that troops have apparently delayed attacking the district is that the narrow streets pose a problem for the movement of tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Today there were yet more air raids on Sabri and the nearby militant district of Suq Al-Hout. Much of the older architecturally-interesting properties in the district are being reduced to rubble.
The extent of the damage is clear from closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras that the LNA has established overlooking Sabri. From the date and time details at the bottom of footage seen by this newspaper, there are at least seven such cameras.
Ten days ago one recorded three dogs scavenging along an otherwise empty rubble-strewn and eerily empty street. One of the dogs turns into an abandoned shop, followed seconds afterwards by the others. A short time later the camera records an explosion blasting out of the shop. The dogs had clearly triggered a boobytrap. Only smoke and dust emerged from the building and after a minute or two the picture had cleared and the camera resumed its remote monitoring of the street.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[DAWN] The continuing furore over the events leading up to the Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... raid in which the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... was killed is perhaps inevitable given the unwillingness of all sides to publicly acknowledge the issues.
Consider the latest twist in the public debate. In response to a leaked letter purporting to show that the then-PPP government conspired to presumably allow US spies into the country en masse, former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ... has demanded an explanation for how Bin Laden lived undetected inside Pakistain for many years and how US forces were able to penetrate Pak airspace and launch a ground operation.
Mr Gilani is right, but his riposte does not address the principal though unspoken allegation against the PPP: the security establishment’s concern that alleged secret cooperation between the PPP and the US government was meant to somehow either undermine the military’s authority or subvert the national interest.
Therein lies the problem. The historical civil-military strife reached another high point in the early years of this decade as Pak-US relations plunged to another low. Bin Laden was the world’s most wanted terrorist, so merely helping to track him down should not have been cause for a significant civil-military rupture.
The Bin Laden episode, then, was an indication of a deeper malaise: the civil and military sides of the state had drifted apart to the extent that both sides believed the other was out to harm it. Indeed, in the dredging up of allegations that the PPP facilitated American spies, the original fear is detectable -- namely, that the US was interested in far more than simply tracking down Al Qaeda and was perhaps conducting espionage against India- or Afghan-centric jihadi groups tolerated by the state here at the time, or even gathering information on Pakistain’s nuclear programme.
Therefore, any political facilitation to the American effort, even if narrowly focused on Al Qaeda, was viewed with immense suspicion and hostility by the security establishment.
Whether the political government was unduly careless or the security establishment overly paranoid can perhaps be answered with the unveiling of the Abbottabad Commission report. Mr Gilani was again correct in demanding that the report be made public -- the people deserve to know the facts and the state needs to absorb the lessons from the tumultuous Bin Laden episode.
But the current national furore suggests that the more fundamental questions, about who is to steer national security and foreign policies and based on which principles, remain contested.
Ideally, the civilian and military leaderships should find a way of working together until constitutionally mandated civilian leadership in all policy domains becomes the norm.
However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... harmful old suspicions still appear to lurk in the background, undermining the trust of both sides in the other. The true national interest cannot be served if legitimate policy differences are either denied or regarded as anti-state.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
In response to a leaked letter purporting to show that the then-PPP government conspired to presumably allow US spies into the country en masse
Such rubbish! No one is beyond the penetration of our Intelligence Community, no one I tell you !
#2
an explanation for how Bin Laden lived undetected inside Pakistain for many years and how US forces were able to penetrate Pak airspace and launch a ground operation.
That may seem like a contradiction, but IMAO, the key to understanding Pakistain is to think of not as a country, but as collection of geographically co-located groups, tribes and factions engaged in a Hobbesian war of all against all. You can apply this recursively to discrete entities like the Army or the ISI.
[Dhaka Tribune] The four-day-long battle of attrition between Death Eaters and para-commandos in Shibbari of South Surma, Sylhet neared its official conclusion on Monday, as four dead bodies were recovered from the hideout.
Military intelligence unit Director Brig Gen Fakhrul Ahsan, representative of Bangladesh Army for this operation, said that of the four bodies, all suspected murderous Moslems, three were male and one was female.
Brig Gen Fakhrul made the statement at 7:30pm on Monday in a press briefing near the Atia Mahal hideout.
The military intelligence unit director added that it was unlikely that there were more Death Eaters inside the building. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... the operation could not be declared as officially concluded as there were still numerous live explosives planted within the hideout.
A group of armed para-commandos and RAB personnel form a perimeter around the murderous Moslem hideout at Pathanpara in Shibbari, Sylhet, on Saturday ISPR
Furthermore, Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) Additional Commissioner Rokon Uddin said at the briefing that the body of the female murderous Moslem and one male murderous Moslem had been handed over to police. The other two bodies were yet to be handed over as they were still wearing boom jackets that needed to be diffused.
Rokon added that the two bodies that were handed over had been sent to MAG Osmani Medical College for post mortem examination.
Later, an official of Sylhet Metropolitan Police said that the two deceased were identified as Morjina and Kawsar.
Morjina’s ID was used to rent the flat, and she is also suspected to be the sister of Kamal, one of the dear departed New JMB Death Eaters from the recent raid in Sitakunda. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... police are as yet unclear as to whether these are the real names of the two murderous Moslems.
Earlier in the day, SMP Additional Deputy Commissioner Jedan Al Musa said that police had handed over the bodies of Shahidul Islam and Khadim Shah, two motorcyclists suspected to have conducted the bombing outside Atia Mahal on Saturday, to their families after collecting DNA samples. A case has been filed against unnamed accused regarding the attack.
ADC Jedan Al Musa told news hounds that the raid was still under way at 8:45am on Monday. Two huge kabooms were heard from the hideout around 10:30am. Sporadic gunfire and further kabooms from the building could be heard up to one kilometre away, where news hounds were stationed after Saturday’s attack.
The sounds of kabooms and gunfire stopped around 4pm. Subsequently, a team from the Criminal Investigation Department was seen heading towards Atia Mahal at around 5:30pm. A team from the Civil Surgeon’s Office would follow an hour later.
Later, SMP Deputy Commissioner South Basu Dev Bonik confirmed that SMP Commissioner Golam Kibria entered the building along with the SMP additional commissioner and the commando team around 5pm.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
[DAWN] British police said on Monday they had found no evidence that Khalid Masood, who killed four people in an attack on Britannia's parliament last week, had any association with the bad boyIslamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) group or Al Qaeda, but he was clearly interested in jihad.
Masood drove a car through a crowd of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing three and injuring about 50, then ran through the gates of parliament and fatally stabbed a police officer, before he was rubbed out by police.
Neil Basu, senior national coordinator for UK counter-terrorism policing, said there was no evidence that Masood had been radicalised in prison in 2003 and it was pure speculation to suggest that had happened.
Masood, 52, was British-born and had several previous convictions for offences such as grievous bodily harm, possession of a knife and public order offences. He had not been convicted of any terrorism offence.
"His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others," Basu said in a statement.
"I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why," he said, appealing to anyone who may have been in contact with him on the day of the attack to come forward.
Masood was born Adrian Russell Ajao, and on Monday his mother Janet Ajao issued a statement saying she was "shocked, saddened and numbed" by his actions.
"I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity," she added.
Interior minister Amber Rudd said on Sunday that technology companies should cooperate more with law enforcement agencies and should stop providing "a secret place for snuffies to communicate" using encrypted messages.
Media have reported that Masood sent an encrypted message moments before the attack.
"There has been much speculation about who Masood was in contact with immediately prior to the attack," Basu said. "All I will say on this point is that Masood's communications that day are a main line of enquiry."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
The thought occurs to me: given the very dead miscreant's habits, was the trigger at his advaced age (for such things) the news that he had in the usual way acquired an embarrassing fatal disease?
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US official sources have confirmed to Al Arabiya a White House meeting is set this week to discuss the situation in Yemen, specifically the port of al-Hudaydah.
The meeting is set to be attended by key members of the US government in which they will discuss the situation in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... since the Arab Alliance requested their participation in the battle to control the port.
The proposal dates back to last year when the United Arab Emirates presented a plan to the B.O. regime, which included an attack on the port and the nearby city to remove the Houthis and their allies from the coastal area.
The hope is that a counter-attack would prevent the militias from threatening navy and fat merchantmen on international waters in the Red Sea and from receiving weapons supplies from Iran or members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
Obama’s administration rejected the plan because it was seen as a direct engagement of US troops in Yemen. The former president called for a halt to the military campaign against the Houthis and Saleh and was an advocate for a political solution in Yemen rather than a military one.
Two plans to tackle the Houthis
US officials have revealed that there are two plans to engage in Yemen against the Houthis and their allies, one sponsored by Central District Commander General Joseph Votel, and the other by Defense Secretary James Mattis.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... will have to decide which plan to proceed with. In any case, the US troops will have a larger role in Yemen alongside the alliance and against Iran's allies.
US officials and non-officials have leaked some details of the UAE plan to liberate Hudaydah. The evidence points that some UAE forces would land at the port while the United States assists with Special Forces, air and sea backup and surveillance. The biggest challenge will be to maintain the liberated lands from counter-attacks by the Houthis and their allies.
Americans in the meantime do not seem too eager to send their troops to the battlefield, especially given the potential of ground troops exposed to high risk situations. The experience of joint action during a limited operation, as in the case of al-Bayda in the attack on an al-Qaeda stronghold in Yemen, remains an option to help the coalition achieve a military victory. The current administration has declared that much of what happened in Bayda should be avoided. Nevertheless, the death of one soldier from the special navy forces should not stop these operations.
How American military support would look like
US Defense Secretary James Mattis did not include US ground troops or US special units on his battle plan. The US plan appears to be a bigger support for a regional force, a US official said.
The proposal of the secretary of state include planning, providing coordinates and fuel for the fighters. Furthermore, the US naval vessels deployed in the region will continue to prevent the infiltration of aid to the Houthis and their allies. It can also bomb sites on the coast and land with Tomahawk missiles and destroy sites in and around the port.
Perhaps the most important factor in US involvement in Yemen is that military leaders demand greater freedom to act on the ground. Former President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... was reluctant to act and support the coalition. He made it clear that any military intervention on the ground can only be allowed by the White House. The Current Defense Secretary James Matisse is now asking that field commanders, especially the Central Command, be given a broad margin to act and manage the battle without going back in detail to the White House.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Houthis
#1
The US plan appears to be a bigger support for a regional force(farce?), a US official said.
Ergo, last week's discussion of the L3 plan for Kenya.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) will launch a major counter-terrorism operation under the name of Khalid to retake the lost areas.
The Minister of Interior Taj Mohammad Jahid informed regarding the plan as was he was briefing the politicians in the Lower House of the Parliament, Wolesi Jirga.
Jahid was among the three top security officials summoned regarding the recent security incidents and deteriorating security situation.
He said necessary preparations have been done to launch the operations as he insisted that the operations will also focus on cutting the supply routes of the hard boys.
Jahid further added that the government is working on a four-year plan and the number of the Special Forces will be increased in key provinces, including 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.. , Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... , and Kunduz.
The minister also added that the government is planning to further boost the intelligence capabilities of the security forces.
In other parts of his briefing, Jahid said the Afghan police forces have managed to discover and deal with 14,972 criminal incidents and 600 terrorist related plots have been thwarted as 2,600 suspects have been placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! overall.
He also briefed the politicians regarding the ongoing efforts to bring reforms in the ministry and step up fight against corruption.
The security officials were summoned after recent deadly incidents in capital 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 other major cities, districts and provinces during the recent months.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
The original headline had 'secret' in it, but if the Daily Caller knows about the deployments it's not exactly a secret...
The U.S. is deploying strategic assets to the Korean peninsula with greater secrecy to “maximize fear in the North,” military officials revealed Sunday.
I think the dial has been turned to '11' for quite a while...
The U.S. has, in recent weeks, been regularly sending bombers and fighters, aircraft carriers and submarines, and troops to the peninsula for training exercises with South Korean forces, yet the announcements concerning their deployments have been delayed, with some coming after the units had already left Korea.
“Surprise dispatch of strategic weapons is effective in maximizing fear in the North as it sends a message that such weapons can be mobilized any time in case of a contingency,” a military official told The Korea Times.
Earlier in March, two B-1B Lancers were sent to South Korea from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. The media received no prior notification, and even afterwards, the United States Forces Korea refused to offer confirmation. The deployment was reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, which said that the bombers participated in drills in preparation for a possible preemptive strike on North Korea.
The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Columbus arrived in the waters off the coast of South Korea a few days after the bombers, yet the arrival announcement was belated.
Furthermore, multiple U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets participated in a bombing drill early last week, but the deployment of the fifth-gen fighters was not reported until Saturday, at which point the jets had already returned to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan.
The new U.S. administration is still formulating its North Korea policy; however, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during his recent trip to Asia that military action is “on the table.”
The era of "strategic patience" is at an end. I don't fault the Obama administration too much on trying patience; we all know that the NKors are as crazy as rabid skunks, and no one wants a war on the Korean peninsula. But what we have now is a North Korea that is more dangerous than in 2009, and with Pudgy as a leader, much more unpredictable...
While the U.S. may ultimately choose to adopt a less risky policy — one focused more on sanctions and diplomatic pressure — the secret deployment of military assets to and around the Korean peninsula is certain to agitate the North Koreans. The move follows President Donald Trump’s past criticisms of U.S. statements telegraphing U.S. strategic plans to foreign rivals and adversaries.
We're not exactly telegraphing this one either...
The ongoing Foal Eagle drills in South Korea have provoked the North,
...as it does every year...
leading them to test-fire multiple ballistic missiles and make numerous threats against the U.S. and its allies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There is secret secret and there is newspaper headlines secret.
And oh, by the way, did you notice we snuck a sub armed with land attack missiles onto the board? Over to you, Sea of Fire.
#2
The problem with nice shiney (or even old rusty) hammers is they are fun to carry, look at and show your friends but just to validate your budget, it actually must be used.
Does anybody really think the G. could survive world opinion should they hammer a place smaller and more primitive than Iceland?
#5
NK is a challenge. They are dangerous - mainly because of nukes, unpredictable - because of Kim, and desperate. Then throw in the China relationship. Damned if we act against them, damned if we don't. But being more prepared than in 1950 is certainly worthwhile.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least twenty three people have been tossed in the clink Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! in connection to a deadly attack on main military hospital 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.... , Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital.
The Minister of Defense Abdullah Habibi informed regarding the arrest of the individuals as he was briefing the politicians in the Lower House of the Parliament.
Habibi further added that the detective and intelligence organs have made negligence on duty.
He said the files of the detained people have been immediately sent to the judiciary institutions for further investigations.
This comes as a delegation which has been given the task to investigate the deadly Kabul military hospital attack provided partial updates regarding the investigation nearly two weeks ago.
According to the head of the probe team Hialuddin Hilal, investigations confirm fifty people were killed in the attack and at least 30 others were maimed.
He had said at least twenty people having different positions and duties have been charged with negligence and an investigation is still underway.
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 grabbed credit behind the attack but Hilal said it would be early to confirm who was behind the attack as investigations are still underway.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Daily Excelsior] Security forces today busted a Hizbul Mujahideen krazed killer module in South Kashmire’s Kulgam district by arresting its 8 members who were tasked to carry out attacks on security forces and snatch weapons.
The Superintendent of Police (SP) Kulgam, Shridhar Patil, told a news conference that the District Police and Army received a specific intelligence input on March 21 that Hizbul Mujahideen krazed killer has constituted a module of about a dozen Over-Ground Workers (OGWs) to carry out attacks on security forces, police personnel and snatch weapons.
Patil said that the module was formed by district commander of the outfit Altaf Dar alias al-Kachroo and Towseef Sheikh alias Mossad. "We started the paperwork but haven't done much else on the basis of this information and during the investigations, it came to the fore that Zubar Ahmad Badar, a resident of Nai-Basti in Qoimoh area of the district was the main king-pin of this module and he was subsequently nabbed Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! along with one of his associates", he said.
The SP said that during further course of questioning, it became evident that leader of this module and other members were having large quantity of arms/ammunition for conduct of subversive activities.
"The group had certain meetings in the past and had conducted recce of certain places along National Highway especially in Bijbehera town to target police and security force personnel ahead of elections. It was also further revealed that the members of the module who could have successfully achieved the murders would have been made active members of banned Hizbul Mujahideen krazed killer organization and others would get to conduct further sabotageous tasks to prove their potential," he said.
Patil said that the group was tasked to target some senior coppers also. "The investigation revealed that they did try to carry out attack in Bijbehara town on 19th of this month but things did not went into their favour. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... before they could have made an attempt, Kulgam police and 1st RR got a clue and busted the module", he said.
The SP said that during the course of investigations, six more members of the module were also apprehended. He said that Police and Army recovered one Chinese pistol along with three live rounds, two AK 47 magazines along with five live rounds of AK 47, one magazine of INSAS rifle along with 35 live rounds, as well as pouches/medicines and other articles at the behest and disclosure of apprehended members of this module.
"More such recoveries are expected in the coming days. Investigation has also revealed some inter-group collaboration between krazed killer outfits in the district as some of the ammunition has also been passed on to the district commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... outfit through this module by Hizb outfit", Patil said.
The arrest of these persons and recoveries made is a big achievement for us especially because of the elections. It was a recruitment module in which HM was trying to recruit new people. "In total, eight have been arrested. They belonged to Anantnag and Kulgam. More arrests are expected", he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Hizbul Mujaheddin
At least 33 Daesh insurgents were killed in an airstrike carried out by Afghan Air Force in Nangarhar province on Sunday night, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Monday.
The airstrike was conducted in Kot district of Nangarhar, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Afghan forces conducted a military operation in Gadi village in Batikot district in Nangarhar, where three Taliban militants were killed, and their arms and ammunition were seized, the statement said.
The statement did not provide more details about the airstrike.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Right after they burned the Nangarhar polio vaccination clinic.
[Ynet] With tensions rising and Egypt and Israel both enforcing blockades of the Gazoo Strip, Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", is investing more resources in equipment and weaponry for their naval commando unit in preparation for the next round of fighting with Israel.
Hamas has begun upgrading its naval commando unit as part of a general buildup of armaments in preparation for the next round of expected fighting with the IDF.
The upgrade has not gone without notice by the IDF. In recent months, Israeli naval forces have recorded several incidents in which sailors deployed underwater hand grenades after suspicions of Hamas divers approaching ships were raised.
Several of the instances occurred in the maritime zone between the northern Gazoo Strip and Zikim Beach.
In addition to frequent diving training along Gazoo's coast, Hamas has begun producing its own diving systems in light of tunnel closures along the Egyptian border. The closed breathing system allows divers to remain underwater for several kilometers, while maintaining a low signature and few identifying signs.
As soon as Hamas divers are suspected, the navy's 916th division--the division responsible for the southern maritime zone--uses a variety of lethal countermeasures, including specialized anti-personnel underwater grenades and depth charges with large kill zones.
In addition to lethal countermeasures, the IDF has also deployed several specialized underwater detection systems along the coast.
According to a senior naval officer, "The progress of the Hamas commando unit is exponential and nonlinear, but we have a large target bank against them and we know how to destroy their coastal infrastructure if need be."
The IDF has also begun to upgrade the defensive systems of surface vessels in light of the new unconventional threats.
Many in the defense establishment believe that in the next round of armed conflict with Hamas or Hezbollah, terrorist forces will utilize Kornet missiles against smaller and mid-sized ships.
Posted by: Steven ||
03/28/2017 1:47
Comments ||
Top||
#2
See, Israel has a neighbor the regional community actively wishes they would stomp. Why would the US get engaged If Israel chooses not to protect (different from Defend) their citizens.
[DAWN] The trend of marriages between cousins, within a clan or caste should be discouraged as the number of children suffering from a group of genetic diseases, called Lysosomal Storage Disorder (LSD) in medical terminology, is on the rise.
Such children do not survive more than five years if not diagnosed and treated as early as possible. Treatment of LSD changes outcome from miserable death to a near normal but it is very expensive.
This was crux of speeches delivered by a panel of experts at a workshop arranged at Children’s Hospital by its Department of Paediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology on Saturday.
The panel of experts comprised retired Maj Gen Prof Dr Salman Ali, an adviser to armed forces on paediatrics; Prof Dr Huma Arshad Cheema, the head of Children’s Hospital Paediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology; Prof Tahir Shamsi, the project director of Bone Marrow Transplantation Center at Children’s Hospital; Dr Hani Akbar Rao and Dr Fareedudin.
The panel of speakers urged the government to take a step forward and support these patients by developing a policy for LSD.
Prof Dr Huma Arshad Cheema said LSD was caused by defect in special enzymes required to break down certain waste products in the body and the defect led to interference with normal cellular function. The symptoms include abnormal bony changes, recurrent chest infections, enlarged liver and spleen and Central Nervous System manifestation.
"The severity of disorder varies but symptoms start appearing as early as one year of age. Due to lack of awareness, diagnosis is often late and the affected children die at young age," she said while adding that family members of patients suffering from LSD have now started efforts to reach out to the government and other institutions for their support so that their children could get the required treatment and lead a normal life.
Dr Hani Akbar Rao while presenting an overview about the recent advancement of LSD in Pakistain said that every year more than 250 children are diagnosed with the disorder. Previously, it was challenging to diagnose LSD in Pakistain and the samples had to be sent to the US, the UK, Germany, Australia and India and the reports received after three to four months.
"Now, free testing facilities are available at major teaching hospitals at Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Lahore, Islamabad and Multan," she said, urging the government to set up more facilities for screening, early and accurate diagnosis, appropriate enzyme therapy and rehabilitation of the LSD patients.
Prof Dr Salman Ali said emphasis should be laid on creating awareness among people about LSD. Coordinated efforts by doctors, the government, philanthropists, NGOs, patients’ families, pharmaceutical companies and patient support groups were needed to combat LSD.
"The need of the hour is that the government should work out a scheme to provide free treatment to such patients, as the number of cases with such disorders is few and manageable at present.
"The government should also ensure availability of enzyme therapies for the treatment of affected children, so that they might lead as normal a life as possible, and contribute to the welfare of the country as responsible citizens," said Prof Ali.
Dr Fareedudin said centres should also be set up for diagnosing these disorders during pregnancy so as to limit the number of affected infants being born with the disorder.
The best way to limit the number of affected infants being born is to forbid cousin marriage. But that would be sensible.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The best way to limit the number of affected infants being born is to forbid cousin marriage practice contraception.
Generally the small community mix runs so deep beyond 'first cousins' that policy is not a preventative. 'Love' will not be denied, but it doesn't have to be productive.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2017 16:49
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Leaving aside the genetic consequences of own-granpa-ness for the moment...
If you live in a clan-based society, marrying within the clan makes sense. You don't lose wealth from dowry payments and such to outside groups, and you don't get involved in someone else's feuds, vendettas and responsibilities by creating ties to another clan.
Sure, your kids end up retarded with extra limbs, but you can't optimize for everything.
#9
plus, make sure them Anti-Mo Polio Immunizers are killed. If there's one thing in the Islamic History that's persistent, it's polio, cholera, and tuberculosis. Mo wanted it that way.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2017 20:49
Comments ||
Top||
Yemeni army and popular committees fired a ballistic missile at the Saudi army compound in Najran on Sunday.
A military source confirmed that the missile force of the army and the popular committees fired a homemade ballistic missile, named ‘Somoud’, on the Rajla Saudi camp in Najran, stressing that the missile hit its target with high accuracy.
This achievement comes within the series of achievements of the army and the popular committees after two years of steadfastness in the face of the Saudi aggression.
“Somoud” missile was launched in September last year as part of the Yemeni efforts to upgrade its arsenal in the face of any foreign aggression. The missile is 4-meter-long and has 300-kg warhead, Yemeni sources said, adding that the missile has a range of 38 kms. The missile was named “Somoud”, referring to the steadfastness of the Yemeni people.
Yemeni army and Popular Committees launched on Monday a wide-scale attack on Saudi-led mercenaries in Mokha, Taiz province.
Ansarullah Yemeni news website quoted a military source as saying that dozens of mercenaries were killed and injured in the attack.
Two vehicles for the Saudi-led mercenaries were destroyed, the source added, describing the attack as a qualitative operation carried out by the army and committees “heroes”.
[DAWN] The Pakistain Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Monday issued a notification ruling against Aamir Liaquat, the host of Bol News TV show 'Aisay Nahi Chalay Ga', directing him to apologise on air to the viewers.
Liaquat had come under fire on social media when he went on air in his show on Jan 27 and levelled allegations of blasphemy against civil society activists and bloggers who had 'disappeared'. The regulatory authority had then taken action against the channel and the host by placing a ban on it.
However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... a few weeks into the case, the Supreme Court had allowed Liaquat to continue hosting the show on the condition that the content aired will be devoid of hate speech.
It had further directed the controversial host to submit a reply, based on which the regulatory authority was to issue a decision.
Pemra, in its latest decision, directed the channel as well as Liaquat to apologise "unconditionally to the viewers" by "specifically naming all individual complainants against whom hate speech was aired".
The regulatory authority further directed both Bol News and the host to apologise separately and air it on or before March 31.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#2
the Supreme Court had allowed Liaquat to continue hosting the show on the condition that the content aired will be devoid of hate speech.
The Supreme Court pulled an Alice-in-Wonderland deal. We are headed in that direction in the U.S. The left is trying to destroy the 1st Amendment. Get rid of the useless wimpy-assed concept of "hate speech", it is dangerous.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Ministry of Justice in the Kingdom of Bahrain has filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the National Democratic Action Society (Waad) on grounds that it committed legal violations. Waad is one of the political groups, which has based its work on the principles of democracy and the civil state. It is part of the progressive enlightenment movement that struggled since it was in exile under the name of the National Liberation Front, a leftist and communist party. After it was established, Waad declared it was one of the opposition groups.
Practices are what test any political group’s speeches and loyalty to principles. Political elites are always preaching us when they criticize "authoritarian acts," practices of individuals, and stances of other political parties. Actions are also supposed to reflect the principles on which these parties were formed and the latter are thus supposed to devote themselves to serve these values often conveyed through their speeches.
Daily practices should strive to harmonize rhetoric of the political groups and influence how they choose their alliances and electoral lists. Their rhetoric should also match their position vis-à-vis regarding laws and regarding women-related affairs, expatriates’ civil rights and pluralism, diversity and non-discrimination.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[14 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
The less support Egypt needs from Saudi Arabia the safer all concerned will be as the Saudis spend down their reserves.
[AlAhram] British Petroleum (BP) has made a gas discovery as part of the North Damietta Offshore Concession in Egypt's Nile Delta, the third such discovery in two years in same block, the company announced on Sunday.
The Qattameya Shallow-1 exploration well was drilled to a depth of 1,961 metres in water depth of around 108 metres, the company said.
"This latest discovery confirms our belief that the Nile Delta is a world-class basin," BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said in a statement.
The well is 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Damietta city in northern Egypt.
BP, which produces around 40 percent of Egypt's total gas, has 100 percent equity in the discovery.
This discovery by BP comes nearly two years after another discovery in the same area estimated to exceed 5 trillion cubic feet (tcf).
In June 2016, BP and Italia's Eni announced a "significant" gas discovery in the Baltim South West area estimated at 70-80 billion cubic metres of gas.
BP has been aiming to increase investments in Egypt, with plans to invest some $13 billion in the country before 2020, according to a November 2016 blurb by the UK embassy in Cairo.
In February, Egypt’s petroleum ministry, Italian company Eni and BP signed a deal in Cairo to complete the sale to BP of a 10 percent stake in the "super-giant" Zohr gas field in the Shorouk concession off Egypt’s Mediterranean shore.
Zohr, discovered by Eni in August 2015, is the largest gas field in the Mediterranean, estimated to contain 850 billion cubic metres of gas.
Egypt’s production of natural gas is currently estimated at around 4.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd), and is expected to increase by 1.5 bcfd by the end of 2017, according to a February statement by the petroleum ministry.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A deadly boom-mobileing plot was foiled by the Afghan cops in central Maidan Wardak province of Afghanistan after a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) was discovered and defused.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said "Based on intelligence report, yesterday morning, Afghan National Police carried out a security operation in Sayed Abad district of Maidan Wardak province."
MoI further added that Afghan National Police has seized a vehicle packed with explosives during the operations..
According to MoI, Afghan National Police had prior information that a vehicle carrying explosives would enter the city.
"In a separate report, Afghan National Police detected a roadside kaboom placed by enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan in the main road of the Tokhchi village, Bagram district of Parwan province," MoI said, adding that the timely discovery of the explosives has foiled terror attacks and saved the city from an expected tragedy.
The anti-government armed murderous Moslem groups including the Taliban hard boyz have not commented regarding the reports so far.
The Taliban hard boyz are actively operating in some of the restive districts of Maidan Wardak province where they often carry out insurgency activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Nabil Naeem, a former leading figure in the al-Jama'a al-Jihadiya (Egyptian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... ) gang, confirmed in an interview with Al Arabiya that al-Qaeda operatives were "Egyptians, whether they adopted the Sayed Qutb doctrine or the Islamic Brotherhood doctrine."
"The doctrine of Abdullah Azzam and the late Osama bin Laden
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
[ALMASDARNEWS] Following the capture of Maarzaf hours ago, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) proceeded to seize the Mahardeh bridge intact and reach the outskirts of Arzeh town and the imperative Bejo hill moments ago.
The advance was secured by the SAA’s 5th Legion, National Defence Forces, elements of the 8th Division, Qalamoun Shield forces alongside the 47th and 87th Brigades of the 11th Tank Division after brief skirmishes with murderous Moslems loyal to Jaish al-Issa (Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... ) and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (Syrian al-Qaeda branch).
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales... the Tiger Forces have thwarted numerous assaults on the town of Qamhane, representing the last SAA defensive line before Salafist tough guys would reach Hama city.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Wash Times] As pressure mounted Monday night on the House intelligence committee over its Republican chairman and the Russia probe, President Trump took to Twitter to change the subject to Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Trump called the entire Russia-ties story fake news and demanded an investigation of the Clintons’ involvements with the Kremlin.
"Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax," Mr. Trump wrote over two tweets.
Earlier Monday evening, in an unusual move for a panel known for bipartisanship, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s ranking Democrat, said Chairman Devin Nunes should recuse himself from the Russia probe because he acknowledged having gone to the White House complex to view classified documents on Obama administration’s surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016.
In his demands for a probe Monday, Mr. Trump referred to several matters -- most already acknowledged and reported -- related to Mrs. Clinton, former president Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
[DAWN] Retired army chief Gen Raheel Sharif ..Pak chief of army staff, meaning he pulls the strings on the Nawaz Sharif puppet to make it dance and sing and not do much at all.... is likely to assume in April the command of a yet-to-be-formed Saudi-led, 39-country Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), which is being dubbed as a ’MoslemNATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
It certainly is a concept...
The government had issued a no-objection certificate for Gen Sharif to join the alliance after an understanding was reached between Pakistain 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... on the matter, retired Maj Gen Ijaz Awan, a defence analyst and close associate of the former army chief, told Dawn on Saturday.
He said the former army chief would be taking charge ahead of a consultative meeting of the defence ministers of the alliance’s members, scheduled for May, in which the participating countries would decide about the force’s structure, their contributions in terms of personnel and armaments, the coalition reserve and other modalities.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
He was pretty good in Doctor Zhivago. Or was that his brother?
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday he’ll begin punishing sanctuary cities, withholding potentially billions of dollars in federal money -- and even clawing back funds that had been doled out in the past.
Speaking at the White House, Mr. Sessions said his department is preparing to dole out more than $4 billion in funds this year, but will try prevent any of it from going to sanctuaries.
"Countless Americans would be alive today ... if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended," Mr. Sessions said.
He said he’s carrying out a policy laid out by the B.O. regime last year, which identified three grant programs -- the COPS grants, Byrne grants and State Criminal Alien Assistance Program money -- that already require sanctuary certification.
The B.O. regime didn’t end up enforcing that policy, but Mr. Sessions said he’ll begin.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
You endanger everyone harboring Violent Criminals. That is not "Sanctuary" That is rape my daughter madness.
Forget this. No such thing.
I know there is autonomy, but there are also bench warrants that work nice when criminals have taken refuge in other states.
And Judges and politicians protect them. There are great big records.
Also occupancy of substandard housing,
and property taxes from absentee landlord property management services,
and 'revenue sharing' commerce for local bodegas,
and acceptance of substandard municipal services,
and a source of cheap temporary labor,
and 100+% markup on labor services by general contractors,
and a cohesive demographic community.
#3
Last I checked, violating federal law by aiding and abetting criminals was grounds for getting yourself locked up.
Start arresting city leaders and putting them in the federal pen along with pulling funds and putting fines on cities and you will see a quick turn around.
#4
Are there any "2nd Amendment sanctuary" cities?
"Sanctuary cities" ought to be opposed by everyone. Supporting (assisting) and abetting sanctuary cities is law-breaking. Public officials who promote this ought to be removed from office.
"The Mississippi bill says cities, state agencies and public colleges in Mississippi can’t prevent employees from asking about someone’s immigration status (A little "squishy," but it's a start.) . These public agencies also can’t give aid to people who entered the country without permission, such as by issuing an identification card.
Immigrant advocates and some religious groups argued against the measure."
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.
[UPI] - The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is studying the use of a body-worn weapons mount for soldiers to carry and fire their weapons.
[BBC] Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died aged 87, his foundation says. It says Mr Kathrada passed away peacefully in a Johannesburg hospital "after a short period of illness, following surgery to the brain".
[Breitbart] A group of criminal aliens showed up to a Tarrant County, Texas, work release program and were surprised they were getting arrested instead of getting a job. When they arrived at the county facility, immigration officers took the allegedly undocumented criminal immigrants into custody.
[AlAhram] As polling stations opened Monday in Germany, acrimony has been rising among the Turks here whose votes are crucial in the tight race over whether to expand the powers of Turkish President 
[AnNahar] Hungary said Monday it was ready to begin detaining asylum-seekers in camps on its southern border with Serbia after passing a law this month that has drawn criticism from rights groups and the U.N.
I reckon time will tell. 
[DAWN] The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) police claimed on Sunday to have killed two robbers allegedly involved in the killing of five 
...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, 
Spokesman of the Russian reconciliation center stated that all aerial devices of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria are either at base airfields or carrying out their tasks commenting allegations that militants downed a Russian helicopter in Syria’s Latakia.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A 35-year old man has admitted that he kidnapped and raped a 20-month old baby girl by laying her down and opening her diaper, in a crime that has left many Egyptians in shock this week.
[DAWN] The continuing furore over the events leading up to the 
[DAWN] British police said on Monday they had found no evidence that Khalid Masood, who killed four people in an attack on 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US official sources have confirmed to Al Arabiya a White House meeting is set this week to discuss the situation in Yemen, specifically the port of al-Hudaydah.
[DAWN] The trend of marriages between cousins, within a clan or caste should be discouraged as the number of children suffering from a group of genetic diseases, called Lysosomal Storage Disorder (LSD) in medical terminology, is on the rise.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday he’ll begin punishing sanctuary cities, withholding potentially billions of dollars in federal money -- and even clawing back funds that had been doled out in the past.
