[Miltimes] A Navy prosecutor last week sent an email to the editor of Navy Times that was embedded with a secret digital tracking device. The tracking device came at a time when the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is mounting an investigation into media leaks surrounding the high-profile court-martial of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes.
That email, from Navy prosecutor Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak to Navy Times editor Carl Prine, came after several months of Navy Times reporting that raised serious questions about the Navy lawyers’ handling of the prosecution in the war crimes case.
When asked about the email Czaplak sent to Prine, NCIS spokesman Jeff Houston said Thursday that "during the course of the leak investigation, NCIS used an audit capability that ensures the integrity of protected documents. It is not malware, not a virus, and does not reside on computer systems. There is no risk that systems are corrupted or compromised."
The Navy’s top spokesman, Capt. Greg Hicks, declined to comment on the email device targeting Navy Times but acknowledged that the Navy is conducting "an ongoing investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of information covered by a judge’s protective order." Hicks said the investigation is being conducted by the NCIS.
Czaplak is the lead prosecutor in two related war crimes cases involving Navy special warfare personnel.
Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, has pleaded not guilty to a murder count in the death of an injured teenage militant he allegedly stabbed to death in 2017 in Iraq. Gallagher’s platoon’s commanding officer, Lt. Jacob Portier, is fighting charges of conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly conducting Gallagher’s re-enlistment ceremony next to the corpse.
The case has become so high-profile that it has even drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who ordered Gallagher moved from the brig to a hospital complex.
So it's all about the virtue signaling to get those in your tribe to act the way you want them to the next time.
Many registered Democrats who claimed they were suffering from mental distress after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election may have been embellishing a bit. A new study comparing online searches to public surveys show that a significant portion of Democrats were likely over-reporting their stress or mental health issues, but doing so as a means to back their party.
"Our research suggests that for many Democrats, expressing mental distress after the election was a form of partisan cheerleading," write researchers Masha Krupenkin, David Rothschild, Shawndra Hill and Elad Yom-Tov in their findings. "Clearly, many Democrats were, and are, upset about the Republican victory in 2016; these findings do not invalidate those feelings but put their depth and related actions into perspective."
This so-called "reverse" cheerleading occurs when a person misreports or exaggerates a condition publicly in order to show support for their affiliated group, or in this case, their political party. The authors say that a person’s actions in private reveal their true condition, however, and for the study, that can be determined by evaluating private search terms. In other words, a person who might describe suffering psychological distress on social media or to their friends, but doesn’t search for any type of help or relief, is more likely showing a form of reverse cheerleading.
For the study, the authors looked at more than 1 million Bing searches by Democrats, Republicans, and Spanish-Speaking Latinos from before and after the election. The searches were grouped based on previously answered questions by users who’d revealed their political affiliation, and by those who searched in Spanish. In particular, the authors looked for specific mental health-related search terms: depression, anxiety, stress, suicide/suicidal, and therapy. They also sought out searches for antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.
Researchers then compared the findings to previously reported public surveys about how voters felt after the election.
"We find that while Democrats expressed serious mental distress about the election result on surveys, on average, the Democrats in our sample did not show an increase in mental health-related searches after the election," the authors write. "Democrats were no more likely to search for stress relief, nor mental illness, nor treatment for mental illness before or after the election. This suggests that some Democrats reported mental health declines after Trump’s election as a form of reverse cheerleading, where partisans report evaluations that are more negative than their true beliefs to reflect badly on a president of the opposing party."
On the other hand, they did see an uptick in searches for the search terms mentioned above among Spanish-speaking Latinos, which leads them to believe that while Democrats may have been reverse cheerleading, Latinos appeared to actually be suffering from actual distress.
Interestingly, the authors point to a 2016 Gallup poll that shows Republicans seem less interested in partisan cheerleading. That poll found Democrats reported higher levels of stress after the 2016 election, but Republicans didn’t. Yet after the 2008 election of Barack Obama, Republicans similarly showed no increase in stress, despite the election of the young Democrat.
UNCONFIRMED reporting.
[Aljazeera] An air attack has killed 17 policemen by mistake during a battle with the Taliban just outside the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, officials said.
Attaullah Afghan, the head of the provincial council, said the attack took place on Thursday while Afghan police were fighting the Taliban near the city.
Fourteen policemen were wounded in the attack, he added.
A spokesperson for the provincial governor said the strike was carried out by NATO Resolute Support mission force in the Nahr-e-Seraj area of the Helmand-Kandahar highway.
There was no immediate response to a query to the US military in Kabul. American forces regularly back Afghan troops when asked to.
Helmand's Governor Mohammad Yasin said the air raid is being investigated. A Taliban statement claimed US forces were behind it.
The Ministry of Interior Affairs in a statement confirmed the casualties but said an investigation has been carried out to find out whether it was due to a friendly airstrike or due to the clashes with the Taliban.
[American Thinker] Few people have the audacity to speak the truth about the underlying problem with the efforts to engineer "diversity" ‐ which in practice means that blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans receive a share of jobs, college admissions, income, and other products of achievement at least proportional to their share of the population. Fortunately, Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has a lot of guts.
Last night, Ms. Mac Donald appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and discussed the newly-announced "adversity score" adopted by the College Board publishers of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). As explained by the New York Times:
The company announced on Thursday that it will include a new rating, which is widely being referred to as an "adversity score," of between 1 and 100 on students’ test results. An average score is 50, and higher numbers mean more disadvantage. The score will be calculated using 15 factors, including the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s neighborhood.
The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college dmissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker.
The Wall Street Journal expresses the decision factors in this graphic:
#2
Designed to get certain test takers into better schools. Stupidly, sending any student into a school more demanding than their abilities is a guarantee of failure, frustration, and a path to dropping out. Better to match ability to challenge, driving toward success. This is known, but some people prefer to virtue signal with other people’s lives.
#4
Racial preferences are illegal even if you think your oh-so-clever way around the illegality works. This will be blown up in court or SATs will not be usable
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Someone call me when the NBA and NFL start allowing underprivileged short slow white guys into the league to the limit of their population percentage.
#9
Stupidly, sending any student into a school more demanding than their abilities is a guarantee of failure, frustration, and a path to dropping out.
I dunno. What about all those kids whose parents bought their way into the top schools like Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and USC? Did they drop out? I've never been so I don't really know but it makes me wonder if the so-called best and brightest who come out of those schools really are the best and brightest. Maybe they're just the children of the elite.
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We already have a problem with kids being given positions in elite schools way above their abilities and then flunking out after a year or two. This will only compound that problem.
#11
Standards will be lowered so they DON'T flunk out - diminishing those schools. Would you hire an Evergreen College or Berkeley grad? I sure as hell wouldn't
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[Breitbart] We now have further evidence that the Obama White House was in on the lies about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email use.
In late April, Judicial Watch announced that E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, had admitted in writing and under oath that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.
Now Judicial Watch has obtained 44 pages of records from the State Department through court-ordered discovery revealing that the Obama White House was tracking a December 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records concerning Clinton’s use of an unsecure, non-government email system.
Months after the Obama White House involvement, the State Department responded to the FOIA requestor, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), falsely stating that no such records existed.
#1
Helping cover up the largest international Federal bribery case in USA history. Covering up the refusal of Osama bin Obama's CIA, FBI and DOJ gross political dereliction of duty.
#2
Once again, this is precisely the reason nothing has been done about the Clinton emails, The Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, clandestine communications (home brew server) devices, and her other mischief. Soetoro is a long-time Clinton-Brennan asset and puppet.
BTW, if anyone believes the WH Communications Detachment knew nothing about this, you're dreadfully mistaken. No one simply picks up the phone, sends an email, letter, package, or initiates communication with POTUS without the Detachment and the Secret Service being in the loop.
Let's be honest. Soetoro was surely a principal character in all of this skulduggery.
[Market Watch] Missing more than one paycheck is a one-way ticket to financial hardship for nearly half of the country’s workforce.
No doubt at least a quarter of that group are in the upper middle class, income-wise, choosing to live at the edge of their means. It used to be called keeping up with the Joneses.
A new study from NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent social research institution, found that 51% of working adults in the United States would need to access savings to cover necessities if they missed more than one paycheck.
Does this mean over half actually have savings accounts? And isn’t that what savings accounts are for?
Certain communities were more prone to economic hardship in the event of missing a paycheck. Roughly two-thirds of households earning less than $30,000 annually
...the working poor, who nowadays get food stamps and other forms of aid for exactly that reason...
and Hispanic households
...is that code for illegal immigrants? Why else pick them out, but not African-Americans?
would be unable to cover basic living expenses after missing more than one paycheck, the researchers found.
The findings were based on a survey of more than 1,000 adults. The researchers interviewed a nationally representative panel designed to be indicative of the U.S. population.
The survey provides a sobering look at Americans’ precarious finances even as the economy is improving, jobs are more plentiful and the stock market has ‐ despite this week’s volatility ‐ generally continued its upward trajectory this year.
The usual situation during recovery after a crash. This time it was made longer and deeper by vast ladlefuls of excessive regulations poured on by the Obama administration, including Obamacare.
Though wage growth has accelerated recently, those gains have been concentrated among the wealthiest Americans most.
But the vast number of newly employed has been concentrated among the formerly non-working poor, giving them the first step up the skills-and-salary ladder.
#6
Wouldn't the 'working poor' be better off if they/we didn't have to pay all those taxes? Sales taxes up front and all the intermediary taxes levied on stuff from the ground to the store shelves? Strange how the pols never bring that up.
[AnNahar] Troops and police patrolled parts of Sri Lanka on Thursday as international pressure mounted on Colombo to contain anti-Moslem riots that killed one man in a backlash against the Easter terror attacks. international pressure? NOBODY CARES
Military front man Sumith Atapattu said there were no incidents of violence in the 24 hours ending Thursday morning, but police and security forces continued to carry out search operations.
Police said they had detained at least 112 suspects by Wednesday evening and more arrests were being carried out to ensure there was no repetition of the riots that saw Moslem homes, businesses and mosques attacked.
A night curfew in North-Western Province (NWP), which has seen the worst of the anti-Moslem backlash after the Islamist suicide kabooms on April 21, was relaxed on Thursday morning.
But some 5,500 additional police were deployed in NWP.
"We are carrying out search operations and have a large presence on the ground," Atapattu told AFP.
A shopkeeper in Minuwangoda, one of the worst affected towns just north of Colombo, said roads were reopened Thursday amid a heavy military and police presence.
"I normally have about 30 customers in the morning, but today there were just three," the electronic goods seller told AFP by telephone. "Banks have opened, but it will take a few weeks before we get back to our normal routine."
There were similar reports from other riot-scarred towns.
The Easter attacks claimed 258 lives and were blamed on a local jihadi group which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
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[ABC] Five more states are suing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma for its alleged role in the U.S. opioid crisis, the states' attorneys general announced on Thursday.
West Virginia, Maryland, Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin are filing lawsuits against the company which manufactures and markets the painkiller.
"The opioid epidemic was not inevitable," Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said at a press conference announcing his case. "This epidemic has torn families apart. It has led to the overdose deaths of thousands of Wisconsinites. It has strained our foster care services. It has strained our health care system. It has strained our criminal justice system."
In the lawsuit, Kaul added that the drug crisis also had a major impact on the state's economy, writing that "between 1999 and 2015, Wisconsin has lost 45,200 workers due to opioids."
Wisconsin is the only state of the five that is also suing Richard Sackler, the former president of Purdue Pharma, personally
#1
This is, among other things, a set-up for rescinding firearm manufacturers' protection from frivolous lawsuits. Even if I thing Purdue played fast and loose, I hope their lawyers spend a lot of time educating juries about pill mills and other shady intermediary practices.
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#2
It looks to the states like easy money, so they are pouncing.
[MAIL] Police are hunting a racist bus passenger who accused a man of being a terrorist before pulling a box cutter on him in New Jersey.
CCTV footage from the vehicle, which was driving through Bergen County, shows the suspect getting on to the bus and stepping on the victim's foot, reports CBS.
The victim, who has not been named, then asks him to watch where he is going - at which point the suspect asks if he is Indian before launching an expletive-filled racist rant.
The victim moves seats to avoid the confrontation, but the man then pulls a box cutter on him before saying: 'Don't look at me. I'll cut you. I'll cut you. My father died on 9/11. Your people. I'll cut you. Get the f*** off next stop.'
[MAIL] Facebook has terminated dozens of fake accounts, pages and groups secretly run by an Israeli firm that was coordinating efforts to influence elections across the globe.
The Tel-Aviv based Archimedes Group used the accounts to spread fake news on the behalf of its clients, mainly targeting political groups in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition, the company had reportedly spent around £634,000 ($812,000) on Facebook advertisements since late 2012.
#1
A lot of ad money in those fake accounts.
Yes, but our virtue signalling!
OK, let's take the money and then block their accounts later.
Genius, Holmes!
[MAIL] She's starred in every movie genre imaginable, and now Halle Berry is showing off her impressive action film qualifications.
The John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum actress was featured in a short video posted by the film's social media accounts on Monday that showed her shooting up an obstacle range as well as her fictional counterpart.
The 52-year-old star was joined by an impressed Keanu Reeves, 54, who watched from the sidelines.
#6
For your consideration fromGun Free Zone, comparing and contrasting how hollywood philes are gushing over this, when the rest of the time they are pushing gun control. Type in Daily Mail and gun control see what shows up. Check out the comments on this story.
Guy has a point.
Now, not being a Berry fan (dodges thrown wrench), I am encouraged she is putting in the effort to sell her character and her acting abilities a la Storm could fit right into the Wick world.
I loved Wick 1. Have to fold laundry? John Wick can help you with that. Working on taxes? The Boogeyman is on your side.
[Babylon Bee] TUSCALOOSA, AL‐Seven-year-old Gloria Hutchins was taken aside by her mother today and informed that thanks to new abortion laws, she may never enjoy the opportunity to kill her offspring. The two shared tears as Hutchin's mother, Heather, explained how, back in the good old days, if she decided she wanted to have sex without any discrepancy or thought, that was totally fine because she could always just end the life she had created.
[MAIL] A 'rogue doctor' allegedly caused 500 cases of HIV in Pakistan after using a contaminated needle.
Health authorities were forced to screen more than 14,000 people in the district of Larkana over the past month - with more than 400 children testing positive for the disease.
Dr Sikandar Memon, the regional coordinator of the Aids Control Programme, told the country's Dawn newspaper that another 29 patients tested positive in the most recent round of blood screening on Wednesday at the main hospital in Rato Dero.
#4
Back before radar was a thing, the latest naval fad was painting ships with dazzle camouflage - garish Op-Art patterns that worked by confusing the edge detectors in the human visual system. This made it harder for an observer to determine the ship's range, speed, and heading.
As with any arms race, I'd expect to see (no pun intended) countermeasures against facial recognition. Facial recog works by first identifying a face in a image, then identifying features (like eyes, nose, mouth) and calculating the relationships or distances between them. The results are then compared to a database of known faces.
I have not done my experiments yet, but I'd expect defenses like dazzle camouflage might be effective. Painting half of your face a contrasting color, adding extra eyes, eye brows, mouths, chins - anything to confuse the feature detectors.
"Why not just wear a mask?", you ask. Wearing masks in public is illegal in many jurisdictions. And if I were me, I'd have masks of famous people already in the database. Remember our goal is to hide from an automated system, not to trigger an alarm.
[Jpost] 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.... grabbed credit on Thursday for an attack on Niger soldiers near the Mali border, the group’s Amaq news agency said, without providing evidence.
The corpse count from Tuesday's attack rose to 28, an army front man said earlier.
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[CBS] Berlin -- An American art museum is demanding that a German far-right party stop using one of its paintings, portraying a 19th-century slave auction, in a campaign poster for the European elections.
"We are strongly opposed to the use of this work to advance any political agenda," Olivier Meslay, the director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, told The Associated Press. "We did not supply the painting to the AfD," he said, using the acronym for the party Alternative for Germany.
The 1866 oil-on-canvas painting "Slave Market," by Jean-Leon Gerome, shows a black, apparently Muslim slave trader displaying a naked young woman with much lighter skin to a group of men for examination.
The AfD's Berlin branch said they put up 30 posters of the painting across the German capital with the slogan: "So that Europe won't become Eurabia."
Steve Bannon backs "gladiator school" to bolster Europe's far-right.
The party, known for its anti-Muslim stance, said it won't take down any of the posters.
[IsraelTimes] At least three brush fires started Thursday in the area around the Gazoo Strip, apparently sparked by incendiary balloons that were floated across the border, local officials said.
Firefighters worked to control the blazes, which broke out in the Shokeda and Be’eri forests close to the border with the Paleostinian enclave.
There were no injuries or damage to property reported in the fires.
The Gazoo-based Sons of Zouari, which has been behind most of the balloon-based attacks on southern Israel in the past year, also threatened in a statement that the terror group would be "more active than ever" on Wednesday.
DALLAS (AP) ‐ A Dallas man previously arrested in the death of an 81-year-old woman has been charged with killing at least 11 more elderly women whose jewelry and other valuables he stole, authorities said Thursday.
Kim Leach, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County district attorney’s office, said 46-year-old Billy Chemirmir was indicted Tuesday on six more counts of capital murder in the deaths of women ranging in age from 76 to 94.
Chemirmir, a Kenyan citizen who was living in the U.S. illegally, also is charged in nearby Collin County with two counts of attempted capital murder for similar attacks there, according to county court records.
A Collin County grand jury also returned five capital murder indictments against Chemirmir on Tuesday.
Chemirmir has been in custody since March 2018 in the death of the 81-year-old Dallas woman, Lu Thi Harris. Police in Plano were investigating Chemirmir in connection with suspicious death and suspicious person calls at a senior apartment complex in that Dallas suburb and found evidence linking him to Harris’ death in Dallas, authorities said. Plano is in Collin County.
The break in the case came when Chemirmir forced his way into the Plano apartment of a 91-year-old woman that March, telling her to "go to bed. Don’t fight me," according to an arrest affidavit filed in Collin County. The woman was smothered with a pillow into unconsciousness and robbed. However, paramedics revived her and she told investigators that her attacker had stolen a box containing her jewelry. Police identified Chemirmir from a license plate number and were able to find and tail him days later, when they watched him throw a jewelry box into a trash bin. They traced the box to Harris, according to the affidavit.
[DAWN] The 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.... government has detained Naib Emir of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... (JuD) organization, Abdul Rehman Makki, along with another big shot Mohammad Shahbaz after the police believed their activities posed a threat to peace and tranquillity in the country.
The action was taken after the JuD big shots in their speeches criticised the government’s action against outfits to comply with the requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
An official privy to the information told Dawn that the detention order of Makki and Shahbaz were issued by Lahore Deputy Commissioner Saleha Saeed under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance.
The police detained them for 90 days and sent them to the Camp Jail, he said.
ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD
The official said Makki is the brother-in-law of Hafiz Saeed ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat... and he was detained from Lahore along with his senior fellow.
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[KhaamaPress] A key group member of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group was tossed in the calaboose Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! during an operation of the Special Forces in northern Baghlan province.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) in a statement said Thursday that the ISIS group member was arrested during an operation which was conducted by the Special Forces of the Afghan National Police in Baghlan Markazi district.
The statement further added that an Ak-47 assault rifle, 9 mobile phones and laptop computer were also confiscated during the same operation.
The anti-government armed forces of Evil including Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... have not commented regarding the operation so far.
The military sources had earlier reported that 4 Talibs were killed and 5 others were maimed in an operation of the Afghan Special Forces in the same district.
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[KhaamaPress] India on Thursday handed over two Mi-35 gunship helicopters to the Afghan Air Force as efforts are underway to further bolster the capabilities of the Afghan armed forces in the fight against terrorism.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) in a statement said the two gunship helicopters were handed over to the Ministry of Defense during a ceremony which was organized earlier today.
The statement further added that the Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Vinay Kumar, acting Minister of Defense Asadullah Khalid, Air Force Commander Gen. Abdul Fahim Ramin, and some other senior defense officials had participated in the ceremony.
According to Ministry of Defense, the two helicopters have been purchased from Belarus with the financial support of the government India.
Two more Mi-35 gunships will be handed over to the Afghan Air Force in the near future, the Ministry of Defense added.
#2
Oh, come on. We may force old, substandard equipment and faulty ammo on our own troops - but when it comes to diplomacy and high drama we have it delivered straight from the vendor to our grateful third world friends.
[KhaamaPress] One of the most dangerous commanders of Taliban ...Arabic for students... Mullah Khadem was killed during the joint operations which were conducted in northern Balkh province, the Ministry of Interior announced late on Wednesday.
A front man for the Ministry of Interior Nasrat Rahimi said Mullah Khadem, one of the most dangerous commanders of Taliban was killed during the joint operations which were conducted in Mugholha and Boka villages.
Rahimi further added that another key member of the group identified as Sarwar son of Juma Khan was placed in durance vile Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! during the same operations.
The anti-government armed turbans including Taliban have not commented regarding the killing of Mullah Khadem so far.
Balkh is among the relatively calm provinces in North of Afghanistan but the security situation in some parts of the province has tanked during the recent months.
Talibs are active in some of the remote districts of the province where often attempt to carry out terrorist related activities against the government and security institutions.
[KhaamaPress] At least 20 Death Eaters were killed in a series of air and artillery strikes pounding Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... positions along Ghazni-Paktia highway.
The provincial government media office in a statement said Wednesday at least four Arclight airstrikes and one artillery strike were carried out along the highway as part of Khalid-3 operations.
The statement further added that the Taliban positions were targeted in Arzoo and Shaliz areas located in the outskirts of Ghazni city.
The Khalid-3 operations are being conducted to clear which connects Ghazni with the south-eastern Paktika ...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo... province, the statement said, adding that three cycle of violences, a 82mm artillery, and Dshk machine gun were also destroyed during the operation.
The anti-government armed Death Eaters including Taliban have not commented regarding the operations so far.
[Ynet] 'Iranian scientists developed a firewall for industrial automation systems to neutralize industrial sabotage such as that caused by Stuxnet in power networks, and it was successfully tested' -Comm. minister
Iran has developed software to protect its industry against the Stuxnet computer virus, the Iranian communications minister said on Thursday, after accusing Israel in November of a cyber attack on Tehran's telecommunications facilities.
Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010 after it was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site. It was the first publicly known example of a virus being used to attack industrial machinery.
"Iran's university scientists have developed a firewall for industrial automation systems to neutralize industrial sabotage such as that caused by Stuxnet in power networks, and it was successfully tested," Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.
In November, Azari-Jahromi said a Stuxnet attack had failed to harm Iran's communications infrastructures, and accused Israel of being behind it.
Israel has declined comment on whether or not it is involved in a cyberwar on Iran.
In 2013, researchers at Symantec Corp uncovered a version of the Stuxnet that was used to attack the Iranian nuclear program in 2007.
Tehran agreed under a 2015 deal with world powers to curb the program but 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... pulled the United States out of it last year, with Israel's backing, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran
Consequences are a biyatch. I am really looking forward to casting my vote in 2020.
[Jpost] The United States on Thursday terminated The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... 's preferential trade treatment under a program that allowed some exports to enter the country duty free, but it has halved its tariffs on imports of Ottoman Turkish steel to 25%.
The White House said it was appropriate to terminate Turkey's eligibility to participate in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, based on its level of economic development. The decision was effective May 17, it added.
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in early March said Turkey was no longer eligible to participate because it "is sufficiently economically developed." It had begun reviewing the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... ally's status in the program last August when the two countries were embroiled in a diplomatic row.
But Ankara had been hopeful that Washington would not go ahead with the decision, saying it would be against the $75 billion target for mutual trade laid out by 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... and Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
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[RADIOSHABELLE] Somali security forces have today killed suspected al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... member in Somali capital city, Mogadishu.
The slain suspect and another man had allegedly tried to kill a government soldier.
According to witnesses, the two men riding cycle of violenceshot up the soldier at Bakara junction in the capital.
The soldier was said to have sustained injuries and rushed to the hospital.
The security forces responded to the incident by firing back at suspected assailants.
The fire exchange resulted in the death of one of the attacker, according to the security officials.
Other suspects reportedly beat feet from the scene.
The security forces launched an operation to hunt down the other suspect in the suburbs of Howl-wadag district.
Al-Shabaab lost control of Somali capital in 2011 following a major offensive by Somali forces backed by African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
The group still carries out liquidations and kabooms in Mogadishu.
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[RADIOSHABELLE] Suspected Al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... turbans who kidnapped two Cuban doctors in Mandera are now demanding Ksh.150 million [$1.5 milion] in ransom.
The ransom demand was communicated through community elders who went to a remote place between the towns of Buale and El-Ade in Jubaland region of Somalia, where general practitioner Herera Corea and surgeon Landy Rodriguez are said to have been seen alive.
After days of negotiations, community elders from Mandera and Bulahawo in Somalia who traveled deep into the horn of Africa nation confirmed that the two are alive and offering treatment to the community in a restricted environment.
Their abductors are demanding a 1.5 million U.S. dollars (Ksh.150 million) ransom to release the doctors kidnapped on their way to work from home in Mandera County on April 12, 2018.
Sources privy to the North-Eastern provincial administration command, however, says authorities have sent back the elders seeking to further negotiate the ransom.
Intelligence sources however intimate that the duo might have been kidnapped by bandidos who handed them over to suspected the Al-Shabaab turbans who subsequently sought the ransom from the group of elders allegedly through proxies.
Following the abduction, Cuban doctors posted in Wajir, Garissa and Tana River were recalled and reassigned other counties.
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[KhaamaPress] At least four suspects have been locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! on charges of orchestrating terrorist attacks in capital Kabul, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said Thursday.
According to a statement released by MoI, the suspects were arrested during an operation of the Special Forces of Afghan National Police on Wednesday night.
The statement further added that the operation was conducted in the vicinity of 8th police district of the city.
The Ministry of Interior in another statement said a similar operation was conducted in the vicinity of Jalalabd city, the picturesque provincial capital of Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
According to a MoI, a suspect who was involved in orchestrating terrorist attacks was arrested during the same operation.
The anti-government armed bandidosfaceless myrmidons including Taliban ...Arabic for students... have not commented regarding the two operations so far.
[AlAhram] Fourty-seven forces of Evil and five Egyptian troops were killed during recent raids in the Sinai border region, the army said in a statement Thursday.
Air forces destroyed 29 hideouts used by "terrorist elements" in operations central and northern Sinai, the statement said. Militants killed were found in possession of rifles and improvised bombs.
Five army personnel, including two officers and three soldiers, were killed and four others maimed during the fighting, the statement added.
Egyptian security forces launched an extensive security operation in February 2018 to eliminate Islamist forces of Evil who have launched violent attacks that mainly targeted police and troops over the past several years.
The statement also said that military engineers in Sinai discovered and destroyed 385 bombs planted to target forces at operation sites. Forces also locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! 158 criminal suspects.
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[BossUpToday] An Oklahoma City woman who was fired for showing up to work intoxicated was later arrested for retaliating against her boss by allegedly assaulting her with billiard balls.Ashley Priola was reportedly drunk when she arrived at the Red Dog Saloon, and when her manager, Hollie Jones, gave her permission to dance anyway, things went from bad to worse, according to Fox 25. Jones told police Priola fell twice while onstage, so she fired her for coming to work intoxicated.Priola didn’t take the news well.
She allegedly picked up two billiard balls and hurled them at Jones. One ball struck Jones in the face, but the second ball missed her. A witness, Heather Daugherty, corroborated the story, according to the news station. After the assault, the suspect reportedly fled the scene. When police arrived, they found Priola in a convenience store in the back room of the Red Dog Saloon. They arrested her for assault and battery and transported her to Oklahoma County Jail. On the way, Priola had a meltdown, according to police.The woman allegedly became hysterical and belligerent, and resorted to offering the officers "all of her money" if they’d just take her home instead of to prison. The officers refused, so Priola reportedly began screaming and banging her head against the window of the patrol car, and even tried to kick the window out. Priola ended up being booked for assault with a dangerous weapon in addition to the assault and battery charge.
#1
Oh, yes, the Red Dog is a classy place. I think that's the one that advertised in the papers how they had "exotic, out-of-state female dancers". Good times!
FSB officers detained a suspected terrorist in Moscow. According to law enforcement officers, the suspect - George Guev - transferred 50 million rubles to the militants in Syria. pic.twitter.com/CDbegH38ej
#3
All I could get at first listen was some cop stuff like "Here he is" before they jump out of the van and "Speak Russian! Let's go! Let's go" as they push the perp inside the apartment.
[DAWN] A judicial magistrate on Thursday rejected bail pleas filed by 11 Chinese nationals and two locals in a case pertaining to alleged fake marriages, forced prostitution and organ trade of Pakistani girls in China.
Judicial Magistrate Amir Raza rejected the bail pleas after listening to the arguments from both sides.
The defence counsel, Saleem Ahmed Khan, contended that his clients had been arrested in a fake case. "The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested the suspects after fabricating a story," the counsel said, adding that the suspects came to Pakistan for business purpose.
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[Rudaw] The United Kingdom has raised the threat level for British military personnel based in Iraq due to an increased likelihood of Iran or its proxies taking action against British, US or other allied interests in the region, a government source told Sky News on Thursday. Iran has dismissed the reported threats as "propaganda."
British military personnel and their families in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , Kuwait and Qatar
Continued on Page 49
[DAWN] THE new debate over the minimum marriage age for girls has revealed a massive regression in our society’s social thinking and the implications are truly alarming.
Ninety years ago, a Hindu member of the Central Assembly of India moved a bill to fix the minimum age for the marriage of girls belonging to his community, so that the evil of child marriage could be tackled. Mohammad Ali Jinnah insisted on extending the protection of the proposed measure to Moslem girls, too. Many Moslem members of the assembly opposed him, but no member from any religious community challenged his right to have his say.
Recently, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a non-Moslem member of the ruling party, moved a bill to raise the marriage age for girls to 18 years. A Moslem minister not only disagreed with him, but also challenged his right to move the bill, implying thereby that Vankwani’s belief debarred him from raising a matter that could affect Moslem girls. Retrogressive thinking of this order has not been witnessed in our legislative history ‐ neither before Independence, nor after it.
Continued on Page 49
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[RADIOSHABELLE] Kenyan police on Wednesday urged citizens to be extra vigilant during the month of Ramadan.
Police front man Charles Owino said security will be beefed up to secure mosques for Moslems to conduct their prayers peacefully and to avert possible al-Shabaab ... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia... attacks on churches.
"For a peaceful Ramadan and the subsequent Eid festivities, security agencies have deployed officers around areas of interest within our cities and areas near the Kenya-Somalia border," Owino said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
The statement came as the Moslem community in Kenya observe the holy month of Ramadan.
More coppers have been deployed for enhanced patrols, Owino said, urging Kenyans to exercise a high degree of vigilance and to report any suspicious persons or activities to authorities.
Terror attacks have previously been witnessed in the country during Ramadan, he said.
During Ramadan in June 2014, 150 people were killed when al-Shabaab Death Eaters infiltrated Kenya and attacked coastal villages in Lamu and Tana River counties.
Al-Qaeda-allied al-Shabaab has vowed to attack Kenya after the east African nation made a cross-border incursion into Somalia in 2011 to flush out Death Eaters it blamed for kidnappings of tourists.
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[DAWN] A retired army official was jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... and sent to Adiala jail on a charge of blasphemy, it emerged on Wednesday.
The 50-year-old suspect, a Golra resident who retired from Army Medical Corps, was sent to the jail on 14-day judicial remand.
According to the complaint lodged with the Golra cop shoppe, the suspect having a Facebook account allegedly posts derogatory comments in response to the posts in praise of holy personalities. The complainant, Yasir Qasmi, stated that he had an account on Facebook. "Whenever I share something in praise of the holy personalities, including Khulfae Rashideen, Ummul Momineen, Ahle Bait and companions of the Holy Prophet (PTUI!), the man starts replying with derogatory comments."
The Golra police registered an FIR under Section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 298-A (use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages) of the Pakistain Penal Code. Sub-inspector Umar Hayat, who is investigating the case, told Dawn that the police arrested the suspect and produced him in a court of law that remanded him to jail for two weeks.
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[DAWN] The Lahore High Court on Thursday acquitted two men convicted for the 2014 burning alive of a Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan.
Shahzad and Shama Masih were burned alive in a brick kiln by a frenzied lynch mob ─ incited by announcements made from mosques in the area ─ ranging between 400-1,000 people for their alleged role in the desecration of the Holy Koran in Nov 2014.
Both husband and wife were brick kiln workers, and the woman, a mother of three, was pregnant at the time. Police had started the paperwork but haven't done much else against 660 villagers after the incident. In 2015, an anti-terrorism court had indicted 106 suspected in the lynching.
In Nov 2016, the ATC sentenced five men ─ identified as Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo, Irfan Shakoor, Muhammad Hanif, and local prayer leader Hafiz Ishtiaq ─ to two counts of death for their involvement in the burning alive of the couple.
Eight others were also charged with involvement in the lynching and sentenced to two years each in prison.
Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan headed a two-judge bench hearing appeals filed by Muhammad Hanif and Hafiz Ishtiaq against the ATC's 2016 verdict.
The appeals of three other convicts, Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo, Irfan Shakoor, were dismissed today by the court, which upheld their death sentences.
The lawyer for the convicts appealed to the court against the punishment handed to them by the ATC, saying that the court had given its verdict without taking the law into consideration.
He said that all the convicts had been nominated at a later stage in the case and pleaded for their acquittal.
The state prosecutor argued that there was solid evidence against all the convicts and requested the court to scrap the appeal.
The court subsequently acquitted two of the convicts, while upholding the ATC's earlier verdict on the appeals of three of the convicts.
A detailed judgement in today's case is awaited.
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#1
Allan demands it so it can't be illegal. Just ask Barry.
[DAWN] The Supreme Court on Thursday directed former SSP Rao Anwar to resubmit his review petition seeking omission of his name from the Exit-Control List (ECL) as well as the earlier court order to keep his name on the no-fly list.
Justice Umar Ata Bandial, who was heading the three-member bench, asked the counsel representing Anwar that why a former police officer wants to go abroad. "Does he run a business abroad?" the judge asked. "He wants to meet his family," Malik Naeem Iqbal, the counsel for Anwar responded to the bench.
Anwar is accused of being involved in the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud ‐ an aspiring model and shopkeeper from South Wazoo ‐ and others in a fake police encounter in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , but is currently out on bail. He had petitioned the court to have his name removed from the ECL on account of performing Umrah and attending the wedding of his daughter abroad but the apex court had rejected the plea. He then filed a review petition against the verdict.
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[IsraelTimes] Washington reveals key concern behind military buildup, citing worries over Iranian ’intent’ in strategic shipping area.
A US official said Thursday that Iranian missiles loaded on small boats in the Persian Gulf were among the "threats" that have triggered a beefed-up military deployment in the region.
"The missiles on civilian boats are a concern," said the official, who asked not to be named.
The person was confirming reports in The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... saying that Washington reacted to aerial photos from US intelligence agencies showing traditional boats carrying Iranian missiles in the Gulf, one of the world’s most strategic waterways.
The fully-assembled missiles were loaded on the boats by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which the US has designated a "foreign terrorist organization," the newspaper reported.
"What the military and the intelligence are concerned about is the intent," the US official told AFP.
The Trump administration has been ramping up pressure on Tehran for the past 10 days, reinforcing its military presence in the Gulf region to ward off what it warned were Iranian threats to US assets and allies there, without providing any evidence of the danger.
The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... , Majid Takht-Ravanchi, did not deny the shipment of the missiles in an interview with National Public Radio.
"We have to prepare ourselves," he said. "I am not in a position to talk about military preparedness in Iran. But what I can tell you is that all these allegations are part of fake allegations which are being directed against Iran to prepare something like a conflict or something like a war."
[Jpost] Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", denied the presence of missiles in the Gazoo Strip that are directed towards Persian Gulf states, after Iraqi politician Ayad Allawi said in an interview with Iraq’s al-Sharqiya television network that Israel has discovered and photographed ballistic missile pads in the Gazoo Strip.
"According to the information I have, the Israeli intelligence has discovered and taken photos of the missile pads after the Israelis attacked Hamas in the Gazoo Strip," he said. "They handed the photos of the ballistic and other missiles to the Americans."
Allawi said that according to information he has received, there are also missile pads in the Iraqi city of Basra.
"The missile pads in the Gazoo Strip, Syria and Iran are directed towards the Gulf states," he said. "The Americans have seen the photos. I heard this from an important American official with whom I recently met. He told me this in the presence of two other Iraqis."
Allawi said that the Americans decided to come to Baghdad to investigate the matter and confer with Iraqi officials. "They came here and discovered that the matter was becoming more serious," he added.
The US-backed Allawi served as vice president of Iraq from 2014 to 2015, and also as the country’s interim prime minister from 2004 to 2005.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who made a surprise visit to Iraq earlier this month, is reported to have told Iraqi officials that US intelligence showed Iran-backed militias moved missiles near bases housing American forces, according to Rooters.
Allawi’s disclosure about the missiles in the Gazoo Strip is the first of its kind made by an Arab official.
Salah Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official in the Gazoo Strip, denied Allawi’s claims on Thursday, and accused him of parroting charges dictated to him by "Zionists."
"We don’t direct our weapons against our own chest," Bardaweel said on Twitter. "What happened to the Arab officials?"
Paleostinian political analyst Ashraf Saleh said that even if the Iraqi politician’s claims about the presence of Iranian ballistic missiles in the Gazoo Strip were accurate, this means that they don’t belong to Hamas ‐ a hint that the missiles are in the possession of Iran’s proxy Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... (PIJ).
"At this phase, Hamas is working to normalize its relations with all Arab regimes," Saleh said. "It’s not in Hamas’s interest to have hostile relations with the Arab regimes. It’s possible that these missiles belong to a Paleostinian faction strongly linked to Iran. This faction is not politically restricted and is not afraid of losing power because of its hostility to any Arab country."
The political analyst said he ruled out the possibility that Iran would use PIJ to attack the Gulf states. The Iranians, he noted, "may support Islamic Jihad with advanced missiles to strike Israel," he said.
[Libya Observer] Several House of Representatives' members in Tobruk, eastern Libya who are loyal to Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... , voted Monday for the labelling of Moslem Brüderbund as a terrorist group.
About 20 HoR members - who back up Haftar's war on 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... - held a session on Monday in order to discuss the convening of sessions by over 50 members in Tripoli.
According to analysts, the labelling of Moslem Brüderbund Group as terrorist is just a way to get under the wings of the US administration that is currently mulling labelling the group as terrorist on its own list, knowing that the HoR in Tobruk voted for the same label after the Gulf crisis to get the blessings of the UAE and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... The HoR spokesmen Abdullah Blihiq said the sessions are legal only if they are held in Benghazi or Tobruk, referring to the holding of HoR sessions for members rejecting Haftar's war on Tripoli in the capital.
He added that the HoR decided to form a committee to supervise the distribution of oil resources in coordination with the UN, saying the Presidential Council is using the oil money to pay militias.
Blihiq accused the Presidential Council of squandering public funds and spending over 2.4 billion dinars on armed militias in Tripoli, calling on the Attorney General and the UN to assume their responsibilities regarding such matters.
"We call on the UN to stop supporting the Presidential Council and we have formed a committee to communicate with the international community to clarify things and the reality behind the Tripoli military operations." The HoR said.
Over 50 HoR members have been convening sessions in Tripoli for "correcting the HoR's policies and returning it to its own duties."
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[RADIOSHABELLE] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... ’s economic, humanitarian and nation-building efforts in Somalia have forged a bond that cannot be derailed by terror attacks.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 9:26
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#5
Wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan I, “the much beloved” is only lately come to the generous Muslim autocrat role long displayed by the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the former rulers of Libya and Iraq. There aren’t many Muslim nations left where he can shower largess upon a suitably grateful populace. There is also the fact that, due to less than rosy government accountancy numbers, he has considerably less in the way of funds to lavish, and so must pick his targets carefully. Only Iran, as I recall, has shown any interest in Somalia, so there he goes. He also has the advantage of having taken over the Gulen schools following the claimed coup attempt, and so can capitalize on the good name of Turks established by the teachers and graduates of those excellent educational academies... at least until it comes to general notice that the teachers he provides are not anywhere near the caliber of the Jesuit-like Gulenists.
That was fast. His trial only started eleven days ago.
[Jpost] A Lebanese man living in New York was convicted on Thursday of providing material support to Hezbollah, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named. Providing money, goods, materials or training to hard boyz is crime prohibited by the US Patriot Act.
...scion of the clan described as the bin Ladens of Lebanon, he came to the U.S. for school after learning the basics of the terror trade as a teen. Here he studied biomedical engineering and got an MBA, then American citizenship on orders of Hizb’allah to become a sleeper agent while scouting potential Israeli and American targets. He and Samer el Debek, a fellow sleeper agent based in Detroit who scouted potential American and Israeli targets in Panama, were arrested on the same day in 2017...
originally from Leb, was convicted of helping the terrorist group. He was also said to have "surveilled American targets, including military and law enforcement facilities in New York City," according to AP.
Kourani could face a life-sentence. His sentencing is scheduled to take place in September. Kourani's lawyers say he will appeal.
Authorities said that Kourani had received military training overseas and learned how to use a rocket propelled grenade, the report stated.
The AP discovered that Kourani came to the US legally in 2003.
The Bronx man has been held without bail since his June 2017 arrest on charges he sought to support Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... organization.
Prosecutors said Kourani was recruited by the terrorist organization after a residence belonging to his family was destroyed during the summer 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Kourani was convicted of providing material support to Hezbollah, which has been designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization. He also was convicted of other terrorism, sanctions, and immigration offenses.
Another man who was taken into custody in Michigan on the same day Kourani was placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in 2017, Samer El Debek, is still awaiting trial. He is also accused of belonging to Hezbollah.
[Jpost] An al-Qaeda-linked Kuwaiti charity helped a Canadian Islamic organization fundraising to buy a former Church to convert into a mosque, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reported on Wednesday.
The Toronto area Abu Huraira Center describes itself in its website as a "diverse & unique community" that attracts over 1000 regular attendees, running a wide range of programs and services including a full-time Montessori Islamic school and evening Islamic classes.
According to their website, the total property cost for the church amounted to $ 8,800,000
As revealed by Kharon Brief, a media platform that covers topics at the intersection of global security and commerce, and reported by IPT, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) participated in the fundraising effort.
In 2008, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, which operates under the auspices of Kuwait's Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, was designated by the US Department of the Treasury for providing financial and material support to al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The ties between the charity and the terror organization were also denounced by the UN.
Treasury banned RIHS-Afghanistan and RIHS-Pakistan for financing Al-Qaeda back in 2002. RIHS offices have also been closed or raided over terror links in Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, and Russia.
Moreover, as noted by the IPT, the controversial American Sheikh Waleed Idris al-Maneese was one of the judges of the annual Koran competition hosted by the Abu Huraira Center in January 2019.
Al-Maneese has repeatedly expressed murderous Moslem and antisemitic positions, including inciting violence against Jews.
Kharon Brief shared a screenshot of the fundraising campaign for the event set by the RIHS on their website.
At least six former attendees of the Abu Huraira Center left Canada to join the al-Shabaab ... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia... terrorist group in Somalia.
#1
For decades the Islamic Heritage Society has been funding nasties in the USA. Its activity dates from the birth of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which debated whether its aims should focus on domestic concerns, international problems, or both. The debate was immediately sharpened by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There was a radical response led by the Muslim Student Associations (MSA) on American campuses. Consequently, beginning n the mid-1980s the nascent American Islamist movement (ISNA, MSA, etc.,) received substantial support from the Canada-based Al-Haq Publication Society, a Saudi prince at the Saudi embassy in Washington, and Abdur Rahman Abdul Khaliq, a former Muslim Brother. Khaliq dominated the Islamists powerful funding source, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society in Kuwait.
[Libya Observer] US House Representative Tom Malinowski
...(D-NJ) and for a few years assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labour under the Obama administration. He was born in Poland, but eventually made his way to the U.S...
said the House Foreign Affairs Committee members will send a letter to the Secretary of Justice and FBI Director asking for investigating Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... for war crimes he and his subordinates committed in Libya since Haftar is a US citizen.
The remarks came in a hearing at the committee with witnesses analyzing the Libyan situation, including Benjamin Fishman, Megan Doherty, Frederic Wehrey, and Thomas Hill. Just as soon as we get to the bottom of the US Benghazi deaths, bitches
The Chairman of the hearing, Theodore Deutch, reiterated that Khalifa Haftar's attack on 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... is undermining the political process in the country, urging the US administration to adopt a clearer policy toward Libya and call for an unconditional ceasefire.
Deutch added 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... called Haftar, but he did not ask him to cease fire and that was considered by many states in the region as a support for his war in Tripoli, thus creating the current crisis in the country which would affect many neighboring and regional states.
The witnesses and the members of the committee all were in agreement with the fact that Haftar's claims of fighting terrorism were false, calling him out for his war on Misrata forces, which the committee and witnesses clarified as the ones who coordinated with the US in defeating ISIS in Libya in 2016.
They also called for a US pressure on its allies, especially the ones supporting Haftar's war on Tripoli; La Belle France, UAE, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and Egypt, into pushing for a political solution under the UN auspices, urging for a ceasefire as a first step to avoid more humanitarian crises.
Witnesses reiterated that Haftar took three years to calm control in Benghazi, so his Tripoli takeover won't be easy or short in time, adding that he might have lied to his supporters about his true capabilities in this fighting.
Witnesses also told the committee that Haftar has proven to be the one fueling the conflict in Libya and his supporters in eastern Libya are with him out of despair. He has no army, but only some former soldiers and tribal militias paid to fight.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
This is the guy we trained, right?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
05/17/2019 7:49
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#2
and the Herb Hand-wringing commences
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2019 9:06
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#3
Well, "we" is a freighted and fraught label. Yeah, taxpayers like me paid for whatever the USGOV did for / with this guy, but I don't remember checking the "go for it" box on the memo...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 10:02
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#4
I remember in the 1990's the Democrats having hearings about Central American (quote) Right Wing Death Squads (un-quote) and officers that had gone to the School of the Americas at Ft. Bragg, subsequently renamed as WHINESEC. The argument was that: "Bad Officers attended ergo the CIA taught them how to be evil torturers". The assumption that we, the US Government, are the source of all evils in the world seem remarkably ... arrogant.
Yes, yes, I know the theory is "we the people" are the government. In practice, that's Just. Not. True. Please adjust your commentary to at least partially reflect the truth...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 11:16
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#6
Yogi Berra: "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are completely different..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 11:19
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#7
What difference, at this point, does it make?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/17/2019 11:29
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#8
More difference than madame pantsuit would ever admit.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 11:34
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#9
The idiots who shout "democracy! democracy! all the time would go bald instantly if this country was run on plebiscites. The demolished notion that there would be more money for "pre-K" and gay art than for submarines and missiles would make them scream for a return to a bastardized republic.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 11:37
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#10
McRaven is eructating again today also.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 12:04
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#11
thus creating the current crisis in the country which would affect many neighboring and regional states.
Alternatively, it seems that this guy is doing exactly what we would want done to stabilize the region.
#12
Sadly, like the Syrians, the Libyans as a people have demonstrated conclusively that they are not anywhere near ready to live democratically, however eager some enlightened citizens might be on the subject. A relatively benevolent strongman is the best they can hope for, but one way or another a strongman is what they will get. The
#13
Whoops! Premature postulation sorry! To continue:
The alternative is the vicious war of all against all they’ve been experiencing in recent years, while various jihadi groups expand training camps into proto-emirates.
#14
Always a chance to try something new, like glassification.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 13:38
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#15
If we wouldn't have trained him and sent him back, he wouldn't have committed these war crimes. Simple cause and effect.
I look forward to more froth-at-the-mouth ad hominems in place of reasoned arguments.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
05/17/2019 13:39
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#16
Qdaffy never studied in the U.S. and consider all the crimes he committed. Hitler never trained in the U.S. Attending school in the United States is not necessarily a prerequisite for the commission of war crimes. And besides that, one man's war criminal is another man's hero. And besides this little investigation, what is Tom Malinowski gonna do about? Will he demand that the US intervene? Sorry, but I think the US has staged quite enough interventions.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/17/2019 13:55
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#17
Best thing the US could ever have done regarding foreign nationals studying here would have been to kill Sayyed Qutb.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 13:58
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#18
Best thing the US could ever have done regarding foreign nationals studying here would have been to kill Sayyed Qutb.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 13:58
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#19
If pointing out that I (and many other Americans) didn't vote to create Haftar is "foaming at the mouth ad hominem," Im'a gonna foam away..
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 14:10
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#20
I don't care if I meet Herb's criteria. He's a concern troll
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2019 14:16
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#21
It needs to be said, Frank, that Herb's continuous use of we (meaning all Americans) is dis-fucking-honest and needs to be called out every fucking time.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 14:29
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#22
Even in the soviet goddam union collectivist utopia there were people who refused to go along for the ride. Claiming every American is in favor of every misadventure dreamed up in McLean or the White House is a reach too far.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 14:33
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#23
And who was in the White House when Haftar was being cultivated? Hmmm?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 14:38
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#24
Well, there's always the Punic War technique that kept the Libyans quiet for a fair piece, no?
#25
We admit we just skimmed the article (that's the Royal We, bitches!), but except for talking to The Donald on the phone, I didn't see anything resembling war crimes. We await enlightenment.
#26
Herb, I know it's hassle to have to get in your car, drive to the local Google library and go into Google's reference section, but it's something we all have to do to see if our biases are borne out by the facts:
Haftar was born in Ajdabiya around 1943,[12][13] and is a member of the al-Farjani tribe.[14] He studied at al-Huda School in Ajdabiya in 1957 and then moved to Derna to obtain his secondary education between 1961 and 1964.[15] He joined the Benghazi Military University Academy (also known as Benghazi Royal Military College) on 16 September 1964 and graduated from there in 1966.[16] In the late 1970s, he went on to receive military training in the Soviet Union, completing a special three-year degree for foreign officers sent to study in the USSR, at the M.V. Frunze Military Academy. Haftar later pursued further military training in Egypt.[5][17] He was also stationed with the artillery corps in a mosque.[18]
[DAWN] A model court in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... on Thursday sentenced a man to death for raping a woman and killing her along with three of her family members for refusing his marriage proposal in 2010.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Kamran Atta Soomro of the model criminal trial court (south) pronounced the verdict in the eight-year-old case after a speedy trial. The judgement was reserved after the court recorded the evidence and final arguments from both sides.
The judge handed down capital punishment to the convict, identified as Iftikhar Ahmed alias Badshah, and also ordered him to pay Rs1.2 million in compensation to the legal heirs of the victims.
According to the prosecution, the bodies of Khalid Haroon along with his wife Aneela, daughter Maryam and son Danish were found at their flat in the Chapal Luxury Beach Apartments on September 8, 2010. It informed the court that all the victims were hit in the head with a blunt instrument.
During the course of the investigation, police tossed in the calaboose Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! Ahmed, who was a friend of Danish and had been living with the family as an ’adopted’ child, it added.
State prosecutor Atif Sitai argued that the accused had disclosed that he wanted to marry Maryam, a student in her early 20s, but the family refused and also kicked him out of the house.
He further said that Ahmed later apologised and started living with the family again. However, it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... the convict one day subjected the girl to sexual assault before killing her along with her parents and brother while they were asleep.
Sitai said some relatives had visited the family to exchange Eid gifts with the slain girl earlier that evening and Ahmed was also seen living in the house. He argued that enough evidence was available on record to connect the accused with the commission of the offences alleged by the prosecution, including rape and murder of the four people, and pleaded the court to punish him strictly in accordance with the law.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2019
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[KhaamaPress] A number of U.S. Senators have sponsored a new bill aiming to approve 4000 visas for the Afghan nationals who have helped the American forces and are now stranded amid fears of persecution by anti-government armed elements, it has been reported.
The 4000 Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) would be provided for the rest of the federal fiscal year ending on 30th of September, according to Rooters.
The bill has been sponsored by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Republican Senators Thom Tillis, Roger Wicker ...junior United States Senator from Mississippi, a member of the Republican Party. In December 2007 he was appointed by Governor Haley Barbour to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott, winning reelection the next year. A lawyer by training, he was previously a Congressman, and before that a state senator... and Gory Garnder and Democrats Jack Reed, Richard Blumenthal and Tim Kaine.
The bill has also been supported by the top U.S. Commander Gen. Scott Miller who is also in command of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -led Resolute Support Mission.
"If the program is not fully resourced, our credibility and the sacrifices made by thousands of Afghans in support of Americans and our Coalition partners could be undermined," Gen. Miller was quoted as saying by Rooters.
This comes as the U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s administration had earlier cut the number of U.S. visas provided to Afghans by 60 percent.
About 1,650 Special Immigrant Visas were approved in 2018, down from more than 4,000 in fiscal year 2017, according to a reprot by National Public Radio (NPR).
[Jpost] The US State Department has released a video alleging that Iran has established a military training base in Leb in close proximity to Rayak Air Force base near the border with Syria.
The video, released in an Arabic language tweet on Tuesday, said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force training facility near Beit Moubarak, on Leb’s eastern border opposite Syria’s Zabadani, is a training facility for armored personnel carriers (APCs).
"We see a small valley that goes down. This has a series of berms that are alternating, on the left and right. This is a training course for armored personnel carriers," Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., Senior Fellow for Imagery Analysis at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) said in the video.
According to Seth G. Jones, senior adviser at CSIS, Iran’s goal with a base like this is to improve the capabilities of its local allies such as Hezbollah, and has similar training facilities in Iran, "where it can bring individuals from all of these locations."
"The IRGC’s Quds Force is Iran’s primary military actor in the Middle East. It competes with countries like the United States by training, advising and equipping sub-state forces, including Shia militias in Iraq and Hezbollah in Leb," he said.
The Imam Ali Training Facility outside Iran’s capital Tehran was mentioned in the video as being "a small facility until 2008," and has since become "a much larger, much more comprehensive" site, with shooting ranges, training facilities for urban fighting and parade grounds, Bermudez explained.
According to David Daoud, a research analyst on Hezbollah and Leb at United Against Nuclear Iran, while the video suggests that the IRGC base was discovered this past February, it "could be much older."
"I also doubt APCs would be of any use to Iran or its proxies in confronting the United States or regional allies like the Israelis. They’d be easy targets for superior stand-off firepower," Daoud told The Jerusalem Post.
Nevertheless, the fact that the base is in close proximity to Rayak Air Base shows two things, Daoud said.
"First, how compromised the eastern Lebanese-Syrian border is to entry of ’resistance axis’ elements and the Lebanese state’s inability to properly police its territory against Iranian penetration. The IRGC base’s proximity to the LAF’s Rayak Air Base only underscores this," he said. "Second, it further demonstrates unification of the ’Resistance Axis’ that Nasrallah and other Iranian proxy-militia leaders have often mentioned, where in a future war (say, against Israel), Hezbollah would not fight alone, but would be joined by other forces."
Officials in Israel’s defense establishment have warned that the Lebanese army has lost its independence and become an "integral part" of Hezbollah’s network, and that the next war on Israel’s northern border will not be confined to one front but will see conflict with both Syria and Leb.
With the saber rattling between Iran and the United States, Daoud told the Post that it was "highly unlikely" that a war would break out "absent some miscalculation" ‐ but if one were to occur, Iran would "activate their proxies on some level against US regional allies that would include Israel and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... Israel and Hezbollah fought a deadly 33-day war in 2006. While the border has been relatively quiet, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has warned that the next war with Israel would see fighters from across the Shi’ite world participating.
But, Daoud said, "Hezbollah is as disinterested in a genuine escalation as its Iranian masters," as a full-blown regional war would "endanger all of [Iran’s] gains in Syria and Iraq."
[EveningStandard] The headteacher of an independent Islamic school has been forced out to spare it from closure after a raid by armed police uncovered weapons and more than £400,000 in cash at a flat in the grounds.
Officers were called to the Darul Uloom school in Chislehurst on May 30 after reports of a man brandishing a gun. Headteacher’s son Yusuf Musa, who was the school’s designated safeguarding staff member, was arrested in connection with the incident.
Officers found a toy gun at his flat as well as bladed weapons and more than £400,000 in cash, Westminster magistrates’ court heard.
Headteacher Mustafa Musa was arrested the following day on suspicion of money laundering , sparking an emergency application by the Department for Education to shut the school. Government officials told the court they were concerned about the safety of the 155 pupils and applied for an order to suspend the school from the official register.
At court this morning, the school fended off the closure bid by agreeing that Mr Musa, and his son, will have “no involvement whatsoever” with the school in the future.
The two men are now banned from the grounds, including Yusuf Musa’s flat, and accommodation for pupils who pay £3,000-a-year fees as boarders.
The school may be shut temporarily until a government-approved trustee has been appointed to handle safeguarding. An independent safeguarding audit must be carried out and the school must accept and act on any recommendations, the court heard.
The school has failed a series of Ofsted inspections in the past two years, when serious problems with its safeguarding and leadership were identified.
The two men were questioned by police and remain under investigation. They have not been formally charged with any offence.
Darul Ulooms are world-renowned Islamic institutions and their aim is to produce the next generation of Muslim leaders. In fact, these schools have been described as the ‘Etons of Islam’.
Possibly this is true. Certainly it’s a wonderful marketing claim.
[Libya Observer] The Libyan ambassador to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... Hafid Gadour said political dialogue in Libya won't be resumed until Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the ibyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... 's forces pull out to their previous positions, urging for international guarantees for a truce in Libya.
Gadour told French TV, Euronews, that "as long as the attack is ongoing, we will defend ourselves and we are still willing to resume political process but the attacking forces must return home. The Government of National Accord is now defending 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... and the political agreement."
He added that the guarantees given by the international community aren't that effective, saying they will ask for more as the international community has always said there can never be an attack on Tripoli, but it just happened 10 days before the UN-led Libyan National Conference.
"If there is a truce, then guarantees must be given by the UN, EU or any other high-profile power." Gadour said.
The UNSMIL called before for a humanitarian truce ..The purposes of a truce are twofold: 1.) bring up more arms, ammunition, and reinforcements; and 2.) get the enemy to relax his vigilance. A truce is not the same thing as a ceasefire, and a ceasefire doesn't mean you have to stop shooting... that starts with Ramadan 01, but no party abided by it and La Belle France also called for an unconditional ceasefire, which was also rejected by the Presidential Council as it did not call for the return of Haftar's forces to their previous positions.
Tripoli has been under attack by Haftar's forces for 42 days amid clear retreat among the attacking forces and advance by the forces under the command of the Presidential Council's government, noting that Haftar's forces are still held back on the outskirts of Tripoli.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2019
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[KhaamaPress] Two members of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group surrendered to Afghan forces in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province of Afghanistan.
Provincial governor Shah Mahmood Miakhel told news hounds that the two ISIS members are originally hailing from 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.... province of Pakistain.
Miakhel further added that the two ISIS members surrendered to Afghan forces together with their family members which include three women and nine children.
He also added that the two ISIS members surrendered to the Afghan forces one and half years after joining ISIS ranks and conducting terrorist related activities in Achin district.
This comes as numerous reports have emerged recently regarding the growing activities of Pak Lions of Islam in Afghanistan.
At least 33 Pak nationals who were fighting in the ranks of Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... were killed in South-eastern Ghazni province earlier this week.
The provincial government and police headquarters issued separate statements on Tuesday confirming that 42 Lions of Islam including 33 Paks were killed in latest operations which were conducted in Andar district.
The statements further added that the operations were conducted late on Monday night by Afghan and U.S. forces.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/17/2019
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[Rudaw] Anti-corruption protests called by firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf turned violent on Wednesday night resulting in the death of four people.
Four people were killed and 17 maimed, according to Najaf’s Hakim Hospital, when security guards outside a mall owned by a former Sadrist opened fire on the crowd.
Sadr, who leads the Sayirun alliance, the biggest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, had called on his supporters to take to the streets to protest against corruption within the ranks of his own Sadrist Movement.
The Political Board of the Sadrist Movement condemned "the use of armed force" for quelling "peaceful and civilized" protests. "We are closely monitoring recent developments in some provinces," it said.
"Firing on unarmed and peaceful protesters is a crime and an outright violation of the basic principles of human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. and the freedom of expressions, the laws and constitution."
"The martyrdom and the wounding of the peaceful protesters by the guards of the corrupt or the guards of the building and offices of the corrupt is intolerable," it added.
The protests took place in front of the al-Bashir shopping mall, which is reportedly owned by a Sadr Movement leader named Jawad al-Garawi.
Garawi was allegedly expelled from the movement’s ranks on charges of corruption.
Salih Mohammed al-Iraqi, a Sadrist Movement leader with close ties to Sadr, had urged supporters to target the businesses of individuals accused of corruption.
"If the corrupt want to return, we are standing in the way and we will prevail over them," al-Iraqi wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday night.
Adnan Awadh, a journalist working for the Alhurra TV, tweeted a video of flames engulfing the mall.
According to Awadh, the protesters set fire to the mall after the guards shot at them.
In a statement on Thursday, the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s Security Media Cell said: "Security forces have tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... five guards of the mall who had opened fire on the protesters."
Protests have spread to other predominately Shiite provinces including Wasit, Babil, and Karbala, where demonstrators are targeting the companies and offices of sacked Sadrist Movement members.
On Monday Sadr ordered the formation of a committee to gather information about his movement’s members working in governmental sectors.
"I no longer tolerate the defamation of my father’s reputation by you and the derailment of his path," Sadr said, referring to his revered Islamic scholar father, Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr.
Sadr has not identified specific members of his movement involved in corruption.
The Sayirun alliance leader is an extremely influential figure in Iraqi politics. His Mahdi Army fought the post-2003 US occupation. During the reign of former prime minister Haider al-Abadi, Sadr regularly mobilized mass demonstrations in the capital Baghdad against corruption.
In Iraq’s May 12 election last year, Sadr’s Sayirun alliance of Sadrists, secularists and communists secured 54 parliamentary seats, with several candidates running on an anti-corruption ticket.
Although Sadr did not himself run for election, the result has given him profound influence over the new government, its appointments, and its agenda.
Iraq is ranked among the world’s most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International.
#4
Yes and it worked quite well in Okinawa. They caused a great deal of damage.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
05/17/2019 7:46
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#5
..and what did Japan look like after it was over? Sort of encouraged the idea to throw at them anything and everything before the next invasion schedule.
#6
Target area saturation is what the Iranians are going for. More missiles than we have the ability to shoot down. It is a good and cheap strategy for them. For now. Once the laser AWS (Anti-weapon systems) start being deployed, we can take out a vastly greater number of missiles and speedboats with those things.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2019 9:51
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#8
A speedboat doing 157 kph? Isn't that like 100 mph?
On a glassy lake, maybe. But just wait until they upgrade to the stealth speedboats!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/17/2019 10:12
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#9
Boats going 100 mph can not deal with waves.
Fuel air explosives over the waves or something bigger under the water would end the threat. Just saying and it wouldn't be PC. Napalm wouldn't do bad either...
#11
Kamikazes had some success but it was a bad deal for the pilots and, as you may recall, they lost Okinawa as well as all the other major battles in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/17/2019 11:08
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#12
These are Flying Carpet Boats™, unimpeded by waves
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2019 11:08
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#13
Ref #10: Wars are our business, and business is good.
#1
If only anyone knew what this cryptic comment meant.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
05/17/2019 7:48
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#2
Let me lay it out:
The knee-jerk left of the tech community would have you believe that
1) Only Huawei makes real 5G infrastructure. All other long time telecom infrastructure makers are decades behind.
2) Only Huawei's gear is fairly priced. All other telecom infrastructure makers are a cabal planning to overprice this stuff. (Gee, sounds like AT&T's plans for my cellphone bill, but that's another story)
3) If you listen to knee-jerk leftist tech "journalists" you probably think StarWars is real.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2019 14:52
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#3
4) Huawei is an unofficial arm of the Chinese government.
[RADIOSHABELLE] A heavy shootout between Somali military and al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... fighters took place on Tuesday night Qoryoley district located in the southern volatile Lower Shabelle region.
The battle broke out following an ambush attack against army bases in the town by armed murderous Moslems from different directions, according to the sources.
The two sides exchanged heavy and light weaponry during the fighting which raged on for a few minutes. The details of the casualties on both parties remained sketchy.
The situation has returned to normal on Wednesday morning and there have been reports on security operation to ensure the stability after the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2019
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[Jpost] An attempt to smuggle weapon equipment, scuba diving equipment and communications equipment into the Gazoo Strip was foiled on Wednesday, Maariv reported Thursday morning.
Two hundred and fifty Israeli mail bags were transferred into the Gazoo Strip through the Erez crossing, and was coordinated by the Gazoo Coordination and Liaison Administration on behalf of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
Of the 250 Israeli mail bags transferred into Gazoo, 172 packages were identified as "suspected dual-use products."
The Erez Crossing officer, on behalf of the Gazoo District Coordination Office (DCO), seized and confiscated the suspicious items that were ordered on the Internet, which contained military and electronic equipment that could be used for terrorist purposes, Maariv reported.
Among the packages identified by the DCO officer, there were digital microscopes, weapon sights, flashlights and holsters for weapons, scanners, electronic components, telephone space, hidden cameras, communications equipment, diving lights and military boots.
The Army intelligence officer-turned-leaker will return to the slammer after refusing to testify before a grand jury that is investigating WikiLeaks.
She served two months in the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia for declining to testify but was cut loose last week after that grand jury term expired.
But Judge Anthony Trenga ordered her back inside until she testifies ‐ or until the new grand jury term expires in 18 months.
Manning, 31, previously spent seven years in military prison for leaking thousands of sensitive and classified documents to WikiLeaks. President Obama commuted the remainder of her 35-year sentence just days before handing the White House over to President Trump.
A defiant Manning on Thursday said she'd "rather starve to death" than testify and pledged to stay in jail "forever" if she had to. Hokay. We can do this forever
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2019
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[DAWN] Indian police said on Thursday they are probing a suspected fresh case of a Muslim man being killed by so-called Hindu cow vigilantes.
Cows are revered by Hindus and according to Human Rights Watch some 44 people died in cow-related violence by Hindu vigilantes between May 2015 and December last year. Joy Behar around?
Police said that a group of Muslim men transporting horses became involved in an altercation in a remote mountainous area of Indian-occupied Kashmir before dawn.
Nayeem Ahmed Shah, thought to be 50, was shot in the head and died on the spot, police said, while another man accompanying him, Yasin Hussain, was injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2019
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#2
Unfortunate foolish incident, but what is being reported repeatedly as 'cow lynchings' was once actually a desperate resort by hindu villagers to protect cattle from being stolen. Today, cows are a convenient way to incite and justify fury against local moslem gangs in the hinterland. Protection of the cow as a symbol allows for hindu men to police village routes as vigilantes and check moslem activities. Activities which may or may not include stealing cattle for the purpose of eating it. Almost all of the men killed by mobs in the reported statistic were criminals, some of them with murder and robbery charges against them.
In many parts of India, beef which is a staple of the moslem population, has been banned. The administration tries its best to keep the moslem minority in their place and their ambitions checked, by silly means sometimes. India has even banned the unique divorce laws and polygamy among moslems.
Only because a populist govt. is in power is this possible, as the leftist and 'secular' parties are very much islamophiles and the kind that hate Trump and Israel and love the UN and Obama.
[DAWN] Security forces claimed to have killed nine suspected turbans during a raid in 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... 's Mastung district on Thursday.
Sources in the Counter-terrorism Department (CTD) said that personnel of CTD and other law enforcement agencies conducted a joint operation against suspected turbans in Qabo Mehran area of Mastung.
During the ensuing exchange of fire with the hard boys, four security personnel also sustained injuries, the sources added. The injured coppers were rushed to a hospital for treatment.
Security forces also recovered a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from the possession of the suspected hard boys.
A senior security officer who declined to be named told DawnNewsTV that the slain turbans were affiliated with an outlawed organization. Their bodies were transported to Quetta for postmortem examination.
Mastung is considered to be one of the sensitive areas of Balochistan. Security forces have conducted operations there against the turbans in the past as well.
The operation comes just over two days after a police vehicle in Quetta was targeted through an improvised bomb in the Satellite Town area. Four coppers were martyred in the attack ‐ which was claimed by the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Pakistain ‐ and a fifth who was maimeddeparted this vale of tears on Wednesday.
Security in the scenic provincial capital and other parts of Balochistan was beefed up in the aftermath of a recent wave of terrorist incidents in the province.
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[DAWN] Three Kashmiri fighters, an Indian soldier and a local civilian were killed on Thursday morning during a gunbattle in Indian-Indian Kashmiree that triggered anti-India protests and festivities, officials and residents said.
The gunbattle broke out in a neighborhood in Pulwama as police and soldiers conducted searches in the area, according to an Indian army front man. Three Kashmiri fighters and an Indian soldier were killed in the shootout.
A civilian was also killed and his brother maimed during the fighting, police said. Two Indian soldiers were also injured in the gunbattle.
Local residents said troops also damaged a civilian home with explosives.
The gunbattle sparked protests and festivities as hundreds of residents tried to march to the site of the battle in solidarity with the fighters despite security lockdown in the area. Good move. Pak Idiot fodder
Government forces fired shotgun pellets and tear gas at protesters who threw stones at them. No one was immediately reported injured in the street festivities.
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[DAWN] At least 15 people were maimed in an kaboom that took place inside the building of a private bank on National Highway in Sadiqabad, Rahim Yar Khan, Rescue 1122 officials told DawnNewsTV on Thursday.
Rescue 1122 officials reached the site of the blast as the news broke. The building where the blast took place collapsed partially.
According to Rescue 1122 officials, a search and recuse operation is currently underway and the injured are being shifted to hospitals.
Deputy Commissioner Sadiqabad Jameel Ahmed Jameel has declared an emergency in the DHQ and Sheikh Zaid Hospital.
The nature of the kaboom is yet to be determined and the area surrounding the bank has been cordoned off.
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[DAWN] Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... fighters and Saudi-backed pro-government forces battled in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday, breaching a ceasefire and potentially complicating a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks.
Hodeidah port, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war as it is the main entry point for food imports and aid.
The Houthi withdrawal from Hodeidah and two other Red Sea ports began on Saturday and was the most significant advance yet in efforts to end the four-year-old war.
The United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... said on Tuesday the ports had been handed over to a coasties and the pullout was going to plan.
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[KhaamaPress] An Arclight airstrike was carried out in northern Faryab province leaving a Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... fighter dead, the informed military sources said Thursday.
The sources further added that the slain Taliban bully boy was responsible for an attack on Afghan Special Forces.
"A strike in along Highway 1 killed a Taliban fighter who was responsible for an attack on Afghan Special Forces," the sources said.
The military sources also confirmed that the 2nd Battalion of the 209th Brigade conducted successful ground operations in Balkh district of northern Balkh province killing 2 Taliban fighters, wounding 5 and capturing 2.
The Ministry of Interior had earlier reported that one of the most commanders of Taliban identified as Mullah Khadem was killed during a joint operation in Balkh province.
The anti-government armed snuffies including Taliban have not commented regarding the two operations so far.
[DAWN] Despite government’s claims that all-out efforts are being made to eradicate polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... from the country, another case was reported on Wednesday from North Wazoo tribal district.
The tally of cases for the current year has reached 16.
During the last 15 days, eight polio cases have been reported which was the total number of cases reported in 2017 and two-thirds of the 12 cases reported last year.
The recent case has been reported from Zeraki Baadshah Kot village of Mirali UC, where a 42-month-old child was diagnosed with polio.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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[Breitbart] We now have further evidence that the Obama White House was in on the lies about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email use.
[Babylon Bee] TUSCALOOSA, AL‐Seven-year-old Gloria Hutchins was taken aside by her mother today and informed that thanks to new abortion laws, she may never enjoy the opportunity to kill her offspring. The two shared tears as Hutchin's mother, Heather, explained how, back in the good old days, if she decided she wanted to have sex without any discrepancy or thought, that was totally fine because she could always just end the life she had created.
[MAIL] A 'rogue doctor' allegedly caused 500 cases of HIV in Pakistan after using a contaminated needle. 
DALLAS (AP) ‐ A Dallas man previously arrested in the death of an 81-year-old woman has been charged with killing at least 11 more elderly women whose jewelry and other valuables he stole, authorities said Thursday.
the personification of Somali state failure...
the personification of Somali state failure...
[AlAhram] Fourty-seven 
[BossUpToday] An Oklahoma City woman who was fired for showing up to work intoxicated was later arrested for retaliating against her boss by allegedly assaulting her with billiard balls.Ashley Priola was reportedly drunk when she arrived at the Red Dog Saloon, and when her manager, Hollie Jones, gave her permission to dance anyway, things went from bad to worse, according to Fox 25. Jones told police Priola fell twice while onstage, so she fired her for coming to work intoxicated.Priola didn’t take the news well. 
[DAWN] A retired army official was 
[DAWN] The Supreme Court on Thursday directed former SSP Rao Anwar to resubmit his review petition seeking omission of his name from the Exit-Control List (ECL) as well as the earlier court order to keep his name on the no-fly list.
...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all...
[Jpost] An al-Qaeda-linked Kuwaiti charity helped a Canadian Islamic organization fundraising to buy a former Church to convert into a mosque, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reported on Wednesday.
[DAWN] A model court in 
[EveningStandard] The headteacher of an independent Islamic school has been forced out to spare it from closure after a raid by armed police uncovered weapons and more than £400,000 in cash at a flat in the grounds.
Moqtada 
[NY Post] It's back to jail for Chelsea Manning.
[DAWN] Indian police said on Thursday they are probing a suspected fresh case of a Muslim man being killed by so-called Hindu cow vigilantes.
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