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Nusra Front, Islamic State clash in Syria's Hama province
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Gooddell / NFL Flip-Flops On National Anthem Protests
Ima thinking Gooddell is a secret leftist mole intent on bringing the NFL down from within.
[ZeroHedge] Here is Goodell on 9/23:

"The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture... Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players."

And now today, via The Hill, Goodell decides that "everyone should stand for the national anthem."

Goodell said the controversy over NFL players kneeling in protest during the anthem "is threatening to erode the unifying power of our game, and is now dividing us, and our players, from many fans across the country."

"Like many of our fans we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important moment in our game. We want to honor our flag and our country, and our fans expect that of us," Goodell added in his statement.

"We also care deeply about our players and respect their opinions and concerns about critical social issues. The controversy over the anthem is a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues. We need to move past this controversy, and we want to do that together with our players."
Posted by: Raj || 10/10/2017 18:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I haven't been watching NFL football lately and never seem to turn on ESPN. I guess that I am not alone.
Posted by: Spike Ulineque7806 || 10/10/2017 18:44 Comments || Top||

#2  I am extremely disappointed that nobody has photoshopped the Dallas Cryboys kneeling before Zod.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 19:03 Comments || Top||

#3  ...Well, that'll do it then. Thanks, Roger.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 10/10/2017 19:03 Comments || Top||

#4  You're are not alone spike. Of course the MSM are not going to report how not alone you are. I bet college football is doing very well this year though.
Posted by: Chris || 10/10/2017 19:17 Comments || Top||

#5  "Always the dollars. The fucking dollars."
Posted by: charger || 10/10/2017 19:22 Comments || Top||

#6  People with the most money to lose are getting nervous it seems.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 19:32 Comments || Top||

#7  ditto #1.

Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL,

Note how it's always the Proggie or lefty view that is NOT divisive. Just like a spat in the NFL the instigator is never flagged.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/10/2017 20:13 Comments || Top||

#8  In the words of the great William J Lepetomaine: "Gentlemen! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs!"
Posted by: ed in texas || 10/10/2017 20:14 Comments || Top||


Europe
Catalonians and Kurds Put Even More Pressure on Beleaguered EU
h/t Instapundit
Buried in all of the other international news is the following tidbit: the Spanish "autonomous region" of Catalonia held a referendum on independence from Spain, in which some 90% of participants voted for independence.

Catalonia is located in the northeastern corner of Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Its capital is Barcelona, a major industrial and tourist center, and the region has a long history of off-again, on-again independence dating back at least to the Eighth Century. The Catalan people speak a unique Romance language which has more in common with the Occitan language of southern France than it does with Spanish and, obviously, they have not lost their sense of distinctiveness from the Spanish.

The Spanish government in Madrid reacted to this latest attempt to apply the Wilsonian principle of self-determination for small peoples in much the same way that the Baghdad government reacted to the recent referendum on Kurdish independence. It first declared the referendum unconstitutional, then demanded it be withdrawn when it became obvious that the referendum had gone against continued union with the Spanish state. In other words, the "autonomous region" is demonstrating a little too much autonomy.

...Given the European Union’s penchant for meddling in conflicts elsewhere in the world, such as the Middle East, perhaps I can make a friendly suggestion. Israel ought to offer her services to Spain and the EU as an "honest broker," and negotiate an end to the Catalonian crisis on the basis of "land for peace."

The Catalan people, with their distinctive language and culture, surely have a much better claim than the "Palestinians," artificially created by Yasser Arafat in 1964, who are in no way different from the Arabs of Israel’s neighbors. They speak essentially the same dialects of Arabic as are spoken in those countries, and possess no distinctive culture of their own.

Let the EU see what it feels like for a change.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 12:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
North Korea 'hackers steal US-South Korea war plans'
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 10:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Oh FFS....

Rhee Cheol-hee, a South Korean lawmaker, said the information was from his country's defence ministry.
The compromised documents include wartime contingency plans drawn up by the US and South Korea.
They also include reports to the allies' senior commanders.
The South Korean defence ministry has so far refused to comment about the allegation.
Plans for the South's special forces were reportedly accessed, along with information on significant power plants and military facilities in the South.
Mr Rhee belongs to South Korea's ruling party, and sits on its parliament's defence committee. He said some 235 gigabytes of military documents had been stolen from the Defence Integrated Data Centre, and that 80% of them have yet to be identified.


Thanks South Korea...
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 10:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Hopefully they developed some really crazy warplans and let them b hacked. Stuff about the new moleman underground missiles and starting the war by activating the agents in Kim's inner circle, use the x code to cause North Korean missiles to explode in the silos. Stuff like that. Make dumpy Kim really paranoid.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Wonder how much was left behind or 'misplaced' in the move from Yongsan to Humphries?
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 11:40 Comments || Top||

#4  1. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
2. Most of the plans for South Korea were defensive. [maybe those are being redone as we post].
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 17:23 Comments || Top||

#5  I like #2's leak.

"We have many of his closest most competent Mil Chiefs ready and willing to take him out when the order is given. He doesn't even suspect"
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 19:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Option 1: Shoot northwest.
Option 2: See #1
Posted by: ed in texas || 10/10/2017 20:16 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
NRA Advert: American-British Pundit Stuart Varney Interviews Dom Rasco
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 07:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
President Trump Vows To Use His Pen On Health Care
[Daily Caller] President Donald Trump declared he would get a repeal to the Affordable Care Act by executive order if he needed early Tuesday morning.

"Since Congress can’t get its act together on HealthCare, I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people ‐ FAST," the president tweeted, suggesting that an executive order is on the way that will address health care.

The House of Representatives passed a measure that would have repealed the bill nationally known as Obamacare over the summer, but the Senate remains unable to pass legislation.

The latest Senate initiative sponsored by Sens. Linsey Graham and Bill Cassidy was universally condemned by Democrats, and Republicans like Sen. John McCain asserted they would never support the measure.

The president reportedly reached out to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last week in an attempt to work out a deal on health care, but if the president is considering unilateral action on the matter, it’s likely the conversation produced little real movement on the issue.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 07:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Senate Republicans hardest hit.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/10/2017 10:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Now he sounds like Obama.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:49 Comments || Top||

#3  I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people ‐ FAST,"

I'm pretty sure that's how the problem was created in the first place. Way to go, POTUS.
Posted by: Raj || 10/10/2017 11:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Scrap the whole thing and say that if you have pre-existing conditions and can't get coverage you'll be covered by the VA system. Then dump a ton of money into the VA (and hand the people responsible for recent VA screwup over to General Mathias to determine what should be done with them).

And remove barriers to insurance between states.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 11:25 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Daniel Greenfield: End the FNL
[Family Security Matters] An Army recruit starts off with a salary under $20,000. Thousands of active duty military personnel are on food stamps. Millions of veterans rely on them to feed their families and themselves.

That's how we treat the best of us. Here's how we treat the worst of us.

An NFL rookie's minimum salary is $465,000. And the majority of NFL players are usually bankrupt a few years after retirement because they blew through most of their money. Dozens of NFL players are arrested every year on charges ranging from murder to rape to animal abuse.

2017 was a banner year for the NFL with three times as many arrests as last year.

Along with the usual drunk driving and disorderly conduct arrests, there were 7 arrests for assault/battery, 6 for drugs and 5 for domestic violence.

The Seattle Seahawks announced that they weren't going to "participate in the national anthem" because of the "injustice that has plagued people of color in this country". While they lost that game, they are one of the top ranked teams in arrests. Alongside the Los Angeles Rams, the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets, all of whom showed some solidarity with the anti-American protests, these top NFL criminal teams have racked up arrests for domestic violence, drugs, DUI and assault and battery.

It's no wonder that so many of the NFL's millionaire scumbags are eager to join Colin Kaepernick's protests against the justice system by degrading our anthem.

It's because they're criminals.

And it's no wonder that the NFL stands behind its thugs. If a team can shrug at abusing women, what's a little anti-American tantrum by a prize property that makes them millions of dollars?

The only question is why are the rest of us subsidizing it?

NFL teams loot millions from taxpayers to fund their stadiums. The Seahawks have a point about injustice. And the injustice is that taxpayers had to spend $390 million on their stadium.

Who will let Washington taxpayers take a knee and opt out of being exploited by the Seahawks?

Ten New Orleans Saints players sat out the anthem. New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton expressed pride in the players who rejected the United States of America. The Saints not only enjoy a stadium paid for by a billion in taxpayer money in a city with one of the highest poverty rates in the country, but are exempt from sales tax. And receive millions every year in "inducement payments" to stay put.

Sweetheart deals like these are not uncommon. The NFL comes with a pass on property taxes (those are for little people) and taxes in general. Until 2015, the NFL was a non-profit. "Professional football leagues" was actually inserted into the Internal Revenue Code to provide a special non-profit status. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell got paid $44 million in one year. That made him the highest paid non-profit exec in the country.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 07:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An Army recruit starts off with a salary under $20,000

You see it too many times. Married to a high school sweetheart with 1.5 or 2 children that follow him/her out of boot and live offbase in a rented trailer while the soldier lives onbase in the barracks and eats at the mess. They can afford diapers and formula, food, rent or gas.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 12:11 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Insider claims Bill Clinton is ‘heartsick' over Hillary's book tour
BLUF:
Since their fight last summer over the book, Bill’s negative feelings about Hillary’s memoir have grown even more intense as she’s used her book tour to blame her loss on Russian hackers, former FBI Director James Comey and women who didn’t vote for her.

Klein writes in his upcoming book that Bill warned Hillary a month before the election that she was losing and that she needed to campaign in the Rust Belt states.

"She told him he was delusional," Klein writes.

"Bill’s criticism‐ and what Hillary sees as his lack of sympathy ‐ has driven a wedge between them," the friend said. "They haven’t been speaking for months. They’ve been communicating through friends and lawyers."

"Ed is a sad man," a spokesman for Hillary said. "And a pathetic liar," added Bill’s rep.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 02:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Heartsick? I'm delighted to learn that at least something is discomforting to these creatures.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 2:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Hillary: "What happened?" Bill: "you lost"

Priceless.
Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 3:20 Comments || Top||

#3  "Bill’s criticism‐ and what Hillary sees as his lack of sympathy ‐ has driven a wedge between them," the friend said. "They haven’t been speaking for months."

Doesn't that beat all. Years of philandering and infidelity doesn't seem to bother Hillary but she gets in a snit about the election because Bill shows a lack of sympathy. This woman is completely bumf%ck, over-the-top crazy.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 6:24 Comments || Top||

#4  It's not his "lack of sympathy" -- it's that he was right.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 10/10/2017 8:20 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd assume he'd be happy to have her out of the house.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:33 Comments || Top||

#6  The fact he hasn't died from heartache proves to me he isn't sincere about it.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 10:47 Comments || Top||

#7  Does heartsick actually mean pissed off? Because that is the only thing Bill Clinton could be feeling towards Hilda, since she lost him access to power, influence and babes. These two have engineered this amazing pretense that they are married and actually a couple. Her affection for Eleanor Roosevelt is actually telling, she too was married in political terms only and was just as gay and closeted as Hilda. Neither one cares wit about the other except in terms of the maintenance of the façade to keep the money and influence alive and supporting their lifestyle. Grifters both...
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 10/10/2017 12:43 Comments || Top||

#8  This and Wienerstein = legacy
Posted by: newc || 10/10/2017 14:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Any excuse to put his heart on somewhere.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 15:36 Comments || Top||

#10  Insider claims Bill Clinton is ‘heartsick' over Hillary's book tour

actually he's just dreading its end and her return "home"
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 15:49 Comments || Top||

#11  "Ed is a sad man," a spokesman for Hillary said. "And a pathetic liar," added Bill’s rep.

And believes he is bulletproof?
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 10/10/2017 22:02 Comments || Top||

#12  Heartsick - from a Latin phrase meaning "the jig is up", perhaps

Say what you will about the sleeze, but Slick Willy has the political gene. Foolish not to listen to his advice, but if a woman is going to be Leader of the Free World, last thing she wants is her husband mansplaining.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/10/2017 22:31 Comments || Top||


Britain
Britain makes battle plans for war with North Korea
[Mail] The Armed Forces are preparing for a potential war with North Korea, sources have revealed.

Officials have been instructed to draw up plans for how Britain would respond if war broke out with Pyongyang amid heightening tensions between the West and dictator Kim Jong-Un.

One option involves deploying Britain’s new aircraft carrier ‐ due to be handed over to the Navy later this year ‐ to the region before she has undergone flight trials.
Details of the secret operation plan have emerged after Donald Trump warned that ’only one thing will work’ when it comes to dealing with North Korea, which has continued nuclear and rocket tests despite widespread condemnation.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 01:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Aren't they supposed to do that sort of thing as a matter of course?
Posted by: james || 10/10/2017 20:43 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq Ratchets Up Pressure on Kurds after Independence Vote
[AnNahar] Iraq's central government on Monday unleashed a legal barrage against Kurdish officials and sought to seize key businesses in a fresh bid to tighten the screws over a disputed independence referendum.

The latest moves come exactly two weeks after an overwhelming majority of voters in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region backed independence in a non-binding ballot slammed as illegal by Baghdad.

The central authorities have already severed ties between Kurdistan and the outside world by cutting international air links to the region, while neighboring The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
and Iran have threatened to close their borders to oil exports.

Now, in a new round of attempts to ratchet up pressure, Baghdad's National Security Council announced that a probe has been launched into Kurdistan's lucrative oil revenues and officials in the region who might have illegally monopolized the market.

"The corrupt will be exposed and the funds recovered," said a statement from the council, headed by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The council also said that "a list of names" of Kurdish officials who helped organize the referendum had been compiled and "judicial measures have been taken against them," without giving more details.

The central government -- which has already demanded to take over Kurdistan's airports and borders -- is also looking to reclaim control over mobile phone companies in the region, including two of the largest providers in Iraq, the statement said.

Baghdad also once again called on Ankara and Tehran -- which both opposed the referendum over fears of fueling demands from their own Kurdish communities -- to close their border posts with Kurdistan and "stop all trade" with the region.

The angry dispute over the referendum -- also rejected by the U.S. -- is the latest twist in the decades-long movement by Iraq's Kurds to break away from Baghdad.

The referendum spat comes as Kurdish fighters and central government forces have continued to work together in offensives to push back 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, with Washington warning the poll could "increase instability" in the region.

The defense committee in Iraq's parliament demanded Kurdish security forces hand over IS fighters captured in a recent battle to retake the jihadist bastion of Hawija.

The U.S.-led coalition backing up the operations against IS has estimated that some 1,000 jihadists surrendered, mostly to the Kurdish peshmerga forces, during the seizure of the town.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 01:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq


Europe
Merkel agrees to limit number of migrants to 200,000 a year - after taking in more than a MILLION in 2015 - following huge outcry over her open-door policy
[DailyMail]
  • Under deal, the number can be increased if there is another refugee crisis

  • A generous asylum system is enshrined in German law as a reaction to Nazi era
Germany refugee limit 'legally sound, ethically questionable'
These people are nuts. Here's hoping the AfD delegates can organize themselves to move the Overton Window on this.
[DW] Germany's conservative CDU/CSU parties have agreed on a guideline to limit migration to the country. While some call the move unconstitutional, experts say the proposal appears to be legal, though ethically questionable.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 01:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  "And all asylum applicants – even if it turns out they do not qualify – have the right to have their individual case examined thoroughly according to the German constitution, or Basic Law."

This statement is factually wrong. Since DW is a German government institution that does know better it is a blatant lie.

People entering Germany coming from EU countries or Switzerland who claim asylum can be summarily denied entry to Germany. They don't have the right to legal review.

This has been the law since 1993.

The right to aylum in the German constitution was de facto abolished in 1993 since there's no practical way for anyone to meet the new requirements.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 10/10/2017 2:34 Comments || Top||

#2  "A generous asylum system is enshrined in German law as a reaction to Nazi era"

Actually the German Parliament's scientific and legal advisory service has not been able to find a legal basis for Merkel's decision to flood the country with military age Muslim men.(link in German)
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 10/10/2017 3:52 Comments || Top||

#3  You are a treasure, Elmerert Hupens2660.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 5:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Elmerert Hupens2660 is absolutely right.
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 5:23 Comments || Top||

#5  So Merkel is getting better and moving away from her psychotic break with reality; the one that embraces national suicide?
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 6:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Slow-motion suicide is still suicide.
Posted by: Si vis pacem || 10/10/2017 7:10 Comments || Top||

#7  A little bit pregnant?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:26 Comments || Top||

#8  The fact she hasn't been driven from office yet shows to me most Germans still don't give enough of a fuck about their country, countrymen and culture.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 10:44 Comments || Top||

#9  So Merkel is getting better and moving away from her psychotic break with reality; the one that embraces national suicide?

No. Whoever shows up at the German border and demands asylum will be let in. That's now what the law says, but since 2015 the will of the chancelorette is the law.

Applying Occam's Razor, my working hypothesis is that Merkel is an orthodox. theocratic communist tying to inflict maximal damage on the West.

Her politics are compatible with this ideology. She comes from a family that had shown true commitment to theocratic communism.

The only additional assumption necessary for this hypothesis is that Merkel recommitted herself to her father's world view after a stint as a Western Democratic politician or that she'd always been a mole faking loyalty to Western values.

If there's something to this hypothesis and if Merkel stays in office one should expect Germany to become a center of major instability withing a year or two.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 10/10/2017 11:16 Comments || Top||

#10  So Merkel is getting better and moving away from her psychotic break with reality

Now that Obama is gone.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 11:37 Comments || Top||


Britain
Convicted jihadi who helped failed 21/7 London Tube attack was given top council job with potential access to details of terror suspects and even appeared on authority's magazine
With the internet there is no memory hole. Enjoy, dear Reader.
[DailyMail] A jihadi incarcerated
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
for helping the London July 21 bombers got a high-profile council job after lying about her past.

Mulumebet Girma, 33, joined Southwark Council after colleagues failed to realise she was linked to one of the country’s most notorious attacks.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 01:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda

#1  The Council? She should have been made assistant to the Mayor of London. 'Diversity', or something.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 9:11 Comments || Top||

#2  The Æthiopian former model rose through the ranks and was even put on the cover of a council magazine

Let me guess her qualifications.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Membership in the Labor Party?
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 11:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Stupid is as stupid does, looks like the Brits are really twits
Posted by: 746 || 10/10/2017 16:25 Comments || Top||

#5  ..almost like Mexifornians or Florida man.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 17:29 Comments || Top||

#6  I've Bing'd and FB-checked hires. Stupid not to in the era

(by the way, writing "Binged" might get me my own HR inquisition. The days we live in...)
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 19:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Detroit Firefighter Fired for Bringing ‘Racially Insensitive' Watermelon to Work
[Breitbart] A Detroit firefighter was fired before he officially began his first day on the job for bringing a watermelon to work.

Robert Pattison, 41, introduced himself to his fellow firefighters at Engine 55 at the corner of Joy and Southfield in Detroit by bringing a welcome gift, WJBK reported.

Second Battalion Chief Shawn McCarty calls this welcome gift "a tradition" for Engine 55’s firefighters.

"It’s not mandatory, it’s voluntary," he said. "You come in bearing gifts. The usual gift is doughnuts, but you are allowed to bring whatever you want to bring in."

Pattison, who was a probationary firefighter, decided to stand out from the crowd and bring a watermelon with a pink bow on top.

Some black firefighters were reportedly offended by Pattison’s gesture since 90 percent of the firefighters at Engine 55 are black.

"When you get your first detail at a firehouse you pretty much know what you are getting yourself into," said Patrick Trout. "So you would have to say it was probably a bad call."

McCarty said that some people at the firehouse claim it is "racially insensitive" to bring a watermelon to a firehouse.

Pattison argued that he did not bring in the watermelon as a joke and had no intention of offending his colleagues.

Fire Commissioner Eric Jones said in a statement that Pattison was officially discharged:
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 00:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The usual gift is doughnuts, but you are allowed to bring whatever you want to bring in."

That is, until Bob Pattison showed up.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Of for petes sake its a frigging watermelon - just a watermelon.
Its not like it was a pair of shoelaces or anything!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/10/2017 0:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 7:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Do blacks not eat watermelon now?

When we were bringing the fruit to Little League 20 years ago we would take oranges and water-melon and it all got et up by everyone.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/10/2017 8:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Can you still bring fried chicken to the firehouse?
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 8:54 Comments || Top||

#6  I thought the watermelon label was a green/commie thing.
Posted by: Grunter || 10/10/2017 9:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Pattison, who was a probationary firefighter, decided to stand out from the crowd and bring a watermelon with a pink bow on top.

Clearly some are sensitive about their gender roles.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 9:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Better send that 'racially insensitive' watermelon to sensitivity training
Posted by: Ho Chi Gonque1026 || 10/10/2017 13:14 Comments || Top||

#9  You don't want to work with those idiots anyway.
Posted by: newc || 10/10/2017 15:55 Comments || Top||

#10  Exactly. I wouldn't fight fire with people who are too emotional to brush this off, or cannot take a joke.

Hey, know what is good after fighting a fire? Cold watermelon.
Hydrate and cool off while the pulp helps get some of that grit crap out of the mouth.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 18:27 Comments || Top||

#11  Sounds like a good suit. Glad Deeetroit is going so swimmingly that they can discharge someone after all that expensive training
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 19:11 Comments || Top||

#12  Everyone loves watermelon. And fried chicken. Except commies.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/10/2017 20:36 Comments || Top||

#13  I wonder what the full story is. Is this a story of one or two professional whiners and spineless admins? Is Pattison a jerk? Is Engine 55 a bunch of bigots?
Posted by: james || 10/10/2017 20:49 Comments || Top||

#14  Can I get some Tater Salad too?
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 20:50 Comments || Top||

#15  As a white person I will be EXTREMELYOFFENDED if I find any crackers in the kitchen!!
Posted by: Hupeting Sforza8196 || 10/10/2017 21:31 Comments || Top||

#16  #14 Can I get some Tater Salad too?

Depends. Are these potatoes of color or racist white potatoes?

Posted by: SteveS || 10/10/2017 23:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Russians said to have bought $100,000 of election ads on Google
[IsraelTimes] Company's investigation reportedly reveals operatives purchased spots on YouTube, Gmail ahead of Trump presidential victory

Russian operatives reportedly bought ads worth $100,000 across Google’s platforms in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.

The ads were purchased on many of Google’s products, including YouTube, which is the world’s largest video sharing site, and Gmail, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

According to the sources who spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity, the ads were not purchased by the same group that bought ads on Facebook, implying that the Russian effort to influence the US election was broader than previously thought.

The report said the company discovered the Russian presence by siphoning data from Twitter.

In a statement, Google said it has a "set of strict ads policies including limits on political ad targeting and prohibitions on targeting based on race and religion."

"We are taking a deeper look to investigate attempts to abuse our systems, working with researchers and other companies, and will provide assistance to ongoing inquiries," the statement continued.

The amount of money spent on Google ads matches the sum reportedly spent by Russian operatives on Facebook in the lead-up to the election.

That company turned 3,000 ads over to three congressional committees as part of their investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 vote. Facebook’s Elliot Schrage said the ads appeared to focus on divisive
...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
social and political messages, including LGBT issues, immigration and gun rights. In many cases, the ads encouraged people to follow pages on those issues.

Facebook said last month that the ads appeared to have come from accounts associated with a Russian entity called the Internet Research Agency. The company said it found 450 accounts and about $100,000 was spent on the ads.

Schrage, Facebook vice president for policy and communications, said in the blog post that the ads included "political messages across the ideological spectrum." He said for 99 percent of the ads, less than $1,000 was spent.

The social media giant Twitter has shut down accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, which the Post described as "a Russian-government affiliated troll farm," the same group that had purchased the Facebook ads. Twitter also admitted that the Kremlin-linked news site RT spent $274,100 on its platform in 2016.

Both Facebook and Twitter have agreed to appear for a public hearing before one of the Senate committees probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on November 1. Google has yet to confirm whether it will also give evidence at the hearing.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And that doesn't include their deep 'being politically correct' discounts!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/10/2017 9:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Wonder how much Google donated to the DNC?
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 11:51 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Turkish Army Says Launches Reconnaissance Mission in Syria's Idlib
[AnNahar] The Ottoman Turkish army has launched a reconnaissance mission in Syria's largely jihadist-controlled northwestern Idlib province in a bid to create a de-escalation zone, the military said on Monday.

"The Ottoman Turkish armed forces began reconnaissance activities on October 8 (Sunday) to establish surveillance posts as part of the operation to be carried out in Idlib province," the armed forces said in a statement.

Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
announced on Saturday the start of the new military operation inside Syria by pro-Ankara Syrian rebels backed by the Ottoman Turkish army.

The statement was the first confirmation by the Ottoman Turkish army of involvement inside Syria in the latest operation.

The operation is part of efforts by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, along with Russia and Iran, to set up the zone in line with accords in Astana peace talks aimed at ending the Syrian civil war.

They agreed on four such ceasefire zones in Syria as a prelude to negotiations.

Three zones are already in place -- in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, in central Homs, and in parts of southern Syria -- and are being monitored by Russian military police.

Idlib is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group led by al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate, which ousted more moderate rebels in recent months.

The pro-Ottoman Turkish forces will need to oust HTS members in the area to allow Iranian, Russian and Ottoman Turkish forces to implement the zone.

- Working with Russia -
The last time Ottoman Turkish forces were engaged in Syria was in August, when Turkey launched its eight-months long Euphrates Shield operation against jihadists and Kurdish militia in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.

"Even if we turn our backs on developments in Syria, can we escape from the results of the crisis?" Erdogan said on Sunday, explaining the reason for Turkey's latest intervention.

"This is why when we don't go to Syria, Syria comes to us," he added.

Although Moscow supports Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
while Turkey supports rebels seeking his ouster, the two countries have worked together intensively to try to end the conflict in the past few months.

Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
have met several times since a 2016 reconciliation ended a crisis caused by the shooting down of a Russian war plane over Syria.

The conflict in Syria began with widespread protests against the government but has since evolved into a multi-front war that has killed more than 330,000 people.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  doing recon in NW Syria is pretty close to doing nothing

real question is whether Turkey will send actual infantry in - part of Idlib is close to Latakia- the Assad home base and it gets really sensitive, part of Idlib is near Hama which has been, off and on a Hezbollah base of operations

there is a significant dispute on how successful Op Euphrates Shield was - we don't have a good handle on Turkey's casualties and we don't know how 'loyal' to turkey its 'allies' still are- in any event, Turkey had only limited success pushing the Kurds around
Posted by: lord garth || 10/10/2017 13:41 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
An Author Friend Writes to the WSJ regarding 'Christopher Columbus'
Editor, Wall Street Journal:

The editorial, "Christopher Columbus" (9 Oct, 2017), reminded me of the 500th Anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World in 1992. I asked my daughter in the second grade what she had learned. The only thing that made an impression was that he was a bad man because made slaves of Indians. There appeared to be no emphasis on his enormous achievement in knitting the world together for the first time. Nor was there any mention of the fact that Indians made slave of other Indians throughout the Americas. As to genocide, the Indians needed no lessons in that. Read about the Houses of Tragedy near Flagstaff, Arizona, where entire tribes were wiped out in the 11th century with the most hideous cruelty. the Aztecs were also pretty good at that, too. In 1487, five years before Columbus, the emperor Ahuitzol wiped out two city states and dragged 80,400 captives back to Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) where in four days they were all sacrificed by having their hearts cut out. The Aztecs like the Nazis found out that the biggest problem with genocide was body disposal. Amazingly, there was not a single European involved in that atrocity. The real killers of the vast majority of Indians were Old World diseases. They would have been brought to the Americas by the Africans, Arabs, or Chinese had they discovered the New World. That was simply an unavoidable and inevitable tragedy. Of course, these are all inconvenient facts to those whose ulterior motive is the destruction of western civilization.

PS I would have submitted this to the Washington Post since I live just outside DC, but that would have been, in Sun Tzu’s words, like throwing eggs against a millstone. These days the WP is becoming more and more like the Daily Worker. I only read it only for the local news, but subscribe now to the WSJ to get serious news reporting and thoughtful editorials.

The above is a response to the WSJ, with permission.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 00:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Declare him a Muslim and wait for the reactions.
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 5:16 Comments || Top||

#2  The Aztecs like the Nazis found out that the biggest problem with genocide was body disposal.

My hypothesis is the Aztec solution was "them's good eats".
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:50 Comments || Top||

#3  In the collective idiocy of the day, there will soon be a push for a name change of Columbus, OH.

Do you suppose that much of the bad rap given to Columbus might be due to Black Legend bias in historical accounts? More recently, Howard Zinn has indulged in this hysterical history.

Are there any movements or discoveries in history that cannot be criticized? For example, the darlings of left-wing causes such as Progressivism, Socialism, Communism and AntiFa could be criticized for excesses.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 6:52 Comments || Top||

#4  If it wasn't for Christopher Columbus and all the white people who followed, who would patronize Indian ca$in0s?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:34 Comments || Top||

#5  These days the WP is becoming more and more like the Daily Worker. I only read it only for the local news...

I never read WAPO but somehow I seriously doubt their coverage of local news is any better than their national and world news.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:38 Comments || Top||

#6  If it wasn't for Christopher Columbus and all the white people who followed, who would patronize Indian ca$in0s?

Why, the Vikings!
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 12:22 Comments || Top||

#7  I've a pair of tens and an ax!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 12:28 Comments || Top||

#8  #3 push for a name change of Columbus, OH

And here's your smoking gun: Columbus in blackface (Dispatch, Oct. 9, 1926)

Posted by: Hupoper White4044 || 10/10/2017 17:19 Comments || Top||

#9  I guess a conversation about why Europeans would moonshot in a Mercury capsule in order to re-establish contact with China and India is out?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 17:58 Comments || Top||

#10  You laugh, but there were crazy plans to use a seriously modified Gemini capsule for lunar exploration.

See Advanced_Gemini in Wiki.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/10/2017 18:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
California Sheriffs Are Openly Protesting Their New 'Sanctuary State'
[Hot Air] Back when California Governor Jerry Brown was still pondering the new sanctuary state legislation which was heading for his desk, we talked about the fact that the police unions had backed a version of the bill, but the state’s sheriffs were not onboard. Now that the measure has been signed into law, those same sheriffs are basically in open revolt, publicly protesting the changes and asking the United States Congress to step in. They justify this decision by declaring that the state’s citizens will be less safe because of these changes.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Sheriffs will support the Federal laws...and a crisis will ensue shortly thereafter when the liberal hack Judges hold the Sheriff's in contempt of State law for supporting the Federal law.

Congress has to step in and re-establish the rule of law. California is in open revolt and has lost its mind.

Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 3:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Congress has to step in and re-establish the rule of law. California is in open revolt and has lost its mind.

Precisely. Not like it's going to happen, though.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 10/10/2017 4:47 Comments || Top||

#3  You are correct that Congress will set idle and watch Rome burn down around them while Trump plays the fiddle...

Maybe a few AUSA's will step up when the State make political prisoners of duly elected Sheriff's actually trying to enforce the law and protect their citizens. The AG has to file against this mess and get it ruled as unconstitutional. A major crisis is looming.
Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 9:12 Comments || Top||

#4  At this point arrest those that refuse to follow federal law for aiding and abetting. Lots of politicians removed and a ton of swamp drained.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 9:13 Comments || Top||

#5  One can only hope that Moonbeam's sanctuary law gets declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court so that we have a peaceful resolution to this issue. It'd be even better if Brown ignores the Supreme Court ruling and ends up in prison himself.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:54 Comments || Top||

#6  The Sheriff's could arrest, try, and force the guilty ones to serve time (before) sending them back to Mexico (at which point a bill for the jail time should be sent to Mexico).

The innocent ones could be driven to Sacramento once the trials are complete.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 11:27 Comments || Top||

#7  The Sheriffs are in a dilemma. Obey Federal Law or obey the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the Democratic local regime. If the Feds arrest them the Pols will Protest briefly and then discard them like a used rubber -- and the Sheriffs know this.
Posted by: magpie || 10/10/2017 17:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Sheriffs are elected in CA Counties. In only a few Counties would this anti-Sanctuary stance lose them votes. They get it
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 19:36 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Sonipat bomb blast case: Lashkar-e-Taiba bomb expert Syed Abdul Karim Tunda held guilty
[NEWSNATION.IN] Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
(LeT) bomb expert Syed Abdul Karim Tunda was pronounced guilty in 1996 Sonipat kaboom case on Monday by a court in Haryana.

The quantum of sentence to the case will be announced on Tuesday.

On December 28, 1996, a series of blasts were triggered in a cinema hall at Sonipat which left several people injured.

CBI has charged Tunda for organising LeT’s major terror attacks in India.

Delhi Police had tossed in the clink
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
Tunda, a resident of Pikhuwa in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district, from Indo-Nepal border in 2013.

According to police Tunda, an aide of India’s most wanted Dawood Ibrahim, is alleged to be involved in at least 40 kabooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Uttar Pradesg, Haryana, Punjab, Hyderabad and Surat.

He is wanted in at least 21 cases in Delhi alone.

Tunda was earlier arrested in 1994, but had managed to escape to Dhaka. He was trained to make improvised bombs in Bangladesh and Pakistain.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba


Iraq
Diyala Daily Devastation Digest
ISIS bomb expert dies in Diyala

Diyala (IraqiNews.com) An Islamic State top explosive expert was killed as security troops set up an ambush for the militants in Diyala, a security source said on Monday.

Speaking to Alghad Press, the source said, “joint troops, backed by al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) set up over the past two days an ambush for IS militants near Qurret Tabah, northeast of Diyala.”

“Three militants were trapped before confrontations started, leaving one killed and two others seriously injured,” the source added.

“One of the injured militants was one of the group’s top explosive experts in the region,” the source said. “Confirmed news indicate that the militant succumbed to death due to his serious wounds over the past few hours.”

Before the militant was killed, according to the source, “he threatened PMFs to kill them using bombs after failure to kill them using mortar missiles.”

“The militant’s brother was killed four years ago while planting a bomb to target civilians in the region,” the source added.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Afghanistan
Taliban attack in Paktika stopped
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said in a statement on Monday that the Afghan border police foiled a Taliban offensive in south-eastern Paktika on Sunday night, killing five insurgents.

In addition, eight other insurgents were wounded.

“Last night, a group of armed Taliban launched a coordinated attack on Afghan National Border Police check posts in Wali Was region, Giyan district of Paktika province,” it said.

“Afghan National Border Police have repelled an attack in which five armed Taliban were killed and eight other armed Taliban were wounded,” it said.

The statement did not provide further details.

The Taliban has not yet commented.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Rebel group drives back Syrian army attack in Rif Dimashq
Rif Dimashq (Syria News) The opposition’s Rahman Legion managed, on Sunday, to foil a Syrian army offensive on the town of Ayn Tarma, in Rif Dimashq, Qasioun News reported.

Rahman Legion (Faylaq al-Rahman) has announced in an official statement that its troops managed to kill several soldiers belonging to the army’s 4th brigade, in the outskirts of Ayn Tarma Town during the ongoing clashes between the two sides.

Meanwhile, Syrian army troops shelled the cities of Eastern Ghouta area with artillery and missiles, while bombed the city of Ayn Tarma with ground-to-ground missiles (GGM), in addition to carrying out dozens of artillery shelling, causing significant damage to the area.

It is noteworthy that Syrian army forces and allied militias are planning to enter the area of Eastern Ghouta, despite the de-escalation zones agreement that include the area.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Home Front: Politix
Rep. Steve Scalise Survives Assassination Attempt To Destroy Chuck Todd
[THEFEDERALIST] There are two types of people: those who ambush Republicans such as Steve Scalise with cheap shot political attacks, and people with decency. Chuck Todd on Sunday decided he wanted to be the former.

Scalise, for those who don’t know on account of how lightly it was covered by national media, was ambushed by a progressive gunman in June, while Scalise was practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game. The shooter was killed by the security detail who protect Scalise. Also shot were Crystal Griner, one of the Capitol Police officers assigned to protect Scalise; congressional aide Zack Barth; and lobbyist Matt Mika.

The gunman had discussed his hatred for Republicans extensively in social media prior to the shooting.

The “Meet the Press” host decided to spend the entire aired portion of his interview with the House majority whip pushing gun control. For eight minutes, Todd focused on what he sees as Scalise’s political shortcomings, and badgered him to adopt the views of his political opponents. Scalise, for his part, spent the entirety of the interview making Todd look like the uninformed and naive partisan activist he is.

It would be nice to establish in a news forum what’s going on with Scalise in his life. Ideally there should be some sort of humanity and rebuilding of trust in terms of how hostile liberal journalists deal with their political opponents, such as Scalise. If Todd wanted to address his own push to restrict gun rights, maybe limit it to 5 or 10 percent of the interview.

Instead, the undercurrent of Todd’s badgering questions was to tell the shooting victim he did it to himself. He began with the premise that Scalia was wrong on gun control.

Todd had a hard time accepting that Scalise is unwilling to abandon his principles after being shot on a baseball field for holding those principles. Todd also has a hard time understanding the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Todd has trouble with the American value of the right to defend life and liberty.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Todd only talks newspeak
Posted by: 746 || 10/10/2017 0:22 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Lavrov: Russia insists on return of its diplomatic property ‘illegally seized’ by US
[RT] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Moscow insists on the return of its diplomatic properties “illegally seized” by the US, warning of legal consequences and possible retaliation.

“Russia reserves the right to undertake legal action and retaliatory measures,” reads a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry after the phone call.

Both Lavrov and Tillerson, however, expressed support for the ongoing consultations on the issues of Russia-US relations, led by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov and US Under Secretary Thomas Shannon.

The diplomatic property row between Moscow and Washington dates back to late 2016, when the outgoing Obama administration expelled a number of Russian diplomats and closed two Russian diplomatic compounds in New York and Maryland. In July 2017, the US Congress imposed new sanctions on Russia. The move prompted Moscow to reduce US diplomatic personnel numbers in Russia to 455. The US responded with new hostile actions early in September, shutting down the Russian Consulate-General in San Francisco as well as trade missions in Washington and New York.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Belgium halts PA education funding because West Bank school named for terrorist
[IsraelTimes] Brussels says it was ’unaware’ Hebron-area school was renamed for Dalal Mughrabi, notorious for her role in 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 were killed.

Brussels has budgeted 16.5 million euros (NIS 68 million) for funding PA schools between July 2013 and July 2020, the website says.
The Belgian government decided to freeze funding to the Paleostinian Authority education system after an elementary school built with support from Brussels took the name of a notorious Paleostinian terrorist, a spokesperson for the European country told The Times of Israel on Monday.

The Beit Awaa Elementary Girls School, located in southern West Bank’s Hebron region, was built with funds from Belgium in 2012-2013. It is one of several schools built with money from Brussels, which donates millions of euros a year to the education system.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority


India-Pakistan
Jahannum' (Hell) She Called Him. And Ensured He Was Caught In Kashmir
[NDTV] Srinagar: It was a visit to a girlfriend that allowed security forces to kill Kashmir terrorist Umer Khalid today, said sources. Khalid, a senior commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, was shot in Ladoora in North Kashmir; security forces first identified him and asked him to surrender; when he fired on them along with other terrorists, more troops were rushed in.

Khalid was injured and managed to escape briefly before he was cordoned off and shot.

A woman who he was romantically involved with told the police that he was likely to visit her this morning. She angrily referred to him as "Jahannum" (Hell). They were not in an exclusive relationship.

"He had about 17 girlfriends - some new, some old. A few who he had ditched became vengeful and even started giving information about his whereabouts to us," revealed a senior police officer who was involved in this morning's encounter.

Intelligence officials and the police believe that Khalid helped prepare and execute last week's attack on a huge base of the Border Security Force beside the Srinagar airport.

Security agencies say that many terrorists like Khalid who come from across the border in Pakistan fall for better-educated Kashmiri women and manage to intimidate or coerce some of them into relationships. Sources said the affairs are fecund material for detailed information that can be used to track down wanted terrorists, some of whom are told on by wives or girlfriends who have been ditched.

"When they go to meet women, they go alone and we launch an operation then only," revealed a senior official.

In August, another terrorist, Abu Dujana of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, was killed when he was visiting a young woman. In that case too, his jilted lover had informed the police about his coordinates.

Posted by: John Frum || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Jaish-e-Mohammad

#1  "He had about 17 girlfriends - some new, some old. A few who he had ditched became vengeful and even started giving information about his whereabouts to us"


Paki Harvey Weinstein?
Posted by: Bov Flimbers || 10/10/2017 2:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Kashmiri women are supposedly very beautiful, or so I've read.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 5:15 Comments || Top||

#3  "He had about 17 girlfriends - some new, some old."

Aged 9 to 16?
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 5:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Ran into a school to evade the Indian cops
Warning NSFW - Graphic Photo
Posted by: John Frum || 10/10/2017 6:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Pecker Posse Pumps Perv Precipitously
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 7:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Remind me not to piss off a Kashmirianette.....
Posted by: USN Ret. || 10/10/2017 19:36 Comments || Top||

#7  A plucky young Pak, I snuck over the line;
I'd heard that the Kashmiri women were fine,
All uncovered meat for Mohammedan swine...
And the Prophet had promised a portion.

My parents rebuked me for going jihadi
And blessing all bints beyond eight with my body,
But I hated the Hindus like Provo hates squaddy...
And they'd taught me the bloody shahada.

And so forth, but dammit if I'm not tcoo zonked to do anything with it.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 10/10/2017 21:05 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
Movie theaters must provide interpreters for deaf-blind customers, court rules
[DALLASNEWS] Federal disability law requires Plano-based Cinemark and other movie theaters to provide specialized interpreters to patrons who are deaf and blind, an appeals court said Friday.
Beyond stoopid, well into ludicrous.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Cinemark, the nation's third-largest movie chain, in a case involving a Pennsylvania man who wanted to see the 2014 movie Gone Girl and asked a Cinemark theater in Pittsburgh to supply a "tactile interpreter." The theater denied his request.

The plaintiff, Paul McGann, is a movie enthusiast who reads American Sign Language through touch. He uses a method of tactile interpretation that involves placing his hands over the hands of an interpreter who uses sign language to describe the movie's action, dialogue and even the audience response.

The federal appeals court concluded Friday that tactile interpreters are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that public accommodations furnish "auxiliary aids and services" to patrons with vision, hearing and speech disabilities.

"It would be impossible for a deaf-blind person to experience the movie and understand the content without the provision of tactile interpretation," said Carol A. Horowitz, managing attorney of Disability Rights Pennsylvania, which filed suit on McGann's behalf.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Deaf and blind? How would he know if they simply took him to a closet and "read" to him from a book? How is that any different?
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 || 10/10/2017 0:26 Comments || Top||

#2  How does the man know that the "interpreter" is telling the truth and how does he know they are truly in a movie theater? Why doesn't he provide his own interpreter?
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 10/10/2017 1:00 Comments || Top||

#3  And by extension, Best Buy must supply deaf/blind specialists for the households that buy their televisions.
Posted by: Fairbanks || 10/10/2017 1:47 Comments || Top||

#4  It would be impossible for a deaf-blind person to experience the movie .......

hmmmm lets just cut it off there.
Posted by: Bov Flimbers || 10/10/2017 2:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Leftists seem to have zero new ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjm_zmBoxjw
Posted by: no mo uro || 10/10/2017 5:00 Comments || Top||

#6  The original law, before it was corrupted by the aristocracy, said 'reasonable accommodation'. The aristocracy long ago did away with that.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:52 Comments || Top||

#7  a method of tactile interpretation that involves placing his hands over the hands of an interpreter

So PeeWee Herman was practicing ASL?
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:22 Comments || Top||

#8  "I self identify as blind and deaf, and I would like a ticket to a movie with a happy ending please."
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 18:41 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Russians continue to hammer ISIS positions in Deir Ezzor
Deir Ezzor (Syria News) Russian has announced that it will support the Syrian army forces against the Islamic State in Deir Ezzor, Qasioun News reported on Sunday.

Russia announced that it will provided the needed aerial support, through its Hameimim Air Base in Syria, for the regime forces to fight the Islamic State militants, east of Deir Ezzor, while official sources revealed that Syrian army forces recaptured the area of Marat al-Fawqa and parts of Hattla Tahtani Village.

Meanwhile, Islamic State-held media outlets stated that the militant group has killed more than eighty soldiers of the Syrian army and allied militias in the outskirts of the city of Mayadin.

It is noteworthy that the regime forces recaptured large areas from the Islamic State group, east of Deir Ezzor, backed by Russian air strikes.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
Sexual assault on boys in Kasur: Sociologists, psychologists to help find out causes of crime
[DAWN] Alarmed over rising incidents of sexual assault on young boys and subsequent murders of some of them in Kasur district, the provincial government has decided to not only sternly deal with the culprits, but also engage sociologists and psychologists to dig out the reasons behind the gruesome act.

"There is a need to go to sociological roots of the incidents being reported at a large scale from one of the central 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....

districts (Kasur). And for that purpose we are engaging Punjab University’s Dean of Social Sciences Dr Zakaria Zakir, requesting him to find out why people in the district bordering India are indulging in sexual assault on boys and murdering them," said Lahore Commissioner Abdullah Sumbal on Sunday.

Kasur gained worldwide attention after media reported endemic sexual assaults on boys in a village in 2015. The culprits were tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
and are being tried.

Mr Sumbal said the incidents in the district never stopped. First such cases were reported from within Kasur city and later Pattoki, bordering Okara district, and Ganda Singhwala located at the Pakistain-India border. Around eight assaulted boys were also murdered in the last one year.

The home department had taken serious notice of the incidents when they were reported with officials questioning their reason, sources said. Senior officials of the prosecution and social welfare department were also consulted.

Finally, the Lahore commissioner recently called a meeting which was attended by officials of these departments and the Kasur deputy commissioner.

During the meeting, it was revealed that there was no office of Child Protection Bureau in Kasur. Surprised, the commissioner directed its immediate establishment, and the deputy commissioner has reportedly started work on the office in the District Complex.

The meeting decided to engage a clinical psychologist from the Kasur DHQ hospital to counsel the culprits as well as victims.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  engage sociologists and psychologists to dig out the reasons behind the gruesome act

Other than a primitive supportive culture of course.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:10 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Marseille Attacker's Brother, Sister Held in Tunisia
[AnNahar] A brother and sister of Ahmed Hanachi, who stabbed two young women to death in the French city of Marseille this month, have been detained in Tunisia, authorities said Monday.

The two were detained on Friday and have been questioned by anti-terror Sherlocks, prosecution front man Sofiene Sliti said.

"They appeared before an investigating judge... who decided to transfer the case to the national guard" in Aouina, northeastern Tunis, he said.

A source close to the family named the siblings as Moez and Amina Hanachi, who both live in Tunisia.

Their brother Ahmed Hanachi, 29, attacked two women at Marseille's Saint-Charles train station on October 1 before being rubbed out by troops.

He had lived for several years in Aprilia, south of Rome, where he married an Italian woman.

The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group has grabbed credit for Hanachi's attack, but French Sherlocks have not yet found evidence linking it to the jihadist organization.

Another of Hanachi's brothers, Anis, was tossed in the clink
You have the right to remain silent...
on Saturday night in Italia after French authorities issued an international arrest warrant.

French Sherlocks, who suspect Anis of complicity in his brother's attack, said he had "fought, waged jihad in Syrian-Iraqi territory, with military experience," Lamberto Giannini, head of Italia's counterterrorism team, said on Monday.

Ahmed, the second-youngest of five siblings, was not known to attend any mosque, but was known to the police for drug and alcohol problems.

His family said two of his brothers, Anis and Anouar, were living illegally in Europe.

Two Tunisian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said Ahmed and Anouar were suspected of being "extremists."

But their father Noureddine told AFP he struggled to believe Ahmed had been radicalized but that his son "may have been under the influence of drugs" when he carried out the attack.

He said he had heard no news from his sons in Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
for two months.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  Come on, Tunisian Nat'l Guard, how 'bout a little "accident" involving these two innocent-till-proven-guilty scum bags. Show us what you got.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 10/10/2017 18:14 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Feinstein Says She’s Running for Re-Election
[BLOOMBERG] At 84, Sen. Dianne Feinstein
...Dem Senator-for-Life from Caliphornica. She has been a politician since about the time she was weaned. Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and tried it a second time in 2012. Feinstein has chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence since 2009. At age 80, Feinstein is the oldest currently serving United States Senator....
is at an age when many Americans are deep into their retirement years. But the oldest member of the Senate announced Monday that she will seek another term with a ready retort for those who might suggest her best years are behind her.

"Experience counts," the veteran Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Democrat said.

The announcement that she would seek a fifth full term was expected and she has been stockpiling campaign dollars for a re-election bid. In recent months, the former the Socialist paradise of San Francisco
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
mayor has shown no signs that she was thinking about stepping aside for another generation.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  running? - maybe scootching up on her Zimmer.
Posted by: Bov Flimbers || 10/10/2017 2:58 Comments || Top||

#2  The Senate was never meant to be an old elephant grave yard. If and when they reconstitute the old republic make damn sure term limits for everyone is included.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Rather explains her current (albeit slight) political course change....
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 9:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Guns aren't bad if they bring votes.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:02 Comments || Top||

#5  She's a senator for life. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that she will lose in California.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
Two French prisoners hit with terror charges over plot
[IsraelTimes] Prosecutors say the two, a Cameroonian and a Frenchie, are Islamists who planned hostage-taking and shootings

Prosecutors have filed terror charges against two suspected jihadists believed to have been planning to carry out an attack after their upcoming release from prison, sources close to the case said Monday.

The men discussed the would-be plot, which included possibly taking hostages or machine-gunning victims, while they were serving time in Fresnes prison south of Gay Paree.

"These two radical Islamists wanted to set up a group of fighters with the aim of... various actions outside prison," said one of the probe sources.

One of the suspects is a 28-year-old Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
ian described by authorities as an Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group sympathizer, while the other is a 22-year-old Frenchie.

Both were behind bars for non-terror offenses and were suspected of being radicalized while serving their sentences. They were charged Friday with being part of a terrorist conspiracy.

The Cameroonian man was also believed to have been in contact with a person in Iraq or Syria, where Islamic State is under pressure from a US-led coalition.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
3 Hazaras among 5 shot dead on Quetta's Kasi road
[DAWN] At least three members of the ethnic Hazara community and two other Shias were killed, while one other was maimed on Quetta's Kasi road on Monday morning as unidentified gunnies shot up their vehicle, police said.

According to the police, armed motorcyclists sprayed bullets at the vehicle and expeditiously departed at a goodly pace unhurt.

Police reached the spot and started an investigation into the incident.

The Hazara community staged a protest at Alamdar road and demanded protection while chanting slogans against the government and the law enforcement agencies.

The protesters dispersed after Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti visited them and promised them the government's support.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi


'Not afraid of arrests': Maryam, Capt Safdar granted bail in NAB reference
[DAWN] Maryam Nawaz, daughter of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and her husband retired Captain Muhammad Safdar appeared before an accountability court in Islamabad on Monday in connection with a reference prepared against them by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Maryam arrived at the court amid tight security Monday morning, accompanied by senior PML-N leaders and ministers. Her husband, who was taken into custody by NAB upon his arrival to Pakistan, was brought to the court later.

The son-in-law of Nawaz Sharif and his wife had arrived from London on Monday morning to appear before the accountability court in connection with the NAB reference pertaining to London properties owned by the Sharif family.

During the hearing, PML-N leader Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry submitted surety bonds worth Rs5 million on behalf of Maryam. She was also provided a copy of the NAB reference along with relevant details.

After hearing arguments from the prosecution, the court accepted bail of both Maryam and her husband. The judge ordered NAB authorities to release Capt Safdar after he too submitted surety bonds worth Rs5m.

The judge also barred Capt Safdar from leaving the country without the court's permission.

The couple separately left the court after acceptance of their bail.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Home Front: Politix
Corker says US on course for WWIII with Trump at helm
[DAWN] A top Republican politician warned on Sunday that 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...
's impulsive threats against other countries could set America "on the path to World War III," in comments capping an unusually hostile and public feud between the pair on Twitter.

Bob Corker, who chairs the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the president for running his office like a "reality show" in a stinging rebuke against a sitting president of his own party that was remarkable even by the volatile standards of the Trump administration.

The public spat between the former allies could also undermine Trump's legislative agenda, with Corker's vote vital to the fate of the Iran nuclear deal and passing tax reform.

"He concerns me," Corker told The New York Times

...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

, adding: "He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation."

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  RINO, glad he is quitting. He handed Obama the Iran deal.
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 || 10/10/2017 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Butt hurt that he could not get the President's support for re-election or senior administration posting. Actions have consequences Senator.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 0:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Isn't he the mook who wrote the law (rule?) requiring a two-thirds Senate vote to kill the Iran agreement, replacing the constitutional requirement of two-thirds to ratify as a treaty? In a sane world that alone should have been enough to throw him out of the Senate. The RINO rot runs deep.
Posted by: PBMcL || 10/10/2017 1:18 Comments || Top||

#4  You are the idiot that gave OUR Arch enemy nukes in front of OUR Traditional allies. You fed the Enemy of the Planet Idiot Corker and 0bama.

You evil assh0les
Posted by: newc || 10/10/2017 1:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Mercer:

They’ve Incited War With Russia, Now The UniParty Is Worried About … ‘World War III’

Republican Senator Bob Corker is worried that President Trump is “reckless enough to stumble [sic] the country into a nuclear war.” This from the two War Parties who’ve not stopped egging Trump on about Russia, fomenting American aggression against that potential partner. The president wanted—was willing—to make peace with Russian; the UniParty would have none of it. Now DemoPublicans are worried.

President Trump has failed miserably in forging forward with peace vis-a-vis Russia and sending out competent spokespersons to explain that campaign promise and the attendant policy of diplomacy and American First.

… Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”

In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

Mr. Corker’s comments capped a remarkable day of sulfurous insults between the president and the Tennessee senator — a powerful, if lame-duck, lawmaker, whose support will be critical to the president on tax reform and the fate of the Iran nuclear deal.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 1:36 Comments || Top||

#6  The winner in all of this immature arguing are the adults in the house - Blackburn for Senate and Bill Lee for Governor of the Great State of Tennessee.

The losers are Corker, Trump, and Haslam. We in Tennessee see this as a "strange" argument since Trump really was going to support Corker...and it would have done him no good just like his support of Strange in Alabama. When Strange lost - Donald dumped ole Bob like a hot rock. We don't want Corker, we don' want Haslam, and now even Trump is getting on our nerves. Donald's act is growing thin...

Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 2:56 Comments || Top||

#7  ...being around a loud New Yorker can get on a lot of non-New Yorkers' nerves. Wonder how its felt in Pyongyang. Someone else has said, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:38 Comments || Top||

#8  We don't want Corker, we don' want Haslam, and now even Trump is getting on our nerves. Donald's act is growing thin...

Respectfully, it might be helpful to remember where one's 'nerves' might be with a President Hildebeest.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 7:49 Comments || Top||

#9  President Trump has failed miserably in forging forward with peace vis-a-vis Russia

And how much of that blame goes to those Demopublicans that have fought him every step of the way?
Posted by: AlanC || 10/10/2017 9:04 Comments || Top||

#10  Respectfully, it might be helpful to remember where one's 'nerves' might be with a President Hildebeest. Posted by Besoeker I would crawl through broken glass to vote for Trump over the beest, but that still doesn't mean I have to like him...
Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 9:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Corker is uncorked....

Actually dipshit, the deal with Iran has a greater risk of WWIII as a regional conflict there has a super big chance to go global.

Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 9:15 Comments || Top||

#12  I would crawl through broken glass to vote for Trump over the beest, but that still doesn't mean I have to like him...

And isn't it comforting that you won't have to like him in 2020 when the Democratic candidate will be even worse?
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 11:06 Comments || Top||

#13  Corky's phones are completely flooded. It's impossible to get through. Except maybe if you were calling from Iran.

That being said, for your entertainment.

Main: 202-224-3344. Fax: 202-228-0566 .
Posted by: Woodrow || 10/10/2017 14:25 Comments || Top||

#14  Two committees with the most potential for graft; Foreign Relations and Armed Services. And you need the FBI in your pocket to make it work. Why else be a RINO?
Posted by: Spike Ulineque7806 || 10/10/2017 18:54 Comments || Top||

#15  And isn't it comforting that you won't have to like him in 2020 when the Democratic candidate will be even worse? Posted by: trailing wife

True. Sad, but true...
Posted by: Tennessee || 10/10/2017 19:31 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Abu Sayyaf man dies in law enforcement operation
[SUNSTAR.PH] AN ABU Sayyaf bandit and leader of a kidnap-for-ransom-group (KFRG) was killed as the government continued Monday, October 9, its offensive against the bandits.

Brigadier General Custodio Parcon Jr. , Joint Task Force Tawi-Tawi commander, identified the fatality as Guro Idzri, alias Commander Idris, a member of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and a kidnap-for-ransom-group cell leader in the province of Tawi-Tawi.

Parcon said Idzri was killed when he resisted troops in a law enforcement operation at 7:10 a. m. Sunday at Sitio Suwang Kagang in the village of Pasiagan, Bongao municipality.

“When troops are about to serve the warrant of arrest, Idzri fired at them using his caliber .45 pistol prompting our troops to shoot back,” Parcon said.

Parcon said Idzri failed to reach the Datu Halun Sakilan Memorial Hospital alive.

He said the troops recovered from Idzri’s possession a caliber .45 pistol with ammunition. The firearm was turned over to the police.

He said they received report that Idzri was the emerging new leader of the ASG-KFRG cell in the province of Tawi-Tawi.

He was also monitored looking for a possible victim to be kidnapped at the construction site of a Diesel power plant in the village of Pahut, Bongao, Tawi-Tawi.

Idzri was a follower of slain Sulu-based Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Muamar Askali, alias Abu Rami, and was believed to be involved in the November 5, 2016 kidnapping of German Jurgen Kantner. Troops killed Askali in a clash on April 11 in Bohol, while the ASG beheaded Kantner in February this year.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf (ISIS)


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Nusra Front, Islamic State clash in Syria's Hama province
[REUTERS] 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....
took control of some Syrian villages in a rebel-controlled area east of Hama on Monday, opening a new frontline days after the Syrian military said it had cleared Islamic State from a nearby area.

Islamic State said in a statement it had taken control of 12 villages and carried out a big attack on the jihadist alliance Tahrir al-Sham.

Tahrir al-Sham, spearheaded by al Qaeda’s former affiliate the Nusra Front, said in its own statement that Islamic State had stormed several villages and accused the Syrian army of allowing it to cross government territory.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Islamic State had taken 15 villages from Tahrir al-Sham, but that the jihadist alliance then took five of them back.

On Friday the Syrian army said it had cleared Islamic State from its last pocket of territory in a nearby part of the countryside east of Hama after months of fighting.

The Observatory and Tahrir al-Sham said those same fighters were the ones that captured the villages, appearing to have crossed government-held territory. The Observatory said some of them had crossed with groups of civilians.

Although Islamic State and the groups that make up Tahrir al-Sham, including the Nusra Front, subscribe to hardline jihadist ideology, they have opposed each other for years.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Nusra


Iraq
Kirkuk Kombat Kronicle
Iraqis locate 2 pilots KIA in Kirkuk

Hawija (IraqiNews.com) Bodies of two pilots, who were reportedly killed by Islamic State in southwestern Kirkuk last year, have been found, the Iraqi air force said.

In a press release on Monday, the air force said, “the bodies of two pilots, who were killed as their Cessna Caravan 208 jet crashed on March 16th, 2016, in Hawija, were found.”

“The two victims were Brig. Gen. Ali Feleih Hassan al-Abboudi and Lt.Gen. Mohamed abdel Wahab Razouqi al-Sheikhli,” the statement said adding that army was able to find the bodies, in cooperation with people who knew about the place, where IS buried the victims.

Last year, the militant group claimed its members downed an Iraqi military jet, which was surveilling above Hawija.

On Saturday, the Joint Operations Command announced concluding the second phase of Hawija offensive, killing 385 IS members, including five snipers. 150 villages in Hawija were freed, in addition to al-Abbassi region and the northern side of the town. Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, commander of Hawija Operations, said Federal Police, the rapid Response forces and PMFs accomplished their targets of the second phase.

3 die in fighting in Kirkuk

Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) The Kurdish Peshmerga troops have repulsed an attack launched by Islamic State militants in west of Kirkuk, a security source said on Monday.

“IS militants launched an attack early on the day targeting Peshmerga troops deployed, west of Kirkuk,” a security source told Mawazin News. “They raised white flags as kind of camouflage as if they were going to surrender before they approached the troops and opened fire.”

“The troops repelled the attack, killing two militants and arresting a third,” the source said. “One of the Peshmerga conscripts was killed.”
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Shiite Lebanese Activists Gather in Beirut to Voice Opposition to Hezbollah
[JEWISHPRESS] A small group of Shiite Lebanese political activists gathered this month at a conference in Beirut to express their opposition to the political power wielded by Hezbollah and Amal in the government.

In response, the conference participants ‐ dozens of professors, writers, journalists and well-known business leaders ‐ have been called "traitors" and have faced accusations on social media of being influenced by foreign agents.

Among the participants were leftists and secularists as well as holy mans and former Hezbollah fighters as well, according to organizers who spoke with al-Arab.

Dr. Harith Sulaiman, one of the leaders of the group, was quoted by the London-based Arabic-language al-Arab newspaper as saying that he and his fellow activists are aware they’ll "pay" for taking "an independent stand against the Shiite duo of Hezbollah and Amal."

The conference attended by Sulaiman and his colleagues this month will shortly be followed by parliamentary elections, which haven’t been held in Leb since 2009.

The group is hoping to be able to "correct the division of Lebanese politics" by providing an alternate Shiite choice on the ballot.

"I have been a political activist and patriot for the last 40 years; I studied in La Belle France, and I might have had certain ambitions, but I did not try to achieve my goals through either of the two Shiite powers," he said. "I’ve now decided to retire because I do not want to follow either of them."

Media worker and activist Ali al-Amin said, according to al-Arab, "There exists a Shiite dilemma in Leb: We can’t dream of being able to break Hezbollah’s dominance. Hezbollah is a regional armed force that uses its power to practice sectarian mobilization, and it is troubled by the existence of Shiites who declare that they oppose its policies and ideologies."

Al-Amin said the group has been accused of "treachery" and on several occasions has been oppressed as well.

"Any Shiite who opposes Hezbollah," he said, "is accused of treason."

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Once took almost all the Cedars out of Lebanon to build a Temple.
It was later a Christian Nation for refuge, like most the Middle East before EL Shatan arrived.
Posted by: newc || 10/10/2017 1:54 Comments || Top||

#2  No place for life insurance salesmen
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
California crazy: Calling a ‘he-she’ a ‘he’ can now get you jailed
[WASHINGTONTIMES] It’s madness in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, as Gov. Jerry Governor Moonbeam Brown
... those who ignore history are bound to repeat it ...
, a Democrat, of course, just signed into law a bill that creates special rights for LGBT senior-age adults in long-term nursing care that requires them to be referred to by their gender pronouns of choice.

Those who don’t? It’s off to jail they go. Free speech, anyone?

At the least, violators could be forced to pay up to $1,000 in fines.

Technically, it’s called the "Bill of Rights" for seniors, and it came into law as Senate Bill 219 on the backs of Sen. Scott Weiner, a the Socialist paradise of San Francisco
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
Democrat, and the group, Equality California.

But more to truth, it’s a Madness Law, one that opens the door for silly transgender activists to demand they be referred to as they choose ‐ a he as a she, a she as a he, and so forth and so on, until confusion abounds and sex assignments are ingrained into society as matters of individual choice, not God’s doing. What a load of deceit.

And the end game, of course, is the destruction of the traditional family.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A serious, thoughtful person wonders what the end game is.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 10/10/2017 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  The Newsweek cover misspelled "poop".

If and when California secedes, I wonder what they're gonna do when the Mexican army comes pouring over the border to reclaim the territory.
Posted by: PBMcL || 10/10/2017 1:36 Comments || Top||

#3  The proper term for all will be Comrade, except for the deviationist Republican wreckers.
Posted by: Hupiper Mussolini3316 || 10/10/2017 3:42 Comments || Top||

#4  a Democrat, of course, just signed into law a bill that creates special rights for LGBT senior-age adults in long-term nursing care that requires them to be referred to by their gender pronouns of choice.

Can this choice change on a daily basis? "I was a woman yesterday, today I'm a man. Get it right or go to jail."

This doesn't read like anything legal but just another tyranny and craziness of the left.

Didn't Stephan Paddock live in California at one time? Another theory of his mass shooting might be that living in California made him nutso.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 6:20 Comments || Top||

#5  "LGBT senior-age adults in long-term nursing care"

What if they forget their gender?
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 6:35 Comments || Top||

#6  "LGBT senior-age adults in long-term nursing care"

Generally a rather short-term challenge. They're constantly getting new neighbors.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 7:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Fine. I will just call you all morons.
Posted by: newc || 10/10/2017 9:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Call him lord.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:55 Comments || Top||

#9  Something to divert the mass attention from crime and disease in the streets and the potential of a downtown nuclear blast. Like polishing the brass after the hull is breached.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:07 Comments || Top||

#10  If and when California secedes, I wonder what they're gonna do when the Mexican army comes pouring over the border to reclaim the territory.

The plan is that we will then become a part of Mexico.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 10:24 Comments || Top||

#11  "A serious, thoughtful person wonders what the end game is."

Liberals usually have an endgame but in this case I think the trans activists took the ball and ran with it and there really is no end game. Liberals are responding and trying to placate and hoping to get control of the ball again.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 11:29 Comments || Top||

#12  The plan is that we will then become a part of Mexico.

Heh. Well, that would be Mexico's plan. But I was wondering more what Jerry and his Hollywood sycophants would do when their tony digs are requisitioned for the new Gobernador and his (too numerous to count) minions.
Posted by: PBMcL || 10/10/2017 11:50 Comments || Top||

#13  I think the trans activists took the ball and ran with it

Didn't think they had balls.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 12:20 Comments || Top||

#14  Look around any of the urban centers, and you will see that native born, non-Hispanic Americans are already colonialists in some form of Hispanic country, either Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia, China, or pick any Muslim sh*thole. The upscale suburbs are still American in appearance, at least until 10am when the construction and landscape workers arrive...
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 10/10/2017 12:48 Comments || Top||

#15  "A serious, thoughtful person wonders what the end game is."

At a guess, this is part of the campaign against free speech. If it stands, it's a precedent that government can not only regulate what you say, but *require* you to say something. It's very hard to dissent when the vocabulary is denied you on pain of criminal sanction.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/10/2017 13:21 Comments || Top||

#16  "A serious, thoughtful person wonders what the end game is."

The end of unapproved social mobility.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/10/2017 14:45 Comments || Top||

#17  All this madness is AUTOPHAGIC. Nice little metaphor for Kalifornia.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/10/2017 15:31 Comments || Top||

#18  My new "pronoun" for them is "Stupid-fucking-moron"
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/10/2017 16:56 Comments || Top||

#19  The True insanity is you can get in trouble for not knowing the gender. So transgender folk must be obligated to speak first and inform of their status and chosen pronouns. Easier to just not talk to strangers.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 17:26 Comments || Top||

#20  Intent is non provable. This won't stand up to a fall breeze
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 19:28 Comments || Top||

#21  What's the LGBT stance on the term "IT"?

Seems like a word of inclusion to me.
Posted by: bbrewer126 || 10/10/2017 20:54 Comments || Top||

#22  I don't think many liberals have a very big "personal" down there so they prefer being called a Her, so when they get a physical they can point to it and say "This is not me!"
Posted by: Hupeting Sforza8196 || 10/10/2017 21:42 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Army Combat Summary
The Syrian Army units operating in Deir Ezzor conducted over the past few hours’ intensive operations against positions for ISIL terrorist organization in different parts of the province.

SANA reporter said the army units clashed with ISIL terrorists in the western and southern parts of al-Mayadeen city, 45 km southeast of Deir Ezzor, killing or injuring many of them and destroying their hideouts and positions.

An army unit thwarted a terrorist attack with two car bombs on one of the army’s advanced military points in the city, destroying them before reaching the point and leaving over 10 terrorists dead, the reporter said.

The army’s continued operations also resulted in retaking the abandoned airport, Makef al-Ghanam, the Industrial Area and a number of western neighborhoods in Deir Ezzor, after killing a large number of ISIL terrorists, including suicide bombers, and destroying several car bombs.

In the northern part of Deir Ezzor city, fierce clashes erupted between the army units and ISIL terrorists in the villages located east of the Euphrates River from the direction of Hatla- Khsham, inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorists in personnel and weaponry.

The Air and Artillery forces of the army carried out intensive strikes against ISIL positions in the villages and towns of Mahkan, al-Boulil, al-Boamr, al-Ashara, al-Qouriyeh, al-Husseniyeh, al-Salihiya, al-Jneineh, Mheimedeh, Huweijet Sakr, and the neighborhoods of al-Hamidiyeh, al-Rushdiyeh, al-Huweiqeh, al-Ummal, al-Ardi and Kanamat.

The strikes resulted in the death and injury of scores of the terrorists and the destruction of their hideouts.

Meanwhile, ISIL terrorists continue to flee from the clashes positions leaving their weapons and munitions behind, while more ISIL groups flee the villages and towns, according to local sources.

Source: SANA
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Afghanistan
Taliban using Humvees as car bombs
A number of security officials told TOLOnews on Monday that the Taliban has changed its war tactics and is increasingly using military vehicles, especially Humvees, to bomb Afghan security forces.

The officials said Taliban mostly carry out the bombings against security forces using Afghan military vehicles they had seized.

According to security forces, in the last three months, the Taliban has carried out 13 deadly such bombings on security forces in southern Helmand province, incurring a high casualty toll.

Two weeks ago, Taliban detonated an explosive-laden Humvee in front of Maroof district police headquarters in Kandahar. This explosion claimed the lives of 35 security personnel.

“A number of armored vehicles and rangers that have been seized by Taliban have been used against security forces; government should identify the areas where this is happening and conduct airstrikes to destroy the vehicles,” said Nadir Baloch, a member of the senate’s defense commission.

But the question being asked is how are these vehicles falling in to the Taliban’s hands?

“In most places the weapons are being sold. Inside the fifth pillar in government, there are people who sell the vehicles and weapons to the insurgents. Insurgents in Faryab cannot receive weapons from Pakistan, but they receive from us (people among security forces),” military affairs analyst Mohammad Agul Mujahed said.

The defense ministry meanwhile accepts that targeting security forces’ bases with vehicle bombs has become a problem but they said they will find the vehicles and destroy them.

“Defense ministry will destroy them from the air and ground at any time when we see them,” defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said.

Video footage posted by the Taliban on social media platforms show that the group has seized dozens of military vehicles in different parts of the country in recent months.

A number of military analysts meanwhile said if government holds on to military bases and check posts and does not let the Taliban seize control, these vehicles would not fall into their hands.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Arabia
Drone kills five Al Qaeda suspects
[DAWN] ADEN: A dronezap on Sunday killed five suspected Al Qaeda snuffies in the Yemeni province of Marib, east of the capital Sanaa, security officials said.

One official said a US drone had probably carried out the strike, which targeted a car in the province’s Saoud district.

The United States considers the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000...
to be the radical group’s most dangerous branch.

AQAP has flourished in the chaos of the country’s civil war, which pits the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the Houthis.

A long-running drone war against AQAP has intensified since 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...
took office in January.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Paddock shot hotel guard before opening fire on festival crowd
Posted by: si vis pacem, para bellum || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  *"Police have dramatically changed their account of how the Las Vegas massacre began on Oct. 1, revealing on Monday [Oct 9] that the gunman shot a hotel security guard six minutes before opening fire on a country music concert..."*

1. Someone is shooting (200 rounds through the door) at a hotel security guard and nobody responds instantly to that, with weapons?

2. The guard was shot 6 minutes before the mass shooting started, and was still on the 32nd floor at that time, but still nobody responds instantly with weapons to ten minutes of shooting through the windows?

3. Paddock did not stop shooting because the guard showed up, since he had already shot that guard, so why did he stop? the police arrived to the 32nd floor several minutes after shooting had stopped (it lasted 10 minutes).

4. How come the guard's timeline has changed? we've gone from having his presence and injury presented as interrupting and ending the shooting, to his being shot several minutes before the mass shooting started.

5. What kind of escape plan did Paddock have? when did he die, instead of attempting his planned escape?
Posted by: Si vis pacem || 10/10/2017 5:48 Comments || Top||

#2  How come the guard's timeline has changed? we've gone from having his presence and injury presented as interrupting and ending the shooting, to his being shot several minutes before the mass shooting started.

Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo does seem a bit edgy in his interviews. Perhaps the comment about a law enforcement response delay and 'having to wait for SWAT' was valid after all ?

Adding to that, was there a delay in the initial incident reporting to law enforcement by the hotel ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 7:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Shot the guard. Decided he's nothing to lose - might as well have some fun?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Where is all the brass?
Posted by: bman || 10/10/2017 11:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Shot the guard. Decided he's nothing to lose - might as well have some fun?

No, the shooter already had everything planned. The guard (likely unarmed) was a hindrance.

Would still be interesting to find out the delay.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 11:31 Comments || Top||

#6  Would still be interesting to find out the delay.

Unconsidered or ill-planned circumstances can lead to fatal indecision even in disciplined fire teams. See "Lone Survivor".

200 rounds thru a door? That's 4-50 round drum magazines, or 6-30 and 1-20. One scenario is the hyped up shooters all did a mag dump at the guard's door knock then didi'd down the stairs.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 11:59 Comments || Top||

#7  were the windows broken out before or after the security guard was shot? Most critically, is there any visual in the hallway between his shooting, the thousands of rounds being fired into the crowd for 10 minutes, the formation of the adhoc LE team at the end of the hallway? I'm still curious about the missing rifle, the car out of the garage while the door key was used, the locked interior door, the "secured" stairwell door that was not caused by the hotel prior to the event, and how one guy fired all that ammo from two positions, then stopped and waited for over 40 minutes (or more) for the SWAT breach to shoot himself. Since the security guard was not prompted to go check the room by the guy in the room below because of the gunfire noise as first reported, since he arrived PRIOR to gunfire, why did he go up there? Still thinking multiple shooters and either Paddock was planning to escape, since he seemed to have had an escape plan, and was murdered by his associates or changed his mind and the others left him and locked the stairwell door behind themselves to delay pursuit? Questions, and the late change in timeline seems more likely a storyline change to accommodate some contradiction discovered by the press/public?
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 10/10/2017 12:35 Comments || Top||

#8  #4 Where is all the brass?

Someone else mentioned this. Pix of the room only showed a little bit which almost seemed casually arranged. (or maybe I'm just becoming sensitive to fauxtography)
Posted by: SteveS || 10/10/2017 12:51 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe the shooter thought he only had ~10 minutes of shooting out the window time since the guard was shot. Maybe he mis calculated the response or someone else in the hallway (quest or maintenance..) spooked him 10 minutes later.

Did the police ever explain why more than one window was broken out on the 32nd floor?
Posted by: Airandee || 10/10/2017 16:03 Comments || Top||

#10  Did the police ever explain why more than one window was broken out on the 32nd floor?

As I recall, the second window faced directly toward the airplane fuel tanks he had fired at but did not pierce.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 17:22 Comments || Top||

#11  Regarding the brass, you aim out the window to the left (as was the case for at least one of the windows) and the brass is likely to eject outside the window as well.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 17:32 Comments || Top||

#12  All those cameras, were they wireless? Anything intercept and perhaps record the signals? Anything at all?
Posted by: Spike Ulineque7806 || 10/10/2017 18:49 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian regulars continue operations in Mayadin
Deir Ezzour (Syria News) Syrian army forces managed to besiege the Islamic State militants in the city of Mayadin, in the countryside of Deir Ezzour, after violent clashes between them, Qasioun News reported on Sunday.

Qasioun revealed in a report that the Syrian army was also able to retake the village of Marat, while advanced on several axes in the city of Deir Ezzour.

Pro-regime media outlets reported that the army forces and allied militias recaptured Rahba fortress and other several areas, southwest of the city of Mayadin, in the eastern countryside Deir Ezzour after battles with the Islamic State.

It is noteworthy that the army forces and allied militias, backed by Russian Air force, managed to recapture large areas of Syrian Badeya (Mayadeen – Dier Ezzor).
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Berkeley Students Protest Exam, Demand ‘Take Home Essay’ Because White Privilege And Stuff
[DAILYWIRE]
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Engineering take-home exams were my downfall.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/10/2017 0:13 Comments || Top||

#2  But surely you got your degree, Glenmore, or close enough to make you employable...
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 1:07 Comments || Top||

#3  A reason for protest: "Our well-beings are being put on the line because of our emotional, mental, and physical stress that [Berkeley] is compounding with what is already going on in our every day lives"

If Bezerkeley students didn't protest so much,they would have sufficient time to prepare for their exams. I don't think they know what they are asking for as take-home exams can be "challenging."
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 7:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh, and a pony too.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 7:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Not in Engineering, tw, in Geology/Geophysics. Had to take Continuum Mechanics and Partial Differential Equations and earned my Cs.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/10/2017 10:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Trailing daughter #1 studied geology. Yes, it is a very different way of thinking than engineering.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 10:48 Comments || Top||

#7  The students told Shaiken that they were going to take their complaints to the Department of Ethnic Studies...

Apparently, in addition to academic study the ES department also offers a de-facto forum for Social Justice redress. Who wudda thunk it?
Posted by: DepotGuy || 10/10/2017 12:30 Comments || Top||

#8  I have a Physics BS and was two classes, and $8000, short of a Math BS. I then went for an MS in Computer Science: Computer Science "proofs" were undefinable mongrels between Physics and math, which the parentage of various parts varying as the need arises. Quite maddening.
Posted by: ptah || 10/10/2017 12:49 Comments || Top||

#9  It is my considered opinion that any degree that has the word "studies" in it is less than useless. Gender, ethnic, victim, women's, ... Doesn't matter.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 10/10/2017 15:09 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
France to Open Asylum Centers in Niger, Chad
[AnNahar] La Belle France will open offices in Niger and Chad in the coming weeks to identify people who could be granted asylum, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday.

The offices would also "warn people in Niger and Chad better about the situation in order to avoid an influx of economic migrants colonists" who would only be sent back from La Belle France, Macron said.

The French president had made a similar proposal for migrant registration centers in Libya in July.

But the idea was axed due to chronic insecurity in the North African country, a launchpad for hundreds of thousands of migrants colonists setting sail for Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
across the Mediterranean.

In Chad and Niger, candidates for asylum would come from lists provided by the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
refugee agency, Macron said after talks in Gay Paree with the UNHCR's chief Filippo Grandi.

The presidency said the first mission in Niger, operated by La Belle France's refugee protection office Ofpra, would start work at the end of October.

La Belle France "will open 10,000 places over the next two years" for refugees resettled from Niger, Chad, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, Jordan and Leb, Macron said, confirming a proposal first raised after a mini-summit with European and African leaders in August.

Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR's special envoy for the Mediterranean, last month demanded that La Belle France clarify how many refugees it was committed to resettling.

He estimated that 83,500 people in Chad and 10,500 in Niger -- many caught up in the brutal Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
insurgency -- needed to be transferred out of their countries.

Macron reiterated that La Belle France is seeking to expel economic migrants colonists in a "much more rigorous" manner while offering refuge to those with a right to asylum.

He announced that La Belle France would send an extra 10 million euros ($12 million) to the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration, particularly to boost their operations in Libya.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Fighters on Raqqa Front Line Brace for Final Showdown With Islamic State
[USNEWS] In the gutted four-storey building that he and five other U.S.-backed fighters have turned into a frontline fortress, Babel can peer out at 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....
positions just 150 meters away.

The jihadist murderous Moslems expected to make a last stand for this stronghold of their self-proclaimed caliphate are cornered and desperate here in Raqqa, the city on the Euphrates river that has served as their de-facto Syrian capital since 2014.

"Let ISIS come - we're ready for them. We have explosives to drop downstairs," said Babel, which is his nom de guerre. He and his fellow members of the U.S.-backed Syrian Defense Forces have occupied the frontline building for three weeks and are now preparing for a final showdown with Islamic State, the group also known as ISIS, ISIS or ISIS.

The SDF fighters' position is well prepared in case the cornered IS murderous Moslems attempt an attack. The front porch steps have been demolished, leaving a drop to the basement that can be crossed only by climbing a section of iron fence - a makeshift ladder, which the defenders can pull up. Inside, plastic bottles have been strewn across the floor to squeak when stepped on and alert them to intruders.

After months of intense fighting and heavy U.S. bombardment, the SDF have surrounded Islamic State murderous Moslems in a small part of the city. As the Kurdish and Arab militias of the SDF close in and U.S.-led air raids increase, they expect fierce fighting to mark the final stages of the campaign.

"ISIS regularly launch small raids, even behind our position. Yesterday they attacked the building opposite and tried to push toward us. We killed a few and they retreated to the hospital," Babel said.

SDF units have a clear view over the Raqqa hospital, one of Islamic State's last strongholds in the city, from a line of buildings they occupy to its northwest. Apartment blocks between them and the hospital have been flattened by air strikes.

Commanders say the hospital and a nearby stadium, where the jihadists are said to be holding civilian hostages, will be where they make their last stand.

Babel's unit are holding the front line ahead of an anticipated final push, firing at murderous Moslems whenever they can spot them.

"The last few nights they've been shining spotlights from the hospital towards our lines, so we can't really see," he said.

Another fighter in the unit said sniper fire from Islamic State had recently reduced, possibly as a means of conserving ammunition for more intense fighting to come.

Surrender Or Die
An SDF field commander said on Sunday assaults were to begin soon as part of a final push against Islamic State, focused initially on surrounding the stadium. The hospital is already encircled.

"ISIS is amassing, preparing to fight. This is the last stage, so they'll resist and then surrender or die," the commander who gave his name as Ardal Raqqa said.

U.S. coalition front man Ryan Dillon was more cautious about calling the current stage of the offensive a final assault.

"Whether this is the final assault or an assault, I won't characterize it either way," Dillon said by phone. The fight was "concentrated around the complex which was the national hospital and the stadium," he said.

The SDF predicted ahead of a major push in June that it could take just weeks to drive Islamic State out of Raqqa. That has proven overly optimistic, with the murderous Moslems holding out for months so far.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria Begins Mass Trials of Boko Haram Suspects
[AnNahar] Nigeria on Monday prepared for its first major prosecutions of suspects linked to the Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
conflict in closed-door trials at a military base.

The defendants have all been tossed in the clink
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
and detained since the start of the Islamist insurgency in the country's northeast in 2009.

The justice ministry announced last month that some 1,670 detainees would go on trial at a civilian court at a military base in Kainji, in the central state of Niger.

A further 651 others held at the Giwa barracks in the capital of the northeastern state of Borno, Maiduguri, would then be tried.

A government source involved in the process told AFP from Kainji that defense and prosecution lawyers arrived early to prepare for the cases.

"But from all indications, the whole of today (Monday) will be used for administrative purposes," he said on condition of anonymity.

"It's just about sorting out the record of the suspects to determine who is going to stand trial today and those who will be tried later.

"The trials will be conducted on an individual basis. Of course, where some suspects are accused of committing a particular crime, they will be tried in a group."

The trials have been welcomed as a positive step.

In eight years, only 13 people have been put on trial and just nine convicted, according to the government in Abuja.

But many of the detainees have been held in jug for years without access to a lawyer or ever having appeared before a judge.

The extent of the defendants' links to the jihadist group, which has killed at least 20,000 people since 2009, is also in question, with the military accused of arbitrary arrests.

There are also concerns about the transparency of the process given the ban on media attendance while government claims the trials will have international observers has been denied.

Boko Haram began life as an Islamic sect and morphed into an IS-affiliated armed movement waging a deadly insurgency that has threatened stability in the impoverished Lake Chad region.

The group, whose name roughly translates from the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria as "Western education is forbidden", aims to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria
... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border...
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)

#1  Followed quickly by mass executions, I hope
Posted by: Frank G || 10/10/2017 17:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Twitter shuts down Blackburn campaign announcement video
[APNEWS] Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s Senate campaign announcement ad has been blocked by Twitter over a statement the abortion rights opponent makes about the sale of fetal tissue for medical research.

Blackburn, who is running for the seat being opened by the retirement of Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, boasts in the ad that she "stopped the sale of baby body parts." A Twitter representative told the candidate’s vendors on Monday that the statement was "deemed an inflammatory statement that is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction:

Twitter said the Blackburn campaign would be allowed to run the rest of the video if the flagged statement is omitted. While the decision keeps Blackburn from paying to promote the video on Twitter, it doesn’t keep it from being linked from YouTube and other platforms.

Blackburn took to Twitter to urge supporters to re-post her video and join her in "standing up to Silicon Valley."

Blackburn was the chair of a Republican-run House panel created to investigate Planned Parenthood
...has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. It is sometimes described as the gynecololgical wing of the Democratic party.
and the world of fetal tissue research that earlier this year urged Congress to halt federal payments to the women’s health organization. Democrats said the GOP probe had unearthed no wrongdoing and wasted taxpayers’ money in an abusive investigation.

The panel was created after anti-abortion activists released secretly recorded videos in 2015 showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing how they sometimes provide fetal tissue to researchers, which is legal if no profit is made.

Fetal tissue research has strong backing among scientists for its value in studying Down syndrome, eye disease and other problems. But Blackburn’s committee report said fetal tissue "makes a vanishingly small contribution to clinical and research efforts, if it contributes at all," and recommended curbing federal grants for such research.

Blackburn’s nearly two-and-a-half minute video features footage of her shooting a gun, espousing her "100 percent pro-life" credentials and taking fellow Republicans in the Senate to task for failing to repeal the Obama health care law.

"I know the left calls me a wingnut or a knuckle-dragging conservative," she said in the video. "And you know what? I say that’s all right. Bring it on."

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Italian police arrest younger brother of Marseille terrorist
[IsraelTimes] Anis Hanachi, 25, caught as he rode a bike near border with La Belle France; Ahmed Hanachi stabbed two cousins to death in Marseille train station last week

A Tunisian terror suspect tossed in the slammer
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
in northern Italia was a foreign fighter who had been previously expelled from Italia and is believed responsible for radicalizing his elder brother, who stabbed two women to death in the French city of Marseille this month, authorities said Monday.

The suspect, 25-year-old Anis Hanachi, was arrested Saturday on an international warrant issued by La Belle France while riding a bicycle in the northern city of Ferrara, authorities told news hounds in Rome.

He had no documents and claimed to be Algerian but further investigation revealed him to be the brother of the Marseille attacker, 29-year-old Ahmed Hanachi, who was shot and killed by police following the October 1 attack.

The younger brother was known to have been a foreign fighter in Syria, and had been expelled from Italia to Tunisia in 2014 after arriving on a boat, police said.

French authorities had signaled his possible presence in Italia two days after the elder brother stabbed two cousins to death in Marseille’s main train station. Italian authorities said they confirmed his presence in the Liguria region, which borders La Belle France, on Wednesday, and then tracked him down to Ferrara near the Adriatic coast by the weekend.

They said the fact he was arrested on a bicycle in the city indicates it’s not likely he had logistical support in the area, but that they were still investigating.

Hanachi is being held on charges of involvement in the attack and of international terrorism and was awaiting extradition to La Belle France.

The attacker, Ahmed Hanachi, had been married to an Italian woman and lived in Aprilia, south of Rome, from about 2006 to 2014.
Update from Ynet at 9:00 a.m. ET:
Swiss police have detained two Tunisians wanted in connection with a deadly knife attack at Marseille train station in France on October 1, a source close to the investigation said on Tuesday.

The knifeman, 29-year old Ahmed Hannachi, was shot dead by a French soldier after killing two young women outside the station in southern France. Authorities are investigating the attack as a "probable" terrorist act.

The two Tunisians were arrested in Chiasso, near the Swiss-Italian border, the source said, adding that one of them was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Hannachi's younger brother, Anis, was arrested in Italy earlier this month.
An Nahar adds that both those arrested in Chiasso are asylum seekers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists


Southeast Asia
Breeding ground
[PHILSTAR] The Department of Justice has started processing a request from its US counterpart for the extradition of a physician enjugged
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
in connection with a jihadist plot to attack several targets in New York. Russell Salic, according to the US Justice Department, described the Philippines as "a breeding ground for terrorists."

The statement is not entirely an empty boast. Foreign governments have raised concern about the growth of Islamist extremism in the Philippines and its Southeast Asian neighbors particularly Indonesia and Malaysia. The man convicted of organizing the first attack on the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, in which a truck bomb was set off beneath the North Tower in February 1993, plotted the attack partly in Manila. Al Qaeda chieftain the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse...
’s brother-in-law was suspected of using an Widows & Orphans Ammunition Fund in Mindanao for terrorist financing.

Today the military is battling Maute Lions of Islam linked to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
in Marawi. With ISIS on the run from its former strongholds in Iraq and Syria, there are concerns that the group may try to relocate to Southeast Asia, where the Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah operates together with the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters
...a MILF splinter group aligned with the Islamic State...
The Philippine government must reassure the world that this will not happen. Salic, according to the US Justice Department, had reportedly said terror laws in the Philippines are "not strict" compared to countries such as Australia and the UK.

"Terrorists from all over the world usually come here as a breeding ground for Lions of Islam ... hahahaha... But no worry here in Philippines. They dont care bout IS ... Only in west," Salic was quoted as saying.

Salic is not entirely off the mark; JI bomb makers have conducted training in Mindanao, and several foreign jihadis have been killed in the fighting in Marawi. The Philippines has a law against terrorism, but it includes safeguards against human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
violations so stringent that law enforcers can go to prison for many years even for honest mistakes.

Not surprisingly, the Human Security Act has remained largely unenforced. It needs a review by Congress if the terrorist threat is to be contained. All countries face the threat of terrorism these days. What sets countries apart ‐ and reassures citizens, foreign travelers and investors ‐ is the state’s capability to deal with the threat. The Philippines cannot afford to be found wanting.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Iraq
Anbar Antix


ISIS reinforces Anbar

Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State has started sending its militants and equipments from a region in western Anbar to the desert, a security source said on Monday.

Speaking to AlSumaria News, the source said “the defeats against IS after liberation of Annah, Anbar, and then Hawija, Kirkuk, the group started sending the rest of militants and equipments from Qaim to Anbar’s western desert.

“The U.S.-led Coalition and army jets continue their shellings against the group in western desert, last of which was destroying a camp in the west of Anbar,” the source, who preferred anonymity, added.

Earlier on the day, Iraqi army warplanes bombarded a camouflaged IS camp in the form of cracks made in the ground at the 160th kilometer region in the center of Anbar’s desert, the military media said. 15 vehicles belonging to the group and ten oil barrels were destroyed in the raid.

More than 200 Syrian IS families coming from Mayadin, where confrontations take place between the militant group and the Syrian army, reportedly accessed Qaim on Sunday.

Iraqi warbirds hit ISIS cap

Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army warplanes bombarded an Islamic State camp in Anbar’s desert on Monday as preparations continue to invade the group’s last havens in the province and Iraq, military media said.

The Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said army jets detected a camouflaged Islamic State camp in the form of cracks made in the ground at the 160th kilometer region in the center of Anbar’s desert.

According to the WMC statement, 15 vehicles belonging to the group and ten oil barrels were destroyed in the raid.

Since Islamic State militants took over large areas of Iraq and Syria to estalbish a self-styled “caliphate” in 2014, Iraqi government forces, backed paramilitary troops and U.S.-led coalition, launched a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions.

So far, the offensives managed to retake Mosul, the group’s former capital, the town of Tal Afar, Kirkuk’s Hawija and Anbar’s Annah.

The only regions that currently remain under Islamic State’s territorial influence are Anbar’s towns of Rawa and Qaim. Reports are telling of running preparations for invading the two regions. If recaptured, that will mark a practical end to Islamic State’s control in Iraq.

ISIS Bad Guys smoked in Iraqi airstrikes

Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Dozens of Islamic State militants were killed Monday when amy warplanes targeted militants’ gatherings in western Anbar, security sources were quoted saying.

Iraqi Media News Agency quoted the sources saying that army jets bombarded Wadi al-Qathef region when tens of group members were rallying preparing for an attack on army forces. They said the raid left dozens of militants dead, including foreign nationals.

Since Islamic State militants took over large areas of Iraq and Syria to estalbish a self-styled “caliphate” in 2014, Iraqi government forces, backed paramilitary troops and U.S.-led coalition, launched a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Rapist granted custody to child of 12-year-old victim
[RT] A convicted rapist in Michigan has been awarded joint custody of a child conceived during the rape of 12-year-old girl.

Judge Gregory S Ross of the Sanilac County Circuit granted Christopher Mirasolo custody on September 22 after DNA testing established Mirasolo was the biological father.

Rebecca Kiessling is the victim’s attorney and filed objections on Friday.

"This is insane," Kiessling said, the bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
News reported. "Nothing has been right about this since it was originally investigated. He was never properly charged and should still be sitting behind bars somewhere, but the system is victimizing my client, who was a child herself when this all happened."

According to Kiessler, Judge Ross gave Mirasolo the victim’s address and ordered his name be added to the birth certificate, without asking the victim. She said the victim "has never been asked to do this and certainly never signed everything."

Mirasolo raped the mother in 2008, when he was 18. He threatened to kill her and kept her captive for two days.

"She, her 13-year-old sister and a friend all slipped out of their house one night to meet a boy and the boy’s older friend, Mirasolo, showed up and asked if they wanted to go for a ride," Kiessling said. "They thought they were going to McDonald’s or somewhere."

"Instead, he tossed their cellphones away, drove to Detroit where he stole gas from a station and then drove back to Sanilac County, where he kept them captive for two days in a vacant house near a relative, finally releasing the older sister in a park. He threatened to kill them if they told anyone what happened."

Mirasolo was placed in durance vile
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
a month later, when the victim was pregnant. He took a plea deal for attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct. According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, Mirasolo was sentenced in January 2009 and was discharged on December 20, 2010.

In 2010, Mirasolo sexually assaulted a victim that was under 15, and served four years for that crime.

Kiessling spoke to Mirasolo’s other victim, who told her that Mirasolo did the same thing to her.

The custody decision appears to have been sparked when the mother filled out a form about state aid. Sanilac County Assistant Prosecutor Eric Scott then filed a motion to establish paternity and collect child support.

"He claims my client agreed to it and even claimed she signed the judgment, and I'm like, 'No, she didn't. I have it right here,'" Kiessling said.

Mirasolo’s attorney Barbara Yockey told RT.com the matter is in the process of "being privately resolved between the parties, as it should have been from the start." Yockey also expressed frustration that the case had been publicized in this way, as it involves a child.

The victim, now 21, is seeking protection under the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. A hearing will take place on October 25.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Give him no visitation and a very hefty child support payment.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/10/2017 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Shared custody of the rape victim's 12 yo girl with the rapist? What could go possibly wrong? As the victim's attorney said:
"This is insane,"
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/10/2017 6:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Judge Ross needs to go back to school to study the term 'justice'. In the old days, they executed rapists. Then the weak of heart decided that such punishment was cruel and unusual. As the late Justice Scalia inferred on a different case - slippery slope. If you want a Don Corleone, this is how you get more Don Corleone.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 7:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Between this and that "translator" at the movies judgement I think we're getting close to a time when lamp posts start getting decorated.

Don Corleone indeed.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/10/2017 8:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Mirasolo was sentenced in January 2009 and was discharged on December 20, 2010

For raping a 12 years old?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/10/2017 9:43 Comments || Top||

#6  In Texas it goes differently: "No Charges for Texas Father Who Beat to Death Daughter's Molester"
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/10/2017 10:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Shared custody of the rape victim's 12 yo girl with the rapist?

The rape occurred in 2008, when the rape victim was twelve and the raping gentleman in question was eighteen, JohnQC. One assumes he also raped her thirteen year old sister and their friend while he held them all captive, but the other two did not conceive. Upon being released from prison after less than a year for attempted third degree criminal sexual conduct, he promptly raped another under-fifteen year old, getting her pregnant as well. It appears from the article that he now has shared custody for both the eight year old child and the six year old.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 10:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Can't say much for California, but our laws would not permit this. Although everything else is going to hell.
Posted by: Sgt.D.T. || 10/10/2017 14:31 Comments || Top||

#9  Dumb question but why is this monster out of jail? or for that matter still alive.

On an up note: Judge Gregory S. Ross: Petition Gets 2,709 Signatures To Disbar

Gregory S. Ross is a district court judge for the 73A District Court and the Sanilac County Probate Court in Michigan.[1] On November 4, 2014, he was re-elected unopposed to a new six-year term commencing on January 1, 2015, and expiring on December 31, 2020.[2
Posted by: Woodrow || 10/10/2017 14:39 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
7 Dead After Attack On Checkpoint In Somalia's Puntland
[EWN.CO.ZA] Islamist al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
forces of Evil attacked a checkpoint in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland
...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion...
region, killing at least seven people in the early hours of Monday, police said.

The fighters then ambushed officers rushing in to help colleagues on the outskirts of the city of Bosaso, an officer at the scene told Rooters.

Al-Shabaab said it took the checkpoint then left, though the police said they fought off the assault.

Al-Shabaab has launched a string of attacks on Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and other areas controlled by the federal government in a bid to oust the Western-backed authorities and impose the group’s interpretation of Islamic law.

Attacks are relatively rare in Puntland, which has its own government and security forces patrolling its territory on the northeastern tip of the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

"At about 1am, many well-armed al-Shabaab fighters attacked us from all directions in an attempt to capture the checkpoint," police captain Abdifatah Mohammed said.

Three police and four civilians died and at least 13 others were maimed in the festivities, he said over the phone from the checkpoint.

Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operation front man, said its fighters killed seven soldiers and maimed 11 others.

"We captured the Bosaso checkpoint and left this morning. We also ambushed a police reinforcement," he said.

Puntland is also home to a splinter group of al-Shabaab that has sworn allegiance to 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....
. Security sources say a small contingent of imported muscle is based there.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)


Africa North
UN assisting thousands of migrants stranded in Libyan smuggling hub, migrants drown off Tunisia
[AlAhram] The UN migration agency said on Monday it was trying to provide assistance to large numbers of migrants colonists who had been held in the smuggling hub of Sabratha as rival factions battled for control of the city.

At least 4,000 migrants colonists, including pregnant women, newborn babies and unaccompanied children, have been transferred from informal camps and dormitories to a hangar in the city since the festivities ended on Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Sabratha has been the most common point of departure for mostly sub-Saharan African migrants colonists trying to cross the Mediterranean by boat from Libya.

But the number of crossings dropped sharply in July after an gang struck a deal with officials from the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
to block departures, under pressure from Italia and other European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
member states.

That set off three weeks of fighting among rival factions which ended with the withdrawal of the gang. The migrants colonists who have since been rounded up were being held at sites that the group had controlled, local officials said.

"We are seriously concerned by the large number of migrants colonists caught up in recent developments in Sabratha," Othman Belbeisi, IOM Libya Chief of Mission, said in a statement.

Some migrants colonists are being sent on to detention centres elsewhere in western Libya that are nominally under the control of the Tripoli government.

IOM officials say those centres, which were housing some 5,000 migrants colonists, risk being overwhelmed by the new arrivals. Conditions in the centres are often dire and abuse widespread.

"Alternatives to detention must be found for migrants colonists in Libya. In the meantime, IOM continues to provide direct humanitarian, health and psychosocial assistance to meet the urgent needs of the thousands of migrants colonists being affected," Belbeisi said.

Local sources have previously said that an estimated 10,000 migrants colonists were being held in the Sabratha area.

The head of Sabratha's department for countering illegal migration told Rooters on Saturday that help was urgently needed as some migrants colonists had received no food or water for six days.

At Least 8 Migrants Drown as Boat Collides with Tunisia Navy Vessel

[AnNahar] At least eight migrants colonists have drowned after their boat sank following a crash with a Tunisian navy vessel in the Mediterranean, the defense ministry said Monday.

Spokesman Belhassen Oueslati told the AFP news agency that eight bodies were found and 38 people rescued after the unidentified boat "collided with a military vessel" Sunday evening when it was approached some 54 kilometers (33 miles) off the islands of Kerkennah.

Search operations to find any more missing people were "still ongoing," he said.

Several Italian media outlets reported that there were some 70 migrants colonists on board the boat which sank and that it had set off from the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax.

The collision happened in a stretch of sea that is meant to be patrolled by search and rescue crews from Malta.

The Maltese coastguard told AFP that it had been informed of a crash between two vessels and had sent help, but did not give any more details.

There has been an uptick since the summer in the number of migrants colonists trying to make the perilous sea crossing to Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
from Tunisia, with small vessels heading to the Italian islands of Sicily and Lampedusa.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  I'd say one or more of the European powers should recolonize Libya with all of the force necessary to get the job done. But with the EU the way it is I think we all know that will never happen. The way they act I suspect instability in Libya and subsequent migration was part of the EU plan all along.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/10/2017 12:53 Comments || Top||


Libyan government forces seize ISIS munitions cache
[LibyaHerald] An IS huge hoard of weapons and ammunition was raided by Misrata forces (Misrata Anti Crime Unit).

The Anti-Crime Unit of the Ministry of Interior in Misrata together with other forces has announced that it has, on instructions from the Attorney General’s Office, raided an IS hideout in the Ruwaisat area.

The raid led to the arrest of ‘‘Daesh members’’ found within the hideout, the brief report said, without specifying the number of people arrested. It is believed that the hideout belonged to former Benghazi Defence Brigade (BDB) and Benghazi Mujahedine Shura Council (BMSC) members based in the area.

The hideout was found to be full of a large hoard of ammunition and explosive materials, for detonating explosives and car bombs and contained other dangerous materials used for detonations, the brief statement said.

The arrests and raid comes on the back of the explosion at the Misrata law courts last week which led to four deaths and scores of injured. The court was in the process of putting IS members on trial.

It will be recalled that the head of Investigations at the Attorney General’s Office (AG), Sadek Assour, made some very interesting revelations

IS cameraman involved in 2015 Sirte massacre of Egyptian Christians in custody says Assour on 28th September at an unprecedented and expanded press conference at the Court Centre in Tripoli on 28th September.

A 30-plus slide power point show accompanied the presentation showing details and photographs of accused IS members, organizational charts, links and routs of travel into Libya based on 14 months of investigation.

Assour had revealed that more than 1,000 elements belonging to terrorist organizations are wanted for justice, a large number of whom are wanted in Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

There were numerous IS cells operating, including a cell in the city of Misrata, and that these cells were responsible for several explosions in the city of Misrata.

There were still a lot of individuals in the Sudan and Tunisia who are recruiting members IS members for Libya and the Libyan Attorney General’s Office would send warrants to the states to which IS members are affiliated, Assour had added.

There were more than 200 suicide bombers and assassinations that were identified in all Libyan cities, and we have all the information about them and they will be brought to trial, he had added.

He had revealed that the AG’s Office had issued summons for some Libyan officials who had supported some terrorist figures financially, in contravention of the state’s financial law.

There are currently 250 cases before the courts, Assour had revealed.

Assour said that intelligence officers have been selected to conduct terrorist investigations efficiently and professionally. Many of those wanted were presently in Turkey and Syria, he had revealed.

Many IS members had left Libya for Syria and Iraq known to the AG’s Office by name. He said that the AG’s Office had information about cells trying to activate themselves in Libya, one of which is connected to the Hamas movement.

There is cooperation between the AG’s Office Bureau of Investigation and the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on issues of terrorism and immigration and Tripoli and Benghazi Investigations Bureaux are collecting data on terror cells.

Victims of terror or their relatives must communicate with the Attorney general’s office

Many murders, kidnappings and assassinations in his Sabartha were carried out by extremist groups, Assour confirmed.

Assour also revealed that a database of has been created containing all the information on 1,500 IS members.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Arabia
Houthis attack government offices in Sanaa
Aden, Taiz – Armed militias backing ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Tehran-aligned Houthis returned to the cycle of tension after Houthi gunmen stormed the coup-established foreign ministry bureaus in the capital Sana’a.

Houthi militiamen then prevented the pro-Saleh foreign minister Hisham Sharaf from entering the ministry.

A source at the internationally-recognized government in Aden described what is going on as “settling scores and tightening the grip on Saleh by the Houthis.”

The source also stressed that “coup tactics are self-destructive” and that “what is happening is evidence of the hatred fellow coup members harbor towards each other—however, it absolves neither from legal or judicial responsibility or accountability.”

The number of raids by Houthi militias against ministerial buildings located in coup-held territory have increased.

Unlike the Houthis’ predominantly militarized role in the coup, most ministries are run by Saleh loyalists.

Only a week ago, gunmen stormed the health ministry offices and assaulted the minister in office.

Houthis continue to chase former politicians in Sana’a.

There have been repeated incursions and accounts of humiliation registered, which reached the point physical offenses carried out against coup ministers.

“Targeting Sharaf, one of the most efficient political assistants and foreign communications experts, suggests that the two coup partners disagree on the most sensitive point—which is opposing legitimate authorities and the Arab coalition,” said Yassine al-Tamimi, a Yemeni political analyst.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that what happened to Sharaf “is an episode in a longer series of targeting coup ministers affiliated with Saleh and who represent the political line of the General People’s Congress. This likely means that Houthis decided to deplete Saleh and his party, ousting them from the scene.”

Meanwhile, pro-government Yemeni army forces and the Popular Resistance announced on Sunday that they have officially restored their control over new strategic positions, which were controlled by insurgency militias in northeastern Al-Jawf province.
Posted by: badanov || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


The Grand Turk
Almost 150 go on trial over Turkey coup bridge massacre
[AlAhram] Almost 150 former Ottoman Turkish military personnel went on trial Monday over festivities on an Istanbul bridge during last year's failed coup that claimed dozens of lives, including a key aide of President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
The bridge across the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul was the scene of bloody fighting between Erdogan's supporters and renegade soldiers seeking to oust the elected government on the night of July 15, 2016.

It was later renamed by the government as July 15 Martyrs' Bridge.

The dead included Erdogan's campaign manager Erol Olcok and his 16-year-old son Abdullah Tayyip, who were killed when soldiers opened fire on protesters on the bridge which connects Asia and Europe.

Erol Olcok had named his son after Erdogan and his predecessor as president, Abdullah Gul.

A total of 143 suspects, including 30 officers, appeared in court. All the suspects barring eight are being held under arrest.

They are accused of crimes ranging from murder to attempting to overthrow the parliament and the government, according to the 1,052-page indictment.

If convicted, the suspects each face 37 life sentences, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Monday's trial is one of several legal processes seeking to bring to justice those believed to have played a role in the coup bid which left 249 people dead, not including the putschists.

Veysel Kilic, the father of one of the military academy students being held, said he did not have any hope in the "unsound" justice system.

Kilic took part in the main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdarogu'smonth-long foot march in July to protest against alleged injustices under Erdogan.

Like many relatives, Kilic said his air force academy student son was "deceived" and "told to join an unplanned exercise to measure their obedience to their commander".

"The students were totally unaware. They did not fire. Those children remained neutral," adding that more would have been killed if the students had taken sides.

Last week, a court in southwestern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
handed life sentences to 40 people convicted of plotting to assassinate Erdogan at an Aegean hotel.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte


Government
Army Introduces New 'Military Horseman' Badge
[Mil.com] The Military Horseman Identification Badge, the Army's newest badge, has been awarded for the first time to ten members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, Caisson Platoon, on Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall, Va. The badge recognizes Soldiers who complete the nine-week Basic Horsemanship course and who demonstrate the skills necessary to become a lead rider in the Caisson platoon. Upon successful completion of the course, Caisson Soldiers must then complete 100 Armed Forces Full Honors Funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, serve honorably for a minimum of 9 months in the Caisson platoon and be recommended by the Commander of 1st Battalion, 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. Caisson Soldiers must also maintain the standard ceremonial uniform of an Old Guard Soldier.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A gimme medal for the Old Guard.
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 || 10/10/2017 0:26 Comments || Top||

#2  If the US Armed forces arte going to head into the N.Korean hills and the past is any indication, they are going to need mule wranglers and pack horse handlers.
Posted by: Fester Protector of the Bunions5227 || 10/10/2017 0:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey, that looks like one of my belt buckles!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 10/10/2017 1:02 Comments || Top||

#4  What!? No more attendance medals for the rear echelon?
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 10/10/2017 1:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Is there a badge for crushing your enemies, driving them before you and hearing the lamentations of their women?
Posted by: SteveS || 10/10/2017 1:20 Comments || Top||

#6  ...no, they go to Ft Leavenworth (behind the walls) for that now. Kinder, gentler war making don't you know.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:54 Comments || Top||

#7  No more attendance medals for the rear echelon?

That's what I thought the Army Achievement Medal and ARCOM (that middle one on the top row) were for. Tour of duty completion awards.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 6:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Basic Horsemanship course

What about the following shovel squad?
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/10/2017 10:20 Comments || Top||

#9  What about the following shovel squad?

Sounds like Army. The Air Force uses contractors.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 11:38 Comments || Top||

#10  Didn't a horse win the Medal of Honor during the Korean war by packing ammunition to a hill top?
Posted by: bman || 10/10/2017 15:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Yes, his name was Reckless and she was awarded the Victorian cross, the Dickin Medal, was buried with full military honors and commemorated by the marines with a bronze statue. It is quite a story and hopefully Peta will not deface her statue.
Posted by: bman || 10/10/2017 15:46 Comments || Top||

#12  So, they gonna send a truckload to the Cav at Ft Hood? It'll go well with the Stetsons.
Posted by: ed in texas || 10/10/2017 20:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
SNP urges Spain to 'respect' Catalan vote
[BBC] The SNP has urged Spain to "respect" the overwhelming pro-independence vote in the disputed Catalan referendum.

A motion passed unanimously at the party's conference called for international mediators to help find an "agreed solution" to the crisis.

There were cheers and loud applause for a Catalan government delegation after it was introduced at the conference.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said earlier that it was "not for me to say whether Catalonia should be independent".

And while the motion describes the referendum as an "expression of the democratic will of the people of Catalonia", it does not explicitly say that region should now become independent as a result.

The referendum on 1 October was said by the Catalan government to have resulted in a 90% vote in favour of independence.

Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The pro vote wasn't "overwhelming". The referendum was declared illegal by the Spanish Supreme Court, so the law-abiding citizens didn't vote.
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 5:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Interesting. Thank you, European Conservative.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/10/2017 5:20 Comments || Top||

#3  I've followed the issue a little. The Catalans are not "suppressed". They enjoy all democratic freedoms.

The referendum was a farce. People could print out their own ballots and nobody controlled how often they voted.
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/10/2017 5:28 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Turkey issues detention warrant for 2nd US consulate worker
[RT] Ankara has issued a detention warrant for a second US consulate worker, according to media reports. It comes after Turkey’s justice minister urged the US to reverse its decision to suspend visas for Turkish citizens. Turkish authorities announced, without giving a reason, that a second employee of the US consulate in Istanbul had been “invited” to the city’s chief prosecutor’s office to testify, AP reported.

Reports say the employee is a Turkish citizen, and the prosecutor’s office said his wife and child have also been detained for questioning.

It follows the arrest of Metin Topuz, a Turkish citizen who worked at the US general consulate in Istanbul. He is alleged to have ties to exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for a failed coup attempt last summer.

US envoy to Turkey says duration of visa services suspension depends on talks
...especially given the above. Perhaps Sultan Erdogan I, "the much beloved", thinks he is about to do to President Trump what the Mad Mullahs did to his predecessor.
[Ynet] The US ambassador to Turkey said on Monday the duration of a suspension in visa services in Turkey would depend on talks between the two governments regarding the detention of Turkish staff at the US embassy.

In a written statement, Ambassador John Bass said the length of the suspension would also depend on "the Turkish government's commitment to protecting our facilities and personnel here in Turkey", noting it was not a visa ban on Turkish citizens.

He said the embassy had been unable to learn the reasons for the arrest of a Turkish staff member last week and or what evidence exists against the employee.
Update from Ynet at 9:00 a.m. ET:
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday his country doesn't need Washington's permission to prosecute its citizens, the latest swipe in an escalating feud with the United States over the arrest of a US consulate employee.

In a speech to his ruling party's legislators in Parliament, Yildirim also slammed Washington for the arrest of a Turkish banker for his alleged role in helping Iran escape US sanctions, and for its failure to extradite US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey says was behind last year's failed coup.
Posted by: Fred || 10/10/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  Lets skip to the end game - minimize relations, cut off all economic and military support, place severe trade restrictions on them, kick them out of NATO, evac and demolish Incirlic and other bases we built during the cold war, and declare Turkey to be a hostile nation.

Thats where we are headed, may as well jump to the finish with Erdogan.
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 || 10/10/2017 0:20 Comments || Top||

#2  NEO - non-combatant evacuation order
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/10/2017 7:25 Comments || Top||

#3  The suspension in visas is already costing the Turks.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/10/2017 11:25 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
23[untagged]
9Islamic State
5Moslem Colonists
3Sublime Porte
2Taliban
2Commies
2Govt of Syria
1al-Nusra
1Govt of Iraq
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On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

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In no particular order...
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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2017-10-10
  Nusra Front, Islamic State clash in Syria's Hama province
Mon 2017-10-09
  Syrian rebels capture ISIS HQ in Deir Ezzor
Sun 2017-10-08
  Two Saudi guards killed in attack on royal palace in Jeddah
Sat 2017-10-07
  Driver 'deliberately mows down pedestrians' outside London Museum
Fri 2017-10-06
  Iraqi premier claims victory against Islamic State in Hawija
Thu 2017-10-05
  3 Special Forces Troops Killed and 2 Are Wounded in an Ambush in Niger
Wed 2017-10-04
  Daesh defense line collapses in Hawijah as Iraqi forces liberate more villages
Tue 2017-10-03
  Key ISIS member Qari Zahid killed in US drone strike in East of Afghanistan
Mon 2017-10-02
  Terror Attack in Las Vegas - Mass Shooting - Updated 50+ dead, 400+ wounded
Sun 2017-10-01
  Kurdish secession bid in Iraq threat to entire region: Hezbollah chief
Sat 2017-09-30
  Islamic State sets oil wells on fire, urges militants evacuate villages in Hawija
Fri 2017-09-29
  Lebanon Military Tribunal sentences Takfiri preacher to death
Thu 2017-09-28
  Al-Qaeda leadership, dozens of jihadists wiped out by Russian missile strike in Idlib
Wed 2017-09-27
  Palestinians admitted Interpol membership
Tue 2017-09-26
  US drone targets ISIS vehicle in Nangarhar leaving 5 dead

Better than the average link...



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